three times just as they do at the designations in the prayer Alenu in which it says of the Christians that they worship emptiness and nothingness, a man who consists of dust, blood, and bitter gall, of flesh, infamy, stench a God who cannot help (see Wagenseil, Tela Ignea 219). On the following page Rohling says:

The litany of the extermination of the "proud empire" (in Shemone
Esre) is called Birchath Haminim.

Nöldeke and Wünsche translate the original text literally and add:

This text dates from the end of the first or second century A. D. The 'proud empire' is, no doubt, the Roman empire, then absolutely pagan, the deadly enemy of Israel. (By the Minim are meant, according to the opinion of Nöldeke and Wünsche, the Christians generally, even though the Christians who were known to those Palestinian Jews were mostly so-called Jewish Christians, consequently apostates.) 1

Apostasy and Christianity gave rise to new anxieties on the part of the Jews who were robbed of their Temple, their capital, and their national organization, were hunted and tormented, and whose future looked black to them. Thus we have to account for the imprecation which is no bitterer than the anathemas which the various Christian sects so solemnly uttered against each other. Later on, the meaning of the word "Minim" was forgotten by the popular mind; one simply understood by it heretics or unbelievers; the formula was changed, perhaps in consideration of the ecclesiastical censors; in the new prayerbooks the "proud empire" has disappeared, "apostates" are replaced by "traducers", Minim by "trespassers". In this shape the formula was printed hundreds and hundreds of times, and is recited every day by many thousands. The Jews of to-day can hardly be reproached for reciting a formula drawn up more than 1700 years ago against the Roman empire and Palestinian Christians, from which everything offensive has been expunged. As to Rohling's remark about the prayer Alenu, we need only read the notes of Nöldeke and Wünsche on this slander, in the

(1) The Jewish-Christian Minim who, because of their apostasy, were a sore to the Synagogue were also denounced and condemned as heretics by the Church. In a letter of St. Jerome to Augustine we read: "Usque hodie per totas orientis Synagogas inter Judaeos haeresis est quae dicitur Minaeorum et a Pharisaeis usque nunc damnatur, quos vulgo Nazarenos nuncupant qui credunt in Christum, filium Dei, sed dum volunt esse et Christiani et Judaei, nec Judaei sunt nec Christiani." They were dangerous and a source of anxiety, because they remained within the Synagogue.

passage mentioned before, and the dishonesty of his proceeding will at once be evident. Nöldeke and Wünsche write literally:

Professor Rohling wishes to convey the impression, no doubt, a) that those words are a regular constituent of the much used prayer Alenu; b) that they refer to Jesus Christ. Both allegations are absolutely false, as Mr. Rohling must have known himself. For looking up the passage quoted by him, (Wagenseil, Tela Ignea Satanae I, 219), we find that the author found the prayer with this and other additions in a single copy.

It is easily seen that it is an individual amplification without any official authority; the utmost that can be assumed is that these additions were possibly in use somewhere for a very short time. Moreover, Rohling, in order to give the passage the appearance of pointing at Jesus, omitted the words following it. Here is a translation of the whole passage of Wagenseil's text:

"Who worship emptiness and nothingness, man (or "men", singular or plural), ashes, blood, gall, flesh, infamy, stench, rotting ones, unclean (men and women), adulterers and adulteresses who died in sin and decayed in their guilt, turned to dust, eaten up by rot and vermin. And they pray a god who does not help, to the sun and moon, to stars and constellations and to the whole host of heaven. Thus they worship male and female, mortal and dead beings, and the sun and moon and stars."

With all his zeal for defending Christianity against Jewish blasphemies Wagenseil allows, that this was not aimed at the Christians, but at the heathens, and that the references are to Jupiter, and Venus, and the like. The author of these additions shares, on the one hand, the Euhemerist opinion that the gods of the heathens were deified human beings some of whom had lived loosely, on the other hand, the opinion according to which the Gentiles worship chiefly celestial bodies. As it is quite out of the question that these additions should date from a time when, in countries where Jews were living, the Olympian gods or the sun and moon were being worshipped, the entire passage is to be regarded as a harmless literary composition. But, however that may be, the unabridged wording proves that it has nothing whatever to do with Jesus Christ, and as we said above Professor Rohling must have known and did know.

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CHAPTER IV.

CHRISTIANITY A SUBJECT OF DISPUTE AMONG THE JEWISH THEOLOGIANS OF THE 12th CENTURY.

The question, “Can and may Christianity be stigmatized as idolatry?" was a source of great divergence of opinion among the great Jewish theologians of the 12th century. Christianity had sprung from Judaism as a sect; the members of the first Christian communities, the Jewish Christians, were sectaries, "Minim”, heretics. But the nations of the world who had embraced Christianity as a new religion could not possibly be designated as sectaries and heretics. Born as Gentiles they had no obligations towards Judaism;1 having adopted the Christian ethics they observed the seven Noachian commandments and much

more.

The question of how to classify Christianity gave rise to a controversy between Maimonides and the Talmudic authorities of the Western countries.

The Christian conception of God differs from the Jewish a) in the Trinity, b) in the belief in the incarnation of God. Protestant theologians of Germany who wrote against the Jews took it for granted that, as a natural consequence of the abstract Jewish monotheism, the Christian conception of God would be regarded as idolatrous. These theologians do not know that as early as

(1) In the uncensored copies of Chullin we find the saying, “En minim beamoth", i. e. there are no Minim (heretics) among the nations. Rashi explains the passage: "en torath min al min goy", i. e. the ordinances of the rabbis anent Minim do not apply to the nations of Gentile origin.

the 12th century these questions were the subject of a controversy among the prominent orthodox rabbis of that time which led to the adoption of conclusions directly the reverse of those taken for granted by the said theologians.

According to the views of the Talmud and the rabbis the commandment to believe in the unity and oneness of God was given exclusively to the Jews; the sons of Noah are not bound to believe in the unity of God.

The second commandment is that he (God) commanded us to believe in the unity (of God), i. e., that he who is the cause of everything that exists is one, as the Most High said: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one' (Deut. 6, 4). And in many interpretations (Midrashim) thou wilt find that it says: 'Upon the condition that we make His name one, upon the condition that we make ourselves one, and much of similar import. God chose the Israelites for his peculiar people upon the condition that they worship Him as the one God (e. g. Deut. 26, 18). By this saying they mean to imply that He truly led us out of bondage and bestowed benefits on us and showed us mercy upon the condition that we believe in His unity and oneness, for we are bound to do so. And sometimes they (the old interpreters) also say: To believe in the unity and oneness, is a commandment, and they call this commandment the kingdom of heaven, i. e. the creed and the belief in the unity and oneness of God. Maimonides, Sefer Mizwoth, commandment 2; N. & W. 26.

The belief in the unity and oneness of God is a special obligation of the Israelites; the Noachides were not forbidden to assume a plurality of persons in their deity. The term for such a conception of God is "Shittuf", (association), and the assertion is quite common, “Shittuf, association, is not idolatry", or, "The sons of Noah are not forbidden (to believe in) Shittuf”. In receiving a complete proselyte (Ger tsedek) the unity of God is impressed on him first of all.

How does one (in our time) receive the proselytes of justice, i. e. the real proselytes? Whenever one asks to become a convert (i. e. to embrace Judaism), we make careful inquiries about him, and if nothing wrong is found, we say unto him: What is your object in desiring to become a convert? Do you know that the Israelites in our times are miserable and oppressed, outcasts and wretched, and liable to sufferings? If he answers, I know it, and I am not worthy to enter your community, he is at once initiated into the principles of the religion, i. e.

the unity of God and the prohibition of idolatry, and that at some .length. Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Issure Biah, XIV, 1, 2; N. and W. 27.

Whenever one asks to become a convert (i. e. to embrace Judaism), we make careful inquiries about him, and if nothing wrong is found we say unto him: What is your object in desiring to become a convert? Do you know that the Israelites in our times are miserable and oppressed, outcasts and wretched, and liable to sufferings? And if he answers: I know it, and I am not worthy to enter your community, he is at once initiated into the principles of the religion, i. e. the unity of God and the prohibition of idolatry. Yore Deah 268,2; N. and W. 23.

On the other hand, the Ger Toshab, i. e. the non-Jew who wants to settle in a Jewish country is bound only to abstain from idolatry and to fulfil the six Noachian commandments; he is not bound to believe in the unity of God.

Who is a sojourner proselyte? A Goy who undertakes not to commit idolatry, and to keep the other commandments which were given to the children of Noah. Mishne Torah, Issure Biah XIV, 7; N. and W. 29. The eminent Catholic theologian Franz Molitor writes (Philosophy of History 111, § 125):

Though among the Noachian commandments that of abstaining from idolatry is the first and foremost, yet is must be noted that the Talmud is very liberal about this question and by no means designates as idolatry all that which is not exactly worship of Jehovah. For in the treatise Sanhedrin it says: The children of Noah are not forbidden to assume a Shittuf (association), i. e. a co-operator with the first power in the deity.

Rohling, however, writes (p. 17):

We are not looked upon as idolaters as regards the doctrine of trinity, but because we worship Jesus as God-man.

The last remark proves that he does not know the history and literature of the rabbis. How about the Jew who imagines God in some human shape, sitting on his throne in heaven and judging men and nations? Such a Jew lives in an unpunished error, but is neither a heretic nor an idolater. It is true, Maimonides, imbued as he was with Aristotelian philosophy, wished to regard such naive credulity as heresy; but the Orthodox authorities of his time opposed him successfully.