And ye (Israel) are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Yea, there is no Rock, I know none. Isaiah, xliv. 8.
THE most effective method of counteracting an old and wide-spread error, is to show how and why it arose. Although a logical refutation, a priori, or an historical one from cause and effect, 'a posteriori', would have more weight with the thinker or lover of abstract ideas, yet, for the majority at least, no method seems better than the first. Both the latter indeed are admirably used in the fine essay here presented to the reader, and the author ostensibly rests his case upon their provings; yet the whole tenor of his discourse undesignedly evolves the first in a remarkable degree. The reason of the origin of Christianity clearly comes out, and the splendor of those ethereal doctrines that it claims as its own, are traced in detail and with unerring accuracy to their true source—the then setting sun of Judaism. Even the real peculiarities of the new system, such as Justification by Faith, Freedom from the Law, &c., are ably shown to be misapplications of old Rabbinical doctrines or traditions.
We have had, within the past half century, many works exposing the delusions from which Christianity sprung; none of these, however, occupies exclusively that portion of the field of inquiry explored by this essay, chiefly, we suppose, because the writers lacked that knowledge of Hebrew literature, of the Talmud, and the still more recondite Cabalistic works with which Jews alone are conversant. As this essay was written by one well versed in Hebrew lore, all the necessary arguments are brought to bear,—necessary we say; for as a comparison is here made between an original creed (Judaism) and its two main derivative branches (Christianity and Mohammedanism), it is obvious it could not have been instituted without a full acquaintance with the former.
In the second chapter are given an analysis of the extraordinary doctrines taught by Paul, of the Hebrew doctrines from which he manufactured his seductive fictions, and the consequences, obvious as well as inevitable, which they at once and for centuries produced. This portion of the book is highly curious and interesting. We would also call special attention to the ninth chapter, where the universal and cosmopolitan character of Judaism is vindicated.
The main argument of the book is that Judaism has a two-fold character a—material and a spiritual side; the first, dealing with man's worldly interests and his various relations to the present world; the second, with the conscience of the individual, with things most real indeed, but unseen or to come: and that this system—true to nature, true to the necessities of man's constitution and of his present state—has been "bisected" and therefore wholly marred by the two offshoots herein criticised. Christianity, it is shown, has taken the spiritual side of Judaism, and insisting upon this alone to the exclusion of the other (so indispensable in man's present state), has made itself thereby ridiculously impracticable, and created not only the wildest fanaticism but—whenever it has had full play, unchecked by reason or common sense—the most revolting licentiousness. Mohammedanism, on the other hand, ignoring Judaism's etherial side, has adopted as its sole canon the secular part of the Mosaic Code—given solely for the preservation of the state and of society; hence the materialism, the torpor of the spiritual and purifying element in man's nature, and the social and political semi-barbarism so observable in Islamism. Still, a system springing from the latter selection, must obviously be preferable in theory and practice; in theory, as it strictly preserved the Monotheism of its mother-creed, and never gave to a creature the incommunicable attributes of the First Cause; and in practice, as it would not be liable to fall into the extravagances of its "solely-spiritual" sister-creed. All this is shown with great ability by the author.