Elijah Benamozegh

“ But finally this religion made morality and humanity take a great spring; it overturned the altars that were still reeking with innocent blood, closed the dens where prostitution was regarded as a sacred duty, proclaimed the common origin and universal brotherhood of mankind, effaced the brands that egotism, pride, brute force and wealth had put on the brow of the poor, the unhappy, the conquered and the slave. These benefits and many others are imperishable claims to the respect and gratitude of mankind: Judaism finds here her true reflection, and glories in such manifestations ”

“ Christianity preached a great principle, universal fraternity,—a principle taken indeed from, Judaism, but one in no wise tempered, as in the latter system, by national fraternity. On the contrary, Christianity made, for the benefit of humanitarian brotherhood, that sacrifice, which the ancient legislators had made, sometimes of the individual to the family, by exagerating parental rights, and at others, of the family to the state, by the creation of this last absorbing personality. Christianity, then, skipped a step, and in its turn swept away nationalities from the affection of mankind. ”

“ If a country or state must live, if nationality be not an empty term, the moral code of the Gospel can never be the law of nations. And why? Because a nation has less duties than an individual; because the number of its duties always diminish as the body politic expands; being for a family less than for an individual; for town less than for a family, for a state less than for a single town, and less for all mankind than for any single state. ”

“ It is conscience treated as a citizen, the mind subjugated, disciplined like the body, one's creed encompassed with penalties, executioners, pyres; it is violence, injustice, tyranny serving a religion all charity. And just because it had only charity, but no idea to justice, because it advocated only love, and not respect, because it devoted itself to the worship of virtues the most sublime, while it neglected those inferior perhaps, but equally holy and far more useful,—in fine because it aimed at being more than just, it was doomed to be violent.
And Judaism? It had a political system ”

“ Through not understanding this truth, the Christian Ethics has been judged superior to that of the Jews, or rather to their politics. Could it be otherwise? Could a system of civil government, however pure, however just, ever compete with a system of abstract morality? Could the duties of a nation be framed upon those of an individual, or could international law be ever successfully supplanted by the "Imitation of Christ?" ”

“ For in the hands of God, evil works its own cure. In short, the Church has had and will have Protestants, only because she herself first protested against Judaism.
So we see Christianity cannot claim a morality superior to that of Judaism without wounding its own dearest interest, violating logic, and crumbling the very bases upon which are founded all religion and all morality. Let us, however, descend from these high abstractions, where Truth, though more brilliant, is, by reason of this very elevation, less tangible for ordinary minds. ”

“ Now, according to the admission of Christianity, God has spoken to the patriarchs, to Moses, and given them a system of Ethics absolutely perfect, because nothing less than that could emanate from God; otherwise he, too, would be subject to time, accident, and change. But we are told that man is not capable of reaching at a bound the heights of perfection, and that he is essentially a creature of progress. Yes, we reply, and it is for that very reason, and in order that man may attain perfection that God's word is perfect. Man strives to realize it step by step. ”

“ Let us institute, if possible, a comparison, fixing its conditions and limits, and let us see in the detail—if it be from its own root that Christianity has drawn its ethics,—its chief claim to the esteem of mankind;—or if it be not rather the natal surroundings, the religion in which it is rooted that supplied it with the principles and elements which were, alas! ”

“ Because Christianity absolutely lacks a side, the social or political side,—either through the extravagance and exclusiveness of its ethics, or through its ultramundane aspirations, ever on the point of realization;—because with its ethics it had no jurisprudence, with an altar no throne, which in truth it merged in the former. ”

“ With such a theory how could any revelation be necessary? Tell us of a revelation (worthy of the name) that comes to teach man truth he could not otherwise learn, to give him a theory of moral government and virtue which his unassisted reason could not originate,—and this very reason shall bow before it, because the mark of its divine origin will be apparent. ”

“ Impossible, thenceforth, to regard the political enemy other than a brother; impossible for the heart, the arm, not to tremble, whenever man, wounded man, or brethren smote each other, all men being according to Christianity, equal—that is, in the words of Paul himself, the Barbarian, Scythian, Greek and Jew. ”

“ We shall take the rabbinical, traditional Judaism that centuries have made, and we think besides that we shall better serve the cause of criticism by thus studying Christianity in all its birth-surroundings, in the teachings and moral philosophy of that time, than by restricting ourselves to an antiquity, whose workings, though unquestionable, could not have been as precise, as evident or as consecutive, as those of Pharisaical Judaism. ”

“ But what directly concerns us is the superiority that Christianity arrogates to itself over Judaism, and the inferiority in point of Ethics that it ascribes to the latter, inferring therefrom, that it owes this nothing, and that it has reached, by a spontaneous soar alone, so unprecedented an elevation. ”

“ It falls like the first, amid the accidents of time, the fate and conditions of which it partakes. It hides, like the first, in its inmost depths, unknown power for man's discovery, and permits him to realize only by degrees its beauties and its wealth. ”

“ The world kept on its way, in spite of all predictions to the contrary, and Christianity found itself involved in that world whose destruction it thought at hand, in that society whose transformation into immortal beings it had hoped soon to see, in those interests for which it had neglected to provide, in those rights and duties that political and social life begets. ”

“ But a different revelation,—one that only follows step by step the natural developments of man's powers, and that, instead of uttering at once its final word even at the risk of being misunderstood, doles out eternal truth as the mind and heart are disposed to receive it—such a revelation I say would be at the outset a very suspicious one to a sagacious critic, and above all would be altogether needless as having naught to tell men that they could not tell themselves. ”

“ We take good care neither to overlook the benefits that this morality heaped upon the wretched of every kind, the comfort and new life that it brought them, nor to re-echo those old Pagan accusations that some modern authors have revived for their own benefit, wherein Christians were looked upon as conspirators, rebels and enemies of the Roman Empire. ”

“ If this pretention is just, then must its Ethics be superior, not only to the best products, in this sphere, of the Pagan world, as well as to all that human reason could ever produce, but also to all that divine reason has ever communicated in this respect to the most excellent of mankind. For the divine origin of Christianity cannot be proved, without first showing that neither Paganism, Philosophy, nor even Judaism itself, was ever able to attain a similar height ”

“ Much more; it is in Jewish revelation that we find the titles, promises, and prophecies upon which Christianity is based. Now, what assurance have we that some social, mental, or moral change in man will not require different methods, different laws,—and that the Messianic promises will not be in their turn obliterated? ”

“ Examination of the Pretensions of Christian Ethics over Philosophy and Paganism—Its Alleged Superiority to Judaism, and the Absurdity of this Assumption—Immutability of Divine Declarations; Man capable of Perfection only when the Word of God is Perfect—A Revelation Repeated is Suspicious and Useless; It Militates against Christianity—Dissimilarity of Judaism ”

“ As to Paganism, without urging the simplicity, beauty, and elevation of Greco-Roman poetry or theology, we should have to cite only from some sacred book of the East, from Confucius or Menu for instance, to show what man can extract from that rich and inexhaustible soil of divine gift, viz., the religious sentiment. ”

“ But just as it would be indiscreet to separate these in their practical working at Jerusalem, so it would be unjust to confound them in a theoretic examination, especially when face to face with an ethical system, which not only has nothing to do with, but even repudiates politics, and is its most formidable living adversary. It is then, only strict justice, to distinguish well the ethics of Judaism from its politics; the civil code from the religious; the citizen from the Monotheist ”