History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6)

"Blessed be God, who has given unto us the doctrine of truth. We have no dogmas contrary to, or beyond reason. We add nothing, except commandments and statutes, to natural religion; but the fundamental doctrines of our religion rest upon the basis of understanding." "This is our glory and our pride, and all the writings of our sages are full of it."

Frankly Mendelssohn spoke to the hereditary prince of Brunswick of the untenability of Christian, and the reasonableness of Jewish, dogmas. He thought that he had not yet done enough for Judaism.

"Would to God, another similar opportunity were granted me; I would do the same… When I consider what we ought to do for the recognition of the sanctity of our religion."

Those who had not wholly parted company with reason declared Mendelssohn to be in the right, and his defense to be just. They beheld with astonishment that Judaism, so greatly despised, was yet vastly superior to celebrated, official, orthodox Christianity. Through its noble son, Judaism celebrated a triumph. The unhappy ardor of Lavater, and the refined yet daring answer of Mendelssohn for a long time formed the topic of conversation in cultured circles in Germany, and even beyond its borders. The journals commented upon it, and noted every incident. Anecdotes passed backwards and forwards between Zürich and Berlin. It was said that Lavater had asserted that if he were able to continue for eleven days in a state of complete holiness and prayer, he would most positively succeed in converting Mendelssohn to Christianity. When Mendelssohn heard this saying – whether authentic or not it is characteristic of Lavater – he smilingly said, "If I am permitted to sit here in my armchair and smoke a pipe philosophically, I have no objections!" There was more talk of the contest between Mendelssohn and Lavater than of war and peace. Every fair brought pamphlets written in German and French, unimportant productions, which did not deserve to live long. Only a few were on Mendelssohn's side, the majority took the part of Christianity and its representatives against the "insolence of the Jew," who did not consider it an honor to be offered admission into the Christian community.

The worst of these was by a petty, choleric author, named John Balthasar Kölbele, of Frankfort-on-the-Main, who, from hatred of the Jews, or from distemper of body and soul, hurled such coarse insults against Mendelssohn, the rabbis, the Jews, and Judaism, that his very violence paralyzed his onslaught. Kölbele had on a previous occasion attacked Mendelssohn, and jeered at him by means of a lay figure in one of his forgotten romances. He desired to write, or said that he had written, an "Anti-Phædon" against Mendelssohn's "Phædon." His whole gall was vented in a letter to "Mr. Mendelssohn upon the affair of Lavater and Kölbele" (March, 1770). Against the assertions of Mendelssohn as to the purity of Judaism, he brought forward the calumnies and perversions of his brother in feeling, Eisenmenger. Mendelssohn's pure, unselfish character was known in almost all cultivated and high circles of Europe. Nevertheless, Kölbele cast the suspicion upon him of adhering to Judaism from self-interest, "because a Jewish bookkeeper is in a better position than a Christian professor, and the former besides derives some profit from attendance in the antechambers of princes." To Mendelssohn's asseveration that he would cling to Judaism all his lifetime, the malignant fool or libeler rejoined, "How little value Christians attach to the oath of a Jew!" Mendelssohn disposed of him in a few words in the postscript of a letter addressed to Lavater. Nothing more was required; Kölbele had condemned himself. Mendelssohn profited by these vilifying attacks, inasmuch as respectable authors, who in their hearts were not a little irritated by his independent and bold action, left him in peace, rather than be associated with Kölbele. Mendelssohn emerged victorious from this conflict, trifling only at first sight, which had lasted for nearly two years; he rose in public opinion, because he had manfully vindicated his own religion.

It had brought upon him also the reproaches of pious Jews. That which his discernment had feared took place. From love of truth he had publicly declared, that he had found in Judaism certain human additions and abuses, which only served to dim its splendor. This expression offended those who reverenced every custom, however un-Jewish, as a revelation from Sinai, because it was sanctified by time and the code. The entire Jewish world, including the Berlin community, with the exception of the few who belonged to Mendelssohn's circle, would not admit that rust had accumulated upon the noble metal of Judaism. He was therefore questioned on this point, probably by Rabbi Hirschel Lewin, and asked for an exact explanation of the phrase. He was very well able to give a reply, which probably satisfied the rabbi, who was no zealot. But his orthodoxy was still suspected by the strictly pious people whom he termed "the Kölbeles of our co-religionists." He was obliged to exculpate himself from the imputation of having pronounced the decisions of Talmudical sages "as worthless trash." Young Poles, adventurous spirits, thirsting for knowledge, "with good minds, but confused thoughts," both pure and impure elements, forced themselves upon Mendelssohn, and brought him into bad repute. The majority had broken not alone with the Talmud, but also with religion and morality; they led a dissolute life, and considered it the mark of philosophy and enlightenment. Out of love to mankind and independent thought, Mendelssohn entered into relations with them, held discussions with them, advanced and aided them, which also cast a false light upon his relations to Judaism. The frivolity and excesses of these young men were imputed to him, and they were regarded as his protégés and disciples.

He soon gave occasion for an increase of this suspicion. The Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, to avoid the dangers of premature interment, had in a mild, fatherly way (April, 1772) forbidden the Jews of his land to bury the dead at once, according to Jewish usage. Jewish piety towards the deceased, which forbids keeping the dead above the earth long enough for decomposition to set in – a feeling petrified in the ritual code – was affronted by this edict, as though the duke had commanded disregard of a religious practice. The representatives of the congregations of Schwerin supplicated Jacob Emden, of Altona, the aged champion of orthodoxy, to demonstrate from Talmudic and Rabbinic laws, that prolonged exposure of a corpse was an important infringement of Jewish law. Emden, who knew his inability to compose a memorial in German, referred the people of Schwerin to Mendelssohn, whose word had great influence with princes. They followed his advice. How astounded were they to learn, from a letter of Mendelssohn's (May, 1772), that he agreed with the ducal order, that the dead should not be buried before the third day; because, according to the experience of competent physicians, cases of apparent death were possible; and that it was right, in fact, compulsory, to rescue human life in spite of the most stringent ordinances of the religious code! Mendelssohn proved besides that in Talmudical times precautions were taken for the prevention of hasty burial in doubtful cases. His opinion was, with the exception of one blunder, faultlessly elaborated in the Rabbinical manner. Nevertheless, true to his peaceful, complaisant nature, he sent the formula of a petition to the duke to mitigate the decree. Emden, however, in his orthodox zeal, stamped this disputed question almost as an article of faith. A custom so universal among Jews, among Italians and Portuguese as well as Germans and Poles, could not be lightly set aside. Not much value was to be attached to the sayings of doctors. Mendelssohn's Talmudical proofs were not conclusive. In a letter Emden gave him clearly to understand that he was reproving him for his own benefit, to remove the suspicion of lukewarm belief, which he had aroused by his evil surroundings. Thus arose petty discord between Mendelssohn and the rigidly orthodox party, which afterwards increased.

Meanwhile, his friend Lessing, just before his death, had unintentionally stirred up a storm in Germany which caused the Church to tremble, and, under the spell of discontent and an artistic impulse, he had glorified Mendelssohn, together with all Jews, in a perfect poetic creation. The first cause of this tempest, which shook Christianity to its core, was Mendelssohn's dispute with Lavater. Lessing was so indignant at the certainty of victory assumed by the representative of Church Christianity that he had strenuously encouraged his Jewish friend to engage in valorous conflict.

"You alone dare and are able to write and speak thus upon this matter, and are therefore infinitely more fortunate than all other honest people, who cannot achieve the subversion of this detestable structure of unreason otherwise than under the pretense of building a new substructure."

He did not suspect that even then he was holding a thunderbolt in his hands, which he would soon be in a position to hurl against the false gods who thought that they had conquered heaven. During his restless life, which corresponded to his constantly agitated spirit, Lessing came to Hamburg, where he made the acquaintance of the respected and free-thinking family of Reimarus. Hermann Samuel Reimarus, a profound inquirer, indignant at the fossilized and insolent Lutheran Christianity of the Hamburg pastors, had written a "Defense of the Rational Worshipers of God," in which he rejected every revealed religion, endeavoring to secure to reason the rights denied it, and depreciating particularly the founder of Christianity. Reimarus, however, had not courage to utter boldly what he recognized as true, and lay bare publicly, in accordance with his convictions, the weaknesses of the dominant religion. He left this treatise, which contained dangerous and inflammatory material, to his family and to a secret order of free-thinkers, as a legacy. Eliza Reimarus, a noble daughter worthy of her father, handed fragments of this incendiary manuscript to Lessing, who read them with interest, and thought of publishing them. However, he had not sufficient confidence in himself to give a decision upon points of theological discussion, and, therefore, sent these fragments to his Jewish friend, who was capable of judging them. Mendelssohn did not, indeed, find this work very convincing, because the author, embittered by the credulity of the Church, had fallen into the opposite error of advocating the most spiritless form of infidelity, and, according to the shortsighted view of that age, of finding only petty intrigues in great historical movements. Despite Mendelssohn's judgment, his friend continued to think that this book would be of service in humiliating the Church. He seriously thought of hurling the inflammatory writings of Reimarus, under a false name, at the Church. But the Berlin censorship would not allow them to be printed. Then Lessing formed another plan. His position as superintendent of the ducal library of Brunswick in Wolfenbüttel permitted him to publish the manuscript treasures of this rich collection. In the interest of truth he perpetrated a falsehood, asserting that he had discovered in this library these "Fragments of an Unknown," the work of an author of the last generation. Under this mask, and protected by his immunity from censorship in publishing contributions "to history and literature from the treasures of the library at Wolfenbüttel," he began to issue them. He proceeded step by step with the publication of these fragments. The first installments were couched in an entreating tone, asking for support of the religion of reason against the religion of the catechism and the pulpit. He then ventured a step further – to prove the impossibility of the miracles upon which the Church was based, and especially to make apparent the unhistorical character and incredibility of the resurrection of Jesus, one of the main pillars of Christianity, with which it stands and falls. Finally, Lessing produced the most important of the fragments at the beginning of 1778, "Upon the Aim of Jesus and His Disciples." Herein it was explained that Jesus had only desired to announce himself as the Jewish Messiah and King of the Jews. To this end he had made secret preparations with his disciples, formed conspiracies to kindle a revolution in Jerusalem, and attacked the authorities in order to cause the downfall of the High Council (the Synhedrion). But when this plan of subversion failed, and Jesus had to suffer death, his disciples invented another system, and declared that the kingdom of Jesus was not of this world. They proclaimed him the spiritual redeemer of mankind, and gave prominence to the hope of his speedy reappearance; thus the Apostles had concealed and disfigured the original system of Jesus.

This treatment of the early history of Christianity, fairly calculated to overthrow the whole edifice of the Church, descended like a lightning-flash. It was sober, convincing, scientifically elaborated, yet comprehensible by everyone. Amazement and stupefaction were the effect, especially on the publication of the last fragment. Statesmen and citizens were as much affected as theologians. Public opinion upon the matter was divided. Earnest youths about to begin a theologic career hesitated; they did not care to yield their life's activity to what was perhaps only a dream, and chose another vocation. Some affirmed that the proofs against Christianity were irrefutable. The anonymity of the writer heightened the excitement. Conjectures were made as to who the author might be; Mendelssohn's name was publicly mentioned. Only a few knew that this blow had been struck by Reimarus, revered by theologians, too. The anger of the zealots was discharged upon the publisher, Lessing. He was attacked by all parties, and had no companion in arms. His Jewish friend would willingly have hastened to his assistance, but how could he mix himself up in these domestic squabbles of the Christians? Among the numerous slanders circulated by the orthodox about Lessing it was said that the wealthy Jewish community of Amsterdam had paid him one thousand ducats for the publication of the Wolfenbüttel fragments. Accustomed to single-handed combat against want of taste and reason, Lessing was man enough to protect himself. It was a goodly sight to behold this giant in the fray, dealing crushing strokes with light banter and graceful skill. He defeated his enemies one after the other, especially one who was the type of blindly credulous, arrogant, and malicious orthodoxy, the minister Göze in Hamburg. As his pigmy opponents could not overcome this Hercules by literary skill, they summoned to their aid the secular arm. Lessing's productions were forbidden and confiscated, he was compelled to deliver up the manuscripts of the "Fragments," his freedom from censorship was withdrawn, and he was expected not to write any more upon this subject (1778). He struggled against these violent proceedings, but he was vulnerable in one point. The greatest man whom Germany had hitherto produced was without means, and his position as librarian being imperiled, he was obliged to seek for other means of support. During one of his sleepless nights (August 10, 1778), a plan struck him which would simultaneously relieve him from pecuniary embarrassments and inflict a worse blow than ten "Fragments" upon the Lutheran theologians. They thundered against him from their church pulpits; he would try to answer them from his theatre pulpit. The latest, most mature, and most perfect offspring of his Muse, "Nathan the Wise," should be his avenger. Lessing had carried this idea in his mind for several years; but he could not have executed it at a more favorable time.

To the annoyance of the pious Christians who, with all their bigotry, uncharitableness, and desire for persecution, laid claim to every virtue on account of their belief in Jesus, and denounced the Jews, one and all, as outcasts, Lessing represented a Jew as the immaculate ideal of virtue, wisdom, and conscientiousness. This ideal he had found embodied in Moses Mendelssohn. He illumined him and the greatness of his character by the bright light of theatrical effects, and impressed the stamp of eternity upon him by his immortal verses. The chief hero of Lessing's drama is a sage and a merchant, like Mendelssohn, "as good as he is clever, and as clever as he is wise." His nation honors him as a prince, and though it calls him the wise Nathan, he was above all things good:

"The law commandeth mercy, not compliance.And thus for mercy's sake he's uncomplying:… How free from prejudice his lofty soul —His heart to every virtue how unlocked —With every lovely feeling how familiar…… O what a Jew is he! yet wishesOnly to pass as a Jew."

A son of Judaism, Nathan had elevated himself to the highest level of humane feeling and charitableness, for such his Law prescribed. In a fanatical massacre by Crusaders, ferocious Christians had slaughtered all the Jews in Jerusalem, with their wives and children, and his beloved wife and seven hopeful sons had been burnt. At first he raged, and murmured against fate, but anon he spake with the patience of Job:

"This also was God's decree: So be it!"

In his terrible grief a mounted soldier brought him a young, tender Christian child, an orphan girl, and Nathan took it, bore it to his couch, kissed it, flung himself upon his knees, and thanked God that the lost seven had been replaced by at least one. This Christian maiden he loved with all the warmth of a fatherly heart, and educated her in a strictly conscientious manner. Not one religion in preference to another, still less his own, did he instil into the young soul of Recha, or Blanche, but only the doctrines of pure fear of God, ideal virtue, and morality. Such was the representative of Judaism.

How did the representative of Christianity behave? The Patriarch of Jerusalem, who, with his church, was tolerated in the Mahometan city by the magnanimous Sultan Saladin, by virtue of a solemnly ratified treaty, meditates treacherous plans against the sultan, concocts intrigues against him:

"But what is villainy in human eyesMay, in the sight of God, the patriarch thinks,Not be villainy."

For Nathan, he desires to kindle a pyre, because he has fostered, loved, and raised to a lovely, spiritual maiden, a forsaken Christian child. Without the compassion of the Jew, the child would have perished:

"That's nothing! The Jew must still be burnt."

Daya, another representative of Church Christianity, who knows Recha's Christian origin, has misgivings when she sees the Christian child basking in the warm love of a Jew. She is won over from these scruples by costly presents, but she still contemplates depriving Nathan of the most precious object to which his soul clings, even though danger should thereby befall him.

The Templar, Leon of Filnek, represents yet another phase of Christianity. A soldier and at the same time a cleric, who, spared by Saladin although he had broken his word, rescues Recha, the supposed Jewish maiden; he behaves with Christian insolence towards Nathan, speaking roughly and harshly to him, whilst the latter is pouring forth heartfelt gratitude for the rescue of his adopted daughter. Then, gradually, through the wonderful power of love, the Templar lays aside the coarse, hateful garb of Christian prejudice. In his veins there flows Mahometan blood. Only the holy simplicity of the friar Bonafides combines human kindness with monastic ecclesiasticism; but he knows only one duty – obedience – and at the command of the fanatically cruel Patriarch would commit the most horrible crimes.

These lessons Lessing preached from his theatre pulpit to the obdurate minds of the followers of Christ. The wise Jew, Nathan – Mendelssohn – has arrived at the highest level of human sympathy; while the best Christian, the Templar, every cultivated Christian – the Nicolais, the Abts, the Herders – have yet to free themselves from their thick-skinned prejudices, to attain to that height. It is a delusion to claim the possession of the one true religion and the only means of salvation. Who possesses the real ring? How can the real one be detected from the false? Only by meekness, heartfelt tolerance, true benevolence, and most fervent devotion to God; in short, by all those qualities which the official Christianity of the time did not display, and which were perfectly realized in Mendelssohn.

In every way Lessing scourged fossilized, persecuting Christianity, and glorified Judaism through its chief representative. As if this splendid drama, the beautiful first-fruits of German poetry, was to belong to the Jews, although given to the world by a Christian poet, a son of Israel aided its production. Lessing, besieged by theological foes, and fighting against dire necessity, would not have been able to complete it, if, during its composition, he had not been enabled to live without anxiety. He required a loan, and found no helper among the Christians. Moses Wessely, in Hamburg, the brother of the neo-Hebraic poet, Naphtali Wessely, who afterwards made a name for himself in Jewish history, advanced the desired sum, although he was not a wealthy Jew, and only wished to have the honor of possessing something in Lessing's handwriting.

Lessing had not been wrong in thinking that this drama would vex pious Christians much more than ten controversial pamphlets against Göze. As soon as it appeared (spring, 1779), intense wrath was felt against the poet, as if he had degraded Christianity. The "Fragments" and his polemics against Göze had not made him so many enemies as "Nathan." Even his friends greeted him coldly, shunned him, excluded him from the social reunions he loved, and left him to the persecution of his adversaries. Through this silent excommunication he felt himself aggrieved, lost more and more of his bright humor and elasticity of spirit, and became wearied, downcast, and almost stupefied. The treatment of pious Christians terribly embittered the last year of his life. He died in vigorous manhood like an aged man, a martyr to his love of truth. But his soul-conquering voice made itself heard on behalf of tolerance, and gradually softened the discordant notes of hatred and prejudice. In spite of the ban placed upon "Nathan," as well as upon its author, both in Protestant and Catholic countries, this drama became one of the most popular in German poetry, and as often as the verses inspired by conviction resound from the stage, they seize upon the hearts of the audience, loosening the links of the chain of Jew-hatred in the minds of Germans, who find it most difficult to throw off its shackles. "Nathan" made an impression on the mind of the German people, which, despite unfavorable circumstances, has not been obliterated. Twenty years before, when Lessing produced his first drama of "The Jews," an arrogant theologian censured it, because it was altogether too improbable that among a people like the Jews, so noble a character could ever be formed. At the appearance of "Nathan" no reader thought that a noble Jew was possible. Even the most stubborn dared not assert so monstrous an absurdity. The Jewish ideal sage was a reality, and lived in Berlin, an ornament not alone to the Jews, but to the German nation. Without Mendelssohn, the drama of "Nathan" would not have been written, just as without Lessing's friendship Mendelssohn would not have become what he did to German literature and the Jewish world. The cordiality of the intimacy between these two friends showed itself after Lessing's death. His brothers and friends, who only after his demise realized his greatness, turned, in the anguish of their loss, to Mendelssohn, as if it were natural that he should be the chief mourner. And in very sooth he was; none of his associates preserved Lessing's memory with so sorrowful a remembrance and religious a reverence. He was beyond all things solicitous to protect his former friend against misapprehension and slander.

As Mendelssohn, without knowing or desiring it, stimulated Lessing to create an ideal, and through him helped to dispel the bias against Jews, so at the same time, without aiming at it, he inaugurated the spiritual regeneration of his race. The Bible, especially the Pentateuch – the all in all of the Jews – although very many knew it by heart, had become as strange to them, as any unintelligible book. Rabbinical and Kabbalistic expositors had so distorted the simple biblical sense of the words, that everything was found in it except the actual contents.