YAHVISM.

UNIV. OF

MONG the innumerable misfortunes which have be

AMONG

fallen the Israelites since they ceased to form a state and a nation, one of the most fatal in its consequences is the name Judaism. In the mind of the Gentiles this name indissolubly associates our religion, which is universal in its deepest sources and universal in its scope and tendency, with the Jewish race, and thus stamps it as a tribal religion. Worse still, the Jews themselves, who have gradually come to call their religion Judaism, are most of them misled to believe, that their faith is bound up altogether with the Jewish race, that it is a religion for Jews alone and not for people of any other race or nationality.

Yet, neither in biblical nor in post-biblical, neither in talmudic nor in much later times, is the term Judaism ever heard of among the Israelites. The Bible speaks of the religion of Israel as "Torath Yahve," the instruction, or the moral law, revealed by Yahve; more fully it is stated to be the statutes, judgments, and ordinances of Yahve. In other places, what we are wont to call the religion of Israel is represented as "Virath Yahve," the fear and reverence of Yahve. These and other kindred appellations continued for many ages to stand for the religion of Israel among its adherents. To distinguish it from Christianity and Islam, the Jewish philosophers sometimes designate it as the faith or the belief of the Jews. It was Flavius Josephus, writing for the instruction of Greeks and Romans, who coined the term Judaism, in order to pit it against Hellenism as a worthy opponent and rival. By Hellenism was understood the civilization, comprising language, poetry, religion, art, science, manners, customs, and institutions,

which, since the times of Alexander, had spread from Greece, its original home, over vast regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Josephus, zealous for the glory of his nation, wished to prove to his pagan contemporaries that the Jewish conceptions of God, of the soul, of morality, enshrined in a noble literature, were in most respects superior to those of Hellenism. And to the totality of their beliefs, moral commandments, religious practices, and ceremonial institutions he gave the name of Judaism. The Christian writers eagerly seized upon the name thus furnished them, in order to distinguish Christianity from the mother-religion from which it had sprung and become differentiated; they were thus enabled to demonstrate to the heathens, who were seeking the true God, that for them to embrace the religion of Israel meant to become Jews, members of the hated, despised, and already persecuted Jewish race. Moreover, the Jews themselves, who intensely detested the traitor Josephus, refrained from reading his works and from adopting any of his theological, practical, or historical ideas. Hence, the term Judaism coined by Josephus remained absolutely unknown to them. It was only in comparatively recent times, after the Jews became familiar with modern Christian literature, that they began to name their religion Judaism.

But why object to this name and try to supplant it by another, if it does most fitly express the facts, the whole of those religious ideas and practices for which it stands? Is it not really the religion of Jews and of no other race besides? Has not your religion, an inquiring Christian may ask, from its dim beginnings to this day, exclusively and jealously been confined to the so-called chosen people, the lineal decendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? When did the Jews ever bring the light and truth of their religion, the moral ideas and laws in which it glories, to men of other races and nationalities? To these questions I will reply, not with the fencing logic of an advocate arguing for one

side of a case, but from the depths of my religious convictions: A religion, which has moral monotheism for its basis, the belief in one only God, the Maker of heaven and earth, a religion which teaches that all men are descended from one first father and mother, and, hence, that all men, without distinction of race or climate, are made like their first parents in the image and likeness of God; a faith which proclaims that God is the author, sustainer, law-giver, and judge of all men, can not be tribal and national, can not reserve all its store of light and moral truths for one people alone, to the exclusion of all other races, leaving the rest of the world forever to grope in darkness, and to perish in corruption through ignorance of the right way. Such a religion is bound to be universal in its extent; it must strive, unless it belie its very motive, to bring its good tidings to all men, it must put forth efforts to bestow the blessings of which it is in possession upon all the families of the earth, to educate all the races of men according to the truths it holds, to teach them the ways of righteousness and holiness in which they should go. A tribal or national religion, one that does not cherish the desire to extend its empire beyond the limits of a certain race or people, is essentially a pagan religion, at least it has not yet rid itself of certain ideas which are characteristic of Paganism.

What is the cardinal difference between Paganism and the religion of Israel, or Monotheism? Every nation in antiquity had a supreme god of its own, from whom it believed itself descended through mythical ancestors. Every national god cared only for the welfare of his own people, being utterly indifferent to the material and spiritual interests of other nations, simply because they were not his children and stood in no relation to him. He loved only his nation, and was relentlessly hostile to those nations that were at war with his people. The children of his nation were bound to obey his voice, to fulfill his

commands and ordinances, to seek his favor, and to show their gratitude to him for his protection. The glory of his nation was also the glory of the national god, its defeat was his defeat. With the disappearance of the people, that people's god lost his empire, and vanished into nothingness.

The religion of Israel arose in irreconcilable opposition to this pagan theology. Yahve, He who was, is, and will be, He is the God of heaven and earth, the ruler of all nations. All men are His children, because they are stamped with His spiritual likeness, because they derive their life from the breath of life which He has breathed into them. He is the Lord of the spirits of all flesh. His divine laws of justice are binding on all men, for He is the judge of the whole earth. He visits their transgressions on all nations. His mercy is extended over all His creatures, and He graciously pardons the sins of repentant heathens, that heed the warnings of His prophets, and return from their evil ways. Israel is not His sole possession. From the rising of the sun to its setting is His name to be praised among the nations. Abraham, who sought the true God, and found Him, was chosen to be a blessing to all men, and through his seed should all families of the earth be blessed. Israel was chosen to be the light-bearer of God's truth, His missionary to teach the nations the knowledge of God, and show them the way in which they should walk. The children of Israel were not to enjoy special privileges and favors, but were to be witnesses of Yahve. Israel is the servant of God, that will not grow faint nor become weary until he has established justice on earth. The servant of God suffers for the sins of the nations, he is despised and his visage is not like that of a man, his voice is not raised on high, even the bruised reed does he not break. Laden with sorrows, bleeding from many wounds, he is ordained to gather the lost sheep, the nations of the earth, unto Yahve, their Father and Judge.

Such is the ideal mission of Israel, as conceived by his seers. Nor has the historic life of Israel in its better days, whenever the conditions of the time favored such a course, been faithless to its high universal mission. The best writers in Israel had a more or less clear insight into the fact that Israel had not been formed into a people by race affinities, but by the formative and unifying forces of spiritual kinship. It was early recognized that Israel was not what is called a pure race, but had received large accretions from foreign tribes. Judah, the reputed father of the tribe of Judah, we are informed, married a Canaanitish woman who gave birth to the ancestors of the Jewish clans. This simply signifies, that the tribe of Judah grew out of a union of Israelitish and Canaanitish tribes. In fact, the Calebites, the Yerachmeelites, and the Kenizites, though forming integral parts of Judah, even in later historic times were known to have been of Canaanitish origin. Joseph married Osnath, an Egyptian, or, translated into the language of history, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh received large Egyptian accretions. A whole clan of Simeon was called Saul, the son of the Canaanitish woman, which means that it contained so many native elements that it was looked upon as largely Canaanitish. Moses married a Midianitish woman, and his children were therefore of mixed blood. The whole Midianitish clan, into which Moses married, was adopted into the Israelitish nation, and played an important part in the religious history of Israel. It is agreed on all hands that the great mass of the indigenous population of Canaan were gradually absorbed by the Israelites, and their blood blended with that of the conquerors. The ancestress of the sacred dynasty of David was Ruth, a daughter of the hated Moabitish people. Already during the Babylonian captivity many converts were made to the religion of Israel, as is evidenced by the fact that numerous families were found among the returned exiles, unable to prove that they were of Israelitish descent. The prophet