Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ
congregations in Candia did so in the seventh century, it is not our
object to investigate this. Undoubtedly, after the rise of
Mohammedanism, the Church had enough to do to stand on her defence
against the new and even more fanatical antagonist, and the Jews were on
the whole neglected. Besides, there were scarcely any Christian teachers
who understood Hebrew, and the N. T. was not yet translated into the
sacred tongue. Yet we find one very distinguished Jewish convert in the
seventh century. This was Julian of Toledo, Primate of Spain, called by
one of his successors, "A rose among thorns." He was baptized in the
cathedral of his native place, became archdeacon in 656, Bishop in 680,
and died in 690. He was President of the Twelfth Council of Toledo when
he urged King Erwig to pass some severe laws against his former
co-religionists, prohibiting them to blaspheme the Trinity and to
possess Christian slaves. Nevertheless, the writer in the "Jewish
Encyclopædia" speaks of him "as a man of great sagacity and discretion,
prudent in judgment, very charitable, and tempering severity with
mildness," and further informs us that he used to associate with the
Jews. Consequently, he could not have been so very hostile against them.
But on this point it is necessary once for all to remark that the severe
opinion that used to be held by the Jews in general about Hebrew
Christians was, to a great extent, owing to the unfair judgment passed
upon them indiscriminately by Jewish historians. It is now acknowledged
that even the modern Gräetz was unfair in this respect. We by no means
want to exonerate the few bigots and fanatics like Nunes Henrique who
acted as spy of the Maranos, or others who agitated for the burning of
the Talmud, and strongly condemn men like Dr. Briman, so-called Justus,
the associate and abettor of the Roman Catholic Theologian Rohling at
Prague, in recent times, but it must be remembered that there is a great
difference between anti-Talmudists and anti-Semites, and that by far the
vast majority of Jewish converts, even in the ages of predominant
bigotry among Christians and Jews, have defended their brethren against
false accusations, as will be seen later on. To return from this
digression to Julian. He wrote, "Historia rebelleonis Pauli," also a
book under the title, "De comprobatione ætatis sextæ contra Judæos." The
work deals with Messianic prophecies of the Bible, in which he adopts
the chronology of the Septuagint, and addresses the Jews with these
words, "Viam perdidisti viam ergo se quere, ut per viam venias ad
salutem."
But even in that age, the eve of the so-called Middle Ages, the age of
the gaons, when there was a Prince of the Captivity in Babylon who
exercised supreme religious authority over the Jews in the East, and so
far as Spain and France, we hear occasionally a voice from the midst of
the Synagogue bearing an unwitting testimony for Christ. Cottan Mather,
in his "Faith of the Fathers," quotes the words of Rabbi Samuel Marachus
(Abbas Samuel Abbu Nasr Ibn) when speaking of the Messiah, as follows:
"The Prophet Amos mentions a fourth crime (ii. 6) of selling the Just
One for silver, for which we have been in our captivity. It manifestly
appears to me that for selling that Just One we are justly punished. It
is now 1000 years and more, and in all this we have made no good hand of
it among the Gentiles, nor is there any likelihood of our ever any more
turning to good. Oh, my God! I am afraid, lest the Jesus, whom the
Christians worship, be the Just One we sold for silver." (See "Lectures
on the Jews," p. 430, Glasgow, 1839.)
CHAPTER IV.
JEWISH CONVERTS IN THE EASTERN CHURCH.
Aleksyeyev, Aleksander (called Wolf Nachlass), born in 1820, at
Nazarevietz, government of Podolsk, of poor Jewish parents. At the age
of ten he was impressed into military service by the press-gang
(poimshchiki) of Nicolas I., and sent away to the distant city of
Volsks, government of Saratov. It was the political and missionary
policy of Nicolas I. to take young boys from their parents and to train
them in military schools, so that after they had completed their service
of twenty-five years, they might return home and act as missionaries to
their parents. Aleksyeyev for a long time resisted Christian teaching,
and the officials considered him a most stubborn subject. However, about
1845, he changed his views entirely, and not only became a member of the
Orthodox Russian Church, but managed to convert about five hundred
Jewish Cantonists, for which he was promoted in 1848 to the rank of a
non-commissioned officer, and was honoured by the Emperor's thanks.
About 1855, Aleksander was so unfortunate as to lose the use of his
legs. He then settled in Novogorod, and during his long illness wrote
the following works on ethnographic and missionary topics:--English
titles: 1. "The Triumph of Christian Teaching over the Talmudic
Teaching, or a Soul-saving Conversation of a Christian and a Jew on the
Coming of the Messiah" (St. Petersburg, 1859); 2. "Religious Service,
Holy Day and Religious Rites of the Jews To-day" (Novogorod, 1861); 3.
"The Public Life of the Jews, their Habits, Customs and Prejudices"
(_ib._ 1868); 4. "Colloquies of an Orthodox Christian with a
Newly-Converted Jew" (St. Petersburg, 1872); 5. "A Former Jew for
Monastries and Monasticism" (Novogorod, 1875); 6. "The Conversion to
Christianity of an Observer of the Jewish Law" (_ib._ 1882); 7. "Do the
Jews use Christian Blood?" (_ib._ 1886), and several others. His works
are interesting, as he was the first Jew in Russia to give a description
of the life and customs of his Jewish brethren. He refuted the absurd
and criminal blood accusation.
Gregory Bar-Hebræus (son of a Hebrew) Abu Ab-Foraj Ibu Harun, Jacobite
Syrian historian, physician, philosopher and theologian; born at
Malatia, Asiatic Turkey, 1226; died at Moragha, Persia, 1286. Gregory
first studied medicine under his father Aaron, who embraced
Christianity, and was probably baptized in his youth. This accounts for
his not being conversant with Hebrew, though he was well acquainted with
Jewish doctrines. He was successively Bishop of Guba (1246), of Lakaba
(1247), and of Aleppo (1253). In 1264 he was named "Mafriana," or
Primate of the Eastern Jacobites, with his seat at Tekrit on the Tigris.
Gregory was a prolific writer on theology, philosophy, ethics, history,
grammar, medicine, mathematics and astronomy. Some of his works were
written in Arabic, but most of them in Syriac. He was the last great
Syriac writer, though he is important rather as a collector than as an
independent writer. He is best known for his Syriac grammar, "Ketaba de
Semhe," his "Chronicle" in two parts, ecclesiastical and political; his
"Menarat Kudshe," a compendium of theology, philosophy, medicine,
physics and metaphysics, and his scholia on the Old and the New
Testament (Auzar Raze). In the last-named he occasionally cites readings
from the Samaritan text; it is interesting to note that in a scholium to
2 Kings xvii. 28, he says: "The Law (_i.e._ text of the Pentateuch) of
the Samaritans does not agree with that of the Jews, but with the
Septuagint." He occasionally cites opinions of the Jews, _e.g._, on Ps.
viii. 2, on the Shem Hamephorash (the name Jehovah). In the introduction
to his commentary on Job he mentions as a writer the priest Asaph
(brother of Ezra the Scribe), who identifies Job with Jobab. In speaking
of the Apocryphal account of the death of Isaiah, he cites "one of the
Hebrew books" as authority. (Nestle Marginalien ii. 48).
Rubinstein Anton Gregryevich (not to be confounded with Josef, also a
Russian great musician), was born 1829, in the village of Wetchwotgretz,
Bessarabia, died at Peterhof, near St. Petersburg, in 1894. His parents
embraced Christianity, and the children were probably baptized when
still young. Anton was first taught music by his mother (Katherina
Khristoferovna, _née_ Lowenstein), and then studied at Moscow. The great
services rendered by him in the advance of music in Russia were
recognized by the Czar, who decorated him with the Vladimir order.
Rubinstein Nikolai, born in Moscow 1835, died in Paris 1881, was the
brother of the above, and was well-known in England.
CHAPTER V.
JEWISH CONVERTS IN THE WESTERN CHURCH.
In giving an account of well-known Jewish converts in the Christian
Church, one is limited to the information which is supplied from sources
generally connected with the Western or Roman Catholic Church. The
subject naturally divides itself into two parts--(_a_) The
pre-reformation period, (_b_) The post-reformation period. In the former
the Roman Church displayed great zeal, though not according to
knowledge, in her energetic missionary enterprise among the Jews. There
was a missionary seminary in Spain in which men studied Hebrew
literature and qualified themselves for carrying on the controversy with
the Jews. Hence we read of frequent disputations which were held by the
Jewish and Gentile missionaries with the most learned rabbis, often in
the presence of bishops, noblemen, and princes. But, alas! the methods
employed were also often those of force and intrigue, and consequently
un-Christian in the extreme, and the converts thus gained were only such
in appearance, and this led as we know to the terrible Inquisition and
to the final expulsion of the Jews from Spain. In the latter period,
after the Reformation and onwards, the Roman Church has apparently
slackened her zeal for the conversion of the Jews. She has no distinct
missionary organization, and we only hear now and then of clandestine
abductions, generally through the instrumentality of domestic servants,
like the famous Mortara case and the Coen case in the time of Pius IX.,
and that of the Jewish girl of Prague, enticed into a nunnery, which
the _Jewish Chronicle_ reported a few years ago.
Nevertheless, among those who have voluntarily joined the Roman Church
in various centuries, we verily believe--on the ground of their social
standing, their public works, published writings and personal
character--that they embraced Christianity out of pure conviction, and
conscientiously discharged their duties according to the light that was
in them at the time.
The following is a list of Jewish Roman Catholic converts, who have
become historical, very often by making a good impression upon their
contemporaries, and having sought the welfare of the people from whom
they sprung. The names are given in alphabetical order, as this method
seems to be the more convenient for the compiler, and the time and
country in which they lived are added. As they all were members of one
Church, it is not very material to follow the centuries in regular
succession, or to treat of the countries they belonged to separately. An
exception is however made with regard to England, in which the "Domus
Conversorum," the house of converts in London, requires a separate
notice.
Abiathar ha Kohen Esther, of Saragossa, Spain, after her baptism, in the
fifteenth century, married Don Alfonso, son of the King of Aragon. Her
sister Leah also embraced Christianity, and married the Marano Martin
Sanchez. From them some of the Spanish nobility are descended.
Abilis, Simon, a convert in Prague. According to the report of the
Jesuit Eder, he was killed by his father, Lazarus, March 21, 1694,
because he refused to renounce Christianity. The father was put in
prison, where he committed suicide by hanging himself with his
phylacteries.
Abner, of Burgos (called also Alfonso of Valladolid), born in 1270, died
in 1348, became a Christian at the age of sixty. He was a physician by
profession, and learned in Talmud, philosophy and astronomy. He wrote