Jewish History | Page 4

the younger nations, with greater capability
of living, which at that time had barely worked their way up to the
beginnings of a civilization. One after the other, during the first two
centuries of the Christian era, the members of this European family of

nations appeared in the arena of history. They form the kernel of the
civilized part of mankind at the present day.
Now, if we examine this accepted classification with a view to finding
the place belonging to the Jewish people in the chronological series, we
meet with embarrassing difficulties, and finally arrive at the conclusion
that its history cannot be accommodated within the compass of the
classification. Into which of the three historical groups mentioned could
the Jewish people be put? Are we to call it one of the most ancient, one
of the ancient, or one of the modern nations? It is evident that it may
lay claim to the first description, as well as to the second and the last.
In company with the most ancient nations of the Orient, the Jewish
people stood at the "threshold of history." It was the contemporary of
the earliest civilized nations, the Egyptians and the Chaldeans. In those
remote days it created and spread a religious world-idea underlying an
exalted social and moral system surpassing everything produced in this
sphere by its Oriental contemporaries. Again, with the classical Greeks
and Romans, it forms the celebrated historical triad universally
recognized as the source of all great systems of civilization. Finally, in
fellowship with the nations of to-day, it leads an historical life, striding
onward in the path of progress without stay or interruption. Deprived of
political independence, it nevertheless continues to fill a place in the
world of thought as a distinctly marked spiritual individuality, as one of
the most active and intelligent forces. How, then, are we to denominate
this omnipresent people, which, from the first moment of its historical
existence up to our days, a period of thirty-five hundred years, has been
developing continuously. In view of this Methuselah among the nations,
whose life is co-extensive with the whole of history, how are we to
dispose of the inevitable barriers between "the most ancient" and "the
ancient," between "the ancient" and "the modern" nations--the fateful
barriers which form the milestones on the path of the historical peoples,
and which the Jewish people has more than once overstepped?
A definition of the Jewish people must needs correspond to the
aggregate of the concepts expressed by the three group-names, most
ancient, ancient, and modern. The only description applicable to it is
"the historical nation of all times," a description bringing into relief the
contrast between it and all other nations of modern and ancient times,
whose historical existence either came to an end in days long past, or

began at a date comparatively recent. And granted that there are
"historical" and "unhistorical" peoples, then it is beyond dispute that
the Jewish people deserves to be called "the most historical"
(_historicissimus_). If the history of the world be conceived as a circle,
then Jewish history occupies the position of the diameter, the line
passing through its centre, and the history of every other nation is
represented by a chord marking off a smaller segment of the circle. The
history of the Jewish people is like an axis crossing the history of
mankind from one of its poles to the other. As an unbroken thread it
runs through the ancient civilization of Egypt and Mesopotamia, down
to the present-day culture of France and Germany. Its divisions are
measured by thousands of years.
Jewish history, then, in its range, or, better, in its duration, presents an
unique phenomenon. It consists of the longest series of events ever
recorded in the annals of a single people. To sum up its peculiarity
briefly, it embraces a period of thirty-five hundred years, and in all this
vast extent it suffers no interruption. At every point it is alive, full of
sterling content. Presently we shall see that in respect to content, too, it
is distinguished by exceptional characteristics.

II
THE CONTENT OF JEWISH HISTORY
From the point of view of content, or qualitative structure, Jewish
history, it is well known, falls into two parts. The dividing point
between the two parts is the moment in which the Jewish state
collapsed irretrievably under the blows of the Roman Empire (70 C. E.).
The first half deals with the vicissitudes of a nation, which, though
frequently at the mercy of stronger nations, still maintained possession
of its territory and government, and was ruled by its own laws. In the
second half, we encounter the history of a people without a government,
more than that, without a land, a people stripped of all the tangible
accompaniments of nationality,