BY-PATHS IN HEBRAIC BOOKLAND

[Pg 2]

[Pg 3]

BY-PATHS IN HEBRAIC BOOKLAND

BY ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, D. D., M. A. Author of “Jewish Life in the Middle Ages,” “Chapters on Jewish Literature,” etc.

Philadelphia The Jewish Publication Society of America 1920

[Pg 4]

Copyright, 1920, by The Jewish Publication Society of America

[Pg 5]

PREFACE

Wayfarers sometimes use by-paths because the highways are closed. In the days of Jael, so the author of Deborah’s Song tells us, circuitous side-tracks were the only accessible routes. In the unsettled condition of Israel those who journeyed were forced to seek their goal by roundabout ways.

But, at other times, though the open road is clear, and there is no obstacle on the way of common trade, the traveller may of choice turn to the by-ways and hedges. Not that he hates the wider track, but he may also love the less frequented, narrower paths, which carry him into nooks and glades, whence, after shorter or longer detours, he reaches the highway again. Not only has he been refreshed, but he has won, by forsaking the main road, a fuller appreciation of its worth.

Originally written in 1913 for serial publication, the papers collected in this volume were designed with some unity of plan. Branching off the main line of Hebraic development, there are many by-paths of the kind referred to above—by-paths leading to pleasant places, where it is a delight to linger[Pg 6] for a while. Some of the lesser expressions of the Jewish spirit disport themselves in those out-of-the-way places. Though oft neglected, they do not deserve to be treated as negligible.

None can surely guide another to these places. But the first qualification of a guide, a qualification which may atone for serious defects, is that he himself enjoys the adventure. In the present instance this qualification may be claimed. For the writer has turned his attention chiefly to his own favorites, choosing books or parts of books which appealed to him in a long course of reading, and which came back to him with fragrant memories as he set about reviewing some of the former intimates of his leisure hours. The review is not formal; the method is that of the causerie, not of the essay. Some of the books are of minor value, curiosities rather than masterpieces; in others the Jewish interest is but slight. Yet in all cases the object has been to avoid details, except in so far as details help even the superficial observer to get to the author’s heart, to place him in the history of literature or culture. Not quite all the authors noted in this volume were Jews—the past tense is used because it was felt best

to include no writers living when the volume was compiled. It seemed,[Pg 7] however, right that certain types of non-Jewish workers in the Hebraic field ought to find a place, partly from a sense of gratitude, partly because, without laboring the point, the writer conceives that as all cultures have many points in common, so it is well to bear in mind that many cultures have contributed their share to produce that complex entity—the Jewish spirit. Complex yet harmonious, influenced from without yet dominated by a strong inner and original power, the Jewish spirit reveals itself in these by-paths as clearly as on the main line.

But, though some such general idea runs through the volume, it was the author’s intention to interest rather than instruct, to suggest the importance of certain authors and books, perhaps to rouse the reader to probe deeper than the writer himself has done into subjects of which here the mere surface is touched. The writer could have added indefinitely to these papers, but this selection is long enough to argue against extending it, at all events for the present.

Having decided to stray into the by-paths, it sometimes became necessary to resist the temptation to turn to the main road. This necessity accounts for another fact. Fewer books are treated[Pg 8] of the older period. For the older period is dominated by Bible and Talmud, and these were ex hypothesi outside the range. So, too, the scholastic masterpieces and the greater products of mysticism and law are passed over. Yet, though the writer did not consciously start with such a design, it will be seen that accidentally a great fact or two betray themselves. One is that, in the Jewish variety, technical learning can never be wholly dissociated from what we more commonly name literature. Some books which, at first sight, are merely the expression of scholarly specialism are seen, on investigation, to belong to culture in the æsthetic no less than in the rational or legal sense. Again, there becomes apparent the vital truth that Jewish thought, dependent as it always has been on environment, is also independent. For we see how Jews in the midst of Hellenistic absolutism

remained pragmatical, how under the medieval devotion to a stock-taking of the past Jews were to a certain extent creative, and how the modernist tendency to disintegration was resisted by an impulse towards constructiveness.

But, to repeat what has already been indicated, the author had no such grave intentions as these. Many of the papers appeared in a popular weekly,[Pg 9] the London Jewish World, the editor of which kindly conceded to the writer the privilege of collecting them into a book. Some, however, were specially written for this volume. All have been considerably revised, in the effort to make them more worthy of the reader’s attention. The writer feels that this effort, despite the valuable help rendered by Dr. Halper while the proofs were under correction, has been imperfectly successful. The papers can have little in them to deserve attention. Nevertheless there is this to be urged. Some of the topics raised are apt to be ignored. Yet it is not only from the outstanding masterpieces of literature that we may learn wisdom and derive pleasure. “A small talent,” said Joubert, “if it keeps within its limits and rightly fulfils its task, may reach the goal just as well as a greater one.” This remark may be applied to what may seem to many the minor products of genius or talent. Hence,

be they termed minor or major, the books discussed in this volume were worthy of consideration. Beyond doubt most of them belong to the category of the significant and some of them even attain the rank of the epoch-making. And so, without further preface, these papers are offered to those familiar as well as to those unfamiliar with the[Pg 10] works themselves. For to both classes may be applied the Latin poet’s invocation: “Now learn ye to love that loved never; and ye that have loved, love anew.”

[Pg 11]

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg 15]

[Pg 17]

PART I

Part I THE STORY OF AHIKAR

We are happily passing out of the critical obsession, under which it was a sign of ignorance to attribute a venerable age to the records of the past. All the old books were written yesterday, or at earliest the day before! Facts, however, are stubborn; and facts, as they come to light, justify and re-affirm our fathers’ faith in the antiquity of the world’s literature. The story of Ahikar is a good illustration.

In the course of the Book of Tobit more than once Achiachar or Ahikar is mentioned. These allusions are verbal only, but in one scene the reference is more precise. The pious Tobit on his death-bed bids his son “consider what Nadab (Nadan) did to Achiachar, who brought him up” (14. 10).

What did Nadan do, and who was Ahikar? It is only within recent years that a complete answer has become possible to these questions. The older commentators on the Apocrypha were much worried by the allusion, and had to be content with the[Pg 18] blindest guesses. Some versions of Tobit had, in place of the words quoted above, the following: “Consider how Aman treated Achiachar, who brought him up.” Hence the suggestion arose that the reference was to Haman and Mordecai. But the Book of Esther does not hint that Mordecai had “brought up” Haman, and was then repaid by the latter’s ingratitude.

But in 1880, G. Hoffmann discovered the clue. He recognized that Tobit’s references were paralleled in a story found in Æsop’s Fables and in the Arabian Nights, but much more fully recorded in the Story of Ahikar preserved in several versions, such as Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian. The story, briefly told in those fuller records, is as follows:

The hero is Ahikar. The name probably means something like My Brother is Precious, or A Brother of Preciousness, or possibly (as Dr. Halper suggests) A Man of Honor. He was grand vizier of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Noted for wisdom as for statesmanship, he rose to a position of the highest dignity and wealth. But he had no son. He, accordingly, adopted his infant nephew Nadan, and reared him with loving care. He furnished him with eight nurses, fed him on honey, clothed him in fine linen and silk, and[Pg 19] made him lie on choice carpets. The boy grew big, and shot up like a cedar; whereupon Ahikar started to teach him book-lore and wisdom. Nadan was introduced to the king, who readily agreed to regard the youth as his minister’s son, and made promise of future favors to one in whom his faithful vizier was so much interested. The narrative then breaks off to give in detail the wise maxims which Ahikar sought to instil into Nadan; maxims which have parallels in many literatures, including the rabbinic. Now, Ahikar was grievously mistaken in the character of his

nephew. Nadan seemed to listen to his uncle’s wisdom, but all the while considered his monitor a dotard and a bore. The young man began to reveal his true disposition; his cruelties to man and beast were such that Ahikar protested, and offended Nadan by preferring a brother of the latter. Nadan, in revenge, plotted Ahikar’s downfall. By means of forged letters, the old vizier was condemned for treachery, though the executioner, mindful of a similar act of mercy previously shown to himself, secretly spared Ahikar’s life. Nor was the day distant when Sennacherib bewailed the loss of Ahikar’s services. Menacing messages came from Egypt of a kind which it needed an Ahikar to deal with. To the[Pg 20] king’s joy, Ahikar was brought out from his hiding-place; he was again taken to court, and despatched to Egypt.

Here, once more, the narrative is interrupted to tell the details of these Egyptian experiences; how Ahikar satisfied the Pharaoh’s plan of “raising a castle betwixt heaven and earth” by placing boys on the backs of eaglets, and how he countered the puzzling questions of the Egyptian sages. Thus, bidden to weave a rope out of sand, he bored five holes in the eastern wall of the palace, and when the sun entered the holes he sprinkled sand in them, and “the sun’s furrow (path) began to appear as if the sand were twined in the holes.” Then, again, the king of Egypt ordered that a broken upper millstone should be brought in. “Ahikar,” said the king, “sew up for us this broken millstone.” Ahikar, who throughout tells his story in the first person, was not daunted. “I went and brought a nether millstone, and cast it down before the king, and said to him: My lord the king, since I am a stranger here, and have not the tools of my craft with me, bid the cobblers cut me strips from this lower millstone which is the fellow of the upper millstone; and

forthwith I will sew it together.” The king laughed. Ahikar scored all[Pg 21] round, and returned home to Assyria laden with the revenues of Egypt.

The third part of the story relates how Nadan was given over to Ahikar. His uncle bound him with iron chains, and “struck him a thousand blows on the shoulders and a thousand and one on his loins”; and while Nadan was thus imprisoned in the porch of the palace door, living on “bread by weight and water by measure,” being compelled willy-nilly to listen, Ahikar proceeded with further lessons in wisdom. “My son,” he says, “he who does not hear with his ears, they make him to hear with the scruff of his neck.” Then there follow many wonderful parables, which (as with the maxims) are similar to those in many literatures. “Thereat,” ends the tale, “Nadan swelled up like a bag, and died. And to him that doeth good, what is good shall be recompensed; and to him that doeth evil, what is evil shall be rewarded. But he that diggeth a pit for his neighbor, filleth it with his own stature. And to God be glory, and His mercy be upon us. Amen.”

What was the original of this story? Nothing in the romance of its incidents, or in the marvel of the spread of it and its maxims and its incorporated fables throughout the folk-lore of humanity, exceeds[Pg 22] the dramatic fact that a large fragment of the tale, in Aramaic, has been found in Egypt among other Jewish papyri of the fifth century before the Christian era! The discovery proves many things, among them two being most significant. First, the Ahikar story is far older than people used to think, and thus the theory that the story of Ahikar was invented to explain the reference in Tobit is once for all disproved. Second, it is at least tenable that the original language was Aramaic and the story Jewish. Here, at all events, we have unquestionable evidence that there must have been among the Jews, nearly 2,400 years ago, an impulse towards that species of popular tale which so deeply affected the literature and poetry of the world. Ahikar, it has even been suggested, is the ultimate source of at least one of the New Testament parables. But, more generally, now that we

know that the story of Ahikar was at so early a date current among Jews, we shall be more plausibly able to justify the belief, long ago held by some, that Aesop and other similar collections of fables do truly come from Jewish originals. At any rate, ancient Jewish parallels must have been in circulation.

[Pg 23]

So much for the main results of the discovery. Small details of interest abound. Tobit bade his son: “Pour out thy bread and thy wine on the graves of the righteous (4. 17).” All sorts of changes have been suggested in the text. But the saying is found in the versions of Ahikar, and may be accepted as genuine. It is not necessarily a pagan rite; it has analogy with the funeral meal which long prevailed (and still prevails) as a Jewish custom. Even more interesting seems another detail (of the Syriac Version), which the writers on the books of Ahikar and Tobit have overlooked. When Tobit’s son starts on his quest, his dog goes with him. This is a remarkable touch. Nowhere else in ancient Jewish literature does the dog appear as man’s companion. Nowhere else? Yes, in one other place—in the story of Ahikar. “My son,” says the vizier to Nadan, “strike with stones the dog that has left his own master and followed after thee.” Here we see the dog regarded as a comrade, to be forcibly discouraged if he show signs

of infidelity. There must have been a period, therefore, when the olden Jews considered the dog in a light quite other than that which afterwards became usual.

[Pg 24]

PHILO ON THE “CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE”

Much depends on the mood of the hour. Maimonides, in his Eight Chapters and in the opening section of his Code, acutely remarks that though excess in any moral direction is vicious, nevertheless it may be necessary for a man to practise an extreme in order to bring himself back from the other extreme into the middle path of virtue. Or, to use another phrase of the same philosopher, it is with the soul as with the body. To adjust the equilibrium it is proper to apply force on the side opposite to that which is over-balanced.

Hence it is not surprising to find Philo speaking, as it were, with two voices on the subject of the ascetic life. In the Alexandria of his day there was at one time prevalent a cult of self-renunciation. This cult had special attraction for the young and fashionable. They joined ascetic societies, and, in the name of religion, abandoned all participation in worldly affairs. Philo denounced these boyish millionaire recluses in fine style.[Pg 25] Wealth was not to be abused, true; it was, however, to be used. “Shun not the world, but live well in it,” he cried. Do not avoid the festive board, but behave like gentlemen over your wine. It is all beautifully said, though I have modernized Philo’s terms somewhat. “Be drunk with sobriety” is, however, one of Philo’s very own phrases.

But there is this other side to consider. Alexandria was the very hotbed of luxury and extravagance. People speak about the inequalities of modern civilization, and seem to imagine that it is a new thing for a slum and a palace to exist side by side. But this was exactly the condition in Alexandria at about the beginning of the Christian era. Its busy and gorgeous bazaars, as Mr. F. C. Conybeare has said, blazed with products and wares imported and designed to tickle the palates and adorn the persons of the aristocracy. The same marts had another aspect, narrow and noisy, foul with misery and disease. Wealth and vice rubbed shoulders. Passing through such scenes, Philo might well be driven to see the superiority of asceticism over indulgence. Religion after all is renunciation. Idolatry, said Philo, dwarfs a man’s soul, Judaism enlarges it. Idolatry may be compatible with “strong wine and dainty dishes,” Judaism[Pg 26] prefers a meal of bread and hyssop. In speaking thus, Philo reminds us of the Pharisaic saying: “A morsel with

salt shalt thou eat, and water drink by measure, thou shalt sleep upon the ground, and live a life of painfulness, the while thou toilest in the Torah” (Pirke Abot 6. 4.). The association of “plain living” with “high thinking” could not be more emphatically expressed.

Few scholars nowadays doubt the Philonean authorship of the treatise “On the Contemplative Life.” Conybeare, Cohn and Wendland have convinced us all, or nearly all, that the work is really Philo’s. At first sight, no doubt, it was easier to suppose that the book was not his. It seems too cordial in its praise of seclusion, and comes too near the monastic spirit. But the Essenes were Jewish enough, and Philo’s Therapeutae are essentially like the Essenes. “Therapeutae” is a Greek word which literally means “Servants,” and was used to denote “Worshippers of God.” The community of Therapeutae, according to Philo’s description, was settled upon a low hill overlooking Lake Mareotis, not far from Alexandria. We need not go into details. These people adopted a severely simple life, each dwelling alone, spending the day in his private “holy room,” passing the hours[Pg 27] without food, but occupied with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. On the Sabbath, however, they abandoned their isolation, and met in common

assembly, to listen to discourses. The “common sanctuary” was a double enclosure, divided by a wall of three or four cubits, so as to separate the women from the men. Women formed part of the audience, “having the same zeal and following the same mode of life,” all practising celibacy. Men and women alike, or at least the most zealous of them, well-nigh fasted throughout the week, “having accustomed themselves, as they say the grasshoppers do, to live upon air; for the song of these, I suppose, assuages the feeling of want.” Their Sabbath meal was held in common, for they regarded “the seventh day as in a manner all holy and festal,” and, therefore, “deem it worthy of peculiar dignity.” The diet, however, “comprises nothing expensive, but only cheap bread; and its relish is salt, which the dainty among them prepare with hyssop; and for drink they have water from the spring.” For, continues Philo, “they propitiate the mistresses Hunger and Thirst, which nature has set over mortal creatures, offering nothing that can flatter them,