Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-05-08
Recently Before the Saint.Simon Club
of Paris-NeW Light on an
Old Question.

nsni; it is divided by politics, discouraged,
~ & Dad mood. The club il not II very great
resource. We have Eow the exhibitions and
The lectures. Every week there is some new
exhibition. Every painter Of any notoriety
exhibits in turn his ouUre. We had not long
ago the exhibition of Baudry; We have The
yearly exhibition OF the "Aquarellists;" We
have just nos the exhibition Of cid japanese
art.
The Saiut-Simou Ciu5 is now a new his
tOrlcal club, which gives a lecture 10 its
members every Saturday evening. Among
The first lecturers has been NJ. Renau, who
chose for his subject Judaism as a Race and
az a Religion" The Saint-Simon Club aims
to have lectures of a higher class than the
popular lectures of The Boulevard des Capu-
cines. The members of the club all have
some sort Of notoriety, and are familiar with
historical questions. Ii is needless to say
that 81. Renap, the author OF SO many IA
mous works on Christianity, was particularly
fl 10 speak of the Jewish race. As he
proudly said, France has no Semitic gues-
! ton; We can treat the questions concerning
Judaism zoe ely from an historical and eth
biographical point of view. France has al
ways looked on such questions from the
highest standpoint of humanity. "The work
of the nineteenth century consists in
opening all the ghettos, and I do not make
4 49, SON ~ LhOES WIZ hHA ~
them shut again"
LOCAL M RELIGIONS
NJ. Renan began by drawing a fupdamen.
tai distinction between national or local re-
ligions and universal religions. OF uniyer-
sal religions he knows only three: Buddhism,
Christianity, and Islam. There are Budd-
hists, Christians, and Mussnlmans of all
rsees. We know exactly the date of the
origin of these three religions: Buddhism
wss born 400 or 500 years before
Jesus Christ, though is great conquests came
later. Everybody knows the date of the
origin OF the other two universal religions.
The national religions are almost no mber-
less all the nations OF antiquity had their
wi religion. These local religions were
supported by patriotism, and supported it in
their turn. v national religions have sur
vived one il Parseeism, the other is Juda.
ism, which, originally at least, was the reli-
giou OF q country, the religion of Israel, of
the land OF Judah. It can be stated with
certainty that Judaism in The beginning had
the character OF a national religion. "Jeho-
yah protects Israel az Chamos, the Mosbite
god, protects Moab" What the Mosbites
thought of their god is well shown by the
inscription of King Meshs which is in the
Louvre. The King is a sort of partner of
the god; When he gains a victory ne divides
the spoils with Chamos, he thanks the god
in proportion 10 the advantages he has re-
reived. 1t is probable that the Hebrew
kings did not feel much differently. How
has this egotistic, interested religion become
universal? NJ. Rensn says that the widen
ing work, if l may 80 express il, was first be-
gun by the prophets. The prophets are the
proper glory Of L=raei. Isaiah, the most
| Mustri@as, told the Jews that all sacrl6c.s
were useless; that God must be adored with
| pure hands; the true servant of Jehovah is
the virtuous man. Religion becomes moral,
and in this way, once penetrated with the
idea Of justice, it becomes ~perfotce uni
vsrsal.
THE FOUNDERS OF CHRISTIANITY.
The founders Of Christianity were, in the
opinion of NJ. Renan, the heirs of the
prophets, the last representatives of the pro-
phetic spirit. They considered sacrifices q
mere arohaism. For him, the first founder
Of Christianity was Isaiah, who hourished
about 725 b. q. He had the conception of a
moral religion, and the vision of a sort of
golden age, without any idols, Of a perfect
kingdom, OF which Jerusslem would be the
capital. The destruction of the temple did
not destroy these hopes; on the contrary. the
century which followed this great calamity
was Tor the Hebrew genius an age of great
and marvellous expansion. As for the Jew
ish race, what became of il during the CAP
tIvIty and during the long period of the
Petsisn domination, from The year $50 B. c.
to Alexander? NJ. Renan suspects that the
race must have lost its purity: the reformers
Nehemiah and Ezra express a great horror
of NIKE marriages. The foreign element
became very important during the period of
the Greek and Roman dominatisn. NJ. R.nan
calls attention to a phrase of Jose-
phus, in his History Of the Jews Book VII,
chapter iii. Josephus speaks of the extra.
ordinary prosperity of the jews of Antioch.
and says: Having brought to their wor-
ship a great number of Hellenes, they made
them a part Of their community Here we
see a number of Greeks converted to Ju-
dsism aud going to the synagogue. It must
have been the same in Alexandria, and M.
Renan does not doubt that the Jewish Church
OF Alexandria was in a great measure re-
cruited from the Egypto-He llenic popula-
lion. Alexandria was the place where 90
many propaganda books were published
sibyliine books, false classics 10 which the
Jewish writers lent their own seRtimepts-
Pseudo- Phocylides, Pseudo-H eraclites and
otheis.
We're all the converted Jews complete
Jews' Did they only what was called in
Rome Utdm judaieam o9ere," or did they all
adopt the traditional rites of the Jewish re.
ligioni Ii is difficult to answer. What evil
dence We have is this: These men, of Greek
origin, Of Egyptian origin, VINO kept the Sab
bath, were ripe for Christian ideas; perhaps
they were even more SO than the old-tash-
Toned jews. Syria was 2 principal seat of
Jewish propasandism. Helena, the queen
of Adistene, made herself a Jew with all
her fanny. In many cases these new Jews
became perfect JeWs-the second generation
Was near! always 80. At Palmyra we zee
the same phenomenon; many inscriptions
have a pronounced Jewish character, Thu
great dyDssties of the Asmonesns and of the
Herods brought many popuistious perforce
into Judaism. Josephus, in his treatise
against Apion," sage:
Thus arose among many multitudes a desire to
adopt our worship, so that there was not a city,
either Greek or barbarian, there was not a nation
where you did not find the custom OF the Sabbath,
of fasting, Of lamps, OF the the distinctionsi in food,
which we observe. They tried also 10 initiate our
concord, our slmssiEing, our love Of work, our
courage in suffering everything for the sake of
without any attraction OF sensual dsIishts. the
law makes these miracles of Itself; and as God
penetrates the universe so has the law inAltrated
itself among all men. II anybody doubts my af-
fKmation, let him look 1t his own country and
his family.
JUDAISM BECOME A DOCTRINE.
Dion Cassius speaking of Judea, says that
its inhabitants are called Jews. II do not
know" says he, "Ihe origin Of this name, but
it applies also TO other men who have adopted
The Institutions OF this people, though they
are Of another race. And there are among
the Romans many men Of his same sort.D
Nothing can be clearer than this assertion
of Dion Cassius: the Jews primitivsly
formed q separats people, bat in his time
they had ceased to be q race-there were
Jew OF various races. Judaism had become
merely a doctrine, which had its orthodoxy
and its shades and varieties of ~heterodoxy.
There had grown up 3 miigated Judaism;
the ~spiritualism of the Jewish doctrine
attracted many more than its rigid forms
and lis rites. Still, many of the converted
became Jews IN the complete sense of the con-
diilons imposed on the descendants of Abra-
Juyenai tsAt. xiv, 90, ct se9.) shows clearly
how the fathers began with the Sabbath, and
how the sons became perfect Jews:
=" Quidam sortiti metuentem sabbath patrem
Nj praete- nubes ct cell numen adorant,
Dec oiStsre put2nt humEna caTne SULTAN,
Q1a pater asstinuit, moX ct pIBputla ponunt,
hSo1AneS auSm soliu eontemnere leges
gn1slcum eoscunt ct servant &C mortuunt jus,
1ndulolI arcAA0 QuOdcumQue VOiumIne Moses,
Ron monstrare Was, eadem nisi saera colenu,
QuSesllum al +antem solos deducere verpos.
SEQ PaLer IN eausa, cui Eeptlma quoeque tult lux
4SnaEa, ct parten vita non attigit ulIam,"
Juyenal here denounces the fanaticism of
the Jews, and shows them little inclised to
point the way to those who we're net in il.
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