New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-04-09

ancestors. wild boars. had been the to-
tens of their forefathers. In the person
of Ralaam's beIabored and somewhat
overworked assistant our author comes
upon a precious find. an echo. of course.
OF the worship OF the ass considered as
an oracular animal The idea Of taboo
common 10 all primitive races has left
numerous vestiges i'm the religion Of
Israel. The tree Of Paradise was taboo
God forbade man to eat the fruit thereof
without saying why. and the penalty Of
disobedience was death. If we find that
Adam. after disregarding the taboo. did
not die il is because the present text in
Genesis Is compilation from earlier
documents. one Of whic'. probably re
corded the sudden death Of the first
man. Imperatives OF taboo applied like
wise 10 the ark Of the covenant TO spoils
IF war. TO parturients and corpses. The
Sabbath also was taboo. an unlucky day.
much as Friday is 10 some superstitious
moderns. Here. says the author. we are
at the genesis Of morals. and if taboo is
the principle Of morality and decency,
all honor 20 taboo!
When We reach the chapters dealing
With Judaism and Christianity II is the
encyclopaedia rather than the antiGuary
who attempts to guide us. There is the
same alert imagination as before. with
the difference shat the material is less
under control. for. while the biblio-
graphical references are MANY, the
sources from which the author draws
are comparatively few. The heartness
with which he acknowledges the moral
preciousness OF the Hebrew prophets
goes we'll with his regard for the fine
intepretative insight of James Darn
steter. The Bible. he thinks. has done
much harm by furthering fanaticism.
Yet. on The whole. II has done more
good than harm. ut was the Bible,
not the somewhat disdainfui philos-
ophy OF Greco, which was the first
educative force in Europe. which pre-
Jared her TO assimiate Hellenism after
the Renaissance, which BY opening
wider vistas before her, has gradually
enable her 10 dispense with its guild
ance." Touching on the viCissitudes of
the Hebrews through the latest rigors
of anti-semitism, the author deplores
the fact that, in France. after the re-
Mobilization of Captain Dreyfus, preju-
dice has reappeared in all classes of So
ciety. and now a Jew who aspires to
position Of any sort requires greater
talent and more strenuous efforts than
his fellows of other confessions.
The upshot of NJ. Reinach's inquiry
regarding the New Testament and other
carly Christian literature it that not
even the elements Of a reliable biography
Of Jesus are available. This is to for
sake the consensus of critical scholar
ship, but it is the most radical opinion
that usually gets the vote and any fail
ure on the part of a book in the Bible
TO substantiate some traditional claim
about its authorship is quite enough TO
brand the document a forgery. True,
brand the documents scattered through
out the Roman Empire by 100 A. d. and
the religion remains not only a great
institution. but the mightiest spiritual
force which has ever transformed souls,
a force which continues to evolve them"
AS for St Paul, having superimposed
theology on life he can be awarded only
scant praise. the perpetuator of archaic
errors Of redemption and expiation. and
the promoter of eighteen centuries of
Grid discussion. Nor is there any Tyr
zeal expansion over ecclesiastical Chris
tianity with its councils and forged
decretals. its fanatical crusades and san
culinary inquisitions. its burning OF
witches and marrying OF heretics and Its
persistent diffusion of dogmatic dark
ness on the contrary, NJ. Reinach
quickly turns toreador at the mention OF
a Papal bull. and his chronicle is ever
much mixed with indictment. OF the
orthodox church responsible for the de-
terioration of the Greek people, he says:
1T familiarizes them from their earliest
youth with horrible color daubs which IT
calls icons. with drawing and nasal
voices, with stories of the saints which
are an outrage on reason. The modern
Greeks are no artists; they cannot sing
In tune and they have not yet given
a man Of genius to the world" To
deny, entirely, the excellence of the
medieval church would, he saws, be
making a miracle of its duration. The
church did proclaim a gospel whose
principles without much support from
Christian practice, served as a check on
barbarism; IL gave TO Europe the ex
ternal forms Of Christianity. II fos-
tered art: il affirmed. in words at least,
the superiority of the spirit to mere
brute force and IL upheld the doctrine
Of the equality OF all men before God.
II NJ. Reinach prefers the frank athe
ism Of Diderot TO the Opportunist deism
of Voltaire. and dissents roundly from
the view held by the latter OF religion as
due to priestly imposture, he neverthe-
less frequently recalls that beguiling
penman in wizardry of phrase and in a
slightly mischievOus inadequacy of de-
tail. Could anything be more in the
masters manner than this comment on
the priority I'm composition Of the code of
Hammurabi over that Of the Ten Com
mandments: If. then, this latter was
dictated by God to Moses, God must
have pagiarized from Hammurabi."
The prophecy OF Daniel is called a lit
that the Book of Daniel belongs to
group of Jewish apocaly pses whose liter
AIRY form required the invoking of ven
cradle names, much in the way that NJ
Reinach's fascinating book is called
after Orpheus. st. augustine is made 10