Page:B20442294.djvu/353

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JUDAISM
325

is unreal, insecure in German commerce, is the result of the Jewish speculative interest.

The erotics of the Jew are sentimentalism, and their humour is satire. Perhaps examples may help to explain my interpretation of the Jewish character, and I point readily to Ibsen's King Hakon in the "Pretenders," and to his Dr. Stockmann in "The Enemy of the People." These may make clear what is for ever absent in the Jew. Judaism and Christianity form the greatest possible contrasts; the former is bereft of all true faith and of inner identity, the latter is the highest expression of the highest faith. Christianity is heroism at its highest point; Judaism is the extreme of cowardliness.

Chamberlain has said much that is true and striking as to the fearful awe-struck want of understanding that the Jew displays with regard to the person and teaching of Christ, for the combination of warrior and sufferer in Him, for His life and death. None the less, it would be wrong to state that the Jew is an enemy of Christ, that he represents the anti-Christ; it is only that he feels no relation with Him. It is strong-minded Aryans, malefactors, who hate Jesus. The Jew does not get beyond being bewildered and disturbed by Him, as something that passes his wit to understand.

And yet it has stood the Jew in good stead that the New Testament seemed the outcome and fine flower of the Old, the fulfilment of its Messianic prophecies. The polar opposition between Judaism and Christianity makes the origin of the latter from the former a deep riddle; it is the riddle of the psychology of the founder of religions.

What is the difference between the genius who founds a religion and other kinds of genius? What is it that has led him to found the religion?

The main difference is no other than that he did not always believe in the God he worships. Tradition relates of Buddha, as of Christ, that they were subject to greater temptations than other men. Two others, Mahomet and Luther, were epileptic. Epilepsy is the disease of the