of religion and revelation, of which Christianity was an organic succession. The relationship between Jews and Christians is, therefore, of a quite exceptional character. In Solov'ev's apocalyptic vision (vide infra § 148), the significance of the question is symbolically displayed when the author makes the number of the Christians exceed that of the Jews by no more than one half.
Upon his deathbed Solov'ev begged his friends to keep him awake, for he had many prayers to say on behalf of the Jews. In the complex of Russian problems, the Jewish question is one of the most momentous, and Solov'ev frequently discussed it.[1] The importance of the question for Russia depends upon the fact that there are nearly six million Jews in the country, a population equal to that of the whole state of Belgium.
To Solov'ev the Jewish problem is a Christian problem, a religious problem. Solov'ev's treatment of the Jews as pioneers of commerce and industry frequently recalls the manner in which Marx handles the question. It was not the Jews, but the Christians, who created the cult of the golden calf. Cultured Europe, which had become dechristianised, and had devoted itself to the service of mammon, was here the offender. The Jews were merely consistent in the way they followed the example thus set before them. "If economic life is to be humanised, it must be resubordinated to the religious and moral life. For Europe and for Russia this can be effected in no other way than by the great union of the churches, in which the Jews will find their place. As a theocratic nation they will be at home in the renovated theocracy; now they are estranged from themselves just as the Christians are estranged from themselves. But true Jewish principles lead to Christianity, just as true Christian principles lead to Judaism. The union of the churches, therefore, will at the same time be a union between the renovated Christians and the renovated Jews, these latter being the better part of Jewry, namely the Russian Jews, who have maintained their religious principles in greater purity than have their western brethren. The Jews as town dwellers will retain their social and economic function, but this function will assume a different meaning,
- ↑ As early as 1852, at St. Petersburg university, in his lectures to women, he discussed the universal and historical significance of Judaism, whilst at a later date he wrote upon the theme.
