It will have been observed that nothing has been said of the opinion of Maimonides about Jesus. In such of his works as the present writer has been able to consult he has found no allusion whatever. Dr. M. Friedlander, in his work on The Jewish Religion, p. 227, quotes from Maimonides, but without giving the exact reference, the following : ' Also Jesus the Nazarene, who imagined he would be the Messiah, and was killed through the court of Law, is alluded to in the Book of Daniel, as it is said, "And the sons of the transgressors among thy people vrill rise in order to establish a vision, and will stumble." Can there be a greater stumbling than this ? ' This is interesting as being more than a mere chronological note.
On the whole, the attitude of the mediaeval Rabbis towards Jesus was one of indifference. Apart from the necessity of controversy or the exposition of their own tenets, they had little in- clination or occasion to mention Him. In Him, as a man, they had no interest. Their tradition taught them that He Avas one who had ' deceived and led astray Israel,' and they would not be at the pains to show that, although not God, He was still a good man. Controversy with Christians turned mainly on the questions of His Deity and His Messiahsliip, and the Rabbis fought the battle with texts, while they left the personality alone. It is probable that the great majority of the medi- j«val Rabbis were utterly ignorant of what Jesus had said and done ; they were concerned to defend themselves against the charge of blasphemy based on the Talmud, and for that purpose worked out the chronological argument. But only one or two seem to have had the courage to read the NT ; and in studying their works, the present writer is inclined to believe that these Jewish controver- sialists had not altogether failed to perceive that Jesus was a great man. This may be a mistaken impression ; it is at least a charitable one. We sliall find in the modem historians a welcome change from the mediaeval attitude towards Jesus ; and to the consideration of those modern writers we must now proceed.
LiTBRATDBB. — ' Disputatio R. Jehielis,' ' Nizzahon Vetus,' and ' R. Isaaci Hizzuk Emunah ' in Wagenseil, Tela Ignea Satance ;
CHRIST IN JEWISH LITERATURE
881
Liher Juhasin, ed. Filippowski, London, 1857 ; also, Eisen- nieiijjer, Entdecktes Judenthuin, and incidental references as given above, where they occur.
iii. Christ in modern Jewish Literature.— So far as the modern Jewish attitude towards Jesus differs from that of the mediaeval writers, it is to he found in the works of the great his- torical scholars of the last century, and in a few utterances by liberal Jews at Mie i)resent day. Apart from tnese, the influence of whicli, however, must tend to promote a truer view of Jesus amongst Jews, the mediaeval attitude towards Him still widely prevails. New editions of the Tol'doth are still published, and find readers among the un- educated, in Russian Poland. And, as regards the educated, there is still the same cautious re- serve which so far as possible avoids mention of Jesus. The late Professor Theodores of Man- chester, in a lecture on the Talmud, delivered in 1874, took elaborate pains to show that Jesus was not referred to at all in that work. And later still. Dr. M. Friedlander, in his book on The Jewish Religion, makes only the slightest refer- ence to Jesus, and, so far as the present writer has observed, does not offer any opinion of his own upon the subject.
The first Jewish writer who fairly broke away from the traditional attitude towards Jesus was Gratz, in his Gesch. der Juden (vol. iii. 1856). He boldly declared (p. 224 n.) that in estimating Christianity the historian must take his stand on the liistorical, i.e. the critical, method. He made no apology for tlie shock which he must have given to the majority of Jews by his new departure. And he was not afraid to express high admira- tion for the character of Jesus as a man. He formed his views upon the subject mainly under the influence of Strauss and Baur, by whose help lie was enabled to put aside as unhistorical most of the non-Jewish elements in the Gospel repre- sentations of Jesus, and to emphasize the strong attinity between His teaching and Judaism. Gratz claims that Jesus was, in the main, an Essene, as the Baptist also had been ; that His whole purpose was that of a moral reformer, and that He had no intention of attacking Judaism, even the Pharisaic Judaism, as such, but only the depravity of those who professed it. Tlie objections to this view are obvious ; but the fact that Gratz presented a por- trait of Jesus in which the Jewish lines were over- drawn and the rest nearly obliterated, does not lessen his merit as the first Jew who gave a real portrait of Jesus at all. Later Jewish writers have, on the whole, followed the lead of Gratz ; some of the exaggerations of his work have been toned down, and more recognition has been given to the originality of Jesus ; but the general out- line of his work is still maintained, according to which Jesus was a high-minded and saintly Rabbi, whose fate it was to be maligned and persecuted, and whose enemies were His own professed fol- lowers quite as much as His Jewish contempo- raries.