CHAPTER III.
the reformed jews
Sappho, implies Mr. Pope, at her “toilette’s greasy task,” is quite a different individual to “Sappho fragrant at an evening mask.” Just as much does the Jew of the West-end, the Jew of society, rich and cultivated, the Jew who gives good dinners, drives in a faultless brougham, on whose fingers diamonds sparkle, differ from the Houndsditch Jew, toiling along painfully under a load of ol’ clo’ considerably the worse for wear, or smoking bad cigars in the Effingham Saloon. In the same way do the synagogues of the West differ from those of the East. In place of that in Portland Street, the Jews have erected a gorgeous one, towards which the Rothschild family have subscribed 4000l. Those in the Haymarket and at Bayswater and Islington are clean and comfortable, and that in Margaret Street is especially so.
On Saturdays service commences there at ten and terminates at one. Let us go there. As you enter, of course you face the ark. On each side benches, well cushioned, are placed. On the right of the ark is a pulpit. In the middle is the raised platform for the readers and the rabbi, the Rev. Mr. Marks. There is a gallery facing the pulpit, in which is an organ, an innovation of which the orthodox do not approve, as it implies Sabbath labour, and there is another innovation I dare say equally shocking. Actually in the side galleries appropriated to ladies you can see them. People of an uncharitable turn often insinuate that so many young men attend at such or such a church that they may see the ladies. I don’t think the fact that you can see them in Margaret Street Synagogue adds materially to the male congregation. Yet Hebrew maidens, some of them, have been and are beautiful as any whose names have come echoing down to us along “the corridors of time.” However, if the Christian stranger should let his eyes wander thitherward he is to be forgiven. Hebrew is a difficult tongue to follow if you are ignorant of it, and, save where there is no singing, which is very fine, the reading of the prayers is not very impressive. Nor do the gentlemen around, all wearing black hats and silk scarfs over the coat, appear to be much impressed. They sit with their prayer-books in their hands, in appearance as calm and unmoved as real West-end Christians of unquestioned respectability. At a certain interval the ark is unlocked, the roll of the law is taken reverently to the platform, where it is uplifted on all sides that all may see it, and then, when the reader has finished, it is borne back and deposited in the ark as formally and reverently as it was taken out. After a little while, as you begin to weary, one of the individuals on the platform leaves it. He wears a black gown and bands, he ascends the pulpit and preaches with his hat on; that is the Rev. Mr. Marks. He is thought much of by the younger and more educated Jews. As a preacher, much is to be said in his favour: he is short, he delivers himself well, his style of address is popular, and he gives many an Old Testament lesson. He demands of Abraham’s descendants Abraham’s faith in God, and obedience to Him. The Christian, of course, misses much. We worship a Messiah who has come; the Jews still, with sad and weary eyes, look onward, waiting His advent. Wherever civilization and science go hand in hand, wherever humanity reaps “the long results of time,” whether in the old world or the new, wherever the great Caucasian race multiplies and nourishes, there, more or less, is there a living faith in the mission of Christ as a Divine teacher, as the comforter of human sorrow, as the healer of human woe, as the model for all to follow who aspire upwards to heaven and to God. In Europe there are 280 millions of Christians, and but very few of Jews. Everywhere they are an immense minority.
“The cedars wave on Lebanon,
But Judah’s statelier maids are gone.”
The Jews are not a proselyting people, but they are becoming increasingly anxious that the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should not forsake the God of their fathers; and about thirty years ago certain of the London Jews agitated for a reformed mode of worship, as they deemed, more in accordance with the circumstances of their brethren in this age and clime. They argued that there is much that is local in the Jewish ritual, and much that is inapplicable now; that the people in consequence would fall away unless a reformed mode of worship was introduced. I do not think the Reformers have made as much progress as they anticipated, though to a stranger they certainly appear to have not merely modified, but improved the service. The Prayer-book was carefully revised, an improved ritual was drawn up by blending the beautiful portions of the Portuguese and German Liturgies, a choir was formed for the purpose of inspiring devotional feeling by means of solemn song. In the old orthodox synagogues the custom of calling up persons to read the law for the sake of presenting their offerings during divine service, often interferes with the edification of the assembly, according to the Jewish reformers, and this also they omit. Furthermore, they decline to recognise as sacred, days which are evidently not ordained as such in Scripture. It must be remembered the Jew of the Restoration is much more of a formalist than the Jew of David’s and Solomon’s time, that the rabbis returned after the captivity laden with Babylonian learning, and that a new school arose. In his sermon on the opening of his new place of worship in 1842, Mr. Marks said, on behalf of himself and people, “We must as our conviction urges us solemnly deny that a belief in the divinity of the traditions contained in the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmuds is of equal obligation to the Israelite with the faith in the divinity of the law of Moses. We know that these books are human compositions, and though we are content to accept with reverence from our past Biblical ancestors advice and instruction, we cannot unconditionally accept their laws.” “On all hands,” continued Mr. Marks, “it is conceded that an absolute necessity exists for the modification of our worship, but no sooner is any important improvement proposed than we are assured of the sad fact that there is not at present any authority competent to judge in such matters for the whole house of Israel. Now, admitting this as a truth (since the extinction of the right of ordination has rendered impossible the convocation of a Sanhedrim, whose authority shall extend over all Jewish congregations), does it not follow as a necessity that every Hebrew congregation must be authorized to take such measures as shall bring the divine service into consonance with the will of the Almighty, as explained to us in the law and the prophets?” To the force of this reasoning the Jews as a body remain impervious, and though time has mitigated the angry feeling which the Reformers created, as Reformers always do, and no longer do the chief men of the orthodox Jews issue warnings against the Reformers, who from the first professed their love to the old synagogues and their desire to continue connected with them in works of charity, yet the new community is by no means cordially received and sanctioned by the old. Nor can we expect it to be otherwise. The more men have in common, the smaller is the difference between them, the more, often, is the ill-will with which they regard each other. The eye of the true theologian is of a wonderfully magnifying character. As he looks, a little rivulet expands into an impassable gulf, and a molehill becomes a mountain. What bitter things have been said, what fierce passions have been aroused, what martyrs have had to die and survivors to weep, because of what seemed to cool observers trifles light as air!
Yet, after all, there is a danger. If rationalist principles prevail, and the Old Testament be a series of myths or allegories, why still retain the ritualist law in all its strictness? and if that goes the whole system goes. Pious Jews find all society against them; its spirit, its customs, its literature, all hostile, if not to their nation, at any rate to their faith. In too many cases they perceive that those who forsake the religion of their forefathers are but little the better for doing so. They find that those who begin by laughing at rabbinical absurdities end by despising the Word of God. A Hebrew infidel, an infidel among the Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants, writes a Jewish author already quoted, “is indeed a frightful and portentous phenomenon,” and thus the more sensitive and conservative amongst them shrink from in any way modifying their ritual in accordance with what is termed the spirit of the age. Christians have no idea of the earnestness of spirit, of the striving after conformity to the law of God, of the devout Jew, or of the great and grand truths which he extracts from observances or forms in which they can see no meaning. The Jew is fond of pleasure, fond of show, fond of jewellery and gorgeous dress, and on his Sabbath rarely exhibits a very devout appearance; nevertheless his religion requires daily observances from his birth upwards, which can only be carried out by means of a living faith. In the first place his religion is an expensive one, and he must pay in various ways very heavily for its support. It is true many of the observances required have become obsolete, but on the Sabbath he has much to go through at home, as well as to attend at the synagogue and to abstain from all worldly occupations. After the third day of the month every strict Jew either alone or with a number of his co-religionists must make the salutation of the moon. Then every month has certain days to be kept, especially in October, their new year, on the first and second days. It is believed that the destiny of every individual is determined on this month by the Creator Himself; that those whose demerits preponderate are sealed to death, those whose merits preponderate to life, and those whose merits and demerits are equal are delayed until the day of atonement. The first ten days of their new year are ten days of repentance, during which the Israelites are to repent and confess their sins, pray to the Almighty to write them down in the book of life, and grant them a happy new year. On the seventh day every one has a branch of willow procured under the superintendence of the officers of the synagogue, and all repair there with branches in their hands. The last of these days is the Day of Atonement, and is religiously kept by every Jew. On the 15th is the Feast of Tabernacles, on which the Jews are expected to live in booths, but in this country the rule is not strictly observed. In April is the most important of all the festivals – that of the Passover and of unleavened bread, when the doors of the house are left open for all, even the very poorest of the poor. In June is held the feast of Pentecost, to commemorate the giving of the law. The synagogues on that occasion are decorated with flowers, and in their houses the tables and floors are also dressed with flowers, sweet briar, and other fragrant herbs. A conscientious Jew must have a life of intense labour and self-denial, nor can he evade his duties nor impose them on another. How welcome to them of old must have been the Master’s kindly words, “Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, and ye shall find peace unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” To appreciate these words aright you must fancy yourself a Jew, weighed down to the earth by the daily routine of painful ceremonial and the rigid requirements of inelastic law.
CHAPTER IV.
the greek church
In the dark ages of Christianity, when the zeal and purity of the early professors and martyrs of the new creed had died away; when Constantine, anxious to fix his throne on a permanent basis, entered into an alliance with priests and bishops, not satisfied with the humble position assigned them in the Church, only by courtesy at that time to be called Apostolical; there was a revival of an old abuse, or rather, of a Pagan principle – the alliance of Church and State. Dr. Arnold, the truest Churchman in modern times, believed that the national conversions to Christianity, which then became the fashion, were productive of immense evil. This is the opinion long held by Dissenters, and latterly by an increasing number of independent inquirers. If so, Constantine was an arch-heretic; for surely, when Christ had taught that His kingdom was not of this world, it was heresy to disbelieve it, and, in the very teeth of such a declaration, to introduce an ecclesiastical system founded upon compulsion, ignoring altogether the Divine power of Christianity, and assuming that it could only be maintained by the sword and pay of the State.
Constantine’s empire has vanished, but his Church remains; and it speaks to us, as Dean Stanley says, in the only living voice which has come down to us from the Apostolic Church: the State Churches of Europe, including even the pretentious one at Rome, are but its children. It is the pattern and model for them all. Greek was the original tongue of the early Christians. It was at Antioch, a Greek city, the birthplace of Ignatius, of Chrysostom, of John of Damascus, that they were first called by the name which now denotes the noblest form of human development. In the Old World or the New, the Councils to which Churchmen in all ages have referred, as of equal, or almost of equal, authority with the Bible, were Eastern. In them the Pope of Rome was considered but as a Bishop in the midst of his equals. The great fathers of the Church wrote in Greek. Dean Stanley says, the earliest fathers of the Western Church, Clemens, Irenæus, Hermas, Hippolytus, did the same. St. Mark first preached his Gospel at Alexandria. St. John established a school at Ephesus, and Polycarp at Smyrna. The very word theology, as Dean Stanley remarks, arose from the peculiar questions agitated in the East. If there be such a thing as apostolical succession, the Greek Church has it. To this day, the English Church owes much to the East; the direction for holding of Easter is of Alexandrian origin, and on every Sunday, in the “Kyrie Eleison,” the “Gloria in Excelsis,” in part of the “Te Deum,” and the prayer of St. Chrysostom, English Churchmen borrow from the service of the Church of Constantine. In Queen Elizabeth’s time it was enacted that the Councils of Nicæa, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon were equally judges of heresy as the High Court of Parliament with the assent of the English clergy in their Convocation. No wonder, in these days, when Churchmen are prone to rely on Church claims rather than on Bible teaching – when, of little faith, and timid as to the future, they trust rather to hazy traditions than to living truths – no wonder the Greek Church has become to them an object of special reverence; that they long to form a union with it. Though proud of its superiority, it regards them as little better than Roman Catholics – Roman Catholics as a Greek once said to the writer, without the Pope.
The oldest creed we have is Greek. The pious forgeries of our Church historians are enough to make a candid inquirer a thorough sceptic as to all they say; but we may still give some credit to Eusebius of Cæsarea, the father of ecclesiastical history. He tells us he read his creed before the Council of Nicæa. It was the same, he said, that he had learnt in his childhood from his predecessors, during the time that he was a catechumen, and at his baptism; and which he had taught for many years as a presbyter and bishop. It had been approved of by the Emperor Constantine, and would have been carried had not there appeared a probability of its being accepted by Arius and his partisans – a consummation which, in the opinion of the majority, would have had a disastrous effect, would have promoted union, would have saved many from the sin of schism, would have allowed the energies of the Church to have been directed to the conversion of the world rather than to internal squabbles, would have relieved Constantine from the stain and guilt and shame of having recourse to the sword to repress religious opinion. The Council of Nicæa cared for none of these things; all they wanted was victory, and so the earliest Christian creed was rejected by the Church. It was as follows: —
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things, both visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only begotten Son, the Firstborn of every creature, begotten of the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were made; Who, for our salvation, was incarnate, and lived amongst men, and suffered and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the Father; and shall come in glory to judge the quick and the dead; and I believe in one Holy Ghost. Believing each of them to be, and to have existed, the Father only, only the Father and the Son, only the Son and the Holy Ghost, only the Holy Ghost.”
Instead of this, but on it, the Nicene Creed was framed, and this creed is still the bond of union in all the Churches of the East. We have corrupted it, and as Dean Stanley remarks, “every time we recite the creed in its present altered form, we have departed from the intention of the fathers of Nicæa, and incurred deprecation and excommunication at the hands of the fathers of Ephesus.” In the heart of London the Greeks have a place of worship. You feel interested as you enter. In the tongue in which you hear the Gospel there read, the Gospel was first proclaimed. Peter, Paul, John, spoke just such language as that you hear. Ever since the Master left the earth has Sunday after Sunday, and year after year, this Greek Church met in Syria in remembrance of Him. In many things the Church of Constantine was less assuming than that of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth. Where in our Prayer-book we have, “I absolve thee,” the Greeks say, “The Lord absolve thee.” Where the English Church says, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” the Greek more humbly and Scripturally offers up a prayer for the Divine blessing. In other ways also they differ: they have no organs; the congregation stands all the time of service; their baptism consists of three immersions, and laying on of hands; they administer extreme unction, offer prayers for the dead, and allow infant communion; they have no organized hierarchy; their clergy are married, and their laity have a considerable amount of power. They pride themselves on their orthodoxy, and are very bitter against the doctrine of the double procession – that is, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
And now let us go to London Wall, of which the Pope, or head, is the Rev. Narcissus Morphinos, a gentleman really courteous and sincere, and indefatigable in the performance of his sacred duties. Of all the chapels in London, surely this in London Wall is the most unique. As we enter we face a recess, before which lamps are burning; in that recess is a crucifix with a lamp burning over it. In this recess is a door which is partly open, and between the door and the crucifix officiates the priest at a small table. He wears a very rich cassock, and occasionally has on his head a primitive-looking sort of hat, without a brim, and very big. I fancy there are no poor Greeks in London. On our right is a recess, in which are ladies elegantly dressed. On our left is a pulpit very rarely used, and a table at which two clerks are seated. They seem to have the performance of the service very much to themselves. There is a choir in one of the side galleries. In his recess, before the altar, the priest is engaged in praying and taking the sacrament; but every now and then he comes out. A side door opens, and a lad in a white surplice, holding an enormous lighted taper, appears. Then the priest comes from the altar, and stands on the steps. It may be to swing the censer, or to bring out the Gospels bound in silver, which almost all present come forward to kiss; or it may be, in the course of the service, some one wishes to communicate. Then, while the clerks are reading, the doors of the altar are opened, and the priest appears with a cup in his hand, which the communicant comes forward to receive. (The cup, it must be observed, contains bread and wine.) Again the priest comes forward with the crucifix, to which all bow; and last of all he comes forward and says a few simple words of edification to his faithful flock, in number, I should fancy, from two to three hundred. And this reminds us we have not yet stated where they are. Well, they are exactly opposite the altar, before which there is a vacant space well carpeted, and into which, on one or two occasions in the course of the service, the priest descends. The seats are beautifully carved, and are something like those in our cathedral stalls. Each worshipper is well fenced in by himself; and, as he stands all the time, he will find the sides very convenient for resting his arms on. Each seat is beautifully finished, as the reader can well imagine when he is told that the carving of each seat cost about eight pounds about fifteen years ago, when the chapel was first opened. There are no sittings appropriated to particular individuals, any person coming takes the first he finds vacant. All expenses are paid by the men, chiefly merchants in Finsbury Square, who subscribe on an average for the cost of the service about twenty-five pounds a year. Two gentlemen contributed eighty, and one as much as two hundred pounds, a year. The annual income of the church is stated to be 1660l., and of this 50l. or 60l. has to be paid to an English church over the way – a grievance which the Greeks, as well they may, feel deeply. There is another Greek church in London, that of the Russian Embassy, – that of course being much smaller. It cannot, I should fancy, surpass in neatness and finish this in London Wall. The Greek Church, Dean Stanley tells us, has always been unfriendly to the arts. You would not think so; the building seems just what it should be – handsome, ecclesiastical in appearance, and yet plain. On the screen, behind which is the altar, are paintings of the “Last Supper,” “The Virgin and her Child,” and a few others, intended to denote to the eye of the worshipper the great fact the worship has to commemorate. Pictures are used but as symbols, as even words themselves are, of ideas needed for human salvation.
The Greek Church protests against anything in the way of doctrine not found in the Bible. Surely it cannot claim the same sanction for its rites and ceremonies. As each worshipper entered he made the sign of the cross on his forehead and his shoulders and breast. This ceremony was repeated several times in the course of the service, the priest on more than one occasion doing the same; indeed, this seems to be the only way in which the laity join in the service. They utter no responses, they declare with one voice no creed, they raise no sacred chant or song; otherwise, they stand as it were motionless and apart; everything is done for them by the officiating priest. He comes between them and God. They speak through him and by him; without him they cannot worship the Father in heaven. Such is the theory of worship current in the Greek Church. Thus was it when the Imperial purple was worn by Constantine fifteen hundred years ago; thus it is in the reign of Queen Victoria, thus it will be, we may predict, for the Greek Church is jealous of every iota of its creed, in secula seculorum.
Well does a living writer remark, “Such as the Greek Church became on the extinction of Paganism, such, or nearly such, she seems to be now. Her missionary work has been narrow, her moral influence and control at home small, and though she has preserved a rigid continuity of doctrinal form, the principle of an ever-expanding and all-absorbing vitality has been wanting; in great cities her prelates have too frequently been the slaves of wealth and power, of courtly intrigue and political faction; in the desert her monks have become dreamy and unpractical anchorites. No lands reclaimed, no centres of agriculture and civilization created, no literature preserved, no schools founded, no human beings raised to a higher sphere of social action and duty, are to be set down to the account of the Greek Church. She is a fragment of old Byzantine civilization, as rigid and angular as the mosaics that still adorn and seem to frown down from the walls of her churches.”