fiore's attempt to persuade Jews to believe in the “ideal” and "heroic" character of Jesus of the Gospels is an indication, either that Mr. Montefiore is totally unaware of the present crisis in the Christian Church, due to the failure of the theologians to discover the historic Jesus; or that he must imagine his co-religionists to be in blissful ignorance of this crisis. Before the Jewish reader turns to Mr. Montefiore's books, he would do well to read the article by the Rev. R. Roberts, which appeared in the Hibbert Journal, 1909, under the title

Jesus or Christ? An Appeal for Consistency." This was in circulation about a year before the publication of the Jowett Lectures and Synoptic Gospels. Then the Hibbert Journal Supplement for 1909, arising out of the Rev. R. Roberts' article should be read, in order to enable the reader to know something about the latest views concerning Jesus. The reader will then be able to test the value of Mr. Montefiore's enthusiastic appreciation of Jesus, as well as his unfeigned contempt for the Rabbis, such as Hillel. Mr. Montefiore's words are "To his eternal dishonour Hillel said"... (S.G., p. 235). The reference should have been to the School of Hillel. Mr. Montefiore has blundered through relying on Christian scholars, ignorant of Jewish

sources.

Is it a mere accident that Loisy (Les Évangiles Synoptiques, i. p. 577) has made the same mistake about Hillel? Is it not due also to Loisy's suggestion (E.S.i. p. 634) that, in Mr. Montefiore's commentary, Hillel's negative form of the Golden Rule is alone contrasted with the positive form of the Gospel (S.G., p. 550)? There were, as we shall see, several positive forms of the Rule in the pre-Christian literature of the Jews.

The relative attitude adopted by Mr. Montefiore to the Rabbis and Jesus is summed up in the following words: Just ordinary people need, in addition to the admirable sayings and exhortations of the Rabbis, the ideal and heroic spirit which inspires the teaching of the Synoptic Gospels" (S.G., p. cv.). (S.G., p. cv.). "Admirable " suits the Rabbis, but "ideal" and "heroic" belong to Jesus. Mr. Montefiore believes not only in the historical accuracy of the Gospel story of the Crucifixion, but he even says, "Though his (Jesus') death was primarily caused by the priests and the Romans, yet doubtless some of the Rabbis in Jerusalem were also privy to his arrest and assented to his condemnation." (S.G., p. xci.)

We have already seen how impossible it is to discover in the Gospels a consistent historical narrative. Moreover, the Gospels do not even mention the Rabbis in connexion with the trial or condemnation. It has been left to the historical acumen of a "liberal Jew" to discover the complicity of the Rabbis. Some of these Rabbis had names-who were they? Although Mr. Montefiore has made good use of M. Loisy's commentary, he has failed to refer to the important essay by Wendland, which I mentioned in discussing the Gospel story of the Crucifixion. The essay-Jesus as a Saturnalian King-appeared in Hermes, 1898, pp. 175 ff. Strange to say, M. Loisy refers to Wendland. Mr. Montefiore would have done well to place all the available evidence, and the latest theories on this all-important matter, before his Jewish readers. Surely a Jew would rather learn that his ancestors and the sect of the Pharisees to which he belongs, were not implicated in the trial and condemnation of Jesus. This Mr.

Montefiore has entirely failed to do. He does not mention H. Reich's essay Der König mit der Dornen-Krone (1905), and no reference is made to Mr. W. R. Paton's article in the Zeitschrift für die Neutest. Wissenschaft (1901, pp. 339-341). Perhaps he refers to these writers when he says: "There are curious parallels to the Gospel story, into the details of which I cannot, however, enter" (S.G., p. 367). It would have been more satisfactory to have given some details of these parallels instead of implicating the Rabbis. Has Mr. Montefiore seen the essay by Rabbi Ludwig Philippson, "Haben wirklich die Juden Jesum gekreuzigt?" If he has, why does he assert without proof or reference, that the Rabbis assented to the condemnation of Jesus? What are we to say to the following passage, which speaks of a future in which "Christianity and Judaism will be able to shake hands over the Sermon on the Mount and the fundamental elements in the moral and religious doctrine of Jesus"? (Synoptic Gospels, p. cvii.) Mr. Montefiore is convinced that "Judaism has something to gain and absorb from the New Testament. There are teachings in the New Testament, and above all in the Gospels, which supplement and carry forward some essential teachings in the Old Testament. It seems true to say that for moral and religious value neither the Old Testament can dispense with the New Testament nor the New Testament with the Old Testament" (ibid., pp. cii. and ciii.). Can this standpoint endure the test of impartial criticism? Saint Augustine says: "We do wrong to the Old Testament if we deny that it comes from the same just and good God as the New. On the other hand, we do wrong to the New Testament if we put the Old on a level with it" (de

Gest. Pelag., v. 15, quoted by Bishop Gore, op. cit., p. 2). The Christian, as well as the Jew, would disagree with Mr. Montefiore, for placing the Old and New Testaments on one level. Bishop Gore writes: "We may say with truth that the Sermon on the Mount supersedes the Ten Commandments; but it supersedes them by including them in a greater, deeper, and more positive whole" (ibid.). The Christian considers the New Testament as having superseded the Old Testament; whereas the Jew believes that all the good things which he can find in the Gospels, or in the other books of the New Testament, are to be found either in the Old Testament, or else in Jewish, or Rabbinic literature.

The Jew denies that the New Testament has supplemented or carried forward the great teachings of the Old Testament, or of the Jewish literature which has grown out of the Old Testament.

Mr. Montefiore is fond of speaking of the "brilliant flash of the highest religious genius evidenced in Mark xii. 29-31, where we find the combination of Deuteronomy vi. 4, 5 with Leviticus xix. 18 (see Hibbert Journal, 1905, p. 658). In his commentary (S.G., p. 288), Mr. Montefiore remarks that the combination of the two sayings "was first effected in this way by Jesus." This is, however, not the case. The combination was effected long before the birth of Jesus by the Jew, the Pharisee, who wrote the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs :-"I loved the Lord, likewise also every man with all my heart (Test. Issachar, v. 2). Surely Mr. Montefiore will admit that this pre-Christian writer displayed the "brilliant flash of the highest religious genius" by this happy combination of the love of God and the love of man.

Apart from the excellent book of Mr. Paul Goodman, The Synagogue and the Church, there is no work in English dealing with Jewish Apologetics. There is an undoubted need of a series of scholarly books, written from the genuine Jewish standpoint, dealing with Judaism and Christianity. The excellent German writings of J. Eschelbacher, L. Bäck and J. Goldschmidt on "What is Judaism" in reply to Harnack's famous course of lectures "What is Christianity" contain good material for future books, which English Jewish scholars may produce. The valuable contributions to Jüdische Apologetik by Güdemann, and Bergmann, as well as the splendid essays by Hermann Cohen of Marburg, dealing with "Judaism and Ethics," are desiderata in Anglo-Jewish literature. Some of the books just mentioned have been published by the "Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums." When will the Anglo-Jewish Community have a similar institution, ready to publish books dealing with Judaism, its history, its doctrines and its defence? The Jew should learn something of the relation that his religion bears to Christianity. If, as it is sometimes said, Jews misinterpret Christianity; it is equally true that not a few Christians fail to understand Judaism. We can all profit by seeking after truth.

I am encouraged to believe that my efforts may be of some service to my co-religionists in helping them to meet the advances made by Missionaries of the Gospel, who suffer the "Reproach of the Gospels" to obtain among the Christians, and prefer to convert the Jew from the belief in the One God to the belief in the Trinity. I have the satisfaction of knowing that at least one