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   The Kingship of Christ and The Conversion of the Jewish Nation
    by Rev. Denis Fahey, C.C.Sp.

  Chapter VII  
The Conversion of the Jewish Nation

THE TALMUDIC FORMATION AND THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS

The Talmudic formation, then, is responsible for the attitude of the Jewish nation to other nations which leads to the quite special friction they provoke. What are the characteristic traits of that formation? Let us hear them from very different sources. Mgr. Landrieux, Bishop of Dijon, France, in his excellent work, L’Histoire et les Histores dans la Bible, outlines the effect of the Talmud as follows: “It is a systematic deformation of the Bible . . . The pride of race with the idea of universal domination is therein exalted to the height of folly . . . For the Talmudist, the Jewish race alone constitutes humanity, the non-Jews are not human beings. They are of a purely animal nature. They have no rights. The moral laws which regulate the mutual relations of men, the Ten Commandments, are not of obligation in their regard. They oblige exclusively between Jews. With regard to the Goim (non-Jews) everything is allowed: robbery, fraud, perjury, murder. When, the Talmud became known, especially in the sixteenth century thanks to the invention of printing, such indignation was aroused throughout the Catholic world that a Jewish General Assembly in 1631 gave orders that the most obnoxious passages should not be printed, but added that, ‘a little circle, 0, should be put in the place of the suppressed passages. This will warn the Rabbins and the school-teachers that they are to teach these passages orally so that the learned. among the Nazarenes (Christians) may no longer have any pretext for attacking us in this regard.’ [1] In our day the Talmud does not provoke either astonishment or anger amongst Catholics, because it is no longer known.”

On the other hand, the Jewish writer, Bernard Lazare, in his well-known work, L’Antisémitisme, describes the influence of the Talmud on the mentality of his race as follows. “Without the Law, without Israel to observe it, the world would cease to exist, God would no longer continue to preserve it. The world will know happiness only when it shall be subject to this law, that is, to the rule of the Jews. Consequently the Jewish people is the people chosen by God to be the custodian of His wishes and His desires. The Jewish people is the only one with which the Divinity has concluded a pact. The Jew is the elect of the Lord. When the serpent tempted Eve, says the Talmud, he infected her with his poison. When Israel received the revelation on Sinai, the Jewish race was freed from that infection: the other nations remained subject to it . . . Israel is the specially beloved son of the Most High, the people which alone has a right to His love, His benevolence, to His special protection. The men of the other nations are in His eyes on a plane inferior to the Hebrews. It is only by a concession that they have a share in the divine munificence, since only the souls of the Jews descend from the first man. The possessions that are assigned to the other nations in reality belong to Israel . . . This belief in their predestination, in their being the object of a special predilection gave rise to a terrible pride on the part of the Jews. The result was that they looked upon non-Jews with contempt . . . The Jews thus came amongst the modern nations, not as guests but as conquerors. They were like a flock or herd that had been long penned up. When of a sudden the barriers were thrown down, they rushed into the field that had been opened to them. Now they were not warriors, and besides, it was not a propitious moment for the expedition of a relatively small force, but they succeeded in making the one conquest for which they were really armed, the economic conquest for which they had been preparing for years.” [2]

In view of the possible accusation of exaggeration, it will be well to quote another unimpeachable witness with regard to the Talmud. In his splendid work, already referred to,[3] the ex-Rabbin Drach, highly honoured and decorated for his learned works by Popes Leo XII, Pius VIII and Gregory XVI, writes as follows:“For a long time it was my professional duty to teach the Talmud and explain its doctrines, after having attended special courses for many years, under the most renowned of contemporary Jewish doctors. Now that by the grace of God I have been led to abjure its false dogmas, I can speak of it with full knowledge of its contents, as a result of my studies, but I will endeavour to do so with complete impartiality. On the one hand, I have devoted the best years of my life to the study of it, on the other hand, it means nothing to me now. I shall therefore set forth both what is good in it and what is defective.

“Talmud (more correctly Thalmud) . . . is a Hebrew word used by the Rabbins to signify ‘doctrine’ or ‘teaching.’ It designates more particularly the great body of doctrine of the Jews, to which the greatest doctors in Israel have successively contributed at different epochs. It is the complete civil and religious code of the synagogue . . . The judicious reader of the Talmud is often saddened by the presence of many of those strange aberrations into which the human mind falls when bereft of the true faith, and very frequently the baseness of rabbinical cynicism makes him blush for shame. The Christian also is horrified by the insane and atrocious calumnies which the impious hatred of the Pharisees hurls at everything he holds sacred. Nevertheless, the Christian theologian discovers useful data and precious traditions for the explanation of many difficult texts of the New Testament as well as for the purpose of convincing our religious opponents of the antiquity no less than of the holiness of Catholic teaching . . .

“The Talmud is divided into the Mischna, commonly called Misna, which forms the text, and the Ghemara, which is the commentary and the development of the text. The Ghemara is twofold, comprising both the Commentary of Jerusalem and the Commentary of Babylon . . . In the Ghemara, there are at least a hundred passages which are insulting for the memory of Our Adorable Saviour, the more than angelic purity of His holy Mother, the Immaculate Queen of heaven, as well as the moral character of Christians, whom the Talmud represents as practising the most abominable vices. There are also passages which declare that the precepts of justice, equity and charity towards one’s neighbour do not bind where Christians are concerned; nay more, they even go so far as to condemn as guilty of crime anyone who observes these precepts in his relations with his Christian neighbours. The Talmud expressly forbids a Jew to save a non-Jew from death or to restore to him his lost possessions, etc., or to take pity on him.[4] The Rabbins declare also: ‘Since the life of an idolater is at the discretion of the Jew, a fortiori his goods.’ [5] Quotations of this nature could be multiplied almost indefinitely.[6] In the Mischna, there are only about four or five of these impious, malignant and horribly intolerant passages, and, in addition, the expressions show a certain moderation.” [7]

The Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi Catholique, in the article Juifs et Chrétiens (cols. 1691-1694), gives a long list of Papal Decrees condemning the Talmud and the Talmudic formation, since the Talmud became known to Catholics about 1238-1240. Do the Jews still continue to receive this Talmudic formation? In the Jewish Encyclopædia, Vol. 12, we read: “For the majority of Jews, it (The Talmud) is still the supreme authority in religion.” It is true that we there find also: “Modern culture has gradually alienated from the study of the Talmud a number of Jews in countries of progressive civilisation . . . Yet it occupies a prominent place in the curricula of the Rabbinical seminaries.” Now, England is surely one of the countries of “progressive” civilisation, yet references to Talmud Torah schools may be found in The Jewish Chronicle of London as a matter of course. The issue of that paper of September 3, 1937, contained ‘a paragraph about a flag day for the 3,000 children attending London Talmud Torahs. Again, in the same volume of the Jewish Encyclopædia we find that the Schulchan Aruk of Joseph Caro owed “its authority to the fact that it was recognised as the most convenient codification of the teachings of the Talmud,” And in the Jewish Chronicle, we read that at a meeting of the Council of the union of orthodox Hebrew Congregations in London on January 30, 1938, “Rabbi Dr. Schonfeld welcomed the new President into office, and Mr. Stern, in returning thanks for his election, said amid applause that his guide would always be the Schulchan Aruk.”

These testimonies, taken out of many, go to show that the Talmudic formation is flourishing in England. Let us now turn to the United States, of which the civilisation is surely “progressive.” The first volume of The Jewish Library, published by The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, is entitled Essentials of Judaism. Its sub-title is A Guide to Facts of Jewish Law and Life, and it is written by the General Editor, Rabbi Leo Jung. In it we read:

“WHAT IS THE JEWISH LAW?”

“Jewish law is composed of the oral law and the written one. The latter is contained in the Pentateuch, the Torah proper. The former was for a long time kept unwritten, handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. ‘Moses handed it down to Joshua, and Joshua to the Elders, and the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets to the men of the Great Synod, and the men of the Great Synod to the Rabbis’ (Mishnah, Aboth 1, i), until with the dispersion of Israel the danger arose that it might be forgotten. Rabbi Judah the Prince (200 C.E.) finally collected and edited it in the Mishnah.[8] The Mishnah, then, contains the body of Jewish law. As with all other legislations, these laws were commented upon to establish their exact force. They were discussed in the Jewish academies of Palestine and Babylonia, and we possess authentic records of these discussions which are called Gemara. About 400 C.E. in Palestine, and about 500 C.E. in Babylonia, these discussions were collected and, together with the Mishnah, they were embodied in one great volume—the Talmud. The Talmud is an encyclopædia of Jewish lore and life, for, in addition to the laws, it contains the maxims, parables, mottoes, which were in vogue through the centuries, as winged words in the Jewish academies. Each of the two countries produced its own Talmud, and we have thus the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmudim, of which the latter, more fully preserved, is authoritative for the Jews.

“WHAT IS THE SHULCHAN ARUCH?”

“These Talmudim contain many, thousand pages of tremendous interest and value to the student; but they are too large and too all-embracing to help the layman in finding the law in every instance. Hence several attempts have been made to excerpt the Talmud or to rearrange it, so that it might be easier even for the unlearned to handle. Maimonides (thirteenth century) rearranged the Talmud, with the view of systematising its laws, and Rabbi Joseph Caro (seventeenth century), finally wrote his ‘Shulchan Aruch,’ which in four volumes comprises every aspect of Jewish law; it is our authoritative code. This code, which grew out of the text of the Talmud together with the many discussions of the Rabbis of latter days, is being continually brought up to date by the Respona (Tesuvoth) of the Rabbinic authorities, who have to decide with every change of condition how the immutable law of Judaism is to be applied. There is thus an unbroken chain of Jewish tradition connecting the days of Moses with our own. Never in the whole course of Jewish law was any change made in the law.” That is conclusive for the United States.

Finally, Monsigneur Landrieux, in the work already cited,[9] quotes the Jewish organ, L’Univers Israélite (June, 1887), as follows: “For two thousand years the Talmud has been and remains an object of veneration for the sons of Israel whose religious Code it is.” He mentions also the Archives Israélite, according to which “the absolute superiority of the Talmud over the Bible of Moses must be recognised by all.”

THE TALMUD AND JEWISH MESSIANISM

The Talmudic formation renders the conversion of the Jews in great numbers almost morally impossible. In spite of it, it is true, individual Jews do surrender to the loving Heart of the True Messias, but anyone who realises how strongly the human heart is gripped by the associations of childhood will not be astonished at the relatively small number of those who find their way home to their Father’s house. The Fathers Lémann, two of the most distinguished of those who have thus found their way home, have described the effects of the Talmudic formation on their people in their book, La Question du Messie et le Concile du Vatican.[10]

They speak first of all, of the period of sadness and anxiety traversed by their people during the early centuries of the Christian Era. The Genealogical Tables which had been preserved in the Temple with such jealous care and which had been solemnly unrolled for the last time for the Census-taking that preceded the first Christmas, no longer existed. All had been burned at the destruction of the Temple by Titus in 70 A.D. It was no longer possible to follow the royal line of David. In anguish, according to the Fathers Lémann, their ancestors began to go over and over again the prophecy of the seventy weeks of years mentioned in Chapter Nine of the Book of Daniel concerning the coming of the Messiah, and subjected the weeks of years to different systems of calculation, even having recourse to the Kabbala in their efforts.[11] Little wonder that in the course of time they have been deceived by no less than twenty-five false Messiahs. “Not having recognised the Messiah when He came, they sought Him where He was not.” [12]

With the rise of the Catholic nations came a period of despair and silence with regard to the Messiah. The Catholic Nations strove to organise themselves on the basis of membership of Christ. As the Jews rejected that sublime dignity and with it the divine plan for order, they sought to live apart in the Ghettos or Jewish quarters. All power was concentrated in the hands of the Rabbins, and these determined to forbid all discussion concerning the date of the coming of the Messiah and thus bury the question, so to say. For this course they alleged two reasons. The first was the danger of despair on the part of the people when the Messiah did not come at the time announced. The second was the necessity of preventing the light from the Christian writers and doctors, about the true Supernatural Messiah having already come, penetrating into Jewish minds. “The sages, blessed be their memory!”writes Maimonides, “have forbidden all calculation with regard to the time of his coming, because the people are scandalised at seeing that he does not come, though the times are past.” [13]

The Rabbins had recourse to both open and secret measures, in order to prevent discussions concerning the coming of the Messiah. The open or public measures were anathemas and curses hurled at those who looked for the Messiah. “Cursed be those who calculate the times of the Messiah!” says the Talmud of Babylon.[14] “May hell swallow them in its depths!” says Rabbi Abarbanel.[15] “May their hearts break and their calculations vanish!” says Rabbi Maimonides. And so on . . .

The secret measures were the changes made in the Messianic prophecies in the Bible. This was done in two ways. The first was to alter the wording of certain prophecies. As the Hebrew tongue and its written characters are very delicate and as the language of the Bible had become the exclusive apanage of the Rabbins, they were able to alter certain texts without awakening the suspicions of the people.[16] The Fathers of the Church reproach the Rabbins with this as do also several ex-Rabbins who became Catholics.[17] Then, to make matters worse for one seeking the truth, these alterations were secretly introduced into the work of the Massoretes of Tiberias, which appeared only after the alterations had been made. The second secret and underhand measure employed by the Rabbins was surer and more skilful. It was not possible to alter all the prophecies without running the risk of arousing suspicion, so it was decided to make them refer either to David or to Solomon, or to some other historical personage, and whenever possible, to the Jewish nation itself. “Our Doctors understand this psalm of the Messiah,” writes Rabbi Jerchi; “but on account of the Christians who profit by this in sinister fashion, it is expedient to refer it to David.[18] The two most embarrassing of the prophecies, namely, Psalm 22,[19] and Isaias, Chapter LIII, in which there is question of the sufferings of the Messiah, are made to refer to the Jewish people.

“The true interpretation of Psalm 22,” writes Rabbi Kimchi, “is to understand it of the people of Israel. It is the Jewish people which cries out in captivity: My God, My God, why have You abandoned me? And if, in this psalm all the terms are in the singular, it is because Israel in exile must be considered as forming one man, with one single heart.”[20] In like fashion, Rabbi Jarchi explains Chapter LIII of Isaias: “Sufferings have befallen the Jewish people, in order that by their wounds they may become the salvation of the world. The Lord has been appeased in His indignation and He has not laid waste the earth.”[21] This interpretation not only made a strong appeal to Jewish national pride, but in addition kept the Jews as a nation from becoming aware that the prophets had warned them long in advance about the treatment they would mete out to the True Messias when He appeared.

Thus the Jewish people were prevented by maledictions from studying the question of the Messiah. If, in spite of the anathemas of the Rabbins, they ventured to search the Bible, they were liable to be bewildered by the changes made in the prophecies. But, over and above these difficulties, there was the fact that the Talmud was pushed upon them and the Bible treated as indifferent. For centuries the programme of studies in the Jewish schools was formulated as follows: “The Bible is to be compared to water: the Mischna to wine and the Ghemara to aromatic liquor. One who studies the Bible does something indifferent; one who studies the Mischna deserves a recompense; one who studies the Ghemara performs the most meritorious of all actions.”[22]

The Fathers Lémann sum up and conclude with the words: “Since this leaden book presses down on Israel, there is no longer question of the Messias amongst the Jews . . . The Bible was too clear, the seventy weeks of Daniel were too clear; the twenty-second Psalm of David was too clear; the fifty third Chapter of Isaias was too clear. Your Rabbins, O Israelites, have extinguished all these lights with the Talmud.”[23]

The Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789, was in reality, as we have seen in Chapter II, a declaration of war on membership of Christ and on the supernatural structure of society. It emanated from the anti-supernatural Masonic association and paved the way for the admission of the Jews as full citizens into French society and later into European society. Through the combined action of these two anti-supernatural forces on governments, Christ the King has been banished from social life and from schools, with the result that millions have been deprived of the Faith. It is certainly no exaggeration to speak of the apostasy of the once Christian nations, in spite of the splendid fidelity of minorities. The well organised naturalism of the Jewish nation, guiding Masonic naturalism and collaborating with it, has successfully worked for the elimination of the rule of Christ the King.[24] But the continued efforts of the Jews against the divine plan for order have also greatly accelerated the inevitable trend towards materialism of what has remained of the Jewish religion. That decay was morally inevitable in any case, because of the opposition of the Jewish nation to our divine Lord Jesus Christ, the unique source of that life through which alone the ordered tendency of individuals and nations can be maintained. I have elaborated this last point at some length in my book, The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganisation of Society (pp. 155-16)), and I intend to return to it in the present work at the beginning of the next chapter. In this section about the messianism of the Jewish nation, it will be sufficient to cite a few phrases from the Fathers Lémann and then add some remarks about the developments since the publication of La Question du Messie in 1869.

The Fathers Lémann quote some Jewish writers who speak of the “true Redeemer as not being a person but Israel transformed into a beacon for the nations,”[25] and of “Israel personified as the People-Messias in the whole of Isaias, Chapter LIII.”[26] They add, however, that the attitude of the vast majority of the Jews is one of materialistic indifference. “It is the heart-breaking renewal on a grand scale of the scene in the desert when, having grown weary of waiting for the return of Moses . . . they feasted and danced around the golden calf.”[27] The Zionist and Communist movements have accentuated those attitudes since the publication of La Question du Messie.

A letter from Dr. Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, was published in the Irish Independent (Dublin) of January 6, 1948. In that letter, the Chief Rabbi, referring to the establishment of the new state of Israel, said: “Eventually, it will lead to the inauguration of the true union of the nations, through which will be fulfilled the eternal message to mankind of our immortal prophets.”[28] That same ideal had been already set forth in more outspoken language by The Jewish World of February, 9, 1883: “The great ideal of Judaism is . . . that the whole world shall be imbued with Jewish teaching, and that in a Universal Brotherhood of Nations—a greater Judaism in fact—all the separate races and religions shall disappear.” A sad commentary on the fulfilment of the “eternal message to mankind of the immortal prophets” is that the Declaration of Independence of the Zionist State, issued on the day it was proclaimed, contains no mention of God. So we read in an article in The Canadian Intelligence Service, April, 1952, quoting The Christian Century. The article further states that “the majority of Palestine’s Zionists, including most of the leaders of the new Israel, are aggressively secularist. ‘Zion without God has become Israel without God.’ It is an ominous portent.” The triumph of Marxism is doing its deadly work of corrosion and perversion.

Now, in his Apostolic Letter of 19 March 1902, Pope Leo XIII spoke of the so-called Reformation of the 16th century as breaking “the precious link of the ancient unity of faith and authority which . . . united all nations under one staff and one shepherd.” According to Rabbi Herzog, therefore, that union, brought about through the acceptance of the Mystical Body of Christ, was not the true union. The true union desired by God and foretold by the prophets is, according to him, yet to be brought about by the Jewish nation, working against Christ the King.

Marxist Communism has not only accentuated the materialism deplored by the Fathers Lémann amongst the Jews of their day, but has galvanised it into action by the hope of world conquest. For Marx, man is purely material, but as matter, man is God. Marx, like his friend, Heinrich Heine, was a pantheist. “This descendant of a line of Rabbins and doctors,” writes the Jewish historian, B. Lazare, “inherited all the logical vigour of his ancestors. He was a clear and lucid Talmudist . . . a Talmudist who studied sociology and applied his natural aptitudes for exegesis to the criticism of Political Economy. He was full of that old Hebrew materialism which ever dreams of a paradise on earth and always rejects the far distant and problematical hope of a garden of Eden after death. But he was not merely a logician, he was also a revolutionary, a rebel and a bitter controversialist.”[29]

Yes! Marx was a revolutionary and no ordinary one, for he combined Jewish messianism with the pantheistic philosophy of Hegel. For Hegel there is no objective Personal God, as we Catholics and all sane thinkers know and believe. God is only human thought evolving or becoming. Marx, in contradiction with Hegel, but in agreement with the materialism of Feuerbach, held that spirit and thought have evolved out of matter. Thought is an attribute of material being, of the human body and of the human head. The degree of mastery over the forces of nature, that is, the stage of development of the production of wealth, determines the perfection of a civilisation. The proletariat class, which produces the material goods on which human society lives, is a messianic class destined by its rule to bring about a new era for the world. But both the proletariat in general and the Russian people in particular are only means for the realisation of the messianic dreams of Marx’s own people. Hegel’s pantheism swept away any traces of Jewish deism which Marx had retained and left him only his pride in his race and the certitude that the sovereign thought which was destined to rule the world was that of his race.[30]

One of Marx’s correspondents, Baruch Levy, formulated the Marxian thesis in striking fashion: “The Jewish people taken collectively shall be its own Messias. Their rule over the universe shall be obtained by welding together the other races, thanks to the suppression of frontiers and monarchies, which form the bulwark of national peculiarities. Thus shall be established a Universal Republic . . . In this new organisation of humanity, the sons of Israel, now scattered over the whole surface of the globe . . . shall everywhere become the ruling element without opposition. This will be especially easy if they succeed in imposing on the masses of the working classes the guidance of some of their number. The governments of the nations forming the Universal or World Republic shall all thus pass, without any effort, into Jewish hands, thanks to the victory of the proletariat. Private property can then be suppressed by the Jewish rulers who will be in charge of public affairs everywhere. Thus shall the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, that, when the Messianic epoch shall have arrived, the Jews will control the wealth of all the nations of the earth.”[31]

Thus the Zionist ideal is completely opposed to that of Abraham and the Patriarchs. “The just of the Old Law,” writes the ex-Rabbin Drach,“did not attribute to the Messiah they expected, as does the modem synagogue, the mission of restoring our nation to Palestine, and bestowing upon it glory and the goods of this world, but that of winning our spiritual salvation, as in point of fact our Lord Jesus Christ has done.”[32] In a note on page 98 of the same work, the learned ex-Rabbin depicts the ideal of the modern synagogue as follows: “The Messiah, whose coming the Jews obstinately expect, in spite of the fact that he on his side obstinately refuses to appear, is to be a great conqueror who will reduce all the nations of the world to the condition of slaves of the Jews. The latter are destined to return to the Holy Land in triumph, laden with the riches taken from the non-Jews. Jerusalem is to have a new temple.” This is the very ideal depicted by Karl Marx’s correspondent.

In spite, however, of this complete change to materialistic naturalism, the Jewish nation is destined one day to return to the true supernatural ideal held up before it by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for “they are most dear for the sake of the fathers,”[33] and of them “is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever, Amen.”[34]

CERTITUDE OF THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWISH NATION

“There is well known tradition cherished by the faithful,” writes St. Augustine, “that, in the last days before the judgement, the great and admirable Prophet Elias is to explain the law to the Jews and to lead them to the acceptance of the True Messias, Our Christ.”[35]

The question of the conversion of the Jews is splendidly treated by Father Augustine Lémann in his work, Histoire Complète de l’Idée Messianique.[36] The future conversion of the Jewish people, he says, is certain. The divine promises to that effect are numerous. He begins by the prophecy of Osee, III, 4, 5., and as he gives it along with the commentary of St. Augustine, I have thought it well to translate the whole passage:“These carnal Israelites,” writes the great Doctor of Hippo, “who today refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, will one day believe in Him, that is, their descendants will do so, for Osee foretells their conversion in the following terms: ‘The children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without ephod and without theraphim.’[37] Who is there who does not see in this a portrait of the present state of the Jewish people? But listen to what the prophet adds: ‘And after this the children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king: and they shall fear the Lord, and His goodness in the last days.’[38] Nothing can be clearer than this prophecy, in which David evidently stands for Jesus Christ. Christ, says the Apostle, is born of the line of David according to the flesh.”

To this luminous interpretation of the prophecy of Osee concerning the conversion of Israel, Father Lémann adds the testimony of Pope Pius IX contained in a letter addressed to his brother and himself, on the 14th of February, 1877. “Because,” wrote the holy Pontiff, “according to the prophecy of Osee, the sons of Israel have remained for a long time without king and without prince, without sacrifice and without altar, may that other word of the same prophet soon begin to be accomplished: And after this the children of Israel shall return and shall seek the Lord their God and David their king!”

Before passing on to the text of St. Paul to the Romans, XI, 11-33, Father Lémann mentions some other passages of the Old Testament which express the same idea of future conversion, namely, the Prophecy of Moses (Deuteronomy, IV, 30, 31), the Prophecy of Isaias (LIX), the Prophecy of Jeremias (XXXI, 1, 2), the prophecy of Daniel, (XII, 1.), the Prophecy of Micheas (II, 12, 13), and the Prophecy of Malachias (IV, 5, 6).

In the New Testament St. Paul is the great herald of the final conversion of his own nation to the True Messias. The prophecy is contained in the Epistle to the Romans, Chapter XI, and the pertinent verses run as follows: “I say then . . . Hath God cast away his people? God forbid, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin . . . God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew . . . I say then, have they so stumbled that they should fall? God forbid. But by their offence, salvation is come to the Gentiles; that they may be emulous of them. Now if the offence of them be the riches of the world, and the diminution of them, the riches of the Gentiles; how much more the fulness of them? For if the loss of them be the reconciliation of the world, what shall be the receiving of them but life from the dead? . . . For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery . . . that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is to them My covenant (Isaias, LIX, 20): when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake; but as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers. For the gift and the calling of God are without repentance. For as you also in times past did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy, through their unbelief; so these also now have not believed, for your mercy, that they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all.”[39]

It will be well for the clear understanding of St. Paul’s meaning to add here a few sentences from the commentary of St Thomas on the Epistle to the Romans. “The Apostle here shows,” writes the Angelic Doctor, “that the fall of the Jews was not universal. In answer to the question: Has God completely rejected or disowned His people? . . . he answers that God has not completely rejected the Jewish people. He proves this, firstly by referring to himself: ‘For I (who believe in Christ) am an Israelite . . . And, because amongst the Jewish people there were proselytes who were not descended from the patriarchs according to the flesh, in order to exclude such a meaning from his words, he adds: ‘of the seed of Abraham’ . . . Secondly, in the passage‘God hath not cast away his people,’ he shows that the Jewish people were not all rejected by God by pointing to the many elect . . . comparing the then state of things with what had happened in the time of Elias, when the whole people had seemingly turned away from the worship of the one true God, God had preserved seven thousand from falling into sin . . .

“After the Apostle had shown that the fall of the Jews was not total or universal from the point of view of numbers, he shows, in verses 11-16, that their fall was neither useless nor irreparable . . . The fall of the Jews was not useless because it became the occasion of salvation to the Gentiles . . . This can be understood in three ways; firstly, because from the crime which the Jews committed, in putting Christ to death, there resulted the salvation of the Gentiles through redemption in the blood of Christ . . . Then, ‘if the loss of them,’that is, their incredulity and disobedience . . . was the occasion of the reconciliation of the world, inasmuch as we are reconciled to God through the death of Christ, ‘what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? What, I say, will such a winning accomplish if not to make the Gentiles rise again to life? The Gentiles are the faithful who will have grown weak in the faith. ‘Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.’[40] Or those who, deceived by Antichrist, will have completely fallen away will be restored to their pristine fervour by the converted Jews. Or even, as by the fall of the Jews, the Gentiles who had been enemies were reconciled, so after the conversion of the Jews near the end of the world, there will be a general resurrection by which men will rise from the dead to immortal life.”[41]

WHEN WILL THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWISH NATION TAKE PLACE?

“God alone,” writes Father Augustine Lémann, “knows the exact date of the conversion of Israel to the Faith, and He has kept it to Himself. But what one can conjecture from the data of Scripture and Tradition is that this return will take place only in the last age of the Church, towards the end of time.”[42]

A. Scripture.

From the Old Testament, Father Lémann cites first the text of the prophet Osee to which I have already referred, and which contains the words “they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the last days.”[43] He quotes also the words of Moses: “After all the things aforesaid shall find thee, in the latter time thou shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt hear his voice,”[44] and refers briefly to the prophecy of Azarias in II. Paralipomenon, (XV, 3-6), and Isaias, (X, 20-23). He dwells at greater length, however, on the last two verses of the prophet Malachias: “Behold I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come and strike the earth with anathema.”[45]“The prophet Elias, then,” comments Father Lémann, “shall return upon the earth to bring back the Jews to the Saviour. Our Lord Himself has clearly affirmed it (St. Matthew, XVII, II). Elias will turn the hearts of the fathers and the hearts of the children. The fathers are the patriarchs and all the pious ancestors of the Jewish people, the sons represent the degenerate race of the time of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the succeeding centuries. It is, however, only some time before the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, before the dreadful day of the divine Judgment dawns, that our Saviour will send the prophet Elias to the Jews to convert them and to save them from chastisement.

“These precise statements of the Old Testament find an echo in the New Testament. St. Paul, who has devoted a whole chapter of the Epistle to the Romans to the conversion of the Jews, as we have seen, points out nevertheless that this conversion will take place only near the end of the world. Until then they continue ‘to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.’[46] The blindness which has fallen on Israel from the time of the Apostles will remain upon them until towards the end of the world.”[47]

B. Tradition.

Father Lémann says that the well-known traditional belief, spoken of by St. Augustine, that the Jews will be converted only towards the end of the world can be proved from the texts of the Fathers, century by century. He names the principal Fathers and gives the references to their works as follows:

Third Century: Tertullian, L. V, contra Marcion, Chap. IX; Origen, Sixth Homily on the Book of Numbers, towards the end.

Fourth Century: St. Hilary, Commentary on Psalm 58; St. Ambrose, Book about the Patriarch Joseph.

Fifth Century: St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Chap. XI; St. Jerome, Commentary on Micheas, Chap. II; Commentary on Malachias, Chap. III, etc,; St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Genesis, Book, V, etc.; St. Prosper of Aquitaine, The Calling of the Gentiles, Book I, Chap. XXI.

Sixth Century; Cassiodorus, Commentary On Psalm 102; Preniasius, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Chap.XI.

Seventh Century: St. Gregory the Great, Liber Moralium, lib. II, etc.; St. Isidore, Book about the Calling of the Gentiles, Chap. V.

Eighth Century: Venerable Bede, Commentary on Psalm 58, etc.

Eleventh Century: St. Anselm, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Chap. II; St. Peter Damian, Sermon 66.

Twelfth Century: St. Bernard, Letter 363.

“St. Jerome speaks of this tradition in connexion with a remarkable contrast between two circumstances in Our Lord’s infancy. ‘When St. Joseph,’ he writes, ‘took the Child and His Mother to lead them into Egypt, it was in the darkness of the night, an image of the night of ignorance in which the unbelieving Jews, from the midst of whom he was withdrawing, were then enveloped. But when he returned to Judæa, the Gospel does not mention either night or darkness, because, when the Jews receive the faith at the end of the world, they will find themselves in dazzling light, as if Our Lord were returning to them from Egypt.”[48]

“St. Cyril of Alexandria makes this beautiful reflexion: ‘Towards the end of time, Our Lord Jesus Christ will effect the reconciliation of His former persecutor Israel with Himself. Everybody who knows Holy Scripture is aware that, in the course of time, this people will return to the love of Christ by the submission of faith . . . Yes, one day, after the conversion of the Gentiles, Israel will be converted, and the Jews will be astonished at the treasure they will find in Christ.’ . . .

“We find the same affirmation on the part of St.. Peter Damian:‘This obstinately unbelieving people, who now refuse to believe, will come back to the faith and will occupy the lowest place in the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is to say, that their conversion will take place in the last days of Holy Church, towards the end of the world.’[49]

Finally, Father Lémann cites the testimony of St. Thomas and that of Suarez. From St. Thomas he quotes a sentence from the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Chapter XI, lect. 4: “When the fulness of the Gentiles shall have entered in, all Israel will be saved, not merely individuals as at present, but the whole nation as a body.” Suarez is still more explicit with regard to the epoch. According to him, “the conversion of the Jews will take place at the approach of the Last Judgment and at the height of the persecution which Antichrist will inflict on the Church.”[50]

The conversion of the Jewish people to the true Supernatural Messias is, therefore, certain, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of uncompromising hostility to Him on their part at the present time. Their conversion will be a glorious triumph for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It will be a special source of exultation for Her, when Her own people will at last acclaim her divine Son as their King and welcome as their Queen her who is their sister according to the flesh, and who so ardently desires to be their Mother according to the divine life of grace.[51] She will then be able to pour forth anew the heartfelt thanksgiving of Her Magnificat: “He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy: as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.”[52]

THE APOSTASY OF THE NON-JEWISH NATIONS AND THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS

There is a tradition in the Church that the Jewish people will be converted when the Nations shall have ceased to be Catholic by falling into apostasy. The two Fathers Lémann have treated of the question at some length in their joint work, La Question du Messie et le Concile du Vatican. They have done so in the form of a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, XI, 20, 21, 22, 25, 30, 31. It will be, interesting for my readers to have a brief outline of their teaching.

St. Paul warns the non-Jews not to be boastful but to fear lest a fate similar to that of the Jews befall them: “Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee.” A little further on he continues: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits) . . . For as you also in times past did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy, through their unbelief; so these also now have not believed, for your mercy, that they also may obtain mercy.” The Fathers Lémann quote with approval the statement of a learned commentator to the effect that it would have been quite natural for St. Paul to have added, after the last words cited: “When you shall have fallen into incredulity.”[53] The tenderness of St. Paul for the Gentiles, however, prevented him from adding that phrase, but several Fathers of the Church have expressed the thought in their commentaries.

“Israel’s failure to correspond,” says Origen, “has been the occasion of the calling of the Gentiles. We have taken their place and thus have become the true Kingdom of Juda. But our last times will resemble those of the Jews because of our sins, in fact they will be worse.”[54] “From the sin of the Jews,” writes St. Jerome, “has come the salvation of nations, and from the incredulity of the nations the knowledge of the Truth will again come to Israel. These two truths are in St. Paul.”[55]“St. Paul,” writes in his turn St. John Chrysostom, “explains divinely the conduct of God with regard to men . . . He says that the Gentiles have been called by God, but because, little by little, they will show themselves unmindful of His favours, God will recall the Jews a second time.”[56] The Fathers Lémann cite also the Commentary of St. Augustine on Psalm VII, and finally, the words of the great French orator, Bossuet: “Have we not reason to tremble on seeing how severely God has punished the Jews for so many centuries, since St. Paul warns us on the part of God that our ingratitude will bring upon us a similar punishment?”[57]

God’s aim, however, is not punishment but mercy, and when he will have called back the Jews, He will also recall the non-Jewish nations, utilising the missionary zeal of the repentant Jews for that purpose.[58] “For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all. 0 the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God.”[59] Seeing that the apostasy of the nations from Christ the King has been very largely their work and that of their satellites, the Freemasons, the Jews will be heartbroken, and will put their splendid natural qualities at the service of divine love, in order to undo the evil of the past and to draw the whole world into the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ. “There are two outstanding qualities in our national character,” write the Fathers Lémann, “vivacity of sentiment and tenacity of will. Liveliness of sentiment we certainly have, for our nation never hates or loves anything in weak or feeble fashion; in love as in hatred it goes to extremes. And tenacity of will we have also; for forty centuries we are awaiting Him whom we are meant to love. Now when divine grace shall have taken hold of this vivacity and of this tenacity, when our eyes shall be opened, when as a body we shall see that He whom we have been expecting so long has already come, and that He has been waiting for us for twenty centuries with outstretched arms: when we shall see as clear as noonday that we have had the misfortune to crucify Him . . . Then, there will be amongst us, as it were, an explosion of love . . . And we shall arise and begin all over again our journeys through the world. Where the Wandering Jew has passed, the Jew become Apostle will pass once more . . . The grief of our repentance will not be hidden in the silence of a confessional, but will show itself in the light of day before all the peoples of the earth, like our denial at noon on Good Friday. The prophet Zacharias saw this outburst of grief: ‘And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of prayer; and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the first-born.’”[60]

In order that the repentant Jewish nation may work for the conversion of the peoples of the Orient and the return of the apostate nations of the West to Christ the King, there must be a certain interval between the conversion of the Jewish nation and the end of she world. Some interpret the words of St. Paul: “what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” in the sense that the General Resurrection and the Last Judgment will follow the conversion of the Jews immediately.[61] “As the reprobation of the Jews,” writes Père Lagrange, O.P., “was the occasion of the reconciliation of the world, their conversion will be as it were, the signal for the consummation of the world and the advent of a new one. It must, however, be admitted that the expressions employed are not very precise and that one could not establish a definite relation of time between the conversion of the Jews and the General Resurrection from the dead, in other words, affirm that the Last Judgment will follow closely on the conversion of the Jews.”[62]

When the Fathers Lémann were petitioning the Bishops, assembled in Rome for the Vatican Council, for their signatures to the Postulatum Pro Hebræis, many of their Lordships smilingly put the objection that “to work for the conversion of the Jews was to bring on the end of the world.” The two Fathers gave several answers to this objection, and their arguments seem to go far towards proving that there will be a considerable lapse of time between the conversion of the Jewish nation and the Last Judgment.[63] Two things are certain. The first is that, however short the time, the newly-converted Jews will not remain idle. The second is that if the Jews as a body sincerely accepted the true Messias and put all that restless energy and unshakeable tenacity into the furtherance of the Kingship of Christ, which they now display against His rule, the conversion of the world would be rapidly advanced. Just picture for a moment, Jewish influence in the Press of the world directed towards featuring the truth about Lourdes and Fatima and the horror of the rejection of God and our divine Lord in Russia! Just think of Jewish influence on the Cinema, instead of being directed towards the elimination of the Supernatural life by the production of irksomeness with all moral restraints, being canalised into showing the solution of human unrest by the loving acceptance of membership of Jesus!

Let us illustrate this by the example of what one wholehearted Jewish convert achieved for Christ the King.

AN OUTSTANDING JEWISH CONVERT

One of the most remarkable conversions of modem times, in spite of a strong Talmudic formation, was that of the Venerable Francis Mary Paul Libermann, C.S.Sp., Founder of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and first Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, after the union of the two Congregations in 1848. In the life of the Venerable servant of God by the Rev. Prosper Goepfert, C.S.Sp., there is an account, from Father Libermann’s own conversations, of the Talmudic formation he received from his father, a distinguished rabbin. “According to the teaching of the Talmud,” writes Father Goepfert, “the possessions of the Goim should be regarded as a desert and as the sand of the sea, of which the first possessor is the real proprietor. The Talmud expressly forbids the Jew to save a Christian from death, to restore to him his lost property or to have pity on him. The rabbins have concluded that, when dealing with a Christian, the Jew is at liberty to make a mistake for his own advantage, and that it is honest to deprive a Christian of any sum of money. These pernicious doctrines formed a part of the instructions which the rabbin of Saverne inculcated on the minds of his children, who naturally received them as the purest expressions of truth . . . One day, Jacob (later Father Libermann), was sent to the house of a neighbouring Christian woman, to change a piece of money. Imagining that he was doing an excellent deed, he dexterously took away a penny from the infidel Goim. He returned, quite proud of his feat, which gained for him the applause of his family, especially of his father, who saw in this youthful exploit an indication of a brilliant future.”[64]

After his conversion—he was baptized on the 24th December, 1826—Francis Mary Paul Libermann became the founder of a religious congregation having as its special object to make known the truth of our Lord’s supernatural mission to the most abandoned of the Goim, and the heroicity of his charity, justice and humility was solemnly proclaimed by the Catholic Church in 1910.[65] Father Libermann’s wonderful humility was based on the recognition of the special sorrow inflicted on the Heart of Jesus by the pride and obduracy of the Jewish nation. One can see this in his whole life. It is worthy of note that one who had himself suffered terribly because of that pride and obduracy, the distinguished ex-Rabbin Drach, took an active part in the instruction of young Jacob Libermann.

What Father Libermann’s wholehearted acceptance of membership of the Mystical Body was instrumental in achieving for Christ the King is admirably outlined by Pope Pius XII in his Letter to Very Rev. Francis Griffin, C.S.Sp., Superior General, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Venerable Father’s death: “On the second of February next,” writes His Holiness, “the sons of the Venerable Francis Mary Paul Libermann will have the joy of celebrating with fitting splendour the Centenary of the death of this humble priest of France, restorer of the ancient Congregation of the Holy Ghost and inspirer of a new legion of Apostles, who, now for a century, have been writing a glorious page in the missionary history of the Church . . . You have good reason to contemplate the past with gratitude. You see, first of all, the ardent figure of Father Libermann, this convert enlightened by grace, like Saul on the way to Damascus . . . this apostle whom an admirable zeal for the people of the black race, then so spiritually abandoned, was soon to draw to the City of Peter. There he was to receive, as a reward for his unfailing confidence, the decisive lights which were to illuminate the last eleven years of his life when, a priest at last, he gathered his first missionaries around him and sent them forth, amid continual trials, to fecundate with their preaching and their sufferings that soil of Africa which was so dear to him, but which he was never to see.

“The seed was cast into the earth; this good worker had finished his task: ‘It is one man that soweth, and it is another that reapeth.’(John iv, 37). In 1852 there were already eighty eight religious to lament the premature death of their Father. But in the course of one century, the shoot, then so young and tender, has grown and waxed strong; and to-day it is not without emotion that the some 4,500 members of your Congregation, scattered over three continents, will return thanks to God for the spiritual fruitfulness of this apostle’s life . . . In particular, it is a joy to Us to see arising in this land of Africa, where nearly a thousand of your religious are sleeping their last sleep, the long-awaited reinforcement of the native clergy . . . Convinced, according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, that the apostolic life ‘Præsupponit abundantiam contemplationis,’[66] this priest, burning with love for his most abandoned brothers, was, above all, the man of God who, on his death-bed, left behind this last instruction in which he himself stands revealed: ‘God is all, man is nothing.’”[67]

THE POSTULATUM PRO HEBRÆIS

The two Fathers Lémann, converts from Judaism, drew up a Postulatum to obtain from the Vatican Council in 1870 an appeal full of mercy to the Jewish nation. They secured the signatures of 510 bishops, and all the bishops present at the Council would have willingly signed, only that the Fathers Lémann wished to leave the honour of the greatest number of signatures to the Postulatum for Papal Infallibility.

One of the many touching incidents related by the Fathers Lémann in Les Causes des Restes d’lsraël, has a claim to be mentioned here, as it concerns the only member of Father Libermann’s Congregation then a bishop. “The composition of the Postulatum,” we read, “presented serious difficulties. But Father Libermann protected us and smoothed away the difficulties.[68]. . . We had reserved to Most Rev. Dr. Plantier, Bishop of Nîmes, the honour of heading the list of bishops signing the Postulatum pro Hebræis . . . He had known of and encouraged our conversion, and he had always been our father and our friend . . . On our way to him, when the Postulatum was ready, we met Most Rev. Dr. Kobès, Vicar Apostolic of Senegambia, the only bishop then belonging to Father Libermann’s Congregation . . . He said to us: ‘I would like to be the first to sign, but the place of honour will be reserved to his Lordship, the Bishop of Nînes.’ ‘You cannot,’ he added, ‘refuse the signature I offer you, for I want to give it in the name of Father Libermann, our holy Founder in Jesus Christ and your brother in Abraham . . . Thus the list of signatures of the Postulatum opens with the name of His Lordship, Bishop Plantier, but the first signature affixed to the document was that of His Lordship, Bishop Kobès.”[69]

The prorogation of the Council interrupted the work of the convert brothers, but the reassembling of the Council will see the work continued. God grant that the appeal, if and when it comes, may be heard! Thus will peace at last come to Israel, and thus will a powerful impetus be given to the passage of the nations of the world to the dignity of children of Abraham by faith in the true Messias. This is what we pray for in the beautiful Collect after the fourth prophecy on Holy Saturday, after having begged God on Good Friday to withdraw the age-long veil from Jewish minds: “Let us pray, 0 God, whose ancient miracles we see renewed in our days, whilst by the water of our regeneration Thou workest for the salvation of the Gentiles, that which by the power of Thy right hand Thou didst for the delivery of one people from the Egyptian persecution: grant that all the nations of the world may become the children of Abraham and partake of the dignity of the people of Israel. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

NATIONAL APOSTASY

In Chapter III, which was written many years ago, I have given a brief outline of the Theology of History, pointing out the steady elimination of the organisation of society based on membership of Christ, which has been going on in Europe since the French Revolution of 1789. It cannot be too often repeated that the Masonic Declaration of the Rights of Man is anti-supernatural and therefore, a repudiation of membership of Christ, in fact, a declaration of war on the programme for order of Christ the King. Accordingly, when a country weakens in regard to the first point of that programme by placing all religions on the same level, it is a sign that it has been pulled into the anti-supernatural current.[70] When a country, as a social entity, thus adopts a wrong attitude to Christ the King, the effects are disastrous. Not only does it deprive itself of grace, that is, of light to see what is in order and of strength to cleave to it, but when “error has once become incarnate in legal formulæ and in administrative practice, it penetrates so deeply into people’s minds that it is impossible to eradicate it.”[71] Thus the way is prepared for the attack on the other points of our Lord’s programme, by the introduction of divorce, the banishment of religion from the schools, and the attack on family life and private ownership. The enemies of Christ the King are organised and know what they want, while Catholics are divided and do not realise that their hold on the faith is being gradually undermined. “Before God a nation has apostatised when its government has posited an act of apostasy, though many members of the nation may have remained faithful,”[72] and may continue faithful in spite of the increasing difficulties.

At the time La Question du Messie et le Concile du Vatican was written, the Fathers Lémann sadly pointed out that “not one of the Gentile nations had remained Catholic in its constitution and continued to bear aloft the standard of Christ and His Church.”[73] Since then there has been a poignant reaction in the case of Spain, so that there is now in the world at least one country that, as a country, proclaims its fidelity to Christ the King. The attitude towards Spain on the part of other nations is, however, a clear proof of how deeply naturalism has permeated the official world of our day. The Tablet (Brooklyn) of May 14th 1949, cited the frank statements of Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, a non-Catholic, in the American Senate. The Senator brought into the open the attitude of the American Delegation to the U.N.O. on Catholicism. Amongst other things, he said: “The subtle word is constantly passed that the alternative to Communism is Catholicism. We know that word is constantly uttered in the lobbies, although Senators do not care to bring it out on the floor. We are told that some very distinguished members of the American Delegation are among those who are most earnest in their opposition to the recognition of Spain, because forsooth Spain is a Catholic country. It is high time that the American people decided to tear the mask from this situation.”


1. L’Harmonie entre l’Eglise et la Synagogue, by the ex-Rabbin Drach, Vol. I, p. 168.
2. Op.Cit., pp.9, 223.
3. L’Harmonie entre l’Eglise et la Synagogue.
4. Treatise Aboda-Zara, fol. 13 verso, fol. 20 recto; treatise Baba-Kamma, vol. 29 verso.
5. Foundations of the Faith, by Joseph Abbo, III Part, Chap. 25.
6. Monsieur Drach refers to another of his works entitled L’Esprit du Judaisme.
7. L’Harmonie entre l’Eglise et la Synagogue, pp. 122, 123, 124, 166, 167.
8. C. E. Stands for Christian Era. Rabbi Jung evidently objects to writing A.D. (year of Our Lord).
9. L’Histoire et les Histoires dans la Bible.
10. Published by Joseph Albanel, Paris, and P. N. Josserand, Lyons, 1869.
11. “Know thou therefore and take notice: that from the going forth of the word to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.”(Daniel, IX, 25).
12. La Question du Messio et le Concile du Vatican, p. 24, The Fathers Lémann give the list of the twenty-five false Messiahs with the dates and the historical references for each. Cf. op. cit. pp. 22-24.
13. Iggereth Hatteman, fol. 125, 4. Quoted in Le Question du Messie, p. 36.
14. Gemar. Tr. Sanh., Chapter XI.
15. Roschamaa, Ch. 1, fol. 5, 2. I have quoted only a few out of the long list in La Question du Messie. p. 35.
16. The Fathers Lémann give as examples the alterations made in Ps. 22 (21 in the Vulgate), v. 17 and Isaias, Chap. LIII, v. 8.
17. The Fathers Lémann give a long list of the Fathers: Sts. Justin, Irenæus, Jerome, etc.; and among the ex-Rabbins quote a lengthy passage from M. Drach, De l’Harmonie entre L’Eglise et la Synagogue, T. I. pp. 51-56.
18. Commentary on Psalm 2 (12th Century).
19. Psalm 21 in the Vulgate.
20. Commentary on Psalm 22.
21. Commentary on Isaias, LIII.
22. Cod. Sopherim, Chap. 15. Ex libri Caphtor. fol. 121, etc., etc. There are two parts in the Talmud: the Mischna is the text of the traditions (Talmud signifies “Teaching”) while the Ghemara is the commentary thereon. Cf. La Question du Messie,. p. 46. In the Mystical Body of Christ and the Re-Organization of Society (pp. 156-160), the testimony of ex-Rabbin Drach concerning the Talmud is quoted at length.
23. La Question du Messie, P. 49.
24. In their very touching book, La Cause des Restes d’lsraél introduite au Concile du Vatican (p. 116), the Fathers Lémann mention some of the replies given to them by Bishops whom they requested to sign the Postulatum pro Hebræis: “What the Jews are doing at the moment in Austria is not calculated to inspire us with sentiments of mercy,” was the first remark of more than one German speaking bishop. And there is no denying that the Jews are going very far in the Austrian Empire. Working with the Freemasons and extremely powerful, they make use of money and the Press to overthrow all Catholic institutions in those countries and to undermine the faith of the peoples . . . One day in a reunion of Bishops, a Hungarian prelate speaking of the Jews said that they were very bad (pessimi). We lowered our heads; for the Bishop was right.” For an account of Jewish action in Austria, cf. L’Autriche Juive, by F. Trocase (A. Perret, 37, rue Étienne-Marcel, Paris, 1889).
25. Rabbi Michel Weil in L’Univers Israélite of the year 1869, p. 315.
26. Sinaï et Golgotha (p. 347) (La Société scientifique littéraire Israé1ite).
27. La Question du Messie, p. 76.
28. Italics mine.
29. Italics mine.
30. Marx has sometimes been accused of being anti-Jewish because of an article he wrote about a book by Bruno Bauer. The question is treated at length in the best work on the secret history of Bolshevism, namely, Les Origines Secrètes du Bolshevisme (pp. 279-286) by Salluste. Salluste shows that Marx, who, as a Hegelian pantheist, despised all religion and who, by temperament, could not brook opposition of any kind, attacks the rich Jews, the builders of fortunes. He accuses them of being traitors to the common cause by not accepting his way of destroying Christian society and thus leading the Jewish nation to real freedom. “If they want to be free,” writes Marx,“the Jews must not embrace pure Christianity, but must become converts to a dissolved Christianity, to religion in dissolution, that is, to Philosophy, to Criticism and to its result, namely, free Humanity.” By Criticism (or Logic) Marx means his own dialectical materialism.
31. Cf. Salluste, op. cit. (pp. 34, 35) with regard to authenticity of the letter.
32. L’Harmonie entire L’Église et la Synagogue (p. 9).
33. Rom. XI, 28.
34. Rom. IX, 5.
35. De Civitate Dei, Lib. XX, sect. XXIX.
36. Complete History of the Messianic Idea, pp. 443-465. Father Lémann was professor of Hebrew and Sacred Scripture in the Catholic University of Lyons.
37. Osee, III, 4. The last two short phrases are translated in the French version as follows: “without priesthood and without worship (cult).”
38. Osee, III, 5. The last phrase is translated in the French as follows: “and they shall be in astonishment on finding God again and at His goodness to them in the last days.”
39. Rom., XI, 1, 2, 11, 12, 15, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Mgr. Knox’s version has: “Tell me then, has God disowned His people? That is not to be thought of. Why I am an Israelite myself, descended from Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. No God has not disowned the people which, from the first, he recognised as his . . . Tell me then, have they stumbled so as to fall altogether? God forbid; the result of their false step has been to bring the gentiles salvation, and the result of that must be to arouse the Jews to emulate them. Why then, if their false step has enriched the world, if the gentiles have been enriched by their default, what must we expect, when it is made good? . . . If the losing of them has meant a world reconciled to God, what can the winning of them mean, but life risen from the dead . . . I must not fail, brethren, to make this revelation known to you . . . Blindness has fallen upon a part of Israel, but only until the tale of the gentile nations is complete; then the whole of Israel will find salvation, as we read in Scripture, a deliverer shall come from Sion, to rid Jacob of his unfaithfulness; and this shall be the fulfilment of my covenant with them, when I take away their sins. In the preaching of the Gospel, God rejects them to make room for you; but in His elective purpose he still welcomes them, for the sake of their fathers; God does not repent of the gifts he makes, or of the calls he issues. You were once rebels, until through their rebellion you obtained pardon; they are rebels now, obtaining pardon for you, only to be pardoned in their turn. Thus God has abandoned all men to their rebellion, only to include them all in his pardon.”
40. St. Matth. XXIV, 12.
41. Comment. in Ep. ad Romanos, XI, Lect. I et II (Marietti, Turin). I am omitting any reference to St. Paul’s hope of the conversion of the Jews based upon the comparison of the olive tree. “The conversion of the Jews is possible and to be expected, because of a quality which even in their state of infidelity they possess: the quality of consecration to God, implied in belonging to the race which was consecrated to God in its first members and founders. This is the basis of the Apostle’s hope.” (The Metaphor of the Olive Tree in Romans XI, p. 77, by Rev. M. M. Bourke, Thesis for the Degree of Doctor in Sacred Theology in the Catholic University of America).
42. Histoire complète de I’Idée Messianique, p. 456.
43. Osee, III, 5.
44. Deuteronomy, IV, 30.
45. Malachias, IV, 5, 6.
46. I Thessalonians, II, 16.
47. Histoire complète, etc., p. 463. With regard to the question of Elias, cf. Saint Jean, L’Apocalypse (pp. 139-142), by Père Allo, O.P., ‘and Les Frères Lémann, (pp. 434-436), by P. Théotime de Saint Just, O.M.C.
48. Commentary on St. Matthew, Chapter II.
49. Sermon 66.
50. In III P. Sum. Theol. D. Thom., Disputat. LVI, Sect. I.
51. Paraphrase of the concluding sentences of the Postutatum pro Hebræis, presented for signature to the Most Reverend Fathers of the Vatican Council, by Fathers Joseph and Augustine Lémann.
52. St. Luke I, 54, 55. “He has protected his servant Israel, keeping his merciful design in remembrance according to the promise which he made to our forefathers, Abraham and his posterity for evermore.” (The New Testament, Mgr. R. A. Knox). Cf. the last paragraph of the Preparatory Petition addressed to the Most Reverend Fathers of the Vatican Council by the Fathers Lémann.
53. Duguet, Dissertation sur le retour des Juifs, pp. 26, 27.
54. Origen, Fourth Homily on Jeremias. The Fathers Lémann cite also a few lines from Origen’s Explanation of the Epistle to the Romans, Chap. XI.
55. First Homily on the Canticle of Canticles.
56. Homily on Chap. II of the Epistle go the Romans.
57. Discours sur l’Histoire Universelle, I le partie (Edit. cf 1681). In a note the remark is added that, in the later editions, the phrase “may bring upon us,” has been substituted for “will bring upon us.”
58. Cf. Commentary of St. Thomas previously quoted.
59. Romans, XI, 32, 33.
60. Zacharias, XII., 10. La Question du Messie et le Concile du Vatican pp. 147, 145, 146.
61. Père Théotime de St. just in his charming book, Les Frères Lémann says that “some Fathers of the Church and Exegetes understand the text in this way.” He refers to the Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide, Ep. ad Romanos, Ch. XI, Vol. XVIII.
62. Epitre aux Romains, p. 278. In his Commentary on verses 26-27, Right Rev. Mgr. Boylan says: “It is not clear whether the conversion of Israel is to be thought of as happening at the end of the present age . . . or some fairly considerable time before the General Resurrection.” (St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, p. 184).
63. The arguments are given in La Cause des Restes d’Israël (pp. 121-125), by the Fathers Lémann, and by Père Théotime de St. Just in Les Frères Lémann (pp. 451-454).
64. Op cit. pp. 21, 22.
65. Father Libermann is the first member of the Jewish nation, whose cause has been introduced, since the inauguration of the present procedure of beatification and canonisation.
66. IIIaP., Q. 40, Art 1 ad 2um.
67. Letter of January 16, 1952. Father Libermann died on the Feast of the Purification of the B.V.M., Feb. 2, 1852.
68. During their sojourn in Rome, the Fathers Lémann stayed in the French Seminary, Via Santa Chiara, which is under the direction of the Holy Ghost Fathers.
69. Op. cit. pp. 77, 132, 133.
70. Cf. Chapter I. In a memorable interview in 1856, Bishop Pie of Poitiers, later Cardinal, said to Napoleon III, Emperor of the French: “The social gospel which furnishes inspiration to the State is the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which is purely and simply the formal negation of the Rights of God.” (The Kingship of Christ according to Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, p. 76).
71. The Kingship of Christ according to Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, p. 52.
72. La Question du Messie et le Concile du Vatican, by the Fathers Lémann, p. 101.
73. Op cit., p. 103.