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.[73] Thus, the Jewish religion became notably a religion ofretribution.God's commandments were observed for the sake of the hope ofcompensation.Moreover, this was originally a collective hope that the people as a wholewould live to see that day of restoration, and that only in this way would the individual beable to regain one's own honor.There developed concomitantly, intermingled with the aforementioned collectivetheodicy, an individual theodicy of personal destiny which had previously been taken forgranted.The problems of individual destiny are explored in the Book of Job, which wasproduced by quite different circles, namely, the upper strata, and which culminates in arenunciation of any solution of the problem and a submission to the absolute sovereigntyof God over his creatures.This submission was the precursor of the teaching ofpredestination in Puritanism.The notion of predestination was bound to arise when thepathos of divinely destined eternal punishment in hell was added to the complex of ideasjust discussed, involving compensation and the absolute sovereignty of God.But thebelief in predestination did not arise among the Hebrews of that time.Among them, theconclusion of the Book of Job remained almost completely misunderstood in the senseintended by its author, mainly, as is well known, because of the unshakable strength ofthe teaching of collective compensation in the Jewish religion.PDF Creator - PDF4Free v2.0 http://www.pdf4free.com In the mind of the pious Jew the moralism of the law was inevitably combined with theaforementioned hope for revenge, which suffused practically all the exilic and post-exilicsacred scriptures.Moreover, through two and a half thousand years this hope for revengeappeared in virtually every divine service of the Jewish people--a people indissolublychained to religiously sanctified segregation from the other peoples of the world and this-worldly promises of God.From such a compensatory hope the Jews were bound to derivenew strength, consciously or unconsciously.Yet as the Messiah delayed his arrival, thishope receded in the religious thinking of the intellectuals in favor of the value of an innerawareness of God or a mildly emotional trust in God's goodness as such, combined with areadiness for peace with all the world.This happened especially in periods during whichthe social condition of a community lost complete political power.On the other hand, inepochs characterized by persecutions, like the period of the Crusades, the hope forretribution flamed up anew, either with a penetrating but vain cry to God for revenge, orwith a prayer that the soul of the Jew might "become as dust" before the enemy who hadcursed him.In the latter case there was no recourse to evil words or deeds, but only asilent waiting for the fulfillment of God's commandments and the cultivation of the heartso that it would remain open to God.To interpret resentment as the decisive element in Judaism would be unacceptabledeviation, in view of the many significant historical changes which Judaism hasundergone.Nevertheless, we must not underestimate the influence of resentment uponeven the basic characteristics of the Jewish religion.When one compares Judaism withother salvation religions, one finds that in Judaism alone resentment has a specific traitand played a unique role not found among the disprivileged status of any other religion.(E.9.c) Theodicy of DisprivilegeA theodicy of disprivilege, in some form, is a component of every salvation religionwhich draws its adherents primarily from the disprivileged strata, and the developingpriestly ethic accommodated to this theodicy wherever it was a component of communalreligion based on such groups.The absence of resentment, and also of virtually any kindof social revolutionary ethics among the pious Hindu and the Asiatic Buddhist can beexplained by reference to their theodicy of rebirth, according to which the caste orderitself is eternal and absolutely just.The virtues or sins of a former life determine birthinto a particular caste, and one's behavior in the present life determines one's chances ofimprovement in the next rebirth.Those living under this theodicy experienced no trace ofthe conflict experienced by the Jews between the social claims based on God's promisesand the actual conditions of dishonor under which they lived.(E.9.c.1) Jewish TheodicyThis conflict precluded any possibility of finding ease in this life for the Jews, who livedin continuous tension with their actual social position and in perpetually fruitlessexpectation and hope.The Jews' theodicy of disprivilege was despised by the pitilessmockery of the godless heathen, but for the Jews the theodicy had the consequence oftransforming religious criticism of the godless heathen into ever-watchful concern overPDF Creator - PDF4Free v2.0 http://www.pdf4free.com their own fidelity to the law.This preoccupation was frequently tinged with bitternessand threatened by secret self-criticism.The Jew was naturally prone, as a result of his lifelong schooling, to casuistic watch uponthe religious obligations of the fellow Jews, on whose punctilious observance of religiouslaw the whole people ultimately depended for Yahweh's favor.There appeared thatpeculiar mixture of elements characteristic of post-exilic times which combined despairat finding any meaning in this world of vanity with submission to the chastisement ofGod, anxiety lest one sin against God through pride, and finally a fear-riddenpunctiliousness in ritual and morals.All these tensions forced upon the Jew a desperatestruggle, no longer for the respect from others, but for self-respect and a sense of dignity.The struggle for a sense of personal worth must have become precarious again and again,threatening to wreck the whole meaning of the individual's conduct of life, sinceultimately the fulfillment of God's promise was the only criterion of one's value beforeGod at any given time.Success in his occupation actually became one tangible proof of God's personal favor forthe Jew living in the ghetto.But the conception of "proof" in a god's pleasing "calling," inthe sense of inner-worldly asceticism, is not applicable to the Jew.For the Jews, God'sblessing was far less anchored in a systematic, ascetic, and rational methodology of lifethan for the Puritans, whom this was the only possible source of the certainty ofsalvation.In Judaism, just as the sexual ethic remained naturalistic and anti-ascetic, soalso did the economic ethic remain strongly traditionalistic in its principle.It wascharacterized by a naive enjoyment of wealth, which is of course alien to any systematicasceticism.In addition, Jewish justification by work is fundamentally ritualistic characterinfused with the distinctive religiosity of mood.We must note that the traditionalisticnorm of the Jewish economic ethics self-evidently applied only to one's fellow people,not to outsiders, which was the case in every ancient ethics.All in all, then, the belief inYahweh's promises actually produced within the realm of Judaism itself a strongcomponent of resentment.(E.9.c.2) Jesus's TeachingIt would be completely false to portray the need for salvation, theodicy, or communalreligion as something that developed only among disprivileged social strata or even onlyas a product of resentment, hence merely as the outcome of a "slave revolt in morality."This would not even be true of ancient Christianity, although it directed its promises mostsympathetically to the "poor" in spirit and in materials [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.[73] Thus, the Jewish religion became notably a religion ofretribution.God's commandments were observed for the sake of the hope ofcompensation.Moreover, this was originally a collective hope that the people as a wholewould live to see that day of restoration, and that only in this way would the individual beable to regain one's own honor.There developed concomitantly, intermingled with the aforementioned collectivetheodicy, an individual theodicy of personal destiny which had previously been taken forgranted.The problems of individual destiny are explored in the Book of Job, which wasproduced by quite different circles, namely, the upper strata, and which culminates in arenunciation of any solution of the problem and a submission to the absolute sovereigntyof God over his creatures.This submission was the precursor of the teaching ofpredestination in Puritanism.The notion of predestination was bound to arise when thepathos of divinely destined eternal punishment in hell was added to the complex of ideasjust discussed, involving compensation and the absolute sovereignty of God.But thebelief in predestination did not arise among the Hebrews of that time.Among them, theconclusion of the Book of Job remained almost completely misunderstood in the senseintended by its author, mainly, as is well known, because of the unshakable strength ofthe teaching of collective compensation in the Jewish religion.PDF Creator - PDF4Free v2.0 http://www.pdf4free.com In the mind of the pious Jew the moralism of the law was inevitably combined with theaforementioned hope for revenge, which suffused practically all the exilic and post-exilicsacred scriptures.Moreover, through two and a half thousand years this hope for revengeappeared in virtually every divine service of the Jewish people--a people indissolublychained to religiously sanctified segregation from the other peoples of the world and this-worldly promises of God.From such a compensatory hope the Jews were bound to derivenew strength, consciously or unconsciously.Yet as the Messiah delayed his arrival, thishope receded in the religious thinking of the intellectuals in favor of the value of an innerawareness of God or a mildly emotional trust in God's goodness as such, combined with areadiness for peace with all the world.This happened especially in periods during whichthe social condition of a community lost complete political power.On the other hand, inepochs characterized by persecutions, like the period of the Crusades, the hope forretribution flamed up anew, either with a penetrating but vain cry to God for revenge, orwith a prayer that the soul of the Jew might "become as dust" before the enemy who hadcursed him.In the latter case there was no recourse to evil words or deeds, but only asilent waiting for the fulfillment of God's commandments and the cultivation of the heartso that it would remain open to God.To interpret resentment as the decisive element in Judaism would be unacceptabledeviation, in view of the many significant historical changes which Judaism hasundergone.Nevertheless, we must not underestimate the influence of resentment uponeven the basic characteristics of the Jewish religion.When one compares Judaism withother salvation religions, one finds that in Judaism alone resentment has a specific traitand played a unique role not found among the disprivileged status of any other religion.(E.9.c) Theodicy of DisprivilegeA theodicy of disprivilege, in some form, is a component of every salvation religionwhich draws its adherents primarily from the disprivileged strata, and the developingpriestly ethic accommodated to this theodicy wherever it was a component of communalreligion based on such groups.The absence of resentment, and also of virtually any kindof social revolutionary ethics among the pious Hindu and the Asiatic Buddhist can beexplained by reference to their theodicy of rebirth, according to which the caste orderitself is eternal and absolutely just.The virtues or sins of a former life determine birthinto a particular caste, and one's behavior in the present life determines one's chances ofimprovement in the next rebirth.Those living under this theodicy experienced no trace ofthe conflict experienced by the Jews between the social claims based on God's promisesand the actual conditions of dishonor under which they lived.(E.9.c.1) Jewish TheodicyThis conflict precluded any possibility of finding ease in this life for the Jews, who livedin continuous tension with their actual social position and in perpetually fruitlessexpectation and hope.The Jews' theodicy of disprivilege was despised by the pitilessmockery of the godless heathen, but for the Jews the theodicy had the consequence oftransforming religious criticism of the godless heathen into ever-watchful concern overPDF Creator - PDF4Free v2.0 http://www.pdf4free.com their own fidelity to the law.This preoccupation was frequently tinged with bitternessand threatened by secret self-criticism.The Jew was naturally prone, as a result of his lifelong schooling, to casuistic watch uponthe religious obligations of the fellow Jews, on whose punctilious observance of religiouslaw the whole people ultimately depended for Yahweh's favor.There appeared thatpeculiar mixture of elements characteristic of post-exilic times which combined despairat finding any meaning in this world of vanity with submission to the chastisement ofGod, anxiety lest one sin against God through pride, and finally a fear-riddenpunctiliousness in ritual and morals.All these tensions forced upon the Jew a desperatestruggle, no longer for the respect from others, but for self-respect and a sense of dignity.The struggle for a sense of personal worth must have become precarious again and again,threatening to wreck the whole meaning of the individual's conduct of life, sinceultimately the fulfillment of God's promise was the only criterion of one's value beforeGod at any given time.Success in his occupation actually became one tangible proof of God's personal favor forthe Jew living in the ghetto.But the conception of "proof" in a god's pleasing "calling," inthe sense of inner-worldly asceticism, is not applicable to the Jew.For the Jews, God'sblessing was far less anchored in a systematic, ascetic, and rational methodology of lifethan for the Puritans, whom this was the only possible source of the certainty ofsalvation.In Judaism, just as the sexual ethic remained naturalistic and anti-ascetic, soalso did the economic ethic remain strongly traditionalistic in its principle.It wascharacterized by a naive enjoyment of wealth, which is of course alien to any systematicasceticism.In addition, Jewish justification by work is fundamentally ritualistic characterinfused with the distinctive religiosity of mood.We must note that the traditionalisticnorm of the Jewish economic ethics self-evidently applied only to one's fellow people,not to outsiders, which was the case in every ancient ethics.All in all, then, the belief inYahweh's promises actually produced within the realm of Judaism itself a strongcomponent of resentment.(E.9.c.2) Jesus's TeachingIt would be completely false to portray the need for salvation, theodicy, or communalreligion as something that developed only among disprivileged social strata or even onlyas a product of resentment, hence merely as the outcome of a "slave revolt in morality."This would not even be true of ancient Christianity, although it directed its promises mostsympathetically to the "poor" in spirit and in materials [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]