Page 182 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

The Track of the Jew through the Ages

that Kant and Goethe, half understood, were the force behind it,
and their thoughts were attributed to the Jews according to a tested
method. But how did Goethe already warn against another rabbi
(Mendelssohn): "O you poor Christ! How badly will it fare with
you when he has slowly spun round your whirring little wings". To
Abraham Geiger, one of the greatest authorities of liberal Jewry,
similarly, it is not good to speak well of Christianity: "The thoughts
and sentiments of Christianity are of great indistinctness, stand
opposed to all popular traditions in such a way that they cannot take
root in them, simple minds that deny real life, dream ofan imaginary
fleshless life, widen the gap between spirit and body so that they
386
may glimpse blessedness in its destruction". One should read
through this quote carefully, it contains in a nutshell the entire Jewish
world-view. Because Christianity is detested by Jewry, it is said to
be "opposed to all popular traditions".
Thus it is understandable that the man from Galilee, "the
fruitful nursery of superstitious enthusiasm" appears to Mr. Geiger
in a strange light. "We cannot deny Christ a deep inwardness, but of
new thoughts ... of a great work of reform there is not trace. In
Jesus was a strange mixture of clarity of understanding, obfuscation
of mind and enthusiasm, as we often find in men of this sort, and it
depends merely on circumstances whether, from the emergence of
such men, a disappearing sect or a lasting religious association
387
develops".
So Christ actually belonged in a sanatorium.
Clearer and more honest is Hirsch Graetz, who sees in Jesus
"rebirth with a death-mask"; that already reminds one a little of the
language of the Talmud. And the Talmudist of today leaves nothing
to be desired in the clarity of his manner of expression. Dr. Lippe,
whose writings are to be read like those of "the Spanish wise men"
(according to Dr. Bursin), wrote also in 1897: "It is almost 1900
years since a Roman governor of German origin named Pontius
Pilate murdered thousands of Jews, among whom apparently there
was one whom the Aryan peoples promoted to a god long after his

386
Nachgelassene Schriften, Vol.11, p.38.
™Op.cit., p. 11 6.
159