Page 204 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

The Track of the Jew through the Ages

awakened). I would not like to take leave of expressions from the
Jewish past without mentioning in conclusion a personality who
seems to me in every aspect to be the embodiment of all that Judaism
439
can be characterised as: Isaac Orobio de Castro (1616-1627),
unquestionably one of the most significant Jews of his time. He
first emerged as a professor of philosophy in Salamanca, was then
handed over to the Inquisitional court, travelled to France after his
release, where he became professor of medicine in Toulouse.
Later he travelled to Amsterdam, where he ended his days.
In the world-view of this man are revealed to us the characteristic
limitation of the Jewish mind and the relentless will of the Jewish
character working together to produce a characteristic unity.
This world-view is based on the typically Jewish supporting
columns of an unchangeable dogma (in this case the law of Sinai),
hatred of Christians and Jewish world-rule.
With sure instinct he repudiates the absoluteness of the
prophets (who indeed strove in vain to reform the obstinate Jewry).
"The recognition ofthe true God does not in any way depend on the
prophetic revelations. God commanded to his people the cult with
which they should serve him, and this cult is independent of what
the prophets had to announce to them further".
"The prophets, who are the oracle of Christianity, and
without whom the Christians could not have made a Messiah unto
themselves, have followed the laws with conscientiousness, their
prophecies are filled only with warnings to the children of Israel to
ensure that they keep the law given by Moses. And what may not
these be against those who neglect it?
If it is God who has made the law, if it has been written in
his hand, if it has been declared from his mouth, then it is untouchable
440
and nothing can be changed in it without it ceasing to exist".
"One cannot believe that God has held his people so long
to the fulfilling of his law, which he gave on Mt. Sinai and then

439
[See above p. 92.]
440
Israel venge, Paris, 1845, p.l 11 . [This work was first published in London in
1 770 by a Jew called Henriquez who claimed that it was a French translation of an
original Spanish work by de Castro.]
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