Graetz entertained no such scruples. In the formation of his opinions fear or timidity had no part; they did not curtail the expression of his judgment regardless of the feelings of friend or foe. He was the first to divest himself wholly of Christian prejudices in the consideration of the Jewish past; the first to try to explain the development of Judaism on inherent principles, as all similar phenomena are explained. He was thus able to distribute light and shade justly, without any attempt to gloss or slur facts. Graetz had been in Berlin but a short time when he met Zunz at the house of Michael Sachs. The two visitors had not yet made each other’s personal acquaintance. The host presented Graetz, adding in praise of him, that he was about to publish a Jewish history. “Another history of the Jews?” Zunz asked pointedly. “Another history,” was Graetz’s retort, “but this time a _Jewish_ history.”[54] And, in truth, Graetz was the first to vindicate the fair claims of Jewish history; he did pioneer work in establishing the validity of the Jewish point of view. Christianity considers the belief in the Messiahship of the Son of God and in the miracles reported in connection with his birth and death the completion and fulfillment of the Law of Moses and of the prophetical promises. Only what springs from this dogma can rise to a proper conception of God, to the heights of true morality, and is capable of promoting the advancement of civilization. Accordingly, having begotten Christianity, Judaism fulfilled its religious mission, and the loss of Jewish national independence occurring almost simultaneously with the rise of Christianity, its spiritual importance was extinguished and its historical progress arrested. Its development since then, it is maintained, bears the marks of decrepitude and degeneration--is nothing more than idolatry of the _Torah_ and religious formalism. To this consciously or unconsciously biased view Graetz wished to oppose a faithful presentation of facts, free from partiality, personal predilections, or specious coloring. He held, that an objective, unprejudiced account sufficed to demonstrate the vitality of Judaism, asserting itself again and again in the midst of distress and persecution; continuing to develop its monotheistic doctrines and its ethical system undisturbed by the loss of a national background, and borne onward only by virtue of its spirituality and ideality; producing thinkers, poets, and even statesmen despite untold suffering; and contributing zealously to the solution of the problems of human civilization, uprooted and dispersed though its adherents were. This point of view Graetz assumed energetically and applied consistently in the elaboration of Jewish history, with the result that we owe to him our conscious acquaintance with the various aspects of Judaism in all their abundance and suggestiveness.