are the only analogue of the prophets that Greece possessed; and that
very fact illustrates what is meant when we say that the Hellenic spirit
had no capacity for, the Hellenic view of life no impulse to, that
intensity of feeling which could produce imagery so stupendous in such
awe-inspiring phrase.
The Hebraic character, therefore, is one of strength and depth. Even now
no Jew in fiction is ever a weakling or a trifler. In whatever light he
is presented, a Shylock of Shakespeare, an Isaac of Scott, a Nathan of
Lessing, a Sidonia of Disraeli--revengeful, avaricious, bigoted,
benevolent, magnificent, talented--he is always a character of striking
power and intensity. The ancient type of Greek does not appear in modern
fiction. If he did, it would be as a subtle reasoner, perfect critic,
polished man of the world, full of the intellectual and social graces,
ever adaptable to circumstance, choosing his idea and never letting the
idea govern him. And, in the matter of loves and hates, it was rather
his maxim that one should neither hate nor love over-much, since he
might some day come to hate the person he loved and love the person he
hated. The Hellenic watchwords "nothing too much"; and "measure in
everything"; the Hellenic hatred of "unseasonableness" and dread of
"infatuation"--these things show how the ideal of the Greek was ever to
be master of himself by aid of reason. The Hebraic spirit, on the
contrary, would strive and cry without scruple of measure or season in
any matter on which its conscience or desire was fixed.
The Hebraic spirit is uncompromising; it does not readily admit other
points of view. Hebrew history, for example, is wholly one-sided, seen
wholly in the colour of a Hebrew's feelings. The peoples with whom
Israel comes in contact are either so many impious men made to be slain,
or they are wicked tyrants, allowed by Heaven to chastise the chosen for
some allotted period. This was the necessary outcome of the theocratic
principle. How different from history as written by the Greek
Thucydides! To that historian facts are so many facts, to be seen as
they are, and to be told without undue enthusiasm, without obtrusive
expression of moral approval or disapproval. Never since those Hellenic
days has a historian been able so perfectly to contemplate the triumphs
and disasters of his own country as if himself quite aloof from personal
interest or stake in the result. Unclouded vision, purely intellectual
observation, could no further go.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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