Caesar or Nothing
CAESAR OR NOTHING by PIO BAROJA _translated from the Spanish by_ LOUIS HOW CONTENTS PROLOGUE PART ONE ROME I THE PARIS-VENTIMIGLIA EXPRESS II AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY
But this glorious age will come about through the regeneration of the
Jewish people, which in turn be effected by a man, a scion of the house
of David, sent by God to guide them on the road to righteousness. The
people chosen by God to be His messengers to the world will then be
able to accomplish their mission of regenerating the world. This was
the Messianic hope proclaimed by the prophets and sages, and this is
the Messianic hope of most Jews to-day, the difference between the
various sections being only a difference in the details of the hope'
(_op. cit._, p. 278).
Dr. Greenstone surely cannot mean that the question of a 'personal
Messiah' is a mere detail of the belief. Yet it is on that point that
opinion is most divided among Jews. The older belief undeniably was what
Dr. Greenstone enunciates. But for this belief, none of what Mr. Zangwill
aptly terms the 'Dreamers of the Ghetto' would have found the ready
acceptance that several of them did when they presented themselves as
Messiah or his forerunners. And no doubt there are many Jews who still
cling to this form of the belief.
On the other hand, there has been a slow but widespread tendency to
reinterpret the whole intention of the Messianic hope of Judaism. In
1869, and again in 1885, American Conferences of liberal Rabbis adopted
resolutions to the following effect: 'The Messianic aim of Israel is not
the restoration of the old Jewish State under a descendant of David,
involving a second separation from the nations of the earth, but the
union of all children of God in the confession of the unity of God,
CAESAR OR NOTHING by PIO BAROJA _translated from the Spanish by_ LOUIS HOW CONTENTS PROLOGUE PART ONE ROME I THE PARIS-VENTIMIGLIA EXPRESS II AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY