Ebook: Influence of Judaism on the Protestant Reformation

Excerpt from Influence of Judaism on the Protestant Reformation

In a Lecture on Science, delivered not long since at the Royal Institution, and republished in the Eclectic of October, 1866, the Rev. C. Kingsley, speaking of the immense benefit mankind derived from the "brave and patient investigation of physical facts" ever since the latter part of the seventeenth century, and showing that the eighteenth century, "by boldly observing and analyzing facts," did more for the welfare of mankind "than the whole fifteen centuries before it;" goes on to say "that this boldness towards facts increased in proportion as Europe became indoctrinated with the Jewish literature; and that notably such men as Kepler, Newton, Berkely, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Descartes, in whatsoever else they differed, agreed in this: that their attitude towards nature was derived from the teachings of the Jewish sages. I believe that we are not yet fully aware how much we owe to the Jewish mind, in the gradual emancipation of the human intellect." What the learned lecturer here says of the influence of the Jewish mind on the development of the human intellect in general, may, with even more propriety, be said of the influence of the Jewish mind in bringing about that great and memorable event, forming a most remarkable epoch in the history of Christianity and Christendom - the Protestant Reformation. Few indeed, if any, are aware how much Christianity is indebted to Judaism, not only for its birth eighteen centuries ago, but even for its subsequent regeneration in the sixteenth century. Dr. Graetz, the able and thorough Jewish historian, whose oral instructions the translator himself has had the privilege of enjoying while pursuing his theological studies at the Seminary of Breslau, deserves the credit of being the first who has clearly and satisfactorily pointed out the hitherto hidden, yet potent influence which the literature of the Hebrews has exerted, more or less directly, on the great Ref…