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(Continued
from issue #4)
We promised in our fourth number
to furnish at a later period any interesting matter embraced in Mr.
Finn's book on this subject. But hitherto our space has been too much
occupied to permit us to redeem our promise. It is, therefore, with
pleasure that we seize the first opportunity of laying before our
readers Mr. F.'s account of the Discovery and Intercourse with the
Israelites in that distant country, which forms the subject of his first
chapter, although it is but the same which has appeared before in other works. Our readers must not
forget that the persons who give us the account were missionaries, who
had a purpose of their own to answer, and that we have no means at hand
as yet to verify their assertions; though it is to be hoped that now,
since there is a prospect of a more intimate intercourse with the
Chinese, our European friends will endeavour to form relations of
friendship with these distant brethren who have so long been strangers
to the Israelites of the West. We call the attention of the Editor of
the Voice of Jacob in particular to this interesting subject, in the
hope that he may present the matter to the consideration of his
influential readers in England. With these remarks we present the
subjoined to the perusal of our readers.—Ed. Oc.
Discovery and Intercourse.
The
Jesuit missionaries were but a short time settled in Peking, when one
summer's day, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a visitor
called upon Father Matthew Ricci, induced to do so by an account then
recently published in the metropolis, of the foreigners who worshipped a
single Lord of heaven and earth, and yet were not Mohammedans. Entering
the house with a smile, he announced himself as one of the same religion
with its inmates. The missionary remarking how much his features and
figure differed from those prevailing among the Chinese, led him to the
chapel. It was St. John Baptist's-day, and over the altar was a painting
of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus, and the future Baptist on his
knees before them. The stranger bowed to the picture as Ricci did, but
explained at the same time, that he was not accustomed to do so before
any such representations; only he could not refrain from paying the
usual homage of the country to his great ancestors. Beside the altar
were pictures of the four evangelists. He inquired if these were not of
the twelve? Ricci answered in the affirmative, supposing him to mean the
twelve apostles. Then, returning to the first apartment, he proposed
questions in turn, and an unexpected explanation ensued. The stranger
was a descendant of Israel, and during his survey of the chapel, had
imagined the large picture to represent Rebekah with Jacob and Esau, and
the other persons to denote four of the sons of Jacob.
It
was some time before this
simple explanation could be elicited on account of the misunderstanding
on both sides, which impeded the use of direct interrogation. The
visitor, however, nothing of the appellation, Jew: he styled himself an
Israelite, by name Ngai, a native of Kae-fung-foo, the capital of the
province, Ho-nan, where, having prepared himself by study for a Mandarin
degree, he had now repaired to Peking for his examination; and, led by
curiosity or a fellow-feeling for the supposed fraternity of his nation,
he had thus ventured to call at the mission-house.
He
stated, that in his native city there were ten or twelve families of
Israelites, with a fair Synagogue, which they had recently restored and
decorated at an expense of ten thousand crowns,* and in which they
preserved a roll of the law, four five hundred years old; adding, that
in Hang-chow-foo, the capital of Che-Keang, there were considerably more
families, with their Synagogue.
He
made several allusions to events and persons of Scripture history, but pronounced the names differently from the mode usual
in Europe. When shown a Hebrew Bible he was unable to read it, though he
at once recognized the characters. He said that Hebrew learning was
still maintained among his people, that his brother was proficient in
it; and he seemed to confess that his own neglect of it, with preference
for gentile literature, had exposed him to censure from the congregation
and the rabbi;* but this gave him little concern, as his ambition aimed
at the honours to be gained from Chinese learning—a disciple rather of
Confucius than of Moses.
Three
years afterwards, having had no earlier opportunity, Ricci despatched a
Chinese Christian to investigate, at Kae-fung-foo, the truth of this
singular discovery. All was found to be as described, and the messenger
brought back with him a copy of the titles and endings of the five books
of Moses. These were compared with the printed Plantinian bible. and
found to correspond exactly: the writing, however, had no vowel-points.
Ricci, ignorant of Hebrew, commissioned the same native convert to
return with an epistle, in Chinese, addressed to the rabbi, announcing
that at Peking he was possessor of all the other books of the Old
Testament, as well as those of the New Testament, which contains a
record of the acts of Messiah, who is already come. In reply, the rabbi
asserted that Messiah is not only not come, but that he would not appear
for ten thousand years. He added, that having heard of the fame of his
correspondent, he would willingly transfer to him the government of the
Synagogue, if Ricci would abstain from swine's flesh, and reside with
the community.
Afterwards
arrived three Israelites together from the same city, apparently willing
to receive a Christianity; one of these was son of the brother already
mentioned, of the first visitor. "They were received with kindness,
and instructed in many things of which their rabbis were ignorant:"
and when taught the history of Christ, they all paid to his image the
same adoration as their entertainers did. Some books being given them in
the Chinese language, such as, "A Compendium of Christian
Faith," and others of the same nature, they read them, and carried
them home at their return.
They
described their congregation as on the brink of extinction, partly from
the decay of their national language, and partly because their chief had
lately died at a very advanced age, leaving for his hereditary successor
a son, very young, and very little versed in the peculiarities of their
religion.
These
personages readily fell in with several opinions of the missionaries.
Trigaut felts us that they expressed a desire for pictures as helps to
devotion, to be in their Synagogue and private oratories, particularly
for pictures of Jesus. They complained of the interdiction from
slaughtering animals for themselves, which, if they had not transgressed
recently upon the road, they must have perished with hunger. They were
likewise ready to renounce the rite of circumcision on the eighth days,
which their wives and the surrounding heathen denounced as a barbarous
and cruel practice. And they hold out the expectation, that inasmuch as
Christianity offers relief in such matters, it would be easily adopted
among their people. Yet the author gives no account of any consequent
conversions. He passes on abruptly from this subject of Jewish filth
to relate the progress of Christian truth in China.
It
appeared, on further inquiry, that the Chinese comprise under the one
designation, Hwuy-hwuy, the three religions of Israelites,
Mohammedans, and the Cross-worshippers, descendants of early Syrian
Christians, subsisting in certain provinces, but occasionally
distinguishing them thus:—
l.
The Mohammedans, as the Hwuy abstaining from pork.
2.
The Israelites, as the Hwuy who cut out the nerves and sinews
from their meat; and,
3.
The Cross-worshippers, who refuse to eat of animals which have an
undivided hoof; which latter restriction, it was said, the Israelites
there did not observe.
Julius
Aleni, after the death of Ricci, being a Hebrew scholar visited
Kae-fung-foo about the year 1613, but found circumstances so much
changed from some cause or other, that although he entered the Synagogue
and admired its cleanliness, they would not withdraw the curtains which
concealed the sacred books.
In Nanking Semmedo was informed by a Mohammedan,
that in that city he knew of four families of Jews who had embraced the
religion of the Koran, they being the last of their race there, and
their instructors having failed as their numbers diminished. Indeed, the
visitors from Kae-fung-foo had before assured Ricci, in Peking, that the
same cause would soon reduce them to the alternative of becoming
heathens or Mohammedans.
However, Semmedo, writing in 1642, consoled himself
with the hope that whereas a Christian church had been recently erected
in that city, the congregation of the Synagogue would rather receive
Christianity, which, besides the consideration of being the truth, is
most nearly allied to their own religion.
The Mohammedans of Nanking he described as a motley
collection from various nations and eras of settlement; one of whom had
surprised him by conversing about David, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
pronouncing these names very distinctly. He compared their condition to
that of the Jews while in Spain, they being mostly merchants or
physicians, only held in higher consideration than the Spanish Jews had
been: inasmuch as in China the public honours are open to all aspirants.
Such was the amount of intelligence received in
Europe concerning that remote off-shoot of Israel up to the middle of
the seventeenth century. Christendom was not unconcerned at the
discovery; China itself was but a newly-opened mine for European
research; the indistinct glimpses afforded by Marco Polo in the
thirteenth century were indeed extending into broader fields of vision,
by means of the obedient zeal of Romanist missionaries. But when Xavier,
expiring within sight of China, before admission was conceded to
Christianity, prayed for its conversion with his latest accents, and
when Valignano so frequently turned his looks from Macao towards the
prohibited land, exclaiming, "O rock, rock, when wilt thou
open?" they were not aware that within that strong solidity was to
be found a relic of the peculiar nation who are every where witnesses of
the "goodness and the severity of God."
The devout rejoiced at this fresh demonstration of
truth respecting the scattered yet guarded race; the philosophical
marvelled at the fact of a Mosaic people so ancient as to be ignorant of
the denomination Jew, emigrants out of empires now long since extinct,
into a very different phasis of civilization, but preserved with their
old language and religion even to these days; and, moreover, that with
so slight efforts made, these should be known to exist at four various
points, containing a line of seven hundred miles, viz., from Peking to
Hang-chow-foo. |
