The Jewish Question in Antiquity
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The Jewish question in Antiquity
Bruno Cariou
note: owing to the length of this article (66 pages) it won’t be edited owing to time constraints. Machine translated from the original French.
One of the tactical arguments most generally put forward against those who are currently raising the
Jewish problem is that anti-Semitism is simply a fashion, a foreign ideology and a clumsy imitation of
German racism and National Socialism, which has no place in our country [1]. We have already
exposed this manoeuvre in the June issue [of La Vita Italiana] [2] of last year, showing that the Jewish
problem can and must be posed in our country independently of
It is not artificial because, in its highest form, it is intimately linked to the Roman imperial idea.
Another tactical argument is that today's anti-Semitism is merely the secularised residue of an earlier anti-
Semitism.
religious prejudice. Christianity, it is said, created anti-Semitism. Coudenhove-Kalergi even tried t o
attribute the instinctive aversion of many non-Jews to the Jew to an unconscious heredity: this instinct
would have its origin, according to him, in the hatred that the Christian religion once inoculated against
those who tortured Jesus and demanded that his blood should fall on them. This view, too, is
tendentious and inaccurate. The proof is that anti-Semitism already existed in the ancient world
before the appearance of Christianity. The pre-Christian, Aryan, Classical and Mediterranean world
was already familiar with specific forms of anti-Semitism and had already perceived the Jewish peril,
often from a different angle.
surprisingly similar to the way it is perceived today. We think it is worth pointing this out. This is why,
although we have generally heard of numerous testimonies of anti-Semitism in the ancient world, it is
worth reviewing them in order to put an end once and for all to the polemical argument we have just
mentioned. Moreover, we know that anti-Semitism of a Christian nature has had a sort of boomerang
effect; once circulated by Christianity against Israel, it risks being turned against Christianity itself,
since the most extreme forms of anti-Semitism are today on the point of betraying the Jewish element
present in the Christian tradition. But, let us repeat, to acknowledge the presence of anti-Semitism in
the ancient world is to make a significant contribution to clearing the way.
We really need to agree on the meaning of the term "anti-Semitism" in the ancient world. In antiquity,
the attitude it designates never referred, for example, to the Assyrians, Babylonians or Arabs, who
were also Semitic peoples: it would therefore be more accurate to speak o f "anti-Judaism". Of
course, we could justify the term "anti-Judaism", which has become commonplace.
anti-Semitism", based on major oppositions of general types of civilisation and world v i e w , as Evola
[3] tried to do in our country; but this would take us too far and in the end we would have to go back
on our roots.
It is therefore understood that for us, "anti-Semitism" in the ancient world is synonymous with "anti-
Judaism". It is therefore understood that, for us, "anti-Semitism" in the ancient world is synonymous
with "anti-Judaism".
As far as the origins of anti-Semitism are concerned, we will not really follow Mgr. Trzeciak w h o
wanted to see in the Bible itself the starting point of anti-Semitism, on the pretext that this text
contains, from Deuteronomy onwards, numerous accusations against the Jewish people and numerous
predictions according to which they must expect to be punished because of their sins and impiety. In
the Bible, we would like to point out that the Egyptian monarchs had already foreseen the Jewish peril
and had endeavoured to deal with it. "The king of Egypt said to them: "Moses and Aaron, why do you
turn the people away from their work? Go back to your chores! The pharaoh added: "These people are
now
and you'll make them stop doing their chores! The same day, Pharaoh gave the following order to the
people's inspectors and commissioners: "You will no longer give straw to the people to make bricks as
you did before. They will collect straw themselves. You will, however, require them to make the same
quantity of bricks as they did before, but you will not do away with any of it. For they are lazy. That's
why they cry out, "Let's go and offer sacrifices to our God!"
(Exodus, 5.4-8). From that time onwards, the Jews were seen as an internal danger, a race which, not
content with becoming great and powerful among the people who welcomed them, betrayed them by
passing to
the enemy at the first favourable opportunity. Hence the Egyptian "captivity", the first practical
measure of ancient anti-Semitism.
Another document on the origins of anti-Semitism, in the Book of Esther, shows that the Jews
were scattered throughout the Persian Empire as early as the fourth century B.C., although they did
not enjoy a good reputation there. This is what Haman said to King Ahasuerus about the Jews of that
time: "There is a people scattered among the peoples, throughout all the provinces of your kingdom,
who nevertheless keep themselves apart, whose laws are different from those of all the peoples, and
who do not observe the king's laws. It is not expedient for the king to leave him in peace. So if the
king thinks it is a good idea, let someone write to him
destroy; and I will deliver into the hands of those who handle affairs, ten thousand talents of silver,
t o be carried into the king's treasuries." (Esther, 3. 8-10). It is interesting to quote this passage in its
Greek version [4], because it brings out the Jewish character even more clearly. It refers to a decree
of the Aryan king against the Jews: "A hostile people has mingled with all the peoples of the earth,
who by their laws oppose all the nations and continually transgress the royal decrees, so that the
imperial government which we scrupulously direct has no peace. Since we have considered that this
people alone adopts a hostile attitude towards everyone and that its law
dictates a way of life alien to us, and in his hostility is guilty of the worst deeds against us and truly
disturbs the order of the empire, we have decreed its destruction."
In the biblical text, however, the episode ends with a victory for the Jews, who manage to hold on to their
land.
revenge on Haman and to win the king's favour (it is significant that this was thanks to the Jewess
Esther and a Jewish official of the king: the famous mos judaicum). Be that as it may, the Bible tells us
that anti-Semitism already existed in Persia in the fourth century BC and that a distinction had already
been made between it and other forms of anti-Semitism.
that the anti-Semitic polemic of the following eras up to the present day has indicated as being
the characteristics of Israel.
From the fourth century BC onwards, aversion to the Jews grew in the Greek world, and then in the
Latin world, as Judaism spread more and more throughout the ancient world.
It should be noted that it is wrong to believe that the dispersion of the Jews dates from the second
destruction of Jerusalem.
(70 AD) and therefore had external causes. The Jews had already been dispersed throughout the
Mediterranean world for a long time, of their own free will and according to their own interests. When
the Persian king Cyrus allowed them to return home, most of the Jews did not think about leaving what
they called their "captivity": they had done good business there, they had accumulated wealth and
property, and the prospect of returning to a country as poor as their own did not enchant them.
The same can be said of the current leaders of the Jewish International, scattered around the world, who
smile with pity at those who think they are bringing "Zionism" to Palestine and would therefore like
the Jews to give up the golden posts they occupy in Aryan countries and retire to this poor corner of
the world.
Asian land. Long before their voluntary dispersion in the ancient Mediterranean world, i.e. the diaspora,
the Jews had shown themselves to be a stateless, parasitic race, hostile to the rest of the world.
The Jews were an enemy of the human race, ready to join the ranks of the enemies of the States that
had welcomed and even protected them, as soon as those enemies gained the upper hand. In Greek
civilisation, the most striking judgement is that of Apollonius Molon (1st B.C.), for whom the Jews were
"the stupidest of the Jews".
barbarians and [that] they never invented anything useful for life" (apud Flavius Josephus, Against
Apion, II, 14). Later, with a confused but profound intuition expressed in myth, Jerome
(XX, 14), described the race of Israel as "Typhonian", and this is extremely significant: Typhon-Set, in
Egyptian mythology, represented a demonic force hostile to the solar God, and the "Sons of Set" were
also called "the sons of impotent revolt".
a ferment of obscure and incessant agitation, corruption and sudden revolt. From documents on the
many conflicts between Jews and non-Jews in Egypt and Syria under Emperor Claudius, we know that
that this revolt took on tangible and direct forms from this period onwards. A link then appeared
between revolutionary political activity and a confused messianic mysticism, fuelled by a "prophetic"
prediction in which the theme of Israel's election as ruler of all peoples recurs. In this respect, it is
interesting to note that the moral reasons that initially contributed to the Romans' anti-Semitism were
very similar to those that led to the banning of Dyonysism [5]: Jewish spirituality was viewed with
suspicion, and they came to accuse the Jews of being "the masters of all peoples".
They accused the Jews of "atheism" because they rightly considered that their religious exclusivism,
based on their God alone and combined with strong proselytising, practically amounted to denying
the cults and religious traditions of all other peoples, for whom, moreover, the Jews made no secret
of their arrogant contempt. These accusations were made by the best-known Roman anti-Semites,
Cicero, Seneca and Tacitus.
Cicero declared that it was necessary to combat the "barbaric superstition" of the Jews, remarked that
"to disdain, for the good of the State, this multitude of Jews, sometimes unleashed in our meetings,
[is] an act of high dignity" (pro. Flac., XXVIII, 2) and denounced those who detached themselves from
Rome to look towards the distant city, Jerusalem, which they supported with the money they had stolen
from the "republic".
"(pro. Flac., X, 3). For him, the Jews and Syrians were born only to be slaves (de prov. cons., V, 10).
Seneca (apud Agost., civ. dei, VI, 11) remarked that "the morals of this people, the most wicked of all -
the Jews and Syrians - are the only ones to be slaves" (de prov. cons., V, 10).
sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo - became established, so that they were accepted in all countries
and the conquered imposed their laws on the conquerors". Tacitus goes even further, saying that
"there [among the Jews] is profane all that is sacred among us, legitimate all that we hold
abominable... the first principles inculcated in them are contempt for the gods, renunciation of one's
homeland (of the
homeland of which the Jews are the hosts), forgetting one's parents, one's children, one's brothers.
(Hist., V, 3-8).
The Jewish uprising against Rome, as we know, began under Nero and ended with the destruction
of Jerusalem (70 AD): the fact that the temple was completely razed to the ground and forbidden to
be rebuilt shows that the Romans had grasped the essential point, which is the inseparable link
between the Jews and Rome.
between Israel's subversive activity and its belief, its "promise" and its messianic hope, of which the
temple is the symbol. Nevertheless, under Trajan and Hadrian, there were new movements
Jewish revolutionaries. Poppea Sabina, Nero's wife, was the only Jewish empress. In later periods, the
Roman spirit showed such an aversion to the Jewish element that Titus, who had a Jewish lover,
Berenice, did not dare marry her for fear of public opinion (Suetonius, Titus, 7, ff). The latest research
into history and religion has established that a large part of the measures taken by the Romans against
the Christians and the persecutions they inflicted on them can be explained by the fact that the Jews
were the main reason for their persecution.
This was partly due to the fact that they had come to confuse Christianity with Judaism, and to see
in the latter an acute and epidermal form of the danger they had detected in the former.
The true meaning of the religious aspect of pre-Christian and Roman anti-Semitism is generally ignored,
with most people content with the easy formula of "pagan polytheism" imposed on "modern minds"
by a deleterious culture. The fact is that the ancient cults represented the spiritual aspect o f so many
national traditions, because the "gods" were the very essence of the ancient traditions, the "goddess"
of the world.
This is the basis of their moral unity, their original laws and their vision of life. This is why ancient man
reproached the Jews for their attitude, which was more or less the same as that with which they
The Jewish contempt for Aryan national cults and, in general, for cults accepted and protected by the
profoundly tolerant Roman world, corresponds to t h e destructive influence of Judeo-Masonic
universalism and internationalism in the modern era, which is directed against every national culture
and tradition, against every principle of the Christian faith.
differentiating and hierarchical. Moreover, in general, an honest historian like Mommsen has come to
the conclusion that "Judaism was a ferment of national decomposition and cosmopolitanism in the
ancient world". In antiquity, however, it seems that the clearest forms of nationalism and
cosmopolitanism were to be found in Judaism.
anti-Semitism arose at a time when people, especially those of the intellectual class, were inclined
towards the universalism that was the hallmark of the new imperial civilisation. This is not a
contradiction. The fact is that universalism or, to put it better, internationalism, is only an external
aspect of Judaism, which hated and despised all non-Jewish worship, not in the name of a truly
universal doctrine, but in the name of its own God, a particular national God who did not tolerate
other divinities: the anti-traditional character of Israel is the complement of its own traditionalism and,
in the ancient world as in the modern world, the Jew was indifferent and "anti-Jewish".
hostile to the national states in which he lived and did business, even though he was rigorously loyal to his
country.
This is one of the main reasons for ancient anti-Semitism. This was one of the main reasons for ancient
anti-Semitism. It should be emphasised that, in ancient times, even
Religious anti-Semitism had a profound justification and corresponded to an exact knowledge of
Jewish nature. If the Jew was persecuted and hated because he remained faithful to his religion, it was
because it was known that the central element of this religion was contempt for all other religions
and the dream of a "Jewish world".
mission" in which the "chosen people" were assigned the role of the only "non-idolatrous" race that
would preserve itself, conserve its cults and dominate all the other nations.
Ancient anti-Semitism also had economic and social causes. Symptoms of an animus against the Jewish
merchant, capitalist and usurer appeared as early as antiquity. In a document dating from the second
century BC, it is strongly recommended "never to borrow money from Jews".
other documents show the impropriety of Jews in business [6]. It happened that Jews
make a profit of 900 per cent from certain businesses [7]. Moreover, the Jews maintain that the
Talmud is the late redaction of norms and laws that had already been in force for a long time, and it is
said that the Talmud was written by the Jews.
As you know, the Talmud sanctions and even prescribes all kinds of deceit and dishonesty in dealings
with the goyim, the non-Jews, the "idolaters". The Jews had already established the clique system in
Roman times, as can be seen, for example, in Juvenal's fourteenth satire, which notes that the
influence exerted in Rome by Judaism was so harmful that ambitious young men "did not hesitate to
be circumscribed". In general, it has been pointed out that the very way in which the J e w s
conceived of man's relationship with the divinity, a relationship based on a mechanism of
of benefits and rewards, shows a mercantilism which must have been the essential element of Judaism
in antiquity; a spirit which, however, could not fail to arouse contempt in the Jews.
Aryan peoples, accustomed to a different type of morality and conduct. We know that in the ancient
Law, the Torah, the messianic idea was already intimately linked to wealth and earthly goods,
containing the seeds of capitalist speculation and, finally, the economy as an instrument of power in
Israel's plans.
For religious reasons - which we have already mentioned as being closely linked to the political-national
factor
- and for ethical and economic reasons, the Jews have succeeded since antiquity in arousing feelings of
antipathy, aversion and hostility, independently of any Christian premise. The Jews were perfectly
aware of this; it is striking that the Talmud (b.Jeb., 47b) prescribes that, if a
If a "pagan" wants to become a Jew, the representatives of Judaism must remind him that this
religion "is hated by the whole world". The rabbis are obliged to do this, so that neophytes realise
that they are not Jews.
of the seriousness of their decision.
As a conclusion to this extremely brief survey, we can therefore respond with a smile of commiseration
to those who tell us that we are anti-Semitic "out of fashion" or that,
Without realising it, we carry within us the prejudices of a medieval obscurantism based on Christian
fanaticism. The anti-Semitic 'tradition' is much older. The study and knowledge of the testimonies of
anti-Semitism in antiquity can contribute effectively to p o s i n g the Jewish problem objectively,
outside the religious framework, by showing that it always has the same fundamental causes. And it is
with just as much objectivity that we can establish the positive complement of
anti-Semitism, i.e. the set of values likely to represent the antithesis of the Jewish spirit and morals. We
will never tire of repeating that this is essential if we are not to run the risk of sometimes attributing
to the enemy ideas which are affected, albeit in a different form, by the same evil as the one we wish
to combat. And if, for some people, anti-Semitism is indeed a "fashion" and an exclusively polemical
instrument, we can be absolutely certain that this is not our case.
"Arthos", L'ebraismo nel mondo antico, in La Vita Italiana, XXVI, n.304, 7.193; in Il "Genio" d'Israele,
Catania, il Cinabro, 1992, translated from the Italian by B. K.
[1] J. Evola is referring to the Fascist racial laws of 1938 (Editor's note).
[2] La Vita Italiana all'estero was a nationalist and anti-Semitic magazine founded in 1915 by the
journalist Giovanni Preziosi (1881-1945), an early Fascist who became Minister for Demography and
Race in the government of the Italian Social Republic from 14 March 1944 until its fall. J. Evola
collaborated intensively with Preziosi from 1931 to 1943; the one hundred and thirty-five articles he
written for this magazine have been collected in I testi de La Vita Italiana, t. 1 1931-1938; t. 2 1939-1943,
Padua, Ed. di Ar, 2006. (Editor's note)
[3] Most of these articles are signed "Arthos". (Editor's note)
[4] E. Kautzsch, Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des alten Testament, vol. 1, pp. 193 ff.
[5] J. Leipdt, Antisemitismus in der Alten Welt, p. 5, p. 17.
[6] Mitteis-Wilcken, 1, 2, nËš 56, 57, 60.
[7] M. I. Rostovcev, Gesellschaft u. Wirtschaft im römischen Kaiserreich, II, p.322.
The Jewish question in Antiquity (2)
The need to take up the pen on Julius Evola's considerations on the Jewish question arose from the
combination of a meditation on the misleading assertion that "What is stressed here [in Three
Aspects of the Jewish Problem] is the complex spirit of Hebraism, whose
deeply rooted tradition seems to have been undermined by the disintegrating influences of the
Judaism". (1) and the willingness to explicitly draw the necessary conclusions that can be read
between the lines in a recent well-documented article on J. Evola and the historical role of Judaism in
the
ancient world (2), bearing in mind that there are always misunderstandings about Evola's
considerations on the problem in question, whether they are due, in part or in full, to the reader, the
author or, moreover, his exegetes. In this respect, our critical reading of Julius Evola's Political
Endeavors, which is based on complete quotations from his works published in
English, resulted in clarifications, in particular with regard to the assertions that the author's writings
"never spoke out against orthodox religious Judaism". This
This examination has led us to summarise his analysis of the Jewish question as follows: 1. A tradition
existed in the form of Judaism; 2. The valid part of its content was probably not
3. it has degenerated into a ferment of decomposition on all levels, be they spiritual, intellectual, social
or economic, through a process of secularisation. In this explanatory scheme, the only variable in J.
Evola's work concerns the elements emphasised, the extent of the borrowing and the identification of
the traditions from which the borrowed elements are drawn.
originally belonged to.
Here we propose to do the opposite, which means developing the three points that have been
highlighted, breaking down the author's argument into its constituent parts to make it easier to
understand, as clear as day. To achieve this, our
An exhaustive account will, of course, be based on relevant quotations from his work. An analysis
The critical analysis of his guideline will then be presented in the light of the Old Testament, the work
of several biblical scholars and historians of antiquity, and recent genetic studies. With a few rare
exceptions, such as the afterword to Il Mito del sangue (Sear, 1995), studies such as those by P.
Di Vona and G. Monastra, J. Evola's racial considerations, in particular those relating to the Jewish
question, function in a closed circuit, in that they are verified, not by reference to the sources, but
rather by reference to the facts.
academics, not even - and this is the icing on the cake, coming from authors who are academics
- in relation to the Old Testament, one of the best sources for the study of the Jews, but simply in
relation to their own considerations, perceptions and feelings about the Jewish question, which are
based on mere unsubstantiated personal opinions, or are based solely on a one-sided, right-thinking
reading of J. Evola's anti-Semitic writings. Whereas, as we shall see, the hypothesis that the
The idea that Judaism is an alteration of Hebraism is put forward by some, while others trace the
origins of the distinctive characteristics of Judaism to the very nature of the ancient Jewish people.
In the ancient Hebrew tradition, as in every other tradition, there would have been a heroic solar
component and a passive lunar component. Solar symbolism would be present in the events
described in the Book of Exodus, insofar as "they can be interpreted esoterically" (3). Elijah, Enoch
and Jacob are said to be heroic types. However, "these
The elements are sporadic and reveal a curious oscillation, typical of the Jewish soul, between, on the
one hand, a feeling of guilt, self-humiliation, deconsecration and concupiscence; on the other hand, an
almost Luciferian pride and spirit of rebellion". (4) The Kabbalah, i.e. the initiatory tradition found in
Judaism, "is particularly abstruse, which sometimes characterises it as
(5) The same oscillation can be seen in the Jewish conception of kingship: on the one hand, sovereigns
such as David and Solomon belonged to a line of kings who were "cursed".
priests, but, on the other hand, "the Jew saw in the full and traditional understanding of royal dignity a
denigration of God's prerogatives (whether historical or not, Samuel's opposition to
The establishment of a monarchy is very significant. (6) In the oldest conception of the beyond in the
Jewish scriptures, not even the king can avoid following the lunar "path of the ancestors", the only
path that the dead can follow.
Moreover, these features of a positive and virile spirituality turn out not to be intrinsically Jewish
("they most likely derive [...] from the Amorites, whose non-semitic and Nordic origin is sometimes
debated") (7), with one exception: the idea of the Messiah-King "had many features in common with
purely Aryan conceptions and ideals, from which the Jews often borrowed elements in this respect"
(8). "The very idea of a "chosen people" destined to rule the world by divine mandate [...] is an idea
that can also be found in Aryan traditions, particularly among the Iranians, as is, among the latter,
albeit with non-passive and virile messianic characteristics, the type of the future "universal master",
Saoshyant, a king of kings." (9) The only congenital characteristic of the ancient Hebrew religion
would be "the
formalism of rites", insofar as it is considered to have "more than likely
"the same anti-sentimental, active, decisive spirit that [...] was the hallmark of primordial and even
Roman virile Aryan ritual". (10)
How could it have been otherwise in religious terms? How could the religious beliefs and practices of
the Hebrews not have reflected their composite racial substance? "The Old Testament itself speaks of
several tribes and races contained within this people, and modern racial research has come to admit
the presence even of Aryan or non-Aryan elements.
This seems to be the case especially with the Pharisees. (11) (See Ezekiel 16:3 ff) As a "mixed people
[...] The Jew is essentially a mixture of the Levantine or Armenoid race and the Desert or Orientaloid
race; moreover, he would also combine such elements as the Hamitic race, the Black race, then the
Mediterranean and Alpine (Ostisch) races and secondary races,
The Jewish people is a mixture of races, not to say a detritus of mainly non-Indo-European races".
(12)
What gave form and unity to the Jewish people was the Law. "We find in ancient Judaism a very visible
effort on the part of a priestly elite to dominate and coalesce an ethnic substance
It did this by establishing the divine Law as the foundation of its "form" and by making it the substitute
for what in other peoples was the unity of a common homeland and a common origin. From this
formative action, which was linked to sacred and ritualistic values and
was preserved in the first redactions of the Torah until the elaboration of the Talmud, the Jewish type
It has been said by a Jew that, as Adam was formed by Jehovah, so the Jew was formed by Jewish
law.... (13) "It has been said, by a Jew, that as Adam was formed by Jehovah, so the Jew was formed by
Jewish law [...].
"(14) "This 'Law', in the case of the Jew, replaces the fatherland, the country, the nation, the blood
itself; this 'Law' reacts to a chaotic and detrimental original racial mixture, imposing a form on it,
making it adopt instincts and attitudes of a particular type, which would become hereditary in the
course of the centuries" (15) "This 'Law' reacts to a chaotic and detrimental original racial mixture,
imposing a form on it, making it adopt instincts and attitudes of a particular type, which would become
hereditary in the course of the centuries". (15)
However, "[w]hen Israel's military successes declined, defeat came to be understood as punishment
for 'sins' committed, and so a hope developed that after conscientious atonement Jehovah would
again help his people and restore their power. This theme was taken up in Jeremiah and Isaiah. But
since this did not happen, the prophetic hope degenerated into an apocalyptic, messianic myth and
into the fantastic eschatological vision of a
This marked the beginning of a process of disintegration. What derived from the traditional
constituent eventually turned into ritualistic formalism and consequently became more and more
abstract and separated from real life." (16) "[...] Moreover, a link was established with a human type
which, in order to defend values which it cannot realise and which thus appear i n c r e a s i n g l y
abstract and utopian to it, eventually feels dissatisfied and frustrated with every form of authority and
every existing positive order [...] until it becomes a constant source of disorder and revolution." (17)
Now that a precise summary of J. Evola's considerations on the Jewish question in Antiquity has
been established, it is time to submit them to a critical reading. The problem of the historicity of the
Bible, that of its dating or, more precisely, that of the dating of the various books of the Old
Testament, that of the successive revisions they have undergone over the centuries and that of its
translation and, more importantly, that of the Jewish question in Antiquity, all need to be
addressed.
particularly its first translation, the Septuagint, which was undertaken and supervised by the Jews
themselves, will hardly be taken into account. They are inextricable. That the authentic history of
Israel only begins with the monarchy (around 1000 BC) and that the earlier accounts are of
the extent to which the scriptural corpus has been reinterpreted, amended and corrected over the
centuries, are questions that cannot be resolved.
In most cases, it's based on what we know. At most, it is always
possible to identify with absolute certainty whether some of these scriptures, the study of which is
nevertheless very important in examining J. Evola's hypothesis that the concept of the Messiah was
deformed after the destruction of Israel's political life and the deportation of its leaders, are pre-exilic
or post-exilic. The whole of the Jewish scriptural corpus, with a few exceptions that correspond to
passages unanimously considered dubious, will nevertheless be taken, as it was by J. Evola, into
account in his analysis.
Evola, as he is, as the Jews want non-Jews to see him.
According to Genesis, Japheth is the father of the white race and, more specifically, of the Indo-
Europeans of West Asia and Europe; Shem is the father of the peoples of the Middle East and South
Asia, while Ham's descendants are the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Lybians and Canaanites, as well as the
black race. It is certainly not our intention to discuss the ethnographic conceptions of the ancient
Hebrews, in whose labyrinth biblical scholars became confused. Although much has been written
about the Table of Nations since Flavus Josephus, the most important thing, the main point, has been
missed. It has been missed because most of those who have studied it have
concentrated exclusively on the question of its historical validity and accuracy, thus neglecting the
deeper truth it contains, which should be sought, so to speak, upstream, not downstream. The starting
point for arriving at a clear vision of the subject is not the lineage of Japheth, Ham and
Shem, but the fact that "ethnically and originally, very different bloods flowed in the Jewish people;
the Old Testament itself speaks of several tribes and races contained in this people [...]" (18) In other
words, the Table of Nations should be read, so to speak, in reverse: it is not
not that the various races are monogenetically descended from the ancestors of the Jewish people; it
is that the Jewish people are composed of various races. Indeed, "[...] modern racial research has come
to the following conclusion
In the case of the Pharisees in particular, this seems to be the case". (19) The results of subsequent
genetic research confirmed this study unambiguously: "Haplotypes constructed from markers on the Y
chromosome have
were used to trace the paternal origins of the Jewish diaspora. A sample of 18
Biallelic polymorphisms were genotyped in 1371 males from 29 populations, including 7 Jewish
groups (Ashkenazi, Roman, North African, Kurdish, Near Eastern, Yemeni and Ethiopian) and 16 non-
Jewish groups from similar geographical locations. Jewish populations are characterised by a diverse set
of 13 haplotypes that are also present in non-Jewish populations in Africa, Asia and Europe". (20) In
fact, for example, "[...] members of the Bantu-speaking black Lembas tribe of South Africa, some of
whose rituals are similar to those of the Jews and whose tribal accounts of their origins tell of their
descent from the Jews, do indeed carry some Y chromosome markers that are unmistakably of
Semitic, probably Jewish, origin." A study by A. Oppenheim and
his colleagues show that around 70 per cent of the paternal ancestors of Jews and around 82 per cent
of Palestinian Arabs share the same genetic background. Geneticists say this could support the claim
that Palestinian Arabs are partly descended from Judeans who converted to Islam". (21) "In 2001, a
team of Israeli, German and Indian scientists discovered that the majority of the world's Jews are
closely related to the Kurdish people.
more closely than they are to Semitic-speaking Arabs or any other population that has been tested".
(22) The haematological study by A. E. Mourant shows that all Jews throughout the world have at least
5 to 10% congoid blood, results which do not prevent certain contemporary authors who report them
from being categorical as to the fact that "the Jews are a race". Such nonsense is widespread, not to
say endemic, among suggestible anti-Zionist non-Jews who come to identify the Nuremberg Laws,
which did not refer exclusively to Jews, with the
mission to implement the Torah's prohibition of mixed marriages, which had been entrusted to Ezra
and Nehemiah by the God of Israel following the end of the Babylonian captivity and the return of
certain Jews to Israel. Racial mixing was as non-existent and felt as unnatural at the beginning of the
twentieth century in Germany as it was apparently widespread and considered natural i n pre-exilic
Israel, judging by the avowed reluctance with which the Israelites sent back their foreign wives and
children when Ezra urged them to do so, by the eagerness with which they
began to practise exogamous marriages again, when Ezra had returned to his Babylonian home and by
the unanimous reaction of the Israelites, following Ezra's return to Jerusalem to take further steps to
implement his earlier legislation: "Nehemiah, the
Then the governor, Ezra, the priest and the scribe, and the Levites who were teaching the people, said
to all the people, "This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not be dismayed and weep! For all the
people wept when they heard the words of the law." (Nehemiah 8:9); "Must we then learn about you
that you commit such a great crime and sin against our God by
taking foreign wives?" (Nehemiah 13:27) Endogamy does not seem to have been the rule among
earlier Israelites: Esau was married to two Hittites (Genesis 26:34); Josephus was married to an
Egyptian (Genesis 41:45); Moses - irrespective of his ethnicity and, indeed, of his
historicity - was married to a Midianite (Exodus 2:21) and a Kushite (Numbers 12:1); David - who is
described as descended from a mixed marriage in the book of Ruth - to a Calabite and an Aramean.
(2 Samuel 3:3); "King Solomon loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter: Moabites,
Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites from the nations
of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, "You shall not go to them, nor shall they come to
you; for they will surely turn your hearts to their gods. It was to these nations that Solomon turned in
love. He had seven hundred princesses for wives and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned
his heart away." (1 Kings 11:1-3), to name but a few.
examples.
Consequently, how can we explain the fact that proscriptions of exogamy are found in the
Pentateuch and Deuteronomy?
"Does this prohibition apply to all non-Jews or only to the seven nations?
Canaanites? The answer is clearly the latter. Moses commands the Israelites to destroy the
seven Canaanite nations because they threaten Israelite religious identity and live in the lands that the
Israelites will conquer. Exogamy with them was prohibited. The Ammonites and Moabites, more
distant and therefore less dangerous, were not consigned to destruction and isolation; they were only
forbidden to enter the congregation (Deuteronomy 23:4). The Egyptians and Edomites were even
allowed into the congregation after three generations (Deuteronomy 23:8-9). The meaning of the
prohibition 'to enter the congregation' is not at all clear [...] but I
presumes that originally, at least, it was not a prohibition of exogamy. Other nations, even further
from the Israelite horizon, were probably not subject to any prohibition. Internal biblical evidence
confirms this strict interpretation of Deuteronomy 7:3-4." (23)
It would thus seem that Ezra's opposition to exogamy did not stem from the racial attachments of
foreign women but from a concern about the effects their religious beliefs and practices would have
on the relatively small Hebrew community at the time. The problem could simply have been
religious justification, as opposed to the racial justification of the Nuremberg Laws. Salomon fell in
disgrace in the eyes of Yahweh not because, like David, he practised exogamy, but because "his wives
turned away his heart to other gods". (1 Kings 11:4)
The Jewish Encyclopaedia recognises not only that "[w]hether considered politically or ethnologically,
Israel must be regarded as a composite people. This is evident both in the genealogical statements of
the Bible and in recorded instances of racial amalgamation" (of Jacob's twelve sons, two - Judah and
Simeon - married a Canaanite woman; Josephus married the daughter of Putiphar, the captain of the
guard of Pharaoh's palace), but also that "Judea has always derived strength from the absorption of
foreigners". The nature of this strength is obviously not specified.
The mixed character of the early Israelites would inevitably be reflected in their religious beliefs and
practices. The first period of Israelite settlement was characterised by a strong tendency towards
syncretism with the religion of the Canaanites, which in turn had borrowed heavily from those of its
neighbours. The combination of different forms of belief and practice in the religion of Israel during
the royal period was so fertile that M. Eliade came to describe it as the "culmination of syncretism"
(24). "The Canaanites, with whom the Israelites came into contact during Joshua's conquest and the
period of the Judges, were a sophisticated urban and agricultural people. The Canaanite name means
"Land of Purple" (a purple dye was extracted from a murex crustacean found near the coast of
Palestine). The Canaanites [...] absorbed and assimilated the characteristics of several cultures of the
ancient Near East for at least 500 years before the Israelites
enter their zone of control [...].
The religion of the Canaanites was an agricultural one, with pronounced fertility motives. Their main
gods were called the Baalim (Lords) and their consorts the Baalot (Ladies) or Asherah (singular), usually
known by the personal plural name of Ashtoret. The god of the city of
Shechem, a city that the Israelites had peacefully absorbed under Joshua, was called Baal-berith (Lord
of the Covenant) or El-berith (God of the Covenant). Shechem became the first cultic centre of the
religious tribal confederation (called amphictyony by the Greeks) of the Israelites during the period of
the Judges [...] The Baalim and the Baalot, gods and goddesses of the earth, were believed to be the
"goddess of the covenant".
revitalisation of the forces of Nature on which agriculture depended. The revitalisation process
involved a sacred wedding (hieros gamos), several symbolic and real sexual activities between men,
representing the Baalim, and the temple's sacred prostitutes (qedeshot), representing the Baalot. Cult
ceremonies dedicated to the Baalim involving sexual acts between male members of the farming
communities and sacred prostitutes focused on the Canaanite conception of white magic. While the
Baalim (through the action of selected men) impregnated both
the sacred prostitutes in order to reproduce.
Baalim (as weather and earth gods) would make it rain (which was often identified with seed) on the
earth to produce abundant harvests of grain and fruit. Canaanite myths incorporating such fertility
myths can be found in the mythological texts of the ancient city of Ugarit (now Ras Shamra) in
northern Syria; although the great god El and his consort are important as the first pair in the
pantheon, Baal and his consorts are not.
sexually passionate are significant in the creation of the world and the renewal of Nature.
The religion of the Canaanite farmers had a strong attraction for the less sophisticated, nomadic
Israelite tribes. Many Israelites succumbed to the attraction of the rituals
As the Canaanites and Israelites began to live in closer contact, the faith of Israel tended to absorb
some of the concepts and practices of the Canaanite religion. As the Canaanites and Israelites began to
live in closer contact, Israel's faith tended to absorb some of the concepts and practices of the
Canaanite religion." (25) The ritual system, sacred sites and shrines of Yahwism were borrowed from
Canaanite religion and the Yahwist priestly caste was modelled on
that of the Canaanites. However, the external influences transmitted to Yahwism as it took
These were far from being confined to the cults of their nearest neighbours, who were themselves a
mixed people, whose political organisation, too, as we shall see, owed much to foreign influences.
"The initial Israelite culture resembled that of its neighbours; it was neither completely original nor
primitive. (26)
From an Indo-European perspective, "[...] the idea that ancient Jewish civilisation represented some
This is absurd, since Israel's stature appears modest in comparison with the ethics and spirituality common
to the ancient Aryo-Hellenic, Indo-Aryan, Aryo-Aryan and Aryan-Aryan stock.
Roman and Aryan-Iranian". (27) "This nation, despite what has been asserted, never had a civilization
of its own, any more than the Phoenicians." (28) "The Jews possessed neither arts nor sciences nor
industry nor anything that constitutes a civilisation. They have never made the slightest contribution to
the edification of human knowledge. They never progressed beyond the half-barbaric state of peoples
who have no history. If they ended up owning cities, it was because the conditions of existence, in the
midst of
But the Jews were profoundly incapable of building their own cities, temples and palaces, and at the
time of their greatest power, under the reign of Solomon, they were obliged to bring from abroad the
architects, workers and artists who had no emulators in Israel. [...] During its long centuries of history,
Israel produced only one book, the Old Testament, and from this book, a few
The rest are hallucinatory visions, cold chronicles, obscene and bloody tales. The rest is m a d e up of
hallucinatory visions, cold chronicles, obscene and bloody tales". (29) "Without the triumph of
Christianity,
the history of the people of Israel would be stranger, more unknown and more indifferent to us than
that of such peoples of Asia Minor as the Lydians, the Phrygians, the Phoenicians or the Hittites, who
certainly played in the ancient world a role of infinitely greater importance than that of the
Hebrews, a small tribe with no culture, eternally defeated and conquered, subjugated or dispersed.
What we are taught, in the final analysis, under the name of Holy History, is neither on the plane nor
on the scale o f history, tout court." (30)
"The tribal structure resembled that of the Semitic inhabitants of the western steppes known from the
18th century BC tablets unearthed north of the Mesopotamian city of Mari; their family customs and
law have parallels in the ancient Babylonian and Uro-Semitic law of the beginning and middle of the
second millennium. The concept of a messenger of God that forms the basis of biblical prophecy was
Amorite (West Semitic) and is found in the Mari tablets. Mesopotamian religious and cultural concepts
are reflected in the biblical cosmogony,
early history (including the flood of Genesis 6:9-8:22), and law books. The
The Canaanite form of Israelite culture consisted of the Hebrew language and a rich literary heritage -
of which the Ugaritic form (which flourished in the city of Ugarit in northern Syria from the middle of
the fifteenth century BC until around 1200 BC) illuminates the poetry, style and allusions.
and religious terms. Egypt provides many analogues to Hebrew hymnody and wisdom literature. All
the cultures among which the patriarchs lived had cosmic gods who shaped the world and preserved
its order, including its justice; all had a developed ethic expressed in law and moral admonitions; and
all
had sophisticated religious rites and myths". (31) The syncretism did not stop there. The "law o f
jealousies" (Numbers 5:11-31), a test of innocence or guilt consisting of the priest administering bitter
water to a woman accused of adultery by her husband, bears some resemblance to a custom of
primitive tribes in West Africa; circumcision, one of the primitive rites of the
yavhism, seems to have originated from certain tribes in sub-Saharan Africa. J. John Williams (32)
reports that "Professor Keller of Yale University, relying largely on data collected by William Graham
Sumner in his examination of 'dress and other forms of mourning', places many West African funeral
customs in the same class as the 's a c k c l o t h and ashes' ritual of the Old Testament."
Hebrewism of Africa (33) outlines the striking similarities between traditional African customs and
some of those described in the Old Testament.
It is important to bear in mind that no element whatsoever remains unchanged as it moves from one
culture to another. This process has been extremely well studied from a
dynamic by Sigmund Mowinckel (34) in relation to the institution of kingship in the primitive Hebrew
community. In fact, his clear and illuminating presentation, which will give us a better understanding of
the genius of the Jewish people and, more particularly, of the Jewish messianic idea, of the radical
changes it undergoes through elements borrowed from other cultures, is so relevant to the subject
under study and so free of controversy that it will be incorporated into this study almost word for
word, albeit in a pruned form, as a transition to the examination of the question of messianism.
Settlement in Canaan, or to be more precise, in Shechem, implied an entirely new way of life, the
inevitable consequences of which were a new social structure and new political bodies and
institutions, which in turn required new forms and manners. It was from the Canaanites that the
Hebrews learned what a king was. They often had recourse to the court
of these kings in their legal and commercial transactions, and they had to use or, necessarily, submit to
commercial and agricultural regulations that they had not needed to develop when they were nomads.
They learned that the monarchical system stood behind any attempt t o establish a great empire, and
that only a monarch had the power to hold together scattered tribes and colonies, since only a king
could have a large enough army for the purpose. In
In addition to the monarchy, it was natural for Israel to borrow from the Canaanites many ideas and
conceptions about kingship, royal ideology, the "order (mishpat) of the kingdom", i t s etiquette and
customs, and the whole model of life that was linked to it. The Old Testament does not hide the fact
that
that it was in many ways a new and alien 'style'. The ideal of kingship which the Hebrews borrowed
from the Canaanites was, in fact, a particular development of the Oriental conception of kingship.
of kingship. The Canaanite kingship was not an indigenous creation, free from foreign influences. The
country's culture as a whole was largely composite, mainly Syrian, but, like Syrian culture itself, subject
to strong influence from Mesopotamia (Hourrito-Mitannian), Babylonia and Assyria, Asia Minor
(Hittite) and t h e countries bordering Egypt.
The god is particularly regarded as the god of fertility and creation. The most important cultic festival is
the New Year, when the world is created anew. During this festival, the king undergoes
the humiliation and death of the god, his resurrection, struggle and victory, and his "sacred marriage"
with the goddess of fertility, thus creating the world and ensuring its prosperity and blessing in the
New Year. This motif is considered to have left its mark on cult practices throughout the Near East,
including Israel, but in some cases in such a way that the motif was "disintegrated", i.e. interpreted,
reinterpreted and, sometimes, misinterpreted.
Behind this conception of kingship lies a belief found among many primitive peoples and in particular
among the Hamite tribes of Africa, with whom the Egyptians
had close ethnological and cultural links. The belief is that of a chief full of mana of the type known as
the "rainmaker king" who, after death, remains a source of power and who, among other things, is the
"king of the rain",
is embodied in his successor, although he himself also exists everywhere and acts in other ways. Already
in the time of the ancient Sumerians, the idea of kingship differed considerably from that of Egypt in
several ways. We are not dealing here simply with two variants of an Eastern ideology
There was, however, a fundamental difference in principle, despite many similarities in detail with the
Egyptian phenomenon. For example, the individual had no
the prospect of eternal life, as in Egypt. The aim of the cult is to guarantee the continuity of the life of
the world, of Nature and of the race 'of the country'. But even the gods need to be strengthened and
renewed by the 'service' and 'food' that make up the sacrifices. The gods created the
men to perform this service and choose a king. He is indeed the "great man" (Sumerian, lugal), but
nevertheless a man like any other man. His task is to serve the gods and carry o u t their will on
Earth. His relationship with the gods is that of a worshipper, not an equal; he represents his people
before them. In the background, of course, are the common primitive ideas of the mana-filled leader
and cult leader in whom the 'power' of the community is concentrated; he is the channel of the divine
life and power of the community.
Even after the emergence of permanent personal power, sovereigns were not called
They were usually not themselves "kings" but "vicegerents" (Sumerian, ENSI; Accadian, ifiakku) and
priests (sangu) of the city god. And when the king's position acquired a more political and military
character, based on force, a distinction between the king and the vicegerent priest could arise;
but it was always the king who was the link between the god and the community. He had a sacred
character, insofar as he was an intermediary between the god and the people. In principle, he was
presented as a
man among men. Insofar as the Babylonian king is endowed with divine qualities and powers, he can
be considered a 'divine' being; but he is not a god in the same sense as the pharaoh. He administers
and governs the whole country in accordance with the will of the god, who is
property of the god, or the world and mankind, which the gods created for their own purposes.
service. The prevailing belief is that the king was conceived and chosen by the gods, called by his
name, endowed with power, and thought of beforehand in the god's heart. According to a common
religious trend,
This divine election of the king is often seen as predestination. The king's election implies that he has a
definite vocation and a definite task, i.e. to represent the gods before the people.
men and vice versa. The king is the intermediary between the gods and mankind. By means of oracles
(requested or sent), he must discover the will of the gods and carry it out on Earth. He must represent
mankind before the gods and govern his kingdom in accordance with the law of the gods. In principle,
however, he is also a priest (sangu), although there are professional priests who in practice carry out
the daily tasks that form part of his duties. He conducts sacrifices and performs rites. In relation to the
gods, he is a "servant", subordinate to them and dependent on them. The god is his
"But the title of servant also implies that he has a task to perform under the authority of the god. But
the title of servant also implies that he has a task to perform under the authority of the god. He also
represents the people before the gods and is responsible for relations between them.
between them. He must atone for the sins of his people and must personally submit to the rites of
atonement. He may even have to die for the sins and impurities of his people.
Thanks to his good relationship with the gods, a relationship that is strengthened and made effective
through worship, the king is able to pass on to mankind the benefits of nature and good harvests,
abundance, peace and so on. Mesopotamian royal texts are full of descriptions of
effusive of the material, social and moral prosperity that abounds in the country when the legitimate
king has been enthroned, or when he has performed his cultic duties in the right and proper manner
and has
conformed to the will of the gods. But prosperity can only be maintained after the king, through his
delegated and representative rites at the festival, has atoned for the impurities that have
accumulated.
It should be noted that this characterisation of Semitic spirituality and religions fully supports what is
clearly expressed in Three Aspects of the Jewish Problem and in Revolt Against the World.
modern.
Israel," continues S. Mowinckel, "borrowed neither the Canaanite religion nor the sacred kingship
associated with it without altering it. Royal ideology underwent profound changes under Yahwism.
Even under the
purified Yahwist form of the Old Testament, there are several indications that the forms and ideas
associated with the monarchy that were originally adopted in the ceremonial of the court of
David and Solomon, were strongly influenced by common oriental conceptions. However, many ideas
were adopted with a different meaning from that which they originally had in Canaan or Babylonia.
Many cultic rites may well have been dissociated from their context
When they were appropriated by Yahwism in such a way that they ended up appearing either as a
survival or as having a new meaning.
It should also be clear that the Israelite monarchy also inherited the traditions of the ancient
chieftainship of the semi-nomadic and settlement period. In the traditions about Saul, the account of
his simple household, court and bodyguard suggest the establishment of an ancient tribal chief rather
than an eastern king's court. Chieftaincy was to some extent hereditary. But the position of a tribal
chief or sheikh depended essentially on his personal qualities, his
ability to lead, advise and assist, and to settle disputes within the tribe or between tribes and clans.
All the traditions of the Judges show that they achieved their position because they were able to
gather the tribe or several tribes around them in order to defeat an enemy and thus "save" their
people. This bears witness to a more concrete aspect of "the very visible [later] effort on the part of a
priestly elite to dominate and coalesce a troubled, multiple and turbulent ethnic substance in
establishing the Divine Law as the foundation of its "form" and making it the substitute for what in
other peoples was the unity of a common homeland and a common origin".
The overall expression of all the qualities and activities of the tribal chief was that he 'judged'. He was "
judge", i.e. sovereign, ruler and magistrate, by virtue of his ability to carry out the mishpat and his intrinsic
"righteousness". This chieftaincy has been described as "charismatic", as depending on Yahweh's "gift
of grace"; and legends often emphasise that the Judges were harnessed to the liberation of the land.
by a revelation from Yahweh himself. We also hear that they performed their heroic deeds because
the spirit of Yahweh came into them and endowed them with unusual power and insight. When the
spirit seized them during a crisis, the effect was ecstatic, a high tension of all the powers and faculties
of the soul. Then they would 'go with that power', with Yahweh as their guide.
their protector and helper (Judges 6:14; 1 Samuel 10:1-7). There is no mention of a permanent
endowment of this spirit but of an anomalous communication of power from time to time.
The chief's activities depended on the fact that he represented the ancient customs, usages and
concepts of justice, and on the approval of the tribe's leaders, the 'elders'. He had no independent
power to carry out his orders. His authority was based on the trust he enjoyed, the spiritual influence
he wielded and the approval of public opinion and the common sense of justice. If he had the tribe or
personal support behind him, he could also
impose their will on the other tribes.
In addition to his role as judge, the chief was also in charge of the public worship of his tribe. The
ancient unity of the chief and the seer-priest is reflected in the traditions about Moses; the chief Ehud
appears as the
bearer of an oracle from Yahweh (Judges 3:19).
The Israelite monarchy is the result of the fusion of the traditions of the ancient chieftaincy with the
laws, customs and ideas of Canaanite kingship. From this came the first attempt at tribal kingship
under Gideon and Abimelech. In contrast to this, Saul represents a conscious attempt to create a
"tribal kingship".
complete national kingship embracing all the tribes. On the other hand, the kingship of David and
Solomon represents a national and religious syncretism. But in Israel the tension between t h e
traditions of chieftaincy and kingship and, in general, the hostility of the "desert ideals" to monarchy
was always present. This is evident in the opposition between the ancient norm of justice and the
mishpat
of the new monarchy. In the case of Naboth, they clash in t h e persons of Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings
21). The opposition is even more apparent in the theory that Yahweh alone should be king of Israel
and in the clear awareness that kingship was a Canaanite innovation, thoughts which we find
expressed in one of the collections of traditions on Saul and Samuel (1 Samuel 8; 10; 12; 15). When the
cultic functions were handed over to the king and the chiefs placed themselves at his service, it was
left to the circles of ancient seers and prophets to keep the
traditions of nomadic times, or rather, what they believed to be these traditions, which seem to have
were post-exilic idealisations, not to say fabrications (35). In the traditions about Moses, he is not, as
has been maintained, a partial reflection of the figure of the king: on the contrary, he represents the
ideals and traditions that were opposed to monarchy. It was this prophetic opposition that
constantly renewed the claim that the king's task was to submit to and uphold 'Yahweh's justice' and
not the claim to be more than he was or to elevate himself above his 'brethren'. It is emphasised that it
was a chosen warrior of the people whom Yahweh raised up when he m a d e David king (Psalm
64:20).
The stormy and conflictual nature of the covenantal relationship between Yahweh and Israel is
reflected not only in this opposition, but also in the more or less latent conflict between Yahweh and
the kings, in the friction between the priests and the kings, in the internal struggles within the priestly
caste, in the relentless and unceasing conflict between Baal and Yahweh, and in the tension between
the nationalist conception of religion and salvation and the universalist conception of God, between a
cosmic religion and fidelity to a God, which is illustrated by the challenge Elijah asked on Mount
Carmel between the powers of the
God of Israel and the powers of Jezebel and the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18). The very establishment of
the monarchy in Israel was no easy matter. Yahweh and Samuel opposed it at first (1 Samuel 8:10-
18). Yahweh changed his mind, however, and gave Samuel the responsibility of choosing a king for
the Hebrews, on the sole condition that the king be Yahweh's servant. Yahweh was praised as king.
The idea of divine kingship did not depend on the institution of monarchy. Yahweh is the master of
the world because
he created it.
Yahweh was praised as king, so much so that when he wanted to give direction to a ruler, he often
gave it through a prophet (David had the prophets Gad and Nathan in his palace).
Royalty, whose opponents were highly critical, was, as we have seen above, an institution
foreign, having probably been imposed on Israel, according to some scholars, with the complicity of
the Levites, a priestly group whose origins are unclear but which can be traced back unambiguously to
the tribe of Levi and which lost its supremacy to the Zakodite priests of Jerusalem in the later
monarchical period (36). The king, whose function, to sum up the above, was to maintain
the cosmic order, to impose justice, to protect the weak and to ensure the fertility of the earth, was
only the representative of Yahweh, his vicar, conceived as an entity distinct from him, which is typical
of Semitic religions. Before taking the throne, the king was anointed by the prophet who, by
Moreover, he himself had previously been anointed with the holy anointing oil (1 Kings 19:16) - anointing
himself, the sacramental act which more than anything else bound the king to Yahweh, seems to have
been borrowed originally from the Canaanites and was probably also practised among the
Babylonians. It was
literally a king without a crown; in this respect, certain psalms seem to refer to the ritual
The Temple, whose architecture was based on a foreign model, became the residence of Yahweh
among the Israelites under the reign of Solomon. The Temple, whose architecture was based on a
foreign model, became the residence of Yahweh among the Israelites under the reign of Solomon
and, as a result, the royal cult was identified with the state religion, although not fully, since kings
were criticised on certain occasions for having
performed the rites intended for the priests - it will not have escaped you that the friction between the
Levites and the kings, encouraged by the fact that the latter encouraged the combination of ideas and
practices
the two sections of the population, the Israelites and the Canaanites, are reminiscent of the medieval
conflict between the emperor and the pope over the question of the superiority or otherwise of the
two religions.
spiritual authority over temporal power. In the same vein, the break-up of the united kingdom resulted
f rom one of those religious conflicts for which primitive Israel is not sufficiently well known: "Solomon's
policy, at the end of his reign, of conciliating all the major influential politico-religious parties by giving
them state recognition (1 Kings 11:1ff) constituted a considerable departure from the policy of his father
David, who guaranteed state recognition only to Yahweh's politico-religious cult parties (albeit without
attempting to eradicate other cults from his territory). Solomon's liberal policy provoked opposition from
the exclusivists [...] of the power of the Yahwist caucus (1 Kings 11:9-13) and provided a practical
opportunity for the Ephraimite school of Yahwist prophets to spread the seeds of disunity by stirring up the
rebellion of the ambitious Ephraimite Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:28-40)." (37)
Religious disunity, as medievalists well know, feeds political instability: "The wisdom received from
pious popular opinion is that which correlates the periods of the culminating points of the
Israel's political, military and economic prosperity to the rise of the Yahvist religio-political party.
The whole of the Books of Kings and Chronicles were written in defence of the dubious but historically
influential thesis that the prosperity of the state of ancient Israel lay in the loyalty of the people and
the state to Yahweh and that national disaster was the consequence of disloyalty to Yahweh. There is
abundant evidence, however, that rather than having been a source of stability, the cult of Yahweh, for
most of Israel's history, played a major subversive, divisive and politically destabilising role, and that
the intransigent insistence on the exclusive access of its religious worship to the
power as well as state patronage generated unnecessary friction that shook and destabilized the
particularly during periods of the rise of the Baalist opposition political party. There is also evidence
that the most effective and competent dynasties of kings in the history of
post-United Kingdom Israel were Baalists and that the Yahvists worked regularly to undermine the Baalist
party's efforts to stabilize the kingdom." (38)
Yahweh's own nature is universally known to be conflictual. He appears to his own people as both
loving and hateful, benevolent and pitiless, charitable and vengeful, depending on the circumstances
and, as it were, without warning, sometimes seemingly without reason.
On the one hand, he is "a consuming fire, a jealous God" (Deuteronomy 4:24) and, on the other hand,
he "is a God of mercy, who will not forsake you nor destroy you: he will not forget the covenant of
your fathers, which he swore to them." (Deuteronomy 4:31) This bipolar disorder has been
humorously commented on as follows: "From apparently the very beginning, being chosen had not
only advantages because the God who had chosen was himself mixed up." (39)
A god without a name before the Israelites settled in Canaan, "Yahweh", whose actual pronunciation
is debated by the uninitiated and whose meaning is uncertain to the equally uninitiated, ends up with
seven names. The original nature of this god and even the emergence of the
yahvism are so shrouded in mystery that it is as if no effort has been spared to muddy the waters.
Since this is certainly not the place to review all the
hypotheses that have been formulated on this subject, only the one referred to by J. Evola will be explored
here.
"According to ancient traditions, Typhon, a demon opposed to the solar god, was the father of the
Hebrews; various Gnostic authors consider the Hebrew god to be a creature of Typhon. These are all
allusions to that demonic spirit of incessant agitation, obscure contamination, of
latent revolt of the lower elements" (40). These references are compromised, however, by the
J. Doresse's discovery that in Gnosticism the values of Genesis underwent the same inversion as the
Egyptian myths. After all, in the Book of Jacob, doesn't Yahweh boast of having killed the
Leviathan, the personification of chaos in the Canaanite myth with which this biblical story shares
similarities? However, the subject is much more complex than it first appears. In fact, you don't need
to refer to Gnostic sources to realise that Yahweh can easily be described as a demonic force. While a
dose of faith is required to rationalise Psalm 137:9 ("Blessed is he who seizes your children and crushes
them to the rock.") and Isaiah 13:16-17 ("Their children will be crushed before their eyes, their houses
will be plundered and their wives raped. Behold, I will stir up
There is still no consensus on the interpretation of Exodus 4:24-26 ("During the journey, in a place
where Moses spent the night, the Lord attacked him and wanted to kill him. Sephora took a sharp
stone, cut off her son's foreskin, and threw it at Moses' feet, saying: You are a bloody husband to me!
And the Lord let him go.
It was then that she said: Blood spouse! because of circumcision"), in which the commentators
seem to be more concerned with finding out who this ambiguous "the" is and the reason for the attack,
rather than
than to discover exactly who or what "wanted to kill him". For Gershom, "We can be sure that
Yahweh is no more a concupiscent demon-god than Sephora is a virgin mother". For Gregory of
Nisse, an underestimated master of falsification, it was not Yahweh who
met Moses, not even the "angel of the Lord", but simply an "angel". Clarifying baffling biblical
passages (41) does not clarify this point, but acknowledges that "[i]t is a very early primitive
account that depicts a 'demonic' Yahweh [...] The original story may have involved a demon or an
'angel'.
This is categorically rejected as nonsense by J. B. Jordan. (42) This is categorically rejected as nonsense
by J. B. Jordan (43), while Antti Laato and Johannes C. de Moor reiterate that "the fact is that we have
examples in the Old Testament where 'evil' is attributed to Yahweh himself [...] and that these
passages were already regarded as difficult problems of interpretation in ancient Judaism." (44)
Oppression and Liberation - the 'Paradigm' Book of the Entire Bible (45) gives us further details: "The
Sagrada Biblia (Cantera - Iglesias, BAC) suggests in its notes that the early narrative, probably
Midianite, would have referred to a bloodthirsty local demon later identified with Yahweh (see Jacob's
struggle with an 'angel/God', Genesis 32:24-32). During the process of
demythologisation, Yahweh replaced the demon, and the text was adapted to legitimise the
circumcision of boys". It should also be mentioned that there are some texts in Greek magical papyri in
which
Iao (a Greek form of Yahweh) is associated, among other deities, with Seth-Typhon (Iao is identified
with Jesus in the Coptic magic papyrus (46)).
Passing over the fact that there are several examples of magical practices in the Old Testament (47)
despite the deuteronomic condemnation of magic and sorcery, and that the dividing line between licit
and illicit magic is defined, as is certainly also the case in the
early Christian writings, by God (48), by virtue of his perceived and claimed normativity. Let us also
overlook the fact that even a biblical scholar who would swear on the Bible that "Moses and Aaron do
not use any magic of any kind in Exodus 7:8-12 and 15:1-18", gives the lie to this by accepting that "the
miracles they perform have Egyptian analogues" and noting that "before the parting of the Red Sea we
find mention of a curse, not in connection with the magicians, but rather in connection with Yahweh.
As Exodus 14:20 informs us, the cloud of darkness that Yahweh created "cast a spell/curse (rayw)
during the night, so that the two sides could not approach each other throughout the night." Although
"rayw" as it is currently vocalised favours
the usual understanding of "emitting light" rather than "casting a spell", the consonantal text
would have been ambiguous. Moreover, the ordinary interpretation fails to explain why, if Yahweh
emitted light, "the two sides could not approach each other throughout the night". This is a description
of darkness, not illumination." (49)
What deserves some attention is that the author, in examining the question of magic in
the Old Testament, unconsciously revealed a key aspect of Yahweh that is closely linked to his
demonism: fear and dread. "It is this fear and dread that magic ultimately invokes in the heart of the
enemy if he is correctly affected.
We find a similar concern when we return to Exodus 15 about how the death of the Egyptians in the
Red Sea caused fear among Egypt's neighbours. Exodus 15:14-16 says: "When the peoples heard of it,
they trembled: terror seized the Philistines; the chiefs of Edom
The warriors of Moab shall tremble; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall faint. Fear and terror will
overtake them; by the greatness of your arm they will become as dumb as stone."
The link between magic in its lowest form and fear in its most primal form adds a whole new
dimension to this spell of "incredible" violence that is cast on non-Jews: "And you, son of
Thus says the Lord GOD to the birds and to everything that has wings, and to every beast of the field:
"Gather yourselves together, come and gather from all sides, for the sacrifice in which I am
slaughtering victims for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. You will eat flesh and drink
blood. You shall eat the flesh of the strong, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, rams,
lambs, goats, bulls fattened on Bashan. You will eat fat until you are full, and you will drink blood until
you are drunk, at this feast of victims that I will sacrifice for you."
(Ezekiel 39:17-18-19)
Fear was the driving force behind the recurrent and obsessive questioning of all events, even if they
were good for the Jews. (50) Jay Y. Gonen, returning to seriousness, agrees: "A fear of
This fateful duality runs through Jewish history in various incarnations and reincarnations. It
saturates the Jewish heritage. Its origin, however, is the divided image of Yahweh [...] This became a
shared fantasy that conditioned the collective reaction of the Jews and their historical hopes". (51)
Since the Jew, like any mixed individual, is divided within himself, it is to be expected that, since the
Jew is in the image of Yahweh, Yahweh is undoubtedly in the image of the Jew.
We must ask ourselves whether the "dark side of Yahweh" could be linked to a particularity displayed by
the
most of the Semitic gods: "In the beginning, they defeated the forces of evil and death; but every year
these forces escaped again, threatening life with droughts, floods, floods, floods, floods, floods, floods,
floods, floods, floods".
floods and all sorts of things that made life perilous. The changes in the life of Nature showed that
sometimes the god himself succumbed to the power of these forces of chaos. This is not just true of
the gods of fertility and vegetation as such. And more
Interestingly, the Hebrew word for "god," elohim, could be applied "to many kinds of subordinate
beings, such as the soul of a dead person, the ghost that could stand up [...] The word could also refer
to a demon that causes disease (Job. 19:22)." (52)
Demonic gods can be found in every pantheon, including the Vedic pantheon and its Greek,
Roman, Slavic and Germanic counterparts. What distinguishes them radically from Yahweh is his
unique status and function. Recasting "ancestral mythological traditions" is tantamount to
the emergence of a new "myth", i.e. a new religious vision of the world that could become a model. The
religious genius of Israel converts God's relationship with the chosen people into a "sacred history" of a
type previously unknown. At a given moment, this "sacred history", which
was apparently exclusively national, became an exemplary model for the whole of "humanity". What
distinguishes the biblical narrative is God's personal message and its consequences. Without having
been invoked beforehand, God reveals himself to a human being, and makes a number of requests
that a r e followed by prodigious promises. This is a new kind of religious experience: the
'Abrahamic faith'" (53) In this respect, the resemblance with Zoroastrianism is only superficial. "Yes, it
is,
in both Zoroastrianism and Yahwism, the new religion is revealed directly by
God, Zoroaster, by accepting it, imitates the primordial act of the Lord - the choice of the good (Yasna 32:2) -
and
that is all he asks of his disciples. The Zoroastrian reform is fundamentally an imitatio dei. Man is called
to follow the example of Ahura Mazda, but he has a free choice. He does not consider himself the slave
of God, as do the followers of Yahweh or Allah". (54) Moreover, this revelation is not the basis of any
monotheism. What Zoroaster announces, presenting him as
model to his disciples, is to choose God and other divine entities. Finally, "the very conception of the
character of 'justice' and 'grace' had a different basis in Babylon and Assyria [and Persia] than, for
example, in Israel. We can put it this way: the gods stand above justice; 'justice' or 'grace' is what the
gods have as their object; but it is often arbitrary and incomprehensible. It also frequently seems that
what appears to be wise in the eyes of man is contemptible in the eyes of the god, and that what
appears to be evil in the eyes of man is good in the eyes of the god. In Israel, too, Yahweh is the source
of justice and grace, and in the mind of the pious he is sovereign over these qualities. But the true
belief of literate minds is
that Yahweh is not arbitrary. There is a norm in his relationship to 'humanity'" (55). Here we have the
fundamental real reason for the Israelites' belief in the superiority of Yahweh over all other gods, as
well as an explanation of why exclusivism and internationalism go hand in hand in Yahwism and its
offshoots.
Later, as a result of dispersal and missionary activity, the tension between the conception of the Church as a
place of worship and the concept of the Church as a place of worship grew.
nationalist conception of religion and salvation, and the universalist conception of God, faded away, and
elements
The universalist view of the doctrine of God became more important, colouring the concepts of
restoration and salvation.
A new kind of god means a new kind of man.
The tribal religion of the patriarchs was of a non-cultic nature, expressing itself in the refinement of the
The only rituals were blood sacrifices (zebah) and the one linked to the masseboth (pillars), which,
although later condemned by Yahwism, seems to have been shared by all. The only rituals were blood
sacrifices (zebah) and the one linked to the masseboth (pillars) which, although later condemned by
Yahwism, seems to have been shared by the ancestors of the Hebrews. The two rituals that have
played a major role in history
The religious sacrifices of Israel are the sacrifice of the covenant and the sacrifice of Isaac, which was
performed up to the time of Jeremiah and may have been borrowed from the Canaanite cult. However,
as M. Eliade has clearly seen, Abraham may not have had a particular outcome in mind when he
prepared to sacrifice his son. He felt bound to his God by 'faith'. He did not 'understand' the meaning
of the actions that God had come to perform.
The people who sacrificed their first-born to a deity were perfectly aware of the meaning and power of
magico-religious rituals. "Abraham," Eliade continues, summing up his considerations without
apparently suspecting the implications of this "lack of understanding", "did not perform a ritual (since
he had no goal and did not understand the meaning of his actions); moreover, his 'faith' made him
certain that he was not committing any crime; he was just a man of faith.
It seems that Abraham did not question the "sacredness" of his actions, which were "incognisable" and
therefore unknowable. Meditating on this impossibility of identifying the "sacred" (since
the "sacred" is completely identified with the "profane"), will have enormous consequences" which, as
we have just pointed out, the author does not seem to have grasped in their subversive aspects. Take
Pause for a moment to think about all the ways in which you can make this point and reflect on the
significance of these considerations.
Faith is central to Yahwism. It is important to examine its centrality to the worship and religion of preexilic
Israel. In the propitiatory sacrifices, "the sacrificial offering was thought to have a great influence
in appeasing Jehovah's anger. But no particular form
No propitiatory sacrifice was required. Any ordinary sacrifice could apparently be used to atone; Noah
offered a burnt offering (Genesis 8:20-22); David, a burnt offering and peace offerings (2 Samuel
24:25). It remained for later generations to develop an elaborate ritual at the end of the twentieth
century.
of atonement. In addition to this recourse to sacrifice, we have seen that even in pre-prophetic Israel
the effective and fervent prayer of a righteous man was thought to work much in favour of the guilty."
(56)
According to Weber: "The need for access to priests of Yahweh who knew the law and ritual in order to
decipher God's will and the transgression to be atoned for 'grew'". While the emphasis was placed on
matters of ritual and the rites became increasingly complex, they were still based on faith and belief, a
belief in a single creator, a single eternal god, in his omniscience and omnipotence, a belief in the
sayings of the prophets, a belief that God had a great future in store for his people, a belief that God's
promises were genuine, and that God's purpose was to be fulfilled, a belief in the revealed and
redemptive nature of the Torah (the objection
that the concept of sin cannot be found in the Torah, since there can be no sins in the law but only
crimes, and that the only offence against the Commandments was non-observance, is a specious
distinction, since the Torah is a set of codes and moral imperatives, and a sin is a transgression of a
religious and/or moral law). The pathos of the Babylonian rite of atonement is
is reflected in the penitential rites of the New Year festival, during which the king, acting as the cultic
representative and embodiment of the people, endured the sufferings of Israel, and carried out the
rites and prayers of atonement designed to induce Yahweh to intervene and save. The problems of
atonement in questioning Yahweh and the sacrifices of supplication already played a central role in
Israel's pre-prophetic worship. In post-exilic times, the Priestly Code of the sacrificial system developed
into an ordinance of atonement, reflecting the growing awareness of sin and the desire for atonement.
(57)
No matter how ritually correct the procedure had to be in order to be propitiatory, it is clear that it is
implausible that "[t]he so-called 'formalism' of rites in religion", based on the faith factor, "had the
same anti-sentimental, active, determining spirit which [...] was the characteristic of primordial and
even Roman virile Aryan ritual." (48) It is irrelevant that, to quote M. Weber, "[...] the primitive way of
answering concrete questions with 'yes' or 'no' by drawing lots was charged with the strict minimum of
esoteric, sentimental or mystical irrationality." Psychoanalysts are even less forthcoming about their
work.
Yahweh was definitely a new type of god. He appeared both inaccessible and dangerous, and claimed
to bring salvation. He decreed that man's mortality was the consequence of sin
particularly Adam's attempt to be like God. As a slave of Yahweh, man must live in fear of his God.
Since the Law precisely proclaims the will of God, the
is to follow the Commandments, a set of moral precepts. At the beginning of the
yahvism, the divine order is thus lowered to morality, i.e., basically, to a purely human criterion, no
matter how much it has been spiritualised - Jewish scholars can affirm that the meaning of the word
"Torah" is much deeper and wider than is usually thought, they do not seem to be able to say that it
has been spiritualised.
be able to tell us exactly how. A code of conduct existed, whether in oral or written form, among all
the ancient Indo-European peoples, without them ever feeling the need to have recourse to divine
revelation to put it into practice and make it clear to the community. As for the Zoroastrian Gathas,
who were described as "loaded with considerations
As G. Dumézil explains in his "morales", we have to understand that, whatever translations he relied
on, none of them seems to be reliable: "Anyone who has ever read a verse [of the Gathas] in the
original will have no illusions about the labour that goes into the effort [of translating the hymns]. The
most abstract and confusing thought, further veiled by an archaic language, understood only at
half by later students of the same race and language as the prophet, tends to make the Gathas the
most difficult problem to tackle by those wishing to investigate the monuments.
literary. (59)
J. Evola pointed out that primitive Jewish messianism bore certain similarities to the Zoroastrian
concept of Saoshyant (bearing in mind that the Persian influence on the religion and culture of the "
This is not to say that the "Orient" does not seem to have begun before the sixth century BC), with the
Kalki avatar of Hinduism and with the prophecy of the Maitreya of Buddhism. There is no need here to
examine these similarities in detail, if only because they are supposed to be well known; nor is there
any need to dwell on the fact that if, as mentioned by the author, the Aryan-like conception of a purely
celestial paradise is also present in Judaism, it is only described as such in the Apocalypse of Enoch and
other late writings and appears to be the result of a Persian influence. Let's get straight to the point by
highlighting the main difference between the Aryan conception of the saviour, or rather the
"transfigurator", and the Jewish notion of the redeemer. The main difference is linked to the
The mythical themes and characters of the cosmogony, which were updated at the Yahwist New Year
festival, underwent a process of historicisation. While the coming of Kalki, Maitreya and
Saoshyant is expected to bring an end to the present dark age, making permanent and eternal the
restoration that was supposed to be accomplished annually at the New Year festival, there is,
paradoxical as it may seem, no strictly eschatological dimension in pre-exilic Yahwism. In fact, in
Yahwism, the New Year's festival and its motif were completely transformed. "Its foundation in the
natural order is always clear, even in Israel: what is created is, first and foremost, life on Earth, fertility,
harvests, the cosmos. But the Canaanites' belief that the god himself was being renewed had
disappeared; and that what the king obtained during the worship festival was not primarily new life
and new strength, but the renewal and confirmation of the covenant, which is based on Yahweh's
election and faithfulness and depends on the king's constancy and religious and moral virtues. To the
renewal of Nature was added an element
of increasing importance, the renewal of history. It is the divine acts of election and deliverance in the
real history of Israel that are relived at the festival. The election and the covenant are ratified.
Historical events are experienced anew during the cultic drama; and victory over the political enemies
of contemporary history is promised, guaranteed and experienced in anticipation. In Canaan, the
drama enacted the god's own fate, his birth, his conflicts, his death, his resurrection, his
victory and his cultic marriage with the goddess. We find no trace in Israel of the king's representation
of Yahweh's fate. The cult of Jerusalem had its own drama which
vividly and realistically depicted Yahweh's epiphany, his conflict and victory, his enthronement, and his
recreation of the world, Israel, and life on Earth. Yahweh's victory over his enemies was probably
dramatically portrayed by means of a simulated battle, as was the case at
neighbouring peoples. But by virtue of the strong historical emphasis that has been characteristic of
Yahwism from the beginning, it is not the struggle against chaos and the dragon that is decreed (as, for
example, in Assyria), but Yahweh's victory over his own historical enemies and those of Israel." (60) This
is so true that "[i]n the cult drama, the worshipper, undoubtedly often the king himself, is not
lamenting here the suffering and death he symbolically undergoes in worship, but the actual real
distress brought about by earthly enemies, foreign nations and traitors within
the State, or on ordinary illnesses and the danger of death".
At the beginning of Israel, the common Eastern royal ideology underwent a number of changes that were
quite different from those that had been seen before.
under the influence of Yahwism and the tradition of the desert, and many of the forms that were
borrowed acquired a modified or new content, so that these characteristics
The common rites that exist should not be interpreted solely in terms of their Babylonian and Egyptian
significance, but in the light of the overall structure and fundamental ideas of Yahwism. Whether or
not the rites originally associated with the cult of the king were adopted into the cult
Without any understanding of their original meaning, it is clear that their cosmic nature was
profoundly altered during this process.
It is necessary to stress that "in the Old Testament, and particularly in its oldest parts, the Messiah is
not a supernatural being who comes from above. He is indeed portrayed with a mythical colouring; but
we find not more, but rather less of the mythical style that is usual in the ancient oriental conception
of the king [...] [T]he literal meaning that he may originally have had [...] is a myth.
The natural aspect in the mythical form was transferred in Israel to the PERSONAL and MORAL SPHERE
[emphasis added]. The natural aspect in the mythical form was transferred in Israel to the PERSONAL
and MORAL SPHERE [emphasis added]. The fact that the king, despite his divine quality, was an
ordinary man of this world was not seen as a paradox or a problem. This is no less true of the
Messiah, the future king, all the more so because it was not the older, more mythical Canaanite form
of the conception of kingship that formed the basis of the idea of the future king when it emerged, but
rather the conception retained in the later monarchy or after the end of the monarchy, when the
influence of the prophets, the sole lordship of Yahweh, and the growing feeling of distance between
God and
the mythical element of the idea of kingship ON THE MORAL LEVEL [emphasis added]. (61)
It is precisely in moral terms, as the result of an 'original sin' and the Fall
The whole re-creation of "humanity" and of Nature is dealt with in the eschatology of the Bible and
then of Judaism. Many of the forms that were borrowed clearly acquired a modified or new content,
which is really a shadow of the few features of positive and virile spirituality.
that J. Evola thought he could discern from an Indo-European perspective in the Jewish concept of the King-
Messiah.
Genuinely messianic prophecies and those that speak of the idealized empirical king in Israel or Judea
must be clearly distinguished. "The majority of passages that popular theology
However, it need hardly be said that there is a link between the two sets of ideas [...] these ideas
which were associated in Israel with the king share all their essential elements with the concept of
the Messiah. (62) "Needless to say, however, there is a link between the two sets of ideas [...] those
ideas which were associated in Israel with the king share all their essential elements with the concept
of the Messiah. The only essential difference is that the ideal of kingship belongs to the present
(although it also envisages the future).
the future) whereas the Messiah is a purely future, eschatological figure [...] The "Messiah
"The ideal king is entirely transferred to the future, no longer identified with a specific historical king
but with one who will one day come. (63)
In our framework, it is irrelevant that "messianic hope" derives from royal ideology, as Mowinckel
has argued, or vice versa, nor that "(according to the most likely critical dating of the sources) the
authentically messianic passages in the Old Testament belong to a relatively late period, most of
them (perhaps all of them) to the time after the fall of the
monarchy." What is relevant is that the conception of monarchy and the conception of messianism
(w h e t h e r "authentic" or not) are fundamentally similar at all times in Jewish history; they are
based on the same principles: the overarching theme of the Law is that Israel is the "chosen people"
and is destined to rule over all people, all lands and all wealth, so that all kingdoms will obey Israel.
This is present throughout the Old Testament, in
all the "covenants between the parties", i.e. between Yahweh and his people, from the covenant
to Deuteronomy 11:et al; 30:1-10, 2 Samuel 7:8-16, and, finally, Jeremiah 31:31-.
34. Not that it cannot also be found in the edifying Adamic covenant (Genesis 1:26- 30; 2:16-17; 3:16-
19), as we shall see later.
The king, as the son of Yahweh, the God of all the earth, "has a legitimate right of dominion over the
whole world. In David's supremacy over the other small states in and around Palestine, the
...] At the anointing, on the day of the coronation and later at the great annual festival, the king
received the promise of a filial relationship to Yahweh, of victory over all his opponents, of world
domination, of the "eternal priesthood". Hence the prophetic author of
Psalm 2 can describe the situation at the accession of a new king in Jerusalem as if in fact all the kings
and peoples of the world were plotting to reject the yoke of Yahweh and his anointed, but were forced
into submission by Yahweh's words promising the throne to the chosen king, and threatening his
opponents with
destruction, unless they submit in time and 'serve the Lord with fear and rejoice w i t h trembling'"
(64).
"The king's virtue included above all the ability to save his people from the enemies that surrounded
them (1 Samuel 9:16; 10:1). The chosen king is the invincible warrior, filling places with corpses. He
rules from Zion in the midst of his enemies with his mighty sceptre: Yahweh makes him his footstool
(Psalm ex, 2, 5f.)". "All his enemies will be clothed with shame (Psalm 132:18). His hand finds all his
enemies. His right hand finds those who hate him. When he shows himself, he makes them like a
burning furnace", a detail that Robert II of France, whose favourite book, according to his hagiography,
was the Bible, must have missed, but which did not escape the attention of Robert Faurisson, a
millennium later according to the Scaligerian chronology. Speaking of a desire for extermination, "You
will wipe out their descendants from the earth, and their race from among the sons of men. They have
planned evil against you, they have conceived evil designs, but they will be powerless. For you will
make them turn their backs, and with your bow you will shoot at them." (Psalm 21:10-12).
Two passages of the same kind are quoted in extenso from Deuteronomy in Three Aspects of the
Jewish Problem: "The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you will always be on top and
never be on the bottom, when you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I
command you
today, when you observe them and do them" (28:13); "You shall devour all the peoples whom the Lord
your God is going to hand over to you; you shall not look upon them with pity, and you shall not serve
their gods, for that would be a snare to you." (7:16) A strong hostility against non-Jews thus already
existed among the first Hebrews. No effort seems to have been spared to make Jews hate non-Jews
and vice versa. "Insofar as their [the "Gentiles"] real existence is
Douglas Reed notes, with more insight than in the rest of La Controverse de
Zion, it is only for reasons such as those mentioned in verse 65, chapter 28 and verse 7, chapter 30:
namely, to welcome the Judaizers when they are scattered for their transgressions and then, when
their hosts repent and are forgiven, to inherit the curses lifted from the regenerated Judaizers. It is
true that the second verse quoted gives the pretext that "all these curses
"will be transferred to the Gentiles because they "hated" and "persecuted" the Judaizers, but they will not
be able to defend themselves.
How could they be blamed for this, when the mere presence of the Judaizers among them was
merely the result of punitive "curses" inflicted by Jehovah? For Jehovah himself, according to
another verse (64, chapter 28), took credit for inflicting the curse of exile on the Judaizers: "And
the Lord will scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to the other [...] and among
these nations you will find no comfort, and the sole of your foot will not rest [...]".
2:25, 9:3, 9:11, 11:23, 12:2-3 are hardly less inspired by Yahwist standards than 7:16. So
that the moral commandments prohibiting murder, theft, covetousness, bad neighbourliness,
p e r j u r y , etc., end up being nullified by a plethora of statutes formally requiring "
As Karl Marx has clearly seen, in the Jewish religion "the supreme relationship of man is the legal one.
As Karl Marx clearly saw, in the Jewish religion, "man's supreme relationship is the legal one; his
relationships to the laws are valid for him not because they are laws of his own will and not because
they are laws of his own will".
nature, but because they are the dominant laws, and to break them is to be avenged. Jewish Jesuitism,
the same practical Jesuitism that Bauer discovered in the Talmud, is the relationship of the world of
self-interest to the laws governing the world, the practice of circumventing those laws by trickery. The
The movement of this world within its framework of laws can only be a continuous suspension of the
law.
Deuteronomy begins with a historical introduction, moves on to a list of laws and then to a long list of
blessings and curses, and ends with the appointment of Joshua and the death of Moses; of the sixtyeight
verses in chapter 28, fourteen are blessings and fifty-four are curses, not just blessings and
curses, but blessings for
obedience and curses for disobedience to God's law. The blessings relate exclusively to material
property, the defeat and extermination of enemies and the dreams of
world domination. Fanaticism and sectarianism are taken to a whole new level in Leviticus and
Numbers. In Leviticus ("You shall treat a stranger sojourning among you as a
You shall love him as yourselves, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God"),
as in Deuteronomy, the commandment to love one's neighbour is transformed into its exact opposite:
"You may also buy children from the foreigners who live with you, and from their families whom they
beget in your land; and they shall be your property. You shall leave them as an inheritance to your
children after you, as property; you shall keep them as slaves for ever. But as regards your brothers,
the children of Israel, none of you shall rule harshly over his brother." (25:45-46) Other contemporary
kings of the Middle E a s t were full of praise for their warlike exploits and boasted of having
subjugated foreign nations and countries to the rule of their gods, but they were not fighting f o r
world domination in the name of their deity, nor were they planning genocide.
In the Book of Zechariah, which is supposed to have been prophesied during the reign of Darius the
Great, six decades after the fall of Jerusalem, the substance is still the same: "Zerubbabel will be king
of the restored Jerusalem, and will gain power and renown. Foreigners will join in building Yahweh's
temple from distant lands; hostile world power will be destroyed before him; for his sake Yahweh will
soon again shake both heaven and earth and overthrow the throne of the
kingdoms, and destroy the power of kingdoms and nations, and overthrow the chariots of those who
ride in them; and the horses and riders will fall, every man by his brother's sword - Israel
subdue the other nations. But these political objectives will only be achieved by the action of
Yahweh, without the help of man: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of
hosts". The message of Haggai and Zechariah has nothing to do with eschatology. What they are
waiting for is a complete historical revolution in the Near East, attributed, obviously, to the
It is the result of Yahweh's guidance and the intervention of his miraculous power, but developed in
the course of empirical history and completed by normal human means. "By his spirit" Yahweh
will guide events so that the world powers destroy each other in the chaos that has arisen throughout
the East following the death of Cambyses; and Israel alone will remain unscathed and
will reap the benefits. (65)
This could be described as a fantastic and unrealistic hope, but the fact is that there is nothing
eschatological about it in the strict sense: "In Zechariah, horses, riders, etc., are beings that really exist,
and are always at hand, working as instruments of Yahweh like the
angels, but as a general rule, like Yahweh himself, working behind and through bodies
natural, whereas in Revelation they have become apocalyptic entities, which do not see the light of
day, or at least do not act, until the final epoch, their aim being to precipitate the
final catastrophe.
So there is both truth and falsehood in the assertion that "It is not the previous Jewish messianic idea,
but its corruption and materialisation, that is the real point of reference for the
forces of subversion which aim to destroy our civilisation for good and to exercise a 'satanic'
domination over all the forces of the Earth". (66) It is incorrect to speak of a "corruption" and
a "materialisation" of the previous messianic idea and, in any case, of the type of "universal master"
that can be found in Aryan traditions, insofar as the previous Jewish messianic idea already bore
witness to a materialist conception of messianism, and materialism
means corruption. Moreover, the intimate link between the preceding Jewish messianic idea and the thirst
for
The author fully recognises the fact that the Jewish people were promised earthly goods and riches
from the beginning, and not just from the Mosaic period onwards: "[...] the 'Kingdom' supposedly
promised to the Jewish people was in no way understood in a mystical and supra-terrestrial sense, but
as that of possessing all the riches of the world". (67) "It has been pointed out that the very way in
which the Jews conceived the relationship between man and the divinity, a relationship which was
based on a mercantile mechanism of services and rewards, shows a mercantilism that is do ut est.
However, this spirit was bound to provoke contempt among the Aryan peoples, who were used to a
different type of morality and conduct. As we know, in the ancient Law, the Torah, the messianic idea
was already intimately linked to earthly goods and wealth, which would give rise to capitalist
speculation and, ultimately, to the economy as an instrument of power in Israel's plans". (68) It would
have been relatively more correct to state that it is not the previous Jewish messianic idea, but the
pursuit of its corruption and materialisation, that is the real point of reference for the forces of
subversion that aim to destroy our civilisation for good and to exercise "satanic" domination over all
the
forces of the Earth. We have written "relatively" because it must be borne in mind that, while it is
true that the Jewish messianic approach led to the crassest materialistic praxis as soon as the Jews
were scattered across the world following the fall of Jerusalem, the concept of a kingdom
future, far from undergoing a "naturalization", a "materialization", during the diaspora, came to be
understood in religious and spiritual rather than political and concrete terms, with an emphasis on the
miraculous divine character of the kingdom, to be realised by God, not by his people. In the spirit of
The restored Davidic kingdom was "'a kingdom of this world', established, it is true, by miraculous
divine intervention, though by political means, by the historical and political circumstances of the time.
It was to be realised entirely in the 'natural' course of world events, in 'natural' human history, which
would continue its course in accordance with the same 'laws' and 'forces' as before." (69) The concept
of a future kingdom did not materialise, any more than the actual future kingdom (which, according to
the Bible, extends far beyond the present borders of the State of Israel) did.
of Israel), it "became an ideal conception based on religion and impregnated with religion. [...] The
separation of future hope from historical reality, from the contingent, from any causal relationship
with
the circumstances," (70) and its assumption of an absolute character, took place in Deutero-Isaiah.
Nevertheless, "it was never forgotten that the starting point of future hope was faith in the restoration
of Israel as a free people among the other nations, on this earth, in the land of Canaan. There thus
persisted in eschatology an unresolved tension, a gulf between the elements that were political,
Of these two profoundly different conceptions of the future, the first "is older and more truly Jewish
than the other. (71) Of these two profoundly different conceptions of the future, the first "is older and
more truly Jewish than the other". (72) "The ideal of royalty belonged at the same time to the
The difference is that in Haggai and Zechariah the Davidic kingdom has been destroyed. The difference
is that in Haggai and Zechariah the Davidic kingdom has been destroyed; but they see the new
historical situation as its restoration by Yahweh, and as already in process.
The new ideal king of the ancient lineage is already present." (73) These two profoundly different
conceptions of the future - in the economy of which non-Jews are seen as a particular historical and
political entity and as the manifestation of a mythical and cosmic force in
enmity with God, respectively - were the breeding ground for the dialectic of schizophrenia.
The figure of the Messiah has undergone no more significant changes than the messianic message in
the course of Israel's history. It is characterised by the Jewish passion for humility and the mania for
self-interest.
humiliation. The king, as Yahweh's deputy, is completely dependent on and subordinate to Yahweh. In
the regularly repeated festivals and special cultic events, such as the days o f humiliation and prayer
before war, the fact that the king's good fortune and blessing are dependent on his obedience to
Yahweh's will and law is constantly emphasised. It is, therefore, entirely in keeping with the Israelite
conception that the king's humility should also be emphasised. Just as it is the king's duty to support
the humble and the oppressed, so he himself must be
humble and docile. It is not splendour but justice towards the humble that is the essence of the
royalty. During the days of humiliation and prayer and in the liturgy of atonement, it is the king who, as
a moral person, indirectly bears and assumes before Yahweh all the misfortune, suffering and distress
that have befallen the people. They become his personal suffering and distress, making him sick and
weak. In Europe, on the other hand, it was not until Christianity became predominant
that humility, one of the central themes of all millenarian movements, "has become a 'virtue
"In ancient Rome, it was considered to be the exact opposite of virtus. It meant indignity, misery,
lowliness, abjection, vileness, shame - so that people were
said that death or exile was preferable to humility: "humilitati vel exilium vel mortem anteponenda
esse" [...] It was also linked to the idea of race or caste: "humilis parentis natus' meant coming from a
lower class, or being of plebeian extraction, as opposed to an aristocratic origin, and therefore
something quite different from the modern expression 'of modest birth', especially given that social
status today is based solely on economic criteria. In any case, it would never have occurred to a
Roman of the good old days to think of "humilitas" as a virtue, let alone to boast about it and preach
it. As for the so-called "morality of humility", it might be useful to recall the remark of a Roman
emperor that nothing is more deplorable than the pride of those who claim to be humble." (74)
History has shown those who have a kind of sixth sense for identifying dregs wherever they hide and
who ultimately stand behind all revolutionary movements whose ideological watchwords refer to the
protection of "the humble and the oppressed".
The glorification of humility is taken to a whole new level in the Songs of the Suffering Servant.
Firstly, S. Mowinckel points out that the Servant is the opposite of all that is humanly great and
exalted, of all that is noble, powerful and magisterial. He is not impressive or attractive; he has no
external glory or majesty, but is dirty, despised and abandoned by men. The hymn does not describe
him, as is usual, as a flourishing tree, but as a root in barren soil; not as a lion or an eagle (2 Samuel
1:23), but as a sheep, dumb before its shearer. But once he has been "rehabilitated" (justified), he will
be the spiritual deliverer of Israel, and a light to the nations, who will be won to the true religion by the
miracle worked on him by Yahweh.
Secondly, the Servant's task will be to do the very thing that was not expected of the future king, and
which experience has shown that none of the historical people such as Zerubbabel, to whom the hope
future was associated, could not accomplish: to bring Israel back to Yahweh. The Servant will do this,
not as a victorious king, but through his suffering and death. Finally, the main point is that the
influence of the
Servant on the conception of the future leads to a very important result: the Servant replaces the king,
and becomes king himself. What no Messiah, as conceived by the Jewish national religion, could
The Servant accomplishes it. In connection with the unmistakable change in the messianic idea that we
noted above from the virile realm of action to that of rhetoric, it is also characteristic that his victory, not
only over his adversaries but also over the souls of men, is due to his ability to win the hearts of his own
people and of his enemies, and he has already won the hearts of the prophet-poets and the prophetic
circle.
These themes reach a climax in the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Ezekiel. Jeremiah" is no longer
his own master. Yahweh may even devastate his personal life in order to use him in this way as a
powerful "prodigy" to achieve his goal. The same applies to Jeremiah. Yahweh
forbids him to marry and have children, or to have any human or social relationship whatsoever
with his neighbours, to go to a house of mourning, or to a feast, or to a wedding. In short, he cuts
himself off from his natural environment, from all the sources of his life, and sacrifices the whole of his
natural life, in order to be a vehicle for the message of destiny that he must transmit to his people.
Whether he feels it
as a serious disaster and curse is evident from the complaints about his mission, while he sits alone
because Yahweh's hand is upon him, and he is filled with Yahweh's own indignation. In the same way,
Ezekiel has to swallow a scroll of lament, grief and woe written on both sides. He must let all the
disaster that will befall Jerusalem
affect his own person, lying down for three hundred and ninety days for Israel, and forty days for Judah,
and "bearing their iniquity". "And, behold, I will put cords upon thee, that thou mayest not turn from one
side to the other, until thou have fulfilled the days of thy siege."
During this time he will eat bread only in small portions, and drink water only in small glasses.
The LORD will take away the desire of his eyes, his wife, and he will not be able to mourn her or
honour her memory in accordance with customary decorum. Yahweh will take away the desire of his
eyes, his wife; and he will not be able to mourn her, or honour her memory in accordance with
customary decorum. In this way, Ezekiel will be an omen for the
Jews, indicating that the same fate will befall them, the loss of wives, sons, daughters and family,
with nothing they can do to help. In this way, the prophets must
They often shared the burden of punishment for the sin of the people. (75) "The suffering and
martyrdom to which the prophets [...] were exposed in carrying out their mission, were endured by
them because of the sin of the people, certainly not voluntarily, and with a strong sense of injustice,
but always as a consequence of their efforts to lead the sinful people to conversion, penance and
salvation." (76)
What is important about this development of the Jewish concept of the Messiah is that the more the
prophet is endowed with human characteristics or attributes and individualised, the more, of course,
his suffering and abjection can be described in a profusion of increasingly sordid detail, and the more
he is identified with the Jewish people as a whole. As we know, the last shall be first (Matthew 19:30;
20:16; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30).
While J. Evola is right in asserting that "Hebrew 'prophetism' [...] displayed
originally had traits which were very similar to the cults of the lower castes and to the pandemic and
ecstatic forms of the races of the South" (77), there is no indication that "The type of the "
prophet" (nabî), inspired or obsessed by God [...] replaces the "clairvoyant" (roeh) type [...]" (78), and
that the nabî "was previously considered a sick man" (79). In fact, there is a
There is a consensus among scholars, both biblical and non-biblical, about the contemporaneity of
roeh and nabi. In 2 Kings 17:13, "seer" is used in parallel with "nabi", suggesting that the two were
contemporaneous.
terms were equivalent. "The prophet (nabî) also bears the titles of "ro'eh" and "hozéh",
(1 Samuel 9:9; 2 Kings 17:13)". (80) "The term nabî expresses more specifically a function. The two most
common synonyms, ro'eh and hozéh, place the emphasis more clearly on
the particular source of prophetic knowledge, vision, i.e. divine revelation or inspiration. Both have
almost the same meaning; hozéh is used, however, much more frequently in poetic language and
almost always in connection with a supernatural vision,
Whereas râ'ah, of which ro'eh is the participle, the usual term for seeing in any way."
(81) In other words, just as the roeh "glimpsed the visions of God", so the nabî "proclaimed the divine
truth revealed to him as an official order in a more direct way", as a "bearer of the truth".
the word of God, mediating between God and man". (82)
If a distinction is to be made between the nabî and the roeh, the former "translated" the visions of
the latter into words, in the process of which, therefore, only the mode of revelation changed, while
the state of revelation remained unchanged in its ecstatic essence. What is certain is that the roeh
and the nabî
were two different institutions. "The mass ecstasy of the Nevi'im, under the influence of Canaanite
orgiasticism and irrational, emotional forms of magic," came from the North, and "rational Levitical
Torah and rational ethical emissary prophecy" came from the South (83).
For M. Eliade, "[...] the institution of the 'seer' (ro'eh), which dates back to the nomadic period, was
altered after the conquest under the influence of the nabiim, whom the Israelites had met on their
arrival in the Middle East.
Palestine. Around 1000 BC, Yahwist "seers" (such as Nathan) still coexisted with the Nabiim (1 Samuel
10:5). The two institutions gradually merged, and the end result was classic Old Testament
prophetism." It is not wrong to assert, as Mr Weber does, that the dualism between the mass ecstasy
of the nabi and the rational ethical emissary prophecy "ran secretly through Israelite history from the
beginning of the invasion. It became acute with the
the increasingly rational character of the mentalities of the two forces opposed to the orgy: the Levites
and the prophets of destiny", provided that it is understood that the binary opposition no longer
existed between two different institutions, two antagonistic types of prophetism, but between the
"prophets of destiny" themselves, as M. Eliade has clearly seen: indeed, "the Yahwism that the
prophets proclaimed had already assimilated [...] elements of Canaanite religion and culture, so
bitterly abhorred by the Levites". Eliade: "the Yahwism proclaimed by the prophets had already
assimilated [...] elements of Canaanite religion and culture, so bitterly abhorred by the prophets". For
example, the matrimonial comparison used by Amos (783? - 740?) to describe the relationship
between Yahweh and Israel, which was to become a recurring theme in all the main prophets
depends on the Canaanite fertility cults that it was fighting. (85) While the "
The "abominations" of the Israelites which are stigmatised, for example, in Isaiah 1:4, 8:9, 56:10-11,
can be explained by "a curious oscillation, typical of the Jewish soul, between, on the one hand, a
sense of guilt, self-humiliation, deconsecration and concupiscence; on the other hand, an almost
Luciferian pride and spirit of rebellion". (86), this "curious oscillation", paradoxical as it is
stigmatizing them. For example, in Jeremiah, resounding words of defiance and belligerent imprecations
(1:10) alternate with self-humiliating whining (20:7-8).
Ecstatic elements are present in both pre-exilic and post-exilic prophets.
exilic times: "The earliest historical references to prophecy come from the time of Samuel in the description
of the ecstatic group encountered by Saul (1 Sam. 10:5-13)" (87). Whether in pre- or post-exilic times, in
Amos or Isaiah, the substance of the prophecies remains
essentially the same: the emphasis is on stigmatising the sins of Israel and more
particularly in denouncing the crimes of the rich against the poor. Only the tone changes:
severe and unsentimental in Amos, it becomes fanatical and excessively sentimental in Isaiah, and
increasingly so in the later prophets. According to all accounts, this change in tone is the result of
In Samuel's time, the Canaanite practice of consecrating "high places" of worship to a deity, in which
sacrificial rituals were performed and song and dance ceremonies induced ecstasy through the use of
the prophet, was adopted.
methods of group hypnosis were practised (1 Samuel 10:5; 1 Samuel 10:10). In Samuel 19:20ff we are
given an insight into the cultic practice of possession
We have here the proof that there was a specific method or procedure of music, song and dance to
induce the collective excitement, ecstasy and delirious behaviour referred to as "prophesying" (1
Samuel 19:20ff). [...] With independent prophets, the framework changes. Instead of the group, there
is the individual, alone with God. Elijah sets the standard for the anti-cultic attitude of the new
independent prophets and spearheads a theological development beyond the primitive understanding
of the Levitical tradition." (88)
The process of rationalisation and intellectualisation that the ecstatic elements underwent as a result
of the individualisation of the prophetic phenomenon is exactly what J. Evola is referring to when he
speaks o f a link that was established in Hebraism with a human type which, because it is not capable
of
to realise the values it defends, tends to regard them as increasingly abstract and utopian (89), an
attitude that is very close to a set of symptoms that were called at the time
modern bovarianism, understood as the behaviour of those driven by dissatisfaction t o ambitious
daydreaming. This process, however, was greatly facilitated by the fact that "Hebraism, from the
earliest times, developed a distinctly mathematical and intellectualist-pantheistic interpretation of the
world" (90) which led to the rationalism of modern times. The effects or, as it were, applied
consequences that the Jewish propensity to abstraction, to visionary and unrealistic cogitation, has had
in all fields, be they economic, scientific, cultural, social, spiritual or political, have been exposed by J.
Evola in all their pernicious implications.
What began to materialise among the ambitious Jews of Babylon was the tangible profit that the
Israelites could derive from practices such as interest-bearing loans, which they had mastered perfectly
and which they were able to use to their advantage.
to perfection, once they went from being debtors to creditors on leaving Egypt:
"[...] as the official report indicates, they took away what had been lent to them" (91): "I will do
even find favour with this people in the eyes of the Egyptians, and when you go, you will not go emptyhanded".
(Exodus 3:21) "And so God's promise was fulfilled, the promise that can with
It is apt to call it the motto of Jewish economic history, the promise that effectively expresses the
fortunes of the Jewish people in one sentence. (92) : "The Lord your God will bless you as he has said
to you; you shall lend to many nations, and you shall not borrow; you shall rule over many nations, and
they shall not rule over you." (Deuteronomy 15:6)
The Jewish people "were divided into two segments, a wealthy upper class, who became rich by
lending money at interest, and the great mass of agricultural laborers whom they exploited." (93)
Business extended only into the diaspora. In the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, "the most
The poor lent to the lower classes". (94) "[...] [T]he Arabs, to whom the Jews lent from
No matter how prosperous the Jews became in the Diaspora, that prosperity was nothing compared to
the undivided wealth that Yahweh would bring them and that Isaiah prophesied would be theirs. No
matter how prosperous the Jews became in the Diaspora, that prosperity was nothing compared to the
undivided wealth that Yahweh would bring them and that Isaiah prophesied would come once they
gathered again in Jerusalem and the Promised Land, coming from the four corners of the earth and
"making money".
taking the riches of the whole earth with them (60:5b).
The real point of reference for the forces of subversion that aim to destroy our civilisation for good
and to exercise "satanic" domination over all the forces of the Earth lies in the post-exilic form
assumed by Jewish messianism in apocalyptic and rabbinic literature.
for the simple reason that from then on what the Jewish theologian Mordechai Kaplan called the
"pathology of election" had passed from potentiality to act. Pre-exilic Jewish messianism and post-exilic
Jewish messianism are characterised by a difference of degree, not of kind. This process o f
actualising instinctively anti-non-Jewish tendencies is exactly what is alluded to in the following passage
from Il Mito del sangue: "Just think of the feeling to which this certainty, this obsession with "
Once Israel had ceased to exist as a political power and, with the triumph of Christianity, once this
people, which had become a "nation", had become a "people", it would inevitably give rise to the
"election" and to world domination.
The Jews, who always felt "chosen", were considered to be lower than the earth, a cursed and deicidal
lineage that deserved only to be persecuted and condemned, through just punishment, to servitude.
The 'potential' created by this idea of the Law would then inevitably be reflected in a deep and
unbounded hatred of all non-Jews, and crystallise into a 'serpentine praxis', the only approach that
could be taken.
effective that could be led by a people who, at its core, "did not forget the promise of the Regnum,
in which Israel will reign supreme over all peoples and possess all the riches of the world", in a world
where they no longer have a nation and where, as a result, they no longer have any
political centre or any military force. In the latter, they committed vice out of necessity, by
They were more at ease with words than with swords. Even before the destruction of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, the Jews had shown no warlike disposition, to say the least. On the other hand,
they were like a fish in water in the intellectual, economic and theological-religious spheres and, more
generally, in the world of analytical and abstract thought. They still are. "Between 1870 and 1950, in
proportion to their numbers in the population, Jews were represented 4 times more than one might expect
in literature, 5 times more in the arts, and 3 times more in politics.
music and visual arts, 6 times in chemistry, 8 times in biology, 9 times in physics, 12 times in
mathematics and 14 times in philosophy. Jews, who make up just 0.2% of the world's population, have
won 14% of Nobel Prizes in the first half of the 20th century, 29% in the second half, and 32% so far in
the 21st century". (95)
Faced with this reality, the reaction of the overwhelming majority of contemporary anti-Jews is
similar to that of most of the anti-Jews of the period before the Second World War, whose
inconsistency J. Evola underlined, affirming that, as soon as they noticed a high percentage of Jews in
the intellectual professions and in leading positions in the economic and scientific spheres, they
either did not bother to find an explanation for this state of affairs, or they attributed this success to
the fact that "the Jews were not the only ones in the Jewish community".
irresistible to their cunning, intrigue and financial power, and added that, while corruption and
nepotism may explain their disproportionate presence in such professions, they cannot account for the
fact that, once in office, they proved to be at least as skilful and efficient as any white man, not to
mention that it is an understatement to say that the speed
technological advances, to which most racist and anti-Jewish whites are now accustomed.
The Jewish presence in the field of applied sciences was a major factor in this.
"The alternative is either to come to a humiliating admission of inferiority, or else
to undertake a complete revision of values, likely to undermine, in the name of higher ideals, all that is
specifically linked to the pseudo-elite of modern professional intellectuality, in which there are so many
Jews." (96) A complete revision of values here means, as explained
by the author in other works, to remove intelligence from the pedestal on which it has been
prevaricatingly placed by the high priests of the so-called education system that was developed at the
end of the nineteenth century in Western Europe and the United States, in order to subordinate it
once again,
in accordance with the traditional Aryan scale of values, to character, particularly since the 'skills'
required in the vast majority of service sector jobs, the
The ever-expanding parasitic nature of the economy and, indeed, of all the new 'professions' that
have emerged as a result of the computer technology revolution, are directly linked t o increasingly
inferior forms of practical intelligence.
"The superior races are differentiated from the inferior races both by their character and by the way they are
treated.
intelligence, but it is above all in character that the superior peoples are differentiated. This is a
point of considerable social importance, and it is important to make it clear.
Character is formed by the combination, in varying proportions, of the various elements that
psychologists today usually refer to as feelings. Among those that play the most important role are
perseverance, energy and self-control, faculties more or less derived from willpower. Among the
fundamental elements of the
character, and although it is the synthesis of fairly complex feelings, morality. We use this last term in
the sense of hereditary respect for the rules on which the existence of a society is based. For a people,
morality means having certain fixed rules of conduct and not deviating from them. Since these rules
vary from time to time and from country to country, morality seems by that very fact to be a very
different thing.
But for a given people, at a given time, it must be completely invariable. It is the offspring of character,
not of intelligence, and is only solidly constituted when
when it has become hereditary and therefore unconscious. Generally speaking, it is largely on the level
of their morality that the greatness of peoples depends.
Intellectual qualities are likely to be slightly modified by education; those of the
character escape almost entirely from its action. When education acts on them, it is only in the case of
neutral natures, having almost no willpower, and therefore leaning easily towards the side to which
they are pushed. These neutral natures are to be found in individuals, but very
They are rarely found among a whole people, or if they are, it is only in times of extreme decadence.
Discoveries of intelligence are easily transmitted from one people to another. The qualities of the
These are the fundamental and irreducible elements t h a t differentiate the mental make-up of
superior peoples. (97)
Since "the character of a people and not its intelligence determines its evolution in history and
regulates its destiny", it follows that the character of a people must be broken before its society
can be undermined and its destiny destroyed. Of course, it is easier to nip it in the bud than to
destroy it.
Hence the importance that compulsory schooling has always had in all subversive plans.
Charlemagne's admiration for formal learning and educational institutions is well known - but less well
known is the fact that the very young Saxons he captured were sent to the abbeys of Fulda and
Herzfeld for conversion - as is Napoleon Bonaparte's obsession with centralised control of the
education system. School was made compulsory at the end of the nineteenth century.
century in most countries of Western Europe at the instigation of Freemasonry and the Jews, as
evidenced by the Masonic archives that were seized a few months after France had
was liberated in 1940 (98) - faced with a fait accompli when they came to power, National Socialism
and Petainism did their best to mithridatise the centralised education system they inherited.
"The influence of character is sovereign in the lives of peoples, whereas that of intelligence is truly very
weak. As G. le Bon pointed out with great insight in the
In the same sense as J. Evola, "The Romans of the decadence had an intelligence more refined than
that of their rough ancestors, but they had lost the qualities of character: perseverance, energy,
invincible tenacity, the ability to sacrifice themselves for an ideal, the inviolable respect for the laws,
which had made their forebears great".
Finally, let's not forget the essential part played by the great importance attached to intelligence by
the high priests of the education system in inciting their flock to espouse the dogma of
equality between the sexes and races, and in his belief in the egalitarian creed: "It is easy to make a
bachelor or a lawyer out of a negro or a Japanese; but all you do is give him a mere superficial veneer,
without any effect on his mental constitution. What no education can give him, because
that heredity alone creates them, they are the forms of thought, the logic, and above all the character
of Westerners. This Negro or this Japanese will accumulate all the diplomas possible without ever
reaching the level of an ordinary European. In ten years, he will easily receive the education of a wellbred
Englishman. To make him a true Englishman, i.e. a man acting like an Englishman in the various
circumstances of life in which he will be placed, a thousand years would scarcely suffice. It is only in
appearance that a people suddenly transforms its language, its constitution, its beliefs or its arts. To
make such changes in reality, it would be necessary to be able to transform its soul. (99)
In Europe, the advent and glorification of rational, mathematical and practical intelligence at the
expense of character went hand in hand with the emergence of speculative capitalism, the
psychological roots of which, as mentioned above, are to be found in the Tanakh. The protocommunist
millenarian tone of Judaism must be duly unearthed and brought to light, a light which
is more organic than that with which it is examined by Marxist historiography, and which sheds
light on J. Evola's considerations on the "two columns", "that of democracy, finance
internationalism, Freemasonry and Judaism, on the one hand, and that of revolutionary Marxism, on
the other" (100), while making it possible to see where "the fundamental idea of the Protocols" comes
from "that, in spite of everything, capitalism and the internationalism of the proletariat are in
agreement, being practically two columns with distinct ideas but which act in unison at the tactical
level in order to achieve the "internationalism of the proletariat".
same strategy".
In this respect, W. Sombart's recognition that the Jewish people were divided into two segments, a
wealthy upper class and the great mass of agricultural workers, as were already the case three
centuries earlier, is a good example.
millennia earlier, the Ubadians (in this proto-Sumerian matriarchal society, in which interest-bearing
loans seem to have originated, the two social classes were called the awilum - the beneficiaries of
interest-bearing loans) were the only ones who had the right to make loans.
- and the muskenum - the non-earners), should give us pause for thought. "[...] The sympathy of the
prophets, even of the most aristocratic among them, went entirely to the poorest classes [...]
The bitterness of their invective was aimed at the land-hungry landed aristocracy who "add house to
house, and join field to field" (Isaiah 5:8) until a land of hardy peasants becomes a series of great
estates; against the ruthlessness of the capitalists "who have sold the righteous for silver, and the poor
for a pair of shoes", driving the poor free man into
They also opposed the venality of judges who took bribes and the double standards applied to the rich
and the poor in the application of the law. This dominant feature of their morality influenced their
theology, to such an extent that it became one of the fundamental attributes of their God that he was
the husband of the widow, the father of the orphan and the protector of the foreigner". (101) The
stranger
The modern brother is the proletarian immigrant of our cities. Walter Rauschenbusch's remark is
indeed quite true. He simply couldn't foresee that the foreigner would obtain full "shares in the modern
means of production" and a certain "political power to protect his own interests".
interests". When the prophets conceived of Jehova as the special defender of these voiceless classes, it
was another way of saying that it is a supreme duty in religious morality to "defend the interests of the
voiceless classes".
to defend the rights of the poor". (102) "In Jeremiah and the prophetic psalms the poor as a class are
identified with the humble and pious, and 'rich' and 'wicked' are almost synonymous terms" (103),
just as they will be later in the New Testament.
The attitude of the prophets derived from specific historical and racial factors. "When the nomadic
tribes of Israel settled in Canaan and gradually became an agricultural people, they
began their development towards civilisation on the basis of ancient customs and deep-rooted ideas
that had long protected primitive democracy and equality. Some clans and tribes asserted an
aristocratic superiority of ancestry over others. In the tribes there were the elders and men of power to
whom deference was of course due, but there was no
There was no hereditary social demarcation, no graded aristocracy or caste, no distinction between
blue and red blood. The idea of mesalliance, which plays such a large part in the social life of European
nations [...] is completely absent from the Old Testament." (104) "Like all primitive peoples, Israel
largely imposed communism on the land. They were farmed by individuals but belonged to the clan."
(105) Ultimately, however, the land belonged to Yahweh. Without going so far as to appeal to
Gottwald's Marxist thesis that primitive Israel was an egalitarian socio-political movement surrounded
by hierarchical systems, it is undeniable that the pre-monarchical era was already characterised by an
egalitarian spirit and, correlatively, by the seditious humanitarian exaltation of the poor: "The nature
of YHWH's kingship [...] is unexpected. He exercises his kingship on behalf of the weak and the
oppressed. This is already implicit in the Song of Moses; what is being celebrated is precisely the
liberation of an ethnic minority community that has suffered economic exploitation, political
oppression and ultimately a state-sponsored campaign of genocidal terror [...] The startling statement
in Deuteronomy 10 is, first, that this God who reigns over the universe
has chosen Israel out of all peoples as his covenant partner (v. 15) and, secondly, that the power of this
God over all other forms of power and authority, human or cosmic, is exercised on behalf of the
weakest and most marginalised in society - the widow, the orphan and the child.
abroad (v. 18)." (106)
It is not only that the land belongs to Yahweh, that "in primitive Israel, Yahweh alone was the
landowner" (107), it is that the whole of the Earth is Yahweh's due, as is stated in the Bible.
implicit in the Adamic covenant. While the tendency to "turn away from heaven on the pretext of
The idea of "conquering the earth" (108) only developed at the end of the "Middle Ages", the initial call
to conquer and "reduce everything to purely human proportions" (109) goes back to Genesis 1:28:
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,
and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth". What is here
preached is the advent of the reign of quantity, of an indefinite multitude of individuals. The biblical
mission of world domination by the covenant keepers implies population growth. World domination
and population growth are closely linked. For a variety of reasons, some of which can be inferred from
considerations presented in The Reign of Quantity, population growth has been a prerequisite for
strengthening the power of the forces of subversion, and overpopulation is a prerequisite, not only to
enable them to remain in power, but also to ensure that they can continue to do so.
power, but also for their corporeal manifestation in our plane of existence. The masses
act, and not just in a figurative sense, as a support for the sub-human forces with which politicians and
self-made men are imbued.
As mentioned above, slavery held a special place in the ancient Israelite mind and Law. Every fifty
years or so, a jubilee was declared, and all Hebrews who were enslaved at that time were supposedly
emancipated (Leviticus 25:9-10). The Hebrews were discouraged from owning a Hebrew, as was a non-
Jew; on the other hand, it was acceptable for a Hebrew to own a non-Jew (Leviticus 25:44-46). More
importantly, runaway slaves were to be protected as long as they were Hebrews (Deuteronomy 23:16).
Could this be a
a reminder of their alleged slavery in Egypt and their subsequent exodus? What is clear is that the
Egyptian term 'pr' (spelt 'Habirou' or 'Apirou') and the Akkadian term 'Hapirou' both applied to fugitive
slaves (while for Anson F. Rainey, "the plethora of attempts to link apirou (Habirou) to the biblical term
ibri are nothing more than wishful thinking", for Weippert, on the other hand, the etymological
relationship between "Habirou" and "ibri" can be established in a way that is more than simple.
reasonably sure). Etymology aside, the fact is that, when the designation "Habiru" "disappeared from
the historical region of West Asia", the term "Hebrews" continued to be used in Biblical Hebrew and, in
"an examination of the remaining biblical references in which the designation 'Hebrews' was used",
the term "Hebrews" was used in Biblical Hebrew.
When the term "Habirous" is used, two distinct features characterizing the original social position of
the Habirous are recognized: (1) their status as foreigners who had migrated to places far from their
homeland and (2) their low social status as enslaved and exploited workers." (110)
Let us add straight away that the academic debate as to whether the "Habirous" were a tribe, an
ethnic group or a social class is completely sterile from our perspective, a perspective that is
reinforced by the results of the various recent genetic studies presented at the beginning of this
study. The fact is that the two theories are not mutually exclusive: the "Habirous" have
could have been a social group or, rather, an infra-social group formed sponte sua b y amalgamating infraracial
elements from various ethnic groups, forbans of various ethnicities, just like, for example, pirates
(111), which is the closest synonym for forbans. There is evidence
that a social group can be formed from elements of different ethnic and even racial backgrounds. Just
as, as Métaphysique du sexe rightly points out, women tend to
"It is far easier and more instinctive to 'socialise' with each other than with men in any given situation,
so - and this is not the place to explain why this analogy is so important - it is much easier for men to
'socialise' with each other than with men in any given situation.
perfectly legitimate - individuals uprooted from their original social and political environments,
whatever their ethnicity or race, have a strong tendency to attract each other and 'coalesce', once in a
new environment and, so to speak, on neutral ground, especially if this new
environment is racially homogeneous. In any case, the results of various genetic studies tend to give
weight to Greenberg's assertion that "all Israelites were Hebrews (Hapirous), but not all Hebrews
(Hapirous) were Israelites" and to Albright's conviction that the Habirous "were a class of
heterogeneous ethnic origin, and that they spoke different languages".
languages, often foreign to the peoples in whose documents they appear". (112) Even if, as argued
more or less conclusively by Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus- Pharaoh (113), the
"Habirous" were listed as an ethnic group on Amenhotep II's Memphis stele (-1427? -1400?), a list of
booty for his campaign in Canaan and Syria, this would still not allow us to judge its composition.
A "mixed multitude of people" joined the "children of Israel" (Exodus 12:37-38) as they left Egypt under
the leadership of Moses. Whether this "mixed multitude" was the result of intermarriage in Egypt
(Leviticus 24:10), a mixture of nationalities who were enslaved in Egypt with the Hebrews (Exodus
12:29), or mercenaries from different countries (Ezekiel 30:5), the expression speaks for itself.
Whatever happened to them afterwards, the next event, the conquest of Canaan, gives us food for
thought, as we read in Die Landnahme der Israeliten in Palästina by Albrecht Alt, who "has used
archaeological and literary evidence to show that the image of a blitzkrieg of conquest, given by the
Book of Joshua, should be
abandoned in favour of a theory of infiltration. There was no blitzkrieg, but a gradual infiltration of a
new people, some of whom may have come from Egypt under the leadership of a
obscure figure called Moses. In fact, the traditional "blitzkrieg" theory is contradicted both by the
Bible itself, which shows that the accounts of conquest apply only to the
territory of the tribe of Benjamin and are tempered by biblical admissions that Israel could not have
conquered the great cities of the land until the times of David and Solomon. It is also contradicted by
archaeology." (114)
Infiltration has always been the preferred method of attack for Jews and revolutionaries throughout
history.
It is characteristic and revealing that the Jewish academic R. Wolfe prides himself on the humility,
restlessness and rebelliousness of the early Israelites and, always referring to them, equates the "bandits"
with the "bandits".
"In the same vein, "in Jewish prophetism (and in early Christianity) there is a set of themes that make
up what has been called 'religious communism'. More generally, "[i]n Jewish prophetism (and in early
Christianity), one can identify a set of themes that make up what has been called 'religious
communism'; the typical millenarian scenario uniting these themes is always the same: first, an
imprecation against the rich and a call to
destruction; anathemas against private property and an emphasis on poverty; then,
the announcement of a new society based on equality, in accordance with God's will and completely
separate from the present society; finally, an attempt to establish the kingdom by s e t t i n g up small
religious communities". (116)
In conclusion, J. Evola's contribution to the clarification of the Jewish problem is of a magnitude and scope
that are not yet fully understood.
unprecedented and inestimable depth, due to a clear definition of it from an Aryan point of view and,
correlatively, to the criticism and rectification of all the vague, weak and incoherent ideas presented by
most anti-Jews - the need for a "truly general point of view" and "doctrinal and historical premises" is
not only felt theoretically, but is understood as "necessary to truly legitimise, by a deductive
procedure, any practical, i.e. social and political, anti-Jewish policy." There is the examination of
Jewishness in a totalising manner, that is to say, from a biological point of view, as well as from the
point of view of the race of the soul and that of the spirit and, in accordance with the etymology of the
term "Semitism" often used
approximately, there is also the recognition that the "Jewish" element cannot, purely and simply, be
separated from the general type of civilisation that once extended throughout the whole of Europe.
the Eastern Mediterranean, from Asia Minor to the borders of Arabia (in this respect, the question of
the systematic collusion between Jews and Arabs against the European peoples in the spheres of
The Zionist question, which has become a reason for living, a fad, in most European nationalist circles,
is put in its place.) The Zionist question, which has become a reason for living, a fad, in most European
nationalist circles, is put in its place: "It should be noted that it is not true that the dispersion of the
Jews goes back to the second destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD) and that it thus has external causes.
The Jews had already been dispersed throughout the Mediterranean world for a long time, from
their own will and according to their own interests. When the Persian king Cyrus allowed them to
return home, most of the Jews had no intention of leaving what they called their "captivity": here they
had done lucrative business, they had accumulated wealth and property, and they did not relish the
prospect of returning to such a poor country. The same applies to many of today's leaders of
international Jewry, who are scattered all over the world, smiling pityingly at those who expect to
achieve "Zionism" in Palestine and would thus like the Jews to abandon the "Jews".
gold jobs they hold in Aryan countries to retreat to this poor piece of Asian land." (117)
Not only is this still valid, it is more valid than ever. When we come more specifically to the Jewish
question in Antiquity, we have seen that J. Evola's considerations
can be taken as essentially valid and accurate, except to some extent in relation to the problem of
messianism, about which He That Cometh and M. Eliade are very perceptive. The problem is that
messianism is conceived as a materialistic and practical belief from the beginning of the Jewish religion
in some of the author's writings, whereas this belief is not conceived of as a materialist belief.
In others, this characteristic is seen as an alteration and corruption of the original Yahwism. As we have
already pointed out, it is not only incorrect to speak strictly o f a "secularisation" of Yahwism, in the
sense that Yahwism was originally based on secular interests, but, paradoxical as it may seem, the
prophets never insisted on a "secularisation" of Yahwism.
on the supra-terrestrial sphere than in the post-exilic period, when the Jews began to
a taste of material wealth. This could be explained by the perceived need to be seen as a religious sect
rather than a mercantile community.
In any case, our critical and constructive examination of Evola's conception of the Jewish problem in
antiquity in the light of the Old Testament and a wide selection of the best available academic
literature on the subject has led to the observation that the culture, spirit and character of the Hebrew
p e o p l e have changed in form, but not in substance, over the centuries.
B. K., translated from the English by J. B.
(1) http://www.edizionidiar.it/evola-julius/tre-aspetti-del-problema-ebraico.html.
(2) Alfonso De Filippi, Gerusalemme Contro Roma, http://it.narkive.com/2008/10/20/1015986-
gerusalemme-contro-roma-parte-1.html.
(3) J. Evola, Revolt against the modern world.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) J. Evola, Three Aspects of the Jewish Problem.
(8) J. Evola, Trasformazioni del "Regnum", La Vita Italiana, 1937.
(9) Three aspects of the Jewish problem.
(10) Ibid.
(11) J. Evola, Presentation of the Jewish Problem,
https://evolaasheis.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/presentation-of-the-jewish-problem/.
(12) J. Evola, Sulla Genesi dell'ebraismo come forza distruttrice, La Vita Italiana, July 1941.
(13) A revolt against the modern world.
(14) Presentation of the Jewish Problem.
(15) J. Evola, The myth of blood.
(16) Ibid.
(17) A revolt against the modern world.
(18) Three aspects of the Jewish problem.
(19) Presentation of the Jewish Problem.
(20) Collective, Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Ychromosome
biallelic haplotypes, http://www.pnas.org/content/97/12/6769.full.
(21) In Human Genetics, December 2000.
(22) Kevin A. Brook, The Genetic Bonds Between Kurds and
Jews, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1626606/posts.
(23) S. Cohen, The Beginning of Jewishness.
(24) M. Eliade, Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses, chap. XIV.
(25) Robert A. Guisepi, Canaanite culture and religion, http://historyworld.
org/canaanite_culture_and_religion.htm.
(26) Salo W. Baron, The History of Judaism, http://history-world.org/history_of_judaism.htm.
(27) J. Evola, "Importanza dell'idea ariana", in La Stampa, 13 XI-1942; now in I Testi de La
Stampa, AR, Padova, 2004.
(28) A. de Gobineau, Essay on the inequality of human races.
(29) G. Le Bon, Les premières civilisations.
(30) G. Batault, The Jewish problem.
(31) The History of Judaism.
(32) Joseph J. Williams, Hebrewisms of West Africa, from Nile to Niger with the Jews.
(33) Hebrewism of Africa, http://www.angelfire.com/ill/hebrewisrael/printpages/hebrewism.html.
(34) Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh.
(35) Keith W. Whitelman, The Invention of Ancient Israel.
(36) http://www.answers.com/topic/levite#ixzz1W8rR3xVW.
(37) JohnThomas Didymus, The Political Subversive Role of the Prophets in the History of Ancient Israel: The
Early Independent Prophets and the Monarchy,
https://web.archive.org/web/20140902080447/goddiscussion.com/75516/the-political-subversive-role- ofthe-
prophets-in-the-history-of-ancient-israel-the-early-independent-prophets-and-the-monarchy- part-1/.
(38) Ibid.
(39) Jay Y. Gonen, Yahweh versus Yahweh: The Enigma of Jewish History.
(40) A revolt against the modern world.
(41) Thomas F. McDaniel, Clarifying Baffling Biblical Passages. Chapter Five: The Inviolable
Relationship Of Moses And Zipporah - Exodus 4:24-26,
http://tmcdaniel.palmerseminary.edu/CBBP_Chapter_5.pdf.
(42) J. Philip Hyatt, Exodus.
(43) J. B. Jordan, Law of the Covenant.
(44) Antti Laato, Johannes C. de Moor, Theodicy in the World of the Bible.
(45) Exodus: Oppression and Liberation - the "Paradigm" Book of the Entire Bible,
http://www.fundotrasovejas.org.ar/ingles/Libros/Subersibe%20hebrew%20bible/Exodus.pdf.
(46) Jarl Fossum, Brian Glazer, Seth in the Magical Texts, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20189012.
See also Gregory A. Boyd, God at war: the Bible and Spiritual Conflict, p. 344,
https://books.google.fr/books?id=Hj791_BeAF0C.
(47) Ann Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Israel,
h t t p s : / / w e b . a r c h i v e . o r g / w e b / 2 0 1 4 0 7 2 7 1 9 3 4 3 5 / h t t p : / / c
o m m o n s e n s e a t h e i s m . c o m / w p - content/uploads/2010/05/Jeffers-Magicand-
Divination-in-Ancient-Israel.pdf.
(48) Rüdiger Schmitt, The Problem Of Magic And Monotheism In The Book Of Leviticus,
https://web.archive.org/web/20110805121228/http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_88.pdf
.
(49) Scott B. Noegel, Moses and Magic: Notes on the Book of Exodus,
http://faculty.washington.edu/snoegel/PDFs/articles/Noegel%2019%20-%20JANES%201996.pdf.
(50) Yahweh versus Yahweh: The Enigma of Jewish History.
(51) Ibid.
(52) He That Cometh.
(53) History of religious beliefs and ideas.
(54) Ibid.
(55) He That Cometh.
(56) Collective, Biblical Ideas of Atonement: Their History and
Significance, https://archive.org/details/biblicalideasofa00burtuoft.
(57) He That Cometh.
(58) Three aspects of the Jewish problem.
(59) James H. Moulton, Bartholomae's Lexicon and Translation of the Gathas, The Classical Review
20 (9).
(60) He That Cometh.
(61) Ibid.
(62) Ibid.
(63) Ibid.
(64) Ibid.
(65) Ibid.
(66) Trasformazioni del "Regnum".
(67) The myth of blood.
(68) J. Evola, Il Giudaismo nell'antichità .
(69) He That Cometh.
(70) Ibid.
(71) Ibid.
(72) Ibid.
(73) Ibid.
(74) J. Evola, "L'affaiblissement des mots", in L'Arc et la Massue.
(75) He That Cometh.
(76) Ibid.
(77) A revolt against the modern world.
(78) Three aspects of the Jewish problem. See 1 Samuel 9:9.
(79) Ibid.
(80) Joseph Jacobs, Judah D. Eisenstein, Titles of Honor,
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=230&letter=T#ixzz1W8Xit1z1.
(81) Catholic Encyclopedia, Prophecy, Prophet, and Prophetess,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12477a.htm.
(82) Andrew R. Fausset, Prophet, http://www.bible-history.com/faussets/P/Prophet/.
(83) M. Weber, Le judaïsme antique.
(85) History of religious beliefs and ideas, chap. VII.
(86) A revolt against the modern world.
(87) J. Jensen, God's Word to Israel.
(88) The Political Subversive Role of the Prophets in the History of Ancient Israel: The Early
Independent Prophets and the Monarchy.
(89) A revolt against the modern world.
(90) J. Evola, Gli Ebrei e la matematica, 1940.
(91) W. Sombart, The Jews and Economic Life.
(92) Ibid.
(93) Ibid.
(94) Ibid.
(95) Si Frumkin, Jewish Genius, http://www.sifrumkin.com/pdf/jewishgeniusw.pdf.
(96) Three aspects of the Jewish problem.
(97) G. Le Bon, Lois psychologiques de l'évolution des peuples.
(98) Jean Bertrand, Claude Wacogne, La fausse éducation nationale. L'emprise judéo-maçonnique sur
l'école française, http://www.histoireebook.com/index.php?post/2012/02/27/Bertrand-Jean-Wacogne-
Claude-La-fausse-education-nationale.
(99) Psychological laws of human evolution.
(100) J. Evola, The Occult War (conclusion), https://evolaasheis.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/the-occultwar-
conclusion/.
(101) Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis.
(102) Ibid.
(103) Ibid.
(104) Ibid.
(105) Ibid.
(106) Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative.
(107) Don C. Benjamin, Deuteronomy and city life.
(108) R. Guénon, The crisis of the modern world.
(109) Ibid.
(110) Nadav Na'aman, Habiru and Hebrews: The Transfer of a Social Term to the Literary
Sphere, http://www.jstor.org/stable/544204.
(111) See https://elementsdeducationraciale.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/canaille-du-haut-racaille-du-.
(112) Davis Astle, The Babylonian Woe,
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/the_babylonian_woe.pdf.
(113) Douglas Petrovich, Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus-Pharaoh,
https://www.tms.edu/m/17f.pdf.
(114) http://www.henrywansbrough.com/Genesis%20wt%20pix.doc.
(115) Robert Wolfe, From Habiru to Hebrews: The Roots of the Jewish Tradition,
h t t p : / / w w w . n e w e n g l i s h r e v i e w . o r g / R o b e r t _ W o l f
e / F r o m _ H a b i r u _ t o _ H e b r e w s % 3 A _ T h e _ R o o t s _ o f _ t
h e _ J ewish_Tradition/.
(116) J. P. Sironneau, Sécularisation et religions
politiques,
https://books.google.fr/books?id=fU7KmrJuDRAC.
(117) Il Giudaismo nell'antichità .
The Jewish question in Antiquity (3)
It is commonly believed today that the misery into which the Jews have fallen, and the universal
contempt in which they are held, are the result of the curse that Jesus Christ once placed on this
unfortunate nation.
This opinion is a credit to the Christian religion. However, it is certain that before the Jews attracted
this curse, which is considered to be the cause of their misery, they were already hated and despised
wherever they were, and it will even be agreed that they are almost never mentioned in antiquity
except in relation to this general contempt and aversion that people had for them.
Of all the ancients who have spoken of the origin of the people of God, there is not one who has not
done so in the most contemptuous and insulting manner in the world. Manetho and Ceremon,
Egyptian historians whose testimonies Joseph has preserved for us, tell us that a great multitude of
lepers and other people infected with contagious diseases were once driven out of Egypt by King
Amenophis; that these lepers elected as their leader a priest from Heliopolis named Moses, who
composed a religion for them and gave them laws. (1)
Lysimachus, whom Joseph also quotes, says the same thing as these two historians, except that he
calls Bocchoris the king who drove out the Jews (2).
Tacitus (3) followed Lysimachus: Diodorus Siculus, without mentioning either Bocchoris or Amenophis,
says (4) simply that Antiochus Epiphanes had been assured that this nation had been expelled from
Egypt at the end of the Second World War.
because of the leprosy with which she was infected. Justin (5) says the same thing as Diodorus, and it
is unfortunate for the Jews that an opinion, which attributes to them such a low and shameful origin,
was commonly accepted without anyone deigning to give credence to the brilliant and miraculous
manner in which they themselves assured us that they had once come out of Egypt.
Of all the historians, Strabo treats the Jews most favourably. It is true that this author did not adopt
their miraculous exit from Egypt, but he also makes no mention of this vile
He simply says that they withdrew under the guidance of Moses, who was a priest of the country.
Justin and Tacitus, as we have just said, agree that they were suffering from leprosy.
The first, who had some knowledge of the Scriptures, made the Jews Syrians by origin; the other,
misled by the resemblance of the word Judah with that of Ida, which is the name of a mountain in
Crete, believed (6) that they came from
this island. With the exception of these two historians, all the others have assured us that the Jews
were Egyptians; the similarity of character and customs between these two nations gave them a
common origin, especially as the Jews themselves agreed that they had lived i n Egypt for a long time.
Among the Egyptians, the priests were fed and maintained at public expense; they were dressed in
linen a n d frequently bathed day and night. The Supreme Pontiff wore an image of sapphire
hung from the collar, this image was called truth (7): in their sacrifices they made execration on the
head of a victim, i.e. they prayed (8) the gods to turn on this head all the evils with which the people
were threatened; the same custom was established among the Jews: circumcision (9),
the abhorrence of swine, the fasts observed on the eve of festivals, the distinction between sacred
and profane Scriptures and between pure and impure animals, all seem to have been borrowed from
the Egyptians.
The history of the Jewish nation lends credence to the opinion that these two peoples had the same
origin, and suggests quite clearly that they had once worshipped the same God. As soon as the Jews
left Egypt and lost sight of Moses, who wanted to establish a new religion among them, the first thing
they did was to forge a golden calf, which, as we know, was the main object of Egyptian worship.
Moses himself, in raising the bronze serpent in the desert, placed before the eyes of his people one of
their most famous hieroglyphs, which did not fail thereafter to cause the Jews to fall back into the
idolatry he wanted them to renounce (10). Finally, there was such great conformity
between the ceremonies and customs of the Jews and the Egyptians, that the two have always been
confused.
Christians have since been confused with Jews, since the ancients never considered Christianity to be
anything other than a sect and a particular branch of Judaism.
The Egyptians, who had for so long been the most illustrious of the peoples of the Earth, who had
taught the sciences and the arts to the rest of the world, had subsequently lost much of their former
glory, or perhaps they owed their fame only to the ignorance in which the other nations still lived when
they were already a civilised republic. Whatever the case, they did not
become famous only for their foolishness and superstition; and if curiosity still attracted people
The Egyptians had thus fallen into the general contempt of all peoples, and the Jews, who were always
confused with them, shared this contempt. The Egyptians had thus fallen into the general contempt of
all peoples, and the Jews, who were always confused with them, shared this contempt; they attracted
even greater contempt because of the singularity of their cult and the maxims attributed to them, as
we shall see.
All the nations had not only contempt for the Jews, but also a strong feeling for them.
We hated them because we knew that they hated other men, and we despised them because we
saw them observing customs that we found ridiculous, and moreover because the character of
their spirit seemed very despicable.
The Jews worshipped an invisible God whom they claimed to be the master of all the gods (11); their
prayers, their hymns, their books and their speeches were full of insulting terms for the gods of the
nations; and this would have been enough to inspire hatred for them in other peoples; religious zeal
alone could have produced it: but they had a stronger reason for hating them, which was that of their
own love and particular interest. People were convinced that the Jews had a hatred for all those who
were not of their religion that was all the greater because it was believed to be ordained by the God
they worshipped.
It was for this reason alone, according to Diodorus, that Antiochus treated them so harshly. The king,
he says, hating the hatred the Jews had for all the other nations, had a pig sacrificed
in their temple, and had the blood of this abominable victim sprinkled on their sacred books, which
authorised this unjust hatred (12).
Tacitus, confusing the Christians with the Jews, according to the custom of the ancients, asserts that
these unfortunate people, whom Nero produced as guilty of the burning of Rome, were not convicted
of this crime until
because it was thought that they were very likely to have committed it through their hatred of
mankind (13). And in another place he says (14) positively of the Jews, that they have indeed much
charity for one another and inviolable fidelity among themselves; but that with regard to all other
men, they bear them an implacable hatred. According to Juvenal (15), they taught the roads only to
those of their religion, and they wanted to show the fountains only to those who were circumcised; in
other words, they inhumanely refused the simplest and most ordinary help of humanity to anyone
other than Jews.
Some people accused Moses of having inspired the Jews with this hatred for other peoples in revenge
for the harshness with which the Egyptians had once driven them out of their country (16). But
without resorting to this evil intention on the part of their lawgiver, the barbaric way in which this
nation had once treated the Canaanites, as well as so many other peoples whom God had commanded
them
to exterminate even women and children, combined with an infinite number of examples of cruelty
towards foreigners, of which the books of the Jews are full, all this, I say, was undoubtedly sufficient
for them to
attract the hatred of all peoples. It was with reference to these massacres of the Canaanites that the
Emperor Julian said (17) "the legislators of the pagans recommend that those of the same faith should
be treated with gentleness.
But Moses ordered the extermination of innocent people. God has
even ordered the Jews on several occasions to exterminate any animals found in certain Canaanite
towns.
Hatred of the Jews was therefore based on their history, on their behaviour towards the
uncircumcised, and on the opinion that they themselves hated all the rest of mankind. This is
This is why they were regarded as the declared enemies of the human race, lacking only power and a
favourable opportunity to make the whole world feel the effects of their ill will; and this is why, in all
popular uprisings, they were the first victims of public indignation.
The inhabitants of Alexandria massacred fifty thousand of them in one go. Those of Seleucia
those of Damascus ten thousand; those of Caesarea twenty thousand. Joseph (18), who reports
all these massacres, deplores the misfortune of his nation to have as enemies all the peoples of the
Earth. It has to be said that the Jews paid for the advantage of being God's beloved nation with the
inconvenience of being
the object of human hatred.
However, because the Jews were so weak that they could do no harm to anyone, they were even more
despised than hated. Circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath (19), their frequent fasts, their
foolish credulity which became a proverb, made them the laughing stock of all peoples; the ancients
only ever spoke of them as the dregs of men. All nations," said Julian (20), "have distinguished
themselves in some way, some by their power and wealth, others by their wisdom, others by their wit
and industry; the Jews alone have always remained obscure and without merit.
Tacitus (21) tells us that the Senate, which expelled them from Rome under the empire of Tiberius,
sent four thousand of the most vigorous to Sardinia, not caring much that the inclemency of the air
on that island caused them to perish, and regarding their loss as a very minor matter. He told us
elsewhere that while the Assyrians, Medes and Persians were the masters of the East, the Jews were
the vilest and most despicable of their subjects (22).
The same author speaks of their religion as follows. Some, he says (23), seeing in the temple of the Jews
many ornaments, vine leaves and bunches of grapes, believed that this nation worshipped
Bacchus, but they are very much mistaken, for the ceremonies of Bacchus inspire only joy and
gladness, whereas those of the Jews are gloomy, dirty and absurd.
The sadness of worship is another point on which the ancients found much conformity between the
Jews and the Egyptians. The gods of the Greeks," says Apuleius, "delight in songs of rejoicing, but the
Egyptian deities love only mournful songs. (24)
Augustus (25) praised Caius his grandson for not deigning to sacrifice in Jerusalem when passing
through Judea, and it was one of the greatest marks of contempt that the Romans could give, not to
sacrifice to the gods of the different countries through which they passed. We can see in Diodorus,
Strabo, Plutarch, Florus, Ammianus Marcellinus and generally in all the historians who spoke of the
Jews, the contemptuous manner in which they did so (26).
Poets have mocked them in even more pungent terms. Horace dedicated the proverb of their
credulity (27). Juvenal (28) portrays them sometimes as tellers of nonsense, sometimes as miserable
beggars and always as men of imbecilic superstition. Perse (29) chooses the
Jewish religion to designate superstition itself. Horace (30) before him had done the same thing. The
Martial's epigrams are full of continual mockery of them: among other things, he compares their fasts
(31) to everything in the world that stinks, and the epithet "stinkers" is given to them.
preferably all by Ammianus Marcellinus (32).
Even though circumcision was common to the Jews, Egyptians, Ethiopians and other peoples,
e i t h e r they observed it more regularly or they gave mysterious reasons for it, which we can only
guess at.
They were the only ones who were usually made fun of for this custom.
Aristophanes, in his Plutus, puts it quite pleasantly below the vilest and most
shameful. "They've just taken away an old man who's tortuous, hunchbacked, mangy, peeled,
wrinkled, and I think even circumcised.
The Jews were almost always referred to by certain insulting terms (33) which cannot be rendered in
our language, and which all had to do with their circumcision; but especially when, in public baths or
on other occasions, the Jews were obliged to appear as they were, the jeers were then so loud that
they could not even be heard.
So strong were the mockeries that they could not help blushing before men at this characteristic mark
of God's choice. This is why they usually had recourse to certain violent and painful means to appear to
be made like others on these occasions, and to erase
in some way this stain which attracted to them mockery which they could not support (34). Finally, the
foreigners carried the contempt they had for them because of their circumcision so far that they
insulted them even in their capital city and even in their sanctuary. Joseph (35) even tells us that a
soldier of the Roman garrison, standing at the gate of the temple where the Jews were entering in
large numbers to celebrate the feast of Easter, took it into his head to show them naked the ways in
which the other men differed from them, which he accompanied with words so insulting t h a t the
people rose up and more than ten thousand of them perished on that occasion.
Commentators on Scripture believe they are interested in maintaining that Abraham was the first of
all men to be circumcised, and that consequently the custom of circumcision must have passed from
the Jews to the Egyptians and other nations who observed it. They suppose that during the stay of
the Israelites in Egypt this custom could have been communicated to the inhabitants of the country,
and that the ten tribes transplanted by the Egyptians were the first to be circumcised.
Salmanasar were able to introduce it into Colchis, as if this dangerous and painful ceremony had some
attraction for peoples who did not embrace the religion of the Jews.
But the ancients, who had no great respect for the books of the Jews, preferred to rely on the
testimony of their own history. Herodotus (36) tells us positively that the
The Ethiopians, the inhabitants of Colchis, the Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine, who are the
Jews, had received circumcision from the Egyptians. Diodorus of Sicily asserted the same thing, and
even the most
of the Jews, such as Philo and Joseph, did not dispute that the Egyptians were the originators of this
custom (37): the difference between the Jews and the other peoples who were circumcised was that
the latter had made circumcision the fundamental and most essential point of their religion.
The Phoenicians abandoned it after the trade they had with the Greeks, and it appears from Joseph
that it was beginning to be rather neglected among the Egyptians. In fact, the Phoenicians abandoned
it after the trade they had with the Greeks, and it seems from Joseph that it was beginning to be rather
neglected among the Egyptians. As for the origin of this custom, there was no doubt that a purely
natural reason had given rise to its establishment. Herodotus says that the Egyptians were circumcised
for reasons of cleanliness. Philo, who wrote a book specifically on this subject, gives four sensible
reasons for this, but they can only be given if they are expressed in a somewhat physical way. They are
as follows.
1Ëš. To remedy inflammation caused by the foreskin when it is too narrow.
2Ëš. To avoid the uncleanliness caused by the rubbish which ordinarily collects between the foreskin
and the glans.
3Ëš. So that the seed can enter the matrix in a straight line.
4Ëš. The fourth is a mystical reason which the Fathers of the Church and the allegorist doctors have not
failed to make use of since. It is the circumcision of the heart of which the other circumcision was only
the symbol and figure.
Egyptians and Ethiopians were apparently once born with the same disadvantages
There are even several places in Africa where, for similar reasons, even women are circumcised. There
are even several places in Africa where, for similar reasons, even women are circumcised. Circumcision
was therefore considered to be something which, having originally been a simple operation intended
to remedy the natural defects of men, had subsequently become a "natural disease".
religious ceremony to which even those who naturally would have had no need of it were subjected.
Antiquity is full of similar apotheoses.
Although the circumcision, the superstitious observance of the Sabbath, the fasts and the sad
ceremonies of the Jews drew many mockeries from them, nothing made them more generally
despised than their
extraordinary credulity. It is true that miracles and wonders were mentioned in the histories of the
pagans, but these miracles and wonders were neither so numerous nor so surprising as those with
which the books of the Jews were filled. Moreover, there was not a single reasonable man among the
pagans who did not laugh at these alleged miracles, while the entire Jewish nation showed a blind faith
in what is called the divine scriptures, books which sensible people rightly regard as the product of
fanaticism and imposture, and which cannot be respected or believed except through that ridiculous
stubbornness which leads to the most puerile tales and the most absurd things being upheld as true.
This is also the reason why Joseph was so cautious in his telling of the story, lest he bore his readers
and put them off by recounting a multitude of miracles which can only be described as "miracles".
He always leaves them free to believe what they please, and even when he (38) speaks of the passage
of the Red Sea, which is the most dazzling of the prodigies of the Old Testament, he adds that we
should not be surprised by this marvel, since the same thing has since happened to the Macedonians
when they passed the Red Sea.
Pamphylia under the leadership of Alexander. Joseph was right to do so, as his story would not have
been favourably received without such gentle treatment. This author reported so many signs of the
foolish credulity of the Jews of his time that he would have been ill-founded to demand full and
complete faith in t h e things he claimed had happened to their ancestors.
It should not be forgotten that the ancients, who had extreme contempt for the Jews, did not confuse
their lawgiver with them. They usually spoke of Moses in terms quite similar to those of the Jews.
favourable. Strabo (Book 16) compares him to those wise and enlightened men who were born to
teach others to live in accordance with justice and reason. Tacitus portrays him as a man of spirit who
knew how to take advantage of the opportunities that chance offered him to achieve his ends. The
Jews," he says (39), "were suffering greatly in the desert because of a shortage of water.
Seeing this, and conjecturing from the grass that he noticed in this place that there might well be
springs, he had them dug and did not fail to find some."
Diodorus of Sicily (40) ranks Moses among those illustrious legislators who made skilful use of politics
to gain greater respect for their institutions. After making an enumeration of several of these skilful
legislators who attributed to the Gods the laws that they themselves had
Moses, he adds, likewise made the Jews believe that the God Jao was the author of those he gave them.
This is how these famous historians spoke of this marvellous striking of the rock. This is the idea they
had of this decalogue, whose ark containing it brought terror and death everywhere, and whose sight
was allowed only to the high priest, and only once a year. The cleverness of the Jewish legislator and
the stupidity of the people he was dealing with were the only marvels that attracted their attention.
Those who have hitherto regarded the Jews as an unknown nation inhabiting a corner of the earth will
doubtless not be able to reconcile this idea with the general contempt in which they were held by the
Jews.
peoples very far from their country. This is why it is worth pointing out that this nation, which is
wrongly regarded as obscure, was widespread and known by almost everyone.
It is true that the Jews lived in a remote and even bad country, in spite of the praise they gave it, and
that too little attention was paid to them to come to Judea on purpose to find out about their customs
and traditions.
religion: but they had remedied this, and by leaving their own country to spread among the other
nations, they had only made themselves too well known, since they had at the same time brought
upon themselves that general contempt into which they would not have fallen had they remained at
home; not to mention
that revolutions in their republic had scattered them throughout t h e East for several centuries.
When Alexander founded the famous city to which he gave his name, the Jews settled there in large
numbers and this prince granted them the right of bourgeoisie like the other inhabitants. The founder
o f Antioch did the same for them. The Ptolemies protected them in Egypt, where Philometor allowed
them to build a temple modelled on the one in Jerusalem.
The desire for gain, to which this nation has never been indifferent, had attracted them to all the
maritime cities of Phoenicia, from where they then passed into Greece and Italy. In addition to this,
the Jews had long been driven by a desire to make proselytes, and this zeal encouraged them to
spread their dogmas and their religion among all peoples. What is certain is that more than two
hundred years before
Jesus Christ, the number of Greeks who had embraced the Jewish religion was already so considerable
that it was necessary to make for them that famous translation of Scripture which is commonly called
the translation of the Septuagint.
There are twenty places in Joseph which confirm this zeal of the Jews for the propagation of their
cult, and the reproach which Jesus Christ (41) makes to the Pharisees leaves no room for doubt: "You
travel," he said to them, "the earth and the sea to make a proselyte. This nation had multiplied so
much that in famous cities such as Rome, Alexander and Antioch, the Jews alone made up a very
considerable proportion of the inhabitants.
Jerusalem of men from every country who also bore the name of Jews, even though they were not
Jews by origin but only by religion.
Moreover, it does not appear that the Jews had the same zeal in ancient times to divulge their
mysteries as they did in later times.
seems to indicate the contrary. This prince, after having had the Pentateuch translated, finding,
according to Joseph's report (42), the laws of Moses beautiful and sensible, could not help saying that
he was surprised how such beautiful laws were at the same time so unknown, without anyone having
made the slightest mention of them; to which he was replied that these laws being all divine, no one
had ever been allowed to speak of them with impunity: that Theopompus, having undertaken to infer
something about them in his history, had lost his judgement by divine punishment; and that his reason
had only returned to him after he had erased w h a t he had written about them; that the poet
Theodecte, having spoken about them in his tragedies, had become blind and that he had only
recovered his sight after having made amends for his fault. These little tales that Joseph
was apparently taken from the ancient book of Aristaeus, which contained a marvellous account of
what had happened to Ptolemy's translation of the books of Moses.
Philadelphus had it done. We read in this book that when the king of Egypt asked Eleazar, the high
priest, for translators equally skilled in the Greek and Hebrew languages, Eleazar sent him six men from
each tribe, making a total of seventy-two interpreters; that the 72 learned men were each locked up
separately in a sort of cell, where they translated from one language to another.
They were 72 days in perfecting their work.
Today we regard this story as a fable; however, it was received by the Jews and the first Christians as a
constant truth, and Saint Justin (43), among others, assures us that
naively that he himself saw the cells on the island of Pharos where these 72 translators were locked up
to complete their divine undertaking.
But to come back to this spirit of proselytism that had taken hold of the Jews, we do not know whether
they w e r e following the natural inclination that all men have to attract others to their opinions, or
whether the Egyptians, whose manners and customs they willingly adopted, had not inspired them
with this spirit of proselytism.
same spirit that reigned among them. It is at least certain that they had a particular zeal to establish
the cult of Isis and Serapis everywhere, and that these two divinities already had temples in Rome
before the Jews were known there; this is shown by the action of Lucius Emilius Paulus (44), who after
a decree of the Senate ordering the temples to be pulled down, took an axe himself and gave the first
blows in order to encourage the workmen who were held back by superstitious fear.
Although Augustus (45) had forbidden the practice of the Egyptian religion in Rome, it was not long
before Agrippa, who was in command of the city in his absence, issued a new decree to prevent it from
being introduced. Tacitus (46), Suetonius (47), and the other historians who speak of the frequent
decrees of the Senate banning the worship and ceremonies of the Jews from Rome, always put the
Egyptian ceremonies before these; the observers of both had
even more zeal to introduce and spread them than their enemies had to oppose and banish them.
Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud, Opinions des anciens sur les Juifs, London, 1769.
(1) Against Appian. Liv. I. Ch. 9, 11, 12.
(2) Hist. 5, Cap. 34. Apad. Photium.
(3) Plurimi authores consentunt, orta per Egyptum tabe, quæ corpora foedaret, regem Bocchorim,
adito Hammonis oraculo remedium petentem, purgare regnum & id genus hominum ut invitum Deis,
alias in terras aveherc jussum. Hist. Lib. 5 Cap. 3.
(4) Photius Bibliot. Lib. 34.
(5) Lib. 36. Cap 2.
(6) Vid. Tacitus. Hist. lib. 5, cap. 4.
(7) Herodotus Lib. 5. Plutarch. Polit. Elien. Var. Hist. lib. 14, cap. 34.
(8) See Diodorus L. 2. 5. 6. Plutarch. Sunpos. Lib. 4. Cap 7.
(9) "There can be no doubt that circumcision is a survival of the cult of the goddess.
By declaring circumcision to be a covenant between man and "God", Abraham was attempting to
rationalising a matriarchal custom that could not be abolished, just as in the Christian era the Church
adopted and rationalised many goddess rites that could not be eliminated". (Elizabeth Gould Davis,
The First Sex, Penguin Books, 1971, p. 102).
This is confirmed by the links that existed between circumcision and the tyet, the cross consecrated to
the goddess Isis, among the Negroid Egyptian peoples (see Dibombari MBOCK, NKAÂMBOK, 2014, p.
115-118), and this before the appearance of Judaism. "The Tyet represents a knot tightened around an
acorn. This symbol lies at the heart of Catholicism. In Cilùba -tenga means "to tie", "to bind", from
which is formed bu.tengu "circumcision". Circumcision is a covenant". (Ibid., p.117), as it would
l a t e r be among the Jews, between them and Yahweh." (J. B., Le Cinquième État, note 164,
https://elementsdeducationraciale.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/le-cinquieme-etat/) [N. d. E.]
(10) King Hezekiah had the bronze serpent broken because the Jews worshipped it.
(11) The "God" of the Jews is a masculinised avatar of the Mother Goddess. See B. K., Mon nom est
personne, https://elementsdeducationraciale.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/mon-nom-est-personne/ ;
Raphael Patai, La Déesse hébraïque, https://elementsdeducationraciale.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/ladeesse-
abrahamique/.
Moreover, infinity, ineffability and the absence of quality, which are the characteristics of the 'God' of the
Judaism, are also those of materia prima, i.e. pure matter (in the Aristotelian sense of the term) without
form. [Editor's note]
(12) Liv. 34. apud Photium.
(13) Haus perinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. Annal. Lib. 15, Cap. 44.
(14) Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, sed adversus omnes alios hostile odium.
Tacit. Hist. Lib. 5. cap. 5.
(15) Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti ; quæsitum ad sontem solos deducere verpos.
Juvenal. Satyra 14. Vers. 103.
(16) Diodorus Lib. 40. apud Photium.
(17) See St. Cyril contra Julian. Lib. 6.
(18) Joseph de bello Judaïco. Lib. 2. Cap. 33. 34. 35. 36.
(19) "The Old Testament prophets often warned people against idolatry,
i.e. the worship of the moon (Hosea 4-13, 2-11). "The god Yahweh appropriated the rites of the new moon,
the feast days and the Sabbaths of the moon goddess. They became the foundation of the Ten
Commandments and the laws of Deuteronomy. The rituals of the moon goddess became the rituals
of a jealous, aggressive and vengeful male deity. Judaism, Christianity and Islam
adopted and absorbed all the customs of the moon cult. The holy days of Judaism and Islam are based
on the lunar calendar. The Jewish Sabbath has its origins in Babylonian moon worship. In Babylon, the
full moon was the day of rest. The word sabattu comes from Sa-bat and means "rest of heart". It is the
day of rest that the moon takes when it is full, because at that time it is neither waxing nor waning. On
this day, which is the direct ancestor of the Sabbath, it was thought that the act of
to work, eat cooked food or go on a journey, would bring misfortune. This is precisely what is
forbidden [among Muslim Arabs and practising Jews] to menstruating women. On the day of the
'menstruation of the moon', everyone, men and women, was subject to similar restrictions, because
the taboo against menstruating women weighed heavily on everyone. [...] The Babylonian
sabattu was the 'bad day' of the moon goddess Ishtar, who it is not unlikely was believed to be
genuinely indisposed" (Safiya Karimah, Moon Goddess, iUniverse, New York and Lincoln,
2003, p. 31. Quoted in B. K., Mon nom est personne,
https://elementsdeducationraciale.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/mon-nom-est-personne/) [N. d. E.]
(20) St. Cyril against Julian. Lib. 5.
(21) Factum & de Sacris Ægyptüs Judaïcisque pellendis : factumque patrum consultum, ut quatuor
millia libertini generis ea superstitione infecta, queis idonea ætas, in insulam Sardinian veherentur,
coercendis illis latrociniis, & si ob gravitatem coeli interiissent, vile damnum : Coeteri cederent Italia, nisi
certam ante diem profanos ritus exuissent. Annal. Lib. 2. Cap. 85. sub. fin.
(22) Dum Assyrios penes Medosque & Persas oriens suit despectissima pars servientium. Hist. lib.
5, cap. 8.
(23) Quia Sacerdotes eorum tibia tympanisque concinebant, hebera vinciebantur, vitisque aurea templo
reperta : Liberum patrem coli, domitorem orientis quidam arbitrati sunt, nequaquam congruentibus
institutis. Quippe Liber sestos loetosque ritus posuit ; Judæorum mos absurdus sordidusque. Tacit.
Hist. lib. 5. cap 5. sub fin.
(24) Egyptia numina plangoribus gaudent, Græca choreis. De deo Socratis. L. 2.
(25) Ægyptiacam & Judaïcam ceremoniam contemptui habuit & Caïum nepotem quod
Judæam præteriens apud Hyerosolimam non supplicasset, collaudavit. Suet. in Augusto. Cap.
(26) See Plutarch. Simposiac. Lib. 4. quæst 9. 5 - Diodor. Sicul. Lib. 34 - Strabo Lib. 16 Florus, Lib.
3. Cap. 5. - Ammian Marcell. Lib 22.
(27) [...] Credat Judæus apella. Lib. I. Sat. 5. vers. 100.
(28) Qualiacumque voles Judæi somnia vendunt. Sat. 6. vers. 546.
Judæis, quorum cophinus, foenumque supellex. Satir. 3 vers. 14.
(29) Labra moves tacitus, recutitaque Sabbata palles. Pers. Sat. 5. v. 18.
(30) [...] hodie tricesima Sabbata, vis tu Curtis Judæis oppedere ? Horat. Sermon. Lib. I. Satyr. 9. V.
69. 70.
(31) Quod jejunia Sabbathariorum [...] Mallem, quà m quod oles, olere bassa. Martial. Lib. 4. Epigram. 4.
(32) Lib. 22.
(33) Verpi, curti, recutiti.
(34) This is called reducere preputium. The visionary rabbis make Isaiah the author of this custom;
some even more ridiculous ones trace it back to Adam.
(35) Antiq. Judaïc. Lib. 20, Cap. 4.
(36) Lib. 2.
(37) Bibliot. L. I. Sect. 2. Philo L. de circumcisione. Joseph L. 2. against Appion.
(38) Antiq. Judaïq. Lib. 2, Cap. 7.
(39) Sed nihil æquè quà m inopla aquæ fatigabat. Jamque haud procul exitio, totis campis
procubucrant : cum grex asinorum agrestium, è pastu in rupem nemore opacam concessit. Secutus
Moses, conjectura herbidi soli largas aquarum venas aperit. Tacit. Hist. Lib. 5. cap. 3.
(40) Liv. I. Sect. 2.
(41) Circuitis mare & aridam ut faciatis unum proselitum. Math. Ch. 23. verse 16.
(42) Antiq. Judaïq. Liv. 12, Cap. 2.
(43) In his exhortation to the Greeks.
(44) Lucius Æmilius Paulus consul, cùm Senatus Isidis & Serapis sana diruenda censuisset eaque
nemo opificum attingere auderet, posita prætexta sexurim arripuit, templique ejus foribus inflixit.
Valer. Maxim. Lib I. Cap 4. nËš 3.
(45) See Dion. Cassius L. 54.
(46) See the passage by this historian quoted in note 21.
(47) Ægyptiacas, & Judaïcas Ceremonias contempsit. Suet. in August. Cap. - Ægyptiacos
Judaïcosque ritus compescuit. Idem. in Tiberio.