1. The first defect of the film is that it is not about anything. It lacks a dramatic crisis or a real point. Nothing resolved, nothing settled, as Patton said. Nor does it even leave us with a good question to ponder. On the other hand, it is too full of extrapolations to function as a good documentary. Thus, it is confused about its own genre. It is not fully a documentary, and not fully dramatic myth. Possibly, this defect could have been remedied by a different approach to the editing — perhaps by showing the end first then telling the rest of the story as flashback. I don’t know: a film expert could help here.

2. In its effort to be “fair,” the authors bend over backwards to develop sympathetic parallelism between Yankee and Confederate. This is done by dredging up Joshua Chamberlain again, just as in Gettysburg (1993). Chamberlain is about the only Yankee anyone can find that was at once interesting and morally compelling — while the Confederacy was veritably bursting at the seams with such characters. But despite being the best Yankee exemplar, Chamberlain was a schoolboyish moralist and robotic soldier, and hardly an equal match to the towering Jackson. Perhaps he could have been lined up with better parity against a Southron whose youth might compensate for his natural cultural superiority, say, Captain Pendleton, or any of a hundred other young officers of the South. But what could Shaara do to create a good compare-and-contrast within rank, given the actual historical stock of characters? Nothing. That is the point. The Confederacy trounces Yankeedom on this score: a different tack is needed.

3. Predictably, far too much time is spent on the slave question. To its credit, the film is honest enough to depict Southern slavery as a loving and Christian domestic arrangement, in which the Negroes (at least, the house servants) were incorporated intimately into family life. But it feels the need to portray the deepest desire of both Jim and Martha to be “freedom” — though apparently not the kind of freedom found in Africa — leading to irrelevant rabbit trails. The film had to do this, to avoid being shouted off the screen by the kikenpress. (But the kikenpress shouted them off the screen anyhow.) At the end of the day, this footage simply adds tedious minutes to an already-too-long film, and for no good purpose.

4. The battle scenes are long yet add little insight into the battle dynamics. Especially Fredericksburg: I suppose the authors wanted the electrifying scenes with the Irish Brigades — and they are indeed good — and thus were forced to add enough time to other facets of the battle to maintain proportion, to avoid conveying the idea that that face-off was what the battle was all about. As a result, it ended up too long.

5. The kind of trivia that is included betrays Shaara’s juvenile method of studying history. It is like a high school term paper in which the boy has to work in every detail culled from books and duly recorded in his stack of note cards. He has obviously combed through the books with an eye for the odd detail. Thus, inevitably, we need repeated exposure to Jackson’s love of lemons. The scene of the enemy soldiers trading ‘baccy and coffee at the river is charming, but what does it add to this story? Same with the beautiful but irrelevant Northern Lights. Jackson was a wooden pedagogue, and did indeed repeat a lesson “word for word” until it took, but again, is this important? He was born to be a hero of his people and humble man of God, not a college pedant. Shaara’s kind of history feeds the water-cooler bore that is filled with “ain’t that something?” little factoids about an historical epoch or personage, but has no insight into the real issue or man.

All of these observations support my belief that the film could have had a good hour cut from its three-and-a-half hour presentation, and would have been the gainer. Think Godfather. Every line, every scene of a great film contributes to the total effect. Less is more.

At least one of the stock criticisms of the film does not hold up: the elevated diction of several of the characters, they say, is stilted and unrealistic. First, such diction is not surprising from Southrons that were more formal in interaction, well-educated, and lovers and livers of poetry. Some of the speeches would have been thought-through in advance, like the farewell speech of the Fredericksburg mother. Second, even absent that, an elevated diction would be appropriate in a story that though historical is at once also mythic.

As to the lack of coherence that bloated the film, the invention of the DVD means we can do the editing ourselves now. And this leads to pointing out what is wonderful about the film. It is the detached scenes which, hanging by themselves like so many artistically-done family portraits in an album, project great sentiments and great moments of a great people. Here is a list of just some of them:

• Lee’s meeting with Blair, where he turns down the offer of commanding the Union Army
• The long-haired speech at the Virginia Assembly, explaining the circumstance that makes it imperative for the Citizen Army of Virginia to rise up
• Jackson’s Scripture and prayer with his wife after being summoned
• The piano and flag-knitting scene in the home of the Virginia family sending two of their sons into service
• The cry of the Irish brigade
• Lee’s explanation to his adjutants of how the Southron’s motivation differs from that of the Yankee
• The Christmas party in the fine Virginia household
• The Bonnie Blue Flag rendition in outdoor assembly
• The flanking attack at Chancellorsville
• The funeral procession back at VMI

These scenes, and a few others, are powerful. They ratify and deepen our appreciation of the greatness of the Old South, and through her, of what human society is capable of becoming by the grace of God. Despite its many weaknesses, the force of the film does make it clear that Lincoln’s War was a battle waged by pagans and apostates against Christendom.  As in Augustine’s City of God, the story is told concretely, not just as an abstraction. The title is apt: generals serving different gods. Or, as Augustine would put it, the demons, versus the living and true God.

Do acquire this DVD — renting it will not suffice — and regularly cherry-pick it as a rich and nourishing album. With that understanding, I give it a BIx 6.

1954 “You tolerate segregated schools”

1920 “You accept that women cannot vote”

1913 “You pay no income tax and receive no Social Security”

1865 “You know people who own other people”

My reaction to these and most of the others (there were probably ten in all), was, “yes, times have changed, and mostly for the worst.”  Mine was probably not the reaction anticipated by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF).

Far more distasteful than these are the markers that one reads when walking back over the bridge.  Below is a list of the “high points” of America history according to the CWF.

1786 Thomas Jefferson: “Made religion a matter of personal choice”

1805 Sacagawea: “Led Lewis and Clark to the American West”

1837 Horace Mann: “Inspired a universal thirst for public education”

1863 Abraham Lincoln: “Proclaimed freedom for 3 million Americans”

1879 Thomas Edison: “Turned night into day”

1908 Henry Ford: “Gave Americans the car keys to everywhere”

1928 Louis Armstrong: “Set America’s free spirit to music”

1955 Rosa Parks: “Moved civil rights to the front of the bus”

1961 John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”

Let’s take each one of these in turn.

There are at least two problems with the Jefferson marker.  First, there had been dissenters in English and colonial America history for well over 200 years. The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom did not give Virginians anything they did not already have except for relieving them of the burden of supporting the Anglican Church through taxes.   Second, by suggesting that Jefferson made religion a matter of personal choice, the marker suggests that religion is merely a private affair, not to be brought into the public arena.  Whether Jefferson intended this or not, this view of religion is the foundation of the modern secular state.

While Sacagawea accompanied Lewis and Clark and gave them some modest help, she in no sense of the word “led” them to the American west.  I have nothing against Sacagawea, but she deserves mention only in the footnotes of American history books; a piece of trivia fit for Jeopardy, but little more.  (“I’ll take Westward Ho for $800, Alex.”  “The squaw who accompanied Lewis and Clark to the Pacific.” “Who is Pocahontas?”  “No, I’m sorry, the correct answer is, who is Sacagawea?”) But her relative insignificance was not an issue for the CWF since she has other things going for her: she was a she and she was not white.

On Horace Mann, the idea of public education was not original to him; he borrowed it from Prussia.  So the ‘universal’ is typical American exaggeration.  He did “inspire” a thirst for government schools and the statist propaganda that comes with it, but this killed most of the public’s thirst for genuine education process.

The Lincoln marker is perhaps the most insulting to intelligent men.  His Proclamation freed no slaves, but was rather a typically cunning political move by the master of spin.  And even if it had freed the slaves, it did not free “Americans,” but Negroes.  Only in one sense of the word American (namely, people that reside in America) would the Negro slaves be considered American, not in other more important senses.  The grossest absurdity of this marker is that in the process of “freeing” three million slaves, Lincoln turned every American into a slave of the Federal government.

As for Thomas Edison, I have nothing against the man personally and the invention of the light bulb was a watershed event in not only America, but the whole world.  The problem I have with this marker is that it glorifies a technology that has been a mixed blessing, at best.  Yes, in the modern world, night and day matter very little.  But is this a good thing?  We have lost the diurnal pattern that God imposed from the beginning giving a false sense that we can conquer time.  The incandescent light bulb also has contributed greatly to our loss of wonder at the heaven’s nightly display of God’s glory.  Among the many ramifications of this has been a deafening of our aesthetic sense.  Modern degenerate art would not be possible without the light bulb.

My view of the Henry Ford marker is the same as the Edison one.  Nothing against Ford personally.  Indeed, he took a brave stand against the poisoning of America by jews.  But as Edison gave us the illusion that we can conquer time, the automobile has helped give us the impression that we can conquer space.  In the process, it has helped destroy local communities and has created the noisy and ugly environment that we all must suffer with.

Louis Armstrong’s music did capture the spirit of his age, but the age was a fundamentally corrupt one.  He performed for the fathers and mothers of the “greatest generation;” a generation without roots, bereft of a past, transfixed on “progress” and everything modern.  The problem with Armstrong is not so much his music, but the type of culture that could make his music possible.  Given the era, he was quite good.  But it was era (the era of “free spirit” as the marker calls it) that was bad.

Like Sacagawea, Rosa Parks is a twofer (female, non-white).  Unlike Sacagawea, who was at least involved in a useful activity, Parks was a subversive.  But even that is giving her too much credit.  She was a pawn for some two-bit white commies and later became a propaganda tool for judaic commies.  Her canonization by Central Command is proof enough that what she stood for is fraudulent.

While not the worst president of modern times (he did have his good moments), JFK’s quote has been used to justify a good deal of evil.   As it stands, it is ambiguous.  Does country mean our nation, people and culture or does it my our government?  The latter is no doubt what the CWF has in mind.

Thus American history according to Colonial Williamsburg.  Everything glorified is either trivial or absurd or evil.  The good news is, if one can call it such, that most Americans are too blissfully ignorant to care much about their own history.  The bad news is that those who visit Colonial Williamsburg in order to gain some understanding of their heritage will learn nothing but the statist, multi-cultural, feminist revisionist version of America.

We resume the story at the death of the Hapsburg (Austrian) King Albert II in 1439. Seventeen years earlier he had married Elizabeth, daughter of the German king Sigismund, who also held the scepter over Bohemia and Hungary. (Recall that at this time “Hungary” included the land we know as Slovakia as well.) In 1438, following the death of Sigismund, Albert was crowned king of Hungary, and then Bohemia. The latter was contested, however, and during the ensuing war with the Bohemians and allied Poles, he was also named Holy Roman Emperor by the Diet at Frankfurt — which office however he was never able to assume. His wife Elizabeth reasserted force into Hungary/Slovakia, rule over which was assumed by her son Ladislaus the Posthumous. The incursions of the Turks were taking place, so that within a couple of decades the only region still held by the Magyars was in fact Slovakia. Slovaks took part in the government. But for three hundred years the back-and-forth and divided loyalties of the lesser nobility meant that no political and cultural center of gravity developed for the Slovak people.

The Austrian Emperor Joseph II (1780-90) limited the historical rights of the Hungarian representatives and “did not have himself crowned King of Hungary.” By mentioning that, I suppose Kovac means to suggest that the Emperor simply ruled, and by not calling himself “King of Hungary,” in effect amalgamated Hungary directly into his own originary domain. By Germanizing the Empire, the otherwise divided loyalty of the “foreign” nobility reemerged in nationalistic tendencies. Both Magyar and Slav developed a sense of their racial roots. The Magyars tried to root out the Slovak language. Revolution broke out in 1848, as it did also throughout Europe. Slav, Magyar, and German were in three-way tension. The upshot for this story was a proclamation of renewed Slovak rights read on March 28, 1848 by a triumvirate of Louis Stur and, interestingly enough, two Lutheran ministers. The fallout of the revolutions was that the Empire recognized all nationalities in the realm. A new Imperial Constitution in 1860 turned some of these rights back, but this was answered by a Slovak Convention in 1861, which dispatched a memorandum to the Emperor in the hands of Roman Catholic bishop Stephen Moyses. As a result, high schools using the Slovak language were established, as well as a scientific society headed by Moyses.

Then the Prussians defeated Austria, in 1866. The settlement led among other things to the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867, in which the monarchy was divided into two states. The new Magyar hegemony led to renewed suppression of the Slovaks, even in the historical city of Nitra. The editors of Slovak newspapers were persecuted and imprisoned. (Think of Lincoln doing the same thing here.) But as the century came to a close, the patriotism of the Slovak people only increased. They were led by Bishop Moyses and a Lutheran, Karol Kuzmany. Something like a Slovak Renaissance in letters and science took place. Yet the suppression also continued, such that in 1907 the Slovak language was forbidden in the schools. From 1875 to 1914 nearly a million Slovaks emigrated to the US.

This base of expatriates itself became a political force that was decisive in the formation of Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of WW1. What happened was that the Moravian Thomas Masaryk approached the Slovak astronomer Milan Stefanik, then working in France, with the proposal of a Czech-Slovak alliance for the common goal of freedom and independence. These men came to America and the upshot was the Pittsburgh Agreement which assured Slovak rights and independence. After the war, the Allies defined Czecho-Slovakia with Masaryk as the first President. Stefanik was to be the Minister of War. However, his plane was shot down under suspicious circumstances on the way to his triumphant return. Kovak implies that the third power broker, Edward Benes, was responsible.

Despite that, the new settlement was at first joyfully received by the people. But resentment gradually set in at the naturally predominant position assumed by the Bohemians. 250,000 more Slovaks emigrated between 1922 and 1926. Andrew Hlinka became a leader resisting the “moral dissolution” brought by the Czechs, in “defense of the Slovak and Christian traditions of his nation.” In 1933 “Nitra was the scene of great jubilee celebrations, which recalled to the memory of the Slovak nation the dedication of the first Christian church on Slovak territory.” (101) In 1937, “Bratislava was the scene of riotous demonstrations, which were organized under the motto ‘Na Slovensku po slovensky’ (in Slovak in Slovakian).” The America-resident Slovak League Delegation brought a ceremonial copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement for the 20th year anniversary celebration, featuring the final public appearance of Andrew Hlinka, and attended by 100,000 Slovaks. It was June 5, 1938.

Just then Hitler was demanding that Czecho-slovakia find a solution to the Sudetan problem, or he would solve it for them. The events that cascaded make for a very interesting story indeed, and will be the subject for the final installment of this review.

The reason the “Reformed literalist” dominated was because all the major branches of the American church — Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, and Baptist, and Brethren — were inheritors of it. The distinctive hermeneutical orientation had three facets that made the victory of the proslavery view all but inevitable: (1) sola scriptura itself; (2) the “regulative principle,” and (3) a high view of the “third use” of the law. (47)

In evaluating Noll’s argument, it will be necessary to point out mistakes and confusions at just about every step. And it is important to take the time to do this, for the debate was “settled” in history, as Noll himself wryly notes, by the Rev Drs. Sherman and Grant; not Thornwell and Hodge. Yet we know that a theological debate cannot be settled by force of arms; and thus, the slavery question continues to play a role in social commentary and politics to this day — as we already see again in the current presidential campaigns.

Turning first briefly to Noll’s four alternate hermeneutics, it must be said that Noll’s discussion is quite misleading and hollow.

(1) By opting for the currently faddish moniker African American, Noll already begs an important question. Precisely one of the questions was whether the Africans could indeed be assumed to be Americans in the civic sense. The Africans, even those that had gained freedom, were, after all, only present on the American continent because they, or their near ancestors, had been brought over in a condition of servitude that did not in any sense entail citizenship. The beatings, constitutional tinkerings, and white riots throughout the northern states designed to ensure the continuing non-enfranchisement of free blacks is well-documented, and can only be an embarrassment to those that see the North as the great liberating and liberal force setting itself against the reactionary South. Noll does not make that elementary mistake. But the very use of the anachronistic term “African American” endangers setting the rhetorical stage correctly.

The African-Americans “were as likely to be champions of the Bible only and biblical literalism as their white contemporaries” (53). Yet, “African-American believers retained in their Christian usage features of prophetic religion and formulary magic that adapted the written text to African traditions. It thus posed no difficulty for Daniel Payne, who promoted the Bible as ardently as the strictest Old School Presbyterian, to be guided by dreams at strategic moments in his life.” “This pattern of Bible reading diverged from the American norm” and thus “doomed their Biblicism, however orthodox, to irrelevance.” (54). Yes, I suppose dreams and magic would tend to do so.

(2) The Roman Catholic way of mediating Scripture is too well-known to require rehearsal here. “Whatever the American Civil War may have shown about the desirability of a magisterial interpretation of Scripture, most Americans were hardly in position to consider Rome as the source of that authority” (56). Such a conclusion is certainly confused. The Civil War was not in the first place the result of an exegetical difference on slavery. The first secession had to do with the perception on the part of the gulf states that national politics no longer submitted to the genius of the original Constitutional settlement; Lincoln imposed force to “restore Union,” not because of his exegesis of slavery passages in the Bible, but because of his whiggish notion of the American Way, to be led by a consolidated national government. A “magisterial settlement” of the exegetical question would not eo ipso have changed that basic dilemma. The motive issue might well have been the Tariff instead, or even the dispositional difference between Celt and Anglo-Saxon; or something else. The various machinations of the papal states in the history of Italy should surely have steered Noll away from even a brief contemplation that “magisterial interpretation of Scripture” would be a way out of the dilemma — even apart from the abandonment of the Protestant principle which, we charitably assume, Noll still embraces himself.

(3) The result of the German Reformed scholarship emanating from Mercersburg “was a theology that, at least in principle, offered a churchly, sacramental, Christ-centered alternative to literal Reformed exegesis.” That is surely inane. Either the sacramental etc emphasis is based on exegesis — in which case the claim begs the question –, or it was a mystical replacement of Scripture with something else — in which case it hardly counts as an alternate hermeneutic to “literal Reformed exegesis” or any other kind for that matter. Noll’s remark about “synodical deliverances,” as if in contrast to “reasoning from Scripture” is equally inane, but we need to move on.

(4) The final movement that had potential to counter the “proslavery” position of Thornwell “and his allies” (58) — note the subtle suggestion that Southern exegetes were in the first place political, not really honest — could have come from Reformed thinkers in the border and Northern states. Breckinridge and Charles Hodge are mentioned as ones that made a start in the right direction. Hodge, for example, though he conceded that the malum in se position on slavery could not be defended from the Bible, and warned against the apostate trajectory of the Abolitionists, yet believed that ameliatory implications of the whole gospel would and should lead to improvement of slave conditions and gradual emancipation. Noll identifies two fatal features of their thought that prevented going all the way. The first fatal weakness was their commitment to the “regulative principle.”

Hodge and Breckinridge were prevented by the stultifying influence of the Regulative Principle (and especially in its southern variation as “the spirituality of the church”) from asking what general principles should be sought in a polity controlled not by a Semitic tribe warring against other tribes nor dominated by Romans bent on ruling the world but in a state where both Constitution and legislation were influenced by eighteen centuries of Christian development and where some of the legislators were themselves Christians (61).

Leaving aside the evolutionism of the implied ethic, it must respectfully be pointed out that Noll does not understand the Regulative Principle. Here is how he defines it: “it held that believers are required to do what the Bible commands and are equally required not to do those things about which the Bible is silent” (47). This is a common schoolboy’s misunderstanding. The principle as stated only applied to worship and additionally, at least for some, to the constitution of the church. It did not apply to ordinary human assemblies, including civil governments, let alone life in general. Of course, general biblical principles of equity were to be applied to civil government: but not the Regulative Principle. The articulation of the Regulative Principle to which both Hodge and Thornwell were subscribed is this:

The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture. (WCF 21.1 b)

It can be granted that a closely-related idea was the distinctive emphasis of the Southern Presbyterian church on the spirituality of the church, which was appealed to to justify resisting Gardiner Spring’s resolution in the General Assembly. But the Spring Resolution (protested against also by Hodge) was a shameful adoption by the church of the Lincolnite interpretation of the national Constitution, from which its sponsors moreover deduced a Christian obligation to obey Lincoln even against the instruction and decision of their own states. The right to resist such an encroachment could have been argued from Constitutional history itself; but there would have been something unseemly in taking that circuitous course in the highest court of the church. The Southerners therefore captured the essence of the objection from the biblical standpoint by pointing out that the GA had exceeded its bounds qua church.

All of this is interesting, but has nothing to do with a principle that somehow constrained Hodge from reaching a properly abolitionist conclusion.

The second fatal weakness, Noll says, and shared by Americans on both sides of the conflict, was allowing racial intuition to play a role in the argument. Whatever the Biblical ethic of slavery might be in the abstract, the notion of a race-based slavery could not be drawn from the Bible, especially in the concrete premise of the peculiar fittedness of the Negro for servitude. In this, the exegetes on both sides were inconsistent with their professed principle of Bible alone.

Noll submits as evidence, Dabney’s speech on Negro ordination. Noll says of this 1867 speech,

The first half of his speech offered only intuitive tribal sentiment, especially on the specter of black-white intermarriage. This specter was not, as Dabney described it, a “blind, passionate prejudice of caste, but [came from] the righteous rational instinct of pious minds.” Only after this appeal to intuition did Dabney then turn to lame arguments from the Bible, but here he reasoned very much as the Abolitionists whose arguments he so abominated had reasoned on the question of slavery — that the tendency, spirit or precedents of the Bible spoke against such ordinations in a white church. In this instance the vaunted doctrine of the “spirituality of the church” — which held that a church should follow the Bible and the Bible only — was demonstrated by one of its most ardent exponents to be a thoroughly unreliable guide to exegesis. (64)

Several things must be said in response to Noll’s attack.

1. It is rather unfair to focus on this stance of Dabney, since it was given after the war, after slavery, and not about slavery. Let it be that Dabney was wrong about Negro ordination; now can we get back to the subject of the essay? Discussing this speech is simply opportunism, an attempt to gain a cheap burst of applause in an environment Noll knows would be hostile and unhearing to Dabney’s arguments. It is vanity.

2. In the first half of the speech, contrary to Noll’s summary, more space is devoted to analyzing the trends of national politics and noting the unpropitious time to be debating the subject to begin with, than any “intuitive tribal sentiment.” And only a bit more than a page in a 19-page speech broaches the subject of intermarriage.

3. Dabney’s biblical arguments are not lame, and are not based on “tendency” or “spirit.” Note that the role of “precedent” is in a wholly other class, and is certainly a recognized and important part of biblical casuistry by those following a “reformed literalist” hermeneutic, both then and now.

4. I do not think Noll even grasps what Dabney is trying to prove from the Bible. Dabney is not trying to prove some thesis about Negroes; he is trying to prove that the church has the freedom to exercise wisdom in controlling access to its own ruling bodies.

He does this in two main steps. (1) His opponents’ use of Gal 3:28 (“neither slave nor free…”) fails, because Scripture itself by its exclusions shows that the free access of the gospel does not imply access to rule. (2) The church in all ages, from the ancient fathers right up to his opponents sitting there as Dabney spoke, had refused to ordain slaves, though their exclusion is not explicitly enumerated in Scripture.

From this Dabney concludes that the burden of proof is on those who say the church may only exclude those classes (e.g. females) specifically enumerated in the Word of God.

If this argument is right, then the rest of the case is built on circumstantial considerations of wisdom; which is what Dabney lays out in the first half. So there is no inconsistency to Dabney’s professed principles. Ruling from Scripture is often a matter of applying sanctified and tested wisdom that connects the universals of Scripture (major premise) to the concrete particular (minor premise), in ways that will often involve weighing the preponderance.

For this reason, it is quite offensive when Noll next identifies an appeal to Providence in one of Thornwell’s speeches as “white noise” (65). All ethical application must eventually connect to an actual world governed by Providence. Of course, we may not automatically deduce “ought” from “is.” Yet there are spheres of ethical discourse, especially as pertaining to authority relations, in which there is a close relation between is and ought, involving an aspect of providence: “the powers that be are ordained of God,” Rom 13:1.

Then, Noll makes a blunder that is beyond belief that anyone actually familiar with the primary sources of that time could make. Here is his statement:

Thornwell urged his hearers to apply the Golden Rule in the treatment of their slaves: “Here we render to our slaves what, if we were in their circumstances, we should think it right and just in them to render to us.” Given the way in which race influenced the American interpretation of the Bible it is certain that Thornwell meant — “if we were black and the slaves were white” — and most emphatically did not mean — “if the black children of Daniel Payne would one day come to own the white children of J. H. Thornwell.” (65-6)

On the contrary, it has nothing to do with who is black or white, and everything to do with who is slave or master. Only the way in which race influences Noll’s interpretation of his sources could lead him to conclude otherwise. At issue is the Abolitionist’s claim that the Golden Rule is a biblical law that outlaws slavery. Since I wouldn’t want to be a slave, does not the Golden Rule — do to others as you would have them do to you — imply I ought not to have a slave? In answer, listen to Dabney, writing on the same subject in the same church at around the same time:

The whole reasoning of the Abolitionists [in regard to the Golden Rule] proceeds on the absurd idea, that any caprice or vain desire we might entertain towards our fellowman, if we were in his place, and he in ours, must be the rule of our conduct towards him, whether the desire would be in itself right or not. This absurdity has been illustrated by a thousand instances. On this rule, a parent who, were he a child again, would be wayward and self-indulgent, commits a clear sin in restraining or punishing the waywardness of his child, for this is doing the opposite of what he would wish were he again the child. Judge and sheriff commit a criminal murder in condemning and executing the most atrocious felon; for were they on the gallows themselves, the overmastering love of life would very surely prompt them to desire release. (Defense of Virginia, p. 196)

And he sums up:

The rule of our conduct to our neighbor is not any desire which we might have, were we to change places; but it is that desire which we should, in that case, be morally entitled to have. To whatsoever treatment we should conscientiously think ourselves morally entitled, were we slaves instead of masters, all that treatment we as masters are morally bound to give our servants, so far as ability, and a just regard for other duties enables us.” (op. cit. 197)

Compare Dabney’s full statement to his colleague’s as cited above by Noll, and it is evident that Noll mistook the meaning entirely.

Noll summarizes his punch-line:

One can imagine counter-factually that those who felt the Bible sanctioned slavery in general could have mounted arguments from the Bible to justify the enslavement of Africans, and only Africans, in particular. But since there are no arguments in the Bible of the latter kind, a hidden hand had to function in the exegetical process if the Bible were to justify the racial slavery that existed in the United States — and if faith in America’s Bible-only literalism were to be preserved. (66)

First, Noll forgot an earlier chapter in the history of America: the New England enslavement of Indians. These slaves, being adept at the local terrain, had the nasty habit of slipping away, so they were traded to the West Indies for Negroes.

More importantly, however, the logic of Noll’s assertion is faulty. Noll suggests that the American position was, “the enslavement of x to y can be justified biblically, if and only if x is a Negro.” But that was not the thesis. The thesis was more like, “the enslavement of x to y cannot be said to be unbiblical in general, therefore our slavery, where x happens to be a Negro, cannot be said to be unbiblical in general.” Any comments added on the debased character of the African merely added an a fortiori.

In other words, Noll thinks the Southern position was the assertion of a conjunction of two propositions, P — “slavery can be justified” — and Q — “only the Negro can be enslaved”; and that he can therefore rebut the conjunction by showing that one of the terms is not deduced from the Bible. But that wasn’t their position. Their position was simply P, applied circumstantially.

Why would a nineteenth century American peevishly refuse to inherit his parents’ slaves unless Aryan children could also be sent into slavery? It is absurd. As if to say, “I refuse to have slaves unless you are allowed to buy my children as slaves also.”

To summarize, I have observed that Prof. Noll seriously misunderstands the Regulative Principle, sola scriptura, the form of arguments, and the function of sources of knowledge other than Scripture explicitly granted by the 19th century Presbyterians. Moreover, his misconstrual of the actual texts of the southern Presbyterians raises the suspicion that he is not well read in the primary sources. His use of anachronistic terms and concepts begs many questions, and his citation of texts is sometimes irrelevant and thus unfair. Finally, the logic inherent in his conclusion is simply unsound.

We should offer a “regulative principle” of our own that church historians might do well to consider in the future, and that is this: if a “principle” is discovered that seems to unravel a contended matter in history, a principle that “everyone” believes today, but which the church had never discovered in two millennia until about 50 or a hundred years ago — that principle is probably spurious, and one would do well to identify it as a probable candidate for a blind spot of our age, rather than as light for exposing alleged blind spots of the previous age.

Chapter 1, To End of 18^th Century, fifth installment (see contents).

[G45] Since the start of the reign of Paul I there was a great famine in White Russia, especially in the province of Minsk. The poet Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, then serving as Senator, was commissioned to go there and determine its cause and seek a solution — for which task he received no money to buy grain, but instead had the right to confiscate possessions of negligent landowners, sell their stockpile and distribute them.

Derzhavin was not just a great poet, but also an outstanding statesman who left behind unique proofs of his effectiveness which we want to delve into in the following.

The famine, as Derzhavin confirmed, was unimaginable. He writes “when I arrived in White Russia, I personally convinced myself of the great scarcity of grain among the villagers. Due to the very serious hunger — virtually all nourished themselves from fermented grass, mixed with a tiny portion of meal or pearl barley –, “the peasants were malnourished and sallow like dead people. “In order to remedy this, I found out which of the rich landowners had grain in their storehouses,” took it to the town center and distributed it to the poor; and I commanded the goods of a Polish Count “in view of such pitiless greed” to be yielded to a trustee. “After the nobleman was made aware of the dire situation he awoke from his slumber or better, from his shocking indifference toward humanity: he used every means to feed the peasants by acquiring grain from neighboring provinces and when after two months the harvest time arrived… the famine ended.” When Derzhavin visited the provincial government, he so pursued the noble rulers and [G46] district police captains that the nobility “banded together together and sent the Czar a scurrilous complain against Derzhavin.”

Derzhavin discovered that the jewish schnapps distillers exploited the alcoholism of the peasants: “After I had discovered that the jews from profit-seeking use the lure of drink to beguile grain from the peasants, convert it into brandy and therewith cause a famine. I commanded that they should close their distilleries in the village Liosno.” “I informed myself from sensible inhabitants” as well as nobles, merchants, and villagers “about the manner of life of the jews, their occupations, their deceptions and all their pettifogging with which … they provide the poor dumb villages with hunger; and on the other hand, by what means one could protect them from the common pack and how to facilitate for them an honorable and respectable way out … to enable them to become useful citizens.

Afterwards, in the autumn months, Derzhavin described many evil practices of the Polish landlords and jewish leasers in his “Memorandum on the mitigation of famine in White Russia and on the lifestyles of the jews,” which he also made known to the czar and the highest officials of state. This Memorandum is a very comprehensive document that evaluates the conditions inherited from the Poles as well as the possibilities for overcoming the poverty of the peasants, describing the peculiarities of the jewish way of life of that time and includes a proposal for reform in comparison to Prussia and Austria. The very explicit practical presentation of the recommended measures makes this the first work of an enlightened Russian citizen concerning jewish life in Russia, in those first years in which Russia acquired jews in a large mass. That makes it a work of special interest.

The Memorandum consists of two parts: (1) on the residence of White Russian in general (in reviews of the Memorandum we usually find no mention of this important part) and (2) on the jews.

[1] Derzhavin begins by establishing that the agricultural economy was in shambles. The peasants there were “lazy on the job, not clever, they procrastinate every small task and are sluggish in [G47] field work.” Year in, year out “they eat unwinnowed corn: in the spring, Kolotucha or Bolotucha from [eggs and] rye meal,” in summer they content themselves with a mixture of a small amount of some grain or other with chopped and cooked grass. They are so weakened, that they stagger around.”

The local Polish landlords “are not good proprietors. They do not manage the property.. . themselves, but lease it out,” a Polish custom. But for the lease “there are no universal rules protecting the peasants from overbearing or to keep the business aspect from falling apart.” “Many greedy leasers… by imposing hard work and oppressive taxes bring the people into a bad way and transform them… into poor, homeless peasants.’’ This lease is all the worst for being short-term, made for 1-3 years at a time so that the leaser hastens “to get his advantage from it… without regard to the exhausting” of the estate.

The emaciation of the peasants was sometimes even worse: “several landlords that lease the traffic in spirits in their villages to the jews, sign stipulations that the peasants may only buy their necessities from these leasers [triple price]; likewise the peasants may not sell their product to anyone except the jewish lease holder… cheaper than the market price.” Thus “they plunge the villagers into misery, and especially when they distribute again their horded grain… they must finally give a double portion; whoever does not do it is punished… the villagers are robbed of every possibility to prosper and be full.”

Then he develops in more detail the problem of the liquor distilling. Schnapps was distilled by the landlords, the landed nobility [Szlachta] of the region, the priests, monks, and jews. Of the almost million jews, 2-3,000 live in the villages and live mainly from the liquor traffic. The peasants, “after bringing in the harvest, are sweaty and careless in what they spend; they drink, eat, enjoy themselves, pay the jews for their old debts and then, whatever they ask for drinks. For this reason the shortage is already manifest by winter… In every settlement there is at least one, and in several settlements quite a few taverns built by the landlords, where for their advantage [G48] and that of the jewish lease-holders, liquor is sold day and night… There the jews trick them out of not only the life-sustaining grain, but that which is sown in the field, field implements, household items, health and even their life.” And all that is sharpened by the mores of the “koleda… Jews travel especially during the harvest in autumn through the villages, and after they have made the farmer, along with his whole family, drunk, drive them into debt and take from them every last thing needed to survive…. In that they box the drunkard’s ears and plunder him, the villager is plunged into the deepest misery.” He lists also other reasons for the impoverishing of the peasants.

Doubtless, behind these fateful distilleries stand the Polish landlords. Proprietor and leaser act in behalf of the owner and attend to making a profit: “to this class” Gessen asserts “belonged not just jews but also Christians” especially priests. But the jews were an irreplaceable, active and very inventive link in the chain of exploitation of these illiterate emaciated peasants that had no rights of their own. If the White Russian settlement had not been injected with jewish tavern managers and leasers, then the wide-spread system of exploitation would not have functioned, and removing the jewish links in the chain would have ended it.

After this Derzhavin recommended energetic measures, as for example for the expurgation of these burdens of peasant life. The landlords would need to attend to this problem. Only they alone who are responsible for the peasants should be allowed to distill liquor “under their own… supervision and not from far-removed places,” and to see to it, that “every year a supply of grain for themselves and the peasants” would be on hand, and indeed as much as would be needed for good nutrition. “If the danger arises that this is not done, then the property is to be confiscated for the state coffers.” The schnapps distilling is to begin no sooner than the middle of September and end middle of April, i.e. the whole time of land cultivation is to be free of liquor consumption. In addition, the liquor is not to be sold during worship services or at night. The liquor stores should only be permitted “in the main streets, near the markets, mills and establishments where foreigners gather.” But all the superfluous and newly-built liquor stores, “whose number has greatly increased since the annexation of [White Russia]… are immediately to cease use for that purpose: the sale of liquor in them to be forbidden.” “In villages and out-of-the-way places there should not be any, that the peasant not sink into drunkenness.” Jews however should “not be permitted to sell liquor either by the glass or the keg… nor should they be the brew masters in the distilleries,” and “they should not be allowed to lease the liquor stores.” “Koledas” are also to be forbidden; as well as the short-term leasing of operations. By means of exacting stipulations “the leaser is to be prevented from working an operation into the ground.” Under threat of punishment is market abuse to be forbidden, by which the landlords “do not permit their peasants to buy what they need somewhere else,” or “to sell their surplus somewhere other than to their proprietor.” There were still other economic proposals: “in this manner the scarcity of food can in the future be prevented in the White Russian Province.”

[2] In the second part of the Memorandum, Derzhavin, going out from the task given by the Senate, submitted a suggestion for the transformation of the life of the jews in the Russian Kingdom– not in isolation, but rather in the context of the misery of White Russia and with the goal to improve the situation. But here he set himself the assignment to give a brief overview of jewish history, especially the Polish period in order to explain the current customs of the jews. Among others, he used his conversations with the Berlin-educated enlightened jew, physician Ilya Frank, who put his thoughts down in writing. “The jewish popular teachers mingle ‘mystic-talmudic’ pseudo-exegesis of the Bible with the true spirit of the teachings… They expound strict laws with the goal of isolating the jews from other peoples and to instill a deep hatred against every other religion… Instead of cultivating a universal virtue, they contrive… an empty ceremony of honoring God… The moral character of the jews has changed in the last century to their disadvantage, [G50] and in consequence they have become pernicious subjects… In order to renew the jews morally and politically, they have to be brought to the point of returning to the original purity of their religion… The jewish reform in Russia must begin with the foundation of public schools, in which the Russian, German and jewish languages would be taught.” What kind of prejudice is it to believe that the assimilation of secular knowledge is tantamount to a betrayal of religion and folk and that working the land is not suitable for a jew? Derzhavin declined in his Memorandum a suggestion by Nota Chaimovitsh Notkin, a major merchant from Shklov, whom he had also met. Although Notkin demurred from the most important conclusions and suggestions of Derzhavin that had to do with jews, he was at the same time in favor, if possible, of excluding the jews from the production of liquor; and saw it as needful for them to get an education and pursue a productive career, preferably working with their hands, whereby he also held out the possibility of emigration “into the fruitful steppe for the purpose of raising sheep and crops.”

Following the explanation of Frank who rejected the power of the Kehilot, Derzhavin proceeded from the same general consequences: “The original principles of pure worship and ethics” [of the jews] had been transformed into “false concepts,” by which the simple jewish people “is misled, and constantly is so led, so much so that between them and those of other faiths a wall has been built that cannot be broken through, which has been made firm, a wall that firmly binds [the jews] together and, surrounded by darkness, separates them from their fellow citizens.” Thus in raising their children “they pay plenty for Talmud instruction – and that without time limit… As long as the students continue in their current conditions, there is no prospect for a change in their ways…. They believe themselves to be the true worshippers of God, and despise everyone of a different faith… There the people are brought to a constant expectation of the Messiah… [They believe] that their Messiah, by overthrowing all earthlings will rule over them in flesh and blood and restore to them their former kingdom, fame and glory.” Of the youths he wrote: “they marry all too young, sometimes before they reach ten years old, and though nubile, they are [G51] not strong enough.” Regarding the Kahal system: the inner-jewish collection of levies provides “to the Kehilot every year an enviable sum of income that is incomparably higher than the state taxes that are raised from individuals in the census lists. The Kahal elders do not excuse anyone from the accounting. As a result, their poor masses find themselves in the condition of severe emaciation and great poverty, and there are many of them… In contrast, the members of the kahal are rich, and live in superfluity; by ruling over both levers of power, the spiritual and secular,… they have a great power over the people. In this way they hold.them … in great poverty and fear.” The Kehilot “issues to the people every possible command… which must be performed with such exactitude and speed, that one can only wonder.”

Derzhavin identified the nub of the problem thusly: “[the jews’] great numbers in White Russia … is itself a heavy burden for the land on account of the disproportion to that of the crop farmers… This disproportion is the outstanding one of several important reasons that produces here a shortage of grain and other edible stores… Not one of them was a crop farmer at that time, yet each possessed and gobbled up more grain than the peasant with his large family, who had harvested it by the sweat of his brow… Above all, in the villages they … are occupied in giving the peasant all their necessities on credit, at an extraordinary rate of interest; and thus the peasant, who at some time or other became a debtor to them, can no longer get free of it.” Arching over this are the “frivolous landlords that put their villages into jewish hands, not just temporarily but permanently.” The landowners however are happy to be able to shift everything on to the jews: “according to their own words, they regard the Jews as the sole reason for the wasting of the peasants” and the landlord only rarely acknowledges “that he, if they were removed from his holdings, would suffer no small loss, since he receives from them no small income from the lease.”

Thus Derzhavin did not neglect to examine the matter from a variety of angles: “In fairness to [the jews] we must point out [G52] also that during this grain shortage they have taken care to feed not a few hungry villagers—though everyone also knows that that came with a bill: upon the harvest being brought in, they will get it back 100-fold.” In a private report to the Attorney General, Derzhavin wrote, “It is hard not to err by putting all the blame on one side. The peasants booze away their grain with the jews and suffer under its shortage. The landholders cannot forbid drunkenness, for they owe almost all their income to the distilling of liquor. And all the blame cannot be placed even on the jews, that they take the last morsel of bread away from the peasant to earn their own life sustenance.”

To Ilya Frank, Derzhavin once said, “since the providence of this tiny scattered people has preserved them until the present, we too must take care for their protection.” And in his report he wrote with the uprightness of that time, “if the Most High Providence, to the end of some unknown purpose, leaves (on account of His purposes) this dangerous people to live on the earth, then governments under whose scepter they have sought protection must bear it… They are thus obligated extend their protection to the jews, so that they may be useful both to themselves and to the society in which they dwell.”

Because of all his observations in White Russia, and of his conclusion, and of all he wrote in the Memorandum, and especially because of all these lines, and probably also because he “praised the keen vision of the great Russian monarchs” “which forbade the immigration and travel of these clever robbers into their realm,” is Derzhavin spoken of as “a fanatical enemy of jews,” a great Anti-Semite. He is accused – though unjustly, as we have seen – of “imputing the drunkenness and poverty of the White Russian peasant exclusively to the jews,” and his “positive measures” were characterized as given without evidence, to serve his personal ambition.

But that he was in no wise prejudiced against the jews, is indicated in that (1) his whole Memorandum emerged in 1800 in response to the [G53] actual misery and hunger of the peasants, (2) the goal was to do well by both the White Russian peasant and the jews, (3) he distinguished them economically and (4) his desire was to orient the jews toward a real productive activity, of whom, as Catherine planned, a part first and foremost was supposed to have been relocated in territories that were not closed.

As a critical difficulty Derzhavin saw the instability and transientness of the jewish population, of which scarcely 1/6 was included in the census. “Without a special, extraordinary effort it is difficult to count them accurately, because, being in cities, shtetl, manor courts, villages, and taverns, they constantly move back and forth, they do not identify themselves as local residents, but as guests that are here from another district or colony.” Moreover, “they all look alike… and have the same name,” and have no surname; and “not only that, all wear the same black garments: one cannot distinguish them and misidentifies them when they are registered or identified, especially in connection with judicial complaints and investigations.” Therein the Kehilot takes care not “to disclose the real number, in order not unduly to burden their wealthy with taxes for the number registered.”

Derzhavin sought however a comprehensive solution “to reduce [the number of jews in the White Russian villages]… without causing damage to anyone and thus to ease the feeding of the original residents; yet at the same time, for those that should remain, to provide better and less degrading possibilities for earning their sustenance.” In addition, he probed how to “reduce their fanaticism and, without retreating in the slightest from the rule of toleration toward different religions, to lead them by a barely-noticed way to enlightenment; and after expunging their hatred of people of other faiths, above all to bring them to give up their besetting intention of stealing foreign goods.” The goal was to find a way to separate the freedom of religious conscience from freedom from punishment of evil deeds.

Thereafter he laid out by layers and explicitly the measures to be recommended, and in doing so gave proof of his economic and statesmanlike competence. First, “that [the jews] should have no occasion [G54] for any kind of irritation, to send them into flight or even to murmur quietly,” they are to be reassured of protection and favor by a manifest of the czar, in which should be strengthened the principle of tolerance toward their faith and the maintenance of the privileges granted by Catherine, “only with one small change to the previous principles.” (But those “that will not submit to these principles shall be given the freedom to emigrate” – a demand that far exceeded in point of freedom the 20^th century Soviet Union). Immediately thereafter it states: after a specific time interval, after which all new credit is temporarily forbidden, all claims of debt between jews and Christians to be ordered, documented, and cleared “in order to restore the earlier relation of trust so that in the future not the slightest obstruction should be found for the transformation of the jews to a different way of life… for the relocation into other districts” or in the old places, “for the assignment of a new life conditions.” Free of debt, the jews are thus to be made as soon as possible into freemen for the Reforms.” From the vantage point of the publication of the Manifest are all dues assessed by jews “for the equalization of debt of poor people” is to applied to poor jews, to deflect the payment of Kahal debts or for the furnishings for migrants. From the one group, no tax is to be levied for three years — from the other, for six years—, and instead, that money is to be dedicated to the setting up of factories and work places for these jews. Landowners must abandon obligating jews in their shtetls to set up various factories and instead begin on their estates to cultivate grain, “in order that they may earn their bread with their own hands,” but “under no circumstance is liquor to be sold anywhere, secretly or openly,” or these landholders would themselves lose their rights to the production of liquor. It was also a non-negotiable to carry out a universal, exact census of the population under responsibility of the Kahal elders. For those that had no property to declare as merchant or townsman, two new classes were to be created with smaller income: village burghers and “colonist” (where “the denotation ‘krestyanin’ [farmer] would not be used because of its similarity to the word ‘Christian’”). The jewish settlers would have to be regarded as “free and not as serfs,” but “under no condition or pretext may they dare to take Christian man- or maid-servants, they may not own a single Christian peasant, nor to expand themselves into the domain of magistrates and town fathers, so that they not gain any special rights over Christians.” “After they have declared their wish to be enrolled in a particular status,” then must “the necessary number of young men” be sent to Petersburg, Moscow, or Riga – one group “to learn the keeping of merchant books,” second to learn a trade, the third to attend schools “for agriculture and land management.” Meanwhile “some energetic and precise jews should be selected as deputies… for all these areas where land is designated for colonization.” (There follows minutiae on the arrangements of plans, surveying the land, housing construction, the order to release different groups of settlers, their rights in transit, the grace-period in which they would remain tax-free – all these details that Derzhavin laid out so carefully we pass by.) On the inner ordering of the jewish congregation:: “in order to place the jews …under the secular authorities … just the same as everyone else, the Kehilot may not continue in any form.” Together with the abolishment of the Kehilot is “likewise abolished all previous profiteering assessments, which the Kehilot raised from the jewish people… and at the same time, the secular taxes are to be assessed… as with the other subjects” (i.e. not doubled), and “the schools and synagogues must be protected by laws.” “The males may not marry younger than 17 nor the females than 15 years.” Then there is a section on education and enlightenment of the jews. The jewish schools to the 12^th year, and thereafter the general schools, are to become more like those of other religions; “those however that have achieved distinction in the high sciences are to be received in the academies and universities as honorary associates, doctors, professors” – but “they are not… to be taken into the rank of officers and staff officers,” because “although they may also be taken into the military service, they will e.g. “not take up arms against the enemy on Saturday, which in fact often does happen.” Presses for jewish books are to be constructed. Along with synagogues are to be constructed jewish hospitals, poor houses, and orphanages.

[G56]Thus Derzhavin concluded quite self-consciously: “thus, this cross-grained [scattered] people known as jews… in this its sad condition will observe an example of order.” Especially regarding enlightenment: “This first point will bear fruit — if not today and immediately, definitely in the coming times, or at worst after several generations, in unnoticed way,” and then the jews would become “genuine subjects of the Russian throne.”

While Derzhavin was composing his Memorandum, he also made it known what the Kehilot thought about it, and made it clear that he was by no means making himself their friend. In the official answers their rejection was formulated cautiously. It stated, “the jews are not competent for cultivating grain nor accustomed to it, and their faith is an obstacle… They see no other possibilities than their current occupations, which serve their sustenance, and they do not need such, but would like to remain in their current condition.” The Kehilot saw moreover, that the report entailed their own obsolescence, the end of their source of income, and so began, quietly, but stubbornly and tenaciously, to work against Derzhavin’s whole proposal.

This opposition expressed itself, according to Derzhavin, by means of a complaint filed by a jewess from Liosno to the Czar, in which she alleged that, in a liquor distillery, Derzhavin “horrifically beat her with a club, until she, being pregnant, gave birth to a dead infant.” The Senate launched an investigation. Derzhavin answered: “As I was a quarter hour long in this factory, I not only did not strike any jewess, but indeed did not even see one.” He sought a personal reception by the czar. “Let me be imprisoned, but I will reveal the idiocy of the man that has made such claims… How can your Highness… believe such a foolish and untrue complaint?” (The jew that had taken the lying complaint was condemned to one year in the penitentiary, but after 2 or 3 months Derzhavin “accomplished” his being set free, this being now under the reign of Alexander I.)

Paul, murdered in May 1801, was unable to come to any resolution in connection with Derzhavin’s Memorandum. “It led [G57] at the time to small practical results, as one could have expected, since Derzhavin lost his position in the change of court.”

Not until the end of 1802 was the “committee for the assimilation of the Jews” established, to examine Derzhavin’s Memorandum and prepare corresponding recommendations. The committee consisted of two Polish magnates close to Alexander I: Prince Adam [Jerzy] Czartoryski and Count (Graf) Severin Potocki as well as Count Valerian Subov. (Derzhavin observed regarding all three, that they too had great holdings in Poland, and would notice “a significant loss of income” if the jews were to be removed, and that “the private interests of the above-mentioned Worthies would outweigh those of the state.”) Also on the committee were Interior Minister Count Kotshubey and the already-mentioned Justice Minister – the first in Russian history – Derzhavin himself. Michael Speransky also worked with the committee. The committee was charged to invite jewish delegates form the Kehiloth of every province and these – mostly merchants of the First Guild – did come. “Besides that the committee members had the right to call enlightened and well-meaning jews of their acquaintance.” The already-known Nota Notkin, that had moved from White Russia to Moscow and then St Petersburg; the Petersburg tax-leaser Abram Perets, who was a close friend of Speransky; [Yehuda] Leib Nevachovich and Mendel Satanaver, — both friends of Perets – and others. Not all took part in the hearings, but they exercised a significant influence on the committee members. Worthy of mention: Abram Perets’ son Gregory was condemned in the Decembrist trial and exiled – probably only because he had discussed the Jewish Question with [Pavel] Pestel, but without suspecting anything of the Decembrist conspiracy – [G58] and because his grandson was the Russian Secretary of State, a very high position. Nevachovich, a humanist (but no cosmopolitan) who was deeply tied to Russian cultural life – then a rarity among jews – published in Russian “The Crying Voice of the Daughter of Judah” (1803) in which he urged Russian society to reflect on the restrictions of jewish rights, and admonished the Russians to regard jews as their countrymen, and thus that they should take the jews among them into Russian society.

The committee came to an overwhelmingly-supported resolution: “[The jews] are to be guided into the general civil life and education… To steer them toward productive work,” it should be made easier for them to become employed in trades and commerce, the constriction of the right of free mobility should be lessened; they must become accustomed to wearing ordinary apparel, for “the custom of wearing clothes that are despised strengthens the custom to be despised.” But the most acute problem was that jews, on account of the liquor trade, dwelled in the villages. Notkin “strove to win the committee to the view of letting the jews continue to live there, and only to take measures against possible abuses on their part.”

“The charter of the committee led to tumult in the Kehiloth,” Gessen wrote. A special convocation of their deputies in 1803 in Minsk resolved “to petition our czar, may his fame become still greater, that they (the Worthies) assume no innovations for us.” They decided to send certain delegates to Petersburg, explained, that an assembly had been held for that purpose, and even called for a three-day jewish fast – “unrest …gripped the whole pale of settlement. Quite apart from the threatening expulsion of jews from the villages, “the Kehiloth took a negative stance toward the cultural question…out of concern to preserve their own way of life.” As answer to the main points of the Recommendation “the Kehiloth explained that the Reform must in any case be postponed 15-20 years.”

Derzhavin wrote “there were from their side various rebuttals aimed to leave everything as it was. In addition, Gurko, a White Russian landowner sent Derzhavin a letter he had received: [G59] a jew in White Russia had written him regarding one of his plenipotentiaries in Petersburg. It said that they had, in the name of all Kehilot of the world, put the cherem ([or herem,] i.e. the ban) on Derzhavin as a Persecutor, and had gathered a million to be used as gifts for this situation and had forwarded it to St Petersburg. They appealed for all efforts to be applied to the removal of Derzhavin as Attorney General, and if that were not possible to seek his life… However the thing they wanted to achieve was not to be forbidden to sell liquor in the village taverns…. and in order to make it easier to advance this business,” they would put together opinions from foreign regions, from different places and peoples, on how the situation of the jews could be improved” – and in fact, such opinions, sometimes in French, sometimes, in German, began to be sent to the Committee.

Besides this, Nota Notkin became “the central figure that organized the little jewish congregation of Petersburg.” In 1803 “he submitted a brief to the Committee in which he sought to paralyze the effect of the proposal submitted by Derzhavin.” Derzhavin writes, “Notkin came to him one day and asked, with feigned well-wishing, that he, Derzhavin, should not take a stand all alone against his colleagues on the Committee, who all are on the side of the jews; whether he would not accept 100- or, if that is too little, 200,000 rubles, only so that he could be of one mind with all his colleagues on the committee.” Derzhavin “decided to disclose this attempt at bribery to the czar and prove it to him with Gurko’s letter.” He “thought such strong proofs prove effective and the czar would start to be wary of the people that surrounded him and protected the jews.” Speransky also informed the czar of it, but “Speransky was fully committed to the jews,” and – “from the first meeting of the Jewish Committee it became apparent that all members represented the view that the liquor distilling should … continue in the hands of jews as before.”

Derzhavin opposed it. Alexander bore himself ever more coldly toward him and dismissed his Justice Minister shortly thereafter (1803).

Beside this, Derzhavin’s papers indicate that he – whether in military or civil service – always came into disfavor and was hot-headed and everywhere soon took his leave.

[G60] One has to admit, that Derzhavin foresaw much that developed in the problematic Russo-Judaic relationship throughout the entire 19^th century, even if not in the exact and unexpected form that it took in the event. He expressed himself coarsely, as was customary then, but he did not intend to oppress the jews; on the contrary, he wanted to open to the jews paths to a more free and productive life.

(end of chapter 1)

Chapter 1, To End of 18^th Century, fourth installment (see contents).

[G34] The jews of Poland maintained a vigorous economic relation to the surrounding population, yet in the five centuries that they lived there, did not permit any influence from outside themselves. One century after another rolled by in post-medieval European development, while the Polish jews remained confined to themselves, and were always an anachronistic appearance. They had a fixed order within themselves. (Here it is granted, that these conditions, which later remained intact also in Russia until the middle of the 19^th century, were favorable for the religious and national preservation of the jews from the very beginning of their Diaspora.) The whole jewish life was guided by the Kahal, which had developed from the communal life of the jews, and the Rabbis. [The Kahal, pl. Kehilot was the autonomous organization of the leadership of the jewish congregations in Poland.]

[Solzhenitsyn relates that the Kahal was a buffer between polish authorities and jewish people; collected the taxes for example. Took care of the needy and also regulated jewish commerce, approved resales, purchases, and leases. Adjudicated disputes between jews, which could not be appealed to the secular legal system without incurring the ban (herem). What may have started as a democratic institution took on the qualities of an oligarchy bent on maintaining its own power. In turn, the rabbis and Kahal had a mutually exploitative relation, in that the rabbis were the executive enforcement arm of the Kahal, and the rabbis owed their position to appointment by the Kahal. Likewise, the Kahal owed the maintenance of its power more to the secular regime than to its own people.

[Toward end of 17^th century and through 18^th century, the country was torn by strife; the magnates’ arbitrariness increased further. Jews became poor and demoralized, and hardened in early Middle-age forms of life. [G35] “They became child-like or better: childish oldsters.”

[16^th century jewish spiritual rulers were concentrated in German and Polish jewry. They put barriers up against contact with outsiders. The rabbinate held the jews in firm bondage to the past.]

The fact that the jewish people have held themselves together in their diaspora for 2,000 years inspires wonder and admiration. But when one examines certain periods more closely, as e.g. the Polish/Russian one in the 16^th and into the middle of the 17^th century, and how this unity was only won by means of methods of suppression exercised by the Kehilot, then one no longer knows if it can be evaluated merely as an aspect of religious tradition. If the slightest trace of such isolationism were detected amongst us Russians, we would be severely faulted.

When jewry came under the rule of the Russian state, this indigenous system remained, in which the hierarchy of the Kahal had a self-interest. According to J. I. Gessen, all the anger that enlightened jews felt against the ossifying Talmudic tradition became stronger in the middle of the 19^th century: “The representatives of the ruling class of jewry staked everything on persuading the [Russian] administration of the necessity to maintain this centuries-old institution, which reflected the interests both of the Russian power and of the ruling jewish class”; “the Kahal in connection with the Rabbis held all the power and not seldom, abused it: it misappropriated public funds, trampled the rights of the poor, arbitrarily increased taxes and wreaked vengeance on personal enemies.” At the end of the 18^th century the Governor of one the administrative regions attached to Russia wrote in his report: “The rabbis, [G36] the spiritual Council and the Kahal, ‘which are knitted closely together, hold all things in their hand and lord it over the conscience of the jews, and in complete isolation rule over them, without any relation to the civil order.’”

In 18th century Eastern European jewry two movements developed: the religious one of the Hassidim [or Hasidim, or Chasidim] and the enlightening one favoring secular culture, spearheaded by Moses Mendelsohn; but the Kehiloth suppressed both with all its might. In 1781 the Rabbinate of [Lithuanian] Vilna placed the ban over the Hassidim and in 1784 the Assembly of Rabbis in [White Russian] Mogilev declared them as “outlaws and their property as without owner. Thereafter mobs laid waste to the houses of Hassidim in several cities,” i.e. it was an intra-jewish pogrom. The Hassidim were persecuted in the most cruel and unfair manner; their rivals did not even feel embarrassed to denounce them before the Russian authorities with false political charges. In turn, the officials in 1799, based on the complaint of Hassidics, arrested members of the Kehilot of Vilna for embezzlement of tax money. The Hassidim movement expanded, being especially successful in certain provinces. The rabbis had hassidic books publicly burned and the Hassidim emerged as defenders of the people against abuses of the Kehilot. “It is apparent that in those times the religious war overshadowed other questions of religious life.”

The part of White Russia that fell to Russia in 1772 consisted of the Provinces of Polotsk (later Vitebsk) and Mogilev. In a communiqué to those governments in the name of Catherine it was explained that their residents “of whichever sex and standing they might be” would from now on have the right to public exercise of faith and to own property in addition to “all rights, freedoms and privileges which their subjects previously enjoyed.” The jews were thus legally set as equals to Christians, which had not been the case in Poland. As to the jews, it was added that their businesses “stay and remain intact with all those rights that they today…enjoy” – i.e. nothing would be taken away from Polish rights either. Through this, the previous power of the Kehilot survived: the jews with their Kahal system remained isolated from the rest of the population and were not immediately taken into the class of traders and [G37] businessmen that corresponded to their predominant occupations.

In the beginning, Catherine was on her guard not only against any hostile reaction of the Polish nobility, from whom power threatened to slip away, but also against giving an unfavorable impression to her Orthodox subjects. But she did extend wider rights to the jews, whom she wished well and promised herself of their economic utility to the nation. Already in 1778 the most recent general Russian regulation was extended to White Russia: those holding up to 500 Rubles belonged to the class of trade-plying townsmen; those with more capital, to the class of merchant, endowed into one of three guilds according to possession: both classes were free of the poll tax and paid 1% of their capital which was “declared according to conscience.”

This regulation was of particularly great significance: it set aside the national isolation of jews up to that time – Catherine wanted to end that. Further, she subverted the traditional Polish perspective on jews as an element standing outside the state. Moreover, she weakened the Kahal system, the capability of the Kahal to compel. “The process began of pressing jews into the civil organism… The jews availed themselves to a great extent of the right to be registered as merchants” – so that e.g. 10% of the jewish population in the Mogilev Province declared themselves as merchants (but only 5.5% of the Christians). The jewish merchants were now freed from the tax obligation to the Kahal and did not have to apply to the Kahal any more for permission to be temporarily absent – they had only to deal with the cognizant magistrate. (In 1780 the jews in Mogilev and Shklov greeted Catherine upon her arrival with odes.)

With this advance of jewish merchants the civil category “jew” ceased to exist. All other jews had now likewise to be assigned to a status, and obviously the only one left for them was “townsmen.” But at first, few wanted to be reclassified as such, since the annual poll tax for townsmen at that time was 60 kopecks but only 50 kopecks for “jews.” However, there was no other option. From 1783, neither the jewish townsmen [G38] nor merchants needed to pay their taxes to the Kahal, but instead, to the magistrate, each according to his class, and from him they also received their travel passes.

The new order had consequences for the cities, which only took status into consideration, not nationality. According to this arrangement, all townsmen (thus: also all jews) had the right to participate in the local class governance and occupy official posts. “Corresponding to the conditions of that time this meant that the jews became citizens with equal rights… The entry of jews as citizens with equal right into the merchant guilds and townsmen class was an event of great social significance,” it was supposed to “transform the jews into an economic power that would have to be reckoned with, and raise their morale.” It also made the practical protection of their life-interests easier.” At that time the classes of traders and tradesmen just like the municipal commonwealth had a broad self-determination…Thus, a certain administrative and judicial power was placed into the hands of jews just like Christians, through which the jewish population held a commercial and civil influence and significance.” Jews could now not only become mayors but also advisory delegates and judges. At first limitations were enacted in the larger cities to ensure that no more jews occupied electable positions than Christians. In 1786 however “Catherine sent… to the Governor General of White Russia a command written by her own hand: to actualize the equality of jews ‘in the municipal-class self-governance … unconditionally and without any hesitation’ and ‘to impose an appropriate penalty upon anyone that should hinder this equality.’”

It should be pointed out that the jews thus were given equal rights not only in contrast to Poland, but also earlier than in France or the German states. (Under Frederick the Great the jews suffered great limitations.) Indeed: the jews in Russia had from the beginning the personal freedom that the Russian peasants were only granted 80 years later. Paradoxically, the jews gained greater freedom than even the Russian merchants and tradesmen. The latter had to live exclusively in the cities, while in contrast the jewish population could “live in colonizations in the country and distill liquor.” “Although the jews dwelled in clusters [G39] not only in the city but also in the villages, they were accounted as part of the city contingent… inclusive of merchant and townsmen classes.” “According to the manner of their activity and surrounded by unfree peasantry they played an important economic roll. Rural trade was concentrated in their hands, and they leased various posts belonging to the landowners’ privilege – specifically, the sale of vodka in taverns – and therewith fostered “the expansion of drunkenness.” The White-Russian powers reported: “The presence of jews in the villages acts with harm upon the economic and moral condition of the rural population, because the jews… encourage drunkenness among the local population.” “In the stance taken by the powers-that-be, it was indicated among other things that the jews led the peasants astray with drunkenness, idleness and poverty, that they had given them vodka on credit etc. [reception of pledges for vodka].” But “the brandy operations were an attractive source of income” for both the Polish landowners and the jewish commissioners.

Granted, the gift of citizenship that the Jews received brought a danger with it: obviously the jews were also supposed to acquiesce to the general rule to cease the brandy business in the villages and move out. In 1783 the following was published: “The general rule requires every citizen to apply himself in a respectable trade and business, but not the distilling of schnapps as that is not a fitting business,’ and whenever the proprietor ‘permits the merchant, townsman or jew’ to distill vodka, he will be held as a law-breaker.” And thus it happened: “they began to transfer the jews from the villages to the cities to deflect them from their centuries-old occupation … the leasing of distilleries and taverns.”

Naturally, to the jews the threat of a complete removal from the villages naturally appeared not as a uniform civil measure, but rather as one that was set up specially to oppose their national religion. The jewish townsmen that were supposed to be resettled into the city and unambiguously were to be robbed of a very lucrative business in the country, fell into an inner-city and inner-jewish competition. Indignation grew among the jews, and in 1784 a commission of the Kehilot traveled to St Petersburg to seek [G40] the cancellation of these measures. (At the same time the Kehilot reasoned that they should, with the help of the administration, regain their lost power in its full extent over the jewish population.) But the answer of the czarina read: “As soon as the people yoked to the jewish law have … arrived at the condition of equality, the Order must be upheld in every case, so that each according to his rank and status enjoys the benefits and rights, without distinction of belief or national origin.

But the clenched power of the Polish proprietors also had to be reckoned with. Although the administration of White Russia forbad them in 1783 to lease the schnapps distilling “to unauthorized person, ‘especially jews’… the landlords continued to lease this industry to jews. That was their right,” an inheritance of centuries-old Polish custom.

The Senate did not venture to apply force against the landholders and in 1786 removed their jurisdiction to relocate jews into cities. For this a compromise was found: The jews would be regarded as people that had relocated to the cities, but would retain the right to temporary visits to the villages. That meant that those that were living in the villages continued to live there. The Senate permission of 1786 permitted the jews to live in villages and “jews were allowed to lease from the landholders the right to produce and sell alcoholic beverages, while Christian merchants and townsmen did not obtain these rights.”

Even the efforts of the delegation of Kehilot in St Petersburg was not wholly without success. They did not get what they came for – the establishment of a separate jewish court for all contentions between jews – but in 1786 a significant part of their supervisory right was given back: the supervision of jewish townsmen i.e. the majority of the jewish population. This included not only the division of public benefits but also the levying of poll tax and adjudicating the right to separate from the congregation. Thus, the administration recognized its interest in not weakening the power of the Kahal.

In all Russia, the status of traders and businessmen (merchants and townsmen) did not have the right to choose [G41] their residences. Their members were bound to that locality in which they were registered, in order that the financial position of their localities would not be weakened. However, the Senate made an exception in 1782 for White Russia: The merchants could move “as the case might be, as it was propitious for commerce” from one city to another. The ruling favored especially the jewish merchants.

However, they began to exploit this right in a greater extent than had been foreseen: “Jewish merchants began to be registered in Moscow and Smolensk.” “Jews began soon after the annexation of White Russia in 1882 to settle in Moscow…. By the end of the 18^th century the number of jews in Moscow was considerable…. Some jews that had entered the ranks of the Moscow merchant class began to practice wholesaling… other jews in contrast sold foreign goods from their apartments or in the courts, or began peddling, though this was at the time forbidden.”

In 1790 the Moscow merchants submitted a complaint: “In Moscow has emerged ‘a not insignificant number of jews’ from foreign countries and from White Russian who as opportunity afforded joined the Moscow merchant guilds and then utilized forbidden methods of business, which brought about ‘very hurtful damage,’ and the cheapness of their goods indicated that it involved smuggling, but moreover as is well-known they cut coins: it is possible, that they will also do this in Moscow.” As amends to “their thoroughly cagey findings,” the Moscow merchants demanded their removal from Moscow. The jewish merchants appealed with “a counter-complaint… that they were not accepted into the Smolensk and Moscow merchant guilds.”

The “Council of her Majesty” heard the complaints. In accordance with the Unified Russian Order, she firmly established that the jews did not have the right “to be registered in the Russian trading towns and harbors,” but only in White Russia. “By no means is usefulness to be expected” from the migration of jews into Moscow . In December 1791 she promulgated a highest-order Ukase, which prohibited jews “to join the merchant guilds of the inner Provinces,” but permitted them “for a limited time for trade reasons to enter Moscow.” [G42] Jews were allowed to utilize the rights of the merchant guild and townsman class only in White Russia. The right to permanent residency and membership in the townsman class, Catherine continued, was granted in New Russia, now accessible in the viceregencies of Yekaterinoslav [“Glory of Catherine the Great”; much later, name changed to Dnepropetrovsk] and Taurida (shortly thereafter these became the Provinces of Yekaterinoslav, Taurida, and Cherson); that is, Catherine allowed jews to migrate into the new, expansive territories, into which Christian merchants and townsmen from the provinces of interior Russia generally were not permitted to emigrate. When in 1796 “it was made known that groups of jews [already] …. had immigrated into the Kiev, Chernigov and Novgorod-Syeversk Provinces,” it was likewise granted there “to utilize the right of the merchant guild and the townsman class.”

The pre-Revolution Jewish Encyclopedia writes: The Ukase of 1791 “laid the groundwork for setting up the pale of settlement, even if it wasn’t so intended. Under the conditions of the then-obtaining social and civic order in general, and of jewish life in particular, the administration could not consider bringing about a particularly onerous situation and conclude for them exceptional laws, which among other things would restrict the right of residency. In the context of its time, this Ukase did not contain that which in this respect would have brought the jews into a less favorable condition than the Christians… The Ukase of 1791 in no way limited the rights of jews in the choice of residency, created no special ‘borders,’ and ‘for jews the way was opened into new regions, into which in general people could not emigrate.’ The main point of the decree was not concerned with their jewishness, but that they were traders; the question was not considered from the national or religious point of view, but only from the viewpoint of usefulness.”

This Ukase of 1791, which actually privileged jewish merchants in comparison to Christian ones, was in the course of time the basis for the future “Pale of Settlement.,” which almost until the Revolution cast as it were a dark shadow over Russia.

By itself however the Ukase of 1791 was not so oppressive in its outworking as to prevent “a small [jewish] colony from emerging in St Petersburg by the end of the reign of Catherine II.” [G43] Here lived “the famous tax-leaser Abram Peretz” and some of the merchants close to him, and also, “while the religious struggle was in full swing, the rabbi Avigdor Chaimovitch and his opponent, the famous hassidic Tzadik Zalman Boruchovitch.”

In 1793 and 1795 the second and third Partition of Poland took place, and the jewish population from Lithuania, Poldolia, and Volhynia, numbering almost a million, came under Russia’s jurisdiction. This increase in population was a very significant event, though for a long time not recognized as such. It later influenced the fate of both Russia and the jewry of East Europe.

“After centuries-long wandering [jewry] came under one roof, in a single great congregation.”

****

In the now vastly-expanded region of jewish settlement, the same questions came up as before. The jews obtained rights of Merchant guilds and townsmen, which they had not possessed in Poland, and they got the right to equal participation in the class-municipal self-government… then had to accept the restrictions of this status: they could not migrate into the cities of the inner-Russian provinces, and were liable to be moved out of the villages.

With the now huge extent of the jewish population, the Russian regime no longer had a way to veil the fact that the jews continued to live in the villages simply by modeling it as a “temporary visit.” “A burning question …. was whether the economic condition could tolerate so many tradesmen and traders living amongst the peasants.”

In order to defuse the problem, many Shtetl were made equal to cities. Thus, the legal possibility came about for jews to continue living there. But with the large number of jews in the country and the high population density in the cities, that was no solution.

[G43] Now it seemed to be a natural way out, that the jews would take advantage of the possibility offered by Catherine to settle in the huge, scarcely-occupied New Russia. The new settlers were offered inducements, but this “did not succeed in setting a colonization movement into motion. Even the freedom of the new settlers from taxes appeared not to be attractive enough” to induce such a migration.

Thus Catherine decided in 1794 to induce the jews to emigrate with contrary measures: the jews were relocated out of the villages. At the same time, she decided to assess the entire jewish population with a tax that was double that paid by the Christians. (Such a tax had already been paid for a long time by the Old Believers, but applied to the jews, this law proved to be neither effective nor of long duration.)

Those were the last regulations of Catherine. From the end of 1796 Paul I reigned. The Jewish Encyclopedia evaluates him in this way: “The time of the angry rule of Paul I passed well for the jews… All edicts of Paul I concerning the jews indicate that the monarch was tolerant and benevolent toward the jewish population.” “When the interest of jews conflicted with Christians, Paul I by no means automatically sided with the Christian.” Even when in 1797 he ordered “measures to reduce the power of the jews and the spirituals over the peasants,” that was “actually not set up against the jews: the point was the protection of the peasants.” Paul recognized also “the right of the Hassidim not to have to live in secrecy.” He extended the right of jews to belong to the merchant- and townsmen-class even to the Courland Province (which was no Polish inheritance, and later, it also did not belong to the “pale of settlement”). Consistent with that policy, he denied the respective petitions of the parishes of Kovno, Kamenez-Podolsk, Kiev and Vilna, to be permitted to move the jews out of their cities.

Paul had inherited the stubborn resistance of the Polish landholders against any changing of their rights; among these was the right over the jews and the right to hold court over them. They misused these rights often. Thus the Complaint of the jews of Berdychiv [Ukraine] against the princes of Radziwill stated: “in order to hold our [G45] religious services, we must first pay gold to those to whom the prince has leased our faith,” and against Catherine’s former favorite [Simon] Zorich: “one ought not to have to pay him for the air one breathes.” In Poland many Shtetl and cities were the possession of nobles, and the landowners assessed arbitrary and opportunistic levies that the residents had to pay.

(continued)

Chapter 1, To End of 18^th Century, third installment (see contents).

[G23] Judging by its stable manner of life, it was in neighboring Poland that the biggest jewish community emerged, expanded and became strong from the 13^th to the 18^th century. It formed the basis of the future Russian jewry, which became the most important part of World jewry until the 20^th century. Starting in the 16^th century “a significant number of Polish and Czech Jews emigrated” into the Ukraine, White Russia and Lithuania. In the 15^th century jewish merchants traveled still unhindered from the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom to Moscow. But that changed under Ivan [IV] the Terrible: jewish merchants were forbidden entry. When in 1550 the Polish King Sigismund August desired to permit them free entry into Russia, this was denied by Ivan with these words: “We absolutely do not permit the entry of the Jew into my lands, because we do not wish to see evil in our lands, but rather may God grant that the people in my land may have rest from that irritation. And you, our brother, should not write us on account of the jews again,” for they had “alienated the Russians from [G24] Christianity, brought poisonous plants into our lands and done much evil to our lands.”

According to a legend, Ivan IV [the Terrible], upon the annexation of Polotsk in 1563, ordered all jews to be baptized in response to complaints of Russian residents “against evil things and bullying” by jews, leasers and others empowered by Polish magnates. Those that refused, apparently about 300 persons, are supposed to have been drowned in his presence in the Dvina. But careful historians, as e.g. J. I. Gessen, do not confirm this version even in moderated form and do not mention it once.

Instead of that, Gessen writes that under the False Dimitry I (1605/06) both jews and other foreigners “in relatively large number” were baptized in Moscow. The story goes according to “In the Time of Troubles” [by Sergey Ivanov, regarding the 15-year period 1598-1613 of confusion following the failed Rurik Dynasty] that the False Dimitry II (the “Thief of Tushino”) was “born a Jew.” (The sources give contradictory information regarding the ancestry of “the Thief of Tushino.”)

[Sozhenitsyn relates that after the “Time of Troubles,” jews, like Polish-Lithuanian folk in general had restricted rights in Russia. [G25] There was prohibition of peddling in Moscow, or to travel beyond Moscow at all. But ordinances were contradictory.

[Mikhail Feodorovich (Michael son of Theodore; 1613 became first Romanov chosen as czar) did not pursue a principial policy against Jews.

[Alexis Michaelovitch (Alex son of Michael; czar 1645). No sign of discrimination against jews in the law book; free access granted to all cities including Moscow. During the seizure of Lithuania, as well as later wars, treatment of Jews in captivity was not worse than other foreigners.

[After the Treaty of Andrusovo (1667) (in which Smolensk, Kiev and the whole eastern bank of the Dnieper River remained Russian) jews were invited to stay, and many did. Some converted to Christianity and some of these became heads of noble families. A small number of baptized migrated to a Cossack village on the Don and a dozen Cossack families descended from them. Samuel Collins, an Englishman residing in Moscow at the time, related that "in a short time, the Jews have in a remarkable way spread through the city and court, helped by the mediation of a Jewish surgeon.”

[Feodor III, son of Alexis (Theodore, 1676 czar]. Jews not to be assessed toll on entry to Moscow, because they are not allowed in, whether with or without wares. But the practice did not correspond to the theory.

[In the first year of Peter the Great, doors were opened to talented foreigners, but not jews on account of their being “rogues and deceivers.” Yet there is no evidence of limitations imposed on them, nor special laws. Indeed, jews were found close to the Emperor:

• Vice-chancellor Baron Peter Shafirov
• close confidant Abram Veselovsky, later accused of thieving
• his brother, Isaac Veselovsky
• Anton de Vieira, general police master of Petersburg
• Vivière, head of secret police

and others. To A. Veselovsky, Peter wrote that what matters is competence and decency, not baptism or circumcision.

[Jewish houses in Germany inquired whether Russia would guarantee their commerce with Persia, but never received it.

[At start of 18^th century there was increased jewish trade activity in Little Russia (=Ukraine), [G27] a year before Russian merchants got the right. Hetman (Ukrainian chief) Skoropadski gave order several times for their expulsion but this was not obeyed and jewish presence actually increased.

[Catherine I (1724 Czarina) decreed removal of jews from Ukraine and Russian cities; but only lasted one year.

[Peter II (Czar 1727) permitted jews into Little Russia, first as “temporary visits” on the ground of their usefulness for trade, then, more and more reasons found to make it permanent. Under Anna (1730 Czarina), this right was extended to Smolensk and Slobodsky. In 1734 permission was given to distil brandy, and in 1736 it was permitted to import vodka from Poland into Russia.

[Baltic financier Levy Lipman probably bailed out the future czarina Anna financially while she was living in Courland. [G28] Later, he achieved a high rank in her court in financial administration, and received various monopoly rights.]

Elisabeth [1741 czarina] however issued a Ukase [imperial Russian decree] one year after taking the throne (Dec 1742): “Jews are forbidden to live anywhere in our realm; now it has been made known to us, that these jews still find themselves in our realm and, under various pretexts, especially in Little Russia, they prolong their stay, which is in no way beneficial; but as we must expect only great injuries to our loyal subjects from such haters of the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, [G29] we order: all jews, male and female, along with their entire possession, to be sent without delay from our realm, over the border, and in the future not allowed back in, unless it should be that one of them should confess our Greek-Christian religion.”

This was the same religious intolerance that shook Europe for centuries. The way of thinking of that time was not unique in any special Russian way, nor was it an exclusively jew-hostile attitude. Among Christians the religious intolerance was not practiced with any less cruelty. Thus, the Old Believers, i.e. men of the same orthodox faith, were persecuted with fire and sword.

This Ukase of Elisabeth “was made known throughout the realm. But immediately attempts were made to move the Ruler to relent.” The military chancellor reported to the Senate from the Ukraine that already 140 people were evicted, but that “the prohibition for jews to bring goods in would lead to a reduction in state income.” The Senate reported to the Czarina that “trade had suffered great damage in Little Russia as well as the Baltic provinces by the Ukase of the previous year to not allow jews into the realm, and also the state burse would suffer by the reduction of income from tolls.” The czarina answered with the resolution: “I desire no profit from the enemies of Christ.”

[Sozhenitsyn discusses contradictory sources as to the number of jews that were actually evicted, ranging from almost none, to 35,000, the latter figure having questionable origins; [G30] strong resistance to the edict by jews, land proprietors and the state apparatuses meant it was enforced almost as little as previous attempts had been.

[(G31) Catherine II, Czarin 1762 in consequence of a coup, and also being a neophyte to Orthodoxy herself, was unwilling to start her reign opening things up for jews, though the Senate advised for it. Jews pressed for it and had spokesmen in Petersburg, Riga, and Ukraine. [G32] She found a way around her own law in permitting their entry for colonization into “New Russia” [area between Crimea and Moldavia], which was still a wasteland. Was organized secretly from Riga, and the nationality of the jews was kept more or less secret. Jews went there from Poland and Lithuania.

[In the first Partition of Poland, 1772, Russia reacquired White Russia (Belarus) along with her 100,000 jews.]

After the 11^th century more and more jews came into Poland because princes and later, kings encouraged “all active, industrious people” from western Europe to settle there. Jews actually received special rights, e.g. in 13^th c., from Boleslav the Pious; in 14^th c., from Kasimir the Great; in 16^th c., from Sigismund I and Stephan Bathony; though this sometimes alternated with repression, e.g. in 15^th c., by Vladislav Yagiello and Alexander, son of Kasimir: there were two pogroms in Krakow. In 16^th c several ghettos were constructed partly to protect them. The Roman Catholic spirituals were the most continuous source of a hostile stance. Nevertheless on balance it must have been a favorable environment, since in first half of 16^th c. [G33] the jewish population increased substantially. There was a big role for jews in the business activity of landlords in that they became leasers of the brandy distilling operations.

After the Tater devastation, Kiev in the 14^th c. came under Lithuania and/or Poland, and in this arrangement “more and more jews wandered from Podolia and Volhynia into the Ukraine,” in the regions of Kiev, Poltava, and Chernigov. This process accelerated when a large part of Ukraine came directly under Poland in the Union of Lublin, 1569. The main population consisted of orthodox peasants, who for a long time had had special rights and were free of tolls. Now began an intensive colonization of the Ukraine by the polish Szlachta (Polish nobility) with conjoint action by the jews. “The Cossacks were forced into immobility, and obligated to perform drudgery and pay taxes… The Catholic lords burdened the orthodox peasants with various taxes and service duties, and in this exploitation the jews also partly played a sad role.” They leased from the lords the “propination,” i.e. the right to distil vodka and sell it, as well as other trades. “The jewish leasers, who represented the Polish lord, received – of course only to a certain degree – the power that the landholder had over the peasants; and since the jewish leasers… strove to wring from the peasants a maximum profit, the rage of the peasants rose not only against the Catholic landlords but also against the jewish leasers. When from this situation a bloody uprising of the Cossacks arose in 1648 under leadership of Chmelnitsky, Jews as well as Poles were the victims” – 10,000 jews died.

The jews were lured in by the natural riches of the Ukraine and by polish magnates that were colonizing the land, and thus assumed an important economic role. Since they served the interests of the landlords and the regime… the jews brought on themselves the hatred of the residents.” N. I. Kostomarov adds that the jews leased not only various branches of the privileged industries but even the orthodox churches, gaining the right to levy a fee for baptisms.

After the uprising, the “jews, on the basis of the Treaty of Belaia Tserkov (1651) were again given the right to resettle in the Ukraine… The Jews were like before resident and leaser of the royal industries and the industries of the Szlachta, and so it was to remain.”

“Going into the 18^th c. brandy distilling was practically the main profession of jews.” “This trade often led to conflicts with the peasants, who sometimes were drawn into the taverns not so much because well­-to-do, but on account of their poverty and misery.”

Included among the restrictions placed on the Polish jews in response to demands of the Catholic church was the prohibition against jews having Christian house-servants.

[G34] Because of the recruitment coupled with the state tax increases in neighboring Russia, not a few refugees came to Poland, where they had no rights. In the debates of Catherine’s commission for reworking a new Law code (1767/68), one could hear that in Poland “already a number of Russian refugees are servants to jews.”

(continued)

Chapter 1, To End of 18^th Century, second installment (see contents).

[G19] “A migration of Jews from Poland to the East, including White Russia [Belarus], should also be noted in the 15^th century: there were lessers of tolls and other assessments in Minsk, Polotsk” and in Smolensk, although no settled congregations were formed there. After the short-lived banishment of jews from Lithuania (1496) the “eastward movement went forth with particular energy at the beginning of the 16^th century.”

The number of jews that migrated into the Muskovy Rus was insignificant although “influential Jews at that time had no difficulties going to Moscow.” Toward the end of the 15^th century in the very center of the spiritual and administrative power of the Rus, a change took place that, though barely noticed, could have drawn an ominous unrest in its wake, and had far-reaching consequences in the spiritual domain. It had to do with the “Judaizing Heresy.” Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk [1439-1515] who resisted it, observed: “Since the time of Olga and Vladimir, the God-fearing Russian world has never experienced such a seduction.”

According to Kramsin it began thus: the Jew Zechariah, who in 1470 had arrived in Novgorod from Kiev, “figured out how to lead astray two spirituals, Dionis and Aleksei; he assured them, that only the Law of Moses was divine; the history of the Redeemer was invented; the Messiah was not yet born; one should not pray to icons, etc. Thus began the Judaizing heresy.” Sergey Solovyov [1820–79; great Russian historian] expands on this, that Zechariah accomplished it “with the aid of five accomplices, who also were Jewish,” and that this heresy “obviously was a mixture of Judaism and Christian rationalism that denied the mystery of the holy Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ.” “The Orthodox Priest Aleksei called himself Abraham, his wife he called Sarah and along with Dionis corrupted many spirituals and lay… But it is hard to understand how Zechariah was able so easily to increase the number of his Novgorod pupils, since his wisdom consisted entirely and only in the rejection of Christianity and the glorification of Judaism [G20]…Probably, Zechariah seduced the Russians with the jewish cabbala, a teaching that captured curious ignoramuses and in the 15^th century was well-known, when many educated men “sought in it the solution to all important riddles of the human spirit. The cabbalists extolled themselves …, they were able… to discern all secrets of nature, explain dreams, prophecy the future, and conjure spirits.”

J. Gessen, a jewish historian of the 20^th century represents in contrast the opinion: “It is certain, that jews participated neither in the introduction of the heresy… nor its spread” (but with no indication of his sources). The encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron [1890-1906, Russian equivalent to the 1911 Britannica] explains: “Apparently the genuinely jewish element played no outstanding roll, limiting its contribution to a few rituals.” The “Jewish Encyclopedia,” which appeared about the same time, writes on the other hand: “today, since the publication of the ‘Psalter of the Judaizers’ and other memorials, the contested question of the jewish influence on the sects must… be seen as settled in a positive sense.”

“The Novgorod heretics respected an orderly exterior, appeared to fast humbly and zealously fulfilled all the duties of Piety,” they “made themselves noticed by the people and contributed to the rapid spreading of the heresy.” When after the fall of Novgorod Ivan Vassilyevich III [1440-1505, English name would be "John son of Basil," Grand Prince of Moscoy, united the greater Russian territory under Moscow’s rule] visited the city, he was impressed by their Piety and took both of the first heretics, Aleksei and Dionis, to Moscow in 1480 and promoted them as high priests of the Assumption of Mary and the Archangel cathedrals of the Kremlin. “With them also the schism was brought over, the roots of which remained in Novgorod. Aleksei found special favor with the ruler and had free access to him, and with his Secret Teaching” enticed not only several high spirituals and officials, but moved the Grand Prince to appoint the archimandrite [=head abbot in Eastern Orthodoxy] Zossima as Metropolitan, that is, the head of the entire Russian church – a man from the very circle of the those he had enticed with the heresy. In addition, he enticed Helena to the heresy — daughter-in-law of the Grand Prince, widow of Ivan the [G21] Younger and mother of the heir to the throne, the “blessed nephew Dimitri.”

The rapid success of this movement and the ease with which it spread is astonishing. This is obviously to be explained through mutual interests. “When the ‘Psalter of the Judaizing’ and other works — which could mislead the inexperienced Russian reader and were sometimes unambiguously antichristian – were translated from Hebrew into Russian, one could have assumed that only Jews and Judaism would have been interested in them.” But also “the Russian reader was… interested in the translations of jewish religious texts” – and this explains the “success, which the propaganda of the ‘Judaizing’ had in various classes of society.” The sharpness and liveliness of this contact reminds of that which had emerged in Kiev in the 11^th century.

The Novgorod Archbishop Gennadi uncovered the heresy in 1487, sent irrefutable proofs of it to Moscow, hunted the heresy out and unmasked it, until in 1490 a church Council assembled to discuss the matter, under leadership of the just-promoted Metropolitan Sossima. “With horror they heard the complaint of Gennadi, … that these apostates insult Christ and the mother of God, spit on the cross, call the icons idolatrous images, bite on them with their teeth and throw them into impure places, believe in neither the kingdom of Heaven nor the resurrection of the dead, and entice the weak, while remaining quiet in the presence of zealous Christians.” “From the Judgment [of the Council] it is apparent, that the Judaizers did not recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God, that they taught, the Messiah is not yet appeared, that they observe the Old Testament Sabbath day rather then the Christian Sunday.” It was suggested to the Council to execute the heretics but, in accordance with the will of Ivan III, they were sentenced instead to imprisonment and the heresy was anathematized. “In view of the coarseness of the century and the seriousness of the moral corruption, such a punishment was [G22] extraordinarily mild.” The historians unanimously explain this hesitation of Ivan in that the heresy had already spread widely under his own roof and was practiced by well-known, influential people,” among whom was Feodor Kuritsyn, Ivan’s plenipotentiary Secretary (so to speak the “Foreign Minister”), “famous on account of his education and his capabilities.” “The noteworthy liberalism of Moscow flowed from the temporary ‘Dictator of the heart’ F. Kuritsyn. The magic of his secret salon was enjoyed even by the Grand Prince and his daughter-in-law… The heresy was by no means in abatement, but rather… prospered magnificently and spread itself out. At the Moscow court… astrology and magic along with the attractions of a pseudo-scientific revision of the entire medieval worldview” were solidly propagated, which was “free-thinking, the appeal of enlightenment, and the power of fashion.”

The Jewish Encyclopedia sets forth moreover that Ivan III “out of political motivations did not stand against the heresy. With Zechariah’s help, he hoped to strengthen his influence in Lithuania,” and besides that he wanted to secure the favor of influential jews from the Crimea: “of the princes and rulers of Taman Peninsula, Zacharias de Ghisolfi,” and of the jew Chozi Kokos, a confidant of the Khan Mengli Giray [or Girai].

After the Council of 1490 Sossima continued to sponsor a secret society for several years, but then was himself discovered, and in 1494 the Grand Prince commanded him to depose himself without process and to withdraw into a cloister, without throwing up dust and to all appearances willingly. “The heresy however did not abate. For a time (1498) its votaries in Moscow seized almost all the power, and their charge Dmitrii, the Son of the Princess Helena, was coronated as Czar.” Soon Ivan III reconciled himself with his wife Sophia Palaiologos, and in 1502 his son Vassili inherited the throne. (Kurizyn by this time was dead.) Of the heretics, after the Council of 1504, one part was burned, a second part thrown in prison, and a third fled to Lithuania, “where they formally adopted the Mosaic faith.”

It must be added that the overcoming of the Judaizing Heresy gave the spiritual life of the Muscovy Rus at turn of the 16^th century a new impetus, and contributed to recognizing the need for spiritual education, for schools for the Spiritual; and the name of Archbishop Gennadi is associated with the collecting and [G23] publication of the first church-slavic Bible, of which there had not to that point been a consolidated text corpus in the Christian East. The printing press was invented, and “after 80 years this Gennadi Bible… was printed in Ostrog (1580/82) as the first church-slavic Bible; with its appearance, it took over the entire orthodox East.” Even academy member S. F. Platonov gives a generalizing judgment about the phenomenon: “The movement of judaizing no doubt contained elements of the West European rationalism… The heresy was condemned; its advocates had to suffer, but the attitude of critique and skepticism produced by them over against dogma and church order remained.”

Today’s Jewish Encyclopedia remembers “the thesis that an extremely negative posture toward Judaism and the Jews was unknown in the Muskovy Rus up to the beginning of the 16^th century,” and derives it from this struggle against the Judaizers. Judging by the spiritual and civil measures of the circumstances, that is thoroughly probable. J. Gessen however contends: “it is significant, that such a specific coloring of the heresy as Judaizing did not lessen the success of the sects and in no way led to the development of a hostile stance toward the Jews.”

(continued)

Since England’s history is longer than America’s, it stands to reason that it has begotten more villains. Consequently, it has been a more difficult chore to whittle the list down to ten. I have used the same criteria as the previous post, but do not have the confidence to order them as I did there. There is, though, something of a descent into greater turpitude (in terms of general influence) as the list progresses.

Archbishop William Laud (1573 – 1645). Absolute monarchist and persecutor of Puritans and Presbyterians. Not one to allow conscience or the law to get in his way, he performed a marriage for his patron and his patron’s divorcée lover. Small in stature, small is spirit, the jester of Charles I’s court punned, “give great praise to the Lord, and little laud to the devil.” And the devil finally had him; he is one of the few monsters to get what he deserved in the end.

John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946). Sodomite, founder of the pseudoscience macroeconomics, main figure of the Bloomsbury Group. Keynes was the leading intellectual of the worst generation in modern history. Keynes did accomplish one positive thing: he was instrumental in bringing Wittgenstein back to Cambridge in 1929.

Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1475 – 1530). Hypocritical “reformer” who practiced pluralism, absenteeism, and simony. Absolutist and consummate politician, believed in centralizing authority, especially when it empowered himself. Brought back the Star Chamber and Court of Chancery which he, in turn, dominated. Gave his own epitaph: “If I had served my God as diligently as I did my king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”

Mary Tudor (1516 – 1558). No Protestant could leave Bloody Mary off of his monster’s list.

King George III (1738 – 1820). No American could leave Mad King George off of his monster’s list.

H. G. Wells (1866 – 1946). Fabian, eugenicist, promoter of world government ruled by the elite. Wells revealed much of the cryptocracy’s play book in his The Open Conspiracy. Said of Stalin, “I have never met a man more fair, candid, and honest.” Fornicated with Margaret Sanger, proving he was bereft of both morality and taste. Even the faggot Keynes showed more discrimination.

Cecil Rhodes (1853 – 1902). Malthusian, diamond tycoon (De Beers), founder of the Rhodes Scholarship, conspirator for English colonialism, lackey of the Rothschilds.

Sir Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965). A complete revisionist treatment of Sir Winston is necessary. This will have to wait for a later post.

Dr. John Dee (1527–1609). The Queen’s conjuror. Cabalist, astrologer (he cast the horoscope for QEI’s coronation date), intellectual founder of the English empire, spy (the original 007), necromancer. Along with Spenser, Dee was the creator of the neoplatonic and hermetic Faerie Queene mythos. Dee was probably the inspiration for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.

Queen Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603). “Good Queen Bess” was anything but. I will save the details for a future post.

Honorable Mention — Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970). Russell did valuable work in logic, but everything he wrote on “social issues” (and his writings on these topics are legion) is rot. Wittgenstein had the right idea: “Russell’s books should be bound in two colors, those dealing with mathematical logic in red — and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue — and no one should be allowed to read them.” Wittgenstein’s comment on Russell’s Marriage and Morals is the best single-sentence book review ever written. “If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no right to judge him, but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud.”

A longer monsters list would include Sir Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill, Sir Francis Galton, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Westcott and Hort, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur C. Clarke, Viscount Alfred Milner, Arthur Balfour, and every Stuart king and just about every post-Stuart monarch.