#wisdom

"No nation ever insisted more on race and ties of blood than the Israelites of the Old Testament. But in the fullness of time the dogma of race was eclipsed by the dogma of faith. Around the cradle of Bethlehem there were Jews and pagans, shepherds from the land of Juda and wise men from the East. In the kingdom of this Child, according to the words of His Apostle, there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek, for the same is Lord over all ."

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“...a demand was raised for the total separation of Judaism from Christianity, and for the complete elimination from Christianity of all Jewish elements... To-day these single voices have swelled together into a chorus : Away with the Old Testament! A Christianity which still clings to the Old Testament is a Jewish religion, irreconcilable with the spirit of the German people... Even the Person of Christ is not spared by this religious revolution. Some have indeed tried to save Him with a forged birth-certificate, and have said that He was not a Jew at all but an Aryan... But so long as historical, sources count for more than surmise, there can be no doubt about the fact. The first chapter of the first gospel gives us the genealogy of Jesus... And so others now take up the cry : Then we must renounce Him, if He was a Jew...”

“So that I may be perfectly clear... Before the death of Christ during the period between the calling of Abraham and the fullness of time, the people of Israel were the vehicle of Divine Revelation. The Spirit of God raised up and enlightened men who by the law, the Mosaic Thorah, regulated their religious and civil life, by the Psalms provided them with a prayer book for family devotion and a hymn-book... It is only with this Israel of the early biblical period that I shall deal in my Advent sermons. After the death of Christ Israel was dismissed from the service of Revelation.”

“In recent years the fourth commandment has been stigmatized as un-German because it proposes a reward for its observance... on November I3th, 1933, the German Christians passed the following resolution : We expect our national Churches to shake themselves free of all that is un-German, in particular of the Old Testament and its Jewish morality of rewards... But it is not true to say that the fourth commandment teaches children a mercenary attitude with regard to God, that it encourages and consecrates an un-German spirit of self-seeking.”

“Let us venerate the Scriptures of the Old Testament... By accepting these books Christianity does not become a Jewish religion. These books were not composed by Jews; they are inspired by the Holy Ghost, and therefore they are the word of God, they are God's books. Antagonism to the Jews of today must not be extended to the books of pre-Christian Judaism.”

“Outside Palestine the ancient East treated women as slaves without rights... in the fourth commandment, Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother, the mother is set upon the same level as the father in the eyes of the children. Such reverence for women was not revealed by oriental 'flesh and blood.'”

“Cardinal Manning once said to the Jews : * I should not understand my own religion, had I no reverence for yours. Let us venerate the Scriptures of the Old Testament! And let us not allow Bible history to be abolished in our schools !”