The Maccabaean

T is not long since the above caption would, in the eyes of a discerning public, have read like bombastic non-sence. The Jews as a people have no art history, if only because the artistic opportunities of the Jew were few and far between. The Bible certainly gives details of some artistic embellishments in connection with the building of the Ark of the Wilderness; but taking all the circumstances into account, the art, even of the Golden Calf, must have been of the wilderness, rude and barbaric. Solomon employed Hiram, King of Tyre to build his Temple; and even the Chronicle account of the King's palace brings us nothing estranged from the Babylonian art treasures since discovered. Herod's temple was, as far as is known, not distinguishable for anything specifically Jewish; and Josephus makes no claim for a Jewish art, though the Jews were, by his account, perfect masters of the goldsmith's craft. Judaism by its teachings, as well as by its practices, set itself sternly against art as such. Not only was the Law opposed to the graven image and the likeness, but the one temple blotted out the opportunities of any rising artistic genius. With but one great religious fame, and a concentration of all power in one centre, the capital, there was no occasion for the manifestation of artistic gifts by the Jews;

and it was only when the Romans, or Herod, accepting their ideas, began to give prominence to other cities that occasion rose for the plans and draughtmanship of the artistic architect.

To the Greek, religion was the cult of the beautiful; to Christianity as it grew in power, art was a handmaiden; but throughout the Diaspora the synagogue remained simple, its walls unadorned,

its windows severely plain; and what need there was for decoration in the making of the Ark called forth nothing of interest. On the contrary, all the embellishments of the synagogue, the embroidered curtains and mantles, the silver crowns, breastplates and pointers bore Jewishly the impress of the spirit of severe simplicity and uniformity. The illumination in the few Jewish prayer books extant

is borrowed, omitting only lines and designs peculiar to the missal and the rubric it contained. There was thus no well-spring from which a Jewish art could take its birth; and thus when we are brought face to face with a proposition that there is now a Jewish art, the balance of history justifies our doubting the ascription, for art without a tradition sounds impossible.

Art, however, is universal; and though we cannot admit the existence of Jewish art, we can conceive the creation of a Jewish school of art, as distinct as the