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rfmcdonaldThis presentation, to be delivered tomorrow at 9 o'clock for my Milton and empire class, will be my final presentation of my academic career. Thus, my desire to write everything down first.
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Milton was both the product and the producer of the revolutionary Commonwealth of mid-17th century England, a period beginning in earnest with the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and continuing, past the 1658 date of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, to the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the person of Charles II in 1660. The question of England's relationship to the Jews took on new importance during this period, both as a consequence of growing interest in Old Testament narratives and Hebrew culture as the keys to a non-Papist Christianity, and as a consequence of growing pressures to formally readmit the Jews to England after three and a half centuries of formal exclusion.
England's relationship to the Jews was shaped by its peculiar relationships to three cultures: the Spanish, producers of perhaps the first world empire; the Dutch, pioneers of the first mercantile Calvinistic republic; and the Jews, pioneers of monotheism and the Abrahamic tradition. All three cultures did receive a certain amount of respect in post-Reformation England, as pioneers of certain key concepts. However, particularly in the era of the Commonwealth, which was influenced by a combination of a strong English nationalism linked to millenarian sentiments which dentified England as the culmination of world history, these cultures came under particularly close and critical examination for the sin of having pioneered concepts key to the Commonwealth narrative of English national identity but not having taken them to their logical conclusions. The Spanish may have constituted a world empire, for instance, but in practice it utterly lacked any Commonwealth-era concepts of tolerationism, while the Dutch may have been both republican and Calvinistic but they were excessively mercantile and failed to see the logic in a merger with the Commonwealth. The Jews, of course, failed to recognize Christ as the logical culmination of their tradition. (Incidentally, the Jews encountered by the English--marranos and Sephardim based in Amsterdam, mostly tracing their origins to Spain or to Spanish-occupied Portugal--happened to combine traits from all three cultures: Hispanic language and culture; Dutch-based commercial and mercantile networks; and, a well-articulated definition of their ethnic and collective identity as Jews.) Competitive emulation of these cultures was a major trend.
Consequently, the Commonwealth-era English reaction towards Jews was complex, marked by a desire for a greater knowledge of Hebrew culture and its sequelae and only reluctant assent to the presence of open Jews. Milton's references to Jews, for instance, are marked by a combination of an admiration of Old Testament narrative and of Hebrew heroes and condemnation for their failure to recognize that narrative's fulfillment in Christ and the irrelevance of their laws. A comparison of the approaches of Menasseh ben Israel to Cromwell seeking the formal readmission of the Jews, and of Fell's addresses to the Hebrews welcoming the Jews on the condition that they accept conversion, reveals the ways in which Commonwealth England perceived the Jews (and was perceived as thinking about the Jews). Official England, in turn, largely perceived the possibility of a legalized Jewish presence inasmuch such a presence could increase England's competitiveness towards its three enemies (expanding the imperial and commercial energies of England, allowing for the fulfillment of England's Christian mission).
In the end, the decision to allow for the admission of the Jews by simply declaring that no law existed to bar their immigration--as opposed to the specific declaration which ben Israel had hoped for--represented England's fundamental ambiguity towards the Jews, the failure of Commonwealth England itself to live up to its theories.
* * *
Well, thoughts? I'll post a draft of my speech later tonight, but above is basically the gist of it.
Milton was both the product and the producer of the revolutionary Commonwealth of mid-17th century England, a period beginning in earnest with the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and continuing, past the 1658 date of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, to the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the person of Charles II in 1660. The question of England's relationship to the Jews took on new importance during this period, both as a consequence of growing interest in Old Testament narratives and Hebrew culture as the keys to a non-Papist Christianity, and as a consequence of growing pressures to formally readmit the Jews to England after three and a half centuries of formal exclusion.
England's relationship to the Jews was shaped by its peculiar relationships to three cultures: the Spanish, producers of perhaps the first world empire; the Dutch, pioneers of the first mercantile Calvinistic republic; and the Jews, pioneers of monotheism and the Abrahamic tradition. All three cultures did receive a certain amount of respect in post-Reformation England, as pioneers of certain key concepts. However, particularly in the era of the Commonwealth, which was influenced by a combination of a strong English nationalism linked to millenarian sentiments which dentified England as the culmination of world history, these cultures came under particularly close and critical examination for the sin of having pioneered concepts key to the Commonwealth narrative of English national identity but not having taken them to their logical conclusions. The Spanish may have constituted a world empire, for instance, but in practice it utterly lacked any Commonwealth-era concepts of tolerationism, while the Dutch may have been both republican and Calvinistic but they were excessively mercantile and failed to see the logic in a merger with the Commonwealth. The Jews, of course, failed to recognize Christ as the logical culmination of their tradition. (Incidentally, the Jews encountered by the English--marranos and Sephardim based in Amsterdam, mostly tracing their origins to Spain or to Spanish-occupied Portugal--happened to combine traits from all three cultures: Hispanic language and culture; Dutch-based commercial and mercantile networks; and, a well-articulated definition of their ethnic and collective identity as Jews.) Competitive emulation of these cultures was a major trend.
Consequently, the Commonwealth-era English reaction towards Jews was complex, marked by a desire for a greater knowledge of Hebrew culture and its sequelae and only reluctant assent to the presence of open Jews. Milton's references to Jews, for instance, are marked by a combination of an admiration of Old Testament narrative and of Hebrew heroes and condemnation for their failure to recognize that narrative's fulfillment in Christ and the irrelevance of their laws. A comparison of the approaches of Menasseh ben Israel to Cromwell seeking the formal readmission of the Jews, and of Fell's addresses to the Hebrews welcoming the Jews on the condition that they accept conversion, reveals the ways in which Commonwealth England perceived the Jews (and was perceived as thinking about the Jews). Official England, in turn, largely perceived the possibility of a legalized Jewish presence inasmuch such a presence could increase England's competitiveness towards its three enemies (expanding the imperial and commercial energies of England, allowing for the fulfillment of England's Christian mission).
In the end, the decision to allow for the admission of the Jews by simply declaring that no law existed to bar their immigration--as opposed to the specific declaration which ben Israel had hoped for--represented England's fundamental ambiguity towards the Jews, the failure of Commonwealth England itself to live up to its theories.
Well, thoughts? I'll post a draft of my speech later tonight, but above is basically the gist of it.
