The Ashkenazi Revolution

64managed by those of foreign, or of mixed, origin, would sometimes riseagainst the capitol and did with it as they pleased. The city that conqueredthe world, and ruled over space, had been trampled to the ground. This wasthe reward for all its conquests. Under these circumstances, theenchantment, known as Christianity, continued to gain strength. Thisreligion, which is an adulterated and compromised Judaism, and which wasmodified to make it more appealing to idolaters, was founded upon theJewish principle of giving primacy to the dimension of time, of thepreference for that which is hidden over that which is revealed and of greatsacrifice for the afterlife. As much as the conquest of space proved itselfinsufficient to provide harmony and content to life, as much as it revealedits inability to be a unifying force, so did people turn their attention to thedimension of time, to the reality and mysteries within it. Jewish ideas andJudeo-Christian literature of the evangelists began conquering the hearts ofeducated readers of the gentile world and, little by little, replacing theGreek classics. The emperor Constantine the Great discerned, with hisphenomenal political instincts, that Christianity was suitable to be theunifying passion, and his conversion, in the year 312, opened a new era inworld history. Rome bowed its head before the time-faith of the Jews,accepted its principles and turned them into the central pillars of its world.Thus was formed the world which the English historian Arnold Toynbeedefined as “the Judaised World”.As Christianity became the official religion, it began to persecute itscompetitors, among them the Jews. However, its nourishment fromJudaism, and its affinities to the pluralistic Roman world, caused there toalmost always be, within the Christian peoples, an element that mitigatedthe hatred toward Jews and prevented it from bringing about their totaldestruction. The persecutions against the Jews in the Christian worldexacted a heavy toll, just as did the Jewish wars in the times of the Romanemperors, but they were always given, then and now, a chance to recoverand renew their strength. This situation began to crumble, at its foundation,in the beginning of the 19 th century, when forces that refused to fit into theRoman world began to appear in the lands of Europe, and they rose againstit to destroy it and ruin it. But, before we touch on this topic, we shall