The prophet Zenos predicts that the Jews would be “scourged by all people,” and that they would be dispersed among the nations, yet hated by all; they would become a “hiss and a by-word,” because of their rejection of the “God of Israel,” also called, the “Holy One of Israel.”
Note the peculiarity of this prediction. The Jews would be dispersed among, but never assimilated with, other nations. Other peoples, or parts of other peoples, have been dispersed and made friends among the peoples of the world, while the Jews, in the dispersion (the “diaspora,” as they call it) remain strangers, even when they acquire a new citizenship. History shows this to have been the rule, although there, of course, are many notable individual exceptions.
Dr. Keith, in his dissertations on the evidence for the truth of the Christian religion, calls attention to the fact that the Jews have always, since the crucifixion, been a suffering people. In the fifth century they were exiled from Alexandria, where they for centuries had had great influence. The emperor Justinian deprived them of their synagogues, and prohibited their use of any place whatever for religious purposes. He denied them the right to testify in court, and to dispose of any property they might have, by a will or testament. In Spain, at one time, they were given the choice between apostasy, imprisonment and exile. The same conditions were imposed on them in France. In Mohammedan countries they found equally bitter enemies. The head of the Roman Catholic world has, at sundry times, cursed all who befriended the Jews, as well as the Jews themselves. Christian holidays were sometimes made occasions of persecution. During the crusades, the hatred of the Jews increased. At Verdun, Trèves, Mainz, Speier and Worms thousands of Jews were robbed and murdered. At York, in England, it is said, on one occasion, 1500 Jews, including women and children, were captured, and when they were not permitted to ransom themselves, they murdered each other, in order to escape the fate prepared for them by the mob. In some countries the burning at the stake of a Jew was considered a great and noble “show.” Even the women rejoiced when they witnessed the agony of the victim in the flames. For, was not the death of a Jew a victory of the faith? Neither high nor low, neither sex nor age, was spared when the flames of persecution were burning. Among the victims who perished in the flames was the great Portuguese dramatist, Antonio Joseph de Silvia, whose only crime was that he was a Jew.
The so-called “pogroms” of 1881, 1903 and 1905 are recent history. And the Jewish problem of the present day in some countries indicates that the prophetic word is still in force.