What had they to do with the crucifixion or the rejection?'
'The fate of the Ten Tribes is a deeply interesting question,' said
Tancred; 'but involved in, I fear, inexplicable-obscurity. In England
there are many who hold them to be represented by the Afghans, who state
that their ancestors followed the laws of Moses. But perhaps they ceased
to exist and were blended with their conquerors.'
'The Hebrews have never blended with their conquerors,' said the lady,
proudly. 'They were conquered frequently, like all small states situate
amid rival empires. Syria was the battlefield of the great monarchies.
Jerusalem has not been conquered oftener than Athens, or treated worse;
but its people, unhappily, fought too bravely and rebelled too often, so
at last they were expatriated. I hold that, to believe that the Hebrew
communities are in a principal measure the descendants of the Ten
Tribes, and of the other captivities preceding Christ, is a just,
and fair, and sensible inference, which explains circumstances that
otherwise could not be explicable. But let that pass. We will suppose
all the Jews in all the cities of the world to be the lineal descendants
of the mob who shouted at the crucifixion. Yet another question! My
grandfather is a Bedouin sheikh, chief of one of the most powerful
tribes of the desert.
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