Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

176 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

The struggle against Christianity was... only possible on the part of Chris-

tians, because it itself, and it alone, had grasped the human being, conscious-

ness, as the essence of all things, and it was only a matter of dissolving this

religious representation [Vorstellung] of the human being, a representation that

actually destroyed [vernichtete] all humanity, since according to it only One is

Everything. The Jew, on the other hand, was far too preoccupied with the sat-

isfaction of his still natural needs—which required of him his physical [sinn-

lich], religious tasks, his ablutions, purifications, his religious selection and

purification of daily foods—to be able to think about what a human being is

per se. He could not struggle against Christianity because he did not even

know what was at stake in this contest.^111

Although Christian spirit need only be secularly aufgehoben to become infinite

self-consciousness, Jews are too preoccupied with their practical cult even to

think about den Menschen überhaupt. Echoing Feuerbach’s characterization of

Judaism in Das Wesen des Christentums as a cult involving no more than the sat-

isfaction of base needs, and remarks of his own in Die Judenfrage, Bauer char-

acterizes Judaism as a set of rites concerned with earthy, bodily tasks.^112 Bauer

continues this line of argument by distinguishing between Christian and Jewish

casuistry. Although all religions are by their nature “Jesuitical,” Christian casu-

istry is a confused, religious pursuit of real, universal human values, whereas

Jewish casuistry is pure material egoism, a self-serving hypocrisy devoid of intel-

lectual content: “Jewish Jesuitism is merely the slyness of sensual egoism, com-

mon cleverness, and... because it always has to do with totally natural, physical

needs, is brute, crass hypocrisy. It is so crass and repulsive that one can only

turn away from it in disgust, but cannot even seriously contest [bestreiten] it.”^113

For Bauer Jewish practice is “animal cunning”^ and a “slyness of empirical ego-

ism” that, in its natural, sensual orientation, is repulsive (widerlich) and fills the

rational observer with disgust (Ekel).^114 Marx will try to harness the force of the

repulsiveness of Jewish material egoism for his own purposes in the second half

of his polemical response to Bauer.

Marx’s “Zur Judenfrage”: Overview

In his polemic response to Bauer, Marx gives notoriously short shrift to the

finer points of Bauer’s arguments and exploits formulations from Bauer’s text

that do not accurately represent the balance of Bauer’s position. In particu-

lar, Marx’s central claim—that Bauer calls only for political emancipation but

not real human emancipation—seriously misrepresents the thrust of much of