HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

The Wandering Jew
guished himself as a pillar of Christianity: "Neander
abandoned Judaism to devote himself to the service
of Evangelical Protestantism, with genius ever
fresh, and learning never pedantic, to cause a new
era in the study of the history of the Church, and
to be carried to his grave amid the tears of thousands,
and the lasting regret of all good men in
Europe and America. Heine relinquished the Israehte
faith apparently to get a freer opportunity
to assail all creeds alike, and to win the questionable
reputation of a German Voltaire, with weaker
health, and a career cut far sooner short than that
of his French prototype." ^
The mistaken notion of many Heine-critics that
he was the offspring of a Jewish father and a Christian
mother was continually offered as an explanation
for his unhealthy approach to moral and religious
problems. This legend of his origin was
brought to England in 1835. George Ehot, who
had access to reliable sources at Berlin, still accepted
this unsound theory in 1856. Eraser's Magazine
explained, as late as 1866, that Heine was
brought up in the Jewish religion of his father but
was profoundly influenced by his Christian mother.
As a consequence, the foundation was laid in his
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