Nursing the fatherland? Hohenzollern statebuilding and the hidden transcript of political resistance in Hanoverian female charity during the Second German Empire

In summer 1866 the Austro-Prussian struggle for supremacy in Germany erupted into open conflict. King Georg V of Hanover sided with other governments loyal to the German Confederation against Prussia, but after initially defeating Prussian forces at Langensalza, he was forced to capitulate. Two days after the battle, on June 29, 1866, the widow of the Hanoverian general Sir Georg Julius von Hartmann told her daughter in no uncertain terms how she felt about the Prussian government and its allies. In her opinion they were nothing more than “robber states” that cloaked their disregard for the Ten Commandments in sanctimonious public displays of piety. “These Protestant Jesuits,” she continued, “offend me more than the Catholic ones. You know that I am German with all my heart and love my Germany, but I cannot consider them genuine Germans anymore because they only want to make Germany Prussian.”

Leaving Home: Philo of Alexandria on the Exodus.

For Jewish-Hellenistic authors writing in Egypt, the Exodus story posed unique challenges. After all, to them Egypt was, as Philo of Alexandria states, their fatherland. How do these authors come to terms with the biblical story of liberation from Egyptian slavery and the longing for the promised land? In this chapter I am taking a close look at Philo’s detailed discussion of the Exodus and locate it within the larger context of Jewish-Hellenistic literature (Wisdom of Solomon, Ezekiel’s Exagoge). In Philo’s rewriting of the Exodus the destination of the journey is barely mentioned. Contrary to the biblical narrative, in the scene of the burning bush, as retold by Philo, God does not tell Moses where to go. Philo’s main concern is what happens in Egypt: both in biblical times and in his own days. The Exodus is nevertheless important to Philo: He reads the story allegorically as a journey from the land of the body to the realms of the mind. Such a symbolic reading permitted him to control the meaning of the Exodus and to stay, literally and figuratively, in Egypt.