The writer has attempted in this volume to take up a few of the most characteristic points in Jewish doctrine and practice, and to explain some of the various phases through which they have passed, since the first centuries of the Christian era. The presentation is probably much less detached than is the case with other volumes in this series. But the difference was scarcely avoidable. The writer was not expounding a religious system which has no relation to his own life. On the contrary, the wr

The aim of this little book is to present in brief outline some of the leading conceptions of the religion familiar since the Christian Era under the name Judaism. The word 'Judaism' occurs for the first time at about 100 B.C., in the Graeco-Jewish literature. In the second book of the Maccabees (ii. 21, viii. 1), 'Judaism' signifies the religion of the Jews as contrasted with Hellenism, the religion of the Greeks. In the New Testament (Gal. i. 13) the same word seems to denote the Pharisaic sys

The feature of Judaism which first attracts an outsider's attention, and which claims a front place in this survey, is its 'Nomism' or 'Legalism.' Life was placed under the control of Law. Not only morality, but religion also, was codified. 'Nomism,' it has been truly said, 'has always formed a fundamental trait of Judaism, one of whose chief aims has ever been to mould life in all its varying relations according to the Law, and to make obedience to the commandments a necessity and a custom' (La

It is often said that Judaism left belief free while it put conduct into fetters. Neither half of this assertion is strictly true. Belief was not free altogether; conduct was not altogether controlled. In the Mishnah (Sanhedrin, x. 1) certain classes of unbelievers are pronounced portionless in the world to come. Among those excluded from Paradise are men who deny the resurrection of the dead, and men who refuse assent to the doctrine of the Divine origin of the Torah, or Scripture. Thus it cann

Though there are no accepted Articles of Faith in Judaism, there is a complete consensus of opinion that Monotheism is the basis of the religion. The Unity of God was more than a doctrine. It was associated with the noblest hope of Israel, with Israel's Mission to the world. The Unity of God was even more than a hope. It was an inspiration, a passion. For it the Jews 'passed through fire and water,' enduring tribulation and death for the sake of the Unity. All the Jewish martyrologies are writte

The historical consciousness of Israel was vitalised by a unique adaptability to present conditions. This is shown in the fidelity with which a number of ancient festivals have been maintained through the ages. Some of these were taken over from pre-Israelite cults. They were nature feasts, and these are among the oldest rites of men. But, as Maimonides wisely said eight centuries ago, religious rites depend not so much on their origins as on the use men make of them. People who wish to return t

'Judaism is often called the religion of reason. It is this, but it is also the religion of the soul. It recognises the value of that mystic insight, those indefinable intuitions which, taking up the task at the point where the mind impotently abandons it, carries us straight into the presence of the King. Thus it has found room both for the keen speculator on theological problems and for the mystic who, because he feels God, declines to reason about Him—for a Maimonides and a Mendelssohn, but a

That the soul has a life of its own after death was a firmly fixed idea in Judaism, though, except in the works of philosophers and in the liberal theology of modern Judaism, the grosser conception of a bodily Resurrection was predominant over the purely spiritual idea of Immortality. Curiously enough, Maimonides, who formulated the belief in Resurrection as a dogma of the Synagogue, himself held that the world to come is altogether free from material factors. At a much earlier period (in the th

The Messianic Hope has an intimate connection with Eschatology. Whereas, however, the latter in so far as it affirmed a Resurrection conceived of the immortality of Israelites, the former conceived the Immortality of Israel. It is not necessary here to trace the origin and history of the Messianic idea in Judaism. That this idea had a strong nationalistic tinge is obvious. The Messiah was to be a person of Davidic descent, who would be the restorer of Israel's greatness. Throughout Jewish histor

[This list does not include works on the early Religion of Israel, or articles in the standard Dictionaries of the Bible. For the rest, only works written in English are cited, and for the most part Jewish expositions of Judaism.] Articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London, Funk and Wagnalls, 12 vols. 1901-1906). Especially the following: 'Articles of Faith' (E. G. Hirsch); 'Atonement' (K. Kohler); 'Cabala' (L. Ginzberg); 'Catechisms' (E. Schreiber); 'Conferences' (D. Philipson); '