tary on the Mishnah, which was the
work of his youth; and that as he ripened intellectually, he changed
his mind about their value. We miss them in the Code and in the
"Guide to the Perplexed," where we should most of all have expected to
find them. In the same connection, Abravanel adds that the fashion of
laying down creeds as fundamental in Judaism owes its origin to the
method employed in the secular studies which always started with
certain indisputable axioms.

The same resistance to the effort to extract Judaism from a few source
principles is encountered in Jewish mysticism. Whatever we may think
of the particular form which mysticism took on in the Jewish religion,
we cannot but regard it as the outbreak of a longing that forms a part
of all vital religion. We have good reason, therefore, to treat with
respect its opinion of the intellectualizing process of Jewish
philosophy. Although it was also addicted to speculative categories
and developed a theosophy instead of a theology, it approached Judaism
from an entirely different angle. Being impressionistic in its trend,
it was bound to look elsewhere than to abstract concepts for the core
of Judaism. To put Judaism into the form of a creed appeared to the
mystics like combining pure gold with a baser metal, in order to mint
it for circulation.

_And More Recently by Mendelssohn_

IN modern times the anti-dogmatizing tendency found a vigorous
exponent in Mendelssohn. Yet, somehow or other, he has been singled
out for attack, as though he had advocated a dry formalism, unredeemed
by any inner principle or inspiration. He is charged with having been
under the influence of the shallow deism of the English philosophers.
The truth is that Mendelssohn only repeats in his way what Judah
Ha-Levi had taught before him. He distinctly emphasizes the belief in
the existence of God, in providence and in retribution as the sine qua
non of Judaism, but he is clear-minded enough to realize that they
constitute what he calls "the universal religion of mankind," and not
Judaism.

Mendelssohn did not succeed in developing a constructive view of
Judaism, whereby it might be enabled to withstand the shock of
modernism; nevertheless, he does not deserve the treatment accorded
him because of his alleged attitude towards creeds. His position as to
the relation of creeds to Judaism is the only tenable one. He
maintains that creeds can only be of two kinds; either they oppose
reas