Mosaic national code, Talmudism and Rabbinism in succession, thus drew ligatures with which to bind the individual; attached to these other threads; and of these again, wove the thick fabric whose ample folds enveloped the whole life. All matters, from the most important to the most trivial incidents of life, were thus invested for the Jew in a certain determinate legislative form. All, all was subjected to the dominion of this law of form, from the first breath which he drew at birth, to the last which closed his career in death; without these forms retaining any real religious character or any real religious purport, except just so much as they derived from the circumstance of their fulfilment being thus legislatively considered an act of religion.

Though we have adduced repeated proofs that this direction was a historical necessity, and that by virtue of this direction Talmudism became the means by which the Divine Idea was preserved in its integrity, and by which Jewdom during its dispersion in the middle ages was enabled to survive, yet do we clearly and fully recognise the fact, that thus the Idea became subservient to the Form. In pure Talmudism, all vitality of the Idea ceased. For example, Talmudism is inimical to the explanation of the principles, the thought, in the commandments; and notwithstanding the production of the Kabbalah, in connection with the Talmud, as a fanciful mystic dogma on the one hand, and the rise and progress, on the other, of the Aristotelian philosophy of Maimonides; Talmudism remained unshaken, scarcely taking note of the existence of its rival, until the latter expiring through inanition, left it to the strong arm of the Talmudic ceremonial law to wield the sceptre unopposed. One, and only one bene

ficial effect thence ensued. Out of Talmudism no controversial conflict ever arose, since in it there was no idea of power enough to sustain such a contest. In the second place it followed, that all personal freedom was annulled in the enforced obedience to the ritual. The most imminent danger to life was the only condition which exonerated the follower of the Talmud from performance of the smallest ritual observance, and then only in the moment of danger and in the slightest degree.

If we now again refer to the facts deducible from our examination of this third Talmudic principle, we shall find that the chief was the extraction, from the Mosaic national code, of a law of form for the individual, in which the religious idea lay as in an inner germ, by which its general character was for a time destroyed. Talmudism thus became the exact contrast to Prophetism, since the latter extracted the ideal, the former the material portion only of Mosaism. Talmudism circumscribed material life, adapting it to Jews only. Prophetism developed the ideal conception. Thus both individually prepare the way for a fourth grand phase in which the unity of the Idea and the Life, according to the spiritual conception of Mosaism, shall again develop itself and prevail. This Talmudism admits. It recognises the future union of mankind as a bequeathed truth; but it does not demand universal acceptance of its ritual by mankind. On the contrary, it expresses the belief that its law will be no longer in force among the Hebrew race itself. Talmudism was adapted in its whole system to a transition period only, of the religious idea; it protected it with the shield of its ritual, till the latent vitality of that idea should be aroused into all its activity.

We have now, my hearers, passed through the three great historical epochs of Judaism; Mosaism, Prophetism, and Talmudism. We have recognised in Mosaism the establishment of the Religious Idea, in the unity of the idea and the life; in Prophetism the victory of the religious idea over heathenism, its instrument being the Jewish people: the separation of the idea and the life, and the development of the religious idea, being the conditions of its universal acceptance by mankind. We have further determined Talmudism to have been the preserver of the religious idea, by investing and surrounding it with a ritual of observances. We have seen that Christianity and Moslemism were meantime the disseminators of the religious idea among the human race. In the fundamental view promulgated by them they overcame heathenism; but in its development, they combined it and modified it with Heathen elements, and thus completed the separation of the Idea and the Life.

We have now my, hearers, reached modern times, the present age. It remains for us to consider our own existence in the present and in the future, in the two concluding lectures of our proposed course.

222

LECTURE XI.

THE MOVEMENTS OF RECENT TIMES IN ALL RELI

GIOUS DENOMINATIONS.

FROM the investigation we have thus far pursued in these Lectures, into the development of the Religious Idea, what are the deductions to be drawn? It has been seen that the Religious Idea was first set forth in Mosaism; taking as its foundation the oneness of the idea and the life, yet clothing itself in the reality of a national code. It has been also seen, that from this starting point it came by means of Prophetism to pervade the Jewish race; that it afterwards disseminated itself by the medium of Christianity and Islamism, among mankind, though in consequence of the existing historical conditions necessarily assuming a one-sided form. Its progress has ever been marked by two features. First, it has had periods of strife in which the Religious Idea was in conflict with the Human Idea, or Paganism; and during which therefore, unembodied in any tangible shape, it developed its abstract strength only. Of this Prophetism, when seeking to overcome Heathenism in the Jewish race itself, furnishes an example; as again the early ages of Christianity and Islamism, when the Religious Idea was to win for itself an entrance into the world of man. Then when the tendency towards the

Religious Idea began to prevail, it everywhere subsided into a fixed but one-sided form. Thus Prophetism passed into Talmudism, which while preserving the Religious Idea entire, shrouded it in a formula that repressed and fettered the idea. Talmudism therefore limited individual freedom, by deducing from the Mosaic national law a law of material life for the individual. Christianity on its side passed into dogmatism and the church; Islamism, into dogmatism and hierarchical government, that vitiating the Religious Idea with Pagan elements, sought to endue traditional interpretation with the validity of a ruling principle of

life.

A fixed and thence from historical necessity an imperfect form, presupposes coming periods of struggle in which old and worn-out formulas will be superseded by new spiritual movements. Hence, by the new direction taken by human intellect, a new era of struggle was necessarily prepared for the three great spiritual theories, Christianity, Islamism, and Talmudism, which has rendered their stability doubtful and which tends to the evolution of some new mental phase in the world of man. This age of struggle is come; in it we live and have our being. Christianity was the first subjected to these convulsive movements, because its home was amid those races of men, the races of Europe, which have always been the most accessible to intellectual activity and the especial vehicles of intellectual progress. Then followed Talmudism in such parts of Jewdom as had become European. It is true, that in consequence of the complete social exclusion and spiritual isolation of the Jews, Talmudism stood unmoved, much longer (full 300 years longer) than Christianity.