A short history of Jewish literature from the fall of the temple (70 C. E.) to the era of emancipation (1786 C. E.) / by Israel Abrahams.

  • Abrahams, Israel, 1858-1925.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short history of Jewish literature from the fall of the temple (70 C. E.) to the era of emancipation (1786 C. E.) / by Israel Abrahams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the facts, however bald and inadequate it be, can obscure the truth that this little book deals with a great and an inspiring literature. It is possible to question whether the books of great Jews always belonged to the great books of the world. There may have been, and there were, greater legalists than Rashi, greater poets than Jehuda Halevi, greater philosophers than Maimonides, greater moralists than Bachya. But there has been no greater literature than that which these and numerous other Jews represent. Rabbinism was a sequel to the Bible, and if like all sequels it was unequal to its original, it nevertheless shared its greatness. The works of all Jews up to the modern period were the sequel to this sequel. Through them all may be detected the unifying principle that literature in its truest sense includes life itself ; that intellect is the hand¬ maid to conscience ; and that the best books are those which best teach men how to live. This underlying unity gave more harmony to Jewish literature than is possessed by many literatures more distinctively national. The maxim, “ Right¬ eousness delivers from death,” applies to books as well as to men. A literature whose consistent theme is Righteousness is immortal. On the very day on which Jerusalem fell, this theory of the interconnection between literature and life became the fixed principle of Jewish thought, and it ceased