of the same name, Mendelssohn’s work possessed some of the charm of its Greek exemplar. What most impressed the German world was its beauty and lucidity of style—features to which Mendelssohn still owes his popularity as a writer. The Phädon was an immediate success, and besides being often reprinted in German was speedily translated into nearly all the European languages, including English. The author was hailed as the “German Plato,” or the “German Socrates”; royal and other aristocratic friends showered attentions on him, and it is no exaggeration to assert with Kayserling that “no stranger who came to Berlin failed to pay his personal respects to the German Socrates.”
So far, Mendelssohn had devoted his talents to philosophy and criticism; now, however, an incident turned the current of his life in the direction of the cause of Judaism. Lavater was one of the most ardent admirers of Mendelssohn. He described him as “a companionable, brilliant soul, with piercing eyes, the body of an Aesop—a man of keen insight, exquisite taste and wide erudition . . . frank and open-hearted.” Lavater was fired with the ambition to convert his friend to Christianity. In the preface to a German translation of Bonnet’s essay on Christian Evidences, Lavater publicly challenged Mendelssohn to refute Bonnet or if he could not then to “do what wisdom, the love of truth and honesty must bid him, what a Socrates would have done if he had read the book and found it unanswerable.” This appeal produced a painful impression. Bonnet resented Lavater’s action, but Mendelssohn was bound to reply, though opposed to religious controversy. As he put it: “Suppose there were living among my contemporaries a Confucius or a Solon, I could, according to the principles of my faith, love and admire the great man without falling into the ridiculous idea that I must convert a Solon or a Confucius.”
Here we see the germs of Mendelssohn’s Pragmatism, to use the now current term. He shared this with Lessing; in this case, at all events, it is probable that the latter was indebted to Mendelssohn. But before discussing this matter, we must follow out the consequences of Lavater’s intrusion into Mendelssohn’s affairs. The latter resolved to devote the rest of his life to the emancipation of the Jews. Among them secular studies had been neglected, and Mendelssohn saw that he could best remedy the defect by attacking it on the religious side. A great chapter in the history of culture is filled by the influence of translations of the Bible. Mendelssohn added a new section to this chapter by his German translation of the Pentateuch and other parts of the Bible. This work (1783) constituted Mendelssohn the Luther of the German Jews. From it, the Jews learned the German language; from it they imbibed culture; with it there was born a new desire for German nationality; as a result of its popularity was inaugurated a new system of Jewish education. Some of the conservatives among the Jews opposed these innovations, but the current of progress was too strong for them. Mendelssohn was the first great champion of Jewish emancipation in the 18th century. He it was who induced C. W. Dohm to publish in 1781 his epoch-making work, On the Civil Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, a memorial which played a great part in the triumph of tolerance. Mendelssohn himself published a German translation of the Vindiciae judaeorum by Menasseh ben Israel. The excitement caused by these proceedings led Mendelssohn to publish his most important contribution to the problems connected with the position of Judaism in relation to the general life.
This work was the Jerusalem (1783; Eng. trans. 1838 and 1852). It is a forcible plea for freedom of conscience. Kant described it as “an irrefutable book.” Its basic idea is that the state had no right to interfere with the religion of its citizens. As Kant put it, this was “the proclamation of a great reform, which, however, will be slow in manifestation and in progress, and which will affect not only your people but others as well.” Mendelssohn asserted the pragmatic principle of the possible plurality of truths: that just as various nations need different constitutions—to one a monarchy, to another a republic, may be the most congenial to the national genius—so individuals may need different religions. The test of religion is its effect on conduct. This is the moral of Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, the hero of which is undoubtedly Mendelssohn. The parable of the three rings is the epitome of the pragmatic position. One direct result of this pragmatism was unexpected. Having been taught that there is no absolutely true religion, Mendelssohn’s own descendants—a brilliant circle, of which the musician Felix was the most noted—left the Synagogue for the Church. But despite this, Mendelssohn’s theory was found to be a strengthening bond in Judaism. For he maintained that Judaism was less a “divine need, than a revealed life.” In the first part of the 19th century, the criticism of Jewish dogmas and traditions was associated with a firm adhesion to the older Jewish mode of living. Reason was applied to beliefs, the historic consciousness to life. Modern reform in Judaism is parting to some extent from this conception, but it still holds good even among the liberals.
Of Mendelssohn’s remaining years it must suffice to say that he progressed in fame numbering among his friends more and more of the greatest men of the age. His Morgenstunden appeared in 1785, and he died as the result of a cold contracted while carrying to his publishers in 1786 the manuscript of a vindication of his friend Lessing, who had predeceased him by five years.
Mendelssohn had six children. His sons were: Joseph (founder of the Mendelssohn banking house, and a friend and benefactor of Alexander Humboldt), whose son Alexander (d. 1871) was the last Jewish descendant of the philosopher; Abraham (who married Leah Bartholdy and was the father of Fanny Hensel and J. L. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy); and Nathan (a mechanical engineer of considerable repute). His daughters were Dorothea, Recha and Henriette, all brilliantly gifted women.
Bibliography.—An edition of Mendelssohn’s works was published in 1843–1845, with a biography by his son Joseph; another edition of his Schriften zur Philosophie, Aesthetik und Apologetik, appeared (ed. Brasch) in 2 vols. in 1880. For Mendelssohn’s biography the chief sources are Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. v., and Kayserling’s M. Mendelssohn’s Leben und Wirken (1887). Much interesting material on the Mendelssohn family is given in Hensel’s Die Familie Mendelssohn (translated into English, 1881). Much general comment on Moses Mendelssohn appeared in the press of the world on occasion of the centenary of the birth of the composer Mendelssohn in 1909. (I. A.)
MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, JAKOB LUDWIG FELIX
(1809–1847), German composer, grandson of Moses Mendelssohn
(q.v.), was born in Hamburg on the 3rd of February 1809. In
consequence of the troubles caused by the French occupation
of Hamburg, Abraham Mendelssohn, his father, migrated in
1811 to Berlin, where his grandmother Fromet, then in the
twenty-fifth year of her widowhood, received the whole family
into her house, No. 7 Neue Promenade. Here Felix and his
sister Fanny received their first instruction in music from their
mother, under whose care they progressed so rapidly that their
exceptional talent soon became apparent. Their next teacher
was Madame Bigot, who, during the temporary residence of
the family in Paris in 1816, gave them valuable instruction.
On their return to Berlin they took lessons in thoroughbass
and composition from Zelter, in pianoforte-playing from Ludwig
Berger, and in violin-playing from Henning—the care of their
general education being entrusted to the father of the novelist
Paul Heyse.
Felix first played in public on the 24th of October 1818, taking the pianoforte part in a trio by Woelfl. On the 11th of April 1819 he entered the Berlin Singakademie as an alto, and in the following year began to compose with extraordinary rapidity. His earliest dated work is a cantata, In rührend feierlichen Tönen, completed on the 13th of January 1820. During that year alone he produced nearly sixty movements, including songs, pianoforte sonatas, a trio for pianoforte, violin and violoncello, a sonata for violin and pianoforte, pieces for the organ, and even a little dramatic piece in three scenes. In 1821 he wrote five symphonies for stringed instruments, each in three movements; motets for four voices, an
