Albo, Joseph
his refusal to credit the book with signal qualities calling for recognition. He charges the author with shallowness and a fondness for long-spun platitudes, due to his homiletic idiosyncrasies, His Significance. which would replace strict accuracy of logical process by superabundance of verbiage (Grätz, Gesch. d. Juden," viii. 157). Ludwig Schlesinger, who wrote an intro- duction to his brother's German translation of the Iḳḳarim (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1844), avers that Albo did little more than schedule, on a new plan, the articles of faith of Maimonides. On the other land, S. Back, in his dissertation on Joseph Albo (Breslau, 1869), places him on a high pedestal as "the first Jewish thinker who had the courage to coordinate philosophy and religion, or even to make both identical." Albo," says Bark. did not merely give the Jewish religion a philosophical foundation; he made philosophy preeminently religious in its contents. The purpose of the book was neither to coordinate religion and philosophy nor to build up a strictly logical system of dogmatics. Much fairer to the vital intentions of the author is the theory developed by Tänzer, that the "'Iḳḳarim constitutes in reality a well-conceived contribution to the apologetics of Judaism.
The work was not composed in its entirety at once. The first part was published as an independent work. It develops the gist of Albo's thought: and it was only when its publication brought down upon him a perfect deluge of abuse and criticism that he felt impelled to add to it three more sections—by way, as it were, of amplification and commentary on the views advanced in the first. In his preface to the second part Albo delivers himself of a vigorous sermon on the subject of his censors: "He that would criticize a book should, above His "'Iḳḳarim." all, know the method employed by its
author, and should judge all the pas
sages on a certain subject as a whole, He castigates the hasty and careless procedure of those who will pass judgment on an author without remembering this fundamental requirement of sound criticism. Alba's opponents certainly did not handle him delicately. He was accused, among other things, of plagiarism. It was maintained that he appropriated the thoughts of his teacher Crescas especially. without giving him due credit. This accusation has been repeated, even in modern times, by no less a selotar than M. Joël Examination of the incrimiminating evidence, however, does not substantiate the indictment. Crescas having been Albo's teacher, the similarities are only such as might be reasonably expected in the writings of both preceptor and disciple.
Popular as the loose statement is, that Albo was actuated to write his "'Iḳḳarim" by a desire to reduce to a more handy number the thirteen articles of faith drawn up by Maimonides, it must be dismissed as erroneous. The numeration of fundamental dogmas or principles of religion is an incidental result of All's inquiry, not the primary and essential motive. It is an open question how far the claim may be pressed that Judaism has produced an independent philosophy of religion. But whatever labor was devoted to this tied by Jewish thinkers was, in every case, primarily prompted and inspired by the ardent desire to defend the citadel of Jewish faith against the assaults of its enemies. Taking a broad survey of the whole field, it may safely he said that at four different perils Judaism mus have been under the stress of this duty. When, in Alexandria, Greek thought laid siege to the fortress of Judaism, the consequent urgency of sufficeient resistance produced Philo's system. The second reasoned exposition of Judaism was produced at the time of the controversies with Karaism and under the influence of the polemies of the Mohammedan Philosophy and Apologetics. schools. Maimonides, in turn, represents the reaction exerted by the Arabic Aristotelian schoolmen, And, finally, Albo enters the lists as Judaism's champion under the challenge of Christian doctrine. This characteristic element, in the genesis of whatever system of philosophical dogmatics Judaism evolved,must be constantly borne in mind in judging any phase or feature of the system, and especially in forming an estimate of Alho's method,
Times of controversy concerning spiritual things call, naturally, for the systematization of one's own fund of philosophy. Much has been written on the subject of the dogmatic or undogmatic nature of Judaism. Certain it is that the inclination for elaborating creeds has tempted the Jewish theologians to frame dogmas only in critical times of heated controversy. Albo had many predecessors in this field, both among the Rabbinites and the Karaites. But, strange as it may seem, he only followed the example of Abla Mari ben Moses hen Joseph of Lunel, one of the most outspoken leaders of the anti-Maimonists (in his "Minhat Kenaot"), and of Simun lien Ẓemah Duran (in his "Magen Abot"), in limiting the fun- damental roots" to three—namely, the belief in the existence of God; in revelation; and in divine retribution, or, if it be preferred, in immortality: In the formulation of other articles of faith the controversies to which the compilers Ind been exposed, and in which they had taken part, influenced, to a large extent, both the selection of the specific principles to be accentuated and the verbal dress in which they were arrayed. Similarly in the case of Albo, his selection was made with a view to correct the scheme of Maimonides in those points where it seemed to support the contentions of the Christian dogmatists and controversialists. Maimonides himself had been influenced by a desire to obviate certain Christian and Mohammedan contentions. His emphasis upon the absolute incorporality of Gas only finds its true light when the doctrine of the incarnation is bore in mind, is Messianic expectation, with the stress upon the constancy with which its future fulfilment is to he looked for, had also an anti-Christian bearing. But this very point, the Messianic dogma, had in turn—soon after Maimonides—become a source of grave anxiety to the Jews, forced, as they were, to meet in public disputations the champions of the regnant and militant Church. Among the spokesmen of the Church not a low were converts from Judaism. These were not slow to urge this Messsianic dogma of Maimonids as far as they might, to embarass the defenders of Judaism.
Distinctive Features of Albo's Scheme. Before Maimonides the question of the corporeality of the Messiah appears not to have been among the problems discussed and debated in the polemics between the Church and the Synagogne But half a century after him, when his Messianic doctrine had been accepted as one of the essential articles of the faith, it is this very point that is pushed into the foreground of the discussions. Having participated in one of these public disputations. Albo must have become conscious of the embarrassment which the Maimonidean position on not but occasion to the defenders of Judaism. In his scheme, Therefore, the Messiah is eliminated as an integral part of the Symagogue's faith. In its stead he lays Stress upon the doctrine of divine retribution. Graetz has argued that Albo was prompted by a desire to
