MAIMONIDES ON THE JEWISH CREED.
Introduction.
The passage from the tenth, or in some versions eleventh, chapter of the Mishna Tractate Sanhedrin on which this essay of Maimonides is a commentary is the "locus classicus" for the dogma question in Judaism. It is noteworthy that the formulation of dogmas in Jewish theological literature had a comparatively late origin. It was not the habit of the Rabbins of the Talmud to dogmatize on conduct and life. Whereverthey are found doing so we must seek the reasons in historical causes. The Rabbins were often called upon to defend their own views and expositions of Scripture from the attacks of heretics and apostates. And one can clearly see from the tone and contents of this Mishna of Sanhedrin that it is in substance an answer to several points of contemporary controversy. Such words and phrases as (
Hebrew characters) unmistakably savour of dispute within the Jewish Camp. It is not the purpose of this article, however, to discuss the exact meaning of these terms. In general it may be said that they refer to individual men or sects among the Jews whose theological opinions were both in theory and practice at variance with the accredited views of the day, and called forth their protests. It was not until the time of the rise of the philosophical schools that the Jews withdrew from their hitherto exclusive devotion to the Talmud, and began that philosophical investigation into the fundamental principles of Judaism which gave birth to such a large crop of Jewish dogmatists for several successive centuries. The first dogmatists were the Karaites. The Karaite scholar
