self and to fellow men, truth, purity, holiness and all the moral virtues. All these Agadoth embody a higher principle of justice than does the Halacha, which is based on law alone. They emphasize the loftiest standards of conduct. When, for instance, the law says, "Thou shalt take no interest from thy brother, the fellow Israelite, but thou mayest do so from the foreigner", R. Simlai, expounding Ps. xv, says, "Wouldst thou dwell with God, thou shouldst take no interest from the nonJew". Again, according to the Halacha, a man who had been married for ten years, without having had children, is expected, if not commanded, to take another wife, in order to build up his house. The Agada, on the other hand, tells of such a couple that came before Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, and when the wife declared that as the best of her treasures she would take with her her beloved husband, the great master said, "Where such love exists, God Himself will reward the couple with His love". They remained together and begot children. Examples of this class of Agada might be multiplied indefinitely. They show the real significance of the Agada for Jewish doctrine.

The last class consists of those eschatological Agadoth, of which the Ascension of Moses and the Testament of Abraham are typical. There is, however, a vast difference between the Jewish and Christian attitude toward the theological and eschatological doctrines expressed in these Agadoth. From the Jewish standpoint they are of extreme importance. What, for instance, would we know of the Jewish conception of the soul and of future life without them? Yet the views expressed therein were always regarded merely as the personal, subjective and controvertible opinions of the individual Rabbis to whom the separate Agadoth were ascribed. They never developed into hard and fast dogma, that restrains all reason and enforces authority and belief upon the people, as was the case in the Church. It is a serious error, if not wilful misrepresentation, of Christian theologians to regard the Agada, that often contains bold sayings concerning God and the future, as the literal beliefs of the Jewish people, and characteristic of Jewish credulity. Some mystics or fanatics may have accepted them literally. But actually the Agada merely reflects the soaring

up of the spirit of the Jew to the realm of the imagination, or, as Dr. Enelow well sums it up, as "the element making for freedom, spontaneity and poetry of the Jewish soul". The Halacha is the continuation of the work of priestly codification of ritual practice, and is therefore formal and dry. The Agada is the continuation of the prophetic and poetic inspiration, a well of living waters for the thirsty soul, pouring forth comfort, hope, faith and living truth for the people. And just as the call of true religion is, not for ritualism, but for righteousness, so must the theologian and the preacher turn ever for new life and inspiration, not to the stagnant pool of the Halacha, but to the perennial well of the Agada.

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REVIEW OF "AL-HIDAJA 'ILA FARAID AL-QULUB DES BACHJA IBN JOSEF IBN PAQUDA, AUS ANDALUSIEN, IM ARABISCHEN URTEXT ZUM ERSTEN MALE NACH DER OXFORDER UND PARISER HANDSCHRIFT, SOWIE DER PETERSBURGER FRAGMENTEN", HERAUSGEGEBEN VON DR. A. S. YAHUDA

RABBI ISRAEL BETTAN

As described on the title page, this is the original Arabic text of Bachya's philosophical work, edited in its complete form for the first time with critical introduction by Dr. A. S. Yahuda. Whether Bachya is to be put in the foremost rank of the Jewish philosophers of the middle ages or not, may be a fit and proper subject for critical study and discussion, but that to his Chovoth Halevovoth, because of the widespread, salutary influence it has exerted on the spiritual life of our people, must be accorded a place of great prominence, admits of no contradiction nor doubt. For these many centuries this philosophical treatise in Judah Ibn Tibbon's Hebrew translation (1160 A. D.) has been to the Jews of Eastern Europe particularly a source of religious inspiration, a call and stimulus to a higher spiritual life. Indeed, not so much as a philosophical tractate, demonstrating logically and convincingly the all-important truths upon which Judaism rests, has it made its appeal to the popular mind, but rather as a manual for devotion and religious exaltation. The lofty ideals, the pure and intense piety of the author, his frequent appeal to the emotions, his fervor and eloquence-faults, no doubt, in a mere logician-have won for this work a place among the best known, most admired and loved literary productions of the Jewish

Arabic philosophers; and in its repeated emphasis on the essence of Judaism, its vital principles and spiritual elements, assigning to ancient custom, traditional observance, and external practice a position of unquestionable inferiority, of minor importance and significance as compared with the "duties of the heart", it stands by its very content and spirit nearer to our own time and touches our own religious life at a greater number of points than any other work that has come down to us from that classic period. The publication of the original text, therefore, edited and critically analyzed by so able a student in the field of Arabic philosophy as Dr. Yahuda is as timely in its interest as it is valuable for the new light it throws on many a difficulty.

The term, original text, if left unmodified, may prove misleading, for the editor had to deal not with one single text, but with two complete manuscripts and a variety of fragments and variants, all of which had to be closely examined, compared and sifted before this original text could be produced. The Oxford manuscript, being the most complete, and bearing evidence of being the earliest as well as the most in agreement with Tibbon's Hebrew translation, deviating from it in only a few sporadic cases, forms the basis of this edition. The Paris manuscript, next to it in completeness, presents marked textual differences, especially in the introduction to the first portal and the opening part of the second. These divergencies discovered in P. Yahuda characterizes as spurious, exhibiting a deliberate and bold attempt on the part of some scribe to bring Bachya in closer harmony with the teachings of Arabic philosophy. Thus, the first portal dealing with the question of unity is found to contain most of these changes. The fragments of the Petersburgh collection, such as contain the parts in question, seem to lend their support to this thesis, agreeing as they do on those points with the Oxford version. These fragments, incomplete in themselves, abounding in omissions of various sorts, serve only as means of corroboration and verification of the editor's choice when confronted with textual difficulties; they are seldom incorporated in the text. In all cases of wide divergence such as the variants present, the Oxford version is preferred, especially when it is found to harmonize with Tibbon's translation.

As all the manuscripts are written in Hebrew characters, it is clearly evident, as the editor willingly admits, that such was Bachya's mode of writing Arabic; the original copy, therefore, must have been written in the same manner. Yahuda, however, at a cost of much time and labor, chooses to transcribe the whole work, excepting the numerous quotations cited by the author from Biblical and Talmudic sources, into Arabic characters. It is difficult to see why so much energy had to be spent on such a thankless task, which is entirely unnecessary and can not but detract from the general value of the editor's efforts. Yahuda discovers that Bachya, in rendering the original Arabic into Hebrew characters, has made grammatical errors, unavoidable because of natural differences in the respective orthographies. But surely such inadequacies could have been pointed out without having to submit the text to such a violent change of form. The further claim that this change was made necessary by the fact that there are many Jewish students in the Orient who can not read an Arabic work in Hebrew characters, is hardly sufficient. As analogy the editor cites the case of Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch, which, though originally written in Hebrew characters, must now be printed in German type if it is to be generally understood among German Jews. Whether these two cases are quite analogous only one acquainted with Jewish conditions in the East can judge, but it does not seem likely that the number of Oriental Jews who read the Arabic but are unfamiliar with the Hebrew language is very great. Yahuda also assumes that in its altered form Bachya's work will champion the cause of Judaism, its thought and ethics, among Mohammedan scholars who still seem to harbor the erroneous impression that polytheistic and anthropomorphic notions abound in the religion of the Jew and that Islam alone of all religions is based on pure monotheism-an impression which they received from Samaritans and Karaites, and especially from Jewish converts-in assuming this Yahuda is prone to exaggerate the value and effectiveness of this form of propaganda. Judaism has been before the world long enough, and if proof is all they wanted our detractors and calumniators could have been convinced long ago. On the whole, it is open to question whether an editor of