[149]. See the letter of R. Jehudah Alfachar to Kimchi: Collected Responses of Maimonides (ed. Leipsic), Part III., p. 1, et seq.
[150]. See Dr. Joel’s monograph, Spinoza’s Theologisch-Politischer Traktat auf seine Quellen geprüft, Breslau, 1870.
[151]. See Kerem Chemed, III., pp. 67-70.
[152]. I may remark in passing that Luzzatto (ibid.) accuses Maimonides of yet another disservice to Judaism. By making opinions the essential element of perfection Maimonides, according to him, abolished the difference between the righteous man and the wicked. “The philosopher,” he says, “may commit theft, murder, and adultery, and yet attain eternal life: salvation does not depend on merit.” This charge was already brought against Maimonides by his medieval opponents, but it is quite mistaken. Maimonides insists, over and over again, that until a man has moral perfection it is impossible for him to reach intellectual perfection to the degree necessary for the attainment of acquired intellect. See, for instance, the passage from the introduction to Zera’im quoted above (p. [174]).
[153]. Though the conception of “nationalism” in its current sense is modern, the national sentiment itself has existed in our people at all times; and its existence and value have been realised in our literature in every period, from the Bible and the Talmud to the literature of Chassidism, though it used to be called by other names (“the love of Israel,” etc.). But the sentiment and its expression do not appear to the same extent or in the same form in all ages and in all individuals, and it is therefore legitimate to ask what was the attitude of any particular age or any particular thinker to the national sentiment. An interesting book might be written on the history of the national sentiment and consciousness in Israel, dealing with their different manifestations in different ages, their growth and decline, and their expression in the life of the nation and the thought of its great men in each period.
[154]. Guide, III., chap. xliii. Similarly in chap. xlviii.
[155]. End of Mishneh Torah.
[156]. See the Iggereth Teman and the Treatise of the Sanctification of the Name.
[157]. A German Jewish scholar, Dr. D. Rosin, in his monograph on the ethics of Maimonides (Die Ethik des Maimonides, Breslau, 1876), finds under the heading of “Nationalism” (p. 148) only two laws in the whole Mishneh Torah which allude to the duties of the Jew to his people. But in fact the two laws which he quotes (Hilchoth T’shubah, chap. iii. 11, and Hilchoth Matnath ’Aniim, chap. x. 2) emphasise rather the unity of the members of one faith.
[158]. Introduction to chapter Chelek.