Natural religion has no mysteries any more than merely positive religion. For there is no mystery implied in one man being unable to communicate his knowledge to another of defective capacity with the same degree of completeness which he himself has attained; otherwise mysteries might be attributed to all the sciences, and there would then be mysteries of mathematics as well as mysteries of religion. Only political religion can have mysteries, in order to lead men in an indirect way to the attainment of the political end, inasmuch as they are made to believe that thereby they can best attain their private ends, though this is not always in reality the case. There are lesser and greater mysteries in the political religions. The former consist in the material knowledge of all particular operations and their connection with one another. The latter, on the contrary, consist in the knowledge of the form, that is, of the end by which the former are determined. The former constitute the totality of the laws of religion, but the latter contains the spirit of the laws.
The Jewish religion, even at its earliest origin among the nomadic patriarchs, is already distinguished from the heathen as natural religion, inasmuch as, instead of the many comprehensible gods of heathenism, the unity of an incomprehensible God lies at its foundation. For as the particular causes of the effects, which in general give rise to a religion, are in themselves unknown, and we do not feel justified in transferring to the causes the attributes of the particular effects, in order thereby to characterise them, there remains nothing but the idea of cause in general, which must be related to all effects without distinction. This cause cannot even be analogically determined by the effects. For the effects are opposed to one another, and neutralise each other even in the same object. If therefore we ascribed them all to one and the same cause, the cause could not be analogically determined by any.
The heathen religion, on the other hand, refers every kind of effect to a special cause, which can of course be characterised by its effect. As a positive religion the Jewish is distinguished from the heathen by the fact, that it is not a merely political religion, that is, a religion which has for its end the social interest (in opposition to true knowledge and private interest); but in accordance with the spirit of its founder, it is adapted to the theocratic form of the national Government, which rests on the principle, that only the true religion, based on rational knowledge, can harmonise with the interest of the state as well as of the individual. Considered in its purity, therefore, it has no mysteries in the proper sense of the word; that is to say, it has no doctrines which, in order to reach their end, men will not disclose, but merely such as can not be disclosed to all.
After the fall of the Jewish state the religion was separated from the state which no longer existed. The religious authorities were no longer, as they had been before, concerned about adapting the particular institutions of religion to the state; but their care went merely to preserve the religion, on which the existence of the nation now depended. Moved by hatred towards those nations who had annihilated the state, and from anxiety lest with the fall of the state the religion also might fall, they hit upon the following means for the preservation and extension of their religion.
1. The fiction of a method, handed down from Moses, of expanding the laws, and applying them to particular cases. This method is not that which reason enjoins, of modifying laws according to their intention, in adaptation to time and circumstances, but that which rests upon certain rules concerning their literary expression.
2. The legislative force ascribed to the new decisions and opinions obtained by this method, giving to them an equal rank with the ancient laws. The subtle dialectic, with which this has been carried on down to our times, and the vast number of laws, customs and useless ceremonies of all sorts, which it has occasioned, may be easily imagined.
The history of the Jewish religion can, in consequence of this, be appropriately divided into five great epochs. The first epoch embraces the natural religion, from the times of the patriarchs down to Moses at the exodus from Egypt. The second comprehends the positive or revealed religion, from Moses to the time of the Great Synagogue (Keneseth Haggedolah). This council must not be conceived as an assembly of theologians at a definite time; the name applies to the theologians of a whole epoch from the destruction of the first temple to the composition of the Mishnah. Of these the first were the minor prophets (Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi, etc., of whom 120 are counted altogether), and the last was Simon the Just.[32] These, as well as their forerunners from the time of Joshua, took as their basis the Mosaic laws, and added new laws according to time and circumstances, but in conformity with the traditional method, every dispute on the subject being decided by the majority of voices.
The third epoch extends from the composition of the Mishnah by Jehudah the Saint[33] to the composition of the Talmud by Rabina and Rabassi.[34] Down to this epoch it was forbidden to commit the laws to writing, in order that they might not fall into the hands of those who could make no use of them. But as Rabbi Jehudah Hanassi, or, as he is otherwise called, Rabbenu Hakades observed, that, in consequence of their great multiplicity, the laws may easily fall into oblivion, he gave himself a licence to transgress a single one of the laws in order to preserve the whole. The law transgressed was that against committing the laws to writing; and in this licence he defended himself by a passage in the Psalms, "There are times, when a man shows himself well-pleasing to God by transgressing the laws."[35] He lived in the time of Antoninus Pius, was rich, and possessed all the faculties for such an undertaking. He therefore composed the Mishnah, in which he delivers the Mosaic laws in accordance either with a traditional or with a rational method of exposition. It contains also some laws which form the subject of dispute.
This work is divided into six parts. The first contains the laws relating to agriculture and horticulture; the second, those which refer to feasts and holidays. The third part comprehends the laws which define the mutual relations of the two sexes (marriage, divorce, and such subjects). The fourth part is devoted to the laws which deal with the teachers of the law; the fifth, to those which treat of the temple-service and sacrifices; and the sixth, to the laws of purification.