JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. The term Jewish Philosophy is here used to denote the attempt of Jews to solve the general prob lems of Philosophy from the point of view of Judaism, and conversely to establish the doctrines of Judaism on a philosophic basis. It does not include, however, merely dogmatic statements about God, the universe and man, such as are found in the sacred books, for philosophy is characterized by method as well as con tent. Every general proposition concerning the nature and attri butes of the Divine Being, the origin and processes of the universe, the nature, origin and destiny of man and the human soul, the rules of human conduct, and so on, belongs in content to philos ophy. But the literature containing such propositions is not classed as philosophical unless the method is scientific, i.e., ration alistic. Appeal to authority or faith or revelation is not a scien tific or rationalistic method. Scientific method makes use of observation and inference, deductive and inductive. Authority, faith and revelation may themselves form the subjects of scien tific study, and a rationalistic analysis of the topics mentioned would also come under philosophy. Accordingly, in a historical sketch of Jewish philosophy we exclude almost entirely the books of the Bible because, although the topics treated therein are also dealt with in philosophy, the method is not rationalistic, but dog matic. The historians, the lawgivers and the prophets of the Bible appeal almost entirely to authority and revelation for opin ion and guidance. The books of Job and Ecclesiastes form an ex ception and may be regarded as forming a transition from the purely dogmatic to the purely philosophic point of view. Nor can we include in this study the second literary monument of Judaism, the Talmud. And for the same reason. The Talmud is partly legal and partly legendary and homiletic. The legal and homiletical elements are based upon the Bible as revealed author ity, and the legends are of course just legends. The fact is that the Hebrews in their creative period, both in Biblical and Tal mudic times, had no scientific or rationalistic interests. We need not take literally the statement of Henry Sumner Maine : "Ex cept the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin"; but as concerns the application of rational analysis to the phenomena of nature and of human life, the opinion of Maine is correct. And if the Jews, too, in the
course of their life as a people began to philosophize, the impulse thereto is to be traced to Greek influence.
In pre-Christian times the Jews of Alexandria for the first time in their history came into contact with Greek life and thought. Being separated from their native countrx, Palestine, they quickly assimilated the Greek mode of life and intellectual atmosphere. Hebrew became a foreign tongue to them, and they read the Pentateuch in a Greek translation. They did not, however, forget that they were Jews, and the thinkers among them revered the laws of Moses and the rest of the Biblical books as the Word of God. At the same time they had a thorough appreciation of Greek science and philosophy which they tried to make their own. Being attached to two diverse cultures they felt the need of a synthesis or harmonization. The result was what is known as the Judeo-Alexandrian School of Philosophy, a brief descrip tion of which will be given later. When, in the middle ages, be ginning in the i oth century, the philosophic movement was inau gurated among the Jews in Kairuan and in Babylonia and later spread to Spain, Provence and other European countries, the im pulse was again due, though indirectly, to Greek literature. The immediate incentive came from the Arabs. But the Arabs them selves owed their interest in philosophical studies to the Christians in Syria and Mesopotamia, who in turn were the disciples of the Greeks.
The Judeo-Alexandrian school may be traced back in its crude beginnings to the and century B.C., and its culmination in the works of Philo Judaeus (b. c. 25 B.C.) is contemporaneous with Christianity. The philosophical movement among the Jews in the middle ages was not a continuation of the Alexandrian philosophy. The latter spent its force, so far as the Jews were concerned, in Philo, who had no Jewish successors, though the Fathers of the Church almost adopted him as their own, and traces of his influ ence are found in Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Ambrose, and in all likelihood also in the prologue of the Gospel of St. John. The early mediaeval Jewish philosophers, like Isaac Israeli, Al Mukammas, Saadia and others, made a fresh beginning to ration alize the Jewish faith, following the example of the Arabs among whom they lived.