JERUSALEM: A TREATISE ON ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY AND JUDAISM
London : Longman, Orme, Brown and Longmans, 1838. Item #42469
1st English-language edition. Period Quater leather and marbled boards, 8vo, IX, 329, 371 pages. In English with occasional Hebrew. Bound in two volumes (complete). In one of his most important works, Mendelssohn argues that no religious institution should use force, emphasizing that Judaism does not use dogma as a coercive tool. He writes that with reason people can find religious and philosophical truth, and also suggests that what makes Judaism distinct is its God-given code of law. Mendelssohn goes on to advocate for Jews participating in civil society so that their rights to practice Judaism can be protected. Moses Mendelssohn (Moses of Dessau; 1729–1786) was a philosopher of the German Enlightenment in the pre-Kantian period, early Maskil, and a renowned Jewish figure in the 18th century. Mendelssohn was fluent in German and Hebrew and learned Latin, Greek, English, French, and Italian. His early teachers were young, broadly educated Jews, and he met the writer and dramatist G.E. Lessing (1754) and a deep and lifelong friendship developed between them. Throughout his life he worked as a merchant, while carrying out his literary activities and widespread correspondence in his free time. In 1754 Mendelssohn began to publish – at first with the assistance of Lessing – philosophical writings and later also literary reviews. He also started a few literary projects (for example, the short-lived periodical Kohelet Musar) in order to enrich and change Jewish culture and took part in the early Haskalah. In 1763, he was awarded the first prize of the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences for his work Abhandlung über die Evidenz in metaphysischen Wissenschaften ("Treatise on Evidence in Metaphysical Knowledge"). However, when the academy elected him as a member in 1771, King Frederick II refused to ratify its decision. In 1769, he became embroiled in a dispute on the Jewish religion, and from then on, he confined most of his literary activity to the sphere of Judaism. His most notable and enduring works in this area included the translation into German and commentary on the Pentateuch, Sefer Netivot ha-Shalom ("Book of the Paths of Peace," 1780–83) and his Jerusalem: oder, Ueber religiöse Macht und Judenthum ("Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism," 1783, this work), the first polemical defense of Judaism in the German language and one of the pioneering works of modern Jewish philosophy. An active intermediary on behalf of his own people in difficult times and a participant in their struggle for equal rights, he was at the same time a forceful defender of the Enlightenment against the opposition to it which gained strength toward the end of his life. In the midst of a literary battle against one of the leading figures of the counter-Enlightenment, he died in 1786 (EJ 2007). This copy bears the period ownership signature of Hyman M. Hart at the top of the title page of vol II, probably written prior to binding as the top of the signature is trimmed even with the rest of the leaves. SUBJECT(S): Judaism. Judai¨sme. Judaism. Church and state -- Freedom of religion -- Judaism -- Apologetic works. OCLC: 1113705134. Wear and rubbing to boards and spine, front inside hinge weak, but a solid nice set in period binding of the first English edition of an enduring classic of the Jewish Enlightenment. Important. (KH-10-10-+).
Price: $600.00