Chapters on Jewish Literature

Chapters on Jewish Literature

Project Gutenberg's Chapters on Jewish Literature, by Israel Abrahams
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Title: Chapters on Jewish Literature
Author: Israel Abrahams
Release Date: October 6, 2004 [EBook #13678]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHAPTERS ON JEWISH LITERATURE
BY ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. Author of "Jewish Life in the Middle
Ages"
PHILADELPHIA THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF
AMERICA

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY
OF AMERICA
The Lord Baltimore Press BALTIMORE, MD., U.S.A.

PREFACE
These twenty-five short chapters on Jewish Literature open with the fall
of Jerusalem in the year 70 of the current era, and end with the death of
Moses Mendelssohn in 1786. Thus the period covered extends over
more than seventeen centuries. Yet, long as this period is, it is too brief.
To do justice to the literature of Judaism even in outline, it is clearly
necessary to include the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the writings of
Alexandrian Jews, such as Philo. Only by such an inclusion can the
genius of the Hebrew people be traced from its early manifestations
through its inspired prime to its brilliant after-glow in the centuries
with which this little volume deals.
One special reason has induced me to limit this book to the scope
indicated above. The Bible has been treated in England and America in
a variety of excellent text-books written by and for Jews and Jewesses.
It seemed to me very doubtful whether the time is, or ever will be, ripe
for dealing with the Scriptures from the purely literary stand-point in
teaching young students. But this is the stand-point of this volume.
Thus I have refrained from including the Bible, because, on the one
hand, I felt that I could not deal with it as I have tried to deal with the
rest of Hebrew literature, and because, on the other hand, there was no
necessity for me to attempt to add to the books already in use. The
sections to which I have restricted myself are only rarely taught to
young students in a consecutive manner, except in so far as they fall
within the range of lessons on Jewish History. It was strongly urged on
me by a friend of great experience and knowledge, that a small
text-book on later Jewish Literature was likely to be found useful both
for home and school use. Such a book might encourage the elementary
study of Jewish literature in a wider circle than has hitherto been
reached. Hence this book has been compiled with the definite aim of

providing an elementary manual. It will be seen that both in the
inclusions and exclusions the author has followed a line of his own, but
he lays no claim to originality. The book is simply designed as a
manual for those who may wish to master some of the leading
characteristics of the subject, without burdening themselves with too
many details and dates.
This consideration has in part determined also the method of the book.
In presenting an outline of Jewish literature three plans are possible.
One can divide the subject according to Periods. Starting with the
Rabbinic Age and closing with the activity of the earlier Gaonim, or
Persian Rabbis, the First Period would carry us to the eighth or the
ninth century. A well-marked Second Period is that of the
Arabic-Spanish writers, a period which would extend from the ninth to
the fifteenth century. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century
forms a Third Period with distinct characteristics. Finally, the career of
Mendelssohn marks the definite beginning of the Modern Period. Such
a grouping of the facts presents many advantages, but it somewhat
obscures the varying conditions prevalent at one and the same time in
different countries where the Jews were settled. Hence some writers
have preferred to arrange the material under the different untries. It is
quite possible to draw a map of the world's civilization by merely
marking the successive places in which Jewish literature has fixed its
head-quarters. But, on the other hand, such a method of classification
has the disadvantage that it leads to much overlapping. For long
intervals together, it is impossible to separate Italy from Spain, France
from Germany, Persia from Egypt, Constantinople from Amsterdam.
This has induced other writers to propose a third method and to trace
Influences, to indicate that, whereas Rabbinism may be termed the
native product of the Jewish genius,