As commentaries, too, on these, the philosophy of
the Hebrews must be inquired into, their Mishna, their Gemara,
Cabbala, Jezirah, Sonar, Cosri, and their Talmud, must be examined and
understood, in order to do them full justice. Brucker, it would seem,
has gone deeply into these repositories of their ethics, and Enfield his
epitomizer, concludes in these words. 'Ethics were so little understood
among the Jews, that, in their whole compilation called the Talmud,
there is only one treatise on moral subjects. Their books of morals
chiefly consisted in a minute enumeration of duties. From the law of
Moses were deduced six hundred and thirteen precepts, which were divided
into two classes, affirmative and negative, two hundred and forty-eight
in the former, and three hundred and sixty-five in the latter. It may
serve to give the reader some idea of the low state of moral philosophy
among the Jews in the middle age, to add, that of the two hundred
and forty-eight affirmative precepts, only three were considered as
obligatory upon women; and that, in order to obtain salvation, it was
judged sufficient to fulfil any one single law in the hour of death;
the observance of the rest being deemed necessary, only to increase the
felicity of the future life. What a wretched depravity of sentiment
and manners must have prevailed, before such corrupt maxims could have
obtained credit! It is impossible to collect from these writings a
consistent series of moral doctrine.
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