the Evidences of Christianity, with the request that he would refute it in case he should find the argument untenable ; and that, if it should seem to him con- clusive, he would " do what policy, love of truth, and probity demanded — what Socrates doubtless would have done, had he read the work and found it unanswerable ;" thus offering him the alternative either to incur the odium of his own people by formally abjuring the faith of his fathers, or to draw upon himself the wrath of the Christian clergy by a public assault on their religion. This was in the year 1769. The position in which Men- delssohn was thus placed was not only most delicate, but also not without peril. He clung to the ancestral religion not only with the tenacity of early habits, but also with the fulness of conviction which profound study of the subject had given him. How was it possible to reply to the arguments brought forward in favor of Christianity without giving offence to the dominant churches, and becoming liable to the severe penalties enacted by the laws against the assailants of the estab- lished creeds? Mendelssohn, however, did reply. He wrote a courteous but decided letter to the pastor of Zurich, in which he not only speaks of his "veneration for the moral character of the founder of Christianity," but also defines very fuUy his position as a liberal-mind- ed and enlightened Jew. This letter not only satisfied all parties, but also drew from Lavater a public apology and retraction of his peremptory challenge. The agita- tion caused by this transaction aggravated Mendels- sohn's constitutional complaints, threatening his •life, and for a long time incapacitating him for intellectual labor. After his recovery he published a Hebrew com- mentary on Ecclesiastes (Berl. 1769; ibid. 1788), trans- lated iiito German by Eabe (Anspach, 1771), and into English by Preston (Lond. 1845), The author com- plains that " nearly all the commentators who have preceded me have almost entirely failed in doing jus- tice to their task of interpretation. ... I have not found in one of them an interpretation adequate to the correct explanation of the connection of the verses of the book, but, according to their method, nearly ev- ery verse is spoken separately and unconnectedly ; and this would not be right in a private and insignificant author, much less in a wise king." As to the design of the book, Mendelssohn thinks " that Solomon wrote it to propound the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, ' and the necessity of leading a cheerful and contented life, and interspersed these cardinal points with lessons of minor importance, such as worship, politics, domestic economy, etc." Soon afrer this appeared a German translation of the Pentateuch, made by himself, with a grammatical and exegetical commentary in Hebrew, contributed by several Jewish literati, viz. Sal. Dubno (q. v.), Aaron Jaroslaw, K H. Wessely (q. v.), and H. Homberg. This important work, which is entitled "lEO nibr-'tl n'i^'^np, i. e. The Boole of the Puths of Peace (Berlin, 1780-83), is preceded by an elaborate and most valuable introduction, written in Hebrew, called "liS n-'^nn^, a Light to the Path, in which Mendelssohn discusses various topics connected with Biblical exegesis and literature. The introduction, which was published separately before the completion of the commentary (Dec. 1782), now accompanies the translation and com- mentary, and is given in German in his Collected World (Leips. 1845), vii, 18 sq. ; and in English in the Hebrew Review, edited by Breslau (Lond. 1860). The work soon found its way into the principal synagogues and schools in Germany, and, thus encouraged, he produced afterwards a version of the Psalms and the Song of Sol- omon, which are considered classical. " It was in this especially," says Da Costa, "that the philosopher kept up the striking resemblance to Jlaimonides, his cele- brated predecessor and model. Both, under the out- ward forms of Rabbinical Judaism, desired to give an entirely new direction to the religion of the Jews — to reform it, to develop it."- Nothing, indeed, could have
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