RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Kant Karaites
and at the University of Tubingen he engaged in daily prayer with his intimate friend, Wilhelm Hofacker. After filling the positions of vicar at Tuttlingen, teacher in the Fellenberg school at Hofwyl Switzerland, and repetent in Tubingen, he became! in 1833, pastor of the colony of Pietists at Kornthal, near Stuttgart. In 1843 he was made Dekan at Milnsingen, and in 1847 at Herrenberg. He was transferred to Reutlingen in 1850, and to Stuttgart in 1852, where, for the remainder of his life he was Prdlat and the greatly beloved and influential pastor of the Stiftskirche.
Kapff combined the genial manners, trustfulness, and sympathetic warmth of the Swabian character. He was a friend to ministers all over Wiirttemberg, and attracted all classes who had an interest in religion. As a preacher, he did not represent any sharply defined theological or ecclesiastical tendency. His sermons had much of the supernaturalism of the old Tubingen school, but more warmth and sympathy than belonged to it. He had an eye to the domestic and social wants of his people, and drew largely upon his every-day intercourse with them for his subjects. He also took a warm interest in the ecclesiastical affairs of Wurttemberg, and in foreign missions as advanced by the missionary institution in Basel. For more than a quarter of a century, he was the center of the pious circles of the land.
The best known of his publications are : Gebetbuch (Stuttgart, 1835; 21st ed., 1905); Communionbuch (1840; 24th ed., 1901); Das Heine Communionbuch (1841; 36th ed., 1905); Warnung eines Jugendfreundes (1841; 20th ed., 1902); Achtzig Predigten iiber die alten Episteln (1851; 6th ed., 1879); 83 Predigten iiber die alten Evangelien (1862; 6th ed., 1876); and Casualreden (ed. C. Kapff, 1880).
(Karl von BuRKf.) Bibliography: C. Kapff, Lebensbild von Sixt Karl Kapff.
2 vols., Stuttgart, 1881 (by his son).
KAPPEL, PEACE OF. See Zwingli, Huld-
REICH.
KARAITES, ke'ra-aits.
The Sect in Babylonia (§ 1). Egypt and the Crimea (§ 4). In Palestine (§ 2). Constantinople (§ 5).
Religious Philosophy (§ 3). Poland (§ 6). Doctrine and Law (§ 7).
The name of the Karaites (Hebr. Kara'im, sing. Kara), a very important Jewish sect, may be an intensive noun from the verb kara, " to read," signifying " readers," i.e., readers of the Bible par excellence. It is better, however, to take Kara as a denominative form from mikra (Aram, kera), " Scripture " and to interpret it as an " adherent of the Scriptures," i.e., one who follows strictly the text of the Bible and rejects the rabbinical tradition of the Talmud. This explanation finds support in the fact that the Karaites are also called Bene Mikra, " sons (adherents) of the Scripture," as opposed to the Bene mishnah, or "sons of the mishnah " or of tradition.
The founder of the Karaite sect was Anan ben David, who, according to tradition, was disappointed in his expectations of becoming either gaon (head of one of the Babylonian academies) or resh
galuta (head of the Babylonian diaspora), and therefore renounced the Talmud, founding at Bagdad in 761-762 a new community which i. The rejected mishnaic and talmudic tra- Sect in dition. Like all prominent Karaites, Babylonia, he wrote a Sefer ha-Mizwot (" Book of Precepts ") and two other works, of which only a few fragments are extant; the statement that he wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch is without proof. Anan's pupil Mocha and his son Moses (780-800) introduced a new system of vowels and accents which displaced the former system and promoted the Masorah, while other Karaites applied the so-called hermeneutical rules (middot), borrowed from Mohammedan theology, to the interpretation of the law. At a very early period the Karaites followed the philosophical tendency of Mohammedanism, and about 800 Judah Yudghan attacked the rabbinical doctrine of the anthropomorphism of God. His system was elaborated by Benjamin ben Moses Nahawendi, who flourished about 830. According to him, God is too exalted to reveal himself to man, and revelation was accordingly made by the medium of an angel, who not only created the world but also performed all the acts of God recorded in the Torah. Benjamin's writings, with the exception of his Sefer dinim (" Book of Laws ") are known only from citations. With Benjamin and a few others the Arabic period of Karaism came to a close, and the Karaite communities of Babylonia and Persia soon lost their importance.
Under the impulse of the Messianic expectations which are a marked characteristic of Karaism, Palestine now became the center of a Karaite propaganda, which, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, reached even to Greece and Spain, while the Karaites living in Jerusalem took the 2. In name of Shoshanim or Maskilim, with Palestine, reference to Dan. xii. 3. Karaite congregations already existed in Egypt, and Constantinople was selected as a missionary field; but the chief object of attack was the first and last great teacher of Judaism to polemize against them, Saadia Gaon (b. 892; d. 942), who had assailed Hiwi al-Balkhi and Ibn Sakuyah in his Kitab al-Tamyiz (" Book of Distinction "), written in 926, and in his Sefer Ernunot we-De'ot (" Book of the Articles of Faith and Doctrines of Dogma "), written seven years later. The first Karaite who wrote against Saadia was Solomon ben Jeroham (b. at Fostat c. 915-920; d. about 960), whose Milhamot Adonai (" Wars of the Lord ") is still extant in its main portions. He also wrote commentaries on Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, The Psalms, and Lamentations, as well as others which are now lost. He denounced philosophy and all other sciences, and acknowledged only the study of the Torah, although he respected the Mishnah. His partizan, the Jerusalem Karaite Sahl ben Mazliah also wrote against Saadia and the latter's disciple, Samuel ben Jacob. Solomon ben Jeroham's successor, Yafith ibn All (Japheth ha-Levi) of Bassora, the greatest and most fruitful Karaite exegete, was also an opponent of Saadia, but he was moderate in his polemics and in his com-
Karaites