between A.D. 325-381! But the test case must be the Apostles' Creed and the witness a conservative historian:

It is a singular fact that in the non-episcopal churches of Great Britain and the United States, the Apostles' Creed is practically far less used but much more generally believed than in some State Churches where it is part of the regular worship, like the Lord's Prayer.

The Constitution of the United States did more for religion by its assertion of the principle of the separation of church and state than the constitutions of Europe that made religion obligatory.

Our study of the Apostles' Creed has shown that the simplest and most ancient of the church's symbols has undergone many textual modifications and transformations, that its interpretation has varied, that it does not at all summarize the faith of the primitive church, that it has not secured uniformity of belief, that its recitation by no means guarantees the acceptance of its contents, that concentration of attention on doctrine causes Christianity to lose contact with life. The same conclusions would need to be reached regarding any confession of faith. The Nicene Creed, for example, exists in three forms: the original form, the form as now received by the Eastern church, and the Latin or Western form. The filioque of the Latin form first appeared in A.D. 589 and is one of the reasons for the cleavage between the Greek and the Roman churches.

III. SOME CONCLUSIONS

The adoption of summaries of faith has been preceded by, accompanied by, and followed by tragic controversy. They have not fairly described the genius of any group. They have often damaged the influence of Christianity; contradicting faith and love; neglecting the "whom" in the emphasis upon the "what," destroying the freedom which is in Christ; utterly forgetting "for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision; but faith manifesting itself in love"; reducing Christianity to a new legalism

when it must remain an experience. They make the test of Christianity intellectual. They tend to exalt themselves over the Bible. They cannot detect error. They are productive of religious astigmatism. They result in disagreement rather than uniformity. They are readily misunderstood by the historically untutored. It is easier and more worth-while to interpret the New Testament than the creeds. "Creeds are often procrustean beds for the torture of theological thinkers." They cannot be reconciled with "soul freedom." They involve the exchange of the comfort of growth and difference for the strait-jacket of conformity. They themselves constantly undergo change in text and in interpretation. The Bible because of its variety cannot be reduced to a creed. Man's experience of God cannot be listed under five points. Summaries are either too brief and therefore superficial or too extensive and therefore subject to all the laws of interpretation. Life is more than meat, and faith is more than a summary. The church is at the parting of the way. If it gave one-tenth the attention to developing a keen edge for the conscience of the individual, to regenerating itself, to interpreting the religious significance of the industrial, economic, and social transformations of the present, to Christianizing all life which it has been bestowing upon correctness of dogmatic phraseology, the Kingdom of God should become a more thrilling experience for multitudes. But if a summary there must be, it should be biblical. Matthew 22:37-40 should suffice. "And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets."

THE MISSION OF REFORM JUDAISM

SAMUEL S. COHON
Chicago, Illinois

ABSTRACT

Reform Judaism represents the latest phase in the evolution of Jewish religious thought. It grew out of the post-Mendelssohnian intellectual endeavor to adapt the historic faith of Judaism to the changed conditions in Jewish life, following the French Revolution. Its pioneers, Jacobson, etc., were called upon to fight apostasy on the one hand and rigid orthodoxy on the other. Originating in Germany, the Reform Movement spread to other West European countries, and found an especially congenial home in democratic America. Its theology, as formulated by Abraham Geiger and his followers, is based on reason and on the scientific study of the Bible, Talmud, and Jewish tradition. Through its renewed emphasis on the ethical side of life, Reform Judaism has added new vigor to the age-old religion of Israel.

Jewish history since the close of the Bible has run in three main channels. The foremost tendency of Jewish life was that of unquestioned adherence to the various practices transmitted by former generations, a tendency which produced the lawbooks of the Bible, the Mishna, and the Shulchan Arukh. The Jewish spirit, however, was not confined within the channel of legalism. By the side of law, there was the stream of rationalism, which found expression in the philosophic works of Philo, Saadja, Gabriol, and notably of Maimonides. The emotional side of religion manifested itself in the mysticism of the Cabala. None of these is entirely devoid of at least a tinge of the other. It has been the pride of Judaism that it combines the appeal to reason and the longing of the heart with the daily Mitzwoth or duties. As a matter of fact these three tendencies have not often been at peace with one another. Legalism frequently waged war on mysticism and rationalism; the Cabala made little effort to conceal its impatience with law and with pure thought; and philosophy, also, looked upon Cabala as a filmy vapor which must dissolve before the sun of enlightenment, and upon legalism as a dry system which is lifeless without the stimulus of reason. The upper hand in

Judaism belonged to the representatives of the law. Their attacks on the spirit of rationalism form the darkest pages in our history. They were no more successful in removing reason from religion than they would have been in trying to tear out the brain from the head of a living man. Despite the burning of the great work of Maimonides, the excommunication of Spinoza, and the condemnation of Mendelssohn, the spirit of rationalism reasserted itself in the Reform Movement at the early part of the nineteenth century.

The word "reform" summons varied lines of thought to the minds of different people. To conservatives, who are ever cross at the agony of a new idea," it appears as the deathknell of the order of religion, social life, or politics to which they are chained by force of habit. Other men and women, who are temperamentally chronic radicals, delight in reform because it bears the mark of novelty. Normal persons refuse to regard reform as either a toy or a dreadful specter, but as a policy, which occasionally comes as a compelling necessity, of changing the old appearance of things for a new and more attractive one, and of substituting a living for a dying social or religious order. No sane person will pull down a building just for the sheer delight of destruction; neither will any man, in his senses, refuse to repair or rebuild his house if its roof is torn, and its walls, doors, and windows broken. In social and religious life, too, people, though clinging with all their might to inherited institutions and customs sometimes find themselves compelled to renovate them in order to save them from decay.

A condition of this nature presented itself to the Jewish people in Western Europe about a century ago, when the walls of the Ghetto began to crumble. It is well known that almost throughout the Middle Ages the Jews were forced to live in separate quarters, which came to be known later as Ghettos. While this was the case in Mohammedan Spain and Turkey, it is in Christian countries that the Ghetto became a unique institution. In Italy, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Hungary,

Germany, and Poland, the Jews were, as a rule, quarantined like lepers in separate sections of each city. These Ghettos were organized at different times and under varied local conditions. They were maintained not only by the desire on the part of the Jews to live together, a desire which deserves the highest praise, but mainly by the intolerant and narrow church policy of treating all those out of her pale as inferior beings.

For centuries the Ghetto constituted the "fatherland" of the Jew, offering him a friendly environment in the midst of a hostile world, a veritable oasis with laughing fountains and fruit-bearing trees in the midst of the barren wilderness. Every big city had such a little Jerusalem, where the Jew led his own, distinctly Jewish, life, which appeared all the more charming because of the sickly atmosphere of the cramped surroundings. The Jews were permitted to have courts of their own with full jurisdiction in almost all save criminal cases. They maintained elementary and high schools, where their sacred literature constituted the main subject of study. Living in seclusion, they developed their own dialects. In Teutonic countries, the German vernacular was tinged with Hebrew words and phrases and grew into Yiddish-Deutsch. This language unjustly ridiculed by philistines as a contemptible jargon, as if most languages were not jargons—was lovingly preserved among the Ashkenazim or German Jews even when, after their expulsion from their country, they settled in Poland. To this day Yiddish forms the medium of expression of more than seven million Jews.

The Ghetto was by no means wholly covered with somber clouds. Often the sun shone upon it in full brilliance. Light and shade mingled in its many-sided life. Despite great odds, entailing heavy sacrifices, the Jews cheerfully observed their religious regulations. Their souls were uplifted to their Maker on the Sabbaths and holidays. Young and old eagerly participated in the pleasures of the joyous seasons and occasions. There were indeed moments in the life of the Ghetto