Israel and Humanity - Preface

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PREFACE

I.

It is generally believehe crime of the war denounced the humanityd to dispense with the reading of a preface that appears most often as an appetizer offered no necessary connection with the work he is presenting to the public. But we dare ask the reader not to open this volume without having read it. The outstanding personality of the author, the subject he has treated, the way this title was composed and revised make some preliminary explanations necessary. These lines also reveal a variety of circumstances which, if we do not deceive ourselves, are already an eloquent commentary of the work itself.

Elie Benamozegh born in 1823 in Livorno. His family came from Italy and settled in Fez was said, not without reason, perhaps, that Moroccan origin has not been without significant effect on the developed heavy intellectual who was to be named later Plato of Italian Judaism. It is clear that although he related in a way unusual, all European culture, he kept either in its work processes, either in his turn of mind, the impression Eastern . He lost his father early and was educated in sentiments of great piety by his mother, a woman of faith worthy of the biblical age, for which he always professed a religion touching and he spoke the tender memory in the first pages of his book "Jewish morality and Christian morality.

It was intended primarily for trade, but although he had at his disposal the means to create in this way an advantageous career, he abandoned it, while still young, to devote himself to study sacred and profane, for which he felt an irresistible attraction. Rabbi Jehouda Coriat, his maternal uncle, introduced him to Hebrew science, but we can say that the young student, motivated by a desire to know that extended to all branches of human knowledge, learned only, without Master and without method itself, his remarkable intellect to substitute the personal formation of defects. At sixteen he wrote a preface to Maor Vaschemesch published by Rabbi Coriat, giving this opportunity already evidence of his genius early and A few years later, he obtained the most brilliant rabbinical degrees. It was at Leghorn as he devoted himself to the sacred ministry he spent half a century a religious activity to which it does not appear that contemporaries have always praised enough.

What this man has read and written in his life is truly incredible. In a seemingly fragile body of a radiant spirit of extraordinary power. There is no science to which he remained abroad, no where does the intellectual sphere has pushed his indefatigable curiosity. The works of authors that could properly be regarded as adversaries, were as familiar to him than where he found the expression of his own convictions. The materials were piled in his prodigious memory and if it works or those published, many more, perhaps, that remain unpublished, are open to justified criticism, it is precisely that of presenting an excessively rich .

But it would be very bad judge Elie Benamozegh than not see him as a scholar was a man of God in every sense of the word. Far be thinking selfishly keep for himself the treasure of knowledge that steadily increased, he had a burning desire to communicate and others saw only one way to fill more worthily the duties of his office which he discharged with scrupulous accuracy. He used to preach in the temple of Livorno on Saturday preceding the main festivals. Some sabbath winter, snow fell in abundance had rendered the roads impassable and the rabbi's house was very far from the temple. Benamozegh Elijah, who was to mount the pulpit that day, was not to be arrested by the prospect of the long journey to walk in these difficult conditions. He gathered around him his five children, all still young, organized a small caravan and bowed down under the icy squall, staggering in the thick white layer that buried all, he walked toward the center of town, to find on time which was called the duty of his ministry.

His modesty was not less than his zeal. "They call me rabbi, he said to his students, but it does not he smile? What in fact that the little I know from what I have left to learn? "

It is often much small details that are best revealed the true character of a man. The Italian biographer Elijah Benamozegh, Professor Guglielmo Lattes, who published in a language worthy of the beautiful sky of Tuscany, a remarkable study, we have already quoted on the life and works of the famous rabbi, recounted several traits that have the appearance of it in a more pleasing than seems to have the austerity of his work. As a result, if not more popular, if still living his teachings for many minds unattractive, this is due, not to the same kind of qualities that can earn him the warmest sympathy, but the nature of the subjects he treated in his writings and more ways in which it was used for display to the public.

Indeed, we know that especially as Kabbalist Benamozegh Elijah is known and as such, he was always highly demanded, was not without considerable harm in the eyes of men as dedicated as it also the cause of Judaism, but re-solute hostile to the school where he claimed. I am even a little surprised that the cast discredit on the name commonly was not even today, with some readers, a cause of prevention against this book. It is therefore important to note at the outset that the Kabbalah in which the learned rabbi has constantly, in his words, "the most legitimate theology of Judaism," is by no means a mass of superstition and childishness can distort annoyingly religion that one wants to serve, but a system of philosophy with more than one point of contact with Platonism and other systems, and even knew a man like Benamozegh stained strongly modern culture. It was not even in his eyes a special science, said he would rather have her happy that Renan said of philosophy in general "it is the result of all the sciences, sound, light, vibration that comes out of the ether that is every divine in itself.

It is not for me in any capacity to decide to what extent this claim to see in the Kabbalah the highest expression of Jewish theological doctrine is justified, but it sounds good, after all the evidence that has provided Benamozegh, in all his writings, that is to deprive an invaluable apologetic than simply rejecting an instruction that, in the mind of our author, so happy way of reconciling the demands of critical data and the free science with traditional affirmations of faith. A timid orthodoxy may rightly alarmed at the unexpected support brings dogmas Kabbalistic school that uses forged new weapons often by opponents and draws his arguments from sources which it had itself custom to stand aside carefully. In turn, independent scientists have reason to be surprised that the results of which appeared essentially destructive religious beliefs, can be enlivened by a mysticism which they would be unwelcome to challenge the legitimacy, since its foundations built in an area inaccessible to their investigations, and that this state is precisely the science used to defend a religion which they imagined to be confused with any other in the same sentence. The Kabbalah does not let more disconcerted by the surprises of learned by the fearful apprehensions of the believer, seeking to reassure those above dispelling these, by reconciling an increasingly wide he claims to be made between science and faith.

The position taken throughout his life Elijah Benamozegh and it has consistently justified in his writings, gave him great strength. If one could indeed say with some justification that the man of one book is formidable one understands how valuable it would give advantage to this philosophy that he brought the whole thing and allowed it to benefit all scientific progress in the same time it provided a rational explanation of the most difficult religious problems. Thanks to the habits of mind that he had acquired at school teacher of Kabbalah, he found around his own property, far from avoiding the objection, he sought with evident complacency, analyzed, falling behind the all sides to give the deep satisfaction of showing the bad sides and make out of arguments in favor of the orthodox thesis. Neither materialism nor pantheism or atheism itself were likely to frighten him, none of these categories trenches in which to indulge superficial minds, none of these massive constructions of the irreligion which some people naively imagine that will replace the old buildings of human faith, did XII were any illusions about the construction defects that affects its strength to the thinker. He feared not to enter, he moved there with safety and ease, making carefully from the error and truth. For him, this is not to deny God than to deny a certain conception of the Deity is not to destroy its unity that advantage to diversify the attributes and has even pushed the courage, until the show What secret Kabbalah can establish harmony between the various philosophies conceive God in their own way and even between the ideas of absolute monotheism and polytheism.

Not only are Jewish doctrines and breadth and strength that exegesis antikabbalistique is unable to communicate, but the religious practices themselves that one is tempted to regard as obsolete when the judge without any content, is fully justified in the light of sound reason, not simply as a legacy of the ancestors, as a link connecting the present with the past, but because they have intrinsic value, universal significance, even ontological, in the words our author. "Our faith, he used to tell his children, is clear, simple, rational principles and in the mysterious cult. But what is mysterious is not absurd. The mystery is that lies beyond human understanding in the present state of our knowledge and according Benamozegh as "the religious genius of Israel working for the development of all mankind" as he has a special mission to link the various parts of the finite and the different phases of universal evolution, Judaism must necessarily include "a supernatural element or suprarational" in which intelligence can study and must be applied, while piety feeds them without risking the ever exhausting.

This esoteric theology, which is for the learned rabbi, the true dogmatic tradition of the Jewish religion, as the Talmud is the traditional practice, and gives a deeper meaning to all the precepts, all liturgical prayer: "Reducing the ritual , the condition of mere national observances, he wrote to Luzzatto, It's the cast of three quarters of their value is to lower the level of a God Licurg or a Romulus is linked to external circumstances, which have no stability, the fate of the religion which is eternal has ".

This shows that the Kabbalah philosophy of Elijah Benamozegh allowed him to bring his research with confidence in all areas and that through her faith in him was revealed as the spiritual courage rushing forward with strong the absolute certainty of finding the Truth. So no one has it could speak with more authority than him the message of reconciliation between religion and science: "Embrace yourself in a fraternal embrace, for you are one and the other girls in the sky" .

But if this position presented great advantages, it also offer nétait not without serious drawbacks. Science and philosophy are in fact the privilege to a few minds. Rarer still are those who manage to unite them in a way harmonious if they can penetrate and invigorate one another. The illustrious rabbi, with whom they were accompanied by even a transcendent mysticism no less exceptional, thus condemned itself to not being understood and even see some suspect the purity of his faith. We know that his Hebrew commentary on the Pentateuch Em lammicra was condemned as heterodox by the Palestinian rabbis

The religious and intellectual discipline that he owed to the Kabbalah and to which he subjected all human knowledge as well as Jewish science, is also of such a special, despite his vast knowledge he could not think of having, outside the circle of his disciples, an expanded action. It was necessary for it by tapping this source and using its essential data, it should succeed in communicating his thoughts to a form entirely appropriate to modern culture, he have been translated into language intelligible to men of the twentieth <super> th </super> century what he was accustomed to express the style and Talmudic zoharistique.

In education and conversation always attractive and informative, his students never tired of admiring the clarity with which he could translate and present the most obscure concepts of Kabbalah in the precise language of philosophic schools of Greece and the Germany, especially in managing to insinuate a belief that Kabbalah - apart from its antiquity and authenticity Hebrew he now fully accepted - or at least a great system of philosophy that deserves the consideration of scholars.

If this had always been his way, who knows, with his prodigious scholarship and his zeal, he would not have been able to revolutionize the world of religious practice in any case in Judaism a more decisive influence Perhaps Maimonides himself?

But the means he used sometimes do not predisposed to this role, despite the remarkable ease with which he spoke in modern languages. It is not juqu 'the same phraseology he used that was not an obstacle to the dissemination of ideas he wanted to defend.

I might certainly surprise most of my readers say for example he was an apostle of Noachism in fact, most of them will suspect not immediately put it under that name and But the idea is hidden is of considerable importance and it is, in my opinion, the true originality of the work of this powerful religious thinker.

We know too much in general that Benamozegh Elijah was not only a learned Kabbalist, but it had formed mainly thanks to his knowledge philosophical and religious as well as scientific and thanks too, or does not dispute this, this Hebrew theosophy which awakens so many prejudices, a system very complicated, very deep and yet perfectly coordinated, which enabled him admirably to explain Judaism in all its parts, even the most obscure and confusing for her usual apologists. It was very far indeed to make this system as the product of his ideas personal: it was not anything for him that the religious edifice resulting from the majestic and all biblical teachings traditional. Judaism is not a particular religion in question to defend the position against the cults competitors by demonstrating the errors of the latter. It is the religion itself and all others as manifestations sppéciales meet the needs of different races, gathered around her in a more or less close, as they depart or are closer to the truth core which has custody and all mankind is thus religiously organized in a very real unity, though it implies, by the very nature of things, many diversities and necessary.

All this ideal construction is explained by the notion of two laws, or rather the double aspect of the unique and eternal law which is both priestly and lay, as it is addressed specifically to Israel or the whole of humanity . The form it assumes in the Jewish religion itself is justified by the special mission to Israel in the world, but it is not compulsory for all men, who remain free instead of expressing their religious sentiments by diversely the diverse needs of ages and races, provided they obey the moral law and that only their rational is prescribed. In this respect there always professed Judaism to other religions and the repeated assertion that his doctors to be fair and acceptable to God, to belong to the true religion, there is no need to practice Jewish rituals.

Thus we see how false is this view of some critics that the Semitic monotheism necessarily engendered intolerance. If we agree to get to the bottom of things, it hardly seems true even for Islam, but as regards Judaism is nothing more formally denied by the facts. Israel's attitude is even much more than mere tolerance, as we fortunately can find other examples imposed by force of circumstances rather than beliefs themselves, it is the implementation of this idea that Judaism is the focus, the center of the universal religion and that other cults are linked to him and therefore legitimate insofar as they are faithful to his principles. The study of comparative religion has emerged as a new branch of science, it is only <super> XIX th </super> century that critics began to dig with discernment and impartiality mythologies old and she eventually discover something other than a tissue of fables incoherent and rude, unworthy of a moment's attention. But the ancient Jews had traced over many centuries the outlines of this science in its theology, can not we say that the Kabbalah, which teaches us to see under the name of any pagan god spark of truth, had already gave essentially the result of work of our modern scientists?

Does this mean that there are no errors to correct? Nay verily, by splitting the infinite idea of God, paganism was completely lost, at least in its popular form, the concept of divine unity and with it the fundamental basis of human brotherhood and genuine progress . Similarly, breaking with Israel, the great religions from him any more or less deviated from the teachings of the universal religion which he was laid; to reform, they must go back to their origins because it is in Judaism, Page XVIII is the key to the future renovations. But they appear infidels, yet they are the daughters of the Mother Church and that ignorance, prejudice, passions have separated must be reunited one day.

So full of confidence in religious destiny of Israel, Elie Benamozegh worked diligently to prepare the reconciliation of Christianity and Judaism, supreme goal which gave a particular jurisdiction and its activity for all believers and thinkers will be his best claim to fame. He saw in Christianity and Islam, not of any religion worthy of respect as any aspiration of the human soul toward the Infinite, but a providential movement towards the establishment of this universal religion that the prophets of Israel announced to mankind. If were especially strong sympathy for the Christian religion, it was up to say and repeat that though Christianity is willing to reform itself on the ideal Hebrew, it will always be the true religion of the Gentiles. Such expressions may be surprising to a rabbi and they lend an unfortunate confusion even if we took the word of Christianity as necessarily involving the worship of Jesus or at least connected in a belief a greater or lesser extent to the teachings of the real or imaginary character. But no one thinks that rely on these statements that the love of peace inspired by our author, it suffices to observe that the firm Christianity was for him synonymous messianism , the two words have exactly the same direction with the sole difference that the first betrays the influence of Hellenic experienced by the disciples of Jesus and the exaggerated importance attributed to the progressive role of the latter, while the second we back to the pure Hebrew thought.

In the last days of his life illustrates the rabbi lived in seclusion in a lonely house surrounded by greenery, in a district of Livorno. Each morning at dawn, when, wearing the tefillin and wrapped his ample taled, he said his prayers, the sound of bells from a nearby church he arrived with a melodic sweetness that gave all nature a religious voice, and it seemed that on hearing this call bells Catholics, the great thinker prayed with intense fervor.

By the silvery voice, which was echoing in my mind the harmonious lines of Dante Aligilieri

... watch as they call
In the hour that the bride of God surge
A morning wedding because it is the love

He saw himself not only in spiritual communion with all his fellow Israelites of all countries, praying at the same time, but with all the believers scattered over the surface of the earth, choosing to pray early morning hours, show themselves, without knowing the faithful followers of the ancient masters of Israel.

I think I feel something of what was happening in his soul, his voice reminded him may be the whole plan of God for humanity and the special mission of Israel and the deep bond, indispensable, which connects all Zion peoples of the earth. The constitution of the true Messiah has already started; many human causes have hampered the progress and undermined the achievement, but its completion is nonetheless certain. The Messiah will come, what am I? The Messiah is coming! Truth, justice, peace, brotherhood is what was proclaim in the ears of the pious Rabbi of the bell ringing every Christian, the days come, as the prophet foretold, when the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the bottom the sea by the waves which cover ...

Maybe we begin to glimpse t'what Elijah meant by that name Benamozegh Noachism which is the effect of a very old thing we forgotten the purpose for what. is neither more nor less than the truth which the Church Roman Catholicism has given the world so shocking contretrefaçon; is the universal religion freed from the mistakes of local cults and national and connected to the most intimate of this faith Israel with the Bible and tradition are unanimous in announcing the final triumph and it is the religious organization of the human family by the harmonious combination of both secular and priestly elements, each with their role and purpose. Without the fulfillment of the Mosaic precepts peculiar to the Israelite of his birth is no forced, the non-Jew is given by the worship of one true God the right to be regarded as belonging to the true religion, as actually participating in worship with the family of Aaron, on behalf of all the external rites celebrated past and present which Judaism is legitimate and necessary expression. This explains the maxims of sages of the Synagogue: "Anyone who renounces idolatry is a real Jew. Whoever rejects polytheism confess the whole Law. " So does the truth of the prophet at foreigners who attach themselves to the LORD to serve him and to love: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."

Benamozegh, had no ambition of most expensive group around the synagogue, in close union with the Israel Religious, Christian converts birth to this great idea that was the soul of his soul. I remember one summer afternoon - it was on the end of his life we had together on these important questions a long conversation. He spoke slowly, his eyes fixed on some object as invisible, and he explained to me what is, vis-à-vis Israel, the situation of non-Jews and how they are to establish, with greater freedom to the point Culturally, the second side of the same divine religion. Suddenly his eyes were fixed on me and he said: "Yes, and it is through you that I would start.

These words he repeated them more than once in his letters did me the honor to me and I confess to my shame I did not understand everything We intend to argue. In the persuasion that I was of the essence of religion to require an absolute belief in its tenets and entire submission to its practices, to claim a monopoly on truth and anathematized as false all other faiths, I could not imagine that Judaism could observe a significantly different attitude, and despite all the admiration I have professed for his doctrine, I do not see yet in its true light, I continued to The shrink in the judging mentality Christian or Catholic, that is to say, as a Church to well-defined framework, without which there can be, for the soul received or degree of faith where I was, no peace Domestic or productive activity. It was necessary that I may better understand the divine plan, as I explained the revered master, many reflections and many studies still. It was above all that I undertook the revision of the manuscript "Israel and Humanity", which work called me the confidence of his son, Emmanuel Benamozegh, who told me the intimate details included in this preface and, together with filial piety and perseverance that no difficulty had been rebuffed, has worked for four years to complete the publication of this book

Now I have to drive some explanation about this. The book is the day that sees Elijah Benamozegh served for many years. There condensed all his religious thought, all this vast system I am trying to identify the main ideas and outline the main lines. This explains why the interest involved in this publication.

It was far from that, however, the manuscript was ready to be delivered for printing. As it existed at the death of the illustrious rabbi, he was more like a large canvas where the author is reserved to a later date the final draft. He did not understand no less than nineteen hundred large pages in a compact, no indent, cut, or division of any kind, the sheets are written in front and back, which clearly indicates that no part of the thinking of the author to give the public in this form. The appearance of this manuscript was naturally think of any treaty of the Talmud, the subjects being entangled, the many digressions, repetitions, frequent detours. In addition, this work seemed well prepared for an oral teaching, remained unfinished. After studying the Jewish Universalism in the speculative domain, ie the idea that Judaism has made to God and gods, man and humanity, and in practice, ie said in the Jewish conception of the Act, the revelation of the Mosaic and the universal religion, Elie Benamozegh proposed to seek a third party in the footsteps of this universal in the idea that Judaism has made him- himself and his relations with the rest of mankind, and show how its intellectual, moral, and civil, he became conscious of its universal character, and finally how this character is manifested in beliefs about his vocation, in its history, in fulfilling its mission and its design and final future state of mankind is to prepare and messianism or kingdom of God.

Unfortunately the latter which announced itself as the most important was not written by the author notes informed that he had begun to collect have failed to reconstitute it. Without doubt all the elements required to be in are already scattered throughout the rest of the book, but it would have been interesting to see them together, condensed into a body of doctrine which would have given way to complete this masterful study's completion . Despite this significant gap, it was in memory of Elie Benamozegh, not to let lose the fruit of his labors, so much research, and to show, even in these small scale, this work so eagerly awaited by its disciples and he himself had so eagerly desired publication.

But how the work of the learned rabbi he would see the day?

You could publish it as is, merely by subjecting it to page after page, the necessary corrections to the point of street language and introducing the necessary divisions, or the fully restate and explain in a more literary art, the essential ideas by eliminating certain developments accessories. None of these methods could not give satisfaction to the followers and friends of the author, because they respected neither the one nor the other thought enough of it. It was indeed betraying than editing changes without a work whose form was so flawed and showed that large numbers of repetitions, length, interventions and obscurities inevitably resulting from lack of careful design. And secondly, it was not he be more faithful than publishing a new book, in fact bear little resemblance to the original that share the underlying data.

In these circumstances, I saw no other course than to employ a method of revision is undoubtedly more difficult, but basically combined the two the only acceptable way. It was the correct style of the book and write it as completely as possible by following the exact order of the original manuscript and making what the author probably would have done himself, if he had been given to finalize the work begun. Intercalations, digressions should be deleted some, others returned to their natural place. Some passages, which seemed to be shown later as additional notes, could only be fully entrenched as a way of prolonging unnecessary work. I thought I was however allowed to make cuts until they appeared to me absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of the exhibition.

I tried to make reading these pages as easy as befitting the nature of the subjects by sending them to the extent possible, the French form that the author wished to give them both and practicing many divisions subdivisions and to guide and relax the mind in this laborious study. As the titles of chapters and paragraphs have been so added a goal of order and clarity, it should not be too surprised if the contents of these parts does not always strictly from one end to another with brief indications. When it seemed quite necessary, otherwise severely compromise the form and with it the value of the work itself, to supplement what was left unfinished and interconnecting passages that otherwise would have been the effect detached pieces, as the author would certainly not have failed to do so by incorporating the wording of his manuscript, I have endeavored to meet this need by writing short sentences summarizing the developments just prior to or introducing those to follow. But in all these details, as in all the work I always reproduced with scrupulous fidelity to the original thought. My concern was entirely accurate as I have left many things exist that would have been preferable can be shortened or eliminated, but which, because of the place they had been given by the author , have not thought ought to be eliminated entirely.

I kept the division into three main parts that was in the original plan, but they, given the incomplete state of the manuscript, reproduce only the first two matters which the learned rabbi had completed the compilation and who is currently re-Party under three general headings: God. - Man. - Act. Finally, to replace some extent the third party, which was sadly lacking, and provide at least a finished form, I added a conclusion for which I had to use either the notes informed that I mentioned earlier , the five conferences of Elijah Benamozegh on Pentecost which appear in his collected works, printed, or personal letters that he finally gave me the great honor to address, so that these pages make no less faithfully the rest of the volume the author's thought.

The amount of work that represents the present work might be considered significant, if we could just get an idea, however it is to me little in comparison from what the subject itself seems to deserve. I had no other ambition than to make possible the publication and reading of the precious manuscript of Elias Benamozegh that we could not think of print in the state it was at the latter's death. I certainly do not flatter myself to have removed all the obscurities. Apart from those who may have scruples to my editor or my personal isuffisance there are others who are due to causes that I mentioned when speaking of the character and methods of the author. The constant reminder to Kabbalistic principles may confuse some readers unprepared and offend others who are inclined to try these ideas in a manner unfavorable. It is however worth to silence the impatience and prejudice, when it is a topic of interest at the highest level all religious men, all thinkers, a problem that one learned the value of Elie Benamozegh has applied to give a solution singularly beautiful and profound. .

To all those who will not just casual inspection of this book, but be willing to devote careful study, I dare to promise compensation for their labors. A great idea will emerge from this mass of material, discussions and these texts and after hesitation, fumbling a long hard road, a light shines.

I must express my gratitude to Mr. Samuel Colombo Chief Rabbi of Livorno, a disciple of the illustrious Benamozegh and heir of his learning and piety in the sacred ministry, which was good enough to read my work and me several times advice.

Thanks are also on behalf of friends and admirers'Elie Benamozegh and particularly on behalf of her son Emmanuel Bcnamozegh all who have contributed to the costs of publication of this book:

Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris, Mr. Raffaello Ottolenghi, Acqui M. Raffaello Rosselli, Livorno, Livorno Disegni M. Salvatore, MM Angiolo and Ugo Levi, Venice, Giuseppe Archivolti of Leghorn Cesare Tedesco, Livorno, Mr. Emmanuel Pardo Roques, Pisa; Mr. Eugene Mirtil, Paris; The Jewish community of Livorno and those of Genoa, and Venice Vercelli.

III.

We'll find unusual certainly does give an introduction to a preface, and yet it was written in the book of fate that he would this time, the person who was writing these pages entirely preliminary having been called, before completing the work he planned to receive the kiss of his Supreme Creator.

Of all the eminent men, who in the last century have played an important role in the religious sphere, there is one example of which I find particularly instructive, not only because it was really great in nobility of character, the radiance of a soul in love in the purest ideal and the gift of matchless eloquence in the service of the holiest of causes, but because no other thinker perhaps during a long spiritual evolution did more of the near immortal principles which are the essence of the faith of Israel. This religious individuality which may seem in some respects vague, floating, has admirably represented the contrary fighting and aspirations of the current elite of mankind. As she embodied the soul of an era, any generation of Christians I saw this throbs with its uncertainties and doubts and struggles between the dogmatic definitions of a now unacceptable and needs of the new religious consciousness. I appointed Mr. Loyson Hyacinthe, who, despite the many changes he has taught for half a century, the show is nevertheless always remained the same so it remained for all, and until the end, the Father Hyacinthe.

Three main phases share the existence of this great Christian who was really, too, a man of God in every sense of the term. During the first, he squandered, priest and monk, his activity in the service of the Roman Church, which was that of his birth, and he kept saying he owed to these twenty-some years of priesthood one of its purest joys and deepest. Then when he saw that the religion he wished to serve was impaired by temporal concerns of ambition and a despotic authority, having in fact nothing to do with faith, when he felt that his liberal tendencies were to be fatally choked by the compression intellectual and moral Rome already strengthened more and more, and, in his words, "the cause of social anarchy, moral and religious, which undermines the Latin race in general, is in how Catholicism has long been understood and practiced, "he tried to give it a more flexible, more acceptable and consistent - he thought then, at least - the ideal Gospel, and this was the era of reform efforts in Geneva and Paris during the most turbulent of his life.

Finally, he realized gradually that this reform on the basis conciliar was incomplete, it is to correct other errors are no less serious than that of papal infallibility and thus the malaise afflicting Christendom does not date the proclamation of this dogma, accident quite normal, I think, in the history of Christianity, since it is the logical application of a principle taken to its ultimate consequences. Dogmatic barriers gradually falling in his eyes, his religious horizon widens. Of all the incarnations devised by men to bring them to infinity, it strongly separated, and never look back, the living and eternal God who is "all good things and all the beautiful souls, because that It is He who is. " His notion of true religion is completely changed, then he saw the true Catholic Church, still invisible but very real, however, who, true to its definition, knows no church. And his belief in one God leads, as has been well said, in dire need of religious brotherhood, he could be seen praying in mosques in the East Muslim commune in the Coptic church, preach in the temples Protestants attend the synagogue with a large building and maintaining relationships with the most affectionate of representatives of all faiths, as well as with the priests of the Roman Church which he remained faithful until the end.

Father Hyacinthe in these different periods of his life, has created no other work that represents his thinking today. It thus appears to some like a man who has nowhere found the place that suited him. But in the present state of the religious world, it could not be otherwise. By locating the action you would have diminished the scope of his example, any church who need a small side, especially, his prophetic soul had been able to breathe completely at ease. He was called to serve the very idea of a universal church and not a specific sect. The man devoted to the worship of this ideal is thereby condemned to a certain isolation and in that sense it can be argued with reason that the breadth of mind is not creative immediately. But if nothing founded, he has done something even more useful. It has proved inadequate and unable to reform attempted early in his break with Rome, and showed particular in what sense Christianity must change to become finally the messianism of Jesus whose followers claim to have inaugurated reign. At this point of view life is singularly eloquent illustration of the doctrine has consistently preached Elijah Benamozegh apostle convinced.

If two believers never seem to have been destined to meet, it is certainly the Father Hyacinthe and the illustrious Rabbi Livorno. This in fact did not he tried in his long and persistent work to identify movements biblical and traditional form of Catholicism, whose true one, for its part, has continued unabated, throughout its existence , a realization of more and more in line with the divine plan that was revealed to him? They have never yet seen here, but they nevertheless have communed one and the other in faith to the same ideal.

The former speaker of Notre Dame, an admirer of the Prophet and heir of a powerful blast, had logically led to regard as perfectly normal, and even evangelical in a sense, this evolution in which the learned religious son of Israel had traced the lines. All the pushing in this direction, his passion for the divine unity, the foundation of human unity, it was the best response to its aspirations. Or claimed that his belief in one God, living and personal and the immortal soul should be improved in mysterious dispensations of the afterlife, a belief that sums up his theology, represents only the deism of Jules Simon and Victor Cousin no originality. It was very poorly known. A faith that animates and sanctifies every thought and every act of a man and proclaims that every beat of his heart, is anything but a theoretical concept so beautiful and respectable it may be. A God whom the soul, the willing sacrifice that the Father Hyacinthe has not hesitated to do and which, with its sense of unity, holiness and love, inspires a profound way if the desire a universal reconciliation is not just the God of philosophy. In fact, religion was one of the great orator preached Benamozegh Elijah, the one that the sacred books of Israel absolutely a monument in literature of all peoples, religion, which he loved to find another development in the Gospels.

His personal piety was still essentially the Jewish reading of the Bible and especially the Psalms, formed the daily feature and I want to himself that once his ecclesiastical superiors criticized him with surprise "to refer to more frequently in his sermons the Old Testament than New. " This affinity with its large core faith of Israel in 1878, already asserted in a statement fell from his mouth, then published in newspapers and from which it follows that the time already, there remained his eyes to other religious shelter for humanity, after the abandonment of Christianity, the Trinity and the Incarnation, that Judaism, not entirely without doubt, but at least it contains the universal religion " ref> These are the exact words of Benamozegh as a preamble to the quote he made this passage </ref>. "If I wanted to be a theist in a positive and alive, I would not do with the spiritualist philosophers, let alone the Christian deists; I'd be with the Jews and Muslims, both religions outputs, not the brain of abstract a thinker, but rugged flanks of the patriarch Semitic, one with Israel, the other with Ishmael, or rather, because the first and above of the second, As free woman is above the slave, I would sit under the shade of the synagogue, the French nation, the Jewish religion, I would cling to theism and the revelation of the miracle, I would love to Israel the God of Moses greater than the God of Plato, who has appointed himself "I know who is." (Policy Review July 6, 1878, pp. 12)

I had found these significant lines, reproduced in note by Elie Benamozegh in a pamphlet published by him as an introduction to this book. After the death of the learned rabbi from Leghorn occurred in February 1900 I laid before Hyacinthe M Loyson I already knew, but in a much less intimate, the quote in question and later the study I published it myself on the solution of the crisis based on Christian conceptions of the master who had so decisive an influence on my religious development . Father Hyacinthe was extremely impressed. Returning from a trip to Rome, he stopped in Livorno specifically to question the son and the disciples of the great religious thinker that he had just been revealed. And close to me by the circumstances, he never ceased to show affection and interest still growing bigger than that was nothing, but which represented to him, an important idea: the reform of Christianity by the return to principles of Judaism. Vaguely interview with him before, this need not slow to impose itself on his mind.

So he asked me with a constant concern to keep abreast of the work undertaken for the publication of this book that the author called his supreme effort. When the offer was made him, he eagerly accepted to compose the preface and in his mind, this was not a mere expression of sympathy for those who had asked this favor by linking its name to Elie Benamozegh he heard that the ideal score proposed by the latter had met the approval of his soul.

I can see again how carefully he listened sustained reading pages of the volume being prepared and the summary of our conversations that I was writing this preface that he would give him. With what tone of deep conviction he told me one day: "But it's much more than a book! It's a great thing and that would suffice to occupy a lifetime. "

Alas death will not give him time to finalize the work begun. The pages, shaped canvas, which will be read, could receive the developments that had them and they stayed until the last moment on his desk, ready to his hand, and the letters that 'he wrote to me a few days before he left this world demonstrated that occupied his mind constantly. During one of our last conversations on this subject, which took place in his quiet room of the family home, Rue du Bac, so peaceful with its view of tall trees in the garden of the Missions, so untouched by the great noise rumbling around Paris, it seemed even a monk's cell, he said, as if moved by a secret presentiment: "If I die, publish it. These lines summarize our conversations and faithfully reproduce the ideas I wanted to expose. These were his own words.

By filling out the intentions of today my venerable friend, I am conscious to do anything more than an act of filial piety. Let it indeed would have to imagine the feelings experienced Benamozegh Elie if he could predict the conditions under which his great work was published in the Preface and how would be drafted. The competition that Christians should give birth to his work, thus fulfilling his deepest desire, would it not overjoyed his soul? Had he not seen is the "beginning" of this great thing he called all his wishes? He asked that his efforts on behalf of his cherished ideas of reward other than the triumph of these ideas themselves, he would never have expected even hours of work the most enthusiastic, better compensation for his troubles as the result obtained by his work before being delivered to the public.

Elias Benamozegh, Hyacinthe Loyson! The God of truth they have loved here on earth and the glory which they have lived, has received one and the other in his eternal dwelling, and before the world thinks, looking, who longs for a religious revival, here are two names that are now associated. For me, I think having been a hyphen between them as a privilege and a blessing I thank with deep humility the sovereign Master of our destinies. The drive to establish itself reconciliations required between these two lives spent in service of various causes in appearance, but in reality merge into a single cause greater and eternal. Dr. Berliner, at the end of a study on the learned rabbi Leghorn
says: "In the field of human knowledge and especially that of Jewish science itself, Elie Benamozegh volunteered a lot and he has made a few. For all that he has been unable to reach for what we consider to be unfinished in his work, wait, according to the Talmud, the veritable coming of Elijah, מונח עד שיבא אליהו! "These words could they mainly apply exactly as the Father Hyacinthe?

Wait, but certainly, as well as perfection is not before us in the dark past, since the divine plan is barely begun and that we are still glimpse the dawn of the Messianic times. But this expectation is not passive and sterile. Piously collect lessons that emerge from these pages in which two great believers gathered as formerly Abraham and Melchizedek, we have delivered the fruits of their religious meditations. It is not only their voices that we hear yet it is the Church of the Gentiles worship the true God, the whole ancient Israel, with his status as a priest of humanity, which, fraternally close We bequeath all in the midst of our uncertainty, encouragement in this, a lesson for the future.

AIMÉ PALLIERE (Loetmol)