It is generally believed 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.

These words he repeated them more than once in his letters <ref> Page XIX </ref> 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 <ref> Here are the works of Elie Benamozegh, such that he gave himself in his <i> Library Hebraism </i> (Belforte, 1897) periodical which was published its various unpublished works:<br>

<i> Spinoza and the Kabbalah </i> - detached from the Universe booklet Israelite.<br>

<i> tradition Mosaic </i> - in the Jewish universe.<br>

Morality and Moral <i> Jewish Christian </i>-ed. Kauffman, Paris 1867 - winning work by the Alliance Israelite.<br>

<i> The crime of the war denounced the humanity </i> - work that earned medal and honorable mention in the competition of the League of Peace, on the report of Jules Simon, Ed. Laboulaye and Mr. Senator Frederic Passy.<br>

<i> Introduction to Israel and humanity </i>.<br>

Storia degli <i> Esseni </i>, edit. Le Monnier, Firenze, 1865.<br>

Cinque <i> conferenze sulla Pentecost </i>, Livorno, tip. Benamozegh, 1886.<br>

<i> teologia Dogmatics </i>, Dio - ed. Vigo Livorno, 1877.<br>

Lettere has <i> S. D. Luzzatto, </i> Livorno, 1890.<br>

In the years 1868-1870 Rivista Bolognese Mr. Panzacchi, various articles:<br>

<i> Frederick II of Sicily </i> and Hebrew studies.<br>

<i> Plotinus and Samuel </i> (the Talmud).<br>

<i> From the period midway between the Bible and the Rabbis. </i><br>

In Rivista <i> </i> Bolognese M. de Gubernatis:<br>

The creation by Hebraism (Theosophical).<br>

<i> Fonti del diritto e il Testamento Ebraico Samama - 1 vol. Livorno, Zecchini, 1882 </i><br>

<i> Contro replica </i> sull'argomento stesso Vigo, 1883.<br>

<i> Critica criticabile </i> - Apologia contro Rev. Europ.<br>

The truth <i> sulla quarrel Tubiana 1861. </i><br>

The truth Tubiana e sulle due tipografie Benamozegh.<br>

<i> Pentateuch or </i> Em Lammicra - text and notes in Hebrew, 5 vols.<br>

<i> Emat mafghia - </i> Response to the book antikabbalistique Leon of Modena, in Hebrew, 1855.<br>

<i> Taam lechad </i> - Refutation of Dialogues on Kabbalah Prof. Luzzatto, Hebrew<br>

<i> beasch Jaan </i> - the cremation, in Hebrew, reprinted by the author's son, Livorno 1906.<br>

General introduction to all the monuments of Tradition, in Hebrew, partly published in the Lebanon<br>

Zori <i> Ghilead </i> - Apology of the <i> Em Lammicra </i> in response to the Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem.<br>

WORK IN PROGRESSIII. 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<ref> Page XXVII </ref> 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 <ref> Page XXVII </ref> 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 tohim? 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 <ref> Page XXVIII </ref> 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 <ref> Page XXIX </ref> 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> "I know who is." </i> (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 <ref> Benamozegh Elijah and Christian solution to the crisis by Loetmol - Univers Israelite, August 1902. </Ref>. 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. <ref> Page XXX </ref> 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 <ref> M. Hyacinthe Loyson died February 9, 1912 and his last letter to this subject is January 25. </Ref> 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 <ref> Page XXXI </ref> 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 <ref> Jüdische Presse, August 1900. - Irrespective of this section and that of the Jewish universe quoted above, one can still see the life and works of Elie Benamozegh: An article Flaminio Servi - in the "Vessillo Israelitico. <br>Angiolo de Gubernatis - in Dizionario biografico <br>Francesco Pera - in its "Biografie livornese. <br>Mr. Senator Guido Mazzoni in the Italian magazine "<i> Ottocento </i>". <br>"It pensiero religioso di Elia Benamozegh - lectures by Rabbi Samuele <br>Colombo Livorno. </Ref> <br>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? <ref> Page XXXV </ref> 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)