But the Jewish people, its national life crushed out
of it, though deprived of all political ambitions, has
yet regained a certain national solidarity through com-
munity of faith and ideals; and it has maintained the
cohesion of its framework by the wholly spiritual bonds
of teaching and charity. This is the picture it presents
throughout the middle ages, during the period which,
for Christianity, marked an eclipse of the intellect and,
as it were, an enfeeblement of the reason to such a
degree that the term middle ages becomes synonymous
with intellectual decadence. "But," said the historian
Graetz, "while the sword was ravaging the outer world,
and the people devoted themselves to murderous strife,
the house of Jacob cared only that the light of the mind
burn on steadily and that the shadows of darkness be
dissipated. If a religion may be judged by its principal
representatives, the palm must be awarded to Judaism in
the tenth to the thirteenth century." Its scholars,
therefore, its philosophers, and its poets render Judaism
illustrious, and by their works and their renown shed a
radiant light upon its history.

Maimonides is one of those eminent spirits in whom
was reflected the genius of the Jewish people and who
have in turn contributed to the development of its
genius. ¹ Maimonides, however, was also more than this;
perhaps he presents as much of interest from the point
of view of Arabic as of Jewish culture; and expressing
more than the Jewish ideal, he does not belong to the
Jews entirely. Of Rashi, on the contrary, one may say
that he is a Jew to the exclusion of everything else.
He is no more than a Jew, no other than a Jew.

-14-