as well as of Germany, including
both Jewish and Christian. I was encouraged and urged by many "soon to
make the book accessible to wider circles in an English translation." My
friend, Dr. Israel Abrahams of Cambridge, England, took such interest in
the book that he induced a young friend of his to prepare an English
version. While this did not answer the purpose, it was helpful to me in
making me feel that, instead of a literal translation, a thorough revision
and remolding of the book was necessary in order to present it in an
acceptable English garb. In pursuing this course, I also enlarged the book
in many ways, especially adding a new chapter on Jewish Ethics, which, in
connection with the idea of the Kingdom of God, appeared to me to form a
fitting culmination of Jewish theology. I have thus rendered it
practically a new work. And here I wish to acknowledge my great
indebtedness to my young friend and able pupil, Rabbi Lee J. Levinger, for
the valuable aid he has rendered me and the painstaking labor he has
kindly and unselfishly performed in going over my manuscript from
beginning to end, with a view to revising the diction and also suggesting
references to more recent publications in the notes so as to bring it up
to date.

I trust that the work will prove a source of information and inspiration
for both student and layman, Jew and non-Jew, and induce such as have
become indifferent to, or prejudiced against, the teachings of the
Synagogue, or of Reform Judaism in particular, to take a deeper insight
into, and look up with a higher regard to the sublime and eternal verities
of Judaism.

"Give to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser; teach a righteous man, and
he will increase in learning."

CINCINNATI, November, 1917.

INTRODUCTORY

Chapter I. The Meaning of Theology

1. The name Theology, "the teaching concerning God," is taken from Greek
philosophy. It was used by Plato and Aristotle to denote the knowledge
concerning God and things godly, by which they meant the branch of
Philosophy later called Metaphysics, after Aristotle. In the Christian
Church the term gradually assumed the meaning of systematic exposition of
the creed, a distinction being made between _Rational_, or _Natural
Theology_, on the one hand, and _Dogmatic Theology_, on the other.(1) In
common usage Theology is understood to be the presentation of one specific
system of faith after some logical method, and a distinction