INTRODUCTION
3
and all adopted. The foundation is the Decalogue,
and the method is Tradition.
The foundation is the Decalogue. More exactly,
it is the famous declaration, Hear, 0 Israel, the
Lord our God, the Lord is One ; and thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy night (Deut. vi. 4, 5), a
declaration enshrined in the Jewish liturgy as the
very soul of Judaism.' The Rabbinical literature is
an attempt to furnish a complete answer to the ques-
tion,
f{
How shall a man love the Lord his God with all
his heart and soul and might ? " And even those
Rabbinical writings which seem to have least reference
to this main subject are dependent on it to this
extent, that they would not have been written unless
there had been in the minds of their authors the con-
sciousness of this great fundamental principle.
The links in the chain of development are easily dis-
tinguished, according to the Rabbinical theory. Upon
the
Decalogue (of which the Shema' is the summary)
rests the Pentateuch. The Ten Commandments
were expanded into greater detail ; and the historical
and legendary parts, as we should call them, were
included, or rather were expressly written with the
same object as the legal parts, viz., for instruction in
the right conduct of life. Moses was regarded as the
author of the whole, unless with the exception of the
last eight verses of Deut. (b. B. Bathr. 14b).2
Upon the Pentateuch rested the whole of the
'
It is known as the Shema', from its first word in Hebrew. The Shema',
as
recited, includes some other texts.
2 See the Talmudic theory of the authorship of Scripture in Traditio
Rabbinorum Veterrima de Librorum V. Test' ordine atq. origin illustrata a
Gustavo Arminio Marx. Theol. licentiato. Lipsi e, 1884.
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