The Value of Knowledge

Jerusalem

Religious Power and Judaism

Moses Mendelssohn

Copyright ©2010–2015 All rights reserved. Jonathan Bennett

[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,

are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported between brackets in normal-sized type. – When a sentence (like this one) is preceded by – followed by a space, that is supplied by Mendelssohn, who uses it as a kind of quasi-paragraph-break. The division into subsections with titles is added in this version. So are the titles of the two Sections, though they are obviously what Mendelssohn intended. Many occurrences of italics are added in this version, to aid comprehension; but a remarkable number of them are Mendelssohn’s. First launched: June 2011

Contents

SECTION I: RELIGIOUS POWER 1. Some history of our problem . . . . . . . 2. State and religion: general points . . . . 3. What rights are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Benevolence and beneficence . . . . . . . 5. Rights and duties in the state of nature . 6. Parents and children . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....