Jacob Emden - Views On The Spread of Monotheism

Views On The Spread of Monotheism

Emden was a traditionalist who responded to the ideals of tolerance being circulated during the 18th-century Enlightenment. He stretched the traditional inclusivist position into universal directions. Believing, like Maimonides, that Christianity and Islam have important roles to play in God's plan for mankind, he wrote:

We should consider Christians and Moslems as instruments for the fulfilment of the prophecy that the knowledge of God will one day spread throughout the earth. Whereas the nations before them worshipped idols, denied God's existence, and thus did not recognize God's power or retribution, the rise of Christianity and Islam served to spread among the nations, to the furthest ends of the earth, the knowledge that there is One God who rules the world, who rewards and punishes and reveals Himself to man.

In a remarkable apology for Christianity, he wrote that that the original intention of Jesus, and especially of Paul, was to convert only the Gentiles to the Seven Laws of Noah and to let the Jews follow the Mosaic law. Emden praised the ethical teachings of the founder of Christianity, considering them as being beneficial to the Gentiles by removing the prevalence of idolatry and bestowing upon them a "moral doctrine." Emden also suggested that ascetic Christian practices provided additional rectification of the soul in the same way that Judaic commandments do.