The Impact of Deism on the Hebrew Literature of the Enlightenment In
The Impactof Deism on theHebrew Literature ofthe Enlightenment in Germany MOSHE PELLI THE EUROPEAN ENLIGHTENMENT was not in essence atheistic,' nor was it irreligious,2though manifestationsof free thought, atheism,and materialismwere an integralpart of it. Its mostcharac- teristicreligious expression is deism,considered by some scholars to be "thereligion of theEnlightenment."3 It was deismthat devel- oped and crystallizedthe idea of naturalreligion, whose architects had been JohnSelden (1584-1654) and Hugo Grotius (1583- 1645). Deism attacheda new, universaldimension to religion,and was one ofthe decisive factors in theweakening of orthodox religious valuesin Europe as wellas in theweakening of the Christian church. A studyof thedeistic movement in England,France, and Germany revealsthat it is notto be regardedas havingone, unified, homogene- ous Weltanschauung.Nevertheless, one has to resortto generalizing in orderto presentthe attitudeof the European Enlightenmentto- ward religion-religionin general,and the Christianreligion in particular-as expressedin one of the most influentialand most notablemovements in European thoughtduring the latterpart of the seventeenthcentury and the eighteenthcentury; the impactof thismovement on theHebrew Enlightenment in Germanyis noticed onlyin thelate eighteenthand the earliernineteenth centuries. Unlikethe Renaissance, which attempted to understandreligious dogma,and to interpretit in a humanisticfashion, European En- 1 Paul Hazard, European Thought in the EighteenthCentury (New York, 1963), p. 129. 2 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenntent(Boston, 1965), pp. 135- 36. Of the same opinionis HerbertDieckmann in "Themesand Structureof the Enlightenment,"Essays in Comparative Literature (St. Louis, 1961), pp. 67 ff. 3 John Hibben, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment(New York, 1910), p.272. See also Arthur0. Lovejoy,"The Parallelof Deism and Classicism,"Essays in the History of Ideas (Baltimore, 1948), p.
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