The main source of our creed is the Bible, and among the Biblical
books, chiefly the Pentateuch (תורה). In these books we find many
truths taught by God Himself, or by His inspired messengers, and they
form the substance of our creed. It matters little how we arrange them,
how we collect them into groups, and subdivide these again, provided we
believe in them implicitly. In the Bible they are not arranged
systematically; they are intermingled with, and are contained
implicitly in, the history and the laws that form the subject-matter of
the Scriptures; it is the observance of those laws which constitutes
the best evidence of the belief seated in the heart. No declaration or
recital of a creed is commanded in the Pentateuch; no tribunal is
appointed for inquiring whether the belief of a man is right or wrong;
no punishment is inflicted or threatened for want of belief. It became,
however, necessary to formulate the truths taught in the Bible, when
disputes arose as to their meaning and to their validity. The Mishnah,
therefore, declares certain opinions as un-Jewish and contrary to the
teaching of the Divine Word. Later on, when controversies multiplied
between the various sections of the Jewish nation, as well as between
Jews and Christians and Jews and Mohammedans, it was found most
important to settle the form and arrangement of our beliefs. Moses
Maimonides, the great religious philosopher, taught, in his Commentary
on the Mishnah, thirteen principles of faith, which found general
acceptance among the Jews, and are known as the Thirteen Principles.
They have found their way into the Prayer-book in two different forms,
one in prose and one in poetry. Maimonides, in commending them to the
reader, says: “Read them again and again and study them well, and let
not your heart entice you to believe that you have comprehended their
full meaning after having read them a few times; you would then be in a
great error, for I have not written down what occurred to my mind at
first thought. I first thoroughly studied and examined what I was going
to write, compared the various doctrines, the correct ones and the
incorrect ones, and when I arrived at what we ought to accept as our
creed, I was able to prove it by arguments and reasoning.” The thirteen
articles as put forth by Maimonides, and called by him principles and
foundations of our religion, are the following:—
1. The first principle: The belief in the existence of the Creator;
that is, the belief that there exists a Being who requires no other
cause for His existence, but is Himself the cause of all beings.
2. The second principle: The belief in the Unity of God; that is, the
belief that the Being who is the cause of everything in existence is
One; not like the unity of a group or class, composed of a certain
number of individuals, or the unity of one individual consisting of
various constituent elements, or the unity of one simple thing which is
divisible ad infinitum, but as a unity the like of which does not
exist.
3. The third principle: The belief in the Incorporeality of God; that
is, the belief that this One Creator has neither bodily form nor
substance, that He is not a force contained in a body, and that no
corporeal quality or action can be attributed to Him.
4. The fourth principle: The belief in the Eternity of God; that is,
the belief that God alone is without a beginning, whilst no other being
is without a beginning.
5. The fifth principle: The belief that the Creator alone is to be
worshipped, and no other being, whether angel, star, or ought else, all
these being themselves creatures.
6. The sixth principle: The belief in Prophecy; that is, the belief
that there have been men endowed with extraordinary moral and
intellectual powers, by which they were enabled to reach a degree and
kind of knowledge unattainable to others.
7. The seventh principle: The belief that our teacher Moses was the
greatest of all prophets, both those before him and those after him.
8. The eighth principle: The belief in the Divine origin of the Law;
the belief that the whole Pentateuch was communicated to Moses by God,
both the precepts and the historical accounts contained therein.
9. The ninth principle: The belief in the integrity of the Law; that
both the written and the oral Law are of Divine origin, and that
nothing may be added to it or taken from it.
10. The tenth principle: The belief that God knows and notices the
deeds and thoughts of man.
11. The eleventh principle: The belief that God rewards those who
perform the commandments of His Law, and punishes those who transgress
them.
12. The twelfth principle: The belief that Messiah will come at some
future time, which it is impossible for us to determine; that he will
be of the house of David, and will be endowed with extraordinary wisdom
and power.
13. The thirteenth principle: The belief in the revival of the dead, or
the immortality of the soul.
These thirteen principles (שלשה עשר עקרים) may be divided into three
groups, according to their relation to the three principles:—1.
Existence of God. 2. Revelation. 3. Reward and punishment. The first
group includes the first five principles, the second the next four, and
the third the remaining four. In this order they will now be
considered.