In 1769 Johan Caspar Lavater issued a public challenge to Moses Mendelssohn. Lavater, a Swiss clergyman, dedicated his translation of Charles Bonnet’s Study of the Evidence for Christianity to Mendelssohn. This dedication was anything but a compliment. In it, Lavater called on Mendelssohn either to refute the book’s proofs of Christianity or to submit to baptism. Mendelssohn’s reply to Lavater is both a call for toleration and a powerful statement of Mendelssohn’s commitment to his faith. As you read it, ask yourself how Mendelssohn’s experiences as a Jew shaped his views on religious toleration.

Esteemed friend of humanity!

You have thought fit to dedicate to me your translation of M. Bonnet’s Study of the Evidence for Christianity, and in your dedication, before the eyes of the public, to appeal to me in the most solemn manner: “insofar as I find the essential arguments adduced in support of Christianity to be incorrect, to refute this book; but insofar as I find them correct, to do what prudence, veracity, and honesty bid me do—what Socrates would have done if he had read this book and found it irrefutable” that is, to abandon the religion of my fathers and adopt the one defended by M. B. For certainly, even if my mind were base enough to make prudence a counterweight to veracity and honesty, I would in this case find all three on the same side of the balance.

I am entirely convinced that your actions proceed from pure motives, and cannot ascribe to you any but benevolent and humane intentions. I should be unworthy of the respect of any upright man if I did not respond with a grateful heart to the friendly affection you display in your dedication. But I cannot deny that this step on your part has caused me great consternation. The last thing I expected from a Lavater was a public challenge.

As you will recall the confidential discussion which I had the pleasure of having with you and your worthy friends in my parlour, you cannot possibly have forgotten how often I tried to steer the conversation away from matters of religion to indifferent topics; how hard you and your friends had to press me before I ventured to express my sentiments on something so important to the heart. If I am not mistaken, assurances had previously been given that the words uttered on that occasion would never be used in public.—However, I would rather be wrong than blame you for breaking this promise.—But if I sought so anxiously to avoid making an explicit declaration in my parlour, among a small number of worthy men, of whose fair-mindedness I had reason to be assured, then it was easy to guess that a public declaration would be utterly repugnant to my character, and that I should feel embarrassed when the voice that challenges me to make one cannot be dismissed as contemptible. What then can have induced you, contrary to my wishes which were well known to you, to single me out from the crowd and lead me to the public lists which I so much wished never to enter?—And even if you ascribed my reserve to mere timidity or shyness, would not such a weakness deserve indulgence and charity from any benevolent heart?

However, my reluctance to enter into religious controversies has never consisted in fear or bashfulness. I may say that I did not begin to study my religion only yesterday. Very early in life I recognized it as a duty to examine my opinions and actions, and if, since my early youth, I have devoted my leisure hours to philosophy and humane learning, that was solely in order to prepare myself for such a necessary examination. I could have had no other motives. In the situation in which I found myself I could not expect learning to bring the slightest temporal advantage. I was well aware that I could not attain worldly prosperity by such means. And enjoyment?—O my esteemed friend of humanity! The position in society assigned to my coreligionists is so far removed from any free exercise of the intellect that one certainly does not increase one’s happiness by learning the truth about the rights of mankind.—I will refrain from enlarging on this point. Anyone who knows our circumstances and has a human heart will feel more than I can say.

If, after all those years of research, my decision had not been in favour of my own religion, I must necessarily have made it known by a public act [i.e., baptism]. I do not see what could attach me to a religion that appears so strict and is so generally despised, if I were not convinced in my heart of its truth. Whatever the result of my inquiries might be, as soon as I did not consider the religion of my fathers to be true, I was obliged to abandon it. If I had been inwardly drawn to another, it would have been the most atrocious baseness to defy my inner conviction and refuse to confess the truth. And what could have misled me into such baseness? I have already admitted that in this case prudence, veracity, and honesty would all point in the same direction.

If I had cared nothing about either religion, and scorned or despised all revelation, then I should have known very well what prudence advises when conscience is silent. What could have prevented me?—Fear of my co-religionists?—Their worldly power is far too small to inspire me with fear.—Obstinacy? Indolence? Attachment to accustomed ideas?—Since I have devoted the greater part of my life to inquiry, people will give me credit for being intelligent enough not to sacrifice the fruits of my inquiries to such weaknesses.

You see, therefore, that if I had not believed sincerely in my own religion, the outcome of my inquiry must have shown itself in a public act. Since, however, it confirmed that of my fathers, I was able to proceed quietly on my way, without giving the world any account of my beliefs. I shall not deny that I have found in my religion human additions and abuses which, alas, too much obscure its glory. What friend of truth can boast of having found his religion free from all harmful human claborations? All those of us who seek the truth recognize the corrupting breath of hypocrisy and superstition, and wish to remove it without detriment to the true and the good. But I am as firmly and unshakably convinced of the essentials of my religion as you or M. Bonnet or any of your associates can be of yours, and I hereby testify by the God of truth, your and my creator and preserver, that I shall adhere to my principles unless my entire soul shall change its nature. My remoteness from your religion, which I indicated to you and your friends, has not diminished in the meantime, and my regard for the moral character of its Founder?—You should not have ignored the qualification which I explicitly added; for then I could now have repeated this concession. At some point in one’s life one must call a halt to certain inquiries in order to get further. I may say that with respect to religion I reached this point some years ago. I read, compared, reflected, and took my stand.

All the same, Judaism could have been demolished in every handbook of polemics, and been triumphantly demonstrated in every scholastic exercise, without my ever entering into a dispute about it. Every expert or amateur in rabbinic matters could have extracted from dusty tomes that no sensible Jew now reads or even knows the most absurd notion of Judaism for the benefit of himself and his readers, without my raising the slightest objection. I should like to refute the contemptuous opinion commonly held of a Jew through virtue and not through polemical pamphlets. My religion, my philosophy, and my position in society give me every reason to avoid religious controversies and to speak in my publications only of those truths that must be equally important to all religions.

According to the principles of my religion, I may not try to convert anyone who is not born under our law. This spirit of conversion, whose origin some would like to blame on the Jewish religion, is diametrically opposed to it. All our rabbis are unanimous in teaching that the written and oral laws in which our revealed religion consists are binding only on our nation. Moses brought us the law, it is a legacy from the kindred of Jacob. All other nations of the earth, we believe, have been instructed by God to keep the law of nature and the religion of the patriarchs. Those who conduct their lives in accordance with the laws of this religion of nature and reason are called virtuous men of other nations, and these are children of eternal bliss.

Our rabbis are so far from any urge to make converts that even if anyone voluntarily comes forward, they require us to dissuade him by serious counterarguments. We are to remind him that by this step he would be unnecessarily submitting to a very wearisome burden; that in his present state he need only observe the Noahide laws to attain eternal happiness, but by adopting the religion of the Israelites he would voluntarily be submitting to all the strict laws of this faith, and would have either to keep them or await the punishment which the legislator prescribed for their infringement. Finally we are to give him a faithful account of the misery, the oppression, and the contempt in which the nation at present lives, in order to prevent him from taking a hasty step which he might subsequently regret.

The religion of my fathers, therefore, does not wish to be diffused. We are not to send missions to the East or West Indies or to Greenland to preach our religion to those distant peoples. Since the latter in particular, according to accounts of them, obey the law of nature better, alas, than we do, they are, by our doctrines, a blessed people. Anyone who is not born under our law may not live by our law. We alone consider ourselves bound to obey these laws, and that cannot offend any of our fellow men. Do our opinions seem incoherent? There is no need to dispute the matter. We act in accordance with our belief, and others are welcome to question the validity of laws which, by our own admission, do not apply to them. Whether it is proper, friendly, humane of them to cast such scorn on our laws and customs, may be left to their own consciences to decide. Since we do not seek to persuade others of our opinion, all dispute is futile.

If my contemporaries included a Confucius or a Solon, I could, in accordance with the principles of my religion, love and admire the great man, without having the ridiculous idea of trying to convert a Confucius or a Solon. Convert him? To what? Since he does not belong to the kindred of Jacob, the laws of my religion are not binding on him, and we could readily agree on the teachings. Do I think that he could attain eternal happiness?—O! I hardly think that anyone who guides people to virtue in this life can be damned in the next, and I need not fear that any reverend College will arraign me for this opinion, as the Sorbonne did the honest Marmontel.

I am fortunate enough to have as friends many excellent men who are not of my religion. We are sincerely attached to each other, although we guess and assume that in matters of religion our opinions vary widely. I enjoy the pleasure of their company, which I find improving and delightful. Never did my heart whisper to me: “What a shame about their souls!” Anyone who thinks that there is no salvation to be found outside his church must often find such sighs rising in his bosom.

It is, of course, the natural obligation of every mortal to diffuse knowledge and virtue among his fellow men, and to do his best to extirpate their prejudices and errors. One might think, in this regard, that it was the duty of every man publicly to oppose the religious opinions that he considers mistaken. But not all prejudices are equally harmful, and hence the prejudices we may think we perceive among our fellow men must not all be treated in the same way. Some are directly contrary to the happiness of the human race. Their influence on people’s manners is obviously harmful, and not even an accidental benefit can be expected from them. These must be attacked outright by every friend of humanity. The best way to assail them is undoubtedly the direct one, and any delay resulting from circuitous methods is irresponsible. Of this kind are all people’s errors and prejudices that disturb their own or their fellows’ peace and contentment and kill every seed of the true and the good in man before it can germinate. On the one hand, fanaticism, misanthropy, and the spirit of persecution, and on the other, frivolity, luxury, and libertinism.

Sometimes, however, the opinions of my fellow men, which in my belief are errors, belong to the higher theoretical principles which are too remote from practical life to do any direct harm; but, precisely because of their generality, they form the basis on which the nation that upholds them has built its moral and social system, and thus happen to be of great importance to this part of the human race. To oppose such doctrines in public, because we consider them prejudices, is to dig up the ground to see whether it is solid and secure, without providing any other support for the building that stands on it. Anyone who cares more for the good of humanity than for his own fame will be slow to voice his opinion about such prejudices, and will take care not to attack them outright without extreme caution, for fear of overturning a moral principle that he finds dubious before his fellow men have adopted the true principle that he wishes to put in its place.

I can, therefore, perfectly well think that I perceive national prejudices and religious errors among my fellow citizens, and yet be obliged to remain silent, so long as these errors cause no direct damage to natural religion or natural law and are instead accidentally linked with the promotion of the good. Admittedly, the morality of our actions scarcely deserves this name when it is based on error, and the promotion of the good must always be effected much better and more securely by truth, once it is acknowledged, than by prejudice. But until it is acknowledged, until it becomes national, so as to affect the masses as powerfully as rooted prejudice, the latter must be held almost sacred by every friend of virtue.

Such restraint is all the more requisite when the nation that in our opinion upholds such errors has rendered itself estimable by virtue and wisdom, and includes a number of great men who deserve to be called benefactors of the human race. Such a noble part of humanity must be treated gently and with reverence, even when it falls into human error. Who is bold enough to ignore the merits of such a lofty nation and attack it where he thinks he perceives its weakness?

These are the motives which my religion and my philosophy supply for carefully avoiding religious disputes. If you consider also the social conditions in which I live among my fellow men, you will think me completely justified. I am a member of an oppressed people that must humbly rely for protection on the benevolence of the ruling nation, and does not always receive such protection, and never without certain restrictions. My co-religionists are happy to do without liberties that are accorded to every other human being; they are content to be tolerated and protected. If a nation accepts them under conditions that are tolerable, they must be grateful for a considerable benefit, since many states forbid them even to reside. Do not the laws of your home town forbid your circumcised friend even to visit you in Zurich? How grateful my co-religionists should then be to the ruling nation that includes them in its universal love of humanity and allows them to pray undisturbed to the Almighty in the manner of their fathers! In the state in which I live they enjoy the most respectable freedom in this regard; do you wonder that their members hesitate to oppose the religion of their rulers, that is, to attack their protectors on the side that for virtuous people must be the most sensitive one?

I decided always to act in accordance with these principles, and consequently to take the utmost care to avoid religious disputes, unless some extraordinary occasion should oblige me to alter my resolve. I have been bold enough silently to ignore private challenges from estimable men, and I felt that I could despise provocations from petty minds who thought that they could harass me in public because of my religion. But the solemn adjuration of a Lavater does compel me at least to present my views in public, so that nobody may mistake an unduly prolonged silence for contempt or confession.

I have read Bonnet’s book, which you translated, with close attention. Whether I was convinced is, after what I have just set out, no longer the issue. But I must admit that even as a defence of the Christian religion it did not seem to me to have the merit that you find in it. I know M. Bonnet from his other works as an excellent writer, but I have read many defences of the same religion, I will not say by Englishmen, but by our German compatriots, which struck me as much more thorough and philosophical than this of Bonnet’s, which you recommend for the sake of my conversion. If I am not mistaken, most of this writer’s philosophical hypotheses grew on German soil, and even the author of the Essai de Psychologie, which M. Bonnet follows so faithfully, owes almost everything to German philosophers. Where philosophical principles are concerned, the German seldom needs to borrow from his neighbours.

The best-thought-out part of this work, in my judgement, is the general reflection with which M. Bonnet introduces it. For the way in which he applies and uses these reflections to defend his religion struck me as so improper, so arbitrary, that I scarcely recognized Bonnet. I am sorry that my judgement must diverge so much from yours. It seems to me that M. B.’s deep conviction and a praiseworthy zeal for his religion lent a weight to his arguments that another cannot find there. Most of his conclusions seem to follow so little from the premisses that I would venture to adduce the same grounds in support of any religion whatsoever. The author himself should perhaps not be blamed for this. He can have been writing only for readers who share his conviction and read only to be strengthened in their belief. Once writer and reader are unanimous about the result, they can quickly agree on the reasons for it. But I may justly wonder at you, Sir, for thinking this book sufficient to persuade someone who, in accordance with his principles, must be committed to the opposite case. You cannot possibly have entered into the thoughts of such a person, who does not bring his conviction with him, but is supposed to derive it from this book. But if you did, and if you still think, as you give us to understand, that even a Socrates would have found M. Bonnet’s arguments irrefutable; then one or other of us must be a curious example of the power that prejudices and education can exercise over those who sincerely seek the truth.

I have now set forth my reasons for so earnestly desiring never to dispute about religious matters; but I have also indicated that I certainly consider myself able to reply to the Bonnet book. If you press me, then I must set aside my misgivings and make up my mind to publish my thoughts about M. Bonnet’s book and the case he defends in a set of Counter-Reflections. I hope, however, that you will release me from this unpleasant step, and will rather permit me to return to the peaceful situation which is natural to me. If you put yourself in my position, and consider the circumstances not from your viewpoint but from mine, you will concede the justice of my wishes. I should not like to be tempted to leave the limitations which I have deliberately imposed on myself.

I am, with the utmost regard

Your sincere admirer,

Moses Mendelssohn.

Berlin, 12 December 1769.

Source: Ritchie Robertson, ed., The German-Jewish Dialogue: An Anthology of Literary Texts, 1749–1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 37–45.

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