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 [20]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 [21]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. [22]

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.