68 JEWISH THEOLOGICAL FACULTY. 



The third point which engages the attention of the Jews is : the 

 establishment of a Jewish theological faculty. For ten years has this 

 subject been discussed among the Jews, since the later Jewish theolo- 

 gians so early as 1819 abandoned the study of Hebrew theology ac- 

 cording to the Rabbinical method of investigating the Talmud and the 

 Mosaic writings. And the desire lor scientific Jewish theology has now 

 become general. Zunz in his day desired such a faculty as a seminary 

 for Jewish theology; the same did many learned Jews after him, and 

 Geiger (in his Scientific Journal for Jewish theology,) expressed himself 

 in clear and forcible language ; but no one knew so well how to make 

 this idea popular and general as Dr. Philipson, the religious teacher of 

 the Jewish congregation in Marburg, although he was wholly indebted 

 to Geiger for the matter. On the 24th of Oct. 1S37, in No. 88 of his 

 "Universal Journal of Judaism," he published a call to raise by sub- 

 scription, the sum of 100,000 Thaler, in order to erect and support, 

 from the interest, a Jewish theological faculty, and a Jewish seminary. 

 All parties among the Jews acknowledged the importance of such a fac- 

 ulty, and even the most indifierent became interested in it. But now 

 appeared the disadvantage arising to the cause from the person of Dr. 

 Philipson, who, without even a moderate reputation for scientific attain- 

 ments, assumed the important part of leader in this enterprise. The 

 educated every where withdrew from the movement, to await the time 

 when the excitement occasioned by him should have subsided. In 

 1838, Dr. Geiger published a little work upon this subject, which, by its 

 sound views and scientific character, is operating much more powerfully 

 upon the better informed part of the Jews. The conviction now gene- 

 rally prevalent among the Jews, that Jewish theological science can 

 flourish only in the universities, is shared by the author, (Fiirst.) In 

 Austria such an asylum cannot be expected, since its universities have 

 laid aside the German character, and do not permit free investigation in 

 theology ; even many German universities will scarcely suit for this pur- 

 pose. Upon the wliole, the fittest place would probably be Leipsic, 

 where the government has not yet entirely obliterated the former spirit 

 of the universities, where the professors are free from all narrow-mind- 

 edness and illiberality, and where Christianity is not altogether intole- 

 rant. True, we have heard, that the king of Wiirtemberg has declared 

 himself not unwilling, even with a fund of only 20,000 Thaler, to es- 

 tablish such a faculty in Tubingen ; but Leipsic, as being in the central 

 part of Germany would still seem to be preferable. Tlie first thing now 

 is to add as much to the 13,000 Thaler already collected, as will sup- 

 port for the present, :-ay three Jewish proibbsors, which among a Jew- 



