On the 22nd day of June, 1784, less than two years before his death, Moses Mendelssohn granted an interview to an unusual visitor named Litsken. He was a traveling Christian missionary who, by his own admission, came to learn from and listen to the great philosopher, rather than try to convert him.

Mendelssohn, who was most reluctant to discuss matters of faith publicly, was quite willing to elucidate his views about Christians and Christianity in this private conversation. He had apparently no inkling that his visitor would set down and later on publish what was said. Of course, there is no assurance that the published record precisely reflects Mendelssohn’s views and words. But the very frankness of the interchange has the ring of authenticity. Moreover, where Mendelssohn discusses Biblical passages he reflects through out the comments of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, the Radak, the Ramban, and other pillars of Jewish tradition. Of interest also is Mendelssohn’s intimate acquaintance with the New Testament and especially his higher criticism of Mark 16:16. Scholars today have generally reached the same conclusion as Mendelssohn did one hundred seventy-five years ago.

The interview probably lasted several hours. The 10,000-word German text was printed in an obscure collection of missionary letters and remained largely unknown thereafter. It appeared in the so-called Callenberg series as Vol. 12 of Fortgesetzte Nachricht von der zum Heil der Juden errichteten Anstalt, nebst den Auszügen aus den Tagebüchern der reisenden Mitarbeiter, edited by Justus Israel Beyer (Halle, 1788). The excerpt that follows is in my own translation—W. Gunther Plaut.

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Mendelssohn: If we really cared for people we would condemn no one. You claim to be a disciple of Jesus, whom the Scriptures show to have loved everything human and to have taught naught but love and mercy. . . . How can you deny eternal bliss to those who teach differently from you? I think I am the Christian, and you just bear the name Christian.

[The discussion turns to Mark 16:16 which Mendelssohn believes to be an interpolation. The disputed passage says: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”]

Mendelssohn: But let us even assume that the passage is a genuine statement by Jesus. . . . It could, however, never be meant for those who are not Christians, but only for those who are convinced of the truth of Christianity and yet do not act accordingly. . . . How could the heathen, for instance, believe in Jesus if they never heard of him? Your apostle himself says this and admits that it is not possible for all people to believe in Jesus. How then could God ask the impossible of human beings? How could He condemn people for whom there was no way to believe in Jesus? Why does He not send them apostles as in the beginning?

Litsken: There is no dearth of Christian missionaries to the heathen, but unfortunately the preachments find no believers.

Mendelssohn: If you were a heathen you would not believe them either. Just imagine that you lived in pagan ignorance, and there came a Catholic, a Lutheran and a Herrnhuter1—every one a missionary who wanted to persuade you to accept Christianity. What would you do? The Catholic teaches one thing of Christ, the Lutheran another, and the Herrnhuter a third. Which of the three parties would you join? I rather think none, and you would remain what you are, namely, a heathen. . . .

[There is a further exchange on missionary activities and then Litsken takes up Psalm 16.]

Litsken: If your time permitted I would show you that the whole content of Psalm 16 fits Jesus perfectly. But I came here to learn, not to teach.

Mendelssohn: . . . I do not doubt for a moment that the passages which you would quote could be interpreted in such a way as to appear as prophecies which were later fulfilled. Many a sword is put in a sheath which does not really belong to it. . . . You don’t extract the true meaning from your passages; rather, you superimpose your meaning. You find that your apostles in their writings apply many Old Testament passages to Jesus. Consequently you conclude that all these passages are prophecies about Jesus. In reality the apostles thought of something altogether different. All they meant to say was this: what happened to Jesus is exactly what happened in this or that verse. . . . If someone whom we have befriended repays us with meanness, we might say that David’s words apply to us: “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me” [Psalms 41:10]. But who would be foolhardy enough to claim that David was prophesying about us?

[Psalm 22 is discussed next. Litsken gives it the traditional Christian interpretation, applying it to Jesus.]

Mendelssohn: Your convictions are not mine. You are a Christian and you ought to have your convictions. But tell me, how can the beginning of the Psalm refer to Jesus? How can Jesus say: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me, and art far from my help at the words of my cry? O my God, I call by day, but Thou answerest not; and at night, and there is no surcease for me.”

It is impossible for this to have been spoken by Jesus, for according to your teaching Jesus had to suffer. He knew this and suffered willingly. Now, if I undergo suffering voluntarily, without force and because I want to do so, then how can I complain to others about my predicament? How can I object or even call for help from others? Yet this is precisely what Jesus does, when he wants to be helped by God, his Father. How can Jesus complain that his help is far if he needed no help, since in assuming his role of suffering he knew what it implied? He who complains and calls for help does not suffer gladly . . . can this complaining person who cries for help be Jesus? No, I am convinced it could only be David. . . .

. . . But how could Jesus have been forsaken by God? Do you not teach that this same suffering Jesus was God Himself—how then could he have been forsaken by God? If until he expired he was God, he could not possibly cry “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

You said before that Jews living as they do among Christians could read the New Testament and thus convince themselves of the truth of the Christian faith. Yet, when we meet such inconsistent teachings which utterly contradict our own divinely revealed principles, how can we acquire your convictions by way of reason? You see, as long as these obvious contradictions in your Christian religion remain as stumbling stones, how can you wonder that an honorable Israelite will stand firmly by his Judaism? For if a thinking Jew would find some reasons to accept Christianity, these reasons would dissolve as soon as he learns that Christians multiply the Godhead. The teaching of God’s unity is the foundation of our worship and, it would seem to me, of all true worship. A real Jew would rather suffer death than to forsake his faith in the one indivisible God. Christians cannot find any way in which they can make us understand and comprehend their trilogy—and certainly they cannot do it by declaring it a mystery which must be taken on faith and which reason cannot fathom. . . .

. . . The teaching of an unchanging unmultiplied God is the noblest and most precious jewel which Judaism has preserved amidst all trials and tribulations. Should we exchange this jewel for an uncertain, self-contradictory dogma of a tri-une God, and give up our heaven-secured faith in the One God? Never! And if God will damn us, He will do so because of our misdeeds, but not because we find your religion unacceptable. . . .

. . . Pressing affairs will not permit me to prolong our conversation. God did not use the Old Testament to reveal a natural, general, universal religion, nor did He use it for the exposition of dogmas and prophecies. Rather, through the Bible, God merely gave the Jewish people a human law by which it should be governed. Biblical law applies to the exercise of religion and is therefore of an external, earth-bound nature. It belongs to the realm of human conduct, not to the spiritual realm of reverence for God. The true religion of the soul is suggested to us by our common sense. It is this natural religion which, as I read it, was preached by Jesus. Not mysteries and idle speculations. No! His teachings were not meant to exercise human reason and memory, they were designed to train the heart and to express themselves in good, noble, virtuous works, in a love of man which is unpretending, active and universal. The morality of your Jesus is the finest and most perfect which I have found anywhere in the books of wisdom and he who would criticize it is not worthy of being called a man. Happy and blessed indeed is he who lives in accordance with this morality, be he Christian or Jew. For methinks that God will some day ask us what good we accomplished in this world, not what we believed.

That is the express teaching of your Jesus, that one should love all men, even one’s enemies; that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit2 the prisoners. In one word: do good for those who are in need; for God looks only to this, and He will grant man eternal bliss only because of such works. This is true religion and the right way to honor God—not through faith in mysteries, but through works of love. He who follows this religion can rightly say that Jesus is his savior and that he will attain salvation because of Jesus. . . .

I wish that all Christians would make love of man their first obligation. Instead of bothering their heads over systems of faith and method, over prophecies and mysteries, they should strive to cultivate and practice the spirit of goodness and service toward everyone—even toward non-Christians. Would that Christians had always thought in this fashion and had made the love of man their first law! Millions of people would not have lost their lives. No one would have heard of exile and expulsion, of Crusades and Inquisition, of the Thirty Years’ War, and of uncounted evils which blind fanaticism and the spirit of persecution have spread across the earth. Nature is horrified over the history of suffering, the tribulations, the unheard-of cruelties. . . .

In many countries matters have not improved up to this very day. Frederick the Great has contributed to the betterment of the world, for with his policy of religious tolerance he has re-introduced the love of man in his state. This philosopher and enlightened Christian grants to all the liberty to reach heaven in their separate ways, if only they consider the love of man their duty and act accordingly. Nothing else is asked of them; and Jesus, if I am right, asked nothing else of his followers. Love man and you please God, whether you are Christian, Jew, or heathen, for the name does not matter. You see: on this I build my religion.

Please forgive me now, we must leave off here, my affairs await me.

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1 A Moravian brotherhood whose members had fled from persecution and in 1722 had settled in Herrnhut in Saxony (Germany).

2 Litsken writes “visit” (besuchen) . Mendelssohn more likely said “redeem the captives,” which, while a long practiced Jewish duty, may not have been familiar to Litsken.

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