Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) was a German Jewish philosopher and biblical scholar. This significant figure of the German Enlightenment was referred to as the ‘German Socrates’ and as the ‘Jewish Socrates.’ Also regarded as the forefather of Reform Judaism, Mendelssohn contributed to the efforts of Jews to integrate with the German bourgeoisie.
Born in Dessau, Mendelssohn studied in Berlin and went on to become a partner to a silk manufacturer. His most important works, which reveal his devotion both to Judaism and rationalism, include Phaedon (1767,) a defense of the immortality of the soul based on Plato’s Phaedo, Jerusalem (1783,) which advocates the idea of spiritual authority and promotes Judaism as the religion of reason, and Morgenstunden (1785, ‘Morning Hours’) which argues for the rationality of belief in the existence of God.
Mendelssohn was a friend of the writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and the model for Lessing’s Nathan the Wise (1779.)
Mendelssohn was also the grandfather of the composer Felix Mendelssohn, who was raised Christian.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Moses Mendelssohn
Time is a part of eternity, and of the same piece with it.
—Moses Mendelssohn
Topics: Time Management
We would be able neither to remember nor to reflect nor to compare nor to think, indeed, we would not even be the person who we were a moment ago, if our concepts were divided among many and were not to be encountered somewhere together in their most exact combination.
—Moses Mendelssohn
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