Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/170

166 his books, “The Law of Man,” Nachmanides writes of suffering and death. He offers an antidote to pessimism, for he boldly asserts that pain and suffering in themselves are “a service of God, leading man to ponder on his end and reflect about his destiny.” Nachmanides believed in the bodily resurrection, but held that the soul was in a special sense a direct emanation from God. He was not a philosopher strictly so-called; he was a mystic more than a thinker, one to whom God was an intuition, not a concept of reason.

The greatest work of Nachmanides was his “Commentary on the Pentateuch.” He reveals his whole character in it. In composing his work he had, he tells us, three motives, an intellectual, a theological, and an emotional motive. First, he would “satisfy the minds of students, and draw their heart out by a critical examination of the text.” His exposition is, indeed, based on true philology and on deep