No dogmatic power analogous to that which orthodox Christianity has given to the Church then existed.

It was only at the beginning of the third century, when Christianity had fallen into the hands of reasoning races, mad with dialectics and metaphysics, that that fever for definitions commenced which made the history of the Church but the history of one immense controversy.
There were disputes also among the Jews--excited schools brought opposite solutions to almost all the questions which were agitated; but in these contests, of which the Talmud has preserved the principal details, there is not a single word of speculative theology.

To observe and maintain the law, because the law was just, and because, when well observed, it gave happiness--such was Judaism.

No _credo_, no theoretical symbol.

One of the disciples of the boldest Arabian philosophy, Moses Maimonides, was able to become the oracle of the synagogue, because he was well versed in the canonical law.
The reigns of the last Asmoneans, and that of Herod, saw the excitement grow still stronger.