To his astonishment and Mendelssohn's, he received an insulting reply, to the effect that the king and his illustrious brothers were prepared to subscribe if the minister could assure them that the translation contained nothing against the inspiration and truth of the Holy Scriptures, so that the Jews might not afterwards say "that Moses Mendelssohn was an adherent to the (ill-famed) religion of Berlin." This "Berlin religion" was at the time the terror of the orthodox, both in the Church and the Synagogue, and it cannot be said to have been an idle fear. To keep at a distance this scoffing tendency against religion, over-zealous rabbis tried to block every possible avenue of approach to the houses of the Jews. Events of the immediate future proved that the rabbis were not pursuing a phantom. Mendelssohn, in his innocent piety, did not recognize the enemy, although it passed to and fro through his own house. At length, the interdict against Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch was promulgated by Raphael Cohen (July 17th); it was directed against all Jews who read the new version. The author himself was not excommunicated, either out of consideration for his prominence, or from weakness and half-heartedness. However, before the blow fell, Mendelssohn had warded off its consequences. He persuaded Von Hennigs that he need have no scruples about obtaining the king's subscription for the translation, and it was done. At the head of the list of contributors stood the names of King Christian of Denmark and the Crown Prince. By this means Raphael Cohen was effectually foiled in his endeavors to condemn and destroy a work which he regarded as heretical. His adversaries nevertheless struck Mendelssohn a blow, to hinder the completion of the translation. They succeeded in alienating Solomon Dubno, his right-hand man, which caused Mendelssohn serious perplexity. That his work might not remain unfinished, he had to undertake the commentary to the Pentateuch himself, but finding the work beyond his strength he was obliged to seek for assistants. In Wessely he found a co-operator of similar disposition to his own; but he did not care to undertake the whole burden, and thus Mendelssohn was compelled to entrust a portion to Herz Homberg, his son's tutor, and to another Pole, Aaron Jaroslav. The former was not altogether a congenial associate. He knew that Homberg in his heart was estranged from Judaism, and that he would not execute the holy work according to his method and as a sacred duty, as he himself felt it to be. But he had no alternative. Owing to Homberg's participation in the work, the translation, finished in 1783, was discredited by the orthodox; and they desired to exclude it altogether from Jewish houses.