type. Nevertheless, he created a religion which led to a remarkable advancement of intellectual and spiritual culture, and in which Judaism found a valuable incentive to similar endeavors. Thus Ishmael proved a better heir to Abraham than was Esau, the hostile brother of Jacob.(1390) 5. The important, yet delicate question, which of the three religions is the best, the Mohammedan, Christian or Jewish, was answered most cleverly by Lessing in his _Nathan the Wise_, by adapting the parable of the three rings, taken from Boccaccio. His conclusion is that the best religion is the one which induces men best to promote the welfare of their fellow men.(1391) But the question itself is much older; it was discussed at the court of the Kaliphs in Bagdad as early as the tenth century, where the adherents of every religion there represented expressed their opinions in all candor. For centuries it was the subject of philosophical and comparative investigations.(1392) Among these, the most thorough and profound is the _Cuzari_ by the Jewish philosopher and poet, Jehuda ha Levi. But the parable of the three rings also has been traced through Jewish and Christian collections of tales dating back to the thirteenth century, and seems to be originally the work of a Jewish author. Standing between the two powerful faiths with their appeal to the temporal arm, the Jew had to resort to his wit as almost his only resource for escape. Two Jewish works have preserved earlier forms of the parable. In Ibn Verga’s collection of histories of the fifteenth century, it is related that “Don Pedro the Elder, King of Aragon (1196-1213), asked Ephraim Sancho, a Jewish sage, which of the two religions, the Jewish or Christian, was the better one. After three days’ deliberation, the sage told the king a story of two sons who had each received a precious stone from their father, a jeweler, when he went on a journey. The sons then went to a stranger, threatening him with violence, unless he would decide which of the jewels was the more valuable. The king, believing the story to be a fact, protested against the action of the two sons, whereupon the Jew explained: Esau and Jacob are the two sons who have each received a jewel from their heavenly Father. Instead of asking me which jewel is the more precious, ask God, the heavenly Jeweler. He knows the difference, and can tell the two apart.”(1393)