Judaism, as embodied in its law-givers and prophets, teaches that Morality consists in living and acting in accordance with the divine Will. Maimonides, who, however, was regarded by many of his contemporaries as a heretic, does not consider Judaism a creed at all, but a code of Morality. He maintains that anyone who repudiates the tenets of the Jewish faith, even the most essential one, namely, the belief in a single god, must not be excluded from the Jewish community as long as he conforms to its moral laws. This thinker, usually so accurate and nice in his reasoning, overlooks the fact that in this case he is contradicting himself in a manner wellnigh comic. According to him, too, Morality consists in the endeavour to live and act in accordance with the divine Will. How is such an endeavour possible for a man who does not believe in God and for whom consequently no divine Will exists? Therefore either Morality must be something different from an approximation to the standard set up by the divine Will, or else he who denies God cannot be moral. But I will leave the author of the "Guide of those who have gone astray" to his self-contradiction, and only retain the Jewish definition of Morality as based upon the Will of God. Without any restriction Christianity has taken over this definition from the mother-religion. In his zeal to claim that God alone is the source of all Morality, St. Augustine allows himself to be carried away to such an extent that he libels mankind most hatefully. Just as for Rousseau man is by nature good, for the Bishop of Hippo he is by nature fundamentally bad. Left to his own devices he would always wallow in the mire of sin and vice, and would never even feel the wish to abandon his wickedness. It is God's mercy alone which rescues him from his depravity and sets his feet upon the path of righteousness, leading him to virtue, salvation and eternal bliss. Thomas Aquinas is no less definite on this point. The scriptures of Judaism and Christianity contain the eternal law which God has ordained for mankind. He points out the paths that man should follow. All Morality springs from Him alone.