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The Supreme Being, regarded as the Creator, Author, and First Cause of the universe, the Ruler of the world and of the affairs of men, the Supreme Judge and Father, tempering justice with mercy, working out His purposes through chosen agents—individuals as well as nations—and communicating His will through prophets and other appointed channels.
—Biblical Data:
"God" is the rendering in the English versions of the Hebrew "El," "Eloah," and "Elohim." The existence of God is presupposed throughout the Bible, no attempt being anywhere made to demonstrate His reality. Philosophical skepticism belongs to a period of thought generally posterior to that covered by the Biblical books, Ecclesiastes and some of the Psalms (xiv., liii., xciv.) alone indicating in any degree in Biblical Israel a tendency toward Atheism. The controversies of the Earlier Prophets never treat of the fundamental problems of God's existence or non-existence; but their polemics are directed to prove that Israel, ready at all times to accept and worship one or the other god, is under the obligation to serve Yhwh and none other. Again, the manner of His worship is in dispute, but not His being. The following are the main Biblical teachings concerning God:
Relation to Nature.
God and the world are distinct. The processes of nature are caused by God. Nature declares the glory of God: it is His handiwork (Gen. i.; Ps. viii., xix.; Isa. xl. 25 et seq.). God is the Creator. As such, He is "in heaven above and upon the earth beneath" (Deut. iv. 39). His are the heavens, and His is the earth (Ps. lxxxix. 12 [A. V. 11]; compare Amos iv. 13). He created the world by the word of His mouth (Ps. xxxiii. 6, 9). Natural sequences are His work (Jer. v. 22, 24; Ps. lxxiv. 15-17). He maintains the order of nature (Ps. cxlvii. 8-9, 16-18; Neh. ix. 6). He does not need the offerings of men, because "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof" (Ps. xxiv. 1, 4, 7-13; compare Isa. i. 11; Jer. vii. 21-23; Micah vi. 6-8).
Nothing is affirmed of His substantial nature. The phrase "spirit of God" ("ruaḥ Elohim") merely describes the divine energy, and is not to be taken as equivalent to the phrase "God is a spirit," viz., an assertion concerning His incorporeality (Zech. iv. 6; Num. xiv. 22; Isa. xl. 13). He can not, however, be likened to any thing (Ex. xx. 4-5; Isa. xl. 18) or to any person (Jer. x. 6-7). No form is seen when God speaks (Deut. iv. 15). He rules supreme as the King of the nations (Jer. x. 6-7). His will comes to pass (Isa. viii. 9, 10; lv. 10, 11; Ps. xxxiii. 10-12, lxviii. 2-4). He is one, and none shares with Him His power or rulership (Deut. vi. 4; Isa. xliv. 6, xlvi. 10 [A. V. 9]). He is unchangeable, though he was the first and will be the last (Isa. xli. 4; Mal. iii. 6). All that is, is perishable: God is everlasting (Isa. xl. 7-8, 23-25; li. 12-13). Hence His help is always triumphant (Ps. xx. 8-9, xliv. 4, xlvi. 1-8). He is in all things, places, and times (Ps. cxxxix. 7-12). He is not, like man, subject to whim (Num. xxiii. 19; Deut. vii. 9). He is the Judge, searching the innermost parts of man's being, and knowing all his secrets (Jer. xvi. 17, xvii. 10, xxiii. 24; Ps. cxxxix. 1-4). His knowledge is too high for man (Ps. cxxxix. 6, 15, 16). God's wisdom, however, is the source of human understanding (Ps. xxxvi. 10). He is "merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth" (Ex. xxxiv. 6-7). But He can not hold the sinner guiltless (ib.). He manifests His supreme lordship in the events of history (Deut. xxxii. 8-12; Ps. xxii. 28, 29; lxxviii. 2-7). He is the ever-ruling King (Jer. x. 10). He punishes the wicked (Nahum i. 2); He turns their way upside down (Ps. i. 6). Appearances to the contrary are illusive (Hab. i. 13, ii. 2; Jer. xii. 1-2; Ps. x. 13-14, xxxvii. 35-39, lii. 3-9, lxii. 11-13, xcii. 7-8; Job xxi. 7-9, xxvii. 8-11, xxxv. 14).
Relation to Man.
The Biblical theodicy culminates in the thought that the end will show the futility and deceptive nature of the prosperity of the wicked (Ps. lxxvii. 17). The mightiest nations do not prevail against God (Jer. xviii. 7-10, xxv. 30-31; Ps. vii. 8-9; xxxiii. 13, 19). He judges the world in righteousness (Ps. ix. 9, 16; lxxvi. 9-10; xcv. 10-13). I Chron. xxix. 11-12 may be said to be a succinct epitome of the Biblical doctrine concerning God's manifestations in nature and in history (compare I Sam. ii.). Yet God does not delight in the death of the sinner: He desires his return from his evil ways (Ezek. xviii. 21-22, xxxviii. 10-11). Fasting is not an adequate expression of repentance (Isa. lviii. 3-8; compare Jonah ii. 10; Joel ii. 13; Zech. vii. 5). God hath demanded of man "to do justly, and to love mercy"(Micah vi. 8); hence redress for wrongs done is the first step toward attaining God's forgiveness (Ezek. xxxiii. 15), the "forsaking of one's evil ways" (Lam. iii. 37-40).
It is characteristic of the Biblical conception of God that He is with those of contrite heart (Isa. lvii. 15). He loves the weak (Deut. x. 17-18). He is the father (Isa. lxiii. 16, lxiv. 7); and like a father He taketh pity on His children (Ps. ciii. 13; see Compassion). Therefore, love is due to Him on the part of His children (Deut. vi. 4-5). The demand to fear Him, in the light of the implications of the Hebrew original, is anything but in conflict with the insistence that the relations between God and man are marked by parental and filial love. The God of the Bible is not a despot, to be approached in fear. For "yir'ah" connotes an attitude in which confidence and love are included, while the recognition of superiority, not separation, is expressed (Nietzsche's "pathos of distance"). Reverence in the modern sense, not fear, is its approximate equivalent. They that confide in Him renew their strength (Isa. xl. 30-31). God is holy (compare Isa. vi. 3); this phrase sums up the ultimate contents of the Bible conception of God (see Fear of God).
Relation to Israel.
He is Israel's God. Not on account of any merits of its own (Deut. vii. 7-8, ix. 4-7), but because of God's special designs, because the fathers loved Him (Deut. x. 11-16), Israel was chosen by God (Ex. xix. 4-6; Deut. iv. 20, xxxii. 9; Isa. xli. 8-9, xliii. 21; Jer. ii. 2, and often elsewhere). Hence, in Israel's experience are illustrated God's power, love, and compassion, as, in fact, it is Israel's sole destiny to be the witness to God (Isa. xliv. 8). For Israel, therefore, God is a jealous God. He can not tolerate that Israel, appointed to be His portion (Deut. xxxii. 9), His servant (Isa. xliv. 21), His people joined unto Him for His name and glory and ornament (Jer. xiii. 11, A. V., "for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory"), should worship other gods. Israel's task is to be holy as He is holy (Lev. xix. 2; Deut. xxvi. 19). Israel itself does not fully recognize this. God sends prophets again and again to instruct and admonish His people (Jer. vii. 25, xi. 7, xxxv. 15; Isa. xxix. 13-14).
In Israel God's judgments are purposed to impress upon His people the duty placed upon it. Greater suffering He metes out to Israel (Lev. xxvi. 40; Deut. iv. 30-31; viii. 5, 19; xi. 16-17; xxxii. 15; Isa. i. 19-20, iv. 3-4, xlii. 24-xliii. 1, xlviii. 9-11; Jer. ii. 19, v. 18-19; Amos iii. 2), but He will not permit Israel to perish (Isa. xli. 10-14; xlv. 17; li. 7-8; liv. 10, 17; Jer. xxxi. 36). And Israel, brought to faithfulness, will be instrumental in winning the whole earth to God (Isa. ii. 2-4, xi. 9, xlv. 23, lxv. 25; Micah iv. 1-4; Jer. iii. 17; see Messiah).
God is Israel's lawgiver. His law is intended to make Israel holy. That Israel serve God, so as to win all people to the truth, is God's demand (Lev. xx. 26; Deut. iv. 6). God's unity is indicated in the one sanctuary. But legalism and sacerdotalism are withal not the ultimate (Ps. l. 7-13; I Sam. xv. 22: "to obey is better than sacrifice"; Isa. i. 11; Jer. vii. 21-23; Hosea vi. 6: "I desired love [A. V. "mercy"] and not sacrifice").
Nor is the law a scheme of salvation. Nowhere in the Old Testament is the doctrine taught that God must be satisfied (see Fall of Man; Sin). Sin is impotent against God, and righteousness does not benefit Him (Job xxxv. 6-8). God is omnipotent (Ps. x. 3-4). At one with Him, man is filled with joy and with a sense of serene security (Ps. xvi. 5-6, 8-9; xxvii. 1-4). Without this all else is sham (Ps. xlix. 7-13). Happy, therefore, the man who heeds God's instruction (Ps. xciv. 12; Prov. iii. 11-12). Sin never attains its aims (Ps. xxxiv. 22; Prov. xi. 19; I Sam. xxiv. 14; Job viii. 13-14, xv. 20-31). It is thus that God documents His supremacy; but unto man (and Israel) He gives freedom to choose between life and death (Deut. xxx. 15-20). He is near to them that revere Him (Ps. lxxxv. 9-14). Though His ways are not man's ways, and His thoughts not man's thoughts (Isa. lv. 8), yet to this one certainty man may cleave; namely, that God's word will come to pass and His purposes will be carried out (ib. verses 9, 10, 11).
The God of the Bible is not a national God, though in the fate of one people are mirrored the universal facts of His kingship and fatherhood, and the truth is emphasized that not by might, nor by power, but by God's spirit are the destinies of the world and of man ordered (Zech. iv. 6; Mal. i. 11; Ps. cxiii., cxv.). The God of the Bible is a person; i.e., a being self-conscious, with will and purpose, even though by searching man can not find Him out (Job xi. 7; Ps. xciv. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; Isa. xl. 28; Ps. cxlv. 3).
In the Palestinian Apocrypha.
His unity, postulating Him as the absolute, omni-present, and therefore as the omniscient, eternal, and living God, is accentuated; while in His relations to the world and its inhabitants He is manifest as the Creator, Ruler, the perfectly righteous Judge, requiting evil and rewarding good, yet, in His mercy, forgiving sin. To Him all nature is subject, while He executes His designs according to His inscrutable wisdom. The history of former generations is cited in proof of the contention that they who confide in Him have never been disappointed (Ecclus. [Sirach] ii. 10); for God is full of mercy, pardoning sins, and is the great Helper (ib. verse 11).
Good and evil proceed from God, as do life and death (ib. xi. 14). Yet sin is not caused by God, but by man's own choice (ib. xv. 11 et seq.). God is omnipresent. Though He is on high, He takes heed of men's ways (ib. xvi. 17, xvii. 15-16). Mountains and the ocean are in His power (ib. verses 18 et seq.).
Being the Creator, He planned the eternal order of nature (ib. verses 26 et seq.). He also fashioned man (ib. xvii. 1 et seq.). Whatever strength man has is from Him (ib. verse 3). The eyes of men are enabled by Him to see "the majesty of His glory," andtheir ears to hear "His glorious voice" (ib. verse 13). He liveth in all eternity and judgeth all things. None may search out His wondrous might (ib. xviii. 1-2), or describe His grace (ib. verse 3). To Him naught may be added, and from Him nothing may be taken away (ib. verse 6, xlii. 21). Even the "holy ones" are not competent to relate the marvels of His works (ib. xlii. 17). He announces that which was and that which is to be and all hidden things (ib. verses 19-20). He is one from all eternity (ib. verse 21). He is the Living God (ib. verse 23). Among all the varieties of things He has created nothing without purpose (, ib. verse 24).
The "wisdom of God" is spoken of and exalted in the same strains as in the Biblical books (Prov. vii., viii.). All wisdom is from God and is with Him forever (Ecclus. [Sirach.] i. 1). It came forth from the mouth of the Most High (ib. xxiv. 3); but it was created before all things (ib. i. 4). It is subject to the will of Him who alone is "wise, and greatly to be feared," seated on His throne (ib. i. 8). God "poured it out over all His works" (ib. i. 7; comp. xxiv. 31). However close this description of wisdom may come to a personification, it is plain that it is free from any element which might be construed as involving a departure from the Biblical position regarding God's absolute unity.
In Alexandrian Apocrypha.
It is in the Alexandrian Apocrypha that modifications of the Biblical doctrine appear; but even here are to be found books whose theology is a reiteration of the Biblical teachings. The so-called Third Book of the Maccabees, in the prayer of the high priest Simon, invokes "God as the King of the Heavens, the Ruler of all creatures, the most Holy, the sole Governor, the Omnipotent," declaring Him to be "a just ruler," and appeals to the events of past days in support of the faith in God's supremacy and in Israel's appointment to glorify Him (III Macc. ii. 1-20) who is all-merciful and the maker of peace.
The third book of the "Oracula Sibyllina," also, reiterates with great emphasis and without equivocation the unity of God, who is alone in His superlative greatness. God is imperishable, everlasting, self-existent, alone subsisting from eternity to eternity. He alone really is: men are nothing. He, the omnipotent, is wholly invisible to the fleshly eye. Yet He dwells in the firmament (Sibyllines, i. 1, 7-17, 20, 32; ii. 1-3, 17, 36, 46). From this heavenly abode He exercises His creative power, and rules over the universe. He sustains all that is. He is "all-nourishing," the "leader of the cosmos," the constant ruler of all things. He is the "supreme Knower" (ib. i. 3, 4, 5, 8, 15, 17, 35; ii. 42). He is "the One God sending out rains, winds, earthquakes, lightnings, famines, pestilences, dismal sorrows, and so forth" (ib. i. 32-34). By these agencies He expresses His indignation at the doings of the wicked (ib. ii. 19-20); while the good are rewarded beyond their deserts (ib. ii. 1-8). God's indwelling in man (πᾶσι βροτοῖσιν ἐνών)"as the faculty of judgment" is also taught (ib. i. 18). This indwelling of God, which has been claimed as an indication of the book's leaning toward a modification of the transcendentalism of the Biblical idea of God, may perhaps rest on a faulty reading (comp. Drummond, "Philo Judćus," i. 173).
In the Septuagint, also, the treatment of anthropomorphic statements alone exhibits a progress beyond the earlier Biblical conceptions. For example, in Gen. vi. 6-7 "it repented the Lord" is softened into "He took it to heart"; Ex. xxiv. 9-10, "They [Moses, Aaron, and the others mentioned) saw the place where the God of Israel stood" is rendered "They saw the God of Israel"; Ex. xv. 3, instead of "The Lord is a man of war," has "The Lord is one who crushes wars"; Josh. iv. 24, "the power" for "the hand." In Isa. vi. 1, the "train of his [God's] robe" is changed into "his glory" (see Zeller, "Die Philosophie der Griechen," iii., part ii., 254). As the Targumim, so the Septuagint, on account of a more spiritualized conception of God, takes care to modify the earlier and grosser terminology; but even the phrase ὅ Θεὸς τῶν δυνάμεων (Isa. xlii. 13) does not imply the recognition of powers self-existent though under the control of God. The doctrine of the unity of God is put forth as the central truth also in the Septuagint.
Hellenistic Influences.
Nor is this theology toned down in other Hellenistic writings. While in style and method under the influence of Greek thought, the fragments of Demetrius, Pseudo-Artapanus, Pseudo-Phocylides, Ezekielus' tragedy on Exodus, and the so-called Fourth Book of Maccabees can not be said to put forth notions concerning God at variance with the Palestinian theology. The Wisdom of Solomon, the Letter of Aristeas, and the fragments of Aristobulus, however, do this. In the first of these three, Israel's God is pronounced to be the only God. He lives in solitary supremacy, responsible to Himself alone (Wisdom xii. 12-14). He is (τόν ὅντα ib. xiii. 1). He is the "eternal light" (ib. vii. 26). He is the Artificer (Τεχνίτης) who created or prepared (both verbs are used) the various things in nature (ib. xviii. 1-5). This uncertainty in the verb descriptive of God's part in creation suggests that the old Biblical conception of the Creator's functions is in this book attenuated to the bringing into order of formless primeval matter (comp. ib. xi. 17). Matter is compared to a lump of wax which, originally devoid of attributes, owes its qualities to divine agency (Drummond, l.c. p. 188).
But, while the cosmos is an expression and the result of the greatness, power, and beauty of God, He remains transcendent above it. Nevertheless, He continues to administer all things (Wisdom xii. 15, 18; xv. 1). It is His providence that acts as a pilot or rudder (ib. xiv. 3). In this is manifested His truth, justice, mercy, loving-kindness, and long-suffering (ib. xi. 23; xii. 15, 18; xv. 1). It is among His holy ones that His grace and mercy are conspicuous; but evil-doers are punished (iii. 9, 10). The pious are those who dwell with wisdom (vii. 28). God possesses immediate knowledge of men's secrets, of their speech, feelings, and thoughts (ib. i. 6). He foreknows but does not foreordain the future. Necessity and right (ἀνάγκη and δίκη) are both postulated. The former blinds the judgment of the impious. If they continue in their impenitence, they will be overtaken by their punishment(ib. i. 15; ii. 6-22; iii. 2-17; iv. 3-14; xii. 2, 10, 20; and more especially xix. 1-5). The avenging Right is, however, not hypostatized or personified to any great degree (ib. i. 8, xi. 20, xiv. 31, xviii. 11). God is not the creator of evil (ib. i. 12-14); therefore in evil He is confronted with a tendency that He can not tolerate. Hence He or His is the avenging justice.
God is neither unknown nor unknowable. The external universe reveals Him. It implies the existence of a primal source greater than it (ib. xiii. 1-9); and, again, through wisdom and "the spirit" sent from on high, God is found by them who do not disobey Him (ib. i. 2-4, ix. 13-17). Yet man can never attain unto perfect knowledge of the divine essence (see Gfrörer, cited by Drummond, l.c. p. 198). Notwithstanding God's transcendence, anthropopathic phraseology is introduced (Wisdom iv. 18, "God shall laugh"; "His right hand" and "arm," v. 16; "His hand," vii. 16, x. 20, xi. 17, xix. 8). This proves that the doctrine of intermediate agents is not fully developed in the book, though in its presentation of God's wisdom elements appear that root in this conception. Certainly the question had begun to force itself upon the writer's mind: How is it that God enthroned on high is yet omnipresent in the universe? Like the Stoics, the author assumes an all-penetrating divine principle which appears as the rational order of the cosmos and as the conscious reason in man. Hence God's spirit is all-pervasive (ib. i. 6-7). This spirit is, in a certain sense, distinct from God, an extension of the Divine Being, bringing God into relation with the phenomenal world. Still, this spirit is not a separate or subordinate person. "Wisdom" and this "spirit" are used interchangeably (ib. ix. 17); "wisdom is a spirit that is" a lover of mankind (ib. i. 4-6); wisdom is "a vapor of the power of God," a reflection of eternal light (ib. vii. 25-26).
"Wisdom" of God.
This wisdom has twenty-one attributes: it is "an understanding spirit, holy, alone in kind, manifold, subtile, freely moving, clear in utterance, unpolluted, distinct, unharmed, loving what is good, keen, unhindered, beneficent, loving toward man, steadfast, sure, free from care, all-powerful, all-surveying, and penetrating through all spirits that are quick of understanding, pure, most subtile" (ib. vii. 22-24). Wisdom is a person, the "assessor" at God's throne (ib. ix. 4); the chooser of God's works (ib. viii. 3-4). She was with God when He made the cosmos (ib. ix. 9). She is the artificer of all things (ib. vii. 21). As all this is elsewhere predicated of God also, it is plain that this "wisdom" is regarded only as an instrument, not as a delegate of the Divine. The Wisdom of Solomon speaks also of the "Logos" (ib. ii. 2-3, ix. 1-2, xvi. 12, xviii. 14-16); and this, taken in connection with its peculiar conception of wisdom, makes the book an important link in the chain leading from the absolute God-conception of Palestinian Judaism to the theory of the mediating agency of the Word (Άόγος, "Memra") in Philo. The Aristeas Letter does not present as clear a modification of the God-conception (but see Eleazar's statement therein, "there is only one God and 'His power' is through all things"). Aristobulus, in the Orphic verses, teaches that God is invisible (verse 20), but that through the mind He may be beheld (verses 11, 12). Maker and Ruler of the world, He is Himself the beginning, middle, and end (verses 8, 34, 35, 39). But wisdom existed before heaven and earth; God is the "molder of the cosmos" (verse 8)—statements which, by no means clear enough to form the basis of a conclusion, yet suggest also in Aristobulus' theology a departure from the doctrine of God's transcendence and His immediate control of all as the Creator ex nihilo.
Philo is the philosopher who boldly, though not always consistently, attempts to harmonize the supramundane existence and majesty of the one God with His being the Creator and Governor of all. Reverting to the Old Testament idiom, according to which "by the word of Yhwh were the heavens made" (Ps. xxxiii. [xxxii.] 6)—which passage is also at the root of the Targumic use of Memra, (see Anthropomorphism)—and on the whole but not consistently assuming that matter was uncreated (see Creation), he introduces the Logos as the mediating agent between God on high and the phenomenal world.
Philo's Logos.
Philo is also the first Jewish writer who undertakes to prove the existence of God. His arguments are of two kinds: those drawn from nature, and those supplied by the intuitions of the soul. Man's mind, also invisible, occupies in him the same position as does that of God in the universe ("De Opificio Mundi," § 23). From this one arrives at a knowledge of God. The mind is the sovereign of the body. The cosmos must also have a king who holds it together and governs it justly, and who is the Supreme ("De Abrahamo," § 16; "De Migratione Abrahami," § 33). From a ship man forms the idea of a ship-builder. Similarly, from the cosmos he must conceive the notion of the Father and Creator, the great and excellent and all-knowing artist ("De Monarchia," i. 4; "De Prćmiis et Pśnis," § 7). For a first and an efficient cause man must look outside of the material universe, which fails in the points of eternity and efficiency ("De Confusione Linguarum," §§ 21, 25; "De Somniis," i. 33). This cause is mind. But man has the gift of immortal thoughts ("De Eo Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiatur," § 24): these culminate in the apprehension of God; they press beyond the limits of the entire phenomenal world to the Unbegotten ("De Plantatione Noe," § 5). This intuition of God was the especial prerogative of the Prophets, of Abraham, and of Jacob.
The essence of God is unknown to man, whose conceptions are colored through the medium of his own nature. Anthropopathisms and anthropomorphisms are wicked. God is incorporeal. He is without any irrational affections of the soul. God is a free, self-determining mind. His benevolence is due not to any incapacity of His for evil, but to His free preference for the good (ib. § 20).
Man's personality lifts him above the rest of the creatures. In analogy therewith, Philo gives God the attributes of personality, which are not restrictive, but the very reverse (Drummond, "Philo Judćus," ii. 15). Efficiency is the property of God;susceptibility, that of the begotten ("De Cherubim," § 24). God, therefore, is not only the First Cause, but He is the still efficient ground of all that is and comes to pass. He never pauses in His creative activity ("De Allegoriis Legum," i. 3). The feebleness of the human mind precludes the possibility of man's knowing God as He is in Himself (ib. iii. 73). God is without qualities (ib. i. 13). God is transcendent. He contains, but is not contained (περιέχων οὐ περιεχόμενος); yet He is also within the universe. He is omnipresent (comp. "De Confusione Linguarum," § 27, "De Posteritate Caini," § 5); still He is above the conditions of space and time ("De Posteritate Caini," § 5; "Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis," § 6). He is complete in Himself, and contains within His own being the sum of all conceivable good ("De Mutatione Nominum," § 4). He is perfect; He is omniscient ("De Eo Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiatur," § 42); He is omnipotent; He is free from evil and, therefore, can not be its source ("De Profugis," § 15); He is without passion as the most perfectly reasonable being, as the efficient and not the susceptible. God cares for the world and its parts (see Providence) ("De Opificio Mundi," § 61). He is the "Archon of the great city," "the pilot managing the universe with saving care" ("De Decem Oraculis," § 12).
It is in the development of his theory of the divine powers that Philo injects into his theology elements not altogether in concordance with antecedent Jewish thought. These intelligible and invisible powers, though subject to God, partake of His mystery and greatness. They are immaterial. They are uncircumscribed and infinite, independent of time, and unbegotten ("Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis," § 17). They are "most holy" ("Fragmenta," ii. 655), incapable of error ("De Confusione Linguarum," § 23). Among these powers, through which God works His ends, is the Logos. "God is the most generic Thing; and His Logos is second" ("De Allegoriis Legum," ii. 21). "This Logos is the divine seal of the entire cosmos" ("De Somniis," ii. 6). It is the archetypal idea with which all things were stamped ("De Mutatione Nominum," § 23). It is the law of and in all things, which is not corruptible ("De Ebrietate," § 35). It is the bond of the universe, filling a function analogous to that of the soul in man ("Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit," § 48). It is God's son (see Logos; Philo).
Vacillating though it was, the theory of the divine powers and the Logos, as elaborated by Philo, certainly introduced views into the theology of Judaism of far-reaching consequences in the development of the God-idea if not of the Synagogue at least of the Church. The absolute unity and transcendence of God were modified materially, though the Biblical notion of the likeness of man to God was in the system developed in a manner adopted again by the modern Jewish theologians (see below). Talmudic and medieval Judaism were only indirectly affected by this bold attempt to save the transmundane and supramundane implications of the God-concept and still find an explanation for the immanence of the divine in man and in the world. The Pharisaic Psalms of Solomon, for instance, echo without the least equivocation the theological constructions of the Biblical books (see ii. 15-18, 32-37); and the other apocalyptic writings (Enoch; Book of Jubilees; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) present no essentially new points of view or even any augmentations.
E. G. H.The Shema'.
—In Talmudic Literature:
The Hellenistic modifications of the Biblical God-concept were further developed in the propositions of the heretical sects, such as the Minim or Gnostics, and of the Judćo-Christians and Christians. To controvert their departures from the fundamental positions of Judaism, the Palestinian synagogue, as did all later Judaism with the exception of the cabalists (see Cabala), laid all the greater stress on the unity of God, and took all the greater precaution to purge the concept from any and all human and terrestrial similarities. The Shema' (Deut. vi. 4 et seq.) was invested with the importance of a confession of faith. Recited twice daily (Ber. i. 1), the concluding word "eḥad" was given especial prominence, emphatic and prolonged enunciation being recommended ("kol ha-ma'arik be-eḥad"; Ber. 19a). Audible enunciation was required for the whole sentence (Sifre, Deut. 31: "Mi-kan amru: ha-ḳore et shema' welohishmia' le-ozno lo yaẓa"). Upon Israel especially devolved the duty of proclaiming God's unity ("leyaḥed shemo beyoter"). The repetition of "Yhwh" in the verse is held to indicate that God is one both in the affairs of this world and in those of the world to come (Yalḳ., Deut. 833). "The Eternal is Israel's portion" (Lam. iii. 24, Hebr.) demonstrates Israel's duty in the Shema' to proclaim God's unity and imperishability over against the sun-, moon-, and star-worship of the heathen (Lam. R. iii. 24; comp. Deut. R. ii., end). The "eḥad" is also taken in the sense of "meyuḥad," i.e., unique, unlike any other being (Meg. 28). Two powers ("reshuyot"), therefore, can not be assumed, as Deut. xxxii. 39 proves (Tan., Yitro; Jellinek,"B. H." i. 110); and the opening sentence of the Decalogue confirms this (Mek., Yitro, v.; comp. Yalḳ., Ex. 286). In the historical events, though God's manifestations are varied and differ according to the occasion, one and the same God appears: at the Red Sea, a warrior; at Sinai, the author of the Decalogue; in the days of Daniel, an old, benignant man (Yalḳ. l.c.). God has neither father, nor son, nor brother (Deut. R. ii.).
One "Reshut."
Pains are taken to refute the arguments based on the grammatical plurals employed in Biblical texts when referring to God. "Elohim" does not designate a plurality of deities. The very context shows this, as the verbs in the predicate are in the singular. The phrase "Let us make man in our image" (Gen. i. 26) is proved by the subsequent statement, "so God created man in his own image" (ib. verse 27), to refer to one God only (Yer. Ber. ix.; Gen. R. viii., xix.). Nor, according to R. Gamaliel, is the use of both "bara" and "yaẓar," to connote God's creative action, evidence of the existence of two distinct divine powers (Gen. R. i.). The reason why in the beginning one man only was fashioned was to disprove the contention of those that believe in more than one personality in God (Sanh. 38a). God had neither associate nor helper (Sanh. 38b; Yer.Shab. vi. 8d; Eccl. R. iv. 8). The ever-recurrent principle throughout haggadic theological speculations is that there is only one "Reshut" ("Reshut aḥat hu" = "personality").
From this emphasis upon the unity and immutability of God, Weber, among others (see his "Jüdische Theologic," p. 153, Leipsic, 1897), has drawn the inference that the Jewish God was apprehended as the Absolute, persisting in and for Himself alone—supramundane and therefore extramundane also. Between Him and the world and man there is no affinity and no bond of union. This view, however, neglects to take into account the thousand and one observations and interpretations of the Rabbis in which the very reverse doctrine is put forth. The bond between this one God—supreme, and in no way similar to man—and His creatures is very close (comp. the discussion of the effect of the Shema' taken from Yer. Ber. in Yalḳ., Deut. 836). It is not that subsisting between a despot and his abject, helpless slaves, but that between a loving father and his children. The passages bearing on the point do not support Weber's arbitrary construction that the implications of the names "Elohim" as "middat hadin" (justice) and "Yhwh" as "middat ha-raḥamim" (mercy) merely convey the notion of a supreme despot who capriciously may or may not permit mercy to temper revengeful justice (Weber, l.c.). In the rabbinical as in the Biblical conception of God, His paternal pity and love are never obscured (see Compassion).
Nor is it true, as Weber puts it and many after him have repeated, that the Jewish conception of God lacks that "self-communicating love which . . . presupposes its own immanence in the other" Weber, l.c.). R. Johanan's parable of the king and his son certainly demonstrates the very reverse. "A king's son was made to carry a beam. The king, upon seeing this, commanded that the beam be laid on his own shoulders. So does God invite sinners to lay their sins upon Him" (Midr. Teh. to Ps. xxii. 6). The anti-Pauline point of the parable is patent. The convenient restriction of the term "abinu sheba-shamayim" (our father which art in heaven) to mean, when used in a Jewish prayer, "the father of the nation," while when found in a supposedly non-Jewish prayer (see Lord's Prayer) it is interpreted to express the filial relation of every human soul to the Father, rests on no proof. The Rabbis denationalized and individualized their conception of God as clearly as did the Jewish compilers of the Gospels. "God used the phrase 'I am Yhwh, thy God' advisedly because He was the God of every individual man, woman, or child" (thy God, not your God) (Yalḳ., Deut. 286).
In the quaint presentation of their views on God's providence, the haggadists strike this note as well: "God chooses His own. Him whose deeds He is pleased with, He brings near unto Himself" (Midr. Shemuel, viii.; Num. R. iii.). "God is busy making marriages." (see Deism; Lev. R. viii., lxviii.; Pesiḳ. 11b; Midr. Shemuel v.; Tan., Bemidbar, ed. Buber, 18). "God builds ladders for some to ascend [become rich], for others to descend [become poor]" (Tan., Maṭṭot and Ki Tissa, ed. Buber, and passages quoted in the foregoing sentence). "God does not provide for Israel alone, but for all lands: He does not guard Israel alone, but all men" (Sifre, Deut. 40). "None will wound as much as a finger here below unless this is the divine decree concerning him from above" (Ḥul. 7b). These passages, which might easily be indefinitely multiplied, are illustrative of the thought running through haggadic theology; and they amply demonstrate the fallacy of the view denying to the God-concept of rabbinical Judaism individualistic and denationalized elements.
In the Targumim.
The care with which anthropomorphisms are avoided in the Targumim is not due to dogmatic zeal in emphasizing the transcendental character of the Godhead, but to the endeavor not to use phraseology which might in the least degree create the presumption of God's corporeality. Hence the introduction of the particle "ke-'illu" (as it were) in the paraphrasing of passages that might suggest similarity between God and man's sensuous nature (Yer. Targ. to Gen. xviii. 8); the suppression altogether of verbs connoting physical action ("God descended," Gen. xi. 5, becomes "God revealed Himself"); the recourse to "ḳodam" (before), to guard against the humanizing of the Godhead. The Memra ("Word"; "Logos") and the Shekinah, the divine effulgent indwelling of God (see Names of God), are not expedients to bridge the chasm between the extramundane and supramundane God and the world of things and man, as Weber claims; they are not hypostases which by being introduced into the theology of the rabbinical Synagogue do violence to the strenuous emphasis on God's unity by which it is characterized; but they owe their introduction into the phraseology of the Targumim and Midrashim respectively to this anxiety to find and use terms distinctively indicative of God's superlative sublimity and exaltedness, above and differentiated from any terrestrial or human similitude. These two terms prove, if anything, the apprehension on the part of the haggadists of God's relations to the world as the one supreme, all-directing, omnipresent, and all-pervading Essence, the all-abiding, everactive and activizing Principle, unfolding Himself in time and space.
Equally one-sided is the view according to which the rabbinical conception of God is rigidly and narrowly legal or nomistic. Weber (l.c.) and many after him have in connection with this even employed the term "Judaized conception of God." In proof of the contention, after Bartolocci, Eisenmenger, and Bodenschatz, rabbinical passages have been adduced in which God is represented as "studying the Law" ('Ab. Zarah 3b; Yalḳ., Isa. 316; or, more particularly, the section concerning the red heifer, Num. R. xix., parashah "Parah Adummah"); as "teaching children" (Yalḳ., Isa. l.c.); as "weeping over the destruction of the Temple" (Yer. Ḥag. i. 5b; Yalḳ., Lam. 1000); as "roaring like a lion" and "playing with the Leviathan" (Yalḳ., Isa. l.c.); as "no longer on His throne, but having only 'arba' ammot shel halakah,' the four ells of the halakah in the world for His own" (Ber. 11a); as "being under the ban, 'ḥerem'" (Pirḳe R. El. xxxviii.); as "being Levitically unclean, owing to His havingburied Moses" (Sanh. 39a); as "praying" (Yalḳ., Ps. 873; Ber. 7a); as "laying tefillin and wearing a ṭallit" (Ber. 6a; R. H. 17b); as "blowing the shofar"; as "having a vow released according to the provisions of the Law" (Num. xxx. 2 et seq.; Ex. R. xliii.; Lev. R. xix.); and as "rising before a hoary head" (Lev. R. xxxv.). Upon examination, all these passages are seen to be homiletical extravagances, academic exercises, and mere displays of skill and versatility in the art of interpreting Biblical texts ("Schulweisheit"), and therefore of no greater importance as reflecting the religious consciousness of either their authors or the people at large than other extravagances marked as such by the prefacing of "kibbe-yakol" (if it is permitted to say so; "sit venia verbo"), or "ilmale miḳra katub e efshar le-omro" ('Er. 22a; Yer. Ber. 9d; Lev. R. xxxiv.).
The Law of God.
The exaltation of the Torah is said to have been both the purpose and the instrument of creation: it is preexistent (Gen. R. i.), the "daughter" of Yhwh (Tan., Ki Tissa, 28; ib. Peḳude, 4), and its study even engages God (B. M. 86a). Differentiated from the "kabod" of God, it was given to man on earth, while the "splendor" (, also ) has its abode in the higher regions (Midr. Teh. to Ps. xc. 17, xci. 9). It is praised as the one panacea, healing the whole of man ('Er. 54a). This idea is not, as has been claimed by Weber and after him by others, evidence either of the nomistic character of the "Judaized" conception of God or of the absolute transcendence of God. In the first place, the term "Torah" in most of the passages adduced in proof does not connote the Law (Pentateuch). For it "religion" might be with greater exactness substituted (see Bacher, "Die Aelteste Terminologie der Jüdischen Schriftauslegung," s.v. ). In the second, if not a restatement of the doctrine of wisdom ("ḥokmah"; see above), these ecstasies concerning the Torah have a marked anti-Pauline character. The Torah is the "sam ḥayyim" (life-[salvation-] giving drug; Sifre, Deut. § 45; Ḳid. 30b; Yoma 72b; Lev. R. xvi.).
The following haggadic observations will illustrate the views formulated above:
God's omnipresence (with reference to Jer. xxiii. 24) is illustrated by two mirrors, the one convex, the other concave, magnifying and contracting respectively the image of the beholder (Gen. R. iv.). God's "mercy" will always assert itself if man repents (Pesiḳ. 164a). God's "justice" often intentionally refuses to take account of man's misdeeds (Gen. R. xxxvi.; Lev. R. v.). God requites men according to their own measure ("middah ke-neged middah"; Sanh. 90a, b; Tosef., Soṭah, iii.; Yer. Soṭah 17a, b); but the measure of good always exceeds that of evil and punishment ("middat ṭobah merubbah mi-middah pur'aniyyot"; Mek., Beshallaḥ, x. 49a). God forgives the sins of a whole community on account of the true repentance of even one man (Yoma 86b). "Ṭob" (the good) is God's main attribute (Yer. Ḥag. 77c; Eccl. R. vii. 8; Ruth R. iii. 16; comp. Matt. xix. 17). The anthropomorphic representation of God as suffering pain with men merely illustrates His goodness (Sanh. vi. 5). God fills the world; but the world does not fill or exhaust Him (Gen. R. lxviii.; Yalḳ., Hab. 563). God's "hand" is extended underneath the wings of the beings that carry the throne, to receive and take to Himself the sinners that return, and to save them from punishment (Pes. 119a). Man is in the clutches of anger; but God masters wrath (Gen. R. xlix.; Midr. Teh. to Ps. xciv. 1). God removes the "stumbling-block" (sin) (Pesiḳ. 165a; Yalḳ., Hosea, 532).
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