V. According to the biblical narrative, the world was created by a divine command, and every new stage in the creative process is introduced by the formula ' God said.' Another noteworthy feature to which attention has already been called, is the phrase ' l«t us make man ' (v.*), wherein we have a point «i contact ivith the conception of subordinate angelic powers ('sons of God ), who co-operated with God in the work of creation (Job 38*"'). Here we observe the germ of that belief in inter- mediate agencies between God and the universe which was destined in later times to become a most important factor in Jewish theology. This conception became developed into the 'Wisdom ' which was with God in the beginning, before the creation of the cosmos, and was with God when He jstablished the heavens (Pr S"-^', cf. S"-*). This ' third cosmogony,' as Cheyne not inaptly calls it,* is the product of that growing belief in the transcendent greatness of God which began with Amos, and received a great impulse from the sublime teachings of the Deutero- Isaiah (cf. esp. Is 40). The influence of Greek philosophy — more particularly of Platonism — made itself felt in Judaism, and in proportion as God came to be re- garded as transcendent and absolute, a Logos doctrine became a necessary factor of thought. Philo became the representative in Judaism of the Alexandrine philosophy. On one side, from eternity we have God as the absolutely active principle ; on the other, matter formless and without qualities, the principle of absolute passivity. God produces first the world of ideas. Logos or /ciir/ios KMjris. This Logos becomes the mediating cause, between the absolute and transcendent Deity and the passive formless matter, in the generation of the world. This is not the place to indicate the transi- tion from this position to that occupied by the writer of the Ep. to the Hebrews or the Logos doctrine of the Fourth Gospel, for this subject belong to Christology.
In Judaic theology the place of the Logos in the creation of the world is partly occupied by the doctrine of the pre-existent emanation of the T6rah from God, partly by Memra. This principle of the Tfirah as a mediating element or occasion in the creation of the world is expressed in Berfishith Rabba 1, for the Tfirah cannot be realized without * Id hia article ' Coamogony ' (EncycL BriL).
the creation of man. From the same treatise (c. 9) we learn that a curious inference was drawn from the words, ' God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good' (Gn 1^'), liz. that God had previously created worlds, and they did not please Him, so He destroyed them. According to sliemoth Rabba, c. 30, these reverted to the primal Tohu Wabohu until the present world was created. Moreover, there are undoubted traces in the Talmud of the influence of the old Bab. tra^li- tions. For later Jewish writers held that prima) matter exercised certain powers of resistance until God's creative energy coerced them by the limita- tions it imposed. They believed in the existence of primeval monstrous animal forms, and in a female Leviathan (cf. Tidmat), who was slaughtered in order to prevent the increase of the monstrous brood.
The doctrine respecting the Heavens and the Earth, taught in later Judaism, also possesses its points of contact with ancient Babylonian tradition though founded upon biblical record. To one of these we shall refer presently. Meanwhile it may be observed that while Scripture regards the universe as one, having the earth as its centre, later Judaism did not adhere to this unity. We read of the upper world and the under world, of God's world and man's world. In the Targ. Jerusal. 1, Gn IS** Abraham calls J" ' Lord of tOl worlds.' Aboda Zara S*" reckons 18,000 worlds.
But the most remarkable cosmic doctrine is that of the Seven Heavens. Jewish Rabbis were not quite agreed as to this number. According to Rabbi Jehuda there were only two, but according to the common doctrine there were seven. R. H. Charles has recently contributed two exceedingly instructive papers on this subject to the Expos Times (Nov. and Dec. 1895), in which he draw^ special attention to the Bab. conception of th« sevenfold division of the Lower World. (On this point interesting information may be obtained from Jensen's Cosmologie der Bab. p. 232 S.) Readers of the Babylonian mythic romance (in the Gilgamtsh [Izdubar] series), called the ' Descent of Islitar to Hades,' will remember that she was obliged to pass through seven gateways in order to reach the interior of the infernal city. Though the inscriptions do not expressly state that the heavens were so divided, it is legitimate to surmise either that the Babylonians themselves conceived of a similar division of the heavens, or that this correlative became subsequently developed. The former is more probable, for not only do we find the doctrine of the Seven Heavens among the Jews, but also among the Parsees. We find the same conception in the recently discovered Slavonic Enoch (translated by Mornll), and also in other apocalyptic literature, as the 'Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs.' 'This later cosmic conception, which grew up in connexion with the doctni e of God's absolute transcendence, is of some imporxAuce in its bearing upon such passages as 2 Co 12'- ', He 4"'- '*. In reference to the difficult passage Eph 6", Charles most usefully cites from Slavonic Enoch 2£H- '. (Further information respecting the Jewish doctrine may be found in Weber, Syitem der Altsynaa. Paldst. Theol. p. 197 S.)