A Christian cannot afford to misjudge or under- value the better elements in Judaism, even in that branch of Judaism which rejected Christianity. At the same time he cannot help seeing certain weak points in it — points in which it demanded improvement, and which it has been one of the great results of the coming of Christ to improve. This holds good even of one of its best features, its doctrine of God. And that in three respects.
1. 3fONISit. — It was of the essence of the Jews' belief that God is One. The Jew repeated solemnly every day the words of Dt 6* ' Hear, O Israel, J" our God is one J".' A stress was laid on 'one' to mark the contrast to the gods of the heathen. And it is said that Rabbi Akiba died his martyr's death Avith this word 'one' on his lips (Weber, Jiid. Theol.^ § 31, p. 151). Our Lord, as we know, took the same text as a starting-point of His o^^•n teaching (Mk 12^'-). And yet, after all, it expresses, or was apt to express, in the mouth of a Jew a rigid abstract idea of Oneness. The Jews appealed to it at a later date against the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. And it did for them exclude the deeper truth contained in that doctrine — the truth that God is not a mere Monad, self- centred and self-absorbed, Avithout scope for the exercise of the highest aH'eetions within itself, but a Monad so distributed as it were within itself as to admit of a perfect interchange and reciprocity of those affections which can exist only as between persons. On this side the Jewish monotheism could not help being bare and dry and inadequate to the true richness and fulness of Deity.
The passages of OT in which the plural is used in reference to the divine action led the Jews to make snrae small approach towards the Christian conception by the idea of an * upper or celestial famUia or tribunal' (Taylor on Firke Ahoth, li. 2). Taylor quotes 5anAfrf. 386: 'The Holy One, blessed is He, does nothing without consulting the famUia grtpema, for it is said (Dn i^T), " This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones."'
2. Transcendence.— At the time of which we are speaking there was a marked and widespread tendency in the higher minds to widen the chasm between God and the world. Philosophy was straining after a conception of the Supreme Good or the Supreme Being as transcending the conditions of finite existence [ovk ouo-ias (ivros toO ayaSoD, d\X' Irt iTTiKSiva T^s ovaio.^ irpea^eiq. Kal Swdfiet virepexovros, Plato, Rep. 509 B). This was especially charac- teristic of Platonism, which contributed so much to the thought of Philo. And a like effort might be seen in the Oriental religions which were in contact with Judaism on another side. It may not be easy to say how far the movement in Judaism itself was sympathetic to these influences and how far it was internal and spontaneous ; but that there was such a movement is evident.
(a) Names of God. — One marked indication of it is the treatment of the divine names. The great covenant name Jehovah (Jahweh) was considered too sacred to be pronounced aloud except in the temple (Schiirer, GJV ii. 241, 381 ; Eng. tr. n. i. 296, ii. 82). Besides the common substitution of Arlonai or Elohim in reading, a number of paraphrases were in use, all prompted by the
instinct of reverence : ' Heaven,' ' Place,' or ' Space' (4 TAiros in Philo), 'the Name,' 'the Holy One, blessed is He' (Taylor on I'irkc Alioth, iv. 7). In Greek the usual substitute was Ki'pios. This con- veyed, of course, indirectly the full connotation of J " ; directly, it gave prominence to the idea of sovereignty. This idea meets us in a great varietj' of forms : ' God, King, Lord of the world '; ' Lord of all,' ' God, Lord of lieaven,' ' Lord of the whole creation of the heaven,' ' Lord of lonis, of tlie mightj', of the rulers,' clominnior (/ominus (8 or 9 times in 2 Es) ; ' Great King,' ' King of kings,' ' King on the lofty throne ' ; ' Lord of judgment, of righteousness,' aeus, dominus omnipotcns. In clo.se connexion with the sovereignty of God is His majesty : ' the Great One,' ' the (.reat Glory,' ' the Holy and Great One,' ' the Honoured and Glorious One,' 'the Mighty One,' /or<w, /or<u,m- mus (esp. in 2 Es and Apoc. Bar). Less frequent ia the idea of creation a.s an attribute of God (Enoch 81' 94'», Assunip. Mos. 1U'°), and that of eternity (Enoch 25' 75', Assump. Mos. 10' ; cf. Cheync on Is 40'^). After the simple titles 9f6s and Kupios, probably the commonest in the literature of this period is ' Most High ' (u^J'iutos, altii'ihniis, exrclsus, 4v v^lcTTois KaTotKu)f : on this title cf. Clieyne, Bcnnp. Led. p. 83 f.). We may take this as the most direct expression of the idea which we call ' transcendence.'
On the names of God the reader may consult the excellent Indexes in Charles, Book of Enoch and Assump. o.f Moses, and Beiisly-James, Fourth Bk. of Ezra. There is less material in Pssof Sol and Test, of aH. Patriarchs. A list of the divine names in the earlier part of the Talmud is given in an essav by Low, (Jesainm. Schr. i. 177-186 (Scliiirer, LThZ, 1891, col. '276).