(b) Removal of Anthropomorphisms. — The older forms of Judaism are well represented in the Targums. In these the growing conception of the transcendence of God is clearly marked. The simple anthropomorphisms which are so common in OT are paraphrased away. The ground is cut from under them at the outset, as the creation of man in the likeness of God (Gn l'^) is changed into his creation in the likeness of the ministering angels. God is represented as taking counsel with the angels, and creating man in their image. In pur- suance of this tendency, where God is represented as ' coming down,' as seeing and hearing, etc., we find substituted the vaguer expressions, ' God revealed Himself,' 'it was revealed before God.' When we are told in Gn 18* that Abraham's heavenly visitants ' ate ' what was set before them, the later (though in this case not the oldest) Targum paraphrases ' it seemed to him as though they ate ; and in like manner in the case of Lot (Gn 19'). Even the ascription to God of mental acts, such as ' knowledge ' (Gn 3", Ex 3"*) or ' intending ' (Gn 50-°), is avoided, and that in the older Targum of Onkelos. Other expressions which attribute to God the conditions and even the passions of man are removed (e.g. the ' man of war' in Ex 15'), anger (Ex 15', Ps 10"), repentance (Ex 32'-). Along with these changes go a number of others, the object of which is to spiritualize the realistic descriptions of the intercourse between God and man. In this way even Jacob's wrestling and Moses' speaking witli God ' face to face disappear ; and in places where God and man are, as it were, bracketed together a distinction is introduced, e.g. Ex 14" '[the people] believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses' becomes ' believed in the Lord and in the prophecy of Mosc.i ' ; Nu 21'- ' ' [the people] spake against God and against Moses ' becomes ' murmured before J" and disputed with Moses' (Weber, Jud. Theol.' pp. 154-157).
The Greek version of OT (Sept.) is several centuries older than the written Targums as thpy
GOD
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have come down to us. And tliere, too, a very Bimilar set of cliangea may be noted. There, too, we liiid paraphrases for God's 'repenting,' for the descriptions of God as seen, for ' the Lord is a man of war' (Drunimond, Philo Judccus, i. 158 f.). The fraf,'ment8 quoted by Clem. Alex, and Euseb. gliow that one of the earliest Judajo-Alexandrian writers, Aristobulus, whose date is placed at about B.C. 170-150, had already discussed and explained at lenj,'tli the anthropomorphisms in OT (Schiirer, GJV ii. 763; Eng. tr. II. iii. 240). And I'hilo deliberately rejects all real anthropomorphism or anthropopatliism, though he regards the use of antliruponioriihic expressions as a necessity, especially for tlie unlearned (Drummond, op. cit. li. 12-15).
We have thus abundant evidence as to the general set of the current of tliought in the century immediately before and immediately after the Christian era. And j-et at a later date, and it may be to a certain extent even at this date, other causes were operating to bring back anthro- pomorphisms of a particular kind. We shall see this when we come to speak presently of the limitations imposed upon Judaism by its excessive self-consciousness of national privilege. However much it might avoid the conceiving of God as made in the likeness of man generally, it had not the same hesitation to conceive of Him as made in the likeness of the ideal Jew (see below, p. 21)8").
(c) Intermediate Beinrj.i. — In proportion as God was removed from direct contact with the world of matter, it became necessary to (ill up the gap with intermediate agencies. So Philo: 'God generated all things (out of matter), not touching it Himself, for it was not right for the Wise and Blessed to come in contact with indeterminate an I mixed matter; but He used the incorporeal powers whose real name is ideas, that each genus might receive its fitting form ' (De Sacrificant. 13 ; o;). Drummond, rhilu Juda'us, ii. 113, with a slight diti'erence of translation). Philo thus explains the action of God ujion matter by the intervention of certain ' powers,' to which he also gives the Platonic name of ' ideas.' These, again, lie «ome- tinies calls ' Logoi,' which, in their tuni, »r» summed up under the comprehensive name of ' Logos,' a quasi - per.sonihcation of the divine reason. This is familiar ground (see art. Logos).
Palestinian theology did not go so far as Alex- andrian in the use which it makes of intermediate agencies ; but it, too, has and uses them. The most important of these for our purpose are the ' Memrn or Word of J", the iihechinah, and the Holii Spirit.
The Memra is a personification, almost a hypo- statizing, not of the Divine Reason, but of the executive Divine Word, on the model of such passages as la So'"- " ' As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither ... so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.' This executive Word of God is constantly sub- stituted in the Targum, in places where the OT refers the action directly to God Himself. The introduction of the Memrn is the chief expedient for the removal of anthropomorphisms of which mention has just been made. All bodily appear- ance or bodily action is a.scribed, not to (Joil, but to His Memra. It is the medium through which the presence of God among His people is realized. The intervention of God in history is conducted through the Memra. The Memra covers the whole ground over which God is represented as acting, as manifested, as revealed. It is remarkable that this conception, though extremely frequent in the