Srepared by the general tenor of the surroundintjs). ut this hick of insight caused the Jew to fall a too ready victim to the warping eli'ect of interested motive. His love of the Law as the gift of God became pride in himself as the exponent of the Law, pride in his race as the recipients of the Law, security in the consciousness of formal obedience as though it dispensed from the prolonged and more difficult task of true spiritual conformity. Not that the rabbinical teacliers by any means always lost sight of this, but that through tliis process of self-deception a standard which, on the face of it, seemed to be extremely high became in practice miserably perverted and low. [We are compelled to use sucli language, by an impartial study of Judaism in the 1st cent, of the Cliristian era as it appears not only in Christian writings but in the pages of the Jewish historian. The Christian, however, should remember that, though true, this is not the whole truth ; there are exceptions and qualifications].
The Jew's horizon was almost limited by the Law. It absorbed the energies of the strongest minds, and the possession of it created a national self -consciousness which was anytliing but well adapted ' for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.' This state of things reacted strongly upon the conception of God. Judaism sought to get rid of anthropomorphisms drawn from common human nature only to substitute for them another set of anthropomorphisms, in some waj's less in- nocent, drawn from rabbinical human nature. It expelled idola tribiis, only to fall a prey to idola sperus et theatri.
Thus God Himself was regarded as devoted to the study of His own Law, and not only of the Law, but even of the rabbinical developments of the Law. By day He ' is engaged upon the 24 Books of the Torali, the Prophets, and the Hagio- grapha, and by ni<;ht He is engaged upon tlie 6 divisions of the Mi.slinah. God is even represented as having companions in the study of the Torah. At least we have, according to Baba Mezia, 85*', even in heaven an assembly, like the high schools on earth, devoted to the investigation of tlie Torah. Here the great Rabbis sit in the order of their merit and of their knowledge of the Law, studying Halacha, and God studies with them. They" dis- pute >vith one another and lay do^vn Halacha ' (Weber, p. 158).
We may make allowance for such extravagances as this, and see in them only a play of fancy grow- ing naturally out of the view that the Law embodied the Wisdom of God. But we see how the idolatry of the Law tended to contract the range of spiritual vision. And still more mischievous results followed when <Jie Law and all the rest of the divine ordi-
nances were regarded as liavin" for their linal cause the profit and glory of Israel.
LiTBKATUitB. — iluch umttirial may be lound in the lart^d works on the Life of Christ and the histor}- and condition ol the Jewish l*eople (tMersheim, Schurer, etc.). or the works ol Siepfried and Druinniond on Pliilo (to which may be now added Uerriot, _ yV(i/o;i le Jui/, Paris, 181»5> ; in tile editions of Pteudepujrapha, to which reference has been made above : and in Taylor's Pirkt Aboth. But the most convenient and complete of all the collections bearing directiy on Jewish thougiit and theology is the posthumous work of Kerjinand Weber, formerly called Sytftem d.attxynafjogaUn palitxtin\*chen Theotmjie (Leipzig, 1S80), and in the new and improved olitioD brought out under the superintendence of Schne<lennann, JtUiuche Theologie av/ Grund d. Talmud u. ivrwaiutter Schr\ften ^1897). Weber, though of Jewish origin, wrote from the Christian standpoint ; and the reader who desires to see what is to be said from the Jewish side will tlnd it attractively rrpsintcd in .Monteflore's Uibbert Lecturet (London, 1892), ana in artt in JQR.
II. The Tkaciiinq of the NT.— We thus have as the starting-point for the teaching of NT an idea of God very tenaciously held, up to a certain point liijjh and pure, and still bearing at times, though fitfully and uncertainly, the marks of its inspired origin ; but as a rule contracted and petrified, with far too much of the life and warmth of the old belief of Psalmists and Prophets dried out of it, and in manj' minds seriously infected with a cancerous growth of self-love and self- righteousness. How did Christianity vivify, re- store, enlarge, and enrich this idea! It did so (1) by asserting with greatly increased breadtli and emphasis certain of the attributes of Godhead ; (2) by presenting in the person of Je-sus Christ a special revelation, brought home in the most ]ial- pable of forms, of the nature of God as expressed in these attributes ; and (3) by opening the eyes of men to the truth that God is not, as was supjiosed, a simple Monad, but that within the Oneness of His Being there were included certain distinctions which made possible a constant flow and return of the highest and purest affections, dimly shadowed in the like aiTections of men, and putting a crown to the divine perfections.
1. The Attributes of God. —In respect to the attributes of God the teaching of NT grows di- rectly out of that of OT, but in each case greatly strengthens, deepens, and extends that teaching. The leading particulars in which it does this are as follows : —