lory of Christ’s revelation illumining the hearts of ΝΣ και is beautifully compared with the light on Moses’ face in Ex 347%, See also iii. (3) (a) below. (5) In a more intellectual sense the word is used of the occult wisdom of the sage in Dn 2” 54-14,
iii. By far the most important uses of the word are those connected more definitely with theology. That the Hebrews, like other Sem. peoples, origin- ally worshipped the sun and moon may perhaps be considered pene but cannot be proved from OT. In the earliest historical records they appear, on the contrary, as believing in an intensely personal God, as in Gn 3° 8}, Ex 4%. At the same time the idea of God was frequently associated with light. How far such conceptions of the Deity were the expression of definite theological belief, how far they were merely the language of poetic metaphor, cannot always be determined with any- thing like certainty. In all probability the one passed into the other by imperceptible gradations, the thought of an earlier becoming gradually the poetry of a later age. (1) In Ex 24" the place under God’s feet was like ‘a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness.’ In Ezk V8 the heavenly beings who bear the throne of J” are ‘like burning coals of fire,’ and in 1% ‘the appearance of the likeness of the glory of J”’ is like ‘ the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rair.’ In Ps 104? He is described as at the Creation covering Himself with light as with a garment,’ and in 1 Ti 6" as dwelling ‘in light unapproach- able.’ In Is 60'-* the presence of J” when ite comes to visit His people is described as a glorious sunrise in contrast to the darkness which covered the earth
* See under art, LANTERN,
as a whole ; and in 6019. 39 His perpetual presence is as a sun which never sets, so that His people have no need of the sun and moon, ef. Rey 217 22°, (2) In other passages God is described as Himself Light. In Is 10” He is called the ‘ light of Israel,’ the main thought of the passage being that He who is properly the glory of Israel becomes a con- suming fire burning up the ungodly, οἵ. Hos 6° (RVm). In Is 51‘, on the contrary, God’s judgment of Israel, in the sense of His merciful acts of justice, is a beacon light to the Gentiles, cf. 60°. “In the words ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ (1 Jn 15), the intention is to express the ‘awful urity’’ of God, which makes it impossible to have ellowship with God and walk in darkness. (3) In NT the word ‘light’ is frequently applied to Christ a usage suggested by such passages as Is 9!-?, as ir Lk 2, Jn 1*-%® 319 06 12%, especially (a) with the idea of imparting light, in the sense of spiritua: and moral knowledge, to others, as in Jn 19 34-2 (6) As a source of safety to Himself (Jn 11%) and others (8}3 12: 86), the ight making it possible to walk in what would be otherwise darkness, and therefore dangerous. (c) On the analogy of ii. (1) it is associated with spiritual life, as in Jn 15 8”; οἵ. Eph δ᾽. ‘ Awake . . . and Christ shall give thee light.’ (d) Although St. John speaks both of the Father (1 Jn 15) and of the Son as Light, there is nothing to show that he himself conceived of Light as suggesting the relation of the Son to the Father; on the contrary, Jn 1}. 18 would seem to imply a leaning towards a more anthropomorphic con- ception of the Divine Persons. But a step in the direction of the Nicene conception of ‘ Light out of Light’ had already been made by the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon, who speaks of wisdom as an ἀπαύγασμα φωτὸς ἀϊδίου, καὶ εἴσοπτρον ἀκηλίδωτον τῆς τ. θεοῦ ἐνεργείας, ‘An effulgence of everlasting Light, and an unspotted mirror of the energy of God’ (Wis 7”). The writer of the Ep. to the Heb. boldly applies this thought to Christ, whom he calls the ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ (θεοῦ), ‘the effulgence of (God’s) glory, and the impress of his substance’ (He 1), and thus introduces the familiar thought of Catholic theology, made all the more natural and easy by the language of St. John. (4) The word was applied also in a less degree to others: as John the Baptist, who lighted up the way to Christ (Jn 17-8 5835), and St. Paul, who carried out Christ’s work among the Gentiles (cf. Lk 953 with Ac 13:7).
It is needless, perhaps, to add that the ideas of light derived from the Bible have in all ages been reflected in the prayers and hymns, as well as in the creeds, of Christendom. We have familiar illustra- tions of them in the collect ‘ Lighten our darkness,’ and the hymn ‘ Lead, kindly light.’
F. H. Woops.
LIGHT, LIGHTNESS.— The adj. ‘light,’ the opposite of ‘heavy,’ was formerly used as we now use easy. Thus in Lord Berner’s Froissart, xxiii., ‘who gave light credence to them’; Hall’s Works, ii. 94, ‘the God of mercy is light of hearing, yet He loves a loud and vehement solicitation, not to make Himselfe inclinable to graunt, but to make us capable to receive blessings.’ This passed into the meaning of careless, which we find, for ex- ample, in Tindale’s Pent. ‘Prologe,’ p. 12, ‘Then marke the grevous fall of Adam and of us all in him, thorow the lightregardinge of the com- maundement of god.’ From which the step to worthless was short. This is the meaning of the word in AV: Nu 21° ‘our soul loatheth this light bread’ (pop opps πῃ υϑε), LXX ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ἡμῶν προσώχθισεν ἐν τῷ ἀρτῷ τῷ διακένῳ [τούτῳ] Vulg. ‘anima nostra jam nauseat super cibo isto levissimo,’ Wye. ‘oure soule now wlatith