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which was removed by the Targumist Jonathan as too anthropomorphic.’ *
Philosophy has often wavered between pantheism and the recognition of a personal Deity. The human mind has difficulty in uniting the two con- ceptions of the Absolute and concrete personality. Revelation, however, has done this, and has done it without detracting from the significance of either, or setting the one above the other. ‘The person- ality of God is not, as in the more popular view, emphasized to the virtual exclusion of the concep- tion of the Absolute, for it is expressly declared that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him (1K 8”); nor, on the other hand, is the idea of the Absolute pressed, as in the strictly scientific view, to the exclusion of the individualipecsonalloy: for God is represented as saying, ‘I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me’ (Is 45° ete.). In the Apocrypha likewise each of these conceptions gets its true position. This appears from such a passage as Wis 17 ‘The spirit of the Lord hath filled the world, and that which holdeth all things together hath knowledge of every voice.’ Here the author pronounces against Greek pan- theism by representing God as a living, personal Being; yet in the second half of the verse the attributes of omnipotence and omnipresence are predicated of the Divine spirit in the most abstract way. In short, God is presented as knowing and willing and actively working, just as in the OT, but He is spoken of in a more philosophical way. In another passage the writer excuses to some extent those who have been led to hold pantheistic views from the mistaken notion that personality is not compatible with absolute Godhead. At the same time, while giving them credit for diligent search after God, he laments that they should ‘yield themselves up to sight, because the things that they look upon are beautiful,’ and not ‘sooner find the Sovereign Lord of these his works’ (13°),
4. Popular superstitions regarding the name Jahweh.—Owing, perhaps, to their more figurative language, the Pal. Jews had not the same aversion as their Hellenistic brethren to representations of God which ascribed to Him visible features or human passions. But even they felt it necessary to harmonize the corporeal conceptions of the theophanies with the many biblical assertions of the spirituality of God. This they sought to do by the theory that God Himself did not appear to the patriarchs and to Moses; they saw only a manifestation of God—His word, His glory, His Shekinah. Persian ideas had as little to do with this attitude of the Pal. Jews as Greek, for Zoro- astrianism did not concern itself with religious metaphysics. It was not due to any external in- fluence. They had simply come to build their doctrine of God more upon the spiritual basis of such teaching as that of Ex 3" 10% ete. Un- fortunately, they ‘did not know how to retain it within the limits of spiritualism. It fell gradually into the excess of a gross theosophy of reveries and superstitions.’*+ Like the philosophers of Alex- andria, the illiterate Jews of Palestine had arrived at the conclusion that God cannot be known to human intelligence. Unlike the former, however, they could not give philosophical expression to this idea, and held it only in the form of a super- stitious belief that it is unlawful to utter the sacred name. The Kabbalists refer to it as ‘the name of the four letters.’ According to Jewish tradition, it was pronounced only once a year by the high priest when he entered into the Holy of Holies, and Simon the Just was the last who did this. He who knew how to pronounce this mys- terious name was believed to have a magical power
* Langen, Judenthwm, etc. p. 205, n. 8. t Nicolas, Des Doc, Rel, des Juifs, p. 159.
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over the forces of nature, and was designated among the Rabbis o¥ 5ys=*‘ master of the name.’ Mystic speculations upon the name of J” naturally led up to wild surmises regarding the essence of God and the origin of things, referred to possibly in Sir 3174, practised among the Essenes (Jos. BJ I. viii. 9), and embodied later in the Kabbala. The tendency of the period was towards an abstract conception of Deity. Starting from the principle that God was too pure to have immediate relations with created things, men were forced to have re- course to the theory that He governs the world through intermediary beings. And here the Jews of Palestine virtually joined hands with Philo.
5. Lhe Christian doctrine of God.—In Palestine the strongest influence opposing the growth of the Hellenistic spirit was the partisan life which the people had come to lead. Samaritan separatism and Pharisaic pride gave the most determined resistance in their power to everything foreign. According to Dillmann (‘ Enoch’ in Schenkel), the Book of Enoch was the first known attempt to defend the biblical conception of the world against the inroads of Hellenism. The work of the scribes in expounding and elaborating the Law helped still further to erect and strengthen the ‘middle wall of partition’ between Jew and Gentile. Yet it is plain that, when Christ appeared, the doctrine of God was very variously conceived. It was reserved for Him to clear away the heathen elements that, in spite of all efforts to the contrary, had clus- tered round it, and to reveal God as the loving Father of His creatures, by whom the hairs of our head are numbered, and the sparrows protected and fed (Mt 10”*-), Christ thus made God known to men as He had never been known before, and gave full expansion to OT glimpses of truth. And we know how in doing this He united the most popular expressions and modes of thought with the most abstract conceptions. His teaching ‘joins, in the highest degree possible,’ says Wendt (Teaching of Jesus, § ii. ch. 1), ‘ popular intelligibility and rich significance.’ The truth is, both elements are necessary. The exclusive use of either the popular language of the imagination or the philosophical terminology of the schools must lead to a defective and one-sided conception of God. In the former case the concrete personality comes to clear ex- pression, but the elaborate use of popular images may seriously interfere with the thought of essen- tial spiritual Godhead. When, as in the OT, He is represented as writing, laughing, bearing the sword, etc., we are brought within measurable distance of such a humanistic conception. That the Israelites were constantly in danger of obscuring the con- ception of God as the Absolute is shown by their repeated lapses into idolatry, which really meant the putting of many separate deities in the place of the One. On the other hand, a conception of God that is limited to the philosophical language of the schools must always be deficient on the re- ligious side. The free, personal life of Deity can become intelligible to us only when expressed in terms taken over from human life. Such language is of course figurative, but it sets forth the Divine activity in a way singularly fitted to impress us. Our minds cannot lay hold of God in His invisible Being; we need some tangible object on which to fix our thoughts. We see God’s glory in the heavens, but we cannot live on abstract ideas of Being and Omniscience. We long for a Person whom we can love, to whom we can tell our sorrows, whom we can approach with confidence. Instinetively we ery, ‘Show us the Father.? This great need of the human soul is fully supplied in the Person of Christ. He is the Word of life, whom men’s eyes have seen, and men’s hands have handled,