DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE
DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE 281
Our conclusion, then, is that in at least one of the most important Apocryphal books, The Wisdom of Solomon, there is an appreciable development towards a more spiritual idea of God, and that what of grossness yet remained in the conception of Him was purged away by Christ. In the Christian doctrine of God we have also the true corrective to the exaggerated idealism of Philo, according to which God has no direct connexion with the world which He has made.
ii. THE DOCTRINE OF THE WispomM.—Among Oriental nations in general, and among the Hebrews in particular (1 K 4°", Jer 497), there was a strongly marked tendency of mind known distinctively as ‘wisdom,’ and comparable to, though not identical with, the speculative philosophy of Greece. Whether indeed the Hebrews can be said to have possessed a philosophy at all, depends on the meaning ascribed to the term. Of metaphysical speculation about God and the world they had none, believing as they did that ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,’ but they had a ‘sacred’
hilosophy of their own, which was, above all, re- igious and practical in its aims. Between secular philosophy and the human wisdom of Israel there was thus an essential difference. They differed in standpoint, in method, and in spirit. The Greek philosopher exercised reason upon the phenomena of the universe (ré may) as he found it, with the view of making it yield up its secret ; the Hebrew philosopher had his ethical and religious principles to start with, and merely verified them in the actual occurrences of life.
1. Wisdom presented in OT not only as human but as Divine.—In its human aspect Wisdom is the ability to recognize, the capacity to understand, and the disposition to co-operate with the Divine purpose as it affects the physical world and the life of men. Theoretically and practically, ‘the fear of the Lorp is the beginning of wisdom.’ Moral and intellectual wisdom are seldom dissociated : the righteous man is the ‘wise’ man, and the ungodly is the fool (Ps 5°, Wis 4 12%). Among the people of Israel the human wisdom assumed different phases from time to time. From being a doctrine of Providence in the widest sense, accord- ing to which ‘the Lorp hath made all things answering to their end’ (Pr 16+), it came to be so in a narrower sense when the events of history appeared irreconcilable with the @ priori principles contained in the Law (cf, Ps 37. 73, and the Bk. of Job). There came, too, ‘a period of comparative quiescence in the presence of difficulties, which are themselves drawn into the general scheme, and shown, as parts of it, to have their own utility.’ *
In the OT; however, Wisdom is presented not only as human, but also as Divine. By Divine Wisdom is meant the world in its totality as inhabited by God and expressing in its varied phenomena His mind and character and mode of working. As the unity of thought and force underlying the manifold forms of creation, it may be ideally dif- ferentiated from God. It is so, ¢.g., in the passage of most significance—the remarkable generalization of Pr 8. Wisdom is spoken of in such a way as to make it impossible to believe that only the Divine attribute of wisdom is meant. Nor per- haps can we regard this description of wisdom as ‘certainly nothing more than a poetical personi- fication of the Divine Intelligence.’ + Rather is
* A. B. Davidson in The Expositor (First Series), xi. p. 340.
+ Godet (Prologue to St. John’s Gospel), who adds: ‘When combined, however, with the notion of the Angel of the Lorp, this idea of Wisdom assumes the character of a real personality. It is difficult to see what good purpose is served by thus mixing up the two ideas. A great deal is predicated of Wisdom that is not in the OT applied to the Angel of the Lorp; they have, in fact, nothing in common beyond the notion of representing God to the chosen people.
it here the active, organized, and conscious em- bodiment of the Divine principles empirically manifested in creation and providence. It is something outside of, yet standing alongside of, God, created by Him so as together with Him to fashion the world. God is the actual worker, but Wisdom is with Him as His workman and fellow. Realizing itself thus in the work of creation, Wisdom is further represented as ‘playing’ like a child before Jehovah in His habitable earth, in all the glow of conscious power, and as taking special delight in the sons of men. Such qualities are ascribed to it as to make it almost identical now with the Spirit, now with the NT Logos.
In different parts of the Heb. Scriptures God’s revelation of Himself is attributed to His word. Gn | at once suggests itself in connexion with the idea of the Word as creative ; God speaks, and the world starts into being. Later on, it appears as the regular medium of the prophetic oracles. In certain psalms (33° 10779 147) and in Isaiah (551) we find the Word personified and set forth as the agent and messenger of the Divine will. It came thus to be conceived as distinct from God Himself, force being perhaps lent to the distinction by the fact that nearly all Heb. words for speech include the notion of standing forth. The Word is essen- tially connected with the idea of mediation, and indeed the whole Jewish revelation is pervaded by the thought that God never manifests Himself except through a medium. He sends His angel, His word, His prophet, His only - begotten Son ; but, as for Hinself in His essential Being, ‘no man hath seen God at any time.’