c THE ETERNAL SONSHIP OF THE MESSIAH^ A SERMON, BY THE REV. ALEX. MCAUL, D.D. WITH NOTES AND AN APPENDIX. Two Shillings and Sixpence. /, i &** ft THE ETERNAL SONSHIP OF THE MESSIAH. A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SAINT PAUL, ON THE FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION ; AND IN THE CHAPEL OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 29, 1838. WITH NOTES AND AN APPENDIX. BY THE REV. ALEX. M C CAUL, D.D., OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. LONDON : B. WERTHEIM, 14, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCXXXVIII. MACINTOSH, PRINTER, GREAT NEW STREET, LONDON. TO THE RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REVEREND CHARLES JAMES, LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, ETC., ETC., ETC., 1&fy follofoing $ages ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY HIS LORDSHIP'S OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. 2107716 THE ETERNAL SONSHIP OF THE MESSIAH. LUKE i. 32, 33. * He shall be great, and shall be called the son of the Highest : and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David : " And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end" THE feast of the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, appointed by our Church, and celebrated by the Church Catholic throughout the world, naturally directs our attention to the miraculous conception of the Saviour. The genuineness of the chapters of St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels, in which that event is narrated, has been impugned, but only by those whose system compelled them to sacrifice their criticism to their theology. It has been acknowledged by the latest assailant of the Gospel history, that " these doubts were the offspring of doctrinal prejudice, and have been totally silenced by the investigations of the best Biblical critics." * We have, however, not only * Strauss' Leben Jesu, vol. i., pp. 116, 143. B the evidence of the most competent witnesses to prove that the account of the miraculous concep- tion is an integral part of the Gospel history ; the import and the fulfilment of the prophecy con- tained in the words of the text furnish a most satisfactory argument for the correctness of the catholic faith. The angel announced to Mary, that the promised child should be great, and should be called the Son of the Highest, and the possessor of the throne of David. The very words of this prediction imply a miraculous birth. The fulfilment of the prediction itself shows that it is from God, and to the consideration of these two points I would now direct your attention. There is, in the first place, a distinct promise that the child of Mary should be acknowledged as the Son of God ; our first business, therefore, is to inquire how this promise was understood by that people amongst whom it was first promul- gated. It is evident even from the Gospels that the phrase " Son of God " was used as synony- mous with Messiah. Thus Peter says, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. " Nathanael says, " Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel." The high priest also said, " Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (Mark xiv. 61.) But the question still remains why the Jews applied the title " Son of God " to the Messiah, and in what sense they understood it when so applied ? The answer can be obtained only by referring to the ancient Scriptures, the source whence they drew their ideas of Messiah's character. The Old Testament speaks of a Being who is, in a peculiar sense, the Son of God. Thus, in the Book of Proverbs, Agur, the son of Jakeh, asks, "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or de- scended ? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists ? Who hath bound the waters in a garment ? Who hath established all the ends of the earth ? What is his name, and what is his son's name ? " There can be no doubt that God is he who bound the waters in a garment, and who established all the ends of the earth. From this passage, then, we learn that there is a Being who stands to God in the relation of Son, and that the knowledge of this Son's name is as great a mystery as the knowledge of God himself, and cannot be learned except by immediate revelation. Agur had com- plained, in the preceding verses, that he did not possess human knowledge, and from this ignorance argues, How, then, should I have the knowledge of the Holy Ones ; that is, how should I have the knowledge of God. You will observe that, instead of the usual word for God, he employs a plural adjective, The Holy Ones, and then shows in what sense he understood this plurality, by speak- ing of God, and of his Son. Agur, then, consi- dered the knowledge of God's Son as a part of the knowledge of God, and thereby manifests his belief in the existence and deity of the Son of God. * * See Appendix 1. The eighth chapter of this same Book of Proverbs, which speaks of the wisdom of God as a person, also tells us, that this person, who is called Wisdom, was not created nor made, but begotten from eternity. In the 24th and 25th verses, the fact of his birth in eternity is twice distinctly asserted. Wisdom says, " When there were no depths / was brought forth : when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were deposited, before the hills I was brought forth." The expression " I was brought forth," may be ambiguous in English, but in the original it is perfectly plain. It is the same word that is used in the 51st Psalm, where our version says, " Behold I was shapen in iniquity," and in the xvth chapter of Job, where Eliphaz asks, " Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills?" (Job xv. 7.) When applied to man, it has a distinct reference to his generation and birth, and to that only ; when therefore it is applied to wisdom in a very similar context, we cannot doubt that it has a similar signification. And if so, then it is here twice dis- tinctly asserted that Wisdom was born before the creation of this world, yea before even the exist- ence of that chaos out of which it arose, and consequently from eternity stood to God in the relation of Son!^/ I confess, that if this expression, " I was brought forth," stood alone ; if a long and perspicuous context did not fix the sense;* if there were in the Bible no other allusion to a Son of God, we might doubt whether, when applied to wisdom, it had not a merely figurative signifi- cation. But when the Old Testament speaks of a divine person as the Son of God, there is no more reason for interpreting this expression figuratively of wisdom, than there is for interpreting it figura- tively of a child of man. Those who deny that there is an eternal Son of God would perhaps argue that wisdom is a figurative child of God in the 8th chapter, and that therefore the Son spoken of in the passage first cited is figurative also. But there are passages where no figure can be pre- tended, and where a real personality must be admitted. Thus Nebuchadnezzar, looking upon the fiery furnace into which he had cast the three Hebrews, says, " I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire ; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." (Dan. iii. 25.) Here, it is certain that a real personage is intended ; and who this Being is we can infer from the 28th verse, where Nebuchadnezzar calls him the angel of God, saying, " Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel and delivered his servants."* The phrases, his * Verbum autem ejus, quern admodum volebat ipse, et ad utilitatem videntium, claritatem monstrabat Patris, et disposi- tiones exponebat; (quern admodum et Dominus dixit: uni- genitus Deus, qui est in sinu Patris, ipse enarravit ; et ipsc autem interpretatur Patris verb urn, utpote dives, et multus exsistens) non in una figura, nee in uno charactere videbatur angel, my angel, and angel of God, stand in the Old Testament for that Being who acts as Mediator between God and man, to whom are ascribed both the names and the attributes of Deity, and who is particularly described as the Redeemer of Israel.* This passage in Daniel, then, identifies the Son of God with the angel of God, and this title angel of God again identifies the Son of God with that Lord who is called by the prophet Malachi the angel or messenger of the covenant, that is with the Messiah. Malachi, Hi. 1, says, " The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the angel of the covenant whom ye delight in." The Jews,f both ancient and modern, as well as the New Testament, confess that the prophet here speaks of the Messiah, and yet the language itself evidently describes a divine Being. In the first place, he is called THE LORD, a title which, when used with the article, is never in the whole Old Testament applied to man or angel, or videntibus eum, sed secundum dispensationum ejus causas sive efficaciam, sicut in Daniele scriptum est. Aliquando enira cum his qui erant circa Ananiam, Azariam, Misaelem, videbatur adsistens eis in fornace ignis, et in camino, et liberans eos de igne : Et visio, inquit, quarti similis Filio Dei. Irenaeus contra Hseres, lib. iv., c. 20, sect. 11. * See the dissertation on the Angel of the Lord appended to the first chapter of the translation of Kimchi's " Zechariah." t jvnn -fsbia sim rpttfan fbn in ' pisn " TheLord, he is the King Messiah, and he is the Angel of the covenant." D. Kirachi in loc. other being but the supreme God.* In the next place, he is designated as the proprietor of the temple; and lastly, by being called " the angel of the covenant," he is identified with that Being who covenanted with Israel and brought them up out of Egypt, as may be seen by referring to the first verses of the 2d chapter of Judges. Thus the passages to which we have referred have taught us, that there is a divine Being who is called the Son of God ; that this Son was brought forth from everlasting ; that he is the same Being who is elsewhere called the angel of God, and who is promised as the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, that is that the Son of God is the Messiah. But we can also begin at the other end of the chain ; take another class of passages, and thence infer that the Messiah is the eternal and co-equal Son of God ; and for this purpose it will be necessary to select none other than those which the Jews themselves interpret of the Messiah. Thus, in the Psalm Ixxii. 17, we read in the English ver- sion, " His name shall be continued as long as the sun." In the margin another rendering is suggested, namely, " He shall be as a son to continue his father's name for ever." But in the Talmud a third rendering is adopted. The word * Ceterum 1*nN cum !"T articuli alias semper Deum notat, vid. Exod. xxiii. 17 ; xxxiv. 23 ; Jesai. i. 24 ; iii. 1 ; x. 16, 33 ; xxix. 4 ; Rosenmiiller in loc. And therefore Rashi says that THE LORD here spoken of is toSlPBn TlbN , The God of judgment mentioned in the last verse of the preceding chapter. 8 which our translators rendered " shall continue," is regarded as a proper name, and the whole sen- tence is made to signify, " Before the sun Yinnon was his name;" and the commentary says, " Yinnon was his name before the sun was created."* But this word Yinnon signifies " Son, or offspring." According, therefore, to this Tal- mudic rendering, the Messiah was acknowledged as Son before the creation of the world. And this is not a single instance. The pre-existence of the Messiah is plainly asserted in most of their ancient books. In one we have a remarkable dialogue which is supposed to have taken place between God and the Messiah, in which Messiah under- takes to endure the utmost degree of suffering on condition that his people should be thereby re- deemed ; and in this passage the 22d and 25th verses of the 89th Psalm are cited as referring to the Messiah.'}" The following verses bring us again to the doctrine of his Sonship. " He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him IBB? pa" 1 *1 Sanhedrin, fol. 98, col. 2, upon which the comment is pa> IBB? JTn H-na Sbtt? T3 IPBtP 'asb . This passage is cited to prove that the ancient Jews applied this Psalm to the Messiah, and to shew that they considered Son as his name or title. If the application and rendering be admitted, the pre-existence necessarily follows. f Jalkut Shimoni, part ii., fol. 56, col. 3. I have given the passage at length in the Questions and Answers, p. 51. first-born, higher than the kings of the earth." And this word " first-born" would go far towards identifying the Messiah with that divine person who is called Wisdom, who is also spoken of as the first-born of God, in those words, " The Lord possessed me the beginning of his way, before his works of old ; " where it is to be noted that the word "beginning," from its frequent usage in the Old Testament has a direct reference to the first- born. The prophet Isaiah also speaks of the Son of God in a passage which the Jews interpret of the Messiah. In chap. iv. 2, he says, " In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for those that are escaped of Israel."* The expression " Branch of the Lord " is equivalent to Son of the Lord, or Son of God, and is in one respect more satisfactory, as it determines that the mode of his proceeding forth from God is analogous to the relation in which a human son extends to a human father. The word Branch, which is well known as a title of the Messiah, signifies, in the prophet Jeremiah, a lineal descendant, a son of David, where the pro- * The Targum of Jonathan says, SITIED TP Sinn IjT'TJ rmnb "T > " In that time the Messiah of the Lord shall be for joy and for glory." D. Kimchi says 72 na -mis >n \psrr ngi ... in p JTBJB TT " Branch of the Lord is to be interpreted of Messiah, the son of David .... Fruit of the earth also refers to the Messiah." 10 phet says, " I will raise unto David a righteous Branch." (Jer. xxiii. 5.) If, therefore, Branch of David means Son of David, Branch of the Lord must signify Son of God ; and if Branch of David signifies human filiation, Branch of the Lord must denote divine filiation. And this reasoning is borne out by the passage itself. Messiah is called by two names, first, Branch of the Lord ; secondly, Fruit of the earth. Fruit of the earth can signify nothing else but his humanity, which was taken from the dust of the earth, and which may there- fore be regarded as the produce of the earth. Branch of the Lord must therefore stand for that which proceeds in a similar manner from God, that is, for his divinity. Fruit of the earth ex- presses his human generation ; Branch of the Lord must therefore express his divine generation. But this fact of Messiah's divine generation is not a matter of mere inference. As we have shown concerning the divine person called Wisdom, that a word is used, which signifies that he was born from eternity, so the Scripture expressly asserts of Messiah, that he is the Son of God because he was begotten. Thus we read in the 2d Psalm, " The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee."* * That the ancient Jews applied this psalm to the Messiah is plainly confessed by those whose doctrinal views led them to forsake the old interpretation. So Rashi says * ppojon fba bs TOTPT n 12711 lawm " Our rabbies interpreted what is here said mystically of the 11 Some moderns have endeavoured to explain away this passage, and to show by reference to Greek and Egyptian usage, that Son of God means nothing more than King: and that the words "This day have I begotten thee," simply mean, " This day have I established thee on the throne." But the Greek and Egyptian idioms prove nothing when applied to the Hebrews. The reference to these nations, instead of to the writings of the prophets, shows that there is no parallel instance in the Hebrew Scriptures. The title " Son of King Messiah." Aben Ezra, who gives a double interpretation, applying either to David or to the Messiah, evidently prefers the Messianic application, and says plainly in one place * -ira ->nv imn irtman bs asi " But if it be interpreted of the Messiah, the matter is much clearer." The Talmud also interprets this psalm of Messiah, and says that this an ancient tradition. ib -naiM la^n mnan mbrtnb TTISO? in p irana -i"n Ttaiai pin bs maos o -fb jnwi ~QT 'aiaa bstp ra"pn -ynbrn n^a orwi "OEB bstp "jvn^ 11 cvn ^s " Our rabbies have taught concerning Messiah, the Son of David, who is to be revealed speedily in our days, that the blessed God said to him, Ask anything of me, and I will give thee, for it is said, I will declare the decree, &c., This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." And Rashi, who, in his commentary to the Psalm, refers it to David, in his commentary on this passage of the Talmud, explains the words, " This day I have begotten thee," thus * nns -aa irrrab nbnw cvn " This day I will reveal to all created things that Thou art my Son." Succah. fol. 52, col. 1. 12 God " is never attributed to any king of Israel except to the Messiah, and must therefore signify something peculiar. The other kings of Israel were created by God, and from God derived their regal authority, yet to none of them all does God say, " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." These words, therefore, cannot apply to the creation of Messiah, nor to his appointment to the regal dignity, but to something else in which he differed from all who had been kings before him. The word " This day" when attributed to Him with whom there is no past and no future- no yesterday and no to-morrow but to whom there is an ever-present eternity, would naturally seem to imply an eternal generation, and there- fore a divine nature. And this is confirmed by the command to the kings of the earth to pay him divine honour, and to place that affiance in Him which it is unlawful to place in any mere man : " Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." Such language certainly seems to imply, that the Messiah here spoken of is a divine Son and eternally begotten, and therefore to identify him with that Being who is elsewhere spoken of as the eternal Son of God. But this similarity is increased by an expression in the sixth verse, which says, " Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion," or as the margin of our Bibles reads, " Yet have I anointed my King upon my 13 holy hill of Zion," which expression is also used of Wisdom, in Prov. viii. 23, where it is said, " I was anointed from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was ; " and still more so by the results which are said to flow from obedience or disobedience. Respecting the Messiah it is said, " Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be in- structed, ye judges of the earth." Respecting Wisdom, " Now, therefore, hearken unto me, Oye children ; hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not." Of those who obey Messiah it is said, " Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." Of them who obey Wisdom it is said, " Blessed are they that keep my ways ; blessed is the man that heareth me : for whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord." Of them who rebel against Messiah it is said, " That they shall perish from the way." Of them who rebel against Wisdom, " He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul : all they that hate me love death." A more perfect identity of character and attributes can hardly be established ; both repre- sented as born or begotten of God ; both as anointed ; both as the dispensers of life and death. The result, then, of all that we have considered is, that the Old Testament speaks of a Son of God who can be known only by revelation who was born in eternity who is identical with the Being called the angel of the Lord, and therefore with the Messiah ; and that on the other hand it also 14 speaks of Messiah, as of him whose name was Son before all creation as of the first-born of God the Branch of the Lord the begotten Son of God and in language which identifies him with Wisdom. What other conclusion can we draw but this that God has an eternal Son, and that this eternal Son is the Messiah ; and that, therefore, as Son of God and Messiah signifies one and the same person, they came to be synonymous, and are used indifferently to designate the Christ? Certain it is, that if the author of the Old Testament had wished to lead us to this con- clusion, he could not have adopted means more efficacious. Every term that the Hebrew language affords to express filiation in the proper sense has been employed offspring, branch, first-born, Son, begotten, brought forth; and every form of expression that can convey the idea of proper eternity applied Before the creation of the sun, before the formation of the mountains, before the existence of chaos, the beginning of God's way, from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was. And these expressions are not confined to a single passage, but interwoven through the whole of the sacred volume. Surely, then, we have no alternative but to believe that Messiah is the eternal Son of God, or to believe that the language of the Bible has been constructed for the purpose of deceiving and misleading those who study most its modes of speech. The only plausible objection that can be offered, 15 is contained in the question, If this be so, why then did not the Jews draw the same conclusion, that the Son of God is a being co-equal with the Father? I answer, that they did. The New Testament tells us, that when our Lord said, " My Father worketh hitherto and I work, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." The most ancient of the Rabbinical writings says, " Thou art Son, the faithful Shepherd. Of thee it is said, ' Kiss the Son.' Thou art the Lord of the Israelites, Master below, the Lord of minis- tering angels, Son above, the Son of the blessed God, and the Shechinah, &c."* And this is not the doctrine of an isolated passage, but an essential and pervading dogma of the whole system of ancient Judaism. The Old Testament, there- fore, and the opinions of the Jews both lead us to the conclusion, that when the title Son of God was applied to the Messiah, it was taken in its proper sense, and intended to denote a divine person co- equal and co-eternal with the Father. Kin J13NT -1*3 1p3 -)On "f?? MOTTO WS1 -3 N1H H3H * T'3 rrwn ^wbm p-i snnb 31 b*nn 73-1 Zohar. Edit. Lublin, fol. 87, col. 318. With these doctrines of the rabbies may be compared the similar views of Philo, the peculiarities of which are not the offspring of Platonic phi- losophy, but of genuine Jewish theology, as is shown by Miinscher, Dogmengeschichte, vol. i. 394? 397. 16 Now, then, we may proceed to consider the fulfilment of the angel's prediction, " He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever," and the fulfilment will confirm us in the interpretation already given, and in the narrative of oar Lord's miraculous conception. The prophecy, whether we admit the genuineness of the Gospels or not, was certainly written in the first century of Chris- tianity. If, therefore, it has been fulfilled, it proves that the record of which it forms a part is indeed the Word of God. The prophetic annunciation of the future greatness of Jesus of Nazareth cannot be ascribed to the well- calculated conjecture of human sagacity, neither was it a prediction that was likely to work its own fulfilment. There was nothing in the circumstances of Mary, the wife of the carpenter of Nazareth, that could warrant hopes so extra- vagant ; nothing apparent in the early life and history of Jesus that gave presage of future and eternal glory. The rapid development of genius, the manifestation of extraordinary gifts and powers, the daring of enterprise in the child, often persuade the bystanders of the coming greatness of the man. But the history of Jesus, so far as it is known, presented nothing that could excite the hopes even of his nearest relatives. He appears to have spent thirty years of his life in 17 the most profound obscurity, unnoticed by his own immediate circle, and unknown beyond it ; and when he entered upon his work, his own brethren appear to have been amongst the least sanguine and most incredulous respecting his success. And yet if this prediction was not uttered during his earlier years, there was still less in the later period of his history that could have led an impostor to propagate a fictitious prophecy. Admit all the miraculous circumstances related respecting his birth, and the demonstration of miraculous power which accompanied his ministry, and then every one who was aware of the one, or a witness to the other, might have predicted with safety all that is contained in the text. But deny this, and then all that remains certain of his history, that is, his claims of Messiahship, his rejection by the Jewish people, and his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, was calculated to beget a prophecy of speedy oblivion or eternal infamy rather than a hope of future greatness and divine honour. And yet here stands the prediction, and we are ourselves eye- witnesses of its accomplishment. " He shall be great," says the Evangelist ; and the Infidel himself cannot deny that in the history of the whole human race, a greatness comparable to that of Jesus of Nazareth cannot be found. Speak of him as a Jew, and who can doubt that he is the glory of his nation. He then appears as one who rose above all the prejudices and superstitions of his times ; who thought for himself and thought 18 aright, and who emancipated himself and his dis- ciples from a system of absurdity to which the majority of his people are still in bondage so many centuries after his decease. Speak of him as a moralist, and he appears as the greatest of men. He surpasses immeasurably all that the ancient schools ever produced ; and the lapse of eighteen centuries, the accumulated wisdom of all gene- rations and nations ; the progress of civilization and the advance of science have never been able to add one moral truth to the system which Jesus of Nazareth bequeathed to the world. Judge of greatness by the extent and permanence of the influence exercised, and the Son of Mary still stands without any second in the annals of the world. The founders of the first three universal monarchies, no doubt, exercised a vast and more or less permanent influence on the destinies, man- ners, and habits of nations ; the laws and power of Rome a still greater and more enduring. The irruptions of the barbarous hordes effected a change of which the traces are still visible. The religion of the Arab impostor obtained a wide and powerful dominion ; but where is the individual whose unaided principles have overthrown all the religions of all the nations of his time have sub- dued every successive wave of foreign invaders have penetrated into every the remotest corner of the old world, and taken possession of the new, and have held the reins of universal empire for near two thousand years ? If to have given his 19 nation a glory which but for him it could never have obtained to have brought into subjection the minds of all the greatest nations barbarous and civilized to have effected the mightiest revolution ever achieved to exercise the most widely ex- tended, most permanent, and most efficient in- fluence over men and nations, constitute greatness Jesus of Nazareth is the greatest of the sons of men, and the prediction of the text has been ac- complished. But there is another species of glory predicted in the text, which when the prophecy was de- livered was more improbable still. The angel declares not only that he should be great, but that he should be called the Son of the Highest. Now the supposition that the various systems of religion which then divided mankind should be aban- doned, and instead thereof an individual of the Jewish nation, acknowledged as the Son of God, could be exceeded in improbability by only one other expectation, and that is, that the Son of Mary should be that individual. That the crucified Nazarene, the Jewish convict, should ever be known, acknowledged, and adored, as the Son of God, did indeed appear of all improbabilities the greatest. What would the Roman historian, who so sarcastically describes the origin of Christianity, have said, if he had been made acquainted with this prediction ? He would have derided it as absurd, and regarded the accomplishment as im- possible ; and yet our enemies cannot deny, that c2 20 it has been exactly fulfilled. Son of God is the peculiar and exclusive appellation of Jesus of Nazareth. No second individual has ever dis- puted the title. He is reviled and blasphemed as Son of God by multitudes of his own people ; and as Son of God he is adored and honoured by the whole Christian Church ; and that, be it remem- bered, in the very sense in which the angelic prediction was understood by our Lord's cotem- poraries, as the only-begotten and eternal Son of God. The Church catholic in all the ends of the earth, and in every age, has been of one mind with the Nicene Fathers, and not only acknow- ledged him as the Christ, but worshipped him as the only-begotten and eternal Son, and honoured Him even as they honour the Father. Since the time of the Arian controversy this cannot be dis- puted, but it is equally certain that faith in the eternal Son of God was the catholic faith before that controversy began. Barnabas,* the cotem- porary of the apostles, says, that " to Christ the Father said, Come, let us make man ; and that if the Son of God had not come in human form, we * Et ad hoc Dominus sustinuit pati pro anima nostra, cum sit orbis terrarum Dominus ; cui dixit die ante constitution em saeculi : Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram Tune ostendit se esse filium Dei. Si enim non venisset in came, quo modo possent homines sanari ? Cum respicientes solem, qui est opus manus Dei, non possint radios ejus diutius intueri. Cotel. Pat. Apost. pp. 60, 61. Compare p. 19, Ae'yet yap fj ypcKpf) nepl f/p.5>v, a>s Ae'yet r<5 viut' iroir)(r(0p.fv K.CIT eiKi'wa, KOI Kaff o^oiaxriv TJ/JLUIV TOV avdpanov. 21 could as little have borne his glory as we can gaze upon the sun." Ignatius, who can hardly be looked upon as later, speaks of Christ as " God come in the flesh."* Irenasus knew our Lord as " Very God and very man."f Clement, of Alex- andria, says, " Believe the living God who suffered and is worshipped Believe him, who alone amongst all men is God."^; Yea, the Anti-Nicene enemies of Christianity knew that this was the doctrine of the Church. Celsus especially en- deavoured to show the absurdity of the doctrine of the union of Deity and humanity in one person, and Origen answers his objections. If it had * Eis torpor tartv crapKiKos re KOI Trrev/iartKor, yewjroy KCU dyfvrjros, (v vapid yevofjifvos Of 6s. Ad Ephes. vii. p. 13. f Quoniam enim nemo in totum ex filiis Adae, Deus ap- pellatur secundum eum, aut Dominus nominatur, ex Scripturis demonstravimus. (Lib. iii., c. 6.) Quoniam autem ipse proprie praeter omnes, qui fuerunt tune homines, Deus, et Dominus, et Rex aeternus, et unigenitus, et verbum incarnatum, praedicatur et a prophetis omnibus, et Apostolis, et ab ipso Spiritu, adest videre omnibus qui vel modicum de veritate attigerint. Contra haeres, lib. iii. 19. J HicTTevcrov, av6pa>iff, dvBpanrca Kal Gew nicrrevcrov, avdpvirf, ro> TraBovri Kal irpoa'Kvvop.evco #ew a>vri ' TrioreucraTe, ol SouXot, ro vficpia TrdvrfS avdparroi 7rrrev TW Trdvratv dv6punra>v Ge<3 . Cohort, ad Gentes, p. 84. Edit. Oxon., 1715. Kal rot 6fov, (prjiriv, ovra ovre (pevytiv evfjv, ovre Stdevra andyfvBai ' fJKKTTa 8t VTTO TOJV wvovr&v dvrtp, Kal iravrbs tSi'a KfK.oi- va>vr]K.6T(>>v, KOI 8i8a xpmfjifvav, Kal (ronrfipa vop.i^6fjifvov, Kal 6eov TOV p.fyi(TTOi> TraiSa, Kal ayyt\ov (yKaToXfiirfcrdai, re Kal K8i8ocrdai. Contra Celsum, ii. sec. 9. Ed. Benedict., vol. i., 392 et sqq. In these passages I have only given a few specimens of 22 not been the open and manifest doctrine of the Church it could never have been thus attacked ; or if erroneously attacked, it would not have been defended, but, as in similar cases, the groundless- ness of the charge would have been proved. And this is not a conclusion drawn from doubtful pas- sages of the Fathers by those who are prejudiced in favour of the Catholic faith ; it is the con- clusion to which those who altogether reject that faith, German Rationalists, have come. Yea, the last, and now the most celebrated of their writers, who has just endeavoured to prove that the Gospels are a mere collection of legends, asserts, in the most explicit manner, that faith in the divinity of Christ was taught in the Gospel and professed by the primitive Church. In his summary of the New Testament doctrine, he says, " It was thought that the Messiah, now exalted to the right hand of God, could from the beginning not have been an ordinary man : not only was he anointed with the Spirit of God in richer measure than prophet had ever been, but, as men variously conceived, he was either supernaturally begotten primitive doctrine, cited and acknowledged by a Rationalist writer. From Irenaeus alone it would be most easy, by numerous and unanswerable passages, to show that the Church believed in the eternal and coequal Son of God. The third book, Contra Haereses, is itself decisive of the question. That the faith of Irenaeus was that of the universal Church, may be seen at large in Bull's " Defence of the Nicene Faith," and his " Primitive and Apostolic Tradition." 23 through the Holy Ghost (Matt, and Luke i.), or as the Wisdom and Word of God had descended into an earthly body. (John i.) Inasmuch as before his appearance as man he had been in the bosom of the Father in divine majesty (John xvii. 5), so his descent into this world, and especially his devotion of himself to an igno- minious death, was a humiliation which he volun- tarily undertook for the good of man."* Such is the confession of the German Infidel respecting the doctrine of the Gospel. His declaration re- specting the faith of the Ante-Nicene Church is equally unambiguous and still more remarkable. After noticing the second article of the Apostles' Creed, he says, " The fundamental theme of the Christian faith, which is, ' The Word was made flesh,' or, ' God manifest in the flesh,' was endan- gered on all sides ; as at one time the Deity, at another the humanity, and then the true union of both was controverted. They, however, who, like the Ebioriites, entirely denied the Deity, or, like the Gnostics, the humanity of Christ, excluded themselves too decidedly from the Christian com- munity, "f Just mark this confession of the last enemy of Gospel truth. In his eyes, the doctrine of God manifest in the flesh, is the fundamental thema of the Christian faith, and they who deny Christ's deity are without the pale of the Christian Church. But then, after mentioning the tenets of * Strauss's Leben Jesu, vol. ii. 694-, 695. f Ibid., 698, 699. 24 Arius and Apollinaris, he says, " To such views it was more easy to give an appearance of Chris- tianity. Nevertheless, the internal conviction of the Christian Church rejected the Arian represen- tation of an inferior deity who had in Jesus become man, for this reason besides others, because on this view the express image of the Deity would not in Christ have been manifested." We need no fur- ther evidence to prove that Jesus, the son of Mary, has been universally acknowledged as the only- begotten and eternal Son of God, and that there- fore the prediction uttered by the angel, and recorded by St. Luke, notwithstanding its hopeless improbability at the time, has been minutely and wonderfully accomplished. We must, therefore, conclude, either that God has set the seal of truth upon a wicked blasphemy, as this prediction as- cribing deity and divine honour to a man as- suredly is if it be false, or we must acknowledge that St. Luke was an inspired writer, and conse- quently that his account of the miraculous concep- tion and birth of our Lord is true. There is but one objection, which can with any plausibility be urged against the validity of this conclusion, and that is, that, as yet, the latter part of the prediction has not been accomplished. The angel promised not only that the Son of Mary should be great, and be called the Son of the Highest, but also, that the Lord God should give unto him the throne of his father David ; and that he should reign over the house of Jacob 25 for ever. Now it may be argued, and argued fairly, that the throne of David was at Jerusalem that David's regal dominion was over the twelve tribes of Israel and that the house of Jacob signifies the lineal descendants of the Patriarch, and that so far, therefore, from this prediction having been ac- complished, the Lord Jesus was condemned at Jerusalem, and is to this day rejected by that people over whom David reigned as king. The Gospel tells us, " He came to his own, and his own received him not," and we know ourselves that the present state of the Jewish nation is one of open rebellion against Christ. How then is this objection to be met ? Shall we flee to the last refuge for destitute commentators, the figura- tive principle of interpretation ? Shall we have recourse to those evasions whereby Socinians explain away the existence of the devil, de- moniacal possession, the doctrine of atonement, and the deity of Christ, and say that throne of David and house of Jacob are oriental figures, which, when done into occidental prose, mean the throne of God in heaven, and the Gentile Churches? Consistency, reason, and the catholic faith, alike forbid such a solution. If we adopt a figurative throne of David, and a figurative house of Jacob, we must in all consistency admit also a figurative miraculous conception, and a figurative Son of God, and thus give up the fundamental truths of Christianity, and basely betray the Christian faith into the hands of its enemies. If we admit 26 oriental figures in one part of the New Testament, we cannot deny them in other parts, and still less in the Psalms and Prophets, and thus all the plain passages which we have adduced to show the Old Testament sense of the title " Son of God" are wrested out of our hands, and the defence of the catholic faith from Scripture becomes impossible. The enemies of the Gospel will never permit us to interpret one half of a promise on one principle, and the other half on another principle. If, when they assert that " Son of the Highest" is only a figurative expression, the catholic faith compels us to deny a figure, and to maintain the gram- matical sense, our only chance of convincing them that this is our own honest, rational, and un- biassed conviction, and the true meaning of the words is, to carry through the principle of interpretation to the end of the promise. A sudden change from one principle to another in the course of one short verse always looks like a shuffle a trick an evasion, naturally begets a suspicion of fraud and want of straightforward- ness, at the same time that it yields the principle of interpretation which they contend for, and upon which their system is built. If the gram- matical interpretation be that which maintains all the great mysteries of our faith, we may be sure that it is the true principle, and that by God's help it will carry us through all difficulties. Having, by this principle, proved that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, and that the former part of 27 the promise has been exactly and wonderfully accomplished, we freely admit it in interpreting the latter part of the prediction, and, by the fulfilment of the former half, show our warrant for believing and expecting the equally minute accomplishment of the conclusion, and thus safely solve the difficulty. The only difficulty which it implies is, that the Jewish people shall be con- verted from their present unbelief, redeemed from their present dispersion, gathered into the land of their fathers, and again constitute that nation and monarchy which was subject to the throne of David, so that Christ can be their God and their King. But this difficulty is one of very minor magnitude. If the Jews had been lost and amalgamated with other nations, if the race, to human eyes, had become extinct the difficulty might, perhaps, be urged as an objection, though, even then, it would not be insuperable. But now that they exist as a distinct people, numerous, powerful, and influential marked with the finger of God, and known of all men, still proud of their national peculiarity, and still cherishing in their bosoms a love of their country, which a dispersion of many centuries has not been able to extinguish, nor even to abate, their restoration is neither impossible nor improbable. Nay, judg- ing even upon the ordinary principles of human action, a return to the land of their fathers is highly probable. The power and the bigotry of Mahometanism presented the main obstacle in 28 their way ; but that bigotry is fast subsiding into indifference, and that power has been broken in pieces. The impediments in the way of their conversion are in a similar process of removal. The principal were the exhibition of image wor- ship the contempt, oppression, and persecution of those calling themselves Christians and the power of Talmudic superstition. The Reformation has, in a great measure, removed the first by presenting to their view a religion not idolatrous. The consequent diffusion of the true principles of the Gospel, and the consequent practice of Chris- tian charity, have much diminished the second. The events of the last fifty years, combined with the other two, have emancipated a large portion of the nation from the fetters of Rabbinism, so that the conversion as well as the restoration of the Jewish people is, to human judgment, far more probable now than at any previous period since their dispersion. Arguing, therefore, upon com- mon principles, the objection is one of no great force. There is nothing to prevent its exact and entire accomplishment. The fulfilment of that which was incomparably more difficult and more improbable is a pledge that the remainder shall be accomplished. Jesus, the Nazarene, the son of Mary, has become great has been, and is, called the Son of the Highest. The poverty of his birth, the ignominy of his death, the power of the Jewish priests, the persecutions of the Roman rulers, the influence of Greek philosophy, the pre- 29 judices of universal polytheism, the progress of civilization, and the lapse of centuries, have all been alike ineffectual to prevent the fulfilment of the prophecy. The greatest, and the wisest, and the most powerful nations that the world ever saw, have bowed and still bow before his Majesty, and confess his Deity. Jesus is great, and is called the Son of the Highest. The same God, then, who has so governed the unruly wills and affections of sinful men as to overcome all these difficulties and to fulfil the first part of his word, has given us a pledge both of his power and his will to accomplish the remainder. Jesus is great, and is called the Son of the Highest ; therefore " The Lord God shall yet give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."* * It has been objected, that the eternal duration of the king- dom here promised, and which is expressed in the words, " He shall reign over the house of Jacob FOR EVER," proves that it cannot be the kingdom of David over the literal house of Jacob. This argument, as I suppose, amounts to this, The kingdom here promised to Christ is an eternal kingdom. But the kingdom over the literal house of Jacob, as being on earth, cannot be eternal. Therefore the kingdom here promised cannot be the kingdom over the literal house of Jacob. But this argument proves too much. It will serve equally well to show that the universal kingdom promised to Christ cannot be a kingdom on earth, and therefore that the universal expectation entertained by all classes of interpreters that Christ's kingdom shall be extended over the whole earth is 30 without foundation. The duration of an universal kingdom upon earth is expressed in similar language. The Psalmist promises a kingdom on earth, " I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers" (Ps. Ixxxix. 25), and yet says that this kingdom shall be eternal. " My mercy will I keep for him for evermore nbl3?b > and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven." Daniel explains "the stone that filled the whole earth," of a kingdom upon earth, and yet he also says that it shall endure for ever. " In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, bnnnn b ^absb "H ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break to pieces all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever, fcOiabrb ." In like manner, in the seventh chapter, a kingdom on earth is promised to the Messiah : " There was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him ;" and then it is said that this kingdom is eternal. " His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." So St. John declares that Christ's kingdom shall comprehend all the kingdoms of the earth : " The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ," and then adds, "And he shall reign for ever and ever." If, then, the argument used above is valid to prove that Christ cannot reign over the literal house of Jacob for ever, .it will prove also that in all these passages no kingdom on earth is promised to Christ. If it be invalid to prove this, it is equally invalid when used against the grammatical interpretation of the text. APPENDIX I. ON THE INTERPRETATION OF PROV. xxx. 1 6. IN order to get at the right sense of the words " What is his name, and what is his Son's name?" it is necessary to consider the context in which these questions are asked. The series of questions to which they belong evidently does not stand alone, but seems naturally connected with the foregoing verses. The two following verses have also been supposed, and as I think rightly, necessary to make the sense complete. Thus in the Biur appended to the Berlin Jewish translation, which commonly goes by Mendelsohn's name, the author says, " The chapter is divided into smaller paragraphs. . . . The first paragraph contains these verses down to verse 6."* It is therefore necessary, in the first place, to consider the grammatical sense, for which purpose I subjoin a translation somewhat more literal than the English version. 1. The words of Agur the son of Jakeh. The Burden. The declaration of the man to Ithiel, To Ithiel and Ucal. 2. Surely more ignorant I am than a man. I neither possess the understanding of man. n'piDBn nb rVjVo nnwnn rrcncn rom . . . rroBp nvweb mmon np^m rom * l"'1 pIDO IV 32 3. Nor have I learned wisdom ; And the knowledge of the HOLY ONES I should know. 4. Who hath ascended up into heaven and descended ? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists ? Who hath bound the waters in a garment ? Who hath established all the ends of the earth ? What is his name, and what is the name of his Son if thou know ? 5. Every word of God is purified ; A shield is he to them that trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, Lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar. Lowth,* who is followed by several others, thinks that SKttan ought to be translated " Poem," inasmuch as this passage has in it nothing of a prophecy properly so called. But I confess, I think that our English translators are right in translating it " prophecy." The Hebrew word nsi23, translated prophecy, does not necessarily signify a predic- tion of something future, but simply an inspired declaration, and such I believe the passage before us to be. I have merely substituted the word " Burden " as being the literal rendering, and that which our translators have used else- where. The only serious departure from the English version is in the third and fourth verses. Our translators, following Rabbi Solomon Ben Melech and Aben Ezra, have put in a negative which is not in the original, and therefore give the sense, " I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the Holy." The second negative is here added. It is true that a negative particle occurring in one clause some- times must be supplied in the following, but that is not * Prselect. xvii., p. 231. 33 the case here. The parallelism does not require it. For this the question, " How, then should I have the knowledge of the Holy Ones?" which is, in fact, negative, is sufficient. The insertion only weakens the sense, makes a sort of dull repetition, and takes away all point. The different colloca- tion of the accusative in the original (which I have given in the translation), nasn AT : T 3HN and still more the change of tense from the past to the future, shews that there is a change in the sense. Besides, when "?1 comes twice together as in this passage, they commonly belong together, and are equivalent to the English form of negation, " Neither the one nor the other." Thus in Deut. i. 45, m>p ram " The Lord neither hearkened to your voice, Nor gave ear unto you." And Isaiah v. 27, vsbq -m nnp? rib 1 ? vbs;) "-fhtp pn? rtbi " The girdle of his loins shall neither be loosed, Neither the latchet of his shoes be broken." And Jer. vii. 24, " But they neither hearkened, nor inclined their ear." * As therefore there is no necessity for the insertion made by the English translators, as the collocation of the words, and the change of the tense intimate that it ought not to be inserted, and, moreover, the usage of the language, when * See Noldius's references in *Vi . D 34 a double ^?1 occurs, decides against it, I reject it as an unauthorized addition, and translate the words simply as they stand, taking the clause, " And the knowledge of the Holy Ones I should know," interrogatively; and in doing so am liable neither to the praise nor the blame of novelty. This rendering is to be found in Christian com- mentators, and is also adopted by the Jewish translator referred to above, who thus gives the passage : Unwissender bin ich als mancher Mann, Besitze auch gewohnliche Einsicht kaum ; Habe hohere Weisheit nie erlernt, Und sollte Kenntniss der Heiligen besitzen ? * Having fixed the grammatic sense of the words, the next step is to consider that of the whole passage. That there is in this some difficulty, either in the passage itself or in the doctrinal systems of the commentators, appears from the great variety of the expositions offered. Some of the rabbies have interpreted its component parts separately, without any regard to their connexion, and these shall be discussed when we consider the detail; others have more rationally attempted to give the drift of the whole passage, and these deserve our first attention. Levi ben Gershon looks upon the passage as figurative, or, as some moderns would say, interprets it spiritually. He was evidently afraid of any approach even in language to the doctrine of God's having a Son, and as the spiritual principle seemed to afford the greatest power of elongation he adopted it He says,f * So the French translation, " Et connaitrais-je la science des saints?" mpn rnr o^WDwrr D'trcft TON D'Tnon om D*amprr run ron 1 ? ro '3 f NT f 'jrvwrro no 'W nrrnnn TSINXD rrtrmn -foa npin rrmo won iso ^ IDWTO mrro irBar -ant? DDIEHSO rroa pen VIB 11210 mrr 'xn minn vbx TOW nscn 'mpni DVTT roDipn ootjrro w-wvo TWOS? ins pnic rro nrrc D^- y'T ma m 102 nsiyi m*n Wa nnnc rra tea D^WEH 'nmn N^J wao en? nnspi psrr ]'i cnwoja cpnn pi D'VDcn nninn ibt ccn i:on y 35 " I have no power to know the knowledge of the Holy Ones, that is, the movers of the heavenly bodies. On account of my limited capacity, I am in great perplexity in these and similar speculations which I shall mention, ex- cepting in so far as I am guided by the law. In the first place, a very plain fact is a matter of difficulty, and that is the emanation of certain influences from heaven, whereby the things on earth are brought to perfection; as, for instance, it is plain, that the sun is the cause of the diurnal and annual revolutions, which have a wonderful effect upon natural things in every thing under the orb of the moon; and the same may be observed in the moon, namely, a marked effect upon sublunary things, and the analogy is the same in the rest. There is nothing which is partially more plain and manifest, and yet there is a difficulty of this kind, ' Who hath ascended into heaven ;' which of sublunary things has ascended to heaven, or which has descended from heaven to earth, so as to establish such a relation between heaven and earth as makes the heavenly influences efficient for the perfection of that which is on earth, &c." According to this interpretation, " the Holy Ones " are not any intelligences or personal agents, but merely certain powers in nature, such as gravity or electricity; and, in accordance with this view, he interprets " What is his name " of the original agent, " What is his son's name " of a secondary power derived from the first. This inter- pretation is so manifestly fanciful and far-fetched, that it does not need a laboured refutation. It is quite sufficient to remark, that neither n^wnp (Holy Ones), nor p (Son), ever occurs in the Old Testament in such a sense, and that here " Holy Ones " are put in antithesis to cr>N and rhy o : -winn m to Nirt pcom nspo rra invi DDTIE nnv pi D'cncn p niDrrnn rrrrw prvra yw^ IT ''ocrra 'D IN c*ovh rfra '121 pixro rro cm rbw 'nscrro mro u?&mj pirn? JEIJO D2 36 (man and human being), and cannot, therefore, stand for any thing inanimate. This interpretation is, however, one of the many which prove, that it is not from their love of the grammatical or literal sense, that the rabbies reject Christianity. The interpretation of Aben Ezra deserves a more serious examination. After some critical remarks, he says, " I shall now return to expound the passage. My opinion is, that the words of the wise man [as contained in the whole chapter] consist of seven parts, and each part of four members, excepting that part which begins, * Two things have I required of thee.' A similar mode of speaking was usual amongst our wise men of blessed memory, as for instance, when they speak of the four qualities in man, and, again, the four qualities in disciples. In the midst of the [first] six verses which are connected together, he enumerates four elements, namely, the heavens, which are the element of fire, or dry heat ; the wind, the element of moist heat ; the waters, which are cold and moist ; and the earth, which is the element of dry cold. The word ^33 [in verse 1], is to be repeated in the following clause, thus, ' The words of Agur, the words of the burden.' These words are called a prophecy, in the same sense as when it is said of the counsel of Ahftophel, that it was as if 'a man had inquired at the oracle of God.' (2 Sam. xvi. 23.) From the words, 1 The declaration of the man,' it is probable that Ithiel and Ucal had asked him for words of divine wisdom ; and the man humbled himself and said to them, How can ye ask me, for I am more ignorant than a man, and have not even the understanding of one man ; I have not learned wisdom in divine things, and I do not know the knowledge of God, that is to say, I do not possess wisdom and knowledge. The question 'Who hath ascended up into heaven?' means, Who is he that has the power to ascend up into the 37 highest heavens, and to descend to the earth, even to the depth ? I know him not by my wisdom. The expression ' In his fists ' is used, that the hearer may understand that * his fists and his hands ' mean, his will, or his understand- ing, that is to say, who is he that can gather the wind, so that it shall not blow. ' Who hath bound the waters,' as if he had bound them in the clouds, which are compared to a garment, that they may rain upon the earth. ' Who hath established all the ends of the earth,' so as to be im- moveable. The ends mean the extremities which stand upon nothing. * What is his name, and what is his son's name,' i. e., of that man who can know Him by his wisdom. If, thou, Ithiel, know the man or his son, tell me the name of one of them, who can know Him. The meaning is, I cannot know Him, and there is not among created beings who has known Him by his wisdom. * Every word of God is tried,' is similar to the verse, * The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace,' &c. (Ps. xii. 7) ; and these are the commandments which are tried as the purest gold, and in them is the wisdom of the fear of God, and it is not seemly to labour in any thing else. There- fore it is said, Add thou not unto his words,' thou Ithiel, similar to the command, < Thou shalt not add thereto, neither shalt thou diminish therefrom,' ' lest he reprove thee ' on account of the transgression of a negative precept, ' and thou be found a liar,' and thou become a liar by labouring in other wisdom beside the wisdom of His com- mandments." * IDIO Y' ctai Q'pTi 'i en csnn nn ^ IOINI me 1 ? ai? nroi * '-\ mm HITO '~\ mnsa fo"n urn pi vfrtro arm -n^ onrr 'TO rran Nirro jn TID p [cnra am nvnD' 'i IDD D'pain '7100 rro nbx pmi ''en pi 'rwirm -npn TD* fwi c'nVi onp ctn Dinm mnbn TID' rmi r nvn^ moan nn imhb p* 'tnto t ^N run Vi 'rf?n p to rroDn 'mnV Vi /if j p ~irw ci ^N nnVi 'Tmun D'nxDn ; 'iteb rra 11 ro iQita rn D'DUJ rtrc win D : nrn nn VTI VJEJH '3 ynicn p ns vaom ''nosna i3i N^ pnwb 'TTO 'asa DTCJ iVsa D'Q ms n p ciurr nT nnsn to iat) pra fa rrav ]B '1200 run bi vto f]'cm M^ pra : vmso noan nbi? mn nosna -jpcynna aw: 'nn ao:i 'muyn N"? 39 Ones is instead of God. * He uses the plural number as in that passage, ' He is a holy God.' " In Prov. ix. 10, " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ; and the knowledge of the Holy Ones is understanding," where it is connected with rnn just as in this xxxth chapter. Here the parallelism proves, that Holy Ones in the latter clause is equivalent to THE LORD in the first member. This is acknowledged by Aben Ezra in his com- mentary on the place. And, indeed, to interpret Holy Ones of any created beings, and thereby assert that the know- ledge of created beings is understanding, just as the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, would be blasphemy. Even the Chaldee of the Old Testament uses the plural "Holy Ones" of God, [see Dan. iv. 14, and compare verses 5, 6, &c.,] but the last verse quoted from Proverbs proves beyond doubt that the expression Holy Ones may be used for the divine Being, and the connexion with ^^ " knowledge," in both cases makes it probable that " know- ledge of the Holy Ones," in this xxxth chapter has the same meaning as the very same words in the ixth chapter, that is, that they signify the knowledge of God. The whole scope of the passage under consideration proves, that that, which parallel passages shew may be, here must be, namely, that Holy Ones must signify God, and can signify nothing else. The scope of the passage evidently is, that there is a certain knowledge not attainable by unassisted human reason, but which is revealed in the word of God ; the question then is, What knowledge is that? What is the great subject of the divine word? Is it not the revela- tion of the nature and will of God ? Take " Holy Ones " to mean saints, or prophets, or angels, as some of the Jewish commentators suggest, and the solemnity with which this 40 chapter opens becomes ridiculous. Who can imagine a prophet, or even poet, beginning with " The words of Agur the son of Jakeh the prophecy the declaration of the man to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal ; surely more ignorant I am than man," &c., to end by saying, that the knowledge of saints or angels is beyond the powers of the human understanding, and must be learned from the word of God ? A similar declaration cannot be found in the Old Tes- tament, whereas the great doctrine of Job, Proverbs, and the Prophets, is the insufficiency of human reason to attain to the knowledge of God. " Canst thou by searching find out God ? canst thou find out the Almighty unto per- fection? High as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know ? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." (Job xi. 7 9.) The Berlin Jewish commentator, who is anxious to get rid of the plural " Holy Ones," insensibly gets back to the sense given by Aben Ezra, namely, that it is the knowledge of God which exceeds the human powers. Thus he says,* " The object of the author is to teach that the great foundation is the law which God has given, in order that we may believe in him and in the funda- mental articles of religion with a perfect heart, for this will elevate us above the changes and chances of the world, and direct our hearts in the practice of virtue; and if there IITN rrnnn NTI -ipyn '3 ,nvrinb -orron n:i3 * rcrm DViyn TJD ta ten mran NTT D , rhw ata mn npyn oitnrr noun "pT p "urns rrr ISJN mpcnn p pen isata -fri n*n nvn-nn >3: : IDS rrow niV? mn taw T msp '3 , 17 mro bn vto* TON: ta , iraob pnp mxn abaic no yvrn 'nVi3' xb '? ;' DTM n^ai ,tro 'mn: iw , nncnpn rrro rro nri 1 ? taw vkv '3 f] t ':TOD n-iaji to von: crrto ICM mTiD'n n HD 131 ''D (i) c'wnp own 211!; D':i3o IBM csr j'trf? tain ? CN -\DI ^nipini '*ma taa Scim moiri 'airn nsn j-irn? n 41 should arise in our hearts any of those doubts which can seduce us from the way of truth marked out before us, let us not consent nor hearken unto it, for the power of the human understanding is too short to ascend up thither. He says, ' I who am more foolish than a man, and have not got human understanding, I cannot comprehend what is in the heart of man who is taken from the clay and a created being as I am ; how much less then can I know that which is known by the Holy Ones, the Prophets, or the separate intelligences, who from their number are called Holy Ones.' In the questions, Who hath ascended? &c., he mentions the elements upon which are founded the course and the laws of creation, and says, If thou canst not comprehend the real nature of the elements and their effects, how canst thou think of comprehending the Power which is the cause, and the maker, and the ruler of all." When he speaks of man as a created being, the natural antithesis is not prophets or separate intelligences who are creatures as well as men, but the uncreated God, and this is virtually acknowledged in the concluding words, where he argues, that if the knowledge of the effects is beyond our reach, the knowledge of the First Cause is still more so. Jewish prejudice led him to interpret Holy Ones of prophets or angels, but Jewish acuteness brought him back to the plain and obvious sense. The whole scope of the passage shows that the knowledge of God is the subject in the author's mind. Having ascertained the general sense, the next question is, what is the sense of the questions, " Who hath ascended into heaven ? who hath gathered ? &e." For what purpose are these questions put, and of whom do they speak ? Aben Ezra and the Berlin commentator take these questions as a proof of man's incapacity, and as forming the nexus between 42 the confession of ignorance, and the direction to the word of God as the only source of information. Agur first states the thing to be proved, I cannot attain to the knowledge of the Holy Ones ; then he gives his proof, Who hath as- cended up into heaven ? &c. ; and then draws his corollary. If so, then we must betake ourselves to the Word of God. This is the obvious sense, but the question still remains, how do these questions furnish the proof? Aben Ezra understands the first four questions Who hath ascended up into heaven and descended ? Who hath gathered the winds in his fists ? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth ? as referring to God; but the fifth question, What is his name, and what is his son's name? he understands of man, What is the name of the man, or of his son, who has known God by his wisdom ? Aben Ezra's idea, therefore, seems to have been Man cannot by his wisdom know God, for to know God is to know him who is infinite and omnipotent. The only thing to be objected to this interpretation is the ascription of the fifth question to another person. What is his name, and what is his son's name ? evidently refers to him who has ascended into heaven, and descended, &c. There is no other subject to which the personal pronouns can refer. At the same time the reason which induced Aben Ezra to adopt a change of person is plain. If the fifth question also referred to God, then God has a Son, and this he did not choose to acknowledge. The Berlin commentator avoids this difficulty by making all the questions refer to man, and by saying that in the questions the four elements are mentioned, and that man has not a knowledge of the elements ; how, then, can he have a knowledge of God ? But, by taking this course, 43 he only shows that he felt a difficulty, and was determined to avoid it in such a way as not even to suggest it to the reader. The simple answer to him is, that the questions do not and cannot mean, What man has a knowledge of the elements ? In the first place, even grant- ing that there are four elements, they are not here spoken of. Heaven cannot mean the element of fire. To say, Who hath ascended into the element of fire and descended, would be nonsense. Earth here cannot mean the element, but the globe on which we live, all the ends of which have been established by God. But even if the four elements were here intended, the question is not, who understands them and their powers, but, who created them and rules over them. This exposition is, therefore, still further from the truth than that of Aben Ezra. The Socinians have adopted a more plausible interpretation, which I shall give in the words of Eniedinus. * In his * Nunc veniamus ad loci explicationem, cujus verus sensus ex antecedentibus facile intelligitur. Nam in principio orationis suae Agur extenuat se et suam scientiam. Idque, fecit, vel, ut suo exemplo, alios ad modestiam hortaretur, ne nimirum arduas nimis quaestiones curiose investigent, prsesertim quae ad ilia sublimia attinet, quae supra nos sunt : sed quisque se intra limites suos, et cognitionis humanae terminos contineat. Nam etiam si quis in arcana Dei inquirere velit, frustra laborabit. Quis enim hominum unquam coelos conscendit, et illinc delapsus est, ut possit ccelorum, ventorum, pluviarum et terminonim terras rationem reddere? Velle se hujus et talis hominis nomen, cognationem, et posteritatem scire. Vel, ut alii existimant, isti Aguri, viro docto, proposuerant seu socii sen discipuli Ithiel et Uchal arduas quasdam quaestiones, fortasse de ccelestibus et meteoris. Quibus respondit his verbis Agur, se ad illas quaestiones dissolvendas, esse ineptum, tardum et stolidum, quia nee per se sapiat, nee sapientiam didicerit. Atque se putare, non tan turn ipsum sed nee ullum mortalium, talia diserte explicare posse. Quis enim hominum ascendit in ccelum, et illinc descendit, ut mysteria et arcana Dei norit? Quasi dicat, Nullus unquam talis fuit, aut si fuit, cdatur hominis illius nomen aut 44 observations on these five questions, he says, " Now let us come to the exposition of the passage, of which the sense is easily understood from the preceding context. For in the beginning of his speech, Agur speaks slightingly of him- self and his knowledge. And he does this, either, that by his example, he might exhort others to modesty, not too curiously to investigate difficult questions, especially such as relate to these high things, which are above us ; but that every one should keep himself within the extent of his tether, and the bounds of human knowledge. For even if any one should wish to inquire into the secret things of God, he will labour in vain. For who of men ever ascended into heaven and descended, so as to be able to give an account of the heavens, the winds, the rain, and the extremities of the earth ? Of any such man he wished to know the name, the kindred, and the posterity. " Or, as others think, this Agur, a learned man, had had certain difficult questions proposed to him by his associates or disciples Ithiel and Ucal, perhaps about the heavenly things and meteors. To whom Agur answers in these words, that for the solution of such questions he was inadequate, slow and stupid, because he did not possess such wisdom either naturally or by acquisition. And he thought, not only that not he, but no mortal whatever could explain such things satisfactorily. For who of men ever ascended into heaven and descended thence, so as to know the mysteries and secrets of God? As if he would say, there is no such person, but if there be, tell his name or his son's name, that is, let him be named, either he himself or one of his posterity. That this is the genuine sense of this passage is filii ejus. Hoc est, vel ipse nominetur, vel aliquis ex posteritate illius. Hunc csse loci hujus genuinum sensum, et contcxtus ipse, et doctissimi intcrpretcs, ct alii quam plurimi sacrae scripture similis loci demonstrant. Vid. Esai. 40, Psal. 104, Baruch. 3, Sap. 9, &c. 45 proved by the context, by the most learned interpreters, and by similar passages of Holy Scripture. (See Isaiah xl., Ps. civ., Baruch iii., Wisdom ix.)" Eniedinus* also quotes Mercier as saying, " I am not ignorant that our co-religion- ists expound this passage of God the Father and his Son Christ, by whom God the Father made all things ; but the simple and literal sense is that which I have given, namely, it is not possible to name or point out any man who has performed such godlike works." This Socinian exposition agrees with the general sense already given, asserting that it is the knowledge of God which is unattainable by man's natural powers ; and further, it admits that these questions contain the proof. The Socinian view of the whole passage then would be, The knowledge of God is beyond the powers of man. To know him, it is necessary to ascend into heaven and to descend to gather the wind in one's fists to bind the waters in a garment to establish all the ends of the earth but this is plainly impossible to human power. This appears at first sight plausible, but a very little consideration shows that it is nothing to the purpose. For, in the first place, man's natural ignorance of God does not result from his not having ascended into heaven and descended, nor from his inability to perform the wonderful works here enumerated, but from his limited capacity. An ascent to heaven and a descent again, without an illumination of his understanding by direct revelation, would not add a jot to his knowledge of God. God's omnipotence and infinite wisdom are just as visible in the flower or the insect upon earth as in the splendour that shines in the courts of heaven. His nature * Non ignore nostros hunc locum de Deo Patri et ejus Filio Christo, per quern omnia Deus pater fecit, exponere : sed simplex sensus et ad literam est, quern attuli, Fieri non posse, ut nominetur ullus hominum aut designetur, qui heroica haec opera facial. 46 and his counsels, exclusive of revelation, are just as im- penetrable in heaven as upon earth; >s oln5>v airpoa-iTov " Dwelling in inaccessible light " excludes angels as well as men. " Who hath known the mind of the Lord?" may be asked of the seraphim that surround the throne just as truly as of mortals in the extremity of his dominions? None of the things mentioned in these questions has any thing to do with the knowledge of God, they are therefore no proof that the knowledge of Him is unattainable by man. But secondly, if to ascend into heaven, to gather the wind in fists, to bind the waters in a garment, to establish all the ends of the earth, be necessary to the knowledge of God, then God can never be known at all, neither by man nor angel, not even by revelation, for neither man nor angel was engaged in the work of creation ; and thus the general truth of Scripture, that the knowledge of the Holy Ones is understanding, and the particular object of Agur to show that the knowledge of him is to be found in Scripture, would be completely overthrown; and thus Agur would be made to use an argument against himself, which is plainly impossible, and therefore this Socinian ex- position cannot possibly be true. The question, then, how do these interrogatories form the proof of man's incompetency to know God, still remains. The true answer is to be found by referring the five interrogatories to God, and then the whole passage may be thus paraphrased : With my limited understanding I cannot attain the knowledge of God ; for to know God is to know him who is omnipresent, filling heaven and earth; it is to know him who is omnipotent, ruling over the winds and the waters, the most unstable of all ele- ments ; it is to know him who created all things ; it is to know his name, and the name of his Son. But this know- ledge can be attained only by revelation; and he that 47 would attain to it even from revelation must not pass over any one word as insignificant, for every word is purified like silver; neither must he add to divine revelation, or he will be sure to go astray. That this is the true sense, appears, first, from the fact that it is the most natural sense. Every one who reads the first four questions will naturally be inch'ned to answer it is God who has done all these things. On reading the first question " Who hath ascended into heaven," one might be inclined to answer, as some of the Jews have done, Elias ; but the concluding words " and descended," shows that he is not the person intended; or, as other of the Jews have, Moses is he who ascended to heaven and descended. But, in the first place, an ascent of Moses to heaven is not mentioned in Scripture ; and then, secondly, Moses did not gather the wind in his fists, &c. The three last questions at once suggest the Creator of all things as the natural answer, and it is a safe canon of interpre- tation, that the easiest and most obvious interpretation is the nearest to the truth. Neither can it be said that this is a Trinitarian view. This answer is one, amongst many interpretations, given by the Jews in the Psikta. " Who ascended up into heaven and descended ? This is the Holy One, blessed be He; [for of him it is written] ' God ascended with a shout.' (Psalm xlvii. 1.) 'The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai.' (Exod. xix. 20.) Who hath gathered the wind in his fists ? [He of whom it is written] ' In whose hand is the soul of every living thing.' * Who hath bound the waters in a garment? [He of whom it is written] ' He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds.' (Job xxvi. 8.) Who hath established all the ends of the earth? [He of whom it is written] ' The Lord killeth and maketh alive.' * The verse goes on, " and the breath [the wind] of all mankind." (Job. xii. 10.) 48 (1 Sam. ii. 6.) What is his name? Rock is his name Lord of Hosts is his name Almighty is his name." * The Jewish solution suggests a second argument for the view taken, and that is, that it agrees with other similar passages of the Word of God. The Jewish interpretation answers all the questions in the very words of Scripture, which cannot be done with regard to any other subject; and these answers may be abundantly confirmed by other passages, where, if the exact words be not given, the sense is very similar. Thus, in answer to the question " Who hath ascended and descended?" it may also be replied, "God ascended from Abraham." (Gen. xvii.) "God ascended from him in the place where he had talked with him." (xxxv. 13.) " He bowed the heavens also, and descended ("P?.l)." (Ps. xviii. 10.) " When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou descendedst (T!J)." (Isaiah Ixiv. 2.) Or rather, let any one read the five questions in this xxxth of Proverbs, and then read the annexed pas- sages, and say whether they do not all speak of the same person. Who hath ascended up into heaven and descended ? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists ? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth ? What is his name, and what is his son's name ? Ps. cxxxv. 6, 7. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that he did, In heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places. in bj? '"' TVI rwnra DT^X nbj? m *pT3 tmpn m "0*1 o'ow rfo *c> * Tarn DID vns rfotti DID m? na TI to WE: ITI ICN V:ETO rm tpx 'o lot? 'TO muns '"' IDC iis 1053 irro rrrroi man *" yw TCN to DTH See Jalkut Shimoni, part ii., fol. 145, col. 1. 49 He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth, He maketh lightnings for the rain : He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. AMOS iv. 13. For lo, he that formeth the mountains And createth the wind, And declareth unto man what is his thought, That maketh the morning darkness, And treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord the God of Hosts is His NAME. JOB xxvi. 7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, And hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in thick clouds : And the cloud is not rent under them. He holdeth back the face of his throne, And spreadeth his cloud upon it. He hath compassed the waters with bounds, Until the day and night come to an end, &c. xxxvni. 4. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? Or who hath stretched the line upon it ? * * * * Or who shut up the sea with doors, When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb ? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, And thick darkness as a swaddling-band for it, &c. 50 ISAIAH XL. 12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, And meted out heaven with the span, And comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, And weighed the mountains in scales, And the hills in a balance ? It must be a determinate prejudice, which can read these passages of inspiration, speaking of God, where the thoughts and often the words are the very same, and yet say, that God is not the answer to the questions under consideration. A number of parallel passages always goes far to establish the sense of a given portion of Scripture. The sense which we have adopted has this species of confirmation in its fullest extent, both as to verbal identity and similarity of the train of thought. Thirdly, This solution brings out the force of the words 3nn DN, "If thou know," which in the other interpreta- tions is lost. Agur concludes the protestation of his ignorance with the words "And the knowledge of the Holy Ones I should KNOW 3n?" He then turns to those who think that by their own reason they can know God, and asks, "Who ascended if thou know;" to imply, I know not God by my natural powers, neither dost thou. It is a significant repetition of the thought with which he set out, whereas on the supposition that these questions apply to man, it seems an useless appendage, for he had not spoken of not knowing a person who could do all these things, but of not knowing God, and therefore the words, "If thou know," take away all the force and life of the questions. This interpretation, on the contrary, shows the full meaning and purpose of 51 these words, and this is a strong argument in its favour. Fourthly, this solution agrees with the scope of the whole passage. It supplies the intermediate idea, the proof of the first assertion, and thus makes way for the conclusion. When he says, By the mere exertion of reason I cannot attain to the knowledge of God, an objector might naturally say, You may not be able to do so, but I am. Agur says, Thou knowest no more than I. If thou dost, tell me, who ascended and descended, &c., i. e., neither I nor any body else knows God; we must, therefore, have recourse to God's Word. This interpretation makes the reasoning complete and conclusive, and must, therefore, be the true one. Lastly, this interpretation agrees with the whole analogy of the Old Testament, which lays a particular stress upon the knowledge of God's name, as a most important part of the knowledge of God. Eniedinus * * Praeterea, si de Deo fuisset locutus, non interrogatione sed affirma- tione fuisset usus; interrogatio enim ignorantiae, et haesitationis est signum. Atqiiis unquam dubitavit, aut dubitare possit, haec omnia Deo soli competere ? Sciebat ergo hoc Agur, neque de eo quaerit, sed dubitat de homine, an ullus unquam talis esse possit? Ad haec, nomen et Dei Patris, et Filii, satis notum et vulgare fuit. Quod enim ad Patrem attinet, ipse se quo nomine vocaretur et vocandtis esset, Mosi diserte indicavit Exod. 3. Quod certe Solomoni et Aguri ignotum esse non potuit. Similiter, quo nomine esset vocandus Filius Dei, satis manifesto Angelus, parentibus Jesu Christi explicuit Matth. i., Luc. i. At ista interrogatio Aguris vim habet negativam, quasi diceret : Neminem esse mortalium, qui ejus de quo ipse loquitur, nomen edere possit. Denique et illud falsum est, ilia verba: Quod est nomen ejus, aut nomen Filii ejus, Dei Patris efc Christi incomprehensibilitatem signi- ficare. Nam praeter quam quod ostendimus, hie de hominibus haberi sermonem ; manifestum est, hie nomen, non potentiam, aut virtutem E 2 52 entirely overlooked this, and therefore says, "If he had been speaking of God, he would not have used an interrogation, but an affirmation; for an interrogation is a sign of ignorance and hesitation. But who ever doubted, or can doubt, that these things can be ascribed to God only? Therefore Agur knew this, and did not make it a matter of inquiry ; his doubt is about man, whether any such man could ever exist ? " Besides, the name of both God the Father, and of the Son, was sufficiently known and common. For, as to the Father, He himself, in Exod. iii., expressly indicated to Moses the name by which he was and should be called, which certainly could not have been unknown to Solomon and Agur. In like manner, the name whereby the Son of God should be called was explained clearly enough to the parents of Jesus Christ by the angel, Matt i., Luke i. But this interrogation of Agur has a negative force, as if he would say, There is no mortal who can tell the name of him of whom he speaks. " Finally, it is false that those words, ' What is his name, and what is his Son's name,' signify the incompre- hensibility of God the Father and of Christ. For, besides that we have shown that man is the subject spoken of, it is manifest that name here does not denote any infinite power or virtue, but nomenclature and appellation. It is not the power of Him, who hath done such things, that Agur wishes to be explained, for it is evident that if any one had done such things, he must be omnipotent : but aliquam infinitam, sed nomenclaturam et appellationen denotare. Non vult Agur ut potentia illius, qui haec praestitit, explicetur. Nam constat, si quis haec fecerit, ilium esse omnipotentem : sed ut quo nomine vocetur. et qua nota et appeliatione a caeteris discernatur, ipsi aliquis indicet. Ibid., p. 96. 53 that some one might tell him the name whereby such person is called, and the mark and appellation whereby he is distinguished from others." The assertion, that if Solomon had been speaking of God, he would have employed the language of affirmation, not interrogation, if it were any- thing to the purpose, is utterly false, and can be easily overthrown by reference to a multitude of passages, such as "Whither shall I go from thy presence?" "He that formed the ear, shall he not hear?" Every body knows that the interrogative is often the very strongest form of assertion or negation, as the context may require. The introduction of such an argument is, therefore, only an exhibition of Socinian weakness; the truth is, that this assertion is nothing at all to the purpose. The writer's express object, as Eniedinus admits, is, to ask the name of Him who can do such wonders, and therefore interro- gation was necessary. The second argument, that Solomon and Agur could not have been ignorant of the name of the Father, which is given in the law of Moses, and that the name of Christ is equally clearly revealed in the New Testament, only shows that he did not understand either the general doctrine of the Old Testament, which is, That a knowledge of the name of God is an essential part of the knowledge of God, or the particular scope of Agur's words, which is to show that this knowledge is not to be had in any other way than by revelation. That the knowledge of God's name is considered as an essential in the knowledge of God may be seen from the earliest to the latest books of the Old Testament. In Gen. xxxii. 29, Jacob says, " Tell me, I pray thee, thy name." In Exod. iii. 13, Moses says, <; Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you ; and they shall say to me, What is his name ? 54 what shall I say unto them?" In the sixth chapter of the same book, God says, " I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty ; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them." In Judges xiii. 17, Manoah says unto the angel of the Lord, " What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour?" Knowledge of God's name is noticed as a characteristic of piety : " They that know thy name will put their trust in thee," Ps. ix. 10 ; " There- fore my people shall know my name," Isa, Hi. 6 ; " There- fore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might ; and they shall know that my name is the Lord," Jer. xvi. 21. Ignorance of God's name is given as a mark of ungod- liness : " If we have forgotten the name of our God," Ps. xliv. 20 ; " Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name," Jer. x. 25. It would be endless to go through all the collateral proofs of the position that knowledge of God's name is, in the Old Testament, considered as a main part of the knowledge of God; and it is needless to attempt to prove that the knowledge of God's name can be had only by revelation. Eniedinus's remark, therefore, that the name of God was well known, and could not be a subject of inquiry, is nothing to the purpose. Agur's position is, The knowledge of God can only be had from revelation. To those who assert the contrary he says, Tell me then His name, and the name of His Son. But the knowledge of a name appears the easiest part of knowledge; and, therefore, Agur argues well, If without revelation you have attained to the know- ledge of God, tell me that which is the easiest of all, His name. To the mere Deist this is impossible. He can know nothing more than a generic word to stand 55 for his idea of Deity. A proper name for God is peculiar to revelation, because it can be known by no other means. When, therefore, Eniedinus says that Agur's great object is to ask the name of him who can do these things, he is right, and furnishes a strong argument to prove that it is not of man, but of God that Agur is speaking. Having interpreted Agur's assertion and his proof taken from God's name, there remains but one inquiry, and that is, Who is intended by his son ? The Yalkut, in the passage already referred to, answers with the words, " Israel is my first-born." But this answer does not agree with the context. Agur is speaking, not of Israel, but of the knowledge of God. The name of Israel is no part of that knowledge. The Son of God here intended must be a being, whose name can be ascertained only by revela- tion, and a knowledge of whose name constitutes a part of the knowledge of God. He must, therefore, be a divine person, himself one of the ^pilf? Holy Ones, of whom Agur had been speaking. The Old Testament teaches that a knowledge of God's name is an essential part of the know- ledge of God. Agur teaches that a knowledge of the name of the Son of God is an essential part of the knowledge of God, so that both the general analogy of Scripture and the particular scope of the passage under consideration, compel us to conclude that the Son here spoken of is a divine person, that is, the passage teaches us that God has a Son, and that this Son is very God. APPENDIX II. PROVERBS vm. THE proof of eternal sonship derived from this chapter rests upon two positions, namely, that the Wisdom here spoken of is, first, a personal agent, and secondly, a divine person. Some evidence for the truth of these positions has already been offered in the sermon, but the subject is well worthy of a more extended discussion than could there be given it. Eniedinus endeavours to set aside the whole argument in a summary manner, by denying that the most striking portions of the chapter refer to Wisdom at all. He says " It is not even certain that the words referred to (verse 22 and sqq.) are spoken by Wisdom. For if the version of Pagninus, Mercier, and the Hebrew text be consulted, it will appear that those words were uttered by Understanding or Prudence, who in this chapter is treated of along with Wisdom both conjointly and separately, as appears from verses 1 and 14, in the latter part of which Understanding begins to speak of herself."* If this were as true, as it is evidently false to any one who can consult the Hebrew text, I do not see what the Socinians would gain * " Ne illud quidem indubitatum est, verba praescripta a sapientia dici. Si enim versio Pagnini, Merceri, et Textus Hebraicus consulatur : apparebit verba esta proferri ab Intelligentia, vel Prudentia, quse in hoc capite, turn conjuncte, turn separatim cum sapientia ponitur, ut apparet ex vers. 1 et 14, in cujus posteriori parte, incipit Intelligentia de se loqui." P. 'JO. 57 by the change. It would only prove that Understanding is a divine person, whose generation is from eternity, and this would be just as fatal to Socinianism as is the eternal generation of Wisdom. A simple inspection of the text is sufficient to remove this pretence, for argument it can hardly be called. nr ^w IT : j- T >. " To me pertaineth counsel and sound wisdom, I am Understanding. To me pertaineth strength." Here the first person is carried through without any intimation of a change of subject. Eniedinus himself does not translate differently. He professes to quote from Pagninus thus Penes me est consilium et sapientia, Ego sum Intelligentia, mea est fortitudo. To suppose that the first, " To me," refers to one person, and the second, " To me," to another, seems to common sense very strange, and is entirely opposed to the paral- lelism, in the first member of which Wisdom makes two affirmations concerning herself. The second member con- sists of two analogous affirmations, where the subject is still in the first person, and must therefore be the same as the subject of the first member. This is the almost uni- versal opinion of those interpreters who had no system to bribe their judgment. Thus the LXX. changes " I am understanding " into " Mine is understanding, or pru- dence." ffJ.r) Se The Chaldee paraphrast, in a similar manner, by giving the subject only once, shows that he knew of only one subject, and that that subject was wisdom. 58 Nrpsnn HTF sn : snnrai wrm " To me appertaineth thought and counsel, And understanding and strength." The Vulgate, the Syriac, and the Arabic, have a similar rendering. The Talmud knows of no change of subject, but interprets the words, following the 14th verse, of Wisdom, as well as those which precede. Thus Rabbi Jose, the Galilean, says : iD-n '"awn ^ap 'v ': nxssn 'ap ^ sbs pt ^s " No one is an elder but he who has attained to the possession of wisdom, as it is written, The Lord possessed me the beginning of his way." Kiddushin, fol. 32, col. 2. Aben Ezra interprets the 14th verse of Wisdom, and explains why it is said first, " To me pertaineth," and then, " I am understanding." rnbin na'arro >Bb na'a 'b -IBM sbi nsnb nrn " The Scripture says, / am understanding, and does not say, To me pertaineth understanding, because understanding is the offspring of wisdom, and if there be no wisdom, there is no understanding. But it does say, To me appertaineth strength, similar to the verse, ' Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men,' &c. Ecclesiast. vii. 19." The modern Berlin Jewish translator (not now to men- tion Christian commentaries or translations) translates the 14th verse in the same way " Bei mir ist Rathschluss und wesentliches Gut; Ich bin die Vernunft, mein ist die Macht," and interprets the following verses of Wisdom. Thus on the words, " The beginning of his way," he says nasm rvtwm b"t woan now f'yi 59 " That is to say, In all his works I am the beginning, for by wisdom every thing was made. And therefore our wise men of blessed memory have rendered, ' In the beginning,' Gen. L, by Wisdom, which is called beginning." These few specimens are sufficient to show that the most considerable Jewish authorities assert an unity of subject throughout the chapter, and maintain the Christian view that Wisdom is the subject. The construction, therefore, on which the Christian interpretation rests is not one adopted for a purpose, but that which has prevailed in the Jewish nation from the days of the LXX. down to the Berlin commentator, i.e, to the close of the eighteenth century, and is, besides, that which does no violence to the text, and requires no addition, diminution, or change. The next thing to be considered is the mode of inter- pretation. Some assert that what is here predicated of wisdom is to be taken in its proper sense, others that the whole is a strong prosopopoeia or personification of wisdom, and consequently that the chapter is to be ex- plained allegorically. I shall endeavour to show that a consistent allegorical interpretation of the whole chapter is impossible. If the description of wisdom be allegorical, still the allegory must have been intended to convey some distinct and definite meaning. To suppose that a divine revelation deals in poetic generalities, and uses figures, which not only do not convey instruction, but do not even make sense, is to reduce Scripture to the level of the most useless of uninspired compositions, and to deprive it of all authority. Whatever, therefore, the explanation of the allegory, the first condition to its truth and correctness must be, that it gives a consistent sense to the whole. The allegoric interpretations hitherto given do not fulfil this condition, and can therefore be neither true nor correct. The most common interpretation amongst modern Jews 60 is that found in the Bereshith Rabba and Rashi's Com- mentary, according to which, " The Law," i.e. the written and oral law, is the subject personified. Thus it says, in the interpretation of 7^$ (Prov. viii. 30), which the English version renders, "As one brought up with him." pas i s the same as f^ (workman), and the law says, I was the instrument of God's workmanship. The fashion of this world is, that, when a king of flesh and blood builds a palace, he does not build it by his own knowledge, but by the knowledge of a workman. Neither does the workman build it by his own knowledge, but has plans and tables whereby to know how to make the cham- bers and the doors. In like manner the blessed God looked into the law, and created the world, and so the law says, ' By the Beginning God created.' Beginning can be nothing else than the law." * (Bereshith Rabba, fol. 1, col. 1.) But if we understand in this passage, as many modern Jews do, that Law signifies the five books of Moses, and the traditional law, or even the whole Bible, as the passage itself calls the Book of Proverbs the law, this interpretation becomes too absurd to require a laboured refutation. That God looked into a law given by himself for the instruction of man, in order to learn how to make the world, is possible only for a Rabbinist to suppose. The parable here given is inconsistent with itself. If the law be the workman who built the palace for the king, it cannot stand for the plans and tables into which he looked. The inconsistency of the parable shows that it is next to impossible to think of wisdom otherwise than as of a person. If the author wished to 1'ra C'TIMID arrm n"ipn 7s? IP:OIN ^3 vrn ': mms minrr pin JIOH n:ia WN pwm pi nrro *w 1022? rin nni run iy pste rim DTI -ran "iNTT cmn mny Nin -[NTT rsrb V> vt* msopj'Ei PWIPDH N^N im?y pyra nmw cN rrnnm D^irr? PM xrai mipn tno n"ypn rrn "p \txmo rrair in mm N'JN H^WNT ^N D'n^N ^3 rrxwu 61 prove that wisdom is the law, the language of Solomon com- pelled him to speak of her as the workman. The parahle sets out with a king, a workman, and the workman's plans, making God the king, and the law the workman, but it ends by identifying God with the workman who built the world, and turns the law into the plans according to which the workman built the palace. That the law cannot be the subject spoken of under the name of wisdom is clear from one verse the 16th, " By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth." It is evident that heathen judges do not rule by means of the Mosaic law. The modern Gentile supposition, that Wisdom is here personified, is far more plausible, so long as we are content with generalities and words without definite ideas. But, as soon as a definition of the Wisdom here intended is given, the illusion vanishes. Wisdom can stand only for one of two things, either for the wisdom of God, or for an abstract idea derived from that attribute, which, though in different degrees, is common both to God and man, but without referring to the subject in whom it exists. So Eniedinus says, Sunt qui hie quoque Solomonem, de sapientia Dei, qua universum mundum condidit et gubernat, loqui as- serunt: non tamen desunt, qui indefinite, et in genere, de sapientia sermonem habere censeant. But which to adopt Eniedinus appears not to have been able or willing to make up his mind, for in addition to these two sup- positions, he gives two others, and speaks of them as defensible : " Others say that Solomon speaks of his own wisdom, which he had asked and received from God, and their opinion is confirmed by chap. ix. ver. 9, of Wisdom. Finally, some understand by Wisdom the law of God, and their opinion may be confirmed by the end of the third and beginning of the fourth chapter of Baruch. 62 Also from the xxivth of Ecclesiasticus, ver. 32." It appears to have been all the same to Eniedinus which of the four interpretations a man received, provided he only rejected the personality. This indifference gives us but a poor idea either of his love of truth, or of his ability as an interpreter. If he only got rid of the Christian inter- pretation, he does not think it worth his while to ascertain the true sense. Socinians generally pride themselves on their power and clearness of thought, and acute exercise of their reason. Surely nothing but intellectual deficiency, or utter indifference about religion, would suffer any man, but especially a controversialist, to float about between four opinions, and to leave a whole chapter of the Bible without any definite sense. Crell, who seems to have borrowed a thought from the rabbies, is more definite. He says, " Solomon treats of Wisdom, which, formed in the mind of God before the ages, has been manifested by the law of God, and by it communicated to men." * He foolishly tries to escape from the expression, Wisdom of God, because St. Paul applies that expression to Christ, and therefore talks of Wisdom having been formed in the mind of God, in order to make it a creature, and thus falls into an absurdity, which after all is nothing to the purpose. The Wisdom of God, whether personal or impersonal, enveloped in thick darkness or revealed in the law, cannot be a creature, and never was formed. If he forms for himself Wisdom or knowledge which he had not eternally and essentially, he is a mutable being like ourselves. If he be immutable, his Wisdom is also immutable, and therefore must be uncreate * Id argumentum firmum non esse hinc patet, quod Salomon agat de sapientia quse ante secula in Dei mente formata, per Dei legem manifestata est et per earn communicator hominibus. Catachesis Eccles. Polon. Irenopoli. 1659, p. 61. 63 and eternal. But, after all, this created Wisdom revealed in the law cannot be the subject of this eighth chapter of Proverbs. The wisdom here spoken of is that by which " all the judges of the earth rule." But all judges, for example, among the heathen, do not rule by the wisdom revealed in the law, therefore the wisdom here spoken of is not that revealed in the law. The fact is, the only plausible mode of interpretation is, to make Wisdom either the divine attribute of Wisdom, or the abstract idea, though neither will solve the whole chapter. If Wisdom be taken for the divine attribute, a great many of the affirmations of the chapter may be explained. The divine attribute of Wisdom may be said to cry to the sons of men to be eternal to have had a part in creation to have been God's delight to have rejoiced in the sons of men, &c. But there is one insuperable difficulty. It is said at the 35th verse, " Whoso findeth me findeth life." No man can find God's attribute of Wisdom. It is infinite, and therefore no man can attain to it, and consequently God's attribute of Wisdom cannot be that which is here spoken of. There is equal difficulty in receiving the abstract idea of Wisdom as the subject of the chapter. To carry the abstract idea of Wisdom con- sistently through the chapter, the idea ought to remain everywhere invariably the same. But if the word Wisdom necessarily stand in one place for one idea, and in another place for another idea, the abstraction is lost, and though the word remain the same, we have, in fact, two subjects. Such a change is, in this chapter, absolutely necessary; for in one place Wisdom is spoken of as the possession of God : " God possessed me the beginning of his ways," and is, therefore, infinite and uncreate. In another place it is spoken of as the possession of man : " He that findeth me findeth life," and is, therefore, as being finite and created, 64 altogether different from the wisdom before spoken of, and thus it is impossible to make the abstract idea the subject of the chapter. Besides, an abstract idea of this kind is a nonentity, or at best but a mere creation of the human mind. A personification of an abstract idea might there- fore occur in human uninspired writings, but cannot be received in a divine revelation, and makes some parts of this chapter contain no sense at all. Thus, if abstract wisdom be the subject here spoken of, what is the meaning of the words, " I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." It has no meaning, and conveys absolutely no idea. It will not do to say, it is a figure. The figures em- ployed, even by a sensible man, must convey some meaning. A figure without meaning is the invention of a fool, and therefore cannot be admitted in the Word of God. The impossibility, therefore, of carrying the figure consistently through the chapter shows that abstract wisdom is not the subject. In like manner it may be asked, How can it be said that abstract wisdom " cries " or calls " to the sons of men." It is not abstract wisdom, but the wisdom of God, that speaks in the inspired writings ; neither had abstract wisdom any messengers or preachers amongst the Jewish people. The priests and the prophets were preachers and messengers of divine wisdom. Neither can it in any sense be said, that abstract wisdom had in Israel any gates or doors at which the Israelites could watch. Abstract wisdom had in no sense " sent forth her maidens " in Israel to say, " Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled." At the doors of the temple divine wisdom might be said to teach, and at the gates of the city the judges and elders taught the wisdom of inspira- tion, and in the revelation of the prophets, and the or- dinances of the Mosaic worship, she had prepared bread and wine for those who sought her ; but the idea of abstract 65 wisdom, apart from God, was utterly unknown to the Hebrews, and could only be begotten in the minds of the heathen, amongst whom it appeared as philosophy. The religion of the Israelites taught them to regard the fear of the Lord as the beginning of all human wisdom, and to consider folly also, not abstractedly as a want of under- standing, or prudence, or skill, but as a want of the fear of God, as is expressly acknowledged by the German Rationalists. Thus Gesenius says in his Lexicon '23 , ( ] ) "A fool, Prov. vii. 2; Jer. xvii. 11. According to an association of ideas prevailing in the Semitic languages, (2) a wicked, renjobate, ungodly man. (compare '^$ , D3H )." And so De Wette, on the xivth Psalm, says, " ^?9 is not merely a fool, i. e., silly, but also unwise in the religious and moral sense, just as, in the mind of the Hebrews, wisdom, and piety, and virtue are all one (com p. verse 2), and, on the other hand, folly is identical with immorality, ungodliness." To interpret wisdom, therefore, in this chapter of abstract wisdom, not only leaves a great part of the chapter without any definite sense, but is to foist into Hebrew theology an idea utterly unknown to the Jewish mind. If, then, this chapter cannot be explained allegorically, the only alternative is, to take it in its proper sense, and then Wisdom must be acknowledged to be a personal agent, coequal and coeternal with the Father. That Wisdom is an intelligent personal agent, appears from the attributes and actions ascribed to her. Wisdom " speaks," gives " instruction," " inhabiteth prudence," " loves them that love her," " rejoices delights in the sons of men ;" and, according to the parallel passage in the first chapter, 20 32, " calls," " reproves," and has a spirit which she can pour out, actions and attributes which belong only to a personal intelligent agent. If it had GG been the purpose ami will of God to teach that Wisdom is a person, language more fitting could not be found. The easiness and obviousness of the interpretation is a strong argument for its truth, The maxim, that when an easy and proximate principle will solve the phenomena, a more remote one is not to be sought, is just as true and applicable in interpretation as in natural philosophy. The word of God was not given for the ingenious, but for the simple. The ingeniousness of an interpretation of the Bible may, therefore, always be looked upon as a pre- sumptive proof of its falsehood, and, vice versa, the simplicity and obviousness of an expositicm as an ac- creditive of its truth. When, therefore, all acknowledge that Wisdom is here spoken of as a person and this the Socinians do not deny, this fact goes far to prove that Wisdom is a person. The impossibility of producing a consistent allegorical interpretation raises this presump- tive evidence to absolute demonstration. But that the interpretation which makes Wisdom a real person is the true and natural one can be proved even by the confession of adversaries. There was a time when the deniers of Christ's eternal deity applied this passage to a real person, the Lord Jesus, and considered it as the stronghold of their doctrine. The Arians finding that the words " The Lord possessed me the beginning of his way," had been rendered by the LXX. Kvpios e/mo-e /*f apxrjv 68a> fis KT?i(riv, yewdco, dya-rrda, KO&'OTTJ/XI, as the rendering for i"9(7. The second is equally impossible. There is nothing in the context to require this translation much, as will appear presently, to demand a different rendering. So that, even granting the possibility of such a translation elsewhere, as it is not necessary here, it will not warrant the Arian conclusion. But, secondly, I must express my belief that there is no passage in the Hebrew Bible where the word naf? signifies create. In the first place, it is acknowledged that the most usual signification is, to possess, or to obtain possession of. This appears from the LXX. version itself, which in sixty-four places translates ^3)7 by Kraofuu, in four others by its cognate ayopdfa, and only twice by KTI'O>. Secondly, it is not pretended that in any of the derivative conjugations or nouns the significa- tion create is to be found. In Jer. xxxii. 15, the Niphal occurs 0^2 ^i?1 Tt&j "Houses shall yet be possessed." In Zech. xiii. 5, the Hiphil occurs where the LXX. has avdpa-rros eycWi/rc /ie (< vfd-njros pov, and which Aben Ezra translates "oVmn , " made me to 68 inherit." The English version, following Kimchi, has, "man taught me to keep cattle from my youth," which still makes possess the sense of the root, as n ?i?^, posses- sion, is the word for cattle. The derivative nouns are "^i/P, just mentioned, 'Tj'PPj purchase, possession, and Tp, P os ~ session, so that not one of the derivative verbs or nouns testifies to the signification create, and all bear witness to the signification possess. Thirdly, The passages which are cited as containing the sense create are inconclusive, and may be expounded just as well or better by the word possess. The passages which Gesenius gives are Gen. xiv. ] 9, 22, where the expression occurs " The most high God, : vw C^OH? mp VTT - T "' The possessor of heaven and earth." Now in both these verses, the signification possess is more congruous to the matter in hand. First, Melchizedec blesses Abraham, because the Most High God had given his enemies and their spoil into his possession, where possessor is evidently a more cognate idea than creator. Then Abraham swears by the Most High God that he will not take from a thread to a shoe-latchet, where the prominent idea is again possession. To swear, therefore, by Him who possesses all things, was perfectly natural. Here the LXX. has (KTHT^ but from what has been said erroneously. The Targum of Onkelos has " whose possession is the heaven and earth." The next passage is Deut. xxxii. 6, s-in " Is not he thy father that possesseth thee ? Hath he not made thee, and established thee ? " Where the Targum and LXX. agree with the English. The former has : mb^T nsi -fins sin sbn " Is he not thy father, and thou art his ?" The LXX. OVK dvros OVTOS indicavi ad cap. 4, 5, tanquam peculium eximie carum vel acquirere vel possidere, in loc. But besides the general usage of the Bible, the context of this verse declares against the possibility of a creature being here intended. The attributes and actions ascribed to Wisdom are those which exclusively belong to the very and eternal God. First. Wisdom is said to be the source of royal and judicial authority, and of the wisdom whereby it is justly exercised " By me kings reign and princes decree justice." In Dan. ii. 21, this is predicated of God " He removeth kings, and setteth up kings : he giveth wisdom to the wise," &c. Secondly. Wisdom is described as eternal. " The Lord possessed me the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was V"! ''PIPP," which Schultens translates ab anterioritatibus terras: and on which he remarks, Ilia anteriora terrae haud dubie absolutam iterum TITD m mnVuD TOT? f] D'DD:n V TO" TOGO Yalkut Shimoni in loc. 72 ye to the waters, and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy and eat : yea, come, and buy wine and milk without money and without price." Fifthly. Both make the same promise of life to obedience. Wisdom says, " Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children : for blessed are they that keep my ways. . . . Blessed is the man that heareth me; . . . for whoso findeth me findeth life." God says, " Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live." (Isa. Iv. 2, 3.) Sixthly. Wisdom promises to do what God alone can do. She says, " Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you." It is needless to point out those passages where the pouring out of the spirit is ascribed to God, or to say that it is ascribed to no one else. Seventhly. Wisdom executes judgment upon those who refuse to hearken just as God does. She says, " Because I have called, and ye refused : I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; . . . I also will laugh at your calamity," &c. God says, " Because when I called ye did not answer ; when I spake ye did not hear. . . . There- fore thus saith the Lord," &c. (Isa. Ixv. 12.) This iden- tification with the Deity is admitted in the Yalkut, which, on the words, " Because I have called and ye refused," says, " This is the blessed God who caused Israel to hear his voice, but they turned away and sinned against him, as it is written, 'How long refuse ye,' (Exod. xvi. 28)."* The most careless reader of the Bible must observe that the language used concerning Wisdom is the very same as that used concerning God. The Being who is the source of all authority, royal and judicial; who is eternal; who has a temple and sacrifices; who can bestow the same spiritual 73 food ; give the same promise of life ; dispense the gift of the Holy Spirit; and execute judgment upon the dis- obedient must be God : though, from having been eter- nally anointed, brought forth from everlasting, and God's delight, a distinctness of personality is asserted. That this was the opinion, and an essential doctrine of the ancient Jewish theology, has been abundantly proved by former writers, and is known to every one who has ever taken the trouble to look into Rabbinical books. The parable quoted above from the Yalkut, in which God is represented as the king, and Wisdom as the artificer or architect, evidently makes Wisdom a personal agent, and the creator of all things; and the confusion that is introduced into it by making the Mosaic law identical with Wisdom, shows that some heterogeneous material has been introduced by a strange hand. R. Menachem, of Recanata, in his com- mentary on the Pentateuch, interprets the words which we translate, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," differently. His meaning is, " By the BEGIN- NING God created the heavens and the earth." By the BEGINNING he understands Wisdom, who is called, " The beginning of his way," and he gives this decidedly as the opinion of the Rabbies. He says,* " According to the opinion of our rabbies, of blessed memory, and from what appears of their meaning in the book of Zohar, the word Beginning refers to the supreme Wisdom, which is called the Wisdom of God, and, in the book of Zohar ' the one secret supreme point.' This is the second Sephirah which nraii rvtn roo o nrmn -cca crmiso rw-utt rroi i"n ran NTT rwVy rrcrrD NTTT rrnpj irrnn -ISDI rwipsi avfts rran rw\p:rr n n"ai TNI:*? cycrr p rv>o n*np:i n:-ra?in rrvcDrr p rfcfcun rrron ci;ira iwnn p to rrcon sfa rro p< Tron TBDI Vt i:Ton now pi 'tun 'n rwr ]n rroi 'n ntfv rrosn mzn 'N:HJ win xnosna DJin nb p^i neon mrnj n^nci D^W? ran ''oipa 'w G 74 emanates from the first, and is called Beginning for a reason hereafter to be explained. In like manner our rabbies, of blessed memory, have said, in the book of Bahir, ' Beginning is nothing else but Wisdom,' and therefore it is translated in the Jerusalem Targum, By Wisdom God made the heavens and the earth ; ' and so it is said ' The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;' and again, ' The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.' Onkelos also has translated it [in the first chapter of Genesis] < -pElpn By the first,' to refer to the thirty-two paths of wisdom, and therefore he did not translate NTia'npa ' At first.' " And again, a little lower down, he says, " The fundamental doctrine is, that the Beginning refers to the wisdom of God, by which the world was created ; for it is said, < By wisdom he founded the earth,' and again, ' By W T isdom hast thou made them all.' " * R. Bechai, in his Commentary, gives the same interpre- tation in nearly the same words, f In the Tikkune Haz- zohar we read " Concerning Wisdom it is said, ' Sanctify unto me all the first-born, for all the first-born are called by her name, and hence the Shechinah is called first-born. Truly of Wisdom it is said, " The first-born of the firstlings of all." Ezek. xh'v. 30.'"J Here Wisdom is spoken of not only as a person, but as the first-born, and as the Sche- chinah or Divine person who dwelt in the Holy of Holies. The reason why Wisdom is called the Beginning is also in accordance with the Christian doctrine, that no man hath seen the Father at any time, but that the Son, and he only, hath revealed Him. R. Menachem says, Perhaps some will TO TDK DTI^N nosnb rooTi nt?Ni 'D H2H rmo 'D rr:n rwTDn ipj? DDDN * nw rrosm oto yrci yv ID' rnMna ': DVirn N-O: f Fol. 5, col. 2. pro nr3n innprvN rroc fr on-m tai TM to ^ np -ionn rfis rrasn J to TIM to rvttNi -IQHN rfo wi noon rrvoa nunprw Tykkun. xiv., fol. 26, col. 1 . See Schiittgen. part. ii. p. 9. 75 ask why Wisdom, which is only the second Sephirah, should be called the beginning : " The answer is, because all investigation [into the nature of the Deity beyond wisdom] is forbidden, . . . and further than this no human being can attain."* In like manner the Rabbies teach that by Wisdom all things consist and were created. " R. Jose says, In this word * in the Beginning ' all things are comprehended, and by it all things were made, as it is written, by Wisdom hast thou made them all.'"f Thus the grammatic sense of the Word of God, and the ancient traditions of the Jews, both teach, that Wisdom is the First- born, a Divine Person, the Creator of the Universe. yarn Viy DTM po ..... TEN uaa rnsn 1 ? 'Tprrn '3 Tiara N T2T TO 3 ITDT ITO TirnN rra N'TOI N^ID Wo / 'B>TQI nbo 'MTO 'Dv T"N f Menachem. Recanat. fol. 2, col. 3. THE END. Macintosh, Printtr, Great New-treei, London. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. NON-RENEWABLE OCT 4 2004 DUE 2 WKS FROM DATE ACCESS SERVICES UCLA Interlibrary Loan 1 1 630 University 3 x 951575 ^ Angeles CA 9C Research Library UBRAItt DECEIVED 1575 r USE ITHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000106984 8