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1850.]

Hebrew idea of the Personality of God.

699

other reader of him has ever since done, or can do. Dorner has fully shown the absurdity of his philosophy; the predominance in him of ethnical views of the Godhead, instead of the spiritual ones of the Bible; and his entire lack of acquaintance with the leading truths of proper Christianity. So completely does he ignore the holiness of God, the sins of men as contracting spiritual guilt, and the necessity of atonement, as also the necessity or even possibility of the incarna tion of the Logos, that it is utterly impossible to suppose, with any probability, that John chose Philo for his guide].

DORNER ON THE LOGOS.

IN the history of religion antecedent to the establishment of Christianity, the Hebrew religion stands alone in respect to insisting upon the fact, that God and the world are to be strenuously contradistinguished; and besides this, that the personality of Jehovah and of man is to be fully acknowledged. Inasmuch as God is highly exalted above nature, in regard to his spirituality and unity (p), and man is known to be created after the image of God, the distinction between them has such a claim to its own right, that unity between them can be predicated only in a moral sense. As to the essential relation between God and the world, and particularly human nature, little is said. The Hebrew people were little concerned with metaphysical questions. Still, the moral union is not to be conceived of in a Pelagian way, since according to the Hebrew view, it rests on a religious basis, on divine condescension. This became ever more and more clear to the Hebrews. As the finger of God from the beginning, wrote the Law on tables of stone, so, in the course of development, the divinely enlightened prophets hope for a time when God will wash away the sins of the people, and write his law in their heart. But in the Christian idea of God-man there lies a relation of essential being at the basis, and not barely a religious or moral relation. Hence it must a priori appear unsatisfactory, to aim at deriving the Christian idea out of the Hebrew national spirit as it was in itself. That Jehovah, who is highly exalted above all that is finite, who according to the very idea of him is invisible, whose very aspect is consuming, should come down to this world, clothe himself with a costume that is finite, and become man this thought is wholly foreign to the Hebrew religion in itself considered. Much rather must we admit, that the Hebrew religion glories in the fact, that in opposition to the heathen world it holds fast the holy personality of Jehovah, pure and highly exalted above nature and the whole world; but this it could not do, if it had established a óuovoía, e. g. of humanity with divinity in any sense. To keep itself above all natural religion, the moral view taken by the Hebrew religion, must form for itself such a meta

physical view of the relation between God and the world, as lay far distant from God's becoming a man; yea, even such an one, that the Hebrew would shudder and be astonished at a thought like this; although the Hebrews, as already said, generally speculated very little respecting the relation of God's essence to the essence of the world. One cannot object to this, that Jehovah does not at all appear far removed from the world and incommunicable, under the ancient dispensation; rather does he appear near to the world, and filling it everywhere with his presence. For after he had, in various ways, revealed himself to the patriarchs, he was specially near to his covenant people, as their lawgiver, Saviour, and avenger, who animated their leaders and prophets, and by various phenomena or symbols manifested himself to them. All this is not excluded by what has been said above; nor is that excluded by these phenomena. Who now can say, that all this, even in the most distant way, resembles the idea of Jehovah's becoming man, that Jehovah who is, and was, and is to come?

[I cannot assent entirely to this view of the Hebrew Theology. What did Isaiah mean, when he spoke of a "virgin who should conceive, and bear a Son, whose name should be called: GoD WITH US?" Isa. 7: 16. And more specially, what did the same prophet mean, when he says: "Unto us a Son is given, . . and his name shall be called: Wonder (), Counsellor, Mighty God, perPETUAL GUARDIAN (N), PRINCE OF PEACE?" Isa. 9: 6. His humanity is developed beyond all question, in Isa. liii, and in many other passages. The only question with Dorner would seem to be, whether his divine nature is developed in the O. Test. If John is to be regarded as an authoritative expositor of the ancient Scriptures, then does John 12: 41, compared with Isa. 6: 1-3, make it certain that Isaiah had some proper views of Christ's divine nature. Many other passages might be adduced; but this is not the place for a continued discussion of this nature. Dorner seems to have been too much influenced by the fact, that the Ebionites, the earliest Jewish heresy, became, or continued to be, unbelievers in Christ's proper divinity; because, as they alleged, of the O. Test. doctrine of one purely spiritual God, whose name (Jehovah) and whose attributes united in testifying, that he was entirely above and remote from all which is human. But while the opposition of the Jews in general, of the apostolic age and afterwards, against the idea of God-man is fully admitted on my part, I feel bound to say, that this will not decide the great question, as to what views the prophets entertained I know not how to dispose of passages, such as are quoted above, without supposing that Isaiah and others believed in an incarnation, i. e. in a Oɛòç kvoаρkikóç. I doubt not that their views were quite of a generic nature, and not altogether special and definitive. The time had not come for the development of the latter. But there was enough to excite hope, yea expectation, and also to administer comfort. This was all which was then needed. "The mystery hidden from ages and from generations" was solved, in many respects, only by the actual coming of Christ - by the λoyos oùp kyivero. But to carry this matter so far as Dorner does. to say that " the ancient Hebrews would have shuddered and been astonished at the thought" of the incarnation, or the idea of a God-man, seems to me irreconcilable with the views

1850.]

Revelations of God in the Old Testament.

701

which the Saviour and the apostles take of the O. Test prophecies. Those among the Jews, who like good old Simeon (Luke 1: 25 seq.), were пapudɛxóμɛvoi napákλnoiν toù 'lopańλ, were surely not horrified at the idea of this Consoler's appearing in the costume of humanity S.]

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It need not be denied, that the Hebrew national spirit, particularly in later times, when remote from a living religious process, addressed itself more to inquiry, and sought to fill the chasm which metaphysically resulted from the ethical consideration of the discrepance between God and the world. Here came in the idea of an angel Jehovah (in), the mediator of Jehovah and of the patriarchs, and afterwards of the nation under the theocracy; and this was the point of union between them. But this mediatorial office is not conferred as one which is constant; for Jehovah often reveals himself without his angel, viz. in visions, voices, and symbols. Nor does the angel in question attain, in the Old Testament, to a fixed personality, being separated on the one haud from the chorus of created angels, who do not (like him) bear on themselves the name of Jehovah; and on the other hand, not always sinking back and commingling with the personality of Jehovah. Such an auxiliary hypostasis does not much exceed the personification of other divine operations at that period; at least it does not serve to reconcile the essential relation of God and the world. At most, there are found only some passages,' in the Psalms, according to which the angel-Jehovah has bestowed on him not merely a theocratic but a cosmical appellation. But there he appears either as a personification only, and therefore not as a hypostasis; or if as the latter, then merely as a created thing. In the first case, the angel-Jehovah is contained in then, wisdom; in the last, he comes forth in the rank of angels, which indeed, in course of time, come forth with more significance, but still are far removed from conciliating the essence of God and the world. Much more do they show, that Jehovah's essence comes not in contact with the world. But since to these angels is assigned more and more, which belongs to God himself, e. g. creation, preservation, and government, and they are his vice-gerents in the world, there is more of an approach of the early purer religious consciousness to the bewilderment and phantasy of heathenism, while the living God retreats as it were to the back-ground. It is well known, what tasteless and luxuriant phantasies the Jewish tradition indulged in with regard to this matter, even before the coming of Christ, and how the ever-increasing angelology of the same filled heaven and earth, Paradise and Gehenna, with wondrous romantic narrations. But to place the fundamental

1 Ps. 103: 20. 148: 2. 34: 8. 91: 11.

Christian idea in connection with this, is not only inadmissible, because the angels are all created beings, while the Christian church never acknowledges the truly divine except in Christ alone; but more definitively still, because this angelology which fills the fore-ground of consciousness, holds and maintains the truly divine in the back-ground. Hence such angelology begins to come in, in that shape, only from the time when God had ceased to speak with his people, who were without any living nearness and revelation of the Lord.1

In respect to the men of Prov. vii, and the cogía of the Apocrypha, they have undoubtedly a cosmical meaning. In them is contained that which is nearer to the Hebrew spirit, religion, and ethics, and which is precise in regard to the relation of the essence of God and the world. Wisdom (Prov. 8: 22 seq.) has an internal relation to the world, and to its wise arrangements, i. e. to the form of the world. Although in this way it is only teleologically conceived of, and always placed in an internal relation to the practical, still it brings into the world, in one respect, viz. that of form, divine thoughts, and so readily establishes an internal relation between God and the world. It is introduced as speaking, as a personality different from God; and yet the passage does not proceed to an actual hypostasizing of Wisdom.

In Sir. 1: 1-10. 24: 8-10, and Wisd. 7: 22 seq., is bare personification still clearer. The Son of Sirach imagines, that in Wisdom exists the whole plan of the world, the eternal idea of the world in regard to its extension in space and time, and its inner proportions. In 1: 10 it is said: "He has poured out wisdom over all his works, and over all flesh, according to his grace." Here, indeed, is wisdom not barely conceived of as form, but announced as a substance, as an energy diffused over everything, and wisely adapting it. Still it plainly is not a person. Sirach, in ch. xxiv, identifies it with God's word; says that it hovers over the whole earth; and ascribes to it an omnipresence in the abyss, in the sea, and on the earth. Thus it keeps pace directly with the Logos-idea of the Alexandrians. Sirach and the book of Wisdom lead us straight forward to Philo. In the beautiful ch. vii. of the last named book, Wisdom is specially conceived of as everywhere operative, and hemmed in by nothing. Hovering over all, it still penetrates all both physically and spiritually. But while it penetrates, it is not thereby limited. It is said (v. 27 seq. Sir. 24: 14) to be permanent. It is

Since this angelology in later times assumed a pantheistic hue, and the created nature as well as essential difference of angels from God gave place to the emtration-doctrine, so there still remained, even in this case, the ground-idea, that the truly Absolute makes himself known, although only at a remote distance, while the subordination remains without change. Hence the Christian church could never acknowledge herself as recognizing the doctrine of Aeons.

1850.]

Wisdom in the Apocrypha.

703

called eternal, and yet it is said to connect itself with time. It is represented as shooting up like a palm-tree (Sir. 24: 18); as spreading out its boughs like the oak; as seeking and finding a stable abode in Jacob (Sir. 24: 11 seq.); as ever and anon settling itself in pious souls; as forming the friends and prophets of God, and yet not confined to these, since it penetrates all spirits, Wisd. 7: 23, 24. As a principle in the many, it is regarded as manifold, and yet as one, vs. 22, 27. Thus, in the book of Wisdom, more definitively than in Sirach, Wisdom appears not barely as a formal but as a real principle. This, without any doubt, is to be put to the account of a stronger Hellenistic influence on the latter work. But the more universal the meaning of 60gía thus becomes, the more it resembles the Philonic Logos, the more does the possibility vanish of deducing from it the fundamental Christian idea. We must indeed admit, that by all this the firmly-grasped difference between God and the world, among the Hebrews, is somewhat relaxed. On the other hand, the generic idea of the Hellenic Logos-doctrine abstracts from the fundamental Christian idea all anthropological and neological basis; inasmuch as the stand-point of historic revelation, which forms an essential part of the Christology of the church, is abandoned, and it evaporates into a general internal revelation of God in the mind. In accordance with this, nothing more than a Christology of the Docetae can erect itself on this ground. Generally speaking, there remained not, in this universality and pure spirituality of manner in which the Logos operated, any ground more for the assumption of a human nature like that in Christ, in regard to men. Finally, this idea of the Logos, by the generalization of his energy, as well as by the continual reabsorption of his hypostasis in God, i. e. a mere personification, entirely excludes the thought, that the whole Logos, and not merely a part of him, or an effusion of his energy, made his appearance in Christ. This is, named in Christian fashion, Ebionitish; and so, therefore, it is an unsatisfactory view of the Christian idea of God-man, to which the Alexandrine formation of the Logos-doctrine would conduct us.

The book of Sirach exhibits a remarkable effort to advance toward this view of the idea of a universal oogía, so hazardous to a theocratic foundation and to a historical revelation in general, and to unite it with those interests. According to Sir. 24: 10—16 seq., Wisdom seeks a permanent, established abode, a place of more perfect revelation in a concentrated way: "Among all men, among all heathen, it sought a dwelling place, that it might find as it were a home. Then did the Creator of all things appoint for her a dwelling in Jacob, and vouchsafed for her a home in Zion." But Wisdom (v. 16) took root among a highly honored nation, which was God's heritage, which possessed his truth, in

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