doctrine, born at Alexandria, become domesticated in Judæa? 3. We have already shown, that the same doctrine of the Word, expressed by precisely the same formulæ, existed at Alexandria and at Jerusalem. If it be supposed that Mazdeism operated only in Palestine, and Platonism in Egypt, in the development of the Jewish doctrine of the Word, who can believe it likely that two different doctrines, coming from diverse regions, could at the same time, in two different places, produce one doctrine with identical terminology, a doctrine to which neither of the originals bore any more than a very superficial resemblance? But let us particularize. 1. Did Mazdeism exercise any influence in the formation of the Jewish doctrine of the Word? If we rely on the translation of the Zend-Avesta by Anquetil-Duperron, it will not be difficult to find in Mazdeism a doctrine analogous to that of the Jewish Word.* But Orientalists now agree in rejecting the rendering of this imperfect scholar, and prefer that of M. Spiegel, which does not give the same idea of the Mazdean Word. According to this translation, the honover is not the first manifestation of the Deity, which fact is sufficient to distinguish it from the Jewish Word. Nor is Creation, or any other of those functions which characterize the latter, attributed to it. Besides, not only is the passage in which the honover is mentioned so as to suggest the distant relationship of the Jewish Word unique in the Vendidad, but its genuineness is, in the opinion of M. Spiegel, to be suspected. Surely it will not be urged that the Jews borrowed only the term Word from the Mazdeans to designate a doctrine of their own, when the same term lay at hand in their own sacred books. We conclude, with Nicolas, that it is "impossible to find in the Mazdean religion direct and positive antecedents of the Jewish doctrine of the Word." * Kleuker, Zend-Avesta, Tom. I. pp. 107-110; Bohlen, Das alte Indien, Tom. I. pp. 159, 212. † Fargard XIX., v. 42–57. 2. Can we trace the origin of this doctrine to any analogous Platonic theory? In considering this supposition, we have first to guard against an error oft repeated, that of identifying the Logos of Plato with the Logos of Philo. The slightest acquaintance with the writings of the Greek philosophy should enable one to see that there by no means exists that resemblance in the ideas of these two writers concerning this being, which there is in the words by which they represent those ideas. With Plato, the Logos acts neither as agent in creating, nor as creator; nor is it the preserver, revealer, intercessor, but simply the reason in general. So Plutarch. And the Stoics do not differ. They represent it, in its various offices, as ὀρθὸς λόγος, the right reason; κοινὸς λόγος, the common sense; Xoyo σTEрμатIKоί, the laws which govern the world. The advocates of the Platonic origin of the Jewish doctrine of the Word cite two passages in support of their theory. But the first, from the Epinomis, must be detached from the passages which precede and follow it, if we wish to make it bear any other interpretation than that which coincides with the usual meaning of the term Logos as employed by the Platonic school, that is, the reason in general. The true date of the authorship of the sixteenth letter, attributed to Plato, from which the second of these proof-texts is drawn, is shown by M. Cousin † to be posterior to the Christian era. What bearing, then, upon this discussion can a passage from that letter have? But the Greek philosophy, as well as the Alexandrians and the Chaldaic paraphrases, admits a being intermediate between God and the world. Is there any resemblance between this intermediate being and that of the Jews? According to the Timæus, God, before the creation of the perishable things of our earth, formed "the World," which he animated by a "Soul." This Soul had three essences, one indivisible and divine, the second divisible and allied with matter, the third a fusion of the other two. The World, thus animated, and composed of all the heavenly bodies, the *De Is. et Osir., § 68. ↑ Euvres de Platon, trad. par V. COUSIN, Tom. XIII. p. 229, Rem. planets in their unchanging round, the celestial family of visible deities and their descendants, — and assured of immortality by the Supreme Creator, is "the Being" of Plato charged with the creation of perishable things and the mortal part of man. Plato, led by his intellectual speculations to believe that imperfect things could not be created by the Supreme Being, imagined this "World" as a sort of "gobetween." We grant, that the consciousness of a similar difficulty was one of the causes which led to the theory of an intermediate being among the Jews. Without possessing fully and exactly the philosophical motives of Plato, they wished to preserve the Divine Majesty from what seemed to them compromise. We admit, then, that the Platonic theory of the Soul of the World and the Jewish theory of the Word had these two points in common: they were attempts to solve analogous difficulties, and to solve them by the supposition of an intermediate being. But otherwise, the intermediate being of the Jewish theology and the intermediate being of Plato are entirely different. Plato's Soul of the World was not immortal nor indissoluble by virtue of its essence; the Jewish Word was purely divine in its nature, only distinguished from God as the thought and act from him who thinks and acts, and immortal as God himself. Not less different are the functions of these two intermediates. The starry hosts, the assembly of gods having a visible and contingent existence, - all animated by one Soul,- create the perishable beings and things. The Divine Word creates all things. But may there not have been a transmutation of the Platonic doctrine of the Logos into a different form? May it not have become adapted to Hebrew habits of thought in passing into Hebrew theology? Not only does this supposition begin with crediting the Jews with more philosophical subtilty and profundity than any of their writings display, but its propounders fail to show how and when this transmission and transmutation could have taken place. Was it not effected through Philo? The doctrine of the Word preceded that philosopher. Besides, Philo never took pains to adapt to his own theories any idea which he adopted from the Greek philosophy, as might be proved by instancing several flagrant contradictions in his scheme arising from this introduction of foreign elements unchanged. As to the conjecture that the doctrine was introduced into the Philonic philosophy by Aristobulus or some unknown Jew in the second century before Christ, no historical fact can be adduced in its support. It is pure conjecture. Even admitting that such a supposition could be made to assume an appearance of verity, it would still be necessary to explain how that doctrine, imitated from Plato, passed from Alexandria to Jerusalem. A last supposition remains. It is surmised that, seduced by the philosophy of Plato, the doctors of Jerusalem either had discovered the doctrine of the Word in their Scriptures by the light of this philosophy, or had taken advantage of certain Scriptural expressions to give a sacred color to a foreign philosophical theory, and thus to introduce surreptitiously this heathen doctrine into the synagogues. No hypothesis is more daring. It completely misconceives, or else wholly disregards, the spirit which the Palestinian Jews brought to the interpretation of their sacred books. Moreover, although some few of these Jerusalem doctors even at that time undoubtedly possessed an imperfect knowledge of Greek philosophy, to their comrades it was generally unknown and almost universally hateful.* We say, then, that the Jewish doctrine of the Word was born in the schools of Palestine, under the general action of the laws of human thought, and in the course of the regular march of the beliefs of the family of Israel. Having, in their reaction against the anthropomorphisms and theophanies of the ancient national traditions, rendered impossible the direct and immediate contact with the world and intercourse with men which those sacred traditions attributed to the Supreme Deity, the Jews still felt the necessity of some communication * The son of Douma asked his uncle Israel if he would not permit him, after he had mastered all the law, to study the wisdom of the Greeks. Israel, after having quoted to him the passage Joshua i. 8, said to him: "Find, I pray you, the hour which belongs neither to the day nor to the night, and devote that to the study of the Greek philosophy." Menachoth, fol. 99. with the Divine, in order to maintain the belief in a Providence. If God was separate from the world, the basis for the fundamental theocratic idea of their religion was lacking, unless a substitute appeared to take the place of the Deity. The necessity pressed upon the Jewish doctors. They lacked the philosophical spirit of the Greeks, but we have only to instance the Talmud to show that these Jews were amply possessed of that suppleness and subtilty of mind so useful to a theologian who wishes to explain a written revelation. There were not wanting expressions in the sacred books to which a doctrine of the Word might attach itself, nay, which even might suggest such a doctrine to a literalistic interpreter. One of the writers of the Book of Proverbs had described, as a poetic image, a divine being under the name of Wisdom, produced before the world, and assisting the Creator in the formation of the universe. Jesus, son of Sirach,† imitated this passage, giving a slightly increased appearance of reality to his personification. A literalistic interpreter was prepared to see under a figurative expression a divine reality. And if that half-conscious need of an intermediating being was affecting unperceived the minds of the Jewish readers of these Scriptures, what further influence was necessary for the formation of the very doctrine of the Word which we find immediately to exist? The natural tendency of these poetical descriptions under these circumstances is aided by certain energetic expressions in the earlier Scriptures in which all the hosts of heaven are represented as being created by the Word of God. That Word is praised as his minister and agent. It doth not return unto him void.‡ It, like him, is eternal. It descends from heaven; § it is like a lamp which lights and guides; || like a fire which purifies. More than all, even in the sacred Genesis the Word is subject to human personification and incarnation." So says our subtile literalistic interpreter, abhorring the idea that God came to earth; "it was the Word of God" which visited Abraham and partook of his hospitality. * Proverbs viii. 21 - 31. Isa. lv. 10, 11. Ps. cxix. 105. ** Gen. xv. 1, 4; Jer. i. 4; ii. 1. † Ecclesiasticus i. 1 - 21. |