Jewish Theology, Systematically and Historically Considered. Kaufmann Kohler
of faith, recited each morning and evening by the Jew, gave his mind the power to soar into the highest realms of thought, and inspired his soul to offer life and all it holds for his faith. “God is the everlasting truth, the unchangeable Being who ever remains the same amid the fluctuations and changes of all other things.” This is the fundamental principle upon which Joseph Ibn Zaddik and Abraham Ibn Daud, the predecessors of Maimonides, reared their entire philosophical systems, which were Aristotelian and yet thoroughly Jewish.388
Mystic lore, always so fond of the letters of the alphabet and their hidden meanings, noted that the letters of Emeth—aleph, mem and tav—are the first, the middle, and the last letters of the alphabet, and therefore concluded that God made [pg 137] truth the beginning, the center, and the end of the world.389 Josephus also, no doubt in accordance with the same tradition, declares that God is “the beginning, the center, and the end of all things.”390 A corresponding rabbinical saying is: “Truth is the seal of God.”391
[pg 138]
Chapter XXII. God's Knowledge and Wisdom
1. The attempt to enumerate the attributes of God recalls the story related in the Talmud392 of a disciple who stepped up to the reader's desk to offer prayer, and began to address the Deity with an endless list of attributes. When his vocabulary was almost exhausted, Rabbi Haninah interrupted him with the question, “Hast thou now really finished telling the praise of God?” Mortal man can never know what God really is. As the poet-philosopher says: “Could I ever know Him, I would be He.”393 But we want to ascertain what God is to us, and for this very reason we cannot rest with the negative attitude of Maimonides, who relies on the Psalmist's verse, “Silence is praise to Thee.”394 We must obtain as clear a conception of the Deity as we possibly can with our limited powers.
To the divine attributes already mentioned we must add another which in a sense is the focus of them all. This is the knowledge and wisdom of God, the omniscience which renders Him all-knowing and all-wise. Through this all the others come into self-consciousness. We ascribe wisdom to the man who sets right aims for his actions and knows the means by which to attain them, that is, who can control his power and knowledge by his will and bend them to his purpose. In the same manner we think of wisdom in view of the marvelous order, design, and unity which we see in the natural and the moral world. But this wisdom must be all-encompassing, comprising time and eternity, directing all the forces and beings [pg 139] of the world toward the goal of ideal perfection.395 It makes no difference where we find this lesson. The Book of Proverbs singles out the tiny ant as an example of wondrous forethought;396 the author of Job dwells on the working together of the powers of earth and heaven to maintain the cosmic life;397 modern science, with its deeper insight into nature, enables us to follow the interaction of the primal chemical and organic forces, and to follow the course of evolution from star-dust and cell to the structure of the human eye or the thought-centers of the brain. But in all these alike our conclusion must be that of the Psalmist: “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works, in wisdom hast Thou made them all.”398
2. Accordingly, if we are to speak in human terms, we may consider God's wisdom the element which determines His various motive-powers—omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness—to tend toward the realization of His cosmic plan. Or we may call it the active intellect with which God works as Creator, Ordainer, and Ruler of the universe. The Biblical account of creation presupposes this wisdom, as it portrays a logical process, working after a definite plan, proceeding from simpler to more complex forms and culminating in man. Biblical history likewise is based upon the principle of a divinely prearranged plan, which is especially striking in such stories as that of Joseph.399
3. At first the divine wisdom was supposed to rest in part on specially gifted persons, such as Joseph, Solomon, and Bezalel. As Scripture has it, “The Lord giveth wisdom, out of His mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.”400 Later the obscure destiny of the nation appears as the design of an all-wise Ruler to the great prophets and especially to Isaiah, the [pg 140] high-soaring eagle among the seers of Israel.401 With the progressive expansion of the world before them, the seers and sages saw a sublime purpose in the history of the nations, and felt more and more the supreme place of the divine wisdom as a manifestation of His greatness. Thus the great seer of the Exile never tires of illumining the world-wide plan of the divine wisdom.402
4. A new development ensued under Babylonian and Persian influence at the time when the monotheism of Israel became definitely universal. The divine wisdom, creative and world-sustaining, became the highest of the divine attributes and was partially hypostatized as an independent cosmic power. In the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Job wisdom is depicted as a magic being, far remote from all living beings of earth, beyond the reach of the creatures of the lowest abyss, who aided the Creator with counsel and knowledge in measuring and weighing the foundations of the world. The description seems to be based upon an ancient Babylonian conception—which has parallels elsewhere—of a divine Sybil dwelling beneath the ocean in “the house of wisdom.”403 Here, however, the mythological conception is transformed into a symbolic figure. In the eighth chapter of Proverbs the description of divine wisdom is more in accordance with Jewish monotheism; wisdom is “the first of God's creatures,” “a master-workman” who assisted Him in founding heaven and earth, a helpmate and playmate of God, and at the same time the instructor of men and counselor of princes, inviting all to share her precious gifts. This conception is found also in the apocryphal literature—in Ben Sira, the book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Hellenistic Book of Wisdom.404
[pg 141]
From this period two different currents of thought appeared. The one represented wisdom as an independent being distinct from God, and this finally became merged, under Platonic influence, into the views of neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, and the Christian dogma. The other identified the divine wisdom with the Torah, and therefore it is the Torah which served God as counselor and mediator at the Creation and continues as counselor in the management of the world. This view led back to strict monotheism, so that the cosmology of the rabbis spoke alternately of the divine wisdom and the Torah as the instruments of God at Creation.405
5. The Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages, such as Saadia, Gabirol, and Jehuda ha Levi, followed the Mohammedan theologians in enumerating God's wisdom among the attributes constituting His essence, together with His omnipotence, His will, and His creative energy. But they would not take wisdom or any other attribute as a separate being, with an existence outside of God, which would either condition Him or admit a division of His nature.406 “God himself is wisdom,” says Jehuda ha Levi, referring to the words of Job: “He is wise in heart.”407 And Ibn Gabirol sings in his “Crown of Royalty”:
“Thou art wise, and the wisdom of Thy fount of life floweth from Thee;
And compared with Thy wisdom man is void of understanding;
Thou art wise, before anything began its existence;
And wisdom has from times of yore been Thy fostered child;
Thou art wise, and out of Thy wisdom didst Thou create the world,
Life the artificer that fashioneth whatsoever delighteth him.”408
[pg 142]
Chapter XXIII. God's Condescension
1. An attribute of great importance for the theological conception of God, one upon which both Biblical and rabbinical literature laid especial stress, is His condescension and humility. The Psalmist says409: “Thy condescension hath made me great,” which is interpreted in the Midrash that the Deity stoops to man in order to lift him up to Himself. A familiar saying of R. Johanan is410: “Wherever Scripture speaks of the greatness of God, there mention is made also of His condescension. So when the prophet begins, ‘Thus saith the High and Lofty One