Chapter VIII.

In dealing with these doctrines we shall only make cursory mention of those points in which the teaching of the Apocrypha is identical with that of the Old Testament, as our main object is to try and show in what respects the books of the Apocrypha exhibit an advance in doctrine upon the Old Testament, or, as in some cases, a retrogression; at the same time the characteristic form in which a book presents any particular doctrine will be noted even in those cases in which there is no essential difference between the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. It will not always be possible to keep the various doctrines entirely separate from each other, as one so often leads into another; so that some little repetition may at times be unavoidable.

(_a_) _The Doctrine of God._

The Old Testament teaching on the Personality of God is, as one would expect, so full, that we must not look for much advance in the books of the Apocrypha on this subject. The Unity of God the Creator of all, His eternity and omnipotence, His activity in nature, His wisdom, holiness, justice, loving-kindness and mercy, His Fatherhood of Israel, and sometimes of all flesh—these doctrines are all amply dealt with in Ecclesiasticus. In the fine passage Ecclesiasticus xlii. 15-xliii. 33, where Ben-Sira gets his inspiration largely from the Psalms, the praise of God is sung as the Lord of Nature; there are one or two points in this passage which, to some extent, witness to an advance upon what the Old Testament teaches; in xlii. 16 it is said:

God’s holy ones have not the power To recount His wondrous works of might; Though God hath given strength to His hosts To endure in the presence of His glory.

These words represent the Hebrew, which was misunderstood by the Greek translator; the meaning of them is that not even the angels[323] can declare God’s mighty works, even though they stand in His presence; they are only able to stand in that presence because they have received special strength for the purpose. What spiritual beings, who thus stand in the very presence of God, are unable to fathom, can still less be understood by men, all they can do is to offer praise to God; so Ben-Sira says later in the same section:

We will sing praises, because we cannot fathom; For greater is He than all His works. Terrible is Jehovah exceedingly, And wonderful are His mighty acts. Ye that magnify Jehovah, lift up your voice As much as ye can, for there is still more! Ye that exalt Him, renew your strength, And weary not, for ye cannot fathom Him! Who hath seen Him, that he may tell thereof? And who shall magnify Him as He is? The number of things mysterious is greater even than these, And I have seen but few of His works (xliii. 28-32).

The conception of God which is revealed in these two passages does certainly seem to be a higher one even than is anywhere to be found in the Old Testament. In Tobit much the same general conception is found as in the Old Testament; but one passage may be quoted as showing a universalistic spirit which is found only in some of the most exalted utterances of the prophets; in xiv. 6 it is said that “all the nations which are in the whole earth, all shall turn and fear God truly; and all shall leave their idols, who err after their false error.” Fully in accordance with the belief that Jehovah is the God of all men is the way in which the writer of this book never tires of speaking of Him under various titles expressive of the sincerest praise and faith; no book of the Apocrypha has such a variety of names for God as this one. Another important point is that God hears the prayers of men through angelic mediation. In great contrast to this high conception of God is that found in Judith; for while the power of God to help His chosen ones in face of the most adverse circumstances is strongly insisted upon, the idea that God’s favour is only accorded to those who keep the Law, and that He is only the God of the Jews, which is implied throughout even if not definitely stated, is a very inadequate one and takes us back to some of the least exalted passages of the Old Testament which deal with the doctrine of God. A special note, though in no sense new in itself, is sounded in the Prayer of Manasses, where great stress is laid upon the divine compassion; the opening verses form a beautiful hymn of praise to God. In turning to the secondary text of Ecclesiasticus, which comes next in order, we have in the addition to xxiv. 23 (= 24 in the A.V.) a striking instance of the Pharisaic doctrine of God, both as regards the divine Personality as well as the relationship between Him and His true worshippers:

Faint not, but be strong in the Lord, And cleave unto Him that He may strengthen you. Cleave unto Him; the Lord, the Almighty, is the One and only God; And beside Him there is no Saviour.

The great characteristic, so far as the present subject is concerned, of this secondary text, or Pharisaic recension,[324] of Ecclesiasticus is that of the closeness of God to those who love Him; personal religion, that religious individualism which did so much to foster spiritual worship, finds true expression here; not that the original writer was wanting in deep piety, in spite of what often strikes one as a somewhat worldly spirit, but as compared with the Pharisaic ideal of the beginning of the first century B.C. it is not surprising to find that the book was considered in some respects wanting, and that it seemed to the more ardent religious temperament of the Pharisees as not sufficiently expressive of the close relationship between God and His pious ones. This may be illustrated by one or two examples of the way additions are made to the original text. In i. 12 Ben-Sira says:

The fear of the Lord delighteth the heart, And giveth gladness, and joy, and length of days;

but the Pharisee deepens the sentiment by adding:

The fear of the Lord is a gift from the Lord, For it setteth men upon paths of love.

Another example is found in the addition to xvii. 20. Ben-Sira says:

Their iniquities are not hid from Him, And all their sins are inscribed before the Lord;

to this the Pharisaic glossator adds:

But the Lord, being merciful, knowing also that they are made in His own image, Spared them, and forsook them not, nor cast them off.

The closeness of God to those who love Him is again brought out in the addition to xvii. 26^_a_:

For He Himself will lead thee out of darkness unto the light of salvation.[325]

There are, of course, other passages of a similar kind. The interest of these lies in the fact that they breathe the same spirit which we find in a number of the later Psalms, and which are believed by many scholars to emanate from the circle of the _Chassidim_ or “Pious ones,” the forerunners of the Pharisees; this spirit reappears in the Psalms of Solomon, which are admittedly the work of a Pharisee, or Pharisees. In 1 Maccabees we find the strange characteristic of the non-mention of the name of God,[326] which never occurs in the original text, though it is sometimes inserted in the Authorized Version; on the other hand, a true faith in the omnipotence of God is at times expressed, e.g. iii. 18: “There is no difference in the sight of Heaven to save by many or by few; for victory in battle standeth not in the multitude of an host, but strength is from Heaven”; and trust in God as the God of Israel Who will help His people against their foes occurs not infrequently, e.g. in iv. 10, 11: “And now let us cry unto Heaven, if He will have mercy upon us, and will remember the covenant of the fathers, and destroy this army before our face to-day, and then will all the Gentiles know that there is One Who redeemeth and saveth Israel.”[327] In all three of the documents which make up the Book of Baruch stress is laid on God’s guidance of Israel’s destiny; in the portion, Baruch iv. 5-v. 9 the special characteristic is that the divine compassion is constantly recalled, for which reason the writer again and again bids his hearers be of “good cheer.” The writer of 2 (4) Esdras fully represents the best of the Old Testament teaching concerning the doctrine of God; he insists on the unity of God, His Creatorship wholly without any mediatorial agency; Israel is the specially elected nation with which God has entered into a covenant relation. The problems with which the seer is presented are insoluble for man, who cannot even comprehend the material things of the world, much less the spiritual secrets of Heaven: “... He said moreover unto me, What belongs to thee, (namely) the things that have intermingled with thy growth, thou art incapable of understanding; how then should thy vessel be able to comprehend the way of the Most High? For the way of the Most High hath been found without measure; how, then, should it be possible for a mortal in a corruptible world to understand the ways of the Incorruptible?” (iv. 10, 11). The writer’s faith in God is specially shown forth by his conviction that in spite of all appearances God’s love is for His people: “Just as thou art unable to do even one of these that have been mentioned, even so art thou powerless to discover my judgement or the goal of the love that I have declared unto My people” (v. 40). With the Book of Wisdom we enter a religious atmosphere which is to a large extent alien to that of Palestine; whether the two parts of this book were written by different authors, or whether they are both from the same author writing at different periods of his life, it is quite clear that the presentation of the doctrine of God in each is entirely different; the first part (i.-xi. 1) is more Greek than Jewish, and “in nothing,” says Holmes, “is this more clearly shown than in the idea of God presented by the two parts respectively. The idea of God in