Israel and Humanity - Spirituality and personality of God in Hebrew tradition
II.
Spirituality and personality of God among the Hebrews.
Nobody denies that faith in one God exists in Judaism as the current feature that sets it apart and put it above the trinitarian Christianity. The question is whether this belief also belonged to early Judaism. It is not clear to us. The famous verse from Deuteronomy: "Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" [1] has no other meaning in our opinion. Translation: the Lord our God alone, or: the Lord is one Lord, that we sometimes meet, is contrary to the genius of the Hebrew language. [2]. According to Leon de Modena, these words mean that God is in itself absolutely simple, without composition or multiplicity of any kind, without plurality of substances we attribute [3]
One might object, it is true that this belief is a metaphysical too high to have been professed at so early a period. But such judgments a priori are not to their place of exegesis, nor when it comes to historical science. It acts themselves that must be learned the governing rules. The study of ancient religions also shows us that they were not foreign to these lofty ideas and this is certainly not the least of the problems of religious history. The only solution, in our opinion, which also explains the existence of pure monotheism among early Israelites, must be sought in particular the ability to ask those primitive ages, in the speculative as in the practical field real [4] foundations of knowledge. But it must be noted is that this special power is not found among Gentiles in the ancient times, while it remains among the Jews throughout the course of their history. In addition, may have been higher if some of the pagan beliefs, they have consistently missed the character of universality that has always existed and has always said better from age to age in the doctrines of Israel. Instead surprising that the Hebrews were able to reach so early religious notions as pure, so there would rather be asked for what reason they are so quickly obliterated among the Gentiles, and corrupt.
On the other hand, the prohibition of any image that has prevailed so fast in the Jewish religion, must have its reason for being in a necessarily spiritual conception of God and the idea of unity in God seems inseparable from belief in its immateriality. Hebraism came to be conceived as the first principle in man at the base of life and thought, a perfect unit, a monad indivisible whole meaning of the word yehida " one and only, "which is one of the names of the human soul in the rich psychological vocabulary of the Bible. But it is generally accepted that the idea we have of God is being developed along with the idea we have of the man. Is it really possible for us would have imagined this perfect unity in man without finding at the same time in his Creator?
The last song of Moses contains a passage that can not be expressed more explicitly the idea of unity: "Now you see me, only I know, there is no God with me is I who slay and make alive, that hurts me and healed ". [5] This text clearly be attributed to God alone and to paraphrase a wonderful way the Tetragrammaton. A people capable of giving a name to its God of incomparable metaphysical depth, as it refers to Being itself, Being first and eternal, in which the infinite multitude of finite things finds its source, its Harmony and the ultimate goal of such a people, we say, do not have in any trouble grasping that other metaphysical idea of the unity of God in its essence. We ask in passing to the critics who refuse to accept monotheism in early Judaism, if one can reasonably [6] claim that this God of the Hebrews, whose name does not include the most formal manner all plurality and seems to absorb all finite existence that does not proclaim the absolute Being, could nevertheless be thought that a deity in their local, national, single rival of Baal and Moloch.
Finally the idea of God's personality that leads to unity of substance. If the first of these concepts did not imply the second, in truth we do not see how it could be. But critics are so far denied that Judaism has allowed the personality of God that some of them will even make this belief a Semitic unknown import from other races. In vain we would object to be obvious example of Christianity that worships God in a trinity of persons claiming to maintain the unity of substance. We simply ask if the knowledge that these three people from each other does not they merge into a higher unity. If it agrees, it is clear that the name of people is then used in a very improper and that each taken separately is not God, the true personality of God, the only true God still adorable always unity, above this triple modality. If instead we persist in claiming that these three people remain quite distinct from each other, it is all over the unity of substance and unity, and despite all the theological niceties, we find ourselves in the presence of tritheism the best characterized.
