Israel and Humanity - Existential inspiration among the Gentiles and his disappearance from the Rabbis

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V.

The divine revelations in the Gentile.

§ 1.

EXISTENCE OF INSPIRATION IN NICE

AND HIS MISSING AFTER RABBIS

The universality of the law is demonstrated by our apostolate to the Gentiles Hebrew patriarchs, but it appears a no less obvious direct revelations from God to Israel in the pagan world that have been frequent and continuous in least until the election of the Jewish people. Just remember the facts we have already had occasion to mention: the presence of oracles and religious teachings in the Gentiles, which implies divine communications, the character and role of Melchizedek, which Abimelech events Laban, Pharaoh are favored and which prove not only, as we have said, the universality of the God of Israel, but of the law by which he governs humans.

Listen to the words of Moses himself, when he asks God to accompany his people in his perilous journey: "If you do not walk yourself with us, bring us not from here. Otherwise how would we know for sure that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Will not it when you walk with us and we separated, I and thy people, of all people who are on the face of the earth [1]? Moses knew well and was therefore not far from denying that God had directly held before him the Gentiles. This is not just a revelation that he seeks to Israel, as if the Gentiles had never obtained any of the hand of God in the past and none had ever received in the future, but a revelation who was also a privilege that no other people would enjoy now. What he asks is that the divine inspiration of general it was before, or confined to his people. This is so true that when [2] Prophets of Israel, which describe the messianic era will return humanity to the point where it was before Israel's election, with the latter more as a center of unity, they say that God will pour out his spirit upon all flesh, that all, old and young people and even the servants and their maids, will be gifted with the gift of prophecy.

Rabbis, outdoing the Bible tells us that "God raised up prophets to Gentiles as it provoked Israel" and they even called us a few that know the Bible, at least as such. He had the idea of universal religion was well established deep reconnussent them home to pagan titles which Scripture does not speak. Week, as his ancestor Eber, becomes for them a preacher of the Gentiles: Eliphaz of Teman, Bildad the Suah, Sofar Naama, son of Elihu Barabel Buz, Job of Uz Balaam and after them are mentioned as prophets [3]. "Our doctors of blessed memory, writes Rabbi Abraham Abulaffia, said: The Torah was given to the leaders of each generation, that is to say that the ancients were also endowed with wisdom and understanding and that they possessed the knowledge of the truth [4]. Here's another rabbinic text no less conclusive, "Dr. Isaac said: As long as the Tabernacle of the desert has not been erected, was the inspiration among the Gentiles, and it stopped after the construction of the Tabernacle." These words say quite clearly what logical and providential connects these two facts. Revelation is primarily general and Gentiles receive directly, then by following the movement still greater specialization, differentiation, which occurs in all areas, it is particularized and humanity as a whole gets and indirectly through representation, after the distribution providential roles contributing to the overall harmony, so is it in civil society where everyone does everything at first to himself and never did more then one for everyone.

Will it be that we do too much honor to the Rabbis by giving them the noble intentions and they do not let us show God imitating the conduct of a father who unjustly prefer a son to all the others? We can not sustain [5] as if it were so, it is not to build the Tabernacle they have linked the cessation of oracles among heathen and the substitution of Israel to the Gentiles to the divine revelations, but rather to the election of Abraham, or any other fact indicating the divine favor. We know the story of Plutarch from which a voice was heard from the sea bottom that said: Great Pan is dead and at the same moment the oracles ceased to reply. Christianity, accepting the fact, interpreting the meaning of the disappearance of paganism at the sight of the triumph of Jesus. It's something like the rabbinic tradition has wanted to express aligning striking revelations among the Gentiles with the building of the Tabernacle, but there are two ideas, however, between a very significant difference: it is that the Jewish perspective, paganism and Judaism are two equally legitimate forms of true religion, each in his time, while for Christians it is wrong and the power of the demon that disappear with paganism to advent of Christianity.

But here is another proof of the genuine feeling that animates the Rabbis: "All the prophets, we read in Midrash Rabbah , testified to the charity to Israel as well as towards the nations of the earth. Instead this cruel man (Balak) rose to destroy an entire people without any fault on his part. Consequently has been written the story of Balaam, to raise awareness of why God took the Spirit of Gentile peoples [6] ". All the assumptions we have just described find their confirmation. This Midrash obviously assumes the continuation of inspiration among the Gentiles after Adam and Noah and his separation fixed at the time of Moses. In addition, the misuse of prophetic ministry is the indignity of the prophet who is assigned as the cause of the disappearance. The same thing is taught in almost identical terms by the Yalqut about the verse of Numbers: "Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab [7]. "We learn from here, said this Midrash , that the Holy Spirit withdrew from him and from that moment the Holy Spirit withdrew from the world's peoples." [8]


References

  1. Exodus, XXXIII, 15-16.
  2. Page 447
  3. V. Jalkout, I, and the book Tanna debe Elihaou
  4. Hale Haolam habba , <super> XIV th </super> century.
  5. Page 448
  6. Section Balak
  7. Numbers , XXII, 21.
  8. Page 449