Difference between revisions of "Israel and Humanity - Philosophy of angelology in Hebrew tradition"

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IV.

Philosophy angelology Hebrew.

§ 1.

We must now study the struggles between the "Sarim </i> which the Bible offers several examples. We know that a similar idea is found in all mythologies where we see the gods constantly at war with each other. The perpetual antagonism of Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman offers us the type most characteristic of such myths. But angelology Hebrew, it is not God himself who is directly engaged in the struggle, Sarim alone therein or, when God intervenes, it is in accordance with designs monotheistic, to exercise its sovereign jurisdiction. We then see the angel of Israel, Michael, fight for his people or his advocate on his DHCP will before the Supreme Court. Sometimes a man, a saint, which is measured with the guardian angel of his enemy and he is the struggle that Jacob contended at Peniel, presumably with the guardian angel of Esau Genesis ^[1]

It also happens that these struggles between the angels have no political cause or national. For example, the rabbinic tradition shows us the heavenly spirits divided between ^[2] them about the creation of Adam and she means so, not as proper names, but As we have said, under the names of abstract Truth and Charity, Charity interceding for man to be created and requesting that the truth does not.

Anyway, it should not be seen in the struggles between the angels of simple metaphors, as if these wars being waged between them sarim symbolized only political and religious conflicts which the world is the theater. They are real to a dual perspective: first, in that each time a shock occurs down here in the material is that two trends, two opposing principles are already fighting in the world ideas. Secondly, it is true that angels are both ideas, and divine attributes, as we have stated, real entities, natural forces, giving the word a meaning broad enough to include the whole creation, it is true that every human and social struggle to match the spiritual battle between angels and committed sarim , the result, which follows, is that 'conflicts between humans and those whose social and physical realm offers us the spectacle, there is a parallel whose nature is probably hard to explain, but which nevertheless can not escape the attentive observer.

And it's not us who are trying for the first time this approximation of laws and revolutions, shapes and creatures of the social world and physical world. Hartmann gave us the exact formula and profound when he says: "It is clear that the opposition macrocosmic forces (natural struggles) is the kind of symbolic opposition microcosm (human wars) or, in other words, the trends are opposite to each other in the microcosm (genies, characters, ideas, human interests) are shown as elements of the macrocosm, in exactly the same meaning as microcosms opposed to each other produce precisely the reality of this struggle macrocosm ^[3]. But what the philosopher should add for completeness is that the struggle for achieving harmony and unity is an ideal and effective pre-existing unit somewhere and it was this primordial unity within which all these ^[4] trends harmony, they naturally seek, once divided, to come together to unite again. Elsewhere he writes ^[5]: "Once we accept the diversity of functions, since they are functions of a single being, the diversity of their ideal object must cause a conflict between them ideal for bringing in the agreement, and this fight becomes a real struggle ideal, because the ideas between which it undertakes are also objects of real acts of will. The same process takes place in the consciousness of the individual as a conflict between trends, desires, different conditions. If the fight occurs in spite of the unity of the soul in which these opposing desires are only the functions, it is perhaps even within the unconscious. The struggle of two passions in the soul of a man certainly not inferior in rage, relentlessly violent, fighting two hungry wolves. "

Another German philosopher Feuerbach, not less agree with our ideas when writing about the Christian monotheism: "Polytheism is more candid, as well as Christianity claims not distinguish individual signs in the Godhead his God still maintains the character of community. Just as the gods of Olympus have declared war on one another, so the various qualities of the Christian God had bloody battles among themselves. " So here is a thinker who treats different qualities of the Christian God to the gods of Olympus and that we recognize as the various qualities that can enter and have actually come into conflict.

There is a biblical-rabbinic doctrine on sarim perfectly justified our theological explanation. All around the Chariot Supreme ( the Merkaba ) that supports the divine glory, are sorted in hierarchical order, the seventy sarim or guardian angels and they are all together by the way they are grouped, the figure of a man, all eyes are fixed on the ineffable name, the Tetragrammaton, to draw both their own life and that of the people entrusted to them ^[6]. In this grand design that is itself a glory for the eternal religion which offers our meditations, we find precisely the idea of organization of various elements, the word from which derives the name ^[7] Char Supreme Merkaba being used in philosophical language of Jewish writers to indicate the composition into an organic whole of distinct parts ^[8]

§ 2.

After receiving the doctrinal elements, it remains to be summarized in a general theory. We have seen that Judaism El ohieme are thus Sarim , angels available to various destinies of peoples. It is therefore to find a superior idea where these two characters of El ohieme and Sarim combine and blend into one whole.

Here we encounter one of the fundamental points of theology in Hebrew what concerns its relationship with humanity. Now this idea, as it follows from the Bible and commentaries of the rabbis, seems to be this: God, considered not as efficient cause and its relationship with creation as substance but as the formal cause its relations with the world as Perfect God, we say, shape the universe, Fini, in his own image and likeness, that is to say that it shapes the creation of the model's attributes, Non-point, it goes without saying, with perfect unity in which these attributes exist in Him, but with distinctions and diversity essential when dealing with finite things. In the irradiation of its attributes, there is a gradation of forms or imitations highest up copies of the most intimate, immense scale, but all levels are connected by a wire that is other than unity Plan reproduced more or less perfectly in the various orders of creation where it combines constantly identity type with its many accomplishments. However, as there is order and analogy between these achievements, we might even say these incarnations of the divine ideas, there are therefore each one of subordination and every creature is the point of view where it is considered less than or Superior subject or dominating vis-à-vis people who are below or above it. ^[9] It is understandable that all things earthly have an sar , exactly as taught rabbinic doctrine, and the nations themselves have one on the map which is immediately above the human level. The sar or angel of every nation is the divine idea that this nation is to represent the world by viewing it in a concrete way in which the superior resume. Whichever way we consider this idea, however, sar is basically a single thing that God saw and a partially reflected in one of its elements, angelic or human consciences n 'is nothing other than divine ideas and the forming lower consciousness of those elements that are superior to the Consciousness of consciousness which is God. If so consciences are only made divine ideas, if they grow hierarchically, becoming more or less comprehensive, we see that men are called superior synthetic, because they sum up in themselves the conscience of a nation , period, or even humanity, as Moses example, say the Rabbis, was tantamount to "sixty myriads" of Israelites. Then it rises above this synthetic idea of men to that of a consciousness that embraces all and sees in all their faces, to speak the language of Ampere, the subjects they themselves n'entrevoient same as a confused, maybe it does begin to better understand what is in this notion of sarim applied to nationalities.

Some will object that the nationalities, the product of human endeavor, that being artificial creations, they escaped by the very act of subordination to the hierarchy that connects all parts of the world by putting everything in a report domination and dependence vis-à-vis others. But anthropology and sociology do not they show us that although they have the humanity factor, nations are no less products of spontaneous or external nature, all natural or the provisions of humanity in general and of each specific breed? The science is so far from regarding the body as purely artificial as ethnic scholars even consider the literatures of various peoples themselves as part of the natural history of each country. Will it be said that nations are collective bodies and we can not therefore treat them as real people, a nationality is an abstract and general idea for a group of men ^[10] living in certain specified circumstances where there is real substance year individuals who compose it? We will respond to it as eminent writers rationalists, borrowing in a way our spiritual language, do not hesitate to talk about the idea that each nation is, they call him the genius, spirit, soul these people. It would be more accurate to say the idea that people will form of God or, more simply, his god .

There is no doubt in fact, and the greatest thinkers agree that the entire civilization of a people is only the outward manifestation of his religious ideas. This shows what we say when we say that every nation has its sar , his sar is its soul, its spirit, as it determines its destiny and who imparts his own likeness. "A nation in its empirical reality," said Mariano, offers precisely what it has in its spiritual reality. And what we call empirical reality, especially the feeling is the divine now present consciousness and practice of a people and individuals and classes that compose ^[11], p . 341 </ref> ".

Other authors have assimilated positivist with the soul of the people due to the individual soul, but they involve the wrong one and the other in a series of manifestations of intellectual and moral life. We may be asked with astonishment if we pretend to see in this one as in the latter a true soul, a conscious individual substance and a real self? To this we answer, strange as it may seem that wherever there is unity or simply union, harmony or tendency to union, there must exist a common root, a focal point in which all are or should be united if we do not want to admit effect without a cause. So if each People first, then the whole of humanity, we discover that a unit or a tendency to unity, these features common presupposing a common nature, a unique strength and whose real the effect change, it is true, but eventually converge towards a larger unity and no less perfect.

We do not dispute that hereditary influences, issues of nutrition and hygiene, climate and customs have greatly contributed to the differences we observe between the national characters, but as soon as we admit also ^[12] at the root of all these differences a diversity of native breeds, we must also recognize the diverse ideas or primitive types, containing the germs of these dissimilar temperaments, and consequently forces of a different nature. Undoubtedly among peoples as well as individuals, there continuous action and reaction between the innate tendencies and external circumstances, but if it happens that they change to some extent the militancy, we can not yet say that 'they transform. The qualities, moral and intellectual abilities are hereditary: the Chinese, Malays, Jews to prove the obvious. One can not deny that there is the peoples better disposed than others to certain knowledge, certain arts and professions, without the geographical and historical conditions to which they have been submitted can account for these special provisions, evidence clear that nations are nothing more than simple mechanical or accidental aggregations of individuals. As to the changes caused by external circumstances, it is easy to realize that they never wear what is called the hallmarks of the breed. So scientists ethnologists have they not hesitate to conclude that nations were formed not by the work of chance or necessity, but thanks to a certain community of moral elements and belong to every people from the Initially, some special provisions which, in the course of centuries, become more active and more prominent.

Allow us to quote here a page of Renan seems to have been written to inform our theory sarim , as it conforms to our ideas "nations like France, Germany, England, said the illustrious thinker, cities such as Athens, Venice, Florence, Paris, act like people with character, a spirit, interest determined. We can reason with them as we reason a person. They like being alive, a secret instinct, a sense of their essence and their conservation, so that regardless of the political thinking of a nation, a city can be compared to the animal is ^[13] so ingenious and profound when it comes to saving his being or ^[14] to ensure the perpetuity of the species. It must be said of Church, religion, all the associations that constitute organic wholes that behave just like individuals. The greatest advance of modern physiology has been shown that plant life and that of the animal are a result of other lives harmoniously subordinated and lead to an unique concert. Life is the result of the vertebrate central individuality of each vertebra, a tree is the consonance of thousands of buds. Consciousness is also a result of millions of other consciousnesses consistent with a common goal. The cell is already a small concentration Personal: consonant several cells together form a second level of consciousness (human or animal), the conscience in the second degree is grouping form consciences in the third degree, awareness of towns, churches, nations produced by millions of people living in the same idea, with common feelings. For materialism, there is the atom that exists fully, but for the philosopher, the idealist, the cell is more than the atom, the individual is above the cell, the nation of Church, City are more than the individual, since individuals make sacrifices for those entities that looks gross realism as pure abstractions ^[15] ". Adding that what the German philosophers call Volksgeist , the soul of the people, the national spirit, far from being the product of various elements such as language and literature, beliefs and religious forms, laws and the kind of social and family life appears instead as the generative principle of these different manifestations of activity that maintains and develops according to its own genius and for a particular purpose.

It remains to consider what is the relationship of individuals with the group in which they are born to life as a body separate and distinct consciousnesses and how to reconcile the parties and the individuality of all. Obviously, we believe that the only real person is to be simple, indivisible and therefore immaterial, because the matter itself in its most intimate parts can be conceived as composed. But on the other hand, if each group material only exists because of force is immaterial who united the various parties and groups if ^[16] are themselves constituted by other groups smaller, it follows that the intangible is made. Where will we find the real person, therefore, the true unity? The difficulty disappears if one considers that, contrary to what happens in the field, unity, in the intangible increasing as the compound and that more groups are, the more the unit connects them is perfect because it affirms all the more because the multiplicity of parties bound together is greater. Therefore, the only true monad, both the simplest and most fruitful, is the universal unit located at both ends of the scale at the base of every potential and indefinite as the top as infinite and sovereign act, the bottom of the tiniest atom as the pinnacle of the immeasurable universe ^[17]

Hartmann seems to us about the nature of sar talks about Judaism when he wrote: "If the soul continues to lead the two parties between which is an artificially divided animal remains one, why should it cease to be indivisible in the plant in the bud, in which the crayfish claws stand out spontaneously? And why would it not even generate an animal bisexual fertile hermaphrodite itself? If the soul remains unconscious and an even identical to itself in the various fragments of an insect or strain and detached buds, why would it not also naturally separated insects that make up a republic bees or ants? Without being physically together, these organic beings not they act with the same concert that the various parts of a single organism? ^[18] ". Now it is easy to assimilate, as have some scholars, the animal economy to social economy and see that in the history of civilization of the people, development efforts involve either to the origin or in the march of progress, a central unit that coordinates the individual acts to achieve the goal. Without doubt, as when a man starts, it can not account for the inner process that determined the movement, even in the evolution of nations, there to ^[19]

WORK IN PROGRESS

References

1. ↑ , XXXII, 24-30.
2. ↑ Page 252
3. ↑ The world, the order from the war and contrast of strengths, Philos Review, February 1877, p. 153.
4. ↑ Page 253
5. ↑ Philosophy of the Unconscious, Volume II, p.197.
6. ↑ See Schaar Ora Tifereth
7. ↑ Page 254
8. ↑ This is the root רכב racab to hiphil הרכיב apud rabbinos ; componore, conjungere, hence נשמים מורכבים corporation composite concreta, mixta ( Editors note ).
9. ↑ Page 255
10. ↑ Page 256
11. ↑ Cattolicismo civiltà e
12. ↑ Page 257
13. ↑ knows that in the book of Daniel empires and kingdoms are symbolized by animals. The rabbis also said: "There is a heaven which is called Israel" חיה אחת יש ברקיע ששמה ישראל
14. ↑ Page 258
15. ↑ Dialogues and philosophical fragments, p. 89.
16. ↑ Page 259
17. ↑ is what the Kabbalists expressed by the double yud, yud tattaa and Yod Illa
18. ↑ Philosophy of the unconscious , Volume II, p. 195.
19. ↑ Page 260