Israel and Humanity - Text of Proverbs, Job and Jeremiah

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§ 4.

TEXT OF PROVERBS, JOB AND JEREMIAH.

These texts are three in number and they light up and confirm each other. The first is the famous passage from the book of Proverbs, where Wisdom is personified divine represented as existing before the creation of the world. "I was set up from eternity, from the beginning, before the origin of the earth [1] "And the sacred writer adds that she was at work with the Lord and she was daily his delight." But, it will be asked, where is the identity of the creative Wisdom, the formation of this world, no doubt to inspire, and the law of man, religion and the Torah of Israel?

Here it is, after the verse in which Wisdom says she welcomes the globe of the earth of the Lord and find happiness among the children of men [2], thus entering directly related to humanity and revealing one side it was hidden, we read these words with which she said her own role as lawmaker, "And now, O my son! Hear instruction, gain wisdom, do not change. Blessed is the man who hears me, watching daily at my gates, and who guards the entrance. " Do they want now without any transition an allegory that melts as it both acts into one another? Already in a previous chapter, the author sacred after saying "By wisdom the LORD founded the earth, it is with the intelligence he established the heavens, it is his Because [3] that the depths were opened and the clouds drop down the dew "immediately adds:" My son, they do not depart from thine eyes: keep the doctrine and reflection; they will be life to thy soul [4] ". Thus, the Wisdom that created the world is that which man has to listen, to truly have the life that nature intends it. But here the allegory that gives us as clearly as possible the same teaching: "Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. She has prepared her meat, mixed her wine and set her table. She sent her maids, she screams at the top of the heights of the city: Let he who is ignorant in here! She told those meaningless: Come, eat of my bread and drink wine which I have mingled. Leave the ignorance and you will live, walk the path of intelligence [5]. [6] ". And exhortations ends with these words: "The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding" and the portrait of madness "woman noisy, stupid and knowing nothing "whose guests s'on go into the depths of Sheol.

The House that Wisdom has built, these provisions it has prepared, is not it obviously the remains of the man with food it gives to those who want to follow his advice? She built her house , as the vital principle shapes the material body, like the silkworm weaves himself and his own substance remains necessary for its marvelous transformations. She has created the world for the man she learned, she is both the cosmic wisdom and human wisdom, successively filling the dual role as creator and lawgiver. Its provisions are religious and moral food it offers to humanity and it sends messengers to call his guests, these are the words of the prophets, preachers of faith and virtue. And as if to confirm the identity of the two laws, it is said that fear of the LORD, that is to say, the law of man is the beginning of wisdom. The Wisdom of Proverbs, far from being simply, as some have claimed, morality, religion or human prudence, is presented [7] as the architect of the world and in the reports that we discovered him with religion, it does not lose its preeminent quality of creative intelligence, say the word Logos.

What now that it exalts the holy science? We believe we can say that they are angels or at least men who have achieved extraordinary religious perfection. Their knowledge must be highly intelligent, and if the angels, as we are inclined to think, that knowledge must embrace a much broader horizon that science painfully acquired by man. And yet it is identical to the rule declared human Bina or intelligence, which in the parallelism of the verse is the fear of the Lord as the science of the saints to Wisdom or Hochma .

Finally it should be noted that this madness personified, this foolish woman who appears as a striking antithesis after praise just because of the wisdom is not only ignorance, vice and error, c ' is evil in all its meanings and that under the law of contrasts, precisely what the wisdom with which it is opposed to virtue and religion, beauty, order and harmony of creation. If we do not abuse it, one arrives at this result may be unexpected, yet firmly established, which is found in Wisdom and the mad woman in the book of Proverbs the first type of the two female characters of Kabbalah, Malchut and Lilit, rival and goddesses of ancient theogonies all.


The second text which we have alluded to the XXVIII reads chapter of Job. God, after creating the world by wisdom is considered, then the manifest "Then he saw wisdom and showed (literally he pronounced ), he prepared and probed [8] ", that is to say that the Word inside revealed only by divine works are made out by becoming articulate speech . But the verse that follows puts the seal on the doctrine of the identity of divine and human laws, so he expresses in formal terms. "And he says to man: Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding." Thus the Word is externalized within the Law of man, the fear of God, the horror of evil. The unit could be proclaimed a manner that is clearer and more solemn. For it must not be mistaken. This [9] is not the eternal wisdom, the universal law that is reduced to the proportions of human wisdom, no, rather it is the law of man is raised to the height of the law of the world as it is true that Judaism is not confined to practical science, the discipline that will, as some have criticized him, but he also deals with metaphysical knowledge, the law of Being and Intelligence. All the many biblical passages where it is said that true knowledge of God, morality, fear of the Lord, then light up in light of the text of Job is that this legal practice is high at the height of divine knowledge and human law and God are one and the same law.

Finally we can reconcile the two texts which have been a passage from Jeremiah ctudiés suggesting the same doctrine. "Thus saith the Lord: if you can break my covenant with day and my covenant with the night so that the day and night are no longer in their time, then also my covenant be broken with David my servant [10] ". Thus the laws of succession of day and night are called berit , alliance, that is to say the very name that usually refers to the Bible's revealed law. When, therefore, the rabbis tell us here that without the Torah, the Mosaic Covenant, by which, they say, the heavens and earth were created, the earthly and heavenly laws exist point [11], their interpretation, however remote it may seem the literal text of Jeremiah, however, responds perfectly to the intimate sense of the words of the prophet, assimilation is evident that the two laws [12].

Say in conclusion that the agreement we have just established between the teachings of Rabbis and of the Bible is confirmed, if necessary, by the apocryphal books. In Ecclesiasticus the son of Sirach we see indeed that personified the creative Wisdom is identified with the Torah, it is this that not only was created before the world and never cease to exist, which covers the earth , reaches to heaven, penetrates into the depths and reign over the entire universe, but also received the order from God to dwell in Zion, in a nutshell is the book of the law of [13] [14]. The big word is pronounced and now the thousand echoes Midrashim will repeat until the day when a religion of Judaism, destroying the land that Act that Judaism was high, so high in heaven, he substituted a man-god and transported in this man became the Act the most sacred character of the ancient Torah that claimed him to replace: the Incarnation of the Word.


References

  1. Proverbs VIII 23.
  2. Ibid. VIII, 31.
  3. Page 422
  4. Ibid, III, 19, 20.
  5. Prov. IX, 1-6
  6. It should be noted that the Hebrew word wisdom hochmot , one is plural, while the scheme is singular and that, in Gnosticism it appears as the last of Eons , just as in the last Kabbalists sephira is also the name of Wisdom.
  7. Page 423
  8. Job XXVIII, 27
  9. Page 424
  10. Jeremiah XXXIII, 20,21.
  11. Pesahim 68 and S. Jalkout in Jeremiah XXXIII, 25
  12. It is curious to recall that Lucretius called Foedus naturae , the laws of nature, and ritus , the laws of beings.
  13. Page 425
  14. Moses V. chap. xxiv.