Note 101 — Chapter II

Footnote 101:

(return)

See Schürer, History of the Jewish people. Div. II. vol. II. p. 160 f., yet the remarks of the Jew Trypho in the dialogue of Justin shew that the notions of a pre-existent Messiah were by no means very widely spread in Judaism. (See also Orig. c. Cels. I. 49: "A Jew would not at all admit that any Prophet had said, the Son of God will come: they avoided this designation and used instead the saying: the anointed of God will come"). The Apocalyptists and Rabbis attributed pre-existence, that is, a heavenly origin to many sacred things and persons, such as the Patriarchs, Moses, the Tabernacle, the Temple vessels, the city of Jerusalem. That the true Temple and the real Jerusalem were with God in heaven and would come down from heaven at the appointed time, must have been a very wide-spread idea, especially at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and even earlier than that (see Gal. IV. 26; Rev. XXI. 2; Heb. XII. 22). In the Assumption of Moses (c. 1) Moses says of himself: Dominus invenit me, qui ab initio orbis terrarum præparatus sum, ut sim arbiter (μεσιτης) testamenti illius (της διαθηκης αυτου). In the Midrasch Bereschith rabba VIII. 2. we read, "R. Simeon ben Lakisch says, 'The law was in existence 2000 years before the creation of the world.'" In the Jewish treatise Προσευχη Ιωσηφ, which Origen has several times quoted, Jacob says of himself (ap. Orig. tom. II. in Joann. C. 25. Opp. IV. 84): "'ο γαρ λαλων προς 'υμας, εγω Ιακωβ και Ισρηλ, αγγελος θεου ειμι εγω και πνευμα αρχικον και Αβρααμ και Ισαακ προεκτισθησαν προ παντος εργου, εγω δε Ιακοβ ... εγω πρωτογονος παντος ζωος ζωουμενου 'υπο θεου." These examples could easily be increased. The Jewish speculations about Angels and Mediators, which at the time of Christ grew very luxuriantly among the Scribes and Apocalyptists, and endangered the purity and vitality of the Old Testament idea of God, were also very important for the development of Christian dogmatics. But neither these speculations, nor the notions of heavenly Archetypes, nor of pre-existence, are to be referred to Hellenic influence. This may have co-operated here and there, but the rise of these speculations in Judaism is not to be explained by it; they rather exhibit the Oriental stamp. But, of course, the stage in the development of the nations had now been reached, in which the creations of Oriental fancy and Mythology could be fused with the ideal conceptions of Hellenic philosophy.