The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iv Part 37

NOTES ON WHITAKER'S ORIGIN OF ARIANISM DISCLOSED. [1] 1810.

Chap. I. 4. p. 30.

'Making himself equal with G.o.d'.

Whoever reads the four verses (John v. 16-19,) attentively, judging of the meaning of each part by the context, must needs, I think, see that the [Greek: ison heautn poion tn Theo] (18) refers,--not to the [Greek: patera idion elege tn Then], (18) or the [Greek: ho pataer mou] (17), but--to the [Greek: ergazetai, kago ergazomai] (17). The 19th verse, which is directly called Jesus' reply, takes no notice whatever of the [Greek: ho pataer mou] (17), but consists wholly of a justification of the [Greek: kago ergazomai].

1803.

The above was written many years ago. I still think the remark plausible, though I should not now express myself so positively. I imagined the Jews to mean: "he has evidently used the words [Greek: ho pataer mou]--not in the sense in which all good men may use them, but--in a literal sense, because by the words that followed, [Greek: ergazetai, kago ergazomai], he makes himself equal to G.o.d." To justify these words seemed to me to be the purport of Christ's reply.

Chap. II. 1. p. 34.

[Greek: (Philon)--per men oun ta theia ka patria mathaemata, poson te ka paelikon eisenaenektai ponon, ergo pasi daelos ka per ta philosopha de ka eleutheria taes exothen paideias oios tis aen, ouden dei legein hoti ka malista taen kata Platona ka Pythagoran ezaelokos agogaen, dienegken apantas tous kath' heautn, historeitai].

Euseb. Hist. II. 4.

Philo's acquaintance with the doctrines of the heathens was known only by historical report to Eusebius; while the writings of Philo displayed his knowledge in the religion of the Jews.

Strange comment. Might I not, after having spoken of Dun Scotus's works, say;--"he is reported to have surpa.s.sed all his contemporaries in subtlety of logic:"--yet still mean no other works than those before mentioned? Are not Philo's works full of, crowded with, Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy? Eusebius knew from his works that he was a great Platonic scholar; but that he was greater than any other man of his age, he could only learn from report or history. That Virgil is a great poet I know from his poems; but that he was the greatest of the Augustan age, I must learn from Quinctilian and others.

Ib. p. 35.

Philo and the author of the Wisdom of Solomon,--(or rather, perhaps, authors; for the first ten chapters form a complete work of themselves,)--were both Cabalistico-Platonizing Jews of Alexandria. As far as, being such, they must agree, so far they do agree; and as widely as such men could differ, do they differ. Not only the style of the Wisdom of Solomon is generically different from Philo's,--so much so that I should deem it a free translation from a Hebrew original,--but also in all the 'minutiae' of traditional history and dogma it contradicts Philo. Philo attributes the creation of man to angels; and they infused the evil principle through their own imperfections. In the Book of Wisdom, G.o.d created man spotless, and the Devil tempting him occasioned the Fall. So the whole account of the plagues of Egypt differs as widely as possible, even to absolute contradiction. The origin of idolatry is explained altogether differently by Philo, and by the Book of Wisdom. In short, so unsupported is the tradition that many have supposed an elder Philo as the author. That the second and third chapters allude to Christ is a groundless hypothesis. The 'just man' is called 'the son of G.o.d', Jehovah, [Greek: pais Kyrion];--but Christ's specific t.i.tle which was deemed blasphemous by the Jews, was 'Ben Elohim', [Greek: uhis tou Theou];--and the fancy that Philo was a Christian in heart, but dared not openly profess himself such, is too absurd. Why no traces in his latest work, or those of his middle age?

Why not the least variation in his religious or philosophical creeds in his latter works, written long after the resurrection, from those composed by him before, or a few years after, Christ's birth? Some of Philo's earlier works must have been written when our Lord was in his infancy, or at least boyhood.

In short, just take all those pa.s.sages of Philo which most closely resemble others in the Wisdom of Solomon, and contain the same or nearly the same thoughts, and write them in opposite columns, and no doubt will remain that Philo was not the composer of the Book of Wisdom. Philo subtle, and with long involved periods knit together by logical connectives: the Book of Wisdom sententious, full of parallelisms, a.s.sertory and Hebraistic throughout. It was either composed by a man who tried to Hebraize the Greek, or, if a translator, by one who tried to Greecise the Hebraisms of his original--not to disguise or hide them--but only so as to prevent them from repelling or misleading the Greek reader. The different use of the Greek particles in the Wisdom of Solomon, and in the works of Philo, is sufficient to confute the hypothesis of Philo being the author. As little could it have been written by a Christian. For it could not have been a Christian of Palestine, from the overflowing Alexandrine Platonism;--nor a Christian at all; for it contradicts the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and in no wise connects any redemptory or sacrificial virtue with the death of his 'just man';--denies original sin in the Christian sense, and explains the vice and virtue of mankind by the actions of the souls of men in a state of pre-existence. No signs or miracles are referred to in the account of 'the just man'; and that it was intended as a generalization is evident from the change of the singular into the plural number in the third chapter.

The result is, in my judgment, that this Book was composed by an unknown Jew of Alexandria, either sometime before, or at the same time with, Christ. I do not think St. Paul's parallel pa.s.sages amount to any proof of quotation or allusion;--they contain the common doctrine of the spiritualized Judaism in the Cabala;--and yet the work could scarcely have been written long before Christ, or it would certainly have been quoted or mentioned by Philo, and most probably by Josephus. And this, too, is an answer to the splendid and well-supported hypothesis of its being a translation from a Chaldaic original, composed by Jerubbabel.

The variations of the Syriac translation,--which are so easily explained by translating the pa.s.sage into the Chaldaic, when the cause of the mistake in the Greek or of the variation in the Syriac, is seen at once,--are certainly startling; but they are too free; and how could the Fathers, Jerome for example, remain ignorant of the existence of this Chaldaic original? My own opinion is, as I said before, that the Book was written in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew, who had formed his style on that of the LXX., and was led still further to an imitation of the Old Testament manner by the nature of his fiction, and as a dramatic propriety, and yet deviated from it partly on account of the very remoteness of his Platonic conceptions from the simplicity and poverty of the Hebrew; and partly because of the wordy rhetoric epidemic in Alexandria: and that it was written before the death, if not the birth, of Christ, I am induced to believe, because I do not think it probable that a book composed by a Jew, who had confessed Christ after the resurrection, would so soon have been received by the Christians, and so early placed in the very next rank to works of full inspiration.

Taken, therefore, as a work 'ante', or at least 'extra, Christum', it is most valuable as ascertaining the opinions of the learned Jews on many subjects, and the general belief concerning immortality, and a day of judgment. On this ground Whitaker might have erected a most formidable battery, that would have played on the very camp and battle-array of the Socinians, that is, of those who consider Christ only as a teacher of important truths.

In referring to the Cabala, I am not ignorant of the date of the oldest Rabbinical writings which contain or refer to this philosophy, but I coincide with Eichorn, and very many before Eichorn, that the foundations of the Cabala were laid and well known long before Christ, though not all the fanciful superstructure. I am persuaded that new light might be thrown on the Apocalypse by a careful study of the Book Sohar, and of whatever else there may be of that kind. The introduction (i. 4,) is clearly Cabala:--the [Greek: ho on, ka ho aen, ka ho erchomenos]= 3, and the 'seven spirits' = 10 'Sephiroth', const.i.tuting together the 'Adam Kadmon', the second Adam of St. Paul, the incarnate one in the Messiah.

Were it not for the silence of Philo and Josephus, which I am unable to explain if the Wisdom of Solomon was written so long before Christ, I might perhaps incline to believe it composed shortly after, if not during, the persecution of the Jews in Egypt under Ptolemy Philopator.

This hypothesis would give a particular point to the bitter exposure of idolatry, to the comparison between the sufferings of the Jews, and those of idolatrous nations, to the long rehearsal and rhetorical declaration of the plagues of Egypt, and to the reward of 'the just man'

after a death of martyrdom; and would besides help to explain the putting together of the first ten chapters, and the fragment contained in the remaining chapters. They were works written at the same time, and by the same author: nay, I do not think it absurd to suppose, that the chapters after the tenth were annexed by the writer himself, as a long explanatory appendix; or, possibly, if they were once a separate work, these nine concluding chapters were parts of a book composed during the persecution in Egypt, the introduction and termination of which, being personal and of local application, were afterwards omitted or expunged in order not to give offence to the other Egyptians,--perhaps, to spare the shame of such Jews as had apostatized through fear, and in general not to revive heart-burnings. In modern language I should call these chapters in their present state a Note on c. x. 15-19.

On a reperusal of this Book, I rather believe that these latter chapters never formed part of any other work, but were composed as a sort of long explanatory Postscript, with particular bearing on certain existing circ.u.mstances, to which this part of the Jewish history was especially applicable. Nay, I begin to find the silence of Philo and Josephus less inexplicable, and to imagine that I discover the solution of this problem in the very t.i.tle of the Book. No one expects to find any but works of authenticity enumerated in these writers; but to this a work, calling itself the Wisdom of Solomon, both being a fiction and never meant to pa.s.s for anything else, could make no pretensions. To have approximated it to the Holy Books of the nation would have injured the dignity of the Jewish Canon, and brought suspicion on the genuine works of Solomon, while it would have exposed to a charge of forgery a composition which was in itself only an innocent dramatic monologue. N.

B. This hypothesis possesses all the advantages, and involves none of the absurdity of that which would attribute the 'Ecclesiasticus' to the infamous Jason, the High Priest. More than one commentator, I find, has suspected that the Wisdom of Solomon and the second book of Maccabees were by the same author. I think this nothing.

Ib. p. 36.

Philo throws out a number of declarations, that shew his own and the Jewish belief in a secondary sort of G.o.d, a G.o.d subordinate in origin to the Father of all, yet most intimately united with him, and sharing his most unquestionable honours.

The belief of the Alexandrian Jews who had acquired Greek philosophy, no doubt;--but of the Palestine Jews?

Ib. 2. p. 48.

St. John also is witnessed by a heathen (Amelius,) and by one who put him down for a barbarian, to have represented the Logos as "the Maker of all things," as "with 'G.o.d'," and as "G.o.d." And St. John is attested to have declared this, "not even as shaded over, but on the contrary as placed in full view."

Stranger still. Whitaker could scarcely have read the Greek. Amelius says, that these truths, if stripped of their allegorical dress, ([Greek: metapephrasmena ek taes tou Barbarou theologias]) would be plain;--that is, that John in an allegory, as of one particular man, had shadowed out the creation of all things by the Logos, and the after union of the Logos with human nature,--that is, with all men. That this is his meaning, consult Plotinus.

Ib. 9. p. 107.

"Seest thou not," adds Philo, in the same spirit of subtilizing being into power, and dividing the Logos into two.

Who that had even rested but in the porch of the Alexandrian philosophy, would not rather say, 'of substantiating powers and attributes into being?' What is the whole system from Philo to Plotinus, and thence to Proclus inclusively, but one fanciful process of hypostasizing logical conceptions and generic terms? In Proclus it is Logolatry run mad.

Chap. III. 1. p. 131-2.

Such would be the evidence for that divinity, to accompany the Book of Wisdom, if we considered it to be as old as Solomon, or only as the Son of Sirach. But I consider it to be much later than either, and actually a work of Philo's. * * The language is very similar to Philo's; flowing, lively and happy.

How is it possible to have read the short Hebraistic sentences of the Book of Wisdom, and the long involved periods that characterize the style of all Philo's known writings, and yet attribute both to one writer? But indeed I know no instance of a.s.sertions made so audaciously, or of pa.s.sages misrepresented and even mistranslated so grossly, as in this work of Whitaker. His system is absolute naked Tritheism.

Ib.

The righteous man is shadowed out by the author with a plain reference to our Saviour himself. "'Let us lie in wait for the righteous'," &c.

How then could Philo have remained a Jew?

Ib. 2. p. 195.

In all effects that are voluntary, the cause must be prior to the effect, as the father is to the son in human generation. But in all that are necessary, the effect must be coeval with the cause; as the stream is with the fountain, and light with the sun. Had the sun been eternal in its duration, light would have been co-eternal with it.

A just remark; but it cuts two ways. For these necessary effects are not really but only logically different or distinct from the cause:--the rays of the sun are only the sun diffused, and the whole rests on the sensitive form of material s.p.a.ce. Take away the notion of material s.p.a.ce, and the whole distinction perishes.