attributes are assigned him. He is the God of infinite Love; Father of all, who possesses the Earth and Heavens.
The conception which a man forms of God, depends on the character and attainment of the man himself; this differed with individual Jews as with the Greeks, the Christians, and the Mahometans. However, this must be confessed, that under the guidance of Divine Providence, the great and beautiful doctrine of one God for the Hebrews seems very early embraced by the great Jewish Lawgiver; incorporated in his national legislation; and defended with rigorous enactions. At our day it is difficult to understand the service rendered to the human race by the mighty soul of Moses, and that a thousand years before Anaxagoras.[1] His name is ploughed into the history of the world. His influence can never die. It must have been a vast soul, endowed with moral and religious genius to a degree extraordinary among men, which at that early age could attempt to found a State on the doctrine and worship of one national God.
Was he the first of the come-outers? Or had others, too far before the age for its acceptance, perished before him in the greatness of their endeavour? History is silent.[2] But the bodies of many Prophets must be rolled
- ↑ Constant, Liv. IV. Ch. xi., has some just remarks on the excellence of the Hebrew Theology.
- ↑ It is difficult to determine accurately the date of events in Chinese history, such are the pretensions of Chinese scholars on the one hand, and such the bigoted scepticism of dogmatists on the other; but see the Chinese Classical Work, commonly called the Four Books, translated by David Pollie; Malacca, 1829, 1 vol. 8vo. See Cantu, ubi sup., Vol. III. Ch. xxi. et seq.
powerful God to that of the only God, but remained for a long time far below the true transcendent notion of the one true God. “Education of the human race,” Werke, ed. 1824, Vol. XXIV. p. 43, 44. See also on this subject of Hebrew Theism, the valuable but somewhat one-sided views of Vatke, Bib. Theologie, Vol. I. § 44, et seq. But see also Salvador, Hist. des Institutions de Möise, &c., Brussels, 1830, Vol. III. p. 175, et seq.
At first Christian Artists found it in bad taste and even heathenish to paint the Almighty in any form. Then, in decorating churches and MSS. with pictures drawn from O. S. stories, they often put only a hand for God, or omitting that, put Christ for the Father. See Didron, Iconographie Chrétienne, Paris, 1843, p. 174, et seq. See the nice distinction made by John of Damascus in regard to images of God, Orat. I. in Imaginibus, Opp. ed. Basil, 1574, p. 701, et seq. et al. Before the twelfth century it seems there were no pictures of God from Christian Artists. Afterwards the Italians painted him as a Pope, the Germans as an Emperor, the French and English as a King. Didron, ubi sup., p. 230 et seq.
