Of the nature of the Deity they held two things: First of all, that he is an animated though impersonal being; secondly, that there is nothing in all nature superior to him. "I do not see," says one well versed in their doctrines, "what can be more consistent with this idea and pre-conception than to attribute a mind and divinity to the world, the most excellent of all beings." The God of the Stoics is further described as a corporeal being, united to matter by a necessary connection; and, moreover, as subject to fate, so that he can bestow neither rewards nor punishments. That this sect held to the extinction of the soul at death, is allowed by all the learned. The Stoics drew their philosophy mainly from Socrates and Aristotle. Their cosmology was pantheistic, matter and force being the two ultimate principles, and God being the working force of the universe, giving it unity, beauty and adaptation.

The Jews.

I shall finish this brief review of the prevailing ideas about Deity at the advent of Messiah by reference to the state of belief respecting God among the Jews at this period. I have reserved the consideration of their views upon the subject until the last advisedly, chiefly for the reason that to their ancestors, in very ancient times, a knowledge of the true God was revealed. Their ancestors constituted a nation, a people, peculiarly related to God; chosen by him, it would seem, to stand as his witnesses among the nations of the earth. But at the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, the Jews were in an apostate condition, and ready to reject their God when he should come. Moreover, their leading teachers, especially in the two centuries preceding the coming of the Messiah, were taking every step that their ingenuity could devise for harmonizing the truths which God had made known to them with the more fashionable conceptions of God as entertained by one or the other of the great sects of philosophy among the Romans. The way had been prepared for the achievement of this end, in the first place, by the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek language, which version of the Old Testament is usually called the Septuagint, or the LXX. This latter name is given to it because of a tradition that the translation was accomplished by seventy, or about seventy, elders of the Jews. The most generally accepted theory concerning it, however, is that it was a work accomplished at various times between 280 B. C. and 150 B. C. The books of Moses being first translated as early as the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 284-246 B. C, while the Prophets and Psalms were translated somewhat later. It is not, however, the time or manner in which the translation was accomplished that we are interested in, but the character of the translation itself; and of this, Alfred Edersheim, in his "Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah," in the division of his work which treats of the preparation for the Gospel, says of the Septuagint:

Putting aside clerical mistakes and misreadings, and making allowance for errors of translation, ignorance, and haste, we note certain outstanding facts as characteristic of the Greek version. It bears evident marks of its origin in Egypt, in its use of Egyptian words and references, and equally evident traces of its Jewish composition. By the side of slavish and false literalism there is great liberty, if not license, in handling the original; gross mistakes occur along with happy renderings of very difficult passages, suggesting the aid of some able scholars. Distinct Jewish elements are undeniably there, which can only be explained by reference to Jewish tradition, although they are much fewer than some critics have supposed. This we can easily understand, since only those traditions would find a place which at the early time were not only received, but in general circulation. The distinctly Grecian elements, however, are at present of chief interest to us. They consist of allusions to Greek mythological terms, and adaptations of Greek philosophical ideas. However few, even one well-authenticated instance would lead us to suspect others, and in general give to the version the character of Jewish Hellenising. In the same class we reckon what constitutes the prominent characteristics of the LXX version, which, for want of better terms, we would designate as rationalistic and apologetic. Difficulties—or what seemed such—are removed by the most bold methods, and by free handling of the text; it need scarcely be said, often very unsatisfactorily. More especially, a strenuous effort is made to banish all anthropomorphisms, as inconsistent with their ideas of the Deity.[A]

[Footnote A: "Jesus, the Messiah," by Edersheim,vol. I, pp. 27-8, eighth edition.

Later the same authority points out the fact that the Septuagint version of the Hebrew scriptures became really the people's Bible to that large Jewish world through which Christianity was afterwards to address itself to mankind. "It was part of the case," he adds, "that this translation should be regarded by the Hellenists as inspired like the original. Otherwise it would have been impossible to make final appeal to the very words of the Greek; still less to find in them a mystical and allegorical meaning."[A]

[Footnote A: Ibid, p. 29.]

The foundation thus laid for a superstructure of false philosophy there was not wanting builders who were anxious to place a pagan structure upon it. About the middle of the second century B. C., one Aristobulus, a Hellenist Jew of Alexandria, sought to so explain the Hebrew scriptures as "to bring the Peripatetic philosophy out of the law of Moses, and out of the other Prophets." Following is a sample, according to Edersheim, of his allegorizing: "Thus, when we read that God stood, it meant the stable order of the world; that he created the world in six days, the orderly succession of time; the rest of the Sabbath, the preservation of what was created. And in such manner could the whole system of Aristotle be found in the Bible. But how was this to be accounted for? Of course, the Bible had not learned of Aristotle, but he and all other philosophers had learned from the Bible. Thus, according to Aristobulus, Pythagoras, Plato, and all the other sages, had really learned from Moses, and the broken rays found in their writings were united in all their glory in the Torah."[A]

[Footnote A: "Jesus, the Messiah," Edersheim, vol. 1, p. 36.]

Following Aristobulus in the same kind of philosophy was Philo, the learned Jew of Alexandria, born about the year 20 B. C. He was supposed to be a descendant of Aaron, and belonged to one of the wealthiest and most influential families among the merchants of Egypt; and he is said to have united a large share of Greek learning with Jewish enthusiasm. He followed most worthily in the footsteps of Aristobulus. According to him, the Greek sages had learned their philosophy from Moses, in whom alone was all truth to be found. "Not indeed, in the letter," says Edersheim, "but under the letter of Holy Scripture. If in Numbers 23:19 we read 'God is not a man,' and in Deut. 1:31 that the Lord was 'as a man,' did it not imply on the one hand the revelation of absolute truth by God, and on the other, accommodation to those who were weak? Here then, was the principle of a two-fold interpretation of the Word of God—the literal and the allegorical. * * * To begin with the former: the literal sense must be wholly set aside, when it implies anything unworthy of the Deity—anything unmeaning, impossible, or contrary to reason. Manifestly this canon, if strictly applied, would do away not only with all anthropomorphisms, but cut the knot wherever difficulties seemed insuperable. Again, Philo would find an allegorical, along with the literal, interpretation indicated in the reduplication of a word, and in seemingly superfluous words, particles, or expressions. These could, of course, only bear such a meaning on Philo's assumption of the actual inspiration of the Septuagint version."[A]