2. Next, that introduction of the female principle into the sphere of deity, which the Greeks seem to have adopted, after their anthropophuistic manner, with a view to the family order among the Immortals rather than as a mere metaphysical conception, appears to have its prototype in the Hebrew traditions.
When in the Holy Scriptures we find wisdom personified in the feminine, we regard this only as a mode of speech, though as one evidently tending to account for the sex of Minerva. But the Jewish traditions went far beyond this[50]. The two natures of our Lord would appear from the Sohar to have been distinguished under the figure of mother and daughter. The Schechina, or ‘glory of God,’ is of the feminine gender: and the relation of His divinity to His humanity is set forth under the figure of a marriage. He is therefore called mother and matron; temporibus futuris omnes hostes tradentur in manus Matronæ, as Schöttgen renders the Sohar[51].
The Λόγος, or Word of the Lord, is also shown to have been, according to the genuine traditions of the Jews, a common expression for the Messiah. The relation thus exhibited is in marked analogy with that between Minerva and Jupiter. This expression of the Targums of Jonathan and Onkelos is also in correspondence with the language of Philo, De Confusione Linguarum, pp. 255, 267[52].
4. The ideas of sonship and primogeniture[53] are likewise recognised among the titles of the Messiah, according to the Sohar and other Jewish authorities. We shall have to inquire what Homeric deities there are, who, by the distinction between their mode and time of birth, and that of others, may appear to represent these characteristics.
5. The Lord of Hosts, or Zebaoth[54], is another title of the Messiah: and we may therefore expect, in any traditionary remnant found elsewhere, to discover some strong and commanding martial development.
6. The Messiah was preeminently conceived of by the Jews as being the Light[55]. This property is in immediate connection with the idea of the Λόγος. It cannot fail to be observed, how vividly such an idea is represented in the ancient name Φοῖβος attaching to Apollo, and probably also in that of Λυκηγένης or ‘light-born.’ The same idea appears in the characteristic epithet Γλαυκῶπις, as it is now rightly interpreted, for Minerva. This indeed is not merely an epithet, but it forms one of her titles: as in Il. viii. 406.
7. Again, the name Metatron[56] is one of those properly applied to the Messiah by the Jews. It is supposed to have denoted originally the sense of the Latin word metator, as having reference to the guiding of the Israelites through the desert, and the marking or measuring out of their camps there. But it appears to have acquired afterwards the sense of Mediator, as implying that the Messiah was the organ, through whom the counsels of the Most High God took effect upon man.
8. The performance of miracles was to be a peculiar mark of the Messiah[57].
9. Another was the conquest he was to achieve over Satan, and the liberation of the dead from the grave and from the power of hell[58].
With these great gifts and powers was associated an assemblage of the most winning and endearing moral qualities. ‘The Schechina (or Messiah) is the image of God; as He is gentle, so is She: as He is gracious, so is She: as He is mighty, so is She mistress over all nations: He is truth, She is faith: He the prophet, She the prophetess: He the just, She the just: He the king, She the queen: He wise, She wisdom: He intelligent, She His intelligence: He the crown, She the diadem[59].’