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mere title of respect, it is put as "the Lord" in the same type as the rest of the text in which it stands.

Thus our constantly recurring word, "the LORD" is really a proper name; not as it seems, a title; and is at the same time indicative of the existence in the original of "the Divine Word," the mightyName of God;" and a continual evidence of the mysterious awe by which the real Word was lost to men, and even an approximate form almost entirely banished from our English Bibles.

The sentiments which were so lasting and profound, as thus to lose the very WORD itself in their excess of awe, evolved still further and yet more important inferences. There must have been some reason, they conceived, why this WORD was entitled to such high supremacy and superhuman reverence. Its mysterious sacredness could not have been derived from any merely human attribute of language. The WORD, to have such powers, must be itself like Him whom it expresses, essentially Divine in origin and nature. The Hebrew Scriptures spoke in many places of "the Word of God which came to man" to do His biddings, elsewhere of "the Word" by which He uttered forth His truths and gave them power over men, and preeminently of the Word' which "He spake and it was done, He commanded and it stood fast," for " by the Word of the LORD were the Heavens made, and the Hosts of them by the breath of His mouth." And they seemingly very early in their history-began to regard this Word as the original, the same as that which He revealed to Moses at the foot of Horeb for the true Word that should express His Name forever. Thus did the sacred Word which was the Name of God, become identified with the divine creative Word of God's own being. This was, in their Theology, the mighty instrument He used in the formation of the world. He graved this as a binding charm on the foundations of the earth' when first "the corner stone thereof was laid, while the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy ;" and this was the vehicle that bore IIis presence to the universe which He had made, and by which He

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revealed Himself for the enlightenment and direction of the beings whom He had created. As such, and vested with such marvellous prerogatives, this Word of Words was never a base, idle sound. It was at all times, and by whomsoever spoken, God's true and livingWORD, and it was "quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword." When once "the Name" was thus identified with the creative Word of God, there was abundant reason for all the reverence that could be felt for it; and no limit to the wonders that could be wrought by those who knew it, and knew how to avail themselves of the immensity of power it conferred on them. The illustrations of this mode of thinking about the Word, are so numerous in the Targums and other Jewish writings, as well as in the earlier Christian Fathers, that our only difficulty will be in the choice of those that shall be cited to verify what has been said. The Palestine Targum' says of the Urim and Thummim :

They are the Uraia which illuminate their words, and * the Tummeira which fulfil or perfect their words to the High Priest who seeketh instruction by them, before the LORD, because therein is engraved and expressed the Great and Holy Name, by which were created the 310 worlds, and which was engraved and expressed in the foundation stone, wherewith the Lord of the world sealed up the mouth of the great deep at the beginning. Whosoever remembereth that Word in the hour of necessity shall be delivered.

Again of the Rod of Moses:"

And there was shown him the Rod which was created between the evenings, and on which was engraven the Great and Glorious Name, with which he was to do the wonders in Mizraim.

So also of the reverence that was due to it.3

Mosheh, who was the Doctor of Israel, would not permit himself to pronounce the Holy Name, until he had dedicated his mouth at the beginning of this Hymn, with 80 and 5 letters making 20 and 1 words. (And the Jerusalem Targum adds): For it is not possible to one of the highest angels to utter that Name openly, until they have said Holy, Holy, Holy, thrice, and from them Mosheh learned not to utter that Name openly until he should have dedicated his mouth, &c.

Philo refers continually to the Word as the Divine and ever efficient agent of Deity in all His works of creation and provi

'On Ex. xxviii. 'Pal. Targ. on Ex. ii: 22.

'Pal. Targ. on Deut. xxxii; 3.

dence.

*

Lord

*

"The 3d Commandment is about the Name of the * that Name which is constantly applied to Him as displayed in His powers." Spiritualizing the symbolism of the Cities of Refuge, he says:

1

The most ancient and the most excellent metropolis is the Divine Word * * the other five * * are the powers of Him who utters the Word, the chief of which is His creative power, according to which the Creator made the world with a Word. God has for His abode His own Word * * which is more ancient than all things which are the objects of creation: and by means of which, the Rulers of the world, taking hold of it as a rudder, govern all things. The Word is the charioteer of the Powers, and He who utters it is the rider, who directs the charioteer how to proceed with a view to the proper guidance of the Universe, for the Word of the living God being the bond of everything holds all things together. God while he spake the Word, did at the same time create, nor did He allow anything to come between the Word and the Deed, and if we may advance the doctrine, which is nearly true, His Word is His deed.

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We have already quoted Origen as to the marvellous powers of sacred words; chief among these he places the true Name of the Almighty God of the Old Testament; this he considers as continued in the Name of Jesus, and repeatedly speaks of the power of the Name of Jesus to drive out the demons, cure the sick," and perform many other works of wonder. But some of the other Fathers speak more directly of the miraculous efficacy of the ineffable Word which was the proper Name of God as He revealed it unto Moses. Justin,' describing the return of the Ark of the Testimony by the Philistines, (Sam. v.) says:

The cows led by no man went not to the place whence they came * * but remained in the fields of a man whose name was Oshea (the same whose name was changed to Jesus), showing that they were guided by the Name of Power the same as those who came out of Egypt were guided into the land," &c.*

1 Yonge's Philo. II: 127. et seq.

2 Origen in Ante-Nicene Lib. Vol. I. 402; Vol. II. 52, 104, 109, 543. He even says, "It is effectual when pronounced by bad men, as Jesus Himself taught in Matt. vii: 22.

Justin Martyr Ante-Nicene Library, p. 267.

In the view of Justin, Jesus was a prophetic Name here, and by its power guided both the cattle and the Israelites under Joshua; but the power of the Name Jesus was in the fragment of the original word it contained.

And he elsewhere, p. 303, shows that he regards the power as in the Word which the Voice of God spake to Moses. While Clement of Alexandria quotes' Artapanes to the effect:

That Moses being shut up in custody by the King of Egypt, the prison was opened at night by the interposition of God; and he went out, and stood before the King as he slept, and aroused him; and the latter, struck with what had taken place, bade Moses tell him the Name of the God who had sent him, he bending forward told him in his ear, and the King on hearing it fell speechless, but being supported by Moses revived again.

He also states "the mystics say that Moses slew the Egyptian who wronged the Hebrew by a Word, as it is afterwards related in the Acts that Peter slew with his Word those who lied." There is, he thinks, a symbol of the Word in the dress of the High Priest. "The oracle (Aoyiov) indicates the Word (Aoyos) by which it is framed; and is the symbol of the Heavens made by the Word;" and "the four pillars at the entrance of the Holy of Holies are the sign of the Sacred Tetrad of the Ancient Covenants; further, the mystic Name of four letters which was affixed to those alone * * is called Jave, which is interpreted

*

'who is and shall be.'" Many others of the early Christian writers, especially the Gnostics, refer often to the power of the Name, but they regard the Name Jesus as the same as the Sacred Word of the Old Testament, and considered it capable of performing all the wonders attributed to the mystic Tetragrammaton. While Prideaux tells us that "the Rabbins, not able to gainsay the evidence for the miracles of Jesus, answer that he stole the ineffable Name of God out of the Temple, from the stone of foundation on which it was there written; and keeping it hid always about him, by virtue of that, did all his wondrous works." Another of their traditions is that "the Messiah when He shall come shall reveal to them the secret of this mighty Word again." And some such notion was evidently in the mind also of Lactan

2

3

'Clem. Alex. I: 451. Ante Nicene Lib. Vol. XXIV: 178. Clem. Alex. II: 243.

"Connections of the Old and New Testament. Vol. II, 156.

Calmet's Dictionary "Jehovah."

tius,' for, treating of "the only begotten before the world, whose Name among men is Jesus," he says "His secret Name, His Word of wisdom, is known to none but Himself and God the Father, nor will that Name be published, as the Sacred Writings relate, before that the purpose of God be fulfilled."

The WORD, when thus invested with such mighty attributes of power and energy, could not long be regarded as a mere impersonal or lifeless instrument. It was not possible that such a potent agency should not also possess some of the characteristics of true personality. It must, in fact, be either some kind of individual self, or be identical with a being whose personality and self it represented and expressed. Such, soon or late, [was the result. The Sacred Name, The Word, in all the later writings of the Jews, has a decided and unmistakable personality attached to it. It has not ceased to be employed in any of its other significations Sometimes it has its simple, obvious meaning of the written or spoken thought of God. Sometimes it stands for the mysterious vehicle of His Omnipotence in action. The Philosophic Philo often identifies it with the Platonic idea, God's intellectual image, or Schema, after which all the existing Universe is formed. But besides these, the Targum, the Book of Enoch, the Apocryphal Scriptures, and even Philo, with all his Platonism, all, and repeatedly, refer to it as a living, acting, Person; and all evidently regard it, as either a mark of God's manifestation of IIis own Being, or a synonyme for God Himself.

The formula by which" The Word" is expressed in the Targums is "Memra da yeya," a contracted form

מימרא די יהוה the fuller

for

Memra meaning "Word," and being a verbal from the verb signifying "to speak." "It is em

ployed," says Etheridge, "with the Genitive of the Divine Name, answering to ὃ λογος τοῦ θεοῦ of the New Testment and is so used more than 150 times in the Pentateuch alone." And Deutsch explains its import in the Targums as being " a kind of reverential

1 Lactantius I: 222. He is particularly full and suggestive on the relation of the indwelling and the manifest Word.

Etheridge on Targums, Vol. I, 14. 'Smith's Bib. Dic., article "Versions."

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