_Different Elements in the Book and their Dates_.--As there are undoubtedly conflicting elements in the book, it is possible to assume either a diversity of authorship or a diversity of sources. The latter view is advocated by Ryssel and Ginzberg, the former by Kabisch, de Faye, R. H. Charles and Beer (Herzog's _Realenc._, art. "_Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments_," p. 250). A short summary may here be given of the grounds on which the present writer has postulated a diversity of authorship. If the letter to the tribes in captivity (lxxviii.-lxxxvi.) be disregarded, the book falls into seven sections separated by fasts, save in one case (after xxxv.) where the text is probably defective. These sections, which are of unequal length, are--(1) i.-v. 6; (2) v. 7-viii.; (3) ix.-xii. 4; (4) xii. 5-xx.; (5) xxi.-xxxv.; (6) xxxvi.-xlvi.; (7) xlvii.-lxxvii. These treat of the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom, the woes of Israel in the past and the destruction of Jerusalem in the present, as well as of theological questions relating to original sin, free will, works, the number of the saved, the nature of the resurrection body, &c. The views expressed on several of the above subjects are often conflicting. In one class of passages there is everywhere manifest a vigorous optimism as to Israel's ultimate well-being on earth, and the blessedness of the chosen people in the Messianic kingdom is sketched in glowing and sensuous colours (xxix., xxxix.-xl., lxiii.-lxxiv.). Over against these passages stand others of a hopelessly pessimistic character, wherein, alike as to Israel's [v.03 p.0455] present and future destiny on earth, there is written nothing save "lamentation, and mourning, and woe." The world is a scene of corruption, its evils are irremediable, its end is nigh, and the advent of the new and spiritual world at hand. The first to draw attention to the composite elements in this book was Kabisch (_Jahrbücher f. protest. Theol._, 1891, pp. 66-107). This critic regarded xxiv. 3-xxix., xxxvi.-xl. and liii.-lxxiv. as independent sources written before the fall of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and his groundwork, which consists of the rest of his book, with the exception of a few verses, as composed after that date. All these elements were put together by a Christian contemporary of Papias. Many of these conclusions were arrived at independently by a French scholar, De Faye (_Les Apocalypses juives_, 1892, pp. 25-28, 76-103, 192-204). The present writer (_Apocalypse of Baruch_, 1896, pp. liii.-lxvii.), after submitting the book to a fresh study, has come to the following conclusions:--The book is of Pharisaic authorship and composed of six independent writings--A
Berlin was the only town in Germany open to him. His residence there from 1799 to 1806 was unbroken save for a course of lectures during the summer of 1805 at Erlangen, where he had been named professor. Surrounded by friends, including Schlegel and Schleiermacher, he continued his literary work, perfecting the _Wissenschaftslehre_. The most remarkable of the works from this period are--(1) the _Bestimmung des Menschen_ (Vocation of Man, 1800), a book which, for beauty of style, richness of content, and elevation of thought, may be ranked with the Meditations of Descartes; (2) _Der geschlossene Handelsstaat_, 1800 (The Exclusive or Isolated Commercial State), a very remarkable treatise, intensely socialist in tone, and inculcating organized protection; (3) _Sonnenklarer Bericht an das grössere Publicum über die neueste Philosophie_, 1801. In 1801 was also written the _Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre_, which was not published till after his death. In 1804 a set of lectures on the _Wissenschaftslehre_ was given at Berlin, the notes of which were published in the _Nachgelassene Werke_, vol. ii. In 1804 were also delivered the noble lectures entitled _Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters_ (Characteristics of the Present Age, 1804), containing a most admirable analysis of the _Aufklärung_, tracing the position of such a movement of thought in the natural evolution of the general human consciousness, pointing out its inherent defects, and indicating as the ultimate goal of progress the life of reason in its highest aspect as a belief in the divine order of the universe. The philosophy of history sketched in this work has something of value with much that is fantastic. In 1805 and 1806 appeared the _Wesen des Gelehrten_ (Nature of the Scholar) and the _Anweisung zum seligen Leben oder Religionslehre_ (Way to a Blessed Life), the latter the most important work of this Berlin period. In it the union between the finite self-consciousness and the infinite ego or God is handled in an almost mystical manner. The knowledge and love of God is the end of life; by this means only can we attain blessedness (_Seligkeit_), for in God alone have we a permanent, enduring object of desire. The infinite God is the all; the world of independent objects is the result of reflection or self-consciousness, by which the infinite unity is broken up. God is thus over and above the distinction of subject and object; our knowledge is but a reflex or picture of the infinite essence. Being is not thought. Entry: FICHTE
The action of the _Commedia_ opens in the early morning of the Thursday before Easter, in the year 1300. The poet finds himself lost in a forest, escaping from which he has his way barred by a wolf, a lion and a leopard. All this, like the rest of the poem, is highly symbolical. This branch of the subject is too vast to be entered on at any length here; but so far as this passage is concerned it may be said that it seems to indicate that at this period of his life, about the age of thirty-five, Dante went through some experience akin to what is now called "conversion." Having led up till then the ordinary life of a cultivated Florentine of good family; taking his part in public affairs, military and civil, as an hereditary member of the predominant Guelph party; dallying in prose which with all its beauty and passion is full of the conceits familiar to the 13th century, and in verse which save for the excellence of its execution differs in no way from that of his predecessors, with the memory of his lost love; studying more seriously, perhaps, than most of his associates; possibly travelling a little,--gradually or suddenly he became convinced that all was not well with him, and that not by leading, however blamelessly, the "active" life could he save his soul. The strong vein of mysticism, found in so many of the deepest thinkers of that age, and conspicuous in Dante's mind, no doubt played its part. His efforts to free himself from the "forest" of worldly cares were impeded by the temptations of the world--cupidity (including ambition), the pride of life and the lusts of the flesh, symbolized by the three beasts. But a helper is at hand. Virgil appears and explains that he has a commission from three ladies on high to guide him. The ladies are the Blessed Virgin, St Lucy (whom for some reason never yet explained Dante seems to have regarded as in a special sense his protector) and Beatrice. In Virgil we are apparently intended to see the symbol of what Dante calls philosophy, what we should rather call natural religion; Beatrice standing for theology, or rather revealed religion. Under Virgil's escort Dante is led through the two lower realms of the next world, Hell and Purgatory; meeting on the way with many persons illustrious or notorious in recent or remoter times, as well as many well enough known then in Tuscany and the neighbouring states; but who, without the immortality, often unenviable, that the poet has conferred on them, would long ago have been forgotten. Popes, kings, emperors, poets and warriors, Florentine citizens of all degrees, are there found; some doomed to hopeless punishment, others expiating their offences in milder torments, and looking forward to deliverance in due time. It is remarkable to notice how rarely, if ever, Dante allows political sympathy or antagonism to influence him in his distribution of judgment. Hell is conceived as a vast conical hollow, reaching to the centre of the earth. It has three great divisions, corresponding to Aristotle's three classes of vices, incontinence, brutishness and malice. The first are outside the walls of the city of Dis; the second, among whom are included unbelievers, tyrants, suicides, unnatural offenders, usurers, are within; the first apparently on the same level as those without, the rest separated from them by a steep descent of broken rocks. (It should be said that many Dante scholars hold that Aristotle's "brutishness" has no place in Dante's scheme; but the symmetry of the arrangement, the special reference made to that division, and certain expressions used elsewhere by Dante, seem to make it probable that he would here, as in most other cases, have followed his master in philosophy.) The sinners by malice, which includes all forms of fraud or treachery, are divided from the last by a yet more formidable barrier. They lie at the bottom of a pit, the depth of which is not stated, with vertical sides, and accessible only by supernatural means; a monster named Geryon bearing the poets down on his back. The torments here are of a more terrible, often of a loathsome character. Ignominy is added to pain, and the nature of Dante's demeanour towards the sinners changes from pity to hatred. At the very bottom of the pit is Lucifer, immovably fixed in ice; climbing down his limbs they reach the centre of the earth, whence a cranny conducts them back to the surface, at the foot of the purgatorial mountain, which they reach as Easter Day is dawning. Before the actual Purgatory is attained they have to climb for the latter half of the day and rest at night. The occupants of this outer region are those who have delayed repentance till death was upon them. They include many of the most famous men of the last thirty years. In the morning the gate is opened, and Purgatory proper is entered. This is divided into seven terraces, corresponding to the seven deadly sins, which encircle the mountain and have to be reached by a series of steep climbs, compared by Dante in one instance to the path from Florence to Samminiato. The penalties are not degrading, but rather tests of patience or endurance; and in several cases Dante has to bear a share in them as he passes. On the summit is the Earthly Paradise. Here Beatrice appears, in a mystical pageant; Virgil departs, leaving Dante in her charge. By her he is led through the various spheres of which, according to both the astronomy and the theology of the time, Heaven is composed, to the supreme Heaven, or Empyrean, the seat of the Godhead. For one moment there is granted him the intuitive vision of the Deity, and the comprehension of all mysteries, which is the ultimate goal of mystical theology; his will is wholly blended with that of God, and the poem ends. Entry: DANTE
ii. _Object and Contents of Apocalyptic._--The object of this literature in general was to solve the difficulties connected with the righteousness of God and the suffering condition of His righteous servants on earth. The righteousness of God postulated according to the law the temporal prosperity of the righteous and the _temporal_ prosperity of necessity; for as yet there was no promise of life or recompense beyond the grave. But this connexion was not found to obtain as a rule in life, and the difficulties arising from this conflict between promise and experience centred round the lot of the righteous as a community and the lot of the righteous man as an individual. Old Testament prophecy had addressed itself to both these problems, though it was hardly conscious of the claims of the latter. It concerned itself essentially with the present, and with the future only as growing organically out of the present. It taught the absolute need of personal and national righteousness, and foretold the ultimate<b> blessedness of the righteous nation on the present earth. But its views were not systematic and comprehensive in regard to the nations in general, while as regards the individual it held that God's service here was its own and adequate reward, and saw no need of postulating another world to set right the evils of this. But later, with the growing claims of the individual and the acknowledgment of these in the religious and intellectual life, both problems, and especially the latter, pressed themselves irresistibly on the notice of religious thinkers, and made it impossible for any conception of the divine rule and righteousness to gain acceptance, which did not render adequate satisfaction to the claims of both problems. To render such satisfaction was the task undertaken by apocalyptic, as well as to vindicate the righteousness of God alike in respect of the individual and of the nation. To justify their contention they sketched in outline the history of the world and mankind, the origin of evil and its course, and the final consummation of all things. Thus they presented in fact a theodicy, a rudimentary philosophy of religion. The righteous as a nation should yet possess the earth, even in this world the faithful community should attain its rights in an eternal Messianic kingdom on earth, or else in temporary blessedness here and eternal blessedness hereafter. So far as regards the righteous community. It was, however, in regard to the destiny of the individual that apocalyptic rendered its chief service. Though the individual might perish amid the disorders of this world, he would not fail, apocalyptic taught, to attain through resurrection the recompense that was his due in the Messianic kingdom or in heaven itself. Apocalyptic thus forms the indispensable preparation for the religion of the New Testament. Entry: I
The whole universe, however, was incomplete, and did not receive its finishing stroke till man was formed, who is the acme of the creation and the microcosm. "The heavenly Adam (i.e. the ten Sephiroth) who emanated from the highest primordial obscurity (i.e. the En Soph) created the earthly Adam" (_Zohar_, ii. 70). "Man is both the import and the highest degree of creation, for which reason he was formed on the sixth day. As soon as man was created everything was complete, including the upper and nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He unites in himself all forms" (_Zohar_, iii. 48). Each member of his body corresponds to a part of the visible universe. "Just as we see in the firmament above, covering all things, different signs which are formed of the stars and the planets, and which contain secret things and profound mysteries studied by those who are wise and expert in these things; so there are in the skin, which is the cover of the body of the son of man, and which is like the sky that covers all things above, signs and features which are the stars and planets of the skin, indicating secret things and profound mysteries whereby the wise are attracted who understand the reading of the mysteries in the human face" (_Zohar_, ii. 76). The human form is shaped after the four letters which constitute the Jewish Tetragrammaton (q.v.; see also JEHOVAH). The head is in the shape of [Hebrew: iod], the arms and the shoulders are like [Hebrew: hei], the breast like [Hebrew: vav], and the two legs with the back again resemble [Hebrew: hei] (_Zohar_, ii. 72). The souls of the whole human race pre-exist in the World of Emanations, and are all destined to inhabit human bodies. Like the Sephiroth from which it emanates, every soul has ten potencies, consisting of a trinity of triads. (1) The Spirit (_neshamah_), which is the highest degree of being, corresponds to and is operated upon by the Crown, which is the highest triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Intellectual World; (2) the Soul (_ruah_), which is the seat of the moral qualities, corresponds to and is operated upon by Beauty, which is the second triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Moral World; and (3) the Cruder Soul (_nephesh_), which is immediately connected with the body, and is the cause of its lower instincts and the animal life, corresponds to and is operated upon by Foundation, the third triad in the Sephiroth, called the Material World. Each soul prior to its entering into this world consists of male and female united into one being. When it descends on this earth the two parts are separated and animate two different bodies. "At the time of marriage the Holy One, blessed be he, who knows all souls and spirits, unites them again as they were before; and they again constitute one body and one soul, forming as it were the right and the left of the individual.... This union, however, is influenced by the deeds of the man and by the ways in which he walks. If the man is pure and his conduct is pleasing in the sight of God, he is united with that female part of the soul which was his component part prior to his birth" (_Zohar_, i. 91). The soul's destiny upon earth is to develop those perfections the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, and it ultimately must return to the infinite source from which it emanated. Hence, if, after assuming a body and sojourning upon earth, it becomes polluted by sin and fails to acquire the experience for which it descends from heaven, it must three times reinhabit a body, till it is able to ascend in a purified state through repeated trials. If, after its third residence in a human body, it is still too weak to withstand the contamination of sin, it is united with another soul, in order that by their combined efforts it may resist the pollution which by itself it was unable to conquer. When the whole pleroma of pre-existent souls in the world of the Sephiroth shall have descended and occupied human bodies and have passed their period of probation and have returned purified to the bosom of the infinite Source, then the soul of Messiah will descend from the region of souls; then the great Jubilee will commence. There shall be no more sin, no more temptation, no more suffering. Universal restoration will take place. Satan himself, "the venomous Beast," will be restored to his angelic nature. Life will be an everlasting feast, a Sabbath without end. All souls will be united with the Highest Soul, and will supplement each other in the Holy of Holies of the Seven Halls (_Zohar_, i. 45, 168; ii. 97). Entry: KABBALAH
FABER, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1814-1863), British hymn writer and theologian, was born on the 28th of June 1814 at Calverley, Yorkshire, of which place his grandfather, Thomas Faber, was vicar. He attended the grammar school of Bishop Auckland for a short time, but a large portion of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards went to Harrow and to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1835 he obtained a scholarship at University College; and in 1836 he gained the Newdigate prize for a poem on "The Knights of St John," which elicited special praise from Keble. Among his college friends were Dean Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st earl of Selborne. In January 1837 he was elected fellow of University College. Meanwhile he had given up the Calvinistic views of his youth, and had become an enthusiastic follower of John Henry Newman. In 1841 a travelling tutorship took him to the continent; and on his return a book appeared called _Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among Foreign Peoples_ (London, 1842), with a dedication to his friend the poet Wordsworth. He accepted the rectory of Elton in Huntingdonshire, but soon after went again to the continent, in order to study the methods of the Roman Catholic Church; and after a prolonged mental struggle he joined the Roman Catholic communion in November 1845. He founded a religious community at Birmingham, called Wilfridians, which was ultimately merged in the oratory of St Philip Neri, with John Henry Newman as Superior. In 1849 a branch of the oratory--subsequently independent--was established in London, first in King William Street, and afterwards at Brompton, over which Faber presided till his death on the 26th of September 1863. In spite of his weak health, an almost incredible amount of work was crowded into those years. He published a number of theological works, and edited the _Oratorian Lives of the Saints_. He was an eloquent preacher, and a man of great charm of character. It is mainly as a hymn-writer, however, that Faber is remembered. Among his best-known hymns are:--"The Greatness of God," "The Will of God," "The Eternal Father," "The God of my Childhood," "Jesus is God," "The Pilgrims of the Night," "The Land beyond the Sea," "Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go," "I was wandering and weary," and "The Shadow of the Rock." The hymns are largely used in Protestant collections. In addition to many pamphlets and translations, Faber published the following works: _All for Jesus_; _The Precious Blood_; _Bethlehem_; _The Blessed Sacrament_; _The Creator and the Creature_; _Growth of Holiness; Spiritual Conferences_; _The Foot of the Cross_ (8 vols., London, 1853-1860). Entry: FABER
To the Epicureans the elaborate logic of the Stoics was a superfluity. In place of logic we find canonic, the theory of the three tests of truth and reality. (1) The only ultimate canon of reality is sensation; whatever we feel, whatever we perceive by any sense, that we know on the most certain evidence we can have to be real, and in proportion as our feeling is clear, distinct and vivid, in that proportion are we sure of the reality of its object. But in what that vividness ([Greek: enargeia]) consists is a question which Epicurus does not raise, and which he would no doubt have deemed superfluous quibbling over a matter sufficiently settled by common sense. (2) Besides our sensations, we learn truth and reality by our preconceptions or ideas ([Greek: prolêpseis]). These are the fainter images produced by repeated sensations, the "ideas" resulting from previous "impressions"--sensations at second-hand as it were, which are stored up in memory, and which a general name serves to recall. These bear witness to reality, not because we feel anything now, but because we felt it once; they are sensations registered in language, and again, if need be, translatable into immediate sensations or groups of sensation. (3) Lastly, reality is vouched for by the imaginative apprehensions of the mind ([Greek: phantastikai epibolai]), immediate feelings of which the mind is conscious as produced by some action of its own. This last canon, however, was of dubious validity. Epicureanism generally was content to affirm that whatever we effectively feel in consciousness is real; in which sense they allow reality to the fancies of the insane, the dreams of a sleeper, and those feelings by which we imagine the existence of beings of perfect blessedness and endless life. Similarly, just because fear, hope and remembrance add to the intensity of consciousness, the Epicurean can hold that bodily pain and pleasure is a less durable and important thing than pain and pleasure of mind. Whatever we feel to affect us does affect us, and is therefore real. Error can arise only because we mix up our opinions and suppositions with what we actually feel. The Epicurean canon is a rejection of logic; it sticks fast to the one point that "sensation is sensation," and there is no more to be made of it. Sensation, it says, is unreasoning ([Greek: alogos]); it must be accepted, and not criticized. Reasoning can come in only to put sensations together, and to point out how they severally contribute to human welfare; it does not make them, and cannot alter them. Entry: EPICURUS
But to understand fully Malebranche's view of freedom and the ethical system connected with it, we must notice an important alteration which he makes in the Cartesian theory of the relation of will and intelligence. To Descartes, as we have seen, the ultimate essence of mind lay in pure abstract self-determination or will, and hence he based even moral and intellectual truth on the arbitrary decrees of God. With Malebranche, on the other hand, abstraction goes a step further; and the absolute is sought not in the subject as opposed to the object, not in pure formal self-determination as opposed to that which is determined, but in a unity that transcends this difference. With him, therefore, will ceases to be regarded as the essence of intelligence, and sinks into a property or separable attribute of it. As we can conceive an extended substance without actual movement, so, he says, we can conceive a thinking substance without actual volition. But "matter or extension without motion would be entirely useless and incapable of that variety of forms for which it is made; and we cannot, therefore, suppose, that an all-wise Being would create it in this way. In like manner, if a spiritual or thinking substance were without will, it is clear that it would be quite useless, for it would not be attracted towards the objects of its perception, and would not love the good for which it is made. We cannot therefore conceive an intelligent being so to fashion it."[24] Now God need not be conceived as creating at all, for he is self-sufficient; but if he be a creator of spirits, he must create them for himself. "God cannot will that there should exist a spirit that does not love him, or that loves him less than any other good."[25] The craving for good in general, for an absolute satisfaction, is a _natural_ love of God that is common to all. "The just, the wicked, the blessed, and the damned all alike love God with this love." Out of this love of God arises the love we have to ourselves and to others, which are the _natural inclinations_ that belong to all created spirits. For these inclinations are but the elements of the love which is in God, and which therefore he inspires in all his creatures. "Il s'aime, il nous aime, il aime toutes ses créatures; il ne fait donc point d'esprits qu'il ne les porte à l'aimer, à s'aimer, et à aimer toutes les créatures."[26] Stripping this thought of its theological vesture, what is expressed here is simply that as a spiritual being each man is conscious of his own limited and individual existence, as well as of the limited and individual existence of other beings like himself, only in relation to the whole in which they are parts, so he can find his own good only in the good of the whole, and he is in contradiction with himself so long as he rests in any good short of that. His love of happiness, his natural inclinations both selfish and social, may be therefore regarded as an undeveloped form of the love of God; and the ideal state of his inclinations is that in which the love of self and of others are explicitly referred to that higher affection, or in which his love does not proceed from a part to the whole, but from the whole to the parts. Entry: CARTESIANISM