descending at times to take part in the affairs
of men, to tarry among them, or to walk with them.(240) The people adhered
largely to this conception during the Biblical period, as they considered
as the original seat of the Deity, first Paradise, later on Sinai or Zion,
and finally the far-off heavens. It required prophetic vision to discern
that "the heavens and the heavens' heavens do not encompass God's
majesty," expressed also in poetic imagery that "the heaven is My throne
and the earth My footstool."(241) The classic form of this idea of the
divine omnipresence is found in the oft-quoted passage from Psalm
CXXXIX.(242)

3. The dwelling places of God are to give way the moment His omnipresence
is understood as penetrating the universe to such an extent that nothing
escapes His glance nor lies without His dominion.(243) They are then
transformed into places where He had manifested His Name, His Glory, or
His Presence ("Countenance," in the Hebrew). In this way certain
emanations or powers of God were formed which could be located in a
certain space without impairing the divine omnipresence. These
intermediary powers will be the theme of chapter XXXII.

The following dialogue illustrates this stage of thought: A heretic once
said sarcastically to Gamaliel II, "Ye say that where ten persons assemble
for worship, there the divine majesty (_Shekinah_) descends upon them; how
many such majesties are there?" To which Gamaliel replied: "Does not the
one orb of day send forth a million rays upon the earth? And should not
the majesty of God, which is a million times brighter than the sun, be
reflected in every spot on earth?"(244)

4. Nevertheless a conception of pure spirit is very difficult to attain,
even in regard to God. The thought of His omnipresence is usually
interpreted by imagining some ethereal substance which expands infinitely,
as Ibn Ezra and Saadia before him were inclined to do,(245) or by
picturing Him as a sort of all-encompassing Space, in accordance with the
rabbis.(246) The New Testament writers and the Church fathers likewise
spoke of God as Spirit, but really had in mind, for the most part, an
ethereal substance resembling light pervading cosmic space. The
often-expressed belief that man may see God after death rests upon this
conception of God as a substance perceptible to the mind.(247)

A higher standpoint is taken by a thinker such as Ibn Gabirol, who finds
God's omnipresence in His all-perva