mon,
whom they identified with the "great power of God."[6] For nearly two
centuries, the speculative minds of Judaism had yielded to the
tendency to personify the divine attributes, and certain expressions
which were connected with the Divinity. Thus, the "breath of God,"
which is often referred to in the Old Testament, is considered as a
separate being, the "Holy Spirit." In the same manner the "Wisdom of
God" and the "Word of God" became distinct personages. This was the
germ of the process which has engendered the _Sephiroth_ of the
Cabbala, the _AEons_ of Gnosticism, the hypostasis of Christianity, and
all that dry mythology, consisting of personified abstractions, to
which Monotheism is obliged to resort when it wishes to pluralize the
Deity.

[Footnote 1: See especially John xiv., and following. But it is
doubtful whether we have here the authentic teaching of Jesus.]

[Footnote 2: Philo, cited in Eusebius, _Praep. Evang._, vii. 13.]

[Footnote 3: Philo, _De migr. Abraham_, Sec. 1; _Quod Deus immut._, Sec. 6;
_De confus. ling._, Sec. 9, 14 and 28; De profugis, Sec. 20; _De Somniis_,
i. Sec. 37; _De Agric. Noe_, Sec. 12; _Quis rerum divin. haeres_, Sec. 25, and
following, 48, and following, &c.]

[Footnote 4: [Greek: Metathronos], that is, sharing the throne of God;
a kind of divine secretary, keeping the register of merits and
demerits; _Bereshith Rabba_, v. 6 _c_; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedr._, 38
_b_; _Chagigah_, 15 _a_; Targum of Jonathan, _Gen._, v. 24.]

[Footnote 5: This theory of the [Greek: Logos] contains no Greek
elements. The comparisons which have been made between it and the
_Honover_ of the Parsees are also without foundation. The _Minokhired_
or "Divine Intelligence," has much analogy with the Jewish [Greek:
Logos]. (See the fragments of the book entitled _Minokhired_ in
Spiegel, _Parsi-Grammatik_, pp. 161, 162.) But the development which
the doctrine of the _Minokhired_ has taken among the Parsees is
modern, and may imply a foreign influence. The "Divine Intelligence"
(_Maiyu-Khratu_) appears in the Zend books; but it does not there
serve as basis to a theory; it only enters into some invocations. The
comparisons which have been attempted between the Alexandrian theory
of the Word and certain points of Egyptian theology may not be
entirely without value. But nothing indicates that, in the centuries
which preceded the Christian era, Palestinian Judaism had borrowed
anything from Egypt.]

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