forbidden to the many, scarcely allowed to the few,50 where such deep questions as the origin of
our world and its connection with God were discussed. It was, perhaps, only a beautiful poetic
figure that God had taken of the dust under the throne of His glory, and cast it upon the waters,
which thus became earth.51 But so far did isolated teachers become intoxicated52 by the new
wine of these strange speculations, that they whispered it to one another that water was the
original element of the world,53 which had successively been hardened into snow and then into
earth.54 55 Other and later teachers fixed upon the air or the fire as the original element, arguing
the pre-existence of matter from the use of the word `made' in Gen. i. 7. instead of `created.'
Some modified this view, and suggested that God had originally created the three elements of
water, air or spirit, and fire, from which all else was developed.56 Traces also occur of the
doctrine of the pre-existence of things, in a sense similar to that of Plato.57
44. With singular and characteristic inconsistency, Philo, however, ascribes also to God the creation of
matter (de Somn. i. 13).
45. As for example Ecclus. iii. 21-24.
46. So the Talmudists certainly understood it, Jer. Chag. ii. 1.
47. Comp. Grimm, Exeg. Handb. zu d. Apokr., Lief. vi. pp. 55, 56.
48. They were arranged into those concerning the Maasey Bereshith (Creation), and the Maasey
Merkabbah, `the chariot' of Ezekiel's vision (Providence in the widest sense, or God's manifestation in
the created world).
49. Of the four celebrities who entered the `Pardes,' or enclosed Paradise of theosophic speculation,
one became an apostate, another died, a third went wrong (Ben Soma), and only Akiba escaped
unscathed, according to the Scripture saying, `Draw me, and we will run' (Chag. 14 b).
50. `It is not lawful to enter upon the Maasey Bereshith in presence of two, nor upon the Merkabhah in
presence of one, unless he be a "sage," and understands of his own knowledge. Any one who
ratiocinates on these four things, it were better for him that he had not been born: What is above and
what is below; what was afore, and what shall be hereafter.' (Chag. ii. 1).
51. Shem. R. 13.
52. `Ben Soma went astray (mentally): he shook the (Jewish) world.'
53. That criticism, which one would designate as impertinent, which would find this view in 2 Peter iii. 5,
is, alas! not confined to Jewish writers, but hazarded even by De Wette.
54. Jer. Chag. 77 a.
55. Judah bar Pazi, in the second century. Ben Soma lived in the first century of our era.
56. According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Ber. i. I) the firmament was at first soft, and only gradually
became hard. According to Ber. R. 10, God created the world from a mixture of fire and snow, other
Rabbis suggesting four original elements, according to the quarters of the globe, or else six, adding to
them that which is above and that which is below. A very curious idea is that of R. Joshua ben Levi,
accordin g to which all the works of creation were really finished on the first day, and only, as it were,
extended on the other days. This also represents really a doubt of the Biblical account of creation.
Strange though it may sound, the doctrine of development was derived from the words (Gen. ii. 4).