The Religion of Nature Delineated William Wollaston (my reading book .TXT) 📖

which there was nothing, nor will there be any after or later than it; and that he is a single being who fills all eternity as if it were a single moment.” (Plutarch.) השם יתעלה אין יחם בינו ובין הזמן וכו׳: “That name (Jehovah) shall be exalted; there is no proportion betwixt it and the present time.” (Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed I, 52.) אינו מצוי בזמן: “He (God) does not exist in time.” (Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed.) Joseph Albo has a whole chapter to show שה״י אינו נופל תחת הזמן: “that he, whose name is blessed, cannot be compared (as to his duration) with the time that now is.” But then he owns that their Rabbis do not mean הזמן בשלוח, “time in general,” or זמן סתם, “mere duration,” or that בלתי נספר ומשוער והוא המשך שהיה קודם מציאות הגלגל וכו׳: “time which cannot be reckoned, and which is duration itself, and was before the world was;” but הזמן המשוער בתנועת הגלגל נקרא סדר זמניס לא זמן בשלוח וכו׳, “that time which is reckoned by the motion of the world, and is called the order or succession of time, and not absolute time.” (Sefer ha-Ikkarim, II, 18.) In short, they reckon (to use Gedalyah ben Solomon Lipschütz’s words in Ez Shatul) שזמן האמתי הוא נברא והמשך אינו קרוי זמן: “that time, properly so called, is created, and that duration is not called time.” And so, what they say does not include all the present difficulty; “time,” in their use of the word, being confined to the duration of this world, which according to them is new. Yet see Sefer ha-Ikkarim II, 19. הש״י א״א שיאמר עליו שיש לו יותר זמן היום ממה שהיה לו בימי דויד וממה שהיה לו כשברא העולם: “Blessed be that name (Jehovah), it is not possible to affirm, concerning him, that he is older today than he was in the days of David, or than he was when he first created this world.” (Joseph Albo, Sefer ha-Ikkarim II, 19.) ↩

Οἶδα μὲν πολλὰ οὐκ ἐπίσταμενος δὲ αὐτῶν τὸν τρόπον⁠ ⁠… ὅτι ἄναρχός ἔστιν [ὁ Θεὸς], καὶ ἀγέννητος, καὶ ἀἴδιος, οἶδα· τὸ δὲ πῶς οὐκ οἶδα: “There are a great many things that I understand, without knowing the particular manner how they are so.⁠ ⁠… I know that God is without beginning and unbegotten, but I know not the manner how he is so.” So Chrysostom, De Incomprehensibili Dei Natura. ↩

Simonides had good reason still to double upon Hiero the number of days allowed for answering that question, Quid, aut quale sit Deus? “What or what sort of a being is God?” (in Cicero, De Natura Deorum.) ↩

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum: “Nor is there any being in the world like or anything near to him.” (Horace, Odes.) ↩

In The Guide for the Perplexed (I, 57) Maimonides, having proved that there must be some Being who exists necessarily, or whose existence is necessary בבחינת עצמז “if we examine into his nature,” proceeds from this necessity of existence to derive incorporeity, absolute simplicity, perfection, and particularly unity, המחוייב המציאות אי אפשר בו השניות כלל לא דומה ולא הפך וכו: “It is impossible that the number two can be applied to that which exists necessarily; there is nothing that can be compared to it, nor no reverse of it.” ↩

Therefore, by Plato He is called Ὀ εἷς: “the One.” ↩

Deus, si perfectus est,⁠ ⁠… ut esse debet, non potest esse nisi unus, ut in eo sint omnia: “God, if He is a perfect being,⁠ ⁠… as He must be, can be but One, that all things may be in Him.” If there could be more Gods than one, tantum singulis deerit, quantum in cæteris fuerit: “everyone would want what the other had.” (Lactantius, Divine Institutes.) ↩

As light and darkness are. Δύο γὰρ ἐξισάζοντα ἀλλήλοις κατ᾿ ἐναντίωσιν, φθαρτικὰ ἔσται πάντως τῆς ἀλλήλων συστάσεως: “For two things that are equal, and directly contrary, destroy each other entirely.” (St. Basil, Hexaemeron.) There can be no such law between them, as is said to be among the Heathen deities. Θεοῖσι δ᾿ ὡδ᾿ ἔχει νόμος. Ούδεὶς άπαντᾷν βούλεται προθυμίᾳ Τῇ τοῦ θέλοντος, κ.τ.λ.: “The law amongst the Gods is this, that when any one of them would have anything, no other God contradicts what he desires.” (Euripides, Hippolytus.) ↩

Ἀπόλωλεν ἡ ἀλήθει᾿, ἐπεὶ σὺ δυστυχεῖς: “So that, because things go ill with you, there must be an end of truth.” (Euripides, The Phoenician Women.) ↩

Ψυχὴν ἔχεις ἀυτεξούσιον᾿⁠ ⁠… οὐ γὰρ κατὰ γένεσιν ἁμαρτάνεις, οὔτε κατὰ τύχην πορνεύεις, κ.τ.λ.: “You have a soul that is absolutely free:⁠ ⁠… you were not created a sinner, nor do you commit whoredom by chance.” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses Ad Illuminandos.) ↩

Ὧν ἀυτὸς εἶ κύριος, τούτων τὰς ἀρχὰς μὴ ζητήσῃς ἑτέρωθεν: “Do not seek without you for the causes of the things which are entirely in your own power.” (St. Basil, Hexaemeron.) ↩

“Must God extinguish sun, moon, and stars, because some people worship them?” (Mishnah, Abodah zarah IV, 7.) Αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἑλομενου αἰτία, Θεὸς ἀναίτιος: “The fault lies in him who chooses to do the thing; God is not to blame.” (Maximus Tyrius, Dissertations.) ↩