Page:A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy.djvu/215

Rh the masses became aware of God's existence and care for them. It was he who told them things unknown to them; who gave them an account of the world's creation and its history. We count now forty-five hundred years from the creation. This was handed down from Adam through Seth and Enos to Noah, to Shem and Eber, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses, and finally to us. Moses came only four hundred years after Abraham in a world which was full of knowledge of heavenly and earthly things. It is impossible that he should have given them a false account of the division of languages and the relations of nations without being found out and exposed.

The philosophers, it is true, oppose us by maintaining that the world is eternal. But the philosophers are Greeks, descended from Japheth, who did not inherit either wisdom or Torah. Divine wisdom is found only in the family of Shem. The Greeks had philosophy among them only during the short time of their power. They borrowed it from the Persians, who had it in turn from the Chaldeans. But neither before nor after did they have any philosophers among them.

Aristotle, not having any inherited tradition concerning the origin of the world, endeavored to reason it all out of his own head. Eternity was just as hard to believe in as creation. But as he had no true and reliable tradition, his arguments in favor of eternity seemed to him to be the stronger. Had he lived among a people who had reliable traditions on the other side, he would have found arguments in favor of creation, which is more plausible than eternity. Real demonstration cannot be controverted; and there is nothing in the Bible which opposes what the reason unequivocally demands. But the matter of eternity or creation is very difficult. The arguments on one side are as good as those on the other. And tradition from Adam to Noah and Moses, which is better than argument, lends its additional weight to the doctrine of creation. If the believer in the Torah were obliged to hold that there is a primitive eternal matter from which the world was made, and that there were many worlds before this one, there would be no great harm, as long as he believes that this world is of recent origin and Adam was the first man.

We see now the standpoint of Judah Halevi, for the "Haber" is of course his spokesman. Philosophy and independent reasoning on such difficult matters as God and creation are after all more or