Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 5.djvu/21

Rh $undefined$ angels with whom God takes counsel, and these are the same with whom God took counsel at the time of the creation of Adam) are said to burn the books containing the accusations brought by Satan and the guardian angels of the Gentiles against Israel (in accordance with Yoma 77a, read instead of  and  instead of ).Comp, also Berakot 17a  and EZ 5, 182, as well as Rimze Haftarot, I Sheb'uot, concerning the accusations of the angels against Israel.  $undefined$ Konen 37–38; Midrash Behokmah 63–66; Pesikta Hadta 48–49.The distance of the angels of destruction, as well as all other evils, from God is alluded to in very old sources; comp. Yerushalmi Ta'anit 2, 65b; Tan. B. I, 95, and III, 39–40; Tan. Tazria’ 9; Tehillim 5, 54, and 87, 374; PK 24, 161b; Gittin 88a; Hagigah 12a; BR 3.6 and 51.31; MHG I, 22–25; see also note 54; note 176 on vol. II, p. 70, and note 766 on vol. III, p. 374.In all these and similar passages (Wa-Yekullu 17b–18a and Grünhut, ad loc.) the underlying idea is that God, the original source of good, would not come in close contact with evil.This view is related to, but not identical with, the doctrine of Philo that nothing but good emanates from God.To give a philosophic turn to a popular conception is one of Philo’s chief merits.A different opinion is expressed by Freudenthal, Hellenistische Studien, I, 70.Origen, Contra Celsum, 4, 66, is evidently based upon Philo.The fallen angels are found according to 2 Enoch 18, in the second heaven, i.e., far away from the throne of God.Attention, however, is to be drawn to the fact that in rabbinic sources the angels of destruction are not identified with the fallen angels, as in the Books of Enoch, and elsewhere in pseudepigraphic literature, but are the angels whose task it is to inflict punishment upon the wicked.The statement made in PR 22, 114a, that the angels of destruction, unlike all the others (comp. Friedmann, ad loc.), have “joints”, wishes to convey the idea that they do not stand before God’s throne, and do not fulfilfullfill [sic] their duties speedily like the other angels, but move about slowly, from one place to another, like human beings who move by means of “joints”.  $undefined$ The mystic passages in the earliest rabbinic sources already discuss the idea that God created the world by the means of “letters” (comp., e.g., Yerushalmi Hagigah 2, 77c; Menahot 29b; Berakot 55a; BR 1.9; Midrash Shir 39b; PR 21, 108b, and 33, 153a; ER 31, 164; Shir 5.11; see also the passages referred to by Theodor on BR 9, line 9), and in gaonic literature this neo-Pythagorean- 