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594 Batalyusi Bath-sheba

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

" Tlie Intellectual Circles " are treated of in seven chapters. The leading idea of the first four is this

The world with all its beings forms a circle of which God is the point of departure and that of conclusion. In descending from God, one finds beings in the following order: the nine intellects that govern the nine spheres the active intellect, which created the sublunary world the soul form and " The In.- matter. By means of form, matter tellectual became animated, and after having Circles." given birth to the four elements and to minerals, it served for the production







of plants, animals, and, finally, man. The latter by means of his intelligence, which is his distinctive attribute, ascends the series of beings, and returns

594

Bishop Warburton on his "Divine Legation of Moses, " and with Kennicott on the varim lectiones of the Hebrew text that the latter had published. Among the works of Bate that call for mention are: "Critica Hebraa, or a Hebrew and English Dictionary Without Points"; "Translation of the Pentateuch, and of the Historical Books to the End of the Second of Kings, from the Hebrew," 1773. Bibliography

Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, iii. 52 Spearman, Life of Hutchinson; Dictionary of National Biography, iii. 394.



E. Ms.

T.

BATH



City, borough,

and capital of the county

England. Though as old man times —in which it was known as " Aqua? of Somersetshire,

—Jews

do not appear

as RoSolis,

to

from

ther,

It is not menresided there until quite recently. tioned in the twelfth century and the French Jew who recommends a lad to go to England warns him against Bath as " clearly at the very gates of

God. Consequently the universe is a circle. Furman, who is the last of the series of the creations made by the active intellect, becomes himself, after his death, an active intellect in ascending the series of creations.

The mind of man moves in a circle. It takes the following course: man, animals, plants, minerals, elements, matter, form, soul, and active intellect, from the last-named of which man comes and whither he returns after his death. Consequently, the sphere composed by the mind of man is a circle. In the natural order of things, man, as the noblest being of all sublunary creations, must have been created before all other beings but he was nevertheless the last, in order that he might investigate and comprehend all that came before Gradation him. The partial intellect of man is of able to understand the universal intelCreation. lect. Man partakes both of the intellectual and the material world. It is on account of this fact that he is called " microcosmus," and that his mind surveys both the intelligible world and the material. The series of numbers also forms a circle. It starts from unity, unfolds itself, and returns to its point of departure through ten. which is again a unity. God is the unity par excellence. As the numerical unity produces all numbers, so God produces the world. The fifth chapter deals with God's attributes. The author develops there the theory of the negative attributes, a theory he certainly borrowed from

Maimonides.

The sixth chapter treats of the omniscience of God, and refutes the arguments of the philosophers that limit God's knowledge to generalities alone. In the seventh chapter the author expounds eight proofs of the immortality of the soul. The greater part of this proof has been drawn from Bahya's "Ma'ani al-Nafs " (Reflections on the Soul). Bibliography Kaufmans, Die Spuren des Bataijusi in Acr

Jildischen Philosophic 1880; Steinschneider, Hehr. Uebcrs. § 156 H. Derenbourg, in Rev. Et, Juives, vil. 274-279. K. I. Br.

BATANA.EO. See Bashan. BATE, JULIUS English Biblical

and Hebraic Arundel Jan. 20,

scholar; born about 1711; died at 1771. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he received his master's degree in 1740. He took unusual interest in Old. Testament studies,

and entered with zest into controversy with

its

hot springs

to

have



Hell" (Richard of Devizes, "Chronicon," ed. Howlett, p. 436). In the thirteenth century there was no archa at Bath, and therefore no Jews could live there (see Arciia). The present congregation was founded about 150 years ago, but has always been overshadowed by the more flourishing congregations of the neighboring city of Bristol. The synagogue is in Corn street. Bibliography; Jewish Year Book,

1901, p. 104.

J.

BATH.

See Measures.

BATH-RABBIM



A term

found only once

in

the Bible (Cant. vii. 4), apparently as the name of a gate at or near Heshbon. The passage is obscure but of the various emendations that have been proposed by Gratz," Schir ha-Schirim " ("Rabbath Amnion"); by Winckler, " Altorientalische Forschungen," i. 293 et seq. ("Helbon"), and by Cheyne, in " Jew. Quart. Rev. " 1899 (" wood of Beth Cerem ")

—

—none J.

is

entirely satisfactory.

jb.

G. B. L.

BATH-SHEBA.— Biblical Data ter of

Eliam

(II

Sam.

xi.

3



The daughbut of Ammiel according

iii. 5), who became the wife of Uriah the and afterward of David, by whom she became the mother of Solomon. Her father is identified by some scholars with Eliam mentioned in II Sam. xxiii. 34 as the son of Ahithophel. The real meaning of the Hebrew form of the name "Bath-

to I Chron. Hittite,

sheba " is not clear. appears in I Chron. xxxviii.

The second iii.

5 as

part of the name "shua" (compare Gen.

2).

The

story of David's seduction of Bath-sheba, told in II Sam. xi. et seq., is omitted in Chronicles. The king, while walking on the roof of his house, saw Bath-sheba, who was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and immediately fell in love with her. Hearing that her husband was with the army, David temporarily

abducted her but fearing the consequence of his act, he summoned Uriah from the camp as the bearer of a message. He hoped to hide the consequence of his own complicity in Bath-sheba's condition, and dismissed Uriah to his wife with a portion from the royal table. But Uriah, being probably unwilling to violate the ancient Israelitish rule applying to