The like we must say of Ezekiel's res gesta-his eating a roll given him of God'. And in chap. iv. it is especially remarkable how ceremoniously all things are related concerning his taking a tile, and pourtraying upon it the city of Jerusalem, and his laying siege to it; all which, I suppose, will be evident to have been merely dramatical, if we carefully examine all things in it, notwithstanding that God tells him he should in all this be a "sign to the people." Which is not so to be understood, as if they were to observe, in such real actions, in a sensible way, what their own fates should be: for he is here commanded to lie continually before a tile three hundred and ninety days-which is full thirteen months— upon his left side, and after that, forty more upon his right, and to bake his bread that he should eat all this while with dung, &c. So he is commanded to take a barber's razor, and to shave his head and beard, then to weigh his hair in a pair of scales, and divide it into three parts; and after the days of his siege should be fulfilled, spoken of before, then to burn a third part of it in the midst of the city, and to smite about the other third with a knife, and to scatter the other third to the wind3. All which, as it is most unlikely in itself ever to have been really done, so was it against the law of the priests, to shave the corners of their heads and the corners of their beards, as Maimonides observes. But that Ezekiel himself was a priest, is manifest. Upon these passages of Ezekiel, Maimonides hath thus soberly given his judgment: 'Far be it from God to render His prophets like to fools and drunken men, and to prescribe them the actions of fools and madmen: besides that this last injunction would have been inconsistent with the law; for Ezekiel was a great priest, and 1 Ezek. iii. 2 Ezek. iv. 3 Ezek. v. 4 Ezek. i. 3. therefore obliged to the observation of those two negative precepts, viz. of not shaving the corners of his head, and corners of his beard: and, therefore, this was done only in a prophetical vision'.' The same sentence likewise he passeth upon that story of Isaiah-his walking naked and barefoot-wherein Isaiah was no otherwise a sign to Egypt and Ethiopia, or rather Arabia, where he dwelt not, and so could not more literally be a type therein, than Ezekiel was here to the Jews3. Again: we read of Ezekiel's removing his household stuff in the night, as a type of the captivity, and of his digging with his hands through the wall of his house, and of the people's coming to take notice of this strange action, with many other uncouth ceremonies of the whole business which carry no show of probability: and yet God declares upon this to him, "I have set thee for a sign to the house of Israel';" and, "Son of man, hath not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said unto thee, What doest thou?" As if all this had been really done; which, indeed, seems to be nothing else but a prophetical scheme. Neither was the prophet any real sign, but only imaginary, as having the type of all those fates which were to befall the Jews symbolically represented in his fancy which sense Kimchi, a genuine commentator, follows, with the others mentioned. And, it may be, according to this same notion is that in chap. xxiv. to be ויחף זה היה במראה הנבואה כי למה חלילה לשם מתת נביאיו דומים 1 לשוטים ולשכורים ויצום לעשות מעשה ילך הנביא ערום בעבור כוש ומצרים: השוטים ויצום לעשות מעשה השגעון מחובר אל המצוה במרי שהוא היה כהן 'So too of Isaiah the prophet. Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot this was in a prophetic גדול וחייב שני לאוין על כל פאת זקן ופאת ראש ואמנם היה זה כלו במראה vision; for why should the prophet go naked on account of Ethiopia and Egypt?' Aben Ezra, Comment. in Hosea, understood, of the death of the prophet's wife, with the manner of those funeral solemnities and obsequies which he performed for her. But we shall proceed no further in this argument, which I hope is, by this time, sufficiently cleared, that we are not, in any prophetical narratives of this kind, to understand any thing else but the history of the visions themselves which appeared to them, except we be led, by some farther argument of the reality of the thing, in a way of sensible appearance, to determine it to have been any sensible thing. CHAPTER VII. Of that degree of divine inspiration properly called Ruach hakkodesh, i.e. The Holy Spirit. The nature of it described out of Jewish antiquities. Wherein this Spiritus Sanctus differed from prophecy, strictly so called, and from the spirit of holiness in purified souls. What books of the Old Testament were ascribed by the Jews to Ruach hakkodesh. Of the Urim and Thummim. THUS we have done with that part of divine inspiration, which was more technically and properly by the Jews called prophecy. We shall now a little search into that which is Hagiographical, or, as they call it, the dictate of the Holy Spirit; in which the Book of Psalms, Job, the works of Solomon and others, are comprised. This we find very appositely thus defined by Maimonides: 'When a man perceives some power to arise within him, and rest upon him, which urgeth him to speak, so that he discourse concerning the sciences or arts, and utter psalms or hymns, or profitable and wholesome rules of good living, or matters political and civil, or such as are divine; and that, whilst he is waking, and hath the ordinary vigour and use of his senses; this is such an one of whom it is said, that he speaks by the Holy Spirit'.' In this definition we may seem to have the strain of the Book of Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, fully deciphered to us. In like manner, we find this degree of inspiration described by R. Albo, after he had set down the other degrees superior to it: 'Now to explain to you what is that other door of divine influx, through which none can enter by his own natural ability; it is when a man utters words of wisdom, or song, or divine praise, in pure and elegant language, besides his wont: so that every one that knows him, admires him for this excellent knowledge and composure of words; but yet he himself knows not from whence this faculty came to him, but is as a child that learns a tongue, and knows not from whence he had this faculty. Now the excellence of this degree of divine inspiration is well known to all, for it is the same with that which is called the Holy Spirit.' Or, if you please, we shall render these definitions of our former Jewish doctors in the words of Proclus, who hath very happily set forth the nature of this piece of divine inspiration, according to their mind, in these words3: 'This degree or R. Albo, Lib. III. cap. 10. The following is the definition as given by the author of Cosri. ימצא האדם כאלו עניין אחד חל : עליו וכח. אחד התחדש וישימהו לדבר וידבר בחכמות או בתושבחות או בדברי הזהרה מועילים או בעניינים וכבר יצליח הכח הדברי בקצת הנהגיים או אלהיים וזה כלו בעת האנשים מההתדבקו בשכל הכללי במה היקיצה והשתמש החושים על מנהגיהם שירוממהו מהשתמש בהקשה והעיון וזהו אשר יאמר עליו שהוא מדבר ויסור מעליו הטורח בלמוד בנבואה ותקרא סגולתו זאת קדושה ותקרא -In some men the ra רוח הקדש: tional faculty is so advanced by reason More Nevoch. Pars II. ברוח הקודש : cap. 45. יפתח לאיש מה שער אחר שלא 2 ישער בו האדם מצד טבעו וידבר בדברי חכמה או בדברי שיר ושבח need of the subserviency of reflection or להשם בלשון צח ומהיר שלא היה כדרכו speculation, and are released from all toil לדבר או לידע זה ויתמה כל השומע מענייני ידיעתו וסדור דבריו אותו והוא עצמו לא ידע מהיכן בא לו הכח ההוא כמו שהנער ילמוד הדבור ולא ידע מהיכן יבא לו הכח ההוא ואמנם כבר יתפרס ויוכר לכל יתרון מדרגתו כזה והמדרגה הזאת תקרא רוח הקודש: and labour, as in the prophetic discipline. 3 'Ο δὲ χαρακτὴρ τῶν λόγων ἐστὶν ἐν· enthusiastical character, shining so bright with the intellectual influences, is pure and venerable, receiving its perfection from the father of the gods, being distinct from human conceptions, and far transcending them, always conjoined with delightfulness and amazement, full of beauty and comeliness, concise, yet withal exceeding accurate.' This kind of divine inspiration, therefore, was always more pacate and serene than the other of prophecy, neither did it so much fatigate and act upon the imagination. For though these Hagiographi, or holy writers, ordinarily expressed themselves in parables and similitudes, which is the proper work of fancy; yet they seem only to have made use of such a dress of language to set off their own sense of divine things, which in itself was more naked and simple, the more advantageously, as we see commonly in all other kind of writings. And seeing there was no labour of the imagination in this way of revelation, therefore it was not communicated to them by any dreams or visions, but while they were waking, and their senses were in their full vigour, their minds calm; it breathing upon them, s év yaλývn, as Plotinus describes his pious enthusiast'; Αρπασθεὶς ἢ ἐνθουσιάσας ἡσυχῆ ἐν ἐρήμῳ καταστάσει γεγένηται ἀτρεμεῖ τῇ αὐτοῦ οὐσίᾳ, ovdaμοû áτokλívæv. For, indeed, this enthusiastical spirit seated itself principally in the higher and purer faculties of the soul, which were ὥσπερ ἀνταύγεια πρὸς αὐγήν—that I may allude to the ancient opinion of Empedocles, who held there were two suns, the one archetypal, which was always in the inconspicable hemisphere of the world, but the beams thereof shining upon this world's sun, were reflected to us, and so further enlightened us2. θουσιαστικός, διαλάμπων ταῖς νοεραῖς ἐπιβολαῖς, καθαρός τε καὶ σεμνός, ὡς ἀπὸ πατρὸς τελειούμενος τῶν θεῶν, ἐξηλλαγμένος τε καὶ ὑπερέχων τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἐννοιῶν, ἁβρός τε ὁμοῦ καὶ καταπληκτικὸς, καὶ χαρί Procl. των ἀνάμεστος, κάλλους τε πλήρης, καὶ 1 Plotin. Enn. VI. 9, 11. 2 Εμπεδοκλῆς δύο Ηλίους, τὸν μὲν |