Lecture SevenCXCII The two verses read as follows in the AV:
And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.
CXCIII Latin “in an undistinguished way,” “unclearly.”
CXCIV This accords with my own philosophy: the name is redefined each time it is applied, taking into account all the predicates for that object, all the predicates which we bring to a point, relating them together, in memory. (To achieve this bringing to a point or relating, we relinquish everything fixed and take a blind leap, and our faith (or is it still knowledge?—knowledge of the absence of knowledge?) that the new state or knowledge will be achieved relies on a sense of importance. This in turn is more æsthetic than anything else.)
CXCV In the AV:
But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Isræl, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.
CXCVI This too is important in my philosophy of definition. The name is generated by the need. That is the reason we don‟t know everything at once, but have a history.
CXCVII In the AV “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” The NIV has “This is the written account of Adam‟s line.”
CXCVIII The emphasis is Schelling‟s. He also omits a phrase; the AV reads: “. . . and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.” The NIV has “. . . he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.”
CXCIX Ge. 6:4. AV:
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
The NIV doesn‟t say “giants,” but “Nephilim,” with no further explanation (thus no mention of the giants):
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
According to the Encyclopædia Judaica, the Nephilim were a race of giants said to have dwelt in pre- Isrælite Canaan, and were either fallen angels or their children.
CC The AV says “put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Isræl.” Similarly the NIV. Despite a superficial difference between this and what Schelling says, the underlying meaning probably amounts to the same.
CCI The AV says “For when I shall have brought them into the land.” The NIV “When I have brought them into the land.”
CCII Here the AV has “and provoke me and break my covenant.” The NIV “rejecting me and breaking my covenant.”
CCIII As always, I am translating Schelling‟s version. The AV in fact itself uses the word “imagination”:
. . . for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.
The NIV, less imaginatively, has:
I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath.
CCIV Here the AV says “and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts.” The NIV, interestingly, says “and understands every motive behind the thoughts.” The emphasis is Schelling‟s.
CCV The AV:
O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Isræl, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee.
The NIV:
O LORD, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Isræl, keep this desire in the hearts of your people for ever, and keep their hearts loyal to you.
CCVI Johann David Michælis, 1717-91, German theologian and orientalist. He was the first to use oriental languages as the basis of a comparative study of the Old Testament; not only that, he was also, posthumously, one of Schelling‟s fathers-in-law. (Schelling married the woman in question in 1803, after dalliance with her daughter. In 1809 she died, and Schelling wrote Clara oder über den Zusammenhang der Natur mit der Geisterwelt (Clara, or concerning the relationship between Nature and the spirit-world), a fragment full of speculation about immortality. Then he remarried (definitely in 1812, as is shown by his correspondence with Cotta, although some references say 1810), and fathered three male children—all of whom, in the opinion of Platen, were as extraordinary as Schelling himself—together with three female.) There are five volumes of Commentationes listed by Michælis; I do not know which volume contains the commentary on Ge. 6:2.
CCVII Ge. 6:9. In Luther‟s German “without change” is “ohne Wandel.” The AV has “Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” The NIV has something completely different again: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”
CCVIII In the AV:
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
CCIX Schelling says Resultat, which really does mean “result” in German, but “outcome” seems to me to fit better here.
CCX My text says: “Sieht man, welche Gottheiten diese mit der vertilgenden Fluth in Verbindung bringt, so sind es durchaus spätere Gottheiten.” As the verb bringt (brings) is definitely singular, this can only mean “If one looks at which deities this account associates with the devastating Flood, then it is invariably later deities.” As seems clear from the following sentences, though, the subject is the traditions of other societies, not the Mosaic account. So I have taken the liberty of substituting jede (each one) for diese (this).
CCXI This is not the ancient town at Pamukkale in Phrygia (in the western part of present-day Turkey), but another which bore that name in Syria, on the high road from Antioch to Mesopotamia, at the town now called Manbij. Hierapolis, “the sacred city,” was an ephemeral Greek appellation; in ancient times the Syrians called the place Mabbog and Bambuki (Bambyce). Derceto was known under several other names, including “Astarte” and “Atargatis .” Lucian‟s detailed account is in his Goddess of Syria, c. 10 ff. In A. M. Harmon‟s translation, still in fourteenth-century style, the part about this hole (c. 12-13) goes:
But of that that sewede [followed the Flood], men of the Holy Cytee tellen a tale that is worthy of gret merveylle, how that in here londe opnede a huge hole and resceyvede alle the water; and whan this happed, Deucalioun leet maken awteres [altars] and leet byltden over the hole a temple halowed to Iuno. I saughe the hole, that is benethe the temple, a right lityl oon. If whilom it was gret and now is become suche as it is, I wot neer, but that I saughe is smal.
The temple had two enormous phalli, one on each side of the door; and the eunuch priests offered the worshippers services of a kind other than strictly religious. In 1068 the city was captured by the emperor Romanus Diogenes, resisting the Turks. In 1861 (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography) there were still the scattered ruins of an acropolis and two temples. But according to the modern Guide Bleu, nothing now remains of the ancient town, the temple, or the maw, save the fortifications that surrounded them.
CCXII Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller, 1768-1835, German orientalist and theologian. To an extensive erudition he added an indefatigable energy. He contributed much to the exegesis of the Old Testament. The full title of this book, published in six volumes between 1817 and 1820, reads: Das alte und neue Morgenland, oder Erlaüterr. d. heil. Schrift aus d. natürl. Beschaffenheit, den Sagen, Sitten u. Gebraüchen d. Morgenlandes mit eingeschalteter Uebersetzung von Sam. Burders morgenländ. Sitten u. Will. Ward‟s Erlaüterr. d. heil. Schrift aus d. Sitten u. Gebraüchen d. Hindus (“The Ancient and Modern East, or Interpretations of the holy Bible through the natural qualities, legends, customs and traditions of the East, with the addition of a translation of Samuel Burder‟s Oriental Customs and William Ward‟s Illustration of the Sacred Scriptures through the Customs and Traditions of the Hindus ”). This title is curious, by the way, because Samuel Burder‟s (1773 - 1837) book, published in 1802, is called “Oriental Customs: or, An Illustration of the Sacred Scriptures,” whereas William Ward‟s (1769-1823), published in Serampore in 1811, is called “Account of the writings, religion, and manners of the Hindoos, including translations from their principal works.” On the face of it, the bit about the illustration has been transposed from one work to the other.
Friedrich Leopold, Reichsgraf zu Stolberg-Stolberg, 1750-1819, was a German man of letters. The German title of the interesting work cited is Geschichte der Religion Jesu Christi, and it was published in fifteen volumes from 1806 to 1818. In early life he passionately supported free ideals, but was later converted to Catholicism, which led to a break with his friend J. H. Voss (see my note to page 69), who sharply attacked him in an essay called “How did Fritz Stolberg become an Unfree Person?” The following is the passage on page 394 to which Schelling refers:
The Chinese, like almost all societies, possess the tradition of the long life of the men of the primal time. And the same for the fall of the angel and the flood.
One of their holy books, the I Ching, says of the dragon: “he groans over his pride.” And: “Pride blinded him, when he wanted to rise into the heavens and he fell down into the bosom of the Earth.” [Punctuation sic. ]
The Brahmims have the same conception of Mahasur [Mahesasura], the chief of the evil spirits.
It is known that the Chinese have no true letters, but signs, the number of which reaches 80,000. The sign for a tower means go away, depart, a son who leaves his father. How that points, does it not, to the tower of Babel!
This looks like wishful thinking; I have examined the I Ching, and find no reference to pride either in its very compressed original statements or in the various commentaries. Nor does either of the two common characters for “tower” have the additional meanings mentioned, although “three towers” can mean “vagina.”
CCXIII Actually the first two references I looked up said that Oannes emerged “from the Persian Gulf” and “from the sea.” Compare the two rather odd references to the Euphrates later in this lecture (pages 157 and 166).
CCXIV Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, 1752-1827, German Protestant theologian, introduced the concept of “myth” into biblical research. He was the editor of the Repertorium für biblische und morgenländische litteratur (“Repertory of Biblical and Eastern Literature”), published in eighteen parts from 1777 to 1786. (This was immediately followed by a further ten volumes of the “Universal Library of Biblical Literature.”)
CCXV In this passage, and in all others where the word “tents” occurs (taken from the AV), Schelling has Hütte, “huts.” I think it is much more likely to have been tents in which they lived.
CCXVI The AV says “wives,” not “fathers”:
Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he hath charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters.
The NIV also says “wives.” In fact even Luther says “wives” (Weiber), so Schelling or his editors made a slip.
CCXVII There is an edition (Loeb) of Diodorus in twelve volumes, the last of which contains an extensive index, but these Katatharen (Schelling‟s word in German) are not listed in it, nor are they listed in a German edition edited by Dindorf, nor in a Latin edition, nor even in the very extensive indexes of the Heyne edition. (There is a Greek verb καταθαρρέω meaning “behave boldly against.”)
CCXVIII das Menschengeschlecht kann nicht an den ersten Gott gebunden bleiben, der nicht der falsche, aber doch auch nicht der schlechthin wahre—der Gott in seiner Wahrheit ist, von dem es also befreit werden muss, um zur Anbetung Gottes in seiner Wahrheit zu gelangen. This is not well expressed, and a second reading would be: “not God in his truth, that is, from whom (from God in his truth) they must therefore be liberated.” It doesn‟t fit the meaning as I read it, but may be worth noting.
CCXIX Here, and in all subsequent occurences, Schelling‟s word is Abrahamiden, which could I suppose be translated as “Abrahamites,” but in English that is not very common, and not quite the same.
CCXX For Gesenius, please refer to my note to page 109. His Geschichte der hebräischen Sprache und Schrift. Eine philologisch-historische Einleitung in die Sprachlehren und Wörterbücher der hebräischen Sprache (History of the Hebrew Language and Script. A philological-historical Introduction to the Primers and Dictionaries of this Language) was published in 1815. Actually it is page nine on which the passage about the contrast with the nations begins. I have translated part of this, and also a further passage, which does indeed appear on page eleven, but states two different points (Dorus and Ion, and coming across the Euphrates) to which Schelling refers later in his paragraph:
On the distinction between the names “Hebrew” and “Isrælite,” the following is at once apparent: a) in the writings of the Hebrews themselves this name is used principally only in contrast to other nations of different descent, for example Egyptians and Philistines, or when a non-Hebrew is given a speaking part. b) the foreign writers, Greeks and Romans, seem to know only this name and that of the “Jews,” but have no knowledge of the name “Isrælites.”
The biblical table of nations (Ge. 10:24-5, 11:14-15) traces the origin of the name [“Hebrew”] back to a progenitor called “Heber,” and “the children of Heber” (10:21), poetically “Heber” (Nu. 24:24), stands for “Hebrews,” which would accordingly be a patronymicum of “Heber.” Simply the spirit of that whole table of nations, in which everywhere the names of nations, cities, and lands are personified, is enough to lead us to take that Eber [sic] not as a historical person, but a mythical one, whose name was only derived from the name of the nation, just as was indubitably the case with Ion, Dorus, and Æolus.
How capriciously the asiatics proceeded here is shown by the example of the Arabs, who, when they repeated that genealogy, substituted, in place of “Heber,” a “hud” or “ghud,” which name they abbreviated from “yehud,” “hudd,” coll. the Jews.
What the true origin of the name might be is naturally more difficult to say, but it may probably be assumed to be established that it is in origin an appellativum. By far the most probable derivation is from “Heber” meaning “the land on the other side,” namely on the other side of the Euphrates, and accordingly “Hebrew” means “on the other side,” a name which the Canaanites very aptly gave to the immigrating horde of Abraham, or which they could already have used of them earlier.
CCXXI This looks odd, because it is not related to anything earlier in the lecture. In fact it refers to Gesenius, mentioned in the footnote (see above). It also anticipates the next sentence, which discusses the meaning of the corresponding verb. The other references to the Euphrates in this lecture are on page 152 (not relevant), on page 153 in the curious case of Oannes (refer to my note there), and in the quotation from Joshua on page 166.
CCXXII In the German this is Die Verheissungen . . . erhält, “the promises . . . achieves.” The singular verb is probably an error of transcription introduced in the original edition, and never subsequently corrected.
CCXXIII Luther‟s word, used by Schelling, is fromm. This can also mean “god-fearing,” “pious,” “meek,” “gentle.” The AV does not use any of these, but calls him “a plain man, dwelling in tents.” The NIV says “Esau became a skilful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet man, staying among the tents.”
CCXXIV Edward Gibbon, 1737-94, English historian. His History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (in six volumes, 1776-88) was controversial in its historical criticism of Christianity. Amongst a good deal else in his tenth chapter he says:
The hasty army of [Suevi ] volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, or Allmen, to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery.
Caracalla was a nickname for the emperor Aurelius Antoninus, who lived from 188 to 217 A.D., and reigned from 196 to 217. The Alemanni were named for the first time in 213, and defeated by Caracalla in that year in what is now West Germany. CCXXV Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm, 1785-1863, German philologist and folklorist. Hard upon the Fairy Tales (written in collaboration with his brother Wilhelm Karl) he wrote a German Grammar (1819- 37), in which he formulated the law that bears his name, stating the rules for correspondences between consonants in different Indo-European languages. In 1835 he published a book called German Mythology, and he wrote a good number of shorter pieces about the same subject. The brothers began work on a German dictionary in 1854, and it was completed in 1971 in thirty-three volumes. (Unlike the OED, it is now available in a paperback edition.)
CCXXVI In the original this reads “then either the Alemanni.” I cannot construe this “either,” so I have left it out. The “or” which follows the dash almost certainly relates to the “whether” near the beginning of the sentence. The “either” (entweder) could have been inserted by a transcriber who did not look far enough back when he came across the “or.”
CCXXVII Ammianus Marcellinus, born at Antioch about 330 A.D. This is from his History, written in Rome around 390 and covering the period from 353-378. Latin was not his native tongue. The passage is translated by John C. Rolfe:
Hearing therefore that Strasburg, Brumath, Saverne, Seltz, Worms, and Mayence were in the hands of the savages [the “Alammannic horde” ], who were living on their lands (for the towns themselves they avoid as if they were tombs surrounded by nets), he [Julianus Cæsar] first of all seized Brumath, but while he was still approaching it a band of Germans met him and offered battle.
This is a single-minded and frightening book.
CCXXVIII In German, besondert oder abgesondert.
CCXXIX This is rather like Newtonian (rather than contemporary) theories of gravity, which Schelling describes as having an “immaterial principle,” “metaphysical foundations,” in the 1799 Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (Initial Outline of a System of Nature-Philosophy), [I 3, 100]:
The operation of the attractive force at a distance can indeed diminuish infinitely, but never wholly disappear. Its operation extends thus to every part of matter throughout the entire universe into the infinite.
The universal operation of the attractive force, which that force exerts on every particle of matter into the infinite, is gravitation, and the action of the attractive force in a specific direction is called “weight.”
Schelling doesn‟t wholly refute this, but his own gravity is more complicated, like this from the Stuttgart Private Lectures, [I 7, 447]:
Gravity, which compels and binds everything. Gravity in Nature, the night, the dark principle, eternally fleeing before the light, but through this its flight, giving support and continued existence to the creations of light. (Were there not something wholly opposed to light and thought, something which nothing grasps, then there would be no creation at all, everything would be dissolved in pure thoughts.)
This truth, that understanding is possible only in the context of the whole, is referred to several times later in the work (particularly in the rather cantankerous footnote on page 174), and throughout lectures nine and ten.
CCXXX Now my small Latin dictionary just says “intricately” for this, and even the large Oxford Latin Dictionary only says “in a complicated or confused manner,” but I do not believe this is Schelling‟s meaning. There is a corresponding verb implico which means “infold” as well as “entangle,” and I believe the first is what he is getting at. Compare my note at the end of page 17, about Schelling‟s term Einwicklung, “enfoldment.” (It is just possible that the German tradition interprets Latin in a way different from that in which the English does.)
CCXXXI Again (compare the note to page 147 above), this philosophy of receptivity and need may explain why we do not know everything at once, and why history advances at the slow and even boring rate it does. It might also give us some information about the future.
CCXXXII Schelling says “gods,” but the AV says “when God caused me to wander from my father‟s house.” The NIV translators had the same impression: “And when God had me wander from my father‟s household.” This is an important difference, but there is something in Schelling‟s suggestion about the idolatry gaining popularity which uncharacteristically does not ring true. (Of course he makes allowance for this sort of thing in his first parenthesis on page 252.)
CCXXXIII A plural of magnitude, which designates a single but large thing. Gottlob Christian Storr, 1746- 1805, was a German Protestant theologian; an advocate of a biblical-apologetic supernaturalism, according to Meyer‟s Lexikon. When Schelling began his specialized theological studies in 1792, he attended Storr‟s lectures. The Observationes ad analogiam et syntaxin hebraicam pertinentes (Observations on Hebrew Grammar and Syntax) were published in 1779. draco sed grandis means “a serpent and what is more a large one”; altitudo, sed grandis means “high, but large.”
CCXXXIV Was stupefied, was thunderstruck.
CCXXXV Knowledge requires or means naming of distinctions . This is very clearly stated here, and implied (through its use) in many other parts of this work. I see these distinctions as new ones, new definitions.
CCXXXVI sic.
CCXXXVII Because of the ambiguity of the reference of the relative pronoun, there is another possible reading: “. . . the ground must remain for the manifestation of the first god, in which ground alone . . .”
CCXXXVIII Somewhat obscure, this passage in German reads: “die Zeit, in der sie sich findet, so wie sie sich findet, die ihr nicht geworden . . . ist.” Perhaps it could be put “the time in which they exist in the way that (or as) they exist, the time which did not come to be for them.” A third reading would be “the time in which they exist in the way that those exist who did not come to be for them.” But my interpretation would seem to be borne out by a slightly different version on page 182. For a further remark about olam see page 235.
CCXXXIX Luther‟s German is die das älteste Volk gewesen sind. The AV says simply “it is an ancient nation”; the italized is indicates a word which was not in the original Greek. The NIV says “an ancient and enduring nation,” without a verb.
CCXL Ge. 6:4. See my note to page 149.
CCXLI The AV says “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time.” The NIV puts it “Long ago your forefathers . . . lived beyond the River and worshipped other gods,” but it adds a note stating that the river was the Euphrates.
CCXLII Der unvordenkliche Gott, in German. Literally “un-fore-thinkable,” this word is usually translated as “immemorial” and refers to something “before which nothing can be thought.” It is also used on page 245. I have included this note because Vincent McCarthy, in his Quest for a Philosophical Jesus, pages 174 and 189, takes unvordenkliche to mean, when applied to revelation, “unthinkable in advance of its occurrence.”
CCXLIII This is not quite what the AV says:
Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell.
The NIV says:
Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living.
Schelling‟s “for him” does not make it clear that the wife is intended for Abraham‟s son. Luther actually says:
. . . and swear to me by the lord the God of the heaven and of the earth that you will take no wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am living.
Incidentally, the translators of both the AV and the NIV have not dared to give a true translation: “put your hand under my thigh” is a euphemism, intentionally misleading, and a correct rendering of this “phallic oath” would be “please take hold of my penis.” It is a remarkable and insidiously pernicious force which prevents them from rendering it thus after such a length of time. Perhaps, after almost two millenia, that force is finally being defeated.
CCXLIV What the AV in fact says (see above) may on the face of it refer to two or even three gods, although it is admittedly not intended that way.
CCXLV A mysterious Phoenician, who is supposed to have written the mythical history of his country. Philo of Byblos (64-141 A.D.) claimed to have translated this work into Greek, and fragments of this translation of the Phoenician History are found in the first book of Eusebius‟s (see note to page 102) De Preparatione Evangelica (On that which Paved the Way for Christianity). Discoveries in Syria of documents from around the fourteenth century B.C. have proved that Sanchuniathon existed. The most widely held view is that he lived before the Trojan War, in the fourteenth or thirteenth century B.C. Others say the seventh century, and Robert Graves, writing in 1963, says he was born in Berytus (now Beirut) in the fourth to third century B.C. In the Philosophy of Mythology [II 2, 312] Schelling says that it is clear from the fragments in Eusebius that either Sanchuniathon himself, or his “interpreter” (probably not a literal translator), endeavoured to give all the Phoenician mythological ideas a euhemeristic form, to present the gods and their activities as ordinary historical human beings and events. The mythological facts would thus have been corrupted, but the fragments are mostly of such a nature as shows that they cannot be regarded merely as literary efforts, says Schelling. “This name” refers to El Elioun (in German El Eljon), not Melchizedek. The Right Reverend R. Cumberland, DD, did a translation of these fragments, posthumously published in London in 1721, and it too has very much the appearance of an “interpretation” in the sense above. (Cumberland‟s “desire was to make every body easy, and to do ‟em good.” But this desire, much the same as Cudworth‟s, but expressed on a smaller canvas, by no means extended to “Popery and Idolatry,” unless his “good” was their “bad” (definition again). He considered these fragments to be the oldest account of the “original of Idolatry.”) In his notes to the dissertation On the Samothracian Deities , Schelling says (on page [I 8, 398]):
So after Sanchuniathon has spoken of the Corybantes and Cabiri, he continues: “At the time of these there was born a certain Elioun [spelt „Eljun‟ here] with the name of „the highest‟.” . . . Elioun is the real name of the highest god in Genesis 14:18, whose priest is that Melchizedek, emerging miraculously out of the obscurity of primæval time; it is the name of the god who possesses “heaven and earth,” thus of the lord of the universe, of the demiurge. If one may apply here too the remark made pre-eminently by Creuzer, to the effect that the priest represents the god and also probably bears his name, then Melchizedek is the name of the highest god himself . . .
Compare this with Eusebius, De Preparatione Evangelica, Book I, 10, 14-15, quoting Sanchuniathon through Philo:
It is in the epoch of these that there appeared a certain Elioun (λιοῦμ) called Hypsistos, and a woman called Beyrouth (Βηρούθ), who lived in the region of Byblos. Of their union was born Epigeios Autochthon, who was later called Uranus, and whose name, because of his extreme beauty, was borrowed to designate also the element above us. Of the parents I have indicated, a sister was born for him, who was called Ge, and because of her beauty, the sea was subsequently called by the same name. Their father Hypsistos was deified after he perished in an encounter with wild beasts, and his children offered libations and sacrifices to him.
CCXLVI This verse is quoted earlier, in my note to page 152 about Luther.
CCXLVII An example of the “laggard principle.” This states that even though a discovery may have been made at a certain time, the most significant negative influences on world history are exercised by people to whom, for whatever reason, this discovery has not yet been conveyed. It is the difference between Lancaster and Lancaster Gate. And look at the Empress of China, at the end of the nineteenth century (but in this case she may have been “right”—the definition of the word depends on subsequent history and the history yet to come).—All this is an argument for translation and dissemination.
CCXLVIII The AV says “And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.” And the NIV: “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them,” together with a note that the Hebrew for LORD sounds like and may be derived from the Hebrew for “I am,” and with a possible alternative reading “and by my name the LORD did I not let myself be known to them.”
CCXLIX These two quotations certainly sound biblical, but there is nothing exactly corresponding to them in the English versions. The nearest to the first is Isa. 45:5, “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.” Schelling‟s German is closer to Luther‟s version of this passage, but still not exactly the same. Schelling, quoting from memory probably, says “ich bin der Herr, und ist kein andrer ausser mir ,” while Luther has it “ich bin der Herr und ist keiner mehr ,” meaning (literally) “I am the Lord and there is no one more.”
CCL This is ambiguous in the original; it could be also interpreted as “even this is a wholly mythological way.”
CCLI In German Ich werde seyn der ich seyn werde. It would be less literal to translate this line of Luther as “I shall be that I shall be.” The AV has a significant difference, in that the future tense is lacking:
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Isræl, I AM hath sent me unto you.
The NIV has:
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Isrælites: 'I AM has sent me to you'.”
This last bit strikes me as rather ridiculous, although it might have been “the I am” meaning “I, the one who is.” The NIV adds an alternative reading: “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE,” which agrees in tense with Schelling‟s (Luther‟s) version. What Schelling means in this sentence about the name being translated from the third person to the first is that “the one who shall be” is changed to “I, the one who shall be.” (Would it be too simple-minded to suggest that the god said “I am „the one who shall be‟”?) T. S. Gregory, in his introduction to Spinoza‟s Ethics, takes “I AM THAT I AM” to mean that God exists from the necessity of his own nature, and is his own cause. Vico, in De Antiquissima Italorum Sapientia, says that God is saying that each and every thing is not in comparison with him. There is a long and important passage about this divine statement in the Philosophy of Mythology itself, pages [II 32-34], where Schelling interprets it in terms of his philosophy of existence, necessity, and freedom; here are two excerpts:
That which shall be, is admittedly for that very reason not yet existing, it is, however, not nothing, and so that itself which exists, considered purely as such, is admittedly not yet something existing, but for that very reason not nothing; for it is in fact that which shall be. “God is that itself which exists” means, according to what has just been said, the same as: God in and for himself, regarded in his pure essence, is merely that which shall be; and here I again call your attention to how, in the most ancient document in which the true god is mentioned, this god gives himself the name “I shall be”; and here it is very natural that the very same god who, when he speaks in the first person, thus of himself, calls himself Æjæh, that is to say “I shall be,” that this god, when it is a question of him in the third person, when another speaks of him, is called Jahwo or Jiwæh, in short, “he shall be” . . .
This [“I shall be the I shall be”] may be translated as “the I wish to be”—I am not that which necessarily exists (in this sense), but am Lord of existence. You will see from this how, simply from the fact that God is stated to be that itself which exists, he is also at once characterized as spirit; for spirit is precisely that which can either exist or not, can either express itself or not, which is not obliged to express itself, like the body (which has no choice about filling its space and is obliged to fill it), while I for example, as spirit, am entirely free to express myself or not, to express myself in one way or another, to express one thing and not something else. You will also see, for that very reason, how a philosophy which goes back to that itself which exists and starts out from that, how this philosophy leads immediately, and simply of its own nature, to a system of freedom, and has freed itself from the necessity which weighs down like an evil spirit on all systems which remain with mere existence and do not raise themselves to that itself which exists, however much they may go on about movement . To go beyond existence, and even to gain a free relationship to it, this is the true endeavour of philosophy. That itself which exists is simply of its own nature also that which is free from existence and in respect to existence, and that itself which exists is all that is important for us. In existence there resides nothing, existence is in every case only an accessory, something being added to that which is.
On a lighter note, possibly, there is extant a scrap in Schelling‟s hand (published in 1989 with his Einleitung in die Philosophie (“Introduction to Philosophy”)), as follows:
Ich bin der ich war.
Ich bin der ich sein werde.
Ich war der ich sein werde.
Ich werde sein der ich bin
(I am the I was.
I am the I shall be.
I was the I shall be.
I shall be the I am)
CCLII In German Jacob is pronounced “Yacob.”
CCLIII Diodorus Siculus lived around 40 B.C., and wrote in Greek a history of the world from mythical times up to Julius Cæsar‟s conquest of Gaul. It is an uncritical compilation from the works of earlier writers. Of the forty books of which it consisted, only fifteen now survive. He is one of the important sources of our knowledge of mythology and its supposed origins. The passage Schelling is referring to comes from Book I, 94, 2. In the Loeb edition the word is written as Ἰαὼ. Speaking of the lawgivers who arose in Egypt and established strange customs, Diodorus says (in the translation of C. H. Oldfather):
Thus it is recorded that among the Arians Zathraustes [Zarathustra] claimed that the Good Spirit gave him his laws, among the people known as the Getæ who represent themselves to be immortal Zalmoxis asserted the same of their common goddess Hestia, and among the Jews Moyses referred his laws to the god who is invoked as Iao. They all did this either because they believed that a conception which would help humanity was marvellous and wholly divine, or because they held that the common crowd would be more likely to obey the laws if their gaze were directed towards the majesty and power of those to whom their laws were ascribed.
Of “Iao,” the translator adds a note saying that “this pronunciation seems to reflect a Hebrew form Yahu; cf. Psalms 68.4: His name is Jah.”
Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius lived in the early fifth century A.D., and was foreign to Italy, possibly African. His Saturnalia are a medley taken from writers, Greek and Latin, of all ages, together with a detailed description of the works of Virgil. There is a rather nice little book called Macrobius or, Philosophy, Science and Letters in the Year 400, by Thomas Whittaker (Cambridge 1923). On page 24 he says of the Saturnalia that “in an oracle of Apollo Clarius [thus named because it was at Claros, near Colophon in Lydia south of Izmir in western Turkey ], the same god, Liber [Dionysus], is called Ἰαώ, interpreted generally as the highest god, and specifically as the autumnal sun.” The passage is in Book One Chapter 18 of the Saturnalia. Macrobius, comparing Apollo, Dionysus, Liber Pater, and the sun, writes (in the translation by Percival Vaughan Davies):
In the line: “The sun, which men also call by name Dionysus,” Orpheus manifestly declares that Liber is the sun, and the meaning here is certainly quite clear; but the following line from the same poet [the mythical Orpheus, to whom these Orphic verses were attributed] is more difficult: “One Zeus, one Hades, one Sun, one Dionysus.”
The warrant for this last line rests on an Oracle of Apollo of Claros, wherein yet another name is given to the sun; which is called, within the space of the same sacred verses [no comma sic] by several names, including that of Iao. For when Apollo of Claros was asked who among the gods was to be regarded as the god called Iao, he replied:
“Those who have learned the mysteries should hide the unsearchable secrets, but, if the understanding is small and the mind weak, then ponder this: that Iao is the supreme god of all gods; in winter, Hades; at spring‟s beginning, Zeus; the Sun in summer; and in autumn, the splendid Iao.”
For the meaning of this oracle and for the explanation, of the deity and his name, which identifies Iao with Liber Pater and the sun, our authority is Cornelius Labeo in his book entitled On the Oracle of Apollo of Claros.
The three letters or sounds of Iao have been used, in a similar way to those in the Buddhist AUM, as a formula which concentrates the power of the mind. See for example Crowley‟s Magick in Theory and Practice, where there is a whole chapter about Iao.
CCLIV In Schelling‟s German, as printed, the “I have gotten the man the Jehovah” has two accusatives: ich habe den Mann den Jehovah, with no comma. In Luther‟s Old Testament there is a comma: Und Adam erkannte sein Weib Heva, und sie ward schwanger, und gebar den Cain, und sprach: Ich habe den Mann, den Herrn (And Adam knew his wife Eve, and she became pregnant, and bore Cain, and said: I have the man, the Lord). In the AV “I have gotten a man from the LORD.” In the NIV “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man,” with two notes saying that “Cain” sounds like the Hebrew for brought forth or acquired, and that the passage may read “I have acquired a man.” (It seems that Luther may have made a mistake.)
CCLV In the AV this is rendered “even apparently”:
With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
The NIV puts it “With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles.”
CCLVI Here the AV does have “face to face”: “And there arose not a prophet since in Isræl like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,” whereas Schelling does not. The NIV has “Since then, no prophet has risen in Isræl like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face . . .” Each of the three versions has a different tense.