Aleim. And then said Aleim, we will make man in our image according to our likeness. To rebut this argument it is said, that this is nothing but a dignified form of speech adopted by all kings in speaking to their subjects, to give themselves dignity and importance, and on this account attributed to God. This is reasoning from effect to cause, instead of from cause to effect. The oriental sovereigns, puffed up with pride and vanity, not only imitated the language of God in the sacred book; but they also went farther, and made their base slaves prostrate themselves before them in the same posture as they used in addressing their God. In this argument God is made to use incorrect language in order that he may imitate and liken himself to the vainest and most contemptible of human beings. We have no knowledge that God ever imitated these wretches; we do know that they affected to imitate and liken themselves to Him. This verse proves his plurality: the next, again, proves his unity: for there the word bara is used—whence it is apparent that the word has both a singular and plural meaning.
On the 22d verse of the third chapter of Genesis, my worthy and excellent old friend, Dr. A. Geddes, Vicar Apostolic of the Roman See in London, says,[1] “Lo! Adam—or man—is become like one of us. If there be any passage in the Old Testament which countenances a plurality of persons in the Godhead; or, to speak more properly, a plurality of Gods, it is this passage. He does not simply say, like us; but like one of us כאחד ממנו. This can hardly be explained as we have explained נעשה Let us make, and I confess it has always appeared to me to imply a plurality of Gods, in some sense or other. It is well known that the Lord or Jehovah, is called in the Hebrew Scriptures, ‘The God of Gods.’ He is also represented as a Sovereign sitting on his throne, attended by all the heavenly host;” in Job called the sons of God. Again he says, “Wherever Jehovah is present, whether on Sinai or Sion, there he is attended by twenty thousand angels, of the Cherubic order. When he appeared to Jacob, at Bethel, he was attended by angels, and again when he wrestled with the same patriarch.”
The first verse of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes is strongly in favour of the plurality of Aleim—Remember thy Creators, not Creator—זבר את בוראיך. But many copies have the word בוראך and others בראך without the י. “But,” as Parkhurst observes, “it is very easy to account for the transcribers dropping the plural י I, in their copies, though very difficult to assign a reason why any of them should insert it, unless they found it in their originals.”[2] The Trinitarian Christians have triumphed greatly over the other Christian sects and the Jews, in consequence of the plurality of the Aleim expressed in the texts cited above. It appears that they have justice on their side.
There would have been no difficulty, with the word Aleim, if some persons had not thought that the plurality of Aleim favoured the doctrine of the Christian Trinity, and others that the contrary effect was to be produced by making Aleim a noun singular. But whatever sect it may favour or oppose, I am clearly of opinion that it conveys the idea of plurality, just as much as the phrase Populus laudavit Deum, or, in English, The Congregation sings.
4. It has already been observed that the God of the Jews was also called by a very remarkable name אל שדי al sdi. The proper name Sdi is constantly translated God Almighty.[3]
In Gen. xlix. 25, שדי Sdi is put for the Almighty, (as it is translated,) not only without the word אל al preceding it, as usual, but in opposition to it.
In Deut. xxxii. 17, the Israelites are said to have sacrificed to שדים sdim and not to אלה ale—as it is translated in our version, “to devils and not to God,” אלהים לא ידעום eos noverunt non diis, to Gods whom they did not know. Here is a marked distinction between the Sadim and the Aleim.
