pletely justifies that which I have given of it: בחכמה ברא אלוה יתשמיא וית ארצא In sapientia creavit Deus cœlum et terram.[1]
It is said in Proverbs viii. 22, “Jehovah possessed me,” wisdom, ראשית rasit; but not בראשית b-rasit, which it ought to be, to justify our vulgar translation, which is, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning.” The particle ב b, the sign of the ablative case, is wanting; but it is interpolated in our translation, to justify the rendering, because it would be nonsense to say the Lord possessed me, the beginning.[2]
The Targum of Jerusalem says that God made man by his Word, or Λογος, Gen. i. 26, So says Jonathan, Es. xlv. 12; and in Gen. i. 27, he says, that the Λογος created man after his image. See Allix’s Judgment of the Jewish Church, p. 131. From this I think Dr. Allix’s assertion is correct, that the Targum considered the ראשית rasit, and the Λογος to be identical.
And it seems to me to be impossible to form an excuse for Parkhurst, as his slight observation in his Greek Lexicon shews that he was not ignorant. Surely supposing that he thought those authorities given above to be mistaken, he ought, in common honesty, to have noticed them, according to his practice with other words, in similar cases.
4. According to the Jewish Cabala a number of Sephiroths, being Emanations, issued or flowed from God—of which the chief was Wisdom. In Genesis it is said, by Wisdom God created or formed, &c. Picus, of Mirandula, confirms my rendering; and says, “This Wisdom is the Son.”[3] Whether the Son or not, this is evidently the first emanation, Minerva—the Goddess of Wisdom emanating or issuing from the head of Jove, (or Iao or Jehovah,) as described on an Etruscan brass plate in the Cabinet of Antiquities at Bologna.[4] This is known to be Etruscan, from the names being on the arms of the Gods in Etruscan letters, which proves it older than the Romans, or probably than the Grecians of Homer.
M. Basnage says, “Moses Nachmanides advanced three Sephiroths above all the rest; they have never been seen by any one; there is not any defect in them nor any disunion. If any one should add another to them, he would deserve death. There is, therefore, nothing but a dispute about words: you call three lights what Christians call Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That first eternal number is the Father: the Wisdom by which God created the heavens is the Son: and Prudence or Understanding, which makes the third number of the Cabalists, is the Christian Holy Ghost.”[5]
5. The word Rasit, as we might expect, is found in the Arabic language, and means, as our Lexicographers, who are the same class of persons that made our Hebrew Lexicons, tell us, head, chief—and is used as a term of honour applied to great persons: for instance, Aaron-al-raschid. Al is the emphatic article. Abd-al-raschid, i. e. Abdallah-al-raschid, &c.
For a long time I flattered myself that I might set down Parkhurst as one of the very few Polemics, with whose works I was acquainted, against whom I could not bring a charge of pious fraud, but the way in which he has treated the first word of Genesis puts it out of my power. It seems to me impossible to believe that this learned man could be ignorant of the construction which had been given to the word ראשית rasit.
Again, I repeat, it is impossible to acquit Parkhurst of disingenuousness in suppressing, in his Hebrew Lexicon, the opinions held respecting the meaning of this word by Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, Origen, St. Augustine, Maimonides, and by the authors of
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