be decided by authority, the authority of the Septuagint is vastly preferable to that of the Masorets, who lived many ages after the makers of the Septuagint. And, as he says, if reason be admitted to decide it, a person inclined to favour the system of emanations, would urge, in the first place, that אשדת asdt is a Hebrew word, one entire word, which cannot be divided; and that it is evident from the Septuagint, that the ancient Hebrews did not divide it. Secondly, he would say, that Dat, which signifies law, commandment, is not a Hebrew but a Median[1] word, which the Hebrews took from the Medes, and is not to be found in any of their books, but such as were written after the captivity; so that there is no reason to suppose it had been used by Moses in Deuteronomy. Thirdly, he would say, that the fire of the law, or the law of fire, as our English has it, is unnatural; and that although it is said the law was given from the middle of the fire, there is nothing to shew that it was from the right hand of God. In fine, he would urge that the explanation of the LXX. is much more natural. God comes with thousands of saints, and the angels, the principal angels, those who are named Emanations were at his right hand. These proofs would have been invincible in the first ages of Christianity, where the version of the Septuagint was considered to be inspired, and had much greater authority given to it than to the Hebrew.
In many of Dr. Kennicot’s Hebrew codices, the word אשדת adst, is written in one word, but not in all: it is likewise the same in three of the Samaritan; and in two of the latter it is written אשדות asdut. The following are the words of the Septuagint:
Κυριος eκ Εινα ἡκει, και επεφανεν εκ Εηειρ ἡμῖν, και κατεσπευσεν εξ ορους Φαραν, συν μυριασι Καδης· εκ δεξιῶν αυτου Αγγελοι μετ᾽ αυτου.[2]
Nothing can be more absurd than the vulgar translation, which is made from a copy in which the words have been divided by the Masorets. But it was necessary to risk any absurdity, rather than let the fact be discovered that the word meant angels or emanations, which would so strongly tend to confirm the doctrine of the Gnostics, and also prove that the religions of Moses and the Persians were the same. M. Beausobre has satisfactorily explained the contrivance of the Masorets to disguise the truth by dividing the word Asdt אשדת, or, as he calls it, Eschdot, into two, Esch-Dot. And his observations respecting the authority of the Italic versions and the Septuagint, written so many centuries before the time of the Masorets, when the language was a living one, is conclusive on the subject. The very fact of adopting the use of the points, is a proof either that the language was lost or nearly so, or that some contrivance, after the time of Jerom, was thought necessary by the Jews, to give to the unpointed text such meaning as they thought proper.
6. But to return to the word Berasit, or more properly the word ראשית Rasit, the particle ב beth being separated from it. A curious question has arisen among Christian philosophers, whether Time was in existence before the creation here spoken of, or the beginning, if it be so translated.
The word cannot mean the beginning of creation, according to the Mosaic account, because the context proves that there were created beings before the creation of our world—for instance, the angels or cherubim who guarded the gate of paradise after the fall.[3]
In common language, the words, In the beginning, mean some little time after a thing has begun; but this idea cannot be applied to the creation, The expression cannot be applied to any period of time after the universe began to exist, and it cannot be applied to any period before it began to exist. If the words at first be used, they are only different words for precisely the same
