The Bible frequently exhorts us not to imagine or ascribe to God any form or likeness. Comp. Deut. iv. 15, “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of fire.” In the same sense the prophet asks in the name of God (Isa. xl. 18), “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare unto Him?” “To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal to Him? saith the Holy One” (Ibid. 25).

We declare therefore in the third article:—

“I firmly believe that the Creator, blessed be His name, is not a body, that corporeal relations do not apply to Him, and that there exists nothing that is in any way similar to Him.”

4. The next property we declare of God in the Creed is the eternity of God. As He is the cause of everything in existence, and requires no cause for His existence, and as it is impossible to separate the idea of existence from the idea of God, it follows that God is always in existence, and that neither beginning nor end can be fixed to His existence. Maimonides, in expressing his belief in the eternity of God, lays stress only on God being without a beginning, and in this sense he interprets the phrase Dip ‏אלהי קדם‎ (Deut. xxxiii. 27), “the eternal God” who is without a beginning. That God is without end is equally true, but Maimonides did not desire to introduce this idea into the fourth article as a distinguishing characteristic, as it is not necessary to believe that the universe will once come to an end. If it please the Almighty to give the universe existence for ever, it will continue for ever. Following, however, the example of the prophets, who told us in the name of God, “I am the first, and I am the last,” we express this idea in our Creed, and understand it thus: If, by the will of the Almighty, the entire universe should come to an end, God’s existence would still continue. Thus the Psalmist says, “Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment: as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end” (Ps. cii. 26–28).

The fourth article is:—

“I firmly believe that the Creator, blessed be His name, was the first, and will be the last.”

6. After having declared our faith in God as the sole Ruler of the universe, who is One, incorporeal and eternal, we proclaim Him as our Supreme Master, who alone is capable of granting our petitions. All existing things are under His control; all forces in nature only work at His will and by His command. No other being possesses the power and independence to fulfil our wishes of its own accord, if it were approached by us with our prayers. It is, therefore, to Him alone that we can reasonably address our petitions, and in doing so we have confidence in the efficacy of our prayers, for “the Lord is nigh to all those who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Ps. cxlv. 18).

This article, although expressly directed against idolatry, and primarily against the worship of “the angels, the stars, and the spheres,” implies our belief in God as the Omnipotent, who can do everything, and can help us when we have not any prospect of relief.

We therefore declare in the fifth article:—

“I firmly believe that the Creator, blessed be His name, alone is worthy of being worshipped, and that no other being is worthy of our worship.”

The Omnipotence of God is also implied in the first article, which declares Him the Creator and the Ruler of the universe. That Maimonides does not directly make omnipotence, like unity, incorporeality, &c., the subject of a separate article has its good reason, and is not “the result of mere chance.” Silly questions were frequently asked; e.g., how far the omnipotence of God extended, whether it implied the power of making twice two equal to three, or the whole of a magnitude larger than the sum of its parts, and similar logical impossibilities. To avoid misunderstanding, Maimonides did not express our belief in the omnipotence of God in a separate article, but the first and the fifth articles imply it.

We believe of God that He is immutable or unchangeable. It is, however, not necessary to express this in a separate article. By declaring the Unity of God we proclaim also His Immutability, since unity, in the sense in which we conceive it, is incompatible with any kind of change. Whatever the change might be that we assumed in God, it would destroy the idea of His unity.

There are other qualities which we ascribe to God. We call Him perfect, all-wise, good, kind, merciful, long-suffering, and the like; in short, whatever we find in our own person good and noble we believe to be present in God in a higher degree, in the most perfect form. But these attributes approach very closely anthropomorphisms, which Maimonides rigidly excludes from the Creed. They express rather the impressions produced in our soul by the different acts of God’s Providence, and do not describe God Himself.

Of this class of attributes are the thirteen divine attributes, ‏שלש עשרה מדות‎ (Exod. xxxiv. 6). They describe in thirteen terms the goodness and mercy of God towards man in his various conditions of innocence, guilt, and repentance. These are not distinctly mentioned in our Creed, but when we declare that He is the only Being whom we can address in our prayers, we are certainly conscious and convinced that He, being good, kind, and merciful, listens to our supplications.

2. REVELATION, ‏תורה מן השמים‎.

The second group of principles refers to Revelation. The real process of revelation, by what means and in what manner the infinite and incorporeal Being makes His Will known to man, and how the latter becomes conscious and convinced of the fact that a Divine communication has been made to him, remains a mystery to all but those privileged persons who have been actually addressed by the Almighty. “As the blind man who had never possessed the sense of sight is incapable of comprehending the actual process of seeing, so are we, born without that wonderful prophetic eye, without the prophetic faculty of the mind, incapable of comprehending and depicting the process of inspiration that goes on within the mind of the privileged” (Schmiedl, Studien, p. 183). God reveals Himself also in nature, in the power and wisdom displayed in its phenomena. He reveals Himself in the history of nations, and especially in the history of Israel. He reveals Himself in the intelligence of man. In all these cases the revelation is made to all alike. Those who have eyes may see, those who have ears may hear, and recognise, every one according to his capacity, the presence of the Almighty in the working of the laws of nature, in the development and fates of nations, and in the life of every individual person. In all these cases we can test and prove the revelation by ourselves, and need not exclusively rely on authority. When, however, a Divine communication is made to one privileged individual, through whom it is made known to a whole community, or to mankind, there is no other means of testing the correctness of the revelation than the trustworthiness of the privileged individual.

The first lesson or proof given to the Israelites of the fact that such revelation was not only possible, but had actually been vouchsafed by the Almighty, was the revelation on Mount Sinai, the ‏מעמד הר סיני‎, which became the foundation of the faith of Israel. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee for ever” (Exod. xix. 9). The trustworthiness of Moses having thus been tested and established “for ever,” his teaching remained the foundation of the teaching of all succeeding prophets, and the test of their truthfulness and genuineness. A prophet who taught anything opposed to the law of Moses could not be a true prophet, although he supported his words by signs and miracles (Deut. xiii. 2, sqq.). Besides, revelation of the Divine Being had taken place before. God revealed Himself to the first man. Adam heard the voice of God; he felt the presence of the Almighty, and learnt the amount of evil man brings upon himself by disobeying the word of God. The consciousness of the existence of God, and of the fact that He has revealed Himself to man, has been inherited by the descendants of Adam. It has not been preserved in all men in the same strength and purity. The notion of a Divine Being, and of His revelation to man, became in course of time corrupt, and led to the corruption of the human race, with the exception of Noah and his family. “Noah was a righteous man; perfect he was in his generations: with God did Noah walk” (Gen. vi. 9). The inherited consciousness of God’s existence and of His rule over man was strengthened in him by fresh, direct revolution of God. He was told that the wicked would be destroyed by a flood, and that he with his family would be saved. “The righteous man” witnessed the infliction which the wicked brought upon themselves by evil deeds, and also that protection of himself and his family which had been promised and granted by the Almighty. After Noah had left the ark the word of God was again communicated to him, promising that never again would a flood be sent to destroy all living beings—a promise which succeeding generations up to the present have seen fulfilled. In the midst of rain the “sign of covenant,” the rainbow, reminds us still of His promise and its fulfilment. Of the descendants of Noah the Semites alone seem to have preserved the belief in God’s existence and His revelation to man in its original purity; and of the Semites it was Abraham who was chosen by Providence to be the founder of a family of faithful believers in God, who formed, as it were, the centre from which the true faith should spread in all directions over the whole face of the earth. Abraham received Divine communications, and so also his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Even when the children of Israel were in Egyptian slavery, and when they did not hearken to Moses “because of anguish of spirit, and because of cruel bondage,” the memory of these revelations was never entirely extinguished in their minds; and when again addressed by Moses and Aaron “the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that He had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped” (Exod. iv. 31). Their faith was strengthened when they witnessed the fulfilment of the Divine message which was brought to them by Moses: “And they believed in the Lord, and in Moses His servant” (Ibid. xiv. 31).