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ANTHROPOMORPHISM (Gr. &vOponros, man,...
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See also:ANTHROPOMORPHISM (Gr. &vOponros, See also:man, ,uopcb , See also:form) , the attribution (a) of a human See also:body, or (b) of human qualities generally, to See also:God or the gods. The word anthropomorphism is a See also:modern coinage (possibly from 18th See also:century See also:French). The New See also:English See also:Dictionary is misled by the 1866 reprint of See also:Paul Bayne on See also:Ephesians when it quotes " anthropomorphist " as x7th century English. Seventeenth century See also:editions See also:print " anthropomorphits," i.e. anthropomorphites, in sense (a). The older abstract See also:term is "anthropopathy," literally "attributing human feelings," in sense (b). See also:Early See also:religion, among its many See also:objects of See also:worship, includes beasts (see See also:ANIMAL-WORSHIP), considered, in the more refined See also:theology of the later Greeks and See also:Romans, as metamorphoses of the See also:great gods. Similarly we find " therianthropic " forms—half animal, See also:half human—in See also:Egypt or See also:Assyria-Babylonia. In contrast with these, it is considered one of the glories of the Olympian See also:mythology of See also:Greece that it believed in happy manlike beings (though exempt from See also:death, and using See also:special rarefied foods, &c.), and celebrated them in statues of the most exquisite See also:art. See also:Israel shows us animal images, doubtless of a ruder sort, when Yahweh is worshipped in the See also:northern See also:kingdom under the See also:image of a See also:steer. (Some scholars think the See also:title " mighty one of See also:Jacob," See also:Psalm cxxxii., 2, 5, et al., r4x as if from See also:late, is really " steer "'•p! " of Jacob.") But the higher religion of Israel inclined to morality more than to art, and forbade image worship altogether. This prepared the way for the conception of God as an immaterial Spirit. True mythical anthropomorphisms occur in early parts of the Old Testament (e.g. See also:Genesis iii. 8, cf. vi. 2), though in the See also:majority of Old Testament passages such expressions are merely verbal (e.g. See also:Isaiah lix. I). In the See also:Christian See also: See also:Epiphanius tells of See also:Audaeus of See also:Mesopotamia and his followers, Puritan sectaries in the 4th century, who were orthodox except for this belief and for Quartodecimanism (see See also:EASTER). See also:Tertullian, who is sometimes called an anthropomorphist, stood for the Stoical See also:doctrine, that all reality, even the divine, is in a sense material. The reaction against anthropomorphism begins in See also:Greek See also:philosophy with the satirical spirit of See also:Xenophanes (540 B.c.), who puts the See also:case as broadly as any. The " greatest God " resembles man " neither in form nor in mind." In Judaism—unless we should refer to the prophets' polemic against imagesa reaction is due to the introduction of the codified See also:law. God seemed to grow more remote. The old sacred name Yahweh is never pronounced; even " God " is avoided for allusive titles like " See also:heaven " or " See also:place." Still, amid all this, the God of Judaism remains a See also:personal, almost a limited, being. In See also:Philo we see Jewish scruples uniting with others See also:drawn from Greek philosophy. For, though the See also:quarrel with popular anthropomorphism was patched up, and the gods of the See also:Pantheon were described by See also:Stoics and Epicureans as manlike in form, philosophy nevertheless tended to highly abstract conceptions of supreme, or real, deity. Philo followed out the See also:line of this tradition in teaching that God cannot be named. How much exactly he meant is disputed. The same See also:inheritance of Greek philosophy appears in the Christian fathers, especially Origen. He names and condemns the "anthropomorphites," who ascribe a human body to God (on Romans i., sub fin.; See also:Rufinus' Latin version). In Arabian philosophy the reaction sought to deny that God had any attributes. And, under the See also:influence of See also:Mahommedan Aristotelianism, the same paralysing See also:speculation found entrance among the learned See also:Jews of See also:Spain (see MAIMONIAES).
Till modern times the philosophical reaction was not carried out with full vigour. See also:Spinoza (See also:Ethics, i. 15 and 17), representing here as elsewhere both a Jewish inheritance and a philosophical, but advancing further, sweeps away all community between God and man. So later J. G. See also:Fichte and See also:Matthew See also:Arnold (" a magnified and non-natural man "),—strangely, in view of their strong belief in an See also:objective moral See also:order. For the use of the word " anthropomorphic," or kindred forms, in this new spirit of condemnation for all conceptions of God as manlike—sense (b) noted above—see J. J. See also: Rousseau is here speaking of the See also:language of Christian theology,—a divine Spirit: divine Persons. At the See also:present See also:day this usage is universal. What it means on the lips of pantheists is See also:plain. But when theists See also:charge one another with " anthropomorphism," in order to rebuke what they deem unduly manlike conceptions of God, they stand on slippery ground. All See also:theism implies the assertion of kinship between man, especially in his moral being, and God. As a brilliant theologian, B. Duhm, has said, physicmorphism is the enemy of Christian faith, not anthropomorphism. The latest See also:extension of the word, proposed in the interests of philosophy or See also:psychology, uses it of the principle according to which man is said to interpret all things (not God merely) through himself. See also:Common-sense intuitionalism would deny that man' does this, attributing to him immediate knowledge of reality. And See also:idealism in all its forms would say that man, interpreting through his See also:reason, does rightly, and reaches truth. Even here then the use of the word is not colourless. It implies blame. It is the symptom of a philosophy which confines knowledge within narrow limits, and which, when held by Christians (e.g. See also:Peter See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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