Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 513

Chap.

II]

§ 82.

THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION

489

The same word occurs in Job iv. 13 and 15 to indicate a very deep sleep, which falleth upon in slumberings upo7i the bed, but as shown by tlie connec-

fallen upon them. xxxiii. 7nen,

tion in both cases, as a prelude to a Divine revelation in Isaiah xxix. 10

sense,

by way

such sleep

is

mentioned

in

while an unfavorable

of a figure, to express a spirit of entire dul-

ness and insensibility which should be poured out people.

This

;

last, therefore,

is

upon the

a sleep in a metaphorical

which reason it reads "the spirit of deep sleep," and consequently "pour" ("|D3), and not "fall" (^S3), In all other places, on the other hand, the is used as verb. Tardemah is taken in its real sense, and occurs again and again as an absolute ansesthesis, which is effected by God sense, for

upon the person,

in order in this entirely passive state to

cause an entirely other world to reveal sciousness, or as

him

itself to his

was the case with Adam,

in a violent way.

The

inner con-

to operate

upon

narcotic sleep offers itself as

and especially in the case of the violent underwent, one thinks naturally of the condition produced by chloroform or of the first effects But though it appears from these analogies of strychnine. analogy to

this,

operation which

Adam

human

is

that

nature

susceptible to such a state of absolute

the action which took

place remains neverof what God directly an effect wrought, and so theless far as the nature of the psychical life during this sleep It makes is concerned, it is an action of a different sort. insensibility,

the impression of an entire liberation of the psyche from the

connection which through the bod}^ it has with its surrounding world a leading back of the psychic life into its centrum, and in that centrum a disclosure to the psyche of a mysterious world, in which God comes to it and speaks to it. A form of revelation particularly noteworthy, because evidently this Tardemah does not enter into this life, but isolates the person, to whom the revelation comes, from this life, and then deals with him according to the law which applies to another than this earthly existence. :

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