Some time ago I wrote a little book on Roman religion which was favored with a courteous and thoughtful review by a scholar from whom I have learned much, S. Weinstock. My central contention was that the Romans had an idea corresponding closely to the Melanesian and Polynesian mana, the North American orenda or wakanda, and similar notions elsewhere, and that they denoted it by the word numen; that is to say, that numen signifies a superhuman force, impersonal in itself but regularly belonging to a person (a god of some kind) or occasionally to an exceptionally important body of human beings, as the Roman senate or people. This force, I argued, the Romans supposed could be to some extent directed to serve their own ends; a god could be induced to employ his numen for such things as giving fertility or victory to his worshippers, and on occasion an inanimate object, such as a boundary-mark, could have numen put into it by the appropriate ceremonial. Also, the numen of a god could be and was increased by offering him a sacrifice of the proper kind.

This is a chapter of unique importance for the understanding of the prophey of Second Isaiah. The interpretation of this poem of 29 verses — or, specifically, of its verses 1–3 and 25 f. — carries with it the entire conception of “the Prophet of the Exile”; his quality, his message, the amount of the prophecy that can be assigned to him, and indeed the theory of the origin of chapters 34–66. Two widely different interpretations, the one incompatible with the other, are well established in the history of Old Testament exegesis.

In a note, “Abraham and the Quest for God,” in the Harvard Theological Review, XXVIII (1935) 55–60, Wilfred L. Knox makes the illuminating point that Diaspora Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism diverge in the matter of what called forth Abraham's call from God. The rabbis, Knox points out, stress that Abraham was pre-destined for the call, while the hellenists of the Diaspora credit Abraham with a voluntary abandonment of astrology, and thereby Abraham merits the call. The rabbis, then, not faced with the need of explaining Abraham's call to proselytes, simply have recourse to pre-destination; the hellenists, confronted by prospective proselytes, stress Abraham's reward for his search. “The Judaism of the Dispersion was concerned to make converts; it had to recognize that cosmic and astral interpretations of Gentile cults which tended towards monotheism were nearer to the truth, if only they were harder to convict of error, than the Olympian theology or the cruder forms of Polytheism.” The reward which Abraham received for abandoning astrology would similarly be held out as within the potential grasp of Gentile inquirers who would also abandon error. So far Knox.