It was given to Christianity to paint us God Almighty after the model of the kabalistic abstraction of the “Ancient of Days.” From old frescos on cathedral ceilings; Catholic missals, and other icons and images, we now find him depicted by the poetic brush of Gustave Doré. The awful, unknown majesty of Him, whom no “heathen” dared to reproduce in concrete form, is figuring in our own century in _Doré’s Illustrated Bible_. Treading upon clouds that float in mid-air, darkness and chaos behind him and the world beneath his feet, a majestic old man stands, his left hand gathering his flowing robes about him, and his right raised in the gesture of command. He has spoken the Word, and from his towering person streams an effulgence of Light--the Shekinah. As a poetic conception, the composition does honor to the artist, but does it honor God? Better, the chaos behind Him, than the figure itself; for there, at least, we have a solemn mystery. For our part, we prefer the silence of the ancient heathens. With such a gross, anthropomorphic, and, as we conceive, blasphemous representation of the First Cause, who can feel surprised at any iconographic extravagance in the representation of the Christian Christ, the apostles, and the putative Saints? With the Catholics St. Peter becomes quite naturally the janitor of Heaven, and sits at the door of the celestial kingdom--a ticket-taker to the Trinity! In a religious disturbance which recently occurred in one of the Spanish-American provinces, there were found upon the bodies of some of the killed, passports signed by the Bishop of the Diocese and addressed to St. Peter; bidding him “_admit the bearer as a true son of the Church_.” It was subsequently ascertained that these unique documents were issued by the Catholic prelate just before his deluded parishioners went into the fight at the instigation of their priests. In their immoderate desire to find evidence for the authenticity of the _New Testament_, the best men, the most erudite scholars even among Protestant divines, but too often fall into deplorable traps. We cannot believe that such a learned commentator as Canon Westcott could have left himself in ignorance as to Talmudistic and purely kabalistic writings. How then is it that we find him quoting, with such serene assurance as presenting “striking analogies to the _Gospel of St. John_,” passages from the work of _The Pastor of Hermas_, which are complete sentences from the kabalistic literature? “The view which Hermas gives of Christ’s nature and work is no less harmonious with apostolic doctrine, and it offers striking analogies to the _Gospel of St. John_.... He (Jesus) is a rock higher than the mountains, able to hold the whole world, ancient, and yet having a new gate!... He is older than creation, so that he took counsel with the Father about the creation which he made.... No one shall enter in unto him otherwise than by his Son.”[491]