(_a_) The Doctrine of God. (_b_) The Doctrine of the Law. (_c_) The Doctrine of Sin. (_d_) The Doctrine of Grace and Free-will. (_e_) The Doctrine of the Messiah. (_f_) The Doctrine of the Future Life. (_g_) The Doctrine of Angels. (_h_) Demonology. The very important doctrine of Wisdom has already been considered in Chapter VIII. In dealing with these doctrines we shall only make cursory mention of those points in which the teaching of the Apocrypha is identical with that of the Old Testament, as our main object is to try and show in what respects the books of the Apocrypha exhibit an advance in doctrine upon the Old Testament, or, as in some cases, a retrogression; at the same time the characteristic form in which a book presents any particular doctrine will be noted even in those cases in which there is no essential difference between the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. It will not always be possible to keep the various doctrines entirely separate from each other, as one so often leads into another; so that some little repetition may at times be unavoidable. (_a_) _The Doctrine of God._ The Old Testament teaching on the Personality of God is, as one would expect, so full, that we must not look for much advance in the books of the Apocrypha on this subject. The Unity of God the Creator of all, His eternity and omnipotence, His activity in nature, His wisdom, holiness, justice, loving-kindness and mercy, His Fatherhood of Israel, and sometimes of all flesh—these doctrines are all amply dealt with in Ecclesiasticus. In the fine passage Ecclesiasticus xlii. 15-xliii. 33, where Ben-Sira gets his inspiration largely from the Psalms, the praise of God is sung as the Lord of Nature; there are one or two points in this passage which, to some extent, witness to an advance upon what the Old Testament teaches; in xlii. 16 it is said: God’s holy ones have not the power To recount His wondrous works of might; Though God hath given strength to His hosts To endure in the presence of His glory. These words represent the Hebrew, which was misunderstood by the Greek translator; the meaning of them is that not even the angels[323] can declare God’s mighty works, even though they stand in His presence; they are only able to stand in that presence because they have received special strength for the purpose. What spiritual beings, who thus stand in the very presence of God, are unable to fathom, can still less be understood by men, all they can do is to offer praise to God; so Ben-Sira says later in the same section: