Ecclesiasticus treats of 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 (see xlii. 15-xliii. 33). Here the inspiration is drawn largely from the Psalms, but in xlii. 16, and xliii. 28-32, Ben-Sira seems to go beyond anything to be found in the Old Testament. No book of the Apocrypha has such a variety of names for God as Tobit, which is also distinguished by a doctrine of angelic mediation and a universalistic spirit which is in marked contrast to Judith. In the Prayer of Manasses great stress is laid on the Divine compassion. In the secondary text of Ecclesiasticus, which is a Pharisaic recension of the work, the great characteristic is that religious individualism which did so much to foster spiritual worship. The heightened expression of the close relationship between God and His pious ones which the more ardent religious temperament of the Pharisees demanded can be illustrated by a comparison of i. 12, and xvii. 20, with the lines which immediately follow in either instance. This spirit reappears in the Psalms of Solomon. In the original text of 1 Maccabees all mention of the name of God is deliberately avoided; once or twice, as in iii. 18, a true faith in the omnipotence of God is expressed, and not infrequently there is trust in God as the God of Israel Who will help His people against their foes. In all three of the documents which make up Baruch, stress is laid on God’s guidance of Israel’s destiny, and in the portion, iv. 5-v. 9, the Divine compassion is constantly recalled. 2 (4) Esdras represents the best of the Old Testament teaching concerning the doctrine of God: the Unity of God, His Creatorship without any mediatorial agency, Israel as the chosen nation with which God has entered into a covenant relation, are all insisted upon by the writer, whose faith in God, and conviction that His love is for His people, remains, though he is presented with problems which are insoluble for man. In the Book of Wisdom the religious atmosphere is to a large extent alien to that of Palestine: the presentment of the doctrine of God is entirely different in its two parts, whether these are by two different authors or by one writing at different times in his life. The first part (ii.-xi. 1) is more Greek than Jewish, the idea of God is that of Greek philosophy: a transcendent God Who has no immediate contact with the world, but performs His will through an intermediary, who is Wisdom. In the second part God is again and again spoken of as interfering personally in mundane affairs, and in other respects also the Old Testament doctrine is represented, as in the need of right worship, and the mercy and justice of God. (_b_) _The Doctrine of the Law._