For this reason certain Jewish philosophers considered it unlawful to assign to God any positive attribute. They feared this might lead to dualism, to believe in God and in His attribute as two distinct beings, because attributes are so easily personified and addressed as separate deities. Some theologians even were of opinion that the admission of God’s attributes is itself a form of dualism which must be excluded from our faith. Nevertheless, attributes are assigned to God both in the Scriptures and in our Prayers. We must not, however, forget that such attributes do not describe anything inherent in the Divine Being, but only God’s relation to man and His actions in such terms as are intelligible to human beings. Most of the attributes are interpreted as being of a negative character, indicating what we must not say of God. When we speak of the Will, Wisdom, and Spirit of God, we do not speak of anything separate from the Divine Being, but of the Divine Being Himself. The Jewish doctrine of the Unity of God does not admit any kind of dualism in the Divine Being, and therefore rejects the existence of Divine Attributes as distinct from God Himself. He is One, simple and indivisible. Even this property of being One seemed to some theologians to be contrary to strict unity, and we are therefore taught that we must not understand it in the sense of a numerical unit, in which sense the term is used when applied to created beings. The second article therefore declares: “The Creator is One, and there is no Oneness like His in any way.” The Unity of God is the creed which the Jews have always proclaimed by word of mouth, to which they have given expression throughout their literature, and for which they have willingly sacrificed their lives as martyrs. When persecuted by Mohammedans or Christians the Jews were frequently forced to break the Sabbath, to ignore the dietary laws, and to neglect Divine worship. They bore all this patiently when under pressure of persecution, but when they were asked to renounce the belief in God’s Unity they did not doubt for a moment as to what their duty was; they adhered firmly to ‏יחוד השם‎ “the belief in God’s Unity,” and sacrificed their lives for ‏קדוש השם‎ “the sanctification of God’s name.” The Jews have been victorious. In spite of persecution and oppression they have maintained their faith. The doctrine of the Unity of God, for which they had to suffer so much in past centuries, is now admitted as true by most of their former persecutors. In order to make clear what we mean by unity, and to express that God could not be conceived as existing at any time in a double form, we add the words: “And He alone was, is, and will be our God.” The second article runs therefore as follows:— “I firmly believe that the Creator, blessed be His name, is One; that there is no Oneness like His, in any way, and that He alone was, is, and will be our God.”