(65), at ninety, (he bends beneath) the weight of years, at a hundred
he is as if he were already dead and had passed away from the world."

(59) Cf. "Our Father which is in Heaven" of the "Lord's
Prayer" (Matt. VI, 9). The conception of God as a "Father"
goes back to earliest times. See Gen. XLIX, 19, 20; Ex. IV,
22; Deut. XXXII, 6; II Sam. V, 44; Ps. LXXXIX, 27, 28; Isa.
LXIII, 16, LXIV, 8, and Mal. II, 10. Deut. XXXII, 6, reads,
"Is He not thy Father?" and Isa. LXIII, 18, "Doubtless Thou
art our Father." In the _Mishnah_ we find, "Who purifies you?
Your Father which is in Heaven" (_Yoma_ VII, 8); "On whom
have we to lean? On our Father which is in Heaven" (_Sotah_,
IX, 15), and similar passages. The Rabbis constantly referred
to God as "Father" (see Schechter, _Aspects_, pp. 46, 49,
50-51). They took issue, of course, with the New Testament
conception of God, in not admitting and in denouncing the idea
of a mediator. To them all mankind were the sons of God.
That the Rabbis borrowed this God-idea and the expression "Our
Father which is in Heaven" from Christianity is untenable,
for, as Herford (_Pharisaism_, 120 _et seq._) points out, such
borrowing would have been abhorrent to them. This expression
was undoubtedly current long before and during the time of
Jesus, and it represented a conception of the divine
acceptable to both the Rabbis and Jesus. The Rabbis had no
quarrel with Christianity on this score, but did not admit the
"sonship" of God in the Christian sense. The expressions "Our
Father" and "Our Father which is in Heaven" are found
frequently in the Jewish Prayer-book. On this subject,
consult Taylor, _Sayings_, pp. 124, 176, and G. Friedlander,
_The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount_, chapter X.