The Humility of God in Rabbinic Judaism

remony of the annulment of vows focuses attention on God's regret and on God's posture of standing. Regret (paenitentia) in Roman culture was closely bound up with notions of honour. This midrash engages with the tensions between biblical and Roman conceptions of personal honour and dignity through its examination of the reasons for God's regret. God's standing before Moses is strikingly similar to the ways in which fourth-century Christian bishops, using the model of the Incarnation, chose to portray the Roman emperor. They showed the Roman emperor practicing humility by deviating from the postures typical of the emperor and adopting humble bodily postures. I argue that this midrash is a rabbinic adaptation of Christian stories of the Roman emperor, and, more broadly, that it participates in a late antique Christian discourse of humility. This composition is considered in light of other midrashim which depict God in positions of humility. Rabbinic theologising about God's humility is shown to be a response to the subordinated status of Jews in the Roman Empire. This type of midrash also adapts for rabbinic purposes the Christian theological innovations that were prompted by the paradox of a humble yet all-powerful Christian emperor. Midrashim that depict God demonstrating humility can, therefore, only be understood fully in the context of contemporaneous Roman and Christian ideologies.