SPECULATIVE CHRISTIANITY. $ 1. THE ALEXANDRIAN THEOSOPHY. AMONG the numerous Jews who settled in Egypt under Alexander and his successors, there arose a peculiar theosophy out of the mingling of heathen doctrines with their own. Reserving as indisputable truth the divine authority of their Scriptures, they transferred to Jehovah the philosophic notions gained in Alexandria. An acquaintance with the Greek writers, especially Plato, engendered inquiry and criticism; and the natural result was an endeavour to explain away the sensuous representations of God in the Old Testament. It was admitted that God, the universal mind', is invisible, incomprehensible, to be contemplated only by intellect'; and hence the Septuagint uniformly alters every passage suggesting a visible manifestation of God by substituting his "angel" or "glory" instead of himself. Where for instance the original states that not only Moses and Aaron, but also Nadab, Abihu and the elders "saw" the God of Israel, and were able to eat and drink after it, the LXX alters the phrase to "the place where the God of Israel stood," though it is expressly stated in the Babylonian Talmud that there existed no reading to authorize the change. 1 "Nous Twy day." Philo in Pfeif. i. 6. 2 "Nonros." Aristobulus in Euseb. Pr. Ev. xiii. 12. 3 Exod. xxiv. 9. 11. The Alexandrians after Plato endeavour to merge the sterner aspect of God in his goodness, love and grace. His goodness is the harmony of the universe; without it all things would immediately sink into annihilation; and as it is wrong to consider God as inflicting the punishments really brought about by inferior spirits, it is equally so for man to ascribe to himself the good which he really owes to God". Philo observes that there are two sorts of men; the spiritual, and those who, themselves sensual, always look for a sensual exhibition of Deity. Hence it is that two distinct views pervade the Pentateuch. Moses wished to be of use to all, and therefore ascribed bodily organs to God in order to accommodate his language to vulgar perceptions. In this way must be explained the passages representing God as liable to passion and change; God, foreseeing and knowing all things, never changes; he is omnipresent, far above space and time; he is everywhere and nowhere, that is, his glory is manifested everywhere, but his form is nowhere seen. The expedients employed by the Jews to bring philosophy into agreement with orthodoxy were the allegorical interpretation and a machinery of intermediate beings. Allegorical interpretation had already been used by Greek philosophers to explain their own mythology; it was the main secret of the spiritual insight afterwards employed by St. Paul', and of which St. Barnabas exultingly exclaims, "Blessed be the Lord who has given us 'wisdom' to understand his secrets!" The more educated Jews perceived the impossibility of gravely abiding by the literal sense of Scripture, and Philo speaks only the general opinion when he lays it down that wherever the literal construction furnishes a meaning unworthy of God or of Moses, there we must adopt a figurative one. For example, it would be "foolish," he says, "to think that God literally created the world in six days, or indeed in any fixed time, for 4 Philo in Pfeif. ii. 420. Wisd. xi. 25. Pfeif. i. 148; iii. 110; iv. 258. * Ch. vi. Pfeif. iv. 252. 71 Cor. x. 1. time is itself measured by the sun, and can therefore have existed only after the creation." In regard to Eve's issuing out of Adam's side, he says, "This is a mythical statement'; for how can a human being be formed out of a man's side?" Again, Adam's hiding himself from God cannot be literally true, for God is present everywhere. The name Bathuel means literally "daughter of God;" this, says Philo, denotes Wisdom (Sophia); and as to the difficulty of making the father of Rebecca a female, he adds, Wisdom, God's daughter, is to be deemed masculine and a father, as begetting in the soul science, prudence, and all praiseworthy actions. The whole Pentateuch is in Philo's view more or less allegorical, some parts having no meaning except a figurative one; the larger portion, commencing with the account of the Patriarchs, is historical, yet in the historical fact lies hid a deeper meaning. The earliest traces of Jewish allegory may be found in the Book of Proverbs 10. That Philo only adopts what was already familiar is shown not only by his assuming the ready assent of his hearers, but by often giving different renderings of the same passage as understood by different expositors". He was preceded among others by Aristobulus, by the author of the Book of Wisdom, and also by the LXX, which often substitutes allegoric paraphrase for translation. Philosophy cramped by orthodoxy was forced into the way of allegory as the only means by which new opinions could be grafted upon old traditions. By this the most discordant elements were reconciled to the Jewish mind under a popular name. Philo often states that the Greek philosophers copied from Moses; and Aristobulus who lived 150 years earlier says expressly that not only the poets, as Orpheus, Homer and Hesiod, but the most eminent Greek thinkers, especially Plato, had derived their lore from some old version of the Pentateuch. Josephus, following the same tendency, promises an extended • « Το ρητον επι τουτου μυθώδες εστιν.” Philo, Mangey, i. 70. 10 Prov. iii. 18; xi. 30. "Comp. Mang. i. 513. 638. Pf. iv. 124; v. 54. allegorical theory, and many similar instances occur in the Pauline epistles. Like the author of Hebrews", Philo confines to the "wise" those recondite expositions 13 which he compares to the Pagan mysteries, enjoining the initiated to withhold them from the profane1. He probably assumes the style of the Hierophant more for effect than from any absolute necessity for secrecy; yet there appear to have been then as now many illiterate and bigoted persons who, obstinately attached to the "beggarly elements" of the letter, would have felt outraged by innovation'. On the other hand many of those favoured persons who might be said to be among the initiated (θεοφιλεις and θεραπευται) incur the censure of Philo for excess in the use of allegory, thus abandoning wholly the historic sense, and endangering all faith in the national institutions and privileges. $2. THE DIVINE POWERS AND THE LOGOS. God being perfectly pure and holy cannot touch the impure and imperfect. The Alexandrian Jews therefore removed their Deity from immediate contact with the world, adopting the oriental notion, which though properly forming no part of Plato's philosophy may yet seem to have been countenanced by him, of the impurity of matter as source of evil'. Pantheism is on this account impious; it is to make the world to be itself God instead of God's work". God dwells alone in inaccessible solitude; his emblem, or that of his everlasting associate, 12 Heb. v. 11. 14 Pfeif. ii. 26. 100. 144. 13 Pfeif. v. 316. 332. Mang. i. 146. ίδμινα και μακαριον.” There were however 1 " Ου γαρ ην θεμις απείρου και πεφυρμένης Pfeif. v. 126; comp. ii. 258. Mang. ii. 261. other precedents both Greek and Oriental besides Plato for ascetic maxims and practice. 2 Pfeif. iv. 162. |