Wisdom, is the solitary dove; his unchangeableness is eternal repose; with him, not in the changing world, dwell true freedom, peace and joy; and the " ασκηται σοφίας,” the wrestlers for wisdom and virtue whose highest aim is to become like God', must court the solitude which is pleasing to him; they must forsake the flesh as the Israelites escaped from Egyptian bondage, quitting, as did the Levites, not only country and kindred, but even themselves, in order to approach nearer to God. As in the O. T. idea of the life being in the blood good men had been carried up alive to God, so on the spiritual principle of death being the commencement of true life, it became desirable to anticipate it by self-mortification. Such ideas led numbers to quit society for the purpose of spiritual improvement, giving rise to the remarkable ascetic communities of the Therapeutæ and Essenes. These monastic saints are described as pale and wasted men who try to overmaster the flesh by the spirit so as to become if possible altogether soul". Rarely they leave their abodes, or if they do, they sojourn in desert places, imitating Moses who after 40 days' abstinence on the lonely mount became so glorified that the Israelites could not endure the brightness of his presence. The same tendency to renounce common human relations and enjoyments as prejudicial to a divine life obtained a place in certain Christian dicta" which long continued to influence the Ebionites, and on which a painful commentary was given by the "sainted libertine" of Assisi, when stripping off his rags he threw them at his father's feet, exclaiming, "Take back what was your own; henceforth I acknowledge no father but him who is in heaven."

3 "Ekoμosovolas Os." Mangey's Philo, ii. 193. 197. 404.

• Mangey, i. 337.

5 "Metathesis," or translation, thus came to be confounded with "metanoia," in the type of Enoch. Ecclûs. xliv. 16; comp. LXX, Gen. v. 24; and the idea recurs in Philo, Mang. ii. 410. Pfeif. v. 238. Hence Heb. xi. 5.

6 Pfeif. iv. 334.

M. ii. 145. Comp. 2 Cor. iii. 7.

7 M. ii. 279. Pfeif. v. 240.

Matt. v. 29; vi. 25; x. 9; xix. 12. 23. 27. Luke xiv. 26.

66

When God had been removed beyond the world and all impurities of matter, it became necessary to devise some means of bringing him back again, to account for his admitted control over nature generally, as well as for the particular interpositions recorded in Scripture. Pantheism was excluded as profane; and the only remaining resource was that of emanations or intermediate beings. The connecting link always required between the universal and individual when broken in regard to the Supreme divinity was supplied either by a subordinate person or by a plurality of persons. The personal Will and Word by which God made the world, implied ideas in the divine mind and powers in the creating agent. It was, according to Philo, through his "Powers" that God created the universe and maintains it. These powers are of two kinds; the ideal archetypes of creation, and secondly, spiritual beings dwelling in the air; both are "duvaμeis vangeтovσai," "minisδυναμεις ὑπηρετοῦσαι,” tering spirits," a sort of body guard surrounding the eternal and constituting his "glory." They are innumerable as the stars and of different kinds. Some descending the ladder of the firmament become involved in mortal bodies; others escaping soar aloft, while the most pure and godlike, who never yearned after the flesh, act as emissaries of the Supreme; they are the divine mandates or "oyo," the Dæmons and Heroes of the philosophers, and the Angels of Moses. The ministry of the λoyo ayyeλo is either carried on under a visible form, as by the three men who appeared to Abraham at Mamre, or invisibly, as in the influences guiding the soul to truth and virtue. Floating between abstraction and personality they include the Creative attribute through which God has his name ɛos, that of Dominion by virtue of which he is xugos; moreover Legislation, Mercy, Peace, Wisdom, &c. When Philo wishes to explain the scriptural Theophanies, he treats the "Powers" as persons; again, fearing lest divine agents distinct from God should lead to polytheistic mistake, he assures us that they are only aspects or modes of operation inseparable from God as the senses and faculties from the

human soul. The paradox of imagining the same beings to be both persons and abstractions, united with God yet separate from him, is excused on the ground of the feebleness of the intellect, and its incapacity to grasp at once the majestic union of the divine perfections.

The duvausis collectively are the half-personified constituents of the ideal world which are again comprehended and absorbed in the divine Logos. The word Logos has many meanings. It unites speech and reason, word and thought. The Hebrew "Dabar" seems equally extensive, being used generally for "matter" or "thing," like the Latin res allied to nua, and the German sache from sagen 10. The divine Logos may be either the direct voice of God, his written oracles, or his natural laws, either distributed as "xoyo" or personified as "avyo;" αγγελοι;” and as the Logos of man is either enunciated (googinos) or unspoken thought (evdiabetos), so the divine is twofold; one kind answering to the xorμos vontos or ideal", the other the manifested world '2, or development of the ideal by God's creative fiat.

Philo adroitly transfers to Moses the Platonic doctrine of ideas. God made the ideal world on the first day, and as the plan of a city prearranged by its projector, the invisible patterns of the universe reposed in the mind of its Author. The divine Logos may be either the sum or residence of the ideas"; comprehending either way the infinite variety of

10 Words therefore are things in Jewish etymology as in Jewish philosophy. The term translated things in our version is inuara in the LXX. Of a king it may be said that his word is tantamount to act (Eschyl. Suppl. 545, Bothe. Judith ii. 2. Eccles. viii. 4. Esth. vii. 8. Matt. viii. 8); especially in the call of the King of kings. (Ecclus. xlii. 15. Wisd. ix. 1. Psal. xxxiii. 6. 9. 4 Esd. vi. 38; xvi. 55.) Hence Philo gives to God the name of the "Speaker" ("O λaλav." Pfeif. iv. 268.) 11 « Εννοησις” or “ λογισμος θειος.” 12 Διανόησις.

13 Quoting Gen. i. 27 and ii. 5.

14 So the "holy tabernacle" in Wisd. ix. 8 is not merely the Cosmos, the outstretched tent of Isaiah (xl. 22. Acts vii. 44), but the "Cosmos noetos," the universe of ideas encircling the Deity as a garment. Sophia, too, according to Philo (Pfeif. iv. 192), is the "palace" of the great King.

species which fills the world. Hence it is called To YEVIXWTATOV, the "most generic" or universal, and also "universal divider" (TaνTWV TOMEUS), since the universal as penetrating all things and defining their essence may be said to divide or analyze them. It was this which at the beginning "divided" light from darkness; it is also the "God within the mind" which ever separates truth from falsehood in the chaos of the human soul. The well-known Biblical emblem of the "sword," that, for instance, which guarded Paradise, which armed not only the angel of the Covenant, of the vision of Balaam, &c., but Jehovah himself 15, was metaphysically applied in this sense. Isaiah had described the prophetic word as a "sharp sword;" 16 and Plato speaks of an ineffectual argument as one inflicting no wound". So too the Logos or Word of God is "the sword of the Spirit;"18 and the words of Philo supply a curious commentary to mystic descriptions proceeding from the same school or influenced by it. The creative word considered as the external manifestation of the divine thought may be called the "dwelling-place" of the ideas; this, says Philo, was understood by Jacob when he consecrated the "house of God" at Bethel. It may also be treated either as the "instrument" of creation20, as the "seal" by which God stamps out the various modifications of matter, as "TOTIS" (faith), the pledge of the stability of creation, "the deoμos Twv atavтwv," or as a subordi

15 Deut. xxxii. 41; xxxiii. 29. Psal. xlv. 3.

16 Isa. xlix. 2; comp. xi. 4 with LXX; xxxiv. 6. Hos. vi. 5.

17 Phileb. 13, p. 136. Comp. Eccles. xii. 8. Eupolis in Diod. S. xii. 40. Pind. Ol. ii. 159; ix. 17. Soph. Antig. 1085. Life of Timur, cited by Gesenius to

Isaiah, vol. iv. 126.

18 Ephes. vi. 17. 2 Thess. ii. 8. Rev. i. 16; ii. 12; xix. 13. 15. 19 66 "Logos, the universal divider, which sharpened to the keenest edge never ceases to divide all phenomena." Pfeif. iv. 58. Comp. Wisd. v. 20; vii. 24; xviii. 15, 16. Heb. iv. 12. Acts ii. 37. 1 Cor. ii. 10. 20 Comp. Ephes. iii. 9. Heb. i. 2. Coloss. i. 16. John i. 3; i. e. the Word or Son “who is in the bosom of the Father,” “ μηδενος έοντος μεθορίου διαστήματος, who "is in heaven" even when dwelling on earth. John iii. 13; xiv. 10, 11; xvii. 21. Pfeif. iv. 268. Mang. i. 561.

nately personified artificer, like the Demiurgus of Pluto". Plato called the world μovoyevns, as the one divine production. In Philo the sensible universe is called "younger son of God," the elder being the ideal Logos whom he retains with himself. God the great Shepherd and King appointed his first-born, "oplos novos," as viceroy over the elements, and charged him with superintendence of the heavenly herd or host, as it is written, "Behold, I send an angel before thee to keep thee in the way."

The external manifestation of Logos, which investing itself with the world as with a garment forms the mainstay of all law and order (θεσμος and νομος των όλων), the “Chance” of the foolish, and the "Providence" of the wise, stands in a peculiar relation to God's noblest work, man. It is this, which like the "first-born,"" opens the womb of the soul; which stirs the body to move, the tongue to speak, the spirit to comprehend. Uniting as the universal idea all spiritual natures, it is the soul's essence; it is either itself its dwelling-place, or makes the pious soul its abode, so that the "xoyin uxn" is the temple of God 23. Its gifts are the true and good, wisdom and virtue; true wisdom being to the Jew as to the Brahmin or Persian that written "Word" from which he is forbidden to swerve. The word is the healing "dew" of the soul25, the true "manna" rained from heaven 26, the divine river of Psalms from which wisdom flows, and which is prepared to refresh all who hunger and thirst after righteousness 28, since

27

21 « Μιμούμενος τας του Πατρος όδους προς παραδείγματα αρχέτυπα εκείνου βλέπων suoppov sidn." Pfeif. iii. 342. Comp. John v. 19.

25 Gen. ii. 6.

Isa. xxvi. 19. Psal. lxxii. 6 in LXX. Prov. iii. 20. Pfeif. v.

204. 206.

26 Pfeif. i. 342; iv. 282. Wisd. xvi. 20. 25. Ecclûs. xv. 3.

27 Psal. xlvi. 4; lxv. 9.

28 οι τους διψώντας και πεινώντας καλοκαγαθίας εφηδύνουσα.” Pfeif. iv. 282; v. 204.