5. The doctrine of God as eternal Being.—(a) The belief in the ewistence of one supreme God was fundamental in the Jewish religion. In the world of speculation, however, this was opposed by athe- istic and pantheistic hypotheses, and it wag there-
fore necessary to support the belief by philosophical arguments. The microcosm, man, suggested the true solution of the problems presented by the macrocosm. As the visible body was presided over by the invisible mind, so the universe which engages our vision must be held together and governed by an unseen sovereign. This conclu- sion is confirmed by the evidence of design and harmony in the objects around us. The cosmos has all the appearance of being a work of art, and consequently cannot be itself 6 mpé&ros Oebs, but must have proceeded from an intelligent and provi- dential artificer. Again, the universe, as we have seen, bore the marks of transience and dependence, and so pointed to a mp&rov or mpecBirarov atriov, which could be none other than supreme Reason or Mind (6 rév édwy voids), which alone could pro- duce a world that bore everywhere the impress of rational thought. But the highest mode of ap- proaching God was by religious intuition. The world was only a shadow, which left men subject to conjecture ; but God shone by His own light, revealing Himself to the eyes of the soul, and imprinting immortal thoughts upon the mind. This intuition is not universal. It requires soli- tude, detachment from earthly cares, and freedom from the sway of the senses. Self - knowledge, leading to self-despair, opened the way for this diviner knowledge; and he who had despaired of himself knew the Self-existent. Accordingly, the apprehension of God not only varied in different persons, but in the same person changed with changing moods.
(6) In forming an opinion about the Divine nature we are necessarily hampered by the limi- tations of our own consciousness. The human analogy evidently fails in a fundamental point. Man is a derived being, placed in a world which he has not created, while God is the underived Creator of the universe. He is not only without the human form, but without human‘ passions. The highest truth is expressed by the statement that ‘God is not as man’ (Nu 23!°), and it is only for purposes of admonition that He is said to be ‘as man’ (Dt 1°), and to have bodily organs, and such passions as enmity and wrath. ‘This thought is frequently insisted on. The two most instructive passages are de Sacr. Ab. et Caini, 28-30 [i. 181- 183], and Quod Deus immut. 11-14 [i. 280-283]. The former, explaining the necessary use of an- thropomorphic language on account of our weak- ness, sums up in these words: dedeis oby, & Wuxh, may yevntov Ovnrdv jeraBAnTov BEBnrov dmrd évvolas THs wept Oeot Tob dyevjrov Kal apOdprov Kal arpémrov kal ayiov kai pdvov waxapiov. The higher faculties in men, however, reasonjand the preferential free- dom of the will, were peculiar to them among created beings, and must be regarded as essenti- ally Divine; so that we may regard God as free, self-determining, ever active Mind (6 rod mayrés voids), possessed of 7d avrefovcvoy xpdros, even His beneficence being ascribed, not to His inability to do evil, but to His preference for the good (de Plantat. Noe, 20 [i. 342).
When we seek to pass beyond this description, and inquire into the essence of God, we are met with blank mystery. ‘The essence of the human mind is impenetrable, much more that of God, so that we can know only that He is, not what He is: 6 8’ dpa ovdé TO v@ karadymros Ore wh Kar& TO elvan Movov" Umdpits yap &o0" sv karahapBdvouer avdrod, tev dé ye Xwpls trdpiews ovdéy (Quod Deus sit immut. 13 fi. 282]). Accordingly, He is in the strictest sense without a name. There are, indeed, numerous appellations which serve to denote Him, and He is called in Scripture xuple évduare 6 ov (de Abr. 24 [ii. 19]); but these do not reveal His essence, so as to communicate a perfect knowledge of what
PHILO
PHILO 203
Ne is. In spite of this opinion, Philo constantly assumes that we have a very extensive knowledge of God, and it is generally supposed that his whole doctrine is involved in hopeless contradiction. This, however, may be resolved by a strict attention to the meaning of words. According to Philo, God is a simple uncompounded unity. But, when we speak of Him as rational, good, powerful, we violate His unity, and represent Him as mani- fold. This is due to the imperfection of our thought, which cannot comprehend the essence in which these things are one, but can notice only the different effects of the Divine causality in the manifoldness of nature. As a simple essence, God is without qualities (dros, a word which expresses not, as is often said, the absence of attributes, but the impossibility of classifica- tion). God is not a sort of God, or a sort of anything, but is alone in His incomprehensible perfection. How, then, are we to regard His attributes? A man is good by partaking of goodness, which, as it may be shared by others, makes the man a particular sort of man. God, however, is not good by partaking of goodness, as though it were something extraneous to Him- self. Goodness and all such attributes are among the ld.éryres of God; and if other beings may be classified as good, it is only because they partici- pate in the ‘Divine essence, in the eternal and archetypal ideas which the fulness of God ex- hausts and transcends. Ovdév ydp éore T&v Kad, 6 wh O08 re Kal Oetov (de Sacr. Ab. et Caini, 17 [L. 174]); mAjpys 6€ dyabav Terelwy, wadrov Se, el xXph 7d anes eireiv, atros dy 7d dyabdy, ds ovpayw Kal y7q TH Kara pépos SuBpicev avabd (de Septen. 5 [ii. 280]); 6 TOv Odwy vods early eld\iKpweoraTos Kal dkparpvéoraros, Kpelrtow 7) apery Kal Kpelrrwv 7 éemiorHun Kal KpelrTwy 7 avrd TO dyabdyv Kal atrd Td Kady (de Mundi Op. 2 [i. 2]).