204 PHILO
PHILO
when He wished to fabricate this visible cosmos, first shaped forth the intelligible, in order that, using an immaterial and most Godlike pattern, He might work out the material cosmos, a more recent copy of an older one, destined to contain as many perceptible genera as there were intelli- gible in the other. But it is not to be said or supposed that the cosmos which consists of the ideas is in any place; but in what way it subsists we shall know by following up an example of what takes place among ourselves. Whenever a city is founded to gratify the high ambition of some king or emperor, claiming autocratic authority, and at the same time brilliant in thought, adding splen- dour to his good fortune, sometimes a trained archi- tect having offered his services, and inspected the good temperature and suitability of the place, de- scribes first within himself almost all the parts of the city that is to be erected—temples, gymnasia, town-halls, market-places, harbours, docks, lanes, equipment of walls, foundations of houses and other public edifices. Then, having received the forms of each in his own soul, as in wax, he bears the figure of an intelligible city, and having stirred up the images of this in his memory, and, still more, having sealed there its characters, looking, like-a good workman, to the pattern, he begins to prepare that made of stones and timber, making the material substances like each of the immaterial ideas. Similarly, then, we must think about God, who, when He purposed founding the great city, first devised its forms, out of which, having com- posed an intelligible cosmos, He completed the perceptible, using the former as a pattern. As, then, the city which was first formed within the architect had no exterior place, but had been sealed in the artist’s soul, in the same way not even the cosmos that consists of the ideas could have any other place than the Divine Logos which disposed these things into a cosmos. For what other place could there be for his powers which would be ade- quate to receive and contain, I do not say all, but any one unmixed?’ (de Mundi Op. 4f. [i. 4]). The ideas are not mere names, which could have no efficiency, but are real essences, to which the quali- ties of things are due (see especially Sacrificant. 13 [ii. 261 f.]), and which maintain in material objects the permanence of ideal types. They are eternal, and do not perish with the things on which their seal has been set ; for wisdom and goodness do not die with the wise and good man. In their com- bination they form the xécpos vonrés, Which is the archetype of the xédcmos aicOyrés. They have no locality but the Divine thought, or God Himself, who is the ‘immaterial place of immaterial ideas’ (Cherub. 14 [i. 148]), the primal archetype, or rather older and higher than the archetype, the Idea being only one mode of the eternal Thought. From this point of view the xécyos voyrés is the son of God, and its counterpart, the xdcpos aig@nrés, is his younger son. Philo attempts no careful classifi- cation of the powers ; but there are a few on which he frequently dwells. The highest of all is the Logos. Next to this comes the creative power, 7 momrixy, and then, in succession, 4 Bach, 7 trews, and the two divisions of 4 vowoeruch, the preceptive and the prohibitive. The lowest on the scale, which are virtually only two, are subordinate varieties of the two powers above them, affecting the life of men, and not the entire cosmos, The two great powers, the creative and the regal, have their unity in the Logos. They are otherwise called ayabérns and éfovela, for by goodness God generated the universe, and by authority He rules it. Scripture represents this distinction by the two titles, deés and xvpos. Under the latter power is ranked the puni- tive, for it is the business of a ruler to punish the guilty ; but this is not inconsistent with goodness,
‘the oldest [z.e. the highest and best] of the graces,’ for punishment is intended as a prevention or cor- rection of sin. ‘ :
(6) We must now notice a very difficult question, What was the relation of the Divine powers to God? It is generally said that Philo is here involved in hopeless contradiction, sometimes treating the powers merely as attributes, sometimes regarding them as distinct persons. Philo himself felt that the subject was obscure, and not tobe rashly spoken of before those who were incapable of philosophical reflexion (see, especially, de Sacr. Ab. et Caint, 15 and 39 [i. 173f. and 189]). The most definite statement is found in an allegorical inter- pretation of the visit of the three men to Abraham. These symbolized the Father of the universe, and His two oldest and nearest powers, the creative and the regal. These present to the seeing intelli- gence a mental image, now of one, and now of three,—of one, whenever the soul, being perfectly purified, presses on to the idea which is unmingled and complete in itself ; but of three when it is un- able to apprehend the self-existent Being from itself alone, but apprehends it through the effects. That the triple image is virtually that of one sub- ject is apparent not only from allegorical specu- lation, but from the word of Scripture, which represents Abraham as addressing his visitors, not as three but as one, and as receiving the promise from one only (de Abr. 24f. [ii. 18 ff.]). It is clear from this passage that the creative and regal powers are not conceived as beings distinct from God, but only as answering to our imperfect modes of apprehension, while to a true perception both are lost in the supreme and unbroken unity of God. In other words, our highest thought, when it penetrates to the Divine unity, can apprehend God only as pure Being ; but, when we view Him through the variety of His operations, we are obliged to think and speak of certain aspects of that Being. An instructive analogy is furnished by a description of the ‘power’ in the wise man. It receives various names, piety, natural philosophy, ethical, political ; and the wise man contains these and numberless other powers; but in all he has one and the same eldos (de Hobriet. 22 [i. 370 f.]). Agreeably to this view, the powers are spoken of collectively as equivalent to the ‘invisible’ or ‘eternal nature’ of God. It is not surprising, therefore, that God and His power or powers are used interchangeably. Again, there are several passages in which the powers are regarded as predicates of God, and God is referred to as Him- self being or doing what is implied by their several names.