It will be necessary for us here, and at subse- quent stages in our investigation, to take account
a
DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE
of the theological position of the Jewish - Alex- andrian philosopher Philo, whose views, as marking a notable development of Judaism intermediate between the Apocrypha and the NT, cannot reasonably be passed over. Although not the first, ‘he is quite the most important representa- tive of Hellenistic Judaism, and his writings give us the clearest view of what this development was and aimed at.’* One of its most cherished aims was the substitution of more abstract teaching for the numerous anthropomorphisms of the OT, And in this field Philo did extensive service. He held that grief, envy, wrath, revenge, etc., cannot be attributed to God, and that when He is repre- sented as showing such emotions and affections the motives of the Divine activity are only being ex- pressed in a way that specially appeals to the human mind. But, strongly influenced as he was by Gr. philosophy, Philo did not abandon Judaism. On the contrary, he did his best to propagate it. In opposition to the Stoic doctrine that God is the (impersonal) soul of the world, Philo declares Him to be essentially different from the world, of which He is the Creator and Preserver. And thus, in spite of such approximations to pantheistic thought as we meet with in his writings, and his free use of Gr. philosophical language and method, Philo stands firmly on theistic ground. Frequently, no doubt, he conveys the impression of sinking the concrete God in a conception of almost purely ideal content. According to this philosopher, God is pure Being, of whom no quality can be predicated, and it is only through the medium of an infinite multiplicity of Divine Ideas or Forces, distinct from his own proper being, that any active relation between God and the world is rendered possible. Regarding the nature of these mediating ida or duvdpecs, however, he has no very definite concep- tion. He follows Plato in calling them Jdeas, and the Stoics in also designating them forces and Logoi, i.e. parts of the Reason which operates in the world; while at the same time he further identifies them with the Jewish Angels and the Gr. Demons, i.e. intermediaries between God and the world. It is not surprising that this vagueness of conception with regard to a fundamental theo- logical distinction should involve him in a serious contradiction. Philo is unable to avoid the incon- sistency of declaring on the one hand that the sum- total of Ideas, the xécuos vonrés, is nothing more than the Reason of God as Creator, while yet on the other hand he represents these Ideas as so many distinct and independent entities. If God works in the world through the medium of His Ideas or Forces, then the latter cannot be separ- ated from Him; but if He does not come into direct relationship with the world, then they must have an independent existence. See, further, art. PHILO in the present volume.
3. The extent to which foreign influences affected the doctrine of God as reflected in these writings.— How far, speaking generally, did external views modify the OT conception of this fundamental doc- trine? As regards the influence of Persian thought, it must be said that, although traceable, it was yet in this connexion comparatively inoperative. The references in the visions of Zechariah to ‘the seven eyes of Jehovah’ (3° 41°) are probably derived from Zoroastrian imagery ; but, if we except the idea that the favour of God is obtained through good works (To 12%#-), there is hardly anything in the Apoery- pha touching the doctrine of God which can be attributed to Persian influence. Allusion has already been made to the general identification of Jehovah with Ormazd. But, if there were points of union between the religion of the Persians and that of the Hebrews in their conception of the * Schiirer, art. ‘Philo’ in Encye. Brit.
DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE 279
Supreme Being, there were also points of cleavage. £.g., wnlike Judaism, Zoroastrianism starts from a dualistic scheme of the universe. In the persons of their representatives Ahura-mazda (Ormazd) and Angré-mainyush (Ahriman) good and evil have existed from all eternity. These two spirits divide the world between them; and its history is the record of their contest for the possession of the human soul. Man has been created by, and is accountable to, Ormazd, but he is a free agent, and may, if he choose, become the abettor of evil. To do evil is to serve the interests of Ahriman; to live righteously is to advance the kingdom of Ormazd. The two original spirits wage war by means of their respective creatures. Thus Ormazd is practically an idealized Oriental monarch sur- rounded by his ministers or Amesha-Spentas (mod. Pers. Amshaspands) who execute his will. But for the pious Jew, after the Exile as before it, there is no such dual proprietorship of the world; on the contrary, there is one ‘ Creator of all’ (Sir 248), ‘the God of all’ (Sir 507"), and ‘sovereign Lord of all’ (Wis 67 8°).
But, if the Pers. influence was slight, the Gr. influence on the OT conception of God was con- siderable. The necessary consequence of Judaism meeting Gr. thought appears in nothing more clearly than in the way in which the LXX trans- lators habitually tone down anthropomorphic ex- pressions about God. A few examples taken from only two OT books will suffice to illustrate this tendency. In Is 42!°, where the Heb. text reads, ‘Jehovah shall go forth as a mighty man,’ the LXX has ‘The Lord God of powers (képios 6 Oeds T&v duvduewy) shall go forth,’ while in the same passage, as also in Ex 15°, for His designation as ‘a man of ~ war’ is substituted the general idea of ‘stirring up war’ (cuvvTpiBwy rodéguous). The statement of Ex 19° that ‘Moses went up unto God, and J” called unto him out of the mountain’ is modified as follows: ‘Moses went up unto the mount of God, and God called unto him from heaven, saying,’ etc. In Ex 21° it is said of the slave who prefers his master’s service to freedom, ‘his master shall bring him unto God’ (RV), but the Gr. tr. runs, ‘unto the judgment of God.’ An obvious avoidance of the idea of seeing God occurs in Ex 241°, where the Heb. text—‘ They saw the God of Israel’—is ex- panded into ‘they saw the place where stood the God of Israel’; and in Is 88", where Hezekiah’s lament, ‘I shall not see the Lord in the land of the living,’ becomes ‘I shall not see the salvation of God,’ etc. But, while in the case of the bolder anthropomorphisms used by the Heb. writers the LXX translators were thus careful to put more abstract language in their place, they did not of course go the full length of pantheism. That would indeed be a strange travesty of the OT which should attempt to represent J” as an im- personal Deity, devoid of self-conscious reason and will. All that can be affirmed is a distinct tendency to guard the idea of God from misconception, by making use of language studiously abstract and sober. The same tendency is observable in the Apocrypha. As the majority of these books were written originally in Greek, we cannot trace the process so visibly as in the case of OT books rendered into Greek, but it shows itself none the less in the much rarer employment of names of members of the human body (anthropomorphisms), and in the much rarer ascription of affections of the human mind (anthropopathies), to set forth the personal activity, moral freedom, and spirituality of the living God. Even Wisdom, however, is not wholly free from anthropomorphisms; it speaks of God’s ear (12°), and of His hand (5° 7° 10” ete.) ; it contains the expression, ‘ them the Lord shall laugh to scorn’ (4'8), and it ‘retains a picture