Now it is to be expected that whenever two spiritual powers meet, such as Hellenism and Judaism, such as Grecian culture and Jewish religion — when two such spiritual world-reforming powers come into conflict with each other — that conflict must necessarily result in new formations; something new will always grow out of it, be it by their antagonism or by their spiritual interpen- etration ; new creations will be evolved' either bearing the character of both, or pre-eminently that of one of them, yet impregnated, in a certain measure, by that of the other. The conflict between Hellenism and Juda- ism was principally a spiritual struggle, and its result a radical change in the thought and belief of both Jew and Macedonian, which led to the formation of what came to be known as Neo-Platonism, a philosophy of syncretism, whose elements are partly Oriental (Alex- andrian-Jewish in particular) and partly Hellenic; but whose form is strictly Hellenic, and whose peculiarity of doctrine is that it is distinguished from Plato's own by the principle of revelation contained in the new phi- losophy.
The great representative of this syncretism, which also reappeared afterwards in manifold shapes in Gnos- ticism, is our spirited and prolific theologian, Philo of Alexandria. He held to the divine character of the Old Test., had very strict views of inspiration, and thought that the Mosaic law and the Temple worship were destined to be perpetual. He ascribed to the Jews
PHILO
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PHILO
a mission for all nations, boasted of their cosmopolitism, and called them priests and prophets, who offered sac- rifice and invoked the blessing of God for all man- kind. With him tli*- expounding of the books of the Old Test, is synonymous with the philosophy of his na- limi: bul in bis own exposition he allegorically intro- duces into those documents philosophical ideas, partly derived from the natural internal development of Jew- ish notions, and partly obtained from Hellenic philoso- phy, and t li us. the theology of Philo lias been aptly called a blending of Platonism and Judaism.
The allegorical method of interpreting the sacred Scriptures, which had long prevailed among the more cultivated of the Alexandrian Jews, was adopted by Philo without restriction. His principle thai the proph- ets were only involuntary instruments of the Spiril which spoke through them was favorable to the frees! use of this mode of exegesis. He pronounced those who would merely tol< rate a literal interpretation of the Scriptures as low, unworthy, ami superstitious: and while he was thus led astray frequently to the introduc- tion of foreign heathen elements into the store id" divine revelation, ami to the refusal of all elements which, like the anthropomorphisms tor instance, seemed offensive to the culture of the time. Philo. like Origen (q. v.) in later times, far from rejecting the literal sense in every case, often, especially in the case of historical events in the Old Test., assumed both this and the alle- gorical sense as equally true. Bul Philo, besides this. regarded as higher that conception of Scripture which penetrated beneath the shell of the letter to what, lie thought to he the kernel of philosophical truth; beneath' the anthropomorphic and anthropopathic representations of i;<m1. to that idealistic view oi God which, in fact, di- vests him in the end of all concrete attributes. In this way. in spite of his opposition to Hellenic mysteries, I'hilu set up a radical distinction of initiated and un- initiated, a mode of interpretation which leads very easily to the contempt of the letter, and thus to an un- historical, abstractly spiritualistic tendency. See [n- terpkktation. As a devoted, believing .leu. Philo accepted Judaism as a truth requiring no proof. But in him. as probably in others of the Aloxandro-Jewish seh. h.i of philosophers before him. the desire was awak- ened to blend the Jewish inheritance with the newly acquired Grecian knowledge; to heighten the truths of Judaism by the addition of Hellenic culture; to recon- cile both treasures with each other, so that each should make the lustre of t lie other shine the more clearly ami brightly. Directly antagonistic as they were ti. each other, a compromise nui.-t needs he effected between them. Judaism is the fruil of self-evidence, inner ex- perience of a \i\id conviction, for which no proof is required. Hellenism, on the contrary, proceeded from ition, from human research, starting from the physical, to reach, by combination and analysis, the itwo processes not only diverging in their progress, hut even in their whole conception, aim these two directly antagonistic views clashed against each other. But there was also in Hellenism a tendency which, although grown from the Grecian spirit, never- theless endeavored to conceive, by a certain prophetic flight oi poesy, the higher, thence to descend to the lower, and thus to make the former descend into lower degrees, li desired likewise directly to conceive the divine, the ideal, by intuition, by higher perception. "\^' i 1 1 1 such a hold flight Plato conceived the everlast- ing <■ 1. the everlasting Beautiful, whence individual
ideals evolve themselves, which as archetypes— we are
not told whether they have a distinct existence, or must
rded a-- mere fictions of the >pirit an . in real objects, perfect in themselves, while the several visible Objects represent them in a limited degtt . . I hi
was a system which especially suited the philosophizing Jews; it afforded them a bridge between the purely spir- itual and the physical objects, Mow does the Highest