.Spirit, thi' eternally Perfect One, enter into the finite!
world? He creates ideals from himself, says riato. Ho introspects himself, and thus perfection i- produced; but this perfection impresses itself upon more subordinate existences, and thus it descends from immediate causes to intermediate causes, until the real objects spring into existence, and creation becomes manifest to us; God, the eternal existence, the eternally perfect, is the
highest cause, hut the eternally Pure One does not im- mediately come into contact with the impure— only by means of manifold emanations and concatenation.-., the earthly grows into existence. Such views afforded the philosophic Jews a happy means of preserving the the- ory of the infallibility and inconceivableness of God, and yel ol accepting the different figurative expressions con- cerning God in the Bible, because they could refer to the subordinate beings. Hellenism of that time. Btifl and soher as it was. was unlit to conceive naive, poetical im- ageries, and to admit poetical expression without fear- ing that thereby the sublimity of thought might he vio- lated. The latter was tenaciously adhered to, and when- ever it expressed entities too direi tly. it had to yield to forced interpretations. To such also the Bible was fre- quently subjected. Narratives and commands were forcibly driven from their natural simplicity into arti- ficial philosophemes, in the belief that their value would thus be enhanced. The figurative expressions and events in connection with (.ml were referred to such subordinate spirits as had evolved themselves from God. In the writings of Philo that intermediate agency is comprised in the Logos.
As with Plato and the elder Greeks, so with Philo, theology was the ultimate object of all metaphysical science. But there arose a puzzle in the mind of the Jewish philosopher, as in reality it had already arisen in the minds of Socrates ami Plato. How could he rec- oncile the idea of that absolute and eternal one Being, that Zeus, father of -oils ami men. self-perfect, self- contained, without change or motion, in whom, as a Jew. he believed even more firmly than the Platonists, with the Daemon of Socrates, the divine teacher whom both Plato and Solomon confessed? Or how-, again, could he reconcile the idea of him with the creative and providential energy, working in space and time, work- ing in matter, and apparently affected and limited, if not baffled, by the imperfection of the matter which be moulded? Philo offered a solution in that idea of a Logos, or Word of (iod. divinity articulate, speaking ami acting in time and space, and therefore by succes- sive acts, and so doing in time and space the will of the timeless and spaceless Father, the abysmal and eternal Being, of whom he was the perfect likeness. In calling this person the Logos, and making him the source of all human reason, ami knowledge of eternal laws, he only translated from Hebrew into Greek the name which he found in his sacred books. "The Word of (iod." Of God himself. Philo teaches that he is in- corporeal, invisible, ami cognizable only through the rea- son; that he is the most universal of beings, the Being to whom alone being, as such, truly pertains; that lit- is more excellent than virtue, than science, or even than the good /»'■ s< ami the beautiful per s.. lie is one and simple, imperishable ami eternal; his existence is absolute and separate from tin- world; the world is his work. Thus w hile Philo contends that ( Sod i> to be worshipped as a personal being, be yet conceives him at the same time as the most general of existences : ro yevualrraTov iartv 6 --fee (Legis AUeg. ii). God is
the only truly existent being, r.'. or i / !. Somn. 1,655,
ed.Mang.). Bul Philo, similarly to the Neo-Platonists
of a later epoch, advances upon the Platonic doctrine by
representing God as exalted not only above all human knowledge ami virtue— .as Plato had done— but as above
the idea of the Good — KpUTTOtV Jc i) dpeH], Kill Kiiht-
rtjv i) Imorfifin, Kai Kpeirrwv // abrb rayc&bv Kai ai'To to koXov i /'' J/'""// Officio, i. '.'. ed. Mang.) —
with which Plato identities him and bj teaching that we do not arrive at the absolute by scientific demon-
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stration (Xuywv airofielZei), but by an intermediate sub- jective certainty (tvapyeia, De post Caini, 48, p. 258, ed. Mang.). Still a certain kind of knowledge of God, which, however, is only second in rank, results from the aesthetic and teleological view of the world, as founded on the Socratic principle that "no work of skill makes itself" (oiicti' rwv tc%i>ik6jv ipywv airavrofiari- Ztrai). God is one and simple: 6 Jtbg fibvog tori Kai ev, ov avyKpipa, (pixrtg dirXi) . . . TtrciKrai ovv b Secic kutu to 'iv Kai ti)v f.iovdca, /.idXXov de Kai r) /.w- vdg Kara rbv tva Stov (Legis Alleg. ii, i, 66 sq. ed. Mang.). God is the only free nature (i) \ibvr] iXtvSipa (pumg. De Somn. ii), full of himself and sufficient to himself (avrb tavrov irXiiptg Kai tavrip iKavbv, De Norn. Mutat. i, 582) ; everything finite is involved in necessity. God is not in contact with matter; if he were he would be defiled. He who holds the world it- self to be God the Lord has fallen into error and sacri- lege. In his essence God is incomprehensible ; we can only know that he is, not what be is. All names which are intended to express the separate attributes of God are appropriate only in a figurative sense, since God is in truth an unqualified and pure being. Notwithstand- ing the pantheistically sounding neuters which Plato applies to God, Philo ascribes to him the purest blessed- ness: "He is without grief or fear, not subject to evils, unyielding, painless, never wearied, tilled with unmixed happiness" (De Cherubim, i, 151). God is everywhere by his power {rag dvvdfieig uvtov Sid yijg Kai vCarog, depog te Kai ovpavov Ttivag), but in no place with his essence, since space and place were first given to the material world by him (De Linguamm Con/, i, 425). Speaking figuratively, Philo describes God as enthroned on the outermost border of the heavens, in an extra- mundane place (ro7roc, ptTaKoa/.nog), as in a sacred cit- adel (Genes. 28, 15; De Vit. Mos. ii, 164, etc.). God is the place of the world, for it is he that contains and en- compasses all things (De Somniis, i). In creating the world, God employed as instruments incorporeal poten- cies or ideas, since he could not come in contact with polluting matter (i£, iKiivr]g \_ti)q ovaiag] ttcivt iytv- rnotv b Sfeog, oi>K i<pa-KTOfitvog auTog ' oh yap yv Sripig airtipijQ Kai Trt(pvpf.ih>t]g vXijg \paieiv rbv iSfiova Kai [laKc'tpioV dXXd rait' dmopdroig cvvdfitirii>,wv trvfiov Svofia at iceai K-arexp/jcraro npbg to yivog fKOorov Trjv dpfioTTOvaaav XapeTv ftoptpijv, De Sacrificantibus, ii, 261). These potencies surround God as ministering spirits, just as a monarch is surrounded by the members of his court. The highest of the divine potencies, the creative (7roMjrurij), bears also, according to Philo, in Scripture the name of God (Scog) ; the second or ruling (/3«(ti\[/c/() potency is called the Lord (Kvpiog) (De Vita Mosis, ii, 150, et al.). These are followed by the foreseeing potency, the law-giving, and many others. They are all conceived by Philo, not only in the nature of divine qualities, but also as relatively independent, personal beings, who can appear to men, and who have favored some of them with their most intimate inter- course (De Vita Abrah. ii, 17 sq.).