The vast difference between Alexandrianism and the New Testament will appear still more clearly in the views of Philo on Cosmology and Anthropology. In regard to the former, his results in some respects run parallel to those of the students of mysticism in the Talmud, and of the Kabbalists. Together with the Stoic view, which represented God as the active cause' of this world, and matter as the passive,' Philo holds the Platonic idea, that matter was something existent, and that is resisted God. [216] Such speculations must have been current among the Jews long before, to judge by certain warning given by the Son of Sirach. [217] [218] And Stoic views of the origin of the world seem implied even in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (i. 7; vii. 24; viii. 1; xii. 1). [219] The mystics in the Talmud arrived at similar conclusions, not through Greek, but through Persian teaching. Their speculations [220] boldly entered on the dangerous ground, [221] forbidden to the many, scarcely allowed to the few, [222] where such deep questions as the origin of our world and its connection with God were discussed. It was, perhaps, only a beautiful poetic figure that God had taken of the dust under the throne of His glory, and cast it upon the waters, which thus became earth. [223] But so far did isolated teachers become intoxicated [224] by the new wine of these strange speculations, that they whispered it to one another that water was the original element of the world, [225] which had successively been hardened into snow and then into earth. [226] [227] Other and later teachers fixed upon the air or the fire as the original element, arguing the pre-existence of matter from the use of the word made' in Gen. i. 7. instead of created.' Some modified this view, and suggested that God had originally created the three elements of water, air or spirit, and fire, from which all else was developed. [228] Traces also occur of the doctrine of the pre-existence of things, in a sense similar to that of Plato. [229]
Like Plato and the Stoics, Philo regarded matter as devoid of all quality, and even form. Matter in itself was dead - more than that, it was evil. This matter, which was already existing, God formed (not made), like an architect who uses his materials according to a pre-existing plan - which in this case was the archetypal world.
This was creation, or rather formation, brought about not by God Himself, but by the Potencies, especially by the Logos, Who was the connecting bond of all. As for God, His only direct work was the soul, and that only of the good, not of the evil. Man's immaterial part had a twofold aspect: earthwards, as Sensuousness (asthesis); and heavenwards, as Reason (nos). The sensuous part of the soul was connected with the body. It had no heavenly past, and would have no future. But Reason' (nos) was that breath of true life which God had breathed into man (pnema) whereby the earthy became the higher, living spirit, with its various faculties. Before time began the soul was without body, an archetype, the heavenly man,' pure spirit in Paradise (virtue), yet even so longing after its ultimate archetype, God. Some of these pure spirits descended into bodies and so lost their purity. Or else, the union was brought about by God and by powers lower than God (dæmons, demiourgo). To the latter is due our earthly part. God breathed on the formation, and the earthly Reason' became intelligent' spiritual' soul (psuch noer). Our earthly part alone is the seat of sin. [230]
This leads us to the great question of Original Sin. Here the views of Philo are those of the Eastern Rabbis. But both are entirely different from those on which the argument in the Epistle to the Romans turns. It was neither at the feet of Gamaliel, nor yet from Jewish Hellenism, that Saul of Tarsus learned the doctrine of original sin. The statement that as in Adam all spiritually died, so in Messiah all should be made alive, [231] finds absolutely no parallel in Jewish writings. [232] What may be called the starting point of Christian theology, the doctrine of hereditary guilt and sin, through the fall of Adam, and of the consequent entire and helplesss corruption of our nature, is entirely unknown to Rabbinical Judaism. The reign of physical death was indeed traced to the sin of our first parents. [233] But the Talmud expressly teaches, [234] that God originally created man with two propensities, [235] one to good and one to evil (Yetser tobh, and Yetser hara [236] ). The evil impulse began immediately after birth. [237] [238] But it was within the power of man to vanquish sin, and to attain perfect righteousness; in fact, this stage had actually been attained. [239]