THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
emphasis of Philo is positive; faith and piety are the supreme virtues. His positive faith is saturated with an ardent mysticism; not that of absorption in divine contemplation, but rather that sustained on the one hand throughout his monotheistic ethical point of view and on the other throughout his philosophical consciousness, ever alert to penetrate to the nature of things. Philo was thus the first monotheistic theologian in this cosmopolitan sense and the predecessor of the Alexandrine school.
In his doctrine of God he distinguished strictly between God in himself and God revealed, as demanded by his Old-Testament theistic point of view as well as his Platonic dualism of spirit 2. On and matter. On the one hand, he re- God in jects the pantheistic view and the dei-
Himself. fication of creatures; on the other, the anthropomorphic and anthropopathic view. God in himself is absolute, incorporate, and outside of the material universe; comprehending all, yet uncomprehended. He is outside of time and space, and in his being unknowable. The only name by which God can be designated is therefore pure being (to on or ho on). Though without real attributes yet in contrast with created being certain marks can not be avoided, such as immutability, unity, simplicity, absolute freedom, and beatitude, without lack of anything, self-sufficiency, whereby he stands in relation to nothing and is none of the created beings. God is called " the Good " only in the sense that he is the source of all good; " Light," in the figurative, only as the divine source, as much brighter than the visible lights as the sun exceeds the darkness.
God, as revealed, on the other hand, is also immanent in his relation with the universe and is the allfilling, all-penetrating, leaving no vac- 3. God uum. He is the author of the universe
Revealed; and first cause on whom depends the
Creation, world of spirits and sense. A series of attributes arise from his relations with the universe ; such as omnipotence, by virtue of • which he is almighty and the efficient cause of all; omniscience, all-knowing the present and all-foreseeing the future; and wisdom, whereby he transcends the counsel and reason of mankind. Three corollaries follow his creative power: the material, the means, and the object. (1) The stuff was the matter (hyle), the relative nothing (me on). Time is evolved from formless matter; and, not in time but with time becoming, heaven and earth were created. Creation in six days is to be taken figuratively, six being a symbol of perfection and representing the relative order and not time. This conception of creation taken from the Timceus of Plato is fundamentally nothing else than the absolute rational plan of creation springing from the Logos of God (cf. Origex and Origenistic Controversies). This Logos is the means by which the universe was created and the object was God's beneficence as love and as free self-impartation to his creatures.
Between God the Infinite and the finite, imperfect universe there is a wide gap which is, however, removed by being filled with divine potencies (dynameis), which are peculiar mediating beings or concepts, represented on the one hand as active
powers, self-revelations, or attributes of God; on
the other, as personal beings of a spiritual kind.
Incomprehensible in number they sub-
4. Inter- mit to classification; namely, into the mediate well-doing and the primitive powers.
Potencies; At the head of the former is the the Logos, agathotes through whom God made the universe and at the head of the other is the arche, through whom he rules it. But higher than these two at the summit of the series of all mediate beings, constituting their principle of unity, appears the divine Logos. He is their father and leader, the first-born. Are the others angels, he is the archangel. He stands in immanent relation with God and proceeds from him, whereas the others proceed from the Logos. He is sometimes called second God or image of God; his administrator, tool, and mediator. As mediator, through him the world was made. In him subsisted at the beginning of creation heaven and earth; i.e., the body of ideals. He is the seat of ideals which by partition or separation he projects from himself. Through him God imprints the intermediate potencies, which have their seat in the Logos, upon matter; hence his is called " seal of God." As the bond of unity, God holds together, supports, and directs all through him. He is also represented as the high-priest and advocate for men with God. The synonym " word " (hrema ; Gen. i. 3; Ps. xxxiii. 6; Deut. viii. 3) used sometimes by Philo indicates that the Logos was to him equivalent to the Biblical term of the Old- Testament instrument of creation and governance of the world.
At the conclusion of the work of creation, God
made first the heavenly man through the Logos;
i.e., the preexistent ideal man, in his pretemporal,
spiritual, unsexual eternal state, un-
5. Man. tainted by sin and truly in the divine
image. Subsequently, the earthly man, made not by the Logos alone but with the aid of the lower potencies, was deficient in the perfect image of God and was, in advance, subject to the possibility of sinning. Indeed, his higher soul (now) came from the creative, living breath of God, but in the creation of his lower soul (with its earthly reason, nous geinds) as well as his body, several angelic potencies or demiurges cooperated. After the earthly man had lived seven years in Paradise, or the realm of virtues, especially of piety and wisdom, he was sexually differentiated by the formation of woman from him and he entered the state of temptation and sin. The results of the fall are partly physical and partly ethical, the latter being the increasing degeneration of Adam's descendants, impure from birth. A partial image of God remains as freedom of will and rational perception; by these the fallen retain unbroken connection with God, particularly through the Logos through whom God reveals himself. Many men fail to apprehend God because of their guilt; only the consecrated who know how to rise above the earthly may enter into closer relations with him. In the special Scripture revelation, Moses is the earthly mediator of a revelation which shows Israel to be the chosen and the possessed of God, just as the Logos is the heavenly mediator.