But who now will deny, that Philo thinks God himself not to be destitute of wisdom or power? And yet he must think that he is destitute, if he places the faculty of thinking and of action in any other being than God, i. e. in the special hypostasis of the Son.

(2) But the second main signification of the Philonic Logos, is that of activity itself. The Logos is not only the power of thinking and creating, but is the thinking-creator. But still he does not attain to a hypostasis different from God, but only to a position that is fluctuating between self-existence and attributes; which is reconcilable with the doctrine of divine potencies. God saw that a beautiful copy could not exist without an exemplar; that nothing which is an object of sense could be faultless; nothing which is not formed after an archetype and a conceived idea. Therefore it was, that he created first the ideal world, when he was about to create the sensible one, so that he might have an incorporeal godlike original image for this corporeal world, this younger image of the older. This super-sensible world, consisting of ideas, one must not station in any place. Where it was,

ideal world. He is the 2óyoç or resting place for them, (De Mund. Opif. § 5). All the duvúpeic also repose in him, specially the world-making energy; and whatever has its source in good has a róños (i. e. source) in him, (ib.). The Logos, in this respect, is identical with copía. In De Ebriet. § 8. I. 361, is the Orhun of the Creator the mother of what comes into existence, as God is the father. Communing with her, not more humano, God has begotten and produced the birth of the world, (έσπειρε γένεσιν). Receiving the divine σnéрua, she has borne the only beloved son of God, the visible world." See Quod Deus sit immut. § 6. I. 277. The ideal world is the elder, the visible one the younger, son of God. Time is the son of the world, and the grand-son of God.

'In De Vit. Moys. Lib. III. § 13. Tom. II. 154, the Logos is designated in his relation to the ideal world, be it that he is represented as if he were the ideal material out of which it came, was the formative principle. In the first case, we should compare De Confus. Ling. Tom. I. 414, where it is said: The eldest son imitated his Father's doings; and looking to the original archetype, he created the forms [of the actual world].

This passage proves, that the ideal world is in the vous of the Father, and the Father brings it forth. As the same thing is said of the Logos, he can be nothing else than the vous of the Father. There remains, therefore, for the elder Son, nothing else than to be the source of the visible world. On this ground there remains then for us to inquire, whether the Son, whom the Father begets or brings forth, is a hypostasis. In the second case, if in the passage the Logos means the creative original form, it must be remembered, that God also is represented as bringing forth the ideal world; and consequently the Logos must be identical with the understanding of God as conceiving the idea of the world. The second portion of the passage makes the Logos actual the actual principle of the veritable world. Moreover, in like manner, he frequently considers God only as the Father of all. Vid. seq.

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Logos in Philo.

715

the analogy of a master-builder shows, who projects a city in his own mind, and every particular which he comprises in his own idea, he impresses on his own soul as on wax. This city has still existence in no place; but by virtue of his impression he erects the city with stones, in accordance with the archetype. So God when he created the world, this megalopolis,' (De Opif. Mund. Tom. I. 4. § 4 seq.). Here it is clear, that to God himself is ascribed the conception of the ideal world, the xóoμos vonzós. Philo then proceeds thus: "As the κόσμος soul of the artificer is the zónos (abiding-place) of the ideal city, so the ideal world has no other zónos than the divine Logos who formed it." It is plain, then, that the Logos of God, is God's understanding, which conceived of a world. Immediately after he says, that 'even the world-creating power has for its source true goodness.' The truly good is God to Philo. Since now he at the same time makes the Logos the zonos for all potencies, so he must understand, by the Logos, God under a definitive relation. The Father and Creator,' says Philo, 'is good; hence he does not grudge to matter (ovoía) his best essence. Of itself it has nothing good, although it is capable of becoming anything. Without employing any other assistant, (for what other was there?) only employing himself, God determined to endow nature with overflowing goodness, which of itself was incapable of imparting any good.' (ib. § 6).

(3) As however the Logos in Philo is the thinking, i. e. the idealworld-building God,1 so is he in the third place, the result, the thought or the thing thought, that is, the ideal-world itself. "If one may speak plainly," says he, "so is the ideal-world nothing else than the Logos of God as conceived of in the formation of the world," (§ 6). As little as the ideality of the master-builder is different from his mind, (for it has no objective existence, but is only a determination of his mind), so little is the ideal-world different from the Logos. Moreover he is conceived of not as different from God, but he is God as understanding or as creative power. It is plain "that the archetypal seal, which we call the ideal world, is itself the archetypal original image, the idea of ideas, the Logos of God," (ib.). In him the manifoldness of ideas, the fulness, is not negatived; much rather does he speak of idéa hóyou even in this sphere. But here they are in perpetual har

1 Passages are often found in l'hilo, according to which God is the self-illuminating light. But the usual sense of them is not that he himself thinks, but that he reveals himself in accordance with his existence. Of divine consciousness has Philo no idea; for divine thinking has he no other product than the world. Comp. II. 216 218, 415.

mony and appropriateness, (in the qúois μovadix, loc. cit. § 9), not in their development in space and time, like those in the sensible world (the xóouos aionrós), as they appear at least to the beholder.

(4) Fourthly, in respect to what concerns the actual sensible world κόσμος αἰσθητός, the Logos is indeed here also named as its active and divine source. It goes forth-is begotten of God-for the purpose that this world might come into existence, (I. 144). Here is the only point where one can imagine a special personality of the Logos. Yet from the words which designate his proceeding from God, this cannot be argued, because the same expressions are applied to the world, which has no personality. It is often called the younger son of God; so that if the obscure is explained by that which is clear, the elder son of God has as little claim to personality as the younger; and this the more, since the Logos is a world as well as the other, i. e. is the ideal-world. Or must the former be personal, in order to be able to penetrate λn, matter? If there be any creative act, which Philo ascribes to the Logos and not to God, then, in respect to this point, we might speak of a divine hypostasis. Instead of this, emanation does not require personality, in order that it may pass over from the ideal world to the sensible one. Much rather is it ill fitted to such a system.

Now, however, the formation of the world, as already mentioned, is ascribed to God himself. This world, the younger son of God, is not created by the Logos becoming God's representative; but God creates the world by himself, "making use of himself and of no other helper; inasmuch as he impresses on it his world-idea as the elder son of God, as a seal impresses matter." Matter is nαðŋτıxóv (passive), destitute of soul and motion (De Opif. p. 2), without order, destitute of qualities, full of heterogeneousness, disharmony, and contradiction. But it may become anything; it is susceptible of change into the opposite best, viz. order, definiteness, animation, similitude, equality, congruity, and harmony, (ib. p. 5). It is moved, shaped, animated by the divine intelligence; and thence comes the most perfect work, this world, the peyahónolis. Although he usually regards matter as already existing and thus presented as the object of divine activity, and not as created.!

'In Tom. II. 625, a fragment in Euseb. Praef. VII. 24 taken from the treatise Hepì Пpovoías, we have the following: "God met with just sufficient material, when he gave rise to the world; so that there was nothing lacking, nor anything superfluous. Comp. De Incorrupt. Mundi. From nothing nothing comes, and nothing can be annihilated. From that which does not at all exist, it is incredible that anything should come into being."

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Views of Philo.

717

Yet he still maintains the predicate of being created (De Opif. 2) in respect to the world. By this he can mean nothing more than this information of the Logos into the world, or this self-extension of God in an which exists in such a manner. That he may impart himself to it, has its original cause in God. The nature of the world, (as well in respect to matter as to the Logos), did not come to exist in time, and perishes not with it, for it is imperishable, (De Incorrupt. Mundi, p. 496, comp. passages above). The world is God's viós, yovos; for as seen of God it is nothing but the ideal world, placed in relation to λn, in all its fulness, and apparent through it. The discretive dividing principle is not in; by this it does not become unity or plurality. The xóouos vontós is in itself a linked arranged manifoldness of ideas; which separation Philo regards as a prerequisite of true harmony. And this unity, which at the same time is fulness, is in relation to matter, together with this actual world. So little does Philo make out an actual diversity between God or the Logos and the world. There can be no question here about creation; for the ideal world goes into the objective actual world, not by any new determination of itself, but only because, being of itself eternal (De Opif. p. 2), it is in position with . This is nothing new in respect to the ideal world or Logos, but only for van.o

2

According to what has been said, the Logos is now identical with the world, and therefore not personal; then, identical with God and only personal through him and not of itself. If we now superadd the monotheism of Philo, which so decidedly excludes the idea of a duality of divine persons, (e. g. De Somn. 1. 39), and also abjures divine power in respect to any one but God; then the assumption, that the Logos is a hypostasis in his view is more than shaken. Moreover the later ecclesiastical doctrine, that the hypostasis of the Son arises from internal divine self-severance, must be altogether foreign to him.

1 In regard to this, the Logos is called roμeds Twv öλwv (Quis Rer. div. Haeres., p. 491). In p. 491 seq., this is ascribed to God himself. Comp. De Mund. Opif. § 5. I. 5, “ The intellectual city is no other than the λoycoμós of the architect, designing to create the sensible city by the intellectual."

2 Philo speaks, indeed, often of the goodness of God, which has compassion on matter, and is the motive of creation or world-forming, (see De Mund. Opif. § 5, I. 5); but only haste and inaccuracy can identify this goodness with love. It has much more the character of physical goodness. If moreover matter did not exist, (its existence Philo regards as accidental in respect to God, and independent of him), then there would be no reason for compassion. The creation of the world is always regarded as something accidental. An application to something better, (which is weaker because it is not moral, and is conceived of in a Pagan way), lies therein, that according to him inaction and solitariness would be, for God, equiv alent to death.

He holds, that God interiorly is altogether simple, and is and must be incapable of any division. Where God is so little cognized in his free self-existence, so little considered in a moral way, there must remain of necessity only the substance or obscure ground of the world; in which last alone do any distinctions appear.

Still we must consider, how those appellations of the Logos, which seem to sound personally, are to be understood; and how, in general Philo unites the divine activity in respect to the world, with the abstract essence of God.

The meaning of those appellations it is not difficult to find out, after what has been said. Is the Logos, as xóσuos voŋtós in the sense supposed, a cause of the actual world as existing, so may he be called Regent of the world, and of the various potencies which are diffused abroad in it. So far as these potencies, plainly in the way of personification and not of hypostasis, are named λóyou and idea or ἄγγελοι, so can be as their unity be called ἄγγελος πρεσβύτατος, dozáyɣelos zokvárvμos, (De Confus. Ling. I. 426). To designate the idea, that God has an adequate reflection of himself (sixov) in the κόσμος νοητός, and that his activity in respect to the sensible world is not coetaneous with the ideal world-conceiving activity, in which God is identical with himself and remains in his own dwelling-place, (the Logos being the ideal world is such, De Migrat. Abrah. I. 437), Philo can name the Logos, in his relation to the sensible world, the Legate or unaoxos of the cosmical host, (De Agric. I. 308. § 12). God is non, etc.; he has however set over the world his pure reason, his first-born Son, i. e. the divine activity in relation to the world retains always, as its ultimate principle, the same in itself out of which sprang the world-idea, which rules over all and pervades all. In like manner, we may now understand the name high-priest which is given to the Logos, or to God as Logos. The Logos stands on the borders of the actual and ideal world.1

He

On him, the archangel and eldest Logos, has the Father, who begat the Universe, bestowed the distinguished endowment, that he, standing on the extremes, should keep separate from the Creator that which has come into being, and ward off evil from the good. watches over finite things; he is the limit against Pantheism, at least so far as through the category of Logos, it is declared that the world can never be God as he is in himself. Thereby, however, we cannot exclude the idea, that he may not be regarded as God in respect to his living nature or activity, yet Philo wills not that this should be fully done, inasmuch as the world, as it actually exists, is in combination

1 O Quis Rer. div. Haeres, I. 501 seq. § 42.