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This representative character is again of a physical nature. The world is propitiated through Israel without its knowledge, and without accomplishing personally in itself any propitiation.

Not less is the essential equality of all men unacknowledged. It is concealed by a hierarchia terrestris, which is an image of the heavenly one; which gradation of order in men is connected with the physical character of his system. The more palpable is this, as well as the contradiction contained in it, since the high priest, and also the wise man, has not within himself this world-conciliating power. That the same world, which he will propitiate with God, is with Philo the Son, the perfect napáxλntos whom he resembles as the little world, whose support he needs, that his service of God may be acceptable. He must needs carry in himself the symbols of the universe, that, in his universality, individuals (even the high priest himself) may compensate for their fault; and by it God may regard everything as good, (De Vit. Moy. III. § 14. Tom. II. p. 155). He bears, on his holy costume, the image of the universe, in order that by the continual inspection of it, he may fashion his own life in a manner worthy of the nature of the universe, but also that by his divine service, the whole world may have part in his liturgy, (De Monarch. II. § 6. Tom. II. 227). If now Philo conceded a historical development of revelation and of humanity, so this might afford a good meaning, that he by the Universal, leaves the individual to be propitiated; for to the universal would belong then the collectively future development and if he admitted the idea of a Messiah, through him would be an assured development. However, as the world is, it is said to propitiate man. What now if men be reckoned to the world? Then thus much is said, viz. that he needs no propitiation. He is propitiated by his very being; just as he is, he is good and well pleasing to God, or, if he may be propitiated through the objective world, so has the world a higher rank, and the apparent nobleness of man, his distinction, sinks down again, (De Monarch. I. 248); as also the discrepancy and the conciliation, on which useless efforts have been made.

It is now hardly necessary to draw the conclusion, that Philo did not at all participate in the ardent wishes and hopes, which filled the hearts of Orthodox Jews; (and they were ill satisfied with him, see Tom. II. p. 656). In him the Messianic idea is reduced to an extinguished coal. Nothing but the dregs of that idea remain in him, viz. the hope of a wonderful return of the scattered Jews from all parts of Palestine, under the guidance of a superhuman divine apparition (os), which will be visible only to the righteous. This contrasts singularly with his cosmopolitan citizenship, (which he boastingly as

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cribes to his people), and with his satisfaction with the whole world, (De Execrat. § 9. Comp. De Praem. etc. § 16. De Vit. Moys. I. § 29). This last remnant of the Messianic idea is, with him, obviously a thing of heritage; it is heterogeneous with his system, and in itself without significance. It gives us, however, by its peculiarity in Philo, a means of conjecture in respect to the energy of the Messianic hopes among the Alexandrian Jews of his times; for it is to his connection with them that this tribute is to be ascribed. Still we are left to inquire, why the Messianic idea, and especially the idea of becoming man, which he so often approaches, find no place in him, (Quod Omn. Prob. liber, $16, Tom. II. 462. Tom. I. 280, 283. Quod Deus sit immut. § 10 seq.). The answer is, that a propitiation appeared to him unnecessary, on account of his idea of sin and of the divine righteousness; the incarnation he deemed absolutely impossible.

He seems desirous to ascribe freedom to man; but he immediately subjoins, that God excepts nothing from his power. In this way the first becomes difficult, on account of Philo's stand-point. On the category of holy love he says nothing. Instructive, however, is that which he says of the creation of man. The higher essence of man, his rational zúzos, must be stamped by the divine Logos, and not by God, who is before the Logos, and better than all rational nature. Before the infinite One in the extensive sense, (which in reality does not go beyond the physical), he shows such reverence, that in his view all that is logical and spiritual is regarded as inferior, because it implies some definiteness in God. On the other hand, because it is a definiteness in God, he calls it θεός, but as it were a θεὸς δεύτερος.

On Gen. 1:27 he says: "God speaks of himself as of another, viz. I have made man after the image of God." But why does God speak in the plural number: Let us make man, etc.? (Gen. 1: 26. 3:22. 11:7). This is addressed to the potencies around him, for to him (zò "Ov), immediate contact with the world would be unbecoming. The potencies (ayrehot, idéa) must form the earthly part of our nature, imitating the act of him who formed the leading part within us. The leading part did he form who is the Leader of all things; the inferior part was formed by inferior powers. But man must needs choose between good and evil; while other beings can have no faults and no virtues, like nature; or virtues only, like the stars. Consequently God assigns to other beings the revois xanov, while to him

'Leading passages are in De Confus. Ling. I. 430, 431. De Prof. p. 556. De Opif. Mundi, p. 17-19. In all these passages, Philo repeats the same doctrine. This his constant doctrine is to be retained, in the interpretation of the above cited fragment (II. 625), in which he appears to speak with difficulty.

self is reserved the authorship of good. That which is of a mixed character is in part suited to God, so far namely as the idea of the better is intermingled; in part, it is not suited to him, on account of its opposite nature, inasmuch as he cannot be the father of evil to his children. Accordingly evil has its origin in the creation, to which the subordinate potencies communicated it. In other passages he reverts to matter as the cause of evil; and this position has been built on still further by the Gnostics.

It would be difficult, in this way, to come to any apprehension of personal guilt; for Philo so speaks of evil, as if it belonged not to his conception, that it should be originated by the will of man. If only such physical evil be conceded, then none is conceded. In fact, in accordance with this, evil is very slightly regarded. He ascribes to every soul the divine power of virtue, (Tom. II. 462. Quod omn. Prob. liber, § 16 seq.). On the other hand he says: Never to sin is only a prerogative of God; perhaps, also, a thing that belongs to a divine man. This wavering laxity reaches its culmination in his idea of God, in the circumstance that divine righteousness is goodness. God is not unmerciful, but gentle by nature. Whoever believes this, he easily comes to repentance, hoping that God may forget, (Tom. I. De Prof. § 10. De Creat. Princip. § 14. Tom. II. 373 seq. De Justit. De Execrat. § 8, etc. Sometimes the old Heb. feeling of righteousness breaks in, Tom. II. 449. De Praem. § 12). If now the Scripture acknowledges not merely gentleness and goodness, but also indignation and righteousness, he ventures so to unite these, that he compares the Lawgiver with a physician, who, in what he says, accommodates himself to the patient, and does not always speak in accordance with truth. With all this, the uncultivated may fear; and to help them essentially, must God, the Lawgiver, be represented as angry, (Quod Deus sit immutab. I. 282, 283). Of the earnest struggles, which the noblest men of the ancient dispensation engaged in, to reconcile the holy justice and grace of God, he knows nothing. He removes that which gives intensity to the religious process, viz. holy justice, and degrades it to a figure of speech; whereby the whole becomes relaxed; hope, yea desire after something better is killed, and the moral conscience is poisoned with eudemonism. For a divine goodness which is not righteous, can do nothing else but sink into what is physical, and can have for its brightest aim nothing but enjoyment, nothing but a pleasurable state; even supposing this state to be, in its highest point, the repast of knowledge.1

De Opif. Mund. p. 18. Naturally he cannot deny that evil is the consequence

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This knowledge, then, does not find the spiritual, the divine, to be its highest object, but it remains a worldy knowledge, a consciousness of the world, the contemplation and knowledge of the world as its holiest theatre, (De Opif. Mund. p. 18, and Tom. II. 229. De Monarch. lib. I. § 6). In this degradation of divine righteousness is Philo a forerunner of Gnosticism. He has through his doctrine respecting the divine goodness, the appearance of something like that which is Christian, and which goes beyond the Old Testament and the stand-point of mere right; while he in truth sinks back below it, and makes the Christian redemption superfluous. In the passage where he speaks of the return of his nation, he could not divest himself of the ancient Hebrew doctrine respecting the necessity of some previous atonement; but the Jews, as he views the matter, are richly provided with propitiators before the Father, for they will have three napáxλŋTo (advocates) of reconciliation. (1) The gentleness and goodness of God himself, who always prefers pardon to punishment. (2) The holiness of the ancestors of the race; for their souls, freed from their bodies, and performing a service clean and pure to their Lord, prefer requests for their children and grandchildren, which are not inefficient. As a reward of honor are the hearkenings to their requests made sure by the Father. (3) The third nagάxληros is the betterment of those who are brought into covenant.

We have seen above, that according to Philo, the world is continually propitiated with God; that it continually propitiates itself, inasmuch as it always stands as a faultless unity before God, by reason of the Logos immanent in it. Consequently all further revelation is in his view a superfluity; as a disturber of the peace must it appear, and also of the unity and entirety of the world, since this is understood not in a moral but in a Hellenic sense. The law which Moses gave, is the same as the law of the world. The world is rational. The law immanent in it has Moses spoken for our consciousness. Therefore

of the sinful; but so far as he places it in relation to God, the only object of it in his view, is the profit of men, Tom. I. 306. De Agric. § 9. De Opif. Tom. I. 19. He assigns to repentance the office of devising its own good. Hence he views the righteousness of God not as the vindication of the divine law, of that which is unconditionally good, but as a salutary influence on men and on the world according to its various parts, Tom. II. 664. In accordance with this, we must understand the punitive power, which he ascribes to the 'Ov. There belongs the physical, but not moral or religious, ground of the providence and care of God for us, Tom. I. De Opif. Mund. p. 41, 42, viz. that the father provides for the son is a necessity of nature in its laws and regulations.

is it eternal, and not far from us, (Tom. I. 34). It is perfect and entire, and leaves nothing to be desired.1

In accordance with his doctrine respecting the image of God in man (De Confus. Ling. I. 426), and the participation of the latter by nature in the divine Logos (ut sup.), it might be expected that he would constitute a most intimate relation between the divine and human nature, and that the idea of God's becoming man would not be foreign to him. He speaks of heroes of mingled immortal and mortal seed, in which the mortal mixture is predominated over by the immortal, and declares it to be possible that others may accomplish the same thing, (Quod omn. Probus lib. ii. 462. § 26. De Migrat. Abr. § 31. Tom. I. 463). But still, the divine nature ever remains foreign to the human one. Where divine light shines, there the human disappears, (Quis Rer. div. Haeres, § 53. Tom. I. 511); and where that withdraws, this comes forth. "It is not lawful, that mortal should dwell with immortal." Hence ecstasy belongs to prophecy. The reason of this is not altogether that Philo separates a concealed God from the actual one; for he introduces God as saying to Moses: "It were easy for me to give what thou requirest, but not for thee to receive it." Much more is his idea of God, on the one hand, always falling back on physical infinitude, and, on the other hand, his 2n, always mingled with the mortal, the reason that God is not imparted according to the greatness of his grace, but is receivable only according to the capacity of the creature. His power is exceedingly great. All the powers of God are unbounded and infinite. That which is made is too weak to receive their greatness (De Opif. § 6), and so God gave to our nature not everything, but only so much as our mortal condition would admit, (De Opif. § 51. p. 35). Man must first put off the body, before he can attain to a higher stage of being. He knows, as we have seen, only so to separate God and the world, as that God is the active and the immutable, the world the passive and the mutable. This last distinction appeared to him as destroyed, in case God should become man. He knows not how to consider suffering as action, nor to imagine the body as anything different from bounds and limits; while Christianity regards it not merely as an organ of the spirit, but as a representation of it, and an essential ingredient in its self-development. His Christ, if indeed he needed one,

1 De Justit. Tom. II. 360. Hence he calls the law λóyos veios, De Migrat. Abr. I. 456, Mang. § 31. Even the aypapa ton of his nation one must abide by, and make no change therein, De Justit. loc. cit. We must call to mind, that these aypapa ton are specially the traditions of the Jewish people, in order to make an estimate how the sense of development, of the historical, has been extinguished in him, by his reducing of the Hebrew moral to the Hellenic physical.

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