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Concerning the Logos. The Son of God. The true High priest
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CONCERNING THE LOGOS
The idea of God found in Philo is that of the more enlightened theology of his time. God is That which transcends all things and all ideas. It would, of course, be a far too lengthy study to marshal the very numerous passages in which our philosopher sets forth his view on Deity; and so we shall select only two passages simply to give the reader who may not be acquainted with the works of the famous Alexandrian, some notion of the transcendency of his conception. For, as he writes:
“What wonder is it if That-which-[really]-is transcends the comprehension of man, when even the mind which is in each of us, is beyond our power of knowing? Who hath ever beheld the essence of the soul? ” 1
This Mystery of Deity was, of necessity, in itself ineffable; but in conception, it was regarded under two aspects—the active and the passive causative principles.
“The Active Principle, the Mind of the universals, is absolutely pure, and absolutely free from all admixture; It transcendeth Virtue; It transcendeth Wisdom; nay, It transcendeth even the Good Itself and the Beautiful Itself.
“The Passive Principle is of itself soulless and motionless, but when It is set in motion, and enformed and ensouled by the Mind, It is transformed into the most perfect of all works—namely, this Cosmos. ” 2
This Passive Principle is generally taken by commentators to denote Matter; but if so, it must be equated with Wisdom, which we have just seen was regarded by Philo as the Mother of the Cosmos.
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But beyond all else Philo is useful to us in recording the views of contemporary Hellenistic theology concerning the concept of the Logos, the Mystery of the Heavenly Man. the Son of God. Even as this word of mystic meaning comes forward in almost every tractate and fragment of our Trismegistic literature, so in Philo is it the dominant idea in a host of passages.
It should, however, never be forgotten that Philo is but handing on a doctrine; he is inventing nothing. His testimony, therefore, is of the greatest possible value for our present study, and deserves the closest attention. We shall accordingly devote the rest of this chapter exclusively to this subject, and marshal the evidence, if not in Philo’s own words, at anyrate in as exact a translation of them as we can give; for although much has been written on the matter, we know no work in which the simple expedient of letting Philo speak for himself has been attempted.
THE SON OF GOD
The Logos, then, is pre-eminently the Son of God, for Philo writes:
“Moreover God, as Shepherd and King, leads [and rules] with law and justice the nature of the heaven, the periods of sun and moon, the changes and harmonious progressions of the other stars—deputing [for the task] His own Right Reason (Logos), His Firstborn Son, to take charge of the sacred flock, as though he were the Great King’s viceroy. ” 1
Of this Heavenly Man, who was evidently for Philo the Celestial Messiah of God, he elsewhere writes:
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“Moreover, I have heard one of the companions of Moses uttering some such word (logos) as this:
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[paragraph continues] ‘Behold Man whose name is East, ’ 1—a very strange appellation, if you imagine the man composed of body and soul to be meant; but if you take him for that Incorporeal Man in no way differing from the Divine Image, you will admit that the giving him the name of East exactly hits the mark.
“For the Father of things that are hath made him rise as His Eldest Son, whom elsewhere He hath called His First-born, and who, when he hath been begotten, imitating the ways of his Sire, and contemplating His archetypal patterns, fashions the species [of things]. ” 2
Here we notice first of all Philo’s graphic manner (a commonplace of the time) of quoting Ezekiel as though he were still alive, and he had heard him speak; and, in the second place, that the First-born Son is symbolically represented as the Sun rising in the East.
THE TRUE HIGH PRIEST
That, moreover, the Logos is the Son of God, he explains at length in another passage, when writing of the true High Priest:
“But we say that the High Priest is not a man, but the Divine Reason (Logos), who has no part or lot in any transgressions, not only voluntary errors, but also involuntary ones. For, says Moses, he cannot be defiled either ‘on account of his father, ’ the Mind, nor ‘on account of his mother, ’ 3 the [higher] Sense—in that, as I think, it is his good fortune to have incorruptible
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and perfectly pure parents, —God for father, who is as well Father of all things, and for mother Wisdom, through whom all things came into genesis; and because ‘his head hath been anointed with oil, ’—I mean his ruling principle 1 shineth with ray-like brilliance, so that he is deemed fit for robing in his vestures.
“Now the Most Ancient Reason (Logos) of That-which-is is vestured with the Cosmos as his robe; —for he wrappeth himself in Earth and Water, Air and Fire, and what comes from them; the partial soul [doth clothe itself] in body; the wise man’s mind in virtues.
“And ‘he shall not take the mitre from off his head, ’ [signifies] he shall not lay aside the royal diadem, the symbol of his admirable rule, which, however, is not that of an autocrat-emperor, but of a viceroy.
“Nor ‘will he rend his garments, ’—for the Reason (Logos) of That-which-is, being the bond of all things, as hath been said, both holds together all the parts, and binds them, and does not suffer them to be dissolved or separated. ” 2
In another passage Philo treats of the same subject still more plainly from the point of view of the Mysteries, writing as follows:
“For there are, as it seems, two temples of God; —the one is this Cosmos, in which there is also the High Priest, His First-born Divine Reason (Logos); the other is the rational soul, whose [High] Priest is the True Man, a sensible copy of whom is he who rightly performs the prayers and sacrifices of his Father, who is ordained to wear the robe, the duplicate of the
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universal heaven, in order that the cosmos may work together with man, and man with the universe. ” 1
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