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The true Shepherd. The Apostles of God. The Logos the spiritual sun
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THE TRUE SHEPHERD
Again, speaking of God as the True Shepherd of the universe and all things therein, the elements and all therein, the sun, moon, and planets, the stars and heavens, Philo writes:
“[He placed] at the head His own True Reason (Logos), His First-born Son, who shall succeed unto the care of this sacred flock, as though he were the lieutenant of the Great King. ” 4
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The Divine Reason of things, moreover, is regarded as the Plē rō ma or Fullness of all powers, —ideal space, and ideal time, if such terms can be permitted. The Logos is the Æ on or Eternity proper. And so Philo speaks of:
“The Divine Reason (Logos) whom God Himself hath full-filled entirely and throughout with incorporeal powers. ” 1
THE APOSTLES OF GOD
This Supreme Logos, then, is filled full of powers—words, logoi, in their turn, energies of God. As Philo writes:
“For God not disdaining to descend into the sensible world, sends forth as His apostles His own ‘words’ (logoi) to give succour to those who love virtue; and they act as physicians and expel the diseases of the soul. ” 2
These “words” or “reasons” are men’s angels; they are the “light-sparks” or “rays” in the heart—of which we hear so much in “Gnostic” and allied literature—all from the Father-Sun, the Light of God, or Logos proper, which Philo calls “the Light of the invisible and supremest Deity that rays and shines transcendently on every side. ”
THE LADDER OF THE “WORDS”
“When this Light shineth into the mind, the secondary beams of the ‘words’ (logoi) set [or are hidden]. ” 3
In treating of the allegorical Ladder set up from earth to heaven, Philo first gives what he considers to
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be its cosmic correspondences and then applies the figure to the little world of man:
“The ladder (κ λ ῖ μ α ξ ), then, symbolically spoken of, is in the cosmos somewhat of the nature I have suggested. But if we turn our attention to it in man, we shall find it is the soul; the foot of which is as it were its earthly part—namely, sensation, while its head is as it were its heavenly part—the purest mind.
“Up and down through all of it the ‘words’ (logoi) go incessantly; whenever they ascend, drawing it up together with them, divorcing it from its mortal nature, and revealing the sight of those things which alone are worth the seeing; not that when they descend they cast it down, for neither God nor yet God’s Word (Logos) is cause of any loss.
“But they accompany them 1 [in their descent] for love of man and pity of our race, to succour, and give help, that they, by breathing into them their saving breaths, may bring the soul to life, tossed as it is upon the body [’s waves] as on a river [’s bosom].
“It is the God and Governor of the universe alone who doth, transcending sound and sight, walk ’mid the minds of them who have been throughly purified. For them there is an oracle, which the sage prophesied, in which is said: ‘I will walk amid you; and I will be your God. ’ 2
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“But in the minds of them who are still being washed, and have not yet had throughly cleansed the life that is befouled and stained with bodies’ grossness, it is the angels, the ‘words’ (logoi) divine, making them bright for Virtue’s eyes. ” 3
This Light of God is, as has repeatedly been said before, the Divine Reason of things.
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“‘For the Lord is my Light and my Saviour, ’ 1 as is sung in the Hymns; —[He is] not only Light, but the Archetype of every other light; nay rather more ancient and sublime than the Archetypal Model [of all things], in that this [latter] is His Word (Logos). For the [Universal] Model is His all-full 2 Word, the Light, while He Himself is like to naught of things created. ” 3
THE LOGOS THE SPIRITUAL SUN
This Word, or Logos, is further symbolised among phenomena as the sun. The Spiritual Sun is the Divine Reason—“the intelligible Model of the [sun] that moves in heaven. ”
“For the Word (Logos) of God, when it enters into our earthly constitution, succours and aids those who are Virtue’s kinsmen, and those that are favourably disposed to her, affording them a perfect place of refuge and salvation, and shedding on their foes 4 destruction and ruin past repair. ” 5
The Logos is thus naturally the panacea of all ills.
“For the Word (Logos) is, as it were, the saving medicine for all the wounds and passions of the soul, which [Word], the lawgiver declares, we should restore ‘before the sun’s going down’ 6—that is, before the
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most brilliant rays of God, supremest and most manifest, go down [or set]—[rays] which through His pity for our race He has sent forth from [His high] Heaven into the mind of man.
“For whilst that Light most Godlike abideth in the soul, we shall restore the ‘word’ (logos) that hath been given to us in pledge, as though it were a garment, that it may be to him who doth receive it, the special property of man—[a garment] both to cover up the shame 1 of life, and to enjoy the gift of God and have respite in quietude, by reason of the present help of such a counsellor, and of a shielder such as will never leave the rank in which he hath been stationed. ” 2
From all of which it seems that Philo is drawing a distinction between the Pure Light of the Logos and the reflection of that Light in the reason of man, for he goes on to say:
“Indeed we have prolonged this long excursus for no other reason than to explain that the trained mind, moved by irregular motions to productiveness and its contrary, and, as it were, continually ascending and descending [the ladder]—when it is productive and raised into the height, then is it bathed in radiance of the archetypal immaterial rays of the Logic 3 Source of God who bringeth all unto perfection; and when it doth descend and is barren, it is illumined by their
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images, the ‘words’ (logoi) immortal, whom it is custom to call angels. ” 1
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