TiLDEN: Philo Judaeus 



29 



This Logos is related to God, to his Powers, and to Man. Related 

 to God, it stands for his Wisdom: related to the Powers, it is the 

 Creator and Governor of the Universe; related to man, it is the 

 go-between, mediator, high priest, and saviour. One cannot know 

 God. but one can approach nearer and nearer to him thru Faith, 

 Hope, Discipline, and Service. Here we are reminded of Plato's 

 ideal of "a pattern in heaven" {na^dheiyua sj' ovpavoj), and of 

 man's duty "to put on the immortal as far as in one lies" {e^' oaov 

 Ev^£^6Tai dOai'dTi.^Fi}'), and of "assimilation to God" (ououjgiq tu 



God is more and more revealed to us by experience in life thru 

 fear of his Justice first, and later thru love of his Goodness. Only 

 a few attain to close knowledge of God. and Philo himself claimed 

 to have experienced certain moments of ecstasy when he lost himself 

 completely, was oblivious of his surroundings, and unconscious of 

 what he said or wrote. Here, of course, he was influenced by the 

 visions recounted in Scripture. 



As Montefiore says, we may speculate upon the slight effect 

 Philo made upon the development of Judaism, but it is evident that 

 he did affect Christian theology quite definitely. The influence of 

 the Logos is apparent, for example, in John, in James, and in Paul's 

 Epistle to the Hebrews. The Logos idea also aided in the conception 

 of a division in the Godhead. The Holy Spirit as the third person 

 of the Trinity came later, to be sure, but the Father and the Logos 

 helped to develop the idea of Duality, not that the Logos in Philo 

 is the Messiah or the Christ. 



Philo also helped to inculcate the idea that the Kingdom of God 

 is something within us here and now, and not an external earthly 

 realm, or a future Heaven. The rewards of a good life are holiness 

 and a present vision and apprehension of God; the punishment of 

 a bad life is in the realization that one is wicked and shut out from 

 God's presence. All this is elevating and opposed to the vulgar idea 

 of rewards and punishments in another world. It also combats the 

 notion that heaven can be purchased by self-inflicted sufferings here, 

 or, in other words, it opposes asceticism as a cult. 



To know God is Philo's supreme aim. Altho he seeks this 

 knowledge by the pathway of metaphysics, he knows per- 

 fectly well that ^'only the pure in heart shall see God", and 



The reahstic or anti-Darwinian logicians of today perceive it less pictur- 

 esquel}', and more, perhaps, as Heraclitiis himself. To them it is an objective 

 and self-sub sis tent loom of invariant law, on which the ever-changing fabrics 

 of evolving natm-e are perpetually woven." 



Philo certainlj^ imitated Plato's "creative mj'stic powers". 



