Tilden: Philo Judaeus 



33 



Helpfulness to one's brother must come before the realization of 

 the mystic's dream of heaven. ''Human virtue must walk upon the 

 earth, and yet must aim at heaven" are his words (I, 552). He uses 

 the Ten Commandments to illustrate his point, for he says the first 

 four 'Vords" relate to God, the last five to man, while the fifth 

 bridges the gap between God and man thru the parents. Yet in the 

 political sphere he follows Plato's idea of aloofness from any active 

 participation in government. 



On the question of sympathy and comfort in sorrow or suffering, 

 Philo is less satisfactory than many pagan philosophers like Plutarch, 

 Epictetus, and Seneca, and, of course, far behind the Psalmist and 

 the Evangelists. In the midst both of blessings and of sorrows man's 

 attitude should be one of submission and humility. One must not 

 have the arrogant notion of the Greek Sophists that ''Man is the 

 measure of all things." God is the only true cause, man is but a tool 

 in God's hands. Repentance is necessary to this submission and 

 humility. "Never to sin is the pecuHar quality of God; to repent 

 is the quality of a wise man" (I, 569). "Even in the souls of those 

 who repent, the scars and impressions of their old wickedness will 

 remain" (II, 405). "God, the pitying Saviour, can easily bring back 

 the mind from long wandering, and in evil plight thru pleasure 

 and lust — hard taskmasters that they are — into the right way, if 

 only it has once determined to pursue the good flight without turning 

 round" (II, 427). 



Altho God is in a sense present in everyone by virtue of the breath 

 of creative power, yet he dwells above all in the souls of the good. 

 "A fitting soul alone is a worthy house for God" (I, 175; II, 672). 

 In Second Corinthians 6, 16, Paul says: "for ye are the temple of 

 the living God." 



One's good nature, assisted by proper training, and with God's 

 help, will lead to the desired result. Persons enter into life with 

 certain endowments which in a measure determine their destiny. 

 But nature is not alone in this task; if it were one would be "predes- 

 tined" to a certain fate, and Philo avoids this difficulty, tho in a 

 rather unsatisfactory way. Heraclitus, ages before Philo, saw more 

 clearly when he said, yjOog dvdpcyno) Salfiov (Fragment 121, 

 Fairbanks) "Character is a man's guardian divinity", where yjOog 

 means the sum total of what a man makes of himself. Compare with 

 this Philippians 2, 12: "Work out your own salvation with fear and 

 trembling." Philo says that man is aided in working out his salvation 

 by the Divine /ioyoi. In explanation of this he says that help comes 

 to one person as a sudden and inspiring thought, to another a fine 



