But the new generation was Greek in spirit as well as speech, and diverged increasingly from the conservative Jews at Jerusalem. Both sections worshipped Jehovah, but the Alexandrian grew more and more conscious of the churlishness and inaccessibility of his national god. Thought mingled with his adoration. How could he link Jehovah to man? And, utilising a few hints in the orthodox scriptures, he produced as his first attempt a fine piece of literature called “The Wisdom of Solomon”; it is at present included in the Apocrypha. The author—his name is unknown—not only wrote in Greek but had studied Stoic and Epicurean Philosophy and Egyptian rites. He had the cosmopolitan culture of Alexandria. And, solving his problem in the Alexandrian way, he conceived an intermediate between Jehovah and man whom he calls Sophia or Wisdom. Wisdom is more moving than any motion: she goeth through all things by reason of her pureness. Being but one she can do all things and in all ages entering into holy souls she makes them friends of God, and prophets. She is more beautiful than the sun and all the order of stars: being compared with the light she is found beyond it. For after this cometh night, but vice shall not prevail against wisdom. In such a passage Wisdom is more than “being wise.” She is a messenger who bridges the gulf and makes us friends of God. * * * * * In Philo the Jewish school of Alexandria reaches its height. Little is known of his life. His brother was head of the Jewish community here and he himself was sent (A.D. 40) on a disastrous embassy to the mad Emperor Caligula at Rome. Being an orthodox Jew, he states his philosophic problem in the language of the Old Testament. Thus:— Jehovah had said I AM THAT I AM—that is to say, nothing can be predicated about God except existence. God has no qualities, no desires, no form, and no home. We cannot even call God “God” because “God” is a word, and no word can describe God. While to regard him as a man is to commit “an error greater than the sea.” God IS, and no more can be said of him. Yet this unapproachable being has created us. How? And why? Through his Logos or Word. This Logos of Philo is, like “Wisdom,” a messenger who bridges the gulf. He is the outward expression of God’s existence. He created and he sustains the world, and Philo uses the actual language of devotion concerning him, calling him Israel the Seer, the Dove, the Dweller in the Inmost,—language which naturally recalls and possibly suggested the opening of St. John’s Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Philo might have written this. But he could not have written “the Word was God” nor “the Word was made flesh” for it was, as we shall see, the distinction of Christianity to conceive that the link between Man and God should be himself both God and Man.