Arabic Thought and Its Place in HistoryO'Leary, De Lacy
ReligionIslamic
Arabic Thought and Its Place in History
O'Leary, De Lacy
Philosophy, Arab
invariability, all of which necessarily removes it above the plane
of things knowable to man; and the operative emanation ceaselessly
issuing forth, eternal like its source, yet acting in time and space,
an emanation which Philo terms the _Logos_ or “Word.” Although
these theories are to a large extent only an expression of logical
conclusions towards which the Platonists were then advancing, Philo had
curiously little influence. No doubt there was a tendency to regard his
teaching as mainly an attempt to read a Platonic meaning into Jewish
doctrine, and certainly the large amount of attention he devoted to
exegesis of the Old Testament and to Jewish apologetics would prevent
his works from receiving serious attention from non-Jewish readers.
Again, although his ideas about monotheism and the nature of God were
those to which Platonism was tending, they represent also a Jewish
attitude which, starting from a monotheistic stand-point was then,
under Hellenistic influence, making towards a supra-sensual idea of
God, explaining away the anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament and
postulating an emanation, the _Hochma_ or “wisdom” of God as the
intermediary in creation and revelation. Undoubtedly Philo, or the
Philonic school of Hellenistic Judaism, was responsible for the Logos
doctrine which appears in the portions of the New Testament bearing the
name of St. John. He had an influence also on Jewish thought as appears
in the Targums where the operative emanation which proceeds from the
First Cause is no longer the “wisdom” of God but the “Word.” He seems
to have had no influence at all on the course of Alexandrian philosophy
generally.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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