"Further, there are three classes of human character, to
each of which one of the three conceptions of God has been
assigned. The best class goes with the first, the conception
of the absolute Being; the next goes with the conception of
Him as a Benefactor, in virtue of which He is called God;
the third with the conception of Him as a Ruler, in virtue
of which He is called Lord. The noblest character serves Him
who is in all the purity of His absolute Being; it is
attracted by no other thing or aspect, but is solely and
intently devoted to the honor of the one and only Being; the
second is brought to the knowledge of the Father through His
beneficent power; the third through His regal power."
In the second passage, which occurs in the treatise on flight from the
world,[228] Philo is allegorizing the law about founding six cities of
refuge (Exodus xxxii). These are but material symbols for the six
stages of the ascent of the mind to the pure God-idea. The chief city,
the metropolis, is the Divine Logos, next come the two powers already
considered, and then three secondary powers, the retributive, the
law-giving, and the prohibitive. "Very beautiful and well-fenced
cities they are, worthy refuges of souls that merit salvation." Each
of these cities is an aspect of the religious mind; when it settles in
the first it obeys the law from fear of punishment and thinks of God
as the Judge; in the second it observes the precepts in hope of reward
and conceives God as the legislator of a fixed code; in the next it is
repentant and throws itself on God's grace, marking the first step of
the spiritual life. Then it ascends in order to the idea of God as the
governor of the universe, and the emotion which the rabbis called
[Hebrew: yrat shmim], the fear of Heaven; and to the idea of God as the
Creator and the universal Providence, which has as its emotional
reflex the love of Heaven, [Hebrew: 'hbt shmim].
But even this, which is the highest stage for many men, is not an
adequate conception. Above it is the contemplation of God, apart from
all manifestations in the perceptible world, in His ideal nature, the
Logos, which at once transcends and comprehends the universe. And the
attitude of this man can be best expressed perhaps by Spinoza's
phrase, "the intellectual love of God," _amor intellectualis Dei_. The
worshipper of the Logos has grasped and has harmonized all the
manifestations of the Deity; he sees and honors all things in God; he
comprehends the universe as the perfect manifestation of one good
Being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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