If we have understood correctly Philo's theology, neither Logos, nor
subordinate powers, nor angels, nor demons have an objective
existence; they are mere imaginings of varying incompleteness which
the limited minds of men, "moving in worlds not realized," make for
themselves of the one and only true God. Philo's theology is the
philosophical treatment of Jewish tradition, just as Philo's legal
exegesis is the philosophical treatment of the Torah. While
maintaining and striving to deepen the conception of God's unity, he
aims at expounding to the reason how, on the one hand, that unity is
revealed in the world about us, and how, on the other, we may advance
to its true comprehension. It was, however, unfortunate that Philo
expressed his theology in the current language, which was vague and
inexact, and adapted certain foreign theosophical ideas to Judaism;
hence succeeding generations, paying regard to the pictorial
representation rather than to the principles of his thought, sought
and found in him evidence of theories of Divine government to which
Judaism was pre-eminently opposed. The first chapter of the Fourth
Gospel shows that gradual process of thought which finally made the
Logos doctrine the antithesis of Judaism. In the first verse we have a
thought which might well have been written by Philo himself: "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God." But in the fourteenth verse there is manifest the sharp
cleavage: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth." There may be a fine spiritual thought
beneath the letter here, but the notion of the Incarnation is not
Jewish, nor philosophical, nor Philonic. Philo's work was made to
serve as the guide of that Christian Gnosticism which, within the next
hundred years, proclaimed that Judaism was the work of an evil God,
and that the essential mission of Jesus--the good Logos--was to
dethrone Jehovah! But though the Logos conception was turned to
non-Jewish and anti-Jewish purposes, it was in Philo the offspring of
a pure and philosophical monotheism. Whatever the later abuse of his
teaching, Philo constructed a theology which, though affected by
foreign influences, was essentially true to Judaism; and more than
that, he was the first to weave the Jewish idea of God into the
world's philosophy.
* * * * *
VI
PHILO AS A PHILOSOPHER
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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