ii. A philosophical basis for the theory was afforded by the Platonic _Ideai_ or Forms, and the Stoical _Logoi_ or Reasons. We have already seen the place which those Forms, viewed also as Forces, and those Reasons, viewed also as productive Seeds, filled in the later Greek cosmologies and cosmogonies. They were not less important in relation to the theory of the transcendence of God. The Forms according to which He shaped the world, the Forces by which He made and sustains it, the Reasons which inhere in it and, like laws, control its movements, are outflows from and reflexions of His nature, and communicate a knowledge of it to His intelligent creatures. In the philosophy of Philo, these philosophical conceptions are combined with both the Greek conception of Dæmons and the Hebrew conception of Angels. The four conceptions, Forms, _Logoi_, Dæmons, and Angels, pass into one another, and the expressions which are relative to them are interchangeable. The most common expression for them is _Logoi_, and it is more commonly found in the singular, _Logos_. (3) _The Distinctions in the Nature of God._—The _Logos_ is able to reveal the nature of God because it is itself the reflexion of that nature. It is able to reveal that nature to intelligent creatures because the human intelligence is itself an offshoot of the Divine. As the eye of sense sees the sensible world, which also is a revelation of God,[476] since it is His thought impressed upon matter, so the reason sees the intelligible world, the world of His thoughts conceived as intelligible realities, existing separate from Him. “The wise man, longing to apprehend God, and travelling along the path of wisdom and knowledge, first of all meets with the divine Reasons, and with them abides as a guest; but when he resolves to pursue the further journey, he is compelled to abstain, for the eyes of his understanding being opened, he sees that the object of his quest is afar off and always receding, an infinite distance in advance of him.”[477] “Wisdom leads him first into the antechamber of the Divine Reason, and when he is there he does not at once enter into the Divine Presence; but sees Him afar off, or rather not even afar off can he behold Him, but only he sees that the place where he stands is still infinitely far from the unnamed, unspeakable, and incomprehensible God.”[478] What he sees is not God Himself but the likeness of Him, “just as those who cannot gaze upon the sun may yet gaze upon a reflexion of it.”[479] The _Logos_, reflecting not only the Divine nature, but also the Divine will and the Divine goodness, becomes to men a messenger of help; like the angel to Hagar, it brings advice and encouragement;[480] like the angel who redeemed Jacob (Gen. xlviii. 16), it rescues men from all kinds of evil;[481] like the angel who delivered Lot from Sodom, it succours the kinsmen of virtue and provides for them a refuge.[482]