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GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND THE APOCRYPHA.

high priest of Jerusalem, when asked by Aristeas if it was not unworthy of God to give laws concerning meats, such as those given to the Jews, answered "that they were indeed insignificant; and though they served to keep the Jews as a distinct people, yet they had beyond this a deep allegorical meaning. "The great doctrine of Moses," said Eleazar, "is, that the power of this one God is through all things; "words in which the students of Alexandrian philosophy have seen an intimation of that Spirit which is through all and in all. It has been thought, too, that in the Greek version of the Scriptures made at Alexandria, there are evident marks of the influence of Greek thought on the minds of the translators, who seem often to have chosen such words as left the ground clear for a Platonic interpretation, and sometimes, even to suggest it. Some of the most remarkable of these are the translation of the name of God. "I am that I AM," which the Seventy render "I am He that IS; and the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis, where the Hebrew words which simply mean that the earth was confusion, are translated "The earth was invisible and unformed," pointing it has been supposed, to the ideal or typical creation of Plato, which preceeded the material. "The Lord of hosts" is usually translated "the Lord of the powers," or, "the Lord of the powers of heaven," the Greek name for the inferior gods.

The Books of the Apocrypha, which were mostly written by Hellenist Jews, have also been pressed into this service, but the evidence they furnish is uncertain. Solomon is made to speak of himself as good coming undefiled* into a body; which seems to be allied to the Platonic idea of the body being the cause of sin. He is also made to speak of the incorruptible Spirit of God being in all things. But the verses supposed to be most conclusive are those which speak of wisdom as the creative power of God; 66 A pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty. She is the brightness of the everlasting light-the unspotted mirror of the power of God-the image of his goodness; and being but one she can do all things, and remaining in herself she createth all things new and in all ages; entering into holy souls she maketh them friends of God and prophets. She preserved the first formed father of the world, who was created, alone, and brought him out of his fall."

*Wisdom of Solomon-viii, 20.

Wisdom of Solomon-xii, 1.

Wisdom of Solomon-vii, 25, 6 7, and x, 1.

PHILO JUDAEUS.

Again, the son of Sirach makes wisdom thus praise herself:

I came out of the mouth of the most High,

And covered the earth as a cloud.

I dwelt in high places,

And my throne is in a cloudy pillar.

I alone compassed the circuit of heaven,

And walked in the bottom of the deep.

In the waves of the sea, and in all the earth,

And in every people and nation, I got a possession.
With all these I sought rest :

And in whose inheritance shall I abide ?

So the Creator of all things gave me a commandment,
And He that made me, caused my tabernacle to rest,
And said, Let thy dwelling be in Jacob,

And thine inheritance in Israel.

He created me from the beginning before the world,
And I shall never fail.

In the holy tabernacle I served before him:

And so was I established in Sion.

Likewise in the beloved city he gave me rest,

And in Jerusalem was my power.

And I took root in an honorable people,

Even in the portion of the Lord's inheritance.*

I am the mother of fair love,

And fear, and knowledge, and holy hope,

I therefore being eternal, am given to all my children,
Which are named of Him.

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That these verses speak of wisdom as the creative power of God in much the same way as wisdom is spoken of in heathen philosophies, is not to be denied. It is also true that they were composed in Greek, and in a heathen city; but their likeness to the words of wisdom in the book of Proverbs, forbids us to say that they were borrowed from heathen philosophy. The writer may indeed have felt the harmony between the thoughts of the Alexandrians and those of the Jews, and may have delighted to show the Heathen that his nation was already in possession of a philosophy not inferior to theirs.

But if the influence of Greek philosophy is only imperfectly discerned in the Apocrypha, or the fragmentary writings of the Hellenist Jews, all doubt is removed by the works of Philo Judaeus-the proper representative of Alexandrian Judaism. We have not indeed any treatise of Philo's on a subject purely speculative, and consequently, no complete or carefully defined system of speculation; but the ideas scattered through his prac

Ecclesiasticus xxiv, 3—18.

tical and expository writings, and his unceasing efforts to bring the teaching of the Old Testament into harmony with these ideas wherever it seemed to differ from them, sufficiently evidence his obligations to the Greek philosophers.

But how could the Old Testament be made to teach Greek Philosophy? The history of a practical nation like the Jews might be supposed beforehand to have but little relation to the thoughts of philosophers, who spent their lives in the study of causes and essences. Often indeed the connection between thought and action, philosophy and daily life, is closer than we imagine, and the Old Testament writers may have had metaphysical thoughts, though they wrote no books on metaphysics. It is, however, impossible in reading Philo, notwithstanding the advantage he had in using the Greek version of the Seventy, not to feel that his interpretations are more frequently read into the Scriptures than found there. But this need not concern us here; we come to Philo's writings neither to refute his doctrines nor to approve them, but only to trace the character of that philosophy which manifested itself among the Jews of Alexandria.

The Greek translation of “I AM” as "He that IS" at once allied the Jewish theology to that of Plato; for, "the Being" was pre-eminently the name of Plato's supreme Deity. From this Philo could at once speak of the God of the Jews as the Eleatics and Platonists had done of the Being without attributes, of whom nothing could be truly affirmed; of whom no likeness could be made, for He is unlike anything in heaven or earth; He is infinite, immutable, and incomprehensible; but these predicates do not say what He is; only what he is not. Qualities belong to finite beings, not to God. He is wiser than wisdom; fairer than beauty; stronger than strength. By reason we know that He is; but we have no faculty whereby to know what He is. We aid our feebler thoughts by metaphors and illustrations from things material. We call Him the primitive light, from which all light emanates; the life, from which all life proceeds; the infinite Intelligence; but of Him, as He is in Ilimself, we only know that He is one, simple, and incapable of destruction. He has no name. To Moses He revealed Himself as “I AM THAT I AM," which, says Philo, is equivalent to saying "It is my nature to be; not to be described; but in order that the human race may not be wholly destitute of any appelation which they may give to the most excellent of beings, I allow you to use the word Lord as a name." "So indescribable is the

GOD HAS NO TRUE NAME.

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living God," he says again, "that even those powers which minister to Him do not announce to us His proper name." "After the wrestling with the Angel, Jacob said to the invisible Master, Tell me Thy name;' but He answered, 'Why askest thou my name?" "And so He does not tell him His peculiar and proper name, for," says He, "it is sufficient for thee to be taught by ordinary explanations; but as for names which are the symbols of created things, do not seek to find them among immortal natures." "A name can only designate something that is known; it brings it into connection with something else. Now, absolute Being cannot come into relation with something else. It fills itself; it is sufficient for itself. As before the existence of the world, so after it, Being is the all. Therefore, God who is absolute Being, can have no name." "Indeed," says Philo, "the name God does not worthily express the highest Being. It does not declare Him as He is, it only expresses a relation of the highest first Principle to the created. In reference to the universe, God is "the Good," but He is more than that; He is more than God. It is enough for the Divine nature to be and not to be known. He must be unchangeable, because He is fectly simple; and the most perfect of all beings can be united with no other." "God does not mingle with anything else, for what is mingled with Him must be either better than He is, or worse, or equal; but there is nothing better or equal; and nothing worse can be mingled with Him, for then He would become worse, or perhaps annihilated, which it is wrong to suppose.' Without attributes, without names, incomprehensible to the intellect of man, God is the One, the Monad, Being; "and yet," adds Philo, making a still higher effort to express the ineffable," the Therapeute reverence God worthily, for they consider Him simpler than unity, and more original than the monad." He is more than life, for "He is the source of life itself."

per

The necessity of again connecting the divine Being with the created world and things conceivable and sensuous, after entirely separating between Him and them, involved a contradiction. perhaps more than verbal. But each is a truth distinct by itself, and both are to be acknowledged as such, even if we cannot see the possibility of harmonizing them. God, though a simple essence and unlike things which proceed from each other, is yet the Cause of all the created universe. The unchangeable Being thus becomes the Cause, and being the ground essence of all becoming, that is, the phenomenal, must in some way be re

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THE DIVINITY OF MAN.

lated to it. It may be admitted that the universe did not owe its origin directly to the first Being; for, indeed, the most beautiful of the sensuous world is unworthy of God; to say nothing of the more unworthy part, which to ascribe directly to God would be blasphemy; and yet without Him it could not be; so that He must be recognized, at least, as the Cause of causes. The unknowable thus becomes known, though known only as the unknowable. Thus to be ignorant of Him is truly to know Him. "Therefore," says Philo, "we, disciples and friends of the prophet Moses, do not leave off the inquiry concerning that which really is; holding fast that to know this, is the goal of fortune, is an unbroken, life whilst the law also says, That those who are near God, live.' Then indeed, those who are separated from God are dead in soul. An important doctrine, dear to a wise man; but those who have taken their place with God live an immortal life again." "The goal of this life is the knowledge and science of God." He is incomprehensible, and yet comprehensible. Incomprehensible to us men, and yet comprehensible to us so far as we are divine,* for there is in us a germ of the Deity, which may be developed to a divine existence; and though God cannot enter into the circle of the human, We may yet be raised to equality with Him, and then we shall both see Him and know Him. This is the goal which we have before us. Now we know God imperfectly through his works. He is a God afar off; an Essence whose existence is demonstrable by reason; though indeed this knowledge of God is only negative. But we rise to a true knowledge of Him as our being becomes assimilated to His being. We have visions of God, a pure and perfect knowledge, by intuition, phantasy, or whatever other name be given to that revelation by which God is revealed to the soul. "It is such as was given in part to Moses when transcending the created he received a representation of the uncreated; and through this comprehended both God and His creation."

The supreme Being is not then the immediate maker of the worlds. Beginning with the sensuous, which is the first step of the celestial ladder we ascend to the spiritual; for, the visible evidently reveals the working of the Invisible. But we cannot here infer only one Being; there are, evidently, more than one, at least, two, an original first Cause and an intelligent Being, who is the proximate cause. The latter, Philo says, is subjected

* Man was not made of the dust alone, but also of the divine Spirit.—Philo. Quoted by John of Damascus