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tions, we may be in doubt; but the more we penetrate into the religious philosophy of Philo in its interior connection, the more decidedly shall we answer the question in the affirmative. A part of Philo's personifications wera purely allegorical and typical, and presented only a figurative costume, and a Biblical representation of the idea. In these, therefore, we find no proof of an hypostatizing of the Logos. Among these I reckon his designations of the Logos as αρχιερεύς, παράκλητος, déoμos, upgaris, and others of the same kind. Still, however, this poetical personification is often of such a nature, that, in connection with his general mode of thinking, it appears to indicate a metaphysical conception rather than a rhetorical image in the mind of Philo. On the other hand, the analogies of the Divine Logos, borrowed by Philo from the human soul, its relations, virtues, and attributes, are of as little weight against the hypostatizing of the Logos.* For, independently of other considerations, the human is not, according to Philo, an absolute and adequate image of the Divine.

As Philo regards the Logos under two points of view, that of the immanence and the emanation, his mode of representing the Logos in relation to God is accordingly different. The more the immanence and the attributive character of the Logos in God become permanent, the more the difference between the Logos and the Divine μorús, and consequently the independent personality of the former, recede, without, however, being thereby destroyed. But where the emanated living activity of the Logos is brought forward, there also must the difference of the Logos from God, and, if this was in reality the view of Philo, the independent existence and personality of the Logos, be made prominent. But that Philo did in reality conceive of the λόγος προφορικός, and in this mediately the óyos érdiάdeos, as a real hypostasis different from God, yet dependent upon him, is in my opinion evident from the following considerations.

First, Philo repeatedly calls the Logos the doxayyeλos.† If, then, the Jewish theology of the times regarded angels as personal beings, different from God, it follows that he must have conceived of the Logos, the highest angel, as a personal being.

Among modern writers, Grossman, Gfrörer, Dähne, and Ritter decide for an hypostatizing of the Logos in Philo. [So also Mr. Norton, in his Statement of Reasons, § 10. --TR.]

+ Quis Rerum Divin. Hæres, §§ 26, 27, edit. Richter. De Opificio Mundi, §§ 1-4.

1849.]

Philo's Doctrine of the Logos.

187

Secondly, in the well-known fragments in Eusebius, Philo distinctly calls the Logos Tov SEVTEQOV OEór, and distinguishes from the same the τὸν πρὸ τοῦ λόγου, or ὑπὲρ τὸν λόγον, Θεόν, Οἱ τὸν ἀνωτάτω καὶ πατέρα τῶν ὅλων. He proposes to explain in what sense God says, in Gen. i, 27, év eixóví Orov ἐποίησα τὸν ἄνθρωπον, — ὡς περὶ ἑτέρου Θεοῦ. When now he says, παγκάλως καὶ σοφῶς τουτὶ κεχρησμώδηται, θνητὸν γὰρ οὐδὲν ἀπεικονισθῆναι πρὸς τὸν ἀνωτάτω καὶ πατέρα τῶν ὅλων ἐδύνατο, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸν δεύτερον Θεὸν, ὅς ἐστιν ἐκείνου λόγος, this is an explanatory, and consequently a distinct and genuine statement, adduced fromthe religious philosophy of Philo, which decides the question on the principles of his doctrine. If we consider particularly this idea of the δεύτερος Θεός, we must be convinced that it implies a real Divine personality, according to the polytheistic, as well as the monotheistic, use of language. That the expression devregos Otós is not oftener used by Philo is to be explained from the polytheistic aspect which it wears; on which account it was unsuitable for an habitual expression. But when Philo does use it, the strict monotheistic conception ὁ μὲν ἀληθεία Θεὸς εἷς ἐστιν suffers as little as from his doctrine of angels, in which a gradation of real divine persons is expressed with sufficient distinctness. It is true, that, if Philo had been a thorough pantheist, this reasoning would have no force. But he was a dualist, in the sense that he sharply distinguishes the real hylic world and the real Divine being from each other. As a strict Jewish monotheist, he says expressly, that the Logos is called second God by him only in a figurative sense (év xaτazon). So, also, the other names. of the Logos (υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, πρωτόγονος, ὁ ἄνθρωπος τοῦ Θεοῦ) are evidently in part figurative expressions. But if they have any truth or meaning, there lies in them, as in the Sturegos Oeos, the idea of a personal being distinct from God. He even conceives of the world, so far as it is the manifestation and expression of the Divine ideas, as a living being, as the son of God.

Finally, as Philo, in accordance with the exclusive opposition between God and the world, distinguishes the hidden God out of the world from the revealed God in the world, it follows that this distinction must have the same degree of

*Præp. Evang., 7, 13. Fragm. Phil., II. 625.

+ Philo means, that, if this had been said without reference to the Logos, as second God, the language must have been rỹ iμavroũ sixón. Comp. Allegor., I. 128, and De Somniis, I. 655.

reality as that opposition. But, at the same time, he regards the Logos, though really different from the absolute God existing in himself, and though necessarily mediating between God and the world, as an expressive, though subordinate, image of the God who is in himself hidden. He must, then, have regarded the Logos as personal in the same degree as God himself. Thus the connection of the system herein harmonizes with particular declarations of Philo, that he regarded the Divine Logos as an hypostasis, or real person, different from God, just as he also represented the intermedi te powers, which the Logos comprehends in itself, as persons, bearing the Divine attributes in the world. Philo was an emanatist. But he regarded emanations as effluxes from the Divine being in the form of a gradation of real personal life. The Divine Logos was regarded by him as the highest and first step of this gradation.

But now the question arises, in reference to the prologue of John, whether Philo places the idea of the Logos in any connection with the idea of the Messiah. The Messianic hopes of his people were not unknown to Philo. He cherishes them with a certain predilection, and in some passages expressly discusses them after his manner.* The following is characteristic. In a passage where he is speaking t of the coming of the Messianic salvation, and the return of the Jews from their dispersion to the land of promise, he says that they would be conducted by a Divine, superhuman vision (oys), which, though invisible to others, would be perceptible to the delivered. From this Philo distinguishes the Messianic prince, the hero who, after the return from exile, should war with and overcome the heathen, and govern his people in righteousness.‡

This last view belongs to the positive Old Testament faith of Philo, and stands in no connection with his doctrine of the Logos. But from the manner in which Philo represents the conducting of the Jewish people from the beginning by the Logos, it may probably be inferred, that, in the abovementioned heavenly vision which conducted the return from exile he had in mind the Logos. This would be similar to his conception of the manifestation of the same as the aqaris ayyelos in the pillar of cloud and of fire, in the march out of

*

Especially in De Præmiis et Pœnis, and De Execrationibus.

De Execrat., II. 435.

De Præmiis et Pœnis, II. 423.

1849.]

Whipple's Essays and Reviews.

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Egypt. If now this heavenly vision was at all Messianic, then is the idea of the Logos certainly placed by Philo in some connection with the Messianic hopes. But, with his gnostic views, Philo could not have any conception of a real incarnation in man of the Messianic Logos.

(To be concluded in the next number.)

ART. II. WHIPPLE'S ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.*

PERIODICAL criticism in this country, if it be yet in its infancy, gives promise of a vigorous maturity. Though it may not be easy to name more than two or three of our deceased essayists who have left behind them a body of articles of permanent interest or value, we can readily enumerate a list of writers at the present time equal, if not superior, to those who have preceded them. We may confidently anticipate, then, a time when American criticism shall assume a higher place than it has yet held, and ought joyfully to receive any indication of the approach of such a time; for a fearless and just criticism is the great purifier of literature. It does more than almost any other kind of writing to elevate and correct the taste of a nation, and is at the same time an author's truest friend. As Boileau says,

“Un sage ami, toujours rigoureux, inflexible, Sur vos fautes jamais ne vous laisse paisible."

In proof of this, we need only refer to the influence exerted, both in England and America, by the Edinburgh Review, during its earlier and better days, when "that celebrated journal made reviewing more respectable than authorship," and even Byron himself acknowledged the effect of its criticism. To the critique on the Hours of Idleness, it is believed, we owe whatever of vigor, originality, and power is to be found in the works of that splendid but wilful genius.

Among those who have already attained an honorable position and who give promise of future eminence in this impor

Essays and Reviews. By EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1848. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 360, 370.

VOL. XLVI.

4TH S. VOL. XI. NO. II.

17

tant department of literature, the author of the volumes of "Essays and Reviews now before us is entitled to a high place. Although still to be numbered among our young men, Mr. Whipple has been known for the last five or six years as a frequent contributor to the North American Review, and to several other journals. Previously to his appearance in their pages, he had been for some years a writer for the newspaper press, his first article having been published when he was only about fourteen years of age. Attention, however, was first particularly called to him by the publication, in the Boston Miscellany, in the early part of the year 1843, of an article from his pen upon Mr. Macaulay, which at once established his reputation as a skilful analyst and a good writer. Since that time, he has contributed much to the current criticism of the day, besides preparing and delivering several popular lectures on literary subjects, and an oration before one of the literary societies in Brown University.

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As chief among his mental characteristics, we are disposed to place the rectitude which marks his critical judgments, and which is seen in the patience and thoroughness of his investigation and in the precision of his analysis, not less than in the results at which he arrives. With the utmost skill he penetrates to the heart of his subject, and lays it bare for the inspection of the curious, that they may verify for themselves. the correctness of the views which he presents. Nor does he seem satisfied until he has done this, and thus given his readers the opportunity of forming their own opinions. Notwithstanding this mental integrity, he sometimes, indeed, allows his kindly feelings to get the better of his judgment, in speaking of the productions of his personal friends; but we remember only one or two instances in which his private feelings have led him to speak with undue harshness of any author, however richly he may have merited rebuke. He has no sympathy with that literary injustice of which Jeffrey was sometimes guilty; and his severest censure has been levelled against the reckless effrontery which marked the editorial course of Wilson and Gifford, men who took delight in torturing any unfortunate Whig that ventured "to write a book," and who made literary criticism an instrument of personal and party warfare.

Closely allied with this quality of mental rectitude is his power of analytical criticism, as shown in his delineations of both intellectual and moral character. He rarely fails of

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