In fact, the method of Philo, both in his philo sophical theories and in his interpretations of Scrip ture, is so far from being, either in substance or in spirit, an anticipation of the Christian revelation, that it may rather be taken as a representative of the opposite spirit of rationalism, the tendency of which is to remove all distinction between natural and revealed religion, by striving to bring all re ligious doctrines alike within the compass of human reason. It is not the reception of divine truth as a fact, resting on the authority of an inspired teacher, telling us that these things are so ; it is rather an inquiry into causes and grounds, framing theories to explain how they are so. The doctrine of the Logos, as it appears in Philo, is a hypothesis assumed in order to explain how it is possible that the God whom his philosophy taught him to re gard as above all relation to finite existence could nevertheless, as his religion taught him to believe, be actually manifested in relation to the world. To explain this difficulty, he has recourse to the supposition of an intermediate being between God and the world ; standing, as it were, midway be tween the abstract and impersonal on the one side and the definite and personal on the other ; and de scribed in language which wavers between the two conceptions, without succeeding in combining them. In this respect the theory reminds us, not only of those forms of Gnosticism which subsequently emanated from the Alexandrian philosophy under the influence of Christianity, as Philo's system emanated from the same philosophy under the in fluence of Judaism, but also, to some extent, of later speculations, which, in the endeavour to trans fer the Catholic faith from a historical to a meta physical foundation, have regarded the doctrine of the incarnation of the Divine Word, not as the literal statement of a fact which took place at an appointed time, but as the figurative representation of an eternal process in the divine nature.t On the other hand, the Christian revelation, while distinctly proclaiming as a fact the reconcili ation of man to God by One who is both God and man, yet announces this great truth as a mystery to be received by faith, not as a theory to be com prehended by reason. The mystery of the union between God's nature and man's does not cease to • be mysterious because we are assured that it is real. No intermediate hypothesis is advanced to facilitate the union of the two natures by removing the dis tinctive attributes of either ; no attempt is made to overcome the philosophical difficulties of the doc trine by deifying the humanity of Christ or human ising his divinity. His divine nature is not less divine than that of his Father ; his human nature is not less human than that of his brethren. The in tellectual difficulty of comprehending how this can be remains still ; but the authority of a divine reve lation is given to enable us to believe notwith standing.
But while we acknowledge the wide and funda mental differences which exist between the doc trines of the Alexandrian Judaism and those of the Christian Scriptures, we must also acknowledge the existence of some striking similarities of lan guage between the writings of Philo and some parts of the N. T. The following instances ex hibit some of the most remarkable parallels of this kind :— An examination of these passages will, we be lieve, confirm the view which has been above taken of the doctrinal differences between them ; while, at the same time, it will enable us to discern a pur pose to be served by the verbal resemblances which they undoubtedly exhibit. If we except instances of merely accidental similarity in language, without any affinity in thought ; or quotations by way of illustration, such as St. Paul occasionally borrows from heathen writers ; or thoughts and expres sions derived from the 0. T., and therefore com mon to Philo and the apostles, as alike acknow ledging and making use of the Jewish Scriptures ; they may be reduced, for the most part, to two heads : first, the use of the name O Ao-yos, by St. John, as a title of Christ, and the application to him, both by St. John and St. Paul, of various
attributes and offices ascribed by Philo to the Divine Word, and to the various philosophical representa tions with which, the Word is identified : and se condly, the recognition, chiefly in the acknowledged writings of St. Paul and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, of a spiritual sense, in parts of Scripture, distinct from the literal interpi-etation ; though this is employed far more cautiously and sparingly than in Philo, and as an addition to, rather than, as Philo for the most part employs it, as a substitute for the literal sense. The apostles, it would appear from these passages, availed themselves, in some degree, of the language already established in the current speculations of their countrymen, in order to correct the errors with which that language was associated, and to lead men's minds to a recogni tion of the truth of which those errors were the counterfeit. This is only what might naturally be expected from men desirous to adapt the truths which they had to teach to the circumstances of those to whom they had to teach them. There was an earlier Gnosticism founded in part on the per version of the Law, as there was a later Gnosticism founded in part on the perversion of the Gospel ; and it is probable that, at least at the time when St. John wrote, the influence of both had begun to be felt in the Christian church, and had modified to some extent the language of its theologyA If so, the adoption of that language, as a vehicle of Christian doctrine, would furnish the natural means both of correcting the errors which had actually crept into the church, and of counteracting the in fluence of the source from which they sprang. If the philosophical Jews of Alexandria, striving, as speculative minds in every age have striven, to lay the foundations of their philosophy in an appre hension of the one and the absolute, were driven by the natural current of such speculations to think of the Supreme God as a being remote and solitary, having no relation to finite things, and no attri butes out of which such a relation can arise, it is natural that the inspired Christian teacher should have been directed to provide, by means of their own language, the antidote to their error ; to point, in the revelation of God and man united in one Christ, to the truth, and to the manner of attaining the truth; to turn the mind of the wandering seeker from theory to fact, from speculation to belief ; to bid him look, with the eye of faith, to that great mystery of godliness in which the union of the infinite and the finite is realised in fact, though remaining still incomprehensible in theory. If the same philosophers, again, seeking to bridge over the chasm which their speculations had inter posed between God and man, distorted the partial revelation of the Angel of the Covenant, which their Scriptures supplied, into the likeness of the ideal universe of the Platonist, or of the half personified world-reason of the Stoic, it was surely no unworthy object of the apostolic teaching to lead them, by means of the same language, to the true import of that revelation, as made known, in its later and fuller manifestation, by the advent of the Word made flesh. If the platonising expositor of the Jewish Scriptures, eager to find the foreign philosophy which he adopted in the oracles of God committed to his own people, explained away their literal import by a system of allegory and metaphor, It was natural that the inspired writers of the New Covenant should point out the true meaning of those marks which the Jewish history and religion so clearly bear, of a spiritual significance beyond themselves, by showing how the institutions of the Law and the record of God's dealings with his chosen people are not an allegory contrived for the teaching of a present philosophy, but an anti cipation, designed by the Divine Author of the whole as a preparation, directly and indirectly, by teaching and training, by ritual and prophecy, by type and symbol, to make ready the way for him that was to come.