The Paraclete upon whose office as Mediator or Propitiation Philo loves most to dwell is "the Divine Word."

Ever with the Jewish race a peculiar reverence was paid to the supreme attributes and even to the name of Deity. Being felt to be incommunicable, his essence was shrouded in mystery, and his name was ineffable, and only to be pronounced by the high priest on certain solemn occasions. Through this sense of awe, combined with a fear of materialising the conception of Deity, it came to pass that certain functions of divine providence were defined as powers intermediate between man and the eternal secrecy of God's essence. By personification, this power or these powers came to be regarded as the deity that could enter into relation with human affairs, and though still recognised as God and not Gods (in the polytheistic sense), they left the central idea of deity at its unapproachable distance, and undwarfed by attempts at realisation approximately to the standard of man. To the mind of Philo there is present ever "God who is before the Word," but the providential influence which he feels to be in relation to himself is that of the Word: "The head and sum of propitiation resides in the sacred Word, in which when one dwells one does not directly reach God as he is in essence, but sees him as from afar. . . . . The intermediate divine Word. . . . . God, not deeming fit to come unto the region of external sense, makes apostles of his own Words. . . . When one has arrived at the external senses, it is no longer God that one meets, but the Word of God. . . . . God no longer bringing near the visions that proceed from Himself, but only those that proceed from his

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divine Word manifesting itself on a sudden, brings an unexpected hope-transcending joy, as being about to become way-companion to the desolate soul." (De Somn. I. § 11, 12.)

As the Christian Doctors added to the Gospel according to Jesus a new and dogmatic enlargement of these mediatory doctrines, it may be of interest to trace their origin in the Hebrew canonical and apocryphal scriptures, as well as their development by Philo.

The following passages will show how an attribute of Deity was personified and regarded as a separate and individual entity, and conversely how a messenger was regarded as one with Him that commissioned him.

In the following, for instance, the omnipresence of Deity is concreted into the Angel of the Pre

sence:

"He was their Saviour. In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of his Presence saved them .. but they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit." (Isaiah lviii. 9, 10.)

In the passage that follows the Word fulfils a similar function:

"As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returueth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my Word be that goeth out of my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.' (Isaiah lv. 10, 11.)

In the following, again, we find Wisdom occupying a like office: "Wisdom shall praise her own soul,

And shall exult in the midst of her people:

I came forth from the mouth of the Most High,

And as a mist overshrouded the Earth.

From the beginning, before the sweep of time, he established me, And the æon through I shall nowise fail."

(Wisdom of Sirach xxiv. 1, 3, 9.)

In the following beautiful passage, Wisdom, a personification not a person, is represented as feminine. The Holy Ghost is similarly accounted feminine in an apocryphal book:

"I prayed, and understanding was given me,

I made invocation, and there came to me the spirit of Wisdom.

I preferred her before sceptres and thrones,

And esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her.

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"Wisdom, which is the artificer of all things, taught me ; For in her is a spirit of perception, holy,

Only-begotten, manifold, subtle, mobile,

Piercing, undefiled, sure, and harmless,

Loving the good, quick, unfettered, well disposed,

Kindly to man, steadfast, safe, unfretted,

All-powerful, all-surveying, spreading through

Spirits perceptive, pure, and subtlest.

For Wisdom is more moving than

any excitement, She extendeth and spreadeth through all things by reason of her pureness,

Being as she is but one, she compasseth all things,

And, abiding in herself, she makes all things new,

And generation by generation she passes over unto holy souls, And ordaineth them friends of God and prophets."

(Wisdom vii. 7, 10, 22-27.)

In the following the Word is represented as the Demiurge, and Wisdom as seated on the throne of God:

"O God of my fathers and Lord of compassion,

Who madest the universe by thy Word,

And through thy Wisdom didst ordain man,

That he should have dominion over the colonies that came from thee,

And should order the world in equity and righteousness, And execute judgment

with straightforwardness of soul: Give me Wisdom, whose office is to be seated by thy throne! And reject me not from among thy children."

(Wisdom ix. 1-4.) "With thee is Wisdom, which knoweth thy works,

And was by when thou wroughtest the universe,

And understandeth what is pleasing in thy sight,

And what is direct in my command

ments.

Send her forth out of the holy heavens,

That she may come to me with helping presence and may toil,

And I may learn what is well-pleasing unto thee."

(Wisdom ix. 9, 10.)

The Holy Spirit, like the Word and Wisdom, is a name for the powers that proceed from God:

Thy counsel who hath known, unless thou gavest Wisdom, And didst send thy Holy Spirit from the highest."

(Wisdom ix. 17.) "It was neither herb, nor emollient, that wrought them healing, But thy Word, O Lord, that healeth all things."

(Wisdom xvi. 12.)

In the following the personification is most vivid, but the oriental mind is poetic and not scientific. No distinct person is signified, but only a distinct energy:

"Whilst all things were wrapped in stilly silence,

And night was in the midst of her own fleet course,

Thine almighty Word from heaven leaped forth,

Out of the royal throne, an absolute man of war,

Into the midst of the pestilent earth,

Bearing the sharp sword of thy unfeigned commandment,

And stood up and filled all things with death:

And while it had hold of heaven, it stepped upon earth."

(Wisdom xviii. 14-16.) "By his Word all things consist."

(Wisdom of Sirach xliii. 26.) In the following is another expression, the Messenger of the Covenant, reminding us of the Angel of the Presence:

"Lo, I will send my messenger, And he shall prepare the way be

fore me:

temple,

The Lord whom ye seek.

And the messenger of the covenant in whom ye delight,

Lo, he shall come, saith Jehovah of Hosts,

But who may abide the day of his coming,

And who shall stand when he appeareth?

For he is like a refiner's fire,
And like the washer's soap.
And he shall sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver,

And shall purify the sons of Levi." (Mal. iii. 1-3.)

In the following it will be observed that "Jehovah" and the "angel of Jehovah" are expressions used indiscriminately:

"And the angel of Jehovah found her [Hagar] by a fountain of water in the desert. . . . and said unto her, "Behold thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael [God heareth]; because Jehovah hath hearkened to thine affliction

.. And she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou God seest me.' (Gen. xvi. 7-13.)

"And the angel of God said unto me in the dream, Jacob . . . . I am the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me.' (Gen. xxxi. 11 and 13.) In the Septuagint we read 'I am the God that was visioned to thee in the place of God."

"And the angel of Jehovah appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. God called unto him out of the midst of the bush. . . . Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I will be with thee. 'I am what I am.' . . . Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM

hath sent me unto you." (Ex. iii. 2-14.) In the Septuagint "I am the Being."

"The angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before their face, and stood behind them. And it came to pass that in the morning watch Jehovah looked unto the host of the Egyptians from out of the pillar of fire and of the cloud." (Ex. xiv. 19 and 24.)

The most vivid personifications, it will be observed, come from the poetic books:

(Ps. xxxiii. 6.)

"They cried unto Jehovah in their trouble,

And he saved them out of their distresses.

He sent his Word, and healed them,

And delivered them from their destructions."

(Ps. cvii. 19, 20.) "He sendeth forth his command on the earth; His Word runneth very swiftly." Ps. cxlvii. 15.) "Jehovah possessed me [Wisdom] in the beginning of his way, Before his works, from of old. From eternity I was formed, From the beginning before the earth was.

The Lord himself created her and saw and reckoned her through, And poured her out upon all his works.

She is with all flesh according to his gift,

And he bestowed her upon them that love him."

(Wisdom of Sirach i. 1, 8-10.)

As in the instances cited from the Hebrew Scriptures, the minister, messenger, or angel of God is not sharply differentiated from God himself, so also we find a somewhat similar double use of the word

Logos in Philo. In translating "Logos" by "Word," it has to be said that "Word" is a very inadequate rendering of a term of which no perfect representative in our language has yet been found. Logos is thought, or the expression of thought; it is wisdom's energy; if we look upon intelligence as secret, remote, and wonderful, the Logos, as used in Philo, is the manifestation of that intelligence. It is God's power brought near and palpable to us, whether we call that power that we feel so near us the mighty virgin Wisdom, or the secondary god, Logos; or it represents God's dutiful ministers in any shape, who, bearing his mission and speaking or doing nothing of their own, are to those to whom they appeal true manifestations of Divinity.

"The man who follows God does of necessity enjoy as the companions of his way, the Words (logoi) which are His attendants, whom we are wont to call angels." (Migr. Abr. § 31.)

"The angels-the Words (logoi) of God." (Somn. § 23.)

"It was impossible that aught mortal should be made in the close likeness of the Most High and Father of the Universe, but like the second God who is the Word (logos), of the Father)." (Fragm. Euseb. viii. 13.)

"Those who are unable to bear the sight of God regard his image, his messenger Word (logos) as himself." (Somn. § 41.)

"The images of the creative power and of the kingly power are the winged cherubim which are placed upon the ark. But the divine Word (logos) which is above these comes not into visible appearance, for it is not like any of the things that come under the external perception, but is itself an image of God, the eldest of all the objects of internal perception, and the nearest, without any partition to sever, to the only truly existing God. . . . The Word is, as it were, the charioteer of the powers, and he who utters it is the rider who directs the charioteer how to proceed, looking toward the proper guidance of the universe." Prof. § 19.)

(De

An architect "first of all sketches in his own mind nearly all the parts of the city which is about to be completed-temples, gymnasia, townhalls, markets, harbours, docks, lanes, constitution of the walls, foundations of houses, and of public and other edifices. Then having received in his own soul, as on a waxen tablet, the typical forms of each, he carries in mind the image of an intellectually apprehensible city, the shapes of which he stirs to and fro in his natural memory, and still further impressing within himself the seal of their character, like a good artificer, with his eyes fixed on the pattern, he begins to produce the city of wood and stone, making the corporeal substances a copy of each of the incorporeal ideas.

"Now we must form an opinion something of the same kind respecting God, who when he purposed to create the mighty city, first conceived its typical forms, wherefrom he composed a universe intellectually apprehensible, and

then completed the one visible to the external senses, using the first as a pattern.

"As therefore the city when first shadowed forth in the architect's art had no external place, but was impressed upon the soul of the craftsman, so in the same manner can the universe subsisting from ideas have no other local position saving the divine Word (Logos) which gave to these things their order." (De Mund. Opif. § 4, 5.)

"Were anyone to desire to use terms more undisguised, he would not describe the universe that is perceptible by the internal sense,

as

aught else but the Word (Logos) of God who is now producing universal order. . . . It is also plain that the archetypal seal itself, which we affirm to be the universe perceptible by the internal sense, must verily be the archetypal pattern, the ideal form of forms, the Word (Logos) of God." (De Mund. Opif. § 6.)

"The invisible and inly-apprehensible divine Word, he calls the image of God. And the image of this image is that inly-appreciable light, which has become the image of the divine Word. . . . . Verily it is a star above the heavens, the source of the stars that are externally apprehensible, and were one to call it the universal fount of light he would not very greatly err." (De Mund. Opif. § 8.)

As the poetic halo gathers round the conception of the Word, epithets are employed which to any but the oriental mind would apply only to a distinct individual:

"After the manner of a flock of sheep, the earth and the water, the air and the fire, and all things therein, whether plants or animals, divine and mortal alike, the nature of heaven too and the periods of the sun and moon, and the phases and harmonious courses of the other stars, are led by God as a