few, nobody could read them. The most Philo's historical position renders him to wonderful feature in this Alexandrian school us Christians one of the most interesting is, that with indomitable application, insa- writers in the world. His life was cotemtiable thirst of knowledge, vast reading, and porary with the whole of that of Christ: he a principle of interpretation which demand- was probably born many years earlier than ed a minute acquaintance with the sacred He; and he survived certainly till considertext, none of them seems to have felt the ably later than A.D. 40, so that he was also importance of being able to read the Bible cotemporary with the first years of the inin the original language. Philo, the most fant Church, and most probably with some learned Jew of the age, a thorough book- part of the career of Paul. He mentions worm, and a sworn disciple of Moses, did one visit to Jerusalem, which may of course not know a word of the language in which have taken place in some part of the period Moses wrote. Clement remained quite con- of our Saviour's public life, or his Apostles' tent with his Septuagint; nor did the great ministry, but there is no probability that he Catechetical School ever possess a professor had any communication with them: nor can of Hebrew. Even Origen, the indomitable, we suppose that anything in his writings the brazen-bowelled (as Jerome schoolboy- was borrowed from Christianity; for that ishly nicknamed him), though he had a He- religion could not have become known to brew column written into his Hexapla, yet him (if ever) much before his 60th year, never learnt to read it.* When the sacred when his system must have been long malanguage had become thus totally forgotten, tured. We may take him as a representait would be vain, indeed, to expect to find tive of what the Hellenic Jews,-Stephen at Alexandria students of Sanscrit or Zend, and soms of his fellow-deacons, Apollos and or intelligent decipherers of the hierogly- others, were thinking and believing, at the phics. We are inclined, then, to think, that time when the Gospel reached them. Apolthe only sources of knowledge and written los, "a Jew of Alexandria, mighty in the materials of thought, that Philo and his con- Scriptures," cannot but have sat at the feet temporaries possessed, were the Greek writ- of the great Alexandrian Rabbi; and that ers of all kinds, and the Jewish Scriptures. Oriental ideas did undoubtedly reach them, but probably only second or third hand, in that indistinct, imperfect form, which, while it conveys no exact knowledge, is perhaps the most apt to suggest new thoughts, or at least new dreams. * The work against Celsus, which is supposed to have been one of the latest that he wrote, contains the following, in relation to the disputed passage at Isaiah vii. 10-14. "The word Alma, which the LXX. have translated πάρθενος, and others νέανις, occurs, as they say, in Deuteronomy," (quoting xxii. 23, 24.) The word does not occur in that passage. Could a man who knew Hebrew quote thus on hearsay, and in error?-Orig. c. Cels., i. 34. teacher's works may furnish an explanation This Christian idea was, however, precisely that to which Philo never attained. We find in him, not the earliest, but the completest instance, of the combination of the Amongst Clement's miscellaneous information, Greek and Hebrew elements, yet unmin. there are several very interesting particulars respect- gled with the Christian. He is a devout and ing India; which establish the existence at that believing Jew; but his belief and love do time both of the Brahmin and the Buddhist religion, and the priority of Buddhist Monasticism (both male not cling to the ceremonial worship, or the and female) over Christian. They are, however, ex- sacred city, or the temporal power,-hardly ternal particulars, such as Alexander's soldiers, or even to the national existence, of his people; the traders who went from Berenice to India, may but to the true philosophy, of which he behave seen and repeated; and shew no sign of Indian lieved that people to be the sole deposiaffairs having been the subject of study. The authority quoted is a Greek, Alexander surnamed Poly- tory. And the cardinal truth of this philohistor, a man of immense information, who lived in sophy was the Existence, the Unity, the the time of Sulla.-See Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 15, § 71, ib. iii. 8. Clement describes an Egyptian ceremonial procession, in which hieroglyphic books were carried; and he informs us, from hearsay, of the contents of those books. Strom. vi. 4, § 35. He enumerates the different kinds of hieroglyphic writing, and explains a few hieroglyphic signs.-Strom. v. 4, § 20. He also interprets a hieroglyphic inscription at Diospolis.-Strom. v. 7, § 42. We think he has told us all he knew. Personality, the Providence of God. This was to him no matter of speculation, but of faith it stood fast and firm in his mind; terial: nay, it is the most perfect, the firstand all that he had learned elsewhere, the born son of the Father of the world. It is result of his deep study of the Greek philo- the instrument of creation and providence, sophy and the few vague ideas that may by which God made, and still guides, the have reached him from the far East,-set- world. Its especial gift it is, to stand betled or floated round it. In this consists the tween, and divide the created from the Creagreat superiority of his position, over that tor. It acts as a suppliant (ikerns) for the of Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or any other of the great and good in the Greek philosophical schools. He had received from Moses a firm foundation, on which the minor detail of his opinions, and all his moral practice, rested. The migration of Abraham from Chaldea to Canaan typified, in his view, the reception by the soul of this fundamental belief. It was the soul's journey from the land of Pantheism to that of the true worship of the one personal CreaHe dealt with the sacred books in the most arbitrary manner; and read into them, by the help of his system of allegorical interpretation, whatever Greek ideas he pleased; but he still held fast his fundamental truth. Thus, though the account of the creation was to him as complete an allegory as it is to any modern German divine, yet he discovered in it these five truths, which he sums up as the first ones of all; 1. That God is, and has existed from eternity; 2. That he is but One; 3. That he made the world; 4. That the world, as the work of the One, is itself also one; and 5. That God's providence cares constantly for all that He has made. tor. mortal, which is disquieted in the presence of the immortal; as the ambassador of the sovereign to his subjects. Being neither unbegotten like God, nor begotten like man, it stands as a mean between the two extremes, acting as a surety to each partyto the Creator, that His whole creation will never fall away and disappear, choosing disorder instead of order, and becoming a chaos instead of a world; to the created, that the merciful God will never be forgetful of His own work: for it brings a message of peace to things created, from Him, who knows how to make wars to cease,-God the preserver of peace. It is the advocate (TaρákλANTOS) through whom we obtain amnesty of our sins, and unbounded supply of all good things. It is the high-priest of the world. It is the God of us the imperfect, while of the wise and perfect the First is the God. It may be called, though incorrectly, a second God. In fact, the first four verses of the Gospel of John contain no idea or word that would be strange to Philo. He too believed, with that Evangelist, that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: that all But, when he comes to think of creation, things were made through him, and that he is led to suppose a something mediating without Him was not anything made that between God and the matter upon which he was made; that in Him was life, and that operates. He has learned to look upon the life was the light of men." But he had God himself as simply the Infinite; as Ab- no idea, nor would he (probably) have adstract Being the "I AM;" as one who has mitted the possibility, of the Word becomno quality, no attribute; of whom nothing ing flesh: nor did he suppose that any such can be said except "He is ;". -as one of whom connexion between God and man was neednothing finite, no act in time or space,- -no ed. It is a disputed point, with great names direct communion with matter, can be imag-ranged on either side, whether he had any ined. That, therefore, which acts on matter idea of the Logos being a Person. We must be a mediator, distinct or distinguisha- think that he had none. There is, indeed, ble from Him: and this mediator is his Word or Reason,-his Logos.* This Logos is the first and only thing of which God Himself is the immediate maker; the first, in being and in honour, of all things that have come into being. It is God's image, the archetype of all light, intellectual and ma * Philo's idea of the Logos is fully discussed by Dorner, in his History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ: by Olshausen, Bibl. Comment. St. John's Gospel: and by Lücke on St. John. His expressions aro collected, and the result of the labors of the German divines epitomized in Alford's New Testament, John i. 1.-The chief part of the passages on which this paragraph is founded arc referred to by Mr. Alford in the place cited. Many may also be found in Smith's Classical Dictionary, Article Philon. in his language, the strongest possible personification; but we think there is no person, no hypostasis, intended. The Logos was the mind of God, and belonged to Him as our minds do to us, as the receptacle of his thoughts and designs. It was, or in it was contained, (for his expressions vary,) the ideal world, the aggregate of the ideal archetypes of all visible things. It was God contemplated, not in his nature as he is, but as already acting upon finite, material things; Θεοῦ Λόγος ἤδη κοσμοποιοῦντος. If we inquire whence Philo derived this idea, we are directed * to many imperfect * Dorner. by his own proper name, I AM: and the others by | bedience. The serpent is Pleasure, the wohis side are the first two in honour, and nearest to man Desire, led by Pleasure to wish for him, of his powers, the one the creative, and the sin; Desire then persuades the Reason, of other the kingly. And the creative power is God which Adam is the symbol, and sin is com(eds); for with it he founded (EOŋkɛ) and arranged the All. But the kingly power is Lord; for it mitted. He has no idea of the serpent being is just that the Maker should rule and be lord of Satan; nor, although he has a notion of good the thing made. The central one then, attended and evil spiritual beings, do we find in him by either of these powers, conveys to the mind's any of a devil, as the enemy and destroyer eye the image sometimes of one, at other times of of man. three-of one when the soul, completely purified, If we ask what was his view of things to and having passed over not only the multitude of be expected after death, we find another innumbers, but also the number two which is next to the unit, has pushed forward to that idea which stance of that remarkable phenomenon of is unmixed and unconfounded, and itself in need the Old Testament, great piety, and the of nothing else whatever;-and of three, when purest morality, resting merely on an innot yet initiated into the greater mysteries, it is tense belief in God, without a clear revelayet celebrating the smaller ones only, and as yet tion of a future state. He does indeed benot able to conceive the self-existent, apart from lieve in the soul's immortality, and that anything that proceeds from him, but only in his death is to the wicked not the end but the actions, as creating and governing. But that the threefold image is but of one object, beginning of punishment; and thinks that, is plain not only from the allegorical view, but to the good, old age should not be called also from the plain, literal meaning of the words. near to death, but rather near to immortality; For when the wise man besought those who seemed and he conjectures, (as we have seen already,) to be travellers to become his guests, he addressed that the patriarchs, now souls set free from them, not as three, but as one, and says, My Lord, the body, are employed in supplicating the if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not Father for us, acting as our advocates; but, away, I pray thee, from thy servant. For the words Lord, and in thy sight, and others, are not notwithstanding, we do not think that his naturally addressed to many, but to one." opinion of immortality ever rose from a speculation to a faith, or was at all more lively than that of Plato or Socrates. The two powers thus radiating or emanating from the Self-existent, would be both contained in the single idea of the Logos, who was the aggregate of all the powers. But the most influential of all Philo's views, which was adopted from him without hesitation by all who followed him, whether With respect to human nature, he thought Christian, Gnostic, or Neoplatonist, and that each man is, as to his intellectual part, which has not even yet died out of the akin to the divine Logos, coming in fact Christian Church, is the allegorical interprefrom him, as an impression from a seal, or tation of Scripture. According to him, chip from a block, or a radiation from a nearly the whole of Scripture, not only its light; but, as to his body, he is akin to all parables, its symbolical ceremonies, its the world, composed of the same elements. obscure prophecies, but even the simplest He has, originally, an equal tendency to- language in which it relates the most ordiwards vice or virtue. We do not find that nary transactions, every name and every he had any clear idea of the source of our number that it contains, possesses not only corruption; or had ever fairly faced the a plain but also a hidden meaning, the former question, which became so prominent in the of which is to the latter, as the body to the Gnostic schools, Whence moral evil came? soul. This idea did not, however, originate He piously shrinks from attributing it to with him. A certain Aristobulus, and other God; and very vaguely, and very inconsist- Jews, Oriental and Alexandrian, had used ently, imagines certain other powers, (what it before; and among the Greeks, it had or whence he does not specify,) whom God been applied to their ancient poets, at least addresses when he says, "Let us make man,' as early as Plato's time. Clement of Alexand from whom, not from Him, the evil andria maintains its universal adoption by proceeded. He thinks that the human race all the Greek philosophers; and although deteriorates, each succeeding generation re- few of the instances that he quotes are much ceding more and more from the first pattern, to the point, yet undoubtedly it had been just as successive copies from copies become extensively applied. It had arisen among more and more unlike the first original; the Greeks, when the literal meaning of the but he traces the evil which it contains to the original nature, and not to any Fall; indeed, he cannot be said to have imagined a Fall at all. The history of Eve and the forbidden fruit is to him an allegory, representing not the first only, but any act of diso D-16 VOL. XXIII. ancient myths became offensive to the new philosophy. We fear that it was adopted by Philo from a similar feeling. We cannot agree with Mr. Kingsley that his application of it was fair; to us he seems to omit and alter, in a perfectly arbitrary min. ner, whatever is likely to prove offensive to | been formed, the name of Christ has become his Greek or Hellenized readers. All the universally known, and his doctrines have immoralities of the patriarchs disappear; become the subject both of curiosity and and he has no scruple to omit a miracle, more earnest interest. The whole intervenlike that of the speaking of Balaam's ass, ing period is a blank. We do not know without explanation or apology. We should how or when the Gospel was first introsay, that the adoption of this principle of duced at Alexandria; nor, from the close interpretation by Philo and his Christian of the history of the Acts of the Apostles, disciples, was the greatest obstacle to their do we know how or when it made its surdiscovering the true meaning of the Bible, prisingly rapid progress through the world. and is the cause of their being almost use- We must pause for a moment on this less as expositors. They themselves com- point, and direct attention to a very compared the literal interpretation to the flowers mon error, which is productive of momentand fruits that grow upon the surface of the ous consequences, respecting the position, ground, and the allegorical one to a jewel with respect to the source of Christian hid beneath the soil; and we may well say, knowledge, of the writers of Clement's age. that while poring and groping after this Many people, judging a priori, suppose that jewel supposed to be concealed, turning they possessed many more particulars of the every stone, and sifting every grain of sand, age of Christ and His apostles than we do, they often missed or destroyed the whole- and that they must also have had a chain of some fruit and beautiful flower, that grew records extending from that age to their before their eyes and beneath their feet. own. But both these suppositions are Few will now deny,-in a few years proba- totally groundless. There are no reliable bly none will deny, that the existence of this records of the Apostolic Age, except those hidden meaning, except in professedly alle- contained in the Sacred Canon. And that gorical or figurative passages, is quite Age is, historically speaking, an isolated imaginary. It is a dying opinion, which it one; authentic history closes with Paul's is not worth while to strike. Yet we may last epistle, and only re-opens gradually in remark, that if we ask one of these writers, the age of Irenæus, Clement, and Tertullian. by what means this hidden interpretation This is, in truth, the most important fact is discovered, an intelligible answer fails. that we learn from the study of these early They tell us, that it will be found by the writers; and we may learn it very well pure in heart, the circumcised from corrupt from Clement of Alexandria. He was the desires, the true man of knowledge. But head of the most learned Christian body in experience proves this to be untrue; for the his day; had visited nearly all the early most extravagant interpretations have often seats of Christianity; and had heard teachbeen invented by the best men, as, for ers from Babylonia, Greece, Syria, and instance, by Augustine. On any moral Palestine. Moreover, he is a gossiping question, the truth is undoubtedly best writer, fond of quoting all the books that discerned by the man of purest heart and he has read, and telling anything that he life; but moral purity gives us no help in thinks he knows; he is like a tradesman guessing a collection of riddles, such as the whose wares, if he has any which he thinks allegorical theory supposes Scripture to be. are novelties, every one is sure to see exhibNevertheless, this kind of interpretation met ited in his shop-window. Our readers may with universal acceptance; and the existence judge of the amount and value of the particof the hidden meaning beneath the letter of ulars that he thought he possessed besides the simplest Scripture narratives, is pro- what are contained in the New Testament, nounced by Origen to be as universally by the following catalogue. A very pretty believed as any Church doctrine. We there- and interesting "tale, which was not a tale, fore fear that when this opinion dies, the but a true story," about an adventure bedictum, Quod semper, quod ab omnibus, quod tween the Apostle John and a robber, the ubique, must be laid with it in the same scene of which is laid in the neighbourhood grave. We believe that we are young of Ephesus: An embellishment of the hisenough to hope to witness the two funerals. tory of the death of James the son of ZebeRequiescant in pace. * dee, by the addition of the sudden conversion and martyrdom of the soldier who was to Between the death of Philo and the begin- have been his executioner: A commonning of Clement's career in Alexandria, there place saying of the Apostle Matthias, that intervene about four generations,-130 or we must abuse (in the sense of afflicting) the 140 years. During this period, Christianity flesh; and a similar one, coupled with a has been preached, various Gnostic schools. have risen, a large Christian society has * Μῦθον οὐ μῦθονάλλ' ὄντα λόγον. |