Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
" Nor ' will he rend his garments,' — for the Keason (Logos) of That-which-is, being the bond of all things, as hath been said, both holds together all the parts, and binds them, and does not suffer them to be dissolved or separated." 2
In another passage Philo treats of the same subject still more plainly from the point of view of the Mysteries, writing as follows:
" For there are, as it seems, two temples of God ; — the one is this Cosmos, in which there is also the High Priest, His First-born Divine Keason (Logos) ; the other is the rational soul, whose [High] Priest is the True Man, a sensible copy of whom is he who rightly performs the prayers and sacrifices of his Father, who is ordained to wear the robe, the duplicate of the
1 ri> fiyfuoviKfo — that is, the authoritative or responsible part of the soul, namely, the reason — a Stoic technical term.
2 De Prof., § 20 ; M. i. 562, P. 466 (Ri. iii. 133). The quotations look back to Lev. xxi. 10, but the readings in the first two differ from the LXX.
universal heaven, in order that the cosmos may work together with man, and man with the universe." x
THE ELDER AND YOUNGEK SONS OF GOD
The Cosmic Logos is not the sensible cosmos, but the
Mind thereof. This Philo explains at length.
"It is then clear, that He who is the generator of things generated, and the artificer of things fashioned, and the governor of things governed, must needs be absolutely wise. He is in truth the father, and artificer, and governor of all in both the heaven and cosmos.
"Now things to come are hidden in the shade of future time, sometimes at short, and sometimes at long distances. But God is the artificer of time as well. For He is father of its father ; and time's father is the cosmos, which manifests its motion as the genesis of time ; so that time holds to God the place of grandson.
" For that this cosmos 2 is the Younger Son of God, in that it is perceptible to sense. The Son who's older than this one, He hath declared to be no one [perceivable by sense], for that he is conceivable by mind alone. But having judged him worthy of the elder's rights, He hath determined that he should remain with Him alone.
" This [cosmos], then, the Younger Son, the sensible, being set a-moving, has caused time's nature to appear and disappear ; so that there nothing is which future is with God, who has the very bounds of time subject to Him. For 'tis not time, but time's archetype and paradigm, Eternity (or ^Eon), which is His life. But
1 De Som., § 37 ; M. i. 653, P. 597 (Ki. iii. 260).
2 That is the sensible and not the intelligible cosmos.
in Eternity naught's past, and naught is future, but all is present only." l
YET GOD is ONE
The Logos, then, is not God absolute, but the Son of God par excellence, and as such is sometimes referred to as " second," and once even as the " second God." Thus Philo writes :
" But the most universal [of all things] is God, and second the Eeason (Logos') of God." 2
In his treatise entitled Questions and Answers, however, we read :
" But why does He say as though [He were speaking]
about another God, 'in the image of God I made
" man ",' 3 but not in His own image ?
" Most excellently and wisely is the oracle prophetically delivered. For it was not possible that anything subject to death should be imaged after the supremest God who is the Father of the universes, but after the second God who is His Eeason (Logos).
" For it was necessary that the rational impress in the soul of man should be stamped [on it] by the Divine Eeason (Logos), since God, who is prior even to His own Eeason, transcendeth every rational nature ; [so that] it was not lawful that aught generable should be made like unto Him who is beyond the Eeason, and established in the most excellent and the most singular Idea [of all]." 4
1 QuodDeus Im., § 6 ; M. i. 277, P. 298 (Ri. ii. 72, 73).
2 Leg. Alkg., § 21 ; M. i. 82, P. 1103 (Ri. i. 113).
3 Cf. Gen. i. 27. Philo reads iv tlictvt instead of the tear' eiWva of LXX., and ^roirjo-a instead of ^rofijo-<.
4 Namely, in His Reason. The Greek text is quoted by Eusebius, Prasp. Evang., vii. 13 (M. ii. 625, Ri. vi. 175), who gives it as from Bk. i. of Qucest. et Solut. The original text is lost, but we have a Latin Version — q.v. ii. § 62 (Ri. vi. 356) — which, however, in this instance, has made sorry havoc of the original.