Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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From this passage we see that though it is true Philo calls the Logos the " second God," he does not depart from his fundamental monotheism, for the Logos is not an entity apart from God, but the Reason of God. Nevertheless, this solitary phrase of Philo's is almost invariably trotted out in the forefront of all enquiry into Philo's Logos-doctrine, in order that the difference between this phrase and the wording of the Proem to the Fourth Gospel may be insisted on as strongly as possible for controversial apologetical purposes.
That, however, Philo is a strict monotheist may be seen from the following passage, in which he is commenting on the words of Gen. xxxi. 13 : " I am the God who was seen by thee in the place of God " 1 — where, apparently, two Gods are referred to.
" What, then, should we say ? The true God is one ; they who are called gods, by a misuse of the term, are many. On which account the Holy Word 2 has, on the present occasion, indicated the true [God] by means of the article, saying : ' I am the God ' ; but the [one so named] by misuse of the term, without the article, saying : ' who was seen by thee in the place/ not of the God, but only 'of God.' And what he (Moses) here calls ' God ' is His Most Ancient Word (Logos)." 3
THE LOGOS is LIFE AND LIGHT
This Logos, moreover, is Life and Light. For,
speaking of Intelligible or Incorporeal " Spirit " and
" Light," Philo writes :
1 Philo and LXX. both have : " iyt& tlpi 6 Qtbs & o<f>6tls ao\.
lv -rAity Otov" ; whereas A.V. translates: "I am the God of
Beth-el "—that is, the " House or Place of El or God."
2 Here meaning the Inspiration of Scripture.
3 De Som., i. § 39 ; M. i. 655, P. 599 (Ki. iii. 262, 263).
" The former he [' Moses '] called the Breath of God,
because it is the most life-giving thing [in the universe],
and God is the cause of life ; and the latter the Light
[of God], because it is by far the most beautiful thing
[in the universe].
" For by so much more glorious and more brilliant is the intelligible [Light] than the visible, as, methinks, the sun is than darkness, and day than night, and the mind, which is the guide of the whole soul, than the sensible means of discernment, and the eyes than the body.
"And he calls the invisible and intelligible Divine Keason (Logos) the Image of God. And of this [Image] the image [in its turn] is that intelligible light, which has been created as the image of the Divine Reason who interprets it [that is, Light's] creation.
" [This Light] is the [One] Star, beyond [all] heavens, the Source of the Stars that are visible to the senses, which it would not be beside the mark to call All-brilliancy, and from which the sun and moon and the rest of the stars, both errant and fixed, draw their light, each according to its power." 1
The necessity and reason of forming some such concept of the Logos is that man cannot bear the utter transcendency of God in His absoluteness. And applying this idea further to theophanies in human form, Philo writes :
"For just as those who are unable to look at the sun itself look upon its reflected rays as the sun, and the [light-] changes round the moon, as the moon itself, so also do men regard the Image of God, His Angel, Keason (Logos), as Himself." 2
1 De Mund. Op., § 8 ; M. i. 6, 7, P. 6 (Ri. i. 11).
2 De Som., § 41 ; M. i. 657, P. 600 (Ri. iii. 264).
THE DIVINE VISION
Such Divine Vision is the object of the contemplative life, for :
" It is the special gift of those who dedicate themselves to the service (Qepa-jrevovTwv) of That-whichis . . . to ascend by means of their rational faculties to the height of the aether, setting before themselves ' Moses ' — the Eace that is the friend of God,1 as the leader of the way.
" For then they will behold ' the place that is clear,' 2 on which the immovable and unchangeable God hath set His feet, and the [regions] beneath His feet, as it were a work of sapphire stone, and as it might be the form of the firmament of heaven, the sensible cosmos, which he [' Moses '] symbolises by these things.