Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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" But God's Shadow is His Eeason (Logos), which using, as it were an instrument, He made the cosmos. And this Shadow is as it were the Archetypal Model of all else. For that as God is the Original of His Image, which he [' Moses '] now calls [His] Shadow, so, [in its turn] that Image is the model of all else, as he [' Moses '] showed when, at the beginning of the law-giving, he said : ' And God made man according to the Image of God,'2 — this Likeness being imaged according to God, and man being imaged according to this Likeness, which received the power of its Original." 3
Moreover, the Divine Eeason, as an instrument, is regarded as the means of separation and division :
" So God, having sharpened His Eeason (Logos), the Divider of all things, cut off both the formless and undifferentiated essence of all things, and the four elements of cosmos which had been separated out of it,4 and the animals and plants which had been compacted by means of these." 5
With this we may compare the following passage from The Acts of John, where we read of the Logos :
" But what it is in truth, as conceived of in itself, and as spoken of to thee,6— it is the marking-off [or delimitation] of all things, the firm necessity of those things that are fixed and were unsettled, the Harmony of Wisdom." 1
1 De Monarch., ii. § 5 ; M. ii. 225, P. 823 (Ei. iv. 302).
2 Gen. i. 26.
3 Leg, Alleg., Hi. § 31 ; M. i. 106, 107, P. 79 (Ri. i. 152, 153).
4 Sc. the essence.
6 Sc. elements. Quis Rer. Div. Her., § 27 ; M. i. 492, P. 500 (Ri. iii. 32).
6 John, to whom the Master is speaking.
But to return to the concept of the Logos as symbolised by the idea of a City ; speaking of the six " cities of refuge," Philo allegorises them as follows :
" Is not, then, the most ancient and most secure and best Mother-city, and not merely City, the Divine Reason (Logos), to which it is of the greatest service to flee first ?
" The other five, as though they were colonies [from it], are the Powers of the Speaker [of this Word (Logos) ], of which the chief is the Creative [Potency], according to which He who creates by Reason [or Word], fashioned the cosmos. The second is the Sovereign [Potency], according to which He who created, ruleth that which is brought into existence. The third is the Merciful [Potency], by means of which the Artist hath compassion and hath mercy on His own work. The fourth is the Legislative Providence, by means of which He doth forbid the things that may not be. . . ."2
Philo then regards these " cities " as symbolising the refuges to which the various kinds of erring souls should flee to find comfort. If the Divine Reason, and the Creative and Sovereign (Kingly) Powers are too far off for the comprehension of the sinner's ignorance, then he should flee to other goals at a shorter distance, the " cities " of the Necessary Powers, namely, the Powers of Mercy and of the Law, which latter are twofold, Enjoining and Forbidding, the latter again of which is referred to vaguely, at the end of the chapter, as the " averting of evils " without further definition.
p. 436
2 De Prof., § 18 ; M. i. 560, P. 464 (Ri. iii. 130). There is unfortunately a lacuna in the text, so that we do not learn the characteristics of the fifth potency ; but this is explained elsewhere, — the Legislative Providence being a twofold potency, namely, the Enjoining and the Forbidding.
Moreover, Philo continues, there are symbols of these five Potencies mentioned in the Scriptures :
" [The symbols] of Command and Prohibition are the [two tables of the] laws in the ark ; of the Merciful Potency, the top of the ark, which he [ ' Moses '] calls the Mercy - seat ; of the Creative and Sovereign [Potencies], the winged Cherubim, who are set over it.