Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

This Light of God is, as has repeatedly been said before, the Divine Keason of things.

1 Sc. the souls. 2 Lev. xxvi. 12.

s De Som., § 23 ; M. i. 642, 643, P. 587 (Ri. iii. 245, 246).

" ' For the Lord is my Light and my Saviour,' l as is sung in the Hymns ; — [He is] not only Light, but the Archetype of every other light ; nay rather more ancient and sublime than the Archetypal Model [of all things], in that this [latter] is His Word (Logos). For the [Universal] Model is His all-full2 Word, the Light, while He Himself is Jike to naught of things created." 3

THE LOGOS THE SPIRITUAL SUN

This Word, or Logos, is further symbolised among phenomena as the sun. The Spiritual Sun is the Divine Reason — " the intelligible Model of the [sun] that moves in heaven."

" For the Word (Logos) of God, when it enters into our earthly constitution, succours and aids those who are Virtue's kinsmen, and those that are favourably disposed to her, affording them a perfect place of refuge and salvation, and shedding on their foes * destruction and ruin past repair." 5

The Logos is thus naturally the panacea of all ills.

"For the Word (Logos) is, as it were, the saving medicine for all the wounds and passions of the soul, which [Word], the lawgiver declares, we should restore ' before the sun's going down ' 6 — that is, before the

1 Ps. xxvii. 1. A.V. "salvation." LXX. reads "illumination" — a technical term among the mystics of Early Christendom for baptism — instead of the <j>ws of Philo.

2 That is, the Logos as Pleroma.

3 De Som., § 13. * Sc. the vices of the soul.
6 Ibid., § 15 ; M. i. 363, P. 578 (Ri. iii. 232).

6 This seems to be somewhat reminiscent of the custom of evening prayer in the Therapeut and other similar communities, when, at the time of the setting of the sun, it was enjoined that " rational " praises should be restored or given back to God, for benefits received.

Philo, however, is here somewhat laboriously commenting, in most brilliant rays of God, supremest and most manifest, go down [or set] — [rays] which through His pity for our race He has sent forth from [His high] Heaven into the mind of man.

" For whilst that Light most Godlike abideth in the soul, we shall restore the ' word ' (logos) that hath been given to us in pledge, as though it were a garment, that it may be to him who doth receive it, the special property of man — [a garment] both to cover up the shame x of life, and to enjoy the gift of God and have respite in quietude, by reason of the present help of such a counsellor, and of a shielder such as will never leave the rank in which he hath been stationed." 2

From all of which it seems that Philo is drawing a distinction between the Pure Light of the Logos and the reflection of that Light in the reason of man, for he goes on to say :

" Indeed we have prolonged this long excursus for no other reason than to explain that the trained mind, moved by irregular motions to productiveness and its contrary, and, as it were, continually ascending and descending [the ladder] — when it is productive and raised into the height, then is it bathed in radiance of the archetypal immaterial rays of the Logic 3 Source of God who bringeth all unto perfection ; and when it doth descend and is barren, it is illumined by their allegorical fashion, on the pawnbroking bye-law in Ex. xxii. 26, 27 : " But if thou takest in pledge thy neighbour's garment, thou shalt give it him back before the going down of the sun. For this is his covering ; this is the only garment of his indecency. In what [else] shall he sleep ? If, then, he shall cry unto me, I will give ear to him ; for I am pitiful." (See § 16.) The A.V. translates otherwise.

1 Cf. the well-known logos from the Gospel according to the
Egyptians, " Unless ye tread on the garment of shame."

2 De Som., § 18 ; M. i. 637, P. 582 (Ri. iii. 238).

3 Or Rational.

images, the ' words ' (logoi) immortal, whom it is custom to call angels." l

THE DISCIPLES OF THE LOGOS

And a little later on Philo proceeds to speak of those who are disciples or pupils of the Holy Word or Divine Eeason.

"These are they who are truly men, lovers of temperance, and orderliness, and modesty," — whose life he proceeds further to describe in similar terms to those he uses of the Therapeuts.