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

"Therefore let God announce His [good] tidings to the soul in an image : ' Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 5 that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,' 6 — that is, he shall be nourished by the whole of Eeason (Logos) and by [every] part of it. For 'mouth' is a symbol of the [whole] Logos, and ' word ' is its part." 7

1 The reading seems to be faulty. 2 Ibid., § 59.
3 Qf. Deut. viii. 13. * Num. xiv. 4.

5 Wnan. 6 Deut. viii. 3.

7 Leg. Alleg., iii. § 61 ; M. i. 121, P. 93 (Ri. i. 174).

These " fathers," then, are those of the lower nature, and not our true spiritual parents ; it is these " fathers " that we are to abandon.

Compare with this Matt. x. 37: "He who loveth father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me " ; and the far more striking form of the tradition in Luke xiv. 26 : " If any man cometh unto Me, and doth not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own soul also, he cannot be My disciple."

In the Gnostic gospel, known as the Pistis Sophia (341), the mystic meaning of these parents is given at length, as signifying the rulers of the lower nature, and the Master is made to say : " For this cause have I said unto you aforetime, ' He who shall not leave father and mother to follow after Me is not worthy of Me.' What I said then was, ' Ye shall leave your parents the rulers, that ye may be children of the First Ever-lasting Mystery.' "

But the most arresting point is that Matt. iv. 4, in the story of the Temptation, quotes precisely the same words of the LXX. text of Deut. viii. 3 which Philo does, beginning where he does and finishing where he does, both omitting the final and tautological "shall man live" — a very curious coincidence. Luke iv. 4 preserves only the first half of the sentence ; but it evidently lay in exactly the same form in which Philo uses it before the first and third Evangelists in their second or " Logia " source. It was, then, presumably a frequently quoted text.

THE LOGOS-MEDIATOR

The Divine Reasonis further figured as a true "Person," the Mediator between God and man. Thus Philo writes :

" And on His angel-ruling and most ancient Reason (Logos), the Father who created all, hath bestowed a special gift — that standing between them as a Boundary,1 he may distinguish creature from Creator.

" He [the Reason] ever is himself the suppliant unto the Incorruptible on mortal kind's behalf in its distress, and is the King's ambassador to subject nature.

"And he exulteth in his gift, and doth majesticly insist thereon, declaring : ' Yea, have I stood between the Lord and you,'2 — not increate as God, nor yet create as ye, but in the midst between the [two] extremes, hostage to both: to Him who hath created him, for pledge that the creature never will remove itself entirely [from Him], nor make revolt, choosing disorder in order's place ; and to the thing created for good hope that God, the Merciful, will never disregard the work of His own hands. ' For I will herald forth the news of peace to the creation from Him who knows how to make wars to cease, from God the Everlasting Peacekeeper.' " 3

In considering what is claimed to be the elaborate symbolism of the sacred vestments of the High Priest, and the nature of this symbolical office, Philo declares that the twelve stones upon the breast of the High Priest, in four rows of three each, are a symbol of the Divine Reason (Logos), which holds together and regulates the universe ; this breastplate, then, is the logion or sacred oracle of God.

" For it was necessary that he who was consecrated to the Father of the cosmos, should have [His] Son, the most perfect in virtue, as intercessor,1 both for the forgiveness2 of sins, and for the abundant supply of the most unstinted blessings.

1 Cf. the "Gnostic" Horos (not the Egyptian Horus) as referred to previously.

2 Perhaps a reflection of Num. xvi. 48.

3 Quis Rer. Div. Her., § 42 ; M. i. 501, 502, P. 504 (Ri. iii. 45, 46).