The reader will find in Mr. Coleridge’s “Aids to Reflection,” most valuable passage on the subject of Mysticism, in which the two senses of the word to which I have alluded in the text are finely and accurately distinguished. The instances which are there referred to, as illustrating the way in which a profound apprehension of the law and mystery of our own being, derived either from the simple study of the word of God, or from that study improved by reading and cultivation, may connect itself with notions and allegories suggested by the fancies of particular minds, are those of Boéhme and Fénelon. They are most happily chosen—the one as exhibiting the most perfect type of Protestant, the other of Romish, mysticism. But the instance of Philo is perhaps more striking and important than either. No one who looks into his writings can fancy for an instant that he was not a laborious student of the Bible. To no one does the charge often preferred against spiritualists of undervaluing the Scriptures, and substituting for them the wisdom which they had derived from some other quarter, apply less than to him. He evidently regarded his own sacred writings as more precious than all other books together. He evidently traced up all his thoughts and discoveries to the light which he had received from them. Nevertheless it is true, that Philo’s Scripture readings would most utterly confound anyone who had been used to look at the text with simplicity. Such a person would not, I think, be inclined to say: (as nine out of ten who are not simple readers, but who bring to the study all the artificial notions and habits of their own time, certainly would say,) ‘All this is mere stuff and nonsense.’ He would perceive that there is something in it to which such words are very inapplicable indeed; nay, that there is a continuous stream of thought through every part of his exposition, by following which, we become convinced that the records he is speaking of have an internal unity. At the same time, I am quite sure that the best and truest reader will be conscious of most restlessness and impatience, when he finds the records of a simple practical life, turned into a set of high-flown conceits and allegories about the different moral virtues, and the sensible and rational part in man.
How then are we to distinguish the solid and the real from the fantastic in these remarkable books? It seems to me that the position of Philo supplies the answer. Nowhere so well as in Alexandria could a man learn what were the feelings and necessities of men, especially of thoughtful men, in the heathen world, what it was that philosophers were seeking after, what was requisite to satisfy their inquiries. Nowhere so well as in Alexandria could a man find anything which should interpret to him the simply domestic life or the national feelings and sympathies of the Jewish people. Going with the advantages which one kind of knowledge gave him to the study of his Scriptures, he found everywhere hints of a Divine Teacher, who was guiding men out of the ways of sense, out of slavery to visible appearances, into the acknowledgment of an unseen Being. He knew how the reason in man had striven against the impressions of sense, had striven to realize an object answerable to itself; here he found the other side of the picture. Here was the Reason of God leading that higher faculty which he had imparted to His creature to seek after Him and to find Him. Going with his ignorance to the same books—the real practical conflicts, the human doings, the outward crosses of those whom they speak of, became to him mere pictures and images of certain mental feelings and operations; he could recognise the world of human relations, only as an image world; he was utterly unprepared for the mystery of the Word made Flesh. The first class of his thoughts connect him with the most thoughtful men of all times, living in a position the most unlike his own; the latter connect him with them indeed so far as this, that they as well as he have been prone to read their own circumstances and states of mind into the universal book; but those circumstances and states of mind being different from his, there is little in their speculations to support his, or in his to afford an excuse for theirs.
My object is not to give the reader any account of Philo’s Scriptural allegories, nor even to show how the acknowledgment of the Divine Word is worked into the whole tissue of his thoughts. My wish is merely to illustrate the way in which he represents the Word as a Teacher; in which he connects that teaching with the Reason of man; in which he describes it as universal. The other side of the subject, his hints respecting the relation between the Word and the Absolute Being, are in the strictly theological sense more important. But I shall allude to them here only so far as they illustrate the point which belongs strictly to the history of Quakerism. I pass over then his assertion that the Divine Word was at once the framer of things and the image after which they were framed, (see the book on the Mosaic history of Creation, c. i. beginning προλαβὼν γὰρ ὁ Θεός to ch. v. πρὸς ἀλήθειαν ἀγαθόν,) and all other passages which refer to the physical universe, even though they may speak of an intellectual (noetic) universe as the type of this. Nor will I dwell upon his comment on the words, “and the Lord God took the man whom he had made, and set him in the Garden, to till it and to watch over it”—where he speaks of a distinction between that mind which was merely formed (πλασθείς) and that which was created, this last being “a pure reason, unparticipant of corrupt matter, enjoying a purer and more untainted constitution, which pure reason God apprehends, not suffering it to go from Him, but placing it as the watchman and governor of the different virtues which He has planted and made to bud around it.” (Allegories, Book i. § 28.) Nor will I more than allude to his remark, which supplies an important limitation to the former words, that Cain and Abel represent “two opposite and conflicting opinions, the one whereof refers all things to the reason, as if it were the guide of thought, of feeling, of motion, of power; the other refers to God as being His workmanship. With which two opinions, he adds, the same soul travails. But when they are brought forth, they must needs be divided, since it is utterly impossible for such enemies to dwell together.” (On the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, § 1.)
Such passages as the following are more directly to our purpose, and will be a key to the others. It is taken from a treatise on the “Husbandry of Noah,” which is of course allegorized after the author’s usual fashion.
“Wherefore it is needful that our Reason, like a goatherd, or cowherd, or shepherd, or keeper of cattle generally, should have rule, choosing that which is convenient before that which is pleasant either to itself or to the inferior creatures. Nevertheless, that the different portions of the soul are not left ungoverned, but have the blessing of a faultless and altogether good Shepherd, under whose conduct it is impossible that the council of thoughts should be disturbed and scattered, we must attribute, finally, and we might say exclusively, to the oversight of God Himself. For so it is shown to be of necessity under one and the same order, in that it looks up to one Overseer, since the being obliged to serve many different rulers is an intolerable calamity. And so good a thing is this office of the Shepherd, that it is rightly ascribed not to kings only, and to wise men, and to souls purified for the highest mysteries, but to God the universal Ruler Himself. The authority for this is not some insignificant person, but a prophet, a psalmist, whom we may well trust. For he speaks thus, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, and I shall not want.’ Let each man say the same in his own part and measure; for this is a song which it is comely for every godly man to meditate and sing over with himself, and which at the same time properly appertains to the whole universe. For water, and air, and fire, and whatsoever vegetables or animals are in these, things mortal, and things Divine, the nature of the heavens, the courses of the Sun and Moon, the movements and harmonious dances of the other Stars, as if they formed one sheepfold, doth God, as Shepherd and King, guide according to order and law, setting over them his true Word, his first begotten Son, who is ready like the viceroy of a great king to receive and to render up the care of this holy flock. Let then the whole world, that greatest and most perfect sheepfold of the true God say, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.’ Let each say the same individually; not with that voice that comes through the tongue and mouth, which spreads through but a little portion of air, but with the far-reaching voice of the mind, which touches the very boundaries of the universe.”
I do not quote this passage for the sake of its style, which is perhaps somewhat inflated, but as a fair exposition of the idea which is expanded through the whole treatise; the idea, I mean, that the living Word is the shepherd and teacher of the inner man; ordaining the whole constitution of the mind, and holding direct and continual converse with it. In precisely the same spirit is the following passage from another work.
“But it is a fearful thing for the soul to ascend into the contemplation of The Being by itself, not knowing the way, and at the same time lifted up by its ignorance and boldness. Great are the falls which happen from such defect of knowledge and foolish daring. Wherefore Moses prays that he may have God Himself for his guide in the way which leads to Him. For he saith, ‘If thou wilt not go with me, lead me not up from hence.’ Therefore every movement without the Divine direction and oversight, leadeth to evil. And it were better to remain here below, leading this confused beggarly mortal life, as the greater part of men do, than having lifted ourselves up to heaven, through boasting to be turned back and confounded, which calamity has happened to multitudes of sophists, who have fancied that wisdom consisted in the invention of persuasive words, not in the most true faith of things. Perhaps also something of this kind is signified. ‘Do not lift me up on high by giving me wealth, or fame, or honour, or power, or whatever else belongs to the things called good, if Thou wilt not Thyself accompany them.’ For these oftentimes procure the greatest curses and blessings to those who have them—blessings when God Himself is the guide of the mind; curses, when He is not. For to multitudes those things which are called goods, have been the causes of intolerable evils: but he that followeth God uses as the fellows and comrades of his journey those λόγοι whom it is customary to name angels. For it is written ‘that Abraham went with them leading them on the way.’ O beautiful equality, when the guide is himself guided, giving what he receiveth, not one thing in place of another, but the very same thing reciprocated! For while he is not yet perfected, he useth the Divine Word as the leader of the way. For the oracle is, ‘Behold I send My angel with thee before thy face, that he may keep thee in the way, that he may lead thee to the land which I have prepared for thee; give heed to him and hearken to him, disobey him not, for My word is in him.’ But when he hath come to the highest point of knowledge, vigorously running on, he will measure his paces with him who was before leading him in the way. For both will become followers of God, the universal Guide.” (On the Migration of Abraham, § 31.)
Whatever may be thought of the somewhat startling words with which this passage concludes, no one, I think, can read them without feeling more clearly and strongly what the purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews, especially of the first chapter, is, and at the same time without obtaining a clearer light, respecting that form of Gnosticism, which connected itself with Jewish ideas. These Λόγοι or angels, ministers of God and to man, the Jew could recognise in his Scriptures; might not Jesus be one of these? Neither absolutely Divine nor absolutely human; but belonging to a middle race between Godhead and Humanity? The writer of the epistle meets this opinion. He proves that the Scriptures speak of one who is not one of the Λόγοι but the Λόγος, not a Son of God but the Son of God. And then he goes on to shew how this Son of God verily apprehended not the angels but the seed of Abraham. The remark of course is familiar to all students of theology. But it may not be wholly useless to suggest it to younger men, as one of the proofs that all the Scriptures become unintelligible and incoherent, when the idea upon which I am dwelling is lost sight of.
The following extract from the treatise, “On the confusion of tongues,” has the same kind of value. Philo has been speaking of the words, “The tower which the sons of men have builded.” He supposes some jester to ask, why this phrase should be used, for who else but sons of men were likely to build cities and towers? He answers, that these words were not used carelessly or without a meaning. By them it is intimated, that the builders of the tower were men who were pursuing a multitude of objects, and had lost sight of the one Creator and Father of all. He then adds,
“But the truly wise are fittingly called the sons of the one God, as Moses confesses, where he saith, ‘Ye are the sons of the Lord your God;’ and again, ‘God that begat thee.’ And this belongs to those who have fashioned their souls to think, that that which is in itself pure and beautiful is the only good, which is set up as the opposite fortress to that of pleasure, and serves for its subversion and overthrow. And though a man may not yet be fit to be called son of God, yet let him strive to fashion himself after his first begotten Word, the eldest of the angels; the archangel of many names; for He is called ‘Beginning,’ and ‘Name of God,’ and ‘Word,’ and ‘The Man according to the divine Image’ (ὁ κατ’ εἰκόνα ἄνθρωπος), and, He that looketh upon Israel.’ * * *. For though we are not yet reckoned sons of God, yet we may be called so of ‘His eternal Image’—‘the most holy Word;’ for this most venerable Word is the image of God.”
So in a very cabalistic commentary upon the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, he says, in reference to the words, “he divided not the birds:”
“For the word of God, solitary and monadic in the multitude of things that have become, and that are to perish, remaineth uncompounded, ever wont to ascend upwards, and studying to be the companion of the One. Wherefore there are these two undivided natures, that in us of Reason, and that over us of the Divine Word. But being undivided, they divide innumerable other things. For the Divine Word hath divided the things in nature, and hath distributed them all. And this reason of ours, whatever things or bodies it hath reasonably taken in, these it distinguishes by innumerable ways, into innumerable parts, and never ceaseth from its dissections. And this comes to pass through the likeness which it hath to the Creator and Father of the whole. For the divinity being unmixed, uncompounded, without parts, hath been to all the world the cause of mixture, combination, apportionment. So it is fitting that those things which are like to it, to wit, the reason in us, and that which is above us, being without parts and undivided, should be able, with mighty force, to divide and discriminate each of the things that are.” (Who is the Inheritor of Divine things?) Sect. 48.
There is a very striking passage in the early part of the first book on Dreams, which I would recommend to the attention of the reader, as an illustration of the way in which Philo connected the idea of Science or Knowledge, with submission to the Divine guidance. So far from looking upon Science as something directly opposed to Faith, he speaks of it as being the direct opposite of Sense; a very remarkable thought indeed, which he might have received from Plato, but which certainly seemed to him in strict harmony with the teaching of his own lawgiver and prophets.
The evidence respecting Philo’s opinion of the universality of the Divine teaching is not to be gathered from particular passages, so much as from the whole spirit of his books. In all the language which I have quoted there is a constant reference to the teaching of the Word, as having reference to man. There is an absence of any attempt to limit the blessing within his own nation. In an indifferent Jew, or one who set but little store by his own Scriptures, looking upon the heathen writers as more profound or advanced than they were, this would have been natural. But with his extraordinary admiration and deep study of the Jewish writings, a study and admiration implying too the greatest thankfulness for their original separation, and for the ordinances which distinguished them from other people, one might have expected to find indications here and there of the feeling which characterized his countrymen generally. It is evident, however, that his acknowledgment of the wisdom and knowledge of God, as the great objects and rewards of human search, and the highest gifts the Creator can bestow, led him to look upon the Jew who, as he believed, had all facilities for this pursuit, as in a far higher condition than he would have been, if he had had the right to treat other men as utterly outcasts and aliens. We are not, however, left to conjecture or inference upon the subject. There is an especial treatise on the thesis, that ‘every virtuous man is a freeman.’ In this treatise he lays it down as a maxim, supporting himself by a line of Sophocles, that “’he only is free who hath God as his guide.” § 3.
And then when he has expounded the conditions and characteristics of freedom, he meets the question, where have such men as you imagine ever been, or where are they now? He answers, that men, however rare, are to be found who excelled in virtue; followed God as their only guide; lived according to the right law of nature, who were not free only themselves, but inspired their neighbours with free thoughts. Such men he discovers in Greece among the ‘seven wise men;’ among some of the philosophers of the Eleatic School; in India among the gymnosophists; in Persia among the magians. From his express words, and from the habitual tone of his thoughts, it is evident that he did not look upon these men as wise or good, in virtue of any intrinsic quality, or because each man might be saved by his own religion, but because, amidst whatever perplexities and contradictions, they followed the one Guide and Shepherd, who had revealed himself to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; that unseen and everlasting Word, who had entered into covenant with the Jews, and had brought them out of sensible idolatry, into the light and liberty of His children.