renders Deut. xxxiii. 3 'with power He brought them out of Egypt; they were led under thy cloud; they journeyed according to (by) thy Memra.' Does this represent a difference in Hebrew from the admittedly difficult text in our present Bible? Winer refers to it as an instance in which Onkelos 'suopte ingenio et copiose admodum eloquitur vatum divinorum mentem,' adding, 'ita ut de his, quas singulis vocibus inesse crediderit, significationibus non possit recte judicari;' and Winer's successors say much the same. But this is to state, not to explain, the difficulty. In general, we may here be allowed to say that the question of the Targumim has scarcely received as yet sufficient treatment. Mr. Deutsch's Article in Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible' (since reprinted in his 'Remains') is, though brilliantly written, unsatisfactory. Dr. Davidson (in Kitto's Cyclop., vol. iii. pp. 948-966) is, as always, careful, laborious, and learned. Dr. Volck's article (in Herzog's Real-Encykl., vol. xv. pp. 672-683) is without much intrinsic value, though painstaking. We mention these articles, besides the treatment of the subject in the Introduction to the Old Testament (Keil, De Wette-Schrader, Bleek-kamphausen, Reuss), and the works of Zunz, Geiger, Noldeke, and others, to whom partial reference has already been made. Frankel's interesting and learned book (Zu dem Targum der Propheten) deals almost exclusively with the Targum Jonathan, on which it was impossible to enter within our limits. As modern brochures of interest the following three may be mentioned: Maybaum, Anthropomorphien bei Onkelos; Gronemann, Die Jonath. Pentat. Uebers. im Verhaltn. z. Halacha; and Singer, Onkelos im Verhaltn. z. Halacha.] Beyond this Rabbinic theology has not preserved to us the doctrine of Personal distinctions in the Godhead. And yet, if words have any meaning, the Memra is a hypostasis, though the distinction of permanent, personal Subsistence is not marked. Nor yet, to complete this subject, is the Memra identified with the Messiah. In the Targum Onkelos distinct mention is twice made of Him, [a Gen. xlix. 10, 11; Num. xxiv. 17.] while in the other Targumim no fewer than seventy-one Biblical passages are rendered with explicit reference to Him.
If we now turn to the views expressed by Philo about the Logos we find that they are hesitating, and even contradictory. One thing, however, is plain: the Logos of Philo is not the Memra of the Targumim. For, the expression Memra ultimately rests on theological, that of Logos on philosophical grounds. Again, the Logos of Philo approximates more closely to the Metatron of the Talmud and Kabbalah. As they speak of him as the 'Prince of the Face,' who bore the name of his Lord, so Philo represents the Logos as 'the eldest Angel,' 'the many-named Archangel,' in accordance with the Jewish view that the name JeHoVaH unfolded its meaning in seventy names for the Godhead. [1 See the enumeration of these 70 Names in the Baal-ha-Turim on Numb. xi. 16.] As they speak of the 'Adam Qadmon,' so Philo of the Logos as the human reflection of the eternal God. And in both these respects, it is worthy of notice that he appeals to ancient teaching. [2 Comp. Siegfried, u. s., pp. 221-223.]
What, then, is the Logos of Philo? Not a concrete personality, and yet, from another point of view, not strictly impersonal, nor merely a property of the Deity, but the shadow, as it were, which the light of God casts-and if Himself light, only the manifested reflection of God, His spiritual, even as the world is His material, habitation. Moreover, the Logos is 'the image of God' () upon which man was made, [a Gen. i. 27.] or, to use the platonic term, 'the archetypal idea.' As regards the relation between the Logos and the two fundamental Potencies (from which all others issue), the latter are variously represented, on the one hand, as proceeding from the Logos; and on the
other, as themselves constituting the Logos. As regards the world, the Logos is its real being. He is also its archetype; moreover the instrument () through Whom God created all things. If the Logos separates between God and the world, it is rather as intermediary; He separates, but He also unites. But chiefly does this hold true as regards the relation between God and man. The Logos announces and interprets to man the will and mind of God () He acts as mediator; He is the real High-Priest, and as such by His purity takes away the sins of man, and by His intercession procures for us the mercy of God, Hence Philo designates Him not only as the High-Priest, but as the 'Paraclete.' He is also the sun whose rays enlighten man, the medium of Divine revelation to the soul; the Manna, or support of spiritual life; He Who dwells in the soul. And so the Logos is, in the fullest sense, Melchisedek, the priest of the most high God, the king of righteousness , and the king of Salem Who brings righteousness and peace to the soul, [b De Leg. Alleg. iii 25,26.] But the Logos 'does not come into any soul that is dead in sin.' That there is close similarity of form between these Alexandrian views and much in the argumentation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, must be evident to all, no less than that there is the widest possible divergence in substance and spirit. [1 For a full discussion of this similarity of form and divergence of spirit, between Philo, or, rather, between Alexandrianism, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, the reader is referred to the masterly treatise by Riehm (Der Lehrbegriff d. Hebraerbr. ed. 1867, especially pp. 247-268, 411-424, 658-670, and 855-860). The author's general view on the subject is well and convincingly formulated on p. 249. We must, however, add, in opposition to Riehm, that, by his own showing the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews displays few traces of a Palestinian training.] The Logos of Philo is shadowy, unreal, not a Person; [2 On the subject of Philo's Logos generally the brochure of Harnoch (Konigsberg, 1879) deserves perusal, although it does not furnish much that is new. In general, the student of Philo ought especially to study the sketch by Zeller in his Philosophie der Gr. vol. iii. pt. ii. 3rd ed. pp. 338-418.] there is no need of an atonement; the High-Priest intercedes, but has no sacrifice to offer as the basis of His intercession, least of all that of Himself; the old Testament types are only typical ideas, not typical facts; they point to a Prototypal Idea in the eternal past, not to an Antitypal Person and Fact in history; there is no cleansing of the soul by blood, no sprinkling of the Mercy Seat, no access for all through the rent veil into the immediate Presence of God; nor yet a quickening of the soul from dead works to serve the living God. If the argumentation of the Epistle to the Hebrews is Alexandrian, it is an Alexandrianism which is overcome and past, which only furnishes the form, not the substance, the vessel, not its contents. The closer therefore the outward similarity, the greater is the contrast in substance.
The vast difference between Alexandrianism and the New Testament will appear still more clearly in the views of Philo on Cosmology and Anthropology. In regard to the former, his results in some respects run parallel to those of the students of mysticism in the Talmud, and of the Kabbalists. Together with the Stoic view, which represented God as 'the active cause' of this world, and matter as 'the passive,' Philo holds the Platonic idea, that matter was something existent, and that is resisted God. [1 With singular and characteristic inconsistency, Philo, however, ascribes also to God the creation of matter (de Somn. i. 13).] Such speculations must have been current among the Jews long before, to judge by certain warning given by the Son of Sirach. [a As for example Ecclus. iii. 21-24.] [2 So the Talmudists certainly understood it, Jer. Chag. ii. 1.] And Stoic views of the origin of the world seem implied even in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (i. 7; vii. 24; viii. 1; xii. 1). [3 Comp. Grimm, Exeg. Handb. zu d. Apokr., Lief. vi. pp. 55, 56.] The mystics in the Talmud arrived at similar conclusions, not through Greek,
but through Persian teaching. Their speculations [4 They were arranged into those concerning the Maasey Bereshith (Creation), and the Maasey Merkabbah, 'the chariot' of Ezekiel's vision (Providence in the widest sense, or God's manifestation in the created world).] boldly entered on the dangerous ground, [5 Of the four celebrities who entered the 'Pardes,' or enclosed Paradise of theosophic speculation, one became an apostate, another died, a third went wrong (Ben Soma), and only Akiba escaped unscathed, according to the Scripture saying, 'Draw me, and we will run' (Chag. 14 b).] forbidden to the many, scarcely allowed to the few, [6 'It is not lawful to enter upon the Maasey Bereshith in presence of two, nor upon the Merkabhah in presence of one, unless he be a 'sage,' and understands of his own knowledge. Any one who ratiocinates on these four things, it were better for him that he had not been born: What is above and what is below; what was afore, and what shall be hereafter.' (Chag. ii. 1).] where such deep questions as the origin of our world and its connection with God were discussed. It was, perhaps, only a beautiful poetic figure that God had taken of the dust under the throne of His glory, and cast it upon the waters, which thus became earth, [b Shem. R. 13.] But so far did isolated teachers become intoxicated [1 'Ben Soma went astray (mentally): he shook the (Jewish) world.'] by the new wine of these strange speculations, that they whispered it to one another that water was the original element of the world, [2 That criticsm, which one would designate as impertinent, which would find this view in 2 Peter iii. 5, is, alas! not confined to Jewish writers, but hazarded even by De Wette.] which had successively been hardened into snow and then into earth, [a Jer. Chag. 77a] [3 Judah bar Pazi, in the second century. Ben Soma lived in the first century of our era.] Other and later teachers fixed upon the air or the fire as the original element, arguing the pre-existence of matter from the use of the word 'made' in Gen. i. 7. instead of'created.' Some modified this view, and suggested that God had originally created the three elements of water, air or spirit, and fire, from which all else was developed. [4 According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Ber. i. I) the firmament was at first soft, and only gradually became hard. According to Ber. R. 10, God created the world from a mixture of fire and snow, other Rabbis suggesting four original elements, according to the quarters of the globe, or else six, adding to them that which is above and that which is below. A very curious idea is that of R. Joshua ben Levi, according to which all the works of creation were really finished on the first day, and only, as it were, extended on the other days. This also represents really a doubt of the Biblical
