In calling this person the Logos, and
making him the source of all human reason, and knowledge of eternal
laws, he only translated from Hebrew into Greek the name which he found
in his sacred books, "The Word of God." As yet we have found no unfair
allegorising of Moses, or twisting of Plato. How then has he incurred
this accusation?
I cannot think, again, that he was unfair in supposing that he might
hold at the same time the Jewish belief concerning Creation, and the
Platonic doctrine of the real existence of Archetypal ideas, both of
moral and of physical phenomena. I do not mean that such a conception
was present consciously to the mind of the old Jews, as it was most
certainly to the mind of St. Paul, a practised Platonic dialectician;
but it seems to me, as to Philo, to be a fair, perhaps a necessary,
corollary from the Genetic Philosophy, both of Moses and of Solomon.
But in one thing he was unfair; namely, in his allegorising. But unfair
to whom? To Socrates and Plato, I believe, as much as to Moses and to
Samuel. For what is the part of the old Jewish books which he
evaporates away into mere mystic symbols of the private experiences of
the devout philosopher? Its practical everyday histories, which deal
with the common human facts of family and national life, of man's
outward and physical labour and craft.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109