Bishop's Epistle: Philo of Alexandria and the Logos

(Excerpted from “Godhead Theology” by Bishop Jerry Hayes)

Plato (fourth century B.C.) taught that God the first principle was, Himself, too holy to personally come into contact with a universe of matter, so He brought into existence, as His first creation, god the second principle, whom Plato called the logos (translated in our English Bibles as “word”). God the first principle delegated creation of the physical universe to the logos (god the second principle). Once the universe was created by the logos, according to Plato, both god the first principle and god the second principle (logos) brought into existence a third entity whom Plato called the world spirit.

This concept of the godhead was current in the pagan world in which Christ's church found itself. Contemporaneous to Christ was one Philo of Alexandria, Egypt: a Platonic Jewish philosopher. This Philo saw the Jewish Messiah pre-shadowed in Plato’s logos concept of god the second principle. It must be pointed out that Philo was a non-Christian, who had a profound effect upon later generations of Christians, who would become apostate from Biblical-Christology.

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The fact that Christianity was a new religion seemed to be impeding its progress; Christian apologists overcame this difficulty by showing that Christianity had common ground with Judaism and philosophy. In this task one cannot underestimate the influence of one Philo of Alexandria, Egypt.

Philo, a contemporary of Christ and the apostles, was a Jewish philosopher of Alexandria who was a student of Plato and the Stoics. Greek philosophy had worked on the concept of God for several hundred years, and had transformed the ancient superstitions of half-animal and half-human gods to an homogenized form of ‘principles’ and ‘energies.’ It was theorized that there is only one God who is God in Himself (in this, it is suggested by Philo that the Greeks were influenced by Moses: i.e. the Shema, Deut 6:4), who could not touch or be touched by a created universe. This transcendent deity must, then, communicate through an intermediary that was called the logos. Philo … saw in the Greek logos the promised Hebrew Messiah. (The link between Plato's teachings and the Trinity as adopted by the Roman Catholic Church is so strong that Edward Gibbon, centuries later in his masterwork The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referred to Plato as “the Athenian sage, who had thus marvelously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the Christian revelation—the Trinity.”)

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Philo was a Jew, not a Christian; but a disciple of his by the name of Justin (called by Christians, Justin Martyr) embraced the thought of Philo concerning the logos and the Christ. Justin and other Christian apologists began to promote this logos-christology, of Philo and the Greeks, in their Christian circles. (Justin was a Platonic philosopher before he became a Christian and continued to wear his philosopher’s cloak as he preached his version of the Gospel. He saw Christianity as being the fruition of all true philosophies.) The doctrine of logos-christology is basically this:

God Himself is too holy and pure to become involved in the created world of matter: so a secondary entity was brought into being and called the logos, who created all things in behalf of God the first principle; this logos was called the second principle. This “second god” (as Justin called Him) came to earth and was born of the virgin Mary and died for the sins of the world.

The Alexandrian school was Platonic; from this theology of Mind, Word, and Spirit came a disciple of Plato’s by the name of Philo. Philo was a Jew of Alexandria who was a world-class philosopher in his own right. He live from 20 BC to A.D. 54— which means he was a contemporary to Jesus. Philo’s faith in God came from his Jewish faith, but his concept of God came from the philosophical speculations of Alexandria. The influence of Platonism and the Stoics on Philo cannot be overstated. In the Mind – Word – Spirit system of Plato, Philo conceived of the ‘Mind’ as the Hebrew God Yahweh; in Plato’s ‘Word’ Philo finds an identity with the Jewish Messiah; He (at times) called the Logos a separate person from God; the mediator between God and man (Encyclopedia Americana, volume 21, page 766 the 767; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. V, page 3021).

According to Emil Schurer (1844-1910 German theologian, best known for his study in Jewish customs in the time of Christ.), Philo “agrees in the most essential points with the great teachers of the Greeks. Nay, Philo has so profoundly absorbed their doctrines and so peculiarly worked them up into a new whole, as himself to belong to the series of Greek philosophers. His system may, on the whole, be entitled an eclectic one: Platonic, Stoic, and Neo-Pythagorean doctrines being the most prominent. Just in proportion as now one now the other was embraced, has he been designated at one time Platonist, at another a Pythagorean. He might just as correctly be called a Stoic, for the influence of Stoicism was at least as strong upon him as that of Platonism or Neo-Pythagoreanism” (History of the Jewish People In the Time Of Christ, Schurer, Hendrickson Publishers, Vol III, page 364).

Where Plato and the Stoics left off, Philo picked up. Plato took the crude, base gods of the heathen, stripped them of their trappings of superstitions, and dressed them up in much scientific rhetoric. Then enter Philo with his fantastic fantasy; he set forth his far-fetched (fetched from afar – Babylon) idea of Hebraizing Plato!?! Or, was he Hellenizing the Prophets?

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Philo saw himself as having a dual mission. To make the Jew Greek and the Greek Jew. Through the means of his ‘allegorical interpretation’ of the Pentateuch he was able to see, there, all the things taught by Greek philosophy which he conceived as enlightened. Philo was convinced that the Greeks had acquired their wisdom from Moses, and saw himself as the bridge between his co-religionists and the philosophies.

In Philo’s doctrine of God he begins at the point of fundamental dualism: that God and matter are not in communion (here is revealed his Gnostic tendencies: The Gnostics taught Spirit world good—material universe bad; this included the flesh of man. God is totally good and perfect —the created universe, with man at the center, is imperfect and not good, in the sense of being incorruptible. “An acting, therefore, of God upon the world and in the world, is, according to Philo, only possible through the intervention of intermediate causes, of interposing powers who [that] establish an intercourse between God and the world” (Schurer). Philo’s intervening causes are Plato’s ideas, the Stoic’s active causes, the Jewish angels, and the Greek’s daemons. All these add up to Philo’s logos. If, according to this, they appear to be individual hypostases, or personal beings, Philo makes other assertions that forbids us to take them as such. It is expressly stated that they exist only in the Divine thought (De mundi opificio, i. 4, Mang. (Richter, 1): As the ideal city, whose plan the artist sketches, exists only in his mind, pon auton tropon oude ho ek tōn ideon chismos allon an echoi topon ē ton theion logon ton tanta diakosmēsanta.—Ibid. i. 5, Mang.: Ei détis ethelēseis gumnotépois chrēsasthai tois onomasin, ouden anheperon eipoi ton noēton einai kismon, ē theou logon ēdē kosmopoiountos.). The truth of the matter is this: Philo conceived of them both as independent hypostases and as immanent (1. remaining within; indwelling; inherent. 2. Philosophy. (of a mental act) taking place within the mind of the subject and having no effect outside of it. Compare transeunt. 3. Theology. (of the Deity) indwelling the universe, time, etc. Compare transcendent (def 3). ) determinations of the divine existence. According to Eduard Zeller, Philo’s system required the necessity of this contradiction: “He combines both definitions without observing their contradiction, nay, he is unable to observe it, because otherwise the intermediary rôle assigned to the divine powers would be forfeited, even that double nature, the reason of which they are on the one hand to be identical with God, that a participation in the Deity may by their means be possible to the finite, and on the other hand different from Him, ... notwithstanding this participation, they remain apart from all contact with the world” (Philosophie der Griechen, iii. 2, p. 365).

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As a help to arrive at an understanding of Philo’s doctrine of the Logos, we could do no better that Eduard Zeller ((1814-1908), German philosopher, was born at Kleinbottwar in Wurttemberg on the 22nd of January 1814, and educated at the university of Tubingen and under the influence of Hegel. In 1840 he was Privatdozent of theology at Tubingen, in 1847 professor of theology at Bern, in 1849 professor of theology at Marburg, migrating soon afterwards to the faculty of philosophy as the result of disputes with the Clerical party. He became professor of philosophy at Heidelberg in 1862, removed to Berlin in 1872, and retired in 1895. His great work is his Philosophie der Griechen (184452). This book he continued to amplify and improve in the light of further research; the last edition appeared in 1902. It has been translated into most of the European languages and became the recognized text-book of Greek philosophy. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911).

“By the Logos, Philo understands the power of God or the active Divine intelligence in general; he designated it as the idea which comprises all other ideas, the power which comprises all itself, as the entirety of the supersensuous world or of the divine powers (Zeller iii. 2, p. 371). Is the vicegerent and ambassador of God; neither created nor uncreated; the instrument by which God made the worlds. The logos is, thus, identified with the creative ‘word’ of God. Further, the logos, then, is the high priest of God to the world, and of the world to God. Making God known to the world, and the world known to God. “The definitions, which, according to the presuppositions of our thought, would require the personality of the logos, are crossed by Philo by such as make it impossible, and the peculiarity of his mode of conception consists in his not perceiving the contradiction involved in making the idea of the logos oscillate obscurely between personal and impersonal being. This peculiarity is equally misunderstood, when Philo’s logos is regarded absolutely as a person separate from God; and, when on the contrary, it is supposed that it only denotes God under a definite relation, according to the aspect of His activity. According to Philo’s opinion the logos is both, but for this very reason neither one nor the other exclusively; and he does not perceive, that it is impossible to combine these definitions into one notion” (Zeller iii. 2. p. 378) .

“But Philo cannot dispense with these definitions. With him the logos, like all the Divine powers, is only necessary because the supreme God Himself can enter into no direct contact with the finite; it must stand between the two and be the medium of their mutual relation; and how can it be this unless it were different from both, if it were only a certain Divine property? In this case we should have again that direct action of God upon finite things, which Philo declares is inadmissible. On the other hand the Logos must now, indeed, be, again, identical with each of the opposites which it was to reconcile, it must likewise be a property of God as a power operative in the world. Philo could not, without contradiction, succeed in combining the two” (Zeller iii. 2, p. 380) . As remarkable as it may seem, however, this very thing is done in Modalism’s teaching of the Deity of Christ and His humanity—i.e. His dual nature. He is, indeed, identical with both elements He is reconciling, and yet a property of God operating in the world.

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The Greek word prototokos is translated in two passages of the King James Version by “first-begotten” (Heb 1:6 Rev 1:5), but in all other places in the KJV by “firstborn.” Prototokos is used metaphorically of Christ to express at once His relation to man and the universe, and His difference from them, as both He and they are related to God. The laws and customs of all nations show that to be “firstborn” means, not only priority in time, but, more importantly, to certain superiority in privilege and authority. For example, Israel is said to be Yahweh’s firstborn among the nations (Ex 4:22; cf Jer 31:9). The Messianic King is God’s firstborn (Septuagint—prototokos), “the highest of the kings of the earth” (Ps 89:27). Philo applies the word to the logos as the archetypal and governing idea of creation.

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Philo was, as it seems, the first to suggest that the Logos was the intermediate being between God and the world. The building blocks for his doctrine lay in both Jewish theology and Greek philosophy. Philo took from the Jewish theology the idea of the Spirit and Word of God; then from Greek philosophy he took chiefly the doctrine of the wisdom of God, utilizing for his purpose the Platonic doctrine of ideas and the world spirit, or soul. But it is the Stoic doctrine of the deity as the active reason of the world, which is the nearest to his. “We need only to strip off from this Stoic doctrine of the Logos, its pantheistic element by distinguishing the Logos from the Deity, and its materialistic element by distinguishing it from organized matter, to have the Philonean Logos complete” (Zeller iii. 2, 385).

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The logos concept of Plato required one more step to infect Christianity; this needed step was found in the early Christian Apologists, of whom Justin Martyr is a prime example. Justin (A.D. 100-165) was a Platonic philosopher who continued to wear the philosopher’s habit, as a Christian preacher. He was not representative of the Christianity of his time. According to his own testimony, he was not associated with any Christians other than those who sought him out as a philosopher.

Justin Martyr and Companions: Justin Martyr Is Questioned About Christian Meetings "Where do you assemble?" Rusticus proceeded. “Wherever we want to and are able to," Justin replied. "Do you imagine that we all meet in the same place? Not so! The God of the Christians is not limited to a location. He is invisible, and he fills heaven and earth. Therefore, he is worshipped and glorified everywhere by the faithful." Rusticus sighed. This was no angry prefect. He was not the least bit interested in Justin's speech. "Just tell me where you personally assemble. In other words, in what place do you, Justin, gather your followers?" "I live above a man named Martin, at the Timiotinian Bath." Justin paused, then, knowing what the next question would be, he continued, "During the entire time I've lived here, because I'm now living in Rome for the second time, I don't know about any other meetings. I've simply taught the truth to anyone willing to come to me.”

Justin Martyr (AD 100-165) and Philo

Space will not allow an exhaustive examination of the logos theology, however a few comments on the subject are necessary at this point. As stated, logos-christology sees the logos (Word) as a separate person (individual) from God the Father, and has come into Christianity from pagan thought, in point of fact: from Plato by way of Philo (first century Jewish Platonic philosopher) and the early Christian (so-called) Apologists (so-called) such as Justin Martyr.

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Justin saw Christianity as the fruition of Platonism, and preached Christ (Messiah) according to the understanding of Philo. Justin called Jesus the “second god.” Through Justin Martyr, and others of his time and philosophy, logos-christology came to the fore in post- apostolic thought.

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Justin was profoundly influenced by Plato and Philo and their understanding of God. Christian historian G.P. Fisher tells us of the Godhead theology of Justin Martyr: “Yet we have presented prominently another conception, Platonic and Alexandrian Jewish, of God as a transcendent, ineffable One, too exalted to be the subject of finite predicates, the ordinary representations of Him being merely relative to our finite apprehension. It is only through an intermediate being that He is revealed. It is through the Logos or Word, that God is manifested.... Justin’s particular idea of the Logos is not consonant (in agreement or harmony…) with that of John (the Apostle), but corresponds to that of Plato and Philo. …” (Underlining mine.) “The Logos, impersonal in God from the beginning, becomes personal prior to the creation. Justin does not fully succeeded in taking Christ out of the category of creatures. He is begotten, or assumes a person, form of being, by an act of God’s will. He was generated from the Father ‘by His power and will.’ The Logos is another ‘in number,’ but not in ‘mind’ (or ‘will’). There is a personal distinction, but this is not eternal, and it springs from an act of God’s will, anterior to the creation of the world. To the Son, is assigned the second place in relation to the eternal God.... Justin speaks of the Spirit in conjunction with the Father, and Christ in such terms as to naturally imply that the Spirit is regarded as distinct from both, although subordinate to them.”

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The Apologists had found fertile soil in the heathen that had been converted to Christianity. Most religions of the ancient world had a trinity of some sort. This, along with the logos concept of Plato and Philo, made the message of the Apologists almost irresistible to the people that had a Greek, instead of a Hebrew, culture.

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Now that we have a little understanding of Philo’s contribution to our discussion, we will proceed to discover how he made an impact upon a segment of the Christian faith. Bible scholars John McClintock and James Strong explain: “Towards the end of the 1st century, and during the 2[n]d, many learned men came over both from Judaism and paganism to Christianity. These brought with them into the Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and phraseology”

Out of this nest (Alexandria) of worldly philosophy grew a Christian church (of a sort). From this swamp of paganism arose the citadel to the “Logos Christology” of Plato and Philo. From this fortress marched forth the warriors of darkness proclaiming light—illuminating none—but blinding and binding all. The Trinitarians of all ages since can look to one Alexandrian bishop and proclaim, “O Captain, My captain;” this bishop is Clement of Alexandria. Not to be confused with the saint from Rome.

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When John wrote that all things were made by the Word, it was not the logos of Plato, nor of Plato’s student, Philo, that he had in mind. It is clear that John is writing to combat this false christology, for he opens his gospel with words that strike a fatal blow to this heresy. Plato, Philo, and one Cerinthus taught that the logos had a beginning as the first creation of God the first principle; but, John’s first salvo is “In the beginning was the Word (logos).” To John the logos did not have a beginning, the logos was eternal—had always been. Secondly, John was a Jew who knew and confessed the Shema. To him God was a radical one. When he wrote that the “logos was God,” one may be confident that he did not mean “a god” or “another god” or “also god.” To John there was but one God: namely, the Father. The logos was that God.

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The true disciple of Christ will permit the Bible to interpret itself. Whereas John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes that all things were created by the Word, the Psalmist explains that it was by “the breath of his mouth.” The difference in the logos-christology of Justin (originating from Plato and Philo and showing up in the pluralism of the Arians and later Trinitarians), and the Hebraic-Christology of the bible, is this: In logos-christology the logos (Word) is the second person of the Godhead, while in Hebraic-Christology (which is held by Modalistic Monarchians) the logos (Word) is the speaking of God, i.e. “the breath of his mouth.” Truly, this is the narrative of Genesis where Yahweh created by saying; “Let there be!”

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The above comments on Philo of Alexandria, Egypt are excerpts taken from the author’s book entitled “Godhead Theology.” “Godhead Theology” may be ordered from Amazon, or anywhere great books are sold.

Apostolically Speaking,

☩☩ Jerry L Hayes