CHAPTER I. THE WORLD-RELIGIONS.
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Arnold, Edward Vernon
While they are seeking God and desiring to find him.
Wisdom of Solomon, xiii 1-6.
The same author rises to still greater heights when he personifies Wisdom or Philosophy as a Spirit attendant upon, and almost identified with the deity. Here his language resembles that of the Avestic hymns, describing the angels attendant upon Ahura Mazdā[60]:—
22.
For there is in Wisdom a spirit quick of understanding, holy,
Alone in kind, manifold,
Subtil, freely moving,
Clear in utterance, unpolluted,
Distinct, unharmed,
Loving what is good, keen, unhindered,
23.
Beneficent, loving toward man,
Stedfast, sure, free from care.
All-powerful, all-surveying,
And penetrating through all spirits
That are quick of understanding, pure, most subtil:
24.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion:
Yea, she pervadeth and penetrateth all things by reason of her pureness.
25.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
And a clear effluence of the glory of the Almighty:
Therefore can nothing defiled find entrance into her.
26.
For she is an effulgence from everlasting light,
And an unspotted mirror of the working of God,
And an image of his goodness.
27.
And she, being one, hath power to do all things:
And remaining in herself, reneweth all things,
And from generation to generation passing into holy souls
She maketh men friends of God, and prophets;
29.
For she is fairer than the sun,
And above all the constellations of the stars.
Wisdom of Solomon, vii 22-29.
Philo the Jew.
24. The fusion of Greek and Judaic modes of thought is most complete in the works of Philo the Jew (c. 20 B.C.-54 A.D.). This writer in commenting upon the books of the Old Testament, finds himself able by way of interpretation to introduce large parts of Greek philosophies. The place of Wisdom in the writer last named is taken in his works by the Logos or ‘Word[61]’; and the ‘Word’ is many times described as an emanation of the deity, after the Persian fashion[62]. Without anticipating the further discussion of this philosophical conception, we may well notice here how characteristic it is of an age which paid boundless homage to reason, and how it supplies a counterpoise to conceptions of the deity which are rigidly personal. But Philo is of still more direct service to the study of Stoicism, because he had so completely absorbed the system that, where other authorities fail us, we may often trust to his expositions for a knowledge of details of the Stoic system.
Another work of about the same period is the Fourth book of the Maccabees, in which Stoic ethics, only slightly disguised, are illustrated from Jewish history. In this fusion of Hebraic and Hellenistic thought, unfortunately interrupted by political convulsions, eminent modern Jews have recognised the natural development of the teaching of the Hebrew prophets[63].
Christianity.