declares, I have stood between the Lord and you; being neither Unbegotten as God, nor begotten as you; but in the midst of the extremes, pledging myself for both: to the Creator, that the whole human race shall never utterly fail and apostatize; and to the creature, to maintain the glad hope that the merciful God will not overlook his own work. For I publish tidings of peace from God, whose it is to purge away strifes, and who is the perpetual preserver of peace."-Quis Rer. Div. Hær., T. i., p. 501.

"The temples of God, as it seems, are two: the one, this universe, in which the High Priest is his FIRST BEGOTTEN, the DIVINE WORD: (ò Пpwróуovos ȧvrov Jeos Aóyos :) the other, the rational soul, of which man himself is the priest."-De Somniis, T. i., p. 653.

"Adorned after this manner did the High Priest proceed to the sacred rites. The twelve stones of the pectoral, arranged in four rows of three in each, was the oracle of the WORD, who holds and directs the universe. For it was necessary that he who performed the priestly rites to the FATHER of the world, should employ as his advocate THE SON, most perfect in virtue, for the pardon of sins, and for the supply of the most abundant blessings."-De Vitâ Mosis, lib. iii., T. ii., p. 155.

Assuming that Philo may be regarded as the representative of the opinions of his countrymen, the following conclusions seem fairly deducible from the statements here cited:

1. That the Jews, at the time of our Lord's advent, employed the title THE WORD OF GOD, to describe a person properly divine; one co-eternal with, yet subordinate to, God the Father.

2. That they considered him as divinely generated, and of consequence, THE SON OF GOD.*

*The foregoing citations evince the correctness of a remark of the learned Selden. "By the Son of God, the Jews meant the

Of the latter doctrine, we find traces in other Jewish records. Thus in the Apocrypha, there is a reference of this sort to Psal. cx. 1, "The Lord said unto my Lord," &c. The passage by the apocryphal writer is as follows: "I called upon the Lord, the FATHER of my LORD, that he would not leave me in the days of my trouble." (Ecclus. li. 10.) The rendering by the LXX. of the third verse of the same psalm is also worthy of remark. Dr. Kennicott, upon the authority of this version, combined with that of the Syriac and the Arabic, gives this text thus :—

"With thee shall be royalty, in the day of thy power:
In majesty and holiness from the womb:

Before the morning star, I have begotten thee."+

Independent of the considerable deviation from the Hebrew which this rendering presents, there is another reason of some weight against its correctness. But though we may hesitate to accept it as expressive of the inspired text, yet it is fairly available as evidence upon the opinions of the Jewish authors of the Greek version. In addition to these examples, the Jerusalem Targum upon Gen. iii. 22, has the like sentiment. And the WORD of the Lord God said, Behold, Adam whom I have created is the only-begotten in the world, even as I am the ONLY-BEGOTTEN in the highest heaven." Thus both before and after the era of Philo, the doctrine of divine generation was not unknown among the Jews.

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WORD of God, (as he is called in the Chaldee paraphrases,) the taking of which name was equivalent to the claiming of divine honour."-De Jure Nat. et Gent., lib. ii., c. 12. +"Remarks on select passages," &c., p. 214. This text is not unfrequently cited by the early Fathers in the sense supplied by the Septuagint.

See Ch. V., sect. iv., note (P), below. Poetry, Lect. x.

Also Lowth on Heb.

NOTE (B), p. 59.

On the Character and Writings of Philo Judæus.

In order to a due appreciation of the foregoing citations, it is necessary to arrive at some probable conclusion on the character of their author. Of his learning and celebrity there is no room for doubt; but by some writers it has been conjectured, either that he was a Christian, or that he had intimately conversed with Christians, and was familiar with the doctrines of the New Testament. If this be denied, it is suggested by Dr. A. Clarke, as a probable alternative, that he was, in some degree, the subject of divine inspiration. Whether this intimation is to be regarded merely as a piece of rhetoric, or as conveying the sober and deliberate opinion of its venerable author, I do not take upon me to determine. It will be the safer plan to treat it as the latter.

In support of the hypothesis of Philo's Christianity, its advocates cite a report first found in Eusebius, (Eccl. Hist., lib. ii., c. xvi.,) and repeated by Jerome and others, that he formed an acquaintance with St. Peter at Rome, and was by him initiated into the Christian faith. It is also thought that in the works of Philo there are evidences of a higher degree of religious information than can be reasonably attributed to a mere Jewish writer. On this latter ground Dr. Clarke founds the singular opinion just referred to. A few remarks upon each of these arguments are here annexed.

The English reader should be informed, that the principal works of Philo are a Series of dissertations on some principal passages of the books of Moses, and especially the book of Genesis. In the absence of the slightest presumption to the contrary, we naturally suppose them to have been written according to the order of their subjects in the Pentateuch; and occasionally in the writings themselves we find allusions which go to confirm this conclusion. The indications of chronology, therefore, which we may detect in any one of these productions, are more or less available in determining the relative dates of the others.

E

In an advanced part of Philo's works, and after the whole of the books from which the preceding citations are made, we have a dissertation on the seventh and eighth commandments; at the commencement of which, after having stated that he employed his youth in sacred studies, he goes on to complain that now, by the tumult of secular affairs, his leisure and tranquillity were so interrupted as to leave him little opportunity for the more congenial occupations of philosophic and religious contemplation. (De Spec. Leg., lib. ii., T. ii., p. 229.)

In a subsequent dissertation, he speaks of the dreadful catastrophe, at the siege of Xanthus, in Lycia, by Marcus Brutus, as an event of recent occurrence, (οỷ πρò ñоλλου. Quod liber sit quisquis virtuti studet, T. ii., p. 464.) Now this took place in the year of the Julian period, 4672, or before Christ, 42. (See Usher's Annals, p. 700.) If then we allow an interval of fifty years between it and the time at which Philo spoke of it as a recent event,-which is much longer than the expression requires,—this will bring us down to A.D. 8, or nearly twenty years before our Lord commenced his public ministry. At this time then Philo was in the prime of manhood, fully engaged in public business, having previously completed his most important literary productions.

The correctness of this chronology is confirmed by another circumstance. In the year preceding the death of Caligula, (A.D. 40,) an embassy was sent to that monarch, by the Jews of Alexandria. At the head of the Legates thus employed, at once the most aged and the most learned, was Philo. (Joseph. Antiq., lib. xviii., c. 8. Phil. Legat. ad Caium., T. ii., p. 572.) In the account of this undertaking which he has left us, and which is said to have been presented to the Roman Senate under Claudius, he classes himself with men of hoary age. (yÉpovтes—xpóvov moλidi. Legat. Init., T. ii., p. 545.) If then his book, Quod liber sit quisquis virtuti studet, which we have just cited, was written at forty, he would now be about seventy years old; an age which accurately corresponds with the description which he gives of himself. (See Allix's Judgment of the Jewish Church, chap. vi., p. 64.)

It is not pretended that at this period he was a Christian; and, in fact, his account of the Legation to Caligula supplies

incontestable evidence to the contrary. But his principal works had then been written at least thirty years, and were completed before Christianity had an existence. Were his subsequent conversion therefore ever so well authenticated, it is evident that they could not have been affected by such a change; and, giving the statement of Eusebius the most implicit credence, the theology of Philo must still be regarded as exclusively Jewish.

But this representation is, in fact, altogether unworthy of credit. The conversion of a man so eminent for learning, rank, and influence, would, at this period, have been an event altogether unparalleled. There is no individual of the first century whose acceptance of Christianity would have occasioned a greater sensation, or have been more extensively known; and we may therefore safely affirm, that it could not have passed unnoticed by the penmen of the New Testament, or by the ecclesiastical writers who immediately succeeded them. But instead of any contemporary statement to this effect, three centuries elapse without a single intimation of the kind; and all that we then have is a vague rumour, destitute alike of minuteness and authority.

In Alexandria, the residence of Philo, there was a succession of eminent and learned Christian teachers, almost from his own times; and had the tradition of Eusebius been authentic, these individuals must have been aware of the fact; and through them it would have been transmitted. But they have not left on record the slightest hint upon the subject. Had Origen, for example, known of a conversion so illustrious, it is morally certain that, in his disputation with the Jew of Celsus, he would in some way have availed himself of its celebrity. But, far from this, it is a matter of doubt whether he was even conversant with the writings of Philo. There is one passage which, to my own mind, is a strong presumption to the contrary. Celsus had represented the WORD and the SON OF GOD as, in the Jewish theology, terms of identical application. This Origen in effect denies; (Lib. ii., sect. 31, Opp. T. i., p. 431;) but had he been familiar with the works of Philo, from which it is not unlikely that his antagonist drew his information, he could not, with any regard to his reputation, have hazarded such an objection.