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And as this whole gradation forms part of the conditions anterior to the world, the word Logos, the regular name denoting this instrument, acquires sometimes a wider, sometimes a narrower meaning. The Philonian doctrine is, however, essentially dis- tinct from the later Christian doctrine of the Logos in that its Logos is only the idea of the world ; and he therefore ex- pressly declares that this shadow of the Deity must not be called God. 4 The degrees of Being Philo represents as diminishing like the intensity of light radiating into ever larger circles, until at length it finds its limit in matter, which he conceives sometimes in the spirit of Plato and Aristotle as merely M oi, at others, more in agreement with the later physiologers and the Stoics, as a mixture of the inert and inanimate principles , which the orderer of things subsequently brings into con - formity with law and form by separation. According to the predominance of matter or of form there results the hierarch y of beings, which had been already established by the Stoic s ( 97 3) He combines with this the biological doctrines of Aristotle in such a way as to ascribe to the plants not only, but also (o-i, and also the Ope-n-riK, Aera3X;no and avtjriKrj (sc Suvami), and while the eJ-yp(a are in addition said to have also aio-Otja-i, pavracria, fjvrnuT) and oputi, while vov or Xo-yo per- tains only to the vy Xoyto, sometimes called v simply. And because man, the rational being, also partakes of all the subordinate states, he is called the microcosm ; and Philo develops in detail how inorganic, vegetable, etc, character- istics are displayed in man. prev next |