Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient and Modern by J. Allanson Picton
page 33 of 65 (50%)
page 33 of 65 (50%)
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a stage in the progress of religion from Animism to Pantheism, it may,
also, by the peculiar intensity of the personal devotion it sometimes inspires, cause the very idea of any farther expansion of faith to be counted a sin. [Sidenote: Philo, the Jew of Alexandria.] Perhaps the influence of Hebraism on Hellenism may be illustrated by the Alexandrian Philo's pathetic endeavour not only to trace the wisdom of the Greeks to Moses, but to show that this derived lore is much mightier for good when re-invested with the spiritual power and ardent devotion of the Jewish faith. "If any one will speak plainly," he writes,[12] "he might say that the intelligible world is nothing other than the word (se. [Greek: logos], reason) of the world-making God. For neither is the intelligible city anything other than the thought [Greek: logismos] of the architect already intending to build the city. This is the teaching of Moses, not mine. At any rate in what follows, when he records the origin of man, he declares outright that man was made in the image of God. But if a part (of creation) reflects the type, so also must the entire manifestation, this intelligible ordered world, which is a reproduction of the divine image on a larger scale than that of man."[13] [Sidenote: Motives Underlying his Distortion of Hebraism.] [Sidenote: Not Pantheistic.] How Philo managed to extort this out of the Pentateuch is a question of interest, but one on which I cannot delay. Suffice it, that while he |
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