Contemplation is a higher state than activity. "The soul should cut
off its right hand." "It should shun the whirlpool of life, and not
even touch it with the tip of a finger." The highest stage is when a
man leaves behind his finite self-consciousness, and sees God face to
face, standing in Him from henceforward, and knowing Him not by
reason, but by clear certainty. Philo makes no attempt to identify the
Logos with the Jewish Messiah, and leaves no room for an Incarnation.

This remarkable system anticipates the greater part of Christian and
Pagan Neoplatonism. The astonishing thing is that Philo's work
exercised so little influence on the philosophy of the second century.
It was probably regarded as an attempt to evolve Platonism out of the
Pentateuch, and, as such, interesting only to the Jews, who were at
this period becoming more and more unpopular.[115] The same prejudice
may possibly have impaired the influence of Numenius, another
semi-mystical thinker, who in the age of the Antonines evolved a kind
of Trinity, consisting of God, whom he also calls Mind; the Son, the
maker of the world, whom he does _not_ call the Logos; and the world,
the "grandson," as he calls it. His Jewish affinities are shown by his
calling Plato "an Atticising Moses."

It was about one hundred and fifty years after Philo that St. Clement
of Alexandria tried to do for Christianity what Philo had tried to do
for Judaism. His aim is nothing less than to construct a philosophy of
religion--a Gnosis, "knowledge," he calls it--which shall "initiate"
the educated Christian into the higher "mysteries" of his creed. The
Logos doctrine, according to which Christ is the universal
Reason,[116] the Light that lighteth every man, here asserts its full
rights. Reasoned belief is the superstructure of which faith[117] is
the foundation.