Judaism In-Between Testaments
[Ps. 45:7], 110:1, Hos. 1:7, because they point to a self-distinction within the Divine Being. And a threefold self-distinction in the Divine Being is most clearly indicated in Ps. 33:6, Isa. 61:1, 63:9-12,
Hag. 2:5,6. Many previously saw in the three men who appeared to Abraham, Gen. 18:1-2, a revelation of the Trinity. Others believed that one of the three was the Logos and the other two were ordinary angels, e.g., Calvin, Commentators of the Statenvertaling. However, the exegesis of Augustine, according to whom the three men were three created angels, in whom Yahweh revealed Himself and was present in a special way, is much more plausible.
Judaism In-Between Testaments These thoughts from the Old Testament have been fruitful in various directions. First, they have been adopted and further developed in apocryphal literature. In the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach, wisdom occupies a prominent place. It is from God and created by Him before all things, and it remains with Him forever. It is spread over all God's works, but its resting place is especially in Zion and is found in the law, also Baruch, cf. But the book of Wisdom goes further.
Here wisdom is so hypostasized that divine attributes and works are attributed to it. It is clearly distinguished from God, for it is the breath of His power, an emanation of His glory, a reflection of His light, 7:25,26. But it is also intimately connected with God, lives with Him, is initiated into His knowledge, and selects those ideas that will be executed, 8:3,4. It is the companion at His throne, knows all His works, and was present at the creation of the world, 9:4,9. Indeed, it is Itself who creates, rules, and renews everything, 7:27, 8:1,5. It is identical with God's Word, 9:1,2, 16:12, 18:15,16, and with His Spirit,
1:4-7, 9:17, 12:1. Already in this book of Wisdom, the influence of Greek philosophy is noticeable, especially 7:22ff., but this is much stronger in the case of Philo. The relationship of God to the world was already investigated by Plato. From the distinction and contrast of doxa and epistēmē, Plato inferred that just as the former must have a sensible object in reality, the latter must have an eternal and unchanging being, i.e., an idea, as its object. These ideas, although really nothing more than general concepts, were elevated by Plato to metaphysical principles, to independent substances, to a kind of intermediaries, towards which the demiurge had fashioned the cosmos and which thus are the paradigms and causes of things.
Although Aristotle subjected this doctrine of ideas to sharp criticism, the idea that an intelligent, spiritual principle underlay all things was not lost from Greek philosophy. Especially the Stoics emphasized that a divine reason was the ground of all phenomena. They used the name logos spermatikos for this, because all being and life sprout from that Logos as from a seed, and also spoke in the plural of logoi spermatikoi, thereby indicating alongside the unity also the diversity of the all-creating natural power. Even the later much-significant distinction between logos endiathetos and proforikos is derived from the Stoics.
The Greek doctrine of the idea, the nous, and the logos had already been connected with the teaching of the Old Testament regarding the word and wisdom even before Philo. However, it was primarily Philo who synthesized all these different elements—Platonic doctrine of ideas, Stoic doctrine of the Logos, Old Testament wisdom teachings, etc.—into one system. He starts with the dualism of God and the world. God is apophatic, indescribable; we can only say that He is, not what He is. Therefore, He cannot be in direct contact with matter. Before God created the sensible world, He devised a plan and depicted in His mind the kosmos noētos, the ideas, as paradigms and
powers of all things. Philo presents these ideas as the forces by which God can work in the world, sometimes described more or less metaphorically, sometimes more or less personally, as servants, stewards, messengers, mediators, as Logoi and powers, as bonds and pillars, referred to by Moses as angels and by the Greeks as demons, as thoughts located in the divine mind, uncreated and infinite like
God Himself. These ideas are also numerous, but they find their unity in the Logos, the idea that encompasses all ideas, the power that encompasses all powers, the book that contains all thoughts within itself, the kosmos noētos itself.
Similarly, just as the divine ideas, so is this Logos described, sometimes more as an attribute of God and one with His wisdom, and then more as a Being, distinct from God. He stands, as it were, between God and the world, participating in both; He is not uncreated like God, nor created like finite things; He is a substitute, envoy, interpreter, steward, angel, instrument, image, shadow of God, yes, His firstborn Son, His eldest Son in distinction from the world, which is His youngest son; Philo even calls Him God, but second God. Zeller clearly demonstrates that the Logos in Philo, like the divine ideas, bears and must bear this dual character. He is an intermediate and therefore a double Being, an attribute of God and yet a Person, neither identical with God nor a creature like the world, an idea in the mind of God and a power in the world, hovering between an impersonal attribute and a personal entity, but therefore deemed suitable as a Mediator between God and the world.
In Jewish theology, this doctrine of intermediaries has been further developed. As entirely transcendent, God cannot directly connect with creatures. He needs various intermediaries for this purpose. If He merely wants to guide the existing powers in nature and humanity, He uses angels. But if He wants to create or recreate in the
world, hypostases appear, which, although creatures, bear divine attributes because they are representatives of God. Such hypostases include Metatron, the vice-regent of God; Memra, the word of God;
Shechinah, the presence of God's glory; Bath Kol, the voice of God, which gives revelations and proclaims oracles; Ruach Hakkodesh, the Spirit emanating from God and imparting higher knowledge.
While the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach still closely aligns with canonical literature, there is an influence of philosophy discernible in the Book of Wisdom, in Philo, and in Jewish theology, which increasingly diverges from the thoughts of the Old Testament.
Firstly, there is a difference in principle. The doctrine of intermediaries in Philo and later Jewish theology arises from the Platonic opposition of God and the world, of which there is no trace in the Old Testament books. The word and wisdom in the Old
Testament are not mediating intermediaries between God and the world; rather, they are entirely on God's side, belong to Him, and are the principles of the created world. In contrast, the intermediaries in Philo occupy an impossible position: they are neither God nor creature, neither person nor attribute, neither substance nor power, but partake in both; they erase the boundary line that in the Old
Testament always separates the creature from the Creator and pave the way for the philosophy of Gnosticism and the Kabbalah.
Secondly, there is a no less significant difference in the character that the doctrine of the word and wisdom carries in Scripture and that which the doctrine of intermediaries carries in Philo. In Philo, the Logos in its first sense is equated with reason, thought, the idea in God, and therefore, as such, is immanent to God, nothing more than an attribute. Only in its second sense does this Logos become Word, emanating from God and occupying a mediating position between God and the world. In the Old Testament, however, the Word is not
first the reason and thought of God, much less an ideal worldview, a kosmos noētos, but the spoken Word by which He creates and sustains all things. And the wisdom in Job and Proverbs is presented not as an attribute of God, but personally possessed and ordained by God from eternity, consulted and searched at the creation of all things.
Thirdly, the intermediaries in Philo and Jewish theologians have no soteriological significance. While they serve for enlightenment and imparting knowledge, there is no mention of a connection between these intermediaries and the Messiah. They even push the doctrine of the Messiah as the revelation of truth and the acquirer of salvation into the background. Now, it is true that in the Old Testament, the connection between word and wisdom, servant of God and Messiah,
Angel of Yahweh and Davidic figure, is not yet clearly fulfilled. The lines run parallel. But they are approaching each other. Elohim and Yahweh are the same God. He who, as Elohim, creates and sustains the world through Word and Spirit, is also the one who, as Yahweh, has led His people through His Angel, will save His people through the servant of Yahweh from David's house, will reign eternally, renew and sanctify them all through His Spirit. And these lines, which increasingly converge in the Old Testament, culminate in Him who is the Logos, the Prophet, Priest, and King, in whom God comes to His people and dwells among them eternally. For Philo, the incarnation of the Logos would have been an absurd thought. In the New
Testament, however, this is precisely the highest revelation of God.
Finally, it can be added here that the doctrine of intermediaries in Philo, etc., is not complete and has no boundaries. Philo indeed brings some unity to the divine ideas by summarizing them in the Logos, but he attributes to the Logos the same qualities that he repeatedly attributes to all divine ideas. In Jewish theology, the