Page 220 - Demo

216The new method was accordingly found and adopted. It was an Allegorical Interpretation of every law, precept, narration and even the names of great personages were considered to conceal in them a secret idea, which it attempted to bring to light. This Allegorical Interpretation soon arrogated to itself the place of the Bible, and waslike an envelope enclosing in itself a system of religious philosophy.Now the most prominent man who personified this science was Philon, who was born of a rich Jewish family in Alexandria in the year 25 before the Christian era. Well versed in the philosophy of Plato, he wrote his allegorical work in a pure and harmonious Greek style. He believed that the doctrines of the Revelation could agree with the highest human knowledge and wisdom. What preoccupied his mind most was the phenomenon of the dealings of God, the pure Spirit, with the earthly beings. Following Plato’s theory of the “Ideas,” he invented a series of intermediary ideas called “the emanations of the Divinity,” which he transformed into angles who unite God with the world. The fundamental substance of these ideas, the Logos (Word), constituted the supreme wisdom created in the world and the highest expression of the providential action.TheAlexandrian Schoolfollowed the triumph ofJudaism over Paganism. “But,” as rightly remarks the Grand-Rabin Paul Haguenauer in his interesting little book Manuel de LittératureJuive (p.24). “mais d’elle surgirent, plus tard, des systémes nuisibles á l’hébraïsme” indeed noxious systems, not only to Judaism but to Christendom too!The origin of the doctrine of the Logos is to be traced, therefore, to the theology of Philon, and the Apostle John (pbuh) -or the author of the Fourth Gospel, whoever he be- only dogmatized the theory of the “ideas” which had sprung up first from the golden brain of Plato. As remarked in the first article of thisseries, the Divine Word