THE MYSTIC

153

attends much more to the mystic problem, the winning through

to complete victory, than to ethics themselves. In this Philo is

not unique. All the virtues would be his when he reached the

end of the mystic Road: his task was to push on and on in the

wilderness of struggle, fed by the manna, watered by streams

of Sophia which Moses evoked for him on the way, looking

always to his

Captain

and Leader, and meanwhile doing as

well as he could in his life with other men.

What

had this mystic view of life to do with Judaism

?

It

was Jewish, for Philo, in every particular.

True

the whole for­

mulation of escape from matter to the immaterial, of higher

knowledge, mystic union with potencies or the Sophia from

God,

were all foreign to any natural meaning in his Bible, and

came to him and his group directly from the pagans about him.

But

Jews felt that though the pagans had asked the right

questions about how man was to come to the higher Reality,

still the pagan answers were

nonsense.

Judaism had the true

answer, and Judaism alone. The Bible itself had the whole

story, not only of God and the Logos, the pre-eminence of the

immaterial over the material, but the story of how man was to

win through to the higher Reality, and the Bible revealed the

true mystagogues, Moses and the Patriarchs, who could still

personally show man the way. In his Mysticism Philo

seemed

to

himself,

and represented to his readers both Jew and

Greek,

that

he was going not out of Judaism but only deeper into it.

He scorned the myths of the pagans, and their saving deities,

because they were false as over against the true

ones

in the

Bible.

Plato, I repeat, had scorned

those

who merely 'carried

the thyrsus' because they thought that thereby they were true

Bacchi,

when it was philosophy which was the true Mystery

in that it could alone lead the soul to the immaterial.

45

So

Philo scorned the pagan Mysteries because his was the true

Mystery

revealed by God.

45

Phaedo,

69 a, d. See my

'Literal Mystery

in

Hellenistic Judaism.'

Quanta-

lacumque,

Studies presented to Professor Kircopp Lake

(London,

1937),

227-41.

Sosrates

expected literally

to be

saved

by

this philosophic mystery

in the

next life.

154

AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

PHILO

JUDAEUS

Did

Philo scorn the pagan rites because he had, beside the

perfect

mystic philosophy, also the true mystic rites? In my

By

Light,

Light

I devoted only a few pages to the question, and

came through to the conclusion that an affirmative rather than

a negative answer

seemed

to fit the very fragmentary and

passing allusions which were pertinent. But I tried to leave the

matter

entirely open

since

it

seemed

to me, and still does, of

much

less

importance than the great mass of material in which

the

Mystery

is presented as a mystic philosophy which men

approach

by retirement from the world, rather than through

mystic rites.

That

ground it is

useless

to re-examine here.

There

is no evidence whatever to support a view that mystic

Jews had distinct rites of their own, distinct initiations, to which

even Jews must be specially admitted. With critics who

insisted

upon this point of view as over against what they took to be

mine I am in complete agreement. But I did err in not seeing

that

this question would be one of such overwhelming import­

ance to others that it justified them in dismissing my main

ideas, and

those

of Philo, as interesting but not worth

serious

discussion. The dilemma was stated over and again: Is Philo's

Mystery

a real mystery or, as an ideological rather than a

ritualistic mystery, only a figurative one

?

This

dilemma

seems

to me entirely false and misleading, one

which,

I have already indicated, has come from modern not

ancient categories and usages of the term 'mystery'. There is

every

reason for supposing, as I stated briefly in a later study,

46

and as Boyance

47

elaborated much more in detail simultane­

ously, that the word 'mystery' was used literally by philoso­

phers for centuries before Philo to indicate the nature and goal

of their teachings. Real mystery in ancient usage, let me

repeat,

seems

to me to be distinguished as teaching, with or

without rites, which would really lead the 'initiate' or 'dis-

46

See the

preceding

note.

47

PIERRE BOYANCE,

Le

Culte

des

muses

chez

les

philosophiques

grecs,

Paris,

1937

(Bibliotheque

des

£coles

Frangaises

d'Athenes

et de

Rome,

CXLI).

THE MYSTIC

155

ciple' (the two words are synonymous in Philo) out of matter

into the eternal. 'Figurative

5

use of the language of Mystery

Religions was a passing and occasional usage for

lesser

achieve­

ment, as when we 'initiate' a young man into the 'mysteries'

of banking. Did Philo think he was presenting men with a

literal or real mystery in that he was showing them a literal

path

to the immaterial, one which, if followed, would result in

the true achievement of the goal? The answer can only be

that

he certainly and passionately did think so, did believe that

the Patriarchs and Moses uniquely revealed that path and by

intercession with God and help to man led human beings along

it. With that Philo believed his doctrine, his 'higher' Judaism,

to be literally

Mystery,

the only true

Mystery.

The

question of the use of rites, then, has nothing to do with

the reality of Philo's

Mystery.

But the question of rites remains.

A

careful reading of Philo's account of the Jewish Festivals will

reveal,

in my opinion, the answer. It must be recalled that

the whole Jewish Mystery was evolved by Philo, or, more

probably,

by his group, through reading the Jewish Scriptures

with

Greek

spectacles;

these

spectacles projected between the

lines

of the Bible a whole world of

Greek

ideology which Philo

was convinced belonged on or behind the original page. But

he will accept nothing from paganism which he cannot read

into the words of Moses. The saving personalities of paganism,

Isis, Dionysus, Orpheus, find no admission, and are not needed

because their powers are ascribed to the Patriarchs. The story

of

Abraham

and Moses becomes the story of humanity con­

quering matter, or of the incarnation of a divine helper.

Pagans

like Plutarch made their own primitive myths into

philosophic mysteries in exactly the same way. We should then

suspect that if rites were

used

by Jewish mystics they would no

more have been imported pagan rites than the Jewish mystic

stories

were imported pagan stories. If mystic Judaism made

use of rites, it would have

used

Jewish rites, suffused, indeed

transformed, with pagan ideology, but externally as un­

changed as was Philo's Pentateuch.

I56 AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

PHILO JUDAEUS

Exactly

this proves to be Philo's approach to the Jewish

Festivals.

For

example, there is no trace of an initiatory rite for Jews

into the

Mystery.

Apprehension and experience of the deeper

truth

seem

to have been 'initiation'. But for proselytes Philo

changes circumcision into a sacrament, an outward sign of a

mystic grace. When he explains circumcision to gentiles in the

Exposition*

8

he gives the traditional reasons for its practice: two

reasons have to do with sanitation, and a third with the fact

that

circumcision facilitates impregnation. The fourth is more

fanciful:

the rite makes the organ by which animate things are

generated resemble the heart in which thoughts are engen­

dered. These traditional and material explanations Philo

characteristically

keeps with respect. But to them he adds two

mystic explanations. In mutilating the organ which is the source

and symbol of material pleasure, circumcision becomes a sym­

bol

of

that

renunciation and belittlement of all material pleasure

which is the first step in spiritual emancipation. At the same

time it pours contempt symbolically upon man's illusion of

creative

power,

since

it is this

sense

of independent power in

man which most stands in the way of his mystic achievement.

For

only, Philo

tells

us abundantly elsewhere, as man recog­

nizes

his own

helplessness

and unreality apart from God, his

complete dependence upon God, can he hope to receive from

God.

That

is, Philo has made circumcision into a mystic rite

of abandonment of fleshly desire and confidence, as it is a rite

of complete dedication to God. In the same spirit the mystic in

Isis

or Dionysus would have laid aside old robes and put on

new

ones

to signify his renunciation of the old life and bodily

commitments.

The

native Jew would have had this experience of the re­

nunciation of the world and dedication to the spirit when he

was circumcized in his unconscious infancy. In maturity he

would come, like the Christian after infant baptism, into more

advanced

sacraments. It should be noted in passing that the

48

Spec.,

I, 2-12.

THE MYSTIC

!57

traditional Jewish idea that circumcision is an acceptance of

the Mosaic code, assumption of the obligation and heritage of

the Jewish people, is not hinted for the gentile in Philo's pre­

sentation. Philo did not require circumcision, as a matter of

fact,

from gentile proselytes at all,

49

but he here heartily recom­

mends it to them for its symbolic value as dedication to mystic

Judaism. 'It drives evil opinion from the soul, and all other

things which are not dear to God.'

Philo has nothing to say about baptism. Whether Jews were

using it in Alexandria we do not know, but it was a rite which

did not come from the Pentateuch, and Philo has no occasion

to mention it.

The

temple cultus, I have said, was made into a cosmic

Mystery

by interpreting its courts, symbols, vestments, and

ritual

in terms of

signs

of the zodiac and other cosmic pheno­

mena. One cannot read the material Philo has on this subject

without the

sense

that to him the temple service was almost

literally mystic ritual.

These were, however, not a part of the usual life of the

Alexandrian

Jew. If mystic ritual was to have any place in his

life it had to be in the ritual of the synagogue, ritual which

must have centred then as now in the Sabbath worship and the

Festivals. It is of the highest importance that Philo finds the

real meaning of Sabbath and Festivals not in their commem­

oration of

some

events in Jewish history, but in their mystic

symbolism. To mention only a few of Philo's 'ten' Festivals:

The

Sabbath is important because on the day of physical

rest the soul is liberated to go into the mystical life

(j

&6?

decoprjTiKos).

50

The New Moon is a cosmic

Mystery.

The Pass­

over is a symbol of the migration from body to spirit, the puri­

fication of the soul.

51

The Unleavened Bread is the 'unmixed

food which is prepared by Nature'; that is, it is the immaterial,

unmixed with matter, which the mystic eats.

52

The First

49

QE,

II, 2.

Harris,

Fragments

of

Philo,

49.

Philo, however, wanted circumcision

kept

for

the Jews.

In

Migr.,

92,

Philo repeats this allegory

of

circumcision,

but

says

the rite must nonetheless

be

observed.

50

Spec,

II,

56-70.

61

Spec,

II,

145-9.

52

Spec,

II,

150-61.

Cf.

Congr.,

161-8.

I58 AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

PHILO JUDAEUS

Fruits,

with the leavened cake, are even more elaborately a

symbol

of

partaking

of mystic food, divine sustentation, manna,

the Logos. The Festival of the Fast (Day of Atonement) is

again

a turning from the material to get the immaterial sus­

tentation. Philo's mystic elaboration here is very interesting.

53

That

is, Philo makes every Festival into a sacrament in the

sense

that it is a visible sign of an invisible, a mystic grace.

The

traditional Jewish associations with the Festivals are

entirely ignored, that the mystic Jew may find in them a means

of escape from the material, a medium for partaking of the

Logos.

How far this had resulted in the modification of ritual

we do not know, but I doubt if much modification would have

been attempted, or felt desirable. The traditional forms were

quite adequate when properly understood. Into the framework

of

these

festivals it now appears we should probably put the

reference to the 'sacred table' from which

those

unworthy of

receiving mystic secrets must be kept away,

54

though what

was the exact connection we cannot say. It is clear that, in the

Jewish

Mystery,

ritual was not

stressed

as being essential to the

mystic experience in the way it was

stressed

in the pagan mys­

teries. But the Mystery which Philo presents is something which

is essentially new to 'normative' Judaism, and something which

opens

up a new factor for the study of Christian origins. For

here is a religion passionately presented as Judaism, and still

filled with much of the legalistic and prophetic spirit of Jud­

aism as we have

seen

in earlier chapters, but it was a religion

which had claimed for Judaism all that was most inspiring

in pagan religious, philosophic, and, to

some

extent, ritualistic

thought.

The highest achievement in life was not obedience to

God's

detailed laws, good as that still was, but the going out

of bodily defilement and confusion, out of the world

itself,

into

something which was 'not of this world'. Symbolized in sacred

meals and rites, the new Judaism found its reality in the Logos

or Sophia which men took into themselves to produce, in this

life or the next, a second or immaterial birth.

63

Spec.,

II,

193-203.

54

See my

By

Light, Light,

260 f.

THE MYSTIC

159

Only

two things were necessary to step from this Judaism

to the new Christianity. First, it was asserted by Christians that

a Greater than Moses had come, in whom the Logos or Spirit

was presented in so unique a fashion that the old Saviours faded

into mere premonitions.

55

This figure with its new and sharp

human personality took on quickly a number of new character­

istics, and raised countless questions which the formulations of

Philo had not suggested, or could leave with vague indecision.

Philo could discuss the 'deity' of Moses in paradoxical contra­

dictions which Christians could not tolerate about Jesus. And

the traditional teaching of

Jesus

of Nazareth gave new ethical

meaning to the whole. Secondly, by the fresh and inconceivably

vivid

experience of Jesus' person, and later of his resurrection,

the 'higher' ideology completely swallowed up the 'lower', as

Philo

tells

us it tended to do in his own environment, and the

Judaism of the law was done away in the interest of the religion

of

grace.

I would not minimize the importance of

those

changes.

They

made Christianity indeed a new religion, one that Philo

would have scorned. But it was a religion which had a measure

of preparation among Jews which Eusebius and most of his

successors

have not adequately presented, and which modern

scholars are far from appreciating.

Our

concern has been from the beginning with Philo

himself.

It

seems

to me that, far from being an obscure figure, he is a

man whom we may know as we know few ancient characters.

We

can see him representing the Jews against the Romans,

proud of his people, proud of his traditions, ready to die for

them, and too blindly loyal to have thought deeply on problems

of general humanity. He was a man of keen intellectual life

who responded positively to all that was good in gentile

thinking,

and, because it was good, believed it must have come

to the gentiles from the Jews. Surely everything that was good

was in the

Torah,

he felt, because the Torah was the gift of

God

through Moses, God's superhuman representative on

earth.

And so, for all Philo's thousands of pages which only

65

Such

as

Abraham

in

Paul's allegories.

l6o AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

PHILO JUDAEUS

Greek

tradition can make intelligible, he was, in his own

mind, a Jew who presented to men the true Judaism.

That

what

he and his group were doing would ultimately be rejected

by

Jews, and taken up by Christians to form the basis of a

religion and civilization in which for centuries the Jews en­

joyed,

and usually desired, no share, Philo could not have fore­

seen.

We must see him in his own generation, when

these

problems did not exist, when

Jesus

could have preached and

been crucified without Philo's even hearing his name, and when

Philo and his associates were simply trying to develop the poten­

tialities of their own religion, not suspecting how the Christians

would use that development.