few. God as a Shepherd and King governs the universe "having appointed his true Logos, his first begotten Son, to have the care of this sacred flock, as the Vicegerent of-a great King."(1) In another place Philo exhorts men to strive to become like God's "first begotten Word" [———],(2) and he adds, a few lines further on: "for the most ancient Word is the image of God" [———]. The high priest of God in the world is "the divine Word, his first-begotten son" [———].(3) Speaking of the creation of the world Philo says: "The instrument by which it was formed is the Word of God" [———].(4) Elsewhere: "For the Word is the image of God by which the whole world was created" [———].(5) These passages might be indefinitely multiplied.
Tischendorf's next passage is: "The first power [———] after the Father of all and God the Lord, and Son, is the Word [———]; in what manner having been made flesh [———] he became man, we shall in what follows relate."(6)
We find everywhere parallels for this passage without seeking them in the fourth Gospel. In 1 Cor. i. 24, "Christ the Power [———] of God and the Wisdom of God;" cf. Heb. i. 2, 3, 4, 6, 8; ii. 8. In Heb. ii. 14—18, there is a distinct account of his becoming flesh; cf. verse 7. In Phil. ii. 6—8: "Who (Jesus Christ) being in the form of God, deemed it not grasping to be equal with God, (7) But gave himself up, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men," &c. In Rom. viii. 3 we have: "God sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin," &c. [———] It must be borne in mind that the terminology of John i. 14, "and the word became flesh" [———] is different from that of Justin, who uses the word [———]. The sense and language here is, therefore, quite as close as that of the fourth Gospel We have also another parallel in 1 Tim. iii. 16, "Who (God) was manifested in the flesh" [———], cf. 1 Cor. xv. 4, 47.
In like manner we find many similar passages in the Works of Philo. He says in one place that man was not made in the likeness of the most high God the Father of the universe, but in that of the "Second God who is his Word" [———].(1) In another place the Logos is said to be the interpreter of the highest God, and he continues: "that must be God of us imperfect beings" [———].(2)
Elsewhere he says: "But the
divine Word which is above these (the Winged Cherubim).... but being itself the image of God, at once the most ancient of all conceivable things, and the one placed nearest to the only true and absolute existence without any separation or distance between them ";(1) and a few lines further on he explains the cities of refuge to be: "The Word of the Governor (of all things) and his creative and kingly power, for of these are the heavens and the whole world."(2) "The Logos of God is above all things in the world, and is the most ancient and the most universal of all things which are."(3) The Word is also the "Ambassador sent by the Governor (of the universe) to his subject (man)" [———].(4) Such views of the Logos are everywhere met with in the pages of Philo.
Tischendorf continues: "The Word (Logos) of God is his Son."(5) We have already in the preceding paragraphs abundantly illustrated this sentence, and may proceed to the next: "But since they did not know all things concerning the Logos, which is Christ, they have frequently contradicted each other."(6) These words are