We have seen how St. Paul speaks of a Gnosis or higher knowledge, which can be taught with safety only to the "perfect" or "fully initiated";[110] and he by no means rejects such expressions as the Pleroma (the totality of the Divine attributes), which were technical terms of speculative theism. St. John, too, in his prologue and other places, brings the Gospel into relation with current speculation, and interprets it in philosophical language. The movement known as Gnosticism, both within and without the Church, was an attempt to complete this reconciliation between speculative and revealed religion, by systematising the symbols of transcendental mystical theosophy.[111] The movement can only be understood as a premature and unsuccessful attempt to achieve what the school of Alexandria afterwards partially succeeded in doing. The anticipations of Neoplatonism among the Gnostics would probably be found to be very numerous, if the victorious party had thought their writings worth preserving. But Gnosticism was rotten before it was ripe. Dogma was still in such a fluid state, that there was nothing to keep speculation within bounds; and the Oriental element, with its insoluble dualism, its fantastic mythology and spiritualism, was too strong for the Hellenic. Gnosticism presents all the features which we shall find to be characteristic of degenerate Mysticism. Not to speak of its oscillations between fanatical austerities and scandalous licence, and its belief in magic and other absurdities, we seem, when we read Irenæus' description of a Valentinian heretic, to hear the voice of Luther venting his contempt upon some "Geisterer" of the sixteenth century, such as Carlstadt or Sebastian Frank. "The fellow is so puffed up," says Irenæus, "that he believes himself to be neither in heaven nor on earth, but to have entered within the Divine Pleroma, and to have embraced his guardian angel. On the strength of which he struts about as proud as a cock. These are the self-styled 'spiritual persons,' who say they have already reached perfection." The later Platonism could not even graft itself upon any of these Gnostic systems, and Plotinus rejects them as decisively as Origen.
Still closer is the approximation to later speculation which we find in Philo, who was a contemporary of St. Paul. Philo and his Therapeutæ were genuine mystics of the monastic type. Many of them, however, had not been monks all their life, but were retired men of business, who wished to spend their old age in contemplation, as many still do in India. They were, of course, not Christians, but Hellenised Jews, though Eusebius, Jerome, and the Middle Ages generally thought that they were Christians, and were well pleased to find monks in the first century.[112]
Philo's object is to reconcile religion and philosophy—in other words, Moses and Plato.[113] His method[114] is to make Platonism a development of Mosaism, and Mosaism an implicit Platonism. The claims of orthodoxy are satisfied by saying, rather audaciously, "All this is Moses' doctrine, not mine." His chief instrument in this difficult task is allegorism, which in his hands is a bad specimen of that pseudo-science which has done so much to darken counsel in biblical exegesis. His speculative system, however, is exceedingly interesting.
God, according to Philo, is unqualified and pure Being, but not superessential. He is emphatically [Greek: ho ôn], the "I am," and the most general ([Greek: to genikôtaton]) of existences. At the same time He is without qualities ([Greek: apoios]), and ineffable ([Greek: arrêtos]). In His inmost nature He is inaccessible; as it was said to Moses, "Thou shalt see what is behind Me, but My face shall not be seen." It is best to contemplate God in silence, since we can compare Him to nothing that we know. All our knowledge of God is really God dwelling in us. He has breathed into us something of His nature, and is thus the archetype of what is highest in ourselves. He who is truly inspired "may with good reason be called God." This blessed state may, however, be prepared for by such mediating agencies as the study of God's laws in nature; and it is only the highest class of saints—the souls "born of God"—that are exalted above the need of symbols. It would be easy to show how Philo wavers between two conceptions of the Divine nature—God as simply transcendent, and God as immanent. But this is one of the things that make him most interesting. His Judaism will not allow him really to believe in a God "without qualities."
The Logos dwells with God as His Wisdom (or sometimes he calls Wisdom, figuratively, the mother of the Logos). He is the "second God," the "Idea of Ideas"; the other Ideas or Powers are the forces which he controls—"the Angels," as he adds, suddenly remembering his Judaism. The Logos is also the mind of God expressing itself in act: the Ideas, therefore, are the content of the mind of God. Here he anticipates Plotinus; but he does not reduce God to a logical point. His God is self-conscious, and reasons. By the agency of the Logos the worlds were made: the intelligible world, the [Greek: kosmos noêtos], is the Logos acting as Creator. Indeed, Philo calls the intelligible universe "the only and beloved Son of God"; just as Erigena says, "Be assured that the Word is the Nature of all things." The Son represents the world before God as High Priest, Intercessor, and Paraclete. He is the "divine Angel" that guides us; He is the "bread of God," the "dew of the soul," the "convincer of sin": no evil can touch the soul in which He dwells: He is the eternal image of the Father, and we, who are not yet fit to be called sons of God, may call ourselves His sons.
Philo's ethical system is that of the later contemplative Mysticism. Knowledge and virtue can be obtained only by renunciation of self. 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.
"Knowledge," says Clement, "is more than faith." "Faith is a summary knowledge of urgent truths, suitable for people who are in a hurry; but knowledge is scientific faith." "If the Gnostic (the philosophical Christian) had to choose between the knowledge of God and eternal salvation, and it were possible to separate two things so inseparably connected, he would choose without the slightest hesitation the knowledge of God." On the wings of this "knowledge" the soul rises above all earthly passions and desires, filled with a calm disinterested love of God. In this state a man can distinguish truth from falsehood, pure gold from base metal, in matters of belief; he can see the connexion of the various dogmas, and their harmony with reason; and in reading Scripture he can penetrate beneath the literal to the spiritual meaning. But when Clement speaks of reason or knowledge, he does not mean merely intellectual training. "He who would enter the shrine must be pure," he says, "and purity is to think holy things." And again, "The more a man loves, the more deeply does he penetrate into God." Purity and love, to which he adds diligent study of the Scriptures, are all that is necessary to the highest life, though mental cultivation may be and ought to be a great help.[118]
History exhibits a progressive training of mankind by the Logos. "There is one river of truth," he says, "which receives tributaries from every side."