s of God
as the Judge; in the second it observes the precepts in hope of reward
and conceives God as the legislator of a fixed code; in the next it is
repentant and throws itself on God's grace, marking the first step of
the spiritual life. Then it ascends in order to the idea of God as the
governor of the universe, and the emotion which the rabbis called
[Hebrew: yrat shmim], the fear of Heaven; and to the idea of God as the
Creator and the universal Providence, which has as its emotional
reflex the love of Heaven, [Hebrew: 'hbt shmim].

But even this, which is the highest stage for many men, is not an
adequate conception. Above it is the contemplation of God, apart from
all manifestations in the perceptible world, in His ideal nature, the
Logos, which at once transcends and comprehends the universe. And the
attitude of this man can be best expressed perhaps by Spinoza's
phrase, "the intellectual love of God," _amor intellectualis Dei_. The
worshipper of the Logos has grasped and has harmonized all the
manifestations of the Deity; he sees and honors all things in God; he
comprehends the universe as the perfect manifestation of one good
Being.

Is this the highest point which man can reach? Many religious
philosophers have held that it is, but Philo, the mystic, yearning to
track out God "beyond the utmost bound of human thought," imagines one
higher condition. The Logos is only the image or the shadow of the
Godhead.[229] Above it is the one perfect reality, the transcendent
Essence. Now, man cannot by any intellectual effort attain knowledge
of the Infinite as He truly is, for this is above thought. But to a
few blessed mortals God of His grace vouchsafes a mystic vision of His
nature. Thus Moses, the perfect hierophant, had this perfect
apprehension, and passed from intellectual love to holy adoration. And
the true philosopher has as the goal of his aspirations the
heaven-sent ecstasy, in which he sees God no longer through His
effects, or in the modes of His activity, but through Himself in His
own essence. The philosopher, when he receives this vision ([Greek:
epopteia]) is possessed by the Shekinah,[230] and, losing
consciousness of his individuality, becomes at one with God.

So much for Philo's theory of man's upward progress. We may add a word
about his treatment of the problem which troubled thinkers in that
age, and which has harassed theologians ever since, viz., to show how
punishment and evil could be