But there were more than these two Potencies. In one place Philo enumerates six, according to
the number of the cities of refuge. The Potencies issued from God as the beams from the light,
as the waters from the spring, as the breath from a person; they were immanent in God, and yet
also without Him - motions on the part of God, and yet independent beings. They were the ideal
world, which in its impulse outwards, meeting matter, produced this material world of ours.
They were also the angels of God - His messengers to man, the media through whom He
reveled Himself.25
23. A very interesting question arises: how far Philo was acquainted with, and influenced by, the Jewish
traditional law or the Halakhah. This h as been treated by Dr. B. Ritter in an able tractate (Philo u. die
Halach.), although he attributes more to Philo than the evidence seems to admit.
24. Jer. Ber. ix. 7.
25. At the same time there is a remarkable difference here between Philo and Rabbinism. Philo holds that
the creation of the world was brought about by the Potencies, but the Law was given directly through
Moses, and not by the mediation of angels. But this latter was certainly the view generally entertained
in Palestine as expressed in the LXX. rendering of Deut. xxxii. 2, in the Targumim on that passage, and
more fully still in Jos. Ant. xv. 5. 3, in the Midrashim and in the Talmud, where we are told (Macc. 24 a)
that only the opening words, `I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods but Me,' were
spoken by God Himself. Comp. also Acts vii. 38, 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2.
3. The Logos. - Viewed in its bearing on New Testament teaching, this part of Philo's system
raises the most interesting questions. But it is just here that our difficulties are greatest. We
can understand the Platonic conception of the Logos as the `archetypal idea,' and that of
the Stoics as the `world-reason' pervading matter. Similarly, we can perceive, how the
Apocrypha - especially the Book of Wisdom - following up the Old Testament typical truth
concerning `Wisdom' (as specially set forth in the Book of Proverbs) almost arrived so far
as to present `Wisdom' as a special `Subsistence' (hypostatising it). More than this, in
Talmudical writings, we find mention not only of the Shem , or `Name,'26 but also of the
`Shekhinah,' God as manifest and present, which is sometimes also presented as the Ruach
ha Qodesh, of Holy Spirit.27 But in the Targumim we get yet another expression, which,
strange to say, never occurs in the Talmud.28 It is that of the Memra, Logos, or `Word.'
Not that the term is exclusively applied to the Divine Logos.29 But it stands out as perhaps
the most remarkable fact in this literature, that God - not as in His permanent manifestation,
or manifest Presence - but as revealing Himself, is designated Memra. Altogether that term,
as applied to God, occurs in the Targum Onkelos 179 times, in the so-called Jerusalem
Targum 99 times, and in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan 321 times. A critical analysis shows
that in 82 instances in Onkelos, in 71 instances in the Jerusalem Targum, and in 213
instances in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the designation Memra is not only distinguished
from God, but evidently refers to God as revealing Himself.30 But what does this imply? The
distinction between God and the Memra of Jehovah is marked in many passages.31
Similarly, the Memra of Jehovah is distinguished from the Shekhinah.32 Nor is the term
used instead of the sacred word Jehovah;33 nor for the well-known Old Testament
expression `the Angel of the Lord;'34 nor yet for the Metatron of the Targum Pseudo-
Jonathan and of the Talmud.35 Does it then represent an older tradition underlying all