INTRODUCTION
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Who is the Alpha and the Omega, the glorious `chain-like' link in the
purpose of the ages.
We must now pass on to Philo, a Jew of Alexandria, who attempted
to bridge the gulf between the revelation of God as given in the
Hebrew Scriptures and the demands of Philosophy. Two contrary
views were held as to the nature of God: one view being that He was
transcendent, and the other that He was immanent. The first view
removed God so far from creation and human affairs, as to reduce Him
to an abstraction, while the second identified Him with creation so
closely that it became virtually Pantheism. The transcendental God
was `unknowable and unthinkable'. He had no qualities, and no
attributes. His only name was `I am that I am'.
With these thoughts in mind, let us turn once more to the Gospel of
John. Here, too, we find One Who could say: `Before Abraham was, I
AM' (8:58), but we also read that He said, `I am the bread of life', and
`I am the light of the world'. The transcendent One was also
immanent. Greek philosophy felt the need for the mediating Logos,
but the Logos was regarded as being neither God nor man. The
Christian revelation also stresses the need for the mediating Logos, but
reveals the glorious fact that He is both God and Man. In other words,
the passage in 1:14: `The Word became flesh and dwelt among us',
together with its complement in 11:25, `I am the resurrection, and the
life', contain the truth which Plato and Philo sought, but sought in
vain. When we consider these earnest seekers after the truth and
compare their position with our own, how grateful we should be for the
light vouchsafed to us in this day of grace.
John reveals that God is transcendent in His nature (1:18), but that
in the Logos He is also immanent throughout the extent of His
creation. Creation, revelation, incarnation, redemption, ascension are
all possible and necessary, if the Logos of John be true.
The Rabbinical School at Alexandria, where Philo lived, urged the
transcendental aspect of the nature of God to its extreme, setting its
face against all forms of anthropomorphism. Philo, for instance, says
that, to accept in their literal sense the words `It repented God that He
had made man', is to be guilty of an impiety greater than that of any
that was drowned in the flood. For Philo, God was an abstraction, and
His nature only capable of being shadowed forth by negatives. We can
only know what He is not.