of God is spoken of, something most vital and most inward is intended. It is a quick, penetrating power, entering into the man, affecting his heart and his reins, standing out in the sharpest contrast to the idols which speak to the eye. The 'word of God' is the favourite expression in the writers of the Old Testament, because they are testifying of an invisible Lord who speaks to man's spirit; because they are denouncing all attempts to make the objects of men's senses into their lords. How frightful, then, to an old Prophet would have been the thought of confounding the mere letters of a book, which could be seen, handled, copied out, with the words of the Lord! No doubt these words might have characters found for them; they might be handed down in these characters from age to age: it would be a glorious witness of their enduring quality if they were so. But it would remain unalterably true, that as words coming forth from the mouth of God, and not to return to Him void, they addressed themselves to the wills, hearts, consciences of men; into these only could they enter.

Whence did they proceed? Solomon, the wise king, had spoken of a divine Wisdom, from which his was derived. He had spoken of that Wisdom as brought up with God—as His counsellor—as an object to be sought for, embraced, loved by men. The Prophets had spoken of the Word of God coming to them. The Word ruled them, searched them, judged them. They were not the speakers; the Word was the speaker. Could such language be uttered continually in the ears of earnest men and be disregarded? It was not disregarded; it moulded the very heart of all true Israelites. But soon it was forced upon them in another way. After the Babylonian captivity, they were brought into contact with heathens; they were obliged to learn what heathens had been thinking of. Elsewhere they heard of great mythological conceptions, of the Lion, the Eagle, the Ox, the Man, which represent different aspects of the Divinity. But in the city of Alexandria they heard how Greek sages, in their struggle to get rid of mythological fancies, had spoken of a Logos or Reason in themselves, which lifted them above themselves. It was strangely connected with the power of speech; it pointed to the very source of speech and thought. It was often described as an eye, blinded in most, and yet of which those in whom it was open could only say, 'It makes us know what the privilege is of being men, what the responsibility. Now we are sure that man has something to do with the Divinity, as all the traditions of our fathers tell us that he has. But what he has to do with the Divinity, who can inform us? for the traditions only bewilder us when they try to explain.' Was it strange that a Jew should say to himself, 'Why, my oracles have been telling me from the very first of a Word that speaks to men, a Word of God; a Word that withdraws them from the idolatry of sense, and the pursuit of sensible things; a Word that has taught them how to rule themselves; a Word that has taught them how they may seek after their Creator, and hold converse with Him.' Men of cultivation as well as of honesty might be easily overwhelmed by this twofold discovery; they might vacillate between their Gentile lore and their Jewish; they might mix them sometimes confusedly together; they might resort to allegories for the sake of explaining the connexion, which the simpler student of either would reject as unsatisfactory and frivolous.

These descriptions apply, in some measure, to those commentaries on the Old Testament which are contained in the Apocryphal books called 'The Wisdom of Solomon,' and 'Ecclesiasticus.' The characteristic of these books is their recognition of a divine Wisdom, which the writers sometimes speak of as if it were abstract, quite as often as if it were personal and substantial. These modes of speech are confessedly derived from the Scriptures. They speak of no history but the Hebrew history; probably they were acquainted with no other. Still it is probable that they were holding intercourse with Gentiles, perhaps were explaining the Hebrew books to them. But all the peculiarities I have mentioned became far more marked and definite in Philo the Alexandrian, who was an old man when he went on an embassy from the Alexandrian Jews to Caligula. In him the idea of a divine Word, who unites God and man, and holds converse with the spirit of man, becomes the ground of all his thoughts. Every book in the Bible speaks to him of such a Being. The belief in Him alone explains to him the life of patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets. Yet he admits that such a Being must also have been the source of all wisdom to Gentile philosophers. It is his privilege, as a Jew, to explain to them their own conceptions of such a Being. Moses could declare that that was which Plato felt must be.

All must see, if we had not positive evidence of the fact, how much such thoughts, coming forth at such a time, must have affected Jews, may have affected Gentiles. Yet Philo wrote avowedly for the learned. He wished to put himself at a distance from all others. It was a satisfaction to him that he could, by the use of dark allegories, keep the profane vulgar at a distance. How, then, could his thoughts blend with those of the men who came preaching that One who was called a carpenter's son, One who had chosen fishermen as His disciples, was the King of men and the Son of God? 'To the poor the gospel is preached,' was the maxim which they were to exhibit in their lessons and their lives. How could such doctrines as Philo's be addressed to the poor?

And yet the disciples were obliged to speak of Jesus as the Son of Man who sowed the word in men's hearts, which sprang up and bore fruit, thirty and sixty and an hundredfold. They were obliged to speak of Jesus, the Son of Man, as opening a kingdom of heaven which was within men. They were obliged to speak of that kingdom as the kingdom of His Father. They were obliged to say that the Son of Man had opened it to all, because He was also the Son of God. They were obliged to say that they could only testify of this kingdom because He had given them the Spirit of His Father. And when St. Paul learnt that he, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, was called to be the Apostle of the Gentiles, it was 'by a revelation of the Son of God in him' Whom he was 'to preach to the Gentiles.' To the Corinthians, among whom he had determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, he still spoke of Jesus Christ as the 'Wisdom of God' and the 'Power of God.' To the Ephesians he spoke of their having 'been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that they might be holy, and without blame before Him in love.'

What was the consequence? Jews said, 'You are exalting a man into the place of God; you are denying the words which you were taught on your mother's knee, "The Lord our God is one Lord."' Gentiles said, 'You are robbing us of the belief we have had of friendly beings of another world, who have sympathised with ours, who have had loving converse with sages and heroes, who have mixed with us as men among men.' Philosophers said, 'What has your teaching to do with all those glimpses of light in the reason which wise men have spoken of, which they have been sure that they received?' Disciples of Philo asked, 'What has this human Teacher of yours to do with that Word of God whom our master discovered in all the history of the Old Testament?' Disciples of John the Baptist (still numerous, and probably much connected with the Alexandrian teachers, as in the instance of Apollos) said, 'Our master preached repentance and turning to the living God. You say he spoke also of a Teacher who was to come after him. Do you mean that he wished us to turn away from the living God to this future Teacher?' Christian men began to ask themselves whether Jesus Christ was not the Son of God, because He was born in a wonderful manner of the Virgin? They began to dream of Him as a demigod, or a superior angel, half human, half divine. Other Christians