represented as indicating that eternal reality becomes for itself
something different, that it creates the world, which is posited purely
as something different. To this there is added later this moment, that
the other element in itself is not anything different from eternal
reality, but that eternal reality manifests itself therein. In the
third place there is implied the identity of the other and eternal
reality, Spirit, the return of the other into the first: and the other
is here to be understood as not only the other at that point where
eternal reality manifested itself, but as the other in a universal
sense. The world recognizes itself in this absolute reality which
becomes manifest; it is the world, therefore, which has returned into
reality; and spirit is universal Spirit. But since this Idea of spirit
appeared to the Christians first of all in the bare form of ordinary
conception, God, the simple reality of the Jews, was for them beyond
consciousness; such a God doubtless thinks, but He is not Thought, for
He remains beyond reality, and He is only that which is distinguished
from the world that our senses perceive. There likewise stands in
opposition to the same an individual man—the moment of unity of the
world and reality, and spirit, the universality of this unity, as a
believing community, which possesses this unity only in the form of
ordinary conception, but its reality in the hope of a future.
The Idea in pure Thought—that God’s way of working is not external,
as if He were a subject, and therefore that all this does not come to
pass as a casual resolution and decree of God, to whom the thought
of so acting happened to occur, but that God is this movement as
the self-revealing moments of His essence, as His eternal necessity
in Himself, which is not at all conditioned by chance—this we find
expressed in the writings of philosophic or expressly Platonic Jews.
The place where this point of view took its origin happens to be
the country where East and West have met in conflict; for the free
universality of the East and the determinateness of Europe, when
intermingled, constitute Thought. With the Stoics the universality
of thought has a place, but it is opposed to sensation, to external
existence. Oriental universality is, on the contrary, entirely free;
and the principle of universality, posited as particular, is Western
Thought. In Alexandria more especially this form of philosophy was
cultivated, but at the same time regard was had to the earlier
development of thought, in which lie the partially concealed beginnings
of the building up in thought of the concrete, which is now the point
mainly regarded. Even in the Pythagorean philosophy we found difference
present as the Triad; then in Plato we saw the simple Idea of spirit
as the unity of indivisible substance and other-being, though it was
only as a compound of both. That is the concrete, but only in simple
moments, not in the comprehensive manner in which other-being is in
general all reality of nature and of consciousness,—and the unity
which has returned as this self-consciousness is not only a thought,
but living God. With Aristotle, finally, the concrete is ἐνέργεια,
Thought which is its own object, the concrete. Therefore although this
philosophy is known as Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic, it may also
be termed Neo-Aristotelian; for the Alexandrians studied Aristotle just
as much as Plato, and valued both very highly, later on combining their
philosophies in one unity.
But we must have a clearer grasp of the difference between this point
of view and the earlier. Already in the earlier philosophies we have
seen, that νοῦς is the essence of the world, and similarly Aristotle
comprehended the whole series of things endued with life and mind in
such a way as to recognize the Notion to be the truth of these things.
In the case of the Stoics this unity, this system, was most definitely
brought forward, while Aristotle rather followed up the particulars.
This unity of thought we saw among the Stoics more especially on the
one side as the return of self-consciousness into itself, so that
spirit through the purity of thought is independent in itself; on the
other hand we have seen there an objectivity in which the λόγος became
essentially the all-penetrating basis of the whole world. With the
Stoics, however, this basis remained as substance only, and thus took
on the form of Pantheism, for that is the first idea that we light
on when we determine the universal to be the true. Pantheism is the
beginning of the elevation of spirit, in that it conceives everything
in the world to be a life of the Idea. For when self-consciousness
emerges from itself, from its infinitude, from its thought directed on
self, and turns to particular things, duties, relationships; or when
thought, which thinks this universal substance, passes over from it to
the particular, and makes the heavens, the stars, or man its object,
it descends from the universal immediately into the particular, or
immediately into the finite, since all these are finite forms. But
the concrete is the universal which makes itself particular, and in
this making of itself particular and finite yet remains eternally at
home with itself. In Pantheism, on the contrary, the one universal
substance merely makes itself finite, and thereby lowers itself. That
is the mode of emanation, according to which the universal, in making
itself the particular, or God in creating the world, by becoming
particular becomes debased or deteriorated and sets a limit to Himself;
so that this making of Himself finite is incompatible with any return
into Himself. The same relation is also found in the mythology of the
Greeks and Romans; the giving definiteness and form to God, who remains
no empty abstraction, is a rendering finite of God, who thus becomes
a mere work of art; but the Beautiful itself remains a finite form,
which is not brought to such a point as to express the free Idea. The
determination, the specialization, the reality of objectivity, must
now be of such a nature that it shall be adequate to the absolute
universal; the forms of the gods, as also natural forms and the forms
which are known as duties, fail to be thus adequate.
What is therefore now required is that the knowing mind, which thus
out of objectivity returns into itself and its inwardness, should
reconcile with itself the world which it has left, so that the world’s
objectivity may of course be distinct from mind, yet adequate thereto.
This concrete standpoint which, as it is that of the world, is also
that of Philosophy, is the development of Mind, for it is requisite
to Mind that it should not merely be pure thought, but that it should
be thought which makes itself objective, and therein maintains itself
and is at home with itself. The earlier efforts of thought towards
objectivity constitute a passing into determinateness and finitude
merely, and not into an objective world adequate to absolute existence.
The universal standpoint of the Neo-Platonic or Alexandrian philosophy
now is from the loss of the world to produce a world which in its
outwardness shall still remain an inward world, and thus a world
reconciled; and this is the world of spirituality, which here begins.
Thus the fundamental Idea was Thought which is its own object, and
which is therefore identical with its object, with what is thought; so
that we have the one and the other, and the unity of both.
This concrete Idea has again come to the front, and in the development
of Christianity, as thought also penetrated there, it became known
as the Trinity; and this Idea is absolute reality. This Idea did not
develop directly from Plato and Aristotle, but took the circuitous
path of Dogmatism. With the earlier thinkers it doubtless immediately
emerged as supreme; but beside and beyond it appears the other content
in addition, the riches of the thoughts of Mind and of Nature; and so
it is conceived. Aristotle has thus comprehended the kingdom of Nature;
and with Plato development is represented only in a loose multiplicity.
But in order that the Idea should appear as the truth that encompasses
and includes all within itself, it was requisite that this finite, this
wider content of determinations which had been collected, should be
comprehended on its finite side also, that is, in the finite form of
a universal opposition. That was the function of Dogmatism, which was
then dissolved by Scepticism. The dissolution of all that is particular
and finite, which constitutes the essence of the latter, was not
taken in hand by Plato and Aristotle, and therefore the Idea was not
posited by them as all-inclusive. Now the contradiction is done away
with, and Mind has attained to its negative rest. The affirmative, on
the other hand, is the repose of mind in itself, and to this freedom
from all that is particular Mind now proceeds. It is the knowledge of
what Mind is in itself, after it has come to be reconciled in itself
through the dissolution of all finality. This eternal rest of Mind in
itself now constitutes its object; it is aware of the fact, and strives
to determine and develop it further by thought. In this we likewise
possess the principle of evolution, of free development; everything
except Mind is only finite and transitory. When therefore Mind goes
forth to the particular, the particular is determined as something
plainly contained in this ideality, which Mind knows as something
subject to itself. That is the affirmative result of sceptical
philosophy. It is evident that, starting from this point of view, an
utterly different opinion will be expressed. God, as absolute pure Mind
in and for Himself, and His activity in Himself, are now the object.
But God is no longer known as the Abstract, but as the Concrete in
Himself, and this Concrete is nothing but Mind. God is living, the One
and the Other and the unity of these distinct determinations; for the
abstract is only the simple, but the living has difference in itself,
and is yet therein at home with itself.
Further, the following points have specially claimed the attention of
Mind; firstly, that this consciousness which has become subjective
makes its object the absolute as truth, placing this absolute outside
of itself; or that it attains to faith in God, that God is now
manifested, and reveals Himself, that is, exists for consciousness.
The absolute, altogether universal, posited at the same time as
objective, is God. Here comes in the relation of man to this his
object, to absolute truth. This new standpoint, which from this time
acquires an absolute interest, is therefore not a relation to external
things, duties and the like; these are all determined, limited, they
are not the all-embracing determination, as that is which has just
been spoken of. In this relation the mere turning of the subject on
himself, this talk of the wise man. in his one-sidedness, is likewise
done away with. The same liberty, happiness, steadfastness, which were
the aim of Epicureanism, Stoicism and Scepticism are doubtless still
to be reached by the subject, but now this can only be brought about
by turning to God, by giving heed to absolute truth, not by fleeing
from the objective; so that by means of the objective itself, liberty
and happiness are attained for the subject. This is the standpoint
of reverencing and fearing God, so that by man’s turning to this his
object, which stands before him free and firm, the object of the
subject’s own freedom is attained.
In the second place, there are contradictions herein contained which
necessarily attract the attention of mind, and whose reconciliation
is essential. If we adopt this one-sided position, God is on the one
side, and man in his freedom is on the other. A freedom such as this,
standing in contrast to the objective, a freedom in which man, as
thinking self-consciousness, conceives as the absolute the relation of
his pure inwardness to himself, is, however, only formally, and not
concretely absolute. In so far then as the human will determines itself
negatively towards the objective, we have the origin of sin, evil in
contrast to the absolute Affirmative.
A third essential point of interest is the form in which God must
now be apprehended in general, for since it pertains essentially
to the Notion of Mind to determine God as concrete, living God, it
is indispensable that God should be thought of in relation to the
world and to man. This relation to the world is then a relation to
an ‘other,’ which thereby at first appears to be outside of God; but
because this relation is _His_ activity, the fact of having this
relation in Himself is a moment of Himself. Because the connection
of God with the world is a determination in Himself, so the being
another from the one, the duality, the negative, the distinction,
the self-determination in general, is essentially to be thought of
as a moment in Him, or God reveals Himself in Himself, and therefore
establishes distinct determinations in Himself. This distinction
in Himself, His concrete nature, is the point where the absolute
comes into connection with man, with the world, and is reconciled
with the same. We say God has created man and the world, this is
His determination in Himself, and at the same time the point of
commencement, the root of the finite in God Himself. In this manner,
therefore, that which afterwards appears finite is yet produced by Him
in Himself—the particular Ideas, the world in God Himself, the Divine
world, where God has begun to separate Himself, and has His connection
with the temporal world. In the fact that God is represented as
concrete, we have immediately a Divine world in Himself.
Since the Divine forms, as natural and political, have now separated
themselves from the True, and the temporal world has appeared to men as
the negative, the untrue, so, in the fourth place, man recognizes God
in Mind; he has recognized that natural things and the State are not,
as in mythology, the mode in which God exists, but that the mode, as
an intelligible world, exists in Himself. The unhappiness of the Roman
world lay in its abstraction from that in which man had hitherto found
his satisfaction; this satisfaction arose out of that pantheism, in
which man found his highest truth in natural things, such as air and
fire and water, and further in his duties, in the political life of
the State. Now, on the contrary, in the world’s grief over her present
woes, despair has entered in, and disbelief in these forms of the
natural finite world and in the moral world of citizen life; to this
form of reality, in its external and outwardly moral character, man
has proved untrue. That condition which man terms the life of man in
unity with nature, and in which man meets with God in nature because
he finds his satisfaction there, has ceased to exist. The unity of
man with the world is for this end broken, that it may be restored
in a higher unity, that the world, as an intelligible world, may be
received into God. The relation of man to God thereby reveals itself in
the way provided for our salvation in worship, but more particularly
it likewise shows itself in Philosophy; and that with the express
consciousness of the aim that the individual should render himself
capable of belonging to this intelligible world. The manner in which
man represents to himself his relation to God is more particularly
determined by the manner in which man represents to himself God.
What is now often said, that man need not know God, and may yet have
the knowledge of this relation, is false. Since God is the First, He
determines the relation, and therefore in order to know what is the
truth of the relation, man must know God. Since therefore thought goes
so far as to deny the natural, what we are now concerned with is not to
seek truth in any existing mode, but from our inner Being to go forth
again to a true objective, which derives its determination from the
intrinsic nature of thought.
These are the chief moments of the present standpoint, and the
reflections of the Neo-Platonists belong to it. Before entering upon
them we must, however, make cursory mention of Philo the Jew, and also
notice sundry moments appearing in the history of the Church.
A. PHILO.
Philo, a learned Jew of Alexandria, lived before and after the birth of
Christ, in the reigns of the first Roman Emperors; that is to say, he
was born B.C. 20, but lived until after Christ’s death. In him we for
the first time see the application of the universal consciousness as
philosophical consciousness. In the reign of Caligula, before whom very
heinous charges against the Jews had been brought by Apion, he was,
when advanced in years, sent to Rome as ambassador from his people,
in order to give to the Romans a more favourable account of the Jews.
There is a tradition that he came also in the reign of the Emperor
Claudius to Rome, and there fell in with the Apostle Peter.[207]
Philo wrote a long series of works, many of which we still possess;
for instance, those on The Creation of the World, on Rewards and
Punishments, the Offerers of Sacrifices, the Law of Allegories, Dreams,
the Immutability of God, &c.; they were published in folio at Frankfort
in 1691, and afterwards by Pfeiffer at Erlangen. Philo was famous for
the great extent of his learning, and was well acquainted with Greek
philosophy.
He is more especially distinguished for his Platonic philosophy, and
also for the pains he took to demonstrate the presence of Philosophy
in the sacred writings of the Jews. In his explanation of the history
of the Jewish nation, the narratives and statements therein contained
have lost for him the immediate significance of reality. He reads
into them throughout a mystical and allegorical meaning, and finds
Plato present in Moses; in short, the endeavour of Philo resembled
that of the Alexandrians when they recognized philosophic dogmas in
Greek mythology. He treats of the nature of Mind, not, indeed, as
comprehended in the element of thought, but as expressed therein, and
this expression is still both far from pure and is associated with all
sorts of imageries. By the spirit of Philosophy the Jews were compelled
to seek in their sacred books, as the heathen sought in Homer and in
the popular religion, a deeper speculative meaning, and to represent
their religious writings as a perfect system of divine wisdom. That is
the character of the time, in consequence of which all that appealed
to the finite understanding in popular conceptions has not endured.
The important point, then, is that on the one hand the popular
conception is here still allied with the forms of reality; but as, on
the other hand, what these forms express only immediately is no longer
sufficient, the desire arises to understand them in a deeper sense.
Although in the external histories of the Jewish and heathen religions
men had the authority and starting-point of truth, they yet grasped the
thought that truth cannot be given externally. Therefore, men read
deep thoughts into history, as the expression is, or they read them out
of it, and this latter is the true conception. For in the case of the
Divine Book, whose author is the Spirit, it cannot be said that this
spirituality is absent. The point of importance comes to be, whether
this spirituality lies deeper down or nearer to the surface; therefore,
even if the man who wrote the book had not the thoughts, they are
implicitly contained in the inward nature of the relation. There is,
generally speaking, a great difference between that which is present
therein and that which is expressed. In history, art, philosophy, and
the like, the point of importance is that what is contained therein
should also be expressed; the real work of the mind is wholly and
solely that of bringing to consciousness what is contained therein.
The other side of the matter is that although all that lies within a
form, a-religion, &c., does not come before consciousness, one can
still not say that it did not enter into the human mind; it was not
in consciousness, neither did it come into the form of the ordinary
conception, and yet it was in mind. On the one side, the bringing of
thought into definite consciousness is a bringing in from without, but
on the other side, as far as matter is concerned, there is nothing
brought in from without. Philo’s methods present this aspect in a
pre-eminent sense. All that is prosaic has disappeared, and, therefore,
in writers of the period that follows, miracles are of common
occurrence, inasmuch as external connection is no longer required as a
matter of necessity. The fundamental conceptions of Philo, and these
alone need be taken into consideration, are then somewhat as follows:—
1. With Philo the main point is the knowledge of God. In regard to
this, he says, in the first place: God can be known only by the eye
of the soul, only by Beholding (ὅρασις). This he also calls rapture,
ecstasy, God’s influence; we often find these terms. For this it is
requisite that the soul should break loose from the body, and should
give up its sensuous existence, thus rising to the pure object of
thought, where it finds itself nearer to God. We may term this a
beholding by the intelligence. But the other side is that God cannot be
discerned by the eye of the soul; the soul can only know that He is,
and not what He is. His essence is the primordial light.[208] Philo
here speaks in quite Oriental fashion; for light is certainly simple,
in contrast with which perception has the signification of knowing
something as determined, as concrete in itself. So long, therefore,
as the determination of simplicity is adhered to, this First Light
permits not itself to be known, and since Philo says, “This One is God
as such,” we cannot know what God is. In Christianity, on the contrary,
simplicity is only a moment, and only in the Whole do we find God the
Spirit.
Philo continues: “The First is the space of the universe, encompassing
and filling it; this existence is itself place, and is filled by
itself. God is sufficient for Himself; all other things are paltry and
meaningless; He fills all other things and gives them coherence, but He
Himself is surrounded by nothing, because He Himself is One and All.
Similarly, God exists in the primordial form of time (αἰών),”[209] that
is, in the pure Notion of time. Why is it necessary that God should
fill Himself with Himself? Even the subjective and abstract has need
also of an object. But the all is likewise, as with Parmenides, the
abstract, because it is only substance, which remains empty beside that
which fills it. Absolute fulness, on the other hand, is the concrete,
and we reach this first in the λόγος, in which we have that which
fills, that which is filled, and a third composed of both.