" No Jewish thinker ever applied this
principle more thoroughly than Philo; and it gives an unique color to
his work in the history of ancient philosophy. All our lives are one
unceasing miracle, due to the constant manifestation of God's power;
and the miracles of the Bible are examples of the universal working of
Divine care rather than exceptions from it.
The dominant feeling behind Greek thought is that man is the measure
of all things: Plato, attacking the standpoint of his nation, had
declared that God is the measure, and Philo repeats his maxim with a
new intensity. It means for him that man's mind is a fragment or
particle of the Divine universal mind, which, however, is impotent
till called into activity by the further Divine gift of inspiration.
Knowledge and happiness, therefore, come not through God, but from
God.[190] "The Divine Word streams down from the fount of wisdom, and
waters the plants of virtuous souls."[191] "To God alone is it fitting
to use the word 'my,'"[192] or, put in another way, man has only the
usufruct and God the ownership of his powers. Pride of intellect is
therefore a deadly sin, because it involves a false, incomplete idea
of God, and true knowledge involves reverence. The ideal of the Greek
sage, the independent reason, is a godless thing, and those in whom a
knowledge of Greek philosophy produces intellectual pride are not
disciples of Divine Wisdom.
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