Be this as it may, Philo's religious intensity
expresses the spirit of the Cabbalists, his mystic soaring is the
prototype of their theosophical ecstasies; his persistent declaration
that God encloses the universe, but is Himself not enclosed by anything,
contains the root of their conception of the En Sof ([Hebrew: 'yn
sof]),[339] his Logos-idealism, with its Divine effluences, which are
the true causes of all changes, physical and mental, is companion to
their system of [Hebrew: 'olmim] and [Hebrew: sfirot], emanations and
spheres. His fancies about sex and the struggle between a male and
female principle in all things[340] are a constant theme of their
teachers, and form a special section of their wisdom, [Hebrew: sof
htsrog], the mystery of generation. His conception of the Logos as the
heavenly archetype of the human race, the "Man-himself," is the Platonic
counterpart of their [Hebrew: adm kdmon], or "primal man," who is known
in the ancient allegorizing of the Song of Songs. His number-mysticism
and his speech-idealism reappear more crudely, but not obscurely, in
their ideas of creative letters, of which the cosmogony by the
twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in the Sefer Yezirah is
typical. Finally, his teachings of ecstasy and Divine possession are
repeated in divers ways in their descriptions of the pious life
([Hebrew: hnanot]).
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