Whether it existed or not, there is certainly
kinship in their ideas. Spinoza does actually refer in one place, in
his "Theologico-Political Tractate" (ch. x), to the opinion of
Philo-Judaeus upon the date of Psalm lxxxviii, and there are other
places in the same book, where he almost echoes the words of the
Jewish Platonist; as where he speaks of God's eternal Word being
divinely inscribed in the human mind: "And this is the true original
of God's covenant, stamped with His own seal, namely, the idea of
Himself, as it were, with the image of His Godhead" (iv); or, again,
"The supreme reward for keeping God's Word is that Word itself."
Spinoza knew no Greek, but, master as he was of Christian theology, he
may have studied Philo in a Latin translation, and caught some of his
phrases. With or without influence, he developed, as Philo had done, a
system of philosophy, starting from the Hebrew conception of God and
blending Jewish tradition with scientific metaphysics. The Unity of
God and His sole reality were the fundamental principles of his
thought, as they had been of Philo's. He rejected, indeed, with scorn
the notion that all philosophy must be deduced from the Bible, which
was to him a book of moral and religious worth, but free from all
philosophical doctrine. Theology, the subject of the Bible, according
to him, demands perfect obedience, philosophy perfect knowledge.
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