N.
B. This hypothesis possesses all the advantages, and involves none of
the absurdity of that which would attribute the 'Ecclesiasticus' to the
infamous Jason, the High Priest. More than one commentator, I find, has
suspected that the Wisdom of Solomon and the second book of Maccabees
were by the same author. I think this nothing.
Ib. p. 36.
Philo throws out a number of declarations, that shew his own and the
Jewish belief in a secondary sort of God, a God subordinate in origin
to the Father of all, yet most intimately united with him, and sharing
his most unquestionable honours.
The belief of the Alexandrian Jews who had acquired Greek philosophy, no
doubt;--but of the Palestine Jews?
Ib. 2. p. 48.
St. John also is witnessed by a heathen (Amelius,) and by one who put
him down for a barbarian, to have represented the Logos as "the Maker
of all things," as "with 'God'," and as "God." And St. John is
attested to have declared this, "not even as shaded over, but on the
contrary as placed in full view."
Stranger still. Whitaker could scarcely have read the Greek. Amelius
says, that these truths, if stripped of their allegorical dress,
([Greek: metapephrasmena ek taes tou Barbarou theologias]) would be
plain;--that is, that John in an allegory, as of one particular man, had
shadowed out the creation of all things by the Logos, and the after
union of the Logos with human nature,--that is, with all men. That this
is his meaning, consult Plotinus.
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