The Notion Of Mediator In Alexandrian Judaism And The Epistle To The Hebrews

By Ronald H. Nash

Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky

In the ninth chapter of the book of Job, the afflicted patriarch laments the great gulf between himself and God. Job cannot answer back to God because, of course, God is not a finite, sinful mortal. Therefore, Job ponders, how can he and God meet in trial? As if the distance between God and himself were not bad enough, the situation is aggravated by the absence of a mediator (mesitēs in the LXX) between them who might lay his hand upon them both (Job 9:33).[1]

Job’s yearning for a mediator who might stand between him and God is finally satisfied in the New Testament proclamation of the “one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). The use of mesitēs in this affirmation is one of four instances in the New Testament when the term is applied to Jesus, the other three occurring in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24).

My intention is to explore several dimensions of the mediatorial work of Christ, with special reference to the account given in the Epistle to the Hebrews. I propose to do this by noting similarities and differences between the notion of Mediator in Hebrews and notions prominent in the philosophical and theological world of discourse in Alexandrian Judaism, a background shared by both the anonymous writer of Hebrews and his audience.

Many Christians think of Christ’s mediatorial work only in one of its New Testament dimensions, that of his sacrifice for men’s sins, his work of redemption and reconciliation. A study of the thought-world of Hebrews reveals other aspects to Christ’s mediatorial work. Even though the term mesitēs is applied to Jesus only four times in the New Testament, this study will draw attention to several related features of the work of Christ that are manifestations of his work as The Mediator.

I. The Epistle to the Hebrews and Alexandrian Judaism

Alexandria was a dominant locale of the Jewish Diaspora and the chief center of Hellenistic thought at the beginning of the Christian era. It is not surprising that those Jews who lived there were open to influence from new ideas, especially from concepts in Greek philosophy that seemed consistent with and supportive of, their religious beliefs. The compatibility of Judaism with both Platonism and Stoicism seemed especially obvious to the man who became the most well-known intellectual of the Alexandrian community, Philo Judaeus.

The writer of Hebrews demonstrates a familiarity with the tenets of Hellenistic Judaism as these are known from documents which were written in Alexandria. Consequently he knew the Platonic philosophy that Hellenistic Jews like Philo had sought to harmonize with Judaism. The Writer of Hebrews most certainly knew the Alexandrian teachings about Divine Wisdom (Sophia) and the Logos. In particular, the writer evidences familiarity with the Alexandrian work, the Wisdom of Solomon. Although the extent of his knowledge of Philo’s thought and writings is debatable, at the very least, the writer and Philo shared a common education in Alexandrian thought. Moreover the writer assumes a familiarity with Alexandrian theology and philosophy on the part of his readers.[2] The view that the Book of Hebrews is a legacy to Christianity from the Hellenized Judaism of Alexandria is shared by many, to a greater or lesser degree.[3]

Two drastically opposed views concerning the relationship between the Book of Hebrews and the thought of Philo and Alexandrian Judaism compete for attention. The one extreme, typified by C. Spicq,[4] holds that the author of Hebrews was definitely influenced in a direct manner by the writings of Philo. The writer may have known Philo personally; he certainly read some of his writings; he may have been a Philonic convert to Christianity. More moderate versions of this thesis have found expression in the literature about Hebrews for years. Spicq’s commentary on Hebrews remains one of the most detailed and fully documented works arguing for a strong, direct Philonic influence on Hebrews.

Recently, however, Ronald Williamson has challenged Spicq’s contentions. Williamson succeeds in pointing out a large number of weaknesses in the case built by Spicq. Although Williamson strays too far in the opposite direction in his effort to rule out any Philonic influence, he is correct in his claim that interpreters have tended to exaggerate Philo’s influence on the Book of Hebrews. Williamson concludes: “The Writer of Hebrews had never been a Philonist, had never read Philo’s works, had never come under the influence of Philo directly or indirectly.”[5]

Fortunately, we do not have to choose simply between the extremes of Spicq and Williamson. In spite of Williamson’s strong antipathy to a Philonic influence on Hebrews, he is forced to admit that the writer of Hebrews “almost certainly lived and moved in circles where, in broad, general terms, ideas such as those we meet in Philo’s works were known and discussed; he drew upon the same fund of cultured Greek vocabulary upon which Philo drew.”[6] Williamson’s important study cannot be ignored. It is no longer possible glibly to presuppose a Philonic background to every concept and term in Hebrews with affinities to Philo. But whatever the actual relationship between the writer of Hebrews and Philo (or Philo’s writings), they both share the common heritage of the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria.[7] An examination of the Book of Hebrews reveals at least five testimonies to its Alexandrian background.

1. Hebrews contains an implicit Wisdom-Christology that has affinities to the Alexandrian teaching about Sophia. The fact that Hebrews does not actually apply the term “Sophia” to Jesus is not decisive.[8] Anyone familiar with the Wisdom doctrine will recognize its echoes in the proem of Hebrews (1:14).[9] For example, the rare term apaugasma (“effulgence”) is used to describe Jesus in Hebrews 1:3 in a manner reminiscent of the description of Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon (7:25f.). The first four verses of Hebrews chapter one recalls the personification of Divine Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22ff., but the vocabulary of Hebrews is indebted to the Alexandrian author of Wisdom.

Not only does Hebrews describe Jesus in terms that the Alexandrian literature applied to Sophia, Hebrews ascribes to Jesus the same functions as those fulfilled by Divine Wisdom. He mediates God’s revelation, is the agent and sustainer of creation, and reconciles men to God (cf. Wis. Sol. 7:21–8:1).[10] There seems sufficient evidence to support the claim that the Epistle to the Hebrews contains or implies a Wisdom-Christology that draws on the Alexandrian teaching about Sophia.

2. Hebrews contains an implicit Logos-Christology similar to the Alexandrian Logos doctrine. Philo of Alexandria was not the first to write about a cosmic Logos. For both Heraclitus of Ephesus (fl. about 500 B. C.) and the Stoics much later, Logos was a cosmic law of Reason that controls the universe and is immanent in human reason. Their Logos seems to have been neither a personal God nor a hypostasis but a metaphysical abstraction. Philo was influenced by this speculation about the Logos, along with Plato’s teaching about the Forms which Philo interpreted as thoughts of God. Viewing the Forms as thoughts of God made it possible for Philo to speak of the Forms as created. They are created because they could not exist unless God existed; since the Forms subsist in the mind of God, they are ontologically dependent upon God for their existence. But since God is eternal and the Forms are his eternal ideas, the Forms also are eternal. They are eternal thoughts of God which serve as an archetypal pattern for the corporeal world. Philo gave the name “Logos” to both the mind of God and the thoughts of God. As Gordon H. Clark suggests, the “Logos passes from a stage internal in the mind of God to a stage external as a really existing world of Ideas, and even to a third stage in which it becomes immanent in the sensible world.”[11]

Either Philo or one of his contemporaries sought to bring Judaism and Hellenistic philosophy closer by merging the Greek notion of Logos with the Jewish idea of Wisdom. In Philo’s writings, Logos, Sophia, and Nous are all used interchangeably.[12] Henry Austryn Wolfson acknowledges the interchangeability of Logos and Sophia.

Wisdom, then, is only another word for Logos, and it is used in all the senses of the term Logos. Both these mean, in the first place, a property of God, identical with His essence, and like His essence, eternal. In the second place, they mean a real, incorporeal being, created by God before the creation of the world. Third … Logos means also a Logos iminanent in the world …. Finally, Logos is also used by Philo in the sense of one of its constituent ideas, such, for instance, as the idea of mind.[13]

The Book of Hebrews does not apply the name “Logos” to Jesus any more than it explicitly calls Jesus Sophia. But there can be no mistake about Hebrews containing an implicit Logos-Christology.[14] Predicates which, in the pertinent Alexandrian literature, are applied to both Logos and Sophia, are applied by the Writer of Hebrews to Jesus (e. g., Heb. 1:3, “the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his nature”). It is thus clear that the writer believes that Jesus is the true Logos and Sophia.

Philo wrote of the Logos as Mediator (mesitēs)[15] and Image (eikon-cf. Heb. 1:3 where the parallel term charakter occurs) of God.[16] The world was created through the agency of the Logos.[17] Philo described the Logos as neither unbegotten (and thus like God) nor begotten (thus like man).[18] As such the Logos is on the borderline between God and man, mediating from God to man like an ambassador and from man to God as a suppliant.[19] The Logos is called the First born Son[20] (Cf. Heb. 1:6) and the Chief born.[21] The Logos is both Light[22] and the very shadow of God.[23]

The appearance of some of these as predicates (i.e., mediator, first-born, radiance) of Christ in Hebrews makes it highly likely that the writer of Hebrews was familiar with the Alexandrian Logos doctrine. Even Williamson admits that Hebrews contains “a rudimentary form of Logos Christology.”[24]

3. Hebrews assigns mediatorial functions to Jesus that are similar to the functions of Alexandrian mediators. Since thee writer of Hebrews had knowledge of Alexandrian Judaism, we should expect to find an acquaintance with that culture’s promotion of an assortment of mediators that fulfilled certain requirements of Old Testament Wisdom theology and of Platonic philosophy (e. g., the need for cosmological mediators between God and an evil, material world).[25] The mediators of Hellenistic Judaism fulfilled at least two specific functions, both of which appear in Hebrews.[26]

(a) The Cosmological Function of the Logos. The Hellenistic mediators were postulated primarily because of the ontological gap between God and the world. Because Philo stressed the divine transcendence, he faced the problem of how a pure, transcendent Spirit can be related to an evil, material world without compromising either his transcendence or his holiness.[27] Since God could not contaminate His own being by contact with the material world, his action upon the world would have to be through an intermediary being. Thus the first function of the Logos is to act as an agent through which God brings the world into existence and then to act as an intermediary in God’s sustained relationship with the world.

(b) The Epistemological Function of the Logos. Philo saw two epistemological questions that demanded reflection: how can God make himself known to man, and how can man attain knowledge of God?[28] Philo maintained that man could only know God through the medium of the Logos which works in man’s reason.[29] “What Philo appears to mean [in passages like On the Special Laws 3,207] is … that for ordinary men knowledge of God is obtained through rational contemplation of the invisible world of Ideas.”[30] According to Philo’s Platonism man can only know the world via the eternal archetypes in the Logos. Since the earthly, corporeal world is but a shadowy reflection of the eternally existent Ideas or Forms, any knowledge of the material world is dependent on a prior knowledge of the eternal pattern.

(c) The Cosmological and Epistemological Logos of Hebrews. The Epistle to the Hebrews begins by describing Christ as the Epistemological Logos who mediated the revelation of God to men. In past times, God spoke in various ways through the prophets. But that partial and incomplete word is now presented in its final, complete form by God’s speaking “in One who was Son.” This Son reveals God by being the very effulgence or radiance of his being (Heb. 1:1–3). The writer then describes Jesus as the Cosmological Logos[31] who mediates creation both as its creator (Heb. 1:2) and sustainer (1:3).[32]

To the cosmological and epistemological functions of mediation already present in Alexandrian thought, the New Testament adds a third function which is less prominent than the other two in Hellenistic Judaism. This third function is that of the Soteriological Logos.[33] In Christianity, man can be redeemed and his sins forgiven only through the efforts of One who mediates between God and man. And so, after the writer of Hebrews has described Jesus as cosmological and epistemological mediator, lie continues: “When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (1:3, RSV). As the later argument of Hebrews makes clear, this is not simply an addendum. It anticipates the primary emphasis of the writer of Hebrews. While the cosmological and epistemological functions of the Mediator are not mentioned again, His work as savior and redeemer is studied and examined from every possible angle. Jesus is the Soteriological Logos who as both priest and sacrifice effects the salvation of men.

4. Hebrews asserts the superiority of Jesus over a group of individuals and classes that served mediatorial functions in Alexandrian thought. The mediators of the Alexandrian community included Logos, Sophia, the angels, Moses, Melchizedek, and the high priest. Philo had even applied to the term logos to every member of this list.[34] Attention has already been drawn to the implicit Logos-Christology and Wisdom-Christology of Hebrews. More explicit is the prominence of discussions about angels, Moses, Melchizedek, and the Aaronic high priest throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews. Perhaps a major purpose of the book is the demonstration of the superiority of Jesus (the sole mediator between God and men) to the assorted mediators of Alexandrian Judaism.

5. The Epistle to the Hebrews manifests a Platonic distinction between a shadowy and less perfect earthly temple and the perfect heavenly temple. Hebrews 8:5 describes the earthly temple as a “shadow of the heavenly sanctuary,” language that seems too reminiscent of Plato’s allegory of the cave to be coincidental. Philo had earlier drawn a contrast between an earthly and heavenly priest,[35] from which it is but a small and natural inference to an earthly and heavenly sanctuary.[36] Philo made frequent use of the Platonic distinction[37] between the real, ideal world and the shadowy replica which men contact through their physical senses.[38] While James Moffatt’s comment is lengthy, it represents a reaction to the eighth chapter of Hebrews taken by many. Of the Writer of Hebrews, Moffatt writes,

trained in the Alexandrian philosophy of religion, the present world of sense and time stands over against the world of reality, the former being merely the shadow and copy of the latter. There is an archetypal order of things, eternal and divine, to which the mundane order but dimly corresponds, and only within this higher order, eternal and invisible, is access to God possible for man. On such a view as this, which ultimately … goes back to Platonic idealism, and which has been worked out by Philo, the real world is the transcendent order of things, which is the pattern for the phenomenal universe, so that to attain God man must pass from the lower and outward world of the senses to the inner. But how? Philo employed the Logos or Reason as the medium. Our author similarly holds that men must attain this higher world, but for him it is a skēnē, a sanctuary, the real Presence of God, and it is entered not through ecstasy or mystic rapture, but through connexion with Jesus Christ, who has not only revealed that world but opened the way into it. The Presence of God is now attainable as it could not be under the outward cultus of the skēnē in the OT, for the complete sacrifice has been offered ‘in the realm of the spirit,’ thus providing for the direct access of the people to their God.[39]

I shall argue shortly that too many commentators have exaggerated the supposed philosophic significance of Heb. 8:5ff. For now, however, it provides one more example of the Alexandrian intellectual background of the Book of Hebrews.[40]

II. The Problem of Assessing the Affinities between the Epistle to the Hebrews and Alexandrian Thought

The discussion to this point has shown that the writer to the Hebrews shared the thought-world of Alexandrian-Judaism. The notion that man requires a mediator between God and himself or between God and his world is not unique to the New Testament. The concept of mediator pervaded the intellectual milieu to which the writer of Hebrews owed his education. It is a safe assumption that the concept was known and accepted in other parts of the Diaspora as well. Even though the notion of mediator is not unique to the New Testament, and although several New Testament declarations about the Mediator may draw on earlier views, the application of the mediator-concept to the person and work of Christ in Hebrews is unique. The demonstration of this point will be one task of the rest of this paper.

Attention was drawn earlier to the contrasting interpretations of the influence of Alexandrian thought on Hebrews in the writings of Spicq and Williamson. To this controversy, I have a different hypothesis to present: that one purpose, if not the major purpose, of the writer of Hebrews was to expose the inadequacy of the Alexandrian beliefs about mediators. “Jesus is superior,” the writer affirms. “In fact, he is superior to your Alexandrian Logos and Sophia; he is superior to your angelic and priestly mediators; lie is superior to Moses and Melchizedek. Jesus is the true Logos, the true Sophia, and the Great High Priest.” This superiority of Jesus is demonstrated by showing significant ways in which Jesus differs from the Alexandrian logoi. In part, this demonstration of the superiority of Jesus may have been made necessary by the life-situation of his readers. The Book of Hebrews suggests his readers may have been tempted to return to one or more of the “older” mediators because of pressure brought to bear on the Christian community.

I offer this as a hypothesis. I believe it to be true but doubt if its truth can be proven. I am convinced that the hypothesis has several virtues. First, it explains the distinctive echoes of Hellenism that can be found in Hebrews. The writer employs a vocabulary which was appropriate to the world of discourse in which one spoke of a mediator. Second, it can account for the form of the statement which Hebrews conflicts with the Alexandrians.[41] Third, the hypothesis provides a perspective for interpreting many of the key passages in Hebrews. In fact, its success or failure in illuminating these texts should be regarded as the ultimate test of its truth or falsity,

III. The Writer of Hebrews’ Repudiation of Alexandrian Platonism

In spite of the writer’s apparent affinity to Platonism, by the time he came to write his epistle he was a man determined to contrast his present Christian understanding of those elements of Platonic philosophy that were incompatible with it. This is seen in at least three ways.

(a) The two-story universe of Hebrews chapter eight is less an endorsement of Platonism than a correction. Those who read the eighth chapter of Hebrews as a simple application of Platonism to elements of Judaism and Christianity are guilty of a gross inattention to detail.[42] While there is an incontestable familiarity with the thought of Alexandrian Platonism in Hebrews chapter eight, the chapter evidences even more dramatically a break with the content of that philosophy. Platonism has been altered in the service of a distinctively different and quite contrary Christian emphasis.

If the contrast in 8.5 were really Platonic we should have found the Writer of Hebrews explaining that the ministry of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary had been going on eternally, that the priestly ministry of the Jewish priests over the centuries had been all the time an imperfect copy and shadow of an eternal and timeless ministry exercised by Christ in heaven. The idea that such a heavenly ministry could begin as a result of an event on earth, the crucifixion of the Word made flesh, is about as far removed from Platonism as one could wish to get, and a Philonist would never have wished to get that far away from the Master’s teaching while he still remained in any significant sense a Philonist … in Platonism the idea is always antecedent to the copy, the copy always an earthly object which can exist only in virtue of the prior and fuller reality of its related idea. The language of 8:5, then, is not proof of the Platonism of Hebrews, but simply an example of how even the language of the philosophers, with which the Writer was clearly familiar, could be used by him to express his own non-philosophical ideas.[43]

Williamson is surely correct in his observation that the writer is neither teaching Platonism in Hebrews eight nor subordinating revealed truth to Platonic philosophy. Rather, the writer is adapting the language, and perhaps some concepts as Platonism, to illustrate a distinctive feature of Christian theology. These comments about the eighth chapter of Hebrews lead naturally into the next -contrast, viz., the antithesis between the views of time and history held by the Alexandrian Platonists and by the writer of Hebrews.

(b) The Writer of Hebrews and the Alexandrian Platonists hold conflicting theories about time and history. The Stoics taught that after the world runs its course, it is destroyed in a universal conflagration, and then recreated to proceed through a precise repetition of its history in the previous cycle. This creation and destruction and recreation continue eternally.[44] Philo accepted this view of the cyclical nature of time.[45] For someone holding this conception, events in history could never attain the dramatic significance or ultimate value we find assigned to some historical occurrences in the Book of Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews repeatedly stresses the historical uniqueness of what Jesus did to effect the redemption of men. Jesus “has no need, like those [Levitical] high priests, to offer sacrifices daily … he did this once for all when he offered up himself” (7:27, my emphasis). It is not necessary, he adds later, that Christ should “offer himself repeatedly” like the sacrifices offered through the Jewish high priest. “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself … so Christ [has] been offered once to bear the sins of many” (9:25–28, my emphasis). Similar comments about the finality of Christ’s redemptive work are made in Heb. 10:10–14.

The once-for-all, fully completed, never-to-be repeated, and final character of Jesus’ sacrifice contrasts sharply with the continuing sacrifices of the Levitical priests. Unlike the Old Testament priest, whose work of sacrifice was never done, Jesus’ redemptive work is finished. Jesus has done it once-for-all. A Hellenist could not help but notice the writer’s explicit disavowal of the Stoic and Philonic view of time and history. Williamson states forcefully: “For Hebrews time matters, does not repeat itself (events happen within it ‘once for all’) …. events in time can be decisive, crucial and climactic …. Events in time could never hold for Philo that eternal significance and final value they held for the Writer of Hebrews.[46] The writer of Hebrews perceives time, not as cyclical, but as linear. This perspective permits him to see history as progressing towards a goal, the final victory of God. The linear view of history allows the writer to see particular moments in history such as the crucifixion as unique and non-repeatable events. Thus, this emphasis of Hebrews clashes irreconcilably with the Alexandrian mindset about time.

(c) Hebrews and Alexandrian Platonism represent conflicting views about the earthly material world. One of the central and most familiar tenets of Platonism is its disparagement of this earthly world in comparison with the ideal world of rational forms.[47] Philo shared Plato’s disregard for the corporeal, sensible world. The writer of Hebrews did not do so. For him, the stage of God’s drama of redemption is not heaven or some ideal world but earth itself. It is not eternity but time in which God acts to redeem man. God’s final revelation, as defined by the Letter to the Hebrews, is given in a sphere unacceptable to a Platonist like Philo.

What becomes clear in a study of Hebrews is not that the writer was unfamiliar with Platonism but that he self-consciously and intentionally set himself to contrast his understanding of the Christian message with the philosophy he himself may have once accepted and which his audience may still have found attractive.

It remains only to consider more specific differences between the writer and the mediators of Alexandria. In order, we shall note the intentional contrasts he draws between Jesus and Philo’s Logos, the angels, Moses, and the High Priest.

IV. Differences between the Logos of Hebrews and the Logos of Philo

(a) The Logos-Mediator of Hebrews is not the metaphysical abstraction of Philo but a specific individual historical person. The Logos of Philo was not a person. To be sure, Philo wrote about the Logos in personal terms but his personifications were metaphors for a metaphysical abstraction. According to A. H. Armstrong, the precise degree of the independent existence of Philo’s Logos “must remain doubtful because Philo is so vague about it, and it certainly cannot be said to be a person, still less a Divine Person.”[48] There is absolutely no support for the position that Philo believed the Logos to be personal, let alone a person living in history. Philo’s Logos is especially lacking in the personal or messianic or soteriological traits so prominent in the Christian account of Jesus, the soteriological Logos. Philo’s Logos is not a person or messiah or savior but a cosmic principle postulated to solve assorted metaphysical and epistemological problem.[49] Our conclusion on this point must be that of Copleston, that “in the Philonic doctrine of the Logos there is no reference to an historic man ”[50]

(b) Philo’s philosophical system was totally incompatible with the notion of Incarnation. Philo’s view of man was, of course, Platonic: man is a dualism of a material body and an immaterial soul.[51] The body a prison house for the soul which longs to break free from the body and its senses and wing its way back to God.[52] Although we should not expect to find the Bible’s teaching about Incarnation in Philo, the more important question is the logical compatibility of such a doctrine with Philo’s stated “Positions. Since the doctrine of incarnation is so crucial to the argument of Hebrews (see 2:5–16; 10:4ff.), a discovery of the impossibility of such a doctrine in Philo’s thought is a fact to be regarded seriously. It certainly seems unlikely that Philo could have made peace with the notion of Incarnation given his disparagement of the body as a tomb of the soul.[53] The doctrine would also be out of place in Philo’s system because of his extreme emphasis on the impossibility of God’s contact with matter. Copleston comments that it “does not require much thought to recognize that the Philonic philosophy could never admit the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation—at least if Philonism were to remain self-consistent—since it lays such stress on the Divine Transcendence that direct ‘contact’ with matter is excluded.”[54] As if these observations were not enough, there are passages in Philo that denounce any attempt to bring God and man together. Philo derides that Epicurean position that God exists in human form.[55] He shuns anthropomorphic language about God.[56] On several occasions, he repeats the words, God “is not as a man.”[57] Clearly Philo would have found the Christian doctrine of incarnation both incomprehensible and abhorrent.

But the Jesus described in Hebrews not only becomes man but participates in a full range of that which is human, including temptation to sin. Cullmann is correct when he notes there is no trace of docetism in Hebrews. “Jesus was really a man, not just God disguised as a man. ”[58] It does not require any great imagination to see in Hebrews’ clear affirmation of Christ’s full and unequivocal humanity (2:14, 17f.; 5:7) a “kind of indirect antiPhilonic polemic.”[59] The writer of Hebrews had an original relationship to Alexandrian Platonism. The evidence for this seems clear. What is now emerging is that writer’s determination to attack major aspects of that position in an effort to show the superiority of Christ and the Christian scheme of mediation and redemption.

(c) The Book of Hebrews’ description of Jesus’ compassion for his brethren is incompatible with Philo’s view of the emotions. Philo appears to have been influenced by the Stoic disparagement of emotion. While the writer of Hebrews repeatedly stresses Jesus’ compassionate concern for his brethren, it is clear that Philo views the attainment of apatheia (freedom from passion, emotion, and affection) as a much more important achievenient than mertiopatheia.[60] For Philo, compassion can only be second best to apatheia. The writer of Hebrews saw Jesus’ complete possession of compassion as one significant sign of his superiority over the Jewish priests, whereas Philo maintained that the high priest was not supposed to mourn. In Philo’s words, the high priest “will have his feelings of pity under control and continue throughout free from sorrow. ”[61] Or, to cite another text, “the high priest is precluded from all outward mourning.”[62] But contrast this with the account of Jesus in Hebrews. Jesus is “not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (4:15). Rather, Jesus “can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness” (5:2). During his earthly ministry, “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death” (5:7). Hebrews pictures Jesus as compassionate to his lost brethren and able to experience the full range of human emotions.

(d) Philo’s Logos could never be described, as Hebrews pictures Jesus, as either suffering, being tempted to sin, or dying. The claims of Hebrews 2:17, 4:15, and 5:7 are even more extraordinary when seen against the backdrop of the Alexandrian Logos.

One of the dominant themes of the Epistle to the Hebrews is the full and authentic reality of the humanity of Christ. It was this, according to the Writer, which fitted Him to be ‘a merciful and faithful high priest’ (2:17). It was because Christ has ‘suffered and been tempted’ that He is able to ‘help those who are tempted’ (2:18, cf. 4:14–16). The Writer of Hebrews was convinced that it was Jesus’ genuine involvement in human life, suffering and temptation which has equipped Him, as nothing else could have done, to help ordinary, sinful, suffering men and women.[63]

The idea of a mediator who has, “in every respect … been tempted as we are” (4:15), who “has suffered and been tempted” (2:18) and who “himself is beset with weakness” (5:2) would have been repugnant to an Alexandrian like Philo. The last straw, for Philo, would have been, as it was for the Greek mind,[64] the death-no, not just the death-the crucifixion of the Christian Mediator. The idea of the Logos becoming incarnate would have been hard enough for Philo. To compound the foolishness by submitting the Logos to death by crucifixion would have been unthinkable. But the writer of Hebrews does not apologize for his emphasis on Jesus’ death. He stresses it and glories in it. The death of Jesus was not incidental to His work as Mediator. Jesus’ self-sacrifice through his ignominious death was the very ground of his work as Mediator (9:15).

Unlike Philo’s impersonal Logos, Jesus is a unique historical individual person, the Incarnation of God, who suffered, was tempted, and died for the sins of mankind. What is important here is the truly significant contrasts between the Mediator of Hebrews and the mediators of Philo, the other Alexandrians, and perhaps the proto-gnosticism Paul appears to warn against in Colossians.[65] There are unmistakable echoes of an Alexandrian influence in Hebrews. But the writer places all of his emphasis upon the differences that make Christ superior to anything the Alexandrians had to offer.[66]

V. The Superiority of Jesus to the Angels

The suddenness of the transition from the proem to the subject of angels at Hebrews 1:4 suggests that something was on the writer’s mind. Of the assorted theories offered to explain this move,[67] the one that makes the most sense is that the writer’s audience held false views of the angels as mediators that posed a threat to the supremacy of Jesus. Galatians 3:19 is evidence of a Jewish belief in an angelic mediation with respect to the giving of the Law, a point alluded to in Hebrews 2:2. Paul’s reference to this belief in Galatians is intended to prove that the Law that was “ordained through angels” is inferior to the unmediated promise God made to Abraham.

For the Writer of Hebrews angels may have been an anxiety because of a tendency on the part of his readers to worship or give undue reverence to them, or because they were regarded as the mediators of a revelation of God which he was doing his best to convince his readers had now been replaced by a new and final revelation mediated by Christ alone. For him therefore the problem of angels was one to be dealt with by showing what was, according to a Christian interpretation, the true relationship of angels to Christ and their comparatively lowly office of spiritual ministers to those who have become heirs of salvation.[68]

If we continue to suppose the writer’s intent to contrast the biblical Mediator with the Alexandrian mediators, the place of Hebrews 1:4-2:18 in his argument becomes clearer when the following points are considered. Philo applied the term angel to the Logos (or logoi) at least 17 times.[69] He described angels as ambassadors between God and men,[70] a function that implies a mediatorial role. In other passages, he actually used the term mesitēs of angels.[71]

What stands out in any analysis of the Hebrews’ account of angels is the major differences between the angelic logoi of Alexandria and the true Logos of the New Testament. (1) Philo’s angels were not personal beings; they were only powers of God, i.e., impersonal elements of the Stream of “Powers” radiating out from God’s own being. (2) The writer of Hebrews will have nothing to do with the multiple mediators of the Alexandrians.[72] He implies, rather, that there is only one mediator. Because Christ mediates a better covenant than the old, his priestly ministry is superior to that of the priests under the old covenant (8:6). Since the new covenant Jesus mediates has as its sacrifice a death that has the power to redeem men from the penalties for sin set forth under the old covenant, those who believe are able to receive the promised inheritance of cleansing from sin and eternal life (9:15). The Jesus who mediates the new covenant (12:24) does not call the believer to a frightful Mount Sinai (12:18). The believer is called rather to Mount Zion and the city of the living God (12:22). (3) Unlike Philo,[73] the writer of Hebrews never applies Old Testament statements about the angels to the Logos. (4) The writer uses seven quotations from the Old Testament to prove the superiority of Christ the Mediator[74] to the angels.[75]

More problematic is the purpose of the writer in Hebrews 2:5–18. Most likely, these verses respond to a possible objection to the superiority of Christ over the angels, an objection grounded on the Christian’s belief in the Incarnation. If, as the Psalmist suggests (Psalm 8), men are lower than the angels, and Christ became a man, how is it still possible to maintain his superiority over the angels? Complicating this problem is the additional fact that Christ died. The writer of Hebrews answers such objections by pointing out: (1) if it is true that Christ became lower, then it must also be true that he was originally higher, (2) Jesus became lower than the angels for a little while, i.e., his lowering was temporary (2:9), and (3) his humiliation (the Incarnation) was a necessary part of God’s plan of salvation which was followed by his permanent exaltation (2:7, 8).[76] Jesus is now “crowned with glory and honor” (2:9), i.e., he has been elevated to a rank and dignity which again is greater than that of the angels (cf. 1:4).

It is also the intent of the writer in this passage to suggest that since is was men that Christ came to save (and not angels), this salvation required a real incarnation (2:14–16). The salvation of men requires a savior like Jesus, and not an impersonal, heavenly Logos. It requires a mediator who could experience temptations, suffer, and die. Jesus’ fulfillment of this divinely appointed role in the plan of salvation does not, in any way, make him inferior to the angels. It merely qualifies him to be a compassionate Mediator. This is the clear message of Hebrews chapter two.

VI. The Superiority of Jesus to Moses

Because of its brevity (Heb. 3:1–6), clarity, and simplicity, this passage can be handled more quickly. Philo viewed Moses as a mesitēs.[77] In fact, Philo occasionally identified Moses with the Logos. “The estimate of Moses found in Philo’s work is so lofty that one is almost bound to ask the question: Was Moses, in Philo’s view, human or divine?”[78] Even the New Testament seems to apply mesitēs to Moses in one instance.[79] The writer’s effort, then, to prove the superiority of Christ to Moses is compatible with our hypothesis. Moses was another of the Alexandrian logoi to which Christ is better.

VII. The Superiority of Jesus to the Aaronic High Priest

The primary concern of Hebrews is not the cosmological and epistemological dimensions of a Logos Christology, but the soteriological Logos, the Mediator who secures the forgiveness and redemption of fallen men through his priestly office.

Philo frequently referred to the Logos in priestly terms.[80] He did this, apparently, because the Logos was the mediator by which men approach God. When the High Priest performed his priestly work, he stood between man and God and, indeed, became something greater than man but less than God.[81] The High Priest, Philo wrote, is a mediator who stands on the “borderline” between man and God.[82] As Logos, the High Priest is even described in language that suggests his sinlessness.[83]

But even when Philo’s Logos is described in priestly terms, it is still a non-personal principle abiding in the world of Ideas. It is not a man such as we find described in Hebrews 2:17f. The Christian’s Great High Priest is the Incarnate Logos whose sinlessness was maintained while he shared the lot of mankind (Heb. 4:15). The writer of Hebrews unites the idea of the High Priest’s sacrifice for the sins of the people with the notion of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh to provide a concept of self-sacrifice (9:12). The concept of the Suffering Servant had carried the idea of passive suffering. In Hebrews, this suffering becomes an active self-sacrifice which becomes the highest expression of the high priestly ministry of atonement and reconciliation. The same act of self-sacrifice that provides an effectual ground for God’s forgiveness of human sin also fulfilled the priesthood of the old covenant at the same time that it abolished it. The readers of Hebrews must never again think of the old covenant as God’s final word. God’s Word in these last days, his Word “in One who is Son,” includes a replacement of the old covenant with a new covenant that is accompanied by a final and perfect priesthood. Now that Jesus is the Great High Priest in the highest sense, all other high priests have become superfluous.

The priestly mediatorial work of Jesus has three dimensions. With respect to the past, Jesus is the source or cause (aitios) of our salvation (5:9). The Christian can look back and see the fully completed sacrificial work of Christ that constitutes the ground of his redemption (9:12, 28). So far as the believer’s present is concerned, lie has an advocate in heaven “who always lives to make intercesssion” for him (7:25; cf. 9:24). With respect to the future, there is an unmistakable eschatological dimension to Christ’s high priestly work. The same High Priest who accomplished so much for the believer in his past work, whose continuing advocacy is so important to the believer’s present life, still has something to do in the believer’s future. “Christ … will appear a second time … to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (9:28).[84]

A fitting conclusion to this study of Christ’s work as Mediator in the Epistle to the Hebrews is found in Hebrews 7:22. In this text, a different term (egguos) is used, a term that conveys an idea not found in mesitēs.[85]

In common Greek [egguos] is found frequently in legal and other documents in the sense of a surety or guarantor. The egguos undertakes a weightier responsibility than the mesitēs or mediator … he is answerable for the fulfilment of the obligation which he guarantees …. The old covenant had a mediator (cf. Gal. 3:19) but no surety; there was no one to guarantee the fulfilment of the people’s undertaking …. But Jesus guarantees the perpetual fulfilment of the covenant which He mediates, on the manward side as well as on the Godward side. As the Son of God, lie confirms God’s eternal covenant with His people; as His people’s representative, He satisfies its terms with perfect acceptance in God’s sight.[86]

Jesus, the guarantor (egguos) is not simply a go-between; he is personally responsible for that which he guarantees. The old covenant lacked anyone who could guarantee it. But Jesus guarantees the new covenant on both sides, God’s and man’s. Jesus is not simply a mesitēs who happens to bring two opposed parties together. In Jesus, God and man are conjoined. As God’s Son, Jesus ensures God’s side of the compact. He fulfills the human side of the covenant as the perfect representative of the entire race. As mesitēs, Jesus is superior to the mediators of the Alexandrians. But Jesus is superior in an even greater sense inasmuch as lie performs a function unlike that of any Alexandrian mediator. Only one who is both God and man can perfectly guarantee the new covenant.[87]

Notes

1. Job 9:33 contains the only occurrence of mesitēs in the LXX. For more about this technical Hellenistic term, see A. Oepke, TDNT, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids (1967) 4, p. 601; Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift 39, (1928), 21–24, 549–552; H. Stegmann, Biblische Zeitschrift 22, (1934), 30–42.
2. George Barker Stevens does not hesitate in affirming that the writer of Hebrews “was a literary Hellenist, who was familiar with the philosophical ideas which were current at Alexandria and practised in the argumentative use of the Septuagint …. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was strongly imbued with Platonic and Alexandrian thought. ” The Theology of the New Testament, T & T Clark, Edinburgh (1968 Reprint) pp. 484, 488. Note Stevens’ elaboration on pp. 488f.
3. Ronald Williamson cites most of the important sources on both sides of the question in the first chapter of his Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews, E. J. Brill, Leiden (1970). Contemporary evangelicals like F. F. Bruce have not been reluctant to point out the apparent familiarity of the writer of Hebrews with some teachings of Plato. See F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids (1964) p. lxix et passim, as well as Bruce’s commentary on Hebrews in Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, ed. by M. Black and H. H. Rowley, Rev. edn., Nelson (1962) p. 1008.
4. C. Spicq, L’Êpître aux Hebreux, Paris (1952).
5. Williamson, op. cit., p. 579. Spicq and Williamson, or some position oil the continuum between them, are not the only options, of course. Some, like Oscar Cullmann, have sought the background of Hebrews in Palestinian Hellenism (see his Christology of the New Testament, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia (1963) p. 304. Others prefer searching within the literature of the Qumran community (cf. Y. Yadin, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 4 (1958) pp. 36ff; K. Kosmala, Hebraer-Essener-Christen, E. J. Brill, Leiden (1959).
6. Williamson, op. cit., p. 493. Williamson also recognizes a more moderate statement of Spicq’s thesis. “Spicq concedes that the ideas of Hebrews are not exactly those of Philo, that they had been developed and enriched in the light of the Writer’s Christian faith, but he has no doubt whatever that it is the thought of Philo that lies behind the thought of the epistle. ” Ibid., p. 492. Williamson will have nothing of this either.
7. Earlier in his book, Williamson suggested something more moderate than his final conclusion: If the writer was a Philonist before he became a Christian, “by the time he wrote his Epistle only vestigial traces of Philonism remained in his outlook. ” Ibid., p. 92. See also p. 78.
8. Hebrews avoids the term because it had already been filled with a specific content. The avoidance of the term, but the appropriation of the predicates of Wisdom, permitted the writer to fill the conception with his own, distinctly Christian, understanding of Jesus.
9. Hugh Montefiore is only one of many commentators impressed by the parallels between Heb. 1: 1-4 and the Alexandrian writings of Philo and The Wisdom of Solomon. See his The Epistle to the Hebrews, Harper and Row, N. Y. (1964), p. 36. See also William L. Lane, “Detecting Divine Wisdom Christology in Hebrews 1:1-4,” The New Testament Student 5 (1978).
10. Ronald Williamson is one of the most cautious commentators on this subject. Therefore, even his most reluctant admissions are worth noting. He grants that the linguistic parallels between Heb. 1:3 and Wisdom 7:26 are close enough to suggest a direct influence from The Wisdom of Solomon. “This fact alone is perhaps sufficient to prove that the Writer of Hebrews, when he came to develop and expound his view of the Person and Work of Christ, applied to Christ titles and appellations applied in the Wisdom literature of Judaism, of which in his pre-Christian days he would seem to have been a devoted student, to Wisdom personified…. If the Writer was doing no more than transposing from the hypostatized Wisdom of Alexandrian speculation to Christ this function of world government, he was not alone among the writers of the N. T. Col. 1:17 represents a similar transposition. ” Williamson, op. cit. , p. 97.
11. Gordon H. Clark, Thales to Dewey, Houghton Mifflin, Boston (1957) p. 202. Compare this to another comment by Clark: “The first and most universal of all the powers or ideas is the Logos. As the thought of God the Logos is the place of the cosmos and comprehends the whole intelligible world. Sometimes Philo’s wording seems to imply that the Logos is a thinking soul rather than the world of Ideas. Apart from the literary device of personification, this mode of expression can be explained in virtue of a contrast between God and men. An architect, for example, has many plans, his human logos thinks many thoughts, and accordingly it is easy to distinguish between his reason and one of his thoughts. But God has one plan only, and hence reason or soul in God becomes identical with its product. It this way reason or the Logos can be both a power and the world of Ideas. ” Clark, Selections from Hellenistic Philosophy, Appleton-Century-Crofts, N. Y. (1940) pp. 156f.
12. AIlegorical Interpretation I, 19 ,65.
13. H. A. Wolfson, Philo, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1962) 1, p. 258. It should be clear that the various Philonic authorities frequently disagree over quite central issues. Also to be consulted are the works of Edwin R. Goodenough, viz., his By Light, Light, Philo Press, Amsterdam (1969) and his An Introduction to Philo Judaeus, Basil Blackwell, Oxford (1962).
14. Spicq, op. cit., 2, p. 70, argues that the Logos Christology of Hebrews is dependent on Philo’s Logos doctrine.
15. Who is the Heir of Divine Things 205–6. Oepke discusses the nuances of Philo’s use of mesitēs in Kittel 4, p. 602.
16. On the Special Laws 1, 81; On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 8; On the Migration of Abraham 6; On the Unchangeableness of God 57.
17. On Flight and Finding 101; On Dreams 2, 45; On the Special Laws 1, 81.
18. Who is the Heir of Divine Things 205–6.
19. On the Special Laws 3, 62.
20. On the Confusion of Tongues 146; On Dreams 1, 215; On the Unchangeableness of God 31; On Husbandry 51.
21. On Flight and Finding 101.
22. On Dreams 1, 75. Williamson (op. cit., pp. 38ff. ) points out that Philo frequently speaks of the Logos as “light” (phōs), but he never uses the term apaugasma of the Logos as Hebrews does of the Son in 1:3.
23. On the Special Laws 3, 31.
24. Williamson, op. cit., p. 410.
25. Platonic philosophy” refers to Platonism after Plato. The need for such mediators is not explicit in Plato’s writings.
26. Both of the functions to be discussed are also found in the prologue to John’s Gospel. There is insufficient space to explore more fully the relationships between Hebrews and John’s Gospel. Cullman observes that “Hebrews actually belongs to the Johannine environment,” although he identifies that environment as the Palestinian Hellenism mentioned in Acts. See Oscar Cullmann, op. cit., p. 304. R. M. Wilson adds that Paul, John and Hebrews all “move in the same circle of ideas as does Philo, although Paul is much less influenced than the other two. ” The Gnostic Problem, A. R. Mowbray, London (1958), p. 35.
27. Philo appears to have accepted the Platonic doctrine as the eternity of matter and the evil nature of matter. In Philo’s words: “When out of that confused matter God produced all things, he did not do so with his own handiwork, since his nature, happy and blessed as it was, forbade that he should touch the limitless chaotic matter. Instead he made full use of the incorporeal potencies well denoted by their name of Forms to enable each kind to take its appropriate shape” (Philo, On the Special Laws 1,329, Loeb tr., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1958). Philo clearly states that God could not come in contact with matter so he used intermediaries to create the world out of pre-existent matter. See also Clark Hellenistic Philosophy, op. cit., p. 156. In spite of passages like this, Wolfson claims that Philo taught that God could still act directly on the material world. Disagreeing with interpreters like Drummond and Brehier, Wolfson insists that Philo viewed matter as created by God. See his discussion in Philo, op. cit., 1, pp. 281f., 289, 301ff., and 305f. Wolfson’s handling of Philo must be seen in the light of his strained exaggeration of Philo’s importance in the history of philosophy. A more temperate view is expressed by Gordon Clark: “Although it is completely inconsistent with the Hebrew background, Philo asserts the eternity of matter. Then, as God forms the world out of matter, it is discovered that even if matter is not positively evil or wicked, it is none the less too imperfect and recalcitrant to receive the perfect goodness and order God wishes to bestow” (op. cit., p. 155). Compare also The Wisdom of Solomon 11:7, where the world is described as created “out of formless matter. ” For other evidence of Platonism (and Stoicism) in The Wisdom of Solomon, see W. L. Lane’s article. “Apocrypha” in The Encyclopedia of Christianity, ed. by Edwin H. Palmer, Wilmington, Del. (1964) 1, p. 323, col. 1.
28. In some systems, these two questions merge into one. For example, it might be argued that man cannot attain any knowledge of God except that which God himself reveals. In such a system, only one question would exist. For someone like Aquinas who maintained the existence of human knowledge about God independent of special revelation, both questions would remain.
29. On Dreams 2, 249.
30. Williamson, op. cit., p. 428.
31. Paul also sees the pre-existent Christ as the mediator of creation. See I Cor. 8:6 and Col. 1:16.
32. The order in Hebrews is reversed in the prologue to John’s Gospel where Christ the Logos is described first in his cosmological function (John 1:3) and then in his epistemological function. Jesus is not only the mediator of divine special revelation (John 1:14), He is also the ground of all human knowledge (John 1:9). Consider Cullmann’s perceptive comments: “Whether Heb. 1:1ff. is earlier or later than John 1:1ff., one must in either case notice that it connects the Old Testament word of God with the revelation which is the Son himself as the reflection of the glory of God. Hebrews does not call the Son ‘Logos. ’ The first chapter of John does so because it is a prologue to a life of Jesus, which in itself is the starting point for all further Christological reflection. God’s revelation is presented in this life not only in the words but also in the actions of Jesus. Jesus himself is what he does. The Hebrew term debarim (words) can also mean ‘history,’ and when one thinks primarily in terms of the life or ‘history’ of Jesus, it becomes natural to identify Jesus with the Word. ” (Cullinann, op. cit., p. 261).
33. The notion of soteriological mediation appears in Philo’s On the Confusion of Tongues 149. See also Wisdom of Solomon 7:27 and 10:1-11:1. A soteriological mediator (called Sophia, but different from the Alexandrian Sophia) can be found in late Gnosticism but this is a post-Christian usage.
34. Documentation for this claim appears later in the paper.
35. On Dreams 1, 215.
36. Who is the Heir of Divine Things 75.
37. Found in books six and seven of Plato’s Republic.
38. On the Confusion of Tongues 190; On Dreams 1, 185-188; Questions and Answers on Exodus 2, 90; Moses 2, 188-191. A. M. Hunter finds Heb. 8:1-5 decisive evidence that the writer of Hebrews had an Alexandrian education. See his Introducing Neu, Testament Theology, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia (1957) p. 120.
39. James Moffatt, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Charles Scribner’s Sons, N. Y. (1924) p. xxxiv.
40. Some other articles and monographs that pursue the theme of Alexandrianism in Hebrews are: S. G. Sowers, The Hermeneutics of Philo and Hebrews, John Knox Press, Richmond, Va. (1965), pp. 64ff.; R. Williamson “Platonism and Hebrews,” Scottish Journal of Theology, 16 (1963), 41; -424; C. Spicq, “Le Philonism de l’Epître aux Hebreux,” Revue Biblique, 57 (1950), 212–242; and Spicq, “Alexandrinismes dans l’Epître aux Hebreux,” Revue Biblique, 58 (1951), 481–502.
41. Throughout his book, Williamson notes practically every difference that could be cited between Philo and Hebrews. He cites these differences as evidence to minimize the influence of Philo on Hebrews. But these differences also serve as evidence for my thesis that it is the writer’s intention explicitly to contradict the Alexandrian views at these points.
42. The sober judgment of William Manson is worth noting: “But while it is right to see in the Alexandrian Jewish theology the background against which the conception of the Two Worlds in the Epistles to the Hebrews is elaborated, it has to be carefully observed that the interests of the writer to the Hebrews are not in cosmology but in redemption, and that his exposition of the heavenly sanctuary is put into entire subservience to his exposition of the sacrifice and atoning work of Jesus within the veil. The element of Alexandrianisin does not enter into the Epistle until this point is reached, and it is not continued after this point is passed” (William Manson, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1951, pp. 124-125). See also C. K. Barrett, “The Eschatology of Hebrews” in The Background to the New Testament and Its Eschatology, ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube, Cambridge (1964), pp. 363-393.
43. Williamson, op. cit., p. 158.
44. See the discussion in Philosophies of History by Grace E. Cairns, The Citadel Press, N. Y. (1962), ch. 10. Cf. Ronald H. Nash, Ideas of History (E. P. Dutton, N. Y. (1969), 1, pp. 3ff.
45. Allegorical Interpretation 3, 25; On the Creation 60. See the discussion in Williamson, op. cit., pp. 148ff.
46. Williamson, op. cit., p. 148.
47. Perhaps the best known statement of this view is Plato’s Phaedo.
48. A. H. Armstrong, An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, Beacon Press, Boston (1963), p. 162. Armstrong adds, therefore, that Philo’s Logos “differs entirely from the Logos of St. John’s Prologue, an actual historical Person who is also Divine …” (Ibid. ). Gordon Clark adds a helpful insight: “Obviously Philo personifies the Logos, but this personification is entirely metaphorical. Philo also says that Laughter is a Son of God, God is the husband of Wisdom, Wisdom is the daughter of God, Wisdom is the mother of the Logos, and, even, Wisdom is the father of instruction. Such metaphors cancel each other out. ” Thales to Dewey, p. 202.
49. A related contrast that should not be overlooked is the doubtfulness about any orthodox Jewish Messianic expectation in the thought of Philo. Philo did speak of the Logos in kingly terms and did relate Melchizedek to the Logos. But he appears not to have thought of the Logos as the Messiah.
50. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, The Newman Press, Westminster, Md. (1960) 1, p. 459.
51. The Worse Attacks the Better 82f. Cf. Wisdom of Solomon 9:15.
52. On the Migration of Abraham 9; On Giants 61.
53. On the Special Laws 4, 188.
54. Copleston, op. cit., 1, p. 461.
55. On the Posterity and Exile of Cain 1.
56. On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 95ff.
57. On the Unchangeableness of God 53; On the Confusion of Tongues 98; On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 94; On Dreams 1, 237; etc.
58. Cullmann, op. cit., p. 96. Williamson adds: “The manhood of Jesus, according to Hebrews, was real manhood, full, authentic and unimpaired. And such a genuine manhood was an indispensable qualification for His successful priesthood” (op. cit., p. 153).
59. This phrase is borrowed from Williamson, pp. 138f. It should be noted that Williamson goes on to reject this possibility. I have already indicated my difference with him.
60. According to Hewitt, metriopathein, (used of Jesus in Heb. 5:2) “is a philosophical term which expresses the feeling of moderation which lies between apathy, or ‘lack of feeling,’ and undue excitement. There should be no lack of feeling on the part of the high priest for those who have fallen into error and sin, nor should he be unduly disturbed, otherwise he may fail to bear gently with them” (Thomas Hewitt, The Epistle to the Hebrews, An Introduction and Commentary, Eerdmans Grand Rapids, 1960, p. 95). E. K. Simpson’s comment on metriopatheo is most helpful: “This striking expression traces its genesis to the Peripatetic philosophy, in contradistinction from the Stoic’s affectation of a marble apathy of demeanour. Within the bounds of self-respect it advocates a tolerant or sympathetic posture of mind in respect of provocations from others or misfortunes that may have overtaken them …. Such a blend of forbearance and condolence was ideally requisite in God’s high priest under the old dispensation, both in his sacerdotal and judicial functions. But human infirmity marred the fair vision, till the Eternal Priest, Perfection’s real Counterpart, trod the scene. For (and this renders the word almost untranslatable) metriopatheia is the golden mean between indifference and mawkish sentimentality” (E. K. Simpson, “The Vocabulary of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Evangelical Quarterly 18, 1946, 36f.
61. On the Special Laws 1, 115 (Loeb tr.).
62. Ibid., 1, 113.
63. Williamson, op. cit., pp. 89-90.
64. 1 Cor. 1: 23.
65. Obviously, this paper touches on many related points that cannot be pursued. One of them is the possibility of a pre-Christian gnostic source for the biblical Logos and the Alexandrian Logos suggested by Rudolf Bultmann. See Cullmann’s discussion and critique in his Christology, op. cit. , pp. 252f.
66. Cf. A. Nairne who notes that the Book of Hebrews seems “to correct Philo at least as much as it takes from him” (The Epistle to the Hebrews, 1917, p. cxxxi). While E. F. Scott admits affinities between Philo and Hebrews, he warns: “So far, then, from merely reproducing the thought of Philo, our Epistle breaks away from it at precisely the most vital points” (E. F. Scott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Its Doctrine and Significance, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1922, p. 57).
67. See the summary of several of these theories in Hugh Montefiore, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Harper and Row, N. Y. (1964) pp. 39ff.
68. Williamson, op. cit., p. 194.
69. On the Special Laws 3, 177ff.; On Husbandry 51; On the Cherubim 3; etc. See James Drummond, Philo Judaeus, Williams and Norgate, Edinburgh (1888), 2, p. 239.
70. On Giants 16.
71. On Dreams 1, 141–142.
72. Hebrews 2:2 is not an exception to this. The writer like Paul in Gal. 3:19 was referring to a current Jewish belief that the angels had played a role when the Law was given through Moses (see Acts 7:53). There is no reason to believe either writer was necessarily endorsing this belief which appears to lack any Old Testament support. The argument in both Heb. 2:2 and Gal. 3:19 can be viewed as hypothetical. That is, even if angels did play a role in the mediation of the Law, consider how much greater is the Gospel and its Mediator.
73. Drummond, op. cit., 2, pp. 239-273, examines the Philonic texts in which “Logos” is applied to angels.
74. The description of Christ as Mediator at this early point in the epistle does not depend on the actual use of mesitēs but on the prior statements in 1:1–4.
75. These quotations are used to make three main points: (a) Christ is God the Son whom the angels must worship (1:5–6); (b) Christ is the King whom the angels must obey (1:7–9); (c) Christ is God the Creator whom the angels must serve (1:10–12). Therefore, Jesus is “better”! Heb. 2:5 adds a footnote to the superiority of Christ, viz., the world to come will be ruled, not by angels, but by Christ.
76. Cf. Phil. 2: 11. It should be noted that Heb. 2: 10 declares that God’s action in providing Jesus as savior was entirely appropriate; it was a “fitting” thing for God to do. Because of his sin man was precluded from attaining the perfection for which God has created him. The temporary humiliation of Jesus was part of God’s plan to provide a new and effectual means for the goal of perfection to be attained.
77. On Dreams 1, 143.
78. Williamson, op. cit., p. 454. Williamson’s entire discussion of this point can be consulted with profit.
79. Gal. 3:19. See our previous comments about this verse.
80. On Dreams 1, 214-215,219; 2, 183; On the Migration of Abraham 102; On Flight and Finding 108ff. While Philo refers to the Logos as High Priest, The Wisdom of Solomon does not. Since the argument in the early pages of this paper supports the contention that the writer of Hebrews was familiar with the Wisdom of Solomon, Philo’s use of Logos in this way may suggest that the writer of Hebrews knew and used both sources. This fact does not constitute proof however since it is also possible that the writer was familiar with a tradition frozen in both and did not necessarily know both sources.
81. On Dreams 2, 188–189; 2, 231f.
82. On the Special Laws 1, 116.
83. On the Special Laws 1, 230,242-243; 3, 134; 1, 113; On Flight and Finding 108ff.
84. See F. F. Bruce’s elaboration of these temporal dimensions of Christ’s work in connection with Heb. 13:8 (op. cit. , pp. 396f.).
85. Heb. 7:22 marks the only occurrence of egguos in the New Testament. See Herbert Preisker’s comments in Kittel, TDNT, op. cit. , 2, p. 329.
86. F. F. Bruce, op. cit. , p. 151, n. 70.
87. This article received much helpful advice and assistance from Dr. William L. Lane (Western Kentucky University), Dr. J. Julius Scott (Wheaton College) and Dr. Gordon Clark (Covenant College). This acknowledgment of course does not suggest their agreement with every point.