Whether Philo wrote on his own ground as a Jew, or borrowed from
the Christians, the testimony as to the then Jewish expectation and
belief, is equally strong. You know Philo calls the Logos [Greek: yios
Theoy], the _Son of God_, and [Greek: agap_athon te non], _beloved Son_.
He calls him [Greek: arhchierheus], _high priest_, [Greek: deuterhos
Thehos], _second divinity_, [Greek: ei an Theoy], _image of God_, and
describes him as [Greek: eggutat_o m_adenhos ovtos methorhioy
diast_amatos], the _nearest possible to God without any intervening
separation_. And there are numerous other remarkable expressions of the
same sort.
My faith is this:--God is the Absolute Will: it is his Name and the meaning
of it. It is the Hypostasis. As begetting his own Alterity, the Jehovah,
the Manifested--He is the Father; but the Love and the Life--the Spirit--
proceeds from both.
I think Priestley must be considered the author of the modern
Unitarianism. I owe, under God, my return to the faith, to my having gone
much further than the Unitarians, and so having come round to the other
side. I can truly say, I never falsified the Scripture. I always told them
that their interpretations of the Scripture were intolerable upon any
principles of sound criticism; and that, if they were to offer to construe
the will of a neighbour as they did that of their Maker, they would be
scouted out of society.
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