the city of God, for it has received the ‘full cup’ of the Divine draught, and has quaffed a perpetual, eternal joy.  But in another sense he gave this name to the soul of the wise, wherein God is said to walk as in a city.  And who can pour out the sacred measures of their joy to the blissful soul which holds out the holy cup, that is its own reason, save the Logos, the cupbearer of God, the master of the feast?  Nor is the Logos cupbearer only, but it is itself the pure draught, itself the joy and exultation, itself the pouring forth and the delight, itself the ambrosial philtre and potion of bliss."[204]

Through the luxury of metaphor and imagination one may discern the underlying thought of the mystic writer, that the Logos is the effluence of God, either in the whole universe or the individual man, filling the one as the other with the Divine Shekinah.  It is the link which joins God and man, the ladder of Jacob’s dream, which stretches from Heaven to earth.[205] That man can attain the Divine state by the help of God’s effluence was a cardinal thought of Philo’s; this, indeed, is the form in which he conceives the Messianic hope.  God does not come down to earth incarnate in man’s form, but God’s active influence possesses the soul of man, and makes it live with God, and if man be peculiarly blessed, carries it up to the ineffable Spirit.  Similarly his idea of the Messiah is more spiritual than that of the popular belief.  The ascent of man to God’s height, not the descent of God to man’s level, will produce the age of universal peace.

There are various degrees of the Divine influence, stretching from complete possession by the Deity Himself to the advent of single Divine thoughts.  These Philo regards as [Greek:  logoi], words or thoughts—­for he does not clearly distinguish between the two—­and he resolves the realistic angels of the Bible into this spiritual conception.[206] Thus he says, “the place” where Jacob alighted and had the vision (Gen. xxvii. 11) is the symbol of the perfect contemplation of God; the angels which he saw ascending and descending are the inferior light of Divine precepts.  These thoughts are continually vouchsafed to all of us, prompting us to noble actions, comforting us in times of sadness, inspiring lofty ideas.

“Up and down through the whole soul the Logoi of God move without end; when they ascend, drawing it up with them, and severing it from the mortal part, and showing only the vision of ideal things; but when they descend, not casting it down, but descending with it from humanity or compassion towards our race, so as to give assistance and help, in order that, inspiring what is noble, they may revive the soul which is borne along on the stream of the body."[207]

Conversely, the rabbis taught that from each word that proceeded from the mouth of God an angel was created, as it is said:  “By the word of the Lord the Heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth."[208]