Coincidentally, I just mentioned that.lsayre wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 5:27 am Philo's understanding of the logos lends itself to a proposal that he was (likely unwittingly) the founder of Christianity. Quoting Wikipedia:
Philo (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD), a Hellenized Jew, used the term logos to mean an intermediary divine being or demiurge.[10] Philo followed the Platonic distinction between imperfect matter and perfect Form, and therefore intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world.[32] The logos was the highest of these intermediary beings, and was called by Philo "the first-born of God".[32] Philo also wrote that "the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated".[33]
De Somniis 2.45. δίδωσι γὰρ οὗτος τῇ ψυχῇ σφραγῖδα (Gen. 38, 18), πάγκαλον δῶρον, διδάσκων ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἀσχημάτιστον οὖσαν τὴν τῶν πάντων οὐσίαν ἐσχημάτισε καὶ ἀτύπωτον ἐτύπωσε καὶ ἄποιον ἐμόρφωσε καὶ τελειώσας τὸν ὅλον ἐσφράγισε κόσμον εἰκόνι καὶ ἰδέᾳ, τῷ ἑαυτοῦ λόγῳ.
De Somniis 2.45: "For upon the Psyche [Judah] bestows a Seal (Genesis 38:18), a most exquisite gift, teaching that God has formed the formless essence of All, and has imprinted the unmarked, and has qualified the qualityless and, having perfected the whole, has emblazoned the Cosmos with the icon and ideal of his own Logos."
De Somniis 2.45: "For upon the Psyche [Judah] bestows a Seal (Genesis 38:18), a most exquisite gift, teaching that God has formed the formless essence of All, and has imprinted the unmarked, and has qualified the qualityless and, having perfected the whole, has emblazoned the Cosmos with the icon and ideal of his own Logos."
Is this correct? The Hermetic version includes The Bitch; Gnostic versions likewise. The 'idea of binding' should be #3 and the '(revelation of the) binding process' should be #4, whereby our 'bound, Material Reality' is #5, the Exemplar/Product (if I am understanding this correctly.)
1. Highest God
2. Logos ................................... (+ Feminine Principle)
3. Ideal .................................... (= Erotic Impulse)
4. Icon ..................................... (Pregnancy/Gestation)
5. Cosmos = Formed Essence = All ..... (Creation-as-World; Abortion)