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question of an external rest apart from the harmony of the believer with God or, in the figure of v. 2, apart from the vital union of the hearer with the word. The rest is the consummation of that divine fellowship of which the life in Canaan was a type.

Thus Philo also saw in the ‘perfect light’ of the seventh day a symbol of ‘the light of virtue’ in which the soul finds true rest: ejn tauvth/ th'/ fuvsei pauvetai hJ tw'n qnhtw'n suvstasi" : kai; ga;r ou{tw" e[cei : o{tan ajnateivlh/ fevggo" th'" ajreth'", to; lampro;n kai; qei'on o[ntw", ejpevcetai (is checked) th'" ejnantiva" fuvsew" hJ gevnesi" ( Leg. Alleg. i. § 8; 1:46). The five successive epithets ( zw'n ... ejnerghv" ... tomwvtero" ... diiknouvmeno" ... kritikov" ...) applied to ‘the word’ mark with increasing clearness its power to deal with the individual soul. There is a passage step by step from that which is most general to that which is most personal. Life is characterised by activity: the activity takes the special form of an internal examination, which reaches to the very foundations of our organization; and this is not physical only but inspired by a moral force, all- pervading, all-discerning, for it is indeed the force of God.

By ‘the word of God’ ( oJ lovgo" tou' qeou' ) we must understand the word which He speaks through His messengers or immediately in the heart of each man. Here the thought is in the first instance necessarily of the word spoken by the Son Who has again offered to man the rest of God. Comp. John 12:48 (Deut. 18:18 f.). This sense is required by the whole course of the argument (Heb. 3:7 levgei , v. 15 ejn tw'/ levgesqai , 4:2 ejsme;n eujhggelismevnoi ... oJ lovgo" th'" ajkoh'" , v. 4 ei[rhken , v. 7 ejn Dauei;d levgwn , v. 8 ejlavlei ).

The language is not directly applicable to the Personal Word Himself. He cannot properly be likened to the sword. The sword ‘issues from his mouth’ (Apoc. 1:16); and it may be concluded yet further that the author of the Epistle did not directly identify the divine Lovgo" with the Son (Heb. 1:2). At the same time the truth that Christ is the Gospel which He brings is present to the writer's mind and influences his form of expression. Thus the passage shews how naturally the transition was made from the revelation of God to Him Who was at once the Revelation and the Revealer. Comp. 1 John 1:1 f. note. It is not however surprising that the passage was commonly understood of the Personal Word by the Fathers: e.g., Eusebius Theoph. Cram. Cat. p. 460; Athanasius c. Ar. ii. §§ 35, 72; Isidore, Cat. p. 459; OEcumenius; Theophylact; Primasius; Herveius. The transition to this sense is given in Apoc. 19:13.

The passage offers an instructive parallel with Philo. Philo speaks at length ( Quis rerum div. haer. §§ 26 ff.; 1.491ff. M.) of the Logos as ‘the divider’ ( tomeuv" ) of things, basing his teaching on an interpretation of Gen. 15:10. So the Logos divides material things into their indivisible atoms, the soul into rational and irrational, speech into true and false, formless matter into the elements, and so on. Two things only are left undivided: ‘the nature of reason ( tou' logismou' ) in man and that of the Divine Logos above us, and these being indivisible ( a[tmhtoi ) divide other things innumerable. For the Divine Logos divides and distributes all things in nature, and our intellect
(
nou'" ) divides into infinitely infinite parts whatsoever matters and bodies it receives intellectually, and never ceases cutting them...’ (i. p. 506 M.).

So elsewhere the virtuous man is said to remove the sores of vice by lovgo" tomeuv" , the knife of reason ( Quod det. pot. insid. § 29, 1.212 M.).


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