By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism by Erwin R. GoodenoughReview by: E. F. ScottThe American Historical Review, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Jan., 1936), pp. 321-322Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1850298 .

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Goodenough: Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Jutdaisnm 321

concession and all the remaining collections in Philadelphia suggests that Zenon's activities in finance and administration had an even wider scope than has hitherto been recognized. This letter illustrates a time-honored financial practice, for it appears that Apollonius in his capacity of proprietcr of an estate at Philadelphia has advanced money to himself as finance min- ister of Ptolemy. In a receipt, No. 49, for an advance payment in kind upon rent we hear for the first time of a twenty-one aroura allotment of land to a military settler, and a new name, Demetrius, is added to the list of eponymous troop commanders already known. We learn in another receipt, No. 55, of 250 B. C., that wine from the apomoira, nominally payable to the deified Arsinoe, has been assigned to the guards of the nomarchos in payment of their regular money wages, thereby offering "the first definite proof known to us that the income of the apomoira was used for other purposes than the charges of the cult worship".

These few citations may suffice to give an indication of the interest and value of this excellent new publication of Zenon papyri.

Williams College. GEORGE MCLEAN HARPER, JR.

By Light, Light: the Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism. By ERWIN

R. GOODENOUGH, Professor of the History of Religion, Fellow of Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1935. PP. xv, 436. $5.oo.) IT has been increasingly recognized, during the last half century, that

Philo of Alexandria is of crucial importance for the understanding of reli- gious thought in the West. His voluminous writings, owing to their complete lack of logical arrangement and literary form, have never been widely read, either in ancient or modern times; but in his own right Philo is one of the world's great thinkers, and when measured by his influence may fairly rank as one of the three or four greatest. In the present volume Professor Good- enough has given us perhaps the most illuminating of all modern studies of Philo. His theory is a wholly original one, but is the outcome of prolonged study and genuine philosophical insight. He holds that Philo was the spokesman of an esoteric Jewish group, corresponding to the mystery socie- ties in the contemporary pagan world. Within this sect the Jewish ritual was formally accepted, but was understood as the outward expression of a mystical, transcendental faith. God became the ultimate Being, which dif- fuses itself by a process of radiation through the Logos and the Powers in which the Logos is refracted. The primitive Biblical history became sym- bolical of this process. To the uninstructed the characters appear to be real men and women, but the initiate thinks of them abstractly as repre- senting the stages by which the Light is imparted, and by which the mind can ascend to the Light, through the illusions of the visible world. Per-

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322 Reviews of Books

haps the most striking part of Dr. Goodenough's exposition is his treatment of the place assigned to Moses in the Philonic scheme. He makes out that Moses is regarded as in some sense an incarnation of the principle of the Logos, so that in the Mosaic law the opportunity is offered to men of at- taining to fellowship with the divine. Dr. Goodenough's thesis, when in- dicated thus baldly, may seem to be little more than another of the bizarre speculations which are the bane of modern historical inquiry. At every point, however, it is grounded in full investigation, and is supported by a force of reasoning and a wealth of learning which will impress all serious students. The reader continually feels that much that was perplexing to him in the thought and purpose of Philo has now been made intelligible for the first time. It even becomes apparent that the Commentaries are not the hopeless jumble for which we are wont to take them, but are constructed on a definite plan. Where we would chiefly take issue with the author is in his conception of Philo as the representative of a secret cult within Judaism. Undoubtedly there were many schools of Jewish thought in the first century, some of them much more in sympathy with Greek philosophy than with Rabbinism. This diversity in Judaism, especially the Judaism of the Dis- persion, is an obscure subject, on which we are still groping for light. But there is nothing in Philo, as Dr. Goodenough himself expounds him, that suggests a mystery cult. He only pushes to its limit the prevailing effort to interpret the Jewish law in terms of the metaphysical ideas then current in the Hellenistic world. The value of the book, however, is in no way affected by any doubts we may have as to the soundness of one peculiar view. Whatever may have been Philo's position as a teacher we can feel that the doctrines which he taught are here presented, in clear and forcible language and with real understanding. It is to be hoped that Dr. Good- enough will follow out his project of continuing his present work with an inquiry into the whole development of Christian Hellenism. No task in the field of historical religion is more urgent, and there is ample proof in this volume that no one, either in this country or abroad, is better qualified than the author to perform it.

Union Theological Seminary. E. F. SCOTT.

BOOKS OF MODERN HISTORY

Inventaire des Aga'itadi, banquiers italiens a' Anvers de l'annee I568. Par J. DENUCE, archiviste et conservateur des Musees d'Arch eologie de la ville d'Anvers. [Collection de documents, pour l'histoire du commerce, L] (Antwerp: E~ditions de "Sikkel". I934. Pp. 260. I5 belgas.) THE Affaitadi were sedentary merchants of some distinction. We have

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