And the personification of Wisdom is still to a large extent poetical, it does not attain to separate metaphysical hypostasis; it is not thought of as being really personal.
The Philonian conception, on the other hand, is metaphysical, but it contains many elements that are quite discordant and inconsistent with that which we find in Justin.

That it must have been so will be seen at once when we think of the sources from which Philo's doctrine was derived.

It included in itself the Platonic theory of Ideas, the diffused Logos or _anima mundi_ of the Stoics, and the Oriental angelology or doctrine of intermediate beings between God and man.

On its Platonic side the Logos is the Idea of Ideas summing up the world of high abstractions which themselves are also regarded as possessing a separate individuality; they are Logoi by the side of the Logos.
On its Stoic side it becomes a Pantheistic Essence pervading the life of things; it is 'the law,' 'the bond' which holds the world together; the world is its 'garment.' On its Eastern side, the Logos is the 'Archangel,' the 'Captain of the hosts of heaven,' the 'Mother-city' from which they issue as colonists, the 'Vice- gerent' of the Great King [Endnote 287:1].
It needed a more powerful mind than Justin's to reduce all this to its simple Christian expression, to take the poetry of Judaea and the philosophy of Alexandria and to interpret and realise both in the light of the historical events of the birth and life of Christ.

'The Word became flesh' is the key by which Justin is made intelligible, and that key is supplied by the fourth Gospel.