Annotation CXV, Whether the world is the Son of God, as Philo held (Exodus 28:4)

Annotatio CXV

”And these shall be the vestments which they shall make.” — Exodus 28:4

Philo the Jew, book 3 On the Life of Moses, opening the allegory of the priestly vestment — in which the whole world was represented — says that the world is the most perfect Son of God, in these words:¹ “In this manner the high priest, [thus] adorned, is sent to the sacred [rites], so that, whenever he is about to make vows according to the ancestral rite, he may bring in the whole world under the figures which he bears upon [his] garments. For it was necessary that the priest, about to supplicate the omnipotent Father, should employ as advocate the world — his [the Father’s] most perfect Son — to obtain pardon for [our] errors, and abundant grace for the time to come.” I suspect that these words are to be understood metaphorically, according to the common usage of speaking, by which we are sometimes wont to call the artificial works of craftsmen [their] “offspring” and “births.”