Philo of Alexandria

Philo Judaeus
JEWISH PHILOSOPHER
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Alternative Title: Philo of Alexandria
Philo Judaeus, also called Philo of Alexandria, (born 15–10 BCE, Alexandria—died 45–50 CE, Alexandria), Greek-speaking Jewish philosopher, the most important representative of Hellenistic Judaism. His writings provide the clearest view of this development of Judaism in the Diaspora. As the first to attempt to synthesize revealed faith and philosophic reason, he occupies a unique position in the history of philosophy. He is also regarded by Christians as a forerunner of Christian theology.

Philo Judaeus
Philo Judaeus
Philo Judaeus.
From Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres Grecs, Latins et Payens, Vol. 2, by André Thevet, 1584.
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Jerusalem: Western Wall, Second Temple
Judaism: Philo Judaeus
The first systematic attempt to apply Greek philosophical concepts to Jewish doctrines was made by Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria) in the 1st century ce. Philo was influenced by Platonic and Stoic writings and probably also by certain postbiblical Jewish beliefs and speculations.…

Life And Background
Little is known of the life of Philo. Josephus, the historian of the Jews who also lived in the 1st century, says that Philo’s family surpassed all others in the nobility of its lineage. His father had apparently played a prominent role in Palestine before moving to Alexandria. Philo’s brother Alexander Lysimachus, who was a general tax administrator in charge of customs in Alexandria, was the richest man in the city and indeed must have been one of the richest men in the Hellenistic world, because Josephus says that he gave a huge loan to the wife of the Jewish king Agrippa I and that he contributed the gold and silver with which nine huge gates of the Temple in Jerusalem were overlaid. Alexander was also extremely influential in Roman imperial circles, being an old friend of the emperor Claudius and having acted as guardian for the emperor’s mother.

Philo was born between 15 and 10 BCE. The community of Alexandria, to judge from the language of the Jewish papyri and inscriptions, had for nearly three centuries been almost exclusively Greek-speaking and indeed regarded the Septuagint (the 3rd-century-BCE translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek) as divinely inspired. During the century and a half before Philo’s birth, Alexandria had been the home of a number of Jewish writers whose works exist now only in fragments. These men were often influenced by the Greek culture in which they lived and wrote apologies for Judaism.

The Alexandrian Jews were eager to enroll their children of secondary school age in Greek gymnasiums, institutions with religious associations dedicated to the liberal arts and athletics; in them, Jews were certainly called upon to make compromises with their traditions. It may be assumed that Philo was a product of such an education: he mentions a wide range of Greek writers, especially the epic and dramatic poets; he was intimately acquainted with the techniques of the Greek rhetorical schools; and he praises the gymnasium. Philo’s education, like that which he ascribes to Moses, most probably consisted of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, harmonics, philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

Like the cultured Greeks of his day, Philo often attended the theatre, though it had distinctly religious connotations, and he noted the different effects of the same music on various members of the audience and the enthusiasm of the audience for a tragedy of Euripides. He was a keen observer of boxing contests and attended chariot races as well. He also mentions the frequency with which he attended costly suppers with their lavish entertainment.

Philo says nothing of his own Jewish education. The only mention of Jewish education in his work indicates how relatively weak it must have been, because he speaks only of Jewish schools that met on the Sabbath for lectures on ethics. That he was far from the Palestinian Hellenizers and that he regarded himself as an observant Jew is clear, however, from his statement that one should not omit the observance of any of the Jewish customs that have been divinely ordained. Philo is critical both of those who took the Bible too literally and thus encountered theological difficulties, particularly anthropomorphisms (i.e., describing God in terms of human characteristics), and those who went to excesses in their allegorical interpretation of the laws, with the resulting conclusion, anticipating Paul’s antinomianism, that because the ceremonial laws were only a parable, they need no longer be obeyed. Philo says nothing of his own religious practices, except that he made a festival pilgrimage to Jerusalem, though he nowhere indicates whether he made more than one such visit.

In the eyes of the Palestinian rabbis the Alexandrian Jews were particularly known for their cleverness in posing puzzles and for their sharp replies. As the largest repository of Jewish law apart from the Talmud before the Middle Ages, Philo’s work is of special importance to those who wish to discern the relationship of Palestine and the Diaspora in the realm of law (halakah) and ritual observance. Philo’s exposition of the law may represent either an academic discussion giving an ideal description of Jewish law or the actual practice in the Jewish courts in Egypt. On the whole, Philo is in accord with the prevailing Palestinian point of view; nonetheless he differs from it in numerous details and is often dependent upon Greek and Roman law.

That Philo experienced some sort of identity crisis is indicated by a passage in his On the Special Laws. In this work, he describes his longing to escape from worldly cares to the contemplative life, his joy at having succeeded in doing so (perhaps with the Egyptian Jewish ascetic sect of the Therapeutae described in his treatise On the Contemplative Life), and his renewed pain at being forced once again to participate in civic turmoil. Philo appears to have been dissatisfied with his life in the bustling metropolis of Alexandria: He praises the Essenes—a Jewish sect who lived in monastic communities in the Dead Sea area—for avoiding large cities because of the iniquities that had become inveterate among city dwellers, for living an agricultural life, and for disdaining wealth.

The one identifiable event in Philo’s life occurred in the year 39 or 40, when, after a pogrom against the Jews in Alexandria, he headed an embassy to the emperor Caligula asking him to reassert Jewish rights granted by the Ptolemies (rulers of Egypt) and confirmed by the emperor Augustus. Philo was prepared to answer the charge of disloyalty levelled against the Jews by the notorious anti-Semite Apion, a Greek grammarian, when the Emperor cut him short. Thereupon Philo told his fellow delegates not to be discouraged because God would punish Caligula, who, shortly thereafter, was indeed assassinated.

Works
Philo’s genuine works may be classified into three groups:

1. Scriptural essays and homilies based on specific verses or topics of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), especially Genesis. The most important of the 25 extant treatises in this group are Allegories of the Laws, commentary on Genesis, and On the Special Laws, an exposition of the laws in the Pentateuch.

2. General philosophical and religious essays. These include That Every Good Man Is Free, proving the Stoic paradox that only the wise man is free; On the Eternity of the World, perhaps not genuine, proving, particularly in opposition to the Stoics, that the world is uncreated and indestructible; On Providence, extant in Armenian, a dialogue between Philo, who argues that God is providential in his concern for the world, and Alexander, presumably Philo’s nephew Tiberius Julius Alexander, who raises doubts; and On Alexander, extant in Armenian, concerning the irrational souls of animals.

3. Essays on contemporary subjects. These include On the Contemplative Life, a eulogy of the Therapeutae sect; the fragmentary Hypothetica (“Suppositions”), actually a defense of the Jews against anti-Semitic charges to which Josephus’ treatise Against Apion bears many similarities; Against Flaccus, on the crimes of Aulus Avillius Flaccus, the Roman governor of Egypt, against the Alexandrian Jews and on his punishment; and On the Embassy to Gaius, an attack on the Emperor Caligula (i.e., Gaius) for his hostility toward the Alexandrian Jews and an account of the unsuccessful embassy to the Emperor headed by Philo.

A number of works ascribed to Philo are almost certainly spurious. Most important of these is Biblical Antiquities, an imaginative reconstruction of Jewish history from Adam to the death of Saul, the first king of Israel.

Philo’s works are rambling, having little sense of form; repetitious; artificially rhetorical; and almost devoid of a sense of humour. His style is generally involved, allusive, strongly tinged with mysticism, and often obscure; this may be a result of a deliberate attempt on his part to discourage all but the initiated few.

Originality Of His Thought
The key influences on Philo’s philosophy were Plato, Aristotle, the Neo-Pythagoreans, the Cynics, and the Stoics. Philo’s basic philosophic outlook is Platonic, so much so that Jerome and other Church Fathers quote the apparently widespread saying: “Either Plato philonizes or Philo platonizes.” Philo’s reverence for Plato, particularly for the Symposium and the Timaeus, is such that he never took open issue with him, as he did with the Stoics and other philosophers. But Philo is hardly a plagiarist; he made modifications in Plato’s theories. To Aristotle he was indebted primarily in matters of cosmology and ethics. To the Neo-Pythagoreans, who had grown in importance during the century before Philo, he was particularly indebted for his views on the mystic significance of numbers, especially the number seven, and the scheme of a peculiar, self-disciplined way of life as a preparation for immortality. The Cynics, with their diatribes, influenced him in the form of his sermons. Though Philo more often employed the terminology of the Stoics than that of any other school, he was critical of their thoughts.

In the past, scholars attempted to diminish Philo’s importance as a theological thinker and to present him merely as a preacher, but in the mid-20th century H.A. Wolfson, an American scholar, demonstrated Philo’s originality as a thinker. In particular, Philo was the first to show the difference between the knowability of God’s existence and the unknowability of his essence. Again, in his view of God, Philo was original in insisting on an individual Providence able to suspend the laws of nature in contrast to the prevailing Greek philosophical view of a universal Providence who is himself subject to the unchanging laws of nature. As a Creator, God made use of assistants: hence the plural “Let us make man” in Genesis, chapter 1. Philo did not reject the Platonic view of a preexistent matter but insisted that this matter too was created. Similarly, Philo reconciled his Jewish theology with Plato’s theory of Ideas in an original way: he posited the Ideas as God’s eternal thoughts, which God then created as real beings before he created the world.

Philo saw the cosmos as a great chain of being presided over by the Logos, a term going back to pre-Socratic philosophy, which is the mediator between God and the world, though at one point he identifies the Logos as a second God. Philo departed from Plato principally in using the term Logos for the Idea of Ideas and for the Ideas as a whole and in his statement that the Logos is the place of the intelligible world. In anticipation of Christian doctrine he called the Logos the first-begotten Son of God, the man of God, the image of God, and second to God.

Philo was also novel in his exposition of the mystic love of God that God has implanted in man and through which man becomes Godlike. According to some scholars, Philo used the terminology of the pagan religions and mystery cults, including the term enthousiasmos (“having God within one”), merely because it was part of the common speech of the day; but there is nothing inherently contradictory in Judaism in the combination of mysticism and legalism in the same thinker. The influence of the mystic notions of Platonism, especially of the Symposium, and of the popular mystery cults on Philo’s attempt to present Judaism as the one true mystery is hardly superficial; indeed, Philo is a major source of knowledge of the doctrines of these mystery cults, notably that of rebirth. Perhaps, through his mystic presentation of Judaism, Philo hoped to enable Judaism in the Diaspora to compete with the mystery religions in its proselyting efforts, as well as in its attempts to hold on to its adherents. That he was essentially in the mainstream of Judaism, however, is indicated by his respect for the literal interpretation of the Bible, his denunciation of the extreme allegorists, and his failure to mention any specific rites of initiation for proselytes, as well as the lack of evidence that he was himself a devotee of a particular mystery cult.

The purpose of what Philo called mystic “sober intoxication” was to lead one out of the material into the eternal world. Like Plato, Philo regarded the body as the prison house of the soul, and in his dualism of body and soul, as in his description of the flight from the self, the contrast between God and the world, and the yearning for a direct experience of God, he anticipated much of Gnosticism, a dualistic religion that became important in the 2nd century CE. But unlike all the Greek philosophers, with the exception of the Epicureans, who believed in limited freedom of will, Philo held that man is completely free to act against all the laws of his own nature.

In his ethical theory Philo described two virtues, under the heading of justice, that are otherwise unknown in Greek philosophic literature—religious faith and humanity. Again, for him repentance was a virtue, whereas for other Greek philosophers it was a weakness. Perfect happiness comes, however, not through men’s own efforts to achieve virtue but only through the grace of God.

In his political theory Philo often said that the best form of government is democracy, but for him democracy was far from mob rule, which he denounced as the worst of polities, perhaps because he saw the Alexandrian mob in action. For Philo democracy meant not a particular form of government but due order under any form of government in which all men are equal before the law. From this point of view, the Mosaic constitution, which embodies the best elements of all forms of government, is the ideal. Indeed, the ultimate goal of history is that the whole world be a single state under a democratic constitution.

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Judaism: Philo Judaeus
The first systematic attempt to apply Greek philosophical concepts to Jewish doctrines was made by Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria) in the 1st century ce. Philo was influenced by Platonic and Stoic writings and probably also by certain postbiblical Jewish beliefs and speculations.…
Two-page spread from Johannes Gutenberg's 42-line Bible, c. 1450–55.
biblical literature: The tripartite canon
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Two-page spread from Johannes Gutenberg's 42-line Bible, c. 1450–55.
biblical literature: The Hellenistic period
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Christianity: The Gentile mission and St. Paul
Like his elder contemporary Philo of Alexandria, also a Hellenized Jew of the dispersion, he interpreted the Old Testament allegorically and affirmed the primacy of spirit over letter in a manner that was in line with Jesus’ freedom with regard to the Sabbath. The crucifixion of Jesus he viewed…
Christ as Ruler, with the Apostles and Evangelists (represented by the beasts). The female figures are believed to be either Santa Pudenziana and Santa Práxedes or symbols of the Jewish and Gentile churches. Mosaic in the apse of Santa Pudenziana basilica, Rome, ad 401–417.
Christianity: The Apologists
Philo of Alexandria had spoken of the Logos as mediating between the transcendent God and the created order. Although some of their coreligionists were offended by the use of Greek philosophical ideas, the Apologists made important advances in the development of Christian thought and were…
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Philo Judaeus
JEWISH PHILOSOPHER
Philo Judaeus
FLOURISHED
c. 15 BCE - c. 50
Alexandria, Egypt
Alexandria, Egypt
SUBJECTS OF STUDY
Judaism
Platonism
mysticism
theology
Providence
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philosophy
criticism
theology

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