1. His Life
2. Importance of the Period
3. The Task of Philo
4. Changes and New Problems
5. Three Subjects of Inquiry
(1) The Conception of God
(2) God’s Relation to the World
(3) Doctrine of Man
6. Philo’s Works
LITERATURE
1. His Life:
Born probably in the first decade of Augustus Caesar, who became emperor in 27 BC. He died possibly in the last years of Claudius (41-54 AD), more likely in the early years of Nero (54-65 AD). We have no exact information about either date. He was a native of Alexandria, Egypt. His relatives were wealthy and prominent, probably sacerdotal, Jews. He received the best Jewish education, and was trained also in Gentilelearning - grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, geometry, poetry, music. Enjoying ample means, he was enabled to devote his career to scholarship. The Alexandrian Jews wielded great influence in the contemporary Roman empire, and the prominence of Philo’s family is attested by the fact that his brother, Alexander Lysimachus, was Alabarch of Alexandria. The single date in Philo’s life which we know accurately is connected with their leadership. In the winter of 39-40 AD, he was spokesman of the deputation sent to Rome to protest against imposition of emperor-worship upon fellow-citizens of his faith. The mission failed, Philo, with his two colleagues, meeting rebuff, even insult. It was little likely that Caligula would heed grievances which included specifically dissent from worship of himself. Philo records his distaste for political activity, and, so far as we know, the Roman incident excepted, he devoted himself principally to letters. As a young man probably, he had undertaken a journey to Jerusalem, almost in the nature of a pilgrimage to the ancient shrine of his religion. He paid a second visit to Rome possibly after 50 AD, at all events, in the reign of Claudius. For the rest, our knowledge of his life is scanty and, sometimes, legendary.
2. Importance of the Period:
The period covered by his career coincides with one of the most momentous epochs in history. For it witnesses, not only the foundation of the Roman imperial system, but also the beginning of the end of ancient classical civilization in its dominant ideas, and the plantation of Christianity. Preeminently an era of transition, it was marked by significant displacements in culture, the effects of which continue to sway mankind even yet. Minor phenomena aside, three principal movements characterized the time: the Pagan reaction, or reversion to forms of religion that had sufficed the peoples of the Rom empire hitherto - this manifested itself strongly with Augustus, and entered its decline perhaps with the death of Plutarch (circa 120 AD); the appearance of Christianity; and what is known as Syncretism, or interfusion between the conceptions of different races, especially in religion, philosophy and morals - a circumstance which affected the fortunes of Christianity deeply, found its chief exponent in Philo, and maintained itself for several centuries in theosophical systems of the Gnostics and neo-Platonists. Thus, to understand Philo, and to realize his importance, it is essential to remember the internal spirit of his age. The “universalism” of the Roman empire has been so named because, within the political framework, various peoples and divergent civilizations commingled and came eventually to share something of a common spirit, even of a common language. Philo’s prominence as a figure in the world of thought, and as an authority for the general culture of New Testament times, is out of all proportion to the fragmentary information available about his external career. Contemporary currents, subtle as they were, perplexing as they still remain, met and fused in his person. Hence, his value as an index to the temperament of the period cannot well be overrated.
3. The Task of Philo:
A Jew by nature and nurture, an oriental mystic by accident of residence, a Greek humanist by higher education and professional study, an ally of the Rom governing classes, familiar with their intellectual perspective, Philo is at once rich in suggestion and blurred in outline. Moreover, he addressed himself to two tasks, difficult to weld into a flawless unity. On the one hand, he wrote for educated men in Greek-Roman society, attempting to explain, often to justify, his racial religion before them. The ancient state religion having fallen upon inanition, he enjoyed unusual opportunity to point the merits of the Jewish faith as the “desire of all nations,” the panacea of which the need was everywhere felt. On the other hand, he had to confront his orthodox coreligionists, with their separatist traditions and their contempt for paganism in all its works. He tried to persuade them that, after all, Greek thought was not inimical to their cherished doctrines, but, on the contrary, involved similar, almost identical, principles. He thus represented an eclectic standpoint, one in which Greek philosophy blended with historical and dogmatic deductions from the Jewish Scriptures. The result was Philo’s peculiar type of theosophy - we cannot call it a system. Taking the Old Testament for text, he applied the “allegorical” method, with curious consequences. He taught that the Scriptures contain two meanings: a “lower” meaning, obvious in the literal statements of the text; and a “higher,” or hidden meaning, perceptible to the “initiate” alone. In this way he found it possible to reconcile Greek intellectualism with Jewish belief. Greek thought exhibits the “hidden” meaning; it turns out to be the elucidation of the “allegory” which runs through the Old Testament like a vein of gold. Moses, and the rest, are not merely historical figures, the subjects of such and such vicissitudes, but representative types of reason, righteousness, the virtues, and so forth. The tendency to fusion of this kind was no new thing. It is traceable for some three centuries before Philo, who may be said to complete the process. It had been familiar to the rabbis, and to the Hellenistic philosophers, particularly the Stoics, who applied this method to the Greek poetical myths. Philo reduces it to an expert art, and uses it as an instrument to dissipate all difficulties. He believed himself to be thoroughly true to the Old Testament. But, thanks to his method, he rendered it malleable, and could thus adjust its interpretation to what he considered to be the intellectual necessities of his generation. Nay more, he felt that, when at his best in this process, he became a vehicle of Divine possession. He says, “Through the influence of divine inspiration I have become excited profoundly ... then I have been conscious of a richness of interpretation, an enjoyment of light, a most penetrating sight, a most manifest energy in all that was to be done.” Again “I am irradiated with the light of wisdom,” and, “all intellect is a divine inspiration.” Little wonder, then, that we have a strange mixture of philosophy and religion, of rationalism and piety, of clear Greek intellectualism with hazy oriental mysticism. Hence, too, the philosophy of Philo is subordinate to his explanation of the Scriptures, and compromise, rather than logical thinking, marks his leading positions.
4. Changes and New Problems:
After the death of Cicero (43 BC) a change, long preparing, asserted itself in ancient thought. Mixture of national, or racial, characteristics was consummated, and thoughtful men, irrespective of race-origin, became persons to each other. A reorganization of standards of ethical judgment was thus rendered inevitable, and Judaism came to interfuse more freely with Greek philosophy as one consequence. While it is true that “reason” preserved its traditional supremacy as the means to solve all problems, the nature of the chief quest underwent transformation. The old association of man with Nature gave way to a dualism or opposition between the world-order and another existence lying behind it as its originator or sustainer. The system of Nature having disappointed expectation, thinkers asked how they could escape it, and assure themselves of definite relations with the Divine Being. They sought the desiderated connection within their own souls, but as a distant ideal. This was the problem that confronted Philo, who attacked it from the Jewish side. Now Judaism, like Greek thought, had also experienced a change of heart. Yahweh had been the subject of an idealizing process, and tended, like the Stoic deity, to lose specific relation with the world and man. Accordingly, a new religious question was bringing the philosophy and the faith into closer contact. Could they join forces? Philo’s consequent embarrassment rooted, not simply in this fresh problem, but in the difficulties inseparable from the adjustment of his available methods and materials. For, while the Jewish Messiah had passed over into the Greek
5. Three Subjects of Inquiry:
(1) The Conception of God:
Philo’s doctrine of God, like that of the neo-Platonic school, which he heralded, is thoroughly dualistic. No doubt, it is determined largely by certain human analogies. For example, God’s existence is necessary for the control of the world, just in the same way as man’s mind must exist to furnish the principle of all human action; and, as matter is not self-determined, a principle, analogous to mind, is demanded, to be its first cause. Further, as the permanent soul remains unchanged throughout the vicissitudes of a human life, so, behind the ceaseless play of phenomena, there must reside a self-existent Being. Nevertheless, the human analogy never extends to God in His actual Being. No human traits can attach to the Deity. Language may indicate such parallelism, nay the Scriptures are full of instances, but we must view them as concessions to mortal weakness. These accommodations eliminated, it becomes evident that man can never know God positively. Any adjective used to describe Him can do no more than point the contrast between His relationless Being and the dependence of finite things. That God is, Philo is fully persuaded; what He is, no man can ever tell. He is one and immutable, simple and immeasurable and eternal, just as man is not. “For he is unchangeable, requiring nothing else at all, so that all things belong to Him, but He, speaking strictly, belongs to nothing.” This doctrine of the transcendence of Deity was an essential postulate of Philonic thought. For, seeing that He expels all the imperfections of the world, God is precisely in that condition of Being for which the whole creation then yearned. In a word, the dualism, so far from being a bar to salvation, was rather a condition without which the problem of salvation could neither be stated nor solved. Men stood in necessary relation to this Being, but, as yet, He stood in no relation whatever to them. Yet, men must return to God, but He abides so remote, in the realm of pure contemplation and completion, that He cannot approach them. Philo’s familiarity with logical Greek thought debarred him from surmounting the difficulty after the manner of Jewish religion. An otiose reference to “God’s choice,” as distinct from His nature, could not suffice a mind trained in Hellenic methods. The question therefore was, How could mediation be effected?
(2) God’s Relation to the World.
At this point Philo’s thought assumes a phase of great interest to readers of the New Testament. God, being above created things, is incomprehensible and immaterial. Accordingly, He cannot be connected with the world directly. Therefore He created it and sustains it by intermediate powers. These agencies were suggested to Philo by the Platonic Ideas. But he personalized them more or less and, as a characteristic addition, included them in the
(3) Doctrine of Man.
This appears further in the doctrine of man. Following current interpretations of Plato, Philo makes man partake in the rational nature of God, but denies that he embodies the highest species of reason. That is, the ideal man and the man known to us in common experience are distinguished. The former is rational as God is. The latter is partly rational, partly irrational. The body vitiates the original angelic purity of the soul and, similarly, reason is alloyed. And yet, although the higher nature becomes more and more debased as the years lapse, a seed of Divinity is present, ready to burst forth. Thus man must crush the flesh and its desires. At this point we note the effect of the Stoic ideal of imperturbability. When he has attained this apathy, man can enjoy the life of contemplation. This, in its turn, culminates in ecstasy, when the human soul attains sudden and momentary union with the Divine. For a “fair moment” man escapes the thralldom of sense. Yet the doctrine remains intellectual even here. He “who escapes from his own mind flies to the mind of the universe, confessing that all the things of the human mind are vain and unreal, and attributing everything to God.” Philo’s anthropology therefore ends in contempt for this life, which is in no wise worth while, and in a counsel of perfection available only for a select elite. Accordingly, the conclusion of the whole matter is, that he never saw how the divine and the human can be united, although he stated the factors of the problem with great clearness, and felt profoundly the urgency of a solution. His gospel was for the children of culture. He saw the eternal in the temporal, and hoped that good might lurk in evil. But he never understood that “love for a Divine Person” might be so diffused throughout a human soul as to render evil and unreality the means to the attainment of good and to the revelation of truth. The salvation he contemplated was from self, not in self. Hence, as he asserts himself, harmony with God “is an incomprehensible mystery to the multitude, and is to be imparted to the instructed only.” Nor is this wonderful. For a God who is the reasonable “form” of the world; a “matter” which begins as an indistinguishable mass and ends as a “second principle”; and objects of sense rendered apparent by the operation of many curious intermediate forces, ranging from “angel-words” to the human soul, constitute a combination beyond the reach of any save the “initiate.” More practicable is Philo’s conception of the moral life - as a warfare of the soul against passion, pleasure and sensuality. Yet, even this contest is hopeless unless it be waged with the equipment of the “philosopher athlete.” Escape from the “prison-house” of flesh would seem to be consequent only upon profound knowledge.
6. Philo’s Works:
The probability is that Philo’s works were written previous to his Roman embassy. They show how he tried to apply Greek philosophical conceptions to Jewish beliefs, history, and usages exclusively. The voluminous remains which have come down to us appear to belong to three commentaries on the Pentateuch and the Mosaic Law. In all likelihood, they are portions of Philo’s popular presentation, written for the instruction and information of educated Hellenistic circles rather than for the trained “initiate.” The treatises most important for Philo’s religio-philosophical views are as follows: On the Creation of the World; On the Allegories of the Sacred Laws; On the Unchangeableness of God; On the Confusion of Languages; On the Migration of Abraham; On the Meeting for the Sake of Receiving Instruction; On the Life of the Wise Man Made Perfect by Instruction; The Unwritten Law; Abraham; On Special Laws; On Rewards and Punishments; That Every Man Who Is Virtuous Is Also Free; Concerning the World; and the Fragments. Some 8 works attributed to Philo are in dispute. Most conspicuous of these is Concerning the Contemplative Life, with its ascetic view of morality, and its description of the ideal community of the Therapeutae.
Literature.
E. Schurer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Division II, Volume III, pp. 321 f (Edinburgh, 1886); E. Schurer, “Philo” in EB; James Drummond, Philo Judaeus, or, The Jewish-Alexandrian Philosophy in Its Development and Completion (2 volumes, London, 1888); R. M. Wenley, Socrates and Christ: a Study in the Philosophy of Religion, chapters vii, viii (Edinburgh, 1889); H. Ewald, The History of Israel, VII, 194 f (London, 1885); A. Haursrath, A History of New Testament Times, division II, volume I, chapters iv through vi (London, 1885); H. Graetz, History of the Jews from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, II, 183 f, 206 f (London, 1891); E. Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, II, lectures xx-xxi, xxvii (Glasgow, 1904); article “Philo” in Jewish Encyclopedia; Ernest F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, Its Purpose and Theology, 54 f, 145 f (2nd edition, Edinburgh, 1908); F.C. Conybeare, Philo: About the Contemplative Life (Oxford, 1895). An English translation has been made by C.D. Yonge in the Bohn Library (London, G. Bell and Sons). The text cited usually is that of T. Mangey. The best modern text is that of Cohn and Wendland.
Philo Judaeus, or Philo of Alexandria, was a Jewish philosopher who lived from around 25 BC to AD 40. He was one of the first to try to combine Jewish religious beliefs with Greek ways of thinking.
Who Was Philo?
Philo came from an important family in Alexandria. He learned about both the Jewish faith and Greek ideas during his education. We do not know much about his life, but we do know that in AD 40, he led a group of Jewish representatives to Rome to meet with Emperor Caligula.
At that time, there was growing tension between Greeks and Jews in Alexandria. The Jewish community there was growing larger and becoming more successful in business, especially in selling wheat. This made some Greeks angry and jealous. In AD 42, the Greeks started riots and forced the Jewish people to leave certain parts of the city.
Because of these events, Philo wrote two books defending the Jewish people. One book was called Against Flaccus (about the governor of Alexandria) and the other was called Embassy to Caligula (about his meeting with the emperor in Rome)."
How Did Philo Bring Together Jewish and Greek Thinking?
The Jewish people in Alexandria were strongly influenced by Greek culture. They even read their holy writings in Greek instead of Hebrew. This Greek translation was called the Septuagint.
Even though these Jews lived among Greeks and followed some Greek customs, they kept their traditional Jewish beliefs. Philo was like this, too. He carefully followed God's law (found in the first five books of the Bible) and believed it was God's perfect message. He thought this law was important for everyone, both Jews and non-Jews.
At the same time, Philo's way of thinking was very Greek. He probably did not know much Hebrew (the original language of Jewish scripture). Instead, he learned from Greek teachers. When Philo read the Scriptures, he mainly studied the Old Testament, especially its first five books. He read these in Greek rather than Hebrew. Philo believed God had guided the translation of these books into Greek, so he did not need to look at the Hebrew version.
To understand Philo’s work, one must recognize that there are two reasons to accept Greek culture:
Jews living in Greek areas needed to understand Greek ways of life to survive.
The Jewish faith was meant to reach out to other people. The ancient Jewish prophets had said that Israel should be a light to teach non-Jewish people about God.
From his studies, Philo found many true ideas in Greek philosophy. He wanted to show how these Greek ideas could work together with the truth he found in the Bible. This was a big challenge for him. He needed to figure out how to accept new ideas while staying true to his faith. This is similar to how some Christians today try to understand how modern science fits with their religious beliefs.
How Did Philo Interpret the Scripture?
Philo had a special way of reading the Bible that helped him connect its teachings with Greek ideas. This way of reading is called allegory. When using allegory, readers look for deeper meanings hidden in the stories. Many people before Philo had used this method, and many others used it after him.
Using allegory, Philo could read the book of Genesis in a new way. Instead of seeing it as just old stories about what happened long ago (which is how Greeks might have seen it), he saw it as stories about how all people search for God and try to live better lives.
Philo believed Moses wrote these stories in a special way. He said that God had taught Moses, and Moses had also learned the best ideas from philosophy. Unlike other teachers who just made up stories, Moses could help people see important ideas through his writing.
When Philo read the Bible this way, he found deeper spiritual meanings in its stories and rules. These deeper meanings matched many of the true things he had learned from Greek thinkers.
When Philo thought about God, he was careful to compare Greek ideas with what the Bible taught. If Greek ideas did not match the Bible's teaching, he rejected them.
The Bible does not say much about how God made the world or what the world is made of. Because of this, Philo felt free to use ideas from Greek philosophers to help explain these things. Philo believed that both the Bible's teachings and the true parts of Greek philosophy came from God. In ancient Greek philosophy, Logos referred to a universal principle of order, logic, and knowledge that holds the world together. The human mind is made in the image of the divine Logos, and so it has some capacity to receive and discover truths about realities beyond what we can know by our senses.
What Did Philo Teach About God and How the World Was Made?
Of all the Greek thinkers, Philo thought Plato's ideas about God were closest to the truth. He agreed with Plato about several things:
God existed forever before he made the world. Even after making the world, God stayed separate from it and greater than it. The world cannot live or move by itself - it needs God to give it life and keep it moving. When God does this, the world works perfectly.
Philo believed God takes care of everything he created. The Greeks called this care "providence," but they thought it just meant God keeps nature working in its usual way. Philo saw it differently. He believed God cares about each individual thing he made. He thought God could even change how nature usually works if he wanted to.
God is one, but he made many different things. God never changes and does not need anything. God does not even the world he made. God created everything because he is good and wanted to share his goodness.
Moses wrote that God made the world in six days. But Philo thought God actually made everything at the same time. He believed the story of six days just helps us understand that God created everything in an organized way.
Philo taught that God made the world from nothing. There was nothing there before God created. God used all the available material when he made the world, which is why Philo believed there is only one world. God created the world because he wanted to, and Philo thought this might mean the world will last forever.
Philo noticed that the Greek philosopher Plato had similar ideas about God creating the world. He thought Plato must have learned these ideas from Moses's writings.
What Did Philo Say About the Logos?
When Philo developed his ideas about the Logos, he both used and changed some ideas from Greek philosophers. Plato had taught that there were perfect ideas that had always existed. He said that when God made the world, he looked at these perfect ideas as a pattern. But Philo disagreed with part of this teaching. He believed that only God had existed forever.
Philo found a way to combine these different ideas. He taught that the perfect ideas had always existed, but only as thoughts in God's mind. These thoughts only became a complete pattern when God decided to make the physical world we can see. For Philo, these perfect ideas existed only in God's mind, and God used them as a pattern when making our world.
Philo believed that the Logos was extremely important. It was more than just the tool God used to make the world we can see. He tried to explain the Logos in several important ways. Philo called the Logos "the idea of ideas." He saw it as the first-begotten Son of the uncreated Father and even called it a "second God." He believed the Logos was the perfect model for how human minds should work.
The Logos, according to Philo, had a special role. It was like a power that keeps everything God made working together. It helps people understand God's messages, acting like a bridge between God and the world God created. Like a priest, it carries people's prayers to God. Philo believed the Logos was present when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and that it lived inside Moses to guide him.
While some people wondered if the Logos was the same as God, Philo said it was only a picture or image of God. He did not think of the Logos as a person. Even today, it is hard to understand exactly what Philo thought the Logos was or how it related to God.
Many Christian writers later used some of Philo's ideas about the Logos. The author of the Gospel of John was especially important in this. At the beginning of his Gospel, John calls the eternal Son the Logos (translated as “the Word” in most English translations). John says that God created the world through the Word (see John 1:1–4).
We do not know much about where these ideas about the Logos first came from. We do know that other Jewish people who lived in Greek areas during Philo's time also talked about the Logos. When we look at how Philo used this idea, it seems he was more influenced by Greek philosophy than by the Bible's teachings.
What Did Philo Believe About How Humans Were Created?
Philo had other interesting ideas about how God created things. He believed the stars and planets were living beings with minds that could never do evil. However, he thought humans were different. Humans could be both good and bad, wise and foolish.
Philo believed God made all good things by himself. But since humans could be both good and bad, he thought they must have been made by lesser divine beings helping God. This is why we are told by Moses that God said, “Let Us make man” (Genesis 1:26). The word "us" was important to Philo.
Philo saw two separate steps in how humans were created. In the first step, God made an idea or pattern of what humans should be. This pattern was not physical. It had no body and wasn't male or female. It could never be corrupted or destroyed (Genesis 1:26). In the second step, as described in Genesis 2:7, "God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils."
This created the first physical human being, with a body and soul, who could die. Humans were now either male or female. Philo believed that when the first man and woman saw each other, they felt desire. This led to physical pleasure, which Philo saw as the beginning of doing wrong things and breaking God's laws.
Philo did not think we should take the story of the garden of Eden literally. He did not believe there were ever real trees of life or knowledge or that such trees would ever exist. Instead, he saw them as symbols:
The tree of life represents respect and love for God
The tree of knowledge represents understanding right from wrong
How Did Philo Think People Should Connect with God?
Philo's ideas show that he saw the world as split into two parts. He believed spiritual things were good and physical things were bad. These ideas come from the ideas of Plato, a way of thinking called Platonism. Philo tried to find these ideas in the Old Testament. Because of this way of thinking, Philo agreed with another group of Greek thinkers called the Stoics. They taught that only what is good for the soul matters. Philo believed God gave us the world to use for a while, not to own forever.
Philo taught that to grow closer to God, people needed to stop paying attention to the physical world around them. He generally believed people should deny themselves physical pleasures to focus on spiritual things.
The only temple worthy of God is a pure soul. Philo thought true faith comes from how we feel and think inside, not from the religious activities we do on the outside. The soul is like Abraham or like the Israelites wandering in the desert. Through spiritual self-discipline, the soul comes to realize that the body is a major obstacle to perfection.
The goal of this spirituality is to draw near to God, who has drawn the mind to himself. God is knowable by the mind. However, God is unknowable in himself. We can know only that he is, not what he is.
Philo believed that as people try to become better, they eventually learn something important: they cannot become perfect by themselves. They learn that being good is a gift from God. When people understand their own limits, they begin to truly know God and realize how much they need God's help.
How Did Philo's Ideas Affect Later Religious Teachers?
The Jewish historian Josephus used some of Philo's ideas in his writings. However, Philo had his greatest influence on early Christian writers and teachers. Over the next 200 years, the type of Jewish thinking that combined Greek and Jewish ideas (which Philo represented) became less important. Instead, the teachings of Jewish rabbis became the main form of Judaism.
However, Christians in the years 100–300 AD found many of Philo's ideas helpful. His writings were so important that people translated them into different languages, including Latin (the language of Rome) and Armenian. Several important early Christian teachers (called "church fathers") used Philo's ideas in their own work. These included Clement and Origen, who wrote in Greek, and Ambrose, who wrote in Latin.
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