Philo of Alexandria

Life

Philo's dates of birth and death are unknown but can be judged by Philo's description of himself as "old" when he was part of the delegation to Gaius Caligula in 38 CE. Jewish history professor Daniel R. Schwartz estimates his birth year as sometime between 15 and 10 BCE. Philo's reference to an event under the reign of Emperor Claudius indicates that he died sometime between 45 and 50 CE. Philo also recounts that he visited the Second Temple in Jerusalem at least once in his lifetime.

Family

Although the names of his parents are unknown, it is known that Philo came from a family which was noble, honourable and wealthy. Either his father or paternal grandfather was granted Roman citizenship by Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar. Jerome wrote that Philo came de genere sacerdotum (from a priestly family). His ancestors and family had social ties and connections to the priesthood in Judea, the Hasmonean dynasty, the Herodian dynasty and the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome.

Philo had one brother, Alexander Lysimachus, who was the general tax administrator of customs in Alexandria. He accumulated an immense amount of wealth, becoming not only the richest man in that city but also in the entire Hellenistic world. Alexander was so rich that he gave a loan to the wife of king Herod Agrippa, as well as gold and silver to overlay the nine gates of the temple in Jerusalem. Due to his extreme wealth, Alexander was also influential in imperial Roman circles as a friend of emperor Claudius. Through Alexander, Philo had two nephews, Tiberius Julius Alexander and Marcus Julius Alexander. The latter was the first husband of the Herodian princess Berenice. Marcus died in 43 or 44. Some scholars identify Alexander Lysimachus as the Alexander referenced in the Book of Acts, who presided over the Sanhedrin trial of John and Peter.

Diplomacy

Philo lived in an era of increasing ethnic tension in Alexandria, exacerbated by the new strictures of imperial rule. Some expatriate Hellenes (Greeks) in Alexandria condemned the Jews for a supposed alliance with Rome, even as Rome was seeking to suppress Jewish national and cultural identity in the Roman province of Judaea. In Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus tells of Philo's selection by the Alexandrian Jewish community as their principal representative before the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula. He says that Philo agreed to represent the Alexandrian Jews about the civil disorder that had developed between the Jews and the Greeks. Josephus also tells us that Philo was skilled in philosophy and that he was brother to the alabarch Alexander. According to Josephus, Philo and the larger Jewish community refused to treat the emperor as a god, to erect statues in honour of the emperor, and to build altars and temples to the emperor. Josephus says Philo believed that God actively supported this refusal.

Josephus' complete comments about Philo:

There was now a tumult arisen at Alexandria, between the Jewish inhabitants and the Greeks; and three ambassadors were chosen out of each party that were at variance, who came to Gaius. Now one of these ambassadors from the people of Alexandria was Apion, (29) who uttered many blasphemies against the Jews; and, among other things that he said, he charged them with neglecting the honors that belonged to Caesar; for that while all who were subject to the Roman empire built altars and temples to Gaius, and in other regards universally received him as they received the gods, these Jews alone thought it a dishonorable thing for them to erect statues in honor of him, as well as to swear by his name. Many of these severe things were said by Apion, by which he hoped to provoke Gaius to anger at the Jews, as he was likely to be. But Philo, the principal of the Jewish embassage, a man eminent on all accounts, brother to Alexander the Alabarch, (30) and one not unskillful in philosophy, was ready to betake himself to make his defense against those accusations; but Gaius prohibited him, and bid him begone; he was also in such a rage, that it openly appeared he was about to do them some very great mischief. So Philo being thus affronted, went out, and said to those Jews who were about him, that they should be of good courage, since Gaius's words indeed showed anger at them, but in reality had already set God against himself.

This event is also described in Book 2, Chapter 5 of Eusebius's Historia Ecclesiae.

Education

Philo along with his brothers received a thorough education. They were educated in the Hellenistic culture of Alexandria and the culture of ancient Rome, to a degree in Ancient Egyptian religion and particularly in the traditions of Judaism, in the study of Jewish traditional literature and in Greek philosophy.

In his works, Philo shows extensive influence not only from philosophers such as Plato and the Stoics, but also poets and orators, especially Homer, Euripides, and Demosthenes. Philo's largest philosophical influence was Plato, drawing heavily from the Timaeus and the Phaedrus, and also from the Phaedo, Theaetetus, Symposium, Republic, and Laws.

The extent of Philo's knowledge of Hebrew, however, is debated. Philo was more fluent in Greek than in Hebrew and read the Jewish Scriptures chiefly from the Septuagint, a Koine Greek translation of Hebraic texts later compiled as the Hebrew Bible and the deuterocanonical books. His numerous etymologies of Hebrew names, which are along the lines of the etymologic midrash to Genesis and of the earlier rabbinism, although not modern Hebrew philology, suggest some familiarity. Philo offers for some names three or four etymologies, sometimes including the correct Hebrew root (e.g., Hebrew: י־ר־ד, romanized: y-r-d, lit. 'descend' as the origin of the name Jordan). However, his works do not display much understanding of Hebrew grammar, and they tend to follow the translation of the Septuagint more closely than the Hebrew version.

Philo identified the angel of the Lord (in the singular) with the Logos. In the text attributed to Philo, he "consistently uses Κύριος as a designation for God". According to David B. Capes, "the problem for this case, however, is that Christian scholars are responsible for copying and transmitting Philo's words to later generations", and adds,

George Howard surveys evidence and concludes: "Although it is improbable that Philo varied from the custom of writing the Tetragram when quoting from Scripture, it is likely that he used the word Κύριος when making a secondary reference to the divine name in his exposition". James Royse concludes:(1) the exegete [Philo] knows and reads biblical manuscripts in which the tetragram is written in palaeo-Hebrew or Aramaic script and not translated by kyrios and that (2) he quotes scriptures in the same way he would have pronounced it, that is, by translating it as kurios."

Philosophy

Philo represents the apex of Jewish-Hellenistic syncretism. His work attempts to combine Plato and Moses into one philosophical system.

Allegorical interpretation

Philo bases his doctrines on the Hebrew Bible, which he considers the source and standard not only of religious truth but of all truth. Its pronouncements are the ἱερὸς λόγος, θεῖος λόγος, and ὀρθὸς λόγος (holy word, godly word, righteous word), uttered sometimes directly and sometimes through the mouth of a prophet, and especially through Moses, whom Philo considers the true medium of revelation. However, he distinguishes between the words uttered by God himself, such as the Ten Commandments, and the edicts of Moses (as the special laws).

Philo regards the Bible as the source not only of religious revelation but also of philosophical truth. Philo claims that Moses learned mathematics from the Egyptians, astronomy and astrology from the Chaldeans, and other subjects from the Greeks. He says that Moses advanced beyond his teachers, leading them to learn from him instead. Philo believed the Greeks such as Heraclitus took ideas from Mosaic law. By applying the Stoic mode of allegorical interpretation to the Hebrew Bible, he interpreted the stories of the first five books as elaborate metaphors and symbols to demonstrate that Greek philosophers' ideas had preceded them in the Bible: Heraclitus's concept of binary oppositions, according to Who is the Heir of Divine Things? § 43 [i. 503]; and the conception of the wise man expounded by Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, in Every Good Man is Free, § 8 [ii. 454]. Philo did not reject the subjective experience of ancient Judaism; yet, he repeatedly explained that the Septuagint cannot be understood as a concrete, objective history.

Philo's allegorical interpretation of scripture allows him to grapple with morally disturbing events and impose a cohesive explanation of stories. Specifically, Philo interprets the characters of the Bible as aspects of the human being and the stories of the Bible as episodes from universal human experience. For example, Adam represents the mind and Eve, the senses. Noah represents tranquility, a stage of "relative"—incomplete but progressing—righteousness. According to Josephus, Philo was inspired mainly in this by Aristobulus of Alexandria and the Alexandrian school.

Philo frequently engaged in Pythagorean-inspired numerology, explaining at length the importance of the first 10 numerals:

One is God’s number and the basis for all numbers.

Theology

Philo stated his theology both through the negation of opposing ideas and through detailed, positive explanations of the nature of God; he contrasted the nature of God with the nature of the physical world. Philo did not consider God similar to Heaven, the world, or man; he affirmed a transcendent God without physical features or emotional qualities resembling those of human beings. Following Plato, Philo equates matter to nothingness and sees its effect in fallacy, discord, damage, and decay of things. Only God's existence is specific; no appropriate predicates can be conceived. To Philo, God exists beyond time and space and does not make special interventions into the world because God already encompasses the entire cosmos.

Philo also integrated select theology from the rabbinic tradition, including God's transcendence, and humankind's inability to behold an ineffable God. He argued that God has no attributes (ἁπλοῡς)—in consequence, no name (ἅρρητος)—and, therefore, that God cannot be perceived by man (ἀκατάληπτος). Furthermore, he posited that God cannot change (ἅτρεπτος): God is always the same (ἀΐδιος). God needs no other being (χρῄζει γὰρ οὐδενὸς τὸ παράπαν) for self-existence or the creation of material things, and God is self-sufficient (ἑαυτῷ ἱκανός). God can never perish (ἅφθαρτος), is self-existent (ὁ ὤν, τὸ ὄν), and has no relations with any other being (τὸ γὰρ ὄν, ᾗ ὄν ἐστιν, οὐχὶ τῶν πρός τι).

Philo considered the anthropomorphism of the Bible to be an impiety that was incompatible with the Platonic conception of "God in opposition to matter", instead interpreting the ascription to God of hands and feet, eyes and ears, tongue and windpipe, as allegories. In Philo's interpretation, Hebrew scripture adapts itself to human conceptions, and so God is occasionally represented as a man for pedagogic reasons. The same holds true for God's anthropopathic attributes. God, as such, is untouched by unreasonable emotions, as appears in Exodus 32:12, wherein Moses, torn by his feelings, perceives God alone to be calm. He is free from sorrow, pain, and other affections. But God is frequently represented as endowed with human emotions, and this serves to explain expressions referring to human repentance in the ancient Jewish context.

Similarly, God cannot exist or change in space. He has no "where" (πού, obtained by changing the accent in Genesis 3:9: "Adam, where [ποῡ] art thou?"), is not in any place. He is Himself the place; the dwelling-place of God means the same as God Himself, as in the Mishnah = "God is" (comp. Freudenthal, "Hellenistische Studien", p. 73), corresponding to the tenet of Greek philosophy that the existence of all things is summed up in God. God as such is motionless, as the Bible indicates by the phrase "God stands".

Soul

The Logos has a special relation to humankind. Philo seems to look at humans as a trichotomy of nous (mind), psyche (soul), and soma (body), which was common to the Hellenistic view of the mind-body relationship. In Philo's writings, however, mind and spirit are used interchangeably. The soul is the type; man is the copy. The similarity is found in the mind (νοῦς) of humans. For the shaping of the nous, the individual has the Logos for a pattern to follow. The latter officiates here also as "the divider" (τομεύς), separating and uniting. The Logos, as "interpreter," announces God's designs to humankind, acting in this respect as prophet and priest. As the latter, the Logos softens punishments by making God's merciful power stronger than the punitive. The Logos has a special mystic influence upon the human soul, illuminating it and nourishing it with higher spiritual food, like the manna, of which the most diminutive piece has the same vitality as the whole.

Ethics and politics

Philo's ethics were strongly influenced by Pythagoreanism and Stoicism, preferring a morality of virtues without passions, such as lust/desire and anger, but with a "common human sympathy". Commentators can also infer from his mission to Caligula that Philo was involved in politics. However, the nature of his political beliefs, especially his viewpoint on the Roman Empire, is a matter of debate.

Philo did suggest in his writings that a prudent man should withhold his genuine opinion about tyrants:

he will of necessity take up caution as a shield, as a protection to prevent his suffering any sudden and unexpected evil; for as I imagine what a wall is to a city, that caution is to an individual. Do not these men then talk foolishly, are they not mad, who desire to display their inexperience and freedom of speech to kings and tyrants, at times daring to speak and to do things in opposition to their will? Do they not perceive that they have not only put their necks under the yoke like brute beasts, but that they have also surrendered and betrayed their whole bodies and souls likewise, and their wives and their children, and their parents, and all the rest of the numerous kindred and community of their other relations? ... when an opportunity offers, it is a good thing to attack our enemies and put down their power; but when we have no such opportunity, it is better to be quiet

Works

The works of Philo are mostly allegorical interpretations of the Torah (known in the Hellenic world as the Pentateuch) but also include histories and comments on philosophy. Most of these were preserved in Greek by the Church Fathers; some survive only through an Armenian translation, and a smaller number survive in a Latin translation. The exact dates of writing and original organization plans are unknown for many of the texts attributed to Philo.

Commentaries on the Pentateuch

Most of Philo's surviving work deals with the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Within this corpus are three categories:

Quaestiones ("Inquiries") – short verse-by-verse exposition: four books on the Book of Genesis and two on the Book of Exodus. All six books are preserved through an Armenian translation published by Jean-Baptiste Aucher in 1826. A comparison with surviving Greek and Latin fragments recommends the translation as literal and accurate as it goes, but it suggests that some original content is missing. There are thought to be twelve original books, six of which are about Genesis and six of which are about Exodus.

Allegorical Commentary – a longer exegesis explaining esoteric meanings; the surviving text deals only with the Book of Genesis, with the notable omission of Genesis 1.

"Exposition of the Law" – a more straightforward synthesis of topics in the Pentateuch, probably written for Gentiles as well as Jews.

Philo's commentary on the Pentateuch is usually classified into three genres.

The Quaestiones explain the Pentateuch catechetically, in the form of questions and answers ("Zητήματα καὶ Λύσεις, Quæstiones et Solutiones"). Only the following fragments have been preserved: abundant passages in Armenian – possibly the complete work – in explanation of Genesis and Exodus, an old Latin translation of a part of the "Genesis", and fragments from the Greek text in Eusebius, in the "Sacra Parallela", in the "Catena", and also in Ambrosius. The explanation is confined chiefly to determining the literal sense, although Philo frequently refers to the allegorical sense as the higher.

Νόμων Ἱερῶν Ἀλληγορίαι, or "Legum Allegoriæ", deals, so far as it has been preserved, with selected passages from Genesis. According to Philo's original idea, the history of primal humanity is here considered a symbol of the religious and moral development of the human soul. This commentary included the following treatises:

Independent works

Philo is also credited with writing:

Apologies for Judaism, including On the Life of Moses, On the Jews, and On the Contemplative Life.

Historical works (describing current events in Alexandria and the Roman Empire), including Ad Flaccum and De legatione ad Gaium

Philosophical works including Every Good Man Is Free, On the Eternity of the World, On Animals, and On Providence, the latter two surviving only through Armenian translation.

Works now lost, but mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea.

"On Providence", preserved only in Armenian, and printed from Aucher's Latin translation in the editions of Richter and others (on Greek fragments of the work see Schürer, l.c. pp. 531 et seq.).

"De Animalibus" (on the title, see Schürer, l.c. p. 532; in Richter's ed. viii. 101–144).

ϓποθετικά ("Counsels"), a work known only through fragments in Eusebius, Præparatio Evangelica, viii. 6, 7. The meaning of the title is open to discussion; it may be identical with the following

Περὶ Ἰουδαίων an apology for the Jews (Schürer, l.c. pp. 532 et seq.).

This is the second half of a work on the freedom of the just according to Stoic principles. The genuineness of this work has been disputed by Frankel (in "Monatsschrift", ii. 30 et seq., 61 et seq.), by Grätz ("Gesch". iii. 464 et seq.), and more recently by Ansfeld (1887), Hilgenfeld (in "Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Theologie", 1888, pp. 49–71), and others. Now Wendland, Ohle, Schürer, Massebieau, and Krell consider it genuine, except the partly interpolated passages on the Essenes.

In Legatio ad Gaium (Embassy to Gaius), Philo describes his diplomatic mission to Gaius Caligula, one of the few events in his life which is explicitly known. He relates that he was carrying a petition describing the sufferings of the Alexandrian Jews and asking the emperor to secure their rights.

Other works ascribed to Philo

"De Mundo", a collection of extracts from Philo, especially from the preceding work

"De Sampsone" and "De Jona", in Armenian, published with Latin translation by Jean-Baptiste Aucher.

"Interpretatio Hebraicorum Nominum", a collection, by an anonymous Jew, of the Hebrew names occurring in Philo. Origen enlarged it by adding New Testament names, and Jerome revised it. See below for the etymology of names occurring in Philo's exegetical works.

A "Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum", which was printed in the sixteenth century and then disappeared, has been discussed by Cohn in "J. Q. R." 1898, x. 277–332. It narrates Biblical history from Adam to Saul

The pseudo-Philonic "Breviarium Temporum", published by Annius of Viterbo

For a list of Philo's lost works, see Schürer, l.c. p. 534.

"De Incorruptibilitate Mundi". Jakob Bernays has argued convincingly that this work is spurious. Its peripatetic basic idea that the world is eternal and indestructible contradicts all those Jewish teachings that were, for Philo, an indisputable presupposition. Bernays has proved simultaneously that the text has been confused through wrong pagination, and he has cleverly restored it.

Legacy

Christianity

Although Philo was a Jewish Middle Platonist, his influence on both Platonism and Judaism was limited compared to his adaptation by the early Christian Church fathers. His impact on Platonism was mainly restricted to Christian Middle Platonists such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and even potential connections to Numenius of Apamea, a 2nd-century CE Middle Platonist who also wrote on Judaism and was influenced by Pythagoreanism, cannot be definitively proven.

Philo's work was used by Clement, Origen, and Pantaenus in Alexandria to connect the bible with philosophical ideas. His work was seen positively by later Alexandrians Didymus and Isidore, as well as Gregory of Nyssa, and cited extensively by Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome, and Ambrose. Early Christian writers were especially interested in his paraphrasings of the Bible for their historical apologetics, and his allegorical and Platonic style of exegesis. They continued in Philo's ideas of God as unknowable and unchangeable, man's being made in the image of God endowing him with reason, and his conversion of the ideas of virtue from Greek philosophy to Biblical virtues.

In the fourth century the work of Philo became unpopular due to his ideas becoming associated with Origenism and Arianism, schools of thought seen to be heretical. During this time he was especially unpopular among the Antiochene school of interpretation, most notably by Theodore of Mopsuestia. Direct citations to Philo decreased, but the themes of his work continued to later Christian writers indirectly through the earlier writers inspired by him.

Judaism

Though never properly attributed, Philo's marriage of Jewish exegesis with Stoicism and Platonism provided a formula later picked up by other Midrash content from the 3rd and 4th centuries. Philo's ideas were further developed by later Judaism in the doctrines of the Divine Word creating the world, the divine throne-chariot and its cherub, the divine splendor and its Shekhinah, the name of God, as well as the names of the angels.

Some claimed this lack of credit or affinity for Philo by the Rabbinic leadership at the time was due to his adoption of allegorical instead of literal interpretations of the Hebrew Bible.

For a long time, Philo was read and analyzed chiefly by Christian authors. Azariah dei Rossi's Me'or Enayim: Imre Binah (1575), one of the first Jewish commentaries on Philo, describes four "serious defects" of Philo: reading the Torah in Greek, not Hebrew; belief in primordial matter rather than creatio ex nihilo; unbelief in the Lord as evidenced by excessively allegorical interpretation of scripture; and neglect of the Jewish oral tradition. Dei Rossi later gives a possible defense of Philo and writes that he can neither absolve nor convict him.

List of extant works

Some 50 works by Philo have survived, and he is known to have written some 20 to 25 further works which have been lost.

The following list gives conventional Latin and English titles and abbreviations commonly used in reference works.

Editions and translations

The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged. Translated by Charles Duke Yonge. 1854–1855.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

Cohn, Leopold & Paul Wendland, Philonis Alexandrini Opera quæ supersunt (The Surviving Works of Philo of Alexandria) [Greek and Latin]. Berlin: George Reimer.

Volumes 1–3 (1896, 1897, 1898)

Volumes 4–6 (1902, 1906, 1915)

Volume 7 (1926; indexed by Hans Leisegang)

"Index of Philosophical Writings" (PDF). Documenta Catholica Omnia (in Greek). [Online Greek text of Volumes 1-7 above. Under "Graecum - Greco - Greek" section]

Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time. by Peder Borgen. Leiden: Brill. 1997. ISBN 9004103880.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

Philo with an English Translation. Vol. 1–10. Translated by F.H. Colson & G.H. Whitaker. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1929–62.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

Terian, Abraham, ed. (1981). Philonis Alexandrini de animalibus: The Armenian Text with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. ISBN 9780891304722.