Philo

PHILO. — The greatest writer among the Jews of Alexandria, b. ca. 30 B.C., d. ca. 50 A.D. Of distinguished family (Fl. Josephus, Antiq. Jud., XVIII, S. 1), he received, together with a Jewish education, the Greek education customary among distinguished citizens (Cong., 74-76). He occasionally withdrew into solitude in order to devote himself to contemplation (L. A., II, 21). In A.D. 40, already an old man (Caium, beginning), he joined the delegation that the Jewish community sent to Caligula because of the persecution it was suffering (ibid. and Flac.).

In his writings, he attempted to reconcile Jewish Revelation with Greek culture, placing the latter at the service of the former: he is therefore the first true Jewish theologian. Steeped in ardent faith and a devotee of the Töräh like a Pharisee of Palestine, F. had a pronounced taste for philosophy, “the most perfect of the goods that have ever come to humanity” (Op., 54), to which he sincerely aspired (Spec., III, 1-6), and he wholeheartedly praised Plato (Prob., II, 13), the Neo-Pythagoreans (op. cit., I, 2), Heraclitus, and the Stoics, whom he regarded as simple imitators of Moses in matters of truth and morality (Heres, 214; M.-J. Lagrange, p. 554).

Here is a list of Philo’s writings, with the usual abbreviations in parentheses: 1. Catechetical exposition: Quaestiones et solutions in Genesis, I-IV (Q. G.); In Exodum, I-II (Q. Ex.). — 2. Allegorical commentary on Genesis: Legum allegorianum I-III (L. A.); De Cherubim et flammeo gladio (Chor.); De sacrificiis Abelis et Caius (Sacr.); Quod deterius potiori insidiari solens (Det.); De portraitate Caius (Post.); De gigantibus (Gig.); Quod Deus sit immutabilis (Deus); De agricultura (Agr.); De plantatione Noe (Plant.); De ebricitate (Ebr.); De sobriatate (Sobr.); De confusione linguarum (Conf.); De migratione Abrahamis (Migr.); Quis rerum divinarum heres sit (Heres); De congressu quaerendae eruditionis causa (Cong.); De fuga (Fug.); De mutatione nominum (Mut.); De somnis I-II (Somn.). — 3. Exposition of Mosaic legislation: De mundi opificio (Op.); De Abrahamis (Abr.); De Iosepho (Ios.); De decalogo (Decal.); De specialibus legibus, I-IV (Spec.); De tribus virtutibus: de fortitudine, de caritate, de poenitentia (Virt.); De praemis et poenis (Praem.). — 4. Other writings: Vita Mois, I-III (Mos.); Quod omnis probus sit liber (Prob.); Adversus Flaccum (Flac.); De legatione ad Caium (Caium); De providentia (Prov.); De Alexandro et quod propriam rationem muta animalia habeant (Alex.); Ipothetica; De Judonis; De vita contemplativa (v. Cont). E. Schürer, pp. 487-512: the abbreviations are those of the Loeb, adopted by the Völker.

F. is the natural product of the Alexandrian environment, the most striking effect of that age-old contact between Judaism and the Greek spirit. While some Jews, corrupted by Greek sophistry, apostatized, scorning God and the Law (Post., 33-38), others no longer observed the Law, which was explained allegorically (Migr., 89), or, faithful to the literal exegesis, found in the Sacred Books legends analogous to the Greek myths (Conf., 2-3), F. defended revealed truth and illustrated it with Greek humanism.

Truth is one and derives from God; it is found wholly in the Sacred Books, particularly in the Law. Philosophical knowledge, acquired with such difficulty, cannot be contrary to it; it contains only seeds of truth and serves to understand and enjoy revealed truth in its entirety.

F., without excluding any tendency, took from philosophy everything useful to his purpose. He employed the skeptics, who scourged reason as the arbiter of life, to demonstrate the superiority and necessity of Revelation; the Cynics, who opposed pleasure, to commend wisdom and virtue; Aristotle, for his profound analysis of virtues and vices; but chiefly the Stoics, his preferred teachers, for the elevation of their sentiments; and Plato, for his clear dualism, in opposition to Stoic pantheism, and for his elevated conceptions of divinity and the soul (M.-J. Lagrange, p. 543 ff.). F. has nothing of genius; he has no system. E. Stein and A. J. Festugière compare him with Cicero. He reflects the mixture of the various systems already current in Alexandria, which a little later would pass into the writings of Hermetism; in F., the heterogeneous elements often remain side by side without merging. The particular opinions belonging to a system, which have value when connected with the whole for which they arose, appear in F. detached, without substance and without life; they serve to express ordinary ideas, to illustrate a biblical text, or to provide an oratorical development; they are often simple images and metaphors. Characteristic of F. are belief in the action of the spirit of God within us (= Grace: Migr., 34-35) and intellectual mysticism (E. Bréhier, A. J. Festugière).

His work, addressed more to his fellow believers, in order to preserve their faith, than to the gentiles, is an exegesis of the Töräh verse by verse and according to selected pericopes. For all these reasons, it is almost impossible to arrange the elements of his doctrine into a synthesis; nor is it useful to insist on the divergences, since F. often places different theories side by side in the same text (cf. Decal., 134).

F. made use of the allegorical exegesis employed by the Stoics to interpret polytheism (Prov., II, 41) and by the Hellenistic Jews. F. believed it more worthy of God that the spiritual meaning, expressed by facts and persons and by the choice of the very terms themselves, should be almost habitual (Ios. 28); and he strove to discover it by scrutinizing etymologies and calculating numbers, which for the Neo-Pythagoreans symbolized ideas (E. Bréhier, p. 43 ff.). He constructs it upon the literal meaning, which he defends, just as one does not renounce the body when studying the soul (Migr., 89; H. A. Wolfson, I, pp. 55 ff., 115-64). But by this method F. substitutes for the historical meaning an ethical-religious treatise, which is interesting but can no longer be called biblical exegesis (M.-J. Lagrange, pp. 546-54).

The positive and personal idea of God in F. is that of the Bible (Op., 21-23; Deus, 24-76; etc.). Yet He is the God of the world, and not only of the Jews. Using Stoic terminology, F. calls Him ἀντίνος (L. A., I, 50, 53), without specific or individual determination; the soul, the intellect of the universe (op. cit., I, 91; III, 29), but he firmly denies every immanence (Conf., 173) and follows Plato (A. J. Festugière, pp. 535-40; J. Lebreton, pp. 184-98). From God derive the sensible world, in the manner described by the Töräh, and the spiritual world; the angels of the Bible; the logos and the powers of Alexandrian philosophy. For F., the angels become powers (Somn., I, 127, 141 ff., etc.); but apart from their office as intermediaries, they have nothing in common with the powers, of which they are called servants (Spec., I, 66). The angels are persons; the powers are ideas (Plato) and forces (Stoics); exemplary causes (Plato) and efficient causes (Stoics: loc. cit., 46-48, 66, 320; Op., 17 and 72; Fug., 69; etc.); mere manifestations in relation to God (Abr., 119-21, 131). They make possible relations of knowledge and religion between God and man, who is by himself incapable of reaching God (Q. Ex., II, 68; Conf., 97; Fug., 97 ff.; E. Bréhier, p. 175).

The first intermediary is the logos (Heres, 205; E. Bréhier, p. 170). F. believes that he finds it on every page of the biblical narratives: the angel of Jahweh, in the various theophanies (Somn., I, 117, 226; Cher., 3; etc.); the high priest is its symbol, as mediator (Fug., 108-19; etc.). F. understands as designations of the logos such expressions as the Name, the Glory, etc. (Somn., I, 62, 227), as well as the rabbinic speculations on the Word of God (Decal., 32-36); he calls it (cf. Sap. 7, 8; Proc. 8, 25) God’s instrument in creation (Cher., 125-27); the image of God (Fug., 101); his firstborn son (loc. cit., 109, etc.). In reality, these are merely evocations occasioned by the sacred text. F. explains the Bible with Alexandrian philosophical terminology. The logos is an ideal projected between heaven and earth, the exemplar of the world (Op., 24-25), the revealer of God; it is the cosmic principle of separation and differentiation (λόγος πωλεός), just as human reason is the logical principle of discrimination (Heres, 130-40; H. A. Wolfson, I, p. 335 ff.). These Platonic elements are matched by the predominant influence of Stoicism. As in Chrysippus, the logos is the force that sustains the world, the principle of determination, the seminal logos (loc. cit., p. 118 ff.), which fertilizes everything and acts in the world as the soul acts in us (loc. cit., pp. 230-33; Fug., 110); human destinies depend upon it (Dens, 176); it is the law of the universe (Op., 143), the moral law. The guiding idea behind these various images is the transcendence of God and the necessity of an intermediary between God and the world. The logos, therefore, is not God; otherwise the entire system would collapse. The name of God given to it (Somn., I, 228-30; L. A., II, 207 ff.; Q. G., II, 62) is merely an exegetical requirement; and it is qualified as an improper term (θεύσερος θεός). It is not a person, but an indistinct personality, closer to simple instruction (J. Lebreton, pp. 209-51).

In cosmology F. takes up the commonplaces of the philosophy of his time: a mixture of Platonism, Stoicism, and Neopythagoreanism (A. J. Festugière, La révélation..., pp. 228-33).

In anthropology he elucidates Jewish thought through the doctrines of Aristotle and Plato. In man there are σῦμα, ψυχή, νοῦς. The ψυχή is the seat of sensible life; it is the pre-existent soul that enters the body and forms the earthly man. With Plato, F. accepts the pre-existence of souls; the νοῦς, made in the image of God, is the seat of intellectual, moral, and mystical life. Only the νοῦς is immortal and constitutes the personality of man. The ψυχή is intermediate between the ἀλόγον (the lower part as a whole) and the νοῦς, in the continual struggle that takes place between them. The ψυχή is bound as in a prison within the body, which is the root of evil; freed from the domination of the νοῦς, it returns to the intelligible world. It is impossible for the νοῦς to rise to the θεωρία (knowledge) of God without the communication of the πνεῦμα by God himself. The νοῦς is the receptacle of the divine πνεῦμα (L. A., I, 12-13; Det., 80-84; Heres, 11-12; A. J. Festugière, L'idéal..., pp. 212-20). Nor is it possible, without divine Grace (the action of the Spirit of Jahweh, often identified by F. with the logos), to renounce mortal things or to remain always among incorruptible things (Ehr., 145 ff.). The Spirit of God (the logos) is the cause of virtue, the force that enables the νοῦς to conquer (E. Bréhier, pp. 214-24).

With his natural faculties man can only come to know the existence of God from the created world; he can rise to the two powers—the creative and the royal—the latter being closer to the divine Monad; at times, even to the logos. As soon as the soul recognizes its weakness, the divine πνεῦμα descends upon it; it is the divine light that shines when the human light is extinguished (Somn., I, 118). The divine light leads it to the pure, absolutely simple Idea, God himself. In ecstasy the νοῦς is not separated from the body, nor is it suppressed, but is possessed by God. The virtuous man thus becomes a prophet, an instrument of God (M.-J. Lagrange, pp. 524-71).

F. makes history a religious and moral lesson: God’s care for every soul; and he therefore bars the way to messianism, of which he has only a faded image. F. remained isolated. There is no relationship between the New Testament

and F., except for the literary dependence of Hebrews. F. remained unknown to Judaism. While Christianity was bursting into the Hellenic world, some of the Fathers gave credence to F.’s writings because of their theology of the Word; but it was the heretics who opposed them who made greater use of them.

BIBLI: Edizioni: Deno Vedio princeps incompleta di Parigi 1552, la prima completa è quella di Th. Manges, Phil. Ind. opera, 2 voll., Londra 1742. Editio maior: L. Cohn - P. Wendland - S. Rutter, Phil. Alex. opera quae superam, con indici di J. Leiceman, 2 voll., Berlino 1806-1930; J. Heinemann - M. Adler, Die Werke Philos von Alexandrin (trad. tedesca), 6 voll., Bresla-via 1909-38; F. H. Colton - G. H. Whittaker, Philo, with an English translation, 9 voll., Cambridge 1930-41; H. Box, Philons Alexandrin in Floreum. Edited with an introduction, translation and commentary, Londra 1930. - Bibl. completa fino al 1938 (ca. 1963 numer.) - E. R. Goodenough, The politics of Philo Judaeus. Practice and theory, with a general philosophy, Nova Haven 1938. - Studi più importanti: E. Ryle, Philo and Holy Scripture, Londra 1875; B. Ritter, Philo and the Holoch, Lignin 1879; J. Drummond, Philo Judaeus, London 1888; E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, III, 3e ed., Lipsia 1898, pp. 487-562; P. Heimach, Der Einfluss Philos und die älteste christliche Exegete, Münster 1908; E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Graebuer, III, II, 4e ed., Lipsia 1900, pp. 385-467; E. Bréhier, Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philons d'Alexandrie, 2e ed., Parigi 1925; J. Lebreton, Histoire du Dogme de la Trinité, I, 6e ed., ivi 1927, pp. 178-251; E. Stern, Die allegorische Exegese der Philo aus Alexandrin, Gresson 1920; M.-J. Lagrange, Le Judaïsme avant Hans-Christ, 2e ed., Parigi 1931, pp. 542-86; I. Heinemann, Philons eresch. und jüd. Bildung, Bresla-via 1932; A. J. Festugière, L'idéal religieux des Grecs et l'Évangile, 2e ed., Paris 1934, pp. 212-18; id., La révélation d'Hermis Trimitigiste, II, Le Dieu commun, ivi 1940, pp. 310-83; H. Schmidt, Die Anthropologie Philons von Alexandrin, Würzburg 1933; W. Knuth, Der Begriff der Stöde bei Philons von Alexandrin, evi 1934; H. Levy, Philos von Alexandrin. Von den Machtverweisen Gottes, Berlino 1934; K. Steur, Parmandes in Philo, Numeren 1935; H. Willson, Eliz. eine begreifungsschichtliche Untersuchung zum Platonsum, in Philos von Alexandrin, Münster 1935; R. R. Goodenough, By light, light; the mystic Gospel of Théloniste Judaeus, New Haven 1935; M. Preissler, Der Glaubensbegriff bei Philons, Bresla-via 1936; W. Völler, Fortschritt und Vollendung bei Philo von Alexandrin. Eine Studie am Geschichte der Fremngaben, Lipsia 1938; A. Meyer, Verlossergebn. und Schiefstädte in ihren Verhältnis bei Philo von Alexandrin, Würzburg 1936; S. Belkin, Philo and the oral law, Cambridge 1940; M. Pohlens, Philos von Alexandrin, Gottling 1942; G. De Ruggiere, Storia della filosofia, II, 6e ed., Bibi 1945, pp. 244-52; E. Bertola, La filosofia ebraica, Milano 1947, pp. 32-40; H. A. Wolfson, Philo: foundations of religious philosophy in judicium, christianus and islam, I-II, Cambridge 1947. - Articoli: C. Trichsel, Griechische Fragmente in Philons Oussetiones in Genesis et in Eudem, in Zeitschrift für ältest. Wissenschaftl. 14 (1937), pp. 108-15; H. Leiceman, Philons Schrift über die Geomantschaft der Alexandrin. Juden an den Kaiser Gaius Caligula, in Journal of biblical literature, 57 (1938), pp. 377-405; anon., s. V. in Pauly Wis-owa, Suppl. XX, 1, coll. 1-50; G. Bertram, Philo als politisch-theologischer Engagements des spätnischen Judentums, in Theologische Literaturzeitung, 63 (1939), pp. 193-99; W. Knox, A note on Philo's use of the Old Test., in Journal of theological studies 41 (1940), pp. 30-34; F. H. Colton, Philo's quotation from the Old Test., ibid., pp. 237-51; F. V. Courneon, Philo Judaeus and the concept of creation, in New scholasticism, 15 (1941), pp. 45-58; J. Llamas, Reseña del estado de los cuestiones, Filos de Alejandría, in Sefarad, 2 (1942), pp. 437-47; K. Stiehlschmidt, Eine unbekannte Schrift Philons von Alexandrin, in Aegyptus, 22 (1942), p. 169-98; H. A. Wolfson, Philo as free will and the historical influence of his view, in Harvard theological review, 35 (1943), pp. 131-60; E. R. Goodenough, Philo on immortality, ibid., 39 (1946), pp. 84-108; E. Vanderlinden, Les diverses modes de connaissance de Dieu selon Philos d'Alexandrie, in Mélanges de science religieuse, 1 (1947), pp. 285-304; C. Sniou, La philoxime de l'Éphire aux Hébions, in Revue biblique, 56 (1949), pp. 542-72. Francesco Spadafora