Philo
Philo of Alexandria, also called Philō Judæus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian Jews in a delegation to the Roman emperor Caligula in 40 CE following civil strife between the Jewish and Greek communities of Alexandria.
Philo was a leading writer of the Hellenistic Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote expansively in Koine Greek on philosophy, politics, and religion in his time; specifically, he explored the connections between Greek Platonic philosophy and late Second Temple Judaism. For example, he maintained that the Greek-language Septuagint and the Jewish law still being developed by the rabbis of the period together serve as a blueprint for the pursuit of individual enlightenment.
Philo's deployment of allegory to harmonize Jewish scripture, mainly the Torah, with Greek philosophy was the first documented of its kind, and thereby often misunderstood. Many critics of Philo assumed his allegorical perspective would lend credibility to the notion of legend over historicity. Philo often advocated a literal understanding of the Torah and the historicity of such described events, while at other times favoring allegorical readings.
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. It was either his father or paternal grandfather who was granted Roman citizenship by Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar. Jerome wrote that Philo came de genere sacerdotum. 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 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:
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. 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 with the Logos. In the text attributed to Philo, he "consistently uses Kyrios 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,
James Royse concludes:
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, 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.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 ; and the conception of the wise man expounded by Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, in Every Good Man is Free, § 8 . 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.
Numerology
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.
- Two is the number of schism, that which has been created, and death.
- Three is the number of the body or of the Divine Being in connection with its fundamental powers.
- Four is potentially what ten is actually: the perfect number ; but in an evil sense, four is the number of the passions, πάθη.
- Five is the number of the senses and of sensibility.
- Six, the product of the masculine and feminine numbers 3×2 and in its parts equal to 3+3, is the symbol of the movement of organic beings.
- Seven has the most various attributes.
- Eight, the number of the cube, has many of the attributes determined by the Pythagoreans.
- Nine is the number of strife, according to Gen. xiv..
- Ten is the number of perfection.
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 —in consequence, no name —and, therefore, that God cannot be perceived by man. Furthermore, he posited that God cannot change : God is always the same. God needs no other being for self-existence or the creation of material things, and God is self-sufficient. God can never perish, is self-existent, and has no relations with any other being.