Judaeus Philo, is a figure that spans two cultures, the Greek and the
Hebrew. When Hebrew mythical thought met Greek philosophical thought
in the first century B.C.E. it was only natural that someone would try
to develop speculative and philosophical justification for Judaism in
terms of Greek philosophy. Thus Philo produced a synthesis of both
traditions developing concepts for future Hellenistic interpretation
of messianic Hebrew thought, especially by Clement of Alexandria,
Christian Apologists like Athenagoras, Theophilus, Justin Martyr,
Tertullian, and by Origen. He may have influenced Paul, his
contemporary, and perhaps the authors of the Gospel of John (C. H.
Dodd) and the Epistle to the Hebrews (R. Williamson and H. W.
Attridge). In the process, he laid the foundations for the development
of Christianity in the West and in the East, as we know it today.
Philo's primary importance is in the development of the philosophical
and theological foundations of Christianity. The church preserved the
Philonic writings because Eusebius of Caesarea labeled the monastic
ascetic group of Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, described in Philo's
The Contemplative Life, as Christians, which is highly unlikely.
Eusebius also promoted the legend that Philo met Peter in Rome. Jerome
(345-420 C.E.) even lists him as a church Father. Jewish tradition was
uninterested in philosophical speculation and did not preserve Philo's
thought. According to H. A. Wolfson, Philo was a founder of religious
philosophy, a new habit of practicing philosophy. Philo was thoroughly
educated in Greek philosophy and culture as can be seen from his
superb knowledge of classical Greek literature. He had a deep
reverence for Plato and referred to him as "the most holy Plato"
(Prob. 13). Philo's philosophy represented contemporary Platonism
which was its revised version incorporating Stoic doctrine and
terminology via Antiochus of Ascalon (ca 90 B.C.E.) and Eudorus of
Alexandria, as well as elements of Aristotelian logic and ethics and
Pythagorean ideas. Clement of Alexandria even called Philo "the
Pythagorean." But it seems that Philo also picked up his ancestral
tradition, though as an adult, and once having discovered it, he put
forward the teachings of the Jewish prophet, Moses, as "the summit of
philosophy" (Op. 8), and considered Moses the teacher of Pythagoras
(b. ca 570 B.C.E.) and of all Greek philosophers and lawgivers
(Hesiod, Heraclitus, Lycurgus, to mention a few). For Philo, Greek
philosophy was a natural development of the revelatory teachings of
Moses. He was no innovator in this matter because already before him
Jewish scholars attempted the same. Artapanus in the second century
B.C.E identified Moses with Musaeus and with Orpheus. According to
Aristobulus of Paneas (first half of the second century B.C.E.), Homer
and Hesiod drew from the books of Moses which were translated into
Greek long before the Septuagint.
1. Life
Very little is known about the life of Philo. He lived in Alexandria,
which at that time counted, according to some estimates, about one
million people and included largest Jewish community outside of
Palestine. He came from a wealthy and the prominent family and appears
to be a leader in his community. Once he visited Jerusalem and the
temple, as he himself stated in Prov. 2.64. Philo's brother,
Alexander, was a wealthy, prominent Roman government official, a
custom agent responsible for collecting dues on all goods imported
into Egypt from the East. He donated money to plate the gates of the
temple in Jerusalem with gold and silver. He also made a loan to Herod
Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great. Alexander's two sons, Marcus
and Tiberius Julius Alexander were involved in Roman affairs. Marcus
married Bernice, the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, who is mentioned in
Acts (25:13, 23; 26:30). The other son, Tiberius Julius Alexander,
described by Josephus as "not remaining true to his ancestral
practices" became procurator of the province of Judea (46-48 C.E.) and
prefect of Egypt (66-70 C.E.). Philo was involved in the affairs of
his community which interrupted his contemplative life (Spec. leg.
3.1-6), especially during the crisis relating to the pogrom which was
initiated in 38 C.E. by the prefect Flaccus, during the reign of
emperor Gaius Caligula. He was elected to head the Jewish delegation,
which apparently included his brother Alexander and nephew Tiberius
Julius Alexander, and was sent to Rome in 39-40 B.C.E. to see the
emperor. He reported the events in his writings Against Flaccus and
The Embassy to Gaius.
2. Philo's Works and Their Classification
The major part of Philo's writings consists of philosophical essays
dealing with the main themes of biblical thought that present a
systematic and precise exposition of his views. One has the impression
that he attempted to show that the philosophical Platonic or Stoic
ideas were nothing but the deductions made from the biblical verses of
Moses. Philo was not an original thinker, but he was well acquainted
with the entire range of Greek philosophical traditions through the
original texts. If there are gaps in his knowledge, they are rather in
his Jewish tradition as evidenced by his relying on the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Bible. In his attempt to reconcile the Greek
way of thinking with his Hebrew tradition he had antecedents such as
Pseudo-Aristeas and Aristobulus.
Philo's works are divided into three categories:
1. The first group comprises writings that paraphrase the biblical
texts of Moses: On Abraham, On the Decalogue, On Joseph, The Life of
Moses, On the Creation of the World, On Rewards and Punishments, On
the Special Laws, On the Virtues. A series of works include
allegorical explanations of Genesis 2-41: On Husbandry, On the
Cherubim, On the Confusion of Tongues, On the Preliminary Studies, The
Worse Attacks the Better, On Drunkenness, On Flight and Finding, On
the Giants, Allegorical Interpretation (Allegory of the Law), On the
Migration of Abraham, On the Change of Names, On Noah's Work as a
Planter, On the Posterity and Exile of Cain, Who is the Heir, On the
Unchangeableness of God, On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain, On
Sobriety, On Dreams. Here belong also: Questions and Answers on
Genesis and Questions and Answers on Exodus (aside from fragments
preserved only in Armenian).
2. A series of works classified as philosophical treatises: Every Good
Man is Free (a sequel of which had the theme that every bad man is a
slave, which did not survive); On the Eternity of the World; On
Providence (except for lengthy fragments preserved in Armenian);
Alexander or On Whether Brute Animals Possess Reason (preserved only
in Armenian) and called in Latin De Animalibus (On the Animals); a
brief fragment De Deo (On God), preserved only in Armenian is an
exegesis of Genesis 18, and belongs to the Allegory of the Law.
3. The third group includes historical-apologetic writings:
Hypothetica or Apologia Pro Judaeos which survives only in two Greek
extracts quoted by Eusebius. The first extract is a rationalistic
version of Exodus giving a eulogic account of Moses and a summary of
Mosaic constitution contrasting its severity with the laxity of the
gentile laws; the second extract describes the Essenes. The other
apologetic essays include Against Flaccus, The Embassy to Gaius, and
On the Contemplative Life. But all these works are related to Philo's
explanations of the texts of Moses.
3. Technique of Exposition
Philo uses an allegorical technique for interpretation of the Hebrew
myth and in this he follows the Greek tradition of Theagenes of
Rhegium (second half of the sixth century B.C.E.). Theagenes used this
approach in defense of Homer's theology against the detractors. He
said that the myths of gods struggling with each other referred to the
opposition between the elements; the names of gods were made to refer
to various dispositions of the soul, e.g., Athena was reflection,
Aphrodite, desire, Hermes, elocution. Anaxagoras, too, explained the
Homeric poems as discussions of virtue and justice. The Sophist
Prodicus of Ceos (b. 470 B.C.E.), contemporary of Socrates,
interpreted the gods of Homeric stories as personifications of those
natural substances that are useful to human life [e.g., bread and
Demeter, wine and Dionysus, water and Poseidon, fire and Hephaestus].
He also employed ethical allegory. His treatise, The Seasons, contains
a Parable of Heracles, paraphrased in Xenophon's Memorabilia
(2.1.21-34), which tells the story of Heracles who, at crossroad, was
attracted by Virtue and Vice in the form of two women of great stature
(Sacr. 20-44). The allegory was used by the cynic Antisthenes
(contemporary of Plato) and Diogenes the Cynic. Stoics expanded the
Cynics' use of Homeric allegory in the interest of their philosophical
system. Using this allegorical method, Philo seeks out the hidden
message beneath the surface of any particular text and tries to read
back a new doctrine into the work of the past. In a similar way
Plutarch allegorized the ancient Egyptian mythology giving it a new
meaning. But in some aspects of Jewish life Philo defends the literal
interpretation of his tradition as in the debate on circumcision or
the Sabbath (Mig. 89-93; Spec. leg. 1.1-11). Though he acknowledges
the symbolic meaning of these rituals, he insists on their literal
interpretation.
4. Emphasis on Contemplative Life and Philosophy
The key emphasis in Philo's philosophy is contrasting the spiritual
life, understood as intellectual contemplation, with the mundane
preoccupation with earthly concerns, either as an active life or as a
search for pleasure. Philo disdained the material world and physical
body (Spec. leg. 3.1-6). The body was for Philo as for Plato, "an
evil and a dead thing" (LA 3.72-74; Gig. 15), wicked by nature and a
plotter against the soul (LA 3.69). But it was a necessary evil, hence
Philo does not advocate a complete abnegation from life. On the
contrary he advocates fulfilling first the practical obligations
toward men and the use of mundane possessions for the accomplishment
of praiseworthy works (Fug. 23-28; Plant. 167-168). Similarly he
considers pleasure indispensable and wealth useful, but for a virtuous
man they are not a perfect good (LA 3.69-72). He believed that men
should steer themselves away from the physical aspect of things
gradually. Some people, like philosophers, may succeed in focusing
their minds on the eternal realities. Philo believed that man's final
goal and ultimate bliss is in the "knowledge of the true and living
God" (Decal. 81; Abr. 58; Praem. 14); "such knowledge is the boundary
of happiness and blessedness" (Det. 86). To him, mystic vision allows
our soul to see the Divine Logos (Ebr. 152) and achieve a union with
God (Deut. 30:19-20; Post. 12). In a desire to validate the scripture
as an inspired writing, he often compares it to prophetic ecstasy
(Her. 69-70). His praise of the contemplative life of the monastic
Therapeutae in Alexandria attests to his preference of bios
theoreticos over bios practicos. He adheres to the Platonic picture of
the souls descending into the material realm and that only the souls
of philosophers are able to come to the surface and return to their
realm in heaven (Gig. 12-15). Philo adopted the Platonic concept of
the soul with its tripartite division. The rational part of the soul,
however, is breathed into man as a part of God's substance. Philo
speaks figuratively "Now, when we are alive, we are so though our
soul is dead and buried in our body, as if in a tomb. But if it were
to die, then our soul would live according to its proper life being
released from the evil and dead body to which it is bound" (Op. 67-69;
LA 1.108).
5. Philosophy and Wisdom: a Path to Ethical Life
Philo differentiated between philosophy and wisdom. To him philosophy
is "the greatest good thing to men" (Op. 53-54), which they acquired
because of a gift of reason from God (Op. 77). It is a devotion to
wisdom, and a way to acquire the highest knowledge, "an attentive
study of wisdom." Wisdom in turn is "the knowledge of all divine and
human things, and of the respective causes of them" that is, according
to Philo, contained in the Torah (Congr. 79). Hence it follows that
Moses, as the author of the Torah, "had reached the very summit of
philosophy" and "had learnt from the oracles of God the most numerous
and important of the principles of nature" (Op. 8). Moses was also the
interpreter of nature (Her. 213). By saying this Philo wanted to
indicate that human wisdom has two origins: one is divine, the other
is natural (Her. 182). Moreover, that Mosaic Law is not inconsistent
with nature. A single law, the Logos of nature governs the entire
world (Jos. 28-31) and its law is imprinted on the human mind (Prob.
46-47). Because of this we have a conscience that affects even wicked
persons (QG 4.62). Wisdom is a consummated philosophy and as such has
to be in agreement with the principles of nature (Mos. 2.48; Abr. 16;
Op. 143; Spec. leg. 2.13; 3.46-47, 112, 137; Virt. 18). The study of
philosophy has as its end "life in accordance with nature" and
following the "path of right reason" (Mig. 128). Philosophy prepares
us to a moral life, i.e., "to live in conformity with nature" (Prob.
160). From this follows that life in accordance with nature hastens us
towards virtues (Mos. 2. 181; Abr. 60, Spec. leg. 1.155), and an
unjust man is the one "who transgresses the ordinances of nature"
(Spec. leg. 4.204; Cf. Decal. 132; Virt. 131-132; Plant. 49; Ebr. 142;
Agr. 66). Thus Philo does not discount human reason, but contrasts
only the true doctrine which is trust in God with uncertain,
plausible, and unreliable reasoning (LA 3.228-229).
6. Philo's Ethical Doctrine
Philo's ethical doctrine is Stoic in its essence and includes the
active effort to achieve virtue, the model of a sage to be followed,
and practical advice concerning the achievement of the proper right
reason and a proper emotional state of rational emotions (eupatheia).
To Philo man is basically passive and it is God who sows noble
qualities in the soul, thus we are instruments of God (LA 2.31-32;
Cher. 127-128). Still man is the only creature endowed with freedom to
act though his freedom is limited by the constitution of his mind. As
such he is responsible for his action and "very properly receives
blame for the offences which he designedly commits." This is so
because he received a faculty of voluntary motion and is free from the
dominion of necessity (Deus 47-48). Philo advocates the practice of
virtue in both the divine and the human spheres. Lovers only of God
and lovers only of men are both incomplete in virtue. Philo advocates
a middle harmonious way (Decal. 106-110; Spec. leg. 4. 102). He
differentiates four virtues: wisdom, self-control, courage, and
justice (LA 1.63-64). Human dispositions Philo divides into three
groups – the best is given the vision of God, the next has a vision on
the right i.e., the Beneficent or Creative Power whose name is God,
and the third has a vision on the left, i.e., the Ruling Power called
Lord (Abr. 119-130). Felicity is achieved in the culmination of three
values: the spiritual, the corporeal, and the external (QG 3.16).
Philo adopts the Stoic wise man as a model for human behavior. Such a
wise man should imitate God who was impassible (apathes) hence the
sage should achieve a state of apatheia, i.e., he should be free of
irrational emotions (passions), pleasure, desire, sorrow, and fear,
and should replace them by rational or well-reasoned emotions
(eupatheia), joy, will, compunction, and caution. In such a state of
eupatheia, the sage achieves a serene, stable, and joyful disposition
in which he is directed by reason in his decisions (QG 2.57; Abr.
201-204; Fug. 166-167; Mig. 67). But at the same time Philo claims
that the needs of the body should not be neglected and rejects the
other extreme, i.e., the practice of austerities. Everything should be
governed by reason, self-control, and moderation. Joy and pleasure do
not have intrinsic values, but are by-products of virtue and
characterize the sage (Fug. 25-34; Det. 124-125; LA 80).
7. Philo's Mysticism and Transcendence of God
Mysticism is a doctrine that maintains that one can gain knowledge of
reality that is not accessible to sense perception or to reason. It is
usually associated with some mental and physical training and in the
theistic version it involves a sensation of closeness to or unity with
God experienced as temporal and spatial transcendence. According to
Philo, man's highest union with God is limited to God's manifestation
as the Logos. It is similar to a later doctrine of intellectual
contact of our human intellect with the transcendent intellect
developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Ibn Rushd and different from
the Plotinian doctrine of the absorption into the ineffable one. The
notion of the utter transcendence of the First Principle probably goes
back as far as Anaximander who postulated the Indefinite (apeiron) as
this Principle (arche) and could be found in Plato's concept of the
Good, but the formulation is accredited to Speusippus, the successor
of Plato in the Academy. Philo's biblical tradition in which one
could not name or describe God was the major factor in accepting the
Greek Platonic concepts and emphasis on God's transcendence. But this
position is rather alien to biblical and rabbinical understanding. In
the Bible, God is represented in a "material" and "physical" way.
Philosophically, however, Philo differentiated between the existence
of God, which could be demonstrated, and the nature of God which
humans are not able to cognize. God's essence is beyond any human
experience or cognition, therefore it can be described only by stating
what God is not (via negativa) or by depriving him of any attribute of
sensible objects and putting God beyond any attribute applicable to a
sensible world (via eminentiae) because God alone is a being whose
existence is his essence (Det. 160). Philo states in many places that
God's essence is one and single, that he does not belong to any class
or that there is in God any distinction of genus and species.
Therefore, we cannot say anything about his qualities "For God is not
only devoid of peculiar qualities, but he is likewise not of the form
of man" (LA 1.36); he "is free from distinctive qualities" (LA 1.51;
3.36; Deus 55). Strictly speaking, we cannot make any positive or
negative statements about God: "Who can venture to affirm that … he is
a body, or that he is incorporeal, or that he has such and such
distinctive qualities, or that he has no such qualities? … But he
alone can utter a positive assertion respecting himself, since he
alone has an accurate knowledge of his own nature" (LA 3.206).
Moreover, since the essence of God is single, therefore its property
must be one which Philo denotes as acting "Now it is an especial
attribute of God to create, and this faculty it is impious to ascribe
to any created being" (Cher. 77). The expression of this act of God,
which is at the same time his thinking, is his Logos (Prov. 1.7; Sacr.
65; Mos. 1.283). Though God is hidden, his reality is made manifest by
the Logos that is God's image (Somn. 1.239; Conf. 147-148) and by the
sensible universe, which in turn is the image of the Logos, that is
"the archetypal model, the idea of ideas" (Op. 25). Because of this we
can perceive God's existence, though we cannot fathom his essence. But
there are degrees and levels to our cognizance of God. Those at the
summit and the highest level may grasp the unity of the powers of God,
at the lower level people recognize the Logos as the Regent Power, and
those still at the lowest level, immersed in the sensible world are
unable to perceive the intelligible reality (Fug. 94; Abr. 124-125).
Steps in mystic experience involve a realization of human nothingness,
a realization that the one who acts is God alone, and abandonment of
our sense of perception (Her. 69-71; Plant. 64; Conf. 95; Ebr. 152). A
mystic state will produce a sensation of tranquility, and stability;
it appears suddenly and is described as a sober intoxication (Gig. 49;
Sacr. 78; Somn. 1.71; Op. 70-71).
8. Source of Intuition of the Infinite Reality
According to Philo the highest knowledge man may have is the knowledge
of infinite reality which is not accessible by the normal senses, but
by unmediated intuition of divinity. Humans were endowed with the
mind, i.e., ability to reason and the outward senses. We received the
first in order that we might consider the things that are discernable
only by the intellect, the end of which is truth, and the second for
the perception of visible things the end of which is opinion. Opinions
are unstable, based on probability, and untrustworthy. Thus by this
divine gift men are able to come to a conclusion about the existence
of the divinity. They can do it in two ways: one is the apprehension
of God through contemplation of his creation and forming a
"conjectural conception of the Creator by a probable train of
reasoning"(Praem. 43). And in the process the soul may climb the
ladder to perfection by using natural means i.e., natural
dispositions, instruction, i.e., being educated to virtue, or by
meditation. The other is a direct apprehension by being instructed by
God himself when the mind elevates itself above the physical world and
perceives the uncreated One through a clear vision (Praem. 28-30,
40-66; LA 97-103). This vision is accessible to the "purified mind" to
which God appears as One. To the mind uninitiated in the mysteries,
unable to apprehend God alone by himself, but only through his
actions, God appears as a triad constituted by him and his two powers,
Creative and Royal (Abr. 97-103). Such a direct vision of God is not
dependent on revelation but is possible because we have an impression
of God in our mind, which is nothing but a tiny fragment of the Logos
pervading the whole universe, not separated from its source, but only
extended (Det. 90; Gig. 27; LA 1.37; Mut. 223; Spec. leg. 4.123). And
we receive this portion of the Divine Mind at birth being endowed with
a mind which makes us resemble God (Op. 65-69). At birth two powers
enter every soul, the salutary (Beneficent) and the destructive
(Unbounded). The world is created through these same powers. The
creation is accomplished when " the salutary and beneficent (power)
brings to an end the unbounded and destructive nature." Similarly, one
or the other power may prevail in humans, but when the salutary power
"brings to an end the unbounded and destructive nature" humans achieve
immortality. Thus both the world and humans are a mixture of these
powers and the prevailing one has the moral determination: "For the
souls of foolish men have the unbounded and destructive rather than
the powerful and salutary [power], and it is full of misery when it
dwells with earthly creatures. But the prudent and noble [soul]
receives the powerful and salutary [power] and, on the contrary,
possesses in itself good fortune and happiness" (QE 1.23). Philo
evidently analyzes these two powers on two levels. One is the divine
level in which the Unlimited or the Unbounded is a representation of
God's infinite and immeasurable goodness and creativity. The Logos
keeps it in balance through the Limit. The other level is the human
one where the Unlimited or the Unbounded represents destruction and
everything morally abhorrent. Human reason is able, however, to
maintain in it some kind of balance. This mind, divine and immortal,
is an additional and differentiating part of the human soul which
animates man just like the souls of animals which are devoid of mind.
The notion of God's existence is thus imprinted in our mind that needs
only some illumination to have a direct vision of God (Abr. 79-80;
Det. 86-87; LA 1.38). Thus we can arrive at it through the dialectical
reasoning as apprehension of the First Principle. Philo differentiates
two modes for perceiving God, an inferential mode and a direct mode
without mediation: "As long, therefore, as our mind still shines
around and hovers around, pouring as it were a noontide light into the
whole soul, we, being masters of ourselves, are not possessed by any
extraneous influence" (Her. 264). Thus this direct mode is not in any
way a type of inspiration or inspired prophecy; it is unlike
"inspiration" when a "trance" or a "heaven-inflicted madness" seizes
us and divine light sets as it happens "to the race of prophets" (Her.
265).
9. Philo's Doctrine of Creation
Philo attempts to bridge the Greek "scientific" or rational philosophy
with the strictly mythical ideology of the Hebrew scriptures. As a
basis for the "scientific" approach he uses the worldview presented by
Plato in Timaeus which remained influential in Hellenistic times. The
characteristic feature of the Greek scientific approach is the
biological interpretation of the physical world in anthropocentric
terms, in terms of purpose and function that may apply to biological
and psychological realities but may not be applied to the physical
world. Moreover, Philo operates often on two levels: the level of
mythical Hebraic religious tradition and the level of philosophical
speculation in the Greek tradition. Nevertheless, Philo attempts to
harmonize the Mosaic and Platonic accounts of the generation of the
world by interpreting the biblical story using Greek scientific
categories and concepts. He elaborates a religious-philosophical
worldview that became the foundation for the future Christian
doctrine. Philo's doctrine of creation is intertwined with his
doctrine of God and it answers two crucial questions: 1. Was the world
created ex nihilo or from primordial matter? 2. Was creation a
temporal act or is it an eternal process?
a. Philo's Model of Creation
Though Philo's model of creation comes from Plato's Timaeus, the
direct agent of creation is not God himself (described in Plato as
Demiurge, Maker, Artificer), but the Logos. Philo believes that the
Logos is "the man of God" (Conf. 41) or the shadow of God that was
used as an instrument and a pattern of all creation (LA 3.96). The
Logos converted unqualified, unshaped preexistent matter, which Philo
describes as "destitute of arrangement, of quality, of animation, of
distinctive character and full of disorder and confusion," (Op. 22)
into four primordial elements:
For it is out of that essence that God created everything, without
indeed touching it himself, for it was not lawful for the all-wise and
all-blessed God to touch materials which were all misshapen and
confused, but he created them by the agency of his incorporeal powers,
of which the proper name is Ideas, which he so exerted that every
genus received its proper form (LA 1.329).
According to Philo, Moses anticipated Plato by teaching that water,
darkness, and chaos existed before the world came into being (Op. 22).
Moses, having reached the philosophy summit, recognized that there
are two fundamental principles of being, one, "an active cause, the
intellect of the universe." The other is passive, "inanimate and
incapable of motion by any intrinsic power of its own" (Op. 8-9),
matter, lifeless and motionless. But Philo is ambiguous in such
statements as these: "God, who created all things, not only brought
them all to light, but he has even created what before had no
existence, not only being their maker, but also their founder" (Somn.
1.76; Op. 81); "God who created the whole universe out of things that
had no previous existence…" (LA 3.10). It seems that Philo does not
refer here to God's creation of the visible world ex nihilo but to his
creation of the intelligible Forms prior to the formation of the
sensible world (Spec. leg. 1.328). Philo reasons that by analogy to
the biblical version of the creation of man in the image of God, so
the visible world as such must have been created in the image of its
archetype present in the mind of God. "It is manifest also, that that
archetypal seal, which we call that world which is perceptible only to
the intellect, must itself be the archetypal model, the Idea of Ideas,
the Logos of God" (Op. 25). In his doctrine of God Philo interprets
the Logos, which is the Divine Mind as the Form of Forms (Platonic),
the Idea of Ideas or the sum total of Forms or Ideas (Det. 75-76). The
Logos is an indestructible Form of wisdom. Interpreting the garment of
the high priest (Exod. 28:34; 36) Philo states: "But the seal is an
Idea of Ideas, according to which God fashioned the world, being an
incorporeal Idea, comprehensible only by the intellect" (Mig. 103).
The invisible intelligible world which was used by the Logos as a
model for creation or rather formation of the visible world from the
(preexisting) unformed matter was created in the mind of God: "The
incorporeal world then was already completed, having its seat in the
Divine Logos and the world, perceptible by the external senses, was
made on the model of it" (Op. 36). Describing Moses' account of the
creation of man, Philo states also that Moses calls the invisible
Divine Logos the Image of God (Op. 24; 31; LA 1.9). Forms, though
inapprehensible in essence, leave an impress and a copy and procure
qualities and shapes to shapeless things and unorganized matter. Mind
can grasp the Forms by longing for wisdom. "The desire for wisdom
alone is continual and incessant, and it fills all its pupils and
disciples with famous and most beautiful doctrines" (Spec. leg.
1-45-50). Creation thus took place from preexistent shapeless matter
(Plato's Receptacle) which is "the nurse of all becoming and change"
and for this creation God used the Forms which are his powers (Spec.
leg. 1.327-329). This may seem a controversial point whether the
primordial matter was preexistent or was created ex nihilo. Philo's
view is not clearly stated and there are seemingly contradictory
statements. In some places Philo states, "for as nothing is generated
out of nothing, so neither can anything which exists be destroyed as
to become non-existence" (Aet. 5-6). The same is repeated in his De
Specialibus legibus: "Being made of us [i.e. elements] when you were
born, you will again be dissolved into us when you come to die; for it
is not the nature of any thing to be destroyed so as to become
nonexistent, but the end brings it back to those elements from which
its beginnings come" (Spec. 1.266). The resolution of this seeming
controversy is to be found in Philo's theory of eternal creation,
which is described next in connection with the Logos as the agent of
creation. Philo, being a strict monist, could not accept the existence
of independent and eternal preexistent matter (however disorganized
and chaotic) as Plato did.
b. Eternal Creation
Philo denies the Aristotelian conclusion coming, according to him,
from the superficial observation that the world existed from eternity,
independent of any creative act. "For some men, admiring the world
itself rather than the Creator of the world, have represented it as
existing without any maker, and eternal, and as impiously and falsely
have represented God as existing in a state of complete inactivity"
(Op. 7). He elaborates instead his theory of the eternal creation
(Prov. 1.6-9), as did Proclus (410-485 C.E.) much later in
interpreting Plato. Proclus brilliantly demonstrated that even in the
theistic system the world though generated must be eternal, because
the "world is always fabricated … is always becoming to be." Proclus
believed, as did Philo, that the corporeal world is always coming into
existence but never possesses real being. Thus God, according to
Philo, did not begin to create the world at a certain moment, but he
is "eternally applying himself to its creation" (Prov. 1.7; Op. 7;
Aet. 83-84).
But God is the creator of time also, for he is the father of his
father, and the father of time is the world, which made its own mother
the creation of time, so that time stands towards God in the relation
of a grandson; for this world is a younger son of God, inasmuch as it
is perceptible by the outward sense, for the only son he speaks of as
older than the world, is Idea, and this is not perceptible by the
intellect, but having thought the other worthy of the rights of
primogeniture, he has decided that it should remain with him;
therefore, this younger son, perceptible by the external senses being
set in motion, has caused the nature of time to shine forth, and to
become conspicuous, so that there is nothing future to God, who has
the very boundaries of time subject to him; for their life is not
time, but the beautiful model of eternity; and in eternity nothing is
past and nothing is future, but everything is present only (Deus.
31-32).
Philo contends that God thinks simultaneously with his acting or
creating. "For God while he spake the word, did at the same moment
create; nor did he allow anything to come between the Logos and the
deed; and if one may advance a doctrine which is pretty nearly true,
His Logos is his deed" (Sacr. 65; Mos.1.283). Thus any description of
creation in temporal terms, e.g., by Moses, is not to be taken
literally, but rather is an accommodation to the biblical language
(Op. 19; Mut. 27; LA 2.9-13):
God is continuously ordering matter by his thought. His thinking
was not anterior to his creating and there never was a time when he
did not create, the Ideas themselves having been with him from the
beginning. For God's will is not posterior to him, but is always with
him, for natural motions never give out. Thus ever thinking he
creates, and furnishes to sensible things the principle of their
existence, so that both should exist together: the ever-creating
Divine Mind and the sense-perceptible things to which beginning of
being is given (Prov. 1.7).
Thus Philo postulates a crucial modification to the Platonic doctrine
of the Forms, namely that God himself eternally creates the
intelligible world of Ideas as his thoughts. The intelligible Forms
are thus the principle of existence to the sensible things which are
given through them their existence. This simply means in mystical
terms that nothing exists or acts except God. On this ideal model God
then orders and shapes the formless matter through the agency of his
Logos (Her. 134, 140) into the objects of the sensible world:
Now we must form a somewhat similar opinion of God [Philo makes an
analogy to a plan of the city in the mind of its builder], who, having
determined to found a mighty state, first of all conceived its form in
his mind, according to which form he made a world perceptible only by
the intellect, and then completed one visible to the external senses,
using the first one as a model (Op. 19).
Philo claims a scriptural support for these metaphysics saying that
the creation of the world was after the pattern of an intelligible
world (Gen. 1:17) which served as its model. During the first day God
created Ideas or Forms of heaven, earth, air (= darkness), empty space
(= abyss), water, pneuma (= mind), light, the intelligible pattern of
the sun and the stars (Op. 29). There are, however, differences
between Philo and Plato: according to Plato, there is no Form of space
(chora). In Plato space is not apprehended by reason; rather it had
its own special status in the world. Also pneuma as a Form of soul
does not exist in the system of Plato. Plato designates this
primordial unorganized state of matter a self-existing Receptacle; it
is most stable and a permanent constituent: "It must be called always
the same, for it never departs at all from its own character" (Plato,
Timaeus 50b-c). Philo, being a strict monist could not allow even for
a self-existing void so he makes its pattern an eternal idea in the
divine mind. Before Philo there was no explicit theory of creation ex
nihilo ever postulated in Jewish or Greek traditions. Both Philo and
Plato do not explain how the reflections (eidola) of Forms are made in
the world of senses. They do not attribute them to God or the Demiurge
because it would be contrary to their conception of God as "good" and
"desiring that all things should come as near as possible to being
like himself." God could not create the copies of the Forms which
should be "disordered." It seems then that the primordial unorganized
matter was spontaneously produced on the pattern of the Ideas. The
Logos would shape the elements from this preexistent matter, first
into heavy (or dense) and light (or rare) elements which were
differentiated properly into water and earth, and air and fire (Her.
134-140; 143). As in Plato certain geometrical descriptions
characterize Philo's elements. Fire was characterized by a pyramid,
air by an octahedron, water by an icosahedron, and earth by a cube (QG
3.49). In Plato's theory too, one can envision a sort of automatic
reflection of the Forms in the Receptacle due to the properties of
Forms. God could not, according to Philo's philosophy, create the
preexistent matter. "And what God praised was not the materials which
he had worked up in creation, destitute of life and melody, and easily
dissolved, and moreover in their own intrinsic nature perishable, and
out of proportion and full of iniquity, but rather his own skillful
work, completed according to one equal and well-proportioned power and
knowledge always alike and identical." (Her. 160). Logically, God is
for Philo indirectly the source of preexistent matter but Philo does
not ascribe to God even the shaping of matter directly. In fact this
unorganized matter never existed because it was simultaneously ordered
into organized matter – the four elements from which the world is
made.
10. Doctrine of Miracles: Naturalism and Comprehension
Closely connected with Philo's doctrine of creation is his doctrine of
miracles. His favorite statement is that "everything is possible with
God." This, however, does not mean that God can act outside the
natural order of things or his own nature. Thus Philo emphasizes that
God's miraculous works are within the realm of the natural order.
Doing this he extends the natural order to encompass the biblical
miracles and tries to explain them by their coincidence with natural
events. For example, the miracle at the Red Sea which he characterizes
as a "mighty work of nature" (Mos. 1.165), or the plague of darkness
as a total eclipse (Mos. 1.123), or the story of Balaam as an
allegorical one (Cher. 32-35). This was the tendency inherited from
some Stoics who attempted to explain miracles of divination as events
preordered in nature by the divine power pervading it. Similarly Philo
considers the biblical miracles as a part of the eternal pattern of
the Logos acting in nature. Augustine considers miracles as implanted
in the destiny of the cosmos since the time of its creation. Philo
and rabbinic literature emphasize the miraculous and marvelous
character of nature itself. All natural things are wonderful, but are
"despised by us by reason of our familiarity with them" and all things
with which we are unaccustomed, make an impression on us "for the love
of novelty"(Mos. 1.2-213). Even in modern Jewish teaching there is a
tendency to explain the miraculous by the natural. Thus the one can
find a certain discrepancy in Philo's writing: on one hand Philo is
rationalist and naturalist in the spirit of Greek philosophical
tradition, on the other, he follows popular religion to preserve the
biblical tradition. Philo emphasizes, however, that we are limited in
our human capabilities to "comprehend everything" about the physical
world, and it is better to "suspend our judgment" than to err:
But since we are found to be influenced in different manners by
the same things at different times, we should have nothing positive to
assert about anything, inasmuch as what appears has no settled or
stationary existence, but is subject to various, and multiform, and
ever-recurring changes. For it follows of necessity, since the
imagination is unstable, that judgment formed by it must be unstable;
and there are many reasons for this (Ebr. 170).
But we are able to comprehend things by comparing them with their
opposites and thus arriving at their true nature. The same applies to
what is virtue and to what is vice, and to what is just and good and
to what is unjust and bad.
And, indeed, if any one considers everything that is in the world,
he will be able to arrive at a proper estimate of its character, by
taking it in the same manner; for each separate thing is by itself
incomprehensible, but by a comparison with another thing, is easy to
understand (Ebr. 187).
The same reasoning he extends to differences between national customs
and ancient laws which vary according to countries, nations, cities,
different villages, even private houses and instruction received by
people from childhood.
And since this is the case, who is foolish enough and ridiculous
as to affirm positively that such and such a thing is just, or wise,
or honorable, or expedient? For whatever this man defines as such,
some one else, who from his childhood has learnt a contrary lesson,
will be sure to deny (Ebr. 197).
11. Doctrine of the Logos in Philo's Writings
The pivotal and the most developed doctrine in Philo's writings on
which hinges his entire philosophical system, is his doctrine of the
Logos. By developing this doctrine he fused Greek philosophical
concepts with Hebrew religious thought and provided the foundation for
Christianity, first in the development of the Christian Pauline myth
and speculations of John, later in the Hellenistic Christian Logos and
Gnostic doctrines of the second century. All other doctrines of Philo
hinge on his interpretation of divine existence and action. The term
Logos was widely used in the Greco-Roman culture and in Judaism.
Through most schools of Greek philosophy, this term was used to
designate a rational, intelligent and thus vivifying principle of the
universe. This principle was deduced from an understanding of the
universe as a living reality and by comparing it to a living creature.
Ancient people did not have the dynamic concept of "function,"
therefore, every phenomenon had to have an underlying factor, agent,
or principle responsible for its occurrence. In the Septuagint version
of the Old Testament the term logos (Hebrew davar) was used frequently
to describe God's utterances (Gen. 1:3, 6,9; 3:9,11; Ps. 32:9), God's
action (Zech. 5:1-4; Ps. 106:20; Ps. 147:15), and messages of prophets
by means of which God communicated his will to his people (Jer.
1:4-19, 2:1-7; Ezek. 1:3; Amos 3:1). Logos is used here only as a
figure of speech designating God's activity or action. In the
so-called Jewish wisdom literature we find the concept of Wisdom
(hokhmah and sophia) which could be to some degree interpreted as a
separate personification or individualization (hypostatization), but
it is contrasted often with human stupidity. In the Hebrew culture it
was a part of the metaphorical and poetic language describing divine
wisdom as God's attribute and it clearly refers to a human
characteristic in the context of human earthly existence. The Greek,
metaphysical concept of the Logos is in sharp contrast to the concept
of a personal God described in anthropomorphic terms typical of Hebrew
thought. Philo made a synthesis of the two systems and attempted to
explain Hebrew thought in terms of Greek philosophy by introducing the
Stoic concept of the Logos into Judaism. In the process the Logos
became transformed from a metaphysical entity into an extension of a
divine and transcendental anthropomorphic being and mediator between
God and men. Philo offered various descriptions of the Logos.
a. The Utterance of God
Following the Jewish mythical tradition, Philo represents the Logos as
the utterance of God found in the Jewish scripture of the Old
Testament since God's words do not differ from his actions (Sacr. 8;
Somn. 1.182; Op. 13).
b. The Divine Mind
Philo accepts the Platonic intelligible Forms. Forms exist forever
though the impressions they make may perish with the substance on
which they were made (Det. 75-77; Mut. 80, 122. 146; Cher. 51). They
are not, however, beings existing separately, only exist in the mind
of God as his thoughts and powers. Philo explicitly identifies Forms
with God's powers. Those powers are his glory, though invisible and
sensed only by the purest intellect. "And though they are by nature
inapprehensible in their essence, still they show a kind of impression
or copy of their energy and operation"(Spec. leg. 1.45-50). In his
doctrine of God Philo interprets the Logos, which is the Divine Mind,
as the Form of Forms (Platonic), the Idea of Ideas or the sum total of
Forms or Ideas. Logos is the indestructible Form of wisdom
comprehensible only by the intellect (Det. 75-76; Mig. 103).
c. God's Transcendent Power
The Logos which God begat eternally because it is a manifestation of
God's thinking-acting (Prov. 1.7; Sacr. 65; Mos. 1.283), is an agent
that unites two powers of the transcendent God. Philo relates that in
an inspiration his own soul told him:
…that in the one living and true God there were two supreme and
primary powers, Goodness [or Creative Power] and Authority [or Regent
Power]; and that by his Goodness he had created every thing; and that
by his Authority he governed all that he had created; and that the
third thing which was between the two, and had the effect of bringing
them together was the Logos, for it was owing to the Logos that God
was both a ruler and good (Cher. 1.27-28).
And further, Philo finds in the Bible indications of the operation of
the Logos, e.g., the biblical cherubim are the symbols of the two
powers of God but the flaming sword (Gen. 3.24) is the symbol of the
Logos conceived before all things and before all manifest (Cher.
1.27-28; Sacr. 59; Abr. 124-125; Her. 166; QE 2.68). Philo's
description of the Logos (the Mind of God) corresponds to the Greek
concept of mind as hot and fiery. Philo obviously refers in these
powers to the Unlimited (apeiron) and the Limited (peras) of Plato's
Philebus and earlier Pythagorean tradition, and they will later
reappear in Plotinus as Nous. In Plato these two principles or powers
operate at the metaphysical, cosmic (cosmic soul) and human (human
soul) levels. Philo considers these powers to be inherent in
transcendental God, and that God himself may be thought of as
multiplicity in unity. The Beneficent (Creative) and Regent
(Authoritative) Powers are called God and Lord, respectively. Goodness
is Boundless Power, Creative, and God. The Regent Power is also
Punitive Power and Lord (Her. 166). Creative Power, moreover,
permeates the world, the power by which God made and ordered all
things. Philo follows the ideas of the Stoics that nous pervades every
part of the universe as it does the soul in us. Therefore, Philo
asserts that the aspect of God which transcends his powers (which we
have to understand to be the Logos) cannot be conceived of in terms of
place but as pure being, "but that power of his by which he made and
ordered all things called God, in accordance with the etymology of
that name, enfolds the whole and passes through the parts of the
universe" (Conf. 136-137). According to Philo, the two powers of God
are separated by God himself who is standing above in the midst of
them (Her. 166). Referring to Genesis 18: 2 Philo claims that God and
his two Powers are in reality one. To the human mind they appear as a
Triad, with God above the powers that belong to him: "For this cannot
be so keen of spirit that, it can see Him who is above the powers that
belong to Him, (namely) God, distinct from everything else. For so
soon as one sets eyes on God, there also appear together with His
being, the ministering powers, so that in place of one he makes the
appearance of a triad (QG 4.2)." In addition to these two main powers,
there are other powers of the Father and his Logos, including merciful
and legislative (Fug. 94-95).
d. First-born Son of God
The Logos has an origin, but as God's thought it also has eternal
generation. It exists as such before everything else all of which are
secondary products of God's thought and therefore it is called the
"first-born." The Logos is thus more than a quality, power, or
characteristic of God; it is an entity eternally generated as an
extension, to which Philo ascribes many names and functions. The Logos
is the first-begotten Son of the Uncreated Father: "For the Father of
the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in
another passage, he [Moses] calls the first-born; and he who is thus
born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such
species, looking to his archetypal patterns" (Conf. 63). This picture
is somewhat confusing because we learn that in the final analysis the
Creative Power is also identified with the Logos. The Creative Power
is logically prior to the Regent Power since it is conceptually older.
Though the powers are of equal age, the creative is prior because one
is king not of the nonexistent but of what has already come into being
(QE 2.62). These two powers thus delimit the bounds of heaven and the
world. The Creative Power is concerned that things that come into
being through it should not be dissolved, and the Regent Power that
nothing either exceeds or is robbed of its due, all being arbitrated
by the laws of equality through which things continue eternally (QE
2.64). The positive properties of God may be subdivided into these two
polar forces; therefore, the expression of the One is the Logos that
constitutes the manifestation of God's thinking, acting (Prov. 1.7;
Sacr. 65; Mos. 1.283). According to Philo these powers of the Logos
can be grasped at various levels. Those who are at the summit level
grasp them as constituting an indivisible unity. At the two lower
levels, respectively, are those who know the Logos as the Creative
Power and beneath them those who know it as the Regent Power (Fug.
94-95; Abr. 124-125). The next level down represents those limited to
the sensible world, unable to perceive the intelligible realities
(Gig. 20). At each successively lower level of divine knowledge the
image of God's essence is increasingly more obscured. These two powers
will appear again in Plotinus. Here Undefined or Unlimited
Intelligible Matter proceeds from the One and then turns back to its
source (Enneads 2.4.5; 5.4.2; 6.7.17)
e. Universal Bond: in the Physical World and in the Human Soul
The Logos is the bond holding together all the parts of the world. And
as a part of the human soul it holds the body together and permits its
operation. In the mind of a wise man thoroughly purified, it allows
preservation of virtues in an unimpaired condition (Fug. 112). "And
the Logos, which connects together and fastens every thing, is
peculiarly full itself of itself, having no need whatever of any thing
beyond" (Her. 188).
f. Immanent Reason
The reasoning capacity of a human mind is but a portion of the
all-pervading Divine Logos. Mind is a special gift to humans from God
and it has divine essence, therefore, as such, it is imperishable. By
receiving this humans received freedom and the power of spontaneous
will free from necessity (Deus. 47). Philo emphasizes that man "has
received this one extraordinary gift, intellect, which is accustomed
to comprehend the nature of all bodies and of all things at the same
time." Thus humanity resembles God in the sense of having free
volition for unlike plants and other animals, the soul of man received
from God the power of voluntary motion and in this respect resembles
God (Deus. 48). This concept, that it is chiefly in the intellect and
free volition that makes humans differ from other life forms, has a
long history which can be traced to Anaxagoras and Aristotle. Philo
calls "men of God" those people who made God-inspired intellectual
life their dominant issue. Such men "have entirely transcended the
sensible sphere, and migrated to the intelligible world, and dwell
there enrolled as citizens of the Commonwealth of Ideas, which are
imperishable, and incorporeal … those who are born of God are priests
and prophets who have not thought fit to mix themselves up in the
constitutions of this world…."(Gig. 61). Philo writes in reference to
the Old Testament expression that God "breathed into" (equivalent of
"inspired" or "gave life to") inanimate things that through this act
God extended his spirit into humans (LA 1.37). Though his spirit is
distributed among men it is not diminished (Gig. 27). The nature of
the reasoning power in men is indivisible from the Divine Logos, but
"though they are indivisible themselves, they divide an innumerable
multitude of other things." Just as the Divine Logos divided and
distributed everything in nature (that is, it gave qualities to
undifferentiated, primordial matter), so the human mind by exertion of
its intellect is able to divide everything and everybody into an
infinite number of parts. And this is possible because it resembles
the Logos of the Creator and Father of the universe: "So that, very
naturally, the two things which thus resemble each other, both the
mind which is in us and that which is above us, being without parts
and invisible, will still be able in a powerful manner to divide and
distribute [comprehend] all existing things" (Her. 234-236; Det. 90).
Uninitiated minds are unable to apprehend the Existent by itself; they
only perceive it through its actions. To them God appears as a Triad —
himself and his two Powers: Creative and Ruling. To the "purified
soul," however, God appears as One.
When, therefore, the soul is shone upon by God as if at noonday,
and when it is wholly and entirely filled with that light which is
appreciable only by the intellect, and by being wholly surrounded with
its brilliancy is free from all shackle or darkness, it then perceives
a threefold image of one subject, one image of the living God, and
others of the other two, as if they were shadows irradiated by it ….
but he claims that the term shadow is just a more vivid representation
of the matter intended to be intimated. Since this is not the actual
truth, but in order that one may when speaking keep as close to the
truth as possible, the one in the middle is the Father of the
universe, who in the sacred scripture is called by his proper name, I
am that I am; and the beings on each side are those most ancient
powers which are always close to the living God, one of which is
called his Creative Power, and the other his Royal Power. And the
Creative Power is God, for it is by this that he made and arranged the
universe; and the Royal Power is the Lord, for it is fitting that the
Creator should lord it over and govern the creature. Therefore, the
middle person of the three, being attended by each of his powers as by
body-guard, presents to the mind, which is endowed with the faculty of
sight, a vision at one time of one being, and at another time of
three; of one when the soul being completely purified, and having
surmounted not only the multitude of numbers, but also the number two,
which is the neighbour of the unit, hastens onward to that idea which
is devoid of mixture, free from all combination, and by itself in need
of nothing else whatever; and of three, when, not being as yet made
perfect as to the important virtues, it is still seeking for
initiation in those of less consequence, and is not able to attain to
a comprehension of the living God by its own unassisted faculties
without the aid of something else, but can only do so by judging of
his deeds, whether as creator or as governor. This then, as they say,
is the second best thing; and it no less partakes in the opinion which
is dear to and devoted to God. But the first-mentioned disposition has
no such share, but is itself the very God-loving and God-beloved
opinion itself, or rather it is truth which is older than opinion, and
more valuable than any seeming (Abr. 119-123).
The one category of enlightened people is able to comprehend God
through a vision beyond the physical universe. It is as though they
advanced on a heavenly ladder and conjectured the existence of God
through an inference (Praem. 40). The other category apprehends him
through himself, as light is seen by light. For God gave man such a
perception "as should prove to him that God exists, and not to show
him what God is." Philo believes that even the existence of God
"cannot possibly be contemplated by any other being; because, in fact,
it is not possible for God to be comprehended by any being but himself
" (Praem. 39-40). Philo adds, "Only men who have raised themselves
upward from below, so as, through the contemplation of his works, to
form a conjectural conception of the Creator by a probable train of
reasoning" (Praem. 43) are holy, and are his servants. Next Philo
explains how such men have an impression of God's existence as
revealed by God himself, by the similitude of the sun (Mut. 4-6) a
concept which he borrowed from Plato. As light is seen in consequence
of its own presence so, "In the same manner God, being his own light,
is perceived by himself alone, nothing and no other being co-operating
with or assisting him, a being at all able to contribute to pure
comprehension of his existence; But these men have arrived at the real
truth, who form their ideas of God from God, of light from light"
(Praem. 45-46). As Plato and Philo had done, Plotinus later used this
image of the sun. Thus the Logos, eternally created (begotten), is an
expression of the immanent powers of God, and at the same time, it
emanates into everything in the world.
g. Immanent Mediator of the Physical Universe
In certain places in his writings Philo accepts the Stoic theory of
the immanent Logos as the power or Law binding the opposites in the
universe and mediating between them, and directing the world. For
example, Philo envisions that the world is suspended in a vacuum and
asks, how is it that the world does not fall down since it is not held
by any solid thing. Philo then gives the answer that the Logos
extending himself from the center to its bounds and from its
extremities to the center again, runs nature's course joining and
binding fast all its parts. Likewise the Logos prevents the earth from
being dissolved by all the water contained within. The Logos produces
a harmony (a favorite expression of the Stoics) between various parts
of the universe (Plant. 8-10). Thus Philo sees God as only indirectly
the Creator of the world: God is the author of the invisible,
intelligible world which served as a model for the Logos. Philo says
Moses called this archetypal heavenly power by various names: "the
beginning, the image, and the sight of God"(LA 1.43). Following the
views of Plato and the Stoics, Philo believed that in all existing
things there must be an active cause, and a passive subject; and that
the active cause Philo designates as the Logos. He gives the
impression that he believed that the Logos functions like the Platonic
"Soul of the World" (Aet. 84).
h. The Angel of the Lord, Revealer of God
Philo describes the Logos as the revealer of God symbolized in the
Scripture (Gen. 31:13; 16:8; etc) by an angel of the Lord (Somn.
1.228-239; Cher. 1-3). The Logos is the first-born and the eldest and
chief of the angels.
i. Multi-Named Archetype
Philo's Logos has many names (Conf. 146). Philo identifies his Logos
with Wisdom of Proverbs 8:22 (Ebr. 31). Moreover, Moses, according to
Philo called this Wisdom "Beginning," "Image," "Sight of God." And his
personal wisdom is an imitation of the archetypal Divine Wisdom. All
terrestrial wisdom and virtue are but copies and representations of
the heavenly Logos (LA 1.43, 45-46).
j. Soul-Nourishing Manna and Wisdom
God sends "the stream" from his Wisdom which irrigates God-loving
souls; consequently they become filled with "manna." Manna is
described by Philo as a "generic thing" coming from God. It does not
come from God directly, however: "the most generic is God, and next is
the Logos of God, the other things subsist in word (Logos) only" (LA
2.86). According to Philo, Moses called manna "the most ancient Logos
of God (Det. 118)." Next Philo explains that men are "nourished by the
whole word (Logos) of God, and by every portion of it … Accordingly,
the soul of the more perfect man is nourished by the whole word
(Logos); but we must be contented if we are nourished by a portion of
it" (LA 3.175-176). And "the Wisdom of God, which is the nurse and
foster-mother and educator of those who desire incorruptible food …
immediately supplies food to those which are brought forth by her …
but the fountain of divine wisdom is borne along, at one time in a
more gentle and moderate stream, and at another with greater rapidity
and a more exceeding violence and impetuosity….(Det. 115-117). This
Wisdom as the Daughter of God "has obtained a nature intact and
undefiled both because of her own propriety and the dignity of him who
begot her." Having identified the Logos with Wisdom, Philo runs into a
grammatical problem: in the Greek language "wisdom" (sophia) is
feminine and "word" (logos) is masculine; moreover, Philo saw Wisdom's
function as masculine. So he explains that Wisdom's name is feminine,
but her nature is masculine:
Indeed all the virtues have women's designations, but powers and
activities of truly perfect men. For that which comes after God, even
if it were the most venerable of all other things, holds second place,
and was called feminine in contrast to the Creator of the universe,
who is masculine, and in accordance with its resemblance to everything
else. For the feminine always falls short and is inferior to the
masculine, which has priority. Let us then pay no attention to the
discrepancy in the terms, and say that the daughter of God, Wisdom, is
both masculine and the father, inseminating and engendering in souls a
desire to learn discipline, knowledge, practical insight, notable and
laudable actions (Fug. 50-52).
k. Intermediary Power
The fundamental doctrine propounded by Philo is that of Logos as an
intermediary power, a messenger and mediator between God and the
world.
And the father who created the universe has given to his archangel
and most ancient Logos a pre-eminent gift, to stand on the confines of
both, and separate that which had been created from the Creator. And
this same Logos is continually a suppliant to the immortal God on
behalf of the mortal race, which is exposed to affliction and misery;
and is also the ambassador, sent by the Ruler of all, to the subject
race. And the Logos rejoices…. saying "And I stood in the midst,
between the Lord and you" (Num. 16:48); neither being uncreated as
God, nor yet created as you, but being in the midst between these two
extremities, like a hostage, as it were, to both parties (Her.
205-206).
When speaking of the high priest, Philo describes the Logos as God's
son, a perfect being procuring forgiveness of sins and blessings: "For
it was indispensable that the man who was consecrated to the Father of
the world [the high priest] should have as a paraclete, his son, the
being most perfect in all virtue, to procure forgiveness of sins, and
a supply of unlimited blessings" (Mos. 2.134). Philo transforms the
Stoic impersonal and immanent Logos into a being who was neither
eternal like God nor created like creatures, but begotten from
eternity. This being is a mediator giving hope to men and who "was
sent down to earth." God, according to Philo, sends "the stream of his
own wisdom" to men "and causes the changed soul to drink of
unchangeable health; for the abrupt rock is the wisdom of God, which
being both sublime and the first of things he quarried out of his own
powers." After the souls are watered they are filled with the manna
which "is called something which is the primary genus of everything.
But the most universal of all things is God; and in the second place
is the Logos of God"(LA 2.86). Through the Logos of God men learn all
kinds of instruction and everlasting wisdom (Fug. 127-120). The Logos
is the "cupbearer of God … being itself in an unmixed state, the pure
delight and sweetness, and pouring forth and joy, and ambrosial
medicine of pleasure and happiness" (Somn. 2.249). This wisdom was
represented by the tabernacle of the Old Testament which was "a thing
made after the model and in imitation of Wisdom" and sent down to
earth "in the midst of our impurity in order that we may have
something whereby we may be purified, washing off and cleansing all
those things which dirty and defile our miserable life, full of all
evil reputation as it is" (Her. 112-113). "God therefore sows and
implants terrestrial virtue in the human race, being an imitation and
representation of the heavenly virtue" (LA 1.45).
l. "God"
In three passages Philo describes the Logos even as God:
a.) Commenting on Genesis 22:16 Philo explains that God could only
swear by himself (LA 3.207).
b.) When the scripture uses the Greek term for God ho theos, it
refers to the true God, but when it uses the term theos, without the
article ho, it refers not to the God, but to his most ancient Logos
(Somn. 1.229-230).
c.) Commenting on Genesis 9:6 Philo states the reference to
creation of man after the image of God is to the second deity, the
Divine Logos of the Supreme being and to the father himself, because
it is only fitting that the rational soul of man cannot be in relation
to the preeminent and transcendent Divinity (QG 2.62).
Philo himself, however, explains that to call the Logos "God" is not a
correct appellation (Somn.1.230). Also, through this Logos, which men
share with God, men know God and are able to perceive Him (LA
1.37-38).
m. Summary of Philo's Concept of the Logos
Philo's doctrine of the Logos is blurred by his mystical and religious
vision, but his Logos is clearly the second individual in one God as a
hypostatization of God's Creative Power – Wisdom. The supreme being is
God and the next is Wisdom or the Logos of God (Op. 24). Logos has
many names as did Zeus (LA 1.43,45,46), and multiple functions.
Earthly wisdom is but a copy of this celestial Wisdom. It was
represented in historical times by the tabernacle through which God
sent an image of divine excellence as a representation and copy of
Wisdom (Lev. 16:16; Her. 112-113). The Divine Logos never mixes with
the things which are created and thus destined to perish, but attends
the One alone. This Logos is apportioned into an infinite number of
parts in humans, thus we impart the Divine Logos. As a result we
acquire some likeness to the Father and the Creator of all (Her.
234-236). The Logos is the Bond of the universe and mediator extended
in nature. The Father eternally begat the Logos and constituted it as
an unbreakable bond of the universe that produces harmony (Plant.
9-10). The Logos, mediating between God and the world, is neither
uncreated as God nor created as men. So in Philo's view the Father is
the Supreme Being and the Logos, as his chief messenger, stands
between Creator and creature. The Logos is an ambassador and
suppliant, neither unbegotten nor begotten as are sensible things
(Her. 205). Wisdom, the Daughter of God, is in reality masculine
because powers have truly masculine descriptions, whereas virtues are
feminine. That which is in the second place after the masculine
Creator was called feminine, according to Philo, but her priority is
masculine; so the Wisdom of God is both masculine and feminine (Fug.
50-52). Wisdom flows from the Divine Logos (Fug. 137-138). The Logos
is the Cupbearer of God. He pours himself into happy souls (Somn.
2.249). The immortal part of the soul comes from the divine breath of
the Father/Ruler as a part of his Logos.
12. List of abbreviations to Philo's works
Abr. De Abrahamo;
Aet. De Aeternitate Mundi;
Agr. De Agricultura;
Anim. De Animalibus;
Cher. De Cherubim;
Conf. De Confusione Linguarum;
Congr. De Congressu Eruditionis Gratia;
Cont. De Vita Contemplativa;
Decal. De Decalogo;
Det. Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat;
Deus. Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis;
Ebr. De Ebrietate;
Flac. In Flaccum;
Fug. De Fuga et Inventione;
Gig. De Gigantibus;
Her. Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit;
Hypoth. Hypothetica;
Jos. De Josepho;
LA Legum Allegoriarum;
Legat. Legatio ad Gaium;
Mig. De Migratione Abrahami;
Mut. De Mutatione Nominum;
Op. De Opificio Mundi;
Plant. De Plantatione;
Post. De Posteritate Caini;
Praem. De Praemiis et Poenis;
Prob. Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit;
Prov. De Providentia;
QE Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum;
QG Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesim;
Sacr. De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini;
Sobr. De Sobrietate;
Somn. De Somniis;
Spec. leg. De Specialibus Legibus;
Virt. De Virtutibus.
13. Editions of Philo's works and their translations
The Greek texts of Philo's works:
* Philonis Judaei Opera Omnia. Textus editus ad fidem optimarum
editionum. (Lipsiae: Sumptibus E.B. Schwickerti, 1828-1829), Vol.
1-6.
* Philonis Alexandrini Opera Quae Supersunt. Ediderunt Leopoldus
Cohn et Paulus Wendland (Berolini: Typis et impensis Georgii Reimeri/
Walther de Gruyter & Co., MDCCCLXXXXVI – MCMXXX, reprinted in 1962).
Vols. 1-7.
The Armenian text and its English translation:
* A. Terian, Philonis Alexandrini De Animalibus: The Armenian Text
with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Studies in
Hellenistic Judaism, Supplements to Studia Philonica 1. (Chico:
Scholars Press, 1981).
Translations of complete works:
* The Works of Philo. Complete and Unabridged. Translated by
Charles Duke Yonge, New Updated Edition. (Hedrickson Publishers,
1995).
* F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, eds., The Works of Philo
(Cambridge, Mass: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press;
London: William Heinemann, 1929-1953), Vols. 1-10. Ralph Marcus, ed,
Vols 10-12, containing works of Philo available only in Armenian.
Selections of works of Philo in translation:
* Philo, Selections ed., Hans Lewy in Three Jewish Philosophers
(Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, 1961).
* Philo of Alexandria, The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and
Selections. Translation and Introduction by David Winston. Preface by
John Dillon. (New York/ Ramsey/Toronto: Paulist Press, 1981).
* Ronald Williamson, Jews in the Hellenistic World: Philo
(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989).
14. Major Works on Philo
* T. H. Billings, The Platonism of Philo Judaeus (Chicago, 1919).
* H. A. Wolfson, Philo (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
1947), Vols 1-2.
* C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1963).
* Ronald Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1970).
* R. C. Baer, Philo's Use of the Categories Male and Female
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970).
* S. Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (New
York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).
* Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia;
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989).
* Dorothy Sly, Philo's Perception of Women (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990).
* Ross Shepard Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Women's
religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World
(NewYork /Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
* John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1977, 1996).
No comments:
Post a Comment