PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA-
III. Doctrines.
Relation and Scope (§1). On God in Himself (§ 2). God Revealed; Creation (§ 3). Intermediate Potencies; the Logos (§4).
Man (§ 5). The Scriptures (§ 6). Ethics (§ 7). Eschatology (§ 8). IV. Later Influence.
I. Life: Philo of Alexandria (b. about 20 B.C.; d. about 42 a.d.) stands as the leading exponent of the Jewish-Alexandrine religious philosophy, and in its influence upon the literature of the Christian Church its foremost representative. The incomplete biography of him is derived from statements in his own works and from incidental passages in Josephus (Ant., XVIII., viii. 1, XX., v. 2), Eusebius (Hist, eccl., ii. 4-5; Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 107-109; Prceparatio evangelica, viii. 13-14; Eng.
transl., 2 vols., Oxford, 1903), Jerome (De vir. HI., xi.), Isidore of Pelusium, Photius, and Suidas. From these it appears that Philo was of a rich, prominent family, brother of Alexander Lysimachus, alabarch of the Jews at Alexandria. Whether he was of priestly descent (Jerome) and whether his name was Jedediah or this was merely a free rendering of the name Philo by later Jewish writers remain uncertain. In 39 or 40 a.d. he appeared as the representative of the Jews of Alexandria
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Philistines
Philo of Alexandria
before Caligula at Rome to regain the privileges lost through the acts of the imperial governor Publius Avilius Flaccus in conjunction with the bloody atrocities of the hostile Greek party. The mission secured no promise of relief; but the accession of Claudius brought the restoration of their rights and the release of their imprisoned alabarch; and under Claudius, Philo wrote the report of the expedition to Rome. At what time he sojourned in Palestine is uncertain.
II. Works: Of his works, Eusebius (Hist, eccl., ii. 18; Eng. transl., ut sup., 119-122) gives a fair but incomplete enumeration; but some of the writings mentioned thus, as well as others in the later accounts of Jerome, Photius, and Suii. Lost and das, are extant, if at all, in fragments Spurious, only. All but meager fragments is lost of the important work " Counsels for the Jews," no doubt identical with the " Apology for the Jews " mentioned by Eusebius; likewise three books of " Questions and Answers on Exodus," two books of the " Allegory of the Sacred Laws," one book of " On Rewards," and the same of " On Numbers." Peter Alexius refuted the charge brought by a forgotten Socinian theologian of the seventeenth century that a Christian author toward the close of the second century composed the collective writings of Philo and ascribed them to him. This untenable hypothesis was taken up in the last century by a hypercritic of Jewish descent, Kirschbaum by name, who assumed, however, a gigantic fraud by several Christian authors. More consideration is due to recent attacks on individual works; such as, for instance, against the apparent composite character of De incorruptibilitate mundi, against the " Dissertations on Samson and Jonah " from the Armenian, the Interpretatio Hebraicorum nominum, and the Liber antiquitatum Biblicarum printed in the sixteenth century in Philo's name. The last three are certainly not genuine. Weighty objections have been raised by recent critics against the authenticity of De vita contemplativa, some of whom claim its origin to have been from the monk Falsarius at the close of the third century; because (1) of its connection with the writing Quod omnis probus liber of which it is claimed to be a continuation; (2) the author is more limited in his cosmic view than Philo and has in mind the monastic mode of thought; and (3) it was never mentioned before Eusebius, who seeks to establish thereby the historical priority of the Therapeutae (q.v.). However, this argument makes too much of the silence before Eusebius; besides, the diction is decidedly of the period of Philo, and the descent of the manuscript as well as the Jewish character of its contents speak also for its authenticity.
The genuine or unquestioned works of Philo fall into three groups: the exegetical on the Pentateuch, the philosophical, and the political. The exegetical is the most replete and comprehensive 2. Exe- and is subdivided as to contents into getical the cosmogonical, historical, and legislative writings. Of the cosmogonical, De mundi opificio is an allegorical explanation of the creation in Genesis. The historical writings, called also allegorical or genealogical, present a historico-
allegorical elucidation of Genesis chapter by chapter. Those of legislative content present ethical considerations with reference to the decalogue and Hebrew ritual based on the codes in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.
The philosophical works belonging to Philo's
earlier period and challenged by the modern critics
on account of difference of content with that of the
later works are, De incorruptibilitate
2. Philo- mundi; Quod omnis probus liber; and sophical and De vita contemplativa. To these be-
Political. long the Qumstiones et solutiones in Genesin et Exodum, a brief catechetical explanation of the Pentateuch originally in five books, partly preserved in a Latin translation and partly recovered in an Armenian translation; and, from the Armenian, De procidentia (2 books); and Alexander seu de ratione brutorum. The political or historico-apologetical writings for the cultured class of Jews and heathen in common, with an apologetical tendency in favor of the first, embrace, De vita Mosis; the " Counsels for the Jews "; " Unto Flaccus"; and "Embassy to Gaius " [Caligula], the last two important for autobiographical notices, and forming books hi. and iv. respectively of a more comprehensive work of five books, " On the. Fate of the Jews under Emperor Gaius," the fourth and fifth of which bore the common title, " On the Virtues."
III. Doctrines: Philo stands as the most conspicuous figure and the culminating point of a long development marked by the confluence of Jewish monotheism and Hellenic cosmogony. i. Relation This movement is represented at Alexand Scope, andria in the middle of the third century before Christ by the peripatetic Aristobulus, who already shows the tendency of allegorizing and of abstracting the conception of deity from Biblical anthropomorphism by the intrusion of intermediate entities. The allegorizing of Philo is said to have gathered up into a mighty basin all the streams of Alexandrine hermeneutics from the past and discharged them again into multiple streams and rivulets of the later exegesis of Judaism and Christianity. He knew all the important Greek philosophers, from whom he cited freely; but first for him was Plato, from whom he derived his philosophical content, while in his method of extravagant allegorizing he imitated the Stoics. These allegorized the Greek myths in the effort to philosophize the multiple forms of popular religion and reduce them to simple fundamental principles; so did Philo in dealing with the Biblical and legal forms and cultic prescriptions of the Jews, in the interest, however, of monotheism. In his adherence to a living personal Creator and Ruler of the universe, revealed through Moses, and choosing Israel- from the world races as his peculiar possession, he did not waver. Moses to him is the prophet of all prophets and his law the essence of all wisdom and doctrine of virtue; and waiving his privilege of constructing an independent cosmology he presents his cosmological views in the form of a great practico-speculative commentary on the Pentateuch. He disapproves of the heretical sects of Judaism, and lavishes warm praise on the pious Essenes. The
Philo of Alexandria