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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

PHILO*, Judaeus

Hellenistic Jewish philosopher (c. 25 BC–AD 40) whose thought presents the first major confrontation of biblical faith with Greek thought.

Son of a prominent Alexandrian family, Philo was educated both in the Jewish faith and in Greek philosophy and culture. Of the events of his life we know little, except that in AD 40 he headed a delegation from the Jewish community in Alexandria to the emperor Caligula in Rome. Ethnic tension in Alexandria had grown as the Jewish populace increased and prospered. The tension erupted in AD 42 into riots by the Greeks and the expulsion of Jews from the Gentile sections into which they had spread. Jewish commercial success, particularly in the wheat trade, led to intensified anti-Semitism. Out of the riots came two apologetic treatises by Philo Judaeus, Against Flaccus (Flaccus was governing in Alexandria) and Embassy to Caligula (Caligula was emperor in Rome).

The Jewish community in Alexandria was thoroughly Hellenized. Even the Scriptures were read in the Greek translation called the Septuagint. In spite of the fact that these Jews were living and participating in Greek culture, they remained orthodox. Philo was no exception. On the one hand, he carefully observed the Mosaic law and held that it is the infallibly revealed will of God, both for God’s chosen people—the Jews—and for the Gentiles. On the other hand, Philo was very Greek. He probably knew Hebrew only imperfectly and received a liberal education under Greek tutors. His Bible was the OT, especially the Pentateuch, which he held to be most authoritative, but he read it in Greek translation. Because he held that the Septuagint was divinely inspired, Philo had no need to refer to the original Hebrew text.

To understand Philo’s work, one must recognize that the need to come to terms with Greek culture stemmed not merely from practical necessity but also from the fact that Judaism is a missionary religion. Jews could not simply turn their backs on the Greek world, for the prophets had called Israel to be a light to the Gentiles. From his studies Philo was also convinced that there is much that is true in Greek philosophy. Consequently, he was anxious to find some way of correlating and harmonizing biblically revealed truth with the teachings of the philosophers. As a Jewish believer considering the claims of Greek philosophy, Philo was confronted with problems very similar to those posed for a Christian by scientific theories of evolution in our day.

The method that Philo used to harmonize Scripture with the teachings of the philosophers was allegorical interpretation. This method of interpretation had been practiced by many before Philo, and many others followed his example. Through the use of this method, Genesis could be read as a contemporary myth about the human condition and man’s search for salvation, rather than as an ancient and somewhat crude legend (as the Greeks would see it). The proper reading of the text gives not ancient history and geography but philosophical and moral truth. According to Philo, Moses—both because he was divinely instructed and because he had attained the summit of philosophy—did not resort to mythical fictions, as poets and sophists do; he was able to make ideas visible. By using allegorical interpretation, Philo found in the historical narrative and ceremonial law an inward, spiritual meaning that incorporates the truth he found in Greek thought.

In dealing with the conception of God, Philo approached Greek views critically and rejected what was opposed to Scripture. However, in dealing with the structure and composition of the world, Scripture is quite vague, and so Philo felt free to adopt whatever seemed most reasonable in the writings of the philosophers. He believed that God is the source of both the Mosaic law and the truths of Greek philosophy. The human mind is made in the image of the divine Logos, and so it has some capacity to receive and discover truths about realities beyond the sensible.

Among the philosophers, Philo found Plato’s view closest to the truth. God existed from eternity without a world, and after he made the world, he continued to exist above and beyond it. God is the active cause, and this world is passive, incapable of life and motion by itself, but a most perfect masterpiece when set in motion, shaped, and quickened by God. Moreover, God does not neglect his creation but cares for it and preserves it. This care is called providence. While the Greeks had spoken of a universal providence that preserves natural processes, for Philo providence acquired a new meaning. It is God’s care for individual beings, so that it includes the power to suspend the laws of nature.

God is one but is the source of all multiplicity. He is immutable and self-sufficient and hence does not need the world. Creation has its source in his goodness. Although Moses said that the world was created in six days, God must be thought of as doing all things simultaneously. The account of six days serves to show that there is order in things. The visible world was created out of nonbeing, from nothing. All the available matter was used in creation, so the world is unique. The world was created by God’s will, and it may be imperishable. Philo thought that Plato followed Moses in thinking that the world was created by God.

Concerning the doctrine of the Logos, Philo is both dependent upon and yet critical of the Greek philosophers. Plato had affirmed that there are eternal ideas to which the Craftsman or Maker looked when forming the world. Philo could not accept this position, because God alone is eternal. He harmonized the two views by affirming that from eternity the ideas existed as thoughts of God, but they became a fully formed intelligible world only when God willed to create the visible world. The universe of the ideas, which has no location other than the divine reason, is the pattern according to which the sensible world was made.

To Philo, the Logos is much more than just the instrument by which the visible world was made. It is also described as “the idea of ideas,” the first-begotten Son of the uncreated Father and “second God,” the archetype of human reason. The Logos is the vital power that holds together the entire hierarchy of created beings. As God’s viceroy, he mediates revelation to the created order. He stands on the frontier between Creator and creature. He is the high priest who intercedes with God on behalf of mortals. He appeared in the burning bush and dwelt in Moses. Some think that the Logos is God, but he is really God’s image. While one can be quite certain that the Logos was not a person for Philo, the exact status of this power in relation to God is by no means clear.

Various aspects of this teaching have been taken up by Christian writers, most notably John, who taught that the Logos (the Word) is the instrument by means of which God created the world (see Jn 1:1-4). About the origins of this view much less is known. It appears that the notion of the Logos was current in Hellenistic Judaism. Its function in Philo’s thought seems to indicate that it was philosophical considerations, rather than biblical ones, that were most significant in his teaching.

Philo had other views about the creation. He believed that while the heavenly bodies are living creatures endowed with mind and not susceptible to evil, man is of a mixed nature, liable to failure. He can be both wise and foolish, just and unjust. God made all good things by himself, but man, because he is liable to both good and evil, must have been made by lesser deities. This is why we are told by Moses that God said, “Let us make man” (Gn 1:26, emphasis added). In the case of man, then, being created involved a Fall. Here also there are two steps in Creation. First, there is man created after the divine image, and this is an idea or type, an object of thought only, incorporeal, neither male nor female, and by nature incorruptible (Gn 1:26). Later it says that “God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gn 2:7). This man became an object of sense perception, consisting of body and soul, man or woman, by nature mortal. Woman became for man the beginning of blameworthy life. When man and woman saw each other, desire was aroused, and this desire produced bodily pleasure. This pleasure is the beginning of wrongs and violation of law. The Garden of Eden is also meant to be taken symbolically rather than literally. There never have been trees of life or of understanding, nor is it likely that any will ever appear on earth. The tree of life signifies reverence toward God; the tree of knowledge of good and evil signifies moral prudence.

One sees in Philo, then, a tendency to dualism in which spirit is good and matter evil, a tendency derived from Platonism and read into the OT. This led Philo to agree with the Stoics that the only good is the good of the soul. God gives us the world to use, not to possess. To rise to the eternal world of the mind, a man must suppress all responses to the sensible world. In general, Philo tended toward a world-denying asceticism.

The only temple worthy of God is a pure soul. True religion consists in inner devotion rather than externals. In this life the soul is a pilgrim, like Abraham or like the Israelites wandering in the desert. Through spiritual self-discipline, the soul comes to realize that the body is a major obstacle to perfection. The goal of this spirituality is to draw near to God, who has drawn the mind to himself. God is knowable by the mind, but he is unknowable in himself. We can know only that he is, not what he is. For Philo, the soul in its search for perfection ultimately comes to discover that it must cease to rely on itself and must acknowledge that virtue is a gift of God. The man who has discovered his own limitations comes to know God and his own dependence upon God.

Although Josephus borrowed some from Philo, Philo’s greatest influence was on Christian writers. Hellenistic Judaism became less significant as the Judaism of the rabbis became the norm during the next two centuries. By contrast, second- and third-century Christians had much in common with Philo. Parts of his work were translated into Latin and Armenian. Clement and Origen, among the Greek fathers, and Ambrose, among the Latin fathers, were especially indebted to him.