PHILO JUD^EUS 



121 



tlic divine revelation given to Moses as the source 

 of all true knowledge in religion. He lia<l com- 

 pletely mastered tlie literature of his nation, but, 

 strange to say, was by no means a profound Hebrew 

 scholar. \Vhen over fifty years or age he went to 

 Rome as the advocate of his Alexandrian brethren, 

 who had refused to worship Caligula in obedience 

 to the imperial edict. His De Legatione ad Caium 

 gives a vivid account of this embassy. Of his life we 

 know little except what is recorded above, and that 

 he once went to Jerusalem. His second mission 

 to Home, to the Emperor Claudius, on which occa- 

 sion Ensebius reports that he made the acquaint- 

 ance of the apostle Peter, is doubtful. 



The religions and philosophical system of Philo, 

 however, is most minutely known, and deserves the 

 moM eareful study on account of the vast influence 

 which it has exercised both on the Jewish and 

 Christian world. To understand his system aright 

 it will be necessary to recall to memory the strange 

 mental atmosphere of his day. The Alexandrines 

 had endeavoured to make Judaism palatable to the 

 refined Greeks, by proving it to be identical with 

 the grandest conceptions of their philosophers and 

 poets, and had quite allegorised away its distinctive 

 characteristic!). Pliilo was the first man who, 

 although himself to a great extent imbued with 

 allegorising tendencies, made a bold and successful 

 stand against a like evaporisation of the revealed 

 religion of his fathers ; which, indeed, in many cases 

 had led people to throw off its yoke also outwardly. 

 Himself a most zealous champion of Judaism, his 

 bitterness knows no liounds in rebuke of those co- 

 religionists who tried to defend their secret or overt 

 apostasy by scoffing at the Law itself, who were 'im- 

 patient of their religious institutions, ever on the 

 lookout for matter of censure and complaint against 

 the laws of religion, who, in excuse of their ungod- 

 liness, thoughtlessly argue all manner of objections.' 

 He cannot understand how Jews, ' destined by 

 divine authority to be the priests and prophets for 

 all mankind,' could be found so utterly olind to the 

 fact that that which is the position only of a 

 few disciples of a truly genuine philosophy viz. 

 the knowledge of the Highest had by law and 

 rii-Kiin become the inheritance of every individual 

 of their own people ; whose real calling, in fact, 

 it was to invoke the blessing of God on mankind, 

 and who, when they offered up sacrifices ' for the 

 people,' offered them up in reality for all men. 



lo Pliilo the divinity of the Jewish law is the 

 basis and test of all true philosophy. Although, 

 like his contemporaries, he holds that the greater 

 part of the Pentateuch, both in its historical and 

 legal portions, may l>e explained allegorically nay, 

 i far even as to call only the Ten Command- 

 ments, the fundamental rules of the Jewish theo- 

 cracy, direct and immediate revelations, while the 

 other parts of the Book are owing to Moses he yet 

 holds the latter to be the interpreter specially 

 selected by God, to whose dicta in so far also 

 divine veneration and strict ol>edience are due ; and 

 again, while admitting that many explanations 

 of a metaphysical nature may be given to single 

 pa-sage, xet demands in general that their literal 

 meaning shall not be tampered with. This literal 

 meaning, according to him, is the essential part, 

 tin- other explanations are mere speculation 

 exactly as the Mid rash and some Church Fathers 

 hold. At the same time it is true thut, without 

 denying the literal meaning, again and again he 

 put" forward the allegorical meaning as the one 

 really divine, arid indeed sometimes he treats the 

 literal meaning as absurd. Only the allegorical 

 method in his hands differed in so far from that of 

 his contemporaries that to him these interpretations 



for which he dirl not disdain sometimes even to 

 use the numbers symbolically, or to derive Hebrew 



words from Greek roots, and the like were not a 

 mere play of fancy, in which he could exercise his 

 powers of imagination, but, to a certain extent, a 

 reality, an inner necessity. He clung to philosophy, 

 as combined with the Law. If the former could be 

 shown, somehow or other, to be hinted at in the 

 latter, then only he could be that which all his 

 soul yearned to be viz. the disciple of both : a 

 Greek, with all the refinement of Greek culture, 

 and a Jew a faithful, pious, religious Jew. Nay, 

 he even urged the necessity of allegory from the 

 twofold reason of the anthropomorphisms current 

 in Scripture and from certain apparent super- 

 fluities, repetitions, and the like, which, in a 

 record that emanated from the Deity, must needs 

 have a special meaning of their own which 

 required investigation and a peculiar interpreta- 

 tion. Yet this fanciful method never for one moment 

 interfered with his real object of pointing out how 

 Judaism most plainly and unmistakably was based 

 ujion the highest ethical principles. 



His writings develop his ideas and his system 

 in the two directions indicated. In that division 

 of his writings principally which treats of the 

 Creation ( MWjuojroua ) he allows allegory to take the 

 reins out of his hands ; in that on the Laws (vofioi ), 

 on the other hand, he remains remarkably sober 

 and clear, extolling the Mosaic legislation through- 

 out at the expense of every other known to him. 

 In a very few instances only is he induced to lind 

 fault, or to alter slightly, by way of allegory, the 

 existing ordinances. 



His idea of God, is intended to lie in the highest 

 degree philosophical, though its religious signifi- 

 cance is never lost sight of. God alone is the real 

 Good, the Perfect, the final cause of all things, 

 which ceaselessly How outwards from Hiniseli'. 

 God is only to l>e imagined as the primeval light, 

 which cannot lie seen by itself, but which may 

 l>e known from its rays that fill the whole world. 

 Being infinite and uncreated, He is not to be com- 

 pared with any created thing. He has, therefore, 

 no name, and reveals Himself only in designa- 

 tions expressive of this 'inexpressibility,' such as 

 'the Place' (the Talmudical Makoni), because 

 He comprises all space, and there is nothing any- 

 where besides Him. He is better than Virtue and 

 Knowledge, better than the Beautiful and the 

 Good (Ka\oK&faBia.), simpler than the One, more 

 blissful than Bliss. Thus He has properly speak- 

 ing no quality, or only negative ones. He is the 

 existing Unity or Existence itself (6 <5i), comprised 

 in the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton. As 

 Creator, God manifests Himself to man, and in 

 this phase of active revelation of God, which is 

 as natural to Him as burning is to the heat, and 

 cold to the snow, may be distinguished two dis- 

 tinct sides or essential properties, the Power and 

 the Grace, to which correspond the two Scripture 

 names of Elohim and Adonai. The Power also 

 gives the laws and punishes the offender ; while 

 the Grace is the beneficent, forgiving, merciful 

 quality. Yet, since there is not to be assumed an 

 immediate influence of God upon the world, their 

 respective natures being so different that a point of 

 contact cannot be found, an intermediate class of 

 l>eings had to be created to statid between both, 

 through whom He could act in and upon creation 

 viz. the spiritual world of ideas, which are not only 

 'Ideals, 'or types, in the Platonic sense, but real, 

 active powers ( dwdfieu ), surrounding God like a 

 number of attendant Beings. They are His messen- 

 gers, who work His will, and by the Greeks are called 

 good daemons, by Moses angels. There are very 

 many different degrees of perfection among them. 

 Some are immediate 'serving angels;' others are the 

 souls of the pious, of the prophets, and the people 

 of Israel, who rise higher up to the Deity ; others, 



