Iii 



I'HILO JUD^US 



again. *re the hea<U anil chief representatives of 

 tin- different nations, such as Israel does not 

 need, since they conceive and acknowledge the 

 Kverlasting Heil of all lleings Himself. < ',,1 

 l.-ctivcly tin- Power- in.- used as equivalent to 

 tin- nature or essence of Cod his ideas or thoughts 

 dominating and informing tin- universe ; yet they ale 

 far f nun licing iilisiitute for Cut). /eller maintains 

 that in I'hilo'.H doctrine of tin- Powers two r.-pie 

 ^illation-, cm*- each other the religious notion of 

 personal, ami thi> philosophical of bnMMML medi- 

 ator.-. Kdersheim also asserts that here Philo's 

 philo-ophy inn! theology are ho|>elessly at issue, the 

 Sivdtait iM-ing undoubtedly represented as tii//>i>- 

 ttattM, while yet they have no true |>erttonal sub- 

 ,' I'r Diiimmond refuses to admit that 

 I'hilo imputed personality to the Powers, or that 

 he identified them with the aii-.-U. Schlirer main- 

 tain* tlmt we cannot deny definitely the |MTs..iii- 

 in-.uion of the \ayoi or ftftpta, wince Philo con- 

 ., iv.nl of tliPin lioih as independent hy|KMitases 

 and as immanent determinations of the Divine 

 existence. 



The Logos, or Divine Reason, comprises all these 

 intermediate spiritual powers in His own essence. It 

 i- the univcisa] idea, the one supreme and all-em- 

 bracing thought whieh uiiilies every thin;,' into a real 

 c,>-nios a pro|M-ity of Cod, and the representative 

 of Cod in His relation to the created world. As 

 xuch the Logo- is the highest of the angels, the 

 Beginning,' the Name, the Word, the Primeval 

 \ncel. the lirst IKHII son of God, the second Cod 



ttln, in opposition to 6 fft&t). As the 

 expressed Thought of Cod it has a twofold aspect 

 regard*! a* the tittered and the iincinil Logos, 

 although this is not formally expressed hy Philo. 

 It IN-COMIC- olijcctive in the harmonies of the 

 create.! w.nl.1, and stands distinct from the same 

 Thought when hidden in the silent depths of 

 <iod, and known only to His omniscience. The 

 Logos formed the world out of chaotic matter, 

 regarded as a mass occupying space, and now con- 

 -id--ie.| a- I lie ni tr of Plato, again as the otVio of 

 the Stoic.. Man is a microcosm, a little world 

 in himself, a creation of the archety]al Logos, 

 through whom lie participates in the Deity, or, 

 as Scripture has it, ' lie is created in the image 

 of Cod.' He stands between the higher and 

 lower Ix-ings in the middle of creation. The 

 ethical principles of Stoicism I'hilo identified 

 with the Mo.aic ethics, in which the ideal is 

 most .-\alted moral |H*rfectihilily or sanctity, and 

 maiiV dmi ..... onsist in veneration of Cod, and 



love nnd righteousness towards fellow men. Philo 

 holds firmly the lielicf in inimoilalil v. F.teinitv is 

 the Mini mill.---, duration of unalterable being ; time 

 hut i he moving succession of ever-shifting pheno 

 iiiena. Man is iniinortal hy his heavenly nature ; 

 bat as there are degn^-s in his divine nalurc. >o 

 there are degrm~. in hi* immortality, which only 

 then d.-servi- this name when it has been ac.|iiircd 

 by an eiiiinem ..... I virtue. There is a vast diller- 



enre between the mere living after death, whicli is 

 common to all mankind, and the future cxi-tence 

 of the- |M-rfect one- Future reroiu|.en-c ami pun- 

 il ...... nt an- not taken by him in the ordinary sense 



of the word. Virtue and sin Ixith have all their 

 reunnl uithin them-elves ; but the soul, whicli is 

 preexisting.' having finished its course in llie 

 suMunar wmld. eairie this eon-eiuusnes!* with it 

 in .1 mop- intense and evalteil manner. Paradise 

 ;- iii,, .),.-- will, i .IK! ; tin-re i- no hell with hodily 

 piini-hmeiii- lor -mis without a Ixuly. and no 

 Ifc-iil in the Philoiiic -\-I.-IM. I) r Driiinmond has 

 sun-peilwl in proving again-t Diihne and otli.-i- 

 that mutter, thou^l, eternal, is purely passive, and 

 not itwlf necemarily evil in Philo's teaching. The 

 of the imperfection is not in the matciial 



as opposed to the spiritual, but in the 

 as oppose<l to the eternal. The human rnS/ia is 

 itself an emanation from Deity, subject meantime 

 to the iMimlage of sen-*-, and ibe loftiest principle 

 of ethics is the utmost possible renunciation of 

 sensuoiisness. The direct vision of Cod is possible 

 only for those souls which have been lifted out of 

 themselves and illumined by renunciation and 

 severe purity. And transcending this cr-ia-\ i- 

 tin- complete deliverance from the lx>dy lieyond tin 

 Bali's of death, when the soul that has freii! itself 

 in life from the bondage of sense returns again to 

 its original condition as pure spirit. 



I'liilo's Messianic notions are vague in the 

 extreme, and he partly even interprets certain 

 scriptural passages alluding to some future He- 

 decmer as reterring to the soul. Vet he indicates 

 his lielief in a distant time when some hen> will 

 arise out of the midst of the nation who will Bather 

 all the dispersed together; and these, purified by 

 long punishments, will henceforth form a happy, 

 sinless, most prosperous community, to which all 

 the other nations will lie eager to belong. Still 

 the Messianic hope is very oTwcure, and Diihne's 

 identification of the Logos with the Messiah is 

 indefensible. 



\Ve have only been able to indicate, in the 

 slightest of outlines, the principal features of 

 Philo's theology and philosophy, without endeav- 

 ouring to follow any one of the manifold systematic 

 schemes into which his scattered half-obscure dicta 

 have been pressed. His method of exegesis and 

 the main elements of his religions philosophy 

 passed into the Christian church, and exercised 

 a powerful influence over its thinkers. Nor can 

 Philo ever lose his importance in the history of 

 thought as the earliest eclectic religious philoso- 

 pher, the first to construct a real philosophy of 

 religion, in which were harmonised the rational 

 and the irrational the results of s]>eculative 

 thought with the suppositions of a su|>eriiatural 

 revelation. 



Philo's writings lire numerous, and their arrangement 

 presents no miiall difficulty to the student. Many of l,.~ 

 writings in the list given by Kusehius ( H. K. ii. 18) arc lust, 

 hut the bulk even of throe have been preserved in the 

 Fathers and early Christian writers, like Euscbius, who 

 quote Philo to an enormous extent Many detached por- 

 tions liavu also been preserved in the Florilfilin and similar 

 compilations of the earlier Christian Parallelists. The 

 first and very imperfect edition of the Greek text was that 

 published by Turnehus (Paris, 1552), containing only 

 thirty-nine treatises. The best is still that of Thomas 

 Mangey (2 vols. folio, Lond. 174ti), but a satisfactory col- 

 lected edition is still a desideratum, neither that |trotm <1 

 by <;rosmaiin so long ago as 1829, nor that fur which 

 Tischendorf collected materials, ever li;.mj: ap|HNired. 

 'I liu LiMIn* de O;>(rfri'. Mutiili was . liteil hy I/ op. 



( '.ihn in 1KH9 as a specimen of a projected edition. S 



writings of Philo preserved only in Ann. nmn liav, h, i u 

 published in Latin translation^ by .In. h.ipt. \iu-h.i 

 i Venice, 1K22, 1826); and Greek portions of greaU-r 

 or le-H extent have been given by Mai, Gronmann, 'I'm- 

 cliendorf, < ardinnl I'itra, and Profeasor J. Kcndel Harris 

 (Cambridge Press, 1886). The more recently coll' 

 materials arc contained in the hand edition of < I . 

 Kichtcr (8 vols. I*ip. 18-'8-:tO) and the Taiiclmitz stereo- 

 type edition (8 vols. Leip. 1851 Xt). See tlie hi. I 

 account of each book in Schiirer's Hut. of tht Jnti*h 

 I'roplr (div. 2, voL iii. 1S8G) in Clark's translati.'ii. An 

 iui|Hirtant contribution to Philo bibliography is that by 

 L. Mashcbieau I Paris, 1889). There is an Kng. trans. 

 by C. 1). Yon-.- in Holm's 'Eccles. Library' (4 v.,N. 

 18M-55). 



More than thrre-fourths of what has come down to tu 

 from I'hilo coniisU of three chief works on the Penta- 

 teurh :ll( 'AriT^ftaTCL Kal \vatit ( Qn<rttina et tMutiona) 

 in Armenian -a short explanation of Genesis and 

 Exodus in question and answer; (2) N6/W Itpwr 

 dXXiryopltu, a large allegorical commentary on Genesis, 

 in which the history is interpreted as a system of 



