Philo Judaeus and His Religious Ideas 



From the best authorities we learn that Philo, who is commonly 

 called Philo Judaeus, was born in Alexandria, Egypt, sometime 

 between 20 and 10 B.C., and that he spent most of his life there. 

 His father was a farmer of the taxes for the district east of the Nile. 

 In the year 40 A.D. Philo headed an embassy that went to Rome to 

 petition the Emperor Caligula not to demand divine honors and 

 worship from the Jews. This he tells us himself in his De Legatione 

 ad Gaium. AVe do not know the date or place of his death. 



Philo is the most important representative of the Hellenized Jews. 

 It will be remembered that the Jews of the Diaspora, scattered as 

 they were OA'er the world, adopted in most cases the language of the 

 people among whom they settled. These who lived among the Greeks 

 especially gave up their native tongue, used the Greek language, and 

 became saturated with Greek culture. Still they very largely clung to 

 their JeT\^sh faith and practices. This Hellenic Judaism reached its 

 highest development in and around Alexandria. According to Philo, 

 the Jews in Egypt numbered full}" a million people, and in Alexandria 

 two of the five quarters of the city were given over to them. Egypt 

 was governed at this time by a governor sent from Rome, but both 

 the Greek and the Hebrew citizens had considerable freedom and 

 enjoyed certain political rights. Doubtless the shrewd Jews had 

 coined money in the lucrative wheat trade, in buA-ing and selling 

 papyrus, in banking, and money lending. 



One of the most important events in the history of the Alexandrian 

 Jews was, of course, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into 

 Greek in the Aversion called the Septuagint. But long before this, in 

 the second century B.C., we have the great philosophical commentary 

 on the Pentateuch by Aristobulus, in which the allegorizing method 

 of interpretation was employed and an effort was made to make the 

 Jew^ish Scriptures attractive to the Greeks. The Greeks had always 

 been famihar with such interpretation of Homer and Hesiod. Both 

 of 'these purposes, to interpret allegorically and to attract the Greeks, 

 were present in Philo, Avho may in fact be called the chief exponent of 

 the allegorizing method applied to the Hebrew scriptures. He had the 

 missionary spirit, seeking to Avin Greeks and other gentiles to the true 

 religion of the Jews. He is familiar AAith Greek philosophy,. especiahy 

 Heraclitus, the Stoics, Pythagoreans, and above all AA'ith Plato. His 

 language is largely influenced by Plato, and his philosophy is 



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