98 
PHILO. 
fent by his countrymen to Rome in the year 42, with the 
defign of vindicating them from the calumnies with 
which they were loaded by the Alexandrians, and of de¬ 
fending their caiife again!! Apion. Caligula, however, 
had been fo incenfed again!! the Jews, that he would not 
admit the deputation to a hearing; and Philo was in no 
little danger of lofing his life. But, though his million 
proved fruitlefs, he committed the fubftance of his Apo¬ 
logy for the Jews to writing, and therein gave a favour¬ 
able fpecimen of his learning, ability, and integrity. 
Eufebius relates, that after the death of Caligula this 
apology was read in the Roman fenate. 
That Philo poffefled erudition and genius, and was 
Intimately acquainted with Grecian literature and phi¬ 
losophy, appears fufficiently from his writings ; but to 
the fame authorities we may fafely appeal, in proof of his 
being deficient in a found and accurate judgment. 
Thefe writings, likewife, are frequently rendered fo ob- 
fcure by the allegorical lfyle which he borrowed from the 
Egyptians, that it would perhaps be a vain tafk to at¬ 
tempt thoroughly to underftand them. At the fame 
time they will be found to contain much excellent mat¬ 
ter, and to abound in noble fentiments, and leffons of 
pure morality. Correfpondent with fuch principles was 
the author’s private character, who appears to have been 
highly refpefted and efteemed for his integrity, benevo¬ 
lence, and virtue. He was, however, fo much immerfed 
in philofophy, particularly the Platonic, that he neglefted 
the Hebrew language, and the rites and cu!!oms of his 
own people. Scaliger fays, that Philo “ knew no more of 
Hebrew and Syriac than a Gaul or a Scythian.” Grotius 
is of opinion, that “he is not fully to be depended on, 
in what relates to the manners of the Hebrews:” and 
Cudworth goes further; for, “though a Jew by nation, 
(fays he,) he was yet very ignorant of Jevvifli cuftoms.” 
Fabricius thinks differently ; for, though he allows fome 
inadvertencies and errors of Philo with regard to thefe 
matters, yet he does not fee.a fufEcient foundation on 
which to charge fo illuflrious a doitor of the law with 
ignorance. He allows, however, that Philo’s paffion for 
philofophy had made him more than half a Pagan ; for it 
led him to interpret the whole law and the prophets 
■upon Platonic ideas; and to admit nothing as truly in¬ 
terpreted which was not agreeable to the principles of 
the academy. Befides, this led him farther ; he turned 
every thing into allegory, and deduced thedarkeft mean¬ 
ings from the plainelt words. 
As a fpecimen of Philo’s notions, and of his manner 
of blending together the dodlrines of Plato and of Mofes, 
we fliall lay before our readers the following particulars 
from Enfield’s Abridgment of Brucker, to which we have 
already been much indebted in this article. “ At the 
fame time that he greatly admired, and clofely followed, 
the Platonic fyflem, in the adulterated ftate in which it 
was taught in the Alexandrian fchools, he profeffed to 
derive the tenets of Platonifm from the facred writings, 
and even reprefented Plato as a difciple of Mofes. Of 
this firange combination of Platonic refinements with 
the fimpledodtrine of the Hebrew fcriptures, innumerable 
examples occur in his works. In his book upon the 
Creation of the World, Philo every-where fuppofes the 
prior exiftence of Plato’s world of ideas ; and reprefents 
the Deity as conit ru&ing vifible nature after a model which 
he had firfi formed. He attributes to Mofes all the meta- 
phyfcal fubtleties of Plato upon this fubjeft, and main¬ 
tains that the philofopher received them from the holy 
prophet. After the example of the Alexandrian fchool, 
which combined the Pythagorean doflrine with the Pla¬ 
tonic, Philo fuppofes the order of the vifible world to 
have been adapted to the Pythagorean proportions and 
numbers. He maintains the immutability of the material 
world upon the principle univerfally adopted by the an¬ 
cients, that as from nothing nothing can be produced, fo 
nothing which exifts can be annihilated; v.dience it may 
be inferred, that he conceived matter to be coeval with 
the Deity. He held the human foul to confift of three 
natures, the rational, the irafcible, and the concupifcible. 
“Concerning the Deity, Philo every-where makes ufe 
of the language of Plato rather than of Mofes. He fpeaks 
of God as containing all things, but contained by none ; 
as embracing all things within his bofbvn, and pervading 
every part of the univerfe. His language concerning the 
divine nature is fo obfcure and inconfiftent, that it is diffi¬ 
cult to difcover, with accuracy, his real meaning. But, if 
thofe parts of his writings, in which he drops the popular 
language, and expreffes his philofophical notions on this 
fubjeft, be diligently compared, it will be found, that Philo 
fuppofed a quaternion of principles in the divine nature; the 
firft fountain of divinity, and three emanations from this 
fountain, each pofleffing a diftindt fubltantial exiftence, 
but all united in eflence with the firft principle. The firft 
of thefe emanations, which he called the/ngos, he conceived 
to have been the divine intelledt, the feat of thofe ideas 
which form the intelligible world; and thefecond and third, 
to have been the fubltantial principles or powers by which 
the fenfible world was created and governed. This doc¬ 
trine of fubftantial emanations within the divine nature 
was at this time received among the Platonifls from the 
oriental fchools; and it was alfo the dodtrine of the Jew- 
ifh Cabbala. It is therefore probable, that this was the 
dodtrine concerning the divine nature embraced by this 
pupil of the Egyptian fchools.” 
By Eufebius, Jerome, and others, it is faid he came a 
fecond time to Rome in the reign of Claudius, when he 
formed an acquaintance with St. Peter, and cultivated 
his friendffiip: and Photius affirms that he became a 
convert to the Chriftian faith, and was baptized; but 
that afterwards, having met with fome caufe of offence, 
from motives of refentment he renounced his creed. A 
very ingenious writer, the Rev. J. Jones, has, however, 
attempted to prove that Philo was the hiftorian and apo- 
logift of Chrilt, of his followers, and of the gofpel. In a 
work entitled “ Ecclefiaflical Refearches,” publiffied in 
1812, he has entered very much at large into the enquiry ; 
and in a fubfequent volume, or “ Sequel to the Ecclefiafli-. 
cal Refearches,” he has given “Afummary or concife 
view of the arguments proving Philo and Jofephus to be 
Chriftian writers.” To thefe works we refer the reader, 
it being inconfiftent with the limits of our article to 
enter into the argument. From Dr. Enfield’s abridgment 
of Brucker’s Hiftory of Philofophy, we have given an ac¬ 
count of the opinions held by Philo, and of his manner of 
blending the doft rin es of Plato and Mofes; and in Fabricius 
and Cave the fubjefts of his various treatifes, which have 
reached modern times, have been particularized. The 
firft collection of them was publiffied by Turnebus, in the 
oriental Greek, at Paris, in 1552, of which, in 1561, 
there was a Latin verfion by Gelenius. They were after¬ 
wards publiffied in Greek and Latin at Geneva in 1613. 
The Paris edition of 1640, in folio, was the belt fora whole 
century ; which made Cotelerius fay, that “ Philo was an 
author that deferved to have a better text and a better 
verfion.” In 1742, a handfotne edition of his work was 
publiffied at London by Dr. Mangey in two volumes 
folio; which is certainly preferable, if it were only for 
the paper and print; but it is not fo good a one as Philo 
deferves. Many of our readers may be defirous of fur¬ 
ther details refpedting this celebrated man; we refer fuch 
therefore to Jofephus’s Antiquities, Eufebins’s Ecclefiaf- 
tical Hiftory, St. Jerome De Scriptoribus Ecclefiafticis, 
Fabricius Bibl. Grsec. Cave’s Hilt. Lit. and vol. ii. of 
Monuments of the Greek Church. 
PHI'LO, furnamed Biblius, from Biblos the place of 
his nativity, was a grammarian who flourifhed from the 
reign of Nero to that of Adrian. He was the author of 
various books in the Greek language, of which Suidas 
mentions De Parandis et Deligendis Libris, De Urbibus, 
De Claris Viris, and De Imperio Adriani. He is, howe¬ 
ver, chiefly known as the tranflator of Sanchoniatho’s 
Phoenician Hiftory into Greek, of which a few fragments 
remain,, 
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