Philo

“ Born in an atmosphere of power and affluence, Philo, who might have consorted with princes, devoted himself from the first with all his soul to a life of contemplation; like a Palestinian rabbi he regarded as man's highest duty the study of the law and the knowledge of God. ”

“ All doctrines of religion are disagreeable to Philo; he avoids them as he avoids party: now what is the reason of it? It is not because he is debauched and intemperate. But he is a virtuoso, devoted to polite literature. His soul is extended to all the curiosities in the world, and thinks all time to be lost that is not spent in the search of shells, urns, inscriptions, and broken pieces of pavements. This makes the concerns of eternity seem small things in his eyes, fit only for the enquiry of narrow, little, and unpolite souls. ”

“ The moral obligation of man and the path of his salvation is the same as we have seen in earlier Greek thought. To this end Philo lays much weight on practice and education as contributing to advance in virtue; [213] he is fired with a passionate longing for purity. In a notable passage he speaks thus to his own soul: “Haste thee, O my soul, to become God’s dwelling place, pure, holy; to become strong instead of utterly weak, powerful instead of impotent, wise instead of foolish, most reasonable instead of wandering.” ”

“ For this he wastes the weary hours of night, Leaves peace to fools, and banishes delight; Nature in vain throws in her honest bars, The wretch runs counter to himself and stars; In vain—for lost no character he seems, And Philo does not live, but only dreams. ”

“ In carrying out this thought, as in many other details of his ethical teaching, Philo closely follows the Stoics. But he is separated from Stoical ethics by his strong religious interests, which carry him to very different views of the means and aim of ethical development. The Stoics cast man upon his own resources; Philo points him to the assistance of God, without from man, a captive to sense, could never raise himself to walk in the ways of true wisdom and virtue. And as moral effort can bear fruit only with God's help, so too God Himself is the goal of that effort. ”

“ The reader of Philo’s eulogy of the Contemplative Life must be struck by the gaiety of these ascetics. Again and again Philo speaks of their joyousness. They “compose songs and hymns to God in divers strains and measures.” There is nothing morose about them. They build up the edifice of virtue on a foundation of continence, but it is a cheerful devotion after all. Above all is the music, the singing. They have “many melodies” to which they sing old songs or newly written poems. ”

“ Philo's philosophical researches not only furnished food for his intellect,186 but helped to inspire him with true nobility of character, developing in him a nature that regarded all acts of human folly, vulgarity, and vice as so many enigmas which he could not solve. ”

“ We transmit the divine mysteries to those who have received the sacred initiation, to those who practise true piety, and who are not enslaved by the empty trappings of words or the preconceived opinions of the pagans."
To Philo, the Supreme Being was the Primitive Light, or the Archetype of Light, Source whence the rays emanate that illuminate Souls. He was also the Soul of the Universe, and as such acted in all its parts. He Himself fills and limits His whole Being. His Powers and Virtues fill and penetrate all. ”

“ Thou speakest after the manner of Philo the Alexandrine, who saith that God revealeth Himself to us through His Word in the universe. But verily He revealeth Himself not so unto me. Nay rather, unsearchable are the paths of the Creator in the universe, and His ways in the world are past finding out. ”

“ Thus, in the whole substance of his view of the universe, Philo occupies the standpoint of Greek philosophy rather than of national Judaism, and his philosophy of the world and of life can be completely set forth without any reference to conceptions specifically Jewish.
His doctrine of God starts from the idea that God is a Being absolutely bare of quality. All quality in finite beings has limitation, and no limitation can be predicated of God, who is eternal, unchangeable simple substance, free, self-sufficient, better than the good and the beautiful. ”

“ Philo
Please leave me alone, father. I can't bear anything more to-night.
(A pause, and Warner goes down.)
Philo (coming to table)
I will work—work—work! (Busies his hands.) Not a voice to help me—not a smile of hope—not a touch of sympathy. (Sits still and despairing.) ... Perhaps the time is not ripe for larger knowledge. Nature and the Divinity that guides her must protect their new evolving creatures. A too sudden revelation and they might perish from sheer wonder.... Yes, truth must come softened, as a dream, to the man child's brain. ”

“ Yet Philo also allowed that, over and above these, the sun, moon, planets, and certain elements were worshipped as gods. [499]
Following the cosmogonic systems, as they may have been drawn out with greater definiteness after the Hellenistic period, Philo assumes as the beginning of all things an obscure and moving atmosphere, and a dark and melancholy chaos. When the wind of his Beginning felt the yearning of love, a mixture took place, and this combination was named Desire. Desire is the beginning of all things. ”

“ Possible avenues of connexion. It does not follow that I would deny all connexion between the Philonian Logos and St. John’s. My doubt is whether this connexion can have been literary. I find it difficult to picture to myself the Evangelist sitting down to master the diffuse tomes 198of Philo. Where is the interest that would impel him to do this? Philo is a student and a philosopher. He is a philosopher who operates with a sacred text, and therefore has unlimited opportunity for applying and expounding his philosophy. ”

“ Hostile as he is to the Stoic intellectual dogmatism, Philo is none the less opposed to its converse, intellectual skepticism and agnosticism. Man, he is convinced, has a Divine revelation [111] which he may not deny without ruin. ”

“ The Platonic Theory of Ideas, metaphysical in origin, plays a very important part in his works, but it is adapted mystically, and turned from an ideal of the human intellect to a support of monotheism and piety. Here Philo is at once the leader and the child of his generation; men were no longer satisfied with rational systems, but wanted a religious philosophy, based upon a transcendental principle and a Divine revelation which could give them some certainty and some positive hope in life. ”

“ Unless this can be made out, the Philonic scheme is clearly best, and as such it is now accepted by most scholars.
How were the ten words disposed on the two tables? The natural arrangement (which is assumed by Philo and Josephus) would be five and five. And this, as Philo recognized, is a division appropriate to the sense of the precepts; for antiquity did not look on piety towards parents as a mere precept of probity, part of one’s duty towards one’s neighbour. ”

“ Looking always for a sermon or a subject for a philosophical lesson, Philo has tricked out the record of the facts with much moralizing observation on the general lot of mankind, and elaborated the part of Providence more in the spirit of religious romance than of scientific history. ”

“ Philo is amazed at the deadness and insensibility of the Christian world, that they are such strangers to the spiritual nature of the Christian salvation; he wonders how they can be so zealous for the outward letter and form of ordinances, and so averse to that spiritual life, that they all point at, as the one thing needful. ”

“ Let us begin with the witnesses in Jewish literature. Here we at once encounter the singular circumstance that Philo (30 B.C. to 50 A.D.) makes no reference to Christ. Philo, the Alexandrian philosopher and contemporary of Jesus, was by no means a secluded scholar who took no interest in the fortunes of his people. ”

“ Philo replied, “All men have in them a certain spiritual nature, in virtue whereof they are allied with the Word of God. Whosoever recogniseth the sins wherewith he is defiled, hath the power (if he will use it) of rising above his passions, and conquering his lusts, so that in the end, by repentance and by constant struggling after righteousness, he can follow after the virtues of the Father in heaven who begat him.” Then said I, “All this have I done; for I have now these many years observed not only the words of the Law, but also the Traditions of the Elders ”

“ For their life is not time, but the archetype and model of time, eternity; and in eternity nothing is past and nothing is future, but there is the present only.” In his conceptions of the Godhead and of his attributes it is evident that Philo, as long as he follows the light of revelation and keeps clear of the false notions which he had drawn from Greek sources, rises far above the speculations of the Greek philosophers on the same subjects. Plato himself in his happiest moments never reached such heights. For Philo, God is goodness and sanctity itself. ”

“ Philo's God first of all creates or possesses within himself a world that is conceived, an invisible world,12 which is also called the world of ideas13 or the idea of ideas.14 These ideas are the types15 of all things, and the power by which God created them is often called Sophia or Epistêmê, wisdom or knowledge.16 This world of ideas in its entirety corresponds, as is readily seen, to the Greek Logos, the separate types to the Platonic ideas or the Stoic Logoi. ”

“ And what was said of Plato by a Greek critic applies equally well to Philo: "He rises at times above the spirit of prose in such a way that he appears to be instinct, not with human understanding, but with a Divine oracle." From the study of literature and kindred subjects Philo passed on to philosophy, and he made himself master of the teachings of all the chief schools. There was a mingling of all the world's wisdom at Alexandria in his day; and Philo, like the other philosophers of the time, shows acquaintance with the ideas of Egyptian, Chaldean, Persian, [48] and even Indian thought. ”

“ The Stoic and Platonic ideals and rules of conduct (also the Neo-pythagorean) were united by Philo in the religious Ethic as well as in the Cosmology. Rationalistic moralism is surmounted by the injunction to strive after a higher good lying above virtue. But here, at the same time, is the point at which Philo decidedly goes beyond Platonism, and introduces a new thought into Greek Ethics, and also in correspondence therewith into theoretic philosophy. ”

“ Philo’s position at all events illustrates the development of the conception of a substance of the soul as separate from body. It is true that it is the νοϋς, which is not part of the soul, that attains or approaches most nearly to the attribute of immateriality; and that Philo, in whom we find everything of this sort, illustrates also that other corruption of Aristotle which metaphysically distinguishes soul from reason. ”

“ God himself is without quality, but He disposes of an infinite variety of divine Forces, through whose mediation an active relation of God to the world, is brought about. In the details of his teaching as to these mediating entities Philo is guided partly by Plato and partly by the Stoics, but at the same time he makes use of the concrete religious conceptions of heathenism and Judaism. ”

“ Then said I, “Methinks, many of our Scribes in Galilee would not please thee; for they seek after righteousness by other ways, observing the smallest matters of the Law, and afflicting the flesh.” “Tell such an one from me,” said Philo, “when thou shalt see him perchance abstaining from food or drink at the times of eating, or disdaining the bath and the use of oil, or tormenting himself with a hard couch or with night-watchings, deceiving himself with this show of abstinence, that he is not in the true way to continence, and that all his labour is in vain.” ”

“ This theory Philo adapts to his Jewish outlook. Like Plato, he turns away from the physical to the ideal world, [264] and he regards the ideas of wisdom, virtue, bravery, etc., which are theologically powers of God, as continually sending forth Logoi, forms or forces (the angels of popular belief) , to inform and enlighten our minds. Throughout, God is the cause of all knowledge as well as of being, for these effluences are but an expression of God's activity. In Philo's theory, object and subject are really one. ”

“ No Jewish thinker ever applied this principle more thoroughly than Philo; and it gives an unique color to his work in the history of ancient philosophy. All our lives are one unceasing miracle, due to the constant manifestation of God's power; and the miracles of the Bible are examples of the universal working of Divine care rather than exceptions from it.
The dominant feeling behind Greek thought is that man is the measure of all things: Plato, attacking the standpoint of his nation, had declared that God is the measure, and Philo repeats his maxim with a new intensity. ”

“ Most assuredly not on Philo's lines (for his whole terminology essentially differs from that of the Alexandrian) , but on the lines of the fourth Gospel, and on no other.
Let the reader turn to some extracts which the author of "Supernatural Religion" gives out of Philo. In p. 265, he gives some very striking passages indeed, in which Philo speaks of the Logos as the Bread from heaven:—
"He is 'the substitute ( [Greek: hyparchos] ) of God,' 'the heavenly incorruptible food of the soul,' 'the bread from heaven.' In one place he says, 'and they who inquire what nourishes the soul ... ”