and provides the basis of his explanation of the material universe.
Physics, indeed, he considered of small account, because he believed
there could be no certainty in such speculations.[244] His mind was
utterly unscientific; but as a religious philosopher he found it
necessary to give a theory of the creation. Jewish dogma held that the
world had been called into being out of nothing; the Greek
philosophers repudiated such an idea, and held that creation must be
the result of a reasonable process; Aristotle had imagined that matter
was a separately existent principle with mind, and that the world was
eternal; and the Stoics held that matter was the substance of all
things, including the pantheistic power itself:
"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul."
Philo impugns both these theories,[245] the one because it denies the
creative power of God, the other because it confuses the Creator with
His creation. He looked for a system which should satisfy at once the
Jewish notion that the world was brought out of nothing by the will of
God, and the philosophical concept that God is all reality; and he
found in Plato's idealism a view of the creation which he could
harmonize with the religious view. Plato declared that the material
world had been created out of the _Non-Ens_ ([Greek: mê on]) _i.e._,
that which has no real existence. He conceived space and matter as the
mere passive receptacle of form, which is nothing till the form has
given it quality. Though Philo's language is vague, this seems to be
his view when he is speaking philosophically. It is, perhaps, a slight
deviation from the earlier religious standpoint of the Jews, which
looks to a direct and deliberate creation of the world-stuff, rather
than to the informing of space by spirit, and regards the world as
separate from God, and not as a manifestation of His being. But the
more philosophical conception appears likewise in the Wisdom of
Solomon. "For Thine all-powerful hand that created the world out of
formless matter," says the author (xi. 17), establishing before Philo
the compromise between two competing influences in his mind. More
emphatically Philo rejects the notion of creation in time.[246] Time,
he says, came into being after God had made the universe, and has no
meaning for the Divine Ruler, whose life is in the eternal present.
Summing up, we may say that Philo regards the universe as the image of
the Divine manifestation or evolution in thought produced by His
beneficent will; and this view is true to the religious standpoint of
traditional Judaism in spirit if not in letter.
In his conception of the human soul, Philo again harmonizes the simple
Jewish notion with the developed Greek psychology by means of the
Platonic idealism. The soul in the Bible is the breath of God; in
Plato it is an Idea incarnate, represented in "The Timæus" as a
particle of the Supreme Mind. Philo, following the psychology of his
age, divides the soul into a higher and a lower part: (1) the Nous;
(2) the vital functions, which include the senses. He lays all the
stress upon the former, which gives man his kinship with God and the
ideal world, while the other part is the necessary result of its
incarnation in the body. He variously describes the Nous as an
inseparable fragment of the Divine soul, a Divine breath which God
inspires into each body, a reflection, an impression, or an image of
the blessed Logos, sealed with its stamp.[247] Following the Platonic
conception, Philo occasionally speaks of the Divine soul as having a
prenatal existence,[248] holding, as the English poet put it, that
"The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar."
Here, too, he follows an older Jewish-Hellenistic tradition, which
appears in the Wisdom of Solomon (viii. 19 and 20), where it is
written: "A good soul fell to my lot. Nay rather, being good, I came
into a body undefiled." The Nous is in fact the god within, and it
bears to the microcosm Man the relation which the infinite God bears
to the macrocosm.[249] Indeed, it is the Logos descended from above,
but yearning to return to its true abode. Thus Philo sings its Divine
nature:
"It is unseen, but sees all things: its essence is unknown,
but it comprehends the essence of all things. And by arts
and sciences it makes for itself many roads and ways, and
traverses sea and land, searching out all things within
them. And it soars aloft on wings, and when it has
investigated the sky and its changes it is borne upwards
towards the æther and the revolutions of the heavens. It
follows the stars in their orbits, and passing the sensible
it yearns for the intelligible world."
The Nous is the king of the whole organism, the governing and unifying
power, and hence is often called the man himself. The senses,
resembling the powers of God, are only the bodyguard, subordinate
instruments, and inferior modes of the Divine part.[250] So Philo
explains that all our faculties are derived from the Divine principle,
and he draws the moral lesson that our true function is to bend them
all to the Divine service, so as to foster our noblest part. The aim
of the good man is to bring the god within him into union with the God
without, and to this end he must avoid the life of the senses,[251]
which mars the Divine Nous, and may entirely crush it. The Divine
soul, as it had a life before birth, so also has a life after death;
for what is Divine cannot perish. Immortality is man's most splendid
hope. If the Divine Presence fills him with a mystic ecstasy, he has,
indeed, attained it upon this earth, but this bliss is only for the
very blessed sage; and he, too, looks forward to the more lasting union
with the Godhead after this terrestrial life is over.[252] True at
once to the principles of Platonism and Judaism, Philo admits no
anthropomorphic conception of Heaven or of Hell. He is convinced that
there is a life hereafter, and finds in the story of Enoch the
Biblical symbol thereof,[253] but he does not speculate about the
nature of the Divine reward. The pious are taken up to God, he says, and
live forever,[254] communing alone with the Alone.[255] The unrighteous
souls, Philo sometimes suggests, in accordance with current Pythagorean
ideas, are reincarnated according to a system of transmigration within
the human species ([Greek: palengenesia]).[256] Yet the sinner
suffers his full doom on earth. The true Hades is the life of the
wicked man who has not repented, exposed to vengeance, with uncleansed
guilt, obnoxious to every curse.[257] And the Divine punishment is to
live always dying, to endure death deathless and unending, the death
of the soul.[258]
The Divine Nous constitutes the true nature of man; Philo, however,
insists with almost wearisome repetition, that the god within us has
no power in itself, and depends entirely on the grace and inspiration
of God without for knowledge, virtue, and happiness.[259] The Stoic
dogma, that the wise man is perfectly independent and self-contained
([Greek: autarchês]) appears to him as a wicked blasphemy. "Those
who make God the indirect, and the mind the direct cause are guilty of
impiety, for we are the instruments through which particular
activities are developed, but He who gives the impulse to the powers
of the body and the soul is the Creator by whom all things are
moved."[260] All thought-functions, memory, reasoning, intuition, are
referred directly to Divine inspiration, which is in Platonic
terminology the illumination of the mind by the ideas. Thus, finally,
all human activity is referred back to God.
This guiding principle determines Philo's attitude to knowledge,
involving, as it does, that we only know by Divine inspiration, or, as
he says, by the immanence of the Logoi.[261] The possibility of
knowledge was one of the burning questions of the age, and it was the
failure of the old dogmatic schools to answer it which led to a great
religious movement in Greek philosophy. How can man attain to true
knowledge, it was asked, about the universe, seeing that perceptions
vary with each individual, and of conceptions we have no certain
standard? The old Hebrew attitude to this question is expressed by the
verse of the Psalmist: "The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but
the earth hath He given to the sons of men" (Psalm cxv), which implies
that man must not try to penetrate the secrets of the universe. Philo
is sufficiently a philosopher to desire knowledge about things Divine
and human, but at the same time he has a complete distrust in the
powers of human sense and human reason. About the physical universe he
is frankly a skeptic,[262] but his religious faith leads him to hold
that God vouchsafes to man some knowledge of Himself and of the proper
way of life, _i.e._, ethics. "Man knows all things in God."[363] Plato
similarly had despaired of knowledge of the physical world, and had
turned to the heavenly ideas as the true object of thought. Moreover,
in his early period, while his theory was still poetical and mystical,
he had conceived that knowledge was made possible in the subject, by
the entrance of "forms," or emanations, from the ideas. 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. What can be known are the modes or attributes
of God, which philosophically are "Ideas"; what knows is the emanation
of the Idea, which God sends into the human soul that is prepared to
receive it by pious contemplation. "Through the heavenly Wisdom,
wisdom is seen, for wisdom sees itself." "Through God, God is known,
for He is His own light."[265]
Thus all knowledge is intuition, and man's function is not so much to
reason as to lead a life of piety and contemplate the Divine work in
the hope of being blessed with inspiration. It would be a mistake,
however, to take Philo's words quite literally. He does not deny the
need of human effort and striving for knowledge; for the Divine
influence is not vouchsafed till we have prepared for it and
consecrated all our faculties to God. But, devout mystic as he is,
he ascribes every consummation to the direct help of the Deity. "The
mind is the cause of nothing, but rather the Deity, who is prior to
mind, generates thought."[266] The Greek philosopher had ascribed the
final synthesis of knowledge to a superhuman force. Philo ascribes to
God all the intermediate steps from sense-perception. It may be
admitted that his passive notion of philosophy involves the
abandonment of the Greek ideal, the eager searching of Plato after
truth. He lived in an age in which, through loss of intellectual
power, man had come to despair of the attainment of knowledge by human
effort, and to rely entirely upon supernatural means, Divine
revelations, visions, and the like. It is consistent with his whole
position that the crown of life is represented, not as an intellectual
state, but as a superhuman ecstasy of the Nous, wherein it is freed
not only from the body but from the rest of the soul, and is, so to
say, led out of itself.[267] He comments on the verse, "And the sun
went down and a deep sleep fell on Abraham" (Gen. xv. 12). "When the
Divine light," he says, "shines upon the mortal soul, the mortal light
sinks, and our reason is driven out at the approach of the Divine
spirit."[268] This is the Alexandrian interpretation of [Hebrew: shkina]
and [Hebrew: nboah], and though it is much affected by Greek mystical
ideas, yet at the same time it is broadly true to the spirit of Jewish
mysticism, as we see it presented in writers of all ages, and as the
Psalmist expressed it, "to abide under the shadow of the Almighty."
Philo's ethics, like the rest of his philosophy, exhibits the
transfusion of Greek ideas with his Hebrew spirit. The Greek
philosophers had evolved a rational plan of life, while the Jewish
teachers were impregnated with burning ardor for the living God; and
Philo brings the two things together, making ethics dependent on
religion. The Stoics, who were the most powerful school of his day,
regarded as the ideal of goodness life according to unbending reason
and in complete independence of God or man. Philo understands God as a
personal power making for righteousness, and man's excellence,
accordingly, which is likeness to God, is piety and charity.[269]
Above all he insists upon Faith ([Greek: pistis]) and he defines
virtue as a condition of soul which fixes its hopes upon the truly
Existent God. The Stoics also professed to honor faith or confidence
above all things, but the virtue which they meant was reliance upon
man's own powers. Philo's virtue is almost the converse of this. Man
must feel completely dependent upon God, and his proper attitude is
humility and resignation. So only can he receive within his soul the
seed of goodness, and finally the Divine Logos.[270] Yet at the same
time Philo remains loyal to the Jewish ideal of conduct: faith without
works is empty, and, as he puts it, "The true-born goods are faith and
consistency of word and action."[271]
The attainment of the highest excellence demands severe discipline,
save for those few blessed souls whom God perfects without any effort
on their part. The rest can only secure self-realization by
self-renunciation; they must avoid the bodily passions and bodily
lusts.[272] At times the Divine enthusiasm causes Philo, like many a
Jewish saint and like his master Plato, to scorn all bodily
limitations and recommend "insensibility" ([Greek: apatheia])[273]
by which he means that man should crush his physical desires and
repress his feelings. Not that the good life seems to him to imply
absence of pleasure. On the contrary, it is filled with the purest of
joy, for when man rises to the love of God "in calm of mind, all
passion spent," then and then alone has he tasted true joyousness. The
symbol of this bliss is Isaac ([Hebrew: ytshk]), the laughter of the
soul.
It was noticed in the second chapter that Philo modified his ethical
ideas during his life. In the earlier period he insists more strongly
on the need of ascetic self-denial, and has almost a horror of the
world. Maturer experience, however, taught him that man is made for
this world, and that a wise use of its goods was a surer path to
happiness and to God than flight from all temptations. In his later
writings, therefore, he exhibits a striking moderation. He reproaches
the ascetics for their "savage enthusiasm,"[274] probably hinting at
the extreme sects of the Essenes and the Therapeutæ. "Those who follow
a gentler wisdom seek after God, but at the same time do not despise
human things."
"Truth will properly blame those who without discrimination
shun all concern with the life of the State, and say that
they despise the acquisition of good repute and pleasure.
They are only making grand pretensions, and they do not
really despise these things. They go about in torn raiment
and with solemn visage, and live the life of penury and
hardship as a bait, to make people believe that they are
lovers of good conduct, temperance, and self-control."[275]
Philo's aphorism, which follows, "Be drunk in a sober manner," is
characteristic. The Stoic extreme of passionlessness is almost as
false as the Epicurean hedonism, and the mean between them is the
ideal Jewish life, in which godliness and humanity are blended.
We have now examined the main divisions of Philo's philosophy, and we
see that his metaphysics, cosmology, theory of knowledge, and ethics
are all religious in tone, and all determined in their main lines by
his Jewish outlook. His Hebraism is a seal which stamps all that
enters his mind from Greek sources, and the Bible, spiritually
interpreted, is the canon of all his wisdom.
There remains one minor aspect of his work which must be briefly
examined, because it has become closely associated with his name. This
is his number-symbolism, by which he ascribes important powers to
certain numbers, so that they are regarded as holy themselves and
sanctifying that to which they are attached. This feature of his
thought is commonly ascribed to Pythagorean influence, which was
strong at Alexandria, and, indeed, throughout the world, at this era.
The exact details of the holiness of four, seven, ten, fifty, etc.,
Philo may have borrowed from neo-Pythagorean sources, but the general
tendency was the natural result of his environment and his stage of
thought. It was a feature of the recurring childishness of ideas and
the renascence of wonder at common things which is apparent on many
hands. To have denied the powers of numbers would have seemed as
absurd and eccentric then as to deny the powers of electricity to-day.
And in all ages people have been found to regard numbers mystically as
a link between God and earth, and a means of solving all physical and
metaphysical problems. The Hebrew intellect, primitive as it was,
tended particularly to the reverence of the numerical powers. Witness
the Bible itself, which emphasizes certain numbers; and witness also
the fifth chapter of the Pirke Abot, with its lists ranged under four,
seven, and ten, which is only typical of the rabbinical attitude.
Philo is not original in his views concerning numbers, not above nor
below the loose thinking of his age. He accepts unquestioningly the
potency of seven, because of its marvellous mathematical properties,
ratios, etc., its geometrical efficacy, and because of the seven
periods of life from infancy to old age, of the seven parts of the
body, the seven motions, the seven strings of the lyre, the seven
vowels, and the very name, which is connected with worship ([Greek:
sebasmos]). All this is trifling and trite, but what is of
importance is the use which Philo makes of the sentiment. He converts
it throughout to the support and glorification of Jewish institutions.
Thus, if a man honors seven, he says, he will devote the Sabbath to
meditation and philosophy.[276] Further, as seven is the symbol of
rest and tranquillity, the Sabbath must be a day of perfect rest. Ten
is magnified so as to honor the Decalogue,[277] fifty so as to honor
the Feast of Pentecost. So, too, the Pythagoreans' mathematical
conceptions of God as "the beginning and limit of all things," or,
again, as the principle of equality, are approved by Philo, "because
they breed in the soul the fairest and most nourishing fruit--piety."
In short, Philo's Pythagoreanism only emphasizes his commanding
purpose--to deepen and recommend the Jewish God-idea and the Jewish
method of life.
Jewish influences throughout are the determining element of Philo's
teaching; they are the dynamic forces working upon the Greek matter
and producing the new Platonism, which constitutes Philo's
contribution to Greek philosophy. It may, indeed, be said that his
Hebraism makes Philo anti-philosophical, because he has no desire or
hope of adding to positive knowledge, but aims only at the calm of the
individual soul in union with its God. 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.
Doubtless, the strong mystical tendency in Philo destroyed the balance
between the intuitive and the discursive reason which makes the
perfect philosopher. In his overpowering passion for God, he distrusts
overmuch the analytical efforts of the human mind. Nevertheless, his
acquired Hellenism gives his Jewish conceptions a philosophical
impress, and this has made him the model of the school of religious
philosophers. The ministerial "Word" became the "ideal" expression of
God's mind, the governing reason, the world-soul; the angels were
spiritualized as a kingdom of Ideas. Piety received an intellectual as
well as a religious value, and the Mosaic law was raised to a higher
dignity as an ethical code of universal validity.
A complete harmony between the Hellenic and the Hebraic outlook upon
life was impossible, but Philo at least accomplished a harmony between
Hebraic monotheism and Greek metaphysics. He desired to show that
faith and philosophy were in agreement, and that the imaginative and
reflective conceptions of God and the Divine government were in
unison. And he may be considered to have realized his desire in his
synthesis of Jewish theology and Platonic idealism. He is through and
through a great interpreter, elucidating points of unity between
distinct systems of thought. In him the fusion of cultures, which
began with the Septuagint translation, reached its culmination. It
reached its zenith and straightway the severance began.