c. 20 BCE–50 CE · Jewish Platonist philosopher · exegete · envoy
Philo of Alexandria
Φίλων
In Alexandria: c. 20 BCE–50 CE
Read the Septuagint through Plato, making the Logos the mediator between God and the world, and so shaped Clement, Origen and the whole Christian allegorical tradition. He described the contemplative Therapeutae by Lake Mareotis and led the Jewish embassy to the emperor Gaius after the riots of 38 CE.
Their life and work
Born about 20 BCE into one of the city's richest Jewish families, he was the brother of Alexander the alabarch, who covered nine gates of the Temple in Jerusalem with gold and silver (Josephus, Jewish War 5.205). His surviving works, in Greek, are mostly commentary on the books of Moses read as philosophy in allegory; more survive in an old Armenian translation. Josephus records the embassy to Gaius and its failure (Antiquities 18.257–260). His books were kept by Christians rather than Jews, and Eusebius lists them (Ecclesiastical History 2.18).
Our device: Their emblem is a seven-branched lampstand. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation · c. 20–40 CE · Survives whole
- Philo of Alexandria, On the Life of Moses · c. 20–40 CE · Survives whole
- Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation of the World · c. 20–40 CE · Survives whole
- Philo of Alexandria, On the Contemplative Life · c. 30–40 CE · Survives whole
- Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus and On the Embassy to Gaius · c. 40–41 CE · Survives whole
Moments
- c. 20 BCE–50 CE · Philo reads Moses with Plato Known: attested
- 38 CE · Riots against the Jews; Philo's embassy Known: attested
In the show
Sources (7)
- Philo, Embassy to Gaius 178–373
- Philo, On the Contemplative Life 21–90
- A. Kamesar (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Philo (Cambridge, 2009)
- D. T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden: Brill, 1986)
- Josephus, Jewish War 5.205
- Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.257–260
- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.18