Who was Philo of Alexandria?

Q. — John 1. Is it true that the language of some scriptures is drawn from contemporaneous philosophy as (a) in the opening of the fourth Gospel from Philo the Alexandrian Jew, especially as to the Logos? (b) that moral terms of the Stoics reappear in Paul's Epistles? (c) that early Gnostic expressions were derived from the apostle's Epistle to the Colossians? W.T.

A. — (a) The truth is that God in His grace, who knew the bewilderment of man's mind, not dissipated but deepened by philosophy and the vile half-breed of the Gnostics, either anticipated or answered these unbelieving reveries by the revelation of the truth. Philo was born somewhat before the apostle John, and died long before him, certainly in part a contemporary, yet speaking of his advanced age about A.D. 40. He had no thought of Christ save as a conqueror of the nations and a restorer of Israel to the highest power, honour and enjoyment on earth, and even to the great relief of the brute creation. He believed in the inspiration of the O.T., which he allegorised everywhere excessively to suit or teach Platonism, without denying the law or the history. Indeed he held that the law of Moses would rule for ever. But he did not believe that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God or even the Christ. Hence the Gospel of John reveals the Logos in the strongest contrast with all Philo's vapourings which deny the truth of both God and man.

The WORD, Logos. Some moderns have identified the Evangelist's thought with that of his contemporary, Philo of Alexandria, a mystical Jewish philosopher. So Weizsäcker, Pfleiderer, O. Holtzmann, Wernle, Scott. It may be readily granted that such as Apollos (Acts 18:24) would carry the Alexandrian phraseology with them to Ephesus. But Harnack and Drummond have abandoned the theory that the writer of the Gospel was indebted to Philo for his doctrine, one holding that "the Logos of John has little more in common with the Logos of Philo than the name" ("History of Dogma," i., p. 97), while the other says that "nothing can be more unlike than Philo and John" ("Inquiry," p. 24). Our English writer has shown that, as far as his writings go, Philo never came to regard the Logos — an intermediate agent between God and man — as a personal agent. Meyer and others (including Bishop Gore, "Bampton Lectures," p. 69) have traced the Logos to the Memra of the Targum, which is Philo's ῤῆμα (cf. Heb. 11:2), used for God's mouth, voice, spirit, and face — all His relations with the world made and maintained by means of this. But, as Luthardt says, these Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures (see note 22) in their present form belong to the third or fourth century of the Christian era. Some information about them could be derived from Edersheim "Life of Jesus the Messiah," i., p. 476, and ii. 659-664 (Appendix on "Philo of Alexandria and Rabbinic Theology"). The only satisfactory view is that of looking for the roots of the idea in the Wisdom books of the Old Testament: so Luthardt, Godet, Liddon (Lecture II.), Weiss ("Theology of the New Testament," ii. 325 347). The Evangelist's Preface no more witnesses to his having received a philosophical education than does use of such a word as "evolution" tell us anything about the intellectual antecedents of any person of the present day in whose mouth it is (Drummond, "Inquiry," p. 23 f.). Nowhere does the Evangelist put "Logos" onto the Lord's mouth, as any romancer or literary dreamer would certainly have done. Archdeacon Watkins, in a Bampton Lecture, has well remarked that the strain of the Prologue was as appropriate to an Ephesian as it would have been inappropriate to a Galilean circle of readers. Neither of these wanted nor would have cared for that which suited the other.

Majestic is the beginning of this Gospel. Hundreds of pages might be written on the opening verses and their meaning would not be exhausted. They are inexhaustible. The name of our Lord as "the Word" (Logos) is exclusively used by the Apostle John. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who lived in the days of the Apostle John, also speaks of the Word. Critics have therefore claimed that the Apostle copied from Philo and reproduced his mystical Jewish philosophy. However, this theory has been exploded. Professor Harnack, the eminent German scholar, states "the Logos of John has little more in common with the Logos of Philo than the name." It is significant that the rabbinical paraphrases on the Old Testament (Targumim) speak hundreds of times of the Lord as "the Word" (Memra). These ancient Jewish paraphrases describe Jehovah, when He reveals Himself, by the term "Memra," which is the same as the Greek "Logos"--"the Word." Genesis 3:8 they paraphrased "they heard the Word walking in the garden." These Jewish comments ascribe the creation of the world to the Word. It was "the Word" which communed with the Patriarchs. According to them "the Word" redeemed Israel out of Egypt ; "the Word" was dwelling in the tabernacle; "the Word" spake out of the fire of Horeb; "the Word" brought them into the promised land. All the relationship of the Lord with Israel is explained by them as having been through "the Word." In the light of the opening verses of the Gospel of John these Jewish statements appear more than interesting.* (These paraphrases in the form we possess them were written in Aramaic about 300 A.D. But long before they were written they must have existed as traditions among the Jewish people.) The only-begotten is called "The Word" because He is the express image of God, as the invisible thought is expressed by the corresponding word. He is the revealer and interpreter of the mind and will of God.

From Corinth he went to Ephesus, then to Jerusalem and back to Antioch. Thus ended the second missionary journey. After this he established the disciples in Galatia and Phrygia. An extremely beautiful incident closes this chapter. A new preacher appeared among the Jews in Ephesus, Apollos the Alexandrian. He is described as an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures. In Alexandria, Philo, the great Hellenistic Jewish Philosopher, had flourished. He was born about 20 B.C. and died after the year 40 A.D. He introduced Platonism into Judaism. In all probability Apollos was one of his disciples, but he accepted that which Philo did not believe. He had come most likely in touch with disciples of John the Baptist, and had been baptized with John's baptism unto repentance. He knew that Jesus is the Messiah, knew the facts of His earthly life and the miracles He did. Of the meaning of His death and resurrection Apollos knew nothing, nor had he any knowledge of the Holy Spirit. The entire truth of the Gospel of Grace was unknown to Him. The text in the authorized version that he "taught diligently the things of the Lord" is incorrect. The correct translation is "he taught diligently the things concerning Jesus."

Plato teaches the pre-existence of the soul (Phaedo, 923) and transmigration. Only true saints, who had kept alone from every snare of corporate existence, went, it is suggested, to God: so did Pythagoras. Philo, the Jew, held the pre-existence of the soul, as Plato, and that the air is full of demons up to the moon; and the lower, or inferior class, were disposed to be earthly, and came into bodies. This came from Indian or Egyptian heathenism. Why do I speak of these things? Because the great early doctors of the church, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, were educated in Platonism. Origen, too, embraced the whole system — transmigration, and the renewal of the whole series of the soul's history in another earth. Jerome and Ruffinus (Latins), and even, in part, Ambrose followed Origen in a great deal, as did Gregory of Nyssa, and many others in the East.

W. But I have a difficulty here, because Philo surely recognized a divine revelation.

H. Your remark is quite in place; but it leads to the confirmation and clearing up of the real truth on this question — "What is revelation?" From his education and habits as a Jew he distinctly recognized the inspiration of the Old Testament — particularly of Moses' writings, but of all; and inspiration in the fullest sense, the operation of the Holy or prophetic Spirit; so that man was wholly shut out. He was far more a believer in his theory on this subject — very far — than Bunsen or the rationalists, even the most moderate of them. But two things are to be observed: first, he philosophized independently of the scriptures, though he sought to bring them in as confirmatory, and allegorized them even where he owned them to be historical. Abraham meant one idea, Israel another, Jacob another. He often admitted only ideas — no literal history at all. He was the most outrageous spiritualizer, but reducing all to man as he is looked at as virtuous. Hence evident inconsistencies. But, what is more material, there was no divine object in revelation for him. God remained necessarily unknown in Himself. The revelation he had was of ideas. The λόγος — the universal idea of all — the universe; the bringing this idea into finite man's mind, a little world of answering ideas, formed a microcosm as the philosophers called it. Man was, when virtuous, when partaker of θειῶν ἀρετῶν (divine virtues), an ἀστεῖος ἀνὴρ (Bunsen's "eminent" men), a possessor, as we have seen, of the ὀρθὸς λόγος, which, in its infinitude, was a kind of middle being between God and creatures (the evident origin of Arianism, and the early philosophical Christianity of Alexandria). The law for him was the expression of this perfect or right reason, and was to be perpetual and universal. But there were thus only great principles and ideas to be made good — there was no divine object at all. God was inaccessible. The λόγος comes out as a universal archetypal idea, realized finitely in creation, but not as a personal object of faith, though sometimes treated almost as a person, because acting in power; and this λόγος was man's intelligence. Messiah is only referred to as a conqueror to come, subduing the Gentiles, and making good Jewish hopes; beasts to be tamed — men too; sickness to depart; the Jews to be a kind of world priests. There is no proper revealed divine object of faith. The soul is an ἀπόσπασμα, a shred, an ἀπαύγασμα, a shining forth, a ray, an ἐχμαγεῖον ἐμφερὲς corresponding impress of God. It existed before, came into a body, and so was lowered and dualized (and this circumscription of our spirits in the limits of flesh and time, practical selfishness, Bunsen reckons the fall); and when it dies, goes back to heaven, restored to unity. There is a reproduction of the word in the soul, but no revealed object before it. This part of man is reason and conscience.

§ 2. According to Philo.

With Josephus we obtain the testimony of a Palestinian Jew, a 'Hebrew.' Have we a similar witness amongst the Jews of the Dispersion, the 'Hellenists'? An indirect witness, whose veracity is without reproach, is found in the Alexandrian Philo, of a character, Pusey well says (Pusey's 'Daniel,' p.295.), the most opposite to that of Josephus. Variety of evidence may always be appreciated. Philo was already growing old when Josephus was born. He appears to reckon exactly the same number of Books as Josephus, and strange to say, living always amidst Egyptian influences, he quotes only from the Books of the Hebrew Canon, using of course the Septuagint Version. No one is foolish enough to suppose he was not acquainted with the books of the Apocrypha. We may conclude that there was no Alexandrian 'Canon' in the strict sense.

This Alexandrian or Septuagint version, being thus made in the common speech of the East, was read even in Palestine, where Greek had become the ordinary language of intercourse. It alone is quoted by the philosopher Philo, and the historian Josephus: and (which is of more interest to us), the writers of the New Testament almost constantly refer to it: for at that epoch it stood in the same relation to the Hebrew as our common English version does, and was therefore used by all who wrote books for universal perusal.

151 W. It would be curious if Bunsen's wanderings were only a reproduction of Philo. But where are you leading my thoughts with all this?

H. Not an unnatural question. First we are examining a professed review of Bunsen, and enquiry into his real views is the best answer; and it shews the true character of the teaching sought to be introduced. Philo indeed was, while for ever allegorizing, so far soberer, that he recognizes the literal history, though, like Augustine, saying, when it is dishonouring to God's thoughts, it must be taken mystically. Still he respects the written word far more than Bunsen and our Essayists.

But I had also a more precise object. I have only, could only, in our brief intercourse bring forward points of contact, but the more Philo's views are before the mind as a whole, the more the similarity — the identity, I may say, is apparent. Another character of the λόγος which Philo gives will lead me to the point. The λόγος, or divine reason, is faith in us; that is, the λόγος, or divine immanent reason, becoming in its acting in man intelligence, the ὀρθὸς λόγος, or right reason in the abstract, which is divine, is, as far as it acts, right reason in man (i.e., in the wise); and the archetypal idea is in the mind of man faith; he has seized it as having, as the wise man, this right reason in himself, it being in himself so far as he is wise. That which is seized is the idea in God, but it is the idea in the man's mind, the λόγος being his intelligence. It is a copy of the original copy, or production of the inherent mind of God. As inherent, it is unknown. As become intelligible in the λόγος, an idea, it is νοητός, capable of being a subject of thought; and the human mind, which is the action of the λόγος in us, thinks it, has the idea, believes it as truth. Thus it is faith. This seems subtle, but it is not difficult to understand. The thinking power is not thinking. When I think, I have a thought. Thus what was simply intelligent, capable of thinking, is intelligible, becomes in the produced thought a possible subject of another's apprehension. If the same intelligence is in another as his mind, it is the spring of the same thought in him. The λόγος as immanent reason in God is unknown, but as a whole of thoughts, when thinking has taken place, when the divine mind has had or produced thoughts, is not all known, but νοητός knowable; and then archetypal ideas become by the λόγος being also our reason, our ideas. Hence the λόγος is the archetypal idea, and faith, according to Philo. Forgive me this dose of Alexandrian philosophy. You will see its application to revelation in a moment.

In all ancient mythology and tradition, heathen and Jewish, will be found the craving of the human mind after truths which revelation gives as in their perfection. Infidels have consequently alleged that these truths were borrowed from the traditions, than which nothing can be more false. They were the source of Arianism and Gnosticism, Universalism and Annihilationism. Thus Rationalists tell us that the doctrine of the λόγος, or Word, was derived from the Alexandrian or even Palestinian Jews. These had their Memra, those their λόγος; and Philo speaks largely of it, and makes the visible world itself an expression, so to speak, of the λόγος, a living expression of it. But mark the real bearing of this. The reason was, that the supreme God could not by any possibility be in connection with matter. The mystic Rabbins held God for a kind of non-existence, because there was no such connection with what we hold to exist. Hence there was a secondary God, the λόγος, or Word, which partook of His nature but was not the Supreme, and He then revealed Himself and was in communication with the creature. Yet in general, matter (ὔλη) was a thing evil in itself, a bond to the soul, and eternal too.