PHI'LO JUDIErIIS (Lat., from Gk.
While strict in all that pertained to ceremonial and ritual, in doctrinal matters Philo was a bold allegorizer. A literal interpretation of the Scrip tures lie regarded as superstitious and mean. Especially did he explain away all theophanies recorded in the Old Testament, as told in ac commodation to the sensuous diameter of human minds, which needed anthropomorphic represen tations of supersensible truth.
His writings develop his ideas and his system in the two directions indicated. In that division of his writings principally which treats of the creation (Kosmopoia), he allows allegory to take the reins out of his hands; in that on the laws (Nomoi), on the other hand, he remains re markably sober and clear, extolling the Mosaic legislation throughout, at the expense of every other known to him. In a very few instances only he is induced to find fault. or to alter slightly, by way of allegory, the existing ordi nances.
His idea of God is a pre minently theosophic not a philosophic one. God alone is the real good, the perfect, only to be imagined as the primeval light, which cannot be seen by itself, but may be known from its rays, that fill the whole world. He has no attributes, and there fore no name, and reveals himself only in desig nations expressive of this 'inexpressibility.' Ile is better titan virtue and knowledge, better than the beautiful and the good (Kalokagothia), sim pler than the one, more blissful than bliss. He is the existing unity or existence itself, self-suf ficient, free from pain and fear and participation iu evils, and full of happiness. God is omnipresent, but not really. Indeed, so far is God really from filling the world with his presence that the world, on the contrary, finds its place in God. And yet the God who com prehends within himself the material universe is so exalted above the world and so remote from it that a point of contact cannot be found between them; hence the need of an intermediate class of beings to stand between them. These were found
in the spiritual world of ideas. which are not only 'ideals,' or types, in the Platonic sense, but real, active powers. surrounding God like a num ber of attendant beings. They are his mes sengers, who work his will, and by the Greeks are called good demons; by Moses, angels. There arc very many different degrees of perfection among them. Some are immediate 'serving angels;' others are the souls of the pious, of the prophets, and the people of Israel, who rise higher up to the deity; others again are the heads and chief representatives of the different nations, such as Israel does not need. The Logos comprises all these intermediate spiritual powers in his own essence. (See article Locos for Philo's views on this part of his system.) Nan is a microcosm, a little world in himself, a creation of the Logos, through whom he participates in the deity. The ethical principles of Stoicism Philo identified with the Mosaic ethics, in which the ideal is most exalted moral perfectibility or sanctity, and man's duties consist in veneration of God, and love and righteousness toward fellow men. Philo holds firmly the belief in immor tality. Man is immortal by his heavenly nature; but as there are degrees in his divine nature, so there are degrees in his immortality, which only then deserves this name when it has been ac quired by an eminence of virtue. There is a vast difference between the mere living after death, which is common to all mankind, and the future existence of the perfect ones. Virtue and sin both have all their rewards within themselves; but the soul, which is. 'pre-existing,' having fin ished its course in the suldunar world, carries this consciousness with it in a more intense and exalted manner. Paradise is oneness with God; there is no hell with bodily punishments for sonls without a body, and no devil in the Philonic system. (For the relation between Philo, as the representative of the Judeo-Alexandrian phi losophy, and other contemporary philosophic ten dencies, see ) Of the many works left under his name, several have been de clared spurious, but in some cases without much show of reason. His writings have been published by Bidder (Leipzig, 1828-30) and by Tauchnitz (ib., 1S51-54). See Gfr6rer, Pillion and dig alexandrinische Theosophie (Stuttgart, 1831) ; Geschichtliche Darstellung der jiidisch alexandrinischea Lvlxvionsphilosophiy ( Halle, 1834) ; Wolff, Die philonische Philosophic (Leip zig, 1849) : Delaunay, Philo d'Alciandrie (Paris, 1867) ; Drummond, Principles of the Jewish Alexandrian. Philosophy (London, 1877) ; Philo Judtrus (ib., 1888) ; Freudenthal, Die Er kenntnislehre Philos can Alexandria (Berlin, 1892).