Philo of Alexandria
c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD
Allegorical interpretation of scripture and the doctrine of the Logos as intermediary between God and the world.
Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD) was a Jewish philosopher who read the Hebrew scriptures through Greek philosophy, producing the first sustained attempt to reconcile revelation with Plato.
Allegorical reading
Philo's method was allegory. Where the text says something that appears unworthy of God — that he walks in a garden, or changes his mind — the surface meaning is a concession to readers who cannot follow further, and the real meaning is philosophical. Abraham's journey becomes the soul's progress; the literal narrative is retained and treated as carrying a second sense.
This technique was adopted wholesale by Christian writers, particularly Origen and Augustine, and it set the pattern for how scripture was read in the West for over a thousand years.
The Logos
His most influential idea is the Logos — reason, or word — which he treats as an intermediary between a transcendent God and the material world. God is beyond description and cannot act directly on matter, so the Logos serves as the pattern by which the world is made and the means by which God is known. He calls it the firstborn of God and the image through which creation occurs.
The term was already in use: Heraclitus had used logos for the rational order of things, and the Stoics for the reason pervading the cosmos. Philo joined that Greek vocabulary to the God of Genesis, and the vocabulary was in place when Christian writers took up the same term a generation later. The concept of logos carries this layered history.
Reception
Philo was largely neglected in Jewish tradition and preserved by Christians, who found his method and his vocabulary immediately useful. He is the clearest single link between Greek philosophy and the theological traditions that followed.
Questions
Who was Philo of Alexandria?
A Jewish philosopher (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD) who interpreted the Hebrew scriptures using Greek philosophy, especially Platonism. His allegorical method shaped Christian biblical interpretation for centuries.
What did Philo mean by the Logos?
An intermediary between a transcendent God and the material world — the rational pattern by which the world is made and through which God can be known, since God's own nature is beyond direct description.
Why is Philo important?
He is the clearest link between Greek philosophy and later Jewish and Christian theology, supplying both the allegorical method of reading scripture and the philosophical vocabulary that theology adopted.