Philo - Anthropology

Anthropology

Philo is known for being the first author to use the term archetype in his writings with the meaning of "the image of God in mankind" ("De Opificio Mundi", 6).
Emil Schürer ("The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus", pp. 329–331) characterized the allegorical program of Philo as follows:

"Especially is it a fundamental thought, from which the exposition is everywhere deduced, that the history of mankind as related in Genesis is in reality nothing else than a system of psychology and ethic."

Philo regards the physical nature of man as something defective and as an obstacle to his development that can never be fully surmounted, but still as something indispensable in view of the nature of his being. With the body the necessity for food arises, as Philo explains in various allegories. The body, however, is also of advantage to the spirit, since the spirit arrives at its knowledge of the world by means of the five senses. But higher and more important is the spiritual nature of man. This nature has a twofold tendency:

• one toward the sensual and earthly, which Philo calls sensibility (αἴσϑησις, aistesis), and
• one toward the spiritual, which he calls Intellect or Reason (νοῦς, nous).

Sensibility has its seat in the body, and lives in the senses, as Philo elaborates in varying allegoric imagery. Connected with this corporeality of the sensibility are its limitations; but, like the body itself, it is a necessity of nature, the channel of all sense-perception. Sensibility, however, is still more in need of being guided by reason. Reason is that part of the spirit which looks toward heavenly things. It is the highest, the real divine gift that has been infused into man from without ("De Opificio Mundi", i.15; "De Eo Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiatur", i.206); it is the masculine nature of the soul. The νοῦς (nous, "mind") is originally at rest; and when it begins to move it produces the several phenomena of mind (ἔνϑυμήματα).
The principal powers of the νοῦς are:

1. judgment,
2. memory, and
3. language.

More important in Philo's system is the doctrine of the moral development of man.
Of this he distinguishes two conditions:

1. that before time was, and
2. that since the beginning of time.

In the pretemporal condition the soul was without body, free from earthly matter. Without sex, in the condition of the generic (γενικός) man, morally perfect, i.e., without flaws, but still striving after a higher purity. On entering upon time the soul loses its purity and is confined in a body. The nous becomes earthly, but it retains a tendency toward something higher.

Philo is not entirely certain whether the body in itself or merely in its preponderance over the spirit is evil. But the body in any case is a source of danger, as it easily drags the spirit into the bonds of sensibility. In effect (as for St. Paul), the flesh and spirit are in conflict (Guthrie, The Message of Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, p. 38f) However Philo is undecided whether sensibility is in itself evil, or whether it may merely lead into temptation, and must itself be regarded as a mean (μέσον). Sensibility in any case is the source of the passions and desires. The passions attack the sensibility in order to destroy the whole soul. On their number and their symbols in Scripture see Siegfried, l.c. pp. 245 et seq. The "desire" is either the lustful enjoyment of sensual things, dwelling as such in the abdominal cavity (κοιλία), or it is the craving for this enjoyment, dwelling in the breast. It connects the nous and the sensibility, this being a psychological necessity, but an evil from an ethical point of view.

According to Philo, man passes through several steps in his ethical development. At first the several elements of the human being are in a state of latency, presenting a kind of moral neutrality which Philo designates by the terms "naked" or "medial." The nous is nude, or stands midway so long as it has not decided either for sin or for virtue. In this period of moral indecision God endeavors to prepare the earthly nous for virtue, presenting to him in the "earthly wisdom and virtue" an image of heavenly wisdom. But man (nous) quickly leaves this state of neutrality. As soon as he meets the woman (sensibility) he is filled with desire, and passion ensnares him in the bonds of sensibility. Here the moral duties of man arise; and according to his attitude there are two opposite tendencies in humanity.