Exegesis
Philo was influenced by Platonism to the extent that he is considered a Middle Platonist philosopher. He was also influenced by Stoicism, Neopythagoreanism, and Aristotle, as well as by Attic orators and historians. In his works one also finds Greek poetic phrases and allusions to the poets. Philo's works offer an anthology of Greek phraseology of the most different periods.
Philo's views derive from a combination of Hellenistic philosophy with the Jewish Bible, which he considers as the source and standard not only of religious truth but in general of all truth. Its pronouncements are for him divine pronouncements. They are the words of the ἱερὸς λόγος, ϑεῖος λόγος, ὀρϑὸς λόγος (holy word, godly word, upright word) uttered sometimes directly and sometimes through the mouth of a prophet, especially through Moses, whom Philo considers the real medium of revelation, while the other writers of the Old Testament appear as friends or pupils of Moses.
Although he distinguishes between the words uttered by God, as the Decalogue, and the edicts of Moses, as the special laws, he does not carry out this distinction, since he believes in general that everything in the Torah is of divine origin, even the letters and accents.
The Jewish Bible had not been canonized at the time of Philo, and the extent of his knowledge of Biblical books cannot be exactly determined. Philo does not quote Ezekiel, Daniel, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, or Esther. Philo regards the Bible as the source not only of religious revelation, but also of philosophic truth; for, according to him, the Greek philosophers also have borrowed from the Bible: Heraclitus, according to "Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit" § 43 ; Zeno, according to Quod Omnis Probus Liber, § 8 .
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