Philo - Influence of Hellenism

Influence of Hellenism

Philo quotes the epic poets with frequency, or alludes to passages in their works. He has a wide acquaintance with the works of the Greek philosophers. He holds that the highest perception of truth is possible only after an encyclopedic study of the sciences. The dualistic contrast between God and the world, between the finite and the infinite, appears in both Platonism and in Neo-Pythagorism. The influence of Stoicism is unmistakable in the doctrine of God as the only efficient cause, in that of divine reason immanent in the world, in that of the powers emanating from God and suffusing the world. In the doctrine of the Logos, various elements of Greek philosophy are united.

As Max Heinze shows, this doctrine touches upon the Platonic doctrine of ideas as well as the Stoic doctrine of the γενικώτατόν τι (literally: "general what" or "generic what"-- "that which cannot be categorized") and the Neo-Pythagorean doctrine of the type that served at the creation of the world; and in the shaping of the λόγος τομεύς ("dividing Logos") it touches upon the Heraclitean doctrine of strife as the moving principle. Philo's doctrine of dead, inert, non-existent matter harmonizes in its essentials with the Platonic and Stoic doctrine.

His account of the Creation is almost identical with that of Plato; he follows the latter's Timaeus closely. Like Plato, he places the creative activity as well as the act of creation outside of time, on the Platonic ground that time begins only with the world. The influence of Pythagorism appears in number-symbolism, to which Philo frequently refers.

The Aristotelian contrast between δύναμις ("power, might, strength") and ἐντελέχεια ("entelechy") (Metaphysics, iii.73) is found in Philo, De Allegoriis Legum, i.64 (on Aristotle see Freudenthal in "Monatsschrift," 1875, p. 233). In his psychology he adopts either the Stoic division of the soul into eight faculties, or the Platonic trichotomy of reason, courage, and desire, or the Aristotelian triad of the vegetative, emotive, and rational souls.

The doctrine of the body as the source of all evil corresponds entirely with the Neo-Pythagorean doctrine: the soul he conceives as a divine emanation, similar to Plato's νοῦς ("mind, understanding, reason") (see Siegfried, Philo, pp. 139ff). His ethics and allegories are based on Stoic ethics and allegories.

Philo made his philosophy the means of defending and justifying Jewish religious truths. These truths he regarded as fixed and determinate; and philosophy was used as an aid to truth, and as a means of arriving at it. With this end in view Philo chose from the philosophical tenets of the Greeks, refusing those that did not harmonize with the Jewish religion, as, e.g., the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and indestructibility of the world.

In turn, Philo may have influenced other faiths as well. Arguments were put forth in the 19th century that Philo was actually the founder of Christianity by virtue of his combination of Jewish theological ideas and those present in the Greek mystery religions, a combination of which would appear somewhat like Christianity. It is alleged that the followers of Jesus seized upon Philo's precepts and incorporated them into the letters that became the New Testament.