Philon of Alexandria

Presentation

Philon of Alexandria (towards -12 - towards +54) is a hellenized Philosophe Jewish born with Alexandria. The rare biographical details relating to it are in its own works, in particular Legatio AD Caium ( Ambassade at Caligula ) and at Flavius Josèphe ( Antiquités xviii. 8, § 1; xix. 5, § 1; xx. 5, § 2). The only event whose date is sure is besides this participation in the embassy which the Jews of Alexandria sent to the Emperor Caligula in year 40 to ask its protection following the riots of which they had been victims on behalf of the Greeks. Eusèbe de Césarée abundantly quotes it in its “Ecclesiastical History” sections XVIII and XIX in which it describes the life of the therapeutists of Alexandria.

It symbolizes the Judaism of Alexandria, stage towards the Christianisme, insofar as this one is at the same time resulting from the Judaïsme and the Hellénisme. For the Christians, Philon is Jewish. But for the orthodoxe Jews, him and his community of Alexandria are the prototypes of the " Jews assimilés". As for other later defectors, Flavius Josèphe, Spinoza or Freud, its biblical culture, its attachment with the Jewish people feed his thought universalist. It is convinced that the Monothéisme of Moïse is universal and it wants to convince its Greek readers of them.

Knowing the Greek philosophical systems perfectly, Philon is at this point influenced by Plato that he marries even the style of it, with however the hellenisms of the Jews of Alexandria. This word game of a contemporary is often quoted: " Philon platonise, Plato philonise". Its texts are interesting for the study of the Philosophie Neo-Platonist, but especially for her reading of the Bible, which it read in the translation of the Seventy. He makes in particular biblical characters of the Allégorie S. He is quite possible that he ignored Hebrew, but the question is discussed.

According to Claude Tresmontant, Philon of Alexandria would have also influenced the first Christian communities.

Philosophical and religious system

Its philosophical system is summarized in three basically biblical theses:

transcendence of God, and inconnaissability of God. The man can seize the gasoline of God neither by the direction nor by the intelligence. Philon poses here a clear limit with the capacity of philosophy and theology. This thesis of the inconnaissability of God will be taken again only by Maïmonide and Kant.
the vacuity of the man. The ground does not belong to the man. The dialog between God and the man whom presupposes the revealed Law are opaque and deaf, like that of the Master and the slave. Moreover, reversing celebrates it maxim of Socrate, Philon affirms that the man does not even know himself itself.
prophetic mediation between God and the man.

Cosmos and the man collected something of divine, which makes it possible this last to be reflected there. This is why they are both of the images of God.

God goes towards what is not him by the principle of Love, it is a gift. The mechanism of this transmission rests on the confused theory (and relatively accessory in the thought of Philon, but which will have a great success) Powers, Angels, and especially of the logos.

Divine Powers

The divine Powers are the attributes of God, the Logos is his Wisdom even, its creative capacity. The Angels are emanations of God, hypostases called “Sons of God”, “Old of the Angels”, etc There are then prototypes of Creation, kinds of Verb-ideas, places and images of any kind created. Lastly, the human spirit, the heart and the intelligence, are themselves logos and likely to open with the other powers whose tangle, the hierarchy, the harmony form the structure of the world.

This theory is a kind of synthesis around the terms employed by the Greek Bible to speak about God, creation and prophecy. Combining the terminology of the Bible to the mystic of Plato and the mysterism of the East, it inspired (being well deformed with the passage) the Gnose, the philosophy of Plotin…

Works of Philon

De Aeternitate Mundi
De Abrahamo
De Migratione Abrahami
De Mutatione Nominum
De Plantatione
De Agricultura
De Confusione Linguarim
De Congressu Eruditiones Gratia
De Decalogo
De Sacrificius Abelis and Cainis
De Posteritate Caini
De Ebrietate
De Escrecationibus
De Fuga and Inventione
De Gigantibus
De Josepho
De Opificio Mundi
Of Vita Contemplativa
De Vita Mosis
De Sobrietate
De Somniis
De Specialibus Legibus
De Virtutibus
De Praemiis and Poenis
Legum Allegoriae
Legatio AD Gaium
In Flaccum
Quaestiones in Genesim
Quaestiones in Exodum
Quis Serem Divinarum Young stags Sit
Quod Deterius Potiori Insidari Soleat
Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis
Quod Omnis Probus Líber Sit

Available

Collection: " Works of Philon d' Alexandrie":

"Of aeternitate mundi" , volume 30, ED.: The Stag, 1976, ISBN 2204037435
" Of plantatione" , volume 10, ED.: The Stag, 1976, ISBN 2204037249
" Of agricultura" , ED.: The Stag, 1976, ISBN 2204037230,
" Of praemiis and poenis. Of exsecrationibus" vol. 27, ED.: The Stag, 1976, ISBN 2204037400
" Of somniis" , ED.: The Stag, 1976, ISBN 220403732X
" Quaestiones in Genesim III-VI" , vol. 34, ED.: The Stag, 1984, ISBN 2204022284
" Quaestiones and solve in exodum I and II" , ED.: Stag, 1992, ISBN 2204043125

Random links: