Pre-Christian Platonism: Philo of Alexandria

The peculiar feature of medieval philosophy, when viewed through an Eurocentric historical lens as a continuation of ancient philosophy, is that its origins extend back into the mature phase of Antiquity, during the early Roman Empire (1st—2nd centuries CE). This is linked to the emergence of Christianity in the eastern part of the empire at this time, which became the foundation of the spiritual culture, including philosophy, of European Medieval times.

It is well known that the formation of Christian doctrine incorporated a number of sacred texts from Judaism, specifically the Pentateuch (Torah), which became part of the Old Testament. Consequently, Christian theology embraced the philosophical commentary on the Pentateuch by Hellenized Jewish theologians knowledgeable in ancient philosophy. Thus, the history of Eastern Christian philosophy begins with the work of Philo of Alexandria, who lived in Alexandria in the 1st century CE and offered a philosophical interpretation of the Old Testament.

One might say that the order of Philo's philosophical exposition, and subsequently that of later Christian thinkers, is determined by the Bible itself, starting with the Book of Genesis, that is, with ontological questions. These are presented in Philo's treatise "On the Creation of the World According to Moses," from which we begin our acquaintance with his philosophical views.

The content of this work portrays Philo as a pure philosopher, anticipating the direction of medieval philosophy known as Scholasticism. Unlike a direct commentary on religious texts, he creates a genuine philosophical ontology based on them, in the form of a categorical description of being. He is also not inclined towards mysticism or cryptic expressions. Here is a significant methodological observation by Philo: “I do not know if anyone could adequately praise the nature of the week, for it surpasses every word. However, one should not remain silent due to its exceeding all that has been said about it, but should dare to explain, if not everything... then at least what is accessible to our understanding” ("On Creation," 90). Philo aims for a rational and realistically life-affirming understanding of biblical narratives. He says: “All these are not mythical fictions... but typological representations, requiring allegorical interpretation to grasp the implied meaning. Following the correct path to understanding, it must be said that the mentioned serpent is a symbol of pleasure” (157). And further: “The serpent speaking with a human voice is stated because pleasure employs the services of countless defenders and fighters” (160). Moreover, he transforms Moses into a true philosopher, since he refers to his own commentary as “the teaching of Moses, not my own” (25).

From a historical-philosophical perspective, Philo’s commentary presents two sections of philosophy, consistent with the content of the Book of Genesis: natural philosophy and anthropology. Natural philosophy is outlined using the concepts and categories developed in ancient philosophy. Primarily, these include general principles regarding origins and causes, as well as the so-called “mechanism” of creation. These are borrowed from the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. They include their common ideas about the active rational cause and matter. Philo expresses this as follows: “... in the beings, one is the actual cause, and another is the passive, and... the actual is the world mind... The passive is dead and has no motion” (8-9). The passive principle is matter, characterized in a distinctly Platonic way: “... matter... which could become everything, for in itself it was disorderly, shapeless, lifeless, formless, filled with variability, discord, and disharmony” (21-22). As a true ancient philosopher, Philo, unlike later Christian philosophers, does not speak of the dependence of matter on God, much less of the creation of the world ex nihilo. On the contrary, he emphasizes its independence, as when he describes the formation of man: the elements—earth, water, air, and fire—formed a self-sufficient matter, which the Creator used to create a visible form (146). This indicates Philo's religious-philosophical dualism—recognizing two fundamental principles: God and matter.

Consistent with Plato, the world mind acts on the basis of ideas. However, Philo introduces a significant deviation from Plato: ideas are declared to be creations of the mind itself—a position more aligned with Aristotle. He writes: “God foresaw that there could be no good imitation without a good example and that no sensory entities could do without a corresponding example, being modeled on the archetypal and intelligible idea. Wishing to create this visible world, He first created the intelligible, so that, using it as a bodiless and divine model, He could then create the corporeal” (16). Specifically, Philo refers to Moses' words that God created “every field shrub before it appeared on the earth, and every field herb before it grew,” and gives the following important explanation: “Does he not here indicate the bodiless and intelligible ideas, which are the imprints for their corporeal manifestations? Before the earth brought forth green plants, all this was laid out in the nature of specific things, and before the field herb grew, it was an invisible herb. It should be assumed that for everything else that senses perceive, prior ideas and measures existed, by which the emerging forms were created and measured. Nature produces nothing sensible without a bodiless example” (129-130). The sequence of creating the intelligible world precedes the sequence of forming the real world. “First, the Creator made the intelligible heaven, then the invisible earth, then the idea of air and emptiness” (29).

Philo explains this first step in world creation by comparing it to city construction, where the architect first imagines all its parts. Similarly, Philo places the world, composed of ideas, in a location such as “the Divine Logos, ordering all things” (20). It is also stated: “The intelligible world is nothing other than the Logos of God, already engaged in the creation of the world” (24). When the bodiless world had attained completeness “created in the Divine Logos,” then the sensory world began to be created according to its model (36). Thus, Philo accepts the Platonic structure of being: the invisible and intelligible, endowed with eternity, and the sensory, termed “becoming.” He states: “This world, being visible and sensory, must also be becoming” (12).

Philo introduces a certain hierarchy of images, elucidating the crucial formula of creation “in the image of God.” First, God creates the image of the world, which is the “archetypal seal,” the “intelligible world,” “the very Logos of God” (25). Then He creates the sensory world as an imitation of the Divine image, which in this case serves as an image of the image (25). Thus, the bodiless and incorporeal light “became a model for the sun and all the shining celestial bodies” (29). However, Philo also outlines a hierarchy of images within the intelligible world, as he considers the invisible and intelligible light as the image of the Divine Logos (31).

In summary, Philo’s general position on the creation of the world is that the world is created by a rational active cause, which is God, through the transformation of matter according to ideal, or “logical,” models created by God. The passive principle, he writes, “is moved by the mind, receiving shape and life from it, and is transformed into the most perfect work, that is, this world” (9). Through God, matter becomes its opposite, receiving “the idea of the better”: “order, quality, life, form, identity, harmony, consistency” (22). Thus, God has endowed “nature with generous gifts, which by itself could not have achieved anything good without divine gifts” (23).

The second general principle of this philosophy of creation concerns the process and order of its formation, the interpretation of the meaning of the six days of creation, and the seventh day of rest after the righteous labor. Philo finds the theory explaining all this in Pythagoreanism, in the Pythagorean teaching about numbers. Thus, he combines Platonism and Pythagoreanism, which is characteristic of what is known as Middle Platonism, to which Philo is usually associated.

The Pythagorean ideas about numbers as the essence of things allowed Philo to describe the course and order of creation in terms of a numerical sequence and its regularities. The world was created in six days because, Philo writes, “things coming into existence needed order. Order is characterized by number” (13). The very word “beginning” in the phrase “In the beginning, He created the heaven and the earth” should be understood in terms of number, meaning “He first created the heaven” (27). The first three numbers determine the incorporeal: “For what is called a point in geometry is defined by one, two is a segment; thus, through the passing of one comes two, and through the passing of a point comes a segment. A segment is a length without width. When width is added, a plane is formed, which is defined by three” (49).

The transition to the corporeal (space) begins with adding one more dimension—height—to the plane (the trinity), which together with the trinity gives the quaternary, leading from the incorporeal essence to a body with three dimensions and representing the first sensory (49). For those who do not grasp this, Philo provides an explanation: placing three nuts on a plane forms a triangle, and adding one more on top forms a pyramid. The role of the quaternary is significant. According to it, the heaven is arranged (47), as well as the entire world. For the four primary elements from which everything is created are: “earth, water, air, and fire” (49). The numerical pattern allows Philo to distinguish between the two worlds: the incorporeal (including the idea of the sensible world) and the corporeal (including the idea of all the things in it).

Philo also refers to Pythagorean concepts of proportions and harmony in order to describe the quality of creation, thus contributing to the doctrine of the harmony of the cosmos. The measure of harmony in the world is based on the number, which means that the world must be proportional and harmonious (45). This is indeed the point emphasized by Philo: “everything in the world is ordered according to measure, form, and number” (45).

On the seventh day, “God completed the visible world,” and this should be understood as the day when “the Creator allowed the visible world to reach its perfect form” (16). This corresponds to the Platonic tradition that the creation of the world is only an imitation of an eternal model, which is complete and perfect in itself.

Thus, Philo’s conception of creation is based on the synthesis of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Pythagoreanism. It is important to remember that this synthesis took place in the context of Jewish philosophy, which was characterized by a struggle between philosophical rationalism and religious traditionalism.

Philo's teachings influenced the development of early Christian theology and philosophy, particularly in relation to the Neoplatonic tradition that followed. His approach to allegory and the symbolic interpretation of the Hebrew Bible were instrumental in shaping the intellectual landscape of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

In his later works, Philo clearly delineates the content of each subsequent day of creation. On the fourth day, God adorns the heavens with luminaries. Philo interprets this act to emphasize God's omnipotence and the independence of His decisions from any physical factors. He points out that this was done so that people would not regard the celestial bodies, primarily the sun, as the causes of everything that arises on earth. Indeed, the earth produces plants even before the sun exists.

Another crucial consequence of the adornment of the heavens with luminaries is the emergence of philosophy. Humans, captivated by the orderly movements of the stars arranged according to the principles of musical art, began to inquire into their essence, patterns of movement, and causes. From this pursuit, "the breed of philosophy arose, more perfect than any other good in human life."

On the fifth day, God began to create the mortal forms of living beings. Here again, Philo does not separate the creation of living beings by days but describes it generally: first, by God's command, the fish appeared; then the birds; the earth, at His command, produced terrestrial animals, and He Himself created man. However, Philo assigns a hierarchical aspect to the usual temporal sequence of the emergence of living beings according to their degree of perfection: "When the Creator wished to create living beings, the first in order were the least significant fish, followed by the greatest, humans, and the rest in between these extremes." The lower beings in this hierarchy, the fish, are more tied to the corporeal essence than to the soul; they are destined to be idle and inactive. In birds and terrestrial animals, the soul is more manifest, and they are active. Finally, man is endowed with "exceptional rational capacity, the soul of the soul," and industriousness.

Among the justifications for why man was created last, one states that God, wishing to combine the beginning and the end in created entities, made the heavens the beginning and man the end, as a small heaven encompassing many star-like natures through the acquisition of arts, sciences, and glorious contemplations of every virtue. In these words, Philo deserves attention for representing man as a spiritual microcosm, not merely a physical one, as was commonly done by ancient philosophers. Besides this argument about the sequence of man's creation, Philo provides many others. Some of these include: man appeared last so that all other living beings would marvel, worship, and submit to him; he became the king over all things beneath the moon. To illustrate human authority, he refers to the shepherd, and gives the example of a charioteer and a helmsman: although the charioteer is behind the horses and the helmsman is at the rear of the ship, both are principal and govern.

Philo's commentary on the creation of man introduces a new section of philosophy: anthropology. Its fundamental position is the creation of man in the "image and likeness of God." Philo immediately distances himself from the direct, vulgar, and, one might say, pagan (or mythological) understanding of this formula: "Let no one imagine this likeness in bodily terms, for neither God has the form of a man, nor is the human body god-like." By "image," one should understand "the guiding principle of the soul" — the intellect. It was created "in accordance with the single mind of everything, as if a prototype." This is the resemblance of man to God: "The Logos, which is possessed by the greatest Guiding Principle in the world, is also possessed by the human mind in man."

Reason is not only the principal distinguishing (divine) characteristic of man but also his primary cognitive ability in comprehending the Divine. In this regard, it is presented in the spirit of Platonic rational intuition. First, "it surveys the earth and the sea, grasping their nature." "Then, soaring like a bird and exploring the air, it ascends higher to the ether and celestial motions... leaving behind all sensory existence, it reaches the intelligible. There it contemplates the archetypes and ideas, the superior beauty of what it has seen here in the sensory world." However, Philo perhaps intensifies the religious-mystical component of Platonic thought, as he writes that the intellect ultimately reaches the realm of unbearable light, and the eye of reason is blinded by its brilliance. This can likely be understood as the intellect's intrusion into the Divine sphere. The pursuit of heavenly knowledge gave rise to the breed of philosophy, through which man becomes immortal.

Nevertheless, Philo also presents some Aristotelian views on the intellect, as indicated by his subsequent reflections. He compares the role of the senses and intellect, likening the intellect to a man and the senses to a woman. Thus, a relationship emerges where the woman provides pleasure to the man (and pleasure is a sensation), just as the senses convey external phenomena to the intellect as impressions, which then evokes similar experiences. The intellect, like wax, receives impressions created by the senses, through which it comprehends objects "it could not grasp on its own." Philo thus shows an understanding of the mediated nature of rational knowledge.

Philo presents a somewhat different understanding of man as the image of God when he essentially discusses two stages in the creation of man. Initially, man, created from the dust of the earth, existed according to the image of God. He represents a type according to the image of God, or a kind, or a seal; he is intelligible, incorporeal, not yet male or female, and naturally immortal. Following this, the sensory and particular man is created. He is composed of earthly essence and Divine spirit; of soul and body; male or female; mortal and immortal by nature. From this, it can be concluded that the likeness to God is the ideal man (the concept) or man as a kind (man in general), but not the real man, the individual.

The image and likeness are seen as God's assistants in creating man. Philo allocates their roles in this process as follows: God created the good in man, while the assistants created the bad. This explains the intermediate position of man in the hierarchy of Divine creations in terms of virtue and vice: plants and irrational animals are not involved in either virtue or vice, as they lack intellect and Logos; man, accordingly, is susceptible to both good and evil; other beings, such as stars, are only involved in virtue.

Moreover, within the human race, both in the process of creation and subsequent reproduction, Philo outlines a hierarchy of diminishing perfection and regression among people. The most perfect is the image of man, followed by man himself. The first man, who emerged from the earth, was the best in terms of both body and soul because, firstly, he was created by God Himself—the best creator—and, secondly, because when he was created, God took the best earth for the body and used His own Logos for the creation of the soul. Subsequent people, being descendants of earlier humans, deteriorate: "The first created man is the best in all our kind, and his descendants have not reached the same height, as they receive attributes and abilities less bright from generation to generation." This "demographic law" is illustrated by the example of a "magnetic stone": iron rings closest to the stone are attracted with the greatest force, and those touching subsequent rings with lesser force. Nevertheless, people retain traces of kinship with their forebear, as every person, by their intellect, is related to the Divine Logos, being a reflection of Divine nature, and in terms of physical composition, to the whole world, as they are formed from the same elements.

The further existence of man after creation is determined by two factors: God and man himself. Man was appointed by God to live without labor and need. However, irrational pleasures prevailed within him. Philo explains their origin by purely natural causes. The beginning of a corrupted life for man was his wife. A mutual attraction between them gave rise to bodily pleasures, which became the source of injustices and crimes. Nevertheless, Philo explains the human inclination towards pleasure, or evil, by the fact that man is destined to experience evil as a being undergoing change and that his soul is inclined towards wickedness. Therefore, he concludes the narrative of the first humans eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil with the words: "… and this in a single moment changed both, turning them from purity and simplicity to evil." People began to indulge in disreputable desires. As a consequence, God appointed punishment for them in the form of the arduous quest for necessities of life; they would spend day and night in exhausting toil on the earth.

Philo concludes his commentary on the Book of Genesis by formulating the "five best truths" of monistic religious philosophy, which, according to him, Moses taught us. Firstly, that there is and exists a deity. Secondly, that God is one. Thirdly, that the world came into being. Fourthly, that the world is one, as the Creator is one. Fifthly, that God providentially cares for the world. However, he does not fully adhere to monism, as he admits the existence of two principles in the world: God and matter.