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Author

Philo of Alexandria

Jewish philosopher of Alexandria who read the Torah through Greek philosophy, and first described the Logos as mediator between God and the world.

c. 20 BCE–c. 50 CE

Also known as Philo Judaeus

Judaism, Platonism

Biography

Historical

Philo lived in Alexandria, the great centre of Greek learning and home to the largest Jewish community outside Judaea, from about 20 BCE to about 50 CE. He came from one of the city’s wealthiest and most prominent Jewish families: his brother was a high official, and his nephew became prefect of Egypt.

He received a full Greek education and wrote in Greek, interpreting the books of Moses, above all Genesis and Exodus, through the philosophy of Plato and the Stoics. In a long series of commentaries he read the stories of the patriarchs as allegories of the soul’s journey from the senses to God. In 39 or 40 CE, after violence against the Jews of Alexandria, he led a delegation to the emperor Gaius Caligula in Rome, which he described in his Embassy to Gaius.

His works were preserved not by the Jewish tradition, which largely forgot him, but by Christians, for whom his allegorical method and his teaching on the Logos prepared the way for the Church Fathers. Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Ambrose all drew on him.

Major works

Philosophical ideas

Scholarship

God in himself is unknowable and beyond all names; he acts in the world through his powers and his Logos, the divine reason, the first-born of God and the pattern of creation.

The soul ascends from the senses through philosophy to the vision of God, in an ecstasy he called a sober intoxication, which is the true goal of the life the Torah describes.

Cite this entry
Chicago (bibliography)

“Philo of Alexandria.” Author. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/philo-of-alexandria.

Chicago (note)

“Philo of Alexandria,” author, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/philo-of-alexandria.

MLA

“Philo of Alexandria.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/philo-of-alexandria.

BibTeX
@misc{authors-philo-of-alexandria,
  title = {{Philo of Alexandria}},
  howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society},
  note = {Author. Last modified November 7, 2026},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/philo-of-alexandria}
}

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