PHILOMELITTM 25 PHILOSOPHY
de Philon d'Alexandrie' (Paris, 1908); Schürer. Gesch. des Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3rd ed., Berlin, 1909); Siegfried, Philo v. Alexandria als Aisleger d. A. T. (Jena, 1875).
Philomelium, titular see in Pisidia, suffragan of Antioch. According to ancient writers Philomelium was situated in the south-west of Phrygia near the frontier of Lycaonia, on the road from Synnada to
Iconium. It formed part of the "w:conventus iuridicus:conventus" of Synnada. Its coins show that it was allied with the neighbouring city of Mandropolis (now Mandra). In the sixth century it formed part of Pisidia, the inhabitants of which pronounced its name Philomede or Philomene. In the Middle Ages it is often mentioned by Byzantine historians in connexion with the wars with the Seljukian sultans of Iconium. In the twelfth century it was one of the chief cities of the sultanate; from this time it bore the Turkish name of Ak-Sheher (white city), and to-day is the chief town of the caza of the vilayet of Konieh, numbering 4000 inhabitants, nearly all Mussulmans, and is a station on the railway from Eski-Shehr to Konieh. The ancient ruins are unimportant; they include a few inscriptions, some of them Christian. In a suburb is the tomb of Nasr Eddin Hodja, famous for his sanctity among the Turks. Christianity was introduced into Philomelium at an early date. In 196 the Church of Smyrna wrote to the Church of Philomelium announcing the martyrdom of St. Polycarp (Eusebius "Hist. Eccl.", IV, xix). Seven of its bishops are known: Theosebius, present at the Council of Constantinople (381); Paul, at Chalcedon (451); Marcianus, who signed the letter to Emperor Leo from the bishops of Pisidia (458); Aristodemus, present at the Council of Constantinople (553); Marinus, at Constantinople (680 and 692); Sisinnius, at Nicaea (787); Euthymius at the Photian Council of Constantinople (879). In the Greek "Notitiæ episcopatuum" Philomelium is first mentioned among the suffragan sees of Antiochin Pisidia, and in the ninth century among those of Amorium in Phrygia. It receives mention until the thirteenth century.
Acta SS. Jan., III. 317.; Le Quien, Oriens christ., I, 1059; Hamilton, Researches, I. 472; II. 184; Arundell, Discoveries, I. 282 sq.; Texier, Asie Mineure, 435; Smith, Dict. of Greek and Roman Geogr., s. v.. contains bibliography of ancient authors; see also the notes of Müller in Ptolemy, ed. Didot, I, 831.
Philomena, Saint.—On 25 May, 1802, during the quest for the graves of Roman martyrs in the Catacomb of Priscilla, a tomb was discovered and opened;
as it contained a glass vessel it was assumed to be the
grave of a martyr. The view, then erroneously enter-
tained in Rome, that the presence of such vessels (sup-
posed to have contained the martyr's blood) in a
grave was a symbol of martj-rdora, has been rejected
in practice since the investigations of De Rossi (cf.
Leclercq in "Diet, d'archeol. chret. et de liturg.", s. v.
Ampoules de sang). The remains found in the above-
mentioned tomb were shown to be those of a young
maiden, and, as the name Filumena was discovered on
the earthenware slabs closing the grave, it was as-
sumed that they were those of a virgin martjT named
Philumena. On 8 June, 1805, the relics were trans-
lated to the church of Mugnano, Diocese of Nola (near
Naples), and enshrined under one of its altars. In 1827
Leo XII presented the church with the three earthen-
ware tiles with the inscription, which may be seen in
the church even to-day. On the basis of alleged reve-
lations to a nun in Naples, and of an entirely fanciful
and indefensible explanation of the allegorical paint-
ings, which were found on the slabs beside the inscrip-
tion, a canon of the church in Mugnano, named Di
Lucia, composed a purely fictitious and romantic
account of the suppo.sed martyrdom of St. Philomena,
who is not mentioned in any of the ancient sources.
In consequence of the wonderful favours received in
answer to prayer before the relics of the saint at Mu-
gnano, devotion to them spread rapidly, and, after in-
stituting investigations into the question, Gregory XVI
appointed a special feast to be held on 9 September,
"in honorem s. Philumena' virginis et martyris" (cf.
the lessons of this feast in the Roman Breviary). The
earthenware plates were fixed in front of the grave as
follows : LuMEN.i Pax tecu-m Fi. The plates were
evidently inserted in the wrong order, and the inscrip-
tion should doubtless read P.x tecum FiLrMEX.. The
letters are painted on the plates with red paint, and
the inscription belongs to the primitive class of epi-
graphical memorials in the Catacomb of Priscilla, thus
dating from about the middle or second half of the
second century. The disarrangement of the inscrip-
tion proves that it must have been completed before
the plates were put in position, although in the numer-
ous other examples of this kind in the same catacomb
the inscription was added only after the grave had
been closed. Consequently, since the disarrangement
of the plates can scarcely be explained as arising from
an error, Marucchi seems justified in concluding that
the inscription and plates originally belonged to an
earlier grave, and were later employed (now in the
wrong order) to close another. Apart from the letters,
the plates contain three arrows, either as a decoration
or as punctuation, a leaf as decoration, two anchors,
and a palm as the well-known Christian symbols.
Neither these signs nor the glass vessel discovered in
the grave can be regarded as a proof of martyrdom.
De W.4AL. D. Grabschrifl d. Philumena aus d. CBmeterium d
Priscilla in Rom. Quartalschr., XII (1898), 42 sqq., with illustra-
tion after an original photograph; Casciou, S. Filumena. vergine
e marlire (Rome, 1904); Bonatexia, Conlrorersia sul eelehre
epitaffio di S. Filumena vergine e marlire (Rome. 1906); Idem. La
quealione puramente arckeologica e slorico-archeologica nella cmitro-
versia Filumeniarui (Rome, 1907); Marucchi, Studio archeologico
sutla celebre iscrizione di Filumena scoperla nel cimitero di Priscilla
in Nuovo BuUettino di archeol. crist., XII (1906), 253 sqq.
J. P. KiRSCH.
Philoponus, John. See Eutychianism; Monophysites.
Philosophumena. See Hippolytus.
Philosophy.—I. Definition of Philosophy. II. Division of Philosophy. III. The Principal Systematic Solutions. IV. Philosophical Methods. V. The Great Historical Currents of Thought. VI. Contemporary Orientations. VII. Is Progress in Philosophy Indefinite, or Is there a Philosophia Perennis? VIII. Philosophy and the Sciences. IX. Philosophy and Religion. X. The Catholic Church and Philosophy. XI. The Teaching of Philosophy. XII. Bibliography.
I. Definition of Philosophy.—According to its etymology, the word " philosophy" (φιλοσοφία, from φιλείν, to love, and σοφία, wisdom) means "the love of wisdom". This sense appears again in sapientia, the word used in the Middle Ages to designate philosophy. In the early stages of Greek, as of every other, civilization, the boundary line between philosophy and other departments of human knowledge was not sharply defined, and philosophy was understood to mean "every striving towards knowledge". This sense of the word survives in Herodotus (I, xxx) and Thucydides (II, xl). In the ninth century of our era, Alcuin, employing it in the same sense, says that philosophy is "naturarum inquisitio, rerum humanarum divinarumque cognitio quantum homini possibile est aestimare"—investigation of nature, and such knowledge of things human and Divine as is possible for man (P. L., CI, 952).
In its proper acceptation, philosophy does not mean the aggregate of the human sciences, but "the general science of things in the universe by their ultimate determinations and reasons"; or again, "the intimate knowledge of the causes and reasons of things", the profound knowledge of the universal order. Without here enumerating all the historic
