Alexandrian Philosophy Alexandrians in Jerusalem
JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
TJIE
Aguiust placing this movemi-ntas early as the century B.C., tlie fact obtains that phihisophy held no lirra fooling in Alexandria until a considerably later period. Before l^liilo there had existed a more or less powerful leavening of the Jewish-Hellenic literature by Greek philosophy, not neces.sjxrily limited in its eflecis to literary productions in Alexandria. But it is only in connection with I'hilo that an acNo mention is made of ual system can be indicated. any Jewish-philosophical school in Alexandria, and in a certjiin sense heathen philosophers should rather be considered to have been Philo's forerunners. One may speak of his Jewish forerunners, of course, but the term can mean only those who followed a similar method of Bil)lieal interpretation with regard to certain loose and disconnected philosophical ideas, and who were not exponents of any complete system of interpretation (Cohn, "Philo von Alexandria," in "Neue Jahrbiicher," 11^98, i. 514-540, 525 et seq.). It has been mentioned above that there existed an allegorical method of Scripture exposition, consisting in the main, probably, of a moralizing, paraphrastic interpretation of ritual laws, long before Philo. Philo himself refers to aire.
tiiird
t
Philo and .such. He protests ("De ]Mignitione the ExAbrahami, " 89 et se'/.) against those tremists. who regarded the precepts as mere symbols of truths, accepting which they refused obedience to the literal prt'ccpt. Because the Salibath points out the working of the creative power in the unformed, and the repose of the formed, universe; or because the festivals are types of rejoicing and of gratitude to God or because circumcision symbolizes the uprooting of lusts and passions, these ordinances are not by any means to be neglected as such. Adopting thus a twofold meaning for Scripture, Philo stamls between the extremists of both sides those who recognize only the deeper meaning, and those who believe in the letter only, of the Law. The latter of these he frequently reproves. And though he may have innot from any predecesdeed chosen his illustrations sors, but out of his own consideration of the subject (see the important passage, "De Circumcisione," i., ii. 211), he himself testifies that he had forerunners in the art of allegorical interpretation and that their method was determined by philo-sojiliical
—
iiitluence is in itself quite probable. In the passjige " De .Vbraliamo, xx. 20, Philo mentions allegorists
who had interpreted the whole history of Abraham and Sarah as a moral allegory. In " De Specialibus Legibus," iii. 82, 329, he gives a philosophical allegorization of Deut. xxv. 11 ct ser/,, which he ascribes to the vcnerabh- men who consi<lcr most of th(^ uttersinces of the Law to be "manifest symbols of things invisible, and hints of things inexpressible." Many attem])ts, then, to expound the Law allesorically and to read into it the dicta of Greek philosophy had been made before Philo. That such, however, were the expressions of any regular system of world-conception at all resembling a fullHedged philosophy can not be shown, anil is improbable. Philo borrowed a few such expositions; init it can not be said that he adojited the greater pavt(Dahnc, I.e. i. 69). What has been said mtist not lie interpreted asa denial that any influence whatever was exercised by philosophy over Hellenic Judaism, but only as negativing the existence of any systematic and well-defined school of Jewish-Alexandnan thought. The degree in which this influence was exercised, and in what directions, will perhaps be best exhibited by the consideration of the two books which are acknowledged to show it most markedly,
370
the Wisdom of Solomon and IV Maccabees. The personitication of Wistlom had its origin, of course, in the Jewish mind (compare Prov. i. 20-33): but in the delineation of its characteristics and effects Stoic inaterialsare considerably employed. Wisdom is represented as ei|uivalent to the Stoic ^vei-un; like it, WLsdom permeates the universe The Wis- as the original Divine Power. And though the preilominant religious hint doni of Solomon, of the author decks Wisdom init with a multitude of moral attributes, many of them betray the effects of Stoic materialism. He does not consider the problem whether God's wisdom is immanent in the universe, or whether it has an independent existence. The Logos plays a very insigniticant part beside Wisilom; the latter, and not, as in Stoic fashion, the Logos, being consideri'd the source of all human reason. What is said of the
Logos (Wisdom, ix. 1, xii. 9, 12, xviii. 15) is based far more comi)letely on Biblical foundations than is Philo's philosophy; and how vaguely the Logos is is apparent from the fact that to it is assigned equal value with Wisdom, and that in xvi. 2(i the /w/,un iJfw (divine word) ap])ears with identical functions. To these ingredients must be added the Platonic conceptions of formless matter (xi. 17), of the preexistence of the soul (viii. 19, 20), of the body as a clog upon the soul the four cardinal virtues, the Euhemerus like criticism of jmlytheism (xiv. 15-21), and the adoption of Epicurean views in the description of the godless (ii. 3-8; see Usener, "Epicurea," p. 227). The author of IV ^Maccabees presents very faint reflexes of philosophical influence in his conception of the divine beings and attributes; but his psychological and ethical utterances are stronglj' colored by the later Stoa. In iiis conI'V Macca- sideralion of the emotions, for instance, bees. lie is (piite a Stoic they are to him independent of the intellect also in his theory of a material soul, in his intellectualism, and in his doctrine of the virtues. Nor are suggestions of other philosophical schools altogether wanting; his view of the immortality of the soul is undoubtedly tinged with Grecian thought. It can not, therefore, be supposed that either the " Wisdom of Solomon " is a forerunner of Philo, or that IV Maccabees is a disciple of his school. They are both ipiite independent, and have nothing in common with Philo's characteristic metaphysics. If their intermediary Wisdom reminds one at times of Philo's intermeiiiary Logos, a strong argument a.irainst the resemblance is the fact that they are essentially different beings, with only partially similar Philosophy is here only attribut/'S and influence. forcibly interjected into the original .Jewish conception of the universe, and shows it, even externally, so to speak, by taking up very little room in it. .V firm religious consciousness far outweighs any mere philosophical interest the national conception of the divine rule of the universe, forlitied by historical reflection, permits only scanty consideration of mere speculative questions. Accordingly, only iiassing references are found herein, only scattered conijionents of Greek philosophy; and other writings of Jewish-Hellenic philosophy, now lost, would probably have given no more, jlany works before Philo's time may indeed have exercised a species of prcjiaratory or jiioneer influence, providing for the consideration of the Jewish mind both philosophical problems and a strict philosophical phraseology for their discussion and may have suggested to Jewish thought, moreover, a reconciliation and approximation of Greek and Jewish conceptions. But the first
conceivetl
—
—
