III. Scope and Significance of Philo’s Innovation
1. CONTRIVES “AGREEMENT” OF BIBLICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL “TRUTH.”
The allegorical method, developed into a system by Philo, was the interpretation of a text in terms of another concept, at the same time discarding the literal, historical element. Historical narratives were thus neutralized as merely parabolic or figurative. But this device antedated Philo. In Jewish tradition the Jew had not considered himself bound to take Scripture literally—free interpretation being followed in the Oral Law.CFF1 727.2
This was accentuated when Judaism came in contact with Greek philosophy and was strengthened by the translation of the Septuagint. And now this principle of free, unfettered interpretation was developed by Philo into an actual philosophical system of allegorical interpretation that brought him to positions startlingly similar to many of Plato’s postulates, which he followed.CFF1 727.3
There was this distinct difference however: As already noted, Greek philosophers, like Plato, did not regard their writings as inspired revelations. They considered them more as anticipations of truth. Philo, on the other hand, regarded Scripture as an insured revelation—as knowledge and truth revealed by God. But, he reasoned, the truth of inspiration must be in agreement with the truth of philosophy and reason, for truth is truth wherever found. And the fact that the Greeks had discovered by reason what the Jews had derived by revelation, showed that it must have been a gift from God.CFF1 728.1
Therefore, he concluded, there must be underlying agreement between the two—if only it could be discovered. And that basic accord was secured by Philo through the deliberate allegorization of Scripture. Anything contrary to reason was deftly explained away under this effective procedure.CFF1 728.2
2. STRIKES AT ORIGIN AND DESTINY OF MAN
On the existence and unity of God, the creation and unity of the world, and the revelation and abiding character of the law there was no problem. The subordination of philosophy to Scripture here was the subjection of reason to faith. But from there on subtle but grave departures began to obtrude. Philo assumed that Scripture has a twofold meaning, external and internal—(1) the literal or seeming, and (2) the underlying or real, the allegorical meaning, perceived by the initiated, being its true intent. This latter artifice Philo followed without reserve. It was his chosen method for reconciling the outwardly variant positions.CFF1 728.3
The result was a Neoplatonic and Neo-Pythagorean concept of Creation. The historicity of the Genesis story was thereby dismissed as a “myth,” “mythical nonsense,” and “folly.” In this way Philo took the terms of Scripture, voided their established meaning, and gave them a philosophical turn. Thus he struck a body blow at the divine and only authoritative revelation of the origin, nature, and destiny of man.CFF1 728.4
3. GENESIS NARRATIVE OF CREATION VITIATED
As just noted, this stroke was directed particularly at the inspired record of the origin and destiny of man. Everything—names, numbers, events, sequence, historical narration—was all subjected to relentless allegorization. The creation of the world in six days, the creation of the lower animals, the bringing into existence of Adam, the formation of Eve, the Garden of Eden, the tree of life, the four rivers, the talking serpent, the temptation and the Fall, the expulsion from Eden, the garments of skin—all came under the devastating sweep of allegorization, as being “greatly at variance with truth.” CFF1 729.1
Through the allegorical method the “true knowledge” was extracted from the “letter” of the account. The result was revolutionary, as Philo plays upon the two accounts of the creation of man (of Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:7), setting one against the other.CFF1 729.2
While this is a grave indictment, it is fully borne out by the facts. The amount of Hellenistic cosmogony and metaphysics that Philo reads out of (or rather into) the first three chapters of Genesis is utterly amazing. “Days,” he says, do not represent time, which (following Plato) came only with the movement of heavenly bodies in space. The number of days is merely “ideal,” not a restricted space of time. Actually, Philo held that all things came into existence simultaneously. “‘It is quite foolish to think that the world was created in six days or in a space of time at all.’”CFF1 729.3
That obliterated the days of Creation week.CFF1 729.4
The elements were, he held, eternally existent. The “six” days simply meant creation or formation according to a plan, a pattern. The numerological significance of “one” to “seven” is played up. Man was made in the image of God, resembling God, and aspiring to association with God. But as in Plato’s Timaeus (69c), man was not made by God alone, or directly, but by assistants. “Let us make man” (Genesis 1:26) is cited as proof. So, following Plato again, God was relieved from the causation of evil.CFF1 729.5
In the second story of Creation and the Fall, man is made of “mother earth” and spirit. Fashioned of the best materials, man was infused with the “breath of God,” and became one with the heavenly intelligences. As to the “mythical” formation of Eve out of the side of Adam, literalism here is characterized by Philo as unworthy. The “tree of life” is piety, greatest of all virtues, by which the soul is established as immortal.CFF1 730.1
The downfall of man came with the creation of woman, and physical desire. The serpent is a symbol of “pleasure,” while the speaking serpent is dismissed as a myth. The “garments” of skins were to point out “frugality,” and as more noble than a purple robe. God made a body for Adam wherein He clothed the mind as with a garment of skin. God’s purpose, Philo held, was to present a grand object lesson.CFF1 730.2
4. LIKE ALL LIVING CREATURES MAN HAS “ANIMAL” SOUL
Philo held that there are three classes of “living beings”—“animals, men, and incorporeal souls.” After discussing “irrational [or animal] souls” (the souls of “lower animals”—“fishes, birds, and land-animals”), he describes these created “besouled” creatures,—or “living souls,” as having “sensation, imagination, impulse.” These irrational souls are “earthlike,” “corporeal.” “The irrational soul is corruptible ... and mortal ..., whereas the rational soul or mind is incorruptible ... and immortal.”CFF1 730.3
Philo even follows Plato in holding that the animal, or irrational soul of man, with its body, was created by a subordinate god, or “secondary deities”—God’s co-workers, something like the Gnostic Demiurge concept. The term soul might therefore mean either an “irrational” or a “rational” soul or both. CFF1 730.4
Philo expressly states that man also possesses this irrational soul, with its “substance,” in the corporeal form. Sometimes he suggests that the life “blood” or “breath” is the “essence” of the irrational soul. He also calls the soul the “seed,” or the “principle of the generation of animals”—in which animal life differs from plants. And Wolfson interestingly observes: “The three views which he [Philo] happens to mention can be identified with three views known in Greek philosophy.” Philo elsewhere speaks of the irrational soul as the “nutritive” and “sensitive” faculties, or the “seven faculties, namely the five senses, speech, and generation.” So, Philo held that “irrational souls” were created with bodies, and “rational souls” without bodies.CFF1 731.1
5. MAN ALSO HAS IMMORTAL “RATIONAL SOUL.”
According to Philo, while animals have only an “irrational,” or animal, soul (shared by man), man also has, in addition, a “rational soul or mind.” Thus Philo says: “‘I ... am many things, soul and body, and of soul there is a rational part and an irrational part.”’ Man is thus a duad. And again like Plato in Timaeus, Philo holds that the rational soul was “formed by God Himself,” coming direct from God to all men. And he declares that it is the “‘image of God.’” He says the “‘human mind’” is a “‘fragment of that divine and blessed soul from which it cannot be separated.’” Again following Plato (Timaeus, 41d), Philo says that the number of rational souls is “‘equal in number to the stars,’” but “prior to their descent into bodies they had their abode in the air.” CFF1 731.2
The rational soul descends and enters a body that is under the dominance of the irrational soul, and thus sojourns in a land “‘not its own.’” Consequently there is a battle of the two souls, with man’s free will deciding the outcome—plus divine grace. Hence there is justification of punishment for man’s wrong decisions and conduct. The body is ever the foe of the soul.CFF1 731.3
6. CURIOUS THEORY OF “UNBODIED SOULS.”
But that is not all. Wolfson summarizes Philo’s curious teaching on “unbodied souls or angels,” with the ethereal heavens as their “storeroom“:CFF1 732.1
“Of the rational incorporeal and immortal souls created by God and stored away in the air not all descend into bodies. These incorporeal souls, he says, ‘are arranged in companies that differ in rank.’ The difference between these companies of incorporeal souls is that some of them are ‘endowed with a diviner constitution’ or ‘are of a perfect purity and excellence,’ and hence ‘have never deigned to be brought into union with any of the parts of earth,’ or ‘have no regard for any earthly quarter,’ or ‘have never felt any craving after the things of the earth.’” CFF1 732.2
This, Wolfson observes, frankly reflects Plato’s position in his Timaeus and his Phaedrus, as regards individual “unbodied souls” that mount upward with wings. But some, losing their wings, take upon themselves “‘an earthly body.’” To Plato, in the Phaedrus (246a, c), “where the souls are said to be uncreated,” the difference between “the two groups of incorporeal souls” must have existed from eternity. And in the Timaeus (41d, e), “where the souls are said to be created,” their descent is attributed to fate. But to Philo, the souls are created, and the differences result from God’s free determining will.CFF1 732.3
Philo holds that those incorporeal rational and immortal souls which do not descend into bodies—in other words, become incarnated—are “what Scripture calls angels, though some philosophers call them demons.” The Greek term angelos means “heavenly messenger.” And again there is further similarity to Plato, who also holds that demons are souls (Phaedrus 246a, d, e). And Philo declares that these statements about angels and demons are not myths. CFF1 732.4
7. ROLE OF UNBODIED SOUL-ANGELS
According to Philo the original abode of these incorporeal unbodied souls—as angels (or demons) invisible to us—is “‘in the air.’” That is, they “‘range through the air’” and inhabit the ethereal heavens. But this too is patterned after Plato. Plato also has those angels conducting men to the judgment after death, but Philo does not mention such a function. In fact, he does not teach a general and final judgment. He does speak, however, of the return of immortal souls to the divine or heavenly world to dwell among the angels.CFF1 733.1
These incorporeal-soul-angels, according to Philo, are “instruments of divine providence,” exercising care over the world as a whole and over mankind in particular. They have “‘charge and care of mortal man.’” They are messengers and intermediates, or “‘middle creatures.’” This contention Philo supports by Jacob’s dream of the ladder, with the angels ascending and descending. They are God’s “‘lieutenants,’” he states, His servants, ministers, “powers,” His “‘divine army.”’CFF1 733.2
He interprets “‘Lord of Sabaoth,’” as “‘Lord of angels,’” or “‘Lord of the powers.’” Hence the angels are a “‘most sacred company.’” And these intermediaries are necessary, according to both Plato and Philo, because God does not mingle or converse with man, but is remote from him. So they are part of God’s plan and provision for directly governing the world.CFF1 733.3
And, according to Philo, these incorporeal-soul-angels sometimes appear to man, as in the cases of Hagar, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses (Genesis 16; Genesis 18; Genesis 22; Genesis 28; Genesis 32; Exodus 3; Exodus 14). Furthermore “punitive” angels bring judgments—as on Sodom and Gomorrah. And there are also “evil,” or “fallen,” angels. These are also called “Sons of God” in Genesis 6, angels who revolted under Satan, and who wrought confusion with the “daughters of men.”CFF1 733.4
8. DEFINITION AND FUNCTION OF RATIONAL SOUL
According to Philo, this rational soul is not corporeal (blood, etc.) but “incorporeal.” While Plato places its seat in the “head” (Timaeus 69e; 90a), Philo says it might also be in the “heart.” There is, he says, a reciprocal relation between the irrational and the rational soul, or souls. But Philo also connects the mind of man with the Logos, as does Plato (Timaeus 46d).CFF1 734.1
Philo further distinguishes between the two “breaths”—just “breath” for the irrational creatures, and the “breath of life” that God breathed into Adam. The latter is “‘not air in motion’” but a “‘divine power,’” which Moses denominated the “‘image,’” a “‘divine and invisible breath.’” Philo says the “rational faculty ... is a ‘fragment of the universal soul.’” This “‘divine spirit,’ which God breathed into Adam” is an “‘effulgence of the blessed and thrice-blessed nature of God.’” CFF1 734.2
9. IMMORTALITY DEFINED AS “ETERNAL PERSISTENCE.”
Then Wolfson immediately notes: “Besides irrationality and rationality, corporeality and incorporeality, these two souls of men are distinguished one from another by mortality and immortality.” CFF1 734.3
“The irrational soul is the corruptible and mortal soul whereas the rational soul is the incorruptible and immortal soul.” But this distinction likewise reflects the view of Plato (Timaeus 69c). And like Plato, Philo says that “the souls which are immortal ‘soar back to the place whence they came.” But deviating from Plato, Philo considered the immortal rational soul as “ungenerated” (cf. Phaedrus 246a). And according to Wolfson: “In Philo, because of his denial of a universal soul, immortality means the eternal persistence of the individual soul as a distinct entity.” CFF1 734.4
10. RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY OF SOUL
In the time of Christ, and thus of Philo, the two beliefs of the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul were already in vogue in Judaism. The resurrection was stressed primarily among the Palestinian Jews, with Innate Immortality among the Hellenistic Jews. There was constant discussion over the divergent viewpoints involved. Echoes of this appear in the Wisdom and other apocalyptic writings, particularly in The Wisdom of Solomon (4:1). In the light of this Wolfson comments:CFF1 735.1
“It is not surprising therefore that Philo should also look for a scriptural proof-text in support of the belief in the immortality of the soul. The proof-text which he produces is the verse in which God says to Abraham, ‘But thou shalt go to thy fathers nourished with peace, in a goodly old age.’ Commenting on this verse, Philo says: ‘He here clearly indicates the incorruptibility of the soul, when it transfers itself out of the abode of the mortal body and returns as it were to the metropolis of its fatherland, from which it originally migrated into the body,’ for ‘what else is this but to propose to him and set before him another life apart from the body?’” CFF1 735.2
This, of course, involves a sort of transmigration of souls, but not involving the lower animals. As to the resurrection aspect, Charles comments,CFF1 735.3
“As matter was incurably evil there could of course be no resurrection of the body. Our present life in the body is death; for the body is the ‘utterly polluted prison of the soul.’” CFF1 735.4
11. DEFINITIVE MEANING OF “FATHERLAND” OF SOUL
Philo discusses three possible meanings of “fatherland” in Scripture, as intimated by the term “thy fathers” (Genesis 15:15), to which the rational soul returns. He rejects three views already current among Hellenistic Jews, adopted from Greek philosophy. These involve, first, “‘the sun, moon and other stars’”—that the soul will “upon the death of the body mount to heaven and there assume the spherical shape of stars,” continuing in that condition until the general “conflagration.”CFF1 735.5
Support of such a view was sought in the verse “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). Three of the current apocalyptic writings so affirmed—2 Baruch 51:10, “And they shall be made equal to the stars”; 4 Ezra 7:97, “Their face is destined to shine as the sun, ... destined to be made like the light of the stars”; and Enoch 104:2, “Ye shall shine as the lights of heaven.” CFF1 736.1
The second concept was that immortal souls ascend to Heaven, where they live for a certain period of time among the “ideas,” evidently based on Plato (Republic 6:509, 510; 7:517; 10:614 ff.). The third is that upon the death of the body the rational soul of each individual is “reabsorbed into the universal soul, that is, the primary fire or ether, of which it is only a part”—an Aristotelian view. But none of these was acceptable to Philo. Souls do not become stars, for stars are made of the elemental fire, whereas souls are immaterial. For the same reason they are not resolved into the primary fire or ether.CFF1 736.2
Nor could he accept the view that souls go back to Heaven to dwell among mere “ideas,” for ideas are not in the heavens but in the world of intelligence. Wolfson says Philo’s view, repeatedly stated, was that—“the souls, on departing from the bodies, do indeed go back to heaven, but there they rejoin that company of souls which have never descended into bodies, namely, angels.” CFF1 736.3
12. SOULS RETURN TO REALM OF “UNBODIED.”
So, according to Philo, to be “gathered to his people” is simply a euphemism for death, the “people” being the “people of God,” the angels. So he concludes, they are “equal to the angels.” Thus:CFF1 736.4
“‘We who are here joined to the body, creatures of composition and quality, shall be no more, but shall go forward to our rebirth to be among the unburied.’” CFF1 736.5
Thus the view of Philo that these “immortal souls” find their final abode in the heavens by the side of the “angels,” accords with the view of Plato in the Phaedrus, that immortal souls soar to the outermost heavens, the “infinite void” which surrounds the world. The same view is found in the inter-Testament apocalyptic writings, as “They shall be made like unto angels” (2 Baruch 51:10), and, “Ye shall become companions of the hosts of heaven” (Enoch 104:6). So Heaven, the home of the angels, is the ultimate abiding place of the immortal souls. Thus Abraham and Jacob were “added to the people of God.” Elijah also was “carried up with a whirlwind” into Heaven, to be among the angels. CFF1 737.1
13. MERGES IMMORTALITY AND RESURRECTION
Philo uniformly speaks of the immortality of the soul rather than the resurrection of the body, and never as distinguished from immortality. Thus he drew upon the “traditional vocabulary of resurrection” to set forth his view of immortality. His distinctive mark of resurrection was a “new life,” a “‘recovery of life,’” and was so used in 2 Maccabees 7:9, 23. So Philo describes immortality as a “new birth,” turning a corporeal resurrection into something incorporeal. Thus in this area Philo echoes the thoughts and words of Plato—all souls return to the place whence they come.CFF1 737.2
14. ENDLESS PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED
Plato had held that the rational soul is by its very nature indestructible, and cannot be destroyed by the wickedness of the body. Thus the soul of the wicked was believed to be “indestructible in the same sense as the soul of the righteous.” Plato had likewise taught that all that the wickedness of the body can do to the soul is to cause it to go through certain stages of reincarnation in beasts (Timaeus 42b ff.; Phaedrus 249b), or to pass through a certain period of purification in a kind of Purgatory (Phaedrus 249a; Laws 905a ff.).CFF1 737.3
On the other hand, the Stoics held that the soul ceases to exist immediately upon the death of the body, and is at once absorbed in the universal soul (Diogenes 7:156). Others held that such souls continue to exist, but after a period of time perish, together with their bodies. Philo refers to these views, and in certain places seems to leave the question open. Here is one such statement:CFF1 738.1
“‘When we die, is it [the soul] extinguished and destroyed together with our bodies, or does it continue to live a long time?’” CFF1 738.2
It should be noted that in Judaism those who believed in immortality “speak of it as a reward reserved only for the righteous but denied to the wicked.” Thus the Palestinian author of the Psalms of Solomon says, “‘The interitance of sinners is destruction and darkness’” (15:11 [10], cf. 14:6 [9]), and “‘sinners shall perish forever”’ (15:15 [13]; cf. 15:13 [12]). Philo similarly says that “‘awaiting those who live in the way of the impious will be eternal death’” (Post. 11:39). But many students of the Hellenistic Jewish literature believe that “inasmuch as the belief in the immortality of the soul must have come to them from Plato, like Plato, they must also believe in its indestructibility.” However, Wolfson rightly observes that—CFF1 738.3
“the mere fact that Philo is in agreement with Plato as to the immortality of the soul does not necessarily mean that he must also be in agreement with him as to its indestructibility. Throughout his philosophy, as we have seen so far and as we shall see again, Philo constantly modifies Plato’s philosophy by introducing into it some new element. The new element which he has introduced into the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of the soul is the possibility of its destruction in the case of the wicked, a possibility which logically follows from his belief that its immortality in the case of the righteous is due only to an act of divine providence.” CFF1 738.4
Wolfson refers to the fact that Philo argues that nothing in the world is really perishable, inasmuch as the individual belongs to the Eternal. Philo discusses the views of Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics with regard to this. But Philo does not use the Aristotle emphasis of the “immortality of the race,” but rather the “immortality of the human soul.” He speaks of” ‘the true Hades’” (Hades standing in the Septuagint for the Hebrew Sheol). In another place he says:CFF1 738.5
“‘He [God] banishes the unjust and ungodly soul from himself to the furthest bounds and disperses it to the place of pleasures and lusts and injustices; that place is most fitly called the place of the impious”’ (Congr. 11:57). CFF1 739.1
But Wolfson comments further that in addition to punishment in this life, “Philo also believed in the punishment of the wicked after death.” CFF1 739.2
15. ATTESTED BY SCHOLARLY AUTHORITIES
Despite the challenges of some, Philo undeniably taught that the torment of the wicked is to be eternal. And our findings are confirmed by several of the outstanding authorities on Philo. On this point R. H. Charles is positive. And here is Philo’s own unequivocal declaration:CFF1 739.3
“He who is cast forth by God is subject to eternal banishment. For to him who is not as yet firmly in the grip of wickedness it is open to repent and return to the virtue from which he was driven, as an exile returns to his fatherland. But to him that is weighed down and enslaved by that fierce and incurable malady, the horrors of the future must needs be undying and eternal: he is thrust forth to the place of the impious, there to endure misery continuous and unrelieved.” CFF1 739.4
James Drummond, principal of New College, London, and later of Oxford, summarized Philo’s teaching on this point in the closing paragraphs of his two-volume classic:CFF1 739.5
“Death is not, as men suppose, an end of punishment .... What, then, is this death-penalty? It is to live always dying, and to endure, as it were, death endless and unending.” CFF1 739.6
And H. A. A. Kennedy, professor of New Testament, New College, Edinburgh, in his able Philo’s Contribution to Religion, likewise concurs as he epitomized Philo’s position on the punishment of the wicked in this way: “Living in a continuous death, enduring, in a sense, a death which is immortal and endless.” CFF1 739.7
Such was the series of revolutionary premises that led to Philo’s conclusion. To accept the latter, one must logically be prepared to follow the former to be consistent.CFF1 740.1
16. TWIN STREAMS MERGE AT ALEXANDRIA
From the foregoing evidence it is therefore apparent that the allied Innate-Immortality and Eternal-Torment dogmas, pertaining to the origin, nature, and destiny of man, did not first come to light in the Christian Church of the second century A.D. Rather, they had appeared—even then in derived form (from Platonism—in the Alexandrian segment of Judaism back in the second century B.C., more than three hundred years prior.CFF1 740.2
These revolutionary teachings broke forth, as already seen, in various apocalyptic writings—apocryphal, pseudepigraphical, and now finally in advanced form in Philo—from whom they flowed on into the Christian Church, which was already imbibing the same Platonic philosophy direct from its pagan fountainhead. These paralleling streams of Platonic teaching now met, merged, and gained the ascendancy in the thinking of Clement and Origen and the great Alexandrian Catechetical School, having as one of its cardinal principles the Innate-Immortality-of-the-soul doctrine, promulgated centuries before by Plato the Athenian philosopher.CFF1 740.3