Greek and Jew: Philo and the Alexandrian Riots of 38-41 CE

Judaism, Spring, 2000 by Matthew B. Schwartz

Philo shows a particular interest in the mystical properties of various numbers, an area of study popularized in the Hellenic world by the school of Pythagoras centuries before and familiar in the rabbinic literature. Among the problems he discussed are the following: Why is the Sabbath on the seventh day, circumcision on the eighth, the holiday of the sheaf offering on the fiftieth, and the like?

His philosophical essays too are very much in the Greek tradition. By contrast, the rabbis did not write in the essay form but transmitted their philosophic views rather incidentally in their Talmudic and Midrashic commentaries. Philo deals with topics like sobriety, virtue, the eternity of God, reward and punishment. While scholars today are in dispute as to whether Philo has anything original to contribute to the field of philosophy, modern students of the Bible find that Philo has valuable insights; Nechama Leibowitz cites him not infrequently in her writings.

Phio's world as well as his work was a blend of Jewish and Greek. He wrote of Moses, in a Greek mode echoing Plato's, and viewed Hellenism with the eye of a believing Jew. Not wishing to reject either world, he sought instead to make two different peoples and two divergent cultures coexist within himself. This was a goal difficult to accomplish, a path strewn with stumbling blocks and leading to disillusion. Yet to Phio it was almost a divine mission, and Philo would at times be so excited in his studies as to approach a state of ecstatic frenzy. He found parallels to his own struggles in the lives of the characters of the Bible, although he never explicitly says so. He points out in his essay, "The Migration of Abraham," that Abraham accepted anew way of life at the advanced age of seventy-five, giving up all comforts to follow the path of virtue. [4] Moses studied the wisdom of the Greeks and Egyptians and learned the art of rhetoric so as to debate the sophists in the Egypt of his day. Just as Aaron's rod devoured the magicians' rods, so true wisdom devours the sophists. Philo probably saw himself as immersed in the wisdom of both Greeks and Jews so that he could better understand and defend Judaism and in particular his own view of Judaism. Like Philo the people of the Bible faced bitter and quarrelsome critics who misconstrued everything and would rather blame than praise.

Phio was intensely devoted to the study of wisdom. The highest way of life he believed is that devoted to philosophical thought. [5] The philosopher senses the higher reality in all things, which he interprets by means of his reason not his senses. This approach to life, akin to Plato's theory of the Forms, is central to Phio's allegorical method of understanding the Hebrew Bible. There is validity in the literal meaning of the scripture; certainly one must observe its commandments faithfully, circumcision, dietary laws, animal sacrifices, and all the rest. However, the simple meaning is enough only for the multitude, while those who seek to understand with their souls will proceed to the hidden inner meaning.