Philo of Alexandria combines Jewish scripture and Greek philosophy in a theology marked by tensions between divine transcendence and intimate human encounter. An apparently unknowable and impassible God also loves, shows mercy, and shares divine attributes with humans. These tensions suggest the importance of transformative religious experience in shaping Philo’s understanding of God.
See also Seeing God in Philo of Alexandria: Contemplative Ascent and Visionary Experience (State University of New York Press, 2026).
By Scott D. Mackie
Associate Fellow
Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge
September 2026
Introduction
The vast corpus of Philo of Alexandria offers invaluable testimony to the diversity and depth of ancient Jewish thought in the first century CE. Although this near-contemporary of Jesus and Paul is best known for his creative allegorical interpretations of sacred scripture, equally noteworthy is the extent to which Hellenistic culture (paideia) has influenced him and been integrated into his exegesis. The extent of that influence, which is unparalleled in ancient Jewish tradition, is evident in a wide range of topics, including Homer and mythology, pedagogy and paideia, tragedy and music, rhetoric and poetry, politics and history, mathematics and even mystery cults. In fact, Philo is one of the richest extant sources of information for ancient sport and spectacle! Yet even more prevalent are philosophical topics, which include cosmology and biology, sense perception and epistemology, ethics and moral progress, divine determinism and human agency, moral psychology and strategies for controlling emotions, metaphysics and ecstatic experiences, and a variety of Platonic contemplative praxes.
Given this wealth of interesting and important themes, Philonic scholars might be excused for their relative neglect of Philo’s theology and soteriology, which may well be the most sophisticated examples of their kind to survive from the early Roman period. Drawing on the theologically rich resources of Israel’s sacred scriptures, then infusing that already rich theology with the metaphysics of Greco-Roman philosophy, Philo achieved a synthesis unmatched in scope and scale. Standing at the heart of his efforts are inquiries into the nature and character of God, the deity’s relationship with creation and humanity, and the human quest for transformative divine encounter. In these pursuits Philo reveals himself to be both a philosopher of the transcendent God, and an exegete familiar with the personal God of Jewish sacred traditions.
Existence vs. Essence
As an inescapable result of his attempted fusion of sacred scripture and Greco-Roman philosophy, however, Philo’s theology and soteriology often are characterized by tensions and ambiguities. Perhaps one of the most significant examples of this tension involves Philo’s repeated assertions that only God’s bare existence (ὕπαρξις) may be ascertained, while his innermost essence (οὐσία) is unknowable (Post. 15, 168–169; Deus 62; Fug. 141, 164–165; Spec. 1.36–50; Virt. 215; Praem. 39). Complicating matters further, Philo insists that God can neither experience nor express passionate emotions, since he is “totally exempt from passion of any kind” (Abr. 202).
With these claims, Philo appears to severely circumscribe human knowledge of God, particularly with regard to his personal characteristics and emotional life, both of which are central to ancient Jewish soteriology. However, Philo makes two exceptions to his portrayal of this apathetic and unknowable God, and in so doing he maintains a vital, life-giving connection with the God of Israel, who has revealed himself in sacred scripture as most emphatically a God of passionate relatedness (cf. Exod 34:5–7; Hos 11). The first exception is for compassion/mercy (ἔλεος). In fact, mercy is the sole emotion predicated of Philo’s otherwise apathetic God, and undoubtedly Philo was influenced in this regard by the LXX, which makes “pity a constant and defining attribute of the deity” (Mirguet 2017: 100). An even more likely influence, given his oft-expressed, strong philosophical predisposition toward divine apathy, is his own personal experience of divine mercy. Philo twice recounts instances where God’s mercy transformed his personal circumstances (Spec. 3.4; Legat. 367), and in Sacr. 42, he dramatically places on Jacob’s lips a “confession of faith” that probably originates from his own experience. In this text he portrays the patriarch “confessing his personal experience in the words, ‘God has had mercy on me,’” and he characterizes this confession as “dogmatic and pedagogic, since on God’s mercy all things are securely anchored.” Such sentiments stand in marked contrast to the gods of the Greco-Romans, who typically are characterized as unmoved by human sorrow, while mercy and pity were deemed inappropriate and even impossible for the gods of the philosophers (cf. Cicero, Nat. d. 1.45, 123–124; Seneca, Clem. 2.4.4–2.5.1; Konstan 2001: 111).
A second exception to Philo’s apathetic theology is made for God’s love. All three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are said to be “God-lovers and God-beloved” (φιλοθέους … καὶ θεοφιλεῖς), since “their love for the true God was returned by him” (Abr. 50). Divine love occasionally is assigned an instrumental role in accounts of the vision of God, and two texts, Abr. 78–79 and Praem. 37–39, dramatically enhance biblical accounts (Gen 12:7; 32:24–32) so as to emphasize the responsive and relational nature of God’s love. In these texts, Philo’s God is emotionally vulnerable in the presence of those who long and strive for his fatherly love, yet are hindered by human frailties. In Abr. 78–79, though Abraham’s attempts to “receive the vision of him who so long lay hidden and invisible” were initially frustrated, God, “in his love for humanity, when the soul came into his presence, did not turn away his face, but came forward to meet Abraham and revealed his nature [φύσις], so far as the beholder’s power of sight allowed.” Similarly, in Praem. 37–39 Philo reports that “the Father and Savior saw the sincerity” of Jacob’s “yearning” and his “continuous striving” and “showed mercy” (ἐλεέω) to him, “giving power to the penetration of his eyesight” so as to “grant him the vision of himself.” This latter text ironically concludes with an “existence vs. essence” distinction: “the vision only showed that he is, not what he is” (39). However, the preceding depiction of God’s compassionate and fatherly behavior undermines this assertion, showing clearly “what he is” in his innermost essence: a loving Father! Furthermore, in all three of the texts we have just considered, Sacr. 42, Abr. 78–79, and Praem. 37–39, it appears that the spiritual experiences of the patriarchs not only inspire Philo but provide him with an interpretive “trunk” onto which he grafts his own experiences. Thus, while interpreting the experiences of his ancestral forefathers, he introduces insights gained from his own mystical experiences, thereby infusing the original scriptural account with an “updated and expanded” experience of God’s transformative presence.
Two further themes serve to mitigate the “existence vs. essence” divide, and both suggest that God is capable of imparting his essential attributes to humans. The first pertains to the telos of Platonic philosophy, Plato’s doctrine of assimilation to/of the divine. In Fug. 63 Philo quotes Theaet. 176b verbatim: “Wherefore we ought to escape from earth to heaven as quickly as we can, and to escape is to become like God [ὁμοίωσις θεῷ], as far as this is possible, and to become like him is to become righteous, and holy, and wise.” More effusively developing the assimilation motif is Opif. 144: humans “are of near kin” (συγγενής) to God, with “the divine Spirit flowing into them in full measure”; thus, they “follow God step by step” and “draw near” to him, making it “their goal to be fully conformed [ἐξομοίωσις] to God who begot them.” In Spec. 4.73 the closely related theme of imitatio Dei, the “imitation of God,” is fused with God’s communicable attribute of mercy: “in no other action do humans more resemble God as in showing kindness [χαρίζω], what greater good can there be than imitating [μιμέομαι] God?”
A second mitigating theme, stability, often is deemed an essential attribute of God (cf. Leg. 2.83; Cher. 18–19; Post. 23, 27–9; Conf. 96), and in three texts Philo depicts God imparting that attribute to humans: Somn. 2.223: “so vast in its excess is the stability [βέβαιος] of the deity that he imparts [μεταδίδωμι] to chosen natures a share of this steadfastness to be their richest possession”; Somn. 2.227–228: “that which draws near to God enters into affinity [οἰκειόω] with him” and his “absolute stability” (πάντα βεβαιότης), and “through that immutability comes self-standing”; and Post. 27–29: like Abraham, who “drew near to God the standing one,” the “unchanging soul … stands near” to God, who will “make the worthy man a sharer in his own nature [φύσις], which is repose” (ἠρεμία) and “standing still” (στάσις). Stability has metaphysical, epistemological, and cosmological implications, particularly in Platonic philosophy, and it is integral to the moral psychology of the Stoics. Even more relevant, however, is the crucial role it would play in offsetting the vagaries and vicissitudes of human existence in the ancient Mediterranean world. The sudden loss of life, often at a young age, would surely inculcate a pervasive sense of the instability and ephemerality of life, as would the experience of living under the authority of a despot, like Gaius Caligula. The precarious status of the Jews in Alexandria perhaps provides another reason why Philo might valorize divinely infused stability.
Transcendence and Immanence
A second important theological topic, which also is characterized by ambiguities and tensions, involves God’s spatial relationship to creation and humanity. Philo often is emphatic that God is “far from all creation” (Somn. 1.66–67), with a spatial and metaphysical “great gulf” enforced and mediated by the Logos, “who stands on the border and separates the creature from the Creator” (Her. 205). Given the sophistication and pervasiveness of Philo’s expressions of divine transcendence and Logos theology, many scholars are convinced that “Philo’s God is thoroughly transcendent, and operates in the world only through his Logos” (Dillon 1995: 118). Yet, here again Philo’s firm philosophical convictions buckle under the weight of his rich experiential soteriology, for when God “transcends his transcendence” (Sobr. 54) and becomes immanent and intimate, lofty expressions of philosophic grandeur give way to warm-hearted and emotional portrayals of God. Thus, “the limit of happiness is the presence of God” (QG 4.4), and the “crown of happiness” is to live one’s life “before God,” under his “watchful care,” and always “reverencing ... him who is ever present” (Mut. 216–217); “if God returns to the soul, and the soul returns to God,” that soul “is filled with joy” and the “most lucid radiance ... from above” (QG 4.18); and “if God is with the soul and remains, that soul adores him and holds him and possesses him. And if God moves away, that soul follows him with longing, having a heavenly desire that clings ... closely” (QG 4.20).
Divine immanence also occurs in contexts of worship (cf. Sacr. 127; Migr. 157; Abr. 202), as well as in depictions of God’s indwelling presence: “the wise person’s mind is the palace and house of God” (Praem. 123; cf. Deus 9; Somn. 1.149), and those “on whom the goodness of God’s love has fallen like rain” should pray that God would dwell in their mind (Sobr. 64). These themes receive an elaborate presentation in Cher. 98–100:
Since our souls are a region open to his invisible entrance, let us make that place as beautiful as we may, to be a lodging fit for God. … What house shall be prepared for God, the King of kings, the Lord of all, who in his tender mercy and loving-kindness has deigned to visit created beings and come down from the boundaries of heaven to the utmost ends of the earth, to show his goodness to our race? ... There is one worthy house: the soul that is shaped to receive him ... in the invisible soul the invisible God has his earthly dwelling-place.
Finally, soteriologically involved immanence is evidenced in Deus 158, a text in which Philo makes a crucial distinction between blessings administered by divine mediators and God himself: “God bestows the undiluted rapture-inducing draughts, sometimes through the ministry of an angel” and “sometimes by his own agency, allowing none to intervene between the one who gives and the one who takes” (cf. also Leg. 3.177–178; Fug. 67; Abr. 143). This remarkable text unequivocally positions God immanently within the earthly realm, and depicts him as personally dispensing soteriological blessings; in so doing, it almost single-handedly dismantles the all-too-common tidy constructs of Philo’s theology that identify mediators like the Logos as the only means by which the transcendent God relates to creation.
Conclusion
Philo’s philosophically oriented exegeses of sacred scripture offer a remarkable attempt at reconciling the God of the philosophers with the God of Israel’s ancient scriptures. Though the ambiguities and inconsistencies that result may be unacceptable for some, for others they offer inspiring vistas of theological possibility and creativity. They also demonstrate the importance of Philo’s own transformative experiences with the God of Israel, revealing that his deepest and dearest philosophical convictions are unable to withstand a direct encounter with the personal God of Israel. Thus, Philo’s God is entirely transcendent and not confined to any place, yet he longs to dwell in the soul of a virtuous human; he is ineffable and beyond human categories and comprehension, yet he is susceptible to elaborate description; he is completely “other” and transcending any genus or species, yet humans, as his special creation, “are of near kin” (συγγενής) to him; he is bodiless, yet he is capable of being seen; he is apathetic and immutable, yet in the presence of human frailty he shows himself to be vulnerable and prone to expressions of love and mercy; he is entirely self-sufficient, yet he delights in “giving himself as a portion” to those who “cling” to him; and his innermost essence is beyond human ken, yet he expresses and imparts his primary attributes, love, mercy, and stability, to those who draw near and worship him. Thus, the God of the philosophers, majestic and transcendent, ineffable and unflappable, insular and unchanging, has in Philo’s hands been fully fused with the God of Israel’s ancient scriptures, the God who is “merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod 34:5–7).
References
Abbreviations for Philo’s treatises: https://sblhs2.com/2018/03/01/philo-of-alexandria.
Dillon, John M. “Reclaiming the Heritage of Moses: Philo’s Confrontation with Greek Philosophy,” Studia Philonica Annual 7 (1995): 108–123.
Konstan, David. Pity Transformed (London: Duckworth, 2001).
Mirguet, Françoise. An Early History of Compassion: Emotion and Imagination in Hellenistic Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).