Philo of Alexandria

Abstract

Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenized Jew, is a figure who spans two cultures, the Greek and the Jewish. When Jewish mythical thought met Greek philosophical thought in the first century bce, it was only natural that someone would attempt to develop speculative and philosophical justification for Judaism in terms of Greek philosophy. Thus Philo produced in his religious thought a synthesis of both traditions and developed concepts for future Hellenistic interpretation of messianic Jewish thought by Christian Apologists such as Athenagoras, Theophilus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and, especially, Clement of Alexandria. Philo's primary importance lies in his contribution to the Christian conception of evil and the development of Christology by the formulation of the Logos doctrine, used by Middle Platonists and later applied to the Jewish messianic tradition of the Dead Sea Scrolls.