THEthe foundations of christian philosophy
The spread of Christianity, from the first century, is the background for the discussion between faith and reason that mobilized many philosophers from then on. We have to consider two factors that help us understand this process:
1) Universality of Christianity. The Christian religion, unlike other religious expressions, was intended to become universal. While religions used to refer to a people and a culture, Christianity wanted to convert all peoples. This purpose has its expression in Paul's preaching, as we can see in Galatians 3, 28: “In this way there is no difference between Jews and non-Jews, between slaves and free people, between men and women: you are all one because you are united with Christ Jesus.”
2) Cosmopolitanism of Alexandria. It is in Alexandria, in the 1st century a. a., that we find an approximation between Judaism and the Greek culture that will give rise to a Christian philosophy. Romans, Egyptians, Jews and Greeks coexisted with religious tolerance.
Philo of Alexandria
It is Alexandria that was born Philo, known as “Philon the Jew”, which makes a first approximation between Greek philosophy and Judaism. Everything that is known about his life is what was brought by the work of the historian Josephus. Although we don't know much about his life, other than that he was possibly a member of a wealthy Jewish family, the Philo's work, about forty treatises, made a great contribution to Christian thought. later.
1) Approximation between Judaism and Greek philosophy.
In his comments on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), there is an attempt to bring Judaism and Greek philosophy closer together. an influence he considers, but never proven by historical documents, to have been exerted by the Old Testament and the Mosaic tradition on the philosophers. He saw no distinction between philosophical concerns with being and physis of Revelation cultivated by Jewish tradition.
Historian Werner Jaeger points out that it was not Philo's aim to convert the Greeks from the importance of the Mosaic tradition. He addressed the Jews showing the importance of philosophical thought. Let's see:
“For us, Philo of Alexandria is, of course, the prototype of the Jewish philosopher who absorbed the entire Greek tradition and made use of its rich conceptual vocabulary and his literary means to prove his point, not to the Greeks, but to his own countrymen Jews. This is important, as it demonstrates that all understanding, even among non-Greek people, needed the intellectual medium of Greek thought and its categories"( JAEGER, 1991, p. 47-48).
faith and reason
We perceive, from this fragment, that for Philo there was already an outline of the attempt to reconcile faith and reason. For him, theology was superior to philosophy, but philosophy was indispensable for not interpreting the scriptures literally. Regarding the Bible, he resorts to the notion of allegory: for Philo, the Scriptures would have a literal sense and a hidden sense. The characters and situations that are understood by a more superficial reading hide philosophical meanings on several levels. To be able to this allegorical reading of the Scriptures, philosophy was indispensable. Therefore, Philo considers philosophers as inferior to prophets: for him, philosophy cannot reach the perfection of Moses and, thus, he did not choose one philosophy over the other, since all doctrines tended to imperfection.
He says:
“As the sciences on which general culture is based contribute to the learning of philosophy, so philosophy also contributes to the acquisition of wisdom. In fact, philosophy is the effort to attain wisdom, and wisdom is the science of divine and human things and their causes. Therefore, as general culture is the servant of philosophy, so philosophy is also the servant of wisdom" (FILON, De congressu eruditionis gratia. Apud. ROYAL. G., History of Greek and Roman Philosophy, p. 232).
logos of god
We can see that, for Philo, there is a distinction between the activity of philosophizing and “wisdom”, a notion that perhaps he developed after Aristotle. Wisdom for him comes from Divine Logos. O Logos, a principle from which God operates in the world, can be understood as:
* An incorporeal reality;
*It has an immanent aspect, as the sensible world is created from it;
* It can be understood as having the function of bringing together the powers of God, countless expressions of his activity;
* It can also be understood as the source of the unlimited powers of God; (Philon cites two: O creative power and royal power);
* It has the meaning of “Word of God”, in the creative sense that appears in the Gospel of John. In this sense, it was appropriated by the early Christians as a prefiguration of Christ, that is, Christ would be the Logos of God;
* It has an ethical sense as “God's Word that guides for good”;
* Finally, he understands the Logos as an intelligible cosmos that God creates in his mind to, from it, create matter, that is, the physical world. In this sense, he reconciles Plato's notion of “world of ideas” with religious thought: what Plato referred to as “ideas” for Philon corresponded to thoughts of God.
Philo's Anthropology
Again, in his conception of the human, Philo reconciles Platonic thought with religious thought: stop Plato had the distinction between the body, Philo adds a third dimension to the human, the spiritual dimension.
The human soul would correspond to the intellect, material, earthly and corruptible. The human soul was not immortal in this conception, as was Plato. Immortal is the Spirit (pneuma), conferred by God and representing, therefore, the link between the human and the divine. From this division, it is understood that human life would have three possibilities: a physical/animal dimension, referring to the body; a rational dimension, referring to the thinking capacity of the soul-intellect; a spiritual dimension, referring to the possibility of the human soul to live according to the Spirit.
With this third dimension, the Spiritual, Philo introduces morality as part of philosophy and religion. A happy life, for him, can be thought of from the figure of Abraham during his exile: the idea of human achievement is linked to a kind of “itinerary for God”, an idea that will be developed by Saint Augustine. In this sense, man needs to transcend himself in order to dedicate himself to God, the source of everything he has.
Image credits: Philon
JAEGER, WERNER. Early Christianity and Greek paideia. Lisbon: Editions 70, 1991.
BIRTH, Dax. “Phil of Alexandria and the Philosophical Tradition”. Mετανόια, n. 5, São João Del-Rei: UFSJ, 2003, p.55-80.
REALE, Giovanni. “Phil of Alexandria and the 'Mosaic Philosophy'”. History of Greek and Roman Philosophy, vol. VII- Rebirth of Platonism and Pythagoreanism, second part. São Paulo: Loyola Editions, 2008.
By Wigvan Pereira
Graduated in Philosophy
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/filosofia/a-conciliacao-entre-fe-razao-para-filon-alexandria.htm
