Philo of Alexandria > Quotes

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
― Philo

“Learning is by nature curiosity... prying into everything, reluctant to leave anything, material or immaterial, unexplained.”
― Philo

“The Wise are Superb Observers of Nature and Rise Superior to the Blows of Fortune”
― Philo of Alexandria

“The Illusory Self

I am composed of body and soul, I seem to have mind, reason, sense, yet I find none of them my own. For where was my body prior to my birth, and whither will it go when I have departed? Where are the various states produced by the life stages of an illusory self? Where is the newborn babe, the child, the boy, the pubescent, the stripling, the bearded youth, the lad, the full-grown man? Whence came the soul, whither will it go, how long will it be our mate? Can we tell its essential nature? When did we acquire it? Prior to our birth? But we were not then in existence. What of it after death? But then we who are embodied, compounds endowed with quality, shall be no more, but shall hasten to our rebirth, to be with the unbodied, without composition and without quality. But now, inasmuch as we are alive, we are the dominated rather than the rulers, known rather than knowing. The soul knows us, though unknown by us, and imposes commands we are obliged to obey as wervants their mistress. And when it will, it will transact its divorce in court and depart, leaving our home desolate of life. If we press it to remain, it will dissolve our relationship. So subtle is its nature that it furnishes no handle to the body.”
― Philo of Alexandria

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
― Philo

“The Intelligible World within the Divine Mind Compared to a Blueprint within the Architect’s Mind

For God, being God, judged in advance that a beautiful copy would never be produced except from a beautiful pattern and that no sense object would be irreproachable that was not modeled after an archetypal and intelligible idea. So when he willed to create this visible world, he first formed the intelligible world, so that he might employ a pattern completely Godlike and incorporeal for the production of the corporeal world, a more recent image of one that was older, which was to comprise as many sensible kinds as there were intelligible ones in the other.”
― Philo of Alexandria

“But God, the ruler of the universe, takes his stand upon it, regulating it and directing everything in a saving manner by the helm of his wisdom, using, in truth, neither hands nor feet, nor any other part whatever such as belongs to created objects.”
― Philo of Alexandria, Volume IV: On the Confusion of Tongues. On the Migration of Abraham. Who is the Heir of Divine Things. On Mating with the Preliminary Studies.

“...the test of truth is proof combined with reason.

Philo of Alexandria; Book 30: The Special Laws, IV”
― Philo of Alexandria, De specialibus legibus, III-IV

“For as there is no advantage in trees unless they are productive of fruit, so in the same way there is no use in the study of natural philosophy unless it is likely to confer upon a man the acquisition of virtue, for that is its proper fruit.”
― Philo of Alexandria, Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria

“The intelligent man should see to it that his friends are immortal, his enemies mortal.”
― Philo of Alexandria, Volume VIII: On the Special Laws, IV. On the Virtues. On Rewards and Punishments.

“The Limit of Happiness Is the Presence of God

But it is something great that Abraham asks, namely that God shall not pass by nor remove to a distance and leave his soul desolate and empty (Gen. 18:3). For the limit of happiness is the presence of God, which completely fills the whole soul with his whole incorporeal and eternal light.”
― Philo of Alexandria

“Perhaps some very wicked persons will suspect that the lawgiver is here speaking enigmatically, when he says that the Creator repented of having created man, when he beheld their wickedness; on which account he determined to destroy the whole race. But let those who adopt such opinions as these know, that they are making light of and extenuating the offences of these men of old time, by reason of their own excessive impiety; for what can be a greater act of wickedness than to think that the unchangeable God can be changed?”
― Philo of Alexandria, Volume III. On the Unchangeableness of God. On Husbandry. Concerning Noah's Work as a Planter. On Drunkenness. On the Prayers and Curses uttered by Noah when he became Sober.

“For, as I have said before, the storehouses of wickedness are in us ourselves, and those of good alone are with God.”
― Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo

“This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat, this is the thing which the Lord hath commanded You." You see now what kind of thing the food of the Lord is, it is the continued word of the Lord, like dew, surrounding the whole soul in a circle, and allowing no portion of it to be without its share of itself.”
― Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo

“we are insatiable in our love for notice, but nevertheless we are unable to measure the riches of God.”
― Philo of Alexandria, Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria

“And these explanations of the sacred scriptures are delivered by mystic expressions in allegories, for the whole of the law appears to these men to resemble a living animal, and its express commandments seem to be the body, and the invisible meaning concealed under and lying beneath the plain words resembles the soul, in which the rational soul begins most excellently to contemplate what belongs to itself, as in a mirror, beholding in these very words the exceeding beauty of the sentiments, and unfolding and explaining the symbols, and bringing the secret meaning naked to the light to all who are able by the light of a slight intimation to perceive what is unseen by what is visible.”
― Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo

“They have been instructed by nature and the sacred laws to serve the living God, who is superior to the good, and more simple than the one, and more ancient than the unit; with whom, however, who is there of those who profess piety that we can possibly compare?”
― Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo

“And for things sprung from earth, they must
Return unto their parent dust,
While those from heavenly seed which rise
Are borne uplifted to the skies.
Nought that has once existed dies,
Though often what has been combined
Before, we separated find,”
― Philo of Alexandria, Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria

“No Assertions Can Be Made of God’s Essence

Who is capable of asserting of the Primal Cause that it is incorporeal or corporeal, or that it possesses quality or is qualityless, or, in general, who could make a firm statement concerning his essence or quality or state or movement? He alone will make dogmatic assertions regarding himself, since he alone has unerringly precise knowledge of his own nature.”
― Philo of Alexandria

“For of virtues, the virtues of God are founded in truth, existing according to his essence: since God alone exists in essence, on account of which fact, he speaks of necessity about himself, saying, "I am that I Am," as if those who were with him did not exist according to essence, but only appeared to exist in opinion.”
― Philo of Alexandria

“he who seeks to escape from God asserts, by so doing, that God is not the cause of anything, but looks upon himself as the cause of everything that exists.”
― Philo of Alexandria, Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria

“For as a charioteer holding the reigns or a helmsman with his hand upon the rudder, he guides everything as he pleases, in accordance with law and justice, needing no one else as his assistant; for all things are possible to God.”
― Philo of Alexandria, Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria

“And if thou wishest to have God as the inheritance of thy mind, then do thou in the first place labour to become yourself an inheritance worthy of him, and thou wilt be such if thou avoidest all laws made by hands and voluntary.”
― Philo of Alexandria, Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria

“And yet by nature the servants are born free; for no man is by nature a slave.”
― Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo