Review article

Philo of Alexandria as a Link between the Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Maja Poljak orcid.org/0009-0003-2252-2993 ; University of Zadar, Department of Philosophy, Zadar, Croatia

Abstract

Philo (born 25 BC, died 40 AD) was one of the main representatives of the Judeo-Greek tradition of that period. Born in Alexandria in which the influence of the Greek philosophy on Judaism was most obvious, he was among the first philosophers who tried to answer questions emerging from the encounter between philosophy and revealed religion. Those questions turned out to be one of the most important questions during the Middle Ages. One could easily say that Philo facilitated the merge between philosophy and revealed religion for the early Christian philosophers. This had a lot to do with the fact that he met with most of the problems with which the Christians themselves met while trying to give rational explanation of their religion. He coined the most important terms, gave original solutions to the problems emerging from the above mentioned encounter and asked the fundamental questions which occupied the central space in the philosophy of religion. Among those questions were: the question of God’s existence and nature, the human cognition of God, the nature and the end of a man etc. Hence, the intention of this work is to show Philo’s contribution to the understanding of the relation of revealed religion to philosophy and to show which questions appear in his philosophy, but cannot be explicitly found in the Greek philosophy, and which became dominant during the Middle Ages.

Keywords

Philo of Alexandria; philosophy of religion; God; cognition of God; world; man

Hrčak ID:

48483

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/48483

Publication date:

8.2.2010.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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