Philo ̄n (Methodist) (ca 65 – 120 CE)
Physician, listed among the Methodists post-dating T and T (G
MM 10.53 K. = Tecusan, fr.162; etc.), perhaps identifiable with P (M.) or
P H ( Tecusan 2004: 52–53).
RE 20.1 (1941) 60 (#60), H. Diller; Tecusan (2004) 51–53.
GLIM
Philo ̄n of Alexandria (ca 10 – 55 CE)
Platonic philosopher, political leader and influential theological writer, born ca 20 BCE to a
prominent Jewish family, Philo ̄n (often called Philo ̄n the Jew, Judaeus) wrote in Greek and
perhaps did not even know Hebrew. His literary production, listed by E (HE 2.18),
is traditionally divided between biblical exegesis and commentaries, (apologetic) history, and
philosophy. The bulk of it (about three quarters) concerns the interpretation and depth of
the Pentateuch and his writings, valued by the first Eastern Church fathers, exerted signifi-
cant influence on Christian theology and Alexandrian allegory (Clement and Origen) and
on Neo-Platonism. His 36 surviving works, among which the strictly philosophical ones
(On Providence, On the Eternity of the World) are of minor importance, attempt to conciliate and
syncretize Jewish spirituality and Greek philosophy.
Of special interest to the zoological tradition is Alexander or On Whether Brute Animals
Possess Reason (as given in Eusebios, HE 2.18.6), written ca 38 CE on the model of P’s
Phaedrus. In this text, only preserved in an Armenian version, Philo ̄n, who sharply con-
demns Egyptian zoolatry (Decal. 76 – 80) states an anthropocentric vision of the universe
(§ 73 – 100) and sustains, against the position of his nephew Alexander, that animals are
deprived of both forms of logos (reason and language). It would be unjust, he argues, to
introduce morality in our relation with animals as equals – as Alexander demands (§10) –
since they are not equal (§100). In the first part of the dialogue, Alexander, stressing argu-
ments of the New Academy, based on traditional examples (also in A NA, P-
On the Intelligence of Animals, and P) of some 70 animals, awards to them lan-
guage (12–15), intelligence (16–29) and morality (30–71). Elsewhere, Philo ̄n develops his
cosmologic conception, of a mitigated Stoicism (e.g. in Leg.II 9), especially, in On the
Creation of the World, of a world created on an intelligible and prior model (§19) and resumes
the Platonic idea (see Tim. 91), discordant with Jewish theology, of a continuity of beings
from fishes to men (Opif. 65 – 66).
S. Sandmel, “Philo Judaeus: An Introduction to the Man, his Writings, and his Significance,” ANRW
2.21.1 (1984) 3–46; OCD3 1167 – 1168, T. Rajak; BNP 11 (2007) 55–61 (#I.12), D.T. Runia.
Arnaud Zucker
Philo ̄n of Bublos, Herennius (115 – 135 CE)
Born 50 CE, and a client of Herennius Seuerus, cos. suff. 128 CE (Souda Phi-447). He wrote
learned works on Phoenician History (claiming to use thousand-year-old Phoenician texts: cf.
B), Paradoxes, Cities, and others. The section “On Doctors” of his Getting and Choos-
ing Books circulated separately (FGrHist 790 F52–53), as did the section “On Stages of
Life” of his Different Meanings of Words (§42, pp. 150–152, 235–236 Palmieri, cf. Diels 1907:
85).
PHILO ̄N OF BUBLOS, HERENNIUS