After the Image and Likeness of Philo:

A Comparison of Romans 1.18-32

and Philo of Alexandria’s Exposition

Heather Patton Griffin

Duke Divinity School

11/29/2021

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Theological

Studies in the Divinity School of Duke University

Thesis Advisor: Douglas A. Campbell

MTS Director: Anathea Portier-Young

 1

Abbreviations of Philo’s Works and Other Ancient Authors: 4

Dedication: 6
Part 1: Introduction, Method, and Background 8
Introduction 8
Thesis and Purpose of Essay 10
Structure of Essay 11
Philo’s Family, Wealth, and Connections to Roman and Judean Elite 13
Philosophers and Grammarians as Diplomats in Rome 15
Introduction to the Exposition Series and the Life of Moses 17
Factors Contributing to the Relative Neglect of Philo in the Study of Romans 19
The Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Deprioritzation of Philo 20
The Separation of On the Creation from the Rest of the Exposition 23
Wisdom of Solomon and Philo in Romans Scholarship 23
Massiebeau and the Rejection of a Non-Jewish Audience for the Exposition in the 20th
Century 26
Maren Niehoff and Recent Breakthroughs in the Roman Audience of Philo’s Exposition 32
Previous Scholarship on Philo and Romans 1 34
Chadwick, Goodenough, and Sandmel 34
Articles and Monographs Engaging Philo’s Exposition and Rom 1.18-32 37
Use of Philo’s Exposition in Commentaries on Rom 1.18-32 39
Rillera’s 2021 Comparison of Philo and Romans 1.18-32 41
Position on Speech-in-Character for this Paper 42
Methodology 44
Philo’s Exposition as a Direct Source for Romans? 47
Toward a Structural Comparison of the Exposition as a Whole and Romans as a Whole 50
Part 2: Making Moses Respectable: Genesis 1-3 in On the Creation and Roman Natural
Law Traditions 56
Plato’s Timaeus and Philo’s On the Creation 56
Platonic and Stoic Cosmology in Philo’s Reading of Genesis 57
Providence and Justice in Middle Platonism, Stoicism, and the Exposition 58
Philo’s Use of the Timaeus and Previous Alexandrian Jewish Exegesis 62
Cosmology in On the Creation: Invisible and Sense-Perceptible Creation 63
The Dual Structure of the Cosmos and Distinction Between Heaven and Earth 69
God’s Oneness, Transcendence from Creation, and Immanence in the Logos 70
Gen 1.26-27 and the Platonic Macrocosm 71
 2

Philo’s Flexible Use of Likeness and Image Language in Gen 1.26 72

Why Attend to “Likeness” and “Image” Language in Philo’s Exposition? 74
Anthropology in On the Creation: Humanity as Composite Being Between Two Realms 75
Human Likeness to God is in Respect to the Mind Only 75
Humans Partake of Virtue and Vice Due to Composite Nature of Mind and Body 76
The Ensoulment of the Human Body in Gen 2.7 78
Τέλη: Assimilation to God, Following After God, Conformity to Nature, Bliss 79
Hierarchy of the Cosmos 81
Philo’s Cosmological Hierarchy and Its Relevance for Rom 1.18-32 81
Logos as God’s Rational, Active and Creative Powers 83
All Good Qualities in Creation are from the Participation of the Passive in the Active
Power of the Logos 83
Hierarchy and Participation in God’s Goodness 84
Ascent and Descent of the Soul Along the Cosmological Hierarchy 85
The Soul’s Ascent in Phaedrus and On the Creation 85
The Soul’s Ascent and the Strata of the Elements 87
The Soul’s Ascent and the Heavenly Light of Reason 91
The Soul’s Ascent and the Platonized Scala Naturae 91
Rationality and Human Dominion Over Creation in Gen 1.26, 28. 95
Human Dominion Over Creation Because of a Likeness to God’s Rational Nature 95
Stoic Scala Naturae and Human Dominion Over Creation in Gen 1.26,28 96
The First Human Exercising Dominion in Fellowship with God and Creation 98
Goodness of Creation and its Rational Order 99
Irrational Passions and the Origins of Evil in Philo 99
Higher and Lower Wisdom and the Pursuit of True Knowledge About God 100
Evil’s Archetype: Impiously Choosing the Creation Over True Knowledge of the Creator
101
The Allegory of the Mind’s Enslavement to Irrational Passions in Gen 2-3 102
The Garden of the Mind and the Trees of Virtues 102
The Serpent of Pleasure 103
The Inversion of the Providential Order 104
“Woman” as Sense-Perception, “Man” as Reason 105
Providence and Punishment 106
Part 3: After the Garden 109
From the “Original Passion” to Idolatry and Enslavement to the Belly 109
The Nature of Vice in Philo’s Exposition 109
The Mind as the Ruling, Rational Part of the Soul in the Heart 110
Pleasures, Passion, and Warfare in the Soul 111
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Souls Moving Along the Hierarchy by Changing for the Worse or the Better 116
Greco-Roman Philosophical Arguments for Monotheism and Anti-Egyptian Polemic in
Philo’s Platonized Reading of Genesis 120
Philo’s Anti-Egyptian Rhetoric and Idolatry as Violation of the Hierarchy of the Cosmos 124
The Function of Anti-Egyptian Polemics in Philo’s Roman Audience Works 124
Egyptian-Style Animal Worship as Impious Delusion in the Exposition 125
Egyptian-Style Idolatry in On the Decalogue and Special Laws:1, and the Embassy to
Gaius 126
Misshaping of the Mind through Worship of Images of Animals 131
Warfare in the Soul and Light vs. Darkness 134
Summary: Egyptian Idolatry as Descent to Vice 135
Impious Enslavement to Pleasure in Idolatry and Sexual Immorality 137
Neopythagorean Procreationism and Philo’s Opposition to Homosexual Intercourse in the
Exposition 142
The Timaeus, Philo, and Rom 1.26-27 in Roy Bowen Ward’s “Why Unnatural?” 144
Implications of Ward’s Arguments for Understanding Romans 1.18-32 & Romans as a
Whole 146
Engagement with Abr 135-136 and the Timaeus in Romans Commentaries 147
Part 4: A Philonic Reading of Romans 1.18-32 149
Compound LXX Allusions in Rom 1.23 150
Gen 1 Allusion in Rom 1.23 151
Reception of Hyldahl and Hooker’s Gen 1.26 Allusion Thesis 154
Levison’s Defense of the Plausibility of the Gen 1.26 Allusion 156
The Neglect of Philo as a Source for Explaining the Rom 1.23 Allusion to Gen 1.26 158
Gen 1.24-27 as a Basis for Aniconic Critiques of Idolatry in Deut 4.15-18 and Ps 106.20 160
Homosexual Intercourse in Rom 1.26-27 as a Departure from Gen 1.27-28. 169
“Female” and “Male” in Rom 1.26-27 as an Allusion to Gen 1.27 and Deut 4.16 170
Rom 1.22-27 as Inversion of the Gen 1 Hierarchy of the Cosmos 171
Decline of the Soul Along Platonic, Stoic, and Aristotelian Hierarchies 172
Descent as Impious Exchanges or as Degradation of Higher Powers 173
Rom 1.28-32 Vice List and Philo’s Exposition 176
Summary of the Comparison of Philo’s Exposition and Romans 1.18-32 177
The Philonic “Fall of Adam” and the LXX Allusions in Rom 1.23 181
Relevance of This Paper for the “Adam in Romans 1” Thesis/Gen 1.26 Allusion 182
Relevance of This Paper for the Speech-in-Character Thesis 184
Significance of the Parallels Between Paul and Philo and Romans 185
Conclusion 187
Bibliography 189
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Abbreviations of Philo’s Works and Other Ancient Authors:

Philo’s Life of Moses and Exposition Series in Order

Mos On the Life of Moses (Introduction or companion to the Exposition, two volumes)

Opif On the Creation

Abr On Abraham

On Isaac (lost)

On Jacob (lost)

Jos On Joseph

Decal On the Decalogue

Spec On the Special Laws (four volumes)

Virt On the Virtues

Praem On Rewards and Punishments

Other Philonic Writings Associated with his Roman Embassy (Alphabetical Order)1

Aet On the Eternity of the World

Alex On the Rationality of Animals

Cont On the Contemplative Life

Flacc Against Flaccus

Hypoth An Apology on Behalf of the Jews

Legat The Embassy to Gaius

Prob Every Good Person Is Free

Prov On Providence

1
See Appendix 1, “Philo’s Dates and Works,” in Maren R. Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography,
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018): 245-246. Legat and Flacc are historical treatises. The other texts are
free-standing philosophical treatises.
 5

Alexandrian2 Philonic Texts from the Allegorical Commentary

Cited in This Paper (Alphabetical Order):

Agr On Agriculture

All Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis 2, 3

Det That the Worse is Wont to Attack the Better

Fug On Flight and Finding

Mut On the Change of Names

Sacr On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel

Somn On Dreams

Abbreviations of Works by Other Authors:

Ad princ To An Educated Ruler Plutarch

AJ Jewish Antiquities Josephus

BJ Jewish War Josephus

CL Collected Letters Samuel Taylor Coleridge

De Stoic repug On Stoic Self-Contradictions Plutarch

Did The Handbook on Platonism (Didaskalikos) Alcinous

Cicero Leg On the Laws Cicero

Plato Leg Laws Plato

NE Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle

Phaedr Phaedrus Plato

Resp Republic Plato

Soph Sophist Plato

Symp Symposium Plato

2
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 245.
 6

Theaet Theaetetus Plato

Tim Timaeus Plato

Wis Wisdom of Solomon Unknown

 7

Dedication:

To my husband, Paul, whose love and support made this possible

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Part 1: Introduction, Method, and Background

Introduction

Near the middle of the first century of the common era, an innovative Jewish thinker

wrote an account of God’s efforts on behalf of humanity for his readers in Rome. While Jewish,

he engaged regularly with gentiles and attempted to convey how the God of the Jews was the

God of all humanity while using concepts that Greco-Roman gentiles might understand in his

role as an ambassador for the people of God. Still, it’s not entirely clear whether he was writing

for fellow Jews or gentiles or a mixed audience. For most of the past two thousand years, his

interpreters assumed he was writing to his fellow Jews. More recently, renowned scholars have

argued that he was most likely writing to a gentile or mixed audience of gentiles and Jews who

may have been struggling to make sense of how each of their groups related to the One God,

who made all of humanity (Jew and non-Jew alike), as a likeness of God’s image. Some think

that he was writing to protect his readers from the influence of his opponents, whose own

message was incompatible with his understanding of God’s law. His readers may have wondered

how to best understand the Law of Moses and how it applied to their lives. Whoever his original

audience was, he expected them to be interested in the God of the Jews and how this God could

save them.

He wrote of humanity’s corruption and redemption, reflecting on earlier Jewish scripture

in terms accessible to the gentiles of that day. He wrote of a cosmos in which humans were

created as a likeness of the invisible, transcendent God who made creation through the power of

his divine Spirit. The purpose of humanity and creation is to imitate the goodness of the Creator

as much as possible, but humans, misusing their power to imitate God through their likeness to

God in their minds, have instead become enslaved to vice by valuing the creation over the eternal
 9

Creator. This enslavement led to abuse of their ability to imitate the invisible and incorruptible

God’s rule over the cosmos and his creative and life giving activity. Instead of exercising

dominion over lower animals of creation, they made worshipped images of humans, birds of the

air, cattle, and even of reptiles that crawled on the ground on their bellies. Instead of creating

children in their likeness according to nature, they became enflamed with lusts and pursued sex

with those like them in body. Consumed by their irrational passions, they degenerated into every

vice imaginable. As a result of their impious and unjust response to God, whose existence was

knowable through what God has created, humans provoked God’s wrath and received the

punishment befitting their transgressions: death and suffering and hardship and toil.

The name of the man who so shaped the theology of early Christians and whose account

of human vice is summarized and paraphrased and summarized above is Philo of Alexandria (c.

20 BCE-50 CE). Philo was a philosophically trained Jewish expositor of scripture who is now

thought by eminent Philonic scholars to have written a sizable portion of his surviving works,

including his Exposition of the Law of Moses, to a Roman, non-Jewish audience for apologetic

purposes as part of his diplomatic service to Rome on behalf of Alexandrian Jews from 38-41

CE.3 A slightly older contemporary of Jesus and Paul, Philo’s work remains underexplored by

New Testament scholars due to a number of historical factors that will be discussed later, but

primarily because of the labor required to read his complex body of surviving writings, which

number more than fifty treatises. Philonic scholarship argues that Philo’s Exposition series was

written in the context of Philo’s Roman embassy only emerged over the past ten years and its

potential implications remain unexplored by New Testament scholars.

3
See Maren R. Niehoff, “Philo’s Exposition in a Roman Context,” in The Studia Philonica Annual 23, ed. David T.
Runia and Gregory E. Sterling, (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011): 1–21 and Maren R. Niehoff, Philo of
Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018).
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Thesis and Purpose of Essay

This thesis compares the themes and premises established in the first work of the

Exposition, On the Creation of the Law According to Moses, and compares them with Romans

1.18-32 by Paul the Apostle. Paul is, of course, the author that most people would associate with

the above description of a first century Jewish writer; and the first chapter of the letter to the

Romans is the work most likely to come to mind when reading my compact paraphrase of Philo’s

teachings from the first few books of his Exposition series. The theological assumptions of

Rom 1.18-32 match not only central themes and concepts of Philo’s Exposition series but

are logically interrelated in a way that mirrors Philo’s own arguments in the first two

books of the Exposition series (On the Creation and On the Life of Abraham) as well as On

the Life of Moses, a prequel or companion to the Exposition.

Comparing Rom 1.18-23 to Philo’s Exposition helps us understand several puzzling

features of the pericope. Philo’s Exposition helps us explain the complex compound allusion of

Gen 1.26, Deut 4.15-18, and Ps 106.20 (105.20 LXX) in Rom 1.23 and the progression from

failure to honor God, idolatry, and homosexual intercourse in Rom 1.18-27. Philo uses the

language of “image” and “likeness” in Gen 1.26 to import Plato’s dual structure of the cosmos

onto Gen 1-3 and to establish an anthropology in which the human mind is read as the likeness of

the image of God. Decline into vice in Philo’s Exposition always begins with an impious refusal

to honor the God knowable through creation. By valuing the pleasures of the senses enticed by

the beauty of created things over knowledge of God, the rational human mind becomes

disordered.

Drawing from Middle Platonic and Stoic readings of Plato’s creation narrative in the

Timaeus (Tim) as well as a tradition of reading Gen 1 as a cosmological hierarchy in Deut

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4.15-19, Philo reads the bestowal of human dominion over creation in Gen 1.26, 28 as a

placement of humans higher than animals on a hierarchy due to their possession of divine reason.

Philo’s critiques of Egyptian-style animal worship are framed as a denigration of the human

mind by worshipping irrational beasts. Philo treats sex as only appropriate when practiced

temperately in marriage for the purposes of procreation, which informs his description of the

men of Sodom in Abr 135-136. Moral transformation in Philo is either ascent or descent along

the cosmological hierarchy as the mind becomes more like God or more like the lower elements

of creation.

These Philonic elements offer us a reading of Rom 1.18-27 as a descent down a

Platonized and Stoicized hierarchy of Gen 1 in which humans degrade their rational likeness to

the image of God by failing to honor God, degrade their dominion over animals by worshipping

animals, and degrade the Gen 1.27-28 command for males and females to be fruitful and

multiply. The choice of Egyptian-style polytheism and homosexual intercourse in Rom 1.23 and

Rom 1.26-27 were likely chosen to supply inversions of the Gen 1 hierarchy on points describing

God’s intentions for humans in Gen 1.26-28. The allusions to Jewish scripture combined with

Middle Platonic and Stoic elements in Rom 1.18-32 (particularly in the assumption that humans

are capable of knowing something of God through nature) indicate that this inversion of the Gen

1 hierarchy is more in agreement with a Philonic reading of Torah than with the Deut 4.15-19

tradition in isolation.

Structure of Essay

Part one of this paper will introduce Philo and the context of his diplomatic mission

before reviewing recent Philonic scholarship that argues for a Roman, non-Jewish audience and

an apologetic purpose for Philo’s Exposition series and surveying previous comparisons of Philo
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and Rom 1.18-32. I will discuss why further comparisons of Philo’s Exposition and Paul’s letter

to the Romans are warranted, why so little comparative work has been done, why we should

consider structural comparisons, describe my methodology, and address the concerns about

“parallelomania.”4

Part two will cover key themes of On the Creation, focusing on Philo’s anthropology and

cosmology, the relationship between the hierarchy of the cosmos and human moral

transformation. I will give special attention to how Philo uses Gen 1.26 language of “image” and

“likeness” when discussing Philo’s Platonized cosmology and to the ways that Philo blends

elements of Platonic, Stoic, and Aristotelian hierarchies in his hierarchical reading of Gen 1. This

will be relevant when we look at Philo’s model of moral transformation as either an ascent to

virtue or decline to vice along the cosmological hierarchy. Philo’s allegorical reading of Genesis

2-3 as an account of the “Original Passion” (a different reading of Gen 3 from the concept of

“Original Sin” that developed later) which consists in the human mind misvaluing the pleasures

of the body encountered through corruptible, mortal, created things over the highest bliss of true

knowledge of the incorruptible, immortal God. This concept is crucial for understanding how the

irrational prioritization of the creation over the creator functions in the Exposition, particularly in

the discussions of idolatry and homosexual intercourse relevant for comparison with Rom

1.18-32.

Part three will examine Philo’s model of moral transformation along the cosmological

hierarchy, particularly his use of ἀλλάσσω compound verbs in contexts that either describe the

“Original Passion” in the garden or its reenactment in Egyptian-style animal worship. We will

also discuss how Philo describes the homosexual intercourse of the men of Sodom in terms of

the “Original Passion” and how the degeneration of the souls of the men of Sodom is described
4
Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania.” Journal of Biblical Literature, 81, no. 1 (1962):1-13.
 13

relative to the cosmological hierarchy. The fourth and final part will provide a Philonic reading

of Romans 1.18-32 through the anthropology and cosmology established in the On the Creation

and repeated in the descriptions of idolatry and sexual lust in the Exposition.

Philo’s Family, Wealth, and Connections to Roman and Judean Elite

Philo served as an ambassador to Rome from at least late 38 through 41 CE representing

the interests of Alexandrian Jews who had been targeted with violence by the local Egyptian

population in the late summer of 38 CE.5 This violence, according to Philo (who remains our

only contemporary account) was allegedly instigated by the Roman Imperial governor of

Alexandria. Jewish residents of Alexandria were terrorized, tortured, and murdered while many

of their businesses and homes were looted and destroyed. Philo’s diplomatic mission initially

aimed at defending Jewish interests in Alexandria but ultimately escalated to advocacy for Jews

throughout the empire after Gaius Caligula demanded that his image be worshipped in the

Jerusalem temple and synagogues in territories under Roman rule (Legat 184-198).6

Born into one of the wealthiest and most influential and well-connected Jewish families

in Alexandria sometime around 20 BCE, Philo was was likely chosen to lead the embassy due to

his wealth, status, education, and to his family’s long standing close financial and friendship ties

with both the Judean royal family and the Roman Imperial family. It is also likely that Philo, and

perhaps his brother, were political leaders in the Jewish community of Alexandria.7 Philo’s

brother, Alexander the Alabarch, was “pre-eminent in wealth among his contemporaries” (Jos AJ

20.100, trans. Sterling) in Alexandria.8 The family wealth had likely been accumulated over

5
Andrew Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt: The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum.(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008): 14–19.
6
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 36.
7
Torrey Seland, “Philo as a Citizen: Homo Politicus,” in Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, ed.
Torrey Seland, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014): 49-55.
8
Gregory E. Sterling, “Pre-eminent in Family and Wealth”: Gaius Julius Alexander and the Alexandrian Jewish
CommunityAlan Appelbaum,“ in Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity
 14

several generations9 and it is recent scholarship increasingly concurs that they had probably

possessed Roman citizenship for several generations.10 Alexander could afford to loan Herod

Agrippa I’s wife enormous sums of money on behalf of her husband, despite the unlikelihood

that such a sum would ever likely be repaid (Jos AJ 18.159-160).11 There is some possibility that

Philo’s family were blood relations of the Herodians as well and descended from a priestly

lineage in Judea.12 Their status was high enough that Agrippa I arranged a marriage between one

of his daughters and Marcus Alexander, Alexander’s younger son and Philo’s nephew (Jos AJ

19.276-277).13

Alexander the Alabarch was considered a person of such stature, surpassing “all his

fellow citizens both in ancestry and in wealth” (Jos AJ 20.100) that Josephus included several

details of Alexander’s dealings with the Julio-Claudeans, Herodians, and the Jerusalem temple

long after the Alabarch had died.14 Alexander was in a position of trust with the Roman Imperial

family, managing the Egyptian estates on behalf of the powerful Julio-Claudean matriarch,

and the Early Medieval Period, ed. Alison Salvesen, Sarah Pearce, and Miriam Frenkel, (Leiden, The Netherlands:
Brill, 2020): 259.
9
Erwin R. Goodenough, An Introduction to Philo Juedaus, 2nd edition, Brown Classics in Judaica, (Lanham:
University Press of America, 1986 [1940): 2. Sterling, “Pre-eminent in Family:” 267-270.
10
On the question of citizenship, see Sterling, “Pre-eminent in Family:”264-265.
11
Katherine G. Evans remains the leading authority on Alexander the Alabarch and the office of alabarchy. See her
“Alexander the Alabarch: Roman and Jew,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1995 Seminar Papers, ed. Eugene H.
Lovering Jr. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995): 576-594. Since the publication of her 1995 article, she has continued to
compile data on the office of Alabarch and argues on the basis of Justinian's Edict XI that the responsibilities of the
office of Alabarch were related to the assaying of gold. The data from Justinian’s Edict challenges earlier
scholarship that had held that the Alabarch was an ethnic leader of the Jews in Alexandria or an imperial tax official.
However, Evans does acknowledge that the responsibilities of the Alabarch may have changed over time between
the mid first century CE and Justinian’s day. See Katherine G. Evans, “The Alabarch / The Alabarchy,” The
Alabarch and Alabarchy: Definition and Historical Sources (Katherine G. Evans), accessed October 31, 2021,
http://kassevans.com/Alexander/Alabarch.html#code. See also Seland, “Philo as a Citizen”: 5, 50. Sterling,
“Pre-eminent in Family”: 265; Alan Appelbaum, “A Fresh Look at Philo’s Family,” in The Studia Philonica Annual:
Studies in Hellenistic Judaism XXX, 2018, ed. David T. Runia and Gregory E. Sterling (Atlanta: Scholars Press,
2018): 97. Goodenough, Philo Judeaus, 3.
12
Sterling, “Pre-eminent in Family”: 266.
13
Evans, “Alexander the Alabach”: 577. Appelbaum, “Fresh Look”: 108-109. Sterling, “Pre-Eminent in Family:”
266. Seland, “Philo as Citizen”: 50. Daniel R. Schwartz, "Philo, His Family, and His Times," in The Cambridge
Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 13, n13.
14
See also Schwartz, "Philo, His Family": 12.
 15

Antonia Minor (Jos. AJ 19.276-277).15 Josephus reports that shortly after being crowned

emperor, Claudius also freed his “old friend” Alexander the Alabarch, who had “been

imprisoned by Gaius in a fit of anger” (Jos AJ 19.276).16 The wealth of Philo’s family, which

likely came from an international trading business and land ownership, was so extensive that

Alexander the Alabarch’s benefactions included overlaying the temple gates in Jerusalem in gold

and silver (Jos BW 5.205).17

Philosophers and Grammarians as Diplomats in Rome

Philo’s brother managed the family’s financial interests and cultivated valuable

connections to Roman and Judean elites, but Philo’s training in philosophy, grammar, and

rhetoric was essential in his role as a diplomat. It had been a custom since the days of the Greek

city-state for men with philosophical and rhetorical training to be appointed as diplomats. In a

practice that developed in the Greek city-states and continued late into the Roman Imperial

period, “Hellenistic communities often chose philosophers as ambassadors when important

issues were at stake.”18 Rhetorical and philosophical training were essential if ambassadors were

to present the interests of their people in the best possible light not only to the emperor, but to the

Roman elite in public lectures and other cultural activities:

15
Seland, “Philo as a Citizen”: 50. Appelbaum, “A Fresh Look”: 100-104.
16
Appelbaum, “Fresh Look”:101; Evans, “Alexander the Alabarch”: 579-580; Sterling, “Pre-Eminent in
Family”:265-266.
17
Schwartz, “Philo, His Family”: 12; Appelbaum, “Fresh Look”: 96-97; Evans, “Alexander the Alabarch:” 578.
Sterling, “Pre-eminent in Wealth:” 268-270.
18
Evangeline Z. Lyons, “Hellenic Philosophers as Ambassadors to the Roman Empire: Performance, Parrhesia, and
Power. “ PhD diss. (The University of Michigan, 2011):2. Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 14-16, 34-41, 86, 128,
150, 224, 240. Miriam T. Griffin, “Philosophy, Politics, and Politicians at Rome” in Philosophia Togata: Essays on
Philosophy and Roman Society, ed. Miriam T. Griffin and Jonathan Barnes, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989): 3-5, 9-12. See also Maren R. Niehoff,“Philo and Josephus Fashion Themselves as Religious Authors in
Rome,”i n Autoren in religiösen literarischen Texten der späthellenistischen und der frühkaiserzeitlichen Welt, ed.
Eve-Marie Becker and Jörg Rüpke. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018): 83-104.
 16

“Greek-speaking ambassadors coming from the East to Rome expected to use at least
some of their time in scholarly activities that would present their cultural and
philosophical heritage to Roman intellectuals and broader audiences in the capital.”19

Philosophical and rhetorical skill was particularly needed in Philo’s role as a diplomat given the

unusual circumstance that he was facing a rival embassy of Egyptian Alexandrians led by

well-connected grammarians like Apion and the Stoic philosopher, Chaeremon.20

Apion was a Homeric scholar and sophist who had served as president of the Alexandrian

Museum and succeeded Theon as a teacher of rhetoric in Rome sometime in the 20’s CE under

the reign of Tiberius. Apion was “at the apogee of his fame” around the time of Philo’s embassy

after touring Greece and winning a number of rhetorical contests.21 Unfortunately for Philo and

the Jews of the empire, a great deal of Apion’s considerable powers were applied to directing

damaging accusations against the Jews. Apion’s anti-Jewish invectives were so influential that

Josephus felt compelled to address and refute them decades later.22 Against opponents like

Apion, the Jews of Alexandria needed to send the most educated and well-connected

representative available. We shall look later at the history of Philonic scholarship on the question

of the influence of Philo’s stay in Rome and his diplomatic mission on his writings. For now, we

shall briefly introduce the structure of Philo’s Exposition, a commentary series that several

eminent Philonic scholars now consider to have been written for a Roman, non-Jewish audience.

19
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography, 14.
20
We know of Apion’s participation in the Egyptian Embassy from Josephus. Chaemeron’s participation is not as
certain, but Maren Niehoff thinks it highly likely. Niehoff, Roman Context”:2. Niehoff, Intellectual Biography:
14-18, 110-112, 169-170.
21
Liva Capponi, The Metaphor of the Plague: Apion and the Image of Egyptians and Jews under Tiberius," in Israel
in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period, ed. Alison
Salvesen, Sarah Pearce, and Miriam Frenkel. (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2020): 289. See also Pieter W. van der
Horst, “Who Was Apion?,” in Japeth in the Tents of Shem: Studies on Jewish Hellenism in Antiquity, (Leuven:
Peeters, 2002): 208.
22
Niehoff, “Roman Context:” 2-3. Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 14.
 17

Introduction to the Exposition Series and the Life of Moses

Moving beyond the defensive posture of responding to the attacks of Apion and other

Egyptian adversaries of the Jews, the Exposition of the Law of Moses series presents Moses,

Jewish law, Jews, and Jewish practices in ways that appealed to the ideals of virtue-loving

Roman elites. Philo’s Exposition is an introduction to the Torah that was most likely written to a

Roman audience of sympathetic non-Jews and Jews for the purpose of countering attacks against

the Jews by the rival Egyptian embassy and presenting Jews and Jewish law in a favorable light.

It reuses and reworks much of the material from his earlier Alexandrian commentary series, but

assumes no prior knowledge of Jewish scripture, laws, or practices.

Relative to his earlier work, Philo’s Exposition uses interpretive methods like allegory

that were common in Alexandria but of less interest in Rome far less frequently, adopting instead

forms of literature like biography and history that were ascendent in Rome but not part of

Alexandrian intellectual life. While Philo had engaged Stoic ideas in his earlier work, he engaged

them more frequently and more favorably in the Exposition due to the dominance of Stoicism in

Rome relative to Alexandria.23

The Exposition is the most systematic and well-structured of Philo’s three commentary

series.24 Philo provides a summary of the structure of the Exposition at the beginning of its last

book, On Rewards and Punishments:

“The oracles delivered through the prophet Moses are of three kinds. The first deals with
the creation of the world, the second with history and the third with legislation. The story
of the creation is told throughout with an excellence worthy of the divine subject,
beginning with the genesis of Heaven and ending with the framing of man. For Heaven is
the most perfect of things indestructible as man of things mortal, immortal and mortal
being the original components out of which the Creator wrought the world, the one
created then and there to take command, the other subject, as it were, to be also created in
the future.

23
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 8-11.
24
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 33.
 18

The historical part is a record of good and bad lives and of the sentences passed in each
generation on both, rewards in one case, punishments in the other. The legislative part has
two divisions, one in which the subject matter is more general, the other consisting of the
ordinances of specific laws. On the one hand there are the ten heads or summaries which
we are told were not delivered through a spokesman but were shaped high above in the
air into the form of articulate speech: on the other the specific ordinances of the oracles
given through the lips of a prophet. All these and further the virtues which he assigned to
peace and war have been discussed as fully as was needful in the preceding treatises, and
I now proceed in due course to the rewards and punishments which the good and the bad
have respectively to expect.” Praem 1-3 (trans. Colson).

The first book, On the Creation (Opif) only covers Gen 1-3 but serves as the foundation of the

series, establishing a cosmology, anthropology, account of the origin of vice and the possibility

of virtue, and the relationship between the Law of Moses as the written law most in harmony

with the divinely ordered Law of Nature.

The “historical part” describes the lives of the virtue-loving, God-fearing patriarchs who

discern the Law of Nature and follow God despite not having the law of Moses. On Abraham

(Abr) follows after On the Creation and establishes a model of the change of soul for the worse

or the better in briefly recounting the lives of Enos, Enoch, and Noah before moving on to

Abraham, the main subject of the treatise. It includes the famous passage of the men of Sodom

(Abr 135-136) frequently cited in reference to Rom 1.26-27. The two biographies of Isaac and

Jacob that were originally intended to follow On Abraham have not survived. On Joseph (Jos)

presents Joseph as the virtuous ideal of a ruler.

On the Decalogue (Decal) commences the “legislative” part of the Exposition after On

Joseph. Decalogue presents the ten commandments as ten general laws under which all the

“special laws” in the Law of Moses can be classified. It is followed by the four volumes of the

Special Laws (Spec 1-4) which discuss particular Mosaic laws under the heading of the related

general law from the Decalogue rather than presenting them in the order they appear in Torah.
 19

Philo’s longest passages criticizing Egyptian-style idolatry and animal worship are positioned

early Decal and Spec 1 in discussion of the first two commandments and related laws.

Following the Special Laws, On the Virtues (Virt) discusses the virtues cultivated by

those who follow the Law of Moses. The Exposition ends with On Rewards and Punishments

(Praem), which describes the rewards and punishments for individuals and groups who follow or

violate the Law of Moses/Law of Nature. The two volumes of On the Life of Moses (Mos 1-2)

are now thought to have originally functioned as an introduction or companion to the Exposition

series.25 They present Moses as the ideal, virtuous law giver, ruler, prophet, and priest and

counters the most common slanders against Moses and the Jews. An anti-Egyptian idolatry

passage in the retelling of the golden calf story is sometimes cited in discussions of Rom 1.25

(Mos 2.167).

Factors Contributing to the Relative Neglect of Philo in the Study of Romans

Thanks to the efforts of early Christians, a large number of Philo’s writings have survived

two millennia. One could be forgiven for assuming that if there was anything of interest to be

found in Philo that could be relevant for Paul’s most famous epistle, it would have been found

already. However, the modern academic discipline of New Testament studies has existed for only

a tiny portion of the time we have had Philo’s writings, and for most of that time, New Testament

scholars have been generally uninterested in Philo or lacked the luxury of adequate time needed

to study him in enough depth to do comparisons. More of Philo’s writings survive than any other

Jewish contemporary of Paul and Jesus. We have more of Philo than of Plato, and it’s often

necessary to have read Plato to read Philo. The primary barrier to the study of Philo is that there

is so much of Philo to study. Moreover, Philo cannot be understood without some competence in

25
Gregory E. Sterling, “Philo of Alexandria's Life of Moses: an Introduction to the Exposition of the Law,” in The
Studia Philonica Annual XXX, 2018: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, vol 30 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,
2018):31-45.
 20

the many ancient philosophical discourses that are interwoven in his texts in complex ways. For

these and many other reasons, “Philo’s treatises have become sources that everyone consults but

few actually read.”26

A number of other factors have contributed to the relative neglect of Philo by New

Testament scholars exploring questions of the Jewish traditions that might have shaped the views

of Paul and his opponents in Romans and other epistles. The under-use of Philo has been

lamented for centuries. In 1818, Samuel Taylor Coleridge suggested a strategy for refuting a

Socinian reading of John’s gospel: “I should use Philo (who has not been used half enough).”

(CL IV 803).27 The small number of scholars whose expertise in Philo extends into comparative

work with the New Testament have repeatedly quoted Coleridge’s observation when attempting

to persuade New Testament scholars to study Philo in earnest rather than consult isolated

passages for topical quotations. After commenting that “the central arguments of Romans i-ii are

to be found in scattered passages in Philo,” (a topic that consumes a fifth of the lecture “St. Paul

and Philo of Alexandria for the Study of the New Testament”), Henry Chadwick concluded his

discussion with Coleridge’s remark on the underuse of Philo, hoping to inspire his audience to

remedy this neglect.28

The Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Deprioritzation of Philo

By the time Chadwick delivered this lecture in 1966, the preoccupation with the Qumran

documents after the 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls had long since taken “the wind out

of the sails of Philonic studies.”29 The second edition of Goodenough’s Introduction to Philo

26
Gregory E. Sterling, “‘Philo Has Not Been Used Half Enough:’ The Significance of Philo of Alexandria
for the Study of the New Testament,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 30 (2003): 251.
27
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume IV: 1815-1819, ed. Earl Leslie
Griggs, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959): 803, letter no. 1095, to Francis Wrangham.
28
Henry Chadwick, "St. Paul and Philo of Alexandria," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 48(1965-66): 292,
307.
29
Abraham Terian, “Had the Works of Philo Been Newly Discovered,” The Biblical Archaeologist, 57 no. 2 (Jun.,
1994): 86.
 21

Judeaus included the remark that “It is amusing to speculate on the fury which would have arisen

in scholarly circles had the works of Philo been newly discovered instead of the Qumran

scrolls."30Abraham Terian recounts how Goodenough’s attempts to “correct centuries of neglect

and out-right dismissal of Philo’s writings by Jews and non-Jews alike”31 were understandably

overwhelmed by the excitement generated by the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, which

“drained away--as it still does- the pool of scholars who otherwise might have devoted

themselves to Philonic studies.”32

Due to the focus on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philonic writings remained “mostly unstudied,”

by the mid 1990s, with commentaries at the time covering only a tenth of Philo’s extent

writings.33 Brill’s Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series has subsequently released seven

commentaries on Philonic treatises since 2001, five of which are devoted to works that are now

believed to have been written to a Roman, non-Jewish audience for apologetic purposes. From

the Exposition series, these include On the Creation of the Cosmos According to Moses, On the

Life of Abraham, and On the Virtues. Philo’s historical treatise on Flaccus and the philosophical

treatise On the Contemplative Life have also been treated with commentaries.

In the latest echo of Coleridge’s two hundred year old complaint, Sterling’s 2003

article,"Philo Has Not Been Used Half Enough"stresses the importance of Philo for

understanding the New Testament and Christian origins:

“I think that the Philonic corpus is the single most important body of material from
Second Temple Judaism for our understanding of the development of Christianity in the
first and second centuries. Perhaps this will strike you as an extravagant claim in light of
the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Josephan corpus. I would not deny the importance of either
of those corpuses for the study of the New Testament and Christian origins. I am

30
Terian thinks it likely that this unattributed remark on the dustjacket may have been Goodenough’s own comment.
Terian “Newly Discovered”: 86.
31
Terian, “Newly Discovered”: 86.
32
Terian, “Newly Discovered”: 87-88.
33
Terian, “Newly Discovered”: 88-89.
 22

convinced, however, that the Philonic corpus helps us to understand the dynamics of
early Christianity more adequately than any other corpus. I do not want to suggest that
Philo or his corpus was directly responsible for the development of Christian thought, but
that his corpus is a window into the world of Second Temple Judaism in the Diaspora that
formed the matrix for Christian theology.”34

Writing in 2020, Maren Niehoff commented on the ongoing neglect of Philo by New Testament

scholars:

“[Paul’s] Jewish context is often discussed with a view to Qumran and even much later
rabbinic literature, while Philo tends to be overlooked. This negligence of Philo is all the
more surprising as he was Paul’s older contemporary, shared his Jewish diaspora
background and interpreted the same Bible, namely, the LXX. Paul began his writing
activity around the time of Philo’s death and penned his Letter to the Romans a decade or
two after Philo addressed Roman audiences in connection with the embassy to Gaius
Caligula.”35

Unfortunately, Niehoff’s own recent articles comparing Paul and Philo constitute the bulk of the

published responses to her own breakthroughs regarding Paul’s Roman context.36 While the

understandable prioritization of the Dead Sea Scrolls limited attention to Philo in much of the

twentieth century, other historical accidents have contributed to the relative deprioritization of

Philo’s writings in New Testament scholarship.

34
Sterling, “Half Enough”: 252.
35
Maren R. Niehoff, “Abraham in the Greek East: Faith, Circumcision and Covenant in Philo’s Allegorical
Commentary and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,”in The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism
XXXII, ed. David T. Runia and Michael B. Cover (Atlanta, SBL Press, 2020) 227-228. It should be noted that
Niehoff herself does not explore the question of whether Philo could have been a direct source for Paul or Paul’s
competitors, adopting a simple comparative method appropriate for short, topical comparisons between the two
authors.
36
One wonders if the hiring decisions of New Testament departments inadvertently perpetuate this neglect of Philo.
If few departments have staff members with expertise in the Philonic writings and so much of twentieth century
scholarship focused on the Dead Sea Scrolls and rabbinic literature, Philo remains on the periphery of the
imaginations of many New Testament scholars. Breakthroughs in Philonic studies like the Roman context of Philo’s
Exposition take longer to register in New Testament departments due to a lack of expertise in Philo. Scholars who
wish to become more familiar with Philo might rightly recognize that they would have to seriously reprioritize their
limited research time to become well-versed enough to assess the claims regarding the Roman context of Philo’s
Exposition and their implications for Paul’s letter to the Romans and other epistles. Lacking colleagues with
expertise in Philo, a sense of urgency to prioritize Philo is unlikely to develop given the challenges entailed in
developing competence in his writings.
 23

The Separation of On the Creation from the Rest of the Exposition

The neglect of the Exposition generally and On the Creation in particular in scholarship

on Rom 1.18-32 may also be due to the practice in most editions of Philo’s works of separating

On the Creation from the rest of the Exposition by placing it in front of the first surviving books

of the Allegorical Commentary.37 Niehoff comments that the displacement of On the Creation in

collected editions of Philo “gravely obscures Philo’s overall project in the Exposition, his most

well-designed series of works.”38 Many New Testament scholars are only familiar with Philo

through quotes or isolated passages and may not have a sense of how the Exposition functions as

a whole or how On the Creation establishes premises that control the rest of the Exposition.39

The lack of awareness of the structure of the Exposition combined with the separation of

On the Creation from the other texts is probably what has kept us from noticing that the

discussions of natural theology, human impiety, people who engage in homosexual intercourse,

people who know God without the law, and the faith of Abraham develop in the same order in

Romans as they do in the Exposition. Combined with the tendency of Romans scholarship to

present quotations of Wisdom of Solomon as adequate backdrop to Jewish traditions similar to

Rom 1.18-32, the lack of awareness of structure of the Exposition due to confusion about the

relationship of On the Creation with the rest of the series has likely contributed to the neglect of

On the Creation and the Exposition in studies on Rom 1.18-32.

Wisdom of Solomon and Philo in Romans Scholarship

The neglect of On the Creation in commentaries on Romans is surprising given its

relevance for the themes in Rom 1.18-25, such as the presence of natural theology rooted in a

reading of Gen 1.26, the contrast between creation and the creator, concept of God, the

37
On the history of separating On the Creation from the rest of the Exposition, see Sterling, “Life of Moses”:31-32.
38
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 93.
39
See Sterling, “Half Enough”: 251-252.
 24

distinction between the invisible heaven and the perceptible creation, emphasis on God’s wrath

relative to human impiety and injustice, and the prominence of Philonic terms that are rarely

used in the NT but are frequent in Philo’s Exposition. Jewish law relative to idolatry, homosexual

intercourse, and vices (as seen in Rom 1.23-32) are described in later books of the Exposition

using natural law premises laid out in On the Creation and follow the basic structure of decline

into vice that Philo estabishies in his reading of Gen 3 in On the Creation.

The excitement of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls and the prioritization of

Palestinian Jewish sources to understand the New Testament did nothing to dampen the

enthusiasm of Romans scholars for the Alexandrian Wisdom of Solomon as a either the best

resource for illucidating a common tradition shared by Paul or as a direct source for Rom

1.18-32.40 The love affair with Wisdom of Solomon as a match for Romans began in the

eighteenth century long before Alexandrian sources were upstaged by the Dead Sea Scrolls and

rabbinic writings, but was particularly invigorated by an 1892 article by Eduard Grafe comparing

Wisdom and Romans which concluded that Paul had mostly likely read Wisdom.41 The position

that Wisdom was a direct source for Romans was widely accepted for several decades after

Grafe, particularly among English scholars.42

Interest in Wisdom might have prompted an intensified interest in Philo as a

contemporary Alexandrian source, but some of the most widely read works that treated the

confidently proclaimed Wisdom as a direct source for Paul tended to emphasize the improbability

40
On the history of comparisons between Romans and Wisdom of Solomon, see Joseph R. Dodson, The ‘Powers’ of
Personification: Rhetorical Purpose in the Book of Wisdom and the Letter to the Romans, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift
für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 161, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008): 2-13. See also Beverly Roberts
Gaventa, “The Rhetoric of Death in the Wisdom of Solomon and the Letters of Paul,” in The Listening Heart:
Essays in Wisdom and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, ed. Kenneth G. Hoglund, (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1987): 127-131.
41
Eduard Grafe, “Das Verhältniss der paulinischen Schriften zur Sapientia Salomonis” Theologische Abhandlungen
(1892):251-286. Cited in Dodson, Personification: 2-13 and Gaventa, “Rhetoric of Death”: 127-131.
42
E. Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament, (Eugene, Wipf & Stock, 2003): 77, cited by Dodson,
Personification: 5n17.
 25

of encountering Philo’s writings.43 Some of this caution was appropriate given how little was

known of Philo’s Roman embassy as a context of composition or of his family’s ability to

distribute even large treatises, but it may have had the unintended effect of discouraging scholars

from the commitment to read and master Philo’s writings. The size of the Philonic corpus and the

lack of secondary literature that could serve as a guide to the vast and unfamiliar terrain of his

writings were already deterrents to pursuing Philonic studies for the purpose of comparison with

the New Testament. The expectation that such an endeavour was unlikely to reward the effort

combined with the confidence that Wisdom of Solomon provided adequate background for

understanding Romans added further disincentives to the study of Philo.

Satisfaction with Wisdom of Solomon as adequate background for Rom 1.18-32 may be

one of the biggest contributors to the neglect of Philo in general and On the Creation in

particular, despite the common Alexandrian provenance of both Philo and Wisdom.44 There is

little incentive to spend precious years training to climb Mount Philo in order to get to Paul when

so many trusted maps of the territory warn travelers that Paul cannot be reached through

43
See especially Henry St. John Thackeray, The Relationship of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought (London:
McMillan & Co. Limited, 1900): 223-248. Henry St. John Thackeray’s 1899 The Relation of St. Paul to
Contemporary Jewish Thought considered Grafe as having “established” Paul’s use of Wisdom in Romans (pp 223).
For logistical reasons and in the absence of convincing arguments to support Paul’s direct use of Philo, Thackeray
cautioned that Philo as a direct source for Paul was not impossible, but “a priori implausible” (pp 232). His cautions
were entirely appropriate given the relative lack of comparative work done on Paul and Philo at the time and the
assumption that most of Philo’s writings had been addressed to fellow Alexandrian Jews. With the Roman embassy
as a context of composition and distribution of Philo’s works uninvestigated until the twenty-first century, it seemed
highly unlikely that the many volumes across which a few sparse parallels between Philo and Rom 1 had been
identified would have made their way from Alexandria to Paul over his journeys. More improbable still is the
possibility that the apostle to the gentiles would devote his energy to esoteric Alexandrian Jewish texts from several
unrelated commentary series and philosophical treatises and be so inspired by a few scraps that he would synthesize
their elements for a letter that he was writing a group of gentile and Jewish strangers in Rome.
44
Francis Watson treats Wisdom as a direct source in Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, (London: T&T Clark
International, 2004), arguing that Paul engages Wisdom of Solomon. Watson (pp 405) prefers the language of
engagement over dependence because dependence tends to be taken as agreement that excludes differences of
position, pp 404-411. Douglas Campbell, arguing that Rom 1.18-32 is a speech-in-character of a composite
rhetorical opponent that he calls the “Teacher,” suggested that Wisdom is a “key text for the teacher” in Douglas A.
Campbell, The Deliverance of God (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009): 544.
 26

treacherous Mount Philo but can be easily accessed through a short trail over the gentle foothill

of Wisdom of Solomon.

While the unknown author of Wisdom was likely Alexandrian like Philo, Wisdom is a

much shorter document and could feasibly travel from Alexandria to reach Paul and his Roman

audience. The Exposition as a potential influence on Paul, his opponents, or his Roman audience

only becomes a possibility once a Roman context for the Exposition, its apologetic purpose, and

its implied audience is considered. The Exposition’s potential appeal to non-Jews and the fact

that it has a reason to be in Rome are points in its favor over Wisdom of Solomon. The size of the

Exposition and other Philonic writings becomes less of a barrier to their availability and

distribution when we consider Philo’s wealth, his connections to elites in Rome and Judea, and

the pressing need to defend the Jews against attack and present Jews and Jewish laws as the

fulfillment of Roman ideals.

Massiebeau and the Rejection of a Non-Jewish Audience for the Exposition in the 20th Century

Surprisingly, the influence of Philo’s diplomatic mission to Rome on his intellectual

environment was not investigated by Philonic scholars until very recently.45 This absence of

discussion on Philo’s Roman context and the apologetic needs of vulnerable Jews in the empire

may partly explain why Philo is so underused by New Testament scholars who may think of him

as writing esoteric treatises to Jewish Alexandrians who were far removed from the territories of

the New Testament writers. While Philo’s two surviving historical treatises (On the Embassy to

Gaius and Against Flaccus) were obviously written after his embassy, most of his other works

were usually treated as written for his fellow Alexandrian Jews. Along with the two historical

treatises, it has long been recognized46 that the fragmentary Philonic treatise, An Apology on

Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 13-14.

45

Goodenough, Philo Judeaus: 32. Gregory E. Sterling, “Philo and the Logic of Apologetics: An Analysis of the
46

Hypothetica,” Society of Biblical Literature. Seminar Papers 29 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1990):
 27

Behalf of the Jews (Hypothetica) and The Contemplative Life are “apologetic works”which “were

probably written in connection with the pogrom at Alexandria and the subsequent embassy in

38-41 C.E.”47

The lack of widespread awareness of the Exposition series as a work addressed to

non-Jewish readers is due in part to an unfortunate wrong turn in the study of Philo in the late

nineteenth century that is only now seeing a reversal due to Niehoff’s discoveries despite Erwin

Goodenough’s efforts to course-correct the discipline nearly a century ago. Scholarship on the

audience of Philo’s writings, their relative chronology, and the interrelationships between the

treatises began to emerge at the end of the nineteenth century. At the time several eminent

scholars of Judaica considered the Exposition to have been written for non-Jews.48 Goodenough

cites Emil Schürer as the “last important scholar” to hold this position in the 1886 English

translation of A History of the Jewish People.49 Schürer, moreover, held that the Life of Moses

bore a literary resemblance to the Exposition. As the Life of Moses was widely held to be written

for non-Jews, this implied audience extended to the Exposition as a related series of treatises.

The convention of designating the series as the Exposition had not yet been established, and the

English translation of Schürer titled the series the Delineation of the Mosaic Legislation for

Non-Jews.50

412–30. Michael Cover, “Reconceptualizing Conquest: Colonial Narratives and Philo’s Roman Accuser in the
Hypothetica,” Studia Philonica Annual (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2010): 183–207. Cited in Maren R.
Niehoff, “Philo’s Exposition in a Roman Context,” in The Studia Philonica Annual 23, ed. David T. Runia and
Gregory E. Sterling, (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011): 2-3. See also Sterling, “Half Enough”:259.
47
Sterling, “Half Enough”:259.
48
Erwin R. Goodenough, “Philo's Exposition of the Law and His De Vita Mosis,” The Harvard Theological Review
26, no. 2 (1933): 113. Goodenough cites Emil Schürer’s A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ,
Vol III, trans. Sophia Taylor and Peter Christie, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1886) and Hans Leisegang’s Die Religion in
Geschichte und Gegenwart IV, 1930, col. 119. Leisegang is mentioned as a source that “merely states that the
Exposition, as compared to the Allegory, is designed for a larger circle of readers, including non-Jews.
49
Goodenough, “Philo’s Exposition:” 113n7. Schürer, Jewish People: 338, 348f.
50
Schürer, Jewish People: 338.
 28

The turn away from investigating the non-Jewish audience and apologetic purpose of the

Exposition was tied to the question of the relationship of the two volume Life of Moses to the

Exposition series. The Life of Moses, according to Goodenough, “has always been taken as

another apology for the Jews.”51 Schürer had argued that the Life of Moses, while not part of the

structure of the Exposition, was “certainly connected with it by its entire literary character,

emphasising the unified apologetic purpose of Moses and the Exposition: “For as in the larger

work the Mosaic legislation, so in this the life and acts of the legislator himself are portrayed for

heathen readers.”52 Had more Philonic scholars continued to develop arguments for the

connection of the Exposition to the Life of Moses and the apologetic purpose of both works, New

Testament scholars in the twentieth century (despite the draw of the Dead Sea Scrolls) might

have developed an earlier interest in comparing Paul and Philo as Jews who addressed

non-Jewish audiences in the Roman empire.

Unfortunately, the publication of Louis Massebieau’s Le Classement des Oeuvres de

Philon in 1899 separated the Life of Moses from the Exposition and argued on the basis of a

“general impression” that the Exposition had been written for Jews.53 Massebieau offered only a

handful of citations from the Exposition to offer weak support for his “l’impression générale.”

Erwin Goodenough, one of the most well respected scholars of Philo of the early and

mid-twentieth century, refuted Massiebeau’s interpretations of these citations without much

difficulty in a 1933 article arguing for a connection with the Life of Moses and the Exposition.54

By the time Goodenough challenged Massiebeau’s position forty years after it was

introduced, it had already become entrenched in Philonic studies, despite leading scholars to

51
Goodenough, Philo Judeaus:33.
52
Schürer, Jewish People: 348-349.
53
Louis Massebieau, Le Classement des Oeuvres de Philon, (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1889). Cited in Goodenough,
“Philo’s Exposition”: 113
54
Goodenough, “Philo’s Exposition”: 113-115.
 29

incoherent positions regarding the relationship of Moses to the Exposition that they left

unresolved.55 Massiebeau had mentioned Schürer’s support of a non-Jewish audience for the

Exposition as a reason for offering his citations from the series. In response to Massiebeau,

Schürer slightly adjusted his own position in later German editions of his History of the Jews to

suggest that Philo had written the Exposition for as wide a readership as possible.56 Despite

softening his position on the non-Jewish audience of the Exposition, Schürer still maintained that

the Life of Moses shared the same literary characteristics as the Exposition without addressing the

implications of this likeness for their implied audience and contexts of composition.57 Other

prominent scholars like Cohn and Wendland accepted Massebieau’s argument without seeking to

establish it on further footing or engaging the earlier arguments that argued for a close

association of the Life of Moses with the Exposition.58 The apologetic context and non-Jewish

audience of the Exposition was obscured even as these functions were maintained for the Life of

Moses.

Goodenough’s 1933 journal article refuting Masseibeau and arguing for the non-Jewish

audience and apologetic context of the Exposition (as well as its close association with the Life of

Moses) persuaded some but failed to revive interest in implications of a non-Jewish audience of

the Exposition. He concluded the article with a comment on the implications of both works for

understanding gentile engagement with Judaism in Philo’s day:

“De vita Mosis and the Exposition together are a body of evidence for the character of
Jewish propaganda among gentiles of much greater importance than has been

55
Goodenough, “Philo’s Exposition”: 115.
56
Quoted by Goodenough, “Philo’s Exposition”: 111: “einem möglichst weiten Kreise von
Lesern." Goodenough cited Emil Schürer, Die Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi,"4th
edition, ( Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1909): 671.
57
Goodenough, “Philo’s Exposition”: 115 citing Schürer, Die Geschichte des jüdischen, 4th edition: 659, 666, 675.
58
Goodenough, “Philo’s Exposition”:115, citing Leopold Cohn, “Einteilung und Chronologie der Schriften Philos”,
Philologus: Zeitschrift für das Klassische Altertum, Supplementband 7, (Leipzig: Dieterich'sche
Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1899): 415; and Leopold Cohn, Philo von Alexandria: Die Werke in deutscher Übersetzung,
Vol 1, (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1909): 219. Sterling includes Wendland with Cohn in “Life of Moses”: 33.
 30

appreciated. A careful analysis of them from that point of view would teach us much
about the actual religious position of ‘God-fearers’ and proselytes in the
Hellenistic-Roman World.”59

Goodenough continued to argue that the apologetic Life of Moses and the Exposition were related

to each other and that both were originally intended for a non-Jewish audience in his 1940

introduction to Philo.60

Goodenough’s position enjoyed some support in later decades of the twentieth century

and the beginning of the present,61 but as late as 2009, James Royse commented in an

introductory essay on “The Works of Philo” that Goodenough’s claim that the Exposition was

written for a gentile audience had “not found wide acceptance.”62 However, Royse acknowledged

the possibility that the Life of Moses may have been written as an introduction to the Exposition

shortly after categorizing the Life of Moses as one of Philo’s “Apologetic and Historic Works,”

which Royse suggested “may have been intended for a primarily Gentile readership.”63 With the

59
Goodenough, “Life of Moses”: 125.
60
Goodenough, Philo Judeaus: 33.
61
Sterling, “Life of Moses”: 33 notes that Peder Borgen and Walter Wilson agreed with Goodenough that the Life of
Moses and the Exposition were companion works without offering any comment on their implied audience or
apologetic function, citing Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time, (Leiden: Brill, 1997): 46.
Walter T. Wilson, Philo of Alexandria, On the Virtues: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Philo of
Alexandria Commentary Series, Vol 3, (Leiden, Brill: 2011): 3-4. See also Ellen Birnbaum, The Place of Judaism in
Philo’s Thought: Israel, Jews, and Proselytes, Brown Judaic Studies 290, Studia Philonica Monographs 2, (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 2007): 20.
62
James R. Royse, “The Works of Philo,”in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009): 33. While Royse cited Goodenough’s 1933 “Philo’s Exposition,” he did not cite scholars
who either argued for or against Goodenough’s position. This has the unfortunate (an unintended) effect of leaving
his readers, who most likely are new to the study of Philo and attempting to get their bearings on the state of
Philonic scholarship, without ready means to assess claims for or against Goodenough’s position. The lack of
literature review on this question can easily leave the reader with the impression that Goodenough’s arguments were
weak relative to Massiebeau’s own and that they had either been thoroughly engaged and refuted by later
scholarship or that subsequent investigation of the question had raised additional evidence in favor of Massiebeau’s
position.
63
“If the ‘Exposition of the Law’ reveals that Philo did address himself to broader circles of readers, his apologetic
and historical works go even further, and reveal him as an advocate of Judaism and of the Jewish people in its social
and political struggles of the day. Indeed, these works may have been intended primarily for a Gentile readership.”
Royse, “Works of Philo”: 50-51. cited by Sterling, “Life of Moses”: 33. Goodenough’s own assessment of the
reception of his argument was more positive. His Philo Judeaus, originally published in 1940, includes the
following comment on page 35 in a discussion of the apologetic function of the Exposition: “I must warn that while
I was not the first to suggest that the Exposition was designed for gentiles, I was the first to do so after scholars had
for forty years considered it proved to the contrary, and even when Schürer had been brought over to that opinion.
But, unlike many of my publications, this one has been received with almost unanimous approval, so far as I have
 31

relationship between the Exposition and the Life of Moses still unsettled in the twenty-first

century, there was little incentive for Philonic scholars or New Testament scholars to pursue the

implications of the Exposition as an apologetic work addressed to a gentile readership.

The question of the connection of the Life of Moses to the Exposition still required

clarification in 2018 when Gregory Sterling published his “Philo of Alexandria’s Life of Moses:

An Introduction to the Exposition of the Law.” Sterling reviewed the history of the controversy

along with related problems that hindered resolution, such as confusion-inducing practice of

displacing On the Creation in collections of Philo by placing it in front of the Allegorical

Commentary instead of with the Exposition.64 Such disagreement and confusion in the

presentation of Philonic texts would scarcely have helped New Testament scholars who were

new to the study of Philo notice interesting parallels between On the Creation and Romans or

identify a common Roman context for both Paul’s epistle and a portion of Philo’s writings.65

While late twentieth century Philonic scholarship eventually moved back to Schürer’s

pre-Massiebeau position and attended to Goodenough’s advancements on the positions that the

Exposition and the Life of Moses have a close relationship and were both written for non-Jews,

seen, and I think the reader may here follow me safely.” Goodenough had not felt the need to revise this assessment
by the time the second edition was published in 1962..
64
Sterling, “Life of Moses”: 33-35. See also Abraham Terian, “Back to Creation: The Beginning of Philo’s Third
Grand Commentary,” In The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism Volume IX, ed. David T.
Runia, (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997): 19-36.
65
Interestingly, Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Gentiles, and Jews,(New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1994) drew attention to the apologetic function of some of Philo’s writings. Why he did not
identify the Exposition as a cohesive body of work, many of the passages that he cited from Philo as evidence of
Jewish apologetics were from the Exposition and the companion works of the Life of Moses. While he did not seem
aware of scholarship proposing a Roman audience or emphasizing at least a non-Jewish audience for these writings,
Stowers still primarily selected from texts identified by Niehoff as written for non-Jewish audiences in the context of
the Roman embassy. Most of the many Philonic passages cited in the section on “Judaism as a School for
Self-Mastery” on pages 58-65 (Mos 2.18-20, Dec 141-153, 173-174, Spec 1.100-105, 1.113, 2.162, 4.55, 4.92-100,
Virt 175-182, Praem 16) are from the Exposition or Life of Moses with the exception of one reference to Sacr 15
and Somn 173-176 from the Allegorical Commentary. Spec 4.87, 96 and Spec 3.8-9 are cited pp 66-67 in reference
to Philo’s teachings on pleasure. General themes about self mastery in Philo and Josephus are discussed on pp 68-69
along with a citation of Spec 1.206 as an example of Philonic discourse on the pleasures of the belly (citing also All
3.114f from the Allegorical Commentary). Virt 175, 179, and 182 appear on page 79 in a discussion of benefits of
conversion to proselytes.
 32

the trajectory of Philonic scholarship set by Massiebeau continued to shape what questions were

asked in the small group of scholars working on the large pool of Philonic texts. Most Philonic

scholarship to date has interpreted Philo “almost exclusively in the context of Second Temple

Judaism and/or Classical Greek Philosophy” while the impact of his Roman embassy on his

intellectual development, context of composition, and implied audience of his writing remained

largely unexplored until recently.66

Maren Niehoff and Recent Breakthroughs in the Roman Audience of Philo’s Exposition

With the Exposition framed as written for Jews in Alexandria for so much of the

twentieth century, the context of his Roman embassy as a context in which he would reasonably

be motivated to present a reading of Torah appealing to non-Jews remained largely unexplored

until the 2010s. Maren R. Niehoff’s 2010 article, “Philo’s Exposition in a Roman Context,” was

one of the first scholarly arguments to not only explore the implications of a non-Jewish

audience for the Exposition, but to consider the Roman embassy as a context for an extended

apologetic work. Niehoff’s article argued that Philo’s Exposition of the Law of Moses was

likewise written in the context of Philo’s embassy to Rome intended to “counter Apion and

Chaemeron’s efforts” while “developing a much broader appeal to readers sympathetic to Jews

and their customs.”67 Niehoff’s earlier scholarship had laid the groundwork for understanding the

distinctiveness of the Exposition and other Roman-audience works relative to much of Philo’s

oeuvre, grounding the Allegorical Commentary in the Jewish and Greek intellectual traditions of

Alexandria and describing the distance of the Exposition from traditions of Alexandrian

scholarship.68

66
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 13-14.
67
Niehoff, “Roman Context”: 3.
68
See especially Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011): 133-185.
 33

Marem Niehoff’s groundbreaking 2018 Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography,

widely acclaimed by Philonic scholars,69 expanded the arguments of her 2011 article and

developed them in greater depth. While Philo reused and reworked a great deal of material from

his earlier Alexandrian commentary series for the Exposition, his choice of genre, implied

audience, literary style, exegetical techniques, and philosophical themes reflect trends in first

century Rome rather than Alexandria. Comparing the Exposition to Philo’s historical works

(which could only have been written after the pogram of 38 CE), Niehoff points to how Philo’s

Exposition and other Roma-audience works reflect trends in Roman intellectual culture that

differ significantly from Alexandria.

The Exposition, Life of Moses, and the historical and philosophical treatises are all

congenial to the philosophical and literary preoccupations of Rome and distant from the

intellectual world of Alexandria.70 The Roman-audience writings explain basic details of Jewish

practice and teaching (such as the synagogue as an institution and the concept of Sabbath) with

which even nominal Jews on the verge of apostasy would be familiar. Details about Egyptian

geography familiar to any resident of Jewish Alexandria are explained as if they would be

unfamiliar to the reader while the reader’s knowledge of Roman institutions and historical events

is presumed.71

The return in Philonic scholarship to a non-Jewish audience and apologetic scholarship

for the Exposition combined with advancements that focus on the Roman context of many of

69
Eminent classicist Gretchen Reydam-Schils, a professor of Classics, Philosophy, and Theology at Notre Dame
who has written extensively on Philo, the reception of Plato’s Timaeus, and Roman philosophical discourses,
describes Niehoff’s Intellectual Biography in a 2018 review: “Only every once in a while (and not that often in one
scholarly generation) a book comes along that not only changes fundamentally the perspective on its chosen topic,
but, through its novel methodology, will have major repercussions for other fields of scholarship as well. Maren
Niehoff’s intellectual biography of Philo of Alexandria is such a work.” Gretchen Reydams-Schils, “ Philo of
Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography,” Bryn Mawr Classical Review, May 30,2018,
https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018.05.36/.
70
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 10-22, 25-170. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis: 169-185.
71
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 70.
 34

Philo’s surviving writings may finally push New Testament scholars beyond the Philonic

“tipping point” in which incentives to study his writings in detail outway the significant

disincentives. A Roman, non-Jewish, audience and an apologetic purpose for any of Philo’s

writings, and the means and incentive to distribute the writings to fellow Jews interested in

protecting Jewish interests in an increasingly hostile environment, should be of particular interest

to New Testament scholars, particularly those who are interested in the beliefs of Paul’s

opponents.

Scholarship on the Roman audience and apologetic purpose of Philo’s Exposition,

historical writings, and philosophical treatises is so recent that its potential implications for

Paul’s audience in the epistle to the Romans remain largely unexplored by New Testament

scholars.72 Philonic writings thought to have been written to a Roman audience warrant attention

given the recent interest in Paul’s opponents in Romans and other letters. This is particularly the

case given that Philo possessed enormous wealth and connections to both the Roman Imperial

family and the Herodean family of Judea, making it possible for copies of his works to be

commissioned and distributed in circles of influence in Rome, Judea, and Alexandria in order to

present Jews in a favorable light in an increasingly hostile and volatile Imperial context.

Previous Scholarship on Philo and Romans 1

Chadwick, Goodenough, and Sandmel

Despite the factors that contributed to the neglect of Philo in twentieth century New

Testament scholarship, some helpful scholarship comparing Romans 1 and Philo has laid the

groundwork for this paper. Henry Chadwick and Erwin R. Goodenough, eminent twentieth

72
An exception is Maren Niehoff’s own recent work comparing Paul and Philo with particular attention to their
Roman contexts. See Maren R. Niehoff, “A Roman Portrait of Abraham in Paul’s and Philo’s Later Exegesis,”
Novum Testamentum 63 no 4, (2021): 452–476. We will later discuss Andrew Rillera’s 2021 dissertation on “Paul’s
Philonic Opponent.”
 35

century scholars (of early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism, respectively) both sketched

comparisons of Philo and Paul’s letter to the Romans in the nineteenth century that remain

largely undeveloped by later scholarship. Summarizing what he took to be the most important

parallels between Philo and Paul’s epistles, Chadwick began with several pages cataloging

parallels in Romans, arguing that “the central arguments of Romans i-ii are to be found in

scattered passages of Philo.”73 At the time of his essay, there was no reason to focus on the

Exposition for comparisons of Philo and Romans, as the question of whether Philo’s embassy to

Rome shaped his intellectual development has only been explored recently in the work of

Niehoff.74 Chadwick’s brief comparisons were therefore scattered throughout Philo’s oeuvre and

are understandably not concerned with comparing the development of arguments in the

Exposition with that of Romans or exploring structural similarities between the two works.

Published in 1968 after his death, the majority of E.R. Goodenough’s essay on “Paul and

the Hellenization of Christianity” is devoted to an analysis of Romans and devotes several pages

to Romans 1.75 Commenting on Goodenough’s essay in his introduction on Philo, Samuel

Sandmel (best known today for his article on “Parallelomania”76) wrote:

“What Goodenough is most constrained to show is that Paul cannot be understood

through the sources found in Rabbinic literature; it is Philo whose thought makes Paul’s
view intelligible, for the similarities are basic and thoroughgoing.”77

73
Chadwick, “St. Paul and Philo.” The quote is from page 292, with the discussion of important parallels between
Philo and Romans continuing to page 295.
74
Niehoff’s first published work arguing that the Exposition served an apologetic purpose and was written for a
Roman audience was published in 2011 in Niehoff, “Roman Context.”
75
Erwin R. Goodenough,“Paul and the Hellenization of Christianity.”Goodenough on the Beginnings of Christianity,
ed. A. T. Kraabel. Brown Judaic Studies 212. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2020):123-174, originally published in
Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, ed J. Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1968).
Goodenough’s discussion of Paul’s epistle to the Romans and Philo begins on page 140 and continues until the end
of the chapter.
76
Sandmel, “Parallelomania”: 1-13.
77
Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979): 154.
 36

Goodenough’s comparisons of Philo and Romans 1 note how Paul refers to the gospel as “God’s

power”1:16 and Philo’s conception of “God’s power as a series of powers, which collectively

was the Logos.”78 Discussing Rom 1.18-23, Goodenough notes parallels to Philo in the belief

that God’s nature is revealed in creation, making humans blameworthy for rejecting God’s

self-revelation in creation in favor of created beings.79 On Romans 1.23’s polemic against

idolatry, a footnote includes the remark that the verse “could have easily come from a hellenistic

Jewish treatise in Egypt; certainly God in the form of birds, animals and reptiles is a way of

speaking which would have been unusual elsewhere.”80

Perhaps because he did not live long enough to complete the finishing touches on this

chapter, Goodenough’s comparisons on Paul and Philo in the discussion are general and rarely

cite specific passages of Philo. As with Chadwick and other scholarship that dates long before

Niehoff’s work on the Exposition’s Roman context, Goodenough’s comments on Philo relative

to Romans are general and thematic, presumably synthesizing Philo’s entire corpus rather than

focusing on a specific series or text for comparison with Paul. While Goodenough had adamantly

argued for a non-Jewish audience and an apologetic audience for Philo’s Exposition since the

1930s, he did not consider the possibility of Philo’s Roman embassy shaping the audience and

context of Philo’s writings outside of the Embassy to Gaius. This lack of association of the

Exposition with Rome shaped the scope of Goodenough’s comparison of Philo and Romans.

Samuel Sandmel’s Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction included as brief comparison of

Philo and Paul discussing thematic similarities and differences, noting that Philo and Paul often

wrestle with similar problems but come to different conclusions on topics such as the human

78
Goodenough, “Hellenization of Christianity”: 143.
79
Goodenough, “Hellenization of Christianity”: 144-145.
80
Goodenough, “Hellenization of Christianity”: 145. It is not clear to me whether this is Goodenough’s comment or
that of Kraabel, who edited Goodenough’s manuscript and prepared it for publication. Kraabel drew a citation of
Decal 66-91 from Goodenough’s Symbols 9:6 as relevant to Rom 1.22.
 37

ability to observe the law and the conditions under which humans are rewarded or punished. The

problem of God’s transcendence is solved in Philo by the Logos, whereas for Paul, Christ is the

means by which God becomes immanent. Sandmel refers his readers to Goodenough’s essay on

Paul and the Hellenization of Christianity discussed above for a more detailed comparison of

Romans and Paul. As with Goodenough, Sandmel’s brief discussion does not cite specific

Philonic passages and broadly compares Philo and Paul thematically.81 Sandmel and

Goodenough’s comparative comments remain a helpful starting point for scholarship comparing

Philo and Romans and should be of particular interest to those who are comparing Philo’s

thought to Paul’s opponents.

Articles and Monographs Engaging Philo’s Exposition and Rom 1.18-32

Several articles and monographs have compared a portion of Philo’s Exposition with

Romans 1.18-32. Peter Frick’s 2012 essay on “Monotheism and Philosophy: Notes on the

Concept of God in Philo and Paul of Alexandria'' compares the Middle Platonist distinction

between the “essence and existence of God” in Philo’s writings with Paul’s understanding of God

in Rom 1.18-32. Frick, citing Chadwick and Sandmel, noted the dearth of previous scholarship

comparing Philo and Romans 1, remarking that “Curiously, many commentaries omit a reference

to Philo or treat the parallels regarding the concept of God between Philo and Paul in a rather

negligent manner.”82

Roy Bowen Ward’s 1997 “Why Unnatural? The Tradition Behind Romans 1:26-27”

primarily compares Paul’s discussion of homosexual intercourse in Rom 1.26-27 to Plato’s

Timaeus and Laws but includes an excellent comparison of Philo’s On Abraham 135-136 and

81
Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979): 189-192.
82
Peter Frick, “Monotheism and Philosophy: Notes on the Concept of God in Philo and Paul (Romans 1:18–21),” in
Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament ed. Stanley E. Porter
and Andrew Pitts, (Leiden: Brill, 2012): 237 n2.
 38

other passages from the Exposition as an example of a Jewish contemporary who was heavily

influenced by Plato’s Timaeus.83 Ward’s article will be discussed in detail below in the section on

Philo’s views on homosexual intercourse later in this paper. Philip Esler also included a

discussion of Philo’s Abr 135-136 as part of a wider argument that Rom 1.18-32 as a whole is

influenced by the “Sodom tradition.”84

Portions of the Exposition are occasionally discussed in discussions on Egyptian-style

idolatry and Rom 1.23. Alec J. Lucas engaged with the Life of Moses in a monograph and

chapter on the allusion to Ps 106 (LXX 1.20) in Rom 1.23.85 Strangely, Lucas ignores the close

parallels between Mos 2.167 and Rom 1.25, despite comparing the rest of the golden calf

narrative in Mos 2.159-173 in some detail.86 We will examine the Mos 2.167 passage later in our

section on Philo’s use of “exchange” terminology. An article by Kathy Gaca and a chapter by

Brooke Pearson on anti-Egyptian rhetoric relative to Rom 1.23 cite Philo’s anti-Egyptian rhetoric

from the Exposition.87 Unfortunately, the entire pericope of Rom 1.18-32 has not yet been
83
Roy Bowen Ward, “Why “Why Unnatural? The Tradition Behind Romans 1:26-27,” in The Harvard Theological
Review, 90 no 3 (July, 1997): 263-284. Strangely, Ward’s essay remains one of the works to seriously compare the
creation theology and cosmology of Plato’s Timaeus with any part of Romans despite the preeminence of the
Timaeus in the first century and the long established literature in Philonic scholarship on Philo’s use of the Timaeus.
84
Philip F. Esler "The Sodom Tradition in Romans 1: 18–32." Biblical Theology Bulletin 34, no. 1 (2004): 4-16.
Phillip Esler saw his thesis about the Sodom tradition as a corrective to Stower’s and Martin’s “decline of
civilization” thesis in Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 85, 97-100 and Dale Martin, “Heterosexism and the
Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32,” Biblical Interpretation 3, no. 3 (1995): 332-339. However, Philo’s decline of
civilization narratives (like the Wisdom of Solomon) frame both impiety of idolatry and sexual immorality as
implicated in the decline of both individual souls and civilizations. Philo’s treatment of the Sodom narrative is an
instance of a decline of civilization narrative that emphasizes sexual immorality as impious and irrational
enslavement to the pleasures of the belly.
85
Alec J. Lucas, Evocations of the Calf? Romans 1:18-2:11 and the Substructure of Psalm 106 (105). (Berlin, DE:
De Gruyter, 2015). Alec J. Lucas, “Paul and the Calf: Texts, Tendencies, and Traditions” in Golden Calf Traditions
in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Eric F. Mason, (Leiden: Brill, 2018): 110–131.
86
Lucas, Evocations: 34-36, 165-169. Lucas’s overall thesis being that the Golden Calf narrative retold in Ps
106(105):20 and alluded to in Rom 1.23 provides the guiding structure for Rom 1.18-2.11. Both Jewett and Moo
cited Mos 2.167 while discussing Rom 1.25 in their respective commentaries. Robert Jewett, Romans: A
Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007): 170 n56. Romans: Moo, Romans:123 n105.
87
Kathy L. Gaca, “Paul’s Uncommon Declaration in Romans 1.18-32 and Its Problematic Legacy for Pagan and
Christian Relations, Harvard Theological Review 92, no. 2 (1999): 165-198, citing Opif 45, Decal 59, Spec 1.15,
Praem 41-46. Brooke W.R. Pearson, “Satire and Performance in Romans,” chapter in Corresponding Sense: Paul,
Dialectic, & Gadamer, (Leiden: Brill): 153-234, discussing Decal 76-80 on pp. 176-177. Pearson’s chapter is
additionally valuable for its wealth of sources discussing Rom 1.23 as an example of anti-Egyptian rhetoric.
Surprisingly, most of these sources make no effort to answer the question of why Paul might deploy this rhetoric to a
 39

examined in a way that connects the idolatry of Rom 1.23 and the homosexual intercourse of

Rom 1.26-27 with the relevant portions of the Exposition and explains how these two themes are

related to Philo’s account of the structure of the cosmos, the human mind, and the origin of vice

in On the Creation.

Use of Philo’s Exposition in Commentaries on Rom 1.18-32

Most commentaries on Romans cite Philo and the Exposition sparingly, if at all. Two

commentaries published in the past forty-five years stand out for their high level of engagement

with Philo, which occurs mostly in footnotes: James Dunn’s 1988 two volume Romans World

Biblical Commentary and Robert Jewett’s 2007 Romans Hermeneia commentary.88 Both works

comment on the Greek and tend to be read either by academics or more academically inclined

pastors. They include citations to a range of Jewish texts (including Philo) as well as references

to Greek or Roman philosophical and historical texts, including a wealth of citations from across

Philo’s oeuvre.

Sections of commentaries on Rom 1.18-32 are most likely to include citations of the

Exposition when discussing the homosexual intercourse in Rom 1.26-27.89 Occasionally,

commentaries will include a reference to one of Philo’s anti-idolatry polemics in the Exposition

as relevant for Rom 1.23.90 Few commentaries cite On the Creation at all in sections on Rom

Roman audience. The conflict between the rival Alexandrian Jewish and Egyptian embassies in Rome during the
reigns of Gaius and Claudius and the subsequent legacy of the verbal attacks made by each group on the other is a
good starting point for why Paul might use Alexandrian style anti-Egyptian rhetoric when writing to a Roman
audience consisting mostly of strangers.
88
James D.G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, World Biblical Commentary Series, vol 38A (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1988).
Jewett, Romans.
89
Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans, Anchor Bible Commentary 33 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992): 285, citing
Abr 135, Spec 2.50, 3.37 for Rom 1.26. Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, (Grand Rapids:Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996): 126 n120, commenting on Rom 1.26 and citing Decal 142, 150, Spec 4.79 for
Philo’s denunciations of homosexuality along with Mut 111-112 from the Allegorical Commentary. He also cites
Spec Laws 3.39 for its use of παρὰ φύσιν. Jewett, Romans: 173, n99, cites Abr 135, Spec 1.50, Spec 3.37-42 for
Rom 1.26-27.
90
Fitzmyer, Romans: 288, citing Decal 91”the source of all wicked deeds is godlessness” for Rom 1.28. Dunn
(Romans: 61) strangely does not cite any of Philo’s anti-idolatry discourses in the Exposition despite citing Wis
11.15, 12.24, 13.10, 13.13-14, 14.8, 15.18-19 and a range of other Second Temple Jewish sources. Similarly, Jewett,
 40

1.18-32. Cranfield referenced Opif 7 in his discussion of παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα in Rom 1.25, a

citation that he likely inherited from Sanday and Headlam’s 1895 commentary, who in turn had

cited Loesner’s late eighteenth century scholarship.91

Stanley Stowers referenced Opif 140-141 in a discussion of Philo’s understanding of

Adam’s superiority to his offspring as part of his refutation of the “Fall of Adam” reading of

Rom 1.18-32, though Stowers misunderstood the relationship between the decline of Adam’s

offspring and Adam’s transgression in On the Creation.92 Jewett’s commentary is unusual for

including several references to On the Creation in his analysis of Rom 1.18-32, but the

resonances between On the Creation and Rom 1.18-32 remain secondary to references to

Wisdom of Solomon.93 Käsemann includes a citation of Praem 43 to discuss the natural law

argumentation in Rom 1.18-19.94 Like most commentators, he seems unaware that compact

passages of the Exposition that demonstrate natural theological arguments depend on premises

established at greater length over the course of On the Creation which serve to ground natural

law and natural theology arguments for the rest of the series.

The lack of awareness of these patterns in the Exposition by commentators on Romans is

understandable. It is outside of the scope of most commentaries to make arguments that describe

the structure and logic of works that are not the direct subject of the commentary. Most

who is usually the commentator most attentive to Philo, does not engage Philo’s anti-idolatry passages at all in the
Exposition when discussing Rom 1.23.
91
C.E.B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Vol 1. The International
Critical Commentary, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975): 124. Cranfield uses a now dated referencing system for
Philo, citing Op Mund. 2 which would be cited as Opif 7 today. The relevant portion of Opif 7 compared to Rom
1.25 is “Τινὲς γάρ, τὸν κόσμον μᾶλλον ἢ τὸν κοσμοποιὸν θαυμάσαντες.” William Sanday and Arthur Headlam, A
Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh, T & T Clark, 1908): 46.
92
Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 89.
93
See Jewett, Romans: 156n74 citing Opif 172 for Rom 1.20’s reference to God’s eternality and divinity in relation
to “Hellenistic philosophy of religion.” Wis 18.9 is treated as the primary reference, despite On the Creation
explaining its natural theological premises, which Wisdom presupposes that the reader already shares as part of their
reading of Genesis.
94
Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, translated and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1980): 39.
 41

commentators must rely on secondary literature to reference such arguments and the secondary

literature on Philo and Paul has not covered such comparisons sufficiently to describe the

Philonic logic of Rom 1.18-32 as a whole. However, there is a circularity to the relative neglect

of Philo in commentaries and secondary literature on the New Testament. Many scholars begin

an investigation of a passage of scripture by reviewing commentaries and perusing other

secondary sources or primary sources based on what is cited by commentators. The accumulative

effect of generations of neglect of Philo in favor of Wisdom of Solomon, Palestinian Jewish

literature, and later rabbinic literature is that relevant references to Philo become submerged if

they are cited at all.

Rillera’s 2021 Comparison of Philo and Romans 1.18-32

The most in depth comparison of Philo and Rom 1.18-32 is a chapter of Andrew Rillera’s

2021 doctoral dissertation, “Paul’s Philonic Opponent: Unveiling the One Who Calls Himself a

Jew in Romans 2:17.”95Advancing on previous scholarship on the conventions of ancient

rhetorical techniques, Rillera argues that Paul engages in a dialogue in Rom 1.18-2.29 with a

composite interlocutor who represents a group of opponents who sought to proselytize gentiles

and circumcise male converts. Like Douglas Campbell and others,96 Rillera takes Rom 1.18-32 to

be an instance of προσωποποιία (speech-in-character) in which Paul establishes the views of his

opponent before shifting to a dialogue with the opponent in 2.1-2.29.

“Paul’s Philonic Opponent” includes a chapter comparing Romans 1.18-3297 to Philo’s

writings in which Rillera concludes that in comparison with all other extent Jewish texts, “the

95
Andrew Rillera, “Paul’s Philonic Opponent: Unveiling the One Who Calls Himself a Jew in Romans 2:17.” PhD
diss. (Duke University, 2021).
96
While the position that Romans 1.18-32 is most famously associated with Campbell’s 2009 Deliverance, Rillera
cites several scholars who suggested this theory prior to Campbell in “Paul’s Philonic Opponent:” 13n36.
97
Rillera, “Paul’s Philonic Opponent”: 253-296.
 42

unique set of beliefs found comprehensively in the Philo’s corpus” are the “best, and perhaps

only” match for the “theological profile” of Romans 1.18-2.29. Rillera designates this cluster of

distinctive Alexandrian Jewish teachings as “Philonic” to indicate that it closely matches the

“unique material that makes Philo ‘Philo,’” though he does not claim that Philo was a direct

source for Paul or Paul’s opponents.98

Rillera’s methodology differs from mine in that his comparison between Philo and Rom

1.18-2.29 ecompasses the entire Philonic corpus rather than a particular commentary series or

group of writings that shares the same implied audience or context of composition. I will restrict

my comparison of Rom 1.18-32 to the Exposition series because its implied audience is Roman

and non-Jewish, though Jews interested in better understanding their faith or positioning

themselves advantageously under Roman rule might have also been part of the intended audience

for the series. While I will reference other books in the Exposition, my focus will primarily be on

the first book of On the Creation both for its thematic resonances with Roman 1.18-32 and

because it establishes premises on which the rest of the Exposition depends. I will adopt Rillera’s

terminology of “Philonic” as the best description of the rhetoric of Rom 1.18-32.

Position on Speech-in-Character for this Paper

My own comparative methodology does not depend on the identification of specific

rhetorical techniques or require that I take a position for or against the thesis that Rom 1.18-32 is

a speech-in-character constructing an interlocutor that represents the views of Paul’s opponents. I

agree with Rillera that Rom 1.18-32 could best be described as “Philonic” in the sense that it

harmonizes with Philo’s own views and think that the speech-in-character thesis is the best

98
Rillera, “Paul’s Philonic Opponent”: 22-23.
 43

explanation for why Rom 1.18-32 agrees so strongly with Philonice, whereas other contact

points with Philonic themes in Romans seem to oppose Philonic views.

Those who reject the speech-in-character thesis will still find my comparison useful for

illuminating how Romans 1.18-32 compares to the thinking of another Hellenistic Jew who

addressed Roman pagan and Jewish readers less than two decades before the epistle to the

Romans. However, readers who maintain a traditional reading of Rom 1.18-32 as representing

Paul’s views may also find the similarities between Paul and Philo unsettling. Those familiar

with both Paul and Philo’s theologies know, despite similarities between Romans 1.18-32 and

Philo’s thought, their understanding of the nature of human wickedness and how it is rectified are

opposed. The similarities between Rom 1.18-32 and the Exposition are extensive to the point of

being overwhelming. The texts show congruence not only in themes and vocabulary but in the

logical interrelationship of themes such as the image of God, knowledge of God, sexual vice, and

idolatry. While these parallels are interesting, they generate difficult questions as to why Paul

starts out sounding so much like Philo’s Exposition and then articulates the good news of Jesus

Christ in a way that inverts so many of Philo’s own assumptions.

Because of the close parallels between On the Creation and Rom 1.18-32, proponents of

Rom 1.18-32 as a speech-in-character will find abundant material in my comparison of Paul and

Philo to support their reading of Paul’s pericope as a likeness and imitation of Philonic

opponents. As critics of the theory that Rom 1.18-32 speech-in-character are often skeptical of

whether a particular rhetorical technique applies in a given context or on whether or not the

speaker has been clearly identified, proponents will find it helpful to develop Rillera’s insights

and and my own to encourage further scholarship comparing Philo with Romans.
 44

Methodology

In his introduction to Philo, Erwin Goodenough wrote that we “shall only know Philo

when we accept him as a whole and on his own terms.”99 The size of the Philonic corpus and the

difficulties in understanding his writings (in no small part due to the complex ways that Philo

engages Greco-Roman philosophical traditions as well as scripture) present the largest barrier to

New Testament scholars undertaking a study of Philo. Given the competitive demands of an

academic career and the pressure to publish early and publish often, there is simply not time to

understand Philo as a whole on his own terms before one compares him to Paul on Paul’s own

terms. The task of understanding Philo’s Exposition and the Life of Moses in the context of his

Roman embassy limits the complexity of the of understanding Philo as a whole significantly,

though these texts still require some knowledge of Philo as a whole and are still long enough to

present difficulties in a comparison to Paul’s letter to the Romans.

My paper will not compare all of Philo’s writings to Romans, but focus on the

commentary series that is most relevant for Paul’s Roman context, the Exposition. Even then, we

shall primarily focus on the first book of the Exposition and compare it to Romans 1.18-32. Still,

following Goodenough, it is important to make the effort to understand Philo and his Exposition

on their own terms before we compare them to Rom 1.18-32. A common error in twentieth

century scholarship on perspectives of Adam in the literature on Second Temple Judaism relative

to Paul was a tendency to read the sources in light of Paul’s theology, extracting passages from

multiple sources and time periods that were relevant to Paul rather than understanding the role of

these passages within their sources and contexts of composition.100 This caused particular

confusion in readings of Rom 1.18-32 as depicting a “Fall of Adam” according to an

99
Goodenough, Philo Judeaus: 19.
100
See the criticisms from John R. Levison, Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach to 2 Birach. Journal
for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series 1. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press: 1988): 13-23.
 45

anachronistic reading of Gen 3 onto Second Temple Jews.101 Confining my analysis to a portion

of Philo’s writings written in the context of his Roman embassy rather than multiple authors or

multiple Philonic commentaries unrelated to the context of Rome avoids much of this danger.

Such detailed attention to Philo is necessary to avoid the appearance of “cherry picking”

keywords or themes that are not central to Philo and reassembling them to make sense of Rom

1.18-32. While more time consuming, this approach will demonstrate not only thematic and

keyword resonances between Rom 1.18-32 and central themes of Philo’s Exposition, but a

common logic between the structure of the cosmos, human capacity to know God, the origins of

vice, and human descent into vice. We will also see that Philo uses the LXX in ways that help us

make sense of the contested allusions to multiple LXX verses in Rom 1.23.

While Philo’s use of Roman philosophical discourses cannot be covered in depth, I will

point out what I consider to be the most significant resonances between Philo’s reading of Torah

and positions commonly held by Roman Stoics, Middle-Platonists or both groups. Due to the

central importance of the Timaeus for both groups in the first century, many of Philo’s

appropriations of the Timaeus could easily have appealed to adherents of either school,

particularly given Philo’s tendency to present features of his “Timaeusized” cosmology in a way

that was “sufficiently general” to appeal to multiple groups.102

Understanding the appeal of Philo’s presentation of Torah to a Roman, non-Jewish

audience is important for understanding why Paul might feel the need to engage a similar

101
Levison, Portraits of Adam: 13-23. We will revisit Morna Hooker’s analysis of “Adam in Romans i” later in our
comparison of Rom 1:18-32 and Philo’s Exposition. Criticized by later scholarship for her anachronistic
interpretation of Rom 1.18-32 as a “Fall of Adam,” her reading fits remarkably well with Philo’s reading of the
original transgression in Gen 3 and its subsequent consequences in the trajectory of human descent into vice
manifest in idolatry and sexual immorality. See Morna D. Hooker, “Adam in Romans 1,” In From Adam to Christ:
Essays on Paul, (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1990): 73-84.
102
See Runia’s comments on the generic quality of Philo’s cosmological hierarchy in David T. Runia, On the
Creation of the Cosmos According to Moses: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Philo of Alexandria
Commentary Series, Vol 1. (Leiden: Brill, 2001): 240.
 46

understanding of cosmology, natural theology, and human propensity to vice in Rom 1.18-32.

Rom 1.18-32 is so associated with Paul as a Jew and Christian theology and so alien to the

imaginations of twenty-first century Europeans and North Americans that it rarely occurs to us

how it might represent a reading of Torah that was deeply plausible to sympathetic pagans in the

first-century. Given the interest in Paul’s opponents over the past few decades and the increasing

attention to the Greco-Roman philosophical backdrop of Rom 1.18-32,103 we should examine

how authors like Philo represented Jewish teaching and practices to gentile audiences in ways

that may have created both problems and opportunities for Paul as an apostle to the gentiles.104

Due to space constraints, I can only focus on the first book of the Exposition, On the

Creation in any real depth and confine my comparisons to Rom 1.18-32. On the Creation

features a presentation of Gen 1-3 that resonates with many of the key words and themes of Rom

1.18-25, such as God’s wrath, the centrality of piety and justice and the offensiveness of impiety

and injustice, an invisible heaven and God knowable through the intellect reflecting upon the

creation, gratitude and reverence as the appropriate human response to God, and the human

refusal to honor God in favor of prioritizing corruptible creation over the incorruptible God. On

the Creation also uses Gen 1.26 and its language of humans created in the “likeness” and after

the “image” of God to interface Gen 1-3 with cosmological and anthropological insights from

Roman philosophical discourses. The language of “likeness” and “image” shapes Philo’s τέλος,

his understanding of the origins of human wickedness, and ironic usage when discussing idolatry

103
Stowers’ Rereading of Romans is one of the most stimulating and influential texts to ask how Paul’s original
readers might understand Romans. A more recent example is Joseph R. Dodson, "The Fall of Men and the Lust of
Women in Seneca’s Epistle 95 and Paul’s Letter to the Romans," Novum Testamentum 59, no. 4 (2017): 355-65.
Robert Jewett’s 2007 commentary on Romans is noteworthy for its attention to Greco-Roman philosophical sources
as well as the detailed attention to Philo and other voices from Second Temple Judaism from Alexandria, Palestine,
and beyond. See most notably David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato, (Leiden: Brill, 1986).
104
On Paul’s opponent in Romans, see the summary by Rillera in his introduction to “Paul’s Philonic Opponent”:
1-28. See also chapters 12-15 of Campbell, Deliverance: 412-600.
 47

and sexual immorality. This will be relevant for examining the disputed allusion to Gen 1.26 in

Rom 1.23 with its language of “likeness” and “image” pertaining to idolatry.105

On the Creation is also an appropriate focal point because it establishes theological and

philosophical premises for everything that follows in the Exposition, grounding the Law of

Moses in the divinely ordered Law of Nature. On the Creation’s theology of creation that

interweaves Gen 1-3 with Plato’s account of the creation of the cosmos, the human soul, and the

origins of human wickedness in the Timaeus. This allows Philo to present Jewish laws and

practices as in harmony with premises from natural law and that were either shared by Roman

Stoics and Middle Platonists or at least rendered as intellectually respectable as possible. It is

impossible to understand properly how Philo’s later discussions of idolatry and homosexual

intercourse relate to the human refusual to acknowledge God without understanding how On the

Creation “works.” While we will primarily focus on On the Creation, we will visit other works

of the Exposition to see how Philo’s reading of creation, the human mind, his “Fall” into vice in

his reading of Gen 3, and the hope of redemption in the renewing of the likeness to God in the

mind set up his treatments of the descent of the soul into vice. Once we understand the

interrelationship of these themes in Philo’s Exposition, we can “try on” the Philonic logic to see

if it fits Rom 1.18-32.

Philo’s Exposition as a Direct Source for Romans?

Though my comparison of Philo’s On the Creation and other supporting passages of the

early books of the Exposition will reveal striking and extensive parallels between Romans

1.18-32, I will not be arguing that Philo was a direct source for Romans 1.18-32. It would be

105
Niels Hyldahl “A Reminiscence of the Old Testament at Romans i. 23.” New Testament Studies, 2, no. 4
(1956):285-288. Morna D. Hooker, “A Further Note on Romans 1,” in From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul
(Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1990): 85-87. Hooker, “Adam in Rom i”:73-84. On the history of the disputed
allusion, see Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 86, 86n15-16, 341.
 48

irresponsible and premature to make an argument either for or against the possibility that Philo’s

Exposition has a direct relationship between Paul’s letter to the Romans without comparing the

arcs of Romans and the Exposition series in their entirety, taking into account recent scholarship

on a probable Roman, non-Jewish audience for Philo’s Exposition, its apologetic purpose, and

the possibility that Paul’s opponents in Romans may have been influenced by Philo’s apologetic

works. Such a comparison has never been attempted due to the length of the Exposition and the

assumption through most of history that it was written for an Alexandrian, Jewish audience and

had no reason to be in Rome or in Philo’s wider circles of influence in Judea. The question of

direct influence ought to be considered as open rather than closed a priori given that

methodologically appropriate, extensive comparative work has not yet been attempted.

Because we have had Philo’s works for so long, New Testament scholars who are not

sufficiently familiar with Philo or the state of Philonic studies can easily develop a tacit

assumption that if there was something there to find in comparing Paul and Philo, it would have

been found already.106 The suggestion that Philo might have directly influenced Paul or Paul’s

opponents or that the question should be considered open seems so improbable that it is likely to

be dismissed as “extravagant parallelomania”107 before one stops to consider whether the scope,

106
This impression is understandable given that introductions Philo designed to serve as guides to New Testament
scholars who are attempting to gain their bearings in the vast and confusing landscape of Philo’s writings often
strongly assert that Philo’s writings did not or could not have had a direct influence on Paul or other New Testament
writers. This tends to be done with little or no discussion as to why they have reached this conclusion or insight into
the state of the research, the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies for assessing questions of influence,
or citations of scholarship that might support this conclusion. For example, Per Jarle Bekken’s otherwise helpful
essay on “Philo’s Relevance for the Study of the New Testament” in the 2014 Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo
of Alexandria informs the reader, who likely has little familiarity with Philonic scholarship, that his “comparison of
Philo with New Testament writings is based on the assumption that no direct relationship or influence is plausible.”
He does not explain why a direct relationship is implausible or offer supporting sources that have established this
assumption among New Testament and Philonic scholars. Such statements can easily discourage scholars from
exploring questions of influence by unintentionally giving the impression that scholarship comparing Paul and Philo
has thoroughly explored the possibility of direct influence and collectively found it to be so implausible that arguing
for their conclusion is no longer necessary. Per Jarle Bekken, “Philo's Relevance for the Study of the New
Testament,” in Reading Philo:A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, ed. Torrey Seland, (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014): 227.
107
Sandmel, “Parallelomania”: 1.
 49

methodologies, and assumptions of previous comparisons were conducive to assessing questions

of influence in the first place. Sandmel, in his essay on “Parallelomania,” advocated for “careful

study” as a means of establishing a basis for arguing for the significance of parallels between two

texts. We saw that for historical reasons in the history of both Philonic and New Testament

scholarship as well as the monumental barrier of the size of Philo’s Exposition, careful

comparison of the Exposition as a whole and Romans as a whole has never been attempted.

There was no reason to do so during the years in which it was assumed that the

Exposition was written for Jews and the question of how Philo’s Roman context during his

embassy might have shaped his writings remained unexplored. Prior to persuasive historical

arguments for the Roman, apologetic context of a portion Philo’s works, a comparison between

Paul’s letter to the Romans that compared not only themes, but structural development across

commentary series or within particular works would have been an enormous waste of resources

as well as being overwhelmingly impractical. An extensive comparison of Romans and Philo’s

Roman-audience works still presents many practical barriers due to the time needed to become

proficient in Philo’s works, acquire enough knowledge of the relevant philosophical sources

needed to understand Philo, and develop enough familiarity with the state of scholarship on

Romans. All of these barriers must be surmounted before such a comparison can be attempted,

and the comparison itself would take years.

The number and size of Philo’s surviving writings is so extensive as to make comparisons

of any sort complicated and difficult for the (very) few scholars who have the inclination and

leisure to become proficient enough in both authors to attempt comparisons. Without a reason to

associate Philonic writings with a Roman context and a purpose that could give a reason for their

distribution to Judea and other corners of the empire in which they might conceivably cross paths
 50

with Paul, his colleagues, and his opponents, in depth comparisons of Paul and a large portion of

Philo’s writings could not be seen to serve any valuable purpose. So few topical comparisons

have been done on Paul and Philo relative to the promising topics of comparison that could

benefit readers. Topical comparisons are more manageable in scope and methodology, making

them viable projects for doctoral dissertations for students who are willing to commit themselves

to the ten LOEB volumes of Philo rather than the nineteen short chapters of Wisdom of Solomon.

The barriers that must be surmounted and the resources assembled to undertake an in-depth,

structural comparison between Paul and Philo are so prohibitive that it is hard to see why anyone

would suggest such a project unless there were compelling reasons to expect a “pay off” that

would justify the effort.

The fact that Maren Niehoff (one of the most respected experts on Philo and Alexandrian

Judaism) has argued that Philo wrote a sizeable portion of his surviving writings for a Roman

audience that likely consisted of sympathetic non-Jews as well as Jews only partially mitigates

the practical barriers inherent in conducting a structural comparison between Romans and Philo,

but it significantly increases the likelihood that such an effort could yield significant discoveries

that could advance our understanding of Romans, Paul, Paul’s opponents, Philo, and early

Christianity.108 The scope of comparison can reasonably be narrowed to Philo’s surviving Roman

audience books rather than his entire corpus, reducing the logistical difficulties significantly.

Toward a Structural Comparison of the Exposition as a Whole and Romans as a Whole

Within the Roman-audience works, the Exposition series is the most promising candidate

for comparison. We shall see that On the Creation at the beginning of the Exposition establishes

It is important to stress that Niehoff herself does not argue that Philo was a direct source for Paul, but rather
108

adopts a comparative approach in her recent articles comparing the two authors. See Niehoff, “Abraham in the
Greek East,” “Roman Portrait of Abraham;” and Maren R. Niehoff, “Paul and Philo on the Psalms: Towards a
Spiritual Notion of Scripture,” Novum Testamentum 62, no. 4 (2020): 392-415.
 51

a theology of creation through a reading Gen 1-3 and that the passages on Egyptian-style idolatry

and homosexual intercourse are either some of the most salaciously memorable passages of the

Exposition and/or take place quite early in the commentary. The closest parallels to Rom 1.23

and 1.25 occur in the golden calf narrative of On the Life of Moses 2.159-173, a text that most

likely functioned as an introduction to the Exposition.

While Philo discusses homosexual intercourse at several places in the Exposition, the

most memorable passage is the depiction of the men of Sodom in On Abraham 135-136, the

book which follows On the Creation in the Exposition. On Abraham also features pagans who

discern God’s law from nature without having access to the Law of Moses and Abraham’s faith,

themes which are relevant for Rom 2-4 immediately after Rom 1.18-32. Rom 1-4 thus discusses

themes that have close parallels to prominent themes in the first few books of the Exposition.

Rom 9-11, likewise identified by scholars interested in Paul’s opponents as containing heavy

engagement with opposing positions, also has close parallels to books at the end of the

Exposition, On the Virtues and On Rewards and Punishments. But what of the middle of the

letter to the Romans?

Rom 5-8 is typically treated as the part of the epistle that most clearly expresses Paul’s

own views. Given that he offers a reading of the significance of Adam’s transgression that is

significantly more catastrophic than Philo’s own and that Paul discusses a “new creation,” I

suggest that one level of comparison of Rom 5-8 is Paul articulating a reading of the structure of

creation that differs from that offered by his competitors, who (as Andrew Rillera has argued)

seem to have views remarkably similar to Philo’s own.109

On the Creation also depicts a kind of marriage of the soul with a dominant, masculine

mind, married to passive, feminine capacity for sense perception. The serpent's deception of
109
Rillera, “Paul’s Philonic Opponent”: 21-23, 253-274.
 52

irrational sense perception leads to the enslavement of the mind, introducing the motif of the

warfare of the soul in the Exposition. In On Abraham 99-107, we also see an allegorical reading

of Abraham’s marriage to Sarah as the soul’s marriage to Virtue (who is masculine in the sense

of being an active power over the relatively passive mind).110 In Rom 7, however, the relatively

passive mind married is feminine relative to the dominant cosmic power of sin. The serpent of

pleasure deceived the mind through sense perception (which is a good gift in and of itself),

bringing it into slavery to pleasure and vice in On the Creation.

In Rom 7.9-14, the evil cosmic power of sin deceives the mind through the power of the

law (which is also good in and of itself), bringing it into slavery to sin. Even though the mind

loves the law of God, its love does not overcome its weakness relative to the oppressive,

enslaving power of Sin and can only be delivered by Jesus Christ (Rom 7.15-25). Jesus occupies

a place in Paul’s cosmology analogous to the Logos in Philo’s Exposition, which is superior to

God’s subsidiarity powers in Philo’s cosmological hierarchy. Jesus as Logos would have the

capacity in his divinity to overcome the lower powers of Sin and Death in an alternative Pauline

cosmological hierarchy. The second Adam is greater than the first.

In Philo’s Exposition, the active power of the higher part of the soul in the mind pursues

virtue and ascends up the cosmological ladder. This overcomes the appetites and desires of the

lower, irrational part of the soul, which animates the body in the blood. Cosmic powers abound

in Philo’s Exposition, but there are no evil cosmological powers in Philo. The microcosm of the

soul can harmonize with the macrocosm of the heavens and be brought into the virtue of justice

as it imitates the rational order of the Logos. In Romans, the human mind is passive and enslaved

110
On the theme of the marriage of the soul in Jewish literature, including Philo, see Richard A. Horsley, “Spiritual
Marriage with Sophia,” Vigiliae Christianae , 33 no. 1 (Mar., 1979): 30-54. See also Birnbaum and Dillon’s
commentary on Abr 99-107 in Ellen Birnbaum and John Dillon. Philo of Alexandria On the Life of Abraham:
Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series. Vol 6. (Leiden: Brill, 2021):
238-250.
 53

to the active and evil powers of Sin and Death. Even when the mind loves the law, its movements

are hijacked by the evil cosmic powers of Sin and Death.

In Romans, salvation doesn’t happen when the active human mind ascends up the Logos

and leaves behind the body. Salvation happens when the divine Jesus Christ descends to humans

that are not seeking God and takes on a human body. The lower, irrational part of the human soul

in the blood is met by the cleansing blood of Jesus, whose death in a human body overcomes the

power of Sin and Death for us all. Jesus occupies a place in Paul’s cosmology analogous to the

Logos in Philo’s Exposition, which is superior to God’s subsidiarity powers. It makes sense that

Jesus would have the capacity in his divinity to overcome the lower powers of Sin and Death

(Rom 8.9-11).

Despite Paul telling an alternative account of Gen 1-3 and God’s redemption in Rom 5-8

that seems opposed to the premises of On the Creation and the Exposition, Rom 5.8 still has

many thematic parallels that are registered in the middle of Philo’s Exposition. Rom 7.2-3 seems

to be a citation of Deut 24.1-4111 Philo treats Deut 24.1-4 in roughly the middle of the Exposition

in Spec 3.30-31. Philo, like Paul (but unlike Deut 24.1-4), describes remarriage while the first

spouse is still alive as adulterous. In Rom 7.7, Paul introduces a discussion of the tenth

commandment, presented in the LXX as a prohibition against ἐπιθυμέω, the passion of the soul

expressing lust (ἐπιθυμία, Spec 4.78-79). We shall see how Philo’s treatment of Gen 3 focuses on

the dangers of ἐπιθυμία and pleasure ἡδονή (pleasure) in On the Creation. However, the middle

of Philo’s Exposition includes extensive discussions of the tenth commandment’s prohibition of

ἐπιθυμία in Dec 142-153 and Spec 4.78-132.

Parallels for Rom 9-11 and the end of Philo’s Exposition are, like Rom 1-4 and the

beginning of the Exposition, much easier to spot. The most obvious parallel has already been
111
See Jewett, Romans: 431.
 54

compared by Per Jarle Bekken as part of a larger analysis of Paul’s use of Deut 30.12-14 in Rom

10.8-13 in Jewish context. Bekken (who does not argue that Philo was a direct source for Paul)

includes a comparison of Deut 30.11-14 in the Exposition (Virt 183-184 and Praem 79-84112) and

other surviving writings.113 Prior to the quotation of Deut 30.11-14 in Praem 79-84, Philo

reviewed his athletes of virtue. The athletes of virtue agon motif also precedes Paul’s quotation

of Deut 30 in Rom 10, but Paul’s Jewish athletes racing for the prize stumble.

This brief sketch does not capture all the intriguing parallels between Philo’s Exposition

and Romans, structural or otherwise. While all the parallels between Romans and the Exposition

do not occur in the same relative positions in the two compositions, there are enough obvious

structural parallels to warrant a more in depth comparison of Romans as a whole and the

Exposition as a whole. Such an investigation may still conclude that direct influence between

Philo and Paul is implausible or that it cannot be concluded decisively, but it is not

112
Philo’s uses of καρδία as a key word to quote Deut 30.11-14 (quoted or alluded to extensively in Rom 10.6-8) in
the last two books of the Exposition in Virt 182-184 and Praem 79-84. Philo interprets the words for mouth, hearts,
and hands in Deut 30 as symbolizing the unity of the speech of the mouth, thoughts and intentions of the heart, and
actions of the hands by the virtuous person. This model was initially introduced in Spec 4.136-142 as a mediation on
justice’s close connection with piety that cites Deut 6.6-8 using καρδία as a keyword. The man who harmonizes his
thoughts, words, and actions towards the good will live a life that is “praiseworthy and perfect” (ἐπαινετὸς καὶ
τέλειος) and be well-pleasing to God (Virt 182-184). The steps of the nation that does not forsake the words of God
but fulfills the words with “praiseworthy deeds” (ἔργοις ἐπαινετοῖς) will be guided by a heavenward yearning
(Praem 79-84). For a comparison of Rom 10.6-8 with Philo’s treatment of Deut 30.11-14 in Virt and Praem, see
Perle Jarle Bekken, The Word is Near You: A Study of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 in Paul's Letter to the Romans in a
Jewish Context, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 144 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
2007): 5-6, 9, 28-38, 48, 69-81, 84-151 5-6, 9, 28-38, 48, 69-81, 84-151.
113
I stress that Bekken does not argue for a direct Philonic influence on Romans because Bekken was
mischaracterized as making just such an assumption by Lothar Wehr in "Nahe ist dir das Wort" - die paulinische
Schriftinterpretation vor dem Hintergrund frühjüdischer Parallelen am Beispiel von Röm. 10,5-10,” in Unterwegs
mit Paulus: Otto Kuss zum 100. Geburtstag, ed. Josef Hainz, (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2006): 202, 204.
published before his monograph. Wehr was referring to Bekken’s 1995 article, “Paul’s Use of Deut. 30.12-14 in
Jewish Context,” in The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism, ed. Peder Borgen and Soren Giverson, (Aarhus:
Aarhus University Press, 1995): 183-203. Despite Sandmel calling scholars to task for “extravagant parallelomania”
in regards to Wisdom of Solomon as well as to Philo and other writings, I suspect that given the longstanding
tradition of favoring Wisdom of Solomon as a direct source for Romans, “parallelomania” regarding Wisdom is not
has heavily policed as parallels between Philo and Paul, even in circumstances in which the author is not arguing for
direct influence. See Sandmel, “Parallelomania.”Bekken defends himself from Wehr’s accusation of assuming direct
influence in The Word is Near You: 22-23, n86.
 55

parallelomania to argue that a methodologically adequate investigation be conducted before we

declare direct influence to be “implausible.”

Philo’s embassy to Rome as the likely historic context of his Exposition series and other

writings alone should be enough to warrant more in depth comparison between Paul’s letter to

the Romans and Philo’s Exposition and other Roman audience works. Scholarship on Philo’s

family and their wealth, connections, and pressing motivations to defend Jewish interests in the

empire likewise support a disposition of openness to the possibility of direct influence of Philo

on Paul given that they had the means to distribute multiple, lengthy treatises through their

network in the Roman empire outside of Alexandria, particularly in Rome and Judea.

We can only begin to adequately assess questions of Philo’s influence on Paul’s letter to

the Romans and Paul’s opponents through careful study and comparison of Philo’s writings,

particularly the Exposition. The rest of this paper will hopefully contribute to more in depth

comparisons of Romans and Philo’s Roman-audience works. We shall now transition to Part 2,

which will provide a detailed overview of Philo’s On the Creation after a brief discussion of

Philo’s use of the Timaeus relative to Middle Platonist and Stoic uses of the Timaeus in first

century Rome. Our detailed comparison of On the Creation will form the foundation of our later

comparison of Rom 1.18-32, On the Creation, and Philo’s portrayal of idolatry, homosexual

intercourse, and the descent into vice in the Exposition.

 56

Part 2: Making Moses Respectable: Genesis 1-3 in On the Creation and

Roman Natural Law Traditions

Plato’s Timaeus and Philo’s On the Creation

In On the Creation, Philo rereads Genesis 1-3 in terms that are as congenial as possible to

Middle-Platonist and Stoic cosmologies, both of which drew heavily from Plato’s Timaeus (Tim),

which presented an account of the creation of the cosmos that emphasized the structure of the

human soul as well as the origins of human vice. By the time Philo and Paul wrote to their

Roman readers less than two decades apart from each other, the Timaeus’s creation myth

pervaded both elite philosophical circles and the imaginations of the barely literate, functioning

as the most “important single dialogue” of Plato “during the Middle Platonic period.”114 On the

importance of the Timaeus during this time, David T. Runia writes argues:

“...it would be a serious mistake ... to conclude that the Timaeus was only read
and studied by professional philosophers or students of philosophy. The very
fact that it was regarded as the ‘Platonists’ Bible’ meant that its influence
inevitably filtered down to men of letters and even to those who had received
a smattering of learning. Indeed the Timaeus was the only Greek prose work
that up to the third century and every educated man could be assumed to have
read.”115

The eminent scholar of Plato, Heinrich Dörrie saw Cicero’s translation of the Timaeus

into Latin for the benefit of his fellow Romans as an event that expressed the shift of Plato’s

academy from its skeptical phase into what scholars now call Middle Platonism116:

114
John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 200, (London: Gerald Duckworth & Company Limited,
1977): 8.
115
Runia, Timaeus of Plato: 57. Runia’s work remains the most extensive comparison of Philo and the Timaeus.
116
Niehoff’s summary of translation of Dörrie in Maren R. Niehoff, “Did the Timaeus Create a Textual
Community? Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 47, no 2 (2007): 161n1, summarizing arguments made by
Heinrich Dörrie. Citing Heinrich Dörrie, Von Platon zum Platonismus Ein Bruch in der Überlieferung und seine
Überwindung (Düsseldorf: Opladen,1976): 32.
 57

“Suddenly, the Timaeus was in everybody’s mouth, as much as every Greek knew his
Homer well, thus from the middle of the century every educated man knew the
Timaeus.”117

While Stoics demonstrated a renewed interest in the Timaeus in the first century BCE, the Stoa’s

indebtedness to the Timaeus goes back to the founding of the school. The physicalized

cosmology and anthropology of the Stoics appears to have modified and incorporated aspects of

the Timaeus even as they rejected others. The Stoic creator God and World Soul, the Logos,

developed out of Plato’s Craftsman, the Demiurge of the Timaeus.118 Despite their differences in

interpretation, the natural law and natural theology of both the Stoics and the Middle Platonists

developed out of the reception of the Timaeus within their respective traditions, as did their

cosmology, anthropology, concepts of divine providence and justice.119

Platonic and Stoic Cosmology in Philo’s Reading of Genesis

In Plato, living things in the cosmos are implicitly ordered in a hierarchy of greater or

lesser participation in the intelligible realm of Being by virtue of their souls being made of a

more or less pure mixture of the World Soul (Tim 34,41d-42e). The Stoic World Soul was the

Logos, and creatures were ranked in a hierarchical scala naturae (ladder of nature) based on the

level of intensity of the πνεῦμα of the Logos in the their souls.120 Plato posited a two-part

117
Niehoff’s translation of Heinrich Dörrie’s Von Platon zum Platonismus 32 cited in Niehoff: “Textual
Community?”: 161n1.
118
Gabor Bategh, “Cosmological Ethics in the Timaeus and early Stoicism,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
Vol 24, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003): 273-302. Gretchen Reydams-Schils, “The Academy, the Stoics
and Cicero on Plato’s Timaeus,” in Plato and the Stoics, ed. A.A. Long, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013): 29-58. Carl S. O'Brien, “The Middle Platonist Demiurge and Stoic Cosmobiology,” Horizons: Seoul Journal
of Humanities 3 (2012):19-39. Nathan Powers, “Plato's Demiurge as Precursor to the Stoic Providential God,”
Classical Quarterly 63, no 2 (2013):713-722.
119
See Gerard Naddaf, “Plato: The Creator of Natural Theology,” International Studies in Philosophy 36, no. 1
(2004): 103-127.
120
On the influence of the Timaeus on the Stoic scala naturae, see Friedrich Solmsen, “Antecedents of Aristotle's
Psychology and Scale of Beings,” The American Journal of Philology 76, no. 2 (1955): 162-164. On the
development of the Stoic scala naturae from Aristotle, see David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology,
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977): 163-170. On the Stoic scala naturae and the human rational soul,
see chapter 2 on “Human Nature and the Rational Soul” in Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early
Stoicism, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985):18-41.
 58

structure of the universe in which the changeable, sense-perceptible world of Becoming was a

copy of the unchanging, eternal, invisible realm of Being, only partially knowable through the

intellect. The Stoics resolved difficulties of how the transcendent realm of Being could influence

the immanent realm of Becoming by collapsing the distinction. Only that which has a body or

that which could be truly spoken about this reality actually exists, and all that exists is part of the

body of the intelligent Logos that structures and animates the cosmos. We will see Philo adopt

Plato’s dual structure while also appropriating the Stoic Active Cause and Logos to portray the

Jewish God as the One God, distinct and transcendent from creation while also being immanent.

Providence and Justice in Middle Platonism, Stoicism, and the Exposition

The Timaeus was the foundational text for both Middle Platonist and Stoic doctrines of

the beneficent providence (πρόνοια, providentia) of the creator, wherein the good creator

structures the cosmos in accordance with the goodness of creator as much as possible given the

materials and defends and preserves the creation.121 Human capacity for reason and the ability to

know something of the creator through contemplation of the rational order of nature through

(and, for Middle Platonists, contemplation of the realm of Being manifest in the realm of

Becoming) was a manifestation of this providence. Below, we will discover that Philo strongly

leans on Middle Platonist conceptions of providence in his understanding of the order of creation

reflected in the mind of God’s Logos, the Law of Moses and its harmony with the Law of Nature,

the human capacity to know the divine law through the likeness of the image of God in the mind,

and God’s divine wrath against human refusal to pursue likeness to God in favor of the pleasures

of the sense-perceptible creation.122

121
For πρόνοια in the Timaeus, see Tim 30c, 44c, 45b. On the development of the doctrine of providence in Platonism
and Stoicism, see Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence: Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s
Timaeus, (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999).
122
The most extensive treatment of Philo’s understanding of divine providence is Peter Frick’s Divine Providence in
Philo of Alexandria, Text and Studies in Ancient Judaism 77, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999). See also the chapter
on Philo in Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence: 135-165.
 59

Violations of the law of nature were violations of divine justice that opposed the

providential and beneficent order of the creator. Philo’s understanding of divine providence and

justice resembles that of the Stoics and Middle Platonists even as it is also based in his

understanding of the terms of the Mosaic Covenant with its blessings for obedience and curses

for disobedience. Because Stoic justice was rooted in the universal law that governed all of

nature and reflected the good and just mind of the Logos, Stoic justice and providence were

inseparable (Cicero, Leg 1.18-19).123 The belief that the Logos providentially held the world

together contributed to a tight relationship between the reason of the Logos, fate, providence,

law, and justice in the thinking of Stoics such as Chryssippus (Plutarch, De Stoic repug 9.1035b,

15.1041a–b). This view of divine providence led to a belief that the wicked are punished by the

gods, which could serve as a deterrent to injustice (De Stoic repug 34.1050, 15.1040a-b).124

Similarly, in the Exposition, God’s providence rewards those who live virtuously according to

the rational order of the cosmos and punishes the wicked by removing providential care (Opif

77-81).125

123
See Donald Rutherford, “Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy,” in The Problem of Evil in Early
Modern Philosophy, ed. Elmar J. Kremer and Michael John Latzer, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2011):146. Rutherford cites Cicero’s De legibus 1.18-19 where Marius responds to Quintus on the origins of justice:
“the most learned men have determined to begin with Law, and it would seem that they are right, if, according to
their definition, Law is the highest reason, implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids
the opposite. This reason, when firmly fixed and fully developed in the human mind, is Law. And so they believe
that Law is intelligence, whose natural function it is to command right conduct and forbid wrongdoing...Now if this
is correct, as I think it to be in general, then the origin of Justice is to be found in Law, for Law is a natural force; it
the mind and reason of the intelligent man, the standard by which Justice and Injustice are measured.” See also
Malcolm Schofield, “Two Stoic Approaches to Justice,” in Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and
Political Philosophy: Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium Hellenisticum, ed. Andre Laks and Malcolm Schofield,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995):206-208.
124
Peter van Nuffelen provides these citations from On Stoic Contradictions in Plutarch’s Moralia in which Plutarch
criticizes Chryssipus for compounding divine reason, fate, providence, law, and justice in Zeus in ways that generate
superstition and create such a close identification between fate and providence that divine benevolent care for
humanity becomes impossible (9.1035b and 15.1041a–b). Plutarch approves of divine providence punishing the
wicked as a deterrent to injustice (De Stoic repug15.1040-1041b). Peter van Nuffelen, Rethinking the Gods:
Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period, (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,
2011):173.
125
Frick, Divine Providence: 177-178.
 60

Middle Platonists were similarly concerned with Providence, though their disagreement

with Stoics on God’s transcendence led to modifications of Stoic Providence that placed greater

emphasis on the soul’s ascent to God through imitation of God’s Providential order. In Plutarch

we see how the abundant blessings of the Providential order of nature should be reflected in the

law, which aims at justice, and in the ruler’s own imitation of God:

“But these gifts and blessings, so excellent and so great, which the gods bestow, cannot
be rightly enjoyed nor used without law and justice and a ruler. Now justice is the aim
and end of law, but law is the work of the ruler, and the ruler is the image of God who
orders all things. Such a ruler needs no Pheidias nor Polycleitus nor Myron to model him,
but by his virtue he forms himself in the likeness of God and thus creates a statue most
delightful of all to behold and most worthy of divinity” (Ad princ, 3.780e) 126

Plutarch’s use of the language of the “image of God” in association with the ruler and the ruler’s

active power also draws attention to how “image of God” language had migrated from the

Ancient Near East (the context in which the early Hebrews first engaged the term) to Greece

through Pythagorean kingship ideology, reemerging strongly with the renewed interest of Middle

Platonists in Pythagorean thought that marked the ascendance of the Timaeus.127

Language about the “image of God” and its likeness pervades the Exposition, particularly

On the Creation. The above quote from Plutarch shows that “image of God” language was part

126
Plutarch, To an Uneducated Ruler, in Moralia, Volume X: Love Stories. That a Philosopher Ought to Converse
Especially With Men in Power. To an Uneducated Ruler. Whether an Old Man Should Engage in Public Affairs.
Precepts of Statecraft. On Monarchy, Democracy, and Oligarchy. That We Ought Not to Borrow. Lives of the Ten
Orators. Summary of a Comparison Between Aristophanes and Menander. Translated by Harold North Fowler. Loeb
Classical Library 321. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936): 58-59. Quoted in Emmanuele Vimercati,
"Middle Platonists on Fate and Providence. God, Creation, and the Governance of the World," in Fate, Providence
and Free Will: Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age, ed. René Brouwer and Emmanuele
Vimercati. Ancient Philosophy & Religion Vol 4.(Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2020): 131. See also George
Boys-Stones, “Providence and Religion in Middle Platonism,” in Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion, ed. Esther
Eidinow, Julia Kindt, and Robin Osborne. Cambridge Classical Studies. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2016):317–38.
127
One interesting question to explore is whether Philo’s own appropriation of Pythagorean kingship ideology, both
in his own commitments and in his efforts to portray Jews as loyal subjects of the emperor, subverted the ancient
Jewish critique of Ancient Near East kingship ideology that was implicit in the Genesis use of humanity made in the
image of God. On the migration of image of God language from the ANE to Greece through Pythagorean kingship
ideology, see George van Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology in Context: The Image of God, Assimilation to God, and
Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen
zum Neuen Testament 232. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008): 94-99.
 61

of Greco-Roman philosophical discourses as well. While “every human being, in principle” was

an image of God in Greek philosophical texts at the time, participation in the image of God

occurred on a “sliding scale,” with the ruler or the wise and the virtuous being most like the

image of God.128 The Stoic Cleanthes’ hymn to Zeus describes humans as having their origin and

likeness (μίμημα λαχόντες) in Zeus as God.129 The Stoic Musonius Rufus sees humanity as set

apart as an imitation of God (μίμημα θεοῦ) that is most like God when living according to

nature.130

We will see how Philo develops the Jewish notion of the human likeness and image of

God from Gen 1.26 and maps it onto the providentially designed correspondence of the human

rational mind and divine rationality in Platonic, Stoic, and Pythagorean anthropologies. He uses

the language of likeness and image in Gen 1.26 to smuggle in other terms associated with the

imitation and likeness of God in Greco-Roman philosophical discourses. The likeness of the

image of God in Philo is the ruling part of the rational soul in the heart, and this likeness is

perfected by cultivating virtue by following the divine law. Vice degrades this likeness, making

humans more like the changeable things of creation than like God as the likenesses of objects in

creation become stamped on the mind and become objects of human longing rather than fixing

God as the highest object of love and knowledge.

In Philo’s reading of Genesis 1-3, the providence of God encompasses the forethought

through which creation is structured to reflect the rational goodness of the creator as well as the

128
Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology: 96, 99. George van Kooten’s Paul’s Anthropology in Context remains the most in
depth treatment of Paul’s and Philo’s understandings of the image of God and of the notion of the image of God in
Greco-Roman Philosophical discourses. See especially the first two sections of chapter 2, “The ‘Image of God’ and
‘Being Made Like God’ in Graeco-Roman Paganism” in Paul’s Anthropology: 92-181.
129
Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus, lines 3-4, translated by J.C. Thom in Cleanthes’ ‘Hymn to Zeus’:Text, Translation, and
Commentary, Studies in Texts in Antiquity and Christianity 33, (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck):54-64, 65-6. Cited in
Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology: 105.
130
Gaius Musonius Rufus, Dissertationum a Lucio digestarum reliquiae fragment 17, in Lectures and Fragments,
trans. Cora E. Lutz (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947), cited in Kooten Paul’s Anthropology: 105.
 62

forethought in designing the human mind’s correspondence to the mind of God and creation.

God’s providence also maintains and defends the order of creation against the corruption of the

changeable realm of the sense-perceptible world, maintaining the order of the cosmos as a

rational law like a cosmic city of which God is ruler (Opif 11, 17-19, 170-171).131

The appropriate response for humanity of God’s providential ordering of creation for

their benefit and enjoyment is a disposition of piety and thanksgiving to the God who created all

that exists and ordered the world for human provision and enjoyment (Opif 77-88, 169). The

rejection of pursuing true knowledge of God and likeness to God as humanity’s highest end in

favor of pursuing the bodily pleasures of the creation constitutes impiety, injustice, and

ingratitude that provokes God’s wrath and stops the abundant flow of God’s benefaction in

creation (Opif 152-169, cf. Rom 1.18-25).

Philo’s Use of the Timaeus and Previous Alexandrian Jewish Exegesis

Philo was not the first Alexandrian Jew to read Gen 1-3 with the Timaeus,132 but the

demands of his diplomatic mission to Rome led him to modify his presentation of Genesis and

use of the Timaeus in his Allegorical Commentary and Questions and Answers series for

apologetic purposes. Plato’s Timaeus as an “intertext” Philo’s reading of Gen 1-3.133 By aligning

Genesis as much as possible with readings of the Timaeus, Philo was able to distill principles of

natural law and natural theology in On the Creation that allowed him to present the Law of

Moses as the set of written laws that were most in harmony with the divinely ordered Law of

Nature. By following the Law of Moses, the Nation of Israel could live according to the divinely

131
Ludovica De Luca, “Providence and Cosmology in Philo of Alexandria,”in Fate, Providence and Free Will:
Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age, ed. René Brouwer and Emmanuele Vimercati,
Ancient Philosophy & Religion Vol 4, (Leiden: Brill, 2020): 66-68. Frick, Divine Providence: 89-118.
132
See the discussion of Aristobulus of Alexandria in Runia, Timaeus of Plato: 103; and Gretchen Reydams-Schils,
“Stoicized Readings of Plato’s Timaeus in Philo of Alexandria.” The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic
Judaism vol 7, ed David T. Runia. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995): 86.
133
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 98-102, 112-122, 151, 215.
 63

ordered law of nature and enjoy God’s providential benefits of creation. While all humans were

made by God and could know something of the divine order through contemplation of nature, the

highest aspirations of virtue loving Roman gentiles could best be fulfilled if they adopted the

Law of Moses as their philosophy of life.

By framing the Law of Moses in terms of Plato’s Timaeus in his reading of Gen 1-3 in On

the Creation, Philo established a set of natural law premises that were respectable and

comprehensible to his Roman audience. He was then in a position to present controversial Jewish

laws and practices such as monotheism, aniconic worship, circumcision, dietary restrictions, and

the prohibition against homosexual intercourse as rational and according to the Law of Nature.

He could also represent the views of his opponents in the rival Egyptian embassy as contrary to

the Law of Nature and tending to vice. Later, we will examine Philo’s treatment of the practice of

emperor worship, Egyptian-style polytheism, and homosexual intercourse relative to his natural

law reading of Gen 1-3 to illuminate how these practices in Rom 1.18-32 are related to the

impious refusal to worship a God that is knowable through creation.

Cosmology in On the Creation: Invisible and Sense-Perceptible Creation

Philo begins On the Creation, the first book of the Exposition of the Law of Moses, by

presenting Moses as the ideal lawgiver and philosopher. Moses neither abruptly states his laws

without providing a foundation for them or establishes his laws through appeal to false myths or

cumbersome arguments. Instead, Moses begins the Torah by first providing a true account of the

creation of the world so that he may demonstrate that “the cosmos is in harmony with the law

and the law with the cosmos” (Opif 1-2, 8; Tim 20a, 26e-27a ). The man who observes the Law

of Moses is therefore the embodiment of the Stoic ideal of being a κοσμοπολίτης, or citizen of

the cosmos. Such a man’s actions are ordered according to the rational purpose of nature (Opif
 64

1-4).134 Here, we see Philo presenting the Law of Moses and those who follow it as meeting the

Stoic τέλος of “conformity to nature,” an ideal that the speaker in Rom 1.24-27 sees violated in

Rom 1.2 by the sexual immorality of the idolaters, whose acts are παρὰ φύσιν (out of alignment

with nature).

While Philo frequently appeals to the ideals of prestigious Roman philosophical

discourses like Stoicism and Middle Platonism and frames Moses as having anticipated and more

fully captured the best ideas of the philosophers, he is free to criticize philosophical doctrines

that do not fit his reading of Moses.135 In the next section, he begins to develop his argument for

the transcendence of God from the creation, the origin of the created cosmos in time, and

monotheism by critiquing Stoic and Peripatetic teachings about the nature and origin of the

cosmos relative to God.136

Stoics saw the entire physical cosmos as the body of the divine Logos, and Philo

immediately rejected this idea in Opif 7 (Tim 28C), along with Aristotelian teachings that the

cosmos is “ungenerated and eternal.” Such people err by “having more admiration for the

cosmos than for its maker” rather than being “astounded by God’s powers as Maker and Father”

and not showing “more reverence for the cosmos than is its due.” Rather, they ought to be

“astounded at God’s powers (δύναμις) as Maker and Father.” This concern, echoed repeatedly

134
See Stowers’ discussion of Philo’s apologetic strategy in comparing the Law of Moses to the laws of other
peoples and presenting Moses as the “best of all lawgivers” in the section on “Judaism as a School for Self-Mastery”
in Rereading of Romans:58-65. Stowers cites portions of Spec 1.100-105, Spec 1.113, Spec 2.161-7 3x, Spec 4.55,
Spec 4.92-100, Decal 142-153, Decal 150, Decal 151-153, Decal 173-174, Virt 100, Virt 175-178, Virt 179, Virt 182,
Mos 2.18-20, Sacr 15, Somn 173-176. With the exception of Sacr 15 and Somn 173-176, all the other passages
Stowers cited from Philo to support his arguments are from the Exposition series and its companion book, The Life
of Moses. Stowers did not make a distinction between different Philonic commentary series when he argued for their
apologetic relevance in a Roman context, but his choice of supporting passages strongly leans towards works that
Maren Niehoff later identified as being written to a non-Jewish, Roman audience and shaped by Philo’s embassy in
Rome in her 2018 Intellectual Biography.
135
On Stoic and Middle Platonist elements in Philos reading of the Timaeus, see Reydams-Schils, “Stoicized
Readings”: 85-102 and Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence:135-165.
136
On Philo’s innovative approach of philosophically arguing for monotheism from the structure of creation in his
reading of Gen 1-3 in Opif, see chapter 5 of Niehoff’s Intellectual Biography, “Creation Theology and
Monotheism”:93-108.
 65

throughout the Exposition on the basis of premises established in On the Creation, is also seen in

Rom 1.18-32. Rom 1.20 speaks of God’s eternal power (δύναμις) as intelligible in what has been

made while Rom 1.25 rebukes idolaters who have“worshiped and served the creature rather than

the Creator” (Opif 7, Tim 28c-29c). We shall see that worship of the cosmos is an error for Philo,

but not as great an error as worship of animals. The cosmos as a whole or the heavenly bodies

are greater than humanity on the hierarchy of the cosmos, whereas animals are lower than

humanity.

Moses, having not only reached the very summit of philosophy,” but had been instructed

on “the essential doctrines of nature” through divine inspiration (Opif 8, Tim 20A), avoids these

errors by recognizing the necessity of an “activating cause” and a “passive object” in rightly

understanding the nature of all that exists.137 The “absolutely pure and unadulterated intellect

(νοῦς) of the universe, whereas the passive object is that which is “without soul and unmoved”

before the activating cause moves, shapes, and ensouls it to create the cosmos (Opif 8-9).

Moses discerns that this ungenerated, activating cause is of a “totally different order”

from the visible and sense-perceptible world of Becoming, which is subject to change. Here

Philo explicitly introduces the two-realms of Plato, having Moses assign to that which is

“invisible” (ἀόρατος) and intelligible” (νοητός) to “eternity”(ἀιδιότης) while assigning objects of

the senses to the that which is Becoming, “γένεσις.” Moses concluded that because the world

around him was visible and perceptible by the other senses, it must have had an origin in God

(Opif 12, Tim 28a-c).

137
Plato’s Timaeus had posited three principles in 50c7–d4 and 52a1–b5 is: the form, the copies of the form, and the
receptacle. Philo’s view differs somewhat from the Stoics, who assumed an imminent active cause in the
Logos/World Soul and a passive substrate. He assumes one acting cause in God’s transcendent Logos and a passive
object, generally refraining from calling the passive object a cause. On differences in principles/causes in Plato, the
Stoics, and Philo, See Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence: 42-43, 145-156.
 66

Once again, we see parallels between the early premises that Philo establishes in the

Exposition in the opening sections of On the Creation and Romans 1.18-32. Rom 1.20 tells us

that God’s eternal (ἀΐδιος) power and divine nature, despite being invisible (ἀόρατος), have been

intelligible (νοούμενα) through what has been made since the creation of the world. Just as

Moses inferred the intelligible and invisible creator of the eternal realm from the visible,

sense-perceptible creation which had a beginning, the speaker in Romans 1.18-32 expects that

humans should be able to infer God’s invisible, eternal, and divine nature from the creation, also

marked as having a beginning in time.

The emphasis on God’s eternal nature and invisibility relative to the created status of the

world in Rom 1.20 is striking as Genesis LXX does not use the term ἀΐδιος138 and only uses

ἀόρατος once in Gen 1.2 to describe the earth rather than God.139 Other than Gen 1.2 and one

instance of ἀόρατος in Isa 45:3 (which also does not describe God), neither term appears in the

LXX outside of sparse uses in the deuterocanonical books.140 Philo takes the use of the term

ἀόρατος (invisible) of Gen 1.2 to locate terms within the realm of ideas described in Tim 52.a3,141

a keyword match that supplements his next argument in Opif 15-37 of interpreting Day One of

the creation story in Gen 1 as the creation of the invisible, intelligible realm within eternity.

138
A related adjective, αἰώνιος is used 14 times in the LXX and occasionally refers to God being “everlasting,” as in
Gen 21:33, Isa 40:28. In Dan 4:3 and Dan 7:27, God’s kingdom is “everlasting.”
139
ἀόρατος is only used elsewhere in Isaiah 45:3 where it does not refer to God. It appears in 2 Maccabees 9:5
where God strikes down Antiochus with an invisible blow.
140
Despite the Gen 1.2 use of ἀόρατος being used to describe the earth rather than God, Hooker attempted to
connect the ἀόρατος Rom 1.20 to the use in Gen 1.2. She also connected the ἀΐδιος with Wis 7.26, where it is used to
refer to personified Wisdom as an “eternal” light and an image (εἰκὼν) of God’s goodness. She also notes the
instance of ἀιδιότητος (eternity) in some manuscripts of Wis 2.23: ”ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἔκτισεν τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐπ’ ἀφθαρσίᾳ
καὶ εἰκόνα τῆς ἰδίας ἀϊδιότητος ἐποίησεν αὐτόν” (NRSV: “for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the
image of his own eternity”). Hooker compared the ἀφθαρσία, εἰκών, ἀϊδιότητος, and to the ἄφθαρτος and εἰκών of
Rom 1.23 and the ἀΐδιος of Rom 1.20. Hooker, “Adam in Rom i”: 80. Cranfield also cites Wis 2.23 and 72.6 and
notes that ἀΐδιος is a “favourite with Philo,” but does not cite specific passages. See C.E.B. Cranfield, Romans: 115.
141
See Runia’s commentary on Opif 29 in Philo and Runia, On the Creation: 164-165. In addition to Tim 52a3,
Runia cites Plato’s Resp 529b5 and Soph 246b7 as well as Alcinous’ Did 7.4. Runia argues that Philo’s deployment
of ἀόρατος is an “Important textual support for his interpretation of ‘day one,’ even if this is not explicitly stated”
(165).
 67

Philo’s reading of Day One as creation of the intelligible realm of Being in Opif 15-37

because it includes Philo’s first use of Gen 1.26-27 to justify his cosmology in Opif 25,

introduces the divine Logos as the Image of God and pattern (παραδείγματα) for humanity, is

essential for understanding his argument for monotheism and polemic against idolatry.142 Philo’s

exposition of “Day One” of creation describes how God sees the necessity of creating the

intelligible cosmos (νοητὸν κόσμον) to serve as a “beautiful model” (καλά παραδείγματα) for the

realm of Becoming, which is “modeled” on it as a “beautiful copy” (μίμημα καλὸν). Here we see

Philo use the term “εἰκών” for the first time in Opif 16. This “god-like” (θεοειδεστάτων),

incorporeal intelligible, cosmos is a worthy pattern for the generated, sense-perceptible cosmos.

The sense perceptible cosmos will contain as many objects of perception as are contained in the

intelligible image (εἰκών) of the pattern.

By placing Day One at the beginning of the creation schema, Moses is understood by

Philo to be giving priority to the heavenly, intelligible realm over the sense perceptible realm

(Opif 35,45-46). Moreover, Moses is emphasizing God’s oneness as the sole, Active cause of all

that exists and the oneness of creation as a copy of the sense-perceptible cosmos. Together, these

premises anchor Philo’s defense of monotheism and critiques of polytheism and idolatry

throughout the Exposition and are included in the summary of five lessons listed at the end of On

the Creation (Opif 170-172).143

142
Philo first explains in Opif 13-14 that though Moses describes the creation as taking place in six days, this is
symbolic. The numbers represent divine order rather than God creating over a length of time, for “God surely did
everything at the same time” (Opif 13). One of the reasons that it is necessary for Philo’s interpretation that the six
days of creation not represent an actual length of time is because he next interprets Day One as the creation of
heaven, which must remain with God in eternity outside of time. At Opif 26-27, he cites “In the beginning, God
made heaven (οὐρανός) and the earth“ of Gen 1.1 to support the two-part structure of intelligible, heavenly cosmos
and sense-perceptible world of becoming, though he insists that “beginning” does not refer to time so that the
heavenly realm can continue to be eternal while time belongs to the created realm. Just as Philo had to separate Day
One and the heavenly, intelligible realm from time in Opif 13, he also needed to define it as outside of physical
space to preserve its incorporeality in Opif 17-20.
143
We will examine these premises in greater depth in Part 3. See Niehoff’s chapter on “Creation Theology and
Monotheism” in Intellectual Biography: 93-108.
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Opif 17-20 is also the passage in which Philo introduces the Divine Logos, which is

God’s active power in creation that functions similarly to the Demiurge in Plato’s Timaeus while

still being in unity with God so that Philo can preserve God’s oneness. The Logos the “image of

God,” a copy of God’s Mind, identical to the intelligible cosmos (Opif 24) and “the only place

where God’s powers in their fullness can be located”(Opif 20).144 We will see later how Philo

reads Gen 1.26-27 as the creation of the rational human soul as a likeness of the image of God,

which is the Logos.

In Opif 17-20 Philo develops an elaborate analogy of a King (the One true God) who

commissions an architect (the Logos) to create a plan of a beautiful city (Opif 15-25, Tim

28c-29b).145 The plan for the city represents the intelligible realm of heaven in the mind of the

architect, reflecting the will of the King. The city built by the architect in obedience to the King

according to the architectural plans in the mind of the architect is the sense-perceptible creation.

The architect is using the available materials of unqualified, passive matter to enact his beautiful

plan (παραδείγματα) to build (κτίζω) a city. The sense-perceptible creation can never equal the

beauty of the plan in the mind of the Logos, just as the plan cannot comprehend all the glory of

the great King who commissions the city. The passive receptacle can only receive so much of the

active principle of the Logos. It is an imperfect copy of a copy- a likeness of an image of God.

144
Runia, On the Creation: 133. Dillon, Middle Platonists: 47-48 includes a brief discussion on the transformation of
the Platonic Ideas/Forms, writing on pp 48 that “With the assimilation of the Platonic Demiurge to the Stoic Logos,
the situation of the Ideas in the mind of God becomes more or less inevitable...When the distinction is later made
between a First and a Second God, the Ideas gravitate towards the mind of the second, demiurgic God.” Philo
locates the Ideas of God in the Logos, the Mind of God, though he does not allow for the Logos to be a Second God
like some Middle Platonists. See chapter 3 of Frick’s Divine Providence, “Providence in Philo’s Theory of
Creation”:89-118.
145
See also Tim.28 in which the Demiurge makes the sense-perceptible world after looking at the eternal Ideas.
 69

The Dual Structure of the Cosmos and Distinction Between Heaven and Earth

The dual structure of Philo’s cosmos establishes the superiority of the intelligible,

unchanging, incorruptible, eternal heavenly realm over the sense-perceptible, changeable,

corruptible, earthly realm that had its beginning in time and is a copy of the heavenly realm. This

structure not only preserves God’s transcendence from creation, but anchors the possibility of

true human knowledge of the unchanging God. The superiority of the Logos and the heavenly

realm over the changeable creation also establishes the most basic level of the hierarchy of the

cosmos after the distinction between the creator as active cause and the creation as passive

element. Moses and other humans are able to infer the existence of God as active cause and the

superiority of heaven over creation, making them blameworthy for the impiety of failing to

honor that which is higher over that which is lower. We see this especially in Opif 45-46, which

shares many keywords with Rom 1.18-25:

“On the fourth day, now that the earth was finished, God proceeded to order the heaven
(οὐρανὸν, cf. οὐρανοῦ Rom 1.18) with variegated adornment, not because he placed it
behind the earth in rank, thereby giving a privileged position to the inferior nature and
considering the superior and more divine deserving of the second position only, but rather
in order to give a very clear demonstration of the might of his sovereignty. He understood
in advance what the humans (ἀνθρώπων, cf. ἀνθρώπων Rom 1.18) who had not yet come
into existence would be like in their thinking (γνώμας, cf. γνωστὸν Rom 1.19). They
would focus their aim on what is likely and convincing and contains much that is
reasonable, but not on the unadulterated truth (ἀληθείας, cf. ἀλήθειαν Rom 1.18, 25), and
they would put their trust (πιστεύσουσι)146 in appearances (φαινομένοις, cf. φανερόν in
Rom 1.19) rather than on God, thereby showing admiration for sophistry rather than
wisdom (σοφιστείαν πρὸ σοφίας, cf. σοφοὶ Rom 1.22)...Not wishing that some people,

146
A longer comparison of the Exposition and Romans should attend to how Philo uses terms like πιστεύω and
πίστις relative to Plato in the Timaeus and elsewhere (esp. Tim 27b–c, 29c) and Paul in Romans, attending to
questions of the nature of human knowledge and the unchanging God as the appropriate object of trust. This
question is particularly interesting given the tension between Philo’s anthropology in which humans are capable of
certain knowledge of God, which is contrasted in Plato with πίστις as associated with opinion. Philo must
incorporate the faith of Abraham without compromising the goal of true knowledge and wisdom of God as an
unchangeable object of knowledge partially apprehensible by the human mind. Paul, in contrast, sees the human
mind as sufficiently disordered apart from Christ that it is unable to use its active powers to attain saving knowledge
of God on its own initiative, but must passively await deliverance, associated with πίστις, by the Spirit through
Christ (Rom 5.1-5, Rom 8, Rom 9.30-32) and proclamation of the gospel for it to be able able to confess with its
mouth and believe in the Lordship of Jesus (Rom 10.5-17).
 70

either out of shameless insolence or through overwhelming ignorance, would dare

attribute the first causes to any created being, he says ‘Let them turn back in their minds
(διανοίαις, cf. Rom 1.21) to the first coming into existence of the universe…” (trans.
Runia). 147

According to Philo, the superiority of heaven over creation and God as the cause of creation is

supposed to be knowable to other humans even as it was discernible by Moses and God

anticipated that humans would be led astray by their admiration of creation over God as the

creator.

God’s Oneness, Transcendence from Creation, and Immanence in the Logos

Preserving God’s oneness, Philo explains his conception of God in Opif 19 relative to the

analogy of the King, architect, and builder. God is the King who conceives of the city and

conceives of its outlines, composing the intelligible cosmos. Just as the plan of the architect was

in the architect’s mind and had no physical location in space, so the intelligible cosmos has no

location in space but has no other “place” than the divine Logos, who orders the ideas. The

“place” of the Logos is identified with the realm of the invisible heaven. Runia comments that

the effect of this passage is to “bring God as creator, the intelligible cosmos as plan for creation

and the Logos (i.e. Reason) as conceive and executor of the plan into a tight unity.”148 By

maintaining a unity between the Logos and God, Philo attempted not only to preserve Jewish

monotheism but to present it as philosophically respectable in the terms of Roman philosophical

discourses. We will see later how Philo’s argument for the oneness of God using the Timaeus

147
Runia, On the Creation:57. Philo’s treatment of the days of creation reflecting order and hierarchy causes him
some difficulty (Opif 13, 67), as the days of creation in Genesis do not reflect the ideal order of the hierarchy of the
cosmos that Philo wishes to convey to his readers. He therefore has to do some gymnastics to explain why Moses
portrays the order of creation in ways that might be counterintuitive not only to his own schema, but to the schemas
of readers whose cosmological hierarchies were more shaped by the reception of the Timaeus in Roman Stoicism
and Middle Platonism. Another example is in Philo’s explanation of why Moses depicts humanity as created after
the animals, which is opposed to the ordering of the Timaeus in which that which is superior in the cosmological
hierarchy is created prior to that which is inferior, a subject that occupies much of the text of Opif (67-88). Human
women and all forms of animal life are generated from progressively more vicious souls of men in the Timaeus,
placing them lower on the cosmological hierarchy than rational males as the ideal (Tim 90-92).
148
Philo and Runia, On the Creation: 148.
 71

tradition is deployed later for natural law arguments on the knowability of God and the

blameworthiness of failing to worship God in favor of worshipping the creation.

Gen 1.26-27 and the Platonic Macrocosm

Philo accomplished his importation of the dual Platonic cosmos using keywords from two

passages. Later, we will look at how he uses keywords from Gen 1.1-3 to introduce a hierarchy

of elements and a separation of light from darkness that is relevant for the struggle between light

and darkness, reason and unreason in the human soul in the Exposition. Now, we will look at

Philo’s use of Gen 1.26-27, considered by Sterling to be a “central text” for Philo.149

Philo deploys his first in depth discussion Gen 1.26-27 in Opif 25 to serve the unexpected

purpose of providing a Mosaic warrant for Philo’s importation of Platonic cosmology onto the

text of Genesis. Genesis 1.27 LXX speaks of humanity as made κατ᾽εἰκόνα θεοῦ, interpreted by

Philo as “after the image of God.” By emphasizing “after the image,” Philo wishes to establish

that humans are not a direct image of God, but an image of the image (εἰκὡν εἰκόνος, Opif 25):

the human mind is a copy of the divine Logos, which is the image of God. From this reason,

Philo moves to establish his claim that his Platonized reading was actually Moses’s idea by

pointing to the Genesis 1.27 passage about the creation of humanity as a warrant, making an

“from the part to the whole.”150 Plato constructs a similar argument in Tim 29e-30d, the parts

refer to all living creatures rather than humanity specifically.

As the text of Genesis does not make this argument, the plausibility “from to the part to

the whole” arguments generally and of Philo’s next moves depend on Philo’s readers already

accepting the premise that the human mind is a microcosm of a macrocosm, which he assumes is
149
Gregory E. Sterling, “Imitatio Dei: The Soteriological Basis for Ethics” In Soteria, Salvation in Early Christianity
and Antiquity: Festschrift in Honour of Cilliers. (Leiden: Brill, 2019): 355-336.
150
J.C.M. Van Winden, “The World of Ideas in Philo of Alexandria: An Interpretation of De Opificio Mundi 24-25,”
Vigiliae Christianae 37, (1983): 213. Philo and Runia, On the Creation: 149-50. Thomas H.Tobin, The Creation of
Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation. Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 14. (Washington, DC:
The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983):58-65.
 72

the case.151 Because humanity is a part of creation and is an image, “it is plain” that the whole

cosmos, which is greater than the human image, must also be an image. Furthermore, if the

sense-perceptible cosmos represents the image of God, the even greater divine Divine Logos as

archetypal (ἀρχέτυπος) image and model for the cosmos must also be an image of God (Opif 25,

Tim 30c-d).152

Philo’s Flexible Use of Likeness and Image Language in Gen 1.26

The plausibility of Philo’s argument from a part to the whole also depends on structural

similarities between Genesis and the Timaeus and the shared keyword of εἰκών between the

Timaeus and Genesis 1.26-27.153 The Timaeus uses εἰκών to mean “copy,” “image,” or

“likeness,” as when Tim 29b-c arguing that the sense-perceptible cosmos is a copy (εἰκών) of the

intelligible cosmos and Tim 37c presents time as a moveable “image of eternity” (αἰώνιον

εἰκόνα). The final sentence of the Timaeus describes the generated cosmos as both full of living

creatures and is itself a visible, sense-perceptible living creature, “a perceptible God made in the

image [εἰκών] of the Intelligible” (Tim 92c, trans. Bury). Εἰκώνες such as the sense-perceptible

cosmos are imitations (μιμήματα) of the models (παραδείγματα) of the forms (ειδος or μορφη).154

151
Niehoff’s position that the Exposition was written to a non-Jewish, Roman audience that was already formed by
elite Roman discourses like Middle Platonism and Stoicism helps explain why Philo does not feel the need to
establish this premise, but takes it for granted that his audience already holds this assumption. In addition to the
part-to-whole argument in Tim 30C-D, Cicero in De Natura Deorum 2.22 recounts an argument from microcosm to
macrocosm attributed to Zeno, the founder of the Stoa. See Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers,vol 1: 325
54G.
152
Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato: 119-120, 173-176.
153
On Philo’s use of key words rather than close readings, see Philo and Runia, On the Creation:14-15. Philo’s use
of ὁμοίωσις allows him to access the τέλος of likeness to God in the Theaetetus 176 A –B. Unlike his close reading
method of the Allegorical Commentary Series, Philo rarely quotes passages of scripture in the Exposition, though he
often selects key words from the LXX to support his interpretation. For instance, he uses some shared key words in
Gen 1.1-3 and the Timaeus to import the four elements of fire, air, water, and earth as well as chaos and the void into
Genesis so that they will be available to explain the changeableness of the sense-perceptible world and the human
tendency toward irrational passions (Tim 57d). Philo selects keywords like ἀόρατος, γῆ, σκότος, ἄβυσσος, πνεῦμα,
ὕδατος, and φῶς,out of Gen 1.2 to support his cosmology, while εἰκών and ὁμοίωσις in Gen 1.26 support both his
cosmology and anthropology.
154
Tobin, Creation of Man: 58; Mary Louise Gill, “Matter and Flux in Plato’s Timaeus,” Phronesis 32 no 1
(1987):48-49. For the relevance of these terms in Paul’s christology and anthropology, see George van Kooten,
“Image, Form, and Transformation: A Semantic Taxonomy of Paul's Morphic Language,” Jesus, Paul, and Early
 73

The handful of uses of εἰκών in the Timaeus speak of the sense-perceptible cosmos or

aspects of it (such as time) as a copy, whereas Philo typically uses εἰκών to refer to the

intelligible realm of the Logos. His use of εἰκών from the anthropology in the Gen 1.26-27 as a

keyword to import Plato’s cosmology thus served to code both the intelligible cosmos with

Plato’s εἰκών language and to frame humans as a copy of the Logos-as-εἰκών. Philo’s use of Gen

1.26-27 to import a Platonic reading of εἰκών into Genesis also allowed him to smuggle in an

entire cluster of terms related terms from the Timaeus, most of which do not appear in Genesis

LXX. On the Creation appropriates the language of image, likeness, imitation, archetypes,

forms, and models in describing humanity as well as the cosmos.

Fortunately for Philo, Plato does clearly portray the human mind as microcosm of the

macrocosm of the invisible realm and the human body as a microcosm of the macrocosm of the

sense-perceptible cosmos (Tim 29d–47e) and also uses terms like ὅμοιος or ὁμοιότης (“similar”

or “like”) and ὁμοιόω (“to make like,” “to assimilate)” to describe humans and other creatures

that imitate higher images. Just as the sense-perceptible cosmos ought to assimilate (ὁμοιόω) to

the heavenly cosmos of which it is a likeness as much as possible (ὁμοιότης, Tim 30c-d), so

humans ought to assimilate (ὁμοιόω) the movements of their rational minds to the

sense-perceptible cosmos (Tim 90d). Humans who fail to do so will undergo a change

(μεταβολή) in the next life into the likeness (ὁμοιότης) whatever creature is most like the nature

it imitated in its present life and will continue to change (ἀλλάσσω) until he aligns himself with

the movements that imitate the motions of the cosmos (Tim 42c-d). None of these are an exact

Christianity: Studies in Honour of Henk Jan de Jonge. Novum Testamentum, Supplements 130. (Leiden, Brill:
2008): 213–242; and Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology: 69-91.
 74

match for the ὁμοίωσις of Gen 1.26, but are close enough imitations to aid Philo in his

assimilation of the Timaeus discourse to Genesis.

Why Attend to “Likeness” and “Image” Language in Philo’s Exposition?

This attention to Philo’s use of ὁμοιότης, ὁμοίωσις, and similar terms will be important

for later in understanding several themes in the Exposition that are relevant for Romans 1.18-32.

In Part 3, we will see how the ironic inversion of language to the likeness of the image of God is

used to depict idolatry in ways that are similar to Rom 1.23. Joseph Fitzmyer dismissed the

proposal that Rom 1.23 includes an allusion to Gen 1.23 largely on the grounds that ὁμοίωσις of

Gen 1.26 differs from the ὁμοιότης of Rom 1.23 and Deut 14.15-18.155 While John Levison

called this distinction “unnecessarily wooden” in his own defense of the presence of a Gen 1.26

allusion in Rom 1.23, Fitzmyer was largely deferred to by other commentators and interest in the

allusion was largely abandoned outside of Levison.156 Philo’s flexible use of likeness language in

just On the Creation provides an example of a Jewish writer who addressed a Roman audience

slightly before Paul with a reading of Gen 1.26. Philo saw enough likeness between ὁμοιότης

and ὁμοίωσις that he was untroubled by the difference and clearly expected his readers to follow

him without any difficulty. Moreover, we shall see later that Philo’s use of Gen 1.26 forms part

of ironic use of “likeness” and “image” language for his anti-idolatry passages in his Exposition.

This will be one feature that will help us argue for a logic between Gen 1.26 and the other

proposed LXX allusions in Rom 1.23 which deal with idolatry (Deut 4.15-18, Psalm 106.20).

While likeness language does not appear in Rom 1.26-27, there is a strong link between

his reading of Gen 1.26 and his discussion of sexual intercourse in marriage, procreation, and
155
Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans. Anchor Bible Commentary 33 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992):277,
283-284.
156
John Levison, “Adam and Eve in Romans 1:18-25 and the Greek Life of Adam and Eve,” The Pseudepigrapha
and Christian Origins : Essays From the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema and James H.
Charlesworth, (New York: T&T Clark, 2008): 87-101. Critiques of Fitzmyer’s responses to Hyldahl are on page
92n19.
 75

homosexual intercourse. The likeness of language of Gen 1.26 is one of the links between Philo’s

framing of impiety in what later Christians came to call the “Fall of Adam” of Gen 3, his

treatment of Egyptian-style polytheistic idolatry and image-making throughout the Exposition,

and his critique of homosexual intercourse in Abr 135-136 and other passages of the commentary

series. Understanding the conceptual and logical links that tie these themes together in the

Exposition as a Roman-audience apologetic project can help us understand why the letter to the

Romans moves from the evocation of likeness language in Rom 1.23 to the descent into idolatry

and non-procreative homosexual intercourse in Rom 1.23-27 and the subsecquent detrioration

into general vice in Rom 1.28-32.

Anthropology in On the Creation: Humanity as Composite Being Between Two

Realms

Human Likeness to God is in Respect to the Mind Only

After describing the creation of the lower animals in Opif 62-68 Philo recounts the

creation of the human after the image of God and after his likeness in his next paraphrase of Gen

1.26-27 in Opif 69. Philo immediately qualifies the nature of the likeness, insisting that the

likeness to God is not in respect to the human body. Rather, in is in respect to the ruling part of

the soul that is the human mind human mind (κατὰ τὸν ψυξῆς ἡγεμόνα νοῦν) that the term

“εἰκών” is used, with the Logos surviving as the original archetype (ἀρχέτυπος, Opif 69). The

human mind (νοῦς) is a copy of the Logos and functions in a similar way on a microcosmic level,

occupying a position of control over the body that corresponds to the position that the Logos

enjoys as governor (ἡγεμών). Like the Logos, the human mind’s substance is invisible (ἀόρατος)

but is able to understand the substances of others. Just as the Logos is the active principle of God,
 76

the principle of human agency is the human mind made after the likeness and the image of the

Logos.157

Humans Partake of Virtue and Vice Due to Composite Nature of Mind and Body

Because humans have a mind that is a likeness of the image of God, they, unlike animals

or plants, are capable of reason. Because they possess the best of all possible gifts (δωρεά) in the

capacity to reason through their minds, humans partake of kinship (συγγενείας) with God (Opif

77). The human mind is also the dwelling place of both virtue and vice (Opif 73-75). Humans,

unlike angels, are susceptible to vice because they, like the cosmos, have a dual nature.

Humanity stands at the “borderline between mortal and immortal nature,” being mortal (θνητός)

in respect to the body but immortal (ἀθάνατος) in respect to the mind (διάνοια, Opif 135).158

They are like beings in the intelligible realm because of their likeness to the image of

God in their minds, but like beings in the sense-perceptible realm because their minds are carried

around in their bodies. Beings that only have minds but not bodies partake only in virtue, but

humans are capable of virtue and vice because they have bodies as well as minds. Pursuing

virtue is the path to immortality, but we shall see later that vice enslaves the dual nature of

humans to the corruptibility of the mortal body and makes humans more like irrational beasts.

Animals have bodies but lack rational souls, so they partake of neither virtue or vice. Animal

157
Roberto Radice, “Providence and Responsibility in Philo of Alexandria: An Analysis of Genesis 2.9,” in Fate,
Providence and Free Will: Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age, ed. René Brouwer and
Emmanuele Vimercati, Ancient Philosophy & Religion Vol 4, (Leiden: Brill, 2020): 90. Discussing All 1.28-1.29 but
relevant for the anthropology of Opif, see Roberto Radice, “Philo and Stoic Ethics. Reflections on the Idea of
Freedom,” in Philo of Alexandria and Post-Aristotelian Philosophy, ed. Francesca Calabi and Robert Berchman,
(Leiden: Brill, 2008):147-149. See also Plato’s Phaedrus 245e-246a: “For every body which derives motion from
without is soulless, but that which has its motion within itself has a soul, since that is the nature of the soul; but if
this is true,---that which moves itself is nothing else than the soul,--- the soul would necessarily be ungenerated and
immortal” (trans. Fowler). Plato, Phaedrus, in Plato I: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, trans. Harold
North Fowler, LOEB Classical Library 36, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, [1914]1990 ): 470-471. Quoted
in Florian George Calian, “Plato's Psychology of Action and the Origin of Agency,” in Affectivity, Agency and
Intersubjectivity, ed. Peter Šajda, (Bratislava: L'Harmattan, 2012):9.
158
Later in the Exposition, see also Decal 107, Spec 1.106.
 77

actions are directed towards meeting pleasure and pain related goals and to fulfilling their

appetites for food or sex. Humans are also moved by the lower part of their soul to pursue

pleasure, avoid pain, and satisfy appetites. However, pursuing the appetites of the lower parts of

the soul and the pleasures of sense-perception as the highest end is irrational for humans, who

are capable of partaking of higher, unchangeable goods through seeking true knowledge of God.

Humans are susceptible to vice through their bodies, which are subject to the

corruptibility and change of the realm of becoming. The body is a composite of mostly the lower

elements of earth and water (Opif 136, Tim 41d-44e) and is not made directly by God. Philo, like

Plato, explains the human susceptibility to vice in a way that absolves God from culpability for

human vice by commissioning subsidiarity helpers to make the human body. By reading the

phrase “let us make” in Gen 1.26 as God recruiting helpers to make the human body in its male

and female forms. Plato’s demiurge commissions lower gods for this task in the Tim 40d–47e,

but in Opif 74-75, God uses some sort of helpers that are subordinate to the creator.159 Both the

On the Creation and Timaeus accounts of the creation of the human body see the human

susceptibility to vice as a result of the limitations of the imperfect and changeable elements of

the sense-perceptible realm and of the lesser ability of the subordinates of the creator to create

high-quality copies from the model of the forms.

For Philo and Plato, God is not implicated in human vice because God’s metaphorical

hands were not directly involved in the creation of the human body. The human soul in the

likeness of the image of God, however, was made by the divine Logos rather than created

subordinates (Opif 72-75, 139, Tim 41c-42e).160 The immortality of the likeness of the image of

159
On the nature of the subordinate helpers as either God’s subordinate powers, the heavenly bodies, or angels
Runia’s commentary , On the Creation: 240-241.
160
See John M.G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015): 219,
citing Opif 72-75 in the Exposition and parallel passages in the Allegorical Commentary: Fug 68-70 and Mut 30-31.
 78

God in the human mind is due to it being God’s own handiwork and to its composition of God’s

breath- the fiery air of divine πνεῦμα. In the Timaeus, it is necessary that mortal creatures be

created by the lower gods rather than the highest God. If God created lower animals directly,

they should be made equal to the gods and immortal (Tim 51b-c).

Philo is aided in this Platonized reading of the dual nature of humanity and the cosmos by

a structural similarity in the Timaeus and Genesis, both of which have two stories relating the

creation of humanity (Tim 40d–47e and 69a–92c; Gen 1.26-29 and 2.7). The immortal human

soul which was created in Gen 1.26-27 in the creation of the intelligible realm is united with the

mortal human body in Gen 2.7 when God breathes divine breath of life into the first human’s

face (Opif 134-135) after forming the human from the clay, making a composite creature of

“earthly substance and divine spirit” (πνεύματος θείου, Opif 135). Philo highlights the great

difference between the intelligible human made after the image of God and the composite human

of the realm of becoming. The incorporeal soul is intelligible, neither male or female, and by

nature incorruptible (ἄφθαρτος) because of its likeness to the divine image. In the union of body

and soul, the human is an object of sense-perception, either male or female, and mortal (θνητός)

by nature (Opif 134).

The Ensoulment of the Human Body in Gen 2.7

Philo’s evaluation of the goodness of creation, embodiment, and sense perception was

much higher than Plato’s, but Philo still needed a way to guard God’s goodness and providence

by distancing God from the human potential for vice that occurs because of their dual nature.161

Philo was constrained by Gen 2.7 to have God involved in making the first human human body

in his discussion of the second Genesis creation account later, but distinguishes in Opif 135

between God’s activities as Craftsman who makes the body and as Father and Ruler who
161
Runia, Creation: 237-238.
 79

breathes the rational soul into the body. The rational human soul was joined to the human body

when God breathed into the face of the first human in Philo’s reading of Gen 2.7. Philo

emphasizes that the face is the seat of the senses in the body, foreshadowing later discussions of

the rational mind’s dependence on the senses to obtain information about the created world

which become the subjects of the mind’s deliberation. The senses are operated by the irrational

soul which animates the body much like the soul possessed by animals, except in humans this

lower soul is meant to be subject to the higher, rational soul’s rule of reason.

Philo’s Platonized reading of Genesis treats the cosmos as having a dual nature. Humans

as a microcosm of the cosmos have a dual nature as well. We saw that the unchanging,

incorruptible, immortal heavenly realm of the cosmos is superior to the inferior, changeable,

corruptible, mortal realm of creation. In the same way, the immortal part of the human soul that

constitutes the rational mind is superior to the corruptible human body. While the human body is

good, we have seen that it makes humans susceptible to vice due to its changeability. While the

human mind should rule over the body just as Logos and heaven rule over the earth, we shall see

later that the appetites and pleasures of the body are capable of enslaving the mind. We shall also

see that human enslavement to vice and the pleasures of the body disorders other parts of

creation because the Logos and God’s powers alone do not rule over the domain of creation

under the moon, but humans have dominion over parts of the cosmos due to their rational ability

to rule over lower creatures.

Τέλη: Assimilation to God, Following After God, Conformity to Nature, Bliss

The first human (Philo only uses the name “Adam” once in the Exposition in Opif 149)

was the embodiment of the Stoic ideal of being a “citizen of the world” (Opif 142-143).162
162
Note that in the introduction to On the Creation, Philo declares that the man who follows the Law of nature is a
citizen of the cosmos (Opif 3).
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Alluding to the Middle Platonic ideal of “likeness to God” (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ) “so far as this is

possible” from Theaetetus 176b,163 Philo writes that the first human “followed” the Father and

King in the “highways that the virtues marked out, because only those souls are permitted to

approach him who consider the goal of their existence to be assimilation to the God who brought

them forth.”

By evoking the τέλος of ὁμοίωσις θεῷ of the Theaetetus (echoed in Tim 90d), Philo’s

repetition of Gen 1.26-27’s καθ᾽ὁμοίωσιν in reference to the human mind being made in the

likeness of the image of God becomes the τέλος of composite humanity, whose task is to

assimilate to God. The imagery of the first human “following” God also evokes the Pythagorean

τέλος of“following after God,” while the discussion of the first human’s cosmopolitan harmony

with order of nature in the proceeding sections of Opif 142-143 evoke both the Stoic τέλος of

“living according to nature.” The Aristotelian τέλος of εὐδαιμονία is also present throughout the

Exposition (Opif 135, 144, 150-156, 172). Εὐδαιμονία is an activity of the human mind

characterized by bliss well-being worthy of a human being in which the divine portion the

human (the mind) is ordered virtuously and directed towards goodness (EE I.1217a).164

In the Exposition, “living according to nature,” “following after God” and εὐδαιμονία

are all subsumed under “assimilation to God.”165 All of these τέλη depend on the assumption that

the human mind participates in some way with the mind of God and that through conforming

their minds to the rational order of the cosmos reflecting the mind of the creator, humans are able

163
φυγὴ δὲ ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν ὁμοίωσις δὲ δίκαιον καὶ ὅσιον μετὰ φρονήσεως γενέσθαι. “...to escape is
to become like God, so far as this is possible; and to become like God is to become righteous and holy and wise,”
trans. Fowler.
164
H.A.S. Schankula, “Plato and Aristotle: Εὐδαιμονία, Ἕξις or Ἐνέργεια?” Classical Philology 66, no. 4 (1971):
244–46.
165
Other references to assimilation to God as τέλος in the Exposition include Decal 73. Spec 1.14, Spec 2.14, Spec
4.188, Spec 4.73, and Virt 167-168. For “following God,” Abr 60, Decal 98, Decal 100, Spec 4.187 (followed by
“assimilation to God” in Spec 4.188), and Praem 98. For “living according to nature,” Opif 3, Decal 81, Praem
111-13. See Sterling, “Imitatio Dei”352-355; and John Dillon, “Philo and the Telos: Some Reflections,” in The
Studia Philonica Annual 28 (2016):111-120.
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to assimilate to God and live in accord to nature according to their creaturely capacities, living in

a way that is worthy of creature who is closely akin to God.166 This likeness to the image of God

in the mind is therefore the greatest gift of God’s many gracious benefactions to humanity (Opif

77, Decal 134) and the principle of human agency through which humans can pursue

assimilation to God.

Hierarchy of the Cosmos

Philo’s Cosmological Hierarchy and Its Relevance for Rom 1.18-32

In the last sections, we saw that Philo uses keywords from Gen 1.26-28 to import Plato’s

dual cosmology and anthropology onto Genesis. This modifies an existing Jewish exegetical

tradition implicit already in the Septuagint that read Gen 1 as a hierarchy of the cosmos by

introducing Platonic and Stoic hierarchical elements that developed from their readings of the

Timaeus. Deut 4.15-19, an important passage for the understanding of Rom 1.23 due to its

allusion to Deut 4.15-18, seems itself to allude to Gen 1. Deut 4.15-19 treats Gen 1 as a

hierarchy that is violated by the idolatrous worship of lower parts of the hierarchy over God.167

Onto the Gen 1 cosmological hierarchy tradition, Philo’s incorporation of the Timaeus and Stoic

elements adds the superiority of the participation in the eternal heavenly realm over the realm

created in time, rationality over irrationality, active over passive, masculine over feminine, and

higher elements over lower elements. Gen 1.26 has also been suggested as a component of the

compound allusion of LXX verses in Rom 1.23. Looking at how Philo uses Gen 1.26 as part of a

broader hierarchy that draws from Gen 1 and Platonic and Stoic appropriations of the Timaeus

will help us understand the logic of these allusions in Rom 1.23.

166
Radice, “Providence and Responsibility in Philo of Alexandria”: 90.
167
In the section on Philo’s treatment of idolatry in the Exposition in Part 2, we will see how Philo quotes Deut 4.19
in ways that confirm that he reads Deut 4 as a hierarchy of the cosmos that aligns with his reading of Gen 1 as a
hierarchy of the cosmos. In Part 4, we will look at the Deut 4.15-18 allusion and Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23 in
greater depth, arguing that Deut 4.15-18 alludes to Gen 1 and that Paul likely intended to evoke this tradition in Rom
1.23.
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We also saw that Philo uses Gen 1.26 to portray humans as having a special likeness to

God through the image of their likeness to God in their minds. This supplies their τέλος of

pursuing likeness to God in so far as it is possible. Like the reading of Gen 1.26 to

incorporporated the hierarchical elements of Plato’s dual cosmos, the human likeness to the

image of God (the Logos) has implications for Philo’s cosmological hierarchy. Levels of

participation in the Logos determine the place of any created being on Philo’s cosmological

hierarchy. We will see below that the human likeness to the image of God equips humans to have

dominion over the rest of creation due to their rationality in Philo’s Stoicized reading of Gen

1.28, 32.

Human moral progress or regress in Philo’s writings can be marked as an ascent along the

hierarchy as the soul becomes more like the image of God or descent into vice as the soul loses

its qualities that make it more like the Logos as it becomes more like the irrational beasts and

lower, passive elements of the cosmos. Romans 1.18-32 has already been described as depicting

a decline along the cosmological hierarchy, with Troels Engberg-Pedersen likening it to a Stoic

scala naturae and Johanne Vorster providing a more detailed argument discussing bodily

hierarchy in Rom 1.18-32 that is very similar to Philo’s own.168 Attending to how Philo depicts

moral ascent and descent along the cosmological hierarchy can help us understand how a similar

tradition seems to be functioning in Rom 1.18-32. Depiction of descent into vice in the

Exposition in ways that help us make sense of Romans 1.18-32 will have to wait until Part 3, but

the pattern of ascent on which descent into vice depends is introduced in On the Creation and

will be described below. However, we will see at the end of Part 2 how the origin of the descent

into vice occurs in Philo’s reading of Gen 3 as humans impiously violate the good ordering of the

Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000): 209. Johanne N.
168

Vorster also discussed Rom 1.18-32 as a hierarchy in ways that strongly evoke Philo’s hierarchy in “Bodily Parts
Vying for Power: Hierarchies and Bodies in Early Christianity.” Scriptura 80, (2002): 298-301.
 83

hierarchy of existence by pursuing knowledge of the lower, sense-perceptible creation as their

highest end rather than the higher, true knowledge of the eternal God in ways that strongly evoke

Rom 1.18-25.

Logos as God’s Rational, Active and Creative Powers

The ultimate Active cause of the universe is at the top of Philo’s hierarchy and acts upon

the passive object to bring all that exists other than God into being (Opif 7-8). This Active cause

is God for Philo and Plato, while the Stoics called their highest active cause (who was imminent

rather than transcendent) the Logos. Both Philo and Plato use an intermediary to preserve God’s

utter transcendence from the changeable world that we know through our senses, whereas Stoics

collapsed Plato’s dual realms of Being and Becoming into the physical world. Plato uses the

demiurge, and Philo uses the Logos. Philo’s Logos, rather than being a separate and lower entity,

is continuous with God and contains God’s active, creative, rational powers. Philo’s Logos is

pure activity, generative creativity, reason, light, goodness, beauty, harmony and order. The

Logos is eternal, unchanging, immortal, incorruptible, invisible, and without a body. To the

extent that any created thing participates in those qualities, it’s because they received them from

the Logos and participate in the Logos, which contains all the original patterns of the entire

cosmos, including all the perfect patterns for interrelation of all the parts of the cosmos to the

whole.

All Good Qualities in Creation are from the Participation of the Passive in the Active Power of

the Logos

In a passage that closely parallels Tim 29e-30b, Philo explained God’s that

“cosmos-producing” power contained within the Logos and the intelligible realm has its source

in the true goodness (ἀλήθειαν ἀγαθόν) of the Father and Maker of all. Motivated by his
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goodness, God gives unstintingly of his beneficence in creating the cosmos (Opif 21-25). By

itself, the passive receptacle lacked order, quality, soul, and likeness (ἀνόμοιος).169 The active

cause gives passive matter order, soul, likeness (ὁμοιότης), harmony, and other traits belonging

to the intelligible realm.170 Without God’s grace (χάρις, Opif 21, 23) the passive element could

not sustain the qualities imbued as God’s life-giving gifts (δωρεά, Opif 23). However, because of

the active force of the Logos, the passive element could undergo a “change” (μεταβολή) for a

better state of greater conformity to the model (Opif 22) not in proportion to God’s

overwhelmingly vast power, but in proportion to the passive receptacles capacity to receive (Opif

23).

Hierarchy and Participation in God’s Goodness

Hierarchy exists in God’s creation because everything other than God is different from

God. As God is better than anything in existence, everything else that exists has to be lower than

God on the hierarchy of the cosmos. However, everything that exists has its origin, qualities,

order, and life from God’s Logos, the repository of God’s active, creative, and rational powers.

All things that exist are like God in some ways because they participate in God’s life-giving

Spirit, but are unlike God in some ways because they are created beings that contain less of the

God’s active power than the uncreated God. Similarity and Difference are built into the fabric of

creation.171 The more something is like God, the higher it is on the hierarchy. The less something

169
Philo uses ἀνόμοιος elsewhere in the Exposition: Opif 22. See Barclay, Paul and the Gift: 219, which discusses
Philo’s arguments for God’s motive of goodness in choosing to create the cosmos and how God is not the cause of
evil. Barclay notes parallel passages to Philo in Plato, citing Tim 29b-d and Resp 379b-d in the text and Theaet 176c
in n17. Philonic passages cited in this section include Abr 268 and Spec 4.187 from the Exposition but not the first
and establishing use of the theme in the series in Opif 21-25. Barclay also includes Agr 129 from the Allegorical
Commentary series.
170
Demiurge and Providence: 43
171
On the cosmological significance of Same and Different in the Timaeus and Plato’s cosmos, see Lloyd Gerson,
“Plato on Identity, Sameness, and Difference,”The Review of Metaphysics, 58, no. 2 (Dec., 2004): 305-332.
 85

is like God, the lower it is on the hierarchy and the less it partakes of qualities like goodness,

beauty, incorruptibility, mind/reason, activity, immortality, etc.

Ascent and Descent of the Soul Along the Cosmological Hierarchy

The Soul’s Ascent in Phaedrus and On the Creation

Humanity’s pursuit of the τέλος of assimilation to God is most frequently depicted in

Philo’s commentaries as an ascent of the rational, ruling part of the soul along the ontological

hierarchy of the cosmos in pursuit of increasingly higher forms of knowledge.172 This motif

draws heavily from Plato’s flight of the soul away from the changeable, material world to the

invisible, unchangeable realm of God in Phaedrus 246a-249d.173 Like the cosmology,

anthropology, and account of vice in the Timaeus and the τέλος of the Theaetetus, the flight and

fall of the soul in the Phaedrus was a central construct for Middle Platonists, often closely

interwoven with elements of the Timaeus in their writings.174 Philo describes the higher part of

the soul, in the likeness of the image of God, “having taken wings” (Opif 70, alluding to the

wings of the soul in Phaedr 246a-249d)175 sours the strata of the cosmos, drawn up away from

172
On the relationship between the ascent of the mind motif in Philo to the τέλος of assimilation to God in
Theaetetus 176b, see Gregory E. Sterling, "Dancing with the Stars: The Ascent of the Mind in Philo of Alexandria"
In Apocalypticism and Mysticism in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by John J. Collins, Pieter G. R.
Villiers and Adela Yarbro Collins. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018):155-156.
173
Cited by Sterling, “Dancing with the Stars”: 157.
174
Dillon, Middle Platonists: 8.
175
Noted by Sterling, “Dancing with the Stars”:159-160. On the mixing of imagery from the Phaedrus with the
blinding light of the sun in an ascent in Plato’s Republic, see Michael Cover, “The Sun and the Chariot:The Republic
and the Phaedrus as Sources for Rival Platonic Paradigms of Psychic Vision in Philo’s Biblical Commentaries,”
Studia Philonica Annual 26 (2014): 151–167. On the use of Diotima’s Ladder of Love with the story of Jacob’s
Ladder as ascent of the soul in Philo, see George van Kooten, “Three Symposia: Plato, Philo and John—An Exercise
in Triangulation.” (Inaugural lecture Lady Margaret’s Chair of Divinity, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK,
February, 19, 2019):
https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/inaugural-lecture-george-van-kooten-three-symposia.pdf .
Kooten’s lecture discusses Philo’s use of Diotima’s Ladder of Love in his reading of Jacob’s Ladder in Somn
1.146-147. Though his biography On the Life of Jacob from the Exposition is lost, references to how Philo read the
Jacob’s Ladder as an ascent of the soul survive elsewhere in the Exposition, such as Praem 36-48, with the ascent up
the “οὐρανίου κλίμακος” (heavenly ladder) mentioned in Praem 43.
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the material, sense-perceptible (αἴσθητός) realm towards the intelligible realm of God’s Image

(the Logos). Contemplating the heavenly realm, the mind follows a love of wisdom (ἑπόμενος

ἔρωτι σοφια, like is drawn to like (Opif 70-71).

The νοῦς ascends through the levels of the cosmos and reaches for the intelligible realm,

rational likeness pursuing that which it is most like in the form of the purest knowledge

(ἐπιστήμη) of heavenly objects (Opif 77). Upon perceiving the patterns and (παραδείγματα καὶ

ίδέας) that it had seen as sense-perceptible copies on earth, the mind goes into an ecstatic state of

“sober drunkenness” drawn to move even higher past the intelligibles to the “Great King,” but

radiant and pure light streams forth dazzling the eyes of the understanding.

Though the human mind is drawn with longing to perceive the Great King, it is only a

copy and cannot contain such knowledge. The soul’s ascent had begun with noting that like God,

the human soul was invisible and it’s own essence (οὐσία) was imperceptible, though it could

comprehend the essence of others. The dazzling of the ascending souls as it reaches for the Great

King in its quest to apprehend first sense-perceptible, then intelligible essences hints at a theme

developed later in the Exposition, in which Philo clarifies that God can only be partially known

by the human mind in his existence but not in his essence.176 The human mind is like any other

image in being imperfect and unlike its pattern in some respects. God knows the essences of all,

176
See especially Spec 1.28-50, which explains how the knowability of God’s existence from nature supports the
prohibition of idolatry and the refutation of atheism and retells the soul’s quest to ascend to the knowledge of God in
1.36-40 in similar terms to the first ascent narrative in Opif 70-71. Spec 1.32 sees genuine philosophers asking two
questions about God: Whether God really exists, and what God is in essence. Spec 1.35 sees God’s existence as
established from the philosophy implicit in Moses’s account of creation, but Spec 1.32 questions that the question of
God’s essence may be beyond our apprehension. However, Philo continues in Spec 1.26-37, “Nothing is better than
the search for the true God, even if the discovery eludes human capacity, since the very wish to learn, if earnestly
entertained, produces untold joys and pleasures” (trans Colson). Spec 1.40 concludes that "a clear vision of God as
He really is is denied us."On the distinction between God’s existence (knowable by the human mind) and God’s
existence (not knowable), see Frick,“Monotheism and Philosophy”: 241-242. See also Sterling, “Dancing with the
Stars”: 160-161, which notes Philo’s use of the heavenly feast motif of Phaedr 247a-b in Opif 71.On whether Philo
sees the heavenly vision of the soul as pertaining to the Logos, God’s powers, or God himself, see Scott Mackie,
“Seeing God in Philo of Alexandria: The Logos, the Powers, or the Existent One?” Studia Philonica Annual 21
(2009): 25–47.
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but the rational human soul cannot contain the knowledge of the Great King. From this, Philo

concludes that the phrase in adding “καθ' ὁμοίωσιν”immediately after “κατ' εἰκὼν,” Moses

intended that humans intended to portray humans as only an accurate cast of an image rather than

completely like the image of God (Opif 72).

The ascending soul, blinded by the radiance of the intelligible realm, demonstrates

longing for the highest knowledge of that which is unchangeable and best is the origin of

philosophy, through which the mortal human is made immortal (απαθανατιζω, Opif 77).177 The

soul’s ascent, drawn by erotic longing in pursuit of the highest wisdom certain knowledge of the

unchanging and heavenly objects of the intelligible realm will later be contrasted with a narrative

of the soul’s descent into vice. Φρόνησις, or the practical wisdom gained about changeable

objects of sense-perception (αἴσθητός) will be abused by the first human who prioritizes

knowledge about the created world over knowledge of the Creative Logos of God as he pursues

the pleasures (ἡδονή)of the body as the highest end and becomes enslaved to earthly passions.178

The Soul’s Ascent and the Strata of the Elements

Philo’s reading of Gen 1.1-3 (Opif 29-35) as the creation of the intelligible patterns for

the four elements on Day One of creation does important work in Philo’s cosmological hierarchy

and also sets up his model of the warfare of the soul for later in the Exposition. Gen 1.1-3 is one

of the few passages of scripture that Philo directly quotes in On the Creation, mining it for

keywords to import his Platonized cosmology just as he does with Gen 1.26. Shared key words

177
The association between the νοῦς, πιστήμη, and σοφια with the soul’s ascent driven by erotic longing for
knowledge of the intelligible realm will later be contrasted with a narrative of the soul’s descent into vice as it is
drawn with erotic longing by the capacity for sense-perception (αἴσθησις) and a desire for practical wisdom
(φρόνησις) of changeable objects that bring bodily pleasure (ἡδονή).
178
Philo’s distinction between the higher wisdom regarding intelligible objects of σοφια and the good but lower
wisdom of φρόνησις directed towards sense-perceptible objects draws heavily from book six of Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics and will be discussed in greater detail later.
 88

in Gen 1.1-3 and the Timaeus are used tovimport the four elements of fire, air, water, and earth as

well as chaos and the void into Genesis so that they will be available to explain the

changeableness of the sense-perceptible world and the human tendency toward irrational

passions (Tim 57d). Philo selects keywords like ἀόρατος, γῆ, σκότος, ἄβυσσος, πνεῦμα, ὕδατος,

and φῶς,out of Gen 1.2 to support his cosmology, while εἰκών and ὁμοίωσις in Gen 1.26 support

both his cosmology and anthropology.

Whereas heaven is characterized by light, the inferior copy of the created earth is

characterized by partial darkness due to its material nature and incomplete participation in the

intelligible realm. The intelligible pattern of the element of air is dark until it is infused with the

more active, divine element of fire (Opif 29-35 Abr 205, Mos 2.87-88). In contrast to heaven,

earth as an imperfect copy is subject to light and darkness. Philo read the separation from the

darkness and the light as God’s way of preventing a kind of warfare (Opif 32-35). Because the

human soul is a microcosm of the macrocosm, this description of God’s prevention of warfare in

the cosmos anticipates how humans can separate the light from the darkness in the microcosm of

their souls, putting an end to its warfare after the struggle with vice has been introduced (Opif

81). This foreshadows later the warfare of the soul and warfare of people groups. Both kinds of

ware are occasionally portrayed in the Exposition as the virtue and reason imbuing light fighting

with the unreasoning darkness of vice within a void (κενός) of the soul, a term that Philo had

introduced as the meaning of ἄβυσσος in Gen 1.2 after reading the darkness (σκότος) as God’s

name for the non corporeal form of the element of air in its purest state before it is mixed with

light (Tim 58d, Praem 79-93).

At the beginning of the narrative of the soul’s ascent in Opif 69-71, we see the mind first

explore the land, dominated by the element of (γῆ), gaining knowledge of the arts and sciences.
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It then explores the realm of the element of water (ὕδωρ) by sailing the sea. It next soars through

the atmosphere, filled with the element of air (ἀέρ), moving higher to the ether (αἰθέρ) as it

contemplates the heavens before being blinded by the dazzling noetic light when it reaches for

the Great King. The dazzling light emanating from above the intelligible heavens had been

previously introduced in Opif 29-35 as part of the discussion of the creation of the forms of the

elements in his reading of Gen 1.2. Philo had introduced the concept of intelligible or “noetic”

light (νοητικός φῶς), which enlightens the human mind.179

The rational soul receiving the radiance of intelligible light is analogous to the human

physical eyes receiving physical light. By means of the noetic light, humans can perceive beyond

the imperfect copies of the sense-perceptible world and apprehend the intelligible forms in the

mind of the Logos.180The pure and undiluted radiance of intelligible light is dimmed as it

undergoes the change (μεταβολή) involved in the passage of the intelligible to the

sense-perceptible (Opif §31, Tim 45c). The intelligible light must overcome the dark void of

unreason in the soul, lest it be filled with vice.The concept of noetic light will be relevant when

we look at the heart of Rom 1.21 that becomes darkened when it fails to acknowledge God with

thanksgiving as the source of all that exists. We shall see later how the light of turning to God as

179
See George van Kooten’s discussion of the noetic light in Philo’s On the Creation and it’s relevance of the
relationship between light and Logos in the Gospel of John and in Genesis in George van Kooten, “‘The True Light
Which Enlightens Everyone’ (John 1:9): John, Genesis, the Platonic Notion of the ‘True, Noetic Light,’ and the
Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic.” Creation of Heaven and Earth : Re-interpretations of Genesis I in the
Context of Judaism, Ancient Philosophy, Christianity, and Modern Physics, ed. George van Kooten. (Leiden: Brill,
2004):144-155.
180
Following Plato, Philo ranks the senses of the body. Vision and hearing are considered the most superior with
vision being the best of all due to its likeness to the “sight” of the rational mind. The rational mind as the source of
human agency reaches out to explore the world. Similarly, the bodily sense of vision was understood to reach out to
the world in search of sense-perceptible objects of knowledge. Hearing was understood to be a passive sense
because it had to wait for sound to come to the ears rather than seeking out objects of perception like vision. Note
Paul’s emphasis on the passive sense of hearing in Romans 10.6-8 and it’s allusions to Deut 30.11-14 relative to
Philo’s emphasis on the active sense of the sight of the mind and the active hand to obey God’s law in his treatments
of Deut 30.11-14 in Virt 182-184 and Praem 79-84 at the end of the Exposition.
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creator after contemplating the cosmos is contrasted with the denial of this naturally available

knowledge of God in the darkness of idolatry.

The treatment of the elements in Opif 29-35 introduced the priority of light over

darkness. This is associated with the superiority of the heavenly realm over the earthly realm,

which participates in darkness due to its imperfect participation in the form of heaven of which it

is a copy. The basic superiority of light over darkness and heaven over earth in On the Creation

is also seen in the gradient of the four elements. The soul’s ascent from the sense-perceptible

realm to the intelligible realm in search of knowledge of God is an ascent along the hierarchy of

the four elements of earth, water, air, and fire that make up the cosmos. Like Plato, Philo

explained why the sense-perceptible realm is subject to change through the interchange of the

four elements. Human bodies are made of the same elements and are also subject to this change,

which explains the tendency towards the change of the soul to vice. The characteristic motion of

each element tended to concentrate the elements in different strata even as they mixed with other

elements or partially changed into other elements.

The element of earth is the heaviest and least like the heavenly realm. It can be blended

into other elements, but it cannot change into other elements. Each of the three higher elements

of water, fire, and air can change into each other. The more earth and water in a body, the heavier

it is and the less it is filled with the divine, life-giving, reason imbuing πνεῦμα, which is made up

of a mixture of the higher substances of air and fire. Philo had introduced the four elements in

Opif 29-35 in his reading of Genesis 1.1-3 as the creation of the intelligible patterns for earth,

mining keywords from Genesis to import the Platonizing cosmology from the Timaeus that he

would need to account for the changeableness of the human soul as well as sense perceptible

creation.
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The higher elements of fire and air are more associated with reason, heaven, the bliss of

the soul’s quest for knowledge of God, immortality, incorruptibility, and activity (associated

with masculinity). The lower elements of water and earth with irrationality, earthliness , the

pleasures of the body, mortality, corruptibility, and passivity (associated with femininity).181

Later we will see that throughout the Exposition, people who are consumed by irrational passions

and the lusts of the body are associated with the element of earth. Like serpents and other reptiles

that crawl on the earth on their bellies, the vicious lusts of their bellies are associated with being

closest to the lowest element of earth rather than the higher elements associated with rationality

and heaven. Earthliness is associated with descent of the soul to vice and the higher elements are

associated with ascent along the hierarchy of the cosmos to virtue. In turn, this will help us

understand the imagery of Rom 1.21 in which the heart becomes darkened and its reasoning

becomes futile, inaugurating a decline in the soul to idolatrous worship of creatures of declining

rank in the cosmological hierarchy and sexual behaviors associated with the unrestrained lusts of

irrational, wild animals and the loss of the capacity to procreate.

The Soul’s Ascent and the Heavenly Light of Reason

The Soul’s Ascent and the Platonized Scala Naturae

The soul’s ascent from the sense-perceptible realm made up of changing elements to the

intelligible realm beyond the ether was also an ascent up Philo’s Platonized version of the Stoic

scala naturae, or “Ladder of Nature.” Philo uses components of the Stoic hierarchy, though he

rejects Stoic physicalism and protects the transcendence of God through the distinction between

the sense-perceptible realm of Becoming and the invisible, intelligible realm of the Logos. Opif

73 describes a hierarchy of creation in which plants and animals do not partake of either virtue or

Sharon Lea Matilla, “Wisdom, Sense Perception, Nature, and Philo’s Gender Gradient,” in The Harvard
181

Theological Review 89, no. 2 (1996): 106.

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vice because they lack reason, purely heavenly beings like do not partake in vice because they

lack earthly bodies, and humans partake of virtue and vice because they have the capacity for

reason and an earthly body.

As Runia notes, this hierarchy, while often being marked as a Stoic scala naturae, is

sufficiently general to appeal to “Stoics, Platonists, and Aristotelians.” Philo’s hierarchy

manifests the dual realms of Middle Platonism while also emphasizing human dominion due to a

higher position on the hierarchy relative to lower animals due to superior rationality, as with the

Stoic scala naturae. Drawing partly from the hierarchy of soul in the Timaeus and the

Peripatetic scala naturae, the Stoics developed their own cosmological hierarchy that

emphasized humans as lesser than the Logos and the lower gods but higher than animals and the

rest of creation. The gradation of levels of soul originating from the creator and their greater or

lesser participation in the divine πνεῦμα (rendering them more or less immortal) is present in the

Timaeus, but was developed further by Aristotle and the Stoics in ways that reflect how they

modified Plato’s tripartite soul.

Plato’s tripartite model of the soul had posited that the soul was made of one immortal

part located and two mortal parts that were distributed in different regions of the body (Tim

69c-e).182 The immortal, rational soul (λόγος) was made by the demiurge out of a less pure

mixture of soul used to make the World Soul located in the head (Tim 42a–44d). The energetic

soul (θυμος) in the upper chest and close enough to the λόγος to attend to reason (Tim 69e-70a).

The appetitive soul (ἔρως) was in the belly (Tim 70a, 77b) and was capable of partaking in the

pleasure and pain apprehended by sense-perception (αἴσθησις) and desire (ἐπιθυμίαι) but was too

182
Resp 439e–442c, Phaedr 253d–254e cited by Josh Wilburn, “The Spirited Part of the Soul in Plato’s
Timaeus,”Journal of the History of Philosophy 52, no 4 (2014): 627.
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far away from the head to partake of the reasoning and opinion-making operations of the mind.183

When discussing the soul in the dialogue, the character of Timaeus often treats the lower parts of

the soul as one unit and calls it the “mortal soul.”184

The energetic θυμος could submit to the reason of the λόγος and subdue the appetites of

the ἔρως. However, if the passions generated in the belly by ἔρως were joined by the spirited

force by the θυμος, they would overwhelm the reasoning faculty of the λόγος and the composite

human would be consumed by the chaos of passions in pursuit of the pleasures of the lower

things of earth. If the human mastered the mortal soul with the rational, immortal soul by

conforming the motions of the mind to the order of the cosmos, its immortal part would cause it

to rise up to its origin. Souls who were consumed by vice were punished in the next life by being

reincarnated as a being lower on the hierarchy of the cosmos, returning as the creature most like

the focus of their consuming passions in their previous life (Tim 42, 91-92).

Aristotle had rejected Plato’s tripartite division of the soul and had subsumed the

functions of Plato’s λόγος, θυμος, and ἔρως into different functions of the soul: nutritive,

sensory, locomotive, and mind. The control center of the soul in the body was the heart muscle

(καρδία).185 Aristotle then classified all of life on a scala naturae (ladder of nature or being)

based on whether a living thing was capable of these functions. Aristotle’s ladder can be more

easily understood as a spectrum. Things further along the spectrum have all the capacities of

entities lower down the spectrum. The Stoics adopted and adapted a great deal of Aristotle’s

psychology and ethics in their own scala naturae.

183
Olaf Pettersson, “A Multiform Desire: A Study of Appetite in Plato’s Timaeus, Republic, and Phaedrus,” PhD
diss, (Uppsala Universitet, 2013): 50-51.
184
See discussion in Pettersson, “Multiform Desire”: 51-52.
185
Solmsen, “Scale of Beings”: 149.
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All beings in the Stoic cosmos were ordered on a scala naturae (ladder of being) from

lesser to greater according to the level of pneumatic tension in their bodies, which was generated

through the movement of the πνεῦμα of the Logos reverberating through the cosmos. As the

active elements of pneumatic fire and air infused the passive elements of water and earth, all

things that exist were given cohesion (ἕξις). At the bottom of the ladder were inorganic things

with the coherence of ἕξις, followed by living things with the pneumatic tension of φύσις (nature,

analogous to Aristotle’s nutritive soul), which made them capable of growth and reproduction.

All animals, including humans, possessed the pneumatic tension of ψυχή (analogous to

Aristotle’s locomotive and sensory souls), which made them capable of sensory perception and

movement.

Above all other animals, plants, and nonliving things were humans and gods, who

possessed the pneumatic tension of ψυχή λογιστικόν, which made them capable of reason and

speech by virtue of the high level of the pneumatic tension of the Logos.186 Just as Plato

attributed human rationality to the highest part of the soul being made by the demiurge out of a

lower grade of divine πνεῦμα, Stoic anthropology attributed the powers of reason and speech of

the ψυχή λογιστικόν to greater participation in the Logos. As the ruling part of the soul, the ψυχή

λογιστικόν operates all of the other functions of the soul (speech, the five senses, reproduction)

from the control center in the heart muscle (καρδία).

Philo’s Platonic model of ascent and descent of the soul could be transposed, when

needed, to describe moral progress or regress as ascent or descent along the scala naturae. In

conforming their souls to nature by obeying the Law of Nature/Law of Moses and pursuing

virtue, Philo’s virtuous patriarchs in the Exposition became more like the Logos and exercised

See section 2b of Scott Rubarth. “Stoic Philosophy of Mind,”Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer
186

Reviewed Academic Resource,” 2002, https://www.iep.utm.edu/stoicmind/.

 95

their dominion over nature. The vicious and wicked slid down the scala naturae, forfeiting the

master they enjoyed through virtue of reason and becoming more like beasts who were lower

than them on the scala naturae. Those consumed by sexual lusts indiscriminately copulated like

animals. Those who failed to seek the higher good of likeness to God and worshipped

sense-perceptible creation degraded their call to have dominion over animals and made

themselves like the animals that idols of animals that they worshipped.

Because of the way Philo blends Stoic and Middle Platonic elements, someone who was

more inclined to a Platonist model of the soul could interpret this decline as the mortal parts of

the soul in the chest and the belly overcoming the rationality of the mind in the head. This is also

aided by the Stoic hierarchy’s genealogical relationship to Aristotelian and Platonic hierarchies.

In all the models, the human is a microcosm that is best ordered according to the divine order of

the macrocosm. Virtue is an ascent towards rationality and vice is a descent away from the

rationality of the creator through the pull of the lower elements of the body, which enslave the

soul vice through the allure of sensory pleasures.

Rationality and Human Dominion Over Creation in Gen 1.26, 28.

Human Dominion Over Creation Because of a Likeness to God’s Rational Nature

In addition to being more appealing to an audience with greater familiarity and affinity to

Stoicism, the Stoic scala naturae offered Philo a way of reading the Gen 1.26, 28 call for

humans to have dominion over the animals and the creation. Plato’s ontological hierarchy had

not emphasized humanity’s entitlement to rule over the lower animals and creation because of

greater possession of rationality.187However, in Stoic’s held a teleological view of the cosmos in

Solmsen, “Scale of Beings”: 162-164. On the development of the Stoic scala naturae from Aristotle, see Hahm,
187

Stoic Cosmology: 163-170. Also Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, (Cambridge: Harvard University
 96

which lower orders of creation existed for the benefit of humanity. The human soul was

considered a spark of the World Soul of the Logos, thus making it a microcosm of the

macrocosm.188 Because of their higher levels of pneumatic tension, humans were more like the

Logos than any other creature in the cosmos except for the gods and therefore capable of ruling

through reason. The ruling part of the human mind in the heart muscle (καρδία) was thus

analogous to the rule of the Logos in the cosmos, befitting humans to rule beings lower on the

ladder of the scala naturae.189

Stoic Scala Naturae and Human Dominion Over Creation in Gen 1.26,28

The Stoic model helped Philo articulate why God gave dominion over so much of

creation in Gen 1.26, 28. In Opif 65-66, we see how Philo blends in elements of the Stoic scala

naturae with a similar description of the capacities of animals in Tim 39e-40a to emphasize the

human position in the creation due to kinship with God through the rational mind. Philo notes

that Moses has described the order in which the animals were created in Gen 1.20-31 relative to

levels of soul. Birds and land animals have keener capacities, senses and powers by virtue of

their souls than fishes, and humanity possesses the mind as the highest level of soul in the

sense-perceptible creation.190 Opif 73 describes a hierarchy of creation in which plants and

animals do not partake of either virtue or vice because they lack reason, purely heavenly beings

like do not partake in vice because they lack earthly bodies, and humans partake of virtue and

vice because they have the capacity for reason and an earthly body. Everything that God has

Press, 1936) 45-66, esp. 58-59. On the Stoic scala naturae and the human rational soul, see chapter 2 on “Human
Nature and the Rational Soul” in Inwood, Human Action:18-41.
188
Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence: 59.
189
A.A. Long, “Soul and Body in Stoicism,” Phronesis 27, no. 1 (1982): 34-57.
190
Runia, On the Creation: 215-218.
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made is categorized along a hierarchy according to its level of participation in materiality and

reason.

Humans, made rational due to a likeness of the image of God in their rational souls, were

fit to have dominion over lower, irrational creatures and over the rest of creation Gen 1.27-28in

imitation of the rule of the Logos over the cosmos (Opif 83-88, 148).191 Just as the Great King

rules over all of the cosmos, humanity is meant to rule over the sense-perceptible creation under

the level of the moon as a subordinate governor to the Great King (Opif 84). Because of

humanity’s close kinship (συγγένεια) with God through the greatest gift of the likeness of the

Logos in the human mind, God also sees it fitting to provide an abundance of other good gifts in

the natural world that are necessary for humanity to live well (Opif 77-78).192

Philo’s Platonic model of ascent and descent of the soul could be transposed, when

needed, to describe moral progress or regress as ascent or descent along the scala naturae. In

conforming their souls to nature by obeying the Law of Nature/Law of Moses and pursuing

virtue, Philo’s virtuous patriarchs in the Exposition became more like the Logos and exercised

their dominion over nature. We shall see later that the vicious and wicked slide down the scala

naturae, forfeiting the dominion of reason and becoming more like beasts who were lower than

them on the scala naturae. Those consumed by sexual lusts indiscriminately copulate like

animals. Those who failed to seek the higher good of likeness to God and worshipped

191
“Taking Stoic cosmology as his” paradigm of anthropocentrism,” David Sedley explains that “ In the Stoic world,
much as in Plato's and Aristotle's, man's ultimate aspiration is to contemplate and imitate the highest being, god. But
things are so arranged that the entire contents of the natural world, including not only plants and animals but perhaps
even seasons and weather, exist and function primarily for the benefit of man. They do not, in any straightforward
sense, exist for the benefit of god, who can hardly be said to need such things. Thus Stoic teleology is strongly
anthropocentric, despite the fact that man is not the best being in the world.” David Sedley, “Is Aristotle’s Teleology
Anthropocentric?” Phronesis 36, no. 2 (1991):179-180. Jobling, “‘And Have Dominion’”:52-62. See also Philo
Anim 77-100 in Philo and Abraham Terian, Philonis Alexandrini De animalibus: The Armenian Text with an
Introduction, Translation and Commentary by Abraham Terian, (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981):101-108.
192
Sirach 17.1-24 seems to also associate God’s ordering of creation with the bestowal of human knowledge and
rational capacities. Animals are made to have a fear of humans, potentially indicating that there is an association
between the dominion of Gen 1.26, 28 and human rationality in the Greek portion of Sirach.
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sense-perceptible creation degrade their call to have dominion over animals and made

themselves like the animals that idols of animals that they worshipped.

Because of the way Philo blends Stoic and Middle Platonic elements, someone who was

more inclined to a Platonist model of the soul could interpret this decline as the mortal parts of

the soul in the chest and the belly overcoming the rationality of the mind in the head. This is also

aided by the Stoic hierarchy’s genealogical relationship to Aristotelian and Platonic hierarchies.

In all the models, the human is a microcosm that is best ordered according to the divine order of

the macrocosm. Virtue is an ascent towards rationality and vice is a descent away from the

rationality of the creator through the pull of the lower elements of the body, which enslave the

soul vice through the allure of sensory pleasures.

The First Human Exercising Dominion in Fellowship with God and Creation

While he was the only human on earth, the first man continued to grow more like God

and like the cosmos according to the capacities and limits of his creaturehood, approaching the

τέλη of likeness to God as much as possible and living according to nature (Opif 151). The first

human lived as a citizen of the well-ordered cosmos, in harmony with God, the immortal and

divine beings who were lower than God, and with all the creatures under the moon, who were

submitted to the human’s dominion (Opf 142-144). This harmonious and hierarchical, like a

human State, had a “constitution,” which was the divine law (νόμος θεῖος) of nature’s reasonable

order (τῆς φύσεως ὀρθὸς λόγος, Opif 143). Because he was perfectly in harmony with the divine

order of nature, the first human’s life was one of bliss (εὐδαιμονία)the Spirit of God flowed

through him (θείου πνεύματος), all of his words and deeds were directed to pleasing the Father

and King .
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Goodness of Creation and its Rational Order

Embodiment and the sense-perceptible creation in Philo’s Platonized reading of Genesis

is always clearly good, though it brings the potential for evil because of the human tendency to

value pleasures of the body and creation over the creator. Because of humanity’s close kinship

with God through the greatest gift of the likeness of the Logos in the human mind, God also sees

it fitting to provide an abundance of other good gifts in the natural world that are necessary for

humanity to live well (Opif 77-78). Failing to use the gift of reason to rule rightly over creation is

an impious and ungrateful rejection of God’s good gifts. Such irrationality makes humans more

like the lower animals that they are called to rule, while the goal that humans ought to pursue is

to become as much like God as possible by imitating his rational order in the movements of their

minds.

Irrational Passions and the Origins of Evil in Philo

Unlike Paul and later Christians, Philo rarely uses the language of “sin” in the Exposition.

His understanding of the origins of evil, suffering, and death is concerned with the human

capacity for virtue or vice. Virtues are dispositions of the mind that are conducive to achieving

some good end. We saw in our brief glance at the Embassy to Gaius that piety and impiety figure

prominently in Philo’s thought. Philo, unique to known sources of his time, ranked piety

(εὐσέβεια or θεοσέβεια) as the cardinal virtue from which all other virtues flowed. He also

frequently appeals to the traditional four cardinal virtues derived from Plato and appropriated by

Stoics: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance (φρόνησις, δικαιοσύνη, ἀνδρεία,

σωφροσύνη), though he’s more likely to place εὐσέβεια at the beginning of the list and displace

ἀνδρεία.
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Εὐσέβεια and δικαιοσύνη or δίκη are often paired together in the Exposition, as are their

contrary vices ἀσέβεια. In Plato, εὐσέβεια or holiness (ὅσιος) was treated as a sub-virtue of

justice pertaining to justice towards God or parents. In Philo’s ranking, the attainment of

δικαιοσύνη depends first on a disposition of εὐσέβεια that rightly values God as the creator and

source of all goodness. We can see, given how Jews were characterized as impious for their

refusal to participate in the emperor cult, why it was important for Philo to present Jewish law as

the constitution that is most suited to the piety needed to maintain civic order. Rather than Jews

posing a threat to the order of the empire through their refusal to worship the emperor or the gods

of their neighbors, they were instead cultivating piety in their highest form and upholding the

good order of the Imperial regime in the process.

Higher and Lower Wisdom and the Pursuit of True Knowledge About God

Aristotle’s distinction between the higher wisdom of σοφια and the lower wisdom of

φρόνησις from book six of the Nicomachean Ethics is also important in Philo’s understanding of

the right order of the mind and the origins of evil in his allegorical reading of Gen 2-3.193 Σοφια

is the disposition of the mind needed to attain certain knowledge of the truth (αλήθεια) about

unchanging, eternal objects of knowledge such as God and the eternal forms in the mind of God

that structure the rational order of all of creation (NE 1139a, NE 1141a). While piety is the

beginning and consummation all virtues for Philo and the means through which humans gain

eternal life (Opif 154, 156), the attainment of σοφια is the outcome of a life of piety and

associated with the soul’s ascent to God (Opif 69-77). Φρόνησις is the disposition of the soul

needed to acquire knowledge about changeable things that are perceivable by our senses. While

φρόνησις is an important virtue for Philo, it is an intermediate virtue because unchanging, divine

193
Runia, On the Creation: 368.
 101

objects of knowledge knowable only through the intellect take precedence over knowledge of

creation.

We will see shortly how the priority of εὐσέβεια and σοφια over φρόνησις is central in

Philo’s explanation of the origin of evil, suffering, and death. While Philo rarely deploys allegory

as a technique in the Exposition series, he reads the narratives of the garden of Eden and human

disobedience in response to the serpent’s temptation as an allegory for the origin of evil and the

loss of immortality through the soul’s enslavement to the pleasures of the body. Philo attributes

to Moses an intention for the stories of the garden to be read symbolically as part of this allegory,

perhaps sensing that his own reading could be seen as an illegitimate Platonization of Moses

(Opif 154). For now, we should note that just as there is a hierarchical relationship between

heaven and earth and mind and body, so also there is a hierarchy within the mind and between

different types of knowledge and wisdom. Intelligence is higher than the mind’s capacity for

sense perception. Knowledge of unchanging, heavenly things is higher than knowledge of

changeable, earthly things. Σοφια is higher than φρόνησις.

Evil’s Archetype: Impiously Choosing the Creation Over True Knowledge of the Creator

The first man is drawn into vice and irrational passions in Philo’s highly symbolic

retelling of the Gen 2-3 narrative of humanity’s loss of immortality and fellowship with God in

response to the serpent’s temptation in the Garden. Philo tells this in several stages, beginning

with the introduction of the first woman into the Garden in Opif 151-152. The first man, capable

of participating in both virtue and vice because of his likeness to God in his rational mind and

corruptible earthly body, is drawn into pleasure and passions when the first woman appears (Opif

151). Because he possesses a mortal body, he is subject to the change (μετᾰβολή) and reverses

(τροπές, Opif 153) of all things in the realm of Becoming due to the interchange of the elements
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that make up his body (Opif 12, 146-148). When the first man saw a woman who was kindred in

form (συγγενή μορφήν), he was drawn to her because of the joy of seeing another living creature,

and she was likewise glad to see another creature that was similar to herself (Opif 151-152).

Just as the human soul, akin to God (συγγενείας, Opif 77), had been drawn up by love of

wisdom (ἔρωτι σοφίας) to contemplate the intelligible forms in the description of the soul’s

ascent to the intelligible realm in pursuit of the origin of its likeness in God in Opif 71, the first

composite man and woman are drawn by ἔρως towards the likeness of their kindred bodily form

to enjoy fellowship (κοινωνία) and generate others who are like them (ομοίου γένεσιν, Opif

152). However, this desire for fellowship and to reproduce their likeness with children generated

bodily pleasure (τήν τών σωμάτων ήδονήν έγέννησεν), which was the beginning of unjust

(ἀδίκημα, compare to ἀδικία, Rom 1.18) and unlawful (παρανόμημα) acts. On account of the

pleasures of the body, they exchanged (ύπαλλάσσω- compare to αλλάσσω in Rom 1.23 and

μεταλλάσσω in Rom 25-26) a life of immortality and bliss (βίον άντ αθανάτου και εύδαίμονος)

for mortality and misery (θνητόν και κακοδαίμονα, Opif 152).

The Allegory of the Mind’s Enslavement to Irrational Passions in Gen 2-3

The Garden of the Mind and the Trees of Virtues

Philo reads the Garden in Gen 2-3 as signifying the rational, ruling part of the soul

(ψυχῆς ἡγεμόνικόν) and the plants within the Garden are the myriad opinions which the fill the

mind Opif 154). He explains that the plants of the Garden planted by God, unlike plants as we

know them, were ensouled and endowed with reason. Because they possessed reason, they bore

virtues as fruit as well as “understanding and keenness of mind” through which good and evil

could be recognized (ή γνωρίζεται τά καλά καϊ τά αισχρά). This alluded to the Tree of the

Knowledge of Good and Evil (τὸ ξύλον τοῦ εἰδέναι γνωστὸν καλοῦ καὶ πονηροῦ) in Gen 2.9, 17.
 103

In addition to imparting virtue and knowledge to the eater, the ensouled fruit of the

Garden guaranteed a life free from disease and corruption (ἀφθαρσία), alluding to the Tree of

Life in Gen 2.9 (Opif 153). The Tree of life represents the virtue of reverence to God (θεοσέβεια,

Opif 154, parallel to ευσέβεια in Opif 155),194 which Philo here calls the greatest of virtues and

the means through which the soul is made immortal (ἀθανατίζω Opif 154). The Tree of the

Knowledge of Good and Evil represents prudence (φρόνησις), which enables us to distinguish

between things that are opposing in nature to each other Opif 154).

The Serpent of Pleasure

The serpent, which Philo reads as a symbol of pleasure (ἡδονή, Opif 158). The form of

the serpent, which crawls on the ground on its belly, symbolizes the downward proneness of the

lover of pleasure. Instead of being drawn upward in pursuit of heavenly nourishment through

contemplation of the intelligible realm (depicted in the ascent of the mind in Opif 70-73), the

pleasures of the body are centered on the belly and draw one down to the earth like snake’s belly

moving along the ground (Opif 157-158). This contrast between the life-giving, freeing ascent of

the mind to heavenly assimilation to God through the pursuit of virtue or the death-dealing,

enslaving descent of the soul to the vice-inciting pleasures of the body down to the changeable

and corruptible earth is the central image of moral transformation in much of Philo’s thought,

including the Exposition.

194
Gregory E. Sterling, "'The Queen of the Virtues': Piety in Philo of Alexandria," The Studia Philonica Annual:
Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, vol 18, ed. David T. Runia and Gregory E. Sterling, (Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2006):120 n111. Piety was a central virtue for the Roman imperial elite and proper regard for the
providential order in showing reverence for the emperor, the gods, and parents was necessary for the maintenance of
imperial order, protecting the empire from the punishment of the gods and securing providential favor. This likely
was a factor in the foregrounding of piety as the primary virtue in the Exposition. See Katell Berthelot, “Power and
Piety: Roman and Jewish Perspectives,” in Reconsidering Roman Power: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian
Perceptions and Reactions, ed. Katell Berthelot, (Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2020):
https://books.openedition.org/efr/5019?lang=en.
 104

The serpent’s voice represents pleasure’s innumerable defenders (Opif 160-163). He

seems to have the Epicureans as he recounts the arguments of the “defenders of pleasure,” who

teach that pleasure has laid claim over the great and the small and that it is the pursuit of pleasure

that is the τέλος of all creatures (Opif 162). Drawn downward to the earth through enslavement

to the lusts of the body, pleasures of the sense-perceptible realm become the goal of human life

rather. In making the pursuit of pleasure the τέλος, pleasure’s champions invert the soul’s upward

ascent to the higher joys of assimilation to God marked as the τέλος in Opif 144 and described in

Opif 70-73.

The Inversion of the Providential Order

The imagery of God’s kindly care for humanity in the providential ordering of nature for

the benefit of humanity in Opif 77 is inverted in Opif 163’s polemic against those who praise

pleasure. In Opif 77, God provided humanity lavishly with all the means for abundant and

enjoyable living with the very sense-perceptible gifts that are treated as the goal of life in Opif

163. These gifts were legitimately for the enjoyment of humanity out of God’s generosity to the

creature who enjoyed close kinship (συγγενεία) with God through the greatest gift of the mind,

through which humans could enjoy the sense-perceptible creation while drawn up by love and

longing (ἔρωτι) to gain knowledge of them (ἐπιστήμ- a knowledge available to the intellect

through the virtue of σοφια).

Those who love pleasure are dragged downwards like a serpent because they do not feed

off heavenly food by contemplating the intelligible cosmos, but feed off that which comes from

the changeable, sense-perceptible world. This pleasure incites vice, inflaming (ἀναρριπίζω) the

cravings of the belly so that the soul becomes enslaved to gluttony sexual lusts (ἐπιθυμίαι) are
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stirred up (Opif 158). All people whose minds are rightly-ordered (φρονέω) recognize that such a

person enslaved to pleasure is “blameworthy” and “worthy of death” (Opif 164).

“Woman” as Sense-Perception, “Man” as Reason

The serpent of ἡδονή tempted the wife of the first man to eat the beautiful fruit of the

Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Opif 156), choosing the woman because the mind

(νοῦς) of the human plays the role of the man “man,” whereas the bodily senses of the human

play the role of “woman” (Opif 265). The “woman” of the senses failed to reflect on pleasures

deceptions, having an unstable and ungrounded mind (Opif 156). She thus consented to eat the

fruit, and shared it with her husband after eating it, symbolizing how the senses are deceived by

pleasure first, giving pleasure the opportunity to deceive the ruling mind (Opif 156, 165).

The reasoning power of the mind needs the senses to perceive the sense-perceptible

world (Opif 166). The mind receives the pleasures reported by the senses like gifts of a servant to

the master. Philo portrays the senses as creating an impression in the soul like wax, ironically

reversing the a term for the metaphor in which the Logos made copies of its likeness by a stamp.

Instead of imaging the Logos, the mind now images creation. (Opif 18, 20,166). Upon receiving

the pleasure laden gifts from the senses, the reason is captured and undergoes the reversals: from

ruler to subject, master to slave, citizen to alien, immortal to mortal (Opif 165).

The first woman and man in Philo’s story are instantly changed from innocent and simple

to wicked after submitting to the serpent and eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,

which represents the knowledge from the senses (Opif 156). Watching as a judge over the human

soul established in the virtues of piety and wisdom planted in it as trees in the garden of the

human mind, God saw the human soul’s inclination to evil and neglect of the means of winning

immortality: piety and holiness (ευσέβεια and ὁσιότης, Opif 155).

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The Father’s response to this impiety was wrath (οργή, Opif 156, compare to Rom 1.18)

because they had passed over the Tree of Immortal Life (τὸ ζωῆς ἀθανάτου), representing piety

to God, which would have brought them the fruit of “age-long life and well-being” (Opif 156).

In so doing, they exchanged (ὑπαλλάσσω) the life of immortality and bliss for one of mortality

and misery by letting their mortal nature rule over their immortal nature (Opif 152). Because they

chose instead a short and mortal life full of oppression, God gave them the fitting punishment of

casting them by casting them out of the Garden (Opif 155-156). Their souls were beyond the

hope of cure and going irredeemably astray, so there was no hope of them returning to the garden

(Opif 155).

Providence and Punishment

Philo’s understanding of punishment is closely tied to his understanding of God’s divine

providence and gracious benefactions. Because humans possess close kinship with God and are

the only creatures on earth possessing the divine capacity for reason, God ordered all things on

earth for the benefit, nurture, and enjoyment of humans (Opif 77-79). Humans, through their

rational powers, are naturally suited to have dominion over everything on earth. As long as

humans live in harmony with God’s rational order of creation, becoming more like God, all of

the order of lower creation would have worked in harmony to supply all human needs and

provide enjoyment without human toil or suffering (Opif 77-79). The provision of God’s

benefactions is tied to humans living in their proper place in the harmonious order of the cosmos.

However, the human pursuit of the pleasures of the good gifts God has given through

creation as if they were the highest good rather than prioritizing the source of the good gifts of

creation by honoring God as the eternal and unchanging creator, humans become enslaved to

irrational pleasure. Pleasures of the body are not evil in and of themselves and all the pleasures
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of creation were meant to be enjoyed by humans, but the pursuit of bodily pleasure becomes

irrational and a means of enslaving humans to evil when bodily pleasure is pursued as if it were

the highest source of good for human life. Irrational pleasures from the belly, especially

associated with insatiable desires for pleasure from food and sex, are like assaulting forces

within the human making war on the mind (Opif 79). When humans give in to the indulgence of

these passions, they incur the fitting penalty (δίκη προσήκουσα) for the impious

(ἀσεβῶν)movements of the soul in having difficulty getting their basic needs met (Opif 80).

When evil overtook the virtues in the warfare of the human soul, the “ever-flowing

fountains of God’s grace” (χάρις) become blocked so that they do not lavish abundant supplies

from creation on the unworthy (Opif 168). The appropriate response to God’s gracious

benefactions (χάρες) is gratitude, but humans showed ingratitude (ἀχαριστία, Opif 169) in

misusing God’s gifts and rejecting the fulfillment of the greatest gift of becoming as much like

God as possible. It would have been fitting for God to wipe them off the face of the earth due to

their ingratitude, but instead he showed mercy by allowing humans to continue under

circumstances that would check their inclination to vice (Opif 169) .

Misusing the good fruit of the earth given for their enjoyment, humans now struggle to

attain fruit from agricultural labor enough to sustain life (Opif 80, 168-169). Similarly, women

no longer bear fruit from their womb without hardship, suffering, and distress (Opif 167-170).

Presumably because of the role of “woman” of sense-perception in the loss of paradise in Philo’s

reading of Gen 3, Philo in Opif 167 explains that as a result of their rebellion, women also lost

their liberty and were compelled to obey the authoritative commands of their husbands, which

were represented as “reason” in the temptation narrative.

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Despite the disorder introduced into the created order through human irrationality and

enslavement to the passions, these fitting consequences of human ingratitude are potentially

reversible:

“If, however, self-control (σωφροσύνῃ) were to alleviate the immoderate impulses of the
passions (αἱ ἄμετροι τῶν παθῶν ὁρμαί), a sense of justice (δικαιοσύνῃ) were to do the
same for the ambitions and inclinations to injustice (τἀδικεῖν), and in short the virtues and
deeds in accordance with these virtues were to put to an end to the vices and the
never-ending evil deeds (ἀνήνυτοι πράξεις) they bring about, and if then the war in the
soul (πολέμου τοῦ κατὰ ψυχήν), which is truly the harshest and most burdensome of
wars, were to cease and peace (εἰρήνης) would gain the upper hand, calmly and gently
bringing the powers (δυνάμεσιν) within us to good order, then we might entertain the
hope that God, who is a lover of virtue and fine behaviour and is moreover well-disposed
to humankind, will cause the good things of life to be supplied to the race spontaneously
and ready for consumption. After all, it is obviously easier to lavishly bestow a good
supply of produce from what already exists without the intervention of the farmer’s art
than to bring what does not yet exist at all into existence.” (Opif 81, trans. Runia).

When humans fail to use the powers of their mind to bring the microcosm into good order, the

powers of God in the macrocosm enact cosmic punishment against human injustice and

impiety.195 When humans use the powers of their minds to bring their microcosm into harmony,

the powers of God extend the gracious and life-giving power that allows the creation to produce

abundant supplies for humans once again as the creation under human dominion mirrors the

harmony of the human soul, which has synchronized with the divine order of the Logos and the

order of nature.

Two examples in the Exposition include Mos 2.162, Abr 142-146. For a more in depth discussion of the nature
195

and activities of God’s cosmic powers in Philo, see Frick, Divine Providence: 57-88.
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Part 3: After the Garden

From the “Original Passion” to Idolatry and Enslavement to the Belly

In Philo’s allegorical reading of Gen 3, we saw that the souls of the first man and woman

changed (μεταβάλλω) from innocent simplicity to wickedness when they succumbed to the

temptation of pursuing bodily pleasure above the higher pleasure of the bliss of following God as

the soul’s highest end (Opif 156). Subsequent expressions of impiety in the Exposition have the

same basic structure of Philo’s “Original Passion” in his allegory of the Garden of Mind and the

Serpent of Pleasure. I am using “Original Passion” instead of “Original Sin” because the reading

of the transgression Genesis 3 as the “Original Sin” causing catastrophic consequences for all of

humanity that could only be healed by Jesus is a later Christian reading of Genesis developed

from passages such as Romans 5.196 Such a reading of Gen 3 simply did not exist in Philo’s day,

though some Jews seemed to adopt a more pessimistic reading after the fall of Jerusalem in 70

CE.197 As Romans 1.18-32 has traditionally been anachronistically read as a retelling of the

“Fall” of Adam into original sin, it is important for our understanding of Rom 1.18-32 that we

attend to how Jew’s during Paul’s day were reading Gen 3 and describing the human

predicament.198

The Nature of Vice in Philo’s Exposition

Philo’s understanding of human suffering and wickedness is that humans have the

potential to participate in vice due to their dual nature as immortal souls in mortal bodies (Opif

196
Philo does occasionally use sin language like ἁμάρτημα to describe congenital faultiness in every creature due to
it simply being a creature (Mos 2.147). This is probably referring to the imperfection of bodies due to their
composition of changeable elements that cannot perfectly imitate the unchanging patterns in the realm of heaven
(Opif 12, 71-75), meaning that because creatures are imperfect copies of unchangeable forms and are in changeable
bodies, they deviate from the mark of the pattern that is also their τέλος. Philo considers this to be blameworthy at
least in humans and requires sacrifice to propitiate God’s anger (Mos 2.147).
197
On the tendency of scholars to anachronistically read a later Christian understanding of the “Fall of Adam” onto
earlier Jewish sources, see John Levison, Portraits of Adam: 13-23.
198
Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 83-88.
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73-75). When human souls become characterized by vice rather than virtue, this not only affects

vicious individuals, but is likely to corrupt other humans who join the vicious in their delusions

and inordinate pursuit of the pleasures of the body. Human vice also provokes God’s anger,

leading to a stoppage of God’s gracious benefactions through nature (Opif 156, 168). This makes

it difficult for humans to get the necessities of life without toil. In addition to withholding

providential grace, God may also enact direct punishment through his power of Justice when

provoked by human impiety and wickedness.

Vices are relatively stable dispositions of mind that arise when humans regularly give in

to irrational passions. Passions arise in the mind, according to the Stoics and Philo, due to

“inordinate and excessive impulses” and to “irrational and unnatural movements of the soul”

(Spec 4.79). Philo held a basically Stoic view of the passions with some modifications that are

similar to those made by Posidonius, the renowned Stoic philosopher who frequented Rome a

century before Philo.199 Challenging the traditional Stoic unitary soul in which passions only

arise within the mind, Posidonius had posited a higher, rational soul and a lower, irrational soul

that encompassed the lower levels of Plato’s tripartite soul: the spirited part in the upper chest

and the appetitive part in the lower belly. Philo also adopted a bipartite rational and irrational

soul and read both the Platonic tripartite and Stoic unitary soul in terms of this division.200

The Mind as the Ruling, Rational Part of the Soul in the Heart

Philo, like the Stoics and the Peripatetics, located the rational, ruling part of the soul in

the heart muscle instead of the head. The Septuagint is implicitly cardiocentric, with the ‫( לֵב‬leb,

heart) in the OT typically translated as καρδία in the LXX. Though the OT does not explicitly

identify the image of God or its likeness with a reason imbuing, ruling part of the soul in the

199
David Winston, “Philo of Alexandria on the Rational and Irrational Emotions,” in Passions and Moral Progress
in Greco-Roman Thought ed. John T. Fitzgerald, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007):201-220.
200
Winston, “Rational and Irrational Emotions”: 201-202.
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heart, the heart does function as the locus of most of the activities of the Stoic ἠγεμονικόν

(thinking, feeling, choosing, etc).201 Though καρδία is the most frequently used anthropological

term in the LXX, Philo uses it only thirteen times in the surviving books of the Exposition and

uses a related term, ἐγκάρδιος, once to describe the circumcision of the heart (Spec 1.6).202 With

the exception of the quotation of Deut 6.6-8 in Spec 4.136-142, all of the passages in the

Exposition in which Philo uses καρδία as a keyword to expound on the text of the LXX are also

the only passages clearly alluded to or quoted in Romans using καρδία as a keyword.203Philo’s

use of καρδία blends Jewish, Stoic, and Middle Platonist elements. It is the seat of the rational,

ruling part of the soul as with the Stoics and Peripatetics, but it also seems to be subject to

pressure from the irrational soul to give into irrational passions as in Plato.

Pleasures, Passion, and Warfare in the Soul

While all passions ultimately arise from the misjudgments of the mind for Philo and the

Stoics, the pleasures from the lower part of the soul are depicted as warring forces that assault
201
Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, trans. Margaret Kohl. (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press,
1974): 40.
202
Καρδία in the Exposition, including The Life of Moses: Opif 118, Mos 189, Spec 1.6, 1.213, 1.214, 1.215, 1.216,
1.218, 1.204, 4.137, Virt 183 x2, Praem 80. A related term, ἐγκάρδιος, is used once in Spec 1.6.
203
While the phrase referring to God as the “one who searches hearts” in Rom 8.27 reflects usage in Prov 20.27, the
only clear allusions in which Paul is using καρδία as a keyword to allude to the LXX are those referring to hardened
heart of Rom 2.5 (Deut 10.16), the circumcised heart Roman 2.29 (Deut 10.16) and in the quotation of Deut
30.11-14 in Rom 10.6-8. Philo discusses circumcision and uncircumcision of the heart in Spec 1.1-7 and Spec
1.305-306. Both passages allude to the circumcision of the hard heart (σκληροκαρδία) in Deut 10.16. In Philo’s
reading, the heart is the location of the ruling part of the mind. Spec 1.1-7 claims that circumcision of the foreskin
assimilates the generative organ to the heart (τὴν πρὸς καρδίαν ὁμοιότατα). While the reproductive organs generate
physical offspring, the unseen thoughts of the ruling part of the soul in the heart are invisible offspring. The invisible
and ruling part of the soul is superior to the physical reproductive organs, which ought to conform to the likeness of
the heart. In Spec 1.305-306, the admonition to circumcise the hardness of the heart in Deut 10.16 as an admonition
to prune the overgrowth in the ἡγεμονικον of the passions and immoderate appetites planted by folly (ἀφροσύνη).
Philo’s other uses of καρδία as a key word quote Deut 30.11-14 (quoted or alluded to extensively in Rom 10.6-8) in
the last two books of the Exposition in which in Virt 193 and Praem 80. Philo interprets the words for mouth, hearts,
and hands in Deut 30 as symbolizing the unity of the speech of the mouth, thoughts and intentions of the heart, and
actions of the hands by the virtuous person. This model was initially introduced in Spec 4.136-142 as a mediation on
justice’s close connection with piety that cites Deut 6.6-8 using καρδία as a keyword. The man who harmonizes his
thoughts, words, and actions towards the good will live a life that is “praiseworthy and perfect” (ἐπαινετὸς καὶ
τέλειος) and be well-pleasing to God (Virt 182-184). The steps of the nation that does not forsake the words of God
but fulfills the words with “praiseworthy deeds” (ἔργοις ἐπαινετοῖς) will be guided by a heavenward yearning
(Praem 79-84). For a comparison of Rom 10.6-8 with Philo’s treatment of Deut 30.11-14 in Virt and Praem, see
Bekken, The Word is Near You: 5-6, 9, 28-38, 48, 69-81, 84-151.
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the mind in Philo (Opif 83, Decal 142-153, Spec 1.214, Spec 4.79-95). The task of the mind is to

bring order to the irrational soul and body lest the mind become enslaved by the passions through

the allure of pleasure. The disposition of the mind can be described as consistent with the virtue

of justice (δικαιοσύνη) when the higher, rational soul is in appropriate control of the lower,

irrational soul that receives sense-perception.204 If a human mind rules over the lower soul in the

body through δικαιοσύνη, it is properly imitating God’s just rule of the Logos over the

sense-perceptible creation. When humans fail to live according to piety and justice become

unjust and lawless, God exacts providential punishment and discipline to prompt the deviating

human to come back into alignment with the providential order of the cosmos.

Despite his more Stoicized account of the passions arising in the mind’s valuation of the

data of sense-perception and reason, the lusts of the belly for sex and food feature still heavily in

Philo’s Exposition, as in Plato. Pleasure is associated with the belly and the body, though the

higher bliss and joy available to the mind that piously seeks the truth of God and contemplating

heavenly forms is associated with the mind (Opif 70-71, 135, 134, Spec 1.36).205 We saw that the

dangers of the pleasures of the belly luring the mind away from the higher bliss of God were

represented by the Serpent of pleasure in Philo’s allegorical reading of Gen 3 in Opif 157-166,

drawing also from Tim 92c. Later, we will see the lusts of the belly continue to be associated

with animals that crawl on the ground like snakes and reptiles in the Exposition as part of Philo’s

anti-Egyptian polemics against idolatry and sexual immorality. The dangers of the pleasures of

the belly are especially evident in Philo’s discussions of the tenth commandment (Decal

142-153, Spec 4.79-95) in which he reads the prohibition against ἐπιθυμία in Exod 20.27 and

204
Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: 153.
205
For further discussion of Philo’s use of “belly” and his mixing of Platonist and Stoic elements in his psychology
a, see Gretchen Reydams-Schils “Philo of Alexandria on Stoic and Platonist Psycho-Physiology: The Socratic
Higher Ground,” in Philo of Alexandria and Post-Aristotelian Philosophy, (Leiden: Brill, 2008):175.
 113

Deut 5.18 LXX as prohibition against the irrational passion of ἐπιθυμία, or “lust” (compare to

Rom 7.7-25).

The basic structure of all wickedness in Philo is a failure to exercise the rational power of

the human mind, which is the likeness of the image of God, to imitate God and judge the order of

the world rightly. Pleasures registered by the senses inflame lusts and threaten to overtake the

mind unless it exercises proper judgment. Failing to reflect on the pleasurable impressions of the

senses, humans act impiously by valuing lower, changeable, created things over the higher,

unchanging, uncreated goodness of God reflected in the activity of the Logos. Passions are

misevalutions of objects of reflection, disproportionate responses to reality, or a lack of

pneumatic strength to respond properly even when one does judge rightly. The failure to set God

as the highest good introduces a disorder of the mind’s ability to judge what is good, evil, or

indifferent because it has failed to ground its reasoning by identifying God as the source of all

goodness. Like the first human in Opif 152, every human is at risk of exchanging (ὑπαλλάσσω)

reason for passion, immortality for mortality, truth for lies, heavenly bliss for bodily pleasures,

and knowledge of the creator for consumption of creation. This is the “Original Passion” and all

other passions undergone by humans follow this basic structure. Later, we shall look at how this

structure is present Philo’s portrayal of those consumed by devotion to bodily pleasure who

worship images of animals or engage in sexual intercourse that is contrary to the procreative

purpose of human maleness and femaleness.

The misjudgments of the mind which generate passions violate the hierarchical ordering

of nature in valuing what was of lesser worth over that which is of highest worth. Despite this

exchange (ὑπαλλάσσω) of the higher for the lower, of immortality or mortality, humans still

possess the providential, greatest gift of a rational mind that makes them more like God than any
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embodied creature on the earth. The allegorized struggle of the first human who succumbed to

the warfare of passions against reason and became enslaved to the pleasures of the body is the

struggle that every human faces, but it can be overcome by the cultivation of virtue by God’s

grace.

Because the Logos is the Image of God, containing all of God’s Mind and creative

powers that touch on creation, humans are capable of knowing the heavenly patterns of created

things on earth as well as knowing how their parts are related to the whole. The τέλος for any

created thing is to become as much like the original pattern of that kind of creature in the

invisible, heavenly realm. Because humans are a likeness of the image of God, the good for

humans is to become as much like God as possible by using their rational powers to imitate the

rational order of the Mind of God reflected in the order of the cosmos. If a human conforms the

movements of the microcosm of their mind to the movements of the visible macrocosm of the

cosmos and the invisible macrocosm of the Image of God and Heaven, the human’s higher,

rational soul will rule over the lower, irrational soul of the body.

To conform one’s mind to the mind of the cosmos is to know the right order of the

universe, including judgement of good and evil by referencing God as supremely good and the

source of all goodness. Knowing requires a likeness between the knower and the known, and

humans are capable of true knowledge about God’s existence because we have the likeness of the

image of God in our minds. Human knowledge begins with images of the created world

impressed on the mind by the senses, which then must judge rightly about the nature and relative

worth of the objects of perception. By using the intellect, humans can grasp the invisible,

intelligible patterns of which all the creations in the sense-perceptible world are imperfect copies.

The unchanging, intelligible order is better than the changeableness of the world of the senses, so
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the mind is drawn up to contemplate the unchanging, harmonious order of the heavenly bodies of

the stars and planets and sun and moon. Soberly intoxicated by the beauty of the forms, the soul

is drawn up higher to reach for knowledge of God before being blinded by the intelligible light

of God’s radiance (Opif 69-71).

However, the warfare of the soul described in Opif 81 still continues. Composite human

nature made at the border of immortality and mortality is also human nature born at the border of

virtue and vice:

“Again naturally all we men, before the reason in us is fully grown, lie in the borderline
between vice and virtue with no bias to either side. But when the mind is fully fledged
when it has seen and absorbed into every part of its vitality the vision of the good, it
ranges freely and wings its way to reach that vision and leaves behind good’s brother and
birth-fellow evil, which also flies away straight on in the opposite direction.” (Praem 62).

While the good for the human soul is to change for the better, ascending upward in pursuit of

true knowledge of God, the pleasures of the body threaten to draw the soul downward to vice.

The vicious are progressively consumed by the appetites of the belly for food and sex.

The providential order of creation contemplated by Philo’s virtue-seekers is the Law of

Nature. No words can describe the beauty and harmony of God’s order of nature perfectly, but

out of all constitutions of any nation on earth, the Law of Moses is most in harmony with the

Law of Nature. This is due to Moses’s superior education and virtue as well as the benefit of

divine inspiration. After On the Creation, the subsequent books of the Exposition series retell the

lives of the virtuous and contrast them with the lives of the vicious. The lives of the patriarchs,

particularly Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses demonstrate that the divine law is not

excessively burdensome and that the Law of Moses reflects the Law of Nature. Even though they

did not have the law, the patriarchs before the Law of Moses were like “unwritten laws” (Abr

5-6, 16, 275-276, Decal 1, Spec 4.149-150, Virt 194). Contemplating nature in pursuit of truth,
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they inferred the existence of the invisible God in the unchanging realm of heaven and sought to

order their lives in conformity to God’s order. The lives of the virtuous patriarchs are contrasted

with the lives of the vicious whose souls are drawn down to the earth rather than up to heaven as

they prioritize the pleasures of the body over the pleasures of knowing the truth of God,

becoming less rational and losing the traits that God intended them to have through participation

in the likeness of God.

Souls Moving Along the Hierarchy by Changing for the Worse or the Better

The souls of Philo’s good patriarchs as well as the souls of bad men are always moving

up or down the hierarchy of the cosmos in the Exposition. While still in their bodies, the souls of

those who love truth and cultivate virtue ascend heavenward as they contemplate nature,

pondering the intelligible forms and becoming more like God as they attune to the Mind that

made all that exists. The souls of wicked descend to the earth as they become more enslaved by

bodily pleasure, becoming more like irrational beasts consumed with the cravings of their bellies

for food and sex. The reason that human souls change for the worse or the better is because they

are drawn up to the highest end of pursuing likeness to God through the immortal, rational soul,

but drawn down to the earth through the irrational, lower part of their soul that animates their

mortal bodies. Ascent of the soul to God is only possible if the higher part of the soul is ruling

the irrational part of the soul in the body to direct the human’s thoughts, words, and actions.

The words that Philo most frequently uses to describe the soul’s change for the better or

the worse are the noun μεταβάλλω (“to change”) or the noun μεταβολή (“change”). According to

David Runia, μεταβάλλω is the technical term in Plato used for the transformation that takes

place in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls after death from one body to the next.206

In the Timaeus, the souls of men who master the irrational passions by conforming their lives to
206
Runia, Timaeus of Plato: 348-349.
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virtue ascend upward after death to the native star of their soul to enjoy bliss, but those who fail

to live according to virtue experience the change (μεταβολή) of being born in the the nature of a

woman in the next life. If the soul fails to pursue virtue as a woman, they shall go even lower on

the cosmological hierarchy and live their next lives in the body of irrational beasts in the likeness

(ὁμοιότης) of their own irrational nature. The soul’s changings (ἀλλάσσω) continue until it

brings its mind into right order and begins to ascend again to ascend again to higher forms of life

(Tim 42b-c).

Plato’s use of ἀλλάσσω in Tim 42c is of interest to us because of Paul’s use of ἀλλάσσω

in Rom 1.23 and μεταλλάσσω in Rom 1.25-26. Ἀλλάσσω (in its Attic spelling of “ἀλλάττω”)

meant “I make something or someone change” rather than simply “I change” in Classical Greek

and is only used once in the Timaeus as a present active participle (ἀλλάττων) in 42c to indicate

the metempsychosis into other forms of bodies due to the soul’s conduct in its previous cycle of

embodiment. 207

Philo clearly does not ascribe to Plato’s doctrine of metempsychosis, but does use Plato’s

language of change to describe change within a soul during its lifetime. Following Plato, Philo

typically uses the verb μεταβάλλω or the noun μεταβολή to indicate change.208 For special

occasions, while Philo wished to emphasize the subject’s agency in causing a change, he was

fond of using compounds of ἀλλάσσω to indicate causing a change or exchange. In some cases,

the change describes an irrational movement of the soul in which something of greater value is

exchanged for something of greater value. The use of ἀλλάσσω compounds in these examples do

not refer to the change within the soul itself, but to the miscalculated reckoning of the mind that

either introduces or intensifies irrational disorder in the soul. The mind makes a bad bargain by

207
Anne H. Groton, From Alpha to Omega: A Beginning Course in Classical Greek, 4th edition, (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing, 2013): 33.
208
Runia, Timaeus of Plato: 349.
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exchanging something of higher worth for something of lower worth and receives a fitting return

for its poor investment.

We saw how in Opif 152 the first humans exchanged (ὑπαλλάσσω) immortality for

mortality when he chooses the pleasures of the corruptible and mortal body received through the

senses over the highest goods of the incorruptible, invisible, and immortal God, introducing

violations of the lawful order of creation. Retelling the story of the first earth-born man in a more

compressed form later in the Exposition, Philo uses the even more elaborate compound of

ἀνθυπαλλάσσω209 to describe Adam’s exchange of immortality for immortality:

“Yet though he [Adam] should have kept that image (εἰκὼν) undefiled and followed as
far as he could in the steps of his Parent’s [God’s] virtues, when the opposites were set
before him to choose or avoid, good and evil, honourable and base, true and false
(ἀληθοῦς καὶ ψευδοῦς), he was quick to choose the false, the base and the evil and spurn
the good and honourable and true, with the natural consequence that he exchanged
mortality for immortality (θνητὸν ἀθανάτου βίον ἀνθυπηλλάξατο), forfeited his
blessedness and happiness and found an easy passage (μετέβαλεν) to a life of toil and
misery” (Virt 205, trans. Colson).

As with Opif 152, the agency of the first human’s corrupted soul is emphasized with a compound

verb built off ἀλλάσσω. The exchange (ἀνθυπαλλάσσω) in which the humans chose mortality

over immortality forfeited the blessed state of their existence under God’s abundant providence

and induced a change (μεταβάλλω) to a life misery.

Another use of an ἀλλάσσω compound verb relevant to Paul’s use in Rom 1.23-26 occurs

in the two volume companion or prequel to the Exposition, On the Life of Moses.210 Philo uses

209
Philo’s uses of ὑπαλλάσσω and ἀνθυπαλλάσσω within his extent writings are confined to the Exposition and to
his two surviving historical treatises (Against Flaccus and Embassy to Gaius), both of which are thought to have
been written for a Roman audience (see Niehoff, Intellectual Biography). Ὑπαλλάσσω: Opif 152, Jos 15, Mos 2.167,
Spec 2.35 x2, Virt 196, Flacc 131, Legat 1, 69, 211, 327. Ἀνθυπαλλάσσω: Spec 4.88, Virt 205, Flacc 151. Philo’s
use of ἀλλάσσω is spread throughout his surviving writings, with nine of the twenty-seven documented uses
appearing in either the Exposition or Flaccus. Μεταλλάσσω is used once in Philo’s surviving writings in a passage
of On the Virtues in the Exposition in which it refers to gentiles converting to the Jewish community (Virt 108).
210
On the relationship of The Life of Moses to the Exposition and the likelihood that it was written as a prequel or
companion, see Sterling, “Life of Moses;” and Goodenough, “Philo's Exposition,” and Niehoff, Intellectual
Biography: 110-120.
 119

ὑπαλλάσσω to describe the Israelite’s exchange of the truth about the existent God for the

delusion of Egyptian idolatry in the narrative of the Golden Calf (Mos 2.167). In Philo’s

retelling, Moses ascended the mountain to commune with God and those among the people with

an unstable nature rushed to commit impious (ἀσέβεια) deeds and forgot the reverence (ὁσιότης)

owed towards God as the Self-Existent (τὸ ὂν) devoting themselves to Egyptian style idols with a

golden statue of a bull calf. While the Israelites revelled, “wedded to their vices”in drunkenness

and folly (ἀφροσύνη), God’s Justice (Δίκη), “the unseen watcher of them and the punishments

they deserved, stood ready to strike” (Mos 2.162). This is one of the many personifications of

Justice as an avenging cosmic power in the Exposition series and Philo’s other Roman audience

works.

Moses, discerning from the noise below that his people had descended into irrational

passions while he was communing with God on the mountain, is told by God to descend due to

the lawlessness of the people, who have “fashioned a god” from their own hands that is no god to

worship (προσκυνέω), having forgotten all the influences of piety (εὐσέβεια) that they had seen

and heard (Mos 2.165). Moses acts as mediator and intercessor to soften God’s wrath before

descending and discovering the folly of his people (Mos 2.166):

“When he arrived at the middle of the camp, and marvelled at the sudden apostasy of the
multitude and their delusion (ψεῦδος), so strongly contrasting with the truth (ἀληθεία)
which they had bartered (ὑπαλλάσσω) for it, he observed that the contagion had not
extended to all and that there were still some sound at heart and cherishing a feeling of
hatred of evil (μισοπόνηρος). Wishing, therefore, to distinguish the incurable from those
who were displeased to see such actions and from any who had sinned but repented, he
made a proclamation, a touchstone calculated to test exactly the bias of each to godliness
or its opposite.‘If any is on the Lord’s side,” he said, “let him come to me.” Few words,
indeed, but fraught with much meaning, for the purport was as follows: “Whoso holds
that none of the works of men’s hands, nor any created things, are gods, but that there is
one God only, the Ruler of the universe, let him join me.’ Of the rest, some, whom
devotion to the vanity (τῦφος) of Egypt had made rebellious, paid no heed to his
words…”(Mos 2.167-169, trans Colson).
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Philo’s ὑπαλλάσσω in Mos 2.167 describes the bad bargain made by the Israelites in exchanging

that which is of greater worth for that which is lesser. As with Rom 1.25, which uses

μεταλλάσσω, the idolaters exchanged the truth for a lie by worshipping something created

instead of the creator. We will examine Philo’s use of “exchange” language relative to Rom

1.23, 25, and 27 in the final section comparing Rom 1.18-32.

Our analysis of Philo’s description of exchange and the movement of the soul along the

cosmological hierarchy has brought us to one of his many critiques of Egyptian-style idolatry.

The next section will explore how Philo’s polemic against idolatry functioned within the

Exposition in the context of his diplomatic mission to Rome. We will continue with our

exploration of the themes of the soul’s ascent and descent along the cosmological hierarchy as

we take a more in depth look at Philo’s depiction of idolatry.

Greco-Roman Philosophical Arguments for Monotheism and Anti-Egyptian Polemic in

Philo’s Platonized Reading of Genesis

In our exploration of On the Creation, we saw how Philo used Gen 1.1-3 and Gen

1.26-28 as Mosaic warrants to import Plato’s dualistic cosmology and anthropology from the

Timaeus onto the text of Genesis. The apologetic context of the Exposition and Philo’s implied

audience of non-Jewish Romans or Jews seeking language to position themselves on a safe and

respectable footing with the Roman elite led to a shift in strategy. In the Exposition, Philo

incorporated more Stoic elements, likely in an effort to appeal to a Roman audience in which

both Stoicism was the dominant philosophical school and Middle Platonist thinking was

ascendent.211 Both Stoics and Middle Platonists developed their understandings of divine

providence and justice, the capacity for human reason and responsibility, natural law and

211
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 17.
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theology, gender, and hierarchy of the cosmos, polis, and family from their reception of the

Timaeus. By framing Moses as the anticipating and surpassing Plato and greatest thinkers and

law-givers of all the prestigious schools, Philo invites his pagan, Roman readers to see the

Jewish law as in harmony with the Natural Law, and therefore representing the path for fulfilling

the highest Roman ideals and aspirations for virtue.

Philo’s reading of Genesis through Middle Platonist and Stoic readings of the Timaeus

structures his defense of the Jews against the charge of impiety for their refusal to worship the

emperor or the gods of their neighbors, the practice of circumcision, dietary restrictions like the

prohibition against the consumption of pork, and the prohibition against homosexual intercourse.

Explaining unusual Jewish customs in terms that were respectable to elite Roman discourses was

literally a matter of life and death. By framing the law of Moses as in harmony with the Law of

nature and consistent with the providence of creator and Roman values of piety, Philo’s reading

of Genesis positions the very beliefs and practices that made the Jews most vulnerable and

subject to suspicion in the most favorable way possible relative to Roman imperial elites and

Egyptian enemies. Because the Law of Moses is in accord with the Law of Nature, Jews not only

meet, but exceed the moral standards of the Roman imperial order.212

Philo’s importation of cosmological and anthropological assumptions from his reading of

the Timaeus onto Genesis allowed him to establish five philosophical lessons derived from

Moses’s account of creation summarized in Opif 170-172 as the ending of On the Creation,

described by Nieoff as a “catechism of monotheism.”213 These lessons do important work for the

rest of the Exposition series in presenting Jews and Jewish law as exceeding the highest

212
Mary Rose D’Angelo, “Gender and Geopolitics in the Work of Philo of Alexandria: Jewish Piety and Imperial
Family Values,” in Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourse, ed. Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele,
Biblical Interpretation Series 84, (Leiden: Brill, 2007): 65, 70-75.
213
Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 94.
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standards of Roman discourses, while also positioning Philo to defend controversial Jewish laws

and practices by framing them as in accordance with the Law of Nature.214 The five lessons,

presented didactically at the end of On the Creation are:

1. God exists eternally, refuting atheism.

2. God is one, refuting polytheism (the first known use of πολύθεος), which errs by

transferring to heaven the earthly disorder of rule by the mob.

3. The cosmos is created rather than existing from eternity, refuting those (such as

Aristotelians) who maintain the earth’s eternality. Because God is eternal and the cosmos

has a beginning, God is superior to creation.

4. Because God is one, the world is one in imitation of the goodness and oneness of its

Maker.

5. The orderly goodness of nature reveals God’s divine providence for creation and the

oneness of creation, which reflects the oneness of God.

Those who have learned these doctrines “with understanding rather than healing” and “stamp”

them on the soul will lead a life of blessedness and bliss, having a character moulded truths

enforced by “piety and holiness” (Opif 172).

With these doctrines, Philo could now appropriate natural theological arguments

recognizable to Roman elites and fly them under Moses’s banner. With the exception of the

insistence on God’s oneness as refuting polytheism, all of these are fairly standard philosophical

positions developed out of the Timaeus.215 However, Philo’s refutation of polytheism in point two

on God’s oneness would still have been accessible and respectable to a pagan audience.
214
See the chapter on “Creation Theology and Monotheism” in Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 93-108. See also
Runia, On the Creation: 391-403.
215
Philo and Runia, On the Creation: 302-303. Frick, “Monotheism and Philosophy”: 239-240. For background on
pagan monotheism that does not include discussion of Philo, see Michael Frede, “Monotheism and Pagan
Philosophy in Later Antiquity,” in Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity, ed. Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael
Frede, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999): 41-68.
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Monotheistic, aniconic positions of pagan philosophers like Varro (116–27 BCE), a Platonist

(with strong Stoic influences) considered the greatest scholar of the first century BCE in Rome,

also seemed to build his monotheistic philosophy from his reading of the Timaeus.216 A fragment

of Varro preserved by Augustine asserts that “The only men who have truly understood what

God is are those who have believed Him to be the Soul of the World, governing it by movement

and reason.” Recounting the monotheism and aniconism of earlier Romans, Varro saw the image

worship of later Romans as a sign of moral decline.217

By attributing to Moses arguments for monotheism that were respectable, if not

universally shared, by Roman elites, Philo could construct Jewish monotheism as compatible

with Roman Imperial values while constructing the rival Egyptians as a superstitious and vicious

“other” to the rational theology of Jews and Romans.218 The issue of Jewish aniconic worship

was of central importance to Philo’s embassy to Gaius (Legat 118, 132-154, 191, 353-157).219

Philo’s Egyptian opponents were encouraging Gaius’s project of self-divinization and stoking

antipathy to the Jews by pointing out their refusal to pray to the emperor or to worship statues of

the emperor.

The reality of Roman power and Jewish vulnerability in the empire made it difficult for

Philo to attack the cult of emperor-worship and the divinization of humans too directly without

offending Roman sensibilities. One of Philo’s primary strategies was to focus his critiques on the

216
Agatha Thornton, The Living The Living Universe: Gods and Men in Virgil's Aeneid, (Leiden: Brill, 1976): 20-23.
217
Varro fragment from Augustine, The City of God 4.31. B. Cardauns, Varros Logistoricus fiber die
Giitterverehrung (Curio de cultu deorum): Ausgabe und Erklärung der Fragmente, (Wurzburg: Konrad Triltsch,
1960). Quoted and translated by George van Kooten, “Pagan And Jewish Monotheism According To Varro,
Plutarch, And St Paul: The Aniconic, Monotheistic Beginnings Of Rome’s Pagan Cult—Romans 1:19–25 In A
Roman Context,” ed. Anthony Hilhorst, Emile Puech, and Eibert Tigchelaar. Supplements to the Journal for the
Study of Judaism, Volume: 122. (Leiden: Brill, 2007): 640.
218
On Philo’s positioning of Jews as congenial to Roman values while constructing Egyptians as a superstitious and
vicious other, see D’Angelo, “Gender and Geopolitics”:45-158.
219
Citations listed in John Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996):55.
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irrationality and enslavement to the pleasures of the body evinced in Egyptian-style polytheism.

Gaius should not take the eager willingness of the Egyptians to worship him as a complement

given that they eagerly divinized images of wild animals, including creatures who crawl on the

earth on their bellies.

Philo’s Anti-Egyptian Rhetoric and Idolatry as Violation of the Hierarchy of the Cosmos

Philo’s anti-Egyptian polemic in the Exposition, as with the Embassy to Gaius,

emphasizes the irrationality of their polytheistic animal worship as a violation of the hierarchy of

the cosmos established in On the Creation as well as the degrading effects of idolatry on the

souls of the worshippers. Violating the order of the cosmos by impiously failing to honor God as

the source of all that exists despite being able to infer his existence with their rational minds,

idolaters experience the natural consequence of losing their reason and becoming enslaved to the

passions. The Jewish prohibition against idolatry thus reflects the Law of Nature and violators of

this divine law experienced the natural consequences of deterioration of the likeness of the image

of God in their rational minds as they became more like the irrational, savage beasts that they

impiously worship instead.

The Function of Anti-Egyptian Polemics in Philo’s Roman Audience Works

Philo was in an unusual situation for a diplomat in that he faced opponents from his own

city, who formed a rival embassy representing the interests of Alexandrian Egyptians against

those of Alexandrian Jews. While Philo was attempting to address long-standing prejudices

against Jews and present them in a favorable light relative to Roman norms,220 the Egyptians

were amplifying anti-Jewish sentiment and presenting Jews as impious misanthropes who clung

to bizarre and superstitious customs, were hostile and contemptuous to gods and customs of their

D’Angelo, “Gender and Geopolitics”: 65. D’Angelo is summarizing arguments from Maren Niehoff’s Philo on
220

Jewish Identity and Culture, Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 86 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001): 45-158.
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neighbors, and a threat to the stability and harmony of Imperial rule. Philo’s strategy attempted

to counter all of these points and to present Egyptians in as unfavorable a light as possible

relative to Roman Imperial ideals. Philo’s arguments positioned Jews higher on the hierarchy (in

the orbit of Roman elites as rational persons fit to rule) while placing Egyptians at the very

bottom of the hierarchy as “the implacably alien other-- hostile, malicious, vice-ridden, and

superstitious.”221

Egyptians are presented in the Exposition and in the Embassy to Gaius as a group of

people who are enslaved to the passions of the belly, echoing the Serpent of pleasure in Opif

157-164. In the Embassy, Gaius’s desire to see himself as a god is flattered by his Alexandrian

contacts and Egyptian servants, who are depicted by Philo as “a seed bed of evil in whose souls

both the venom and the temper of the native crocodiles and asps were reproduced (Legat 163).”

The association of the soul of Gaius’s Egyptian servants with reptiles and snakes associates them

with the serpent of pleasure in On the Creation, but also with the well-known image from the

Timaeus of reptiles as one of the lowest possible incarnations of wicked souls who are controlled

by the passions of the belly and therefore condemned to live in the body of a creature whose

belly moves along the lowest element of earth (Tim 92a). By associating Egyptians with reptiles,

Philo depicts them as irrational, senseless, and enslaved to the pleasures of the belly, corrupting

those like Gaius who believe their deceptions. This motif is present throughout the Exposition,

The Life of Moses, and the Embassy to Gaius in Philo’s polemics against idolatry and in the

contrast that Philo makes between his virtuous patriarchs and the Egyptians.

Egyptian-Style Animal Worship as Impious Delusion in the Exposition

In On Abraham, Philo symbolically reads the king of Egypt as a symbol of “the mind

which loves the body” and presents the appearance of one who acts the part of an admirer of
221
D’Angelo, “Gender and Geopolitics”: 65, citing Niehoff, Jewish Identity and Culture: 45-158.
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virtue while being “licentious with chastity, the profligate with self-control, the unjust with

justice.” In response, God sends plagues that expose and correct vice (Abr 103-104). In On

Joseph, Egypt is described as a land of “luxury” that draws those led by youthful appetites into

vice (Jos 44). Philo depicts Jacob as worrying that his youthful son, Joseph, may have been led

astray through license to sin, “particularly in Egypt where things created and mortal are deified,

and in consequence the land is blind to the true God” (Jos 254). Knowing the “assaults” that

wealth and glory make on senseless minds, Jacob worries that without guidance, Joseph may

have changed (μεταβολή) to ways alien to the customs of his ancestors (Jos 37-39, 255).

Many of Philo’s discussions of idolatry in the Exposition center on Egyptian-style

idolatry as the epitome of vice. Enslaved to the appetites of their bellies rather than being ruled

by the rational mind, Egyptians are drawn to worship irrational creatures that are not only lower

than God, but lower than humans on the divinely ordered hierarchy of creation. Their

polytheistic worship of animals lower in the created order is a manifestation of the irrationality

and superstition that happens when humans value the created world over the creator. Rather than

assimilating the mind to God, Egyptian idolaters assimilate themselves to animals that are lower

than them on the hierarchy of nature, thus forfeiting the dominion that God providentially

bestowed to humans by giving them rational minds that made them a copy of God. Idolatry and

enslavement to the passions of the belly are tied together in Philo’s Exposition. They are both

examples of the “Original Passion” enacted by the first humans, who prioritized the pleasures of

the sense-perceptible creation over God as worthy of their highest devotion.

Egyptian-Style Idolatry in On the Decalogue and Special Laws:1, and the Embassy to Gaius

We see this logic in Philo’s discussion of the first two commandments in the discussions

of God’s supremacy and the prohibition of idolatry in the first two books immediately after the
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biographies of the Genesis patriarchs in the Exposition series, On the Decalogue (Deca; 52-81)

and The Special Laws, vol 1 (Spec 1.12-50). Philo begins by explaining that the first two

commandments, prohibiting the worship of any gods before the God of Israel and prohibiting

worship of graven images are placed first because the “transcendent source of all that exists is

God” and because “piety (εὐσέβεια) is the source of the virtues” (Decal 52). However, most of

humanity has been under the delusion that the elements or the heavenly bodies that we can

perceive with our senses are worthy of worship, but the fact of God as the highest, greatest,

creator, ruler, and providential director of all things has been obscured by the tendency to deify

creation (Decal 53-54). Moses’s piety and philosophical purity is evident in the command that

we should not attribute to any part of the generated cosmos the status of the omnipotent, eternal

God who has made the whole of the cosmos and preserves it from destruction (Decal 58).

Those who are out of their right minds (ἀπόνοια) not only regard parts of the created

cosmos as gods but attribute to a part the status of the great, primal God (μέγιστον καὶ πρῶτον

θεόν) who made the whole (Decal 59). Their inability or refusal to learn is noteworthy because

the clearest proof lies near (σαφεστάτης ἐγγὺς παρακειμένης πίστεως) in their reliance on the

faculty of the mind of their invisible human souls to order their affairs. The fact that an invisible

intelligence guides and causes their own activity does not lead them to infer that there is an

invisible and intelligible (ἀόρατον καὶ νοητὸν) cause ordering all of the affairs of creation (Decal

59-60, Spec 1.16-19).

In our discussion of On the Creation, we saw that the invisible, ruling part of the soul that

constituted the human mind was established as the likeness of the image of God and made

humans capable of discerning God’s providential order and growing in virtue. Just as it is the

height of foolishness to given honor to servants that belongs to a Great King, anyone who gives
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honor to creatures that is due to their Creator is among the most senseless and unjust (ἄδικος) of

humanity because they are giving “equal measure to those who are not equal. This failure to

evaluate equal worth does not actually honor the lower, but takes down that which is better better

(Decal 61).

This argument against the unreasonable elevation to a status of equality of created beings

which are not equal to God is particularly important in the apologetic context in which the

Exposition series was written. Philo’s account of his embassy to Gaius reports that Gaius had

been flattered by his Egyptian servants and Alexandrian contacts who had been willing to show

piety to the divine emperor by worshipping his statue. Philo’s Egyptian opponents were also

presenting Jews as impious for refusing to worship an image of the emperor, who was a mere

man and therefore lower than God (Legat 355). Philo’s presentation of the Jews is that their

refusal to worship that which is lower than the Greatest God is actually a purer form of the

Imperial ideal of piety rather than an insult to the emperor.222 Furthermore, Gaius should not be

be inclined to look favorably upon the Egyptians because of their willingness to deify him

because they had already deified creatures who were lower than the uncreated God on the

hierarchy:

“How much reverence is paid by them to the title of God is shown by their having
allowed it to be shared by the indigenous ibises and venomous snakes and many other
ferocious wild beasts. It naturally followed that by this unrestricted use of names
appertaining to God, while they deceived the little-wits who do not see through Egyptian
godlessness, they stand condemned by those who understand their great folly or rather
impiety (ἀσέβεια, Legat 163).”

While Gaius’s Egyptian and Alexandrian Greek contacts eagerly expressed their willingness to

worship his image, Philo expresses why such flattery does not reflect true piety:

On Roman Augustan “family values” expressed through the virtue of pietas/ εὐσέβεια, see D’Angelo, “Gender
222

and Geopolitics”:70-81.
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“It was only natural that they who at any rate were men should be so regarded by those
who deified dogs and wolves and lions and crocodiles and many other wild animals on
the land, in the water and the air, for whom altars and temples and shrines and sacred
precincts have been established through the whole of Egypt” (Legat 139).”

As with Decal 61, Gaius is not being honored by the Egyptians' willingness to deify him. Rather,

the primal God is being dishonored, which is the height of impiety (Decal 62, see also Spec

1.20). Jewish refusal to deify Gaius but willingness to offer prayers to the Great God on his

behalf is therefore not an impious slight to Gaius, but a proper piety to God that assures that the

Jews will be virtuous citizens of the empire that God has providentially bestowed onto Gaius

(Legat 9, 279-280, 355-357).

Those who go even further in their impiety (ἀσέβεια) by giving away (ἀποδίδωμι)223 the

honors due to God on other humans refuse to show God even the most common of tributes

(χαρίζομαι) by remembering Him (Decal 63). While they have a duty to remember God, they

forget him with a “forgiveness deliberately practiced to their lasting misery” (Decal 62, trans.

Colson.). Hinting at the Egyptians who used their tongues to deceive Gaius, such people grieve

the pious and by speaking evil that passes through the ear and wastes the soul like fire, causing

the righteous to be silent to “avoid giving provocation” (Decal 63-64, Legat 197-198, 355-372).

Philo ends this section of On the Decalogue with an admonishment to inscribe in themselves the

first and most sacred commandment to acknowledge and honor the one God above all and to not

223
Due to space constraints, I can’t explore how Philo uses δίδωμι compounds in ways that are relevant to Paul’s
three uses of παραδίδωμι referring to God’s actions of handing the vicious over to the consequences of their vice in
Rom 1.24-28. Δίδωμι in Philo is part of a discourse on gracious benefaction, and God’s providential ordering of
creation for human necessity, comfort, and enjoyment. Thanksgiving is the appropriate response to God’s
benefaction. To give away honors that are due to God as part of our thanksgiving to him as creator is grave impiety
and invites God’s wrath and just punishment of human wickedness. The just and providential response of God to
impiety in the Exposition is a withdrawal of providential abundance within creation and/or some sort of fitting,
proportional response to human transgression that echoes the nature of the offense, though this may be tempered by
mercy. When the humans of Opif 152 prioritize the lower pleasures of mortal, corruptible creation over the bliss of
pursuing true knowledge and wisdom about the immortal, incorruptible creator, the mortal nature of their irrational
souls in their bodies takes priority over the immortal, rational soul of their minds, making them subject to death. The
fitting penalty would be for them to be wiped out from the face of the earth, but God tempers their punishment by
withdrawing the providential bounty of creation lest it fall on unworthy recipients (Opif 168-169).
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let the opinion (δόξα) that there are many gods reach the ears of those who order their lives to

seek truth (ἀλήθεια) and purity (Decal 65, see also Spec 1.20).

Philo’s expositions on the second commandment prohibiting the manufacture and

worship of idols begin with an observation that those who worship the sun, moon, and other

heavenly bodies err in failing to infer and the existence of the sovereign and invisible God, who

alone is the cause of all that exists and is worthy of worship. However, Philo sees this as a less

serious, more easily correctable error relative to that of those who make idols out of lifeless,

created materials (Decal 66-68, Spec 1.12-23).

Philo directly quotes Deut 4.19’s prohibition of worship of the heavenly bodies in Spec

1.15. Deut 4.15-19 as a whole seems to be ironically alluding to Gen 1.25-28 to generate a

critique of idolatry as a violation of the hierarchy of the cosmos established in Gen 1.224 Philo’s

own critique of idolatry also makes use of the language of image and likeness of Gen 1.26 and

the cosmological hierarchy that he established in his reading of Gen 1-3 in On the Creation.

Philo’s reading moves beyond the biblical text in its incorporation of a psychology in which the

likeness of the image of God is the human mind which corresponds to God’s Logos and the

structure of the cosmos in a microcosm-macrocosm relationship. However, the Deut 4.15-19

passage indicates that viewing Gen 1 as a hierarchy of creation violated by idolatry is a tradition

native to at least the LXX.

We see how Philo portrays idolatry as a violation of the cosmological hierarchy most

vividly in passages of the Exposition that decry Egyptian-style worship of images of animals.

Philo’s reading of Gen 1.26 as depicting the human mind as a likeness of the image of God

served as the rationale for God giving humanity dominion over the creation of the cosmos under

I will develop my argument that Deut 4.15-18 echoes Gen 1 in my discussion of the compound allusions to Gen
224

1.26, Deut 4.15-18, and Ps 106.20 in the section on Romans 1.18-32.

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the moon, including the lower animals that were not fit for dominion because they lacked the

capacity for reason and speech given to humanity as God’s greatest benefaction. Philo had also

used the language of likeness (ὁμοίωσις) to God to import the Middle-Platonic τέλος of likeness

of God (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ ) insofar as it is possible from the Plato’s Theaetetus 176b. Through

contemplation of the rational order of the cosmos and of the intelligible, heavenly forms in the

mind of the Logos that gave changeable objects of creation their order, humans could overcome

the disorder of the body’s passions and ascend up to God with the immortal, ruling part of their

soul in their minds as they lived according to nature and obeyed the divine law.

The worship of created, changeable things (even of relatively stable heavenly bodies) is

to choose what is more like the lower nature of the irrational soul in the body as an object of

highest devotion rather than to choose the incorruptible God who is most like the human mind as

the proper object of imitation and worship. Philo’s account of the seduction of the mind through

the images that sense-perception stamped onto the mind of pleasurable objects in creation in

Philo’s allegorical reading of Gen 3 established the ironic use of the likeness language of Gen

1.26 to describe the deformation and enslavement of the human mind that pursues objects of

creation over the creator (Opif 166). In Philo’s discussions of idolatry in the rest of the

Exposition, this misuse of the mind’s capacity for worship depicted in On the Creation is

manifest in the worship of other gods and the worshipping of images. The lower the object of

worship on the cosmological hierarchy, the more impious the idolatry and the more deformed the

human mind becomes as it assimilates to the object of its worship.

Misshaping of the Mind through Worship of Images of Animals

In On the Decalogue and The Special Laws 1, the worship of images of animals

misshapes the mind, making humans like the animals that they worship. This is an ironic reversal
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of the language of Gen 1.26 from which Philo established the human likeness to the image of

God as the human mind made as a copy of the Logos. In Decal 73-75a, Philo alludes to the

Middle Platonic τέλος of likeness to God, the Aristotelian τέλος of εὐδαιμονία, and to Ps

115.5-8 to decry the folly of idol worship:

“Surely to persons so demented we might well say boldly, “Good sirs, the best of prayers
and the goal of happiness is to become like God (τέλος εὐδαιμονίας τὴν πρὸς θεὸν
ἐξομοίωσιν). Pray you therefore that you may be made like your images and thus enjoy
supreme happiness with eyes that see not, ears that hear not, nostrils which neither
breathe nor smell, mouths that never taste nor speak, hands that neither give nor take nor
do anything at all, feet that walk not, with no activity in any parts of your bodies, but
kept under watch and ward in your temple-prison day and night, ever drinking in the
smoke of the victims. For this is the one good which you imagine your idols to enjoy.”
(Decal 73-75a, trans. Colson). 225

“They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not
hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk;
they make no sound in their throats. Those who make them are like (ὅμοιος) them; so are
all who trust in them.” (Ps 115.5-8 NRSV).

Philo plays off the language of likeness (ὁμοίωσις) to God in Gen 1.26 and Theaetetus 176b and

the language of Ps 115.8 LXX depicting idolaters as like (ὅμοιος) the idols that they worship in

his critique of idolatry, layering prestigious Greco-Roman philosophical ideals onto Torah. The

capacity of the human mind made in the likeness of the image of God to assimilate to its highest

object of devotion is degraded in idolatry, which impiously chooses a likeness made by human

creators who misuse their capacity to create rather than using their powers to worship God.

The Egyptian worship of animals is singled out as particularly contemptible in not only

making images of wood and other materials, but of advancing to “divine honours irrational

animals” (Decal 76, trans. Colson). Philo criticizes Egyptians for not only deifying domestic

animals, but for going to an even “further excess” of choosing “the fiercest and most savage of

wild animals” for objects of worship, giving special attention to reptiles like crocodiles and the

225
See also Spec 1.25-31.
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“venomous asp” (Decal 78). The emphasis on reptiles and snakes echoes Philo’s reading of Gen

3 that interpreted serpent as a symbol for pleasure as well as the association of reptiles that crawl

on the ground with enslavement to the irrational pleasures and passions of the body in the

Timaeus (Tim 92a). Taking the opportunity to belittle his Egyptian adversaries, Philo expounds

on the theme of humans taking on the likeness of their objects of worship:

“What could be more ridiculous than all this? Indeed strangers on their first arrival in
Egypt before the vanity of the land has gained a lodgement in their minds are like to die
with laughing at it, while anyone who knows the flavour of right instruction, horrified at
this veneration of things so much the reverse of venerable, pities those who render it and
regards them with good reason as more miserable than the creatures they honour, as men
with souls transformed (μεταβάλλω) into the nature of those creatures, so that as they
pass before him, they seem beasts in human shape.” (Decal 79b-80, trans. Colson).

Whereas Plato’s vicious souls in the Timaeus were transmigrated into the bodies of animals that

most resembled their vices in the previous life (Tim 42b-c, 91-92), the souls of Philo’s Egyptians

who worship images of animals are transformed in their present life into the beasts that most

resemble their vices, becoming more unreasonable and driven by the passions of the body.

Philo finishes his exposition on the first and second commandments in On the Decalogue

with a call to honor God as the truly existent one who is alone worthy of human worship and the

source of all that exists within creation. Philo explains that the reason for the prohibition against

worshipping other gods before God and the worshipping of images is so that humans, in

“following nature,” might “win the best of goals (τέλος) which is “knowledge of Him that truly

IS” (Decal 81, see also Spec 1.35-50) Once again, we see how Philo blends an allusion to

scripture (the “I am” of Ex 3.14) with evocations of the τέλη of prestigious Greco-Roman

philosophical discourses to present the Law of Moses as supremely rational in contrast to

Egyptian irrationality and viciousness. The “following after nature” in Decal 81 alludes to the

Stoic ideal of living according to nature and the Pythagorean ideal of following after God. The
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Law of Moses is thus presented as the rational means of achieving bliss by assimilating to God

as much as possible, following after God, and living according to nature (Decal 74, 81). The

controversial Jewish prohibition against worshipping other gods and worshipping idols is

reframed as a fulfillment of the Law of nature and the means through which Philo’s Roman

audience could fulfill their highest aspirations.

Warfare in the Soul and Light vs. Darkness

The movement away from idolatry and worship of creation in the Exposition is associated

with light, whereas the rejection of the knowledge of God available from creation and the turning

away to increasingly decadent forms of animal worship is associated with darkness. We saw that

Philo established the cosmology of the separation from the darkness and light to prevent a

conflict between opposites in his reading of Gen 1.1-3 (Opif 29-35), foreshadowing the

microcosm of the mind’s task of quelling the warfare in the soul (Opif 81). We also saw how

physical sight made possible by light is analogous to the noetic light that aids the soul in

discerning the intelligible, divine order behind the sense-perceptible creation (Opif 69-77). The

theme is introduced again in Abr 70 as the eye of Abraham’s soul is awakened and begins “to see

the pure beam instead of the deep darkness,” following the noetic light to discern divine

providence as a “charioteer and pilot presiding over the world and directing in safety his own

work” (trans. Colson). Awakened by the light, Abraham could then move from the darkness and

sleep of Chaldean idolatry (Abr 68-71).

Abraham’s journey from darkness to light and deification of the creation over the creator

as he discerns God as the providential cause of creation is the exact inverse of the idolaters of

Rom 1.18-25. There, the humans are also capable of knowing something of God from creation,

but like the first humans in Philo’s reading of Gen 3 in On the Creation, fail to show God piety
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and gratitude. They move from knowledge of the intelligible God to worship of the creation and

their senseless hearts (the location of the rational, ruling part of the soul in Philo) become

darkened (Rom 1.21) and they begin to honor the creation over the creator (Rom 1.25). We see

this same association with darkness and idolatry in Spec 1.54-55:

“But if any members of the nation betray the honour due to the One they should suffer the
utmost penalties. They have abandoned their most vital duty, their service in the ranks of
piety and religion (εὐσεβείας, Rom 1.18), have chosen darkness (σκότος, Rom 1.21) in
preference to the brightest light (φωτὸς) and blindfolded the mind (διάνοιαν, Rom 1.21)
which had the power of keen vision. And it is well that all who have a zeal for virtue
should be permitted to exact the penalties offhand and with no delay, without bringing the
offender before jury or council or any kind of magistrate at all, and give full scope to the
feelings which possess them, that hatred of evil and love of God which urges them to
inflict punishment without mercy on the impious” (trans. Colson).

Recall that in On the Creation, Philo had established God’s Oneness as characteristic of God

knowable from creation and piety as the soul’s primary obligation to God. As with Rom 1.18-32,

the mind is darkened and thinking disordered with the failure to honor the one God by

descending into idolatrous polytheism.226

Summary: Egyptian Idolatry as Descent to Vice

Our discussion of Philo’s anti-Egyptian critiques of idolatry relative to the natural law

and the soul’s descent along the cosmological hierarchy show how the cosmology and

anthropology rooted in Philo’s reading of Gen 1.26 and the account of the “Original Passion” in

Philo’s reading in Gen 3 relate to Philo’s depiction of idolatry in the Exposition. Idolatry reverses

the goal of perfecting the likeness to the image of God in the human mind as much as possible by

giving honors to parts of the creation that belong to the creator, causing the human to become

more like the objects of their worship and less like the image of God. When humans choose

226
See also the association between darkness and lies in the Dec139’s discussion of bearing false witness and the
exchange of truth about God for a lie in Mos 2.177 for comparison with Rom 1.21-25. Other passages of the contrast
between light and darkness include Jos 145, Mos 1.123-126, 145, 158-159, Mos 2.194-195.
 136

animals as objects of worship, they degrade the rational capacities that made them fit for God to

give them dominion over animals in Philo’s reading of Gen 1.26, 28. By honoring creatures that

are not only lower than God but lower than humans on the cosmological hierarchy, vicious

humans descend from their rightful place in the order of nature and become like the irrational

beasts and lifeless images that they have chosen for objects of worship.

The worship of images of animals, particularly animals lower on the hierarchy of nature,

is associated with greater degrees of moral depravity and irrationality. Philo’s critiques of

Egyptian-style idolatry frequently associated serpents with Egyptians in his Exposition and other

Roman audience works, depicting Egyptians as tempters who enslaved Gaius and others to

irrational idolatry and to the lusts of the belly for food and sex. This echoed Philo’s allegorical

reading of Gen 3 (itself drawing from Tim 92a) in which the serpent was interpreted as a symbol

of pleasure seducing the human mind away from the pious worship of God as its highest end in

favor of bodily pleasures. Crawling on its belly, the serpent slid along the surface of the earth,

which is the lowest and least divine of the four elements and most subject to change. As idolaters

descend further into impious worship, they become increasingly enslaved to the pleasures of the

body.

In the next section, we will explore Philo’s discussions of homosexual intercourse in the

Exposition as another example of increasing irrationality and enslavement to the pleasures of the

belly. As with idolatry, Philo’s defense of the controversial Jewish prohibition of homosexual

intercourse presents this prohibition in terms as congenial as possible to Roman natural law

traditions. Like idolatry, homosexual intercourse is depicted as a failure to pursue likeness to

God and an irrational violation of the hierarchy of the cosmos. As humans engage in this

behavior, their likeness to God diminishes as their souls demonstrate a decline from powers
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associated with beings higher up the cosmological hierarchy to conditions associated with beings

lower on the hierarchy.

Impious Enslavement to Pleasure in Idolatry and Sexual Immorality

Like the prohibitions against worshipping other gods and worshipping idols, the Jewish

prohibition of homosexual intercourse set them apart from their pagan neighbors in the Roman

empire. As with his discussions of polytheism and idolatry, Philo’s presentation of Jewish sexual

ethics, including the prohibition of homosexual intercourse, was framed in terms of the order of

creation presented in On the Creation and the natural law arguments that Philo smuggled in from

Middle Platonist and Stoic readings of the Timaeus. As with his defense of monotheism and

aniconic worship, Philo’s natural law understanding of human sexuality would not have

convinced all of his pagan readers or listeners, but his arguments would have at least been

respectable in terms of Roman natural law traditions.

This section will explore Philo’s understanding of gender and sex as well as the logic of

his discussions of homosexual intercourse. Like previous sections, we will attend to the

degradation of the likeness of the image of God in the human mind associated with impious and

irrational refusal to honor God and the divine order of creation and with enslavement to the

pleasures of the body. This section will differ from previous sections in that it will engage the

work of Roy Bowen Ward, an author who compared the Timaeus with Rom 1.18-32’s portrayal

of homosexual intercourse and engaged passages of Philo’s Exposition to support his arguments.

We will therefore include some discussion of Rom 1.18-32 relative to Ward’s arguments and

Philo’s thought directly. This will be the final section on themes from Philo’s Exposition before

our comparison of the Exposition and Romans 1.18-32.

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As we saw in our discussions of Philo’s association of the introduction of sexual pleasure

as tied to the loss of paradise in On the Creation and in Philo’s account of the passions, Philo,

like many of his Greco-Roman virtue seeking contemporaries, was suspicious of bodily pleasure

and acutely aware of the threat that a fixation on bodily pleasure posed to the right order of the

soul. However, bodily pleasure is not seen as intrinsically bad in Philo, nor is the desire for

humans to enjoy fellowship with their spouses or produce children bad. All of these things are

good and necessary for the right imitation of God. However, the pleasures of the body are seen as

powerful and potentially dangerous because bodily pleasure so easily becomes the soul’s highest

priority.227 Sexual pleasure represents the most intense form of bodily pleasure that a man is

capable of experiencing (Philo is typically unconcerned with the experiences of women, but

assumes they are particularly susceptible to irrational pleasures). While the creation of the first

woman is good and the capacity for fellowship and procreation is a gift, the desire to enjoy these

gifts introduces bodily pleasure, which can generate an irrational addiction to bodily pleasure

(Opif 152).

Despite these dangers, Philo views procreation and sex as essential for imitating God and

conforming to the intelligible pattern for humanity. Sex between a male and female is improtant

because it has the potential to be procreative (Opif 152, Spec 3.36), but also because it imitates

the cosmos in important ways. The active male deposits the life force of πνεῦμα in the seed

which will become the soul of the offspring when it implants in the womb of the passive female,

whose elements of earth and water are organized by the active seed to give the offspring’s body

order and vitality. The Active and Passive structure that orders the universe is thus imitated in

procreation. Furthermore, the sexual union between husband and wife imitates the intelligible

227
Richard A Baer, Philo’s Use of the Categories of Male and Female, Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des
hellenistischen Judentums, Vol 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1970):91-95. William Loader, Philo, Josephus, and the Testaments,
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011):17-20.
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pattern or form of the human of which the embodied male and female instances are an imperfect

imitation. The form is neither male nor female, but when the male and female bodies join

together, Philo describes them as two halves joining again in a whole (Opif 152).228

Sexual reproduction also imitates the gendered structure of the cosmos, with Philo never

explicitly quotes the mandate in Gen 1.28 to be “fruitful and multiply,” but he clearly sees

procreation as necessary for full imitation of the creator’s generative and life-giving powers

motivated out of goodness. Like human dominion over creation, procreation is part of the order

of creation and design of humanity ordered by God in Philo’s writings rather than framed as a

“command,” as they are in Gen 1.26, 28.229 None of Philo’s patriarchs in the Exposition have sex

with their wives or concubines except for the intention of producing offspring (Opif 152, Mos

1.28, Jos 43, Abr 247-254, Virt 207, Praem 139). This is contrasted with the lives of the wicked,

who are enslaved by pleasure to pursue sex indiscriminately without concern for procreation or

for whether a coupling reflects the active male and passive female required for imitation of God

and for procreation (Abr 133-135).

Because of the danger of enslavement to the passions posed by intense sexual pleasure

and because of the procreative power associated with sex, Philo found the Pythagorean view

compelling that sex should only occur between husband and wife (or man and concubine) if

there is the potential for procreation (Spec 1.112, Spec 3.113, Spec 3.9, Spec 4.96-97). Such sex

should be temperate rather than driven by passion.230 Sex between a man and concubine, as with

228
This imagery of two halves joining together derives from Aristophane’s speech in Plato’s Symposium 189-193,
and while Philo most certainly does not approve of the understanding of sexuality in this speech, he is willing to
appropriate its well known imagery and repwork it for his own purposes. Baer, Male and Female: 83-84. Loader,
Philo, Josephus: 26. Niehoff, Intellectual Biography: 138-139.
229
Loader in Philo, Josephus: 99, n294, notes that Philo never explicitly cites Gen 1.28’s command to “be fruitful
and multiply.” Citing Jobling’s “And Have Dominion: 51, Loader comments that Philo’s references to the command
in Gen 1.26, 28 to have dominion describe the order of nature rather than a command.
230
Kathy L. Gaca, The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early
Christianity, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003): 94-116, 119-159, 190-217. See especially pp 207-208
for Philo’s innovative Pythagorean reading of Jewish sexual regulation laws.
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Abraham and Hagar, should be aimed at procreation without fellowship (Abr 247-254). While

Philo seems to have some tolerance to those who married women that they did not know to be

infertile but continue to have sex with their wives out of the habit of intimacy (Spec 3.34-35),

Philo sees the intentional pursuit of nonprocreative marriages as a great evil:

“But those who sue for marriage with women whose sterility has already been proved
with other husbands, do but copulate like pigs or goats, and their names should be
inscribed in the lists of the impious as adversaries of God. For while God in His love both
for mankind and all that lives spares no care to effect the preservation and permanence of
every race, those persons who make an art of quenching the life of the seed as it drops,
stand confessed as the enemies of nature” (Spec 3.36, trans Colson).

Men who are pleasure-lovers and mate with their wives without intention to procreate are also

described as pigs and goats seeking enjoyment of sexual intercourse in Spec 3.113, and sexual

unchastity within marriage towards one's own wife is decried in Spec 3.9. Like the Egyptian

idolaters of the last section who became like the animals and idols that they worshipped, those

who are so enslaved to the pleasures of the belly become increasingly like irrational animals

lower than humans on the cosmological hierarchy rather than increasingly like God through the

pursuit of virtue.

Philo’s explanation of Jewish sexual regulation laws draws reflect Pythagorean

Procreationist sentiments, which likewise likened men who have intemperate sex driven by a

desire for pleasure (even with their wives) to animals who were lower on the Pythagorean scale

of nature (Tim 90-92).231 Plato had been heavily influenced by Pythagorean thinking, especially

in his Timaeus dialogue. In the Laws, Plato mandated that procreative sex between couple so

childbearing age follow a strict Pythagorean regimen, though he did not hold people to this ideal
231
On Pythagorean Procreationism, see Gaca, Fornication: 94-116. On the pursuit of non-procreative sex as making
men like animals in Pythagoreadn and Platonic thinking, see page 106-107, where Gaca cites the transmigration of
irrational human souls into animals in Tim 90e-92c. She also cites Phaedrus 250e-251a: “Now he who is not newly
initiated, or has been corrupted, does not quickly rise from this world to that other world and to absolute beauty
when he sees its namesake here, and so he does not revere it when he looks upon it, but gives himself up to pleasure
and like a beast proceeds to lust and begetting; he makes license his companion and is not afraid or ashamed to
pursue pleasure in violation of nature (παρὰ φύσιν),” trans Fowler.
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after their procreative years.232 Plato’s regulation of procreative sex in the laws reflects a

modified version of Pythagorean Procreationism, which held that married couples should only

engage in sex when they intend to produce children, and that the sex should be temperate rather

than driven by passoin. Procreationism was a eugenics technology that sought to ensure that the

structure and quality of the soul of the offspring would be harmoniously ordered, making the

offspring fit for a life of virtue and better suited to leadership in society.233

Likely due to the increasing importance of Plato’s Timaeus to Middle-Platonists and

Stoics beginning the century before Philo, a Neopythagorean Procreationism was already

ascendent in the Roman Empire during Philo’s own lifetime. Pythagorean ideas generally (or

“Pythagoreanism” filtered through interpretations of Plato) were popular among Middle

Platonists and Stoics from the first century BCE in Rome.234 We know that Cicero and Varro

were engaging Neopythagorean Procreationist writings in Rome a century before Paul and

Philo.235 Philo’s slightly younger Roman Stoic contemporary, Seneca, was a procreationist, as

was the Stoic Musonious Rufus who taught in Rome a generation later. Kathy Gaca points out

that this a departure from earlier Stoicism and ancient society generally, which had made

procreation central without limiting sexual activity to reproduction. Favoring procreation is not

the same as reducing permissible sex to procreation.236 While likely a minority position in its

extreme form, Neopythagorean Procreationism was a respectable position in first century Rome

232
See Gaca, Fornication: 104-107. From the Laws, Gaca sites 783-784, 835-836.
233
Gaca, Fornication: 94-116.
234
The main speaker in the Timaeus, Timaeus of Locri, was presented as a Pythagorean whose speech seemed to
largely have the approval of Socrates. John Dillon, The Middle Platonists, (London: Gerald Duckworth & Company
Limited, 1977):117-119. On Pythagorean ideas filtered through Plato (especially the Timaeus) and how these were
engaged by later Stoic and Platonist thinkers, see Leonid Zhmud, “Greek Arithmology: Pythagoras or Plato?,” in
Pythagorean Knowledge from the Ancient to the Modern World: Askesis, Religion, Science, ed. Almut-Barbara
Renger and Alessandro Stavru, (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, 2016): 321-346. On
Neopythagoreanism, see Michael Trapp, “Neopythagoreans,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 50, Issue
Supplement 94 Part2, June 2007: 347–363.
235
Gaca, Fornication: 112-113.
236
Gaca, Fornication: 97-98.
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rather than a fringe belief. This respectability gave Philo a way to explain one of the more

alienating teachings of Jewish law: the prohibition of homosexual intercourse.

Neopythagorean Procreationism and Philo’s Opposition to Homosexual Intercourse in the

Exposition

Having established Mosaic sexual ethics in terms congenial to the Platonized

Pythagoreanism of the Timaeus, Philo could frame homosexual sex as contrary to the Law of

Nature and the Law of Moses due to it not being reproductive, and therefore pursued only for

pleasure. Procreation between husband and wife also imitated the Active/Passive binary structure

of the cosmos, which was lacking in homosexual intercourse. Rather, in On Abraham 133-41 the

men of Sodom, misusing the abundant agricultural provision of their land, failed to be satisfied

but were consumed by the lusts of the belly for food and sex:

“Incapable of bearing such satiety [from the agricultural abundance of their land],
plunging like cattle, they threw off from their necks the law of nature and applied
themselves to deep drinking of strong liquor and dainty feeding and forbidden forms of
intercourse. Not only in their mad lust for women did they violate the marriages of their
neighbours, but also men mounted males without respect for the sex nature which the
active partner shares with the passive; and so when they tried to beget children they were
discovered to be incapable of any but a sterile seed. Yet the discovery availed them not,
so much stronger was the force of the lust which mastered them. Then, as little by little
they accustomed those who were by nature men to submit to play the part of women, they
saddled them with the formidable curse of a female disease. For not only did they
emasculate their bodies by luxury and voluptuousness but they worked a further
degeneration in their souls and, as far as in them lay, were corrupting the whole of
mankind. Certainly, had Greeks and barbarians joined together in affecting such unions,
city after city would have become a desert, as though depopulated by a pestilential
sickness” (Abr 135-136, trans. Colson).

Note that Philo draws attention to the inappropriateness of an active male partner having sex

with another male, who should also take an active role.

As is typical throughout the Exposition and his other Roman-audience works, Philo

describes punishments that are “fitting” to the crime in some way. We saw that in Philo’s reading
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of Gen 3, the first humans who prioritized the pursuit of changeable, mortal creation over the

immortal God received the fitting penalty of their lower, mortal nature governing ruling over the

immortal nature of their souls. Similarly, in Abr 135-136, the active male partner who chooses

another male for a sexual partner becomes sterile, having wasted his seed in nonprocreative sex.

Men who enact the passive role of the female sex partner with a male partner become feminized

in their souls. These are not merely metaphors or “poetic justice,” but rather a providential

consequence of violating the structure of nature that reflects real changes in the soul and body

reflecting the decay of the vicious. The male souls “degenerate” to become more feminized.

The feminization of the soul occurs because gender is plotted along Philo’s cosmological

hierarchy. Sharon Lea Mattilla has argued that Philo’s conception of gender is a “gradient” in

which the pole of “male” is viewed as positive and “female” is viewed as negative:

“But the ‘male’ in Philo is not merely asexual. All the universal qualities which Philo
considers most admirable are subsumed under the category of ‘male’: the rational, the
noetic-ideal and incorporeal, the heavenly, indivisible and unchanging, the active
principle. Their opposites are categorized as ‘female’: the irrational, the sense-perceptible
and material, the earthly, divisible and changing, the passive principle. The superiority of
that which is ‘male’ over that which is ‘female’ is one of the most consistently applied
principles in Philo's thought. He is thus often found to compare the relative value of the
various components of his conceptual universe according to their ‘maleness’ and
‘femaleness.’”237

Thus, when a woman cultivates her rational soul to become more like God, her mind is

taking on more masculine traits. Similarly, when men decline into vice, they become increasingly

feminized, passive, irrational, and enslaved to the pleasures and passions of the body. The men of

Sodom in the degeneration of their souls decline from being active, masculine, and rational to

being like unreasonable animals, feminized, and sterile (Abr 135-136).

237
Mattilla, “Philo’s Gender Gradient”:106.
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The Timaeus, Philo, and Rom 1.26-27 in Roy Bowen Ward’s “Why Unnatural?”

Roy Bowen Ward’s 1997 article, “Why Unnatural? The Tradition behind Romans

1:26-27” includes a section on Philo’s treatment of homosexual intercourse in the Exposition as

part of a wider discussion on the similarity of the relevance of the Timaeus for understanding

Rom 1.18-32. Despite being published nearly twenty-five years ago, Ward’s article remains one

of the few examples of New Testament scholarship that engages any part of Romans 1.18-32

with the Timaeus. Ward used the creation story from the Timaeus and the prohibition against

female homosexual intercourse in Plato’s Laws to answer the question of why homosexual

intercourse was considered to be “against nature.”238 The passage from Plato’s Laws, (translated

by Ward and including his use of the Greek) is below and is one of the few examples of a

prohibition against female homosexual intercourse:

"is thought to have corrupted the pleasures (ἡδοναί) of intercourse (ἀφροδίσια) which are
according to nature (κατὰ φύσιν) , not only for humans (ἄνθρωποι) but also for beasts
(θήρια)... Because the female (θήλεια) nature (φύσις) and that of the males is for the
purpose of the intercourse of procreation (εἰς κοινωνίαν τῆς γεννήσεως), the pleasure
(ἡδονή) concerning these appears to be allowed according to nature (κατὰ φύσιν), but
contrary to nature (παρὰ φύσιν) when it is males with males or females with females
(θηλείαι); and of those first to be guilty of this shameful act it was due to their lack of self
control of pleasure (ἀκράτεια ἡδονῆς)” (Plato Leg 636c, transl Ward).239

While Kathy Gaca does not cite this passage in her discussion of Plato’s modified Pythagorean

Procreationism in the Laws, the passage reflects Pythagorean Procreationist positions such as

confining sexual intercourse to procreative sex and a concern with the dangers of excessive

pleasure-seeking.240 Ward did not appear to be aware of the influence of Pythagorean thinking on

Plato in either the modified Procreationism of the Laws or in major features of the Timaeus, but

238
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”:263.
239
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”: 264.
240
For Gaca’s discussion of Pythagorean Procreationism in Plato’s Laws, see Fornication: 48-57, 105-106.
 145

rightly draws the conclusion that the purpose of sexual intercourse in these texts is for

procreation and that pleasure is treated as potentially dangerous.

Seeking an explanation for Plato Leg 636c’s language of κατὰ φύσιν and παρὰ φύσιν in

Plato’s creation narrative in the Timaeus, Ward concludes that κατὰ φύσιν (“according to

nature”) is treated as “tantamount to the will of the creator” in the Timaeus, citing Tim 30a-b.241

As with Philo’s later appropriation of the Timaeus, ἡδονή (pleasure) is treated as the “strongest

lure of evil” in Tim 69e.242 However, the Timaeus indicates that the function of ἡδονή during sex

is to be conducive to procreation, so that it is permissible to a certain extent in a procreative

context.243 Like Gaca, Ward cited Phaedrus 250e-251a as an example of the position that men

who have sex for pleasure are like beasts and are therefore acting παρὰ φύσιν rather than κατὰ

φύσιν.

Though Ward did not hold that Philo’s Abr 133-137 was a direct influence on Paul, he

gave extensive attention to Philo’s dependence on Plato in On Abraham’s Sodom narrative. 244

Ward also cites Spec 3.83, a previously neglected passage from the Exposition that references

female homosexual intercourse, in which a prostitute is described as being worthy of death for

corrupting God’s benefecations of φύσις (nature).245 Ward, drawing from Runia’s magisterial

Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato, also visited Philo’s reading of the Gen 3 in Opif

151 that attributes the introduction of woman as the starting point of a blameworthy life for

humans due to the introduction of the lure of pleasure in sex. Ward recognized Philo’s use of

“ὑπαλλάττονται” in Opif 152 to describe how the first humans “exchanged the blessed and

immortal life for the mortal and unhappy existence in their pursuit of the pleasures of the body.246
241
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”: 264.
242
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”: 265.
243
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”: 267.
244
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”: 269-271.
245
Ward, “Why Unnatural?: 272.
246
Ward, “Why Unnatural?: 273.
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After examining the discussion of natural, procreative sex vs. unnatural sex in the

Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, Ward compared Philo and Pseudo-Phocylides to Rom 1.26-27

and noted that all three texts oppose male and female homosexual intercourse, describe

homosexual intercourse as παρὰ φύσιν, express a negative view of pleasure and the passions as

part of the opposition to homosexual intercourse, and used the terms ἄρσην and θῆλυς (“male”

and “female”). In the case of Philo and Rom 1.18-32, creation is also referenced. Ward notes that

while Rom 1.26-27 does not explicitly reference procreation, the term θηλεία in Rom 1.26 is

associated with female procreation both etymologically and in usage.247

Implications of Ward’s Arguments for Understanding Romans 1.18-32 & Romans as a Whole

The conclusion of Ward’s article argues that Romans 1.26-27 may have been an example

of an “antihedonistic, pro-procreation” discourse “typical of Hellenistic Jews” who contrasted

themselves with “pleasure-oriented Romans” and defended the active/passive structure of

nature.248 I agree with Ward’s analysis that Rom 1.26-28 seems to represent a procreationist

critique of homosexual acts as contrary to the active/passive structure of the cosmos and the

procreative purpose of sex implicit within the divine order of nature and driven by inordinate

pursuit of pleasure.

In light of Ward’s argument, I suggest that we read Rom 1.27-28 as an ironic allusion to

Gen 1.27-28. The use of ἄρσην and θῆλυς in Rom 1.27-28 echoes the ἄρσην and θῆλυς in Gen

1.27. The acts of female and male homosexual intercourse are intrinsically non-procreative and

are contrary to a Philonic-style understanding of sex as for the purpose of procreation within

marriage between an active male partner and a passive female partner, reflecting the

active/passive structure of the cosmos. Such acts would fail to fulfill the purpose of procreative

247
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”: 277.
248
Ward, “Why Unnatural?”: 284.
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sex in imitating God’s creative and life-giving power through creating children in the likeness of

the parents and of imitating the intelligible pattern of humanity, which is neither male nor female

but inclusive of both genders, in the sexual union the sexual union of husband and wife.

Engagement with Abr 135-136 and the Timaeus in Romans Commentaries

While On Abraham 135-136 is one of the most frequently cited passages of the

Exposition in commentaries on Romans, the link between Philo’s Pythagorean/Platonic

cosmological structure and Plato’s Timaeus in Abr 135-136 noted by Roy Bowen Ward is

unexamined in commentaries. Indeed, just as few Romans commentaries include citations of On

the Creation in their Rom 1.18-32, few commentaries reference the Timaeus at all, despite the

Timaeus serving as the foundational text for Platonist, Aristotelian, and Stoic natural law.

Jewett’s commentary stands out for citing Abr 135 as well as Spec 1.50 and Spec 3.37-42 from

the Exposition in addition to the ubiquitous citation of Wisdom of Solomon 14.16 in his exegesis

of Rom 1.26-27.249 Jewett also includes one citation of the Timaeus in his discussion of Rom 1.20

along with citations of Philo, but did not include discussions of the active and passive structure

of the universe in his reading of Rom 1.26-27.250

Ward’s engagement of both the Timaeus and Philo to understand this difficult passage of

scripture also points to the need for New Testament scholars to attend to ways that writers like

Philo and the author of the Wisdom of Solomon were reading the Septuagint in ways that

harmonized Genesis with the Timaeus. The scope of Ward’s article did not extend to the

relevance of the Timaeus for Rom 1.18-32 as a whole. Unfortunately, no subsequent scholarship

249
Jewett, Romans: 173, n99.
250
Jewett, Romans: 155. Jewett cites Philo’s Spec 1.302 in commenting on Phil’s use of ἀόρατος, but is unaware of
Phil’s use of the Timaeus, as is reflected in his assumption that Paul’s use of invisibility and visibility in Rom 1.20
was a Stoic idea adapted in Hellenistic Judaism with Paul’s language reflecting an adaptation of “Platonic usage.”
Jewett seems unaware of the genealogical relationship between Stoic cosmology of Plato’s Timaeus. His reference to
Tim 92c in n70is invoked to support a suggestion that Paul is trying to avoid Platonic idealism with his “peculiar
combination of mental images with created objects rather than with abstract reflections of divine archetypes.”
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on Romans has investigated how Jewish readings of the Torah in conversation with the Timaeus

may have shaped Paul’s description of Jesus’s apocalyptic reordering of the cosmos. A tradition

in which the Law of Moses was presented as in harmony with the Law of Nature would have

created significant problems for Paul, who did not believe the law of Moses was binding for

gentile followers of Jesus. Ward’s article points to the need to understand how such a reading of

the Law of Moses relative to the Law of Nature might shaped the views of Paul’s opponents and

Paul’s account of the significance of God’s deliverance of humanity in Jesus for Roman readers

whose imagination of the structure of the cosmos had largely been shaped by the prestigious

philosophical schools of the day had received and reworked Plato’s Timaeus.

Philo’s reading of Gen 1-3 in On the Creation established premises of natural law and

natural theology that controlled his defense of controversial Jewish laws like the prohibition

against idolatry, polytheism, and homosexual intercourse. While not all of his readers or listeners

would have found his extension of natural law arguments derived from the Timaeus persuasive,

they would at least have been presented in as respectable and rational a light as possible. Philo

was certainly not the first Alexandrian Jew to Platonize Moses or engage the Timaeus, but he

remains the only surviving voice that reworked these arguments for a Roman audience for

apologetic purposes a decade or two before Paul wrote his letter to the Romans.
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Part 4: A Philonic Reading of Romans 1.18-32

In the previous sections, we explored major themes in On the Creation and connected

Philo’s cosmology, anthropology and account of “Original Passion” to the sensationalized

depictions of polytheistic idolatry and sexual vice in the Exposition. Our goal was to understand

Philo, his Exposition, and his Roman context of composition on their own terms rather than to

extract pieces of Philo that seem similar to Paul and reconstruct them out of context in Paul’s

image. It is only through understanding Philo on his own terms that we can begin to ask what

relevance, if any, Philo and his Exposition have for understanding Paul and his opponents in the

letter to the Romans. We attended particularly to the assumptions about the cosmos, human

reason, the origins of evil, human tendency to vice, and the possibility of attaining likeness to

God through following the divine law that Philo established in On the Creation. We then looked

at Philo’s treatment of idolatry and homosexual intercourse in the Exposition, noting how his

natural law arguments against these practices were dependent on premises established in On the

Creation and how the descent into the irrational passions of the belly manifest in idolatry and

honosexual intercourse were connnected to Philo’s reading of the “Original Passion” of Gen 3.

We now have the basic Philonic building blocks necessary for a comparison of Philo’s On

the Creation and supporting passages of the Exposition on idolatry and homosexual intercourse

with Romans 1.18-32. This section will begin with a discussion of the allusions to Psalm 106.20

(105.20 LXX), Deut 4.15-18, and Gen 1.26-27, reviewing previous scholarship and offering a

suggestion of how someone familiar with a Philonic reading of Torah might “hear” these

allusions. We will then continue with a reading of Romans 1.18-32 in light of Philo’s reading of

creation, the human capacity for knowledge of God through contemplation of nature, the origin

of evil in human impiety, and the decline into vicious behavior like polytheism and
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non-procreative sexual intercourse. We will end with a concluding summary of the insights

drawn from a Philonic reading of Rom 1.18-32 and with suggestions for further scholarship.

Compound LXX Allusions in Rom 1.23

Rom 1.23 is a complex verse that contains a compound allusion of two to three verses of

the LXX. The least controversial allusion is to Psalm 106.20 (105.20 LXX), which itself alludes

to the golden calf idolatry incident of Exodus 32. Paul has borrowed the phrases “καὶ ἠλλάξαντο

τὴν δόξαν” and “ἐν ὁμοιώματι” for the worshipping of idols instead of God in Rom 1.23.

Ps 106.20 (105.20 LXX): Rom 1.23

καὶ ἠλλάξαντο τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν ἐν
ὁμοιώματι μόσχου ἔσθοντος χόρτον
Ps 106.20 NRSV:
They exchanged the glory of God for the
image of an ox that eats grass.
καὶ ἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦ
ἐν ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ
πετεινῶν καὶ τετραπόδων καὶ ἑρπετῶν
Rom 1.23 NRSV
and they exchanged the glory of the immortal
God for images resembling a mortal human
being or birds or four-footed animals or
reptiles.

Paul has borrowed the phrases “καὶ ἠλλάξαντο τὴν δόξαν” and “ἐν ὁμοιώματι” from Psalm

106.20 for the worshipping of idols instead of God in Rom 1.23.

Many commentaries also note a probable allusion to Deut 4.15-18 compounded with the

Ps 106.20 allusion:

Deut 4.15-18 LXX: καὶ φυλάξεσθε σφόδρα τὰς ψυχὰς Rom 1.23: καὶ ἤλλαξαν τὴν
ὑμῶν ὅτι οὐκ εἴδετε ὁμοίωμα ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ ἐλάλησεν δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦ ἐν
κύριος πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐν Χωρηβ ἐν τῷ ὄρει ἐκ μέσου τοῦ ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ
πυρός (16) μὴ ἀνομήσητε καὶ ποιήσητε ὑμῗν ἑαυτοῗς ἀνθρώπου καὶ πετεινῶν καὶ
γλυπτὸν ὁμοίωμα πᾶσαν εἰκόνα ὁμοίωμα ἀρσενικοῦ ἢ τετραπόδων καὶ ἑρπετῶν
θηλυκοῦ (17) ὁμοίωμα παντὸς κτήνους τῶν ὄντων ἐπὶ τῆς
γῆς ὁμοίωμα παντὸς ὀρνέου πτερωτοῦ ὃ πέταται ὑπὸ τὸν
οὐρανόν (18) ὁμοίωμα παντὸς ἑρπετοῦ ὃ ἕρπει ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς
ὁμοίωμα παντὸς ἰχθύος ὅσα ἐστὶν ἐν τοῗς ὕδασιν ὑποκάτω
τῆς γῆς.
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Deut 4.15-18 NRSV: Since you saw no form when the Lord Rom 1.23 NRSV: and they
spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch exchanged the glory of the
yourselves closely, (16) so that you do not act corruptly by immortal God for images
making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any resembling a mortal human
figure—the likeness of male or female, (17) the likeness of being or birds or four-footed
any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged animals or reptiles.
bird that flies in the air, (18) the likeness of anything that
creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the
water under the earth.

Like Ps 106, Deut 4.15-18 warns against the manufacture and worship of images and uses the

noun ὁμοίωμα. Deut 4.15-18 also supplies uses of εἰκών and ἑρπετόν as well as the verb πέτομαι

to describe the flying of winged birds, similar to the adjective πετεινός in Rom 1.23. If we

expand the parallels beyond Rom 1.23, we also see the similarity between the use of the terms

θῆλυς and ἄρσην in Rom 1.26-27 for female and male and the “ἀρσενικοῦ ἢ θηλυκοῦ” in Deut

4.16.

Gen 1 Allusion in Rom 1.23

In the mid-twentieth century, Niels Hyldahl and Morna Hooker both argued that Rom

1.23 also alludes to Gen 1.24-27 and that the Genesis passage has more shared keywords with

Rom 1.23 than Deut 4.15-18.251 The names for the animals in Romans 1.23 align with Gen

1.26-27 better than Deut 4.15-18 and reflect the order of creation in Gen 1.23-26. While the

nouns ὁμοίωσις (Gen 1.26) and ὁμοίωμα (Rom 1.23) are not identical, they are obvious cognates

and have semantic ranges that largely overlap.

Gen 1.24-27 LXX: καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός ἐξαγαγέτω ἡ γῆ ψυχὴν Rom 1.23: καὶ ἤλλαξαν τὴν
ζῶσαν κατὰ γένος τετράποδα καὶ ἑρπετὰ καὶ θηρία τῆς δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦ ἐν
γῆς κατὰ γένος καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως (25) καὶ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ
τὰ θηρία τῆς γῆς κατὰ γένος καὶ τὰ κτήνη κατὰ γένος καὶ ἀνθρώπου καὶ πετεινῶν καὶ

251
Hyldahl, “Reminiscence”:285-288; Hooker, “Adam in Romans 1” (1960) and “A Further Note on Romans 1”
(1967), republished in From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul, (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1990):
73-84 and 85-87. Käsemann’s and Moo’s commentaries on Romans also mention that Jacob Jervell’s 1959 Imago
Dei supports a similar thesis. Imago Dei: Gen. 1, 26f. im Spatjudentum, in der Gnosis und in den paulinischen
Briefen Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959):316-329.
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πάντα τὰ ἑρπετὰ τῆς γῆς κατὰ γένος αὐτῶν καὶ εἶδεν ὁ τετραπόδων καὶ ἑρπετῶν
θεὸς ὅτι καλά (26) καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον
κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν καὶ ἀρχέτωσαν
τῶν ἰχθύων τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ τῶν πετεινῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ
καὶ τῶν κτηνῶν καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς καὶ πάντων τῶν
ἑρπετῶν τῶν ἑρπόντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς (27) καὶ ἐποίησεν ὁ
θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον κατ᾽ εἰκόνα θεοῦ ἐποίησεν αὐτόν
ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς

Gen 1.24-27 NRSV: “And God said, “Let the earth bring Rom 1.23 NRSV: and they
forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping exchanged the glory of the
things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it immortal God for images
was so. (25) God made the wild animals of the earth of resembling a mortal human
every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything being or birds or four-footed
that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw animals or reptiles.
that it was good. (26) Then God said, “Let us make
humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creeps upon the earth.”(27) So God created humankind
in his image, in the image of God he created them; male
and female he created them.”

The arguments by Hyldahl and Hooker were initially well received by many midcentury New

Testament scholars but came under criticism in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. While Hyldahl’s

brief article arguing for the possibility of a Gen 1.26-27 allusion in Rom 1.23 did not develop

thoughts on the exegetical significance of the allusion, Hooker’s two slightly longer articles

assumed that the function of the Gen 1.26-27 allusion was to evoke the “Fall of Adam.”

Other than the linguistic similarities between Rom 1.23 and Gen 1.26, Hooker argued that

the decline into idolatry and sin in Romans 1 was reminiscent of the Adamic narrative in Genesis

1-3. Parallel to Rom 1.19-20, Adam had access to the knowledge of God manifested by God,

making Adam without excuse when he listened to the serpent and ate of the fruit of the tree of

the knowledge of good and evil. Adam’s attempt to become wise, knowing good and evil, was

likened to the idolaters in Rom 1.21 who, though “claiming to be wise,” became fools through
 153

their idolatry. In trusting the serpent rather than God, Adam is like those in Rom 1.25 who

“worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” Hooker argued that in trusting in the

serpent rather than God, Adam failed to give glory to God (Rom 1.23) and “lost the glory

reflected in his face,” citing a Rabbinic tradition. From these parallels, she concluded that the

parallels between Romans 1.18-32 and her reading of Gen 1-3 that Paul had “deliberately stated”

his account of human wickedness “in terms of the biblical narrative of Adam’s fall.”252

Hooker recognized that her attempt to connect the Adamic narrative with Romans 1 must

also explain features that have no clear parallel in Genesis: the flagrant idolatry, “sexual licence

and perversion,” and general wickedness.253 Her attempts to make the puzzle pieces of idolatry,

sexual immorality, and vice in Romans 1 fit onto a narrative of Adam’s “Fall of humanity” in

Genesis 3 were somewhat strained.254 Anticipating the objection that Genesis never mentions

Adam worshipping idols, Hooker offered that Adam could be accused of “serving the creature

rather than the creature,” an inversion from which idolatry arises. The biblical support mustered

to tie Adam to the sexual immorality of Romans 1.25-27 was also tenuous, with the shame that

Adam and Eve experienced at the recognition of their own nakedness in Gen 3.7-11 “possibly”

echoing “the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” in Rom 1.24. Hooker appealled to

rabbinic literature that spoke of the serpent “injected lust into Eve” to link the Adamic Fall

narrative with sexual desire, unchastity, and unnatural intercourse,255 but the later dating of the

rabbinic sources made it difficult to protect the argument from the charge of anachronistm.

It is striking after examining Philo’s retelling of Genesis 2-3 how much Hooker’s reading

of Romans 1.18-32 as a retelling of the “Fall of Adam” narrative fits Philo’s reading of Gen 2-3

252
Hooker, From Adam to Christ: 77-78.
253
Hooker, From Adam to Christ: 78.
254
Hooker, From Adam to Christ: 78-79.
255
Hooker, From Adam to Christ: 79-80.
 154

and its implications for idolatry and sexual immorality far better than it fits Genesis 2-3. Adam

and Eve are not depicted in Gen 2-3 as engaging in idolatry or sexual immorality. Both idolatry

and sexual immorality are treated in Philo’s Exposition as exemplary manifestations of the

“Original Passion” in his allegorical reading of Gen 3 in On the Creation. Failing to act on

knowledge of God and valuing the creation over the creator is the structure of all impiety and

injustice. Sexual lust, closely associated with Philo’s “Original Passion,” is the most powerful

passion that draws us away from setting God as the highest good and draws us to the earthly

pleasures of the body experienced in creation. Idolatry is the deification of parts of creation over

the creator, creating disorder in our capacity to reason. Every point of interpretation in which

Hooker strained to read Romans 1.18-23 onto Genesis 3 is readily found in Philo’s presentation

of Gen 1-3 to a Roman audience just ten to twenty years before Paul wrote his letter to the

Romans.

Reception of Hyldahl and Hooker’s Gen 1.26 Allusion Thesis

Despite the lack of fit with the Adam narrative of Genesis, Hooker’s reading of the

proposed Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23 as an echo of the Fall of Adam in Gen 1-3 enjoyed

support among scholars for several decades and was favorably referenced in articles, books, and

commentaries until the late eighties.256 The exegesis of Romans 1.18-32 as pointing to the

universal Fall of Humanity appeared early in the history of the church and has generally been

taken for granted since antiquity.257 Hooker’s exegesis appeared plausible enough because it

256
See especially Charles Kingsley Barrett, From First Adam to Last: A Study in Pauline theology. (1962): 17-19.
Alexander J.M. Wedderburn, “Adam in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” Studia Biblica 3, ed. E.A Livingstone (JSNTS
Suppl 3; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980): 413-30. Wedderburn, Alexander JM. The Reasons for Romans. (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1988): 119-120. D.J.W. Milne, “Genesis 3 in the Letter to the Romans,” Reformed Theological Review
39, no.1(1980):10-12. James D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of
the Doctrine of the Incarnation, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980): 101. Dunn, Romans: 72. F.F. Bruce,
Romans. Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985):80.
257
Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 83.
 155

added an additional layer of confirmation to the traditional reading of Romans 1:18-32 as

depicting a universal Fall of Humanity.

However, scholarship on how Jews during the Second Temple period interpreted Genesis

3 and the significance of Adam’s transgression undermined the plausibility of Hooker’s thesis in

the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. John Levison’s Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism analyzed

demonstrated the assumption that Jews prior to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 had any sort of

widely shared interpretation of Adam’s transgression as a catastrophic fall affecting all of

humanity was simply anachronistic and reflected later Christian readings of Gen 3 developed

from Paul and other early Christian writers. Levison’s work also called into question the

methodology and assumptions of well-respected scholarship on Adam and Paul, revealing a

tendency to Pauline theological categories onto first century Jews and a lack of attention to the

function of the Adam narratives within Jewish texts.258

While Levison did not engage Hooker or Hyldahl directly in Portraits of Adam, his book

critiqued the anachronistic “Fall of Adam” in Romans 1 theology of prominent scholars who had

drawn from Hooker’s exegesis about the significance of the Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23.259

Discussing the work of Barrett and Dunn, Levison argued from close readings of early Jewish

Adam texts that the notion of Fall of Adam which had catastrophic consequences for all of

humanity was not widely available to Jews of Paul’s day. Two texts that were written after the

fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra, are the best examples of some sort of notion of

Adam’s fall, but they are far from representative of views widely held by Jews of Paul’s own

day. Levison saw claims such as Dunn’s in Christology in the Making that Paul’s fellow Jews

258
Levison, Portraits of Adam: 14-21.
259
Levison, Portraits of Adam:14-21.
 156

would readily recognize and accept a theology of the Fall of Adam in passages like Romans

1.18-32 to greatly oversimplify early Jewish views of Adam.260

Combined with other criticisms of Hyldahl and Hooker by Joseph Fitzmyer and Stanley

Stowers,261 which mostly revolved around rejecting the significance that Hooker had given to the

Gen 1.26 allusion, interest in the possibility of the Gen 1.26-27 allusion in Rom 1.23 waned.262

While otherwise interested in Philo’s work as an apologist as helpful for understanding Paul’s

context of composition for Romans, Stowers was committed to a reading of Romans 1.18-32 in

which allusions to specific LXX verses in the pericope would have threatened his interpretation.

Other than the possibility that Genesis 1-10 as a “decline of civilization” narrative might have

been generally in the background for Paul or his readers, his thesis that the pericope described

gentile idolatry and decline made acknowledging even the Psalm 106.20 allusion in Rom 1.23

inconvenient.263

Levison’s Defense of the Plausibility of the Gen 1.26 Allusion

Despite his critiques of anachronistic and methodologically unsound readings of the “Fall

of Adam” onto Romans 1.18-32, Levison himself is one of the few scholars who has continued

to take the possibility of a Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23 seriously. His “Adam and Eve in

Romans 1:18-25 and the Greek Life of Adam and Eve” is one of the only attempts by a New

Testament scholar published after the unraveling of Hooker’s exegesis affirms the existence of a

Genesis 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23 and attempts to explain its function.264 While earlier

scholarship on Adam was methodologically unsound in its construction of a broadly shared

260
Levison, Portraits of Adam: 20.
261
Fitzmyer, Romans: 277, 283-284. Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 86. 341n.15, 16.
262
Fitzmyer, Romans:277, 283-284.
263
Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 83-125
264
Levison, “Adam and Eve.”I have since discovered Ben Skipper’s 2017 PhD dissertation, “Echoes of Eden: An
Intertextual Analysis of Edenic Language in Romans 1:18-32,” PhD diss. New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary, 2017, but did not have time to review his arguments in preparation for this paper.
 157

Adam narrative, Levison argued that a comparison of a discrete text on Adam with Rom 1.18-32

and the Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23 would avoid these methodological errors.

Levison’s article defended the plausibility of a Gen 1.26 allusion by pushing back

strongly against critiques against Hyldahl and Hooker made by Joseph Fitzmyer in his 1993

commentary of Romans, which were repeated in a number of subsequent commentaries on

monographs to dismiss the possibility of a Gen 1.26 allusion. Levison defended Hyldahl’s

comparisons of the language of the Gen 1.26 and Rom 1.23 against Fitzmyer’s

mischaracterizations and dismissal, pointing out that Fitzmyer “shortchanges” Hyldahl in his

assertion that ἄνθρωπος is an inadequate pointer to an allusion to Gen 1.26.265 Hyldahl’s actual

argument was that ἄνθρωπος, ὁμοίωσις/ὁμοίωμα and εἰκών are present in Gen 1.26 and Rom

1.23 but not in Deut 4.15-18.266

To add to Levison’s defense of Hyldahl against Fitzmyer’s criticism, we could also add

that Hyldahl’s was additionally supported by the correspondence of animal terms between Gen

1.20-26 and Rom 1.23. Moreover, Philo’s On the Creation provides a testimony of a Jewish

source addressing a Roman audience slightly before Paul in which the human likeness to the

image of God, understood as rationality, served to establish human dominion over the other

animals of earth. In our survey of On the Creation, we saw that Philo had made much of the

εἰκών/ὁμοίωσις combination in Gen 1.26 to import cosmological and anthropological arguments

from the Timaeus onto Gen 1-3. Moreover, the nonrational creatures of earth described in Gen 1

served as evidence for Philo’s Stoicized hierarchy of creation in which the human dominion over

animals in Gen 1.26, 28 was warranted due to superior rationality. Gen 1.26-28 was perhaps the

most crucial text for Philo’s engagement with a Roman audience in his attempts to present

265
Levison, “Adam and Eve”: 92n19. Fitzmyer, Romans: 283.
266
Hyldahl, “Reminiscence”: 286-287. Fitzmyer, Romans: 283.
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Jewish cosmology, anthropology, and law as respectable and worthy of consideration alongside

other prestigious philosophical schools of the day.

Fitzmyer had been entirely dismissive of the possibility that Paul was alluding to Gen

1.26 in Rom 1.23, seeing the differences between ὁμοίωσις in Gen 1.26 and ὁμοίωμα Rom 1.23

as damning excluded the possibility of any link between to two texts.267 Levison described

Fitzmyer’s objection to the difference between ὁμοίωσις in Gen 1.26 and ὁμοίωμα in Rom 1.23

“unnecessarily wooden.” Philo himself had used the ὁμοίωσις in Gen 1.26 to deploy a much

wider range of cognates with ὁμοῦ as a base in On the Creation and seems to have expected his

readers to accept this with no difficulty. Philo’s use of ὁμοίωσις, ὁμοίωμα, and other cognates to

allowed him to appropriate Plato’s use of these terms in the Theaetetus, Timaeus, and other

works. These terms further helped him create a Platonized discourse surrounding likeness,

imitation/assimilation, perception, image-making, and idolatry related to his reading of Gen 1.26

that operated throughout his reading of the Exposition. Philo’s use of ὁμοίωσις and ὁμοίωμα as a

Jewish, slightly older contemporary of Paul who addressed a Roman audience demonstrates that

Fitzmyer’s objections to the ὁμοίωσις/ὁμοίωμα distiction cannot be used to dismiss the

possibility that Paul indeed intended to allude to Gen 1.26 in Rom 1.23.

The Neglect of Philo as a Source for Explaining the Rom 1.23 Allusion to Gen 1.26

While Levison’s expertise on Adam traditions in Second Temple Judaism and his

critiques of Fitzmyer’s dismissal of Hyldahl and Hooker’s linguistic arguments in support of a

267
John Levison pushed back strongly against Fitzmyer’s critiques. Levison holds that Fitzmyer “shortchanges”
Hyldahl by arguing that ἄνθρωπος is an inadequate pointer to an allusion to Gen 1.26 because Hyldahl’s actual
argument is that ἄνθρωπος, ὁμοίωσις/ὁμοίωμα and εἰκών are present in Gen 1.26 and Rom 1.23 but not in Deut
4.15-18. To add to Levison’s point, we could also add that Hyldahl’s was additionally supported by the
correspondence of animal terms between Gen 1.20-26 and Rom 1.23. Levison also calls Fitzmyer’s distinction
between ὁμοίωσις in Gen 1.26 and ὁμοίωμα in Rom 1.23 “unnecessarily wooden.”See Levison, “Adam and Eve”:
87-101. Critiques of Fitzmyer’s responses to Hyldahl are on page 92n19.
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Gen 1.26 allusion Rom 1.23 are helpful in arguing that the allusion should be revisited, his

choice of the Life of Adam and Eve as a comparison does not yield as many parallels as the

Philonic tradition in the Exposition. Moreover, Philo’s Exposition and other Roman-audience

works should be of greater interest to us for comparison given that we can identify the author,

date the work before Paul, and have good reasons for believing that it was addressed to a Roman,

gentile audience for apologetic purposes. The Greek Life of Adam and Eve cannot be dated with

any confidence and may well have been Christian in origin. There is furthermore no reason to

think that it may represent a discourse that was considered as relevant and compelling to a first

century gentile Roman audience or to Roman Jews.

A more detailed comparison of Philo’s Exposition and Romans 1.18-32 and the possible

Gen 1.26-27 allusion in Rom 1.23 as a whole using similar methodology as not been attempted,

probably because Philo’s views on Adam’s transgression so clearly contradict the positions that

Paul develops in Romans 5. If Romans 1.18-32 must be read as consistent with Paul’s own views

in Romans 5, the Philonic tradition remains irrelevant. With the rise of the thesis that Romans

1.18-32 is a speech-in-character in which Paul establishes the presuppositions of his opponents

rather than his own views, a comparison of Philo’s Exposition and other Roman-audience works

becomes warranted. While he does not restrict his comparison of Rom 1.18-32 to Philo’s

Roman-audience works or explore whether the arguments of the Exposition develop in a

structurally similar way to the views of Paul’s opponents in Romans, Andrew Rillera’s recent

dissertation on “Paul’s Philonic Opponent,” demonstrates that more in depth comparison of Philo

and Romans is warranted.268

268
Rillera, “Paul’s Philonic Opponent”: 21-23, 253-415.
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Gen 1.24-27 as a Basis for Aniconic Critiques of Idolatry in Deut 4.15-18 and Ps 106.20

Despite their relevance for the defense of the plausibility of a Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom

1.23, supporters of the allusion have been strangely uninterested in the question of how Gen 1.26

might relate to Ps 160.20 and Deut 4.15-18, which are more widely accepted as LXX allusions in

Rom 1.23. To my knowledge, no supporter of the Gen 1.26 allusion has argued that Deut 4.15-18

itself is basing its critique of idolatry in a reading of Gen 1.26.

At least in the Septuagint, the language of Deut 4.15-18 evokes the likeness and image of

God language of Gen 1.26 in a way that opposes God’s creative activity in creating humanity in

the likeness and image of God with human misuse of their own creative powers to create

likenesses of God in the image of creatures. God’s self-revelation without a form perceivable by

humans prohibits humans from making likenesses of God with forms of things that are less than

God and made by God. Evoking God’s making of humanity as “male and female” in Gen 1.27,

Deut 4.16 prohibits creating likenesses in the image of “male or female.” Likenesses of animals

of the earth, birds of the air and the creeping things on the ground and the fish in the water are

prohibited as well. Deut 4.19, not mentioned in discussions of parallels in Rom 1.23 due to the

lack of shared keywords, prohibits worshipping the sun, moon, and stars of the heavens, which

were also made by God. Anything made by God, who did not self-reveal in a visible form when

God spoke in the fire of Horeb (Deut 4.15) should not be worshipped as a likeness and image.

The prohibition of images seems to prohibit idolatry relative to a hierarchy of the cosmos.

God is at the top of the hierarchy and refuses to have likenesses made by humans to represent

God in worship. Likenesses of human forms are likewise prohibited, as are images of all the

creatures made by God and put under human dominion in Gen 1.26, 28. Moving upwards above

humans, images of the heavenly bodies are also prohibited, as these too were made and
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appointed by God. Philo’s understanding of idolatry as a violation of the hierarchy of the cosmos

incorporated aspects of Middle-Platonic and Stoic cosmological hierarchies onto Genesis 1 to

generate a critique of idolatry, but Deut 4.15-19 reveals that a similar critique of idolatry as a

violation of the order of the cosmos is native to Jewish scriptures as well. Indeed, in Philo’s

polemic against idolatry in Spec 1.13-19, Philo quotes Deut 4.19 as part of an extended critique

of idolatry as a violation of the hierarchy of the cosmos. Philo provides us evidence that at least

some Jews of his own time read Gen 1 as describing a hierarchy of the cosmos that was violated

by the making of likenesses in the form of creatures for the purpose of worship that is due to

God.269

Psalm 106.19-20’s evocation of the golden calf narrative could also be read through a

model of idolatry as a violation of the cosmological hierarchy. While the use of ὁμοίωμα does

not guarantee that the Psalmist intended to allude to the ὁμοίωσις of Gen 1.26, Deut 4.15-19’s

allusion to Gen 1.25-28 shows an anti-idolatry discourse that treated idol-making as an inversion

of God’s hierarchy of creation in Gen 1 was available to Jews. The contrast of the glory of God

for an image of a cow that eats grass in Ps 106.20 shows a degradation in which the idolaters

have exchanged that which is of higher value and glory to worship an animal that eats from the

ground. A reader who had been trained to read Torah through a Philonic tradition or a similar

tradition would have seen the worship of an animal that eats from the ground as not only a

offense to the dignity of God, but an offense to the dignity of humans who were above cows in

the hierarchy of creation and meant to have dominion over them by virtue of their possession of

reason.

269
For an examination of Philo’s allusion to Deut 4.19 in Spec 1.13-19, See David A. Burnett, “A Neglected
Deuteronomic Scriptural Matrix for the Nature of the Resurrection Body in Corinthians 15.39-42” in Scripture,
Texts, and Tracings in 1 Corinthians, ed. Linda L. Belleville and B. J. Oropeza, (London: Lexington Books/Fortress
Academic, 2019): 192. Thank you to Scot McKnight for recommending this article.
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While I have not found a passage in the Exposition which it is clear that Philo alludes or

quotes to Psalm 106.20 in his polemic against idolatry, we have seen how Philo’s anti-Egyptian

idolatry polemic throughout the Exposition repeatedly contrasts the degradation to both God and

humans of worshipping images of humans or of animals lower than both God and humans on the

hierarchy of the cosmos. Furthermore, we saw that in Mos 2.161-172 where Philo retells the

golden calf idolatry incident, Philo use of ὑπαλλάσσω to describe the Israelites’ exchange of the

truth about God for a lie in worshipping the golden calf.

Both Jewett and Moo cited Mos 2.167 while discussing Rom 1.25 in their respective

commentaries.270 Jewett noted that Philo’s use of ὑπαλλάσσω as a form of the word “exchange”

as comparable to μεταλλάσσω in Rom 1.25 and that the exchange was of the truth (ἀληθεία) for

a lie (ψεῦδος). While Jewett and Moo saw the affinity between Mos 1.267 and Rom 1.23-26,

they did not attend to how Philo treats idolatry in the Exposition as an iteration of the “Original

Passion” committed by the first humans when they valued the pleasures of the corruptible

created world over the knowledge of the incorruptible creator and exchanged their immortality

for mortality (Opif 152). All subsequent acts of impiety in the Exposition follow the same basic

structure as the human likeness to God in the mind degenerates through the impious and

irrational pursuit of earthly pleasures. This is especially evident in Philo’s many diatribes against

Egyptian-style idolatry.

The main difference between Philo’s Platonized reading of the Genesis 1 hierarchy and

the anti-idolatry discourse in Deut 4.15-19 and Ps 106 is that Philo’s anthropology frames the

human capacity for reason which can discern the order of nature and lead to knowledge of God

270
Jewett, 170 n56. Romans: Moo, Romans:123 n105. Strangely, despite extensively discussing the broader passage
of the Golden Calf story in Mos 2, Lucas did not treat 2.167 at all in Evocations of the Calf? Lucas’s overall thesis
being that the Golden Calf narrative retold in Ps 106(105):20 and alluded to in Rom 1.23 provides the guiding
structure for Rom 1.18-2.11. See Lucas, Evocations of the Calf?: 165-168.
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as the likeness of the image of God in his reading of Gen 1.26. In Deut 4 and Psalm 106, Israel is

culpable in its idolatry for failing to remember acts of God’s self-revelation to their people in

history and for failing to honor the order of creation revealed in Genesis. In Philo, humans are

culpable for failing to recognize the evil of idolatry from the order of nature discernible through

their minds. Genesis and the Law of Moses reflects this order, but it is knowable and morally

binding to humans apart from the mosaic law because of the knowability of the Law of Nature.

In looking at Romans 1.18-23, we see that some sort of Philonic anthropology in which

humans have the capacity to gain some knowledge of God through creation and are morally

culpable for failing to honor God according to this available knowledge is present. Philo’s

Hellenized reading of Gen 1.26-27 assumed that humans are capable of attaining some true

knowledge about God and the eternal, heavenly realm because they possess the reason-imbuing

likeness of the image of God in their minds which made them capable of grasping the invisible,

intelligible structure of the cosmos and inferring knowledge about the creator. While the LXX

does include reflections along the lines of how the heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm

19.1), the OT does not include the kind of natural theology and interpretation of the likeness of

the image of God in humans as mind that we see in Philo and that also is implicit in Rom

1.18-32.

Rom 1.18-20 assumes that invisible (ἀόρατος) attributes of God such as eternality and

divinity (ἀΐδιος and θειότης, Rom 1.20) are plain to humans through what God has made in

creation. Ἀόρατος is only used in the LXX in Gen 1.2 and Isaiah 45.3. In neither case does it

refer to God or God’s attributes, though in Isa 45.3 it speaks of hidden treasures that God might

reveal. 2 Macc 9.5 speaks of God striking Antiochus with an invisible blow. In contrast, Philo’s

Exposition uses the ἀόρατος in Gen 1.2 as part of a textual warrant along with Gen 1.26 to
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import Plato’s dual cosmos of an invisible heaven and a visible creation. Philo’s Exposition uses

ἀόρατος a total of thirty-seven times. Because the transcendent Logos is the repository of God’s

creative powers immanent within creation and because the Logos is identified with the invisible

heaven, the attribute of invisibility of heaven, heavenly beings without bodies, God’s powers, the

Logos, the human mind, etc. are due to their greater likeness to God. The invisibility of the

human mind and its powers of reason are seen as evidence through which the invisibility of the

creator can be inferred.

While ἀόρατος is used only a few times in the LXX, ἀΐδιος is not used at all. As with

ἀόρατος, ἀΐδιος in Philo’s Exposition pertains to God and the heavenly realm in contrast with the

created realm that is ordered as an imperfect copy of the heavenly realm, is perceivable by the

senses, and had beginning in time. Ἀΐδιος is used twenty times throughout the Exposition and a

related term, ἀιδιότης (eternity) is used four times. Both ἀόρατος and ἀΐδιος are important terms

associated with Plato’s Timaeus and Plato’s dual cosmology generally which Philo imported onto

his reading of Gen 1-3.

The term θειότης in Rom 1.20 is not used in the surviving portions of the Exposition,271

but God’s divine nature and transcendence from creation are central to the Exposition and

established in On the Creation. The knowability of God as the one, uncreated, eternal,

transcendent source of all that exists is the foundation of all of Philo’s ethics in the Exposition.

The five lessons of Moses at the end of On the Creation which control the natural law arguments

throughout the Exposition establish God’s eternal existence, oneness, the created nature of the

cosmos, and the good, orderly nature of the cosmos and its maintenance as an imperfect
271
Θειότης is used once in Philo’s surviving writings in Det 86, which is part of the Allegorical Commentary series.
The adjective θεῖος (divine) is frequently used in the Exposition (168 times) and often does similar work to θειότης
in Rom 1.20 of describing the reasonableness of attributing all that exists in creation to one transcendent, eternal
God or of associating created things that are more like God with greater levels of derived divinity (Abr 70, 162).
Even created things that participate more in divinity (like the visible heavenly bodies or the invisible human mind)
point to the greater, unchangeable God who is the source of these divine qualities (Opif 25, 45, Abr 159).
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reflection of God’s character, order, and oneness. Just as Moses infers these philosophical truths

from his contemplation of creation using his God-given capacity to reason (supplemented by

divine revelation), so too should reasonable people who contemplate nature and seek virtue

recognize the truth of Moses’s teaching about God’s nature.

The contrast between the incorruptibility of God and heavenly beings relative to the

corruptibility of earthly beings is present in both Rom 1.23 and Philo’s Exposition (Opif 82, 119,

Abr 55, 243-244, Mos 2.171, Virt 67). Incorruptibility, like immortality, is associated with divine

things and is opposed to mortality and corruption. For the humans of Rom 1.23 to choose mortal

and corruptible objects of worship over the immortal and incorruptible God is to value the lesser

over the greater in an act of impiety and injustice. In Philo’s Platonized cosmology of On the

Creation, human bodies are subject to change, corruption and mortality because of their

elemental composition. Because the first human impiously chose the pleasures of the body in

pursuing objects of creation over God, the mortality of the body ruled over the immortality of the

likeness of the image of God in the rational human soul and the humans became subject to death

and at risk to become enslaved to passions and vice unless they pursued virtue. The humans in

Rom 1.18-32 become increasingly enslaved to irrational vice after choosing corruptible objects

of worship over knowledge of the creator and deserve death according to God’s righteous decree

(Rom 1.32, Opif 152).

Like the speaker of Rom 1.19-21, aspects of God’s divine nature are indeed knowable for

Philo and discerning and responding to these truths appropriately is the foundation of all

knowledge and virtue. Qualities of God associated with the creator like divinity, eternality,

immortality, incorruptibility, rationality, and invisibility are superior to that which is less divine,

has a beginning in time, is mortal, corruptible, subject to irrationality, and perceptible by the
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senses. For Philo, to exchange the greatest glory of knowledge of the immortal God for parts of

the mortal creation, as do the idolaters of Rom 1.23, is to lose the anchor point of that which is

most worthy through which we discern the worth of everything else (Decal 66-69, Spec

1.28-321).

Not only is some knowledge of God possible through the contemplation of nature for

Philo and the speaker of Rom 1.19-20, but the pursuit of true knowledge of God is to be the

highest priority of human life. In Philo’s Exposition, the disposition to honor God as the source

of all goodness and creator of all that exists is the virtue of εὐσέβεια (piety), the fount of all

virtues and that does justice in relation to God. God’s wrath is revealed due to the impiety and

injustice of (ἀσέβεια and ἀδικία) of humanity. Philo depicts God’s powers, concentrated in

heaven under the Logos, enacting punishment for human wickedness (Mos 2.162, Abr 143-146).

Rom 1.18 depicts the Justice of God as revealed from heaven in response to human impiety and

wickedness. Like the first humans of On the Creation, the impiety of the wicked in Rom 1.18-32

consists in not prioritizing the truth of God over the creation and in valuing created things as the

highest good rather than the creator (Rom 1.25). This merits God’s wrath (ὀργή, Rom 1.18, Opif

156). To value that which is greater over that which is lesser is an impious act of injustice that

exchanges (ἀλλάσσω in Rom 1.23; ὑπαλλάσσω Opif 152, Mos 2.167; ἀνθυπαλλάσσω Virt 205)

the truth about God for a lie (ἀλήθεια, ψεῦδος in Rom 1.25, Mos 2.16, Decal 6-7, Spec 1.28).272

As with the vicious in Philo’s Exposition, those who continue to prioritize the creation over the

creator in Rom 1.18-32 become increasingly enslaved to irrationality and the pleasures of the

body, becoming more consumed by vice.

272
For other collocations of ἀλήθεια and ψεῦδος in the Exposition, see Mos 1.24, Mos 2.129, Mos 2.177, Spec
1.51-53, Spec 4.68-69, Virt 195.
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In Philo’s reading of Gen 1-3 in on the creation, we saw that the terms εἰκών and

ὁμοίωσις in Gen 1.26 describing humanity as made in the “image” and “likeness” of God played

a crucial role Philo’s importation of Plato’s dual cosmology of an intelligible heaven and a sense

perceptible earth onto Genesis; and in his interpretation of the likeness of the image of God in

humanity as the immortal soul’s capacity to reason. This likeness of the image of God is God’s

greatest gift and the means through which humans become assimilated to God through pursuing

truth about God as the greatest end. Through the capacity to reason about creation, humans can

infer knowledge of the heavenly forms and of the creator, these objects of knowledge are

invisible. The humans of Rom 1 described as being capable of intellectual activity (νοέω) that

can gain knowledge of God through the visible creation.

Rom 1.23 uses the terms ὁμοίωμα and εἰκόνος along with animal terms used in Gen

1.24-28 to describe the human exchange of the glory of God for images of humans and animals.

The verse seems to contain a compound allusion to Deut 4.15-18, Psalm 106.20, and Gen 1.26.

Deut 4.15-18 itself seemed to allude to Gen 1.26 to associate making images for worship as

inverting the order of the cosmos. Philo also referred to Deut 4.19 to make a similar critique,

having established the mind’s capacity to make likenesses of things perceived by the senses as a

means through which humans become enslaved to the pleasures of the body. This misuse of the

gifts of God’s bountiful creation distorts the capacity of the likeness of the image of God (the

human mind) to reason properly and achieve the goal of likeness to God intended by God for

humanity from creation.

Romans 1.19-20 involves a similar misuse of the reasoning capacity in worshipping

created things rather than the creator and forsaking the truth knowable about God in favor of a

lie. Like On the Creation, Rom 1.23 involves a devaluing of the gift of the glory of God, using
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the language of image and likeness of Gen 1.26, to make likenesses of creatures. A reader of

Paul who had previously been exposed to Philo’s Roman works or another writer in a similar

tradition would have likely heard this passage of Romans as a degradation of the human mind

made in the likeness of the image of God through the impiety of devaluing God through the

worship of created things.

While Philo typically used other terms from the ruling part of the soul, he does

occasionally treat the heart muscle (καρδία) as the seat of the rational soul in the body like the

Stoics and earlier Jews, especially when quoting a passage of the LXX. The heart in Rom 1.21

and 1.24 is pictured as the seat of thinking and desiring as in the LXX, the Stoics, and Philo.

When the hearts of Rom 1.21 failed to give thanks to the God knowable through the

contemplation of creation, they became darkened and their thinking became futile. Philo also

associated reason within the rational mind with noetic light by which the human could reason

about intelligible objects analogous to visible light by which the eyes see the world, associating

darkness with irrationality, idolatry, falsehood, inequality, injustice, and vice (Opif 30-35, Jos

106, Decal 138-139, Spec 1.54, 1.279, 1.288, 1.319, 3.6, 4.231, Virt 164, 179, Praem 82). The

abandonment of idolatry to the worship of the one God is depicted as a movement from darkness

to the light of reason (Abr 70, Virt 221, Praem 36-39).

In the Exposition, the likeness of the image of God in the rational human soul was what

made humans fit to have dominion over the other earth (including all the animals of creation) in

Philo’s reading of Gen 1.26, 28. Idolatry constituted a debasement of this rationality, and the

greater distance between God and the object of worship on the hierarchy of existence, the greater

degradation to human rationality. While it was wrong to worship the heavens and to worship

images of other humans, it was an even greater degradation to worship animals lower than
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humans on the hierarchy of the cosmos. Rather than becoming more like God through the

worship of God, those who worshipped images of animals like the Egyptians became like the

objects of their worship. In Rom 1.23, the worship of images of humans (associated in Philo’s

embassy with the need to protect Jews from the obligation to worship images of the emperor)

and lower animals follows the hierarchy of creation in Philo’s reading of Gen 1.26. Like the

inversion of the hierarchy of Gen 1.26 in Deut 4.15-18 alluded to in Rom 1.23, idolatry

transgresses the hierarchy of the cosmos in Romans 1 and Philo’s Exposition.

Homosexual Intercourse in Rom 1.26-27 as a Departure from Gen 1.27-28.

Stepping down from the rational place appointed by God to have dominion over animals,

the idolaters of Rom 1.23 make themselves lower than animals by worshipping likenesses of

them instead of God and become increasingly irrational, ruled by lusts of the body.

Egyptian-style animal worship was associated in the Exposition with debased enslavement to

bodily appetites, particularly with sex and food. Those who prioritized the pleasures of the body

descended deeper into irrationality and would copulate indiscriminately like beasts, as with

Philo’s depiction of the men of Sodom in Abr 135. The homosexual intercourse of the men of

Sodom resulted in the degradation of positive qualities associated with beings higher up the

cosmological hierarchy. They became feminized, irrational, more subject to every vice and

passion, and unable to reproduce (Abr 135-136, Spec 3.37-42). To become more feminized and

incapable of generating life is to move from a higher to a lower position on Philo’s cosmological

hierarchy. Philo described these as a natural degradation punishment for their wickedness. The

men who engaged in homosexual intercourse with other men in Rom 1.7 are also described as

receiving a fitting penalty in their own bodies, though the penalty is not specified.
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The speaker in in Rom 1.26-27 describes females and males engaging in homosexual

intercourse and describes this παρὰ φύσιν, or out of alignment with the order of nature. Philo

frequently discussed the law and order of nature as designed and defended by God, evoking the

Stoic τέλος of living according to nature (κατὰ φύσιν) as an ideal that was subsumed to the

Middle Platonist τέλος of assimilation to God insofar as it is possible. We saw earlier how

Philo’s presentation of the Jewish prohibition of homosexual intercourse (like the prohibition of

idolatry) was described in terms of honoring God’s providential order of nature and using God’s

gifts appropriately. Philo in the Exposition upheld a procreationist view of sex in which the

virtuous only have sex within marriage for the purpose of procreation. To be enslaved to sexual

passions without care for lawful procreation is to violate the order of nature.

Philo’s understanding of the natural purpose of sex within the design of nature was for

procreation so that humans could imitate God’s life-giving power by making offspring in their

likeness. Homosexual intercourse is incapable of being procreative and therefore would be seen

by Jews who read scripture in similar ways to Philo as violating the law of nature. Rom 1.26-27’s

characterization of female and male homosexual intercourse as παρὰ φύσιν and violating the

natural use of (φυσικὴν χρῆσιν, Rom 1.27) makes the most sense in light of a natural law reading

of Torah in conversation with the Timaeus and related natural law traditions like what we see in

Philo.

“Female” and “Male” in Rom 1.26-27 as an Allusion to Gen 1.27 and Deut 4.16

Paul uses θῆλυς and ἄρσην for “female” and “male” in Rom 1.26-27 which are the same

terms used in Gen 1.27 LXX to describe humanity being made in the likeness of the image of

God and created male and female. This is striking given that Paul could have used the nouns

γυναίκα and ἀνήρ to describe the activities of women and men. This choice of words also seems
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significant given the claims that Rom 1.23 contains a compound allusion to Gen 1.26 and Deut

4.15-18. Deut 4.16 uses the related adjectives, θηλυκός and ἀρσενικός, to prohibit the making of

female-like or male-like images. Combined with the use of ὁμοίωμα, εἰκών, and the animal

terms in Deut 4.15-18, the use of similar adjectives for male and female in Deut 4.16 supports

my argument introduced earlier that Deut 4.15-18 ironically echoes Gen 1.26-28 to present

idolatry as a violation of God’s created order of Gen 1.

Philo gives us abundant evidence that some first century Jews were expanding on the

anti-idolatry reading of Gen 1 in Deut 4.15-18 and incorporating expanding them to include

elements of Roman cosmology, anthropology, and natural law to present Jewish laws as rational

and in harmony with the law of nature to a Roman audience. If there was one passage of the

Septuagint that a Roman who had encountered Philo or similar writings could have been

expected to recognize, it would have been Gen 1, with Gen 1.26 as a focal verse locating humans

on a divinely ordered hierarchy of the cosmos. The inclusion of θῆλυς and ἄρσην in Rom 1.27

suggests that Paul’s readers were, indeed, expected to “hear” Gen 1.26 in Rom 1.23, associate it

with some sort of anti-idolatry reading that saw idol worship as violating the natural order of Gen

1 (as in Deut 4.15-19 and possibly in Ps 106.20), and see the sexual immorality of Rom 1.26-27

as an inversion of the male and female procreative pairing in Gen 1.27-28. Roman-adjacent Jews

like Philo certainly saw animal worship such as that depicted in Rom 1.23 as a violation of the

order of creation in which humans were meant to have dominion over animals in Gen 1.26, 28.

We therefore have grounds for suggesting that Paul expected his original readers to see a reversal

of Gen 1.26-28 in Rom 1.23-27 similar to Deut 4.15-18 and central themes of Philo’s Exposition

or Jewish works that drew from a similar argumentative tradition.

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Rom 1.22-27 as Inversion of the Gen 1 Hierarchy of the Cosmos

The structure of Romans 1.22-27 follows the same sort of logic of inversion of Gen

1.26-28 that we see in Philo’s Exposition. Beginning with an act of impiety in failing to respond

to God’s using the knowledge of God available in creation through their rational powers, the

humans of Rom 1.23 valuing the creation over the creator. The wordplay of ὁμοίωμα and εἰκών

in Rom 1.23 ironically evokes Gen 1.26 to decry idolatry as an inversion of the hierarchy of

nature in a similar way to Deut 4.15-18 and to Philo, who contrasts human making of likenesses

and images for worship as a debasement of the calling to use our God-given rational and creative

powers to make our minds as much like God as possible and to rule creation rather than worship

it. To value the creation over the creator is to choose a lie over the truth, misusing the rational

powers of the human likeness to the image of God in a Philonic reading of Gen 1.26 in the

Exposition.

The worshipping of creatures lower than God is seen as impious in Philo, but the

Egyptian-style worship of animals is seen as particularly degrading because the human likeness

to the image of God in the rational mind befits humans, according to God’s order of nature, to

have dominion animals instead of worshipping them.273 A similar degradation may be in mind in

Rom 1.23, inverting the natural human dominion over animals in Philo’s reading of Gen 1.26,

28. Egyptian animal worship is associated with being enslaved to the pleasures of the belly, such

as gluttony and sexual lust in Philo. The idolaters in Rom 1.18-32 decline into irrational sexual

273
Morna Hooker had suggested this reading in “Adam in Romans i” (pp 78) in 1960: “It may perhaps be objected
that there is nothing in the narrative in Genesis to suggest that Adam ever offered worship of idols. He can, however,
as we have seen, be justly accused of serving the creature rather than the creator, and it is from this confusion
between God and the things which he has made that idolatry springs. Moreover, as we have already noted, the terms
for these idols in Rom 1.23 are taken from the Genesis narrative, and the animals mentioned are, in fact, among
those over which man is expressly given dominion. In listening to the voice of the serpent, Adam has not only failed
to exercise his rightful dominion over creation, but, by placing himself in subservience to a creature, has opened up
the way to idolatry.” While the Genesis narrative itself does not support a reading of Adam as declining into idolatry,
Hooker’s analysis fits beautifully with Philo’s theodicy in his allegorical reading of Gen 3 in Opif and the decline of
humanity into idolatry that is displayed in the Exposition.
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practices, inverting the natural law for humans made as male and female to be fruitful and

multiply in Gen 1.28.

Decline of the Soul Along Platonic, Stoic, and Aristotelian Hierarchies

Part two of this paper included discussions of Philo’s cosmological hierarchy in On the

Creation, comparing it with Stoic and Middle Platonist hierarchies. David Runia had commented

that Philo’s presentation of the hierarchy was “sufficiently general to be ascribed to by Stoics,

Platonists, and Aristotelians.”274Rom 1.18-32, while following a hierarchical reading of Gen

1.25-28, could also be read by Platonists as the rational mind losing control to the two irrational

parts of the soul in the chest and belly, beginning with the irrational refusal to honor God. The

spirited soul in the chest represented faculties shared with animals and could be associated with

the descent from worshipping a human to lower animals in Rom 1.23. The appetitive part of the

soul in the belly was associated with the desire for sex and could be associated with the sexual

vice of Rom 1.26-27.

Aristotelians and Stoics developed their own hierarchy of the soul and creation by

modifying Plato’s tripartite soul. Passions always began in the rational mind, possessed only by

humans and gods, with misvaluations as with the failure to honor God as God in 1.18-25. Like

Philo, Stoics held that humans were above animals on the hiearchy due to the capacity for

rationality. Succumbing to irrationality was associating with becoming increasingly like the

beasts, stepping down from the level of the rational soul to the soul held in common with animals

in Rom 1.23. The lowest level of souls in living beings for Stoics and Aristotelians involved the

capacity to reproduce, which could be seen as degraded in the irrational, non-procreative sex of

Rom 1.26-27. Like Philo’s hierarchical reading of Gen 1 infused with Greco-Roman hierarchies,

the hierarchical decline into vice in Rom 1.18-32 is “sufficiently general” to be comprehensible
274
Runia, On the Creation: 240.
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to Platonists, Stoics, and Aristotelians, particularly if they were familiar with a Philonic style

reading of Torah similar to what we see in the Exposition.

Descent as Impious Exchanges or as Degradation of Higher Powers

We see other markers of a Philonic tradition of moral transformation as ascent or descent

along the hierarchy of the cosmos in Rom 1.18-32. Philo’s Platonized and Stoicized reading of

Gen 1.26 established an anthropology in which the rational part of the human soul is a likeness to

the image of God set the τέλος of assimilation to God as an ascent of the soul to the invisible

heavens in pursuit of God. Conversely, the decline of the soul into vice as an effacement of the

likeness of God in the rational mind as the human became more like irrational beasts consumed

with pleasures of the body to the point of being unable to even reproduce their own kind.

Philo occasionally used the language of human “exchange” to describe irrational human

assessments of relative value that had disastrous consequences on human character. Rom 1.23,

1.25, and 1.26 uses language of “exchange” (ἀλλάσσω, μεταλλάσσω) three times to depict

humans misusing God’s gifts and provision in creation to trade a greater gift for a lesser one. The

greatest gift of the rational human soul’s likeness to the image of God is misused to exchange the

truth for a lie. The gift of dominion over the lower animals of creation through participation in

the radiance of divine reason is exchanged for worshipping irrational animals. The gift of

imitating God’s generative abilities through the proper use of sex for temperate procreation is

exchanged for unrestrained sexual lust with partner with whom one cannot procreate. In

response, the God who had graciously and providentially given good gifts that should have been

met with thanksgiving responds by giving over (παραδίδωμι, Rom 1.24, 26, 28) humans to the

objects of their affection that they have chosen in exchange for God’s gifts in their impiety,
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injustice, and ingratitude.275 With each exchange, humans descend further away from God to

vice, becoming consumed by irrational passions associated with earth, lower animals, and the

pleasures of the belly.

The first exchange occurs with the use of ἀλλάσσω in Rom 1.23, which follows the

usage of Psalm 106.20 in which the humans exchange the glory of God for a likeness of a bull

that eats grass. Without introducing a significant change of meaning, Paul then uses

μεταλλάσσω (a compound of ἀλλάσσω) in Rom 1.25 and 1.26 to express the exchange of the

truth about God for a lie and of anatural sexual relations for homosexual intercourse. Philo

likewise used ἀλλάσσω compounds at key sections of the Exposition to mark an irrational and

impious exchange that caused humans to lose some of the benefits that God intended for them to

enjoy within the providential order of creation. Opif 152 and Virt 205 both use ἀλλάσσω

compounds to describe the first human’s exchange of immortality for immortality in his choice

of the lesser goods of creation over the God as the highest good.

We have already noted the close parallels between the exchange of truth for lies in the

golden calf story of Mos 1.167 and the language of Rom 1.23 and 1.25 which respectively allude

to the Ps 106.20 retelling of the golden calf incident and decry the exchange of the truth of God

for a lie in worshipping creation rather than the creator. In these passages, the irrational exchange

of the lesser for the greater reflects a choice of what is lower on the cosmological hierarchy

instead of the higher. By prioritizing the lower, the human capacity to assimilate then takes on

Philo’s use of παραδίδωμι in the Exposition are not particularly interesting relative to Rom 1.24, 26, and 28.
275

However, it may be interesting to investigate how Philo uses δίδωμι and δίδωμι compounds (see ἀποδίδωμι of Decal
62 for a promising example of a bady payment of worship to idols instead of the God to whom worship is due) .
Δίδωμι is associated with God’s benefaction and providence, which lavishly provides humans with abundant
supplies for their necessities and enjoyment in the structure of creation so long as they cultivate virtue and reject
vice. When vice overtakes virtue, the flow of God’s benefactions are stopped so they don’t fall on unworthy
recipients (Opif 168). Humans face penalties fitting for their errors and these seem to be either built into the
providential structure or examples of God’s defense of the providential order through avenging or disciplinary
activities of God’s powers.
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the qualities of the inferior object of affection rather than the qualities of God that come through

pursuing likeness to God as much as possible.

Philo’s passages discussing homosexual intercourse in the Exposition do not use

ἀλλάσσω or related compounds like what we see in Rom 1.27, but do describe a degradation of

the soul as it pursues the lower things of the earth, becoming more feminized and sterile. These

are depicted as a natural consequence of violating God's just and rational order of nature (Abr

135-136, Spec 3.37-42) and as blameworthy because humans have the capacity to know what is

best. Just like the vicious people in Philo’s Exposition, the people of Rom 1.18-32 descend the

cosmological hierarchy into irrationality and vice, consumed by the lower pleasures of the body,

after they reject the pursuit of truth of the knowable God as their highest end.

Rom 1.28-32 Vice List and Philo’s Exposition

Beginning with the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against human impiety and

injustice (Rom 1.18-32), Romans 1.18-32 ends with a multiplication of every form of vice. Piety

(εὐσέβεια) for Philo was the cardinal virtue leading to the consummation of virtue in σοφια

(Rom 1.22) and true knowledge of God (Rom 1.25), whereas impiety (ἀσέβεια, Rom 1.18)

traditionally understood as injustice (ἀδικία, Rom 1.18) to God was the source of all vice,

leading to foolishness and every form of wickedness. The development of Rom 1.18-32 begins

with human impiety and injustice to God and ends with foolish and wicked humans with

depraved minds (Rom 1.28) reveling in every form of injustice and vice (ἀδικία and κακία, Rom

1.29). To fail in responding to the creator knowable through God’s gift of reason with piety was

to fail to recognize the just order of the cosmos, introducing unreason on every level by denying

God’s place as the highest in the order of all that exists.

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Romans 1.28-32 finishes with a vice list as the humans descend into every form of

wickedness. Philo’s Exposition includes similar vice lists that likewise describe people who have

failed to uphold the cardinal virtue of piety and committed injustice towards God by treating the

creation as higher in value than the creator, becoming more irrational and enslaved to the

pleasures of the body. The humans in Philo’s Exposition experience a withdrawal of God’s

benefactions when vice begins to overtake virtue, experiencing the natural consequences of

living contrary to the divine Law of Nature. Philo reflects on various virtues and their opposing

vices throughout the Exposition including numerous vice lists similar to Rom 1.18-32 (Abr

20-21, 135-136, Jos 82-84, Spec 1.172-174, 3.7-8, 3.37-43, 4.84-91, Virt 180-183).276 Like Rom

1.30-31, Philo occasionally deploys clusters of alpha-privatives in his vice lists, as with the

beginning of the vice list in Virt 182 in which those who rebel (ἀφίστημι) against the holy laws

of God demonstrate the lack of virtue imbued by the law, becoming ἀκολάστους, ἀναισχύντους,

ἀδίκους, ἀσέμνους (“incontinent, shameless, unjust, frivolous”). As with Philo’s vicious

pederasts in Spec 3.37-39, the vicious of Rom 1.18-32 are boastful rather than ashamed of their

deeds, despite the available knowledge from the law that these deeds are worthy of death (Rom

1.32). Having become increasingly removed from the immortal God as the source of life as their

impiety and injustice intensified in the multiplication of vice, the humans of Rom 1.18-32 have

minds so disordered that they approve of actions which are worthy of death.

Summary of the Comparison of Philo’s Exposition and Romans 1.18-32

This comparison of Romans 1.18-32 and the premises established in Philo’s On the

Creation reveals strong parallels that extend beyond themes and keywords. The descent into vice

in Romans 1.18-32 follows the same structure in the Exposition with an impious failure to honor

276
This is not an exhaustive catalogue of all vice lists in the Exposition. Most of the examples here are listed in René
A. López, “Vice Lists in Non-Pauline Sources,” Bibliotheca Sacra 168 (April-June 2011):189.
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the God knowable through rational contemplation of creation by exchanging the creation for the

creator as the object of highest devotion, declining into increasingly more irrational and debased

forms of idolatry while becoming increasingly enslaved to the lusts of the body and engaging in

irrational sex as part of general decline into every form of vice.

The Philonic tradition present in the Exposition helps us understand how at least some

first century Jews were reading the early chapters of Genesis in conversation with Plato’s

Timaeus and the Timaeus’s own reception by Middle-Platonist and Stoic thinkers. This in turn

can help us understand why Romans 1.18-32 seems to assume some sort of natural law tradition

that prioritizes the invisible and incorruptible God who is partially knowable to the human mind

through contemplation of creation. By knitting Genesis together with contemporary Roman

readings of the Timaeus, Philo was able to present controversial Jewish teachings like the refusal

to worship statues of the emperor, Jewish monotheism and prohibition against idolatry which

entailed a refusal to worship the gods of pagan neighbors, and the prohibition against

homosexual intercourse as violations of the divinely ordered Law of Nature reflected in the Law

of Moses.

Furthermore, Philo’s On the Creation helps us understand how first century readers might

have read Gen 1.26-28 relative to Greco-Roman natural law and natural theological traditions. If

the “likeness of the image of God” in Gen 1.26 was interpreted as the invisible human mind that

participates in God’s active, rational, and creative powers and makes humans capable of knowing

something of God and the invisible realm of heaven, it makes sense that Rom 1.18-32 expects

humans to attain knowledge of God from nature apart from special revelation and why humans

are morally culpable for failing to discern God’s existence, power, and divinity, inciting God’s

wrath.
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Rom 1.23-27, like Philo’s Exposition, uses language of exchange to mark a descent down

the hierarchy of the cosmos plotted along Gen 1.26. Philo’s use of Gen 1.26-28 in his model of

ascent to assimilation to God or descent to assimilation to animals suggests a reading of the

moral decline in Rom 1.23-27 as a failure to assimilate to God using the likeness of the image of

God in the human mind (a Philonic reading of Gen 1.26). The failure to maintain God-given

dominion over animals through rational mastery of self and creation (a Philonic reading of Gen

1.26, 28) is manifest in the irrational worship of that which is not only lower than God, but lower

than humans on the hierarchy of the hierarchy of the cosmos (Rom 1.23). Lastly, the exchange of

procreative sex between male and female for lustful, nonprocreative sex with partners of the

same sex (Rom 1.26-27) reflects an inversion of the natural design of sex to enable humans to be

fruitful and multiply by generating children in their likeness in imitation of God’s own

generativity of humans in the likeness of God’s image (a reading of Gen 1.28 consistent with

Philonic procreationism).

Expanding on the ironic inversion of Gen 1.26 in Deut 4.15-18’s prohibition against

idolatry Philo and Romans 1.18-32 treat Gen 1 as describing a lawful, divine order of nature

knowable by reason. This Philonic reading of Rom 1.18-32 not only helps us to make sense of

the the logical relationship between Gen 1.26, Deut 4.15-18, Ps 106.20 in the complex

compound allusion in Rom 1.23, but helps us understand the strong Greco-Roman natural law

and natural theology components of Rom 1.18-32. Rather than humans being responsible for

violating a law given by divine revelation, the humans of Rom 1.18-32 are blameworthy for

refusing to honor a God knowable through creation and for violations of the order of nature in

the worshipping of creatures and non procreative, passion driven sex. This extends well beyond

the violations of the Mosaic law and covenant described in Deut 4.15-18’s ironic echo of Gen
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1.26-28, which warns against forgetting how God has revealed God’s self to Moses and the

Israelites in history.

We saw other markers of a downward movement of the soul in Rom 1.23, 25, and 27

with the language of human “exchange” (ἀλλάσσω, μεταλλάσσω) of that which is of greater

worth for that which is of lesser worth. We saw that Philo’s understanding of the decline of

rationality began with impious rejection of God as the being of greatest worth and the

prioritization of created beings over the creator. Philo likewise used ἀλλάσσω compound verbs to

mark degraded exchanges in the Exposition. Rom 1.29-32 finishes its decline into irrationality

and viciousness with a vice list, a common rhetorical device that Philo also frequently made use

of in his Exposition.

Virtue seeking readers or hearers of Paul’s letter to the Romans 1.18-32 and Philo’s

Exposition may have recoiled in horror after hearing these lurid descriptions of the wicked, even

as they may have also enjoyed the assurance that they were not among the irrational, vicious

offenders who were enslaved to passions contrary to the divine law. For a sympathetic reader of

Philo’s Exposition, people like those described in Romans 1.18-32 would be “other” people, not

themselves.277 Rather, Philo’s readers would have been inclined to see the patriarchs as

aspirational figures who overcame their bodily passions and made themselves fitting recipients

of God’s grace. The expectation that the vicious were less of an object of God’s mercy and that

those who sought to follow the Law of Nature and the Law of Moses in pursuit of virtue and

likeness to God were more worthy of God’s grace and mercy, able to overcome their tendency to

vice through great effort, seems to be exactly the sort of mindset of which Paul is intent to

Fredrick Ivarsson, discussing the use of vice lists in antiquity, writes “Vice lists create a morally superior ‘us’
277

compared to a degenerate ‘them.’” See “Vice Lists and Deviant Masculinity: The Rhetorical Function of 1
Corinthians 5.10-11 and 6.9.10, in Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses, ed. Todd Penner and Caroline
Vander Stichlele, (Leiden: Brill, 2007): 170.
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disabuse his readers beginning in Romans 2. This raises other intriguing implications to how the

Philonic tradition might have shaped how Paul’s original audience of the letter to the Romans

may have understood the gospel of Jesus and why he found it so important to stress that the

“strong” (inclined to think more highly of themselves than they ought, Rom 12.3) were not on

superior footing to the “weak” in his letter (Rom 14).

There are many more possible fruitful points of comparison between Philo’s Exposition

and Romans 1.18-32 as a whole that cannot be explored further here. However, one final point of

comparison lies in what they both lack: an interest in “sin.” It is striking that sin is not mentioned

at all in the pericope, despite traditionally being read as a retelling of the Fall of Adam and

decline into “Original Sin.” Philo also uses the term for sin rarely in the Exposition. His

understanding of human suffering and wickedness established in his reading of Gen 1-3 in On

the Creation is told in terms of the virtue and vice language of the philosophies of the empire.

Rather than Gen 3 marking the entry of sin into the world through Adam’s transgression like we

see in Paul’s theology in Rom 5, the story of the first human’s transgression in the Exposition

revolves around the changeableness of embodiment and the human refusal to use their divine

reason properly, resulting in enslavement to pleasure and vice.

The Philonic “Fall of Adam” and the LXX Allusions in Rom 1.23

If the “Fall of Adam” is present in Rom 1.18-32, as argued by Morna Hooker and other

twentieth century scholars who took the Gen 1.26 allusion to support a reading of Adam’s Fall in

Romans, it is a “Fall of Adam” that appears to align precisely with the Philo’s own reading of

Gen 3 to a Roman audience during or after his embassy to Rome from 38-41 CE. If we do not

read Paul’s theology from Rom 5 back onto Romans 1, we can see the resonances with Philo’s

Exposition clearly once it is established how Philo’s on discussions of idolatry and homosexual
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intercourse in the Exposition are dependent on premises that he established in On the Creation.

This demonstrates why it is so important that we understand the development and logic of

Philo’s arguments within particular works and series rather than citing topically similar passages

in isolation of their context within the Exposition. When Philo’s Exposition is cited at all in

commentaries and articles discussing Rom 1.18-32, it is usually brief passages involving

polytheistic idolatry or homosexual intercourse ( Mos 2.167, Abr 135). These brief passages

could compress their central ideas into small and satisfying rhetorical performances because

Philo had already established the presuppositions on which these passages depend over the

course of On the Creation. Without understanding their relationship to the overall arc of the

Exposition, the relationship between Philo’s reading of Gen 3 and the passages on idolatry and

homosexual intercourse in the Exposition is lost, leaving us without valuable insights into the

structure and cultural backdrop of Rom 1.18-32.

Relevance of This Paper for the “Adam in Romans 1” Thesis/Gen 1.26 Allusion

My reading of the LXX allusions in Rom 1.23 in light of Philo’s Exposition partially

vindicates Hyldahl and Hooker’s thesis about the presence of a Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23 as

well as Hooker’s intuition that the “Fall of Adam” is present in some way in Rom 1.18-32. It is,

however, not a “Fall of Adam” that reflects later Christian readings of Gen 3 but rather a reading

of Gen 2-3 exemplified in Philo’s works addressed to a Roman audience sometime in the late

thirties or early forties of the first century.

Fitzmer’s criticisms of Hyldahl and Hooker contending that the ὁμοίωσις and Gen 1.26

differs too much from the ὁμοίωμα of Rom 1.23, Deut 4.15-18, and Ps 106.20 to be an allusion

are indeed, in the words of Levison, “unnecessarily wooden.” Philo’s comfortable appropriation

of cognates of ὁμοίωσις to echo Gen 1.26 and link his reading of the hierarchy of Gen 1 to
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Platonic texts and anti-idolatry passages of the LXX throughout the Exposition demonstrate that

Philo expected his reader to be able to follow his likeness motif without getting lost if he

switched from ὁμοίωσις to ὁμοίωμα or ὅμοιος.

Stower’s dismissal of the possibility of any specific allusion to the LXX in his

commitment to interpret Rom 1.18-32 as a passage depicting the “decline of civilization” of the

gentiles is also rendered implausible by the close fit of the pericope with Philo’s Exposition and

our analysis of the logical relationship between the LXX verses alluded to in Rom 1.23.

However, one could certainly argue that Philo provides us with an example of a Jew who

presented a reading of Genesis to a gentile, Roman audience that constitutes a universal “decline

of civilization” narrative.278

By confining our comparison of Rom 1.18-23 to Philo’s Adam narrative in the

Exposition, we have avoided the methodological problems of the twentieth century “Adam

speculation” criticized by Levison in his Portraits of Adam. Levison had demonstrated that this

misreading of Adam narratives from Second Temple Judaism selected portions of writings from

various time periods and contexts of composition that seemed to most resemble Paul’s thinking

were combined them together out of context in ways that created a misleading and anachronistic

of Jewish interpretations of Adam. This picture portrayed first century Jews as sharing a similar

understanding of the significance of Adam’s transgression as Paul and early Christians. By

studying Philo’s presentation of Adam and Adam’s transgression in the Exposition on Philo’s

own terms and within the context of his Roman embassy, we have avoided the errors of earlier

scholarship that led to a loss of interest in the Gen 1.26 allusion in Rom 1.23 when anachronistic

readings of Rom 1 as a “Fall of Adam” implausible. Instead, we have demonstrated that a

Philonic reading of Gen 3 and Adam’s transgression does indeed make sense of the flow of Rom
278
Stowers, Rereading of Romans: 85-123.
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1.18-32 in a way that Hooker’s attempts to force the Genesis Adam narratives on Romans

1.18-32 could not.

Adopting a methodology similar to Levison’s own comparison of the Life of Adam and

Eve with Rom 1.18-32, my comparison shows how Philo’s reading of Gen 1.26 and Gen 3

functions within the context of the Exposition before comparing it with Rom 1.18-32. Philo’s

Exposition offers several advantages over the Life of Adam and Eve in helping us understand the

logic of Rom 1.18-32 against the backdrop of Second Temple Judaisms. Unlike the Life of Adam

and Eve (and, for that matter, Wisdom of Solomon), we know the author of the Exposition and

can date the work with relative confidence. Moreover, we know something about the context of

composition thanks to Maren Niehoff’s recent scholarship arguing that the Exposition was most

likely written in the context of Philo’s embassy to Rome for apologetic purposes. The Exposition

has a good reason to be in Rome and to be relevant for Paul’s Roman readers. Philo’s Exposition

not only offers superior explanatory power over the Life of Adam and Eve in illuminating the

function of the LXX allusions in Rom 1.23-- it provides us with a way of connecting the LXX

allusions together so that we can understand their relationship to each other and to the rest of the

pericope.

Relevance of This Paper for the Speech-in-Character Thesis

The likeness of Rom 1.18-32 to central themes of Philo’s Exposition as well as the

Exposition’s Roman context lends support to the thesis that Rom 1.18-32 constitutes a

speech-in-character that establishes the positions of Paul’s opponents. Proponents of the

speech-in-character thesis will find this evidence helpful as it provides parallel evidence to their

thesis that does not depend on appeals to the rhetorical conventions of speech-in-character and

ancient dialogue. The more an influential representative of Second Temple Judaism who
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addressed a Roman audience some time between 38 CE and when Paul wrote his letter to the

Romans agrees with Romans 1.18-32 and then disagrees with Paul’s own positions in the rest of

Romans, the more plausible the speech-in-character thesis becomes.

Opponents of the speech-in-character thesis can no longer base their criticisms

exclusively on whether or not they find the arguments from the rhetorical conventions of

speech-in-character and dialogue plausible. They must also explain why, if Romans 1.18-32

represents Paul’s own position, it corresponds so precisely with the position of a prominent and

wealthy Jewish diplomat who had the financial means and motivation in his defense of the Jews

to share his reading of Torah, written to be as congenial as possible with elite Roman discourses,

in as many circles of influence in the empire as possible must also account for why Rom 1.18-32

sounds so much like a Jewish writer who addressed a Roman audience that likely consisted of

sympathetic pagans as well as Jews decades before Paul. Defending the interests of Jews not

only in Alexandria, but in the entire empire, Philo had the motivation as well as the connections

and financial means to distribute his apologetic writings throughout his Roman, Judean, and

Alexandrian circles. Given that Paul’s own account of the origin of evil and God’s deliverance of

humans established in Rom 5-8 differs so greatly from Philo’s own, opponents of the

speech-in-character thesis must argue how Paul could share such similar premises to Philo and

reach such differing conclusions.

Significance of the Parallels Between Paul and Philo and Romans

We cannot yet conclude that Philo’s Exposition was a direct source for Paul’s opponents

or that Paul had access to a copy of the Exposition. To make such an argument, we would need to

carefully compare the Exposition as a whole to Romans as a whole. Ideally, we should also

compare Philo’s other Roman-audience works to Romans. A thorough comparison would look
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not only at shared themes and points of agreement or disagreement, but for structural parallels

between the Exposition and Romans. We have demonstrated in this paper that Rom 1.18-32

structurally parallels themes in On the Creation as well as and dependent themes of idolatry and

sexual immorality in the Exposition. These transgressions are violations of the cosmological

hierarchy in Philo’s reading of Gen 1-3 in On the Creation. In Part 1 in the section on

Methodology, I briefly sketched other parallels in the Exposition and Romans that have a

structural as well as a thematic element. Hopefully, this paper has demonstrated that these other

parallels are worth exploring in greater depth.

If enough structural parallels occur between Romans and the Exposition, we should

seriously consider the possibility that Paul and his opponents were either familiar with the

Exposition or with some detailed summary of the main arguments. Parallels between one or two

books of the Exposition and a few points in Romans might be explained as demonstrating Paul’s

awareness of a common tradition available to Paul, his readers, and Philo. Significant parallels

between Romans and multiple books of the Exposition that appear in the same order in Romans

as they do in the Exposition would support an argument for the direct influence of Philo’s

Roman-audience writings on Paul’s Roman opponents. In the meantime, the question of whether

Philo was a direct influence on Paul or Paul’s opponents in the letter to the Romans should

remain open rather than dismissed as “extravagant parallelomania” or explained away by

gestures to a broad tradition of which Philo remains the virtually the only representative.

It is unlikely that Philo was the only Jewish apologist of his day who defended Jewish

interests to a Roman audience. However, he is the only one that we know by name and he

possessed enormous wealth and connections to elites in Alexandria, Rome, and Judea that could

make distribution of copies of even so large a work of the Exposition possible. Along with the
 187

urgent concerns of defending Jews from threats within the empire, these factors are good reasons

why Philo’s writings may have been circulating in synagogues and among Roman Jewish

sympathizers in the empire. The accusations against the Jews promulgated by Apion and the

other members of the Egyptian embassy were still circulating in Josephus’s day. Responses to

these accusations by a philosophically trained, well-connected Jewish elite who had enough

money to pay for copies of even a large series like the Exposition to be distributed at strategic

points throughout the empire could have remained relevant long after the end of Philo’s service

as an ambassador to Rome.

Until such a body of scholarship emerges, it may still be best to follow the convention of

attributing every parallel between Paul and Philo to a shared milieu with a common tradition.

Gesturing to a broad, shared milieu occupied by Paul, Philo, and his readers has the advantage of

avoiding the “extravagant parallelomania” that so exasperated Samuel Sandmel in the

mid-twentieth century. Appeals to a common, broad tradition also honor that the ancient world

was much more complex than the pictures that we can construct of it based on the small amount

of surviving writings and other artifacts.

However, there is a danger in appealing to a common tradition between Philo and Paul to

explain parallels when so few New Testament scholars have read Philo in depth and the

implications of the Roman context of Philo’s Exposition and other works for our understanding

of Paul and other New Testament writers have yet to be explored. We must make sure that our

appropriate caution to guard against parallelomania does not deter us from the thorough, careful

comparisons advocated by Sandmel as methodological principles for establishing parallels. The

serious study of Philo by New Testament scholars can be deferred indefinitely as long as we are

content to be satisfied with the explanation of a “shared tradition” even though we have not yet
 188

done the work to understand Philo on his own terms or understand his place in the Judaisms of

Paul’s day.

Conclusion

Our comparison of Philo’s Exposition with Romans 1.18-32 demonstrates that Romans

1.18-32 is consistent with the premises and logic of Philo’s Exposition. We have also seen that

Philo gives us a means for understanding how some Jews of his day might have understood the

relationship between Gen 1.26, Deut 4.15-18, and Ps 106.20 relative to the structure of creation,

God’s knowability, the sin of idolatry, the decline into sexual relationships that were considered

opposed to the order of nature, and the soul’s descent into vice. This comparison demonstrates

the further need for more in depth comparisons of Philo’s Roman audience works generally and

the Exposition particularly to Paul’s letter to the Romans. Such a comparison would contribute to

the scholarly debate on the beliefs of Paul’s opponents and to the question of whether Rom

1.18-32 is a speech-in-character representing the views of Paul’s opponents or a

speech-in-character.
 189

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