Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings

Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings investigates portrayals of one particular Jew, the first-century philosopher and allegorical interpreter of the Bible, Philo of Alexandria, in the works of three prominent early Christian thinkers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius. It argues that early Christian invocations of Philo are best understood not as attempts to claim an illustrious Jew for the Christian fold, but as examples of ongoing efforts to define the continuities and distinctive features of Christian beliefs and practices in relation to those of the Jews. This study takes as its starting point the curious fact that none of the first three Christians to mention Philo refer to him unambiguously as a Jew. Clement refers to him twice as a Pythagorean. Origen, who mentions Philo by name only three times, makes far more frequent reference to him in the guise of an anonymous “someone who came before us.” Eusebius, who invokes Philo on many more occasions, most often refers to Philo as a Hebrew. These epithets construct Philo as a “near-other” to both Jews and Christians, through whom ideas and practices may be imported from the former to the latter, all the while establishing boundaries between the “Christian” and “Jewish” ways of life. The portraits of Philo offered by each author reveal ongoing processes of difference-making and difference-effacing that constituted not only the construction of the Jewish “other,” but also the Christian “self.”