mixture and everything comes to us from two opposed principles” (45). He shows this is common to several traditions. He mentions Iranian dualism, the benevolent and malevolent influence of the stars in the Chaldeans, the different Greek dualisms, the two souls in Plato’s Laws. Then he adds, “I will devote myself to reconciling the theology of the Egyptians and Plato’s teaching” (De Iside et Osiride, 48). He then interprets Osiris as the source of all that “the earth, wind, water, sky, and stars is orderly, constant, and salutary, and Typho with all that is perishable and harmful in the body of the universe, irregularities and seasonal bad weather, solar eclipses, the occultation of the moon” (De Iside et Osiride, 49).
It is not that Plutarch is the source of our passage. By contrast, it is very plausible that Philο and he applied the same procedure, one to the exegesis of the Bible and the other to the exegesis of Egyptian myths, and that they used lecture notes where different dualist interpretations of philosophers and religious traditions were brought together. Indeed, several characteristics of Philo’s text recall that of Plutarch. One of the titles of the harmful power is immensa, which seems to translate ἄπειρος. Now, Philo’s text says that for Anaxagoras and Pythagoras the source of evils is the ἄπειρον (48). The reference to heavenly disorders with the mention of solar eclipses (κρύψεις), occultation of the moon (ἀφανισμοί), seasonal bad weather (ἀωρίαι) is met again amid textbook arguments against Providence in De Providentia II, 71, another of Philo’s works about which we will speak below. It certainly seems that Philo alludes to Greek philosophical doctrines here.
The continuation confirms it: “This mixture [μῖξις] is in both the wicked and the wise man, but not in the same way. For the souls of foolish men have the unbounded and destructive rather than the powerful and salutary (power), and it is full of misery when it dwells with earthly creatures. But the prudent and noble (soul) rather receives the powerful and salutary (power) and, on the contrary, possesses in itself good fortune and happiness, being carried around with the heaven [μετεωροπορῶν], because of kinship [συγγένεια] with it.”51 These last expressions allude to Plato’s Phaedrus and are frequent in Philo. But here again, he evidently uses a source alien to his thought. The idea of the family relationship of the soul with the heavens, likewise the idea that destinies are determined by the proportion of good and evil in the soul are foreign to Philo’s thought—and also to Essene doctrine.
By contrast, the conclusion brings us back to the introduction: “The force which is the cause of destruction strives, as it were, to enter the soul, but is prevented by the divine beneficences [θέιαι εὐεργεσίαι], from striking (it), for these are salutary. But those from whom the favors and gifts of God [αἱ τοῦ θεοῦν τοῦ χάριτες] are separated and cut off suffer the experience of desertion and widowhood.”52 Here again we find the Essene idea of the two spirits disputing for the soul and the soul opening itself to one or the other. Thus, it seems that the strange passage has two sources, both alien to Philo: on the one hand, the Essene explanation of the two spirits and their action upon the soul; on the other, a dualistic philosophical explanation proceeding from Egyptian philosophical schools. Once again, it seems here that Philo has retained a moral trait of Essene teaching but has divorced it from its eschatological context and replaced that context with a cosmological explanation.
The Philosophers of Alexandria
Philo interpreted the Bible with the categories of Greek philosophy. Thus, our problem is to find out what this philosophy is. This is not accomplished easily. Pohlenz devoted a chapter to Philo in his book on Stoicism. Wolfson views Philo as a Platonist. Wendland ties him to Aristotle. Festugière is satisfied to speak about eclecticism. In that, Philo is certainly the reflection of the period of the early Empire to which he belongs. Schools tended to be confused with each other following a trend that began in the previous century. Posidonius had opened classical Stoicism to Platonic influences. Antiochus of Ascalon had integrated Stoic and Aristotelian elements into Platonism. These diverse influences persist into Philo’s period.
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