I read here that Philo the pharisee believed in annihilationism, but I found this: “to live always dying, and to undergo, as it were, an immortal and interminable death”
I would like to know why people says that he was an annihilationist.
I found the relevant passage here:
Passage XII (67)
earlyjewishwritings.com/text … ook32.html
When you read it in context, it refers to Adam and Cain and may very well mean an earthly punishment during their life given the hyperbolic use of the words “endless” and the like among the ancients.
Sven - that’s brillaint work; and the article at -
books.google.de/books?hl=de&lr=& … gy&f=false
is absolutely wonderfully useful (and the hyperbole is apporpriate here 
) Thank you - the chapter on the afterlife in Classical Judaism is really worth getting to grips with (Sopho - have a good look at it)
Agreeing with Sven about Philo - just a couple of additional notes -
Philo (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE), also called Philo Judaeus, was a contemporary of Jesus and the Apostles but was not a Judean Pharisee. He was a Hellenistic Jew and a philosopher who lived in Alexandria in Egypt.
In the Hellenistic diaspora, some Jews like Philo or the anonymous author of the Wisdom of Solomon, under the influence of Greek philosophy, rejected ideas of both a physical hell and a bodily resurrection. For these Alexandrian Jews, the righteous would go on after the death of the body to lead the true existence, the eternal life of the soul in the divine presence, not hindered by the corporeal shell. The wicked, rather than face a fiery hell full of eternal punishment and torment, would reap their own wickedness in that it would lead to the death of the soul, even during one’s bodily life, separating one from the divine. So, the dead live and the living are in fact dead, one leaving behind the flesh to live, the other emptied of the soul to die.
One thing we can safely say about Philo is that he was the pioneer of interpreting the OT in an allegorical/symbolic sense and thought that the ultimate things are beyond our grasp. Another thing we can say about Philo is that although his writings did not contribute in any significant way to Rabbinic tradition, Clement of Alexandria and Origen (also of Alexandria) the early Christian Universalists held Philo in high esteem and obviously saw nothing in his works that implied everlasting punishment for the unsaved.
On a lighter note Philo stressed the intellectual delights of heaven. Philo seems to have thought that all the saved will be able to indulge in endless philosophy seminars. This idea was taken up by some medieval rabbis, who saw heaven as a vast, quiet, peaceful library, where books jumped down from the shelves when you nodded to them, and soft-footed librarians dispersed cooling mint drinks 
.
I don’t think this should benefit their esteem. I do not want to do wrong to Philo (as I have not read all his writings) but his doctrine appears unbiblical if not antichristian, those who live a moral life by their own virtue and intellect become part of the divine, whereas those who are not capable to do so on their own, are not not judged by God, but rather fell prey to some kind of unrelentless karma that punishes them already in this life and the hereafter, without hope of deliverance.
A modern esoteric could teach the same.
Hi Sven –
I speak from general knowledge rather than expert knowledge here – but I think you are right that it is hard to judge Philo Judeaus (as much as it seems appropriate to judge him with hindsight).
One thing seems certain is that whatever Philo says it is not in any way representative of the doctrines of the Pharisees or the Sadducees that Jesus interacted with – and so it is not exactly relevant to discussions of ECT in Jesus’ time. However it is of a more general interest – especially regarding his influence on Clement and Origen.
Yes, his doctrine is intellectual – and perhaps ‘esoteric’; he is a Jewish philosopher following the pagan model after all.
However the record of his life - as attested to by himself and Josephus – suggest that he was not an ivory tower philosopher, alienated from the concerns of his fellow Alexandrian Jews; he went to Rome and advocated on their behalf after violent pogroms against the Jew under Caligula, and his plea was resolved cordially under the next Emperor Claudius.
It seems that he did not hold to, or perhaps didn’t even know of, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Therefore we cannot place him as a Pharisee.
It seems that he knew nothing about Jesus (unlike Josephus)
Clement and Origen did not see Philo’s writing as having the authority of scripture – or even as being directly inspired. However, what they liked about the writings of their fellow was that he gave them a method of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures in a symbolic/allegoric sense – and this enabled them to see the Christian OT as a prefiguration of the NT. Also – in a time when the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was in its infancy – they were intrigued that Philo seems to anticipate a part of this doctrine in his writings. You see Philo speaks of a sort of binitatrian God. There is God who is unknowable and un-manifest – the creator of the world (the Christian God the Father); and then there is God the Logos, who is manifest in this world, and appears throughout the OT and is manifested to the Jews in the First Temple, particularly in the figure of the Great High Priest (the Christian pre-existent God the Son). So this is why Philo was held in such esteem in the Christian School of Alexandria.
Regarding Philo’s eschatology – I’ll grant that this does not accord with the fullness of the truth revealed in Christ – but Clement and Origen would not have given it this status either (Philo would have been seen as one who saw through a glass very darkly). But regarding the issue of what he actually believed about the eternal destiny of individuals – well it’s hard to say, I think. As a Jewish philosopher after the Hellenistic/Platonic model we can see an uncongenial elitism in this eschatology. But it is very hard to say what he meant – because he expressed himself symbolically. Perhaps all that he meant – in terms of allegory – is that we make our heaven and hell here and now. Our heaven is what he would call our rational soul (which is abiding) our hell is our irrational soul (which is passing away) - the more we identify with our irrational soul the more pain and deadness we have now and in the world to come (although our spirit is ultimately immortal). And I guess that is pre-Christian and a bit esoteric; Origen and Clement would have thought that Philo was groping in the dark but fumbling in the right direction (especially in anticipating the Trinity).
All the best
Dick
Something to add, in the E-book on page 183 it says in #5 that Josephus seems to have believed that all souls are eventually reborn and in #6 it suggests that Philo believed all souls once delivered from the body belong to the heavenly sphere.
I’m a bit wondering about Philo’s use of eternal (aidios) punishment also, he might have understood it as earthly punishment, such as the deathless death.
He speaks about eternal banishment refering to Ishmael:
earlyjewishwritings.com/text … book5.html
The Greek text:
documentacatholicaomnia.eu/0 … im,_GR.pdf
I haven’t investigate it further.
I’d also say apostle John was influenced by Philo or the HS was influencing John and Philo for the fact that John used logos in john 1:1. That’s no ordinary word in those days.
Yes Jeremy - I know that’s a big debate (and I know very little about it 
). I seem to remember that the first notable use of the concept of ‘Logos’ was by the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus - but for him the principle of order in the universe is ‘strife’ instead of ‘peace’. Also I think there has been some work done about Logos being the equivalent of Sophia in the Wisdon literature of teh Hebrew Bible - and this equivalence reshapes Heraclitus concept out of all recognition - Logos is now the principle of compassion, peace and harmony. 