Biblexika

On the Life of Abraham (Philo)

jewishgreek~20-50 CE

Philo's allegorical biography of Abraham as the model of the soul's journey toward God. Explores faith, virtue, and the relationship between reason and revelation.

Translation: Loeb Classical Library (via Sefaria) (public-domain)

Overview

On the Life of Abraham (Greek: De Abrahamo) is the first of Philo of Alexandria's surviving biographical-philosophical treatises on the patriarchs, belonging to his Exposition of the Law series. The treatise presents Abraham not simply as the ancestral founder of the covenant people but as the paradigmatic philosopher — a man who arrived at knowledge of God and virtue through rational contemplation of the cosmos before the written Torah existed. Abraham's migration from Chaldea to Canaan is read as a spiritual and philosophical journey from astral religion to true monotheism, making him the universal prototype of rational religious inquiry.

Philo's central argument is that the patriarchs served as living laws before Moses codified divine instruction in written commandments. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — together with Enoch and Noah — embody the philosophical virtues in their highest form and demonstrate by their lives what the Torah would later prescribe in words. This notion of the patriarch as living law (empsychos nomos, law animate) transforms the biographical narratives of Genesis into portraits of philosophical virtue.

The treatise devotes particular attention to three episodes that Philo treats as the supreme demonstrations of Abraham's philosophical greatness: his migration from Chaldea, his reception of the three divine visitors at Mamre (Genesis 18), and the binding of Isaac (the Akedah, Genesis 22). Each of these becomes, under Philo's interpretation, a revelation of a different philosophical virtue — learning, virtue itself, and faith — that together constitute the complete philosophical life.

Bible connections
  • Genesis 12:1-9 (the call and migration)
  • Genesis 18:1-15 (the three divine visitors at Mamre)
  • Genesis 22:1-19 (the binding of Isaac)
  • Romans 4:1-25 (Abraham's faith before circumcision)
  • Galatians 3:6-18 (Abraham's faith as precedent for Gentile inclusion)
  • Hebrews 11:8-19 (Abraham's faith as trust in the invisible future)
  • James 2:21-23 (Abraham justified by faith completed by works)
Key terms
Empsychos nomos– "animate law" or "living law" — Philo's description of the patriarchs as embodied philosophical virtue, demonstrating by their lives what the Torah would later prescribe in writing
Two divine powers– Philo's doctrine that God acts in the world through two principal powers — the creative (poietic) power and the royal/governing (basilike) power — which appear alongside God in the Mamre theophany
Natural theology– the philosophical argument that the existence and nature of God can be inferred from observation of the created order; Philo presents Abraham as the first and greatest natural theologian
Akedah– the Hebrew term for the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22), which became one of the most theologically significant passages in both Jewish and Christian interpretation; Philo reads it as the supreme demonstration of philosophical faith
Did you know?

Philo's reading of the three divine visitors at Mamre as God plus two divine powers (creative and punishing) was cited by early Christian theologians including Justin Martyr as evidence that the Hebrew Bible itself already taught a plurality within the divine nature — laying groundwork for Trinitarian theology.