Philo of Alexandria and the Pythagorean texts of the Hellenistic period

Clement of Alexandria twice refers to Philo as a ‘Pythagorean.’ Obviously, this is how the early Christian writer imagined the Jewish exegete, famous for his allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament, characterized by numerical symbolism. However, the fascination with allegories is more likely to remind the reader of Stoicism, while the love of numerical speculation alone does not make a person a Pythagorean, for by the time of Clement all this had long since become commonplace in Greco-Roman literature. It seems to me that Clement, who was well acquainted with the school philosophy of his time, does not throw words to the wind, and when he calls Philo a Pythagorean, he means something more concrete. Moreover, numerical symbolism and allegories are not the most important parts of the story. The most striking similarity between Philo and the Pythagoreans is seen in his interpretation of the nature of the first principles. Of course, Philo is a strict monist and his first principles has a pronounced transcendental character, so not every version of Pythagoreanism is suitable for him. Nevertheless, since the transcendent deity must somehow manifest itself in the world, his metaphysical scheme cannot do without the principle of plurality, however subordinate its role. Thus, in the treatise De ebrietate 30, commenting on a place in Prov. 8.22, he writes that the demiurge who created the world is to be regarded as its ‘father,’ while the ‘mother’ may rightly be the creators ‘knowledge.’ The reference is obviously to the biblical figure of Wisdom, who as a result, is quite similar to an indeterminate dyad of the Pythagorean Anonymus Alexandri. In De opificio mundi 8-9 Philo also cannot dispense with the secondary principle of creation, which must exist before the world, being at the beginning of time molded by measure and number into an ordered cosmos.