In the history of Western philosophy of religion the thought of Philo of Alexandria (c.15 bce-50 ce) represents something new. Hitherto all the leading philosophers had been Greeks, or, even if they had a non-Greek ethnic background (as may have been the case for Zeno of Citium in Cyrus, the founder of the Stoa), they had identified themselves primarily with the Hellenic tradition. In the case of Philo, however, the situation was different. Philo lived in Alexandria, the greatest centre of Greek civilization in the Eastern Mediterranean, and he was certainly a great admirer of the achievements of Greek culture, particularly in the area of Greek philosophy. But if you had asked him who he was, he would have said, ‘I am a Jew’, or ‘I am a disciple of Moses’. In the case of Philo we encounter for the first time a thinker whose primary loyalty is not to Hellenic religion but to a different religious tradition. What he commenced in his own particular way was to have a long and rich history.

Philo was born in about 15 bce into a prominent and very wealthy Jewish family in Alexandria. Soon after Alexander the Great had founded the city in 331 bce, large numbers of Jews emigrated from Palestine and settled in the city. By the time of Philo they represented as much as thirty per cent of the city's population and formed their own community, sandwiched in between the citizen body of Greeks and the native population of Egyptians.