(Φίλων), philosophers.
1. JUDAEUS, the Jew, sprang from a priestly family of distinction, and was born at Alexandria (J. AJ 18.8. § I, 20.5.2, 19.5 § I; Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 2.4 ; Phil. de Legat. ad Caium, ii. p. 567, Mangey). After his life, from early youth upwards, had been wholly devoted to learning, he was compelled, when he had probably already reached an advanced age, in consequence of the persecutions which the Jews had to suffer, especially under the emperor Caius, to devote himself to public business. With four others of his race he undertook an embassy to Rome, in order to procure the revocation of the decree which exacted even from the Jews divine homage for the statue of the emperor, and to ward off further persecutions. The embassy arrived at Rome in the winter of A. D. 39-40, after the termination of the war against the Germans, and was still there when the prefect of Syria, Petronius, received orders, which were given probably in the spring of A. D. 40, to set up the colossal statue of Caligula in the temple at Jerusalem. Philon speaks of himself as the oldest of the ambassadors (Phil. de Congressu, p. 530, de Leg. Spec. lib. ii. p. 299, de Legat. pp. 572, 598; comp. J. AJ 18.8.1). How little the embassy accomplished its object, is proved not only by the command above referred to, but also by the anger of the emperor at the request of the mildly-disposed Petronius, that the execution of the command might be deferred till the harvest was over (see the letter of Petronius in Phil. p. 583). Nothing but the death of the emperor, which ensued in January A. D. 41, saved Petronius, for whose death orders had been given (J. AJ 18.8.8). If Philon, at the time of the embassy, was, as is not improbable, about 60 years old, the date of his birth will be about B. C. 20. In the treatise on the subject, which without doubt was written not earlier than the reign of the emperor Claudius, he speaks of himself as an old man. As to other events in his personal history, we only know with certainty of a journey undertaken by him to Jerusalem (Phil. de Provid. ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. 8.14, in Mangey, ii. p. 646). On the statement of Eusebius (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 2.17; comp. Hieronym. Catalog. Script. Ecclesiast), that Philon had already been in Rome in the time of the emperor Claudius, and had become acquainted with the Apostle Peter, as on that of Photius (Phot. Bibl. 105), that he was a Christian, no dependence whatever can be placed.