Philo’s Heirs: Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas

The central claim of this book is that Philo of Alexandria’s philosophical method served as the model for the philosophical works of Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas. Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas stand as two pillars in the history of religious philosophy. In their respective religious communities each philosopher is considered the great master who expressed the doctrine of the religious tradition in philosophical terms. One of the most important points established in this book is that both of these thinkers inherited a set of standard philosophical topics (divine attributes, creation ex nihilo, divine providence, etc.) which were first developed as philosophical/religious questions by Philo. In effect, Philo’s philosophical method shaped the history of Western philosophy until the late seventeenth century.