Philo (Hellenist) - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

PHILO, Jewish Hellenist, and author of an epic poem in Greek hexameters on the history of Jerusalem. Alexander Polyhistor (c. 10 5-35 B.C.) quotes several passages of the poem, and is the source of the extracts in Eusebius (Praeparatio evangelica, ix. 20, 24, 37). This is probably the Philo who is mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. i. 21, 141) and by Josephus (Contra Apionem, i. 23), who calls him "the elder." See M. Philippson's work on the Jewish poets Ezechiel and Philo (Berlin, 1830).