Philo's treatise reading Abraham's life as a living, unwritten law and an allegory of the soul's journey toward virtue and knowledge of God.
On Abraham is one of Philo of Alexandria's biographical-allegorical treatises on the Jewish patriarchs, part of his larger project of showing that the Mosaic law is not merely a set of written statutes but is embodied in the lives of exemplary men who lived before any law was written down. Philo opens by explaining that Genesis, the first of the five books of Moses, deals with the making of the cosmos and with the individual lives of virtuous men who serve as 'living laws' -- Abraham chief among them, understood on two levels: literally, as a historical man, and allegorically, as the soul's migration from astrology and Chaldean fatalism toward true knowledge of the one uncaused Cause.
The treatise moves through the major episodes of Abraham's story: his migration from Chaldea, his hospitality to the three visitors at Mamre (read as God accompanied by his two chief powers), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (which Philo describes in vivid physical detail, including a devastating flood and firestorm), Abraham's dealings with Sarah and Hagar, and finally the binding of Isaac. Philo treats the near-sacrifice of Isaac at length, comparing it to child-sacrifice practices among Greeks and barbarian nations and arguing that Abraham's willingness -- not the mere act -- is what displays his piety, since the command was given only to test him, not because God desired the deed itself. The treatise closes with Sarah's death and Abraham's exemplary, moderate grief, and a summary verdict that Abraham's life is itself a law, unwritten but binding.
The work matters as a prime specimen of how a Greek-educated Alexandrian Jew of the first century CE synthesized biblical narrative with Stoic and Platonic ethical categories -- turning patriarchal stories into philosophical case studies in virtue, self-mastery, and the soul's ascent -- and as a document contemporary with (and philosophically adjacent to) the world of the New Testament.
“the first is called and entitled Genesis, from the genesis (coming-into-being) of the cosmos, which it contains at its beginning”
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“the floodwaters overwhelmed islands and continents, while the successive torrents of ever-flowing springs and of rivers, both native and winter-swollen, joined together, pouring forth and rising to great heights, advanced upon the land”
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“accusing them of this defilement he says that "they burn their sons and their daughters to their gods"”
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“he rose quickly from beside the corpse, evidently considering excessive mourning foreign to wisdom”
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“a life that some will call lawful, but that my own account has shown to be law itself, an unwritten statute”
— On Abraham · read this chapter →
It is a treatise reading the biblical patriarch Abraham as both a real historical man and an allegory of the soul's progress toward knowledge of God, treating his life as an 'unwritten law' that precedes and validates the written Mosaic law.
Philo argues that the command to sacrifice Isaac was a test of Abraham's willingness to obey, not a genuine demand for the deed, and he compares it to the (in his view, misguided) child-sacrifice customs of Greeks and other nations to highlight Abraham's righteous intent.
Yes, at length, with vivid detail about a flood and firestorm consuming the region's cities, framed as visible cosmic proof of divine judgment against vice.
He says Abraham wept only briefly and rose quickly from beside her body, treating this restraint as evidence of wisdom -- viewing death as the soul's release rather than its destruction, so that prolonged mourning would be foreign to a wise man.
Because Philo's larger argument is that Genesis records virtuous individuals who lived rightly before any law was written down, so their conduct itself is law in unwritten form; the treatise ends by declaring Abraham's life to be 'law itself, an unwritten statute.'
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