From Philo to Plotinus: the Emergence of Mystical Union

Chapter 2 From Philo to Plotinus: The Emergence of Mystical Union From its inception in Philo’s mystical philosophy onwards, mystical union has always been a controversial matter in Judaism.1 A famous example from Christian scholarship is the often-cited opinion of Edward Caird (1835–1908), who argued while writing on the evolution of religion that, at the time of the birth of Jesus, the “Jewish mind” was incapable of real contemplation, and consequently of reaching what he considered the ultimate, full mystical state of union. Caird contrasts Plotinus, “the mystic par excellence,”2 with Philo the Alexandrian (25 BCE–c. 50 CE), the Jewish philosopher, saying that it was impossible “for a pious Jew like Philo to be a mystic or a pantheist and so to reduce the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to an absolute substance, in whom all the reality of the world is merged.”3 Caird’s categorical denial of the possibility of unio mystica in Philo is a good starting point for revisiting this important (and longstanding) debate. More recent studies of Philo take contradictory positions. As we shall see in detail, some scholars, most notably David Winston who devotes several studies to the question of whether Philo was a mystic and promoted unio mystica, reaches the conclusion that he did not promote the “classic” form of apophatic “nega- tive” unio mystica. Others, including Bernard McGinn and Moshe Idel, argue for the importance of mystical union in Philo’s thought, along with its serving as a likely influence on (and possible origin of) the articulated discussions of 1 See the detailed discussion by Idel, Enchanted Chains, 4–26; Ben-Shlomo, “Gershom Scholem on Pantheism,” 56–72; Nathan Rotenstreich, “Symbolism and Transcendence: On Some Philosophical Aspects of Gershom Scholem’s Opus,” The Review of Metaphysics 31:4 (1978): 604–614; Idel, “ ‘Unio mystica’ as a Criterion: ‘Hegelian’ Phenomenologies of Jewish Mysticism”; Idel, “ ‘Unio Mystica’ as a Criterion: Some Observations on ‘Hegelian’ Phenomenologies of Mysticism”; Schäfer, The Origins, 1–8, 17–20. 2 See: Edward Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, The Gifford Lectures Vol. II, reprinted: (BiblioBazaar, LLC 2009), 210. 3 Caird, The Evolution of Theology, 195, and the discussion in Idel, Enchanted Chains, 18–19. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/97890043�8730_003 26 Chapter 2 unio mystica in Plotinus,4 and thus on Platonism and the entire Western mystical tradition.5 Below, I will argue (with McGinn and Idel) that the Neoplatonic scheme of elevation, illumination, and unio mystica, which is later absorbed into all three monotheistic traditions, has an important precedent and possible source6 in Philo’s allegorical commentary on the Torah.7 Philo’s interpretation of the biblical commandment to “cleave” to God as mystical union is a fascinating philosophical moment, in which “theistic union”8 (henōsis) is born out of a synthesis 4 On Plotinus as the first articulated source of unio mystica, see for example the classic pres- entation by Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (New York: Meridian, 1955), 372–373 and Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, 236. 5 See: Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, Vol. I, (New York: Rossroad, 1992), 38–40; Idel, Ben, 627; Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 39, 289 note 13; Idel, Enchanted Chains, 18–19, 22; On the importance of Neoplatonic unio mystica for the development of medieval Jewish mysticism, see Afterman, Devequt; Moshe Idel, “On the Language of Ecstatic Experiences in Jewish Mysticism,” in The Religious Experience, Herausgegeben von Matthias Riedl und Tilo Schabert (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2008), 56–60; Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 42–46; McGinn, “Love, Knowledge and Unio Mystica,” 61. Another possible source in ancient Judaism can be found in the Qumran texts that describe how the mystic may commune or cleave with the angels but not with God. Some scholars employ the term “unio mystica” in the analysis of this experience of unity with the angels; See Alexander, The Mystical Texts, 101–143 and Schäfer, The Origins, 122–153; compare to Elliot Wolfson, “Seven Mysteries of Knowledge: Qumran E/ Sotericism Recovered,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, edit. H. Najman and Judith H. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 177–213. 6 See for example the discussion in Enn. 6.7.34 and 6.9.9, and McGinn, The Foundation of Mysticism, 53–55; I assume that the Platonic scheme of elevation and contemplative vision of the Ideas lacks a clear and developed idea of assimilation or union of the Nous with the Ideas. The most relevant Platonic discussions of the ascension of the soul to the world of the Ideas are the Symposium 201D–212A; Phaedrus 243E–2457B; Republic 514A–518B and the Seventh Letter 341CD; Compare however to André J. Festugière, Personal Religion Among the Greeks (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954) and McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 26–35 who highlights the commentaries of Festugière and others that find already in Plato the idea that in the height of the soul’s elevation and Nous’s contemplation of the One, there is some kind of “awareness of identity with the present ultimate principle” (ibid., 33); see also the analysis in Jey J. Kanagaraji, Mysticism in the Gospel of John: an Inquiry into its Background (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 67–79. 7 On this category of Philo’s writing see: James R. Royse, “The Works of Philo,” The Cambridge Companion to Philo, edit. Adam Kamesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 38–45. 8 On “theistic union” See John Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 227–229; Robert Arp, “Plotinus, Mysticism, and Mediation,” Religious Studies 40 (2004): 145–148..

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