Philo's Threefold Divine Vision and the Christian Trinity

This paper will compare an aspect of divine ontology that finds expression in Philo of Alexandria's philosophical theology of the status of God and, from the much later approach of Christian theology, in the Trinitarian controversy. The comparison will demonstrate the profound gap between Philo's theology and the official theology of Christianity.1 Against those who hold the theological views that were officially accepted by the church, one can set, for example, Origen, whose concept of the first person of the Christian Trinity is closer to Philo's conception of the divine (as will be clarified in what follows). Indeed, in the year 400, the Council of Alexandria declared Origen a heretic. This study will examine the meaning that Philo attaches to the appearance of the three men who “stood near Abraham” when the Lord appeared to him at the terebinths of Mamre in Genesis 18, as well as the interpretation given to this biblical text by several of the Church Fathers.