 There's a concept in phylo. We see of a divine intermediary figure. It's not just in phylo. Obviously it's it's it's in the Mediterranean antiquity in general the concept of this divine intermediary incarnating and and assuming, you know, the the Historical figure like you see that in Osiris and Egyptian pharaohs you see it in the Hermes Augustus for and Horace and for the Gentlemen, we're talking about today phylo of Alexandria and that's probably best exemplified and Moses who is an incarnation of the the word So if you could kind of elaborate on that Give a little background here. I think you can see how phylo is is distinct everyone knows that phylo is a Platonist and that he read Plato and So phylo's theory of the soul has some obviously overlaps with Plato And I basically see Platonists and Earl can correct me if I'm wrong. I basically see Platonists is working with three types of Soul there there could be more but basically for all of us in a body for all of us who are incarnate we Pre-existed at some point and we fell into bodies This is the myth of the phadrists where you know, you're on your chariot. There's two horses one is really unruly and messes things up and You know, we were riding, you know on a one horse open sleigh as it were after our, you know native God and we fell fell into a body and some of us one type of of us fell so hard that Our entire life is completely consumed by material concerns and the things that's into perception. There's a food and sleep and Sex and that's pretty much what we think about we binge on TV or You know at Netflix or whatever and that's how we live our lives and we never really think About anything higher than the material world So that's the one type of soul that the fallen soul who is so sunk down That they're never gonna go back up And then there is the soul who is realizes or has a memory as Plato puts it of something better of a real transcendent world and is able to break out of the matrix to use that example and That takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of aesthetic and moral effort and eventually maybe after several lives of trans migrating Plato says that you know, you might need to do this, you know, 10 times maybe a thousand times I mean philosophers they can do it in three rounds But it takes a while But eventually you graduate out of your out of the cycle of trans migration out of your body And you you re-entered the divine realm into the train of the gods and everything's good And then there's the type of soul that never In in Karna, it's because they never fall. There's no pre-existent fall They are able to keep their horses in line and they're following in the train of the deity and everything's cool I mean, they're not quite at the level of the deity. Obviously, they might bob up and down on the rim of the universe But that's who they are. And so for Philo the soul of Moses He's not the logos that would that would be way too high But for by those Moses one of those souls that is following very closely in the train of the logos So for in the phaedra, so you remember the royal souls are following Zeus Philo the Chorus leader as it were would be the elder angel who is the logos and Moses is following so Moses's soul He's not yet Moses, okay But his his soul his pre-existent soul is following along in that train Okay, following the logos so closely that he does not fall and does not feel any need or desire to enter into a material body And so that I think is what makes sense of Philo's language because he's not Really expand very much. He doesn't like to talk about pre-existence of souls He doesn't like to talk about trans migration, but I think that he believes both and Because these are explicitly biblical Yes, yeah, yeah, Sammy's book. I've got a book review on my YouTube channel of trans migration in in phyla or sorry It's reincarnation in phylo, and it's Makes the argument is about as strong as you can make it Definitely. Yeah, it's a great example of scholarly rigor and so That's already on on on YouTube or how they recommend that book to to everybody and Basically what we have is a case where a soul who did not need to be incarnated Decided to be incarnated and this is what makes phylo different than Plato because I think if Plato We're thinking about this and you know, we don't have him here and this isn't explicit in any of his text So I'm interpreting here obviously, but for Plato if if you are a soul That never feels the need never feels the pull toward the material world You never go You are never incarnated and for you to be incarnated would be a mistake That's what plain as had such a problem with the incarnation of Jesus Incarnation is such a waste of time Well, not only a waste of time for a soul who does not need it, but it's a defilement Right, I mean, it's it's it's a dirty disgusting defiling experience to enter into a mortal Hask and you wouldn't do that unless you fell involuntarily But what we have here is a tradition where a soul who does not fall yet decides for a saving purpose To be sent as phylo puts it loaned Loaned to earth for a specific mission In which this soul is already a divine soul. So he doesn't need to have the same practice He doesn't need to have the same struggle that all of the rest of us have or I should say That subset of souls who is striving to conquer the body and to rise out of this flesh suit and That is why Moses is a child As he puts it in the life of Moses is why people looked at him as a child and said is this is this kid Human diner mix of both if his mix of both with which I think is actually phylo's answer Then he's somehow demonic Okay That he's somehow Angelic he's he's not a full-fledged God, okay You know phylo does talk about the defecation of Moses and then yes, I do have an article on this Which is on my patreon the defecation of Moses Definitely phylo does not mean words, okay, but I think what what phylo means by the defecation of Moses You know where he says he became a god by ascending not to sky or But but to the realm above the sky and where he stood with the existent forever After his after his death and as a sort of proleptic moment at Sinai Moses is deified but what phylo means by that is he becomes something like an angel and phylo clarifies that in his book on Giants that The divine soul the angel and the diamond what the Greeks call a diamond are but different names for the same underlying entity And it's this that shows you that he is Talking about a specific subset of the divine class that Moses was Before his incarnation and to which he returns Angels are log away They are made up of the same noetic stuff as Logos and when Moses dies He doesn't really die in In the life of Moses to 288 he enters into this whirlwind and his material elements are spun off of him and he rises as a noose which phylo uses this word heliodesteros or heliodesteros his noose most like the Sun Rises as if it's beamed upward exactly where I think it came so Where is where it's phylo getting this tradition? I don't think it's from Plato and this is really the the key which I try to argue in chapter 5 of my book post-human transformation. He gets this from traditions Which are more native to Egypt In which we see in the hermetica I'm not claiming that he's reading the medical directly, but I am claiming that this idea of a King Typically an ancient king, but sometimes a modern one sent to earth as a civilizing force like like Osiris Sent here for a specific and definite mission purpose, but didn't need to be here They're only here to help us, you know So that idea it's not a tonic idea. It's it's a ruler cult idea It's an it's a native Egyptian idea and it's also her a hermetic idea Which we see most clearly in the Cory Cosmo Which is the stove a hermetic of 23 and yeah, I've got all those translated and I make my argument in in post-human transformation, I Don't think every phylinist is going to be happy with that argument, but That's what I say. So Yeah of you know, you know, I was just reading today The pseudo clementines, which I highly recommend I mean, it's a it's a huge mess and I had say third century maybe fourth century in the form we have them Two different texts, but they're basically versions of the same text and they're Jewish Christian Texts right and in these texts we have the belief in the true prophet who is like Basically some kind of angelic being that that incarnates periodically in earthly life and does awesome stuff So first one was Adam The pseudo clementines don't give us any other names along the way, but it's implied You know your Moses's and stuff like that would definitely be there and then Jesus is the most recent one So this is one entity. That's this sort of salvific Periodically appearing entity that reincarnates over and over we see this in Manichaeism as well We see this in Setheonism Setheonism too. Seth. Okay. Seth is Yeah, so all of these Near Eastern, but like definitely yeah, so where does this come from if it comes from one source like it feels like The problem I'm having in my mind right now trying to think about it. I'm trying to you know Is this hermetic? Is he right? He probably is right, but let's just think of other options. Um, I Know of all these Jewish traditions about a figure like this and they go right forward in rabbinic literature To modern times, but do they go back? How far back do they go? That's always the problem with rabbinic traditions and you know Imperial era Jewish traditions because our evidence gets really weak the further back you go So that's a really really interesting idea. One thing I wanted to if I may is um, I Love what you say about the the platonic model of the descent of the soul and And it's spot-on, but there is this really interesting exception Which is Yamblichus and then people who follow Yamblichus, he takes the exact opposite line, right now then we might want to ask What kind of influences there are there on his on Yamblichus's Platonism like I mean he does say it's Egyptian wisdom. He does You know in the de mysteris this he's an Egyptian priest. So there's an Egypt connection there for sure, but he's saying uh incarnation is fantastic and matter is full of The the the one itself is is present in matter like everything all the higher levels are present at all the lower levels or You know present and non present at the same time there. They're imminent to while transcending um and Though the philosophers souls the ones who when they leave the human body Are hanging out in the world of forms with uh, you know in the train of the gods They come back on purpose Out of compassion for humans because they need to bring the divine down To this world So they're like these, you know, Platonist Bodhisattva figures. Yes, which is a Interestingly analogous related idea though, not the same thing That phylo is saying Yamblichus being being attracted into this this broader tradition and it's not just hermetic It's just to the corey cosmos such a good example and an instance of this where It it does seem to be very ancient Egyptian possibly all is Jewish as well. I mean the news are For such a long time that an ancient king and civilizer A redeemer in Christian language is sent for a distinct and specific Mission and once that's accomplished they they rise up and and you see this in poetry with with horus Horus is the same thing about augustus And uh, so I mean it's it's in the air And and it's not like we could pinpoint, you know, here's where this idea comes from but yeah, Iyamblichus is is Is being influenced by that and it's it's one it's one small way where you could really say maybe kind of sort of Here's where Yamblichus really is He's not just impersonating an Egyptian priest. He actually is dependent on native Egyptian traditions Yeah, I'm I feel that I think that is that is a good place to say that I think there are So many places you can say that, you know, the I know almost nothing about Egyptology, but everything I learned just makes oh, it's like Yamblichus You know like the so much of it. So the um, I think the reaction against Uh, Egyptomania in scholarship has been Has bent the stick too far in the other direction and we just need more people who read All the different Egyptian scripts and greek and latin to kind of bridge that gap