Why did Philo Judaeus consider God’s essence unknowable?

Philo Judaeus was a pioneering thinker who was the first to explicitly distinguish between the knowability of God’s existence and the unknowability of God’s essence.1

While Philo maintained that God’s existence could be known, he regarded God’s essence as transcendent and fundamentally beyond human comprehension. To bridge the gap between this unknowable, transcendent God and the created world, Philo posited the Logos—the Divine Reason or Word. The Logos served as an intermediary, acting as the agent of creation and the means through which the human mind could apprehend and relate to the divine.23

By establishing this distinction, Philo sought to reconcile his Jewish theology with Greek philosophical concepts, emphasizing that while the divine presence is active in the cosmos, the ultimate nature of God remains beyond the reach of human intellect.12