Philipp was born on 29 July 1573 in Neuenkamp, which later became Franzburg in Pomerania, as the eldest son of Duke Bogislaw XIII of Pomerania-Barth and his first wife, Clara of Brunswick.

As a child and teenager, Philip received the usual education for a son of a German prince during the late Renaissance era.

At age 18, he wrote: It is may pleasure to collect good, selected books, portraits from a master's hand, and ancient coins of all kinds.

The two-year stay in Italy at the end of his final grand tour, was cut short in 1598 when his mother fell seriously ill. Five years later, government business caught up with him.

Characteristic elements of his reign were his patronage of the arts (described in more detail below), but also his rural regulations of 1616, in which a legal basis for serfdom was created.

On 10 March 1607 he married Sophia (1579–1658, in Treptow an der Rega, her dower), daughter of John II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg and his first wife Elisabeth of Brunswick-Grubenhagen.

It prevented him from attending in person the wedding of his brother Francis with Sophia of Saxony in Dresden in 1610, and the investiture of Emperor Matthias at the Diet of Regensburg in 1613.