Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

162 part two
O. Matsson (edd.), Libens Merito. Festskrift til Stig Strømholm på sjuttioårsdagen
16 sept. 2001, Acta Academiæ Regiæ Scientiarum Upsaliensis.
Kungl. Vetenskapssamhällets Uppsala Handlingar 21 (Uppsala 2001)
61–71.
The author here deals with Philo’s views on the relationships between Greek
encyclical education, philosophy and the Jewish synagogues. In Philo, we find
all the seven artes generales (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic,
music and astronomy) mentioned, though not all in one and the same work.
Furthermore, as there were Greek debates on encyclia and philosophy, Philo’s
writings also reflect these debates. Philo allows the encyclical education to be
characterized as ‘virtue’, but as a kind of lower virtue than that of revealed
wisdom. This distinction is interwoven in Philo’s writings. The encyclia is primarily
a preparatory form of education. It should prepare for the true philosophy,
which to Philo is the wisdom of Moses. According to Philo the Jewish
synagogues are places of philosophy; they are schools of the sacred laws.
Several aspects of Greek educational ideas are brought together in Philo’s discussion
of these issues. But a basic difference between these ‘two schools’ is
that ‘the encyclia uses human teaching as its basis, whereas the philosophy of
the Laws of Moses studied in the synagogues has its basis in self-taught wisdom
brought forth by nature itself ’ (p. 67). The last part of this article deals
with the dangers to be avoided. One is that the student should not become so
charmed by the encyclia that he ignores philosophy, i.e. that he forgets to proceed.
Another danger is getting a false impression of God, still a third one is
to misuse it for social and political offices of prestige. In this way Philo’s writings
demonstrate how central issues in his Greek educational environment also
are mirrored in the Jewish fight for their identity in their Greco-Roman world.
(TS)
20109.D.Boyarin,‘TheGospeloftheMemra: Jewish Binitarians and
the Prologue to John,’ Harvard Theological Review 94 (2001) 243–284,
esp. 249–252.
This study concludes, on the basis of a comparative analysis of Philo’s Logos
theology, the Memra of the Targum, and the Prologue of the Gospel of John, that
the beginnings of Logos theology and trinitarian reflection are to be found, not
in the mere idiosyncrasies of Philo but in the widespread religious imagination
of 1st century Jews. In short, Logos theology as it comes to expression in Philo
was an integral element of much Jewish and early Christian–Jewish theology.
(KAF)
20110. G.R.Boys-Stones,Post-Hellenistic Philosophy: a Study of its
Development from the Stoics to Origen (Oxford 2001), esp. 90–95.
In the chapter entitled ‘Antiquity in Jewish Apologetic’ Boys-Stones also deals
with Philo. He poses the question how Philo can explain his belief in the sacred