Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

178 part two
elements are identifiable in the material world (though under different names),
which means that the basic unity of the transcendent and immanent aspects
of the Logos can be maintained: God’s mind, which serves as an ‘instrument’
during creation, is ‘then’ introduced into the world and serves as nature (or
immanent Logos) in maintaining its existence and governing its course. The
Logos’ relation to humankind is twofold: anthropological, which consists in
likeness (or kinship) between God and the human mind, and ethical, which
arises from that likeness and consists either in direct illumination of the human
mind by the Logos, or in an indirect influence through the mediation of the
Mosaic Law. In the view of the author Philo’s conception of the Logos may
be regarded as his answer to the difficulties contained in the biblical account
of creation, namely the creation of the sensible world by the transcendent
God, God’s presence in this world ‘after’ creation, the resemblance of human
beings to God, and the story of creation in six days. Thus the conception of
the Logos makes it possible for Philo (1) to include earlier notions of creation
such as forming or ordering (Plato) and thinking (Aristotle), (2) to emphasize
the absolute transcendence of God who ‘limits’ his gifts in the Logos, (3) to
bring together God (the Logos as God’s nous) and the creation (the Logos as its
model), (4) to explain God’s activity as creatio continua, and (5) to show that
God’s creative activity is proportional to its subject (the Logos as the model
andguidefortheworldandhumanbeings).(DTR;basedontheauthor’s
summary)
20149. A. Paul, ‘Les «Écritures» dans la société juive au temps de Jésus,’
Recherches de Science Religieuse 89 (2001) 13–42.
There are three witnesses to the Jewish scriptures at the time of Jesus: the
Dead Sea scrolls, the works of Philo of Alexandria and the writings of the New
Testament. Thanks to the texts of Qumran we understand better the pre-eminent
role of the Torah and its cult, a cult which is also attested by Philo. He comments
on the Torah and is also the first extant witness to its composition in five books.
It seems that, although he does mention other books (‘Royal books’, ‘Hymns’,
‘Proverbs’), Scripture for him is only the Law of Moses. (JR)
20150. F.Petit,LaChaîne sur l’ Exode. IV Fonds caténique ancien
(Exode 15,22–40,32), Traditio Exegetica Graeca 11 (Louvain 2001).
Final of the four volumes devoted to a critical edition of the Catena on Exodus.
At this point the primary tradition of the Catena discontinues and the editor is
constrained to use the traces that have remained in a secondary tradition. The
evidence of Procopius also continues. The use of Philo in this volume is confined
to twenty excerpts all taken from QE 2.1–49 and relating to Exod 20 to 24. The
edition contains one fragment (n. 699) that was hitherto attributed to Isidore of
Pelusium, but the author has discovered that it is a combination of QE 2.11 and
12. Reviews: D. T. Runia, SPhA 15 (2003) 162–165. (DTR)