Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

critical studies 2001 185
20167. F.Siegert,Zwischen Hebräischer Bibel und Altem Testament:
Eine Einführung in die Septuaginta, Münsteraner Judaistische Studien 9
(Münster 2001), passim.
The Director of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum in Münster has
written a most interesting Introduction to the Septuagint. The ‘long road to the
‘Septuaginta-Urtext’ ’ is described and the method of translation explained. This
book provides a mass of historical and philological information with regard to
language and style, translation or transcription of proper names and terms, and
the interaction of translation and editing. A companion volume with index and a
chapter on the history of the reception of the LXX was published 2003; see below
203117. Philo is an important witness to this reception (see pp. 104–105, 254,
260, 290 and the index at 413). Reviews: J. R. Royse, SPhA 15 (2003) 165–169.
(GS)
20168. R. de Smet and K. Verelst, ‘Newton’s Scholium Generale:
the Platonic and Stoic Legacy—Philo, Justus Lipsius and the Cambridge
Platonists,’ History of Science 39 (2001) 1–30.
This article deals with sources of Newton’s Scholium Generale, publishedin
1713. In this work Newton searches for an explanation of bodily motion, and he
employs the Stoic notion of divine pneuma as a cause of the motion of bodies.
Interpreting the working of God in nature, Newton makes use of Philo, who
immaterializes the materialistic pneuma of the Stoics. For Newton, as for Philo,
God is both immanent and transcendent at the same time. Newton also profits
from the works of the Neo-Stoic Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), who is acquainted
with Philo’s works and uses him to reconcile Stoicism with Christianity. De Smet
and Verelst offer an analysis of the Scholium Generale with references to Philo’s
writings. The relevant Latin text is printed as an appendix. (ACG)
20169. R. Somos, ‘Philón’ in Az Alexandriae teológia [Hungarian: The
Alexandrian Theology], Catena 1 [Series of the Center for Patristic Studies
in the University of Pécs] (Budapest 2001) 19–47.
The introductory section of the first chapter gives a short summary on the
state of the Alexandrian Jewish community in the first century c.e. and on Philo’s
life and his works (19–25.) The second part of the chapter deals with the Philonian
theology (method of the interpretation of the Scripture, the God, the Logos,
29–34). An essential element of Philo’s writings is their strong religious character
with the dogmatic content of the Jewish monotheistic, transcendent concept
of God. Although in his interpretation of the Scriptures, in order to achieve
his apologetic and rhetorical purposes, Philo uses heterogeneous philosophical
themes (Platonism, Pythagoreanism, Stoicism), in fact his ideas are not without
coherence. Platonism and Pythagoreanism constitute the main elements of his
theological thoughts (negative theology, Middle Platonic attributes), but there is
insufficient evidence of direct influences of Antiochus of Ascalon or Eudorus on