Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

200 part two
of Onias. Especially interesting for Philonists is his exposition of Flacc. 45–46.
Bohak’s own conclusion is that the often implicit assumption that the communities
of the Jewish Diaspora thrived from one generation to the next flies in the
face of what we know about the fate of immigrants in the ancient world—and of
someoftheJewishevidenceaswell.(TS)
20214.A.P.Bos,‘Gnostischespiritualiteit:deGrieks-filosofischecomponent,’
Philosophia Reformata 67 (2002) 108–127.
Characteristic of the Gnostic movement is a double theology: a distinction
between the highest, unknown and invisible God, who is truly good, and a lower
God, who creates the cosmos. According to Bos, Philo is an important figure in
the development of this gnostic belief. In the beginning of Opif. he rejects the
world-view of the Chaldeans, who consider the created cosmos to be God. Bos
refers to this view as cosmic-theology, whereas Philo, believing in a transcendent
God, represents a meta-cosmic theology. The author also discusses Abr. 60–70,
in which Abraham is commanded to free himself from the Chaldean worldview.
The metaphor of awaking from a deep sleep, used by Philo, is—directly
or indirectly—borrowed from Aristotle. (ACG)
20215. F. Calabi, ‘Conoscibilità e inconoscibilità di Dio in Filone
di Alessandria,’ in eadem (ed.), Arrhetos Theos: l’ineffabilità del primo
principio nel medio platonismo (Pisa 2002) 35–54.
Philo in some passages speaks of God as being unnameable, but in other
passages of human beings as being unable to know the name of God. The
author therefore poses the problem whether in Philo’s view (1) God does not
reveal his name (because it is such as humans are not able to know it) or
whether (2) God does not have a name (because of his nature). Her conclusion
is that Philo expresses himself along the lines of the first hypothesis when he is
quoting and commenting on a biblical text, whereas in (much more numerous)
expositions more or less independent from biblical passages he develops the
second hypothesis (for which cf. Plato’s Parmenides). The second problem the
author discusses is the relation among the via negationis, via eminentiae and
via analogiae, all of which can be found in Philo’s discourse. Here she concludes
that for Philo the three ways are not mutually exclusive or incompatible: they are
three different modes, not of how God relates to the world, but of how human
beings relate to God. (HMK)
20216. F. Calabi, ‘Filone di Alessandria tra Bibbia e filosofia,’ in P.
Stefani (ed.) Due grandi sapienze: Bibbia ed ellenismo (Florence 2002)
231–260.
The aim of the article is to illuminate the joint presence and close interrelationship
of the Jewish heritage and Greek culture in Philo. Elements which
contribute to the doctrines of the creation of the cosmos and the divine Powers