Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

364 part two
20560. R.Radice,‘Lafunzioneteologicadellogos nel giudaismo
alessandrino e i suoi possibili sviluppi: una linea di ricerca,’ Humanitas
(Brescia) N.S. 60 (2005) 844–858.
There is no other concept in Philo’s thought as complex (and seemingly
confused) as that of the λγς. It is argued in this article that the reason for
this lies in the fact that for Philo the same doctrine can be expressed both
in philosophical and in biblical terms (and in Philo’s eyes the latter option is
the better of the two). Philo represents an important step in Jewish Hellenistic
thought: from a physical conception of God’s workings (Aristobulus: dynamis)
to a metaphysical one, for which Philo (maybe surprisingly so) makes use of the
Stoic concept of logos as well as of the Demiurge in Plato’s Timaeus. The influence
of Philo’s logos theory was not limited to Jewish Hellenistic thought, but reached
MiddlePlatonism,Gnosticism,thePrologueoftheGospelofJohn,andPlotinus.
(HMK)
20561.G.Roskam,On the Path to Virtue: the Stoic Doctrine of Moral
ProgressanditsReceptionin(Middle-)Platonism(Leuven2005), esp. 146–
219.
This monograph deals with the problem of moral progress in ancient Stoicism.
In Part II the views of Philo and Plutarch are discussed. In Philo’s philosophical
interpretation of Scripture the theme of moral progress takes an important
place. In Scripture he finds several examples of πρκπτντες (Aaron,
Noah) and various symbols of πρκπή. On the road to virtue the πρκπτων
is somewhere between total wickedness and perfection, the former represented
by a totally bad person such as Cain, the latter by the few people able
to attain wisdom and to become σς like Abraham. Roskam concludes that
Philo is acquainted with the Stoic doctrine of moral progress but the Stoic view
is not his basic frame. He does not, as the Stoics do, regard the πρκπτων
as fundamentally bad. Rather, he is inclined to the Peripatetic-Platonic view in
which progress is seen as a separate third phase different from both virtue and
vice. Although Philo uses several Stoic notions, he is not a Stoic philosopher.
(ACG)
20562. D.T.Runia,‘AConferenceonPhiloinGermany,’The Studia
Philonica Annual 17 (2005) 141–152.
The review article focuses on the collection of papers edited by R. Deines
and K.-W. Niebuhr, Philo und das Neue Testament, published in 2004 (see above
20429). Philonic studies owe an enormous amount to German scholarship, but
since the Second World War the scholarly output has declined. It was thus
an event of great significance that in 2003 a conference was held in Eisenach
and Jena which was largely devoted to Philo, organized by the Corpus Judaeo-
Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti project. The aim was not only to see what New
Testament studies could learn from Philo, but also the reverse, what Philonic