Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

critical studies 1997 57
the Logos are associated with the christological hymn Col. 1:15f, the Johannine
prologue, the heavenly manna in John 6:22–35 and the prayer for unity in John
17. Finally the author also detects Philonic influence in rabbinic ideas: mSanh
4.5 (the worth of human life because of the divine stamp), BerR 1.1 (the Torah
as architectonic plan of the creation). (DZ)
9785. H. G. Thümmel, ‘Logos und Hypostasis,’ in D. Wyrwa (ed.), Die
Weltlichkeit des Glaubens in der Alten Kirche: Festschrift für Ulrich Wilckert
zum siebzigsten Geburtstag, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft 85 (Berlin 1997) 347–398, esp. 357–364.
The article first summarizes the ontological and cosmological ideas of Plato
which became influential in Middle Platonism. The Greek Bible of the Jews has
its own roots because it is orientated by wisdom. But in the concept of the Logos
Jewish and Platonic–Stoic elements can be synthesized. This synthesis is realized
in Philo, for whom the Logos is at the same time the Platonic Demiurge and the
Model, as well as the Stoic governor of the world. The Philonic system of the
divine powers is brought in relation to the mythological interpretations of the
universal Logos as Hermes or Heracles in allegorists of the 1st century c.e., but
with the New Testament as well. The remainder of the article outlines the further
development in the Valentinian gnosis and the Platonism of the 2nd century c.e.
There, the supreme god thinks the ideas, the second god orders with their help
the material world. A Platonic revival induces a series of three divine beings.
(DZ)
9786.T.H.Tobin,‘PhiloandtheSibyl:InterpretingPhilo’sEschatology,’inD.T.RuniaandG.E.Sterling(edd.),Wisdom
and Logos: Studies
in Jewish Thought in Honor of David Winston [= The Studia Philonica
Annual 9 (1997)], Brown Judaic Studies 312 (Atlanta 1997) 84–103.
The author explores the complexity of Philo’s eschatology as found in Praem.
Earlier Borgen (RRS 9211) and Mack (RRS 9143) have come to very different
conclusions about that subject, Borgen emphasizing Philo’s messianic expectations,
Mack finding no messianic or apocalyptic features, but only mythology
and wisdom tradition in the treatise. Tobin wants to locate the ‘eschatological’
texts from Praem. in the social and political contexts within which Philo wrote.
To this end he considers Sibylline Oracles books3and5.Firstcomesananalysis
of these two books. A significant trait of the books when considered chronologically
is the growing importance and ferocity of oracles against Rome; parallel
to that, the deliverer figure shifts from being a worldly ruler (whether Cyrus
or Ptolemy; cf. Isa 45:1) to being a heavenly figure (cf. Num 24:7, 17 LXX).
The fact that the oracles were added to and reconfigured over a period of 400
years from the middle of the 2nd century b.c.e. onwards attests to their continuing
popularity among Egyptian Jews. Philo’s Praem., with its remarkable
this-worldly eschatology in §§ 163–172, contains several parallels to Sib. Or. 3
and 5, notably the eschatological interpretation of Num 24:7 LXX (‘There shall