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50 carlos fraenkelmusic, Philo proceeds, like Abraham and Moses, to court the “lawfulwife,” i.e., philosophy itself. 54 This courtship he describes as follows:There was a time when I devoted myself (scholazôn) to philosophy and thecontemplation of the world and its contents, when I enjoyed the beauty,exceeding loveliness and true blessedness of its Reason (Nous), when Iconsorted always with divine principles (logoi ) and doctrines (dogmata)wherein I rejoiced with a joy that was insatiate and unceasing. 55It is plausible to take the world’s “Reason” in this passage to refer tothe same entity that Philo elsewhere calls “Logos” or “Sophia,” i.e., therealm of incorporeal forms which later Platonists had identified withthe content of God’s thinking and which Philo had interpreted as theintelligible pattern of the creation of the world. This pattern, as wesaw, accounts for the recurrent instantiation of things like trees, fish,and birds, as well as for the orderly relations between them.In the context of the philosophical interpretation of Christianity inAlexandria on which Philo had a formative influence the same patternreceived a new name. While being Nous for pagan Platonists, andLogos and Sophia for Philo, Clement and Origen of Alexandria, themain proponents of this interpretation, identify the intelligible orderof nature with Christ as well. 56 Exegetically this step was, of course,facilitated by a number of biblical texts, for example the Prologue toJohn where Christ is identified with the Logos by which God createdthe world. 57 Without having to abandon the fundamental metaphysicalcommitments of the pagan and Jewish Platonic tradition, Clement andOrigen can thus present Christianity as the source of both. WhereasPlato and Moses where accomplished lovers of wisdom, Christ is Sophiaitself. Whereas Plato and Moses strove to understand the incorporealforms of trees, fish, birds, and other things making up the world, Christis these forms themselves. Identifying Christ with the Wisdom whichGod according to Prov. 8:22 created at the “beginning of his work,”Origen writes, for instance, that “she preformed and contained within54Ibid., Congressu 74–76.55Ibid., Specialibus legibus 3.1.56See Origen 1913 2.6, 1, Greek and Latin 140; English 108 where Christ is identifiedwith Verbum, Ratio, and Sapientia to which Origen adds Veritas.57See in general Origen 1989, chap. 1 and 2. These passages in the New Testamentas well as in other texts included in the Christian Bible—e.g., the SapientiaSalomonis—in part stem from the same intellectual milieu to which Philo belongs. SeeRunia 1993, chap. 4.