Philo of Alexandria. Jean Danielou

De Fuga et Inventione De Fuga On Flight and Finding De Mutatione Nominum De Mutatione On the Change of Names De Somniis De Somniis On Dreams

      Volume VI

De Abrahamo	De Abrahamo	On Abraham
De Josepho	De Josepho	On Joseph
De Vita Mosis	De Vita Mosis	Moses

      Volume VII

De Decalogo	De Decalogo	On the Decalogue
De Specialibus Legibus I–III	De Specialibus Legibus	On Special Laws

      Volume VIII

De Specialibus Legibus IV	De Specialibus Legibus	On Special Laws
De Virtutibus	De Virtutibus	On Virtues
De Praemiis et Poenis	De Praemiis	On Rewards and Punishments

      Volume IX

Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit	Quod Probus	Every Good Man is Free
De Vita Contemplativa	De Vita Contemplativa	On Contemplative Life
De Aeternitate Mundi	De Aeternitate Mundi	On the Eternity of the World
In Flaccum	In Flaccum	Against Flaccus
Apologia pro Iudaeis	Pro Iudaeis	Apology for the Jews
De Providentia	De Providentia	On Providence

      Volume X

De Legatione ad Gaium	Ad Gaium	On the Embassy to Gaius
Supplement I
Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesim	In Genesim	Questions and Answers on Genesis
Supplement II
Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum	In Exodum	Questions and Answers on Exodus

      Daniélou refers to De Explicatione Legum, which seems to be a collective name for Legum Allegoriae and some of the treatises on the patriarchs. He also mentions De Mundo, which Yonge regards as identical to De Aeternitate Mundi.

      Alexandria was the homeland of the Septuagint. (Daniélou has some intriguing comments on Greek translations of the Bible.) Philo, who wrote in Greek used it. One of the differences between the Septuagint, which the Vulgate and translations from the Vulgate follow, is in the numbering of the Psalms. Daniélou himself follows the Hebrew enumeration, even when referring to the Septuagint. It will be noted that both counts total 150. As an exercise upon completion of the present work, the reader might try to imagine Philo giving a homily on the excellence of 150.

      To avoid confusion, below is a helpful table that I have adapted from A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (Bernard Orchard and others ed., Thomas Nelson and Sons, London, etc., 1953, section 335d):

Hebrew and Contemporary	Septuagint and Vulgate
1 through 8	same
9 and 10	9
11 through 113	10 through 112
114 and 115	113
116	114 and 115
117 through 146	116 through 145
147	146 and 147
148 through 150	same

      I have made two terminological decisions. The adjective derived from “Philo” is “Philonic,” on the model of “Platonic.”

      More importantly: the Logos is it. In French, Joan of Arc and the kitchen table are feminine. Louis XIV and books are masculine. In English people, animals, some odd plants, and ships have gender. Everything else is “it.” The delightful suggestion was made to me that, since in some ways later discussions of the Shekinah derive from Philo’s reflections upon the Logos, I might call the Logos “she”. The trouble, for one thing, is that Shekinah is Hebrew for Sophia. Philo also uses Sophia, and the relations between Sophia and Logos are not quite clear. Besides, I did not want to make him into an early cabbalist. Nor did I think I should make him a Christian by referring to the Logos as “he.” Maddeningly, sometimes it sounds very much as if the Logos is a personal being and other times is being described as an aspect of one. Sometimes it is a creature, but sometimes not. I have not dared to try to discern. So the Logos is “it.” Although the Loeb’s English may sometimes deliberately cultivate an archaic (or perhaps King James version) English, use of it has also forestalled any impulses of mine to render language about God with an eye to medieval metaphysics, and I have thus avoided the final temptation of making Philo into a Thomist or a Scotist.

1. Goodenough, By Light Light, 5.

      Author’s Foreword

      Philo of Alexandria’s life and work have been the object of a number of studies in recent years, especially in the United States and Germany. This interest is due first to the fascination this strange and complex personality continues to cause, with his combination of faith in the Old Testament and Hellenistic culture. It is also due to Philo’s testimony about the state of Judaism in the period when Christianity appears–and to the rebirth of lively interest in that environment because of the discovery of the Qumran manuscripts.

But it is odd to see how different authors who have recently dealt with Philo give us conflicting pictures. Hartwig Thyen offered a recent balance sheet of these studies.2 First of all, there are disagreements about who the man himself was. Völker takes him for a mystic who abandoned the world.3 Goodenough sees him as an official involved in politics.4 Wolfson regards him as a philosopher preacher.5 The same contradictions appear when Philo’s writings are interpreted. Völker sees a spiritual exegesis of Scripture without particular