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The topic tackled in this book is Philo’s account of the complex, double-sided nature of God’s acting – the two-sided coin of God as transcendent yet immanent, unknowable yet revealed, immobile yet creating – and also the two sides of acting in humans – who, in an attempt to imitate God, both contemplate and produce.
In both contexts, divine and human, Philo considers that it would not be proper to give precedence to either side – the result would be barren. God’s acting and man’s acting are at the same time both speculative and practical, and it is precisely out of this co-presence that the order of the world unfolds. Philo considers this two-sided condition as a source of complexity and fertility. Francesca Calabi argues that, far from being an irresolvable contradiction, Philo’s two-fold vision is the key to understanding his works. It constitutes a richness that rejects reduction to apparently incompatible forms and aspects.
In both contexts, divine and human, Philo considers that it would not be proper to give precedence to either side – the result would be barren. God’s acting and man’s acting are at the same time both speculative and practical, and it is precisely out of this co-presence that the order of the world unfolds. Philo considers this two-sided condition as a source of complexity and fertility. Francesca Calabi argues that, far from being an irresolvable contradiction, Philo’s two-fold vision is the key to understanding his works. It constitutes a richness that rejects reduction to apparently incompatible forms and aspects.
Price: $224.00
Pages: 266
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Studies in Philo of Alexandria
Publication Date:
27 November 2007
ISBN: 9789004162709
Format: Other
"... this is a fine product of current Italian scholarship on Philo and Hellenistic Judaism, and very good to have in (faultlessy idiomatic) Anglophone format." - John Dillon, in: The studia Philonica Annual, 2008
Francesca Calabi is Associate Professor of Philosophy in Late Antiquity at the University of Pavia. She works on Philo and on Aristotle, and collaborates in a new commentary of Plato's Republic. She has also edited the Italian translation of Philo's Decalogue, Josephus' Against Apion, and of the Letter of Aristeas.