Texts in Conversation
Philo of Alexandria reads the messianic figure of Zechariah 6 as the divine Logos. The interpretation depends on the Greek Septuagint version, whose translation of the Hebrew name supplies the imagery of sunrise that Philo’s allegory draws on.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Zechariah 6:12
Septuagint
11 And you will take silver and gold, and you will make crowns and place them upon the head of the great priest Joshua, the son of Jehozadak. 12 And you will say to him, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Behold, a man; Anatolea is his name, and from beneath him he will rise up and build the house of the Lord. 13 And he will receive virtue, and he will sit and rule upon his throne, and the priest will be out of his right, and there will be a peaceful plan between both.
Philo On the Confusion of Tongues 1:62
Classical
61 Now, the following is an example of the former kind: "And God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the East," not of terrestrial but of celestial plants, which the planter caused to spring up from the incorporeal light which exists around him, in such a way as to be for ever inextinguishable. 62 I have also heard of one of the companions of Moses having uttered such a speech as this: "Behold, a man whose name is the East!" A very novel appellation indeed, if you consider it as spoken of a man who is compounded of body and soul; but if you look upon it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image, you will then agree that the name of the east has been given to him with great felicity. 63 For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Philo introduces the text Zechariah here because the biblical text being interpreted in the discussion of De Confusione Linguarum is Septuagint Genesis 11:2, which reads ‘And it came to pass as they moved from the east [ἀνατολῶν, lit.: the rising], they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.’ Here, Philo clearly takes the messianic title of Zechariah 6:12, ṣemaḥ in the Masoretic text and anatolē in the Septuagint, as the Logos: the ‘eldest son whom the Father of all raised up.’ This is a classic description of how the Logos works. The Logos is the first generated from the divine mind and brings into creation the discrete elements of the sensible world by following (mimēsis) the ideas ...”
Hecht, Richard D.
"Philo and Messiah" in Neusner, Jacob, William Scott Green, and Ernest S. Frerichs (eds.) Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era
(p. 150) Cambridge University Press, 1987
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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