Texts in Conversation
Philo describes God speaking with Abraham as one friend with another. Clement of Alexandria echoes this language when he says Abraham was the one explicitly called God’s friend.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Philo On Abraham 273
Classical
272 For in real truth the wise man is the first man in the human race, being what a pilot is in a ship, a governor in a city, a general of war, the soul in the body, or the mind in the soul; or again, what the heaven is in the world, and what God is in the heaven. 273 And God, admiring this man for his faith (pistis) in him, giving him a pledge (pistis) in return, namely, a confirmation by an oath of the gifts which he had promised him; no longer conversing with him as God might with man, but as one friend with another. For he says, "By myself have I Sworn," by him that is whose word is an oath, in order that Abraham's mind may be established still more firmly and immoveably than before. 274 Let the virtuous man both be and be called the younger and the last, since he only pursues such objects as may produce revolution and as are placed in the lowest rank.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Clement of Alexandria Stromata 2.5
Early Christian
Accordingly all those above-mentioned dogmas appear to have been transmitted from Moses the great to the Greeks. That all things belong to the wise man, is taught in these words: "And because God hath showed me mercy, I have all things." And that he is beloved of God, God intimates when He says, "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." For the first is found to have been expressly called "friend;" and the second is shown to have received a new name, signifying "he that sees God;" while Isaac, God in a figure selected for Himself as a consecrated sacrifice, to be a type to us of the economy of salvation. Now among the Greeks, Minos the king of nine years' reign, and familiar friend of Zeus, is celebrated in song; they having heard how once God conversed with Moses, "as one speaking with his friend." Moses, then, was a sage, king, legislator.
Date: 195 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
... Clement refers to the unclean spirits who now “tremble” (phrissousin) at the sight of the baptized person (see James 2:19). But other allusions, such as to the “friend of God” need not derive from James 2:23, since Clement certainly could have derived the usage from Philo, whom he uses heavily. The decision concerning Clement remains difficult. But in Stromateis IV, 17‘18, Clement quotes extensively from 1 Clement. Could the knowledge of James have reached Alexandria through this medium? ...
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