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 shall take silver and gold, and make crowns, and you shall put them upon the head of Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest; 12 and you shall say to him, Thus says the Lord Almighty; Look at the man whose name is The Rising Sun; and he shall rise up from beneath him, and build the house of the Lord. 13 And he shall receive power, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and there shall be a priest on his right hand, and a peaceful counsel shall be between them both.
Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues 1:62
Classical
61 Here 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 that exists around him, so as to be forever inextinguishable. 62 I have also heard of one of the companions of Moses saying something like this: "Behold, a man whose name is the East!" A very novel name indeed, if you take it as spoken of a man composed of body and soul; but if you regard it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no way differs from the divine image, you will agree that the name of the east has been given to him very aptly. 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 the one born in this way, imitating the ways of his father, has formed various species by 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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