Apophatic and Anthropomorphic Visions of God in Philo of Alexandria

Q2 Arts and Humanities

Verbum Vitae Pub Date : 2023-10-03 DOI:10.31743/vv.16317

Scott D. Mackie

引用次数: 2

Abstract

Despite his core theological convictions that God is incorporeal, formless, invisible, and unchangeable, in some of his most carefully crafted visio Dei texts Philo portrays God “changing shape” and temporarily adopting a human form. However, these are only “seeming appearances” and actually involve God projecting a human-shaped “impression,” or “appearance” (φαντασία) from his shapeless, immaterial being. By accommodating the overwhelming reality of God’s being to the perceptual and conceptual limitations of the human percipient, these docetic theophanies allow humans to more confidently relate to the deity, while at the same time preserving God’s absolute transcendence and apophatic otherness.

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亚历山德里亚的斐洛对神的幻像与拟人化的看法

尽管他的核心神学信念是上帝是无形的、无形的、看不见的、不变的，但在他精心制作的一些关于上帝的文本中，菲洛描绘了上帝“改变形状”，暂时采用了人类的形式。然而，这些只是“表面上的现象”，实际上涉及上帝从他无形的、非物质的存在中投射出人类形状的“印象”或“外观”(φαντασ末路α)。通过将上帝存在的压倒性现实与人类感知能力的感知和概念限制相适应，这些docetic神显让人类更自信地与神联系起来，同时保留了上帝的绝对超越性和冷漠的他者性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Verbum Vitae Arts and Humanities-Religious Studies

CiteScore

0.70

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

16 weeks

期刊介绍： Published since 2002, "Verbum Vitae" is issued biannually by the Institute of Biblical Studies of the Faculty of Theology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. Each issue of the journal includes scholarly articles dedicated to a specific biblical theme and presented in three sections: (I) Old Testament, (II) New Testament, and (III) Patristics and the Life of the Church. The final "Life of the Church" perspective tries to broaden out each issue''s given topic into its multiple connections and implications, mostly dogmatic, moral, pastoral, liturgical, or sociological. The forth section of the journal always consists of reviews of recently published monographs and collections on biblical themes. Because of the journal''s interdisciplinary character, it seeks to include among the contributors not only biblical scholars but also theologians of various specializations.