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Philo's Word and Justin's Logos

Connection type: parallel tradition · 2 passages

Philo calls the image of God the Word, by which the world was made; Justin, writing a century later, gives the Logos many names — Glory, Son, Wisdom, Angel, God, Lord — and says it was begotten of the Father by an act of will. The set shows the shared vocabulary, not a quotation: Justin does not name Philo here.

Passages side by side

“For if it was necessary to examine the mortal body of the priest that it ought not be imperfect through any misfortune, much more was it necessary to look into his immortal soul, which they say is fashioned in the form of the living God. Now the image of God is the Word, by which all the world was made.”

Philo of Alexandria — On the Creation of Magistrates · Book 1, §§76–100

“Justin: I shall give you another testimony, my friends, from the Scriptures, that God begot before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father's will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will; just as we see happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me, when He speaks by Solomon the following:”

Justin Martyr — Dialogue with Trypho · Chapter 61. Wisdom is begotten of the Father, as fire from fire

Every passage above is quoted verbatim from the library’s own corpus file for that work (Septuagint passages from the Swete text); long passages are shown as sentences or marked excerpts, never paraphrased. The connection type is descriptive: “direct quotation” means the later text names or quotes its source; “allusion” means it names the figure or scene; “parallel tradition” means the texts retell the same episode or wording, with no dependence claimed.

Subjects

Logos theology

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