{"title":"Apophatic and Anthropomorphic Visions of God in Philo of Alexandria","authors":"Scott D. Mackie","doi":"10.31743/vv.16317","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":37783,"journal":{"name":"Verbum Vitae","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Verbum Vitae","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.31743/vv.16317","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
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.
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.
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