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The Justice of the Cosmos: Philosophical Cosmology and Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Wisdom of Solomon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2021

Christopher S. Atkins Open the ORCID record for Christopher S. Atkins [Opens in a new window]
Christopher S. Atkins*
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Yale University, 451 College St., New Haven, CT 06511, USA. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article argues that the Wisdom of Solomon complicates Martinus C. de Boer's typology of two ‘tracks’ of Jewish apocalyptic eschatology (‘forensic apocalyptic eschatology’ and ‘cosmological apocalyptic eschatology’). Wisdom, which entails both ‘forensic’ depictions of an eschatological courtroom (5.1–14) and ‘cosmological’ depictions of cosmic war (5.15–23), offers a cosmology fundamentally incompatible with the cosmology presumed in de Boer's ‘cosmological apocalyptic eschatology’. Instead of envisioning eschatological justice as the result of a divine invasion, Wisdom envisions it as the result of divine pervasion. That is, cosmological eschatology in Wisdom entails a fully functioning, divinely pervaded cosmos operating as it was intended to operate. Wisdom innovates within Jewish apocalyptic tradition by employing the mythological idiom of apocalypticism to defend the philosophical claim that the cosmos is just and facilitates life for those who are likewise just.

Keywords

cosmologyeschatologyHellenistic philosophypneumaStoicismWisdom of Solomon
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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 598 - 612
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Blackwell, B. C., Goodrich, J. K. and Maston, J., ‘Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction’, Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination (ed. Blackwell, B. C., Goodrich, J. K. and Maston, J.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016) 3–21, at 8Google Scholar.

2 de Boer, M. C., The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 (JSNTSup 22; Sheffield: JSOT, 1988) 84–90, 182–3Google Scholar; idem, Paul, Theologian of God's Apocalypse: Essays on Paul and Apocalyptic (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020) 1–14. De Boer has also employed the distinction between the two ‘tracks’ in publications in the interim: Galatians: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2011) 31–35, 79–82; ‘Paul's Mythologizing Program’, Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5–8 (ed. B.R. Gaventa; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013) 1–20, at 18.

3 M. C. de Boer, ‘Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology’, The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol. i: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity (ed. J. J. Collins; New York: Continuum, 1999) 345–83, at 359, quoting Russell, D. S., The Method and the Message of Jewish Apocalyptic: 200 bc–ad 100 (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964) 269Google Scholar.

4 De Boer, ‘Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology’, 359.

5 One scholar recently described the typology as ‘De Boer's most influential contribution to the “apocalyptic Paul”’ (Davies, J. P., Paul among the Apocalypses? An Evaluation of the ‘Apocalyptic Paul’ in the Context of Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Literature (LSNT 562; London: Bloomsbury, 2016) 151Google Scholar), and J. Louis Martyn has argued that the distinction is ‘essential to the reading of Galatians’ (Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33.1; Garden City: Doubleday, 1997) 97 n. 51). Martyn deployed the typology to distinguish between Paul from his opponents in Galatia: Paul combatted his opponents’ ‘forensic apocalyptic eschatology’ with (true) ‘cosmological apocalyptic eschatology’. In short, the typological distinction has become a staple of a prominent strand of research on apocalyptic eschatology in Paul's letters.

6 Whether some or all of the undisputed Pauline epistles can be (variously) mapped onto de Boer's ‘tracks’ is not a point of contention in the present article. Rather, I argue that the grid that de Boer constructs to map ‘Pauline apocalyptic eschatology’ is incomplete. Cf. Frey, J., ‘Demythologizing Apocalyptic? On N.T. Wright's Paul, Apocalyptic Interpretation, and the Constraints of Construction’, God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N.T. Wright (ed. Heilig, C., Hewitt, J. T. and Bird, M. F.; WUNT ii/413; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016) 489–532, at 508–12Google Scholar. For another critique of de Boer's work on apocalyptic eschatology, see Wasserman, E., Apocalypse as Holy War: Divine Politics and Polemics in the Letters of Paul (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018) 8–9Google Scholar.

7 Collins, J. J., ‘Cosmos and Salvation: Jewish Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Hellenistic Age’, Seers, Sibyls and Sages in Hellenistic–Roman Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1997) 317–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rad, G. von, Theologie des Alten Testaments, vol. ii (Munich: Kaiser, 1965 4) 329Google Scholar.

8 For discussions of the date and provenance of Wisdom, see Winston, D., The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 43; Garden City: Doubleday, 1979) 20–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Collins, J. J., Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 178–9Google Scholar; Hübner, H., Die Weisheit Salomons (ATD Apocryphen 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999) 15–19Google Scholar; Aitken, J. K., ‘Wisdom of Solomon’, The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (ed. Aitken, J. K.; London: Bloomsbury, 2015) 401–9, at 402–4Google Scholar.

9 The locus classicus is Rom 1.18–32 and Wis 13–14, as noted over a century ago by Grafe, E., ‘Das Verhältniss der paulinischen Schriften zur Sapientia Salmonis’, Theologische Abhandlungen: Carl von Weizsäcker zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstage 11. December 1892 gewidmet (Freiburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1892) 251–86Google Scholar. Recent surveys of scholarship on the relationship between Wisdom and Romans include Dodson, J. R., The ‘Powers’ of Personification: Rhetorical Purpose in the Book of Wisdom and the Letter to the Romans (BZNW 161; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) 4–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Linebaugh, J. A., God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul's Letter to the Romans (NovTSup 152; Leiden: Brill, 2013) 13–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. J. Lucas, Evocations of the Calf: Romans 1:18–2:11 and the Substructure of Psalm 106 (105) (BZNW 201; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015) 13–16. See also Gaventa, B. R., ‘The Rhetoric of Death in the Wisdom of Solomon and the Letters of Paul’, The Listening Heart: Essays in Wisdom and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm. (ed. Hoglund, K. G. et al. ; JSOTSup 58; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1987) 127–45, at 127–31Google Scholar.

10 De Boer, The Defeat of Death, 89.

11 For de Boer's treatment of Wisdom, see The Defeat of Death, 59–62, 90–1. He focuses on Wis 2.24 and the ‘personification of death’, but he does not attend to Wis 5.15–23 or Wisdom's broader cosmology.

12 As Davies writes about de Boer's and other Pauline scholars such as J. Louis Martyn's and Beverly Gaventa's treatments of Jewish apocalyptic cosmology, ‘At the heart of each of these treatments is an essentially dualistic understanding of the cosmos that frames the conviction that Paul's apocalyptic thought is founded upon the belief that God's liberation is based upon his invasion into the scene of this world’ (Paul among the Apocalypses, 201). Divine and human agency is likewise central to de Boer's schema: the problem to be solved in ‘cosmological apocalyptic eschatology’ is the work of malevolent divine forces, and the problem to be solved in ‘forensic apocalyptic eschatology’ is the failing of humans. There is nevertheless no indication that Wisdom offers its ‘forensic’ and ‘cosmological’ scenarios with this clear-cut bifurcation in mind.

13 Cf. Davies on the ‘permeation’ of heaven and earth in the Book of the Watchers, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch (Paul among the Apocalypses, 201).

14 Wisdom exhibits commonalities with a spectrum of Jewish traditions, most prominently sapiential and apocalyptic traditions. The relationship between these traditions is parsed variously by scholars. See Burkes, S., ‘Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Wisdom of Solomon’, HTR 95 (2002) 21–44Google Scholar; Collins, J. J., ‘The Reinterpretation of Apocalyptic Traditions in the Wisdom of Solomon’, The Book of Wisdom in Modern Research: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology (ed. Passaro, A. and Bellia, G.; DCLY; Berlin: de Gruyter 2005) 143–57Google Scholar; M. Kolarcik, ‘Sapiential Values and Apocalyptic Imagery in the Wisdom of Solomon’, Studies in the Book of Wisdom (ed. G. G. Xeravits and J. Zsengellér; JSJSup 142; Leiden: Brill, 2010) 23–36. For a concise treatment of the structure of Wisdom, see M. Gilbert, ‘The Literary Structure of the Book of Wisdom’, The Book of Wisdom in Modern Research, 19–32.

15 Translations of Wisdom are from the NRSV, with modifications, unless otherwise noted.

16 E.g. Deut 19.17; Josh 20.6; Ezek 44.24; as noted by Nickelsburg, G. W. E., Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Christianity (HTS 56; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006) 24Google Scholar. There is no justification for N. T. Wright's claim that ‘[bodily] resurrection is what is meant’ by ‘standing’ (The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 171).

17 The references to sins against ‘our law’ and ‘our paideia’ may indicate intra-Jewish polemic. Cf. Barclay, J. M. G., Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 bce–117 ce) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998) 186Google Scholar, who suggests tensions between Jews and non-Jews.

18 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 67–118, esp. 78–90.

19 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 83. On the ‘ambiguity of death’ in Wisdom, see Kolarcik, M., The Ambiguity of Death in the Book of Wisdom 1–6 (AnBib 127; Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991)Google Scholar; Hogan, K. M. ‘The Exegetical Background of the “Ambiguity of Death” in the Wisdom of Solomon’, JSJ 30 (1999) 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 1 En. 62–63 similarly betrays indebtedness to the fourth servant song of Isaiah and depicts the rulers of the earth who oppressed the righteous chosen one confessing upon realising their wrong, but in a way that leads to condemnation.

21 Text and translation of the Hodayot are from Schuller, E. M. and Newsom, C. A., The Hodayot (Thanksgiving Psalms): A Study Edition of 1QHa (EJL 36; Atlanta: SBL, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 For a recent discussion of both passages, see Walsh, M.L., Angels Associated with Israel in the Dead Sea Scrolls (WUNT 2.509; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019) 204–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with extensive bibliography. For a brief discussion of the common features between the two hymns, see Hughes, J.A., Scriptural Allusions and Exegesis in the Hodayot (STDJ 59; Leiden: Brill, 2006) 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 My use of ‘the new covenantal community’ should not be misconstrued as indicating that a single community lies behind the Hodayot and Community Rule. I use the phrase for ease of expression, while recognising that it is inaccurate to speak of a singular ‘community of the Dead Sea Scrolls’. See esp. A. Schofield, From Qumran to the Yaḥad: A New Paradigm of Textual Development for the Community Rule (STDJ 77; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 21–67; eadem, ‘Between Center and Periphery: The Yaḥad in Context’, DSD 16 (2009): 330–50; Collins, J. J., Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) 52–87, 122–65Google Scholar.

24 See esp. Jer 23.18–22 and Ps 89.6–9 for the divine סוד, and Ps 82.1 for the divine עדה.

25 See Collins, J. J., ‘The Angelic Life’, Scriptures and Sectarianism: Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014) 195–211, at 199–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See also 1QS 4.6–8 and 1QM 1.8–9.

27 Perhaps most importantly, Wisdom contains a notion of the immortality of the soul, which is often considered evidence of its appropriation of a Platonist framework. For Wisdom the soul's immortality is a reward – in particular, a reward for the righteous who attain virtue and wisdom (Wis 4.1; 8.13, 17; 15.3). Nevertheless, while the immortality of the soul was a Platonist dogma at the time of Wisdom, Plato ascribed immortality to the soul on different grounds in his dialogues. For a helpful discussion, see Sedley, D., ‘Three Kinds of Platonic Immortality’, Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy (ed. Frede, D. and Reis, B.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009) 145–62Google Scholar, who suggests three kinds of personal immortality in Plato: essential, conferred and earned. See also A. G. Long, 'Platonic Immortalities', Death and Immortality in Ancient Philosophy (Key Themes in Ancient Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 29–61. Wisdom's view is close to what Diogenes Laertius ascribed to Antisthenes, the pupil of Socrates: ‘Those who wish to be immortal, he said, must live piously and justly’ (τοὺς βουλομένους ἀθανάτους εἶναι ἔφη δεῖν εὐσεβῶς καὶ δικαίως ζῆν). Text and translation are from Prince, S. H., Antisthenes of Athens: Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015) 568CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For further discussion of the immortality of the soul in Wisdom, see Collins, Jewish Wisdom, 185–87; G. E. Sterling, ‘The Love of Wisdom: Middle Platonism and Stoicism in the Wisdom of Solomon’, From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy 100 bce–100 ce (ed. T. Engberg-Pedersen; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) 198–213, at 200–4.

28 Further, just as the Community Rule compares the inheritance and lot of the righteous with the inheritance (נחלה) of the wicked who were in the lot (גורל) of Belial (e.g. 1QS 2.2, 5; 3.24), so also the wicked in Wisdom have a portion and lot (μερίς and κλῆρος) that ultimately results in death. See Wis 2.9. Cf. also Wis 1.6, 24.

29 Wright is thus unjustified in importing a framework of bodily resurrection from 2 Maccabees (see esp. 2 Macc 7.9, 11, 14, 22–3) (Resurrection, 175).

30 Cf. Edwards, M., Pneuma and Realized Eschatology in the Book of Wisdom (FRLANT 242; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012) 195–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wisdom is not unique in this regard, for 1QH 11.19–36 contains a similarly abrupt shift from personalised reflection on entrance into the community in 11.19–28 to cosmic eschatological judgement in 11.29–36.

31 On the mythological background of the divine warrior theophany, see the classic treatments by F. M. Cross (‘The Divine Warrior’, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973) 145–94) and P. D. Miller, Jr (The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973)). On the (re)deployment of these traditions in Daniel and Revelation, see Collins, A. Y., The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976)Google Scholar and Collins, J. J., ‘Stirring up the Great Sea: The Religio-Historical Background of Daniel 7’, The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings (ed. van der Woude, A. S.; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993) 121–36Google Scholar. See also recently Wasserman, Apocalypse as Holy War, 18–58.

32 M. McGlynn, Divine Judgement and Divine Benevolence in the Book of Wisdom (WUNT ii/139; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 81.

33 T. R. Y. Neufeld, Put on the Armour of God: The Divine Warrior from Isaiah to Ephesians (JSNTSup 140; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997) 64.

34 The synonyms for God's covering and sheltering of the righteous in Wisdom (σκεπάζω and ὑπερασπίζω) are likewise used by the Sibyl to depict God as the eschatological divine warrior fighting on behalf of the elect in Sib. Or. 3.705–14.

35 Collins, J. J., ‘Apocalyptic Eschatology in Philosophical Dress in the Wisdom of Solomon’, Shem in the Tents of Japhet: Essays on the Encounter of Judaism and Hellenism (ed. Kugel, J. L.; Leiden: Brill, 2002) 93–107, at 102–3Google Scholar. See also Dodson, The ‘Powers’ of Personification, 69–89. A similar sentiment is found in Ben Sira's claim that the workings of nature are ‘good for the godly, but for the sinners they turn into bad things’ (Sir 39.27). Even then, however, noting the similarity does not require equating the world-view of the two texts, for Wisdom's conception of creation is differently developed. Cf. Crenshaw, J. L., ‘The Problem of Theodicy in Sirach: On Human Bondage’, JBL 94 (1975) 47–64Google Scholar. See also Philo, Mos. 1.143: ‘And the strangest thing of all was that the same elements in the same place and at the same time brought destruction to one people and safety to the other.’

36 I agree with Kolarcik (‘Sapiential Imagery’, 32) that Wisdom's ‘brief presentation of the Lord's cosmic judgment points to the author's positive explanation of creation’, but more needs to be said about what the author's ‘positive explanation of creation’ entails.

37 On the passage from the perspective of its interpretation of creation accounts, especially Genesis 1, see Enns, P., Exodus Retold: Ancient Exegesis of the Departure from Egypt in Wis 10:15–21 and 19:1–9 (HSM 57; Atlanta: Scholars, 1997) 95–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Cheon, S., The Exodus Story in the Wisdom of Solomon (JSPSup 23; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997) 89–107Google Scholar.

38 Wis 19.18.

39 Mos. 2.267, trans. Sterling, ‘Love of Wisdom’, 206.

40 Sterling, ‘Love of Wisdom’, 204–7; Winston, Wisdom, 300.

41 Horky, P. S., ‘Cosmic Spiritualism among the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Jews, and Early Christians’, Cosmos in the Ancient World (ed. Horky, P. S.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 270–94, at 277CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See Plutarch, Comm. not. 1085c–d (LS 47G; SVF ii.444); Clement, Strom. 5.482 (SVF ii.447). For discussions of ‘tension’ in Stoicism, see Hahm, D. E., The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977) 163–8Google Scholar; Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N., The Hellenistic Philosophers: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 286–9Google Scholar; Annas, J., Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) 50–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Inwood, B., ‘Walking and Talking: Reflections on Divisions of the Soul in Stoicism’, Partitioning the Soul: Debates from Plato to Leibniz (ed. Corcilius, K. and Perler, D.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014) 63–83, at 64–7Google Scholar. On the all-pervading rational principle and intellect of the cosmos, often identified with pneuma, see Aëtius 1.7.33 (LS 46A; SVF ii.1027); Diogenes Laertius 7.134–5 (LS 44B, 46B; SVF ii.300, 1.102); Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus, vv. 12–13. See also Diogenes Laertius 7.138 (LS 47O; SVF ii.634); Cicero, Nat. d. 1.36–9 (LS 54B; SVF ii.1077); Sextus Empiricus, Math. 9.76 (LS 44C; SVF ii.311). For a succinct discussion, see Sedley, D., ‘Hellenistic Physics and Metaphysics’, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Algra, K. et al. ; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 353–411, at 387–90Google Scholar.

43 Cf. Alcinous, Did. 10.2–3: ‘By his own will he has filled all things with himself …’, on which see C. Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie: Die Auslegung des Schöpfungsberichtes bei Origenes, Basilius und Gregor von Nyssa vor dem Hintergrund kaiserzeitlicher Timaeus-Interpretationen (STAC 56; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009) 152–4. The translation of Alcinous is from Dillon, J., The Handbook of Platonism: Translated with an Introduction and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

44 Galen, On bodily mass 7.525.9–14 (LS 47F; SVF ii.439); Horky, ‘Cosmic Spiritualism’, 277 n. 32.

45 A full analysis of the famous paean to sophia in Wis 7.22–8.1 is beyond the scope of this article. On the philosophical dimensions of the passage, see Hübner, H., ‘Die Sapientia Salomonis und die antike Philosophie’, Die Weisheit Salomos im Horizont Biblischer Theologie (ed. Hübner, H.; Biblisch-Theologische Studien 22; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1993) 55–81Google Scholar; Cox, R., By the Same Word: Creation and Salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (BZNW 145; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007) 64–70, 74–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Engberg-Pedersen, T., Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 22–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sterling, ‘Love of Wisdom’, 207–10.

46 Did. 14.4. The Greek text of Alcinous is from J. Whittaker and P. Louis, Alicinoos: Enseignement des doctrines de Platon. Introduction, texte établi et commenté (Collection des Universités de France; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1990). Numenius, frag. 4b (Nemesius, De nat. hom. 2.8–14) similarly refers to soul as that which ‘draws and holds [bodies] together … binding and strengthening them’ (συνέχοντος καὶ συνάγοντος … συσφίγγοντος καὶ συγκρατοῦντος αὐτά). The Greek text of Numenius is from E. Des Places, Numenius, Fragments. Texte établi et traduit (Collection des Universités de France; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1973).

47 Fug. 97: ὁ θεῖος λόγος is the σοφίας πηγή (‘fountain of wisdom’); Somn. 2.242: ὁ θεῖος λόγος flows ἀπὸ πηγῆς τῆς σοφίας (‘from the fountain of wisdom’). On the ‘virtual identification’ of the logos and sophia in Philo, see Matilla, S. L., ‘Wisdom, Sense Perception, Nature and Philo's Gender Gradient’, HTR 89 (1996) 103–29, at 109–11Google Scholar, with bibliography and Philonic references.

48 Philo elsewhere ascribes this function to ‘the powers’ (see e.g. Post. 14; Conf. 136; Migr. 181).

49 Geljon, A. C. and Runia, D. T., Philo of Alexandria On Planting: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (PACS 5; Leiden: Brill, 2019) 93–94, 103–5Google Scholar. See also Runia, D. T., Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (PhA 44; Leiden: Brill, 1986) 204–8, 238–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 For an assessment of the wider philosophical context of Wisdom, with particular attention to the interplay of Stoicism and Middle Platonism, see now Sterling, ‘Love of Wisdom’, 210–13. See also Neher, M., Wesen und Wirken der Weisheit in der Sapientia Solomonis (BZAW 333; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004) 164–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with discussion and bibliography at 164–80. Neher concludes that Wisdom was not indebted to a single philosophical school but rather made use of a ‘philosophical koine’ (227). See also Thom, J. C., ‘Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon and Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus’, Septuagint and Reception: Essays Prepared for the Association for the Study of the Septuagint in South Africa (ed. Cook, J.; VTSup 127; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 194–208, at 203–4Google Scholar.

51 On the cosmos as ensouled (ἔμψυχος), rational (λογικός) and thus a living being, see Diogenes Laertius 7.141–3 (LS 53X; SVF 2.633); Cicero, Nat. d. 2.20–2 (LS 54G); Sextus Empiricus, Math. 9.102–3. On the identification of soul as pneuma, see Diogenes Laertius 7.157, and on conceptual distinctions in the way in which ‘soul’ functions as or in relation to all-pervading pneuma in Stoic sources, Long, A. A., ‘Soul and Body in Stoicism’, Stoic Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) 224–49, at 224–34Google Scholar; Ademollo, F., ‘Cosmic and Individual Soul in Early Stoicism’, Body and Soul in Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Inwood, B. and Warren, J.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) 113–44, at 119–27Google Scholar. See also J. Opsomer, ‘The Platonic Soul, from the Early Academy to the First Century ce’, Body and Soul in Hellenistic Philosophy, 171–98, at 183–94, on soul and pneuma in Posidonius.

52 Wisdom's innovative transformation of the divine warrior tradition can be seen as an example of what Sterling has described as Wisdom's method of ‘dialectical’ or ‘transformative appropriation’ (‘The Love of Wisdom’, 212–13). That is, in appropriating Hellenistic philosophical notions of cosmology, Wisdom transforms the Jewish apocalyptic traditions that it inherits. The reverse is likewise true: the Jewish apocalyptic framework contributes to a transformation and a reframing of the Hellenistic philosophical cosmology. See also Thom, J. C., ‘Sophia as Second Principle in Wisdom of Solomon’, Toward a Theology of the Septuagint: Stellenbosch Congress on the Septuagint, 2018 (ed. Cook, J. and Rösel;, M. SCS 74; Atlanta: SBL, 2020) 263–75, at 266–7, 271–3Google Scholar.

53 Collins, ‘Cosmos and Salvation’, writes: ‘Salvation and judgement are not divorced from the workings of the world but are a necessary consequence of the way the world is ordered’ (322). See also Kolarcik, M., ‘Creation and Salvation in the Book of Wisdom’, Creation in the Biblical Traditions (ed. Clifford, R. J. and Collins, J. J.; CBQMS 24; Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1992) 97–107Google Scholar.

54 Seneca, Ep. 92.30.

55 See the discussion in Mazzinghi, L., Wisdom (IECOT; Stuttgart: Kolhammer, 2019) 157Google Scholar, with bibliography.

56 I have adapted the language of mythological idiom from Collins, ‘Cosmos and Salvation’, 334.