I have recently got hold of a Norwegian dissertation on Philo, written in Bergen and submitted to the University of Bergen in 1987. Though it is now 17 years old, I would nevertheles like to give a brief presentation of it. And as it is written in Norwegian, and I realize that not everybody can read this language (!), I provide a brief presentation of it here. Its theses should have a wider range of readers. Hence I here present my own translation of its brief self-presentation (pp. 1-2). (My translation is rather literal, and has not been discussed with the author).
Roald Skarsten,Forfatterproblemet ved De Aeternitate Mundi i Corpus Philonicum(Eng. The problem of authorship of De Aeternitate Mundi in Corpus Philonicum)Dr. Philos dissertation, University of Bergen (Bergen, 1987)Presentation
The main issue in this dissertation is: Who is the author of the book
De
Aeternitate Mundi? Is it Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish theologian and
philosopher, living at the beginning of our era, or is it someone else? The book have been transmitted to us together with the many books of Philo. It discusses the topic if the kosmos is eternal or perishable.
In order to answer our question, the dissertation is divided into three
chapters:
In the first chapter the history of research concerning the discussion of the authorship is presented. The various views are presented so that the various pro et contra arguments for philonic authorship should be evident. The debate concerning its genuiness stared in the middle of the nineteenth century. At the end of that century, the philonic authorship was primarily defended by F. Cumont, who gained strong support for his view among Philo scholars. Even if
not all were convinced, almost no one has after Cumont really tried to prove that Philo could not be the author, and it has been upheld in general that it is most probable that the book was written by Philo.
Chapter Two discusses one of the most important arguments for philonic
authorship, that is, linguistic/stylistic similarities between
De Aeternitate
Mundi and the rest of Philo's works. It is especially F. Cumont's investigation
that is tested, and it is shown that the philonic research has been deceived for almost 100 years by an unsustainable belief that there is striking linguistic/stylistic similarites between De Aeternitate Mundi and the rest of Philo's books. Then my own results concerning a special - and so far undiscovered- stylistic aspect in
De Aeternitate Mundi is presented. This represents a decisive stylistic difference between
De Opificio Mundi and
De Aeternitate Mundi concerning word- order. The author has a tendency to combine separate syntagms, a phenomenon
called 'interlacing'. This feature is consistent throughout the book, and it is, at the same time as it excludes Philo as author, a decisive argument against the suggestion that the book is a compilation, a view that has been used as a reason for source criticism. The third part of this chapter concerns stylometric analysis. This part provides, in addition to a general presentation and discussion of the the method applied, the results of my investigations concerning certain stylistic features suitable for statistical analysis (length of sentences, distribution of words not
determined by the content of the book, etc.)
In Chapter Three, the contents of the book is analysed, and compared with the main work of Philo,
De Opificio Mundi. It is demonsrated that the difference in thinking is very great, i.a., concerning the exposition of Genesis 1:1f and its relationship to the Platonic views of ideas. Differences related to content, and the stylistic differences mentioned above, make it necessary to draw the conclusion that Philo can not be the author of
De Aeternitate Mundi. One of the main proponents of the view that the book is not by Philo is studied, and his suggestion for an alternative understanding of the author is criticized. Then a new view is presented of who the author might have been, and what he represents concerning theology and philosophy. Seen in a redaction- critical light, the author appears to be in the midst of an intense debate between
various philosophical 'schools'. I relation to older views, a new picture of the author and his position and purpose with the book emerges, i.a., a
paraenetic motive. After the new view is thus established, sections of the book considered problematic in earlier research receive a new interpretation congruent to this new comprehensive view hereby established. Inherent here is a panteistic conception of God. This understanding of God is documented as a pervading
aspect in
De Aeternitate Mundi. Contrary to the Alexandrian-Jewish milieu hitherto accepted as its context, two books from a hellenistic milieu are presented as the plausible context of thought, namely Pseudo-Okellos'
De universi natura and Pseudo-Aristotle'
De Mundi.
After the author thus has been characterized as to his 'spiritual location', the structure of the book is discussed, and it is demonstrated that it represents a comprehensive whole, comprising 20 pro-arguments for the eternity of the world, and 4 contra-arguments that finally are rejected. This structural analysis shows how the author works. In a redaction-critical perspective it is shown how the focus of earlier times on representations of author (names of known authors) and its adherent source criticism is a blind alley because the author uses the names and brief quotations to strengthen his own message.
A new theory of the origin of the book is given. This can explain the great contradictions within the book itself. Originally it as consisted of paragraphs 3-150a as one complete book, with pro- and contra-argumentation. The contra-arguments begin in 117. 1-2, a section of a more neo-platonic character - in opposition to the peripatetic views of the author - is a later addition.
Furthermore, it is demonstrated what is the plausible time of origin of
De Aeternitate Mundi. By help of aspects from history of nature and culture, the author is located to a specific area in the inner Mediteranean. Hence in addition to providing an answer to the question of who is the author (It is not Philo!), a further presentation of the real author is given concerning his
original milieu, his motives, and a relatively concise description of his geographical location.
The dissertation is thus, when it comes to method, very complex. General methods of philology are applied, comprising lexicographic, grammatical and traditional stylistic techniques. Comparative analysis of theological/philosophical ways of argumentations is sentral in the
dissertation. In addition, the study contains a comprehensive use of computer technology in order to get at a more emprical and excact material for investigation. Central here is also a complete KWIC concordance, worked out together with Peder Borgen. In addition to programming, is perhaps the use of statistic, that is, stylometric method, the most untraditional method in this work. Hence questions of methods are discussed. It should also be mentioned that I have found in necessary to gain some botanical knowledge in order to determine the question of location. I am no expert in these fields, but as the main question in the book is "Who is the author", I have found it mandatory to approach the problem from various angles in order to provide a best possible and probable answer. "
Update:
To my great surprise, I discovered that this dissertation has also now been translated into English, but it looks like it has only been published at the University of Bergen, not at an international publisher. See
here. It does not seem to be available through library loans.
Roald Skarsten is also a co-author of the following works on Philo:
The Philo Index: A Complete Greek Word Index to the Writings of Philo of Alexandria
Borgen, Peder, Kåre Fuglseth and Roald Skarsten, editors (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
Peder Borgen & Roald Skarsten, "Quaestiones at Solutiones: Some observations on the Form of Philo's Exegesis," Studia Philonica 4 (1976/77) 1-16.