The Armenian Corpus of Philo and Recent Philonic Scholarship (in Armenian with summary)

This paper, presented at the Matanedaran in Yerevan in October 2019, undertakes to give a survey of recent developments and trends in Philonic research as they relate to the Armenian corpus of treatises. First recent research on the writings themselves is examined, beginning with the philosophical treatises (Aucher vol. 1), followed by the exegetical writings, first those of which we still have the Greek text (Zarbhanalean), then those of which the Greek text is lost (Aucher vol. 2). Some brief comments are then devoted to recent commentaries on Philo’s works, particularly in the Philo of Alexandria commentary series (PACS). The paper then turns to recent trajectories in understanding Philo, focusing on the work of Maren Niehoff (an intellectual biography of Philo) and Greg Sterling (the context of Philo’s activities). Lastly attention is given to work on Philo’s reception in antiquity, with discussion of Metzler’s recent edition of Procopius’s Genesis commentary and of research on Philo in the Byzantine period, including medieval Armenia. The conclusion is that Philonic scholarship is flourishing, but that there remains much still to do, not least in the area of the reception of his writings and thought.