“The text should not be discussed, it should be rather interpreted”. Two hermeneutical models: Plato and Philo of Alexandria

Abstract

This paper examines Philo of Alexandria’s reasons to assume one of the topics employed by Plato, i.e. the ‘divine inspiration’ motif. To explore this motif the Platonic earlier dialogue Ion is a key place. There, the divine inspiration originates a specific mode of interpre-tation. An inter-textual study detected previously that Philo considerably used this Platonic dialogue, specifically drawing the ‘inspiration’ motif. In attending to those texts it is discovered that both Philo and Plato introduced this topic whithin the framework of their respective thinking on Hermeneutics. The Platonic and Philonian similar use of the ‘divine inspiration’ topic prompts to reflect on the continuity and disruption between both hermeneutical models. According to Philo, the inspired book has a particular dignity and, then, prioritizes ‘what the text says’, so that ‘the text should not be discussed, it should be rather interpreted’.According to Plato, the interpretation should not stop at a canonized book, but should involve the knowledge of extra-linguistic object. This paper tries to show that, against what it might seem, Platonic and Philonian hermeneutical models do no present substantial disruptions.