84 SCOTT HAFEMANN II. The “Philosophical” Context of φύσις The use of φύσις in the ancient world has a long history and by the time of the first century a wide and diverse semantic range. Martens summarizes the “major strands of Greek thought on φύσις” to include “the power of life and growth . . . the particular characteristic of any thing or being . . . and φύσις as the inherent order and reason of the cos- mos, seen par excellence in the νόµος φύσεως, but manifesting itself in every living thing” 13. Although in specific contexts φύσις could be employed as a cognate to οuvσi,α (“being”, “essence”, “substance”) 14, its more common use was not as an abstract noun referring to a stative aspect of existence. Only under certain viewpoints, which were taken up primarily in philosophical discussions, does φύσις refer to Being (das Sein) as such (τo. o;n, ἡ οuσiα) 15. Though it is far from casual lit- v, erature, 2 Pet 1,4 clearly does not belong to such a philosophical context. It stands in stark contrast, for example, to passages from Philo, such as Fug. 164-165 and Abr. 162-163, where Philo reflects on the difference between “nature” (φύσις) and “being” or “essence” (οuvσi,α), and Spec. 1.32, 36, 39-41, where he poses the question of the “essence” (οuvσi,α) of “the deity” (τo. θεῖον). Most often, φύσις was a verbal noun (nomen actionis) related to the verb φύω (“to grow”, “to bring forth”, “to put forth”, “to become”, etc.), which was used concretely of that which grows from the earth and metaphorically of anything that is produced 16. Used in relationship to the verb, φύσις can therefore designate “nature” in the sense of the character that is produced by a life or power, as well as signifying the fundamental way of being (Seinsweise) that is seen in what it produces. That is, φύσις designates “nature” in the sense of a way of being/acting that expresses itself in what it “grows”. Fύσις is either the expression J.W. MARTENS, One God, One Law. Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and 13 Greco-Roman Law (Studies in Philo of Alexandria 2; Boston, MA 2003) 67. See LSJ, οuvσi,α, 1274, use II, and LENZ, “Deification”, 50, 63 n.13. 14 The discussion in this section follows the helpful outline of L. BRISSON, 15 “Natur”, “Natur-philosophie”, Der Neue Pauly 8 (2000) 728-736. Cf. LSJ, φύω, 1966-67; pefukw / pefukotwj, 1398; φύσις, 1964-65. 16 , , Thus, W.T. WILSON, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (CEJL; Berlin 2005) 119, comments on Ps-Phoc., Sent. 59-62 that φύω with the dative (“to fall to one by nature”) expressed “a generally held truth in Hellenistic culture about the human condition”, namely, that “nature” expressed itself, so that “people must respect the ‘natural’ limits imposed on their existence”. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati