98 SCOTT HAFEMANN egories of the day 55. On those few occasions when Philo does use the exact phrase θεία φύσις, it too refers to the character of God ex- pressed either in God’s own actions or in the actions of those who act like God in some way 56. However, whereas Philo speaks of the nature of the supreme God in terms of the divine Logos/reason of Hellenistic philosophy, our passage interprets the divine nature in terms of the eschatological promises of God as the expression of the divine power that determines history. Whereas for Philo the soul’s present vision of God is the pathway to participating in the divine nature, in 2 Peter it is God’s own intervention in history, at the end of this age, through which his people become fellow participants in the consequences of his character as judge and redeemer. Finally, the rhetorical strategy of 2 Peter is also quite distant from both the overt Hellenistic framework of 4 Maccabees and the tradi- tion of the Hellenistic Jewish apologists of the era. The goal of 2 Peter is not to recast biblical traditions in the thought forms of his day for the sake of apologetics to non-believers. Rather, 2 Peter adapts appropriate conceptuality from the culture in order to com- municate to believers a biblically-informed message concerning the reality and implications of the second coming of the Messiah 57. This contrast with the Jewish apologists of the day distinguishes 2 Peter See, e.g., the categories of middle Platonism in Conf. 171-173; Fug. 55 97; Det. 83; Opif. 21, 23, 84; etc. So Runia, Philo, 518: though Philo is not a Platonist per se, “the profound influence of Plato’s writings and their inter- pretative tradition must be recognized for what it is, a pillar of Philo’s thought which, if removed, would cause the whole edifice to totter and collapse”. For the only uses of the singular, θεία φύσις, see Abr. 144; Spec. 1.116, 56 269 (qeiote,ra fu,sij); 2.224-225 and the indirect reference in Spec. 1.266. For examples of the more common plural form to refer to both incorporeal (aswmatoi) and corporeal (ai` ouvk a;neu swma,twn) beings, cf. Opif. 144; Her. v, 176; Fug. 162, 163; Abr. 107, 115 (angels as “those holy and divine beings” [ierai. kai. qei/ai fu,seij], whom “the primal God” [o` prw,toj qeo,j] employs ` as his ambassadors); Decal. 104; Prov. 2.50; Gig. 7-8, where stars are “divine souls” (yucai. qei/ai), i.e., mind in its purest form (nou/j avkraifne,statoj), a view also held by the Stoics, Plato, and Aristotle (LCL II, 502). Though beyond the scope of this essay, this same rhetorical move may 57 be seen in the appropriation of the language of “Stoic conflagration physics” in the unpacking of the eschatological promises from 2 Pet 1,4 and 3,13 in 2 Pet 3,10-17; for a more nuanced analysis of this Stoic background, esp. the flexible nature of the Stoic motif of evkpu,rwsij, which would allow for such an adaption to biblical content, see J.A. HARRILL, “Stoic Physics, the Univer- © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati