Paradoxes éthiques et divinisation du sage : Philon d’Alexandrie et les stoïciens

This article examines the original contribution of Philo of Alexandria to the transmission of a tradition of paradoxes that describe the condition of the sage, attested in Stoic sources, and evoked in the Philonian Quod omnis probus liber sit. Two issues related to the paradoxical condition of the wise man are analyzed: his divinization and the model of science that characterizes it. Indeed, Philo offers a complementary interpretation of the sage's perfection, which he calls "disjunctive": the Alexandrian takes up the Stoic paradoxes, but he substantially changes the "conjunctive paradigm" which, according to Jacques Brunschwig's famous analysis, underlies them. This change takes place thanks to Philo's interpreting the Stoic paradoxes in a hermeneutical key that is not only Middle Platonic, but also biblical: that of the transcendence of divine perfection.