04_Biblica_Collins_Layout 1 01/04/14 11:47 Pagina 68 68 C. JOHN COLLINS unlikely that this should be taken to imply that he was a strict Aris- totelian. He is better portrayed as philosophically educated, and probably eclectic 11. The second reason the Aristobulus quotation has a bearing on this study is that our main source for what survives of his work is Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel (ca. 315 C.E.), a work that interacts with a wide range of “pagan” materials, both in critique and in commendation. Indeed, part of Eusebius’ argument is that the Christians (and, to some extent, the Jews before them) maintain the best of these other traditions. That is, in Eusebius the pattern of “co-opting” has come to a full expression. Philo (early 1st c. C.E.) also employed these terms and ideas. In de Fuga et Inventione, 112, we find: for the word of the living God being the bond of every thing [desmo.j ῍ w n tw/n a`pa,ntwn], as has been said before, holds all things to- gether, and binds all the parts [kai. sune,cei ta. me,rh pa,nta kai. sfiggei], and prevents them from being loosened or separated. , The concept of holding various parts together as a functioning whole comes through clearly here. For a similar use of desmo,j (“bond”), see Philo’s Peri Georgias (cited in Eusebius, Prep. for the Gospel, 7.13): The eternal Word … [is] bringing all the parts together and binding them fast [suna,gwn ta. me,rh pa,nta kai. sfi,ggwn]. For the Fa- ther who begat Him made Him an indissoluble bond of the uni- verse [desmo.n a;rrhkton tou/ panto,j] In Philo’s De Vita Mosis, 2.133, the high priest’s jewels are “the reason-seat of that which [or of him who] holds together and ad- ministers all things” (tou/ sune,contoj kai. dioikou/ntoj ta. sumpanta to. logei/on) 12. (Josephus, Against Apion, 2.23 [2, 190], , supplies another example, using ta. su,mpanta with the uncom- pounded verb, e;cw: “God encompasses all things” [o` qeo.j e;cei 11 HOLLADAY, Aristobulus, 72-73; cf. 204-206, n. 24. See also N. WALTER, Der Thoraausleger Aristobulus (Berlin 1964) 12. 12 Colson’s Loeb translation suggests that the word lo,gou is to be sup- plied, “that [reason] which holds”.