Skip to content
Back to the Library

The Apostolic Age · c. AD 20–40

On the Confusion of Tongues

De Confusione Linguarum

Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50

Read elsewhere

What it is

Babel taken as the scattering of a mind that had agreed with itself in wickedness, with a long digression on the divine Word as God's eldest son, his image, and the one who stands between creation and the uncreated.

Why it lasted

Contains the fullest pre-Christian description of the Logos as a mediating figure, and is quoted by Christian writers from Clement onward as though it were nearly a witness to their own doctrine.

Scripture it works from

Where to read it

Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.

These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.

Read next

Close to this one