George Karamanolis

The Church Fathers engaged with thought about the individual in two, related contexts: in explaining (1) the Trinity and (2) the incarnation. (1) Origen, influenced by ‘trinitarian’ accounts of God in Platonists such as Numenius, thought of the Trinity as three distinct realities which were ‘hypostases’ of the one God. Since these are distinguished by their different ontological levels, Origen became vulnerable to the charge of subordinationism. Marius Victorinus was inspired instead by the ‘horizontal’ metaphysical triad of being, thinking, and living also found in Platonism—but could not explain how these amounted to different individuals or persons. Gregory of Nyssa was able to argue that God is one as a kind, and that there are three individual things which are this God. (This follows a general metaphysical principle according to which human individuals too, for example, are only multiple instances of ‘man’.) (2) Jesus does not become two individuals at the incarnation, though he becomes both a God and a man. The Fathers came to think that this is because, while the individual who is Jesus is always God, the man which Jesus also becomes has derivative reality as _enupostaton_, that is, as something akin to a part or property of this individual.

Origen’s _Against Celsus_ was the first ‘apology’ to extend the genre beyond responses to criticisms of Christianity that might have formed the basis of a legal charge, to something more comprehensive and personal. But Origen was ambivalent about writing it. He saw that, in contrast with Socrates, Jesus thought his life was the only defence he needed. He also saw that it would take disproportionate effort to find a logical structure within which Celsus’ disorganized series of criticisms could be systematically addressed. Finally, he believed that Christians should not be disturbed by these criticisms in any case: his intended readership included only ‘weak’ or tentative Christians, and perhaps pagans already thinking of conversion.

From the second century to the fifth, a period when Greek philosophy was viewed as potentially hostile by Christians who, nonetheless, had much interest in questions concerning ‘substance’, Christian knowledge of the _Categories_ is heavily mediated by summaries, such as those in doxographies and paraphrases. This is the case e.g. with Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Basil, and Gregory of Nyssa. From the fifth century onwards, this class of literature is used for debates over the nature(s) of Christ, and, in authors such as John of Damascus, logic becomes thought of as an ally against the conceptual confusion to be found in the heretics. But it is only in the ninth century that we find Christians openly discussing the _Categories_ without mediation.

Philosophy in the Empire still took Hellenism, as a system of beliefs and values common to all the ancient nations, to be what unites civilized mankind. This is what explains Celsus’ animosity towards Christians, although Platonists and Christians agree about a lot. (Their main disagreement concerns the doctrines of incarnation and resurrection, and the divinity of the human Jesus.) Christians viewed Hellenism as an invalid source of wisdom, and fraudulently reliant on Jewish traditions: Celsus simply replied in kind in his attack on Christianity. What is more, he takes the Christian refusal to sacrifice to the emperor to be a rejection of the divine order he represents.

Eusebius himself raises the question why, given the work of his predecessors, notably Origen, he still needed to write apologetic works. This paper offers some answers. The _Against Hierocles_ addresses a more recent line of attack: the unfavourable comparison of Jesus with Apollonius of Tyana. The _Response to Porphyry_ was needed because Porphyry was such a distinguished philosopher and critic of Christianity. The _Preparation for the Gospel_ responds to Porphyry’s charge that Origen abandoned Hellenism to look for the source of his views (views often close to those of Porphyry) in the Bible and not in Plato. To this, Eusebius offered neither rebuttal nor refutation, but a new kind of apology. Turning the accusation around, he argued that Plato had derived his views from the Bible and not from his Hellenic heritage.

The end of the Hellenistic period is conventionally dated by historians to around 30 BC, but in philosophy the shift towards the direction taken in later antiquity began in the later second century BC. Notably, post-Hellenistic Aristotelianism and Platonism have their roots in a serious interest in Plato and in Aristotle as figures of authority that started to be visible then, for example in Panaetius and Posidonius, who also set the agenda for later Stoicism. New centres of philosophy (as at Rhodes and Alexandria) opened up at the same time, encouraging doctrinal diversity and weakening narrow school affiliations. This set the scene for philosophy until the third century AD, when first Platonism and then Christianity grew dominant.

Longinus (_c_.210–272) was a Platonist, a student of Ammonius in Alexandria, and head of the Athenian School. His best-known view is an attempt to understand how God can be the principle of everything and also an intellect (which implies the existence of something to think). Numenius, followed by Plotinus, had answered this with his ‘trinitarian’ view according to which ideas were contained in a divine intellect which was posterior to the divine first principle, the Good. Longinus, instead, maintained a unitarian view of God, who thinks of himself as the principle of all that can be: the forms emerge as the content of this thinking (which is why Longinus compares them to Stoic ‘lekta’). Longinus’ suggestion that Plotinus’ alternative is not authentically Platonic is what provoked the famous riposte that Longinus was more a philologist than a philosopher. Nevertheless, he evidently was a serious philosophical thinker, and was taken seriously as such by his peers.

John of Damascus, influenced by Nemesius, thought that will ( θέλησις ) and its free use are possessed by all intellects. Since this includes God, he certainly cannot have meant by this what we mean by ‘free will’. Rather, he means that the will offers something like the freedom to desire what is appropriate, or good. In the case of human beings, non-rational desires might lend affective support to these desires—but might also give rise to alternative rational desires which are inappropriate. John’s theory differs from that of the historical Aristotle (not least in ruling out _akrasia_); but it also contributes to a widespread misreading of Aristotle, according to which choice is a product of deliberation on the one hand combined with non-rational desire on the other. Through his influence on Western medieval thought (including Thomas Aquinas), an influence remarkable for a Byzantine thinker, John thus became an important link in the history of thought about the will.

Syrianus’ only surviving writings are comments on books Β, Γ, and ΜΝ of the _Metaphysics_ (though he wrote more, including material for private circulation). It is likely that the comments on Γ were meant to circulate separately. Syrianus wrote on the _Metaphysics_ both to show that Aristotle was more of a Platonist than, especially, Alexander had allowed, but also to highlight where he fell short. In particular, Syrianus admires Aristotle’s pursuit of a universal science of being _qua_ being: but Aristotle was wrong to make Intellect the highest entity and to deny the possibility, and necessity, of superior principles, including a first principle whose very nature is to be. This principle cannot of course be grasped dianoetically, but the soul can infer to its existence through recollection and further thought about the conditions for the existence of what it recollects: this is what enables it to engage in the ‘science of being _qua_ being’ as Syrianus understands it.

Celsus was a Greek Platonist (not an Epicurean), who probably wrote his _True Account_ during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Like Numenius, he believed in a divinely inspired wisdom shared by all ancient nations: philosophy is the scientific articulation of this wisdom. In his view Plato both knew this wisdom and was also a paradigm philosopher: by contrast, Celsus did not count the Jews among the ancient nations, and did not recognize the methodological validity of Christian philosophy. Celsus had a historical consciousness: although he believed that the world is eternal, he had a theory of cultural history, and believed in permanent salvation and damnation. He was a ‘metaphysical dualist’, but did not think matter was evil. He believed in at least two and perhaps (like Numenius) three gods: the first is the form of the Good, a second is the ‘logos of all things’; the third may be the cosmos itself. Daemons, who could be good or bad, were intermediaries, governing lives of humans. Embodiment is a kind of imprisonment for the soul, which seeks redemption and release from it. Politically, Celsus affirmed the cult of the emperor as part of divine providence. Christians were a threat because they challenged this—along with the ‘True Account’ which Celsus took to be foundational for civilized society.

Interest in Socrates among Christian writers is (perhaps surprisingly) limited. He is invoked as a precedent of sorts for martyrs facing unjust capital charges, but is otherwise rarely found outside the context of apologetic literature. The reason for this seems to be that he also represents pagan philosophy, which had, at least from the time of Celsus, itself become a source of attacks on Christianity. Justin praises the belief in one true God he attributes to Socrates, and even calls him a ‘Christian’; but only a little later it is more usual for Christians to deprecate his belief in oracles, his daimonion, and his profession of ignorance—if they mention him at all.

Monotheism is the philosophical norm in pagan antiquity and not a special feature of Christianity. The prevalent belief among Greek philosophers, at least since Plato, is that, although there are many gods, there is one God who exercises providence over the universe. Aristotle clearly believes this; so do the Stoics; so do later Platonists, notwithstanding their view that there are different hypostases of this God. It can be viewed as a consequence of the general project to find the explanatory principles of everything. Conversely, it is the standard view of early Christians that, although there is one creator God (who, as a Trinity, himself manifests ontological complexity), there are also many gods besides him. Indeed, humans can become ‘gods’. When Christians accuse pagans of polytheism, then, it is not because they differ over how many gods there are, but it is because they think that many of the pagans’ gods are false gods and erroneously worshipped.

Numenius of Apamea (second century AD) was read closely by Platonists and Christians alike in the generations after his death. He believed in an ancient wisdom common to all nations that was understood by Pythagoras and passed by him through Socrates to Plato—in studying whose works he hoped to recover it himself. (He criticized philosophers after Plato, including those in Plato’s own school, who had in the meantime deviated from him.) Numenius followed Plutarch in believing in an eternal ‘prime’ matter associated with an evil soul, and he argued that what qualifies as ‘being’ properly speaking is a divine intellect, identical with the form of the Good. From this first divinity, a second, demiurgic, intellect is derived in which the Good presents itself as a differentiated plurality of forms. This second god is divisible, and becomes a third god (and world soul) to the extent that it actively engages in ordering matter. The double cosmic soul that results (evil soul and divine world soul) is replicated in the individual soul, which is likewise double, with a rational soul comprising its organizing powers, down to the vegetative functions, and an irrational soul which comes with its association with the matter it organizes.

Galen generally avoids speculative physics, but he does engage with theology. He believes that it is to be inferred from the design of natural creatures and the harmony of their parts that there is a providential creator god—though he denies knowledge of his substance (_ousia_). He may have worshipped this god as Asclepius, the ancestral deity of his hometown of Pergamum, to whom he attributed his own cure from illness. The sun plays a crucial role in transmitting the power and providential intentions of the creator god into the interior of the cosmos. God is said to have determined the sun’s orbit and placed it in a leading position among heavenly bodies. (This suggests that the sun was not itself created, and that the universe is in fact eternal.) Perhaps encouraged by Plato’s _Laws_, Galen may have thought of the creator god as a world soul.

In late antiquity, the influence of Platonic philosophy extended far beyond the schools of the Platonists, in intellectual currents such as Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Jewish biblical exegesis (especially Philo of Alexandria, c. 20 BC c. 45 AD), and Christian theology. These currents share features with late antique Platonism, such as the distinction between an intelligible and a sensible realm. It is unclear whether Plotinus had knowledge of Philo’s work. We do not find direct references to Hermeticism or the Hermetic writings in Plotinus’ work either, but there are some striking similarities with passages from these writings. Also missing from the Enneads are direct statements about Christianity and Christian positions. However, some passages have been interpreted as attacks on Christian teachings (as in Ennead III.6.6.72–77 concerning the resurrection of the soul with the body). Plotinus dealt however intensively with the Gnostics in the so-called Great Treatise, which consists of Enneads III.8, V.8, V.5 and II.9. However, it is the Ennead II.9 that clearly strikes the most polemical tone against the Gnostics.

The hierarchical relationship between the intelligible and the sensible realms in Plotinus has both an ontological and a causal character: an ontologically superior entity is considered the cause of entities that derive their being from ontologically superior entities. In this sense, Plotinus identifies causal priority with ontological priority. According to Plotinus, intelligible forms are the causes of sensible entities, but they do not count as first principles. The principle that sustains all forms is the Intellect, and the forms are its thoughts. According to Plotinus, however, the Intellect is not the first or supreme cause; the source and cause of the Intellect is the One. While the One is pure actuality, the Intellect, as the bearer of the forms, is characterized by both unity and plurality. The One is simple and unitary, and this absolute unity is the ground of its causal efficacy. The soul is also a cause insofar as it animates the world and, taking over the forms from the Intellect, brings them into matter. In this sense, the soul plays an important causal role insofar as it shapes the world through the forms and informs matter. The causal activity of the intelligible entities is immaterial and similar to that of thought.

De mundo is a protreptic to philosophy in the form of a letter to Alexander the Great and is traditionally ascribed to Aristotle. It offers a unique view of the cosmos, God and their relationship, which was inspired by Aristotle but written by a later author. The author provides an outline of cosmology, geography and meteorology, only to argue that a full understanding of the cosmos cannot be achieved without a proper grasp of God as its ultimate cause. To ensure such a grasp, the author provides a series of twelve carefully chosen interlocking analogies, building a complex picture in the reader's mind. The work develops a distinctly Aristotelian picture of God and the cosmos while paying tribute to pre-Aristotelian philosophers and avoiding open criticism of rival schools of philosophy. De mundo exercised considerable influence in late antiquity and then in the Renaissance and Early Modern times.

Dans mon article, j’ai entrepris de démontrer qu’Origène et Plotin partagent certaines similitudes remarquables en ce qui concerne leur doctrine des principes. Plus précisément, tous deux acceptent une structure triadique des principes et tous deux postulent une hiérarchie des trois principes, qui forment une unité dans la mesure où cette triade de principes agit comme une unité, comme un seul agent, et dans la mesure où l’effet désiré, l’ordre et l’harmonie du monde, est causé conjointement. L’effet désiré pour les deux philosophes est causé par une transmission sans effort et sans fin de l’activité d’un principe à l’autre. En ce sens, Plotin et Origène présentent une position métaphysique commune, que nous pouvons appeler le monisme des principes, c’est‑à‑dire trois principes hiérarchiquement structurés qui agissent comme un seul. Cette position va de pair avec ce que nous pourrions appeler le gradualisme, à savoir une différenciation progressive de l’unité, de la simplicité et de la sublimité des trois principes.