Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity

Panagiotis G. Pavlos, Lars Fredrik Janby, Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, Torstein Theodor Tollefsen, Panagiotis G. Pavlos, Lars Fredrik Janby, Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, Torstein Theodor Tollefsen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429803093
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity examines the various ways in which Christian intellectuals engaged with Platonism both as a pagan competitor and as a source of philosophical material useful to the Christian faith. The chapters are united in their goal to explore transformations that took place in the reception and interaction process between Platonism and Christianity in this period.

The contributions in this volume explore the reception of Platonic material in Christian thought, showing that the transmission of cultural content is always mediated, and ought to be studied as a transformative process by way of selection and interpretation. Some chapters also deal with various aspects of the wider discussion on how Platonic, and Hellenic, philosophy and early Christian thought related to each other, examining the differences and common ground between these traditions.

Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity offers an insightful and broad ranging study on the subject, which will be of interest to students of both philosophy and theology in the Late Antique period, as well as anyone working on the reception and history of Platonic thought, and the development of Christian thought.

Part I
Methodologies

1
The agreement of Christianity and Platonic philosophy from Justin Martyr to Eusebius

Sébastien Morlet

The aim of this chapter is not to illustrate the impact of Platonism on Christianity,¹ but to concentrate on the way in which the early Christian Greek-speaking writers themselves conceived their relationship to Plato’s thought, from Justin Martyr (second century), the first writer who explicitly compared Plato and Christianity, to Eusebius of Caesarea, at the beginning of the fourth century, whose work contains the first preserved systematic comparison between Plato and Scripture and the first quotations from Plotinus.²

There are two opposite views on Plato in the early Christian texts. A first series of texts presents Plato as a philosopher who failed to find the truth. Tatian, between 165 and 172,³ accuses him of plagiarising Pythagoras and Pherecydes.⁴ Theophilus attacks him for considering matter as a principle,⁵ and for holding to a materialistic conception of the Gods.⁶ Tertullian criticises his doctrine of the soul.⁷ “Hippolytus”⁸ considers Plato’s philosophy as a possible source of heresy. According to this line of thought, Plato is just a Greek among other Greeks and simply illustrates, as a Greek, the failure of Hellenism.

Contrary to this hostile view on Plato, a second category of texts presents him as the philosopher who best approached the truth. Relating his supposed spiritual curriculum, Justin, at the beginning of the Dialogue with Trypho, writes that he first met a Stoic, then a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean, and finally a Platonist, before converting to Christianity.⁹ Whether historical or not, this narrative suggests a hierarchy between the different philosophical schools: Platonism is explicitly ranked just before Christianity and, in Justin’s narrative, plays the role of an introduction to Christianity. To that end, Justin describes the doctrines which he admired in Plato’s thought: “And the perception of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed that I had become wise.”¹⁰ This judgement on Plato will be shared by subsequent writers. Constantine, in his Oration to the Saints, describes Plato as a philosopher “superior to all the others, and who was the first to get the thoughts of men used to raise from the sensible realities to the intelligible ones, those which always remain the same, and who taught to raise the eyes to the realities above.”¹¹ Eusebius, at the same period, describes Plato as “the greatest Greek philosopher,”¹² anticipating Augustine’s judgement about the Platonists – “None came nearer to us than these.”¹³

The agreement of Plato and the Christians from Justin to Eusebius

The first Christian writer who explicitly postulated an agreement between Christians and Plato is Justin. In chapter 24 of his Apology addressed to Antoninus c.150–155, Justin suggests a general concord between the Christians and the Greeks (“though we say the same things as what the Greeks say, we only are hated on account of the name of Christ”¹⁴). But this agreement, which is primarily an agreement of the poets and the philosophers with Christianity, is reduced, in Justin’s concrete apologetical practice, to some very few points. Among the philosophers, the name of Plato is the most frequently quoted. Like the Christians, Justin says, Plato believed that the wicked souls will be punished in the afterlife¹⁵ and that the soul will survive the death of the body.¹⁶ The letter khi (X) used by the Demiurge in the Timaeus would be an echo of the Cross¹⁷ and the Letter 2 312d–e, about the three kings,¹⁸ would contain an indication on the Trinity.¹⁹ Finally, Plato excluded the poets from his ideal state,²⁰ which would demonstrate, according to Justin, that he rejected polytheism. In other words, Justin praises Plato for (1) his doctrine of God, (2) his conception of the soul and (3) for what he sees as a rejection of polytheism.

The second writer who engages in a comparison between Plato and the Christians is Athenagoras. His Plea for the Christians, possibly written around 177, appears to be strongly inspired by Justin. Like his predecessor, he tries to base his argument on a few common doctrines between the poets and the philosophers. In the case of Plato, these common doctrines are:

• The conception of God (one, uncreated and creator: quotation of Tim. 28c), distinct from other gods (quotation of Tim. 41a).²¹
• The existence of a judgement after death (allusion to Gorg. 523c–524a).²²
• The conception of the world as perishable (quotation of Pol. 269d).²³
• The difference between the sensible and the intelligible (quotation of Tim. 27d).²⁴
• The difference between the true one God and the demons (quotation of Tim. 40de and Letter 2).²⁵
• The resurrection²⁶ – “for nothing hinders, according to Pythagoras and Plato, that when the dissolution of bodies takes place, they should, from the very same elements of which they were constructed at first, be constructed again”²⁷ (this is a very vague allusion, probably derived from the “Myth of Er”).

It is obvious that Athenagoras follows the path opened by Justin. Like his predecessor, he praises Plato basically for (1) his doctrine of God and (2) his doctrine of the soul, but he also alludes to more specific points (the difference between different kinds of gods, and between sensible/intelligible) and he often gives precise quotations from Plato, where Justin, most of time, gives summaries or allusions.²⁸

The next writer who frequently praises Plato for his proximity to Christianity is Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c.215). Like Justin and Athenagoras, he mentions his doctrine of God,²⁹ his conception of the generation of the world,³⁰ his conception of the demons.³¹ Letter 2 would indicate the Trinity³² and the “Myth of Er,” the resurrection.³³ But Clement’s approach is innovative in at least two respects. First, he appears to have a much wider knowledge of Plato than Justin and Athenagoras. His work contains so many allusions to the philosopher that it would be impossible here to give a complete list. This knowledge of Plato induces him to include in the comparison of Plato and Christianity not only physical topics, but also ethical ones. Plato’s condemnation of the voluptuous life (Letter 7 326bc), for instance, “relights,” he says, “the spark of the Hebrew philosophy.”³⁴ When Plato suggests that it is the sage who is rich (cf. Phaedr. 279bc, Laws 742e), he was in agreement with Scripture.³⁵

The second innovation in Clement consists in the way he sometimes presents Plato as an interpreter of Christian doctrines. In Str. 1, he insists on the fact that philosophy and Greek culture in general must be used to understand Scripture.³⁶ Commenting on a passage from the Laws (906a), he writes that Plato has “explicitly showed” what the Apostle says (Eph 6:12).³⁷ In another passage, he says that Plato “interprets” (ἑρμηνεύει) the Jewish Law.³⁸ In a famous passage of Theaetetus 176b (“to become like God”), Clement finds a rephrasing of Deut 13:5 (“Follow the Lord your God”) and concludes: “The Law calls the ‘likeness’ ‘following’.”³⁹ Clement is here at the starting point of a Christian tradition which saw Plato as a philosophical equivalent of Scripture, enabling the commentator to rephrase and to decipher the hidden meaning of the Bible.

This close conciliation of Plato and Scripture has two consequences in Clement’s work. First, it induces Clement to present Christian doctrines as a philosophy, not only in the broader sense, but also in the technical sense. In Str. 5.93.4, for instance, he writes: “The barbarian philosophy knows the world of thought and the world of sense – the former archetypal, and the latter the image of that which is called the model.”⁴⁰ This passage clearly attributes to Christianity, here referred to as “barbarian philosophy,” the philosophical doctrines of Plato.

The second consequence, conversely, consists in presenting Plato as an inspired thinker, like the prophets, that is to say to include him in the history of Revelation. He announces like a prophet (καταμαντεύεται) the Lord’s day when he speaks about the eighth day (Rep. 616b).⁴¹ He “almost prophesies” (μονονουχὶ προφητεύ ων) Christ’s Passion when he alludes to what will become of the Just (Rep. 361e4-a1).⁴² In Str. 6, Clement assimilates a few Greek writers to the Jewish prophets: “For that, as God wished to save the Jews by giving to them prophets, so also by raising up prophets of their own in their own tongue, as they were able to receive God’s beneficence, He distinguished the most excellent of the Greeks from the common herd.”⁴³ In Str. 1 and 6, Clement presents philosophy as a divine gift, a “Testament” given by God, aimed, like the Jewish Testament, at preparing humankind for Christianity.⁴⁴ In short, Clement integrates more deeply Greek philosophy and Revelation: Revelation becomes a philosophy (essentially Platonic in content), and philosophy (especially Platonic philosophy) becomes a revelation.

After Clement and before Eusebius, we must deal with the important work of Origen (c.184–c.254).⁴⁵ Remar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• PART I Methodologies
• PART II Cosmology
• PART III Metaphysics
• PART IV Ethics
• Index of Greek, Latin and Syriac words
• Index of passages
• Index of persons
• Index of subjects