Neoplatonism and Christianity in the East: philosophical and theological challenges for bishops
Gregory of Nyssa and Synesius of Cyrene do not form a traditional pair in the history of Neoplatonism and Christianity, but they are, nevertheless, two representatives of Christian thought in the Greek-speaking world of the late fourth and the early fifth century. Both of them received a good, if not excellent, education. As Christians, they were sometimes attacked for their alleged inclination towards Hellenic culture and style, and furthermore were accused of abandoning the grace from above in favour of secular learning. Both were regarded as elitarian in a sense, although they became, willingly or not, shepherds of the souls in their bishoprics, the Cappadocian Nyssa and Cyrenaican Ptolemais, respectively. As bishops, they also passed through turbulent times. Why, then, are they rarely, if ever, juxtaposed together?
Gregory (c.335–c.395) was one of the Cappadocian Fathers, considered to be a teacher of the Church par excellence and an important figure in Greek patristics. There were, however, suspicions that, in comparison with the others, he readily made concessions to Hellenic learning and to Platonism in particular. As shall be seen below, this observation is debatable. Considered sometimes as a child of the Second Sophistic, he was influenced by Plato, with the qualification that a form of Stoicizing Platonism is often recognized in his writings.1 This is perhaps a result of the literary culture and education in which he was immersed since his youth, as well as of his open interest in philosophy and anthropology. Gregory was, however, very conscious not to cite directly the sources he used, nor to fill his writings with names from the past. He was more of a philosopher than Basil or Athanasius of Alexandria, and more spiritually open to discussing different natural and philosophical questions when compared to Gregory of Nazianzus, for example. In this vein, some parallels between the creativity with which he and Origen, whose influence on the Cappadocians is a well-known fact, deal with spiritual questions will transpire below.
On the other side is Synesius of Cyrene (c.370–c.413), who in the past was viewed as an unoriginal philosopher, a kind of dilettante, who did not succeed in solving the controversial issues between Christianity and Neoplatonism; even worse, he did not even recognize them. Although later scholars have been more charitable towards him, they have continued to bring up the arguments from Synesius’ Letter 105 as evidence for his pagan or at least crypto-pagan views, which deviated considerably from the Christian concepts of the day.2 These arguments have been further scrutinized so as to yield a more complex cluster of problems (Marrou 1963). The posed questions were difficult to solve, indeed, and they were the key problems dividing pagan and Christian views, yet they could not be disposed of even by the Church in Synesius’ lifetime. The charge of paganism thus seems to be impetuous. What is recognized in the more recent literature is Synesius’ appurtenance to Christianity and the Church, although not without acknowledging the oddity of his case.3
The goal of the present chapter is to analyse the views of Gregory and Synesius on souls, resurrection and the eternity of the world, in the context of their diverse Christian and Hellenic intellectual milieu. Some references to the elusive personality of Nemesius of Emesa, the author of de Natura Hominis, will be made as well. This examination will shed new light on possible links between the Christian and the Platonic philosophical culture of the day, but also on conflicts and differences which seem to be insurmountable for both sides. The proponents of each side shared the hard task of representing philosophical truths as cornerstones of faith to devoted masses often not educated enough, or, conversely, ready to learn, argue and ask inconvenient questions loudly and without restraint.
The famous Letter 105 is a good starting point.4 In 410, under the insistence of the citizens of Ptolemais and with the decisive role of the Alexandrian Patriarch Theophilus, Synesius was appointed to the bishopric office. It was at least partly a political decision, with Synesius being a prominent citizen as well as a highly educated person. Hypatia of Alexandria, the pagan philosopher, killed by the Christian mob in Alexandria in 415, was his most beloved teacher. (It was obviously not so unusual at that time for a Christian to study under the guidance of a pagan teacher.) As an avid pursuer of free time in which to study (scholē) and hunt, Synesius was rather reluctant to accept the post in those difficult times for the Church and the Empire. From his position as an intellectual, Synesius was frank and bold to proclaim that he would deal with philosophy at home and “mythologize in public” (exō philomythos eimi didaskōn, Letter 105: 188.17–189.1). In the Letter he proceeds to list his three philosophical and theological objections against the main Christian doctrines, which are traditionally cited as evidence of his pagan Neoplatonic aspirations. His principal objection concerns the origin of the soul, the eternity of the world, and the resurrection. That Synesius undoubtedly raises questions to Theophilus is obvious, but does he set forth positions as well? And if there are such positions, what exactly are they?
After explaining why he would accept the bishopric with such apprehension and reluctance, but also with a strong notion of duty and dignity, Synesius moves to the difficillimae quaestiones. “It is difficult” he admits, “if not quite impossible, that views should be shaken, which have entered the soul through knowledge to the point of demonstration” (Letter 105: 188.1–3). After such a definite stand on the importance of the rational and “scientific” methods, the future bishop of Ptolemais states the following, no less important but regularly neglected, observation: “You know that philosophy rejects many of these convictions which are cherished by the common people” (Letter 105: 188.3–5). Immediately after this, he formulates his first objection: “For my part I can never persuade myself that the soul is of more recent origin than the body.”5
Plato had already postulated the immortality of soul and the Neoplatonists had further expanded and defended his view. According to Plotinus, all souls inhabit the intelligible realm before a part of them (the lower part) descends into bodies, while the higher undescending part remains in the intelligible realm and contemplates the unchangeable world of ideas. The soul is immortal, and, after the death of the body it has ensouled, it ascends or moves to another body (discussed in his Enn. IV.1–7). What does it mean, then, for a man educated in the traditional course of “pagan” philosophy to accept that the soul is created after the body?6 It surely means to place the highest principle of life on the same footing with or even as posterior to the material world. This is one of the main pagan objections against the Christian theory of Creation.7
Without explicitly adopting the idea of the immortality of the soul, Synesius is nevertheless attached to the Neoplatonic views about it. The influence of Plotinus and Porphyry is visible in his writings. Probably through them, rather than directly, he was exposed to the philosophy of Aristotle, Plato and the Stoics, while, in Hypatia’s school, he was acquainted with Neopythagoreanism. In his de Providentia, he states that unlike bodies, souls, because their generative source is different, are not produced by material parents. Furthermore, they descend from two distinctive sources (unspecified in the text) which explains their principal differences here, on earth (de Providentia I.2). By drawing a connection between soul’s higher generative sources and its earthly permutations, Synesius infuses Plotinus’ understanding of souls inhabiting the intelligible realm with certain dualistic overtones.
If we can detect something like a theory of soul in Synesius, it is mostly developed in de Insomniis and in his hymns. He believes in souls’ descent into bodies and their possible ascent towards the intelligible. For him, soul has a specific structure: there is a division between the “first soul” (prōtē psyche) keeping something of the divine in itself, and the “carrying pneuma” (ochēma, pneuma), its envelope, the vehicle, the outer door or the doorkeeper of the soul proper. The outer part of the soul possesses sensual abilities. When this envelope is clean and ethereal, it can easily bring the soul up, but when polluted by the material world, it becomes heavy and oriented downwards. Once fallen in matter, soul should do everything in its power to ascend again to its divine source. Often, for Synesius, even the misfortunes of the material world can act as stimuli for ascension (de Insomniis 6–7, based on Porphyry’s Sententiae, mainly chapters 16 and 32).8 If we compare this account with its Neoplatonic sources, we can discern a notable change, not so much in the evaluation of matter, which remains rather negative, but in the possibility of salvation. The individual acts of ascent can finish in a universal salvation through Christ’s descent as its guarantee (see Vollenweider 1984: 155–60, 173–6 on positiven Abstiegs).
All the hymns of Synesius, therefore, were devoted to the general idea of rising up the author’s soul from the bonds of the material existence to the higher spheres of the Divine. They are Christian in their essence, although they sounded pagan and Platonic. As a prison for the soul, matter is perilous and it should be avoided. In the third hymn of his collection, Synesius invokes the Father to have mercy on his soul and not to allow the soul, once escaped, to return into the body (3.375–80). Here it is not clear if Synesius presumes the possibility of metempsychōsis or just repudiates the bodily existence. The very expression of “the soul fleeing the body” (sōma phygoisan) echoes Porphyry’s omne corpus fugiendum, criticized by Augustine in de Civitate Dei (10.29; 22.25–8). In the hymns, however, the descent of the Divine (the Son, the Holy Spirit) is presented not so much as a diminution and degradation reaching into the darkest corners (eschata) of matter, but rather as an act of God’s Will to save His creatures from the material bonds. Synesius does not debase the Holy Spirit to the level of the Chaldaean World Soul, which he obviously knows well, but prefers to represent it as a hypostasis equal to the other two (the Creator and His Son). Keeping in mind the different purpose of his writings, we can still safely suppose that Synesius’ traditional outlook on souls and matter is shaped mostly by his contact with the views of Plotinus, Porphyry and the Chaldaean Oracles through his philosophical training in Alexandria and its intellectual milieu. It also tentatively transpires in his explanation of the Christian faith that he had already cherished at that time, if not since his youth.
Let us return to Synesius’ objection, in Letter 105, namely that he does not accept the view of the post-corporeal creation of soul. That he means after is obvious from his word choice of “posteriorly created” (hysterogene). This objection enlists Synesius in the long dispute about the origin and the fate of souls, of their descent from and ascent to God. In this context we should, however, notice an important detail. His disagreement with the thesis of the post-corporeal origin of souls leaves open a loophole for two possible interpretations: (a) that he has been defending the pre-existence of souls; and (b) that he has been inclined to accept the simultaneous act of creation for both body and soul.
Regarding the first possibility, Volkmann is the first, to my knowledge, to suggest a possible thread of Origen’s influence on Synesius.9 I acknowledge, however, the difficulty of tracing word-for-word parallels between the two. Volkmann’s view is further made problematic by the uncertainty surrounding Origen’s original teaching in general.10 In addition, what we know from de Principiis is that the main reason for souls’ descent is free will, which does not fit well with Synesius’ philosophy (and theology), where the topic of free will is treated rather sparingly. Further, Origen obviously does not subscribe to the idea that the intelligible realm exists autonomously; that is, independently of imagination (de Principiis 2.3.6). That makes him rather independent of Plato, while Synesius kept nearly intact the Neoplatonic acceptance of the intelligible sphere as the realm of pure Essence and Truth.
The problems started from the interpretation of Genesis 2:7, especially in light of the Neoplatonic way of thinking and argumentation. There was a need for the Christian theologians and preachers, who “took into armament” the Neoplatonic imagery and terminology, to explain the biblical statement in a proper way. In general, the idea of the pre-existence of souls, which scholars ascribe to Origen, could be an attempt to react, in a situation where the theological system is still underdeveloped, against two popular trends in the Christian thought concerning soul’s origin, namely traducianism (or generationism) and creationism.11 We know that the question was not completely clarified until late in the Middle Ages, if not even beyond. It was a weak point in traducianism, anyway, to reject the Platonic descent and to accept the soul as being created through sexual activity and generation. Creationism provokes, namely, a certain uneasiness combined with the presupposition that the soul is a non-corporeal substance being put into body. Nemesius of Emesa was indirectly engaged in the dispute, defending the immortality and incorporality of souls. If the individual soul enters and grows in an already created embryo, we have to accept – as Nemesius observes – the premise that the soul, created in body, is actually created after the body. To be created after the body would mean a lower quality and even a corporeal essence. It would presuppose mortality (de Natura Hominis II.46 [Morani]). Such a thesis, however, seems to be far from the truth for the basic Christian tenets. Eunomius (the leader of an extreme Arian wing in the late fourth century) will have to admit that – continues Nemesius in his attack – either the soul is mortal or it is not created in body. According to the traducianist (labelled sometimes as generationist) view, developed by Tertullian in the Latin tradition and also popular in the Greek-speaking world, souls are born one from another, like bodies, and thus are transferred from the parents to their children. For Nemesius, the main propagator of the “middle way”, soul is imperishable, immortal, combined with body indivisibly and non-transferrable (de Natura 2.45–54; 3.57).12 Soul logically pre-exists body so that it is not the soul which was closed in the body, but rather the opposite. Thus, the bishop of Emesa, Synesius’ contemporary, became an extreme supporter of the thesis for an autonomous and leading role of the soul. Origen and Nemesius, although divided by approximately two centuries, reached, in their fight against the extremes of traducianism and creationism, quite similar conclusions presuming the pre-existence of souls. Even Augustine of Hippo shows, in his Retractationes and elsewhere, doubts when discussing the origin of souls and their binding with bodies. With Synesius, he also finds this question the difficillima quaestio.13
Let us now turn to Gregory of Nyssa who was forced, by the actual questions of the day, repeatedly to address the problems of soul and resurrection in his writings. In fact, he developed – in disputes with pagans as well as with the followers of Eunomius and Apollinaris – what we may consider a system of views concerning specifically the human soul. The main gist of this system, although inconsistent and often evading categorical solutions, could be summarized as this.14 Soul is a created essence, alive and rational, non-spatial and in the same time providing the body – a mixture of organs – with life, unity and sense-perception. Gregory is not ready to accept the notion of soul’s pre-existence implied in the idea of its immortality, since it contradicts the idea of Creation. Believing strongly in the spiritual principle of the soul in the World, however, he assumes in de Hominis (24.213b) that the higher intellectual part of the soul originates from the Divine and is a constituting principle of the Creation. Appealing to the immortality of God, he argues that the soul receives eternal life with resurrection only through the grace of God, and not as an immortal entity by itself. What soul has is immortality through God’s will and the resurrection, but not immortality per se.
His explanation of the resurrection is based on the premise that the soul, an indivisible and non-dimensional entity itself, unifies the elements, notwithstanding the distance between them, and thus keeps together the dissolute. The soul–body union could last so long as there is nature ready to accept it (de Anima 31b–c). Soul is spiritual and nonmaterial by nature, but through the senses it is mixed with matter and incorporated (de Hominis 14.173d–176b). Movements and the development of bodies depend on soul, otherwise they lose motion and die. Soul, or rather its rational aspect, is the “real” soul; the others, that is, the vital force common for both humans and animals, is no more than a semblance (de Hominis 15.176c–177c).
When discussing soul’s parts, Gregory examines it from different perspectives and thus leaves room for numerous considerations. According to him, human nature includes three parts, which are controlled by the individual soul. The product of this is some kind of composite, constituted of a material/natural part (in plants), a sensible part (in animals), and an intellectual part, or all three of the parts, in one (in man) (de Hominis 8.145c–d). A few chapters later, he again enumerates the three parts as nutritional, sensitive and rational (chapter 14). He envisions the mind (nous) as the highest among them, and the very essence of the human soul per se. Thus a certain tri-unity is formed of mind, soul and body, in which mind is given pre-eminence. Besides the Aristotelian division, the strong Platonic overtones can be heard in the emphasis on the primary role of the rational part, and the idea of other parts being dependent semblances or unfoldings of that part.
Gregory also supposes that lower bodily natures could put mind and soul into their service, somehow lowering the status of the latter. The irrational part of soul is formed last, after the soul enters the body and lives with and in it. Gregory’s understanding of soul’s “failure” as a result of its inclination towards the body resonates with Synesius’ view of soul’s polluted breath (pneuma) which lowers the divine into the morass of material existence. We see another parallel between the two thinkers again in the case of the “phantastic” abilities of the soul. Gregory supposes that the irrational disposition in soul incites phantastic imagination in dreams (de Hominis 13.173). Synesius tries to explain the very possibility of dreams in more detail, mostly holding the fantastic pneuma, or ochēma, the imperfect breath/vehicle, responsible for the visions, which are sometimes confused before reaching the rational core of the higher soul for proper analysis (Kissling 1922; Aujoulat 1983, 1984; Dickie 2002). There are many similarities between Gregory and Synesius in explaining the phenomena of soul’s failure, irrationality and dreams, but while the former tries to escape from the traditional imagery, the latter fully embraces it.
Gregory is far more positive in his evaluation of the place of matter in the order of existence than Synesius. For him, matter is created and thus a receptacle of soul as a unique mode of salvation. Without the free will of the human being – a composite of body and soul – the salvation would be virtually impossible. The view of the Cappadocians, and especially that of Gregory, on evil as accidental and as a lack of good is well known and closer to Plotinus than that of Synesius, implied by a certain dualism in his thought, supposing even the existence of evil per se (on evil and matter in Plotinus, see O’Brien 1996). In his insistence on the existence of free will, Gregory also differs from the Neoplatonists’ acceptance of evil as immanent in nature, thus parting from Synesius as well, the latter being prone to reject matter as the abode of demons and evil spirits. Although in Oratio Catechetica Gregory points to the devil’s jealousy as the reason for sin, human nature becomes sinful because the primordial sin mingles with matter and mind (chapter 6). In what is probably Gregory’s work, Life of Macrina, the author exhibits some most critical comments about matter, and Platonic allusions of the body as the soul’s tomb and the passions as prison for the soul. This work also portrays the general longing for salvation of the soul which is characteristic for that particular genre. In de Hominis, Gregory considers a different line of thought: the embodied life is the only possible way for the human soul to exist before death and resurrection. Evil is just a result of soul’s inclination to animal passions and lust. It is subjective and not a universal deviation of behaviour. Gregory views evil as a mixture and not an absolute, while Synesius discerns grades of evil in soul’s descent, the lowest of which are the extremes of matter in complete possession by the evil.
Moreover, for Synesius, souls could ascend only through purification, including intellectual activity, while for Gregory, soul’s ascent involves spirituality.15 Gregory is prone, as a “good Cappadocian”, to present the soul’s ascent from the spiritual rather than from the intellectual point of view. Always ready to follow and investigate the human heart and mind, he offers, in the Life of Moses, an example of divinization, a spiritual imitation of the souls’ life ascending to God. Synesius, on the other side, looks always at the erratic nature of the soul. In de Insomniis he compares the soul to a hired employee who, when falling in love with the serving maid of the boss, decides to stay and work as a slave to his chief, without desire to free himself from the bondage of slavery (chapter 8). The wicked side has some permanency in Synesius, while Gregory regards the evil of the earthly world just as a shadow we have to pass through in order to reach Divine light (de Hominis 21). Thus in Gregory not only soul, but the body too could be restored in the state of incorruption and spirituality. The difference between the two could hardly be greater at this particular point.
Gregory’s idea of the inseparability of soul and body in their restored state of purity finds stronger conceptual roots in his rejection of the pre-existence of souls:
If we accept that the soul lives somehow before the body, we will necessarily have to acknowledge that those insane doctrines (dogmatopoiias), which put soul in body, have the strength to suggest that it happens because of some vices. Nobody who is sensible enough would admit, moreover, that it happens after birth (ephysterizein), so that souls are newer than the created bodies. It is clear for everybody that something inanimate could not contain the moving and growing force in itself. But it is beyond doubt that the embryo in the womb demonstrates growth and movement. Nothing remains than to accept the simultaneous beginning of soul and body.
(de Anima et Resurrectione 125a–c)16
Thus, through the words he put in the mouth of his sister Macrina, Gregory defends the simultaneous creation of body and soul. He also gives a detailed account of different critics of the Christian conception of resurrection. In de Hominis (especially 9.229b–233b), he restates his concept of the simultaneous creation of body and soul and their mutual existence against the theories of pre-existence (found in Platonism and the works of Origen) and some trends presuming post-existence (exemplified by Methodius of Olympus). To prove his theory, Gregory prefers to use his favourite Pauline example of the seeds, which have all features of the plant into which they later develop. Thus, as a living ensemble, soul exists in the embryo potentially and with time its potentials develop into accidentals.
Synesius, as discussed earlier, also refuses to accept the post-existence of the soul in relation to the body. We know well the commitment of both Gregory and Synesius against Eunomius and his followers. Gregory’s famous treatises against Eunomius add more conceptual weight to the development of the Christian doctrine of Trinity, while Synesius, as bishop of Ptolemais, acts directly, and with zeal, against the Eunomeans among his congregation. Synesius’ hymns are not so much a purported development from paganism to Christianity, but an advance into the Trinitarian topics with strongly anti-Arian sentiment, connected directly with his anti-Eunomean policy. Synesius maintains the Neoplatonic conception of soul’s descent into bodies, in accordance with the philosophical methodology of his time, adopting the view straight from the Neoplatonic literature he had read, without explicitly supporting the soul’s pre-existence with an argument, and thus entering into contradiction with the “orthodox” Christianity of the day. In that sense, Synesius kept rather a “silent presupposition” about immortality, connecting the soul with its Divine source. His views could also co-exist with the creationist theory, permeating the conceptual efforts of Christianity at the time. Concerning the way in which souls descend into bodies, however, Gregory and Synesius differ considerably, as well as in their evaluation of matter. But they fight together against the heretic view of the possible post-existence of souls, “cherished by the common people” (Letter 105: 188.3–5).
Let us return to Letter 105. After addressing the body–soul problem, Synesius makes another conceptually vital statement: “Never would I admit that the world and the parts (t’alla merē), which make it, must perish in a certain moment.”17 Is the scholar from Cyrene ready to defend the pagan concept of the world’s eternity?
The Neoplatonists always energetically rejected the Christian view of the creation of the universe as a single and unique act of God’s will. For Neoplatonists, as the pagan followers of ancient cosmogony and Plato, the creation proceeds from itself in eternity, as an out-of-time act of descent from the higher to the lower levels of existence, which is best illustrated by the ontological series of remaining (mone), procession (proodos) and return (epistrophe). The Christian view, however, is quite different: the world has its beginning and end in God and man could be like Him only through His blessing. In the times of Synesius and Gregory, this contradiction becomes an important divisive line between pagan philosophers and Christian theologians, despite the fact that both camps usually shared similar educational and worldly backgrounds.
Within Christian theology itself, this question is far from being solved unanimously. Origen presents ample evidence for the gravity of the dispute. The letter of Emperor Justinian I to the patriarch Menas, concerning de Principiis 1.2.10, implies that Origen is disposed to accept some kind of eternity of the world. He supposedly maintains the hypothesis that there are multiple worlds, changing into each other, until a final break in this chain of periodical re-establishments (apokatastaseis) occurs.18 In honour of Origen’s intellectual correctness and honest propriety we have to respect the fact that he does not offer a definitive answer to the question, at least not in his extant texts. Instead, he proposes three different, but plausible, hypotheses, without a conclusive commitment to any (de Princ. 2.3.6). The first hypothesis allows only for the material world to be definitely destroyed. The second hypothesis entertains the possibility for the material nature to be transformed into some ethereal condition, while the third postulates a full destruction of the world, together with all its elements. Faithful to the primary tenets of Christian theology, Origen is forced, as a result of the lack of an authoritative Christian Creation theory in the third century CE, to borrow from the Platonic theories of emanation, subordination and the “eternal reversal”.19 Being honest regarding his uncertainty, Origen prefers to expose different theories in order to reject the gnostic and Manichaean views alike. Both Gnostics and Manichaeans were active in the third century with concepts such as the vicious Demiurge, founder of the world, the persistence of evil, and salvation through gnosis by escaping the here-in world of evil.
If Synesius defended before Theophilus heretic, and even pagan, views about the world’s eternity, and even if, in Origen’s spirit, he only exposed his hesitations in a time when the patriarch of Alexandria had started a real war against Origen’s followers, why does he not mention the Creation itself, but does mention its (eventual) end? Why does he add, in his objection, the different “parts” that would never be destroyed? And which parts20 does he have in mind?
According to Marrou, Synesius did express some reservations concerning the possibility of the destruction of the sun, the moon and the stars (Marrou 1963: 147). Does he, rather, mean the eternity of the noetic world as opposed to the material world? The latter is a plausible hypothesis, but the laconic character of the statement prevents us from drawing any definitive conclusions. All we can do is to compare this objection with his praise of the Creator and His Creation in the third hymn:
You, Leader of the worlds, cleaned by any filth, You are the Nature of natures. You warm up the nature, the creation of things mortal, the visible images of eternity, so that even the latest part of this world receives the lot of life in its own turn. The law of God would not allow the filth of the world (tryga tan kosmou) to be equal with the heights of heaven. But never will perish completely (holōs) what has been put in order in the choir of beings,21 so far as each one depends on another and all of them taste the benefit from their common existence. From elements destined to death, the eternal circle has been brought to life by Your breath. (Synesius, Hymni 3.309–32)22
The fragment raises many questions. The influence of Neoplatonism is noticeable, especially the hierarchical structure of beings as a result of the emanative descent. Reading between the lines, we can safely detect in the mention of beings Synesius’ subtle reference also to non-beings, especially since matter is described as non-being everywhere in his hymns. From this, it seems that he wants to say that what really exists would never completely perish, since it has in itself a sparkle from the higher entities. However, it is not so easy to interpret the fragment because the text implies that God’s breath (pnoias) gives life even to the mortal things destined to death (ollymenōn); it warms them so that they form an eternal circle (kyklos aidios).
De Providentia II.7 offers a clearer interpretation of the Werdung of events in the world. “If there is generation in the realm around us, the cause of generation is in the realm above us. It is from this source that the seeds of events arrive here”23 The events also recur periodically, which gives the wise man opportunity to realize the truth. The idea of such cyclical movement is reminiscent of the Stoic seminal logoi, but it also carries connotations of Origen’s apokatastaseis. We may suppose that those logoi are eternal and could therefore refer to the indestructible parts mentioned in the objection in Letter 105. At the end of his reflections on the cause of generation and the seeds of the events to come, Synesius is wise enough to call these doctrines myths and allegories, to defend himself against possible accusations for adopting the non-Christian or heretic theory of the eternal reversal.24
Gregory of Nyssa is less ambiguous than Synesius, and not without originality when it comes to his ideas about the end of the human race and the world we know. He generally holds on to, along with the other Cappadocians, the already established Christian understanding that since the world, created by God, has a beginning, it should logically have an end as well.25 In de Hominis (chapters 23 and 24) he presents as contrary to the Christian faith the ideas about co-eternity and co-existence of matter and the Divine. Among his antagonists, referred to as the “outer philosophers”, we can easily recognize pagan thinkers working out ideas from Plato and, especially as regards the eternity of matter, from Aristotle. Even more prominent seem the Manichaean dualists supporting the eternity of matter as a primordial evil principle opposed to God.
Gregory also subscribes to the intriguing theory of the double creation of man, as primordial and terrestrial (de Hominis 16, 29).26 The double creation and double-life theories attempt to overcome the problem of embedding the notion of sin in godlike creatures. This problem is further enhanced by free will. We know that Gregory was not at all alien to the belief in apokatastasis, the rebirth of the original status of man before the primordial sin and the fall of the human race. Contrary to Origen, however, Gregory believes in restoration in bodies, although spiritualized and definitely different from the the bodies of this earthly sojourn in sin. These ideas are best illustrated in de Anima and de Instituto Christiano. His Oratio Catechetica (26) even presents a picture alluding to the Stoic empyrosis (the concept of a general conflagration leading to a “restart” of the world) by comparing the purification of gold from golden ore to the restoration of the world, in which the sinful and contemptible parts of matter are destroyed and purified into a splendid and superior nature. Thus the return to the primordial purity of man is a result of purging what is bad and has gone astray in a nature that has Divine origin.27
The idea of two creations seems also somehow to presuppose the pre-existence of humanity in God’s mind; that is, God creates humanity first, as an idea, and not Adam personally who is created as terrestrial and already burdened with the primordial sin envisaged by God. Thus the human being comes to be a medium (meson) between God and the material world, and the human race becomes image of God in toto, along with every personal human being.28
Gregory also insists on the infinity of God, its All-mighty Goodness and incomprehensibility by human mind (Carabine 1992). His use of apophatic discourse purposefully poses restrictions on the human hybris of knowing everything by installing the Divine in the Procrustean bed of human definitions and syllogisms.29 The apokatastaseis presuppose some cyclical eruptions in the traditionally linear model, adding a sense of limitlessness and infinity, found in God Himself. The Life of Moses demonstrates the inclination of perceiving the spiritual path upwards as something disposed in time, but also repeating itself and ultimately eternal, as stages of reality leading to the perpetual Above.
The dispute over whether the world is eternal or destructible becomes pressing in the fifth and sixth century and provokes numerous polemics, like that of John Philoponus with Proclus against the latter’s arguments in favour of the world’s eternity. Zacharias Scholasticus is one author within the dispute, engaged in a probably fictitious discussion with his pagan teacher, Ammonius of Alexandria, and with another anonymous opponent, introduced by the name of Iatrosophist (Merlan 1968: 193–203). In defence of the Christian theory of Creation and its subsequent end, Zacharias pronounces that “God is good even when destroying the visible world, so far as He does not intend to remove the cosmos away, neither to judge its full destruction, but to transform it and change it to better.”30
For a Christian and Neoplatonist of Synesius’ kind, such a thesis could be more palatable, whereas the idea of the full-scale destruction of the world would have necessarily implied the inevitable destruction of the intelligible forms as well – an absurd proposition for a pupil of the Neoplatonist Hypatia. Around the beginning of the fifth century, this view could still co-exist with the Christian orthodoxy. Synesius’ objections lead in the same direction, leaving place for some kind of eternity, reserved for the immortal entities in the cosmos. In Gregory’s case, all of his writings and methodology always relate to faith and to the biblical tradition, while they still leave room for the emergence of attractive images and theories from Platonism, Stoicism and Origen. Those images fit with the spirituality of a man longing for the human being’s angelic status after the resurrection, when only the possibility for evil will be destroyed, and not the bodies. Through purging, evil signs and phenomena will disappear, leaving place for purified and spiritualized bodies endowed with their divinized souls.
Let us follow Synesius’ third objection in Letter 105: “As for resurrection, which is an object of common belief, I consider it as a sacred and mysterious allegory, being far from sharing the views of the vulgar crowd thereon.”31 Provoked by both “pagans” (whatever this inaccurate term means) and by such authors as Origen and Methodius of Olympus, Gregory deals with the problem of resurrection in a rather apologetic way. The question is virtually ubiquitous in his works, but three of them are of special importance: the frequently mentioned de Anima et Resurrectione, de Hominis Opificio and Oratio Catechetica. His views, however, have been criticized for inconsistency.32 One should, however, recognize his intellectual efforts to explain the phenomenon, using “pagan” criticism as a goad and a means for manoeuvring between Origen and Methodius of Olympus. He considers both of them as defenders of truth, but not the whole truth. In de Anima, Gregory promotes, like Synesius, a more intellectual approach to the idea of resurrection. This approach is set against the opinions of the uneducated. “The people with insufficiently trained mind, unable to see the good because of their passion for the carnal life, ruin the portion of good, otherwise immanent to their very nature, thus preserving nil of their future life” (de Anima 84a, my trans.).
Siding with Synesius in viewing resurrection as a Divine mystery, Gregory does not consider it as completely unexplainable. He often uses his favourite examples from human physiology or agriculture to explain, as clearly as possible, without falling into the debris of complicated terminology, the act of Divine mercy. The main goal of resurrection is the restoration of nature in its initial status (apokatastasis).33 Unlike Origen’s teachings, however, Gregory’s view is that the resurrection happens in bodies which have been purified from every sin, without sex or age. According to that primordial status, there is no old age, no diseases or misery, nor the evil aspirations of man, since human nature used to be Divine before evil entered it. And how will the elements of a body dead long ago be gathered together for the resurrection? This question had obviously become a topos for both the adversaries of Christianity and the opponents of the literal acceptance of resurrection since at least the second century CE, if not from the Apostolic times. Gregory answers it by enlisting the support of St Paul’s example of the seed (I Cor. 15.36–44) which, once decomposed in the soil, brings forth new life, so that every seed creates a plant according to its nature. Thus the place of soul, connected also with the eidos, is introduced as crucial for the development of every proper nature.
The role of eidos in resurrection, developed especially in de Hominis (27), follows to a great extent Origen and the Platonic tradition, but with an important novelty of rising above the status of the image. Eidos is thus the image – unchangeable, spiritual and intellectual – of the material body, imprinted in the soul. The image/idea does not change, having been shaped in some stable form, notwithstanding any changes that body could pass through. Because of this image, the individual soul keeps its inclination towards the body long after it dissolves into its composing elements, so that, at the time of resurrection, it will be able to recognize and pick up the elements needed for its restoration. To the simple allusions from everyday life and the Platonic concept of eidos, Gregory adds examples from the New Testament to illustrate God’s omnipotence, to juxtapose them with the petty arguments of the humans.
Revisiting Synesius’ statement, we should recognize that it by no means implies a mere refutation of the act of resurrection but, instead, defines it as “a sacred and mysterious allegory”. De Insomniis, a text with clearly discernible Neoplatonic overtones and mostly based on Porphyry, affirms that principally nothing could impede, in certain conditions, the corporeal substance (sōmatikēn ousian) from ascending to higher “regions” or from resurrecting (anastasan) from its fallen position, and together with the soul reaching the light and the heavenly spheres (ch.10). It is thanks to eidōlon, the “ghostly” and debased image of the outer soul, or pneuma, that not only the soul, but even the lower physical elements, can enter into contact with the divine. Synesius’ idea of the divine image of the corporeal elements resonates strikingly with Gregory’s notion of eidos. The difference lies in terminology in so far as for Synesius eidōlon is an image of the lowest scale, a phantom, which plays a role in the ascent of the material reality. If Synesius disagrees with something concerning resurrection, it is not the essence of the concept, but its rough and vulgarized understanding of dressing oneself, again, in the ordinary, rotting flesh. His intentional defiance of the rogue naturalism in describing the resurrection of the body also shares the pathos of Origen’s treatment of the subject in de Principiis 2.10.3. Synesius’ language is predominantly (Neo)Platonic, but a similar style is also used by Gregory of Nyssa. In describing the resurrection as a recovery of the combination of elements and as a rebuilding of what has already been destroyed, Gregory emphasizes the role of the “God-seeing soul” (theoeidēs), striving towards its similar entities, but “covered up by body and nailed in it” (de Anima 76a–80a, 89b, 97a–100b). Such Neoplatonic imagery with slight elements of dualistic thinking is discernible in Synesius as well.
If we are to understand Synesius’ position, additional details should be taken into consideration. The last twenty years of the fourth century were the “golden period” of the Egyptian monasticism in Nitria and Scetis. Different ideas grew in rank there. Certain Hierax of Leontopolis in the Delta refuted the resurrection of bodies completely. Origen’s views concerning resurrection were interpreted in different ways. A particular trend, usually called anthropomorphism, became popular among the monks, especially the ones who were illiterate or otherwise insufficiently educated. God was thought to be in a human form and this conception was connected with different chiliastic (the doctrine that Jesus will reign on earth for a thousand years) views and expectations. Long before the appearance of the anthropomorphites in Egypt there was a temptation to read the text from Genesis literally and thus to presuppose that God has a human form.
There are also different interpretations among Christians, some of which envisioned man to be made in likeness to the logos, to Jesus Christ, and not to God the Father, thus dividing Their essence through image or subordinating them. This diversity of interpretations does not even reflect the philosophical tradition outside Christianity. The “outer” non-Christian philosophical and religious thought could accept only the original idea that the image, presumably divine in essence, exists in the intelligible realm, but not as a literal likeness of man to God. Gregory answers to all those possible, and real, objections in an interesting way. As already mentioned above, he presupposes the double creation of man as an ideal image, the celestial Adam, and the terrestrial one, with many features common with the animals, and also subject to sin. God as the Creator is completely identical with the Divine essence, while human beings are created and thus exposed to change. God is connected with eternity, man with time. The image according to God possesses eternal features, but not the second Adam who already exists in times of change and deterioration, and also in times of opportunities for improvement and salvation. The latter are subject to the free will given to this creature that otherwise leans towards the animal order. The idea of double creation, probably influenced by, if not originating from, Philo (de Opificio Mundi 181), but also proposed by St Paul (I Cor. 15.45), grows into an understanding of man as a double creature with reason and intelligence coming from the direct likeness to God and the terrestrial features, including the division into sexes, corresponding to, as we saw, the animal nature after the sin. Thus the problem of man as an image of God is to a great extent solved against any possible accusations connected with the mean, animallike elements in the human nature. Synesius is more traditionally Hellenic in his attitude towards human nature, stating that only a wise man is akin to God, thus generally defending the principle of the spiritual and intellectual activity as God-kindred.34
Towards the last years of Gregory’s life and around the time of Synesius’ studious years in Alexandria, the problem of the Divine image became acute in Egypt, and not only there. A serious conflict arose between the “intellectuals” and the “villagers” among the monks, a conflict that to a great extent coincided with the traditional misunderstanding between the Copts and the Hellenized (and also Romanized) foreigners. In his Pascal letter for the year 399, the patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilus, a friend and supporter of Synesius, ultimately forbade the theory of anthropomorphism as a wrong and heretical infatuation. This letter was accepted openly by the “intellectuals”, but unfavourably by the anthropomorphites (Chitty 1966: 53–4; Declerck 1984; Meinardus 2003: 53–4). Synesius was a witness of those events and, as far as we know from his Dio, or How to Live According to His Ideal, had a clear sight on the Egyptian monasticism. In the aforementioned treatise, the future bishop of Ptolemais shows himself as a man with intellectual affiliations, always with an emphasis on the priority of the rational approach to knowledge and imitation of the Divine. The anthropomorphism together with the overtly graphic physical notions of resurrection are always unacceptable for him, being a part of what he usually calls “vulgar conceptions”. That there are many common features between Augustine and Synesius should not come to us as a surprise. Augustine himself confesses that he has thought of God in human form for a long time and only his occupation with philosophy has made him change his wrong view, popular among the ordinary people (Confessiones 7.1.1). The man from Cyrene never made such a mistake. He was a loyal Christian, but also an elitarian intellectual, aspiring to be a philosopher more than anything else.35
In conclusion, we have no reason to regard the three objections of Synesius in his Letter 105 as a testimony for his formal belonging to “paganism”, neither can we consider his way of thinking as incompatible with Christianity.36 It is important to stress, again, that these objections did not stop Theophilus for actively promoting Synesius to be ordained as a bishop. Synesius represents the highly educated intellectual strata in the Christian Church at that time. He was a literary elitist, often using relatively new Judaic and Christian terminology in a combination with Classical, sometimes too archaic, Greek terms in religious and philosophical poetry, including the outdated Doric dialect. People with his educational background were not prone to abandon the Neoplatonic modes of thought and behaviour. In their own enriching way, they took part in the formation of a refined philosophical and theological system, which reached its perfection in the next few centuries. Through his Hymns and Letters, the intellectual from Cyrene joins the pioneers of the just forming post-Nicaean orthodoxy. His writings reveal not only commitment, but also a deep knowledge of the essence of the problems. Notwithstanding his (Neo)Platonic background and affiliations, Synesius was a Christian, interested in the deep foundations of faith, probably not so profoundly in the pure theology as the Cappadocians were, yet an active supporter of the union between faith, Empire and civilization.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to present a picture of a developed system of theological views in any author from the period under discussion. Their writings are composed in response to a certain problem, or to clarify a certain doctrine, by using different styles, approaches and even sources depending on the purpose of the work. This is true for Synesius and even more for Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory never sounds completely the same, and his style always directly reflects the objectives of his work. It is one thing to attack Eunomius on the doctrine of the hypostases of Trinity, another to defend the co-existence of soul against those presupposing its pre- or post-existence, or to defend in general the Orthodox faith against a many-faced mass of enemies in his Oratio Catechetica. Gregory knew the dialogues of Plato, from the Phaedrus and the Timaeus to the Sophist and the Cratylus, as well as Plotinus and probably Porphyry. He knew the Stoic tradition and the exegetic style of Philo of Alexandria who came to be his model for writing allegorically. He kept the division between the physical and the intellectual, uncreated Divine essence. Joining the mainstream Neoplatonists, he used the apophatic method to define God as Good and evil as non-entity. And yet, Gregory was not a Neoplatonic philosopher, neither was he eager to be considered one. His Trinitarian theology stands far from the emanational theory of Neoplatonism. Although supporting the non-dimensionality and transcendency of soul and the notion of eidos as a constituting factor of keeping dispersed objects together, he did believe in the resurrection in body, not getting upward, out of the body, as in Plotinus (Enn. III.6[26].6; IV.8[6].1). For Gregory, physical matter is a part of the Salvation plan, not just an escape of the higher entities from non-being and evil. His view of the soul–body connection is stronger than the Platonic philosophical tradition could ever presume. The ideas of evolutionism, creationism and individuation are not very compatible with the philosophical trends in the so-called “paganism”. His anthropocentric spiritualism, together with the central role of free will, is so specifically Christian that it could hardly have any meaning outside his faith.
Both Gregory and Synesius became bishops at a certain time in their lives, to a great extent unwillingly, but with a clear sense of duty. It is difficult to say which one was more successful; their obligations and problems were close to ruining them both.37 We could add to the same group Nemesius as well, although we know nearly nothing about him, except that he probably had some medical expertise, which could be an additional reason for his election. The three of them belong to the same intellectual type, lacking some of the Christo-centric attitude and warmth characteristic of many other teachers of the Church. Yet they were probably not philosophers par excellence either. But they had in common the philosophical adjustment of mind, not completely devoid of practical issues at hand, ready to solve theological problems with the armament of the rational soul, alienated from the uproar of the uneducated crowd.
NOTES
1. For the earlier scholarship, see Cherniss (1930), Daniélou (1944) and Jaeger (1966), together with the writings of von Balthasar (1995) and Meredith (1999). See also the editions of Gregory’s writings, namely Patrologia Graeca, vols 44–6, along with the Brill series of editions by Jaeger et al.(1960–98) onwards, as well as the French translations in Sources chrétiennes.
2. I would specially point to the views of Crawford (1901), Lacombrade (1951) and also Bregman (1982) as the most explicit examples of viewing Synesius as a predominantly pagan thinker.
3. Lacombrade (1951); Wallis (1972: 101–5). Bregman (1982) slightly exaggerates Synesius’ “pro-pagan” and pro-Platonic inclination and (1997) presents Synesius as “a religious Neoplatonist”. Roos (1991) makes a challenging attempt at a psychological portrait; Barbanti (1994: 114–48) emphasizes the pagan language and content of the hymns; Vollenweider (1984) recognizes in Synesius an endeavour to mould a theological system of thought.
4. Hereinafter the English translation of Synesius’ letters and hymns is according to Fitzgerald (1926) and Fitzgerald & Milford (1930), with slight alterations and in consultation with Garzya’s full edition of Synesius in an Italian translation (1989). References are made to both the older edition of the epistles by Garzya (1979) and the new edition by Garzya & Roques (2003). For Letter 105, see Garzya (1979: 184–90).
5. Letter 105 188.5–6: Ἀμέλει τὴν ψυχὴν οὐκ ἀξιώσω ποτὲ σώματος ὑστηρογενῆ νομίζειν.
6. I prefer to put “pagan” in quotation marks so far as the notion was used by (some) Christians to denominate their adversaries with quite different origins, profiles and worldviews.
7. See Origen, Cels. 5.14; Porphyry, Chr. 94; Augustine, de Civ. Dei 10.31. See also Genesis 2:7.
8. For Porphyry’s Sententiae, see the Teubner edition of Lamberz (1975).
9. Volkmann (1869: 208–17). For Gregory of Nyssa’ possible indebtedness to Origen, see Ludlow (2002: 45–66) and Meredith (1999: 344–56).
10. We could find a certain kind of “defence” of Origen from the point of orthodoxy in Crouzel (1989) and from the point of his Platonism in Dillon (1992a).
11. Traducianism: the immaterial aspect of human being, the soul, is transmitted through natural generation along with the body; that is, human beings are propagated as whole beings. Creationism: God specially creates a new soul ex nihilo when a human being is conceived.
12. Patrologia Graeca vol. 40.572–90, 595–6. See also Morani’s edition of de Natura Hominis.
13. See the medieval solutions and their indebtedness to the late antique tradition in Nauta (1996).
14. Peroli (1997); Meredith (1999: 15–26); M. R. Barnes (2002: 475–90); Moreschini (2004; 2008: esp. 160–210); and see Ayres (2002), concerning the Trinitarian polemic along with a considerable list of literature.
15. In some sense, Synesius shows a form of elitism, which refuses to a great extent salvation to the souls of the uneducated mob estranged from the higher realities.
16. Translation mine. Here Gregory obliquely disputes with a passage from Origen’s Cels. 3.75. See also Ludlow (2002).
17. Letter 105 188.6–7: Τὸν κόσμον οὐ φήσω καὶ τἄλλα μέρη συνδιαφθείρεσθαι.
18. De Princ.1.6.2–3; 2.3.1; 3.5, based on Isaiah 66:22 and Ecclesiastes 1:9–10.
19. See von Ivanka (1992: 110–13); Dillon (1991: xxi; 1992) on the influence of Middle Platonism on Origen and some parallels with the respective interpretations of Proclus two centuries later in the Elements of Theology; Stead (1981) on Origen and the Cappadocian Fathers. See also Weber (1962) for the two Origens.
20. Letter 105 188.6: Καὶ τἄλλα μέρη.
21. Synesius uses “beings” (ὄντων, gen. pl.), which specifically denote existence as opposed to non-beings.
22. Translation is mine, from the edition of Garzya, with some parallels to Fitzgerald & Milford (1930).
23. Εἰ δὲ γένεσις ἐν τοῖς περὶ ἡμᾶς, αἰτία γενέσεως ἐν τοῖς ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς, κἀκεῖθεν ἐνταῦθα καθήκει τὰ τῶν συμβαινόντων σπέρματα.
24. Here we could compare Synesius’ tentative deliberations on the non-destructibility of the Divine particles, souls included, to Nemesius’ opinion that it is unwise to presume the end of everything at the time of completion if one bears in mind the resurrected souls (de Nat. Hom. 2.46 [573a]).
25. Basil the Great, Homiliae in Hexaemeron 1.4; Gregory of Nyssa, de Hominis 23.209b.
26. It is not easy to determine whether the theory is developed under Platonic influence, through Philo, or as a form of homage to Origen.
27. Compare with de Hominis 27.228c for a similar example and also with de Anima 148a.
28. The ambiguity that all together are an image of God, and that each person also is an image of God was embedded in Gregory’s thought – it is a combination of the Neoplatonic idea of humanity as an abstract notion existing in God and the biblical story of the creation of the first individuals. Every individual, however, has something from the Divine idea of humanity in toto.
29. For the earlier origins of this method of thinking, see van den Berg (Chapter 16), above.
30. Discussion with the Iatrosophist 2.516–729, my trans. See Colonna (1973).
31. Letter 105 188.7–9: Τὴν καθωμιλημένην ἀνάστασιν ἱερόν τι καὶ ἀπόρρητον ἤγημαι, καὶ πολλοῦ δέω ταῖς τοῦ πλήθους ὑπολήψεσιν ὁμολογῆσαι.
32. Bynum (1995: 59–86). Dennis (1981) divides Gregory’s ideas into two periods, distinguishing between an early more Platonic or Origenist period and a later period which supports the idea of bodily resurrection. For the philosophical language used by Gregory, see Stead (1976); for the role of the apokatastasis theory in the Christianity of the age, see Riggs (2006).
33. De Anima 148a; de Hominis 25–7; Oratio Catechetica 26. For the soul in Plotinus, see also Blumenthal (1993b: III).
34. De Insomniis 1: οἰκεῖος θεῷ.
35. This elitarian attitude could be summarized in his rhetorical question in Letter 105 (189.5): “What can there be in common between the ordinary people and philosophy?”(Δήμῳ γὰρ δὴ φιλοσοφίᾳ τί πρὸς ἄλληλα).
36. Whether it is possible, if at all, to talk about Christian Platonism, or if it is a technical term for something which does not really exist, see arguments and discussions in de Vogel (1953); Armstrong (1979: xxii); McEvoy (1992); Blumenthal (1993b: i); Stead (1994: 79–159) and Rist (1996: 386–409), among many others.
37. For the different roles and functions of bishops in this period, see Rapp (2005).