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Origen, Greek Philosophy, and the Birth of the Trinitarian Meaning of Hypostasis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2012

Ilaria L. E. Ramelli
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli*
Affiliation:
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan
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Extract

Origen, far from being a precursor of “Arianism,” as he was depicted during the Origenist controversy and is often still misrepresented today, was the main inspirer of the Nicene-Cappadocian line.1 The Trinitarian formulation of this line, which was represented above all by Gregory of Nyssa, is that God is one and the same nature or essence in three individual substances and that the Son is to the Father. Indeed, the three members of the Trinity share in the same 2 This formulation was followed by Basil in his last phase; Didymus, Gregory of Nazianzus from 362 onwards; Evagrius; and numerous later authors.3 Origen himself had already maintained both things: that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have the same but are three different and Gregory of Nyssa closely followed him.4 As I set out to argue, Origen’s thought represented a novel and fundamental theorization with respect to the communality of and the individuality of conceived as individual substances, in the Trinity. He influenced not only subsequent Trinitarian theology, but perhaps even “pagan” Neoplatonism. (Likewise, on the christological side, Annewies van den Hoek5 has insightfully demonstrated the importance of Origen in asking—and endeavoring to answer—the question of the unification of humanity and divinity in Christ, and Origen’s influence on later formulations.)

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 105 , Issue 3 , 11 July 2012 , pp. 302 - 350
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2012

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References

1 I have argued this in “Origen’s Anti-Subordinationism and its Heritage in the Nicene and Cappadocian Line,” VC 65 (2011) 21–49.

2 When Origen says that the Son differs from the Father in and (Or. 15.1), he is speaking of the Son’s humanity. [The Greek throughout this article is rendered in Times font.]

3 This formula was a response to the question, “Is God one or more than one?” recently investigated by Ernest, James, “Patristic Exegesis and the Arithmetic of the Divine,” in God in Early Christian Thought: Essays in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson (eds. McGowan, Andrew B., Daley, Brian E., and Gaden, Timothy J.; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 123–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 For Gregory of Nyssa’s conception see, e.g., Turcescu, Lucian, Gregory of Nyssa and the Concept of Divine Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zachhuber, Johannes, “Once again: Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” JTS 56 (2005) 75–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stead, Christopher, “Individual Personality in Origen and the Cappadocian Fathers,” in idem, Substance and Illusion in the Christian Fathers (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985) 170–91Google Scholar; idem, , Divine Substance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

5 “Origen’s Role in Formulating Later Christological Language,” in Origeniana Septima (ed. Wolfgang A. Beienert and Uwe Kühneweg; Leuven: Peeters, 1999) 39–50. A book on this problem is forthcoming by Christopher Beeley, in which a chapter is devoted to Origen’s christological doctrine. I am grateful to the author for having me read it in advance for comments.

6 E.g., Comm. Jo. 2.24.156: True life becomes the foundation of knowledge

7 Dial. 16: What is in the image of God is immaterial and “better than every corporeal substance” Cels. 6.71: The incorporeal substance of the human soul, or of angels is imperishable and impossible to consume and annihilate. Likewise in Or. 27.8 “essence proper” refers to “the substance of incorporeal realities” which “possess the being stably” Philoc. 1.28: God’s gifts are immensely better than “mortal substance or existence” [All translations and italics in this essay are mine.]

8 Cels. 6.73: A sense-perceptible body does not explain “the modality of its existence” But we perceive the splendor and the existence of heavenly bodies by looking at them.

9 E.g., in Cels. 6.65: The principle “of the constitution of all realities” Comm. Gen. PG 12.48.27: “The substance that formed the substratum” i.e., the preexisting matter) should have been immense in order to be enough “for the constitution of such a big cosmos” Comm. Jo. 20.22.182: “The first and principal constitution” of the human being is in the image of God.

10 In Cels. 3.23 the term refers to the (denied) real existence of pagan deities: Likewise in Cels. 8.67, in reference to Athena: Let someone prove “her existence” and describe “her substance” “as though she had an ontological subsistence” In Comm. Matt. 10.14 we find the opposition between “in fact” and “conceptually”: “Kingdom of heaven” and “Kingdom of God” are equivalent “in fact” if not also “conceptually” likewise in Fr. Lam. 16 the question is of enemies that are such “conceptually” or also “in fact” see also Fr. Jo. 36: 121 bis: A similar contrast between “nominally” and “in substance” is found idem 16.6: “It has two meanings indicated by the two names, but the two are one in fact ”

11

12

13

14 Christoph Markschies studies Origen’s concept of (Origenes und sein Erbe [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009] 174–87).

15

16

17

18

19

20

21 Entretien d’Origène avec Héraclide (ed. Jean Scherer; SC 67; Paris: de Cerf, 1960). In English: Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and His Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul (trans. Robert J. Daly; New York: Paulist, 1992).

22

23 2.24 and 26:

24

25 Clement called God “first principle/cause” (Strom. 4.162.5: he was referring to the Father proper, whom he identified with the One and the Good; as for the Son/Logos, he called him “second cause” Strom. 7.16.5).

26 Victorinus used it in Adv. Arianos 2.4 to indicate each hypostasis of the Trinity. See Beierwaltes, Werner, “Substantia und subsistentia bei Marius Victorinus,” in Hypostasis e Hyparxis nel Neoplatonismo (eds. Romano, Francesco and Taormina, Daniela; Florence: Olschki, 2004) 43–58Google Scholar. And Rufinus used subsistentia to indicate an individual substance, precisely in the sense that Origen defined with as opposed to the more general substantia which corresponds to (see, e.g., his Hist. 1.26 and 10.30). On the use of substantia and subsistentia in Rufinus see also Traité des Principes (eds. and trans. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti; 5 vols.; SC 252–253, 268–269, 312; Paris: Cerf, 1978) 2(SC 253) 23, 34, 46.

27

28

29 On the so-called “social analogy” between humanity and the Trinity, see Maspero, Giulio, Trinity and Man: Gregory of Nyssa’s Ad Ablabium (Leiden: Brill, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; I fully agree with him and with Sarah Coakley that the “social analogy” of the Trinity (which implies the application of the technical notions of and both to the Trinity and to humanity) should not give rise to psychologizing readings of the intra-Trinitarian relationships, and at the same time with Maspero that the social analogy should not be interpreted as one among the many analogies used by Gregory as a metaphor and mere rhetorical device.

30

31 In fr. 24, from Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.25, Heracleon asserts that the “pneumatics” have the same nature as God the Father and the Spirit and are Origen replies that, if the “pneumatic” nature is with God and yet commits adultery (since the Samaritan woman is an adulteress but is taken by Heracleon as a representative of the “pneumatic” nature), then the nature of God can commit adultery, which is blasphemous. For Origen, only the Persons of God are with one another, and likewise all human beings are with one another. This is why in fr. 44, from Comm. Jo. 20.18, Origen corrects Heracleon in quoting Jesus’s words: not “you belong to the nature of the devil,” but “your father is the devil.” Immediately afterwards, Origen refuses to define some human beings with the devil, endowed with a different than that of the “psychics” and the “pneumatics.”

32 Clement: Irenaeus:

33 Haer. 1.1.10: see also 1.5.1; 1.8.3.

34 See, e.g., Or. ad Gr. 6.2:

35

36

37 This is rightly noted by Karmann, Thomas, Meletius von Antiochien. Studien zur Geschichte des Trinitätstheologischen Streits in den Jahren 360–364 n.Chr. (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 2009)Google Scholar.

38 Athanasius Decr. 33; Socrates Hist. Eccl. 1.8; Theodoret Hist. Eccl. 1.12; Opitz 22.42.

39

40 See Hildebrand, Stephen, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2007)Google Scholar. The first phase of Basil’s Trinitarian theology (360–365) is analyzed in ch. 2: Father and Son are not and is still used as a synonym of Toward the end of the 360s (ch. 3) Basil used and distinguished and See also Stead, Divine Substance; Heinrich Dörrie, “Hypostasis. Wort- und Bedeutungsgeschichte,” NAWG 3 (1955) 35–92, idem, , Platonica Minora (Munich: Fink, 1976) 12–69Google Scholar; Hübner, Reinhard, “Basilius von Caesarea und das Homoousios,” in Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity. Essays in Tribute to George Christopher Stead (ed. Wickham, Lionel and Bammel, Caroline; Leiden: Brill, 1993) 70–91Google Scholar, 663–71; Drecoll, Volker H., Die Entwicklung der Trinitätslehre des Basilius von Cäsarea (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turcescu, Lucian, “Prosopon and Hypostasis in Basil of Caesarea’s Against Eunomius and the Epistles,” VC 51 (1997) 374–95Google Scholar; Lienhard, Joseph T., “Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of ‘One Hypostasis’,” in The Trinity (ed. KendallStephen Davis, Daniel Stephen Davis, Daniel and O’Collins, Gerald; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 99–121Google Scholar; Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and Its Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 187–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the development of Basil’s Trinitarian theology and terminology. On the homoiousian doctrine I limit myself to referring to Löhr, Winrich, Die Entstehung der homöischen und homöusianischen Kirchenparteien (Bonn: Wehle, 1986)Google Scholar; idem, “A Sense of Tradition: The Homoioousian Church Party,” in Arianism after Arius (ed. Michael Barnes and Daniel Williams; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993) 81–100.

41 Jürgen Hammerstaedt, “Hypostase,” RAC 16:986–1035; see also Witt, Rex, “Hypostasis,” in Amicitiae Corolla (ed. Wood, H. G.; London: University of London Press, 1933) 319–43Google Scholar.

42 See Erdin, Franz, Das Wort Hypostasis. Seine bedeutungsgeschichtliche Entwicklung in der altchristlichen Literatur bis zum Abschluss der trinitarischen Auseinandersetzungen (Freiburg: Herder, 1939)Google Scholar; González, Severino, La formula en san Gregorio de Nisa (Rome: Gregoriana, 1939)Google Scholar; Abramowski, Louise, “Trinitarische und christologische Hypostasen,” TP 54 (1979) 38–49Google Scholar; Gray, Patrick, “Theodoret on the ‘One Hypostasis.’ An Antiochene reading of Chalcedon,” in Studia Patristica 15 (ed. Livingstone, Elizabeth A.; Berlin: Akademie, 1984) 301–4Google Scholar; Lienhard, Joseph T., “The ‘Arian’ Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered,” TS 48 (1987) 415–37Google Scholar; Galot, Jean, “Une seule personne, une seule hypostase: origine et sens de la formule de Chalcédoine,” Greg 70 (1989) 251–76Google Scholar; Turcescu, Lucian, “Prosopon and hypostasis,” VC 51 (1997) 374–95Google Scholar; Thümmel, Hans Georg, “Logos and Hypostasis,” in Festschrift U. Wickert, Die Weltlichkeit des Glaubens in der Alten Kirche (ed. Wyrwa, Dietmar et al.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997) 347–98Google Scholar; Robertson, David G., “Stoic and Aristotelian notions of substance in Basil of Caesarea,” VC 52 (1998) 393–417Google Scholar.

43 Guinot, Jean-Noël, “De quelques réflexions de Théodoret de Cyr sur les notions d’ousia et d’hypostasis,” in Munera amicitiae (ed. Barcellona, Rossana and Sardella, Teresa; Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003) 213–27Google Scholar;Gemeinhardt, Peter, “Apollinaris of Laodicea,” ZAC 10 (2006) 286–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Corrigan, Kevin, “Ousia and Hypostasis in the Trinitarian Theology of the Cappadocian Fathers,” ZAC 12 (2008) 114–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Strutwolf, Holger, “Hypostase und Ousia in Contra Eunomium des Basilius,” in Von Homer bis Landino (ed. Suchla, Beate Regina; Berlin: Pro Business, 2011) 403–34Google Scholar.

44 Beeley, Christopher, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Erismann, Christophe, “A World of Hypostases: John of Damascus’ Rethinking of Aristotle’s Categorical Ontology,” StPatr 50 (2011) 267–300Google Scholar.

46 The often puzzling complexity of this category is underlined by Karen King in What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), with my review in Invigilata Lucernis 25 (2003) 331–34; Ilaria Ramelli, “Gnosticismo,” Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane 2:2364–80; Zlatko Pleše objects to a total deconstruction of the gnostic category (“Gnostic Literature,” in Religiöse Philosophie und philosophische Religion der frühen Kaiserzeit [ed. Rainer Hirsch-Luipold et al.; Tübingen: Mohr, 2009] 163–98). Hans F. Weiss studies the reception of the New Testament in “Gnosticism” and accepts this category (Frühes Christentum und Gnosis [Tübingen: Mohr, 2010]. Ismo Dundenberg builds upon Williams’s and King’s arguments and regards the term “gnostic” as misleading in particular for Valentinianism, on which he focuses (Beyond Gnosticism [New York: Columbia University Press, 2008]). He sees the school of Valentinus, like those of Basilides and Justin, as a philosophical school. Likewise, Philip L. Tite denies the accuracy of umbrella terms such as “Gnosticism” and even “Valentinianism” (Valentinian Ethics and Paraenetic Discourse: Determining the Social Function of Moral Exhortation in Valentinian Christianity [Leiden: Brill, 2009]). On the other hand, Weiss regards Gnosticism as a religion of its own, consistent in itself, and opposed to Christianity as a different religion (Frühes Christentum, 510); it used the New Testament only in order to confirm its own, non-Christian, ideas (434, 456 and passim). An opposite view is held by Barbara Aland, who thinks that Gnosticism (“Gnosis” in her terminology) is a Christian phenomenon, relatively unitary, and unthinkable outside Christianity (Was ist Gnosis? [Tübingen: Mohr, 2009]). In Lester Grabbe, Gnosticism is described as a kind of inverted Judaism (An Introduction to Second Temple Judaism [New York: T&T Clarke, 2010] esp. 109–27). David Brakke, besides providing a useful history of scholarship on “Gnosticism,” adopts a middle position between the rejection of this category altogether and its uncritical use; this category “must be either abandoned or reformed” (The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010] 19), but Irenaeus used it taking the designation from the Sethians, who, Brakke argues, first applied it to themselves. Mark J. Edwards, too, considers the term “gnostic” not heresiological, but used by some gnostics whom exponents of the Great Church deemed “falsely so called” (Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church [Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009] 11–34). Hugo Lundhaug avoids the “Gnosticism’”category for the Gospel of Philip and the Exegesis on the Soul (Images of Rebirth [Leiden: Brill, 2010]), and Birger Pearson, keeps the label “gnostic” especially for the Sethians (Ancient Gnosticism [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009]). See also my “Apokatastasis in Coptic Gnostic Texts from Nag Hammadi and Clement’s and Origen’s Apokatastasis: Toward an Assessment of the Origin of the Doctrine of Universal Restoration,” Journal of Coptic Studies 14 (2012).

47 I put the term in quotation marks. Within Valentinianism itself, different trends can be noticed, as well as common features. See only Markschies, Christoph, Valentinus Gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentinus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1992)Google Scholar; idem, “Valentinian Gnosticism: Toward the Anatomy of a School,” in The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years (ed. John D. Turner and Anne McGuire; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 401–38; Einar Thomassen, who rightly remarks on the term “Valentinian” as heresiological (The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the Valentinians [Leiden: Brill, 2008] 4); Dundenberg, Ismo, “The School of Valentinus,” in A Companion to Second-Century Christian “Heretics” (ed. Marjanen, Antti and Luomanen, Petri; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 64–99Google Scholar; idem, Beyond Gnosticism. On the distinction of a Western and an Eastern Valentinianism (Hippolytus, Haer. 6.35; Tertullian Carn. Chr. 15) see Kalvesmaki, Joel, “Italian versus Eastern Valentinianism?,” VC 62 (2008) 79–89Google Scholar, and my Bardaisan of Edessa (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2009) 62–70.

48 “Origen and the Development of Trinitarian Theology,” in Origeniana IV (ed. Lothar Lies; Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1987) 424–29, esp. 424–27.

49 Logan is, however, right in seeing Origen’s usage as anti-Monarchian. On Origen’s anti-Monarchianism, see above and Orbe, Antonio, “Orígenes y los monarquianos,” Greg 72 (1991) 39–72Google Scholar.

50 Logan, Alastair, “Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), ‘On the Holy Church’: Text, Translation and Commentary. Verses 8–9,” JTS 51 (2000) 81–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 95.

51 Haer. 247.13 Nautin:

52 In Cels. 6.41 it is the face of God, according to the Gospel expression: the same scriptural reference is in Cels. 8.34; Or. 11.5; 28.3; Hom. Luc. 35 p. 198; Comm. Matt. 13.28; Exp. Prov. PG 17.205.45; Sel. Ps. PG 1268.31, 1416.23; see also 1609.35. Other examples in the sense of “face” or “presence” of God or Christ, often based on scriptural echoes, are found in Cels. 6.5: Comm. Jo. 32.27.338.3: 6.40.206: (= Or. 9.2; Hom. Jer. 5.9 and 6.1; Sel. Ps. 1165.17); 13.4.22:

53

54

55 The same meaning is also found ibidem 1600.17:

56 As I have shown, Origen refers to the Son or the Spirit with in the sense of a character speaking in a scene, which is different from designating their individual substance. According to Marie-Josèphe Rondeau, however, even this designation of the Son or the Spirit as a or character speaking in a scene eventually contributed to the development of the idea of the Trinity as composed of three Persons (Les commentaires patristiques du Psautier (III e –V e siècles), II: Exégèse prosopologique et théologie [Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1985]). She especially focuses on the expression in situations in which the Psalmist is said to speak “from the mouth” or the character of Christ. On Origen’s “prosopological” exegesis, see Villani, Andrea, “Origenes als Schriftsteller,” Adamantius 14 (2008) 130–50Google Scholar.

57 The source of Marcellus’s accusation that Origen began to study Christian texts only after he had become expert in Greek philosophy may be Porphyry (ap. Eus. Hist. Eccl. 6.19.7–8), according to Alastair Logan, “Marcellus of Ancyra on Origen and Arianism,” in Origeniana VII, 159–63.

58 As I have proposed in “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism,” VC 63 (2009) 217–63, and with further arguments in “Origen the Christian Middle/Neoplatonist,” JECH 22 (2011) 98-130, Origen could even have been the homonymous Neoplatonist mentioned by Porphyry in his Vita Plotini and by subsequent Neoplatonists. This does not affect the present argument.

59 Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. hist. 1.66; 13.82; Philo, Belopoeia 84.9.

60 E.g., Hippocrates, De arte 40; Steril. 242; Coac. 146, 389; Aph. 4,69, etc.; Aristotle, Mete. 358a line 8; 358b line 9; 382b line 14; Hist. an. 551b line 29; Part. an. 647b line 28; 677a line 15; Theophrastus, Hist. plant. 9.8.3; Galen, 6.252.

61 Hippocrates, De arte 55; Aristotle, Part. an. 659a line 24; Ps 68[69]:3 [LXX].

62 Deut 11:6: Jer 10:17.

63 Polybius, Hist. 4.2.1, Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. hist. 1.3.

64 Polybius, Hist. 34.9.11:

65 Boethus, fr. 8: Aristotle(?), De mundo 395a line 30: Posidonius, fr. 339 Theiler: Critolaus, fr. 14, from Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.8, 40b: Placit. 3.6; 4.14; Artemidorus, Onirocr. 3.14: Dio Chrysostom, Or. 26.4: Lucian, Par. 27; Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh. Hyp. 2.94; 2.176; Marcus Aurelius, 9.42; Diogenes Laërtius, 7.135: Clement, Strom. 7.17.107.5: Alexander of Aphrodisias, In Metaph. p. 375.32: p. 677.1: In De sensu p. 55.7:

66 See, e.g., Bullard, Roger, “The Hypostasis of the Archons,” in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. Robinson, James; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 162Google Scholar.

67

68

69

70

71 See also fr. 27:

72 (Comp. 9 Lang; see also 33:

73

74 Ad seips. 9.1.5: “origins, transformations, and successions”; 9.42.3: “your evil has here all its origin”; 10.5.1: “the concatenation of causes has established from all eternity both your birth/origin and these events.”

75 Did. 14.3: “When it is said that the cosmos is this should not be interpreted in the sense that there had been a time when the cosmos did not exist, but the fact that it is always coming into being shows that there is a principal cause of its origin/constitution ”

76 “Rhetoric and philosophy are different, first of all in respect to their structure for philosophy has a structure, the various kinds of rhetoric do not. Indeed, we do not conceive rhetoric as one and the same thing, but some deem it an art, others, on the contrary, a non-art… I claim that what has no coherent structure is not even an art.”

77 In “Atticus and Origen on the Soul of God the Creator: From the ‘Pagan’ to the Christian Side of Middle Platonism,” Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie 10 (2011) 13–35.

78 The same methodological problem arises with Parmenides, fr. 1.20, in which, moreover, there is no question of any individual substance, but only of as “substance” or even “foundation”: “they posited a double foundation/substance the one of what really is, i.e., the intelligible, the other of what becomes, the sense-perceptible.”

79 Bruns, I., ed., Alexandri Aphrodisiensis praeter commentaria scripta minora (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca suppl. 2.2; Berlin: Reimer, 1892) 213–38Google Scholar, at 216.

80 E.g., SVF 2.503: Vacuum is unlimited “according to its substance or structure” SVF 2.541: There must necessarily exist “a certain substance of the void”

81 According to Radice, Philo is the first who considered the Logos a hypostasis, just as the author of the prologue to the Gospel of John did. This concept simply did not exist outside the Mosaic tradition. See Roberto Radice, “Philo’s Theology and Theory of Creation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo (ed. Adam Kamesar; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 125–45, at 137. As he remarks, this notion had no parallel in Middle Platonism. I observe that, on the other hand, it has a parallel in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, as I shall discuss later in the present essay, might even have been influenced by Philo and was paramount to the formation of the technical use of in Origen.

82 In Plac. 882e, line 10:

83

84 Fragments, section 5 fr. 39:

85 1.33: The conception is aimed “at the constitution of the living being”

86 Thus, for instance, in Comm. Jo. 20.18.157 it is stressed that the generation of the Son did not entail a diminution of the of the Father, as is the case with a woman who gives birth, for this would imply that God has a corporeal nature.

87 The Corpus Hippocraticum has 110 occurrences, but none in the sense used by Soranus (and Sextus). On Galen’s notion of the soul, the body, and the individual, see Christopher Gill, Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

88 On which see now Pietro Podolak, Soranos von Ephesos, Peri psyches: Sammlung der Testimonien, Kommentar und Einleitung (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010).

89 That Galen was well known in Alexandria already to Clement is argued on the basis of good evidence by Havrda, Matyas, “Galenus Christianus? The Doctrine of Demonstration in Stromata VIII and the Question of its Source” VC 65 (2011) 343–75Google Scholar. On Origen’s knowledge of Galen, see Barnes, Jonathan, “Galen, Christians, Logic,” in Classics in Progress (ed. Wiseman, Timothy P.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 299–417Google Scholar.

90 See my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy.”

91 This last parallel was acutely noticed by Jaap Mansfeld in his Prolegomena: Questions to be Settled before the Study of an Author or a Text (Leiden: Brill, 1994) 165.

92 E.g., Pyrrh. 3.58: in that qualities can subsist only in things, not in themselves.

93 As I have posited in “Origen, Patristic Philosophy,” his may have inspired Origen’s homonymous work. I found striking correspondences between Origen’s and Alexander’s thought and terminology, but I shall have to treat them in a separate work. One is already detected in my “‘Maximus’ on Evil, Matter, and God: Arguments for the Identification of the Source of Eusebius PE VII 22,” Adamantius 16 (2010) 230–55.

94 I. Bruns, ed., Alexandri Aphrodisiensis, 1–100.

95

96 On forms and their subsistence in Alexander, see Sharples, Robert, “Alexander of Aphrodisias on Universals,” Phronesis 50 (2005) 43–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on De an. 90.2–8 and Quaest. 1.11.

97 “each of the existing animated beings.”

98

99 See also p. 263.16: p. 561.23:

100 Alexandri in Aristotelis analyticorum priorum librum I commentarium (ed. Maximilian Wallies; Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 2.1; Berlin: Reimer, 1883) 1–418.

101

102 See, e.g., Deck, John, Nature, Contemplation, and the One: A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967) 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jackson, Belford, “Plotinus and the Parmenides,” Journal for the History of Philosophy 5 (1967) 315–27Google Scholar, with a comparison between Plotinus’s thought and Plato’s Parmenides and an examination of the relation of Plotinus’s third hypostasis, the Soul, to the Parmenides; Anton, John, “Some Logical Aspects of the Concept of Hypostasis in Plotinus,” Review of Metaphysics 31 (1977) 258–71Google Scholar, who argues that the One for Plotinus is the first hypostasis proper, and should not be regarded as a quasi-hypostasis; he appeals to Enn. 5.1.10.1 and 2.9.33.1–2 to claim that for Plotinus the hypostases are only three; Schiller, Jerome, “Plotinus and Greek Rationalism,” Apeiron 12 (1978) 37–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, sees Plotinus’s three hypostases as solutions to three problems that arise from Plato’s thought. The hypostasis One answers the question of the justification of the ultimacy of reality; the hypostasis Intellect answers that of the certitude of knowledge, and the hypostasis Soul answers that of the relationship between the realm of forms and that of things; Deck, John, “The One, or God, is Not Properly Hypostasis,” in The Structure of Being: A Neoplatonic Approach (ed. Harris, Ramson; Albany, N.Y.: University of New York Press, 1982) 34–39Google Scholar; Dillon, John, “The Mind of Plotinus, III,” Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 3 (1988) 333–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paoli, Ubaldo R. Pérez, Der plotinische Begriff der Hypostasis und die augustinische Bestimmung Gottes als subiectum (Würzburg: Augustinus, 1990)Google Scholar; Crouzel, Henri, Origène et Plotin. Comparaison doctrinale (Paris: Téqui, 1991)Google Scholar; Romano, Francesco and Taormina, Daniela P., eds., Hyparxis e hypostasis nel Neoplatonismo (Florence: Olschki, 1994)Google Scholar; Lilla, Salvatore, “Neoplatonic Hypostases and Christian Trinity,” in Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition (ed. Joyal, Mark; Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997) 127–89Google Scholar, who has examined the parallels between the hypostases of Plotinus and Porphyry and the Trinitarian thought of Clement, Origen, and the Cappadocians, among others, but without attention to the specific terminology of and its presence or lack in Plotinus; Menn, Stephen, “Plotinus on the Identity of Knowledge with Its Object,” Apeiron 34 (2001) 233–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who analyzes Enn. 5.9.7, remarking that Plotinus does not mean that the knower is identical to the object known, but that knowledge is identical to the object, and the hypostasis Nous is knowledge containing all sciences and existing separately from souls, which participate in this knowledge.

103

104 See also Enn. 3.5.7: In both passages, and are nearly synonyms.

105

106

107 If one claims that matter does not exist, one must demonstrate to him or her the necessity of the existence of matter: Here corresponds to “to be”; it is the fact of being, therefore existence.

108 the question being whether only one henad has existence, and why not the others, so that there would be a great number of henads; the hypothesis being that the One and the Monad have no existence.

109 See also 6.6.16:

110 6.1.29: The mode would have more reality and yet, if not even here there were reality

111 Likewise in 6.1.9, where the meaning may be either “way of being” or “substance”: if the relationship is deemed a form, then there will be one single genus and way of being.

112 See also 6.8.10 where Plotinus refers to the constitution, coming into being and creation of something, in order to deny that the first principle was constituted by anything else:

113 Rather than conceiving his three principles as individual hypostases, Plotinus may have thought of the Ideas as individual forms or substances (as opposed to abstraction, genera, and species). The latter thesis is supported by Sikkema, James, “On the Necessity of Individual Forms in Plotinus,” International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 3 (2009) 138–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argues that “had Plotinus not posited individual forms…there would be no ground for appropriating each thing as intelligible” (152).

114

115 As I have argued in “Origen’s Anti-Subordinationism,” VC 65 (2011) 21–49.

116 It is paradoxical given his hostility to Christianity. Most recently, Mark Edwards offered that his fifteen discourses were discrete works (“Porphyry and the Christians,” in Studies on Porphyry [eds. George Karamanolis and Anne Sheppard; London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2007] 111–26). For a status quaestionis on this work, see the introduction and edition by Jurado, Enrique A. Ramos et al., Porfirio de Tiro contra los cristianos (Cádiz: Universidad, 2006)Google Scholar and Berchman, Robert M., Porphyry against the Christians (Leiden: Brill, 2005)Google Scholar.

117 On which see Saffrey, Henri Dominique, “Pourquoi Porphyre a-t-il édité Plotin? Réponse provisoire,” in Porphyre. La vie de Plotin (eds. Brisson, Luc et al.; 2 vols.; Paris: Vrin, 1992)Google Scholar 2:31–57.

118 According to Radice, “Philo’s Theology,” 144, Plotinus depends on Philo for the conception of the Ideas not only as thoughts of the divine Intellect, but also as intelligent powers. If Plotinus could depend on Philo, then Porphyry could certainly depend on Origen.

119 It is probable that Origen in turn was inspired especially by Alexander of Aphrodisias in conceiving the very structure of his masterpiece, as I have argued in “Origen, Patristic Philosophy.”

120 This notion is so deeply rooted in Origen’s thought as to return in Comm. Jo. 1.102:

121 “We shall see whether what the Greek philosophers call incorporeal is found in Scriptures under another name. It will be necessary to investigate how God should be considered: whether corporeal . . . or having a different nature … it will be necessary to extend the same investigation also to Christ and the Holy Spirit, then to the soul and every rational nature … to order the rational explanation of all these arguments into a unity … with clear and irrefutable demonstrations … to construct a consistent work, with arguments and enunciations, both those found in the sacred Scripture and those thence deduced by means of a research made with exactitude and logical rigor.”

122 Origen treats God, the rational creatures, the world, and eschatology systematically in the first two books; the rational creatures’ free will, providence, and restoration, in the third; and in the fourth, Trinitarian matters (in a sort of Ringkomposition with the beginning) and Scriptural exegesis. This is perceived as belonging to the exposition of metaphysics in that Origen’s philosophy is a Christian philosophy, grounded in Scripture and facing, by means of rational arguments, questions that are not defined by Scripture and tradition.

123 Suda, s.v. Proclus, Theol. Plat. 1.51.5.

124 On this passage, see Beatrice, Pier F., “Porphyry’s Judgment on Origen,” in Origeniana Quinta (ed. Daly, Robert J.; Leuven: Peeters, 1992) 351–67Google Scholar; Böhm, Theodor, “Origenes–Theologe und (Neu-)Platoniker? Oder: Wem soll man misstrauen: Eusebius oder Porphyrius?” Adamantius 8 (2002) 7–23Google Scholar; Zambon, Marco, “Paranomos zen: la critica di Porfirio a Origene,” in Origeniana Octava (ed. Perrone, Lorenzo; Leuven: Peeters, 2003) 553–63Google Scholar; Grafton, Anthony and Williams, Megan, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2006) 63–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ramelli, Ilaria, “Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition,” InvLuc 28 (2006) 195–226Google Scholar; eadem, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy”; eadem, “The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and its Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian,” IJCT 18 (2011) 335–71; on Porphyry’s attitude toward Christianity, see Schott, Jeremy, “Porphyry on Christians and Others: ‘Barbarian Wisdom,’ Identity Politics, and Anti-Christian Polemics on the Eve of the Great Persecution,” JECS 13 (2005) 277–314Google Scholar.

125 See also Athanasius Syrus’s preface to his Isagoge: “Porphyry was from Tyre and was a disciple of Origen,” and Eunapius V. Soph. 457. Porphyry was born in 232/3 C.E., and Origen died around 255. Therefore Porphyry was no older than twenty-two when he met Origen. It is unclear whether he was a Christian at that time, as Socrates and Porphyry’s knowledge of Scripture may suggest, but he is certainly not mistaken when he identifies our Origen with a disciple of Ammonius, and therefore a fellow-disciple of Plotinus.

126

127 Beatrice, “Porphyry’s Judgment,” 362 and Marx-Wolf, Heidi, “High Priests of the Highest God: Third-Century Platonists as Ritual Experts,” JECS 18 (2010) 481–513Google Scholar, at 498 accept that this work was by Origen the Christian. I have argued for the identification of the two Origens in “Origen, Patristic Philosophy,” and, with further proofs, in “Origen the Christian Middle/Neoplatonist.”

128 See Sent. 4: “Incorporeal beings have a substance of their own and do not mix with bodies 40: “The question is of an eternal substance”: here and are synonyms. In Ep. ad An. 2.4b, too, means “substance”: Comm. in Parm. 1: the attribution of not only to the intellect, but also to excludes that it means the “hypostasis” of the Intellect. On Porphyry’s hypostases, see Dillon, John, “Intellect and the One in Porphyry’s Sententiae,” International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 4 (2010) 27–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Collette-Ducic, Bernard, Plotin et l’ordonnancement de l’être (Paris: Vrin, 2007)Google Scholar.

129 Preserved by Cyril, C. Iulian. 8 p. 271a:

130 On Plato’s theology, about which scholarship does not enjoy a basic consensus, I limit myself to referring to Bordt, Michael, Platons Theologie (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 2006)Google Scholar, who advocates the presence of a coherent and constant theology in Plato and offers an overview of past scholarship.

131 Harnack, Adolf von, Porphyrius, “Gegen die Christen,” 15 Bücher. Zeugnisse, Fragmente und Referate (Berlin: Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1916)Google Scholar.

132 About which see Cook, John Granger, The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (Tübingen: Mohr, 2000) 148–49Google Scholar.

133 They have been added to Pophyry’s fragments by Goulet, Richard, “Cinq nouveaux fragments nominaux du traité de Porphyre Contre les Chrétiens,” VC 64 (2010) 140–59Google Scholar, esp. 141–44.

134 Michaelis Pselli Theologica (ed. Paul Gautier; Stuttgart-Leipzig: Teubner, 1989) 1:301.

135

136 the notions of and in Origen, see also Robertson, David, “Origen on Inner and Outer Logos,” StPatr 46 (2010) 201–6Google Scholar.

137

138 Speaking of “one who turns one’s intellect to the true light,” he remarks that, in order to be useful to other people, “who have not yet had a chance to be illuminated by the true Sun,” this person should teach them by means of his or her logos

139 “The spindle is a pure intellect … or a logos that pulls spiritual contemplation from the intellect.”

140

141 Adv. Ar. et Sab. (ed. Friedrich Mueller; Gregorii Nysseni Opera; vol. 3.1; Leiden: Brill, 1958) 71–85: 81.10–25.

142 On which see Letellier, Joël, “Le Logos chez Origène,” RSPT 75 (1991) 587–611Google Scholar; Wolinski, Joseph, “Le recours aux epinoiai du Christ dans le Commentaire sur Jean d’Origène,” in Origeniana Sexta (ed. Dorival, Gilles and Boulluec, Alain Le; Leuven: Peeters, 1995) 465–92Google Scholar; O’Leary, Joseph, “Logos,” in The Westminster Handbook to Origen (ed. McGuckin, John A.; Louisville: John Knox, 2004) 142–45Google Scholar; my “Clement’s Notion of the Logos ‘All Things As One’: Its Alexandrian Background in Philo and its Developments in Origen and Nyssen,” in Alexandrian Personae: Scholarly Culture and Religious Traditions in Ancient Alexandria (ed. Zlatko Pleše; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012).

143 “If it has a hypostasis of its own and thus is a different being than God Marcellus’s labor is in vain, and if, although it proceeded from God similarly to our logos it remained inseparable from the Father, then it has always and uninterruptedly been in God, even while it was working.”

144 Eusebius knew Plotinus through Porphyry’s edition (this is the conclusion of Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, “Deux traités plotiniens chez Eusèbe de Césarée,” in The Libraries of the Neoplatonists [ed. Cristina D’Ancona; Leiden: Brill, 2007] 63–97). According to Kalligas, Paul, “Traces of Longinus’ Library in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica,” CQ 51 (2001) 584–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Eusebius knew Plotinus, as well as most of Porphyry, from Longinus’s library.

145 “The Stromateis of Origen,” in Epektasis. Mélanges J. Danélou (ed. Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kannengiesser; Paris: Cerf, 1972) 275–92.

146

147 “we have become participants in Christ, if only we keep our initial confidence steadfast until the end.”

148 For this passage we have Origen’s Greek, preserved in P. Cair. 88748 and cod. Vat. gr. 762:

149 Already Clement commented on Heb 1:2–4, in Strom. 7.3.16: the Son is the character of the universal King and almighty Father, and character of the Glory of the Father. See Thompson, James W., “The Epistle to the Hebrews in the Works of Clement of Alexandria,” in Transmission and Reception: New Testament Text-Critical and Exegetical Studies (ed. Childers, Jeff and Parker, David C.; Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2006) 239–54Google Scholar, esp. 240–42.

150 The main comparative studies of Philo and Hebrews are: Çeslas Spicq, L’Épître aux Hébreux (2 vols.; Paris: Lecoffre, 1952–1953), who contends that the author of Hebrews was a Philonian who converted to Christianity; Sower, Sidney, The Hermeneutics of Philo and Hebrews (Zürich: EVZ, 1965)Google Scholar; Williamson, Ronald, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (Leiden: Brill, 1970)Google Scholar; Dey, Kumar, The Intermediary World and Patterns of Perfection in Philo and Hebrews (SBLDS 25; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1975)Google Scholar, who does not see specific contacts between Philo and Hebrews, but admits that they probably had a common cultural background; Hurst, Lincoln, The Epistle to the Hebrews: Its Background of Thought (SNTSMS 65; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, according to whom it is not proven that Hebrews had Philo and Middle Platonism in its intellectual background (which is admitted by Attridge, Harold, The Epistle to the Hebrews [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989] 29Google Scholar, and Runia, David, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993] 78Google Scholar); Schenck, Kenneth, A Brief Guide to Philo (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005)Google Scholar esp. in the chapter “Philo and Christianity,” 73–96, advocates close similarities in the conception of the Logos, the interpretation of the Tabernacle, and the representation of angels (see 74–86, esp. 82–84 for convergences with Hebrews); idem, “Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews: Ronald Williamson’s Study after Thirty Years,” SPhilo Annual 14 (2002) 112–35, notes that the main difference is that Hebrews is eschatologically oriented, while Philo is not, and that the latter allegorizes Scripture, while Hebrews does not, but the similarities are more remarkable; he calls attention to the quotations from the OT that are uniquely common to Hebrews and to Philo. See also Steyn, Gert, “Torah Quotations Common to Philo, Hebrews, Clemens Romanus, and Justin Martyr,” in The New Testament Intepreted (ed. Breytenbach, Cilliers, Thom, Johan, and Punt, Jeremy; Leiden: Brill, 2006) 135–51Google Scholar, who thinks that the author of Hebrews was acquainted with Philo’s works, and wrote from Alexandria to Christians in Rome.

151 “Philo and the New Testament,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo (ed. Adam Kamesar; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 175–209, at 175. For the presence of Platonism in Hebrews, see Tomson, Peter J., “Le Temple céleste: pensée platonisante et orientation apocalyptique dans l’Épître aux Hébreux,” in Philon d’Alexandrie. Un penseur à l’intersection des cultures gréco-romaine, orientale, juive, et chrétienne (eds. Decharneux, Baudouin and Inowlocki, Sabrina; Turnhout: Brepols, 2011)Google Scholar.

152 Siegert, “Philo,” 177–78.

153 Moreover, another passage of Philo could lie behind Heb 1:3: Opif. 145–146, in which the human being is described as akin to God and an of God because of its affinity with God’s Logos: Here, however, Wis 7:25–26 could have worked as a common source of inspiration, while this cannot be the case for the striking parallel I have pointed out in the text. Again, the characterization of the Son as of the Father has a parallel in Det. 83: (see also, but less relevant, Plant. 18: Williamson, Philo, 80, and Thompson, “The Epistle to the Hebrews,” 240–42, underline the continuity between Philo, Hebrews, and Clement in this description of the Logos as In respect to my main argument, however, and to Origen’s understanding, Heb 1:3 is different, since it describes the Son as the express image of the Father’s individual substance, and not of the divine power in general. The latter, in Origen’s view, is shared by the Son, whereas the Son does not share the Father’s individual substance.

154 In addition to those I shall discuss, Origen quotes Heb 1:3 also in a number of other passages among those preserved—and we have lost a great deal—such as Sel. Ps. PG 12.1424.12–13; 1600.17; 1204.15 and 978; Cels. 8.12:

155

156 Quia sit splendor gloriae et imago expressa substantiae eius. Perque haec declaratur ipsum fontem gloriae Patrem dici ex quo splendor gloriae Filius generatur, cuius participatione omnes creaturae gloriam habere dicuntur.

157 See, for instance, Cels. 6.64: “Our Savior does not participate in justice, but is Justice itself, and the just participate in him.”

158 Haec autem gloria quae speratur … numquam destruitur; est enim talis de qua idem apostolus dicit loquens de Christo: “qui est,” inquit, “splendor gloriae et figura expressa substantiae eius.”

159 Splendor gloriae et figura expressa substantiae eius. Invenimus nihilominus etiam in Sapientia quae dicitur Salomonis descriptionem quandam de Dei Sapientia…. Vapor est enim, inquit, virtutis Dei et (id est manatio) gloriae omnipotentis purissima … Sapientiam vero Dei dicimus subsistentiam habentem non alibi nisi in eo, qui est initium omnium, ex quo et nata est.

160

161

162 In Comm. Cant. prologue, unfortunately preserved only in Rufinus’s Latin translation, Origen paraphrases Heb 1:3 by saying that the Logos is the image and splendor of the invisible God; no equivalent of however, appears here, given that “the image of God” simplifies the phrase “the express image of the Father’s individual substance.” We do not know whether the simplification is due to Rufinus or was already present in Origen’s prologue. But appears at Comm. Cant. 2: the Son of God, the Logos, is “the splendor of the glory and of the individual substance of God” the Father: the simplification here involves the elimination of χαρακτήρ from the quotation of Heb 1:3. In Comm. Cant. 3 Origen explains that the left hand of the Logos represents its passion and the healing of humanity, by the assumption of the human nature; its right hand represents its divine nature, “the nature that is all right, and all light, and splendor, and glory.” Here Origen is focusing on Christ’s human and divine nature, not on the individual substance and common nature of the Persons of the Trinity.

163

164 Ramelli, “Maximus.”

165

166 p. 349.12 Koetschau, from Justinian’s Epistula ad Mennam. This is per se a deeply unreliable source, but here it is trustworthy as for the relation of the coeternity of the Son with the Father, their individual substances, and Heb 1:3, since in this respect it is confirmed by Athanasius Decr. 27. See also Pamphilus Apol. 47–48, from Book 1 of Origen’s lost commentary on Genesis: De eo quod non sit Pater ante quam Filius, sed coaeternus sit Filius Patri, in primo libro de Genesi haec ait: Non enim Deus, cum prius non esset Pater, postea Pater esse coepit….

167 Apol. 49: ex libris epistulae ad Hebraeos.

168 Lux autem aeterna quid aliud sentiendum est quam Deus Pater? Qui numquam fuit quando lux quidem esset, splendor vero ei non adesset … quod si uerum est, numquam est quando Filius non fuit. Erat autem non sicut de aeterna luce diximus innatus, ne duo principia lucis uideamur inducere, sed sicut ingenitae lucis splendor, ipsam illam lucem initium habens ac fontem, natus quidem ex ipsa, sed non erat quando non erat.

169 Secundum similitudinem uaporis qui de substantia aliqua corporea procedit … sic et Sapientia ex ea procedens ex ipsa Dei substantia.

170 Compare Fr. in Ps. 54.3–4 (dubious, but not necessarily spurious) in which the Son is called with the Father:

171 See for instance, Richard, Anne, Cosmologie et théologie chez Grégoire de Nazianze (Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes, 2003)Google Scholar and, more specifically and with a survey of previous scholarship, Joseph Trigg, “Knowing God in the Theological Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus: The Heritage of Origen,” in God in Early Christian Thought, 83–104.

172 see also Ps 38(39):8: Ps 138(139):15; Ezek 19:5:

173

174

175 On this see Havrda, Matyas, “Some Observations on Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book 5,” VC 64 (2010) 1–30Google Scholar, at 5–7.

176

177 See C. Prestige, Leonard, “Clem. Strom. II 18 and the sense of ,” JTS 30 (1929) 270–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who interprets this fourth step or stage as baptismal initiation; also Clemente, Stromati (intro., trans., and comm. Giovanni Pini; Milan: Paoline, 1985) 308–9; Pini renders: “la tetrade delle virtù è consacrata a Dio e già la terza tappa del resto confina col quarto gradino, che è quello del Signore.” This interpretation is rejected by Witt, “Hypostasis,” 333, and Camelot in a note in Clément, Stromate II (ed. and trans. Claude Mondésert; SC 38; Paris: Cerf, 1954) 179.

178 Annewies van den Hoek, Clement of Alexandria and his Use of Philo in the Stromateis (VCSup 3; Leiden: Brill, 1988) 100–1.

179 Mortley, Raoul, Connaissance religieuse et herméneutique chez Clément (Leiden: Brill, 1973) 84–85Google Scholar; Potter, John, Clementis Alexandrini opera quae extant omnia (Oxford, 1715; Venice, 1757)Google Scholar, reproduced in PG 8–9. Another theological explanation is offered by Prümm, Karl, “Glaube und Erkenntniss im zweiten Buch der Stromateis des Klements,” Scholastik 12 (1937) 17–57Google Scholar, at 50.

180 Paden interpreted the Logos in Clement in the light of Nicene theology. This approach was deemed unhistorical by several scholars, who found two or three Logoi in Clement. One of these scholars was Casey, Robert, “Clement and the Two Divine Logoi,” JTS 25 (1923) 43–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other scholars, such as Osborn, Eric, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, followed recently by Kindiy, Oleh, Christos Didaskalos: The Christology of Clement of Alexandria (Saarbrücken: Müller, 2008)Google Scholar, find only one Logos in Clement, identifiable with the Son of God.

181 This is also why she has not included it in her treatment of Clement’s theology in “God Beyond Knowing: Clement of Alexandria and Discourse on God,” in God in Early Christian Thought, 37–60.

182 Photius, Bibl. cod. 109 = Clement, fr. 23, III 202 Staehlin.

183 Ashwin-Siejkowski, Piotr, Clement of Alexandria on Trial: The Evidence of ‘Heresy’ from Photius’ Bibliotheca (VCSup 101; Leiden: Brill, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar analyzes, one by one, the eight “heresies” that Clement’s Hypotyposeis contained according to Photius, Bibl. cod. 109, considering the differences between Photius’s post-Nicene theology and Clement’s. My review is forthcoming in GNOMON.

184 Edwards, Mark J., “Clement of Alexandria and His Doctrine of the Logos,” VC 54.2 (2000) 159–77Google Scholar; Ashwin-Siejkowski, Clement on Trial, has devoted a chapter to this Photian fragment (57–74); he also favors the unicity of the Logos in Clement and suspects a misunderstanding on the part of Photius (63–65). Cf. Jourdan, Fabienne, “Le Logos de Clément soumis à la question” RE 56 (2010) 135–72Google Scholar.

185 Enarr. Joh. PG 123.1141: “God’s Logos is neither nor For those characterizations are proper to natural realities and according to us (humans), but since the Logos of the Father is superior to nature, it is not subject to inferior subtleties…. The evangelist [sc. John] destroyed in advance this subtle argument by stating that and are predicated of human and natural logoi, but nothing of the sort can be predicated of the Logos that is above nature.”

186

187

188

189

190

191 Ashwin, Clement on Trial, 70, following Sagnard, thinks that these words are Clement’s. I rather suspect that this passage expresses “Valentinian” ideas. That it does not reflect Clement’s own thought is also suggested by Edwards, Mark, “Gnostics and Valentinians in the Church Fathers,” JTS 40 (1989) 26–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ashwin-Siejkowski himself notes that “Photius found Clement’s erroneous theology of the Logos in the Hypotyposeis, but he did not mention any errors on the same subject in the Stromateis” (Clement on Trial, 73): this is, I think, because in the latter he did not find “gnostic” quotations or paraphrases that he could mistake for Clement’s own thought, since in the Stromateis those quotations were fewer and their markers very clear, whereas the opposite was the case in the Hypotyposeis and in the Excerpta ex Theodoto.

192 See, e.g., 1.27.3: “The soul is continually vivified by the logos.” On the vivifying function of the logos in respect to the soul for the Valentinians, see also 1.2.1: (note also the concept of which appears in Photius’s quotation as well); 1.1.3: On the higher plane of the three races postulated by the Valentinians, the whole elect race (that of the “pneumatics”) is a sparkle vivified by the Logos.

193 In his Adnotationes in Marcianum 77.8 (Ramelli, Tutti i Commenti a Marziano Capella: Scoto Eriugena, Remigio di Auxerre, Bernardo Silvestre e anonimi, Essays, improved editions, translations, commentaries, appendixes, bibliography [Milan: Bompiani–Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 2006] 226) God, the threefold One, is beyond all: Eriugena uses to indicate divine transcendence and interprets in Martianus’s phrase in reference to the Father and the Son Pater, Filius), who are different in their Persons or individual substances but one in their essence or nature according to the distinction that originated with Origen and was maintained by the Cappadocians, Ps. Dionysus, and Maximus the Confessor. Eriugena explicitly cites them as sources for the difference between and in Periphyseon 2.34: “Sanctus quidem Dionysius Ariopagita et Gregorius Theologus eorumque eligantissimus expositor Maximus differentiam esse dicunt inter id est essentiam, et id est substantiam, quidem intelligentes unicam illam ac simplicem divinae bonitatis naturam, vero singularum personarum propriam et individuam substantiam. Dicunt enim hoc est unam essentiam in tribus substantiis.”