08a - The Incarnation & Redemption (Part 2)
The Incarnation and Redemption.
(Part 2) Immortality,
Resurrection, and Redemption
Death is a catastrophe for man; this is the basic principle of the whole Christian anthropology. Man is an “amphibious” being, both spiritual and corporeal, and so he was intended and created by God. Body belongs organically to the unity of human existence. And this was perhaps the most striking novelty in the original Christian message. The preaching of the Resurrection as well as the preaching of the Cross was foolishness and a stumbling-block to the Gentiles. The Greek mind was always rather disgusted by the body. The attitude of an average Greek in early Christian times was strongly influenced by Platonic or Orphic ideas, and it was a common opinion that the body was a kind of a “prison,” in which the fallen soul was incarcerated and confined. The Greeks dreamt rather of a complete and final disincarnation. The famous Orphic slogan was: σώμα-σήμα.30 And the Christian belief in a coming Resurrection could only confuse and frighten the Gentile mind. It meant simply that the prison will be everlasting, that the imprisonment will be renewed again and for ever. The expectation of a bodily resurrection would befit rather an earthworm, suggested Celsus, and he jeered in the name of common sense. This nonsense about a future resurrection seemed to him altogether irreverent and irreligious. God would never do things so stupid, would never accomplish desires so criminal and capricious, which are inspired by an impure and fantastic love of the flesh. Celsus nicknames Christians a “φιλοσώματον γένος,” “a flesh-loving crew,” and he refers to the Docetists with far greater sympathy and understanding.31 Such was the general attitude to the Resurrection.
St. Paul had already been called a “babbler” by the Athenian philosophers just because he had preached to them “Jesus and the Resurrection” (Acts 17:18; Acts 17:32). In the current opinion of those heathen days, an almost physical disgust of the body was frequently expressed. There was also a wide-spread influence from the farther East; one thinks at once of the later Manichean inundation which spread so rapidly all over the Mediterranean. St. Augustine, once a fervent Manichean himself, has intimated in his Confessiones that this abhorrence of the body was the chief reason for him to hesitate so long in embracing the faith of the Church, the faith in the Incarnation.32
Porphyry, in his Life of Plotinus, tells that Plotinus, it seemed, “was ashamed to be in the flesh,” and from this Porphyry starts his biography. “And in such a frame of mind he refused to speak either of his ancestors or parents, or of his fatherland. He would not sit for a sculptor or painter to make a permanent image of this perishable frame.” It is already enough that we bear it now (Life of Plotinus, 1). This philosophical asceticism of Plotinus, of course, must be distinguished from Oriental asceticism, Gnostic or Manichean. Plotinus himself wrote very strongly “against Gnostics.” Here, however, there was only a difference of motives and methods. The practical issue in both cases was one and the same, a “retreat” from this corporeal world, an escape from the body. Plotinus suggested the following analogy: Two men live in the same house. One of them blames the builder and his handiwork, because it is made of inanimate wood and stone. The other praises the wisdom of the architect, because the building is so skillfully erected. For Plotinus this world is not evil, it is the “image” or reflection of the world above, and is perhaps even the best of images. Still, one has to aspire beyond all images, from the image to the prototype, from the lower to the higher world. And Plotinus praises not the copy, but the pattern.33 “He knows that when the time comes, he will go out and will no longer have need of a house.” This phrase is very characteristic. The soul is to be liberated from the ties of the body, to be disrobed, and then it will ascend to its proper sphere.34 “The true awakening is the true resurrection from the body, not with the body. For the resurrection with the body would be simply a passage from one sleep to another, to some other dwelling. The only true awakening is an escape from all bodies, since they are by nature opposite to the nature of the soul. Both the origin, and the life and the decay of bodies show that they do not correspond to the nature of the souls.”35 With all Greek philosophers the fear of impurity was much stronger than the dread of sin. Indeed, sin to them just meant impurity. This “lower nature,” body and flesh, a corporeal and gross substance, was usually presented as the source and seat of evil. Evil comes from pollution, not from the perversion of the will. One must be liberated and cleansed from this filth. And at this point Christianity brings a new conception of the body as well. From the beginning Docetism was rejected as the most destructive of temptations, a sort of dark anti-gospel, proceeding from Anti-Christ, “from the spirit of falsehood” (1 John 4:2-3). This was strongly emphasized in St. Ignatius, St. Irenaeus, and Tertullian. “Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). This is precisely the antithesis to Plotinus’ thought.36 “He deals a death-blow here to those who depreciate the physical nature and revile our flesh,” commented St. John Chrysostom. “It is not flesh, as he would say, that we put off from ourselves, but corruption; the body is one thing, corruption is another. Nor is the body corruption, nor corruption the body. True, the body is corrupt, but it is not corruption. The body dies, but it is not death. The body is the work of God, but death and corruption entered by sin. Therefore, he says, I would put off from myself that strange thing which is not proper to me. And that strange thing is not the body, but corruption. The future life shatters and abolishes not the body, but that which clings to it, corruption and death.”37 Chrysostom, no doubt, gives here the common feeling of the Church. “We must also wait for the spring of the body,” as a Latin apologist of the second century put it - “expec-tandum nobis etiam et corporis ver est.”38 A Russian scholar, V. F. Ern, speaking of the catacombs, happily recalls these words in his letters from Rome. “There are no words which could better render the impression of jubilant serenity, the feeling of rest and unbounded peacefulness of the early Christian burial places. Here the body lies, like wheat under the winter shroud, awaiting, anticipating and foretelling the other-worldly eternal Spring.”39 This was the simile used by St. Paul. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption: it is raised in incorruption” (1 Corinthians 15:42). The earth, as it were, is sown with human ashes in order that it may bring forth fruit, by the power of God, on the Great Day. “Like seed cast on the earth, we do not perish when we die, but having been sown, we rise.”40 Each grave is already the shrine of incorruption. Death itself is, as it were, illuminated by the light of triumphant hope.41
There is a deep distinction between Christian asceticism and the pessimistic asceticism of the non-Christian world. Father P. Florenskii describes this contrast in the following way: “One is based on the bad news of evil dominating the world, the other on the good news of victory, of the conquest of evil in the world. The former offers superiority, the latter holiness. The former type of ascetic goes out in order to escape, to conceal himself; the latter goes out in order to become pure, to conquer.” Continence can be inspired by different motives and different purposes. There was, certainly, some real truth in the Orphic or Platonic conceptions as well. And indeed only too often the soul lives in the bondage of the flesh. Platonism was right in its endeavor to set free the reasonable soul from the bondage of fleshly desires, in its struggle against sensuality. And some elements of this Platonic asceticism were absorbed into the Christian synthesis. And yet the ultimate goal was quite different in the two cases. Platonism longs for the purification of the soul only. Christianity insists on the purification of the body as well. Platonism preaches the ultimate disincarnation. Christianity proclaims the ultimate cosmic transfiguration. Bodily existence itself is to be spiritualized. There is the same antithesis of eschatological expectation and aspiration: “to be unclothed” and “to be clothed upon,” again and for ever. And strange enough, in this respect Aristotle was much closer to Christianity than Plato. In the philosophical interpretation of its eschatological hope, Christian theology from the very beginning clings to Aristotle.43 On this point he, the writer of prose amid the throng of poets, sober among the inspired, points higher than the “divine” Plato. Such a biased preference must appear altogether unexpected and strange. For, strictly speaking, in Aristotle there is not and cannot be any “after-death” destiny of man. Man in his interpretation is entirely an earthly being. Nothing really human passes beyond the grave. Man is mortal through and through like everything else earthly; he dies never to return. Aristotle simply denies personal immortality. His singular being is not a person. And what does actually survive is not properly human and does not belong to individuals; it is a “divine” element, immortal and eternal.44 But yet in this weakness of Aristotle is his strength. Aristotle had a real understanding of the unity of human existence. Man is to Aristotle, first of all, an individual being, an organism, a living unit. And man is one just in his duality, as an “animated body” (τό εμψυχον); both of the elements in him exist only together, in a concrete and indivisible correlation. Into the “body” the matter is “formed” by the soul, and the soul realizes itself only in its body. “Hence there is no need to inquire whether soul and body are one, any more than whether the wax and the imprint (τό σχήμα) are one, or, in general, whether the matter of a thing is the same with that of which it is the matter” [De anima, 417b 6]. The soul is just the “form” of the body (εΐδος και μορφή, 407b 23; λόγος τις και ειδος, 4lla 12), its “principle” and “term” (αρχή and τέλος), its very being and “actuality.”45 And Aristotle coins a new term to describe this peculiar correlation: the soul is εντελέχεια “the first actuality of a natural body” (εντελέχεια ή πρώτη σώματος φυσικού, 412a 27). Soul and body, for Aristotle they are not even two elements, combined or connected with each other, but rather simply two aspects of the same concrete reality.46 “Soul and body together constitute the animal. Now it needs no proof that the soul cannot be separated from the body” (4l3a 4). Soul is but the functional reality of the corresponding body. “Soul and body cannot be defined out of relation to each other; a dead body is properly only matter; for the soul is the essence, the true being of what we call body.”47 Once this functional unity of the soul and body has been broken by death, no organism is there any more, the corpse is no more a body, and a dead man can hardly be called man at all.48 Aristotle insisted on a complete unity of each concrete existence, as it is given hie et nunc. The soul “is not the body, but something belonging to the body (σώματος δέτι), and therefore resides in the body and, what is more, in a specific body (και έν σώματι τοιούτω). Our predecessors were wrong in endeavoring to fit the soul into a body without further determination of the nature and qualities of that body, although we do not even find that of any two things taken at random the one will admit the other (του τυχόντος ... το τυχόν). For the actuality of each thing comes naturally to be developed in the potentiality of each thing; in other words, in the appropriate matter” (4l4a 20: τη οικεία ΰλη). The idea of the “transmigration” of souls was thus to Aristotle altogether excluded. Each soul abides in its “own” body, which it creates and forms, and each body has its “own” soul, as its vital principle, “eidos” or form. This anthropology was ambiguous and liable to a dangerous interpretation. It easily lends itself to a biological simplification and transformation into a crude naturalism, in which man is almost completely equated with other animals. Such indeed were the conclusions of certain followers of the Stagirite, of Aristoxenus and Dikaearchus, for whom the soul was but a “harmony” or a disposition of the body (αρμονία or τόνος, “tension”) and of Strata etc.49 “There is no more talk about the immaterial soul, the separate reason, or pure thought. The object of science is the corporate soul, the united soul and body.”50 Immortality was openly denied. The soul disappears just as the body dies; they have a common destiny. And even Theophrastes and Eudemus did not believe in immortality.51 For Alexander of Aphrodisias the soul was just an “είδος ενυλον.”52 Aristotle himself has hardly escaped these inherent dangers of his conception. Certainly, man is to him an “intelligent being,” and the faculty of thinking is his distinctive Mark53 Yet, the doctrine of Nous does not fit very well into the general frame of the Aristotelian psychology. It is obviously the most obscure and complicated part of his system. Whatever the explanation of this incoherence may be, the stumbling-block is still there. “The fact is that the position of νους in the system is anomalous.”54 The “intellect” does not belong to the concrete unity of the individual organism, and it is not an εντελέχεια of any natural body. It is rather an alien and “divine” element, that comes in somehow “from outside.” It is a “distinct species of soul” (ψυχής γένος έτερον), which is separable from the body, “unmixed” with the matter. It is impassive, immortal and eternal, and therefore separable from the body, “as that which is eternal from that which is perishable.”55 This impassive or active intellect does survive all individual existences indeed, but it does not properly belong to individuals and does not convey any immortality to the particular beings.56 Alexander of Aphrodisias seems to have grasped the main idea of the Master. He invented the term itself: νους ποιητικός. In no sense is it a part or power of the human soul. It supervenes as something really coming in from outside. It is a common and eternal source of all intellectual activities in individuals, but it does not belong to any one of them. Rather is it an eternal, imperishable, self-existing substance, an immaterial energy, devoid of all matter and potentiality. And, obviously, there can be but one such substance. The νους ποιητικός is not only “divine,” it must be rather identified with the deity itself, the first cause of all energy and motion.” The real failure of Aristotle was not in his “naturalism,” but in that he could not see any permanence of the individual. But this was rather a common failure of the whole of ancient philosophy. Plato has the same short sight. Beyond time, Greek thought visualizes only the “typical,” and nothing truly personal. Personality itself was hardly known in pre-Christian times. Hegel suggested, in his Aesthetics, that Sculpture gives the true key to the whole of Greek mentality.58 Recently a Russian scholar, A. F. Lossev, pointed out that the whole of Greek philosophy was a “sculptural symbolism.” He was thinking especially of Platonism. “Against a dark background, as a result of an interplay and conflict of light and shadow, there stands out a blind, colorless, cold, marble and divinely beautiful, proud and majestic body, a statue. And the world is such a statue, and gods are statues; the city-state also, and the heroes, and the myths, and ideas, all conceal underneath them this original sculptural intuition… There is no personality, no eyes, no spiritual individuality. There is a “something,” but not a “someone,” an individualized “it,” but no living person with his proper name… There is no one at all. There are bodies, and there are ideas. The spiritual character of the ideas is killed by the body, but the warmth of the body is restrained by the abstract idea. There are here beautiful, but cold and blissfully indifferent statues.”59 And yet, in the general frame of such an impersonalist mentality, Aristotle did feel and understand the individual more than anyone else. He got closer than anybody else to the true conception of human personality. He provided Christian philosophers with all the elements out of which an adequate conception of personality could be built up. His strength was just in his understanding of the empirical wholeness of human existence.60
Aristotle’s conception was radically transformed in its Christian adaptation, for new perspectives were opened, and all the terms were given a new significance. And yet one cannot fail to acknowledge the Aristotelian origin of the main eschatological ideas in early Christian theology. Such a christening of Aristotelianism we find in Origen, to a certain extent in St. Methodius of Olympus as well, and later in St. Gregory of Nyssa. The idea of εντελέχεια itself now receives new depth in the new experience of spiritual life. The term itself was never used by the Fathers, but there can be no doubt about the Aristotelian roots of their conceptions.61 The break between intellect, impersonal and eternal, and the soul, individual but mortal, was healed and overcome in the new self-consciousness of a spiritual personality. The idea of personality itself was a great Christian contribution to philosophy. And again, there was here a sharp understanding of the tragedy of death also. The first theological essay on the Resurrection was written in the middle of the second century by Athenagoras of Athens. Of the many arguments he puts forward, his reference to the unity and integrity of man is of particular interest. Athenagoras proceeds from the fact of this unity to the future resurrection. “God gave independent being and life neither to the nature of the soul by itself, nor to the nature of the body separately, but rather to men, composed of soul and body, so that with these same parts of which they are composed, when they are born and live, they should attain after the termination of this life their common end; soul and body compose in man one living entity.” There would no longer be a man, Athenagoras emphasizes, if the completeness of this structure were broken, for then the identity of the individual would be broken also. The stability of the body, its continuity in its proper nature, must correspond to the immortality of the soul. “The entity which receives intellect and reason is man, and not the soul alone. Consequently man must for ever remain composed of soul and body. And this is impossible, if there is no resurrection. For if there is no resurrection, human nature is no longer human.62
Aristotle concluded from the mortality of the body that the individual soul, which is but the vital power of the body, is also mortal. Both go down together. Athenagoras, on the contrary, infers the resurrection of the body from the immortality of the reasonable soul. Both are kept together.63 The resurrection, however, is no mere simple return or repetition. The Christian dogma of the General Resurrection is not that “eternal return” which was professed by the Stoics. The resurrection is the true renewal, the transfiguration, the reformation of the whole creation. Not just a return of what has passed away, but a heightening, a fulfillment of something better and more perfect. “And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel... It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:37; 1 Corinthians 15:44). A very considerable change is implied. And there is here a very real philosophical difficulty. How are we to think of this “change” so that “identity” shall not be lost? We find in the early writers merely an assertion of this identity, without any attempt at a philosophical explanation. St. Paul’s distinction between the “natural” body (σώμα φυσικόν) and the “spiritual” body (σώμα πνευματικόν) obviously needs some further interpretation (cf. the contrast of the body “of our humiliation,” της ταπεινώσεως ημών, and the body “of His glory,” της δόξης αύτοΰ, in Php 3:21). In the period of the early controversies with the Docetists and Gnostics, a careful and precise answer became urgent. Origen was probably the first who attempted to give one. Origen’s eschatology was from the very beginning vigorously denounced by many, indeed with good reason, and his doctrine of the Resurrection was perhaps the chief reason why his orthodoxy was challenged. Origen himself never claimed any formal authority for his doctrine. He offered merely some explanation, to be tested and checked by the mind of the Church. For him it was not enough to refer simply to Divine omnipotence, as the earlier writers sometimes did, or to quote certain appropriate passages of Holy Scripture. One had rather to show how the doctrine of the Resurrection fitted into the general conception of human destiny and purpose. Origen was exploring a via media between the fleshly conception of the simpliciores and the denial of the Docetists: “fugere se et nostrorum carries, et haereticorum phantasmata,” as St. Jerome puts it.64 And both were dissatisfied and even offended.65 The General Resurrection is an article of faith indeed. The same individuals will rise, and the individual identity of the bodies will be preserved. But this does not imply for Origen any identity of material substance, or identity of status. The bodies indeed will be transfigured or transformed in the Resurrection. In any case, the risen body will be a “spiritual” body, and not a fleshly one. Origen takes up the simile of St. Paul. This fleshly body, the body of this earthly life, is buried in the earth, like a seed that is sown, and disintegrates. And one thing is sown, and another rises. The germinating power is not extinguished in the dead body, and in due season, by the word of God, the new body will be raised, like the ear that shoots forth from the seed. Some corporeal principle remains undestroyed and unaffected by the death. The term Origen used was obviously Aristotelian: “το είδος,” “species,” or “form.” But it is not the soul that Origen regards as the form of the body. It is rather a certain potential corporeality, pertaining to each soul and to each person. It is the forming and the quickening principle of the body, just a seed capable of germination. Origen also uses the term λόγος σπερματικός, ratio seminalis.66 It is impossible to expect that the whole body should be restored in the resurrection, since the material substance changes so quickly and is not the same in the body even for two days, and surely it can never be reintegrated again. The material substance in the risen bodies will be not the same as in the bodies of this life (το ύλικόν ύποκείμενον ουδέποτε έχει ταυτόν). Yet the body will be the same, just as our body is the same throughout this life in spite of all changes of its material composition. And again, a body must be adapted to the environment, to the conditions of life, and obviously in the Kingdom of Heaven the bodies cannot be just the same as here on earth. The individual identity is not compromised, because the “eidos” of each body is not destroyed (το εΐδος το χαράκτηριζον το σώμα). It is the very principium individuationis. To Origen the “body itself” is just this vital principle. His είδος closely corresponds to Aristotle’s εντελέχεια. But with Origen this “form” or germinative power is indestructible; that makes the construction of a doctrine of the resurrection possible. This “principle of individuation” is also principium surgendi. In this definite body the material particles are composed or arranged just by this individual “form” or λόγος. Therefore, of whatever particles the risen body is composed, the strict identity of the psycho-physical individuality is not impaired, since the germinative power remains unchangeable.67 Origen presumes that the continuity of individual existence is sufficiently secured by the identity of the reanimating principle. This view was more than once repeated later, especially under the renewed influence of Aristotle. And in modern Roman theology the question is still rather open: to what extent the recognition of the material identity of the risen bodies with the mortal ones belongs to the essence of the dogma.68 The whole question is rather that of metaphysical interpretation, not a problem of faith. It may even be suggested that on this occasion Origen expresses not so much his own, as rather a current opinion. There is very much that is questionable in Origen’s eschatological opinions. They cannot be regarded as a coherent whole. And it is not easy to reconcile his “Aristotelian” conception of the resurrection with a theory of the pre-existence of souls, or with a conception of the periodical recurrent cycles of worlds and final annihilation of matter. There is no complete agreement between this theory of the Resurrection and the doctrine of a “General apokatastasis” either. Many of Origen’s eschatological ideas may be misleading. Yet his speculation on the relation between the fleshly body of this life and the permanent body of the resurrection was an important step towards the synthetic conception of the Resurrection. His chief opponent, St. Methodius of Olympus, does not seem to have understood him well. St. Methodius’ criticisms amounted to the complete rejection of the whole conception of the είδος. Is not the form of the body changeable as well as the material substance? Can the form really survive the body itself, or rather is it dissolved and decomposed, when the body of which it is the form dies and ceases to exist as a whole? In any case the identity of the form is no guarantee of personal identity, if the whole material substratum is to be entirely different. For St. Methodius the “form” meant rather merely the external shape of the body, and not the internal vital power, as for Origen. And most of his arguments simply miss the point. But his emphasis on the wholeness of the human composition was a real complement to Origen’s rather excessive formalism.69
St. Gregory of Nyssa in his eschatological doctrine endeavored to bring together the two conceptions, to reconcile the truth of Origen with the truth of Methodius. And this attempt at a synthesis is of exceptional importance.70 St. Gregory starts with the empirical unity of body and soul, its dissolution in death. And the body severed from the soul, deprived of its “vital power” (ζωτική δύναμις),71 by which the corporeal elements are held and knit together during life, disintegrates and is involved into the general circulation of matter. The material substance itself, however, is not destroyed, only the body dies, not its elements. Moreover, in the very disintegration the particles of the decaying body preserve in themselves certain “signs” or “marks” of their former connection with their own soul (τα σημεία του ημετέρου συγκρίματος). And again, in each soul also certain “bodily marks” are preserved, as on a piece of wax - certain signs of union. By a “power of recognition” (γνωστική τη δυνάμει), even in the separation of death, the soul somehow remains nevertheless near the elements of its own decomposed body (του οικείου εφαπτομένη). In the day of resurrection each soul will be able by these double marks to “recognize” the familiar elements. This is the “είδος” of the body, its “inward image,” or “type.” St. Gregory compares this process of the restoration of the body with the germination of a seed, with the development of the human foetus. He differs sharply from Origen on the question as to what substance will constitute the bodies of the resurrection, and he joins here St. Methodius. If the risen bodies were constructed entirely from the new elements, that “would not be a resurrection, but rather the creation of a new man,” και ούκέτι αν είη το τοιούτον άνάστασις, άλλα καινοΰ ανθρώπου δημιουργία.72 The resurrected body will be reconstructed from its former elements, signed or sealed by the soul in the days of its incarnation, otherwise it would simply be another man. Nevertheless, the resurrection is not just a return, nor is it in any way a repetition of present existence. Such a repetition would be really an “endless misery.” In the resurrection human nature will be restored not to its present, but to its normal or “original” condition. Strictly speaking, it will be for the first time brought into that state, in which it ought to have been, had not sin and the Fall entered the world, but which was never realized in the past. And everything in human existence, which is connected with instability, is not so much a return as a consummation. This is the new mode of man’s existence. Man is to be raised to eternity, the form of time falls away. And in the risen corporeality all succession and change will be abolished and condensed. This will be not only an άποκατάστασις, but rather a “recapitulatio.” The evil surplus, that which is of sin, falls away. But in no sense is this a loss. The fullness of personality will not be damaged by this subtraction, for this surplus does not belong to the personality at all. In any case, not everything is to be restored in human composition. And to St. Gregory the material identity of the body of the resurrection with the mortal body means, rather, the ultimate reality of the life once lived, which must be transferred into the future age. Here again he differs from Origen, to whom this empirical and earthly life was only a transient episode to be ultimately forgotten. For St. Gregory the identity of the form, i.e. the unity and continuity of individual existence, was the only point of importance. He holds the same “Aristotelian” conception of the unique and intimate connection of the individual soul and body. The very idea of uniqueness is radically modified in Christian philosophy as compared with the pre-Christian Greek. In Greek philosophy it was a “sculptural” uniqueness, an invariable crystallization of a frozen image. In Christian experience it is the uniqueness of the life once experienced and lived. In the one case it was a timeless identity, in the other it is a uniqueness in time. The whole conception of time is different in the two cases.
Continued in Part 3 Notes and References
30. Celsus ap. Origen., Contra Celsum, V.14: άτεχνώς σκωλήκων ή έλπίς, ποία γαρ ανθρώπου ψυχή ποθήσειεν ετι σώμα σεσηπός;
31. Koetschau 15; and VII.36 and 39, p. 186, 189.
32. St. Augustine, Confessiones, l.V, X.19-20, ed. Labriolle, p. 108 ss.: tnultumque mihi turpe videbatur credere figuram te habere humanae carnis et membrorum nostrum liniamentis corporalibus terminari... metuebam itaque credere incarnatum, ne credere cogerer ex carne inquinatum .. . It was just the “embodiment,” the life in a body, that offended St. Augustine. In his Manichean period St. Augustine could not get beyond corporeal categories at all. Everything was corporeal for him, even the Intellect, even Deity itself. He emphasizes that in the same chapters where he is speaking of the shame of the Incarnation: “et quoniam cum de Deo meo cogitare vellem, cogitare nisi moles corporum non noveram .. . neque enim videbatur mihi esse quicquam, quod tale non esset. . .. quid et mentem cogitare non noveram nisi earn subtile corpus esse, quod tamen per loci spatia difjunderetur [V. 19, 20, p. 108, 110]; non te cogitabam, Deus, in figura corporis humani.. . sed quod te aliud cogitarem non occurebat. . ., corporeum tamen aliquid cogitare cogerer . . . quoniam quidquid privabam spatiis talibus, nihil mihi esse xidebatur, sed prorsus nihil [VII. 1, p. 145-146] .. . All is corporeal, but there are stages or levels, and the “bodily-existence” is the lower level. One has to get out of that. The “materialistic” presuppositions of Manicheanism did not calm this rather instinctive “abhorrence of the body.”
33. Plotinus, V.8.8: παν γαρ τό κατ’ άλλου ποιηθέν οταν τις θαυμάση, έπ’ έκεινο έχει τό θαυμα, καθ’ ο εστι πεποιημένον.
34. Plotinus, II.9.15 to the end.
35. Plotinus, III.6.6: ή δέ αληθινή έγρήγορσις αληθινή άπό σώματος, ου μετά σώματος άνάστασις. The polemical turn of these utterances is obvious. The body is το άλλότριον, which does not properly belong to the human being [1.6.7]; it is what comes in at the earthly birth [τό προσπλασθέν έν τη γενέσει IV.7.14]. Cf. R. Arnou, Le desk de Dieu dans la Philosophie de Plotin (Paris, 1924), p. 201: “Le mot est a noter Le sensible est comme un enduit, une espece de crepissage, une couche de peinture qui n’entre pas dans I’essence de I’etre, mats qui s’ajoutant du dehors, peut etre grattee sans Valterer, car elle reste toujours ’I’autre’.” One has to dominate this alien element of the composition, but one can achieve that only by running away, or “thither”: άλλα ού καθαρόν τό δυνάμενον κρατεΐν, ει μή φύγοι, 1.8.8. Plotinus does not suggest a suicide, like the Stoics, but rather an inner effort to overcome or dominate all lower desires and carnal affections, to concentrate on one’s own self and to ascend towards the good; 1.6.7: άναβατέον έπΐ τό αγαθόν; 6.9: ανάγε έπι σαύτόν καταλειπεΐν μόνη ν και μή μετ” άλλων ή μή προς άλλο βλέπουσαν κτλ.; VI.9.4: μόνος εΐναι άποστάς πάντων. Of course, man is not soul alone, but rather soul in a certain relation, έν τοιωδε λόγω, and Plotinus clings to the Platonic definition [Alcib. 129e: τό τω σώματι χρώμενον], IV.7.5.8. But he declines the Aristotelian conception of an εντελέχεια. In any case, the body is an obstacle for the spiritual ascension (έμπόδιον), a source of sorrows and desires, IV.8.2.3. And the soul can be free and truly independent (κυριωτάτη αυτής καΐ ελευθέρα) only without the body, άνευ σώματος, III.1.8. The incarnate existence of the soul is, both for Plotinus and for Plato himself, only a transitory and abnormal, an unhappy episode in her destiny, an outcome of the “fall”; and the soul will soon forget this earthly life altogether when she has “returned” and ascended into glorious bliss, through death or ecstasy. The comparison of the incarnate and sensual life with a sleep comes from Plato [e.g. Tim. 52b], it was quite usual in Philo. The image of escape is Platonic too: “One has to endeavor to run thither from here as quickly as possible.” Theaet. 176a: ένθέντε έκεΐσε φεύγειν. And the true philosopher is one who is ready and willing to die, and whose whole life is but an “exercise in dying,” or even, a “rehearsal of death,” μελέτη θανάτου, Phaedo 64a. See J. Burnet, in his edition of the Phaedo, 1911, Notes, p. 28 and 72: μελέτη “means the ’practising’ or ’rehearsal’ of death”; cf. Phaedo 67d: φύσις και χωρισμός ψυχής άπό σώματος; 81a: τεθνάναι μελετώσα ραδίως; cf. Α. Ε. Taylor, Plato, The Man and His Work, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1927), p. 178ff.; “μελέτη means the repeated practice by which we prepare ourselves for a performance,” and not just a meditation of death; it is precisely a “rehearsal,” p. 179, note. Cf. later in Cicero, Τ use. 1.30: “tota enim philosophorum vita ut ait idem(s) commentatio mortis est; and Seneca, Epist. 26: egregia res est mortem condiscere. Prof. Taylor stresses the Platonic phrase: “before he was man” [Memo 86a: άν μή f] άνθρωπος], and comments: “This way of speaking about our ante-natal conditions is characteristic for Phaedo too: it implies that the true self is not as is commonly thought, the embodied soul, but the soul simpliciter, the body being the instrument (όργανον) which the soul “uses,” and the consequent definition of “man” as a “soul using a body as its instrument,” p. 138, note 1. Cf. John Burnet, “Introduction” to his edition of the Phaedo, p. LIII: “It is sufficiently established that the use of the word ψυχή to express a living man’s true personality is Orphic in its origin, and came into philosophy from mysticism. Properly speaking, the ψυχή of a man is a thing which only becomes important at the moment of death. In ordinary language it is only spoken of as something that may be lost; it is in fact ’the ghost,’ which a man ’gives up’.”
36. Cf. Biichsel, s.v. άπολύτρωσις, in Kittel’s Wvrterbuch, IV, s. 355: “Die άπολύτρωσις του σώματος ist Rom. VIII.23 nicht die Erlosung vom Leibe, sondern die Erlosung des Leibes. Das beweist der Vergleich mit v.21 unweigerlich. Wie die Geschopfe zur Freiheit der Herrlichkeit gelangen, indem sie frei werden von der Sklaverei der Verganglichkeit, so sollen auch wir zur υιοθεσία, d.h. zur Einsetzung in die Sohnesstellung mit ihrer Herrlichkeit, gelangen, indem unser Leib, der tot ist um der Sunde willen (v.10), von dies em Τ odes lose frei wird und Unverganglichkeit bzw. Unsterblichkeit anz’teht (l Cor. XV.53, 54). Leiblosigkeit ist jiir Paulus nicht Erlosung, sondern ein schrecklicher Zustand [2 Cor. V.2-4] etc.”
37. St. John Chrysostom, de resurrectione mortuorum, 6, M.G. L, c. 427-428.
38. Minutius Felix, Octavius, 34, ed. Halm, p. 49.
39. V. F. Ern, Letters on Christian Rome, 3rd letter, “The Catacombs of St. Callistus,” Bogoslovskii Vestnik, 1913 (January), p. 106 [Russian].
. St. Athanasius, De incarnatione, 21, M.G. XXV, p. 123.
41. St. Justin regarded the belief in the General Resurrection as one of the cardinal articles of the Christian faith: if one does not believe in the Resurrection of the dead, one can hardly be regarded as a Christian at all; Dial, 80, M.G. VI, 665: ot και λέγουσι μή είναι νεκρών άνάστασιν, αλλ9 άμα τω άποθανεΐν τάς ψυχάς αυτών άναλαμβανέσθαι είς ούρανόν, μή απολαμβάνετε αυτούς χριστιανούς. Cf. Ε. Gilson, UEsprit de la Philosophie Medievale, I (Paris 1932), p. 177: “On surprendrait aujourd’hui beaucoup de chretiens en leur disant que la croyance en V immortalite de I’dme chez certains des plus anciens Peres est obscure au point d’etre a peu pres inexistante. Cest pourtant un fait, et il est important de le noter parce qu’il met merveilleusement en relief Vaxe central de I’anthropologie chretienne et la raison de son evolution historique. Au fond, un Christianisme sans immortalite de I’ame n’eut pas ete absolument inconcevable et la preuve en est qu’il a ete congue. Ce qui serait, au contraire, absolument inconcevable, c’est un Christianisme sans resurrection de I’Homme.” See Excursus II, Anima mortalis.
42. Paul Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, An Essay in Christian Theodicy (Moscow, 1914), p. 291-292 [Russian].
43. Cf. the most interesting remarks of E. Gilson in his Gifford lectures, L’Esprit de la Philosophie Medievale, I (Paris, 1932), the whole chapter IX, L’anthropologie chretienne, p. 173 ss. Gilson seems to have underestimated the Aristotelian elements in Early Patristics, but he gives an excellent mis au point of the whole problem.
44. In his early dialogue Eudemus, or On the Soul, composed probably ca. 354 or 353, Aristotle still clings close to Plato and plainly professes the belief in an individual survival or immortality of the soul. It was a kind of a sequel to the Phaedo, a book of personal consolation like it. There was the same intimate quest for immortality, for the after-life, “a fervor of longing for the peace and security of the heavenly plains” [W. Jaeger, Aristoteles, Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwkklung (Berlin, 1923); English translation by R. Robins, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1934, p. 40]. It is worth noticing that even so early Aristotle used to describe the soul as an “eidos,” although not in the same sense as in his later writings; Simpl., in De anima III.62, frg. 46 Rose; Heitz p. 51: και διά τούτο και έν τω Εύδήμω διαλόγω εΐδος τι αποφαίνεται την ψυχήν εΐναι, και έν τούτοις έπαινεΐ τους των ειδών δεκτικήν λέγοντος τήν ψυχήν, ουχ ολην, άλλα νοητική ν ως τών αληθών δευτέρως ειδών γνωστικήν. In his later works, and specially in De anima, Aristotle abandons and criticizes his earlier view. And in his Ethics, in any case, he has no “eschatological” perspective whatever. “Now death is the most terrible of all things, for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead” [Eth. Nicom. III.6, 1115a 27]. Yet, he suggests, “we must, as far as we can, make ourselves immortal (έφ’ οσον ενδέχεται άθανατίζειν) and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us” [1177b 33]. But this means only that one has to live in accordance with reason, which reason is hardly human, but rather superhuman. “But such a life would be too high for man (κρείττω ή κατ’ άνθρωπον), for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him” [1117b 26]. The very purpose of human life, and the complete happiness of man, consists in a contemplation of the things noble and divine [1177a 15]. “And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy but for a short time (μικρόν χρόνον), for it is ever in this state, which we cannot be, etc.” [Metaphysics, 7, 1072b 15]. It would be a divine life, and it is beyond the human reach. “God is always in that good state in which we sometimes (ττοτέ) are” [1.25]. Even contemplation does not break the earthly circle of human existence. No after-death destiny is mentioned at all. The attempt of Thomas Aquinas and of his school to read the doctrine of human immortality into Aristotle was hardly successful. One may adapt the Aristotelian conception for Christian purposes, and this was just what was done by the Fathers. But Aristotle himself obviously “was not a Moslem mystic, nor a Christian theologian” [R. D. Hicks, in the “Introduction” to his edition of De anima, Cambridge, at the University Press, 1934, p. XVI].
45. De anima, 402a 6: εστί γαρ οΐον αρχή τών ζώων; 412b 16: τό τι ή εήναι και ο λόγος; 415b 8: του ζώντος σώματος αιτία και αρχή; 415b 17: τό τέλος; De part. anim. 64Lamentations 27 : ώς ή κινούσα και ώς τό τέλος; Metaph. 7. 10, 1035b 14: ή κατά τόν λόγον ουσία κατά τό ειδος και τό τι ην ειναι τω τοιώδε σώματι.
46. Aristotle plainly rejected any speech of “communion,” “composition,” or “connection” of soul with body (συνουσία ή σύνθεσις ή σύνδεσμος); “the proximate matter and the form are one and the same thing, the one potentially, and the other actually,” εστί ο’ ή εσχάτη υλη και ή μορφή τό αυτό καΐ ’εν, τό μέν δυνάμει τό δ’ ένεργόν. Metaph. Η. 6 1045b 9s. Cf. F. Ravaisson, Essai sur la metaphysique d’Aristote (Paris, 1836), I, p. 419-420: The soul is ’Ία realite derniere d’un corps” that which gives it life and proper individuality. “Elle n’est pas le corps, mais sans le corps elle ne pent pas etre. Elle est quelque chose du corps; et ce quelque chose n’est pas ni la figure, ni le mouvement, ni un accident quelconque, mais la forme meme de la vie, Vactivite specifique qui determine Vessence et tons ses accidents”; cf. O. Hamelin, Le Systeme d’Aristote, p. 374: “cette aptitude a fonctionner est precisement ce qu’Aristote appelle I’entelechie premiere du corps.”
47. G. S. Brett, A History of Psychology, Ancient and Patristic (London, 1912), p. 103; cf. H. Siebeck, Geschichte der Psychologie, 1.2 (Gotha, 1884), s. 13f. Prof. E. Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers (Glasgow, 1904), I, p. 274ff., points out the complete originality of the Aristotelian conception of the soul. “The Aristotelian idea of the soul is, indeed, a new and original conception.” The soul is to Aristotle not the Intelligence, but just “the form which realizes, or brings into activity and actuality, the capacities of an organic body.” And therefore, there can hardly be any inter-telauon of the soul and the body, for they are really one and the same reality: “soul and body seem to be taken by him as different, but essentially correlated aspects of the life of one individual substance.” And yet this is only one of the aspects of the Aristotelian conception. And in many respects Aristotle comes back to a Platonic idea of a composite being, σύνθετον, in which the heterogeneous elements are combined, a spiritual principle and a material body, p. 282, 317.
48. De part. anim. 64Lamentations 18 : απελθούσης γουν (της ψυχής) ούκέτι ζώων έστι; Meteor. IV.12, 389b 31: νεκρός άνθρωπος ομώνυμος.
49. On Aristoxenus, see Zeller, II.2, s. 888 and note: ap. Cicer. Tusc. 1.10.20, ipsius corporis intentionem quandam (animam); ap. Lactantium, Instit. VII. 13, qui negavit omnino ullam esse animam, etiam cum vivit in cor pore; on Dikaearchus, Zeller, s. 889f and notes: Cicer. Tusc. 1.10.21, nihil esse omnino animum et hoc esse nomen totum inane; Sext. Pyrrh. 11.31, μη εΐναι την ψυχήν; Math. VII, 349, μηδέν εΐναι αυτήν παρά τό πώς έχον σώμα; on Strato, Zeller, s. 9l6f and notes.
50. G. S. Brett, p. 159.
51. “See Zeller, s. 864ff.
52. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in De anima, 16.2 Bruns; 21.24: φθαρτού σώματος είδος; cf. Zeller, III.l, s. 712ff.
53. De anima, 129a 28: ή νοητική ψυχή; Eth. Nicom. X.7, 1178a 6: “since reason more than anything else is man,” εΐπερ τουτο μάλιστα άνθρωπος.
54. R. D. Hicks, p. 326; E. Rohde, Psyche, Seelencult und Unsterb-lichkeitsglaube der Griechen, 3 Aufl. (193), B. II, s. 305, suggested that the whole doctrine of Nous was simply a survival of Aristotle’s early Platonism. This idea was taken up by W. Jaeger, op. cit., p. 332: “In this connection the third book On the soul, which contains the doctrine of Nous, stands out as peculiarly Platonic and not very scientific. This idea is an old and permanent element of Aristotle’s philosophy, one of the main roots of his metaphysics . .. On and around the psycho-physical theory of the soul was subsequently constructed, as it appears, without, however, bridging the gulf between two parts whose intellectual heritages were so different.. . The doctrine of Nous was a traditional element, inherited from Plato.”
55. De gen. anim. II.3, 736b 27: λείπεται δέ τόν νουν μόνον θύραθεν έπεισιέναι και θειον ειναι μόνον, ούθέν γαρ αύτοϋ κοινωνεί σωματική ενέργεια; De anima, 4l3b 25: εοικε ψυχής γένος έτερον είναι, και τούτο μόνον ενδέχεται χωριζεσθαι καθάπερ το άΐδιον του φθαρτού; 430a 5: soul and body cannot be separated, ούκ έ’στιν ή ψυχή χωριστή του σώματος; “there is, however, no reason why some parts (of the soul) should not be separated, if they are not actualities of any body whatsoever,” δια το μηθένος εΐναι σώματος εντελέχειας; 430a 17: καΐ ουτος ό νους χωριστός και απαθής και αμιγής, τη ουσία ών ενέργεια . . ., χωρισθείς δ’ εστι, μόνον τουθ’ οπερ εστιν, και τούτο μόνον άθάνατον και άΐδιον .. , ό δέ παθητικός νους φθαρτός και άνευ τούτο ουδέν.
56. De anima, 430a 25: ού μνημονεύομεν δ9 δτι τούτο μέν άλσ... , . .δέ παθητικός νους φθαρτός; cf. 408b 27: διό και τούτον φθειρομένου οϋτε μνημονεύει, οϋτε φιλεΐ; the meaning is obvious: whatever does survive in man after his physical death, the memory is lost, and therewith the individual continuity. See Zeller, II.2, p. 574, n. 3: die Continuitat des Bewusstseins zwischen dem Leben des mit der lei-dentlichen Vernunft verbundenen und des von ihr freien Nus sowohl nach ruckwdrts wie nach vorwarts aufhebt”; cf. G. Rodier, in the notes to his edition, II, p. 465 s. This was the interpretation of ancient commentators too.
57. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in De anima, 89.11 Bruns: καΐ £στΐν ό τοιούτος νους χωριστός τε και απαθής και αμιγής άλλω, δι πάντα αύτφ δια το χωρίς ϋλης είναι υπάρχει. Χωριστός τε γαρ καΐ αυτός καθ’ αυτόν ών δια τούτο. ’Απαθής δέ ων καΐ μή με-μιγμένος ϋλη τινι και άφθαρτος έστιν, ενέργεια ών καΐ εΐδος χωρίς δυνάμεως τε καΐ ϋλης’ τοιούτον δέ δν δέδεικται ύπ’ ’Αριστοτέλους το πρώτον αίτιον, δ καΐ κυρίως Μστι νους; 90.23-91.1: ό ουν νοούμενος άφθαρτος έν ήμΐν οδτος έστιν δτι χωριστός τε έν ήμΐν και άφθαρτος νους, δν και θύραθεν ’Αριστοτέλης λέγει, νους ό έξωθεν γινόμενος έν ήμΐν, άλλ’ ούχ ή δύναμις της έν ήμΐν ψυχής, ουδέ ή έξις; Mantissa, 108, 22: θύραθεν έστι λεγόμενος νους ό ποιητικός, ούκ ών μόριον καΐ δύναμίς τις της ημετέρας ψυχής, άλλ’ έξωθεν γινόμενος έν ήμΐν, δταν αυτόν νοώμεν; 113: χωριστός δέ λέγεται ό θύραθεν νους και χωρίζεται ημών, ούχ ώς μετ’ ών που και αμείβων τόπον, άλλα χωριστός μέν ώς καθ’ αυτόν τε ών και μή σύν ϋλη, χωριζόμενος δέ ημών τω μή νοεΐσθαι κτλ. . . . This interpretation is accepted by most modem scholars: F. Ravaisson, Essai sur la Metaphysique d’Aristote (Paris, 1837), I, p. 587-588; Ch. Renouvier, Manuel de Philosophie anc’tenne (Paris, 1844), II, 134, note 3; E. Rohde, Psyche, II, -30Iff.; E. Zeller, II.2, s. 566f.: “gelehrt hat er nur die Fortdauer des denkenden Geistes, die Bedingungen des personlichen Daseins dagegen hat er ihm hierbei entsagen; . . . so wenig uns seine Metaphysik einen klaren und widerspruchlosen Aufschluss uber die Individualitat gab, ebensowenig gtbt uns seine Psychologie einen solchen uber die Personlichkeit”; O. Hamelin, System d’Aristote, 2ed. (Paris), p. 387; “Aristote a laisse le probleme sans solution, ou plutot peut-etre il a volontairement evite de le poser!’ The mediaeval interpretation of the Aritotelian conception of the soul was very different. Thomas Aquinas and others insisted that Aristotle himself made a distinction between an animal soul and an “intelligent soul” of man, and that he regarded this human soul as an immortal and surviving individual being. One can agree that the Aristotelian conception could be remolded to such an effect, and this was precisely what was done by the Fathers. But it is hardly probable that Aristotle himself professed an individual immortality. The Thomistic thesis was presentd with great vigor by M. De Corte, La Doctrine de VIntelligence chez Aristote (Paris, J. Vrin, 1934). But the author himself had to concede that Aristotle never thought in the terms of personality, but perhaps subconsciously [p. 91ss].
58. Hegel, Vorlesungen uber die Aesthetik, S.W. x.2, s. 377: “In seinen Dichtern und Rednern, Geschichtsschreibern und Philosophen hat Grie-chenland noch nicht in seinem Mittelpunkte gefasst, wenn man nicht als Schliissel zu Verstdndniss die Einsicht in die Ideale der Skulptur mitbringt, und von dies em Standpunkt der Plastik aus so wo hi die Gestalten der epischen und dramatischen Helden, als auch die wirklichen Staatsmdnner und Philosophen betrachtet”; see the whole of the section on Sculpture, which was for Hegel a peculiarly “classical art,” s. 353ff.
59. A. F. Lossev, Essays on Ancient Symbolism and Mythology, t I (Moscow, 1930), p. 670, 632, 633. This book is a valuable contribution to research on Plato and Platonism, including Christian Platonism. Passed by the ordinary censorship in Soviet Russia, the book was very soon confiscated and taken out of circulation upon the insistence of anti-religious leaders, and the whole stock was apparently destroyed. Very few copies survived. The author was probably imprisoned. Cf. also Lossev’s earlier book, Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science (Moscow, 1927), a fine thrilling study of Neoplatonism, particularly of Proclus, with valuable excursus on the earlier thinkers. Both are in Russian.
60. This unity of man is brought forward by Alexander of Aphrodisias in the important passage of his commentary, in De anima, 23.8: ώς γαρ ου λέγομεν βαδίζειν την ψυχήν η όραν ή άκούειν, άλλα κατά την ψυχήν τον άνθρωπον, ούτως καί, οδσας αλλάς ενεργείας τε καί κινήσεις ώς έμψυχος τε καί ώς άνθρωπος ένεργεΐ, ούχ ή ψυχή έστιν ή ενεργούσα τε και κινούμενη . . . αλλ’ εστί και έν έκείναις το ζώον καί ό άνθρωπος κατά τήν ψυχήν ενεργών, καθ’ ην εστίν αύτω το είναι άνθρώπω.
61. It is true that Nemesius of Emesa, in his famous treatise De natura hominis, formally rejected the Aristotelian definition of the soul, as of an εντελέχεια of the body; M.G. XL, c. 565: ου δύναμιν τοίνυν ή ψυχή, κατ’ ούδένα τρόπον εντελέχεια του σώματος είναι άλλ’ ουσία αυτοτελής, ασώματος. But his position was rather exceptional, since he was inclined to admit the pre-existence of the soul.
62. Athenagoras, De resurrectione mort., 13, p. 63 Schwartz: άπλανεστάτω δέ πεπιστεύκαμεν έχεγγύω τη του δημιουργήσαντος ή μας γνώμη, καθ’ ην έποίησεν ανθρωπον εκ ψυχής αθανάτου και σώματος νουν τε συγκατασκεύασεν αύτώ καΐ νόμου εμφυτον έπί σωτηρία καΐ φυλακή τών παρ5 αύτου διδυμένον: ή μεν της γενέσεως αίτια πιστουται την εις αεί διαμονή ν, ή δε διαμονή τήν άνάστασιν, ής χωρίς ουκ αν διαμείνειν άνθρωπος, εκ δέ τών είρημένων εύδήλον ώς τή της γενέσεως αιτία και τη γνώμη του ποιήσαντος δείκνυνται σαφώς σαφώς ή άνάστασις; 15, ρ. 65: ει γαρ πάσα κοινώς ή τών ανθρώπων φύσις εκ ψυχής αθανάτου και του κατά τήν γένεσιν αύτη συναρμοσθέντος σώματος έχει τήν σύστασιν και μήτε τή φύσει του σώματος χωρίς άπεκλήρωσεν θεός τήν τοιάνδε γένεσιν ή τήν ζωήν και τον σύμπαντα βίον, αλλά τοις έκ τούτων ήνωμένοις άνθρώποις, ϊν, έξ ών ήνωνται και ζώσι, διαβιώσαντα εις εν τι και κοινόν καταλήξωσιν τέλος, δει, πάντως ενός δντος έξ αμφοτέρων ζώου του και πάσχοντος όπόσα πάθη ψυχής και όπόσα του σώματος ενεργούντος τε και πράττοντος δποσα της αισθητικής ή τής λογικής δεΐται κρίσεως, προς εν τι τέλος άναφέρεσθαι πάντα τον έκ τούτων είρμόν, ίνα πάντα και διά πάντων συντρέχη προς μίαν άρμονίαν και τήν αύτήνσυμπάθειαν, ανθρώπου γένεσις, ανθρώπου φύσις, ανθρώπου ζωή, ανθρώπου πράξεις και πάθη και βίος και το τή φύσει προσήκον τέλος; ρ. 66: ταύτης γάρ χωρίς οϋτ’ αν ένωθείη, τά αυτά μέρη κατά φύσιν άλλήλοις, οϋτ’ αν συσταίη τών αυτών ανθρώπων ή φύσις; ό δέ και νουν και λόγον δεξάμενος έστι άνθρωπος, ου ψυχή καθ’ έαυτήν, ανθρωπον άρα δει τον έξ αμφοτέρων δντα διαμένειν εις αεί, τούτον δέ διαμένειν αδύνατον μή άνιστόμενον’ αναστάσεως γάρ μή γινομένης, ουκ άν ή τών ανθρώπων ώς ανθρώπων διαμένει φύσις. On the Aristotelian background of Athenagoras’ conception see M. Pohlenz, Zeitsckrift fur die Wissensch. Theologie, Bd. 47, s. 241 ff.; cf. E. Schwartz, index graecus to his edition of Aihenagorus, s.v. Eldos, s. 105. See also J. Lehmann, Die Auferstehungslehre des Athenagoras, Diss. (Leipsiz, 1890).
63. Cf. E. Gilson, L’Esprit de la Philosophie Medievale, I (Paris, 1932), p. 199: “Lorsqu’on pese les expressions d’Athenagore, la profondeur Deuteronomy 1:1-46’influence exercee par la Bonne Nouvelle sur la pensee philosophique apparait a plein. Cree par Dieu comme une individual^ distincte, conserve par un acte de creation continuee dans l’etre qu’il a recu de lui, l’homme est desormais le personnage d’un drame qui est celui de sa propre destinee. Comme il ne dependait pas de nous d’exister, il ne depend pas de nous de ne plus exister. Le decret divin nous a condamnes a l’etre; faits par la creation, refaits par la redemption, et a quel prix! nous n’avons le croix qu’entre une misere ou une beatitude egalement eternelles. Rien de plus resistant qu’une individualite de ce genre, prevue, voulue, e’lue par Dieu, indestructible comme le decret divin lui-meme qui l’a fait naitre; mais rien aussi qui soit plus etranger a la philosophie de Platon comme a celle d’Aristote. La encore, a partir du moment ou elle visait pleine justification rationelle de son esperance, la pens£e chrotienne se trouvait contrainte a l’originalite.”
64. St. Jerome, Epist. 38, alias 61, ad Pammachium.
65. Cf. Origen, De Principiis, 11.10.3, Koetschau 184: qui vel pro intellectus exiguiiate, vel explanationis inopia valde vilem et abjectum sensum de resurrectione corporis introducunt.
66. Cf. F. Prat, Origene, Le theologian et I’exeghe (Paris, 1907), p. 94: “Contre son habitude, Origene se montre disciple trop fidele du Stagirite”; E. de Faye, Origene, Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensee, v. Ill (Paris, 1928), p. 172, suggested that Origen knew Aristotle quite well and had studied directly at least De anima and the Nicomachean Ethics. “Notre theologien est beaucoup plus redevable a Aristote qu’on ne le suppose. Directement ou indirectement, il a subi son influence. Celle ci s’est fait sentir notamment dans le domaine de la science de I’homme.” And de Faye insisted that one could never understand Origen’s ideas on the soul without a careful and detailed confrontation with those of Aristotle. See also R. Cadiou, La Jeunesse dOrigene (Paris, 1935), p. 119.
67. Origen dealt with the doctrine of the Resurrection on several occasions: first in his early commentary on the first Psalm and in a special treatise De resurrectione, which is now available only in fragments preserved by Mehodius and in the Apology of Pamphilus; then in De Principiis; and finally in Contra Celsum. There was no noticeable development in his views. See Selecta in Psalms 1:5, M.G. XII, c. 1906: δπερ πότε έχαρακτηρίζετο έν τη σαρκι, τούτο χαράκτη ρισθήσεται έν τω πνευματικώ σώματι; c 1907: δ σπερματικός λόγος έν τω κόκκω του σίτου δραξάμενος της παρακείμενης ϋλης, και δι’ δλης αυτής χωρίσας κτλ.; cf. ap. Method. De resurr. 1.223, p. 244 Bonw.: τό ύλικόν ύποκε’ιμενον ουδέποτε έχει ταύτόν διόπερ ού κακώς ποταμός ώνόμαστε τό σώμα, διότι ώς προς τό ακριβές τάχα ουδέ δύο ήμερων τό πρώτον ύποκείμενον ταυτόν έστιν έν τφ σώματι ημών .. . καν ρευστή ή ν ή φύσις του σώματος, τω τό είδος τό χαράκτηρίζον τό σώμα ταύτόν εΐναι, ώς και τους τύπους μένειν τους αυτούς τος τήν ποιότητα Πέτρου και Παύλου τήν σωματικήν παριστάνοντος . . . τούτο τό είδος, καθ’ δ ειδιοποιεΐται ό Παύλος καΐ ό Πέτρος, τό σωματικόν, δ έν τη άναστάσει περι-τίθεται πάσιν τη ψυχή, επί τό κρεΐττον μεταβάλλον. The same ap. Pamphil. Apologia pro Origene, cap. 7, M.G. SVII, c. 594: nos vero post corruptionem mundi eosdem ipsos futuros esse homines dicimus, licet non in eodem statu, neque in iisdem passionibus; p. 594-5: per illam ipsam substantialem rationem, quae salva permanet; ratio ilia substantiae corporalis in ipsis corboribus permanebat\ p. 595: rationis illius virtus quae est insita in interioribus ejus medullis; De Princ. II.10.I, Koetschau: virtus resurre-ctionis; schema aliquid\ 10.3: Ita namque etiam nostra corpora velut granum cadere in terrain putanda sunt; quibus insita ratio, ea quae substantiam continet corporalem, quamvis emortua fuerint corpora et corrupta atque dispersa, verbo tamen Dei ratio ilia ipsa quae semper in substantia corporis salva est, erigat ea de terra, et restituat ac reparet, sicut ea virtus quae est in grano frumenti. ..; Dei jussu ex terreno et animali corpore corpus reparat spiritale, quod habitare possit in coelis; Sic et in ratione hamanorum corporum manent quaedam surgendi antiqua principia, et quasi έντεριώνη id est seminarium mortuorum, sinu terrae conjovetur. Cum autem judicii dies advenerit, et in voce Archangeli et in novissima tuba tremuerit terra, movebuntur statim semina, et in puncto horae mortuos germinabunt; non tamen easdem carnes, nee in his formis restituent quae fuerunt; cf. III.6.Isq., Koetschau, 280 ss.; 111.6.6., p. 288: sed hocidem (corpus), abjectis his infirmitatibus in quibus nunc est, in gloriam transmu-tabitur spiritale effectum, ut quod fuit indignitatis vas, hoc ipsum expurga-tum fiat vas honoris et beatitudinis habitaculum; Contra Celsum, IV.57, Koetschau 330: διό και την άνάστασιν των νεκρών άναδεχόμενοι μεταβολάς φάμεν γενέσθαι ποιοτήτων τών έν σώμασιν* έκεΐ σπει-ρόμενά τίνα αυτών έν φθορά εγείρεται έν αφθαρσία και σπει-ρόμενα έν ατιμία εγείρεται έν δόξη κτλ.; V.18, ρ : ου το γε-νησόμενον σώμα φήσι σπείρεσθαι, αλλ’ από του σπειρομένου και γυμνού βαλλομένου έπι την γήν λέγει, δίδοντος του θεού έκά-στω τών σπερμάτων ίδιον σώμα, οιονεί άνάστασιν γίγνεσθαι’ άπό του καταβεβλημένου σπέρματος έγειρομένου στάχυος έν τοις τοιοΐσδε’ οιονεί έν νάπυΐ ή έπί μείζονος δένδρου έν έλαίας πυ-ρήνι f] τινι τών άκροθρύων; V.23, ρ. : ήμεΐς μεν συν ου φάμεν το διαφθαρέν σώμα έπανέρχεσθαι εις την έξ αρχής φύσιν. . . λέγομεν γαρ ώσπερ έπι του κόκκου του σίτου εγείρεται στάχυς, ούτω λόγος τις έγκειται τω σώματι, άφ1 οδ μη φθειρομένου εγείρεται το σώμα έν αφθαρσία. He contrasts himself, his xiew, with the Stoic idea on an identical repetition. See D. Huetius, Origeniana, l.II, c. II, q.9; de resurrectione mortuorum, M.G. XVII, c. 980 sq.; Redepenning, Origenes (Bonn, 1846), Bd. II, s. 118ff.; C. Ramers, Des Origenes Lehre von der Auferstehung des Fleisches, In. Diss. (Trier, 1851); J. B. Kraus, Die Lehre das Origens iiber die Auferstehung der Toten, Programm (Regensburg, 1859), J. Denis, La Philosophie d’Origene (Paris, 1884), p. 297 ss.; Ch. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (Oxford, 1886), p. 225-227, 265f., 291; the soul has a vital assimilative “spark,” or “principles,” which lays hold of fitting matter, and shapes it into a habitation suited to its needs; the same process, by which it repairs the daily waste of our organism now, will enable it then to construct a wholly new tenement for itself; L. Atzberger, Geschichte der Christlichen Eschatologie innerhalb der Vornizaenischen Zeit (Freiburg i/Br., 1896), s. 366-456; N. Bonwetsch, Die Theologie des Methodius von Olympus, Abhandlungen d. K. Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, N.F. VII, 1904, s. 105 ff.; F. Prat, Origene, p. 87 ss.; G. Bardy, Origene, Dictionnaire de la Theologie Cath., t.XI, 1931, c. 1545 s.; R. Cadiou, La Jeunesse d’Origene, p. 117 ss.: “virtualite physique ou Γ idee du corps/’ nune idee active/’ “a la fois une idee et une energie” (p. 122, note); “I’dme conserve toujours les virtualites d’une vie physique proportionnees a ses besoins.” Cf. also Bp. Westcott’s article on Origen in Smith and Wace Dictionary, IV, 1887.
68. Among the late scholastics, Durandus of San Porciano must be mentioned, ’doctor resolutissimus” (d. 1332 or 1334). He puts the question: “Supposito quod anima Petri fieret in mater ia quae fuit in cor pore Pauli, utrum esset idem Petrus qui prius erat? and answers positively: “cuicumque materiae uniatur anima Petri in resurrectione, ex quo est eadem forma secundum numerum per consequens erit idem Petrus secundum numerum”; quoted by Fr. Segarra, S.J., De identhate corporis mortalis et corporis re-surgenus (Madrid, 1929), p. 147. See Quaestiones de Novissimis, auctore L. Billot, S.J., Romae 1902, thesis ΧΙΠ, p. 143 sq.
69. See St. Methodius’ De resurrectione in the complete edition of Bonwetsch, specially the 3rd book. Cf. Bonwetsch, opus cit., S. 119 ff.: J. Farges, Les idees morales et religieuses de Methode d’Olympe (Paris, 1929); Folke Bostrom, Studier till den Grekiska Theologins Fralsningslara (Lund, 1932), s. 135 ff. and passim.
70. Of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s writings, his dialogue De anima et resurrectione, his homilies De opificio hominis and the Great Catechetical oration are of special importance. See the introductory article of Srawley in his edition of the Catechetical oration, specially on the relation of St. Gregory to St. Methodius. Cf. Hilt, Des heil. Gregors von Nyssa Lehre vom Menschen (Koln, 1890); F. Kiekamp, Die Gotteslehre des heiligen Gregor von Nyssa, I (Miinster, 1895), s. 41 ff.; K. Gronau, Poseidonius und die jiidisch-christliche Genesis-exegese (Berlin, 1974), s. 141 ff., emphasizes the influence of Poseidonius and specially of his commentary on the Timaeus \ Bostrom, op. cit., s. 159.
71. The term ζωτική δύναμις is of Stoic origin and comes probably from Poseidonius. The first instance of its use is in Diodoros of Sycilia, Hist. II, 51, and the source of Diodoros on this occasion is supposed to be just Poseidonius [on Arabia]. Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum II.9, 24; omne igitur quod vivit, she animal aive terra editum, id vivit propter inclusum in eo calorem, ex quo intellegi debet earn caloris naturam vim habere in se vitalem per omnem mundum pertinentem; comp. 88.51, 127: (genera comnium rerum) quae quidem omnia earn vim seminis habent in se ut ex uno plura generentur. Carl Reinhardt, Poseidonius (Miinchen, 1921), s. 244, points out that the Greek word, rendered by Cicero with “vis seminis,” could hardly be λόγος σπερματικός, but rather δύναμις σπερματική. «Σπερματικός λόγος ist ein Begriff des alien Intellectua-lismus, eine Bezeichnung fur die Weltvernunft, die zeugtend wird, damit die Welt vernunftig werde; daher die Verbindung zwischen den λόγος und den Qualitaten. Was Cicero, d.h. Poseidonius, unter ’vis seminis’ versteht, ist angeschaute, in der Natur erlebte, physikalisch demonstrierte Lebenskraft, ein Zeugen, das wohl planvoll ist, aber vor allem Zeugen ist und bleibt. Bestimmte sich die Kategorien, worein der Begriff σπερματικός λόγος gedacht war, durch die Korrelate Materie und Vernunft, υλη και λόγος, so bestimmt sich die Kategorien, worein der Begriff ’vis seminis’ gedacht ist, durch die Korrelate Kraft und Wirkung.” The term ζωτική δύναμις is used with a terminological precision by Philo and Clement of Alexandria.
72. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, Ai.G. XLIV, Colossians 225 sq.