Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity

Acknowledgements

List of contributors

List of abbreviations

Introduction

LARS FREDRIK JANBY, EYJÓLFUR KJALAR EMILSSON, TORSTEIN THEODOR TOLLEFSEN AND PANAGIOTIS G. PAVLOS

PART I: Methodologies

1 The Agreement of Christianity and Platonic Philosophy from Justin Martyr to Eusebius

SÉBASTIEN MORLET

2 Augustine and the "Prophecy" of Plato, Tim. 29c3

CHRISTINA HOENIG

3 Porphyry’s Daemons as a Threat for the Christians

CHRISTINE HECHT

PART II: Cosmology

4 Patristic Reflections on Formless Matter

ENRICO MORO

5 Plotinus’ Doctrine of Badness as Matter in Ennead I.8. [51]

EYJÓLFUR KJALAR EMILSSON

6 Proclus, Philoponus, and Maximus: The Paradigm of the World and Temporal Beginning

TORSTEIN THEODOR TOLLEFSEN

PART III: Metaphysics

7 Christ and Pythagoras: Augustine’s Early Philosophy of Number

LARS FREDRIK JANBY

8 The Impact of ¿µ¿¿¿s¿¿¿ on the Divine Ideas

DANIEL J. TOLAN

9 Theurgy in Dionysius the Areopagite

PANAGIOTIS G. PAVLOS

10 On the Meaning of Hierarchy in Dionysius the Areopagite

DIMITRIOS A. VASILAKIS

11 The Doctrine of Immanent Realism in Maximus the Confessor

SEBASTIAN MATEIESCU

12 That and How Perichoresis Differs from Participation: The Case of Maximus the Confessor

JORDAN DANIEL WOOD

PART IV: Ethics

13 Apophaticism in the Search for Knowledge: Love as a Key Difference in Neoplatonic and Christian Epistemology

E. BROWN DEWHURST

14 The Origin of Passions in Neoplatonic and Early Christian Thought: Porphyry of Tyre and Evagrius Ponticus

ADRIAN PIRTEA

15 Augustine on Eudaimonia as Life Project and Object of Desire

TOMAS EKENBERG

Indexes

Biography

Panagiotis G. Pavlos is Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo, Norway. His main interests are Late Antique metaphysics, cosmology and the early Christian philosophical tradition, with an emphasis on their interaction. His doctoral dissertation examines the concept of aptitude (epitēdeiotēs) in Late Antique and Early Christian thought.

Lars Fredrik Janby holds a Ph.D. in the History of Ideas from the University of Oslo, Norway, where he defended a thesis on Augustine’s encyclopedic project. His research focuses on Christian receptions of classical material in Late Antiquity.

Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo, Norway. His research interests include topics in metaphysics and ethics in the ancient and late ancient classical philosophical tradition. He is the author of four monographs and numerous articles on ancient philosophy, focusing on Plotinus in particular.

Torstein Theodor Tollefsen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo, Norway. His main interests are metaphysics and cosmology in late antiquity and early Byzantium, and the tensions and interactions between pagan and Christian thought in that period.

"[A] fine and engaging compendium on an exciting subject matter – the mutual relationship of Platonism and Christianity... a highly informative and rich book. The individual chapters... provide a glimpse into the exciting times of philosophical debates that shaped Christianity as we know it. The work as a whole succeeds in shedding, so to say, new light on old questions, but also on some less explored subjects, and thus promises to remain an interesting and informative reading for students and scholars of both Early Christianity and Late Platonism, as well as for historians of ideas in general." - Review of Ecumenical Studies

"[A] highly engaging reading that will surely elicit further research in Patristic Platonism." - Classical Journal

"...successfully challenges the basic assumptions of much discussion surrounding Christianity and Late Antique intellectual discourse. As such the volume is successful in challenging the reader not to view the relationship between Christianity and Platonism in the simplistic terms of enmity and competition, but rather as a complex and multifaceted relationship, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but always profitable. This is a volume that complements recent scholarship on Late Antique philosophy and Christianity, and I would recommend it to all those interested in Late Antique Christianity, the interactions between ‘pagan’ and Christian intellectual discourse, and the general development of Late Antique philosophy." - Diogenes

"L’ouvrage livre un riche et stimulant aperçu de la variété des questions qui animaient les penseurs païens et chrétiens de l’époque... cha>que contribution illustre à sa façon la omplexité des liens entre platonisme et christianisme ainsi que la profondeur des idées tardo-antiques, encore trop souvent jugées inférieures à celles qui les ont précédées." - Laval Théologique et Philosophique

[The book provides a rich and stimulating overview of the variety of questions that animated the pagan and Christian thinkers of the time... each contribution illustrates in its own way the complexity of the links between Platonism and Christianity as well as the depth late-antique ideas, still too often considered inferior to those that preceded them.]

　

"PCTLA est utile non seulement pour les chercheurs experts, mais aussi pour les jeunes étudiants, qui pourront aisément s’orienter dans les spécialités des études recueillies dans ce volume. En définitive, PCTLA atteint pleinement son but en fournissant un aperçu complet et approfondi de la relation complexe entre platonisme et christianisme dans l’Antiquité tardive." - Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques　

[PCTLA is useful not only for expert researchers, but also for young students, who can easily orient themselves in the specialties of the studies collected in this volume. Ultimately, PCTLA fully achieves its purpose in providing a comprehensive and in-depth insight into the complex relationship between Platonism and Christianity in Late Antiquity.]