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Practicing Gnosis: Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature. Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson April Deconick
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Acknowledgements
Many persons, institutions and organizations have made this volume’s publication possible. To begin with, exceptional gratitude is offered to each of Passionate Mind’s contributors not only for their entries but also for their great patience and co-operation in overcoming a number of challenges encountered along the way. Concerning these matters, I am especially appreciative for the help I received from Dr. Edward Halper. Special thanks is also directed to those institutions, organizations and individuals that have facilitated this volume by their generous financial support. In this regard, gratitude is expressed not only to those mentioned above but also to the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto (particularly to Dr. Jonathan Burgess), the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto (especially to Dr. Isabelle Cochelin) and anonymous donors. Finally, considerable thanks is extended to the publishing team at Nomos, Academia/Verlag, in particular to Dr. Steffen Burk and Ms. Alexandra Beutelmann, for their immense help in bringing this volume to fruition, and to some anonymous readers for their insightful comments at an earlier juncture in this project’s development.
Passionate Mind’s Contributors (listed in alphabetical order):
1.) Luigi Alici:
Via Mazzini 11, I-63844, Grottazzolina (FM), Italy.
luigi.alici@unimc.it
Luigi Alici earned his Ph.D. (Philosophy) in 1973 at the University of Perugia where he subsequently served as Research Fellow (1973–1980), Permanent Researcher (1980–1988), and Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy (1988–1995) in the Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences. In 1995, he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Macerata, Department of Humanistic Studies. His research activity arises from a re-reading of St. Augustine’s thought in conjunction with contemporary philosophical issues. In this respect, his scholarly work focuses on the relationship between interiority and intentionality, and communication and action, paying increasing attention, from the perspective of morality, to topics like the connection between personal identity, relationality, reciprocity, and affective bonds.
2.) Giovanni Catapano:
Via Achille Grandi 8, I-33170, Pordenone (PN), Italy.
giovanni.catapano@unipd.it
Giovanni Catapano is Associate Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Padua. His research focuses especially on Augustine, and he has authored the following books: L'idea di filosofia in Agostino, Guida bibliografica (Il Poligrafo, 2000); Il concetto di filosofia nei primi scritti di Agostino, Analisi dei passi metafilosofici dal Contra Academicos al De uera religione (Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2001)—which was awarded the Prize of the Pontifical Academies in 2005; and Agostino (Carocci, 2010). Dr.
Passionate Mind’s Contributors (listed in alphabetical order)
Catapano has also translated into Italian and commented on Plotinus' treatise On Virtues (Pisa University Press, 2006), with a foreword by John Rist.
3.) Barry David: Ave Maria University, 5050 Ave Maria Boulevard, Ave Maria, Florida, 34142–9505, USA.
Barry.david@avemaria.edu
Barry David is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair Emeritus of the Philosophy Department at Ave Maria University. He has written several articles on medieval philosophy, ranging from Augustine to Aquinas, and on related topics in ethics and metaphysics. Dr. David is co-editor of Aquinas the Augustinian (2007) and author of Pursuing and Praising God; Augustine’s Confessions (2019). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (2000); his dissertation supervisor was John Rist.
Born 15 Sept. 1939, in Madison Wisc. (USA), he was educated at Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., The Fragments of Iamblichus’ Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato). He was on the faculty of the Department of Classics at UC Berkeley, 1969–80 (Chair of Department 1977–80); and was Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College, Dublin, 1980–2006. Dr. Dillon’s main focus of research is Plato and the Platonic tradition. His chief works are The Middle Platonists, 1977 (2nd edn. 1996); Iamblichus, De Anima (with John Finamore), 2000; Alcinous: The Handbook of Platonism (1993); The Heirs of Plato (2003); and three volumes of collected essays.
5.) Lloyd Gerson:
77 Quaker Village Drive, Usbridge, Ontario, L9P 1A3, Canada.
lloyd.gerson@utoronto.ca
Lloyd Gerson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of many books, articles, and reviews, mainly on ancient philosophy. Dr. Gerson’s most recent work is Plotinus: The Enneads, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson, with translations by George Boys-Stones, John M. Dillon, Lloyd P. Gerson, R.A.H. King, Andrew Smith, and James Wilberding.
6.) Edward Halper:
126 Henderson Ave., Athens, GA 30605, USA.
ehalper@uga.edu
Edward C. Halper is Distinguished Research Professor and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia. Much of his work is on Aristotle, particularly the Metaphysics, but he has also written on Plato and in a wide variety of other areas. Dr. Halper counts himself extremely fortunate to have worked on Plato with John Rist at the University of Toronto. He is also President of the International Plato Society.
7.) Miles Hollingworth: Villa Miralago, Via G. Finali 31, Valsolda (Como), I-22010, Italy.
miles.hollingworth@gmail.com
Miles Hollingworth (Ph.D., Durham), an independent scholar living in Northern Italy, is the author of: The Pilgrim City (Bloomsbury, 2010); Saint Augustine of Hippo: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford University Press, 2013); Inventing Socrates (Bloomsbury, 2015); and Ludwig Wittgenstein (Oxford University Press, 2018). Additionally, he is the founder and editor of Passionate Mind’s Contributors (listed in alphabetical order)
Passionate Mind’s Contributors (listed in alphabetical order)
the international book series, Reading Augustine (Bloomsbury, 2017—) and co-editor of The Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism (Edinburgh University Press, 2018). Dr. Hollingworth is also a winner of the Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction from the Royal Society of Literature and of the Elizabeth Longford Scholarship from the Society of Authors. He has also been shortlisted for the Gladstone History Book Prize.
8.) Brad Inwood: 223 Canner St., New Haven, CT, 06511, USA.
brad.inwood@yale.edu
Brad Inwood did his B.A. (1974) in Classics at Brock University and his Ph.D. (1981), under the supervision of John Rist, at the University of Toronto. He taught at the University of Toronto from 1982 to 2015 and, since then, has taught ancient philosophy at Yale University as the William Lampson Professor of Philosophy and Classics. He has written extensively on ancient philosophy, especially Stoicism (with a focus on Seneca), but with forays into the Presocratics (especially Empedocles) and the Aristotelian tradition. In 1994, Dr. Inwood was elected to the Royal Society of Canada; and in 2007, he was appointed University Professor at the University of Toronto. He has been a Fellow of the National Humanities Centre in North Carolina (1995–6) and of the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford (2004–5); and was the Malcolm Bowie Distinguished Visitor at Christ’s College, Cambridge (2008).
9.) Arthur Madigan, S.J.: St. Mary's Hall, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA, 02467, USA.
arthur.madigan@bc.edu
Arthur Madigan, S.J. is the Albert J. Fitzgibbons Professor of Philosophy in Boston College. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto and his Master of Divinity degree from Regis College, Toronto, both in 1979. He has been teaching at Boston College since 1979. In 1985–
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6 he was a Junior Fellow in the Institute for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C.; in 1996–7 he was Miller Professor of Classics in John Carroll University; and in 1999–2000 he was Wade Professor in Marquette University. Dr. Madigan has published translations of Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle, Metaphysics Beta and Gamma, and a translation and commentary on Metaphysics Beta in the Clarendon Aristotle Series. He pursues interests in ancient Western philosophy (especially Aristotle), the interaction of ancient philosophy with early Christianity, and ethics in the Aristotelian tradition.
10.) John C. McCarthy:
407 Schuyler Road/Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA.
mccartjc@cua.edu
John C. McCarthy is Dean Emeritus of the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, where he holds the rank of Associate Professor. He is also editor of the Review of Metaphysics. Dr. McCarthy’s publications include considerations of the Baconian and Cartesian origins of modern philosophy, of the relation between human reason and Christian faith, of reductionism in modern natural science, and of Husserlian phenomenology.
11.) Denis O’Brien:
Château du Chalange, Le Chalange, 61390,France. plotinus@wanadoo.fr
After fifteen years in Cambridge, as a Scholar of Trinity College and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Denis O’Brien joined the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris). He is the Honorary President of the Centre for the Study of the Platonic Tradition, founded by John Dillon at Trinity College, Dublin. His extensive publications, in both English and French, range from the Presocratics to Plato and to Plotinus.
Passionate Mind’s Contributors (listed in alphabetical order)
12.) Thomas M. Osborne Jr.: 5603 Portal Dr., Houston, TX, 77096, USA.
osborntm@stthom.edu
Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. is Professor of Philosophy, Chair Emeritus of the Department of Philosophy, and a member of the Center for Thomistic Studies, at the University of St. Thomas (Houston). He has written (i) many articles on medieval and late-scholastic philosophy and on other topics; and (ii) Love of Self and Love of God in Thirteenth-Century Ethics (2005) and Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham (2014).
13.) Enrico Peroli:
Via R. Amalasunta 8, I-63900, Fermo, Italy.
e.peroli@tin.it
Enrico Peroli (Ph.D. Università Cattolica, Milano) is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University “G. D’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara. He has a wide range of publications, including Il platonismo e l’antropologia filosofica di Gregorio di Nissa (Vita e Pensiero, 1993), La trasparenza dell’io e l’abisso dell’anima. Sul rapporto tra platonismo e cristianesimo (Morcelliana, 2013), Dio, uomo e mondo. La tradizione etico-metafisica del platonismo (Vita e Pensiero, 2003), the award winning, Essere persona (Morcelliana, 2006), and Persona e comunità. L’etica di G.W. Fichte, (Morcelliana, 2014). Dr. Peroli is currently editing a new Italian translation of the works of Nicholas of Cusa; the first volume appeared in 2015.
14.) John M. Rist: 14 St Luke’s Street, Cambridge, CB4 3DA, England.
Johnmrist@yahoo.co.uk
For biographical information, see his c.v. in this Festschrift.
15.) Msgr. Robert Sokolowski:
2737 Devonshire Place NW, Apt 114, Washington, DC, 20008, USA.
sokolowski@cua.edu
Msgr. Sokolowski is a native of New Britain, Connecticut. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Hartford in 1961. He obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1963, and since then has taught at the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, where he is the Elizabeth Breckenridge Caldwell Professor of Philosophy. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Faculty of the New School University, The University of Texas at Austin, Villanova University, and Yale University. Dr. Sokolowski has taught and written in phenomenology, with a special interest in Husserl; on Aristotle; and on issues dealing with Christian faith and theology and their relation to human understanding.
16.) Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ:
St Mary's Hall–Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA, 02467, USA.
ronald.tacelli@bc.edu
Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ, received his B.A. (English and Philosophy) from Boston College (1969); his M.A. and Ph.D. (Philosophy: Greek minor) from the University of Toronto (1980); and his M. Div. and Th. M. from the Weston School of Theology (1983). Since 1984, he has taught philosophy at Boston College, focusing on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the philosophy of religion, and philosophical psychology. Dr. Tacelli has published a number of articles on ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, and he is co-author (with Peter Kreeft) of the best-selling Handbook of Christian Apologetics. He has edited for publication a selection of papers on H.W.B. Joseph, completed a translation of Ontologie by Béla Weissmahr (to be published by Notre Dame University Press as Ontology: The Unity and Diversity of All Things in Being), and is also translating Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (for Norton). Dr. Tacelli is current-
ly working on a book-length study of Kant’s moral and religious thought, as well as a thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Handbook. Passionate Mind’s Contributors (listed in alphabetical order)
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” (Plotinus, Ennead 6.7.35, 23–7).
“And that first one is the contemplation of Intellect in its right mind, and the other is Intellect in love [i.e. passionate Mind], when it goes out of its mind “drunk with the nectar”; then it falls in love, simplified into happiness by having its fill; and it is better for it to be drunk with a drunkenness like this than to be more respectably sober.”1
This epigraph, taken from Ennead 6.7, provides the title of this volume of essays, presented to Professor John M. Rist as a Festschrift in honor of his exemplary service to academia. Plotinus’s words are fitting because they evoke the passionate search for truth that Rist, as a ‘nous eron,’ has displayed in his extraordinary scholarship and teaching over the course of his distinguished career. Those who have worked and studied with him have had the pleasure of experiencing and being inspired by that passionate mind at first hand.
The essays presented here reflect key aspects of Rist’s interests in Ancient Philosophy, Patristics and Biblical Criticism, and Ethics. Therefore, after reading John McCarthy’s warm and inviting introduction, viz. “John M. Rist, in Lieu of an Introduction,” enjoying Rist’s own entertaining and informative account of animal academicum, viz. “On the Trail of Animal Academicum (1956–2013),” and perusing his extraordinary curriculum vitae, we meet the volume’s essays that specifically engage Rist’s monumental work as a scholar in the aforementioned fields. I now introduce those contributions in their order of appearance.
Denis O’Brien’s astute (and self-edited) “To Be and Not To Be in Plato’s Sophist,” considers a topic and text that he and Rist had once studied at Trinity College, Cambridge where they were ‘supervised’ by F.H. Sandbach, with W.K.C. Guthrie, at the time Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, and D.L. Page (later Sir Denys Page) Regius Professor of Greek. In
1 Ennead 6.7.35, 23–7, translated by A.H. Armstrong, in Plotinus, Ennead VI.6–9 (Loeb Classical Library, 1988), 197 (slightly emended).
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his essay, O’Brien’s inspiration and foil is F.M. Cornford, first holder of the Laurence Chair. While his stimulus is Cornford’s dictum, shared by both Sandbach and Guthrie, that ‘accurate translation depends on interpreting an ancient philosopher’s philosophical and linguistic presuppositions,’ his foil is Cornford’s translation and interpretation of the Sophist [Sph.] (from Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, The ‘Theatatus’ and the ‘Sophist’ of Plato, translated with a running commentary [Keegan Paul et alii, 1935]). O’Brien had studied Cornford’s volume in the 1950’s but had been dissatisfied with it (n. 40). As he now explains, Cornford’s translation and commentary contradict, in one key respect, Cornford’s fundamental methodology.
In particular, O’Brien argues that the distinction drawn in Sph. between ‘to be and not to be’ is properly understood by employing what Cornford recommended rather than by following what Cornford did. On this basis, O’Brien claims, the interpreter can overcome the pitfalls in Cornford’s translation and commentary that constantly fail to match the meaning of the Greek text. According to O’Brien, Parmenides, in his opening statement of the Ways of research, “the only ones that can be thought of” (fr. 2), introduces is and is not as the two terms of a contradiction. Careful study of Sph. shows that Plato avoids the contradiction by opposing is, the expression of a predicate complete in itself, to is not, a copulative use of the verb, implying that what is, because it participates in being, ‘is not,’ in so far as it ‘is other than’ the being in which it participates. By persistently casting Plato’s theory in terms of ‘existence’ and ‘non-existence,’ Cornford’s commentary and translation of Sph. feed into the text of the dialogue the very contradiction Plato had tried to avoid. Cornford’s interpretation of the dialogue is shown, therefore, to be untethered, explaining why O’Brien’s initial study, over sixty years ago, of Cornford’s volume proved so perplexing. O’Brien’s present essay, taking its cue from Cornford’s advice, rather than from his practice, grounds its philological analysis on an accurate understanding of Plato’s philosophical presuppositions, the joint approach, at once philological and philosophical, helping to make clear Plato’s purpose and bringing precision to scholarly study of one of Plato’s more difficult dialogues. Although O’Brien’s contribution is long, it is (i) likely ‘ground-breaking,’ (ii) an immensely erudite tribute to Rist’s philosophical method (which O’Brien obviously shares) and (iii) warm-hearted (like every entry in this volume).
Arthur Madigan’s insightful "Aristotle's Handling of endoxa in Nicomachean Ethics 9.4 and Eudemian Ethics 7.6," considers Aristotle’s dialectic, in terms of its approach towards endoxa, i.e. concerning common opinion or respected truth-claims, in the aforementioned texts. Madigan intends to show that, from beginning to end, the Stagirite employs endoxa to know
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the truth of reality and therefore assesses (for truth) the endoxa themselves. Hence, Aristotle’s treatment of endoxa is not for the sake of justifying them, i.e. they “are not simply accepted and allowed to speak for themselves (ibid.),” but to pursue the truth of being. This is shown by the fact that—contrary to the divergent views of G.E.L. Owen, M. Nussbaum, J. Barnes and T. Irwin—Aristotle employs endoxa to attain truth in different ways.
Aristotle’s profound subtlety, Madigan argues, is manifest in two closely related manners, made evident by comparing select endoxa in Nicomachean Ethics (NE) 9.4 with others in Eudemian Ethics (EE) 7.6. First, Aristotle tests his endoxa according to the criteria of the phenomena he aims to explain. Second, the Stagirite employs endoxa in service to either (i) the nature of the question he endeavors to answer or (ii) certain already tested startingpoints and insights into reality stated in propositional form. Aristotle’s handling of endoxa, therefore, shows that his approach towards reality is properly philosophical because it is receptive to ‘what is.’ As such, the Stagirite is not trying to make reality fit into his endoxa or into any uncritically assumed general theories. Rather, he ensures that his theories, and therefore the endoxa he employs, conform to and consequently help to explain reality. Hence, Madigan argues that Aristotle’s usage of endoxa is not about hypostasizing abstracts (something, of course, that Aristotle famously asserts, in Metaphysics 1.9, concerning Plato’s doctrine of Forms). Instead, Aristotle employs endoxa towards knowing the truth of reality. By this, Madigan agrees with Rist (The Mind of Aristotle [MA] [University of Toronto Press, 1989]) concerning the character of Aristotle’s philosophical method.
Brad Inwood’s perceptive “What kind of Stoic are you? The case of Marcus Aurelius,” agrees with Rist’s claim2 that Marcus’s philosophical approach and doctrine are unusual. Instead of maintaining that Marcus is in the grips of an eclecticism that takes him outside the bounds of Stoicism, Inwood holds that Marcus is better understood as a unique character within the Stoic context. This is not only in terms of Marcus’s handling of traditional Stoic teaching—which Marcus, Inwood suggests, might at some points be taking through the filter of Seneca’s doctrine—but, more importantly, in terms of his endeavor to make philosophical sense of “the firstperson perspective” he explored and manifested in his philosophical diary. For this reason, Marcus seems to embrace the view that man consists not
2 J. Rist, “Are you a Stoic? The Case of Marcus Aurelius,” in Jewish and Christian SelfDefinition, (edd.) B. Meyer and E. Sanders (Fortress Press, 1982), 23–45.
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only in (i) the psychic pneuma and (ii) flesh-and-bones body, but also in something that appears indeterminate (perhaps even immaterial), whereby human actions are produced by some uniquely human power. So Marcus seems ‘un-Stoic’ at times because his Stoicism aims to come to grips with the traditional Stoic problem of determinism by drawing on a fresh awareness of the phenomenon of psychological inwardness. Put differently, Marcus’s properly philosophical interest in this intellectual challenge requires him to add something novel to his Stoicism. Marcus’s teaching on the mind, though it may have some features in common with certain aspects of Platonism, developed out of his attempts to deal philosophically with the characteristically Stoic problem of determinism.
Inwood, therefore, attempts to modify Rist’s thesis concerning Marcus. While Marcus is innovative and unusual, he is neither a dissatisfied nor an incoherent Stoic philosopher, a devotee of a philosophical religion rather than a genuine philosopher. Rather, he is a philosopher whose pursuit of truth motivates him to explain a new phenomenon by assimilating something original into his Stoicism. In a friendly manner, Inwood claims, then, that Marcus’s Stoicism (like Stoicism in general) is more elastic and vibrant than Rist acknowledges.
In his fascinating "Plutarch, Plotinus and the Zoroastrian Concept of the Fravashi,” John Dillon shares the intriguing possibility that Plutarch and Plotinus might have developed their teaching on an undescended part of the human being not only from Plato (Timaeus 90a ff.)—whose doctrine, Dillon believes, could have been influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism (part I)—and from Aristotle (De Anima 3.5) but also from the Zoroastrian notion of the fravashi, i.e. of a “separable higher soul also to be regarded as a kind of guardian daemon” (ibid.). Dillon supports his claim by considering the similarities between the Zoroastrian teaching on the fravashi, to the extent he knows of it, with accounts of the undescended soul in Plutarch, the Corpus Hermeticum and Plotinus. In particular, Dillon judges that Plotinus’s somewhat perplexing teaching that the undescended soul is both ‘a part of us’ and ‘distinct from us’ corresponds well with the Zoroastrian teaching of fravashi as both a “superior soul and presiding demon” (conclusion).
Concerning this volume, Dillon’s thesis might be combined with Inwood’s account of Marcus Aurelius’s philosophical teaching to show that Marcus’s pursuit of truth belongs to his Stoicism, even though it represents a departure from Stoic materialism towards some kind of Platonic metaphysics. Additionally, Dillon’s thesis could be fruitfully considered in conjunction with the accounts of nous found in essays by Gerson and by Peroli for while these scholars claim that Neoplatonic philosophers identify nous
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with man and divinity above, Dillon identifies nous with man and daemon. In this respect, Dillon’s study implies, with Peroli’s account of Gregory of Nyssa’s Christian Platonism, that man requires divine mediation to attain enduring happiness.
Lloyd Gerson’s perspicacious “Virtue with and Without Philosophy in Plato and Plotinus,” firmly supports Rist’s general claims (Eros and Psyche [EP] [University of Toronto Press, 1964], and Plotinus [P] [Cambridge University Press, 1967] et al.) concerning Plato’s and Plotinus’s philosophical importance and encourages focus on Plotinus. Beginning with Plato’s teaching on the importance of philosophy, Gerson subordinates Plato’s teaching, in one way, to Aristotle (who is viewed as an intermediate developer of Plato’s teaching on mind) but, most importantly, to Plotinus to show how the latter “enriches” (section 1) Plato’s teaching on the importance of philosophy. Gerson agrees with Rist’s claim (Real Ethics [RE] [Cambridge University Press, 2001] et al.) that ethics is properly joined with metaphysics (this is found in Plato’s and in Plotinus’s teaching on the Good, and perhaps implicitly in Aristotle). However, unlike Rist, Gerson makes the point that moral virtue is only required for the embodied self— it has no ultimate place in the afterlife since it is no longer needed. Section 1 argues, therefore, that Plato maintains the practice of philosophy is required to achieve “the highest grade” in virtue. Section 2 maintains that Plato claims transformation from an “empirical” to an “ideal self” is effected through explicit conformity to the Good. Finally, in section 3, Gerson concludes that Plotinus gives a superior account of these teachings in his Enneads. How so? At bottom, it is because Plotinus (using as material cause various teachings found in Plato and in Aristotle) maintains, in a unique manner, that the virtuous person identifies “himself with his intellect.” In other words, philosophical activity (equated with the pursuit of moral virtue) is needed since attainment of the true self, the proper object of philosophical transformation, consists in identifying oneself with one’s undescended intellect—understood to have an unmediated (i.e. independent of sense-experience and sense-images) access to truth, i.e. to The One/The Good/divinity above.
Hence, Gerson (partly agreeing with Rist’s interpretation [MA] of Aristotle’s late account of mind/nous) maintains that moral virtue (and consequently virtue with philosophy) is essentially intermediate. It is necessary so long as we are embodied, i.e. in this life and trying to attain the true self (which could conceivably entail some need for purification in the afterlife). Yet moral virtue, and consequently philosophical activity in the manner of this world, is not required once that metaphysical state is attained in the afterlife. Therefore, since the ‘true’ self is intellect (nous), which has an
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unmediated relationship with divinity, and since moral activity pertains to the composite, meaning it is only necessary for the lower part of man’s/ intellect’s journey to divinity, it follows that, so far as this life goes, divinity is both decisively concerned and decisively unconcerned with moral matters.
According to Enrico Peroli’s incisive “Gregory of Nyssa and Platonism,” Gregory’s Christian wisdom is neither subordinate to Neoplatonic philosophy, as if Christianity is an implication of Neoplatonism, nor is Christian wisdom completely set over Neoplatonism, as if the latter is one medium (among many) through which Christian wisdom can explain itself. Rather, Christian wisdom is articulated with the decisive aid of Neoplatonic philosophy so that the latter is maintained in some places while transformed in others. Hence, Gregory’s spiritual theology shows that the relationship between Neoplatonic philosophy and Christian wisdom is not ‘old wine in old skins’ but ‘old wine and new wine in new skins.’
Peroli advances his thesis concerning Gregory’s handling of his Christian and Platonic inheritances in four parts. First, he considers various attitudes expressed in earlier centuries and in recent years concerning the relationship between Christianity and Platonism in general and within Gregory’s work in particular. Second, Peroli defines the common ground that early Christian thinkers found in Platonism, especially that man—or at least his best part (viz. nous)—is homoiosis theoi, structured to attain unity with God by pursuing moral and intellectual excellence. Third, Peroli distinguishes the crucial differences, located in the ontology of finiteness or temporality that Gregory (i) noticed between Christianity and Neoplatonism and (ii) articulated through the medium of Platonic philosophy. These are especially (i) that man/soul/mind (nous) is not naturally united with God but requires God’s grace to achieve union and (ii) that the latter, once achieved, entails eternal positive development. And finally, Peroli concludes that perennial interest in Gregory’s work is (properly) due to Gregory’s success in articulating Christian wisdom in conjunction with the truths about God and man found in Neoplatonic philosophy. Peroli aims to show that the relationship between Christian wisdom and Platonic philosophy is philosophically coherent. How so? Whereas Christian wisdom gives the formal structure to what Gregory articulates, for which reason his Platonic inheritance is essentially subordinate, Christian wisdom includes and is therefore impossible to articulate apart from adequately maintaining and transforming key aspects of its Platonic inheritance.
Barry David’s provocative “Evaluating Augustine’s Proof for God in De civitate Dei 8.6,” argues that this commonly overlooked argument in Augustine’s body of writings is philosophically sound, represents a significant de-
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velopment in Augustine’s approach to proving there is an immutable God (Augustine: Ancient thought baptized [A] [Cambridge University Press, 1994], 68) and is, therefore, worthy of extended analysis. In certain respects, David’s presentation opposes the widespread notion that Augustine’s proof for God in De Libero Arbitrio Voluntatis (lib. arb.) 2.3–15 is Augustine’s principal, paradigmatic and/or only successful proof for God. By contrast, David’s essay claims that De civitate Dei (civ. Dei) 8.6 is distinguished by its emphasis on ontology and implied ability to bring insight concerning Augustine’s hitherto ambiguous account of a matter that plays an important role in his proofs for God, viz. the ontological character of impressed ideas.
David presents his argument in four stages. First, his introduction considers some of the reasons why contemporary scholarship focuses on Augustine’s proof for God in lib. arb. 2, shows that civ. Dei 8.6 is ignored, and advances its thesis concerning the nature and merit of civ. Dei 8.6’s argument. Next, David highlights key aspects of important inheritances Augustine brings to civ. Dei 8.6. This is principally Augustine’s appropriation of an Aristotelian doctrine of substance (gained through studying, at the age of twenty, Porphyry’s translation and commentary on Aristotle’s Ten Categories [Confessiones (conf.) 4.16.28–9]). But Augustine’s inheritance at this juncture also includes his own related considerations of divine immutability, divine ideas and, significantly, impressed ideas—which he (i) claims are a decisive aid whereby mind knows the essence of things and can know there exists an immutable God, and (ii) sometimes implies are immutable as God is immutable.
Third, and most importantly, David analyzes civ. Dei 8.6’s proof for God in conjunction with the above factors to show how the argument’s ontological focus helps to make it sound and gives it importance relative to Augustine’s aforementioned teaching concerning the ontological character of impressed ideas. On the one hand, the proof’s consistent reliance on a doctrine of substance helps to support not only Augustine’s principal claim that there is an immutable God but also that mind—which Augustine characteristically analyzes, both here and elsewhere, to show there is a God —is a mutable reality with mutable operations and content. On the other hand, that civ. Dei 8.6 prominently emphasizes mind’s reliance on divine ideas and makes no mention of impressed ideas, strongly implies that the impressed ideas Augustine has spoken of ambiguously elsewhere are properly viewed as immutable-like rather than immutable. Therefore, although civ. Dei 8.6 does not directly consider the ontological status of impressed ideas, its pronounced concentration on ontology and resultant clear distinction between divine immutability and human mutability shows that it contains the wherewithal to instruct that impressed ideas are created rather
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than uncreated realities. All told, close examination of Augustine’s proof for God in civ. Dei 8.6 illustrates that the latter has significant philosophical value.
Luigi Alici’s perceptive ““Socii ad participationem boni.” De Civitate Dei 19: the way of Augustine towards peace,” argues that Augustine’s account of the citizen’s life in human community is philosophically superior to what is found in his inheritance because Augustine transforms the latter in a twofold manner. In the first place, Augustine takes Cicero’s teaching through the sifter of a pagan Neoplatonic doctrine of participation. Secondly, and more significantly, Augustine guides what results from the latter through the filter of Christian wisdom. By this means a superior doctrine of participation is developed through considering not only the doctrine of creation, which is shared with pagan Neoplatonism, but, more importantly, the unique Christian Neoplatonist doctrine of mediation by Christ, ‘The Word made flesh.’
Taking his cue both from Augustine’s scholarship and from Rist’s (A, et al.), Alici argues his point in several stages. First, he considers Augustine’s handling of Varro’s Ciceronian account of man and society to show that Augustine prefers to analyze the question of man’s orientation and end, i.e. his pursuit of happiness, from a Platonic perspective (1. Auctoritas and ratio). This is because since the Platonists, unlike Cicero and the Stoics, have awareness of human finitude in relationship to the realities of (i) the limited nature of this life and (ii) divine creation. Second, Alici maintains that Augustine’s focus on the universal quest for peace (in 19.10) represents a decisive turn towards Platonism since understanding peace as “the ordered form of participation in the order of the good” (2. Autonomy and Heteronomy) shows that the pursuit of virtue encompasses both this world (as Cicero and the Stoics would agree) and the afterlife or celestial world (as the Platonists would agree based on recognizing the soul’s immortality). Hence, the pursuit of earthly peace, which is horizontal, and enduring peace, which is vertical, are inextricably linked on the outside, i.e. in terms of ontology, and on the inside, i.e. in terms of human motivation, since virtue “is essentially a form of ordered love … that consists in adhering to the truth in order to live in justice” (ibid). Third, after arguing that citizens of the city of God on earth have a “kind of paradoxical citizenship” insofar as “they tend toward pax aeterna” on account “of grace” but “live in the pax terrena” because “of nature” (3. Civitas Dei peregrina), Alici asserts (4. Love and justice) that Augustine reforms coherently the aforementioned Neoplatonic account of participation by his account of Christ as Mediator. This is because both love, i.e. the motive beneath man’s quest for happiness, and justice, i.e. what community pursues in this world, have a common origin
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and end that can be partly attained in this life while fully attained in the afterlife—so long as man embraces Christ as the remedy for his waywardness. Therefore through considering, on the one hand, divine creation and, on the other hand, human redemption in Christ, Alici argues that “the paradigm of justice” and “the paradigm of love” are grounded in what is objective and are essentially complementary.
Most importantly, this transformation of the pagan Neoplatonist teaching on participation means that the Christian, at least, can pursue at once true justice by true love and, contrariwise, true love by true justice. The Christian teaching on participation, then, gives a unity to the life of the citizen that was missing from the pagan Neoplatonic teaching on participation insofar as the latter is clear about man’s origin but leaves open the matter of man’s end. Put differently, while the pagan’s love of God can, in varying ways, oppose love of neighbor and vice-versa, the Christian can, at least in principle, everywhere practice love of God and love of neighbor. Since the Christian is ordained by grace to a celestial community, his love for God and neighbor can never be opposed in any earthly community. Thus, by contrast with the rival Stoic and pagan Neoplatonist paradigms of thought and action, the Christian Neoplatonist paradigm does not present any contradiction between horizontal love and vertical love or, looked at another way, between autonomy and heteronomy.
Giovanni Catapano’s subtle “Augustine’s Criticism of Philosophers in De Trinitate 4, and Its Epistemological Implications,” considers Augustine’s reply to some Neoplatonic philosophers who criticized the Christian faith in the resurrection of the flesh based on their own knowledge of eternal reasons. According to Catapano, Augustine maintains that a humble philosophical mind can peer, to some extent, into the divine reasons. For instance, while pagan Neoplatonist philosophers claim that the Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection is false (because it contradicts the evidence of experience), Augustine claims that the Christian Neoplatonist can uphold the doctrine of bodily resurrection on the basis of faith. In particular, this is due to the faithful exercise of reason that, by God’s grace, is made capable of seeing the reasonability of what God reveals concerning His divine reasons. Catapano supports Augustine’s assertion in several steps. First, he shows that Augustine argues against Neoplatonist philosophers in De Trinitate (Trin.) 4.16–17. Second, he claims Augustine teaches that the pagan Neoplatonist philosophers know of the eternal reasons in God but, since their accounts of the future rely on studying past events as these are recounted in histories, they acknowledge their inability to deduce temporal realities from the divine reasons. Third, Catapano cites four ways Au-
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gustine distinguishes how the future can be known and that the philosophers cannot know the future through knowing God.
On this basis, Catapano concludes that Augustine’s teaching concerning access to the divine reasons is reasonable. Why so? Under normal conditions, i.e. when mind’s sin makes it unfit to peer into the divine reasons, mind can only predict the future based on studying the past. However, the ‘purified’ mind—usually found among those in heaven but sometimes present, by God’s help, in certain prophets and saints—is made fit to peer into the eternal reasons by the grace of faith in Christ whereby pride can be conquered. Accordingly, by the gift of the Holy Spirit some are allowed to see into “the things God always knows” (main body). Hence Catapano argues that, by faith in Christ, some Christian philosophers might see not only that God knows and governs the future (which the pagan Neoplatonist philosopher also knows) but give assent to certain future occurrences, like bodily resurrection, that contradict experience. On this matter, Catapano implies agreement with Augustine’s claim that the decisive difference between Christian wisdom and pagan Neoplatonist philosophy is found in faith in Christ, ‘The Word made flesh’ (conf. 7.9.13–15).
Ronald K. Tacelli’s smart “The God of Both Testaments?” aims to show how the apparent brutality and intrinsically evil actions countenanced by God in the Old Testament can be reconciled with the claim that Christ, as presented in the New Testament, is the God Who Is Love. Taking his cue from Rist (RE), C.S. Lewis, F. Sheed and Christ’s words in the New Testament, Tacelli argues that we can both (i) be repelled by certain events attributed to God in the Old Testament, and (ii) claim that the God Who Is Love, in fact, authorizes these events. How so? We hold that God Is Love but make distinctions, on the one hand, between God’s absolute and permissive will and, on the other, between the kinds of people or degrees of receptivity (of God’s Love) within the peoples through whom God has deigned to progressively disclose, in Christ, both Who He Is and who man is.
Tacelli argues his thesis in three stages. In the first place (I: The Problem), he distinguishes the philosophical problem. Next (II: Dead Ends), he considers the ostensible solutions to that problem but judges them to be inadequate because they fail to admit (i) the abhorrent acts that God apparently commanded and (ii) the normative character of divine love. Finally, Tacelli argues (III: Towards the Light) that a coherent solution, though beset with difficulty, might be found in the distinction (as stated above) between God’s positive and permissive will. Tacelli’s point is that God’s progressive revelation of Himself and, therefore, of human nature allowed some accommodation to the problematic characters of His Old Testament recipi-
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ents. As Christ says of polygamous marriage in the New Testament (Mt 19.3–8), certain evils were permitted in earlier times due to the ‘hardness’ of His patients’ ‘hearts.’ Tacelli claims that, for the overall good of manifesting His normative standard in Christ, God permitted, rather than positively willed, the atrocities reported in the Old Testament. Right interpreting, argues Tacelli, includes keeping in mind that God presents His Love positively in the New Testament, on account of the positive character in its recipients but negatively, in a way, in the Old Testament, on account of its recipients’ darkened hearts. While God does not change, man does; and God shares His Love with man in a manner that (i) meets him where he is to elevate him towards where he should be and (ii) makes evident the divine standard Who is Christ.
Robert Sokolowski’s instructive “On Teaching And Reading Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,” has primary and secondary purposes. On the one hand, as his title states, Sokolowski’s primary undertaking is to provide an account of how to teach and read NE. On the other hand, as if to help develop, test and prove that thesis, he measures accordingly Rist’s endeavor in RE. Concerning Sokolowski’s secondary purpose, he claims that Rist’s noble project in RE, identified with a strong current in Plato’s project “to validate moral realism in the face of widely accepted … opinions that there is no such thing” (section 5), overlooks how NE corrects and develops Plato’s project to bring us “closer to the truth” (ibid). However, since recognition of Aristotle’s superiority requires contrasting and comparing his approach to ethics with Plato’s (since their ventures are essentially complementary), Rist’s project helps us to do this and, consequently, to come closer to the truth. Therefore, although RE does not disclose Aristotle’s higher truths about ethics it helps towards that end. Sokolowski argues this point in two phases. In the first phase (viz. in sections 1–4), he introduces NE, explaining how it is best studied and some of Aristotle’s key methods and principal teachings. As mentioned before, this is Sokolowski’s principal undertaking and is immensely valuable in its own right. In section 5, however, he completes his analysis of Rist’s reading of NE through the filter of what was argued in sections 1–4. On this basis, Sokolowski claims, above all else, that Aristotle seeks to know the truth of human being, i.e. of human nature and action, rather than of human action alone.
At first, therefore, Sokolowski claims that NE is a “an ontology as well as an ethical study” (introduction), and explains why one should read NE in the order of book 7.1–10, books 2–6, books 7.11–10.9 and finally, book 1. Then, he considers the kinds of agents Aristotle presents in book 7 (section 2) and Aristotle’s account (in 3.1–5) of the “range of human wishing and responsibility” (section 3). On this basis, Sokolowski focuses (section 4) on a
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key aspect of Aristotle’s philosophical method, viz. “The Aristotelian array,” to make clear how and why Aristotle’s study of ethics focuses on knowing the truth of man’s moral activity in light of understanding the truth of man’s nature. On this basis, Sokolowski argues that Aristotle’s pursuit of truth is found in two manners. First, there is his approach of defining and clarifying things by employing “constellations,” “arrays,” or “clusters”— wherein each usually has “a paradigmatic instance, from which the others get their entity and understandability, as well as their nameability” (ibid.).
But, more importantly, there is the fact that Aristotle’s distinctions (i.e. the aforementioned “clusters”), being centered in his notion of energeia (actuality), “are realistic and not abstract, hypothetical, or dialectical” (ibid.).
With these matters in mind, Sokolowski argues (in section 5) that RE sometimes misreads NE because RE’s specific project of validating “moral realism” (ibid.) causes it to overlook the most significant portion of what Aristotle actually says and means. Sokolowski gives three examples, rooted in Aristotle’s metaphysical theology and philosophical anthropology, to support his claim that Rist’s principal criticisms of Aristotle are somewhat off the mark. All told, Sokolowski lauds RE’s ultimate aim while voicing disagreement with its reading of Aristotle’s NE. In this respect, Sokolowski affectionately implies that Rist’s project might be fortified by a more sympathetic approach towards Aristotle.
Edward Halper’s illuminating “Aristotle’s Moral Realism: Phronesis in Nicomachean Ethics 6” explores Rist’s claim, in Plato’s Moral Realism (PMR) (The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), that Plato grounds moral realism in separate forms. Since Halper holds that Aristotle clearly intends to advance some sort of moral realism, the problem he considers is how Aristotle can do so without separate forms. However, this is a difficult matter to tackle. To begin with, since Aristotle recognizes the real existence of virtue and of virtuous acts, but what counts as virtue depends on the circumstances and the agent, it follows that virtue, rather than being a standard itself, seems to depend on other things. Moreover, unlike Aristotle’s immanent forms of natures, his immanent acts of virtue are not unchanging and not graspable by nous, in its usual sense. Nor, for Aristotle, can an objective morality be grounded solely in the objectivity of happiness as a properly human function; for, though human happiness is the ultimate end, its characterization is too internal and has too little content to use as a standard in most circumstances.
How, then, does Aristotle uphold moral realism? According to Halper, Aristotle’s immanent forms do provide, in fact, an objective standard of moral virtue. On what basis? Aristotle holds that an objective counterpart to human happiness is found in the political life and the contemplative life
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and, importantly, in the circumstances in which such lives can be lived. Hence, the existence of concrete, objective goods allows one to appreciate Aristotle’s description of moral reasoning as a process of attaining such ends. The paper’s central claim, therefore, is that Aristotle models his discussion of phronēsis on his accounts of nous and epistēmē (scientific knowledge) in Posterior Analytics 2 to show that the former faculty sufficiently resembles the latter two in that it can grasp forms of moral action in such a way that they can serve as attainable standards. Thus, phronēsis grasps not only the external end but also a course of action that wills it, and this latter is, as it were, a kind of demonstrative knowledge. However, like the theoretical demonstrative syllogism, the practical syllogism is not used to draw a conclusion, as has been widely supposed, but to discover the middle terms, the sequence of actions that will lead to the desired end. Halper maintains that this strategic role of the practical syllogism has not been appreciated. Phronēsis exists as both an internal reasoning toward an end and an external sequence of actions that attain that end. Since, as Physics (Phys) claims, the development of a nature is also nature (2.1.193b12–13), not only does a nature have a form, but the fixed path of development through which it is realized in a matter also has a form. So, too, not only do objective ends, that is, the counterparts to the exercise of our faculties in accordance with reason that Aristotle calls “happiness,” have forms, but also the rational sequences of actions that lead to these objective ends have forms. Although the course of a nature’s development is more fixed than the sequence of actions that attain an objective end, both are functions of the form that comes to be instantiated (cf. Phys 2.8.199a11–15). Thus, Aristotle’s immanent forms can serve as the objective moral standards that ground moral realism. Finally, Halper adds that if his analysis is correct, the extensive literature on Aristotle’s ethics is mistaken in supposing the model phronimos to be a country gentleman with all the right opinions, like Squire Allworthy. Instead, the phronimos is better identified with someone who successfully uses strategic reasoning to attain intellectual and practical ends that benefit himself and others—someone, Halper suggests, like John Rist.
Thomas M. Osborne Jr.’s carefully reasoned and intriguing “Plato’s Republic and Its Contemporary Relevance in the Ethics of Rist and MacIntyre” sets Rist’s approach to ethics (e.g. RE, On Inoculating Moral Philosophy Against God (OI) [Marquette University Press, 1999] et al.) into relationship with Alasdair MacIntyre’s better known project (e.g. After Virtue [University of Notre Dame Press, 1984], and Whose Justice? [University of Notre Dame Press, 1988]). Therefore, after identifying Rist as ‘Platonist and Augustinian’ and MacIntyre as ‘Aristotelian and Thomist,’ Osborne cites four
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reasons why they share a profound common ground. To begin with, each thinks that (i) philosophical doctrines are indissolubly linked with accounts of the relationship between philosophy and culture, (ii) the ancient Greeks faced problems similar to those we face today, and (iii) contemporary philosophers have difficulty engaging present-day problems and encounter great difficulty from those philosophers addressing the aforementioned matters. Most importantly, though, Rist and MacIntrye share the view that Plato’s Republic (Rep.) is relevant to the current study of ethics. Why so? It is because each maintains that Rep. can address the principal problems found in the contemporary study of ethics.
Therefore, using Rep. as his medium, Osborne proposes to show, albeit in a preliminary way, the considerable merit within Rist’s teaching by contrasting and comparing his view of Rep. with MacIntyre’s. Osborne claims that, generally speaking, Rist takes an ontological view of Rep.’s teaching on ethics while MacIntyre takes an epistemological view—but MacIntyre’s view becomes more ontological as his thought develops. Rist’s approach to Rep. is characterized in a twofold manner. First, he views Plato’s dialogue in terms of the opposition between nihilism or relativism (found in Thrasymachus) and objectivism, i.e. the claim that there is an objective standard and motive (which Socrates embraces) to which the agent should conform—viz., the Form of the Good. Second, Rist maintains that Rep.’s focus on the Good is a significant step in the right direction, that Aristotle neglected to follow, but was decisively and adequately developed by others, like Augustine and Aquinas, in their philosophical theologies. By contrast, MacIntyre makes three principal claims. To begin with, he holds that Rep. engages conflicts in Athens concerning moral “effectiveness and [moral] excellence” (Section 2). In the second place, MacIntyre claims that Aristotle’s approach to ethics helps to answer the issues Rep. raises but fails to answer. Finally, he asserts that a satisfying solution to those problems requires “a broader teleological view of the universe,” i.e. greater emphasis on the ontological ground of ethics, such that “the insights of Plato and Aristotle need to be combined in the way that they were by Thomas Aquinas” (ibid.). Therefore, while Rist and MacIntyre disagree concerning the significance of Plato’s and Aristotle’s contributions to ethics, they agree that (i) Plato and Aristotle make positive contributions to ethics, (ii) ethics is properly grounded in an objective ontology, and (iii) Augustine and Aquinas have made decisive contributions to ground ethics in an objective ontology.
Osborne concludes his study with an important distinction: while Rist’s Augustinian-Platonism emphasizes that the only adequate foundation for ethics is God, MacIntyre’s Thomism motivates concentration “more on the
natural order and human institutions” (conclusion). Osborne implies, therefore, that a more complete account of realist ethics is found by combining the one emphasis with the other. Yet, although Osborne’s conclusion states that his essay only intends to give “an account of what their [i.e. of what Rist’s and MacIntyre’s] interpretations are, and how they are related” (Conclusion) and leaves to others the task of philosophical assessment and development, his analysis suggests a way forward. This is because Osborne’s essay seems to slightly favor Rist’s Christian Platonist grounding of ethics, holding that the latter (i) is uniquely valuable because of its focus on ontology and (ii) can be fruitfully developed, perhaps in a sub-alternate way, by engaging MacIntyre’s teaching. In this sense, therefore, MacIntyre’s Thomism needs to be more Augustinian, and Rist’s Augustinianism needs to be more Thomistic.
Miles Hollingworth’s delightful “Augustine on the Codes of Life” shows how Augustine’s teaching about ethics in civ. Dei (cf. A, et al.) a doctrine one agrees to in conjunction with Christ’s grace, is the only reasonable response to the human condition. This is because, as ‘the New Religion’ (claiming, among other things, that human happiness is achieved by taking the shortest route to gratification) shows, each of us seeks happiness. Therefore, although the ‘New Religion’ distinguishes happiness in terms of pursuing social success, drunkenness and especially casual sex, it is more truly the case that we are structured by our rational capacities. The latter is located principally in awareness of the moral law whereby we reflect, on the one hand, about how our quest for these goods has caused us to treat both others and ourselves and concerning how we have been treated by others and, on the other hand, about the real value of these besought goods. This is especially so with the sex-drive, says Hollingworth (following Augustine—e.g. civ. Dei 14.15–26), since we can experience ‘shame,’ i.e. self-reproach, both concerning its (i) origin and (ii) completion. With respect to its origination in the individual, sexual desire can oppose rational desire. Concerning the matter of completion, the issue, looked at in one way, is that it might require some kind of self-exertion and self-assertion, i.e. some form of egoism whereby another human being might be used, to cite recent language, as a means to an end rather than be embraced as an end in him/herself. This shows, implies Hollingworth, that what satisfies our rational and therefore self-conscious capacities, including conscience, brings more happiness than the temporary pleasure or satisfaction achieved through sexual activity.
Why, therefore, does Augustine often analyze the human sex-drive and sex-act? He is not perverse but notices here a sphere of life where the human condition is made clear. Why is that? It is because the sex-drive is a
