The Philosophical Life: Biography and the Crafting of Intellectual Identity in Late Antiquity (Patristic Monograph Series) 0813221625, 9780813221625

Table of contents :
Contents
Biography as Arena of Philosophical Competition
01 The Roots That Remain
02 Moses and Pythagoras
03 Plotinus and Origen
04 Constantine and Julian
05 The Cell and the School
06 Macrina and Sosipatra
07 Syrian Monks and Proclus
Epilogue
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Citation preview

The Philosophical Life Biography and the Crafting o f Intellectual Identity in Late Antiquity

IXS Arthur P. Urbano

The Catholic University of America Press W ashington, D .C .

Copyright © 2013 Th e Catholic University o f America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements o f Am erican National Standards for Information Science— Permanence o f Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi Z39.48-1984. OO

Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Urbano, Arthur P. Th e philosophical life : biography and the crafting o f intellectual identity in late antiquity / Arthur P. Urbano. pages cm. — (Patristic monograph series ; Volume 21) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8132-2162-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

2. Neoplatonism— Biography.

1. Neoplatonism— History.

3. Philosophy— History.

4. Philosophy— Biography.

5. Church history— Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600.

6. Christian biography.

1. Title.

B517.073 2013 186'.4

tlc'23

ΛΟΙ 1018004

To my mother, Phyllis, who is my life’s paradigm To myfather, Arthur, who keeps my life grounded

Contents

F ig u re s

ix

A b b re via tio n s

xi

A c k n o w le d g m e n ts

Introduction: Biography as Arena o f Philosophical Competition

xv

i

1. The Roots That Remain

32

2. Moses and Pythagoras: Reading the Bios as Philosophical History

80

3. Plotinus and Origen: Biography and the Renewal o f Philosophy

125

4. Constantine and Julian: The Politics o f Philosophy

163

5. The Cell and the School: Geographical and Social Distance in the Competition for Philosophy

205

6. Macrina and Sosipatra: Beyond Their Nature

245

7. Syrian Monks and Proclus: Athens at the Periphery and Center o f Philosophy in the Fifth Century

273

Epilogue

315

B ib lio g ra p h y

323

Index

345

Figures

i-i. The philosophical lineage of the philosopher Porphyry

76

1-

2. The intellectual pedigree of Eusebius

77

2- 1. Eusebius’s account of the transmission of philosophy

no

3- 1. The philosophical lineage of Porphyry reconstructed from his works

139

3-2. The philosophical pedigree of Origen according to Eusebius

159

3-

3. Students of Origen, demonstrating the global influence of Origen

160

4- 1. Eusebius’s vision of a divinely established Christian imperial dynasty 184 4- 2. Libanius’s praise of Julian’s reign draws together lineage from the Epitaphios

202

5- 1. The monastic heritage of Antony of Egypt

227

5-

2. The history of philosophy intertwines with Eunapius’s triple lineage

244

6- 1. The lineage of Macrina according to Gregory of Nyssa

270

7- 1. Theodoret’s tracing of the lineage of Eusebius of Teleda

289

7-2. Theodoret ties together monastic communities

292

7-3. The transmission of philosophy from Plato to Proclus

297

Abbreviations

1 Apol.

Justin Martyr, First Apology

2 Apol

Justin Martyr, Second Apology

Ad Adolesc.

Basil of Caesarea, Address to Young Men

Acad.

Augustine, Against the Academics Cicero, Academica

ANF

Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to J2j A.D., edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Reprint. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1985-1987

ANRW

Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Edited by H. Temporini and W. Haase. New York: De Gruyter, 1972-

Bibl.

Photius, Bibliotheca

C.Ap.

Josephus, Against Apion

CBQ

Catholic Biblical Quarterly

Cels.

Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus

C. fatum

Gregory of Nyssa, Against Fate

Chron.

Jerome, Chronicle

Civ.

Augustine, City of God

Cod. Theod.

Theodosian Code

Conf.

Augustine, Confessions

CQ

Classical Quarterly

Cur.

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Curefor Hellenic Maladies

Dial.

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho

Disc.

Epictetus, Discourses

Abbreviations

Xll Doctr. chr.

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine

DVP

Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life

Enn.

Plotinus, Enneads

Fin.

Cicero, On Ends

Gent.

Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Gentiles

Haer.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies

H.E.

Socrates, Ecclesiastical History Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History

Hist. eccl.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History

Hom.Jer.

Origen of Alexandria, Homilies onJeremiah

HTR

Harvard Theological Review

ILS

Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae

In Bas.frat.

Gregory of Nyssa, Funeral Oration on Basil

Inc.

Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation

In Ex. hom.

Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Exodus

In Gen. hom.

Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis

In remp.

Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s Republic

In Tim.

Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus

JECS

Journal of Early Christian Studies

JHS

Journal of Hellenic Studies

JRS

Journal of Roman Studies

JTS

Journal of Theological Studies

Leg.

Athenagoras, Supplication for the Christians Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation

LC

Eusebius of Caesarea, Praise of Constantine

Mos.

Philo of Alexandria, Life of Moses

MPGr.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Martyrs of Palestine (short recension in Greek)

MP Syr.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Martyrs of Palestine (long recension in Syriac)

Mut.

Philo of Alexandria, On the Change of Names

Abbreviations

xiii

NPNF 1

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series i

NPNF 2

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2

NRSV

New Revised Standard Version

Opif

Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation of the World

Opif horn.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Creation of Man

Or. cat.

Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourses

Paed.

Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator

Pall.

Tertullian, On the Pallium

Phil. hist.

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Religious History

PG

Patrologia graeca [Patrologiae cursus completus: Series graeca]. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 162 vols. Paris, 1857-86

Praep. ev.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparationfor the Gospel

Praescr.

Tertullian, On the Prescription of Heretics

Protr.

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks

Resp.

Plato, Republic

SC

Sources chretiennes. Paris, 1943-

Strom.

Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies

Theol. plat.

Proclus, Platonic Theology

Tht.

Plato, Theaetetus

Tim.

Plato, Timaeus

VC

Vigiliae Christianae

Vir. ill.

Jerome, On the Lives of Illustrious Men

Vit. Ant.

Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Antony

Vit. Const.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine

Vit. Mos.

Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses

Vit. Phil.

Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists

Vit. Plot.

Porphyry, Life of Plotinus

Vit. Proc.

Marinus, Life of Proclus

Vit. Pyth.

Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras

Vit. Soph.

Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists

VSM

Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina

Acknowledgments

This study o f the role o f biographical literature as an arena for compet­ ing Christian and Neoplatonist claims on the classical philosophical tradition is a revision o f my Brown University doctoral dissertation completed in 2005. In it I wrestle with two areas of inquiry: on the one hand, the relationship o f Christianity to Classical, Hellenistic, and post-Hellenistic philosophy; and on the other, the intersection o f early Christian theology and cultural theory. What began as an interesting comparative project on the use o f philosophi­ cal language and imagery in Christian and Neoplatonist biographical litera­ ture evolved into a deeper reflection on fundamental theoretical and method­ ological questions: Why were certain Christians invested in the Greek philosophical heritage to such an extent that they were unwilling (or unable) to part with it? How can we discuss the important differences between Christian and Neoplatonist phi­ losophies without giving short shrift to the significant commonalities? What is the relationship between the production of biographical literature and developments in pedagogical contexts? I would like to acknowledge the many people whose support and assis­ tance made this book possible. First, the most heartfelt o f thanks must go to my dissertation advisor at Brown University, Susan Ashbrook Harvey. She has been a mentor to me since our paths first crossed in 1992 when I was a curious undergraduate taking her course on Christianity in late antiquity. I am grateful not only for the knowledge she has imparted to me, but for her unfailing support and constant encouragement. I am honored to call her a colleague and friend. In my years at Brown, I also had the good fortune of working with Stanley K. Stowers. All o f us who have worked with Stan in early Christianity have acquired valuable tools for harvesting a rich theoreti­ cal sophistication that I believe is a great contribution to the field. I am thank­ ful to Ross S. Kraemer for her careful reading o f earlier drafts o f this manu­ script. I have found in her a supportive advisor who seriously respects and

values the work o f her students. I would also like to acknowledge the friends and colleagues I met at Brown— especially Nathaniel DesRosiers, Steven Lar­ son, Kevin McGinnis, Jordan Rosenblum, Jeanne-Nicole Saint-Laurent, and Daniel Ullucci—for the intellectual exchange, friendship, and, most impor­ tantly, the commiseration and humor that saw this project through. I am grateful also for the prayers and support o f my colleagues in the Theology Department at Providence College. These are my academic kin. There are many people to thank for their comments on earlier written and oral versions o f the material presented here, including m y article, “ ‘Read It Also to the Gentiles’ : The Displacement and Recasting o f the Philosopher in the Vita Antonii ’ (Church History 77 [2008]: 877-914), portions o f which appear in chapters 1 and 5. Among these are Peter Brown, Mark Edwards, Stratis Papaioannou, John Rist, Samuel Rubenson, the members o f the Providence Patristics Group and the Boston Area Patristics Group, the anonymous read­ ers from Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, and the Catholic University o f America Press. I am especially thankful to David G. Hunter, who saw this monograph through as interim editor o f the Patristic Monograph Series, for his guidance, comments, and support through the manuscript re­ view process, to Theresa Walker, managing editor at the Catholic University o f America Press, and to Carol Kennedy for her copyediting. The comments, critiques, and insights I received have helped mold this project into its current form. Any errors or shortcomings are entirely my own. I owe a debt o f gratitude to the Fulbright Commission, both in the Unit­ ed States and in Italy, for the invaluable opportunity to spend the 2003-4 ac­ ademic year in Rome, where I began to write the dissertation in between strolls across the Gianicolo and descents into the catacombs. I extend my ap­ preciation also to Dr. Martha and Mr. Artemis Joukowsky, who provided the funds for the dissertation fellowship I received in the final year o f my gradu­ ate program. A study o f biography cannot but force one to reflect upon one’s own life story. Without a doubt it has been the love and support o f my family and friends that has sustained and blessed me from the first word to the last pe­ riod o f this manuscript. I thank my parents, Phyllis Urbano and Arthur Ur­ bano Sr., for their love and for the confidence they have always placed in me. We have come a long way. I am just as proud o f them as they are o f me. Thanks and kudos to my ninety-seven-year-old grandmother, Margaret Domenica Cucca, who read parts o f chapter 5—twice! My friends have been

a rock o f support, especially Joanne Cournoyer, Antonio Grelle, Louis and Donna Jutras, and Cindy Sobiesiak. They have all enriched my life. The best chapter o f my life was written as I was writing this book and met my wife, Tina. She is the love o f my life, and I am thankful for her love, pa­ tience, and beauty o f soul. In her love, I see the love o f God: “It was written that I would love you from the moment I opened my eyes. ” As the ink dries on this chapter, we have begun to write the next one together. January 2,2013 Feast of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory of Nazianzus

tXS Biography as Arena of Philosophical Competition

We who live and work in academia know that the exchange and debate o f ideas does not occur divorced from various contexts—intellectual, cultural, political, and social. Our participation in the production o f knowledge oc­ curs in various arenas o f activity, including classrooms, departments, educa­ tional institutions, and, o f course, academic fields, each defined by distinc­ tive, yet interacting, rules o f engagement. In many ways, the profession o f ancient philosopher was characterized by similar realities. Many o f these an­ cient philosophers understood their role as a comprehensive one that inte­ grated philosophical inquiry, a way o f life, and the education o f individu­ als, along with a diachronic consciousness o f their field. For example, the Platonists o f late antiquity not only regarded Plato as the source o f specific doctrines, but also contemplated these doctrines within a tradition o f teach­ ers and interpreters, past and present, estimating how these had contributed to (or inhibited) a fuller understanding o f these doctrines. It was essential to perceive how each piece fit together to construct a transhistorical dialogue. The current work is a study o f developments in the philosophical field o f late antiquity. By the end o f the third century CE, ancient intellectuals, both Christian and non-Christian, conceived o f philosophia as ways o f thinking and living (dogmata and politeia), the harmonious mastery o f which produced the perfect life— one o f union with and likeness to the divine.1 As Pierre Hadot i.

For a description o f ancient philosophy as a w ay o f life "intimately linked to philosophi­

cal discourse,” see Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy? trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004).

notes, while modern thinkers (and even some modern philosophers them­ selves) might think o f philosophy strictly as the domain o f intellect, Neoplatonists and Christians o f antiquity regarded wisdom as a divinely revealed body o f doctrines and practices, either planted within the human creature by its creator or revealed in some mythic past. This philosophy was entrust­ ed to certain philosophers, who transmitted it to their students. For the in­ tellectual o f late antiquity (as for many o f us today), it was just as important to invoke an intellectual pedigree, to situate oneself within a tradition, as it was to demonstrate one’s own knowledge and practice in the pursuit o f true knowledge. In this study, I will focus on the role o f ancient biographical liter­ ature, especially the bios, in constructing the history o f philosophy and trac­ ing the lineages o f the two major philosophical movements o f late antiquity: Christianity and what we now call Neoplatonism. I intend to examine more broadly the application o f the language and practices o f kinship relations and inheritance in biographical literature as operative in the formation o f com­ munities o f intellectuals and in establishing legitimating genealogies that sat at the core o f narratives o f tradition and succession. Set against the backdrop of the concrete social, historical, and cultural contexts in which philosophi­ cal debate occurred, the composition and consumption o f biographical liter­ ature will be regarded as typical practices o f competing intellectual factions. My intention is to offer a reading and analysis o f biographical literature produced between the third and fifth centuries CE that elucidates how the real social settings and practices involved in the production and proliferation o f these works created an arena for the competition over philosophy among the Greek-speaking intellectual elite, particularly between circles o f Chris­ tians and Neoplatonists. While also considering questions o f genre, form, and imagery, I will explore more fully the impact o f these literary produc­ tions on ancient constructions o f philosophical history and pedigree, the ne­ gotiation o f pedagogical authority, and the implications for the shape o f the philosophical field in late antiquity. The literary representation o f subjects such as Origen, Plotinus, and Antony o f Egypt, as exemplars, teachers, and transmitters o f the philosophical life, embodied and gave historical particu­ larity to the debates and maneuverings within pedagogical settings. These literary portraits were produced and competed with each other at a critical time in history— during the Christianization o f the Roman Empire. At stake was “philosophy” itself: how knowledge and ethics were related to the di­ vine; who possessed pedagogic authority; and what institutions would have

the patronage and support to exercise this pedagogic authority. For sympa­ thetic audiences, biographical literature served as a sort o f social charter that crafted a series o f relationships among subjects, authors and audiences, lo­ cating particular communities o f intellectuals within lineages o f descent that were linked to narratives o f the origins and transmission o f philosophy Several major questions drive this study, questions that first arose for me during a graduate seminar on early Christian asceticism. I was intrigued that someone like Theodoret o f Cyrrhus could describe monastic practice as “a life that teaches philosophy” and the monks o f Syria as ‘ philosophers.” 2 Cer­ tainly his subjects did not fit the conventional understanding o f a philoso­ pher in the ancient world. And why go this route at any rate? Why did so many o f the major Christian thinkers o f late antiquity not simply disengage from the classical philosophical tradition? After all, many o f them charged that it was a flawed, if not a corrupt, mode o f thought. Curiously, even when someone like Tertullian purports to distance himself from the philosophical thought o f the Greeks and Romans, he still could not completely extricate himself from its web. Did he even recognize this? Related questions concern the expounding o f Christian doctrines in the technical terminology o f prior and contemporary Greek philosophy. This was not simply a phenomenon o f the second century and beyond, but is evi­ dent to various degrees even within the earliest Christian writings, in the let­ ters o f Paul and in the prologue o f the Gospel o f John, for example. Con­ ceptual and linguistic expression are bound to the social contexts in which a Christian intellectual culture took shape: what can we make o f the culture o f teachers, texts, schools, and doctrines that emerged in Christian circles, and how do we make sense o f the dynamics o f continuity and differentiation in relation to the social contexts o f non-Christian intellectuals? These questions forced me to consider larger methodological issues. Two approaches that have been abandoned in the field o f late ancient studies are the spoliation model, on the one hand, and the assumption o f a great “di­ vide” between Christians and pagans. In the latter view, Christian-pagan in­ teraction is uncritically regarded as a “battle to the death o f ‘two religious systems,’ ” a notion that has been hard to refine, as Susanna Elm has noted.3 2. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 3 (SC 234,130); trans. Price, 4. 3. Susanna Elm, “ Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory o f Nazianzus and Julian in Di­ alogue,” in The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography, ed. Dale Martin and Patricia Cox Miller (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005), 260-61.

It is easy to fall back uncritically on what we might call the “spoliation,” or “dependency,” model, according to which Christians borrowed and copied ideas, practices, and artistic styles that really belonged to Romans, Greeks, and Jews. Here, Christians emerge as cultural scavengers, or “pagans in dis­ guise.” In fact, this discourse o f cultural differentiation appears in the writ­ ings o f several early Christian writers, who use the narrative of the “spolia­ tion o f Egypt” from Exodus as the basis o f their ancient “cultural theory.” 4 As such, it appears that they envisioned their engagement with Greek phil­ osophical, literary, and artistic traditions as “stealing,” a conscious adoption and adaptation of Greek learning to beautify and augment the expression of Christianity, and thereby stripping away aesthetic forms from an idolatrous essence. While this is true to a certain extent, we cannot accept this narra­ tive uncritically without considering what was already unconsciously inscribed in early Christian intellectuals as native residents o f a vast and varied Roman world. Immersed in the culture of intellectual circles across the Roman em­ pire, they were not cultural outsiders, as will be explored in further detail in chapter i. Thus, the interactions among Christian and non-Christian elite in the Greek-speaking contexts o f the late Roman empire are better understood as debates and exchanges within a segment o f society that was occupied with the negotiation o f identity, specifically, what it meant to be a “Greek,” or a “Christian,” and what the shifting landscapes o f late antiquity meant for the Greek intellectual and literary heritage. Christians, o f course, did not identi­ fy themselves as “Hellenes” as such, yet those who shared in the “proclaimed communality o f paideia,” which Simon Goldhill describes as “a shared sys­ tem o f reference and expectation” that “linked the elite o f Empire,” had to confront it, as they confronted and interacted with the self-proclaimed “Hel­ lenes.” 5 The goal o f this study is to map out where theology, philosophy, his­ tory, and literature intersected in the ancient contexts that brought about a transformation o f classical philosophical culture into a Christian philosophi­ cal culture. I intend to adopt an analytical framework that is informed by and builds on recent scholarship in the fields o f classics and late ancient stud­ 4. See, for example, Origen, Letter to Gregory 2-3; Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 115; and Augus­ tine, Doctr. Chr. 2.42. 5. Simon Goldhill, "Introduction. Setting and Agenda: ‘Everything is Greece to the W ise,’ ” in Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development o f Empire, ed. Simon Goldhill (N ew York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 13.

ies. Definitions o f Greek ethnic identity in the classical and Hellenistic eras, as explored by Jonathan Hall and in the collection o f essays edited by Irad Malkin (Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001]) and Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, and Erich Gruen (Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography [Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1997]), have contributed to the discussions o f scholars o f late antiquity who continue to study notions o f culture and eth­ nicity in the Roman imperial and late Roman periods, largely under the influ­ ence o f postcolonial theory. These studies have called attention to the role of myths of origins, Active kinship and descent, shared territory and history, in defining Greek identity before the fifth century BCE. Hall in particular notes how a shift from blood and kin toward “broader cultural criteria” character­ ized the basis for Greek identity from the fifth century onward, primarily as a result o f interaction with the Persian other.6 The work o f Simon Goldhill, Si­ mon Swain, and others has drawn scholarly attention to reconfigurations o f “Greekness” in the context o f Roman imperialism during the Second Sophis­ tic.7 In particular, Goldhill has noted the concern on the part o f the educated elite o f the period to be able to demonstrate an “affiliation” to Greek culture through paideia and the varied strategies o f negotiation, competition, and projection, what he calls “formulations o f Greekness in process.” 8 The essay in GoldhilTs volume by Rebecca Preston explores the intertwining o f cultur­ al with political authority under the banner o f a paideia, which drew on “a common store o f paradigmatic historical figures and events and a canon o f classical models for creative imitation.” 9 In the same vein, Simon Swain has called attention to the constructions and negotiations o f the past, and an in­ terest in "tradition,” in the establishment o f cultural authority.10 In the area o f late ancient studies, several important contributions stand out. The collection o f essays edited by Dale Martin and Patricia Cox Miller, The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography 6 . Jonathan M. Hall, Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture (Chicago: University o f Chica­ go Press, 2002), 7; and see also ch. 5 in this volume. 7. See, for example, Goldhill, Being Greek under Rome; Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD jo-2jo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); and Tim Whitmarsh, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics o f Imitation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 8. Goldhill, “ Introduction,” 13-20. 9. Rebecca Preston, “ Roman Questions, Greek Answers: Plutarch and the Construction o f Identity,” in Goldhill, Being Greek under Rome, 90. 10. Swain, Hellenism and Empire, 65.

(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005), illustrates the important devel­ opments in textual and historical analysis that have given particular attention to culture.11 As Susanna Elm notes in her essay, “Hellenism and Historiogra­ phy: Gregory o f Nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue,” postcolonial theory has had a notable impact on the study o f ethnic and cultural identity in impe­ rial Greece and Rome, and this in turn has informed scholarship in the field o f late antiquity.12 Jeremy Schott's recent monograph exemplifies this well. In Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity (Philadel­ phia: University o f Pennsylvania Press, 2008), Schott considers the construc­ tion o f Christian and pagan identities within the contexts o f imperial power and subjugation, and not apart from “the broader politics o f ethnic and cul­ tural identity engendered by Roman imperialism.” 13 In a society where paideia was the pervasive culture o f the educated elite, the pepaideumenoi, regardless o f religious allegiance, I contend with many others that it is no longer accurate to use a model o f a great divide between Christians and pagans. In this study, I consider all o f the authors under con­ sideration to be culturally “Greek,” regardless o f their religious allegiance. That is to say, they were educated in Greek literature, rhetoric, and philos­ ophy through a curriculum o f the poets, orators, and philosophers; they spoke Greek; they produced texts according to Greek linguistic and liter­ ary standards; and they promoted ideas rooted in the metaphysical and ethi­ cal conceptual complex o f pre-Christian Greek philosophy. Yet at the same time, I do not believe we can discard the notion o f “divide” entirely. Instead, among the intellectual elite, one may still talk o f a partitioning o f which the players were conscious, a differentiation into various parties within the intel­ lectual elite. This partitioning, then, is an intracultural differentiation, rather than intercultural differentiation. How ancient authors differentiated what was “Greek” and what was “Christian,” as it related to philosophical culture and practice, lies in many respects at the core o f this project. O f course, the boundaries between what was “Greek” and what was “Christian” were not, and are not, always clear. These boundaries developed and shifted. Throughout I will refrain as much as possible from using the terms “pagan” and “paganism” when referring to the Neoplatonist philoso­ 11. See the Introduction by Dale Martin in Cultural Turn, 1-24. 12. Elm, "Hellenism and Historiography,” 260, and especially n.3. 13. Jerem y M. Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity, Divina­ tions (Philadelphia: University o f Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 4.

phers. It is not a self-designation, but rather a Christian description o f the oth­ er, which developed in the western empire in the fourth century. In the context o f the present discussion, it would be confusing and inappropriate because it is an all-encompassing term that distinguished all who were neither Christian nor Jew. Carrying the original semantic connotation o f the term (“peasant,” “rustic,” “unlearned” ), it was used to class both philosopher and peasant to­ gether on the basis o f religious allegiance with no distinction o f social or in­ tellectual location. Instead, I have opted to call the non-Christian philosophers “Greeks” (and “Neoplatonists,” when the context warrants more specificity). This was a self-descriptive term, which “was endowed with the same meta­ physical oecumenicity that Christianity claimed for itself” by those who con­ sidered themselves as such.14 Nevertheless, Greeks and Christians often char­ acterized their struggles with each other as a struggle between two separate systems, Christianity and Hellenism, thus contributing to the notion o f the great divide noted by Elm above. O f particular interest to me are the processes o f distinction and selfdefinition within the context o f shared culture, and, more specifically, the culture and practices o f the intellectual elite, who were the producers and transmitters o f knowledge and held pedagogical authority. Hence, my focus is on a specific subgroup within the larger elite class—intellectuals—which, in the context o f late antiquity, can be further subdivided into two main fac­ tions, or parties, Christians and Greeks. While the questions raised by a post­ colonial lens are pertinent here, my point o f departure is different. Instead o f investigating directly how the context o f empire impacted the construction o f ethnic and cultural identities, my aim is to investigate primarily the role o f literary and discursive practices on the formation o f the identity o f intel­ lectuals, and the place o f ethnic, cultural, religious, and political categories as spokes on this hub. The relative proximity o f Christian and Greek intellectuals cannot be un­ derestimated, especially before the fourth century, when they were educat­ ed in the same circles, shared teachers and classrooms, and lived in overlap­ ping social worlds. Thus any notion o f “borrowing” or “despoiling” becomes moot. To imagine Christian intellectuals as a vastly different group that col­ lected and borrowed ideas and practices that were not their own is, in the 14.

Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede, eds., Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 6. For a discussion o f the use o f the terms "pagan," “hea­ then," and "Hellene” in the study o f pagan and Christian “ monotheism,” see 1-8.

light o f recent research, an untenable model. The notion o f "mimicry” is helpful, especially when considering it in relation to the ancient notion o f mi­ mesis in educational and philosophical circles.15 However, I think the catego­ ry can be problematic in the present discussion. I would agree that "the apol­ ogists were out to beat the philosophers at their own game,” but according to the model I am suggesting here, I would insist that it was just as much the apologists’ "game,” as insiders, not as outsiders.16 Competition from within, rather than borrowing from without, seems to offer a better model. Thus I will cast the exchanges, debates, and interac­ tions between the Greek-speaking Christian and Greek intellectuals o f late antiquity as a real and multifaceted struggle to define religious, intellectu­ al, and political identities, beginning as early as the second century. Such a model, I believe, provides a perspective on the “nuts and bolts” o f the in­ tellectual machinery and social networks o f late antiquity within the broad­ er cultural complex. Thus, in this type o f model, Christian intellectuals and Neoplatonists are thought o f not simply as religious factions (i.e., Christians and pagans) in opposition, but they are also classified together as the class o f educated, literate, philosophical thinkers who contributed to philosophical and theological discourse as well as the production o f cultural products, lit­ erature in particular, which contributed to and participated in a struggle to define the parameters o f a universal philosophy.17 This competition can be thought o f as one between a dominant establishment—the "Greeks,” who represent the status quo, and "Christians,” a party o f “newcomers,” who, as early as the mid-second century, challenged the status quo and adopted strat­ egies to subvert the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy.18 Competing with­ in structured spaces o f accepted norms and practices with their own inter­ nal logic and power relations, Christian and Greek intellectuals competed 15. On “mimicry,” see Horni K. Bhabha, “ O f M imicry and Man: The Ambivalence o f C o ­ lonial Discourse,” in The Location o f Culture (N ew York: Routledge, 1994), 121-31. For its ap­ plication to the present material, see Jerem y M. Schott, "Porphyry on Christians and Others: ‘Barbarian W isdom ,’ Identity Politics, and Anti-Christian Polemics on the Eve o f the Great Per­ secution,” Journal o f Early Christian Studies 13, no. 3 (2005), 280. 16. Cf. Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making o f Religion, 28-29. ■ 17. On cultural production, see Pierre Bourdieu, The Field o f Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, edited and introduced by Randal Johnson (N ew York: Columbia Universi­ ty Press, 1993), 42. For an early application o f Bourdieu's theory to late antique materials, see Averil Cam eron, Christianity and the Rhetoric o f Empire: The Development o f Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1991), esp. chs. 1 and 4. 18. Here I am adapting categories found in Bourdieu’s w ork on cultural competition to the contexts o f late antiquity. See Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 82-83.

in overlapping fields o f philosophy, religion, and education.19 Nevertheless, both Greeks and Christians also participated in a transformation of these spaces and structures, as a result of their competition, with Christians, for example, transferring pedagogical activity into liturgical worship. These two subgroups were not monolithic in and o f themselves, and there was simulta­ neous internal competition among Christians (e.g., Athanasius versus Arius) and Greeks (e.g., Porphyry versus his colleague Amelius), as well as cross­ temporal competitions (e.g., Theodoret versus Plotinus, or Numenius versus the Academics). In both cases, the competition is about delineating authori­ tative tradition as much as establishing practical authority. What was the goal o f this competition? O f primary importance was paideia, not simply an education, but a comprehensive intellectual, moral, cul­ tural, and social formation o f young men (and young women to a limited extent).20 Paideia produced “Greeks,” men o f culture, prestige, and power. Literacy and rhetoric, familiarity with the literary and philosophical tradi­ tions of Greece, the ownership and production o f texts were sought after and acquired by true Greeks.21 The embodiment o f social conventions and the mastery o f proper social interaction identified one as a pepaideumenos. The devotion to study, engagement in philosophical debate, and the adop­ tion o f ascetic practices raised him closer to the heights o f the divine world. Association with prestigious schools and teachers, and the privilege o f a no­ ble intellectual pedigree ranked him with the greatest and most influential thinkers and shapers o f Greek culture. Greeks and Christians were competing to own and define “philosophy.” This entailed the negotiation and acquisition o f “cultural capital,” or cultural knowledge, goods, and honors.22 Literacy, access to texts, exegetical and rhe­ torical skills, ascetic practices, and intellectual lineage were important in this regard. The texts or authorities to which value was attached were negotiat­ ed in the process o f competition. A Christian and a Greek intellectual could agree, for example, that the possession and study o f ancient texts, or affilia­ tion with a particular teacher, were o f great value in the formation o f souls, but they would disagree over their precise identification: the Dialogues o f 19. Ibid., 6. 20. On the education o f wom en, see Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Edu­ cation in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), ch. 3. 21. Ibid., 9. 22. David Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology o f Pierre Bourdieu (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1997), 76.

Plato or the Letters o f St. Paul? The school o f Plotinus or the school o f Origen? Athens or Jerusalem? The formation o f an alternative Christian philo­ sophical culture was neither isolated nor entirely divorced from the larger intellectual and cultural world o f late antiquity. For the Christian, the dichot­ omy need not always be so severe. Why Plato or Paul, when one could be led by both, but with the philosopher bowing to the Apostle? Christians who found a certain “usefulness” in the Greek literary and philosophical tradi­ tions could find for them a secondary, “preparatory” position preceding the study o f Christian Scripture and doctrines. As Gregory o f Nyssa saw it, like the sterile daughter o f Pharaoh adopting Moses, Greek learning could pro­ vide valuable necessities to a growing child, but ultimately, the child’s natural mother, the Church, would provide him with true sustenance for growth.23 Even today, the study o f philosophy is a primer for theological studies in the Catholic tradition, a first step and preparation in the theological curricu­ lum— as the saying goes, the “handmaiden to theology.” Accumulation o f these cultural goods produces “symbolic power,” or au­ thority based on honor and prestige. A figure such as Origen, then, a Chris­ tian educated in the classical philosophical tradition, who was able to partici­ pate in the philosophical field, acquired recognition by both Christian and Greek members o f the intellectual class, in the form o f either praise or criti­ cism. Porphyry, for example, praised Origen for his aptitude and excellence, but was compelled to refute his specific views, including specific attacks against Origen in his anti-Christian writing. Such attacks were a standard practice in the philosophical field. Thus, Origen could claim and was recog­ nized to have an authoritative voice in the field (even to the chagrin o f Por­ phyry) and could successfully make an impact on the debate within the field. This was also a competition for pedagogic authority, which eventually be­ came concentrated on “higher education,” that is, the teaching o f philoso­ phy, but not to the exclusion o f literary and rhetorical education. Education, o f course, is the means by which an intellectual, cultural, and ethical heritage is conserved, inculcated, and consecrated, here understood as the recogni­ tion and bestowal o f legitimacy by authoritative agents through ritual and social practices.24 Though the differences in philosophical and theological 23. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.10-12. 24. See, for example, Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, trans. Richard Nice (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1970); Bourdieu, Field of Cultural Production, 51; and Swartz, Culture and Power, 189-91.

ideas were often vast (and often not), all o f the authors considered here op­ erated within overlapping social and cultural worlds. They possessed writing and linguistic skills to engage in dialogue directly and indirectly with com­ petitors. Having been formed in paideia and included among the small per­ centage o f educated elite, men such as Porphyry, Eusebius, Julian, and the Cappadocians shared a privileged social position and common elite values regarding education, literacy, and culture that influenced and guided their participation in the competition—as all o f us who are academics know, there are certain rules we are expected to play by. Paideia served as both a point of reference and a locus o f competition in this process. More than education and culture, it was a durable and molding complex o f ideas and practices that shaped the contours o f the lives o f the educated elite and afforded them a basis for cultural authority, and, to varying degrees, social and political authority.25 The locus o f pedagogic activity—that is, the institutions vested with the authority to educate—was also in flux at the level o f philosophical educa­ tion. Very little would change in terms o f literary and rhetorical education. The philosophical communities o f the third and fourth centuries have been characterized as an international, elite class o f itinerant intellectuals, orga­ nized loosely in “circles” o f associates.26 Organized around a specific teacher, these communities were often stratified into inner and outer circles o f access to the teacher, with the inner circle enjoying a common life that fostered a sense o f community. Such were the communities o f the philosophers Plo25. Referring to the social theory o f Pierre Bourdieu, Thom as Schmitz has identified paid­ eia as the habitus o f Greco-Roman antiquity. See Bildung und Macht: Zur sozialen und politischen Funktion der zweiten Sophistik in der griechischen Welt der Kaiserzeit. Zetemata: Monographien zur klassischen Altertumswissenschaft 97 (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1997), 29. Similarly, Tim Whitmarsh builds on a Bourdieuian cultural anthropology, as applied to the Second Sophistic by Thom as Schmitz, which regards paideia as a "locus for a series o f competitions and debates concerning the proper w ay in which life should be lived,” rather than a "single, doctrinally co­ herent system.” See Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 5, and Schmitz, Bildung und Macht, esp. 26-31. For discussion o f Bourdieu’s concept o f habitus, see his Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), esp. ch. 2, and Cultural Produc­ tion, 5. Criticisms have been leveled against Bourdieu’s habitus for its apparent determinism and emphasis on social conditioning that limits conscious agency. See ch. 5 o f Swartz’s Culture and Power. For a recent attempt to reconcile the weaknesses in Bourdieu with Margaret Archer’s un­ derstanding o f reflexive deliberation to create an “ emergentist theory o f action” that considers both cultural conditioning and conscious deliberation, see David Elder-Vass, "Reconciling A r­ cher and Bourdieu in an Emergentist Theory o f Action,” Sociological Theory 25, no. 4 (Decem ­ ber 2007): 325-46. 26. Garth Fowden, “ Pagan Philosophers in Late Antique Society with Special Reference to Iamblichus and I lis Followers” (Ph.D. thesis, Oxford, 1979), 160.

tinus and Iamblichus. Because they were not official posts in a governmentfunded or private academic institution, the vitality o f these circles largely de­ pended on the charismatic authority o f the teacher, which was enhanced by his expertise, accumulation o f cultural capital, and affiliation with a presti­ gious intellectual pedigree. In most cases, once the teacher died, the circle dispersed, and students often moved elsewhere to establish another circle. On Plotinus’s death, his students continued their philosophical work in vari­ ous parts o f Italy and even in Syria. The patronage o f Constantine in the fourth century strengthened the expanding trend o f institutionalization that characterized the networks of churches around the Roman Empire. A man who held the office o f bishop could invest the fruits o f his rhetorical and philosophical education in the ser­ vice o f Christian philosophy, using his office both to educate his flock and to participate in intellectual discourse. Unlike the philosopher’s authority, epis­ copal authority was defined less in terms o f the individual holding the office than in terms o f the institutional authority o f the office itself. It was not a fleeting authority that died with its holder, but an institutionalized succes­ sion that endured in the episcopal ministry. The authority o f consecration, in both theological and Bourdieuian terms, lay in the Church itself as new bishops received confirmation o f their position by other holders o f the of­ fice. Lists o f apostolic succession chronicled the proper lines o f transmis­ sion.27 Councils and synods o f bishops produced official decisions regarding doctrine and governance. Bishops were the primary producers o f Christian philosophical bioi. As “consecrator,” the bishop inscribed members o f the Church who were outside the institutional structures into the ranks o f phi­ losophers and co-teachers.28 The so-called charismatic authorities—for ex­ ample, Antony and the monks o f Syria— exhibited less the intellectual skills o f the professional philosopher and more the nonverbal physical acts o f prac­ tical virtue. Yet, their status was subordinated both textually and objective­ ly to Christian intellectuals: the bishops. As authors, bishops also inscribed themselves as recipients o f tradition, as does Athanasius, who both receives Antony’s cloak and writes his bios. The Ecclesiastical History o f Eusebius o f Caesarea, introduced as a histori­ cal narrative o f “the successions o f the holy apostles” from the Savior to his own time, provided an overarching narrative o f the revelation o f true wis­ 27. See, for example, Irenaeus, Haer. 3.3. 2X. See Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 50-52.

dom in Wisdom incarnate. It laid the foundations o f a descriptive and mythic account of an institutional ecclesiastical network, which spread “the divine life” and “philosophy” to Greeks and barbarians alike, and which assumed pedagogical activities previously reserved for the schools and circles o f Greek experts.29 Later Church historians, such as Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, built on Eusebius’s work. Porphyry, the student o f Plotinus, would also lay the groundwork for a mythic narrative o f succession for later Platonists. Yet, Porphyry never attempted an overarching foundational narra­ tive to include all Platonists or all philosophers. Perhaps this is because there was no interacting philosophical network of communities, but rather small, independent, and geographically scattered circles organized around indepen­ dent teachers. They had no continuous succession and no official means of electing leaders. Theirs seemed an interest more in αϊρεσις than in σχολή, in a “school of thought” rather than an “institutional school.” 30 Nevertheless, as we shall see, the bioi o f the Platonists present evidence for trends toward the construction, consolidation, and codification o f a phil­ osophical tradition, or a “routinization” o f instruments necessary for insti­ tutionalization.31 For example, there was a degree o f self-reflection on the position and profession o f the philosopher. From the time o f Iamblichus on­ ward, it became more common to refer to the leaders o f philosophical circles as “divine” (θείος). In the absence o f an official instrument o f succession, the hierarchy o f inner and outer circles o f disciples conferred honor through ac­ cess to and relationship with the teacher. The Greek philosophical bioi also show signs o f efforts to codify a corpus o f writings for a curriculum. Porphy­ ry’s organization o f the Enneads, to which the Life of Plotinus served as a type of hermeneutical prologue, acted as a "canon” o f Plotinian texts, a new addi­ tion to a formative collection o f authoritative literature, which included the Chaldean Oracles, Homer, Hesiod, and the dialogues o f Plato.32 The Anony­ mous Prolegomena, a sixth-century manual for the study o f Platonic philoso­ phy, attributes to Iamblichus a curriculum that outlines the number and titles o f Platonic dialogues and the order in which they should be studied.33 Iam29. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.7.13 (SC 31,169). 30. For a discussion o f the uses o f terms such as αϊρεσις, σχολή, and διατριβή in the contexts i >1 late antique philosophy, see John Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy (Gottingen: Vanilcnhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978), 159-74. 31. Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction, 190. 32. John M. Dillon, “ Iamblichus o f Chalchis (c. 240-325 A.D .),” A N R W 36.2:879.

33. Anonymous Prolegomena, 26.13.

blichus’s Compendium of Pythagorean Doctrine was organized as a progressive curriculum for the study o f Pythagorean philosophy, and On the Pythagorean Life served as its introduction.34 From a canon (however loosely defined) of texts, formal curricula, and public discourse, there issued a consensus o f top­ ics deemed worthy o f discussion and debate. Though we cannot speak o f a Neoplatonist “creed” comparable to Christian creedal formulae, there were certainly specific “topics” that shaped and directed the burning philosophical and theological questions o f the day—the nature o f God, the immortality of the soul, the practices leading to virtue. Finally, the geographical itinerancy o f philosophers in earlier centuries be­ gan to give way to more geographic concentration in the late fourth and fifth centuries. Athens, in particular, remained the most important symbolic cen­ ter o f intellectual life for Greek intellectuals and also for many Christian in­ tellectuals because o f its associations with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the origins o f the Greek philosophical and cultural heritage. The city was also more resistant to the incursion o f Christianity, probably due to the presence of a strong non-Christian aristocracy that sought to preserve the city’s Greek identity. As a result, the soil o f this symbolic capital was ripe for the seeds o f a budding Platonist “institution” in the fifth century. Ultimately, this was a struggle for the souls o f individuals and the shape of society. According to Plutarch (following Plato), the virtuous life was one that was naturally endowed, but nurtured and molded by a proper education. Left to his own design, without the right guidance, even the man who pos­ sessed a philosophical nature would fall victim to the perversion o f his own weaknesses and his environment. The consequence: a great nature turned bad.35 Thus, possessing a natural potential for virtue was not enough. Paideia was an absolute necessity in the proper flourishing o f the philosophical life.36 So it was, according to Plato, that even the majority o f those endowed with a great philosophical nature were corrupted by goods, because they did not receive the best education.37 In the Moralia, Plutarch regards paideia as the proper acting o f reason, custom, and law on the taming o f the emotions o f young men’s irrational soul.38 Plutarch links deficient education and the fail­ 34. Dillon, “Iamblichus o f Chalcis,” 872. 35. Tim Duff, Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999 ), 53· 36. Plato, Resp. 492a. 37. Plato, Resp. 491c.

38. Plutarch, Moralia 4520 d.

ure to control the passions, since it is education, not simply natural ability, that steers the emotions o f the irrational soul to a virtuous course.39 Plato considered the role o f society in moral education functional only when that society was free from corruption.40 In this struggle, the Greeks, naturally, adopted a conservative strategy. Nevertheless, paideia did not remain static, as the creative efforts o f Neoplatonists such as Porphyry and Iamblichus demonstrate. Christians, on the other hand, employed various subversive strategies to challenge the foun­ dational narratives, texts, and institutions o f the Greeks. Competition also extended into the arenas o f worship and political policy. There was indeed much at stake, especially in the fourth century. As I see it, the key is to read the works o f these authors not simply as the writings of pagans and Chris­ tians squabbling over religion, but as a discursive interchange o f individuals educated in the most influential works o f Greek philosophy, competing to interpret and define the meaning o f this heritage: it is at its heart a search for universal truth and an attempt to trace its history, to enumerate its represen­ tatives, and to preserve and transmit it to future generations for the good o f individuals and society. In the third and fourth centuries, as Christian intellectuals began to partic­ ipate in this competition, the “privileged past” o f Greece and its catalogue of authoritative representatives was thrown into question, no longer a given, as the parameters o f the debate shifted to other “pasts.” Laura Nasrallah has re­ mapped the location o f figures such as Justin Martyr, his student Tatian, and Lucian o f Samosata as participants in a “negotiation o f authoritative culture under conditions o f empire.” 41 She identifies in these authors what she terms a “geographical thinking,” or a mapping o f the world, with paideia as com­ pass. She notes a simultaneous resistance and assimilation to paideia on the part o f all three. Tatian, for example, exhibits a negative valuation o f Greek identity while he simultaneously “performs Greekness,” that is, engages his rhetorical opponent through Greek literary forms and references.42 Justin, 39· Duff, Plutarch’s Lives, 75-77. 40. See Plato Resp. 49id-492d; and Dominic J. O ’Meara, Platonopolis: Platonic Political Philoso­ phy in Late Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 50. 41. Laura S. Nasrallah, “Mapping the World: Justin, Tatian, Lucian, and the Second Sophis­ tic,” HTR 98, no. 3 (2005): 283-314. See also ch. 2 o f her monograph Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church amid the Spaces of Empire (N ew York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 42. Ibid., 299.

meanwhile, appeals to the center o f imperial power by aligning himself to common paideutic values: “as one o f the provincial elites, speaking the com­ mon language o f Greek, o f privileged philosophy, and o f Roman subjecthood.” 43 In the fourth century, models o f rejection begin to appear. Antony o f Egypt’s famous avoidance o f primary and secondary education exposes his biographer’s overt disavowal o f the authority and value o f that education.44 However, Athanasius would not have attained the skills to write about Anto­ ny had he himself not benefited from the very education he disavows. Simi­ larly, Antony’s dismissal o f artful rhetoric and argumentation is itself artic­ ulated in finely crafted rhetorical argumentation.45 Through a constructed representation o f Antony o f Egypt, Athanasius misrecognizes, or disavows, the cultural and social value o f his own literary and rhetorical training. The alternative he proposes, however, is not completely divorced from the domi­ nant system, paideia. Instead, it is simultaneously one that is influenced by the dominant system and converts it. In this case, there is, on the one hand, a conscious challenge to the influence and authority associated with Greek in­ tellectual training and pedagogical authority. Yet, on the other, there are the semantics and specialized discourse o f philosophy, the values and cultural norms inculcated through paideia, and the practices of the educated elite, op­ erated at an unconscious, internalized level, in one sense misrecognized, but at the same time consciously modified (though not necessarily abandoned).

Biographical Literature as Philosophical Texts In this study, I focus on biographical literature as an arena, or locus, of competition, for the negotiation o f the parameters, ownership, and trans­ mission of philosophy. I understand the very production and propagation of such literature and its consumption as constitutive practices o f the intellectu­ al elite. Under the umbrella term of "biographical literature,” I follow Simon Swain, who designates as “biographical texts” those that “furnish detailed accounts o f individuals’ lives.” 46 Thus, included here are the bios, the philo43· Ibid., 307. 44. Athanasius o f Alexandria, Vit. Ant. 1.2. 45. See ibid., 78.2-3, and discussion in ch. 5 o f this volume. 46. Simon Swain, “ Biography and Biographic in the Literature o f the Roman Empire,” in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, ed. Mark ). Edwards and Simon Swain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), r 2-

sophical history, early forms o f hagiography, and funeral orations. I exclude panegyrics o f living subjects (except for a brief consideration o f Eusebius’s Praise of Constantine) because o f the importance o f the dead as exemplars o f the philosophical life and ancestors o f communities. Because o f the increased production and proliferation o f both Greek and Latin biographical literature in the third through fifth centuries CE, I have limited the scope o f this proj­ ect to those examples written in Greek by bishops and heads o f philosophical communities who also had the positions, resources, and influence to play a significant role in the debate over philosophy. Alongside treatises that delin­ eated the dialectical aspects o f philosophical debate, the ancient bios was a lit­ erary vehicle that portrayed subjects as representations o f the philosophical life. In turn, the textual life was intended to inspire and mold the moral for­ mation o f the readers.47 Related to various forms o f “praise literature,” such as the panegyric and the encomium, the bioi and other biographical texts of this period display a development o f forms and conventions on a constant­ ly evolving literary continuum that extends back to classical Greece. It is perhaps no accident that the fifth century BCE produced the beginnings o f Greek biographical literature precisely when broader cultural criteria were invoked in understandings o f what it meant to be Greek.48 Unfortunately, most o f the examples o f biography produced between the fifth and third centuries BCE have been lost. The subjects o f those that have survived in fragmentary condition tend to be mythical figures, the po­ ets, kings, and generals. Collections o f the sayings o f wise men and philos­ ophers, such as Aesop, the Seven Sages, and Pythagoras, circulated well be­ fore the Hellenistic period, perhaps as early as the fifth century.49 Isocrates’s Evagoras, written around 370 BCE, claimed to be the first prose encomium o f 47. Duff, Plutarch’s Lives, 17. 48. On the origins o f Greek biographical literature, see Arnaldo Momigliano, The Develop­ ment of Greek Biography, expanded ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 8. Momigliano looks for the roots o f the bios in encomia, prose literature about heroes and mythi­ cal figures, but admits that the existence o f fully developed biographies is “ conjectural” (28). T he earliest surviving examples o f Greek biography are known to us in fragments. These in­ clude fragments o f the lives o f Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles by the third century B C E Peripatetic Satyrus, preserved in P. Oxy. 1176. The earliest surviving work o f Latin biography is Ihe fragmentary De viris illustribus by Cornelius Nepos (first century BCE), which is thought to have contained some four hundred biographical accounts. King Herod's court historian, Nico­ laus o f Damascus, a Peripatetic, wrote a Life of Augustus and an autobiography (9). On the shift toward cultural criteria in the definition o f Greekness, see Hall, Hellenicity, 189. 49. For a more detailed discussion o f biography and autobiography in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, see Momigliano, Development, 23-64.

a contemporary person. Not long after, Xenophon, a follower o f Socrates, composed the Agesilaus, a work modeled on the Evagoras. Xenophon s pur­ pose in praising the king o f Sparta goes beyond the simple narration o f im­ portant accomplishments, recounting the deeds o f an excellent king and gen­ eral that attest to his character. The subject, therefore, is a worthy model o f imitation. Xenophon lauds Agesilaus for his ability to rule himself, an ideal king who was able to lead his subjects (and also the readers o f his bios) to virtue.50 Competition among the intellectual circles o f antiquity contributed sig­ nificantly to the development and evolution o f biographical literature. The Hellenistic era witnessed important evolutions in the formal development of a generic theory o f the bios.51 The Socratics, Peripatetics, and the later Platonists all utilized biographical literature to promote philosophical doctrines and praise their subjects as historically important and philosophically para­ digmatic.52 Momigliano attributes this to new trends in philosophy and rhet­ oric that emphasized the importance o f individual education, achievement, and virtue.53 For the philosophers, the deeds o f prominent figures o f the past could serve as instruction in virtue, and biographical literature a vehi­ cle for promoting ideas. Though not biographical literature in a strict sense, the Dialogues of Plato feature the words and deeds o f Socrates, molding his life, and especially his death, into a philosophical argument in a literary, and somewhat biographical, form.54 In addition to his Agesilaus, Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Cyropaedia represent important innovations and directions in biographical literature. Momigliano, who regards Xenophon as “a pioneer experimenter in biographical forms,” expresses concisely the Socratic contri­ bution to biographical literature: "The Socratics experimented in biography, and the experiments were directed toward capturing the potentialities rather 50. Xeonophon, Agesilaus 10. 51. Momigliano, Development, 12; Patricia Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Questfor the Holy Man (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1983), 6 52. Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau, eds., Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 2000), 4. The Peripatetics, in particular, contributed to the development o f the biographical genre. Am ong the Peripatetics who continued this tra­ dition, Jerom e (Vtr. ill. 2.821) names several, including Hermippus, Satyrus, Antigonus, and Sotion. Most, if not all, o f these seem to have written works o f collective biography. Sotion com ­ posed a w ork titled “ The Succession o f Philosophers.” See Momigliano, Development, 65-76. 53. Momigliano, Development, 45. 54. Ibid., 53. For additional examples o f Socratic biographical literature, see Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Cyropaedia. The Pythagorean-turned-Aristotelian Aristoxenus composed Lives o f Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, and Archytas.

than the realities o f individual lives. Socrates, the main subject o f their con­ siderations (there were other subjects, such as Cyrus), was not so much the real Socrates as the potential Socrates. He was not a dead man whose life could be recounted. He was the guide to territories as yet unexplored.” 55 The school o f Aristotle exhibited a great interest in collecting and arrang­ ing the biographical anecdotes and sayings o f important individuals into epideictic and mimetic literature that served as illustrations o f virtue and vice.56 As such, biographical literature could serve a more useful purpose than for mere curiosity or “historical fact.” Biographical facts, like natural or histori­ cal facts, were better organized in order to answer big questions, to provide an empirical basis for philosophical analysis. Aristotle himself wrote no bi­ ographical works, but in those o f the later Peripatetics, we see how a sub­ ject's deeds (πράξεις) revealed character (ήθος).57 The term bios first appears at this time.58 Dicaearchus o f Messine, a student o f Aristotle, penned a "Life o f Greece” and a piece entitled περί βίων, perhaps a work o f collective biogra­ phy, which included biographical sketches o f philosophers, such as Pythago­ ras and Plato. Diogenes Laertius (ca. third century CE) used Dicaearchus as a source for his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.59 Satyrus (ca. third century BCE), one o f the Peripatetics cited by Jerome as a literary predeces­ sor in the dedication o f his De viris illustribus, composed a life o f the poet Euripides in dialogue form.60 Aristoxenus o f Tarentum (fourth century BCE) was perhaps the most important o f the Peripatetics in the production o f bio­ graphical literature. Formerly a student o f the Pythagorean school, Aristox­ enus wrote a life o f Pythagoras, which praised the sage for his contributions to philosophy. Aristoxenus also wrote lives to malign philosophical rivals. For example, his Lives o f Plato and Socrates lambaste the plagiarism and licen­ tiousness o f their subjects, as a hostile polemic against the contemporary Academy.61 The Parallel Lives o f Plutarch (ca. 50-120 CE), perhaps the best known o f the philosopher-biographers o f antiquity, provided later biographers with both a theory and model o f the genre. Timothy E. D uff’s monograph on 55. Momigliano, Development, 46-47.

56. Ibid., 65-76.

57. Cox, Biography, xi. 58. Momigliano, Development, 12, and Cox, Biography, 6 . 59. See Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions o f Eminent Philosophers 3.5 (Plato), and 8.21 (Py­ thagoras). 60. Jerome, Vir. ill. 2.821. 61. Cox, Biography, 10 11.

Plutarch explores the “moralizing purpose” o f the Lives. The chief objective was to reveal the subject’s character through an examination of his family background, education, and major accomplishments, exposing virtue or vice to give the reader an opportunity to judge the moral qualities of the sub­ ject and to regard the subject as a model for imitation (in the case of the virtuous) for his or her own improvement.62 In the famous prologue o f the parallel lives of Alexander and Caesar, Plutarch distinguishes his task from that o f the historian. As an author of “lives” (βίους), instead of "histories” (ιστορίας), his task was to portray his subjects’ character through the “signs of the soul” (εις τά της ψυχής σημεία). Histories, as mere collections of great deeds (πράξεις), did not necessarily provide a moral directive (δήλωσις άρετής ή κακίας).63 The composition o f a bios was analogous to the work o f painters who represented the character of their subject through a careful representa­ tion o f the face and eyes. The portrait or the statue demonstrated in a static but eternal moment the ethical composition o f the subject. It was a portrait o f the soul. Likewise, the biographer painted a portrait o f the soul in words. This analogy o f biographical text and sculpted image was already present in previous works.64 In Biography in Late Antiquity, Patricia Cox characterized the biographies o f late antiquity as “caricatures” o f the holy man, whose aim was to “evoke and thus to reveal the interior geography o f the hero’s life”— that hero being the philosopher who stood at the intersection o f the human and the divine.65

Biographical Literature and Philosophical History The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers o f Diogenes Laertius had a much different purpose than Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. More the doxographer than the philosopher, Diogenes traced the origins and divisions o f the ma­ 62. Duff, Plutarch’s Lives, 5-6. 63. Plutarch, Alexander 1 (in Parallel Lives, Lindskog and Ziegler, 175), m y translation. 64. Isocrates (Evagoras, 73) expressed his preference for written "likenesses o f deeds and o f the character" to statues. 65. Cox, Biography, xi. C ox’s work on biography should be read in the context o f scholar­ ship on the ancient “divine man” and “holy man.” She is in conversation with Ludwig Bieler, whose classic 1935-36 work, Θ Ε ΙΟ Σ A N H P , was an attempt to outline the “ construction o f the religious personality” o f the “divine m an” in ancient literature as a demonstration o f Platonic theological and anthropological ideas. Also important are Peter Brown’s “The Rise and Func­ tion o f the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” JR S 61 (1971): 80-101; and Garth Fowden’s “The Pagan Holy Man in Late Antique Society,” /HS 102 (1982): 33-59.

jor schools o f philosophy through biographical anecdotes, apophthegmata, and bibliographies o f the principal representatives o f the schools. Diogenes does not make his own philosophical leanings explicit, leading us to believe that the intent o f his work was more historical than apologetic. As an exam­ ple o f collective biography, the work categorizes the lives o f founders and heads o f schools in a series o f individual bioi. Strung together according to their chronological succession, the work as a whole could be regarded as a work o f philosophical history. His work is not included in this study as it was not intended as an apology for one school o f philosophy over others. He dis­ plays an interest in the interrelation o f schools and treats the coexistence o f different schools as acceptable. Other important examples would follow, in­ cluding Porphyry's fragmentary Philosophical History and Theodoret o f Cyrrhus’s Religious History; two works o f collective biography called “history” by their authors. This designation raises some interesting questions. In what way should we understand the authors' designation o f these works as “histo­ ries”? And to what extent could we regard both collective and individual bioi as a sort o f ancient historiographical enterprise? Biographical literature came into being at approximately the same time as historiographical literature in Greece.66 Much o f the scholarly discussion has revolved around the relationship o f the bios to other literary and perfor­ mative genres, such as the encomium, the panegyric, and, especially, the his­ tory.67 Until recently, scholarship on biographical literature has posed very “historical” questions, including the origins o f the genres and their value for historical reconstruction. Some German scholars saw the bios as an in­ road to the ancient Greeks’ conception o f the “individual.” 68 Others, such as 66. Momigliano, Development, 12-13. 67. In addition to the works o f Momigliano, Cox, Swain, and H agg and Rousseau already cited, see also Charles H. Talbert, “Biographies o f Philosophers and Rulers as Instruments o f Religious Propaganda in Mediterranean Antiquity,” A N R W 16 .2:1619-51; and Bruno Gentili and Giovanni Cerri, eds., History and Biography in Ancient Thought (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988). 68. For example, Ivo Bruns, Das literarische Portrdt der Griechen imfiinften und viertenJahrhundert vor Christi Geburt (Berlin: W. Hertz, 1896) and Die Personlichkeit in der Geschichtsschreibung der Alten (Berlin: W. Hertz, 1898). Albrecht Dihle took up the question o f literary origins and the concept o f the “individual” in Studien sur griechischen Biographie, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gottingen, Phil.-hist. Klasse 3, 2. Auflage (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1956), by arguing that the figure o f Socrates inspired the invention o f biography in Socratic circles. But as Momigliano pointed out (Development, 16-17), Dihle seems to overlook the fact that biographical literature existed some one hundred years before Socrates. He also notes that no Socratic, including Plato and Aristotle, ever wrote a biography proper (an ac­ count from birth to death) o f Socrates.

Friedrich Leo, concentrated on literary forms and established the categories o f classification that would direct the study o f ancient biographies for many years.69 He named two types o f biographies: the “Plutarchan” type, which was organized chronologically, and the “Suetonian” type, arranged themati­ cally. More recent scholarship has deemed these classifications problematic.70 Shifting the discourse a bit, but still entrenched in questions o f genre and form, Arnaldo Momigliano treated the literary relationship between biogra­ phy and historiography in his influential series o f essays, The Development of Greek Biography (1971). Since antiquity, ancient authors had been reluctant to relate the two genres. In the famous passage from the prologue o f the Life of Alexander, Plutarch posited a stark distinction between the “life” and the “his­ tory,” the former having a distinct moral purpose. But Momigliano boldly as­ serted that “nobody nowadays is likely to doubt that biography is some kind o f history,” and wondered why the Greeks “never recognized that biography is history.” 71 Yet he distinguishes “biography” from “history” on the basis o f their intended facticity: “The historian was supposed to tell the truth. When he was forced to report unchecked rumors, he was supposed to say so. This was the rule established by Herodotus and Thucydides.” 72 The biographer, on the other hand, apparently approached factual accuracy differently : “Even historians like Xenophon with a philosophic education forgot about truth when they came to write encomia and idealized biography.” 73 Recent studies on the origins and literary characteristics o f the bios have focused attention on its social contexts and functions. Moving away from the types o f classification proposed by Leo and others, Charles Talbert suggest­ ed a classification on the basis o f the text’s function in its “social-intellectualspiritual milieu,” as didactic (propagandistic) or nondidactic (not propagandistic).74 To this end, he situated bioi within the Sitz im Leben o f the communities that produced them. Drawing connections between the place o f bioi in phil­ 69. See Die griechisch-romisch Biographie nach ihrer litterarischen Form (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1901). 70. On Leo, see Momigliano, Development, 18-20; Talbert, “Biographies,” 1619-20; Cox, Biog­ raphy, 51-52; and Duff, Plutarch’s Lives, 7. 71. Momigliano, Development, 6. 72. Ibid., 109. 73. Ibid., 102. 74. Talbert, “Biographies,” 1620-23. Talbert outlines five types o f lives: (1) those that simply provide a moral paradigm, (2) those that aim to dispel a false image o f a teacher or to provide a true one, (3) those that intend to discredit a teacher, (4) those that map out a tradition o f a par­ ticular school by including lists o f successors, and (5) those that validate and / or provide a her­ meneutical key for the subject’s teaching.

osophical schools and o f the gospels in early Christian communities, Talbert explored the interrelationship among cultic activity, myth, and the construc­ tion o f tradition in the development o f biographical literature. In What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Greco-Roman Biography (2004), Richard A. Burridge analyzed ancient biographies with a view to understanding the genre of the gospels. His examination proceeds according to “external” elements (liter­ ary features, structure, form) and “internal” elements (topics, style, social set­ ting), concluding that bioi were a flexible but recognizable genre in antiquity and that the gospels would have been recognized as part o f this genre.75 In the bios, history and myth merge, generating a sort o f “myth o f origins.” Gentili and Cerri considered again the question o f biography and history in History and Biography in Ancient Thought (1988). Largely following the ap­ proach o f Momigliano, the authors argue that biographies and histories, as literary genres that appear to have originated and evolved around the same time, should not be opposed absolutely, despite the sharp distinction made by the ancients between the two genres. Instead, they suggest considering their interrelation.76 In response to this, and considering Momigliano’s ques­ tion regarding the relationship between biography and history, I suggest we regard biographical literature as “some kind” o f ancient historiography. If it is seen within its social-historical contexts, as a textual practice o f tradition building and history writing, it cannot be denied that authors participated in an historiographic task, inventing and reinventing the history and representa­ tives o f the inheritance o f philosophy. Works such as Porphyry’s Philosophos historia, Eunapius’s Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, and Theodoret’s Re­ ligious History narrated the history o f philosophical traditions through bio­ graphical accounts o f philosophical representations from the past. As con­ tributions to a process o f tradition building, philosophical bioi,77 individually and collectively, constructed histories o f philosophy.

75. Richard A. Burridge, W hat Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 2nd ed., Biblical Resource Series (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004), 184, 250. 76. Gentili and Cerri, History and Biography, 84. 77. By “philosophical bioi,” I mean those Christian and non-Christian bioi that skillfully em ­ ploy explicit philosophical language and imagery, and follow the general structure o f and in­ clude the tropes o f classic biographical genres— birth, childhood, education, deeds that demon­ strate character, works, followers, succession, etc.

The Bios as Arena o f Cultural Competition An understanding o f the literary conventions and innovations o f bio­ graphical literature, their theological and philosophical interests, and the so­ cial contexts in which they were produced and read permits us to regard bi­ ographical literature as an “arena,” or locus o f debate and negotiation, in a competition among parties of the Greek-speaking educated elite, the pepaideumenoi. The production, circulation, and consumption of biographical liter­ ature constituted one strategy in this competition. The bios, then, served in its conventional literary and rhetorical aspects as a practical, competitive tool in the competition. Biography could be used to define, delimit, and promote the characteristics o f the philosophical life. As a pedagogical tool, biographies presented models for imitation. Authors enlisted noble figures o f the recent and distant past, praising them as founders, exemplars, and transmitters of knowledge and virtue. Biographical productions also addressed “sociopoliti­ cal and cultural concerns,” particularly between Christians and Greeks.78 As Talbert points out, biographies often served as “weapons” in debates over succession and transmission among the rival Hellenistic schools o f phi­ losophy.79 Conceptions o f the origins of knowledge were bound up with im­ plications for the stream o f its pure transmission within the structures o f ed­ ucational and religious institutions. To this end, authors often employed the language o f kinship and inheritance, giving expression to a relationship be­ tween transmitters and recipients. In some ways, the complex o f myth o f or­ igins, descent, shared history, and claims to land that characterized expres­ sions o f Hellenic ethnicity in ancient Greece seem to have adapted to claims o f Greek cultural identity, particularly among groups o f intellectual elites.80 Even intellectual dynasties required a pedigree and shared history to claim, guard, and bequeath an inheritance—in this case, not only the inheritance of a precious philosophical tradition, but also the skills, expertise, and authority to correctly teach and transmit it.81 Not only did teachers impart knowledge 78. Talbert, “Biographies,” 1620-23. Previous studies have called attention to this function o f biography, notably the volume o f essays edited by Edwards and Swain, and that edited by H agg and Rousseau, which considers the interaction between Christian and non-Christian bio­ graphical texts. 79. Talbert, "Biographies,” 1645. 81.

80. Hall, Hellenicity, 9-15.

Both Greek and Christian authors often used the economic metaphor o f “philosophy”

as an inheritance or wealth. See, for example, Theodoret, Phil. hist. 16.1 (SC 257, 28), where Maron heaps up a “wealth o f philosophy” (τής φιλοσοφίας συναθροίζων τον πλούτον) through his la­ bors. See also Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 37.22. Marinus (Vit. Proc. 10) describes the philosopher

to their students, but they were also “fathers,” who adopted their students into the lineages of the great traditions by what Libanius considered a kinship o f words.*82 The language of inheritance represented philosophy as a com­ plete body of knowledge—texts and traditions o f interpretation and practic­ es. Together, lineage and inheritance, which determined identity, ownership, authority, and social relations in so many ways in the Mediterranean world, applied also to the intangible inheritance of ideas and doctrines, establishing Active “bloodlines,” philosophical DNA, in nascent institutions. A clear and stable succession (διαδοχή), from “father” to “son,” from one generation to the next, demarcated family trees and intellectual dynasties. If we can talk o f the Christian notion o f “apostolic succession,” a reading o f Eunapius alone reminds us that the Greeks had a similar conception o f what we might call “philosophic succession,” a concept examined in great detail by Robert Penella (Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D.: Studies in Eunapius of Sardis [1990]) as it relates to Eunapius’s Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists. We can see in the interplay between the literary features o f biographical literature and the social contexts o f their production and circulation how lin­ eage and succession were reinforced. Possessing a special affinity to the divine, which afforded an aura o f sanctity, subjects were also portrayed as ancestors, founders, and teachers who exemplified the philosophical life in their teaching and ascetic practice. Creating and reinforcing bonds among subject, author, and audience, these texts formed a type o f social charter for Christian and Neoplatonist communities in narratives o f the origins o f philosophy (e.g., The Life of Pythagoras, The Life of Moses), the foundation o f communities (e.g., The Life of Antony, The Life of Macrina), and critical moments in the history o f the transmission of philosophy (e.g., The Life of Plotinus, The Life of Proclus). In the production of the hioi themselves, authors established a series of relation­ ships that served as polemical, apologetic, and formational discourses within the larger cultural competition. The following outline adapts the discussion in Hagg and Rousseau by considering relationships “around” the text, that is, in­ side the communities where biographical texts circulated and contributed to self-understanding, alongside relationships at the level o f the text:83 Proclus’s arrival in Athens as his taking possession o f his rightful inheritance, the tradition o f Platonic philosophy. 82. Libanius, ep. 170, in Autobiography and Selected Letters, vol. 2, ed. and trans. A. F. Norman, Loeb Classical Library 478 and 479 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992). 83. Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau, “ Introduction: Biography and Panegyric,” in H agg and Rousseau, Greek Biography, 14 18.

1. subject-author: The author, qua author, claimed privileged knowledge of the subject, whether through personal acquaintance or study, and presented himself as a recipient or heir o f the subject’s teaching. 2. author-audience: By virtue o f his intermediary role, the author played a pivotal role in the transmission o f the philosophical inheritance from the subject to the audience, and acted as an important link in the chain o f intel­ lectual descent. 3. subject-audience: Like the Roman imagines maiorum, textual portraits of the exemplary dead served as ancestral figures for the intended audience, as well as expressions and models o f an ideal o f the virtuous life. Their philo­ sophical heritage was both the means by which descent was reckoned and the ancestral inheritance that was passed on. It should not be surprising, then, that the primary social setting o f the production and consumption o f biographical literature was within struc­ tures claiming pedagogic authority— schools, churches, even small, informal circles o f intellectuals.84 The authors to be examined here were among the most powerful and influential players in the competition. They were the ed­ ucated elite, men formed by paideia, bound together—amicably and some­ times inimically— in a social and cultural world that governed the upper ech­ elons o f Roman society.85 They are almost exclusively Greek-speakers, heads o f schools and bishops, with distinctly philosophical interests. The numer­ ous homilies and commentaries by Christian teachers and bishops often read like the philosophical discourses of the Neoplatonists on the texts o f Plato or Homer. But whereas the Neoplatonists promoted a conservative (but still newly developed) curriculum founded on the traditional Greek canon, as a means o f preserving and reproducing a culture o f Hellenism, many Chris­ tian intellectuals fostered the development o f a Christian education that chal­ lenged and subverted Greek curricula, models, lineages, and histories. The intention was not always to destroy Greek paideia, but to transform it into a Christian paideia and to replace and reprioritize the teachers and institutions that consecrated, transmitted, and reproduced cultural orthodoxy.86

84. Bourdieu, Reproduction, 11-31. 85. Edward J. Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria, Transformation o f the Classical Heritage (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 2006), 14. 86. Swartz, Culture and Power, 230.

A Philosophical Economy It seems even the ancients were aware o f the symbolic economy of phi­ losophy that provided the immaterial and material goods necessary for virtu­ ous living, intellectual formation, and participation in competition. Philoso­ phy is sometimes conceived o f as an immaterial “wealth,” acquired through a range o f intellectual, bodily, and social practices.87 Acquisition o f wisdom occurs through a combination o f natural ability, formation through human institutions and guidance, and encounter with the divine. The proliferation and consumption o f bioi were important parts o f the processes o f philosoph­ ical formation and incorporation into communities. Thus they had an indi­ vidual and collective scope. It may be useful at this point to consider from this vantage point the evan­ gelization o f philosophy, and the intended reach o f the production o f bio­ graphical literature, philosophical histories, and pedagogical lineages. Here Bourdieu provides a useful analytical model.88 In the production and cir­ culation o f cultural goods, he identifies a “field o f restricted production” in which these goods are produced primarily for other producers. Accord­ ing to this strategy, producers tend to produce for their competitors and for others within their field, marginalizing themselves from the larger public o f nonproducers. In terms o f the production o f philosophical biographies, we might think o f intended readership, including the accessibility o f its themes, argument, and language. For example, Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus and Iamblichus’s On the Pythagorean Life, both introductions to philosophical curricu­ la, fall into this category. These were produced specifically for consumption by other intellectuals, Greek or Christian. In the “field o f large-scale produc­ tion,” producers produce for a broader public, both for other producers and for nonproducers outside their field. Theodoret’s Religious History clearly had a larger audience o f nonspecialists in mind, not limited to intellectuals, or to aspiring monks, but not excluding them either. Christians, more often than the Greeks, aimed for a “large-scale” production o f bioi, proffering philoso­ phy to a larger audience. One did not need to be literate or have access to a li­ brary in order to know the stories o f the lives o f Antony o f Egypt, or Macrina, or the monks of Syria. Calendars organized time around the feast days o f 87. See Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.115 (SC 1 ter 174), where paideia and Greek philosophy are called the ‘‘wealth o f outside learning.” 88. Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 125-31.

the saints, whose lives were read and commented on as part of the churches’ liturgical life. Athanasius considered the church the school o f Christ, and Christian in­ tellectuals, such as Origen, Basil o f Caesarea, and other bishops, transformed the churches into centers of education, school-like settings, which extended the content o f philosophy and the narrative of its transmission to a much wider public.89 The Greeks did not do this, but restricted their activities, in­ cluding the circulation o f bioi, to elite circles. Neither Eunapius nor Mari­ nus took their laudatory accounts o f their teachers to the masses. By the end o f the fourth century, it would have been politically dangerous to do so. Maintaining a conservative line under extreme pressure, they also con­ tinued to offer restrictive models, which aimed to preserve an untainted no­ tion o f Greekness based on education, culture, status, and gender. Their ap­ proach to philosophy and education remained essentially conservative— a defense o f the traditional structures founded on a Platonic intellectual tra­ dition that advocated a Greek canon, Greek cults, and an aristocratic mo­ nopoly on any form o f philosophy. Where Christians were trying to cut the bonds between Greek identity and philosophy, the Greeks, naturally, tried to strengthen those bonds, eventually becoming the guardians o f Greek reli­ gion when their cults were under attack. Christian bishops, the primary pro­ ducers of Christian philosophical bioi, often belonged to the same class o f wealthy intellectuals, but did not exclusively offer bishops as representatives and transmitters o f philosophy. Instead, Christian philosophical models is­ sued from all classes and stations in society: Origen the intellectual; Constan­ tine the emperor; Macrina the ascetic leader o f a community; the monks of Egypt—poor and rich alike who, like Antony, abandoned the urban context for a life o f solitude and ascetic practice. This study aims to bring together an array o f ancient and modern discus­ sions o f biographical literature: giving close attention to levels o f dialogue that ancient biographical productions reflect and directed as arenas o f com­ petition, while engaging previous scholarly treatments o f biographical litera­ ture. In each chapter, examples o f Christian and Greek biography are paired in order to highlight particular areas o f debate and negotiation that char­ acterized the struggle for philosophy. The biographical literature is in turn 89. See Athanasius, Inc. 51.

situated within the larger corpora o f their authors to call attention to pro­ grammatic trends in their work. In so doing, I wish to demonstrate how bi­ ography contributed to the construction o f identity among intellectuals o f late antiquity. In casting the production and consumption o f this literature as a dialogue, I am presuming not that Christians necessarily read the Greeks’ literature and vice versa (though that is not to be excluded in every case), but rather that biography reflects the terms o f debate and competition in the broader cultural context, where interaction often did occur. Strategies o f subversion and transformation were characterized by an am­ biguity that made cultural competition possible and necessary. Christians en­ tered not from without, but from within. Our authors were themselves the products o f the very paideia they sought to transform. Chapter 1 explores the roots that remained as Christian intellectuals entered the arena o f philosoph­ ical competition. Here I provide a sketch o f the state o f the philosophical world in late antiquity, which locates Christian intellectuals within the social and cultural contexts, networks, and trends o f that world, and suggest that the Christian entrance into what was already a competitive field presented another legitimate and viable option that could continue to engage other de­ veloping philosophies in late antiquity. Chapter 2 examines the role o f biog­ raphy in describing traditions o f philosophical origins. Moses and Pythago­ ras are the figures who dominate this discussion. Related questions, which arise in such works, are the relation o f “barbarian wisdom” to the origins o f Greek philosophy and, in the case o f Christian texts, the nature o f the in­ terrelationship between Greek and Christian philosophy at their origins. In chapter 3, the focus turns to the biographical productions o f Eusebius and Porphyry as attempts to write their respective heroes, Origen and Plotinus, into developing narratives o f philosophical history. The themes o f decline and renewal direct this narrative, as their subjects represent a reform and re­ discovery o f the origins o f philosophy. At the same time, both biographers aim to take their place as authoritative heir and representative o f these tradi­ tions. In chapter 4, the focus turns to the philosopher-ruler in a side-by-side reading o f Eusebius’s Life of Constantine and Libanius’s Epitaphios on Julian. Here the relationship between political philosophy and programs o f reli­ gious and cultural reform is examined through the lens o f biography. Chap­ ter 5 considers the displacement and recasting of the philosopher in Athana­ sius’s Life of Antony, perhaps the most influential o f all the works examined here. I have paired this text with Eunapius’s Lives of the Philosophers and Soph­

ists in order to highlight the continuities and differentiations in conceptions of teachers o f wisdom in the late fourth century, a contrast between philoso­ phers in unlikely places and philosophers in likely places. Chapter 6 continues the discussion o f finding philosophers in unlikely places in the biographical accounts o f Christian and Greek women, namely Macrina and Sosipatra (who receives one o f the longest treatments in the work of Eunapius). O f particu­ lar interest are the places women inhabit in the predominately male lineages of philosophical transmission (Christian and Greek) and the significance o f female images of the philosopher in estimating paideia and loci o f pedagogy. Finally, in chapter 7, the dramatic shifts that had occurred in the philosophical field by the fifth century are viewed through the lenses of Theodoret's Reli­ gions History and Marinus’s Life of Proclus. The former reflects the dominance o f a Christian intellectual elite, which regarded the monastic life as the fulfill­ ment o f both Christian and Greek visions of virtue, while the latter represents an intellectual minority under pressure and its attempts to reestablish an au­ thoritative Platonic institution in the city o f Athens. I have chosen to omit from this study the biographical works o f Philostratus—his Lives of the Sophists and the Life of Apollonius—for several reasons. A member o f the cultural elite o f the third century with close ties to the court of the empress Julia Domna, Philostratus aimed to promote the cul­ tural movement, which he coined the “Second Sophistic,” and “a Hellenism which [was] defined primarily through a combination o f religion and phi­ losophy,” namely Pythagorean philosophy.90 While I maintain that there are important ties between the developments o f the Second Sophistic and the emergence o f a Christian philosophical culture, the aim o f this study is to fo­ cus on those works o f biographical literature that promote particular expres­ sions o f philosophical history and lineage. We might see the Life of Apolloni­ us as a precursor to the philosophical hioi that would appear in Neoplatonist and Christian circles, but it differs from them in scope and purpose. Not a Py­ thagorean himself, Philostratus composed the bios as a defense o f Apollonius the man and the way o f life he represented, but not in support o f a particu­ lar community o f Neopythagorean philosophers. Nevertheless, this biogra­ phy would prove to be extremely influential for both Neopythagoreans and Neoplatonists, and even Eusebius o f Caesarea targeted the work in his tract 90.

Simon Swain, “ Defending Hellenism: Philostratus, In Honour o f Apollonius," in Apologet­

ics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, ed. M.J. Edwards, M. Goodman, and S. Price (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 158.

Against Hierocles. Finally, a plethora o f scholarship on this subject has raised the work to a level o f scrutiny and attention that overshadows other impor­ tant biographical texts in conversation with Christianity.91 The struggle to define and direct the course o f philosophical thinking and education in late antiquity manifested itself in various arenas, with a host o f participants, over the course o f several centuries. From within the schools and overlapping social networks o f both Greek and Christian intellectuals, an abundance o f biographical literature began to emerge from the late third century forward. As a literary arena o f this competition, the bios identified historical figures o f both recent and distant memory as embodiments, revealers, and transmitters o f philosophical truth. The authors o f bioi claimed for themselves some share in the philosophical heritage o f their “ancestors.” As members o f lineages that could be traced back to the first teachers and revealers of divine wisdom (Plato, Pythagoras, Jesus Christ, the apostles, even directly to God), their inheritance was a family treasure to be faithfully guarded and passed on through successive generations, from father to son (and sometimes to daughter). Now we turn to the beginnings o f the struggle, and examine both the cir­ cumstances under which Christian intellectuals participated in competition with Greeks and the Christian responses to developing Greek philosophical traditions. 91.

The literature on the Life of Apollonius is extensive, particularly in the scholarly discus­

sion o f gospel literature. For a good, comprehensive study o f Philostratus and his body o f work in context, see Jaap Jan Flinterman, Power, Paideia and Pythagoreanism: Greek Identity, Con­ ceptions of the Relationship between Philosophers and Monarchs and Political Ideas in Philostratus’ Life o f Apollonius (Amsterdam: J .C . Gieben, 1995). On the Life o f Apollonius as apologetic literature, see Swain, “ Defending Hellenism."

J&3 The Roots That Remain

O f the things that are always ours, and were form erly yours, the roots remain and will remain as long as you live, and no time will ever root them out, even if you should hardly water them. Libanius to Basil o f Caesarea (ep. 340)

These words from the alleged correspondence between the Greek ora­ tor Libanius of Antioch (ca. 314-93) and the Cappadocian Basil o f Caesarea (330-79) splendidly express the nature of the cultural habitus of the educated Christian.1 In ep. 339 Basil protests that on choosing to devote himself to the writings o f Moses and the prophets— “in substance true, though in style un­ learned”—time has caused him to forget what he has learned in Libanius’s school.2 In response his teacher retorts that paideia has so deeply inscribed it­ self in Basil’s person that even neglect could not root it out. Christian assessments o f the Greek philosophical tradition varied. Jus­ tin Martyr, the second-century convert to Christianity, drew freely on Greek intellectual and rhetorical skills and openly articulated the Christian narra­ tive through conceptual and semantic categories conversant with Platonism. Tertullian, writing a generation after Justin, represented a more reserved ap­ proach. He famously asked what Athens had to do with Jerusalem,3 and saw 1. N o scholarly consensus has been reached concerning the authenticity o f the LibaniusBasil epistolary corpus. See the discussion in Raffaella Cribiore, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 100. 2. Basil, ep. 339, trans. Deferrari, in The Letters, ed. and trans. R oyJ. Deferrari, 4 vols., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Oxford University Press, 1961-70), 4:299. 3. Tertullian, Pracscr. 7.

in the “mixing” o f Greek learning and Christian faith a marriage that could produce only deformed, and heretical, offspring.4 Nevertheless, a latent, and perhaps unconscious, commitment to traditions o f Greek philosophy, Sto­ icism in particular, underlay Tertullian s theology and ethics.5 In his defense o f Christianity against the criticisms o f his contemporaries, Tertullian em­ phasized the originality o f Christian revelation.6 Where philosophy agreed, it served to confirm Christianity as the “better philosophy.” 7 Each o f these cases raises a question: Could philosophical thinking and the culture that nurtured it be simply and completely abandoned at will? It seems not even Tertullian was capable o f this. While consciously distancing himself from the Greek schools, he simultaneously participated in the philo­ sophical enterprise. This “misrecognition” of the internalization o f the as­ sumptions, skills, and practices o f educated culture disavowed at a conscious level the cultural value o f intellectual expertise, while unconsciously it ex­ posed the social and cultural constraints o f perceiving the many facets o f cul­ tural competition.8 While constructing and proposing distinctively Christian views, Christian intellectuals were at home in the world o f doing philoso­ phy, challenging and competing with the dominant Greek pepaideumenoi, be­ cause this world was in them.9 In the present discussion, we can see Greek and Christian intellectuals competing to produce and acquire the same forms o f cultural capital—for example, education, intellectual lineages, access to or possession o f important philosophical texts, and the skills to read, inter­ pret, and debate their content, including a linguistic capital o f specialized philosophical terminology and the rhetorical and literary fora to engage in debate. This chapter describes the state o f the philosophical field in late antiquity and offers a narrative chronicling the entrance o f Christian intellectuals into the arena. By locating Christians within the social and cultural contexts, net­ works, and trends o f that world, I suggest that a subgroup o f intellectuals who professed Christian doctrines proposed to an already competitive field a 4. Cf. Irenaeus, Haer. 2.14. 5. Eric E Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (N ew York: Cambridge University Press, 1 997 ), 35- 39· 6. Jean-Claude Fredouille, Tertullien et la conversion de la culture antique (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1972), 337-40. 7. Tertullian, Pall. 6.2. 8. On misrecognition, see Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 75. 9. Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations, trans. Richard Nice (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Uni­ versity Press, 2000), 143.

legitimate and viable philosophical option that could continue to engage oth­ er developing philosophical systems.

A Dichotomy o f Wisdoms The approach o f the Apostle Paul to the “wisdom o f the world” provid­ ed a paradigm for Christian intellectuals. In his correspondence with the Co­ rinthian community, the Apostle addressed the problem o f factionalism, his criticism aimed particularly against a faction o f educated members who re­ garded their knowledge as evidence o f social superiority. He countered these claims by proposing a dichotomy o f wisdoms— “the wisdom o f this world” and “God’s wisdom” : “Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom o f this age or o f the rulers o f this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.” 10 In the ancient context o f Paul’s letter, the “wisdom o f this age” corresponds to the knowledge o f human reason, cor­ rupted by its fall into idolatry (cf. Rom. i). More specifically, in the context o f i Corinthians, it corresponds to forms o f paideia.11 This type o f wisdom (σοφία), Paul asserts, is “foolishness” (μωρία) in relation to the “wisdom o f God,” that is, the gospel proclamation o f the crucified and risen Christ, "who became for us wisdom from God” (i Cor. 1:30). Sophia itself is not disparaged. In fact, the wisdom tradition o f Hellenistic Judaism factors prominently in Paul’s letters, particularly in his Christology.12 Paul’s proclamation o f the crucified Christ as sophia is an antithesis to the wisdom o f the world, which, as Paul explains quoting the prophet Isaiah, God would destroy (1 Cor. 1:19). 10. i Cor. 2:6 -7 (NRSV). 11. For example, Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (N ew Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995) 37 and 59-61. Several studies have looked closely at Paul’s knowledge o f Hellenistic philosophy, while others have compared Pauline communities to philosophical communities. For example, Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), and Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: For­ tress Press, 1987); Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003); Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000); Stanley K. Stowers, "Does Pauline Christianity Resemble a Hellenistic Philosophy?” in Paul beyond theJudaism/Hellenism Divide, ed. T. Engberg-Pedersen (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001): 81-102. 12. For a review o f twentieth-century scholarship up to the 1980s, see E. Elizabeth Johnson, The Function o f Apocalyptic and Wisdom Traditions in Romans 9-11, Society o f Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 109 (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1989), 23-29, and Ben E. Witherington, Je­ sus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994).

At first glance, Paul’s dichotomy might suggest a total and radical enmity between God’s wisdom and the world’s wisdom, a divide between revelation and reason. Yet Paul’s dichotomy suggests more than the failure o f human reason to apprehend the divine. Instead, the “wisdom of the world,” which is the object o f Paul’s rebuke, constitutes a way o f knowing and acting that was inculcated in educational institutions and social circles among the an­ cient privileged classes. This “culture” o f knowing and acting, paideia, includ­ ed training in grammatical and rhetorical skills and the reading o f a loosely defined canon o f Greek literature. Thus, there was a cultural dimension to Greek education, which aimed to produce skilled and cultured Greeks. As the work of Peter Brown has shown, the ambience o f “common culture” created by paideia was limited, of course, to the aristocracy, the leaders of society.13 Like any educational system, it produced and reproduced particu­ lar intellectual, social, and cultural norms. It was exclusive and reinforced the power structures o f Greco-Roman society by imposing a “social distance.” 14 Factionalism and divisions— according to economic and social status, gen­ der, and, it would seem, educational background—characterize the commu­ nity Paul addresses in Corinth. This was unacceptable. Paul’s framing o f a dichotomy between the “wisdom” o f the gospel (for example i Cor. 2:6-7) and the wisdom o f the world elicited a competitive strategy. Critical o f those who would claim that education endowed them with a superior understand­ ing of the God o f Jesus Christ, Paul introduced a way o f knowing and act­ 13. Peter L. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madi­ son: University o f Wisconsin Press, 1992), 36-37. The w ork o f Henri I. Marrou, A History of Ed­ ucation in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), was long the stan­ dard reference on education in antiquity. The essays found in the volume edited by Yun Lee Too, Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Boston: Brill, 2001), provide an important reas­ sessment o f Marrou and offer new perspectives on the subject. In addition, Robert A. Raster (Guardians o f Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, Transformation o f the Classical Heritage 11 [Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1988]); Teresa Morgan (Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, Cambridge Classical Studies [N ew York: Cam ­ bridge University Press, 1998]); Raffaella Cribiore (Gymnastics o f the Mind); and Catherine M. Chin (Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World, Divinations [Philadelphia: University o f Pennsylvania Press, 2008]) have done much to further our understanding o f grammatical and rhetorical education in antiquity. In particular, Cribiore’s treatment o f the educational papyri o f Egypt help make important distinctions between ancient educational “ theory” and the evi­ dence for actual pedagogy. See also Martin L. Clarke, Higher Education in the Ancient World (Lon­ don: Routledge & K. Paul, 1971) and Averil Cameron, "Education and Literary Culture,” in The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425, ed. Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, vol. 13 o f The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 665-707. 14. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 39.

ing founded on the crucified and risen Christ. To the Hellenized ear, Paul's “good news” was sophia, a true reflection o f the mind of God—or the “mind o f Christ” (i Cor. 2:16). Thus, both rhetorically and philosophically Paul re­ tained a stake in “wisdom” as something o f great value. He situated the wis­ dom o f the gospel in competition with the other “wisdoms” in which some o f the Corinthians had invested. In other words, Paul did not argue that so­ phia was one thing and the evangelion another. Instead, the gospel is sophia, but not the sophia one would learn in the orator s classroom or the philos­ opher's school.15 The only wisdom that warranted boasting was not the worldly wisdom of Plato or Aristotle, but rather the wisdom o f the God of Israel, revealed in Christ Jesus and announced by Paul. This would not be found in the texts or schools of the Greek philosophers (“those who suppose they are wise” [Rom. 1:22]), but in the writings o f Moses and the prophets of Israel. God’s wisdom shamed the wisdom o f the elite and revealed a way to every believer, regardless o f gender, status, ethnicity, or education.16 Citing the words o f the prophet Isaiah (1 Cor. 1:19), the Apostle Paul pro­ claimed to the church at Corinth an epistemological apocalypse. This wis­ dom of God recently revealed in the crucifixion and resurrection o f the Mes­ siah Jesus had been communicated through the gospel o f the Apostle, who in turn had come to know and understand it through the mysterious work o f enlightenment proffered by God’s spirit (1 Cor. 2:7-12). The apocalypsis o f Je ­ sus Christ was o f apocalyptic proportions because it signaled the destruction o f the wisdom o f this world. Paul asks: “Where is the wise one ... o f this age?” (1 Cor. 1:20). No doubt here, as in Rom. 1:22, Paul was boldly striking at the philosophy and education (paideia) o f the Greco-Roman world, claim­ ing that this very wisdom corrupted society and alienated it from God. In the crucifixion o f a Galilean peasant, God revealed the true wisdom that would lead all who sought after it into communion with him. The canonization o f Paul’s letters as sacred scripture itself canonized his dichotomy o f wisdoms. With a fading awareness o f the occasional nature o f the letters, early Christians could read Paul’s instructions to a first-century community as authoritative for defining how a Christian could or could not reconcile the claims o f Christian faith with the philosophy o f the Greek tra­ dition.17 Though Paul never denotes “the wisdom o f the world” as specifi­ 15. See i Cor. 1:18-21. 16. See Gal. 3:27-28. 17. See, for example, Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 80.1 (SC 400, 338; trans. Vivian and Athanassa

cally “Greek” in the Corinthian correspondence, it is understood this way, for example, in Athanasius's Life of Antony.18 Later Christian writers pon­ dered the benefits o f Greek philosophy and its legitimacy in the economy of revelation. At the same time, they formulated Christian doctrine using the methods o f rational argumentation learned in schools. Nevertheless, varied approaches emerged that expose tension between overt rejection o f philo­ sophical culture and inscribed participation in philosophical practices. Tertullian’s distancing o f Athens and Jerusalem must also be balanced with his adoption of the pallium, the distinctive costume of the Greek philosopher.19

“A d FontesΓ : Rediscovering the Origins o f Philosophy Even before Christianity appeared on the scene, major shifts were oc­ curring in the philosophical world. Between the first century BCE and the second century CE, the Hellenistic schools were losing their distinctiveness and influence. Divergence reigned supreme among the presumptive heirs o f Socrates and Plato, and, in the case o f the Academy, divergence led to com­ petition, competition to fragmentation, and fragmentation, compounded by external political and military factors, led to demise and disappearance.20 Stoics and Academics (themselves fragmented into skeptical and dogmatic camps) struggled against each other in texts, public debate, and classrooms to establish the correct reading o f Plato. Sulla’s sack o f Athens in 86 BCE, during his campaign against the forces o f Mithridates in Greece, prompted the officially elected head o f the Academy, Philo o f Larissa, to leave his po­ sition at Athens and take up residence at Rome. The subsequent break of Antiochus o f Ascalon from Philo’s Academy signaled the beginning o f the end for this revered Athenian institution. According to the account o f Ci­ cero, Antiochus established his own school, called the “Old Academy,” as a kis, in Life o f Antony: The Greek and Coptic Lives with an Encomium on Saint Antony o f Egypt, ed. and trans. T im Vivian and Apostolos Athanassakis, Cistercian Studies Series 202 [Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 2003], 225-27), where Antony recalls the Apostle’s words: “If still you do not believe, seeking logical proofs through words, w e will not offer proof by means o f ‘plausible Greek wisdom ,’ as our teacher [διδάσκαλος, i.e., the Apostle Paul] said, but will per­ suade by means o f the faith that is clearly outpacing your w ordy fabrications.” 18. See Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 80. 19. See Tertullian, De Pallio: A Commentary, ed. and trans. Vincent Hunink (Amsterdam: Gleben, 2005). 20. For the argument that the Athenian Academ y ceased to function as an institution with a continuous succession by the first century B C E, see Glucker, Antiochus.

rival to Philo’s "New Academy,” which was, in fact, the institution that fol­ lowed the succession o f teachers from Plato.21 It is important to note that Antiochus was never the properly elected head o f the Athenian Academy, but was the founder and head o f his own school, which was located at the Ptolemaeum gymnasium.22 In Antiochus’s estimation, such a move was nec­ essary to reclaim Plato from the erroneous teaching o f Philo and to restore a proper reading and interpretation o f the Dialogues, which moved away from the skepticizing trends o f the New Academy, and posited a harmony o f Pla­ to with Stoicism and Aristotelianism. After 44 BCE, there is little evidence to suggest that an official succession continued at the Athenian Academy. When Cicero visited Athens to hear the lectures o f Antiochus, he took strolls to the site o f the Academy, which still vividly held and aroused the memory o f the great philosophers who once taught there—and who apparently did no more.23 Also telling is Luke’s account o f Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17—while Stoics and Epicureans listen intently to the Apostle, Academ­ ics are conspicuously absent. Outside o f Athens, a new Platonism was rising from the intellectual rubble o f the Academy. Vigorously opposed to the skeptical tendencies o f the imme­ diate heirs o f the Athenian Academy, the so-called Middle Platonists attribut­ ed to Plato a dogmatic authority.24 In his monograph Post-Hellenistic Philoso­ phy, G. R. Boys-Stones regards this as an entirely new philosophical movement that developed in response to the demise o f Academic philosophy.25 At its ba­ sis was the claim that Plato was the discoverer of a primitive truth that ex­ isted in the thought and practice o f ancient peoples, which he then gathered together to construct the philosophical tradition o f Greece. Organized into decentralized philosophical circles scattered mostly in the urban centers of the eastern provinces in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Rome, many o f these phi­ losophers called for a “return to origins,” a reform and recovery of a pure Pla­ 21. See Cicero, Acad. 1.13. For fuller treatment o f the Old A cadem y-N ew Academ y nomen­ clature, see Glucker, Antiochus, 103-20. 22. Glucker, Antiochus, 99. For the location o f Antiochus’s school, see Cicero, Fin. 5. 23. See Cicero, Fin. 5. 24. For the major figures o f “ Middle Platonism,” see John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977). 25. G. R. Boys-Stones, Post-Hellenistic Philosophy: A Study of Its Development from the Stoics to Origen (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 102-4. Boys-Stones also explores how these new Platonists constructed a Platonist narrative o f the transmission o f truth based on a Stoic theory o f primitive wisdom. Glucker demonstrates the discontinuity between the philosophy o f the Academy and this new Platonism, which developed mostly outside o f Athens in the first and second centuries CK; see Antiochus, 138-40.

tonism, purged of the elements that had been introduced from other schools. Many o f the important players in this reform movement were also ad­ herents o f Pythagorean philosophy. These “Neopythagoreans” reflected on the Pythagorean elements of the Platonic Dialogues, and regarded Plato’s own interest in the teaching o f Pythagoras as an indication that the origins of Platonism were closely linked to the more ancient Pythagoreanism.26 Thus, these two concurrent movements, rising in response to the weakened influ­ ence and authority o f the schools at Athens, worked to discover the pure origins o f a universal philosophy and to promote a reform o f philosophi­ cal method, doctrine, and religious practice. Among the Neopythagoreans o f the first through third centuries were Apollonius of Tyana, Eudorus o f Al­ exandria, Moderatus o f Gades, and Nicomachus o f Gerasa. Many (including Apollonius, according to some reports) had composed bioi o f their founder Pythagoras to promote the Pythagorean way.27 One of these reformers, Numenius o f Apamea (late second century CE), argued that the origins o f true philosophy were based in Pythagorean teach­ ing, which only Socrates and Plato had properly understood and articulated.28 Applying a Pythagorean lens to Platonic texts, Numenius developed an eclec­ tic philosophical system that regarded the wisdom o f the “esteemed nations” (τά έθνη τά εύδοκιμοΰντα) as wellsprings o f truth that both complemented and validated the doctrines o f Pythagoras and Plato.29 He wrote: “In this regard, speaking and signifying these things, he [i.e., the philosopher] will have to withdraw to [άναχωρήσασθαι] the testimonies o f Plato and bind them to the words o f Pythagoras, and to call on the esteemed nations, the Brahmans and Judaeans and Magi and Egyptians, applying their mysteries [τελετάς] and doc­ trines and cult [Ιδρύσεις] as they agree [όμολογουμενως] with Plato.” 30 7.6. Dillon, Middle Platonists, 3-5; and Charles H. Kahn, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2001), 94. 27. Porphyry regularly cites the sources for his own biographical account o f Pythagoras in his Philosophos historia. He names Nicomachus, Moderatus, and an Apollonius, believed to be Apollonius o f Tyana. But, see James A. Philip, “The Biographical Tradition— Pythagoras,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 90 (1959): 185-94, for the problems regarding these sources. 28. Michael Frede, "Num enius,” A N R W 36.2:1043-44. 29. Frede (ibid., 1047-48) writes that Numenius does not say that Pythagoras was the sole dis­ coverer o f truth. Rather, his interest in the wisdom o f the "barbarians” was tempered by his un­ willingness to credit these easterners with the origins o f Greek philosophy, especially Platonism. 30. Numenius, frag, ia (in Fragments, ed. and trans. Edouard Des Places [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1973 1, 42; m y translation). Eusebius quotes this passage in Praep. ev. 9.7.1. Origen also cites it in Cels. 1.15, adding that Numenius was a Pythagorean who recognized that the Judaeans believed in an incorporeal God.

In a work o f philosophical history entitled On the Disagreement of the Aca­ demics against Plato, fragments o f which are preserved in the Praeparatio evangelica o f the fourth-century bishop Eusebius o f Caesarea, Numenius proffers a scathing account o f the history o f Plato’s Academy down to Antiochus.31 He laments the διάστασις— “disagreement” or “divergence”—between the “pure” teachings o f Plato, found in the dialogues and secret teaching, and the views propagated by the Academics at Athens. This divergence, in the esti­ mation o f Numenius, seemed to have occurred almost immediately, among the students o f Socrates.32 His strongest attacks were leveled against Arcesi­ laus for introducing Pyrrhonian skepticism into the Academy.33 Even Antio­ chus, who distanced himself from the Skeptical Academy o f Philo, is fault­ ed for mixing Platonism with Stoicism. Numenius critically regarded the history o f the Athenian Academy as one o f decline and innovation, a con­ stant movement away from the pristine philosophy o f Pythagoras and Pla­ to, and a heretical mixing with the “foreign ideas” (ξένα) o f other schools. Plato’s successors “did not remain true to the first succession” (ούκ ένέμειναν τη πρώτη διάδοχη), and, as a result o f their infidelity, the founder suffered, like the mythical Pentheus, in the torture, twisting, and division o f his body (διελκόμενος πάσχει μεν κατά μέλη).34 The institutions headed by the unfaith­ ful were distinguished from the school o f Plato by epithets such as “a third Academy” or “another Academy.” 35 Numenius proposed the following solution to his generation o f Platonists: “Having learned about [the discord among the interpreters o f Plato], we must return to the original point o f issue, and just as it was our task from the beginning to separate (χωρίζειν) him [i.e., Plato] from Aristotle and Zeno, thus, even now, if God helps, we should separate him from the Academy, by himself, to be in the present time a Pythagorean [Πυθαγόρειον].” 36 As he saw it, Plato was a “Pythagorizer” (ό δε Πλάτων πυθαγορίσας) who best under­ stood and articulated the universal philosophy.37 Though not the inventor o f Neopythagoreanism, Numenius’s unveiling o f an intellectual crisis, his Lu­ theresque call to return to origins, and his systematization o f what Polymnia 31. For the text, see Numenius, frag. 24-28 (Des Places, 62-80). 32. Numenius, frag. 24.47-51 (Des Places, 64). 33. Numenius, frag. 25.82-105 (Des Places, 68-69). 34. Numenius, frag, 24.71-72 (Des Places, 65). 35. Numenius, frag. 26.103-104 (Des Places, 75). See also frag. 28.12-13 (Des Places, 79). 36. Numenius, frag. 24.57 (Des Places, 64; m y translation). 37. Frede, “ Numenius,” 1048.

Athanassiadi has characterized as a “theologie oecumenique,” set the stage for a rethinking and reshaping o f the Platonic tradition.38 This identification o f a philosophical crisis and call for a renewal resonated profoundly in Platonist circles. His vision o f the origins, history, and transmission o f philos­ ophy, and his efforts to deconstruct previous philosophical history, by dis­ counting the succession at the Academy and the other Hellenistic schools, would have an impact on the historiographical projects o f both Neoplatonists and Christians who read his works.39 Though a program o f reforma­ tion was initially dominated by the school o f Plotinus, it opened the doors to a Christian option. Numenius also had an interest in locating the seeds of Greek philosophy in the wisdom o f eastern peoples.40 This would include Numenius’s familiarity with the sacred scripture o f the Hebrews, which he knew and, we are told, interpreted allegorically.41 It was Numenius, after all, who commented, “For what is Plato than Moses atticizing?” Porphyry, too, was familiar with Numenius’s work and shared an interest in the wisdom of foreign peoples and the allegorization o f Greek myths.42

Christians in the Arena Christian intellectuals were not uninvolved in this renewal o f Platonism. As early as the second century, Greek-speaking, literate intellectuals, a “sub­ 38. Polymnia Athanassiadi, La lutte pour Vorthodoxie dans le platonisme tardif de Numenius a Damascius, Ane d’or 25 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2006), 77. 39. Porphyry reports that the commentaries o f Numenius were read in Plotinus’s school (Vit. Plot. 14.12). In fact, Plotinus was accused by “ the ones from Greece” (των δ’ άπό τής'Ελλάδος [Vit. Plot. 17.1]) o f plagiarizing Numenius— a charge that prompted his student Amelius, who had col­ lected and commented upon the works o f Numenius, to defend him in a work entided On the Dif­ ference between Plotinus and Numenius (Vit. Plot. 3.43.5). Perhaps these were Platonists in Athens— either independent teachers or the holders o f the imperially established chairs, but certainly not heads o f the Academy. Dillon (Middle Platonists, 381) has suggested that Plotinus was exposed to the “Neopythagorean underground” typical o f Numenius’s philosophy in the classroom o f Ammonius. This material would have come to the attention o f Origen also, to one degree or an­ other, as he also studied with Ammonius. Athanassiadi (Lutte, 79-81) has noted a certain “odium

theologicum” that later Platonists hold in regards to Numenius’s philosophical methodology. Cit­ ing Porphyry, Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6.19.8) includes Numenius among the authors read by Origen. 40. Charles H. Kahn, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), 119. See also Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion, 23-28. 41. Origen notes that Numenius interpreted the writings o f the prophets allegorically. See

Cels. 1.15 and 4.51. 42. Edouard Des Places, Numenius: Fragments, Collection des universites de France (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1973), 26-28.

elite” o f Roman society, were joining Christian ranks.43 They were educated in the rhetorical and philosophical schools o f the empire and socialized in intellectual circles. A tiny minority within a tiny minority, these skilled writ­ ers and thinkers, including Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus o f Antioch, and Tertullian, laid important foundations for a Christian philosophical discourse that did not simply borrow from or imitate mainstream Platonism, but or­ ganically grew out o f the philosophical discourse o f late antiquity.44 This was not a corruption o f a pure, simple faith, or a Frankensteinish concoction, but rather a legitimate and viable competitor that could continue to engage oth­ er developing philosophies well into the third and fourth centuries. The extent of the Christian engagement with Greek philosophy was ini­ tially small and its impact on the philosophical crisis minimal. But gradually, over the course o f the second and third centuries, the Christian voice made a greater impact. In many ways, the narrative o f late antiquity is the story o f the "leveling up” o f the social and cultural playing field between Greeks and Christians.45 In the first century, the Apostle Paul set the standard o f en­ gagement for the Corinthians as a dichotomy o f competing wisdoms. The hymns incorporated into the Gospel o f John and the Letter to the Colossians already identified Christ as the true creative and rational principle o f the uni­ verse, not simply by way o f metaphor, but as a real metaphysical claim that both challenged and clarified generally accepted philosophical conceptions.46 Moreover, lest we underestimate the impact these Christian intellectual newcomers could make, it is somewhat remarkable that Greek intellectuals o f the dominant establishment, such as Celsus and Porphyry, found Chris­ tianity enough o f a threat to compose significant polemical treatises as ear­ ly as the middle o f the second century. This demonstrates that a "reason­ able,” philosophically informed, Christian option had made inroads among the intellectual classes, threatening the stabilizing status quo that the school 43. Keith Hopkins, “ Christian Num ber and Its Implications,” JECS 6, no. 2 (1998): 208-9. 44. According to Hopkins (“ Christian Number,” 206-11), less than 2 percent o f the adult male population o f the Roman empire were “ sophisticated literates.” Christian intellectuals would have made up about the same proportion, or slightly higher, among the Christian popu­ lation, and should be considered as a party within the overall 2 percent o f the Roman intellec­ tual elite. 45 . 1 am indebted to Peter Brown for this articulation. 46.

See John 1:1—18 and Col. 1:15-20. Exegesis o f these texts took on new urgency in the

theological debates o f the fourth century. For general discussion, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and

Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

o f Plotinus was championing. Christian intellectuals of the third century— most notably the Alexandrians Clement and Origen, as well as Origen’s stu­ dent Gregory the Wonderworker— applied the same literary, rhetorical, and philosophical training their Greek counterparts had to their understand­ ing o f the Christian narrative and scriptures.47 There was a general consis­ tency in educational curricula for upper-class boys across the Roman Em­ pire.48 Therefore, intellectuals who eventually wrote and debated on behalf o f Christian doctrine and practice possessed the same literate skills as and inhabited a shared cultural world with their competitors.49 Through philo­ sophical discourse and historiographical creativity, Justin and the other apol­ ogists laid the foundations for a Christian philosophical option that could compete with developing Platonisms.50 Justin Martyr, the “Christian philosopher” o f the second century, often marks the traditional starting point in the narrative o f the Christian engage­ ment with philosophy. He recounts his philosophical quest in the Dialogue with Trypho.51 A yearning for truth and happiness led the Samaritan to ex­ plore the major philosophical schools o f his time. He took a particular inter­ est in the philosophy o f the Platonists, and his works display a comfortable familiarity with its major figures and principles. Once he self-identified as a Christian, Justin felt secure in designating himself “philosopher.” 52 He even wrote using the literary form o f the dialogue to argue for the superiority o f Christianity, which he called the “only certain and useful philosophy” (μόνην ... φιλοσοφίαν ασφαλή τε και σΰμφορον).53 While he was critical of the philo­ sophical tenets o f the Greek schools, Justin did not dismiss Greek philosophy altogether. In his own attempts to relate a philosophical history, he explains 47. On the study o f gram m ar and literature, and especially the place o f Hom er in ancient education, see Morgan, Literate Education, 33, 74; and Cribiore, Gymnastics, 142-44, 194-205. On rhetorical education, see Cribiore, Gymnastics, ch. 8. 48. Morgan, Literate Education, 46. 49. For a discussion o f the strategies employed by Greek philosophers to describe a uni­ versal philosophy as a “politically interested enterprise” and Christian participation in this dis­ course as subversive mimesis, see Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion, esp. 15-51. 50. The Apologists represent just one group o f philosophically sophisticated Christians o f the second century. For reasons o f space, I have omitted other groups, such as the school o f Valentinus, and other so-called Gnostics, whose cosmogonic myths brought together the exe­ gesis o f Genesis and Plato. It would be in response to these thinkers that critics, such as Tertullian and Irenaeus, would attempt to build clearer barriers between philosophy and faith. 51. Justin, Dial. 2-8. 53. Justin, Dial. 8 (PC 6:492c).

52. Justin, Dial. 1.

in a manner much like Numenius, his contemporary, that an original, unified philosophy had been revealed to the ancient Hebrews by the divine spirit,54 but in the hands o f the Greeks, this unified truth had become obscured and “many-headed” : It has happened that those who first handled it [i.e., philosophy], and who were there­ fore esteemed illustrious men, were succeeded by those who made no investigations concerning truth, but only admired the perseverance and self-discipline of the for­ mer, as well as the novelty of the doctrines; and each thought that to be true which he learned from his teacher: then, moreover, those latter persons handed down to their successors such things, and others similar to them; and this system was called by the name of him who was styled the father of the doctrine.55 And thus the Greek schools came into being.56 Some Greeks, however, lived according to reason, as partakers in the di­ vine Logos. These could be afforded a place o f reverence in the prehistory o f Christian revelation.57 Justin regarded Socrates as a precursor to Christ.58 Sharing in the same rational faculties as all human beings and being creat­ ed in the image and likeness o f God, even the Greeks could arrive at some real truth, even if imperfect.59 For example, the Greeks had some conception of immortality, the divine order o f the cosmos, and even the significance o f the cross.60 However, because the Greeks 'borrowed” from the Hebrews and mixed these true doctrines with false notions o f the divine, they misunder­ stood, misrepresented, and fell into falsehood. The conversation among developing Platonisms produced interesting re­ sults in the great cultural center of Alexandria. As Edward Watts has empha­ sized, it would not have been unusual for Christians and Greeks to study in the same classrooms, share the same teachers, and study the same curricu­ lum. Indeed, Christians and Greeks together participated in the paideia that opened access to the networks of political cooperation and intellectual ex­ 54. Justin, Dial. 7. 55. Justin, Dial. 2 (PG 6:476); trans., A N F 1:195. 56. On the similarities between the accounts o f Justin and Numenius, see Arthur J. Droge, “Justin Martyr and the Restoration o f Philosophy,” Church History 56, no. 3 (1987): 303-19. See also Arthur P. Urbano, “ Narratives o f Decline and Renewal in the Writing o f Philosophical History,” in Religious Competition in the Third Century C.E.: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, ed. Nathaniel P. DesRosiers, Jordan Rosenblum, and Lily C. Vuong, Journal o f Ancient Judaism: Supplement Series (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, forthcoming). 57. Justin, 1 Apol. 46. Cf. Athenagoras, Leg. 6. 58. Justin, 2 Apol. 10.

60. See Justin, 1 A pol. 60.

59. Justin, 2 Apol. 13.

change.61 Eusebius's history o f the origins Christian intellectual life in Al­ exandria begins with Pantaenus and Clement, presented as teacher and stu­ dent, respectively.62 Clement gives a sketch o f the breadth o f his studies in the first chapter o f the Stromateis, when he draws his intellectual pedigree, not according to the names o f his teachers, but by their places of origin: Greece, southern Italy, Coele-Syria, and Egypt. He also studied with an un­ named Jewish teacher born in Palestine. His greatest teacher, in whom he found the fruits o f revealed doctrines, he cryptically called the “Sicilian-bee,” presumably Pantaenus. All o f these teachers, Clement writes, preserved “the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles, Pe­ ter, James, John, and Paul.” 63 Transmitted as from fathers to sons, the ances­ tral and apostolic seeds o f Christian knowledge were entrusted to Clement himself.64 It is clear from his writings that Clement had an extensive knowledge of the Greek philosophical tradition, and engaged that tradition both construc­ tively and critically. While he is unapologetically dismissive o f Greek mythol­ ogy and religious practice, his handling o f the philosophers is much more even-handed.65 Like Justin, where Clement saw philosophical congruity be­ tween Moses and Plato, he suggested that Plato, in his search for wisdom in the writings and practices o f the ancients, had read the books o f Moses.66 Clement engaged the philosophers o f the past in a debate over the origins and doctrines o f true, inspired philosophy, defining the location o f Plato and Moses in relation to Christ, the wisdom o f God, and correcting the philoso­ phers on the basis o f the books o f Moses, the prophets, and the apostles. Just as the Torah was given to the Hebrews in preparation for the revelation of Christ, so philosophy was a preparation for the Greeks.67

61. Watts, City and School, 152-55. 62. See Eusebius, Eccl. hist. 5.10-11. 63. Clement, Strom. 1.1.11.3 (SC 30, 52 [ANF 2:301]). 64. Clement, Strom. 1.1.11.3. 65. On the mystery religions, see Clement, Protr. 5.70-71. 66. See, for example, Strom. 1.1.10.2 (SC 30, 50), where Plato is called “the philosopher who learned from the Hebrews” (ό έξ'ΕβραΙων φιλόσοφος Πλάτων). 6γ. Clement, Strom. 1.5.28.2-4 (SC 30, 65): “For God is the cause o f all good things; but o f some primarily, as o f the Old and the N ew Testament; and o f others by consequence, as phi­ losophy. Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic mind, as the law, the Hebrews, to Christ. Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the w ay for him who is perfected in Christ" (trans., ΛΝΡ 2:305).

Paideia as Common Currency Early Christian narratives o f philosophical history lacked complex the­ ories o f intellectual and cultural exchange. Clement’s claim that Hebrew thought may have had an impact on the development o f Greek thought is not so problematic. In fact, it is often the case that the dominated culture ex­ erts its influence on the dominant culture.68 Instead, sophistication is lack­ ing in the explanation o f how the processes occurred. For Justin, Clement, and others, it was simply that one man read the texts o f another. As such, Moses and Plato as foundational figures represented monolithic cultural, eth­ nic, and religious groups and their systems o f thought. As we have seen in the writings o f Clement and Justin, several ancient theories regarding philo­ sophical and cultural exchange stood out. First, there was natural law, and second, the spoliation o f the Hebrews by the Greeks. A third theory that would emerge from the writings o f Origen, Gregory o f Nyssa, and Augus­ tine was a variation o f the spoliation theory in which philosophical language, literary styles, and rhetoric, understood to belong to Greek culture, could be taken by Christians (who here understood themselves apart from that tradi­ tion) to render more beautiful and sophisticated their simple and unadorned doctrines and writings.69 Origen especially saw this as a strategic move to ele­ vate Christian claims to the formal discourse o f the philosophical field. Some Greeks, such as Porphyry, reacted negatively to this notion o f “borrowing,” or “mixing,” as he saw in the case o f Origen, whom he accused o f mixing Hellenism with barbarian fables. To embrace this ancient “cultural theory” fails to see the scope o f the larger picture. The claim that one side “owned” or another “borrowed” the stuff o f this cultural world does not fully grasp its cultural complexities. With the emergence o f Christian philosophy, we are dealing not with an exchange between two radically separate cultures, but with an exchange between two systems o f thought within the Greek world. Reflection on the goals and means o f philosophical education and its insti­ tutions is a constituent part of the bios. The bios was both a charter o f moral excellence and literary locus o f cultural competition for philosophy. The ide­ alized portrayals o f the philosopher not only presented the reader with ethi­ cal paradigms, but cast a spotlight on the subject’s educational formation and 68. Even Horace recognized the effects o f colonization on culture. See ep. 2.1,156 57. 69. See Origen, Horn. Jer. 20.5; and Augustine Doctr. chr. 2.40.60. For Gregory o f Nyssa s use ol the narrative, see ch. 2.

moral progress. This, in turn, reflects the author’s position on the legitimacy and efficacy o f pedagogical methods, institutions, curricula, and teachers in the shaping of society at large. The bioi of the Greeks, not surprisingly, sup­ ported the status quo, the traditional paideia that predated Christianity. In the Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, for example, the late-fourth-century Neoplatonist historian Eunapius extols the comprehensive education of his teacher Chrysanthius, who, under Aedesius o f Pergamon (a student of Iam­ blichus) was schooled in “the doctrines o f Plato and Aristotle” and "turned his attention to every other school o f philosophy.” 70 He had also applied himself to mastering rhetoric and divination. Beginning with Iamblichus (ca. 245-330), the practices of theurgy entered into the curricula of some Neoplatonists, and not without controversy. Thus, even among the Neoplatonists who represented the status quo, important discussions were occurring re­ garding the philosophical curriculum, its texts, practices, and authorities.71 The Greek schools themselves competed with one another to achieve a sys­ tem of philosophical formation that both built on the past and remained wholly “Greek.” 72 Christians were not the only innovators. Just as parties o f Greeks were negotiating the structure of philosophi­ cal education, Christians themselves did not have a monolithic position. As newcomers to the competition, they represented a range of possibilities that challenged the status quo and advocated a comprehensive rethinking and re­ structuring o f moral and philosophical education. Christian positions ranged from reserved and qualified acceptance o f the Greek philosophical tradition to an unreserved dismissal o f Greek philosophers and their schools. Eusebius ot Caesarea, for example, adopted the position o f Clement that Greek phi­ losophy, imperfect as it was, still had a preparatory role in relation to Chris­ tian revelation. It is clear from his own works, especially the Praeparatio, that he had an extensive (if not always expert) knowledge o f philosophical trends both in classical antiquity and in his own day. Using the skills he acquired in his intellectual training, Eusebius was able to carve out a place for the Chris­ 70. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 23.8, 500 (ed. Giuseppe Giangrande, Scriptores Graeci et Latini [ Rome: Typis Publicae Officinae Polygraphicae, 1956], 91); The Lives of the Philosophers and Soph­ ists, ed. and trans. W ilmer Cave Wright, in Philostratus and Eunapius, Loeb Classical Library 134 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), 541. 71. The differences between Porphyry and Iamblichus on the purpose and efficacy o f theur­ gy are evident in lamblichus’s critique o f his colleague’s position in De mysteriis. See Gregory Shaw, “ Neoplatonic Theurgy and Dionysius the Areopagite,” JE C S 7, no. 4 (1999): 578-80. 72. Of. Cribiore, Gvinnastics, 205.

tian voice in the philosophical competition. His texts, in turn, could equip others to participate. On the other hand, neither Athanasius o f Alexandria (fourth century) nor Theodoret o f Cyrrhus (fifth century) promoted Greek paideia in any overt manner. When praising the subjects o f their bioi, they emphasize their “simplicity,” that is, their disjunction from the acquired val­ ues o f Greek philosophical culture. In this respect, Homer, Plato, and Aristo­ tle provided nothing useful to the Christian. Scripture was sufficient.

Formed by Paideia: Christians and Greeks Learning Together We now have a scenario o f Greeks and Christians studying in the same classrooms, often with the same teachers, and engaging each other in phil­ osophical discussion, defining the contours o f the discourse o f the ancient philosophical field. As members o f an elite educated class, these intellectuals, and intellectuals-in-training, were simultaneously equipped with linguistic and cultural capital toward a common set of values and dispositions, which they would continue to articulate and negotiate according to their differenc­ es. Justin attended schools o f philosophy prior to his conversion to Christi­ anity. Greeks attended the lectures o f Origen in third-century Alexandria.73 Even in the fourth century, the major figures who promoted the codification of Christian orthodoxy and those who supported the “pagan revival” under the emperor Julian (361-63) were associates, fellow students, and colleagues. Offspring o f the same teachers and citizens o f the same homeland, Athens, they were “raised” in the world o f rhetoric and philosophy. The paideutic spaces that produced these figures and set the stage for cultural competition were three: the classroom of the Greek rhetorician Libanius, Athens as edu­ cational center, and the classroom of the Christian rhetorician Prohairesius. Libanius was one o f the most prolific and best documented Greek rhetori­ cians of late antiquity.74 His orations give insight into the political, social, and cultural landscape of his day. His vast epistolary corpus (over 1,500 surviving letters) reveals the inner workings of the career o f a man deeply involved in politics, law, and school life. Libanius saw ups and downs in his career, but at 73. Eusebius, Hist. ecd. 6.18.2-3. Eusebius purports to preserve a letter o f Origen in which he refers to encounters with Greek philosophers in Hist. cccl. 6.19.12-14. 74. For a comprehensive study o f the career and school o f Libanius, see the work o f Raftaclla ( a ibiore.

its height, he served as an advisor to the emperor Julian, who called him the “most philosophic and truth-loving of orators.” 75 Educated in Athens, a stu­ dent o f Diophantus and Epiphanius, Libanius held teaching posts in Con­ stantinople and Nicomedia, before finally resettling in his home city of An­ tioch in 354, where he eventually assumed the position o f official sophist.76 Having developed a professional and prestigious reputation for his oratory and teaching skills, Libanius attracted students from all parts of the eastern empire. His letters demonstrate the widespread political and social networks that he maintained, as well as his influence and patronage on behalf o f as­ sociates, especially former students.77 He regularly addressed his students as “children” (παίδες), promoting the common view that a boy's teacher was like a father to him. For example, when asking a favor o f Aburgius, an ex­ prefect o f Constantinople, on behalf o f his παιδί Arrhabius, Libanius remind­ ed the official o f his previous assistance to another student, Eusebius: “How could you not help Arrhabius too who is also my child [παιδί], and even more than Eusebius? For it is [a kinship] o f words with Arrhabius, but it is also [a kinship] through blood, which is not the case with Eusebius.” 78 Libanius of­ ten used the verb τρέφειν to describe his relationships with students.79 The subsequent careers o f Libanius's students covered a wide range o f political leadership positions. Since most o f his students belonged to wealthy and powerful curial families, the education in rhetoric provided by Libanius 75. Julian, ep. 53, trans. Wright, in The Works o f the Emperor Julian, 3 vols., ed. and trans. W ilm er Cave Wright, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 3:183-85. 76. The rhetoricians Diophantus, Epiphanius, and Prohairesius are included in Eunapius’s

Vit. Phil. 10 -12, 485-94. They were rival teachers in Athens. Cribiore suggests that Prohairesius is one o f the “ other tw o” teachers Libanius refers to at Or. 1.16 (Libanius, 51). Nevertheless, she maintains that Libanius’s relationship with Prohairesius was “distant,” perhaps deliberately so. See discussion in Cribiore, Libanius, 52-54. 77. Cribiore, Libanius, 104-5. See also Scott Bradbury, “ Libanius’ Letters as Evidence for Travel and Epistolary Networks among Greek Elites in the Fourth Century,” in Travel, Com­

munication and Geography in Late Antiquity, ed. Linda Ellis and Frank L. Kidner (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004), 73-80. 78. Libanius, ep. 170 (Norman, LCL): πώς ούκ άν και Άρραβίω παιδί γε δντι καί αύτώ καί μάλλον γε ή ’κείνω; τό μέν γάρ τών “λόγων καί παρά τώδε, τό δε καί δι αίματος ού παρ’ έκείνω. (my translation). See also ep. 1266 (in Opera, ed. Richard Foerster, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Roma­ norum Teubneriana [Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1963]): παίδας γάρ εγωγε καλώ τούς μαθητάς. Many more examples are listed in Paul Petit, Les etudiants de Libanius, Etudes prosopographiques 1 (Paris: Nouvelles Editions latines, 1957), 33-36. Arrhabius, also named Cimon, was Libanius’s child with his concubine. He died in 391 at a young age. See Cribiore, Libanius, 15-16. Eusebius was a former student o f Libanius who later taught with him at Antioch. 74. See, for example, Libanius, ep. 1165 (Foerster), and other examples in Petit, Etudiants, 31.

equipped them with the communication skills and cultural formation that were the cultural capital for a successful political career.80 As Libanius saw it, his curriculum produced the educated man who possessed an ethical, linguis­ tic, and cultural paideia rooted in the canon o f Greek poets, orators, and phi­ losophers. In short, such a curriculum was Ελληνικόν; it produced Greeks.81 Though his professional rivals chided Libanius for not having produced any notable teachers o f rhetoric from his pedagogical offspring, his students did go on to hold various positions o f power in the empire, including law­ yers, governors, prefects, and even an emperor.82 While Julian did not offi­ cially study in the classroom o f Libanius while he was in Nicomedia under the tutelage o f the bishop Eusebius, he furtively acquired Libanius’s lecture notes— despite his tutor's warning that he avoid the sophist.83 The imperi­ al court provided other teachers for the young prince, both Christians and Greeks. Libanius recalled the Greek grammarian Nicocles as a “righteous priest, leader o f paideia, who knew, if ever a man did, the mysteries o f the ge­ nius o f Homer and all o f Homer’s school.” 84 Julian then traveled to Athens and the various intellectual centers o f Asia Minor, where he mingled with philosophers of the Iamblichan tradition (Aedesius, Maximus, and Chrysanthius). They saw in the prince a hope for a cultural revolution. Christians also numbered among Libanius’s students. In a study o f Liba­ nius’s students, Paul Petit proposed that up to 18 o f 196 students known from his correspondence, orations, and other sources were Christians.85 The highest ratio o f Christian students appears to have come from Cappadocia. O f these, Petit identified as Christian at least four and possibly up to six of twelve Cappadocian students known from Libanius’s letters.86 Various sourc­ 80. Raymond Van Dam, K ingdom o f Sn o w : R om an R u le a nd Greek Culture in C appado cia (Phila­ delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 60-61. 81. Libanius, Or. 43.18; and see also Or. 58.4-5; A.J. Festugiere, A ntioche pai'enne et chretienne: Libanius, Chrysostom e et les m oines de S y n e, Bibliotheque des Ecoles francaises d’Athenes et de Rome 194 (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1959), 217-22. 82. In Or.62 (A gainst the C ritics o f H is E du catio n al System ), written after 366, Libanius argued that the prestige of a career in oratory was irreparably damaged by the policies of Constantius, and that the situation only worsened after the death of Julian. For this reason, none of his stu­ dents entered the teaching profession. 83. Libanius, Or. 18.14. 84. Libanius, Or. 15.27; trans. Norman, 2:165 (LCL), with modification. 85. Petit, Etudiants, 40-45,116-28. 86. Amphilochius III, a pupil of Libanius’s at Antioch in 361. After a brief career as an advo­ cate, he pursued a life of silence for three years before his “seizure” (άρπαγήν) as bishop of Ico­ nium in 373. In cp. 144 (Norman), Libanius congratulates Amphilochius upon his new position, expressing his relief that lie must now abandon a life of silence and his delight that Amphilo

es also indicate that prominent Christian bishops had studied with Libanius in their pre-episcopal careers. Among these were Amphilochius o f Iconium, Optimus o f Agdamia,87 Maximus o f Seleucia, Theodore o f Mopsuestia, and, most notably, John Chrysostom and Basil o f Caesarea, and, possibly, Evagrius o f Antioch.88 The historical witnesses o f Basil’s time with Libanius are o f varying qual­ ity and have been disputed. The Christian historian Socrates refers to Basil’s studies with Libanius at Antioch.89 In a letter to Libanius, Gregory o f Nyssa praised the rhetorician as his own teacher, albeit through the mediation of his brother Basil.90 While most scholars generally agree that Basil studied with Libanius, various judgments have been made on their purported corre­ spondence: from outright rejection o f the whole, to reserved acceptance, to a more speculative categorization.91 There is no consensus. Even if the three chius could now take advantage o f his "chair” (τών θρόνων) as a “ means for using words” (τινά αφορμήν προς τό χρήσθαι τοις λόγοις, m y translation). He was also a cousin o f Gregory o f Nazianzus (see Raymond Van Dam , Families and Friends in Late Roman Cappadocia [Philadelphia: University o f Pennsylvania Press, 2003], 148). Euphemius II, brother o f Amphilochius, was a student at the same time (Libanius, ep. 634 [Foerster]; Petit, Etudiants, 108). Firminus II, a friend o f Basil’s, and probably a Christian, studied with Libanius for four months in Nicomedia (Liba­ nius, epp. 1048, 1061, and 1066 [Foerster]; Basil, ep. 336 [Libanius to Basil] and epp. 116 -17 [corre­ spondence between Basil and Firminus]). Optimus became bishop o f Agdamia in 374 (Libanius, ep. 1544 [Foerster]) and recommended other students to Libanius. W hether Romanus, one o f these students, was Christian, is not known for sure, but likely. Zeno IV became a professor o f rhetoric at Constantinople in the court o f the prefect Rufinus. Because Rufinus was Christian, Petit considers it possible that Zeno was also Christian (Petit, Etudiants, 127). Roman numer­ als correspond to the prosopography o f Petit, Etudiants. For the “ dossiers” o f students known from Libanius’s letters, see appendix 1 in Cribiore, Libanius. 87. For Amphilochius and Optimus, see the previous note. 88. Socrates (H.E. 6.3) recounts that Chrysostom, Theodore, and Maximus were fellow stu­ dents under Libanius in Antioch. He also writes that Chrysostom followed the example o f a certain “ Evagrius,” who had had the same teachers. The identity o f this Evagrius has been dis­ puted. Because o f a lack o f confirmation in Libanius’s letters, Otto Seeck (Die Briefe des Libanius zeitlich geordnet [Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1906]) did not consider this the famous Christian bish­ op. Petit, however, argued that it was in fact Evagrius o f Antioch and identifies the Evagrius o f Libanius ep. 1311 as such on the basis that the family relations outlined in this letter match those in Basil, ep. 138. See Petit, Etudiants, 40-42. On Libanius and John Chrysostom, see David G. Hunter, “ Borrowings from Libanius in the Comparatio regis et monachi o f St.John Chrysostom,” JT S n.s. 39 (1988): 52.5-31. and “Libanius and John Chrysostom: N ew Thoughts on an Old Prob­ lem ,’’ Studia Patristica 22 (1989): 129-35. On Basil and Libanius, see Cribiore, Libanius, 100-104. 89. Socrates, H.E. 4.26. 90. Gregory o f Nyssa, ep. 13. Pierre Maraval (Gregoire de Nysse: Lettres, SC 363 [Paris: Cerf, 1990 1, 198 n.2) calls this letter the only text “that permits us to affirm that Basil was actually the student o f Libanius.” 01. Adolf Laube (De litterarum Libanii et Basilii commercio [Vratislaviae, 1913]) rejected the entire correspondence as apocryphal. R. Foerster (Prolegomena ad epistulas \Leipzig: Teubner,

letters considered authentic by Richard Foerster and Paul Petit are the only authentic ones, they still reveal an interesting relationship that persisted be­ tween the sophist and the future Christian bishop after their separation. Con­ sistent with the sentiment o f other letters to former students, Libanius la­ ments his separation from Basil, who at the time o f Libanius ep. 19 (Norman = Basil ep. 368) would have been teaching rhetoric at Nicomedia (ca. 361). The two men also exchange exuberant praise for their literary skills. The rhetoric o f humble self-deprecation and exaggerated praise for the other is evident, but is consistent with the epistolary style o f correspondence between a re­ nowned teacher and his star pupil. Certainly not all o f these letters are au­ thentic. Nevertheless, they evidence the fact, demonstrated also in Gregory o f Nyssa ep. 15, that Greek and Christian associates exchanged drafts o f their works for reaction and comments.*92 As noted at the beginning o f this chap­ ter, Basil’s unease with his classical education surfaces in epp. 339 and 341. Basil protests Libanius’s compliments on his style, adding: “We associate with Mo­ ses and Elijah and such blessed men, who express their matters to us in bar­ baric language [έκ τής βαρβάρου φωνής]; and we express the things [we learn] from them—true in meaning, but stylistically unlearned [νουν μεν αληθή, λέξιν δέ αμαθή], as these very things show. For if we have been taught something by you, time has caused us to forget.” 93 Libanius’s reply, quoted above, re­ minds Basil of the firmly planted roots o f paideia in him. After giving up his post as rhetorician, Basil returned to Pontus to pursue a life o f asceticism and withdrawal from city, possessions, social relations, and “human teachings.” 94 The correspondence also suggests that Basil regularly recommended Cap­ padocian students to Libanius, an indication that Basil himself, though in­ creasingly uneasy with his own educational background, still recognized the 1927], 198) accepted only Libanius, ep. 647, and Basil, ep. 358, as authentic. Petit accepted Liban­ ius, epp. 501 and 647. Marius Bessieres (La tradition mamiscrite de la correspondence de S. Basile [Ox­ ford: Clarendon Press, 1923], 165-74) categorized letters as either certainly inauthentic or prob­ ably authentic. Cf. Cribiore, Libanius, 101-2. 92. Basil, epp. 351-55 are an exchange between Basil and Libanius concerning an unspecified oration delivered b y Libanius and Basil’s Against Drunkenness. Basil also sent a copy o f his work against Eunomius to the sophist Leontius for comments and criticism (Basil, ep. 20 [ca. 364]). Gregory’s ep. 15, whose authenticity has not been questioned, is a letter to two associates, John and Maximianus, students o f Libanius. He asks the two men to deliver to Libanius a copy o f his work in refutation against heresy (probably Against Eunomius): “ If some parts o f the w ork are worthy o f the sophist’s hearing, examine some selections, especially those before the debates, those that are eloquent in form, and bring them to him.” 93. Basil, ep. 339 (LCL), my translation. 94. Basil, ep. 2 (ca. 358).

usefulness and importance o f a rhetorical education for young men.95 It also shows the relative interconnectedness o f social circles, which would seem to have had nothing to do with each other from the tone o f apologetic works. Yet despite their common appreciation for literary and rhetorical aesthetics, the ideological differences were strong enough that Basil felt compelled to articulate a proper relationship between the Greek literary and philosophical traditions and Christianity. In the Address to Young Men, composed sometime in the mid-36os, Basil took up the very question of whether the works o f the Greek poets and philosophers should be part o f a system o f Christian educa­ tion. The work sheds light on Basil’s logic o f selection o f Greek literature in the face o f his own conceptions o f the origins and transmission o f philoso­ phy and its relation to what he perceived as a separate Greek culture. It also forms part o f a formative, alternative Christian education that sought to sub­ vert standard Greek education by maintaining many o f its basic elements, adding new ones, and changing the dynamics o f their relationship. Also sig­ nificant is the fact that the concept o f “Christian education” in a formal set­ ting with teachers, texts, and curriculum, was being formulated in episcopal circles by bishops who were themselves educated in Greek schools. By using the phrase “each [type of] education” (τών παιδεύσεων έκατέραν), Basil introduced a distinction between two separate kinds o f education— Christian and Greek. Using the analogy o f a tree as knowledge, Basil ex­ plained that the Christian way provided the fruit, while the Greek way was merely the foliage.96 Nevertheless, he deemed the study o f the poets and phi­ losophers, “those outside [εξω],” to be a “necessary preparation” for instruc­ tion in Christian knowledge found in the revelation o f scripture.97 Using the examples o f Daniel and Moses, “whose name for wisdom is greatest among all mankind,” Basil demonstrates how even the great spiritual and intellectu­ al ancestors o f the Church were instructed first in the knowledge o f foreign peoples, and then proceeded to the contemplation o f God.98 Basil recommended that his students read and learn from the Greek writ­ ers, but only to give heed to those aspects that instructed in virtue. They were to avoid those that could lead to vice or imperfect knowledge. Basil 95· In addition to Libanius, ep. 78 (Norman), Basil, epp. 335, 336, 337, and 346 all refer to stu­ dents recommended to Libanius by Basil. Though he never studied with Libanius, Gregory o f Nazianzus also wrote to the sophist on behalf o f a mother sending her two sons to study with their father. See ep. 236. 96. Basil, Ad adolcsc. 3.3. 97. Basil, Ad adolesc. 2.8 (LCL). 08. Basil, Ad adolcsc. 3.3; trans. Dcferrari, 4:387 (LCL).

recommended caution and careful selection, bidding his students to “accept what is useful.” 99 Indeed Homer praised virtue, but he erred in speaking of a multiplicity o f gods and their lustful escapades. On the other hand, some of the myths o f Herakles and anecdotes concerning Socrates or Pythagoras demonstrated that the Greek ideal o f virtue sometimes matched the Chris­ tian ideal.100 Plato gave the same advice the Apostle Paul offered.101 While all that was necessary for the Christian life could be found among “our words,” that is, the Christian scriptures, in a more perfect way, the writings o f the Greeks were still useful for exhibiting a “sketch” of virtue.102 Incomplete in themselves, they were constructive as a first step in the study o f the perfect knowledge contained in the Christian scriptures. As a man of prestige and in­ fluence, especially in his concrete patronal relations with the young men of Cappadocia, Basil contributed to a subversion o f institutions and curricula associated with Greek paideia, yet retained elements o f that paideia within an embryonic Christian education.

Athens: Acquiring Cultural Capital in the Symbolic Capital As we have seen in the preceding sections, some o f the most prominent biographers, apologists, thinkers, and teachers who participated as agents in the late ancient cultural competition over philosophy were personally ac­ quainted and belonged to intertwining educational circles and social net­ works. Libanius, a spokesman for the emperor Julian s program o f cultural reform, both during and after the emperor's lifetime, accepted both Chris­ tians and Greeks into his classroom, and maintained contact with his prom­ inent students despite their religious allegiance. The school o f Libanius was one paideutic space that bred the controversies between Christians and Greeks over education, philosophy, and culture. The city o f Athens was an­ other that bound these biographers together as intellectual kin. While the political significance o f Athens declined beginning with the Ro­ man occupation of Greece in the second century BCE, Athens remained the symbolic capital of the Greek philosophical and cultural heritage. It was the birthplace o f philosophy and the home o f the great orators, poets, and think­ 99. Basil, Ad adolesc. 1.27 (LCL): δσον έστι χρήσιμον. 100. See Ad adolesc. 7.5-10.

102. Basil, Ad adolesc.

i o .i .

101. See Ad adolesc. 9.12.

ers. It was the heart o f all things Greek. Young men of different backgrounds, including Greeks and Christians, flocked to Athens to study, to acquire the learning, skills, and honors necessary to enter public life. Despite the decline of the official schools as early as the first century BCE, and the disappear­ ance o f the Academy as an institution, Athens remained a center o f learning, even if it rode more on its reputation than on the actual quality o f education offered there. Its evocation of the era of the founding fathers o f philosophy loomed large for generations of students. Holders o f official governmentfunded chairs of philosophy and rhetoric (first established in the second cen­ tury by Marcus Aurelius) received eager students who flocked to Athens in order to soak up the most symbolically valuable and prestigious paideia.103 Despite the relative obscurity o f the holders o f the Platonist chair in Athens in the second and third centuries, the city still held a great symbolic value that attracted teachers and students o f philosophy.104 Some were left disap­ pointed.105 As the fourth century progressed, Athens would remain the geo­ graphical safe haven for the Greeks. Libanius, Julian, Basil, and Gregory o f Nazianzus all studied at Athens. Basil remained in Athens for five years, but probably left before Julian arrived for a few months in the year 355. Gregory o f Nazianzus’s Orations 4 and 5 provide us a scathing, though somewhat humor­ ous, physiognomic description o f his fellow student Julian and their school days at Athens.106 103. Marcus Aurelius endowed chairs for the four major branches o f philosophy (Platonism, Stoicism, Peripateticism, and Epicureanism) at Athens in 176. He also established chairs o f rhet­ oric. See Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, 566-67, and Jam es H. Oliver, "Marcus Aurelius and the Philosophical Schools at Athens,” American Journal of Philology 102 (1981): 213-25. Libanius refers to the new students arriving each year at Athens who pay homage to Plato at his burial site (Or. 18.306). 104. Fowden, “ Pagan H oly Man,” 43. 105. Libanius comments that Athens, though “highly spoken o f ... [was] far different in expe­ rience” (Or. 1.18; trans. Norman, 1:73 [LCL]). Synesius o f Cyrene (ca. 370-414), a most intriguing example o f the intersection o f Christianity and Greek paideia, who, along with other Christians, studied with the philosopher Hypatia in Alexandria, describes his utter disappointment in what he found at Athens. See ep. 54 (on those who earn cultural capital by studying in Athens and his own desire to travel there); ep.136 (Synesius’s disappointment with the sterility o f Athens and its philosophical scene); and ep. 154 (on his schooling, Hypatia, and Christianity). Gregory recalls Ba­ sil’s disillusionment with his years o f study in Athens in Or 43.18. Themistius (Or 27.336C-337C) comments that many students sought to study at Athens for the value o f its name, rather than the quality o f the learning it offered. See also, Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria, translated by E Lyra, Revealing Antiquity 8 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 42. 106. On Gregory o f Nazianzus’s assessment o f Athens as a center o f learning for Christians, see Aaron Wenzel, “ Libanius, Gregory o f Nazianzus, and the Ideal o f Athens in Late Antiquity," Journal of Late Antiquity 3, no. 2 (2010): 281- 84.

A third shared paideutic space for Greek and Christian intellectuals was the classroom o f the rhetorician Prohairesius at Athens. An Armenian by or­ igin, Prohairesius had succeeded the renowned Julian of Cappadocia in the 330s.107 Prohairesius’s reputation in the east was excellent, and, as a result he attracted many students. Though Basil never refers to Prohairesius, Socrates writes that Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus studied with the celebrated soph­ ists Prohairesius and Himerius during their studies in Athens (ca. 351-56).108 Julian joined the class in 355. Shortly after his ascendancy to the throne in 361, Julian offered his personal letters to Prohairesius, who may have been plan­ ning to write a historical account.109 Eunapius gives a detailed account o f his own arrival in Athens ca. 362, his first meeting with his beloved Prohairesius, and the subsequent time he spent as his student.110 Eunapius, the biographer o f the Iamblichan tradition, claimed a distin­ guished education in philosophy, rhetoric, and medicine. As has been noted by others, the Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists is more or less Eunapius’s own philosophical lineage and a history o f his teachers’ teachers, fellow stu­ dents, and relatives.111 It is a history o f a relatively small, interconnected, and geographically limited circle o f philosophers. His background also crosses the boundaries o f the Greek-Christian divide, just at a time when it was at its most tense, and anticipates the resurgence o f Platonism at Athens in the fifth century. He details his time in Athens with Prohairesius, whose Christian as­ sociations he attempts to downplay.112 He also studied with the philosopher Chrysanthius in his native Sardis. Chrysanthius was a student o f Aedesius, himself a student o f Iamblichus, and associate o f the emperor Julian, who had summoned the philosopher to his court along with Maximus the philos­ opher and theurgist. 107. Watts, City and School, 49. 108. Socrates, H.E. 4.26. On Himerius, see Cribiore, Libanius, 54-58. 109. See Julian, ep. 14. no. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 10.1-3, 485. The traditional date for Eunapius’s arrival in Athens has been 362. In a 1980 article (“ Sur la chronologie de la vie et des oeuvres d’ Eunape de Sardes,” JHS 100 [1980]: 60-72), Richard Goulet suggested revising the date to 364, after Julian’s death. T h om ­ as M. Banchich ("On Goulet’s Chronology o f Eunapius’ Life and Works,” JHS 107 [1987]: 16 467) refuted Goulet’s revisions and upheld the traditional date. in . On Eunapius, his teachers, and the other philosophers and sophists who comprise his collective biography, see Robert J. Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D.: Studies in Eunapius of Sardis (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1990), and Edward J. Watts, "Orality and Communal Identity in Eunapius’ Lives o f the Sophists and Philosophers,” Byzantion 75 (2005): .337- 42-

112. On Prohairesius’s Christianity, see ch. 5 of this volume.

A Iamblichan school o f thought fostered the dominant philosophical culture of the city into the fifth century.113 This was neither an institutional school, nor a line o f teachers with direct descent from Iamblichus; yet the in­ fluence o f this tradition was such that these Platonists of Athens were sought out for their expertise in this particular philosophical tradition.114 Exactly how the writings of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus arrived at Athens, or how their distinctive contributions to Platonic thought shaped the philosophical conversations and curricula o f the teachers at Athens, is still a matter o f dis­ pute. Etienne Evrard has suggested that the κριτικός Longinus, with whom Porphyry had studied at Athens, may have introduced Plotinus’s works into intellectual circles there.115 Alternatively, Alan Cameron suggested that the younger Iamblichus, nephew o f Iamblichus’s student Sopater, brought Iam­ blichan philosophy to Athens during the student days of Plutarch (ca. 350-ca. 434), often considered the traditional “founder” o f the “Neoplatonist school” o f Athens.116 There is no indication from Eunapius, writing around 400, that any of Iamblichus’s progeny settled and remained in Athens. Garth Fowden has suggested that the symbolic association o f the city with its classical past “made it far less pervious to Christianity than other urban centers in the eastern Mediterranean,” for example, such as Alexandria.117 The “topographical fluidity” of the Platonic philosophical scene o f the sec­ ond, third, and fourth centuries gave way to a “greater localization” at places like Athens and Alexandria, “largely as the result o f Christian pressures.” 118 Nevertheless, Athens would become a "contested idea” in the negotiation o f Greek identity.119 It would also become contested space, as an experiment in resurrecting an institutional school o f Platonist philosophy with a succession o f teachers would take root at the end o f the fourth century, develop into the fifth, and, finally, be expelled by a Christian government in the sixth. Its lead­ 113. Fowden (“Pagan H oly Man,” 44) describes Athens as a place where “the pagan holy man, the adherent o f Iamblichan theurgy, could feel secure enough to practice his faith and propagate his teachings openly.” 114. Watts, City and School, 98-99. 115. Edouard Evrard, “ Le maitre de Plutarque d’Athenes et les origins du neoplatonisme athenien,” L’Antiquite Classique 29 (i960): in . In Vit. Plot. 19, Porphyry cites a letter o f Longinus, who requested that his former student bring copies o f Plotinus’s texts with him to Athens. See the discussion o f the text in ch. 3. 116. Alan Cameron, “ Iamblichus at Athens,” Athenaeum n.s. 45 (1967): 143-53. 117. Fowden, “ Pagan Holy Man,” 43. 118. Ibid., 48. 119. Wenzel, “ Libanius, Gregory o f Nazianzus, and the Ideal o f Athens,” 266.

ers would claim a tradition of succession from Plato, through Plotinus and Iamblichus, a tradition to which the composition o f bioi contributed. They would claim to have rescued Athens, the city of philosophy, from the hands o f its enemies.120 Whatever the exact circumstances o f this circle o f philosophers, it must be considered as unrelated institutionally to the Academy established by Pla­ to, which, as we have seen, had ceased to operate in the first century BC E.121 Yet this has been the narrative o f much o f modern philosophical doxography. Citing the influence o f German scholar Karl Gottlob Zumpt’s (1792-1849) es­ say “Ober den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in Athen und die Succes­ sion der Scholarchen,” Glucker notes how Zumpt propagated a vision o f a continuous succession of Platonist scholarchs of the Academy, from Plato to Damascius, which survived and thrived in Athens until Justinian “closed” the Academy in the sixth century.122 Such modern attempts to establish a con­ tinuous succession are unconvincing, yet expose the enduring influence and success of ancient philosophical genealogies.

The Rebirth o f Philosophy at Athens Both Glucker and Boys-Stones convincingly demonstrate that the Platonists o f fifth-century Athens regarded themselves as restorers o f an origi­ nal Plato without invoking the authority o f the Academy per se. In fact, like Numenius, Porphyry, and Augustine, they advanced a philosophical history o f decline and renewal that disregarded Plato’s immediate institutional suc­ cessors. In fact, the figures who hold the places o f honor in their philosophi­ cal genealogies and histories—for example, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Aedesius—have little or no connection to Athens at all. Some, like Porphyry, had studied there but did not remain, and none o f the Neoplatonists o f this line ever held any o f the city’s government-funded chairs o f philosophy. In fact, the elected holders o f these chairs, the so-called διάδοχοι, receive very little acknowledgment in Neoplatonist writings, a sure indication o f their lack o f influence and prestige in these circles.123 Nevertheless, while we can speak 120. Hierocles, in Photius, Bibl. 214; and Proclus, Platonic Theology 1.1. 121. Glucker, Antiochus, 336-37. 122. Ibid., 330-37. The assumption o f a continuous Academ y is found also in Alan Cameron, "The Last Days o f the Academ y at Athens,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 195 (1069): 7-29. 123. Porphyry and Longinus give brief mention to them. See Vit. Plot 15.18-19; 20.36-40.

o f an Athenian school o f Platonic thought in the second century,124 we must look to other areas, such as Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Italy, to map the intellectuals whose writings and adherents resulted in the creation o f a new school o f Platonism at Athens in the fifth century. If, as Glucker has suggested, the demise o f the Platonic Academy can be traced to internal competition and division, military action against Athens, and external political factors, one might expect that similar circumstances in the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE would have yielded the least fer­ tile ground for a replanting and flourishing o f Platonic philosophy. Yet this is not the case. While the sack o f Athens by the Heruli in 267 certainly led to a period of decline in Athens, the sources indicate that intellectual life con­ tinued in the city into the fifth century.125 A resurgence o f intellectual and pedagogical activity by Greek intellectuals in Athens was matched by a con­ certed movement against Greek and Roman religious practices and intellec­ tual life by the Christian imperial government. In 380, Theodosius issued an edict declaring the faith o f the bishop o f Rome as the orthodox faith o f the Roman empire. Beginning in 391, public and private sacrifices were prohib­ ited. Theodosius II took further steps, ordering the conversion o f temples into churches in 426. He also established the so-called university o f Constan­ tinople in 425, where three rhetors o f Latin and five o f Greek, ten grammar­ ians each o f Latin and Greek, and a chair o f philosophy and two o f law were established.126 The Constantinopolitan school operated under the legal and fiscal auspices o f the emperor, and would seem to have been a formidable competitor to the relatively noninstitutionalized circles o f Greek intellectu­ als in Athens. Nevertheless, these direct policy moves by the Christian gov­ ernment to restrict the Greeks’ cultic practice and their professional advance­ ment may have actually stoked the fires o f resistance and their attempts to organize their efforts in Athens, the city itself claiming a philosophical and cultural authority.127 The interpretation o f archaeological evidence is more tenuous, but sug­ 124. Dillon, Middle Platonists, 265. On the "geography o f holiness,” see Fowden, “Pagan Holy Man,” 38-48. 125. Porphyry studied in Athens with Longinus in the third century before traveling to Rome to study with Plotinus. Libanius, Julian, Basil, Gregory o f Nazianzus, Prohairesius, and Eunapius were all in Athens in the fourth century. 126. Cod. Thcod. 14.9.3. See also, Marrou, History of Education, 307-8. 127. For the increasing Christianization o f Athens under Theodosius II in the fifth century, see Walls, City and School, 84 87.

gestive. Ironically, even after the invasion o f Greece by Alaric (395-96), the city o f Athens witnessed a vigorous period o f building activity that included the restoration o f sites o f cultural and intellectual significance, such as the Theater o f Dionysus and the Library o f Hadrian. In a catalogue o f ominous events affecting Greece and Athens, Eunapius alludes to Alaric’s invasion of Greece, which, he claims, was aided by “men in black robes,” that is, Chris­ tian monks.128 A number o f opulent homes were constructed in this period in the Agora and on the lower slopes o f the Areopagus, some with large halls and colonnaded courtyards, triclinia with mosaic floors and marble-lined walls, pools, and, in one case, a structure with nearly twenty rooms.129 In the opinion o f Alison Frantz, this suggests a function larger than luxurious liv­ ing. She has identified these villas as the homes and schools o f private teach­ ers in Athens, an identification tenuously made on the basis o f the discovery o f statues o f Herakles and Hermes, “the patron divinities o f the schools,” in one o f the buildings.130 One o f these homes dates to the period immediate­ ly following the invasion of Alaric. Because o f its location on the southern side o f the Acropolis in proximity to the Asklepieion and Theater o f Diony­ sus, it has been reasonably identified by archaeologists as the “House o f Proclus,” and may correspond to the home owned by Plutarch o f Athens and his successors Syrianus and Proclus as the “headquarters” o f the Neoplatonic school in Athens.131 128. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 7.4-5, 477-78. He does not mention Athens specifically. Neverthe­ less, some have argued that archaeological evidence in the Agora and around the Acropolis suggests that the city was indeed destroyed in large part. See Alison Frantz, "Pagan Philoso­ phers in Christian Athens,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 119 (1975): 32-34. On the basis o f numismatic evidence, the so-called Palace o f the Giants has been dated to the ear­ ly fifth century. A portico o f six colossal statues o f giants and Tritons taken from the hall o f Agrippa leads into the colonnaded courtyard. Frantz argues that the use o f these colossal stat­ ues makes this an “ obviously important pagan building.” 129. The Palace o f the Giants, named for the statues o f giants and Tritons that make up the faςade, was built in the 420s, perhaps by the princess Eudocia, wife o f Theodosius II. W ith its courtyards, baths, and extensive living quarters, the palace evidences domestic construction in the city by extremely wealthy families. Julia Burman (“ The Athenian Empress Eudocia,” in

Post-Herulian Athens: Aspects o f Life and Culture in Athens A.D. 267-529, ed. Paavo Castren [Helsin­ ki: Suomen Ateenan-instituutin saatio, 1994], 81-83) suggests that a family connection to Athens might explain Eudocia’s benefactions to the city. 130. Frantz, “ Pagan Philosophers in Christian Athens,” 34-35 (plans and reconstructions on 35). 131. On the so-called House o f Proclus, see Arja Karivieri, “The 'House o f Proclus’ on the Southern Slope o f the Acropolis: A Contribution,” in Post-Herulian Athens: Aspects of Life and Cul­

ture in Athens A.D. 267-529, ed. Paavo Castren (Helsinki: Suomen Ateenan-instituutin saatio, 1994), 115- 39; and Alison Frantz, Late Antiquity, A.D. 26j - joo, Athenian Agora 24 (Princeton, N.J.: Am er­ ican School o f Classical Studies at Athens, 1988), 42-50. Marinus (Vit. Proc. 29 [Boissonade, 24])

Both ancient and contemporary accounts of the origins of this “Neoplatonist school” at Athens usually begin with Plutarch of Athens (died 432).132 Little is known about his background and education. The principal sources for Plutarch are the Life of Proclus (Vit. Proc.) by Marinus o f Neapolis (ca. 450-500) and the Philosophical History of Damascius (died after 538), both heads o f the Athenian school, who regarded Plutarch as their institutional and philosophi­ cal predecessor. Scholarship on Plutarch has taken two general approaches to explain his mysterious appearance. On the one hand, under the assumption of a continuous succession at the Academy, some scholars, such as Evrard, con­ sidered Plutarch a scholarch o f the Academy and tried to fit Plutarch into a line of succession o f previous scholarchs.133 Others have been less concerned with establishing a continuous succession associated with the Academy than with tracing a movement o f a Iamblichan Neoplatonism directly through a lin­ eage of teachers from Iamblichus to Plutarch.134 However, even in these cas­ es, it is problematic to demonstrate a continuous teacher-student succession beginning with Iamblichus. I find more plausible and constructive those theo­ ries that also trace the movement o f philosophical traditions through the ex­ change o f books and the travels of teachers who established networks with other members o f the intellectual classes.135 Though these studies still betray an interest in making direct genealogical connections among important teach­ ers, they manage to root the exchange and development o f ideas and the build­ ing of traditions in the practices and social habits o f Greek intellectual circles. locates Proclus’s residence (οϊκησις), which belonged to his “father” Syrianus and "grandfather” Plutarch, by the Acropolis near the temple o f Asklepios and the Theater o f Dionysus. 132. For example, Richard T. Wallis, Neo-Platonism, 2nd edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995), and O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 19. 133. Though Evrard refers to Plutarch as “scholarque de l’Academie,” he allows for the fact that Plutarch, an Athenian by birth according to the Suda (v. Lomninos 1, 127, citing Damascius) could have studied outside o f Athens. Karl Gottlob Zum pt, for example, attempted to link Plu­ tarch to Priscus, a correspondent o f Julian and Libanius, and student o f Iamblichus’s student Aedesius. See LJber den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in Athen und die Succession der Scholarchen (Berlin: Diimmler, 1843), 77-78, and Glucker, Antiochus, 156-57. Yet, as Glucker has dem­ onstrated, none o f our sources locate this Priscus in Athens. 134. Zum pt (Bestand der philosophischen Schulen, 55) also suggested the possibility that Theo­ dore o f Asine, a student o f Iamblichus, settled in Athens and taught Plutarch. There is no evi­ dence for Theodore’s arrival in Athens, and there are problems o f chronology. Like Priscus, Chrysanthius, the teacher o f Eunapius, was also a student o f Aedesius (student o f Iamblichus). Again, the evidence o f Eunapius, who personally knew Chrysanthius, does not allow for his coming to Athens. 135. See, for example, Jules Simon, Histoire de Vecole d ’Alexandrie (Paris: Joubert, 1845), and Cameron, ' Iamblichus at Athens.”

Like Plotinus, Plutarch was singled out by his students and later genera­ tions o f Platonists as an important canonical moment o f “renewal” in the his­ tory o f philosophy. He would also eventually take his place in an expanding lineage o f succession that originated with Porphyry and Eunapius. But Plu­ tarch's successors never attempted to connect him directly to a specific teach­ er or institution as modern scholars have tried to do. He simply existed in the history of philosophy as that important moment, ex nihilo, as it were. This is fine for mythological narratives. The background o f Plutarch remains a nag­ ging mystery, and it is perhaps in a context o f mysteries that we may find an explanation for his coming to prominence in Athens. A consideration o f some theories related to the place o f Plutarch’s family in Athenian society may shed light on the issue. Evrard suggested that Plutarch may have belonged to a prominent priestly family resident in Athens.136 In Vit. Proc., Marinus writes: “[Proclus] received these [the rites and prayers o f the Chaldeans], and learned the voicings and the other practices [of the Chaldeans] from Asklepigeneia, the daughter o f Plutarch. For the secret rites from Nestorius the Great were preserved [έσώζετο] by her and her alone, and the whole theurgic method [αγωγή] was passed on [παραδοθείσα] to her through her father.” 137 Thus, Plu­ tarch was recognized as both a cultic expert and an intellectual. It is very likely that the Nestorius named here was either the father or grandfather o f Plutarch. In addition to the testimony o f Marinus,138 Proclus twice refers to the “divine” Nestorius in his commentary on Plato’s Repub­ lic. In the first reference, Nestorius is identified as “the grandfather [πάππος] o f Plutarch our teacher and o f our teachings.” 139 The second reference to Nestorius as “the great priesdy man” (ό μύγας άνήρ ιερατικός), calls attention to his expertise in theurgic rites and astrology, and likely points to his mem­ bership in a priesthood.140 A passage in Zosimus, the fifth-century histori­ an, names a certain Nestorius as ίεροφαντείν τεταγμένος, o f considerable old age (ύπέργηρων), and in Athens around 375.141 Several scholars have interpret­ 13 6 . E v r a r d , “ L e m a it r e ,” 13 1.

Proc. 2 8 (B o is s o n a d e , 2 2 ) , m y tra n sla tio n . Vit. Proc. 12 , w h e r e M a r in u s id e n tifie s P lu ta r c h as s o n o f a N e s t o r iu s . P ro c lu s , In remp., K r o ll 2 :6 4 .6 (T e u b n e r). In t e r m s o f fa m ily re la tio n , th e n ,

137. M a r in u s , Vit. 138 . S e e 139.

w e can d raw

o n e o f t w o c o n c lu sio n s : e ith e r P lu ta rc h h a d b o t h a fa th e r a n d a g r a n d fa t h e r n a m e d N e s to r iu s, o r e ith e r P lu ta r c h ’s fa th e r o r g r a n d fa t h e r w a s n a m e d N e s t o r iu s

and

e ith e r M a r in u s o r P r o c lu s

m is ta k e n ly a scrib e s th e relatio n sh ip . E v r a r d (“ L e m a itr e ,” 1 2 1) h o ld s th e first v ie w . I th in k a v e r ­ sio n o f th e s e c o n d p o s s ib ility is m o r e likely, t h o u g h I c a n n o t s a y w h ic h is th e p re cise relatio n sh ip. 14 0 . P r o c lu s ,

In remp. 2 .3 2 4 .13 . Historia Nova 4 .1 8

14 1. Z o s i m u s ,

(P a sc h o u d , 2 .2 :2 7 8 ).

ed this to mean that Nestorius was a hierophant, perhaps the last Eumolpid hierophant, at Eleusis.142 Both Kevin Clinton, who has done comprehen­ sive work on the officials at Eleusis, and Rowland Smith argue that this same Nestorius was the hierophant to whom Julian hastened for initiation some­ time around the year 355, the one whom Julian summoned from Greece after his proclamation as emperor.143 He would then have also been the same hi­ erophant who initiated Eunapius around 362.144 Given that the name Nesto­ rius is rare and that when it appears in the textual and epigraphical record it is often associated with the Eleusinian hierophant over the course o f two centuries, it is reasonable to suggest that Nestorius belonged to the Eumol­ pidae o f Athens and was, in the words o f Clinton, the “last legitimate hiero­ phant.” 145 By the end o f the fourth century, the office had fallen out o f the hands o f the Eumolpidae, and by the year 400, the sanctuary itself no lon­ ger functioned. Eunapius reports several ominous signs o f the demise o f the sanctuary and priesthood at Eleusis, including the “overthrow o f the tem­ ples” (a possible reference to the invasion o f Alaric around 393 and, perhaps, Theodosian policy),146 the assumption o f the priesthood by a non-Athenian, 142. K e v in C lin to n (The Sacred Officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries, T ra n sa c tio n s o f the A m e r i­ c a n P h ilo so p h ical S o c ie ty [P h ila d elp h ia: A m e r ic a n P h ilo so p h ica l S o cie ty, 1974], 43-44) co n sid ers this N e s to riu s th e fa th e r o r g r a n d fa th e r o f P lu ta rch , w h o w a s th e last le g itim a te E u m o lp id h i­ e ro p h a n t at E le u sis fr o m s o m e tim e b e fo re 355 to s o m e tim e s h o r tly b e fo re 392. P ierre B o y a n c e ( " T h e u r g ie et telestiq u e n e o p la to n icie n n e s,” Revue de I’histoire des religions 147 [1955], 192 n.3) an d P o ly m n ia A th a n a ssia d i (Damascius: The Philosophical History [A th e n s : A p a m e a , 1999], 173 n.149) h e ld that h e w a s th e fa th e r o f P lu ta rch ; w h ile Y o ch a n a n L e w y (Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy: Mys­

ticism, Magic and Platonism in the later Roman Empire, n e w ed., ed. M ic h e l T a r d ie u [P aris: E tu d e s au gu stin ien n es, 1978], 69 n.9), a n d E v r a r d ( " L e m a itre ,” 125) id en tified h im as P lu ta r c h ’s gra n d fa th er.

143. Eunapius Vit. Phil. 7.3.1-2, 475. S e e Rowland Smith, Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate (N ew York: Routledge, 1995), 30; and Clinton, Sa­ cred Officials, 43, no. 36, for evidence o f another Nestorius, son o f Plutarch, as hierophant at Ele­ usis in the second century. Possibly an ancestor o f the family o f Plutarch the Platonist? 144. After Julian seeks out the hierophant at Eleusis, Eunapius writes: "Th e name o f him who was at that time hierophant it is not lawful for me to tell; for he initiated the author o f this narrative.” (Vit. Phil. 7.3.1, 475 [Giangrande, 45]; trans. Wright, 437) On the secrecy o f the hierophant’s name until after his death, see Clinton, Sacred Officials, 9. But Thom as M. Banchich (“ Nestorius hierophantein-tetagmenos: (Mis)identification o f 4th Century Eleusinian H i­ erophant with an Athenian Nestorius and Its Historical Implications,” Historia 47 [1998]: 361-74) rejects the identification o f Plutarch’s relative Nestorius with Eunapius’s hierophant and sug­ gests that he was a priest o f Asklepios at Athens instead. 145. Another Nestorius, son o f Plutarch, is connected with the sanctuary at Eleusis in the sec­ ond century. See Marinus, Proclus, ou Sur le bonheur, ed. Henri D. Saffrey, Alain-Philippe Segonds, and Concetta Luna (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001), I55n9. According to Clinton (Sacred Officials, 45), the office was not hereditary, but elected, though occasionally a prestigious and popular family could produce more than one hierophant. 146. Margaret M. Miles, The City Elcusinion, Athenian Agora 31 (Princeton, N.J.: American

non-Eumolpid candidate, who had “no right to touch the hierophant’s high seat,” and the downfall o f this illegitimate candidate, which would coincide with the cessation of the mysteries at Eleusis.147 When considering the appearance o f Plutarch in this very period, we might consider his claim to such a prestigious priestly lineage precisely at a time when it was contested and endangered. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to suggest that Plutarch himself may have been a candidate for the office of hi­ erophant after Nestorius’s death. Eunapius’s outrage at the election o f a can­ didate who was neither a Eumolpid nor an Athenian may indicate that a pow­ er struggle or competition was a factor, and not that the line had died out.148 Plutarch himself was likely a candidate for this office, possessing an expertise in the ritual and discursive practices of Iamblichan philosophy His descent from a prominent holder o f the office also lent him much clout and recog­ nition from circles o f intellectuals at Athens. But another candidate would take the office, and that office would be short-lived, as a law of 396 revoked privileges given to “ministers, prefects and hierophants of sacred mysteries ... [whose] profession is known to be condemned by law.” 149 Plutarch would have to wield his authority in another way.150 Belonging to a prominent, aris­ tocratic, and priestly family o f Athens, he would have possessed enough sym­ bolic and cultural capital to make a name for himself as a leading represen­ tative o f the philosophical life in a city still resistant to Christianization.151 He employed his family inheritance to the mysteries through a philosophical method that combined the study o f philosophical texts with theurgic rites, a School o f Classical Studies, 1998), 93. Frank R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization, c. 370-528, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 115 (N ew York: Brill, 1993-94), 1:25: "T h e temenos apparently suffered extensive damage shortly before the enactment o f the law, in 396, as a result o f Alaric’s Goths having plundered Attica.” 147. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 7.3-4, 475-76 (Giangrande, 45-46); trans. Wright, 437. 148. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization, 1:25. 149. Cod. Theod. 16.10.14 (SC 497, 448); trans. Pharr, 474. 150. For Watts’s assessment o f Plutarch’s rise to prominence, and especially his activities as a patron in political and cultic affairs, see City and School, 92-96. 151. Three inscriptions from Athens may name our Plutarch. In these, he is described as a “rich man,” "friend o f archons,” “king o f words” (a title ascribed also to Prohairesius in a statue at Rome), and devotee o f Telesphorus. Henri Dominique Safifrey ("Proclus, les Muses et l’amour des livres a Athenes au v e siecle,” in From Athens to Chartres: Neoplatonism and Me­ dieval Thought. Studies in Honor of Edouard Jeauneau, ed. Haijo Jan Westra, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 35 [N ew York: Brill, 1992], 168) argues that the "king o f words” is not Plutarch the Neoplatonist, but another contemporary sophist o f the same name. Erkki Sironen (“ Life and Administration o f Late Roman Attica in the Light o f Public Inscrip­ tions,” in Post-Hcrulian Athens: Aspects o f Life and Culture in Athens A.D. 267-529, ed. Paavo Castren

11 lelsinki: Suomcn Atcenan-instituutin saatio, 1994 1, 46-51) agreed.

system articulated in the language o f the Eleusinian, Orphic, and Chaldean mysteries, as evidenced by the philosophical writings o f his student Proclus. Nestorius’s possible connection to Julian, cryptically recalled by Eunapius, brings to the fore the evocative force o f this emperor for the Platonists o f the late fourth and fifth centuries.

Julian: Brief Reign, Enduring Legacy We must also consider the impact o f the emperor Julian, himself the sub­ ject of a biographical “funeral oration” by Libanius. Though he reigned less than twenty months, his programs and policies had a long-lasting effect on educational and intellectual trends for years to come. In fact, I would like to suggest that Julian was an important "moment” for both Christian and Greek educated elites to rethink their own positions on the matter. For the Greeks, he represented a noble attempt to redeem the empire from Chris­ tian corruption, a restoration and renewal of Greek identity focused on lit­ erature, philosophy, and the cults of the gods. His policy banning Christians from teaching Greek literature caused major shifts among Christian seg­ ments o f the educated elite in respect to their own educational backgrounds. Not all shifted in the same way; nevertheless, once raised, the question had lasting repercussions on Christian attitudes toward paideia and philosophia. Ju ­ lian’s cultural and cultic reforms, as official government policy in the wake o f the policies o f Constantine and Constantius that favored Christians, height­ ened the sense o f crisis. In this self-reflective "moment,” both Christians and Greeks were compelled to reflect on the mechanisms and presuppositions of the educational and philosophical cultures o f the educated elite, and to elicit alternatives to transform and perpetuate the actual and symbolic models o f the philosopher according to their own visions. Julian s program also shored up the morale o f the failing Greek communities. With the political, financial, and ideological support o f the emperor, they were able to rally around a con­ crete, if ineffective, program of “revival” o f traditional polytheistic cult and Greek philosophy— an attempt to return to a pre-Constantinian period. As a member o f the Constantinian dynasty (the nephew o f Constantine and cous­ in o f Constantius), Julian could bolster his support among Greek intellectu­ als as the “un-doer” o f his family’s destructive policies. Another strategy promoted by Julian’s program was the identification o f culture and education with an allegiance to the Greek gods. Though this was

not entirely new, it was a question that needed articulation in the face o f a strong and growing class o f Christian intellectuals who overtly rejected the traditional gods, while basking in the culture o f the texts o f Plato and Hom­ er. As Rowland Smith explains, Julian's policy was rooted in the idea that the Greek cultural and philosophical heritage was itself inextricably tied to the cultic worship o f the Greek gods, the same gods worshiped and invoked by his philosophical ancestors.152 Thus, Julian would take up a standard antiChristian argument when he lamented the Christians' abandonment o f an­ cestral tradition and introduction o f innovation.153 Though there may be disagreement among scholars concerning the co­ herence and originality o f Julian’s program, it seems evident that the ideal o f “Hellenism” promoted by Julian—founded on Greek language, literature, and religion—was wedded to a philosophical ideal prominent in the existing Iamblichan school. We learn from Julian’s letters, from Libanius's oration on Julian, and from Eunapius o f Julian’s admiration for Iamblichus and his as­ sociation with philosophers o f this tradition, whom he called to himself as advisors.154 Moreover, Athens would be the symbol o f Julian’s renewed and authentic Hellenism, a city that he praised as a model polis o f a golden age o f classical culture.155 But perhaps one o f the most significant moves of Julian’s program was his 152. Smith, Julian’s Gods, 200-205. 153. Julian, Against the Galileans 229c!: paideia and virtue are like a medicinal remedy to Chris­ tianity; in 207d, 238a-d and 3osd, Julian attacks Christians for not abiding by ancestral traditions. Along with the accusation o f being uneducated and irrational, the argument from tradition was standard to much Greek anti-Christian polemic, especially in Porphyry. See Anthony M er­ edith, "Porphyry and Julian against the Christians,” ANRW 23.2: 1147. 154. In Julian ep. 2 to Priscus, a student o f Iamblichus’s student Aedesius, the emperor offers an apology for Iamblichan philosophy, asserting that Iamblichus ranks next to Pythagoras and Plato (the same ranking was granted Plotinus in Porphyry's Vit. Plot.). Many o f the letters writ­ ten to philosophers after his accession in 361 are invitations to his court: for example, to Maxi­ mus, his teacher in theurgy (ep. 8), Eustathius (ep. 43), Aristoxenus (ep. 35), and, if genuine, also a letter to Basil inviting his former associate to Constantinople (ep. 26). As usual, extensive dis­ cussion has taken place regarding the authenticity o f three letters exchanged between Julian and this “Basil.” See Marcella Forlin Patrucco, Basilio di Cesarea: Le lettere (Turin: Societa ed. internazionale, 1983), 1:409-13. John Vanderspoel ("Correspondence and Correspondents o f Julius Julianus,” Byzantion 69 [1999]: 396-478) accepts the authenticity o f ep. 26 as correspondence be­ tween the emperor and Basil o f Caesarea. For Libanius, see ch. 4 o f this volume. Eunapius dis­ cusses the summons o f the philosophers Maximus, Priscus, and Chrysanthius to the court o f Julian in his Vit. Phil. 155. Jay Bregman, “The Emperor Julian’s V iew o f Classical Athens,” in Polis and Polemos: Es­

says on Politics, War, and History in Ancient Greece in Honor o f Donald Kagan, edited by Charles D. Hamilton and Peter Krentz (Claremont, Calif.: Regina Books, 1997), 357-60.

educational reforms, and the effect these had on Christian teachers, in terms o f both their professional careers and the development o f a Christian educa­ tion.156 As John F. Matthews has indicated, the famous edict o f 362, found in Cod.Theod. 13.3.5, and Julian’s ep. 36, are “differently directed” and expressed, but, as I see it, both are indicative o f a strategy o f conservative preservation, an attempt to regulate inculcating institutions.157 In the words o f the edict, teachers (magistri and doctores) had to demonstrate excellence in a harmony o f “character” (moribus) and “eloquence” (fecundia).158 Furthermore, teachers would have to be approved by the curiales, senate, and “best citizens” of each municipality. Julian’s policy fused cultural and political power. It was conser­ vative in the sense that it sought to maintain the status quo as far as the curric­ ulum was concerned (even if Christians were teaching) and because it invoked an idealized pre-Christian past. What it sought to preserve were the institu­ tional forms—texts, teachers, schools, curricula—that promoted Hellenic cul­ ture as the officially consecrated culture o f the Roman Empire, and produced new Hellenic “offspring” who could preserve and reproduce that culture.159 The edict thereby sought to check within the dominant segments o f the cul­ tural elite what can be seen as “heterodoxy,” that is, the Christian assessment, interpretation, and demotion of paideia on its own terms.160 Julian’s ep. 36 either reflects another programmatic act of educational re­ form directed specifically at Christians, or is perhaps a legal interpretation o f the edict.161 Here Julian explains that teachers o f “right education” (παιδείαν ορθήν) ought to exhibit a “healthy state o f mind” and “true opinions” (αληθείς δόξας) regarding what they taught. Teaching literary style (λέξεων) was not enough; ethics (ηθών) must also be taught, and this included την εις τούς θεούς 156. Cribiore, Libanius, 100, and esp. n.29 for bibliography. 157. John F. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 274-77. As Matthews indicates, the edict published in 362 does not explicitly mention Christian teachers, but instead lays down the moral and profes­ sional requirements for teachers and the curial procedure for appointments. The letter, mean­ while, specifically discusses the apparent religious conflict and cultural consequences o f allow­ ing Christians to teach the standard curriculum. 158. Cod. Theod. 13.3.5; trans. Pharr, 388. 159. Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction, 101. 160. On heterodoxy, see Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction, 57; Smith, Julian’s Gods, 5. 161. See Matthews, Laying Down the Law, 275-76. Ammianus Marcellinus (22.10.7) called Ju ­ lian’s actions to prohibit Christians from teaching literature and rhetoric "harsh.” Cf. Thom as M. Banchich, “Julian’s School Laws: Cod. Theod. 13.3.5 and Ep. 42,” Ancient World 24 (1993)·' 5_I4· Banchich has argued that the edict o f Cod. Theod. 13.3.5 and ep. 42 are "discrete elements o f Ju ­ lian's school legislation, that both targeted holders o f public teaching positions, and that [the policy stated in the letter], but not |the edict ], was aimed against Christian teachers” (12).

ευσέβειαν, which is inherent to the “revealed” texts o f Homer, Hesiod, Dem­ osthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates and Lysias. Those who did not share the “piety” o f these authors “confess that they are most shamefully greedy o f gain, and that, for the sake o f a few drachmae, they would put up with anything.” Julian offered Christian teachers a choice: not to teach what they did not consider completely admirable, or not to condemn the sacred authors as impious to their students. Otherwise, he declares, “let them be­ take themselves to the churches o f the Galileans to expound Matthew and Luke.” 162 The danger in allowing Christians to teach texts that they did not fully accept as divinely inspired texts was that they would corrupt the young, that is, disrupt the reproduction o f Hellenic offspring.163 Among the victims o f Julians policy were his former teacher Prohairesius who, according to Eunapius, was “shut out from the position o f teaching [τόπω τού παιδεύειν έξειργόμενος] because he was apparently Christian,” 164 and Marius Victorinus, the Neoplatonist admirer o f Porphyry turned Christian, who gave up his teaching post.165 As the Church historian Socrates reports, the Apollinarii took creative measures to circumvent Julian's curricular restrictions.166 Christian responses would take various forms. Even after Julian's sudden death in June o f 363 and the repeal of his educational policy by the decree of Jovian six months later,167 the question persisted as part o f the cultural con­ sciousness o f Christian intellectuals, who would struggle with the relation­ ship of Greek education (philosophy in particular) to Christian identity. The question that Christians faced was how much they could endorse and partic­ ipate in an educational system that had elements contrary to their own be­ liefs.168 This question was especially poignant after Julian's program bound together the literary, philosophical, and cultic aspects of culture as insepara­ ble indicators o f Greek identity. In his lament o f the state o f affairs, Libanius could proclaim that the solution was to maintain a connection between edu­ 162. Julian, ep. 36 (L C L 3:120); trans. Wright, 121. 163. Glanville Downey, “The Emperor Julian and the Schools,” ClassicalJournal 53 (1957): 100. 164. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 10.8.1, 493 (Giangrande, 79), m y translation. 165. Augustine Conf. 8.2.3-5. Jerome (Chronicon 36) wrote that Julian offered a dispensation to Prohairesius, which he refused. 166. Socrates, H.E. 3.16. 167. Cod. Theod. 13.3.6, dated January 11,364, states: “If any man should be found equally suit­ able in character and eloquence for teaching the youth, he shall either establish a new audito­ rium or seek one that has been abandoned” (trans. Pharr, 388). Downey (“The Em peror Julian,” 103 n.17) saw in this an allusion to the reopening o f schools headed by Christian teachers. 168. Cameron, Christianity and Rhetoric, 139.

cation and worship o f the gods;169 while Gregory o f Nazianzus could com­ plain that Julian did a disservice to Christians by begrudging them the use of λόγοι through a policy that claimed an inherent bond between "words” and “cult” (θρησκεία).170 Nevertheless, no one could deny the bond between the study and exercise o f philosophy, the moral and intellectual formation it provided, and the cul­ tural and symbolic capital it afforded. Christians were aware o f the tensions, and they would try to find ways to take control o f and transform the sys­ tem of education (at least for their own) by negotiating the content o f that education, its institutional location, its teachers and models, and its forms and means o f legitimization. This required a subversion o f the Greek agen­ da through disparagement o f its history, definitions, and models. Subversion also entailed maintaining other elements o f that system, and a reliance on the system itself on the part of the Christian intellectuals who participated in the competition—for it had provided their own formation. Thus we see both a conscious and an unconscious use o f the cultural products o f Greek educa­ tion to undermine the authority o f Greek teachers and philosophical tradi­ tions, and to usurp their pedagogic authority and the means to educate. The lasting effects o f Julian s legislation on education should not be un­ derestimated. While the legislation itself was ineffective and eventually re­ pealed, its influence on the theoretical discussion o f pedagogy and pedagog­ ical authority was significant. At the heart o f this legislation was a theory that sought to unify education, philosophy, and religious allegiance. By plac­ ing restrictions on teaching appointments, Julian and his supporters had at­ tempted to put a halt to any further “heterodox” (i.e., Christian) entrench­ ment into the educational system. For Greeks, Julian’s vision set the future course for pedagogical theory, a conservative approach. For Christians, vari­ ous proposals were made on the value and future o f traditional paideia—but all agreed on a separation from traditional Greco-Roman religion.

169.

Libanius Or. 62.8 (Foerster, 4:350): οικεία γάρ, οίμαι, καί συγγενή ταΰτα άμφότερα, ιερά καί

λόγοι. ιγο. Gregory o f Nazianzus, Or. 4.5 (SC 309, 92). He goes on to argue against the conception o f an inherent bond between language and cult by pointing out that language is the property not o f those who “ invent” it, but o f those who use it, and among Greek speakers, there are var­ ious modes o f cult. See also Or. 4.103-6.

Tracing the Lines: Porphyry, Eusebius, and the Renewal o f Platonism The reform sparked by Numenius o f Apamea not only set the stage for subsequent trends in philosophical thought, but also laid the groundwork for a jostling for leadership and a rethinking o f philosophical history Though our sources for Numenius are limited, what we do know comes mainly from three sources: Porphyry, Origen, and Eusebius.171 It is this circle and its influ­ ence on the direction o f philosophy in late antiquity that I would like to ex­ plore, as a way o f connecting the preceding discussion to formal discussion o f the bios. The purpose is to emphasize the intellectual and social proximity o f Greeks and Christians in educational environments, so as to shed light on the production o f biographical literature in these circles. From Numenius, we move to the shadowy figure o f Ammonius, a teacher o f philosophy who flourished in Alexandria in the first half o f the third cen­ tury. When Plotinus found himself dissatisfied with other teachers o f philos­ ophy at Alexandria, a friend introduced him to Ammonius in 232. “This is the one I was seeking,” Plotinus is said to have exclaimed; and he remained with Ammonius for eleven years, acquiring a training and formation in the philo­ sophical life.172 It was probably here that Plotinus became acquainted with the works o f Numenius.173 In the Life of Plotinus, Porphyry reports that Plo­ tinus took a vow o f secrecy, along with his fellow students Errenius and Ori­ gen, not to reveal their master s most esoteric teachings.174 In regards to this passage, it has been standard academic fare to ask wheth­ er the Origen named here is to be identified with the Christian Origen. The question has heated up again in recent years, and there is currently no schol­ arly consensus. I hold that Origen the Christian and Origen the Neoplatonist 171. O f the more than sixty fragments and testimonia o f Numenius that have been pre­ served, twenty-six are in Eusebius, eight are in Porphyry, and five are in Origen. O f the Neoplatonists after Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus are the sources for Numenius. See Numenius,

Fragments (Des Places, 147-49). 172. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 3 (Brisson, 136); m y translation. 173. Dillon, Middle Platonists, 381: "[I]t looks as if, in the person o f Ammonius, Plotinus came into contact with the ‘Neopythagorean underground.” ' Porphyry reports that the treatises o f Numenius were read aloud and discussed in Plotinus’s lectures (Vit. Plot. 14). Some o f Plotinus’s critics even accused him o f plagiarizing Numenius, a charge vehemently rebuked by his stu­ dents. Amelius, who had worked extensively on the works o f Numenius while studying with Plotinus, defended his teacher from these charges with a work entitled The Difference between the

Doctrines o f Plotinus and Numenius (Vit. Plot. 17). 174. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 3.

are two different Egyptian men who studied with the same Ammonius. I read Porphyry’s remark in Vit. Plot. 3 that the Origen who was part o f Ammonius’s inner circle composed only two works to mean just that, and that these were minor works o f little note. In a testimony preserved by Eusebius in Hist. eccl. 6.19.5, Porphyry seems to be aware o f the voluminous body o f work composed by the Church father. This discrepancy suggests, in my opin­ ion, that these were two different men. More recently, Thomas Bohm has ar­ gued for the identity o f the two Origens, a position followed by Ilaria Ramelli. In an intriguing article, Ramelli has argued that Porphyry’s remarks can be reconciled such that they refer to one Origen who converted to Christianity after leaving the circle o f Ammonius. In order to do this, the sense o f Por­ phyry’s statement in Vit. Plot, is that Origen expounded the teaching o f Am­ monius only in these two works. They are not a reference to his full corpus o f writings. Thus it is Eusebius who is being disingenuous, because he was hesitant to expose Origen to the accusation o f being a “pagan” or “Platonist” philosopher.1751 am not fully convinced by this reading. When Porphyry does comment on the Christian Origen, in fragments preserved in Eusebius, he praises him for his erudition and familiarity with the major philosophical writers. Porphyry writes that Origen was always in the company of the works o f Plato, Numenius, and other Platonists, Py­ thagoreans, and Stoics. This erudition, Porphyry explains, was learned from his teacher Ammonius. He writes: “For he [i.e., Origen] had been an audi­ tor [ακροατής] o f Ammonius, who had made the greatest proficiency in phi­ losophy among those o f our day. He acquired great advantage in the skill o f words from his teacher, but in the right choice o f life, he took the oppo­ site path o f his teacher.” 176 At face value, Porphyry’s assessment o f Origen is fairly positive: he had a good Greek education, studied with one o f the best teachers, and continued to read and engage the important works o f the Greek philosophical tradition. Origen erred in remaining a Christian. Por­ phyry praises Origen for his mastery o f Greek literature and philosophy, but reviles him as a “mixer” and corruptor o f Hellenism: “Origen, being edu­ 175. Thom as Bohm, "Origenes— Theologe und (Neu-)Platoniker? Oder: W em soil man misstrauen: Eusebius oder Porphyrius?” Adamantius 8 (2002): 7-23; Ilaria Ramelli, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianisation o f Hellenism,” Vigiliae

Christianae 63 (2009): 217-63, esp. 224, and 236-37. 176. Porphyry, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.6 (SC 41, 114-15); Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History Complete and Unabridged, trans. C .F. Cruse, 2nd printing (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2000), 209, with modification.

cated as a Greek in Greek learning, drifted toward the barbarian audacity. To which, indeed, betaking himself, he even sold-out his formation in learning, living on the one hand like a Christian, and, unlawfully; but Hellenizing in his opinions concerning things and the divine, and subjecting the things o f the Greeks to foreign myths.” 177 Thus, for Porphyry the problem was not simply that Origen remained a Christian, but that he had corrupted Greek paideia by intermingling it with what Porphyry calls “foreign myths,” especially in his allegorical interpretation o f the sacred writings o f the ancient Hebrews. We might say Porphyry accused Origen o f manipulating the Greek habitus. What we see in the work o f Eusebius is the textual form o f a real de­ bate, which was occurring beyond the confines o f ink and parchment over the intellectual pedigree and integrity o f Origen. Eusebius embedded this discussion within a biographical account. If we situate the participants in this debate within the context o f the intellectual environment described in this chapter, regarding them as members o f contending factions o f the intellec­ tual class, we see them as “kin” according to educational heritage (the line of Ammonius) and their debates as an “intrafamilial” discourse. What we have, essentially, in these writings o f Porphyry and Eusebius, are the claims of the “grandchildren” o f Ammonius to their ancestral inheritance. Eusebi­ us’s defense o f Origen, then, was part o f a larger debate among the intellec­ tual heirs o f Ammonius over the direction and ownership o f the philosophi­ cal renewal. A successful strategy in this struggle demanded intellectual skill, but this was not enough. To stand upon the shoulders o f the great thinkers and teachers o f the past, that is, possessing a respectable, educational pedi­ gree and intellectual lineage, afforded a philosopher a great deal o f conse­ cration, legitimacy, and a voice to participate. Celebrated teachers not only imparted knowledge to their students, but also were “fathers,” who adopt­ ed their students into the lineages o f the great traditions by what Libanius called a “kinship o f words (logoi),” entrusting to them the precious inheri­ tance o f wisdom and truth.178 As the texts themselves demonstrate, the controversy surrounding Am­ monius was also a controversy about Origen and his relation to Greek learn­ ing as a Christian philosopher. The debate between Porphyry and Eusebi­ us about Origen shifts to Ammonius and his religious identification. The question addressed, surprisingly enough, is not whether Ammonius was ever 177. Porphyry, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.6, m y translation. 178. I.ibanius, rp.170 (Norman, LCL).

Christian, but whether he remained a Christian. Porphyry writes: “For Ammonius had been raised as a Christian in Christian matters by his parents, but when he applied himself to understanding and philosophy, he turned to a way o f life in accordance with the laws.” 179 In this passage, Porphyry ad­ mits that Ammonius, the admirer o f Numenius, the teacher for whom Plo­ tinus was searching and one o f the fathers o f the philosophical renewal, had been a Christian and also the teacher of Origen. But his discovery of philoso­ phy and subsequent rejection of Christianity were an indication o f their fun­ damental incompatibility. The contrast Porphyry draws between Ammonius and Origen is pointed: whereas Ammonius had been raised as a Christian, but abandoned Christianity for wisdom and philosophy, Origen, who had been educated in Greek learning, continued to cling to Christianity, there­ by negating any claim he might have had to the pedigree of Ammonius, the seedbed from which the Platonist philosophical renewal of the third century sprang. To these claims, Eusebius responds: ‘As for Origen, he preserved the mat­ ters of the teaching according to Christ from his ancestors, as the preceding history has shown; and as for Ammonius, the matters o f inspired philosophy continued uncorrupted and secure, even to the very end of his life, as the maris labors suffice to indicate even now.” 180 In his rebuttal o f Porphyry, Eu­ sebius’s insistence on Ammonius’s fidelity to his Christian upbringing to the end of his life serves not as a simple affirmation o f the compatibility of phi­ losophy and revelation, but o f their fundamental unity. His aim, I suggest, was to place a distinctly Christian face on the philosophical lineage of Am­ monius, and to consecrate Origen as its true and rightful heir. Eusebius read Porphyry to say that Origen was raised a Greek and converted to Christianity, while Ammonius’s life followed the exact opposite path, with his abandon­ ing Christianity to become a true Hellene.181 But the matter runs deeper. Where Porphyry faults Origen for corrupting divine philosophy by mixing it with an irrational and barbaric worldview (i.e., Christianity)—an approach that, Porphyry insinuates, Ammonius would have rejected—Eusebius under­ scores both men’s persistence in a philosophical way o f life rooted in their 179. Porphyry, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.6, m y translation. 180. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.10 (SC 41,116); m y translation. 181. Eusebius reports that Origen was raised a Christian by Christian parents. In the text o f Porphyry, the Neoplatonist contrasts Ammonius's being “raised” a Christian (άνατραφείς) with Origen’s being “ educated” (παιδευθείς) as a Greek (Hist. eccl. 6.19.9 [SC 41,116]). The latter does not necessarily preclude a Christian upbringing.

Christian upbringing. Both then stand in a continuous line o f Alexandrian Christian philosophers, which included Pantaenus and Clement and reached its apex in Origen, extending to Eusebius’s church at Caesarea. Book 6 o f the Ecclesiastical History, then, was about much more than the life o f Origen. It is, in a sense, the bios of a Christian philosophical tradition.182 This question is not settled, however, since there has been much debate over the identity of the Ammonius whom Porphyry names as Origeris teach­ er: Is he the same Ammonius who taught Plotinus? Or are Porphyry and Eu­ sebius discussing another teacher named Ammonius? Mark Edwards has ar­ gued for two Origens and two Ammonii. He identifies the Ammonius who taught Origen with an Alexandrian Peripatetic (identified by Longinus in a letter cited by Porphyry at Vit. Plot. 20) who had embraced a “deviant form o f Christianity.” 183 Edwards’s argument is based on the frequency of names, but, also, in large measure, on the apparent difference in literary careers of the two proposed Ammonii: the teacher o f Plotinus is said to have written nothing,184 while Eusebius refers to a work entitled On the Harmony of Moses and Jesus composed by Origeris Ammonius.185 Must these then be two differ­ ent men? Not necessarily. In the same text o f Longinus (cited by Porphyry), the Neoplatonist Origen is, along with Ammonius, classified as a Platonist who opted to reserve his teaching to the classroom, rather than publishing for posterity.186 Then, just a couple o f lines later, Longinus names the work On Daemons as a composition o f this same Origen. Porphyry also attributes to this Origen the treatise, That the King Is the Sole Poet.187 Both seem to be judged as relatively minor works, especially when considering Longinus’s re­ mark that Origen’s written work was not o f the caliber to classify him among 182. Cox, Biography, 69-101. Here Cox suggested that Eusebius’s ideal o f Origen is more philosophical than ecclesiastical, a point supported by Tim othy Barnes’s characterization o f the Ecclesiastical History as a type o f “philosophical history.” See Constantine and Eusebius (Cam ­ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 128; and m y discussion in ch. 3. In m y estima­ tion, it is not an either/or question, but one o f a philosophical history embedded within the growth and spread o f the institution(s) that formulated, taught, and transmitted a particular philosophical tradition. 183. Mark J. Edwards, ‘Ammonius, Teacher o f Origen.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993): 168-81. See also the discussion in idem, Origen against Plato, Ashgate Studies in Philoso­ phy and Theology in Late Antiquity (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2002), 53-55. 184. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20. 185. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.10. 186. In m y opinion, this Origen is not to be identified with the Christian Origen, if for no other reason than that both Longinus and Porphyry, when discussing this man, fail to mention the enormous literary output attributable to the Christian Origen.

187. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 3.

the real Platonist scholars. Perhaps the same could be said o f Ammonius’s On the Harmony of Moses and Jesus. A teacher who clearly reserved his princi­ pal teachings to the classroom, Ammonius could have occasionally produced a written work.188 Moreover, the tide and subject matter o f this lost work need not exclude the possibility that the teacher o f Plotinus composed it. In their quest to discover the seeds o f wisdom among the ancient nations, the pioneers o f the Neopythagorean and Neoplatonist movements were famil­ iar with and wrote about Hebrew and Christian texts, and not only critically. Moreover, as Hermann Langerbeck has advised, being Christian in Alexan­ dria in the late second into the early third century could mean any number o f things.189 Certainly Porphyry acknowledged Origeris expertise in Platonist and Pythagorean literature and ascribes his erudition in some measure to his studies with Ammonius, whom he describes as having “made the greatest proficiency in philosophy among those o f our day.” 190 F. M. Schroeder characterized the debate over the number o f Origens and Ammonii as a case o f “prosopographical schizophrenia.” 191 He allows for two Origens, but only one Ammonius, a position I hold. Though we must admit that the evidence is somewhat inconclusive, there does seem to be a tendency to multiply the number o f people bearing the same names within a relatively small circle o f intellectuals as a way to avoid mixing Greek (read, pagan) and Christian teachers and students. Yet we have seen that this was not unusual especially in Alexandria, and especially in the third century. Be­ fore the fifth century, when there was no separate system o f Christian edu­ cation as such, Christians and Greeks shared teachers and classrooms in the schools of rhetoric and philosophy in Athens, Alexandria, and Rome. Edward Watts describes the environment in Alexandria before 300 as one o f “free in­ tellectual exchange between ... pagans and Christians.” 192 As “partners” in philosophical discussions, educated Christians and pagans “disagreed about the divine,” but could employ “philosophy as a common intellectual frame­ work around which they could construct their understandings o f God.” 193 18 8 . S e e Vit. Plot. 3. 18 9 . H . L a n g e r b e c k , " T h e P h ilo s o p h y o f A m m o n iu s S a c c a s a n d th e C o n n e c t io n o f A r is t o te ­ lia n a n d C h r istia n E le m e n t s T h e r e in ,” J H S 7 7 (19 5 7 ): 6 8 - 6 9 . 190 . P o r p h y r y , in E u s e b iu s , H ist, e c c l 6 .19 .6 ; tra n s. C r u s e , 2 0 9 :

Άμμωνΐου τού πλείστην έν τοίς

καθ’ ήμάς χρόνοις έπίδοσιν έν φιλοσοφία έσχηκότος. ΐ 9 ΐ. F re d e ric Μ . S c h r o e d e r , " A m m o n iu s S a c c a s ,” A N R W 3 6 .1 : 504. 19 2 . W a tts, C ity an d School, 167. 193. Ibid., 169.

Figure i -i . The philosophical lineage of the philosopher Porphyry, as reconstructed from his writings

Thus, we see a proximity and interaction among intellectuals, Christian and non, within the educational circles o f the third century, that sowed the seeds o f a competition that was not only possible but perhaps inevitable. I have devoted a significant amount o f discussion to this case to demon­ strate that at the turn o f the fourth century, the stakes were high in philo­ sophical circles, as competing parties debated the origins and lineages o f phi­ losophy to defend their respective claims to authenticity and superiority In defining the school o f Plotinus as the true recipient o f authentic Platonism in the Life of Plotinus, Porphyry also established his own place in that tradition and could trace a lineage directly from Pythagoras to himself. While he does not maintain that there was any continuous institutional succession from Py­ thagoras or Plato to himself, he regards Ammonius and Plotinus as the most faithful philosophical interpreters o f these founders (in the vein o f Numenius), and, hence, their legitimate heirs (figure i -i ). Convinced that the applica­ tion o f philosophy to Christian ideas corrupted anything Pythagoras or Pla­ to taught, he took aim at Christianity’s most influential intellectual, Origen.

Figure 1-2. The intellectual pedigree of Eusebius as represented in Hist. eccl. 6

In many ways, Eusebius might be seen as the Christian counterpart to Por­ phyry. As apologist, historian, exegete, and biographer, Eusebius made foun­ dational contributions to the construction and presentation o f a Christian tra­ dition, including a Christian intellectual tradition. His biographical accounts o f Origen and Pamphilus, in particular, represent an important foray into the discussion regarding the direction of philosophy and its authentic represen­ tatives in an age o f persecution. As bishop o f Caesarea, he was also guardian o f the great Christian intellectual center established by Origen. Thus, he pro­ moted his predecessors as Christian scholars and founders o f an AlexandrianCaesarean tradition o f Christian philosophy. In Praeparatio evangelica, Eusebius argues for the universality, rationality, and philosophical viability o f a Chris­ tian philosophy that could both engage and challenge the Greeks on their own terms. It was the Greeks, not the Christians, who had done the “borrowing.” In his account o f the school o f Ammonius, Eusebius argues that Ammonius was raised a Christian, and remained a Christian. He in turn passed on this heritage to his student Origen. It was the Greeks, then, who had strayed from Ammonius s teaching and corrupted it with polytheistic tendencies. Therefore the only legitimate heir o f the great Ammonius and promoter o f philosophi­ cal revival was the school o f Origen, not the tradition o f Plotinus (figure 1-2). Eusebius’s discussion o f Ammonius and Origen in the Ecclesiastical His­

tory situates Origen’s educational lineage within the larger framework o f the history o f the Church and its succession o f bishops: “It is my purpose to write an account o f the successions o f the holy Apostles ... and to mention those who have governed and presided over the church ... and those who in each generation have proclaimed the divine word either orally or in writ­ ing.” 194 Eusebius hails Origen s philosophical revolution as a recovery o f the one universal and divine wisdom. An heir to this tradition, Eusebius presents his master as a significant moment in the history o f divine knowledge at a time when the enemies o f Christianity resorted to both symbolic and real violence. As a biographer and heir o f Origen, Eusebius took up the task of tracing multiple lineages that situated his spiritual father within both a specif­ ic intellectual and philosophical tradition (that o f Ammonius) and the larger history and lineage o f the Church. Responding to the charges that Christian­ ity was irrational, Eusebius attempted to prove the compatibility o f Christian doctrine with philosophy. In the end, the heritage o f Ammonius would be left to the Neoplatonists, abandoned by his Christian descendants. With increasing controversy sur­ rounding Origen in the fourth and fifth centuries, there would be little use for Eusebius’s genealogical project. Ammonius does appear again in Theodo­ rei o f Cyrrhus’s Curefor Hellenic Maladies, where the bishop reminds his read­ er that Origen and Plotinus shared a teacher.195 But no other claim is made on him for Christianity. The Alexandrian Neoplatonist scholarch Hierocles, Theodoret’s contemporary, enshrined Ammonius as the discoverer o f pure Platonism, the head o f a “holy race” (ιερά γενεά), as he called it.196 Accord­ ing to Hierocles, this holy family o f philosophers, sprung from the loins of Ammonius, found its full flowering in the Platonic schools o f Alexandria and Athens. Eusebius and Porphyry represented competing branches o f the lineage o f Ammonius vying to direct religious and philosophical reform and renew­ al on the authority o f two philosophers and teachers, Origen and Plotinus. If we consider Plotinus the genius behind the renewal o f Platonism in the third century, Porphyry was its first systematizer, interpreter, promoter, and chronicler. His work, the Philosophical History, outlined the history o f phi­ losophy from Pythagoras to Plato through a series of biographical portraits. 194. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.1; m y translation. 195. Theodoret, Cur. 6.60. 196. H ie r o c le s , in Photius, Ribl. 214.173a. See also Glucker, Antiochus, 311—13.

Whereas Porphyry esteemed Plotinus as the reformer o f a purified Pla­ tonism, gathered from the ancient nations and systematized by Pythagoras and Plato, Eusebius regarded the school o f Origen as the heir o f the divine wisdom originally revealed to the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets, particu­ larly Moses, and brought to fullness through Christ and his Church. Biog­ raphy was an arena where the origins o f philosophy were contested. In the next chapter, we examine how biographies o f Pythagoras and Moses partici­ pated in the competition for philosophy.

wet Moses and Pythagoras Reading the Bios as Philosophical History

I have argued that biographical literature served as a type o f social charter that crafted a series o f relationships among subjects, authors, and audienc­ es. In the field o f ancient philosophy bioi also located communities o f teach­ ers and disciples within lineages of descent and narratives o f the origins of philosophy. Greek and Christian intellectuals o f the second century, such as Numenius o f Apamea and Justin Martyr, lamented the state o f the philo­ sophical schools and called for a return to origins, where pure, uncorrupted wisdom could be found. For Numenius, this required a rediscovery o f Py­ thagoras. Justin, however, turned to the books o f Moses for the most ancient revelation o f God. Claims o f cultural identity among Greek-speaking intellectual elites often adapted the complex o f myth o f origins, descent, shared history, and claims to land that had characterized expressions o f Hellenic ethnicity in ancient Greece.1 Expressing these in narratives o f the origins and transmission o f divine wisdom, Greek and Christian philosophers vied to define their pedi­ grees in a struggle to claim, safeguard, and inculcate divine, transforming knowledge and virtue. In the bios, myth, history, and philosophical education merged. Where Momigliano encouraged us not to “doubt that biography is some kind o f history,” I suggest we regard philosophical bioi as ancient histo­ riography.2 In addition to presenting an exposition o f their subjects’ teaching 1. Hall, Hellenidty, 9-15. 2. Momigliano, Development, 6.

and way o f life that was intended to be paradigmatic for readers pursuing the philosophical life, the authors o f biographical literature also had an interest in situating their subjects, and hence themselves, in a legitimate and continu­ ous line of tradition. These strategies go hand in hand, especially in periods when lines o f transmission, philosophic succession, and pedagogical author­ ity were contested. Authors of bioi were engaged in a historiographical proj­ ect of tradition building that included both the systematization o f philosoph­ ical doctrines and practice and the (re)construction o f historical succession. Bourdieu suggested that in the competition between the dominant party and the newcomers in fields o f cultural production, the latter adopt subver­ sive strategies to challenge the status quo. He identifies the “return to the sources” as the “strategy par excellence” because “it enables the insurgents to turn against the establishment the arms which they use to justify their domi­ nation.” 3 Numenius was one of these newcomers in his struggle against Ac­ ademic philosophy; so, too, were Justin and Clement in their affirmation of the priority of Hebrew wisdom over Greek. In their challenge to the domi­ nant party, newcomers assert difference and reshape the history o f the field.4 In the case o f our ancient authors, this entailed a mapping o f “barbarian” (and Hebrew, in particular), Greek, and Christian thought and practice in re­ lation to one another in a discussion o f philosophical origins. This chapter focuses on two mythic figures at the origins o f divine knowl­ edge. For Neopythagoreans and Platonists, Pythagoras first discovered and collected ancient wisdom and religious traditions into a comprehensive Greek form. Iamblichus even called him the inventor o f philosophy.5 For Jews and Christians, Moses’s reception o f the divine Law marked a unique encounter between God and humanity, an encounter that predated all of the Greek poets and philosophers. Competing narratives o f philosophical history intersected, overlapped, and collided as they were constructed among the Greek-speaking intellectuals o f late antiquity— Greek, Jews, and Christians. As they navigat­ ed the philosophical questions o f their era, Jews and Christians charged the founders o f Greek philosophy with plagiarism and their successors with dis­ tortion. The narratives o f the travels o f Pythagoras and Plato seemed to prove this. 3. Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 84. 4. Ibid., 58-60. 5. Iamblichus, DVP 58. Diogenes Laertius (Lives 1.4.12) also ascribed the invention o f philoso­ phy to Pythagoras.

We begin with two bioi o f Pythagoras. Both served as prologues to larger literary projects. Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras, perhaps written during his so­ journ in Athens, formed part of the first book o f a work entitled Philosophos historia, the Philosophical History.6 This work, I will argue, was an early con­ tribution by Porphyry to the renewal and reform o f Platonism. Perhaps in response to Porphyry’s biography o f Pythagoras, Iamblichus also composed one, which served as an introduction to his philosophical curriculum. These works largely reflect internal competition through creative historiography. At the end of the fourth century, Gregory o f Nyssa’s Life of Moses would directly address questions of spiritual progress and biblical interpretation through the figure o f Moses. But it also reveals the slow-healing scars o f the identity crisis provoked by Julian’s educational measures, long since repealed, as Gregory struggled to legitimate and define the place of paideia in the edu­ cation and moral life o f a Christian.

The Philosophos historia o f Porphyry In the previous chapter, I examined Porphyry’s central role in systematiz­ ing, interpreting, and promoting the philosophical heritage o f Plotinus and his polemic against Origen. His offensive against an increasingly influential Christian philosophy came at a time of intellectual crisis. Porphyry attempt­ ed to discredit his Christian rival by questioning his application o f the Greek tradition and his fidelity to Ammonius. The Christian philosophy represent­ ed by Origen posed a real challenge to the ascendancy o f Plotinian Platonism both in its content and in its pedigree among segments o f Greek intellectu­ als. Porphyry’s attempt to discredit Origen attacked his Christian rival’s sub­ ordination o f Greek philosophy to Hebrew religious claims. He also ques­ tioned Origen’s fidelity to Ammonius, permitting only Plotinus to be the legitimate heir to Ammonius’s movement. Yet even before Porphyry entered this fray and joined the school o f Plotinus in Rome, he reflected on the ori­ gins o f Greek wisdom. While in Athens, studying with the rhetorician and critic Longinus, Porphyry composed his Philosophos historia. The aim o f the work, which I regard as an application o f the principles o f renewal pioneered by Numenius, was to establish an historical and doxographical account o f 6.

Des Places, “ Notice,” in Porphyry, Vie de Pythagore et Lettre ά Marcella, ed. Edouard Des

Places (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982), 10.

the founding fathers o f Greek philosophy, from Pythagoras to Plato.7 In the style o f Numenius, the work emphasizes Pythagoras’s harvesting o f “barbar­ ian” wisdom into a unified Greek philosophy and omits from the narrative the Academic successors o f Plato, divorcing legitimating expertise and au­ thenticity from its prior institutional boundaries, opening the door to other forms o f pedagogical authority The Pythagorean-Platonism of Numenius had a notable influence on Plo­ tinus and Porphyry.8 One can see in the work o f Porphyry an avid engage­ ment with Numenian philosophy and methodology, for instance in his inter­ est in Pythagorean philosophy, oracles, and the wisdom, arts, and rituals of ancient non-Greek peoples, and in his use o f allegory.9 His program of syn­ thesizing and promoting classical Greek culture and philosophy under the banner o f Platonism has been called a “renewal o f the ‘nous platonica.’ ” 10 Not simply an exercise in philosophical speculation, there was an important historiographical dimension to this project as works such as the Chronica and Sentences demonstrate.11 To this end, the bios was a useful literary tool, as it was employed to recount the “history o f philosophy” through the lives of its greatest representatives. Porphyry’s Philosophos historia and Life o f Plotinus would delineate branches of philosophical inheritance that would serve as the basis for a continually developing tradition within Platonist circles. Por­ phyry crafted the beginnings o f a mythic history o f philosophical origins that would become the standard account o f philosophical history in intellec­ tual circles, even down to the present.12 7. F o r a d iscu ssio n o f th e ro le o f N u m e n iu s in s h a p in g a n e w P la to n is t tra d itio n , s e e B o y s S to n e s , Post-H ellenistic Philosophy, 3 8 - 4 1 , a n d ch . 1 o f th is v o lu m e . C f . S c h o tt , Christianity, Em pire, an d the M a k in g o f Religion, 2 3 - 2 8 . 8. It is u n c le a r w h e n e x a c t ly P o r p h y r y e n c o u n t e r e d th e w o r k o f N u m e n iu s . B e in g a n a tiv e o f T y r e , P o r p h y r y c e r ta in ly c o u ld h a v e c o m e u n d e r th e in flu e n c e o f th e A p a m e a n ’ s t h o u g h t in h is e a r ly fo r m a t io n . L o n g in u s k n e w th e w o r k o f N u m e n iu s a n d e v e n c o m p la in e d a b o u t th e c u r r e n t state o f p h ilo s o p h y in h is day. S e e P o r p h y r y , Vit. Plot. 20 . 9. D e s P la c e s , “ In tr o d u c t io n ,” in N u m e n iu s , Fragm ents, e d . a n d tra n s. E d o u a r d D e s P la c e s (P aris: L e s B e lle s L e ttr e s , 19 7 3 ), 2 6 - 2 8 . 10 . F r a n c e s c o R o m a n o , Porfirio d i Tiro: filosofia e cultura nel I II secolo d .C . (C a ta n ia : U n iv e rs ita d i C a t a n ia , 19 7 9 ), 82. 11. Ib id ., 156 . R o m a n o h a s s u g g e s t e d th a t w e c o n s id e r P o r p h y r y first a n d fo r e m o s t as a h is t o ­ rian o f p h ilo s o p h y a n d c u ltu r e , a n d as a p h ilo s o p h e r o n ly se co n d a rily . T h is is c e r ta in ly a n o v e r ­ s ta te m e n t, fo r R o m a n o is a w a r e o f th e fa r -r e a c h in g in flu e n c e t h a t P o r p h y r y ’s p h ilo s o p h ic a l c o n tr ib u tio n s h a d e v e n in to th e M id d le A g e s . N e v e r t h e le s s , h is r e m a r k ca lls o u r a tte n tio n t o th e im p o r t a n c e a n d in flu e n c e o f h is p a rtic ip a tio n in th e c r e a t io n o f a tra d itio n . 12. S e e , fo r e x a m p le , A u g u s t in e , A c a d . 3 .1 9 .4 2 - 4 3 , w h e r e th e y o u n g A u g u s t in e fu lly s u b ­ s c rib e s to th e m y t h ic a c c o u n t o f p h ilo so p h ic a l h is t o r y d e v e lo p e d b y P o r p h y r y .

The Philosophos historia is probably one o f Porphyry’s early works. Here I follow the dating o f those scholars who place the work in his Athenian pe­ riod.13 The work is a history o f Greek culture and philosophy in four books told through a series o f biographical accounts o f the sages, poets, and philos­ ophers who contributed to the flowering o f Greek culture up to Plato. The only extant portion o f the work is the Life of Pythagoras (Vit. Pyth.), which would have appeared in the first book. The contents o f the lost books are known through the testimonies o f Eusebius, Theodoret, Cyril o f Alexandria, Eunapius, and the Suda. A mix of history, philosophy, and biography, the Phi­ losophos historia traced the origins and course o f Greek culture from the dis­ tant and mythical past to its culmination in Plato.14 Though a work o f collec­ tive biography, it carries the title historia, and, as such, was one o f Porphyry’s first contributions to the telling of philosophical history. The subjects and ac­ tors o f this history bear witness to the seeds o f divinely revealed philosophy planted in time immemorial, and, over the course o f history, discovered and cultivated by the best among the Greeks. In them, “Porphyry sought to dis­ cover ... Platonic philosophy.” 15 These “Platonists before Plato” stand both as models and embodiments o f the philosophical life and as significant his­ torical markers, moments in time, in a gradual course progressing toward its zenith in Plato. While inspired by the spirit o f Numenius’s call for reform, 13. See Gustav Wolff, Porphyrii de philosophia ex oraculis haurienda librorum reliquiae (Berlin: Springer, 1856; reprint Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), 15-16; Joseph Bidez, Vie de Porphyre, le

philosophe neo-platonicien (Ghent: Goethem, 1913; repr. N ew York: Olms, 1980), 34: Des Places, Vie de Pythagore, 166; and Giuseppe Girgenti, Introduzione a Porfirio, I Filosofi 75 (Rome: Laterza, 1997), 10. Wolff, Bidez, and Girgenti all date the work to Porphyry's Athenian period, while Des Places places it during the early years o f his stay with Plotinus. 14. August Nauck, ed., in Porphyrii philosophi platonici opuscula selecta iterum recognovit, Bib­ liotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig: Teubner, 1886), 7. A c ­ cording to the testimonies o f Eusebius, Cyril, and the Suda, the first book would have covered the period from the fall o f Troy through Homer, Hesiod, and the Seven Sages, among whom Pythagoras would have figured. See ibid., 4-7. N o fragments or citations attest to the contents o f the second book. Des Places believes this would have dealt with the Pre-Socratics (see Des Places, Vie de Pythagore, 164-65). The life o f Socrates was included in the third book (Nauck, Por­ phyrii opuscula, 9: a citation o f Cyril o f Alexandria, C.Jul. 6). According to Cyril, Plato’s life was told in the fourth and last book (Nauck, Porphyrii opuscula, 13)· Eunapius (Vit. Phil. 2.1, 454) in­ dicates that the work ended with Plato. For the ancient references to the Philosophos Historia, see Nauck, Porphyrii opuscula, 3-16, and Des Places, Vie de Pythagore, 10-11. Eunapius (Vit. Phil. 2.1, 454 [Giangrande, 2]) also attests to the title o f the work (while understanding his own bio­ graphical task as a continuation o f Porphyry’s): “ Porphyry and Sotion compiled [respectively] the Philosophical History [τήν φιλόσοφον Ιστορίαν] and the Lives o f Philosophical Men [τούς τών φιλοσόφων άνδρών βίους].” ΐ5· Dominic J. O'M eara, Pythagoras Revived: Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 27.

Porphyry diverges from Numenius’s philosophical orientation by presenting Pythagoras as a foreshadowing of Plato, rather than Plato as a reflection of Pythagoras. Beginning with Pythagoras, the account reflects the renewed in­ terest in Pythagoreanism from the early imperial period. Porphyry’s sourc­ es included the works o f notable Neopythagoreans such as Nicomachus of Gerasa, Moderatus o f Gades, Antonius Diogenes, and even Apollonius of Tyana.16 Like Numenius, he is silent about Plato’s Academic successors, a deafening silence if in fact he was rewriting philosophical history in Athens. Porphyry begins by assessing the various accounts of Pythagoras’s birth culled from his sources. Birth narratives typically demonstrated the subject’s affinity with the divine, in order to emphasize the natural, and extraordinary, endowment of virtue he or she possessed. The biographers of Pythagoras agreed that the sage enjoyed a special intimacy with the divine, but their ex­ planation o f this varied. As Porphyry notes, some sources regarded Pythago­ ras as the ordinary son o f human parents, while others named him the son of Apollo and Pythais, or even Hermes.17 He avoids all speculation on the matter o f Pythagoras’s divine conception and prefers to show how the phi­ losopher’s character, expressed in his teaching, worship, and physical disci­ pline, made him resemble the divine.18 He reports that the earliest followers o f Pythagoras in Croton recognized his teachings as “divine advice” (θείας ύποθήκας) and numbered him among the gods, even invoking him as a god when swearing by the mystical tetractys.19 The accounts of educational formation that follow indicate the insufficien­ cy of unformed nature to guarantee a fully philosophical life. Here paideia was necessary to mold, form, and tame nature. In the discussion o f Pythago­ ras’s childhood and education, Porphyry subtly reveals the great sage’s Tyri­ an origins. A previous biographer of Pythagoras, Neanthes, reported that the philosopher’s father, Mnesarchus, was a Syrian from Tyre.20 Having settled at Samos, Mnesarchus recognized his son’s gifted nature in learning and entrust­ ed him to the Chaldeans at Tyre. The rest o f his education is characterized by 16. Des Places, Vie de Pythagore, 13-16. Porphyry mentions Apollonius’s On Pythagoras (Vit. Pyth. 2) and regularly references his sources throughout his work. Philip argues that neither Nicomachus nor Apollonius wrote proper bioi o f Pythagoras, but that Porphyry drew from bio­ graphical references made in works o f other genres. See Philip, “ The Biographical Tradition,” 188. Diogenes Laertius also included a Life of Pythagoras in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers. 17. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 1-3. 19. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 18-20 (Nauck, 26-27). 20. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 2.

18. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 41.

travel among the "barbarians,” discovering and harvesting the best that each had to offer: from the Egyptians, he learned geometry and asceticism, using the Egyptian priesthood as a model for his life; from the Phoenicians, the sci­ ence o f numbers and mathematics; from the Magi, the rites (άγιστείας) o f the gods; and from the Chaldeans, the art o f contemplating the sky.21 Porphyry oudines the doctrines o f Pythagoras in a way that highlights a direct relationship to contemporary philosophical debate in the circles o f Py­ thagoreans and Platonists. The aim (σκοπός) o f Pythagoras’s philosophy was the purification o f the intellect: “to rescue and liberate the mind [νούν] as­ signed to us from such prisons and bonds,” leading it to its natural end, con­ templation o f the incorporeal.22 It was Pythagoras, the biographer informs his reader, who was the first to introduce these doctrines to Greece. Porphy­ ry lists the most basic teachings: the immortality and transmigration o f the soul, and the homogeneity o f all ensouled beings.23 The ancient philosopher revered and worshiped the gods, and his asceticism was evident in the “aus­ terity” (καρτερία) he learned from Egyptian priests and in his abstention from meat.24 Pythagoras was also a founder o f communities. In his native Samos, he built a school (διδασκαλείον) called the “semicircle o f Pythagoras” (τό Πυθαγύρου ημικύκλιον), which the Samians used as a place for public delibera­ tion. For himself, Pythagoras established a “cave suited to his own [practice of] philosophy” (άντρον οΐκείον τής εαυτού φιλοσοφίας), where he often spent time with his companions 25 Possessions were held in common in Pythago­ 21. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 6 -7 (Nauck, 19-20). Th e Chaldean oracles would become very im­ portant “ dogmatic” texts for the later Neoplatonists. Porphyry’s own interest in oracles was ex­ hibited early in his career with the w ork Philosophy from Oracles, written during his time in A th­ ens. See Girgenti, Introduzione, 10. Porphyry attributed a greater role to oracles as a part o f the philosophical pursuit than did Plotinus (Girgenti, Introduzione, 104-5). The place o f the Chal­ dean oracles would become extremely important under the influence o f Iamblichus. See Lewy, Chaldean Oracles; and for a more recent translation o f the texts, see Ruth D. Majercik, trans., The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation, and Commentary, Studies in Greek and Roman Religion 5 (N ew York: Brill, 1989). 22. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 46 (Nauck, 42). 23. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 19. 24. On Pythagoras’s imitation o f the Egyptian priests, see Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 7 (Nauck, 20); on abstention from meat, see Vit. Pyth. 39 (Nauck, 37). Porphyry would also concern him­ self with matters o f abstention from meat in works such as De abstinentia and Ad Marcellam. See also Gillian Clark, “Philosophic Lives and the Philosophic Life: Porphyry and Iamblichus,” in Greek Biography and Panegyric, ed. Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 2000), 45-47. 25. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 9 (Nauck, 21).

rean communities.26 Students, moreover, were divided into two classes: the μαθηματικοί, who were the more advanced students, and the άκουσματικοί, who learned the basics from texts.27 Pythagoras taught to the accompaniment o f the lyre, soothing the untamed souls o f his adepts and modeling the har­ monious movements o f the universe.28 The persecution and death o f the master presented a crisis: a looming dis­ appearance o f philosophy. Pythagoras himself wrote nothing. His doctrines were held in strict secrecy among his students, who observed a silence on these matters.29 Thus, the task o f preserving and transmitting his philosophy fell to a small group o f students, a practice still common in the philosophi­ cal circles o f third-century Alexandria.30 Two o f these, Archippos and Lysis, “preserved [διέσωσαν] a few sparks o f the philosophy, obscure and hard to catch.” 31 Isolating themselves from society, they assembled their own “sum­ mary memories [υπομνήματα] and the writings o f the elders.” 32 These writ­ ings they entrusted to their wives and children, ordering them not to reveal them to anyone “outside the household.” This secret transmission continued for a long time, Porphyry continues, as their families “proclaimed the same command in succession to their descendants” (έκ διαδοχής την αυτήν έντολήν διαγ/έλλουσαι τοίς άπογόνοις).33 Thus, it is in the close-knit groups o f families and friends that philosophy was preserved and guarded until its rediscovery by Plato, whose bios brought Porphyry's work to a close. Porphyry’s Philosophos historia made a significant contribution to a program o f philosophical reform. Unlike the work of Diogenes Laertius, and presum­ ably others who wrote bioi of Pythagoras, Porphyry’s interest lay not so much in the history or geographical extension o f the Pythagorean school per se, but rather in the origins, preservation, and transmission of a reformed Platonist tradition. As the title suggests, it is a history of philosophy itself. Porphyry’s portrait of Pythagoras reflects his own activity as a systematizer o f philoso­ phy. Like his philosophical father, who grew in wisdom in Tyre, Porphyry, too, participated in a project to codify a complete and distinctively Greek sys­ tem of knowledge and practice. Culled from the wisdom and practices o f the “barbarians,” philosophy was systematized and perfected by the Greeks, be­ 26. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 33.

27. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 37 (Nauck, 36).

28. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 30, 32.

29. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 19.

30. See Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 3 and the discussion in ch. 1 on the oath o f secrecy taken by the inner circle o f Ammonius. 31. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 57 (Nauck, 49). 33. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 58 (Nauck, 50).

32. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 58 (Nauck, 50).

ginning with Pythagoras. In Porphyry’s narrative sweep from Pythagoras to Plato, he constructed an account o f philosophical history and authority that ended abrupdy, presumably without reference to the successors o f Plato. This effort to renarrate the course o f philosophical transmission, like Numenius’s bypassing the succession o f the Academy, attempted to recapture, redirect, and represent the essence o f true philosophy, rescued from a period o f de­ cline. It is very probable that this text served as the authoritative textbook on philosophical history in Porphyry’s circles—whatever they may have looked like at this early stage o f his career. As author, Porphyry was the expert and mediator o f this history. Like the students o f Pythagoras, he had begun the process o f collection and composition that would ensure the preservation and transmission o f the universal philosophy.

Iamblichus o f Chalcis on the Beginnings o f Philosophy In the years following Porphyry’s death, another Syrian philosopher came to prominence, influencing the course o f Platonic philosophy into the sixth century. The work of Iamblichus o f Chalchis (240-325),34 heavily influenced the emperor Julian’s program o f reforming education and cult.35 This influ­ ence would also extend to the eventual revival o f Platonism in fifth-century Athens. Proclus (c.410-85), the philosopher and diadochos o f the Neoplatonic school at Athens, included Iamblichus, along with Plotinus and Porphyry, in the line of Platonic sages, who “have entered into the divine chorus to ele­ vate their own mind to the ecstasy that the writings of Plato afford.” 36 Our knowledge o f the life o f Iamblichus derives mostly from Eunapius of Sardis’s Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, published some three-quarters o f a century after Iamblichus’s death. It includes legendary accounts most like­ ly passed down orally in Iamblichan circles. Evidence for Iamblichus’s back­ 34. Dillon, “Iamblichus o f Chalchis,” 866. Dillon establishes Iamblichus’s dates as ca. 240 325. Traditionally, they had been set a bit later, ca. 265-330. See Alan Cameron, “The Date o f Iamblichus’ Birth,” Hermes 96, no. 3 (1968): 374-76. For Dillon’s arguments and for a review o f previous scholarship on the subject o f Iamblichus’s dates, see 863-66. For our purposes, it is enough to know that Iamblichus was a slightly younger contemporary o f Porphyry who lived to see the reign o f Constantine. The Suda (Iota, 27) places Iamblichus’s floruit during the reign o f Constantine. 35. Polymnia Athanassiadi, Julian and Hellenism: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 125, 178. 36. Proclus, Thcol. plat. 1.1.

ground is sketchy and inconclusive, but nevertheless raises some interesting questions. Eunapius claimed to have received much o f his information from his teacher Chrysanthius, who studied with Aedesius, a student o f Iambli­ chus.37 He assigns Iamblichus to two teachers. At Vit. Phil. 5.1.2, he writes that Iamblichus “associated with [συγγενόμενος] Anatolius who takes second place after Porphyry.” Under the guidance o f this Anatolius, he “advanced to the height o f philosophy.” After Anatolius, “he attached [προσθείς] himself to Porphyry.” The precise identity o f this Anatolius has been debated in mod­ ern scholarship. The name Anatolius surfaces several times in the philosophi­ cal circles o f the late third and early fourth centuries. Porphyry dedicated his Homerika zetemata to an Anatolius.38 Extensive citations o f Anatolius’s work On the Decad are included in the Theology of Arithmetic, a treatise tentatively dated to the fourth century and mistakenly attributed to Iamblichus in the manuscript tradition.39 This takes us to an interesting notice found in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical His­ tory. He reports o f an Anatolius from Alexandria: “For his learning and skill in the Greek philosophy [παιδείας τής Ελλήνων φιλοσοφίας], he was superior to any of the most distinguished men o f our day as he had attained unto the highest eminence in arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, besides his pro­ ficiency in dialectics, physics, and rhetoric.” 40 Because o f his vast skill and learning, the Alexandrians urged him “to establish a school o f the succes­ sion o f Aristotle [Άριστοτέλους διαδοχής τήν διατριβήν ... συστήσασθαι].” Ana­ tolius was also a Christian bishop and the author o f a work on arithmetic.41 Ordained by Theotecnus, bishop o f Caesarea, he co-presided for a time over that church and was later designated successor. Eusebius reports that on his way to the Synod o f Antioch, which deposed Paul o f Samosata in 268, Ana­ tolius was constrained by the church o f Laodicea to remain and was appoint­ 37. For example, Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 5.11. Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists, 43-48. 38. This work belongs to Porphyry’s early career in Athens. It has been suggested that this Anatolius may have also studied with Porphyry. See Em m a C. Clarke, John M. Dillon and Jackson P. Hershbell, "Introduction,” in Iamblichus, Iamblichus: De mysteriis, ed. and trans. Em m a C. Clarke, John M. Dillon and Jackson P. Hershbell, Writings from the Greco-Roman World 4 (At­ lanta: Society o f Biblical Literature, 2003), xxi; and Dillon, “Iamblichus o f Chalcis,” 867. 39. Robin Waterfield, “ Introduction,” in Pseudo-Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic: On the Mystical, Mathematical and Cosmological Symbolism of the First Ten Numbers, trans. Robin W a­ terfield (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Phanes Press, 1988), 23. 40. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.32.6 (SC 41, 223); in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History Complete and Un­ itbridged, 272. 41 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.32.20.

ed bishop there.42 At his death, probably in the 280s, he was succeeded by Stephen, who was “a man greatly admired for his knowledge o f philosophy and other branches o f Greek learning [παιδείας].” 43 Can all o f these Anatolii be identified as the same person? Unfortunately, the evidence does not allow for a conclusive judgment. Nevertheless, I call attention to the ascription o f mathematical and philosophical expertise by pseudo-Iamblichus, Eusebius, and Eunapius. Chronologically speaking, the soon-to-be-ordained bishop Anatolius was in Caesarea in the mid 260s, hav­ ing just departed from his Aristotelian school in Alexandria. Following Dil­ lon’s dating, Iamblichus would have been in his twenties. Dillon has also sug­ gested the possibility that the Christian bishop could have been Iamblichus’s teacher briefly before his ordination, the event that may have incited their parting.44 He states that scholars’ reluctance to identify the two men has been rooted more in an “unwillingness to believe that a man who became a Christian bishop could have entered into the relationships presupposed by these identifications” than in the evidence itself.45 Again there seems to be more willingness to multiply the number o f people in the same circles with the same names than to posit interrelationships among “Christians” and “pa­ gans.” Citing the example o f Origen’s non-Christian students, he continues: “The fact o f a teacher’s Christianity, except in times of active persecution, was not a matter o f vital interest to potential students.”46 There is nothing to exclude the possibility that this Anatolius was the teacher o f Iamblichus be­ fore becoming bishop o f Laodicea.47 Just as sketchy is the precise relationship between Iamblichus and Porphy­ ry. Iamblichus is usually identified as a student o f Porphyry’s, but the nature o f their acquaintance is not clear. Eunapius writes that Iamblichus “attached himself” (προσθεις εαυτόν) to Porphyry. If Dillon’s dates for Iamblichus are correct, we are to imagine a Iamblichus who was but a few years younger than Porphyry, and not a young man studying with an elder. Where exactly the two collaborated is not known, but probably Rome in the 260s, before 42. According to Eusebius’s account, Anatolius was involved in the rebellion o f the Bruchium in Alexandria ca. 260. Thus, a rough chronology places him in Alexandria up to ca. 260, and in Caesarea in the early 270s. See, Dillon, “ Iamblichus o f Chalchis,” 867. 43. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.32.22 (SC 41, 228); trans. Cruse, 274. 44. Dillon, "Iamblichus o f Chalchis,” 867.

45. Ibid., 866-67.

46. Ibid., 867. 47. But see the reservations o f John E Finamore (in Iamblichus, Iamblichus: De anima, ed. and trans. John F. Finamore and John M. Dillon, Philosophia Antiqua 92 [Boston: Brill, 2002], 3 4) regarding identifying lamblichus’s teacher with the bishop on chronological grounds.

Porphyry retired to Sicily.48 The only direct evidence o f their acquaintance is Porphyry's dedication o f his work On the Maxim Know Thyself to Iambli­ chus.49 (Thus we would have in the works o f Porphyry both a work dedicat­ ed to Iamblichus and one to his former teacher, perhaps a student or associ­ ate of Porphyry in Athens with Longinus.) Moreover, Iamblichus writes in De anima that “I had heard [άκήκοα] some Platonists like Porphyry and many others.” 50 In Vit. Plot. 9, Porphyry lists Amphicleia, the wife o f Ariston, son o f Iamblichus, as one of Plotinus’s female students. Porphyry does no more here to identify this Iamblichus, an indication to Dillon that he was known to his audience, and, thus, the philosopher. Though the nature o f their acquaintance is unclear, it is certain that Iam­ blichus was familiar with the work o f Porphyry, and, based on the evidence, probably knew him personally. Like Porphyry, and perhaps in spite o f Por­ phyry, Iamblichus was a systematizer. He took issue with Porphyry’s stance on theurgy and in De mysteriis argued for the superiority o f theurgy even over contemplation.51 Iamblichus’s De mysteriis was a direct refutation o f Porphy­ ry’s stance on theurgic practice as outlined in his Letter to Anebo. The two dis­ agreed about the precise role o f theurgic practices in the ascent o f the soul. Porphyry admitted that theurgy could assist the lower soul, but suspected that the practices were used to manipulate the gods.52 For Porphyry, ascent was a matter for the intellect. Iamblichus disagreed, as we have seen, assign­ ing greater importance to theurgy. Likewise, he “corrected” Porphyry’s ap­ propriation o f Pythagoras. In On the Pythagorean Life (DVP), Iamblichus em­ ployed the Pythagorean biographical tradition as a pedagogic exposition o f the philosophical life in general. Not a freestanding work, the bios served as the introduction to a ten-volume textbook entitled A Compendium of Pythago­ rean Doctrine (Συναγωγή των Πυθαγορείων δογμάτων) that served as the basis 48. Dillon, "Iamblichus o f Chalchis,” 868. 49. Clarke, Dillon, and Hershbell, De mysteriis, xxi. 50. Iamblichus, De anima 375.24-5. Finamore and Dillon (Iamblichus: De anima, 141) caution against a hasty assumption that Iamblichus "heard” Porphyry in a classroom (though they seem to concede that this was probable). They note that the verb άκούω had come to be used in particular ways— including reading or becoming familiar with a certain person's teaching (e.g., Julian, Or. 5.162C). 51. Other criticisms o f Porphyry appear in his commentary on the Timaeus and De anima. Also, Iamblichus’s work On Statues, not extant, appears to have been a refutation o f Porphyry's work o f the same name. 52. Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus, Hermeneutics Stud­ ies in the 1 listory o f Religions (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 85.

for the curriculum o f Iamblichus's school.53 By the beginning o f the fourth century, Iamblichus had most likely established his school at Apamea.54 As to the literary relationship between Iamblichus’s and Porphyry's bioi o f Pythagoras, several issues emerge. Both were produced within closely re­ lated philosophical circles. Some scholars have argued for a direct literary dependence o f Iamblichus on Porphyry, while others attribute the similari­ ties to shared sources, such as the earlier compositions o f Aristoxenus, Apol­ lonius, and Nicomachus o f Gerasa.55 References to Porphyry's Philosophos historia in both Christian and Platonist works through the fifth century and beyond (including the tenth century Suda) attest to the authority it held in intellectual circles. Iamblichus's “rewriting” o f Porphyry's life o f Pythagoras indicates that the work of his predecessor did not hold this authority for him. Perhaps the greatest difference between the two works is that Iamblichus’s Pythagoras stands alone. Not the first o f many philosophers, he is the found­ er o f philosophy itself, and his biography serves as a protreptic to philosophi­ cal study. In this regard, Iamblichus's follows more closely Numenius’s esti53. John M. Dillon and Jackson P. Hershbell, “ Introduction,” in Iamblichus, Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Way of Life, ed. and trans. John M. Dillon and Jackson P. Hershbell, Texts and Translations: Greco-Roman Religion Series 11 (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1991), 1. The DVP was the introductory chapter o f the compendium. See also Gillian Clark’s English translation, Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Life, Translated Texts for Historians 8 (Liverpool: Liverpool Uni­ versity Press, 1989). All translations are taken from Dillon and Hershbell’s edition, unless other­ wise noted. O f the remaining ten parts, only the first four survive in a complete form. O f the later volumes, fragments o f five can be found in the writings o f later Byzantine authors such as Michael Psellus. The last book is either completely lost, or was perhaps never written. See Dil­ lon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way of Life, 23-24. O ’M eara’s Pythagoras Revived is the best work on the outline and reconstruction o f Iamblichus’s compendium. 54. Clarke, Dillon, and Hershbell, De mysteriis, xxiii-xxiv. Eunapius (Vit. Phil. 6.1.4, 461) sim­ ply places Iamblichus’s school in Syria. The Pseudo-Julian letters (ep. 40) situate Iamblichus in Apamea, as does Libanius (ep. 1389, and Or. 52, 21). Malalas (Chronografia 12.312.11-12) has Iambli­ chus’s school in nearby Daphne. 55. Erwin Rohde argued for the independence o f the works. See Erwin Rohde, ed., Beitrage zur Geschichte des Romans und der Novelle zur Sagen-, Mdrchen-und Altertumskunde, vol. 2 o f Kleine Schriften (New York: Olms, 1969), 125-27. He was followed by Des Places (Vie de Pythagore, 13 16). J. A. Philip called this thesis into question, arguing that the similarities in content and struc­ ture demonstrated Iamblichus’s dependence on Porphyry. See Philip, “The Biographical Tradi­ tion,” 189-90. According to Philip, Rohde’s assertion o f dependence rests on the assumption that Nicomachus and Apollonius o f Tyana wrote full-fledged bioi o f Pythagoras, which Por­ phyry and Iamblichus then employed separately as models for their own works. This would ac­ count for the overlaps in structure as well as content. But Philip protests that there is no secure evidence that Nicomachus wrote a bios o f Pythagoras, and that Porphyry drew from his other works for information about Pythagoras. Furthermore, he argues that Apollonius did not write a bios either. For a concise survey o f the biographical tradition o f Pythagoras, see Dillon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way of Life, 6-14.

mation o f Pythagoras on the greater authority o f Pythagoras over Plato.56 Iamblichus’s work was part o f a systematization o f a Platonic curriculum. As the title o f the first book, On the Pythagorean Life, suggests, Iamblichus did not intend this account o f Pythagoras to be a stand-alone biographical nar­ rative.57 It is an initiation into the Pythagorean way o f life. The subsequent books cover the fundamental principles o f Pythagoreanism and penetrate more deeply into mathematics, physics, ethics, music, geometry, and theolo­ gy. The curriculum is pedagogical progression into Pythagorean philosophy, leading initiates up the scale o f virtues.58 This school curriculum contributed significantly to the organization o f philosophical schools in the fourth and fifth centuries, and especially the foundation o f the Athenian school.59 In the preface to the DVP, Iamblichus describes his task as an act o f re­ habilitation o f Pythagoreanism after a long period o f neglect and misrepre­ sentation. His portrait o f Pythagoras is not that o f the founder o f a philoso­ phy, but the founder (αρχηγόν) and father o f philosophy itself.60 Iamblichus also credits Pythagoras with coining the terms “philosopher” and “philoso­ phy.” 61 The DVP is structured as a mini-curriculum in itself. Integrated into the biographical account o f the philosopher’s life are discussions o f the ori­ gin and scope o f philosophy as well as reflection on education itself.62 After a discussion o f the selection o f students, Iamblichus describes how new stu­ dents were initiated and assigned to divisions, the acusmatici and the mathe­ matici.63 Pythagoras gives a series o f speeches to various groups—the youth, civic leaders, and women—instructing them in appropriate ways to pursue the philosophical life. Iamblichus also includes chapters on the daily routine and diet of Pythagorean communities. A discussion on the place o f music in Pythagorean formation is followed by a series o f chapters that organizes the 56. O ’Meara, Pythagoras Revived, ioo. 57. The Greek title found in the manuscript tradition is Περί τού Πυθαγορείου (or, Πυθαγορικοΰ) βιοΰ. See Dillon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way of Life, i n.2. 58. O’Meara, Platonopolis, 52-55. 59. O ’Meara, Pythagoras Revived, 34. See also Gillian Clark, “ Philosophic Lives and the Philo­ sophic Life,” 33-34. 60. DVP 2 (Dillon and Hershbell, 30-31). 61. DVP 58: “ It is said that Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosopher (φιλόσοφον), not only introducing a new name, but also the first to teach the related matter thoroughly and usefully” (Dillon and Hershbell, 82-83). DVP 59: “ The pursuit o f this very contemplation (θεω­ ρίαν) [he called] philosophy” (Dillon and Hershbell, 82-83). 62. See, for example, DVP 63-64. 63. Cf. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 37.

biographical material according to the virtues o f piety, wisdom, justice, tem­ perance, and friendship. The work ends with an account o f the persecution o f Pythagoras and his followers, and the succession (διαδοχή) o f the Pythago­ rean school. The disagreement between Porphyry and Iamblichus on the place o f theurgy in the philosophical life, and thus in the curriculum o f a philosophi­ cal school, is also evident in the DVP.64 Once regarded as a sign o f the "de­ cline” o f Neoplatonic philosophy, theurgy now receives the critical attention o f scholars.65 For Iamblichus, theurgy comprised prayer and ritual practices designed not to control the gods, but to elevate the intelligence o f human be­ ings, making it fit to participate in the gods by awakening a voice in one, as Gregory Shaw puts it, “a way o f entering the power o f [the gods’] voice and awakening a corresponding voice in one’s soul.” 66 In De mysteriis, Iamblichus objects to Porphyry’s criticisms o f theurgic practices and his exclusive prefer­ ence for noetic worship, insisting that material worship o f the gods is a nec­ essary stage to ascend to the immaterial gods, discovering divine assistance toward the goal o f divinization.67 Without theurgy, Iamblichus wrote, Por­ phyry abandoned the material world as “a desert, without the gods.” 68 With such a foundational view o f theurgy, it is not surprising that Iamblichus’s description o f the Pythagorean life presents cultic practice and contem­ plation as complementary. Iamblichus writes that Pythagoras "made a syn­ thesis [σύνθετον] o f divine philosophy and worship [θεραπείαν] of the gods.” 69 He also notes Pythagoras’s expertise in "purificatory rites” and “mystic initia­ tions,” and may even make a reference to the theurgic divinizing o f statues.70 Pythagoras also practiced augury and employed various σύμβολα, σημεία, and οίωνά to divulge the will o f the gods.71 These practices he discovered among the Orphics, Egyptians, and the other ancient “barbarian” people, each of which practiced a distinctive form o f theurgy reflecting the "cosmocentric” 64. Cf. Clark, “ Philosophic Lives,” 41. 65. See, in particular, the work o f Gregory Shaw, including Theurgy and the Soul; “Neopla­ tonic Theurgy and Dionysius the Areopagite” ; and “ Eros and Arithmos: Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus,” Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999): 121-43. 66. See Iamblichus, De mysteriis 42.9-15; and Shaw, “ Neoplatonic Theurgy,” 589. 67. Shaw, “Eros and Arithmos,” 132; and O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 126. 68. Iamblichus, De mysteriis 28.11. 69. DVP 151 (Dillon and Hershbell, 166-67). 70. See Dillon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way of Life, 167 n.33. 71. DVP 61-62 (Dillon and Hershbell, 84-85). See DVP 68-70 for the specifics o f Pythagorean piety. See also, Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 162-69.

nature o f theurgy.72 In this regard, Shaw has noted that the Pythagorean com­ munities themselves, in seeking order in society and in the soul, served as “a receptacle o f the gods” analogously to the cosmos.73 While Porphyry men­ tions divination, he did not mention any interest on the part o f Pythagoras for the practices and writings o f the Orphics or for purificatory rites.74 As an im­ age o f the ideal philosopher, Pythagoras was a teacher o f sacred knowledge, interpreter o f texts, critic o f civic life, and ritual expert. He was a philosopherpriest, who was himself an object o f reverence.75 Pythagoras was more than a philosopher; he was a being unto himself, a “third thing” (τό τρίτον), as Iamblichus put it.76 He also noted: “Aristotle re­ cords, in his writings on the Pythagorean philosophy, that the following di­ vision was preserved by these men in their very secret doctrines: that o f ra­ tional, living beings, one kind is divine [θεός], another human, and another such as Pythagoras.” 77 Iamblichus calls him “the divine Pythagoras,” a title Porphyry did not use.78 He possessed a “natural likeness to god” (τής φυσικής θεοειδείας) from birth, which, when strengthened by education and the disci­ pline of his upbringing, came to full maturation. Plotinus, following Plato, had spoken o f the intrinsic sanctity o f philosophers. They were “divine men” (θείοι άνθρωποι) who stood between the gods and ordinary human beings, ad­ vancing from the lower end o f the spectrum to the higher through divinization.79 This idea would eventually find fuller expression in the writings o f Hierocles o f Alexandria (fl. ca. 430), who regarded the true Platonists as descendents o f a “holy race.” 80 For Plotinus this was exclusively a matter o f in­ 72. Shaw, “ Neoplatonic Theurgy,” 596. 73. Shaw, “Eros and Arithmos,” 131. 74. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 11. According to Shaw, the place o f mantic rites in relation to intel­ lectual practices constituted the fundamental difference between Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’s understanding o f Platonism. See Theurgy and the Soul, 234-36. 75. For the influence o f these ideas on the emperor Julian’s reforms o f the traditional priest­ hoods, see Athanassiadi, Julian and Hellenism, 178, and Clark, Iamblichus, xiii-xiv. 76. D V P 144 (Dillon and Hershbell, 160-61). 77. DVP 31 (Dillon and Hershbell, 54-55). 78. See, for example, DVP 1 (Dillon and Hershbell, 30-31), and DVP 12 (Dillon and Hershbell, 38-39). In the writings o f the Athenian school, Iamblichus always has the title θείος or θειότατος. See Gregory Shaw, "Theurgy: Rituals o f Unification in the Neoplatonism o f Iamblichus,” Tra­ ditio 41 (1985): i. 79. Fowden, “ Pagan Philosophers,” 4. See also Dillon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way of Life, 18. C ox’s Biography in general treats the attachment o f religious concepts to the identity o f the sage in late antiquity, what she calls the transformation o f Neoplatonism itself into a religion (142-43). 80. For more on the conception o f the philosopher as holy, see Fowden, “Pagan H oly Man,” 33

35 ·

tellectual ascent.81 Iamblichus appreciates embodied ritual practices in addi­ tion to paideia as forming the divine man.82 These ontological assertions about the nature o f Pythagoras’s person were more than metaphor. According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras was not simply a wise or god-inspired man; he was an embodiment o f the divine. Certainly if the divine could utilize the material instruments o f theurgy to reveal and to draw humanity to likeness to itself, why could it not inhabit a man? In fact, Iamblichus reports that some regarded Pythagoras to be a manifestation o f Apollo, or one o f the Olympian gods, “claiming that he ap­ peared in human form [ένανθρωπίνν] μορφή φανήναι] to those then alive for the benefit and improvement o f the moral way o f life, in order that he might give mortal nature a saving spark o f well-being and philosophy.” 83 In a very striking passage, Iamblichus reports that Pythagoras revealed himself as Hyperborean Apollo, showing his golden thigh to the priest Abaris. Pythagoras explained to Abaris that he (as Apollo) came “in human form” (ανθρωπόμορφος) for the care and benefit o f humanity, a pedagogi­ cal strategy to draw human beings to himself, “lest, being astonished at his superiority, they be disturbed and avoid his teaching.” 84 In a description o f the Pythagorean initiation process, which does not appear in Porphyry’s ac­ count, Pythagoras himself became an object of awe, hidden behind a cur­ tain, only to be revealed to those he judged as ready.85 The association with Apollo appears from the very beginning o f Iamblichus’s account. Dismiss­ ing the mythological accounts o f the philosopher’s birth, Iamblichus reports that Pythagoras was named after “Pythian Apollo,” whose oracle prophesied his birth to Mnesarchus. His unusual nature was evident to many from the beginning, as he was called “child of god” (τό θεού παίδα). Iamblichus prefers to discuss the descent not of Pythagoras’s lineage, but of his soul into body: 81. As Porphyry demonstrates, Plotinus kept his distance from the civic religion. (Enn. 1.3.1, 3; 1.3.5.1-2; 5.9.1; Vit. Plot. 4.4.26,32). 82. Fowden (“ Pagan Philosophers,” 33) places Iamblichus at the “apex” o f the fusion o f Pla­ tonism and Pythagoreanism in his setting the standard o f the “ideal pagan holy man” o f late antiquity. In the works o f later Platonists, Iamblichus himself becomes a type o f the divine philosopher. See especially Julian, ep. 12 where θείος Iamblichus ranks in importance with Py­ thagoras and Plato (note the absence o f Plotinus!), and Eunapius's biographical sketch o f Iam­ blichus. 83. DVP 30 (Dillon and Hershbell, 54-55). 84. Iamblichus, DVP 92 (Dillon and Hershbell, 116-17). See also DVP 213, where Pythagoras’s teaching is received as oracles from Apollo.

85. Iamblichus, D VP 72.

“No one would dispute, judging from his very birth [i.e., the Pythian proph­ ecy] and the all around wisdom o f his life, that Pythagoras' soul was sent down (καταπεπέμφθαι) to humans under Apollo’s leadership, either as a fol­ lower in his train, or united with this god in a still more intimate (οίκειότερον) way.” 86 The descent, embodiment, and ascent o f the soul lay at the heart of Iamblichus’s understanding of philosophy, o f which theurgy was an integral part.87 While those who practiced theurgy could experience a reawaken­ ing o f the soul’s remembrance of its origins after embodiment, which could cause forgetting, the embodiment o f Pythagoras’s soul is a different, unique instance. Sent on a divine mission from Apollo, the philosopher’s soul was not subjected to the same forgetfulness. Instead, always mindful of his ori­ gins, Pythagoras acted as revealer and teacher to humanity. Nevertheless, he still grew in wisdom and virtue through education and practice. Following Porphyry and earlier Pythagorean traditions, Iamblichus included the stories o f the sage’s travels to distant lands, collecting the wisdom and practices o f Syrians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. Interestingly, the Hebrews, who are in­ cluded in Porphyry’s account, are nowhere to be found in Iamblichus.88 Iamblichus concludes the bios with an account o f the succession o f the Py­ thagorean school.89 In a passage that parallels Porphyry, Iamblichus describes the secrecy o f the Pythagoreans, their desire to preserve the master’s teach­ ings, and their efforts to pass them on orally and in writing from one genera­ tion to the next.90 Iamblichus then traces the succession o f the Pythagoreans, beginning seven generations before Plato, from Aristaeus and Mnesarchus, the philosopher’s son. Next he provides a list o f Pythagoreans who spread Pythagoras’s teachings among the Greeks. Finally, Iamblichus provides the names o f some 218 men and 17 women responsible for taking the Pythago­ 86. Iamblichus, DVP 8 -9 (Dillon and Hershbell, 34-35). Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexi­ con, translate οικείος as “familiar,” “intimate,” and “belonging to one’s household” or “kin.” The idea o f kinship expressed in Iamblichus’s statement relates kinship not to Pythagoras’s bio­ logical birth, but based on the quality o f his soul, in which he resembles Apollo as a father. See Clark, Iamblichus, 2.-31015-8. 87. Shaw, "Rituals o f Unification,” 16. 88. Compare, Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 11 and Iamblichus’s account o f Pythagoras’s travels to Egypt and Babylonia in DVP 11-19. 89. Iamblichus, DVP 265-67. Iamblichus uses the institutional designations σχολή and διάδοχος to refer to Pythagoras’s “school” and “ successor” respectively. Because Porphyry’s bios remains incomplete, it is not known whether this succession list was part o f his account. 90. DVP 104 and 98.

rean way across the Mediterranean world. Fragments o f works attributed to several o f these women, including Theano, Aesara, and Periktione, attest to the participation o f women in the Pythagorean school.91 Thus began the Iamblichan curriculum to philosophy. Next, the student would have moved on to the Protrepticus, an exhortation to philosophy and comprehensive preparation for intellectual and moral education.92 It has been suggested that Iamblichus may have shaped his description o f the orga­ nization and life o f the Pythagorean school so as to reflect the structures and practice o f his own circle— an initiation process, stratification o f students, a common life in community, reverence for the teacher, and a sense o f kin­ ship among students and teachers.93 In such a scheme, Iamblichus would have taken on the role of the Pythagoras figure in his own pedagogical activity— a charismatic and revered teacher o f extraordinary abilities. The Anonymous Prolegomena, which describes the curriculum o f the sixth-century Platonist school at Alexandria, ascribes to “the divine Iamblichus” a canon o f twelve Platonic dialogues in order o f study. The author, probably a succes­ sor o f Olympiodoros, attests to the influence o f the Iamblichan curriculum for two centuries.94 Iamblichus further developed the use o f the exegetical commentary and applied it to the interpretation o f a canon o f “sacred texts,” which included Hesiod, Homer, and the Chaldean oracles. This pedagogy would become part and parcel o f the curricula o f the schools o f Alexandria and Athens.95 91. On the w om en o f the Pythagorean tradition, see Clark, Iamblichus, xvii-xviii; and M ary Ellen Waithe, ed., Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 B.C.-joo A.D., History o f W om en Philoso­ phers i (Boston: Nijhoff, 1987), chs. 1-4. 92. Iamblichus, Protrepticus 5.4-9; O ’ Meara, Pythagoras Revived, 34; and Dillon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way o f Life, 29. 93. Philip, "Th e Biographical Tradition,” 192. Fowden, (“ Pagan Philosophers,” 161-62) lists four features o f the organization o f late antique philosophical “circles” : (1) a loosely organized structure centered around a teacher, rather than a body o f “inherited dogma” ; (2) not publicly funded institutions; (3) stratification o f inner and outer circles; and (4) a sense o f community fostered through a “comm on life” . On pages 165-66 he enumerates five elements within Iamblichus’s DVP that reflect this “organization and atmosphere o f Neoplatonic circles” in late an­ tiquity: (1) charismatic teacher; (2) stratification o f students (e.g., DVP 29-30); (3) comm on life (e.g., DVP 30; 32); (4) intimate relationship between inner circle and teacher; and (5) practice o f an ascetic lifestyle (e.g., DVP 106). 94. For discussion o f the Prolegomena, see Olympiodorus [pseud.], Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy ed. and trans. Leendert Gerrit Westerink (Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub­ lishing Company, 1962), ix-lii. The discussion o f the Iamblichan canon is at 26.12-45. See also, Athanassiadi, Lutte, 166-74. 95. Dillon, “ Iamblichus o f Chalchis,” 872; O ’Meara, Pythagoras Revived, 97. For an outline o f

Finally, one is left to wonder about Iamblichus’s silence on the growing power and influence o f Christianity. Given Porphyry’s ardent denunciations o f Christianity in the decades before Constantine, we can only imagine how much more scathing his attacks could have been, had he lived to see what Iamblichus saw— an emperor who publicly professed the Christian faith and granted it access to imperial support and purse. Yet, strangely, we hear noth­ ing from Iamblichus, at least in the extant works. Rather, his efforts seem to have been focused on developing and structuring a Platonist universe, tra­ dition, and curriculum. More than anyone else, Porphyry was the target o f Iamblichus’s criticism. Did Iamblichus remain indifferent or oblivious to the growing influence and threat o f a Christian philosophical culture? Unfortu­ nately, I do not think we can give a definitive answer to this. Nevertheless, some find a hidden polemic against Christianity in the DVP. John Dillon, for example, has argued that the DVP is a sort o f Iamblichan “gospel,” concerned with the “study o f a way o f life, with a strong protreptic purpose” complete with accounts o f "ministry,” deeds, sayings, and miracles. It seems best to him “to classify [D]VP as a gospel.” 96 As an example, Dillon sees a tempting parallel between Pythagoras’s first public appearance to fish­ ermen and the account o f Jesus’s call o f the disciples in Luke 5:1-11, an anec­ dote found also in Porphyry and probably derived from Nicomachus.97 He finds an “almost certain anti-Christian reference” in Iamblichus’s statement that Pythagoras “could proclaim nothing but good news [εύαγγελίζετo].” 98 It is also tempting to see Iamblichus’s discussion o f the nature o f Pythagoras’s person within the context o f the Trinitarian and christological debates o f the third and fourth centuries. I think the position o f Gillian Clark is more satis­ fying. While the DVP must be viewed within the context o f the rise o f Chris­ tianity (and, I would add, within the context o f the still ongoing competition within Platonist circles), the work is an attempt by the author more to reaffirm and construct his own tradition than to polemicize against Christianity.99

how Iamblichus arranged the Platonic dialogues according to the categories o f virtues and sci­ ences, see O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 63, table 1. 96. Dillon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way o f Life, 25. Cf. Clark, "Philosophic Lives,” 44-45. 97. See DVP 36; cf. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 25. 98. Iamblichus, DVP 12 (Dillon and Hershbell, 38-39). Dillon and Hershbell, Pythagorean Way of Life, 25-26; 39 n.13. 99. Clark, Iamblichus, x-xi.

The Philosophy o f Moses Reason is a very short word ... a fragment o f the soul o f the universe, or as it is more pious to say for those who study philosophy according to Moses, a very faithful copy o f the divine image .100

For many Jews and Christians o f antiquity, Moses held the position afford­ ed to Pythagoras in accounts o f the origins o f Greek philosophy As early as the second century BCE, Jewish writers living in the centers o f Greek learn­ ing responded to Greek claims o f intellectual, cultural, and moral superiority by engaging in the discussion o f philosophical origins. Where the Greeks en­ visioned philosophy as their own accomplishment, through the perfection of ‘‘barbarian” knowledge and arts, Jews (and later Christians) reminded them that this “barbarian wisdom” was chronologically prior to their greatest sag­ es, as acknowledged by the Greeks themselves. Moses, for example, lived long before Pythagoras and conversed directly with God. The sacred texts o f the Hebrews preserved this divine revelation. The accounts o f philosophi­ cal origins developed by Jews in the Hellenistic period served as the founda­ tion for later Christian accounts. These competing accounts claimed that the Greeks had borrowed, adapted, and corrupted a unique, revealed wisdom, which originated with Moses. Beginning in the second century BCE, the figure of Moses came to new prominence in discussions o f the origins o f philosophy. John Gager has pro­ posed that this period saw a rising tide o f Jewish apologetics, which cast Mo­ ses not only as “national hero par excellence,” but as preeminent sage.101 Thus, in a significant center of Hellenistic life and thought, such as Alexandria, a confrontation had erupted between Jewish and Greek intellectuals over the true origins of philosophy. Jewish writers, aware of the apparent similarities in speculative and ethical concepts held by the Greeks, explained them using a “theory” o f cultural exchange based on a motif of “borrowing,” in which foundational figures personified the historical, intellectual, and cultural iden­ tities o f peoples. Thus, Aristobulus (second century BCE) could explain the similarities between Jewish and Greek thought as a sort o f primeval act o f plagiarism on the part o f Plato:

100. Philo, Mut. 223; trans. Yonge, 282-83. 101. John G. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism, Society o f Biblical Literature M ono­ graph Series 16 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 162.

Plato himself followed our legislation and it is clear that he borrowed [περιεργασμένος] what he found. There were translations by others before Demetrius, before the dom­ ination o f Alexander and the Persians, o f the exodus o f the Hebrews . .. o f their con­ quest o f the Promised Land and the explanation o f all our laws; in fact it is evident that the above mentioned philosopher took [είληφέναι] many things; for being learned just like Pythagoras he included many o f our dogmas into his own teaching.102

According to Aristobulus’s argument, Plato read translations o f the Torah and consciously plagiarized “many things,” which he then incorporated into a system o f Greek thought. His allusion to Pythagoras is important, as it re­ flects the Greek accounts of the philosophers travels among the peoples of the east (including the Hebrews), to study their wisdom and worship, so as to piece together a complete philosophical way. To the Greeks, this integrated system was superior to the fragmented wisdom sown among the barbarians. For Aristobulus and others, however, it proved the antiquity, and hence the superiority and purity o f Hebrew wisdom. The Jewish historian Eupolemus (second century BCE) asserted that Mo­ ses was “the first to become wise” and the inventor o f writing.103 Philosophy and writing then passed from the Hebrews to the Phoenicians, and finally to the Greeks.104 Here we see a myth o f philosophical origins that claimed a dispersion o f philosophy to the world through the mediation o f the He­ brews.105 The consequence o f this movement away from the source, how­ ever, was corruption. This could account for the significant differences that existed between Greek and Jew, especially in their conceptions o f the divine. Thus, the Jewish sources regard the corruption o f philosophy not in terms of temporal distance (for the Jews still possessed and preserved it), but in an “ethnic distance,” in the transmission from one people to another. Josephus, too, later asserted that Moses was the most ancient o f the lawgivers and that Greek philosophers were ultimately dependent on him.106 Indeed, Moses was also known outside o f Jewish and Christian circles among the educated elite o f the eastern empire, especially in Alexandria and Syria. As early as the Hellenistic period, Greek authors, such as Hecataeus o f Abdera, knew o f Moses as the founder o f the Hebrew nation. The 102. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.6.6-8 (SC 369, 210), from the first book o f Aristobulus’s To Philome­ tor (trans, mine). 103. Polyhistor (citing Eupolemus), in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.26 (SC 369, 268). 104. Eupolemus, in Clement o f Alexandria, Strom. 1.23.153.4. 105. Eupolemus, in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.25.26. 106. Josephus, C. Ap. 2.154, 168; and Cager, Moses, 77.

Greek response to these claims was not dismissal, but engagement. In fact, some o f the most prominent Greek intellectuals outside o f Alexandria, for example, Poseidonius, Numenius, and Porphyry (all Syrian), attempted to lo­ cate Moses within the framework o f the Greek philosophical myth. For the most part, the Greek treatment o f Moses was generally positive when he was viewed within the context o f Jewish origins, as the lawgiver. Gager has not­ ed, however, a more negative attitude toward the Christian claim to Moses. The attacks o f Celsus, Porphyry, and even Julian were more acerbic in their estimation o f Christianity than o f Moses as a foundational figure.107 Significantly, one o f the most famous Greek assessments o f Moses is the question posed by Numenius o f Apamea in his work On the Good: “For what is Plato than Moses atticizing?” (τί γάρ έστι Πλάτων ή Μωσής άττικίζων).108 Though grossly out o f context, this question, if authentic, demonstrates the interest o f Neopythagoreans and later Platonists in harmonizing the wis­ dom o f non-Greek peoples with Greek philosophy.109 Origen wrote that Nu­ menius knew and commented on the writings o f the ancient Hebrews in a constructive, rather than polemical, way.110 He is also said to have written allegorical commentaries on Moses and the prophets.111 What is particular­ ly interesting about Numenius’s assessment o f Moses is that it is actually a statement on Plato. Just as Numenius had subordinated Plato to Pythagoras in On the Disagreement, here he seems to subordinate Plato to Moses. Thus Plato is less the philosophical genius than the point o f convergence where the wisdom o f the ancients merged as philosophy. Plato is Pythagoras and Moses. For Christian readers o f Numenius, such a statement could demon­ strate the Greeks’ own admission that Moses was superior to Plato. Porphyry offered a more critical assessment o f Moses. While his direct ref­ erences to Moses are not many, they are contradictory. On the one hand, in works such as De philosophia (in Augustine, Civ. 19.23) and De abstinentia (4.14), Porphyry afforded great esteem to Hebrew “wisdom” as found in the writ­ ings o f Moses for its piety toward the “self-born God.” On the other hand, in Against the Christians, his deprecation o f Jewish literature is embedded with­ 107. Gager, Moses, 111-12. 108. Numenius, frag. 8 (Des Places, 50-51). Quoted in Clement o f Alexandria, Strom. 1.22.150.4, and Eusebius, Praep. ev. n.10.14, 4-5. 109. Numenius, frag. 9a (Des Places), no. Origen, Cels. 4.51. nr. Numenius, frag. 58 (Guthrie). Porphyry attests to Numenius’s allegorical readings o f Hom er in De antro 4.

in attacks on Christianity. His critique was twofold. First, he lamented that Christians had applied convoluted and improbable allegorical exegesis to what were essentially poor works o f literature that should have been aban­ doned in the first place.112 Secondly, he exposed the “pseudonymity” o f the Mosaic texts by leveling text-critical arguments, maintaining that they were actually composed by Ezra.113 In the end, his attacks were not against Moses per se but against the Christian (mis)appropriation o f Moses. Gager suggest­ ed that Porphyry's strategy was to undermine Christian doctrine through a critique o f Christian exegesis.114 More broadly, Jeremy Schott suggests that Porphyry’s criticism stems largely from a refutation o f the Christian claim to universality because o f its temporal and locational particularity.115 In short, Porphyry sought to deny his Christian competitors the more ancient origins that they sought to claim. The Life o f Moses by Philo o f Alexandria Philo of Alexandria’s bios o f Moses (Mos.) is a narrative and philosophical account o f the life of Moses and the flight from Egypt, drawn freely from the biblical accounts in Exodus, Joshua, and Numbers. It is a work in two parts. The first part purports to be an account o f the life o f Moses in his capacity as “king” (κατά την βασιλείαν), but its focus often diverges from Moses and shifts to other aspects o f the journeys o f the Israelites.116 In the second part o f the work, Philo indulges in allegorical and philosophical interpretative methods, focusing his attention on Moses as “priest” and “lawgiver.” What I offer here is a very brief overview o f the bios as a way o f introducing the representation o f Moses in the writings o f Eusebius and Gregory o f Nyssa. In the works o f these Christian bishops, the portrait o f Moses as the philosopher-ruler, as inherited in part from Philo and other Jews o f the Greek Diaspora, acted as a point o f intersection for the articulation o f the relationship o f Jews and Greeks to Christians.117 While Philo does not chronologically fall within the 112. Porphyry, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.4 (SC 41, 114). Porphyry levels this charge specifi­ cally against Origen for making what he considered forced allegorical interpretations o f the Jewish writings. 113. Porphyry, in Macarius Magnes, Apocriticus 3.3. This would be the only known occasion when Porphyry uses the "pseudepigraphic” argument. In all other instances, he treats the tradi­ tional writings o f Moses as actual writings o f Moses. 114. Gager, Moses, 71. 115. Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making o f Religion, 71. 116. Philo, Mos. 1.334 (L C L 6:448). 117. Sabrina Inowlocki, “ Eusebius’ Appropriation o f the Figure o f Moses in an Apologetic

purview o f this study, it is worth considering some o f the features o f his in­ fluential bios. In the prologue, Philo states the intention of the work for "learned” Greeks who refused to acknowledge the importance of Moses, "the greatest and most perfect man” (i .i ).118 Before Mos., Philo had already engaged in an earlier round o f this competition for philosophy, using the antiquity o f Jew ­ ish sacred writings as an argument for their validity and superiority to Greek philosophical literature.119 Philo wrestled with the nature o f the relationship between Hellenism and Judaism, which he regarded as two completely sepa­ rate cultural entities. Through the figure o f Moses, he explored the conver­ gence and divergence o f Greek philosophy with Judaism, so as to propose a Jewish philosophy that was distinctive yet accessible to Gentiles. For Philo, the origin o f doctrines shared with Greek thinkers was a complicated matter. Tension lay in the (mis)recognition o f his own relationship with Greek cul­ ture and learning, on the one hand, and his Jewish identity, on the other. As Jerome reports, a proverb had arisen among the "Greeks” that "either Plato philonizes or Philo platonizes.” 120 Yet, Philo sought answers to the question o f origins in the more ancient texts o f the Hebrews and therefore argued for a Hebrew origin o f the wisdom held in common by Jews and Greeks. The quotation at the beginning o f this section expresses Philo’s view that a phi­ losophy of the divine logos was introduced to humanity with Moses’s expe­ rience on Mount Sinai. Where Greeks and Jews agreed, the origin was to be found in God’s direct revelation to Moses.121 Inasmuch as Philo’s Moses is a composite o f ideals, he is a very complex figure. He is lawgiver, prophet, and priest, who, in terminology strikingly similar to that o f the Pythagorean Diotogenes, was νόμος έμψυχός.122 Philo’s description o f Moses no doubt engages Platonist understandings o f the phi­ losopher-ruler. He even seems to reference Plato’s famous dictum in Resp. 473d on the convergence o f philosophical knowledge and political power in Context,” in Moses in Biblical and Extra Biblical Traditions, ed. Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 372 (N ew York: De Gruyter, 2007), 242. 118. Louis H. Feldman regards the w ork as intended primarily for educated Gentiles, an in­ troduction to the ideals o f Judaism as exemplified by Moses, and an attempt to correct negative views o f Moses and Jews. See Philo’s Portrayal o f Moses in the Context o f Ancient Judaism, Christi­ anity and Judaism in Antiquity 15 (Notre Dame: University o f Notre Dam e Press, 2007), 12-16. 119. Boys-Stones, Post-Hellenistic Philosophy, 94-95. 120. Jerome, Vir. ill. 11. 122. Philo, Mos. 2.4.

121. See Philo, Opif 128.

Mos. 2.2.123 Characterized by αρετή, καλοκάγαθία and εύνοια, he lived a virtu­ ous life, manifesting a harmony o f word and deed.124 Philosophy received his nature like good soil and cultivated it through contemplation “until the fruits o f virtue” were perfected in him.125 Moses’s paradigmatic virtue blossomed from the natural endowment o f his “instinctive genius,” and did not derive solely from learning.126 In fact, it could not have, since the revelation o f the Torah had not yet been given and his teachers numbered among the “foreign peoples.” The education o f Moses was problematic for Philo. While the book o f Ex­ odus does detail the rearing o f Moses in the pharaonic household, Philo fol­ lowed a tradition that Moses would have received the finest education as a member o f the Egyptian royal household.127 Like Pythagoras, Moses was taught by the best teachers o f Egypt and the neighboring districts—Assyrian, Chaldean, even Greek, who offered Moses what looks like typical paideia.128 Yet Moses surpassed his teachers: rather than learning, his growth in knowl­ edge appears more like Platonic anamnesis, the recollection o f knowledge by his embodied soul.129 Thus the scattered knowledge o f the ancient peoples found unity and harmony in the soul of Moses. In this way, Philo rhetorically subordinated Greek and barbarian education to Moses’s natural virtue, which simply prefigured the knowledge and virtue he would eventually learn from God, his teacher.130 For Christians, like Eusebius and Gregory, struggling with their admiration for Greek learning and the abhorrence o f Greek idola­ try, Moses would be the “well-wrought picture,” as Philo wrote, “a model for those willing to copy it” and to imprint it on their souls.131 T h e D ependency T h em e In the context o f fourth-century Christianity, Moses was a fitting ances­ tor of Christians. In response to the Greek depiction o f Christianity as a 123. Cf. Diotogenes where the perfect king was general, judge, and priest. For more on the treatise o f Diotogenes, see ch. 4. See also, O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 165. 124. Philo, Mos. 1.27. 125. Philo, Mos. 2.66 (L C L 6:482); in On Moses, trans. F. H. Colson and H. G. Whitaker, in vol. 6 o f Philo: In Ten Volumes (and Two Supplementary Volumes), ed. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1968), 483. 126. Philo, Mos. 1.21. 128. Philo, Mos. 1.19-24.

127. Cf. Acts 7:22.

129. Louis H. Feldman, “ Philo’s View o f Moses’ Birth and Upbringing,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 64 (2002): 272. 130. Philo, Mos. 1.80. See also 2.66. 131. Philo, Mos. 1.138 39 (L C L 6:358); trans. Colson, 359.

“new” religion, Christians adapted the Hellenistic Jewish apologetic argu­ ments to argue for the antiquity and superiority o f Christian philosophy.132 This strategy also necessitated a severing o f Moses from contemporary Juda­ ism. While Greeks were accused o f “borrowing” from and corrupting He­ brew and Christian wisdom, Jews were charged with “mismanagement” and misinterpretation. In this account o f philosophical origins, Moses stood at the origin o f all wisdom, o f which Christianity alone remained the faithful guardian. The place o f Moses and the Jewish scriptures was hotly debated among various Christian groups of the second century. Some, such as Marcion and Valentinus, afforded them little or no authority, while others, such as Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, passionately supported an historiographical apologetic for Christianity in which Moses was a cornerstone, the guarantor o f the an­ tiquity o f Christian revelation.133 Justin was one of the first Christians to use the dependency theme against the Greeks. In the First Apology, he wrote that Plato and others o f the Greek cultural tradition “took” (λαβών) many o f their ideas from Moses. He argued his position from both antiquity and similar­ ity.134 The divine “seeds o f truth” the Greeks possessed allowed them to rec­ ognize the truth in the Hebrew tradition and led to their desire to “borrow” it.135 Reason, identified with the Christian Logos, was therefore the posses­ sion o f Christians; and whoever lived according to reason was a Christian. This included Greeks (Socrates and Heraclitus) and Hebrews (Abraham and Elijah).136 Justin was a competitor who had played on both sides o f the game. In this respect, he acted as a mediator, or double agent, validating what was simi­ lar in the Greeks’ philosophy while arguing for the superiority o f Christian philosophy. Faced with the shared linguistic capital and conceptual catego­ ries, Justin could not argue for the superiority o f Christianity and complete132. For a detailed discussion o f the themes o f plagiarism and dependency as applied to Greek philosophy in early Christian literature, see the study by Daniel Ridings (The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in Some Early Christian Writers, Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 59 [Goteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1995]), in which he focuses on Clem ­ ent o f Alexandria, Eusebius o f Caesarea, and Theodoret o f Cyrrhus. Also, chs. 8 and 9 o f BoysStones’s Post-Hellenistic Philosophy treat the development o f Christian orthodoxy and the depen­ dency theme. 133. For a bibliography on Christian views o f Moses, see Inowlocki, “ Eusebius’ Appropria­ tion,” 243 n.12. 134. Justin, 1 Apol. 44.8-10. 135. Boys-Stones, Post-Hellenistic Philosophy, 188. 136. Justin, 1 Apol. 46.3.

ly disparage the Greek philosophy he had studied, which had intrinsically shaped his worldview. Instead, similarity led him to the chronological argu­ ment: Moses lived before the Greek philosophers. Moses taught what the Greek philosophers would teach later. Therefore, the Greeks borrowed from Moses. Within the Alexandrian tradition o f Christian philosophy, Clement also employed the “borrowing” or “dependency” theme. Clement argued that Plato had emulated Moses, and therefore borrowed from works that he knew firsthand.137 Yet Clement could make a place for the study o f Greek philosophy as preparatory, despite its flaws. It was still useful. Thus, those earliest Christians who had received their formation in the circles o f Greek education, and then later joined Christian ranks, brought with them a loy­ alty to and appreciation o f Greek philosophical language and practices that forced them to differentiate their “old ways” while reconciling inherent simi­ larities. The strategy they adopted was a double, but ranked, validation o f both Christian and Greek philosophy that used ancient foundational figures as descriptions o f cultural exchange. T h e Place o f M oses in Eusebius We have already noted the pivotal role Eusebius played in the formation o f a Christian intellectual and historical tradition that engaged and compet­ ed with Greek alternatives, especially the Plotinian tradition as advocated by Porphyry. Perhaps intended to be a proper systematic response to Porphy­ ry’s Against the Christians, Eusebius’s massive work, the Praeparatio evangelica (Praep. ev.), and its companion volume Demonstratio evangelica, were com­ posed after Constantine’s rise to power.138 A collection and arrangement of fragmentary, and sometimes very lengthy, quotations from the works o f clas­ sical and late antique authors, Praep. ev. had the stated purpose to use the 137. Clement, Paed. 3.11.54.2. 138. After Plato, the most cited and mentioned philosopher in the Praep. ev. is Porphyry. Chronologically, he is also the last philosopher that Eusebius names. Eusebius often speaks o f him as if he is still alive, though Porphyry would have already been dead for quite some time. He also uses Porphyry as a figure and representative o f contemporary philosophy, the spokes­ man for Greek religion and philosophy in the fourth century. See especially Praep. ev. 3-6 where Eusebius levels his strongest attacks against Porphyry. Also, for modern analysis, see Aryeh Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesarea against Paganism, Jewish and Christian Perspectives 3 (Boston: Brill, 2000), ch. 8: “Tactics, Rhetoric and the Role o f Porphyry” ; and Aaron P. Johnson, Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica, Oxford Early Christian Studies (N ew York: Ox­ ford University Press, 2006).

very words o f the Greeks to demonstrate the superiority of the Christian faith, and to relegate Greek philosophy to a second tier, as a preparation for the full revelation o f Christian philosophy.139 According to Aryeh Kofsky, Eu­ sebius engaged in a threefold strategy in both works: first, to expose the er­ rors o f Greco-Roman religion and philosophy; second, to demonstrate the superiority of Hebrew religion and philosophy; and third, to explain why it is that Christians, who seem to have deviated from contemporary Jews, actu­ ally preserve the original revelation.140 Like his Jewish and Christian predecessors, Eusebius countered the Platonist account o f the origins and transmission o f philosophy with the charge o f plagiarism. Moses, it could be argued, was chronologically anterior to both Plato and Pythagoras: according to Eusebius, the revelation on Mount Sinai occurred some 800 years before the Trojan War, and 1,500 years before the appearance o f Greek philosophers.141 Adopting arguments made by pre­ vious Christian writers, Eusebius argued that points o f philosophical con­ vergence between Christian and Greek doctrine were due to Plato’s read­ ing o f translations o f the Hebrew scriptures.142 The Greeks were “imitators” (ζηλωτάς) o f Moses; and by necessity those who came later had to have bor­ rowed from their predecessors.143 Once Christian intellectuals had distinguished themselves from their Greek competitors, they also had to come to terms with their relationship to the biblical Hebrews and contemporary Jews. In his account o f revelation before Christ, Eusebius makes a stark distinction between the “Hebrews” who preceded the giving o f the Mosaic law and the “Jews” for whom the law was promulgated.144 Among the former he included the patriarchs and Mo­ 139. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 14.1. See also Kofsky, Eusebius against Paganism, 241. 140. Kofsky, Eusebius against Paganism, 100. 141. See Eusebius, Praep. ev. 10.10.11; 10.10.25. In this section o f the Praep. ev., Eusebius was responding to Porphyry’s chronology o f Moses and the Hebrews. Other important passages include Praep. ev. 10.9.25: Moses lived 1,500 years before the Greek philosophers; 10.4.11: M o­ ses preceded the Seven Sages o f the Greeks; n.pro.: the Greek philosophers took all o f their knowledge from “barbarians,” including the Hebrews; 11.4.4: Moses’s philosophy was a com ­ plete system; 11.8.1: Plato encountered Jew s in Egypt; and ir.9.8-14: Numenius o f Apamea called Plato an “Atticizing Moses.” Eusebius cites works by Porphyry, Tatian, Clement, and Jo ­ sephus to demonstrate that Moses predated any significant figure o f Greek philosophical his­ tory. For further discussion, see Richard Goulet, “ Porphyre et la datation de Moi'se,” Revue de VHistoire des Religions 192 (1977): 137-64. 142. Eusebius, Praep. ev. i3.pro. 143. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 10.14.16. 144. On Eusebius’s distinction o f Hebrews and Jews, see Praep. ev. book 7, passim; Kofsky,

ses himself, whom he called “the great theologian” and “a Hebrew o f He­ brews.” 145 Adopting a rhetoric o f corruption, Eusebius argued that the origi­ nal body o f theological teaching revealed to the Hebrews was mismanaged and misinterpreted by both “literal-minded” Jews and the Greeks who had borrowed from it.146 Here we see a narrative o f decline very similar to the one painted by Numenius in On the Disagreement of the Academics against Pla­ to: just as the successors o f Plato failed to preserve the authentic interpre­ tation o f the philosopher, so the Jews had misunderstood and strayed from Hebrew theology and also from the authentic meaning o f the Mosaic Law. Just as Numenius’s narrative o f decline included a call for renewal, Eusebi­ us’s scenario drew the line o f authentic transmission from the Hebrews to the Church across the bridge o f a handful (one might say, a remnant) o f “phi­ losopher Jews”—the Essenes, the Therapeutae, and Philo.147 I have already noted the important historical, apologetic, and biographi­ cal contributions that Eusebius, bishop o f Caesarea and spiritual son o f Origen, made in forging a Christian tradition in response to competing Greek ac­ counts. Both Eusebius and Porphyry proposed chronologies o f philosophical history that were at the same time self-descriptive and other-defining; that is, each sought to define the place o f his own party (Christians or Greeks) in re­ lation to the past and to the other party. Eusebius’s treatment o f Moses in re­ lation to philosophical history demonstrates how the Christian author built on previous Jewish and Christian conceptions to trace a philosophical pedi­ gree from the ancient Hebrews to the Church. In an era when intellectuals were seeking reform through a reflection on origins, Eusebius boldly averred that Christianity was not a “new” religion, as its opponents had charged, but a rediscovery o f the primitive knowledge revealed originally to Moses and revealed fully in Jesus Christ. This revelation o f the Logos incarnate was en­ trusted as a deposit to his apostles, who were charged with the establishment o f the Church, the institutional safeguard for its transmission through the

Eusebius o f Caesarea against Paganism, 103-6; Johnson, Ethnicity and Argument, 100-109, and 114 19; and Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making o f Religion, 149-54. 145. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 7.7. 146. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 8.10.18. Inowlocki (“ Eusebius’ Appropriation,” 246-47) argues that Eusebius distinguishes the “Hebrews” from later “Jew s” so as to claim the more authentic H e­ brews as the ancestors o f Christians. It should be noted that Philo describes Moses as a Chaldean by birth, not a Hebrew (Mos. 1.2.5). Feldman sees here an attempt to emphasize the antiquity o f Moses vis-a-vis the other ancient cultures (“ Philo’s View o f Moses’ Birth,” 261). 147. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 8.11 12. See also Kofsky, Eusebius against Paganism, 106.

Figure 2-i. Eusebius’s account o f the transmission o f philosophy from its revelation to Moses to the succession o f bishops

succession o f bishops. What had been entrusted to the ancient Hebrews was mismanaged by the Jews and irresponsibly borrowed by the Greeks. Thus, in the Praep. tv., Eusebius constructed a pedigree o f the transmission o f true philosophy, shown in figure 2-1.

Gregory o f Nyssa: The Life o f a First-Generation Christian Philosopher Within ten years o f the Council o f Nicaea (325), Gregory was born in Cap­ padocia. His father, Basil, was a teacher o f rhetoric, and his mother, Emmelia, would adopt the ascetic life at the prompting o f her daughter Macrina. The Roman persecution o f Christians was remembered only by the older generations. Gregory lived in a different context. Intra-Christian competi­ tion reached new heights as the doctrinal controversies that preceded Nicaea would continue to embroil Christian leaders, including Gregory himself. Un­ like his brother Basil o f Caesarea, Gregory did not claim an educational re­ sume that included the great centers o f Greek learning. Instead, Gregory, we might say, was “home-schooled,” educated outside those networks o f Chris­ tian and Greek intellectuals in which previous generations o f Christians had participated. Though he may have been trained in basic grammar and rhetoric by his father, who died in the boy’s youth, Gregory attributed the bulk o f his forma­ tion to his brother Basil. And while Gregory claims that he was “unlearned” in certain philosophical matters, it is clear that his “father” and teacher, with whom he must have studied literature and philosophy at Caesarea, intro­ duced him to and trained him in the study o f the great poets and philoso­ phers o f the Greek tradition.148 Basil had studied with the famous rhetori­ cian Libanius. In an extant letter to Libanius, Gregory praises his brother’s teacher as his own.149 Likewise, Gregory called his sister Macrina “mother” and “teacher.” 150 Both o f these siblings would become the subjects o f Gregory’s vast opus 148. Van Dam, Families and Friends, 68. On Gregory’s ignorance, see C. fatum 35.17. This work presents an encounter between Gregory and an unnamed philosopher on the subject o f fate. Gregory refers to Basil as his father and teacher in ep. 13.4 and Opif. horn. 126B. 149. Gregory o f Nyssa, ep. 13 (SC 363, 200): “ For if Basil presided over our eloquence, and his wealth came from your treasures, then we have acquired your goods, even if we received them through others” (my translation). Ep. 15 is a request to students o f Libanius to present a copy o f a treatise (perhaps Against Eunomius) to the rhetor for review. 150. Macrina as mother: Gregory o f Nyssa, ep. 19. Macrina as teacher: De anima, passim.

o f biographical works. Each o f them represented for Gregory different ap­ proaches available to the Christian for education. Whereas Basil was, like Moses, the successful combiner o f outside, “Egyptian” (read: Greek) learn­ ing and the wealth o f the Church’s learning,151 Macrina was an example of the perfect Christian philosophical life rooted solely in the study o f scripture, prayer, and the ascetic life.152 Gregory would appear to represent another approach, as heir to the experiment in Christian education pioneered by his brother Basil, one in which the literature and philosophy o f those “outside” would be studied and learned almost exclusively in isolation from the schools and classrooms o f the Greeks. Gregory also claimed as “spiritual father” his namesake, Gregory Thaumaturgos. The Wonderworker was Origen’s student and later bishop o f Neocaesarea in the mid third century. Credited with making major inroads for Christianity in Cappadocia, Thaumaturgos was also remembered in the Cap­ padocians’ family tradition as the one who converted their grandmother Ma­ crina to the Christian faith.153 As Origen’s student, Gregory Thaumaturgos had been trained in a curriculum that cautiously advocated (and admitted the necessity of) elementary education and the higher studies o f Greek texts and philosophy alongside scripture. Whether through the direct influence o f the Wonderworker or, more likely, through the influence o f Basil and Gregory o f Nazianzus, the Nyssen’s exposure to and interpretation o f Greek sources came mediated through the sources o f the previous generation of Christian intellectuals—for example, the Praeparatio evangelica o f Eusebius and the an­ thology o f Origen’s work contained in the Philokalia. Gregory’s intellectual lineage grew from completely Christian roots—Origen, Gregory Thauma­ turgos, and Basil. Unlike his teachers, Gregory was educated outside the nor­ mal institutions o f learning, outside the networks o f competing Christian and Greek intellectuals, and might be considered one o f the first products of a strictly Christian philosophical training. The jury is still out on the question o f Gregory’s “relationship” to Greek philosophy. Scholars have agreed that he demonstrates a deep familiarity with the texts o f Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers. There has been no 151. See Gregory o f Nyssa, V S M 116. 152. Anthony Meredith, Gregory o f Nyssa, Early Church Fathers (New York: Routledge, 1999 ), 3 · 153. In ep. 204, Basil invokes Gregory Thaumaturgos as his “spiritual father" and predecessor as bishop. His grandmother Macrina raised him with stories about Gregory. In ep. 123, he writes that his conception o f God was instilled by his grandmother. See Meredith, Gregory o f Nyssa, 2.

agreement, however, on how to assess where Gregory stood “in relation to” Platonism, on some imagined Christian-Platonist spectrum.154 Has the Chris­ tian Gregory “colonized” the Platonic tradition?155 Has Gregory’s Christian­ ity been distorted by Hellenism,156 or has he Hellenized Christianity?157 Was he a Platonist in Christian clothing?158 Perhaps these are the wrong questions to ask. According to Morwenna Ludlow, this type o f approach, which as­ sumes a fundamental antagonism between “classical Christian theology” and Hellenism, takes its cue from von Harnack’s vision o f the Hellenization o f Christianity.159 In light o f the methodology that I have proposed in this study, I would add two more observations: (1) that any talk o f “borrowing” or “col­ onization” misrecognizes the dynamic interrelationship between Christian and Greek intellectual developments in the second through early fourth cen­ turies; and (2) that the division o f Hellenism and Christianity, which is often used to mean “pagan” and Christian (that is, concentrating on religious prac­ tice primarily and not intellectual exchange) is often an ill-defined dichoto­ my. Rather, we ought to consider Gregory as another participant in the ma­ jor philosophical and theological debates o f the time—what Gregory would simply call philosophia. Gregory’s voice was one that challenged positions put forth by both the Greek party and other groups o f Christian intellectuals.160 It is a commonplace to say that Gregory o f Nyssa, the only one o f the Cappadocians not to study in the schools o f Athens, was the most openly 154. See, for example, Jean Danielou, “ Gregoire de Nysse et la philosophic,” in The Biograph­ ical Works of Gregory of Nyssa: Proceedings of the Fiflh International Colloquium on Gregory o f Nys­ sa, ed. A. Spira (Cambridge, Mass.: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1984); and Danielou, "In­ troduction,” in Gregory o f Nyssa, La Vie de Mo'ise, 31-38. The following works also take up the question o f Gregory's relationship to the philosophical world o f his day: K. Gronau, Posidonius und dieJiidisch-christliche Genesisexegese (Leipzig, 1914); Harold F. Cherniss, The Platonism of Greg­ ory of Nyssa (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1930; reprint Berkeley: B. Franklin, 1970); and Endre von Ivanka, “Vom Platonismus zur Theorie der Mystik (Zur Erkenntnislehre Grego­ rs von Nyssa),” Scholastik 11 (1936): 163-95. A recent study on the scholarly reception and inter­ pretation o f Gregory is that o f Morwenna Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, Ancient and (Post)Modern (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 155. Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, 59. 156. For this view o f T. F. Torrance, see Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, 29-30. 157. For this view o f Robert Jenson, see Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, 38-44. 158. See Cherniss, The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa, 1-92. 159. Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, 49. 160. Danielou, “ Gregoire de Nysse,” 17. In this article, Danielou singles out just a few o f the philosophical questions Gregory treats and refutes— for example, the Neoplatonic doctrines o f metempsychosis, the fall o f souls, and the origins o f existence. He concludes that while Greg­ ory refutes these specific views o f the philosophical schools, he also holds that the errors o f Greek philosophy can be remedied with the truth o f Christian revelation.

and comfortably philosophical. At the same time, he rarely cites or mentions by name any Greek philosopher. In his work Contra fatum, Gregory refutes an otherwise unnamed philosopher whom he encountered in Constantino­ ple on the topic o f fate versus free will, and in Ad Graecos ex communibus no­ tionibus, he engages the Greeks’ view o f the godhead with a discussion o f the Trinity. The dialogue between himself and his sister Macrina, in De anima et resurrectione, is clearly a “revision” o f Plato’s Phaedo.161 In the Catechetical Dis­ courses, Gregory oudines a method o f instruction for new Christians, includ­ ing those who come from a Greek religious and educational background. It is not that Gregory was exchanging one coherent and independent concep­ tual and social reality for another radically different one; rather he engaged in a dialectical dialogue, debating key doctrines within a universe o f com­ monly held assumptions: “It is necessary, therefore, as I have said, to regard the opinions which the persons have taken up, and to frame your argument in accordance with the error into which each has fallen, by advancing in each discussion certain principles and reasonable propositions, that thus, through what is agreed upon on both sides, the truth may conclusively be brought to light.” 162 In this way, a Greek can be convinced to embrace the “lofty philos­ ophy” o f Christians. Perhaps Gregory’s flair for rhetoric and philosophy was too great, as his friend Gregory o f Nazianzus once warned him not to be tempted to prefer being called “a rhetorician rather than a Christian.” 163

Gregory o f Nyssa’s L ife

o f M oses:

The Christian and P a id e ia

An aging Gregory composed the Life of Moses (Vit. Mos.) toward the end o f the fourth century.164 This was one o f many biographical works he wrote over the course o f his prolific career. Others included the bioi o f Macrina and Gregory Thaumaturgos, and a number o f funeral orations, including one for Basil and members o f the imperial family. Along with the commentary on the Song o f Songs, the Vit. Mos. has been traditionally read as a work in Greg­ ory’s spirituality, and, more specifically, on the notion o f “perpetual prog­ ress,” or epektasis. Following in the footsteps o f Philo and Origen, Gregory saw in the figure o f Moses a useful paradigm o f the virtuous life understood 161. See discussion in ch. 6 o f this volume. 162. Gregory o f Nyssa, Or. cat. pro.23-28 (SC 453,138-40), N P N F 5:131. 163. Gregory o f Nazianzus, ep. 11.4.6 (in Lettres, ed. and trans. Paul Gallay, 2 vols. [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1964], 1:17): ρήτωρ άκούειν μάλλον ή χριστιανός. 164. Danielou places the composition o f the Life o f Moses in the late 380s or early 390s, be­ tween the commentary on the Song o f Songs and On Perfection. See Vie de Mo'ise, ix.

through an allegorical reading o f the Hebrew scriptures.165 In addition to the work’s importance for understanding patristic spirituality, it is also useful for grasping Gregory’s attitude toward a Christian’s participation in the intellec­ tual field o f the late fourth century.166 While this aspect of the Vit. Mos. of­ ten takes second place (and it may have in the author’s estimation as well), the work reveals a great deal about Gregory’s estimation o f paideia and sheds light on his understanding o f the history and transmission of philosophy. Clearly at this time, the memory o f Julian and the effects o f the educational crisis he created still reverberated. Gregory’s choice o f Moses as subject is significant for several reasons. First, inspired by Philo’s bios of Moses, Vit. Mos. was also a revision o f Philo from the perspective o f a leading Christian intellectual. In this respect, it is the articulation o f an Origenian167 Eusebian reception of Moses (and Phi­ lo), which locates the Hebrew lawgiver at the origins o f philosophy.168 The teaching o f virtue, which Moses received from God on Sinai, is nothing other than Christ himself, who is “absolute virtue” (ή παντελής αρετή).169 Second, in Gregory’s identification o f Moses as a paradigmatic life,170 and outline o f the “pattern of beauty,” 171 and servant o f God,172 he presents his readers with the perfect paradigm o f the Christian intellectual who successfully found a place for “outside learning” (ή εξω παίδευσις),173 that is, the study o f the tra­ ditional elementary disciplines and advanced study o f rhetoric and philoso165. Danielou, in Gregory o f Nyssa, Vie de Mo'ise, xi-xviii; Malherbe, in Gregory o f Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 8-12; and Colin W. Macleod, “ The Preface to Gregory o f Nyssa’s Life of Mo­ ses," in Biographical Works: Proceedings of the Fifth International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa, Mainz, 6-10 September 1982, ed. Andreas Spira (Cambridge, Mass.: Philadelphia Patristic Founda­ tion, 1984), 183. Gregory’s use o f Philo’s text is deduced not only by the similarity in the struc­ ture o f the two works, subject matter, and method o f interpretation, but also by some ver­ batim and near verbatim phrases. The most in-depth study comparing the bioi o f Philo and Gregory is Albert C. Geljon, Philonic Exegesis in Gregory of Nyssa’s De Vita Moysis, Brown Judaic Studies 333 (Providence, R.I.: Brown Judaic Studies, 2002). 166. Danielou, in Vie de Mo'ise, xxiv-xxvii; and Samuel Rubenson, “ Philosophy and Simplic­ ity: The Problem o f Classical Education in Early Christian Biography,” in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau (Berkeley: University o f Cali­ fornia Press, 2000), 128. 167. Throughout I use the descriptor “ Origenian” to distinguish the intellectual and cultur­ al tradition rooted in the w ork o f Origen from the later theological controversies usually de­ scribed as “Origenist.” 168. Geljon, Philonic Exegesis, 13-16. 169. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.244 (SC 1, 274). 170. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 1.15. 171. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.319 (SC 1,324): trans. Malherbe and Ferguson, 136. 172. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.314. 173. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.37 (SC 1, 126) and passim.

phy. One can glimpse in Gregory's reflections on Moses’s education and his ability to adorn revealed knowledge with deficient, though useful, Egyptian learning, the image o f the Christian intellectual and teacher caught between his appreciation o f Greek literature and philosophy and disdain for what they asserted about the nature o f God, humanity, and the soul—not a picking and choosing, but a reevaluation of theological and anthropological questions on the basis of a Christian philosophical perspective. Third, Gregory saw in Mo­ ses the reflection o f the late-fourth-century Christian intellectual, men like Basil and himself, who, like Moses, were learned pastors and teachers who guided the people o f God. Finally, Gregory developed the Origenian notion of “spoliation” as a theory o f cultural and intellectual exchange. This reversed earlier Christian cultural theories that had accused the Greeks o f plagiarism and suggested instead that the Christian learn how to steal from the Greeks. The Vit. Mos. is divided into two parts. The first part, the historia, is mostly a literal retelling o f the biblical book o f Exodus. The second part, the theoria, is an allegorical reading o f the historia. Interestingly, Gregory’s allegorizing interpretations o f the exodus exceed the allegory o f Philo’s account, which, scholars have noted, is unusually minimal.174 The prologue o f the bios in­ cludes an address to an otherwise unknown recipient, who had requested from the bishop an explication of the “perfect life” (τέλειος βίος). The bish­ op obliges as a father to his sons, in fulfillment o f his obligation as spiritual guide, turning to scripture for models o f the blessed life. Having settled on Moses as subject, because he had dedicated himself to participate “in nothing other than God,” or virtue,175 Gregory assures his audience that neither eth­ nicity nor geographical location determines one’s success or failure: “We do not consider being a Chaldaean a virtue or a vice, nor is anyone exiled from the life o f virtue by living in Egypt or spending his life in Babylon, nor again has God been known to the esteemed individuals in Judaea only.” 176 Gregory posits that the appropriateness o f Moses as model stems from the intimacy with God that he achieved. Not the offspring of a deity, or a pre­ existing soul sent down from above, Moses was chosen and commissioned by God, and granted intimate, personal encounters with the “Unseen.” Having entered into the “sanctuary o f divine mystogogy” on Mount Sinai, where he received the divine διδασκαλία, Moses was the first to receive a direct revela­ 174. Geljon, Philonic Exegesis, 167. 173. Gregory of Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 1.7 (SC 1, 50). 176. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 1.14 (SC t, 54); trans. Malherbe and Ferguson, 32-33.

tion o f divine wisdom—including the true knowledge o f God and his moral commands. He was also authorized to hand it on to the Israelites and guide them in all things true and good.177 This guidance was a kind o f initiation into divine things.178 Gregory's presentation o f Moses continues in the vein o f Alexandrian tra­ dition of allegorical and moral exegesis o f Exodus. It also incorporates Euse­ bius's historiographical reading o f Moses, where the Hebrew lawgiver is also philosophical ancestor o f Christians. As such, Moses is a type o f Christ, in­ deed, the guiding presence of Christ for others out o f the experience o f his own spiritual transformation.179 He approaches the Triune God on Sinai and perceives the mystery of the incarnation in the bleating trumpets.180 Thus, as a prophet and model o f the one to come, Moses foreshadows the soteriological events o f the life o f Christ. With staff in hand and outstretched, he is an image o f the crucified Christ.181 His glorious countenance, witnessed as he descended from Sinai, is an image o f the glory o f the resurrected Christ.182 Christ himself is the virtue o f which Moses is visible paradigm.183 As servant o f God, Moses is a type o f Christ, and a prototype for those who would pur­ sue the perfect life, for he lived the appropriate actions (κατωρθωκέναι) which brought him into perfection.184 Some scholars have demonstrated that Gregory also develops Moses as the ideal bishop.185 Here Gregory follows Philo's presentation o f Moses as king, teacher, and priest. The combination o f these is o f particular interest. As expert in knowledge and ritual, Moses not only instructs, but leads the 177. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 1.46-48. 178. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 1.42. 179. Patrick F. O'Connell, "Th e Double Journey in Saint Gregory o f Nyssa: The Life o f Mo­ ses,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 28, no. 4 (1983): 307. 180. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.158-59. 181. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.78. 182. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.217. The radiating presence o f the philosopher was a famil­ iar trope o f philosophical bioi. See, for example, Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 13, and Marinus, Vit. Proc. 23. 183. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.244. 184. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.319 (SC 1, 324). 185. For a full treatment o f this topic, see Marguerite Flarl, "Moi'se figure de l’eveque dans Teloge de Basile de Gregoire de Nysse (381),” in Biographical Works: Proceedings of the Fifth In­ ternational Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa, Mainz, 6-10 September 1982, ed. Andreas Spira (Cam ­ bridge, Mass.: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1984), 71-120; and Andrea Sterk, "O n Basil, Moses, and the Model Bishop: The Cappadocian Legacy o f Leadership,” Church History 67, no. 2 (1998): 227-53. See also Claudia Rapp, “ Comparison, Paradigm, and the Case o f Moses in Pan­ egyric and Hagiography,” in The Propaganda of Power: The Role o f Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. Mary Whitby, Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Supplementum 183 (Boston: Brill, 1998), 277 -98.

people in proper knowledge and worship, and thus is fit to rule over people’s souls. Gregory discovers in Moses’s leadership a prototype o f the Christian bishop: “The multitude was not capable o f hearing the voice from above but relied on Moses to learn by himself the secrets and to teach the people what­ ever doctrine he might learn through instruction from above. This is also true o f the arrangement of the Church.” 186 Other biographical works o f Gregory make this characterization even more explicit. The encomium offered on the occasion o f the anniversary of Basil’s death portrays the bishop as the fulfillment of the “typos o f episcopal authority ... [that] was foreshadowed by Moses.” 187 Basil, like Moses, was instructed in both divine and "outside” wisdom and was able to serve as a spiritual guide for those entrusted to his care.188 Even Gregory Thaumaturgos, whom Basil once called a “second Moses,” followed the basic pattern of Moses’s life: a period o f “outside” education, followed by a period o f con­ templative withdrawal, and finally appointment as leader o f the people.189 In the symbolic authority o f the iconic Moses, Gregory identifies the Christian bishop—intellectual, teacher, leader, and priest.

Moses and “Outside Learning” The education o f Moses in the royal household o f the Egyptian pharaoh had been o f some interest to earlier Christians also.190 Whenever Gregory discusses Moses, he considers the role o f the prophet’s Egyptian education in his progress toward virtue. This is also a reflection on the place and suit­ ability o f Greek education in the life o f a Christian leader, a question that attracted a new urgency in the wake o f the reign o f Julian. What was an appropriate curriculum for Christians? How and where were they to be edu­ cated, when there were no Christian schools, as such? Gregory adopted an approach, which he inherited from Origen, by way o f Basil. The model of “spoliation,” rooted in allegorical exegesis o f the Hebrews’ spoliation o f the Egyptians before the exodus (Exod. 12:35-36) is an alternative theory o f philo­ sophical and cultural exchange that envisions the intellectual and philosophi­ cal achievements o f the Greeks as laudable, yet inferior to and somewhat independent from the revealed wisdom o f the Hebrews. Nevertheless, Greg186. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.160 (SC 1, 208); trans. Malherbe and Ferguson, 94. 187. Sterk, “ On Basil, Moses, and the Model Bishop,” 234. 188. Gregory o f Nyssa, In Bas.frat. no. 189. Sterk, “ On Basil, Moses, and the Model Bishop,” 235-37. 190. Sec, for example, Acts 7:22; Clement, Str. 1.23.

ory concluded that this "outside” learning could "adorn” the unadorned wis­ dom of scripture. Unlike Irenaeus and Tertullian, who refused to recognize any positive philosophical contribution made by Greek intellectuals, Greg­ ory cautiously attributed a "usefulness” (ώφέλεια) to Greek intellectual and cultural contributions.191 While Gregory may have "recognized” the broad­ er contours o f the competition with the Greeks, he still “misrecognized” the extent to which Christian intellectual culture had a kinship to Greek paideia. This misrecognition results in an objectification o f Greek wisdom as some­ thing completely identifiable and separable from Christianity. Reflection on the intellectual, moral, and social benefits of paideia, and the necessity o f these for entry into and participation in philosophical com­ petition, begins with a consideration o f the narrative o f Moses's birth and youth. In a bios, this is the usual place to discuss the subject's education. Gregory reads the basket in which the infant Moses was hidden, before be­ ing cast into the Nile, as an allegory o f "education comprised of different disciplines.” 192 Here Gregory acknowledges that the standard course o f el­ ementary education foments whatever inherent capacities a young man may possess toward intellectual and moral development. Echoing the sentiments o f Plutarch, Gregory suggests it puts him on the right track: “Although he is borne along by the rushing o f the waves, the child is not carried far by the tossing o f the waters where there is education.” 193 This concept o f educa­ tion as a “collection” o f various disciplines or arts into a single person's edu­ cation, or into a single system o f education, has an echo o f the description of the education o f Pythagoras, who, according to both Porphyry and Iambli­ chus, had traveled extensively among the great barbarian peoples, collecting their knowledge and arts into a unitary system.194 191. In the “ Letter to Gregory,” Origen calls Greek philosophy the “ servant o f Christian­ ity" and uses the metaphor o f the spoliation o f Egypt to explain the articulation o f "Christian” truths in “ Greek” language. He also encourages his reader to “ extract” from Greek philosophy all that which is “useful” for the service o f interpreting Christian scriptures. For a translation o f the letter o f Origen, as well as the oration in honor o f Origen traditionally attributed to Greg­ ory Thamaturgos and the Life o f Gregory Thaumaturges by Gregory o f Nyssa, see St. Gregory Thaumaturgus: Life and Works, ed. and trans. M. Slusser, Fathers o f the Church 98 (Washington, D .C.: The Catholic University o f America Press, 1998). Slusser, like other scholars, is skeptical about identifying the addressee with Gregory Thaumaturgos (but not about its authorship by Origen). Nevertheless, he includes it in his collection because o f its long association with Greg­ ory and for the light it sheds on Origen’s rapport with students. See ibid., 36-37, for discussion o f the text, and 190-92, for the text itself. 192. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.7 (SC 1, no), m y translation. 193. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.8 (SC 1, no); trans. Malherbe and Ferguson, 56. [94. See discussion above. In On Dreams 1.205-6, Philo had described Moses as the “ archi-

Gregory presents Moses’s two mothers, his Hebrew birthmother and the Egyptian princess, as allegories o f two types o f learning, paideusis. In the his­ toria, he briefly summarizes the situation thus: A f t e r h e h a d l e f t c h i l d h o o d , a n d h a d b e e n e d u c a t e d i n t h e o u t s i d e l e a r n i n g [ π α ιδ ε υ θ ε ις τ η ν ε ξ ω θ ε ν π α ίδ ε υ σ ιν ] d u r i n g h i s r o y a l u p b r i n g i n g , h e d i d n o t c h o o s e t h e t h i n g s c o n s i d ­ e r e d g l o r i o u s b y t h o s e o u t s i d e [ π α ρ ά τ ο ΐς ε ξ ω θ ε ν ] n o r d i d h e a n y l o n g e r r e c o g n i z e a s h i s m o t h e r t h a t w i s e w o m a n b y w h o m h e h a d b e e n a d o p t e d , b u t h e r e t u r n e d t o h is n a t u r a l m o t h e r [έπ'ι τ η ν κ α τ ά φ ύ σ ιν ] a n d a t t a c h e d h i m s e l f t o h i s o w n k i n . *19 5

Moses’s approach to education, then, stands as a model for the Christian in­ tellectual. His biological Hebrew mother, we learn, represents the Church. Just as Moses was separated for a time from his birthmother and later re­ turned, so the young Christian man must spend time with another mother who will train and form him in moral and practical virtue. Thus he is mold­ ed into an intelligent, cultured, and socially skilled pepaideumenos. The pha­ raoh’s daughter, according to Gregory, represents “the outside philosophy,” who for a time adopts Moses, or the young Christian man. Building upon Jewish traditions, which had painted the Egyptian princess as barren,196 Gregory asserts that the adoptive mother “is always in labor but never gives birth.” 197 Education in the Greek curriculum serves a Christian in his youth, until he reaches a time of maturity when he recognizes its insufficiencies and errors.198 Nevertheless, it is a necessity for the Christian man. Yet Gregory, sounding for a brief moment like a Jerome standing before the judgment seat o f Christ, concedes that the mature Christian remains embarrassed of this necessary stage in his formation:199 “But he who has already attained matu­ tect” o f wisdom for having woven together the various disciplines— reading, writing, arithme­ tic, geometry, philosophy, etc.— into a unitary learning. 195. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 1.18 (SC 1, 58); Malherbe and Ferguson translation with modifications. 196. For the pharaoh's daughter as barren, see Philo, Mos. 1.13; and Artapanus, in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.27. Gregory appears to be modifying an exegetical trope found in both Philo and Origen, which interpreted the foreign wives o f the Hebrew patriarchs as a Je w ’s or Christian’s moral and intellectual preparation for the virtuous life. In Philo, Leg. 3.244-45, Hagar represents εγκύκλιος παιδεία, the Greek elementary curriculum. Similarly in Origen, In Gen. hom. 11.2, for­ eign wives and concubines represent the Christian’s “marriage” to the “ outside” disciplines o f dialectic and rhetoric that would aid in convincing Greek opponents o f the truth o f Christian philosophy. In Origen’s In Ex. hom. 2.4, the pharaoh’s daughter represents the Church o f the Gentiles. 197. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.11 (SC 1,112 ); trans. Malherbe and Ferguson, 57. 198. See Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.10 (SC 1,110 -12 ). 199. See Jerome, ep. 22.30.

rity, as we have learned about Moses, will be ashamed to be called the son of one who is barren by nature.”200 Gregory advises that there should never be a complete separation from the teaching o f the Church. Just as Moses’s birthmother continued to nurse her son furtively within the Egyptian household, so the Christian should continue to study and practice “the statutes and customs” o f the Church.201 As Gregory continues, he himself depicts the situation as one o f competition. In an allegorical interpretation o f the oppressive Egyptian, Gregory argues that the Christian seeking education will find himself caught between two competitors: “And the word is true that the one who looks towards the out­ side doctrines and the doctrines o f the [Christian] fathers will be caught in the middle o f two adversaries [δύο πολεμίων μέσος]. For the foreigner who is against worship sets himself in opposition to the Hebrew teaching and contentiously strives to appear stronger to the Israelite.” 202 A criticism follows o f those Christians who would abandon the teachings o f the fathers, to fight on the enemy’s side, because o f a supposed rational or aesthetic superior­ ity o f Greek philosophy. Echoing the words o f the apocryphal Libanius who reminded Basil o f the “root” o f paideia deep within him, Gregory writes o f a battle: "One may, moreover, find this same battle [μάχην] in us, for man is set before competitors as the prize o f their contest. He makes the one with whom he sides the victor over the other.” 203 What is the fight Gregory is talking about? Is it Christianity against philosophy? Faith against reason? Is Gregory taking the stance o f Tertullian? No. Gregory is very specific: the ad­ versaries are the opposing conceptions o f God. He identifies the struggle pri­ marily as one between idolatry and true worship o f God, theosebeia. From these conceptions o f the divine then follow specific and often (but not al­ ways) opposing understandings of anthropology, psychology, and ethics. The worship o f false gods, not the philosophical exercise itself, is what must be avoided and eradicated. Thus, the Christian intellectual who finds himself engaged in the philo­ sophical struggle must, on the one hand, work to correct the erroneous doc­ trines of his Greek peers with an appeal to Christian revelation in scripture or to the teachings o f his predecessors. On the other hand, there comes a time 200. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.10 (SC 1,112). 201. See Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.12 (SC 1,112). 202. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.13 (SC 1,112 -14 ), m y translation. 203. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.14 (SC 1,114); trans. Malherbe and Ferguson, 58.

when he must also withdraw from the struggle to teach and work within his own community. Gregory reads the Egyptian captivity as the necessity (δέη) that bears on the Christian intellectual to associate with “outside wisdom,” and calls for an engagement with and correction o f opposing Greek (and Christian) teachings. Withdrawal is from the mire o f the struggle, that is, from active confrontation with opposing factions, in order to delight in and pass on the true vision o f philosophy led by reason within Christian commu­ nities.204 Moses’s experience at the burning bush is, according to Gregory, an alle­ gory o f the illumination and purification o f the mind that results in the right opinion o f being.205 The theophany is christological and incarnational, and thus represents the revelation o f God in Christ in the scriptures that provides the proper conception o f the divine and serves as the corrective to (not the rejection of) philosophical thinking.206 Gregory returns once again to the exegetical tradition o f Origen when he interprets Moses’s marriage to a foreign wife as the Christian intellectual (like Basil) who discovers agreement in the literature and teachings o f the Greeks: A n d s h e w h o is o f t h e f o r e i g n e r s a n d y o k e d t o h i m w i l l f o l l o w h i m . F o r t h e r e is s o m e ­ t h i n g e v e n a b o u t o u t s i d e l e a r n i n g t h a t is b e n e f i c i a l f o r o u r u n i o n , w h e n i t is o u r p u r ­ p o s e t o g i v e b i r t h t o v i r t u e . It is n o t t o b e r e j e c t e d . I n d e e d m o r a l a n d n a t u r a l p h i l o s ­ o p h y m a y b e c o m e a t c e r t a i n t i m e s a c o m r a d e , f r i e n d , a n d c o m p a n i o n o f f if e t o t h e h ig h e r w a y , p r o v id e d t h a t th e o ff s p r in g o f th is u n io n in t r o d u c e n o t h i n g o f a fo r e ig n d e f i l e m e n t . 20 7

Gregory appeals to circumcision as the correction o f the erroneous phil­ osophical views o f the Greeks: “There is something fleshly and uncircum­ cised in what is taught by philosophy’s generative faculty; when that has been completely removed, there remains the pure Israelite race.” 208 What does Gregory propose needs removing? The doctrine o f the preexistence o f souls; metempsychosis; a material understanding o f God; the preexistence of matter; and the inferiority o f God to fate. These, Gregory asserts, are “flesh­ ly and alien foreskin.” Stripped o f these contaminations, the truth is recov­ ered—the truth that had been handed on “to us” by Moses.209 204. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.18.

205. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.22-26.

206. O ’Connell, "Double Journey,” 305-6. 207. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.37 (SC 1,12 6 -2 8 ); Malherbe and Ferguson translation with modifications. 208. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.39 (SC 1,128); trans. Malherbe and Ferguson, 63. 209. Gregory o f Nyssa, Or. cat. 5.65-67.

Finally, the episode o f the spoliation o f the Egyptians presents Gregory with an opportunity to draw a conclusion for his readers on how an educated Christian should approach the study o f Greek literature and philosophy.210 He begins in the vein o f Origen, yet in a much different context: where Origen was regularly in direct conversation with Greek thinkers, Gregory was not.211 But this does not diminish the urgency in Gregory's approach, which actually appears intensified. The "wealth o f Egypt” represents the “wealth of outside learning.” Anyone who wishes to follow Moses on the path to virtue must not be poor in the wealth o f the Egyptians. Gregory struggles with the apparent difficulty o f the text, which states that Moses commanded the Isra­ elites to steal. In good Origenian exegetical fashion, the difficulty leads the in­ terpreter to the spiritual meaning: It c o m m a n d s t h o s e p a r t i c i p a t i n g t h r o u g h v i r t u e i n t h e f r e e lif e a l s o t o e q u i p t h e m ­ s e lv e s w it h th e w e a lt h o f o u ts id e le a r n in g b y w h i c h fo r e ig n e r s to th e fa ith b e a u t ify th e m s e lv e s . O u r g u id e in v ir t u e c o m m a n d s s o m e o n e w h o “ b o r r o w s ” fr o m w e a lt h y E g y p t i a n s t o r e c e iv e s u c h t h in g s as m o r a l a n d n a t u r a l p h ilo s o p h y , g e o m e t r y , a s t r o n ­ o m y , d i a l e c t i c , a n d w h a t e v e r e ls e is s o u g h t b y t h o s e o u t s i d e t h e C h u r c h , s i n c e t h e s e th in g s w ill b e u s e fu l w h e n in tim e th e d iv in e s a n c t u a r y o f m y s t e r y m u s t b e b e a u t i­ fie d w it h th e r ic h e s o f r e a s o n .2 12

Thus, the curriculum o f the Greeks is useful to the Christian inasmuch as it will aid a Christian on the path to knowledge and virtue. Gregory’s application o f the metaphor o f “wealth” to the knowledge, texts, and skills associated with the Greeks' conception o f a philosophical tra­ dition illustrates the methodology o f this study. As a participant in the strug­ gle for philosophy in late antiquity, Gregory advocated a strategy that re­ quired a Christian to collect, convert, and purify the “cultural capital” o f the Greeks, and to reorder its authority in relation to distinctly Christian author­ ities (the “fathers” ), texts, and doctrines. Christians ought not to shy away from Greek thinkers and texts, but dive into them, with an awareness o f their errors, but also with an appreciation for the natural and moral truths they express. A Christian who is educated in the Greek curriculum can do this, 210. G r e g o r y o f N y s s a , Vit. Mos. 2.112-16. 211. For Origen s use o f the spoliation model, see Letter to Gregory and also Gregory Thaumaturgos’ Oration to Origen (PG 10.1087), where Gregory relates that his teacher Origen "or­ dered” his students to "philosophize about everything, including the philosophers and poets, rejecting nothing” except what concerned the nature o f God. Philo (Mos. 1.25) reads the spolia­ tion o f the Egyptians as an exacting o f justice. 212. Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.115 (SC 1,174).

precisely because he has the proper formation and training to do this. In this regard, Moses is the perfect paradigm: the first to receive a revelation o f the fullness of philosophical truth, the leader of the Israelites who guides the way toward a life o f virtue in all respects.213 In many ways, Gregory's views mirror his brother Basil's. At the same time, Gregory also represents a new stage in the conception o f a Christian education: the development o f a Chris­ tian curriculum outside o f and independent o f Greek schools. As the most "philosophical” o f the Cappadocians, and, ironically, the only one educat­ ed outside o f the Greek schools, Gregory asserts a pedagogic authority over the authorities o f the Greeks completely within Christian circles. “Outside” learning was brought “inside,” as a secondary canon. This was an important “mutation” in the reproductive cycle o f the Greek schools, as a Christian pedagogical curriculum emerged. The bioi o f Pythagoras and Moses issued from dispute over the origins and possession o f truth. According to the Greeks, Pythagoras had system­ atized the knowledge and practices he had gathered from foreign peoples into a body o f doctrines and a way o f life that came safely to rest in the hands o f the Pythagoreans and Platonists o f the fourth century. For those Chris­ tians who built upon the traditions o f Philo and Origen, the more ancient Moses was the philosopher, ruler, and priest par excellence. The precious books o f the Law, whose full meaning could be uncovered through allegori­ cal interpretation, revealed the fullness o f truth entrusted to Moses by the God o f the Hebrews. Misunderstood for a time, the incarnation o f the very Logos who spoke with Moses established the transmission o f true philoso­ phy in the hands o f the apostles and their successors, the bishops. In these bioi we can detect an emerging narrative o f revelation-declinerenewal taking shape in accounts o f philosophical history. In the thick o f the philosophical competition o f the late third and early fourth century, Porphy­ ry and Eusebius composed biographies o f the founders. Given the proximity o f their intellectual pedigrees, it is perhaps not surprising that the same biog­ raphers would identify epochs o f philosophical renewal in the lives o f their mentors, Plotinus and Origen. To them we now turn. 213. See Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.153.

Plotinus and Origen Biography and the Renewal o f Philosophy

Numenius o f Apamea had charged Plato’s Academic successors with abandoning the original (Pythagorean) Plato, thus driving philosophy into a state o f decline. He called for a reform that would strip away the hermeneu­ tical traditions o f the Hellenistic schools in order to establish a Neopythagorean Platonism. Both Greek and Christian intellectuals seized on the spirit, if not the letter, of Numenius’s revisionist program in a competitive strug­ gle to reform the philosophical field.1 Both parties agreed that the Academic tradition and the proliferation of philosophical schools signaled a decline in the state o f Greek philosophical thought. O f particular interest to both sides of this debate was the relation o f Hebrew wisdom to Greek philosophy. Numenius’s own esteem for Hebrew writings as a source o f divine knowledge could influence both Porphyry’s account o f Pythagoras, while buttressing the claims o f Origen, Eusebius, and others regarding the antiquity and legiti­ macy o f Christian philosophy.2 Porphyry characterized philosophical history 1. Porphyry reports that Plotinus and his students read, collated, and commented on N u ­ menius’s works. Amelius, in particular, took interest in the writings o f the philosopher. See Vit.

Plot. 3; 14. Porphyry included Numenius among the authors Origen had studied. See also Euse­ bius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.8. Eusebius himself preserves a lengthy citation o f Numenius’s treatise On the Disagreement o f the Academics against Plato in Praep. ev. 14, which he included to highlight the agreement between Plato and Moses, while emphasizing the discontinuity between Plato and his institutional successors. 2. See Joseph W. Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (Atlan­ ta, Ga.: John Knox, 1983), 70. M arkJ. Edwards (“Atticizing Moses? Numenius, the Fathers, and the Jew s,” VC 44, no.i [1990]: 64-75) is not convinced o f the scholarly or patristic assessment o f Numenius’s expertise in Hebrew literature, claiming instead that Numenius was familiar

as one o f corruption, decline, and renewal. He lamented the wandering o f the Greeks from the "path o f the gods,” and acknowledged the fidelity o f the Egyptians and Hebrews to this ancient wisdom.*3 Eusebius’s understanding of philosophical origins produced a Christian "counter-history” that challenged Greek assumptions about the origins and transmission of philosophy. Yet, it was not simply an alternative narrative. This Christian “counter-history” incorporated the Greek narrative, character­ izing it as the inferior path o f decline. The Hebrews, who held an esteemed, though minor, position in Porphyry’s bios of Pythagoras as one source from which the ancient philosopher drew to systematize Greek philosophy, possess a central position at the beginning o f Eusebius’s narrative. Moses had intro­ duced the Hebrews to a systematic philosophy of ethics, logic, and physics, prior to any of the Greek philosophers.4 Therefore, any similarity in doctrine came as a result o f Plato’s plagiarism o f Moses. In this regard, Greek philoso­ phy was in part a corruption and decline o f the Mosaic revelation. Thus, Euse­ bius skillfully turned the table on Numenius and his reform program, indeed “separating” Plato from the Academy (as Numenius had suggested), but at­ taching him not to Pythagoras, but to Moses. In revisiting the origins o f philosophy, Christian and Greek pepaideumenoi produced bioi, which served as arenas o f competition. The bioi o f Moses and Pythagoras employed a criterion o f antiquity to bridge the past and pres­ ent. They also addressed questions of epistemology, intellectual status, and ethnicity. Yet if the goal was to demonstrate a continuity from origins to the present in an unbroken line o f transmission, these and subsequent accounts fall short. Their overarching narratives contained severe ruptures and tem­ poral gaps. Neither party could demonstrate a clear and unbroken chain of institutional continuity. This was resolved by marking out moments o f “re­ newal” or rediscovery, whether in particular teachers, schools, or lineages, when latent philosophy reemerged in its original form. For example, Euse­ bius regarded Moses as a point o f origin, followed by decline and suppres­ sion under the Jews. The incarnation o f the Logos signaled the revelation par excellence o f wisdom. But this itself was followed by periods o f persecu­ tion and heresy, the devil’s work to impede the transmission o f true wisdom. with “heterodox” Jewish traditions, which he conflated with Platonic, Homeric, and Gnostic themes. 3 . Porphyry, frags. gart: Teubner,

32 31-

and

19 9 3 ], 37 1).

4. Busebius, Pracp. ev. 11.1.

324F

(in Porphyrii philosophi fragmenta, ed. Andrew Smith [Stutt­

Then suddenly a formidable articulation o f Christian philosophy arose in the teaching of Origen, a renewal of philosophy recounted in book 6 o f the Ec­ clesiastical History. Defining a renewal requires a restatement o f the relationship o f the pres­ ent to the mythic past through a point o f reference in the present or very re­ cent past. Philosophical bioi traced the transmission o f philosophy through portraits o f founders and their students, descendants in wisdom, who taught and lived in harmony with the founders. In the context o f a third-century dis­ course o f philosophical decline and renewal, the links o f philosophical histo­ ry extended and diverged in the biographical accounts o f the century’s two most influential intellectuals, Origen and Plotinus, students o f Ammonius. Their biographers and students, Eusebius and Porphyry respectively, pro­ duced bioi that located their subjects at crucial and competing moments of philosophical renewal and rediscovery, while capitalizing on personal con­ nections to their subjects that served as springboards to recommence broken or stunted chains o f transmission.

The Life o f Plotinus: The D aem on Who Was Once a Man In the years leading up to the outbreak of persecution against Christians in 303, Porphyry published two o f his best known works: Against the Christians and The Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Works (Vit. Plot.).5 These works of the twilight years o f his career proved to be especially potent in his program of promoting a religious and philosophical tradition grounded in the thought and person o f Plotinus. Other works, such as the Isagoge and the Sentences, also contributed to the systematization of a Plotinian-based curric­ ulum and line o f intellectual inquiry.6 The composition o f these works also coincided with the earliest composition o f Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, in­ 5. For issues related to the identification o f fragments with a work o f Porphyry entitled Against the Christians and the dating o f these fragments, see Tim othy D. Barnes, "Porphyry, Against the Christians: Date and Attribution o f Fragments,” J T S n.s. 24 (1973): 424-42; and Eliza­ beth DePalma Digeser, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca, N.Y.: C o r­ nell University Press, 2000), 95-96. 6. See, for example, Vit. Plot. 24. Porphyry’s Isagoge remained a standard introductory text to the study o f philosophy for nearly one thousand years. A preparatory w ork on logic, it covered material o f a Peripatetic origin. Marius Victorinus made a Latin translation o f the work. See the translation and commentary o f Jonathan Barnes, Porphyry: Introduction, Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

eluding book 6 with its account o f the life o f Origen and the church at Alex­ andria. Thus, at the close o f the third century, the heirs o f Plotinus and Ori­ gen were laboring hard to define the contours o f their teachers’ influence on religion and philosophy.7 While Eusebius had at his disposal the resources o f the episcopal see, including the library and Christian school at Caesarea, it is difficult to say whether Porphyry worked within the limits o f a comparable “institution.” One sometimes encounters the assumption, stated as fact, that Porphy­ ry took over the reins o f Plotinus’s “school” in Rome.8 This may give the impression that Plotinus was the head o f a formal educational institution. There is no indication that this was the case. He did not hold a formal, en­ dowed teaching post, such as the chairs o f philosophy and rhetoric estab­ lished by Marcus Aurelius at Athens; nor did he hold any position in a school of rhetoric. In his descriptions o f the philosophical circle he once belonged to, Porphyry never uses the term σχολή, which normally indicated a formal institution.9 Rather, he uses terms, such as διατριβή (“lecture” ) and συνουσία (“seminar” ), that refer more to the gatherings and activities o f groups o f in­ tellectuals. Thus, the gathering o f students that began to gravitate around Plotinus after he arrived in Rome (ca. 244) is best described as a loosely orga­ nized “circle” o f intellectuals. This could be further subdivided into a larger, outer circle o f άκροαταί, comprised o f associates ranging from aspiring phi­ losophers to the occasional listener, and a smaller inner circle o f ζήλωταί, or close working-partners and students who had immediate access to the teach­ er.10 Like other intellectuals o f his time (including Origen), Plotinus relied on the patronage of wealthy individuals. Porphyry writes in Vit. Plot, that a cer­ tain Gemina “owned the house he lived in,” making him a type o f “scholar7. Gillian Clark suggests a connection between the editing o f Plotinus’s work and a "percep­ tion o f Christian success.” See “Philosophic Lives,” 43. 8. See, for example, Romano, Porfirio, 124. He also describes Porphyry as the "nuovo capo della scuola di Rom a" (125). There is simply very scant evidence regarding Porphyry’s teaching activities after the death o f Plotinus. Porphyry vigorously emphasized his role as biographer and editor o f Plotinus’s works. If he had also assumed the reins o f a school, one would think this would also be worthy o f mention. 9. See discussion in Glucker, Antiochus, 160-66, and Marie-Odile Goulet-Caze, “ L’arriereplan scolaire de la Vie de Plotin," in Porphyre: La Vie de Plotin, vol. i, ed. Luc Brisson et al., Histoire des doctrines de l’Antiquite classique 6 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1982), 231-57. 10. See Watts, City and School, 31-32. In Vit. Plot. 7, Porphyry provides a list o f Plotinus’s stu­ dents, both ζηλωταί and άκροαταί. His inner circle included doctors, poets, and philosophers. Am ong his auditors were senators and rhetoricians. According to the testimony o f Porphyry, preserved in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.6, Origen was an ακροατής o f Ammonius.

in-residence.” 11 Living in this household community with Plotinus were his closest students (among whom were Amelius and Porphyry), as well as the children o f aristocratic families, entrusted to Plotinus as guardian on their parents’ deaths, for their educational, financial, and legal well-being. Plotinus died in 270. No strong evidence exists to suggest that when he had taken ill and removed himself from Rome in order to convalesce in Cam­ pania, any kind o f “school” or institution continued to function in his ab­ sence. In fact, most o f the members o f his inner circle had already scattered to various localities: Porphyry was in Sicily battling depression; Amelius had taken up teaching in Apamea; and Eustochius was in Puteoli. Only Castricius was in Rome, but it is unlikely that he had taken on the teaching duties o f Plotinus.12 It is highly probable, then, that the circle o f Plotinus simply disbanded and scattered once his sickness became so severe that he could no longer teach. Given his aversion to attracting attention to his person, Ploti­ nus did not arrange for the continuation o f a school based on his personal authority.13 We also should not assume that Plotinus’s fame and reputation as the founder o f “Neoplatonism” was a given. In fact, we might say that this was a project that his students initiated after his death, sometimes collaborating to further the standing o f their teacher in the philosophical field, sometimes competing with one another. Without any institutional structures clearly de­ fining an official succession, Plotinus’s students adopted various strategies to capitalize on their “consecrating” relationship with him. But first a “process o f canonization” that established and imposed the authority o f Plotinus as an agent o f consecration had to take place, and did, in fact, begin during the philosopher’s lifetime.14 It was not until 253, just about ten years after he had arrived in Rome, that Plotinus had begun to commit his teaching to writing: 11. Luc Brisson ("Plotin: Une biographie,” in Porphyre: La Vie dePlotin, vol. 2, ed. Luc Brisson et al., Histoire des doctrines de l’Antiquite classique 16 [Paris: J. Vrin, 1982], 10) identifies Gemina as an aristocratic widow, and possibly the wife o f the emperor Trebonius (251-53). See Lu ­ kas De Blois, “ Plotinus and Gallienus,” Instrumenta Patristica 19 (1989): 69-82, on the possibility o f imperial patronage for Plotinus’s activity. Mark J. Edwards (ed. and trans., Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives o f Plotinus and Proclus by Their Students, Translated Texts for Historians 35 [Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000], xxiv), while acknowledging Gallienus’s patronage o f the arts during his reign, believes D e Blois’s case is overstated. 12. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 2. 13. In Vit. Plot, i, Porphyry reports that Plotinus refused to allow his portrait to be made. His silence on his birth date (Vit. Plot. 2) m ay have been a w ay to prevent the celebration o f him as founder. See, Fowden, “ Pagan Philosophers,” 156. 14. Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 123.

up to that point, he had simply followed the example o f his teacher Ammonius, who relied on oral transmission o f his teaching through his ζηλωταί.15 Porphyry writes that the circulation o f these writings was limited. So averse was Plotinus to writing that his students had to beg him to produce writ­ ten treatises.16 These treatises, which were probably more like lecture notes, were entrusted to his closest students, Eustochius, Porphyry, and Amelius, all o f whom played a role in the editing and dissemination o f their master’s work, both during and after his lifetime.17 Yet it was not until thirty years after Plotinus’s death that Porphyry pub­ lished an edition o f his writings, the Enneads, with a companion bios append­ ed to the beginning. This collection, whose full title is The Life o f Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Works, was perhaps his most influential contribution in the defining o f an era o f philosophical renewal and reform centered on Plo­ tinus. Porphyry emphasizes the uniqueness o f Plotinus, not only in the mas­ tery o f his teaching, but also in his personal sanctity: he was an intimate and messenger o f the gods, no mere man, but a daemon become man. The redac­ tion and systematic arrangement o f Plotinus’s writings represented a new canon o f philosophical texts to be read alongside the already existing canon o f foundational Greek literature, including Plato and Homer. In fact, for the student o f philosophy, Homer and Plato were to be read through Plotinus. Finally, we cannot overlook the position that Porphyry continued to craft for himself in this process. At the dawn o f the fourth century, the remainder of Plotinus’s inner circle had either died or faded from the philosophical scene, leaving Porphyry as the custodian and mediator of his teacher’s legacy. The Life of Plotinus follows the basic pattern o f an ancient bios. While mys­ tery surrounds Plotinus’s birth, Porphyry informs his readers o f the philos­ opher’s youth, education, circle o f followers, teachings, and death. The bios is unusual in the two opening episodes: Amelius’s furtive attempt to have a portrait made o f Plotinus, and the philosopher’s death.18 In the limited space 15. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 4. 16. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 5. 17. See A. H. Armstrong, in Plotinus, Enneads, ed. and trans. A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classi­ cal Library 440 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), i:ix. For the possibility that Euse­ bius may have quoted from Eustochius’s edition o f Plotinus and not Porphyry’s, see Paul Hen­ ry, Recherches sur la Preparation Evangilique d ’Eusebe et Vedition perdue des oeuvres de Plotin publiee par Eustochius (Paris: E. Leroux, 1935), 73-80. 18. For discussion o f these episodes, see Mark J. Edwards, "Birth, Death, and Divinity in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus,” in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 2000), 52-71.

allowed here, I would like to concentrate on the latter chapters o f the bios, in which Porphyry presents four “testimonies” (μαρτυρία)19—one from Amelius, two from the contemporary critic Longinus, and one from an oracle of Apollo—which serve as legitimating voices whose authority Porphyry re­ garded as sufficient for securing the name o f Plotinus within the annals of philosophical history. Four Testim onies: C reating the L egacy o f Plotinus It was the duty o f students to preserve, promote, and transmit the legacy o f their teacher. In chapter 17, Porphyry reproduces the prologue o f Amelius’s How Plotinus Differs from Numenius in His Doctrine, a treatise written to refute the accusation o f plagiarism leveled by “those in Greece” against Plo­ tinus.20 Dedicated to Porphyry, the prologue gives insight into the activi­ ties o f Plotinus’s students as they defended his reputation and position as a philosophical authority. Having accused Plotinus o f passing off Numenius’s teachings as his own, the recognized Athenian authorities refused to cred­ it him with any significant, original contribution to the philosophical field. In response, Porphyry and Amelius collaborated on this defense o f Plotinus, which was intended to demonstrate Plotinus’s skills as a teacher and expert philosopher. Amelius writes that this was an opportune time “to put our own beliefs in a more memorable form” and “to make more widely known the things that have admittedly been famous for a long time, thus securing our friend the renown that is due to the great Plotinus.” 21 This is one instance in the Vit. Plot, where Porphyry gives us a glimpse o f Amelius’s efforts. His­ tory has remembered Porphyry as the great protege o f Plotinus, but Ame­ lius had already been studying with Plotinus for eighteen years by the time Porphyry arrived in Rome,22 and was a member o f his circle for twenty-four years total. He was an expert in the writings o f Numenius and thus was best suited to compose the defense.23 Amelius also authored a text entitled On the 19. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 22 (Brisson, 170). 20. Presumably these Greeks are philosophers in Athens, possibly other independent Platonists, or perhaps intellectuals connected to the school o f the official diadochos o f Platonic phi­ losophy at Athens. The diadochos would have been the holder o f the chair o f Platonic philoso­ phy and not the head o f the Academ y or any other independent philosophical school. A t Vit.

Plot. 15.18 (Brisson, 156), Porphyry names one Eubulus as "the Platonist diadochos in Athens,” who requested opinions on philosophical matters from Plotinus and Porphyry. 21. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 17.25-29 (Brisson, 160); trans. Edwards, 31, with modification. 22. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 4. 23. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 3.

Method of the Philosophy of Plotinus24 and collated an early edition o f Ploti­ nus’s writings, which Luc Brisson has referred to as a “school edition,” an inhouse canon predating Porphyry’s edition o f the Enneads.25 Amelius had also commented on the Gospel o f John and the Christian doctrine o f the incarna­ tion.26 On Plotinus’s retirement to Campania, Amelius established himself at Apamea, where Numenius had once taught, and perhaps began teaching in the tradition o f Numenius and Plotinus.27 Next, Porphyry invokes the authoritative voice o f Longinus, a leading feritikos o f the time, and his former teacher at Athens. Longinus himself had studied with Ammonius and Origen the Neoplatonist at Alexandria before settling in Athens to establish his own school.28 While it is clear that Longi­ nus was somewhat critical o f Plotinus’s approach to Plato (and Plotinus once commented that Longinus was a “lover o f words” [φιλόλογος] but “certainly not a lover o f wisdom” ),29 Porphyry cites him nevertheless, as “the greatest critic among us [τού καθ’ ημάς κριτικωτάτου],” a leading authoritative voice on contemporary literature and philosophy, whose opinions would be heard and respected.30 In chapter 19, Porphyry reproduces a letter, which Longinus sent to him from Phoenicia, requesting copies of Plotinus’s writings. This letter demon­ strates that at the time o f its composition, there was as yet no edited or col­ lated edition o f Plotinus’s works circulating outside the immediate circle of his students. Longinus expresses frustration at the incomplete and defective cop­ ies in his possession, and asks Porphyry to bring him other treatises, which he had not yet read. The kritikos voices his reservations concerning some o f Ploti­ nus’s doctrines, but he ranks the philosopher among the most distinguished of 24. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20.101. 25. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20.5-7. Luc Brisson, "Amelius: Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa doctrine, son style,” ANRW 36.2: 806-10. 26. See Eusebius, Praep. ev. 11.19. 27. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 2. See also Brisson, 'Amelius,” 802. Athanassiadi identifies Amelius’s residence in Apamea as the terminus post quem for the rupture o f Platonism from the authority o f Numenius. See Lutte, 90-91. 28. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20. 29. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 14.19-20 (Brisson, 156). 30. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20.1 (Brisson, 164). The Suda attributes a number o f works to Longi­ nus, now lost, o f both a literary and a philosophical nature. Porphyry names several o f his writ­ ings, including On Principles and The Love of Antiquity (Vit. Plot. 14.18) and On Impulse (Vit. Plot. 17.11). In ch. 20, Porphyry cites an extensive selection from Longinus's O n the End. Longinus left Athens in the mid-26os for Tyre. He was executed in 272 or 273 for his political involvement with Queen Zenobia o f Palmyra. See Brisson, Porphyre, 1:91-95; and Luc Brisson and Michel Patillon, “ Longinus Platonicus Philosophus et Philologus,” A N R W 36.7: 5214-99.

philosophical writers: “I feel the utmost admiration and affection for the gen­ eral character of his writing, the closeness of his thinking, and the philosophi­ cal way in which he deals with his enquiries; and I think that seekers after truth must rank his works among the most important [μετά των έλλογιμωτάτων].” 31 One can easily sense Porphyry’s defensive reaction in chapter 20 toward Longi­ nus’s criticism of Plotinus’s philosophy. What is most important is Longinus’s final assessment (in itself reserved praise) o f Plotinus’s writings. Subsequently, Porphyry quotes from the preface o f Longinus’s On the End, a work composed in response to Plotinus and Amelius. It serves Por­ phyry’s strategy in several ways. First, it offers a favorable judgment o f Plo­ tinus’s writings and original teaching, and singles him out as an expert in Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy. In fact, Longinus declares that Ploti­ nus “has expounded the principles of Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy more clearly than anyone before him."32 He also ranks Plotinus among the most important Platonists o f his day, along with the otherwise unknown teach­ ers Eucleides, Democritus, and Proclinus, who, unlike Plotinus, did not pro­ duce any substantial writings. In his assessment o f Plotinus’s colleagues, he notes Amelius’s fidelity to his teacher, but continues with a criticism: while Amelius walks in Plotinus’s footsteps, and very often agrees with him, he sometimes rambles and “pursues the opposite goal to that o f Plotinus.” 33 Following this critique o f Amelius, he continues with a brief commentary on Porphyry, whom he commends for his efforts “in imitation o f Plotinus (κατά την Πλωτίνου μίμησιν).” 34 Porphyry, o f course, seizes on this modest praise from his former teacher as an accolade that designates him the best-qualified heir o f Plotinus. His comments are worth quoting at length: H e w r o t e t h i s b e c a u s e h e w a s p e r f e c t l y a w a r e t h a t I h a d in a ll r e s p e c t s a v o i d e d t h e u n p h i l o s o p h i c a l r a m b l i n g s o f A m e l i u s [ τ ή ς Ά μ ε λ ί ο υ π ε ρ ιβ ο λ ή ς τ ό « φ ιλ ό σ ο φ ο ν ] a n d w a s l o o k i n g t o t h e s a m e g o a l a s P l o t i n u s i n m y w r i t i n g . I t is e n o u g h t h a t a m a n o f s u c h s t a t u r e [ i . e . , L o n g i n u s ] , w h o s e p r e - e m i n e n c e a s a c r i t i c is a c k n o w l e d g e d t o t h i s d a y , w r it e s a b o u t P lo t in u s in s u c h a w a y t h a t, i f it h a d a ls o b e e n p o s s ib le f o r m e P o r p h y r y t o j o i n h im w h e n h e in v it e d m e , h e w o u l d n o t h a v e w r it t e n a g a in s t h im in th e w a y h e v e n t u r e d t o w r it e b e f o r e a c q u ir in g a n a c c u r a t e k n o w l e d g e o f th e d o c t r in e s .35

31. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 19.37-42 (Brisson, 164); trans. Armstrong, 1:55 (LCL). 32. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20.73-74 (Brisson 166-68); trans. Armstrong, 61 (emphasis mine). 33. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20.77-80 (Brisson, 168); trans. Edwards, 38. 34. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 20.92 (Brisson, 168). 35. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 21.17-24 (Brisson, 170); trans. Edwards, 39. Edwards notes that this is Porphyry’s “frankest criticism” o f his colleague Amelius.

The final and most compelling o f the testimonies, in Porphyry’s estima­ tion, derives from an oracle o f Apollo: “If one must make use o f the testi­ monies that come from the wise, who could be wiser than a god.” 36 This final testament to the legitimacy, authority, and supremacy o f Plotinus’s phil­ osophical expertise caps the steady progression o f authoritative voices: from colleague to critic to god. The oracle also brings the bios proper to a fitting close. The account that began with Plotinus’s discomfort with his embodi­ ment and the breakdown o f his bodily function ends with a divine hymn ex­ tolling the life o f his immortal soul, freed from corporeal constraint. Por­ phyry does not explain the precise origins o f the oracle, except to say that it was given in response to Amelius’s query regarding the fate o f Plotinus’s soul.37 The oracle performs several functions. It praises Plotinus’s achieve­ ments and contributions as a teacher and guide. It suggests that Plotinus was led by divine inspiration and echoes other remarks in the bios as to Plotinus’s transcendence o f ordinary human existence. It also situates Plotinus within a very prestigious philosophical lineage, and not just as an heir, but on equal footing with the iconic philosophical ancestors o f the past. The commentary provided by Porphyry, moreover, seeks to interpret the oracle more specifi­ cally through the lens o f Plotinus’s teaching in the Enneads and the portrait of the philosopher in the Vit. Plot.38 From the very beginning, Porphyry compares the present oracle with the 36. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 2 2 .1-4 (Brisson, 170); trans. Edwards, 40. 37. Scholars have debated the origins o f the oracle. Richard Goulet has excluded the possi­ bility that Porphyry was the author o f the oracle on several grounds, including that Porphyry’s claim that the oracle was received by Amelius (and not himself), and also because Porphyry’s interpretation o f the oracle often goes against the sense o f the original text. Luc Brisson and Jean-Marie Flamand ("Structure, contenu et intentions de l’Oracle d’Apollon [Porphyre, V P 22], in Porphyre: La Vie de Plotin, ed. Luc Brisson et al. [Paris: J. Vrin, 1982], 2:565-602) agree with Goulet, while H. R. Schw yzer maintains that Porphyry was the author o f the oracle. Jesus Igal (“ El enigma del oraculo de Apolo sobre Plotino,” Emerita 52 [1984]: 83-115) argues that Amelius composed the oracle. See also Richard Goulet, "Sur quelques interpretations recents de YOracle d ’Apollon,” in Porphyre: La Vie de Plotin (Brisson et al.), 2:604. Mark Edwards (Neoplatonic Saints, 40 n.229) remarks, “Those who regard the oracle as ‘genuine’ must think either that Apollo was its author or that Plotinus was more celebrated than any philosopher has a right to be.” Given the oracle’s saturation in the language and mythological world o f H om er and Hesiod, Edwards has doubts about its composition by a priest at an oracular shrine. Aude Busine has argued, however, that the expert inclusion o f Homeric allusions and Platonic concepts was typical o f oracular utterances, especially those that were sought out for the purpose o f heroicizing an il­ lustrious person. According to Busine, the oracle on Plotinus bears similarities in both form and content to other oracular productions o f the period from the shrines o f Apollo at Claros and Didyma. See Aude Busine, Paroles d ’Apollon: Pratiques et traditions oraculaires dans I’Antiquite tardive (lle-VIe siecles), Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 156 (Boston: Brill, 2005), 307-13. 38. Busine, Paroles d ’Apollon, 313.

oracle Apollo had spoken to Socrates: “He was the one who had said so grand­ ly o f Socrates: O f all men the most wise is Socrates/” 39 In this way Plotinus inherits the stature o f Socrates. It is also notable that the oracle spoken on be­ half o f Plotinus is considerably longer than Socrates’s oracle and composed in a style reminiscent o f Homer. Apollo, accompanied by the Muses, hymns Plotinus as his “sweet friend” (άγανοίο φίλοιο), an intimate who, through his ef­ forts and with the assistance of God, had achieved that union with the One that was the goal of his philosophical life. The hymn alludes to the descent and embodiment of Plotinus’s soul, as well as to its release at death and ascent into the company o f the blessed, where he took his rightful place beside his forebears. The hymn epitomizes the scope o f the bios and its accompanying collection of Plotinus’s writings, presenting the philosopher as a unique sage who had been sent into the world to restore the untainted wisdom o f Pythag­ oras and Plato. The oracle addresses Plotinus as a sage who transcends the normal bounds of human existence: “O daemon, [you who were] a man before [δαΐμον, avep το πάροιθεν], but who now draw near to the more divine destiny o f the dae­ mon, since you have loosed the bond o f human necessity, and in the vigor o f your spirit have swum from the roaring billows o f the bodily frame towards the shore of a peaceful headland.” 40 The Apollonian oracle merely confirms what Porphyry has communicated throughout the bios—that Plotinus was something more than an ordinary man. He did indeed “possess something greater by birth than the others.” 41 Introduced as one who “seemed to be ashamed that he was in a body,” the details and circumstances o f his birth left as a mystery, Plotinus was in the very essence of his soul above the rest o f humanity. Plotinus possessed a daemonic soul (ψυχής δαιμονίης) trapped in a corporeal tomb during his life in the material realm.42 In Platonic cosmology, the daemon was conceived o f as a guardian spirit, an intermediary between the divine and human, who would assist the soul in its ascent to the highest Good.43 Socrates possessed a daemon. But Plotinus was a daemon, and thus could be regarded as an incarnate daemon who acted as a guiding spirit for all who approached and listened to him. 39· Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 22.9 -11 (Brisson, 170); trans. Edwards, 40. Cf. Plato, Apology 21a. 40. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 22.23-28 (Brisson, 172); trans. Edwards, 41, with modification. 41. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 10.14 (Brisson, 152): ήν γάρ και κατά γένεσιν τίκίον τι ϊχων παρά τούς άλλους ό Πλωτίνος (my translation). 42. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 22.46 (Brisson, 172). 43. Sec Enn. 3.4 lor Plotinus's teaching on daemons.

Plotinus himself had taught that the guiding spirit o f the wise man was none other than God.44 Porphyry had already made this case for Plotinus with the report in chapter io o f an Egyptian priest’s attempt to conjure the phi­ losopher’s daemon. The priest was left amazed when it was not a daemon who emerged but a god made manifest, causing the priest to exclaim: “Blessed are you [μακάριος εΐ] who have god as your daemon who is not among the inferior race [ού τού ύφειμένου γένους]!” 45 This god must be none other than the One, whom Plotinus himself had identified as Apollo, the very god who hymns the philosopher,46 In his commentary on the oracle, Porphyry informs his reader that Plotinus had successfully approached this “god above all” on several oc­ casions.47 He explains that Plotinus was a “daemon-man” (δαίμων φως), posi­ tioned in an intermediary place between God and humanity, “hurrying on to the divine” and pointing the way for others. The oracle confirms the contention of Porphyry that the gods were di­ rectly involved in Plotinus’s work, from his spiritual vision to his teaching and writing. One might say that Plotinus served as a conduit o f divine rev­ elation and guidance. Four times Plotinus had achieved the goal o f union (τό ένωθήναι). Even once would have been extraordinary. Porphyry maintains that he himself, following in the footsteps of his teacher, had experienced this union at the age o f sixty-eight.48 The oracle indicates that Plotinus had entered into this “goal ever near” with the aid of the immortal gods: “Of­ ten, as the shafts o f your mind were set loose to run in veering paths by their own impulses, the immortal ones set them straight and raised them up to the spheres in their deathless course, sending a frequent ray of light to enable your eyes to see through the maudlin gloom.” 49 In his commentary, Porphy­ ry explains that Plotinus “led himself up” to the transcendent god through contemplation and following the course laid out by Socrates and Plato. The inspiration o f the gods extended also to Plotinus’s writings: “It is still said that the gods often straightened his path, when he was going through oblique pathways, by according him a strong ray o f light, and thus were his writings written under the inspection and surveillance of the gods.” 50 Per­ See Enn. 3.4.6.4. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 10.23 (Brisson, 152); my translation. 46. Plotinus, Enn. 5.5.6. See Brisson and Flamand, “Structure, contenu et intentions de l’Oracle d’Apollon,” 570. 44.

45.

47. Busine, Paroles d ’Apollon, 314.

48. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 23.

49. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 22.35-39 (Brisson, 172); trans. Edwards, 42. 50. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 23.18-21 (Brisson, 174); m y translation.

haps it was this "ray o f light” emanating from his mind that caused his entire countenance to be illuminated.51 His books put in words the unseen perfec­ tion o f his soul.52 One could say the same for Porphyry’s bios, which, as Ed­ wards has argued, seems to suggest that a portrait in words far surpassed a visual image in communicating the essence o f a soul.53 Thus, even the meth­ od o f memorializing his teacher would seem more appropriate than the por­ trait that Amelius had tried to produce. In response to Amelius’s question regarding the place o f Plotinus’s soul, the oracle declared that he took his place “among the assembly o f daemons” in the Elysian fields. Impressive company indeed! He had become a part­ ner in the "golden race” (χρυσείης γενεής) of Zeus’s progeny, a judge of souls along with Minos and Rhadamanthus.54 He also ascended to a position as the third member of a holy trinity o f philosophers, joining his predecessors Plato, “a holy force,” and “good Pythagoras.” 55 Therefore, Plotinus, as heir to the philosophical heritage o f Pythagoras and Plato (for which he had also received the human praise o f Longinus), is numbered among the mythical ancestral philosophers, that “choir o f immortal love,” who “have obtained a common descent [γε^εήν] with the blessed daemons," and who were sent to show humanity the way.56 The Vit. Plot, sketches for the reader an outline o f the signs o f Plotinus’s soul. But it is also an autobiography and apologia o f its author, Porphyry. In contrast to other philosophical bioi that have been discussed in this study, the number o f authorial self-references is unprecedented. No fewer than twentyfive times does Porphyry remind his audience o f his relationship with Ploti­ nus, thus enshrining his own memory alongside the great “daemon-man.” 57 51. See Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 13. Lucien Jerphagnon saw in this passage thematic and verbal parallels with the account o f Jesus’s Transfiguration in Matthew 17:2 that suggested to him an intentional response to the gospel literature on the part o f Porphyry See Lucien Jerphagnon, “ Les sous-entendus anti-chretiens de la Vita Plotini ou l’evangile de Plotin selon Porphyre,” Museum Helveticum 47 (1990): 44-45. W hile intriguing, I think this is less a case o f intentional mimicry by Porphyry than a similar (though not identical) use o f a common literary trope. For a parallel with Moses, see Gregory o f Nyssa, Vit. Mos. 2.230, and with Constantine, see Euse­ bius, Vit. Const. 3.10.3-4. 52. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 8.10. 53. Plutarch, Alexander 1. See M arkJ. Edwards, “A Portrait o f Plotinus,” Classical Quarterly 43 (1993): 480-90. 54. For Plotinus as judge o f souls, see Vit. Plot. 23.33-34. As collaborator with Minos and Rh­ adamanthus, see Vit. Plot. 22.52-53. 55. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 22.54-55 (Brisson, 172). 56. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 22.55-57 (Brisson, 172); my translation. 57. The majority o f self-references are explicit, that is, containing some form o f the first

In chapter 7, Porphyry lists the most prominent o f Plotinus’s closest follow­ ers, including Amelius and Eustochius. He describes himself as Plotinus’s “greatest companion.” Evidently, his strategy was successful, as later genera­ tions would remember the two in the same breath. Although Amelius may have spent more time with Plotinus, and also labored to promote his legacy, Porphyry steps forward as the favorite son, whom Plotinus had extolled as a “poet, philosopher, and hierophant.” 58 But perhaps most importantly, Por­ phyry was the custodian o f Plotinus’s books. By way of concluding this brief analysis o f the Life of Plotinus, something must be said about Porphyry’s account o f Plotinus’s books. Even the full ti­ tle o f Porphyry’s text, The Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Works, reminds us that the study o f Plotinus’s life serves as an introduction to the study o f his writings, and also his philosophy.59 In chapters 4 through 6, Por­ phyry lists in chronological order the titles o f Plotinus’s major treatises. Then, at the end o f the bios, in chapters 24-26, Porphyry explains and out­ lines his organization o f the treatises into the collection we know as the Enneads. The inclusion of a bibliography was a common element o f the philo­ sophical bios as is seen, for example in Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Books were, after all, a representation o f the sage’s soul.60 Ploti­ nus’s books were bound up with Porphyry’s reputation: it had been Amelius and himself who encouraged Plotinus to write in the first place. These pre­ cious texts, which captured the clear insights and meandering ruminations of a great teacher, had been personally entrusted to Porphyry, who had prom­ ised Plotinus that he would edit and publish them.61 It took thirty years. The person singular pronoun and Porphyry’s name. For example Vit. Plot. 7.49-51: Ισχε δέ και εμέ

Πορφύριον Τύριον όντα έν τοίς μάλιστα έταίρον, ον και διορθοΰν αυτού τα συγγράμματα ήξίου. "[Plo­ tinus] held me, Porphyry, among his closest companions, whom he entrusted with the correc­ tion o f his writings" (Brisson, 148; m y translation). Other examples o f self-references include Vit. Plot. 2.33; 4.1; 4.8; 4.12; 4.67; 5.3; 5.7; 5.60; 6.1; 7.27; 7.50; 11.11; 13.10; 15.x; 15.12; 16.15; 176; 18.9; 18.18; 19.2; 21.13; 21.22; and 23.13. 58. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 15.1-6 (Brisson, 156). According to Brisson (Porphyre, 2:267), three ti­ tles that Plotinus applied to Porphyry refer to the four forms o f divine frenzy outlined in Pha­

edrus 244 A: the poet represents poetic frenzy; the philosopher represents erotic frenzy; the hi­ erophant, mantic and telestic frenzy. The hierophant was the priest o f the sacred mysteries at Eleusis. 59. See Richard Valantasis, "Books as Spiritual Guide,” in Spiritual Guides of the Third Centu­ ry: A Semiotic Study o f the Guide-Disciple Relationship in Christianity, Neoplatonism, Hermetism, and Gnosticism, Harvard Dissertations in Religion 27 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991). 60. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 8.10. 61. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 24.3 (Brisson, 176). The verb έπέτρεψεν, meaning “ entrust,” can also carry the sense o f “bequeath.” At Vit. Plot. 24-26, Porphyry explains his decisions for arranging

F ig u r e 3 -1.

T h e p h ilo s o p h ic a l lin e a g e o f P o r p h y r y a s r e c o n s t r u c t e d f r o m h is w o r k s

followers o f Plotinus put great effort into the production and circulation o f texts as a way to cement the legacy and influence o f their teacher. Porphyry compared his task o f organizing Plotinus’s books to the work o f the students o f Aristotle and Theophrastus, who had also inherited and cared for the pre­ cious treasure o f a historic teacher.62 Access to Plotinus is made through Por­ phyry, who becomes the “prism o f the biography” and “focus and center of Plotinus’ works as he did, prefacing the section in this way: “Since he himself entrusted to us (ήμίν) to carry out the arrangement and correction o f his books, and I promised him while he was still alive, and to the other companions, that I would do it.” (Vit. Plot. 24.2-4 [Brisson, 176; m y translationi) 62. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 24.

Plotinus’ books.” 63 Porphyry was already an accomplished and authoritative philosopher by the time he published the Vit. Plot. But in the twilight o f his life, he carved out a place for himself in the annals o f philosophical history, securing his own “succession” in that history beside his master, laying claim to his own place in the lineage o f the great reformers o f philosophy, stretch­ ing back to Ammonius, and to the founders. Porphyry’s project o f defining, systematizing, and promoting a philosophi­ cal orthodoxy reached its zenith in The Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Works. Alongside his Philosophical History, the bios and appended collection o f treatises comprise a curriculum, Porphyry’s contribution to the intellec­ tual and pedagogical conversation o f the day. What the oracle o f Apollo ut­ tered about Plotinus in mythic language, Porphyry expressed in a verbal por­ trait o f his teacher: that Plotinus was the rightful heir and faithful interpreter of Pythagoras and Plato; with him philosophical history witnessed an era of renewal. Embedded within the narrative are two overlapping philosophical lineages linking Plotinus to both the recent and the mythic past (figure 3-1). The reception and direction of the philosophical reformation heralded by Numenius is represented by the lineage derived from Ammonius: o f all the stu­ dents o f Ammonius, it was Plotinus who brought his teaching to its greatest fruition. Yet, Plotinus was not simply the product or mimic (or plagiarist) of his teachers. Rather, Porphyry affords him a unique place among the great fa­ thers, Pythagoras and Plato, themselves enlightened through their intimacy with the gods, and compilers o f a philosophical system bearing the stamp of Greek achievement. Thus, Plotinus stands at the intersection o f these lineages as a crucial “moment” in the history o f philosophy. Porphyry’s bios offers in narrative form an elaboration and interpretation o f the teaching of Plotinus as presented in the Enneads. Alongside the Philosophical History, it would serve as a seminal introduction in a process of tradition building, and perhaps could be considered that work’s perfect epilogue. Porphyry’s account of the origins, transmission, and renewal of divine wisdom would serve as the standard for generations of Neoplatonists (and Christians).64 63. Valantasis, Spiritual Guides, 59. 64. Glucker, Antiochus, 3x8-19: “ It would be only natural for the man who first spread the gos­ pel o f the new Platonism to evolve a quasi-historical theory, according to which the Platonism o f his master was not a new and original interpretation o f Platonism, but merely a rediscovery and a new revelation o f the true doctrine o f Plato himself.” Eunapius continued the process in his Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists; see ch. 5 in this volume. Augustine the Neoplatonist also subscribes to Porphyry’s philosophical narrative, regarding Plotinus as Plato redivivus. See Acad. 3.18.41.

Porphyry presents himself as the heir o f this precious pedigree and ex­ tends an offer o f adoption to his students and readers into the lineage of Plo­ tinus through study o f his writings. While his work was intended primarily for students o f Platonic philosophy sympathetic to the teaching of Ploti­ nus, Porphyry intended his work also to be a response to the critics o f Ploti­ nus, as well as his own critics and competitors, be they his former colleagues from the school o f Plotinus (or their students), or other “mainstream” phil­ osophical authorities o f his day, for example the official diadochoi at Athens. Without a doubt, the work also displays an awareness of the growing threat presented by Christian intellectuals, both “gnostics” and the students of Ammonius’s other prominent protege, Origen.65

Eusebius o f Caesarea: Custodian and Architect o f an Origenian Tradition At the close of the third century, Eusebius was bishop o f Caesarea. In­ spired by the teaching o f Origen, Eusebius made significant progress in es­ tablishing Caesarea as a Christian center o f philosophical renewal. Origen had arrived in Caesarea around 233, leaving Alexandria in conflict with its bishop, Demetrius. Origen worked as a grammatikos, a teacher o f Greek lit­ erature. Bishop Demetrius o f Alexandria later entrusted him with catecheti­ cal instruction. In an era when Christian teachers still operated in relative independence from local bishops and suspicion overshadowed philosophical­ ly oriented teachers with alleged “gnostic” tendencies, Demetrius aimed to consolidate oversight o f approved teachers under ecclesiastical supervision. One way to do this was to ordain lay teachers as presbyters.66 Origen’s ac­ tual position in relation to the ecclesiastical structures o f Alexandria was not clearly defined. Eusebius smoothes over this ambiguity by presenting Ori65. The only explicit reference to Christians in the Vit. Plot, is in ch. 16, where Porphyry com­ ments that Enn. 2.9 was written against Christian gnostics. Jerphagnon (“ Les sous-entendus antichretiens” ) has argued for a more sustained and subtle attack on Christianity throughout the Vit. Plot, by identifying verbal and thematic parallels with the gospels. His observation that the Christian entrance into the philosophical field posed a direct threat to Porphyry’s program o f philosophical reform and systematization is without a doubt correct. However, his thesis that the Vit. Plot, was intended primarily to construct Plotinus as a rational, disincarnate “ contreChrist” is, in m y opinion, overstated and does not give enough consideration to Porphyry’s re­ sponse to other competitors within the Greek philosophical field, or the literary tropes and con­ ventions typical o f biographical literature. 66. Trigg, Origen, 131.

gen’s so-called catechetical school as an officially sanctioned segment o f the ecclesial structure at Alexandria.67 In Caesarea, the study o f Greek literature and philosophy remained part o f the curriculum o f his school, which is de­ scribed in the Address of Thanksgiving to Origen, a panegyric composed by one o f his students. Origen’s own scholarly work was supported by aristocratic patrons, such as Ambrose, a former adherent o f the school of Valentinus.68 This could only serve to increase tensions with Demetrius.69 In his biographical account of Origen in book 6 o f the Ecclesiastical His­ tory, Eusebius downplays the increasing tensions between ecclesiastical and pedagogical authorities. As a result, he presents the pedagogic work of Ori­ gen as having occurred within an institution devoted to the study of Greek and Christian texts, under the jurisdiction of the bishop, whose authority was rooted in apostolic tradition. Origen’s pedagogic activity sits squarely within the framework o f Eusebius’s larger foundational history o f the Church. Ori­ gen emerges as an ascetic Christian teacher: he was devoted to books and study; he taught in schools; he engaged his opponents in philosophical de­ bate; and he practiced asceticism. Yet he differed from his Greek colleagues in his zealous devotion to Christ and the God o f Israel, and his insistence on the priority o f the revelation o f Hebrew and Christian texts. Origen stirred controversy both in life and in death.70 To his admirers he remained an intellectual genius, a clear and faithful expounder o f Christian orthodoxy, and a lover o f wisdom, whose total devotion to Christ inspired him to live the philosophical life o f study, teaching, prayer, and asceticism. 67. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.3.8. 68. Trigg, Origen, 80-82. See also Anthony Grafton and Megan H. Williams, Christianity and the Transformation o f the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2006), 78. Origen s Commentary on John and Exhortation to Martyrdom are among the works dedicated to Ambrose. 69. Another cause for the break with Demetrius seems to have been Origen’s preaching in the context o f a liturgy before the bishops o f Jerusalem and Caesarea. These bishops defended Origen’s pedagogic authority in a letter to Demetrius, preserved in part in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.17-18 (SC 41, 118): even though he is a layperson (λαϊκούς), he is deemed one o f those fit (επιτήδειοι) to preach in the presence o f bishops. In his Commentary onJohn (2.8-10), Origen him­ self seems to allude to the controversy at Alexandria that forced him to leave the city and inter­ rupt the composition o f the commentary. 70. In addition to the monograph o f Joseph Trigg, the standard comprehensive studies o f Origen remain Pierre Nautiris Origene, sa vie et son oeuvre, Christianisme antique 1 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977) and Henri Crouzel’s Origen, trans. A. S. Worrall (San Francisco: H arper and Row, 1989). A treatment o f the Origenist controversy is given by Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controvery: The Cultural Construction o f an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992).

His intellectual heirs at Caesarea promoted this image. The library he be­ queathed to that city contained not only his own writings and those of other Christian authors, but also biblical manuscripts and a collection of Greek lit­ erary and philosophical works. It was a treasure chest o f cultural and intel­ lectual capital that put Caesarea on the map as a center o f Christian scholar­ ship, reaching its apex under the direction of Eusebius. Discussion of Origen s relation to the Greek philosophical tradition is not within the purview o f this chapter. Nevertheless some comments are re­ quired here. Some have considered Origen a “Middle Platonist,” comparing his work to that o f other pre-Plotinian Platonists.71 Mark Edwards has strong­ ly refuted this classification in Origen against Plato, suggesting a reassessment o f scholarly positions that regard Origen as a type o f Platonist. What Ed­ wards offers instead is a view that regards the work of Origen as producing a Christian philosophical outlook that opposed Platonism. He questions the as­ sumption (rightly) that Platonists “exercised sovereign influence” in Origen’s Alexandria.72 In his conclusion, he asks a necessary question, “what is Pla­ tonism?” 73 If we take this question even further and inquire into the academ­ ic contexts, including the practices by which such intellectual identities were constructed, it becomes immediately evident that the “state o f Platonism” in this period was far from uniform, or even unified. There was no one iden­ tifiable and official dominating Platonism. Rather the communities o f intel­ lectuals who studied and commented on the works o f Plato in their circles across the empire did so in competition with each other. Moreover, Chris­ tians schooled in the same curriculum as other pepaideumenoi were trained in the use o f technical vocabulary and textual exegesis, which prepared them for participation in competitive dialogues with other colleagues. Origen and others were consciously carving out a distinctive Christian philosophy and way o f life. Nevertheless, to set out consciously to construct a philosophi­ cal complex opposed to another (the task o f the philosophical field) does not guarantee that one will not unconsciously assume common presuppositions, or pursue questions germane to the field at a given time. Origen was certainly familiar with both major and minor authors o f the Greek tradition, and his use o f these sources indicates his familiarity with philosophical methods o f discourse and the views o f different schools, and 71. For example, Henri Crouzel, Origene et la philosophic (Paris: Aubier, 1962). 72. Edwards, Origen against Plato, 47. 73. Ibid., 159.

an expertise in participating in debates on various topics, such as the nature o f God, the origin o f evil, and the destiny o f the soul.74 His writings attest to this, especially De principiis and Contra Celsum7 5 Origen lived in a period bridging Numenius, Ammonius, and Porphyry, that is, in the midst o f the re­ newal movement taking shape among Platonists. Like the Platonists, Origen considered the diversity and disagreement o f the schools as evidence o f their inability to attain truth. Not taking the skeptic view that this was evidence that truth was ultimately unreachable, he instead argued that they were founded upon inferior revelation and flawed understanding. Nevertheless, as incomplete as he may have considered it, Greek philosophy was a necessary possession for the Christian intellectual in the building up o f the Christian cause. He concedes with some reluctance in the Homilies on Jeremiah that, ridiculed like Jeremiah, he often had to cloak his Christian identity with his Greek erudition in order to gain a hearing from his opponents.76 Eusebius, moreover, cites a letter of Origen in which he defends his study o f Greek literature as a way to engage those philosophers who visited him.77 Origen thought, wrote, and worked in settings similar to those o f his Greek compet­ itors, having studied the same texts and having been formed in the schools o f Greek teachers. By relegating a limited validity and authority to Greek texts in favor of Christian texts, Origen regarded methods o f exegesis (allegory) and argumentation as outside o f any particular philosophical tradition, and as universal methods o f arriving at philosophical truth. Two texts produced by the Caesarean school of Origen contribute to our understanding o f its outlook and curriculum. In the first, the Letter of Origen to Gregory, a teacher outlines for his student the principles by which Chris­ tians ought to approach the philosophy o f the Greeks.78 The letter advocates 74. On Origen’s treatment o f these questions in relation to Platonism, see ibid. 75. See John M. Rist, "Beyond Stoic and Platonist: A Sample o f Origen's Treatment o f Phi­ losophy (Contra Celsum: 4:62-70),” in Platonismus und Christentum: Festschrift fiir Heinrich Dorrie, ed. Horst-Dieter Blume and Friedhelm Mann, Jahrbuch fur Antike und Christentum (Munster Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1983), 229. Others have noted Origen’s engagement with the Stoic tradi­ tion. See Henry Chadwick, “ Origen, Celsus and the Stoa,” JT S 48 (1947): 34-49! and Louis Roberts, “Origen and Stoic Logic,” Transactions o f the American Philological Association 101 (1970): 433-44. 76. Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah 20.5. 77. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.12. 78. Henri Crouzel (“ Gregor I,” in Reallexicon fiir Antike und Christentum 12 [1983]: 779-83) takes the letter to be addressed to Gregory Thaumaturgos. Slusser (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, 36-37), following Eric Junod (“Particularites de la Philocalie,” in Origeniana, ed. H. Crouzel et al., Quaderni di Vetera Christianorum 12 [Bari: Istituto di letteratura cristiana antica, Universita di Bari, 1975], 186 -87), is skeptical about the identification.

the study o f grammar, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy, and even Greek phi­ losophy itself as serving the advancement o f Christianity: "What the chil­ dren o f the philosophers say about geometry and music, grammar, rhetoric, and astronomy, as handmaids to philosophy, we also may say concerning phi­ losophy itself in relation to Christianity.” 79 Origen suggests that Greek phi­ losophy can be mined, that “useful” elements can be “extracted” for the pur­ pose of serving Christianity. Applying the allegory o f the spoliation o f the Egyptians, he suggests that those subjects which the Greeks have developed may beautify and enhance the articulation (and perhaps understanding) of the Christian revelation. He warns, however, that this is a delicate task, and some Christians, who have adopted a “certain Greek way,” have fallen into heresy. Origen concludes: “It is a rare person who takes what is useful from Egypt ... and makes things for the worship o f God.” 80 He exhorts his stu­ dent to devote himself first to the study o f Christian texts, and then to ap­ proach Greek authors with care. This letter, included within the Philokalia, represents what was accepted as an authoritative pedagogical methodology among the students and later admirers of Origen, including Eusebius and the Cappadocians. In addition to exposing contention between some central doctrines, it also reveals a Chris­ tian estimation o f the core literary and philosophical texts studied in the Greek schools. Origen encouraged his students to read Homer, Plato, and the other philosophers, alongside Christian texts, which had a primary posi­ tion in this curriculum. The view taken in Basil o f Caesarea’s Address to Young Men, a practical guide to the reading o f Greek texts, followed naturally from Origen’s approach. While Plato and Aristotle, and many o f the other classi­ cal philosophers, retain a qualified amount o f authority, their later interpret­ ers, such as Plotinus and Porphyry, are not afforded the same authority. Their writings were read, o f course, by Christian intellectuals, who provide count­ less citations, especially o f Porphyry; but they are construed as misreadings and misinterpretations o f Plato, or continuations o f the same errors that Pla­ to had made. Another text o f interest is the Address of Thanksgiving to Origen, which has been attributed to Gregory Thaumaturgos.81 The oration was delivered 79. Origen, Letter to Gregory 1 (PG n:88B); trans. Slusser, 190. 80. Origen, Letter to Gregory 3 (PG i i :89D); trans. Slusser, 191. 81. For the discussion o f scholarly opinion on the authorship o f the text, see Slusser, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, 16-21.

around 245 by a student o f Origen on the completion of his studies and de­ parture from the school at Caesarea. It offers insight into the methodolo­ gy, curriculum, and pedagogical approach behind Origen s theory of edu­ cation.82 Besides Porphyry's praise of Plotinus in the Life of Plotinus, it is the only other example from the period of a student’s extended description o f a teacher’s work. The oration describes a seven-year-long curriculum that in­ cluded the study o f logic, physics, geometry, astronomy, and ethics. He also assigned the study o f the Greek poets and philosophers, “rejecting nothing and repudiating nothing” except the opinion o f the “atheists.” 83 Origen al­ lowed discussion o f all matters, “both foreign and Greek.” Theological er­ rors were corrected by the writings o f the Hebrew prophets and the apos­ tles. The author describes Origen as a legitimate teacher o f philosophia, an all-encompassing, universal way o f thinking and acting. Origen is also char­ acterized as a θείος άνθρωπος by his admiring student, a man endowed with an understanding of divine truth and a living example of the philosophi­ cal life he taught. What the oration reveals is a curriculum that had at its foundations the same subjects and texts o f a typical Greek elementary, rhe­ torical, and philosophical education. No doubt it also reflects Origen’s own training. Atypical was the philosophical study o f Jewish and Christian texts, which were read in conjunction with Greek texts, but afforded higher author­ ity. Origen’s school attracted both Christian and non-Christian students (for example, the author of the oration became a Christian while studying with Origen), and exposed them to a modified, Christian paideia. This might have appealed to younger philosophy students curious about ancient “barbarian” wisdom. The student’s expression o f love, appreciation, and indebtedness to his teacher as a spiritual guide and father attest to the sense o f kinship, as well as intellectual, cultural, and spiritual formation that characterized higher ed­ ucation in the Greek world. As a teacher o f divine wisdom, Origen stood in special relation to the divine and, as a spiritual father, drew his students into that relationship. It has been suggested that the educational development de­ scribed in the Address is articulated in terms o f mythic salvation.84 Set on a path, the student also departed with the skills to engage Greek opponents.

82. J o s e p h T r ig g , “ G o d ’s M a r v e lo u s Oikonomia: R e fle c tio n s o f O r ig e n ’ s U n d e r s ta n d in g o f D iv in e a n d H u m a n P e d a g o g y in th e

Address A s c r ib e d

t o G r e g o r y T h a u m a t u r g u s ,” JECS 9, n o .i

(2001): 27-52. 83. G re g o ry T h a u m a tu rg o s,

Address

13 (P G

84. Valantasis, Spiritual Guides, 20-25.

i o :i o

8 8 A ).

The Life o f Pamphilus, Philosopher and Martyr Two admirers o f Origen would undertake the task o f building and pro­ moting an Origenian tradition through teaching, the collection and produc­ tion of texts, and the formation o f institutions, such as a school and library. Just as Amelius and Porphyry had written on behalf of their master’s con­ troversial teachings, so Eusebius of Caesarea coauthored a Defense of Origen and His Opinions with his teacher Pamphilus, while the latter was imprisoned during the persecution o f Diocletian. One o f six books has been preserved in a Latin translation o f Rufinus.85 After his teacher’s death, Eusebius also penned a Life of Pamphilus, which is no longer extant,86 and included an ex­ tensive biographical sketch o f Origen in book 6 o f the Ecclesiastical History. These biographical works served as the mortar in the construction o f an intellectual lineage o f Christian philosophers representing an AlexandrianCaesarean tradition, of which Eusebius, as bishop o f Caesarea, found himself heir in the midst o f an imperial program o f physical, economic, and intellec­ tual violence. In this context, Eusebius pointed toward Origen and his succes­ sors as the best-equipped athletes in the struggle for philosophy. Born into a wealthy aristocratic family in Berytus, the presbyter, teach­ er, and martyr Pamphilus (ca. 240-310) studied in Alexandria before settling in Caesarea. His teacher at Alexandria, Pierius, would be described by Euse­ bius as a man celebrated for “a life o f poverty and learning in philosophy.” 87 Tradition would remember him as a “new Origen.” 88 It is not clear whether Pierius actually studied with Origen himself. In Eusebius’s account, he serves as a link between the Origenian schools o f Alexandria and Caesarea. The most important link to Origen, however, is Eusebius’s own teacher, Pamphi­ lus, whose name he adopted as a patronymic. The two men worked together 85. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 199. In the Apologia, addressed to confessors con­ demned to w ork in the mines, Pamphilus argues for Origen’s orthodoxy, comparing him to the apostles and prophets and describing his w ay o f life as “philosophic” (545). Photius (Bibl. 117) re­ fers to this work, writing that the apology reinforces the charges o f heresy against Origen and his apologists Pamphilus and Eusebius. The majority o f the Apologia is preserved in Rufinus’s Latin translation (PL 21). 86. Eusebius alludes to the bios in Hist. eccl. 7.32.25. Johannes Quasten (The Golden Age of Greek Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, vol. 3 o f Patrology [Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics 1992], 310), calls this a biography o f Eusebius’s “spiritual and intellectual father.” 87. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.32.27 (SC 41, 229). 88. Jerome, Vir. ill. 76; and Photius, Bibl. 118 -19. See also Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 117 19.

to establish a Christian intellectual center at Caesarea that would perpetuate the legacy o f Origen and defend him from the attacks o f both Christian and Greek opponents. According to the hypothesis of Anthony Grafton and Me­ gan Williams, Pamphilus labored to expand the library at Caesarea, which originated with the private holdings and productions of Origen himself. It was Eusebius, as bishop, who oversaw the increased collection, production, and reproduction of texts there, drawing on the resources o f the church.89 Af­ ter Pamphilus's death in 310 in the persecution o f Diocletian, Eusebius com­ posed a bios in three books to memorialize his beloved teacher, mentor, and father. Though this bios is no longer extant, Eusebius refers to it in the Ecclesi­ astical History (for example at 6.32 and 7.32) and also in the Martyrs of Palestine (MP) 11.90 This work is especially important for understanding the Eusebian conjunction o f the philosopher and the martyr. Eusebius describes the arrest, trials, and executions o f the members o f Pamphilus's circle in chapter 11 o f the Martyrs of Palestine. He knew all o f them personally. At the head of this group of twelve was Pamphilus himself, the "jewel” of the Caesarean church, who led a life of virtue, “philosophical behavior” (φιλοσοφώ πολιτεία) and “discipline” (ασκήσει), enhanced by his zeal for the divine writings and his expertise in their interpretation.91 The longer recension praises Pamphilus for his training in Greek paideia. It describes him 89. Grafton and Williams, Transformation o f the Book, 179-83. At Hist. eccl. 6.32, Eusebius calls the reader’s attention to his “life of Pamphilus,” where he has drawn up the catalogue of hold­ ings in the library of Caesarea, the "works written by Origen and other ecclesiastical writers," which had been collected by Pamphilus. Unfortunately, this work is no longer extant, though we have a sense of the library’s holdings from the testimonial evidence of Eusebius’s other works, in particular the Praeparatio and Demonstratio. 90. The Martyrs o f Palestine survives in two recensions. The longer recension, preserved complete in Syriac and in some Greek fragments, was the first edition, published in 311. The shorter recension in Greek is an abridgement that was appended to book 8 o f some editions o f the Ecclesiastical History. Though there are Latin fragments that correspond to the Syriac, they are clearly not from Rufinus’s Latin translation o f the Ecclesiastical History, which does not in­ clude the Martyrs. The Syriac was published by William Cureton in 1861 (History of the Martyrs

o f Palestine by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea Discovered in a Very Ancient Syriac Manuscript [Paris: C. Borrani, 1861]). The Greek recensions are found in vol. 3 o f Eusebius o f Caesarea, Histoire ecclesiastique, 4 vols., Sources chretiennes 31, 41, 55, 73 (Paris: Cerf, 1952-60). For detailed discus­ sion o f dating and editions, see Richard W. Burgess, “The Dates and Editions o f Eusebius’ Chro­ nici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica," JTS 48, no.2 (1997): 471-504, esp. 502-3, and Tim othy D. Barnes, “ Eusebius o f Caesarea,” Expository Times 121, no. 1 (2009): 1-14. For an analysis o f the Martyrs as evidence o f a Caesarean Christian philosophical community centered around Pam­ philus, see Elizabeth C. Penland, “ Martyrs as Philosophers: The School o f Pamphilus and A s­ cetic Tradition in Eusebius’s ‘Martyrs o f Palestine’ ” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2010). 91. Eusebius, MP Gr. 11.2 (SC 55,156).

as an expert who surpassed all of his contemporaries in knowledge, Chris­ tian and Greek.92 Eusebius regards Pamphilus’s wisdom and virtue as natural endowments from God, not the products of education.93 In fact, neither re­ cension of the MP mentions any of Pamphilus’s teachers. In this assessment, Eusebius departs from standard Greek understandings o f the purpose o f paideia. Greek paideia alone does not seem to have any direct role in the develop­ ment of Pamphilus’s moral character: it is not the study o f Plato that leads him to voluntary death for the defense of Christ. But could Eusebius deny that the training in scholarly practices, which derived from Greek paideia, contributed to his formation as an intellectual, a textual expert, and adept in philosophical discourse? Eusebius redefines the philosopher. His description o f the philosophical life as a preparation for martyrdom follows the line o f Origen (for example, in the Exhortation to Martyrdom), which in itself represents a Christian devel­ opment o f the Socratic position that regarded philosophy as a preparation for death. This Christian evolution was rooted in the experience o f both real physical violence sanctioned by imperial officials against Christian intellectu­ als and the symbolic violence executed by their contemporary Greek intel­ lectual peers. The roll of Pamphilus’s star students in MP 11 casts the teacher as a producer o f martyrs, much like Eusebius presents Origen’s own peda­ gogic activity in book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History. Apphianos, for example, a man o f “innate” (κατά τινα φυσικήν) philosophy and God-inspired (ενθεον), sought out Pamphilus in Caesarea after his general elementary studies in Bei­ rut, guided by the Holy Spirit.94 His brother Aedesios had also devoted him­ self to the study of both Greek and Roman paideia before arriving in Caesar­ ea.95 Their study and training with Pamphilus, the holy and “most glorious” o f all the martyrs o f that time, prepared them for the climax o f the philo­ sophical life in enduring death by martyrdom.96 Thus, this section o f the text is less about Pamphilus’s background than it is about the legacy he left to the Caesarean church specifically and the universal church in general: it is less about the circumstances o f his biography than it is about his “life.” 92. Eusebius, MP Syr. n.id. 93. Eusebius, M P Syr. n .2. It was not the purpose o f the MP to recount Pamphilus’s educa­ tional background, nor his intellectual pedigree. Presumably, the first o f the three books o f the lost bios would have treated Pamphilus’s education in Alexandria and the influence o f Origen, which, incidentally, also goes unmentioned in the MP. 94. Eusebius, MP Gr. 4.3-6 (SC 55,129-130). 96. Eusebius, MP Gr. 7.4.

95. Eusebius, MP Syr. 5.2.

The most influential o f Pamphilus’s students was the one who survived the Great Persecution, who preserved the memory of his teacher and fel­ low students, and who was consecrated bishop o f Caesarea around 313. This marriage o f academic and ecclesiastical authority would have significantly increased both the symbolic and the economic wealth o f the library at Cae­ sarea and the circle o f Christian intellectuals resident there. To this point, Pamphilus’s circle and library most likely had operated independently o f the ecclesiastical structures. The ties that Eusebius would later establish with the administration o f the emperor Constantine dramatically enhanced the au­ thority o f Caesarea. Eusebius used his position and the resources available to him as a platform for presenting a Christian intellectual defense o f the faith in response to Greek critics.

The Life o f Origen: Renewal in the Midst o f Persecution Eusebius had already begun to compose the first seven books o f the Eccle­ siastical History before the outbreak o f the Great Persecution in 303.97 Book 6, the focus o f the present discussion, contains the lengthiest biographical sketch in the work, an account o f the life o f Origen, which is woven into a narrative o f the origins and development o f Christianity in Alexandria. It is quite possible that book 6 was composed as a response to Porphyry’s criti­ cisms o f Origen in Against the Christians.98 Porphyry had also published his 97. The scholarly debate has focused on the question o f whether Eusebius had composed a draft or published an edition o f the first seven books prior to 303. Barnes had defended an early ca. 295 published edition, but revised his position in 2009, concurring with Burgess that a first edition o f the Ecclesiastical History could not have been published before 303. See Tim othy D. Barnes, “The Editions o f Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 21 (1980): 191-201, Constantine and Eusebius, 146-50, and “ Eusebius o f Caesarea,” 5-7. While Burgess ("Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica,” 482-86) argues that the first edition o f the Ecclesiastical History could not have been produced before 313, Barnes maintains in his Expository Times article that “it remains unclear when Eusebius conceived the idea o f writing a history o f the Christian Church and began to assemble material.” William Tabbernee (“ Eusebius’ ‘Theol­ ogy o f Persecution’ : As Seen in the Various Editions o f His Church History,” JE C S 5, no. 3 [1997]: 319-34), following Andrew Louth, suggests that “when Eusebius first learned o f the events which had occurred in Nicomedia on February 23, 303, he had composed almost seven books o f an, as yet, unfinished draft o f the HE." See also Averil Cameron, “Eusebius o f Caesarea and the Re­ thinking o f History,” in Tria Corda: Scritti in onore di Arnaldo Momigliano, ed. E. Gabba, Biblioteca di Athenaeum 1 (Como: Edizione N ew Press, 1983), 71-73. 98. One scholarly camp places the composition o f Porphyry’s treatise in the period 270-74 C E . See Alan Cameron, “ The Date o f Porphyry’s κατά Χριστιανών,” CQ 17, no. 2 (1967): 382-84. Tim othy D. Barnes pushes the date closer to 300; see “ Scholarship or Propaganda? Porphyry Against the Christians and Its Historical Setting,” Bulletin o f the Institute for Classical Studies 37 (19 9 4 ): 6 1.

Vit. Plot, around the same time as this early draft o f the Ecclesiastical Histo­ ry, between 300 and 303. The social and cultural proximity o f these compet­ ing works o f biographical literature bear witness, in acrimonious tension and vehement criticism, to the struggle over claims o f philosophical renewal, as waged through biographical portraits o f the two leading intellectuals o f the previous generation. In the wake o f Plotinus’s death, Porphyry had attained recognition as a leading philosopher of his time. Among Christians his name signified aggressive and vocal opposition. Porphyry’s dismissal o f Christian­ ity as atheistic, irrational, and new, and his characterization o f Origen as a misguided intellectual, were part and parcel o f his program to establish an authoritative and exclusive Plotinian philosophical renewal. We might then read the defense o f Origen in book 6 o f the Ecclesiastical History not only as a responsive apologetic, but also as a bold assertion on the part o f Christian intellectuals in Caesarea to be standard bearers o f philosophical reform and renewal. Thus, on the eve o f the Great Persecution, the philosophical grand­ children o f Ammonius produced biographical works demonstrating the re­ newal and culmination o f philosophical history in their fathers, his two most famous students, Origen and Plotinus. Referring to book 6 as the "Life of Origen” is a misnomer. Eusebius him­ self considered it an abridgement, or epitome, of “the life of the man.” 99 The account exhibits significant structural differences from other Hellenistic and late ancient bioi. It is not a freestanding work. Instead, the biographical ac­ count of Origen is embedded within an apologetic historiography, and inter­ woven with, even interrupted by, other narratives o f bishops, teachers, and martyrs. However, the basic elements of the bios are present: youth, educa­ tion, character, significant accomplishments, and end o f life.100 Following the pattern of the philosophical bios, the discussion o f “significant accomplish­ ments” includes Origen’s pedagogical skills, scholarly practices, asceticism, and catalogue of works. Though it bears some o f the formal and themat­ ic characteristics o f the bios, something must be said for Eusebius’s decision to experiment with literary conventions and include biographical literature within the larger narrative scope o f the Ecclesiastical History. In its pre-Constantinian editions, the Ecclesiastical History was not the his­ tory o f the Christian empire under a Christian emperor. Instead, it was an 99. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.2.1 (SC 41, 83). 100. For extended analysis, see Cox, Biography, 69-101. See also, Burridge, What Are the Gos­

pels? 172-75.

apologetic historiography that the author continued to revise in the light of historical and political developments.101 Timothy Barnes’s characterization o f it as a “philosophical history,” outlining the origins and transmission o f Christian philosophy through successions o f bishops and teachers, is, I think, quite accurate.102 The opening words o f the preface— “the successions o f the holy apostles” (τάς των ιερών αποστόλων διαδοχάς)—evoke the idea o f the suc­ cession o f a philosophical school, or tradition. Numenius had lamented the Academics’ corruption o f Plato’s original διαδοχή, while the recovery o f this true διαδοχή had been the ongoing project o f Porphyry. Eusebius, indeed, of­ fers in his work an alternative διαδοχή, that o f the successors o f Jesus Christ. Like Porphyry’s Philosophical History, which traced the transmission o f phi­ losophy from Pythagoras to Plato within the larger context o f Greek history and culture, the Ecclesiastical History o f Eusebius traces the spread and trans­ mission o f true wisdom, from its renewed revelation by the incarnate Word up to Eusebius’s time. Entrusted from one generation to the next by bishops, teachers, and martyrs, Eusebius offers an account o f uncompromised trans­ mission o f wisdom within the structures o f the apostolic churches, despite the internal and external threats that assailed them. Eusebius singles out Origen’s importance in this history by devoting the longest and most detailed o f all the biographical accounts in the text to him. Origen is a crucial part of the narrative, not only as a moral exemplar and defender o f the faith, but as a foundational figure in the growth o f an Alexandrian-Caesarean Christian intellectual tradition linked to the ancient and primeval foundations o f Christianity itself. The biographical account of Origen also serves to defend him from the attacks of both Christian and non-Christian detractors.103 Here Origen is presented as a crucial representa­ tive of renewal. He is a teacher who authentically received and transmitted the orthodox doctrine deposited by Christ in the Church and an interpret­ er of the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Moreover, Origen’s biography comes ιοί. See Barnes, “ Editions o f Eusebius” and Tabberneee, “Theology o f Persecution.” 102. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 128. On Eusebius’s earlier Chronicle as a kind o f philo­ sophical history, see Harold A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance, A n ­ cient Society and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 356. 103. Cox, Biography, 70; and see Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.2.14 (SC 41, 86): Origen demonstrates “clear proofs [δείγματα] o f his orthodoxy concerning the faith” ; 6.18.1 (SC 41, 112): Ambrose, a Valentinian heretic, converts to “ ecclesiastical orthodoxy” (τής εκκλησιαστικής ορθοδοξίας) on listening to Origen; and 6.33.2 (SC 41, 136): Origen sways Bishop Beryllus o f Bostra away from what is not orthodox (εύθύνας μή όρθοδοξοΰντα) and persuades him by reason (λογισμώ τε πείσας) to adhere to true Christian doctrine.

amidst accounts o f heretics, who, like the Academics of Numenius’s account of philosophical history, strayed from true doctrine and corrupted it. Origen appears, then, as a moment of renewal and return to origins, at a time when decline and destruction threatened. In response to the Greek critics o f Origen, Eusebius tends to emphasize the common values, formation, and mode o f life Origen shared with his Greek counterparts, so as to demonstrate his engagement with Greekpaideia and to legitimize his standing as a bona fide intellectual. Eusebius singles out four characteristics: his intimacy with God; his education; his way o f life, in­ cluding both his scholarly pursuits and his ascetic discipline; and, finally, a lin­ eage o f his predecessors and successors. Origen’s intimacy with God derives not so much from a miraculous birth, or even from mystical experience, but from a naturally endowed wisdom nurtured by intellectual and ascetic practices. His devotion to contemplat­ ing the mysteries o f God, and to the reading, interpretation, and preserva­ tion o f sacred texts, confers on him a deified, or inspired, status. Even as a child, the precocious Origen would anger his father by insisting on delving further to uncover the deeper sense o f the text—a foreshadowing o f his exegetical skills.104 In Eusebius's presentation, Origen’s pedagogical authority is founded upon a divine vocation that participated in the teaching mission of the divine Logos. Despite his desire for martyrdom, the hand o f Divine Providence intervened on several occasions, setting Origen apart for the task of teaching, defending, and transmitting Christian orthodoxy in the face of both internal and external threats.105 Eusebius begins the description o f Origen’s education by telling the read­ er that it would take a separate work just to recount his scholarly achieve­ ments. He touts the master’s expertise in the areas o f “Greek learning” as well as in the sacred scriptures. Origen was immersed in the “Greek disci­ plines” from an early age at the insistence of his father, pursuing the course o f "general education” (ή τών εγκυκλίων παιδεία).106 In good Origenian fash­ 104. Eusebius, Hist. tccL 6.2.9-10. 105. See, for example, Hist. eccl. 6.2.4-6: Origens mother prevents him from being martyred by hiding his clothes; 6.3.4: Origen escapes from stoning; and 6.3.5: Origen is preserved by di­ vine grace. Similarly, Antony o f Egypt would be denied martyrdom so that he could benefit others as a teacher (Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 46). 106. Eusebius, Hist. ecd. 6.1.7 (SC 41, 84). In History o f Education, Henri Marrou translates the Greek εγκύκλιος παιδεία as “general education,” which in antiquity was a course o f gen­ eral studies in mathematics, language, and literature that served as a preparation for further studies, including philosophy (176). The term does not refer to a philosophical education it-

ion, Eusebius reports that Leonides emphasized the primacy o f the study o f the sacred scriptures. In Eusebius’s description o f Origen’s education as a youth, we can see an outline o f the curriculum and pedagogical method­ ology o f Origen’s teaching, as found in both the Letter of Origen to Gregory and the Address. He later implies that Origen studied literature and philology merely for practical economic reasons after the death o f his father left him head o f the household.107 There is no hostility toward paideia. In fact, it is Origen’s expertise in these subjects, as well as his knowledge o f the philoso­ phers, that made him such a formidable contender in the eyes o f Eusebius. However, there does appear to be a tacit denial o f the social and cultural for­ mation o f paideia on Origen. Eusebius would not have agreed with Plutarch that education made the man. Origen was a teacher o f Greeks and Christians. At one time or another, his curriculum included the preparatory disciplines, literature, the philoso­ phy o f the Greek schools, and Christian texts and doctrines.108 He attract­ self, but to the preparatory studies o f primary and secondary education. See also Morgan, Lit­ erate Education, 50-89. In the Letter of Origen to Gregory 1 (PG i i :88B), Origen names geometry, music, grammar, rhetoric, and astronomy as the “general disciplines and preparatory studies” (εγκύκλια μαθήματα ή προπαιδεύματα). ΐ07· Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.2.15. 108. The nature o f the “ catechetical school” o f Alexandria and its relationship to the episco­ pal see o f that city remain difficult problems. According to Eusebius, Bishop Demetrius desig­ nated Origen as the head o f the catechetical school when he was just eighteen years old (Hist, eccl. 6.3.1). In this capacity, he most likely prepared catechumens for baptism. A t the same time, it appears that Origen taught privately as a grammatikos, and eventually his private school devel­ oped into a sort o f philosophical school that attracted Christian and non-Christian students. W hen the w ork was too much to handle, he abandoned his post as catechist, leaving that job to his student Heraclas (who would eventually become bishop o f Alexandria) and continued on as a private teacher o f philosophy. In Eusebius’s account, the distinction between the cat­ echetical school and the school o f philosophy is not clear. It is often the case that he combines the two into some sort o f formal ecclesiastical educational institution (probably on the model o f what he knew in Caesarea) that fell under the jurisdiction o f the bishop. He also co-opts Ori­ gen’s "predecessors,” Clement and Pantaenus, into this “institution,” portraying their probably private and independent schools as the same “ catechetical school,” which may have only been founded by Demetrius for Origen. For more on the schools o f Alexandria and Caesarea, see Gustave Bardy, “Aux origins de l’ecole d’Alexandria,” Recherches des sciences religieuses 27 (1937): 65-90; Manfred Hornschuh, "D as Leben des Origenes und die Entstehung der alexandrinischen Schule,” Zeitschri.fifur der Kirckengeschichte 71 (i960): 1-25, i93-2i4;Joh n A. McGuckin, “ Caesarea Maritima as Origen Knew It,” in Origeniana Quinta: Papers o f thejth International Origen Congress, Boston College, 14-18 August 1989, ed. R.J. Daly, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 3-25; Roelof van den Broek, “ The Christian ‘School’ o f Alex­ andria in the Second and Third Centuries,” in Centres o f Learning: Learning and Location in PreModern Europe and the Near East, ed. J. Drijvers and A. MacDonald, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 61 (New York: Brill, 1995), 197-205; Annewies van den Hoek, “The Catechetical School o f Early Christian Alexandria,” HTR 90 (1997): 59-87; and John A. McGuckin, ed.. The Weslmin-

ed students “from the nations” (i.e., non-Jews and non-Christians), includ­ ing some who had already completed their general studies; and not a few o f the distinguished philosophers o f his day (φιλοσόφων τε των μάλιστα επιφανών ούκ ολίγοι) also came to hear him, attracted by his fame.109 Eusebius presents Origen as a teacher for all, who offered a comprehensive education in both “outside philosophy” (τά της έξωθεν φιλοσοφίας) and “divine matters” (προς τοΐς θείοις): ‘As many as he saw endowed with abilities, he also taught the philosophical branches, such as geometry, arithmetic, and other preparato­ ry studies [τάλλα προπαιδεύματα]. He then advanced them to the opinions in vogue among the philosopher [τάς αιρέσεις τάς παρά τοΐς φιλοσόφοις], and ex­ plaining their writings, he commented and speculated upon each so that he was celebrated as a great philosopher even among the Greeks.” 110 Origen mastered and subjugated the skills, texts, and doctrines o f his Greek peers, demonstrating their errors and leading them to the wisdom o f the Logos in­ carnate, which began with the revelation to the Hebrews. Eusebius exploits the Greeks’ recognition o f Origen’s expertise by inserting a quotation from Porphyry commenting on his erudition. These legitimizing testimonies from the competing faction o f Greeks allow Eusebius to claim a position for Ori­ gen within the authoritative networks and lineages o f the professional intel­ lectual class, while demonstrating the power o f his influence to challenge and modify the field o f philosophical orthodoxy. Among Origen’s students were two brothers, Plutarch and Heraclas. Both were educated men who, as a result o f their studies with Origen, became Christians. Heraclas (and probably Plutarch) had also studied with Ammonius, some five years before Origen. According to a report o f Origen quoted by Eusebius, Heraclas was so dedicated to the study o f philosophy that he ad­ opted the “philosopher’s garb” (φιλόσοφον ... σχήμα) and continued to wear it as a presbyter o f the church of Alexandria.111 Thus, even in dress, some of the students o f Origen asserted their status as legitimate intellectuals. More­ over they had attained positions within the Alexandrian church, which gave them a platform from which to pursue strategies o f critique against Greek ster Handbook to Origen, Westminster Handbooks to Christian Theology (Louisville, Ky.: West­ minster John Knox Press, 2004), 4-7, and s.v. “ School o f Alexandria” and “School o f Caesarea.” 109. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.18.2 (SC 41,112). no. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.18.3 (SC 4 1,112 -13); trans. Cruse, 207-8. h i.

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.14 (SC 41, 117). On the evidence for Christians who adopted the

“philosopher’s look,” see Arthur P. Urbano, “ ‘Dressing a Christian: The Philosopher’s Mantle as Signifier o f Pedagogical and Moral Authority,” in Studia Patristica: Papers Presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2011 (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming).

authority. To opponents who would deny the legitimacy or sophistication o f these Christian intellectuals, this mode o f self-presentation might have seemed just as presumptuous. Heraclas would later succeed Origen as teach­ er at Alexandria and eventually become bishop. One wonders if he continued to don his provocative habit. Women also numbered among Origen s students and patrons, and Eusebius introduces this fact with his account o f Origen s purported self-castration.112 Eusebius writes that a wealthy woman in Alexandria (who was also patroniz­ ing a “famous heretic” ) lent her patronage to Origen.113 We are also told that once Origen s fame as an intellectual had spread far and wide, he received an invitation to the imperial court from Julia Mamaea, mother o f Severus Alexan­ der.114 Herais was a catechumen who was martyred in close proximity to Her­ aclas and Plutarch, as was Potamiaena.115 The “philosophical life” that Origen modeled to men and women, Chris­ tians and Greeks, was not just a matter o f textual and rhetorical skills. As Eu­ sebius writes, quoting Plato: “As his doctrine, so was his life; and as his life, so also was his doctrine” 116 Origeris way o f life combined learning and disci­ pline, paideia and askesis.117 His daily regimen was austere: Many years he continued to lead this life o f philosophy, completely removing all the incentives to youthful passions from him during the whole day undergoing no tri­ fling amount o f laborious exercise and at night devoting himself most o f the time to the study o f the Holy Scriptures and restraining himself, as far as possible, by a most rigid and philosophical life. Sometimes he was exercised in the discipline of fasting; then, again, at night, he limited his times for sleep, which, in consequence o f his great zeal, he never enjoyed on his bed but upon the bare ground.118

The extent and place o f ascetic practice in the philosophical life was a matter for debate among the Greeks o f the third century. While contempla­ tion, theona, took pride of place for Plotinus, virtue could not be obtained apart from the joint work o f the body and soul— an ethos of training the body turned one’s attention from the lower self to the higher self, facilitat­ ii2. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.8.i.

113. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.2.13.

114. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.21.3. 115. For Herais, see Hist. eccl. 6.4.3; for Potamiaena, whose martyrdom account is o f some length, see Hist. eccl. 6.5. 116. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.3.7, citing Resp. 400ά (SC 41, 88; trans. Cruse, 194): οίον γοΰν τον 'λόγον, τοιόνδε, φασίν, τόν τρόπον και οίον τον τρόπον, τοιόνδε τον λόγον έπεδείκνυτο. ιΐ7· Cox, Biography, 85-91. 118. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.3.9 (SC 41, 89); trans. Cruse, 194-95·

ing the ascent o f the soul.119 Origen found support for his more extreme as­ cetic practices in the gospel texts: forsaking shoes, exposing himself to cold and nakedness, embracing poverty, and, as it was rumored, even castrating himself.120 Nevertheless, even through these extreme acts o f asceticism, Ori­ gen provided a paradigm o f the philosophical life that inspired both educated Greeks and Christians. Eusebius emphasizes the character o f Origen s askesis as preparation for martyrdom. In fact, we might say that Origen’s school was a training ground for martyrs. The notion of the philosophical life as a preparation for death was a commonplace o f ancient philosophy that found its model in Socrates.121 As early as Clement o f Alexandria, the ascetic was envisioned as a parallel to the martyr.122 In his own writings, especially the Exhortation to Martyrdom, Ori­ gen prescribed a life o f ascetic discipline as a preparation for the baptism of blood.123 In fact, Eusebius frames and punctuates the entire account o f Ori­ gen s life with the theme o f martyrdom. Origen was born in the midst of the Severan persecution and his own father, Leonides, died a martyr. Eusebius describes the young Origen as being seized by a “desire” (ερως) for martyr­ dom.124 The account often moves to the students o f Origen who, inspired by their teacher's doctrine and example, are prepared for violent death. These in­ clude the brothers Plutarch and Heraclas, and the women Herais and Potamiaena.125 Origen is at their side, affording them comfort, encouragement, and prayers as they are led off to death. The narrative dedicated to Origen ends with a description o f his arrest and torture, and is immediately followed by Dionysius’s account of the Decian persecution. Eusebius is silent on Ori119. Plotinus, Enn. 1.1.10. See Anthony Meredith, “Asceticism— Christian and Greek," JT S n.s. 27 (1976): 316-19; and Daniel A. Dombrowski, “Asceticism as Athletic Training in Plotinus,” A N R W 36.1: 704-6. 120. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.3.10-13; 6.8. 121. Cf. Plato, Phaedo 64a. Epictetus and Seneca are the best examples o f the Stoic position on the “noble death,” the taking o f one’s own life as an act o f “freedom” (see, Seneca, ep. 26.10; and Epictetus, Disc. 4). For discussion o f suicide and philosophy as it relates to the Christian martyr tradition, see Rudolf Hirzel, “Der Selbstmord,” Archivfiir Religionswissenschaft 11 (1908): 75-104; John M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 234-40; and Arthur J. Droge and James D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco: Harper, 1992). On the relation o f the martyr’s death to that o f Jesus in the Christian tradition, see, for example, Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 29. 122. Clement o f Alexandria, Strom. 6; and Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 194. 123. See Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 30. 124. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.2.3 (SC 41, 83). 125. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.4-5.

gen’s death, leaving the reader with the impression that his injuries eventually made him a martyr. Finally, Eusebius traces Origen’s legacy in lineages o f his predecessors and successors, defining both his master’s and his own place in philosophi­ cal history Origen is the philosopher par excellence, the guide and exemplar o f martyrs, who appeared to inaugurate a renewal and reform o f philosophy at a time when the enemies o f Christianity were resorting to symbolic and physical violence. As historian, apologist, and successor to Origen’s chair in Caesarea, Eusebius interlocked multiple lineages that situated his spiritual fa­ ther both within a specific intellectual pedigree (that o f Ammonius, which was in dispute with Porphyry) and within the larger history o f the transmis­ sion o f wisdom from the Hebrews to the Church. In all we find three inter­ secting lineages for Origen, two o f which take their starting points from indi­ viduals o f recent memory (Ammonius and Pantaenus) and are then grafted onto the larger mythic lineage o f the Church. The descent from Ammonius, which we have already discussed, directly challenged Greek claims to him and his philosophical revolution: Eusebius claims it was Origen who pre­ served the true teaching o f the Christian Ammonius. Book 6 also traces a lineage o f what Eusebius characterizes as a “catechet­ ical school” at Alexandria, joined to the ecclesiastical structures. He writes that Pantaenus was the first named head o f the ancient school (implying that it had already existed).126 He was succeeded by Clement, whom Eusebius counts as Origen’s teacher.127 The lineages to Origen support his authori­ ty as legitimate philosopher and teacher o f Christian orthodoxy. These lin­ eages are then grafted onto the broader scheme o f the Ecclesiastical History (figure 3-2). Meanwhile, the lineages that proceed from Origen lend legitimacy and au­ thenticity to those who followed him and the ecclesiastical and education­ al institutions they represented (figure 3-3). Origen’s legacy, as already men­ tioned, is decorated with martyrs and bishops, including Heraclas, bishop of Alexandria, Gregory Thaumaturgos and his brother Athenadorus, both bish­ ops in Pontus, and, o f course, Eusebius himself, a student o f Pamphilus and bishop o f the second Origenian center at Caesarea. Origen’s legacy is situat­ ed within a diachronic narrative o f origins and transmission, which demon­ strates his far-reaching, global, influence. 126. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.10. 127. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.6.

Revelation of God

V Hebrew patriarchs

Figure 3-2. The philosophical pedigree o f Origen according to Eusebius

ALEXA N D RIA

PONTUS

CA ESAREA

Figure 3-3. Students o f Origen, demonstrating the global influence o f Origen (names in circles indicate bishops)

The extent and character o f the literary output o f Porphyry and Eusebi­ us were strikingly similar. Their contributions o f historical and biographical literature, first produced at a crucial stage in the competition for philosophy, had long-lasting influence on subsequent generations. Their biographical portraits o f Plotinus and Origen shaped and defined important chapters in their respective metanarratives o f philosophical history. If their accounts of philosophical origins intermingled, it was at the moment of philosophical re­ newal where they diverged—the point at which an incomparable teacher ap­ peared with a philosophy that both was in continuity with the past and artic­ ulated a reformed philosophy for the future. As arenas for competition, these biographical compositions not only express philosophical ideals but, arising out o f struggle, contributed to the formulation o f the historiography o f the late ancient philosophical field. They represent a struggle between those who

have "made their mark” and those acting to initiate a new epoch.128 Porphy­ ry’s Plotinus exemplified a confident, though disquieted, philosophical ortho­ doxy, working to define and defend its position o f dominance through both symbolic and physical violence, while Eusebius’s Origen posed a not wholly exterior challenge to the dominant Greek orthodoxy, displacing its traditions of authoritative texts, teachers, and institutions.129 When the dispute over the lineage o f Ammonius is seen within a frame­ work of competition among intellectual colleagues, the urgency becomes more readily apparent. The biographical productions of Eusebius and Por­ phyry were bold claims with a view toward defining and steering the philo­ sophical renewal represented by the Alexandrian philosopher. Eusebius took full advantage o f Porphyry’s own acknowledgment o f Origen’s philosophi­ cal expertise, using the Greek’s own words to demonstrate that this student of Ammonius was a formidable challenger to the circle of Porphyry. Origen was a Christian ascetic scholar, sketched in the image o f a Greek philosopher, who had abandoned the philosophical orthodoxy o f his day (what Porphyry would call the tradition of the fathers) to blaze a new path, which was not really a new path at all, but a rediscovered way. Moses perfected Plato in the Christian Origen: the philosophy o f the Greeks was best understood in rela­ tion to the Christian revelation, whereby a Christian teacher like Origen of­ fered to the Greeks a pure philosophy, derived from the Hebrews, illuminat­ ed by Christ, and thus purged o f its polytheistic errors. By contrast, Porphyry presented to the Greek intellectual establishment a teacher who articulated an unadulterated body o f philosophical knowl­ edge in the tradition o f the great ancestors Pythagoras and Plato, as well as the teachers o f recent memory, Numenius and Ammonius. Following in the footsteps o f Numenius, Porphyry’s biographical compositions exude a historiographical scope in their aim to recapture the roots o f ancient wis­ dom and exhibit its organization and unity in the work o f the “Greek” teach­ ers, down to himself.130 According to this narrative o f philosophical history, what Pythagoras and Plato had accomplished and bequeathed to humanity had been mishandled and corrupted by the Hellenistic schools. Christians, 128. Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 60. 129. Bourdieu (Cultural Production, 60) comments that “ each author, school, or w ork which ‘makes its mark’ displaces the whole series o f earlier authors, schools or works.” 130. Marco Zam bon, Porphyre et le moyen-platonisme, Histoire des doctrines de l’Antiquite classique 27 (Paris: Vrin, 2002), 249.

such as Origen, represented a new kind o f “mingling” that posed an even more serious threat to philosophy.131 The Vit. Plot, was the pronouncement o f the last and most influential of Plotinus’s students that intellectual illumi­ nation indeed shone brightly from the example and the writings of his teach­ er. The collation and publication of Plotinus’s writings were an appendix to the philosophical canon, and his bios a crowning epilogue to his philosophical history. 131.

The only mention o f Christians in the Vit. Plot, occurs in ch. 16, where Porphyry identi­

fies the target o f Plotinus’s treatise “Against the Gnostics” as an anti-Christian polemic.

tx t Constantine and Julian The Politics o f Philosophy

Eusebius lived to witness dramatic political, social, and religious upheav­ als in the fourth century. His writings have contributed to the construction o f the historical memory o f that period. The biographical sketch o f Origen in book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History situates the hero within a context o f op­ pression and violence, as he and other Christians struggled to survive the Ro­ man persecutions. The drama shifts and adopts a triumphal tone with the ap­ pearance of Constantine, whose rise to power Eusebius recounts in book io. Constantine brings resolution to Eusebius’s grand narrative. With his defeat o f the tyrants and the death o f Licinius in 324, Constantine wins a victory for Christian monotheism and monarchy, fulfilling a divinely instituted plan.1 A champion of Christian teaching and worship, protector o f Christian teachers and bishops, benefactor o f the Church, and model o f Christian eusebeia (right worship, or piety), Constantine played a key role in the struggle for philoso­ phy in late antiquity. In 361, Julian, the son of Constantine’s half-brother, became sole Augus­ tus. He championed a plan to restore traditional Roman eusebeia and to re­ verse, or at the very least to check, the advance of Christianity that resulted from the policies of his Christian predecessors. The intellectual elites who supported Julian hailed him as a hero and friend o f the gods. Though his reign was short, his memory would endure among the intellectuals of the later Roman empire for his role in a struggle for the survival o f Greek philos­ ophy and Roman religion. 1.

See

E u s e b iu s ,

Hist. cccl. w.H

9.

The focus o f this chapter centers on two examples o f biographical litera­ ture that consciously and explicitly link the competition for philosophy to the arenas o f imperial politics and economics, especially as regards patronage. In the Life of Constantine (Vit. Const.), Eusebius echoes Philo’s Life of Moses, as he drapes the recently deceased emperor in the robes o f the philosopherruler and positions him at a crucial point within a narrative o f salvation his­ tory stretching back to the Hebrew patriarchs.2 Some three decades later, the skilled and influential rhetorician Libanius would produce a strikingly simi­ lar text lauding the emperor Julian, notably o f the same imperial dynasty as Constantine, as a philosopher who happened to become king. The Epitaphi­ os, or Funeral Oration, represents Julian almost as an "anti-Constantine” and emits a cry for the restoration o f a pre-Constantinian Greek culture, in the face of rising Christian influence on the intellectual and cultural entities o f the empire.

The Legacy o f Plato’s Political Philosophy In the estimation of their biographers, these rulers represented the victory of proper worship. Not separate from philosophy, right worship o f the divine constituted a reverence and acknowledgement of divine sovereignty. Plato had ascribed this attention to proper knowledge and worship o f the divine to those citizens o f the city of the Laws pursuing communion and likeness to the di­ vine.3 In the Republic, Plato envisioned a society ruled by the wise and virtuous: Unless, said I, either philosophers become kings in our states or those whom we now call our kings and rulers take to the pursuit o f philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction o f these two things, political power and philosophical in­ telligence, while the motley horde o f the natures who at present pursue either apart from the other are compulsorily excluded, there can be no cessation o f troubles, dear Glaucon, for our states, nor I fancy, for the human race either.4 2. Glen F. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and Evagrius, Theologie historique 46 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), 145; and Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall, "Introduction,” in Eusebius, Life of Constantine, ed. and trans. Averil Cameron and Stu­ art G. Hall (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 35-39. See also Salvatore Calderone ("Teologia politica, successione dinastica e consecratio in eta costantiniana,” in Le culte des souverains dans Vempire romain: Sept exposes suivis de discussions, ed. W illem den Boer and Elias Joseph Bickerman, Entretiens sur l’Antiquite classique 19 [Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1973], 238) for the suggestion that Eusebius understood Constantine as a philosopher king who also continued a tradition o f the patriarchs and kings o f Israel who had entered into covenants with God. 3. See Laws 7i6b-d. 4. Plato, Resp. 473d; trans. Hamilton and Cairns, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including

This tack of political philosophy attributed to Plato witnessed renewed dis­ cussion from the second century BCE onward, within the context of the Ro­ man conquest o f Greece. Among Pythagorean thinkers of this period, the ideal ruler was often understood as an earthly reflection, if not the very em­ bodiment, of the Logos. The works attributed to the little-known Sthenidas o f Locri, Diotogenes, and Ecphantus are preserved in the Anthology of John Stobaeus.5 Stobaeus attributes to Sthenidas the maxim that “he who is both king and wise will be a lawful imitator and servant o f God.” 6 The thinking is logical— a man who is truly wise contemplates and understands the mind of God. He knows the natural law and the divine law. Thus, he leads his own life in conformity with the law of God and guides his subjects in the life o f virtue. The treatise On Kingship, ascribed to Diotogenes the Pythagorean, por­ trays the ideal king as general, judge, and priest.7 As “living,” or “animate,” law (νόμος έμψυχος), the best ruler is one whose life is one o f justice and vir­ tue. He is a wise man who rules over his own passions and is thus able to rule over others in a perfectly just manner. In essence, he is the very law and jus­ tice o f the state itself.8 When discussing the relation o f the ruler to his sub­ jects, Diotogenes says that he is like reason, the governing principle o f the soul, ruling over and ordering the passions.9 He is also like the Logos, who the Letters, ed. and trans. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series 71 (Prince­ ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 712-13. 5. Important scholarship on the philosopher king and its relation to both Philo and Pythagoreanism includes the following: Erwin R. Goodenough in The Politics of Philo Judaem: Prac­ tice and Theory (N ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1938); idem, “The Political Philosophy o f Hellenistic Kingship,” Yale Classical Studies 1 (1928): 55-102; Louis Delatte, in Diotogenes, Les traites de la royaute d ’Ecphante, Diotogene et Sthenidas, ed. and trans. Louis Delatte (Paris: E. Droze, 1942); Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Back­ ground, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 9 (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Stud­ ies, trustees for Harvard University, 1966); and Glen F. Chesnut, "T h e Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy,” A N R W 16.2:1310-32. On Hellenistic political philosophy and the tradition o f imperial panegyric, see Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 62-69. For a more recent treatment, which reevaluates the scholarly tradition surrounding Neoplatonic political philosophy, see O ’Meara, Platonopolis. 6. Stobaeus, Anthology 4.7.63. 7. It is difficult to pinpoint when Diotogenes was active. He has been dated anywhere from the third century B C E to the second century C E . Francis Dvornik places him in the second century B C E. See Dvornik, Political Philosophy, 1:252. Cf. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 63. 8. Dvornik, Political Philosophy, 1:276. Archtyas o f Tarentum, in his treatise On Law and Jus­ tice, cited in Stobaeus Anthology 4.1.135, also regards the king as “ animate law.” Philo (Mos. 2.4) adopts this line o f thought in his description o f Moses. For Moses as virtuous lawgiver, surpass­ ing the Greeks even in antiquity, see the passage o f Josephus’s Against Apion preserved in Euse­ bius Praep. ev. 8.8.1. 0. Diotogenes, 40.15 (Delatte).

created and rules over the cosmos: the ruler is to the state what God is to the created order. Like God, he exercises his power to bring unity and harmony to all parts o f the state so that they function in harmony with each other. As such, he reveals to his subjects the very form (το σχήμα) o f God, as the “ruling intellect o f the earthly state,” a god among humans.10 The king ac­ quired the “greatness o f virtue” (τό μέγεθος τάς άρετάς) and the disposition of the ruler through mimesis o f Zeus, for “ruling is a matter o f imitating God” (θεόμιμόν έντι πράγμα βασιλεία).11 In this vein, a truly virtuous ruler served as moral exemplar for his subjects. In imitating the ruler, his people imitated God. Ecphantus went further in stressing a unique intimacy between the rul­ er and God. Not only was the ruler the best o f men, but he had been fash­ ioned as an image o f the divine archetype. The majesty o f the earthly ruler participated in the brilliance o f divine rule. In working to create a harmoni­ ous society analogous to the harmony o f the universe, the ruler, like the Lo­ gos, molded and crafted his subjects into better, more virtuous individuals.12 Here, too, we see a progression in virtue through a chain o f mimetic rela­ tionships. The ruler’s moral influence flowed from his act o f ruling, his own way o f life, and even his physical appearance. He displayed the fundamen­ tal elements o f a virtuous, just, and pious society. Thus, to these Hellenistic writers, such a ruler was deserving o f cultic veneration.13 Concerning the Neoplatonists o f late antiquity, the scholarly consensus has been that there was no Neoplatonist political philosophy. Dominic J. O’Meara challenges this view, arguing that the fundamental concept o f divin10. Diotogenes, 61.10 -12 (Delatte); see Chesnut, "Ruler and Logos," 1320. 11. Diotogenes, 45.10 (Delatte). 12. For discussion o f Ecphantus, see Dvornik, Political Philosophy, 1:253-55 and 258-61; and Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 126-30, where Drake describes the increasing pomp and maj­ esty o f late Roman imperial pageantry, and, in connection to the political philosophy o f E c­ phantus, makes an interesting connection to solar ideology and monotheism. 13. A t this point Jewish and Greek understandings o f the wise ruler diverge in relation to cult. Chesnut ("Ruler and Logos,” 1327) suggests that Philo’s portrait o f Moses as "living law” in Mos. developed as a Jewish alternative to the wise ruler on the grounds o f objecting to the ven­ eration o f the emperor. See also Philo, Ad Gaium 114-18. Likewise, the Christian ruler could not be the object o f worship. Rather he was the model for how to worship. Interestingly enough, Eusebius denies the connotation o f emperor cult in the events surrounding Constantine’s fu­ neral. He also offers a reinterpretation o f a coin that depicted the emperor ascending to the heavens on a quadriga— an apparent apotheosis. For a full discussion, see Giorgio Bonamente, "Apoteosi e imperatori cristiani,” in I Cristiani e I’impero nel iv secolo: colloquio sul cristianesimo nel mondo antico, ed. Giorgio Bonamente and Aldo Nestori (Macerata: Universita degli studi, 1988), 107-42.

ization in Neoplatonic philosophy included the political virtues and political life as a first step.14 Broadening the perspective from a narrow consideration o f the political life, O’Meara understands political philosophy to include re­ flection on social structures and the principles for realizing the human good within those structures. He rehabilitates a political philosophy strongly tied to the role o f the philosopher-ruler that he regards as promoting “a political order which favours the development o f the political’ virtues among the citi­ zens and thus the achievement o f ‘political happiness,’ as a first stage in the process of divinization.” 15 Seizing on Plato’s notion o f the philosopher-ruler in the Republic, both Eu­ sebius and Libanius, I would argue, extolled their biographical subjects as rul­ ers who modeled and facilitated the pious and virtuous life for their subjects. As members o f political dynasties with a divine mandate to restore proper worship, they used their positions as rulers, patrons, and benefactors to fulfill the role of the wise ruler. With this discussion in the public arena, and in par­ ticular in the public performances o f panegyric, these biographies participat­ ed in the construction o f political legacy and promoted religious and cultural programs.16 The foremost expositor o f a new Christian political philosophy was none other than Eusebius himself.17 It has been suggested that Constan­ tine was the “most fecund site” where Eusebius engaged and demonstrated the conversion o f the empire.18 Furthermore, O’Meara has also argued that “piety,” as understood from Plato’s Laws, served as the fundamental virtue o f political reform during the reign o f Julian.19 From Constantine to Julian, then, the competition for philosophy reached a fever pitch and played out in the intertwining arenas o f school, church, and palace. The intertwining o f religion and political life in antiquity in the unique context of the fourth century demands a modification o f the theoretical lens guiding this study. While Bourdieu’s social and cultural theory stems from his study o f the practices o f modern French cultural fields and academic in­ stitutions, he has provided useful analytical categories that have shed light on cultural production and competition in the late ancient world. Howev­ 14. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 3-9.

15. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 90.

16. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 69. 17. For discussion o f Eusebius o f Caesarea’s application o f the idea o f the Hellenistic philos­ opher-ruler to Constantine in the Laus Constantini and the Vita Constantini, see Drake, Constan­ tine and the Bishops, 364-92; and O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 145-51. 18. See Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making o f Religion, 164. ίο. O'M eara, Platonopolis, 120.

er, whereas Bourdieu understood a “field” as autonomous, a “separate social universe having its own laws o f functioning independent of those of politics and the economy,” the developments that characterize the field o f philosophy in late antiquity demonstrate that such an independence from politics was not the reality.20 Intellectuals such as Porphyry and Eusebius did not limit their work to fashioning and dominating a field o f philosophy concerned with mere intellectual practices. Instead, their strategies intertwined with the cultic, political, and economic structures o f the Roman Empire. This was even truer with Constantine’s ascent to power.

Constantine: The Friend o f God The political, legal, and fiscal policies o f Constantine toward various Chris­ tian interests introduced a new stage in competition for philosophy. While it is true that Greek philosophers often relied on the patronage o f wealthy individ­ uals to sustain their careers, the funds o f the imperial fiscus were often made available for the establishment o f state-sponsored positions for rhetoricians and philosophers. Suetonius writes that Vespasian (died 79 CE) was the first emperor to lend economic support to schools o f rhetoric.21 At Athens, Mar­ cus Aurelius (died 180) established a chair of rhetoric and four chairs in phi­ losophy, each one dedicated to one o f the major schools. A committee elected the successors o f these chairs, called the diadochoi.22 Individual cities also es­ tablished and maintained schools and chairs at public expense, such as the po­ sitions held by Libanius at Nicomedia and Antioch.23 Thus, the emperor and local governments were often the benefactors and patrons o f significant and influential institutions of education, the very institutions that provided the in­ tellectual, cultural, and moral formation of Greek paideia and sustained the positions o f Greek intellectuals. This type of patronage was lacking for Chris­ tian teachers, who had to rely on private benefactors, such as Origen’s patron Ambrose, or on the episcopal see. With Constantine’s rise to sole power in 324, the rules o f the game changed suddenly and dramatically, as the imperial purse was opened to funding Chris­ 20. Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 162. 21. Suetonius, Vesp. 18. The holders o f these chairs in Latin and Greek literature received a salary o f 100,000 sesterces. 22. See Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 2.2.566 and Lucian, Eun. 3.8. 23. Cribiore, School of Libanius, 184-85; and Marrou, History of Education, 301-4.

tian leaders, buildings, and texts.24 After a period that witnessed both volun­ tary isolation in some cases and aggressive exclusion in others, Christians sud­ denly were taking the position o f the dominant party o f intellectuals. This upward shift in position for Christian intellectuals within the philosophical field was a direct result o f their changed position in relation to the politics and economy of the empire. Christians now had access to previously unavail­ able economic resources. They also had a stronger voice in the negotiation of cultural capital. Needless to say, this provoked an outcry from the Greek in­ telligentsia, who feared the degradation of paideia as they knew it and the ex­ tinction o f their positions as the “heterodox” philosophy o f Christians threat­ ened an emerging Neoplatonist orthodoxy. Nevertheless, while Christians were joyful that the era o f fear and persecution had come to an end, there was still some trepidation regarding the extent of the role a Christian emperor would play in ecclesiastical affairs. It remained to be seen how much the inter­ nal life of churches, considered independently and in relation to other church­ es, would be affected by such a public consecration.25 When Eusebius completed the composition o f the Vit. Const, after the emperor’s death in 337, the circumstances had changed dramatically since he had written on Pamphilus and Origen.26 While state-sponsored arrests and executions o f Christians had long come to an end, Eusebius still labored un­ der the lingering shadow o f his rival Porphyry, who had been dead already some thirty years. Christian intellectuals still had to contend with the endur24. One of Constantine’s first moves after his defeat o f Maxentius in 312 was his donation to the bishop of Rome of the property where the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano now stands. See Richard Krautheimer, “The Ecclesiastical Building Policy of Constantine,” in Costantino il Grande: dall’antichita alVumanesimo. Colloquio sui cristianesimo nel mondo antico, Macerata 18-20 dicembre 1990, ed. Giorgio Bonamente and Franca Fusco (Macerata: Universita degli studi di Ma­

cerata, 1993), 509-51; and Paolo Liverani, “Le origini dell’episcopio lateranense,” Les domus ec­ clesiae: aux origins des palais ipiscopaux, Autun, table ronde, 26-28 novembre 2009. 25. In relation to patronage, Bourdieu discusses the balance between “heteronomy,” where cultural production is determined and/or influenced by politics and/or the economy, and “au­ tonomy,” which is defined by the extent to which the field rejects external determinations and obeys its own logic. See Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 15. 26. The date o f composition has been a matter o f scholarly discussion. The majority opin­ ion has been that Eusebius began writing the Vit. Const, shortly after Constantine’s death in 337. See, for example, Giorgio Pasquali, “ Die Composition der Vita Constantini des Eusebius,” Hermes 46 (1910): 369-86. Tim othy D. Barnes (“ Panegyric, History and Hagiography in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine," in The Making o f Orthodoxy: Essays in Honor of Henry Chadwick, ed. Rowan Williams ICambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], 94-123) argued that Eusebius began the work as a “ narrative history” soon after 324 and transformed the work into a more formal panegyri­ cal piece just before Constantine’s death. Harold Drake (“W hat Eusebius Knew: The Genesis o f the Vita Constantini,” Classical Philology 83 11988]: 20-38) argued that Eusebius began writing the

ing legacy o f symbolic violence that Porphyry had leveled against Christian­ ity. For Greek intellectuals, his account o f philosophical history and his po­ lemics against Christians remained the standard.27 While never mentioning his contemporary Iamblichus, Eusebius dedicated a significant portion o f the Praep. cv. to refuting Porphyry, treating him as the recognized authority o f contemporary Platonism.28 In fact, no fewer than four refutations o f Porphy­ ry’s Against the Christians would be written over the next hundred years or so, until finally, in 448, the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III ordered all copies o f Against the Christians to be burned.29 The changed position o f Christians did not mean complete victory. Rath­ er, it introduced a new stage in a continuing competition. The Vit. Const, is the first example o f Christian biography o f the Constantinian era. Scholars have regarded the work as an experiment in Christian political philosophy, a “re-thinking o f history” that interpreted the rule o f a Christian emperor as a decisive moment in the history o f salvation and the inauguration o f a new era, a Christian Empire.30 Thus the Constantinian order is here characterized in eschatological terms.31 Following a period o f cosmic and earthly strug­ gle, Constantine appeared as the savior and benefactor o f Rome, who, with Vit. Const, as early as 335, shortly after an otherwise unattested meeting with Constantine at Con­ stantinople. 27. Writing the Funeral Oration o f Julian in the mid to late 360s, Libanius would remark (Or. 18.178) that Julian had written his work Against the Galileans in the tradition o f Porphyry’s refu­ tation o f Christianity. Like Porphyry, Julian leveled two primary attacks against Christians: that they (1) abandoned ancestral traditions, and (2) were a people without culture and without ed­ ucation. For further discussion, see Kofsky, Eusebius against Paganism, 58; Smith, Julian’s Gods, 187-96; and Meredith, "Porphyry and Julian,” 1147. 28. Kofsky, Eusebius against Paganism, 270. Eusebius’s main critique o f Porphyry occurs in Praep. ev. 3-6. In these books, Porphyry is the icon o f Greek religion and contemporary phi­ losophy. Though Eusebius regarded Socrates as the closest Greek exemplar o f Christian ethics (Praep. ev. 15.61) and Plato as the best expositor o f philosophy among the Greeks and the most like Moses (Praep. ev. 10.10; 10.19), he considered their positions flawed, and believed that their contemporary interpreters corrupted their philosophy even more (Praep. ev. 14.3.5). He repeated Numenius’s philosophical narrative o f decline to demonstrate that even the "reformers” o f Pla­ tonism had strayed far from both Plato and true philosophy. 29. In a letter to Magnus, Jerome (ep. 70.3) states that Methodius’s book against Porphyry to­ taled some χο,οοο lines, while the books o f Eusebius and Apollinaris comprised 25 and 30 vol­ umes respectively. Theodoret o f Cyrrhus also wrote a lost refutation o f Porphyry. On the burn­ ing o f Porphyry’s writings, see Cod. Theod. 1.6.66 ,15.5.66, and Socrates, H.E. 1.9.30, who refers to a previous order to destroy Porphyry’s w ork under Constantine. 30 .

Cameron, "Eusebius o f Caesarea and the Rethinking o f History,” 76; 86-87. For a con­

cise bibliography on the political philosophy o f Eusebius, see Michael J. Hollerich, “Religion and Politics in the Writings o f Eusebius: Reassessing the First ‘Court Theologian,” ’ Church His­ tory 59 ( t 9 9 o ): 3 0 9 n.2. 31. Hollerich, "Religion and Politics,” 309-n.

God as his ally, brought the earthly battle to a decisive and victorious end.32 Thus, Eusebius understood Constantine’s success within the framework o f God’s sovereignty over history.33 In a series o f works dedicated to the per­ son o f Constantine, Eusebius outlined a chronology o f history brought to its divinely intended climax.34 Glen Chesnut saw in Eusebius’s narrative a Christian version o f the Hesiodic plan o f the decline o f the human race into polytheism, which was later enlightened and saved by the reemergence and dissemination o f true philosophy.35 Despite this confident outlook, Constantine’s death created an air o f polit­ ical insecurity and social uncertainty. The outcome we know from hindsight was still unknown. Would Constantine’s three sons, his appointed heirs, con­ tinue their father’s policies toward the ecclesiastical structures? Would Chris­ tian monotheism maintain its preferred status? Would bishops be allowed to retain their positions as powerful and influential intellectual and religious leaders? How would ecclesiastical politics play out? The Vit. Const, emerged from this climate. Scholars have disputed the genre o f the work. Timothy Barnes considered it “an experimentation in hagiography,” a documentary history transformed into a panegyric.36 In this view, the work was left incomplete at Eusebius’s death in 339. Averil Cameron challenged Barnes’s view, proposing instead that it was a “literary hybrid,” an experiment that reshaped and rethought the definitions and boundaries o f ancient genres.37 Anna Wilson has dubbed 32. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.9. 33. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories, 98. 34. These works are the revised Hist, eccl, the homilies on the churches o f Tyre and the H oly Sepulchre, the Praise o f Constantine (LC) offered on the occasion o f Constantine’s tricennalia, and the Vit. Const. Drake (Constantine and the Bishops, 372) suggests that the Vit. Const, was intended to be read alongside the LC, Constantine’s Oration to the Saints, and Eusebius’s oration on the Church o f the H oly Sepulchre, as a collection o f works that demonstrated a harmony in the theological vision o f Constantine and Eusebius. The works appear together in some manu­ scripts. 35. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories, 109. 36. Barnes, "Panegyric, History and Hagiography.” 37. Cam eron and Hall, Life o f Constantine, 27. See also Averil Cameron, “ Eusebius’ Vita Con­ stantini and the Construction o f Constantine” (in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, ed. Mark J. Edwards and Simon Swain [N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1997]), for a more detailed criticism o f Barnes’s position and her suggestion that the Vit. Const, was “ a prototype for a saint’s life” (173); and also “ Form and Meaning: The Vita Constantini and the Vita Antonii" (in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late An­ tiquity, ed. Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau, Transformation o f the Classical Heritage [Berke­ ley: University o f California Press, 2000], 72-86). In “Eusebius o f Caesarea and the Rethinking o f History,” she argues that Eusebius abandoned the norms o f imperial panegyric in both the

it a “hagiobiography,” an "eclecticism o f genres,” which offers a triumphal replacement to the paradigm o f the martyrdom account.38 This very experi­ mentation with literary genres, I suggest, served as a strategy in the evolution o f biographical literature as an arena o f cultural competition. In exhibiting the characteristics o f several biographical genres—the encomium o f the dead, the panegyric o f the ruler, the philosophical bios o f the intellectual, the histo­ ry o f a nation, and the praxeis o f great political and military men—the scope o f the text seems twofold: to depict Constantine as, on the one hand, a wise ruler, and on the other, a paradigmatic Christian. Eusebius himself invites a comparison with other bioi in the prologue: “Those writers who have com­ posed lives o f worthless characters [βίους άνδρών οΰ σεμνών] which are o f no use for moral improvement, whether from partisanship or animosity towards certain persons ... have unnecessarily expanded their narrative o f shameful actions, setting themselves up ... as teachers not o f good deeds, but o f deeds fit for the silence o f oblivion and darkness.” 39 Eusebius describes his work as a ‘"book which deals with the deeds o f the great imperial mind [βασιλικής μεγαλονοίας].” 40 He employs the imagery o f Plutarch in drawing a comparison between his work o f verbal portrai­ ture and the art o f a sculptor or painter. This "verbal portrait [τήν διά λόγων εικόνα] in memory o f the Godbeloved” will endure, unlike portraits made of lifeless material.41 Like Plutarch, Eusebius emphasized the moralizing pur­ pose of the bios as verbal portrait o f the soul that instructed its reader in virtue and vice.42 Like the “lives [βίοι] o f Godbeloved men in ancient times [who were] illustrious in every kind of virtue,” the life of Constantine would Vit. Const, and the earlier LC and adapted the conventions o f the genres: a new kind o f praise for a new kind o f emperor (83-84). 38. Anna Wilson, "Biographical Models: The Constantinian Period and Beyond,” in Constan­ tine. History, Historiography and Legend, ed. Samuel N. C. Lieu and Dominic Montserrat (New York: Routledge, 1998), 107-35. Wilson also calls attention to the importance o f Moses typol­ ogy in the Vit. Const. 39. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.10.3 (Kritische Beitrdge zu den Constantin-Schriften des Eusebius [Euse­ bius Werke Band I], ed. Ivar A. Heikel, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur Bd. 36, Heft 4 [Leipzig: J. C . Hinrichs, 1911], 12); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 72. 40. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.10.2 (Heikel, 12); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 71. 41. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.10.1 (Heikel, 11); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 71. 42. Eusebius does not reject the usefulness o f material portraits outright. He reports that numismatic images and statuary o f Constantine were made for the purpose o f demonstrating the emperor’s piety. See Vit. Const. 4.15. This contrast recalls the episode surrounding the por­ trait o f Plotinus in Vit. Plot. 1. Porphyry deemed a material portrait insufficient to capture the essence o f its subject and implied that his textual account o f the virtuous life o f his teacher served as a better testament and guide o f Plotinus's life and teaching.

be “recounted to a new generation.”43 In this account, the first Christian em­ peror assumes the roles o f model and teacher to his subjects.44 He is an em­ bodied exemplar whom God “put forward as a teaching in paradigmatic right worship to the mortal race” (διδασκαλίαν θεοσεβούς υποδείγματος τον άνδρα τφ θνητω γένει προβεβλημένος).45 Eusebius continues: ‘As the only one o f the widely renowned Emperors o f all time whom God set up as a huge luminary and loud-voiced herald o f unerring godliness (θεοσεβείας), he is the only one to whom God gave convincing proofs o f the religion he practices by the ben­ efits o f every kind which were accorded him.”46 Thus, the work is a demon­ stration o f eusebeia, or theosebeia, in the life of the emperor. Not simply an ac­ count o f imperial accomplishments, the Vit. Const, recounts what “relates to the life which is dear to God” (τον θεοφιλή συντείνοντα βίον).47 The Vit. Const., then, aims to be a bios o f Constantine in relation to his defense and promo­ tion o f the Christian faith. It is the story of king, empire, and ekklesia. To this effect, Eusebius names God as the “author” (γραφεΰς) o f Constantine’s bios and prays that the emperor’s memory might be inscribed “on tablets o f heav­ enly monuments for long eternities.” 48 The portrait o f Constantine that emerges from the Vit. Const, is o f the philosopher-ruler with a Christian twist. A new context demanded a new strategy. Reflecting on the historical and theological significance o f the re­ cently deceased emperor amidst so much uncertainty, Eusebius fashioned a historiographical narrative that interwove the life o f the emperor and the ex­ periences o f the churches within a narrative o f salvation history and the his­ tory of the Roman empire. This was the point toward which the history o f philosophy was moving. The focus on Constantine’s deeds as they related to his demonstration o f eusebeia toward the Christian God also merges with the story o f Christian philosophy. Constantine was neither a Christian scholar like Origen nor a martyr. Yet he represents a new locus o f Christian identi­ ty, a role which, like that o f the scholar and the martyr, plays a decisive role in the larger narrative. He was the “friend to God who rules over all” and model o f God’s ruling power.49 Constantine thus embodied Eusebius’s un43. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.3.4 (Heikel, 9); trans. Cameron and Hall, 68. 44. Cameron, "Form and Meaning,” 78. Cf. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 148. 45. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.4.1 (Heikel, 9); m y translation. 46. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.4 (Heikel, 9); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 69. 47. Eusebius, Vit. Const, i.n .i (Heikel, 12); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 72. 48. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.9.2 (Heikel, 11); trans. Cameron and Hall, 71. 49. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.3.4 (Heikel, 9). Eusebius also describes Constantine as the “ friend” o f the Logos in/,C 2.1 3.

derstanding o f eusebeia as "the elevation [άνάνευσις] towards the one who is confessed as truly one and only and who is God and the bond o f life accord­ ing to him, in which even friendship with him is born/'50 Eusebius had already begun to fashion this portrait o f Constantine in the Praise of Constantine (LC). Although it is an example o f imperial panegyric rather than a bios, it is still useful to compare the two texts to see how this in­ terpretation o f Constantine had already begun taking shape during his life­ time. Eusebius delivered the LC before a mixed audience o f Christians and non-Christians. In it he deems the emperor the source and model o f wisdom for his subjects.51 While the language o f the LC remains religiously neutral, Constantine's identity as a specifically Christian ruler with a Christian agen­ da stemming from Christian wisdom and eusebeia is unabashedly expressed in the Vit. Const. While the Greek intellectuals present at the delivery o f the LC could hold that the wise ruler was "friend” and reflection o f the Logos (whether or not they held that Constantine was such a ruler), in the Vit. Const. Eusebius identifies Christ as the Logos.52 Again, while any Greek in­ tellectual might agree with Eusebius’s assessment in the LC that Constantine was the bringer o f an empire-wide peace, stability, and unity, who put an end to the tetrarchy and reinstituted a harmonious monarchy like that o f Augus­ tus, he would certainly reject the position o f the Vit. Const, that the Father o f Jesus Christ planned and orchestrated Constantine’s military and political victories from the creation o f the world. In the vein o f Pythagorean and Platonic political philosophy, Eusebius emphasized the ideas o f imitation (mimesis) and likeness (homoidsis) in his presentation o f Constantine. Constantine was a champion o f monarchy and destroyer o f polyarchy; his political settlement imitated the ordering o f the universe under one divine principle.53 Walking in the path o f virtue, he took as his instructor and guide the Logos.54 In this way, Constantine reflected a union in likeness to the divine monarch. Constantine was to the empire what 50. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 1.1.3 (SC 206, 98), m y translation. 51. Drake suggests the LC was a sort o f "dry run" for the Vit. Const., a philosophical inter­ pretation o f the emperor’s reign composed with Constantine’s approval. The language o f the LC is religiously neutral; that is, there are no specific references to either Christ, the Christian God, or Greek or Roman divinities. Yet, the speech could have been understood by and agree­ able to either a Christian or a Greek familiar with the philosophical discussion concerning kingship. See Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 372-82. 52. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.2.3. See O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 146-48. 53. Eusebius, LC 4. 54. Eusebius, LC 5.

God was to the cosmos. He also participated in the mission of the Logos, serving as a “teacher o f piety” (εύσεβείας ... διδάσκαλον) in bringing his sub­ jects to knowledge o f God and virtue.55 This mission o f the θεοφιλής (“friend o f God,” or “Godbeloved” ) was in accord with a providential plan: “In such a way then did God, the President o f the whole world, o f his own will select Constantine, sprung from such a father, as universal ruler and governor, that no man could claim the precedence which he alone possessed, since the rest owed the rank they held to election by others.” 56 Thus, Eusebius’s artful execution o f the philosopher-ruler model situat­ ed the emperor within a providential historical plan in a way that the Greek political philosophers had not envisioned. For this approach, Eusebius may have turned to Philo, who, as we saw above, had represented Moses as a type o f the philosopher-ruler. In Philo’s Mos., the mission o f the Hebrew king, priest, and lawgiver was not only to reveal true philosophy and right worship to the Israelites, but to make these known also to Gentiles. In this regard, the Constantine o f the Vit. Const, is a reappearance o f Moses. Using typical panegyric synkrisis, Eusebius compares Constantine to Cyrus and Alexander, asserting his superiority to both.57 He finds the best comparison in Moses, especially in the areas o f education, mission, military victories, and relation­ ship to God.58 Already in the Ecclesiastical History Eusebius had employed a Mosaic typology in his description of Constantine’s defeat o f Maxentius, lik­ ening it to the showdown between Moses and Pharaoh at the Red Sea.59 He uses this same material practically verbatim at Vit. Const. 1.38.60 When this is read against the background o f Eusebius’s treatment of Moses in earlier works, it is clear that he is linking Moses and Constantine as cooperators in the narrative of philosophical history. Not only do they mirror each other, but this very mirroring is an indication that Constantine completes the di­ vine task that had begun with the revelation to Moses. Both men were called to liberate the people o f God from tyranny and oppression. Both men bat­ tled against the forces o f polytheistic idolatry with the aid of God. Both men 55. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.5 (Heikel, 9). 56. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.24 (Heikel, 19); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 78-79. 57. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.7-9 58. See Cam eron and Hall, in Eusebius, Life o f Constantine, 192-93. 59. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.9. 60. Hollerich (“ Religion and Politics,” 323) has called this an unprecedented “ secular applica­ tion” o f biblical typology, while Claudia Rapp (“Moses in Panegyric and Hagiography,” 291) has noted that Moses typology was typically applied to bishops, rather than rulers, in the fourth and fifth centuries.

represented and exemplified true doctrine and way o f life not only for the benefit o f God’s people, but for the entire world. With Constantine, the full revelation o f Christian philosophy had finally triumphed over its enemies, seen and unseen, and had begun to transform the (Roman) world. Eusebius presents an innovative version o f the Platonic philosopherruler in Constantine. Agent of the divine Wisdom, he is also an agent o f a di­ vine history, a history that itself images eternal and transcendent truth in the changing world. A devotee of true eusebeia, he led his subjects toward that same piety for the transformation o f their own souls. But Constantine was not a philosopher; and Eusebius did not try to depict him as one in the strict sense. In the account o f Constantine’s family, youth, and education, formal training in literature, philosophy, and rhetoric take a back seat to the seeds o f natural wisdom and virtue, which the emperor inherited from his family. Like his son, the elder Constantius (ca. 250-306) was a ruler who was a friend o f God, so disposed toward the good and eusebeia that “he consecrated his whole household to the one God o f the Universe, with his children and wife, and including the domestic servants, so that the body o f persons assembled within the imperial quarters was in all respects a church o f God.” 61 In the Ec­ clesiastical History, Eusebius had regarded Constantius s favorable disposition toward Christians as evidence o f his devotion to the divine word.62 His son Constantine was a perfect copy o f his father. Thus it is by filial generation, imitation o f his father, and the guidance o f the Holy Spirit that a “good na­ ture” was fostered in the young prince. It is perhaps not too much to suggest that in Eusebius’s description o f the Constantinian dynasty he employs a ter­ minology o f filiation that bears resemblance to the language o f Trinitarian theology (albeit o f a Eusebian type). Just as Constantius can be said to rule through Constantine,63 so Eusebius will also suggest (and petition) a conti­ nuity in the rule o f Constantine’s sons, whose father also rules with them in spirit: “So like a trinity [οΰτω δή τριάδος] having acquired a triple Godbeloved offspring o f sons and having honored his offspring with adoption into impe­ rial rank at the end o f each decade, he reckoned his own thirtieth anniver­ sary an auspicious occasion for thanksgivings to the universal King o f all.”64 And again: “Thus also did the throne o f Empire descend from his father [i.e., 61. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.17.3 (Heikel, 16); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 76. 62. See Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.13.12. 63. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.22.1. 64. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4.40.2 (Heikel, 133); trans. Cameron and Hall, 168.

Constantius] to him, and by natural law it was stored up for his sons and their descendants, and extended to unaging time like a paternal inheritance.” 65 Like Moses, Eusebius writes, Constantine was reared “in the heart o f the palace and family circle o f the tyrants,” and he learned “to share the wis­ dom they possessed.” 66 Raised in the court o f Diocletian (just as Moses was raised in the house o f Pharaoh), Constantine received an education in rheto­ ric. Though this would be useful to the emperor, his noble character is attrib­ uted more to an “instinctive shrewdness” and “God-given wisdom.”67 These would reach full development with Constantine’s association with Christian teachers, described as his “advisers” in this description o f a meeting between the emperor and bishops after the vision that assured his victory against Maxentius: He summoned those experts in his [i.e., God’s] words, and enquired who this god was, and what was the explanation o f the vision which had appeared in the sign__ He listened attentively to [their] accounts too, while he marveled at the divine mani­ festation which had been granted to his eyes; comparing the heavenly vision with the meaning o f what was being said, he made up his mind, convinced that it was as God’s own teaching [θεοδίδακτον] that the knowledge [γνώσιν] o f these things had come to him. He now decided personally to apply himself to the divinely inspired writings. Taking the priests o f God as his advisers [παρέδρους], he also deemed it right to honor the God who had appeared to him with all due rites. Thereafter, fortified by good hopes in him, he finally set about extinguishing the menacing flames o f tyr­ anny.68

This philosopher-ruler, endowed with natural virtue by the Creator, and called to serve him in a miraculous vision, entrusted his own progress in knowledge and virtue to Christian bishops, the teachers of the Church. If the Neoplatonists regarded the philosophical school as the place where spiri­ tual progress was made through study o f a curriculum under the guidance of a teacher, here Eusebius implies that the Church was such a school.69 According to Eusebius’s characterization, members of the Christian intellec­ tual party now secured advisory positions traditionally held by Greek philos­ ophers.70 65. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.9.2 (Heikel, n); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 71. 66. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.12.1 (Heikel, 13); trans. Cameron and Hall, 73. 67. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.19.2 (Heikel, 17); trans. Cameron and Hall, 77. Cf. Eusebius, LC 5. 68. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.32 (Heikel, 22-23); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 82. 69. See O'M eara, Platonopolis, 61. 70. On the role o f philosophers in the imperial court through the reign o f Marcus Aurelius, see Elizabeth Rawson, "Roman Rulers and the Philosophic Adviser,” in Philosophia Togata: Es-

Having devoted himself to the God o f his father (that is, to the Christian God in Eusebius's estimation), the Logos-inspired king charged into battle as general. A participant in Christ’s victory over evil, Constantine engaged in earthly campaigns that brought not only political and military victory, but the victory o f true eusebeia over false eusebeia. Combat on the battlefield re­ flected the inner battle the philosopher-ruler waged in his spiritual life. In this regard, Eusebius presents the philosopher-ruler as a paradigm o f virtue and the exemplary Christian. He describes Constantine’s way o f life as “philoso­ phy” at 4.26 and 4.28. His preparation for physical battle included prayer, fast­ ing, and physical mortification. Like Moses, Constantine pitched a tent out­ side the military encampment, where he engaged in prayerful preparation and received divine revelation.71 Here the philosopher king’s role as model and teacher of virtue to his subjects comes into clearer focus. Following Plutarch, Eusebius had stated in his prologue that a subject who did not lead readers toward moral excel­ lence was not a worthy subject at all. Therefore, he depicted Constantine as a paradigm o f eusebeia in all his deeds so as to “bring the Savior’s teaching into good repute.” 72 Once Constantine was sole emperor, his policies and prac­ tices set a standard. His reading o f scripture, his manner o f praying, and the establishment o f Sunday as a day o f prayer identified him as an image o f eu­ sebeia.73 In fact, Eusebius remarks that the very expression o f eusebeia could be seen in his portrait: “In the imperial quarters o f various cities, in the im­ ages erected above the entrances, he was portrayed standing up, looking up to heaven, his hands extended in a posture o f prayer.” 74 Constantine was a teacher o f piety for his subjects: He thought that he ought to rule his subjects with instructive argument, and estab­ lish his whole imperial rule as rational. Consequently when he gave the invitation,

says on Philosophy and Roman Society, ed. Jonathan Barnes and Miriam Griffin (N ew York: Oxford

University Press, 1989), 233-57. Following Plato, both Dio Chrysostom (Discourse 49) and Plutarch (That Philosophers Should Consort with Rulers) advocated the presence o f a philosopher among

the emperor's advisers. Eusebius fails to mention the continuing presence o f Greek philoso­ phers in Constantine’s court. See the discussion on Eunapius below. On the religious advisers o f Constantine, see, Brian H. Warmington, “ Did Constantine Have ‘Religious Advisers’?’’ Stu­ dia Patristica 19 (1989): 117-29 ; Cam eron and Hall, The Life o f Constantine, 212; and Drake, Con­ stantine and the Bishops, 384.

71. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 2.12-14. 72. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4.1 (Heikel, 118); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 153. 73. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4.17-22. 74. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4.15.2 (Heikel, 123); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 158-59.

countless multitudes rushed to join the audience to hear the Emperor's philosophy. If while speaking he had occasion to mention God, standing quite straight with intense face and subdued voice, he would seem to be initiating the audience with deep awe in the inspired doctrine, and then when the hearers let out favorable exclamations he would indicate that they should look to heaven and save the adulation and honor o f their reverent praises for the King over all.75

Eusebius envisioned a role for the emperor that both extended beyond military conquest and secured the Church's position in the world. The Christian philosopher-ruler also played a crucial role in the internal life o f the church, including its governance, practice, and formulation o f doctrine. While emperors had assumed the duties o f regulating cultic practices as pon­ tifex maximus since the time o f Augustus, matters o f philosophical doctrine were left to the intellectuals.76 Yet Eusebius’s appellation o f Constantine as a “universal bishop appointed by God” seems to extend to convening councils o f bishops to settle doctrinal and disciplinary issues. Constantine participated in these events: “He did not disdain to be present and attend during the pro­ ceedings, and he participated in the subjects reviewed ... and he took his seat among them as if he were one voice among many.” 77 Exactly what Eusebius regarded as the proper relationship between emperor and bishop in a Chris­ tian empire is unclear. Here he seems to advocate powers that had been the sole exercise o f bishops— convoking councils and formulating doctrine. But these activities naturally apply to the Eusebian philosopher-ruler. Both Euse­ bius and Constantine himself promoted the notion o f the emperor as isapostolos, an equal to the apostles, the predecessors o f the bishops.78 The prob­ lem, of course, was that many o f Eusebius’s episcopal colleagues were not as enthusiastic to share the duties and powers that had been their prerogative in pre-Constantinian times. Eusebius regards the Council o f Nicaea (325) as Constantine's great “sec­ 75. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4.29.1-2 (Heikel, 128); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 164. 76. Even Constantine’s letters suggest that the emperor may have considered the resolution, or at least the facilitation, of ecclesiastical disputes to fall under his purview as pontifex m axi­ mus, for example, in his letter to Arius and Alexander of Alexandria. For discussion of the inclu­ sion of Constantinian correspondence and decrees in the Vit. Const., see Brian H. Warmington, “Sources of Some Constantinian Documents in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and Life o f Con­ stantine," Studia Patristica 18 (1985): 93-98.

77. Eusebius, Vtt. Const. 1.44.2 (Heikel, 28); trans. Cameron and Hall, 87. 78. Eusebius includes a report that Constantine had referred to himself as “bishop [επίσκοπος] appointed by God over those outside” (Vit. Const. 4.24 [Heikel, 126; trans. Cameron and Hall, 16 1 1). Constantine had also prepared for his burial among the shrines o f the apostles in Constantinople (Vil. Const. 4.60).

ond victory” for Christianity against its enemies. The first, of course, was his defeat o f the tetrarchs and the establishment o f monarchy. This second “vic­ tory” entailed action that affected the internal workings o f the ecclesiastical structures. The enemies this time were envy and strife. With Christians saved from the threat o f persecution and the pollution o f idolatry, their king had to intervene to save the Church, the kingdom within the kingdom, from the danger o f division and heterodoxy. Nevertheless, the account of the first ec­ umenical council is partial.79 Eusebius says very little about the theological disputes that led to the calling o f the council. In the lead-up to the account o f the council, Eusebius characterizes Con­ stantine as arbitrator o f disputes and as a savior, offering a cure to the disease of division. He also advocates an alliance between empire and Church, as he includes the letter o f Constantine to Arius and Alexander of Alexandria in which the emperor reflects on his agenda: “I knew that if I were able to es­ tablish a general concord among the servants o f God in accordance with my prayers, the course o f public affairs would also enjoy the change consonant with the pious desires of all.” 80 A “consistent view” o f God would ensure the healing o f the republic.81 This approach accords well with Eusebius’s po­ litical philosophy, and his inclusion o f the letter demonstrates the emperor’s authority and influence over the priest Arius and bishop Alexander, urging them toward unity o f opinion. He compares the situation to that o f Greek philosophers, who were at least willing to agree to disagree on “such small and utterly unimportant matters.” While the letter certainly reveals Constan­ tine’s ignorance o f theological intricacies, Eusebius utilizes the letter as evi­ dence o f the philosopher-ruler’s command over disputing clergy, executing his charge as preserver o f concord and unity. Eusebius describes the theological and political division in the churches o f Egypt prior to the Council o f Nicaea as a manifestation o f envy resulting in civil, or rather ecclesiastical, strife: “The bishop o f one city was attacking the bishop o f another, populations were rising up against one another, and were all but coming to physical blows with each other, so that desperate men, out o f their minds, were committing sacrilegious acts, even daring to insult the 79. In his Ecclesiastical History, Socrates accuses Eusebius o f being more concerned with praising Constantine than giving a complete picture o f the Arian controversy. In fact, Eusebi­ us’s version barely gives a sense o f the theological debate that prompted the council. Socrates credits Constantine with the suggestion o f the term όμοούσιος. 80. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 2.65.2 (Heikel, 67); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 116. 81. Cf. Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making o f Religion, 157.

images o f the Emperor.” 82 He describes the dispute over the date o f Easter as a disease afflicting the churches. It was now time for Constantine to wage an­ other war against the forces threatening the internal stability o f the Church. As he had once saved the empire from the strife o f civil war and the error of idolatry, so now the philosopher-ruler would intervene to save the churches. In Eusebius’s account, the victory o f Nicaea is brought about by the divine guidance o f Constantine’s wisdom. The council was Constantine’s idea and Constantine’s success. In his capacity as philosopher-ruler, Constantine de­ fends eusebeia: Once he received news o f what had been described, and perceived that the let­ ter which he had sent to those in Alexandria had failed, he applied his own mind [διάνοιαν] to the matter, and said that this was another war [πόλεμον] which he must struggle to win against the invisible enemy disturbing the Church. Then, as if to march against him, he marshaled a legion o f God, a world-wide Council.83

Eusebius credits Constantine not only with the convocation of the council, but also with the progress and success o f its proceedings. He is clearly the cen­ tral focus. The climax of the council is the emperor’s entrance, where he is de­ scribed as an angelic vision, an epiphany of royal splendor, and servant o f God: All rose at a signal, which announced the emperor’s entrance; and he finally walked between them, like some heavenly angel [άγγελος] o f God, his bright mantle shedding luster like beams o f light, shining with the fiery radiance o f a purple robe, and deco­ rated with the dazzling brilliance o f gold and precious stones. Such was his physical appearance. As for his soul, he was clearly adorned with fear and reverence for God: this was shown by his eyes, which were cast down, the blush on his face, his gait, and the rest o f his appearance, his height, which surpassed all those around him__ All these, blended with the elegance o f his manners and the gentleness o f imperial condescension, demonstrated the superiority o f his mind [Siανοίας] surpassing all de­ scription.84

The description is dramatic and emphasizes Constantine’s imperial and vir­ tuous qualities. He possesses harmony o f body and soul, the one reflecting the other. Though ruler, he is also a messenger from God, who, radiating the light o f divine wisdom, delivers the bishops from division by resolving their dispute.85 Encouragement and gentleness, not force, modesty, or pride, 82. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 3.4 (Heikel, 79); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 122. 83. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 3.5.3-3.6.1 (Heikel, 79); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 123. 84. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 3.10.3-4 (Heikel, 81-82); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 125. 85. Cf. Cameron, “ Form and Meaning,” 83.

are the proper comportment for the philosopher-ruler, who also acts here as judge. The reception o f the emperor in the narrative is one o f eager enthusi­ asm: all eyes focus on him and see him as the hope for unity. The ruler’s phys­ ical appearance enhanced the moral influence he had on his subjects. Its bril­ liance echoes a common trope in philosophical biography.86 Constantine’s speech encourages unity and harmony, the same principles that guided his military and political strategies. In bringing harmony to the Church, he acts as an earthly image o f the Logos, who brings order to the discordant elements o f the cosmos. This cosmic order provides a model for ethical and political order.87 In Eusebius’s account o f the council, Constan­ tine plays the role o f mediator and negotiator, an active participant in the de­ bates, leading and encouraging the bishops to concord by attention to sound reason: The emperor listened to all, without resentment, and received the proposals with pa­ tient flexibility; he took up what was said by each side in turn, and gently brought together those whose attitudes conflicted. He addressed each person gently, and by speaking Greek—for he was not ignorant of that language either—he made himself pleasant and agreeable, persuading some and shaming others with his words, prais­ ing those who were speaking well, urging all towards agreement [εις ομόνοιαν], until he had brought them to be of one mind and one belief [όμογνώμονας καί όμοδόξους] on all matters of dispute. Thus the faith prevailed in a unanimous form.88 And with that, peace and harmony were established within the Church, so that Constantine could claim a second victory. His sacred mission unfolded step by step: first, to prepare the ground for the peaceful existence o f the Church in the empire, then to secure concord within the Church, and, final­ ly, to continue the spread o f Christian “homodoxy’’ throughout the territory. This final stage in Constantine’s mission as philosopher-ruler emerges in his roles as patron and paradigm. In a striking passage, Eusebius writes that the nations conquered and settled by Constantine acclaimed him as “the gen­ 86. Hellenistic philosopher-ruler theory also emphasized the importance o f the king’s ap­ pearance as inspiring virtue in his subjects’ souls. See Chesnut, “ Ruler and Logos,” 1317. The brilliance o f Constantine’s appearance recalls a trope comm on in philosophical biography— the intelligence and wisdom o f the philosopher in touch with the divine shines forth through his body. 87. See Plato, Tim. 9ob-d; and O ’ Meara, Platonopolis, 97. 88. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 3.13-14 (Heikel, 83); trans. Cameron and Hall, 126-27. Eusebius’s use o f words in this passage with the Greek prefix "homo ” emphasizes the goal o f the activity o f the philosopher-ruler. Note, however, his omission o f the controversial Nicene theological term homoousion.

eral benefactor [ευεργέτην], and with one single voice they all acknowledged the common good o f mankind which by God’s grace had dawned in Con­ stantine.” 89 He notes, in particular, the generosity and patronage Constan­ tine showed to Christians. He restored property and church buildings that were destroyed or confiscated during the persecutions and provided funds to build new ones.90 Eusebius makes special note o f the Holy Sepulchre at Jeru­ salem, the Church o f the Nativity at Bethlehem, and the Church o f the As­ cension on the Mount o f Olives. He gives the impression that Constantine was dismantling Roman religion to create a Christian topography and land­ scape. Even the establishment o f a new capital at Constantinople served to distance the empire from the past polytheism o f the past toward an empire founded upon Christian eusebeia.91 Master. King. Father. Lord. Savior. Benefactor. Protector. Good Shepherd. These are the titles lavished on Constantine by his mourners. They are also titles that had been applied to the Hellenistic kings.92 How did Eusebius’s “image in words” o f Constantine contribute to the cultural competition be­ tween Greek and Christian intellectuals in the forging o f philosophical histo­ ry? The political climate in the period immediately after Constantine’s death was uncertain. After a thirty-year epoch o f monarchy, Constantine’s three sons now (uncomfortably) divided the empire.93 Monarchy had once again ceded to polyarchy. Eusebius advises the continuation o f Constantine’s poli­ cies in the triumviral reign o f his three sons, who continued to reign as the resurrected manifestation o f Constantine himself.94 They are the image of their father, as the Logos was the image o f the Father’s being. From Constan­ tius Chlorus to the sons o f Constantine, Eusebius constructed and defended 89. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.41.2 (Heikel, 27); trans. Cam eron and Hall, 86. 90. Eusebius, Vit. Cont. 2.44-46. 91. The most recent discussion o f the main issues is found in Raymond Van Dam, The Ro­ man Revolution of Constantine (N ew York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). See also the recent doctoral dissertation by Steven Larson, "W h at Temples Stood For: Constantine, Eusebius, and Roman Imperial Practice” (PhD diss., Brown University, 2008). 92. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4.65.1-2. On the use o f these titles in inscriptions and papyri o f the Hellenistic period, see Dvornik, Political Philosophy, 244. 93. In a constitutional settlement o f 335, Constantine arranged for power to be divided among his three sons, Constantius, Constantine, and Constans, who would share this pow ­ er with their cousins Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, who were both killed in the aftermath o f Constantine’s death. Constantine II was killed in 340 in a struggle against his brother Constans. Constans in turn was murdered in 350, leaving Constantius sole ruler o f the empire. See C am ­ eron and Hall, Life of Constantine, 333-34. 94. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 4-67.3.

Figu re 4-1. E u se b iu s’s visio n o f a d ivin ely established C h ristian im perial d yn a sty

an imperial dynasty, united in purpose and will to protect and defend Chris­ tian eusebeia (figure 4-1). The evolution o f Eusebius’s portrait o f Constantine from the Ecclesiasti­ cal History to the Vita Constantini is remarkable. These works not only re­ flect the dynamic shifts in Roman religion, politics, and society under Con­ stantine, but also show the development o f Eusebius’s understanding of the role o f Constantine in philosophical history. As a paradigmatic philosopherruler, Constantine provides a pattern for future Christian emperors. Though he had boasted in a pre-Constantinian draft o f the Hist. eccl. that his was not a story o f “victories in battle, the trophies o f enemies, the warlike achieve­ ments o f generals, the bravery o f soldiers,” but o f the peaceful and intellec­ tual battles for “truth” rather than “country,” it is the actual violence recount­ ed in books 9 and 10 that finally fulfills the symbolic violence and revolution o f Constantine’s reign. Eusebius hoped to demonstrate that the Christian God personally directed Constantine’s political and military victories. Con­ stantine was the agent who brought the victory o f true wisdom to its climax and fulfillment, as general and king who defended and united the empire for

the good o f the Church. What began as a narrative o f the succession o f the apostles and the transmission o f the gospel despite the attacks o f its enemies concludes with those enemies vanquished. The LC and the Vit. Const, contin­ ue the narrative, giving theological significance to Constantine in the context o f both salvation and philosophical history. He was the philosopher-ruler par excellence (called explicitly so in LC 5.21), “the interpreter o f the All-Ruling God” (LC 10), and didaskalos o f his subjects. Eusebius, in turn, was the self-styled interpreter o f Constantine.95 His claim to personal knowledge o f the emperor would seem to validate this role.96 His experiment in genres was also an experiment in theological and political thought, one that engaged and subverted existing political philoso­ phies. Eusebius's Greek peers perhaps would not dispute his vision o f a sole philosopher-ruler who manifested the rule o f the divine Logos, was advised by the intellectuals, and promoted eusebeia so as to lead his subjects toward union with the source o f all being. However, they would have found the identification o f the Logos with Jesus Christ, son o f the God o f Israel, to be unacceptable as it would signal a shift in political, religious, and educational policies toward favoring Christianity. The Eusebian grand narrative that commenced with an account o f the succession o f the apostles ends with the burial o f Constantine in the midst o f the apostles:97 “He erected twelve repositories like sacred monuments in honour and memory o f the company o f the Apostles, and put his own coffin in the middle with those o f the Apostles ranged six on either side.” 98 Con­ stantine was thus inserted into the myth o f Rome and the history o f salva­ tion as isapostolos, equal to the apostles. Eusebius’s bios was a revolutionary work o f political philosophy and historiography in which he sketched a vi­ sion for a Christian empire founded upon Christian eusebeia. The ideological vision undergirding the Vit. Const, would spark two responses—one Greek and one Christian. We turn first to Libanius’s Epitaphios for the Emperor Ju ­ 95. Eusebius, LC 11.7. Likewise, the emperor is the interpreter o f the Logos (LC 2.4), and the Logos the interpreter o f the Father’s design (LC 4.2). 96. On Eusebius’s acquaintance with Constantine, see Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 367-72, where the author engages Barnes and concludes that the limited documented contacts o f Eusebius and Constantine indicate more than just a distant acquaintance. 97. Eusebius’s description is vague and has left scholars wondering whether he is describing a mausoleum, a basilica, or both. For discussion, see Cam eron and Hall, Life o f Constantine, 33739; and Cyril Mango, “ Constantine’s Mausoleum and the Translation o f Relics,” Byzantinische Zeitschifl 83, no.i (t99o): 51-61. 98. Eusebius, Vil. Const. 4.60.3 (I leikel, 142); trans. Cameron and Hall, 176.

lian, in which a Greek o f Greeks exalts one o f his own as philosopher-ruler. In the next chapter, we consider one o f the most popular and influential of Christian bioi, Athanasius's Life of Antony.

Julian, the Philosopher Who Was King With the death of Constantius II in 361, his cousin and Caesar, Flavius Claudius Julianus, son of Constantine’s half-brother, became sole ruler o f the Em pire." The reign o f Constantius had been characterized by a jostling for power among Christian factions, notoriously in conflict with one another, while imperial patronage for Greek religious and educational institutions and positions dwindled. Though Greek intellectuals were not absent from the im­ perial court, Christian bishops had increasing access to the emperor.9 100 9 Themistius (ca. 317-88), the Greek philosopher and orator, whose career extended from the reigns of Constantius II to Theodosius, subscribed to a form o f political philosophy that in many ways paralleled that o f Eusebius. This is especially evident in his orations addressed to Constantius (see, espe­ cially, Oration 1). Julian rejected this stream o f “political Hellenism,” which re­ garded the emperor as the source o f law, adopting instead a Roman Repub­ lican view of the princeps as guardian, but subject, o f the law.101 As O’Meara notes, Julian recounts his own mission myth in Or. 7, where he ascends to a vi­ sion o f Helios, but is instructed to descend to utilize this in good rulership.102 Julian expressed his skepticism in the Letter to Themistius, a letter that also con­ cludes a rallying cry to the Greek pepaideumenoi, asking for their assistance.103 Julian’s plan to restore and renew the worship o f the gods was bound to a plan to solidify the Greeks’ hold on pedagogical authority. To this end, Julian instituted a number o f policies, including the rebuilding and rededication o f damaged and destroyed temples, the withdrawal o f privileges for Christian 99. Julian had been proclaimed Augustus by his soldiers in 360 (Ammianus Marcellinus, 20.4). 100. In the Vit. Phil, Eunapius writes that Sopater (who, according to Sozomen, was the leading Platonist o f his time [H.E. 1.5.1]) and Eustathius served as advisors and delegates in the courts o f Constantine and Constantius. Captivated by his eloquence, Constantius sent Eu­ stathius on an embassy to Persia. See Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists, 50-56. 101. Dvornik, Political Philosophy, 2:662-64. O ’Meara (Platonopolis, 83-84) concurs, suggesting that Julian saw himself less o f a philosopher-king than a “political executive, guided by ‘politi­ cal philosophers’ acting as advisers and legislators.” 102. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 79. 103. Julian, Letter to Themistius 266D.

clergy, a reorganization o f Roman and Greek priesthoods, and, most signifi­ cantly, a policy that sought to bar Christians from teaching Greek literature and philosophy.104 The educational policy o f Julian marked a crucial point in the public discussion o f the nature o f education, philosophy, institutions, and pedagogical authority. It also brought issues related to religious selfidentification closer to the forefront than they had been before. Julian s ap­ proach appears reactionary, a rejection o f Christian constructions o f philo­ sophical origins and history. Moreover, we might even sense a fundamental­ ist air in his insistence that worship and culture (eusebeia and paideia) could not be separated, or that one could not appreciate Homer without buying into Homer’s theological vision. The poets and philosophers had written un­ der the inspiration o f the gods who were the subjects o f their texts.105 Hom­ er’s literary skill could not be considered apart from these subjects; nor could Plato’s philosophy be detached from the tradition o f its interpretation. These were the fundamentals o f Hellenismos, binding together cultic, cultural, so­ cial, and intellectual identity markers. In Julian’s vision, one had to make a choice based on these rules o f the gam e.106 At another level, Julian’s public policy served a strategy o f establishing the rules o f the intellectual field by using the political and economic power o f the imperial office in a way that Constantine had not. There was a conscious effort to exclude and remove Christian teachers from pedagogical positions through the establishment o f eligibility criteria and an approval process sub­ ject to governmental authority.107 While it might be difficult to speak o f a “status quo” in this volatile period o f constant flux, Julian’s vision and poli­ cies hark back to a pre-Christian conservative traditionalism identified with the very heart and soul o f what it meant to be Romans and Greeks. The Christian advance on education, culture, and religion could be halted, so Ju ­ lian believed, with policies regulating the acquisition o f pedagogical posi­ 104. See ch. 1 for a more complete discussion o f Julian’s educational policy and how it fits into this analysis o f bioi. 105. For discussion o f the treatment o f H om er in early and later Neoplatonist circles, see Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth o f the Epic Tradition, Transformation o f the Classical Heritage 9 (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1986), 83-232. 106. Isabella Sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews, and Christians in An­ tioch, Greek Culture in the Roman World (N ew York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 177. Yet, there were some, such as Ammianus Marcellinus (25.4.20), who regarded Julian’s approach as “ cruel” to Christians. 107. Cod. Theod. 13.3.6. See discussion in ch. 1.

tions and the power and influence associated with them: Christian teachers would not be supported by imperial funds; they would be barred from the honors associated with public positions and deprived o f the consecrating au­ thority o f the public fora and institutions populated by the intellectual class. If Christians wanted to transform paideia, they would have to do so within their own spheres o f power, activity, and influence. The effectiveness o f Julian’s educational policy was much less impressive than its wider social effects. Marius Victorinus in Rome and Prohairesius in Athens (who, Jerome writes, rejected Julian’s offer o f exception), number among the few Christians whose public resignation from their teaching posi­ tions is documented.108 The emperor Jovian’s (363-64) edict o f 364 rescinded Julian’s Spoletum edict and reversed his predecessor’s educational program, allowing Christian teachers to return to teaching.109 Nevertheless, questions regarding the Christian’s access to and participation in paideia would linger. In life and in death, Julian was considered by many as an icon and defend­ er o f Hellenism. Inscriptions from his reign hail him as “lord o f the whole world and teacher o f philosophy,” 110 “the propagator o f liberty and the Re­ public,” 111 “the one who rules based on philosophy and who has grasped all that is from Helios with justice and all the other virtues ... the greatest and most divine ruler,” 112 and “the restorer o f liberty and Roman religion.” 113 His legacy would be protected and promoted by a circle of Greek intellectu­ als, among them Libanius and Eunapius, who would append the emperor to a continuously developing account of philosophical history, originating from the pen o f Porphyry. In the century that followed, a new circle o f Athenian philosophers would continue to reckon the years by Julian’s reign.114 In the wake o f the reign o f Julian, who died in 363, the Greek and Christian parties o f the intellectual class grew further and further apart. Christians assumed the dominant position and the Greeks experienced both voluntary and en­ forced marginalization. Julian would remain their hero. Epitaphios: Libanius and the L egacy o f Ju lian The rhetorician Libanius (ca. 314-93), like Eusebius, witnessed the shifting landscapes o f the fourth century. A staunch and vocal supporter o f the legacy 108. On Marius Victorinus, see Jerome, Vir. ill. 101; and on Prohairesius, Jerome, Chron. 363. 109. Matthews, Laying Down the Law, 276-77. no. ILS 751. 112. ILS 751b. 114. See, for example, Marinus, Vit. Proc. 36.

in . ILS 751. 113. ILS 752.

o f Julian, Libanius penned Oration 18, the “E p ita p h io sor “Funeral Oration,” for Julian, in which he promulgated a portrait o f the emperor as philosopherruler, general, and priest. Julian was an icon o f Hellenism whose memory could mitigate the crushing blow to the pepaideumenoi, who saw any hope for a cultural and philosophical renewal die with their emperor. It could be said that Libanius was Julian’s Eusebius, his interpreter, but under very different circumstances. The Epitaphios, in both form, rhetoric, and content, calls to mind the Vit. Const. In form, both works followed in the tradition o f encomi­ um and biography, while in content they invoked the categories o f Platonic political philosophy.115 Although attestation o f Eusebius’s Vit. Const, are few and far between (limited mainly to the fifth-century church historians), some scholars have suggested that Libanius knew the work.116 Despite its title, the “Funeral Oration” was not delivered during the em­ peror’s funeral. In fact, it is quite likely that the oration was never delivered to the general public at all. The political climate in the years after Julian’s death was especially tumultuous and even dangerous for Libanius, as his own writings describe in detail.117 With supporters o f Julian, such as Procopius, still making attempts to secure the throne as late as 365, a cloud o f suspicion fell over the circle o f intellectuals who had surrounded Julian throughout the reigns of Jovian (363-64), Valentinian I (364-75), and Valens (364-78). A signifi­ cant decrease in his published literary output characterizes these years. The only works that can be securely dated to this period are the “Monody on Ju ­ lian” (Or. 17), the “Funeral Oration” (Or. 18), and his 'Autobiography” (Or. 1). After the death o f Valens, Libanius would once again emerge on the public and literary stages to defend and promote the interests o f Greek intellectuals before the emperor Theodosius (379-95). His Or. 24, “On Avenging Julian,” dates to this period. 115. Libanius (Or. 18.2) also likens the work to a panegyric, but one that Julian was not pres­ ent to hear. 116. On the basis of “the flow of ideas” and "the general movement of thought," as well as similar wording and an "absolutely identical conception of the dignity and role of the Caesars in the empire of Constantine,” Paul Petit (“Libanius et la Vita Constantini,” Historia i [1950]: 56 282) argues that by 348 Libanius knew and used a version of the Vit. Const, (which he does not at­ tribute to Eusebius, but to an anonymous author) to compose his Or. 59, a panegyric dedicated to Constans and Constantius. In this work, Constantine is praised as "the Great King,” an invin­ cible warrior favored by Fortune. All mention of his Christianity is avoided. See also Cameron and Hall, in Eusebius, Life o f Constantine, 48-50; and Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, “Libanius on Con­ stantine,” CQ 44 (1994): 51X-24. 117. See Libanius Or. 1.136 38 (ca. 363-64). For various accusations, especially concerning divi­ nation and treason during the reign o f Valens, see Or. 1.171 78.

Internal evidence suggests that the Epitaphios was composed a few years after Julian s death—365118 and 368119 have been the two most plausible sug­ gestions. Because the political climate during the reign o f Valens would have made a public delivery o f the oration rather risky, Libanius may have pro­ nounced it for a small, limited audience o f acquaintances sympathetic to his cause, and circulated copies to other sympathizers, as he did on other occa­ sions.120 A broader written publication may have followed later, under more favorable, tolerant political circumstances. Libanius delivered Or. 24, “On Avenging Julian,” before the emperor Theodosius, using the occasion to call for the exercise o f justice on behalf o f the fallen emperor and to advocate before the new Christian administration for the protection and toleration o f traditional cultic practices and literary studies. The heroicized Julian re­ mained the principal symbol o f this movement. The Epitaphios is later attest­ ed in the fifth-century historians Socrates (H.E. 3.22-23) and Sozomen (H.E. 6.1.14-6.2.2), as well as in a number o f papyrus fragments o f the fifth through eighth centuries.121 Whether delivered to an intimate audience o f like-minded Greek intellec­ 118. Henry F. Clinton, Fasti Romani: The Civil and Literary Chronology o f Rome and Constan­ tinople, from the Death of Augustus to the Death o f Justin II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1845-50), 1:463; Richard Foerster, Libanii Opera, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Roma­ norum Teubneriana (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903-27; reprint Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1963), 2:222-24; Albert F. Norman, "Introduction,” in Julianic Orations, vol. 1 o f Libanius, Selected Works. 2 vols., ed. and trans. Albert F. Norman, Loeb Classical Library 451 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni­ versity Press, 1969), xxxiv; and Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, Libanios und Julian: Studien zum Verhaltnis von Rhetorik und Politik im vierten Jahrhundert n. Chr., Vestigia 46 (Miinchen: Beck, 1995), 260-68. W iem er suggests that a published and circulated written version o f the work during the reign o f Valens would not have been possible. 119. Gottfried Sievers, Das Leben des Libanius (Berlin: Weidmann, 1868), 253; Joseph Bidez, La vie de I’empereur Julien (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1930); Paul Petit, Libanius et la vie municipale ά Antioche au IVe siecle apresJ.-C., Bibliotheque archeologique et historique 62 (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste P. Geuthner, 1955), 185, and "Recherches sur la publication et la diffusion des discours de Libanius,” Historia 5 (1956): 481; and Eva Bliembach, Libanius: Oratio 18 (Epitaphios). Kommentar (Wurzburg: Julius-Maximilians-Universitat, 1976), xliv. 120. Wiemer, Libanios und Julian, 266-67. See also, Petit, "Publication et diffusion,” 484-85. See for example epp. 33; 64 and 283 (Norman), and epp. 630 and 1196 (Foerster) in which Liban­ ius describes other private readings for audiences o f intimate friends in times that were not fa­ vorable to public reading or uncontrolled circulation o f manuscripts. Libanius talks o f close friends, closed doors, and oral delivery only. Petit further suggests that Themistius knew the Epitaphios and responded to it in his own w ork (493 and n.2). Otherwise the earliest attesta­ tions come at the end o f the fourth century and into the fifth century, in Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 14, and Socrates, H.E. 3.17. W iem er adds that manuscript publication o f the Epitaphios most likely would have taken place after the death o f Valens, when the political environment was a bit saf­ er for Libanius. 121. Wiemer, Libanios und Julian, 268.

tuals during a period o f political danger or circulated in written form only at the beginning o f a new imperial reign, the composition of the Epitaphios identified Libanius as a “mouthpiece o f a pagan revival.” 122 Like the authors of other biographical works, Libanius touts his personal acquaintance with the emperor to claim the roles o f guardian and interpreter of Julian s mem­ ory. While Libanius was certainly a client o f Julian s patronage, he was also his “teacher,” making the author-subject relationship in this biographical text unlike others we have reviewed. Yet, as the teacher o f many, Libanius praised and recommended his “children” in countless letters. In fact, it was through his epistolary output that he built and maintained personal and professional networks.123 The abundance o f his personal writings, including correspon­ dence within broad, geographically diffuse circles o f intellectuals (for exam­ ple, ep. 283), reveals that Libanius possessed and exerted significant authority and influence, symbolic power, in these circles. Past scholarship has seen a “pagan group” o f Neoplatonist supporters of Julian in Antioch addressed in Libanius’s letters. Isabella Sandwell has suggested that, instead o f reflecting the existence o f such a group, the letters o f Libanius contributed to the con­ struction and centering o f a network o f intellectuals, scattered and isolated across the empire.124 Seen in this light, the Epitaphios itself was much more than an aesthetically pleasing speech o f nostalgia and honor. To the intellec­ tuals who had responded to Julian s request for support, and who had later experienced serious difficulties because o f this support, it was a real rallying call.125 Libanius’s contemporary Themistius again provides an interesting par­ allel. Like Libanius, Themistius composed and delivered public panegyrics commenting on imperial personae and programs.126 Unlike Libanius, how­ ever, Themistius seemed more comfortable using this public role to promote a conciliatory relationship between influential Greeks and the post-Julianic 122. Norman, Libanius, xli. 123. Sandwell, Religious Identity, 233-34. 124. For a discussion o f Libanius’s letter writing, see Sandwell, Religious Identity, 227-29. On the "pagan group” o f Julianic supporters and criticisms o f the views o f Petit and Malosse, see 213-15. 125. For Julian’s outreach to philosophers, see the Letter to Themistius. Libanius describes the hardships experienced by the supporters o f Julian in epp. 129 (Norman); 161 (Selected Letters of Libanius from the Age o f Constantius andJulian, ed. and trans. Scott Bradbury, Translated Texts for Historians 41 [Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004]); and 154 (Bradbury). 126. On the role o f panegyrists as “wild-cards” with a potential influencing role on rulers, see Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 386.

Christian regimes. P. J. Heather and David Moncur present Themistius as a consensus-builder, an advocate o f Greek intellectual and senatorial interests, who was ready to promote the legitimacy o f Christian emperors in order to win for his imperial patrons a broad base o f Greek support.127 At the same time, Themistius publically chastised Greek intellectuals who openly op­ posed and rejected Christian emperors, emphasizing, for example, the com­ patibility o f someone like Constantius with Roman culture and values.128 The benefits to Themistius’s own career are obvious: he was graced with po­ litical positions and professional honors by Constantius and Theodosius. At the same time, the public recognition o f his symbolic authority to validate and consecrate past and present rulers, or to delegitimize them, sheds light on his role in defining the past and influencing the future course o f public policy. Moreover, he was an advocate for a segment o f the population, Greek senators and pepaideumenoi, whose positions were precarious. The development o f political philosophy in Themistius’s writings reveals his dependence on Platonic notions o f the ideal ruler. This is most evident in his orations to Constantius, Jovian, Valens, and Theodosius. In Or. i to Constantius, for example, the emperor is an expression o f the “animate law” (νόμος έμψυχος) familiar from Diotogenes’s treatise On Kingship.129 Interest­ ingly, this approach did not work with Themistius’s “co-religionist” Julian, who in his private correspondence with the philosopher-orator rejected any notion o f divine kingship, distancing himself from Themistius’s flatteries.130 Heather and Moncur suggest that Themistius’s status with Julian, despite their teacher-student relationship, was ironically less cordial than the rapport he had with Christian emperors, perhaps due to their different philosophical and political visions, especially in their divergent estimations o f ChristianGreek consensus in a post-Constantinian age.131 With the unexpected death of Julian, members o f the Greek intellectu­ 127. See P. J. Heather and David Moncur, in Themistius, Politics, Philosophy and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius, ed. P. J. Heather and David Moncur, Translated Texts for Historians 36 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001), 37-39 and 57-61. 128. Ibid., 68. Cf. Robert Penella, “ The Rhetoric o f Praise in the Private Orations o f Them ­ istius” (in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau, Transformation o f the Classical Heritage [Berkeley: University o f California Press, 2000], 195), where he describes Themistius as “very adaptable,” and “no supporter o f the pagan emperor Julian’s religious zealotry.” 129. Themistius, Or. 1.15b. 130. See Julian, Letter to Themistius, 253c-254b. 131. Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 139-42.

al elite, such as Themistius and Libanius, pursued a variety o f strategies for their cultural and political survival under new, and sometimes hostile, Chris­ tian regimes. Libanius’s portrait o f Julian in the Epitaphios is an expression o f a political philosophy, which, like the Vit. Const., builds on notions o f the philosopher-ruler. From the beginning, Libanius calls the Epitaphios a work of praise (εύφημίαι), a narrative account (λόγοι), in which he intended to transmit to posterity the virtuous achievements of Julian.132 He praises the late em­ peror for his intellect (τό φρονείν), his rhetorical ability (τό δύνασθαιλέγειν), his virtues (ταίς άλλαις άρεταίς διαφέροντα των άλλων), his fairness as a judge, and his military prowess.133 Like Diotogenes’s philosopher-ruler, he is "most just” (δικαιότερος).134 Inasmuch as the Vit. Const, and the Epitaphios both display the formal char­ acteristics of ancient biographical literature and express interpretations of political philosophy in periods o f dramatic social and political change, their approaches differ in how the authors tie their subjects to the past and pro­ pose directions for the future. For example, both Constantine and Julian are portrayed as monarchs, chosen, and guided by divine will, to overturn previ­ ous political and religious policies. As young men, both emperors exhibited natural wisdom and virtue that was advanced by their study (though to very different degrees) and worship. These came to full bloom in their exercise o f the imperial office. But while Eusebius represented Constantine as a type o f Moses who surpassed the usual exemplars o f Greco-Roman warriors and kings, and who claimed a place in a salvation history, Julian represented a res­ toration o f a Hellenic empire, one founded upon the worship o f the Olym­ pian gods and the language and culture o f the poets and philosophers. He re-places displaced identity and practices.135 In this regard, Libanius empha­ sizes Julian s study o f philosophy and literature as formative influences on the young prince. A great general, judge, and priest, Julian was also a produc­ er o f culture himself, skilled at philosophy and a competent orator, an author and defender o f paideia.136 Such a savior, who embodied and represented the values o f the past, could be useful for inspiring its replication in the future. Libanius describes Julian’s unique rapport with the gods, a standard trope 132. Libanius, Or. 18.3. 133. Libanius, Or. 18.301. The account o f the failed Persian campaign takes up some 70 o f the 308 chapters o f the Loeb edition, almost a quarter o f the entire work. 134. See, Diotogenes p. 37.15 (Delatte). 135. See Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion, 164. 136. Libanius Or. 18.176. See also Cribiore, Libanius, 143.

o f late ancient biographical literature that connects authenticity and author­ ity to the claims o f the text. It also binds author, subject, and audience to­ gether in a solidarity o f religious identity. An intimate relationship with the divine is also an essential element o f this type of political philosophy: the rul­ er both imaged the authority o f the divine order to his subjects and led them in proper worship. Libanius offers a portrait o f a young man upon whom the abandoned gods set their hopes for a return to their pre-Constantinian hon­ or. As the last surviving member o f the Constantinian dynasty, who clandes­ tinely guarded his own devotion to the gods until his rise to power, Julian was the most suitable candidate to enact a “restoration.” 137 The call o f the gods is discreet and accomplished through an urging toward a “love o f learning” (προς έρωτα λόγων) by his guardian spirit (όλαχών δαίμων).138 The youth’s ap­ titude for every kind o f wisdom did not derive simply from natural ability or divine inspiration, but was formed and nurtured, in good Plutarchan form, through paideia. This is what formed his character and what made him suit­ ed for ruling: He gathered together wisdom of every kind and displayed it—poetry, oratory, the various schools of philosophy, much use of Greek and not a little of Latin, for he in­ terested himself in both. On the lips of every man of sense was the prayer that the lad should become the ruler of the empire, that an end be put to the ruin of civili­ zation, and that there be put in charge of the troubled world one who knew how to cure such ills.139 The gods also took notice o f the youth’s study o f Homer, Hesiod, and Plato, and regarded him as the one who “could restore the ancestral practices to them.” 140 Julian himself, seeing ruined temples, dispossessed priests, and ne­ glect o f the cult o f the gods, recognized the damage done not only to the gods, but also to the cities. This concern for the well-being o f the empire im­ pelled him toward a desire for power.141 The rulers o f Plato’s Republic and Laws were to order the polis according to his vision o f the divine Forms. Civic religion, therefore, was an essential responsibility.142 Whereas Themistius 137. The slogan o f “ restoration” appears in Libanius’s other Julianic literature. For example, in Or. 13.45 (Address to Julian), Libanius ties the restoration o f the worship o f the gods to eco­ nomic turnaround. See also Or. 17.9. 138. Libanius, Or r8.n (LCL). 139. Libanius, Or 18.21; trans. Norman, 293 (LCL). Recall Eusebius’s assertion in Vit Const. 3.13 that Constantine was able to address the council in both Latin and Greek. 140. Libanius, Or 18.29 (LCL): εβλεπον δέ άρα εις αυτόν και οί δαίμονες εό είδότες, ώς ούτος αύτοίς έπανάξει τα πάτρια (my translation). 141. Libanius, Or 18.23.

142. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 34-37; 116-18.

emphasized continuity o f Christian emperors with the past, here Libanius adopted a rhetoric o f rupture. Having caught the eyes o f the gods during his studies at Athens, Julian would continue to receive signs and assistance from them. A fortuitous “crowning” by a falling garland was a sure sign (σύμβουλον) o f his rise to the throne.143 In constant communication with his celestial guardians, the Cae­ sar consulted the gods’ advice through the sacred σύμβουλοι before accepting the throne. They answered, of course, in the affirmative.144 Throughout his reign, the gods continued to accompany Julian: appearing to him personal­ ly in visions (since they were grieved that he could not approach them in his physical condition),145 they acted as his counselors and guided his decisions.146 Even at his death, Julian ascended to the realm o f his heavenly advisers, where he partook o f their power and continued to rule and answer the supplications of his devotees.147 Thus, Julian received his direction from study and worship, paideia and eusebeia, and Libanius considered his policies to restore these vir­ tues to their previous prestige a meritorious, thoroughly considered, and godinspired program. In the estimation o f Libanius the achievements o f this short-lived philosopher-ruler surpassed the accomplishments o f his longest reigning predecessors. (Julian’s own favorite had been Marcus Aurelius.)148 In his account o f Julian’s education, Libanius had to deal with the em­ barrassment o f the youth’s upbringing in a Christian imperial household by Christian teachers. In an interesting twist on the Christian trope o f “outside education,” Libanius describes Julian’s childhood education under Christian bishops as “τον έμπροσθεν ... ύθλον,” or “previous nonsense.” 149 Perhaps an echo of Julian’s educational policy, Libanius’s point was that Christian teach­ ers were unsuited and unable to provide a proper formational education. Of course, we know that both Christians and Greeks numbered among Julian’s teachers. Julian himself fondly remembered the Greek eunuch Mardonius as 143. Libanius, Or. 18.40 (LCL).

144. Libanius, Or. 18.103.

145. Cf. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.29; 47.

146.

See Or. 18.173 and 18.180.

147. Libanius, Or. 18.304. In addition to the lasting legacy o f writings Julian left behind, Liba­ nius implies that the emperor, in his capacity as an apotheosized emperor, continued to grant blessings from the grave. From his seat at the side o f the gods, Julian continued to do great things in his capacity as σωτήρ: ώ μεγάλα μέν δράσας, μείζω δέ μέλλων (Or. 18.308 [LCL]). 148. Julian, Caes. 316. Here, Marcus Aurelius is the “philosopher emperor,” in both appear­ ance and behavior, who wins the philosophical contest o f all the Roman emperors. Constan­ tine, instead, is a slave to pleasure, and though he competes in the philosophical contest, he loses sorely. 149· Libanius, Or. 18.18 (LCL).

a favorite teacher.150 Libanius recalled him as a guardian o f virtue. Howev­ er, another o f Julian s teachers, Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, remains un­ mentioned by both Julian and Libanius.151 Transferred to the imperial estate at Marcellum by order o f Constantius, Julian fell under the care of the Arian bishop George o f Cappadocia. Liban­ ius omits all mention o f this period o f Julian’s formation, while Julian him­ self recalled it as a dark period, when he was “shut off” from the schools and liberal studies.152 Cut off from schools, perhaps, but not from texts. George had a library filled with the works o f the philosopher, which he had lent to Julian to copy. After George’s death, Julian ordered that the library be con­ fiscated and brought to him.153 We learn nothing else, from either Julian or Libanius, regarding George as a teacher or his attitude toward Greek educa­ tion. Julian distanced himself from George, claiming that in this “dark” peri­ od, he was saved “through philosophy.” The reason for Libanius’s omission is clear: whereas Christians had discovered a way to justify the study o f philos­ ophy, the Greek strategy, especially from Julian on, was to lend absolutely no legitimacy at all to any manner o f education by Christian teachers. Recogni­ tion o f this could have undermined his educational policy. Libanius praises only Julian’s non-Christian teachers and credits them with the prince’s virtuous formation. He includes himself in this group, though this stage o f their acquaintance was more o f a “distance-learning” arrange­ ment. In his account o f Julian’s sojourn in Nicomedia under the direction o f that city’s bishop, Eusebius, Libanius accused the bishop o f forcing the prince to take an oath never to study with Libanius. At the time Libanius was offi­ cial sophist in that city.154 He manages to seize a good measure o f credit for Julian’s education. He explains that Julian furtively acquired copies o f his lec­ tures, circumventing Eusebius’s prohibition. The prince thereby became so expert in Libanius’s teaching that the rhetor considered him his best imita­ tor of all his students.155 Though Julian never studied formally with Libanius, and their early relationship unfolded through texts, the sophist could present himself as a significant influence on the young emperor.156 In Libanius’s ac­ 150. Julian, Misop. 352a. 151. See Ammianus Marcellinus, 22.9.4; and Smith, Ju lian ’s Gods, 24. 152. Julian, To the Athenians 27ib-d; trans. Wright, 2:251 153. See Julian, epp. 23 and 38 (LCL).

(LCL).

154. Libanius, Or. 18.14.

155. Libanius, Or. 18.13-15. 156. See Raffaella Cribiore, The School o f Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 142.

count, this was the prelude to a more personal relationship that would de­ velop between himself and the emperor. Libanius’s Autobiography and corre­ spondence conjure an impression o f a personal, teacher-student relationship, which had little actual personal substance and seems to have been more con­ fined to text.157 In the Epitaphios, it is the common bond o f paideia that serves as the basis o f this relationship. While still a teenager, in 348 Julian returned to Constantinople, where his education resumed under Nicocles and Hecebolius—the former a Greek, the latter a Christian. Libanius recalls Nicocles as a “righteous priest, lead­ er o f paideia, who knew, if ever a man did, the mysteries o f the genius of Homer and all o f Homer’s school.” 158 Libanius credits him with Julian’s love for Homer. Julian’s Christian tutor (whose religious loyalties were known to fluctuate almost on command!), Hecebolius, is described by Libanius as a “wretched sophist [who] had the boy as a reward for his hatred o f the gods, and the boy was actually being brought up with such notions o f the gods [τή περί τών θεών ... δόξν]] and was enduring incompetence in rhetoric because o f the war waged against the altars by his teacher.” 159 Interestingly enough, Ju ­ lian never mentions Nicocles in his own writings, while a letter to Hecebolius is extant (ep. 63). Furthermore, despite the religious loyalties o f Hecebolius, Libanius had other reason to portray him so negatively: he had been em­ broiled with Libanius in a professional feud.160 Libanius continues with an account of Julian’s association with philoso­ phers and his so-called conversion. Between 349 and 355, Julian traveled to in­ tellectual centers such as Pergamum and Athens, where he met Aedesius, the pupil of Iamblichus, his student Priscus, Chrysanthius (the teacher o f Eunapius), and Maximus o f Ephesus, the mentor who introduced Julian to Iamblichan theurgy. In Athens he studied with the Christian Prohairesius161 and was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries.162 Libanius characterized this as 157. See, especially, Or. i.n8ff. and ep. 736. 158. Libanius, Or. 15.27; trans. Norman, 165 159· Libanius, Or. 18.12; trans. Norman, 287

(LCL), with modification. (LCL), with modification.

160. Smith, Julian’s Gods, 26. 161. See Julian ep. 14 for a letter from Julian to Prohairesius written 361-62 in which Julian offers to consign correspondence between himself and Constantius over to the rhetor should he wish to write an historical account o f affairs. For more on Eunapius’s account o f these teachers, see ch. 5. 162. There has been speculation that the hierophant who initiated Julian, whom Eunapius refuses to name, may have been one Nestorius, the father or grandfather o f the philosopher Plutarch o f Athens, who eventually laid the foundation o f the fifth-century institutional school ol Platonism at Athens. See Smith, Julitin’s Gods, 30, and the discussion in ch. 1 o f this volume.

a key turning point in Julian's formation: his association with these influen­ tial circles o f Greek intellectuals would set him firmly on the road to bring­ ing about the restoration the gods were hoping for; these “men full o f Plato” taught Julian about “real creators and saviors” : He gained knowledge of the nature of the soul, its origin and destination, the causes of its glory and elevation, and of its ruin and debasement: he discovered its bond­ age and its freedom, and the means to avoid the one and attain the other, and he washed a sour story clean with sweet discourse, casting out all that earlier nonsense [τον έμπροσθεν εκβολών ϋθλον] and in its place introducing into his soul the beauty of truth.163 For Libanius, paideia was a matter not simply o f learning and culture, but of associations and relationships. Education was a paternal begetting, a bond of teacher and student.164 Libanius compared a later meeting between Maximus and Julian to the encounter o f Chaerephon and Socrates.165 Julian’s entrance into this elite circle o f intellectuals and teachers at Pergamum and Athens signaled an alliance o f symbolic authority within a limited circle o f Greek intellectuals with the possibility o f real cultural and political results. Athens, in particular, was the “the mother o f Plato and Demosthenes and o f all the other forms o f wisdom.” 166 Appropriately enough, Julian attracted the atten­ tion of gods, philosophers, and rhetors in the birthplace o f Greek culture, arousing their hope that he would restore proper eusebeia.167 Though the ac­ tual results o f Julian s associations would be minimal, their memory and ide­ alization gave the surviving members o f this circle a focal point for maintain­ ing their network and pursuing their agenda. It would be in Athens, after all, among associates o f Julian and their social circles, that the impetus to re­ open a school o f philosophy with a succession o f leadership would eventu­ ally arise. Thus for Libanius, Julian’s educational formation under important teach­ ers o f rhetoric and philosophy in well-known centers o f learning served as a legitimating resume. This emperor was not simply a patron o f education and educators; he also benefited from that Greek education, which molded him 163. Libanius, Or. 18.18; trans. Norman, 291 (LCL). The "sour story" is a reference to Julian’s Christian upbringing. 164. See ch. 1.

165. Libanius, Or. 18.155-56.

166. Libanius, Or. 18.28 (LCL); m y translation. During his own youth, Libanius had studied in Athens with such teachers as Diophantus, Epiphanius, and Prohairesius. He admits that he was disappointed with Athens (Or 1.16). 167. Libanius, Or 18.20.

into a philosopher-ruler and champion o f paideia. He philosophized in Ath­ ens;168 as general he used philosophy to guide his military strategy;169 and in peacetime it directed his domestic policies. As a dispenser o f justice, he gave perfect judgments, not showing deference to either the poor or the rich, but remaining faithful to the precepts o f justice.170 Libanius offered the highest praise to Julian as a lover o f wisdom and priest of the gods. Imbued with a natural wisdom that was nurtured and cultivat­ ed by his studies, he was an ethical and pious model for his subjects, point­ ing them in the way to study and worship. He asserts that Julian considered “letters” (λόγους) and “the holy rites of the gods” (θεών ιερά) to be related (άδελφά).171 Libanius himself expresses the same view elsewhere.172 As such, he paints a portrait o f Julian as the therapeutic emperor. He was the restor­ er of eusebeia, responsible for the “the salvation o f the whole world.” 173 Ju ­ lian saw to the “doctoring o f souls” (τήν ίάτρευσιν των ψυχών).174 By rebuild­ ing temples, restoring the sacrifices to the gods, reforming the priesthoods, and even sending out pepaideumenoi as competent governors, Julian sought to nurse a diseased empire back to health.175 In creating an image o f Julian as a wise and virtuous philosopher, Liban­ ius also describes the emperor's manner o f life. Principal among the virtues that Julian embodied were temperance and piety, regulating food, drink, and sexual relations.176 Married only one time, the emperor chose not to remarry after the death of his wife. In fact, Libanius explains, if not for this marriage, Julian would have known nothing o f sex.177 His bed was not a locus o f cultic impurity, so he was able to have a bed chamber by a temple.178 Julian s de­ sires were ordered not toward the passions or power or material goods, but toward books, knowledge, and zeal for the gods. In this regard he fulfilled his role as exemplar to his subjects. The Epitaphios depicts Julian as an actor in the history o f philosophy. His efforts in restoring eusebeia from exile and his safeguarding o f the educational 168. Libanius, Or. 18.31.

169. Libanius, Or. 18.39; 72.

170. Libanius, Or. 18.182-88.

171. Libanius, Or. 18.157 (LCL).

172. Libanius, Or. 62.8. 173. Libanius, Or. 18.4 (LCL): έπι σωτηρία τών όλων (trans. Norman, 281). 174. Libanius, Or. 18.125 (LCL). 175. Am ong Julian's early public actions during his rise to power and conflict with Constan­ tius were renewed public worship o f the gods (Libanius, Or. 18.121) and the restoration o f sacri­ fice in Athens (Or. 18.114 16).

176. Libanius, Or. 18.174. 178. I.ibanius, Or. 18.128.

177. Libanius, Or. 18.179.

system are among his greatest accomplishments:179 “In this activity, then, in setting the world under the guidance of the gods and effecting a reconcilia­ tion, he was like a shipwright who fits out a big ship with a new rudder after she has lost her old one, but the difference was that Julian restored [άπεδίδου] to us our original protectors.” 180 There is no question that Libanius was con­ trasting the policies of Julian with the policies o f his Christian predecessors. For Libanius, Julian embodied the philosophical and pious ideals o f a past that had been violently separated from the present by a Christian interven­ tion. Libanius’s image of Julian acts as a bridge o f memory, linking the trou­ bled present of Greek intellectuals, who could no longer take their view of culture for granted, to a "Christian-less” past that served as their charter for action. The contrast may be even more deliberate. In descriptions o f the re­ building o f temples and restoration o f property, Libanius appears to echo Eusebius's portrait o f Constantine, who acted as protector and patron to a people who had long lived under the persecution of hostile administrations. This picture o f conflict and contrast regarding public worship and educa­ tion, most likely aimed at a private, controlled audience, is strikingly differ­ ent from the contemporaneous public promotion o f continuity and consen­ sus seen in the orations o f Themistius. In fact, when Themistius did criticize previous regimes, Julian came under attack for his religious policies.181 While Libanius does not speak of an “orthodox paideia,” he fondly re­ members the sacred rites that had been restored to the gods after a long ab­ sence: “Everywhere there were altars, and fire, and blood and fat and smoke, and even the seers were free from fear and on the mountain tops were pip­ ings and processions, and the same ox served as worship for the gods and a feast for men.” 182 Not only in his public liberation o f the θεραπεία o f the gods, but also in his private practice, Julian expressed perfect eusebeia: he had a temple built in the middle o f the palace to facilitate his daily morning sacri­ fices and celebrations o f mysteries.183 Through these actions, Julian effected a reconciliation with the gods, restoring them to the favor o f the empire and undoing the policies of prior administrations. The separation of education and worship advocated by Christian intellec­ 179. Cf. Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.5: Constantine is the teacher o f eusebeia; 4.18: Constantine is a teacher o f pious practices. 180. Libanius, Or. 18.129; trans. Norman, 363 (I.CL). 181. Heather and Moncur, Polities, Philosophy, and Umpire, 144.

182. Libanius, Or. 1H. 12 2008 American Society of Church History. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.

onstrate the intellectual viability o f a Christian philosophy. Origen, Eusebius had argued, was just as much a philosopher as, and indeed a better one than, his Greek contemporaries. He knew and taught the philosophers; he headed a school; he mastered rhetorical and exegetical skills; and he engaged his in­ tellectual opponents in debate. Moreover, Eusebius’s portrait o f the emper­ or Constantine expressed a problematic political philosophy.1 To concede to a Christian emperor the authority o f a philosopher-ruler who could claim a role in doctrinal definition and ecclesiastical order threatened the autonomy o f the bishops, especially when that emperor was not o f the same theologi­ cal persuasion.2 The appearance o f Athanasius’s Life of Antony in the mid fourth centu­ ry marked the inauguration o f a different strategy, which sought real alter­ natives to Greek philosophical exemplars in the growing class o f Christian ascetics.3 From this point forward, the dominant Christian paradigm would 1. For Constantine at the Council, see Vit. Const. 3.10-13. 2. See, for example, Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 81 where Antony is indifferent to letters from C on­ stantine and Constans. The monks had to convince their Abba these rulers were truly Chris­ tians. One is reminded o f the chreia, recorded in Diogenes Laertius, Lives o f Eminent Philoso­ phers, relating the encounters o f Alexander the Great with Diogenes the Cynic: “ W hen he was

sunning himself in the Craneum, Alexander came and stood over him and said, A sk o f me any boon you like.’ To which he replied, ‘Stand out o f m y light’ ” (6.38 [L C L 2:40]; trans. Hicks, 41). See also 6.32, 60, 63, 68. For a comparison o f the Life o f Constantine and the Life o f Antony, see Cameron, "Form and Meaning.” 3. Athanasian authorship has not gone without challenge, though the current scholarly con­ sensus recognizes the hand o f Athanasius behind the extant Greek version o f the Vit. Ant., as either author or redactor. I do not believe there is any compelling reason on textual, linguistic, or theological grounds to call this into serious doubt. Antony died in 356. Around 380 Gregory o f Nazianzus (Or. 21.5) credited Athanasius with the writing o f the Vit. Ant. Jerom e made the same attribution (Vir. ill. 87-88). Jerome also attributed the Latin translation to Evagrius who, he added, translated from the Greek version o f Athanasius (125). Fifth-century authors also named Athanasius as author (Rufinus, Hist. Eccl. 1.8; Paulinus o f Milan, Vita Ambrosii, prol.; Pal­ ladius, Hist. Laus., 8.6; Socrates, H .E., 1.21 and 4.23). Athanasian authorship was first questioned in the sixteenth century by Reformers, mostly on the basis that no Greek text o f the w ork was known. The publication o f the Syriac text in 1980 by Rene Draguet and his theory that it was a translation o f a copticizing Greek original, different from the extant Greek version, seemed to preclude the possibility that Athanasius was the author. See Athanasius, La vie primitive de S. Antoine: conservee en Syriaque, ed. Rene Draguet, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientali­

um (Louvain: Durbecq, 1980), 417-18. In his revision o f Draguet, Tim othy D. Barnes (“Angel o f Light or Mystic Initiate? The Problem o f the Life o f Anthony, " J T S 37, no. 2 [1986]: 353-68) posited an original Coptic version behind the Syriac instead o f a copticizing Greek version. On the ba­ sis o f vocabulary, Barnes argues that Athanasius could not have been the redactor o f the extant version, which was made for a more urban Greco-Roman audience (“Angel,” 367). Martin Tetz ('Athanasius und die Vita Antonii: Literarische und theologische Relationen,” Zeitschrifi f u r die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 73, no. 1-2 [1982]: 1-30) hypothesized that the extant Greek ver­

sion was a reworking o f an original written by bishop Serapion o f Thmuis. He concluded this

shift away from Greek academic contexts so as to sever “philosophy” from an exclusive identification with Greek cultural and pedagogical roots. It would demonstrate that the philosophical life could, and did, exist and thrive apart from the world o f the Greeks. To the well-educated, refined, and socially re­ spected Greek philosopher, Athanasius's Life of Antony put forth an unlike­ ly alternative in an uninstructed, unkempt, and socially marginalized Cop­ tic hermit. At the same time, it signaled the integration o f ascetic values and practitioners into the Alexandrian church. As the struggle for philosophy led to a redistribution o f power by the end o f the fourth century, a circle o f professional philosophers claiming descent from Plotinus and Iamblichus affirmed its identity as the guardians o f Greekness and transmitters o f uncorrupted wisdom. Eunapius o f Sardis was their spokesperson. His Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists asserted a conservative vision o f Greek paideia and eusebeia that attached his circle o f teachers and colleagues to the Plotinian lineage constructed by Porphyry. While disparag­ ing the monastic paradigms o f philosophy, Eunapius suggested the possibil­ ity o f an acceptable Christian model in his own teacher Prohairesius.

Displacing, Divesting, and Recasting the Life o f the Philosopher Athanasius’s conception of the Christian relationship to the world o f Greek philosophy differed vastly from that of Eusebius. Athanasius exhibited an open­ ly hostile engagement with Greek paideia, admitting very little, if anything at all, to the relative benefit of Greek learning for Christians. Eusebius’s Origen tended more toward a harmony, rather than a strict dichotomy, between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. Athanasius would argue that on the basis o f the allusion to the author’s source o f information mentioned in the prologue ( Vit.

Ant., pro. 5). Others, including Andrew Louth, Rudolf Lorenz, Gerhardus J. M. Bartelink,

David Brakke, and Brian Brennan, all accept Athanasian authorship. In a study o f the Syriac version, David Brakke concluded that it was a fifth-century revision o f the extant Greek writ­ ten by Athanasius. Bartelink lists a number o f parallels in ideas and content between the Vit.

Ant. and the apologetic works Contra gentes and De incarnatione, to conclude that Athanasius was indeed the author o f the bios. For a more detailed treatment o f the various theories, see Bartelink, “ Introduction,” in Athanasius, Vie d ’Antoine, ed. Gerhardus J. M. Bartelink, Sources chretiennes 400 (Paris: Cerf, 1994), 29-36. In my own discussion o f the work, I adopt the view o f Bartelink. As I hope my discussion will demonstrate, there are enough similarities between Athanasius’s philosophical views in Contra gentes, Dc incarnatione, and Vit. Ant. to suggest that we are dealing with the same author. This is a view held also by Khaled Anatolios (Athanasius: I'he Coherence of His Thought | New York: Routledge, iw 8 |, 166 and 11.27).

Greek paideia was neither a preparation for nor a necessary prerequisite to wis­ dom. From very early in his career, Athanasius conceived o f a vast divide be­ tween Greeks and Christians and adopted a strategy that characterized Greek philosophy as the corrupted product o f corrupting polytheism and idolatry, a result of “feeble reasoning—or rather irrationality].”4 In his early apologetic works, Against the Gentiles (Gent.) and On the Incarnation (Inc.), Athanasius ex­ pressed an anti-Greek polemic that contributed to competition with Greek in­ tellectuals over the origins, content, and transmission o f authentic philosophy.5 In these early works, Athanasius challenged the pedagogic authority o f his in­ tellectual rivals, and refuted the claim that wisdom and virtue could be most successfully pursued within the limits of paideia. Thus it was useless and un­ necessary for arriving at true knowledge o f God. The revelation found in scrip­ ture was sufficient and needed no supplement. In short, Athanasius refused to invest overtly in the Greek tradition. Like Irenaeus, he linked the proliferation o f Christian heresy to the study of Greek philosophy.6 The bios then served as an arena in which a developing alternative Chris­ tian paideia was proposed, one founded on Christian texts, doctrines, and authorities, in which the Church and its leaders, most notably bishops and monks, preserved and transmitted an education o f real value. Samuel Rubenson has called attention to this role o f bishops as inheritors and trans­ formers of classical culture. Faced with challenges from both Greeks and other Christians, whose boundaries with Greek learning were not so clear­ ly drawn, bishops such as Athanasius used biography to demonstrate how 4. Athanasius, Gent., 8 (Contra gentes and De incarnatione, ed. and trans. Robert Thomson, Oxford Early Christian Texts [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971], 20); translation, Thom son, 21, with modification. 5. All agree that these companion works were written before 338, when Athanasius returned from his first exile. The apparent absence o f any explicit allusion to the Arian crisis ledsom e to believe that the work was very early (J. C . M. Van Winden, “ On the Date o f Athanasius' Apol­ ogetic Treatises,” VC 29, no. 4 [1975]: 291-95). Charles Kannengiesser (“ La date de l’Apologie d'Athanase ‘Contre les Pai'ens' et ‘Sur I’lncarnation du Verbe,'” Recherches de Sciences Religieuse 58, no. 3 [1970]: 383-423) held that it was written during the exile in Trier. Michael Slusser (“Atha­ nasius, Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione: Place and Date o f Composition,” JTS 37, no.i [1986]: 114-17) argued that the works were written before the exile, thus before 335. It is very probable that Athanasius used Eusebius’s Theophany as a model for these works, especially in its criticism o f paideia. See Athanasius, Athanasius: Contra gentes and De incarnatione, ed. and trans. Robert W. Thomson, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), xxi-xxii. 6. Irenaeus, Haer. 2.18.3. In Gent. 6, Athanasius ascribes to the “ Greeks” the idea that the cre­ ation is evil. Though it was a common doctrine o f some contemporary rival Christian groups, Athanasius here probably (and mistakenly) blames Platonists for this view. See Eginhard P. Meijering, Orthodoxy and Platonism in Athanasius: Synthesis or Antithesis? (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 15·

Christian holy men could “be both undefiled by human learning and wiser than Greek philosophers.” 7 In the work o f Athanasius we see, on the one hand, an overt disavowal o f any connection to Greek paideia and its habitus, while below the surface, there is a participation in and negotiation o f these. Athanasius and Philosophy The details o f Athanasius’s early life and education are sketchy. His crit­ icisms o f the established philosophical order and his articulation o f an al­ ternative belie an apparent influence o f Greek paideia and, I would argue, point to a concealed, even if habituated, investment. In his Oration in Honor of Athanasius (Or. 21, composed ca. 380) Gregory o f Nazianzus wrote that the patriarch o f Alexandria had received enough o f a Greek education (ολίγα τών εγκυκλίων φιλοσοφήσας) so as not to appear ignorant o f matters he so de­ spised and vehemently refuted. He chose to devote himself to the study o f the Old and New Testaments instead o f these “vanities” (ματαίοις). Never­ theless, he matured in the intellectual (θεωρία) and ethical (βίου λαμπρότητα) ways of life.8 Athanasius’s silence on his background contributed to the strategy o f dis­ tancing himself from Greek intellectual culture. Yet, his writings reveal a competency in the philosophical field: he was trained in literature and rheto­ ric, had an adequate familiarity with Platonic philosophy, espoused some o f its ideas, and was able to engage in the oral and written practices o f dialec­ tical argumentation.9 He trod an interesting line between bankrupting the Greek philosophers o f their authority and voice and engaging them on their own turf. Athanasius’s literary and intellectual activities were competitive in that they were not wholly unlike the practices o f his Greek opponents. He seems to suppress, sometimes consciously, other times unconsciously, aware­ ness o f the internalized assumptions, practices, and habits he shared with his Greek competitors, so as to obliterate these commonalities and draw lines 7. Rubenson, “ Philosophy and Simplicity,” in. 8. Gregory o f Nazianzus, Or. 21.6 (SC 270,120). 9. Hermann Dorrie, “ Die Vita Antonii als Geschichtsquelle,” Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschafien in Gottingen, phil.-hist. Klasse 14 (1949): 345: Athanasius had a thorough knowl­ edge o f Hellenic thought; Meijering follows Dorrie and adds that while Athanasius uses philo­ sophical arguments in Gent., he speaks only negatively about Greek philosophers, even when admitting that some Platonic ideas were almost right (Orthodoxy and Platonism, 121, 127). Meijering also states in his commentary on Gent, that Athanasius does not display any profound knowledge o f contemporary Nco Platonism (Gent., 16). He cites Plato frequently (for example, at Gent. 10; and Ine. 24.2; 44.7.2). I le never mentions Plotinus or Iamblichus.

o f absolute distinction. There was much at stake for the salvation o f souls. The intellectual character of ancient Alexandria cannot be explored here in great detail. Nevertheless, some reflections on the educational environ­ ment a young Christian man might have found at the beginning o f the fourth century will shed some light on my characterization o f Athanasius’s rela­ tionship to culture o f paideia. The intellectual environment of Alexandria in the second and third centuries saw close contact between Christian and non-Christian students and teachers. Following the tensions between Origen and his bishop, Demetrius attempted to bring lay teachers under his di­ rect control and supervision. Any independence such a school may have had was lost after Origen: his two immediate successors, Heraclas and Dionysius, were both elected bishops of Alexandria.10 The Alexandrian church, growing more and more suspicious o f independent Christian teachers in conversation with non-Christian intellectuals, began to take measures to “eliminate the speculative environment” o f these circles, diminishing the social and intel­ lectual exchange o f an earlier era.11 Christians continued to study the Greek philosophers. The formulation o f Christian doctrine in philosophical termi­ nology became the accepted mode of expression. But the direct conversa­ tions with circles o f Greek intellectuals had diminished. Thus, a young man like Athanasius would most likely not have interacted within the social net­ works o f Alexandrian Greeks in the way a previous generation o f Alexandri­ ans had. Christians who continued to engage with their Greek intellectual peers or to persist in the discursive and speculative practices o f philosophical culture outside the sphere o f episcopal authority fell under increasing suspicion. Da­ vid Brakke defined this “academic Christianity” as a “social form o f Christi­ anity,” organized around the authority o f a “brilliant teacher,” in which “free academic discussion o f doctrine thrived.” 12 In his writings, Athanasius ag­ gressively attacked aspects o f academic Christianity that most resembled the culture o f Greek intellectual circles, especially discursive speculation and the authority o f the teacher. In fact, Brakke demonstrates how Athanasius’s ad­ vances against these circles were primarily attacks against “the concept o f a 10. See van den Hoek, “ The Catechetical School o f Early Christian Alexandria and Its Philonic Heritage,” 61; and van den Broek, “The Christian 'School’ o f Alexandria in the Second and Third Centuries,” 44-47. 11. Watts, City and School, 169-70. 12. David Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 58.

Christian teacher.” 13 Eusebius’s Origen resembled a Greek teacher too much. Elements o f Origen’s theology regarding Trinitarian relations, especially as these were received and developed by the priest Arius, only served to in­ crease the Alexandrian church’s suspicion o f Christian teachers with a spec­ ulative philosophical bent. In seeking to redefine authority and wisdom in Christian Alexandria, Athanasius labored to bring more closely under his su­ pervision virgins and monks, those most outside his reach who were prone to either following or modeling such teachers. Athanasius undertook an overt offensive against Greek thought and prac­ tice early in his career, in the 320s or 330s. Both Against the Gentiles and On the Incarnation begin with a defense o f the reasonable nature o f Christian­ ity against the charge o f irrationality: “But the arguments on our side do not lack weight, so we will confute them too on reasonable grounds, chief­ ly from what we ourselves also see.” 14 According to E. P. Meijering, Athana­ sius intended these to be catechetical manuals for a Christian audience.15 The purpose was to instruct Christians how to argue apologetically, using ratio­ nal proofs, and to engage Greeks on their own turf in defense o f Christianity and against Hellenism. Athanasius did not simply supply rational arguments, but constructed an alternative philosophical program, which both built upon and negotiated a competing philosophical culture. At once engaged in fun­ damental philosophical discussions o f his day and disengaged from the com­ munities o f the Greeks, Athanasius envisioned a Christian philosophy that was more widely accessible—to women and men, Greeks and non-Greeks, rich and poor— and not confined to the narrow circles o f senatorial families who had the means to educate their sons in Athens, Rome, and Alexandria. Athanasius contended that knowledge o f truth and virtue did not require study of Greek philosophical texts in Greek institutions o f education. His alternative proposal was comprehensive, suggesting that Christians devote themselves to a different canon o f authoritative texts, different institutions and teachers: the Old and New Testaments replaced the Dialogues o f Pla­ 13. Ibid., 66-68. 14. Athanasius, Inc. 41.2 (SC 199, 412); trans. C S M V See also Gent. 1. The characterization o f Christianity as άλογος, “ irrational,” or “ without reason,” goes back to Celsus (Origen, Cels. 1.9). Christian intellectual apologists from Origen to Eusebius (Praep. ev. 1.5.2) to Athanasius de­ fended their doctrines against this charge by providing “ reasonable” arguments supporting the central revealed tenets o f the Christian faith, such as the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrec­ tion. See Khaled Anatolius, Athanasius, Early Church Fathers (New York: Routledge, 2004), 28. 15. Meijering, Orthodoxy ami Platonism, 107. Athanasius calls On the Incarnation a στοιχείωσις (Inc. 56.1 ISC mo, 404 1).

to;16 Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles formed the authoritative doc­ trinal and interpretive traditions;17 and, finally, the activity of the Triune God, especially in the incarnation o f the Son, rather than allegorized Greek myths, provided the narrative o f salvation. He could assert that there was nothing “useful” in the study of Greek philosophy, while demonstrating that virtue need not be sought in faraway lands: it was present within the per­ son.'8 Yet many o f his questions were also the philosophers’ questions. He accepted as given the proposition that human beings were created for con­ templation19 and that the goal o f human existence was likeness to the divine, achieved through the exercise of the rational soul.20 He even used the Pla­ tonic metaphor of the charioteer in a discussion on the movements o f the soul.21 He cited Plato frequently, but Porphyry only once.22 He never men­ tions Plotinus or Iamblichus. Athanasius walked an interesting line, on the one hand overtly bankrupt­ ing the authority and usefulness of Greek philosophy for Christians, while on the other participating in intellectual practices that required the skills o f such training. His public role as bishop made his participation o f consequence. His very participation in this competition required both a covert investment in its cultural capital and an overt challenge to the principles o f his opponents. He proposed a Christian “heterodox” alternative to the dominant Greek “ortho­ doxy.” His alternative relied on natural knowledge as clarified through scrip­ tural revelation. There was no need for (Greek) teachers or schools.23 Athanasius boldly (and rashly) declared that the sun had set on the Greeks, 16. See for example, Gent, i: scripture is sufficient for all truth; 4 Φ -4 6 : scripture alone, as revelation, confirms all reasonable arguments. A similar theme is expressed by Antony in his inaugural sermon to the monks: τάς μέν γραφάς ίκανάς είναι προς διδασκαλίαν (Vit. Ant. 16.i [SC 400,178]). 17. Athanasius, Gent. 1: the writings o f the “blessed” (μακαρίων) teachers aid in the interpre­ tation o f scripture; 2.4: the “holy man” (ό άγιος) Paul as ethical model; 35.19: the “ theologians” (παρά των θεολόγων άνδρών), including Paul, teach on the immortality o f the soul, creation o f the world, revelation o f God, etc. 18. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 20.4. 19. Athanasius, Gent. 2 (Thomson, 6): Adam was created to contemplate the intelligible: έν τή των νοητών θεωρία. See also Gent. 25; 56. Cf. Plotinus, Enneads 3.8.30.7. 20. Athanasius, Gent. 30. 21. Athanasius, Gent. 5; cf. Plato, Phaedrus 246-47, and Timaeus 69c. 22. Meijering, Orthodoxy and Platonism, 127. Athanasius mentions or cites Plato at Gent. 10.36; and Inc. 2.3.2; and 43.7.2. 23. Athanasius, Gent. 1 (Thomson, 2): “The knowledge [γνώσις ] o f the worship o f God and the truth about the universe is received not so much from the teaching o f human beings, as much as it is intelligible by itself” (trans, mine).

boasting that the dominance of the Greek philosophers had come to an end. Their philosophy would be replaced by the true doctrine (διδασκαλία [Inc. 51]) o f Christ: The Greek philosophers have compiled many works with persuasiveness and much skill in words; but what fruit have they to show for this such as has the cross of Christ? ... [E]ven in their lifetime their seeming influence was counterbalanced by their rival­ ry.... But the Word of God, by strangest paradox, teaching in meaner language, has put the choicest sophists in the shade, and by confounding their teachings and draw­ ing all to himself, he has filled his own assemblies [εκκλησίας].24 Corrupted by idolatry, Greek wisdom could not lead to virtue, as the gods it professed acted irrationally and were slaves to their passions.25 No allegoriz­ ing o f myth could erase this indelible embarrassment to the Greeks.26 The disappearance o f the “wisdom o f the world” was immanent, and, as proof, he looked to the “wise,” probably educated Greek converts, who were turn­ ing away from Greek philosophy to study the gospels.27 Further proof lay in virgins, monks, and martyrs, a new crop o f exemplars through whom Christ had “by his godhead confounded and overshadowed the opinions o f the po­ ets and the delusion of the daemons and the wisdom o f the Greeks.” 28 T he Life o f A n ton y and G reek Paideia Athanasius outlined a vision of an alternative Christian philosophy and philosophical culture in his tracts Against the Gentiles and On the Incarnation. In the context of a Constantinian and post-Constantinian era, Athanasius’s proposal subverted prior philosophical orthodoxies. The Life of Antony (Vit. Ant.) was and remains one of the best known and most imitated works of Christian biographical literature from late antiquity. Scholarship on the Vit. Ant., considered a “prototype” of Christian hagiography, is extensive.29 My 24. Athanasius, Inc. 50.2-3 (SC 199, 446-48); trans. CSMV, 88. 25. Athanasius cites the Wisdom of Solomon 14:12-16 to demonstrate that the deification o f the passions and the eventual fall o f humanity into idolatry were explained by scripture. Cf. Rom. 1:18-32. For this section o f Romans understood as a narrative o f “ decline” explaining the origins o f Greek civilization, see Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 83-125. 26. Athanasius, Gent. 13 -14. These chapters attack the practice o f “idolatry” as a hindrance to virtue. This argument is taken up again in Vit. Ant. 37. In Vit. Ant. 76, Antony criticizes the Greek practice o f allegorizing myths. Plato also criticized the allegorical interpretation o f myths (Rcsp. 376) and was embarrassed by the behavior o f the gods (Resp. 378b-c).

27. Athanasius, Inc. 53. 28. Athanasius, Inc. 48.0 (SC kw, 442); trans. CSMV, 87. 2o. Bartelink, Vic d'Anloinc, 47.

intention is not to focus on its place in Christian literature or the develop­ ment o f monasticism. Instead, building upon groundwork laid by Philip Rousseau and Samuel Rubenson regarding Athanasius’s portrayal o f Antony as a Christian teacher and philosopher,30 I will apply the model o f cultural competition by focusing on the accounts o f Antony’s formation as a youth and his encounters with Greek philosophers. I suggest that the figure o f Ant­ ony in the Vit. Ant. serves, in part, to subvert and disavow the dominance of Greek paideia and to propose an alternative Christian paideia through recon­ figuration. I am not claiming that this is the only purpose for which the Vit. Ant. was written. It was one element o f a comprehensive strategy to pro­ mote and defend ascetic Christianity and Nicene orthodoxy against compet­ ing groups, both internal and external. As Brakke argues, this was an attempt to craft the image o f Antony in contrast with pedagogical models Athana­ sius opposed, distancing the monk from academic models o f the Christian wise man and teacher.31 Moreover, Edward Watts sees Athanasius’s attacks against academic Christianity in his festal letters as a response to Arianism, and the Life of Antony as "an original and carefully designed program” that identifies the Christian ascetic as the true philosopher.32 Thus, in many re­ spects, the Vit. Ant. was also responding to previous Christian attempts to rep­ resent the Christian philosopher. Antony was not an Origen who had min­ gled within intellectual networks. Nor was he a man o f political power. While the preface and closing o f the work are addressed to Christian as­ cetics, a non-Christian audience is also envisioned: And if there is need, read it also to the Gentiles [έθνικοΐς], so that they will know that not only is our Lord Jesus Christ God and Son of God, but even that those who wor­ ship him sincerely and piously believe in him, the Christians, not only demonstrate that the daemons whom the Greeks consider gods, are not gods, but they trample and chase them away as deceivers and corrupters of human beings.33 I believe we can already see the complexity o f Athanasius’s approach. While it may, in fact, betray a suspicion o f “academic Christianity,” his rejection 30. See Philip Rousseau, “Antony as Teacher in the Greek Life," in Greek Biography and Pan­ egyric in Late Antiquity, ed.Tomas H agg and Philip Rousseau, Transformation o f the Classical Heritage (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 2000), 89-109; and Rubenson, “ Philosophy and Simplicity,” 110-39. 31. Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, 245-54. 32. Watts, City and School, 175-77. On the Vit. Ant. as "the climactic weapon in Athanasius’ campaign against monastic sympathy for the Arian cause and indifference about the controver­ sy,” see Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, 135-38.

33. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 04.2 (SC 400, 376), my translation.

was not absolute. Athanasius could compete with his opponents precise­ ly because he was able to redefine their models. With his invitation to the "Gentiles” to invest their souls and their skills in the Christian intellectual project, Athanasius was compelled to adopt arguments and strategies that could convince his competitors that Christianity was a logical and viable al­ ternative. These “Gentiles” were the intellectual elites who were the target o f Athanasius's earlier works. From the beginning, however, Athanasius indicates that paideia played no role in Antony's formation. As a youth, he “could not bear to learn letters” (γράμματα μεν μαθεΐν ούκ ήνεσχετο) and refused the education that would have set him on the path to social mobility.34 Instead of reading Homer, Antony learns from Christian scripture.35 Here Athanasius diverges from Eusebius, who had presented Origen as well versed in, but critical of, Greek authors. Philip Rousseau has examined the rhetoric and historicity o f an “uneducat­ ed” Antony as part o f a discourse on the value o f Greek education. He noted that Athanasius's portrait o f Antony as an uneducated “philosophical peda­ gogue” was a strategy to redefine and redirect the values and mode o f educa­ tion for a Christian audience. This, of course, raises the question o f the relationship between the “his­ torical Antony” and Athanasius's representation o f him in the Vit. Ant. On the historical Antony, Rubenson argued that the letters attributed to Antony are authentic and depict the ascetic as an educated “man o f letters” who dem­ onstrates a familiarity with Platonism and betrays an Origenist influence.36 While the differences between the Antony o f the letters and the Antony o f the Vit. Ant. are significant, there is not a complete disconnect— as will be demonstrated below, the Antony o f Athanasius’s bios acts as a mouthpiece for the theological and political designs o f Athanasius. Nevertheless, as Ru­ benson notes, much o f the philosophical and theological background o f the Vit. Ant. is shared in the letters.37 Both the self-representation o f Antony and Athanasius's portrayal o f him depict a Christian teacher who instructs on the basis o f a philosophical interpretation o f scripture. The main difference lay in how each acquired his knowledge and skills—while it seems most likely 34. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 1.2 (SC 400, 130); The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, trans. Robert C. Gregg, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 30. 35. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 2-3. 36. Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint, Stud­ ies in Antiquity and Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 85. 37. Ibid., 14a.

that the historical Antony would have been educated in a Coptic Christian school where both Christian and Greek literature were studied,38 the Ant­ ony o f the bios was “unschooled” and was instead theodidaktos, “taught by God.” Bankrupting the cultural and philosophical value o f Greek “letters” (γράμματα), Athanasius instead invested the pursuit o f knowledge and wis­ dom in Christian scripture. And in carefully argued and written tracts he de­ posited value in simplicity (that is, formation outside o f Greek circles) over technical skill. Antony was a teacher who exemplified and taught an alterna­ tive philosophical life rooted in Christian scriptures and asceticism.39 It is sig­ nificant that Athanasius’s model o f wisdom and virtue is an uneducated Copt who does not speak Greek, and who requires a translator when debating his philosopher opponents. These narrative and rhetorical strategies served to drive a wedge between Antony and the linguistic, practical, and conceptual worlds o f Greek intellectual culture. Employing intellectual practices, Atha­ nasius disavows their authority. While Antony’s formation occurred outside of Greek institutions, it still bears resemblance to the Greek way in two respects: the attachment to a teacher and the mimetic dynamic of education.40 Young men o f the Roman aristocracy traveled to important centers to study with renowned experts and teachers in rhetoric and philosophy.41 In the Laws, Plato regarded proper paideia as that which shaped and molded young men into the best o f men, producing good and perfected citizens o f the state.42 To pursue education for any other reason than the perfection o f virtue, such as for wealth, was a “vul­ gar” and “unworthy” pursuit. Antony, too, like the other young men o f his time, left home to seek out great teachers, but he sought them not among the interpreters o f Pythagoras or Plato. Nor did he travel to distant lands, not even to Alexandria: “The Greeks leave home and cross the sea in order to be educated,” Antony informs the monks, “but we have no need to leave home for the kingdom o f heaven or to cross the sea for virtue.” 43 Antony shunned the cities and their schools in favor o f the desert teachers who lived on the 38. For this possibility, see ibid., 109. 39. Rousseau, 'Antony as Teacher,” 92-95; and Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 46.6: ev τή ασκήσει, ήν αυτός εκ τών γραφών μεμάθηκεν, πολλοϊς διδάσκαλος γένηται (SC 400, 26ο). 40. Clarke, Higher Education, 86. See also Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, 260-62, and Morgan, Literate Education, 251. 41. Cribiore, Gymnastics, 104. 42. Plato, Laws i.643e-644b. 43. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 20.4 (SC 400, 188); trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 105.

fringes o f civilized society.44 This is a violent separation o f the pursuit and acquisition o f wisdom and virtue from the recognized experts and institu­ tions. Antony, an uneducated Copt, was able to cultivate a virtue inherent to hu­ man nature through his encounters with the enigmatic “protomonks,” from whom he collected various virtues, like Pythagoras before him, to assemble them into a perfect Christian system:45 H a v i n g b e e n f i l le d i n t h i s m a n n e r , h e r e t u r n e d t o h i s o w n p l a c e o f d i s c i p l i n e , f r o m t h a t t i m e g a t h e r i n g t h e a t t r i b u t e s o f e a c h i n h i m s e l f , a n d s t r i v i n g t o m a n i f e s t in h i m ­ s e l f w h a t w a s b e s t f r o m a l l ____A l l t h o s e w h o w e r e f r o m h i s v i l l a g e a n d t h o s e g o o d p e o p le w it h w h o m

h e a s s o c ia te d , s e e in g h im

liv in g th u s , u s e d t o c a ll h im

"G o d ­

l o v e d ” [θ ε ο φ ιλ ή ς ], a n d s o m e h a i l e d h i m a s “ s o n ” a n d s o m e a s " b r o t h e r . ” 46

His collection o f virtues reads like a catalogue o f the Christian philosoph­ ical life.47 Rubenson has argued that in the Vit. Ant. Athanasius “followed an established narrative tradition that emerged in the philosophical schools of the third and fourth centuries AD regarding the lives o f holy men,” such as is found in Iamblichus’s DVP. He argues that Athanasius must have had in mind the traditional narratives about Pythagoras when composing the Vit. Ant. and recommends careful analysis not only of similarities in the ac­ counts, but also differences, that can help us trace "a specific Christian adap­ tation and appropriation o f ... the classical biographical heritage.” 48 While Rubenson suggests the Vit. Ant. be read as “an apologetic anti-Pythagorean ... treatise,” I would not limit Athanasius’s polemic to one directed against 44. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 3.3-4 and 4.1. 45. See Samuel Rubenson, “Antony and Pythagoras: A Reappraisal of the Appropriation of Classical Biography in Athanasius’ Vita Antonii,” in Beyond Reception: Mutual Influences between Antique Religion, Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. David Brakke et al., Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity 1 (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 197-99; and Brakke, Athanasius and As­ ceticism, 255. This is one of several passages that Rubenson has identified as having direct paral­ lels to the biographical tradition of Pythagoras. Here he builds upon previous observations by Richard Reitzenstein in Der Athanasius Werk iiber das Leben des Antonius; ein philologischer Beitrag zur Geschichte des Monchtums, Sitzungsberichte des Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 5 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1914). 46. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 4.2, 4 (SC 400,140); trans. Gregg, 33. 47. See Vit. Ant. 4.1 (SC 400, 140). These include grace (or elegance) (τό χαρίεν), intensity (τό σύντονον) in prayer, freedom from anger (τό άόργητον), the love of humanity (τό φιλάνθρωπον), watchfulness (τώ ... άγρυπνούντι), the love of words (τώ ... φιλολογοΰντι), patient endurance (έν καρτερία), fasting (έν νηστείαις), sleeping on the ground (χαμευνίαις), gentleness (την πραότητα), long suffering (την μακροθυμίαν), piety toward Christ (τήν εις τον Χριστόν ευσέβειαν) and love to­ ward others (την πρός άλλήλους αγάπην). 4Η. Rubenson, 'Anthony and Pythagoras," 20=5.

Neopythagoreans, but consider it to be against a broader, competing, and de­ veloping Greek philosophical tradition, dominated by the new movement o f Platonists, represented by Porphyry and Iamblichus, whose roots were in the Neopythagorean circles of the second and early third century.49 As to the inherent nature of virtue, the uneducated Antony echoes the sentiments o f his biographer: “All virtue needs, then, is our willing, since it is in us [cf. Luke 17:21], and arises from us. For virtue exists when the soul maintains its intellectual part [τό νοερόν] according to nature [κατά φύσιν].” 50 In Against the Gentiles, Athanasius had maintained that the path to the king­ dom was within every rational creature by virtue o f possession o f a ratio­ nal soul.51 God could be seen and known by the human soul and reason, and so even the Greeks had the capability to know God.52 Yet, their philoso­ phy and education, corrupted by idolatry, hindered them. This corruption sat deeply within Greek literature, culture, and thought. The Greeks’ separation from God and plunge into vice was evident within the very structures o f Ro­ man government and society, including paideia. It was they who were “irra­ tional.” 53 Antony, instead, progresses successfully on the path to virtue through a coworking, συνεργία, with the incarnate Word, from whom he derives his “activity in holiness.” 54 Through faith, and a turning o f his mind (νους) to­ ward its natural focus— contemplation o f God through the Word—Antony becomes receptive to the divine power o f the Word, which aids and coop­ erates with his natural, internal capacity toward virtue.55 Khaled Anatolios described this as “Christie virtue” and explains that Athanasius’s assertion that virtue is internal to the human person, “within us,” and that all that is necessary for virtue is “our willing,” is not to claim that virtue is achieved 49. See discussion in ch. 1. See also, Watts, City and School, 177-81. On Iamblichus’s DVP, see ch. 2. 50. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 20.5 (SC 188-90); trans. Gregg, 46. 51. Athanasius, Gent. 30 (Thomson, 82): “The road to G od is not as far from us or as extrane­ ous to us as God himself is high above all, but it is within us” (trans., Thom son, 83). See Anato­ lios, Athanasius, 189. 52. Athanasius, Gent. 34 (Thomson, 92): “ For just as they turned away from God with their mind and invented gods out o f nothing, so they can rise towards God with the mind o f their soul and again turn back towards him.” (trans. Thom son, 93, with modification). 53. Athanasius, Gent. 29.5. 54. Anatolios, Athanasius, 181. 55. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 5.5 (SC 400, 144): "But Antony, reflecting on Christ in his heart (ενθυμούμενος) and the goodness he had through him, and reflecting on the spiritual insight given to him by his soul (τό νοερόν), extinguished the Devil’s deceitful coals.” (trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 67-69)

apart from divine assistance; rather, it is through the “agency o f the Incar­ nate Word,” the teacher, model, and aid in virtue, that Antony achieves mas­ tery over his passions and approaches likeness to God.56

Competing with the Philosophers Athanasius’s polemic against Greek paideia takes on narrative form in Ant­ ony’s confrontations with philosophers.57 These encounters are part o f a larg­ er narrative unit that refutes unorthodox doctrines and groups. In these epi­ sodes, Athanasius presents Antony as “unschooled” (not illiterate),58 but able to converse with ease on philosophical topics, mastering technical jargon and debating nuanced philosophical points. He both impresses and shames his op­ ponents. Having lived on the fringes o f an intellectual capital, he never picked up a text o f Plato. Without knowing the Greek language, he demonstrates the intellectual and rhetorical skills o f a trained philosopher. Antony is a modifi­ cation o f the trope o f the wise, uneducated peasant, who displays an “ethical superiority” to the urban intellectual.59 The first round o f the competition begins at Vit. Ant. 72. Even before Antony’s opponents appear, we learn that this unschooled Coptic hermit who casts out demons is also “extremely wise” (φρόνιμος ... λίαν), “shrewd” (άγχίνους),60 and “intelligent” (συνετός). Antony is a philosopher inwardly, but outwardly he is not. He exhibits none o f the characteristics o f the intellectual habitus. The opposite can be said o f his interlocutors. They bear the external image o f the philosopher and visually represent Greek intellectual culture. Antony knows them "from their appearance” (έκ τού προσώπου), probably a reference to the characteristic dress o f the philosopher. But it becomes read­ ily apparent who the wise man truly is. This contrast o f external appearance 56. Anatolios, Athanasius, 194. 57. See also Rubenson’s brief treatment o f these episodes in “Philosophy and Simplicity,” 117-19. 58. It is important to emphasize that Antony is portrayed not as “illiterate,” but as un­ schooled. His distaste for γράμματα is a rejection o f Greek schooling, not reading (“ learning” is the sense o f the word in Plato Ap. 26d). In the world o f the bios, Antony refers to the practice o f reading scripture (e.g., Vit. Ant. 25.2). The “illiterate” Antony is called by Rubenson a "late prejudice” (Letters o f St. Antony, 185). Indeed, if the letters attributed to Antony are authentic, a case that Rubenson makes strongly, then he was quite far from being illiterate! Nevertheless, the "unschooled” Antony o f the bios reveals Athanasius’s investment in the textual Antony’s disinterest in formal education. 59. See Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 104 5, where the author discusses examples in Philostratus and Longus.

60. Athena describes Odysseus in this way ai Od. 13.332; Plato at L aw s 747b: mathematics awakes the dull and makes them "shrewd.”

and internal state participates in a critique o f would-be philosophers who do violence to the vocation with their attraction to fame and wealth.61 This first exchange is very brief, and deliberately incorporates echoes of the Pauline dichotomy o f wisdoms. Through an interpreter Antony address­ es his visitors: “Why do you trouble yourselves, philosophers, coming to see such a foolish [μωρόν] person?” 62 They politely disagree and assure Antony that he is indeed wise (φρόνιμον). Seizing on their recognition of his wisdom, and in the form o f a good Greek teacher, Antony urges them (as students) to­ ward mimesis: “If you think I am wise, become like me, for we ought to imi­ tate what is good__ Become like me: I am a Christian.” 63 The philosophers depart in amazement without responding. The second brief encounter (Vit. Ant. 73) moves the discussion from the identification o f the wise man to a philosophical dialogue on the relation­ ship between intellect (νους) and letters (γράμματα). Once again, through the speech o f the unschooled Antony, Athanasius challenges both the adequacy o f the standard course o f Greek education for coming to knowledge o f God, and the authority and legitimacy of its institutions. This challenge is a radi­ cal one. An education in “letters” was not simply a matter o f advanced phil­ osophical studies, but referred instead to the basic grammatical and rhetori­ cal training any man needed for upward mobility in society. Nevertheless, we can see this tension: behind Antony’s rejection o f “letters” is the voice and pen o f Athanasius, the educated bishop o f Alexandria, who speaks through Antony as heir o f his legacy and transmitter o f his memory. Anticipating rid­ icule for his lack o f education, Antony queries the philosophers on the re­ lation between intellect and letters. His own position is that a sound intel­ lect, maintained in accordance with its natural, created state, has no need o f literary studies.64 Undistracted from its contemplation o f God, it will re­ main in God’s image. In an echo o f the opening chapters o f Athanasius’s Against the Gentiles, Antony demonstrates how polytheism has corrupted the Greek intellect. With these serious, inherent flaws, Greek education is a re­ sult o f humanity’s falling away from God and is also that which transmits error and vice, generation after generation. In short, Greek education not only preserved and transmitted philosophical and theological errors, but fa61. For discussion o f a similar strategy in Lucian, see Nasrallah, “Mapping the World,” 295-96. 62. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 72.3 (SC 400,320); trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 209. 63. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 72.4-5 (SC 400, 320-22); trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 209. Cf. 1 Cor. 11:1; 3jo h n 11. 64. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 73.3.

cilitated the reproduction o f a sinful, dominant culture. It was not simply that Christians ought to avoid reading about the sexual escapades o f the Ho­ meric gods. The challenge was much more serious. If the educational system proposed and inculcated false claims on the nature o f God, participation in it endangered one’s movement toward union with God, as “letters” would cor­ rupt the mind. What is more, since it was this system o f education that re­ produced the structures o f society and shaped the “minds” o f the individuals who ruled, Hellenism had produced a society under the reign o f irrational minds.65 Whereas Eusebius had accentuated how Origen’s character and way of life were like those of Greek philosophers, Athanasius demonstrated through Antony how much the Christian philosopher was unlike the Greeks. After the second encounter with him, the unnamed philosophers depart, reflecting on how Antony had challenged their assumptions about the good life. They are amazed that they had found “such great understanding [συνεσιν] in an un­ lettered person” ; and they marvel that “his character was not wild; instead, he had the graces o f someone raised in the city.”66 Antony inhabits a city o f another sort, one far removed from the cities o f the philosophers cultur­ ally, ideologically, and geographically. The figure o f Antony offered a para­ digm of a Christian philosopher who was at once detached from Greek intel­ lectual culture and its norms of socialization, yet successful in attaining the philosophical telos at the heart o f the curricula o f urban schools. Put simply, it was an attempt to “get the Greek out,” to demonstrate that the successful acquisition o f wisdom and virtue was not limited by either cultural or social boundaries. The final dialogue (Vit. Ant. 74-80) between Antony and “those among the Greeks who suppose themselves wise” brings the entire sequence to a cli­ max. It is an especially interesting demonstration o f cultural competition in which Athanasius employs both polemical and apologetic strategies that ar­ ticulate his challenge toward the dominant philosophical culture. This sec­ tion, in particular, resonates harmoniously with both Against the Gentiles and On the Incarnation, and approaches questions o f language, philosophi­ cal terminology, method o f argumentation, epistemology, and mythologi­ cal narrative. Antony discusses a dichotomy between “the working o f faith” (ή ενέργεια πίστεως) and “demonstration through arguments” (ή διά λόγων fiS· C f .

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άπόδειξις). Here Athanasius, through Antony, addresses the Greek charge that Christianity was άλογος, “irrational,” or “unreasonable.” This was both a philosophical and epistemological attack; that is, both what Christians be­ lieved and why they believed were deemed irrational. The Christian appeal to revelation and faith seemed to be uncritical acceptance o f irrational prin­ ciples, a methodology not permitted in this field.67 Antony levels a critique against the fancy sophistry o f argumentation, a core skill learned in rhetorical training and crucial for both public orato­ ry and philosophical discourse. Here, the desert father does not debate, but simply speaks. Yet his teaching is dotted with “demonstration through ar­ guments,” replete with the specialized language o f the philosophical field. Though his philosophical lecture is spoken through an interpreter (Vit. Ant. 77.1), the reader o f the Greek bios reads Antony in Greek—his biographer hav­ ing "retranslated” his lesson from Coptic. In this way, Athanasius violently detaches “language purism,” what Swain has called “a badge o f elite,” Hel­ lenic identity, from the identification o f the philosopher, while affirming Ant­ ony's ability to master the technical verbal expression o f philosophical cat­ egories.68 Antony convinces the philosophers to admit that the working o f faith precedes the demonstration o f argument, as knowledge derived from faith is a disposition (διάθεσις) o f the soul in accord with nature and assisted by God. Argumentation, on the other hand, is a skill (τέχνη) that is learned, and that can be used to defend irrational and false ideas. Thus, the skill o f ar­ gumentation, inculcated in the habitus o f the Greek intellectual, is a nega­ tive acquisition. The assertion is that Christians “know” truth through faith. They do not discover it or “construct” it through argumentation. The ratio­ nality that Antony affirms is a natural rationality, possessed by Adam before the fall.69 For the fallen human being, true knowledge stems first from the revelation o f scripture that guides and purifies reason.70 The discourse sug­ gests a change to the rules o f philosophical engagement, particularly in what are to be admitted as proper presuppositions. Behind the unlettered Antony speaks the lettered Athanasius, controvert­ ing the pedagogic adequacy o f paideia and demonstrating the sufficiency of 67. See, for example, the criticisms o f Celsus in Origen, Cels. 1.9. 68. Swain, Hellenism and Empire, 64. 69. A t Gent. 2, Athanasius describes Adam as a philosopher, created for contemplation and for knowing likeness to God. 70. At Gent. 45b-46, Athanasius argues that the revelation found in scripture confirms rea­ sonable arguments.

learning from monk and bishop. Once Athanasius has challenged the domi­ nant cultural image o f the authoritative Greek intellectual, the pedagogical institutions that formed and legitimated him, and the practices he engaged in, all through the figure o f Antony, he outlines the central doctrines o f a Christian philosophy with a typical Athanasian emphasis on the incarnation and cross o f Christ. Here the tables are dramatically turned on the Greeks, as Antony demonstrates that these central Christian beliefs, which the Greeks considered “irrational,” actually reveal a completely pure and rational knowl­ edge o f God that leads to virtue. The cross, he explains, is “a sign o f courage and proof that we look upon death with contempt.” 71 It is not a reason for ridicule, but a sign that represents and inspires Christian virtue. The myths o f the gods, enslaved to their passions, can present only an understanding o f the divine that inspires vice. This attack confronted the established philosophical orthodoxy on its own terms. Despite the scathing assault, Athanasius did not discard typically Platonic doctrines altogether; nor did he reject the specialized language or rhetorical and literary practices o f the philosophical field. In other words, Athanasius did not disengage from philosophical practices, despite Antony’s claims. Instead, Athanasius “negotiated” the terms and meanings o f the de­ bate with overt appeals to Christian scripture and subtle appeals to philo­ sophical authorities. He suggested that the Greeks reorient their canon: “It is clear to me that you are doing yourselves harm by not sincerely acquainting yourselves with scripture. But acquaint yourselves with them and see that the things Christ did [i.e., crucifixion, resurrection, healing, and nature mir­ acles] demonstrate that he is God, who dwelt among us for the salvation o f humankind.” 72 This competition ends in clear victory for Antony. He smiles and declares to the philosophers: "These beliefs o f yours are self-evidently refuted.” 73 Ant­ ony has achieved through “Christianity” what the philosophers were unable to achieve through "Hellenism.” 74 He notes that the appearance o f Christi­ anity has heralded the decline o f the worship o f Greek gods, and its spread, a prelude to the disappearance of Greek philosophy.75 Christian pistis is the su71. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 74.3 (SC 400, 324): To μεν γάρ παρ’ήμιν λεγόμενον ανδρείας έστι τεκμήριον και καταφρονήσεως θανάτου γνώρισμα, τά δέ ύμέτερα άσελγείας έστι πάθη. Cf. Inc. 4 7· 72. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 75.4 (SC 400, 328); trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 217. 73· Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 77.1 (SC 400, 332); trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 221. 74. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 78.3 (SC 400, 334). 73. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 78; if. Inc. 4(1.

perior alternative to Greek sophia and the basis for “true worship.” 76 Proof o f this lay in the virtuous lives, not o f philosophers, but o f the virgins and mar­ tyrs, the new caste o f Christian philosophers.77 Ultimately it is his power to cast out demons, the beings that had deceived the Greeks, and not his argu­ ments, that convinces the philosophers.

The Life o f Antony and Cultural Competition When viewed from the contexts o f cultural competition, the Vit. Ant. re­ flects several trends that characterized Athanasius’s episcopacy. First, Atha­ nasius selected a member o f the rising class o f Christian monks as an ex­ emplar o f the philosophical life. The choice o f an ascetic was not entirely new. Greek philosophical exemplars, such as Pythagoras and Plotinus, had engaged in similar practices, regulating food, sleep, and sex, withdrawing from conventional society, and practicing contemplative meditation.78 Both Christians and Greeks promoted similar practices o f training body and mind. Following the period o f persecution and the impact o f martyrdom on form­ ing Christian identity, Christian asceticism generally took a more severe turn. The difference lay in the intensity and explication.79 Second, though ascetic practice was often a trait o f the model philosophi­ cal person, Athanasius lauded a practice that was independent o f paideia and higher philosophical education. Wisdom, virtue, and piety did not depend on paideia. Nor was paideia or training with a professional philosopher the ideal mode o f formation and inculcation. Antony belonged to a class o f naturally endowed Christian philosophers who embraced the “antithesis to the norms o f civilized life” and were regarded as low-class and unsophisticated by the educated elite.80 As we shall see below, Libanius, Julian, and Eunapius openly expressed their disdain for these proposed alternative paradigms. Third, in the face o f challenges from both Christians and Greeks, Atha­ nasius’s episcopacy was marked by endeavors to broaden and tighten the institutionalization o f an orthodox church. His participation in the process o f formally defining Christian doctrines and establishing a canon o f texts is 76. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 80.1 (SC 400, 338). 77. Cf. Inc. 48. 78. See, for example, Porphyry, De abstent. 1.30, in which he links άσκησις to the fall and re­ turn of the soul. 79. Meredith, "Asceticism— Christian and Greek,” 319. 80. Peter L. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971), 97-98.

well documented.81 Further institutionalization also necessitated the promo­ tion o f the hierarchical authority o f the urban episcopacy over possible al­ ternatives. In the light o f his work on Antony, Athanasius could not simply promote the desert monk as an authoritative model o f virtue and knowl­ edge without defining that authority in relation to his own. David Brakke has helpfully shown how the independent charismatic authority o f the early monks posed a very real challenge to the institutionalized authority o f bish­ ops.82 Athanasius confronted these tensions through a domestication of Ant­ ony that both acknowledged his special elevated status as an exemplar and teacher and demonstrated his recognition o f the superior authority o f the bishop.83 It has been argued that in the Vit. Ant. Athanasius attempted to tame and domesticate the image o f the wildly influential and authoritative figure o f Antony, a sort o f Weberian “routinization o f charisma.” 84 This entailed un­ dermining an authority founded upon intellectual training, what Brakke sees as a suspicion o f academic Christianity. If, indeed, the letters attributed to Antony are authentic, as Rubenson has argued, they illustrate that Ant­ ony and others like him were able to exercise the roles o f teacher and ex­ emplar outside the domain o f the bishops.85 At the same time, the letters present Antony as a philosophical teacher, not unlike the presentation in the Vit. Ant.86 As Athanasius claimed oversight o f pedagogic authority and activ­ ity for the episcopacy, his actions were directed at both Christian and Greek competitors. His strategy sought to remove or realign with other Christian competitors so as to consolidate the authority o f a Christian paideia with­ 81. Athanasius's Gent, and Inc., as well as his compositions against the Arians, particular­ ly the Orations against the Arians and the Apology against the Arians, push for the establishment of Nicene articulations of Christian doctrine as official orthodoxy. His Festal Letter of the year 367 outlines a list of canonical books of the Old and New Testaments and alludes to heretical books in circulation. 82. Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, 245. 83. Antony’s humility in the face of Church authority is commended: “He honored the rule of the Church with extreme care, and he wanted every cleric to be held in higher regard than himself. He felt no shame at bowing the head to the bishops and priests” (Vit. Ant. 67.1 [SC 400, 310]: trans. Gregg, 81). 84. B. R. Brennan, “Dating Athanasius’ Vita Antonii,” VC 30, no. 1 (1976): 211; 220. See Michael A. Williams, “The Life of Antony and the Domestication of Charismatic Wisdom,” in Charisma and Sacred Biography, ed. Michael Williams, Journal of the American Academy of Religion The­ matic Studies 48, no. 3 4 (Chambersburg, Pa.: American Academy of Religion, 1982). 85. Rubenson, T h e Letters of St. Anlonv, passim. 86. Cl. Brakke, A thanasius am i Asceticism , 213 14, where Brakke suggests the intriguing possi­ bility that, assuming the authenticity ol the letters, this was "the monk’s own view of himself.”

in the structures o f the Alexandrian church. A church united around canon, creed, and bishop could pose a direct, institutionalized challenge to the cir­ cles and schools o f the Greeks. In defining the episcopacy in relation to ascetic authority, Athanasius ap­ pealed to a personal relationship with Antony. This narrative strategy, com­ mon to the bioi o f this period, capitalized on the author-subject relationship so as to bolster the author-audience relationship produced by the text.87 In the prologue o f the Vit. Ant., Athanasius offers to his recipients “what I myself know (for I have seen him often) and what I was able to learn from him when I followed him more than a few times and poured water over his hands.” This reference to 2 Kings 3:11 casts the Antony-Athanasius relationship as a teacher-student, master-servant one on the model o f Elijah and Elisha. Also, Athanasius presents himself and bishop Serapion o f Thmuis as Antony’s heirs: Athanasius received Antony’s cloak and one of his sheepskins; Serapi­ on received the other. The theme o f handing over the mantle is also based on Elijah’s commissioning o f Elisha. Here, two bishops receive Antony’s man­ tles, while his community is granted a hair garment. Athanasius regards the gift as a “great treasure” (μέγα χρήμα), a sort o f inheritance that recalled the image of Antony and symbolized his teaching: “For even seeing these is like beholding Antony, and wearing them is like bearing his admonitions with joy.” 88 Nevertheless, Athanasius does not appear in the narrative as frequent­ ly as one would expect based on his claims in the prologue.89 By composing the bios o f his former “master,” Athanasius moves from the position o f stu­ dent to teacher, from servant to master o f the Antonian tradition (figure 5-1). Outside the space o f the biographical narrative, Athanasius sought to give the leadership o f the institutionalizing church an ascetic character. This en­ tailed drawing episcopal candidates from the ranks o f desert monks.90 The ideal bishop embodied the qualities o f ascetic, teacher, administrator, and ritual expert. In ep. 49 to Dracontius (ca. 354-55), Athanasius encourages the monk to cast aside the doubts he has about accepting the duty of his vocation to the episcopacy.91 He refers to several other monks in the region who had 87. On the role o f Porphyry’s personal relationship with Plotinus in the Vit. Plot., see ch. 3. 88. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 92.3 (SC 400, 372); trans. Gregg, 98. 89. A possible reference to Antony’s visit to Alexandria is suggested by the only “we-passage” in Vit. Ant. 71. 90. Annick Martin, Athanase dAlexandrie et VEglise d ’Egypte au IVe siecle: (328-373), Collection de l’Ecole ffa ^ a ise de Rome 216 (Rome: Ecole frangaise de Rome, 1996), 682, and Brakke, Atha­ nasius and Asceticism, 80-141.

91. For a fuller discussion of this letter, see Brakke, A than asius a n d Asceticism , 99 110.

F ig u r e 5-1.

T h e m o n a s tic h e r ita g e o f A n t o n y o f E g y p t a c c o r d in g to A th a n a s iu s o f A l ­

e x a n d r ia

become bishops, including Serapion, Apollos, Agathon, Ariston, Ammonius, Muitus, and Paul. He insists that it is possible to lead an ascetic life in conjunc­ tion with the role o f teacher (c.9) and points to the biblical models o f Elijah and Elisha. As a domestication and redefinition o f an intellectual and ascetic Christianity, Athanasius’s strategy casts Antony as a naturally endowed phi­ losopher, untouched by the influence o f Greek education, and receptive to the pedagogical authority o f the bishop as teacher o f the church community. As Brakke has pointed out, it was Athanasius’s intention to limit and regulate both the intellectual and the ascetic life o f monks, so as to integrate the val­ ues and practitioners o f asceticism into the developing orthodoxy o f Christian Alexandria under his episcopal oversight and sacramental ministration. O f course, one o f Athanasius’s primary concerns would have been other groups, such as the Melitians and Arians, who were also vying to gain the support o f ascetics and to define doctrinal orthodoxy.92 But I would suggest that Athana­ sius’s efforts were also aimed at intellectual and religious competitors outside i>1. Rr.ikkr, Allitiiuisiiis a nd Asceticism, iog 10.

o f Christian circles. The Vit. Ant. demonstrates that for the Christian-Greek debate, Athanasius considered the ascetic Antony as a viable alternative to the cultural dominance o f Greeks as teachers of philosophy. The Vit. Ant. met with far-reaching success. By 373, two Latin translations were available, one by Evagrius, the other anonymous. A Persian Syriac ver­ sion based on a “copticizing Greek” version, different from the standard Greek text, appeared in the fifth or sixth century.93 For many Christian intel­ lectuals, the Vit. Ant. provided a standard for practical virtue and a viable al­ ternative for thinking about the role o f education in moral formation. It also offered a literary paradigm: Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, and Paulinus o f Milan all consciously modeled their own biographical literature on it. The Vit. Ant. also successfully presented Egyptian monasticism as a viable and attractive alternative to the classical philosophical life for the Christian pepaideumenos. Athanasius’s exhortation to read his bios to the “Gentiles” should not be dis­ regarded as naive or arrogant, as if it could fall only on uninterested or deaf ears. Rather, if the work o f Athanasius should be considered, as I have ar­ gued, a cultural production that served as an arena o f competition over the classical philosophical tradition, then we ought to look for evidence o f how it was received outside Christian circles. In book 8 o f the Confessions, Augustine describes the impact the story o f Antony had on young Roman intellectuals such as himself. He links his own conversion to Christ to that o f Ponticianus and other insiders to the imperi­ al court, who, on discovering a copy o f the Vit. Ant., were inspired to aban­ don their positions o f privilege for a life o f poverty and contemplation.94 That Athanasius’s bios contributed to the conversions o f Augustine and other young educated men from the wisdom o f the world to the wisdom o f God attests to the capability of the Vit. Ant. to communicate common convertible values to different segments o f the educated elite of late antiquity.

Eunapius o f Sardis’s Lives o f the Philosophers and Sophists: Philosophers in Familiar Places The composition and publication of Augustine’s Confessions (ca. 400) co­ incided with that o f the Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists (Vit. Phil.) by the Greek historian and philosopher Eunapius o f Sardis.95 At the end o f the 93. Bartelink, V i c d ’A ntoine, 95. 94. Sec Augustine, Conf. 8.6. 95. The standard critical edition remains that of Ciuscppe (uangrande, Vitae sophistarum ,

fourth century, the cultural and political terrain of the Roman Empire expe­ rienced dramatic shifts. Christian emperors ruled; traditional Roman religion and its shrines were literally under attack; imperial patronage to the Greek intellectual enterprise had come to an end. Eunapius must have experienced his world much like Christian intellectuals had just a century before. The dif­ ference, of course, was that while Christians had been fighting simply to survive under Roman rule, Eunapius perceived a society in decline, from a glorious Hellenic past into a dark irrational present, a society in which both reason and piety had been abandoned. In Eunapius’s work, one can hear the voice o f what Robert Penella has called a “paganism on the defensive.” *96 Within a decade o f Theodosius I’s antipolytheist legislation o f 391 prohibit­ ing sacrifices, Eunapius expressed and shaped the outlook o f late-fourth- and fifth-century Greek intellectuals who self-identified as members o f a Iamblichan tradition. Garth Fowden has characterized the period between the death of Julian (d. 363) and Theodosius II (d. 450) as a time that saw the “at­ trition” o f polytheism.97 The same might be said o f the prestige and public influence of the Greek intellectual outside o f his immediate network o f sup­ porters. He was being replaced by the bishop and monk. Eunapius reacted sharply to the apparent constriction and crumbling o f his world in the fragmentary Universal History. In the extant portions o f the work, which begins in the reign of the emperor Aurelian (270-75), Eunapi­ us tends to demarcate and color historical periods by his estimation o f em­ perors. He echoes Libanius's narrative of decline and likely knew his Epi­ taphios.98 Constantine and Theodosius are simply assimilated: both emperors were responsible for the destruction of the Roman empire through their at­ tacks on the worship o f the gods.99 Eunapius admits that the intent o f the Scriptores Graeci et Latini (Rome: Typis Publicae Officinae Polygraphicae, 1956). See also the Loeb edition and translation by Wilmer Cave Wright, Philostratus a n d E un apius, Loeb Classical Library 134 (New York: Putman’s, 1922). I cite the work giving Giangrande’s numbering, with Didot’s numbering used in Wright’s Loeb edition. Also included are the pages in Giangrande in parentheses. Eunapius’s allusion to Alaric’s sack of Greece (Vit. P h il. 3.3.4, 455 and 8.1-8.2, 481) gives the work a term inus post quem of 396. Thomas M. Banchich ("The Date of Eunapius’ Vi­ tae So p h ista ru m ,” Greek, R om an and B y za n tin e Studies 25 [1984]: 183-92) argues for a more precise date of late 399. See also, Penella, Greek Philosophers, 9. 96. Penella, Greek Philosophers, 141. 97. Garth Fowden, “ Polytheist Religion and Philosophy,” in T h e Late Em pire, A .D . 337-423, vol. 13 of the Cam bridge Ancient History, ed. Avcril Cameron and Peter Garnsey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 348· 98. In his biographical sketch of l.ibanius, Eunapius notes the admiration in which Julian held l.ibanius, and comments on his writings, including his orations. See Vit. Phil. 16.2, 496. 99. I L i v i d E. B u c k , ' E u n a p i u s o f S a r d i s a n d T h e o d o s i u s t h e ( I r e a t , ’’ Itvzan lion 38 ( 1988): 41.

History was to praise the achievements o f Julian (θειότατος Ίουλιανός) and re­ gards his reign as an idyllic interlude in a calamitous age o f Christian emper­ ors. In the Vit. Phil, Eunapius weaves his account o f Julian into the biograph­ ical sketch o f Maximus o f Ephesus, a relative and student o f Aedesius who tutored Julian in the Iamblichan art o f theurgy. Julian is the centerpiece and foil to his Christian predecessors and successors, an authentic Roman emper­ or and paradigmatic philosopher-ruler, who used the influence and resources o f his office to support education and religion.100 Julian serves as an alterna­ tive orientation, not only for historical dating, but also for defining, creating, and perpetuating a community-in-protest, the Greek faction, the subjugat­ ed old order.101 Julian’s reign is remembered as a golden age in which Greek philosophers flourished and a culture o f paideia received the patronage o f a like-minded ruler. In this sense, Julian served as a rallying point for Eunapius’s audience o f Greek educated elites, signifying a vision o f past and future that stood in tension with the reality o f growing and violent opposition to the “old orthodoxy.”

Building Tradition: Porphyry’s Past and Eunapius’s Present The Vit. Phil was the first work o f philosophical biography o f contempo­ rary Platonist intellectuals since the publication o f Porphyry’s Vit. Plot, about a century earlier. Not since Philostratus had there been a work dedicated to the lives of contemporary sophists. It is a work o f “collective biography,” which contains biographical sketches o f about two dozen experts in philoso­ phy, rhetoric, and the healing arts (the “iatrosophists” ).102 Together they re­ flect the intellectual training o f Eunapius and continue the narrative o f the succession o f the school of Plotinus traced through Porphyry, Iamblichus, 100. Eunapius informs the reader of the Vit. Phil, that he treated Julian more extensive­ ly, probably in the History, which survives only in fragments. See, Vit. Phil. 7.3.8-9, 476 (Giangrande, 47): ταύτα δε πάλιν έν τοΐς κατάΊουλιανόν βιβλίοις άκριβέστερον εΐρηται. See also Eu­ napius Hist, frags. 1.15; 28.1 (Blockley). At the opening of the History, Eunapius indicates that the reign of Julian is the orientation of the entire work. See Roger C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus, 2 vols. (Liverpool: Cairns, 1981), 1:101.

101. The reconstituted school at Athens would continue to count the years according to Ju­ lian’s accession; see the discussion of Marinus’s Life of Proclus in ch. 7. 102. For discussion of the principles of organization and the nature of collective biogra­ phies, see Patricia Miller, “Strategies of Representation in Collective Biography: Constructing the Subject as Holy,” in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. Tomas Hagg and Philip Rousseau, Transformation of the Classical Heritage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 214-20.

and his students.103 The Vit. Phil, represents a Greek intellectual's attempt to define and promote a history o f philosophy at a time when Greek intellec­ tual and religious life was severely limited under Christian imperial rule and was being supplanted by an alternative Christian philosophical culture. As a work o f collective biography, the Vit. Phil, represents a return to a type o f biographical literature that traditionally brought together diverse subjects to map out a logic o f continuity. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, for exam­ ple, described the virtues and vices o f various subjects, unrelated historical­ ly and ethnically, as paradigms o f universal ethical categories; on the oth­ er hand, Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of Eminent Philosophers concentrated on the dogmatic and geographical diversity o f the schools as representative of Greek philosophy as a whole. Unlike Diogenes, however, Eunapius traced just one line o f philosophical succession, one school— the one school that au­ thentically preserved the Greek philosophical heritage. In the arrangement o f teacher-student relationships in the Vit. Phil, we see a paideutic genealogy, presented in the form o f intellectual lineages. Imitating prior paradigms of philosophic biography and building upon previous narratives o f the decline and renewal o f philosophy, Eunapius credited the preservation o f a pure and, most importantly, Greek philosophical tradition to a line o f philosophers stretching back from his own teachers to Plotinus in unbroken succession, and in spirit, if not in institutional succession, to Plato. Here biography is a kind o f ancient historiography. Interweaving the biographical accounts o f his philosophical contemporaries and ancestors with a historical framework stretching from the reign of Constantine to Theodosius, Eunapius tells a sto­ ry of decline with an underlying account of redemption in the preservation and transmission of philosophy. In the introduction, Eunapius situates his work in relation to other au­ thoritative examples of Greek biographical literature. Xenophon, Sotion, Lu­ cian, Plutarch, and Philostratus are hailed for their important contributions on the lives and successions o f philosophers.104 Philostratus’s Life of Apolloni­ us is hailed as an exemplary composition and his Lives of the Sophists a mod­ el for Eunapius’s own work.105 Porphyry, too, is credited with recording the history o f philosophy through the lives o f important philosophers. However, Eunapius writes, the recording o f philosophers’ lives had been piecemeal and 103. Watts, “Orality and Communal Identity,” 337-42. 104. liunapius, Vit. Phil. 1.1, 453. 10s. David l·'. Ruck, liunapius' Lives o f the Sophists: A Literary Study,” ttyzantion 62(1992): 149.

incomplete, and so it was his intention to compose an “accurate history of the philosophical and rhetorical life o f the best men.” 106 Eunapius had a personal stake and emotional investment in his account. The “best of men” to whom he devoted his attention were his own teachers, his teachers' teachers, and their teachers. Philosophical history was also his story, and he adopted the role o f guardian and transmitter. His personal rela­ tionship to his subjects granted him the authority to claim these roles; while his access to oral traditions, transmitted personally from teacher to student, enhanced his authority as a knowledgeable insider.107 As the critical hinge be­ tween the subjects and audience o f his work, Eunapius the author ascribes a vital importance to his work as one that may be a key to the survival o f his “defensive” circle of associates: “I reverenced the entrance and gates o f truth and have handed it down to future generations who may either wish to hear thereof or have power to follow with a view to the fairest achievement.” 108 Three foundational figures stand at the base o f the Vit. Phil : Plotinus, Por­ phyry, and Iamblichus. The altars o f Plotinus are still warm, Eunapius be­ gins, his works read more widely than Plato.109 He was succeeded by “the divine philosopher” Porphyry. Eunapius acknowledges that he is unaware o f any “life o f Porphyry.” To fill the gap, he provides one in his collection, draw­ ing primarily on Porphyry’s own writings. By the time of Eunapius’s writing, Porphyry’s efforts to establish a standard narrative of philosophical transmis­ sion through Plotinus and himself had become the standard narrative tra­ dition for many circles of Greek intellectuals.110 Porphyry’s colleague Amelius is named, but Eunapius critically judges his writings.111 In Eunapius’s scheme, Porphyry is the link to the Greek past. An educated scholar and cel­ ebrated author, he is a man of paideia. He is also a “Hermaic chain” (Ερμαϊκή τις σειρά), an eloquent mediator who aided in the communication between gods and mortals.112 Just about one hundred years after the last great biog­ 106. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 2.2.2, 454 (Giangrande, 4), my translation. 107. Miller, "Strategies of Representation,” 212-14. 108. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 2.2.5, 455 (Giangrande, 5); trans. Wright, 351. 109. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 3.3, 455. no. Glucker, Antiochus, 319-20. Augustine, for example, in Against the Academics (386), re­ hearses an account of philosophical history that seems to follow the lines drawn by Numenius and Porphyry: the Academics and Stoics distorted the wisdom of Plato, which resurfaced only in the philosophy of Plotinus. See Acad. 3.17.37-3.18.41. See also Civ. 8.12. in. See Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 4.2, 457. 112. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 4.1.11, 457 (Giangrande, 8). The image derives from Homer, II. 8.19. By the time of Proclus (410-85), the image is much more fully developed. Here in Eunapius, it

rapher o f the Greek intellectual world completed his project o f genealogical mapping o f philosophical history, Eunapius picked up the mantle. Eunapius continues with a “life of Iamblichus.” In contrast to Porphyry, Iamblichus represents the theurgic turn in late ancient Platonism, an indica­ tion of what Eunapius regarded as the authoritative philosophical tradition. Incidentally, Eunapius is the source for Iamblichus’s association with Porphy­ ry after he studied with Anatolius.113 While Eunapius does not use the lan­ guage of succession in the transition from Porphyry to Iamblichus, he gives the impression that there was a logical, if not an official, succession. Appar­ ently ignoring their philosophical differences, he protests that Iamblichus did not differ from Porphyry in anything except his mode of expression. In this lit­ erary production of tradition-building and philosophical historiography, Eu­ napius smoothes over the real philosophical differences and rivalry between Porphyry and Iamblichus, so as to enshrine their relationship as one of unin­ terrupted succession.114 But Eunapius may have been less concerned with an institutional understanding of succession than with demonstrating the surviv­ al and dispersion of divinely gifted teachers who continued to beget students who ensured the survival of philosophy: “[Iamblichus died] after putting forth many roots and springs o f philosophy. The author o f this narrative had the good fortune to benefit by the crop that sprang from them. For others o f his disciples who have been mentioned were scattered in all directions over the whole Roman Empire.” 115 Three other subjects represent Eunapius’s personal tie to the three cate­ gories o f Greek intellectual and philosophical life: Chrysanthius the philos­ opher; Prohairesius the sophist; and Oribasius the iatrosophist. These men display the paradigmatic qualities o f a Greek lettered aristocracy, and evoke reflection on the current state o f moral and religious decline and the margin­ alization o f Greek pepaideumenoi. Their lives also display rational and ethical progress in the moral life. They enjoy a special affinity with the divine not only through philosophical contemplation, but also through theurgic prac­ tices.116 Patricia Miller identifies a “theurgical orientation” to the Vit. Phil., is not used o f a succession per se, but to describe the role o f Porphyry as a representative o f the Platonic tradition in general.

113. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 5.1.2, 458. For discussion of the identity of Anatolius and the rela­ tionship between Iamblichus and Porphyry, see ch. 2. 114. On lamhlichus’s transfer o f theurgy from periphery to center o f the philosophical disci­ plines, see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 14. 115. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 5.3.10, 401 ((uangrande, 17); trans. Wright, 377, with modification. no. Vit. Phil. 5.2.S o. 4o: Iamblichus s practice ol theurgy reinforces his authority as a

by which Eunapius represented his subjects as “aesthetic religious icons” who achieved a transformation o f their selves through ritual and contem­ plation.117 Their rhetorical training equipped them with the necessary skills for public life and teaching. Their devotion to textual study and interpreta­ tion, as well as the production o f their own writings, situated them within a philosophical tradition stretching back to Plato and Pythagoras. They even adopted a degree o f ascetic practice, signaling their devotion to the philo­ sophical life and disavowal o f economic profit. While the intensity o f the phi­ losophers’ asceticism never reached the level o f Antony or the Syrian monks, some, such as Sopater and Priscus, experienced harassment, arrest, torture, and death at the hands o f a Christian government.118 The three foundational figures o f the work are brought into relation with three o f Eunapius’s contemporaries in a scheme o f continuous transmis­ sion. The organizing principle o f the Vit. Phil. is descent constructed accord­ ing to teacher-student relationships in which the cultural inheritance o f the old order is preserved and transmitted. Regarding Iamblichus as the heir of the Plato-Plotinus line, Eunapius traces a lineage through his own teachers, Chrysanthius, Prohairesius, and Oribasius. All three were well respected in their fields and were acquaintances o f the emperor Julian. And all three were meant to contrast the lamentable state o f political, moral, cultural, and reli­ gious decline, which Eunapius described in both the History and the Vit. Phil. Thus, by tying together personal memory, oral traditions, and previous bio­ graphical writings into a collection o f biographies, Eunapius participated in a process o f identifying and giving expression to a “tradition,” which provided a sense of continuity, cohesion, and authenticity for a community of intellec­ tuals under enormous existential pressures.119 While competing Platonist cir­ cles in Alexandria and Athens were simultaneously making similar claims to exclusive authenticity, and may in some way have been targets o f Eunapius’s work, Christians over all were the main focus o f his attacks.

teacher; Vit. Phil. 7.2.12, 475: Julian leaves Chrysanthius to pursue the study o f theurgy with Maximus in Ephesus; Vit. Phil. 6.6, 467: Sosipatra is initiated into the Chaldean mysteries by her teachers; Vit. Phil. 23.1.9-10, 500; Chrysanthius is an expert in divination; and Vit. Phil. 7.3, 475: Prohairesius consults the priest at Eleusis regarding the fate o f the empire. 117. Miller, “ Strategies o f Representation,” 246-49. 118. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.2.2-12, 462-63.

119. Watts, “Orality and Communal Identity," 336.

From Iamblichus to Eunapius Here we will focus on Eunapius’s two most beloved teachers—Chrysanthius and Prohairesius. Chrysanthius was Eunapius’s direct link to Iambli­ chus and thus demarcated the authentic line o f philosophers. Chrysanthius studied under “the most renowned” Aedesius, one o f three students o f Iam­ blichus who form the principal branches of this family tree. Eunapius notes that Aedesius survived the reign o f Constantius by providential goodwill.120 A Cappadocian o f noble birth, who studied first in Athens, Aedesius later traveled to Syria to study with Iamblichus. As a result o f his studies, Aedesius became “little inferior to Iamblichus, except in respect to Iamblichus’ divin­ ity [εις θειασμόν].” 121 Eunapius writes that Aedesius “succeeded Iamblichus’ school.” 122 Fowden has argued that Eunapius meant that Aedesius took over the leadership of Iamblichus’s school in Syria after the master’s death and after Sopater joined the imperial court in Constantinople during the reign o f Constantine.123 This means Sopater would have headed the school from Iamblichus’s death (ca. 325) to the time o f his transfer, when Aedesius would have taken over. The historian Sozomen indicates that Sopater headed the school o f Plotinus in 326.124 He seems to understand this succession as an unbroken institution­ al one. Yet there are difficulties in giving words such as διατριβή and ομιλία an institutional sense when referring to the communities o f the third and fourth centuries.125 Certainly, Eunapius would like his readers to understand these words as such, since a succession o f leadership within fixed institutions provides a sense o f legitimacy to his project. Alternatively, Penella suggests Eunapius’s statement be understood to mean that Aedesius “came to be re­ garded as Iamblichus’ leading academic successor.” 126 While I think Penella is more correct in his assessment o f the historical circumstances o f Aedesius’s time, Fowden’s conclusion applies more to the reality that Eunapius wished to suggest. 120. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.4.1, 464. 121. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.1.4, 461 (Giangrande, 18), my translation. 122. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.1.1, 461 (Giangrande, 17): έκδέχεται δέ την Ιάμβλιχου διατριβήν και ομιλίαν ές τούς έταίρους Αίδέσιος.

123- Fowden, 'The Platonist Philosopher,” 376. 124. Sozomen, H.F.. 1.5.1. 125. Bui see Glueker (Antiochus, 159) who suggests that the term διατριβή is often used to re­ fer to a school in an institutional sense. 126. P e n e l l a , Greek Philosophers, 04.

As a demonstration that divine Providence had anointed Aedesius as a key player in the salvation o f philosophy, Eunapius recounts an oracle that Ae­ desius had received in a dream. Given the choice between a life of teach­ ing in the cities, which would earn him great renown, and a life o f pastoral withdrawal, which would earn him a place among the immortals, Aede­ sius chose the latter. Nevertheless, “so great was his previous renown and so widespread that this purpose could not be hidden from those who longed for training in eloquence, or for learning. They tracked him down and beset him like hounds baying before his doors, and threatened to tear him in pieces if he should devote wisdom so great and so rare to hills and rocks and trees.” 127 As with the Christian anchorites o f the Egyptian desert who yearned for, but were denied, solitude, or the Christian intellectuals dragged from their life of contemplation into the mire of episcopal leadership, divine Providence deprived Aedesius o f the isolation he desired. He had to care for those who hungered for philosophy. In the end, the oracle’s either-or, becomes a bothand, as Aedesius achieved both earthly renown and immortal bliss. Proud o f his membership in a philosophical lineage tying him to Aedesius and Iamblichus, Eunapius was aware o f his participation in a process o f de­ fining and preserving a tradition.128 Eunapius called Chrysanthius the “rea­ son” for the Vit. Phil. This is not merely a laudatory comment; it has been suggested that Chrysanthius encouraged Eunapius to write the Vit. Phil, and was the source o f much o f the oral tradition that Eunapius incorporated into the work.129 Eunapius’s account o f Chrysanthius closes the Vit. Phil, as an encomiastic offering o f a student to his teacher. Born in Sardis into a fam­ ily o f curial rank, Chrysanthius studied with Aedesius in Pergamum. His ed­ ucation was extensive: he mastered the works o f both Plato and Aristotle, and then studied all other forms o f philosophy, including Pythagoreanism.130 Chrysanthius’s Socratic ethos, which Eunapius calls “simplicity” (άπλούν), augmented the symbolic power he possessed from his philosophical descent from Plotinus and Iamblichus. This rhetoric o f simplicity, normally consid­ ered a characteristic o f Christian biography, may seem unusual in a Neopla127. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.4.5, 465 (Giangrande, 24); trans. Wright, 393. 128. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.1.6, 461 (Giangrande, 18): “The writer o f these things was an audi­ tor [ακροατής] o f Chrysanthius from childhood, and scarcely in his twentieth year, he was con­ sidered worthy o f the truer [doctrines], thus such a great thing as the philosophy o f Iamblichus was set before us and it stretched down to this time” (my translation). 129. See Watts, “Orality and Communal Identity,” 349. 130. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 23.1.8, 500.

tonist bios.131 In the Vit. Ant., the simplicity o f the monk denoted a natural, inborn virtue that was nurtured and developed outside the fields o f educa­ tion and power. Eunapius presents Chrysanthius as a philosopher devoted to the teaching and life o f philosophy, exhibiting a disinterest in any economic gain or political advantage.132 He was not, however, completely dissociated from these fields. Chrysanthius was once a teacher o f the prince Julian, who as emperor appointed him to the priesthood. Eunapius notes that he exhib­ ited mildness toward Christians, neither persecuting them nor restoring tem­ ples. Despite his wealthy background, he lived a simple life and adopted a mildly ascetic lifestyle.133 Eunapius portrays his teacher as in these fields of power, but not of them. His influence and prestige as a philosopher were at once independent o f any political support, but enhanced by association with the era o f Julian.

The Challenge o f Prohairesius Eunapius devoted a significant portion o f the Vit. Phil, to his teacher Pro­ hairesius. Where Chrysanthius represented an authoritative succession o f philosophers, Prohairesius carried the standard for the experts in rhetoric. An Armenian by origin, Prohairesius first went to Antioch before settling in Ath­ ens, where such notables as Gregory o f Nazianzus, Basil o f Caesarea, and Ju ­ lian were among his students.134 Although, as Watts notes, the demographics o f higher education were more and more segregated by the fourth century, Prohairesius’s school continued to host a demographic mix, largely due to his good reputation and expertise.135 Eunapius remarks that Prohairesius’s students hailed from many parts, including Asia Minor, Egypt, and North Af­ rica.136 Attesting to the competition and rivalries among Athenian teachers and their students, the account o f Prohairesius’s teacher Julian the Cappado­ 131. On the theme of simplicity in a comparison of the Vit. Const, and the Vit. A nt., see Averil Cameron, “Form and Meaning,” 74-76. On the theme of simplicity more generally in the bio­ graphical tradition, see Rubenson, “Philosophy and Simplicity.” 132. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 23.3.14, 502. 133. Eunapius, Vit. P hil. 23.3.10, 502. 134. Penella, Greek Philosophers, 79. Both Socrates (H .E. 4.26 ) and Sozomen (H .E. 6.17) allude to the studies of Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus in Athens with Prohairesius. The emperor Julian also studied with Prohairesius during his youth in Athens (Julian, ep. 31; and Libanius, ep. 275). See Athanassiadi, Ju lia n a nd Hellenism , 47. 135. Watts, C ity a nd School, 63-64, esp. n.67, where the author notes that, without specifical­ ly mentioning Prohairesius, Gregory of Nazianzus remarks that a number of Armenians were among his classmates a good indication that they were assigned to one of their own. 136. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 104.12 13,487 88.

cian, a contemporary o f Aedesius, highlights the rhetorical skill that brought Prohairesius to prominence. Amid those rivalries, Prohairesius was elected to Julian's position. Eunapius lavishes on him titles and honors due a god or king: “His powers of oratory were so vigorous, and he so sustained his worn body by the youthfulness o f his soul, that the present writer regarded him as an ageless and immortal being [άγήρων τινά και αθάνατον], and heeded him as he might some god who had revealed himself unsummoned and without ceremony.” 137 The city of Rome even honored him with a statue and inscrip­ tion that proclaimed him the “King o f Words.” 138 Although Prohairesius was professionally a sophist, Eunapius’s decision to include him and other sophists and physicians in a compendium o f philoso­ phers demonstrates the overlap o f the three occupations. Thus, it was not enough for the sophist to have excellent rhetorical skills. He was to be a man whose words and actions demonstrated philosophical virtues. Prohairesius exercised self-mastery (καρτερία) and was a visible image o f απάθεια. An as­ cetic, he wore only the philosopher’s cloak and walked around barefoot, even during the cold winters he spent in Gaul. He drank only cold liquids, never hot. In appearance, he displayed a striking physical beauty, even at eightyseven years o f age. The effect o f his authenticity as a true lover o f wisdom was the conformity o f his physical body to the beauty and youth o f his wellordered soul. Prohairesius was a Christian. In his work o f marginalized resistance in a “dark age” o f Christian dominance, Eunapius reserved his harshest rheto­ ric for those Christians who threatened or rejected one o f the three corner­ stones o f Greek life: polis, paideia, and eusebeia. Thus, Constantine could be reviled for demolishing temples; the monks for their brash, violent, and un­ cultured manner o f life; and Theodosius for outlawing sacrifices and margin­ alizing philosophers. Yet, while Eunapius has little that is good to say about Christian emperors and monks, he does often speak favorably o f Christians who valued Greek philosophy and intellectual culture—the very same type whom Porphyry had once regarded as insidious “mixers.” He suggested the possibility o f a small, enlightened segment o f Christians who could properly take a place among the learned Greeks. Others could come under the posi­ 137. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 10.1.3, 485 (Giangrande, 64); trans. Wright, 477. 138. According to Eunapius, the complete inscription ran: Η Β Α Σ ΙΛ Ε Υ Ο Υ Σ Α ΡΩ Μ Η T O N Β Α Σ ΙΛ Ε Υ Ο Ν Τ Α Τ Ω Ν Λ Ο ΓΩ Ν (Vit. Phil. 10.7.4, 492. [Giangrande, 77]). Libanius mentions two statues o f Prohairesius, one in Rome and one in Athens (ep. 278).

tive influence o f Greek teachers. Constantine's court, for example, came but briefly under the influence o f the philosophy o f Iamblichus’s student Sopa­ ter, who was appointed to the position o f synedros.139 Eunapius also praises the emperor Constans (337-50) for his enlightened decision to send Eustathi­ us, another o f Iamblichus’s students, on an embassy to Sapor o f the Persians, whose tyrannical soul the philosopher tamed with his eloquence. Eunapius praises Jovian, the Christian successor to Julian, for the support he afforded the philosophers during his short reign. As a Christian, Prohairesius constituted a distinct challenge to Eunapi­ us. Their teacher-student relationship evoked Eunapius’s filial affection and admiration, and their shared love o f things Greek bound them together. It is not until the end o f a lengthy biography that Eunapius reveals Prohairesius’s Christianity, and even then it is somewhat o f a gloss. Eunapius writes that Prohairesius was “debarred” (έξειργόμενος) from teaching under Julian’s educational edicts because “apparently he was Christian” (έδόκει γάρ είναι χριστιανός).140 Though there have been arguments to the contrary, most no­ tably those o f Richard Goulet, scholarly consensus considers Prohairesius a Christian. Goulet saw Prohairesius as one o f the “lucid pagans” who fell out o f Julian’s favor for refusing to participate in the emperor’s program o f re­ form, regarding it as “a political adventure without a future.” 141 Yet, despite 139. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.2.3, 462 (Giangrande, 18): προς βασιλείαν άρτι φιλοσοφείν μεταμανθάνουσαν. According to Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, μεταμανθάνω can mean “to un­ learn, and learn something new,” the sense in Eunapius being that Sopater to some degree turned the imperial court, including Constantine, away from Christianity and toward philoso­ phy. Sozomen (H .E . 1.5) rejected this assertion made by “the Greeks” and reveals more of the story— that Constantine consulted Sopater on the means of purification after having his son Crispus murdered. See also Zosimus, Hist. 2.29. In the end, Sopater fell victim to the intrigues of the Constantinian court and literally lost his head. 140. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 10.8.1-2, 493 (Giangrande, 79); my translation. 141. Richard Goulet, “Prohairesius le pai'en et quelques remarques sur la chronologie d’Eunape de Sardes,” in Etudes sur les vies de philosophes dans I’antiquite tardive: Diogene, Laerce, Porphyre de Tyr, Eunape de Sardes, ed. Richard Goulet, Textes et traditions 1 (Paris: J. Vrin, 2001), 323-47. Goulet in­ dicates that the following provide sufficient evidence that Prohairesius was not, in fact, Christian, and Eunapius did not believe him to be: Gregory of Nazianzus’s failure to identify Prohairesius as Christian in his epitaphs; the Eunapian episode in which Prohairesius consults the hierophant of Eleusis; and Eunapius’s use of έδόκει. Watts provides a very convincing reading of Prohairesius’s career, which sees his rise to such great success at Athens as aided by Christian emperors who wished to “recognize and display the Christianity of an Athenian teacher” (City and School, 61). Under Julian, this imperial favor evaporated, and Julian’s offer of exemption is read as an attempt to push the sophist into a corner vis-a-vis other Christian teachers, rather than as a favor. Anoth­ er text suggesting the Christian identity of Prohairesius is Jerome, Chron. 242-43, which states that the emperor Julian made an exception to allow Prohairesius “to teach as a Christian” (ut

his ostensible discomfort with his teacher’s Christianity, it is significant that Eunapius makes no attempt to convince his audience to the contrary. No doubt he would have adamantly denied it if it were not true. Eunapius’s passing remark that Prohairesius was “apparently” Chris­ tian did not compromise Prohairesius’s authority for the readers of the Vit. Phil. In fact, I would suggest that Prohairesius served Eunapius well. His is the longest biographical sketch in the entire work. While the Christian soph­ ist’s religious allegiance may have been an embarrassment for Eunapius, he was nevertheless an example of a rare Christian who successfully dedicated himself to Greek paideia, accepted the authority o f Greek writers and think­ ers, and participated in the educational structures that conserved this tradi­ tion and formed young students in its philosophy and skills. Unlike the Chris­ tian monks who rejected both Greek eusebeia and paideia, Prohairesius could be construed as a successful “mixer” of Christian religious allegiance and Greek culture, an “icon o f Hellenic holiness,” as Patricia Cox Miller described him.142 Unable to deny the fact, and bound by his affectionate relationship to the teacher who was one of the keystones of his own pedigree, Eunapius rel­ egated Prohairesius’s Christianity to a secondary place, where it could exist in the shadow of, and in spite of, his Greek identity. His assimilation to the other sophists and philosophers o f the catalogue eclipses, but does not eradicate, his Christian associations. Finally it should be noted that the bonds o f philosophical kinship, which Eunapius traces in the Vit. Phil, are sometimes accentuated by ties o f famil­ ial relationship. Here kinship by blood and marriage complements the rela­ tionships among the members o f this community, binding them beyond the symbolic kinship o f the teacher-student relationship. Chrysanthius not only was Eunapius’s spiritual father, but also was married to Eunapius’s cousin Melite.143 Chrysanthius had a son whom he named after his teacher Aedesius.144 Aedesius died suddenly at the age o f twenty, and his father’s philo­ christianns doceret) despite his edicts restricting Christians from teaching. Penella (Greek Philoso­ phers, 92-94) disagrees with Goulet, and reads Eunapius’s visit to the oracle to inquire wheth­ er Julian’s plan o f tax relief for the Greeks would be permanent as a “ cleverly discreet w ay o f asking whether Julian’s reign and his pagan program would be long-lasting.” Miller (“ Strate­ gies o f Representation,” 240) also assumes Prohairesius’s Christianity and remarks that Euna­ pius intentionally masks the sophist’s Christian identity to fit him into the iconic image o f the Hellene.

142. Miller, “ Strategies o f Representation,” 240. 143. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 7.4.5, 477. 144. Eunapius, Vit. P hil. 23.5.1, 504.

sophical inheritance was left to other children: Epigonus, Beronicianus, and Eunapius himself. Eunapius also reports that Iamblichus’s two Cappadocian students, Aedesius and Eustathius, “were not separated according to descent” (και κατά γένος ούκ άφεστήκεσαν).145 Upon Eustathius’s death, Aedesius took his wife, Sosipatra, and their children into his care. Maximus o f Ephesus, the renowned theurgist and mentor o f the emperor Julian, was also a student and relative o f Aedesius.146

Derobing the Men in Black The drum beat o f cultural competition pulses through the rhetorical strategies o f the Vit. Phil. Eunapius openly expressed his disgust at the ele­ vation of Christian monks to the position o f philosophical paradigm: “Ev­ ery man who wore a black robe and consented to behave in unseemly fash­ ion in public, possessed the power o f a tyrant, to such a pitch o f virtue had the human race advanced!” 147 The identifying vesture o f the monk was his black robe, not the philosopher’s cloak, which an earlier generation o f Chris­ tians had adopted. This polemic against Christian monks was not new, nor was the strategy o f disparaging them as exemplars o f virtue. Julian had complained that the monks had replaced the Greek virtue o f philanthropy with misanthropy.148 Libanius, too, had leveled strong attacks against Chris­ tian monks.149 Their rejection o f polis and paideia, as well as their seemingly antisocial, irrational, and impious behavior, clashed with Eunapius’s under­ standing o f the philosophical life and invited charges o f political intrigue as well.150 They were the antithesis o f the philosophical life. Yet Eunapius’s ac­ knowledgement of their influence as moral authorities recognized by his op­ ponents affords them a legitimacy and indicates that Christians had success­ fully renegotiated the terms o f debate. In his disparagement o f the philosophical paradigms o f his opponents, 145. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.4.7, 465, my translation. 146. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.9, 470. 147. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.11.7, 472 (Giangrande, 39); trans. Wright, 423. 148. Julian, ep. 89.288B. 149. For example, see Libanius, ep. 607; Or. 43.10; 42.42; 30.8 and 30.12-13. Or. 18.288-89 is par­ ticularly harsh against monks. For a general discussion of antimonastic polemic in Greek and Latin sources, see appendix 4 of Lellia Cracco Ruggini's, “Simboli di battaglia ideologica nel tardo Ellenismo (Roma, Atene, Costantinopoli; Numa, Empedocle, Cristo),” in S tu d i storici in o n o rc d i O ttorino Rertolini (Pisa: Pacini, 1972), 1:112-22. 130. Eunapius also blames monks for the Gothic invasions of the Empire. See Eunapius, Hist. frag. 53 (Hinckley). They are also accused of cooperating in Alaric’s invasion of Greece at Vit. Phil. 7.pi, 47s.

Eunapius was not so much critical o f dogmatic claims or textual practices as were Celsus and Porphyry. Instead, Eunapius disdained the monks’ disavow­ al o f paideia and rejected them as models o f practical philosophy. His harsh attack on the monks was a strategic “derobing” o f his opponents’ philosophi­ cal paradigms. Eunapius represents Christian monks as irrational deviants, controlled by their passions and responsible for the general corruption and decay of society. They were models o f sacrilege against temples (ιεροσυλία) and impiety (ασέβεια), “men in form, but their way of life is swinish [ό δέ βίος αύτοις συώδης].” 151 Monks were responsible for the destruction o f the Serapeion in Alexandria in 391, an event that Eunapius reports was foreseen by Iamblichus and that he likens to the mythical revolt o f the giants. In Eunapius’s estimation, theirs was a piety o f impiety. He was particularly dis­ gusted by the veneration o f martyrs and relics.152 Eunapius would suggest that a Christian would be better served by the wisdom, training, and exam­ ple o f a Prohairesius, who exhibited a wisdom, virtue, and ascetic practice nurtured within the fertile ground o f paideia. Unlike the monks, Prohairesius exhibited a tolerance and respect for those who did not share his religious allegiances. Eunapius’s Vit. Phil is a collective biography with genealogical and histo­ riographical purposes. It is not an all-encompassing history o f philosophy, but a selection o f philosophers, sophists, and physicians bound together by geog­ raphy, kinship, and teacher-student relationships, who are credited with the preservation of Greek tradition in the face o f growing Christian hostility. It is also Eunapius’s personal resume. Directed to a sympathetic audience, the work is conservative in its appeal to a pre-Christian ideal o f paideia as an en­ dangered way o f life. While this understanding o f paideia was losing its appeal de facto on the pages o f Eunapius’s work, paideia was a commodity that was becoming more rare, and, within the narrowing circle o f Greek intellectuals, more valuable, with every passing generation. Therefore, the Vit. Phil, served 151. Eunapius, Vit. Phil 6.11.6, 472 (Giangrande, 39), m y translation. For a discussion o f Eu­ napius’s treatment o f Christians in the History and the Lives, see Gerhardus J. M. Bartelink, “ Eunape et le vocabulaire chretien,” VC 23, no. 4 (1969): 293-303. In the new edition o f the History, Eunapius excised much o f the anti-Christian rhetoric o f the first edition.

152. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.11.8-9, 472 (Giangrande, 39-40): “ For they collected the bones and skulls o f the criminals who had been put to death for numerous crimes, men whom the law courts o f the city had condemned to punishment, made them out to be gods, haunted their sepulchers, and thought that they became better by defiling themselves at their graves. ‘ Mar­ tyrs’ the dead men were called and ‘ministers’ o f a sort, and ‘ambassadors’ from the gods to carry men’s prayers.” (trans. Wright, 425)

as the rallying call o f a later generation, to Eunapius’s network o f Greek pepaideumenoi scattered throughout the empire, who could, like the author, iden­ tify with his mythic lineage. In his family history extending back to Plotinus, through the school o f Iamblichus, Eunapius defined a philosophical tradition and a standard o f the philosopher as the scholar, teacher, and worshipper of the gods, who was also an ascetic and theurgist. Set against the idyllic back­ drop o f the Julianic era, which was bookended by the experience o f domi­ nation under an increasingly independent and powerful Christian intellectual and educational agenda, Eunapius gave voice to an intellectual community on the margins and “on the defensive.” With the establishment o f Christianity as the official religion o f the empire, severe limits were placed on the public practice o f Greco-Roman cults. As a result, those Neoplatonists who regarded themselves as a redemptive remnant, guardians o f both philosophia and eusebeia, experienced increased exclusion and were forced, as O’Meara has argued, to “live forms o f religious as well as o f political divinization in the narrow bounds o f the philosophical school and o f private life.” 153 Eunapius’s philo­ sophical lineages converge to form a philosophical history, inspired by and continuing the historiographical work o f Porphyry, but canonizing the philo­ sophical thought o f Iamblichus. The final product, a schema o f the transmis­ sion of philosophy from Plato to Eunapius, is outlined in figure 5-2. The bioi paired in this chapter reflect the state o f competition for philos­ ophy in the mid to late fourth century with the ascendency o f a new intel­ lectual orthodoxy— a Christian one. In the episodes of interaction between Antony and anonymous philosophers, Athanasius stripped the monk’s op­ ponents of their identity, their honor, and their influence. Employing a new strategy with a new kind o f model, Athanasius’s “discovery” o f a Christian philosopher, in an unfamiliar and unexpected place, was a harsh assessment o f the value o f Greek paideia for the Christian in pursuit of wisdom and vir­ tue. In the Vit. Ant., Athanasius promoted a paradigm o f the philosopher who appeared on the surface to be the antithesis o f the well-educated, social­ ly respectable urban philosopher, yet possessed the intellectual and virtuous character o f the philosopher. He provided a model o f the philosopher that distanced itself from the dominant philosophical culture through an overt strategy o f disavowal. At the same time, he covertly invested in the values and skills o f philosophical culture to promote Antony as a philosophical ped­ agogue, and himself, the biographer, as heir and guardian o f that tradition. i s r O ' M c . n a,

Pliilonof’oli.i,

ho.

Philosophers P la t o

P lo t in u s

Fig u re 5-2. T h e h isto ry o f p h ilo so p h y in te rtw in e s w ith E u n a p iu s's triple lineage in his Lives o f the Philosophers and Sophists

Meanwhile, with his rejection o f the impious men in black, Eunapius de­ cried the philosophers' loss o f symbolic power and pedagogical authority. He reasserted the economy of cultural capital, which Athanasius and other Chris­ tians had disavowed, affirming the old orthodoxy with its values, practices, and institutions, and expressing a disconcerted view of the progressing march of apparent irrationality.154 Athanasius was the herald o f a new order, Euna­ pius the sentinel o f the old. As Greek and Christian intellectuals became in­ creasingly (though not absolutely) estranged, the literary geography o f their competition became more distant: the desert cell and the urban school. 154. On the restructuring of a field through position-takings by newcomers, the newcomers’ assertion of difference, and the old order’s disconcertedness, see Hourdieu, Cultural Production, 58.

Macrina and Sosipatra Beyond Their Nature

Nature has sprouted meadows o f virginity and offered these fragrant and unfading flowers to the Creator, not separating virtue into male and female nor dividing philosophy into two categories. For the differ­ ence is one o f bodies not o f souls: “ in Christ Jesus,” according to the di­ vine Apostle, “ there is neither male nor fem ale.” Theodoret, Religious History 30.5

Education and philosophy were male enterprises in antiquity. The aim of paideia was to produce “Greeks,” men o f culture, virtue, prestige, and pow­ er. All aspects o f elementary, literary, and rhetorical training—from its orga­ nization to its curricula to its intended outcomes—were ordered toward the molding o f good male citizens, who would pursue a public career in poli­ tics or oratory. Literacy and composition, argumentation and rhetoric, were necessary skills for public life. Paideia also impressed on young men proper behavior. According to Plutarch, paideia tamed the emotions o f the young man s irrational soul through a cultivation o f reason and the imposition of law and custom .1 Like any educational system, paideia produced and repro­ duced a universe o f intellectual, social, and cultural norms that bound the aristocrats and intellectuals o f male society together in both cooperative and competitive relationships. The same could be said for philosophical education. While ancient sourc1. P l u t a r c h ,

Monilia

432c

d.

es certainly attest to the presence o f women in philosophical circles, the prin­ ciples, practices, and “discourses” of the philosophical life were produced from a male perspective.2 Herais and Potamiaena belonged to the circle o f Origen and were martyred with Heraclas and Plutarch.3 In Neoplatonic cir­ cles, women were often born or married into philosophical communities or households.4 Amphicleia, a student o f Plotinus, was the wife o f Iamblichus's son.5 Iamblichus himself in the DVP includes the names o f seventeen wom ­ en responsible for spreading Pythagorean philosophy.6 Certainly, Plato advo­ cated the education o f girls on the basis that men and women shared both a common human nature and, thus, a common capacity toward virtue,7 a view that was shared by later Platonists, including Proclus (ca. 410-85), and Christians such as Gregory o f Nyssa.8 That being said, even when women participated in the life o f the philosophical circle, they did so on the fringes in a complex of beliefs and practices whose goal was to produce a human ideal conceived o f primarily as the perfected male.9 The philosophical bios was a literary space normally reserved for male subjects. Not a single woman appears as the subject of a Platonist bios before the publication o f Eunapius’s Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists at the turn of the fifth century CE. Christian intellectuals, however, were more adept at adapting the biographical portrait o f the philosophical exemplar to include women. While the number o f Christian biographical compositions that fea­ ture women is not overwhelming, there are several notable examples, such as Gregory o f Nyssa’s Life o f Macrina, Gregory o f Nazianzus’s encomium for his sister Gorgonia, and Palladius’s Lausiac History, which introduces readers to the ascetics Melania the Elder and Younger, Alexandra, and Juliana. 2. Gillian Clark, Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Life-Styles (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 2. 3. For Herais, see Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.4.3; for Potamiaena, see Hist. eccl. 6.5. 4. Clark, Women in Late Antiquity, 132.

5. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 9.

6. Iamblichus, DVP 267. 7. Plato, Resp. 5.45id-457b, and Laws, 7.8o4d-8o5b; 794c; 802ε. See also Marrou, History of Ed­ ucation, 103. For a fuller treatment o f the education o f girls based on the papyrological evidence o f Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, see ch. 3 o f Cribiore, Gymnastics, who points out that the Hel­ lenistic period saw an increase in female literacy. 8. On Proclus’s reading o f the Republic, see O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 83-86. On Gregory, see the discussion in Rowan Williams, “ Macrina’s Deathbed Revisited: Gregory o f Nyssa on Mind and Passion," in Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity: Essays in Tribute to George Christopher Stead, Ely Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge (1971-1980), in Celebration of his Eightieth Birthday, 9th April 1993, ed. L. R. W ickham and C. P. Bammel, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 19 (N ew York: Brill, 1993). 243-44. 9. Pierre Bourdieu, "La domination masculine,” Actes de la recherche en sciences socials 84

(1990): 7·

This chapter highlights two works o f philosophical biography with wom ­ en as subjects, Gregory o f Nyssa’s Life of Macrina (VSM) and the lengthy ac­ count of Sosipatra in Eunapius’s Vit. Phil. There has been a flowering o f lit­ erature on the VSM in recent years, while less attention has been given to Sosipatra. The pairing o f these two accounts will yield interesting results in the consideration o f biography as an arena for cultural competition among the pepaideumenoi of late antiquity. While women remained on the periphery o f the philosophical field, in these works they are brought closer to the cen­ ter. In the eyes o f their biographers, these real women stood out as extraordi­ nary examples of virtue and learning; but their stories were told through the paradigms and categories o f a male-dominated philosophical field. The purpose o f this chapter is not to discover the real women behind the biographical portraits, but to consider why and how female subjects were enlisted in the competition o f a decidedly male enterprise.10 Three principal strategies emerge. First, the figures o f Macrina and Sosipatra provide assess­ ments of pedagogical formation from their biographers’ perspectives that evaluate the role of paideia and its constituent practices and curricula. These assessments represent characteristic contributions from Christian and Greek segments o f the pepaideumenoi. Second, the biographers present their sub­ jects as extraordinary teachers o f philosophy who exceeded their male con­ temporaries in wisdom and virtue, making them suitable teachers for both male and female students, as they perfectly embodied the desired outcome o f philosophical education. Finally, both women provided a maternal link in male lineages that perpetuated lineages of philosophical offspring and rein­ forced kinship relationships, whether in the intellectual circles o f the Iamblichan tradition o f Asia Minor or in the nascent ascetic communities and churches associated with the Christian Cappadocians. Readers will note the absence o f a discussion o f Hypatia (died 415), the famous Alexandrian philosopher mentioned for the first time by the Chris­ tian historian Socrates.11 Put simply, there is no philosophical biography of her life. Socrates focuses on the circumstances o f her death,12 while Damas10. See Elizabeth A. Clark, “The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas o f a Feminist Historian after the ‘Linguistic Turn,” ’ Church H isto ry 67 (1998): 18, 24; and Lynda L. Coon, Sacred Fictions: H oly Women and H agiography in La te A ntiquity, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University o f Penn­

sylvania Press, 1997), 143. Cf. David Brakke, “The Lady Appears: Materializations o f ‘W om an’ in Early Monastic Literature,” Jo u rn a l o f M ed ieval a nd E a rly M odern Studies 33, no. 3 (2003): 398. 11. Socrates, H E. 7.15. 12. The circumstances o f Hypatia’s murder have been the focus o f much inquiry. A recent study o f the incident by Edward Watts treats its reception and subsequent politicization for

cius, the sixth-century head of the Athenian Platonist school, includes two brief (and unflattering) biographical notices on Hypatia in his Philosophos historia.*13 Thus, while a fuller discussion o f Hypatia would be appropriate in a general discussion o f female philosophers, the lack o f a bios excludes her from the present study. This fact in and o f itself is curious, as Hypatia would have been at the height of her career when Eunapius wrote his Vit. Phil. It seems Hypatia was strategically omitted because she did not fit into Eunapius’s genealogy, either philosophically or geographically.14 According to Penella, the plan of the Vit. Phil, highlights an interest in a Iamblichan phil­ osophical lineage within the defined geographical region of Asia Minor and Greece, and, especially, Pergamum.15

The Virtuous Lives o f Women and Men Gregory penned the life o f his sister within four years o f her death in 379. This was a time of new movements and controversies in the Christian world and change across the empire. Theodosius was proclaimed emperor in 379. Debates over the creedal formula o f Nicaea and its interpretation had con­ sumed Gregory’s brother Basil and his friend Gregory o f Nazianzus in the preceding decade. After Basil’s death in 379, Gregory would take up his broth­ er’s mantle, participating in the second ecumenical council held in Constan­ tinople in 381, where Apollinarianism was condemned and the divinity o f the Holy Spirit affirmed. Monastic communities for men and for women multi­ plied across the eastern empire, including Cappadocia, where Basil had com­ posed a pair o f rules in imitation o f Egyptian communities. serving "particular religious or ideological needs,” and the effects o f the event on social rela­ tions in Alexandria. Damascius portrays the murder as an inhuman and unjust atrocity pro­ voked simply by the jealousy o f the Christian patriarch o f Alexandria: another example o f the Christian persecution o f Greek philosophers. According to Watts, Socrates's account gives at­ tention to the political dimensions o f Hypatia’s death, defining "the extremely dangerous po­ litical climate created by Cyril’s willingness to resist imperial authority.” See Edward J. Watts, “The Murder o f Hypatia: Acceptable or Unacceptable Violence?” in Violence in La te A n tiq u ity : Perceptions a n d Practices, ed. Harold A. Drake (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006), 333-42.

13. See Damascius, P hil. hist. 43A and 106A (T he P hilosophical H istory, ed. Polymnia Athanassiadi [Apamea: Apamea Cultural Association, 1999], 254), where he offers the following judgment o f her: "Isidore [Damascius’s predecessor and main subject o f the Philosophos h istoria ] and Hypatia were very different, not only as man differs from woman, but as a true philosopher differs from a mathematician.” (trans. Athanassiadi, 255). For the dating o f Damascius’s Phil, hist., see Athanassiadi, “Introduction,” in D am ascius: T h e P hilosophical H isto ry (Athens: Apamea, 1999), 42-43. 14. Penella, Greek Philosophers, 134-39. See also, Miller, “ Strategies o f Representation,” 239. 15. Penella, Greek Philosophers, 61- 62.

Though two decades had passed since the death of the emperor Julian in 363, this continued to be a time o f intense competition between Greek and Christian intellectuals as the political environment and numbers tipped in fa­ vor o f the latter. Eunapius’s biographical account o f Sosipatra appears in his collective biography o f philosophers, rhetors, and iatrosophists, a work that reflects the anxieties and self-expression o f an intellectual community losing its position o f dominance. With the Theodosian laws banning sacrifice in ef­ fect, the figure of Sosipatra, like her male counterparts, represents a com­ munity of Iamblichan intellectuals who continued to carry the banner o f Ju ­ lian’s failed religious reforms, resisting the Christianization o f the empire’s religion and philosophy. Elizabeth Clark has suggested that biographical accounts of women had more in common with ancient novels than with classical biography, which tended to focus on the public activities of men.16 Women’s bioi often re­ counted the struggles o f young aristocratic women in conflict with men of public repute, whether their husbands, fathers, or civic authorities, usually through the renunciation o f marriage and the pursuit o f an ascetic and vir­ ginal life.17 Nevertheless, Clark recognizes a certain resonance o f the bioi o f women with philosophical lives, particularly in the way certain women, such as Macrina or Melania, are depicted as "teachers o f wisdom,” a role normal­ ly reserved for men in the biographical tradition.18 Philip Rousseau notes experimentation in the mixing o f genres in Gregory o f Nyssa’s Life of Macrina. Presented within an epistolary context, like his Life of Moses and Atha­ nasius’s Life of Antony, the Life of Macrina also bears the marks o f an historia, in this case the history o f a powerful and influential Christian family.19 As I have noted above, in this respect the philosophical bioi o f late antiquity often played a historiographical role in the construction o f intellectual pedigrees defining authoritative communities. The previous chapter highlighted the role o f the bios in the displacement and recasting o f the philosopher. The presentation o f Antony o f Egypt as paradigmatic detached notions o f “wisdom” and “virtue” from the prevail­ 16. Clark, “ Lady Vanishes,” 16. 17. Clark draws parallels to the themes found in the Apocryphal Acts o f the Apostles. See also Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), esp. 51-67. 18. Clark, “ Lady Vanishes,” 21. 19. Philip Rousseau, "Th e Pious I lousehold and the Virgin Chorus: Reflections on Gregory o f Nyssa's Life of Macrina, "JL C S 1 {, no. 2(2005): 171.

ing ethnic, cultural, and intellectual norms o f Greek intellectual society and culture. Christian philosophical bioi with women as subjects also challenged these norms, and pushed the boundaries further regarding gender and edu­ cational formation. Several motives usually underlie the appearance o f wom­ en in texts written by men for male audiences. First, women often appear to shame men. Second, the female figure serves to address issues o f hierarchy within the context o f doctrinal or disciplinary controversies, and, in so doing, legitimates a male enterprise.20 In the case o f the bioi of Macrina and Sosipa­ tra, their portraits served to legitimate forms o f the male philosophical en­ terprise in competition with one another. Holy women, and especially ascet­ ic women, who appeared as exemplars of virtue and philosophy in Christian texts played an innovative role in the context o f this competition. Like their male ascetic counterparts, women ascetics and virgins supported a (largely eastern) Christian view o f the potential o f “natural virtue” present in all hu­ man beings that could be nurtured within the confines of the church under the direction o f a teaching bishop. David Halperin has called attention to the role o f the figure o f Diotima in Plato's Symposium and the configuration o f gender in classical Greek phil­ osophical literature. Noting the significant position she claims in the tale of the origins o f the Socratic (and hence, Platonic) tradition, Halperin argues that Diotima’s presence “endows the pedagogic processes by which men re­ produce themselves culturally ... with the prestige o f female procreativity.” 21 Diotima put a female face on philosophy, which bolstered the legitimacy o f an almost exclusively male enterprise. She was an outsider to the real social contexts o f the male philosophical field, which produced the intended ends o f the philosophical life,22 yet she achieved these ends through an extraor­ dinary and mysteriously acquired knowledge. Diotima both gives birth to (in the context o f Socrates’s account) and confirms (according to Plato’s ac­ count) Platonic philosophy. In the end, it is Plato who speaks through both Socrates and Diotima.23 Macrina and Sosipatra play similar roles, each molded to the vision o f her 20. See Coon, Sacred Fictions , 146-48, and Clark, "Lad y Vanishes,” 29-31. 21. David M. Halperin, “W h y Is Diotima a Woman? Platonic Eros and the Figuration o f Gender,” in Before S e x u a lity : T h e C onstruction o f E rotic E x perien ce in the A ncien t G reek World, ed. David Halperin et al. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 288. 22. Elizabeth A. Clark, H istory, Theory, T ext: H isto rians a n d the L in g u istic T u rn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 175. 23. For analysis o f this episode for its relevance to early Christian writings, see Clark, "Lady Vanishes,” 25 -27, where Diotima is described as an “invcrsed alter ego” of Socrates.

respective biographer. While Diotima’s identity remains a matter o f debate, there is no doubt that Macrina and Sosipatra were real women, known to their biographers and their immediate circles. Neither was a mythical fig­ ure operative at the origins o f philosophy, yet both embodied a philosophi­ cal ideal that came as a result o f extraordinary contact with the divine. Thus, in terms o f their educational formation, they are excluded from the circles o f male education, reflecting the limited access o f women to higher educa­ tion. Yet, both participated on the margins o f the male enterprise by found­ ing and leading communities and acting as teachers to men. In this respect, they contributed a maternal link in predominately male lineages. They are women who approach masculinity, while continuing to act in feminine roles. In this combination o f roles, their biographers enlisted them as participants in a male competition over philosophy. In a study o f attitudes toward women in patristic literature, Gillian Cloke explored the criteria that Christian women in late antiquity required to be considered virtuous.24 As a result o f a scriptural exegesis that pinned the re­ sponsibility for the first sin on Eve, many early Christian writers regarded the daughters o f Eve as representatives o f a “downfall o f rationality through sexuality.” 25 Women were often regarded as less perfect participators in the imago Dei, with justification cited on the basis o f Genesis 2:22 and 1 Corin­ thians 11:3. Generally speaking, the appropriate way to virtue for a woman was through cultivating qualities such as modesty, silence, faithfulness, and purity in an ascetic, especially a virginal, way o f life.26 In so doing, a woman both combated the weakness o f her nature and obviated both for herself and for men the near occasions o f sin. Thus, the virtuous woman was one who fought against her inner Eve, attaining what Cloke calls a “quasi-masculine state,” which meant essentially a “negation o f her original abject nature.” 27 It is commonplace in the telling o f the lives o f virtuous women for their male biographers to note how they were rare examples of both the female and the human: that is, that they transcended the deficiencies of both their γένος—their sex—and their φΰσις—human nature. Gregory o f Nyssa wrote that it might not have been fitting to call Macrina “woman” (γυνή), since she “was above the nature” (την άνω γενομένην τής φΰσεως).28 Sosipatra's myste­ 24. Gillian Cloke, “ T h is Fem ale M a n o f G o d ” : W omen a nd S p iritu a l P o w er in the P atristic Age, A D 350-450 (New York: Routledge, 1995), 25.

25. Ibid., 28. 26. Ibid., 27. 27. Ibid., 212. Cf. Porphyry, Letter to M arcella 33. 28. Gregory ol Nyssa, VSM 1.15 17 (SC 178, 140).

rious tutors promised her father that after her education she would come back to him “beyond a woman and beyond a human being” (κατά γυναίκα και άνθρωπον), even though Philometor would still later recognize her as a “quite divine woman.”29 The sisters Marana and Cyra, who appear in Theodoretfs Religious History, surpassed even male monks in their physical asceti­ cism: “They are worthy of still greater praise [than men], when, despite hav­ ing a weaker nature [φύσιν άσθενεστέραν], they display the same zeal as the men and free their sex [τό γένος] from its ancestral disgrace.” 30 Palladius re­ membered Melania the Elder as “the female man o f God;” 31 and even Gor­ gon ia, whose way o f life was not the ascetic way o f the women o f the des­ erts and wilderness, but a domestic one, proved that a woman s fortitude in practice could surpass even the most intellectual o f men.32 As David Brakke has pointed out in the example of Amma Sarah, a distinc­ tion is often made between sex, understood as an aspect of nature, and femi­ nine gender, understood as an aspect o f culture. Amma Sarah points out that she is a woman by nature, but not in her thoughts, or in her practices. Brakke notes that Sarah is “naturally” a woman, but her thoughts and practices pro­ duce a virtue that is more properly (and, I would add, ideally) male.33 Sim­ ilarly, Macrina and Sosipatra remain women, but by extraordinary accom­ plishment and divine help, they approach a masculine ideal, as far as possible for women. Macrina rose above her nature, while Sosipatra developed in a way that took her beyond both femininity and human nature. It is not, in my opinion, that these women simply “become” male, but that they attained an ideal status, which, albeit grounded in androcentric values, was seen to transcend the ordinary limitations o f humanity in general. This distinction is made most clear in Eunapius’s description o f Sosipatra who has moved two steps toward virtue: progressing beyond her “woman-ness” would bring 29. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.6.12, 467 (Giangrande, 29); m y translation. 30. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 29.1 (SC 257, 232); trans. A History of the Monks of Syria, ed. and trans. R. M. Price, Cistercian Studies Series 88 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1985), 183. 31. Palladius, Hist. Laus. 9: ή άνθρωπος τοϋ θεοΰ. 32. Gregory o f Nazianzus, On His Sister Gorgonia, 13. Recent studies o f Gregory o f Nazianzus’s treatment o f Gorgonia include Tomas Hagg, “ Playing with Expectations: G regory’s Fu­ neral Orations on His Brother, Sister and Father,” in Gregory o f Nazianzus: Images and Reflections, ed. Jostein Bortnes and Tomas H agg (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2006), 133-52, esp. 138-46; and Virginia Burrus, “ Life after Death: The Martyrdom o f Gorgonia and the Birth o f Female Hagiography,” in ibid., 153-70. 33. Brakke, “The Lady Appears,” 389-90. Clark (“ Lady Vanishes,” 29) sees Macrina repre­ sented as the “primal human being” made in the image oi God.

her to a place where imperfect men might find themselves; but Sosipatra has gone further in perfecting her humanity, arriving at a goal for which the most virtuous o f men strive (and Sosipatra is surrounded by many o f these men in Eunapius’s Vit. Phil). Likewise, Gregory rhetorically expressed a hesita­ tion even to refer to Macrina as a woman, praising her for a successful defeat, through ascetic practice, o f her fallen human nature and, additionally, o f the gender that was an aspect o f this nature. The transcendence o f the weaknesses o f human nature, the passions, and the purification o f intellect so that it can know God were the goals o f many o f the philosophical schools o f antiquity. In the Platonist tradition, the pos­ session and exercise o f reason made human beings most like God. Likewise, both men and women were in possession o f a rational soul, and therefore could work toward the same end. Whereas Aristotle had claimed that wom ­ en were inferior to men both physically and intellectually, Platonists regarded the primary disadvantage o f the woman as physical. Thus, for Christians who adhered to a similar philosophical anthropology and psychology, the physi­ cal endurance o f female Christian ascetics was enough to shame men still enslaved to their passions. Though physical weakness would not preclude a woman from attaining virtue, it would be more difficult for her than for a man to combat physical desire and waves o f emotion, as the female nature was considered conditioned toward desire.34 Among Christian authors o f the fourth and fifth centuries, Gregory o f Nyssa has been identified as a rare ex­ ample of one who wrote on virginity as a pursuit for both men and women, and recognized the possibility o f women’s potential for virtue.35 Rowan Wil­ liams has noted that Gregory o f Nyssa’s understanding o f the soul in the Life of Macrina, On the Soul and the Resurrection, and On the Creation of Man is one that makes gender a characteristic o f the composite human being, in body and soul. The soul, in and o f itself, is ungendered, and thus, men and women have an equal capability in the pursuit o f virtue.36 The female nature did not inhibit the possibility o f pursuing or achieving virtue. Instead, the task was a much greater struggle, and hence, one to be celebrated when accomplished. Both Gregory’s VSM and Eunapius’s Vit. Phil, follow the typical literary structure o f a bios with a male as subject. Content, rather than structure, dif­ ferentiates the bios o f a male subject from that o f a female subject. In fact, 34. Halperin, “ W hy Is Diotima a Woman?” 265. 35. Cloke, Fannie Man of (uni, 50-60. 36. Williams, "M a n illa s Deathbed Revisited,” 243 44.

the account o f Sosipatra takes a certain pride o f place in the Vit. Phil, being similar in length to the account o f Eunapius's beloved Chrysanthius: Sosipa­ tra has some 276 lines in the Greek o f the Loeb edition, while Chrysanthius claims 337. Three themes are pertinent to these lives o f female subjects in the competition for philosophy: education, domesticity, and reproduction. Both Macrina and Sosipatra are educated in unconventional ways. Yet, what their biographers say about the intellectual formation o f these women reflects at­ titudes toward paideia expressed by these same writers in their biographies o f men. Regarding domesticity, both women pursue ways o f life that have mas­ culine parallels (the virgin ascetic, on the one hand, and the teacher o f phi­ losophy, on the other) which they perform within domestic contexts. Finally, both women produce philosophical offspring, while strengthening bonds of kinship based on biological relationships.

Women and P aideia When comparing the bioi o f male subjects with those o f female subjects, like Macrina and Sosipatra, one glaring difference is that female subjects are not formed by the institutions o f paideia that were the cornerstone o f the ed­ ucational and moral formation of men. This in itself is a detail that warrants analysis, as it has been my position in this study that biographical literature was an arena in which paideia was valuated both positively and negatively. In cases where paideia is absent, such as in the Vit. Ant. and in the bioi o f Mac­ rina and Sosipatra, we must be careful not to equate absence with a negative appraisal. Indeed, just as the young Antony became wise and virtuous de­ spite his avoidance of the schools, so Macrina and Sosipatra attained the ideal o f masculine wisdom and virtue even though conventional paideia played no role in their formation. In all three examples, the achievement o f this ideal in unexpected contexts confounds institutional inculcation, yet at the same time still meets cultural expectations. Paideia plays no role inasmuch as these figures are not educated by grammatikoi, rhetoricians, or philosophers, but their biographers assert that each o f them possesses the knowledge, skills, and way o f life normally associated with the philosopher. Their examples seem to defy the positions o f Plato and Plutarch, who held that while a man could possess a natural potential for virtue, paideia was absolutely necessary to restrain, nurture, and mold a young man's soul.37 As we have seen, the ex37. See Plato, Resp. 492a, and Plutarch, Moralia 452c- d.

ample o f Antony o f Egypt does level a negative assessment against paideia. But the absence o f paideia in the accounts o f Macrina and Sosipatra contrib­ utes to the complex assessments o f paideia contained in the authors’ other biographical works. Both Macrina and Sosipatra came from an elite background; therefore it would not have been unusual for them to have received some basic education as girls.38 Nevertheless, as both Clark and Cribiore point out, the education o f girls had different ends and instilled different skills in women than in men. Women were expected to be only recipients o f male education and culture, not producers. Elementary education for both girls and boys could take place in the homes o f local teachers, but it would not have been extraordinary for a young girl of an elite family such as Macrina to have been educated in her own home, while her brother Basil would have traveled abroad in pursuit of the higher levels o f education.39 In Gymnastics of the Mind, Cribiore discusses the case of a certain Heraidous, the eldest daughter of an upper-class, Greek­ speaking family o f Hermopolis in Egypt. The private correspondence pre­ served in the second-century CE archive o f Apollonius shows that Heraid­ ous was educated at home, together with other upper-class children, under the supervision o f her grandmother Eudaimonis.40 The parallels to Macrina’s education are suggestive. Gregory emphasizes their mother Emmelia’s role in overseeing Macrina’s education. She made a point o f shielding the young girl from exposure to the literary curriculum o f a standard education (εγκύκλιον παίδευσιν) and educated (παιδεΰσαι) her instead on the scriptures.41 Macrina’s brothers Gregory and Peter were also educated in this domestic setting, “home-schooled” as it were, in isolation from the institutions of pai­ deia and philosophy, but, at least in Gregory’s case, with exposure to the texts of the Greek literary and philosophical canon.42 Whatever the actual educational paths offered to Macrina and Sosipa­ tra, in the reportage of their biographers, neither frequented the standard 38. Cribiore, Gymnastics, 75. See also Marrou, History of Education, 274-75, and Clark, Women in Late Antiquity, 135. Cribiore admits that the evidence for women's education is too fragmen­

tary to make generalizations across classes. She cites epigraphical, funerary, and papyrological evidence to suggest an increase in women’s education beginning in the Hellenistic period. 39. Cribiore, Gymnastics, 104. 40. Ibid., 94-97. 41. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 3.6-9; 15-17 (SC 178, 148-50). On enkyklios paideia, see Morgan, Literate Education, 33 39.

42. See the discussion above in ch. 2 on Gregory’s education, which he attributes to his brother basil and his sister Macrina. On Peter's education, see V SM 12 .1-2 7 .

schools. The very unconventional nature o f these educational paths as repre­ sented would have been recognized by readers o f the bioi. An awareness on our part o f the educational options, both conventional and unconventional, can contribute to our understanding o f the authors’ assessments o f the val­ ue and effectiveness o f paideia, and the place they assign it in their teaching on moral and intellectual formation. Some have suggested, for example, that Macrina would have had some formal training with a grammatikos, and pos­ sibly studied some o f the Greek philosophers,43 while others have suggested that Macrina would not have had any philosophical education.44 In their liter­ ary manifestations, however, Macrina and Sosipatra possess inborn, natural virtue and intelligence, cultivated outside o f the schools. Their innate char­ acter, endowed with wisdom and virtue, is in a condition that renders further nurturing and formation by paideia unnecessary. Both women served as a message for men also: Macrina and Sosipatra were what men went to school to become, and, in fact, exceeded them. O f course, this was not entirely new, and not a trope limited to female subjects: Platonists praised the wisdom and virtue o f the unschooled Socrates, while Christians hailed the unlettered Antony as the wisest o f men. In Greek biographies, the unlettered subject served to validate and reinforce pedagogic institutions, while in Christian bi­ ographies, unschooled subjects served to negotiate competing Christian po­ sitions on the place o f paideia and present cases for degrees o f dislocating “philosophy” from categories of ethnicity, culture, and gender. Even if the historical Macrina had received literary and, perhaps, some rhetorical and philosophical training, the Macrina o f Gregory’s bios did not. Her mother, Emmelia, was responsible for the young girl’s formation. The Greek and Roman classics from which the boys (including Basil and Grego­ ry himself) would have been educated are dismissed as “shameful” for their “tragic passions,” their “unseemly antics o f comedy,” and “their undignified tales about women.”45 Inappropriate for the education o f a young girl, but, as we have seen, Gregory defended the usefulness o f studying the works o f “outside paideia” in the Life of Moses.46 Basil did the same in his Address to 43. Susanna Elm , Virgins o f God: The Making o f Asceticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford Classical Monographs (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 42: "It is highly unlikely that Macrina grew up without any notion o f classical learning or profane culture.” 44. Clark, "Lad y Vanishes,” 27. 45. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 3.9-15 (SC 148-50); trans. The Life of Saint Macrina, trans. Virgin­ ia Woods Callahan, Fathers o f the Church 58 (Washington, D .C.: The Catholic University o f America Press, 1967), 165. 46. G regory’s VSM was written shortly after Macrina’s death in 379, probably in 381 82.

Young Men, instructing that study of the Greek poets and philosophers was useful for young Christian men, as long as they were approached with cau­ tion. Christians could benefit from the literary and moral aspects o f Hom­ er, but were directed to ignore his theology.47 It seems that both Gregory and Basil advised young Christian men to immerse themselves in the two paideuseis48— that is, Greek paideia and instruction in Christian scripture and doctrines, inasmuch as they were preparing for a public life, and, thus, en­ counters with non-Christian colleagues and competitors. This was not neces­ sary for Macrina, who lived out her life in a domestic community of virgins. As Antony had taught in Athanasius’s bios, the scriptures would be sufficient even for Macrina’s education.49 Paideia was superfluous for women, or for men who would not participate in public roles, whether political, ecclesiasti­ cal, or pedagogical. Macrina did well to immerse herself exclusively in the study o f Christian texts: “Instead, the parts o f the God-inspired Scripture that seem more eas­ ily learned at a young age: these formed the child’s lessons, especially the Wisdom o f Solomon, and besides this, whatever bears on the moral life [όσα προς τον ήθικόν εφερε βίον].” 50 The mention o f the Wisdom of Solomon, which famously depicts the figure o f Sophia as a feminine companion o f the cre­ ator God, is significant as it is a text of the Jewish wisdom tradition that was a product o f an earlier era o f engagement between Second Temple Judaism and Greek philosophical traditions. Moreover, as a child, Macrina read and prayed the Psalms at the appropriate times, foreshadowing her future ascetic life. Gregory presents Macrina’s (and their brother Peter’s) education as ideal: for one with a nature (φΰσις) that responded brilliantly to this type of study, the Greek works were superfluous, when the substance o f truth was imme­ diately accessible through the revelation contained in Christian texts.51 Liv­ ing the Nyssen ideal o f spiritual progress, Macrina is a “lover o f Christ.” 52 Even on her deathbed, she continued to teach and to communicate confi­ dently with God in prayer. Eunapius justifies the inclusion of Sosipatra in his “catalogue of wise men” by noting her far-reaching fame. Her education was highly unusual. See Anna M. Silvas, M acrina the Younger, Philosopher o f G od, Medieval Women 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 101-2. On Gregory’s Vit. Mos., see ch. 2 of this volume. 47. See Basil, Address to Young Men, esp. 2.7 4.7. 48. Basil, Address to Young M en, 3.3. 49. See Athanasius, Vit. A nt. 16.1. 50. Gregory of Nyssa, VSIV1, 3.15 10 (SC 178, 150); trans. Silvas, 113. 51. Gregory of Nyssa, VSM , 5.4 (>. S2. Gregory of Nyssa, V SM 22.31-5.

Entrusted to two “old men” (πρεσβΰται) who were hospitably received by her father, the young girl was taken from her home and educated in an un­ described mystery initiation (συνετέλουν αυτήν μυστηρίοις), which, the read­ er eventually learns, was related to the Chaldean oracles.53 She returned to her father five years later, with extraordinary knowledge o f past events, and outfitted with garments, symbols, and books by the men. She was thus vest­ ed not only with the internal traits o f paideia, but also with the external at­ tributes o f the pepaideumenos and expert in the mysteries.54 Finally, we learn the identity o f the men, whom Eunapius describes in Homeric terms: “gods in the likeness o f strangers” and daimones.55 As Penella notes, this identifica­ tion o f her teachers speaks to the origin and transmission o f her learning, while affording her a divine pedigree.56 Trained solely by these divine men, Sosipatra was fluent in the works o f the “poets, philosophers, and orators,” able to cite from memory and interpret them with ease. It is important to consider this account o f Sosipatra in the context o f the Vit. Phil, as she rep­ resented the accomplishment o f the Iamblichan philosophical tradition for which Eunapius was an apologist. In this case, the absence o f paideia did not act as a critique o f its institutions, as it did in the Vit. Ant.; rather, her educa­ tion in philosophy and theurgy by the gods and daimones, the cause and goal o f Iamblichan philosophical intellectual and ritual practice, affirmed the con­ ventional institutional paths by which his male subjects pursued the same goal. The fifth-century Platonist Proclus would remark that the ideal philo­ sophical curriculum would include only the Chaldean Oracles and the Timae­ us.57 While Macrina’s affinity with God is described in terms o f relationship, Sosipatra’s biographer can conceive o f her as some sort o f divine being.58 In both cases, we encounter young girls whose intellectual and moral for­ mation occurred outside the usual settings in which boys were educated. Ma­ crina learned at home. While this would not be completely out of the range o f possibility for boys, it would be expected for Macrina as a daughter of an elite family. Sosipatra, on the other hand, was sent away from the home for her education, much like the son o f an elite family would be. However, 53. Eunapius, Vit. P h il. 6 .6 -7 , 466-67 (Giangrande, 30). 54. See Clark, W omen in L ate A ntiquity, 130. 55. Eunapius, Vit. P hil. 6.7.7, 468 (Giangrande, 31); trans. Wright, 407. Eunapius here quotes Od. 17.485. 56. Penella, G reek Philosophers, 60. 57. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 38. See, O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 61-65. 58. Eunapius, Vit. P hil. 6.8.5, 469.

she did not travel to Athens or Alexandria in search of a famous profession­ al teacher. Instead, she disappeared to an unknown place where she received a comprehensive instruction, including philosophy and theurgy, under the guidance o f divine teachers. Macrina’s instruction was also divinely inspired, but the exclusion o f any study of the poets or philosophers in Gregory’s ac­ count demonstrates that for Macrina, or for any Christian, female or male, not involved in the public arena, all that was necessary was the corpus o f Christian literature.

In the Home o f the Female D idaskalos In her study o f women and education, Raffaella Cribiore has noted that the fragmentary papyrological evidence o f Hellenistic and Roman Egypt sug­ gests rising literacy rates among women from the elite and propertied class­ es. Having acquired skills o f reading and writing, women possessed a great­ er control over the private and business affairs o f their lives.59 While paideia would never serve the same purpose for women as for men, who were often being trained for public careers, some limited evidence suggests that wom­ en could be employed as teachers at elementary levels. Variably referred to as ή διδάσκαλος, as in a fragmentary letter o f the fourth century CE written by a Christian of Egypt, or by the shortened titles o f deskale or deskalos, these women performed some kind o f pedagogical role. The evidence is scant and ambiguous enough to leave plenty of room for scholarly debate, but Cribiore sees no reason to exclude the possibility that women could have been teachers of letters.60 She also acknowledges that many were also probably teachers of manual skills, such as weaving.61 The philosophical biographies of late antiquity depict their subjects as teachers and philosophers, roles dominated by men in late ancient society. The biographers o f Macrina and Sosipatra represent them in similar roles. Though never explicitly called “philosophers,” Macrina and Sosipatra are “teachers,” and their biographers use philosophical imagery and catego­ ries to describe them similar to that which they use in their biographies of male subjects. Just as the absence o f paideia in and o f itself does not signify 59. Cribiore, Gym nastics, 75-76. 60. Ibid., 80-83. 6 1. The deskalos Aurelia I.ibouke, mentioned in papyrus S B XVIII. 13305, taught weaving to young girls in her own home.

one kind o f position, the lack o f the term “philosopher” for female subjects should be analyzed in the greater context o f a biographer’s work. In some cases, such as Eunapius’s Vit. Phil., it may have been motivated by gender prejudices, as a title to be used only for professionally trained male intellec­ tuals. In other cases, such as the VSM, the absence o f the title could indicate a critique o f the profession itself. The term is absent also from the Vit. Ant. Athanasius never calls Antony a “philosopher,” though he exhibits the knowl­ edge, skills, and virtues associated with professional philosophers.62 In the VSM, Macrina’s transformation from young betrothed woman into perpetual virgin, widow (as a result o f the death o f her fiancee), mother, fa­ ther, teacher, pedagogue, and angel, marks her ascent beyond her sex and her human nature. The string o f titles that Gregory uses to describe Mac­ rina evokes both masculine and feminine roles. In her role as didaskalos, she became the teacher o f her entire family, establishing a domestic community that acted as an alternative to traditional pedagogical institutions. As Grego­ ry wrote in ep. 19: “We had a sister who was for us a teacher o f how to live, a mother in place of our mother.” 63 This portrait o f her at once transcends the boundaries o f her sex, but also remains firmly grounded in a domestic context.64 With her father dead for some years, and none o f her other broth­ ers at home except Peter, the youngest of the siblings, she assumed the po­ sition o f head of household, including the role o f teacher o f her younger siblings. She convinced her mother to renounce her status o f grande dame by adopting a simpler lifestyle and reorienting her status in relation to the household servants, regarding them as spiritual equals. This major shift in Macrina’s role began after the tragic death o f her brother Naucratius.65 Ma­ crina became a model o f Stoic apatheia for her mother during that time o f sorrow and mourning, “training” (παιδοτριβήσασα) Emmelia’s soul in cour­ age (ανδρείαν).66 She also took responsibility for the “higher education” (την ύψηίοτέραν ... παίδευσιν) o f her younger brother Peter.67 The “holy lessons” 62. For other parallels between Macrina and Antony, see Rubenson, "Philosophy and Sim­ plicity.” 63. Translation by Anna M. Silvas in Gregory o f Nyssa, The Letters: Introduction, Translation and Commentary, Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 64. Rousseau, “The Pious Household,” 176. 65. Elm, Virgins of God, 87. 66. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 10.6 (SC 178,172). See also Elm, Virgins of God, 100. On the role o f biography as an act o f liturgical remembering and the management o f grief, see Derek Krueger, Writing and Holiness: The Practice o f Authorship in the Early Christian East, Divinations (Philadelphia: University o f Pennsylvania Press, 2004), no-32. 67. Peter became bishop of Sebaste in 380, taking the place of his brother Gregory. See P.

he received from her, in conjunction with “the fortune o f nature," assisted in his reaching the “high goal o f philosophy,” without any other form o f educa­ tion. He received an exclusively Christian education, outside the institutions o f paideia. Macrina was his only teacher. To her siblings Basil and Gregory, who had received an “outside educa­ tion” (though in different manners), Macrina demonstrated that this peda­ gogical route was insufficient and perhaps unnecessary. According to Greg­ ory, she convinced Basil, when he was just home from schooling in Athens, that his education was good only for puffing up his self-confidence, and con­ tributed in no way to his ethical formation: “Macrina took him over and lured him so quickly to the goal o f philosophy that he withdrew from the world show and began to look down upon acclaim through oratory ... providing for himself, through his complete poverty, a mode o f living [βίον] that would, without impediment, lead to virtue.” 68 Through the guidance o f Macrina, Basil then embarked on what Samuel Rubenson has identified as the second phase o f the life o f the Christian “holy man”—withdrawal.69 As in Gregory’s Life of Moses, this stage follows “outside education” and precedes election to leadership.70 Macrina, then, charts out the ideal pedagogical course for Chris­ tian men and women. While unconventional, her own route is presented as superior. It passes over the “outside education” that Gregory considered use­ ful and necessary in the initial stages o f a young Christian man’s intellectu­ al and moral development.71 Macrina’s passing directly to training in Chris­ tian sources both reflects the general inaccessibility o f paideia to women and makes a case for the sufficiency of a strictly Christian training for those not engaging in public life. The memory o f Macrina as a type o f philosopher is reinforced also in Gregory’s On the Soul and the Resurrection (De anima), written after the VSM between 383 and 385.72 Though not biographical literature, De anima builds upon the brief deathbed scene o f the VSM and develops the theme o f the female teacher. In the VSM, Gregory alludes to a final discourse with his be­ Devos, "S. Pierre Ier eveque de Sebaste dans une lettre de Gregoire de Nazianze,” Analecta Bollandiana 79 (1961): 346-60. 68. Gregory of Nyssa, VSM 6.5-13 (SC 178,162): trans. Callahan, 167. 69. Rubenson, “ Philosophy and Simplicity,” 135. The pattern o f education-retreat-leadership occurs also in the story o f Antony. Rubenson argues that this pattern in biographical literature reflects “ the emergence o f a specifically Christian culture with a Christian educational system.”

70. Stork, “On Basil, Moses and the Model Bishop,” 236. 71. See Gregory of Nyssa, Vit. Mo.s. 1 . 8. 72. Silvas, M acrina, 355.

loved sister, prompted by the memory o f their recently deceased brother Ba­ sil: “She made the memory o f the holy one [Basil] a starting-point o f the higher philosophy.” 73 Despite her burning fever and consuming illness, her mind (νους) took refreshment in the contemplation (θεωρία) o f higher things, which Gregory simply summarizes: a discourse on the soul, the reason for earthly life, mortality, and immortality. “In all o f this,” he writes, “she went on as if inspired by the power o f the Holy Spirit.” De anima purports to pro­ vide the details o f this final discourse. Clearly modeled on Plato’s Phaedo, the deathbed dialogue between Socrates and his companions on the immortality o f the soul, the setting o f De anima is the deathbed o f Macrina as she discusses with her inquisitive and uncertain brother the nature o f the soul and the proofs o f the resurrection o f the body from a Christian stance.74 Throughout the text, Macrina is regularly referred to as ή διδάσκαλος, and Gregory describes how “my teacher” instructed him on the falsehoods o f the Epicureans, Stoics, and Platonists, while leading him to faith and understanding in Christian teaching. Gregory’s affection for his sister is often superseded by a deference he grants her as his teacher. Where Grego­ ry is overcome with grief, Macrina is the paradigm o f apatheia, with complete and total mastery of her passions in the face o f her impending death. As a lit­ erary foil to Macrina, Gregory the bishop and successor to the aposdes, en­ trusted with guardianship of the deposit of faith, reveals his own uncertainty and looks to his sister to ensure him of the truth of her faith. Elizabeth Clark has argued that Macrina acts as a mouthpiece for Gregory’s views in the face of intra-Christian debate regarding Origenist theology.751 would add that Macrina’s blatant and direct criticisms of the views of the Greek philosophers also involved the work in the larger philosophical debates among the educated elite and cultural producers. In De anima Macrina acts as the teacher for a Christian pepaideumenos, her teaching serving as an apologetic handbook for engaging and refuting the positions o f the major schools. Here we find a Macrina who quotes, inter­ prets, and critiques philosophical texts with ease. Like Antony, she is able to 73. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 17.22 (SC 178,198); trans. Silvas, 128. 74. Aim e Puech first drew the parallel in the 1930 w ork Histoire de la litterature grecque chretienne depuis les origines jusqu’a la fin du IVe siecle (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1930), 3:424. Pierre Maraval (in Gregory o f Nyssa, Vie de sainte Macrine, ed. and trans. Pierre Maraval, Sources chretiennes 178 [Paris: Cerf, 1971], 36) perpetuated this comparison. 75. See Clark, History, Theory, Text, 181. For a similar position regarding the VSM, see Francine Cardman, “W hose Life Is It? The Vita Macrinae o f Gregory o f Nyssa,” Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 33- 50 .

refute Greek philosophical assumptions and positions through a natural wis­ dom nurtured by Christian learning and the ascetic life that affords her the linguistic and discursive skills o f the philosophical field. Macrina speaks al­ most as Solomon s figure o f Wisdom, sorting through the truths and false­ hoods o f the school positions. Thus, Gregory at once enlists his sister to ex­ press his position on paideia and to provide Christian intellectuals with a practical guide o f key Greek philosophical doctrines and the Christian argu­ ments to refute them. Read side by side with the VSM, the image o f Macrina as the extraordi­ narily wise virgin and embodiment o f the ideal Christian formed apart from Greek paideia is reinforced. Gregory contributed to a growing body o f new Christian philosophical literature which continued to engage in debate with Greek positions, but which diminished the necessity to read Greek texts. Ma­ crina manifests a disinterested detachment from paideia and philosophical training, and yet performs as a pepaideumenos, even appearing in De anima as a new Socrates. Her disengagement stands in tension with her brothers’ more overt investment in and engagement with the Greek philosophical tra­ dition. While Gregory did not completely reject paideia, he cautiously rec­ ognized its usefulness as a preparatory stage o f intellectual and spiritual progress, even for Christians pursuing an ecclesiastical career—a position to which he would give fuller expression in his later Life of Moses. With no oth­ er pedagogical institutions available to provide the necessary training, Greg­ ory’s presentation of Macrina advanced the kind o f Christian education his brother Basil began to postulate. The tension between Gregory’s qualified nod to paideia and his efforts to define a viable Christian philosophy is further enhanced by Gregory’s con­ scious use and transformation of Greek literary genres and paradigms. Geor­ gia Frank uncovered a Homeric typology in the VSM, in which Gregory casts Macrina as both an Odysseus and a Penelope.76 A Christianized Diotima also seems to be at work here, as Macrina embodies a type of Diotima-Sophia who in the narrative instructs the author, and behind the narrative serves as the author’s mouthpiece.77 Derek Krueger saw her also as a Christian Socrates, managing the grief and enlightening the intellect o f her student as her own death approaches.78 This type is particularly intriguing as the un­ 76. See Georgia Frank, “ Macrina s Sear: I lomerie Allusion and Heroic Identity in Gregory o f Nyssa's Life of Macrina," JliC S 8,110.4 (2000): s 11 40. 77. See ('lark, “ Lady Vanishes," 24 20.

78. Krueger, Writing unit Holiness, no-32.

schooled Socrates also stood as a foundational figure o f Greek philosophy. While Gregory did not make the case that Macrina herself was a founder of Christian philosophy in any sense, her teaching represented the pure apos­ tolic doctrine of Christian orthodoxy. In casting her as a type o f Socrates, he also suggested that the figure of Macrina represented a fulfillment o f the Pla­ tonic type of the ideal philosopher, a theme to be explored in more depth in the next chapter. Gregory combined these masculine and feminine models from the Greek world with the type of Thecla from Christian tradition. Thecla first appears in the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla. Born into a prominent family, The­ cla made the bold choice to call off her engagement in order to adopt a life o f virginity in response to the teaching o f the Apostle Paul. She subsequent­ ly traveled around Asia Minor, especially in Iconium and Seleucia, commis­ sioned by Paul to preach the gospel. By the fourth century, the shrine o f Hagia Thekla in Seleucia attracted pilgrims from all over the empire.79 Gregory reports that when their mother was pregnant with Macrina, she saw a vision of "one in majesty o f form and aspect beyond the human” and gave the secret name “Thecla” to the girl.80 In light of this “calling,” Gregory presents the first-born of the family as a new Thecla, virgin and teacher o f the gospel— a virgin-teacher who lived not an itinerant life, but a domestic one. Thus Macrina represented a voice in philosophical competition, exhibit­ ing how Christian authorities, texts, and doctrines could be referenced when criticizing Greek views. This voice expressed a Christian anthropology o f the human being made, body and soul, in the “image of God.” Macrina the teacher authoritatively rejects Platonic ideas such as the preexistence o f souls and defends the redemption and resurrection o f the body. The teachings of the philosophers o f the Greeks were useful only inasmuch as they confirm Christian truth: “We, starting from the dogmas of the Church, are content to accept from the philosophers only what indicates that they agree with our opinion that there is a resurrection.” 81 Eunapius’s account o f Sosipatra’s education by the two mysterious elders commences with the visitors’ astonishing ability to yield a crop o f grapes 79. Stephen J. Davis, The Cult of Saint Theda: A Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 36-39. 80. Gregory of Nyssa, VSM 3.1-3. For parallels between the legends of Thecla in the Acts o f Paul and Theda and the VSM, see Silvas, Macrina, 19-20. See also, Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 69-70. 81. Gregory of Nyssa, De anim a PC 46:ro8C; trans. Callahan, 246.

on her parents’ estate. The young Sosipatra looks on in amazement with her father at this harvest, which produced “beyond expectation” (ύπέρ τήν ελπίδα).82 It is a prelude, o f course, to what they shall produce from the girl. They promise her father that they will produce a return “not in money and not in perishable and corrupted favors” : the land will bring forth wealth o f its own accord, and the girl “will have not only the abilities o f a woman or hu­ man being,” but will exceed both, such that she will be thought o f as some­ thing greater.83 She returns from her tutors like a goddess, initiated in the Chaldean mysteries and divinely inspired (ένθουσιώσαν). She also possesses a knowledge and comprehension o f Greek literary and philosophical tradi­ tions that is both natural and effortless, and surpasses the understanding of those who labored in education. Like Macrina, Sosipatra also transcended the bounds o f her female na­ ture, and o f human nature itself. She is a locus where various roles, mas­ culine and feminine, meet: she is a wife and mother, but also a teacher and perpetuator o f a philosophical lineage. Yet there is a tension in all o f this “transcending,” because Sosipatra, like Macrina, never wandered far from a domestic setting or from the men in her life. Sosipatra’s wisdom was so great, in fact, that she made her husband appear o f little worth.84 Her hus­ band was Eustathius, one of the leading students o f Iamblichus.85 He was the only man “worthy” to marry her. Upon her husband’s death, the wid­ ow Sosipatra returned to her family estate in Pergamum. It was here that a small circle o f philosophers formed, including Sosipatra, Aedesius (another student o f Iamblichus), and Maximus, a student o f Aedesius who was influ­ ential in introducing the emperor Julian to theurgy. Sosipatra remained un­ married, but Aedesius assumed the role o f another husband, "caring” for her and educating her sons.86 Macrina and Sosipatra far exceeded the parameters o f the female didaskalos suggested in the papyri. They embodied both masculine and feminine 82. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.6.8, 467 (Giangrande, 28). Boissonade’s text reads παρά instead of ύπέρ. But even in this case, the translation has the same sense: “contrary to expectation.” 83. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.6.12, 467 (Giangrande, 29): ού κατά γυναίκα και άνθρωπον έσται μόνον (my translation). 84. Eunapius, Vit. P hil. 6.5- 6, 466 (Giangrande, 28). 85. Aedesius, another o f lamblichus’s students, through whom Eunapius ultimately trac­ es his own philosophical heritage, was also from Cappadocia. See Eunapius, Vit. P h il. 5.1.5, 458 (Giangrande, 11): Αίδέσιός τε και Ευστάθιος έκ Καππαδοκίας. The account o f Eustathius properly begins at 6.5.1,465. 86 .

E u n ap iu s,

Vit. Phil. 0 . 0 , 4 6 9 .

roles and stood not only as extraordinary examples of their gender, but as ex­ traordinary human beings. They were real women with extraordinary char­ acter and abilities who were immortalized through the filter of the maledominated philosophical field and commissioned to be literary paradigms of the philosophical life. Sosipatra rose to the status o f teacher once her role as wife and her child-bearing ceased. Although she was under the care o f Aedesius, Sosipatra became head o f household (since it was her estate); and she transformed her household into a school. Note again the parallels with the foundation o f Macrina’s community on her family estate. On the one hand, the formation o f philosophical circles in the homes o f prominent teachers was common practice and suggests an association with the schools o f male teachers; but on the other hand, Sosipatra remained in the home and her teaching remained under the shadow of Aedesius. The figure o f Macrina challenged strictly defined boundaries in her assumption o f domestic respon­ sibility, a traditional female role, while also being head o f a household that lacked an eligible male in that capacity. Eunapius writes that “she sat oppo­ site [άντεκάθητο] [Aedesius] philosophizing at her own house [οικίαν].” 87 So­ sipatra shared Aedesius’s corps o f students and rivaled him as a teacher. Af­ ter the students were finished hearing him, they would go to listen to her: ‘And though there was none that did not greatly appreciate and admire the accurate learning o f Aedesius, they positively adored and revered the wom ­ an's inspired teaching [ενθουσιασμόν].” 88 Sosipatra’s home was a center for the philosophical activity o f the Iamblichan school in Pergamum: Aedesius, Maximus, and eventually Julian, would all be associated with this circle.89 In another remarkable parallel with Macrina, Eunapius reports that at one o f these gatherings, Sosipatra offered a discourse on the soul (περί ψυχής): “Several theories were propounded, and then Sosipatra began to speak, and gradually by her proofs disposed o f their arguments; then she fell to dis­ coursing on the descent o f the soul, and what part o f it is subject to punish­ ment, what part immortal, when in the midst o f her bacchic [έκβακχεύσεως] 87. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.9.2, 469 (Giangrande, 33); m y translation. W right’s translation o f άντεκάθητο as “held a chair o f philosophy,” appears to read too much into Eunapius’s text, and assumes too much o f an institutional character o f the Pergamene intellectual scene. Sosipatra, like her male counterparts, was a teacher without governmental recognition or support who taught in her own house. See Fowden, “ Pagan Philosophers,” 155. 88. Eunapius, Vtt. Phil. 6.9.2, 469 (Giangrande, 33). 89. For the importance o f this “Pergamene school” in Eunapius, see Penella, Greek Philos­ ophers, 62. Fowden (“ Pagan Holy Man,” 39) suggests that Sosipatra’s circle was a “ relatively closed coterie o f Ghaldaean adepts."

and frenzied [κορυβαντιασμοΰ] flow o f speech she became silent.” 90 Where Macrina displayed the self-mastery o f a Greek or Christian philosopher, So­ sipatra displayed what would be recognized as an inspiration associated with the female devotees o f Dionysus or the Corybantes, worshippers of Cybele. The scene is a much livelier one than Macrina k deathbed testament. Howev­ er, like Macrina, Sosipatra dismisses deficient arguments and presents correct doctrine. In both cases, these female didaskaloi engaged in the sort o f ratio­ nal argumentation exercised in male circles, with men, under divine guid­ ance. In intellect and virtue, they surpass their male counterparts and act, like Diotima, as their teachers.

Maternal Lineage The third and final aspect o f these bioi o f philosophical women to be ex­ amined here is the transformation of their reproductive role from bearing bi­ ological offspring to producing philosophical offspring joined to male philo­ sophical lineages, another way in which the female teacher became more like her male counterparts. We have already seen how the teacher-student rela­ tionship in rhetorical and philosophical schools was likened to a father-son relationship. Lineages o f teachers and students traced the creation, repro­ duction, and transmission o f philosophical traditions, and the culture o f the schools established appropriate practices for solidifying these relationships and providing intellectual and professional inheritance. The bioi o f Macrina and Sosipatra demonstrate that, once both women have forsaken biological childbirth—in Macrinak vow o f virginity and Sosipatra’s widowhood—they are able to contribute to the philosophical lineages o f their male predeces­ sors. In Sosipatrak case, her roles as birthmother and teacher-mother com­ bine in her son Antoninus; for Macrina, the lineage she helps reproduce is closely tied to her own family. Like other teachers o f the biographical tradition, Macrina was the found­ er o f a community. Her decision to remain unmarried and “by herself” (έφ’ έαυτής) after the untimely death o f her fiance resulted in the gradual creation o f a community o f women ascetics.91 Unlike Antony, or even Basil, who could withdraw to the desert or to an intellectual retreat, Macrinak “desert” 90. Eunapius, Vil. Phil. 6.9.12, 470 (Ciangrande, 35); trans. Wright, 415. 91. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 5.4 (SC 17S, 154). fo r discussion o f the meaning o f the phrase έφ’έαυτής, see Rousseau, "'['he Pious I louschold,” 174 7s.

was the household. Though she had transcended her nature in her pursuit of philosophy and assumed the male roles o f head of household and teacher, she was still constrained to work in a domestic setting.92 Unlike Sosipatra, she did not assume a male role within the male pedagogical milieu. Instead, the life she led and the community she established remained “intrinsically in­ terwoven with that of her family,” that is, her household.93 She exerted influ­ ence over her mother and brothers, convincing them to adopt a simplified, ascetic life within the confines o f their home. She included other members o f the household (e.g., the servants) until a community o f both men and women ascetics existed on the family estate. What Raymond Van Dam has described as a “family settlement” and Rousseau has regarded as more o f an “extended family” than a monastic institution, Gregory o f Nyssa portrays us­ ing what Rousseau calls the “suggestive” and “ambiguous” vocabulary o f a pre-institutional ascetic order.94 Macrina’s position was fixed within this do­ mestic structure: she neither traveled to pursue education as her male coun­ terparts did, nor moved to another place to fulfill her role as teacher. She remained in her home, and though she may seem to have abandoned the tra­ ditional female roles o f childbearing, motherhood, and domestic care, she fulfilled all of these, but in a paradoxical way: she was unmarried, yet also widowed and had a bridegroom;95 a virgin, but was mother and father to children;96 unschooled, but a teacher; in charge o f the household, but also head and founder o f a community.97 Macrina was father and mother to the ascetic community she established in her household, and this required the reconfiguration o f her kinship relations with her mother and brothers, for whom she also became parent and teacher. The evocation o f Macrina the Elder (VSM 2.1), the family’s paternal grand­ mother, connects her younger namesake with the origins of Christianity in Cappadocia and to the great evangelizer o f the region, her brother’s name­ sake, Gregory Thaumaturgos (d. ca. 270). The family cherished and perpetu­ ated its legacy as a cornerstone o f Christianity in the region. Gregory o f Nazianzus, for example, lauded the ancestors o f Basil who endured persecution to ensure the survival of the faith,98 and Basil himself credited his grand­ mother with passing on the teachings o f Gregory Thaumaturgos to the fam­ 92. Clark, Women in Late Antiquity, 94.

93. Elm, Virgins of God, 46.

94. Van Dam, Family and Friends, 107, and Rousseau, “The Pious Household,” 184. 95. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 23.4.

96. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 12.12-15.

97. Elm, Virgins o f God, 102.

98. Gregory o f Nazianzus, Or. 43.5-6.

ily." The younger Macrina, then, also had a role in the family’s illustrious heritage, which, by virtue o f its connection to the Wonderworker, extended back to his teacher, Origen. Thus, Macrina is written into the history o f phi­ losophy at the center o f a hub that linked an influential Cappadocian family and its household to a narrative o f local and universal scope (figure 6-1).100 Macrina appeared in the developing construction o f Christian philosophical history not only in the midst o f a controversy surrounding the reception of Origen, but at a time when the institutions and pedagogy o f Greek paideia were being challenged and transformed.101 For Gregory, Macrina represent­ ed an accumulation o f philosophical goods not dependent on Greek schools, but within an ascetic community in communion with its bishop. The lineage he draws in the VSM linked his family history and the succession o f Macrina’s community to the origins o f Christianity in Cappadocia. Turning one last time to Sosipatra, we find that she did not hold a position in a line o f teacher-student succession, as did the other philosophers o f Eunapius’s collection. Rather, as she was one who learned directly from divine sources, the account o f her education bears resemblance to the biographical accounts o f founders and renewers. But this is not a role that Eunapius as­ cribes to her. Sosipatra’s bond to the lineage o f Iamblichus comes through her intimacy with the male progeny o f that line. She married Eustathius and was later cared for by Aedesius. What Garth Fowden has described as an “incestuousness” characteristic o f late ancient Greek intellectual circles is presented by Eunapius as the intertwining (and, hence, preservation and le­ gitimization) o f philosophical lineage and kinship, as the sons o f Sosipatra became the heirs o f the line o f Iamblichus through Aedesius and their moth­ er’s divinely formed character.102 It should also be noted that in the partner­ ship of Aedesius and Sosipatra, the former represents the formal succession o f a Iamblichan tradition, and the latter an idealized, natural expression o f both the theurgic (in which Aedesius may have been lacking)103 and intellec­ tual achievements o f that tradition. Sosipatra’s role in preserving and perpetuating the transmission o f phi99. Basil o f Caesarea, ep. 204.6. See also Basil, ep. 223, where Basil credits his mother and grandmother with passing on to him his conception o f God. For a further discussion o f the leg­ acy o f Gregory Thaumaturgos for the Cappadocians, see Silvas, Macrina, 12-20. 100. On the affirmation, “spiritualization,” and transformation o f biological bonds in as­ cetic contexts, see Rebecca S. Krawiec, ‘“ From the W om b o f the Church’: Monastic Families,” JECS 11, no. 3 (2003): 283 307.

101. See (“lark, “ I.ady Vanishes,” 31. 103. Penella, Greek Philosophers, 67.

102. fowden, “Pagan Holy Man,” 55.

Figure 6-1. The lineage of Macrina according to Gregory of Nyssa (note the inter­ twining of kinship and spiritual pedigree)

losophy should not be overlooked, for it culminates in her son Antoninus. Antoninus is a philosophical offspring and heir par excellence—the son of Sosipatra and Eustathius, and the student o f both his mother and Aedesius. He also appears as a foil to the Christian monks o f Egypt. After Sosipatra’s death, Antoninus traveled to Alexandria, attracting an audience hungry for philosophy.104 He eventually moved to the Canobic mouth o f the Nile, 104. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 6.9, 470.

where it seems he took up residence in a temple and adopted an ascetic life: “He made rapid progress toward affinity with the divine, despised his body, freed himself from its pleasures, and embraced a wisdom that was hidden from the crowd.” 105 He avoided theurgy, but shared in his mother's clairvoy­ ance, predicting the destruction o f the Serapeion at Alexandria in 391. After his death, Eunapius reports, Christians did indeed destroy this and other tem­ ples, and shortly thereafter monks moved into Canobus, displacing priests and philosophers. With Antoninus, the line o f Sosipatra died out, but not before her presence adorns Eunapius’s account. The line of Eustathius and Aedesius would continue, however, through Maximus and, eventually, Chrysanthius, the teacher of Eunapius. A widow and mother o f three, but also a philosophical mother to a Pergamene community o f intellectuals, Sosipatra reproduced and transmitted philosophy among her students and in one of her sons, who became the ideal philosophical offspring, taking her learning to Alexandria, home o f the desert monks and a prominent Platonist school. Perhaps, as it has been suggested, Eunapius preferred Sosipatra to the Alex­ andrian Hypatia.106 Thus, in the accounts o f Macrina and Sosipatra, the reception and trans­ mission o f philosophy is achieved through overlapping lines o f natural kin­ ship and philosophical lineage. Whereas in Macrina's lineage, matriarchal lines predominate in the figures o f Thecla, Macrina the Elder, Emmelia, and Macrina herself, Sosipatra appears as a rarity among her male colleagues (see figure 5-2). In this chapter and the previous one we have heard the voices o f those seeking philosophers in conventional places and the voices o f those discover­ ing new kinds o f philosophers in unusual and unexpected places—in deserts and wilderness, in rural households, among women, and among Copts. New bioi o f women emerging out o f both Greek and Christian circles contribut­ ed to the cultural competition for philosophy through discussions o f educa­ tion, domesticity, and lineage. As we have seen, the currents o f competition in the writings o f Gregory and Eunapius were not limited to Greek-Christian debate, but also addressed competing factions within the larger Greek and Christian intellectual circles. Gregory invoked the memory o f his sister Macri­ na, virgin, teacher, and spiritual mother, as a manifestation o f natural wisdom 105. liimapius, Vit. Phil. 6.10.6, 471 ((jiangramk·, 57); trans. Wright, 419. 106.

Dziolska, I lyjuilui of Alexandria, 47.

and virtue apart from the schools. In fact, she established her own philosophi­ cal community, a φροντιστήριο^ o f virtue.107 As a philosophical exemplar, the portrait o f Macrina could drive a wedge between paideia and philosophy. Ma­ crina, like Antony, created her “own polis and method for teaching.” 108 The portrait o f Sosipatra, on the other hand, while unusual, served to validate the very system Macrina was meant to render inferior. She attained through nat­ ural and supernatural gifts what men sought by pursuing teachers and spiri­ tual guides. She then used this inspired education to continue to educate and strengthen the circle o f Iamblichan philosophers memorialized by Eunapius. The trope o f the “natural philosopher” was inscribed on a new genera­ tion o f philosophers. Behind each o f these portraits, Christian and Greek pepaideumenoi, holding positions o f pedagogical authority and social prestige, competed to define the proper locus o f pedagogic activity and moral forma­ tion. One o f these learned men, the bishop Theodoret o f Cyrrhus, quoted at the beginning o f this chapter, concludes his collective biography o f Syrian monks, the Religious History, with an account o f the holy woman Domnina. Domnina is one o f three women included in Theodoret’s depiction o f the landscape o f Christian philosophy in Syria. Living in a hut and passing her days in tears, she is presented by Theodoret as an exemplar o f the philosoph­ ical life. In the final chapter, we turn our attention to the final stages o f com­ petition for philosophy between Christians and Greeks in the fifth century, as an Athenian ideal continues to fade, but never disappears. 107. Gregory o f Nyssa, VSM 37.2 (SC 178, 258). 108. Rubenson, “Philosophy and Simplicity,” 134.

5Λ3 Syrian Monks and Proclus Athens at the Periphery and Center o f Philosophy in the Fifth Century

W e, who have taken in hand the works o f your poets, historians and philosophers, set aside som e things as destructive and arrange others for the knowledge o f teaching; and w e bring to you this therapy as an antidote. Theodoret o f Cyrrhus, Cure for Hellenic Maladies 1.127

For in order that the succession from Plato might be preserved without adulteration or impurity, the gods were leading him [ProclusJ towards the custodian o f philosophy. Marinus, Life o f Proclus 10

By the fifth century, the Greek segment o f the educated elite was losing its grasp on official institutions of education. Christians had transferred the locus o f pedagogical authority away from the philosophers and communi­ ties of the Greeks, and dislocated philosophical expertise from Greek iden­ tity. The Greeks no longer enjoyed the prestige, privileges, and authority of their predecessors and were deprived of the empowering and legitimat­ ing resources o f imperial patronage. Philosophy, Christians had argued, was not the exclusive domain of Greek-speaking, educated aristocrats who wor­ shipped the Greek gods. In fact, the worship of these gods was deemed an impediment to true knowledge of the divine and virtuous living. True wis­ dom would he found not in institutions based upon the teaching o f a lineage

o f corrupt idolaters, but in the teaching and worship o f the universal church, founded upon apostolic tradition. The “admission requirements” for obtain­ ing this wisdom were not as restricted as they were in the elite Greek schools. Membership in the church was open to anyone—literate and illiterate, rich and poor, male and female, Egyptian, Syrian, or Greek. The bioi to be examined in this final chapter reflect the dramatic shifts that had occurred in the philosophical field by the fifth century. They reflected and directed transformations in the expressions and formulations o f philo­ sophical thought and pedagogic authority and activity. On the one hand, the philosophical outlook o f the once newcomers was now the culturally and le­ gally established orthodoxy. The Greeks had become a marginalized minor­ ity, and, since there was room enough for only one orthodoxy, they were un­ der pressure to exercise their talents in the service o f Christian teaching. On the other hand, the revaluation, rereading, and revision of core philosophical texts and doctrines continued in both circles. As the first quote above, taken from Theodoret o f Cyrrhus’s Curefor Hellenic Maladies, suggests, Christian in­ tellectuals did not abandon Plato, but devised a new way to read Plato in rela­ tion to sacred scripture and ecclesiastical doctrine. Theodoret s explication o f practical virtue utilized Plato’s own critiques o f Athenian culture against the Greek intellectual critics o f his own time. Uneducated, uncultured, and unin­ volved in the ordinary affairs o f political life, Christian ascetics embodied the virtuous ideal expressed by Plato himself. In a work o f collective biography, the Religious History, Theodoret applied a hermeneutic o f Platonist practical philosophy so as to identify the growing institutions o f Syrian monasticism as the true home o f philosophy. His strategy o f engagement was to invite Greek intellectuals to consider this methodology. The Christian invitation to engagement was met with varied response. The Life of Proclus by Proclus’s successor Marinus o f Neapolis (ca. 450-500) is a work o f resistance. Defining and upholding a philosophical system considered to be in line with a Platonic succession, Marinus and the other Platonists o f fifthcentury Athens rejected engagement with Christians. In response to the mar­ ginalization imposed upon them through political, legal, and cultural channels, these philosophers resisted through insularity. However, this was not an insu­ larity rooted in denial or indifference. Instead, the protected and “privileged” milieu o f the philosophical school would remain for them a locus o f intellec­ tual and spiritual formation, not unconcerned with a political vision.1 The Pla1. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 61.

tonists of Athens sought to recreate an institution o f philosophy in the spirit o f Plato’s Academy, in the heart of a city that clung to its ancient heritage while experiencing the transformation o f the realities o f the fifth century. Living un­ der these pressures, this newly burgeoning community in Athens perceived it­ self as the salvation o f philosophy, like a remnant chosen by the gods to hold out until better days.2 Both texts are examples o f how literary productions op­ erated as arenas for cultural competition within nascent institutions—the mon­ asteries o f Syria and the school o f Athens—as these were the primary settings for the production, transmission, and reproduction o f the intellectual and ma­ terial goods o f paideia.3

The Gospel and Greek Philosophy in Theodoret’s R eligiou s H istory Athanasius’s Vit. Ant. had been in circulation for about three-quarters o f a century when Theodoret, bishop o f Cyrrhus in Syria (ca. 393-460), penned his Religious History (Phil, hist.), Philotheos historia in Greek, sometime be­ tween the years 431 and 451.4 A number o f other individual and collective bioi o f ascetics had been produced in that time, including the anonymous Life of Pachomius and Lives of the Desert Fathers, and Palladius’s Lausiac History. Theodoret’s collective biography creates a seemingly unified community out o f disparate groups of Christian ascetics who inhabited Antioch, Cyrrhus, and the outlying regions. He was personally acquainted with many of his sub­ jects, some o f whom were still living when he published the collection. As a young man he made repeated visits to various monasteries in the region, such as the one founded by Eusebius in Teleda.5 For seven years before his 2. C f . Niketas Siniossoglou, Plato and Theodoret: The Christian Appropriation o f Platonic Philos­ ophy and the Hellenic Intellectual Resistance, Cambridge Classical Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 45-46. 3. Bourdieu, Reproduction, 101. 4. Theresa Urbainczyk, Theodoret of Cyrrhus: The Bishop and the Holy Man (Ann Arbor: Uni­ versity of Michigan Press, 2002), 23. Others date the work to 440. See Richard M. Price, “In­ troduction,” in Theodoret of Cyrrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria, ed. and trans. Richard M. Price, Cistercian Studies Series 88 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications 1985), xv, and Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 16. “The Religious History” is the standard English translation of the Greek title philotheos historia given by Theodoret to the work in the prologue (Phil. hist. pro. 10 [SC 234, 1401). It is perhaps better translated as “The History of Those Beloved to God [or, Who Love God].’’ It is an interesting parallel to Porphyry's ‘‘philosophos historia, ” or “The His­ tory of Those Who Love Wisdom.” 5. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 4.10.

episcopal ordination, Theodoret took up the monastic life himself and lived in a community in Nicerte.6 Theodoret describes for his readers a life (βίος) “that teaches philosophy” and emulates “the way o f life [πολιτεία] in heaven,” a “sketch” o f the “forms [ιδέας] of invisible souls.” 7 As the subtitle of the work suggests— “The As­ cetic Life” (ή ασκητική πολιτεία)—Theodoret defines the ascetic life as the life of philosophy.8 Theodoret offers an assemblage o f holy men and women as a “medicine” for the diseases of the soul and an “aid for memory” (μνήμης επίκουρον).9 The verbal portraits, which readers “see” with their minds, will act as a medicine for the diseases o f their souls. The catalogue of more than thirty monks, both male and female, whom Theodoret includes in his collec­ tion (many o f whom would not have been known otherwise) draws from a variety of backgrounds— aristocrats and shepherds, men and women, native Syrians, Persians, and Greeks, Syriac and Greek speakers. Collected together as individual textual narratives, the subjects become a handbook o f virtue, examples and models o f the angelic life, and victors in the struggles with the passions. Scholars have identified a number o f motives for the work. Theresa Urbainczyk’s schema delineates lines o f internal Christian competition: a com­ petition between the ecclesiastical leaders o f Egypt and Syria over the pres­ tige o f the ascetic communities in their regions; a negotiation o f the bounds of episcopal authority between the Syrian monks and Theodoret; and an at­ tempt on the part o f Theodoret to garner the favor o f the monks.10 There is a pastoral motive that should not be ignored: as bishop, Theodoret has provided a spiritual and mimetic guidebook to a flock increasingly interested in the ascetic life.11 Finally, I would add an additional level to this multilay­ ered competition, one I have presented throughout this study—a continuing struggle within the ranks o f the educated, mostly Greek-speaking, elite o f the empire to define and transmit philosophy. By Theodoret’s time, the bal­ ance o f influence and power had dramatically shifted to the Christians’ favor, but the competition continued. Just as Athanasius had applied the arguments o f his apologetical treatises to his portrait o f Antony o f Egypt, so Theodoret would apply the ascetic ide­ 6. See Theodoret, epp. 80 and 81. 7. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 3 (SC 234,130); trans. Price, 4, 8. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 10 (SC 234,140). 9. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 2 (SC 234,126). 10. Urbainczyk, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 62.

11. Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 18-19.

als o f his earlier work Cure for Hellenic Maladies (Cur.) in the Religious History. The title alludes to the earlier charge o f the emperor Julian and other critics o f Christianity that Christian faith was like a disease o f souls and society that instilled irrationality and impiety.12 Similar in scope and intent to Eusebius's Praeparatio and Athanasius's Against the Gentiles, the aim o f the Cur. was not simply to refute Greek philosophical claims and religious practice, but to re­ spond to the claims o f Greek philosophy with answers from Christian philos­ ophy.13 The subtitle o f the treatise, ‘Ά Knowledge o f Evangelic Truth from Greek Philosophy” (ευαγγελικής αλήθειας εξ Ελληνικής φιλοσοφίας επίγνωσις), may indicate that in addition to training Christians in apologetics, the author also envisioned Christian intellectuals engaging Greek intellectuals in philo­ sophical debate through verbal and written practices, on the basis o f Greek philosophical positions and texts.14 Written before 431, when Theodoret was still a monk, the apologetical handbook relates for educated Christians and Greeks alike a definition and delineation o f Christian philosophy, which out­ lines the differentiation between Christian and Greek philosophical concepts, history, and paradigms, beginning from a discussion o f commonalities.15 Di­ vided into twelve chapters, the Cur. largely treats conventional philosophical topics, but also introduces distinctively Christian themes, such as faith, the veneration o f the saints, and martyrdom, into the landscape o f philosophi­ cal inquiry. In his consideration o f the origins of Greek and Christian philosophical doctrines, Theodoret takes aim at the Porphyrian narrative of philosophi­ cal history. Taking his lead from Origen and Eusebius, he upholds the charge of plagiarism against the Greeks on the basis o f chronology.16 In fine Eu12. S e e , for e x a m p le , Julian, ep. 41, 438C. 13. The critical edition o f the Cur. is that o f Pierre Canivet: Therapeutique des malades helleniques, ed. and trans. Pierre Canivet, 2 vols., Sources chretiennes 57 (Paris: Cerf, 1958). For a con­ cise introduction to the work, see Istvan Pasztori-Kupan, Theodoret of Cyrus, Early Church Fa­ thers (New York: Routledge, 2006), 85-86. 14. On the intended audience o f the Cur., which included Greek intellectuals and officials, see Siniossoglou, Plato and Theodoret, 40-43. Given Theodoret’s interest in delineating comm on­ alities and differences on the basis o f both scripture and Greek philosophical texts, the better in­ terpretation o f the subtitle o f the work is “a knowledge o f evangelic truth from [έξ] Greek phi­ losophy,” rather than “apart from [έξ] Greek philosophy” (pace Pasztori-Kupan). 15. For discussion o f the date o f Cur., see Canivet in Therapeutique, 28. Canivet dates the work between 427 and 437. Siniossoglou dates it before 431. See Plato and Theodoret, 34. PasztoriKupan regards the work as a composition o f the monk Theodoret, and, hence, dates it to be­ fore his consecration as bishop in 423. See Theodoret of Cyrus, 86. 16. On Theodoret ’s dependence on Eusebius, especially in his use o f the dependency theme, see Siniossoglou, Plato a nd I'heoiloret, n 14.

sebian fashion, he refers his readers to the texts o f Greek philosophers that treat philosophical origins.17 The Greeks “went to the school o f the barbar­ ians,” including the Hebrews, “and from everywhere they gathered what they deemed necessary.” 18 Where the Greeks understood these narratives to demonstrate the perfection of a Greek synthesis o f scattered deposits, Theodoret implicates the Greeks as students who have plagiarized and corrupted the work o f their masters. Theodoret further challenges the Greek narra­ tive o f philosophical history by disparaging its figure o f renewal, Plotinus. Here Theodoret recalls that Plotinus and “our Origen” both studied under Ammonius, here called Saccas.19 Relying on book 6 o f the Ecclesiastical His­ tory, where Eusebius identifies Ammonius as Christian, Theodoret asserts that Origen, and not Plotinus, faithfully transmitted the Ammonian Chris­ tian philosophical tradition of Alexandria.20 Theodoret’s assessment of the fathers o f the Greek tradition is nuanced. Though he may accuse them of plagiarizing, misunderstanding, and misrep­ resenting Hebrew revelation, he does not dismiss them entirely. Some o f Pla­ to’s ideas were to be approved, others rejected.21 Alluding to the speech of Paul at the Areopagus in Acts 17, he admits that some o f the Greeks spoke partial truth, as they were driven by a natural desire to know God, and guid­ ed by God through reason and natural revelation.22 What they apprehended from the Hebrews resulted in a distorted imitation. While Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, and Porphyry possessed sparks o f the truth contained in Hebrew and Christian wisdom, they were like parrots imitating voices they did not really understand.23 In Theodoret’s estimation, Greek philosophy was not a preparation for the gospel, or the Gentile equivalent o f the Torah. It was the one truth distorted. Therefore, he bids his Greek audience to search diligent­ ly for the source o f their philosophers’ doctrines: they will ultimately be led to the one God.24 This “therapy,” which Theodoret prescribed to the Greek pepaideumenoi recommended detailed comparison o f Greek and Christian 17. See, for example, Theodoret, C mk 2.114-15 (SC 57, 169), where Theodoret quotes the fa­ mous Numenian dictum preserved in Clement and Eusebius: “W hat is Plato, but Moses speak­ ing Attic Greek?” For Theodoret, this is an admission by Numenius that Plato plagiarized the theology o f Moses. He also references Porphyry’s Philosophos historia, which describes the en­ counters o f the founding fathers o f Greek philosophy, Pythagoras and Plato, with the “barbar­ ians,” including the Hebrews. See C mk 1.27 (SC 57, in). 18. Theodoret, Cur. 1.17 (SC 57,107), trans. Pasztori-Kupan, 91. 19. Theodoret, Cur. 6.60-61 (SC 276).

20. See discussion in ch. 1.

21. Theodoret, Cur. 4.32.

22. Theodoret, Cur. 1.123.

23. Theodoret, Cur. 1.120.

24. Theodoret, Cur. 2.116.

texts and participation in debate, the normative practices of the philosophi­ cal professional. While Theodoret in part modeled his confrontation of the Greeks on the strategies and arguments o f apologists of earlier generations, he lived in a very different context. Justin, Origen, and Eusebius were minority intellectu­ als fighting for a voice (and in some cases their lives) in a philosophical arena dominated by Greeks. Theodoret represented a well-established, now dom­ inant, segment o f Christian intellectuals. He was not seeking an acknowl­ edgement o f legitimacy from a powerful class o f Greek intellectuals, but was extending an invitation to a weakened and increasingly marginalized class of Greeks to find the latent Christianity in their own tradition. The Greek in­ tellectual tradition was an aberration that required purification, not elimina­ tion. And a Christian thinker like Theodoret was willing to assist his Greek counterparts. In the citation from the Cur. that opens this chapter, Siniossoglou sees a statement o f Theodoret’s hermeneutical approach to Plato, a re­ visionist reading of Plato directed at the “Hellenic intellectual resistance.” 25 He regards Theodoret’s engagement with Greek intellectuals in a “herme­ neutical conflict” over Plato as a manifestation o f an intellectual battle for the “conceptualization o f Hellenic identity.” 26

Socrates, Plato, and the Monks o f Syria Who was the true philosopher? For the answer to this question, Theodo­ ret relied on the writings o f Plato. Referring to the Republic (475d-e), he ac­ cepts Plato’s distinction between those who seem to be philosophers because o f their education and those who are authentically enamored with truth. In the Theaetetus, Socrates discusses the philosopher’s divinization. He notes that the philosopher will draw criticism from others who regard his prefer­ ence for study and contemplation in pursuit of these as useless activities, making him inept at participating in the life of the polis. For the philosopher who strives for likeness to God, maintaining the ordering principle o f the soul (τό "λογικόν) whole and sound,27 Socrates prescribes “escape” (φυγή) as the philosophical life: “Therefore, we must try to escape [φεΰγειν] from down here to up there as quickly as possible. And escape is assimilation [όμοίωσις] to God as far as this is possible.” 28 In describing what “escape” entails, Plato 25. Siniossoglou, Plato and Theodoret, 22-24.

26. Ibid., 2 3.

27. Theodoret, Cur. 12.21 (SC 37, 424). Cl. Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 20.5. 28 . P la t o , 7'/it. 17 6 a b (I .C l . 2 :1 2 8 ) , m y t r a n s l a t io n .

turns the stereotype o f the philosopher as a fool aloof from the life o f the po­ lis on its head.29 Here Theodoret found in Plato’s teaching on the "perfection o f virtue” a way o f life that led to assimilation to God: They do not know where to find the road to the agora, or to the court or the senate house, or any other public assembly in the polis. The laws, the decisions, their debates or their publication o f decrees, they neither see nor hear__ And he does not know that he does not know all these things. For he does not keep away from them for the sake o f enjoying favor, but it is really his body alone which has a place and home in the polis. His mind [διάνοια], considering all these things petty and worthless, flies off in all directions, as Pindar says "beyond the sky, beneath the earth,” searching the heavens and measuring the plains.30

Where a Greek might have considered Socrates to be the epitome o f this model, Theodoret proposed an alternative: Plato’s words applied not to Socrates, but to “our philosophers,” Christian ascetics who embraced the “gospel philosophy.” 31 The monks who "escaped” from the cities to dwell in the mountains and deserts, and who gave up marriage, families, and mate­ rial wealth, appeared as fools to the Greeks. But they properly pursued the goal that Plato described and “direct their souls according to the canon o f di­ vine laws, and, like some great painters, they paint their own intelligible im­ ages according to the archetypes o f virtue.” 32 Socrates may have been rustic (αγροίκος) and uneducated (απαίδευτος) like them, but he never attained apatheia.33 Nor did any o f the Greeks fulfill Plato’s description o f philosophers who chose to “pen themselves up” in a “mountain shrine” (σηκόν έν δρει).34 Applying an exegetical style to Plato akin to what some might see as Antio­ chian literalism, Theodoret understood σηκός to refer to the shrines of mar­ tyrs or saints where many o f the monks had taken up their discipline.35 The monks o f Syria here serve as fulfillments o f Platonic types: “it is to these that 29. See Plato, Tht.

1 7 3 C -1 7 4 C .

30. Plato, Tht. i73C-e, in

Cf. Siniossoglou, Plato and Theodoret, 110-15.

Theodoret, Cur. 12.24-25 (SC 57, 425-26), m y translation.

31. Theodoret, Cur. 12.26-27. Note the explicit use o f terms such as “philosophy” and “phi­ losopher,” which Athanasius had avoided. On Theodoret’s adaptation o f these terms in the Cur., see Siniossoglou, Plato and Theodoret, 110-22. 32. Theodoret, Cur. 12.27 (SC 57, 427), m y translation. 33. Cf. Cur. 1.27. 34. Plato, Tht. 174ε, in Theodoret, Cur. 12.28 (SC 57, 427). See Siniossoglou, Plato and Theodo­ ret, 114. 35. See Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. σηκός. The word carries the meaning o f an enclosed area. Plato seems to refer to an enclosed “ sheep pen,” evoking a pastoral con­ text. By Theodoret’s time, the word had become used for the rural martyr shrines. See, for ex­ ample, Cur. 6.87.

the words of Plato are applied.” 36 The wisdom and virtue, which Plato pro­ phetically heralded,37 was finally achieved by men and women who, like Pla­ to's philosopher, were ridiculed and rejected by society: “These things apply equally to our athletes o f virtue [τοίς ήμετέροις άρμόττει τής αρετής άθληταίς]. For it is not at all for vain glory, as it was for Antisthenes and Diogenes and Crates, but on account o f the good itself that they do what they do.” 38 These athletes of virtue, discovered on the pages o f Plato, become iden­ tifiable individuals in Theodoret’s Religious History. Like Plato’s philosopher, they are detached from urban life, but, unlike Plato’s philosopher, the major­ ity are neither ethnically nor culturally Greek. They do not speak Greek, and they were not formed by paideia. Yet they are written as “philosophers,” as are their “predecessors,” the patriarchs and prophets o f Israel, the apostles and martyrs: “If they, emulating the high philosophy [τήν άκραν φιλοσοφίαν] o f the holy ones o f long ago, did not engrave their memory in bronze let­ ters, but receiving the impress o f all their virtue have made themselves, as it were, living images [εικόνας ... έμψυχους] and statues o f them, what pardon could we reasonably receive if we do not honor their celebrated life in writ­ ings?” 39 They are teachers o f practical philosophy, seen in their feats o f as­ ceticism, and not exponents o f philosophical doctrine. Following the model established by Athanasius, Theodoret dressed his subjects in the verbal ves­ ture o f Greek philosophy, representing them as viable and legitimate mani­ festations o f Greek philosophical standards. He departed from Athanasius’s representation of Antony with a predominant focus on their physical feats. There are no extended sermons or debates with Greeks. The monks o f the Syrian desert are visible paradigms, men and women o f actions, not words. Peter Brown called Christian asceticism “a pedagogy that already began with the body,” which replaced Platonic dialectic as “[t]he starting-point for the transformation o f the soul.”40 The internal “word” o f the monks could be observed in their actions. The man o f letters, Theodoret, would provide the interpretive “words” to understand them. The account of Symeon the Stylite (ca. 390-459) provides a good example. 36. Theodoret, Cur. 12.28 (SC 57, 427). 37. Plato, Resp. 2.36ib-d, in Theodoret, Cur 12.31. 38. Theodoret, Cur 12.32 (SC 57, 428-29). 39. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 2 (SC 234,128); trans. Price, 4, with modifications. 40. Peter L. Brown, “Asceticism: Pagan and Christian,” in The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425, vol. 13 o f Cambridge Ancient History, ed. Avcril Cameron and Peter Garnsey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1 4 9 8 ) , (125 .

Theodoret had a special tie to Symeon. They knew each other, and Symeon was still alive at the time o f the writing o f the Religious History. They also shared a connection to the ascetic heritage o f the celebrated Eusebi­ us o f Teleda (Phil. hist. 4). In the Sty liters ascent up the thirty-six-cubit col­ umn, Theodoret saw the fulfillment o f Plato’s typology: Symeon yearned “to fly up [άναπτηναι] to heaven and to be separated from this life on earth.” 41 Where Plato’s philosopher remained bodily in the polis, but separated from its affairs, his mind flying up to heaven, Symeon flew upward toward heav­ en in both body and soul, suspended between heaven and earth. Theodo­ ret admits that Symeon was a strange spectacle, an apparent fool, but it was precisely the “strangeness” o f Symeon’s philosophy that God used to draw people to look, to contemplate, and to learn. This portrait o f Symeon is not simply an imitation o f Plato’s philosopher. Theodoret also draws a par­ allel between Symeon’s ascent and the provocative acts o f the prophets o f Israel— Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea.42 These taught an unadulterated philos­ ophy long before Plato. The Religious History is another example o f biographical literature com­ posed by a bishop that constructs relationships among author, subject, and audience o f the text. Here as in other hioi the personal contact between au­ thor and subject is an important legitimization. Conscious o f the role o f per­ sonal intimacy in his composition, Theodoret mentions as many instances as possible, ranging from regular, familiar contact, to occasional visits, and even reception of the stories o f others who had direct contact with monks Theodoret had never met.43 As an author, he compares himself to the four evangelists, both those traditionally considered eyewitnesses (Matthew and John) and those considered secondhand recipients (Mark and Luke).44 The landscape o f Antioch was dotted with ascetics long before Theodoret’s birth, and they were a regular part of his daily reality. He considered his own birth the result o f the intervention of Macedonius, whose prayers overcame the sterility o f Theodoret’s mother.45 In a very real way, then, he exemplified in his person the monk-bishop, the meeting of charismatic and institutional au41. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 26.12 (SC 257,184); trans. Price, 165. Here Theodoret uses the com ­ pound o f the verb Plato used in the Theaetetus. 42. See Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 15-32. 43. On Theodoret’s appeal to authorial credibility, see Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 28-30. 44. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 11. 45. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 13.16. During regular visits, the monk often reminded the bishop of his origins and exhorted him to live out the virtuous life (Phil. hist. 13.18). Peter the Galatian re­ ceived Theodoret once a week from his youth (Phil. hist. 9.4).

thority. He himself was the product o f the two interacting worlds dominat­ ing the Syrian church— the city and the wilderness. When considering the question o f audience, we might also ask wheth­ er Theodoret, like Athanasius, envisioned the possibility o f a Greek readership for the Religious History. I think he did. The arguments o f the Cur., es­ pecially the Platonic exegesis o f book 12, are repeated.46 Moreover, at Phil, hist. pro. 10, Theodoret includes among his audience those “who have not been initiated into divine truths with real accuracy.” 47 Here I would interpret those whom Theodoret calls the “faithless” (τούς απίστους) as Greeks with a limited and corrupted understanding o f God not yet enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the initiation o f baptism. Addressing a small, relatively unseen, isolated body o f “hangers-on” to the Greek tradition, Theodoret ag­ gressively detaches philosophical, educational, and moral categories from a Greek ethnic and cultural context and redefines them, attaching them to sub­ jects who could not be more different than Greek philosophers. Theodoret presents a reading o f Platonic teaching on the nature o f the philosopher through a corrective lens o f Christian scripture and philosophi­ cal history.48 The subjects of Theodoret’s work are portrayed as divine phi­ losophers, experts in a wisdom enacted through ascetic labor.49 They are “the best men” and women, who have achieved and realized the vision o f Plato.50 For Plato, o f course, the “best men” were the educated and virtuous guardians of the polis.51 Theodoret’s monks, however, taught “perfect phi­ losophy” because o f their intimate friendship with God, the source o f wis­ dom.52 Drawn to participate in the divinity o f the object o f their desire, they 46. Cf. Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 16. 47. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. xo (SC 234,140); trans. Price, 8. 48. In his analysis o f "mechanisms o f semantic change” and “ conceptual shifts” in Theodoret’s rhetorical interpretation o f Plato in the Cur., Siniossoglou has identified a similar strategy to challenge Greek intellectuals’ claims to "Hellenic continuity and identity.” See Plato and The­ odoret, 2 and 236. 49. Cox, Biography, 21. 50. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 1 (SC 234, 124): “ It is good to behold the contests o f the best men, the athletes o f virtue, and to draw benefit with the eyes; when witnessed, the objects o f our praise appear enviable and become desirable, and impel the beholder to attain them” (trans. Price, 3, with modification). 51. See Plato, Resp. 6.4843-d and Leg.i.643e-644b. 52. The treatise On Divine Love, which appears as an epilogue to the Phil. hist, in the editions o f Canivet, Leroy-Molinghen, and Price, is found in the earliest manuscript tradition with the Phil. hist. Fifteen o f the twenty-three oldest manuscripts, dating from the ninth through thir­ teenth centuries, contain both works. On the basis o f thematic and stylistic similarities, Pierre Canivet (Le monachismc syricn scion Thedoret dc Cyr, Theologic historique 42 [Paris: Beauchesne,

have become "divine,” and like the philosophers o f the Eunapian tradition, they bore this title.53 Having reined in their passions and carefully guarded themselves from sensible temptations, they displayed impassibility “in a mor­ tal and passible body.” 54 Likened to the angels and “the holy ones from long ago,” they achieved απάθεια, mastery o f the passions, through the regulation o f food and sleep, exposure to the often harsh natural environment, and con­ finement to narrow or high places. Moreover, they were like charioteers in full control o f their horses, and like helmsmen who moved “the rudder skill­ fully” through the billows o f the winds.55 The echoes o f Plato are unmistak­ able.56 Theodoret s ascetics labor toward the achievement o f the philosophical virtues. They enjoy close, open, and frank communication with God. This παρρησία, as Theodoret uses the term, expressed a relationship between the monks and God that was direct and unmediated. In allowing the monk ac­ cess to the divine presence through prayer, meditation, and, especially, peti­ tion, God allows an unrestricted relationship that disregards the social hierar­ chy o f human relationships. This is reflected in the monks’ bold interaction with civil officials and other members o f the aristocratic class.57 The symbol­ 1977]. 89; 94) holds that it is a composition o f Theodoret, written sometime in the year 449-50Price (History, 206 n.i) agrees on the authenticity o f the work. Urbainczyk (Theodoret o f Cyrrhus, 59-64) is reluctant to assign the w ork to Theodoret but maintains that it was written to defend the Phil. hist, from critics. It was certainly written after the Phil. hist, as it refers to it in §1 and certainly speaks o f the Syrian monks in a very similar way. The treatise defines philoso­ phy as “love for God” (ή περί τον θεόν αγάπη), where God is equated with "w isdom .” Perform­ ing the right actions o f philosophy (κατορθώσαι φιλοσοφίαν) is possible only for the one who be­ comes a burning lover (θερμόν ... εραστήν) o f God. And the "true philosopher” (ό τοίνυν τφ δντι φιλόσοφος) is the φιλόθεος who “ despises everything else and looks at the Beloved alone” and “ says, performs and thinks only those things that please and serve the One he loves, and abomi­ nates everything that he forbids” (On Divine Love, 15 [SC 257, 296]). Recall that the “ Religious” in The Religious History is φιλόθεος. 53. Theodoret uses several forms o f the title θείος. Julian Saba (ό θείος πρεσβύτης) (Phil. hist. 2.17 [SC 234, 234]), Agapetos (3.5 [SC 234, 254]), Acacius (3.11 [SC 234, 266]), Eusebius (4.8 [234, 310]), David (4.9 [SC 234, 312]), Theotecnus (5.6 [SC 234, 338]), Aphthonius (5.8 [SC 234, 340]), Pal­ ladius (7.3 [SC 234,368]), Aphrahat (8.4 [SC 234,380]), Romanus (n .i [SC 234, 454]), James o f C yr­ rhestica (22.2 [SC 257,126]), and Symeon the Stylite (26.17 [SC 257,196]) are θείος. James o f Nisibis (1.14 [SC 234,190]), Julian Saba (2.7 [SC 234, 212]), Sym eon the Elder (6.4 [SC 234, 350]), Peter the Galatian (9.2 [SC 234, 410]), Macedonius (13.12 [SC 234, 496]), and James o f Cyrrhestica (21.14 [SC 257, 92]) are called ό θείος άνθρωπος. Julian Saba (2.2 [SC 234, 196]), Marcianus (3.3 [SC 234, 200]), David (4.9 [SC 234, 312]), Zeno (12.6 [SC 234, 470]), Acepsimas (15.2 [SC 257, 20]), Abraham (17.3 [SC 257,36]), and James o f Cyrrhestica (21.5 [SC 257, 78]) are ό θείος άνήρ. James (24.3 [SC 257, 142]) is θειότατος. 54. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 2 (SC 234, 128); trans. Price, 4. 55. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 6. 56. Cf. Plato, Phdr. 254b; 2477c. 57. Examples o f παρρησία in the Phil. hist, include the divine inspiration that gives Marcianus

ic power they acquired as a result o f a “spiritual,” or charismatic, authority could translate into political and social influence. Philosophical discourse is largely absent, but this is not to suggest there are no teachers. The “most wise” Aphrahat, for example, is the closest par­ allel to Antony: an expert in words and arguments, but unskilled in Greek language and learning, he was still a formidable opponent to Greek philoso­ phers.*58 The well-educated Theodoret boasts of having had long discourses (λόγους) on philosophy with Zeno (Phil. hist. 12.4) and Maris (Phil. hist. 20.3), and Baradatus is said to be able to syllogize better than any Aristotelian.59 However, we never learn the content of these syllogisms and discourses. It is rare to hear their voices. Instead, Theodoret invites his readers to reflect upon his words and to gaze upon the intelligible images they form. Like oth­ er biographers before him, Theodoret understood the composition o f his text as a type o f image making. His readers would learn by verbal images, the pedagogical method o f this brand of philosophy.60 Theodoret created a textual environment based on models o f paideia and philosophy, which he adapted to fit the context o f Syrian Christian asceti­ cism. The culture o f Christian monasticism, though often presented by its apologists as an antithesis to Hellenism, appears here as a viable alternative. As Canivet said, the rupture was more apparent than real.61 Yet, as Festugiere noted, some advocates o f the monastic life asserted that there was no com­ parison or compatibility between the two.62 John Chrysostom, a student o f Libanius, would encourage Christian parents to send their sons to be edu­ cated by monks rather than by Greek rhetoricians or philosophers.63 How much the monks themselves actively and consciously participated in this con­ version o f cultural capital is a matter for another discussion.64 While a cul­ direct knowledge o f the meaning o f scripture (Phil. hist. 3.6; 9), the supplication o f Theodoret’s mother to Peter the Galatian that he demand a cure from God (Phil. hist. 9.7), and Macedonius’s intervention in the Riot o f the Statues to prevent the emperor’s retaliation. 58. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 8.2. 59. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 27.4. 60. The students o f Eusebius o f Teleda, for example, need only look at him in order to learn: “ He did not need many words to teach them, since his mere appearance was sufficient to make the most slothful eager in the race for virtue" (Phil. hist. 4.5 [SC 234, 300]; trans. Price, 51). Similarly, those who witnessed the “ sight” o f Symeon the Stylite departed "instructed (παιδευθει'ς) in divine things” (Phil. hist. 26.12 [SC 257, i88]). 61. Canivet, Monachisme, 256. 62. Festugiere, Antioche pa'ienne et chretienne, 222. 63. See John Chrysostom, Adv. opp. 96d e. 64. Philip Rousseau (“ The Identity of the Ascetic Master” ), responding to the view o f Peter

tural and social chasm separated the ascetics from the Greek pepaideumenoi, Theodoret, a Christian pepaideumenos, demonstrated how one might discern the truth o f the gospel philosophy by seeing the monks through the lens o f paideia. They were worthy o f emulation, even by the pepaideumenos, because they were “rustic,” “simple,” and “uneducated.” 65 These were not unfamil­ iar virtues. Theodoret praises the “simplicity” (άπλότης) o f the philosophical discourse o f Maris.66 Plotinus had praised this aspect o f his own teaching.67 Chrysostom, uninterested in this dialogue with Greeks, could simply aban­ don one model for another.

The Syrian Lineages o f Christian Philosophy Even in the organization o f monastic life, Theodoret guided his readers to see the structures o f schools o f philosophy. The habitations o f the monks are often called παλαίστραι, the name o f the Greek institution that afforded youths both physical and intellectual training.68 Theodoret also calls them φροντιστήρια, a term first used by Aristophanes to describe Socrates's circle o f students.69 It is to such places that Christian philosophers attracted students and “trained” them in intellectual and physical practices.70 The ascetic lead­ Brown that ascetic culture displaced a paideia culture that was seized by bishops, suggests in­ stead that both ascetics and bishops shared a language and method that appealed to philosophi­ cal models and contested within the same world, often in texts, to refine an emerging Christian paideia. 65. Macedonius is described as “uninitiated in all Greek learning and culture” (παιδείας μεν άπάσης αμύητος), "raised in rusticity” (έν αγροικία δέ τεθραμμένος), and “ carrying about all sim­ plicity in his soul” (απλότητα δέ πάσαν έν τη ψυχή περιφερών). See Theodoret, Phil. hist. 13.8 (SC 234, 490). This is the only instance o f the word paideia used in the larger cultural sense. It ap­ pears in Phil, hist.1.4 and 1.5 in a lesser sense as “a lesson.” As Urbainczyk points out, it is mis­ leading to think that all o f the monks in Theodoret’s collection came from poor backgrounds. In fact, the opposite is true: only Macedonius, Maesymas, and Sym eon the Stylite are said to be o f a poor background. The rest, for the most part, belonged to distinguished families. See, Ur­ bainczyk, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 68-70. 66. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 20.3 (SC 257, 66). 67. Plotinus, Enn. 2.9.14.38. 68. Marrou, History of Education, 122. In the Classical and Hellenistic Greek worlds, physi­ cal training was an essential part of educating the youth. The παλαίστρα was the location for athletic training and physical education. The importance of physical education declined in the Hellenistic period, as it was supplanted by literary studies. The distinction between the palaistra and the gymnasium is not always clear. Sometimes the former is considered to have been used for children and the latter for the ephebes and adults (Marrou, 128). 69. See Phil. hist. 8.2 (SC 234,376) and 6.13 (SC 234, 362), and Aristophanes, Clouds 94. Philostratus (Life of Apollonius o f Tyana 3.50) used the term to describe the “ place o f meditation” o f the Brahmans. 70. Limnaeus, for example, joins the παλαίστρα o f Thalassius, where “he was well educat-

er’s adoption of the role of teacher in reality and in literary representations was central to the development of Christian asceticism.71 Traditions of as­ cetic practice and teaching that could be traced through lineages gave shape to ascetic communities and reinforced their authority within social memory. The genealogist who included himself as an offspring of a particular lin­ eage garnered additional honor as the caretaker o f the memory o f that lin­ eage. Porphyry had constructed a genealogy o f philosophical transmission centered largely upon one branch of descent, from Ammonius. Theodoret, more akin to Eunapius, produced a grand, multibranched schema o f sever­ al genealogies that created a network among the scattered communities of monks in the Syrian wilderness. He himself was connected to each of these through his various roles as monk, bishop, and biographer. Four lineages in particular served as the archetypal foundations o f Syrian monasticism. The first is that o f Marcianus in Phil. hist. 3, who was active during the reign o f Valens (364-78).72 With no other teachers named as his ancestors, he stood in a class o f figures whose authority derived from a mimetic asso­ ciation with the great mythic figures o f a biblical past (here Elijah and John the Baptist), and he ranked as the head of his own traceable tradition.73 The immediate heirs o f his line were Eusebius o f Teleda (Phil hist. 3.4), Agapetus, one Symeon (who is neither Symeon the Stylite nor Symeon the Elder), Sabinus (Phil. hist. 3.21), and the “wonderful” Basil (Phil. hist. 3.20). Eusebius became the “heir” (κληρονόμος) o f Marcianus’s cell and was entrusted with “transporting [διαπορθμεύων] the teaching o f the great Marcianus.” 74 Agapetus himself, moving to Apamea, “transplanted” (μετεφύτευσε) Marcianus’s “angelic rule,” founding two φροντιστήρια, which he led with Symeon. The more than four hundred “athletes” who were still training there at the time ed in this highest philosophy [την άκραν ταύτην έπαιδεύετο φιλοσοφίαν καλώς]” (Phil. hist. 22.2 [SC 257, 126]). Julian Saba attracts many to his παλαίστρα who seek him as some γυμναστής or παιδοτρίβης, the names o f the physical education teachers o f Classical Greece (Phil. hist. 2.3 [SC 234, 200]). Ammianus asks Eusebius o f Teleda to be a διδάσκαλος and παιδοτρίβης at his own παλαίστρα (Phil. hist. 4.2 [SC 234, 292]). Theodoret informs his reader that these παλαίστραι o f “ right practice and belief” (εΰσεβείας) could be found housing both men and wom en in all o f Syria, Palestine, Cilicia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt (Phil. hist. 30.6 [SC 257, 246]). For other exam­ ples o f how Theodoret uses the term παλαίστρα, see Phil. hist. 2.9; 2.13; 4.13; 13.2; and 26.4, 5, 6. 71. See Rousseau, “ Identity o f the Ascetic Master” ; and also Urbainczyk, Theodoret o f Cyrrhus, 85; Brown, “Asceticism: Christian and Pagan,” 602-3. 72. See Theodoret H.E. 4.25, where he names Marcianus and other ascetics who “ emitted the bright rays o f the philosophy of the solitary life” (N P N F2 3:128). 73. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 3.1. 74. Theodoret, Phil. hist, s.s (SC 234. 2S4).

o f Theodoret’s writing are described as plants sprung from Marcianus’s seed. Eusebius of Teleda features prominently in Phil. hist. 4. Guided by his un­ cle Marianus, whom Theodoret styles a “servant of God” in the tradition of Moses, Eusebius was sought out by an Ammianus to serve as a cotrainer and teacher at his φροντιστήριο^.75 Ammianus also evoked Elijah and John the Bap­ tist as biblical types.76 Eusebius was a teacher through practice not words, di­ recting his followers on food and times and modes of prayer.77 He attracted the students of Julian Saba, the great archetype of Syrian asceticism, including James the Persian. Upon Eusebius’s death, James and Agrippa assumed lead­ ership of the community.78 David succeeded Agrippa.79 Other followers of Eusebius, Eusebonas and Abibion, had established an offshoot φροντιστήpiov at Teleda, which Symeon the Stylite joined when it was led by Heliodorus. Theodoret recalls a meeting with David, which included “philosophical” dis­ courses,80 and enshrines Eusebius as a great “reproducer” of an ascetic tradi­ tion. Using the language of nurturing, training, and planting, Theodoret marks Eusebius as the founder of an authoritative ascetic tradition (figure 7-1) with which he himself had more than one contact: “There are very many others whom he formed like this and sent to be teachers in other wrestling-schools [παλαίστραι]__ While his first ascetic cell was planted [παγείσης] in the east, offspring [εκγονα] of his philosophy are to be seen in the west and the south.” 81 Another important line is that of Zebinas, in which Theodoret includes such greats as Maron, Polychronius, and James o f Cyrrhestica (figure 7-2). The complicated interconnecting lines o f relationship call attention to the importance o f relating these figures in a coherent lineage. Like the lineage o f Marianus, it includes both deceased and living ascetics and is directed to­ ward Theodoret. Indirect lines o f lineage, not based on a real master-disciple relationship, but rather on a kind o f “adoption” on the basis o f admiration, imitation, or typology, intertwined with actual relationships to create multibranched lineages.82 The only certain student o f Zebinas is Polychronius, who was still alive at the time o f Theodoret’s writings, and whom Theodo­ ret describes as more than a perfect impress o f his teacher.83 Two other stu75. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 4.3.

76. Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 24.

77. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 4.5.

78. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 4.8.

79. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 4.9.

80. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 4.10.

81. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 4.13 (SC 234,324): trans. Price, 56, with modification. 82. On Theodoret’s use o f typology "to sustain a close intertextual relationship with sacred history,” see Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 17-22. 83. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 24.3 (SC 257, 142): “ I who never saw |Zebinas | ... see in this famous

Figure 7-1. Theodoret’s tracing o f the lineage of Eusebius o f Teleda combines sev­ eral monastic communities

dents perfectly replicated the image o f their “father.” Moses was “imprinted” (έκματτόμενος) with the virtue of his father and master, and Damian was an exact copy o f the soul o f Polychronius.84 Asclepius is described as part o f the same “company” or “class” (συμμορία), but is not part o f Polychronius’s com­ munity proper, living some ten stades away. Nevertheless, he is said to have embraced the same way of life and exemplified the same virtues. The same is true o f James o f Nimouza, a very old recluse who was not formally associat­ ed with Polychronius, but who emulated him.85 This sufficed to include him in the lineage o f Zebinas. It is surprising that Maron, the famous ascetic who embraced an “openair” life atop a hill in the region of Cyrrhus, and who spawned several famous disciples, receives such a short entry In Phil. hist. 16, the circumstances o f Ma­ ron s education and ascetic training remain unmentioned. He appears sponta­ neously on a hill at the site of a former shrine or temple and commences his ascetic practice, drawing crowds of visitors from the region. In the chapter on Zebinas, however, Theodoret writes that Maron was an admirer o f his, con­ sidering him a “father,” “teacher,” and “model o f every virtue,” and wished to be buried with him.86 It is unclear from the context whether Maron was an actual disciple o f Zebinas in the same way Polychronius was. (Maron lived in a different location and was known for different practices.) Clearly Theodoret wished to associate the two in an overlapping tradition, presenting Maron at once as the head o f one tradition and the recipient o f another. Among the many “plants o f philosophy” cultivated by Maron in the “gar­ den” o f Cyrrhus was the great James o f Cyrrhestica (Phil. hist. 21), the first of the living monks in Theodoret’s collection. He is described as “living with” or “associated with” (συγγενόμενος) Maron, having been “trained” (έξησκημένω) in this highest philosophy. His fame had eclipsed that o f his teacher.87 Receiv­ ing one o f the lengthiest accounts in the Phil hist., James parallels James of Nisibis, whom Theodoret singled out as one o f the founding fathers o f Syr­ ian monasticism. He ties them together not only by name, but also by “emu­ lation,” thus associating the living James within the tradition o f the deceased James: through the example o f James o f Nisibis, James o f Cyrrhestica became Polychronius the philosophy o f the divine Zebinas; for w ax does not receive the impress o f signet-rings as much as Polychronius bears the distinctive marks [χαρακτήρας] o f Zebinas” (trans. Price, 155). 84. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 24.5 (SC 257,144).

85. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 25.2.

86. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 24.2.

87. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 21.3.

a “model o f philosophy,” another example of lineage by “adoption” through imitation.88 Theodoret links James o f Nisibis to several ancestral types from the Hebrew Bible, expressing his supersession of these figures in his likeness to the example o f Christ and the Apostles.89 James had no students o f his own. Theodoret stepped readily into this role. O f the thirty-five chapters o f James’s biographical sketch, Theodoret figures in some twenty-three in a vari­ ety o f roles, including James’s caretaker and regulator,90 recipient o f the per­ sonal accounts o f James’s struggles and visions,91 and organizer o f his buri­ al.92 Apart from the claims of personal contact, Theodoret was also entrusted with the memory of James and acted as the shaper and transmitter o f his tra­ dition.93 Limnaeus joined Maron’s community at the same time as James.94 He had originally been “educated in the highest philosophy” (τήν άκραν ταύτην έπαιδεΰετο φιλοσοφίαν) in the palaistra o f Thalassius, an ascetic in the region o f Tillima whom Theodoret visited often.95 Theodoret also boasts that he alone was admitted into Limnaeus’s walled, open-air enclosure. Four other men in the region, Moses, John, Antiochus, and Antoninus, are described as having embraced the same politeia, and had “the same dress, food, standing posture, prayer, labors all night and all day.” 96 Though they were not resident disciples o f either Maron, Thalassius, or James, but perhaps independent soli­ taries who adopted lifestyles in the manner o f these others, Theodoret links them together in an overarching tradition, both in practice and within the narrative as “successors” and perpetuators of this tradition. Thus, Theodoret constructed an intertwining series o f lineages through relationships o f direct teaching and indirect emulation that bound together the most important fig­ ures of Syrian monasticism, the “philosophers o f the Master’s household.” 97 Theodoret traces a minor lineage through Publius, a member o f a curial family who gave away his inheritance to establish himself as a monk in the area o f Zeugma, probably sometime in the 350s.98 A community developed around him, and they lived together in a single cell. Publius imparted teach­ es. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 21.2.

89. Krueger, Writing and Holiness, 25-26.

90. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 21.11.

91. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 21.20-26.

92. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 21.30. 94. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 22.2.

93. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 21.2; 29.

95. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 2 2 .1-2 (SC 257,124-26). 96. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 23.2 (SC 257,136); trans. Price, 152. 97. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 21.28 (SC 257, Π4). 98. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 5.1. See Price, History, 62 n.i.

James o f Nisibis

James

Thalassius

Polychronius ....... ........►

Maron

Asclepius

KA' James of Cyrrhestica

Limnaeus

John

Domnina

Antoninus

Antiochus

TH EO DO RET

Figure 7-2. Theodoret ties together monastic communities through lines o f direct lineage (solid) and emulation (dotted)

ing and practices to his disciples, who, upon succeeding him in the leader­ ship position o f the community, are described as “living statues and images o f his virtue” (στήλαί τινες έμψυχοι και εικόνες της αρετής).99 They succeed in a line from Theotecnus to Theodotus to another Theotecnus to Gregory, who was active in Theodoret’s lifetime, perpetuating the way o f life established by Publius.100 Theodoret gathered his information both from hearsay and through seeing the disciples o f Publius, “recognizing the teacher in his disci­ ples and discovering the trainer through his athletes.” 101 Theodoret engaged in a displacement o f philosophical culture. He was certainly not intent on destroying it. If this were the case, he may not have invested his efforts into producing the Curatio. But because so many Greek 99. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 5.6 (SC 234, 338); trans. Price, 60. 100. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 5.9. 101. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 5.10 (SC 234, 342); trans. Price, 61 62.

intellectuals continued to reject Christianity on the basis o f philosophical methods and presuppositions, and because Theodoret saw in the works of the philosophers and poets themes and truths that he could hold as a Chris­ tian, he took up the mantle o f Eusebius o f Caesarea, writing histories, apolo­ gies, and biographies, in order to defend and outline the rise and dominance o f Christians and the declining influence o f Greek pepaideumenoi. As a result, he became convinced that philosophy and virtue were not Greek inventions, nor were they the exclusive domain o f “Hellenism” : the apostles, who pro­ duced writings stripped o f Hellenic flair, were evidence o f this, as were the Syrian monks.102 Living in the long shadow o f the reign o f Julian—which still represented the agenda o f Theodoret’s Greek contemporaries—Theodo­ ret attempted to sever the idea o f “philosophy” from Greek identity. For the sake of convincing his Greek-speaking, educated audiences of both the Cur. and the Phil, hist., Theodoret used his skills to communicate through genres and vocabulary that had enough capital to convince. Merging the approaches of Eusebius and Athanasius, he spoke o f separation and change through the continuous and familiar, carefully choosing which values to subvert, which to modify, and which to retain.103

Biography and the Rebirth o f Philosophy in Fifth-Century Athens This study concludes with a consideration o f the Life o f Proclus (Vit. Proc.), a work produced in fifth-century Athens by Marinus o f Neapolis, student and successor o f the Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus (ca. 410-85). In the absence o f an official Platonist institution at Athens, this text represents the school o f Proclus as heir to the tradition, but not necessarily the Academy, o f Plato. At the time o f Marinus’s writing, this school was an independent and formative institution, a recently formed community o f Greek intellectuals o f a Iamblichan-Platonist bent. If Theodoret’s philosophical history and monas­ tic lineages pushed Plato and the city o f Athens to the periphery o f the late ancient philosophical field, the Vit. Proc. attempted to reestablish these at the center within a narrative context o f philosophical decline and redemption, and a cultural and political context o f marginalization. Proclus had studied with the philosopher Plutarch for almost two years Cur. 1.9 11. C hristianity am i Rhetoric,

10 2 . T h e o d o r e t , 10 3. C a m e r o n ,

13 0 ; a n d C a n i v e t ,

Monachismc,

256.

before his teacher’s death in 432. He continued his philosophical studies with Syrianus, Plutarch’s “successor.” 104 After Syrianus’s death in 437, Proclus suc­ ceeded him.105 A prolific writer, Proclus left a literary corpus that includes commentaries on Plato, Aristotle, and Porphyry, introductory manuals to the study o f philosophy, systematic works, tracts on mathematics, astron­ omy, and theurgy, and hymns.106 In his Platonic Theology; a systematic and “mystogogical” 107 piece that explores the characteristics o f the gods and the grades o f divine hierarchy, Proclus adduces a narrative on the origins and transmission o f philosophy from Plato to himself. Not simply a philosophi­ cal history, it is a true myth o f origins, an account laced with the language o f divine revelation and the cultic imagery o f the mysteries. The language of initiation and ritual were not merely metaphorical, as they may have been in Plato, but reflect the significance o f theurgic expertise in this school derived from Plutarch. Proclus’s account describes not only the divine origins o f phi­ losophy, but also its bequest to the leadership o f the Athenian school: The whole o f Plato’s philosophy, I believe, O Pericles, dearest o f m y friends, shone forth in the beginning according to the seeming good will o f the greater pow­ ers [i.e., the gods], revealing [έκφαίνουσαν] the intellect hidden among them and the truth__ Then, later, after becoming more perfect and, as it were, withdrawing [άναχωρήσασαν] into itself, and rendering itself unseen to the many who professed to philosophize, it has again come forth into light__ [Philosophy] appeared through one man [δι’ ένος άνδρός, i.e., Plato] whom it would not be wrong to call an instruc­ tor [προηγεμόνα] and hierophant o f true rites__ But it remained unknown to the many who entered into the innermost sanctuaries, and with the return o f the times it came forth from certain true priests__ These exegetes o f Platonist initiation ... possessed a nature [φύσιν] similar to that o f their own guide__ [They were] Plotinus the Egyptian and those who inherited [παραδεξαμένους] the exposition [θεωρίαν] from 104. Even if there was not yet a sense o f institutional succession in Syrianus’s time, the use o f the term by Marinus (Vit. Proc. 12) almost fifty years later indicates that an internal notion o f official succession had developed within the Athenian school. 105. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 12. 106. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 22. For a complete catalogue o f the works attributed to Proclus, including fragmentary and lost works, see Giovanni Reale, Introduzione a Proclo, I Filosofi 51 (Rome: Laterza, 1989), 125-29, and also Proclus, Theologie platonicienne, ed. and trans. H .D . Saffrey and Leendert G. Westerink (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1968), i:lv-lx. 107. Proclus (Theol. plat. 5.16) describes the study o f Platonic theology as μυσταγωγία, a term used o f the initiation into mysteries. Plato used the terminology o f the mysteries to describe the study o f philosophy (especially in the Phaedrus and Symposium). For example, in Symposium 209e-2ioa, he refers to the works o f the poets and lawgivers as the "lesser mysteries,” while those o f the philosophers are the "higher” mysteries. In Vit. Proc. 13 (Boissonade, 11), Marinus calls Proclus’s study o f Aristotle the "preliminary and lesser mysteries,” and the study o f Plato “ mystagogy.”

him, namely Amelius and Porphyry. In third place ... Iamblichus and Theodoros, and any others after them who, following this divine chorus, go into a Bacchic frenzy in their thinking over the things of Plato. From them our guide108 (after the gods) in all good and noble things received undefiled the most genuine and purest light of truth [τό γνησιώτατον και καθαρώτατον τής άληθείας φως] in the bosom of his soul; and he established us as partakers of all of Plato's philosophy and sharers of those things of which he partook in secret from his elders and indeed he revealed the choir of mysti­ cal truth in divine things.109 Proclus’s account o f the origins and transmission of philosophy clearly built upon previous accounts originating from Platonist circles. Numenius and Porphyry had bemoaned the post-Plato period as one of decline and cor­ ruption, and delimited the history of philosophy into three periods: origins, decline, and renewal. Like them, Proclus saw himself as part of a genera­ tion of philosophical reformers, rediscovering and renewing true philosophi­ cal authority in continuity with its origins and sources. Proclus also present­ ed a scheme o f periodization, speaking of “ordained periods o f time” (έν τακταίς χρόνων περιόδοις). In the beginning, there was Plato, the “one man,” who represented the original revelation o f philosophy to humanity; instead o f decline, Proclus characterized the period between Plato and Plotinus as a “withdrawal” o f philosophy into a protected secrecy, awaiting the right mo­ ment for its proper re-revelation. This occurred under Plotinus and his suc­ cessors.110 Proclus clearly expanded the established Porphyrian-Eunapian account o f philosophical history. From Plotinus, Proclus’s lineage o f philos­ ophy includes Porphyry, as well as Amelius, Iamblichus, and Theodoros—a broadening o f the philosophical pantheon that smoothed over previously rivalrous philosophical circles. A gap then exists between Iamblichus and un­ named “others” who continued in his tradition. The “whole o f Plato’s phi­ losophy” finally arrives “undefiled” into the care o f Proclus’s “guide” (either Plutarch or Syrianus), who had himself received it from unnamed “elders.” In the end, Proclus writes himself into the narrative as the heir o f the “most genuine” and “purest” philosophy and offers his treatise on Platonic theology 108. This could refer to either Plutarch or Syrianus. Proclus often referred to Syrianus as his “guide.” Plutarch was his “grandfather.” 109. Proclus, TheoL plat. 1.1 (Saffrey and Westerink, 1:5-7), my translation. no. Like Proclus, Hierocles and Augustine present narratives that envision a disappearance or purposeful concealment o f true revealed doctrines from the period immediately following Plato until Plotinus, fo r Hierocles, the truth o f Plato’s philosophy remained hidden and was poorly understood by successive philosophers, until a period o f renewal commenced in the fig­ ures o f Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus (two important Pgyptians) and continued with Porphy­ ry, Iamblichus, Plutarch o f Athens (with whom lie studied), and, o f course, himself.

as a bequeathal o f the philosophical inheritance to his own students, continu­ ing the chain o f transmission, and assuring the continuance o f the school: But it is necessary that we not only receive the exceptional good o f Platonic phi­ losophy from others, but, we ought to leave for those who come after, memories [υπομνήματα] o f the blessed visions o f which we say even we ourselves were specta­ tors [θεαταί] and imitators [ζηλωταί], to the best o f our ability, under a guide who was the most perfect in our time and reached the height o f philosophy [εις άκρον ήκοντι φιλοσοφίας].111

As outlined here, the transmission o f Platonic philosophy has significant temporal gaps between Plato and Plotinus and between Iamblichus (died ca. 325) and Plutarch (died 432). The connecting points represent important moments o f rediscovery or renewal in the figures o f Plotinus and Plutarch (or possibly Syrianus).112 Proclus offered a narrative that ties the transmission o f philosophy to the succession o f a newly founded Platonic school headed by a pedigree o f experts (figure 7-3). The members o f this lineage preserved and secretly transmitted philosophy at times when it was endangered by oth­ er philosophical and theological systems. It is not unlike the succession by mi­ metic adoption found in Theodoret’s Religious History, which reckoned de­ scent typologically, according to the imitation o f ancient models. This type of descent circumvented gaps in chronology and geography. Proclus’s lineage combined a mimetic model with an embryonic institutional model. Marinus would continue to articulate the significance o f this lineage in his own work. John Glucker has suggested that the concept o f the “Hermaic chain,” the Ερμαϊκή σειρά, sheds some light on these developments. Eunapius used the term to refer not to a succession from Plato or Plotinus per se, but to Porphy­ ry himself, casting him as a communicative medium between the divine and human realms.113 Marinus reports that Proclus “clearly beheld that he was o f the Hermaic chain.” 114 The Hermaic chain appears a number o f times in Proclus’s writings, but, as Glucker points out, not to refer to an institutional succession o f teachers at Athens, which the later scholarchs o f Athens would in . Proclus, Theo.plat. 1.1. 112. In his commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus mentions other important Πλατωνικοί, commentators/exegetes o f Plato’s works and/or professional philosophers. These are Longi­ nus, Origen (1.16 2,15; 27; 33), Albinus and Gaius (1.340,14), and Numenius (3.34). Here they are mentioned interchangeably with Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. Th ey may be among the “others” to whom Proclus alludes, but they are not named here. 113. Eunapius, Vit. Phil. 4.1, 457 (Giangrande, 8). 114. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 28 (Boissonade, 23); trans. Edwards, 102.

t Plato

Withdrawal o f philosophy

Fig u re 7-3. T h e transm ission o f p h ilo so p h y fro m Plato to Proclu s, acco rd in g to Proclu s’s Platonic Theology 1.1

ascribe to the idea o f the “Golden Chain.” 115 In the commentary on the Ti­ maeus, Proclus described the Hermaic chain as like a demiurgic emanation (σειρά) o f reason (λογισμός) and harmony (αρμονία).116 Such an emanation oc­ curred temporally, but not necessarily continuously, and was spatially lim­ ited.117 All learning (αγωγήν) hung from it.118 Produs’s philosophical narra­ tive presents a scheme o f a succession o f teachers, extended across time and space, ordained to appear in specific periods to act as guardians and reform­ ers o f philosophy when it was under threat.

Proclus, the Savior o f Philosophy Theodoret died around the year 460. Just around this time, the young Ma­ rinus, a Samaritan and native o f the town o f Neapolis, traveled to Athens.119 He joined a small circle o f philosophers around Proclus that included Isidore and Asclepiodotus. As his health began to fail, Proclus appointed and trained Marinus as his “deputy.” 120 Marinus continued in this capacity until his teach­ er’s death in 485, when he assumed leadership o f the Athenian school.121 Shortly after Proclus’s death, Marinus prepared a bios entitled Proclus, or On 115. For example, Damascius, Phil. hist. 98 E (Athanassiadi). 116. Proclus, In Tim. 41C (In Platonis Timaeum commentaria, ed. Ernest Diehl, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana [Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1965], 2:294). 117. For a discussion o f the metaphors o f the Golden Chain and the Hermaic Chain in the history o f the Neoplatonist school o f Athens, see Glucker, Antiochus, 306-15. Similar accounts (though with important differences) appear in the works o f both Hierocles (in Photius, Cod. 214, i73a32-4o), the head o f the competing Platonist school in Alexandria, and Augustine (Acad. 3.19.37-43). In the summary o f Hierocles o f Alexandria’s On Providence, Photius suggests that the term "holy race” was used among the Platonists to refer to a succession o f tradition from Ploti­ nus to Plutarch o f Athens, who was also the teacher o f Hierocles. The philosophers responsible for the periodic renewal o f philosophy and its transmission are considered as a race o f kin (γενεά). 118. Proclus, Ale. 196.21. 119. Flavia Neapolis (Shechem in Samaria) was also home to Justin Martyr (1 Apol. 1). Our main biographical sources for Marinus are the fragments o f Damascius’s Philosophical History and two notices in the Suda. According to Damascius (97 A [Athanassiadi, 236]), Marinus aban­ doned his Samaritan “innovation” for Greek philosophy. 120. Watts, City and School, 112-13. On the selection and training o f deputies as administra­ tive and teaching assistants in the fifth-century Athenian school, see ibid., 96-99. 121. The sources are confusing and suggest divisions and rivalry among Proclus’s students. The Codex o f Photius (352b 33-4) suggests that Proclus chose "successors.” Damascius indicates that Proclus had considered several candidates in addition to Marinus: Asclepiodotus, to whom Proclus dedicated his commentary on the Parmenides, Asclepiodotus’s son-in-law and name­ sake, and Isidore (Damascius’s teacher). W ith the choice narrowed to Marinus and Isidore, Isidore withdrew to Alexandria and returned to Athens only upon Proclus’s death (Damascius, Phil. hist. 125 B [Athanassiadi]). Marinus succeeded Proclus. Isidore would later accept an invi­ tation by Marinus to become a deputy scholarch in Marinus s row with Hegias (see Watts, City and School, 121-23). Both Damascius and the Suda depict a rivalry between Marinus and Isidore

Happiness,122 a work Henri-Dominique Saffrey and Alain-Philippe Segonds regarded as the "most important document on the history o f philosophical education at Athens in the fifth century.” 123 It not only provides a window into the circle o f the major figures of Athenian philosophy, but it also offers a view into the continuing competition over philosophy In the Vit. Proc., we find a small community of philosophers at Athens under internal and exter­ nal pressures, struggling within its own ranks and with other segments of the educated elite, including the officially sanctioned Christian teachers at Constantinople, and the civic administration o f Achaea .124 Hierocles o f Alexandria, also a student o f Plutarch, traced a lineage of philosophical descent in his work On Providence, whose members he regard­ ed as a "holy race” entrusted with preserving the doctrines o f Plato. It ap­ pears that both Hierocles and Proclus claimed authorized succession from Plutarch, and there may have been some competition between Athens and Alexandria in capitalizing on this heritage .125 Hierocles could do this by vir­ tue of the legitimation he received as a student o f Plutarch, but the school o f Athens would bolster its claim by moving to institutionalize Proclus’s suc­ cession through the inheritance o f material property (Plutarch’s house) and geographical stability in Athens, the birthplace o f philosophy.126 The tenth-century Suda refers to Marinus’s text as βίον Πρόκλου (Suda, and are partial to the latter. Isidore outshines Marinus, who is accused o f poor understanding o f philosophical texts and being unorthodox in his ideas. See for example, Damascius, Phil. hist. 38 A; 97 f [Athanassiadi]); and Suda, v. Marinus. For a discussion o f the complexities o f the suc­ cession, see Thiologie platonicienne (Saffrey and Westerink, i:xxiv-xxvi) and Glucker, Antiochus, 155 n.122, who suggests the selection o f a senior and junior diadochos, who served simultane­ ously. Athanassiadi (The Philosophical History, 42-48, and esp. nn. 73 and 74) interprets Isidore's "honorary” election as conferring upon him and others a status as "freelance diadochus,” that is, “ members o f the ‘sacred race’ who fulfilled the requirements o f holiness and learning expect­ ed from a leader o f the pagan community.” These honorary diadochoi could teach in Athens or elsewhere. None o f our sources explicitly explain the mode o f election, but it was most likely by appointment o f the sitting diadochos. For a detailed and convincing reconstruction o f events surrounding the succession o f Proclus, see Watts, City and School, 112-18. 122. Π Ρ Ο Κ Λ Ο Σ Η ΠΕΡΙ ΕΤ Δ Α ΙΜ Ο Ν ΙΑ : The entire manuscript tradition agrees on this ti­ tle (Henri D. Saffrey, Alain-Philippe Segonds, and Concetta Luna, “ Introduction,” in Marinus o f Neapolis, Proclus, ou Sur le bonheur, ed. and trans. Henri D. Saffrey, Alain-Philippe Segonds, and Concetta Luna [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001], xli). 123. Saffrey et al., in Marinus, Proclus, xvi. 124. On the internal politics o f the Athenian philosophical community, especially under the leadership o f Marinus, who came into conflict with Theagenes, a major benefactor and politi­ cal supporter o f the school, and his son Hegias, who later succeeded Marinus, see Watts, City and School, 118 23. 125. On Hierocles and the school o f Alexandria, see Watts, City and School, 205-10. 126. See Pin)tius, Cod. 214, 173a u 40.

198), and Marinus himself alludes to his project as “recording his [i.e., Proclus’s] life” (άναγράφειν ... τον εκείνου βίον).127 It bears the traits o f elegy and panegyric in its literary structure. The narrative is arranged according to a scale o f virtues.128 The notion o f a progressive scale o f virtues according to which the soul attains divinization went back to Plotinus, who maintained that the “political virtues” outlined by Plato in the Republic (prudence, tem­ perance, courage, and justice) were not sufficient as such to achieve likeness to God.129 He suggested that these virtues existed at another, higher level, a purificatory level, that would aid in the liberation of the soul from the body, while the political virtues at a lower level simply helped in the regulation of the behavior o f the body. Subsequent Neoplatonists would build upon this system o f classification, always with some variation, and perhaps with a vi­ sion o f cultivating a broader political philosophy.130 Only Marinus, Damascius, and Olympiodorus (and later Psellus and Eustratius o f Nicaea) speak of “theurgic” or “hieratic” virtues. Proclus’s life is a paradigmatic textbook o f the six degrees o f virtue, per­ fected and visible in the activities o f the man.131 Marinus, therefore, formal­ ly combined the bios with an exposition o f philosophy. There was nothing quite like it before, and Marinus seemed aware o f this.132 The philosopher’s life served as a theoretical and practical guide to philosophy. The life demon­ strates the happiness o f the blessed man (ευδαιμονία του μακαρίου) and philos­ opher, who struggled to preserve the philosophy o f Plato and the worship of the gods at a time when Christianization was beginning to affect Athens more substantially.133 The bios, therefore, is also an expository apology for the philosophical system o f the Athenian school and a codification o f the sta127. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 1 (Boissonade, 1). 128. H .J. Blumenthal (“ Marinus' Life o f Proclus: Neoplatonist Biography," Byzantion 54 [1984]: 473) considers the w ork a modified biography that is “uniquely Neoplatonic" in its struc­ ture according to a “scala virtutum. ” Safffey et al. (Proclus, xlii-xliv) assign the w ork to the genre o f “eloge funebre” that follows the “ codified” rules o f the genre laid out by Menander. 129. Plotinus, Enn. 1.2. See also O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 40-44. 130. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 132-39. 131. For a fuller discussion, see Saffrey et al., Proclus, lxix-xcviii. 132. Saffrey et al. (Proclus, xlvi) consider Marinus’s plan an innovation that built upon stan­ dard literary conventions and topoi. Marinus contrasts his thematic approach to other chrono­ logical approaches to biographical writings. See Vit. Proc. 2. 133. Plotinus (Enn. 1.4) taught that happiness was attained through contemplation. Mari­ nus expanded this definition to include the possession o f internal and external goods. See Vit. Proc. 2. Marinus describes Proclus as μακάριος in several places, for example, Vit. Proc. 3,17, 21,36 (Boissonade, 2 ,14 ,17 , and 28). Aristotle described the life (βίος) o f the gods as μακάριος. See Eth. Nic. 10.8.1178 b 26.

tus o f Proclus as legitimate and exemplary head o f a community developing an institutional identity. The portrait o f Proclus as an emanation and incarnation o f all the vir­ tues, elected and summoned by the gods to be the savior o f philosophy in Athens, is the production o f a small beleaguered segment o f the educated elite, under the intense pressure o f changing cultural, intellectual, and politi­ cal tides, attempting to claim a position as the legitimate heirs and producers o f intellectual culture. The bios bears the generic marks o f a literary produc­ tion acting as arena o f cultural competition. Proclus embodied a philosophi­ cal system that allowed him to enjoy an affinity and intimacy with the gods. He also received a divine vocation in service o f this philosophy. His exper­ tise in philosophical knowledge was a result o f his natural abilities formed by formal study. A product o f the institutions o f paideia, he in turn repro­ duced these institutions through his own pedagogic and compositional activ­ ities. Embracing a way o f life that included regular ascetic and ritual practic­ es, he demonstrated mastery over the passions, strength o f soul, and union with the divine. Finally, as a teacher he nourished a fledgling community and stood aloft as an icon o f its continued existence and mission to safeguard phi­ losophy. Marinus’s Vit. Proc. provides a portrait o f a man o f innate and in­ spired wisdom called to be the savior o f the Athenian philosophical tradition. Born in Byzantium 134 to parents o f Lycian origin, Proclus was following in the footsteps o f his father, a lawyer in the imperial capital, when the gods intervened. Though Marinus never makes the claim that the gods intervened in Proclus’s conception, they oversee his birth and take a great interest as nurturers and guides in his coming to be. The unnamed tutelary goddess of Byzantium, the one who would call him to a career in philosophy, “receives him” (υποδέχεται) at his birth and “is his midwife” (μαιεύεται), the very “rea­ son for his existence” (αύτώ τού είναι γέγονεν αιτία). Such terminology appears in other Neoplatonic works to describe the activity o f the Demiurge in caus­ al, creative, and providential roles.135 ProclusJs devotional practices centered around the Great Mother, Asklepios, 134. Marinus never calls the city "Constantinople,” opting instead for the pre-Christian name "Byzantium.” See Marinus, Vit. Proc. 6; 9 (Boissonade, 5 and 7). Damascius, who refers to the city ten times in his Phil, hist., never calls it Constantinople (Saflrey et al., Proclus, 78, n.7). 135. Mark Edwards identifies the goddess as Rhea (Neoplatonic Saints, 66 n .66). Saffrey et al. opt for Athena (Proclus, 123 n.3). Marinus will use one o f these phrases (αίτιος αύτοίς τού είναι γενόμενος) to describe Proclus’s relationship with his philosopher companions, their spouses and children, as well as his own extended household, including slaves. Porphyry (Vit. Plot. 9) de­

Apollo, and Athena. As a result, they play a large role in his biography. The de­ votion of Proclus to the cult of the Great Mother, also identified as Rhea and Cybele, is known from a variety of sources. The goddess periodically appears in the philosopher s extensive corpus o f writings, including hymns and a lost tract entitled On the Mother of the Gods.136 Marinus writes that Proclus partici­ pated in the monthly rites of the Great Mother and “celebrated her festivals ... and observed her rites with great enthusiasm .” 137 The discovery o f the socalled House of Proclus, a fifth-century residential complex excavated on the southern slope of the Acropolis in Athens, and believed to be the home o f Plu­ tarch of Athens, Syrianus, and then Proclus, could support this. A sculpted re­ lief thought to depict the Mother o f the Gods was found on the site, located in a small shrine-like room flanking a larger apsidal room .138 Excavators also un­ covered the “grave” o f a sacrificed piglet buried whole, another possible con­ nection to the cult. The connection between Proclus’s early life and local cults is expressed in his devotion to Apollo, who also had a hand in the formation o f the phi­ losopher. The relationship between Apollo and philosophers extended back to Socrates: Plato was said to have shared Apollo’s birthday, and the god also figures prominently in the bioi o f Pythagoras and Plotinus. Marinus reports that Proclus’s parents left Byzantium after their son’s birth and returned to their native Lycia, to the city o f Xanthus, the location of a shrine to Apollo’s mother, Leto, who also appears in Proclus’s life.139 He considered this prodi­ gious: “For it was, I think, necessary that one who was going to be a leader in every branch o f knowledge should be nurtured and instructed by the leader of the Muses.” 140 Proclus possessed a “natural dearness to the gods” (τό θεοφιλές συγγενές).141 In this respect, we are reminded o f the orientation o f Constantine (whom Eusebius described as θεοφιλής) and Julian to divinely ordained missions. Like Julian, Proclus was singled out from his youth for a divine mission to save Greek culture, including philosophy and the cults of the gods, from a men­ acing Christianization. The goddess o f Byzantium called him in a dream, ex­ scribed a similar rapport between Plotinus and his community o f "dependents.” For relevant passages in Proclus, see Saffrey et al., Proclus, 123 n.3 136. Reale, Proclo, 23. 137. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 6 (Boissonade, 6); trans. Edwards, 66. 138. Karivieri, "T h e “House o f Proclus,’ ” 118. 139. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 7. 140. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 6 (Boissonade, 6); trans. Edwards, 67. 141. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 7 (Boissonade, 6).

horting her chosen son to pursue philosophy.142 He is explicidy instructed to leave Byzantium, to abandon his aspirations toward a career in oratory, in or­ der to visit the schools o f Athens. Proclus’s journey to Athens is a procession o f sorts, with the “guardians o f philosophy,” the gods and daimones, accom­ panying him to his new home.143 His desertion o f Constantinople for Athens is demonstrative o f the difficulties a Greek intellectual would have in a city with a newly established Christian academy. The so-called university o f Con­ stantinople was established by Theodosius II in 425. Proclus would have left the city around 430.144 Through the pregnant language o f divine apparitions and callings, Marinus expresses the Athenian intellectuals’ rejection o f the Christian institutional monopoly on education in the capital. His rejection is made more poignant by his relative silence on the matter. Asklepios also looms large in Produs’s story. The localized center o f the authority o f Plutarch’s pedagogical circle, his home located on the slopes o f the Acropolis, was in close proximity to the shrine o f Asklepios, making Pro­ clus, quite literally, a neighbor o f the god. His relationship with the savior god is one o f θεοφιλία (affinity) and οίκειότης (familiarity), just as his relation­ ship with the Great Mother.145 Asklepios appeared to Proclus during times o f illness,146 and appeared to praise the philosopher, calling Proclus “the or­ nament o f the city.” 147 The philosopher, like the god, became worthy o f the title “savior” (σωτήρ) after his intervention on behalf o f Asklepigeneia, the great-granddaughter of Plutarch. The philosopher’s visit to the Asklepieion in Athens to pray for the restoration o f her health comprised one o f the phi­ losopher’s "theurgic activities” (θεουργικά ενεργήματα). By the time o f Justin­ ian, this Asklepieion had been converted into a church.148 Athena also numbers among Proclus’s divine associates. Following the re­ moval o f her statue from the Parthenon by “those who move even the im­ movable” (i.e., Christians), the goddess appears to him in a dream, urging 142. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 6; 9. Cf. Julian, Or. 7. 143. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 10 (Boissonade, 8). 144. Reale, Proclo, 5. On the “university” at Constantinople, see Alan Cameron, “The Em­

press and the Poet: Paganism and Politics at the Court of Theodosius II,” in Later Greek Litera­ ture, ed. JohnJ. Winkler and Gordon Williams, Yale Classical Studies 27 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 285-87. 145. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 30 (Boissonade, 24). On Proclus’s relationship with the Great Mother, see Vit. Proc. 6. 146. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 30-3T. 147. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 32 (Boissonade, 24): 1 Ιρόκλος ό κόσμος τής πολιτείας. 148. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 29. Marinus remarks that the site was still intact at the time, perhaps alluding to the later closure o f the temple. See also frantz, l.dtc Antiquity, 92.

him to prepare his house: “For the mistress o f Athens desires to live with you .” 149 This translocation o f the goddess would not have been very far. In terms o f geographical proximity, Marinus locates Proclus’s residence just down the Acropolis from the Parthenon, near the shrine o f Asklepios and the Theater o f Dionysus.150 Marinus notes that Proclus’s house was “visi­ ble” from the Acropolis, and was thus a true neighbor also to the “Mistress of Athens.” Thus the residential and pedagogical center o f the diadochos and his school were located at the heart o f the symbolic landscape o f Athens. With the traditional cults under siege, Proclus’s home became the new temple o f Athena and cultic center o f the city. Proclus is the philosopher par excellence and an exemplary human being whose cultivation o f wisdom and virtue brought him closer to the life o f the gods. Marinus describes Proclus’s scholarly and cultic practices as evidence o f his affinity for the divine and exhibits them as a paradigmatic way o f life for other philosophers seeking divinization. In particular, he singles out Pro­ clus’s textual practices—the study, interpretation, and composition o f texts. Proclus is not only an expert in the doctrines o f both Greek and “barbarian” authors, but he crafted a systematic philosophy grounded in the work o f his Platonist predecessors. Marinus calls him a “father o f doctrines” because o f his original contributions to philosophical discussion, including the composi­ tion o f hymns.151 Marinus characterizes Proclus’s way o f life as φιλοπονία, a “love o f la­ bor.” 152 His ascetic practices result from his courage, one o f the contempla­ tive virtues, which Plotinus had defined as the desire for impassibility (apatheia).153 Proclus regulated his diet, abstaining from meat (except when a sacrifice necessitated his participation) and fasting on certain feasts.154 Thus, his "labor” also included participation in the cults o f the gods, even though legally prohibited. This included visiting the tombs o f the important dead of Athens—the heroes, the philosophers, and all the souls o f the departed—on appointed days155 and commemorating the birthdays of the “founders,” Pla­ 149. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 30 (Boissonade, 24); trans. Edwards, 105. Trombley (Hellenic Religion, 1:310-11) speculates that this occurred around 484, when the special status afforded to the Athe­ nian temples by Theodosius in 382 would have been revoked. 150. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 29.

151. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 23 (Boissonade, 18).

152. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 22 (Boissonade, 18). 153. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 25, citing Plotinus, Enn. 1.2.19. 154. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 19. 155. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 36.

to and Socrates.156 As a result o f his labors o f mind and body, Produs suc­ ceeded in achieving a virtuous symmetry o f body and soul that was visible to those who knew him. Marinus describes this virtuous symmetry—the ac­ tivity o f his contemplative nous—as a “living light” (φώς ζωτικόν) radiating from his body.157 His students witnessed this especially when he was teach­ ing. One o f his associates, Rufinus, saw light emanating from the philoso­ pher’s head, prompting him to do obeisance to his teacher.158 Christian biographers also praised the “labors” o f their subjects. The φιλοπονία o f Produs resembles that o f Origen, another ascetic scholar, who battled the passions through study, fasting, limitation o f sleep, and sleeping on the ground .159 Both men lived the philosophical life in the contexts o f study and cult. As has already been noted, Christian biographers abandoned this academic model very early. Instead, the alleged self-castrating Origen, desirous for martyrdom, would have more in common with the later “labor­ ers” o f the Christian biographical tradition, as the focus moved more toward the unschooled ascetic. Theodoret could invoke the way o f life o f Symeon the Stylite as an example o f both φιλοσοφία and φιλοπονία,160 the life o f ex­ treme regulation o f his body atop a column as achieving the impassibility o f the soul.161 In the texts o f their biographers, both Symeon and Produs stood as qualified competitors o f the exemplary life. We see the persistence o f vo­ cabulary and values, but the transformation o f definition and location. The extreme physical mortification of Symeon supplanted the leisure o f study and a regimented diet. The one was the labor o f a poor uneducated Syrian provincial; the other was the work o f an Athenian intellectual.162 In the field o f competition, each was “philosopher” to his respective supporters. When discussing Proclus’s acquisition of his philosophical nature, Mari­ nus strikes a careful balance. On the one hand, Produs possessed from birth the “physical virtues,” the first rung on the scale o f virtues, the “level o f soul specifically concerned with the body and its operations.” 163 It is not surpris­ ing that these virtues were innately present in their perfect form from Pro156. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 23. 157. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 3 (Boissonade, 3); trans. Edwards, 62. 158. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 23.

159. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.4.9.

160. Theodoret, Phil. hist. 26.1.

161. Theodoret, Phil. hist. pro. 2.

162. Blumenthal, “ Life o f Proclus," 491. 163. Blumenthal, "Life o f Proclus," 482. The physical virtues related to the keenness o f the senses (especially sight and hearing, given for the purpose o f philosophy), bodily strength, heauty, and health (as proper cooperation o f the parts o f the body). A perfection in physical ap­ pearance as an external manifestation ol internal virtue is also seen in Athanasius, Vit. Ant. 14.

clus’s birth, “spontaneously and without instruction (άδιδάκτως).” 164 Marinus includes Proclus’s horoscope as a mathematical and astrological demonstra­ tion o f Proclus’s virtuous character and an indication o f the status o f his soul among the first to choose their station before embodiment.165 These natural abilities facilitated the cultivation o f the greater virtues through the choices he made in his educational career. Paideia still commanded a central position in the pursuit o f philosophy, and Marinus lauds Proclus’s achievements in the spheres o f Greek educa­ tion. “Uninstructed” (άδιδάκτως) only insofar as his natural virtues were con­ cerned, Proclus acquired an impressive educational pedigree that included some o f the most prestigious centers o f Greek learning of his day.166 His love for learning (τό ευμαθές) and study is tied both to the “fecundity” (γόνιμον) o f his soul and the “urbanity” (τό άστείον) o f his social relations.167 Proclus’s virtue resulted from both natural constitution and training through imita­ tion, study, and practice. Marinus tied the philosopher’s achievement o f com­ plete virtue to the standard means and locations o f Greek education to argue for the necessity o f these: Proclus would have possessed a degree o f virtue without study, but it would have remained incomplete without the knowl­ edge he had gained from studying texts and associating with particular teach­ ers. The context in which the true philosopher operated was the aristocratic and urban society o f paideia.168 His view o f the world and the formation of his professional skills were inculcated within the conservative structures of Greek education, still operating, though under great stress. He nurtured the other virtues— ethical, political, purificatory, contemplative, and theurgic— through study and practice, eventually achieving the heights of philosophy in an equal possession o f all the virtues beyond normal human capacity.169 His 164. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 4 (Boissonade, 4); trans. Edwards, 63. Marinus, referring to Resp. 6.48431-48735, further remarks that Proclus’s virtues were identical with “what Plato proposes as the elements o f the philosophical nature.” In Proclus’s narrative o f philosophical history in the prologue to the Theol. plat., he remarked that the elected transmitters o f philosophy shared a nature similar to Plato's. 165. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 35. 166. The Parisian manuscript gives the alternate reading αύτοδιδάκτως, “self-taught.” Saffrey

et al. admit that both terms appear in other writings coupled with the term αύτοφυώς. They set­ tle on “uninstructed” primarily because the term "self-taught” is more rarely used in Neopla­ tonic writings. See Saffrey et al., Proclus, 74 n.7. 167. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 5 (Boissonade, 5). According to Bieler (Θ ΕΙΟΣ A N H P , 1:35), learning comes naturally and with ease to the divine man. 168. Fowden, “ Pagan H oly Man,” 48. 169. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 34. Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1102 as.

death would mean the deprivation o f the light o f philosophy from the earth, as the portent of an eclipse suggested shortly before he died.170 Marinus points out two factors that contributed to Proclus s decision to take up philosophy: his eventual disdain for rhetorical and legal studies and the call o f the goddess. His abandonment o f the educational milieu at Con­ stantinople took him first to Alexandria. In the end, both centers are judged inadequate for philosophical education. In Alexandria, Proclus studied the works o f Aristotle with an Olympiodorus (not the famous sixth-century philosopher) and mathematics with Hero. The skill and complexity o f his teacher’s thinking made it difficult for students to follow, except Proclus, o f course, who was able to master his teacher’s lectures, repeating them ver­ batim.171 In fact, Proclus mastered much o f Aristotelian logic on his own. A more serious rupture with Alexandria occurred one day in the classroom o f an unnamed teacher, which led him to Athens: “Having reaped as much from their seminars as they were able to offer, he thought one day, in the course o f someone’s lecture, that the interpretation being advanced was un­ worthy o f the philosopher’s intention. Thus, conceiving contempt for these institutions, and remembering at the same time the divine vision and exhor­ tation in Byzantium, he set off for Athens.” 172 This is a key moment in Marinus’s narrative. From this point on, Proclus begins to fulfill his divine mis­ sion: "For in order that the succession from Plato [ή Πλάτωνος διαδοχή] might be preserved without adulteration or impurity, the gods were leading him to­ wards the custodian o f philosophy.” 173 Proclus now undertakes another relocation. His first, from Constantinople to Lycia, represented a move away from the Christian centers of learning; his move from Alexandria to Athens represented a move away from the Greek educational institutions of Alexandria because of their failure to transmit true Platonism. If the gods called Proclus to Athens in order to preserve a pure and unadulterated Platonism, it must be that the Platonism o f Alexandria did not succeed in this. Proclus’s arrival in Athens was a matter o f the utmost, di­ 170. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 37.

171. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 9.

172. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 10 (Boissonade, 8); trans. Edwards, 70. It has been debated whether “ the philosopher” is Plato or Aristotle. Saffrey contends that while in most Neoplatonic writ­ ings Plato is “the philosopher,” the context o f the passage has Proclus in the midst o f studying Aristotelian logic, not yet having begun his formal study o f Platonism, which will occur under the masters o f Athens. See Saffrey et al., Proclus, 93 n.6. 173. Interestingly enough, the only other author who uses the phrase ή Πλάτωνος διαδοχή is Eusebius. See, for example, Pmcp. cv. 14.2.1.

vine importance: the διαδοχή o f Plato was endangered. Proclus was called to "preserve,” or “save” it. The term διαδοχή had been used in philosophical lit­ erature, first to denote an official succession o f teachers, for example at the Academy; and in later usage, it acquired a more diluted meaning o f a “philo­ sophical tradition,” with no necessary tie to an institution.174 The language o f "successions” and “successors” began to be employed by the Athenian school, according to Glucker, so as to invoke the antiquarian language o f the original Academy and to create lines o f relation with the past.175 Certainly Marinus’s presentation o f the “succession” at Athens is more than a simple “tradition.”

Marinus and the School Proclus Left Behind: The Bios as Social Charter Marinus’s bios reveals a sustained employment o f kinship language among the successors o f the Athenian school that constituted an element o f the consolidation and codification o f the practices and authority o f the school, suggesting a move toward “routinization,” that is, the development o f instru­ ments necessary for institutionalization.176 The διαδοχή itself is described as Produs’s “father’s inheritance” (κλήρον), o f which Proclus was the rightful heir. Here, presumably his “father” is Plato .177 Moreover, the community o f philosophers at Athens—Plutarch,178 Syrianus,179 and Proclus—were literally members o f the same household, taking up residence in a villa on the slope o f the Acropolis. Upon meeting Proclus, Plutarch was so impressed with the young man’s desire for the philosophical life, his zeal, and his aptitude for study that he designated him a “son” (τέκνον) and a “sharer o f his hearth” 174. Glucker, Antiochus, 152. During the second century, the term began to be applied to the transmission o f the faith through the office o f bishops in Christian circles.

175. Ibid., 153- 54· 176. Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction, 190. 177. This is the interpretation given by Safiffey et al. (Proclus, 95 n.13). Edwards takes it to re­ fer to Proclus’s father, Patricius, and the "inheritance” as the "reception” due him at Athens as son o f a well-respected lawyer. In context, I find Saffrey’s interpretation more compelling. 178. Proclus's brief association with “the great Plutarch” (less than two years) is recounted in Vit. Proc. 12. His preliminary studies include w ork in both Aristotle and Plato with Plutarch; but it is Syrianus who initiates him into the "m ystogogy" o f Platonist studies. 179. Proclus encounters Syrianus first, who was himself a student o f Plutarch’s at the time. The influence o f Syrianus upon Proclus is evident in the latter’s work. Particularly in his com ­ mentary on Plato’s Timaeus, Proclus frequently cites Syrianus’s work on the dialogue. See Pro­ clus, In Tim. 1.20.27-28; 20.29; 50.14; 218.13; 241.4; 441.16; 441.17; 2.35.15; 105.29; 163.10; 218.21; 253.31; 3.15.15; 35.26; 38.13; 154.24; 247.30; 278.10. Proclus never cites Syrianus by name, but uses epithets such as “ our guide” (ήγεμών) and “ our teacher” (διδάσκαλος). Thus it is likely that the ήγεμών Proclus mentions in his historical narrative on the transmission o f Platonism in Theol. plat. 1.1, who received the purified tradition and passed it on to Proclus, is Syrianus and not Plutarch.

(όμοέστιον).180 Nearing death, Plutarch recommended Proclus to the care of his “successor” Syrianus, who received Proclus into his house (σύνοικον) as a “sharer” in the philosophical life. This is the most explicit description in the Vit. Proc. of the association o f the three philosophers Plutarch, Syrianus, and Proclus in kinship and household terms. In his own writings, Proclus calls Syrianus his “father” and Plutarch his “grandfather.”181 This is not simply a topos

o f the biography or the romantic rhetoric o f Marinus. Certainly the

language o f kinship, used as an expression o f the teacher-student relation­ ship, is not new. But here the conception o f this relationship is tied to an in ­ heritance

o f philosophy, a succession o f leadership (διαδοχή), and even to a real,

material inheritance of residential property .182 Analogous to Plato’s Academy, the school at Athens began to present itself as a legitimate “rooted” succes­ sion of philosophers. Even in death, the succession remained codified. Pro­ clus was buried with Syrianus. An epigram extolled the union and harmony o f the διαδοχή: “Proclus I was, by race a man o f Lycia, whom Syrianus fos­ tered here to become the successor to his own school. This is the common tomb which received the bodies o f both men; Oh may a single place be a portion o f both their souls.”183 Marinus affirmed Produs’s status as legitimate heir o f the διαδοχή through the lineage o f his ancestral teachers Plutarch and Syrianus. Genealogical ties extend also to the “founding fathers” o f the Platonic tradition. A moment o f rest at the “Socrateion,” a “holy place” dedicated to Socrates in the vicinity o f the Ilissos (also a shrine to Acheloos, Pan, and the Nymphs), and a drink o f the ‘Attic water” flowing there, typologically bind Proclus to Socrates and grant him a consecration by the icon o f Greek philosophy.184 The claim o f philosophical kinship, and thereby authority over the memory o f the found­ ing fathers, is further expressed through rites o f commemoration. Produs 18 0 . M a r in u s ,

Vit. Proc.

1 2 (B o is s o n a d e , 10 ). C f . P r o c lu s ,

1 8 1. F o r S y r ia n u s as " fa t h e r ” : P r o c lu s ,

In Tim.

In Parm. 10 5 8 .2 2 . M a r in u s , Vit. Proc. 29. M a r in u s , Vit. Proc. 3 6 (B o is s o n a d e ,

Farm.

2 .2 5 3 .3 1; 3 .3 5 - 3 6 ;

6 0 1 S. In remp.

2 .3 18 .4 . F o r P lu ta r c h as

π ρ οπά τω ρ, see 18 2 . 18 3.

2 9 ); tra n s. E d w a r d s , 113:

Πρόκλος έγώ γενόμην Λύκιος γένος, δν Συριανός Ένθάδ’ άμοιβόν έής θρέψε διδασκαλίης· Ξυνός δ’ άμφοτέρων οδε σώματα δέξατο τύμβος· Αϊθε δέ και ψυχάς χώρος έειςίελάχοι. ι 84·

According to one tradition, the monument was erected on the presumed location o f

the conversation between Phaedrus and Socrates (Plato, Phaedr. 230 B 5-8). By the fifth century, the site may have included a nymphaeum, exedra, and a stele with the name o f Socrates. See Ioannis N. Travlos, IHdonal Dictionary of Ancient Athens (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1980), 289; and Sallrey el ah, Ihoclus, y6 n.i.

annually celebrated the birthdays o f Socrates and Plato and visited the tombs o f the philosophers on the site o f the Academy (where Plato was buried).185 Marinus claimed similar privileges for himself as Proclus’s successor and pre­ sented his audience o f like-minded Athenian Platonists a portrait o f a grow­ ing institution, whose existence was owed to divine intervention. It emerged and thrived despite public opposition and suppression. Proclus was the face of hope. The words o f the gatekeeper o f the Acropolis to Proclus on his first arrival in Athens sum up for Marinus the destiny o f Proclus in history and in memory: “If you had not come, I was about to close up.” 186 Both in life and after death, Proclus remained the “common father” o f the community at Athens.187 As he never married or had children, his stu­ dents were his sons, his school their household. We are not told much about the exact composition of this Athenian community, nor given much indica­ tion o f how it operated. It seems to have included members o f the educat­ ed elite, such as Marinus and Isidore, who traveled from other intellectual centers to study with Proclus in Athens; members o f the family o f Plutarch o f Athens, such as his daughter Asklepigeneia and his grandson Archiadas; and perhaps some magistrates who acted as benefactors o f Proclus's com­ munity, for example Theagenes, a member o f the Athenian aristocracy and the senate o f Constantinople, whom Marinus describes as a “benefactor.” 188 Theagenes was also the husband o f Asklepigeneia, great-granddaughter o f Plutarch, and father o f Hegias, the successor o f Marinus.189 Thus, there was also an element o f blood kinship intertwined and active within the leader­ 185. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 23. That Plato’s tomb was located in the vicinity of the Academy is reported by Pausanias (Descr; 1.30.3), Diogenes Laertius (Lives 3.41), and Libanius (Or. 18.306). Of these, only Libanius reports any sort of ritual activity at the site by teachers and students of philosophy. 186. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 10 (Boissonade, 9); trans. Edwards, 72. 187. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 17. 188. Most o f our information on Theagenes comes from Damascius. Damascius describes Theagenes as a man o f noble birth and a benefactor o f “ some cities.” See Photius, Bibl. 257). He was also the patron o f teachers and doctors (Photius, Bibl. 157). Damascius (Phil. hist. 100 A [Athanassiadi, 244]) also complains that Theagenes was “hot tempered” (θυμοειδής), and gave into flattery, eventually lending his support to a certain party who propagated "new doctrines” (τα νέα αξιώματα) in opposition to the ancient εύσεβεία: “He separated himself from the Greeks

and from the most ancient ancestors__ He did not keep his former respect for philosophy, but he surrounded himself with philosophers in words, but flatterers in reality” (my translation). This appears to be an indication that Theagenes also supported Christian intellectuals at Ath­ ens. See Saffrey et al., Proclus, xxiv-xxvi and the following note. 189. Theagenes’s son Hegias (the great-great-grandson o f Plutarch) assumed the position o f diadochos after the death o f Marinus. Damascius (Phil. hist. 145 A [Athanassiadi, 318]) repre­

ship o f the school, as in the lineage constructions o f Gregory o f Nyssa, Eunapius, and Theodoret. Unlike Porphyry, who constantly reminded his audience o f his firsthand testimony, close personal relationship with Plotinus, and acquisition o f his master’s approval and books, Marinus assumed a more subtle role as omni­ scient author. Plotinus had designated no heir, leaving a void. Proclus had personally selected Marinus. By composing the Vit. Proc., Marinus both took charge o f the memory o f his teacher and predecessor and contributed to the historiography o f a delicate institution. Presumably, this piece would have been delivered in Athens to a small number o f students and colleagues. It is also possible that it was never publicly delivered, as the political climate at Athens was growing more hostile at the time. Marinus defiantly created an atmosphere of cultic worship by describing his oration using the terminol­ ogy o f sacrifice, which, at the time, was forbidden by imperial decree.190 He associates the delivery o f his oration to the “communion” (μετουσία) with the gods achieved in acts o f worship, thereby invoking the memory o f his pre­ decessor as a focal point o f union between himself as successor and his audi­ ence.191 Thus, the relationship that Marinus proposed was not simply one o f philosophical descent. By introducing metaphysical and theurgical concepts into the interpretation o f the function o f his text, Marinus also suggested that the text created a ritual environment that at once expounded fundamen­ tal doctrine, recalled the foundation o f the school, extolled Proclus as the agent o f the gods, and effected a union with the divine through the physi­ cal and intellectual practices o f proclaiming and contemplating the written words. Marinus also appears within the narrative at significant moments in Proclus’s career. He first appears in chapter 20, as a witness to Proclus’s final sick­ ness. He joins with his fellow students in chanting hymns to relieve the suf­ sents his term o f leadership as a period when philosophy was “ disdained” (καταφρονήθεισαν) in Athens. In another passage (145 B), Damascius intimates that Hegias compromised philosophy under the pressure o f Christians— whom Saffrey (Proclus, xxvii) identifies with the family o f his wife: Hegias felt compelled to conduct certain practices in secret or to modify them to suit those around him. Cf. Athanassiadi, The Philosophical History, 319 nn. 381 and 382. 190. See Marinus, Vit. Proc. i. 191. Iamblichus (De mysteriis, 1.8) regards communion with the gods as occurring in their in­ fusion within the human realm. He argues that those who banish the divine from the human world, setting them apart and declaring that the divine does not mingle with the human (a principle maintained by Plato), endanger the temple rites and theurgy. Thus, sacrifice for Iam­ blichus was a way to communion.

fering o f their teacher. As for his relationship with Proclus, he encouraged his teacher to compose an exegetical work on the Orphic hymns—a proposal Proclus refused. But a persistent Marinus tricked him by asking him to write comments in the margins o f one o f Syrianus’s texts: “and when he had made his notes on the margin o f the commentaries, we made a single collation o f them all, and the result was that there were many lines o f notes and com­ ments by him on Orpheus.” 19219 3Marinus’s strongest presence in the text, how­ ever, is as the interpreting author. Periodic injections o f “I think” and “I be­ lieve” assign interpretations to Produs’s deeds that concur with Marinus’s overall program o f interpreting the philosopher’s life according to his scheme o f virtues.

Athens on the Periphery I do not know why [the descendents of Socrates] shudder and fear the agoras ... and they do not suffer themselves to peek outside their couches and secluded corners. 193 The Greek orator Themistius had chided his colleagues who chose the route of insularity in the face of growing Christian dominance. This insu­ larity had been characterized by Garth Fowden as a conscious “drift towards marginality,” a disinterest in world affairs, and preference for noninvolve­ ment.194 The work o f Dominic O’Meara has challenged this picture. He ar­ gues that political philosophy retained an important place and function in late ancient Platonist thought, one that brought to bear “a political science for the development o f political structures allowing and promoting the ‘po­ litical’ virtues other souls should acquire in order to reach the Good.” 195 In this view, the philosopher is one who ascends in pursuit o f his own divinization, then descends to lead others for the sake o f the common good. Yet, the philosophers o f fifth-century Athens had little role in any aspect o f political life outside their city, while their Christian equivalents, the bishops, often had 192. Marinus, Vit. Proc. 27 (Boissonade, 22); trans. Edwards, 99. Here we are reminded o f Porphyry’s urging Plotinus to commit his lectures to writing. Plotinus also was hesitant but gave in to his students’ requests. 193. Themistius, Or. 2 8 ,34id (Orationes quae supersunt, ed. Henricus Schenkt, Glanville Downey, and Albert F. Norman, 3 vols., Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana [Leipzig: Teubner, 1965-74], 2:170; m y translation). 194. Fowden, “ Pagan H oly Man,” 54. 195. O ’Meara, Platonopolis, 199.

influence far beyond their geographical limits. This was due in part to exter­ nal circumstances, the legal and social forms o f marginalization imposed on Greek religious and intellectual practices. It was also a response o f resistance, a decision to remain insulated, not because o f resignation or disinterest, but in order to mold and preserve a tradition that they believed replicated the spirit o f classical, pre-Christian philosophical and religious life. Theodoret’s Religious History and Marinus’s Life of Proclus demonstrate how biographical literature functioned as arenas o f cultural competition, re­ flecting and directing transformations in philosophical thought, pedagogic authority, and philosophical history. In the context o f ancient education, and especially in the philosophical field o f advanced, specialized knowledge, a vi­ able pedagogical institution had to lay claim to legitimate, recognized au­ thority that could ensure its continued reproduction through the next gen­ eration o f students formed by its teachers and tradition. The literature o f the late Athenian succession o f Platonists, such as the Vit. Proc., expressed a lo­ calized and budding school, unable to grow sufficiently to be or remain com­ petitive. The school o f Proclus, located in Athens, asserted exclusive legitimacy to the heritage o f Plato, even in relation to Greek intellectuals elsewhere, for ex­ ample Alexandria. Though fragmentation among groups of intellectuals was nothing new, without a structural or ideological relationship among these scattered communities, and without a unified front of cooperation to pro­ tect their interests, they lost their voice. Christians, too, were also plagued by internal divisions, theological controversies, and ecclesial fragmentation in the fifth century. Yet, Christian churches and leaders were able to articu­ late and act upon relations among the local churches that to varied degrees fostered a sense o f “communion,” commonness among diverse and scattered local communities—under the patriarchates and in the establishment of geo­ graphical ecclesiastical regions that mirrored the provincial and regional boundaries of the empire. The Christian evaluation o f the Greek philosophical tradition pushed the significance o f Athens to the periphery, mapping the geographical ex­ tension o f philosophical centers to other parts o f the empire. Building upon the historical work o f Eusebius and the biographical contributions o f Atha­ nasius, Theodoret invited both Christians and Greeks to “see” philosophy where they would never expect to discover it and to hear in the words of scripture and Plato descriptions o f a gospel philosophy. The exemplary lives

o f Christian philosophers, drawn from the diverse social strata o f Syrian soci­ ety, exhibited the extent and fruition o f “natural virtue” found in those who trained body and soul through asceticism, catechesis, and the sacraments of the Church. The Lady o f Athens had sought refuge in the home o f the phi­ losopher Proclus. Her sojourn there would be temporary. She would have to search for a new home.

Epilogue

In an article entitled “The Last Days o f the Academy at Athens” Alan Cameron wrote, “Even those who know nothing else o f Justinian know that he closed the Academy at Athens in A. D. 529.” 1 Many consider this an event that marked the final blow to Neoplatonist philosophy in antiquity. However, like the idea o f the “fall o f Rome,” the events surrounding the “closure” o f the ‘Academy” are much less clear than the romantic history woven by the historians of previous eras. To say that the ‘Academy” was closed is to pre­ sume that the institution founded by Plato continued to function as an insti­ tution for some nine hundred years, or that the school founded by Plutarch in the fifth century CE was somehow a “reopening” o f Plato’s Academy. In fact, the ancient sources do not mention the Academy or the closure of a specific school. John Malalas wrote that in 529, during the consulship o f De­ cius, Justinian sent an edict to Athens that “no one should teach philosophy [μηδένα διδάσκειν φιλοσοφίαν] nor interpret astronomy nor in any city should there be lots cast using dice.” 2 This notice has raised several important his­ torical questions regarding the motivation, extent, and impact of this impe­ rial order. According to Joelle Beauchamp, the edict issued a general prohibi­ tion on the teaching o f philosophy in the city o f Athens.3 If this was the case, we are then led to ask whether all teachers, regardless o f religious commit­ ment, Greek or Christian, were prohibited from teaching philosophy in Ath­ ens; and, if so, what would have been the intent o f completely depriving the city o f Athens o f the philosophical profession. Gunnar Hallstrom has argued that Justinian’s target was the city o f Athens and not simply the Greek philos­ ophers who taught there. According to this view, the intention was “educa­ 1. Alan Cameron, “The Last Days o f the Academ y at Athens,” 7. 2. Malalas, Chronicle 18.47; trans. Watts, City and School, 131. 3. See Joelle Beauchamp, “ Le philosophe et le joueur, la date de la ‘fermeture de l’ecole d’Athenes,” Melanges Gilbert Dagron: Travauxet Memoires 14 (2002): 21-35.

tional reform” that would have shifted the centers o f learning elsewhere, to Constantinople and Alexandria.4 More convincing, in my opinion, is the view that Justinian intended to shut down the school o f Damascius, who, sometime between 500 and 520, had become diadochos o f the Neoplatonic school established by Plutarch o f Athens.5 A restructuring o f the provincial administration o f Greece placed more power into the hands o f local Christian leaders, leaving the school vul­ nerable to what Watts has called a "regional response” against the activities o f Damascius, his associates, and his students.6 Despite its own internal poli­ tics and conflicts with Christian civic and intellectual leaders, the school of Athens, led by the likes of Syrianus, Proclus, and Marinus, had been able to sustain itself as a small but significant institution that continued to attract stu­ dents. The political actions taken in 529 and the years following may suggest that under the leadership of Damascius, the school experienced increased prominence and influence, attracting the attention o f an emperor striving to achieve a unity o f religious practice and theological expression.7 The stricter measures mandated in Cod. Just. 1.5.18.4 and 1.11.10.2 resemble the attempts at educational reform instituted by Julian almost two centuries earlier. Now the “unholy [άνοσίων] Greeks” were forbidden to teach their “madness.” The youth were to be taught nothing but Christian orthodoxy. The consequenc­ es o f defying Justinian’s policy were much harsher than in the time o f Ju ­ lian: those who continued to teach without being baptized would not be paid from public funds and risked exile and the confiscation o f their property— and the philosophers in Athens taught out o f their homes. If we consider these events o f the sixth century from the perspective o f cultural competition and pedagogical reform, we can see several trends. First, the establishment o f a Christian orthodoxy in line with the Chalcedonian definition o f 451 as the basis o f official educational and philosophical curricula reflects the arrival o f Christian pedagogues to the position o f domi­ nance, securely seated as the determiners o f educational reforms. This is not 4. Gunnar Hallstrom, “The Closing o f the Neoplatonic School in A. D. 529,” in Post-Herulian Athens: Aspects of Life and Culture in Athens, A.D. 267-529, ed. P. Castren (Helsinki: Suomen Ateenaninstituutin saatio, 1994), 158. 5. Athanassiadi, The Philosophical History, 48. Watts provides a fuller discussion in City and School, 128-38. 6. Watts, City and School, 129-31. 7. Athanassiadi, Damascius, 45.

to overlook the dissent that would continue to define the theological divi­ sions among Christians. Second, the rise to dominance occurred not simply through the discursive practices and exchanges o f the philosophical profes­ sion, but with the imposition o f political policy. Teachers and schools were now legally bound to comply or risk losing their income and property.8 Fi­ nally, the centuries-long negotiation o f the Greek philosophical heritage that had begun among the rival interpreters o f Plato was dramatically redefined by the participation o f Christian newcomers who, often under threat to their lives, claimed a place in the philosophical field. By the sixth century, when professional survival meant being baptized, Greek intellectuals were com­ pelled to create and defend their own pedagogical spaces. It was difficult and dangerous to be a Greek intellectual. For this reason, Damascius and several of his companions fled to Persia in 531.9 During the final stage o f Athenian Platonism, Damascius wrote the Philo­ sophical History (sometimes called the Life of Isidore).10 The work is known to us only through scattered (but numerous) fragments and testimonies (mainly from Photius), and reveals the vicissitudes o f the philosophers o f Alexandria and Athens, at times victims o f Christian persecution and at times their own worst enemy. Damascius’s purpose was to rewrite the history o f philosophy once again and to articulate a philosophical orthodoxy safeguarded by the Athenian school. He at once distances himself and the school from Proclus and his immediate successors (who, according to Damascius, had strayed from a proper Iamblichan interpretation o f Plato) and focuses the account on his beloved teacher Isidore, as the guarantor o f philosophical orthodoxy. He thus follows the philosophical narrative o f Porphyry, identifying the ori­ gins of philosophy with Pythagoras and Plato; continues with the account o f Eunapius, locating its renewal in the figure o f Iamblichus; and appends a new direction to the expanding mythic account, finding philosophy’s flour­ ishing under Isidore.11 His account is also an alternative to Marinus’s, repre­ senting a break with the recent past, and establishing the line o f Isidore as the safeguard o f authentic Platonic philosophy.12 8. Private homes excavated near the Areopagus m ay have been tied to Damascius’s circle. See Frantz, Late Antiquity, 44-47; Athanassiadi, Damascius, 343-47; and Watts, City and School, 140-41. 9. Agathias, History 11.30-31. 10. In the most recent edition o f the work, Athanassiadi identifies the w ork as the Philoso­ phos historia attributed to Damascius in the Suda. See Athanassiadi, The Philosophical History, 43.

11. Damascius, Phil. hist. 34D. 12. Athanassiadi, The Philosophical History, 45 46.

Like others before him, Damascius recounted the history o f philosophy through the lives of selected representatives, creating an authoritative lineage and historiographical narrative for communities o f Greeks philosophers in Athens and Alexandria. In this study, I have examined the role o f biographi­ cal literature as an arena for cultural competition both from the perspective of the internal universe of the texts and also through an examination o f the role o f these texts in the formation o f communities and their identities. The production, dissemination, reading, and interpreting o f these texts belonged to the complex o f practices that characterized the lives o f late ancient pepaideumenoi, Greek and Christian. These texts also serve for us as mirrors o f that life, as they describe the processes by which one was trained and received into the class o f intellectuals, and established and maintained relationships within schools, circles, and churches. They also outline the contours o f competition between groups o f intellectuals. Late ancient biographical literature permits one to glimpse the intersection between the inner universe o f the text and its external application. It contributed to a competitive conversation between Christian and Greek parties o f the educated elite and had a real bearing on trends within education and educational structures consequent to competi­ tion. Through biographical literature, challenges to the legitimacy o f existing and nascent educational and intellectual structures (however formally or in­ formally organized) were voiced. Philosophical and pedagogic “orthodoxies” and "heresies” competed to accomplish the aims o f education—to provide the proper training that shaped the young into virtuous and cultured citizens. All o f the competitors in this struggle would agree that a viable pedagogic struc­ ture had to possess an authority that legitimated its transmission to a new generation, ensuring its own reproduction and perpetuation, influencing and shaping the values o f society.13 There were real philosophical, theological, so­ cial, political, and cultural questions to be debated. But this competition was not only about ideas. Greek and Christian intellectuals competed for those po­ sitions within society that conferred authority to define the doctrines, history, and curricula o f pedagogical activity. Biographical literature created a series o f relationships among subjects, authors, and audiences that situated them in overarching histories o f phi­ losophy and lineages o f transmission. The bios portrays its subject as an ex­ emplar o f the philosophical life, both to exhort readers to follow his or her 13. Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction, 54.

example and to situate subjects and emulators within a philosophical pedi­ gree. The choice o f subjects disclosed the history o f the competition and the terms o f negotiation. The bioi o f Moses and Pythagoras treated the tempo­ ral and ethnic origins o f philosophy and reflected a discourse o f possession and borrowing. They engaged a number o f questions. Did the Greeks invent philosophy? Or did they steal it from the Hebrews? Were Pythagoras’s jour­ neys to gather the wisdom o f the ancients to be understood as the work o f a brilliant systematizer or an idolatrous plagiarizer? In general, the subjects o f the Greek bioi represented a conservative strategy that aimed to perpetuate an image o f the philosopher as Greek, educated, elite, and most often male. He had the leisure to devote his life to study and traveled to celebrated cen­ ters o f the empire in order to associate with prestigious schools and teachers. Eusebius attempted to promote Origen as a Christian equivalent, but later Christian biographers preferred to look for philosophers in different places. Egyptian and Syrian monks, so despised by Libanius and Julian, were offered as alternative models o f philosophy. Their lives illustrated the same virtues and goals, but their skills were innate, and nurtured not by studying the phi­ losophers or traveling to celebrated schools, but by their unmediated union with Christ. Biographical literature legitimated the pedagogic authority o f the philos­ opher’s community through genealogies o f philosophical descent. Relation­ ships between teachers and students were modeled upon (mainly) patrilineal descent, though, as in the case of Macrina or Sosipatra, one could occasion­ ally make a case by matrilineal lineage. Philosophy, conceived of as a body of doctrines, texts, and practices, was passed on from teacher to student, pure and intact, as an inheritance. The lineages produced in various bioi represent­ ed the construction o f philosophical history, as the representatives o f philos­ ophy became markers o f origins and periods o f renewal. Authors produced lineages in competition with other lineages—both those produced by mem­ bers o f the competing party (e.g., Eusebius versus Porphyry) and those pro­ duced by competing members of the same party (e.g., Athanasius versus Eu­ sebius, or Damascius versus Marinus). Eusebius and Porphyry articulated historical narratives o f succession, one apostolic, another philosophic, that remained influential for later generations o f competitors, by bequeathing a foundation and framework for an expanding history. One irony, o f course, is that, despite the Christian rhetoric that denigrated or demoted paideia, all the authors encountered here, Greek and Christian,

were individuals educated in the most influential works o f Greek philosophy. They did not live in unrelated worlds, speaking alien languages, even if that is what the rhetoric o f both Greeks and Christians would have us believe. In­ stead, they spoke a common theoretical language and had similar concep­ tions o f the structure o f reality, the cosmos, and society. But they were not simply carbon copies o f one another. Their common formation and train­ ing in the philosophical field meant they were equipped to engage each oth­ er and fight the philosophical fight on those crucial points where they dis­ agreed. All trained in the classics o f Greek literature and philosophy, they also shaped the competition to address the legitimacy and integrity o f what they shared. Because large-scale, exclusive success was the goal o f both Greeks and Christians at different stages, this competition was often tied to the political and economic structures o f the empire. Eusebius identified Constantine as the Christian philosopher-ruler, who would eradicate the empire’s polythe­ istic past and establish Christian doctrine and worship as the faith for which the empire itself was destined. As a king, judge, and priest in the vein o f Da­ vid and the patriarchs, Constantine was the agent o f Christ, the champion o f Christian eusebeia, who invested political and economic capital in the pro­ motion o f the Christian philosophy taught by the apostles and apologists, and defended by the martyrs. Julian was the symbol o f the Greek cause. His program to reassert the ancient traditions o f paideia and eusebeia resulted in a policy that fused the two together. The irony here is that Julians overtures to the pasts o f Rome and Greece generated a new kind o f religion, rooted in the philosophy and practices o f Iamblichus. Though his reign was cut short, his memory was immortalized in Libanius’s Epitaphios and Eunapius’s Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, serving as a flame o f hope for Greek tradition­ alists into the fifth century. The effects o f Julian s policies were not limited to circles o f Greek intel­ lectuals. In the wake o f his educational policy, Christian intellectuals again reflected upon their relationship to the Greek literary and philosophical tra­ dition. Was Julian right? Were paideia and eusebeia inextricably linked? What could a Christian learn from the philosophy o f Plato or the poetry o f Hom­ er? Was he better off abandoning Greek literature, or was there actually something to be learned from the philosophers? Where Julian tried to define the “philosopher” as one o f his own kind— a literate Greek man who wor­ shipped the Greek gods, Christian authors strategically responded by seek­

ing to dislocate philosophy from these categories. Athanasius and Theodoret, though learned in philosophical literature, advocated looking elsewhere for real philosophers, in the deserts and caves o f Egypt and Syria. The monks in fact (as Theodoret argued) were fulfillments o f the Platonic ideal. Yet they had accomplished this without the help o f Plato, through their devotion to Christ. Others, such as Gregory o f Nyssa, saw that Greek literature and philosophy were still beneficial for Christians who would become involved in public fife. After the reign o f Julian, and with a continuing succession o f Christian emperors, Christian intellectuals began to assume pedagogic posi­ tions both in churches, where bishops preached a philosophy that was avail­ able to all, and in the schools, where Christian grammarians and rhetoricians never really changed the Greek curriculum.14 The study o f the poets and phi­ losophers remained an essential, but preparatory, step toward higher Chris­ tian learning. Christian professors o f rhetoric and philosophy staffed the uni­ versity at Constantinople, and even the Platonist school at Alexandria was eventually led by Christian teachers.15 If Marinus’s Life of Proclus tells us anything, it is that by the fifth century, the Greek party was unable to influence or change the religious, intellectual, or political worlds beyond their own circles. Their influence was restricted both externally by imperial educational policies and internally as the philos­ ophers themselves circumscribed access to philosophy, maintaining an elite professional culture. Perhaps they did not cultivate enough land for plant­ ing and harvesting beyond the aristocratic classes. Did their refusal to engage Christian intellectuals shut them out o f the field? Perhaps they feared the consequences o f engagement. Would the Athenian school have continued functioning had it not been for the intervention o f Justinian? Probably so, but it had no chance o f dominating philosophical education as Plato’s Acad­ emy once had. It could have continued as a semi-autonomous community of intellectuals, content to be separate from the masses and from Christian in­ tellectuals. Nevertheless, the root was cut once they were prohibited by law from teaching. Moreover, the confiscation o f their property drained them o f the economic resources on which they could have survived independently o f imperial patronage.16 Thus, the conditions for large-scale success were sim­ ply not present. The developments o f the sixth century lead us to the conclusion that 14. Marrou, History o f Education, 316 19. 16. Cilucker, Antiochus, 230 53.

15 Cameron, “The Last Days,” 26-27.

Christians were victorious in this competition for philosophy. Taking the po­ sition as the dominant party o f intellectuals, they could easily claim the au­ thority to direct and define theological and philosophical discourse. They had successfully negotiated the philosophical economy to establish rules that created the proper conditions for the reproduction o f the capital o f “Chris­ tian philosophy” and the institutional and political structures that supported and transmitted it. But this is not a simple victory o f “Christian philosophy” over “Greek philosophy.” Subsequent history is well known. Christian intel­ lectuals of the Medieval West and the Byzantine East would continue to have Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus and Proclus, in their left hand, and Matthew, Paul, and John in their right. Lest it be overlooked, the very survival o f Plato and Aristotle was due to Christian copyists. As a result o f the competition o f the fourth and fifth centuries, the cul­ tural capital at the heart o f the struggle had undergone so much investment, conversion, withdrawal, and reinvestment that it was bound to evolve. This was not a process that began when Christians appeared on the scene. The state o f philosophy had already been the subject o f competition among vari­ ous Greek parties in the post-Hellenistic era. Christian intellectuals entered the struggle to offer another alternative, a philosophy couched in a HebrewChristian narrative o f salvation through the incarnate Word. While the main representatives o f the Greeks from Porphyry onward consistently resisted Christian proposals as foreign and irrational, Christians were able to partici­ pate comfortably within the Greek cultural world, which had shaped them in the schools and texts o f literature, rhetoric, and philosophy. In constructing the history o f philosophy through the lives and images o f its representatives, the Christian narrative was able to subsume the Greek narrative, making the whole its own. Plato and Socrates would not remain the anonymous Chris­ tians Justin had claimed them to be; but for centuries to come, they would continue to be the tutors o f cultured men, the warmly welcomed outcasts of the Christian educated class.

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Index

A c a d e m ic s , 37-38, 40, 83, 8 5,12 5,152 -53, 232 A c a d e m y : critiq u e o f, 19, 38-39, 40-41, 81,126;

Apostolic succession, 12, 25, 4 5 ,7 8 ,10 9 -11,12 4 , 152,185, 262,319

site o f, 38, 203,310; s o -c a lle d c lo s in g o f,

Aristobulus, 100-101

37,315 -16 ; succession in, 37-38, 4 1,58 , 61,

Aristotle, 14,19, 2in68, 40, 47, 89, 95,139,

83, 85, 293,309; t e a c h in g o f, 38, 40. See also P h ilo s o p h y ; P la to

Aedesius o f Pergamon, 47, 50, 56,58, 61101133-

236, 253, 294, 3θοηΐ33, 30 7-8,322. See also Peripatetics Aristoxenus o f Tarentum, 18054,19, 92

34, 66ni54, 89,197, 230, 235-36, 240-41, 2 6 5-

Arius, 9 ,179076,180, 211

66, 269-70

Asceticism: Christian, 5 2 ,112 ,14 2 ,15 7 , 204,

A la r ic , 60, 63, 228095, 24Π1150

206-7, 214, 216, 274-75, 280-84, 286-87; and

A le x a n d r ia ( E g y p t ) : c a te c h e tic a l s c h o o l

monasticism, 28, 226-28, 276-77, 285, 288,

in, 141-42, i5onio8,158; as C h r istia n

290-91; and philosophers, 86, 98093,156,

in te lle ctu a l c e n te r, 73-78,10 7,14 7,150 -52;

234, 237, 243, 271,301; practices, 9, 25,153,

c h u r c h o f, 207, 227-28; in te lle c tu a l life in,

224, 238, 304; o f wom en, 249-53, 263, 26 7 -

44- 45, 55ni05, 57, 75,10 0 -10 2,132, 210-11,

69. See also Monasticism; Monks

270-71, 316; p h ilo s o p h ic a l s c h o o ls in, 70, 78,

Asklepios, 6oni3i, 630144, 303-4

89-90, 98, 234, 298mi7, 299, 307, 317-18, 321

Athanasius o f Alexandria: Against the Gentiles,

A m e liu s , 9, 41039, 70 0 173,125m, 12 9 -3 4 ,13 7 -

38,147, 232, 295 Ammonius, 41039, 70-78, 8 2,127-28 ,130 ,132, 14 0 -4 1,14 4 ,151,155,158 ,16 1, 278, 287, 295nno

208, 20909, 211-13, 218, 220-22, 225n8i, 277; and asceticism, 210-11, 214, 224-28, 281, 321; and Greek philosophy, 28, 36-37, 20 78, 209-13, 219-24, 227; On the Incarnation,

Amphilochius o f Iconium, 5on86, 51

2o6n3, 208, 211, 213, 221, 225n8i; and

Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy,

paideia, 16, 48, 204, 207-8, 213-19, 222-23,

13, 98 Antioch, 4 9 -5 1,16 8 ,19 1, 237, 275, 282

243; relationship with Antony o f Egypt, 12, 226, 227^-1. See also Life o f Antony

Antiochus o f Ascalon, 37-38, 40

Athena, 219060, 30111135, 302-4, 314

Antony o f Egypt: confrontation with

Athens: chairs o f philosophy and rhetoric,

philosophers, 219-24; education of, 215-16,

4in39, 5 5 ,12 8 ,13 1,16 8 ; cultural significance

220-21, 254; and paideia, 16,36017, 2i3n26,

of, 54-55, 57, 59, 2,03, 272, 293, 313; and

216-17, 222-23, 2.54-57, 272; and Pythagoras,

Emperor Julian, 66 ,19 5,19 7-9 9 , 203;

217; representation of, 12, 214, 224, 227-28,

fifth-century Platonist school, 30,57-65,

243; as teacher, 1530105, 225; and virtue,

88, 93,18 8, 23omoi, 274-75, 293-314,316;

218-19, 260. See also Life o f Antony

intellectual life in, 14, 48-50, 55-56, 75,

Apatheia, 238, 260, 262, 280, 284,304

Aphrahat, 2841153, 285 Apollo, 85, 96-97, 1.34-36, 302

237-38, 299,315,317; sacked by Heruli, 59; sacked by Sulla, 37 Augustine o f Hippo: Against the Academics,

Apollonius o f Tyana, 30 31, 39, 85, 92, 231

23211110; Confessions, 228; on philosophical

Apologists, 8, 43, 77, 2111114, 279 , 320

history, 40, 58, 831112, 1401164, 295η110

Basil o f Caesarea: Address to Young Men, 5354,145, 256; and Athens, 55-56, 590125, 237, 261; comparison with Moses, 116 ,118 ,12 2 ; and education o f Gregory o f Nyssa, 11 1 -

sons of, 171,176 -77,18 3. See also Eusebius; Life o f Constantine; Philosopher-ruler; Political philosophy Constantinople, 49,50087,59, 66 n i54,114,

12; and paideia, 28, 52,54, 257; relationship

16 9 0 26,183,197, 203ni9i, 235, 248, 299,

with Libanius, 3 2 ,5 1-5 2

3o m i34,303,307,310,316,321

Bios: as ancient historiography, 21, 23, 8081; arena o f cultural competition, 13, 2 4 28 ,31, 46, 208, 247, 275,30 1,313, 318-19;

Constantius I (Chlorus), 176—77,183, 201, 203 Constantius II, 5on82, 6 5 ,1 8 6 ,18911116,192, 19 6 ,197ni6i, 1990175, 201, 235

collective biography, 180 52,19 -23, 84, 230 -

1 Corinthians, 34-36, 42

31, 242, 249, 274-75; literary genre, 17-23,

Council o f Nicaea (325 C E), in , 179-82, 205,

138 ,15 1,172 -73,30 0 ; and philosophical history, 2 ,3 1, 74, 83,124; wom en as subjects of, 246-47, 249-50, 253-54, 271-72 Bishops, 12, 26, 28, 51, 53, 7 8 ,1 0 3 ,1 0 9 -1 1 ,117 18 ,12 4 ,15 1-5 2 ,16 3 ,17 1, i75n6o, 177-79,182,

248 Cultural capital, 9 -10 ,12 , 33, 48, 50, 54-58, 64, 123,169, 212, 244, 285, 322 Cultural competition: as analytical model, 1-16 , 29, 33, 54, 214, 221, 224-28, 316-18;

186, 206, 208, 223, 225-28, 250, 282, 285064,

and the bios, 13, 24 -28 ,31, 4 6 ,171-7 2 ,18 3,

3o8ni74, 312-13, 321

208, 241, 247, 271, 275, 301, 313, 318-19; and

Bourdieu, Pierre, 8ni7, n n 2 5 ,12, 27-28, 81, 167-69

strategy o f “return to origins,” 38-41, 65, 80 -81,153 Curriculum: Christian visions of, 26, 53-54,

Caesarea (in Palestine), 74, 77, 90, in , 141-54, 158 Canon: Christian, 36, 211-12 , 224-26; Platonist, 13-14, 28 ,35,50 , 98,130 Cappadocia, 50-54, m -1 2 , 235, 241, 248, 265085, 268-69

112 ,118 -2 0 ,12 3 -2 4 ,14 2 ,14 4 -4 6 ,15 4 , 255, 316-18, 321; and paideia, 6, 43-44, 47, 49-50, 143, 201, 245, 247; philosophical schools, 13 14, 26-27, 47. 82, 91-94, 9 8 -9 9 ,127,140, 258; and reform o f Emperor Julian, 66-68, 201 Cyril o f Alexandria, 84, 247012

Celsus, 42,10 2, 2iini4, 2.2.2x167 Chaldean Oracles, 13, 86n2i, 98, 258

Daemones, 12 7,130,135-37, 213-14

Christian Scripture, 10 ,36, 43, 48, 53-54 ,112 ,

Damascius, 58, 61, 247012, 298ni2i, 300,

116 ,119 ,12 1-2 2 ,15 3 -5 6 ,17 8 , 208, 212-13, 215-16, 219058, 222-23, 255, 257, 274, 277ΠΙ4, 283-84,313 Chrysanthius, 47, 50, 56, 6ini34, 66ni54, 89,

197, 2.33- 37, 240, 254, 271 Clement o f Alexandria, 43, 45-47, 74, 81,107, i54 m o 8 ,157-58 Consecration (in Bourdieu), 10 ,12 , 26, 67, 7 2 73 ,12 9 ,18 8 ,19 2 , 201,309 Constans, 183093, ι89ηιι6, 2o6n2, 239 Constantine: advised b y philosophers,

3io m 8 8 ,316-19 Dependency model, 4, 8 1,10 0 -10 1,10 5 -8 ,116 , 126, 277-78 Diadoche, 25, 40, 9 4 ,152,30 7-9 Diadochoi, 58, 88, 970 8 9,1310 20 ,141,16 8, 298ni2i, 30 4,3ioni89, 316 Dicaearchus o f Messine, 19 Diocletian, 14 7-48,177, 205 Diogenes Laertius, 19, 20-21, 8 in 5 ,138, 2o6n2, 231 Diogenes o f Sinope, 2o6n2, 281

i86moo, 239; burial of, 185; called bishop,

Diotima, 250-51, 263, 267

179; and church affairs, 179-82; comparison

Diotogenes, 10 4 -5 ,16 5-6 6 ,19 2-9 3

to Moses, 175,177-78; education of, 177;

Divinization, 94- 95,167, 243, 279,300,304, 312

and eusebeia, 163,173-74, >76,178,184-85, 2ooni79, 201, 238; as general, 170 ,178,18 4; patronage o f Christians, 12 ,16 8 -6 9 ,18 3;

Ecclesiastical History. See Eusebius o f Caesarea; Socrates (historian); Sozomen

as philosopher-ruler, 16402,167017,173-79,

Ecphantus, 165-66

182, 184,193, 206,320; portraits of, 172042;

Eleusis, 62 65, 138058, 197, 233m 16, 23911141

Elijah, 5 2 ,10 6 ,2 2 6 -2 7 ,2 8 7 -8 8 Epitaphios, 29, 65,164,170 1127,188-20 3, 229, 320

Eunapius o f Sardis: and Athens, 57, 59ni25; on Christian emperors, i86moo, 229, 231, 23839; on Christian monks, 60,224,240 -42, 271; on the Eleusinian mysteries, 63-65, i97m62; on Emperor Julian, 66,188, 204, 22 91*98,

f i e l d o f c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t io n , 1, H

Misrecognition, 16 ,3 3 ,113 ,119 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 170 48,18 -19, 2in68, 22-23, 80 Monasteries, 204, 272, 275, 286-88 Monasticism: in Cappadocia, 248, 268; disparaged by Greek intellectuals, 60, 207, 238, 241-42; in Egypt, 228, 270-71; John

219, 222n69, 279, 300

Chrysostom, 204, 285; as philosophy, 3, 204,

Limnaeus, 2861170, 291-92

274, 285-86, 291; in Syria, 3,30, 274-76, 2 8 1-

Linguistic capital, 33, 48, 50,106 Lives of Eminent Philosophers. See Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, 23, 25, 47, 56, 66ni54, 88-89,140064, i86nioo, 207, 228-44, 246-48, 253-54, 257-58) 260, 265-67, 269-72, 320. See also Eunapius Logos: Christian understanding of, 44,106, 10 9 ,12 4 ,12 6 ,15 3,155 ; Jewish understanding

82,286-293. See also Asceticism; Monks Monks: and episcopal authority, 211, 214, 224-26, 276, 282, 287; and paideia, 12, 208, 214, 222-23, 237, 240-42, 281, 286; as philosophers, 3, 28, 204, 280-81, 283, 319, 321 Moral character, 18-20, 23077, 67, 8 5,105,146, 14 9 ,15 1,17 7,19 4 , 221, 243, 256, 266, 269,304, 306 Moses: agreement with Plato, 4 5 ,10 1-2,

of, 104; in political philosophy, 165-66,

10 7,125m , 12 6 ,16 1,170 0 28 ; as Chaldean,

1730 4 9 ,174 -75,178 ,18 2-8 3,185

1090146; education of, 5 3 ,10 5 ,118 -2 1,17 7 ;

Longinus, 57, 5811123, 590125, 74, 82, 83n8, 91, 131- 33,137

Lucian o f Samosata, 15

as ideal bishop, 117-18, 261; Numenius o f Apamea on, 102, 278017; and origins o f philosophy, 8 1,10 0 -10 4 ,115 -17,12 6 , 319; and paideia, 8 2,10 5 ,114 -24 ; Porphyry on,

Macrina the Elder, 112, 268, 271

102-3, io8ni4i. See also Basil o f Caesarea;

Macrina the Younger: as ascetic, 27-28,

Constantine; Dependency model;

in ; education of, 255-59; as founder o f

Eusebius o f Caesarea; Jesus Christ; Jews;

ascetic community, 267-69; and gender,

Life of Moses (Gregory o f Nyssa); Life of

251-54, 265-66, 268; as mother, in, 268;

Moses (Philo)

and paidcia, 247, 254 57. 261, 263, 272; as philosophical exemplar, 112, 256, 2 0 o 64, 207, 200, 272; philosophical lineage o(,

Neoplatonism, ft

8 , fto

61,

75, 94,

951179,

utmfto, 120, 1(15115, 1(17, 1(19, 301,30711172, 315

Neoplatonists, 2, 7 -8 ,15 , 26,30, 41, 47, 57-58,

comm on cultural system, 4-6, 9 ,11, 26,

6411151, 68, 70 -71,78 , 861121, 8 8 ,16 6 -6 7,19 1,

35, 44, 4 6 -5 4 .15 3,16 8 ,19 7 -9 8 , 245, 254,301,

243, 246, 293, 300

306; general education, 1200196,153, 255;

Neopythagoreans, 30 ,39 -41,70 11173,75, 81, 8 5,10 2,125, 218. See also A n t o n y o f E g y p t ;

and Julian, 65, 6 6 m 6 3,18 7-88 ,193, 201, 230, 320; and religion, 187,195, 238, 240,320;

Ia m b lic h u s; Life o f Pythagoras; N u m e n iu s

and strategies o f competition, 15-16, 26,

o f A p a m e a ; On the Pythagorean Life;

72 ,12 1-2 2 ,16 9 , 208, 222-25, 263, 269, 272,

P yth ag o ra s

319-20; and virtue, 14-15, 85,123,194, 216,

Nestorius the Great (hierophant o f Eleusis), 6 2 -6 5 ,197m62 Numenius o f Apamea: on the “ esteemed

224, 245, 254, 256,306; and women, 30, 247, 254-59, 261 P a lla d iu s, 246, 252, 275

nations,” 39, 41; on Moses, 41,10 2,

P a m p h ilu s , 77 ,14 7 -5 0 ,15 8 ,16 9

io8ni4i, 278ni7; On the Disagreement o f the

P a n e g y r ic , 17, 2 1,14 2 ,16 5 0 5 ,16 7 ,16 9 0 2 6 ,17 1-

Academics against Plato, 4 0 -4 1,10 2,10 9 ,

72,174 -75, i8 9 m i5 -i6 ,191,300

125m , 152-53; and philosophical reform,

P a n ta e n u s, 45, 74, 45m o 8 ,158

40-41, 70, 8 0 -85,10 9 ,125,14 0 , 295

P a tr o n a g e : im p e ria l, 12 ,16 4 ,16 8 ,18 2 -8 3 ,18 6 ,

19 1-9 2 ,19 8 , 200, 203, 229-30, 273,321; o f On the Pythagorean Life, 14, 27, 91-99, 217, 246. See also Iamblichus; Pythagoras

Oracles, 83, 86n2i, 9 6 ,131,134 -37,14 0 , 236, 239ni4i. See also Chaldean Oracles Oribasius, 233-34 Origen o f Alexandria: asceticism of, 156-57, 305; Exhortation to Martyrdom, i42n68, 149,157; an d G r e e k p h ilo s o p h e r s , 39030,

in te lle ctu a ls, 128-29,142., 156,168, 3ioni88; te a c h e r s a n d stu d e n ts, 49,54 P a u l th e A p o s t le , 3 ,10 ,3 4 -3 8 ,4 2 , 45,54,

2i2ni7, 220, 264, 278, 322 Pedagogic authority, 2-3, 7 ,10 ,16 , 26, 69, 81, 8 3,12 4 ,14 2 ,15 3,18 6 -8 7 , 205, 208, 225, 227, 244, 272-74 ,313,319 Pepaideumenoi, 6, 9, 2 4 ,3 3 ,12 0 ,12 6 ,14 3 ,18 6 ,

4in39, 4in4i, 48073, 7 1 ,1 0 2 ,10 3n ii2,1190191,

18 9 .19 2.19 9 , 205, 228, 233, 243, 247, 258,

125m , 14 3-4 4 ,15 4 ,16 1, 215, 278; in te lle ctu a l

262-63, 272, 278, 286, 293,318

p e d ig r e e o f, 72-74, 77 -7 9 ,14 7 -4 8 ,15 5 ,158 ,

269; Letter o f Origen to Gregory, 144-45,154; a n d N u m e n iu s o f A p a m e a , 411141, 71,10 2,

Peripatetics, 170 48,18 -19, 5511103, 7 4 ,127n6. See also Aristotle

Philo o f Alexandria: Eusebius o f Caesarea

125; a n d paideia, 4 3 ,72 ,14 6 ,153 -5 4 ,156 ;

on, 109; and Hellenism, 104, i65n8; Life

p a r tic ip a tio n in p h ilo s o p h ic a l field , 10, 75,

o f Moses, 10 3-5,115-17.16 4 ; and paideia,

8 2 ,12 3 ,14 4 ,16 1, 205-6; as p h ilo so p h ic a l

i2oni96; and Platonism, 104-5, i6 6 n i3,175

e x e m p la r, 2 ,1 4 7 ,15 2 ,15 8 ,16 1; p h ilo so p h ic a l

Philo o f Larissa, 37-38, 40

p e d ig r e e o f, i 5 9 f j- 2 ; a n d p h ilo s o p h ic a l

Philosopher-ruler: Constantine, 16 4 ,16 7 ,17 2 -

r e n e w a l, 12 7 -2 8 ,151-5 3,16 0 ; s c h o o l o f,

86, 205-6,320; in Diotogenes, 16 5 -6 6 ,19 2 -

28, 48, 7 7 ,14 1-4 2 ,14 4 -4 6 , i54 m o 8 ,155-56;

93; in Ecphantus, 166; Julian, 167,189,193,

as teacher, 2 ,112 , ii9ni9i, 12311211,142,

195.199,

14 6 ,14 9 ,153,155, i6of3-3; 211,319. See also

in Platonic philosophy, 104,164-68, i82n86,

E u s e b iu s o f C a e s a r e a ; P o r p h y r y

Origen the Neoplatonist, 70-71, 74,132,

296nii2 "Outside” learning, 27087, 5 3 ,112 ,115 ,118 -2 4 , 155,195, 2,56, 261

230; Moses, 103, i65n8, i6 6 n i3, 175;

192,194, 203 P h ilo so p h e r s: C h r istia n attitu d es to w a r d , 45,

7 1 -7 2 ,1 0 8 ,1 1 4 ,123Π2ΙΙ, 144-45,148-49, 204, 206, 209-10, 213, 221-22, 262, 264, 273, 27778, 283-85, 293,321; Christian use o f title, 43, 259-60; circles of, 38, 56, 58, 74,128,188,

Paganism, 6-7, 229

207, 265, 272, 274, 298-99, 308; clothing of,

Paideia: Christian attitudes toward, 67, 69,

37,155, 241; monks as, 3, 204, 214, 219, 227,

8 2 ,114 -2 4 ,14 8 -4 9 ,153 -5 4 , 204, 207-19,

243, 280-82, 321; and paideia, 6, 50, 53, m .

240-43, 256-57, 261-63, 281, 285-86; as

145-46, 154, 193, 242, 256 -57, 259, 319; as

p a r a d ig m , 46-47, 65, 95,158 ,19 9 , 243, 300;

77, 79, 143 44, 154; Peripatetic, 19, 89-90;

in P la t o ’s Theaetetus, 279-82; p ro fe ssio n o f,

Pythagorean, 87, 98; schole, 13, 97089; o f

2 -3 ,1 1-1 3 , 95-96; P y t h a g o r a s as first, 93;

Sosipatra, 266; succession in, 94, 97-98,

an d ru le rs, 16 4 ,16 8 ,177 ,18 6 , 1910125, 192,

196-98, 204, 230, 238-39, 316; as s u b je c ts o f b io g r a p h y , 17-20, 80, 84, 231-32, 259, 300,

319; to m b s o f, 203ΠΙ9Ι, 310; w o m e n as, 261, 264, 267

152, 230, 235, 308 Philosophos historia (Porphyry), 2 3 ,39x127, 78, 82-88, 9 2,140 ,152, 27504, 278ni7 Philosophy: Academic, 38, 40-41, 81; Christian, 12, 33, 43, 46,77, 8 2,10 7,125,127,

Philosophical education, 11-12 , 46-47, 80,146, 204, 224, 245-47, 256, 258, 299, 307, 321 Philosophical field, 1-2 ,10 ,3 0 ,3 3 -3 4 , 46, 48,

14 3,16 7,173,176 , 206-7, 211, 213, 223, 263, 272, 277, 320-22; and cultural competition, 2, 8-9,15, 24, 28, 42, 46, 54, 69,76, 79,104,

12 5,12 9 ,131, i4 in 6 5,14 3.160 ,168-69 , 209,

12 3 ,12 6 ,16 0 ,16 4 ,16 7 -6 8 , 204, 208, 212-13,

222-23, 247, 250, 263, 266, 274, 293, 313, 317,

231, 238, 243, 250-51, 254, 271-72, 29 9 ,3 2 1-

320

22; and the edict o f Justinian, 315; and

Philosophical history: Augustine, 83ni2,

education, 6,10,75, 93, 98, i n - 1 2 , 1190194,

232nno; and the bios, 2, 20-23, 30, 83; and

123, i2 7 n 6 ,142,145, i53nio6,154,169,176 ,

cultural competition, 8 1,10 9 ,15 1,16 0 -6 1,

18 7,19 3,19 6 ,19 8 , 207-9, 216, 218, 236, 240,

183, 313, 322; Damascius, 317-18; decline

245, 247, 255-56, 259, 261, 286,30 1,30 6 -7,315,

and renewal in, 29, 58, 6 2 ,10 9 ,12 4 ,12 6 -2 7 ,

320, 322; and heresy, 208; as love for God,

229, 231, 234, 293, 295, 319; Eunapius, 188,

283052; and martyrdom, 149,157-58; and

231-32, 242-43; Eusebius o f Caesarea, 109,

monasticism, 228, 242, 274-93, 319; natural,

158, i7o n 28,17 1,173 ,17 5 ,18 4 -8 5; Eusebius’s

122-23; and non-Greek wisdom, 39029, 41,

Ecclesiastical History as, 740182,152-53;

44, 73, 82-83, 8 7,10 0 -10 2,10 4 ,125-26 ,14 6 ;

Gregory o f Nyssa, 269; Justin Martyr, 43-

origins of, 29,39, 41, 9 2-9 3,10 0 -10 1,10 8 ,

44; Libanius, 199; Numenius o f Apamea,

115, 251, 317; and Paul the Apostle, 34m l,

40-42, 70; Porphyry, 78-79, 83-85, 87-88,

36; Platonist, 24n8i, 28, 57, 59, 83-84,133,

12 5-2 6 ,131,14 0 ,17 0 , 231-33; Proclus, 294-95,

166-67,174, 250, 296, 304, 317; Pythagorean,

3o6ni64; Theodoret, 277-78, 283, 293 Philosophical History (Damascius), 61, 248,

29 8 m i9 ,317

1 4 , 19, 39, 83, 86, 93, 95,133,165,174, 246; renewal of, 62, 65, 231, 2980117; revelation, 45n67, 47,10 6-8, ii9ni9i, 278, 295; and the

Philosophical History ( P o r p h y r y ). See

soul, 97; Stoicism, 33; and theurgy, 94, 97,

Philosophos historia; P o r p h y r y

258; transmission of, 16, 25, 28, 80, 87-88,

P h ilo so p h ic a l s c h o o ls: a r c h a e o lo g ic a l re m a in s o f, 60; a tte n d e d b y C h ristia n s,

12 4 ,12 6 -27,15 2, 243, 269, 271, 276, 294-98, 3o6m64, 317-18; w ay o f life, 1-3,178 , 276;

42-43, 48, 53, 75, 261; a n d b io g ra p h y , 21-24,

as wealth, 24081, 2 7 -2 8 ,112 ,12 3 . See also

26,31, 217, 256, 300; C h r istia n critiq u e o f,

Political philosophy

33, 43-44, 47, ii3m6o, 124, 212, 262-63; and

Philostratus, 30-31, 230-31

competition, 47, 201, 226, 231, 269, 318; at

Piety. See Eusebeia

Constantinople, 59; decline of, 39, 55, 80,

Plato: and Athens, 14, 550103, 58,198, 203,

125; diatribe, 13030,128, 235; didaskaleion,

304, 310; Christian readings of, 46, 274,

86; g e o g r a p h ic a l sp re a d o f, 59, 231; hairesis,

278-79, 280-84; cited by Christian authors,

13; H e lle n is tic , 37, 4 1,16 1; in te lle ctu a l

156, 20909, 212-13, 279-81; dialogues of,

a n d m o r a l fo r m a t io n in, 253, 256, 274;

9 -10 ,13 ,18 , 38-40, 98, 211-12, 300; and

an d Ju lia n , 194; a n d Ju s tin ia n , 315-17; an d

Middle Platonism, 38; and Moses, 45, 81,

lin e a g e , 9, 76, 243, 267, 293, 296, 310 -n ,

10 2 ,10 8 ,125m , 161,170028, 278ni7; object

313; and monasteries, 286; Neoplatonist,

o f philosophical competition, 38-39,125,

41, 57,

6 1, 6 6 ,

78, 82, 88, 92-93, 98, 129,

143, 279, 299, 317; and Origen, 71,145; and

>77, 19 7 1116 2 , 2 3 0 η 10 1, 24 3, 2 9 3 94, 2 9 8 99,

paideia, 14- 15, 54, 66,145,149, 216, 219,

3 0 8 9; O ld A c a d e m y , 37 38 ; a n d O r ig e n ,

246, 254; and philosophical lineage,

Plato (cont.) 58 ,14 0 ,16 1, 231, 23211110, 234, 243, 29 396,307, 313; and Plotinus, 132,135-37,140;

233; union with the One, 136; on wisdom o f non-Greek peoples, 41. See also Life o f P lotinu s; Philosophos historia

political philosophy, 16 4 -6 5 ,177x170; and

Postcolonial theory, 5-8

Pythagoras, 85, 88, 93, 9 6n 8 2,102; subject

Proclus: arrival in Athens, 24n8i, 303,307,

o f biography, i8 n 54 ,19 ,78-79, 82-85, 8 7 -

310; ascetic practice of, 304-5; birth of, 301;

88; successors of, 37-38, 40,76, 83, 88,315.

commentary on Plato’s Republic, 62, 246;

See also Dependency model

education of, 293-94,30 6-7; and the gods,

Plotinus: Augustine on, 232nno, 295nno; as

30 1-4,307; on philosophical education, 258;

daem on, 130,135-36; divine inspiration of,

and philosophical lineage, 88, 294-98, 30 7-

136-37; education of, 70, 78; Enneads, 13,

9; P latonic Theology, 294-98; representation

13 0 ,132 ,134 ,138 ,14 0 ; Eunapius on, 232,

of, 300-301, 310 -n ; school of, 301, 3x0, 313;

234, 243; on happiness, 30oni33; henosis,

students of, 2980121; virtue of, 305-6; visits

136; influence of, 57, 8 2 ,12 8 ,13 0 ,13 9 -4 0 ;

to philosophers’ tombs, 2030191, 309-10.

intellectual assent, 95-96; lineage, 76, 82,

See also House o f Proclus; L ife o f Proclus

8 8 ,134 ,137,14 0 -4 1, 207, 234, 236, 243, 296,

Prohairesius, 48, 49076,56, 590125, 68,188,

298nii7; and Numenius o f Apamea, 4in39, 70, 83,131; oracle o f Apollo, 134-36,140;

197, 2.07, 233-35, 237-42 Prophets o f Israel, 32 ,34 ,3 6 , 4in4i, 45, 79,102,

patrons of, 1 2 8 ,129m l; portrait of, 129013,

10 4 ,117-18 ,14 6 ,14 7 0 8 5, 212, 281-82. See also

130,172042; Proclus on, 295, 2960112;

Moses

representation of, 2 ,12 7 ,13 4 ,13 8 ,16 0 -6 2 ; scale o f virtue, 300; school of, 41039, 42-43,

Pythagoras, 17,19, 29,39-40, 54, 66ni54, 76, 78-79, 81-88, 9 1-10 2 ,10 8 ,119 ,12 4 -2 6 ,

7oni73, 8 2 ,125m, 12 8-2 9 ,14 1, 230-31, 235;

137,14 0 ,152 ,16 1, 216-17, 224, 234, 278ni7,

students of, 12, 590125, 91, i28mo, 12 9 ,13 1-

302, 317, 319. See also Life o f Pythagoras

33,137-38,146, 246, 311; Theodoret on, 278.

(Porphyry); Neopythagoreans; O n the

See also Neoplatonism; Neoplatonists

Pythagorean Life

Plutarch o f Athens, 57, 6 0 -6 4 ,197ni62, 29396, 298nii7, 299, 302-3, 308-10, 315-16 Plutarch o f Chaeronea, 14 -15 ,19 -2 0 , 22,119, 15 4 ,172 ,178 ,19 4 , 231, 245, 254 Political philosophy, 29 ,16 4 -6 8 ,170 ,174 ,18 0 , 18 5-8 6 ,18 9 ,19 2-9 4 , 206,300, 312 Polychronius, 288, 290

Religious H istory, 21, 23, 27, 30, 252, 272, 274-93,

296, 313. See also Theodoret o f Cyrrhus Revelation, 12-13, 33, 35, 37, 44-45, 47, 53, 73, 80, 100, IO4-6, IO8-9, 121-22, 124, 126, 136, 14 0 0 6 4 ,14 2 ,14 4 -4 5 ,15 2 , 155,16 1,17 5 -7 6 ,17 8 , 208, 212, 222, 257, 278, 294-95

Porphyry: on Ammonius, 72-74; criticism

Rhetorical education, 6, 9 -12 ,16 , 33, 35, 42-43,

o f Christians, 66 n i53,102-3, 141065,170;

48-50, 53, 56, 75, 82, h i , 115,145-46, i53mo6,

on the Hebrews, 126; H o m erika zetemata,

176-77, 209, 216, 220, 222, 234, 245, 254, 256,

89; Isagoge, 127; and Longinus, 57, 590125, 132-33; on Moses, 102-3; narrative o f

267, 321-22 Routinization, 13, 225, 305

philosophical transmission, 13, 29, 76, 83, 88, I40n64, 152, 188, 207, 230, 232, 287, 317;

Satyrus, 17048, i8 n 5 2,19

on Numenius o f Apamea, 41039, 700171,

Second Sophistic, nn25, 30

7oni73, 83,125; oracles, 86n2i; on Origen,

Seven Sages, 17, 84014,1080141

10, 46, 71-73, 75, 8 2 ,103mi3, i28nio, 150,155,

Socrates (historian), 13, 51, 56, 68,180079,190,

161; and p aid eia, 11,119 , 232; philosophical lineage of, 76fi-i, 13913-1; relationship to Iamblichus, 88n34, 90-92, 99; and school

2370134, 247 Socrates (philosopher), 14 ,18 -19 , 2in68, 37, 39, 44, 54, 8 4n i4,106, 135-36, 15 7 ,170Π28, 198,

o f Plotinus, 128-31; self-references, 137-38,

202, 250, 256, 262-64, 278-80, 286, 302, 304,

311; systematizer o f Plotinian tradition, 13,

309-10, 312, 322

78-79, 8 2,138 -4 0 ,16 1; on theurgy, 47, 91, 94,

Sopater, 57, i86ntoo, 234-35, 23911139

Sosipatra. See Eunapius o f Sardis; Intellectual lineage; Philosophical schools Sozomen, 13, i86nioo, 190, 235, 2370134, 23911139

Theodosius II, 59, 6oni29, 170 , 229,303 Theurgy, 47, 570113 , 62, 64- 65, 91 , 94- 97, 197, 233- 34, 2.58- 59, 269, 271 , 294, 300, 303, 306, 311

Spoliation model, 3-4, 4 6 ,116 ,118 -19 ,12 3 ,14 5 Sthenidas o f Locri, 165 Suda, 61, 84, 88n34, 92,132030, 2980119,

Union with God, 1,3 6 ,135 -36 ,16 4 ,174 -75 ,18 5 , 221, 301, 311,319

298ni2i, 29 9 ,3ΐ7ηιο Suetonius, 22 ,16 8

Valens, 18 9-90 ,192, 287

Symbolic power, 10 ,19 1, 236, 244

Valentinian 1, 189

Symeon the Stylite, 281-82, 284053, 285060,

Valentinian III, 170

286065, 287-88, 305 Synesius o f Cyrene, 550105 Syrianus, 60-61, 294-96, 302, 308-9, 312, 316

Virtue: and biography, 19-20, 24, 80,172, 231; Christ as, 115,117; Christie, 218-19; and education, 14 -15 ,18 , 53-54, 66m63, 97, 98n 95,118 ,12 3 -2 4 ,19 3, 208, 211-12, 216-17,

Tatian, 15, 42,1080141

224, 228, 242-43, 245, 254, 256, 272, 306; and

Tertullian, 3, 32-33, 37, 42, 43050,119

ethnicity, 216, 221, 245, 250, 293; modeled

Themistius, 550 10 5,18 6,19 0 0 12 0 ,19 1-9 4, 200,

by ruler, 18 ,16 5-6 7 ,17 4 -7 5,17 8 , i82n86;

312

Theodoret o f Cyrrhus: as biographer, 275-76, 287, 290; and cultural competition, 278 -

and monasticism, 204, 217, 225, 241, 276, 280-81, 284; natural endowment of, 85, 10 5,149,176-77, 218, 237, 250, 256,305-6;

79, 29 2-9 3,321; Cure for Hellenic Maladies,

piety, 167,195,199; political, 167,300,306,

78, 274, 276-79, 283, 292-93; and Greek

312; practical, 12, 97,120 ,156, 274,304; scale

philosophy, 274, 277-78, 283, 293; historian,

of, 93, 300; theurgic, 300,306; and women,

13; interpretation o f Plato, 280-83, 321;

247, 250-54

and monasticism, 274, 276, 282-86, 288, 290-91; and paideia, 48, 285-86; refutation

Xenophon, 18, 22, 231

o f Porphyry, 170029. See also Intellectual lineage; Philosophical history; Religious History Theodosius 1, 59, 6 3 ,18 6 ,18 9 -9 0 ,19 2 , 205, 229, 231, 238, 248-49, 304ni49

Zebinas, 288, 290