Christians, Gnostics and Philosophers in Late Antiquity

ISBN-13: 9781409448228 / Angielski / Twarda / 2012 / 330 str.

Mark Edwards

Opis

Gnosticism, Christianity and late antique philosophy are often studied separately; when studied together they are too often conflated. These articles set out to show that we misunderstand all three phenomena if we take either approach. We cannot interpret, or even identify, Christian Gnosticism without Platonic evidence; we may even discover that Gnosticism throws unexpected light on the Platonic imagination. At the same time, if we read writers like Origen simply as Christian Platonists, or bring Christians and philosophers together under the porous umbrella of "monotheism," we ignore fundamental features of both traditions. To grasp what made Christianity distinctive, we must look at the questions asked in the studies here, not merely what Christians appropriated but how it was appropriated. What did the pagan gods mean to a Christian poet of the fifth century? What did Paul quote when he thought he was quoting Greek poetry? What did Socrates mean to the Christians, and can we trust their memories when they appeal to lost fragments of the Presocratics? When pagans accuse the Christians of moral turpitude, do they know more or less about them than we do? What divides Augustine, the disenchanted Platonist, from his Neoplatonic contemporaries? And what God or gods await the Neoplatonist when he dies?

Spis treści

Contents: Preface; Part I Christians and Pagans in Dispute: Quoting Aratus: Acts 17.28; Some early Christian immoralities; Justin's logos and the word of God; Satire and verisimilitude: Christianity in Lucian's Peregrinus; Xenophanes Christianus?; Pagan and Christian monotheism in the age of Constantine; Notes on the date and venue of the Oration to the Saints; Dracontius the African and the fate of Rome. Part II Gnostic Thought and its Milieu: Gnostics and Valentians in the church fathers; Neglected texts in the study of Gnosticism; Pauline Platonism: the myth of Valentinus; The tale of Cupid and Psyche; Porphyry's Cave of the Nymphs and the Gnostic controversy. Part III Christianity and the Platonic Tradition: Socrates and the early Church' Origen's Platonism: questions and caveats; Ammonius, teacher of Origen; Birth, death and divinity in Porphyry's Life of Plotinus; Porphyry and the intelligible triad; The figure of love in Augustine and in Proclus the neoplatonist; Index.

O autorze

Dr Mark Edwards is University Lecturer in Patristics, and Tutor in Theology, Christ Church, University of Oxford, UK