The Philosophy of Ammonius Saccas

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The Philosophy of Ammonius Saccas

Author(s): H. Langerbeck

Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 77, Part 1 (1957), pp. 67-74

Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF AMMONIUS SACCAS

AND THE CONNECTION OF ARISTOTELIAN AND CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS THEREIN*

THE excellent report by H.-R. Schwyzer in his long article on Plotinus in R.-E. (Bd. XLI

(1951), co1. 477-81), presents the reader with a picture of the present state of research concerning

Ammonius, while giving a critique of previous discussions. A significant feature of the situation

is this: simultaneously with the endeavour to obtain a clear picture of Ammonius's doctrine from

the reports in Nemesius of Emesa and Hierocles (Photius, Bibl. cod. 2I4 and 25I)-reports whose

upper and lower limits are controversial-a new and fruitful attempt has been made to work back

to Ammonius as the common source behind numerous concordances between Plotinus and Origen.

Following the lead of Rend Cadiou, who, in his epoch-making work La jeunesse d'Origine (Paris,

1935), demonstrated the importance of Ammonius for the development of the theology of Origen,

de Jong has given a convenient conspectus of the parallels between Plotinus and Origen (Plotinus

of Ammonius Saccas, Leiden, 1941). But this gives rise to some problems of general procedure.

What justification is there for Schwyzer's assertion (op. cit. 480. 65) that 'it is a priori improbable

that Plotinus would have studied the writings of Origen'? This depends upon the presupposition

that Christianity, and in particular its theology, during the years of Plotinus's studies at Alexandria,

was of far too slight importance, intensive or extensive, to have had any influence upon a man of

the spiritual calibre of Plotinus. This view appears from every point of view unfounded, and most

of all in regard to Ammonius's entourage, which (as is well known) numbered among its members

not only Origen himself but, a considerable time before that, Heraklas, subsequently Bishop of

Alexandria. Plotinus is known to have been deeply interested, while at Alexandria, in the Persian

and Indian philosophy: is it to be assumed that he had no knowledge of the De principiis of Origen,

which is to be dated 'not long after 220'? (Koetschau, Introd. to De Princ., p. xi). Much rather

does it seem certain that Plotinus expressly controverts Origen in not a few places. To be sure,

the proof of this would require a very detailed comparative exposition of both authors, for which

this is not the proper place. With reference to the Ammonius problem, the possibility of a direct

relation between Plotinus and Origen-a relation which may be positive as well as polemical-

means a certain limitation of the evidence; especially if one bears in mind the further possibility

that, where discrepancies occur between Plotinus and Origen, it is not ipso facto clear that Plotinus

must be the more reliable witness for Ammonius.

In order to guide us on our way in this search for the common source of Plotinus and Origen,

and to protect its result against subjective valuations which must inevitably play a great part in

the comparison, it is advisable to start by surveying the meagre, and in part apparently contra-

dictory, testimony concerning Ammonius. Now he was certainly not only an independent but

also a systematic thinker. A mere transmission of philosophical commonplaces current in his

time, with minor variations to suit his own taste, is not to be imputed to him. It seems, therefore,

that one may justifiably raise, and ought to raise, the question what bearing each detail of doctrine

has upon the whole. And yet one has no right to take advantage of this fact in order to dismiss

some inconvenient morsels of tradition as being a priori incredible. The question which must be

faced is simply this: Is the detail (be it a problem, an expression of doctrine, or a biographical

item) a product of the age? and what is its meaning amid the intellectual controversies of that time?

The two central questions which arise from our tradition concerning Ammonius are these:

(I) his relation to Christianity; his alleged Christian descent and his strong influence upon Christian

pupils; his doctrine, which is, indeed, contested, of a creatio ex nihilo through the will of God, etc.;

(2) his harmonisation of Plato and Aristotle. Now the problems which come under these two

main heads can be shown to arise naturally, or with necessity, from the movement of ideas at the

time; and there is one fact which alone renders it highly probable that they stem from Ammonius:

the disparate reports, sometimes aimed intentionally at one another, share a certain amount of

common ground. I shall attempt in what follows to illustrate this fact, and if I take my example

for preference from the Christian theological problems of the time, this is simply an effect of the

present state of research. My problem has not, as far as I know, been examined with these questions

in view. To speak briefly of the second point, the thesis that Ammonius was the originator of a

conscious harmonising of Plato and Aristotle is based upon what we learn from Photius about

Hierocles HEp rppovoltos (fifth century A.D.). The validity of the thesis was questioned by A. Elter

(Rhein. Mus. 65 (I91o), 175 ff). But his arguments are unconvincing, and in any case Hierocles

* This essay has been abbreviated from a longer German text.




68 H LANGERBECK

himself was a follower of this harmonising tendency. It is very improbable that the ascription of

it to Ammonius arose entirely from a misunderstanding by Photius, and what has to be considered

is whether such a tendency seems more appropriate to the early third century or to the fifth; and

in the fifth century it would seem remarkably archaic.

It is clear already that no progress in our inquiry will be made without a liberal use of hypo-

theses. But we must venture forward, and if our hypotheses close up to form a solid ring, we need

not surrender to the (equally hypothetical) rejection of the tradition.

LIFE OF AMMONIUS

Ammonius was of Christian descent; for this, we must undoubtedly take Porphyry's word

(Euseb. Hist. Eccl. VI. 19, 7). Was he an apostate? This is by no means clearly deducible from

Porphyry's words, but only that he devoted himself to a philosophical life. Before pronouncing

any judgment on Eusebius's denial of the charge (op. cit. 9-Io), we must carefully consider what

exactly is meant by 'being a Christian', at Alexandria in the latter half of the second century.

It is perfectly clear, e.g., from W. Bauer's investigationsI that previous to the episcopate of Demetrius

one can hardly speak of an orthodox community at Alexandria. The Basilidians and the Valen-

tinians, not to speak of the Marcionite church, called themselves without hesitation Christians.

The sort of Christianity of which Clement of Alexandria was a representative appears from his

extant writings, but still more plainly from Photius's report about the Hypotyposes (Photius, Bibl.

cod. Io 09 Clement, Bd. III, p. 202, 7). One must put to oneself the simple question, what would

become of the representatives of these various tendencies, once it had been laid down, under the

authoritarian Bishop Demetrius, that agreement to the faith of the Roman community was the

standard of Christian orthodoxy, and therefore of membership of the church. In order to answer

this question correctly one must bear in mind the further fact that the establishment of a standard

of orthodoxy was as much a social as a dogmatic proceeding. Just as, at Rome after Marcion's

expulsion, the intellectual class was to an increasing extent sundered from the brotherhood-for

the contest was not with specific 'heretical' teachings but with the phenomenon of a Christian

theology in general-so the echo of this movement two generations later at Alexandria had to

proceed in the same direction: which would mean that the class of cultured Christians drawn from

the upper ranks of society (and this surely was relatively greater at Alexandria than at Rome) was

steadily eliminated. Whether and to what extent an individual was henceforward to be counted

as a Christian, was a question which certainly, even then, could only be answered in each

separate case.

But can the hypothesis that Ammonius may perhaps have been one of this circle be reconciled

with the tradition associated with his second name ZaKKai? The usual interpretation 'sack-

carrier' is found expressed for the first time, as far as I know, in Theodoret, Graec. Aff. Cur. VI. 6o:

6I -rorrov (sc. Comm odus) 8 'AplUcovos 0E 7lK 1K7V 2caKKacS, -TOS C KKOVS KaTa7ATV O 9 ETEEpE

TO7Tvpol s , -nTv PLbVAo'oobov -q',mr-va-ro /3lov. -ro1-rcp bot-r?q-ct 'bacv 'Q'pty, E'v -qv I7 -r LETpOV, T' 8V JlEW-ELvov

-owrovL. Obviously Theodoret did not invent this. What his source was, we do not know. That

such a notable biographical detail did not become an edifying romance in the hands of the neo-

Platonists, especially of Porphyry, seems suspicious. Now if one starts from the usual meaning

of adKKoS, coarse cloth or coarse garment, it is natural to interpret 2aKKac as the appellation of an

ascetic philosopher, 'wearer of the adcKKo.'. It was in fact surely very unusual for a Platonist to

assume the tribon of the Cynic. That the school of Ammonius did distinguish itself by a peculiar

dress, we see from the letter of Origen in Euseb. VI. 19, 13-14: . . . Vrv v v- ErpaflvEpEU EP

KcLOE~Lvov 'AAXEwavspEwv CHpaKAiv, oiv'rwa Elpov TaLa T) & LcaaKcLq 'r6v cboaoo'wv iuaGrlicJ?rwv (sc.

Ammonius) 77r77 7vTETE TECTV aCW'Tp 7TpOTKKa7pTEp'CTpav a TTPLv 7) EaJLE ap~aLOa CaKoK V KVOVE KEWW V V Oywv '

8V Ka 7rpdOEpov KOL?W EGA7L XPWLEVOS~ c7TrO8VUaC EVOS KCU & Oduobov ovahaa3;v uqipa . . . Elaboration

of this hypothesis is not required here. It is enough to refer to the copious data in the article

of the Latin Thesaurus on cilicium, a word which in many passages is expressly mentioned as the

equivalent of adKKOs .

But when this possibility is granted, the further statements of Eusebius concerning Ammonius,

which have been rejected as untrustworthy on wholly a priori grounds, appear in quite a new light.

Eusebius denies (op. cit. 9-1io) that Ammonius fell away from Christianity. It is obvious that he

knows nothing of his life. But he does allude to theological writings by him. One title only is

named: 1HEp' Fsy MwvacrEw Kac 'I'7aof vTLV4wvlas. From Eusebius's method of work it can be

inferred that he found this writing in the library at Caesarea. There is no harm in conceding that,

in his apologetic zeal, he made the best of his discovery, and inferred blindly (for he was obviously

not acquainted with any) the existence of several similar writings. But still we must consider

I W. Bauer: Rechtgliiubigkeit und Ketzerei im iltesten Christentum, Tiibingen, 1934, PP- 57 if.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF AMMONIUS SACCAS 69

whether he could suppose that it would serve his purpose if he simply ascribed a tractate written

by some other Ammoniusz to the famous head-of the Platonic school. That would have been

extraordinarily foolish at a time when Porphyry's Against the Christians had attained its widest

influence, more especially since among the leaders of the Alexandrian church there were personal

pupils of Ammonius, notably Heraklas. Eusebius does make mistakes. But he is primarily an

archivist, and is not undistinguished as such. The possibility of a mistake by him may perhaps

be admitted. It can hardly be proved by pronouncing his statement 'a priori incredible',

And there is a further point. The title cited by Eusebius characterises this as an anti-Marcionite

writing. But it is notable that Eusebius gives no statement of its contents. This provokes the

suspicion that the writing, judged in accordance with that orthodoxy which, since Demetrius, had

been extended to Alexandria, was one which could not exactly be recommended. That Eusebius

should so reject it is in any case credible, and is thoroughly in line with his apologia. Again, the

remarkable fact that Origen in his letter (Euseb. op. cit. 13) is silent as to the name of the 8&'caKaAOS

-6rv OtAouo'oWv taOeua'-rwv may also naturally be attributed to grounds of piety.3 Origen knows

and judges Ammonius simply as a philosopher. If he knew that there was some question about

his status as a Christian, or rather, only in that case, his discretion was timely. Mention of the

name could only do injury at a time of heated political controversy among the Alexandrian Christians.

Does not all this point to the situation of a man who had made himself conspicuous in youth by an

anti-Marcionite tract, and therefore obviously was not a member of a gnostic fraternity, but who

did not follow in the highway of Alexandrian orthodoxy? There can be no answer to the question

whether he was an 'apostate'. It is, of course, psychologically possible that he had so far relaxed

his membership of the community that, perhaps at the time of Severus's persecution, he had evaded

martyrdom by offering sacrifice. This could very well have been known to Porphyry, but not to

Eusebius. Thus the two sides of the tradition are not absolutely irreconcilable.

PERIPATETIC INFLUENCE ON CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

This balancing of possibilities which admit of no demonstration would, however, be an idle

game, save for the fact that the title of the tract which Eusebius ascribes to Ammonius4 indicates

precisely at what point the evolving Christian theology found itself obliged to borrow the Peripatetic

concept of the avEod'oacov (vide infra, p. 72), and take this up into the Platonic ontology which was

traditional in the school.

In the Valentinian Heracleon's Treatise on the Three Natures5 we read concerning the

philosophers:

'They did not possess the possibility of knowing the cause of existing things because this

was not communicated to them. Therefore they introduced other explanations. Some say

that things which happen take place according to a Providence; these are those who perceive

the regularity and order of motion. Others say that no Providence exists; these are those

who take notice both of the irregularity and abnormality of the powers and of evil. Some say

that what must happen happens .... Others say that what happens comes about according

to nature. Others again say that the world is an automatism. But the great majority have

turned to the visible elements, without knowing more than these.'

The editor, Quispel, comments: 'Hence the writer (Heracleon?) sees in Greek philosophy only

contradiction and demonic inspiration. He esteems at far higher worth the Hebrew Prophets

who did not contradict one another and announced the coming of Christ.'

Written in the generation after I45, these declarations are certainly far from being original.

But in their polemical employment of an ordinary school tradition they reveal, with as much clarity

as a first-rate thinker could do, the point at which any Christian theology that was marked by

the Pauline doctrine of predestination must come to grips with ancient philosophy: the problem

TEpt TpovoLcas.

2 Compare e.g. Schmid-StiThlin, Gesch. d. griech.

Lit. II, p. 1341; Carl Schmidt, Plotins Stellung zum

Gnostizismus ... (T. U. Neue Folge V, 4) has proposed

the name of a Bishop Ammonius of Thmuis.

3 As C. Schmidt, op. cit. 8, n. I, agrees.

4 That is, 'On the concord of Moses and Jesus' a

highly probable title for an early work by Ammonius

about the chief theological problem of his day. It may

be added here that we learn from Porphyry of the titles

of two works by the neo-Platonist Origen, namely:

6rt tsO'vo Irotri)rl 6 flartAed5 and 7Trepl Ti5o datdvov.

These works must surely have dealt with the subjects of

which Hierocles also treated in his nep 'r povolag--the

former would deal with the creation, the latter with

destiny. An identification of Origen the neo-Platonist

with the Christian Origen has been essayed by R. Cadiou

(op. cit.), but is controverted by Schwyzer, op. cit. col. 480,

42 ff. From the way in which Hierocles brings to the

front the name of this Origen, it can be deduced that he

(and not, as might be supposed, Plotinus) was the main

source of Hierocles's information about the teaching of

Ammonius.

5 Translation taken from The Jung Codex, Three

Studies by H. C. Puech, G. Quispel, W. C. Van Unnik,

tr. and ed. by F. L. Cross, London, 1955. The section

quoted is from pp. 59 if-




70 H LANGERBECK

Interest in this and kindred problems is not, indeed, in the second century by any means

confined to the Christians. It is unnecessary to enumerate the copious writings still extant, in

which they are dealt with by academic philosophers. The words of Heracleon, however, make

it quite clear that it is Philosophy in the broadest sense, not the dogmatic teaching of one school

or another, that is here being tested by this problem and found wanting on account of its self-

contradiction. And this judgment is not passed from a sceptical viewpoint, but from the gnostic's

positive claim to possess the A)4lOEUa.6 Gnosis reveals itself as the one and only true philosophy, just

because it alone has found a solution to the antinomy of philosophy. Valentinus himself in his

Gospel of the Truth, written about 145,7 solves the problem by abandoning the Cosmos as the realm

of XAhl and ayvota.

'The beings which has no root, still immersed in his nothingness, thinks thus of himself:

I am as the shadows and spectral appearances of the night. But when the light appears, he

comes to recognise that the fear which took hold of him was nothing. Thus men were in

ignorance concerning the Father, Him Whom they saw not. When this ignorance inspired

them, fear and confusion left them uncertain and hesitant, . . . there were many vain illusions

S. .. which tormented them, like sleepers who are a prey to nightmares. One flees one knows

not where, or one remains at the same spot while endeavouring to go forward, in the pursuit

of one knows not whom. . . . Down to the moment when those who have passed through

all this wake up. Then they see nothing . . . for all those dreams were nought. Thus they

have cast their ignorance far away from them, like the dream which they account as nought.'

This 'waking up' and this 'knowledge' are not, however, available to all men. 'The Pneu-

matici turn to God, Who is the fulfilment of the All, because they are those whose names the

Father has known from the beginning. . . . Therefore he who knows is a being from above.

When he is called, he hears; he answers; he directs himself to Him who calls him and returns to

Him; he apprehends how he is called. By possessing Gnosis, he carries out the will of Him Who

called him and seeks to do what pleases Him . . . he understands as someone who makes himself

free and awakes from the drunkenness wherein he lived and returns to himself.'

It will probably be clear that in this passage the religious experience of salvation is being

reflectively analysed with the help of the categories of Platonism. The Socratic-Platonic o3 Et

EKcoV 4lLap7a'vEt is plainly taken for granted by Valentinus. The statement, which has often been

repeated, that the salvation of the gnostics, because linked up with avtsg, was merely a cosmological

process, without relation to the moral responsibility of the human being, is merely a polemical

simplification. The 'turning', 'hearing', 'making oneself free', 'doing the will of God', are

undoubtedly moral actions, and it is as such that they serve as a proof of 'being saved'. But (i) they

are confined to those 'who come from above', that is, the Pneumatici, and (ii) their scope is radically

limited because the world has been rejected, so that they have no bearing upon a man's behaviour

as a social being within the world. And accordingly rrpdvota is limited to the privileged few, and

is identical with their predestination. This predestination is not founded upon the will of God,

and is not justified through the moral will of man. It is a given state of affairs, ontological, though

not rational. Methexis in the divine being (identity is out of the question) is limited to those who

spring from the divine being, to the orbit of the divine emanation. The entire physical cosmos,

and with it by far the largest number of men, have no existence in the strict sense.

The conception that the Christian religion is the one true philosophy, to which the old

'philosophies' are opposed as heresies, is widespread in the second century; and for pagan eclecticism,

also, there is but one true philosophy; whereas the re-establishment of chairs at Athens for the four

'classical' philosophies is a very typical product of the restoration-politics of the emperors, and as such

is without importance for the intellectual centres of the age, primarily Rome and Alexandria. With

one exception, however: the renaissance of the Peripatos did exercise great influence, through its

connection with the outstanding personality of Alexander of Aphrodisias. The two treatises

composed by him I7Ep' bvXrf and ITEpl El~apg'v~s, especially the latter, put an end to the existence

of the Stoa, save in so far as this or that feature of its doctrine was absorbed by the new eclectic

tradition. But it was above all the precise elaboration of the peripatetic ethical category of the

aTrEfovcTLov which furnished the anti-gnostic Christian theology with a means of placing the 'one

true philosophy' upon a new foundation, thus bringing to an end the stage of confused and epigonal

eclecticism.

To illustrate the eclecticism by one instance: Clement of Alexandria says (Strom. I. 37, end of

chapter): 'By philosophy I intend neither the Stoic nor the Platonic, nor the Epicurean, nor the

Aristotelian; whatever has been well said by each of these sects (alpEEawv), whatever is likely to

6 Cf. op. cit. p. I05.

7 Cf. van Unnik, op. cit. p. 103.

8 The state of A~0 is described with imagery taken

from Iliad XXII, i99-20i, as Quispel rightly emphasises.





impart justice accompanied by a reverent knowledge, it is this chosen part (7r 'K EKTLKdV), as a

whole, which I term philosophy.' Elsewhere (Strom. I. 50, 6) Stoicism is abandoned on account

of its materialism, and Epicureanism on account of its disbelief in rrpdvota, thus limiting the choice

to Platonic and Peripatetic doctrine.

PROVIDENCE IN CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

But now in what way is the belief in Providence systematically defended by this eclectic

Christian philosophy? Probably the locus classicus on this subject is Maximus Confessor, De variis

dif. locis Dionysii et Gregorii (= Clem. Alex. frg. VII, p. 224. 11 sq.). The writer describes how

some persons expert in pagan wisdom put to the disciples of Pantaenus the question, 'how the

Christians consider that God knows all that is (rd vrTa)', the enquirers' own opinion being that

He knows the rational by reason and sensibles by sense. But they replied 'that He knows neither

the rational by reason, nor the sensible by sense; for one who is situated beyond realities cannot

make use of realities for the apprehension of realities; no, it is as effects of His own will (cs I&sa

OA')/a7a) that He knows all realities. And they added a defence of their belief. For if He has

made all things by His will . . and if it is pious and righteous to say that God must know that

which He has willed, and if it is by will that He has made each individual that has come into being

(EKauTov T~V yEy ovod7Tv)-therefore it is as acts of His own will that God kn ows all things.'

No one will wish to deny that here a specifically Christian ontology and epistemology is being

formulated, and with a novel clarity and awareness. There is an evident allusion, on the one hand

to Plato, Republic VI, 50o8 d sq., a passage already fundamental for Middle Platonism, and on

the other hand to the transcendent God of the Gnostics, who not merely is not known by the world,9

but does not know of the world. The advance beyond the view prevalent at least since Irenaeus's

time among Western opponents of the Gnostics is unmistakable. Irenaeus, closely followed by

Tertullian, directed all his attack against the transcendent God. The Demiurge, on the other

hand (who to the Gnostics had been no more than a secondary device,'o whereby they borrowed

Plato's cosmology in order to account for the creation of the world), is for these upholders of the

doctrine of the Church the God of whom the scriptures, mainly the Old Testament, teach. In

their reply to Gnosticism these theologians therefore proceed by an appeal to the Bible, and what

they have to oppose to the philosophical axiom ex nihilo nihil fit, is the voluntaristic conception of

God's activity, derived from the Old Testament. Such a conception of God has, therefore, ever

since that time been regarded as typically Judaeo-Christian.

Now, however, with Pantaenus and the catechetic school of Alexandria, the EdrEKEWL 'T-

oivoas common to Plato and the Gnostics takes shape as the will of God. Consequently the wholly

transcendent God of the Gnostics can be retained, and the creation of the world transferred to him.

The connection with Christian doctrine is effected, not, as with the Western opponents of Gnosticism,

through the Old Testament but through the God of the New Testament (especially of Paul and

John), who knows only 'his own' and is known only by 'his own'. (This was also the inspiration

of the earliest Gnostic theology.) Predestination can be understood in a voluntaristic manner;

and in this way can be rescued from the hands of the Gnostics.

It is all-important to ask whether we have here a coherent 'metaphysic of the will', of the

Western type. A negative answer will have to be given to this question, on the ground (a) of the

structure of the argument itself, and (b) of the manner in which Clement and Origen develop this

basic dogma of the Alexandrian catechetic school. The OdAlLa GEoi is a ground of knowledge.

The 1i8a 70o diyaOoi, though it is not denied, is interpreted simply as a personal force. The founda-

tion for the conception of God as personal is, of course, Biblical. Only for its theological explication

did it become necessary to draw upon the ethics and psychology of Aristotle and the Peripatos.

Here and here alone, in the whole of philosophy subsequent to Socrates, had the problem of

flotAvr~s been seen in its full extent and discussed. The Platonic o~es ECKWV apV Lap7rdvE was sub-

jected to criticism, but Plato's gradation of values was preserved, which is to say that psychological

relativism was rejected (E.N. F ch. 6 and 7). Hellenistic philosophy failed to adopt the subtle

Aristotelian analysis of po'Alrns and its varieties, and it is only the schema of the /CE0rTYS which

plays some part (not an imposing one) in the later school tradition.

What should be emphasised for our purpose is that the Aristotelian fovAy;eus-concept is

radically distinct from the Latin voluntas, coloured as this became by Stoicism. The ethics of

Aristotle is neither theonomous (cf. Eud. Eth. I249bI14) nor autonomous, but basically eudaemonistic,

9 Compare, Valentinus op. cit. 57 and 58. It should

be observed that the concept of will is entirely missing

from this theologia negativa. But the view of the activity

of God-'He who thinks himself', etc.-coincides with

Aristotle s.

.o Compare Van Unnik, op. cit. 98. Valentinus s

principal work contains no allusion whatever to a

demiurge.




72 H LANGERBECK

that is to say, directed towards the contemplative life and thus towards God. Auctoritas and lex,

and hence o9ficium in the Roman sense, are categories which simply cannot be adapted to it. It is

an ethics of decision upon one's personal responsibility; one is responsible equally for one's own

getS and for the concrete results of the decision. Just on this account it is strictly limited to the

region of human action and behaviour. For man, however, the rb E'' qttvu is the core of the situa-

tion., And it was Alexander who, borrowing the term aV~eovtdcnov, which Hellenistic philosophy

had coined, demonstrated this in his crushing polemic against the Stoa. For Aristotle, in any

case, transference of the concept of flov'?Al~s to God could have had no meaning. It can only

be meaningful for that sort of theological reflection, for which the personality of God is the primary

experience. But to such religious experience it furnishes a basic conception, whereby God's

personality can be assured, in opposition to the familiar arguments of the poet-philosophers and

critics of the myths. The pro and contra of the discussions concerning the i7rcl7 of God could be

ignored.

This transference, then, was the special achievement of Pantaenus or his fellow-theologians.

Their dependence upon earlier Christian formulations of the Biblical teaching is evident, and

Philo, too, must be borne in mind (compare, e.g., De leg. spec. IV, 187, or De opif. mundi, 46). But

a distinctioniz is necessary between (i) Philo's occasional, unsystematic use of such an expression

as EOEhEt or flodt? s -o 70t EOVO , or the similar expression in Galen, de usu partium XI, I : I BgovAi'6Va

rdVO 1EV KOoCrkU rau T7? V iAv, 8 8' E80 KEKocUTrf7at-which comes from a Jewish or Christian source;

and (ii) the deliberate procedure of Pantaenus in specifying the Platonic E'rKEva rTi- ouraas as

the OE'ApuLa OEov, and thus elevating the O6'A-rjta OEot3 to an ontological principle. True, in both

these cases the intention is to justify the creatio ex nihilo. But in (i) it is the problem of divine

omnipotence that is at issue, and the special object of Galen's attack is the Stoic paradoxes, whereas

in (ii) the writer is concerned with a deep-lying ontological problem, that of the relation between

the divine oau'a and the ovtola of the world. But from a mere assertion of divine omnipotence

there was no way of striking at the heart of the Gnostic theology-namely, the dogma that the

Pneumatici, and only they, are predestined.

Characteristically, the Alexandrian theology not merely fails to stress the omnipotence of God,

but expressly gives it up. It is sufficient to refer to Origen, De princ. II, 9, I (= p. 164 I sqq.) :

KIaTEUKEdacEV, cTuv7 s}va7 PTO &ocio ur aa. Perhaps this is the acme of ancient Christian Aristo-

telianism: the creation of the world by the o;dlAa O oEv is not a proof of divine omnipotence, but

of the converse: the inference is that the creator as well as the creation is nmEwpaupyvor. True to

the Aristotelian doctrine, o PorA a is related to the sphere of 'patK, which, as such, cannot be

infinite. And this makes it possible to graft on to a Christian theology the Aristotelian picture

of a deity who is the object of his own thought. Such a deity is known to the Valentinians also (see

above, note 9); but he is ipso facto alien to the world, as the realm of the a7mepov. Creation by

a will is known also to the Roman critics of Gnosticism. But they thought that they could rely

upon the Stoic concept of divine omnipotence in order to meet the Gnostic problem, whereby the

world is irrational, and therefore shadowy. But in Origen's version creation by will, and the

separateness, of God, are combined-it is from the 'will' of God, as he interprets it, that the rationality

of the world follows. And from this premiss it was possible for the Alexandrians to subvert the

Gnostic anthropology, according to which the Pneumatici are beings of a higher nature.

AMMONIUS AND ORIGEN

The ambitious project of a radically 'voluntaristic' metaphysics in Origen's De principiis can

be most clearly understood, if I am not mistaken, by approaching it from the side of Aristotle's

11 Anticipating my conclusion, I refer to the striking

formulation of Hierocles-Ammonius (Photius 462b32 sq.) :

dvOpwrr'ivwav v 6viipIvX5v vypeta 7'7 a TOKV 77TO 7TpoalpectrS

Kat -6 Ae Syd0evov 8e0' ?l'v.

12 This distinction is, I think, not observed in H. A.

Wolfson's great work on Philo. W. expounds Philo

from the point of view of a Western 'metaphysic of will',

considering him to have been its progenitor. But even

a direct derivation of 'the' Christian (or, it may be,

Jewish) concept of will from the Old Testament appears to

me impossible. An assertion like the following, from

E. Frank, Philosophical Understanding and Religious Truth,

O.U.P. (1945), p. 174: 'In the Old Testament, however,

the idea of a free moral will is indicated for the first time:

if God created the world with all its laws, not because this

was the best possible world, but because out of His own

unfathomable volition He wanted it thus', surely goes

back rather to Luther than to the text of Genesis. A

date for the emergence of the whole problem seems to me

to be given e silentio Philonis. Had the problem been

current in Hellenistic Jewish thought, Philo's naivete over

against it would be quite incomprehensible.





Ethics. What he does is to elevate to the metaphysical, or, if you prefer, mythological dimension,

the Aristotelian notion of the gtgs. The core of the system is the dialectical union between responsi-

bility for one's own life, and fixity of the moral habits once acquired. Admittedly the Platonic

components of the system, metempsychosis and so forth, are at first sight far more prominent.

But they are less essential, and a notable fact is the entire absence of pictures of Hades derived

from the Platonic myths; whereas the argument is dominated by the thesis that matter in general,

hence the multiplicity of the cosmos, hence its origin as the world of our experience, is a function

of will; i.e. both the will of individual spirits or souls, and God's ordering will. The various degrees

of immersion in ~XA) are, as it were, a materialisation of the je'S. It is not the capacity for knowing,

a capacity dependent upon each thing's situation in the scale, which determines the will, but,

conversely, the moral ?'iet determines knowledge; a trait which I would regard as, beyond doubt,

genuinely Aristotelian.

Now by a comparative study of Origen's early writings with his later ones from the De principiis

onwards, such as has been inaugurated by R. Cadiou (see above, p. 67), it becomes quite plain

that this ambitious conception did not take shape without some decisive external influence. In

view of the concordant testimony of Porphyry, Eusebius, and Origen himself, this can only have

been Ammonius. This closes the ring of our hypothetical argument: the doctrine expounded in

Hierocles' treatise exactly fills the space between the dogma of the divine will, as maintained by

Pantaenus, and Origen's De principiis. It is a kind of first sketch of Origen's programme of urpdvota

and -TralE&vs . The ordering function of the divine will is explained in still more abstract and

scholastic terms than in Origen. The cosmos has been created by divine will as a static system

of spirits of various rank (cf. Photius, p. 46IbIo-31). Consistently with this, metempsychosis is

limited to transition into another human form (I72b21-24). By his radical application of the

principle of a3-reovcdt'r-y Origen shattered this. The ground of or motive for this thoroughness

is obvious-the absolute denial of any 'natural' distinction among spirits, even between human and

non-human.'3 We shall not go astray if we see, in the emphasis by the Gnostics upon the natural

distinction among the spirits who occupy the various ranks of being (cf. Orig. De princ. I. 8, 2 =

p. 98, 8 sqq.), a last defensive reaction by them in reply to a system such as that of Hierocles and

Ammonius. (For this emphasis on the unalterable distinction compare Photius, p. 46Ib32 sq.).

Origen's radical approach has therefore a definite function in the situation of the time. And

by it Gnosis as a spiritual force was in fact broken. After his De principiis Gnosis of all tendencies

declines into unimportant conservative sects. Manes, also, is merely a syncretist, not a theologian.

There is no space here to enter into detail concerning the debt of Hierocles to Ammonius.

Let us put together our result. The treatise of Hierocles professes to be a rdsum6 of philosophy

in general. Its historical part is so arranged as to culminate in two points (Photius, p. I73a5-40):

firstly Plato (book 2), with whom Aristotle is brought into harmony (book 6), after it has been

proved that all the ancients either coincide with Plato or are contradicted by him; and secondly

Ammonius, who re-established the unity of philosophy. Ammonius comes last and has the position

of honour at the end of book 6. The vigorous polemic against the orthodox Platonists and Peri-

patetics, which precedes this, is plainly his teaching. Book 7 begins with the exposition of

Ammonius's own doctrine and ends with a history of neo-Platonism. In books 6 and 7, the name

of Ammonius is immediately followed by citation from Plotinus and from the neo-Platonist Origen.

If this arrangement has any purpose, this can only be to justify the claim made by Hierocles

to represent in its purity that philosophy which had been re-established by Ammonius (cf. Photius,

46Ia32-37). No proofs that Hierocles had before him some source, which he could assert to be

a direct echo of Ammonius, are available. But his appeal not merely to Plotinus (which is natural)

but to Origen the neo-Platonist, is very striking. The latter, according to all the evidence, wrote

only two works, whose contents, judging from the titles, coincide with the teaching of Hierocles.

Of the second of them, 'On /dvo' rros~ -7U O canAEv'I, Porphyry expressly reports that it was com-

posed in the time of Gallienus. He places it, indeed, before the commencement of Plotinus's

writings, but after the publication of the eXAxca of Amelius. Since the title flatly contradicts

Plotinus's teaching, it is highly probable that its object was to rectify Ammonius against innovations

by Plotinus. And this again tallies with the fact that in regard to the subject in dispute Hierocles

departs widely from Plotinus. There is therefore much to suggest that in his endeavour to present

the teaching of Ammonius in its purity Hierocles attached himself primarily to Origen the neo-

Platonist. It is possible (probable, perhaps) that this Origen was regarded in Alexandria (where

13 But this does not mean that Origen abandons, as

Jonas thinks (Gnosis und Spdtantiker Geist, Bd. II. i = G6t-

tingen, 1954), the distinction between the creator-spirit,

identical with the Trinity, and created spirits. His

speculations concerning the imperishability of ViA even

in the eschatological condition of ard'va 65uoii show this

as plainly as possible (De princ. II, 2). That spirits have

a personality which is never lost is as much an axiom

for him as it is for Ammonius. Consequently, in com-

plete contrast to Plotinus, he assigns no sort of 'creative'

power to the soul. This creative power is a typically

Plotinian and a fundamentally anti-Christian conception.




74 H LANGERBECK

Ammonius would have been better known, through various indirect traditions, than at Rome or

Athens) as Ammonius's prize pupil, and as an authority superior even to Plotinus and his school.

The confidence of Hierocles in him is therefore well founded, unless strong reasons are produced

on the other side. That Hierocles's teaching has a Christian stamp is, however, no counter-reason;

it is rather a confirmation of his reliability, for there is no ground for calling in question the reports

concerning the Christian descent of Ammonius and his composition of an anti-Marcionite writing.

The assertion of Longinus that Ammonius wrote nothing is not a counter-argument, since Longinus

himself intends it to be taken cum grano salis (cf. Porph. Vit. Plot. ed. Henry-Schwyzer, 2o. 36 and

40 sqq.). Besides this it is very probable that the book was a production of his youth, which could

easily have been quite unknown to the pupils he had in later years. It is probable or at least

possible that Eusebius was more correctly informed about this than was Porphyry. But what is

decisive is the book's subject-matter. It goes without saying that 'Christian influence' is not a

category which the historian can use. The problems of Christian theology at Alexandria in the

time of Hierocles are not those of creation by the will of God14; they are quite different. Hierocles

can have had no conceivable ground for taking over a Christian commonplace, which had long

ceased to have topical interest. In the time of Ammonius, on the other hand, this was the central

problem in the Church's contest with Gnosis. And Alexandria is its centre. Moreover, the

harmonising of Aristotle with Plato begins to have an urgent meaning, as a requisite of the system,

when the point of departure is that of the school of Pantaenus. Never before this, never afterwards,

was ancient Christian theology to such a degree compelled by the development of its own problems

to strive after an ontology of the will. And, within the given philosophical tradition, this could

be achieved only by attachment to Aristotle and the ethics of his school. The historical impetus

was already furnished by Alexander of Aphrodisias. And he is in fact the only person, later than

the classical systems, mentioned by name in Hierocles (I72bIo, 461b25). Certainly Hierocles

(Ammonius) attacks his solution of the problem of eapE'v'q, but that does not prove that he

did not take over from him his main anthropological position, the unlimited a3Eovao',zidr of man.'5

He held it to be Aristotelian (correctly), and consequently, not less correctly in his own view, to

be Platonic.

The emergency, which obliged Christian theologians to provide themselves with a new philo-

sophical basis, also opened up the possibility of a Christian philosophy, and, to be precise, of a

pure, i.e. extra-theological philosophy. It is instructive to find that a man like Ammonius took

advantage of this, in the then state of church politics at Alexandria. The treatise of Hierocles

undoubtedly has some pagan features, loosely attached to it indeed. Whether, considering the

double breach of tradition by Origen the neo-Platonist, who was certainly not a Christian, and by

Hierocles, anything follows from this about the opinions of Ammonius, I do not venture to decide.

In any case the substance of the system, precisely on account of the Aristotelian impress which is

so evident, is considerably nearer to Christianity than Plotinus is. Thus it would not be incorrect

to characterise the position of Ammonius as that of a secularised Christian philosopher. Plotinus

is not free from traits of an anti-Christian resentment. Porphyry is the foe of the Christians. The

description of the greater part of theology after Origen as 'neo-Platonic' is in part empty, and in

part nonsensical, since the neo-Platonic school from Plotinus onwards was in intention anti-Christian.

There are detailed connections upon which a decisive judgment could only be pronounced if we

knew more of the school of Ammonius at Alexandria in the third century. For the late Latin

theologians (Ambrose and above all Augustine), the part played by Plotinus and Porphyry is

considerable. Such influence upon the Greek fathers has yet to be demonstrated.'6

H. LANGERBECK.

Bad Homburg v. d. Hiohe.

14 An illustration of this is the way in which Nemesius

III. 6o, applies Ammonius s doctrine concerning the

gvootg of body and soul to the Christological problem

of his own day.

'5 For Ammonius's use of Alexander, a key passage is

Nemesius III. 58 ~Alex. de anima 14. 23; compare also

Plotinus IV. 20, 15 sqq.

16 This article was already in the press when H. D6rrie's

paper Ammonios der Lehrer Plotins (Hermes, 1955,

PP- 439-77) was published, so that it has not been

possible to take account of it. A discussion of its en-

tirely different conclusions would have been a lengthy

process.

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The Philosophy of Ammonius Saccas