The Orthodox Doctrine of the Person

Volume I Table of Contents

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Information on Publisher, Copyright and ISBN for Volume IIntroductionI The Anthropology of St Gregory of NyssaChapter I -- 1Chapter I -- 2Chapter I -- 3Chapter I -- 4Chapter I -- 5Chapter I -- 6Chapter I -- 7Chapter I -- 8Chapter I -- 9Chapter I -- 10Chapter I -- 11Chapter I -- 12Chapter I -- 13Chapter I -- 14Chapter I -- 15Chapter I -- 16Chapter I -- 17II The Anthropology of St Gregory

Bibliography

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ACO 4, 1 Acta Conciliorvm Oecvmenicorvm. Ivssv atqve mandato Societatis Scientiarvm Argentoratensis. Edenda intitvit Edvardvs Schwartz. Continvavit Johannes Straub. Tomvs Qvartvs. Volvmen Primvm. MDCCCLXXI. In Aedibvs Walter de Gruyter & Co. Berolini. (Tome 4, Volume 1. 1971. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.) Anthony Athanase d’Alexandrie (St Athanasios of

Chapter V -- 7

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Let us now turn to the broader spiritual issues. We have seen St John of Damascus’ description of the condition of man in Paradise before the Fall. As we have noted, St John emphasizes the spiritual aspect of man’s comportment in Paradise: as a spiritual creature related to the angels, man had as his task in Paradise to be nourished without care by the contemplation of God himself, having cast

Chapter V -- 6

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Man was created spiritual. He is both a body and a soul. With the body he belongs to the material order of creation and is subject to its physical laws just like the rest of the material creation. With the plants man shares certain basic biological functions such as nutrition, increase and generation. With the animals, he shares sense-perception, desire, temper and bodily movement. With

Chapter V -- 5

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The next important thing for the spirituality of the Philokalia is the notion that Baptism does not prevent the Devil from tempting us. Recall that in the ascetical psychology of Evagrius Pontikos, the beginning of a temptation is the appearance in the ascetic’s field of consciousness of an image based on one of the eight passions, which image tempts the ascetic to sin. Here, St Diadochos is

Chapter V -- 4

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We now wish to turn to man’s vocation. We have seen St John of Damascus’ description of the condition of Adam and Eve in Paradise before the Fall. There we saw that Adam and Eve were created in the image and in the likeness of God, and there we saw detailed descriptions of Adam and Eve’s life in Paradise which we ourselves remarked were not only descriptions of what has been lost by Adam’s

Chapter V -- 3

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Let us see how St John continues, no longer quoting St Gregory the Theologian: He, then, made him a sinless nature and a will which was self-ruled (autexousion). I say ‘sinless’, then, not as ‘not being receptive of sin’ (for only the Divine is not receptive of sin), but as ‘not having it in his nature to sin, but rather in his deliberate choice’, that is, having the authority to

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In the next chapter of the Exposition, II, 12, St John begins by making several important points. First, the angels are bodiless only by comparison with the grossness of matter: only the Divine is really immaterial and bodiless. This is to be taken to apply to the soul as well, as we shall see below. Next, St John draws on a passage of St Gregory the Theologian that is found in both St

Chapter V -- 1

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V The Vocation of Man In the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II, 11, St John of Damascus describes Paradise: Since, then, out of the visible and the invisible creation God was going to fashion man in his own image and likeness as a kind of king and ruler of all the earth and of those things which are on the earth, he first made for man a sort of kingdom, inhabiting

Chapter IV -- 20

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With respect to those aspects of anthropology and psychology that are important for bioethics, there are no real differences between St Thomas’ model of man and the Orthodox model of man: the differences that there are, are minor, the reflections of different philosophical orientations, and those differences are easily accounted for. The only unusual aspect of St Thomas’ anthropology is his

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The final topic we wish to consider before we turn to a general discussion of St Thomas’ anthropology and psychology is St Thomas’ treatment of the passions. St Thomas begins his ‘Treatise on the Passions’ in ST Ia IIae, 22. We ourselves simply wish to distinguish St Thomas’ treatment of the passions from the treatment of the Greek ascetical Fathers. St Thomas first establishes that the soul

Chapter IV -- 18

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Let us now summarize St Thomas model of human action. The two powers of the human soul which are chiefly involved in the determination and execution of a human action are the reason and the will. The reason is the highest part of man, limited to propositional knowledge generated through ratiocination working with propositions based on concepts abstracted from the data of sense-perception and on

Chapter IV -- 17

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St Thomas establishes that God does not move the will necessarily.[1] That is, we are not marionettes in the hands of Grace; Grace does not force us to do anything. The important part of what St Thomas says is this: Therefore, since the will is an active principle not determined to one thing but having itself indifferently [disposed] to many

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St Thomas establishes that the will is not necessarily moved by the inferior appetite (i.e. by the temper or by the desire). What St Thomas says is this: As has been said above, the passion of the sensitive appetite moves the will out of the fact that the will is moved by its object, as much, that is to say, as the man, disposed in some fashion by the passion, judges something

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St Thomas establishes that the will can be moved by the sensitive appetite.[1] In our terminology, the sensitive appetite is the passionate part of the soul, the temper and the desire taken together. This is important for an understanding of how St Thomas approaches the matter of how a person acts or does not act on the basis of his passions or

Chapter IV -- 14

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St Thomas begins his analysis of human action by referring to St John of Damascus.[1] He establishes that a voluntary act is an act which is a rational operation. St Thomas establishes that a voluntary act or movement has two elements: that the agent act by an internal principle—that is, not be moved from without—, and that the agent act for an end.

Chapter IV -- 13

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We now wish to discuss St Thomas’ theory of human action. Our reason for doing this is threefold. First, St Thomas’ theory of action is a very important part of his psychology. It handles all questions of intentional movement, including simple intentional movements such as raising one’s arm. Second, as we shall see in Volumes II and III, Evagrius Pontikos and St Hesychios each discuss a

Chapter IV -- 12

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To return to St Thomas, St Thomas establishes that in the conditions of the present life our intellect cannot know the angels.[1] It is important to note that the doctrine that the immaterial substances—the angels, for example—can be known by the intellect the more the intellect is unmixed with imagination and sense is here taken by St Thomas to be a

Chapter IV -- 11

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St Thomas now turns to how the intellect operates.[1] St Thomas establishes that our intellect operates by abstracting from the images or phantasms produced in sense-perception.[2] St Thomas makes this important distinction: we perceive not the ‘sensible species’ but the sensible object by means of the ‘

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St Thomas then turns to questions of the nature of the human conscience.[1] While these are very important questions for moral theology, let us here simply say that St Thomas distinguishes two aspects of conscience: one (‘synderesis’) a habit which always inclines towards the good; the other (‘conscience’), an act by which we judge our own actions on

Chapter IV -- 9

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St Thomas next introduces the idea of the ‘agent intellect’.[1] The agent intellect is a difficult concept. Let us here simply say that it is the power of the human soul to abstract the universal, or objective concept, from the sense-perception of an object. St Thomas establishes that the ‘memory’ is part of the intellect.[1] St Thomas raises the very important question whether the intellectual power of the soul is a power of the soul or the very essence of the soul.[2] We have already, in Section 13 of Chapter

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St Thomas next turns in detail to the powers of the soul.[1] His discussion is very important. He follows Aristotle quite closely. St Thomas distinguishes five genera (main kinds) of powers of the human soul: the vegetative, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive and intellectual.[2] Since we will not

Chapter IV -- 6

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However, strangely enough, St Thomas’ doctrine of the human soul does not in his view imply that the full human soul comes to exist in the embryo at conception. In an astonishing development, St Thomas takes the position that the human soul does not come to exist in the embryo at the moment of conception, but in the following rather unusual way: The semen contains a ‘corporeal virtue’, which is

Chapter IV -- 5

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St Thomas next[1] denies the position of Averroës (1126–98), the Muslim philosopher, that all men share in a single ‘active intellect’, a position based by Averroës on his own interpretation of a passage of Aristotle which concerns the ‘active mind (nous)’, a passage of Aristotle which has always been in dispute.[2][1] For St Thomas, man is composed of a spiritual substance, the soul, and a corporeal substance, the body. The soul is not a corporeal body.[2] In explaining this, St Thomas states that the soul is the first

Chapter IV -- 3

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Let us now turn to St Thomas’ anthropology. St Thomas Aquinas’ anthropology has, seemingly, all the basic features of the anthropology that we have already seen in St Gregory of Nyssa and St Macrina, and even, to an extent, in Evagrius Pontikos. For in St Thomas Aquinas, man is composed of body and soul; the soul is an intelligible substance; the soul is composed of intellect and appetite;

Chapter IV - 2

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It seems to us that the salient features of Thomism that give it its particular character are these: First, and most important, is the identification of God with pure being or pure existence (Latin: esse; = Greek: einai). É. Gilson, on whose presentation of Thomism we have to a certain extent relied, remarks that this is St Thomas Aquinas’ great insight and stroke of genius. Be that as it may,

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IV Western Christian Anthropologies In what does the particular or peculiar character of Thomism consist? It is often said that Orthodoxy is Platonist and that Catholicism—that is, Thomism—is Aristotelian. But we have already seen in Chapter II that St Gregory of Nyssa presents his sister St Macrina as adapting Aristotle’s psychology to the Genesis account of creation in order to explain

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13 The Relation Between Mind and Soul Let us now turn to a question that we have not yet answered directly: what really is the relationship between the mind (nous) and the soul (psuche)? The reader will recall that we had left the matter somewhat ambiguous. Moreover, we had found that Evagrius had a doctrine that the soul (psuche) was a mind (nous) that had been reduced to the rank of

Chapter III -- 50

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Let us now turn to a related question, that of the status of the human soul when the body is damaged. St Gregory of Nyssa speaks to this matter systematically in On the Making of Man; it is an important part of his anthropology. In Chapter 10, St Gregory asserts that the mind (nous) operates by means of the senses. We ourselves will have to expand this concept somewhat, in order to be able

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We shall now see how St Gregory handles the problem of the source of the soul. For the soul must come from somewhere. What he says in the next passage is that living bodies beget the living; dead bodies do not beget anything. For that reason, St Gregory says, it is reasonable to consider that that which is sent forth from the living body to be the occasion of life is itself alive. But that

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Let us now turn to substantive issues in anthropology. The first question with which we wish to deal is this: If souls did not and do not pre-exist where did they and do they come from? St Gregory of Nyssa deals with this problem in his work, On the Making of Man. As we have already mentioned, St Gregory wrote this work to complete the Hexaemeron of his brother, St Basil the Great, who

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12 Return to St Gregory of Nyssa Let us now turn to a fundamental issue. In Chapter II, above, we stopped discussing St Gregory of Nyssa and St Macrina when they had finished developing an Orthodox psychology tied to an Orthodox anthropology. That Orthodox psychology included a tripartite division of the soul that Evagrius himself uses in the Kephalaia Gnostica. We will in fact use this

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It is clear that the version intégrale (S2) of the Kephalaia Gnostica is an excellent witness to the Origenism that was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod. If we accept the hypothesis of Professor Guillaumont, which we do, that the version intégrale (S2) is in fact the sole authentic witness to the original Greek text of the Kephalaia Gnostica, then it must be concluded with Professor

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11 Anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod The Fifteen Canons of the Holy 165 Fathers of the Holy Fifth Synod in Constantinople. 1 If anyone advocates the mythical pre-existence of souls and the monstrous Restoration which follows it, let him be anathema. This first Anathema hits the nail on the head. The pre-existence of souls—which, it is clear from the subsequent Anathemas,

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10 Evaluation of the Evagrian Cosmological System Evagrius is ‘New Age’. Much of the cosmology he propounds is current in ‘New Age’ circles today. Many of his cosmological ideas bear a striking resemblance to Buddhism. In fact, the resemblances are so striking we wish to remark that Tibet was converted to Buddhism several hundred years after Evagrius’ death. Moreover, Evagrius’ life is

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In the worlds, God ‘will change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the glorious body’ (cf. Phil. 3, 21) of the Lord; and, after all the worlds, he will also make us ‘in the likeness of the image of his Son’ (Rom. 8, 29), if the image of his Son is the essential gnosis of God the Father (VI, 34). This clarifies the temporal sequence of events in the Restoration: First, there will

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In the world to come, no one will evade the prison in which he will fall, for it is said ‘You will not depart from there, until you have given the last coin’ (Matt. 5, 26), which is a minimal suffering (IV, 34). This clearly refers to the succession of worlds and to the punishment that awaits the wicked. Afterwards, however, there is the General Resurrection, the granting of a spiritual body,

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In the world to come the bodies of ignorance will be surpassed, and in that world which will follow it, the change will receive an increase of fire and air; and those who are below will apply themselves thenceforth to gnosis, if ‘the houses of the impious receive purification’ (Prov. 14, 9) and if ‘Today and tomorrow’ the Christ ‘works miracles and on the third day he is completed.’ (Luke 13, 32

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The destruction of worlds, the dissolution of bodies and the abolition of names accompany the gnosis which concerns the reasonable beings, whereas there remains the equality of gnosis according to the equality of substances (II, 17). This particular passage is important because of its clear statement of the Evagrian doctrine that when in the Restoration all the minds (noes) return to the

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9 The Evagrian Eschatology Evagrius on eschatology is Evagrius at his most deliberately obscure. Many of the passages that we present below we do not understand. Moreover, given that the broad outline of the Evagrian eschatology was condemned in extenso by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, and given that the Evagrian eschatology really has no ultimate relevance either to the ascetical endeavour

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8 The Evagrian Demonology The demon is the reasonable nature which has fallen from the service of God on account of an abundance of the irascible part (thumos) (III, 34). We have already seen in our discussion of the Evagrian doctrine of the angels, that the demon has a predominance of the irascible part (thumos). Here, it is used to characterize the demon, ‘which has fallen from the

Chapter III -- 37

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A holy power is that which has been constituted of the contemplation of beings and of the incorporeal nature and of the corporeal nature (VI, 17). This is an important if obscure chapter, for it again tells us that contemplations have the nature of powers or substances. Here we learn that an angel is constituted by the contemplation of beings—we think that this means the contemplation of ‘

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7 The Evagrian Angelology It is said that God is there where he acts, and that where he acts the more, there he is present the more; for he acts the more in natures which are reasonable and holy. Therefore he is present most of all in the celestial powers (I, 42). The importance of this chapter is for Evagrius’ theory of the gnosis of God. In the second natural contemplation we know God by

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We now look at another Evagrian typology of the mystical ascent: The first renunciation is the abandonment of objects of the world, which is produced by the will for the gnosis of God (I, 78). The second renunciation is the abandonment of vice, which is produced by the grace of God and by the effort of man (I, 79). The third renunciation is the separation from ignorance, which is

Chapter III -- 34

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If all vice has the nature to come from the rational part (logistikon), from the desire (epithumia) or from the irascible part (thumikon), and it is possible to use these powers either well or ill, then clearly the vices occur to us from the use of these parts. If this is so, then, nothing of the things which have come to be from God is evil (III, 59—Greek fragment). This should be clear. In

Chapter III -- 33

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If all the powers which we and the beasts have in common pertain to the corporeal nature, then it is evident that the irascible part (thumos) and the desiring part (epithumia) do not appear to have been created with the reasonable nature before the Movement (VI, 85). This is a very important chapter for Evagrius’ anthropology because in the two works we shall analyse in Volume II there is

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Being formed in the womb, we live the live of plants; being born, the life of animals; becoming adults, the life of angels or the life of demons. The cause of the first life is the ensouled substance; of the second, the senses; of the third, that we are receptive of virtue or vice (III, 76—Greek fragment as emended). This chapter is a brief presentation of the Aristotelian schema of the

Chapter III -- 31

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We now begin a series of chapters on Evagrius’ psychology: On the one hand, the body of the soul preserves the image (eikona) of a house; on the other hand, the senses have the nature (logos) of windows, through which the mind (nous), peeping out, sees the sensible things (IV, 68—Greek fragment). This is a Platonic notion of the relation between soul and body, here extended to a remark

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The sign of the human order is the human body, and the sign of each of the orders is the breadth, the forms, the colours, the qualities, the natural forces, the weakness, the time, the place, the parents, the increases, the modes, the life, the death and that which is connected to these things (III, 29). This seems clear enough in the beginning: the sign of the human is the human body. The

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There is nothing among the bodiless powers which might be in power in the bodies; indeed, our soul is bodiless (I, 45). We now learn that our soul (psuche) is bodiless: although it inhabits the body, it has no intrinsic connection to the body: the soul (psuche) is not part of the sensible order of creation. The significance of the first clause of this chapter is that the bodiless powers, being

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6 The Evagrian Anthropology From the angelic and archangelic states come the soul state; from the soul state come the demonic and the human states; from the human state again come angels and demons [to here, following the Greek fragment], if a demon is he who, on account of the abundance of anger (thumos), has fallen from praktike and has been joined with a dark and attenuated body (V, 11)

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The mind (nous) is in wonder when it sees the objects and it is not disturbed in their contemplation; but it runs as towards its familiars and friends (V, 73). This is an interesting remark on the psychology of contemplation. God has planted for himself the reasonable beings; his wisdom, in its turn, has grown in them, in their reading writings of every sort (IV, 1). These writings are the

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The sense and the mind (nous) divide among themselves the sensible things, but the mind (nous) alone has the intelligible things (noeta), for the mind (nous) becomes a seer both of the objects and of the reasons (logoi) (II, 45—Greek fragment). This is very important for Evagrius’ psychology. In regard to the perception of sensible objects, the organs of sense and the mind (nous) work together.

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Just as the pledge or guarantee which is in the body is a small part of the body, so also the pledge or guarantee which is in the gnoses is a certain part of the gnosis of beings (IV, 14). This seems to say that the mind (nous), being small and finite, can contain within itself only a very small part of natural gnosis. The ignorance of him whose gnosis is limited, is also limited; and the

Chapter III -- 24

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The mind (nous) which possesses the last clothing is that mind (nous) which knows only the contemplation of all the second beings (III, 8). The contemplation of all the second beings is second natural contemplation. This is a very important, although very ambiguous, chapter. What is the last clothing of the mind (nous)? We have seen someone assert that it is the passions. We do not think so.

Chapter III -- 23

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The mind (nous) is the seer of the Holy Trinity (III, 30). This is important. It gives us a very important attribute of mind (nous). It very clearly states that in the Evagrian system God is knowable, and by intuitive knowledge. The perfect mind (nous) is that which easily can receive the essential gnosis (III, 12). This is a definition of the perfection of the mind (nous): the perfect

Chapter III -- 22

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There is in this one among all the beings who is without name and of which the region is not known (II, 37). We do not know what this means. There is a passage similar to it in the Letter to Melania which seems to Parmentier to integrate two chapters of the Kephalaia Gnostica, II, 37 and III, 70, and to be a reference to the Christ:[1] according to

Chapter III -- 21

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All that pertains to the corporeal or material nature and which is called holy is ‘sanctified by the word of God’ (1 Tim. 4, 5), and all that among the reasonable beings is named holy is sanctified by the gnosis of God. But in this there are yet those among the reasonable beings who are sanctified by the word of God, like children, and who are susceptible of gnosis (III, 74). The first sentence

Chapter III -- 20

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It is not because the mind (nous) is incorporeal that it is the likeness of God, but because it has been made receptive of him. If it were because it were incorporeal that it were the likeness of God, it would therefore be essential gnosis and it would not be by receptivity that it had been made the image of God. But examine if it is the same thing, the fact that it should be incorporeal and

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5 The Evagrian Doctrine of the Minds (Noes) The corporeal or bodily nature and the incorporeal or reasonable nature, the minds (noes), are both knowable; but the reasonable nature alone is knowing. God, however, is both knowing and knowable; but it is not as the reasonable nature that he knows, nor, to any further extent, as the bodily nature or the reasonable nature that he is known (III,

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Those who have cultivated their land during the six years of praktike, nourish the orphans and the widows not in the eighth year, but in the ‘seventh’ (Exod. 23, 10–11); indeed, in the eighth year, there are no orphans or widows (V, 8). The interpretation of this chapter is uncertain. This somewhat eschatological passage alludes to the attainment of dispassion (apatheia) in the General

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We now turn to the composition of the worlds. We have already seen that the worlds are created by the Evagrian Christ by his judgement after the Movement to correspond to the bodies that he has granted to the minds (noes) according to their degree of negligence in the Movement. Moreover, we have already seen that the worlds are created by the Evagrian Christ by the use of a certain

Chapter III -- 16

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The hearers of the sensible Church are separated the one from the other by places only; but those of the intelligible Church which is opposed to the former are separated by places and by bodies (V, 2). This passage seems to be on much the same lines as the chapters just cited. This the only chapter of the Kephalaia Gnostica to refer explicitly to the Church. The sensible Church is the human

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4 The Evagrian Cosmology We begin with the more philosophical parts of Evagrius’ cosmology, which for the most part we present without comment, as being of scholarly interest only. Everything which has been engendered, either is susceptible of an opposition or is constituted of an opposition. But it is not all that is susceptible of an opposition that is also joined with those things that

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If ‘on the third day’ the Christ ‘is completed’ (Luke 13, 32), and if on the preceding day, a Sabbath, when work was forbidden, he who collected wood in the desert was burned (cf. Num. 15, 32–6), it is evident that today is that which is called Friday, when ‘at the eleventh hour’, the nations have been called by our Saviour to eternal life (Matt. 20, 6–7). (IV, 26.) This is a symbolic

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We now begin to address the question of Christ’s spiritual body, the one that, according to Evagrius, he had after his resurrection: Moses and Elijah are not the Kingdom of God, if the latter is contemplation and the former are saints. Why, then, did our Saviour, after having promised to the disciples to show them the Kingdom of God, show them with a spiritual body himself, Moses and Elijah

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We now begin to examine further aspects of Evagrius’ soteriology: He who has placed ‘the most varied wisdom’ (Eph. 3, 10) in the beings is he also who teaches to those who wish, the art of becoming easily a seer of this wisdom (IV, 7). This is the Christ first in his role as creator. He also, as saviour, teaches ‘to those who wish, the art of becoming a seer of this wisdom.’ In the Evagrian

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God, when he created the logikoi, was not in anything; but when he created the corporeal nature and the worlds which proceeded from it, he was in his Christ (IV, 58). This is an important doctrine in Evagrius: God himself, without the Christ, in a single act creates all the minds (noes). Among the minds (noes) is the Christ, in whom is the Word of God from the beginning, perhaps in a special

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We now begin to see some fundamental features of the Evagrian Christology: The Christ is he who alone has in himself the Unity and has received the judgement of the reasonable nature (III, 2). Only the Christ now has the Unity, the Father, in himself, and to him has been given the judgement of the minds (noes) after the Movement. This comprises the First Judgement after the Movement, when

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3 The Evagrian Christology The first-born is he before whom no other has been engendered, and after whom others have been engendered (IV, 20). This refers to the Word of God. Given that the minds (noes) had their genesis, from what we have seen, in a single act of God, and given that the Evagrian Christ is one of those minds (noes), it cannot refer to the mind (nous) that became the Christ.

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2 The Evagrian Doctrine of the Movement If time is considered in regard to genesis and destruction, then the genesis of the incorporeals is timeless, because a destruction is not anterior to this genesis (VI, 9). Evagrius means that the genesis of the minds (noes), which we might crudely say was God’s first act, occurred outside time, since time did not yet exist. Before turning to the

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That, in essence, is Evagrius’ doctrine of God. It is a monotheistic Trinitarian doctrine with some peculiarities about the nature of the substance of the Holy Trinity and about the relations among the persons in the Trinity, which peculiarities leave us with some reservations about whether, ultimately, Evagrius had an Orthodox Trinitarian theology. Professor Guillaumont remarks that Evagrius

Chapter III -- 6

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We now look briefly at the providence of God: The providence of God accompanies the freedom of the will; but his judgement considers the order of the reasonable beings (VI, 43). The providence of God is double; one part is said to preserve the constitution of the bodies and incorporeals, and the other, to push the reasonable beings from vice and from ignorance towards virtue and gnosis (VI,

Chapter III -- 5

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We now turn to the persons of the Trinity in the Evagrian system. Some of what is said is quite unclear and our interpretation is conjectural in those cases. Unique is he who is without mediation, and this One, in return, by intermediaries is in all (I, 12). The Unique is he before whom no other being has been engendered, and after whom no other being has to any further extent been

Chapter III -- 4

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1 The Evagrian Doctrine of God To the First Good there is nothing opposed, because it is in its essence that it is the Good and to the essence there is nothing that could be opposed (I, 1). The opposition is in the attributes, for example, between hot and cold, and the attributes are in the bodies; the opposition is therefore in the creatures (I, 2). This is a rejection of Manichæan dualism

Chapter III -- 3

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For an eye-witness account of Origenism in Palestine about the time of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, see the Lives of Cyril of Scythopolis.[1] After the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, virtually all the works of Origen were destroyed. Of the work which concerns us in this chapter, Peri Archon, there ultimately remained only the translation into Latin (c.397)

Chapter III -- 2

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Since below we will refer to Peri Archon, the work of Origen which is the ultimate source of many of Evagrius Pontikos’ cosmological doctrines, it behoves us to say a few words about Origen, Peri Archon and the Fifth Ecumenical Synod. Origen (c.185–253) was an Alexandrine Christian who succeeded Clement of Alexandria to the headship of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He later studied

Chapter III -- 1

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III The Cosmology of Evagrius Pontikos The cosmology of Evagrius Pontikos was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod in 553. It therefore has no interest to us from the point of view of an Orthodox anthropology. However, although Evagrius was himself condemned, along with the cosmological theories he seems to have been responsible for formulating in their final form, his ascetical

Chapter II -- 8

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Let us turn again to St Macrina’s argument: Therefore, if reason (logos), which very thing is remarkable in our nature, That is, man alone has reason. have the rule of those things which have been introduced to us from without, St Macrina has not completely discarded her original analysis that the passions (pathe) are like warts on the true nature of the soul, the mind (nous). We

Chapter II -- 7

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Let us go through this one more time. St Macrina speaks of the various impulses that are found among the animals. Man must have sense-perception to have mind (nous). This is a necessary fact for material living beings. But to get sense-perception, man must, as it were, also take the rest of the animal nature (the various impulses which are joined to sense-perception in the irrational animal).

Chapter II -- 6

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As many things, however, as lie on a boundary and which have a tendency towards either of the opposed extremes according to the nature of each, such as anger or fear or another of these sorts of movements in the soul without which it is impossible to view human nature, of which things the use in a certain fashion either towards the good or towards the opposite brings about the outcome—we reckon

Chapter II -- 5

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Let us return to the sentence we are analysing. St Macrina posits three attributes of a power of the soul through which the soul saves in itself the image of the deiform Grace: the contemplative, the contemplative of existent things and the discriminative of the good from the worse. The words epoptikos (concerning man) and ephoran (concerning God), which are used to convey the notion of ‘

Chapter II -- 4

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But I said to the virgin: But we indeed see in the virtuous not a little contribution occurring towards the better from these things [i.e. the passions]. For the praise in the case of [the Prophet] Daniel was desire [cf. Dan. 9, 23; 10, 11; 10, 19]; and Phineas appeased God with his anger [cf. Num. 25, 11]; and we have learned that fear is the beginning of wisdom [cf. Prov. 9, 10; Ps. 110, 10];

Chapter II -- 3

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Now St Macrina proceeds to look at the Aristotelian schema of the virtues, which is that of a mean between two extremes.[1] First, St Macrina asserts that all such pairs of extremes defined in opposition the one to the other (over-boldness – cowardice; pleasure – sorrow; contempt – fear; and so on) have to do with the irascible part of the soul or with

Chapter II -- 2

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She, then, said: You yourself have sought this definition that has been discussed in detail by many others already, whatever it is ever necessary to think these things to be, the desiring part and the irascible part: either, united to the soul (psuche) and from the first directly existing in its construction; or, being something other than the soul and at a later time having become incident to us

Chapter II -- 1

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II The Anthropology of St Gregory of NyssaPart Two I, then, taking up into my intellect (dianoia) the definition which in the discussion before this she had made concerning the soul (psuche)—which definition says that (the soul) is a mental (noera) substance and that it puts an enlivening power into the organic (organiko) body towards the operation of the senses—said that the definition did

Chapter I -- 17

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Let us continue: Therefore, neither when the elements which are in the body are loosed towards themselves is that lost which binds them together by means of the enlivening operation (energeia), but just as each element is separately given life while the mixture of the elements is still constituted, the soul penetrating equally and similarly into all the parts that complete the body—and one

Chapter I -- 16

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I myself say, then, that this thing is the way you say: that which does not appear sensibly is not the same thing as that which appears sensibly; but, truly, I do not see in this definition that which is being sought. St Gregory is here agreeing with St Macrina but moving on to the next issue. ‘That which does not appear sensibly’ is the immaterial and sensibly inapprehensible mind (nous),

Chapter I -- 15

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The next passage is critical. St Gregory is speaking: What then, I said, if, just as the quality of being material is common to the sensible nature of the elements, the difference being great as concerns the particular qualities in each species of matter—for movement in them is from the opposite, the one tending to rise, the other falling to earth; the species is not the same and the quality

Chapter I -- 14

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Let us continue: And when she said this, she showed with her hand the doctor occupied with the treatment of her body, who was sitting there, and said: The testimony is near to us of those things which are being said. For how does this doctor, placing on the artery the touch of his finger, hear after a fashion by means of the sense of touch when the nature [of the body] cries out to him and

Chapter I -- 13

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Let us continue. St Gregory is speaking: And I said, it is possible to infer by means of the wise and skilful reasons (logoi) which are contemplated in the nature of existent things, in this very harmonious adornment, the Wisdom which lies over all. How, however, might the gnosis of the soul come to occur to those who trace the steps of the hidden from those things which appear, by means of

Chapter I -- 12

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Gregory now continues: And how, I said, can the faith that God exists and that the human soul exists be demonstrated together It is an interesting point, that faith in God and the human soul should be demonstrated together, one that shows the fundamental futility of Orthodox bioethics. For to those who refuse God, how will we prove the existence of a human soul in the embryo? And those

Chapter I -- 11

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Let us continue. For reasons evidently known to him, St Gregory changes the subject: This very thing, I said, how might it become undoubted to those who speak in opposition, that all things are from God and that all things are maintained by him, or even, in short, that there exists something Divine lying over the nature of existent things? She said: In regard to such persons, it would be

Chapter I -- 10

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having absolutely closed the senses [or, faculties] of the soul Truly, modern philosophy rejects the existence of such senses or faculties: this is the significance of the insistence of Hume and of his successors on the exclusive role of sense-perception and on the exclusive role of the association of mental images of sense-perceptions, passions and emotions in concept formation. Hume and his

Chapter I -- 9

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Let us look briefly at the evolution of philosophical anthropology (or philosophical psychology) and ethics in the Anglo-American tradition. We are most interested in English Utilitarianism and its offshoots. Let us start in the High Middle Ages. Before the Twelfth Century, two works of Aristotle were known in the West, both of them logical works. They were studied in great detail. In the

Chapter I -- 8

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An example of a modern variant of the Epicurean point of view is found in Le hasard et la nécessité (Chance and Necessity),[1] written by Jacques Monod (1910–1976), the Nobel laureate who discovered the role of messenger RNA and who introduced the concept of operon, or functional unit of genes and control centres on the chromosome. Monod prefaces his

Chapter I -- 7

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Who were the Epicureans? Epicureanism was founded at roughly the same time as Stoicism by Epicurus (341–270 bc). Epicureanism can be described as follows: It is a materialistic philosophy based on Democritus’ atomic theory. While ‘gods’ exist, they are composed of atoms—the finest atoms—just as is the rest of every possible world, and they live in a condition of supreme bliss completely

Chapter I -- 6

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And the teacher, having sighed tranquilly at those things which had been said, herself said: Maybe these were the objections, or such as these, that the Stoics and Epicureans gathered at Athens made in answer to the Apostle. I hear that Epicurus carried his theories in this very direction. The nature of existent things was conjectured to be by chance and spontaneous, as if there were no