Folia Theologica 17. (2006)

László Perendy: A Christian Platonist

A CHRISTIAN PLATONIST

177

Chapters 6 and 7 of the Apologia Minor are of particular interest for us:

"But to the Father of all, who is unbegotten, a name is not given. For by whatever name He is called, He has as His elder, the one who gives Him the name. f'Ovopa 8è to ttúvtov ttcxtp! Gêtov, dyevvrjTO ővti, oùk ëoriv c3 yàp âv Kai ővopd TtupococtayopevriTai, TTpeaßuTepov eyei tôv Gépevov tô ővopa.) But these words Father, and God, and Creator, and Lord and Master, are not names, but appellations derived from His good deeds an works. But His Son, who is alone properly called Son, the logos who is with God and is begotten before the creation, when in the beginning God created and set in order everything through Him, is called Christ, with reference to His being anointed and God's ordering all things through Him; this name itself also containing an unknown significance, just as the title "God" is not a name, but the intuition implanted in human nature of an inexpressible reality... ('0 8è ulös èxeivou, ó povoç Xeyôpevoç Kupíws' vtôç, ó Aôyoç- TTpÖTwv ttoi IppdTOv <küi> ctuvcùv Kai yevvwpevos, őt€ tt)V dpxijv Si’ aÚTOö Ttávra őktlae Kai éKÓapr]CT€, "XpKJTÔç" pèv KaTa to "KexpiaGai" Kai Koapfjaat Ta TTdi'Ta 8C aliToû tóv Geôv XéyeTai, ővopa Kai aÙTÔ Trepiexov dyvcüOTov CTTipaaíav, öv Tpóirov Kai tô "Geôç" Trpoaayópeupa oúk ővopa èaTiv, àXXà TrpdypaTos Suae^riyijTou epcjjuTos Trj <f>óaei tóív dvGpcÓTTüLív SôÇa.) (VI. 1-3.)

Even the Stoic philosophers, in their doctrine of morals, steadily pay deference to the same things, so that it is evident that they are not right in what they say about principles and incorporeal things. For whether they will say that human actions come to pass according to fate, or whether they maintain that God is nothing else than the things which are ever turning and altering and dissolving into the same things, they will appear to have had an understanding only of destructible things, and to have looked on God Himself as emerging both in part and in whole in every wickedness; or that neither vice nor virtue is anything, which is contrary to every sound idea, reason, and sense." (VII. 8-9.)X1 11

11 This quotation is taken from L. W. BARNARD, St. Justin Martyr, The First and Second Apologies (Ancient Christian Writers, 56), New York- Mahwah/N.J., 1997, 79.