Folia Theologica 17. (2006)
László Perendy: A Christian Platonist
184 L. PERENDY Plato himself seems to have declined to solve the problems that he left behind in the Timaeus. Did the cosmogonic process take place at a definite point of time?30 What kind of activity can be assigned to the Receptacle? His disciples, Speusippus and Xenocrates thought that the process of forming the cosmos is timeless, and Plato's description of the activities of the Demiurge serves only didactic purposes. Most later Platonists, including Aristotle31, accepted this view. There were, however, two important exceptions: Plutarch and Atticus, perhaps because they had dualistic tendencies, asserted the creation of the cosmos out of a sort of disorderly matter32. So now I would like to describe the process which created R. D. ARCHER-HIND, The Timaeus of Plato, London-New York, 1888 (reprint, New York, 1973). F. M. CORNFORD, Plato’s Cosmology. The Timaeus of Plato Translated with a Running Commentary, London, 1948. L. TARÁN, The Creation Myth in Plato's Timaeus, in J. P. ANTON - G. L. KUSTAS (eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, Albany, 372-407. 29 See also: J. B. SKEMP, TAH and ÏTIOAOXH, in I. DUERING - G. E. L. OWEN (eds.), Aristotle and Plato in the Mid-Fourth Century, Göteborg, 1960, 201-212. R. SORABJI, Matter, Space and Motion. Theories in Antiquity and their Sequel, London, 1988. 30 See P. DUHEM, Le système du monde. Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic, Paris, 1953-1954. 31 On Aristotle’s materia prima see the following works: L. CENCILLO, Hyle. Origin, concepto y funciones de la materia en el corpus aristotelicum, Madrid, 1958. G. S. CLAGHORN, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Timaeus, The Hague, 1954. W. LESZL, La materia in Aristotele, in Rivista critica di storia della filosofla 28 (1973) 243-270, 380-401; 29 (1974) 144-170. F. RAMOS, La doctrina Aristotelica de la materia prima, Quito, 1964. F. SOLMSEN, Aristotle and Prime Matter. A Reply to H. R. King, in Journal of the History of Ideas 19 (1958) 243-252. F. SOLMSEN, Aristotle 's Word for "Matter", New York, 1961. 32 On the concept of matter in Greek philosophy see the following works: C. BAEUMKER, Das Problem der Materie in der griechischen Philosophie. Eine historisch-kritische Untersuchung, Münster, 1890 (reprint, Frankfurt a. M. , 1963).
