Folia Theologica 17. (2006)
László Perendy: A Christian Platonist
A CHRISTIAN PLATONIST 193 only dormant. It was not created, only ordered by God. On the whole, he follows the text of the Timaeus closely, which causes incoherence in a few cases, for example about the functions of the World Soul in the creation of the physical world.55 Apuleius is said to be Gaius' disciple by several authors. He was born about 123 AD in Madaura (North Africa). He studied rhetorics in Carthage. Then, about 150 he travelled to Athens with the intention to study philosophy. The structure and the content of his De Platone are substantially different from those of Albinus' Didaskalikos. Apuleius begins his exposition with the first principles. He also postulates three, but begins with God and not with Matter. Apuleius' and Albinus' epithets of God are mostly the same. Like Albinus, he also says that the world was not created in Time, and both tend to favour Peripateticism. As to Matter, his account is considerably different from that of Albinus. Both describe Matter as formless and without qualities, but Apuleius explicitly says that Matter is uncreated and indestructible, which statement cannot be found in Albinus. Both say that Matter is potentially corporeal. His doctrine of the Ideas is not so elaborate as that of Albinus, although he most probably held that they are the thoughts of God. Describing the physical world, they both follow Timaeus 52E - 56D. Apuleius mentions Plato's comparison of the crroixeta of the cosmos to the letters of the alphabet. Aether for him is only pure fire. As to the createdness of the cosmos, this means for him only that it 55 J. DILLON, o. c. 266-289. See also the following works: R. M. BERCHMAN, From Philo to Origen. Middle Platonism in transition, Chico, 1984. H. DORRIE, Die Frage nach dem Transzendenten im Mittelplatonismus, in Les sources de Plotin, Genève, 1957, 191-241. S. R. C. LILLA, Clement of Alexandria. A Study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism, Oxford, 1971. R. MORTLEY, From Word to Silence II. The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek (Theophaneia. Beiträge zur Religions- und Kirchengeschichte des Altertums, 31), Bonn, 1986. W. THEILER, Die Vorbereitung des Neuplatonismus, Berlin-Zürich, 1964. J. WHITTAKER, EÍTEKE1NA NOT KAI OTZIAZ, in Vigiliae Christianae 23 (1969) 91-104. ID., Numenius and Alcinous on the First Principle, in Phoenix 32 (1978) 144-154.
