Folia Theologica 19. (2008)

Perendy László: Judging Philosophers - Theophilus of Antioch on Hellenic inconsistency

JUDGING PHILOSOPHERS

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In Theophilus' mind there is no unanimity among the Stoic philosophers, either. Some of them (e.g. Chrysippus) deny the existence of God or assert that if God exists he takes thought for no one but himself. Others say that everything happens spontaneously, that the universe is uncreated and that nature is eternal. They also deny the existence of divine providence. Some of them say that God is only the individual's conscience, in contradiction with others, who hold that the spirit extended through everything is God.

But Theophilus applies several metaphors cherished also by the Stoics. These pictures of the pilot, the sun, and the king are traditional Stoic ones. As Kathleen E. McVey points out, they have been observed in Ad Autolycum already by Gustave Bardy and Johannes Geffcken.21 The notion that God contains the universe is also Stoic. Chrysippus - unlike Cleanthes - taught that the cosmic fiyepoviKOV was in the cxlGip, which means that it is surrounded by it.22 McVey thinks that - if we want to emphasize his eclecticism - Theophilus seems to be closer to Stoicism than to Platonism.

Theophilus seems to be mistaken when he charges the Stoics of atheism, says Grant. "His error can be explained by recalling that in a similar doxography used by Epiphanius such views are assigned to the Middle Stoic Panaetius. Presumably he is following a source critical of both Epicureans and Stoics - in other words, someone like Carneades."23

David Sutherland Wallace-Hadrill points out that the Eastern Church shows very little Stoic influence. There are virtually only two exceptions: Theophilus of Antioch and Nemesius. Referring to Robert M. Grant24, he regards as Stoic elements the use of divine attributes, and

21 K. McVey, The use of Stoic Cosmogony in Theophilus of Antioch's Hexaemeron, in M. S. Burrow-P. Rorem (eds.), Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective. Studies in honor of Karlfried Froehlich on his sixtieth birthday, Grand Rapids/Mich., 1991, 37.

22 Ibid. The term „enclosing" is examined in detail in the following article: W. R. Schoedel, Enclosing, not Enclosed. The early Christian doctrine of God, in Schoedel, W. R.-Wilken, R. L. (eds.), Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition. In honorem R. M. Grant (Théologie historique, 54), Paris, 1973, 75-86.

23 R. M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century, Philadelphia, 1988,152.

24 R. M. Grant, Theophilus of Antioch to Autolycus, in Harvard Theological Review 40 (1947) 230.