Folia Theologica 17. (2006)

László Perendy: A Christian Platonist

A CHRISTIAN PLATONIST

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Calcidius' Commentary on the Timaeus contains a long passage about Numenius' doctrine of Matter. It is the Indefinite Dyad, which is eternal in its unorganized state, but its organized state was generated by the Demiurge. So his Dyad is not produced by the Monad, as other Neopythagoreans taught. His radical dualism is obvious also from the description of Matter: it is fluid, without qualities, and positively evil. The disorderly element existed before God's ordering activity, and it can never be controlled completely. However, interestingly enough, he never says that the cosmos had a temporary beginning.

The World Soul is the Third God, who is rather only the lower aspect of the Demiurge divided because of his longing after Matter. There are two souls in human beings, which constantly struggle against each other. Even the irrational soul has some kind of immortality inside the cosmos, perhaps because this is needed for reincarnation.58

On the basis of this survey of the contemporary streams of Platonism, we can make an attempt to summarize what Justin taught on God and his creation. Unfortunately, we are not in the possession of all the works he wrote. Because of the literary genre of his extant works we cannot expect him to formulate a system which we would expect in a dogmatic treatise. Nevertheless, behind his apologetic purposes, an attempt to formulate his Christian faith in philosophical terms is obviously present. This was an effort personally important for him. In Christianity he found the most perfect

58 J. DILLON, o. c. 361-379. See also the following works:

E. R. DODDS, Numenius and Ammonias, in Les sources de Plotin (Entretiens Hardt, 5), Genève, 1960, 2-61.

E. DES PLACES, La matière dans le Platonisme moyen, surtout chez Numénius et dans les Oracles chaldaïques, in Zetesis. Festschrift E. de Strycker, Utrecht, 1973, 215-223.

E. DES PLACES, Numènius, Fragments, Paris, 1973.

H.-C. PUECH, Numènius d’Apamée et les théologies orientales au second siècle, in Mélanges Bidez, Bmxelles, 1934, 745-778.

J. H. WASZINK, Bemerkungen zum Einfluß des Platonismus im frühen Christentum, in Vigiliae Christianae 19 (1965) 129-162.

J. WHITTAKER, Numenius and Alcinous on the First Principle, in Phoenix 32 (1978) 144-154.