The Unity of Body and Soul in Patristic and Byzantine Thought

Contexts of Ancient and

Medieval Anthropology

Editors

Anna Usacheva, Jörg Ulrich, Siam Bhayro

Advisory Board

Filipe Pereira da Silva, Barbara Crostini, Andrew Crislip,

Samuel Fernández, Annette Weissenrieder

Vol. 1
 Anna Usacheva, Jörg Ulrich, Siam Bhayro (Eds.)

The Unity of Body and Soul in

Patristic and Byzantine Thought
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Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Anna Usacheva, Siam Bhayro and Jörg Ulrich

1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body: Combined Exegesis

of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 in Second Century Christianity . . . . . . . . 1
Jörg Ulrich

2. Rational Creatures and Matter in Eschatology According to

Origen’s On First Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Samuel Fernández

3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body in the Earthly Life and
Afterwards and His Impact on Gregory of Nyssa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli

4. Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Anthropology: A Narrative . . . . . . . 78

Ilaria Vigorelli

5. The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius Ponticus . . . . . . . . . . 109

Kuo-Yu Tsui

6. Resurrection, Emotion, and Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic

Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Andrew Crislip

7. Christian Ensoulment Theories within Dualist Psychological

Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Anna Usacheva

8. From Garments of Flesh to Garments of Light: Hardness,

Subtleness and the Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon . . . . 170
Samuel Kaldas

9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death . . . . . 192

David Bradshaw
vi Contents

10. Treating the Body and the Soul in Late-Antique and

Early-Medieval Syriac Sources: The Syro-Mesopotamian
Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Siam Bhayro

11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility: The Passions, Apatheia,

and Christology in Maximus the Confessor’s Quaestiones ad
Thalassium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Andrew J. Summerson

12. Maximus the Confessor’s View on Soul and Body in the Context
of Five Divisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Vladimir Cvetković

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Introduction

Dualist or holist, complementary or antagonistic, subordinate or equal,

Christian or philosophical—various approaches to the issue of the unity of
body and soul have one important implication, namely, all of them transpire
through the individual embodied lived experiences of human beings. Hence,
general theoretical agreements about psychological concepts can easily atten-
uate or vanish, yielding to the varied empirical data. Besides, the same person,
playing different social roles, often slightly varies her views on the same psy-
chosomatic subject, be it the solemn issue of individual salvation or practi-
cal plans for conceiving a new human being. The mysterious beginning and
end of human life, together with the challenges of disease, ageing, emotional
reactions and diverse perceptions, provide such a variety of theoretical hy-
potheses and empirical data that can be difficult to harmoniously systematise
within some philosophical or religious theories. Nevertheless, the study of the
Christian approach to the core psychological issue of the unity of body and
soul is of paradigmatic significance for the history of the theories and practices
of self-identity, morals, social and gender relations, epistemology, medicine,
and scientific method. While covering such a gigantic terrain is an unthinkable
enterprise, the specific target of this volume is to explore the diversity of indi-
vidual lived experiences and theoretical approaches to the unity of body and
soul as expressed by authors who flourished between the second and seventh
centuries CE. Monks and bishops, medical doctors and philosophers, exegetes
and theologians of Christian East, expressed plenty of nuanced views about
the unity of body and soul: from the moment of conception and birth until the
resurrection and post-mortem existence. To hear individual Christian voices
contextualised in their various social networks and to demonstrate the diver-
sity and peculiar patterns of patristic psychological views is the goal of this
collective scholarly work.
This volume is the result of the workshop “Bodily Resurrection vs
Immortality: Philosophy, Medicine, Theology,” that took place at the XVIII
Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford (August 19–24, 2019). The general
aim of the workshop was to bring together specialists in Patristics, ancient
Philosophy, Theology and the History of Medicine in order to explore long-
standing tensions between such notions as soul and body, spirit and flesh, in
the context of human life, death, reproduction, and bodily resurrection. The
discussion revolved around late antique views on the human body and the rel-
evant philosophical, medical and theological contexts. Free from the dichot-
omy between science and religion, the authors of Late Antiquity developed
viii Anna Usacheva, Siam Bhayro and Jörg Ulrich

their concepts in the atmosphere of vibrant interdisciplinary dialogue. To

capture the main trends of this discussion, the contributors to this volume
shared their expertise on the formation of such notions as body, flesh, soul,
mind, emotions, reproduction and redemption in late antique philosophical
and Christian contexts.
In the opening chapter of the volume, Professor Jörg Ulrich, from Martin
Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, explores how the combined reading of
Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 in the second century emphasised the unity of body and
soul. Ulrich pinpoints an important discrepancy between the early Christian
understanding of the biblical accounts of the creation of humans. Some pa-
tristic authors, whom Ulrich associates primarily with the platonic tradition,
believed that when Genesis spoke about the image of God, it referred only to
the human soul and not to the human body. Other exegetical traditions sup-
posed that the account of the creation of man out of the dust of the earth, pre-
served in Gen 2:7, also implied creation in the image of God. Ulrich explores
textual testimonies of the second exegetical tradition in the works of Clement
of Rome, Justin, Pseudo-Justin, Irenaeus of Lyon, Theophilus of Antioch, and
Tertullian. Although Ulrich primarily focuses on early Christian sources, he
also shows that the combined interpretation of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 was not
an invention of Christian authors but goes back to Old Testament exegetical
tradition. In addition to a detailed analysis of second century patristic texts,
Ulrich demonstrates how the idea of the unity of body and soul resonated in
the early stages of Trinitarian discussions and in later Christological debates.
Professor Samuel Fernández, from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de
Chile, analyses Origen’s views about rational creatures and matter within the
framework of eschatological theory. Fernández begins by exploring the con-
cept of bodily resurrection in On First Principles and shows the correspon-
dence that, according to Origen, exists between the beginning and the end of
human life. Fernández proposes a helpful review of contemporary scholarly
views on the concept of the “pre-existence of the soul” and suggests his own
interpretation. In his analysis of the initial and final relationship between ra-
tional creatures and matter, Fernández proposes that we understand the “pre-
existence of the soul” as the prenatal existence of rational creatures provided
with light bodies. Hence, according to Origen, the priority of the soul over the
body is identical to the priority of rational creatures over matter. Fernández
emphasises that the nature of this priority is logical and not chronological. He
argues that the primal transgression of rational creatures brought upon them
their earthly birth in heavy bodies, which will be transformed in the eschaton,
thus justifying the parallel between the prenatal and post-mortem existence.
Introduction ix

Professor Ilaria Ramelli, from Durham University, devotes her contribu-

tion to the study of Origen’s ideas about the unity of body and soul in both
the earthly life and the afterlife, and also to Origen’s influence on Gregory
of Nyssa in this respect (as in many others). Ramelli shows that, unlike the
Neoplatonists, Origen argued against metensomatosis and propounded the no-
tion of ensomatosis, which emphasised the idea of the unity of one soul and
one body. Thus, Ramelli maintains, Origen claimed that only God is entirely
intelligible, while rational creatures and human souls were created together
with their individual ethereal, pneumatic, spiritual bodies. Therefore, the
“skin tunics” (Gen 3:21) in the eyes of Origen were not simply associated with
corporeality per se, but with a particular kind of heavy and corruptible body.
Ramelli explains that this blanket corporeal condition of the whole creation is
necessary for its freedom. Since the capacity of change is predicated on their
corporeal nature, it is only due to their bodies that rational creatures can pur-
sue either virtue or vice, with the following consequences for their bodies. In
support of the primordial union of the body and the soul, Origen professed
that even the risen body will be composed of the same four elements as the
earthly body. Contrary to what is commonly assumed, Ramelli demonstrates
that many of Origen’s ideas were endorsed and developed by Gregory of Nyssa.
Ilaria Vigorelli, from the Pontifical University of Holy Cross, devotes her
chapter to a detailed analysis of various aspects of the trinitarian anthropol-
ogy of Gregory of Nyssa. She starts by explaining his elaborate methodology
of argumentation identified with the notion of akolouthia, understood as a
relational logical sequence that takes into account common premises known
to his addressees. Another indispensable component of Gregory’s method ac-
corded with the notion of piety (eusebeia), which enabled Gregory’s audience
to grasp his message. After establishing these epistemological requirements of
Gregory’s discourse on the soul and the body, Vigorelli goes through the most
essential aspects of his anthropological thought and shows how he linked it
to his trinitarian doctrine. Vigorelli demonstrates that Gregory had a holistic
vision of human nature where the dualism of intelligible soul and corporeal
body was harmonised by the condition of apatheia and isaggelia, restored by
Christ. Taking as a point of departure the ontological similitude and kinship of
the human soul and divinity, Gregory elaborated the Pauline idea of epektasis
as the final relational condition of human divinisation.
Professor Kuo-Yu Tsui, from the National Chengchi University in Taipei,
explores the issue of the body in the ascetic thought of Evagrius Ponticus.
Contrary to what is commonly assumed, Tsui elucidates the positive role of
the body in Evagrius’ thought. She outlines the tripartite structure of Evagrius’
x Anna Usacheva, Siam Bhayro and Jörg Ulrich

anthropology (derived from Origen and Greek philosophy), and describes how
he integrates this scheme with Christian ascetic practices. Thus, according to
Evagrius, human nature is divinely endowed with the seed and potential for an
eventual unification with the divine through which the body may be elevated
to the rank of the soul, and the soul to that of the mind (nous). Evagrius em-
phasized that this unification does not occur until the mind is sufficiently pu-
rified from preoccupations with bodily distractions by means of prayer and
contemplation. Tsui demonstrates that, in the teachings and examples of
Evagrius, the practical ascetic life (praktikē), which consists of both bodily and
spiritual disciplines, helps guide and strengthen monks as they struggle and
train against intruding or obstructing passions and strive through divine grace
for the blessed intermediate stage of apatheia, a prerequisite for higher levels
of contemplation (theōria). Tsui observes that, although Evagrius encouraged
the desert monks to embrace the ideal of a total withdrawal from the world
(anachoresis), he did not regard the body as an impediment to salvation. On
the contrary, Tsui demonstrates that Evagrius engaged with the body as a prov-
idential vehicle that, when cared for and used according to its proper nature,
grants access to sensory experience and knowledge of the material world as
divine creation, and is therefore necessary and instrumental in bringing about
the restoration of the mind. Tsui shows that, for Evagrius, the path of the spiri-
tual journey towards higher levels of contemplation is precisely through the
virtuous and disciplined body.
Professor Andrew Crislip, from Virginia Commonwealth University, reflects
upon resurrection, emotion and embodiment in Egyptian monastic literature.
Crislip especially focusses on the affective and emotional language of such
doctrines as the resurrection of Christ himself, the real presence of his body
and blood in the Eucharist, and the post-mortem fate of martyrs. Thus, Crislip
showcases the variety of embodied experiences of individual resurrection,
Eucharist and the resurrected body of Christ. Crislip starts with an explora-
tion of the letters of Antony the Great and his contemporary Ammonas, and
then studies the sermons of Shenoute, and homiletic literature produced and
transmitted in late antique Coptic monasteries. Crislip offers an emotion-
based mode of analysis of the resurrection narratives, which reflects phenom-
ena observed in current research in cognitive and affective neuroscience. This
interdisciplinary approach expands our understanding of ancient Christian
theories and practices, and creates a platform for an interdisciplinary dialogue
between historical and contemporary scientific disciplines.
Anna Usacheva, from the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, anal-
yses Christian theories of reproduction in the context of Hellenistic dualist
discourse and embryology. Usacheva gives an overview of the philosophical
Introduction xi

and patristic texts and compares the embryological theories of Aristotle, Galen
and Porphyry with the views of Athenagoras of Athens, Justin the Martyr,
Methodius of Olympus and Gregory of Nyssa. She also argues that, in the fifth
century, Christian interest in the mysteries of reproduction was heated by the
debates about the union of the divine and human natures of Christ, and specu-
lation regarding the details of Jesus’ generation. Some novel views of ensoul-
ment were introduced by such representatives of the Antiochene school of
theology as Theodoret of Cyrus and Nemesius of Emesa. A brief analysis of
Theodoret and Nemesius’ views of reproduction demonstrates that, although
these authors closely engaged with Aristotelian, Galenic and Neoplatonic con-
cepts, their ideas show a continuity with early Christian concepts. Usacheva
claims that, due to the specific metaphysical principles of Christian doctrine,
the church fathers were bound to balance a dualist lexicon, which they often
used, with holistic anthropological and Christological statements. According
to Usacheva, patristic theories of reproduction represent a vivid example of
balanced Christian holistic thought, which imbibed plenty of Hellenistic con-
cepts, yet remained true to the fundamental principles of Christian doctrine.
Samuel Kaldas, from St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College, studies
the soul-body relation in the homilies of the fourth century Syrian writer known
as Pseudo-Macarius or Macarius-Symeon. Kaldas explores Macarius’ language
and metaphors, and shows just how deep and disguised was Macarius’ affinity
with Platonic asceticism. Instead of focusing on the direct philosophical influ-
ences on Macarius’ thought, Kaldas takes the more subtle path of unraveling
the intrinsic structure and framework of Macarius’ ideas about the spiritual life.
It transpires from Kaldas’ study that the importance of Macarius’ metaphorical
language rests on his belief in the twofold nature of the universe, comprising
the invisible and visible worlds. Hence, the symbolic characteristics of physi-
cal objects, arranged on an imaginary scale of their “hardness” and “subtlety”,
demonstrate Macarius’ implicit “physical theory” of the different kinds of sub-
stances. Thus, Kaldas shows that, in the eyes of Macarius, the soul is a “subtle
body”, clothed in the “garment” of the physical body, which although coarser in
nature than the soul, is indispensable not only in the present life but also after
death. Kaldas demonstrates how, in his theology of the transformation from
“the garments of flesh” to “the garments of light”, Macarius combined the basic
outline of Platonic topoi with Syriac imagery.
Professor David Bradshaw, from the University of Kentucky, explores Patristic
views on why there is no repentance after death. Bradshaw demonstrates that,
despite a strong and biblically justified agreement between the church fathers
about the impossibility of post-mortem repentance, their explanations of this
doctrine were rather different. After outlining the main attitudes to this issue
xii Anna Usacheva, Siam Bhayro and Jörg Ulrich

from the second to the fourth centuries, Bradshaw focusses on the more de-
tailed expositions of the problem offered by such later authors as Nemesius of
Emesa, Dorotheus of Gaza, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor,
John of Damascus and Theophylact of Bulgaria. Bradshaw demonstrates that,
according to these theologians, after death and separation from the body, the
soul loses its capacity for moral transformation. Bradshaw argues that, al-
though varied in their explanations, the views of the church fathers are not in-
compatible, and the diversity of their approaches can most likely be explained
by the contexts of and motives for their compositions. Bradshaw also analyses
Patristic views on Christ’s descent to Hades, and the opportunity for repen-
tance that this offered to its inhabitants.
Professor Siam Bhayro, from the University of Exeter, explores treating the
body and the soul in late-antique and early-medieval Syriac sources. Bhayro’s
particular focus is on the legacy of Sergius—a priest, theologian, philosopher,
prolific translator, diplomat and chief physician of the city of Resh ʿAyna.
Instead of the conventional comparison of the sixth-century Sergius with
the ninth-century Arabic scholar Hunayn ibn Ishaq, or the usual association
of Sergius’ image with the Graeco-Roman model, Bhayro tries to navigate a
new path. He notes that, unlike the Graeco-Roman milieu, with its humoral
pathology and differentiation between the roles of physicians and priests, the
Syro-Mesopotamian tradition suggested a simultaneous and complementary
treatment of the body and the soul. Hence, Bhayro compares Sergius’ schol-
arship with the legacy of the earlier Syriac scientist, scholar, astrologer, phi-
losopher and poet, Bardaiṣan of Edessa. Similarly to Sergius, Bardaisan was
also known to be both a priest and a physician, who served in the royal court
in Edessa. Bhayro demonstrates that Bardaiṣan’s astral scholarship and medi-
cal practice were based on the historic Syro-Mesopotamian systems, as was
his overall scholarly model of the priest-physician-scholar. Bhayro argues that
Sergius’ model of scholarship reflected many aspects of Bardaisan’s status
and accorded with the traditional near eastern model of scholarship. Hence,
Sergius followed the traditional Syro-Mesopotamian approach to the treat-
ment of the body and the soul.
Andrew Summerson, from Calumet College of St. Joseph, explores how
Maximus the Confessor in his Ad Thalassium presented the issue of human
passions in the light of human salvation and theosis. Summerson argues that,
according to Maximus, Adam fell at the very moment he was created. Hence,
right from the start of human existence, passions became a part of human na-
ture, and thus required a transformation that could only be achieved with the
assistance of Christ. Summerson shows that, in tune with Neoplatonic tradi-
tion, Maximus believed that “ignorance of God” was at the root of fallen human
Introduction xiii

passibility. Consequently, both human passions and the wrong interpreta-

tion of scripture are different symptoms of the same disease of original sin.
Summerson explores Maximus’ ideas about the medicinal healing of human
emotion, which went back to the early Christian trope of Christ as divine phy-
sician. In his analysis of the Christian practice of apatheia, Summerson points
out its distinctly Stoic roots, and explains that the Stoic notion was not about
the complete eradication of passions but instead about the replacement or
transformation of vicious passions with good ones. To describe such a trans-
formation, Maximus again employed a medical metaphor that associated the
good use of passions with an immunisation, established by God for salutary
purposes.
Professor Vladimir Cvetković, from the University of Belgrade, analyses
Maximus the Confessor’s view on the soul and the body in the context of five
divisions. To explore the nature of Maximus’ anthropology, Cvetković chooses
a fascinating angle: he studies Maximus’ doctrine of the fivefold division that
comprises such binaries as the unities between male and female, paradise and
the inhabited world, earth and sky, sensible and intelligible nature, and human
and divine. In tune with other post-Chalcedonian authors, Maximus argued
that this final, paradigmatic unity between the divine and human natures is
analogous to the union between the human body and soul. Cvetković demon-
strates how Maximus pictured the beautiful divine cosmological design, which
harmonised various kinds of universal unities, and particularly focused on the
comparison between the body-soul union in the human being and the unity
of the divine and human natures in Christ. Cvetković also explores the con-
tinuity of Maximus’ psychology with respect to the teachings of Nemesius of
Emesa and Leontius of Byzantium, and analyses Maximus’ polemics against
Severus of Antioch. Thus, Cvetković explaines the rationale behind Maximus’
doctrine of Christ’s composite hypostasis and human composite nature, and
also outlines a connection between his anthropological, Christological and es-
chatological doctrines.
This volume represents the first publication in the Series “Contexts of
Ancient and Medieval Anthropology” (CAMA), recently established by
Schoeningh, a German imprint of Brill. This series welcomes multidisciplinary
research on the history of ancient and medieval anthropology, broadly under-
stood in terms of both its European heritage and its reception of, and engage-
ment with, various cultural and intellectual traditions (e.g. in Hebrew, Greek,
Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Arabic etc.). This series encourages multidisciplinary
studies of the various philological, textual, and archaeological sources con-
cerned with the development of anthropological theories in ancient medicine,
philosophy, religion, and theology, as well as the subsequent theoretical and
xiv Anna Usacheva, Siam Bhayro and Jörg Ulrich

practical interactions between these theories. Particularly welcome are stud-

ies that emphasise the fundamental connection between different philosophi-
cal, scientific, and socio-cultural contexts where anthropological theories were
produced and applied, and that analyse the implications of these theories in
ethical, ascetic, ecological, gender, and political life from Classical Antiquity up
to the Middle Ages. Attempts to understand human beings as biological, physi-
ological, religious, and socio-cultural entities persisted from Antiquity and are
echoed in the establishing of the complex and multifarious European identity.
In grasping this cross-cultural and diversified process, one is able to see the
foundations of contemporary scientific, religious, and political discourses that
treat the human being and how humanity relates to the world.
The editors of this volume would like to thank all the contributors, and the
editorial board of the series, for their enthusiastic and collegial collaboration.
We would also like to thank the publisher’s team, particularly Dr Martin Illert
and Dr Rebecca Hagen, for their professionalism and support. We are also
grateful to the following research students in Halle—Franziska Grave, Hannah
Mälck and Maline Teepe—for their ever-reliable work, which has helped enor-
mously in ensuring the timely publication of this volume.

Anna Usacheva, Siam Bhayro and Jörg Ulrich

 chapter 1

The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body:

Combined Exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7
in Second Century Christianity
Jörg Ulrich

Abstract

This article traces the emergence of a combined reading of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7
in the Christian literature of the second century. It presents and discusses per-
tinent passages from 1 Clement, Justin, Pseudo-Justin, Irenaeus, Theophilus and
Tertullian. In these authors we find an exegesis that applies both verses to one
and the same act of creation, including man’s soul as well as his body. This under-
standing yields consequences for several dogmatic topics such as creation, an-
thropology, resurrection, but also Christology, soteriology and the understanding
of God and his relation to the Logos.

I.

The question of the unity of body and soul in antiquity is a topic of broad phil-
osophical and theological debates throughout the centuries.1 Due to the un-
questionable authority of the Holy scripture in early Christian tradition, many
Christian authors regarded this question also as a matter of biblical exegesis.2

1 See A. Marmodoro / S. Cartwright (eds.), A History of Body and Mind in Late Antiquity,
Cambridge/Mass. 2018; G. Clarke, Body and Gender, Soul and Reason in Late Antiquity
(Variorum Collected Studies Series), London 2011; T. Buchheim (ed.), ΣΩΜΑ. Körperkonzepte
und körperliche Existenz in der antiken Philosophie und Literatur, Hamburg 2016; R.A.H. King,
Common to Body and Soul. Philosophical Approaches to Explaining Living Behaviour in Greco-
Roman Antiquity, Berlin/New York 2006; B. Feichtinger / S. Lake / H. Seng (eds.), Körper und
Seele. Aspekte spätantiker Anthropologie (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 215), Berlin/New
York 2006; J.P. Wright, Psyche and Soma. Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body
Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment, Oxford 2000; J.M. Rist, Man, Soul and Body. Essays
in Ancient Thought from Plato to Dionysius, Aldershot 1996.
2 E.L. Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory. Canon, Language, Text (SVigChr 114),
Leiden 2012; J. Dochhorn (ed.), For it is Written. Essays on the Function of Scripture in Early
Judaism and Christianity (ECCA 12), Frankfurt/M. 2011; W. Kraus / R.G. Wooden (eds.),

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_002

2 Jörg Ulrich

Pertinent biblical references influenced the approach to the theme of body

and soul and the way in which it was treated. Notwithstanding that there was
no consistent evidence to be gained from the heterogeneous collection of texts
that Christians would regard as their “scripture”,3 it still remains to be inquired
how we can determine the actual significance of exegetical insights for the de-
bate on body and soul more precisely. How did the biblical texts refer to body
and soul? How did they relate body and soul to each other? To what extent and
in which way did they influence the theological discussions of the topic?
One particularly interesting phenomenon in this context is the early
Christian exegesis of the account(s) of the creation in Gen 1:26f.4 on the one
hand and Gen 2:75 on the other hand. While Gen 1:26f. indicates the creation of
man in the image of God (κατ’ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν), Gen 2:7 talks
about man being made from the dust of the earth (χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς). Moreover,
both accounts use different verbs for the actual act of creation, namely ἐποίησεν
in Gen 1:26f. and ἔπλασεν in Gen 2:7. In the historical context, it was left to be
questioned whether these verses were to be understood as one account or as
two. Did they refer to one and the same act of creation or to different ones?
Was Gen 1:26f. meant to describe the creation of man’s soul and Gen 2:7 the
more material creation of the human body? The latter understanding sug-
gested itself especially to thinkers of the platonic tradition. It can be found in
important authors such as Philo of Alexandria6 in the Jewish context and as
Origen7 in the Christian context. For them, Gen 1:26f. could not be related to
the creation of the whole human being, because the creation of the body in

Septuagint Research. Issues and Challenges in the Study of the Greek Jewish Scriptures,
Atlanta 2006; C.A. Evans, The Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity.
Studies in Language and Tradition, Sheffield 2000; H. Karpp, Schrift, Geist und Wort Gottes.
Geltung und Wirkung der Bibel in der Geschichte der Kirche. Von der Alten Kirche bis zum
Ausgang der Reformationszeit, Darmstadt 1992; R. Hanhardt, Die Bedeutung der Septuaginta
in neutestamentlicher Zeit, in: ZThK 81 (1984), 395–416.
3 F.R. Prostmeier, Was bedeutet die Autorität der Schrift bei Paulus?, in: U. Busse (ed.), Die
Bedeutung der Exegese für Theologie und Kirche, QD 215, Freiburg 2005, 97–130.
4 καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός Ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ’ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν, καὶ ἀρχέτωσαν τῶν
ἰχθύων τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ τῶν πετεινῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῶν κτηνῶν καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς καὶ πάντων
τῶν ἑρπετῶν τῶν ἑρπόντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. Καὶ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, κατ’ εἰκόνα θεοῦ ἐποίη-
σεν αὐτόν, ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς.
5 καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν
ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν.
6 S. Yli-Karjanmaa, “Call Him Earth”. On Philo’s Allegorization of Adam in the Legum Allegoriae,
in: A. Laato / L. Valve (eds.), Adam and Eve Story in the Hebrew Bible and in Ancient Jewish
Writings, Including the New Testament, Turku 2016, 253–293 (286).
7 E. Früchtel, Origenes. Das Gespräch mit Heraklides. Die Aufforderung zum Martyrium, BGL 5,
Stuttgart 1974, 64–66. For Origen, see I.L.E. Ramelli’s article in this volume, notes 67–73 with
references to Origen’s commentaries and homilies, and to Contra Celsum.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 3

God’s image would imply an unacceptable “material” comprehension of God.8

And Gen 2:7 couldn’t be related to the whole human being either, because the
making of a soul from the dust of the earth would imply “material” aspects in
the understanding of man’s soul. Since this seemed virtually impossible to con-
clude, the two verses had to be related to the creation of different parts of the
human being, namely Gen 1:26f. to the soul and Gen 2:7 to the body.
However, there still existed a tendency in early Christian exegesis to com-
bine the exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7.9 This combined reading influenced
a number of contemporary theological debates, for instance on creation, on
anthropology and on the bodily resurrection, and later even on Christology
and on the understanding of God in his relation to the Logos. In some in-
stances, the combined reading of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 tended to emphasise
the unity of body and soul. It is the aim of this article to trace this particu-
lar exegetical tradition in the second century and to identify the role that it
played in the then contemporary debates. These traces of this tradition can be
found in Clement of Rome, Justin, Pseudo-Justin, Irenaeus of Lyon, Theophilus
of Antioch, and in Tertullian.10 I will present the pertinent passages in their
chronological order.

II.

The earliest example is 1 Clem.11 In 1 Clem 33,4f. we read:

Above all, the most excellent [thing]: with His holy and undefiled hands He
formed man, as a character of His own image. For thus says God: “Let us make
man in Our image, and after Our likeness. So God made man; male and female
He created them.”12

8 See now C. Markschies, Gottes Körper. Jüdische, christliche und pagane Gottesvorstellungen
in der Antike, München 2016.
9 See H. Lona, Ps. Justins “De resurrectione” und die altchristliche Auferstehungsapologetik,
in: Sal. 51 (1989), 691–768 (735f.); id., Über die Auferstehung des Fleisches. Studien zur früh-
christlichen Eschatologie (BZNW 66), Berlin / New York 1993, 94–96.109; id., Der erste
Clemensbrief, KAV 2, Göttingen 1998, 357f.
10 I would like to thank the participants of the workshop at the International Conference
on Patristic Studies in Oxford 2019 and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Zweites Jahrhundert in
Benediktbeuern 2019 for stimulating discussions of my paper.
11 A. Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe, HNT 17, Tübingen 1992; H. Lona, Der erste Clemensbrief
(KAV 2), Göttingen 1998; J. Hofmann, Clemens von Rom, in: LACL3 (2003), 153–155: 1Clem
was written in Rome around the year 100.
12 ἐπὶ πᾶσι τὸ ἐξοχώτατον καὶ παμμέγεθες, ἄνθρωπον ταῖς ἱεραῖς καὶ ἀμώμοις χερσὶν ἔπλασεν τῆς
ἑαυτοῦ εἰκόνος χαρακτῆρα. οὕτως γάρ φησιν ὁ θεός ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ’ εἰκόνα καὶ καθ’
ὁμοίωσιν ἡμετέραν· (…) καὶ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, (…) ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποιήσεν αὐτούς.
4 Jörg Ulrich

In the context of this short passage Clement discusses the question whether
or not good works are necessary. Clement claims that human beings are made
righteous not by themselves, by their wisdom, understanding or piety, but
through faith by which God has justified all men since the beginning of the
world (1 Clem 32,4). But if this is true, one might assume that we could cease all
well-doing and acts of love (1 Clem 33,1). Clement repudiates this assumption
of course. He emphasises instead that we should be zealous to do every good
work with vigour and readiness. The reason that he gives in the first place13
is that God rejoices in his own works, in the creation of the world and, above
all, in the creation of man. Now in the way that God adorns himself with good
works, we must also adorn ourselves with good works—as all righteous people
in the world actually do (1 Clem 33,7). It is evident that the combined reading
of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 in 1Clem appears as an ethical connection; Clement
wants to show why good works are necessary. However, the argument that he
gives derives from his view on creation: man is God’s most admirable and ap-
plaudable work, and as God’s most admirable work man is obliged to do the
most admirable and applaudable works.
It is striking how naturally both biblical verses are combined with each
other. Clement uses the verb ἔπλασεν from Gen 2:7, and he even strengthens
the “material” and haptic aspect of this act by mentioning the hands of God,
a tradition that may go back to the interpretation of Gen 2:7 in Ps 118:73a LXX
(αἱ χεῖρές σου ἐποίησάν με καὶ ἔπλασάν με).14 The noun πλάσις traditionally rep-
resents the manual production of a sculpture or the moulding of a statue15
according to an archetype. This is exactly what Clement has in mind when he
claims that God’s act of ἔπλασεν was the forming of a character (χαρακτῆρα) ac-
cording to an image, namely the image of God himself (τῆς ἑαυτοῦ εἰκόνος). In
order to express this, he uses the words from Gen 1:26f. and then even quotes
these verses directly (with two minor omissions). Although the question of the
relation of body and soul is not an explicit subject-matter here, it can still be
claimed that Clement discusses implicitly the interrelationship of the haptic

Translation from LCL 24, 64f. Lake.—This translation takes τὸ ἐξοχώτατον καὶ παμμέγεθες
as an absolute nominative which refers to the whole subsequent assertion (also see Lona,
1998, 357). However, it is an alternative to take τὸ ἐξοχώτατον καὶ παμμέγεθες as direct ob-
ject in the accusative and to understand ἄνθρωπον as an aposition to it. The translation
would then read: “Above all, with His holy and undefiled hands, He formed the most ex-
cellent (thing), namely man, as a character of His own image …”.
13 One could expect that the first argument would be the reward that is promised for every
good work (according to Jes 40:10; 62:11), but Clement puts this point only in the second
place: 1 Clem 34,1–3.
14 Also see Job 10:8a LXX: αἱ χεῖρές σου ἔπλασάν με καὶ ἐποίησάν με.
15 Liddell/Scott, GEL 1412. See Lona, 1998, 357.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 5

production of man and the formation of man according to God’s own image.
However, this link can hardly be seen as Clement’s own idea, because he uses
it somehow incidentally, without any explanatory statement and unrelated to
any discernible debate or controversy.16 He obviously draws on an established
mode of thinking and an established exegetical approach, which we unfortu-
nately cannot trace back any further.17 Our search for further clues does not
yield any findings earlier than the middle of the second century.

III.

The second example is from Justin Martyr.18 In his Dialogue with Tryphon19
(dial. 62,1–3) he writes:

And the same sentiment was expressed, my friends, by the word of God [written]
by Moses, when it indicated to us, with regard to Him whom it has pointed out,
that God speaks in the creation of man with the very same design, in the follow-
ing words: “Let Us make man after our image and likeness (…)”. And that you may
not change the [force of the] words just quoted, and repeat what your teachers
assert,—either that God said to Himself, “Let Us make,” just as we, when about
to do something, oftentimes say to ourselves, “Let us make;” or that God spoke
to the elements, to wit, the earth and other similar substances of which we be-
lieve man was formed, “Let Us make,”—I shall quote again the words narrated by
Moses himself, from which we can indisputably learn that [God] conversed with
someone who was numerically distinct from Himself, and also a rational Being.
These are the words: “And God said, Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to
know good and evil.” In saying, therefore, “as one of us,” [Moses] has declared
that [there is a certain] number of persons associated with one another, and that
they are at least two. For I would not say that the dogma of that heresy which is

16 I suggest understanding the proposal to abstain from well-doing not as a real opinion
from a real debate, but rather as a rhetoric figure.
17 See Lona, 1998, 358. Lona suggests considering the Vita Adae et Evae as a possible source
(VitAd 29,9) but at the same time he admits that we know too little about the origin, the
dating and the textual specifics of that text.
18 S. Heid, Iustinus Martyr I, in: RAC 19 (2000), 801–847; C.P. Vetten, Justin der Märtyrer,
in: LACL3 (2003), 411–414; J. Ulrich, Justin Martyr, in: J. Engberg/A.-C. Jacobsen/J. Ulrich
(eds.), In Defence of Christianity. Early Christian Apologists, ECCA 15, Frankfurt/M. 2014,
51–66; id., Justin, in: EvTh 79 (2019), 343–352; id., Justin. Apologien, übersetzt und erklärt
von Jörg Ulrich, KfA 4/5, Freiburg 2019, 18–30.
19 P. Bobichon, Justin Marytr. Dialogue avec Tryphon. Édition critique, traduction, commen-
taire, Par. 47/1.2, Fribourg 2003. The text was written in Rome around the year of 160.
6 Jörg Ulrich

said to be among you is true, or that the teachers of it can prove that [God] spoke
to angels, or that the human frame was the workmanship of angels.20

The theological context of this passage is entirely different from the one in
1Clem: Justin argues with Tryphon, a Jew,21 about their understanding of God.
In the preceding chapters of the Dialogue the controversy concerned the
epiphanies in the biblical accounts: Are they to be understood as appearances
of the Logos, or rather as appearances of angels? Moreover, how are the Logos
or the angels related to God? Justin wants to prove that the biblical epiphanies
are appearances of the Logos, and that the Logos, the son of God, is a “sec-
ond God”, though different from the first and subordinate to him.22 In our pas-
sage, Justin turns to the question of how the plural ποιήσωμεν in Gen 1:26 must
be understood; the verse was one of the loci classici in the debates between
Christians and Jews.23 Justin applies the plural use of ποιήσωμεν to the Logos
to whom he ascribes a mediatorial role in the creation of the world and in the
creation of man.24 He proves his view by pointing to the plural ὡς εἷς ἐξ ἡμῶν in

20 Κ
 αὶ τοῦτο αὐτό, ὦ Φίλοι, εἶπε καὶ διὰ Μωσέως ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγος, μηνύων ἡμῖν ὃν ἐδήλωσε τὸν
Θεὸν λέγειν τούτῳ αὐτῷ τῷ νοήματι ἐπὶ τῆς ποιήσεως τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, λέγων ταῦτα· Ποιήσωμεν
ἄνθπωπον κατ’ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν· καὶ ἀρχέτωσαν τῶν ἰχθύων τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ τῶν
πετεινῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῶν κτηνῶν καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς καὶ πάντων τῶν ἑρπετῶν τῶν ἑρπόντων ἐπὶ
τῆς γῆς. Καὶ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, κατ’ εἰκόνα θεοῦ ἐποίησεν αὐτό· ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν
αὐτούς. Καὶ Εὐλόγησεν ὁ Θεὸς αὐτοὺς λέγων·Αὐξάνεσθε καὶ πληθύνεσθε καὶ πληρώσατε τὴν γῆν καὶ
κατακυριεύσατε αὐτῆς. Καὶ ὅπως μή, ἀλλάσσοντες τοὺς προλελεγμένους λόγους, ἐκεῖνα λέγητε
ἃ οἱ διδάσκαλοι ὑμῶν λέγουσιν, ἢ ὅτι πρὸ ἑαυτὸν ἔλεγεν ὁ Θεὸς Ποιήσωμεν, ὁποῖον καὶ ἡμεῖς
μέλλοντές τι ποιεῖν πολλάκις πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς λέγομεν Ποιήσωμεν, ἢ ὅτι πρὸς τὰ στοιχεῖα, τουτέστι
τὴν γῆν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ὁμοίως, ἐξ ὧν νοοῦμεν τὸν ἄνθρωπον γεγονέναι, Θεὸν εἰρηκέναι Ποιήσωμεν,
λόγους τοὺς εἰρημένους ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Μωσέως πάλιν ἱστορήσω, ἐξ ὧν ἀναμφιλέκτως πρός τινα,
καὶ ἀριθμῷ ὄντα ἕτερον καὶ λογικὸν ὑπάρκοντα, ὡμιληκέναι αὐτὸν ἐπιγνῶναι ἔχομεν. Εἰσὶ δὲ οἱ
λόγοι οὗτοι· Καὶ εἶπεν ὁ Θεός· Ἰδοὺ Ἀδὰμ γέγονεν ὡς εἷς ἐξ ἡμῶν τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν.
Οὐκοῦν εἰπὼν ὡς εἷς ἐξ ἡμῶν, καὶ ἀριθμὸν τῶν ἀλλήλοις συνόντων, καὶ το ἐλάχιστον δύο μεμή-
νυκεν. Οὐ γὰρ ὅπερ ἡ παρ’ ὑμῖν λεγομένη αἵρεσις δογματίζει φαίην ἂν ἐγὼ ἀληθὲς εἶναι, ἢ οἱ
ἐκείνης διδάσκαλοι ἀποδεῖξαι δύνανται ὅτι ἀγγέλοις ἔλεγεν ἢ ὅτι ἀγγέλων ποιήμα ἦν τὸ σῶμα τὸ
ἀνθρώπειον. Translation from ANF 1, 228 Schaff.
21 I cannot take up the much-debated question of the authenticity of Tryphon here: It is
clear that there are many elements in the text that point towards a construction by Justin,
but it also evident that there are real exegetical and theological controversies between
real Christians and real Jews behind it.
22 1 apol. 13,3; 63,5; dial. 128,4. See Ulrich, 2019, 86–91.
23 Together with Gen 3:22 and Gen 19:23–25. For discussion see Bobichon, 2003, 948–952;
R.M.L. Wilson, The Early Exegesis of Gen 1,26, in: StPatr 1 (1957), 420–437; J. Jervell, Imago
Dei. Gen 1,26 im Spätjudentum, in der Gnosis und in den paulinischen Briefen, Göttingen
1960.
24 Cf. Ulrich, 2019, 90f. no. 337; C. Andresen, Logos und Nomos. Die Polemik des Kelsos wider
das Christentum (AKG 30), Berlin/New York 1955, 312–316; E.R. Goodenough, The Theology
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 7

Gen 3:22. He rejects (the allegedly Jewish) interpretations that apply this plural
either to God speaking to himself or to the elements or to angels.
However, in his quote and analysis of Gen 1:26f., Justin has a “material”
conception in mind, as we can see in his use of the words γῆ and σῶμα.25 At
least γῆ points directly to Gen 2:7, and even if σῶμα does not appear in Gen 2:7
explicitly, the whole passage still indicates that Justin understands both, the
ποιήσωμεν “after our image and likeness” and the creation of the human body
(σῶμα) from the dust of the earth, as one and the same act: the verb ποιήσωμεν
is a word from the Father to the Logos, but the announced act is nothing other
than the creation of the human body, in which the image of God concretises
itself. Both, God and the Logos, create the whole human being, the soul as well
as the body. It is noteworthy that we find such a close connection between
body and soul elsewhere in Justin’s texts, for example in his views of the es-
chatological judgement or in his use of Lk 12:4f.26 With regard to the combined
exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7, we find the same approach in Justin as in
1 Clem, notwithstanding that the theological context and the polemical setting
are different. Unfortunately, it cannot be proven that Justin has adopted his
approach directly from Clement: Indeed, all the proposed parallels between
his texts and 1Clem are far from certain.27
Interestingly enough, this combination of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 is not a
matter of dispute between Tryphon and Justin. While Tryphon and the “Jewish
teachers” interpret the plural ποιήσωμεν completely different than Justin, they
do not seem to reject his combined reading of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 at all.
Both sides differ in their understanding of God and of the subject of the cre-
ational act, but not in their view of man as the object of the creation and not
in their exegetical handling of the two biblical verses. This observation allows
it to assume that this combined exegesis had proponents not only in Christian
milieus, but also in Jewish ones, and it may be possible to presume that the tra-
dition itself actually is of Jewish, not Christian, origin. However, valid evidence
for this assumption is missing.

of Justin Martyr, Jena 1923, 159–167.—D. Minns/P. Parvis, Justin Marytr. Apologies, OECT,
Oxford 2009, 62–65 doubt that Justin ascribed a mediatorial role in creation to the Logos;
they reject the clear reference in Just., 2apol. 5(6),3 as an editorial gloss.
25 Cf. Lona, 1993, 95.
26 1 apol. 8,4: The punishment will happen to the bodies, reunited with their souls …; 1 apol.
19,7: Fear Him who after death is able to cast both body and soul into Gehenna. Cf. Lona,
1993, 95.
27 Cf. Ulrich, 2019, 110f.; the few references in the indices of the Apologies (Ulrich, 2019, 687)
and of the Dialogue (Bobichon, 2003, 1084) are pure suggestions.
8 Jörg Ulrich

IV.

The tract De resurrectione is taken from the only relevant manuscript of the
texts by Justin Martyr, the Codex parisinus 450.28 The authenticity of De res-
urrectione is under dispute. It may be reasonable to assign it to an unknown
author contemporaneous to Irenaeus of Lyon,29 whom we—for lack of
alternatives—call Pseudo-Justin.
In this tract, Pseudo-Justin argues against adversaries who deny the bodi-
ly resurrection.30 They claim that the resurrection of the flesh is impossible
(res. 5–6), that it is inappropriate (res. 7) and that there is no promise of the
resurrection for the flesh at all (res. 8–10).31 In connection to their second point
they maintain that the substance of the “flesh” (σάρξ) is “earth” (γῆ). For this
reason, the flesh cannot be worthy of the resurrection and of the heavenly citi-
zenship. Pseudo-Justin answers (res. 7,3–6):

For does not the word say, “Let Us make man in our image, and after our like-
ness?” What kind of man? Manifestly He means fleshly man, for the word says,
“And God took dust of the earth, and made man.” It is evident, therefore, that
man made in the image of God was of flesh. Is it not, then, absurd to say, that
the flesh made by God in His own image is contemptible, and worth nothing?32

28 Cf. Minns/Parvis, 2009, 3–5; Ulrich, 2019, 2.

29 I cannot take up the debate on the authenticity of the text here. See Lona, 1989, 752–
761; id., 1993, 135. In favour of the authenticity see P. Prigent, Justin et l’Ancien Testament.
L’argumentation scrripturaire du traité de Justin contre toutes les hérésies comme source
principale de Dialogue avec Tryphon et de la première Apologie, Paris 1964, 49–61;
A. Wartelle, La traité “De la resurrection” de s. Justin ou le destin d’une œuvre, in: Y. Ledure
(ed.), Histoire et culture chrétienne, Hommage à monseigneur Y. Marchasson (Culture et
christianisme 1), Paris 1992, 3–10; B. Pouderon, Le context polémique du De Resurrectione
attribué à Justin: destinataires et adversaires, in: StPatr 31 (1997), 143–166. See also S. Heid,
Iustinus Martyr I, in: RAC 19 (2000), 801–847 (802f.);—M. Heimgartner, Pseudojustin—
Über die Auferstehung. Text und Studie, PTS 54, Berlin/New York 2001, 16–21.203–220, dis-
cusses these articles carefully and concludes that the tract is presumably not from Justin.
Instead he suggests Athenagoras as the author of De resurrectione.
30 O. Lehtipuu, Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead. Constructing Early Christian
Identity, Oxford 2015; C. Setzer, Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early
Christianity: Doctrine, Community, and Self-Definition, Leiden 2004.
31 See the detailed discussion in Heimgartner, 2001, 155–192.
32 ε ἰ γὰρ οὖ φησιν ὁ λόγος· ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ’ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν, ποῖον; δηλο-
νότι σαρκικὸν λέγει ἄνθρωπον. φησὶ γὰρ ὁ λόγος· καὶ ἔλαβεν ὁ θεός χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἔπλασε τὸν
ἄνθρωπον· δῆλον οὖν, ὡς κατ’ εἰκόνα θεοῦ πλασσόμενος ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἦν σαρκικός. εἶτα πῶς οὐκ
ἄτοπον τὴν ὑπὸ θεοῦ σάρκα πλασθεῖσαν κατ’ εἰκόνα τὴν ἑαυτοῦ φάσκειν ἄτιμον εἶναι καὶ οὐδενὸς
ἀξίαν; Translation ANF 1, 297 Dods.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 9

Pseudo-Justin argues against his opponent’s exegesis of Gen 1:26f.33 Unlike his
own interpretation of that text, his opponents do not apply the phrase κατ’
εἰκόνα to the flesh.34 Pseudo-Justin’s counter argument is Gen 2:7: This verse
proves that the phrase κατ’ εἰκόνα from Gen 1:26 must be understood as refer-
ring not only to the human soul, but also to the body. But if the human body
is created in God’s image, then it is clearly absurd to deny that it is worthy
of being resurrected. How can the resurrection of the flesh be considered in-
appropriate when the flesh is made in the image of the one who created it?
What we have in front of us here is a combined understanding of Gen 1:26 and
Gen 2:7, including an explicit quote of both verses side by side. Moreover, in his
conclusion, Pseudo-Justin deliberately combines words from the two verses to
one distinct result: κατ’ εἰκόνα (Gen 1:26) θεοῦ πλασσόμενος (Gen 2:7) ὁ ἄνθρωπος
ἦν σαρκικός.35 In our survey of the exegetical tradition of a combined exegesis
of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 in the second century Pseudo-Justin is the first to call
God’s creature σαρκικός, and this is meant in an appreciative sense, as the par-
allelisation with εἰκόνα θεοῦ shows. In the subsequent sentence Pseudo-Justin
even claims that the flesh which is created by God is a valuable property.36 As
such it is worthy of the resurrection. The combined exegesis of Gen 1:26 and
Gen 2:7 serves as a strong argument in favour of a peculiar merit of the human
body.37 The corporality is an integral part of humanity, implied in the intention
of the creator.
Some aspects in this passage by Pseudo-Justin are particularly notable: First
of all, the combination of both verses is achieved by quoting both texts com-
pletely. Moreover, it appears as a clear argument in a theological controversy.
Furthermore, it is the first time that we find it in the context of the resurrection

33 This is clear from the introductory phrase: “For does not the Word say”; cf. Heimgartner,
2001, 171 no. 155.
34 It is difficult to identify these opponents more precisely. They seem to come from a
“gnostic” theological background but it is hard to tell which of the many different gnostic
groups they actually belong. Lona, 1993, 149 points out that they reject the bodily resur-
rection because of the earthly, material provenance of the human body, not because of
the Logos’s mediatorial role in the act of creation. The latter question was at stake in the
controversy between Justin and Tryphon, but not here.
35 Heimgartner, 2001, 171, referring to M. Simonetti, Polemica antiplatonica nello Ps.Giustino,
in: id., Ortodossia ed eresia tra I e II secolo, Armarium 5, Soveria Manelli 1994, 275–289 (286
no. 21).
36 Res. 7,7: τίμιον κτῆμα.
37 In the “traditional” gnostic reading of Gen 2:7 there are two alternatives: The “Gnostics”
would either understand the verse as witness for the creation of the “material” man
who then becomes a “physical” man by receiving God’s breath, or they would refer it
to a Demiourg, who forms (πλάσσω), in contrast to God, who makes (ποιέω). See Lona,
1993, 149.
10 Jörg Ulrich

debates:38 The combined reading of the two verses is an argument in favour of

the bodily resurrection. Finally, the author does not give any explanatory state-
ment for his exegetical approach: He seems to base his approach on a tradition
that is already established, irrespective of the fact that his opponents refer to a
different tradition, thereby interpreting the text differently.39 Again we cannot
tell whether or not Pseudo-Justin knew 1 Clem 33,4f. and Justin, dial. 62,1–3;
nevertheless he refers to the same tradition. The patterns of exegesis are iden-
tical; what is new is its function within a theological discourse.

V.

Our next witness is Irenaeus of Lyon. In his Adversus haereses40 he writes:

Now God shall be glorified in His handiwork, fitting it so as to be conformable

to, and modelled after His own Son. For by the hands of the Father, that is, by
the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, was made in
the likeness of God. Now the soul and the spirit are certainly a part of the man,
but certainly not the man; for the perfect man consists in the commingling and
the union of the soul receiving the spirit of the Father, and the admixture of that
fleshly nature which was moulded after the image of God.41

38 There is a lengthy passage in favour of the bodily resurrection in Justin, 1 apol. 18,6–19,7,
but Justin points to the argument that God is almighty and capable of doing everything.
Nowhere he refers to the creation account in Genesis. This is one of the reasons why I
tend to ascribe De resurrectione not to Justin, but to an unknown author.
39 See no. 34.
40 Irenäus von Lyon, Darlegung der Apostolischen Verkündigung. Gegen die Häresien
(N. Brox [ed., German transl.]), FC 8,1–5, Freiburg 1993–2001.
41 Iren., haer 5.6,1: Glorificabitur autem Deus in suo plasmate, conforme illud et conse-
quens suo puero adaptans. Per manus enim Patris, hoc est per Filium et Spiritum, fit
homo secundum similitudinem Dei, sed non pars hominis. Anima autem et Spiritus pars
hominis esse possunt, homo autem nequaquam: perfectus autem homo commixtio et
adunitio est animae assumentis Spiritum Patris et admixtae ei carni quae est plasmata
secundum imaginem Dei. Translation ANF 1, 531 Schaff.—For discussion see Lona, 1993,
189–211; G. Wingren, Man and the Incarnation. A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus,
Philadelphia 1959; G. Joppich, Salus carnis. Eine Untersuchung der Theologie des hl.
Irenäus von Lyon, MüSt 1, Münsterschwarzach 1965; Orbe, A., Antropología de San Ireneo,
BAC 286, Madrid 1969; id., Ireneo y la doctrina de la reconcililiación, in: Gr. 61 (1980), 5–50;
id., Teología de San Irenao I–III, BAC maior 25.29.33, Madrid 1985–1988; N. Brox, Irenäus
von Lyon, in: M. Greschat (ed.), Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte 1, Stuttgart 1984, 82–96;
Y. de Andia, Homo vivens. Incorruptibilité et divinisation de l’homme chez Irénée de Lyon,
EAA 112, Paris 1986; M.J. Olson, Irenaeus, the Valentinian Gnosis, and the Kingdom of God
(A.H. Book V ). The Debate about 1 Corinthians 15:50, Lewiston 1992; D. Wanke, Das Kreuz
Christi bei Irenäus von Lyon, BZNW 99, Berlin/New York 2000.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 11

This passage is located at the exact moment in the fifth book of Adversus hae-
reses when Irenaeus moves on from the topic of anthropology to the question
of the resurrection. In the preceding chapter he has proved the value of the
human body by pointing to the enormous life span of the Old Testament pa-
triarchs.42 From now onwards he argues in favour of the bodily resurrection,
thereby basing his argumentation on Pauline motives.43 He aims at falsifying
the Gnostic anthropology and instead claims that man is only perfect and
complete44 when soul and spirit are united with the body. One could call this
an amendment of the Gnostic anthropology in favour of the peculiar merit of
the human body.45
The combined exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 plays a decisive role in this
endeavour. Irenaeus refers the similitudo Dei and the imago Dei46 directly to
the human body: The whole human being, consisting of soul, spirit and flesh,
is made by the hands of the father and moulded after the image of God. The
phrase quae est plasmata secundum imaginem Dei refers to caro,47 the human
flesh. The flesh does represent the imago Dei in the same way as soul and
spirit do. The “material”, the fleshly human being is God’s creature and at the
same time he is similitudo and imago Dei.48 Just as it is the case in 1 Clem 33,4,
Irenaeus mentions the hands of God in order to underline the haptic aspect of
the creation (cf. Ps 118,73a LXX).49 Man is the only creature that is dignified by
being formed by the hands of God himself.

42 Iren., haer. 5.5,1.

43 Iren., haer. 5.6,1–5.12,6 is full of quotes from (Rom 8:8–14; 8:15; 11:17; 11 24; 1 Cor 2:6;
3:16f.; 6:9–11; 6 13f.; 6:15; 13:9; 13:12; 15:43–46; 15:48–50; 15:53; Gal 1:15f.; 5:19–23; Phil 1,22;
1 Thess 5:23; Eph 1:13f.; Kol 3:9f.) and allusions to (Rom 6:10f.; 8:4f.; 8:29; 10 2; 1 Cor 2:11;
2:14f.; 3:1; 3:3; 6:9; 15:33; 2 Cor 5:4; 6:7; Gal 1:13; 2 Thess 1:10; Kol 3:5; Eph 4 22) the Pauline
letters. For Irenaeus’s use of Paul in general see D.I. Balás, Use and Interpretation of Paul in
haer., in: SecCen 9 (1992), 27–39; R. Noormann, Irenäus als Paulusinterpret. Zur Rezeption
und Wirkung der paulinischen und deuteropaulinischen Briefe im Werk des Irenäus von
Lyon, WUNT 2/66, Tübingen 1994.
44 Irenaeus is playing with the word perfectus (τέλειος) here: Ιt covers both meanings: “per-
fect” and “complete”, perfect in the sense that it is a prefect creature of God and complete
in the sense that it consists of three indispensable parts. See Brox, 2001, 56f. no. 59.
45 Brox, 2001, 57: “Korrekturen an der gnostischen Anthropologie zugunsten des Fleisches”.
For full discussion see J. Fantino, L’homme image de Dieu chez Irénée de Lyon, Paris 1994.
46 As far as I can see, Irenaeus is the first Christian author who explicitly uses the phrase
imago Dei, which later on became a technical term in the dogmatic tradition.
47 The Greek must have read σάρξ here. Cf. (Ps.)Just., res. 7,5: ὁ ἄνθρωπος σαρκικός, see no. 30
above.
48 Cf. Lona, 1993, 190.
49 However, in Irenaeus we do have an allegorical, even “trinitarian” interpretation of these
manus Patris, which are taken as the Son and the holy spirit. And when Irenaeus in-
terprets one of the hands of God as the Son, he obviously implies the idea of the Son’s
12 Jörg Ulrich

It is clear that the exegetical tradition that Irenaeus’s approach is based on

is the same as in 1 Clem, Justin, and Pseudo-Justin. For Irenaeus, there is no
disjuncture between Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7, and neither do the two texts refer
to two different acts of creation. And just as it is the case in Pseudo-Justin, the
imago Dei and the flesh are directly related to each other, and in both cases this
figure serves as an argument in an anti-Gnostic constellation of conflict.50 It
is noteworthy that for Irenaeus this exegetical pattern seems to be a matter of
course, he does not discuss or justify it in any way.
But even if the exegetical tradition is the same as in the authors examined
before, and even if the setting of the theological controversy is very compara-
ble to the one in Pseudo-Justin, De resurrectione, Irenaeus’s Adversus haereses
presents a much broader and far more elaborate concept. His conception in-
cludes Christology and soteriology. For when he says that God will be glorified
(glorificabitur) in His handiwork (in suo plasmate) (cf. the human body), this
phrase refers clearly to the second coming of Christ, after whom the human
being is modelled.51 The creation of man reaches its primary determination
at the very moment when it adopts the form of the glorified Son, when it be-
comes conformable with him (conforme illud et consequens suo puero adap-
tans). The glorified body of the Saviour is the pattern to which the figure of the
human body is supposed to be adjusted to.52 The glorification of God implies
full acceptance of the “flesh”, i.e. of the material share in the human being. The
combination of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 contradicts any contempt of material-
ity, and from there Irenaeus draws consequences not only for his anthropology
and his theory of the resurrection, but to Christology and to the conception
of soteriology: When God will be glorified among the holy, there will be a full
recapitulation of man, including the flesh, and this recapitulation will happen
by man becoming conformable to God’s son.53

mediatorial role in the act of creation. For the hands of God in Irenaeus see also Iren.,
haer. 4 praef. 4; 4,20,1.
50 It is likely that the opponents of Pseudo-Justin on the one hand and of Irenaeus on the
other were rather similar in their theological options as well in their use of the biblical
creation account(s).
51 The biblical references in the background here are Rom 8 29 and Phil 3:21. Moreover, the
verb glorificabitur may allude to 2 Thess 1:10 (Orbe, 1985, 266; Lona 1993, 190 no. 520).
52 Lona, 1993, 191.
53 For the much-discussed recapitulation-theory in Irenaeus see Orbe, 1980, 5–50 and the
monography by de Andia, 1986; furthermore C.R. Smith, Chiliasm and Recapitulation in
the Theology of Irenaeus, in: VigChr 48 (1994), 313–331.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 13

VI.

Theophilus of Antioch, in his treatise Ad Autolycum, presents a similar reading

of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7. In Autol. 2,18f. he writes:

(…) For when God says: “Let Us make Man in Our image, after Our likeness,” he
first imitates the dignity of man. For God having made all things by His Word,
and having reckoned them all mere bye-works, reckons the creation of man
the only work worthy of His own hands. Moreover, God is found, as if needing
help, to say: “Let Us make Man in Our image, after Our likeness.” But to no one
else than his own Word and wisdom did he say “Let Us make:” And when He
had made and blessed him, that he might increase and replenish the earth, He
put all things under his dominion, and at his service (…). God having thus com-
pleted the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and all that are in them, on the sixth
day, rested on the seventh day from all His works which He made. Then holy
Scripture gives a summary in these words: “This is the book of the generation
of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord
made the heavens and the earth, and every green thing of the field, before it was
made, and every herb of the field before it grew. For God had not caused it to rain
upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.” By this He signifies to
us, that the whole earth was at that time watered by a divine fountain, and had
no need that man should till it; but the earth produced all things spontaneously
by the command of God, that man might not be wearied by tilling it. But that
the creation of man might be made plain, so that there should not seem to be an
insoluble problem existing among men, since God had said “Let Us make man;”
and since His creation was not yet plainly related, Scripture teaches us, saying
“And a fountain went up out of the earth, and watered the face of the whole
earth; and God man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face the
breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Whence also by most persons the
soul is called immortal.54

54 18 … ἐν τῷ γὰρ εἰπεῖν τὸν θεόν· Ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ’ εἰκόνα καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν τὴν ἡμετέραν,
πρῶτον μηνύει τὸ ἀξίωμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. πάντα γὰρ λόγῳ ποιήσας ὁ θεὸς καὶ τὰ πάντα πάρεργα
ἡγησάμενος μόνον ἰδίων ἔργον χειρῶν ἄξιον ἡγεῖται τὴν ποίησιν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. ἔτι μὴν καὶ ὡς
βοηθείας χρῄζων ὁ θεὸς εὑρίσκεται λέγων· Ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ’ εἰκόνα καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν. οὐκ
ἄλλῳ δέ τινι εἴρηκεν· Ποιήσωμεν, ἀλλ’ ἢ τῷ ἑαυτοῦ λόγῳ καὶ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ σοφίᾳ. ποιήσας δὲ αὐτὸν
καὶ εὐλογήσας εἰς τὸ αὐξάνεσθαι καὶ πληρῶσαι τὴν γῆν ὑπέταξεν αὐτῷ ὑποχείρια καὶ ὑπόδου-
λα τὰ πάντα (…) 19. Οὕτως συντελέσας ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ
πάντα ὅσα ἐν αὐτοῖς ἐν τῇ ἕκτῃ ἡμέρᾳ κατέπαυσεν ἐν τῇ ἑβδόμῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἔργων
αὐτοῦ ὧν ἐποίησεν. εἶθ’ οὕτως ἀνακεφαλαιοῦται λέγουσα ἡ ἁγία γραφή· Αὕτη βίβλος γενέσεως
οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῆς γῆς, ὅτε ἐγένετο ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν, καὶ πᾶν χλωρὸν
ἀγροῦ πρὸ τοῦ γενέσθαι, καὶ πάντα χόρτον ἀγροῦ πρὸ τοῦ ἀνατεῖλαι· οὐ γὰρ ἔβρεξεν ὁ θεὸς ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν,
καὶ ἄνθρωπος οὐκ ἦν ἐργάζεσθαι τὴν γῆν. διὰ τούτου ἐμήνυσεν ἡμῖν ὅτι καὶ ἡ γῆ πᾶσα κατ’ ἐκεῖνο
καιροῦ ἐποτίζετο ὑπὸ πηγῆς θείας, καὶ οὐκ εἶχεν χρείαν ἐργάζεσθαι αὐτὴν ἄνθρωπον, ἀλλὰ τὰ
πάντα αὐτοματισμῷ ἀνέφυεν ἡ γῆ κατὰ τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς τὸ μὴ κοπιᾶν ἐργαζόμενον
τὸν ἄνθρωπον. Ὅπως δὲ καὶ ἡ πλάσις δειχθῇ, πρὸς τὸ μὴ δοκεῖν εἶναι ζήτημα ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀνεύ-
ρετον, ἐπειδὴ εἴρητο ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ· Ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον καὶ οὔπω ἡ πλάσις αὐτοῦ πεφανέρωται,
14 Jörg Ulrich

Theophilus’s exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 is part of a long and elaborate
interpretation of the first books of the Genesis (Autol. 2,10–32).55 It is clear for
him that both verses belong to one and the same narrative, which he calls “a
succinct account”.56 In the latter part of this account, he says about Gen 2 that
Scripture “sums up”57 here what was presented before. In Autol. 2,18, he links
Gen 1:26 to God’s “own hands” which implies the haptic conception of mould-
ing and forming.58 Then in Autol. 2,19, he directly links both verses and quotes
them together.59 The creation of man is not a matter of creating the soul on the
one hand and the body on the other hand, but it is one act of the creation of
one human being, consisting of body and soul.
It is interesting to have a look at the consequences of this exegetical concept
for Theophilus’s theological anthropology and for his idea of the resurrection.
In his anthropology,60 he clearly regards man as a unity. As a unity of body
and soul, man is obliged to live according to God’s commandments. There is
no fight between soul and body or between spirit and matter, in which the
spiritual dimension is supposed to prevail over the material one, but there is
one homogenous human being that conducts (or defies) God’s plan. Moreover,
man is not created mortal neither immortal,61 but the question whether he will
live or die does entirely depend on the works that he accomplishes with both

διδάσκει ἡμᾶς ἡ γραφὴ λέγουσα· Πηγὴ δὲ ἀνέβαινεν ἐκ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐπότιζεν πᾶν τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς
γῆς, καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν
ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν. ὅθεν καὶ ἀθάνατος ἡ ψυχὴ ὠνόμασται παρὰ τοῖς
πλείοσι. Transl. ANF 2, 101f. Dods.
55 This passage is the most consistent part of the whole treatise; the disposition of the books
1 and 2 are far more confused, see R.M. Grant, Theophilus of Antioch to Autolycus, in:
HThR 40 (1947), 227–256; P. Pilhofer, Theophilus von Antiochien, in: LACL3 (2003), 690.—
For Theophilus‘s exegesis and his use of the Septuagint see F.R. Prostmeier: Gen 1–3 in
Theophilos von Antiochia ‚An Autolykos‘. Beobachtungen zu Text und Textgeschichte der
Septuagintagenesis, in: J. de Vries / M. Karrer (eds.), Textgeschichte und Schriftrezeption
im frühen Christentum / Textual History and the Reception of Scripture in Early Christianity,
SBL.SCS 60, Missoula 2013, 359–393. For Theophilus’s anthropology based on his reading
of Gen 2f. see J.P. Martin, La antropologia de Filón y la de Teófilo de Antioquía. Sus lecturas
de Génesis 2–5, in: Salm. 36 (1989), 23–70.
56 Autol. 2,18: σύντομον ἐκφώνησιν.
57 Autol. 2,19: ἀνακεφαλαιοῦται.
58 See above: 1 Clem 33,4.—Both passages do presuppose that Gen 1:26 is talking about the
πλάσις of the human body according to Gen 2:7.
59 See above: (Ps.)Just., res. 7,3f.
60 See Martin, 1989.
61 Thphl. Ant. 2,27: Man was by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if God had made
him immortal from the beginning, he would have made him God. Again, if he had made
him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal not yet
mortal did he make him, but capable of both. Transl. ANF 2, 105 Dods, slightly altered.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 15

his body and his soul. Therefore, man’s eschatological fate merely depends on
himself and on the way he lives his life: If he does live according to God’s will,
he will live eternally; if he does not, he will be exposed to death. It is true that
God, in his mercy and philanthropy, will endow him with life, Theophilus says,
but only if man obeys God’s will.62 This anthropological concept is the rea-
son why the themes of Christology and pneumatology play hardly any role in
Theophilus’s treatise: The actual precondition for man’s resurrection and im-
mortality is his own conduct of life rather than the salvation in Christ or the
gift of the holy spirit.63
This concept of a natural, native unity of body and soul implicates an un-
derstanding of resurrection that includes both body and soul. Scholars have
rightly pointed to the fact that there is nearly no evidence for the bodily resur-
rection in Theophilus;64 as a matter of fact the passage in Autol. 1,7 is the only
explicit one.65 And when Theophilus remarks that “by most persons the soul
is called immortal”66 one might suspect there is a division of soul and body
in the background. But the phrase “most persons” does not necessarily indicate
that Theophilus regards himself as belonging to them. And even if it is true
that—in comparison to other Christian authors—Theophilus explanations
of the question of the resurrection are rather implicit and unspecific, this can
still be explained by the fact that there is no theological controversy behind
Ad Autolycum that would have required more detailed discussion on the mat-
ter.67 Due to his view of Gen 1:26 and Gen 2:7 it is somewhat self-evident for
him that resurrection must refer to both, body and soul. Horacio E. Lona has
drawn attention to two comparisons that Theophilus uses in order to illustrate

62 Thphl. Ant., Autol. 2,27: For man, disobeying, drew death upon himself; so, obeying the
will of God, he who desires is able to procure for himself eternal life. For God has given us
a law and holy commandments; and everyone who keeps these can be saved, and, obtain-
ing the resurrection, can inherit incorruption. Transl. ANF 2, 105 Dods, slightly altered.
63 See Lona, 1993, 176f.
64 Lona, 1993, 175.178.
65 ὅταν ἀπόθῃ τὸ θνητὸν καὶ ἐνδύσῃ τὴν ἀφθαρσίαν, τότε ὄψῃ κατὰ ἀξίαν τὸν θεόν. ἀνεγείρει γάρ
σου τὴν σάρκα ἀθάνατον σὺν τῇ ψυχῇ ὁ θεός· καὶ τότε ὄψῃ γενόμενος ἀθάνατος τὸν ἀθάνατον,
ἐὰν νῦν πιστεύσῃς αὐτῷ. When thou shalt have put off the mortal, and put on incorruption,
then shalt thou see God worthily. For God will raise thy flesh immortal with thy soul. And
then, having become immortal, thou shalt see the Immortal, if now you believe on Him.
Transl. ANF 1, 91 Dods.—Theophilus’s terminology resembles 1 Cor 15:53. For biblical ref-
erences in Ad Autolycum see N. Zeegers-Vander Vorst, Les citations du Nouveau Testament
dans les Livres à Autolycus de Théophile d’Antioche, in: StPatr 12 (1975), 371–382.
66 Thphl. Ant., Autol. 2,19, see above.
67 Theophilus takes the bodily resurrection for granted. Neither does he unfold any theologi-
cal implications of it, nor does he give any specific justification.
16 Jörg Ulrich

his view of the resurrection:68 Firstly, he compares resurrection with the pro-
cess of illness and recovery; in the very way that illness weakens the flesh and
causes physical diminution, resurrection rectifies this decrease.69 Secondly, he
employs the symbol of a defective pot: When the crocker builds it again, it
is new and complete.70 This comparison does not primarily aim at demon-
strating that resurrection is to be understood as a new creation, but rather as
pointing at the material aspect of the resurrection: The adjective ὁλόκληρον
(“complete”)71 illustrates the “material” integrity of the resurrected creature.
Taken as whole, both in his anthropology as well in his concept of the res-
urrection, Theophilus’s understanding of the creation account in the Genesis
produces veritable theological consequences: There is no demotion of corpo-
rality in his anthropological deliberation, and there is no spiritualisation of the
eschatological hope.

VII.

Our last author is Tertullian.72 In his œuvre we exceed the frame of the second
century and take a brief look at the earliest Latin tradition of Christian texts
at the beginning of the third century. I have chosen two significant examples
from his theological treatises. The first passage is from De resurrection carnis,
res. 5,6–8:

In the first place that all things were made by the word of God, and without it
was nothing, whereas the flesh came into being both by the word of God, for the
sake of the general rule, so that nothing should exist without the word (for he
had already said, “Let us make man”), and besides this by his hand, for the sake
of pre-eminence, lest it should be kept equal with the whole: “And God”, it says,
“formed man”. Without doubt this is a factor of great unlikeness, in proportion to
the quality of the two objects: for the things which were made are inferior to him
for whom they were made; and indeed they were made for man, to whom shortly
afterwards God put them in subjection. Rightly therefore the whole universe of
things, being servants, came into existence by behest and command and by the
sole power of the voice: whereas man, being their lord, was for this very purpose

68 Lona, 1993, 180f.

69 Thphl. Ant., Autol. 1,13; 2,38.
70 Thphl. Ant., Autol. 2,26.
71 The expression may be influenced by 1 Thess 5:23, see Lona, 1993, 182.—Lampe, PGL 949,
points out to the parallel use in Just., dial. 69,7; (Ps.)Just., res. 3,1.
72 G.D. Dunn, Tertullian, London/New York 2004; T.D. Barnes, Tertullian. A Historic and
Literary Study, Oxford 2005; H.-C. Brennecke, Tertullian, in: F.W. Graf (ed.), Klassiker der
Theologie. Von Tertullian bis Calvin, München 2005, 28–42.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 17

constructed by God himself, that he might be capable of being a lord because

made by the Lord. And remember that ‘man’ in the strict sense means the flesh,
for this was the first possessor of the designation ‘man’: “And God formed man,
clay from the earth”—already is he man who is still clay—“and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life”, and man—that is, the clay—“became a living soul”,
and God placed in paradise the man whom he had formed. Thus ‘man’ is first
that which was formed, and afterwards is the whole man.73

Tertullian’s treatise De resurrection carnis shows an enormous similarity

to Pseudo-Justin’s De resurrectione, among them the combined exegesis of
Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7. However, the operative point in Tertullian here is the
dominium terrae rather than the imago Dei. Tertullian, as other early Christian
writers before him,74 claims that the whole creation is made for man’s sake and
that man is the indisputable centre of creation and uncontested ruler over all
other creatures and things—a thought that did certainly yield some popular-
ity for early Christianity, but also became cause of severe anti-Christian criti-
cism.75 This dominium terrae is directed towards the whole man, who is a real
man already when he is formed from clay (Gen 2:7) and before he receives
God’s breath and becomes a living soul (Gen 2:7), and before he is placed in
paradise (Gen 2:8). However, the act of God’s breathing the breath of life into
man’s nostrils implies an upvaluation of the human flesh,76 and this upvalu-
ation of the human flesh is essential for the question of the bodily resurrec-
tion. God restores the human body at the time of resurrection, because he has
already shown his appreciation of the flesh when he formed it from clay; and
God can accomplish the restoration of the body as easily as he was able to

73 Ad distantias enim provocamus. Primo quidem, quod omnia sermone dei facta sunt
et sine illo nihil, caro autem et sermone dei constitit propter formam, ne quid sine
sermone—Faciamus enim hominem ante praemisit—et amplius manu propter prae-
lationem, ne universitati compararetur—Et finxit inquit deus hominem—magnae sine
dubio differentiae ratio, pro condicione scilicet rerum: minora enim quae fiebant eo cui
fiebant, siquidem homini fiebant cui mox a deo addicta sunt. Merito igitur, ut famula,
iussu et imperio et sola vocali potestate universa processerant; contra homo, ut domi-
nus eorum, in hoc ab ipso deo extructus est ut dominus esse possit dum fit a domino.
Hominem autem memento carnem proprie dici, quae prior vocabulum hominis occu-
pavit. Et finxit deus hominem limum de terra: iam homo qui adhuc limus: Et insufflavit
in faciem eius flatum vitae et factus est homo, id est limus, in animam vivam, et posuit
deus hominem quem finxit in paradiso. Adeo homo figmentum primo, dehinc totus. Text
and translation from E. Evans (ed., transl.), Tertullian. De resurrectione carnis / Tertullians
Treatise on the Resurrection, London 1960, 16f.
74 Arist., apol. 1,2f. (syriac version); Herm., mand. 12,4; Just., 1 apol. 10,2; 2 apol. 3(4),2; 4(5),2;
Diogn. 10,1f.; Thphl. Ant., Autol. 2,10; Kerygma Petri ap. Clem., strom. 6,5,40.
75 E.g. the middle-platonic philosopher Celsus: See Or., Cels. 4,74; 4,99.
76 On this act of vivification see Tertullian’s treatise De anima.
18 Jörg Ulrich

form the original body from clay. Tertullian adds an eschatological argument in
favour of the bodily resurrection which can also be found in earlier Christian
authors: Since all human deeds are done by the body and the soul together,
body and soul must be revived together for the Last Judgement in order to
receive either their eternal reward or their eternal punishment together.77
Tertullian uses the combined exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and 2:8 not only in the
context of the bodily resurrection, but also in Christological and “trinitarian”
discourses. This can be shown by a quick look at Adversus Praxean, where we
find him arguing against a modalistic understanding78 of the relation between
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.79 In Prax. 12,4 we read:

Then again the scripture that follows distinguishes between the Persons: “And
God made man, in the image of God made he him.” Why not “his own image”, if
the maker was one, and there was none in whose image he was making him? But
there was one in whose image he was making him, the Son’s in fact, who because
he was to be the surer and truer mancaused that man to be called his image who
at that time had to be formed of clay, as the image and similitude of the true.80

The phrase imaginem Dei raises the question why the account does not say
imaginem suam. The answer is that imaginem Dei must refer to somebody else,
namely to the Son, who is God in the same way as the Father, but still is a
different “person”. At the same time this godly person, the Son, is the “surer
and truer man”. This phrase explicitly refers to the man who is formed of clay.
Comparable christological and trinitarian fruits of the combined exegesis of
Gen 1:27 and Gen 2:7 can be found elsewhere in Tertullian.81 In his treatises we
have reached a stage where this exegetical phenomenon is widely spread and

77 Tert., res. 35,1–7; cf. Just., 1apol. 8,4; Athenag., leg. 36,1.
78 See R.M. Hübner, Der paradox Eine. Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten
Jahrhundert. Mit einem Beitrag von M. Vinzent, SVigChr 50, Leiden 1999; H.-J. Sieben,
Einleitung, in: id. (ed., German transl.), Tertullian, Adversus Praxean / Gegen Praxeas,
FC 34, Freiburg 2001, 7–94 (27–52).
79 See G.C. Stead, Divine Substance in Tertullian, in: JThS.NS 14 (1963), 46–66; J. Moingt,
Théologie trinitaire de Tertullian I–IV, Theol[P] 68.69.70.75, Paris 1966–1969; G. Uríbarri,
Tertullian als Kirchenvater? Geschichtliche und dogmatische Erwägungen zum ekklesialen
trinitarischen Montheismus, in: J. Arnold / R. Berndt / R.M.W. Stammberger (eds.), Väter
der Kirche. Ekklesiales Denken von den Anfängen bis in die Neuzeit. Festgabe für Hermann
Josef Sieben SJ zum 70. Geburtstag, Paderborn 2004, 333–363.
80 Denique sequens scriptura distinguit inter personas: “<Et fecit> Deus hominem, ad imagi-
nem Dei fecit illum.” Cur non “suam”, si unus qui faciebat et non erat ad cuius faciebat?
Erat autem ad cuius imaginem faciebat, ad Filii scilicet, qui, homo futurus certior et veri-
or, imaginem suam fecerat dici hominem qui tunc de limo formari habebat, imago veri
et similitudo. Text: Sieben, 2001. Translation: E. Evans (ed., transl.), Tertullianus, Treatise
against Praxeas, London 1948, 145.
81 Tert., Prax. 5,5.
1. The Peculiar Merit of the Human Body 19

applies as a more or less familiar argument in multiple theological contexts

and discussions.

VIII.

To conclude, it appears that the combination of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 plays a
considerable role in parts of the earliest Christian literature. It is used to indi-
cate an idea of man that implies and emphasises corporality. The combination
of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 supports an anthropology that has a high apprecia-
tion of the human body and comprises a close relation or even a unity between
body and soul. This idea of a unity between body and soul proves relevant not
only for concepts of creation, but also for the discourse on the resurrection,
and for Christology as well as for the early stages of a “trinitarian” approach to
the doctrine of God. By avoiding a separation of soul and body, it contradicts
tendencies to separate Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 and to interpret Gen 1:26f. as
referring to the creation of the soul and Gen 2:7 as referring to the creation of
the body.
Although the traces of this combined exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 are
primarily found in early Christian texts, there is no reason to claim that it is a
Christian invention. It seems that Justin, the Christian, and Tryphon, the Jew,
agreed entirely on this point.82 The reason for this may lay in their common
roots, namely texts like Ps 118:73a or Job 10:8a LXX. It may well be the case
that the concept of a combined exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 was not de-
veloped within inner-Christian controversies,83 but goes back to older sources;
however, it became relevant and fruitful as soon as the controversies about
resurrection, Christology and the “Trinity” arose.
Finally, it must be kept in mind that the combined exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and
Gen 2:7 was not the only method of dealing with these two verses. A complete-
ly different exegesis of Gen 1:26f. and Gen 2:7 must stand behind the theology
of Pseudo-Justin’s opponents in De resurrectione. A more differentiating and
separating exegesis of the texts can be found in prominent works, for example
in the writings by Origen on the Christian and by Philo of Alexandria on the
Jewish side.84 But to give an account of this would require a far more extensive
and elaborate survey of the works of each of these authors.

82 See chapter II.

83 See chapter I.
84 See above, notes 6 and 7.—For Origen, also see I.L.E. Ramelli’s article in this volume, notes
67–73 with references to Origen’s commentaries and homilies, and to Contra Celsum.
 chapter 2

Rational Creatures and Matter in Eschatology

According to Origen’s On First Principles

Samuel Fernández

Abstract

The present article aims to study the relationship between rational creatures and
matter in eschatology, according to Origen’s On First Principles. Firstly, the ar-
ticle reviews two preliminary issues, 1) the correspondence between beginning and
end in Origen’s theology, and 2) the meaning of the expression “pre-existence of
the soul” in modern scholarship. Secondly, the paper examines 3) the question
regarding the initial relationship between mind and matter, namely, whether
rational creatures had bodies from the beginning of their existence, and 4) the
same problematic relationship in eschatology, namely, whether the bodies, after
the resurrection, would be destroyed or transformed when the rational creatures
reached the last stage of contemplation. Finally, 5) the article suggests that al-
though Origen considered the final status of resurrected bodies to be an open
question, he supported the hypothesis of the final transformation of matter, not
its dissolution.

“One of the most controversial aspects of Origen’s theology, in antiquity

and modern scholarship, has been his understanding of the Christian hope
for a bodily resurrection”.1 Indeed, at the beginning of the fourth century,
Pamphilus said, “Among the other charges that they level against Origen, they
record as the greatest of all that he denies the future resurrection of the dead”.2
Epiphanius also spoke about Origen’s disbelief in the resurrection some

* This paper is part of the results of the Fondecyt 1190025 research project (2019–2021),
S. Fernández, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
1 B. Daley, Resurrection, in: J.A. McGuckin (ed.), The Westminster Handbook to Origen, London
2004, 183.
2 Pamph. Caes., apol. 127: Et quoniam inter ceteras criminationes quas ei inferunt etiam quam
maximam ponunt quod resurrectionem futuram deneget mortuorum (R. Amacker / É. Junod
[eds.], SCh 464, Paris 2002, 206–208).

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_003

2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 21

decades later.3 These writers charged that Origen denied the bodily resurrec-
tion, and these accusations depended on the way he understood the relation-
ship between rational creatures and matter.
The origin of matter and its relationship to rational creatures were disputed
topics in Origen’s intellectual milieu. In fact, they were a point of disagreement
between the Bible and the Hellenic culture in the first Christian centuries,
roughly speaking. Origen was aware of this dissent. On the one hand, he said
that almost all philosophers “disagree with us” when they say that “matter is
coeternal with God”.4 On the other hand, reflecting on the resurrection of the
body, he said that “some are offended by the ecclesiastical faith, as if what we
believe about the resurrection is silly and altogether foolish”.5 These offended
people were Christians whose viewpoints were closely related to Greek philos-
ophy and, therefore, tended to deny the resurrection of the body.6 Accordingly,
the relationship between rational creatures and matter was disputed, and the
issues of protology (coeternal or created matter) and eschatology (immaterial
or bodily resurrection) were particularly controversial.
To study the concept of bodily resurrection in Origen’s On First Principles,
I will (1) show the correspondence between beginning and end in Origen’s the-
ology, (2) propose a caveat about the meaning of the expression “pre-existence
of the soul” in modern scholarship, (3) examine the relationship between ra-
tional creatures and matter in protology, (4) study the same relationship in
eschatology, the aim of this article, and finally (5) suggest some conclusions.

3 Epiph., haer. 63.11,1.

4 Or., hom. in Gen. 14.3: Philosophia enim neque in omnibus legi Dei contraria est neque in om-
nibus consona. Multi enim philosophorum unum esse Deum, qui cuncta creauerit, scribunt.
In hoc consentiunt legi Dei. Aliquanti etiam hoc addiderunt quod Deus cuncta per Verbum
suum et fecerit et regat et Verbum Dei sit, quo cuncta moderentur. In hoc non solum legi, sed
euangeliis consona scribunt. Moralis uero et physica, quae dicitur philosophia, paene omnis,
quae nostra sunt, sentit. Dissidet uero a nobis, cum Deo dicit esse materiam coaeternam.
Dissidet, cum negat Deum curare mortalia, sed prouidentiam eius supra lunaris globi spatia
cohiberi. Dissident a nobis, cum uitas nascentium stellarum cursibus pendunt. Dissident,
cum perpetuum dicunt hunc mundum et nullo fine claudendum (P. Habermehl [ed.],
GCS NF 17, Berlin 2012, 195f.).
5 Or., princ. 2.10,1: Sed et nunc propter consequentiam tractatus pauca inde repetere non vi-
detur absurdum, maxime propter hoc quod offenduntur quidam in ecclesiastica fide, quod
velut stulte et penitus insipienter de resurrectione credamus (S. Fernández [ed.], Fuentes
Patrísticas 27, Madrid 2015, 494 [henceforth FuP 27, 2015]; English translation: J. Behr [ed.],
Oxford 2017, 255).
6 See Eus., h.e. 6.3,13; 6.19,5; 6.19,12.
22 Samuel Fernández

I. The Relationship between Beginning and End7

Both aspects, protology and eschatology, were developed systematically by

Origen in On First Principles. He wrote this work in Alexandria before 230,
and it represented a serious attempt to incorporate Christian thought into the
Greek intellectual tradition.8 This treatise, whose complete, original Greek text
is lost, is the most controversial one among his works. However, it has been
transmitted to us by a disputed Latin translation made by Rufinus of Aquileia
in the late fourth century, as well as a series of Greek and Latin fragments. For
the current topic, Rufinus’ Latin translation is considered reliable because the
doctrinal modifications of this translation were related to Christological and
Trinitarian controversies and not to protology, anthropology or eschatology.9
In the fourth homily on Isaiah Origen declared that finding the beginning of
God’s activity is impossible and that the final realities, as they are, cannot be
expressed.10 Nevertheless, in On First Principles, he declared a close interplay
between protology and eschatology, or beginning and end, several times:

Seeing, then, that such is the end, when all enemies will be subjected to Christ,
and when the last enemy, death, will be destroyed and when the kingdom shall
be delivered to the God and Father by Christ […], let us, from such an end as this,
contemplate the beginning of things.11

7 See S. Fernández, La fine e la Genesi. Rapporto tra escatologia e protologia nel De principiis
di Origene, in: Adamantius 23 (2017), 167–180.
8 See M. Simonetti, Agl’inizii della filosofia cristiana: il De principiis di Origene, in: VetChr 43
(2006), 157–173.
9 Rufinus’ Latin translation contains explicit references to pre-existence of the soul and to
apokatastasis. Seemingly, Rufinus did not moderated Origen’s statements on protology
and eschatology. Cf. G. Bardy, Recherches sur l’histoire du texte et des versions latines du De
principiis d’Origène, Paris 1923; H. Crouzel, Rufino traduttore del “Peri Archon” di Origene,
in: Centro di Antichità Altoadriatiche (ed.), Rufino di Concordia e il su tempo 1, Udine 1987,
29–39; G. Sfameni Gasparro, Aspetti della controversia origeniana: le traduzioni latine del
Peri Archon, in: Ead. (ed.), Origene e la tradizione origeniana in Occidente, Roma 1988,
9–20; H. Crouzel, Jérôme traducteur du Peri Archôn d’Origène, in: Y.-M. Duval (ed.), Jérôme
entre l’Occident et l’Orient, Paris 1988, 153–161; N. Pace, Ricerche sulla traduzione di Rufino
del “De principiis” di Origene, Firenze 1990; S. Fernández, Gli interventi dottrinali di
Rufino nel De Principiis di Origene, in: M. Girolami (ed.), L’Oriente in Occidente. L’Opera di
Rufino di Concordia, Brescia 2014, 27–44.
10 See Or., hom. in Is. 4.1.
11 Or., princ. 1.6,2: Talem igitur finem videntes, cum omnes inimici subiecti erunt Christo, et
cum novissimus inimicus destruetur mors, et cum tradetur a Christo, cui omnia subiecta
sunt, regnum deo et patri: ab isto, inquam, tali fine rerum contemplemur initia (FuP 27,
2015, 276; transl. Behr, 2017, 107).
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 23

This statement indicated the possibility of contemplating the beginning on

the grounds of the end. In other words, scrutiny of the end offers information
about the beginning.12 In another context, speaking about the creation of the
world, Origen affirmed:

For if we rightly understand the passage […] saying, In the beginning God cre-
ated the heaven and the earth (Gen 1:1), to be the beginning of all creation, it is
appropriate for the end and consummation of all things to be recalled to this
beginning13.

Here, the master of Alexandria invited readers to illuminate the end on the
grounds of the beginning. Again, in another passage, he developed the same
parallel between protology and eschatology:

For the end is always like the beginning, and, therefore, as there is one end of all
things, so ought there to be understood one beginning of all things, and as there
is one end of many things, so also from one beginning there are many differences
and varieties, which, in turn, through the goodness of God and by subjection to
Christ and through the unity of the Holy Spirit, are recalled to one end which is
like the beginning.14

This paragraph turned to the same concept, but this time in an axiomatic way:
semper enim similis est finis initiis.15 Based on this parallel, Origen affirmed that
the end sheds light on the beginning, as the beginning also sheds light on the
end. This same conviction was present in several statements throughout On
First Principles. Speaking about eschatology, Origen argued, “all things are to be
restored to their original state”.16 In other words, he indicated that, at the end,

12 Speaking about eschatology, Origen affirms: Et arbitror, quoniam quidem finis et consum-
matio sanctorum erit in his quae non videntur et aeterna sunt, ex ipsius finis contem-
platione, sicut in superioribus frequenter ostendimus, simile etiam initium rationabiles
creaturas habuisse censendum est, princ. 3.5,4 (FuP 27, 2015, 748).
13 Or., princ. 3.6,8: Si enim recte accipimus id, quod in initio libri sui Moyses scribit dicens:
In principio fecit deus caelum et terram, hoc esse principium totius creaturae, ad hoc
principium finem omnium consummationemque convenit revocari (FuP 27, 2015, 786;
transl. Behr, 2017, 453).
14 Or., princ. 1.6,2: Semper enim similis est finis initiis; et ideo sicut unus omnium finis, ita
unum omnium intellegi debet initium; et sicut multorum unus finis, ita ab uno initio mul-
tae differentiae ac varietates, quae rursum per bonitatem dei, per subiectionem Christi
atque unitatem spiritus sancti in unum finem, qui sit initio similis, revocantur (FuP 27,
2015, 276; transl. Behr, 2017, 107).
15 Or., princ. 1.6,2 (FuP 27, 2015, 276).
16 Or., princ. 2.1,1: omnia restituenda in statum initii (FuP 27, 2015, 326; transl. Behr,
2017, 145).
24 Samuel Fernández

all things are to be restored to the state of the beginning. Similarly, he said, “the
dispersion and division from the one beginning is restored to one and the same
end and likeness”.17
Origen declared the similarity between beginning and end in three specific
theological contexts. One was centred on the likeness of the initial and final
unity;18 the other was related to the original and final stability of the rational
creatures.19 The third context was the discussion about the initial and final re-
lationship between rational creatures and matter,20 which is the main topic of
this paper. The issue of the final relationship between rational creatures and
matter—I would argue—has often been misunderstood, from late antiquity
up to the present.21

II. A Caveat about the Expression “Pre-existence of the Soul”

Before tackling the issue of the initial relationship between rational creatures
and matter, the meaning of the expression “pre-existence of the soul” must
be clarified. Origen did not have one single specific term for naming rational
creatures. Rufinus, the translator of On First Principles, gave evidence of the
range of terms used.22 Moreover, it can be inferred from the Latin version of
the treatise that Origen used at least νοῦς, πνεῦμα and λογικός as synonyms for
the rational creature.23 In addition, Origen explicitly stated that when the ra-
tional creatures fell from their original status, they became “souls” (ψυχαί) be-
cause they cooled down (ψύχεσθαι) from their initial fervour.24 Hence, strictly
speaking, the term “soul” refers to the rational creature itself after its primordial

17 Or., princ. 1.6,4: dispersio illa unius principii atque divisio ad unum et eundem finem ac
similitudinem reparatur (FuP 27, 2015, 286; transl. Behr, 2017, 117).
18 See Or., princ. 1.6,1–3; 2.1,1; 2.3,2.
19 See Or., princ. 1.6,3; 2.9,2.
20 See Or., princ. 1.6,4; 2.3,2–7; 2.9,2; 3.6,4.
21 See I. Ramelli, Origen, in: A. Marmodoro / S. Cartwrite (eds.), A History of Mind and Body
in Late Antiquity, Cambridge 2018, 246.
22 See Or., princ. 2.1,2: spiritus vel animi, vel quoquomodo appellandae sunt rationabiles
subsistentiae (FuP 27, 2015, 328); princ. 2.9,1: […] numerum rationabilium creaturarum
vel intellectualium, vel quoquomodo appellandae sunt quas mentes superius diximus
(FuP 27, 2015, 468).
23 Rufinus’ Latin version uses several expressions for the rational creature, which include
mens, spiritus, rationabilis creatura, rationabilis substantia, intellectualis creatura and
intellectualis natura.
24 See Or., princ. 2.8,2f.; H. Crouzel, Origen, Edinburgh 1989, 205–218. On the relationship
between the soul and the cold, see Pl., Cra. 399d–e; Arist., de An. 1.2 (404b); Chrysipp.
Stoic., SVF ii 804–808; Ph., somn. 1.31; Tert., anim. 25.
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 25

fall. Thus, the expression “pre-existence of the rational creature” would be

more accurate than “pre-existence of the soul”. Yet I still use “pre-existence of
the soul” in this article because Origen himself often used “soul” and “rational
creature” interchangeably, and the expression “pre-existence of the soul” is al-
ready established in modern scholarship.
Moreover, modern scholarship understands the controversial expression
“pre-existence of the soul” in different ways, and some scholars simply deny
that Origen supported this doctrine.25 The origin of the soul was a disputable
issue not only when On First Principles was written but also continued to be
so at the beginning of the fifth century.26 Besides, this doctrine led to Origen’s
condemnation on the eve of the Council of Constantinople (553), the fifth ecu-
menical council.27
In general terms, the pre-existence of the soul designates the period of ra-
tional creatures (νόες) prior to their bodily life.28 There are two ways to un-
derstand this description. Some scholars think that the bodily life of the
souls began with their birth on earth as a consequence of their primordial

25 See M. Edwards, Origen against Plato, Aldershot 2002, 89–93; P. Tzamalikos, Origen:
Cosmology and Ontology of Time, SVigChr 77, Leiden 2006, 80f.
26 See Rufin., apol. ad Anast. 6: “I am next informed that some stir has been made on the
question of the nature of the soul […]. I will state it frankly. I have read a great many writ-
ers on this question, and I find that they express various opinions. Some of those whom
I have read hold that the soul is infused together with the material body through the
channel of the human seed […]. Others assert that God is every day making new souls,
and infusing them into the bodies which have been framed in the womb; while others
again believe that the souls were all made long ago, when God made all things of nothing,
and that all that he now does is to plant out each soul in its body as it seems good to him.
This is the opinion of Origen, and of some others of the Greeks. For myself, I declare in
the presence of God that, after reading each of these opinions, I am up to the present mo-
ment unable to hold any of them as certain and absolute […]. My profession on this point
is therefore, first, that these several opinions are those which I have found in books, but,
secondly, that I as yet remain in ignorance on the subject, except so far as this, that the
Church delivers it as an article of faith that God is the creator of souls as well as of bodies
(transl. W.H. Fremantle, NPNF 3, New York 1890, 433f.).
27 “But the church, following the divine scriptures, affirms that the soul is created togeth-
er with the body, not first one and the other later, according to the insanity of Origen.”
Justinian, in The Actes of the Council of Constantinople of 553, with related texts on the
Three Chapters Controversy (transl. R. Price), Liverpool 2009, 2, 283f.
28 For a general presentation of this doctrine, see H. Crouzel, 1989, 205–218. Origen adapt-
ed, in a critical way, the Platonic idea of the pre-existence of the soul, precisely because
he intended to clarify the current human condition. By doing so, he wanted to compete
against Gnostic system. If this aspect is not understood, all Origen’s theology would seem
to be an empty speculation. See P. Martens, Embodiment, Heresy, and the Hellenization
of Christianity: The Descent of the Soul in Plato and Origen, in: HTR 108 (2015), 594–620;
Ramelli, 2018, 246.
26 Samuel Fernández

transgression; others affirm that the bodily life of the souls started when, be-
fore earthly birth, the rational creatures received their bodies. In other words,
does pre-existence mean the interval from the creation of souls until their
earthly birth, or from their creation until their pre-cosmic reception of bod-
ies? Additionally, different opinions exist about the “moment” of the union
between rational creatures and their bodies. These factors give room to various
understandings of the “pre-existence of the soul”.
a) Many scholars support the idea that, according to Origen, the union be-
tween soul and body coincides with the primordial fall and earthly birth. This
vision sustains the idea that “pre-existence” indicates the time previous to the
earthly birth that follows the primal transgression.29
b) Another possibility is affirming that God created rational creatures who
lived for a certain period without bodies. Afterwards, in a pre-cosmic time, they
received ethereal bodies. However, on account of their primal fall, they were
born on earth, and their subtle bodies became heavy. According to this de-
scription, “pre-existence” could mean the period from creation to pre-cosmic
embodiment or from creation to earthly birth.
c) Other scholars hold—and this is the interpretation of On First Principles
that I support in this paper—that God created rational creatures and light
bodies simultaneously (rational creatures had a logic priority over bodies, but
not a chronologic one). Later, on account of the primordial fall, rational crea-
tures were born on earth, and their bodies became heavy and dark. According
to this interpretation, “pre-existence” could indicate the period from the
creation of rational beings until their earthly birth, or “pre-existence” could
simply be denied (because there is no period in which souls existed without
bodies). According to my interpretation of Origen, God created rational crea-
tures and their bodies at the same time, and therefore, no time passed in which
they lived without a light body. Thus, in this paper, I use the expression “pre-
existence of the soul” for the period running from the creation of rational be-
ings with their light bodies until their birth on earth, as a consequence of the
primal transgression.
Besides, the label “pre-existence” is misleading for at least two reasons. First,
Origen never mentioned the term “pre-existence”. Second, “pre-existence”
seems to indicate something previous to existence. Yet, what the expres-
sion should indicate is a real existence previous to earthly birth. According
to Origen, the period before earthly birth consisted of a real existence, not a

29 For instance, P. Martens defines pre-existence as follows: “that souls originally flourished
in a desincarante state prior to a transgression that led to their subsequent embodiment,”
Martens, 2015, 595.
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 27

demi-existence or something previous to a real existence. However, the use

of the expression “pre-existence of the soul” is so widespread that it would be
confusing to use another.

III. Initial Relationship between Rational Creatures and Matter

According to Origen, the main question regarding the initial relationship

between mind and matter is whether rational creatures had bodies from the
beginning of their existence.30 On First Principles contained the section Περὶ
ψυχῆς (princ. 2.8f.).31 In this section, Origen described the beginning of cre-
ation in the light of Wis 11:20:

Moreover, as Scripture says, God has ordered (διατάσσω) all things in number
(ἀριθμῷ) and measure (μέτρῳ), and therefore number (ἀριθμός) will rightly be ap-
plied to rational creatures or intellects,32 […]. But measure (μέτρον) will suitably
be applied to bodily matter.33

The terms ἀριθμός and μέτρον, according to Origen’s interpretation, indicated

rational creatures and matter.34 The text continued:

30 Origen rejected the idea of an eternal world, see Or., princ. 1 praef. 4.7; 2.2,1.
31 The Greek title is transmitted by Photius. Some Latin manuscripts transmit the equiva-
lent title “De anima” (AWGMAb), while others offer a longer title: “De animarum ratione
et statu et diversitate et ipsius nominis significantia” (BC). For the manuscript tradition
and titles, see S. Fernández, Division and Structure of De principiis. Towards a New Critical
Edition, in: A.-C. Jacobsen (ed.), Origeniana Undecima. Origen and Origenism in the History
of Western Thought, BETL 279, Leuven 2016, 323–336.
32 Rational creatures were not “souls” from the beginning. The Latin expression “rationales
creaturas vel mentes” does not translate ψυχαί, but λογικοί and/or νόες (frequently Rufinus
translates one Greek word with two Latin terms).
33 Or., princ. 2.9,1: Porro autem sicut et scriptura dicit, numero et mensura universa condidit
deus, et idcirco numerus quidem recte aptabitur rationabilibus creaturis vel mentibus, ut
tantae sint, quantae a providentia dei et dispensari et regi et contineri possint. Mensura
vero materiae corporali consequenter aptabitur (FuP 27, 2015, 468; transl. Behr, 2017, 239,
modified). The Greek words are taken from the Greek biblical text of Wisdom.
34 Wis 11:20: ἀλλὰ πάντα μέτρῳ καὶ ἀριθμῷ καὶ σταθμῷ διέταξας. Here and in princ. 4.4,8,
Origen changed the wording of the biblical verse: he alluded only to number and mea-
sure, and omitted weight (σταθμόν), which is also present in the text of Wisdom. See Or.,
Cant. 3.7,24: qui mensura et numero et pondere disposuit omnia (W.A. Baerhens [ed.],
GCS 33, Leipzig 1925, 190); Or., hom. in Num. 15.3: Solus ergo ipse, ‘qui numerat multitudi-
nem stellarum’ et ‘qui omnia mensura et numero et pondere produxit’, ‘investigat semen
Iacob et dinumerat plebes Istrahel’ (W.A. Baerhens [ed.], GCS 30, Leipzig 1921, 136).
28 Samuel Fernández

Then, these [rational creatures and matter] are what are held to be created by
God in the beginning, that is, before all things. And this, we think, is indicated
[…], somewhat obscurely, when [Moses] says, In the beginning, God made the
heaven and the earth (Gen 1:1).35

Origen adapted the biblical text, changing the order of the terms number
and measure and omitting weight, possibly to highlight the correspondence
between the pairs number and measure (Wis 20:11) and heaven and earth
(Gen 1:1). Consequently, according to Origen, heaven means rational creatures,
which have number, and earth means matter, which has no number, but mea-
sure. Origen explained that the heaven of Gen 1:1 was not the firmament made
on the second day, and that the earth of Gen 1:1 was not the dry land that was
afterwards called earth.36 This explanation clarified that, according to him,
the heaven and earth of Gen 1:1 are not corporeal items but rather indicate,
somewhat obscurely, the number of rational creatures and the measure of mat-
ter created by God in the beginning—that is, before all things (in initio, id est
ante omnia). Additionally, commenting on the “invisible and unordered earth”
(Gen 1:2), Origen repeated the identification between earth and matter.37 He
concluded that “God created two universal natures: a visible, that is a bodily
nature, and an invisible nature, which is bodiless”.38
Origen, following the rule of faith,39 taught that the world had been created
at a specific point in time, ex nihilo—a controversial issue between Pagans and
Christian authors. He also was convinced that God’s creation (Gen 1) included
matter from the very beginning (in initio, id est ante omnia)—that is, prior to

35 Or., princ. 2.9,1: Haec ergo sunt, quae in initio, id est ante omnia, a deo creata esse aesti-
mandum est. Quod quidem etiam in illo initio, quod Moyses latentius introducit, indicari
putamus, cum dicit: In principio fecit deus caelum et terram (FuP 27, 2015, 470; transl. Behr,
2017, 239).
36 Origen explains: Certum est enim quia non de firmamento neque de arida sed de illo
caelo ac terra dicatur, quorum caelum hoc et terra quam videmus vocabula postea mu-
tuata sunt, princ. 2.9,1 (FuP 27, 2015, 470). See also princ. 2.3,6.
37 See princ. 4.4,6: invisibilem (ἀόρατος) namque et incompositam (ἀκατασκεύαστος) terram
non aliud eis Moyses quam informem materiam visus est indicare (FuP 27, 2015, 950).
38 Or., princ. 3.6,7: Omnis igitur haec ratio hoc continet, quod duas generales naturas con-
diderit deus: naturam visibilem, id est corpoream, et naturam invisibilem, quae est incor-
porea (FuP 27, 2015, 786; Behr, 451). See Calcidius, in tim. 278: Alii non ita, sed scientem
prophetam duas esse species rerum omnium, alteram intellegibilem, alteram sensibilem,
eas uirtutes quae utramque naturam circumplexae contineant caelum et terram cogno-
minasse, caelum quidem incorpoream naturam, terram uero, quae substantia est corpo-
rum, quam Graeci hylen uocant (J.H. Waszink [ed.], Plato latinus 4, Leiden 1975, 282).
39 See princ. 1 praef. 4; 7; 2.2,1; R. Trevijano, Orígenes y la regula fidei, in: H. Crouzel (ed.),
Origeniana, Bari 1975, 327–338.
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 29

transgression (Gen 3). But what kind of relationship existed between rational
creatures and matter in the beginning? Did some sort of priority exist between
them? If so, what kind of priority? In the section Περὶ κόσμου (princ. 2.1–3),40
Origen suggested an original answer:

At this point, some inquire whether, just as the Father begets an uncreated Son,
and brings forth the Holy Spirit, not as if not previously being, but because the
Father is the source of the Son or the Holy Spirit, and no “before” or “after” can be
understood in respect of them, so also a similar kind of association or relation-
ship can be understood between rational beings and bodily matter.41

Origen compared the relationship between the eternal Father and the eter-
nal Son with the relationship between rational beings and bodily matter. This
comparison aimed to highlight two important aspects of this relationship:
a) Rational creatures have a sort of priority over matter (as the Father over
the Son), but this is not a chronological priority as no “before” or “after” can be
understood in respect to them.
b) Less explicitly, the comparison showed that one cannot exist without the
other (as a father cannot be a father without a son). For this reason, Origen here
spoke about a societas or propinquitas between rational creatures and matter.
These two last ideas are confirmed in another passage:

If it is impossible […] that any other being, apart from the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, can live without a body. Then the necessity of logic and reason
compels one to understand that principally, indeed, rational beings were cre-
ated, yet that material substance is to be separated from them only in thought
and understanding […]. The [rational creatures] never have lived nor live with-
out [matter]; for a bodiless life will rightly be considered only of the Trinity.42

40 According to Photius: περὶ κόσμου καὶ τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ κτισμάτων (FuP 27, 2015, 324).
41 Or., princ. 2.2,1: Hoc in loco quaerere solent quidam, utrum sicut unigenitum filium gen-
erat pater et sanctum spiritum profert, non quasi qui ante non erat, sed quia origo et
fons filii vel spiritus sancti pater est, et nihil in his anterius posteriusve intellegi potest,
ita etiam inter rationabiles naturas et materiam corporalem similis quaedam societas vel
propinquitas possit intellegi (FuP 27, 2015, 338; transl. Behr, 2017, 153).
42 Or., princ. 2.2,2: Si vero inpossibile est hoc ullo modo adfirmari, id est quod vivere praeter
corpus possit ulla alia natura praeter patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum, necessitas
consequentiae ac rationis coartat intellegi principaliter quidem creatas esse rationabiles
naturas, materialem vero substantiam opinione quidem et intellectu solo separari ab eis
et pro ipsis vel post ipsas effectam videri, sed numquam sine ipsa eas vel vixisse vel vivere:
solius namque trinitatis incorporea vita existere recte putabitur (FuP 27, 2015, 340–342;
transl. Behr, 2017, 155, modified).
30 Samuel Fernández

Therefore, Origen highlighted the priority of rational natures, which God cre-
ated principaliter, yet he stressed that this priority over matter is not a chrono­
logical one. Additionally, he pointed to the reciprocal necessity of rational
creatures and matter: rational creatures cannot exist without matter, and mat-
ter exists on account of rational creatures. Both can be separated only theoreti-
cally (intellectu).
In brief, Origen indeed taught about the so-called “pre-existence of the
soul”, but he did not teach that rational creatures existed in a bodiless con-
dition in pre-existence. This statement is worth highlighting because ancient
and modern scholars have repeated the contrary.43 Besides, this concept had
a significant theological consequence, namely, matter was part of the original
plan of God and was not a consequence of sin.
In summary, matter was not created when transgression occurred (Gen 3).
Because of sin, matter changed from having luminous to dark qualities
(ποιότης).44 God created matter with the capacity to change its qualities.45
Consequently, when the world needed diversity because of transgression, mat-
ter was not created but rather offered itself (praebuit se) with all docility to its
Creator.46 Thus, God, the Creator, is indeed the author of matter, yet he is not
responsible for the current state of matter.

43 See I. Ramelli, 2018, 256: “That rational creatures for Origen were originally disembod-
ied is often maintained on the basis of On Jeremiah 1.10.1, Commentary on Matthew 14.16,
Homilies on Luke 39.5, Commentary on John 20.182. However, none of these passages rules
out the hypothesis of rational creatures originally provided with spiritual bodies.” As
stated by Ilaria Ramelli, when Origen was speaking of body, sometimes he referred to the
heavy or mortal body, not the body tout court. See Ramelli, 2018, 246. In turn, Martens,
2015, 601–611, affirms: “At several junctures in On First Principles he [Origen] offers quick
snapshots of this primordial drama that invariably begins with rational minds (discar-
nate, equal and alike, and possessing free will) engaged in some sort of contemplative
activity directed toward their Creator.”
44 See Epiph., haer. 64.15,3.
45 See Or., princ. 2.1,4: Materiam ergo intellegimus quae subiecta est corporibus, id est ex qua
inditis atque insertis qualitatibus corpora subsistunt (FuP 27, 2015, 332–334). See princ.
2.2,2; 3.6,4; 4.4,8; Jo. 13.127; or. 27.8; Cels., 3.41f.; 4.56; G. Bostock, Quality and Corporeity
in Origen, in: H. Crouzel (ed.), Origeniana secunda, Bari 1980, 323–337. See princ. 4.4,8:
necessario sicut diversitates praenoscebat deus futuras vel animarum vel virtutum spiri-
talium, ita etiam naturam corpoream faceret, quae permutatione qualitatum in omnia,
quae res posceret, conditoris arbitrio mutaretur (FuP 27, 2015, 958).
46 See Or., princ. 3.6,4.
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 31

IV. Final Relationship between Mind and Matter

Origen affirmed that the apostles clearly taught that “there is to be a time of
resurrection of the dead, when this body, which now is sown in corruption,
shall rise in incorruptibility, and what is sown in dishonour, will rise in glory”
(1 Cor 15:42f.).47 Without doubt, Origen taught the resurrection of the body.48
However, the disputed topic is what he affirmed about the resurrected bodies’
final destiny after the long path of ascent to the top of contemplation.
In the second and third centuries, different answers were given to this cru-
cial question in Christian tradition.49 For Origen, the specific controversial
issue was whether the bodies, after the resurrection, would be destroyed or
transformed when the rational creatures reached the last stage of contempla-
tion. In On First Principles, he proposed this same quaestio twice.
In princ. 1.6,4, Origen tackled a Pauline verse: “Because we look not at what
can be seen (τὰ βλεπόμενα) but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is
temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:18). In this exegetical
context, Origen asked in what sense those things that are seen are temporal:

Now, since Paul says that some things are seen and temporal, and others, besides
these, unseen and eternal (2 Cor 4:18), we ask how those things which are seen
are transient—whether because there will be nothing at all after this [world],
in all those periods or ages to come in which the dispersion and division from
the one beginning is restored to one and the same end and likeness, or because

47 Or., princ. 1 praef. 5: sed et quia erit tempus resurrectionis mortuorum, cum corpus hoc,
quod nunc in corruptione seminatur, surget in incorruptione, et quod seminatur in igno-
minia, surget in gloria (FuP 27, 2015, 126; transl. Behr, 2017, 17). See 1 Cor 15:42–44.
48 On the one hand, Origen rejected those who denied the resurrection of the body; on the
other, he refuted those who understood the resurrection of the body in a too material way,
see Or., princ. 2.11,1: Quidam ergo laborem quodammodo intellegentiae recusantes et su-
perficiem quandam legis litterae consectantes et magis delectationi suae quodammodo ac
libidini indulgentes, solius litterae discipuli, arbitrantur repromissiones futuras in volup-
tate et luxuria corporis exspectandas; et propter hoc praecipue carnes iterum desiderant
post resurrectionem tales, quibus manducandi et bibendi et omnia, quae carnis et sangui-
nis sunt, agendi nusquam desit facultas, apostoli Pauli de resurrectione spiritalis corporis
sententiam non sequentes (FuP 27, 2015, 517). See also Or., princ. 2.10,2; H. Crouzel, La
doctrine origénienne du corps ressuscité, in: BLE 81 (1980) 175–200; G. Dorival, Origène et la
résurrection de la chair, in: L. Lies (ed.), Origeniana Quarta, Innsbruck 1987, 312; Crouzel,
1989, 248–257; O. Lehtipuu, Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead. Constructing Early
Christian Identity, Oxford 2015, 139.
49 See Lehtipuu, 2015, 109–157.
32 Samuel Fernández

while the figure (σχῆμα) of the things that are seen passes away, their substance,
however, is in no way corrupted.50

Origen took for granted that, in the ages to come, the dispersion and division
from the one beginning will be restored to the same end and likeness.51 In this
scenario, he asked whether those things “which are seen” are temporal (πρόσ­
καιρος) because they will be destroyed after this world—that is, in the ages to
come—or because, although the figure (σχῆμα) of these things will pass away,
their substance will remain. The text continued:

And Paul seems to confirm the latter view, when he says, The figure (σχῆμα) of
this world passes away (1 Cor 7:31). David, also, seems to indicate the same thing,
when he says, The heavens will dissolve (ἀπόλλυμι), but you will endure (διαμένω);
and they will all become old like a garment, and you will change (ἀλλάσσω) them
like clothing, like a garment they will be changed (Ps 101:27).52

Thus, the question is final dissolution or final transformation of matter? This

paragraph supported the second answer.53 Although this answer was based
on Paul and David, Origen presented it as hypothetical (videtur) because it
depended on the spiritual interpretation of both biblical texts. It is notewor-
thy that the same combination of biblical verses—1 Cor 7:31 and Ps 101:27—
are found within a similar eschatological discussion in Irenaeus’ writings.54

50 Or., princ. 1.6,4: Quoniam sane visibilia quaedam dicit esse Paulus et temporalia, alia vero
praeter haec invisibilia et aeterna, quaerimus quomodo haec quae videntur temporalia
sint: utrumne pro eo quod nihil omnino post hoc erunt in omnibus illis futuris spatiis ac
saeculis, quibus dispersio illa unius principii atque divisio ad unum et eundem finem ac
similitudinem reparatur, an pro eo quod habitus quidem eorum quae videntur transeat,
non tamen etiam substantia eorum omnimodis corrumpatur (FuP 27, 2015, 286; transl.
Behr, 2017, 117). See 2 Cor 4:18.
51 See Or., princ. 1.6,1–3; 2.1,1; 2.3,2.
52 Or., princ. 1.6,4: Et Paulus quidem videtur id quod posterius diximus confirmare, cum
dicit: Transiet enim habitus huius mundi. Sed et David cum dicit: Caeli peribunt, tu autem
permanebis, et omnes sicut vestimentum veterescent, et sicut amictum mutabis eos, sicut
vestimentum mutabuntur, eadem videtur ostendere (FuP 27, 2015, 286; transl. Behr, 2017,
117).
53 Origen affirmed that God created matter in such a way that it could assume any quality,
see Or., princ. 3.6,4.
54 Iren., haer. 4.3,1: Paulus autem non ignoravit dicens: Praeterit enim figura hujus mundi (1
Cor 7:31). Deinde quaestionem ipsorum solvit David. Figura enim hujus mundi praetere-
unte, non solum Deum ait perseverare, sed et servos ejus, in centesimo primo psalmo
dicens ita: Initio terram tu fundasti, Domine, et opera manuum tuarum sunt caeli; ipsi
peribunt, tu autem perseuerabis, et omnes sicut uestimentum ueterescent, et sicut cooperi-
mentum mutabis eos, et mutabuntur (Ps 101:26f.). (A. Rousseau [ed.], SCh 100, Paris 1965,
412–414). See also Iren., haer. 5.36,1f.
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 33

Additionally, a piece of papyrus attested to the presence of Irenaeus’ Adversus

haereses in Egypt.55 Therefore, the difference between Alexandria and Asia
Minor was less pronounced than usually depicted. Both traditions supported a
sort of final transformation, not dissolution, of matter.
Moreover, Origen raised the same question concerning transformation ver-
sus dissolution in the section Περὶ κόσμου (princ. 2.1–3). He asked whether per-
fect communion with God demands the dissolution of the body:

Nevertheless, those who think that rational creatures are able at any time to lead
a life outside the body, may here raise such questions as the following. If it is true
that this corruptible [body] shall put on incorruptibility and this mortal [body]
shall put on immortality (1 Cor 15:42–44), and that death shall be swallowed up
at the end (1 Cor 15:26), this demonstrates nothing other than that material na-
ture, upon which death could work, is to be destroyed, while those who are in
the body seem to have the acumen of intellect dulled by the nature of bodily
matter.56

The issue at stake once again was the final destiny of matter. Origen’s answer to
this problem was not univocal. He presented two hypotheses: final destruction
and final transformation of matter.
At the end of the section On the cosmos (princ. 2.3,7), Origen offered a syn-
thesis of his investigation on the final status of bodies. He outlined three dif-
ferent answers, of which the first two are directly related to the topic of the
present article. The first hypothesis supposed that, when rational beings reach
plenitude, then matter will be dissolved. The second one proposed that, in the
beatitude, the matter that is associated with rational creatures will be purified
until it acquires the characteristics of the spirit. Finally, the third hypothesis
proposed a sort of place—a heaven and an earth—free from all corruption
that will be the dwelling place of the saints. Origen introduced the three hy-
potheses with the following words:

Having sketched, then so far as we have been able to understand, these three
opinions about the end of all things and the supreme blessedness, let each one

55 See A. Le Boulluec, Y a-t-il des traces de la polémique antignostique d’Irénée dans le Péri
Archôn d’Origène, in: StPatr 16 (1985), 252–259.
56 Or., princ. 2.3,3: Verumtamen hi, qui putant posse umquam extra corpora vitam ducere
rationabiles creaturas, possunt in hoc loco talia quaedam movere. Si verum est quod cor-
ruptibile hoc induet incorruptionem, et mortale hoc induet inmortalitatem, et quod ab-
sorbeatur mors in finem, non aliud quam materialem naturam exterminandam declarat,
in qua operari mors aliquid poterat, dum hi, qui in corpore sunt, per naturam materiae
corporalis mentis acumen videntur obtundi (FuP 27, 2015, 350; transl. Behr, 2017, 161–163).
34 Samuel Fernández

of our readers judge for himself, with all care and diligence, whether one of them
can be approved and adopted.57

Origen left the decision to his readers. In the preface of On First Principles, he
highlighted the distinction between the statements delivered with clarity by
the apostles and those that were subject to investigation. For him, the final
status of resurrected bodies was not to be counted within the statements de-
livered with clarity by the apostles. Faithful to this distinction, as in many other
issues, he affirmed lector inquirat.58

V. Conclusion: Final Dissolution or Final Transformation of Matter?

Was the final dissolution or final transformation of matter Origen’s own hy-
pothesis on the final condition of resurrected bodies? A categorical answer
is not possible; Origen himself presented this problem as an open question.
However, in light of a) the correspondence between beginning and end, b) his
doctrine of apokatastasis and c) his pedagogy, a response can be suggested.
a) In some passages related to protology and eschatology, Origen underlined
the impossibility of rational creatures to live without bodies.59 Multiple times,
he said that only the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have a strictly bodiless
existence.60 According to these statements, neither in the beginning nor at the
end can rational creatures exist without bodies. Therefore, Origen seems to
have supported the final transformation of resurrected bodies.
b) The way Origen taught the final condition of the last enemy—that is, the
apokatastasis—also clarified his teaching on this issue.61 The following pas-
sages show a parallel between the final conversion of the enemy and the final
transformation of matter:

57 Or., princ. 2.3,7: His igitur tribus opinionibus de fine omnium et de summa beatitudine
prout sentire potuimus adumbratis, unusquisque legentium apud semet ipsum diligen-
tius et scrupulosius iudicet, si potest aliqua harum probari vel eligi (FuP 27, 2015, 370;
transl. Behr, 2017, 175–177).
58 See Or., princ. 1 praef. 3; 1.5,1; 1.6,3; 1.7,1; 2.3,7; 2.8,3–5; 3.3,3; 3.4,5; 3.6,9; 4.3,13.
59 See Or., princ. 1.1,6; 4.4,8.
60 See Or., princ. 1.6,4; 2.2,2; 2.4,3; 4.3,15; hom. in Ex. 6.5.
61 See I. Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis. A Critical Assessment from the New
Testament to Eriugena, SVigChr 120, Leiden 2013, 137–221; G. Bunge, ‘Créé pour être’. À pro-
pos d’une citation scripturaire inaperçue dans le Peri Archon d’Origène (III,6,5), in: BLE 98
(1997), 21–29.
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 35

The abolishment of the last enemy, For if the heavens are to be changed,
indeed, is to be understood in this surely that which is changed does not
way: not that its substance, which perish; and if the figure (σχῆμα) of the
was made by God, shall perish, but world passes away, it is not, by any
that the hostile will, which proceeded means, destruction of the material
not from God, but from itself, shall substance that is indicated, but a kind
disappear. Therefore, [the enemy] of change of quality and transforma-
is abolished, not in the sense that it tion of figure (σχῆμα) takes place.63
shall not be, but that it shall not be an
enemy and death.62

For the last enemy, as for matter, abolishment does not mean destruction but
transformation. In the beginning, the enemy was not the enemy but rather be-
came the enemy because of free will. So, at the end, the enemy, because of free
will and God’s pedagogy, will no longer be the enemy:

For nothing is impossible to the Almighty, nor is anything beyond healing by

its Maker, for it was on this account that he made all things, that they might
exist; and those things which were made that they might exist cannot not exist.
Because of this, they will undergo change and variation, so as to occupy a bet-
ter or worse position in accordance with their merits; but things which were
made by God, that they might exist and abide, cannot undergo a destruction of
substance.64

In the same way, at the end of time, matter will not be destroyed but trans-
formed. Once again, the distinction between matter and qualities allowed
Origen to justify his theology. He argued:

62 Or., princ. 3.6,5: Destrui sane novissimus inimicus ita intellegendus est, non ut substantia
eius quae a deo facta est pereat, sed ut propositum et voluntas inimica, quae non a deo
sed ab ipso processit, intereat. Destruitur ergo, non ut non sit, sed ut inimicus et mors non
sit (FuP 27, 2015, 776; transl. Behr, 2017, 447).
63 Or., princ. 1.6,4: Si enim mutabuntur caeli, utique non perit quod mutatur; et si habitus
huius mundi transit, non omnimodis exterminatio vel perditio substantiae materialis os-
tenditur, sed inmutatio quaedam fit qualitatis atque habitus transformatio (FuP 27, 2015,
286–288; transl. Behr, 2017, 117).
64 Or., princ. 3.6,5: Nihil enim omnipotenti inpossibile est, nec insanabile est aliquid factori
suo; propterea enim fecit omnia, ut essent; et ea, quae facta sunt, ut essent, non esse non
possunt. Propter quod immutationem quidem varietatemque recipient, ita ut pro meritis
vel in meliore vel in deteriore habeantur statu; substantialem vero interitum ea, quae
a deo ad hoc facta sunt, ut essent et permanerent, recipere non possunt (FuP 27, 2015,
776–778; transl. Behr, 2017, 447–449).
36 Samuel Fernández

It ought not to be doubted, however, that the nature of this body of ours may,
by the will of God who made it such, be brought, by the Creator, to that quality
characterizing the exceptionally refined and pure and splendid body, according
as the condition of things shall require and the merits of the rational being shall
demand.65

Therefore, by God’s providential activity and by the creature’s exercise of free

will, bodies of rational creatures will retrieve, at the end, the qualities that
they had at the beginning; semper enim similis est finis initiis.66 The likeness
between beginning and end implies that, since rational creatures had spiritual
bodies in pre-existence, so they will also have spiritual bodies in the afterlife,
even when they reach the top of the final contemplation.
c) A third reason suggests that the master of Alexandria supported the final
transformation of bodies. According to Origen’s pedagogical acumen, the one
who teaches should be an image of God who knows “what it is necessary to do
with each one, and when”.67 Therefore, the Christian teacher must know “to
whom, when and how he ought to speak about the divine mysteries”.68 The
same idea is found in his commentary on John:

The administrator of the mysteries of God must seek the proper time for the pre-
sentation of such doctrines so as [not] to harm the hearer, and at the same time
also consider carefully the measure [of the presentation], whether it is too little
or too much, measured by the correct Word, even if the time is right.69

From the pedagogical perspective, Origen may have supported the more shock-
ing solution but, in order not to harm his hearers—that is, out of prudence—
he tactically “measured” his discourse and did not teach his own hypothesis
openly. According to ancient and modern authors, this tactical prudence led
Origen to silence his convictions of the final dissolution of matter.70 However,

65 Or., princ. 3.6,4: Non autem dubitandum est naturam corporis huius nostri voluntate dei,
qui talem fecit eam, usque ad illam qualitatem subtilissimi et purissimi ac splendidissimi
corporis posse a creatore perduci, prout rerum status vocaverit et meritum rationabilis
naturae poposcerit (FuP 27, 2015, 774–776; transl. Behr, 2017, 447).
66 Or., princ. 1.6,2. Cf. princ. 2.1,1; 2.6,4; 2.1,3; 2.2,1; 2.9,8; 3.6,3.
67 Or., philoc. 27.4: Τί χρὴ καὶ πότε ἑκάστῳ ποιεῖν.
68 Or., hom. in Num. 27.12: Qui enim intueri potuerit mysterium de Christo et de Spiritu
sancto et sive viderit sive audierit ea, quae non licet hominibus loqui, necessario habebit
oris parsimoniam, sciens quibus vel quando vel quomodo de mysteriis divinis oporteat
loqui (W.A. Baerhens [ed.], GCS 30, Leipzig 1921, 277).
69 Or., Jo. 20.7 (transl. R. Heine, 207).
70 See Jerome, ep. 124.10; F. Kettler, Der ursprüngliche Sinn der Dogmatik des Origenes,
Berlin 1966, 24; M. Alexandre, Le statut des questions concernant la matière dans le Peri
2. Rational Creatures According to Origen 37

this argument does not consider the real audience of On First Principles. The
hearers of this treatise were people educated in Platonic philosophy. Therefore,
the “shocking” doctrine for them was not the final dissolution of matter but
rather the opposite—that is, the final permanency of matter. For that reason,
I argue that, although Origen was personally convinced that the better answer
for this open question was the final transformation of resurrected bodies, not
their destruction, he did not teach this solution but rather presented the argu-
ments that led to this solution and pedagogically left the question open.
In summary, the correspondence between beginning and end and the paral-
lel between the final conversion of the enemy and the final transformation of
matter, when viewed in the light of Origen’s pedagogy, prompt us to affirm that,
according to Origen, rational creatures will not live without bodies—as at the
beginning also at the end. Since bodily matter belonged to God’s original plan
and the Creator made all things “that they might exist”,71 then bodily matter, at
the end, will be not destroyed, but purified and transformed. In brief, although
Origen considered the final status of resurrected bodies to be an open ques-
tion, the coherence of his thought allows us to affirm that he supported the
hypothesis of the final transformation of matter, not its dissolution.

Archôn, in: Crouzel, 1975, 63–81 (79): “S’agit-il, comme on l’a pensé, d’un expédient tac-
tique dû à la prudence d’Origène, ouvrant une fausse alternative, là où sa recherche
aboutit à une solution susceptible de choquer?”
71 Or., princ. 3.6,5: ut essent (FuP 27, 2015, 778; transl. Behr, 2017, 447). Wis 1:13f.
 chapter 3

Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body in the

Earthly Life and Afterwards and His Impact on
Gregory of Nyssa
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli

Abstract

This essay will argue that Origen theorised the unity of soul and body, primar-
ily through his rejection of the doctrine of metensomatosis, and that Gregory of
Nyssa followed him. I shall point out differences and similarities between Origen’s
anthropology and that of the first “pagan” Neoplatonists; later Neoplatonists
came somehow closer to Origen’s ideas concerning the soul-body relation. I shall
investigate how Origen differentiated levels of corporeality and how Gregory of
Nyssa (like Maximus) did not criticise Origen’s anthropology, contrary to what is
regularly assumed, and grasped Origen’s “emendation” of the doctrine of meten-
somatosis into his own doctrine of “ensomatosis”, which, unlike the former option,
entailed the unity of soul and body in the earthly life and afterwards.

I. Introduction: The Centrality of the Unity of Body and Soul and

Methodological Remarks

An excellent example of the theorisation of the unity of body and soul, which
is the object of the present volume, is offered by two Patristic Platonists:
Origen of Alexandria, followed by Gregory of Nyssa. This essay will argue that
not only Origen theorised such a unity, and that Gregory followed him, but
that he did so primarily through his rejection of the doctrine of reincarnation
or metensomatosis.
Origen’s anthropology, indeed, seems to be somewhat different from the way
in which it has been depicted from the Origenistic controversy onwards, while
Nyssen seems to have grasped it better. I shall show how Origen’s anthropol-
ogy differs from that of imperial Platonists, especially in the correction of the
doctrine of metensomatosis into his own doctrine of “ensomatosis”, which im-
plied not the separation, but the unity of soul and body in the earthly life and

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_004

3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 39

afterwards.1 The body changes according to the soul’s dispositions and needs,
but it is always the same body: the soul does not enter different bodies. The
unity of body and soul characterises each of the noes from beginning to end.

II. The Unity of Body and Soul in Origen’s Anthropology and a

Comparative Look at Neoplatonism

The issue of the unity of one soul and one body was included by Origen pro-
grammatically in his anthropology: he will have to examine

the question of the essence of the soul, of the principle of its existence/constitu-
tion, of its joining this earthly body […] whether it is possible that it enters a body
for a second time, whether this will happen during the same temporal cycle [περί-
οδος] and worldly arrangement [διακόσμησις], in the same body or in another, and,
if in the same, whether it will remain identical to itself in its substance, only ac-
quiring different qualities, or it will change in both its substance and its qualities,
and whether the soul will always make use of the same body or it will change.2

As will be clear from the present analysis, Origen did support the option that
the soul always uses one body, not many, and that this body changes acquiring
new qualities, but it will be the same body, not another body. The unity of soul
and body is thus preserved.
In his Commentary on John Origen still presented metensomatosis as a hy-
pothesis to be considered and discussed,3 but he finally dismisses it: John the
Baptist is not Elijah’s reincarnation, but an angel sent onto earth.4 Thus, Origen
opposes Carpocrates’ view. For Carpocrates employed precisely the case of
Elijah and the Baptist, and Jesus’ debt parable, to support his “Pythagorean”
theory of metensomatosis: souls “are cast into the body’s prison until they
have paid the very last coin”5. The Carpocratians worshipped statuettes of
Jesus alongside those of philosophers such as Plato and Pythagoras,6 also

1 The full trajectory from ancient to late antique philosophy will be traced in my article Sôma,
in: RAC, forthcoming.
2 Or., Jo. 6.85.
3 Or., Jo. 6.7; 6.85 .
4 Or., Jo. 2.186.
5 Tert., an. 34.1–35.4; (Ps.)Hipp., haer. 7.32,7f.; Iren., haer. 1.25,4.
6 Iren., haer. 1.25.
40 Ilaria Ramelli

associated to Jesus by the Stoicising Mara bar Serapion.7 The Doketai taught
reincarnation but only until Christ’s advent.8 The “Gnostic” Apocryphon of John
endorsed metensomatosis,9 but Clement already rejected this doctrine, prom-
ising a refutation of it in a treatment on the soul (which to our knowledge was
never written, or is lost).10 Clement also ascribed metensomatosis to Basilides,
as Origen did.11
Indeed, in his Commentary on Proverbs, Origen testifies that some Christians
believed in the transmigration of souls, including the reincarnation of human
souls into animals: “It seems to me that the theory according to which souls are
transferred from some bodies into others has reached even some of those who
seem to believe in Christ [peruenisse etiam in aliquos eorum qui Christo credere
uidentur] […] They thought that a human soul migrates into animal bodies.”12
In Jo. 6.7 too, Origen notes that some Christians, on the basis of Joh 1:21 and
Mt 11:14, embraced metensomatosis.
Origen was represented as teaching the preexistence of disembodied souls
and their transmigration into different bodies from imperial and late antiquity
onwards. This doctrine was already attributed to Origen at the end of the third
century, as Pamphilus attests.13 Pamphilus testifies that the charge concern-
ing the preexistence of disembodied souls circulated against Origen already in
the third century, as anticipated at the beginning: “Concerning the soul, they
accuse Origen of maintaining that it was created before the body.”14 Against this
accusation, Pamphilus points out that Origen never wrote a treatise περὶ ψυχῆς,
because psychology—the philosophical the doctrine of the soul—bristles with
uncertainties, and the apostolic teaching has left unclarified the origin of the

7 See A. Merz / T. Tieleman (eds.), The Letter of Mara bar Serapion in Context. Proceedings of
the Symposium held at Utrecht University 10–12 December 2009, Leiden 2012; I.L.E. Ramelli,
Gesù tra i sapienti greci perseguitati ingiustamente in un antico documento filosofico pa-
gano di lingua siriaca, in: RFN 97 (2005), 545–570; ead., Stoici romani minori, Milano 2008,
2555–2598; ead., Theodicy in the Letter of Mara Bar Serapion, in: The Future of Syriac
Studies & the Legacy of Sebastian Brock, forthcoming.
8 (Ps.)Hipp., haer. 8.10,1f.
9 N HC 2.26,32–27,21; 3.35,4.
10 Clem., str. 3.13.
11 Clem., str. 4.12. Or., comm. in Rom. 5.1,27; 5.9,11; Jo. 6.62–66; comm. in Mt. 11.17; 13.1.
On Basilides see W. Löhr, Basilides und seine Schule. Eine Studie zur Theologie- und
Kirchengeschichte des zweiten Jahrhunderts, WUNT 83, Tübingen 1996.
12 Pamph. Caes., apol. 186.
13 Pamph. Caes., apol. 159.
14 E i de anima obiiciunt […] quod ante corpus eam factam dicat exsistere (Pamph. Caes.,
apol. 159). This is the eighth charge in Pamphilus’ list.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 41

soul.15 Pamphilus is in fact echoing what Origen had remarked on this point.16
Origen rejected the preexistence of disembodied souls, but postulated noes
equipped with a spiritual body from their creation as individual substances.
Theodicy can be saved only in this way, as Pamphilus remarks: Origen’s solu-
tion explains the various states of humans without holding God responsible
for them. Origen’s concern was theodicy and the rejection of “Gnostic” predes-
tinationism, fatalism, or casualism. I argued that the polemic against Gnostic
determinism was the basis of Origen’s theory of rational creatures, from their
creation and fall to their restoration.17 Arnaud Macé18 has shown how already
for Plato metesomatosis was related to justice and theodicy—like Origen’s
grand theory of ensomatosis and apokatastasis. As I argue, Origen criticised
metensomatosis and supported, instead, ensomatosis, but his theory was like-
wise informed by the problem of justice and theodicy.19 He tried to find a way
to defend theodicy without embracing the transmigration of souls and rather
keeping the unity of one soul and one body.
Jerome in 410, after his U-turn against Origen, charged him with main-
taining transmigrations of human souls into beasts and fishes, although only
‘zetetically’,20 a charge repeated by Justinian. But Origen rejected transmigra-
tion as foreign to the church21 and contradicting the end of the world,22 as will
be pointed out below.
Famously Justinian, considered to have been the promoter of the “con-
demnation of Origen”23 as well as—not accidentally—of the closure of the
Neoplatonic school of Athens, in the Letter to the Synod Concerning Origen and
the Letter to Mennas attaches to Origen the preexistence of disembodied souls,
and links it to the transmigration of souls, even into animal bodies: “the cause

15 Pamph. Caes., apol. 8.

16 Or., Jo. 6.85.
17 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Origen, Bardaisan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation, in: HTR 102
(2009), 135–168.
18 A. Macé, La circulation cosmique des âmes. Platon, le Mythe d’Er’, in: G. Ducoeur /
C. Muckensturm-Poulle (eds.), La transmigration des âmes en Grèce et en Inde anciennes,
Besançon 2016, 63–80.
19 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery. The Role of Philosophical
Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity, Oxford 2016.
20 Hier., ep. Avit. 4.
21 Or., comm. in Mt. 13.1; 11.17.
22 Or., Cant. 2.5.
23 On this point see I.L.E. Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis. A Critical
Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena, Leiden 2013, the chapter on the “con-
demnation of Origen”. Further work is being done on the rejection of apokatastasis in late
antiquity.
42 Ilaria Ramelli

of this absurdity [sc. metensomatosis] is to believe that souls preexisted”24.

Justinian cites Nyssen’s refutation of the preexistence of souls, remarking
that the orthodox doctrine of the Fathers “forbids to say that souls preexist
bodies”25. Justinian deems Gregory’s attack directed against Origen, which, as I
shall argue, is not the case. Nyssen too related the doctrine of metensomatosis
with that of the preexistence of souls in a causal connection, but he was not
speaking of Origen. He too, like Origen, insisted on the unity of one soul and
one body.
Photius testifies to a charge against Origen of teaching metensomatosis in
the first book of De principiis.26 Even recently, this theory has been attributed to
Origen, often on the basis of fr. *15 and *17a Koetschau ascribed to De principiis,
but coming from late and unreliable, hostile sources (Epiphanius, Justinian,
etc.).27 Origen in fact denied any transmigration of souls into various bod-
ies, human, animal, or vegetal. He rejected Platonic metensomatosis, which,
entailing the eternity of the world, was incompatible with Scripture. He was
aware that Plato alluded to it only mythically, while “pagan” Platonists support-
ed it theoretically.28 Indeed, Origen expressly rejected “the doctrine/dogma of
metensomatosis”29, not the myth of metensomatosis, and Christianised it in
the form of ensomatosis, which linked one soul to one body (in transforma-
tion), instead of multiple bodies.30

24 Justn., ep. ad Men. 88–90.

25 Justn., ep. ad Men. 92f.; 96.
26 Phot., cod. 8.3b–4a Bekker: μετεμψυχώσεις τε γὰρ ληρῳδεῖ.
27 Among the few exceptions: M. Edwards, Origen no Gnostic, or, on the Corporeality
of Man, in: JThS 43 (1992), 21–27; id., Origen against Plato, Aldershot 2002, 89–97. 160;
P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology, Leiden 2007, with my review
in: RFN 100 (2008), 453–458; G. Lekkas, Liberté et progrès chez Origène, Turnhout 2002,
124–140; R. Heine, Origen. An Introduction to His Life and Thought, Eugene 2019, 102–107,
who agrees with me in rejecting Origen’s alleged preexistence of disembodied souls and
on 167 cites my Preexistence of Souls? The ἀρχή and τέλος of Rational Creatures in Origen
and Some Origenians, in: StPatr 56 (2013), 167–226.
28 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Preexistence of Souls?. On Plato’s view of the afterlife and metenso-
matosis, see: D. Jouanna (ed.), Les Grecs aux Enfers. D’Homère à Epicure, Paris 2015, 219–
241; J. Bussanich, Rebirth Eschatology in Plato and Plotinus, in: V. Adluri (ed.), Philosophy
and Salvation in Greek Religion, Berlin 2013, 243–288.
29 Or., Cels. 3.75.
30 Rowan Williams concurs that Origen rejected metensomatosis and thought that a rational
creature has only one soul and one body: “Our spiritual attainment in this life determines
the next stage of our journey to God in a different kind of body. This is not “reincarna-
tion” in any easily recognisable sense, since the spirit is certainly not recycled within
the material order with which our senses are familiar, nor does it reappear in another
human body” (R. Williams, Origen, in: G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians,
Oxford 2004, 132–142 [136]).
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 43

Indeed, Origen opposed metensomatosis/”transcorporation” (a soul en-

ters different bodies) to ἐνσωμάτωσις/”incorporation/embodiment”, his own,
Christian doctrine, implying that one soul uses one body, which is trans-
formed according to the state of the soul.31 Ensomatosis is “the theory con-
cerning souls wrapped in a body [εἰς σῶμα ἐνδoυμένων], but not as a result of
metensomatosis.”32 Origen refrains from discussing ensomatosis with Celsus,
since pearls should not be cast to swine, but rejects his Jew’s objection that “it
is impossible for anyone to rise from the dead with the same body.”33 Origen
defines ensomatosis a “different and nobler doctrine” than metensomatosis.34
Porphyry, a supporter of metensomatosis and familiar with Origen’s work,
uses ἐμψύχωσις, “animation” of a body,35 a very rare noun, employed only once
by his teacher Plotinus and once by Galen,36 and μετεμψύχωσις, “transanima-
tion”, transmigration of souls,37 used by Diodorus Siculus and soon applied to
Pythagoras.38 But Porphyry never uses Origen’s ἐνσωμάτωσις, or μετενσωμάτω-
σις, but employs ἐνσωματόω,39 like the Anonymous In Theaetetum.40 Plotinus
used μετενσωμάτωσις twice,41 but never Origen’s ἐνσωμάτωσις, taken over rather
by Iamblichus.42 Carlos Steel suggested that Plotinus’ theory of the undescend-
ed soul reacted to the Gnostic myth of the total fall of Sophia and the human
soul imprisoned in evil matter.43 Plotinus reacted by arguing that the soul does
not fall entirely; its highest part remains always in the contemplation of the
upper realm. Indeed, I have argued that Origen’s doctrine of the noes and apo-
katastasis was likewise a reaction to Gnosticism.44
Celsus deemed the resurrection a misunderstanding of metensomatosis,45
but for Origen resurrection is a “profound” doctrine, “worthy of God” and

31 Or., Jo. 6.85.

32 Or., Cels. 5.29: Oὐκ ἐκ μετενσωματώσεως.
33 Or., Cels. 2.57; cf. 2.55.
34 Or., Cels. 4.17.
35 Porph., Gaur. 2.4; 11.1–3.
36 Plot., Enn. 4.3.9; Gal. 4.763.
37 Porph., Abst. 4.16.
38 Diod. 10.60.1.
39 Porph., Abst. 4.20.
40 ἐνσωματόω (53.7); ἐνσωμάτωσις (57.30).
41 Plot., Enn. 2.9,6; 4.3,9.
42 Stob. App. 1.49,40.
43 C. Steel, The Changing Self. A Study on the Soul in Later Neoplatonism. Iamblichus,
Damascius, and Priscianus, Brussels 1978, 35, but see also B. Dalsgaard Larsen, La place
de Jamblique dans la philosophie antique tardive, in: id. / H. Dörrie (eds.), De Jamblique à
Proclus, Vandoeuvres-Genève 1975, 1–26 (22).
44 See Ramelli, Origen, 2009; ead., Christian Doctrine, 2013.
45 Or., Cels. 7.32.
44 Ilaria Ramelli

“noble”.46 Celsus had a base concept of resurrection, since he learnt it from

“unlearned people”. Origen, instead, prefers ensomatosis to metensomatosis
and explains that the body possesses a seminal principle,47 what elsewhere he
calls eidos. The soul, “incorporeal and invisible, in any material place requires a
body suited” to it, and at resurrection, the body will be “a better tunic/garment
for the pure, ethereal, and heavenly regions” (ibidem).
I suspect that Plotinus knew Origen’s theory of ensomatosis and was aware
that Origen refused to call it metensomatosis. Devoting an investigation to the
problem of how souls come to be in bodies, he lists two ways: one, which he
will develop, is “when the soul comes to any body whatsoever from a disem-
bodied state”; the other, which Plotinus does not develop, is when a soul that is
already in a body either changes bodies (μετενσωματοῦσθαι) or from an airy or
pneumatic body comes to an earthy one: this, “they do not call metensomato-
sis, because the starting point of the entrance is unclear.”48 Probably, “they”
refers to Origen and followers, who rejected metensomatosis. For Origen, souls
were in ethereal, pneumatic, spiritual bodies at the beginning, but after the fall
their bodies became earthy in the case of humans. Plotinus seems to refer to
Origen’s doctrine, but did not discuss it; he remarks that “the starting point is
unclear” because for Origen the soul was not initially disembodied, but, when
God created it as a substance, he joined it immediately with a spiritual body,
initiating the unity of soul and body.
Plotinus discussed the various options, including that of Origen, because
the soul-body relation was crucial for “Pagan” Neoplatonists too. Porphyry
for three days, uninterruptedly, asked Plotinus questions “about the way in
which the soul is in the body”: Plotinus never stopped explaining.49 His fourth
Ennead is devoted to the soul, its origin, and its union with the body, and criti-
cises Epicurean and Stoic representations of the soul, on the basis of Plato’s
Phaedo.50 “Every human is double: one is a compound being, the other the
human itself”51; “the human, especially the good human, is not the composite
[συναμφότερον] of soul and body”, but (intellectual) soul; hence the imperatives

46 Origen’s idea of resurrection will be developed by Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius: see
I.L.E. Ramelli Gregory Nyssen’s and Evagrius’s Biographical and Theological Relations.
Origen’s Heritage and Neoplatonism, in: ead. (ed., in collaboration with K. Corrigan,
G. Maspero, and M. Tobon), Evagrius between Origen, the Cappadocians, and Neoplatonism,
Leuven 2017, 165–231.
47 Ibidem: λόγος σπέρματος, similar to the Stoic λόγος σπερματικός (see below).
48 Plot., Enn. 4.3.9.1–13.
49 Porph., Plot. 13.10f.
50 Plot., Enn. 4.7,2–4; cf. 6.4,13.
51 Plot., Enn. 2.3[9],31f.: ὁ αὐτός.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 45

of ‘separation from the body and despising its so-called goods”.52 For Plato, the
real human is soul; for Origen, “a soul using a body”53: “a soul vivifies and moves
the body, which by nature cannot move by itself vitally.”54 A logikon, rational/
intelligent creature, includes its spiritual body.
Plotinus maintained the preexistence of disembodied souls and meten-
somatosis, although with some nuances.55 Porphyry, who also knew Origen’s
ideas, discussed the soul in several places,56 and defended its immortality
against the Peripatetic Boethus, but also against Stoic and Epicurean concep-
tions.57 Longinus also devoted a monograph, cited by Eusebius, to the soul and
its preexistence, also criticising Stoic and Epicurean materialistic notions of
the soul. Nyssen will do the same in Soul and Resurrection, which took over
Origen’s Resurrection also in the light of Methodius and probably the Dialogue
of Adamantius, as well as Bardaisan.58
In his lost commentary on Titus, Origen “affirmed that it is not the tradition
of the apostles or the church that the soul is anterior to the constitution of
the body [τὸ πρεσβυτέραν εἶναι τὴν ψυχὴν τῆς τοῦ σῶματος κατασκευῆς], and de-
scribed as a heretic whoever supported this doctrine”.59 The soul is not anterior
to its spiritual body, but to its fleshly, earthly body. Origen speaks of, or alludes
to, souls preexisting their earthly body in a number of passages,60 but never of
souls preexisting their spiritual body or their body tout court.
Origen assumed, everywhere, different degrees of corporeality, for instance
in his debate with the Platonist Celsus: to feel fatigue is proper, not to anyone

52 Plot., Enn. 1.4[14],1–4.

53 Plat. IAlc. 130C; Or., Cels. 7.38; princ. 4.2,7: τὰς χρωμένας ψυχὰς σώμασιν.
54 Or., Cels. 6.48.
55 However, the “luminous” body of Plot., Enn. 4.3,18 and the fact that body and matter
are “there”, in the Intelligible, in 6.2,21, suggest that Plotinus was fully aware that body
is an image of logos and Form, and corporeality is a logos that comes from above (Plot.,
Enn. 2.7,3). Perhaps there is more continuity between Origen and Plotinus than anyone
has thought, given the paucity of the evidence and the fact that everyone ignores Plot.,
Enn. 6.2,21. Extensive research will be carried out in this respect.
56 For instance, in Πρὸς Ταῦρον, Σύμμικτα ζητήματα, Περὶ τῶν τῆς ψυχῆς δυνάμεων, the
Sentences etc.
57 See his Περὶ ψυχῆς πρὸς Βόηθον.
58 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Bardaisan of Edessa, Piscataway 2009; new, electronic edition
Berlin 2019, 138–142.
59 Reported in the first question to Barsanuphius: Doctrina circa opiniones Origenis, Evagrii,
et Didymi (PG 86, 894A).
60 E.g., Or., princ. 1.6,2; 2.9,1f.; 2.9,6; 3.5,4; hom. in Gen. 1.13; Cant. 2.8; hom. in Jer. 1.10,1; comm.
in Mt. 14.16–17; 15.34–36; hom. in Lc. 34.5; Jo. 2.181–182; 20.182; dial. 15f.; Cels. 1.32–33;
5.29–33.
46 Ilaria Ramelli

with any body, but to those with earthly bodies.61 Noes were equipped with
a bodily vehicle straight from their creation—not yet heavy and mortal, but
similar to the angelic and the risen body. After their sin, their light, luminous,
immortal body was turned into mortal for humans, or “ridiculous” for demons:
Satan’s body changed into ludicrous: “The one who is called dragon, because
he fell from his pure life, became worthy of being enchained before anyone
else to a material body […] ‘This is the beginning of material creation, made
to be laughed at by angels’. It is certainly possible that the dragon is, not the
beginning of the Lord’s material creation [πλάσμα] in general, but the begin-
ning of the many beings made to be laughed at by angels, while others may be
in a moulded body, but not thus.”62 Satan “is that famous ‘first earthly being’ as
he was the first to fall down from the superior state and wanted a different life
from the superior one. Therefore, he deserved to be the principle, not of the
foundation (of the Son) [κτίσμα],63 nor of the creation (of noes with their spiri-
tual bodies) [ποίημα], but only of what was moulded with clay [πλάσμα] by the
Lord. He became such as to be the object of derision by the Lord’s angels”.64
Origen observes that “in perfect accord with Plato’s diairetical dialectic”65
(πάνυ διαλεκτικώτατα), Scripture does not state, “before I created [ποιῆσαι] you
in the womb, I know you”, because it is when the divinity created the human
in God’s image that God “has created” (πεποίηκε); on the contrary, when God
made the human from the earth, God simply “moulded” it (ἔπλασεν). Thus,
the human “created” (ποιούμενον) by God is not that which “is formed in the
womb”, but “what is moulded from the earth is what is founded in the womb”,66
that is, the mortal body. This is the body of humans after their fall. This, and not
the body tout court, is what Origen associates with death and sin. The creation

61 Or., Cels. 6.61.

62 Or., Jo. 1.17,9–98, taken up by Eusebius in Eus., Is. 173.
63 Also in Or., Jo. 1.19,114–115, κτίσις refers to the atemporal foundation of God’s Wisdom
by God. This is biblical terminology and does not mean that Origen deemed the Son—
Wisdom a creature in the later, “Arian” sense. In the present passage too, I think that
κτίσμα indicates the foundation of God’s Wisdom, which is in turn the agent of creation;
ποίημα indicates the creation of intellects, with their spiritual bodies and the world, not
yet diversified; and πλάσμα, what was moulded as the subsequent transformation of the
spiritual bodies into bodies apt to the life of fallen intellects, in a world that became di-
versified according to the intellects’ diversified wills.
64 Or., Jo. 20.22,182.
65 Plato is the founder of dialectics and probably the inventor of this term (Men. 75CD;
R. 531–539; Sph. 25). In the Republic dialectic is the supreme science, uniting the first prin-
ciples of all disciplines under the Good. See D. Sedley, Dialectic, in: OCD December 2015,
DOI:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.2140.
66 Tὸ πλασσόμενον ἀπὸ τοῦ χοῦ τῆς γῆς, τοῦτο ἐν κοιλίᾳ κτίζεται (Or., hom. in Jer. 1.10).
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 47

of the rational being—not to be regarded as a disembodied soul—is distin-

guished from the moulding of the mortal body. The same distinction between
creation and moulding is stressed again: “I do not think that the two accounts
in Genesis refer to the same being: those made in God’s image are different
from those moulded from the dust of the earth”67. The “image of God” should
not be covered through sin, by the “image of the earthy and dead”: “The human
being, insofar as it lives, does not bear the image of the earthy [τὴν τοῦ χοϊκοῦ
εἰκόνα], but when it dies because it is killed by the devil, the killer of the human
being, it keeps, to be sure, God’s image, but at the same time it also receives
that of the earthy and dead [τὴν τοῦ χοϊκοῦ καὶ νεκροῦ].”68 Humans should never
forget their “better essence”, submit to “what has been moulded from clay” (τῷ
ἀπὸ τοῦ χοῦ πλάσματι), and thus assume “the image of the earthy”.69
God’s image is not in the corruptible body, since τὸ κρεῖττον is the soul/
mind;70 the rational soul is “superior [κρείττων] to every bodily nature”,71 “more
precious than any body, since it contains what is after the Creator’s image, this
being in no sense true of the body”.72 Even the late Munich homilies empha-
sise: “you have a body less worthy [ἔλαττον] than the substance of your soul
and of the nature of your spirit.”73 Accordingly, spiritual miracles, i.e. conver-
sions from evil to Good, are more important than physical miracles.74 Origen
notes that “all bodily nature is, so to say, a burden and slows down the spirit’s
vigour”, and that “the rational nature will grow little by little, not the way it
did in the present life, when it was in the flesh, or body, and soul, but it will
grow in intelligence and thought, and it will reach perfect knowledge, because
fleshly thoughts will no longer be an obstacle for it”.75 This is remindful of
Plato’s Phaedrus, and would have been subscribed by all “pagan” Neoplatonists.
However, the prioritising of the intellectual soul does not infringe the unity
between soul and body for Origen. Karel Thein underlies “Plato’s timidity of

67 Or., comm. in Mt. 14.16. See I.L.E. Ramelli, Creation, double in: BEEC. Published online 2018
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2589-7993_EECO_SIM_00000793> https://referenceworks.
brillonline.com/entries/brill-encyclopedia-of-early-christianity-online/creation-
double-SIM_00000793.
68 Or., Jo. 20.229. See also Or., hom. in Gen. 13.4: manet enim semper in te imago Dei, licet tu
tibi ipse superinducas imaginem terreni.
69 Or., Jo. 20.183: Tὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ χοϊκοῦ.
70 Or., Cels. 6.63.
71 Or., Cels. 6.71.
72 Or., Cels. 8.49. The human “according to God’s image” has “no matter” (ὕλη, Or., dial. 15).
73 Or., hom.1 in Ps. 15.3.
74 Or., Cels. 2.48. The woman bent double in Luke 13 was physically healed, but also repre-
sents those who are bent double by sin (Or., Cels. 8.54).
75 Or., princ. 1.7,5; 2.11,7 respectively.
48 Ilaria Ramelli

describing the soul as being entirely without body of any kind”76: this stance,
which was taken over by later Platonists such as Proclus,77 may have persuaded
Origen that his own position agreed with Plato’s, against those of contempo-
rary “pagan” Platonists.
Angels still have a celestial, ethereal, pure body, similar to that of the stars;
it does not come from the dust of the earth; their nourishment is spiritual.78
Origen postulated two kinds of bodies still in a late work: along the lines of
Plato’s Phaedo, which posited “escape from the body and observation of things
in themselves with the soul by itself” as necessary to attain “pure knowledge”79,
Origen claimed that to love God and have communion with God, the soul must
detach itself from its body, be this an earthly body (τοῦ γηίνου σώματος) or any
other kind of body (παντὸς σώματος).80 Already in an earlier academic work,
when he programmatically announced the necessity of tackling “the question
of the essence of the soul, of the principle of its composition [συστάσεως] and
of its joining this earthly body” (γήϊνον σῶμα, Jo. 6.85), he added the qualifier
“earthly” to “body”. For Origen is not speaking of the body tout court, but of
the mortal, fleshly body, which the soul assumes as a consequence of its moral
transformation; at the beginning of its existence as independent substance,
intellectual creatures had spiritual, immortal bodies.
The “skin tunics” (Gen 3:21) are not corporeality tout court, since the first
humans already possessed bodies at creation, but mortal corporeality, super-
imposed to their initially immortal body:81 the postlapsarian, heavy and cor-

76 K. Thein, Soul and Incorporeality in Plato, in: Eirene 54 (2018), 53–95 (95).
77 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Proclus and Christian Neoplatonism: A Case Study, in: M. Knežević (ed.),
The Ways of Byzantine Philosophy, Alhambra 2015, 37–70; review R. Arthur, in: JTS 67
(2016), 827–829.
78 Or., or. 7; 23,4; 27f.
79 Pl., Phd. 66D5–E2. Though Plato himself also gave a more integrative account of soul and
body elsewhere: C. Jorgenson, The Embodied Soul in Plato’s Later Thought, Cambridge 2018
on the passage from the Phaedo to a more harmonious relation between body and soul
(he works on a chronological arrangement of Plato’s dialogues). For a reconsideration of
Plato’s and the Platonists’ purported hatred of the body, see also S.S. Griffin / I.L.E. Ramelli
(eds), Lovers of the Soul, Lovers of the Body. Philosophical and Religious Perspectives in Late
Antiquity, Harvard 2021; C. Zoller, Plato and the Body. Reconsidering Socratic Asceticism,
Albany 2018, who also contrasts the Phaedo with the Phaedrus and Symposium and the
role of eros in philosophy. Plato prioritised the soul over the body, but did not despise
the body and the basis of his asceticism is not hatred of the body, but justice, as I argued
in Social Justice, 2016, chapter 1.
80 Or., Mart. 3.
81 Or., hom. in Lev. 6,2: Pelliciis, inquit, tunicis, quae essent mortalitatis, quam pro peccato
acceperat.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 49

ruptible body.82 Clement had already warned against the identification of the
skin tunics with the body tout court, supported by the encratite Cassian.83 The
story of the skin tunics for Origen hides a “mystery” deeper than that of the fall
of the soul in Plato,84 and having to do with the unity of body and soul. Plato
postulated a disembodied soul that loses its wings and becomes embodied,
while Origen posits noes endowed with a subtle body from their creation; their
body changed into heavy and mortal after sin.
Procopius probably reports Origen’s interpretation of the skin tunics: ac-
cording to “biblical allegorisers”, these are not the body, since the human in
paradise already had “the fine body, worthy of life in paradise [τὸ λεπτομερὲς
σῶμα καὶ ἄξιον τῆς ἐν παραδείσῳ διαγωγῆς], which some have called luminous
[ὅ τινες αὐγοειδὲς ἐκάλεσαν]. The skin tunics, instead, are the referent of the
words, ‘You have dressed me with skin and flesh, you have knit me together
with bones and nerves’85. The soul at first, they say, used the luminous body
as a vehicle [τῷ δὲ αὐγοειδεῖ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐποχεῖσθαι πρώτως λέγουσιν]; later, this
was dressed with the skin tunics [ὅπερ ὕστερον ἐνεδύσατο τοὺς δερματίνους χιτῶ-
νας].”86 There is also a textual correspondence, since Origen too designated the
subtle and spiritual body of rational creatures as both αὐγοειδές and an ὄχημα
(as is revealed by ἐποχεῖσθαι in the passage quoted above from Procopius,
Comm. in Gen. 3:21).
Plotinus, Origen’s fellow disciple at Ammonius’, offers a remarkable parallel
here. He deems daemons equipped with bodies of intelligible matter.87 These
might be the “luminous vehicle” (αὐγοειδὲς ὄχημα) that souls assume in their
descent according to Plotinus.88 For Plotinus, only some daemons have bod-
ies.89 Daemons participate in matter (ὕλη), but not corporeal matter (σωματικὴ
ὕλη). They assume bodies of air or fire (ἀέρινα ἢ πύρινα), but previously had no
bodies. This contrasts with Origen’s line of the unity of one soul and one body.

82 Or., Fr. in 1 Cor. 29.

83 Clem., str. 3.14,95,2.
84 Pl., Phdr. 248CD; Or., Cels. 4.40.
85 Job 10 11.
86 Or., comm. in Gen. 3:21 (PG 87.1, 221A).
87 Plot., Enn. Treatise 50.6–7.
88 Plot., Enn. Treatises 14; 26; 27. The relation between daemons’ bodies and souls’ luminous
vehicles is proposed by J.-M. Narbonne, Plotinus in Dialogue with the Gnostics, Leiden
2011, 46.
89 Plot., Enn. 3.5[50],6, within a commentary on Plato’s Poros myth, the same that Origen
read as a parallel to the Genesis account of Eden. Here Plotinus uses δαίμονες as “spirits”
or rational creatures that share the same physis and ousia and are distinct from the gods,
albeit being also called gods sometimes—exactly as Origen’s logika share the same physis
and ousia and are distinct from God, albeit being also called gods.
50 Ilaria Ramelli

The observation that follows immediately may be Plotinus’ criticism of Origen:

“Though it is the opinion of many that the substance of the daemon/spirit qua
talis implies some body, either of air or of fire.”90 Origen, indeed, deemed ratio-
nal creatures equipped with a subtle, spiritual body from the beginning.
Origen’s description of the spiritual body-vehicle as αὐγοειδές, probably re-
flected in Procopius, is confirmed by the sixth-century theologian Gobar.91 He
was familiar with Origen’s and his followers’ ideas and often reports Origen’s
true thought. His account confirms Origen’s theory of unity of soul and body:
not the preexistence of bare souls, but noes equipped with “light” corporeal-
ity, which agrees with Origen’s tenet that God alone is bodiless (see below).92
Rational creatures were created before the sense-perceptible world, already
endowed with bodies.93 Gobar also testifies to Origen’s identification of the
skin tunics with postlapsarian mortal corporeality and liability to passions:
“One was the human prelapsarian body, which is also called ‘luminous’ [αὐγο-
ειδές], and another, different, is the postlapsarian body [τὸ μετὰ τὴν παράβασιν],
which we wear now, made of flesh [σάρκινον]. This is identifiable with the skin
tunics [οἱ δερμάτινοι χιτῶνες]: we shall shed it at the resurrection [ἀποτιθέμεθα
ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει].”94
But the main confirmations come from Origen. He describes the bodies of
angels as “ethereal” (αἰθέρια) and “luminous light” (αὐγοειδὲς φῶς).95 The fol-
lowing passage is preserved in Latin, but is of undisputed authorship:

Paul too speaks of a spiritual body96 […] the quality of the spiritual body must be
such as to constitute a suitable dwelling place, not only for blessed and perfect
souls, but also for all creation, which will be liberated from enslavement to cor-
ruption.97 Speaking of this body, the Apostle also said: “We have a dwelling place
not made by human hands and eternal in heaven. For visible things are tempo-
ral, but invisible things are eternal”.98 In comparison with all these bodies that
we see both on earth and in heaven, which are moulded and not eternal, what is
invisible, not handmade, and eternal is by far superior. From this comparison it
is possible to imagine how great will be the beauty, brightness, and splendour, of
the spiritual body […] The nature of this body of ours […] can be brought by the

90 Plot., Enn. 3.5[50],6,40–42: καίτοι πολλοῖς δοκεῖ ἡ οὐσία τοῦ δαίμονος καθ’ ὅσον δαίμων μετά
τινος σώματος ἢ ἀέρος ἢ πυρὸς εἶναι.
91 A
 p. Phot., cod. 232.288a; see the whole passage at 232.287b–291b.
92 A
 p. Phot., cod. 232.288a.
93 Phot., cod. 232.289ab.
94 Phot., cod. 232.288a.
95 Or., comm. in Mt. 17.30.
96 1 Cor 15:44.
97 Rom 8:21.
98 2 Cor 4:18.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 51

Creator to the condition of a finest, purest, and brightest body, as the condition
and merits of the rational nature will require.99

The resurrected body is here described as “fine/subtle in the utmost degree”,

corresponding to λεπτομερές, and “very bright” (corresponding to αὐγοειδές).
Moreover, the depiction of such a body as a suitable dwelling place for life
in Paradise corresponds perfectly to Procopius’ passage. Thus, many parallels
confirm that Procopius was indeed speaking of Origen when he referred to
those “allegorical interpreters” of the Bible who posited a prelapsarian λεπτο-
μερές and αὐγοειδές body.
In a free translation of Origen’s Comm. in Ps 118, Ambrose suggests that
Adam, before falling into this world, had an ethereal body, which drew breath
from aether.100 The subtle body at the beginning parallels that of the resur-
rection, after the deposition of the “skin tunic” added to the first, immortal
body—vehicle.101 Οrigen uses the concept of a luminous, spiritual body as a
vehicle of the soul also to avoid the idea of the preexistence of disembodied
souls, and likely to account for apparitions of the dead between death and res-
urrection.102 This is a strategy for him to stick to the tenet of the unity of body
and soul.
Even Christ assumed a “physical vehicle” on earth, otherwise his death
would have been impossible; after his ascension into heaven, “the heavenly
powers were astonished at the novelty of seeing his physical vehicle”.103 Origen
comments here on Psalm 23(4) on the Ascension of the Saviour, but adds, as
often, other parallel exegetical points, “similar prophecies in Isaiah, concern-
ing the ascension of the Saviour after the economy”, and cites Isaiah: “Who
is coming from Edom, from Bosra, with scarlet robe?”. He exhorts readers to
parse Isaiah’s passage, so as to understand what the angels say, in astonish-
ment, when they see the Saviour’s body and what answer they receive. The an-
swer is commented by Origen in Jo. 6.287–292: Christ on his Cross has “crushed
into pieces” the powers of evil.
Supporting the unity of soul and body, Origen thought that the rational soul
always exists with a body; the body that is an impediment to contemplation is
the mortal body, not the spiritual body. Only the Trinity is incorporeal, while all

99 Or., princ. 3.6,4.

100 Ambr., Exp. Ps 118 4.3: Auram carpebat aetheream.
101 C  um corpus humanum, crassitudinis huius indumento deposito, uelut nudum coeperit susti-
nere tormenta (Or., Ps 6 ap. Pamph. Caes., apol. 157).
102 A  p. Meth., res. 3.17,5.
103 Or., comm. in Mt. 16.19.
52 Ilaria Ramelli

creatures need a body, spiritual or mortal, to live;104 bodies cannot be actually

separated from rational creatures:

If it is absolutely impossible to claim that any other nature besides the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit can live without a body, the argument’s coher-
ence compels to understand that rational beings were created as the princi-
pal, main creation [principaliter], but the material substance can be separated
from them—and thus appear to be created before or after them—only theo-
retically and mentally, because they can never have lived, or live, without matter
[numquam sine ipsa eas vel vixisse vel vivere]. For only the Trinity can be correctly
thought to live without a body [incorporea vita existere]. Therefore […] the mate-
rial substance, which by nature is capable of being transformed from all into all,
when dragged to inferior creatures, is formed into a dense and solid body […] but
when it serves more perfect and blessed creatures, it shines forth in the splen-
dour of heavenly bodies and adorns with a spiritual body both God’s angels and
the resurrected.105

Origen hammers home that souls are incorporeal in themselves but, unlike
God, are always found in bodies. A striking similarity obtains with Alexander
of Aphrodisias, who was very probably known to Origen106 and claimed that
the soul, although it is not a body, can only exist in a body, even though not as
in a subject,107 and consists of faculties,108 as Aristotle taught in De anima. Like
Origen, Aristotle and Alexander too conceived souls as incorporeal, but never
existing without bodies. Even between the death of the earthly body and the
resurrection, the soul, incorporeal in its essence (τὴν οὐσίαν τῆς ψυχῆς ἀσώμα-
τον), is wrapped in a body (σῶμα περιέκειτο).109 “The soul, albeit incorporeal
[ἀσώματος], will not be punished without body [χωρὶς σώματος].”110
It is important to remark, in this connection, that Origen speaks of
“incorporeal”/“corporeal” and “immaterial”/“material” in a relative sense.111

104 So also Williams, Origen, 2004, 137: “there is no absolutely incorporeal reality but God
(Princ. II.2.2), all spirits must have some kind of embodiment[…] there is no real diversity
without some sort of materiality (Princ. II.1.4). Since God alone is completely beyond
multiplicity, the implication would seem to be that even the pre-existent spirits creat-
ed by God prior to the material world as we know it were endowed with some kind of
bodies”.
105 Or., princ. 2.2,2.
106 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Alexander of Aphrodisias: A Source of Origen’s Philosophy?, in: Philosophie
Antique 14 (2014), 237–290.
107 Alex. Aphr., de An. mant. 140.4–8.
108 Alex. Aphr., de An. mant. 106.30f.
109 Or., res. (PG 11, 96).
110 Or., sel. in Ps. (PG 12, 1097,11).
111 This is rightly realised by Gregory Smith, Physics and Metaphysics, in: The Oxford Handbook
of Late Antiquity, Oxford: OUP, 2012, DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336931.013.0016:
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 53

He even states, metaphorically, that some souls, those of sinners, are “corpo-
real”: such a soul “thickens and becomes corporeal” (παχύνεται καὶ σαρκοῦται),
while virtue “refines and melts down [λεπτύνει, ἐκτήκει] the soul and—to
force the language [βιασάμενος]—annihilates all that is corporeal in it [πᾶν
τὸ σωματικὸν αὐτῆς ἐξαφανίζει], and renders it purely incorporeal [καθαρῶς
ἀσώματον]”112. Already Clement used relatively adjectives such as “bodily”/
“bodiless”, “material”/“immaterial”, e.g.: “compared to bodies here, such as
the stars, they are bodiless and shapeless, but compared to the Son they are
measured and sense-perceptible bodies: so is the Son with respect to the
Father.”113 Another Christian Platonist, Augustine, even as late as in 412, keeps
the same relative usage: the soul is “incorporeal”, but God’s Logos is “much
more incorporeal”.114 The relative connotation of “incorporeal” already sur-
faces in Aristotle, who for instance described fire as “the most incorporeal of
elements”115 and “more incorporeal” than water,116 and in many “pagan” and
Christian Platonists, including Clement, Proclus, and Caesarius about angels
who are incorporeal with respect to us, but in themselves do have spiritual
bodies: “angels are incorporeal with respect to us [ἀσώματοι καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς], but in
themselves they do have bodies, like wind, fire, or air. Indeed, these are fine
and immaterial bodies [λεπτὰ καὶ ἄϋλα], free from the density [παχύτης] of our
own bodies.”117 Likewise, Cassian observes that angelic powers “too have bod-
ies, albeit much finer than ours [πολλῷ λεπτότερα τοῦ ἡμετέρου].”118 Something
can be called “incorporeal” with respect to earthly bodies, being much finer
and more subtle, but in fact is not incorporeal in an absolute sense.

“According to Aristotle, incorporeality could be conceived as a matter of degree […] a

thing that could not be seen or touched in the usual ways might nonetheless be described
as incorporeal—not like an ordinary body but not strictly immaterial, either. According
to Origen […] this usage reflected ‚general custom’ (Or., princ. praef. 8) […] he also used
‘incorporeal’ freely in reference to souls, angels, and other ‘rational natures’, despite his
repeated insistence that absolute immateriality belongs only to God”.
112 Or., Ps. 38:11f., whose paternity is confirmed by the exact parallel in Or., Hom. 2 in Ps. 38.8.
113 Clem., exc. Thdot. 11.3.
114 Multo magis incorporeum (Verbum), Letter 137 to Volusianus, 11.
115 Arist., de An. 405a: Mάλιστα ἀσώματον.
116 Arist., Ph. 215b.
117 Quaest. resp. 47.
118 Joh. Cass., Seren. Prim. 86v. Caesarius’ work should be ascribed to Cassian the Sabaite
according to P. Tzamalikos, A Newly Discovered Greek Father, Leiden 2012; The Real
Cassian Revisited, ibidem 2012, although I shall not enter that spiny question. The tra-
ditional figure of Cassian is maintained by most scholars, including B. Dahlman,
Textual Fluidity and Authorial Revision. The Case of Cassian and Palladius, in: L. Larsen /
S. Rubenson (eds.), Monastic Education in Late Antiquity. The Transformation of Classical
Paideia, Cambridge 2018, 281–305.
54 Ilaria Ramelli

Only God is absolutely incorporeal and existing without a body, as Origen

explicitly declares in princ. 2.2,2. In addition to this and other Latin passages,
including princ. 1.1,1–5, God’s absolute incorporeality is emphasised by Origen
also in works preserved in Greek, such as his Commentary on John and Against
Celsus.119 In Jo. 20.18,159, in a polemic against a materialistic conception of God
(common to princ. 1.1,1–5), Origen describes Being in the proper and principal
sense, namely God, as absolutely incorporeal (φύσιν ἀόρατον καὶ ἀσώματον […]
οὖσαν κυρίως οὐσίαν), as did Plato, Apuleius, and the Refutation of All Heresies
or Philosophoumena attributed to Origen.120 Origen sides again with those
(Platonists) who identify the κυρίως οὐσία as absolutely incorporeal: “Ousia in
its primary sense [κυρίως οὐσία] is regarded as incorporeal by the philosophers
who consider as permanent reality that of incorporeal realities [τῶν ἀσωμάτων
ὑπόστασιν], which has an unalterable existence without increase or decrease;
for omitting of increase or decrease is typical of corporeal realities, liable to
change.”121 Origen argues here against those philosophers who deemed the
κυρίως οὐσία corporeal, mainly the Stoics: not accidentally, Origen reports ideas
of Chrysippus and Posidonius. Origen’s principle that God is absolutely incor-
poreal may have been influenced by Aristotle’s tenet that eternal things cannot
have matter as an element of their substance.122 Complaining that “the theory
of Being is large and extremely difficult” (πολὺς δ’ ὁ περὶ τῆς οὐσίας λόγος καὶ
δυσθεώρητος καὶ μάλιστα), Origen speaks again of κυρίως οὐσία as permanent
and incorporeal: ἐὰν ἡ κυρίως οὐσία ἡ ἑστῶσα καὶ ἀσώματος ᾖ; he adds that God
may transcend Being (ἐπέκεινα οὐσίας) or may be Being but incorporeal.123

119 E.g., Or., Cels. 1.15 on God ἀσώματος already according to Numenius; Cels. 6.64 and 7.27
on God called ‘invisible’ in Scripture, meaning “incorporeal” (so also Or., princ., praef. 9;
1.1,6; fr. in Jo. 13: intelligible things are called in Scripture ‘invisible’); Cels. 7.38: on God
as “Intellect, or beyond Intellect and Being, simple, invisible, and incorporeal” (ἀσώμα-
τον); Cels. 7.66 again on God “invisible and incorporeal”; same equation in Jo. 13.22,132;
13.23,139; fr. in Jo. 13.13 on God’s ἀσωματότης; fr. in Rom. (Vindob.Gr. 166) 6: God is spirit
and incorporeal (exactly what Origen argues in princ. 1.1,1–5, whose authenticity is thus
confirmed); schol. in Mt. (PG 17, 309,52): God ἀσώματος. The same polemic as in princ.
1.1,1–5 against a materialistic view of God emerges again in Cels. 6.71, where the incorpo-
reality of God extends to God’s Logos—Wisdom, as in Jo. 1.34,244; 2.32,195. Cf. Cels. 3.47
against materialists who do not admit of invisible, i.e. incorporeal, realities (εἴτε λεγόμενον
ἀόρατον εἴτ’ ὀνομαζόμενον ἀσώματον). On God’s incorporeality also princ., praef. 8; hom. in
Gen. 1.13; 3.1; 8.10; hom. in Num. 23.2; dial. 12; or. 23.3.
120 Pl. ap. D.L. 3.77; Apul., Plat. 1.5; (Ps.)Or., philosoph. 1.19,3.
121 Or., or. 27.8.
122 Arist., Metaph. Θ8.1050b6–28; GC 1.4; S. Fazzo, Heavenly Matter in Aristotle, Metaphysics
Lambda 2, in: Phron. 58 (2013), 160–175 (173f.).
123 Or., Cels. 6.64: Oὐσία […] ἀσώματος. Origen famously held together the description of God
as Being (and Nous) or above Being (and Nous). I am not entering here this important
issue, which will be discussed in a specific work on Origen’s philosophical theology.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 55

Origen highlights his tenet of the absolute incorporeality of God alone in

some other loci, including some preserved in Greek, and of undoubtable pater-
nity, such as Cels. 6.17: he criticises the Stoic tenet that the first principles of all,
the ἀρχαί, are corporeal, including the highest God and God’s Logos, identified
as “material spirit”. Origen replies that God, God’s Logos, and “rational souls”—
but not rational creatures—are immaterial.124 This also explains his apophatic
theology: God, the Son—Logos—Wisdom, and the Spirit are “difficult to per-
ceive” because of their transcendency.125
Origen hammers home very clearly that God alone is incorporeal while all
creatures are corporeal: “I cannot understand how so many substances could
live and subsist without a body, whereas it is a prerogative of God alone, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, to live without material substance and any union with
corporeal elements. Therefore, one may say that in the end every corporeal
substance will be so purified as to be understood as ethereal and endowed with
heavenly purity and integrity”.126 On the basis of 1 Cor 7:31 and Isa 65:17, Origen
in the same passage argues that there will be “not a total destruction or anni-
hilation of the material substance, but a certain change of quality and trans-
formation of habit”, the transformation of bodies from mortal into spiritual.127
Origen uses a syllogism to argue that it is impossible for any creature to live
without a body: if any can, then all will be able to do so, but in that case corpo-
real substance would be useless; therefore, it would not exist. Which is not the
case. As a consequence, all creatures must have a body.128 Against the possibil-
ity for a creature to live without a body, Origen argues from 1 Cor 15:53: “This
corruptible being must necessarily put on incorruptibility; this mortal being
must put on immortality”:

The expressions “this corruptible being” and “this mortal being”, said with the
deictic tone of one who touches and indicates, what else do they fit, if not cor-
poreal matter? This same corporeal matter, which is now corruptible, will put on
incorruptibility, when the perfect soul, instructed on the incorruptible truths,
begins to make use of the body […] When this body, which one day we shall
have glorious, will participate in life, then it will attain what is immortal, and
therefore will also become incorruptible […] What else will incorruptibility and

124 Or., Cels. 6.17.

125 Or., Cels. 6.69f. This also confirms that the Spirit and the Son are God, an important tenet
of Origen’s theology. See I.L.E. Ramelli, Origen’s Anti-Subordinationism and Its Heritage in
the Nicene and Cappadocian Line, in: VigChr 65 (2011), 21–49; ead., The Father in the Son,
the Son in the Father ( John 10:38, 14:10, 17:21). Sources and Reception of Dynamic Unity in
Middle and Neoplatonism, “Pagan” and Christian, in: JBR 7 (2020), 31–66.
126 Or., princ. 1.6,4.
127 Non omnimodis exterminatio vel perditio substantiae materialis sed immutatio quaedam
qualitatis atque habitus transformatio.
128 Or., princ. 2.3,2.
56 Ilaria Ramelli

immortality be if not God’s Wisdom, Logos, and Justice, which will inform the
soul, wrap and adorn it?129

Origen anticipates an objection in § 3, which comes from adversaries such as

most “pagan” Neoplatonists and some “Gnostics”, who thought that noes can
live without body: “However, those who believe that rational creatures can
live without a body may here object”—and the objection follows. But Origen
repeatedly ruled this out, by claiming that only God—the Trinity can live in-
corporeally: “No one is invisible, incorporeal, immutable, beginningless and
endless […] but the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit.”130 Again, “The
Trinity’s substance […] is neither corporeal nor endowed with a body, but it
is fully incorporeal.”131 The mention of the three Hypostases/Persons of the
Trinity must not cast suspicion on the authenticity of these passages trans-
lated into Latin. They need not at all be interpolations by Rufinus, since Origen
himself devoted the very first three chapters of Περὶ ἀρχῶν to the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, the three hypostases that he identified with the three
ἀρχαί, after which his masterpiece is entitled,132 and explicitly used Τριάς for
the Trinity in Greek works of indisputable attribution, such as: “the adorable
Trinity”133; “the sovereign Trinity, principle of all”134, etc.135 Τριάς was employed

129 Or., princ. 2.3,2f.

130 N  ullus inuisibilis, nullus incorporeus, nullus immutabilis, nullus sine initio et sine fine […]
nisi Pater cum Filio et Spiritu sancto (Or., hom. in Ex. 6.5,21–24).
131 Or., princ. 4.3,15.
132 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism. Re-Thinking the
Christianisation of Hellenism, in: VigChr 63 (2009), 217–263; ead., Origen, Greek Philosophy,
and the Birth of the Trinitarian Meaning of Hypostasis, in: HTR 105 (2012), 302–350; further
research in a work on Origen in preparation.
133 Or., Jo. 6.33,166: Tῆς προσκυνητῆς Tριάδος.
134 Or., comm. in Mt. 15.31: Tῆς ἀρχικῆς τριάδος, exactly corresponding to the earlier archiken
Trinitatem in Or., princ. 1.4,3.
135 Jo. 10.39,270: the eternal Trinity (αἰωνίῳ τῇ Tριάδι); fr in Jo. 20.30: God the Trinity (θεὸν
[…] τὴν Tριάδα); 36.42: τῆς ἁγίας Tριάδος; Sel.Gen. (PG 12.125): τῆς ἁγίας Τριάδος; sel. in
Num. (PG 12.581): τῆς ἁγίας Τριάδος; sel. in Ps. (PG 12.1229,28): ἡ ἁγία Τριὰς ἥτις ἄρχεται
τῶν κτισμάτων; ibid. 1265,24; 1280,23; 1369,4; 1465,40; 1481,38; 1656,11; 1673,10; 1677,10; fr. in
Ps. 37.22f.: τὴν ἁγίαν Τριάδα; 64.5,6: τῆς Τριάδος; 70.14: ἡ γνῶσις τῆς Τριάδος; 72.23: τὴν ἁγίαν
γινώσκων Τριάδα; 118.65f.: γνῶσις δέ ἐστιν ἡ θεωρία τῆς Τριάδος (corresponding to princ.
2.11,7: spiritual food is theoria et intellectus Dei); 138.7: τὴν ἁγίαν τριάδα; 144.3: τῆς ἁγίας
Τριάδος ἡ γνῶσίς ἐστιν ἀπέραντος; 144.13: ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ Τριάδι; fr. in Is. 302.29: οἱ πρότεροι ἥψαντο
μὲν τῆς Tριάδος, οὐ μὴν καθαρῶς; exp. in Pr. (PG 17.196): ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων εἰς τὸ εἶναι παραγαγοῦ-
σα Τριὰς ἁγία; (PG 17.221): τῆς ἁγίας Τριάδος, etc. Not to count the repeated use of Τριάς in
the dubious Codex Sabaiticus 232: “The name Trinity [τῆς Τριάδος ὀνομασία] is necessary,
otherwise one mutilates that of theology itself [κολοβὸν ποιεῖ τὸ τῆς θεολογίας]”. If one
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 57

earlier only by Theophilus.136 Rufinus is therefore reliable in his translation

of the loci in which Origen claimed that only the Trinity can live absolutely
without body.
Unlike the Trinity, rational creatures always need a body, fleshly or spiritual,
as Origen repeatedly claims. The spiritual body, “the body of the soul”, cannot
be seen by physical eyes, qua intermediate between the solid mortal body and
the soul, which is immaterial per se.137 As long as rational creatures exist, there
has been and there will be matter, for them to make use of the “corporeal gar-
ment/tunic” they need.138 Now, they need it since they are mutable from their
creation: their goodness or evilness are not essential, but accidental; “owing to
this mutability and convertibility, the rational nature necessarily had to use a
corporeal garment of different kind, having this or that quality according to
the deserts of rational creatures.”139 The only being who does not need such a
garment that changes qualities is God, because God is immutable. Therefore,
noes were equipped with a body from the beginning of their substantial exis-
tence, when God created both them and matter:140

The intelligible nature must necessarily use bodies, because, in that it is created,
it is subject to movement and alteration. For what was not and began to exist is
for this very reason mutable by nature and does not possess good or evil sub-
stantially, but accidentally […] The rational nature was liable to movement and
alteration, so that, according to its deserts, it could be endowed with a different
body, of this or that quality. This is why God, who knew in advance what the
different conditions of souls or spiritual powers might be, created the corpo-
real nature as well, which, according to the Creator’s will, could be transformed,
changing qualities, as required by the situation.141

God created matter at the same time as rational creatures: “When Scripture
states that God created all ‘by number and measure’, we shall be correct to refer
‘number’ to rational creatures or intellects [logika, noes] […] and ‘measure’ to

removes the Spirit, or the Son, theology is incomplete, since God is “consubstantial Trinity
[Τριάδα ὁμοούσιον]”.
136 Thphl. Ant., Autol. 1.3; 2.15.
137 Or., Cels. 2.61f.
138 Corporeal matter tamdiu necesse est permanere quamdiu permanent ea, quae eius indigent
indumento. Semper autem erunt rationabiles naturae, quae indigeant indumento corporeo;
semper ergo erit et natura corporea, cuius indumentis uti necesse est rationabiles creatur-
as (Or., princ. 4.4,8). In Or., Jo. 1.17,97 Origen observes that it must be determined whether
the saints live a totally immaterial and incorporeal life (ἄϋλον πάντη καὶ ἀσώματον); he is
not stating that they will.
139 Or., princ. 4.4,8.
140 In a creatio ex nihilo maintained also later, in Or., Cels. 4.60.
141 Or., princ. 4.4,8.
58 Ilaria Ramelli

bodily matter […] These are the things we must believe were created by God in
the beginning, before anything else.”142
In an original Greek text that reflects Origen’s debate with a “pagan” Middle
Platonist, Origen likewise claims that the soul, albeit incorporeal in itself, al-
ways needs a body that is suited to the place or state in which it happens to be,
according to its spiritual progress,143 so that “now it puts off [ἀπεκδυσαμένη] a
body that was necessary before,144 but is now useless for its new state, and it
goes on to wear another; now it assumes [ἐπενδυσαμένη] another body over/
after the one it had before, needing a better covering [κρείττονος ἐνδύματος],
suited to the purer, ethereal, heavenly places [εἰς τοὺς καθαρωτέρους καὶ αἰθερί-
ους καὶ οὐρανίους τόπους].”145 This use of “bodies” that are superimposed to the
older ones or put off may suggest a plurality of bodies for one soul, but this im-
agery must be contextualised in the debate with the “pagan” Platonist Celsus,
and should be read in reference to a change of qualities of the same body to
which a soul is joined, since the stress lies on the different qualities one’s body
must have according to the progress of the soul.146 Souls, indeed, must always
use a body, even after death.147 Risen bodies will be assigned by God “according
to each one’s deserts”.148
Origen often repeats that souls’ bodies must be adapted, with the necessary
qualities, to their spiritual progress. For example: “A soul that inhabits corpo-
real places must necessarily make use of such bodies that are suited to the
places [corporibus talibus quae apta sint his locis] in which it dwells”; “the soul,
when in a material place, needs a body suited to its nature […] we need a body
because we are in a material place/condition; therefore, it must be of the same
nature as the nature of the material place, whatever this is […] although, to
know God, we need no body”.149 Thus, for a sojourn in “the dwelling place of

142 Or., princ. 2.9,1. S. Fernández, La fine e la Genesi. Rapporto tra escatologia e protologia nel
De principiis, in: Adamantius 23 (2017), 167–180 concurs with Ramelli, Preexistence of
Souls?, 2015, 219–241, that matter was created at the beginning and will be transformed,
not abolished, in the end.
143 Or., Cels. 7.32: ἡ τῇ ἑαυτῆς φύσει ἀσώματος καὶ ἀόρατος ψυχὴ ἐν παντὶ σωματικῷ τόπῳ τυγχά-
νουσα δέεται σώματος οἰκείου τῇ φύσει τῷ τόπῳ ἐκείνῳ.
144 This may refer to the spiritual body, which, after the fall, turns into a heavier, mortal body.
145 Or., Cels. 7.32.
146 In the same passage, indeed, Origen speaks of “putting off the afterbirth”, which does not
mean that at birth a human has a different body than when it was a foetus: indeed, he also
speaks in the same way, of “putting on incorruptibility”, which means that one’s body will
become immortal, not that one takes up a new body.
147 Kαὶ ἐν τῇ ἀπαλλαγῇ σώματι χρῆται ἡ ψυχή (Or. ap. Method., res., ap. Phot., cod. 234; 301a).
148 Or., Cels. 5.19.
149 Or., comm. in Ps. 1 ap. Pamph. Caes., apol. 141; Or., Cels. 7.32–33.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 59

the blessed”, the soul will possess a luminous body; for a sojourn in the tor-
ments of hell, it will have a body adapted to suffering.150
This correlation between the state of a soul and the qualities of its body was
also supported by Plotinus: “Since there are many places for each, as well as
many bodies, the difference between them must come from the disposition of
the soul, as well as from the justice in the nature of things.”151 But the difference
between Plotinus and Origen seems to be that only the latter stuck to the unity
of one soul and one body, if Plotinus accepted the transmigration of souls into
different bodies, what Origen refused to do.
Rational creatures’ bodies, in Origen’s view, change their qualities according
to the moral state of the noes themselves. Even souls can become, metaphori-
cally, thicker or more subtle, depending on their moral choices: “the soul who
sins becomes thicker […] just as sin thickens a soul, so virtue, on the contrary,
makes a soul finer […] the sinner’s soul will thicken, and, so to say, will become
fleshly […] Scripture no doubt calls ‘flesh’ the souls that are thicker and sin-
ners. If, then, a soul thickens to the point of becoming ‘flesh’, God’s work is to
have it consume, and to destroy all that which is made of thicker matter and
wraps up the soul, so as to erode and erase the fleshly way of thinking, and thus
finally recall the soul to the refined intelligence of the heavenly and invisible
things […] We, who have embodied and thickened our own soul […] should
leave flesh.”152 Origen sometimes identifies “flesh” with sin, more ethically, in a
Pauline sense; sometimes, more materially, with the heavy body, with its cares
and necessities: “in this world […] we are weighted down by the burden of the
flesh. Even against our will, we are attacked by the lusts of the flesh and op-
pressed by its cares and anxieties […] physical necessity turns our attention to
food, drink, or sleep, and makes us anxious about the necessities of this life”:
only at restoration we shall be free from hunger, thirst, sleep, or labour, but we
shall be always watchful like the angels.153 For the angels do have a body, as
seen, but spiritual, not mortal.
That Origen contemplates the changes of qualities of the one single body
of one soul, instead of the change of several bodies for one soul, is clear in

150 Or., Res. 2, ap. Pamph. Caes., apol. 134: qui beatius hic uixerit, corpus eius in resurrectione
diuiniore splendore fulgebit, et apta ei mansio beatorum tribuetur locorum; hic uero qui in
malitia consumpsit tempus sibi uitae praesentis indultum, tale dabitur corpus quod sufferre
et perdurare tantum modo possit in poenis.
151 Plot., Enn. 4.3,24.
152 Hom. 2 in Ps. 38.8.
153 Or., hom. in Num. 23.11.
60 Ilaria Ramelli

many places.154 Origen attributed to “experts” (δεινοί) the theory that, at one’s
resurrection, “the material part remains, while qualities change into incorrup-
tion” (τῶν ποιοτήτων μεταβαλλουσῶν εἰς ἀφθαρσίαν),155 although he slightly cor-
rects this formulation, based on Biblical terminology: corruptible nature does
not “change” (μεταβαλλούσης) into incorruptible, but “puts on” incorruptibility
(ἐνδυομένης, Jo. 13.61,430). The matter of one’s body changes qualities according
to the place and state of the soul: there is only one soul and one body.
Origen observes that the Bible and the apostolic teaching have left the origin
of souls, and therefore their relation to bodies, unclarified.156 Therefore, it is
necessary to research whether the soul is incorporeal, whether it is simple or
composed of two, three, or more parts, and whether it is created;157 the same
issues were considered by Plotinus.158 While investigating the soul’s relation to
the body, and thus the question of the unicity of soul and body, Origen rejects
both traducianism and the infusion of a soul in a baby’s body formed in the
mother’s womb.159 When Origen denies that the soul is created “when the body
appears to be moulded”, so as to give the impression of being created simply to
animate the body, he is speaking of the mortal body—as is manifest from the ref-
erence to the moulding—not of the body tout court.160 The hypothesis of the
creation of the soul after the mortal body is dismissed by Origen as ridiculous;
thus he passes on to another hypothesis: “or the soul was created long before
[prius et olim facta] and then, on account of some cause, it must be thought
to have assumed a body. And if one must believe that the soul is compelled
to this for some reason, what is this reason?” Again, speaking of assuming a
body, he means here the mortal body, not the spiritual body, as is evident from
immediately before: “Job affirms that every human life is a shadow on earth,161

154 See argument in I.L.E. Ramelli, The Dialogue of Adamantius. A Document of Origen’s
Thought? Part One, in: StPatr 52 (2012), 71–98; Part Two, in: StPatr 56 (2013), 227–273;
ead., Matter in the Dialogue of Adamantius. Origen’s Heritage and Hylomorphism, in:
J. Zachhuber (ed.), Cosmology in Late Ancient Thought, Leiden 2020, forthcoming.
155 This will be later what Gregory of Nyssa maintained.
156 Or., princ. praef. 5.
157 Or., Cant. 2.5,21f.
158 On his complex, heuristic doctrine of the parts of the soul see F. Karfík, Parts of the Soul
in Plotinus, in: K. Corcilius / D. Perler (eds.), Partitioning the Soul. Debates from Plato to
Leibniz, Berlin 2014, 107–148.
159 Indeed, when Methodius rejects traducianism, the theory that semen passed on the soul,
which for him comes from God while the seed is soulless (Meth., symp. 2.3,37; 2.4,38–40;
2.5,43f.; 2.7,47), I suspect that he was, as in other cases (including apokatastasis), once
again under the influence of Origen.
160 U  trum nuper creata veniat et tunc primum facta cum corpus videtur esse formatum, ut
causa facturae eius animandi corporis necessitas exstitisse credatur (Or., Cant. 2.5,23).
161 Job 8:9.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 61

I think because every soul in this life is shadowed by the veil of this thick body
[velamento crassi huius corporis]”162.
Their very bodies, initially spiritual, enabled rational creatures’ movements
and diversification of wills. Indeed, Origen is clear that “there cannot be diver-
sity without bodies”163. The world, thus, became varied thanks to “the variety
and difference of movements and falls of those who have abandoned the ini-
tial unity”164. Initially, rational creatures and their immortal bodies are created:
matter for these bodies was made by God, for rational creatures to be equipped
with their vehicles (making their movements of will possible) from the be-
ginning of their existence as substances and their self-determining, through
movements of freewill. The world became diversified when the logika began
to diversify their wills, turning them away from the only Good: “the Creator
of the universe, receiving all those germs and causes of variety and diversi-
ty, according to the diversity of the intellects [mentes], i.e. rational creatures
[rationabiles creaturae][…], rendered the world varied and diversified.”165
Throughout their existence, rational creatures have a body, for their “move-
ments”. Only for the eventual θέωσις did Origen ponder the possibility that
“becoming God” will entail for noes to become bodiless, like God.166 This
would happen after the resurrection of the body, which Origen supported in
the form of a transformation and improvement of qualities, from the mortal
to the risen body (which guarantees, once again, the unity of one soul and one
body). Moreover, incorporeality in the eventual “deification” is but one of two
alternative hypotheses; the other is the preservation of the spiritual body of
the resurrection:

Either we shall be able to live without a body when all will be subject to Christ
and, through Christ, to God the Father, and “God will be all in all”, or, even when
all will be subject to Christ and through Christ to God the Father, with whom it
will form one spirit, because rational natures are spirit, even then the corporeal
substance will continue to stick to the purest and most perfect spirits, and, trans-
formed into an ethereal state, will shine forth in proportion to the merits and
conditions of those who assume it.167

Elsewhere, Origen indeed emphasises that noes will maintain a spiritual body
after the resurrection, in the eventual restoration: “We must believe that all

162 Or., Cant. 2.5,16.

163 Or., princ. 2.1,4.
164 Or., princ. 2.1,1.
165 Or., princ. 2.9,2.
166 Or., princ. 3.6,1; 2.3,3–5.
167 Or., princ. 2.3,7.
62 Ilaria Ramelli

of this corporeal substance of ours will be brought to that state, when every
being will be restored to be one and the same thing168 and ‘God will be all
in all’169 […] Once all rational souls will have been brought to this condition,
then the nature of this body of ours, too, will be brought to the glory of the
spiritual body.”170 The complete obliteration of bodies, even spiritual bodies,
is not needed, because creatures will not become God ontologically, insofar as
the final “unity” and “deification” will be, not a kind of pantheism, but partici-
pation in divine life and a unity of will (the “movements” of will of all rational
creatures shall be all directed towards God).171
As anticipated, Origen maintained that the risen body will be the same as
each one’s mortal body in its metaphysical substance or form (so as to pre-
serve the unity of one soul and one body), but with different qualities (he will
be followed closely by the Dialogue of Adamantius and by Gregory Nyssen in
this respect), whereas the same matter underlies all bodies if considered with-
out qualities and form.172 The qualities of the risen body seem to be similar to
those of the light, immortal body with which rational creatures were endowed
at the beginning of their substantial creation.
The continuity of a body’s individual identity through transformations—
such as that from the initially spiritual and immortal body to the mortal one
and then to the risen body—is guaranteed by an immutable metaphysical
form (εἶδος): “each body is endowed with its individual form”173. This enables,
again, the unity of one soul and one body in Origen’s view. The resurrected
body’s individual identity is the same as that of the mortal body (so that it is
not two different bodies, but the same body), but the former will have much
better qualities: “The same metaphysical form [speciem = Gr. εἶδος] endures in
us from childhood to old age […] and it will remain the same [ipsam permans-
uram] also in the future, though there will be an enormous change into a better
and more glorious body [plurima immutatione in melius et gloriosius]”, which
means that what changes are the qualities, but not the identity of the body,
warranted by the metaphysical form. Indeed, Origen continues: “However,
the metaphysical form [species] will not be destroyed, although it will turn

168 Cf. John 17:21.

169 1 Cor 15 28.
170 Or., princ. 3.6,6.
171 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Christian Doctrine, 2013, chapter on Origen; further arguments will be
offered in a work in preparation.
172 Or., Cels. 4.56f. and elsewhere. See my Dialogue of Adamantius, 2012–2013.
173 Or., princ. 2.10,2. Origen on the form of the body that is kept: Epiph., haer. 64.14,1–6;
cf. 64.17,1–10.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 63

into more glorious”.174 It will become more glorious because it will become,
among else, immortal. It seems that, unlike Plato and other Platonists, Origen
and Plotinus shared the notion of individual forms, namely a metaphysical
form (εἶδος, translated by Rufinus as species) for each individual: this explains
Origen’s concept of metaphysical form for each body, to ensure its continued
identity and avoid the idea of a transmigration of one soul into more bodies.
Alcinous reports that individual forms were rejected by Socrates, Plato, and
most Platonists,175 but Origen and Plotinus supported them.176 Indeed, the no-
tion of the εἶδος / λόγος of a single individual may find a striking parallel in
Plotinus: the latter’s Enn. 5.7,1, which speaks of different logoi for different indi-
viduals, has induced scholars such as Kalligas to postulate that Plotinus posited
a Form for each individual.177 According to Origen, these forms are ab aeterno
in the divine Logos—Wisdom, Christ, the Mind of God.178 Among these, there
appear to be the metaphysical forms—ideas of each nous or logikon (intellec-
tual, rational creature) and that of its body, which is one.
Origen polemicises against the “base and mean” idea of a resurrection with-
out transformation, and claims that in the body there is a principle (λόγος,
translated as ratio) which contains the body’s substance or essence (substantia,
probably Gr. οὐσία or perhaps ὑπόστασις or εἶδος), which will restore the body
(ratio reparandi), transforming it from psychic to spiritual.179 As Origen was
aware, Paul taught the resurrection of the body into a spiritual (πνευματικόν)
body.180 Origen’s teaching is that of the resurrection as transformation from

174 Comm. in Ps. 1 (ap. Pamph. Caes., apol. 141).

175 Alcin., didask. 9.2.
176 Plotinus at least in Plot., Enn. Treatise 5.7. On individual forms in Aristotle and possible in-
fluence on Origen: D. Konstan / I.L.E. Ramelli, Aristotle on Individual Forms. The Grammar
of Metaphysics Lambda 5, 1071 a 27–29’, in: CQ 56 (2006), 105–112; I.L.E. Ramelli, Origen’s
Critical Reception of Aristotle. Some Key Points and Aftermath in Christian Platonism, in:
M. Knezevic (ed.), Aristotle in Byzantium, Alhambra 2020, 1–43.
177 Possibly, this is identifiable with its soul: See P. Kalligas, Forms of Individuals in Plotinus,
in: Phron 42 (1997), 206–227.
178 I.L.E. Ramelli, The Logos/Nous One-Many between “Pagan” and Christian Platonism, in:
StPatr 102 (2020), 175–204.
179 Or., princ. 2.10,3.
180 On which see, e.g., Andrew Pitts, Paul’s Concept of the Resurrection Body in 1 Corinthians
15:35–38, in: S. Porter / D. Yoon (eds), Paul and Gnosis, Pauline Studies 6, Leiden 2016,
44–58; M. Finney, Resurrection, Hell and the Afterlife. Body and Soul in Antiquity, Judaism
and Early Christianity, London 2016, 161, 180, and passim argues that Paul did not be-
lieve in the physical body’s resurrection, in line with Hellenistic Judaism; vs. H. Tronier,
The Corinthian Correspondence between Philosophical Idealism and Apocalypticism, in:
T. Engberg-Pedersen (ed.), Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide, Louisville 2001, 165–
196. T. Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul, Oxford 2010, deems Paul’s
64 Ilaria Ramelli

flesh to spirit within the same body, so that a fleshly, mortal body becomes a
spiritual body. Again, the unity of one soul and one body is kept.
Gregory of Nyssa followed and developed Origen’s thought, in this as in
other cases, and clearly stuck to the principle of the unity of one soul and one
body. He likely had Origen’s theory in mind when claiming that the mortal
body changes continuously, but its εἶδος remains unchanged, while the intel-
lectual soul, which alone is in the image of God (θεοειδές), is not joined by na-
ture to the material ὑποκείμενον, which is always in flux, but to the εἶδος, which
is “stable and always identical to itself”181. Origen already identified God’s
image in a human with “the rational soul, which has the capacity for virtue”.182
Gregory qualifies the union of soul and body in the human being as the union
of the intellectual soul, the only bearer of the divine image, and the substantial
form (εἶδος) of the body, as opposed to its material ever-changeable substra-
tum (ὑποκείμενον, the same term used for matter by Origen and by Plotinus183).
Here, Gregory is appropriating Origen’s ideas and terminology. Both de-
scribed the material substratum as continuously in flux. Origen called mortal
bodies ῥευστά, “in perpetual flux”.184 This is why he denounced that if some
imagined that the earthly flesh will rise again, they did so “either out of poverty
of intellect or due to lack of instruction”.185 This Origen cannot accept, albeit
maintaining the individual identity of the earthly flesh and the risen body. For
it would be unworthy of God if “those long dead will rise up from the earth
and live in the same bodies without undergoing any change for the better”.186
The resurrection will change our body into something more glorious, more
spiritual.187

“spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44–46) a body composed of (Stoically physical) pneuma, distinct
from that of flesh ensouled (ψυχικόν). Paul often opposes “flesh’, a carnal mentality, to
Spirit (Gal 3:3; 5:19–26; Rom 8:6.12–14), but also pneumatikoi and psykhikoi (1 Cor 2:13–15).
Contra Pedersen’s astral immortality in Paul: J. Ware, The Salvation of Creation. Seneca
and Paul on the Future of Humanity and of the Cosmos, in: J. Dodson / D. Briones (eds.),
Paul and Seneca in Dialogue, Ancient Philosophy & Religion 2, Leiden 2017, 285–306
(296–306). Paul also has the anthropological category of νοῦς, alongside those of σῶμα
and ψυχή. See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, The Reception of Paul’s Nous in the Christian Platonism of
Origen and Evagrius, in: eds J. Frey / M. Nägele, Der νοῦς bei Paulus im Horizont griechischer
und hellenistisch-jüdischer Anthropologie, WUNT, Tübingen 2021, also for Paul’s impact
on Origen in this regard.
181 Gr. Nyss., hom. op. 27.3: ἀμετάβλητον.
182 Or., Cels. 7.66.
183 On Origen, see I.L.E. Ramelli, Matter, forthcoming; on Plot., Enn. 2.4.
184 E.g. Or., Jo. 13.33,204 and or. 27.8.
185 Or., princ. 2.10,3.
186 Or., Cels. 5.18.
187 Or., dial. 10f.; 16–24: Tὸ πνευματικώτερον.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 65

To account for the individual identity between the mortal and the risen
body, and to adhere to the unity of soul and body, like Origen, also Gregory of
Nyssa used the notion of the body’s εἶδος. As anticipated, this principle, which
remained unaltered, was also called by Origen λόγος οr λόγος σπέρματος,188
which seems to echo the Stoic λόγος σπερματικός. For Origen, “at the resurrec-
tion the saints’ bodies will be far more glorious than those which they had in
the present life, but they will not be other bodies than these.”189 Being “far more
glorious” entails an improvement in quality, but the individual continuity of
each single body is maintained, so that each body can keep its unity with its
soul. What rises, indeed, is “this same body which is left dead”.190 In his treatise
De resurrectione, Origen used εἶδος and λόγος to indicate a body’s immutable
metaphysical form or principle and its immanent counterpart. This form re-
mains unaltered at the resurrection, thus guaranteeing the body’s individual
continuity.
In an extract from Book 2 of Origen’s De resurrectione, preserved by Pamphilus,
λόγος, in this sense, is translated by Rufinus as ratio, ratio substantialis, and ratio
substantiae: “The logos [ratio] that contains Paul’s substance [substantiam]—
I mean that of Paul’s body—endures unaltered […] Now, thanks to that same
logos of the substance [substantialem rationem] which endures unaltered,
from the dust of the earth the dead are resurrected from everywhere, because
the above-mentioned logos of the corporeal substance [ratio illa substantiae
corporalis] will have remained in their bodies, which, fallen onto the earth,
will be resurrected by God’s will.”191 In the original Greek, Origen was probably
using here, as elsewhere, λόγος τῆς οὐσίας, originally an Aristotelian expres-
sion for “definition of essence”.192 In an excerpt from Origen’s Commentary
on Psalms, preserved by Pamphilus and dealing with the preservation of the
body’s metaphysical form at the resurrection, εἶδος is translated as species.193
Now, Gregory followed Origen when claiming that after death the soul keeps
a memory of the structure of its body, so as to be able to reconstitute it at the
resurrection—which is a further factor in his view of the unity of one soul and

188 Or., Cels. 5.23: the body’s logos is indestructible and from it the earthly body will be raised
in incorruption; Cels. 7.32: there is a λόγος σπέρματος in the body. See also H. Chadwick,
Origen, Celsus, and the Resurrection of the Body, in: HTR 61 (1948), 83–102.
189 Or., fr. in Lc 140 on Luke 9 28.
190 Or., res. 2; ap. Pamph. Caes., apol. 132: Hoc corpus quod mortuum relinquitur.
191 Pamph. Caes., apol. 130.
192 Arist., Cat. 1a2.
193 Pamph. Caes., apol. 141. This passage is also transmitted in Greek by Epiphanius (Epiph.,
haer. 64.14,6–9), who seems to have derived it from Methodius’ De resurrectione rather
than directly from Origen.
66 Ilaria Ramelli

one body (since, if the soul transmigrates through many bodies, which of them
will the soul reconstitute in the end?). For Origen already maintained that after
death the structure or metaphysical form (εἶδος) of the dissolved body will be
retained by the soul.194 Indeed, for Origen, who, like Plotinus, used both the
Platonic-Aristotelian lexicon (ἰδέαι, εἴδη, species, transcendent metaphysical
forms) and Stoic terminology (λόγοι, rationes, λόγοι τῆς οὐσίας, rationes sub-
stantiales, immanent manifestations of the forms), not only each body, but
also each creature has its own metaphysical form, idea, substance, rationale, or
paradigm.195 Each creature is the image and likeness of a heavenly, intelligible
paradigm, which is its ratio (λόγος); all visible i.e. sensible things bear a princi-
ple of knowledge of those invisible, i.e. intelligible (comm. in Cant. 3.13,10–17).
A passage of undisputed paternity and preserved in Greek extends the prin-
ciple of unity of one soul and one body, and maintains the continuity and iden-
tity of one’s body thought changes in quality, even in the case of Jesus. Origen
remarks that Jesus’ risen body was the same as his mortal body, but with its
qualities changed, so as to have no longer the properties of fleshly weakness:
“Matter, which is the substratum of all qualities [ὑποκειμένην πάσαις ποιότησιν
ὕλην],196 changes its qualities [ἀμείβειν ποιότητας]. Therefore, is it not possible
that Jesus’ flesh, too, has changed its qualities [ἀμείψασαν ποιότητας] and has
become such as it was necessary for it to be, in order to inhabit the ether and
the places even beyond it, without anything more of the fleshly weakness [τῆς
σαρκικῆς ἀσθενείας] and the characteristics that Celsus called ‘too contaminat-
ed’ [μιαρώτερα]?”197 Jesus’ risen body was the same as his mortal body, thus
ensuring the unity of one soul and one body; only, it had different qualities.
Rational creatures’ body before the fall was similar to Jesus’ risen body, and
such will human bodies be after the resurrection, each one keeping its indi-
vidual continuity with the mortal body, so as to preserve the unity between
one soul and one body. Origen indeed often hammers home that in the passage

194 A  p. Meth., res. 3.6,1.

195 See above concerning Origen’s and Plotinus’ idea of individual forms.
196 This appears to be in tension with the thesis that matter is just the combination of intel-
ligible qualities, mentioned in Or., princ. 2.4,7 and refuted by Plotinus (Enn. 2.4,[12.]11),
but famously supported by Nyssen (hom. opif. 28.209D–212A). According to C. Köckert,
Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie, STAC 56, Tübingen 2009, 291f., this
thesis belongs to Origen, since no reference to it exists before Origen. This would imply
that Plotinus was discussing Origen’s argument. See my review in: Aug. 52 (2012), 550–552
and discussion in Dialogue of Adamantius, 2012–2013, 252–255. Origen, however, in Or.,
Cels. 3.42 described matter as the substratum of qualities, and in Or., Cels. 4.56 as the sub-
stratum (ὑποκειμένη) of all bodies, but in itself ἄποιος; in Or., princ. 4.4,8 he had remarked
that only theoretically could matter be separated from its qualities.
197 Or., Cels. 3.42.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 67

from one’s mortal body to one’s risen body the individual identity will be
preserved:

We must not believe that this body, of which now we avail ourselves in dishon-
our, corruptibility, and weakness, is one, and another one will be that of which
we shall avail ourselves in glory, incorruptibility, and power, but it will be again
this same body, which, after shedding the present imperfections, will be trans-
formed into glory and will become a spiritual body, so that what was a cheap vase,
once purified, will become a precious vase,198 suitable for receiving beatitude.
And we must believe that in this condition it will always remain, without further
transformation, by will of the Creator, as Paul attests, saying: “We have an eternal
dwelling place in heaven, not made by human hands”199 […] the Apostle clearly
states that the dead who are resurrected will not be given other bodies, but will
receive these same bodies as they had on earth, though improved.200

Each human body will turn, with Pauline terminology, from psychic into spiri-
tual: “This same body which is called psychic because it serves the soul [ψυχή],
when the soul, united to God, will become one and the same spirit with God,
then it too will pass on to the spiritual condition.”201 In the last two loci quoted,
Origen intimates that the spiritual body will always remain, without disap-
pearing (“in this condition it will always remain”, in the former quotation).
Origen describes the turning of the mortal body into the resurrected one
as a change of qualities into a glorious, spiritual body: “A transformation has
come about as a consequence of death, but the substance of the flesh contin-
ues to exist, and by will of its creator at a certain moment will be brought to life
again and undergo another transformation. Thus, what first had been earthly
flesh, taken from earth,202 will be dissolved by death and reduced to dust and
earth […] but then it will be taken again out of the earth, and, yet later, accord-
ing to the deserts of the soul who inhabits it, will progress into the glory of the
spiritual body.”203
According to Nyssen, who followed Origen on this score, the risen body will
be composed of the same four elements as the mortal body. Origen had ruled
out the Aristotelian fifth element, as results not only from a Latin passage, but
also from two Greek ones. The Latin does not name the philosophers criti-
cised, i.e. the Aristotelians: “The Church’s faith does not accept the hypothesis
of some Greek philosophers [quosdam Graecorum philosophos] that besides

198 Rom 9:21.

199 2 Cor 5:1.
200 Or., princ. 3.6,6.
201 I bid. and reference to 1 Cor 6:17.
202 1 Cor 15:47.
203 1 Cor 15:44; Or., princ. 3.6,5.
68 Ilaria Ramelli

this body, which is composed of four elements [praeter hoc corpus quod ex
quattuor constat elementis], there exists another, fifth bodily element [aliud
quintum corpus], which is completely different from this body of ours.”204
Unlike this one, the first Greek passage, being a discussion with an imperial
Platonist, names the Aristotelians as opponents concerning the fifth element,
and praises the Platonists as those who do not add a fifth element—against
the Aristotelians―and maintain that matter always endures, through changes
of qualities.205
The second Greek locus comes again from his polemic against an imperial
Platonist: Origen is attacking Celsus for his doctrine of the transmigration of
human souls into animal bodies, based on the presupposition that only the
soul is God’s creature, while bodies have a different nature (σώματος δὲ ἄλλη
φύσις). Origen remarks that Celsus is inconsistent when he declares that the
heavenly, ethereal bodies are of a different nature than human and animal
bodies, beings not composed of the same four elements. Origen thus criticises
again the Aristotelian doctrine of the fifth element, observing that it was re-
jected by both the Platonists and the Stoics with good reason:

Celsus will take refuge in Aristotle and the Peripatetics [προσφεύξεται δὲ

Ἀριστοτέλει καὶ τοῖς ἀπὸ τοῦ Περιπάτου], who maintain that ether is immaterial
[ἄϋλον] and represents a fifth nature in addition to the four elements [πέμπτης
παρὰ τὰ τέσσαρα στοιχεῖα αὐτὸν εἶναι φύσεως]. But both the Platonists and the
Stoics refuted this theory with valid arguments [πρὸς ὃν λόγον οὐκ ἀγεννῶς καὶ
οἱ ἀπὸ Πλάτωνος καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς ἔστησαν]. And we (Christians) too, who are
despised by Celsus, will stand against it, requesting him to explain and interpret
the following words of the prophet: “The skies will be destroyed, You alone will
remain”.206

From this discussion, Origen concludes that an ethereal, heavenly body is not
different from the body of an animal or any other sublunar one.207 All matter,
on earth and in heaven, will pass away; only God remains, because, as said, God
is immaterial, unlike all creatures.
The nature of the resurrected body is also examined in princ. 2.10,1–3.
At 2.10,1 Origen states he will repeat some aspects of his books De resurrec-
tione (not preserved), for some people, “especially heretics”, who attacked
the Christian doctrine of the resurrection as “stupid and utterly ignorant”.

204 Or. princ. 3.6,6.

205 Or., Cels. 4.60.
206 Or., Cels. 4.56.
207 Mηδὲν διαφέρειν νυκτερίδος ἢ εὐλῆς ἢ βατράχου σῶμα τοῦ αἰθερίου σώματος.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 69

These were “Gnostics” who denied the resurrection of the body,208 as “pagan”
Neoplatonists or other “pagan” philosophers did. Others, not heretics but “sim-
ple”, among the Christians, misapprehended Origen’s theory of the resurrection,
as Origen laments in a discussion with an imperial Platonist: a naïve, popular
understanding of the resurrection has discredited this Jewish-Christian doc-
trine in the eyes of intellectually demanding people: “the mystery of the resur-
rection, having been misunderstood, is a byword and a laughing-stock with
unbelievers”.209 Similarly, in princ. 2.10,3 Origen disapproves of Christians who
had a “very defective and unrefined” idea of bodily resurrection (valde vile et
abiectum), owing to “scarce intelligence or interpretive poverty” (intellectus
exiguitate vel explanationis inopia). Thus, Origen calls for a refined, noble, and
philosophical interpretation of the resurrection of the body—not for the rejec-
tion of the body’s resurrection, as most “Gnostics” did. Origen, instead, wanted
to guarantee the unity of one soul and one body.
The dispute between Origen and some “Gnostics” (Valentinians) about the
resurrection is also reflected in the Dialogue of Adamantius, which in my view
reports, in Adamantius’ words, the ideas and even the exegetical strategies
of Origen himself.210 Exactly as Adamantius in this dialogue, Origen clarifies
1 Cor 15:44 (“A psychic body is sown, a spiritual body will rise”) by insisting on
the continuity between the earthly and the risen body and the transformation
of its qualities: “If it is the case that the bodies rise, and rise spiritual, then
there is no doubt that they rise from death having shed away corruptibility and
mortality […] The power and grace of the resurrection transform the psychic
body into a spiritual body, transporting it from a condition of indignity to one
of glory.”211 This continuity ensures the unity between one soul and one body.

208 “Gnostics” shared the apokatastasis theory with Origen, but with differences, e.g. they
excluded the resurrection of the body from it. See I.L.E. Ramelli, Apokatastasis in Coptic
Gnostic Texts from Nag Hammadi and Clement’s and Origen’s Apokatastasis, in: Journal
of Coptic Studies 14 (2012), 33–45; further ead., A Larger Hope? Universal salvation from
Christian beginnings to Julian of Norwich, Eugene, 2019, Appendix II; ead., Reply to Professor
Michael McClymond, in: TS 76 (2015), 827–835; ead., Review of Michael McClymond, The
Devil’s Redemption, Grand Rapids 2018, in: IJST 22 (2020), 240–249.
209 Or., Cels. 1.7.
210 Argument in I.L.E. Ramelli, The Dialogue of Adamantius. Preparing the Critical Edition and
a Reappraisal, in: RhM 62 (2019), 1–25.
211 Or., princ. 2.10,1.
70 Ilaria Ramelli

III. Gregory of Nyssa: The Unity of Soul and Body and the Heritage
of Origen

Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor criticised the doctrine of the
preexistence of disembodied souls. Their attacks have often been regarded as
a criticism of Origen’s ideas,212 but this is very probably a misleading inter-
pretation. I shall argue that Gregory’s criticism in fact aimed at other targets,
not Origen. Gregory appears to have been among the most insightful followers
of Origen and to have been well aware that Origen never supported the pre-
existence of disembodied souls, but rather maintained the unity of one soul
and one body throughout. In the passages from Gregory’s De anima et resur-
rectione and De hominis opificio usually considered to be attacks on Origen,
Gregory criticises metensomatosis and the preexistence of disembodied souls,
not Origen’s teaching. Gregory did not believe in the preexistence of souls to
bodies, but neither did Origen. For both of them stuck to the unity of soul and
body.
Indeed, Gregory maintains that a soul does not exist before its body, nor a
body before its soul.213 Now, already Origen supported this thesis. Gregory’s
discussion is interconnected with a refutation of metensomatosis—which
already Origen rejected—in hom. opif. 28 and anim. 108. Gregory’s polemic
against metensomatosis cannot be a criticism of Origen, who also rejected
metensomatosis and rather supported ensomatosis as his own Christian doc-
trine. Gregory expressly attaches the preexistence of disembodied souls to
those who supported metensomatosis, and his repeated reference to the loss
of the soul’s wings obviously points to Plato and his followers, who supported
metensomatosis.214
Indeed, Macrina’s argument, reported by Gregory with full approval
(Macrina is the hero of Gregory’s De anima et resurrectione, as Socrates was of

212 This habit seems to owe much to P. Koetschau, Origenes Werke 5: De Principiis, Leipzig
1913, 102. Among recent examples, G. Karamanolis, The Philosophy of Early Christianity,
Durham 2013, 203f.: “Origen’s doctrine of a preexisting and yet created soul was resisted by
later generations of Christian thinkers […] Gregory of Nyssa […] offers a comprehensive
and sophisticated theory of the soul, which challenges Origen’s”; T. Greggs, Barth, Origen,
and Universal Salvation. Restoring Particularity, Oxford 2009, Ch. 3 examines “the rela-
tionship between pre-existence and restoration in Origen’s soteriology”; 55: “pre-existent
souls”. On Maximus’ relation to Origen and Nyssen, see Ramelli, Apokatastasis, 2013,
738–757; now G. Steiris et alii (eds.), Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher,
Eugene 2017, esp. the contributions of Maximos Constas and others.
213 Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 28; anim. 121.
214 Gr. Nyss., anim. 108.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 71

Plato’s Phaedo, its model215), far from attacking Origen’s theory, is actually in
line with Origen’s ideas: “On our part, we maintain that around the soul there
comes to be constituted the same body as before, formed by the harmonic
union of the same elements; those people [i.e. the unnamed opponents], on
the contrary, think that the soul passes on to other bodies, of both rational
and irrational beings, and even beings deprived of sense-perception.”216 The
unnamed opponents cannot be Origen. The individual identity between the
mortal and the risen body, which Macrina supports, was already taught by
Origen, as seen. That the mortal and the risen body are composed of the same
four elements, although with different qualities, was already taught by Origen,
as pointed out earlier. And the reference to the transmigration of human souls
into other bodies, including those of animals and even plants, doubtlessly
rules out that Gregory was criticising Origen. Moreover, Gregory depicts the
soul’s fall into a mortal body as a result of the loss of its wings and the concur-
rence of the soul’s own sin and the coupling of two humans or animals, or the
sowing of a plant.217 This does not reflect Origen’s ideas either. Much earlier,
Lucretius lampooned the idea of souls that await their incarnation and watch
for the birth of babies to sneak into their bodies.218 An intermediate or a com-
mon source is possible. Of course, the theory ridiculed already by Lucretius,
and identical to Gregory’s criticism, cannot be that of the much later Origen.
Gregory’s reference to “those” (note the plural) who in the past have dealt
with the ἀρχαί is often viewed as a reference to Origen: “Some of those who
came before us, who have dealt with the issue of the ἀρχαί, thought that souls
preexist as a population in a state of their own.”219 In fact, this is a generic des-
ignation for protology or metaphysics. For example, the discussion περὶ ἀρχῶν,
“on the principles”, in Justin refers to the Stoics and Thales, definitely not to
Origen, who lived well after Justin.220 In Clement of Alexandria, the treatment
περὶ ἀρχῶν refers to Greek philosophers in general, again without reference to
Origen: Clement remarks that a mystery concerning the Saviour is concealed
in the Greeks’ theories “on metaphysics and theology”.221 Even considering

215 I.L.E. Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa sull’anima e la resurrezione, Milan 2007; ead., Gregory on
the Soul (and the Restoration). From Plato to Origen, in: A. Marmodoro / N. McLynn (eds.),
Exploring Gregory of Nyssa. Philosophical, Theological and Historical Studies, Oxford 2018,
110–141.
216 Gr. Nyss., anim. 108.
217 Gr. Nyss., anim. 116f.
218 Lucr., rer. nat. 3.776–781.
219 Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 28: Τοῖς μὲν γὰρ τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν δοκεῖ, οἷς ὁ περὶ τῶν ἀρχῶν ἐπραγματεύθη
λόγος, καθάπερ τινὰ δῆμον ἐν ἰδιαζούσῃ πολιτείᾳ τὰς ψυχὰς προϋφεστάναι λέγειν.
220 Just., 2 apol. 6(7),8; dial. 7.2.
221 Clem., q.d.s. 26.8; cf. Clem., str. 4.1,2; 5.14,140.
72 Ilaria Ramelli

περὶ ἀρχῶν to be a title (which is not granted), Gregory could easily refer to
many other works Περὶ ἀρχῶν, On First Principles, certainly not only that by
Origen. For example, there would be the Περὶ ἀρχῶν by Porphyry or Longinus,
both from Plotinus’ school. Porphyry, who knew Origen’s works,222 in his own
Περὶ ἀρχῶν supported the eternity of the intellect and metensomatosis. This
work by Porphyry, like other Middle and Neoplatonic works of this kind, cor-
responds to Gregory’s criticism much better than Origen’s work.
Furthermore, Gregory speaks of “some of those before us” (πρὸ ἡμῶν), not
“one of us” Christians. He is manifestly referring to thinkers who supported the
transmigration of souls and wrote on protology and metaphysics, the ἀρχαί.
These, as pointed out above, included also some Christians, although the main
target of Gregory seems to be constituted by “pagans”. He may refer to Plato
and “pagan” Platonists, such as Plotinus, who, like Numenius,223 taught the
transmigration of human souls even into animal bodies224 and dealt with the
ἀρχαί in his Enneads,225 and Porphyry, who wrote precisely a Περὶ ἀρχῶν, On
First Principles,226 and supported the transmigration of souls, perhaps extend-
ed to animal bodies. According to Augustine, Porphyry did not admit of the
transmigration of human souls into animals and believed that a soul, once pu-
rified from evil, could return to the Father and never experience metensomato-
sis anymore. If we credit Aeneas of Gaza, Iamblichus and Porphyry rejected a
literal reading of Plato’s notion of transmigration of human souls into animals,
since a rational soul cannot become irrational.227 According to Nemesius,
Iamblichus wrote a monograph on human souls’ transmigration into human
bodies and animal souls into animal bodies.228 Eusebius, well acquainted with
Porphyry’s writings, attributes to him the opinion that the souls of irrational

222 See I.L.E. Ramelli, Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism. Re-Thinking the
Christianisation of Hellenism, in: VigChr 63 (2009), 217–263; ead., Porphyry and the Motif
of Christianity as παράνομος, in: J.F. Finamore / T. Nejeschleba (eds.), Platonism and its
Legacy. Selected Papers from the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the International Society
for Neoplatonic Studies, Lydney 2019, 173–198; M.B. Simmons, Universal Salvation in
Late Antiquity. Porphyry of Tyre and the Pagan-Christian Debate, Oxford 2015, review in:
CJ 2017.05.02; ZAC 19 (2015), 512–515.
223 Numen. F48.10–14.
224 Plot., Enn. 3.4,2. Plotinus seems to have supported metensomatosis from a human to a
human and from a human to an animal (Plot., Enn. 1.1,11; 3.4,2; 4.3,8f.; 4.3,12; 5.2,2; 6.7,6f.);
for the latter kind, he might have spoken metaphorically.
225 Περὶ τῶν τριῶν ἀρχικῶν ὑποστάσεων, On the Three Hypostases That Are the First Principles, is
the title given by Porphyry to a core section of Plotinus’ Enneads.
226 See Ramelli, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy”, 2009.
227 Aug., civ. 10.30: in solos homines humanas animas praecipitari posse sentiret; Aen., dial. 11
(PG 85.893AB). On the final ascent without future reincarnations: Aug., civ. 12.21; 13.19; 22.12.
228 Nemes., nat. hom. 2.35,7–17.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 73

creatures and those of human beings are not different from one another.229
At least a passage by Porphyry appears to posit the transmigration of a human
soul into the body of an animal (e.g. a wolf, a lion).230
Gregory’s phrase οἱ τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν231 does not designate Origen, probably
not any Christian either. This is confirmed by references of the same kind by
Christian authors to non-Christians. Origen refers thrice to Philo in the same
terms: “one of those who came before us” (τῶν μὲν πρὸ ἡμῶν […] τις), “some of
those who came before us” (quidam ex his ante nos), “some before us” (ante
nos quidam), and “some of those who came before us” (τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν τινες).232
Gregory of Nyssa himself elsewhere uses the expression “some of those who
came before us” (τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν τινες) in reference to a non-Christian, again
Philo, to disagree with him.233 Consequently, Gregory’s expression οἱ τῶν πρὸ
ἡμῶν can indicate non-Christians such as Porphyry or Plotinus, in a passage
in which Gregory disagrees with them, rather than indicating Origen as it is
regularly assumed.
Gregory disparages the doctrine that “souls preexisted” (τὰς ψυχὰς προϋφε-
στάναι) “as a population in a State of their own”234 and received a body not
at their creation, but only afterwards, as a result of their fall. Now, this is not
Origen’s theory, but rather resembles that of Plato, most “pagan” Neoplatonists,
and some “Gnostics”. The Manichaeans might also represent a target of
Gregory’s criticism, all the more so in that an attack on Manichaeism is prob-
able in the parallel passage anim. 108 too, where Gregory rejects metensomato-
sis because it even forbids eating fruit and vegetables, and also anim. 121–124,
where Gregory’s criticism of the Manichaean doctrine is explicit:

How can what moves derive from (God’s) stable nature? How can the dimen-
sional and composite derive from the simple and adimensional nature? […] It
is equally absurd to maintain either that the creature comes directly from God’s
nature, or that all beings have been constituted by some other substance […]
because one will introduce a material nature extraneous to the divine substance
and made equivalent to the eternity of being, qua ingenerated. This is exactly

229 Eus., d.e. 1.10,7.

230 Stob., App. 1.447,19. W. Deuse, Untersuchungen zur mittelplatonischen und neuplatonischen
Seelenlehre, Wiesbaden 1983, 129–167 and A. Smith, Did Porphyry Reject the Transmigration
of Souls into Animals? in: RhM 127 (1984), 277–284 think that Porphyry maintained both a
literal and a metaphorical conception of the transmigration of human souls into animal
bodies; see also J. Carlier, L’après—mort selon Porphyre, in: A. Charles-Saget (ed.), Retour,
repentir, et constitution de soi, Paris 1998, 133–160.
231 Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 28.
232 Respectively Or., comm. in Mt. 17.17; hom. in Num. 9.5; hom. in Ex. 2.2; Cels. 7.20.
233 Gr. Nyss., v. Mos. 2.191.
234 Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 28.
74 Ilaria Ramelli

what the Manichaeans too have imagined, and some exponents of Greek philoso-
phy adhered to the same opinions, turning this phantasy into a philosophical
doctrine.

The target here is explicitly identified with the Manichaeans and some Greek
“pagan” philosophers. To the theory of the preexistence of souls Gregory op-
poses that according to which the body exists prior to the soul, which Gregory,
like Origen and Pamphilus, dismisses with contempt, because it would make
“flesh worthier than the soul”. But the preexistence of disembodied souls
and the creation of their bodies only later, is equally rejected by Gregory as
a “myth”. This designation does not fit Origen’s theory, but rather “Gnostic”
and Manichaean mythology, as well as Plato’s myths, commented by “Middle-”
and Neoplatonists. The preexistence of souls was already rejected by Origen.
Gregory follows suit and, far from attacking Origen’s purported “preexistence
of souls”, as is often repeated, he rather takes over Origen’s own “zetetic”, heu-
ristic method and arguments to refute this “myth” and the theory of the trans-
migration of a soul through human, animal, and vegetable bodies.
Origen had already refuted this theory repeatedly. For instance, in a passage
preserved both in Greek and in Rufinus’ translation of Pamphilus’ Apology,
Origen made it clear that he repudiated the transmigration of souls and instead
maintained only metaphorically that the worst sinners are turned into animals:
“Those who are alien to the Catholic faith think that souls migrate from human
bodies into bodies of animals […] We rather maintain that human wisdom, if it
becomes uncultivated and neglected due to much carelessness in life, becomes
like an irrational animal [efficitur uelut irrationabile pecus] due to incompe-
tence or neglectfulness, but not by nature [per imperitiam uel per neglegentiam,
non per naturam].”235 The metaphorical nature of such transformation, which
rules out metensomatosis, will be reported by Aeneas of Gaza: “a human, they
say, will not live again as an ass, but as an ass-like human [εἰς ὀνώδη ἄνθρωπον],
not as a lion, but as a lion-like [εἰς λεοντώδη ἄνθρωπον] human”236.
Plotinus, Origen’s fellow-disciple at Ammonius’, saw the problem related to
the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies, if this is taken literally,
not metaphorically: “If, as it is said, there are sinful human souls in beasts, the
separable part of the soul does not come to belong to the beast, but is there
without being there for them.”237 Thus, these souls are also immortal.238 The

235 Or., comm. in Mt. 11.17 and Pamph. Caes., apol. 180.
236 Aen., dial. 11f.
237 Plot., Enn. 1.1,11.
238 Plot., Enn. 4.7,14: the souls which “have been failures and come into animal bodies must
also be immortal”. This kind of metensomatosis is “the worst form of activity” (Plot., Enn.
6.7,6).
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 75

problem is: if a human soul transmigrates into an animal body, what happens
to the rational soul? For animals are irrational. Origen was similarly aware of
this issue, and resolved it by turning to a metaphorical understanding, as seen.
Elsewhere, Plotinus also uses the same “like” expression as Origen does: “Some
humans become like gods and others like beasts; the majority are in between”
(Enn. 3.2.8). This statement reflects a metaphorical conception, similar to that
of Origen.
In order to retain the unity of one soul and one body, Origen rejected not
only the transmigration of a human, rational soul into animal bodies, but also
its passage into different human bodies, since this would entail the eternity
of the world, a tenet which Origen considered to be denied by the Bible: “The
doctrine of the transmigration of souls [de transmutatione animarum] is alien
to the Church of God, since it neither has been transmitted by the apostles nor
is supported in any place in Scriptures”, Origen states, and explains: “The trans-
migration of souls will be absolutely useless if there is no end to correction, nor
will ever come a time when the soul will no longer pass into new bodies. But if
souls, due to their sins, must always return into ever new, different bodies, what
end will there ever come to the world [qui umquam mundo dabitur finis]?”239
As a consequence, Origen, basing his argument on Scripture and the Platonic
“perishability axiom”240, claims that there will be an end to the world, which
will also enable the process of the eventual apokatastasis (I argued for the im-
portance of the cessation of time and aeons for Origen in this respect241). After
the end of the world, Origen details, sinners will be punished indeed, but not
by transmigrating into other bodies, as Origen expressly states.242
Origen often emphasises the end of the world as his main reason to dismiss
metensomatosis: “If indeed, according to the authority of Scripture, the end of
the world will come soon [consummatio immineat mundi] and the present cor-
ruptible state will change into an incorruptible one, there seems to be no doubt

239 Or., comm. in Mt. 13.1f.; Pamph. Caes., apol. 182f.

240 Or., Cels. 4.9: “a fixed time will necessarily end the world, since it had a beginning’. On
Gregory’s use of this axiom, see I.L.E. Ramelli, Gregory of Nyssa’s Purported Criticism of
Origen’s Purported Doctrine of the Preexistence of Souls, in: Griffin / ead. (eds.), Lovers of
the Soul, Lovers of the Body, 2021, ch. 14 (forthcoming).
241 Origen will be closely followed by Nyssen on this score. See I.L.E. Ramelli, Aἰώνιος and Aἰών
in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, in: StPatr 47 (2010), 57–62; ead., Pre-Existence of Souls?, 2013,
167–226; further ead., Time and Eternity, in: M. Edwards (ed.), The Routledge Companion to
Early Christian Philosophy, Oxford, 2021. H. Boersma, Overcoming Time and Space. Gregory
of Nyssas’s Anagogical Theology, in: JECS 20 (2012), 575–612; A. Kamenskikh, Some Notes
on the Schemes of Temporal Logics in Late Neoplatonism and in the Works of Origen and
Gregory of Nyssa, in: Scrinium 15 (2019), 178–192.
242 U  indicta non ex transmutatione animarum—non enim iam ad peccandum locus erit—sed
alia genera erunt poenae.
76 Ilaria Ramelli

that in the state of the present life it is impossible to return to a body for a second
or third time. For, if one admits this, it will necessarily follow that, given the
infinite successions of these passages, the world will have no end [ finem nesciat
mundus]”243; likewise, “If one supports metensomatosis, as a consequence one
will have to maintain the incorruptibility of the world.”244 But this contradicts
the Bible, and Origen explicitly refuses to endorse metensomatosis and the
joining of soul and body occurring more than once.245 Far from being the case
that Origen’s “only argument” against the transmigration of souls is the impos-
sibility for rational souls to enter irrational animals,246 Origen, besides using
this argument (as I have argued above in a comparison with Plotinus on this
score), certainly also employs at least the argument from the end of the world,
a Biblical tenet which metensomatosis contradicts, and that of the uselessness
of an endless punishment without corrections.
Philo, who also had Scripture (the LXX) as his principal authority, neverthe-
less might have received metensomatosis as an esoteric doctrine, alluding to
it without disapproval,247 although this is very uncertain. In that case, Origen,
when criticising metensomatosis, might have polemicised against Philo, too—
part of whose oeuvre he knew very well. The question is whether Philo was an
annihilationist or, as Sami Yli Karjanmaa supposes, he thought that the soul’s
inferior parts survive and drag the soul itself to reincarnation. At any rate, Philo
did not develop any system around the notion of reincarnation and it is highly
uncertain that he espoused this view.

IV. Conclusion: The Unity of Soul and Body in Origen and Gregory of
Nyssa, and in Neoplatonism

I have shown both differences and similarities between Origen’s anthropology

and that of the first “pagan” Neoplatonists; later Neoplatonists came somehow

243 Or., Cant. 2.5,24.

244 Or., Jo. 6.86.
245 E.g. Or., comm. in Mt. 10.20; 11.17; 13.1; Jo. 1.11; 6.7, 14, 85; 2.186. Further passages against met-
ensomatosis in: M. Krüger, Ichgeburt. Origenes und die Entstehung der christlichen Idee der
Wiederverkörperung in der Denkbewegung von Pythagoras bis Lessing, Hildesheim 1996,
117–126; Tzamalikos, Origen, 2007, 48–53.
246 A. Williams, The Divine Sense, Cambridge 2007, 54.
247 In Philo, Somn 1.137–139, Cher 114, QE 2.40. See S. Yli-Karjanmaa, Reincarnation in Philo
of Alexandria, Atlanta 2015, esp. 216–248; D. Runia, Is Philo Committed to the Doctrine of
Reincarnation? in: SPhiloA 31 (2019), 107–126 argues that Philo did not embrace the doc-
trine of reincarnation; aporiai pointed out by I. Ramelli, Philo as One of the Main Inspirers
of Early Christian Hermeneutics and Apophatic Theology, in: Adamantius 24 (2018),
276–292.
3. Origen on the Unity of Soul and Body 77

closer to Origen’s ideas concerning the soul-body relation, informed by the

tenet of the unity of a soul with its body. I have pointed out how Origen differ-
entiated levels of corporeality and posited spiritual bodies at the beginning of
creation, for the angels at all times, and for humans again at the resurrection.
Origen identifies the “body of humiliation” as the mortal, postlapsarian body
alone.
The last part of the essay has investigated how Gregory of Nyssa (like
Maximus) did not criticise Origen’s anthropology, contrary to what is regularly
assumed. Gregory did not attack Origen’s ideas in his criticism of the preexis-
tence of disembodied souls and metensomatosis. Rather, both Origen and his
admirer Gregory theorised the unity of body and soul, mainly through their
dismissal of metensomatosis, as I have argued. Gregory seems to have under-
stood Origen’s anthropology, which differs from that of imperial Platonists, es-
pecially in the “emendation” of the doctrine of metensomatosis into his own
doctrine of “ensomatosis”, which, unlike the former option, entailed the unity
of soul and body in the earthly life and afterwards.248 The body changes ac-
cording to the soul’s dispositions and needs, but it is always the same body: the
soul does not enter different bodies. The unity of body and soul characterises
each of the noes from beginning to end.

248 The full trajectory from ancient to late antique philosophy is traced in my article Sôma, in:
RAC, forthcoming.
 chapter 4

Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Anthropology:

A Narrative

Ilaria Vigorelli

Abstract

This contribution outlines the main stages of what seems to me to be Gregory of

Nyssa’s coherent and original anthropological narrative.
After a brief methodological introduction, it sets out the influence of the bibli­
cal doctrine of creation on the conception of the union of body and soul.
The idea that concupiscence depends ontologically on sin and not on the body
allows Gregory to reread the doctrine of the passions as a divergence from what
we could call an original and natural desire, here interpreted in a Trinitarian, i.e.
relational, key.

The opportunity offered by this volume enables me to outline a narrative of

Gregory of Nyssa’s anthropology that reveals his conception of the unity of
body and soul in the human being. Since Nyssen’s anthropology is very closely
linked to the interpretation of Gen 1:26–28, and since, in the Christian interpre-
tation of the Genesis text, the being created in the image of the divinity takes
on the features of creation in Christ and, therefore, of the incarnate Logos, the
perspective in which we shall move will have to take into account both the
Trinitarian debate with the so-called neo-Arians in progress in the second half
of the 4th century, and the incipient formula of the union of the two natures
in Christ which was made necessary by the controversy with Apollinaris of
Laodicea.
For brevity, I shall outline the main stages of what seems to me to be the
coherent and original anthropological narrative set out by Nyssa. After a brief

* I use here narrative as a way of presenting or understanding a situation or series of events

or contents that reflects and promotes a particular point of view or set of values, i.e. an
akolouthia.
I am thankful to Judith Kovacs and Mark Edwards for their valuable insights that contrib-
uted to the revision of this text. Thanks also to the co-editor of the book, Anna Usacheva,
who encouraged my work during the painful Italian lockdown and patiently helped me with
her advice.

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_005

4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 79

methodological introduction (1), we shall lay out the influence of the biblical
doctrine of creation on the conception of the union of soul and body (2). Then,
after illustrating that concupiscence depends ontologically on sin and not on
the body, the doctrine of the passions will be reread as a divergence from the
doctrine of desire whose end is apatheia or isaggelia, which is a disposition
in the image of the immanent relationships within the Trinity (3). Finally,
after highlighting why death is to be considered good (4), Gregory’s teaching
of epektasis will be presented as the most significant contribution of Nyssa’s
anthropology of the union of the human being (as unity of soul and body) and
God (5).

I. Akolouthia and eusebeia

The manner of conceiving human reality—and, therefore, the union of body

and soul—takes on a methodological peculiarity in Nyssa’s work that I would
like to highlight by way of introduction before outlining the main features of
his doctrine. I intend, therefore, to sketch the “grammar” of the argumenta-
tive structure of the Cappadocian Father drawing on the Prologue to his Oratio
catechetica magna, in which, under the expression akolouthia (or κατὰ τὸ ἀκό-
λουθον), are listed the elements of a speech with a claim to truth, that is, a
catechesis that is credible to the listener.1
The first characteristic of such a discourse is that it is articulated according
to a logical sequence, i.e. the statements are reasonable and able to transmit
the word of the doctrine in a way that can be believed (τοῦ κατὰ τὴν διδαχὴν
λόγου). It also relies on the common convictions confessed by the interlocu-
tors.2 This means that, for Gregory, there can be no transmission of faith if
the argumentative premises of those to whom the discourse is addressed are
not known, since, without identifying the common convictions between those
who speak and those who listen, communication cannot take place in an ad-
equate manner because one could not recognise the inner relationship of one
argument to another.
This methodological premise leads Nyssa to distinguish the interlocutors
who come from Judaism from those rooted in Greek culture, and gives us the

1 A  kolouthia can be translated into English as “sequence” or “logical sequence” but it means also
the “relationship” of one affirmation to another. See J. Daniélou, Akolouthia chez Grégoire de
Nysse, in: RevSR 27 (1953), 219–249, reprinted under the title of Enchaînement, in: J. Daniélou,
L’être et le temps chez Grégoire de Nysse, Leiden 1970, 18–50.
2 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,5,1–5).
80 Ilaria Vigorelli

criterion for interpreting the language and the forms in which he speaks of the
union of body and soul in order to make his argumentation appropriate for
the ears of those who listen to him and not only for the doctrine he wishes to
transmit.
At the same time, and this is the second characteristic to be highlighted,
Gregory declares the criterion of truth for evaluating the content of the argu-
ment itself, identifying it with “the mystery of piety”, i.e. eusebeia, or orthodox
faith. This is belief in the eternal plan of God, once hidden from human knowl-
edge but now revealed in the Incarnation of the divine Logos. The bishop of
Nyssa places this mystery revealed in Christ (Rom 16:25) as the direct crite-
rion of the validity of logical arguments (including his own) because it pro-
poses to the intellect a truth which goes far beyond the explanatory capacity
of reason; at the same time it is a light for discerning the error each one carries
within himself: what Gregory calls the “wandering thoughts”.3 In this way, the
Cappadocian Father shows that the hearer’s argumentative assumptions and
prejudices are like those that elsewhere he calls “dead thoughts”,4 which do not
allow one to be in the akolouthia of what exists, that is to say, to know the right
relationships between things that exist. It also shows, however, that human
thought cannot pretend to grasp all that is offered by the Logos in revelation,
thus affirming the inescapability of the apophatic veil over the most sublime
realities.5
The ultimate reason for the validity of an argument, therefore, is the logical
sequence that reflects the relationships among existing realities as they have
been put in place by the Creator Logos. Thus, we have the paradox that the
akolouthia of the argument proposed by the speaker can be judged credible
by the logos of the listener when it allows itself to be judged by the divine
Logos that establishes right relations within created natures. The akolouthia
of the human logos, therefore, presupposes eusebeia, and eusebeia rests on the

3 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,6,9). The word eusebeia basically means “piety” and has a
human and divine reference because it can refer to Liturgy and prayer, but also to an inner
disposition that does not take place without the action of God within man’s soul (1Cor 12:3).
In Nyssen works the phrase “the mystery of piety” works as another way of referring to “God’s
plan” which elsewhere Gregory calls οἰκονομία. Gregory’s language here—“mystery”, “hidden”,
“now revealed”, “oikonomia”—must be dependent on Eph 1:9; 3:5.9; Col 1:26f. and Rom 16:25f.,
though his language of “Incarnation” and “Logos” is not found in Paul’s letters. It is easier to
understand Gregory’s language and thought if we have in mind important Greek terms that
an English word is trying to convey, but also the Scriptural texts that are shaping not only his
language but also his thinking. I thank Judith Kovacs for this remark.
4 See Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 2 (GNO 6,45,14f.).
5 See A. Ojell, Apophatic Theology, in: L.F. Mateo-Seco / G. Maspero (eds.), The Brill Dictionary
of Gregory of Nyssa, Leiden 2009, 68–73.
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 81

akolouthia placed in creation by the divine Logos. At the foundation of every

argument there is the same creative and incarnate Logos who speaks the lan-
guage of mankind and acts in history and cultures by establishing relation-
ships and uniting all beings through differences, i.e. multiplicity.6
What effect does this premise have on the path we are about to take? Two
very immediate effects: (1) Gregory’s anthropological discourse will always
start from the revelation of Genesis 1–3 but will take the form of an argument
that is addressed mostly to the Greeks; (2) it will be possible to delineate a sort
of “grammar” of anthropological narration, the matrix of an internal akolou­
thia, faithful to the criterion of eusebeia. This is articulated in Gregory’s various
works, not necessarily in a uniform way because of the different intentions and
literary genres of the works themselves and also because of the different inter-
locutors to whom the writings are addressed; (3) apophatism veils the direct
knowledge of the union of body and soul,7 so, in order to investigate it, one
must pay attention to how it is narrated, rather than how to define it.

II. The Tunics of Skin

Gregory’s interpretation of Genesis 1–3 is therefore the starting point of his

anthropology. It introduces some fundamental theological principles that are
then variously exhibited in his different works.8
a) God is the only source of all things, everything has been created out of
the superabundance of his love, and everything created is good. It follows from
this (κατὰ τὸ ἀκόλουθον) that God is the creator of human nature without hav-
ing been induced by any necessity, simply out of the superabundance of his
love.9
b) The human being comes into existence created in the image of God
(κατ’εἰκόνα θεοῦ: Gen 1:26) in order to become a sharer of divine goods. He is,

6 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,16f.).

7 See Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,39,11–22).
8 We shall follow, in order of appearance, what Gregory proposed in the Oratio catechetica
magna, but we shall also look at the other works from which we gather his anthropologi-
cal architecture: De hominis opificio (hom. opif.), De infantibus praemature abreptis (infant.),
De mortuis oratio (mort.), De anima et resurrectione (anim. et res.), De perfectione (perf.), In
Canticum canticorum (hom. in Cant.).
9 ο ὐκ ἀνάγκῃ τινὶ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατασκευὴν ἐναχθείς, ἀλλ’ ἀγάπης περιουςίᾳ τοῦ τοιούτου
ζῴου δημιουργήσας τὴν γένεσιν. (Gr. Nyss., or. catech. [GNO 3/4,17,2–4]). See also Gr. Nyss.,
beat. 6 (GNO 7/2,141,13); hom. opif. 11 (PG 44, 202B). Leys states that this text sums up the
whole of Gregory of Nyssa’s anthropology: R. Leys, L’image de Dieu chez saint Grégoire de
Nysse, Bruxelles 1951, 60.
82 Ilaria Vigorelli

therefore, structured in such a way that he can enter into communion with
divine goods such as life, reason, wisdom and eternity. Created with the desire
for what corresponds to him, the human being is subject to becoming. His first
change is from not-being to being. Desire pushes him towards union with these
divine goods, pointing to the Good by which he was created.10
c) From this it follows that the becoming to which the human being is sub-
ject is not only the fearful change of corruptibility, but—in Gregory’s words—
“a wing suitable for flight to the greatest things”, since, for him, the most
beautiful manifestation of mutability is represented by growth in the good.11
d) As the result of human sin, the loss of the impassibility of the body
(ἡ ἀπάθεια σώματος), that is, the intrusion of death and all sorts of suffering
upon both soul and body into the original harmony of creation,12 is not the
work of God but proof that man has been endowed with the most beautiful
and precious good, namely, “the grace of self-determination and freedom”.13
Thus, as a consequence of freedom, evil can be generated in the human will,
either when it withdraws from the good that is connatural to itself, or when it
chooses as the object of its desire what is worse rather than what is better.14
As comment on these first four elements of Gregory’s anthropology, we shall
add some further observations.
1) The first concerns change. The changing character of human desire is
both a sign of the gift of freedom, in resemblance to the divine, and also a sign
of the instability belonging to what has begun to be and therefore not eternal
in itself. It follows that the desire for union with that Good which is the origin
and the source of human nature is an indication of a limit belonging to man-
kind (since the source of one’s life is in another) but this desire also reveals the
affinity of human nature with the infinite and uncreated Being that, in an act
of freedom and love, gives us life.
2) The second observation relates to the akolouthia of Gregory’s anthro-
pological discourse whereby body and soul are created together by a single

10 See Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,18,4). We follow the series of arguments proposed by
or. catech., but there are similar features in the other works, as we shall see.
11 See Gr. Nyss., perf. (GNO 8/1,214).
12 τ ις ἁρμονία διὰ τῶν ἐναντίων. Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,21,18f.). See also or. catech.
(GNO 3/4,19,1).
13 τ ῆς κατὰ τὸ ἀδέσποτον καὶ αὐτεξούσιον χάριτος. Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,19,20).
14 ἡ ἀβουλία τὸ χεῖρον ἀντὶ τοῦ κρείττονος προελομένη. Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,20), in
fine.
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 83

creative act of God,15 for good and in freedom.16 Body and soul are to man just
as the elements of reality, distinct in their opposites, are to the universe: man
therefore unites in himself the sensible and intelligible; he is—in Gregory’s
words—a “microcosm”.17 In the logic of the creation of Gen 1:26–28, sensible
and intelligible are, therefore, two opposites governed by mutual harmony
by the Wisdom which governs all things and which allows harmony between
opposites.18
Now, it may be appropriate to consider that the distinction achieved be-
tween created and uncreated nature, focused on by Athanasius and adopted
by the Cappadocians,19 allows Gregory not to hesitate in seeing the divine act
of creation as uniting both the sensible and the intelligible in the one act that
brings humanity into being. The recognition of the infinite distance which dis-
tinguishes the uncreated and purely intelligible nature of God from the cre-
ated nature of the human being, both intelligible and sensible, means that it is
no longer necessary to introduce any internal separation into human nature in
order to differentiate divine nature from human nature.20 In fact, the founda-
tion of the ontological difference between the divinity and man is now placed
on the difference between uncreated-infinite being and created-finite being,
no longer on the difference between sensible and intelligible or between cor-
poreal and incorporeal.
Moreover, in the conception proposed by Gregory, the contrast between
sensible and intelligible in human nature becomes problematic only with the

15 In this volume, Anna Usacheva has well illustrated the attention that scholars are pres-
ently giving to the holistic effect in anthropology introduced by the Christian doctrine
of creation as an alternative to the dualistic concept of Platonic matrix that opposes the
body to the soul. See: M. Brugarolas, Divine Simplicity and Creation of Man. Gregory of
Nyssa on the Distinction between the Uncreated and the Created, in: ACPQ 91 (2017), 29–
51, and J. Zachhuber, Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa. Philosophical Background and
Theological Significance, SVigChr 46, Leiden 2015, 154–162.
16 See Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 29 (PG 44,236B; 282B; 276B).
17 Let us remember that, for Gregory of Nyssa, the human subject is a “microcosm”. See Gr.
Nyss., hom. opif. 16 (PG 44,178–182), but also anim. et res. (PG 46,28B) and Pss. titt. 3
(PG 44,440C). For an examination of some philosophical references that resound in read-
ing Gregory of Nyssa, see A. Marmodoro / N.B. McLynn (eds.), Exploring Gregory of Nyssa.
Philosophical, Theological, and Historical Studies, Oxford 2018.
18 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,21,18–20).
19 See A.A. Mosshammer, The Created and the Uncreated in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra
Eunomium I 270–295 (GNO I, 105–113), in: M. Brugarolas (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa. Contra
Eunomium I, Leiden 2018, 384–411. See also J. Zachhuber, Physis, in: RAC 27 (2016),
744–781.
20 On fourth century anthropology, see K. Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory. Mind, Soul and
Body in 4th Century, ASPTLA, Aldershot 2009.
84 Ilaria Vigorelli

consequent rise of irrational passions, a condition not willed by God but—

as Gregory remarks—the effect of the fall from the condition of impassibility
in which humanity was created. The differentiation of the human being into
male and female is also considered as a consequence of the human’s having
become subject to death and, therefore, the need for the generation of new
human beings. This generation takes place according to the corporeal order
as in the animal world and not according to the angelic mode and it is also, in
Nyssa’s interpretation of Genesis 3, a consequence of the developing mortal
condition.21
In the “grammar” of Gregory’s anthropology, therefore, it is necessary to dis-
tinguish an original human condition—the one established by the akolouthia
of the anthropological discourse of the origin—from a second human condi-
tion, derived from sin and causing death, which is at the beginning of the logic
of redemption and the ascetic struggle for virtue, as Gregory remarks in his
ascetical works.
Here, we want to show how the narrative dynamic that underlies Gregory
of Nyssa’s doctrine of “double creation” excludes a necessary connection be-
tween corporeity and concupiscence, as maintained by the Gnostic tradition.
In fact, following Genesis 2:7, the body is as co-original to human nature as the
soul from the first divine intention whereas concupiscence is connected with
the imposition of the tunics of skin (Gen 3:21), that is, it comes to man after
sin. The harmony of intelligible and sensible then became opaque, obfuscated
by what is perceived through the body, thus making desire ambiguous in its
proper tendency towards the good.22
If, originally, desire and change are not caused by concupiscence but by con-
naturality with the divine from which humanity comes, then we could expect
that, in the final condition of definitive apokatastasis, the bodily condition of
the human being will also be united to God and have eternal life while desire
for what is sensible (i.e. concupiscence as disordered desire) will be eliminated
since God is purely intelligible.
This last statement, to which we shall return to at the end of our study, al-
lows us to mention a point that cannot be developed here, namely that the
incarnation of the Word is a narrative criterion. For Gregory, it is the basis of
the whole of the logic of creation in Genesis 1.

21 See Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 16–18 (PG 44,178–196).

22 See G. Maspero, Anthropology, in: Mateo-Seco / Maspero (eds.), 2009, 37–47. On double
creation see also M. Przyszychowska, We Were All in Adam. The Unity of Mankind in Adam
in the Teaching of the Church Fathers, Berlin 2018. The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa
uses the translation “Tunics of hide”. See L.F. Mateo-Seco, Tunics of Hide, in: Mateo-Seco /
Maspero (eds.), 2009, 768–770.
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 85

If, as we read in the Oratio catechetica magna, the harmony of sensible and
intelligible is desired by divine Wisdom at the moment of creating the uni-
verse; and if, as we read in Homily XI of the In Canticum canticorum, man is the
creature placed as methorios, that is, as a frontier that unites opposites;23 and
if, from the condition of such a union, the human being is originally oriented
to union with the divine, that is, to uniting his created nature with uncreated
nature, but, because of his freedom, he can turn to the sensible rather than the
intelligible, then the choice of human freedom is considered essentially as to
turn towards what is finite—the created world—or towards what is infinite—
the Creator. The energeia (proper activity or perfection) of human nature,
then, consists in reaching union with the eternal intelligible in a free and un-
hesitating way, a possibility which, as is illustrated both in exegetical homilies
In Canticum canticorum, and in the dialogue with a Platonic flavour, De anima
et resurrectione, is given only in the Incarnate Word and in union with Him.24
This union, as we shall see below, is not to be intelligible only, but spiritual.
And there is even more: in the logic of the harmonious opposition of the
contraries, the union of soul and body is not in opposition to the union de-
sired by the Creator between uncreated and created being. In fact, the union
within the human being between the sensible and the intelligible is consid-
ered by Gregory so strong and so unfathomable that it can serve as an example
to narrate the ineffable fact of the union of human nature with divine nature
in Christ from the very first moment of his Incarnation.25 The union of na-
tures in Christ is apophatic just as the intra-human union of body and soul is
apophatic.
If, therefore, it is only after sin that concupiscence appears in the world,
that is, the disorder caused in desire and will by the passions for what “is less”,
the logic of what needs to be healed is precisely that of desire. Evil does not lie
in sensible realities themselves but in the manner of desiring. It is interesting
then to consider how the enjoyment of good and union with the divine life

23 “The soul is the boundary (μεθόριος) of two realities, one intelligible, incorporeal, incor-
ruptible; the other corporal, material, irrational. When it is purified from its adhesion to
the present and material life, it turns with virtue towards the divine, to which it is related”
(Gr. Nyss., Cant. 11 [GNO 6,333,13–334,2]). See J. Daniélou, La notion de confins (methorios)
chez Grégoire de Nysse, in: RSR 49 (1961), 161–187.
24 As we will better see below, here comes a very interesting innovation: Gregory in fact
is introducing a ‘relational energeia’ for the human nature. On the fulfilment of human
nature in Gregory of Nyssa see E.A. Cochran, The Imago Dei and Human Perfection. The
Significance of Christology for Gregory of Nyssa’s Understanding of the Human Person,
HeyJ 50 (2009) 402–415. See also F. Bastitta Harriet, Ser lo que quieras: la libertad ontológi­
ca en Plotino y Gregorio de Nisa, in: TyV 58 (2017), 473–487.
25 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,39,11–22).
86 Ilaria Vigorelli

does not exclude the body but rather reintegrates it into the original condition
of apatheia.

III. Apatheia and isaggelia

In the Oratio catechetica magna, Gregory continues the instruction of his cat­
echesis on the goodness of God, referring to those who judge God evil because
the human body suffers and falls ill, because bodily life moves towards dissolu-
tion, and because pain and infirmity cannot be judged to be any kind of good.26
Once again, for Nyssa, the true criterion of logical reasoning is eusebeia, and,
therefore, he does not deny such views on life in the body but introduces a new
premise, one of Pauline origin.
In his First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 2:14), Paul distinguishes between
the carnal and spiritual dispositions of the soul.27 In this way, Gregory begins
to demonstrate that no one can judge about good and evil starting from the
disposition (schesis/diathesis) of the senses, but one must free the mind from
what is perceived through the body in order to have access to the judgment of
the spiritual man who, as Paul says again, “judges everything”.28 The Pauline
distinction of πνευματικος and σαρκικος (1 Cor 2:13–3:3) and between πνευμα-
τικος and ψυχικος (1 Cor 2:13f.), introduced into the reasoning of Gregory of
Nyssa, again allows us to distinguish the body from carnal dispositions: the ref-
erence to the body indicates what the body perceives, so we must understand
the reference to the disposition as the need to find a place from which we can
make a judgment about desire that is not internal to the conflicts between sen-
sible and intelligible which arise from concupiscence.
The problem of fallacious judgement, therefore, is found not in the body
but in the disposition of the soul which follows the way the body feels, given
its now mortal condition and thus the ambivalence acquired by desire because
of the tunics of skin.
Let us see what new opposition of contraries is introduced by this argument,
which does not condemn the body as contrary to the soul, but the disposition

26 See Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,27f.).

27 Gregory uses an expression “σαρκώδεις καὶ τὰς πνευματικὰς τῶν ψυχῶν καταστάσεις” (Gr.
Nyss., or. catech. [GNO 3/4,27,10f.]) that Paul does not use, either in 1 Cor 2:14 or else-
where. This adjective is not found in the New Testament though the word σάρξ appears
often.
28 ὁ γὰρ πνευματικός, φησίν, ἀνακρίνει τὰ πάντα. Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,27,15f.).
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 87

of the soul-body union, which judges based on sensible concupiscence, which

is contrary to the free/spiritual longing for the Good.29
a) The ontological condition of humankind appears as “relational”, in a dou-
ble way. On the one hand, we are created, that is, willed and loved by God who
makes us exist; on the other hand, we are changeable, tending by nature to the
infinite Good, but also distinct from Him and able to fall away from him.
b) This double relationality appears ambiguous: freedom constitutes man
in the image of God, and death, which has been inserted into creation as a
result of human liberty, seems to affect union with God and, therefore, also the
sovereignty of the human being as being free, in the image of the Creator.30 In
fact, from the ontological point of view, to be endowed with freedom does not
emerge from Gregory’s writings primarily as something arbitrary but as exist-
ing for a purpose: union with the infinite Good.31
c) Since this double state of affairs is rooted in the will of God who creates
and who then, by his Incarnation, takes death as the way to lead everything
back to the Father, the dimension of desire is brought back into the relation-
ship with the good through the body of Christ (i.e. through his humanity).
Human dispositions are distinguished from concupiscence because of the
will, which establishes the relation between one’s own desire and the goods
desired. Through the will, the human being undergoes interior change.
d) In this way, a new possibility to acquire apatheia is established through
the relation with the body of Christ.32

29 We shall do so by presenting merely a few fundamental steps through which to show
only how the great anthropological theme of the “dispositions” of the soul develops for
Gregory and to maintain the line of our discourse. We shall look at Gr. Nyss., mort., infant.,
hom. in Eccl., an. et res., hom. in Cant.
30 See Gr. Nyss., mort. (GNO 9,54,10). See, in this regard, D. Gemmiti, La libertà e i fondamenti
metafisici dell’antropologia di Gregorio Nisseno, in: C. Braidotti / E. Dettori / E. Lanzillotta
(eds.), Οὐ πᾶν ἐφήμερον. scritti in memoria di Roberto Pretagostini. Offerti da colleghi, dot­
tori e dottorandi di ricerca della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Roma 2009, 209–245. See also
L.F. Mateo-Seco, Imágenes de la imagen. Génesis 1,26 y Colosenses 1,15 en Gregorio de Nisa,
in: ScrTh 40 (2008), 677–693.
31 It is interesting to note that the Metaphysica begins as follows: “All men tend by nature to
knowledge (Πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει)” (Metaphysica, 980a,21) while Gr.
Nyss., mort. opens with: “All men have a natural inclination to the good (φυσική τις πρὸς τὸ
καλὸν ἔγκειται σχέσις)”. (GNO 9,29,9f.).
32 “The theme of apatheia is already present in Gregory’s first work. In virg., he reminds us
that the fall of man brought with it the obfuscation of the image of God impressed on
the soul, and that the Christian ascetic has the freedom of newly purifying this image:
the human being must struggle to “strip off the tunics of hide” (the desires of the flesh)
(virg. 13 [GNO 8/1,303]) and purify himself of every “passional inclination”, because carnal
88 Ilaria Vigorelli

This is the outline of our path according to akolouthia, which I see in the
anthropological texts of Gregory of Nyssa. Let us look at something from each
of the passages cited.
(a) The work in which more than any other Gregory of Nyssa highlights the
original relationship that exists between the soul and God is the brief and de-
tailed treatise De infantibus premature abreptis.33 Here, he has to account for
the goodness of God and his providence when, in the face of the premature
death of a young child, one cannot resort to the usual argument of God’s re-
tributive justice.34 The divine judgment and the recompense (antidosis) are
reshaped starting from a new ontological system, which gives the reason for
the one who dies without having exercised freedom.35 The theme on which
we now focus is that of the destiny of the one who dies as a child but remains
forever generated for life.
In Gregory’s anthropological narrative, affinity with God is precisely what—
in his evangelical expression—“nourishes” the vision of Him, that is, what
makes His life pass into man.36 It seems important to have a clear grasp of how
to understand this affinity. Gregory affirms that it is given by the natural dispo-
sition (τῷ κατὰ φύσιν διακειμένῳ) whose energeia is the vision of God, certainly
an act, but insofar as it is a current relation with Him.

Just as seeing necessarily depends on being disposed to it by nature (τῷ κατὰ

φύσιν διακειμένῳ), while the fact of being impaired in the visual faculty depends
on a subsequent addition on the part of an evil inclination of nature, so too the
blessed life is inherent and familiar (ἡ μακαρία ζωὴ συμφυής ἐστι καὶ οἰκεία) in
those who have purified the perceptive faculties of the soul. For those in whom,
like a mucous, the disease of ignorance hinders participation in the true light, it
necessarily follows that they do not participate in that good in the participation
in which we say the life of those who participate consists (οὖ τὴν μετουσίαν ζωὴν
εἶναί φαμεν τοῦ μετέχοντος).37

inclination obscures the vision of the soul (virg. 10 [GNO 8/1,288f.]). L.F. Mateo-Seco,
Apatheia, in: Mateo-Seco / Maspero (eds.), 2009, 51–54 (53).
33 See I. Vigorelli, Tra filosofia e Sacra Scrittura. pienezza della vita e infanzia spirituale nel
De infantibus premature abreptis di Gregorio di Nissa, in: SEAug 154 (2019), 177–187.
34 Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,72,17f.).
35 On this subject, see also Athenagoras (Athenag., res. 14 [PG 6,1001C–D]), where he denies
that the cause of the resurrection lies in the remunerative judgment because everyone
rises from the dead, even children who have done nothing, neither good nor evil.
36 “The activity of seeing God is nothing more than a life fitting for and appropriate
to intellectual nature” (ἡ δὲ τοῦ βλέπειν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἐνέργεια οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν ἢ ζωὴ τῇ
νοερᾷ φύσει ἐοικυῖά τε καὶ κατάλληλος. Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,79,2f.). See also infant.
(GNO 3/2,79,9f.).
37 ἀλλ’ὡς ἀναγκαίως ἕπεται τῷ κατὰ φύσιν διακειμένῳ τὸ βλέπειν τῷ τε ἀπὸ πάθους παρενεχθέντι
τῆς φύσεως τὸ μὴ ἐνεργὸν ἔχειν τὴν ὅρασιν, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ ἡ μακαρία ζωὴ συμφυής ἐστι
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 89

The vision of God is an act of the intellectual nature. It is also the relation
that properly gives life to us. Gregory argues that just as, for the eye, vision
is the natural relation with light,38 or just as knowledge and ignorance are re-
lations (τὸ πρός τί πως ἔχειν),39 so, for the soul of a human being, the vision of
God is the relation according to nature.40 Thus, we can note that our physis is
considered by Gregory as an original disposition towards God,41 which has its
origin in the love that created us in his image (κατ’εἰκόνα θεοῦ). Thus, the theme
of infants dying prematurely leads Nyssen to distinguish between nature and
relationship, but also to bind them together because of the physis. In fact, as
the human physis is relational openness to God—since the relation with God
is the proper relation according to nature (κατὰ φύσιν)—,42 one who has not
had the opportunity to spoil nature with the passions and dies with the senses
pure has the blessed life as the natural fulfilment of his affinity with God.43
(b) The theme of the ambiguity of our disposition to the good, which free-
dom can turn in another direction, is very summarily designated as being pres-
ent in one who, “disposed against nature, deprives himself of what is according
to nature and excludes himself from the relation and life that corresponds to
him”.44 The ambiguity of the human disposition towards the good is expressed
in various ways both in the homilies In Ecclesiasten and those in the De beati­
tudinibus but always with the optimism and certainty that the human being
can return to respect his original orientation towards the good since evil has to
do with—in Gregory’s view—a “less than being”, which exists only if it dwells
in our will:

If, however, the free movement of our will (ἡ αὐτεξούσιος τοῦ θελήματος κίνησις)
tears itself from the disposition towards the non-existent (τῆς πρὸς τὸ ἀνύπαρκτον
σχέσεως) and unites with what is (συμφυείη τῷ ὄντι), then evil, no longer having

καὶ οἰκεία τοῖς κεκαθαρμένοις τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς αἰσθητήρια, ἐφ’ὧν δὲ καθάπερ τις λήμη τὸ κατὰ
τὴν ἄγνοιαν πάθος ἐμπόδιον πρὸς τὴν μετουσίαν τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ φωτὸς γίνεται, ἀναγκαίως ἕπεται
τὸ μὴ μετέχειν ἐκείνου, οὖ τὴν μετουσίαν ζωὴν εἶναί φαμεν τοῦ μετέχοντος. Gr. Nyss., infant.
(GNO 3/2,81,15–22).
38 Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,81,10f.).
39 “So knowledge and ignorance indicate the way of being in relation to the soul” (ὅτι ἡ γνῶσις
καὶ ἡ ἄγνοια τὸ πρός τί πως ἔχειν τὴν ψυχὴν ἐνδείκνυται. Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,80,13f.).
40 Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,81,6f.).
41 See I. Vigorelli, Desiderio e beatitudine. schesis nell’ In Canticum canticorum di Gregorio di
Nissa, in: AT 2 (2014), 277–300.
42 Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,81,15).
43 Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,81,15f.).
44 παρὰ φύσιν διατεθεὶς ἠλλοτρίωται τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν καὶ ἀμέτοχος γίνεται τῆς οἰκείας ἡμῖν καὶ
καταλλήλου ζωῆς. Gr. Nyss., infant. (GNO 3/2,82,26–28).
90 Ilaria Vigorelli

existence in me, will not exist at all because, outside the will, evil has no subsis-
tence in itself.45

(c) Gregory of Nyssa’s optimism about the human capacity to turn to the
good has been read as giving a preponderance to free will over divine grace,
even to the point of Nyssa’s theological anthropology being accused of “semi-
Pelagianism” avant la lettre.46 Recalling the friendly response to these criti-
cisms made by Maspero,47 let me draw attention to only two passages, from
two distinct works, in which we can see how the akolouthia of Gregory’s an-
thropology develops instead along Christological and relational lines, in per-
fect coherence with his Trinitarian theology.
The first passage is part of the eighth homily In Ecclesiasten, where, after
having expressed the apophatic limit of all discourse on God, and, therefore,
the epistemological limit of every philosophical ontology, Gregory introduces
the relational ontology to which he gains access thanks to the sacramental
economy brought by Christ. What is impossible for human knowledge is made
possible by the Body and Blood of Christ, which transform the one who takes
them. In fact, in Gregory’s fine words, “the relationship of love naturally pro-
duces union with the object loved”.48
Therefore, also on the epistemological level, we find again the principle of
communion of life through relation with Christ, which—in my opinion—is
the nerve centre of Gregory’s anthropology:

And in fact, he who will have loved the good will be good himself because the
goodness that is now in him transforms into itself the one who has welcomed it.
For this reason, He who is always offers himself to us in food, so that, taking him
into ourselves, we may become what he is (ὅπερ ἐκεῖνός ἐστι); in fact, he says: “My
flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Joh 6:55). Therefore, he who loves
this flesh will not be a lover of the flesh, and he who is attracted by this blood will
be purified by sensible blood.49

45 ε ἰ δὲ πάλιν ἡμῶν ἡ αὐτεξούσιος τοῦ θελήματος κίνησις ἀπορραγείη τῆς πρὸς τὸ ἀνύπαρκτον
σχέσεως καὶ συμφυείη τῷ ὄντι ἐκείνη μὲν τὸ ἐν ἐμοὶ εἶναι μηκέτι ἔχουσα οὐδὲ τὸ εἶναι ὅλως ἕξει.
Gr. Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 7 (GNO 5,407,11–14).
46 W. Jaeger, Two Rediscovered Works of Ancient Christian Literature. Gregory of Nyssa and
Macarius, Leiden 1954, 88.97.
47 See G. Maspero, Christian Initiation, in: Mateo-Seco / Maspero (eds.), 2009, 133–136 (135).
48 ἡ δὲ ἀγαπητικὴ σχέσις τὴν πρὸς τὸ ἀγαπώμενον ἀνάκρασιν φυσικῶς κατεργάζεται. Gr. Nyss.,
hom. in Eccl. 8 (GNO 5,422,20f.).
49 ὁ γὰρ τὸ καλὸν ἀγαπήσας καλὸς καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται, τῆς ἀγαθότητος τοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ γενομένου πρὸς
ἑαυτὴν τὸν δεξάμενον μεταποιούσης. διὰ τοῦτο ἐδώδιμον ἡμῖν ἑαυτὸν προτίθησιν ὁ ἀεὶ ὤν, ἵνα
ἀναλαβόντες αὐτὸν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ἐκεῖνο γενώμεθα, ὅπερ ἐκεῖνός ἐστι· φησὶ γάρ, ὅτι Ἡ σάρξ μου
ἀληθῶς ἐστι βρῶσις, καὶ τὸ αἷμά μου ἀληθῶς ἐστι πόσις. ὁ οὖν ταύτην ἀγαπῶν τὴν σάρκα οὐκ
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 91

Love (φίλτρον) has the characteristic of being an “interior inclination towards

the one who is desired” (ἡ ἐνδιάθετος περὶ τὸ καταθύμιον σχέσις),50 and this rela-
tion brings familiarity, connaturality: “In fact, what we are inclined towards out
of love is what our souls become familiar with (οἰκειούμεθα), and what we feel
hatred for is what we are hostile to. If the disposition of the soul (ἡ τῆς σχέσις)
is towards good or if it is towards evil, in both cases what is loved is somehow
mixed with the soul”.51
The attestation of connaturality through relation we know to be the pre-
ferred Trinitarian argument according to which Gregory was able to develop
the mutual immanence of the three revealed persons, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, as the only one and divine life.52 However, let us not get ahead of our-
selves but return to consider the second text that illustrates how the akolouthia
of Gregory’s anthropology develops along Christological and relational lines.
The second passage that I would like to deal with here is a further stage
in Gregory’s anthropological akolouthia and is found in the fourth homily In
Canticum canticorum. It comments on the biblical expression of the “shaded
bed” (Cant 1:16), which is at the heart of the homily. Here, we briefly recall its
fundamental features.
The fourth homily opens with an introduction in which human nature
is compared to gold, which passes through successive refinings in order to
achieve its brilliance. Human nature too was originally shining through its re-
semblance to God. After becoming black because of sin, it regains its beauty
through successive purifications. The soul is then called bride and virgin.53 The
text goes on to explain how human nature can become what it wishes. In fact,
the soul is like a mirror and receives the likeness of what it freely chooses to

ἔσται φιλόσαρκος, καὶ ὁ πρὸς τοῦτο τὸ αἷμα διατεθεὶς τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ αἵματος καθαρεύσει. Gr.
Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 8 (GNO 5,423,2–10).
50 φίλτρον ἐστὶν ἡ ἐνδιάθετος περὶ τὸ καταθύμιον σχέσις. Gr. Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 8 (GNO 5,417,13).
The term φίλτρον would require more comment, as it normally means a potion designed
to induce love rather than the disposition of philia. We intuit the Sacramental Theology
of Gregory, here referring to the Eucharist. It will occur also with the term φάρμακον, see
below at note 85.
51 ὅπου γὰρ ἂν τῇ ἀγάπῃ ῥέψωμεν, ἐκεῖνο ταῖς ψυχαῖς οἰκειούμεθα, καὶ πρὸς ὅπερ ἂν μισητι-
κῶς διατεθῶμεν, τούτου ἀλλοτριούμεθα. εἴτε γὰρ πρὸς τὸ καλὸν εἴτε πρὸς τὸ κακὸν ἡ τῆς
ψυχῆς γένοιτο σχέσις, κατακιρνᾶταί πως τῇ ψυχῇ τὸ ἀγαπώμενον. Gr. Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 8
(GNO 5,317,18–22).
52 See Gr. Nyss., Eun. 1,498,1–499,5 (GNO 1,170,13–20); Eun. 1,502,1–6 (GNO 1,171,17–20). Gr.
Nyss., Abl. (GNO 3/1,56,5–10). I. Vigorelli, Schesis and Homoousios in Gregory of Nyssa’s
Contra Eunomium. Metaphysical Contest and Gains to Trinitarian Thought, in: Vox
Patrum 37 (2017), 1–13.
53 See Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,100,5–101,17).
92 Ilaria Vigorelli

gaze on. It can, therefore, turn to vice or virtue, which, being opposed to each
other, cannot be present in it at the same time.54 Gregory then goes on to com-
ment on the verse of the Canticle in which the Bridegroom praises the beauty
of the beloved by highlighting her eyes (Cant 1:15).55
At this point, the exegesis of the “shaded bed” appears. Here, the nuptial
bed is a metaphor for the Incarnation of the Word whose flesh, like a “shadow”,
enables the contemplation of the unknowable God.56 Christ is also presented
as the builder of the house who covers it with a roof made of material that does
not rot, like beams of cedar and cypress. They symbolise the virtues, which
do not admit temptations: the choice of the good proper to the virtuous per-
son is stable and not subject to change.57 Further on, in the desire to reach a
condition of immutability in what is good, the bride asks to be sustained with
perfumes. The perfume here indicates virtue, which is far from the bad smell of
sin. The bride also wants to lay the foundations of her house on apples. These
recall the Incarnation because, with their white and red colour, they resemble
flesh and blood. She can, therefore, find strength and steadfastness by look-
ing at the humility of Christ’s condescension.58 At the end of the homily, the
bride invites the daughters of Jerusalem to seek an unceasing growth of love.
They are exhorted to look at the condition of the angels to which life after the
Resurrection will resemble (Mt 22:30). They will thus obtain their own stability
in being oriented towards God.59
The theme of isaggelia and apatheia appears throughout Nyssen com-
mentary on the Canticle of Canticles, right from the introductory homily in
which he explains how Scripture, in the three books traditionally attributed
to Solomon, gradually educates human desire; here in Homily 4 the theme re-
ceives more explicit treatment. Gregory had pointed out how, in order to be
introduced into the mystery of God, it is necessary to purify the heart from
visible realities and to allow oneself to be attracted to the invisible beauty.60
In Nyssen interpretation, the beauty of the Bridegroom, so different from any
other beauty that disappears with the advance of the seasons, is associated

54 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,101,17–104,15).

55 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,104,15–107,8).
56 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,107,9–109,1).
57 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6, 109,1–112,21).
58 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,123,12–127,6).
59 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,129,20–135,14); See G. Maspero, The In Canticum in
Gregory’s Theology. Introduction and Gliederung, in: G. Maspero / M. Brugarolas /
I. Vigorelli (eds.), Gregory of Nyssa: In Canticum Canticorum. Analytical and Supporting
Studies. Proceedings of the 13th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Rome,
17–20 September 2014), Leiden 2018, 3–52 (9f.).
60 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 2 (GNO 6,22,9–17).
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 93

with the divinity of the Word which is perfect in itself and involves a full unity
between being and eternity: “you are the essence of beauty, and you are always
such, you are always what you are”.61
The radical distinction between the ontological order of the Trinity and
that of created being which is characteristic of Gregory’s ontology allows us to
grasp the full freedom of God who enters into relation with mankind not out
of some necessity but only out of love, out of his free will to give himself. The
Son, image of the Father’s love, remains immutable in his beauty and, with the
condescension of the Incarnation, he brings into history the full revelation of
this love. In this way, Gregory affirms that the very name of God is “love for
mankind” (φιλανθρωπία).62 In fact, only with this relation can we express the
nature of God and what moves him to action in history.63
Thus the profoundly soteriological character of Gregory’s Christology is
highlighted: the Incarnation of the Word can never be separated from the di-
vinisation of the human being who, as a result of sin, finds himself separated
from life. Christ unites himself to humanity and shares its existence so that it
may have salvation in him, having a part in his life and glory.64 The bride may
then call the Word adelphidos,65 indicating, through this term, the beloved and
also the kinship or consanguinity that the incarnation establishes in the per-
son of Christ with all those who share his humanity.66

Since, therefore, you rose up from Judah for us, and the people of the Jews are
the brother of him who comes to you from paganism, you were rightly called the
beloved (ἀδελφιδός μου) of her who desired you, because of the manifestation of
your divinity in the flesh.67

Later in the same homily, we read of the kinship (συγγένειαν)68 between the
bride and the Son, and we can see how the appellation adelphidos is used
again.69 The presence in this context of the adjective ὁμοούσιον70 makes explicit

61 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,107,1f.).

62 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,107,4f.).
63 See G. Maspero, Ontology, History and Relation (schesis). Gregory of Nyssa’s Epektasis, in:
A.T.J. Kaethler / S. Mitralexis (eds.), Between Being and Time. From Ontology to Eschatology,
Lanham 2019, 23–36 (25–27).
64 See M. Brugarolas, The Incarnate Logos. Gregory of Nyssa’s In Canticum Canticorum
Christological Core, in: Maspero / Brugarolas / Vigorelli (eds.), 2018, 200–232 (216f.).
65 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,107,7).
66 See Brugarolas, 2018, 211.
67 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,107,5–8).
68 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,115,15).
69 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,116,4).
70 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,116,17).
94 Ilaria Vigorelli

the consubstantiality of the Son with human nature. The reference to adoption
(Rom 8:15) makes it even clearer that the relation in which we are enabled to
participate is the filial relation of Christ to the Father in the Spirit.71 While
manifestly continuing to belong to an ontological order distinct from the di-
vine, therefore, the soul finds in itself that connaturality with God which it had
lost because of sin.
(d) At this point, for the purposes of our argument, it is important to observe
the place that Gregory gives to the body of Christ in the restoration of human
life to apatheia, and, precisely with this aim, we shall examine the whole text
of the commentary to Cant 1:16:

At our “shaded bed” (σύσκιος), that is to say, the human nature has known (or
will know) that you have caused to be shaded through the oikonomia. You have
come—the text says, in fact—my well-beloved and splendid one, and you have
become shaded (σύσκιος) at our bed. If, in fact, you had not shaded yourself (μὴ
συνεσκίασας αὐτὸς σεαυτὸν), covering the immaculate ray of your divine nature
with the form of a slave (Phil 2:7), who would have borne your manifestation?
No one, in fact, will see the face of God and continue to live (Ex 33:20). You have
come, then, you who are splendid, but you have made yourself such that we
could understand you. You have come, shading (συσκιάσας) the rays of your di-
vine nature with the envelope of the body.72

The beauty of the divinity that the soul has just praised cannot be contem-
plated directly since no one can see the face of God and remain alive (Ex 33:20;
1 Tim 6:16). The “shaded bed” thus corresponds to the Incarnation, in which
human nature veils like a shadow the radiance of divine light so that mankind
can know it.
What is important to emphasise here is how, unlike what happened in
Origen’s commentary on this same passage of the Canticle,73 the body of
Christ does not have any negative connotations. On the contrary, precisely in
its being a “shadow” that veils, it is somehow simultaneously a garment that

71 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,115,15).

72 Ε
 ἶτα ἐπήγαγε Πρὸς κλίνῃ ἡμῶν σύσκιος. τουτέστιν ἔγνω σε ἤτοι γνώσεται ἡ ἀνθρωπίνη φύσις
σύσκιον τῇ οἰκονομίᾳ γενόμενον. ἦλθες γάρ φησι σὺ ὁ καλὸς ἀδελφιδός, ὁ ὡραῖος, πρὸς τῇ κλίνῃ
ἡμῶν σύσκιος γενόμενος. εἰ γὰρ μὴ συνεσκίασας αὐτὸς σεαυτὸν τὴν ἄκρατον τῆς θεότητος ἀκτῖνα
συγκαλύψας τῇ τοῦ δούλου μορφῇ, τίς ἂν ὑπέστη σου τὴν ἐμφάνειαν; οὐδεὶς γὰρ ὄψεται πρόσω-
πον κυρίου καὶ ζήσεται. ἦλθες τοίνυν ὁ ὡραῖος, ἀλλ’ὡς χωροῦμεν δέξασθαι τοιοῦτος γενόμενος.
ἦλθες τὰς τῆς θεότητος ἀκτῖνας τῇ περιβολῇ συσκιάσας τοῦ σώματος. Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4
(GNO 6,107,9–108,7).
73 See Or., Cant. 3,2 (SC 376,502).
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 95

reveals. Thus, the body of Christ is a mediation of divine light for “us who live
in darkness”. It both conceals and reveals.74
We see, then, that the condition of apatheia and isaggelia, re-established
for mankind in Christ, does not coincide with being without a body but rather
with being without sin and with having a stable disposition towards the good,
to which human nature itself yearns.75

IV. Eukairos thanatos

At this point we can devote a brief investigation to the salvific intent that
underlies the imposition of the “tunics of skin” with which God covered the
man and woman after sin (a) and the corresponding soteriological meaning
of death (b).76 In this way, we can move on to the scope of the eschatological
epektasis.
(a) In accordance with the epistemology that we highlighted at the begin-
ning, Gregory of Nyssa pictures the ambivalence of human desire drawing on
Gen 3:21 where it is stated that, after sin, God dressed our first parents in “tu-
nics of skin”.77
This clothing is understood as a merciful work of God that allows the will
to return to itself, thanks to the experience of the limits imposed by evil on
human nature.78 For this reason, Gregory’s anthropology seems to be clearly
distinguished from a certain Alexandrian interpretation that unites Philo and
the Valentinians who understand Genesis 3:21 as referring to the creation of
the human body. Origen accepts this Gnostic interpretation but seems to con-
ceive the “tunics of skin” not directly as the body of man but as his mortality.79

74 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 4 (GNO 6,108,9); see Brugarolas, 2018, 210f.
75 See I. Vigorelli, Soul’s Dance in Clement, Plotinus and Gregory of Nyssa, in: SP 84 (2017),
59–76.
76 See E. Moutsoulas, The Incarnation of the Word and the theosis of Man according to the
Teaching of Gregory of Nyssa, Athens 2000, 49–70.
77 See J. Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique. Essai sur la doctrine spirituelle de Saint
Grégoire de Nysse, Paris 1944, 25–31.55–60; see also id., 1970, 154–185.
78 Gregory had been aware of this theme since his first work (Gr. Nyss., virg. 12
[GNO 8/1,302f.]) and will take it up again several times, always giving a coherent inter-
pretation. The reference to the tunics of skin can also be found, for example, in Gr. Nyss.,
or. catech. (GNO 3/4,30); v. Mos. 2 (GNO 7/1,39f.); mort. (GNO 9,55–57); anim. et res.
(PG 46,148f.).
79 This is not the place to go into detail about the divergent traditions concerning the “coats
of skin”. For a synthetic frame about the Gnostic traditions see L.F. Mateo-Seco, Tunics
of Hide, 2009, 768–769. Origen seems to question the thesis that the coats represent
96 Ilaria Vigorelli

Instead, the exegesis carried out by Clement of Alexandria appears different

and along the same interpretative lines as that of Gregory who roundly main-
tains that it is an error to identify the tunics with the body.80
Without doubt, therefore, the tunics are not meant by Gregory as the cre-
ation of the body but symbolise everything that came to humanity with the
loss of apatheia, that is, a “carnal mentality”, “animality” and, finally, “mortal-
ity”. God has clothed man with “dead skin” so that he can die, experience the
finiteness of evil and be converted.81 Therefore, the “tunics of skin” are closely
linked with the economy of salvation, which, after sin, passes through death. In
this sense, the garments of Gen 3:21 are the result of a provident action because
they manifest the mercy of the Creator who wants to resurrect man by purify-
ing him from evil: “the tunic, in fact, is something external that covers us, and
its use for the body is temporary; it is not something inherent in nature”.82 With
death, Gregory affirms, “the sensible part of us is dissolved, but not destroyed”
(λύεται δὲ τὸ αἰσθητόν, οὐκ ἀφανίζεται). The passions that develop as attach-
ment to sensible goods are realities that take shape in the human being. But
they are juxtaposed with human nature. They are unnatural, like a disease.83
Passions and mortality are not ontological characteristics of human ability to
enter into relationship with God and the world; they are conditions brought
about by our freedom in the dynamism of the temporal state between birth
and resurrection.84
The body is different. In fact, the desire for good, the physike schesis pros to
agathon, is original and involves the unity of soul and body. It too produces
change, but not a transitory attachment, instead, a participation in what is the
energeia of human life and will be preserved in the eschatological state. Desire,
relationship and life are not separated in sharing in the good.
(b) The contest with death is played out over the union of soul and body:
the meaning to be given to death is related to the manner of this union and its
destiny.

mortality at Commentary on Genesis fr. 7. At Homilies on Leviticus 6.2 they are identified
with mortality plus fragility. See K. Metzler, Origenes. Werke mit deutscher Übersetzung,
Band I/I. Die Kommentierung des Buches Genesis, Berlin 2010, 192. I thank Mark Edwards
for these remarks.
80 See Clem., str. 3,14,95. Clement here rejects views he attributes to John Cassian. Also he
does not say what he thinks the ‘tunics of skin’ are but only that they are not to be inter-
preted to mean ‘the body’. Clement then would agree with Gregory on the negative point:
not the body. I thank Judith Kovacs for this note.
81 See J. Daniélou, 1944, 25–31. 55–60; J. Daniélou, 1970, 154–185.
82 See Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,29f.). Cit. in fine.
83 See Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,33f.).
84 See Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 15 (GNO 6,459,6).
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 97

In the Oratio catechetica magna, Gregory calls death the “medicine” (τὸ
φάρμακον) and the “therapy” (θεραπεία) of the soul, which has become carnal
because of the dispositions assumed in opposition to the good. Now, what I
would like to point out is that the interpenetration destroyed by death is the
one with evil (πρὸς τὸ τὸ κακὸν οἰκειότητα):85 it involves the union of soul and
body, i.e. the sensible and intelligible character of the human being who, in
death, suffers pains that cannot be described in words, just as the hoped-for
goods cannot be so described either.86 This union of opposites is not investigat-
ed by Gregory, since it is considered a reality that goes beyond the possibility
of our understanding.87 What Gregory investigates instead is the relationship
between the union of soul and body and one’s own evil, that is, between the
original natural desire for good that passes through intelligible and sensible at
the same time, on the one hand, and, on the other, the dispositions assumed
through the tunics of skin, that is, the dispositions that provoke the affection
of soul and body towards “what is less”. Death intervenes to end this unnatural
relationship.88
The reference to familiarity with evil should not pass unnoticed: it involves
body and soul precisely in their unity as it is expressed in the passions. The
purification given by death makes it possible to re-establish that original ori-
entation to the good to which the union of body and soul was naked or open,89
that is to say, when human nature was in the condition of desiring, of assuming

85 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,32,19). The same occurs in Gr. Nyss., anim. et res.
(PG 46,97B).
86 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,33).
87 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,39,11–22). The apophatism appropriate to the union of
soul and body is also indicated by Gregory to reaffirm the apophatism appropriate to the
union of the two natures in Christ.
88 See Gr. Nyss., mort. (GNO 9,54).
89 In Gr. Nyss., hom. in Eccl., Gregory contrasts “puerile souls who cling vainly to that which
has no substance” (αἱ νηπιώδεις ψυχαὶ τοῖς ἀνυποστάτοις ἐμματαιάζουσαι) and who live ac-
cording to the flesh (τὴν ἐν σαρκὶ ζωήν) with Ecclesiastes who, instead, “has already em-
barked into immaterial life with his soul bare” (γυμνῇ τῇ ψυχῇ τῆς ἀΰλου ζωῆς ἐπιβατεύων).
In referring to the naked soul (γυμνή), it seems clear to me that, according to the akolou­
thia of Nyssen anthropological discourse, he is referring to the union of body and soul
already stripped of their tunics of skin. See Gr. Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 1 (GNO 5,290,10–17).
On the classical origin of the image of the naked soul, see Pl., Cra. 403B5 and Grg. 524D5,
in which the soul appears bare of the body. Here, Gregory uses the same expression but
we could say that he makes it a metonymy: he cites the part (the soul) to indicate the
whole (the created man, soul and body together). On the images involved in this passage,
see P. Courcelle, Grégoire de Nysse lecteur de Porphyre, in: REG 80 (1967), 402–406.
98 Ilaria Vigorelli

a disposition, of entering into a relationship with the good connatural to it as a

result of its own freedom; of enjoying, finally, intelligible reality.90
There is a truth concerning the body that Gregory does not seem to investi-
gate further but which, in fact, he assumes: the body, together with the soul, is
destined for life (ζωή) and not for death.91 This means that even what is sen-
sible and changeable in our mixed nature is created for apatheia. It seems a
paradox, but we shall see its logic at the end of our study.92
With death, then, Gregory explains how—following the teaching of the
Apostles—the wounds inflicted by sin are healed. It is perhaps useful to note
that in Nyssa’s anthropology, if, on the one hand, we find the distinction be-
tween the death of the body and the death of the soul, we also find reference
to a connection and common participation (σύνδεσίς τις καὶ κοινωνία)93 of body
and soul with the passions such that the death of one is analogous to the death
of the other. Moreover, while the medicine of philosophy and virtue intervenes
for the care of the soul, bodily death is the medicine that frees the unity of
body and soul from the slavery of evil, leading to the dissolution of the cover-
ing of the “tunics of skin” and to the resurrection of the body that, as divinised
will assume a “conformation especially suited to the enjoyment of that kind of
existence which is fittingly disposed to participation in the good”.94
From what has been said above, death is considered by Gregory as a gift
of God which comes to man at the opportune time: “At least in my opinion,
this would be the favourable time for death, the one that procures us true life.
Scripture says, in fact, ‘It is I who bring both death and life’ (Deut 32:39), so that
we are truly convinced that it is God’s gift to die to sin and to be enlivened in
the Spirit”.95

90 At the beginning, we drew attention to the already-mentioned De mortuis oratio because
the whole treatise is intended to lead the reader to know the dynamism of God in respect-
ing the choices of human freedom and to show his inexhaustible mercy, as Gregory points
out.
91 See below on Gr. Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 1 (GNO 5,295f.).
92 With this, we do not intend to overlook the numerous occurrences in which Gregory uses
references to the body and the corporeal to indicate the sensible, corruptible, mortal and
passionate part of man. However, in this sense, we must also remember that in his works
there is a Pauline meaning of body as life according to the flesh, and an anthropological
meaning capable, as we have seen, of distinguishing the body created together with the
soul, which constitutes human nature, from the tunics of skin and their mortality, given
for salvation after sin.
93 Gr. Nyss., or. catech. (GNO 3/4,31,22).
94 ἀ λλ’οἰκεία καὶ κατάλληλος ἔσται τῇ ἀπολαύσει τῆς ζωῆς ἐκείνης ἡ τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν παρασκευὴ
ἁρμοδίως πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἀγαθῶν μετουσίαν διατεθεῖσα. Gr. Nyss., mort. (GNO 9,60,4–6).
95 οὗτος ἂν εἴη, κατά γε τὴν ἐμὴν κρίσιν, ὁ εὔκαιρος θάνατος, ὁ τῆς ἀληθοῦς ζωῆς γινόμενος
πρόξενος. Ἐγὼ γάρ, φησίν, ἀποκτενῶ καὶ ζῆν ποιήσω, ὡς πεπεῖσθαι ἀληθῶς θεοῦ δῶρον
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 99

V. Epektasis

As we have seen, the consideration of Gen 1:26–28 and the assumption that the
human being is created out of love, in the image and likeness of the Creator,
enabled Gregory to elaborate an anthropology that locates the relational di-
mension not within Aristotelian categories, as an accident of nature, but as a
reality that constitutes human nature from within, as human nature. Good is
the relational term that gives life to and brings to fruition human nature, which
reaches its fulfilment in the condition of apatheia, that is, of stability in the dis-
position (schesis/diathesis) towards the good (God). As Gregory remarks, this
condition does not exclude the body but implies the Incarnation of the Word,
its action in the world and its sacramental activity.
At this point, we can highlight some aspects that characterise the anthropo-
logical narrative of Gregory of Nyssa and ask ourselves if, in eternity, the desire
for good will cease, if the physike schesis will cease or what form it will take. It
remains for us to investigate:
a) what are the Trinitarian characteristics of this relational anthropology;
b) how is the opposition of the anthropological contraries, intelligible/sen-
sible, enriched by the spiritual dimension;
c) how does Trinitarian anthropology bring within itself desire as an open-
ing to the infinite, a desire that involves not only the soul but also the
body, both in its original condition before sin and in its resurrected con-
dition after death.
(a) The distinctive conception of relation (schesis) that appears in Gregory of
Nyssa’s work, especially with regard to the role that relation assumes in anthro-
pology, has its origin in his Trinitarian theology that matured in the context of
the dispute with Eunomius of Cizicus.96
At that juncture, Nyssa had to develop a divine ontology which, remain-
ing faithful to the distinction of the baptismal formula, in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19), maintained the unity of the di-
vine substance.
The distinction of the three hypostases is founded by Gregory on relation,
which is no longer understood only as a category of being but also as the
constitutive immanence—the inner life—of the divine nature. The relations

εἶναι τὸ νεκρωθῆναι τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ καὶ ζωοποιηθῆναι τῷ πνεύματι. Gr. Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 6
(GNO 5,381,13–17). For a review of the references to death in Nyssen commentary on
Qoheleth, see L.F. Mateo-Seco, Consideraciones en torno a la muerte en las Homilías al
Eclesiastés de Gregorio de Nisa, in: ScrTh 23 (1991), 921–937.
96 I. Vigorelli, Ontology and Existence. Schesis of the Soul in Gregory of Nyssa’s In Canticum
canticorum, in: Maspero / Brugarolas / Vigorelli (eds.), 2018, 527–538.
100 Ilaria Vigorelli

introduced by the names of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit coincide
with the way in which the divine nature pertains totally and infinitely to each
of the hypostases without being divided or multiplied.97
(b) In this way, God is no longer thought of by starting out from the divine
essence, that is, the notion of God can no longer be traced back to the purely
intelligible substance of classical philosophy but acquires the character of will,
that is, of spiritual being: what properly distinguishes relations between the
persons is the distinction through the will (three persons) of what is common
(one nature)98. The Father gives his uncreated and eternal being to the Son
with the freedom of love; the Son receives and gives back to the Father the
same being with the same freedom, in the image of the Father who gives him-
self; and that being which is given and received and given back in the same
freedom is the Spirit. This relational distinction of being in the three divine hy-
postases is free and voluntary and, at the same time, eternal and immutable. It
is relation that retains God’s intelligibility but recognises his spiritual being.99
The supreme intelligible being acquires—in Nyssen theologia—a spiritual
character (i.e. being free and personal) and the immanent relations within the
Trinity are the distinctive character that constitutes the life of the intelligible
who is also personal.
This understanding makes Gregory intuit the disposition that configures
human beings inwardly, the interior relation that changes depending on the
ad quem, the one being addressed. In fact, relation is described as:

97 G. Maspero, Patristic Trinitarian Ontology, in: G. Maspero / R.J. Wozniak (eds.), Rethinking
Trinitarian Theology. Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology,
London 2012, 211–229.
98 Gregory writes for example in the Contra Eunomium II: “The Father willed something,
and the Son, who is in the Father, had the same will as the Father, or, better, He himself
became the Will of the Father” (Gr. Nyss., Eun. 2,216,1–7 [GNO 1/1,288,17–19]). Obedience
is then the very mode of being of the Son, that is, his Person. Schönborn comments: “In
truth, that which the Son himself has revealed to us is profoundly paradoxical, that is, the
fact that He is at once obedient in all things to the Father and united in all things to Him.
In God there is no designation of superior and inferior: Obedience is identical to liberty,
total self gift is identical to total self possession”. C. von Schönborn, L’ icône du Christ.
Fondements théologiques, Paris 1986, 53.
99 To mark the historical-dogmatic turning point in pneumatology that took place between
the 3rd and the 4th century, see G. Thomas, The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory
of Nazianzus, Cambridge 2019, 127–133; G. Maspero, The Fire, the Kingdom and the Glory.
The Creator Spirit and the Intra-Trinitarian Processions in the Adversus Macedonianos of
Gregory of Nyssa, in: V.H. Drecoll / M. Berghaus (eds.), Gregory of Nyssa. The Minor Treatises
on Trinitarian Theology and Apollinarism. Proceedings of the 11th International Colloquium
on Gregory of Nyssa (Tübingen, 17–20 September 2008), SVigChr 106, Leuven 2011, 229–276.
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 101

1. “disposition of something/somebody towards something else/somebody

else” (περὶ τινι and πρὸς τι);
2. “inner disposition” (ἐνδιάθετον).
3. “conformation” according to the relation with the chosen good.
If one analyses the value attributed by Gregory to the disposition of the soul
specified by the σχέσις πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθόν, one comes across a constellation of
terms indicating different ways of being but reflecting a precise anthropologi-
cal vision of the relation of the soul to the good.
Those that can be mentioned here are χαρακτήρ100 and συγγενές.101
Gregory describes the soul purified by reasoning which has assumed within
itself the imprint of truth: “it takes internally the form (ἐμμορφουμένη) of the
disposition to good”.102
Configured internally on the basis of the good, therefore, the soul is not only
and no longer subject to the attractive power of corporeal and irrational nature
but can know itself as connatural (συγγενές) with what is divine.
The verb ἐμμορφόω and the adjective συγγενές are two ways of expressing
the knowledge that the soul reaches of itself and, evidently, do not indicate a
precise noematic content but an ontological condition. The soul knows its own
nature as congeneric to the divine nature in assuming the stable disposition to
the good. Thus, the πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν σχέσις seems to be considered by Gregory
as a means of access to the knowledge of God. This knowledge is related to
the choice of the human will, even though it is proper to human nature. It is a
personal, free and, therefore, voluntary relation. It is a spiritual relation in that
it is a relation, which is given as intra-divine life.
The difference between natures (created and uncreated) is clearly not ig-
nored because, although the soul is connatural to the good because of its dis-
position towards the good, the good itself is given to it gratuitously, and the
soul never exhausts its content or possesses its nature.
The real and transforming relation with the good, which in Gregory’s
Christian view is no longer only intelligible but also loving, gives us access once
again to the divine properties that were lost through sin (purity, impassibil-
ity, incorruptibility). This relational process is indeed epektasis and does not
exclude the body.

100 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 9 (GNO 6,277,7–11).

101 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 11 (GNO 6,333,13–334,5). See D. Bentley Hart, The Mirror of
the Infinite. Gregory of Nyssa on the “vestigia trinitatis”, in: MoTh 18 (2002), 541–561;
L. Karfíková, The Metaphor of the Mirror in Platonic Tradition and Gregory’s Homilies on
the Song of Songs, in: Maspero / Brugarolas / Vigorelli (eds.), 2018, 265–287.
102 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 9 (GNO 6,277,11).
102 Ilaria Vigorelli

In the beginning, the soul was what will appear again in the end, once it has been
purified; the body shaped by the hands of God was made what the resurrection
of the dead will reveal it to be. In fact, what you will see after the resurrection, is
exactly what was done on the first day: the resurrection is but the restoration of
the primitive state.103

(c) If one term of the relation is created nature and the other term is uncreated
nature, how can the infinite enter into communion with the finite?
In the first homily In Ecclesiasten, Gregory recalls how the activity of the
senses and sensible life was given to human nature so that knowledge of vis-
ible realities would become a guide for the soul to knowledge of the invisible
ones (Wis 13:15). However, while knowledge of the sensible realities is tempo-
rary, he who “through these passing realities comes to understand the stable
nature and reaches the intelligence of what is always the same as it is, has seen
what really is and possesses what he has seen. For the vision of this good is the
possession of it”.104
In the classical opposition of sensible and intelligible, what is sensible is not
the noblest but is the way to the noblest.
In Gregory’s relational anthropology, the sensible is what lends itself to the
better transmission of the dynamic of the personal dimension of relation, that
is, the spiritual dimension: this dynamic is that of desire.105
We find this considered at length in Gregory’s dialogue De anima et resur­
rectione to which we have not yet given adequate attention.
The question that inaugurates the fourth part of the dialogue between
Gregory and Macrina is precisely whether the faculty of desire will disappear
in the state of the enjoyment of the good. If, in fact, it is through desire (ἐπι-
θυμία)106 that we are raised up towards God, but, at the same time, passion (τὸ

103 ἐκεῖνο κατ’ ἀρχὰς γέγονεν ἡ ψυχή, ὃ εἰς ὕστερον καθαρθεῖσα πάλιν ἀναφανήσεται· ἐκεῖνο πεποίη-
ται ταῖς χερσὶ τοῦ θεοῦ τὸ σῶμα πλασσόμενον, ὃ δείξει τοῖς καθήκουσι χρόνοις αὐτὸ ἡ ἀνάστασις·
ὁποῖον γὰρ ἂν μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἴδοις, τοιοῦτον πάντως παρὰ τὴν πρώτην πεποίηται. οὐδὲ γὰρ
ἄλλο τι ἐστιν ἡ ἀνάστασις, εἰ μὴ πάντως ἡ εἰς τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἀποκατάστασις. Gr. Nyss., hom. in
Eccl. 1 (GNO 5,296,12–18). In connection with the open debate on Nyssen conception of
apokatastasis, we refer to just two different positions: I. Ramelli, Christian soteriology and
Christian Platonism. Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and the biblical and philosophical basis of
the doctrine of apokatastasis, in: VC 61 (2007), 313–356, and Maspero, 2019, 23–36.
104 ὁ δὲ διὰ τούτων πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ὄντος κατανόησιν ὁδηγούμενος καὶ διὰ τῶν παρατρεχόντων τὴν
στάσιμον φύσιν κατανοήσας καὶ τοῦ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχοντος ἐν περινοίᾳ γενόμενος εἶδέ τε τὸ ὄντως
ὂν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ὃ εἶδεν ἐκτήσατο· κτῆσις γάρ ἐστι τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ τούτου ἡ εἴδησις. Eccl.: Gr. Nyss.,
hom. in Eccl. 1 (GNO 5,285,9–12).
105 A. Le Boulluec, Corporéité ou individualité? La condition finale des ressuscités selon
Grégoire de Nysse, in: Aug 35 (1995), 307–326.
106 Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. (GNO 3/3,65,14).
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 103

ἐπιθυμητικὸν)107 unites human nature to irrational beings, then, when, through

virtue, all irrational motion ceases (τῆς ἀλόγου πάσης κινήσεως),108 will the
longing for good things also cease (πρὸς τὴν ὄρεξιν τῶν ἀγαθῶν)?109
In answer, Macrina tries to explain the relationship of the soul with the
divine after death, using the philosophical terminology of union with the
good.110 The keystone of her answer is that “perfect assimilation to the divinity
really consists in this: that our soul, in some way, imitates the transcendent
substance”;111 or, as will be said below: that it is “conformed according to the
properties of the divine nature”. The novelty appears when Macrina explains
that when the soul becomes godlike it has passed beyond desire and it has
entered into that towards which it was previously being raised by desire: it is
within her argument that Gregory uses schesis, introducing a new idea in the
concept of relation.

Occupation with the enjoyment of good things drives the memory out of the
mind, and, conformed, as it has been, according to the properties of the divine
nature (τοῖς ἰδιώμασι τῆς θείας φύσεως ἐμμορφωθεῖσα), it imitates the higher life to
such an extent that nothing remains of the others [the other passions and dis-
positions of the soul] except the disposition to love (τῆς ἀγαπητικῆς διαθέσεως),
which naturally adheres to what is beautiful and good by nature. For love is this:
the inner disposition to relate to what is dear to one’s heart (ἡ πρὸς τὸ καταθύμιον
ἐνδιάθετος σχέσις).112

The two terms, διάθεσις and σχέσις, are used throughout Nyssen text with syn-
onymous meaning, and the expression ἐνδιάθετος σχέσις, which also occurs

107 Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. (GNO 3/3,66,6).

108 Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. (GNO 3/3,66,4).
109 Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. (GNO 3/3,66,7f.).
110 It would be possible to dwell on the differences between the philosophical and the scrip-
tural matrices of Nyssen argument. The akolouthia of the anthropological discourse does
not fail, even though the matrix of vocabulary and the dialogic method are markedly
Platonic. This is a masterful example of patristic chresis. On this, see A.M. Mazzanti (ed.),
Un metodo per il dialogo tra le culture. La chresis patristica. Atti del Convegno (Bologna,
15–16 maggio 2019), Supplementi Adamantius 9, Brescia 2019.
111 Ἀ ληθῶς γὰρ ἐν τούτῳ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν τὴν ἀκριβῆ πρὸς τὸ Θεῖον εἶναι ὁμοίωσιν, ἐν τῷ μιμεῖσθαί πως
τὴν ἡμετέραν ζωὴν τὴν ὑπερκειμένην οὐσίαν. Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. (GNO 3/3,67,6–8).
112 ἡ δὲ περὶ τὴν ἀπόλαυσιν τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀσχολία τὴν μνήμην ἐκκρούει τῆς διανοίας· καὶ οὕτω τὴν
ὑπερέχουσαν μιμεῖται ζωὴν τοῖς ἰδιώμασι τῆς θείας φύσεως ἐμμορφωθεῖσα, ὡς μηδὲν ὑπολει-
φθῆναι τῶν ἄλλων αὐτῇ, πλὴν τῆς ἀγαπητικῆς διαθέσεως, φυσικῶς τῷ καλῷ προσφυομένης.
Τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ἀγάπη, ἡ πρὸς τὸ καταθύμιον ἐνδιάθετος σχέσις. Gr. Nyss., anim. et res.
(GNO 3/3,69,10–16).
104 Ilaria Vigorelli

once in the commentary on the Canticle, indicates the inner, we might now
say spiritual (free and voluntary), relation with the beloved.113
The Scriptural answer to the question raised by Gregory is found in
1 Corinthians 13 when the Apostle states that love will never end, and Macrina
leads her brother to understand how the conformity of the soul “according to
the properties of the divine nature” is the cause of the fact that love will never
cease and that, therefore, desire within love will never cease, even though the
soul has embraced fullness and bliss.
The explanation proceeds by tightening the argument about divine bliss
and shows first of all the risk in certain interpretations:

When, therefore, the soul has become simple and uniform (ἁπλῆ καὶ μονοειδὴς)
and perfectly similar to God (ἀκριβῶς θεοείκελος), it has found the Good that is
truly simple and immaterial (ἁπλοῦν τε καὶ ἄϋλον), the one that is truly worthy
of being loved and cherished (ἀγαπητὸν καὶ ἐράσμιον). It both adheres to it and
mixes with it by virtue of the motion and action of love (διὰ τῆς ἀγαπητῆς κινήσε-
ώς τε καὶ ἐνεργείας), conforming itself to what is continually grasped and found,
and, thanks to its similarity with the good (διὰ τῆς τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ὁμοιότητος), becom-
ing the nature of what it is sharing (ἡ τοῦ μετεχομένου φύσις ἐστὶν). Now, since in
the latter there is no desire (ἐπιθυμίας), since there is not even a lack of or need
for any good, it follows that the soul too, once it has found itself in a condition
free of shortcomings and needs, also drives out of itself the motion and disposi-
tion of desire (τὴν ἐπιθυμητικὴν κίνησίν τε καὶ διάθεσιν) which occurs only if the
object of yearning is not present.114

Gregory grasps the uncertainty of his interlocutor who still understands desire
according to the meaning of the Platonic ἔρως and not the free will of Christ. In
God, in fact, there cannot be poverty or lack, so the specific Christian innova-
tion is shown, surprisingly, by the presence of the schesis in the divinity itself:

And indeed, the life of the transcendent nature is love, for what is beautiful and
good is lovable in every respect for those who know it: now, the divinity knows
itself, and such knowledge immediately becomes love, for what is known is

113 See Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 2 (GNO 6,61,3). See also agapetike schesis as diathesis in Gr.
Nyss., hom. in Eccl. 8 (GNO 5,419,7f.). For a deeper analysis, see I. Vigorelli, 2018, 527–538.
114 Ὅταν οὖν ἡ ἁπλῆ καὶ μονοειδὴς καὶ ἀκριβῶς θεοείκελος ἡ ψυχὴ γινομένη εὕροιτο ἀληθῶς ἁπλοῦν
τε καὶ ἄϋλον ἀγαθὸν, ἐκεῖνο τὸ μόνον τοιόν τι ἀγαπητὸν καὶ ἐράσμιον προσφύεταί τε αὐτῷ καὶ
συνανακιρνᾶται διὰ τῆς ἀγαπητῆς κινήσεώς τε καὶ ἐνεργείας, πρὸς τὸ ἀεὶ καταλαμβανόμενόν τε
καὶ εὑρισκόμενον ἑαυτὴν μορφοῦσα. καὶ τοῦτο γινομένη διὰ τῆς τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ὁμοιότητος, ὅπερ ἡ
τοῦ μετεχομένου φύσις ἐστὶν, ἐπιθυμίας ἐν ἐκείνῳ μὴ οὔσης διὰ τὸ μηδέ τινος τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔνδειαν
ἐν αὐτῷ εἶναι, ἀκόλουθον ἂν εἴη καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν τῷ ἀνενδεεῖ γινομένην ἐκβάλλειν ἀφ’ ἑαυτῆς
καὶ τὴν ἐπιθυμητικὴν κίνησίν τε καὶ διάθεσιν, ἣ τότε γίνεται μόνον, ὅταν μὴ παρῇ τὸ ποθούμενον.
Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. (GNO 3/3,69,16–70,3).
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 105

beautiful and good by nature, and what is truly beautiful and good is not affected
by arrogant satiety (ὁ ὑβριστὴς…κόρος), and since satiety does not interrupt the
disposition to love what is beautiful and good (κόρου δὲ τὴν ἀγαπητικὴν πρὸς τὸ
καλὸν σχέσιν οὐ διακόπτοντος), the divine life will always be fulfilled through love.
It is both beautiful and good by nature and willing by nature to love the beautiful
and the good (καὶ ἀγαπητικῶς πρὸς τὸ τὸ καλὸν ἐκ φύσεως ἔχει), and it is not sati-
ated with activity according to love, since one cannot even grasp an end to the
beautiful and the good in such a way that, together with the end of the beautiful
and the good, love also ceases. For only that which is opposed to the beautiful
and good is circumscribed, while that good whose nature is not susceptible to
evil will progress towards the unlimited and the infinite.115

Macrina illustrates the divine life as infinite love immanent in the divine na-
ture. The fact that she uses σχέσις precisely to indicate the disposition to im-
manent love does not seem secondary because the expression is used in Contra
Eunomium to indicate the relation that unites Father and Son in the one eter-
nal substance.116 The Trinitarian schesis, therefore, is adduced as the reason
for why love has no end of satiety for human nature when it unites with the
divine, because divine life is conveyed through relation, and the life of God is
infinite.117
One can thus understand the importance of schesis in human nature whose
likeness to God, according to Scripture, is located not only in the immaterial
soul or in human autarchy but precisely in the openness of human nature,
which, in turn, can become ἀγαπητικὴ πρὸς τὸ καλὸν. The archetype of human
nature is, therefore, the infinite nature as immanently relational.118

115 Ἥ
 τε γὰρ ζωὴ τῆς ἄνω φύσεως ἀγάπη ἐστὶν, ἐπειδὴ τὸ καλὸν ἀγαπητὸν πάντως ἐστὶ τοῖς γινώ-
σκουσι· γινώσκει δὲ αὐτὸ τὸ Θεῖον· ἡ δὲ γνῶσις ἀγάπη γίνεται. Διὸ τὸ καλόν ἐστι τῇ φύσει τὸ
γινωσκόμενον, τοῦ δὲ ἀληθῶς καλοῦ ὁ ὑβριστὴς οὐ προςάπτεται κόρος· κόρου δὲ τὴν ἀγαπητικὴν
πρὸς τὸ καλὸν σχέσιν οὐ διακόπτοντος, ἀεὶ ἡ θεία ζωὴ δι’ἀγάπης ἐνεργηθήσεται, ἣ καλή τε κατὰ
φύσιν ἐστὶ, καὶ ἀγαπητικῶς πρὸς τὸ καλὸν ἐκ φύσεως ἔχει, καὶ ὅρον τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἀγάπην ἐνερ-
γείας οὐκ ἔχει, ἐπειδὴ οὐδὲ τοῦ καλοῦ τι πέρας καταλαμβάνεται, ὡς συναπολήγειν τῷ πέρατι τοῦ
καλοῦ τὴν ἀγάπην· μόνῳ γὰρ τῷ ἐναντίῳ τὸ καλὸν περατιοῦται· οὗ δὲ ἡ φύσις ἀνεπίδεκτός ἐστι
τοῦ χείρονος, πρὸς τὸ ἀπέραντόν τε καὶ ἀόριστον τὸ ἀγαθὸν προελεύσεται. Gr. Nyss., anim. et
res. (GNO 3/3,70,20–71,11).
116 There are more than 80 occurrences of schesis in the Contra Eunomium. Most of them
are related to the Trinitarian debate. See I. Vigorelli, The schesis of the Father and of
the Son in the Contra Eunomium I, in: M. Brugarolas (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa: Contra
Eunomium I. An English Translation with Supporting Studies. New Proceedings of the VI
International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa, Leiden 2018, 538–556.
117 Maspero, 2019, 23–36.
118 We are here supporting a different position from that of Ivanka when he recalls Gregory’s
Platonism with regard to mystical knowledge: we no longer only notice the reference to
a descending or degrading ontology or to human nature as a receptacle for the divine
but are witnessing an important transformation of the Platonic system since agapetike
106 Ilaria Vigorelli

Therefore, since every nature is such as to attract to itself what is akin to it, and
the human being is in some way akin to God (οἰκεῖον δέ πως τῷ Θεῷ τὸ ἀνθρώπι-
νον), as it carries within itself the imitation of the archetype, the soul is necessar-
ily attracted to the divine, which is akin to it (κατὰ πᾶσαν ἀνάγκην πρὸς τὸ θεῖόν τε
καὶ συγγενὲς ἡ ψυχή). In fact, it is necessary that in all aspects and in all ways what
is His own is reserved to God.119

While it is certain that the archetype of human nature is in the ἀγαπητικὴ

σχέσις, this does not detract from the fact that mankind needs purification
so that all attachment to evil is eliminated, as we have seen in the logic of
Gregory’s view of the good death (ὁ εὔκαιρος θάνατος).
The ἀγαπητικὴ σχέσις also appears in In illud: tunc et ipse filius. In his brief
commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:28, Gregory indicates Christ’s affection for his
own, made even more potent by the fact that the Incarnate Son manifested it
when he instituted the Eucharist. Gregory writes: “Who will blame him for say-
ing: ‘longing for you’ (Lk 22:15), an expression with which he shows his loving
disposition (τὴν ἀγαπητικὴν ἐνδείκνυται σχέσιν).”120
It is worth noting that, on its first occurrence, the expression ἀγαπητικὴν
σχέσιν refers to Christ. The context of the commentary allows us to place this
occurrence at the point where, in almost concluding the subject, Gregory
shows that the Father’s love for the Son, the Son gave to mankind, and that this
love, which is the Spirit of the Son, allows the union of the human being with
God and of the disciples among themselves.121

VI. Conclusion

The account of Gregory of Nyssa’s anthropology traced so far, although it is

far from exhausting all the richness of the anthropological thought developed

schesis in the human being means to be in the position of the Son who receives love
from the Father and, in turn, returns His love. Gregory’s Platonism consists largely in his
participation in a widely shared vocabulary whereas his description of human reality is in
its essence rooted in a new theology that is fully Trinitarian. See E. von Ivanka, Plato chris­
tianus: la réception critique du platonisme chez les Pères de l’Église, Paris 1990, 137–172. For
a deeper study of the differences between Trinitarian ontology and classical metaphysics,
see X. Batllo, Ontologie scalaire et polémique trinitaire, Münster 2013.
119 Ἐπεὶ οὖν ἑλκτικὴ τῶν οἰκείων πᾶσα φύσις ἐστὶν, οἰκεῖον δέ πως τῷ Θεῷ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον, ἅτε δὴ
φέρον ἐν ἑαυτῷ τοῦ ἀρχετύπου μιμήματα, ἕλκεται κατὰ πᾶσαν ἀνάγκην πρὸς τὸ θεῖόν τε καὶ
συγγενὲς ἡ ψυχή. Δεῖ γὰρ πάντη καὶ πάντως τῷ Θεῷ ἀποσωθῆναι τὸ ἴδιον. Gr. Nyss., anim. et
res. (GNO 3/3,71,11–15).
120 τίς δὲ κρινεῖ αὐτὸν εἰπόντα ὅτι Ὁμειρόμενοι ὑμῶν, δι’ ἦς λέξεως τὴν ἀγαπητικὴν ἐνδείκνυται
σχέσιν; Gr. Nyss., hom. in 1 Cor 15:28 (GNO 3/2,25,21).
121 Gr. Nyss., hom. in 1 Cor 15:28 (GNO 3/2,22–24).
4. Gregory of Nyssa ’ s Trinitarian Anthropology 107

by the Cappadocian Father, allows us to point out how the development of

Trinitarian theology introduced a new concept of relation that led to a reread-
ing of the soul-body unity. What is possible to see now, throughout Gregory’s
anthropological works, is that the relational immanence of the divine nature
has been expressed in parallel with the development of an anthropology which
has highlighted the character of the desire for good as an endowment intrinsic
to human nature which makes it open to a relational fulfilment and therefore
to the spiritual dimension which transcends that of the intelligible.
The will, which throughout a person’s history determines his/her dispo-
sitions towards the good—in all possible forms of virtue or vice—arrives at
natural death as a final remedy. After this death, body and soul, in fact, can
be reshaped by the Creator in a new form, that of the risen body, which will
restore to human nature its full capacity to love.
In this study, we could not fail to consider the centrality of the Incarnation
of the Word: by taking on human nature, He has actualised the possibility of
fulfilment in union with the divinity, and has transformed the logic of par-
ticipation in the divine into a personal relationship that does not exclude the
body, but rather assumes it.
Gregory’s interpretation of Gen 1:26–28 thus posits for human existence a
new mode of being according to the category of relation, something not previ-
ously contemplated by Aristotelian metaphysics or its commentators.122
Gregory’s reflection on human dispositions have given us a new under-
standing of what he had in mind when he speaks of freedom for the bodily-
spiritual being.
What will the body be for Gregory in the definitive eschaton since, from the
Ascension, it is present in the immaterial eternity of God (Mark 16:19)?123 In
De hominis opificio, he explains how the corporal dimension can participate in
spiritual operations by loving. In fact, after describing the divine attributes of
Intelligence and Word, he adds:

Human nature is not far from these attributes. You see in yourself reason and
thought, the image of Intelligence and the Word by essence. Again, God is love:
thus the great John says that “love is God and God is love” (1 John 4:7f.). He who
has shaped our nature has also made this character ours: “they will all know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Where there is no
love, the whole character of the image is altered.124

122 See M. Edwards, Aristotle and Early Christian Thought, Abingdon 2019, 97–128.
123 See Gr. Nyss., Apoll. (GNO 3/1,203,6); Eun. 3,1,134 (GNO 2,48,22–28).
124 Οὐ πόῤῥω τούτων καὶ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον. Ὁρᾷς ἐν σεαυτῷ καὶ τὸν λόγον, καὶ διάνοιαν, μίμημα τοῦ
ὄντως νοῦ τε καὶ λόγου. Ἀγάπη πάλιν ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ ἀγάπης πηγή. Τοῦτο γάρ φησιν Ἰωάννης ὁ
μέγας, ὅτι “Ἀγάπη ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ”; καὶ, “Ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστί” τοῦτο καὶ ἡμέτερον πεποίηται πρό-
σωπον ὁ τῆς φύσεως πλάστης. “Ἐν τούτῳ” γὰρ, φησὶ, “γνώσονται πάντες, ὅτι μαθηταί μου ἐστὲ,
108 Ilaria Vigorelli

In this way we can understand that love is the final point of the akolouthia of
Nyssa’s anthropological discourse: the possibility of sharing in the attributes of
the eternal is not given only by virtue of the divine image (Gen 1:26) but much
more fully by virtue of the union of the Word with all humanity, body and soul
together.
We have thus concluded our study, which has followed its own akolouthia.
As a first step, we considered the methodological presuppositions of Gregory
of Nyssa’s thought in order to highlight the discontinuity of the semantic and
syntactic contents of the philosophical vocabulary used by the Cappadocian
Father.
Then, starting from the Nyssen interpretation of Genesis and of Paul, we
outlined his thought on the ontology of the human body, which he detached
from all considerations about concupiscence and the passions.
Afterwards, we highlighted the natural disposition of human being, involv-
ing the union of soul and body, which is originally directed to the uncreated,
infinite and eternal Good who is the source of the created nature but who also
endows mankind with freedom. We emphasised how both the disposition to
the good and freedom are characteristic of the creature’s resemblance to the
Creator, which make it akin to Him.
Deviating from the original relationship with the good, human freedom has
introduced the logic of the struggle between the opposites (sensible and intel-
ligible), and what is unnatural was seen as something that had to be purified to
enable participation in the divine life.
Death and the resurrection of the body were considered within the perspec-
tive of human salvation.
At this point, desire was shown as it is, a relational tendency that does not
cease when it participates in the divine but is made eternal just as the love be-
tween the Father and the Son is eternal, the same Love that is communicated
to humankind through the Incarnation of the Word.
All this leads us to conclude that Gregory of Nyssa’s anthropology can be
called Trinitarian because it not only describes the relationship between the
image and the archetype but also highlights the immanent Trinitarian traits
of the latter.

ἐὰν ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους”. Οὐκοῦν μὴ παρούσης ταύτης, ἅπας ὁ χαρακτὴρ τῆς εἰκόνος μεταπεποί-
ηται. (Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 5 [PG 44,137]).
 chapter 5

The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius

Ponticus

Kuo-Yu Tsui

Abstract

This paper explores the conceptualization of the body in the work of Evagrius
Ponticus in terms of his anthropological, cosmological and soteriological frame-
work and the range of ascetic practices he prescribes. Overall, Evagrius’ perspec-
tive on the body is shown to be unified and integrated with soul and mind.

There is a spectrum of beliefs and practices in early Christian asceticism with

regard to the body. In some cases, elements or modes of the body may be
thought of as enemies of the ascetic, who may abhor the body and even wish
to destroy it.1 The body may also be figured as a type of prison or tomb, from
which the ascetic wishes to be released. While such antipathetic or antago-
nistic thinking about the body exists in Christian asceticism and has received
much criticism,2 it does not do justice to all Christian ascetic disciplines.3
Here, as a case in point, through a close reading of the work of the desert as-
cetic theologian Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), I will examine how the body is
conceptualized within his anthropological and cosmological scheme, and con-
sider the purpose of the various ascetic measures he prescribes, both in the
context of the daily practice of the desert monks and in the broad scheme of

1 A prominent example of such extreme attitude is exemplified by the saying of Dorotheus:

“The body kills me, I kill it” (Pall., h. Laus. 2.2 [R.T. Meyer (ed./transl.), Palladius. The Lausiac
History, New York 1964, 33]).
2 For examples, Dodd argues that contempt for the human condition and hatred of the
body are characteristic of early Christian asceticism, which Dodd finds insane and morbid.
See E.R. Dodd, Pagan and Christian in the Age of Anxiety. Some Aspects of Religious Experience
from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine, Cambridge 1965, 33–35. Bell strongly criticizes the ascet-
icism of the desert fathers, which in his opinion is against the significance of Christ’s gospel.
D.N. Bell, Christ in the Desert, in: ABenR 50 (1999), 381–396 (393–396).
3 As Corrigan indicates, such extreme attitudes constitute only a part of diverse practices in
Christian asceticism, which is generally more inclusive of mind, soul, and body. K. Corrigan,
Christian Asceticism. Mind, Soul and Body, in: A. Marmodoro / S. Cartwright (eds.), A History
of Mind and Body in Late Antiquity, Cambridge 2018, 224–244 (224).

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_006

110 Kuo-Yu Tsui

salvific economy. Overall, it will be demonstrated that Evagrius has developed

a unified framework for understanding the integration of mind, soul, and body,
in which body is affirmed as part of good creation and plays an essential role
in the process of salvation.

I. Evagrius’ Scheme of Mind-Soul-Body

Working in alignment with Origen’s cosmological scheme and its Platonic

tripartition of the human being, Evagrius describes the descent of the mind
(nous) as a consequence of the Fall: “As we said of the mind, it is one in na-
ture, person, and rank. Falling at some point from its former rank through its
free will, it was called a soul. And it descended again and was named a body”.4
As commentators note, when Evagrius speaks of the mind’s fall to the status
of the soul, and the soul then falling to become a body, he seems to suggest
that the fallen mind, in contrast to its original, undivided state, has soul and
body as its differentiated dimensions.5 The three elements (body, soul, mind)
constitute the present reality of the human person in Evagrius’ anthropology
(To Eulogios = Eul. 6). Since the mind’s fall is an act of self-alienation, dividing
different parts of the human being from and even against others, the mind’s as-
cent back to God entails uniting these dividing parts into one.6 In other words,
the fallen mind in the present life embarks on a reversing process in order that
body, soul, and mind will ultimately become one again (GL 26). This process
requires making progress from vice to the practical ascetic life (praktikē), and
then up through various stages of contemplation (theōria).7 The mind’s ascent
back to God and to unity (KG 1.58) involves knowledge, and it is not possible
to acquire knowledge without having renounced the things of the world, evil,
and ignorance (On Thoughts = Thoughts 26). Without the purification of the
praktikē, there can be no knowledge. Therefore, praktikē is set up as the first
step on the path to theōria. As Evagrius indicates, “Christianity is the doctrine
of Christ our Savior. It is comprised of the practical (πρακτική), the natural

4 Evagr. Pont., Great Letter = GL 26.—Translations of Great Letter are by A.M. Casiday (ed./
transl.), Evagrius Ponticus, The Early Church Fathers, London 2006, based on the Syriac text
by W. Frankenberg, Evagrius Ponticus, AAWG 13.2, Berlin 1912.
5 S. Cartwright, Soul and Body in Early Christianity. An Old and New Conundrum, in: Marmodoro /
Cartwright (eds.), 2018, 173–190 (186); M. Tobon, Raising Body and Soul to the Order of the
Nous. Anthropology and Contemplation in Evagrius, in: SP 57 (2013), 51–74 (53).
6 Cartwright, 2018, 187.
7 J. Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus. The Making of a Gnostic, Farnham 2009, 29–31.
5. The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius Ponticus 111

(φυσική), and the theological (θεολογική)” (Praktikos = Prakt. 1).8 Praktikē aims
at apatheia (ἀπάθεια, translated as passionlessness or impassibility), which
marks a crucial stage in the spiritual progress, without which the monk will
not be able to proceed along the path of knowledge and contemplation.
The mind acquires knowledge through a gradual process, first contemplat-
ing corporeal reality, then incorporeal reality, and finally God (KG 2.4). The
contemplation of corporeal reality is what Evagrius calls natural contempla-
tion (physikē). It has two stages: the second natural contemplation and the
first natural contemplation. In the former stage, the mind explores the na-
ture of corporeal reality through mental representations, whereas in the lat-
ter stage the mind moves away from representational thought and attains the
logoi of corporeal reality, i.e., knowledge concerning the principles of mate-
rial creation.9 As the mind acquires knowledge and ascends to God/unity, its
power will pervade the soul, so that the soul will be mingled with God’s light
(KG 2.29). Eventually, the body will be elevated to the rank of the soul, the soul
to that of the mind, and the mind will return to unity (GL 22). Before achiev-
ing the final unity, the mind must undergo stages of purification, starting from
praktikē, in which the fallen mind, at the beginning of its spiritual ascent, is
confronted with the body that can be problematic.

II. Flesh (σάρξ): The Problematic Body

Numerous references to the body as problematic can be found in Evagrius’

ascetic work. For instance, Evagrius refers to “the incontinence (ἀκρασία) of
the body” (Chapters on Prayer = Ch. Pr. 63; 83), which expresses a sense of dis-
harmony, inadequacy on the part of the body, impeding the mind’s attempt
at its proper activity.10 The preoccupation with the body distracts the mind
from prayer and contemplation, as Evagrius continues: “To the extent that you
give your attention to your relation with the body and your mind busies itself
with the delights of the outer tent, you have not yet beheld the place of prayer,

8 The following Greek texts of Praktikos are from the critical edition published by
A. Guillaumont / C. Guillaumont (eds.), Évagre le Pontique: Traité pratique ou le moine,
SC170f., Paris 1971. Translations are by R.E. Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus. The Greek Ascetic
Corpus, Oxford Early Christian Studies, Oxford 2003.
9 See A. Guillaumont, Un philosophe au desert. Évagre le Pontique, Paris 2004, 283–292,
where he describes the distinction and mechanism of the first and second natural
contemplation.
10 Sinkewicz translates ἀκρασία as “incontinence,” and Dysinger “disharmony;” both convey
a sense of inadequacy of the body in its relation with the mind.
112 Kuo-Yu Tsui

and its blessed path still lies far from yours” (Ch. Pr. 152).11 Unless the body is
mortified, it will trouble the soul (Eight Thoughts 1.30). Most notably, the body
becomes problematic when it is dominated by passions. Evagrius admonishes
the monk “to put to death the passions of the body” (Foundations = Found. 10;
cf. Prakt. Prologue 6) since the passions prevent the mind from praying. As
he asks: “why do the demons want to produce in us gluttony, fornication, ava-
rice, anger, and resentment, and the other passions? So that the mind becomes
thickened by them and unable to pray as it ought” (Ch. Pr. 50).12
Evagrius even refers to the body that has become a locus of passions as
“flesh (σάρξ)” (Eul. 1.1; 21.22; 31.33; Monks = M. 6). With the expression “the
flesh of your body” (M. 38),13 Evagrius emphasises “flesh” as this aspect of the
body that is dominated by passions. Evagrius is well aware of the danger of
the flesh as it manifests the power of the passions. The flesh is to be dealt with
by ascesis (ἀσκήσις). Evagrius advises the monk to restrain “the wiles of the flesh
with the sharp instrument of ascetic labors” (Eul. 1.1. Cf. Eul. 6.6; 18.19; 21.23).14
Evagrius also prescribes ascesis as a way of life in disciplining “flesh,” i.e., the
problematic body. Ascesis requires both bodily and spiritual disciplines. While
the former includes vigils, sleeping on the ground (Thoughts 3), limiting food
intake (Eight Thoughts 1.2,5f.; 11f.; 28f.; 30) or even fasting (Found. 10), the latter
refers to singing psalmody, praying, and reading (Ch. Pr. 83; Prakt. 15). Evagrius
suggests both bodily and spiritual disciplines as ascetic labors to enhance the
spiritual health of the whole person. Both bodily and spiritual disciplines aim
at dealing with passions, which entail tough battles with the adversaries that
the monk encounters and only afterwards can the monk engage in contempla-
tion (Eul. 29.31). The freedom from passions or apatheia is, in Evagrius’ scheme
of spiritual progress, an intermediate stage towards the more advanced stages,

11 The critical edition of the Greek text Chapters on Prayer is published by Paul Géhin (ed.),
Évagre le Pontiqu. Chapitres sur la prière, SC 589, Paris 2017. Translations of Ch. Pr. are by
Sinkewicz, 2003.
12 Cf. Ch. Pr. 128, where Evagrius says: “If you want to pray in spirit, bear hatred for no one
and you will have no cloud to obstruct your sight in the time of prayer.” Evagrius also
warns against the passion of anger: “Irascible people succumb in these temptations, and
especially if they are easily inflamed with anger—these people are far from pure prayer
and the knowledge of Christ our Savior” (Thoughts 16). The following Greek texts of On
Thoughts are from the critical edition published by P. Géhin (ed.), Évagre le Pontique. Sur
les pensées, SC 438, Paris 1998.Translations of On Thoughts are by Sinkewicz, 2003.
13 The whole text reads: “Let not wine be your cheer, nor meat your delight, lest you nourish
the flesh of your body and shameful thoughts will not leave you alone” (Monks = M. 38).
14 The critical edition of the Greek text To Eulogios is published by C.-A. Fogielman (ed.),
Évagre le Pontique: À Euloge: Les vices opposés aux vertus, SC 591, Paris 2017. Translations
of To Eulogios are by Sinkewicz, 2003.
5. The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius Ponticus 113

in which the mind contemplates and acquires knowledge. In sum, the monk
starts with the stage of praktikē, exercising bodily and spiritual ascesis so as to
achieve apatheia, “the health of the soul” (Prakt. 56). Apatheia as a state of the
soul, in turn, signifies that the body is in a disciplined alignment in contrast
to the problematic body—the body that is dominated by passions, or “flesh.”

III. Anachoresis as a Flight from the Body

In order to keep the body free from the domination of passions, the monk
should also embrace the ideal of anachoresis (ἀναχώρησις), a total withdrawal
from the world. Conducive to monastic life, anachoresis is also what a virtuous
monk aspires to achieve: “separating soul from body belongs also to one who
longs for virtue” (Prakt. 52). Evagrius further specifies anachoresis as “a medita-
tion on death and a flight from the body (μελέτη θανάτου καὶ φυγὴ τοῦ σώμα-
τος)” (Prakt. 52). To meditate on one’s death is to remember the finality of the
body.15 Evagrius advises the monk: “Seated in your cell, gather together your
mind, give heed to the day of your death, and then look at the dying of your
body” (Found. 9).16 Through this practice, the monk may cultivate the aware-
ness of one’s own finality, which would bring forth virtue and zeal, so that the
monk can “abide always in the same purpose of practicing stillness” (Found. 9).
Anachoresis as a flight from the body signifies to the monk that he needs to
detach himself from whatever the body entails completely so that the mind
may pray and contemplate without disturbances. Without doubts, “flesh” or
the problematic body (i.e., the body without the discipline of ascesis and thus
under the influence of passions) is what the monk urgently needs to detach
from, and he exercises ascesis so that the body can be brought in control. But
even when the body of the monk is in discipline, the monk would like to re-
main detached from what the body is concerned with. The monk is aware that
the body presents itself as a perpetual concern—as σώμα ὀργανικόν, the body
constantly introduces the sensory world to the mind.17 “The mind receives

15 Here Evagrius echoes Plato’s idea that philosophy is a preparation for death, as noted by
Ramelli. See I. Ramelli, Origen to Evagrius, in: H. Tarrant et. al. (eds.), Brill’s Companion to
the Reception of Plato in Antiquity, Leiden 2016, 272–291 (289).
16 The Greek text of Foundations is in PG 40, 1251–1264. Translations of Foundations are by
Sinkewicz, 2003.
17 Evagrius sees the body as instrument (ὄργανον) of the soul (KG 1.67; 2.48; 2.80; 3.20;
3.45; 3.51; 4.60; 4.62; 6.72), which shows the mind sense-perceptible objects. His usage
derives from the Greek philosophical background. In Plato, the word ὄργανον means
“organ of sense or perception,” which provides the soul with sensory data (Pl., R. 508B;
114 Kuo-Yu Tsui

naturally the mental representations of sensible objects and their impressions

through the instrumentality of this body of ours (διὰ τοῦ ὀργανικοῦ σώματος
τούτου)” (Thoughts 25). Consequently, the mind is persistently occupied with
sensible objects, and they can stir up the mind. Unless the monk can “leave
behind the things here below and hold always to your citizenship in heaven
(cf. Phil 3:20)” (Ch. Pr. 142), he will not be fully undisturbed in his practice of
prayer. The praying mind is in need of distancing the sensory world, as “the
mind possesses vigor when it imagines nothing of the things of this world dur-
ing the time of prayer” (Prakt. 65). Ideally speaking, the mind that advances
in knowledge is separated from sensible things with the help of knowledge
(Prakt. 66). Evagrius’ idea derives from Gregory of Nyssa’s thought that the
mind can turn to upper realities only when it is detached from the mortal body
and sense perception.18
To be sure, anachoresis as a flight from the body, which requires separating
from the sensible things introduced by the body, is essential for the monk to
control passions and advance in knowledge. The monk learns to be watchful
about his senses because they are only one step away from passions: “passions
are naturally set in motion by the senses” (Prakt. 38). Passions then “bind the
mind to sensible objects through mental representations” (Thoughts 40). By
manipulating sense perception through producing mental images and repre-
sentations of sensible objects, the demons succeed in tempting the monk.19
Subsequently, “attacks of folly arise from such passions, when the heart moves
from one mental representation to another and from this to another and
from that to still another” (Thoughts 23). These “mental representation tied
to passions” (Ch. Pr. 53) enflame passions and scatter the mind. They must be

518C; Tht. 185C; Phd. 250B). Aristotle defines the human body as an “instrumental body”
(σώμα ὀργανικόν), which is equipped with organs of sense perception. The expression “in-
strumental body” is also adopted later by Neoplatonism and used by Gregory of Nyssa.
See I. Ramelli, Evagrius’s Kephalaia Gnostica. A New Translation of the Unreformed Text
from the Syriac, Writings from the Greco-Roman World, Atlanta 2015, 66, 120, 360.
18 See Ramelli, 2016, 287. As Ramelli points out, Evagrius’ idea resonates Gregory of Nyssa’s
words in De mortuis oratio 50–52: “The soul can adhere to the intellectual and immaterial
only when it gets rid of the weight of matter that surrounds it … when, thanks to death,
we attain incorporeality, we get closer to that nature which is free from every physical
heaviness.”
19 On how the demons provoke the bad thoughts, see K. Gibbons, Passions, Pleasures, and
Perceptions. Rethinking Evagrius Ponticus on Mental Representation, in: ZAC 19 (2015),
297–330 (317–322). In KG 2.48, Evagrius also addresses the danger that the mind would
encounter when it goes along with sense perception: “The mind, if it goes straight along
its own path, meets the holy powers, whereas if (it goes along the path) of the instrument
of the soul, it will run into the demons.”
5. The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius Ponticus 115

overcome if the monk wishes to pray, as Evagrius warns the monk: “you can-
not practice pure prayer while entangled in material things (cf. 2 Tim 2:4) and
agitated by continuous concerns, for prayer is the laying aside of mental repre-
sentations” (Ch. Pr. 70).
If, for the mind to soar on high in the realm of knowledge, it is necessary to
turn away from the material things that form mental images and representa-
tions through sensory perception, how does this reconcile with its embodi-
ment, which in essence entails sensory experience of the material world? In
order to answer this question, we need to understand how Evagrius conceives
of embodiment in relation to the highest act of the mind, i.e., theological
contemplation.

IV. Body in the Economy of Salvation

As mentioned above, “flesh” or the problematic body is one that is without the
discipline of ascesis and is left dominated by passions. Passions are induced by
senses. As the sensory world is continuously introduced to the mind through
the body, the mind runs the risk of being impassioned, especially by those
problematic mental images of oneself taking pleasure in the acquisition (rath-
er than contemplation) of a certain sensible object.20 The demons can take
the opportunity to make use of mental images and representations to arouse
passions and separate humans from God (Ch. Pr. 68).21 The monk needs to be
cautious about this sensory aspect of the body, which can become a source of
passions,22 and therefore initiates a flight from the body.
As for the monk’s body that is in discipline, the body mediates natural con-
templation through sensory experience, and this mediating role of the body
will eventually be transcended in the highest act of the mind. Evagrius recog-
nises the function of the body as the instrument (ὄργανον) of the soul in acquir-
ing knowledge through the sensory world. As he indicates, the fallen mind in
the present life now “has received corruptible sense perception as teacher of

20 The problematic mental images are identified as demonic thoughts. See Gibbons, 2015,
316f.
21 Noted also by E. Clark, New Perspectives on the Origenist Controversy. Human Embodiment
and Ascetic Strategies, in: CH 59 (1990), 145–162 (152); C. Stewart, Imageless Prayer and
the Theological Vision of Evagrius Ponticus, in: JECS 9 (2000), 179–210 (188).
22 As Guillaumont reminds us, sin in Evagrius is associated with sense perception. See
Guillaumont, 2004, 235–242.
116 Kuo-Yu Tsui

material intellections” (KG 3.55).23 The fallen mind is drawn first to the realm
of knowledge through the mediation of the material world, accessible through
sensible objects, in natural contemplation. It is because, as Evagrius writes, our
thick mind “is bound up with earthy material and mixed with clay, and so is
unable to be intent on bare contemplation: thus it is through worlds similar to
its own body that it is led to apprehend the activities of the Creator, and mean-
while it learns to know these things from their effects, so that, strengthened
little by little, it may eventually be able to approach the naked divinity Itself”
(Letter on Faith = F. 7).24
There is a gradual process in which the mind ascends along the path of con-
templation. First, the mind makes use of mental images and representations
from sensory perception as a guide to recognise the creation as divine revela-
tion.25 This is what Evagrius calls the stage of second natural contemplation—
the mind explores the nature of sensible objects through the proper use of
mental representations. Gradually, the mind can proceed to the stage of
first natural contemplation, when it eventually ceases from representational
thought and achieves contemplation of the intelligible logoi of created ob-
jects.26 In natural contemplation, the mind is not yet capable of simplicity of
thought, and it largely depends on mental representations derived from sen-
sory experience.27 The purpose of natural contemplation is to shift the mind
away from mental representations and prepare the mind to function again ac-
cording to its proper nature. The highest act of the mind does not involve im-
ages and representations,28 rather, it is “an act of contemplation—in which
all ‘thoughts’ and concepts are banished from the mind, which becomes ‘like
light’ in an intense, imageless contemplation of the Godhead.”29 In this act

23 In contrast, “in the beginning the intellect had God, who is incorruptible, as teacher of
immaterial intellections” (KG 3.55). Cf. “The bare intellect is that which, by means of con-
templation that regards it, is joined to the knowledge of the Trinity” (KG 3.6). Translated
by Ramelli, 2015.
24 Translated by L. Dysinger, based on NPNF 2.8, at http://www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/11_
Letters/00a_start.htm, with occasional amendments.
25 Stefaniw applies the metaphor of reading to illustrate the process of recognising the cre-
ation as the divine revelation: it is like learning to become literate in comprehending the
“text” of creation. B. Stefaniw, Evagrius Ponticus on Image and Material, in: CSQ 42 (2007),
125–135 (126f.).
26 Gibbons, 2015, 313.
27 Stewart, 2000, 191.
28 Cf. “The mind could not see the place of God within itself, unless it has transcended all
the mental representations associated with objects” (Thoughts 40).
29 Clark, 1990, 154.
5. The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius Ponticus 117

of contemplation, the mind, which has reached the perfect state of “naked-
ness” (KG 3.6; 3.15; 3.17; 3.19), attains the highest degree of knowledge, and “be-
comes entirely like light, illuminated as it is by the contemplation of beings”
(KG 5.15).30 Thus, in reversing its fallenness, the mind undergoes a gradual pro-
cess of recognising the material world as God’s creation (as in second natural
contemplation), then turns away from the material world and seeks behind
it the logoi of creation (as in first natural contemplation), and finally ascends
to the immaterial realm of divinity (theological contemplation).31 The mind
in its ascent to God gradually goes beyond the material world, including the
body, though it does make use of the material world as a medium before it
reaches the immaterial realm of divinity. Therefore, body along with the mate-
rial world plays an essential role in the economy of salvation.
Furthermore, Evagrius affirms God’s providence (πρόνοια) in creating the
material world and the body, and in guiding rational creatures toward virtue
and knowledge (KG 6.59). He is positive about the goodness of creation: “there
is nothing that has been created by God and is evil” (KG 3.59). Body is never
rejected as if it were intrinsically evil. If body is not the source of evil, where
does evil come from? In Evagrius’ view, it is the will of a person that is account-
able for evil. When Evagrius points out it is for us to decide if thoughts are
to linger within us or stir up our passions (Prakt. 6), he indicates the role of
the human will in determining whether thoughts evolve into passions. More
specifically, it is the use of the human will “against nature (παρὰ φύσιν)” that
leads to wrong moral choices and evil outcomes. Evagrius notes that “of these
faculties [logistikon, thymos, and epithymia], it is possible to make use in a good
and in an evil way” and “it is by the use of these parts against nature that evils
occur to us” (KG 3.59). The free will of a human agent is responsible for evil, as
Evagrius comments:

It is not the ‘eye which sees’ evil that is ‘the work of the Lord’ but rather the one
who ‘sees;’ and it is not ‘the ear which hears’ evil that is ‘the work of the Lord’ but
rather the one who ‘hears;’ and it is said to be the same with the other members

30 As Evagrius says elsewhere, when the monk deprives himself of all mental representa-
tions, he shall behold the state of his mind “resembling sapphire or the color of heaven
(cf. Ex 24:9–11)” (Reflection = Refl. 2).
31 Evagrius also hints at this process of ascent to the immaterial through the material in
Great Letter 13: “Now we are the reasonable creation and (for reasons that it is not possible
to explain here) we are joined to this visible creation; so, with respect to visible things, we
must eagerly advance by them toward, and come to understand, the things invisible. Yet
we cannot accomplish this as long as we fall short of completely knowing the import of
perceptible things.”
118 Kuo-Yu Tsui

of the body. This saying can be usefully directed against those who despise this
body of ours, and thus insult the Creator (Scholion 215 on Prov. 20:12).32

Body is not to be despised nor blamed for evil. Ultimately, not even flesh is
culpable, as made evident in the following words of Evagrius: “Those who
in their wickedness nourish the flesh and ‘make provision for it to gratify its
desires’ (Rom 13:14)—let them blame themselves and not the flesh. For they
know the grace of the Creator, those who have attained impassibility of the
soul through this body and perceive to some degree the contemplation of be-
ings” (Prakt. 53).33 Here again Evagrius locates the potential source of evil in
the human will, rather than in the body itself.
Embodiment is a given in the present life—the mind simply cannot do
without the mortal body in the world: “Just as it is impossible that a rational
nature with the mortal body exist apart from the world, likewise it is impos-
sible that apart from the mortal body it be in the world” (KG 6.81). Our em-
bodied being is created with a pedagogical purpose. As Evagrius indicates in
Prakt. 53, it is through the body that the monk learns to attain apatheia and
the contemplation of beings. The body in discipline, i.e., the body that is exer-
cised and purified in the praktikē, serves as a chariot for the rational soul in its
endeavor to reach the knowledge of God (KG 1.67). In the economy of salva-
tion, body becomes a vehicle for the soul and provides for it the possibility of
being engaged in the restorative activity of contemplation.34 However, it is not
the problematic body, but the virtuous, disciplined and ascetic body that can
serve as an adequate instrument for the fallen mind to engage in contempla-
tion. While Evagrius is worried about the problematic body, he commends the
ascetic body: “The ‘refuge’ is the mortal praktikon body of the soul that is liable
to passions, which liberates it from the demons that surround it” (KG 4.82).35
Evagrius envisions the ascetic body as becoming the ideal instrument of the

32 The Greek text is from the critical edition published by P. Géhin (ed.), Évagre le Pontique:
Scholies aux Proverbes, SC 340, Paris 1987. Translation is made by L. Dysinger at http://
www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/09_Prov/00a_start.htm, with occasional amendments.
33 Hunt rightly points out that this is reminiscent of Pauline language of “living accord-
ing to the flesh.” What is problematic is fleshly behavior rather than actual corporeality.
H. Hunt, Clothed in the Body. Asceticism, the Body, and the Spiritual in the Late Antique
Era, Farnham 2012, 51.
34 Cf. Konstantinovsky, 2009, 122.
35 Similarly, Evagrius in KG 4.60 affirms the mortal body as a gift from God, which can be a
refuge of the soul away from the demons: “To those who blaspheme against the Creator
and speak ill of this mortal body of our soul, who will show them the grace that they have
received, while they are subject to passions, to have been joined to such an instrument
(ὄργανον)? But to witness in favor of my words are those who in visions of dreams are
5. The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius Ponticus 119

soul, which in apatheia is progressively less troubled by demons and the pas-
sions aroused through senses by them (Prakt. 59f.; 66f.), and thus mediates nat-
ural contemplation through the proper use of sensory experience. The ascetic
body in this way is instrumental in bringing about the restoration of the mind.
It takes life-long work of ascesis for the monk to constantly overcome the
body in its problematic mode. Evagrius emphasises working through the body
as a crucial part of the process in overcoming passions: “The one who is liable
to passions and prays that his departure may occur soon is similar to a man
who is ill and asks the joiner to break his bed up soon” (KG 4.76).36 This em-
bodied existence is where the process of learning to overcome passions takes
place. Evagrius sees the sojourn in the mortal body in the present life as an
opportunity for purification and improvement (KG 4.74; 4.76; 4.82).37 Indeed,
“the mind that purifies itself of anger, resentment, and bodily concern discov-
ers pure knowledge” (Exhortation = Exh. 2.15).38 As recorded in Apophthegmata
Patrum, Evagrius’ saying suggests that body serves as a training ground for the
monk to mature in ascesis and virtue.39 The monastic life can be seen as a
spiritual progression in which the monk learns through the body to overcome
temptations, master his desire and emotion, and use them according to nature.

V. Cultivating the Ascetic Body with Moderation of Ascesis

In working out his salvation with the grace of God, the monk cannot do with-
out his body. However, the monk realises his body can be problematic. He
strives to overcome the problematic body with ascesis so as to cultivate the
ascetic body. The ascetic body is one that is disentangled from concerns for
material things, conducive to contemplation and required for pure prayer. The
ascetic body is no longer an obstacle but a vehicle for salvation. It is also in
the context of cultivating the ascetic body that Evagrius advises the monk to

scared by demons, and when they awake they take refuge as among angels, when the
mortal body suddenly awakes.”
36 Elsewhere Evagrius uses the same metaphor to describe a person who actually needs to
learn through the body to overcome passions: he is “not to leave his bed until he is com-
pletely healthy” (Thoughts 15).
37 Ramelli, 2015, 241.
38 The Greek text of Exhortation is in PG 79, 1236–1240. Translated by Sinkewicz, 2003.
39 “Take temptations away and no one will be saved” (Apophth. Patr. Evagr. 5). Cf. Anthony’s
saying: “Without temptations no one will be saved” (Apophth. Patr. Anton. 5). See B. Ward
(ed./transl.), The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection, London 1975, 2,64.
120 Kuo-Yu Tsui

practice ascesis with moderation. The monk should avoid harming the body by
extreme ascetic measures, which actually come from demons:

The demons … will make their move against us, hindering what can be done and
forcing us to do what cannot be done. And so they prevent the sick from giving
thanks for their sufferings and acting patiently towards those who are looking
after them; in turn, they encourage them to practice abstinence even while they
are weak and to say the psalms standing even when they feel weighed down
(Prakt. 40).

Evagrius warns against extreme ascetic practice, as it would finally make the
monk feel “unable to bear the prolonged and inhumane withdrawal,” and flee
“with shame, abandoning the place” (Thoughts 35). Instead, Evagrius recom-
mends the monk to practice ascesis “at the appropriate times and in due mea-
sure” (Prakt. 15) so as to keep the constant practice as a way of life. Evagrius
even advocates concession in the ascetic life when circumstances require: “It
is not necessary to keep to the bodily ascetic works of our way of life even in
times of sickness; rather, it is necessary to give way a little in some matters
in order that one may practice these same ascetic works of our way of life”
(Found. 10).
Not only does Evagrius counsel the monk to take a moderate approach to
ascesis, but he also encourages an attitude of attending to the bodily needs
with prudence: “Do not say, ‘Today I shall eat and tomorrow I shall not eat,’
because you are not doing this with prudence; this will result in harm to your
body and pain in your stomach” (Virgin = Virg. 9).40 The ascetic life is not meant
for harming the body, as if the body were an object of hatred and contempt;
rather, the ascetic life aims at keeping the body healthy, which in turn enhanc-
es spiritual health. It is in light of the right attitude towards the moderation of
ascesis that Evagrius says: “The monk who possesses understanding will attend
to the needs of the body and will fill the want of his stomach with bread and
water” (Eight Thoughts 3.9).41 Ultimately, Evagrius recommends a balanced
ascesis, keeping the zeal of the ascetic practice with one’s own finality in mind
while maintaining the health of the body so as to make ascesis a way of life:

Our saintly teacher with his great experience in the practical life used to say: The
monk must ever hold himself ready as though he were to die tomorrow, and in
turn must treat the body as though he would have to live with it for many years.

40 Translated by Sinkewicz, 2003, based on H. Gressmann, Nonnenspiegel und Mönchsspiegel

des Evagrius Pontikos, Leipzig 1913.
41 The Greek text of Eight Thoughts is in PG 79, 1145–1164. Translation by Sinkewicz, 2003.
5. The Body in the Ascetic Thought of Evagrius Ponticus 121

The first practice, he would say, cuts off the thoughts of acedia and makes the
monk more zealous; the latter keeps the body healthy and always maintains its
abstinence (ἐγκράτεια) in balance (Prakt. 29).

VI. Conclusion

As we have seen, Evagrius’ ascetic thought does not imply a negative valuation
of the body nor does his ascetic practice intend a harmful treatment of the
body. In fact, Evagrius affirms body as part of good creation. Body becomes
problematic only when it is dominated by passions, and it is for us to decide
whether passions remain with us (Prakt. 6). In other words, the human will
that succumbs to passions is what really makes body problematic, but body
itself is not intrinsically evil. The body that becomes problematic, also referred
to as “flesh,” requires the work of ascesis to be brought in control. The body in
discipline or the ascetic body is not subjected to passions and is hence condu-
cive to prayer and contemplation. Such an ascetic body is achieved through
the work of ascesis, encompassed by the ideal of anachoresis. Evagrius speci-
fies anachoresis as “a flight from the body,” which is also what “separating the
soul from the body” conveys (Prakt. 52). It does not carry a sense of rejecting
the body; rather, it means detaching the soul from the sensory world intro-
duced by the body. The monk initiates a flight from the body as he is aware
that the body naturally and continuously introduces the sensory world which
is potentially precarious—it can arouse passions in the soul through mental
images and representations suggested by demons. Strengthened by the grace
of God, the monk fights off passions and achieves the state of apatheia, in
which he may then engage in natural contemplation through the proper use
of sensory experience. But ascesis is not to be pursued with extremity. In fact,
Evagrius warns against extreme ascetic measures. He guides the monk to prac-
tice ascesis with moderation precisely because it is important to preserve the
body as the instrument of the soul. When body is in discipline, it becomes the
ideal instrument of the soul, providing the possibility for the fallen mind to en-
gage in the restorative activity of contemplation. In the spiritual progress from
praktikē to theōria, the human being learns through the body to overcome pas-
sions, cultivate virtues, and make progress in knowledge. Such is the process
of salvation, worked through the body, which God created with providence in
leading rational creatures towards virtue and knowledge and their final unity
with Trinity.
 chapter 6

Resurrection, Emotion, and Embodiment in

Egyptian Monastic Literature

Andrew Crislip

Abstract

While the expectation that passions (or cognitive and emotional capacities) have
an afterlife is widespread across cultures, posthumous bodily continuity is more
difficult to explain, as seen in the vigorous early Christian debates about the inter-
relatedness of passions and embodiment in the resurrection. Monastic literature
in Egypt offers a rich field for tracing the history of such debates about body and
soul through late antiquity. Heir to a society and embedded in a landscape where
belief in the posthumous preservation of the body had unusual prominence,
Egyptian monasticism witnesses to a diversity of belief, as theologians and as-
cetics continued to struggle with the challenge of reconciling soul and body in
immortality and the resurrection. Focusing on primarily Coptic sources from the
early fourth through the seventh centuries, this chapter follows the reflections of
ascetic guides and preachers on the interrelation of body and soul as they address
resurrection and bodily transformation in letters, polemics, and sermons. While
the unity of body and soul remained a controversial topic among late antique
Coptic writers, this chapter argues that such writers share an important perspec-
tive on embodiment and bodily cognition and experience as fundamental to argu-
ing for the reality of the doctrine of resurrection, including the resurrected body
of Christ in the Eucharist, the heavenly existence of saints, and the general resur-
rection of the Eschaton.

The doctrine of the bodily resurrection was an important locus for early
Christian reflection on the unity of body and soul, which played out in several
intersecting areas of concern, including the resurrection of Christ himself, the
real presence of his body and blood in the Eucharist, the postmortem fate of
martyrs, and the general resurrection of humanity.1 For Christians reflecting on

1 The literature is enormous and growing; recent Anglophone monographs have espe-
cially turned debates over resurrection toward understanding early Christian identity; see
C. Moss, Divine Bodies. Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity,

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_007

6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 123

the nature and reality of existence after death, it was the mechanics of bodily
resurrection that received the most sustained interest, rather than the perse-
verance of the soul, which was taken as a given. This focus on the bodily aspect
of resurrection (Christ’s and humanity’s) is understandable. István Czaschez
notes how cross-culturally common is a belief in the psyche’s post-mortem
continuity, experienced in the soul’s feelings, emotions, and thoughts, a phe-
nomenon likely rooted in both culture and biology.2 Even children, in contem-
porary studies, intuitively assume the post-mortem existence of the soul or
mind in its emotions or thoughts, however these concepts might be defined in
a given culture. Yet, children intuitively reject the same postmortem existence
of the body.3 For the body to die, decay, and be reincorporated at the end of
days, indeed, resists easy explanation, as the robust apologetics of bodily resur-
rection throughout Christian history show.
This essay offers a different perspective on early Christian debates about
the body and soul in the resurrection. I am interested in how the affective and
emotional language of resurrection discourse sheds light on the unity of body
and soul, that is, in the embodied experience and perception of the reality of
the resurrection. Specifically, I argue that late antique resurrection discourse,
focusing on literature produced and used in Egyptian monastic communi-
ties, drew on affective and emotional experience, as embodied experiences
of the soul or mind, to offer evidence of the reality of the future resurrection
of the body and the related presence of the resurrected body of Christ in the
Eucharist. This proof relied not so much on biblical exegesis or application of
philosophical or medical argumentation, as on the individual’s feelings, pas-
sions, or emotions as the present experience—thus proof—of the reality of
the bodily resurrection, both Christ’s and the Christian’s. After setting the con-
text of affective reasoning in early Christian apologetics of resurrection more
generally, I will focus on the monastic literature of late antique Egypt, begin-
ning with the letters of Antony the Great and his contemporary Ammonas,
sermons of Shenoute, and homiletic literature produced and transmitted in

New Haven 2019; D. Rankin, The Early Church and the Afterlife. Post-Death Existence in
Athenagoras, Tertullian, Origen and the Letter to Rheginos, London 2018; O. Lehtipuu,
Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead. Constructing Early Christian Identity, Oxford 2015;
T. Petrey, Resurrecting Parts. Early Christians on Desire, Reproduction, and Sexual Difference,
London 2015; C. Setzer, Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity:
Doctrine, Community, and Self-Definition, Leiden 2004.
2 The study of this phenomenon in cognitive psychology and its relevance to the study of early
Christianity is discussed in I. Czachesz, The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse. Hell,
Scatology, and Metamorphosis, London 2014, 43–45.
3 Czachesz, 2014, 44f.
124 Andrew Crislip

late antique Coptic monasteries. The epistolary, homiletic, and pastoral litera-
ture of Coptic monasticism provides a useful counterpoint to the more directly
theological and polemical literature that dominates patristic study of the body
and soul in the resurrection.
This affective or emotional mode of discussing the resurrection reflects phe-
nomena observed in current research in cognitive and affective neuroscience,
described in studies of affect-as-information, affective realism, and the embod-
ied and emotional bases for moral judgments. Underlying these intersecting
approaches is the observation that the ways individuals feel—in the related
phenomena of affect and emotion—impact the way they perceive the world.
This plays out in a number of ways. Emotions like fear and disgust and simply
positive and negative affect, such as hunger, pleasure, and discomfort, influ-
ence how people make moral judgments.4 The importance of affect and emo-
tion goes even farther, affecting what we see, not just how we judge: “Feelings
do more than influence the judgments of what you have seen; they influence
the actual content of perception.”5 This research in cognitive science, as new
and changing as it is, is very suggestive for thinking about the body and soul
in late antiquity. It suggests that affect and emotion are very important in as-
sessing how early Christians perceived challenging and abstract concepts like
the resurrection of the body, as well as how Christians made moral judgments
relating to the resurrection, the soul, and the body. Christian sources from late
antique Egypt, indeed, put affect and emotion at the center of their discussions
of the reality and perception of the resurrected body, including the reality of
Christ’s resurrection, the reality of the Eucharistic elements, and the reality of
the general resurrection.

4 J.L. Tracy / C.M. Steckler / G. Heltzel, The Physiological Basis of Psychological Disgust and Moral
Judgments, in: JPSP 116 (2019), 15–32; M. Oaten / R.J. Stevenson / M.A. Williams / A.N. Rich /
M.Butko / T.I. Case, Moral Violations and the Experience of Disgust and Anger, in: Frontiers in
Behavioral Neuroscience 12 (2018), Article 179; S.P. Koleva / J. Graham / R. Iyer / P.H. Ditto /
J. Haidt, Tracing the Threads. How Five Moral Concerns (Especially Purity) Help Example Culture
War Attitudes, in: Journal of Research in Personality 46 (2012), 184–194; S. Schnall / J. Haidt /
G.L. Clore / A.H. Jordan, Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment, in: Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin 34 (2008), 1096–1109.
5 E.H. Siegel / J.B. Wormwood / K.S. Quigley / L.F. Barrett, Seeing What You Feel. Affect Drives
Visual Perception of Structural Neutral Faces, in: Psychological Science 29 (2018), 496–503
(496); J.B. Wormwood / E.H. Siegel / J. Kopec / K.S. Quigley / L.F. Barrett, You Are What I
Feel. A Test of the Affective Realism Hypothesis, in: Emotion 19 (2019), 788–798; J.R. Zadra /
G.L. Clore, Emotion and Perception. The Role of Affective Information, in: WIREs Cognitive
Science 2 (2011), 676–685.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 125

I. Affective Response to Bodily Resurrection: The First Three

Centuries

That one’s affective or emotional response to bodily resurrection should play

a large role in evaluating its likelihood as a doctrine is a phenomenon found
as early as the second- and third-century critics and apologists of the resurrec-
tion.6 The second-century philosopher Celsus described Christian claims for
the bodily resurrection as philosophically incoherent and physically disgust-
ing, an example of emotional judgment or affective realism.7 To put it simply,
if something feels bad, it likely is bad.8 The very concept of resurrection is, he
writes, “simply the hope of worms. For what sort of human soul would have
any further desire for a body that has rotted?”9 It is “shameful” and “contrary to
nature,” “revolting and impossible,” an “utter repulsiveness” which is demon-
strated even among Jews and some Christians who deny the doctrine.10
The affective response to bodily resurrection evinced by “pagan critics,” in-
cluding revulsion and shame, has been suggested as an important component
of early patristic reflection in Caroline Walker Bynum’s Resurrection of the Body
in Western Christianity. Bynum’s reading of the patristic evidence frequently
draws on affective language to characterise Christian reactions to claims of
bodily resurrection, no less than the pagan Celsus, who elide discussions of
Jesus’s resurrection, the Christian’s consumption of his resurrected body, the

6 In this essay I use affect to describe embodied reactions to stimuli, i.e., “feelings”, which is
a broader category than emotion, inclusive of feelings other than those that a given cul-
ture conceptualizes as an “emotion,” or in the case of Greco-Roman antiquity, a “passion”
(πάθος). The definition of these terms, and their varied usage in history, neuroscience,
psychology, sociology, and cultural studies, is much discussed and still unsettled; I gener-
ally follow the “constructed emotions” approach of current cognitive and affective neuro-
science for terms like affect and emotion, as described in L.F. Barrett, How Emotions Are
Made. The Secret Life of the Brain, Boston/New York 2017. Recent useful studies of the use
of these terms in historical study (from which I may at times differ) include R. Boddice,
A History of Feelings, London, 2019; id., A History of Emotions, Manchester 2018; T. Dixon,
“Emotion”: The History of a Keyword in Crisis, in: Emotion Review 4 (2012), 338–344.
7 C.W. Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336, New York
1995, 31.
8 For affect, emotion, and moral judgment in contemporary psychological research, see
Tracy / Steckler / Heltzl, 2019; Barrett, 2017, 233–238; P. Rozin / J. Haidt / C.R. McCauley,
Disgust: The Body and Soul Emotion, in: T. Dalgleish / M.J. Power (eds.), Handbook of
Cognition and Emotion, New York 1999, 429–445.
9 Or., Cels. 5.14. Transl. H. Chadwick, in: id., Origen, Celsus, and the Resurrection of the Body,
in: HTR 41 (1948), 83–102 (83).
10 Or., Cels. 5.14, Transl. H. Chadwick, 1948, 84. See also R.M. Grant, The Resurrection of the
Body, in: JR 28 (1948), 188–208 (188–199).
126 Andrew Crislip

fate of martyrs, and the Christians’ own anticipated eschatological resurrec-

tion. They are really all part of the same theological problem.
Feelings of disgust, horror, and fear recur throughout Bynum’s early chap-
ters as she characterises Christian reactions to the resurrection.11 Much as
Celsus might describe the fate of the dead as revolting and shameful, claiming
even that human corpses “are more to be thrown away than dung”,12 Christian
writers concur on the implicit revulsion at the rotting corpse, which Bynum
finds in the early apologists Tatian and Aristides.13 Irenaeus too draws on con-
cepts that sound disgusting, at least to modern ears. He is concerned with
the “putrefaction” of the body, as “[i]t rots and withers and decomposes”.14
Bynum describes the crux of Irenaeus’ resurrection theology as the “sprouting
of the resurrected seed[‘s] […] victory […] over putrefaction”.15 Irenaeus and
Tertullian alike face down the problem of “rot” in their resurrection theology,
preaching a “promise” of post-mortem embodiment that “makes it possible for
heroes and ordinary Christians to face […] the humiliation of death and the
horror of putrefaction”.16
About the related topic of “the bodies of martyrs”, a significant locus of
early Christian resurrection discourse, Bynum writes, “Christians did worry
passionately”.17 Tatian’s and Athenagoras’ condemnations of the “ultimate
horror” of cannibalism hide their own “fear” about the Christian Eucharist,

11 The liminal position of disgust as an emotion, affect, feeling is an important topic in the
history of emotions, and a topic too large to address fully here. But see the varied essays
on the emotion of disgust in Greco-Roman antiquity by D. Lateiner / D. Spatharas (eds.),
The Ancient Emotion of Disgust, New York 2017; and cf. the important questions about
terminology in Boddice, 2019, 61–72.
12 Or., Cels. 5.14, which quotes the Pre-Socratic Heraclitus, cited and translated in Grant,
1948, 188.
13 The apologists “agreed that decaying matter was disgusting, even polluting”: Bynum, 1995,
31, although a closer reading of the Oratio and Apologia suggests that the Christians’ per-
spective differs from that of Celsus, at least in the intent of their argument. This larger
question, however, is beyond the scope of the present discussion.
14 In Bynum’s words, Bynum, 1995, 38, citing Iren., haer. 5.2; 5.7; 5,10; 5,28; 5,33f. (Rousseau,
1965, vol. 2, 30–41, 88–93, 126–133, 360–363, 404–437).
15 Bynum, 1995, 38; she finds a similar perspective in J. Pelikan, The Shape of Death. Life,
Death and Immortality in the Early Fathers, New York 1961, 101–120.
16 Bynum, 1995, 46; also 47, which mentions the Didascalia Apostolorum’s evocation of
other disgust elicitors, “nocturnal emissions … menstruation and childbearing”. On dis-
gust and its elicitors, see P. Rozin / J. Haidt / C.R. McCauley, 1999.
17 Bynum, 1995, 49. For early Christian concerns about the resurrection bodies of mar-
tyrs, see G. Clark, Bodies and Blood. Late Antique Debate on Martyrdom, Virginity and
Resurrection, in: D. Montserrat (ed.), Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings. Studies on the
Human Body in Antiquity, London 1998, 99–115.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 127

which is intimately connected to debates about the bodily resurrection, and

to which I will return.18 Ancient people found corpses “horrifying”, and their
“putrefaction was both terrifying and polluting”.19 Not content to focus on the
body’s blood and phlegm, the third-century African Arnobius called the body
“a disgusting vessel of urine” and a “bag of shit”.20 Bynum characterises Gregory
of Nyssa’s resurrection thinking as driven by “the fear of decay”,21 a fear that
Jerome shared, which Bynum also characterises as “anxiety about the decay of
the cadaver”.22 Bynum closes her discussion of the patristic period by charac-
terising the doctrine of bodily resurrection as driven by emotional judgment
or affective reasoning about the problem of death, rooted especially in fear and
disgust: “And death,” she writes, “was horrible, not because it was an event that
ended consciousness, but because it was part of oozing, disgusting, uncontrol-
lable biological process”.23
For at least one influential ante-Nicene theologian, the prospect of bodily
resurrection did not prompt a negative affective response. In contrast with his
critic Methodius’s “fear” and “anxiety” about bodily change (again in Bynum’s
words), Origen embraced bodily change as part of his approach to resurrec-
tion. Although his treatise on the subject has been lost, in light of the surviving
traces elsewhere in his works and those of his followers and critics Origen’s
approach to the resurrection of the body does not reflect the sort of passion-
ate and embodied reactions that Bynum finds widely from Irenaeus to Jerome,
who grounded their defense of bodily resurrection in feelings of disgust and
fear. The resurrected body, Origen argued, will be quite different from that
which enters the earth at death. He conceived of the body—the lasting body
of the resurrection—as a river, always in flux and change, yet with a lasting

18 Bynum, 1995, 55f.: “Such fears may indeed provide a deeper link than has previously been
noticed between early eucharistic theology and the doctrine of the resurrection”. See also
Bynum, 1995, 39: “Irenaeus thus suggests that the proof of our final incorruption lies in
our eating of God”, citing Iren., haer. 5.2; for further connections between the Eucharist
and resurrection theology see Bynum, 1995, 80. 111.
19 Bynum, 1995, 36.
20 Transl. Bynum, 1995, 61, citing Arn., adv. Nat. 2.37 (CSEL 4, 77f.): corporibus involutae inter
pituitas et sanguinem degerent, inter stercoris hos utres et saccati obscenissimas serias.
21 Bynum, 1995, 81, from the section subtitle, and 84, citing J.-M. Mathieu, Horreur du ca-
davre et philosophie dans le monde romain. Le cas de la patristique grecque du IV e siècle, in:
F. Hinard (ed.), La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain. Actes du colloque de
Caen, 20–22 novembre 1985, Caen 1987, 311–320.
22 Bynum, 1995, 91, citing Letter 119.3, which draws on Didymus; also see Bynum, 1995, 93, on
Jerome’s fear of corpses.
23 Bynum, 1995, 113.
128 Andrew Crislip

identity nonetheless, evoking Heraclitus’ famous paradox.24 The true body

was like a form or εἶδος, “a combination of Platonic form, or plan, with Stoic
seminal reason”.25 The transformed spiritual body will be like that of angels, for
both theological (see Mt 22:30) and physiological reasons; since the spiritual
human body will be in an environment very different from the one of the cur-
rent created order, the body will adapt to the new environment. The spiritual
manifestation of the corporeal εἶδος could thus differ significantly from the
psychic human, though Origen probably did not argue that we would be raised
spherical like stars as later critics would claim.26 Origen’s great concern was to
maintain the lasting identity of the person, rather than any specific aspects of
the human body. His approach to making his case was open to metaphor—
seeds, plants, rivers—to conceptualize the dialectic of transformation and
continuity, in contrast with his critic Methodius’s “fear” and “anxiety” about
bodily change.27
The conflict between those taking a more metaphorical approach to the
resurrection of the body and those concerned more with the continuity of
present-worldly embodiment into the resurrection lasted into late antiquity,
not least among ascetic writers and communities in Egypt, who had special
concerns with issues of embodiment and the soul.28 Much as Bynum suggests
that the spirited discourse about the nature of the resurrection was rooted in
(and/or prompted) divergent affective or emotional responses to resurrection,
late antique Egyptian writers emphasised emotions and affective realism in
making the case for their particular understandings and experiences of the
resurrection of body, soul, and mind.

II. Resurrection and Transformation in the Early Egyptian

“Desert Fathers”: Antony and Ammonas

The letters of the anchorite Antony “the Great” (ca. 251–356) are perhaps the
earliest surviving literature of Egyptian monasticism, if they in fact date from

24 Bynum, 1995, 64.

25 Bynum, 1995, 66.
26 Discussed in Bynum, 1995, 66f., with bibliography for Origen’s speculation on the spheri-
cal body of the resurrection. Also see recent studies by Rankin, 2018, 111–122; P.B. Decock,
Origen. On Making Sense of the Resurrection as a Third Century Christian, in: Neotest. 45
(2011), 76–91.
27 E.g., Bynum, 1995, 63–71 (69f.).
28 See E.A. Clark, New Perspectives on the Origenist Controversy. Human Embodiment and
Ascetic Strategies, in: CH 59 (1990), 145–162; and D. Brakke, The Egyptian Afterlife of
Origenism: Conflicts over Embodiment in Coptic Sermons, in: OCP 66 (2000), 277–293.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 129

the late 330s as Samuel Rubenson has argued.29 While the transmission of
Antony’s letters is complicated and disorderly, with various versions preserved
in Georgian, Arabic, and Latin, along with a single letter in Syriac and frag-
ments in Coptic, the letters have been generally accepted as authentic after
Rubenson’s reappraisal of the corpus some thirty years ago.30 The seven letters
were likely written by Antony in Coptic, though perhaps not in their current
form.31 Whatever the complications of their transmission, they reveal Antony
as an ascetic teacher immersed in the Alexandrian and Origenist tradition of
theology and asceticism.32 Throughout the seven letters (of which letters 2–7
overlap very significantly in theme and wording), Antony focuses on pastoral
issues, advising his correspondents on the purification of body and soul, the
inculcation of godly virtues, and the threats posed by demons.33 He teaches of
three types of passionate movements of the body, much in the Stoic tradition
of passions and προπάθεια, and the kinds of affective or emotional experiences
he expects of the monk.34 When it comes to the resurrection, as with his ascet-
ic theology in general, Antony works within the tradition of Origen. Antony’s
interest in the monk’s passions and close observation of bodily movements

29 S. Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Origenist Theology, Monastic Tradition, and the
Making of a Saint, BHEL 24, Lund 1990, 42–46.
30 Rubenson, 1990; id., Antony and Ammonas. Conflicting or Common Tradition in Early
Egyptian Monasticism, in: D. Bumazhnov / E. Grypheou / T.B Sailors / A. Topel (eds.), Bibel,
Byzanz und Christlicher Orient, OLA 187, Leuven 2011, 185–201. For a recent assessment of
some difficulties in transmission see R. Shaw, Textual Disorder in the Letters of St. Antony.
An Analysis and Partial Reconstruction, in: DR 131 (2013), 1–14. 59–68. 117–130. While the
letters’ authenticity is widely accepted, there are dissenting arguments, e.g., A. Khosroyev,
Die Bibliothek von Nag Hammadi. Einige Probleme des Christentums in Ägypten während
der ersten Jahrhunderte, Münster 1994, 158–166; D.F. Bumazhnov, The Evil Angels in the
Vita and the Letters of St. Antony the Great. Some Observations concerning the Problem
of the Authenticity of the Letters, in: ZAC 11 (2008), 500–516, with further bibliography
(501f.).
31 The versions, and their varied attestations and numberings, are covered in Rubenson,
1990, 15–34; some complications in the current order and numbering are discussed by
Shaw, 2013.
32 For the philosophical and Origenist backgrounds of Antony’s thought, see Rubenson,
1990, 59–88; Rubenson, 2011, 185f. D. Brakke explores the influence of Origen and also
Valentinus on Antony, The Making of Monastic Demonology: Three Ascetic Teachers on
Withdrawal and Resistance, in: CH 70 (2001), 19–48 (23–32); id., Demons and the Making of
the Monk. Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity, Cambridge Mass., 2006, 15–22.
33 Rubenson, 1990, 51–58, covers the differences between letters 1 and 2–7, and their themes,
59–88. On demons, see Brakke, 2006, 16–22.
34 E.g., Anton., ep. 1.33–45 on the movements of the body; ep. 1.72–74 and 6.87 on the afflic-
tions of the soul and body; for the desirable and undesirable emotions of the monk (such
as saintly joy and grief, and diabolic jealousy and pride), cf. epp. 3.32; 5.8–10; 6.18; 6.30;
6.104.
130 Andrew Crislip

provide neither the impetus for discussion, nor the argumentative justification
for a specific doctrine of resurrection, in contrast with some of the sources
in the later Coptic tradition that I discuss below. But similar to the approach
that later Coptic sources will embrace, and in contrast with the discussions of
the resurrection in ante-Nicene sources, Antony presents the reality of resur-
rection as something affectively real, appreciable on an intellectual and even
visceral level by himself and his correspondents through their embodied and
affective experience.
Antony describes the resurrection in ways that might make someone like
Irenaeus or Tertullian uncomfortable. His discussion is not systematic, but re-
vealed in similar, even verbatim passages in six of his letters. Antony refers to
the resurrection as something presently experienced (or with the potential to
be experienced), perhaps echoing passages from Paul and Hebrews.35 Most fre-
quently, he speaks of a resurrection of the mind or heart (Latin sensus or cor),
clearly drawing on Origenist anthropology and its common mind-soul-body
triad.36 In several letters Antony refers to the incarnation of the only-begotten,
and the consequent gathering of God’s people, as constituting a resurrection
of the mind. This resurrection is one that he expects his correspondents, all
ascetics like himself, to be able to experience presently. In his seventh letter he
proclaims that “the Father of the creatures knew the weakness of their minds
(sensus) […] and by the power of his word he gathered us from all lands, until
he resurrected our minds (sensus) from the earth and taught us that we are
members of one another”.37 This language of a presently resurrected mind or
heart recurs in the connected letters 2–7.38 Antony’s ideas about this resurrec-
tion combine aspects of Pauline thought—e.g., that Christians are members
of the cosmic body of Christ (1 Cor 12:2, Rom 12:5), and Christians take on the
new mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16, Rom 12:2, Eph 4:23)—with the acknowledge-
ment that a certain resurrection reality is already experienced by the ascetic.
This resurrected mind does not manifest in Stoic ἀπάθεια, but joins the ascetic
as members with the saints in heaven in a full range of emotional experience.

35 E.g., Col 1:13, “He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the
kingdom of his beloved Son”; and Heb 6:4–5 which refers to “those who […] have tasted
the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” (NRSV), passages
which are discussed in J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, London 52008, 459, at the
head of the section on “The Christian Hope”.
36 Anton., epp. 2.20–23; 3.20–25; 5.25–28; 6.88–92 discussed in Rubenson, 1990, 68–71. I de-
pend on Rubenson’s translations for Georgian and Arabic versions of the letters, included
as an appendix to the reprint of Rubenson’s The Letters of St. Antony. Monasticism and the
Making of a Saint, Minneapolis 21995, 197–231.
37 Anton., ep. 7.26–30, transl. Rubenson, 1995.
38 Cf. Anton., ep. 2.20–23 (cor); 3.20–25 (sensus); 5.25–28 (sensus); and 6.88–92 (cor).
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 131

Antony describes his present experience as “a time of joy, as well as grief and
tears”.39 That is, the ascetic like the saints abides in joy for himself, but grieves
for those who reject the word.40 Such emotional experiences mark the reality
of the resurrection.
In his first letter, which differs in content from letters 2–7, Antony speaks
also of a future “resurrection of the just” in the form of the Pauline spiritual
body. Here, as elsewhere, he betrays no interest in the mechanics of this res-
urrection, nor any interest in the polemics about bodily, fleshly, or spiritual
resurrection.41 As in the other letters, what focuses Antony’s attention here is
the potential that the monk can experience this resurrection through inten-
tional ascetic practice and the affective experience of body and soul. Antony
describes this ascetic practice as a process of expelling “the afflictions of the
soul […] mingled with the what is natural to the body as well as those which
are independent of the body, but have been mingled with it through the will”.42
Antony then lays out a general method by which the monk can move from
member to member, and expel or heal their afflictions.43
As the culmination of this discernment of bodily passions and movements
(perhaps even “feelings”), Antony concludes with a bold claim: “I think that
[even] now this dwelling (or ‘this body’ in the Arabic) has taken on something
of that other spiritual body which will be taken on at the resurrection of the
just”.44 The versions differ in describing the nature of this resurrection and

39 Anton., ep. 3.32, transl. Rubenson, 1995.

40 Cf. Anton., ep. 5.9; 6.18. Parallels to this may also be found in the fourth and fifth-century
writings of Shenoute, for which see A. Crislip, Emotional Communities and Emotional
Suffering in Shenoute’s White Monastery Federation. Sadness, Anger, and Fear in Select
Works of Shenoute, in: D. Brakke / S.J. Davis / S. Emmel (eds.), From Gnostics to Monastics.
Studies in Coptic and Early Christianity in Honor of Bentley Layton, OLA 263, Leuven 2017,
331–357 (337f. 347–349).
41 Anton., ep. 1.71, transl. Rubenson, 1995; F. Nau, La Version syriaque de la première lettre de
Saint Antoine, in: ROC 13 (1908), 282–297 (296).
42 Anton., ep. 1.49, transl. Rubenson, 1995.
43 This process of achieving health of body and soul is discussed in more detail in A. Crislip,
Thorns in the Flesh. Illness and Sanctity in Late Ancient Christianity, Philadelphia, 2013,
48–58.
44 Anton., ep. 1.71, transl. Rubenson, 1995, with his emendation. Rubenson claims in a
later essay that “the letters of Antony … do not contain any references to a resurrec-
tion of the body”; see id., ‘As Already Translated to the Kingdom While Still in the Body’:
The Transformation of the Ascetic in Early Egyptian Monasticism, in: T. Karlsen Seim /
J. Økland (eds.), Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in
Early Christianity, Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 1,
Berlin 2009, 271–289 (287); instead, Antony speaks of “the body of the resurrection”,
though this is not a direct quote of Antony (276). The precise contours of this “spiritual
body which will be taken on at the resurrection of the just” are no more physiologically
132 Andrew Crislip

its present experience. The Arabic adds an explicit future and bodily adden-
dum to the present experience of bodily resurrection: “so that it will rise at the
resurrection of the faithful”.45 The Syriac version, however, renders the pres-
ent experience of resurrection without any of the Georgian version’s possible
equivocation (i.e., “taken on something of that other spiritual body”): “When
the whole body is purified and has accepted the fulness of the Spirit it has all it
will receive at the resurrection of the just”.46 Differences in the several versions
of this passage suggest concern about its orthodoxy; more fundamentally they
also point to the importance of the resurrection in Antony’s ascetic teaching.
One could achieve the resurrection of the mind and experience the fulness of
the resurrected body.
When compared with the trajectory of theologians surveyed by Bynum, for
example, the letters of Antony offer a different approach to the problem of the
resurrection, and indeed the relationship of the continuity of mind, soul, and
body. Antony, the Origenist, does not engage in affectively charged discussions
of the body and its fate that such critics as Celsus or proponents as Methodius
draw on: he neither evokes nor evinces any disgust, fear, shame, or anxiety at
decay; nor does he apply any physiological or philosophical language to defend
the corporeality of resurrection, as do Athenagorus and others. Yet he does
quite differently make his argument affectively real. He does not defend the
resurrection through rational argument or polemic; he does not need to, since
his disciples can experience it—affectively—for themselves in their already
resurrected minds. If they purify the seven bodily regions of unnatural, de-
monic afflictions, they can experience what it will be like to have or to be a
spiritual body in the resurrection of the just.
The letters of Antony’s disciple and correspondent Ammonas, of the lower
Egyptian community of Nitria, show some similar approaches, if not explicitly
to the resurrection, then at least to the bodily transformation of the ascetic.
Ammonas’s letters likely date from several decades after Antony’s, perhaps the
360s, and show a far less clear debt to Origenist thought, reflecting either a
change in Origen’s acceptability or a simple difference in audience and pur-
pose.47 While Ammonas does not use the word “resurrection” in his letters, it
is clearly a topic of interest for him, and he is an important witness for these
debates, as Samuel Rubenson has shown, observing that “the basic idea of a

precise in Antony’s thought than three centuries before in St. Paul’s. It seems clear to
me, nonetheless, that Antony presupposes a post-mortem continuity of mind, soul, and a
(transformed) body, which the ascetic may experience presently.
45 Anton., ep. 1.71, transl. Rubenson, 1995, 202.
46 Anton., ep. 1.71, transl. Rubenson, 1995, 202 (Nau, 1908, 296).
47 The two collections are compared in Rubenson, 2011, 191–196.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 133

gradual transformation from the ‘body of corruption’ to ‘the body of the resur-
rection’ referred to in the letters of Antony is manifest”.48
Of special interest here is Ammonas’ assertion that the ascetic can take on
a heavenly—or perhaps a post-resurrection state—through their “bodily ex-
periences,” and “things that cannot be written down,” in Rubenson’s words.
Ammonas describes his disciples’ bodies as “living”, in contrast to the hagio-
graphic commonplace of the monk killing his body, as does Apa Dorotheus
in Palladius’ Historia Lausiaca. Instead, Ammonas’ brethren possess a “living
body,” a “body from above, and all living”.49 Much of this embodied experience
of heavenly reality and immortal existence is through the ascetic’s emotions.
As the ascetic progresses, the “living body may not be changed, but may grow
still more […] and increase in grace and in joy and in love of men and in love
of the poor and good ways”.50 He will experience joy and boldness and sweet-
ness and gladness and freedom from fear.51 “You are able,” Ammonas writes,
“to acquire for yourselves this divine power so that you may spend all your
time in freedom and joy”.52 This present bodily experience manifests in “rest,”
a normally postmortem or eschatological promise that Ammonas presents “as
something attainable in the body”.53 He assures his disciples of their ability to
attain this rest through their ascetic practice: “You may complete the rest of
your days in all joy of heart. For if a man attains to this measure, the joy of God
will be with him continually: henceforth he will not toil in any matter”.54
This is not merely a change of attitude, perception, or mind, but an embod-
ied experience. “What is significant,” says Rubenson, “is that it is precisely this
bodily life with its ascetic practice and virtuous deeds that is made sweet and
easy”.55 The existence of the ascetic will be quite like post-mortem existence in
the kingdom of God:

[I]f you desire to receive it, you will give yourselves to bodily toil and toil of
heart … [Y]ou will become free from every fear, and heavenly joy will overtake
you: and so you will be as men already translated to the kingdom while you

48 Rubenson, 2009, 276, and further discussion at 273.

49 Ammonas, ep. 1, transl. D. Chitty / S. Brock, The Letters of Ammonas: The Letters of
Ammonas. Successor of Saint Antony, Oxford, 1979; M. Kmosko, Ammonii eremitae episto-
lae, in: PO 10 (1914), 553–639 (567); Pall., h. Laus. 2.2.
50 Ammonas, ep. 1, transl. Chitty/Brock Chitty / Brock, 1979; Kmosko, 1914, 567f.
51 Rubenson, 2009, 280–282.
52 Ammonas, ep. 2, transl. Chitty/Brock Chitty / Brock; Kmosko, 1914, 571.
53 Rubenson, 2009, 281.
54 Ammonas, ep. 7, transl. Chitty/Brock Chitty / Brock; Kmosko, 1914, 585.
55 Rubenson, 2009, 280.
134 Andrew Crislip

are still in the body, and you will no longer need to pray for yourselves but for
others.56

The precise contours of this existence and its relationship to various under-
standings of the resurrected body are less explicit than in Antony’s letters,
especially since Ammonas does not use the language of resurrection explic-
itly. Nonetheless, Ammonas’ use of the metaphor of fruit and seed to describe
ascetic transformation in several letters is closely connected to Christian dis-
course on the resurrection as early as Paul (1 Cor 15).57 Most relevant here is
that Ammonas, like Antony, proposes an embodied and affective way of expe-
riencing and knowing the postmortem transformation. Resurrection—spiritual
and bodily—is not something to be proven through biblical, philosophical, or
medical argument, but something that can be known as real through embod-
ied and affective experience.

III. Shenoute of Atripe on the Resurrected Soul and Body

Writing in the two generations after Antony and Ammonas in a large monastic
federation near the city of Panopolis in Upper Egypt, Shenoute (fl. ca. 385–465)
shows a rather different form of affective realism in defending the resurrection
of the body, likely against the types of teachings that Antony subscribed to,
notwithstanding the fact that they were still uncontrovertibly orthodox even
in Shenoute’s monastery.58 Some, Shenoute says, claim that the Philippians
Christological hymn’s prediction that those under the earth shall bend their
knees at Jesus’ name (Phil 2:10) does not foretell the resurrection of the body,

56 Ammonas, ep. 8, transl. Chitty/Brock Chitty / Brock; Kmosko, 1914, 587. The experience of
joy for the self and prayer and grief for others resembles the perspectives of Antony and
Shenoute, discussed above, n. 40.
57 Such language appears in epp. 1, 3 and 13. The importance of fruit, seed, and harvest
imagery and its use in resurrection discourse is covered by Rubenson, 2009, 285–287;
and also Bynum, 1995, 23–25. Rubenson points to similar language in the Treatise on
Resurrection, discovered at Nag Hammadi, and thus circulating in Egypt in Ammonas’
days. Cf. Rubenson, 2009, 287. The dominant metaphors in Tr. Res., however, differ in that
it prefers pregnancy and childbearing imagery (specifically that of the afterbirth, χόριον),
as well as eating and swallowing; see H. Lundhaug, “These are the Symbols and Likeness of
the Resurrection”. Conceptualizations of Death and Transformation in the Treatise on the
Resurrection (NHC 1,4), in: Seim / Øklund (eds.), 2009, 187–205 (191–197).
58 A fragment of Coptic version of Antony’s letters was preserved in the White Monastery
library, and Shenoute’s successor Besa letters include quotes from Antony’s sixth letter,
discussed in Rubenson, 1990, 16.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 135

but points to the existence of other worlds (κόσμος), which they see intimated
in other biblical and apocryphal books.59 Others more directly deny the resur-
rection of the body, evincing a revulsion at the very idea that would be much
at home with a pagan critic like Celsus: human flesh is no better than a swine’s,
and no more deserving of resurrection.60 Some, he claims, even deny the his-
toricity of Jesus’ resurrection, claiming his corpse was switched with a living
imposter.61 Still others fully allegorise gospel discussions of resurrection, and
interpret them as exclusively a resurrection of the mind, similar to the lan-
guage preferred by by Antony. These devil-inspired exegetes, Shenoute says,
read the raising of Lazarus as allegory for a noetic, incorporeal resurrection.
Lazarus was not really raised, and did not really emerge from the tomb. Instead
he represents the resurrected mind (νοῦς), while Mary and Martha are “virtues
(ἀρετή) from the four elements (στοιχεῖον)”.62 Shenoute is adamant, however,
that Lazarus’ body was real; it corrupted and rotted, stank, and emerged in
the tomb.63 Upon this any assurance of Christ’s other miracles depends.64 This
debate is far from academic for Shenoute, but deeply affective: his “body emits
fear” even to hear otherwise.65
Shenoute’s apology and polemic for the resurrection of the body is insepa-
rable from his theology of the Eucharist, placing him in a lineage of resurrec-
tion theology that goes back at least to Irenaeus.66 Sources from the fourth and
fifth centuries show that Egypt was rife with controversy over the nature of the

59 Shen., I Am Amazed (HB 17), in: Brakke / Crislip (eds.), Selected Discourses of Shenoute
the Great. Community, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt, Cambridge,
2015, 55; cf. Coptic edition and German translation in H.-J. Cristea, Schenute von Atripe:
Contra Origenistas, STAC 60, Tübingen 2011. Manuscripts and titles of Shenoute’s works
are cited according to S. Emmel, Shenoute’s Literary Corpus, CSCO 599f., Leuven 2004.
60 Shen., I Am Amazed (HB 32); Crislip, 2015, 61f.; Cristea, 2011, 155.
61 Discussed in C. Schroeder, Monastic Bodies. Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe,
Philadelphia 2007, 146, citing Who Speaks Through the Prophets (ZM 43, an unpublished
fragment in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, FR-BN 1314 f. 158R).
62 Shen., I Am Amazed (DS 114f.); Crislip, 2015, 69; Cristea, 2011, 177. Shenoute’s quotation of
his enemies includes Greek philosophical language taken over in his Coptic. See discus-
sion in Brakke, 2000, 285f.
63 Shenoute’s emphasis on Lazarus’ stench is discussed by Schroeder, 2007, 151, drawing on
Who Speaks Through the Prophets (ZM 63f.).
64 Shen., I Am Amazed (DS 114f.); discussed in Schroeder, 2007, 146.
65 Shen., I Am Amazed (DS 115); Crislip, 2015, 69; Cristea, 2011, 178; or “trembles”, pasōma
nehšlf.
66 E.g., Bynum, 1995, 22. 26. 39 (on Irenaeus’s proof of resurrection via the Eucharist), 56
(where Bynum suggests that emotions, i.e., fear, “may indeed provide a deeper link than
has previously been noticed between early eucharistic theology and the doctrine of the
resurrection”), and 80 (on Shenoute’s contemporary Cyril of Alexandria).
136 Andrew Crislip

Eucharistic elements.67 One of the aspects of this Origenist asceticism, at least

according to opponents, was their allegorical interpretation of the Eucharist;
the bread and wine are symbols, not the real instantiation of Christ’s body and
blood, which according to Shenoute was a familiar phenomenon among edu-
cated Christians, even monks and priests.68
Whether discussing the Eucharist or the general resurrection, Shenoute’s in-
terpretation is material, visceral, and deeply affective. He quotes, for example,
the entirety of Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones to evoke the end-
of-days reassembly of resurrected bodies: bones reattached, sinews stretched,
and skin spread across them.69 Shenoute’s own reflection on Ezekiel’s vision
recalls the revulsion that early critics expressed at the resurrection, but now
transformed into an object of wonder.

O this great wonder without measure! The scattered bones, the bones that were
burned in fire, the bodies that the beasts and the birds ate, the bodies that be-
came decomposed on earth: they will hear the voice of the Son of God and they
will come together, each one to its own part. Sinews will come upon them, flesh
will come upon them, skin will stretch out over them, a spirit will enter into them,
and they will live, arise, and stand before the one who commanded them.70

Caroline Schroeder aptly notes just how affective and bodily is Shenoute’s
defence of the resurrection:

Shenoute calls upon his audiences’ senses of sight, hearing, and touch to craft an
impression of a very material resurrection … [scil. He] bombards his audience
with detailed and palpable imagery, as if the overwhelming sensory experience
will prove the truth of his claims, and he will overcome opposition with a relent-
less barrage of descriptions.71

This is an important component of the defense of the resurrection in late an-

tique Egypt, which Shenoute shares with Antony and Ammonas. Although the
terms by which he describes the resurrection of the body differ considerably

67 The evidence from Shenoute is contextualized among other sources in A. Grillmeier,

Christ in Christian Tradition 2. Part Four, transl. O.C. Dean, 1996, 203–207; and also see
E.A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy. The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian
Debate, Princeton 1992, 64–66.
68 Schroeder, 2007, 144f.
69 Ez 37:11, Shen., The Lord Thundered (DU 35f.); J.A. Timbie / J.R. Zaborowski, Shenoute’s
Sermon The Lord Thundered. An Introduction and Translation, in: OrChr 90 (2006), 91–123
(109). See discussion in Schroeder, 2007, 147.
70 Shen., The Lord Thundered (DU 35), transl. Timbie / Zaborowski.
71 Schroeder, 2007, 147.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 137

from his fourth-century predecessors, the mode of his argumentation shares

important similarities. He draws on affective and emotional imagery to prove
the necessity and reality of bodily resurrection, here a sense of wonder or awe
and even a feeling of revulsion and fascination at the thought of bodies eaten
by creatures and decomposed in the ground, and elsewhere an explicitly em-
bodied sense of fear.72

IV. Body, Soul, and Resurrection in Later Egyptain Literature

The affective, sensory, and embodied defense of resurrection orthodoxy wit-

nessed in Shenoute’s fifth-century writings can be seen even more fully realised
in Egyptian monastic literature in the centuries after Shenoute. One of the say-
ings in the Apophthegmata Patrum, for example, critiques the eucharistic alle-
gorisation attributed to Origenist monks by Shenoute. In this story, traced from
Abba Daniel to the famous monk Abba Arsenius, one of the monks of Scetis
was known to deny the real presence: “The bread which we receive is not really
the body of Christ, but a symbol”.73 Rather against type, he is described as sim-
ple and naïve, rather than philosophically inclined, perhaps an artifact of the
scrubbing of the Origenist controversy from the Apophthegmata, compiled in
the fifth century and later in the monasteries of Palestine.74 Regardless, when
confronted on his heretical ideas by other monks he refuses to concede his po-
sition without proof: “As long as I have not been persuaded by the thing itself
(ἀπὸ πράγματος), I shall not be fully convinced”.75
In response to the other monks’ prayers, God intercedes to reveal his error.
One day during the Eucharist he and the two brothers see an infant on the altar

72 See n. 60 above, Shen., I Am Amazed (DS 115).

73 Apophth. Patr., Daniel 7 (PG 65, 156–160), transl. B. Ward, The Sayings of the Desert
Fathers. Apophthegmata patrum. The Alphabetical Collection, CistSS 59, London 1975. This
interesting apophthegm is studied by C. Schroeder, Child Sacrifice in Egyptian Monastic
Culture. From Familial Renunciation to Jephthah’s Lost Daughter, in: JECS 20 (2012), 269–
302 (286f.).
74 A process noted in W. Harmless, Desert Christians. An Introduction to the Literature of
Early Monasticism, New York 2004, 170f. The Egyptianness and the historical veracity
of the Apophthegmata Patrum (at least for a cultural or social history if not a histoire
événementielle) are important topics of debate; a useful perspective is that of D. Brakke,
Macarius’s Quest and Ours. Literary Sources for Early Egyptian Monasticism, in: CSQ 48
(2013), 239–251; and the response by S. Rubenson, To Tell the Truth. Fact and Fiction in Early
Monastic Sources, in: CSQ 48 (2013), 317–324, both part of a special issue on “Egyptian
Monasticism: Sources and Epistemology”.
75 Apophth. Patr., Daniel 7 (PG 65, 157), transl. Ward.
138 Andrew Crislip

and “an angel descended from heaven”.76 When the priest pours the wine into
the cup, the angel pours the infant’s blood down into the chalice, presumably
having stabbed the baby. When the priest breaks the bread, the angel chops
the child up into pieces, and when the old man goes to receive the bread, he
finds a piece of bloody baby flesh in his hands. “Seeing” the bloody flesh, as
Abba Daniel tells it, “he was afraid (ἐφοβήθη) and cried out, ‘Lord, I believe that
this bread is your flesh and this chalice your blood’”.77 This graphic tale evokes
a strong emotional response of revulsion or disgust: cannibalism, killing ba-
bies, and blood (along with other bodily fluids) are all common disgust viola-
tions across cultures, and certainly appear regularly in ancient Mediterranean
sources.78 It is worth noting, however, that the author does not identify the old
man’s feeling as disgust, but as fear. This is not unusual in ancient emotional
expression, as Rob Boddice observes of Plutarch: “for all [scil. he] seems to
register his disgust (though he does not use any of the words typically associ-
ated with the English ‘disgust’), he strangely seems to delight in recounting the
monstrous and frightening (τερατῶδες—teratodes) all the same”.79 The “emo-
tion” of disgust in antiquity has become a subject of a good deal of study, and
there are important methodological questions in identifying ancient and mod-
ern disgust.80 Without venturing too far into current debates in the history of
emotions, I think it is clear that the old man finds the sight of the butchered
baby and the bloody morsel affectively powerful, terrifying and revolting and
wondrous at the same time. I suspect the reader is expected to feel a similar
morbid fascination.81

76 Apophth. Patr., Daniel 7 (PG 65, 157), transl. Ward.

77 Apophth. Patr., Daniel 7 (PG 65, 157), transl. Ward.
78 On disgust as a moral emotion and the concept of disgust elicitors, see the recent
overview in P. Rozin / J. Haidt / C.R. McCauley, Disgust, in: L.F. Barrett / M. Lewis /
J.M. Haviland-Jones (eds.), Handbook of Emotions, New York 42016, 815–834. Such images
of child sacrifice and cannibalism also recall pagan accusations against Christians, not to
mention “orthodox” accusations against Gnostics, e.g., Epiphanius on the Borborites, in
B. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures, New York 1987, 205–208.
79 Boddice, A 2019, 63; who elsewhere notes the confluence of disgust and fear at witnessing
the suffering of another, see id., Pain: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2017, 66f.
80 D. Lateiner’s and D. Sparathas’s edited volume (2016) includes wide-ranging studies of
the ancient feelings of revulsion and disgust across the ancient Mediterranean world;
Boddice raises important but not insurmountable concerns about avoiding anachronism
and the conflation of modern and ancient categories: Boddice, 2019, 62–72.
81 Recent cognitive and affective science has studied the mix of disgust, fear, and morbid
fascination, useful to set alongside the historical approach of Boddice, cited above; see
S. Oosterwijk / K.A. Lindquist / M. Adebayo / L.F. Barrett, The Neural Representation of
Typical and Atypical Experiences of Negative Images. Comparing Fear, Disgust and Morbid
Fascination, in: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 11 (2016), 11–22.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 139

Setting aside the challenge of “translating” emotional concepts, it is the old

monk’s intense affective or emotional response that turns him back to the cor-
rect teaching of Alexandrian orthodoxy. His fear, disgust, and wonder dem-
onstrate the reality of the Eucharist; and they prove it viscerally in a way that
philosophical, biblical, or medical argument could not. As the story continues,
once the monk confesses his belief, the flesh changes to bread. Another old
man explains, that because humans cannot eat raw flesh (κρέα ὠμά, here clear-
ly meaning human flesh), God providentially changed it to bread.82 Earlier
authors had posited a number of explanations for why the Eucharist is not
cannibalism. This late antique text, rather, embraces the instinctive feeling of
revulsion as part of its apologetics: the natural human disgust and fear at con-
suming human flesh and blood neither necessitates a symbolic interpretation
of the Eucharist, nor, as a pagan might claim, reveals its absurdity. Quite to
the contrary, this visceral, even unpleasant feeling at the sight and thought of
the Eucharist is actually a powerful mode of moral judgment, for it proves the
real presence of Christ. It further reflects aspects of the approaches to resur-
rection seen variously in Antony, Ammonas, and Shenoute, as varied as they
are. The reality of the resurrection (Christ’s and ours, body, soul, or mind) can
be grasped by bodily, affective, and emotional experience. The way you know
that the Eucharist is the real body and blood—and the way you know Jesus is
risen and sacramentally present—is the same way you know you are in love, or
hungry, or miss your friend. You feel it.
A similar approach of embodied moral judgment appears in later Coptic
homilies. In the Coptic sermon On Baptism or On the Epiphany, perhaps a
seventh-century composition attributed to Peter of Alexandria (r. 300–ca. 311),
the homilist focuses on the instructive power of the community’s feelings in
approaching the Eucharist, rather than attempting to provide a theological,
biblical, or physiological explanation for the solemnity of the ritual.83 They
should “advance” to the Eucharistic altar “with fear and trembling” (hnouhote
mnoustōt), approaching God as “a consuming fire”.84 They should envision the
unseen powers arrayed around the altar, at which, were they visible, the con-
gregants and the speaker himself would “be afraid and tremble and be terrified”

82 Apoph. patr., Daniel 7.

83 The historical context of this and other Coptic sermons is covered by Brakke, 2000, 278–
280; here and in the following section I am indebted to Brakke’s important study of em-
bodiment in the Coptic sermon cycles.
84 Petr. Al., epiph. 27, transl. B. Pearson/T. Vivian (eds.), Two Coptic Homilies Attributed to
Saint Peter of Alexandria: On Riches, On the Epiphany, Rome 1993 (Pierpont Morgan M611
f. 11r). Here I follow Pearson and Vivian in using the latter title.
140 Andrew Crislip

(nehšlf, lit. “emit fear”).85 He calls for his audience to envision “the true high
priest Jesus Christ” standing by the officiant, God the father enthroned above,
“eagles of light” above the deacons, the “scribes of knowledge stand[ing] over
the bishop’s throne,” and choir of angels singing alongside the human chorus.86
The vision recalls the heavenly chorus of angels, saints, prophets, evangelists,
Christ, and his mother, which his contemporaries could have seen painted in
the sanctuaries across Egypt, such as is now so vividly preserved in the church
of the Red Monastery in Shenoute’s monastic federation.87 His audience
should feel an overwhelming fear and trembling, which he confesses himself
as having felt. He describes the crowd before him weeping in cognizance of
their sins, at which the preacher confesses his joy, because they have a cure for
their ailments before them: the flesh and blood of Christ on “the altar that is
full of fear and trembling”.88 This late antique Coptic homily draws an appeal
to the passions as signifiers of the reality of the mysteries, and their efficacy at
ensuring the posthumous transformation of the congregants.
Other Coptic homilies of the same period share the same approach to the
Eucharist. A pseudo-Basilian Homily on Michael the Archangel encourages
the reader to envision the archangel in front of the curtain, before whom
they should feel fear.89 The pseudo-John Chrysostom homily On the Bodiless
Creatures exhorts priests and deacons not to look upon the Eucharist with-
out “an unashamed eye. But stand with a face full of shame” (hnouso efmeh
nšipe).90 This very emotional and affective language of fear, sorrow, and shame
recalls Shenoute and the monk of Scetis in arguing about the nature of the
bodily transformation of the Eucharist, and with it the understanding of the
transformation of body and soul in the resurrection.
Coptic homilists defended the corporeality of the resurrection in the same
way; they did not try to cleanse the resurrection of its messiness, much as
Shenoute had grounded his defense of the resurrection in a graphic and af-
fective retelling of the story of Lazarus.91 A Coptic homily, falsely attributed

85 Petr. Al., epiph. 27, transl. Pearson/Vivian (M611 f. 11r).

86 Petr. Al., epiph. 28, transl. Pearson/Vivian (M611 f. 11r-v).
87 As documented in E.S. Bolman (ed.), The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in
Upper Egypt, New Haven 2016.
88 Petr. Al., epiph. 29; 31; 34; 35; 43, transl. Pearson/Vivan (35).
89 I I Hom. Mich. Arch. 9, citing Ps 34(35):7, in: L. Depuydt (ed.), Homiletica from the Pierpont
Morgan Library, CSCO 524f., Leuven 1991, 19; D. Brakke, 2000, 290f.
90 On the Bodiless Creatures 4, in: Depuydt, 1991, 38.
91 Shenoute was not unique among ancient interpreters, who occasionally focused on
the Lazarus episode, but he seems more interested than others in foregrounding sen-
sory, disgust-eliciting details. Ancient comparanda include Ps.-Macarius, hom. 30.8:
“For Lazarus […] exuded so fetid an odor that no one could approach his tomb”, transl.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 141

to Athanasius, draws on the Lazarus episode to similar effect, using a literary

technique sometimes labelled “apostolic memoir”.92 But the homilist goes well
beyond the usual patristic note of the corpse’s stench. The language of Joh 11:39
(“Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days”) was ap-
parently insufficiently affective. The preacher relates, “Martha … said to [scil.
Jesus], ‘Lord, now he is already decayed, for it is his fourth day. His whole body
has poured forth pus; his eyeballs have dropped out; and his interior organs
have become useless […] the whole body is bound with cloths lest it dissolve
and fall to pieces’”.93 And when Christ calls Lazarus from the tomb, he under-
scores the reality and revulsion of bodily decay. “I command the foul odor to
depart,” Christ announces. He calls Lazarus to “observe the place where you
were sleeping, filled with pus and stinking”.94 Lazarus is fully to understand
the reality of his corruption now that he emerges from the tomb, his stench
now replaced with the fragrance of Christ, member by member restored to
wholeness, his body once dissolved into oozing liquid, now preserved conti-
nent.95 Eyes, head, ears, nose, tongue, lips, mind, and all the members of his
body down to his feet, the homilist insists, had “decayed and dissolved in the
earth,” and “became alive again and ministered to the body”.96
Another Coptic homily, variously called Gospel of the Twelve Apostles or
Homily on the Life of Jesus and His Love for the Apostles, retells the Lazarus nar-
rative in even greater detail, underscoring in a different way with sensory and
affective detail the damage and decay of Lazarus’ body.97 Here, Lazarus’ resur-
rection is a direct response to (doubting) Thomas’ challenge to Jesus that he
might “see dead men sleeping in the tombs raised by Thee, for a sign of Thy
resurrection which shall take place”. Specifically, he wants “to see how bones
in this tomb which have been dissolved are joined together and how [scil. the

G.A. Maloney, Pseudo-Macarius. The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, New
York 1992, 193; also see Tertullian’s comment, discussed in Bynum, 1995, 42.
92 Fully outlined in A. Suciu, The Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon. A Coptic Apostolic Memoir,
WUNT 1,370, Tübingen 2017.
93 Ps.-Athanasius, On Lazarus, transl. J.B. Bernardin, The Resurrection of Lazarus, in: AJSL 57
(1940), 262–290 (267=f. 112v); see Brakke, 2000, 286–288.
94 Bernardin, 1940, 268=f. 113v, transl. altered.
95 Bernardin, 1940, 268–9=f. 113v-135r.
96 Bernardin, 1940, 269–270=f. 115r.
97 E. Revillout, Les Apocryphes coptes. Première partie. Les Évangiles des douze apôtres
et de saint Barthélemy, PO 2/2, Paris 1904, 131–183 ; Engl. transl. F. Robinson, Coptic
Apocryphal Gospels. Translations Together with Translations of Some of the Them, TS 4.2,
Cambridge 1898, 168–178. I have benefited from the introduction, bibliography, and trans-
lation by T. Pettipiece, A Homily on the Life of Jesus and His Love for the Apostles, in: T. Burke
(ed.), New Testament Apocrypha. More Noncanonical Scriptures 2, Grand Rapids 2020.
142 Andrew Crislip

dead] may speak here”.98 Jesus is eager to take up Thomas’s challenge. He prom-
ises that he show him “bones which have been dissolved in the tomb gathered
together again [,…] the eyes of Lazarus which have been hollowed out sending
forth light [,…] the tongue of Lazarus, which has wasted away by reason of
corrupt matter [,…] the corruption of his bones and of his shroud, which the
worms have destroyed”.99 This homilist’s reimagining of the Lazarus story is far
richer in highly affective—disgusting, horrifying, awe-inspiring—details than
John’s Gospel, and even Shenoute’s description. It notably alters even the most
famous and Christologically problematic component of the Johannine version:
Jesus’s weeping at the tomb.100 Here, it is not Jesus, but Thomas who grieves,
at which Jesus commands, “Grieve not” (mprlupei).101 Even the joy is viscerally
expressed: Lazarus emerges from the tomb praising Jesus while his sisters are
“kissing his mouth,” an act that has all the more impact given the foregoing
evocation of the liquification of his smelly body.102
This graphic retelling is about as far as possible from the allegorical read-
ing of Shenoute’s opponents. It also differs in certain respects from the view
of the resurrection and immortality that Antony and Ammonas emphasise in
their ascetic teachings. But what is important here, and what connects this
homily to the bloody Eucharistic vision of the Desert Fathers and the letters of
the northern Egyptian anchorites, is the emphasis on affective realism, emo-
tional judgment, and bodily experience as proof of the resurrection. Brakke
has described the Coptic texts’ “strongly realistic sense of the physical pres-
ence of Christ in the Eucharist,” an observation that is equally applicable to
their sense of the resurrection of Lazarus.103 But this is a peculiar form of real-
ism, in fact highly imaginative realism that has a very specific purpose; it is
affectively realistic, fostering the perception and “reality” of abstract and not
directly observable theological claims. The morbid fascination one might get
at contemplating eating human flesh, the sense of shame and fear at the altar,
or one’s revulsion at contemplating the state of one’s decaying body proves the
resurrection reality of the Eucharistic host and the resurrection of the body for
Christians.

98 Transl. Robinson (altered), 1898, 169; Revillout, 1904, 135.

99 Transl. Robinson, 1898, 170; Revillout, 1904, 136.
100 Discussed in M.A. Elliott, Faithful Feelings. Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament,
Grand Rapids 2006, 207f.
101 Transl. Robinson, 1898, 172; Revillout, 1904, 139.
102 Transl. Robinson, 1898, 174; Revillout, 1904, 142.
103 Brakke, 2000, 291.
6. Embodiment in Egyptian Monastic Literature 143

V. Conclusion

The embrace of realism and emotional judgment is an important one in

Egyptian sources from the fourth to seventh century. Recent work on affect,
emotion, and cognition has well established the phenomenon of affective real-
ism or affect-as-information.104 This is the phenomenon by which affect (the
interoceptive feeling of pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort), mood, and
emotion have very powerful and measurable effects on evaluation of people,
objects, and situations, and individuals’ construction of reality. I am not dealing
with sources that can be interrogated with laboratory methods, and the ques-
tions pursued by research in affective realism are quite different than my own,
not least since the very concepts of emotion, ancient and modern, differ con-
siderably. None the less, my sense is that contemporary studies of embodied
cognition and affective realism have the potential to contribute to understand-
ing the changes in late antique Christian understanding of the resurrection. I
also suggest that attention to language of emotion, affect, and embodiment
can help highlight changes in arguments about the resurrection of body and
soul. In the late antique sources that I am looking at, the doctrine of the resur-
rection doesn’t just rectify the horrors of the cadaver and the difficult feelings
of disgust, fear, and shame. Rather, such affects, whether of disgust and fear,
shame and awe, or joy and freedom, provide means by which the Christian can
know the reality of resurrection. A focus on affect and emotion is a useful way
to rethink debates about embodiment in late antique Egypt, which has been
recognised as important problem for several decades of study.105 The question
for historians and for Coptic writers alike is not only whether the body is good
or bad.106 Rather, the question is what the body is good for. In all of the authors
I have surveyed here, the body is good to think with, a way to prove the reality
of matters generally beyond rational proof.

104 Barrett, 2017, 75–78. 283–285; G.L. Clore / A.J. Schiller, New Light on the Affect-Cognition
Connection, in: Barrett / Lewis / Haviland-Jones (eds.), 42016, 532–546; Zadra / Clore, 2011.
105 E.g., the important perspectives of Clark, 1990, 146; Brakke, 2000; Schroeder, 2007.
106 See Schroeder, 2007, 127.
 chapter 7

Christian Ensoulment Theories within Dualist

Psychological Discourse

Anna Usacheva

Abstract

This study of the philosophical and patristic texts of the second–fifth centuries,
explores Christian theories of reproduction in the context of Hellenic dualist
discourse and embryology. I argue that due to the specific metaphysical princi-
ples of Christian doctrine, the church fathers were bound to balance the dualist
lexicon, which they often used, with holistic anthropological and Christological
statements. Patristic theories of reproduction represent a vivid example of the
balanced Christian holistic thought, which imbibed plenty of Hellenic concepts,
yet remained true to the fundamental principles of Christian doctrine.

I. Introduction

Throughout millennia, questions concerning the beginning and the end of the
life of the human body have excited a similar kind of curiosity, worry and awe.
Long before the dawn of Christianity, Hellenic thought about the mystery of
life generally revolved around various interpretations of the union between
the perceptible and perishable nature of the body and the intelligible and
non-perishable nature of the soul. These principles are traditionally associated
with Platonic substance dualism. Although it is well known that Plato’s own
allegiance to the rigid substance dualism is questionable, his followers devel-
oped his ideas in a variety of ways ranging from a more rigid to frankly com-
promised forms of dualism.1 In tune with Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics of all
generations also admitted the fundamental difference between the intelligible
and corporeal substances.
Although the disagreements between the philosophical schools were so
substantial that they overshadowed their consensus on the mere existence of

1 Cf. A. Marmodoro / S. Cartwright (eds.), A History of Mind and Body in Late Antiquity. New York
2017, 33–52.

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_008

7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 145

intelligible and corporeal natures, it can safely be said that the Christian doc-
trine of bodily resurrection simultaneously emphasised and challenged all the
different types of substance dualism known to Greek philosophy.
Thus, on the one hand, right from the start of Christian preaching, God was
established as spiritual, non-perishable, independent, and eternal,2 while man
was seen as a dependent creature that combined in his/her nature the corpo-
real and perishable with the spiritual and everlasting (Gen 2:7). This essen-
tial distinction between God and man was counterbalanced by a belief in the
creation of man in the image of God and in the ongoing divine assistance in
human reproduction.3 In such a way, God himself guaranteed the presence of
his divine image in man and thereby procured a way for human bodily resur-
rection and salvation.
The dogmas of Christ’s incarnation and bodily resurrection, which im-
plied the everlasting existence of corporeal nature, married two fundamental
metaphysical principles of Greek philosophy that were sometimes viewed as
incompatible: the existence of the perishable, corporeal nature and of non-
perishable, intelligible nature. Thus, Christian belief in the twofold character
of holistic human nature was supported by a conviction of the union between
the divine and human natures in Christ and his bodily resurrection.4 In this

2 Thus, the gospel of John preached that “God is spirit” (John 4 24), while Pauline epistles
spoke of God as “invisible” (Col 1:15), “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only
God” (1 Tim 1:17). Here and below, biblical citations follow the New Revised Standard Version
(https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Revised-Standard-Version-NRSV-Bible/).
3 Cf. the first divine blessing on human reproduction in Gen 1:28, the second blessing on repro-
duction addressed to Noah and his sons (Gen 9:1), and various accounts of divine assistance
in reproduction in the book of Psalms: “He gives the barren woman a home, making her the
joyous mother of children” (Ps 113:9); “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit
me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps 139:13); “Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, the
fruit of the womb a reward” (Ps 127:3).
4 Thus, Athenagoras spoke about “composite” (συναμφότερον, Athenag., res. 18.4) human na-
ture (Greek text: W.R. Schoedel [ed.], Athenagoras: Legatio and De resurrectione, Oxford 1972.
Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?1205:002:0; transl.:
B.P. Pratten, ANF 2. Retrieved from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0206.htm). The
apologists also emphasised that the two parts of human nature act as one (Athenag., res.
15.2), an idea that was developed, among others, by Gregory of Nyssa, who spoke about
the compound nature of man, which includes vegetative, perceptive and rational compo-
nents (Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 14.2). Gregory explained the holistic character of human nature
by pointing out the indispensable practical collaboration of the intellectual and material
components: “Thus, neither is there perception without material substance (ὑλικῆς οὐσίας),
nor does the act of perception take place without the intellectual faculty (τῆς νοερᾶς δυνάμε-
ως)” (Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 14.3; Greek text: PG 44. Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.
edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?2017:079:0; transl.: NPNF 5. Retrieved from: http://www.
newadvent.org/fathers/2914.htm). On the history of the so-called anthropological argument
146 Anna Usacheva

way, a special form of substance dualism, coupled with an attempt to over-

come it, are inherent in Christian thought: if one or another is taken away, the
whole system collapses.
Right from the start, Christian preaching had a pronounced apocalyptic
character with an emphasis on bodily resurrection after death in the soon ex-
pected kingdom of God. Thus, in 1 Corinthians, Paul famously argued against
those who did not believe in the resurrection of the body and who consid-
ered bodily life irrelevant for the task of salvation (1 Cor 6:13). Moreover, in
Paul’s terms, the whole procedure of individual salvation was represented as
a transformation of physical body into spiritual body. In other words, Paul’s
preaching was not so much about the salvation of the soul but about bodily
transformation, understood as “the personal, individual unity of physical and
non-physical dimensions”.5 Irenaeus of Lyon, in his Adversus haereses, aptly
grasped this Pauline attitude towards the body when he described the process
of resurrection as a transformation of ignoble and dead flesh into the glorious
and incorruptible spiritual body (Iren., haer. 5.7,2).6
Thus, at the nucleus of Christian religion we find a belief that human nature
is, in some way, unlike God, and, in some way, like God; and that the increase
of this likeness brings about the salvation or transformation of human nature.
Significantly, there are two necessary requirements for the process of transfor-
mation: it has to be assisted by God, and its progress should not entirely de-
stroy the dissimilarity between man and God. Hence, Christian anthropology
was bound to remain simultaneously dualist and holistic.
It is very important to keep this complex nature of Christian doctrine in
mind, especially for a balanced view of the history of Christian anthropolo-
gy, psychology and Christology. Unfortunately, such a balanced treatment of
early Christian literature has not always been the prevailing scholarly attitude:

in Christology, cf.: M.-O. Boulnois, Le modèle de l’union de l’âme et du corps dans les débats
christologiques du IVe siècle: les origines, Annuaire, in: Résumé des conférences et travaux,
École Pratique des Hautes Études (2006–2007), EPHE (2008), 217–222.
5 In his profound analysis of 1 Corinthians, Vito Limone emphasised the holistic character of
Paul’s vision of the body (cf. V. Limone, The Christian Conception of the Body and Paul’s Use of
the Term Sōma in 1 Corinthians, in: Marmodoro / Cartwright (eds.), 2017, 204.
6 Cf. A. Rousseau / L. Doutreleau / Ch. Mercier (eds.), Irénée de Lyon: Contre les hérésies, livre 5,
tome 2, SC 153, Paris 1963, 88–90. Similarly, Athenagoras expounded on the unity, harmony
and concord of the soul and body after the resurrection as the telos of creation (Athenag., res.
15.3). Pseudo-Justin also professed that “when God promised to save man, He promised to the
flesh” (Ἔνθα γὰρ τὸν ἄνθρωπον εὐαγγελίζεται σῶσαι, καὶ τῇ σαρκὶ εὐαγγελίζεται—Ps.-Just, res.
593d; Greek: J.C.T. Otto [ed.], Corpus apologetarum Christianorum saeculi secundi 3, Jena 1879.
Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?0646:005:5611; transl.
mine).
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 147

many researchers have postulated the dominance of the Platonising dualist

discourse among Christian authors.7 The well-known story recounts how, after
the legalisation of Christianity, apocalyptic expectations grew weaker, the
philosophical and educational ambitions of the new religion became stronger
and the eschatological emphasis of the early preaching was somewhat over-
shadowed by Christological discussions.8 Since many Christian authors openly
declared their sympathy towards some Platonic ideas, scholars considered the
spread of such binaries as soul vs body, mind and reason vs flesh and instincts
and virtues vs passions in Christian literature as a sign of the prevailing dualist
mentality. This is how Andrew Louth aptly summarises the key-ideas of this
dualist discourse:

the human is more than the two-legged animal we observe, but is really an invis-
ible soul which in principle governs the body; the purpose of the soul is to come
to behold God in an act of contemplation, something for which the body is often
a distraction.9

In her analysis of the late antique Christian attitude towards body, Gillian
Clark also emphasised the dualist account by focusing on abstinence, puni-
tive hatred of all bodily concerns, misogynistic language and the aversion
of medical treatment.10 This overview may well capture the mainstream of
Christian ascetic rhetoric supported by the general late-antique tendency to
favour Platonic dualist jargon and the loci communi of the Platonic dialogues.
However, behind the polemical and moralistic rhetoric lay the rather firm and
unbending principles of Christian holistic anthropology, which mastered the

7 Pondering the dominance of Platonism within both a Christian and non-Christian mi-
lieu, Henry Chadwick noted that “starting from the Delphic recommendation ‘Know
thyself,’ the real nature of man was defined as the soul’s making use of the body as an
instrument (and therefore secondary).” Cf.: H. Chadwick, Philosophical Tradition and the
Self, in: G.W. Bowersock / P. Brown / O. Grabar (eds.), Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on
the Postclassical World, London 2001, 60–81 (61).
8 Cf. F. Bovon, The Soul’s Comeback. Immortality and Resurrection in Early Christianity, in:
HThR 103 (2010), 387–406 (399).
9 Cf. A. Louth, Platonism from Maximos the Confessor to the Palaiologan Period, in:
A. Kaldellis / N. Siniossoglou (eds.), The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium,
Cambridge 2017, 325.
10 Cf. G. Clark, Bodies and Blood: Late Antique Debate on Martyrdom, Virginity and
Resurrection, in: D. Montserrat (ed.), Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings. Studies on the
Human Body in Antiquity, London 1998, 107f. Mathew Keufler also depicted a sadly nega-
tive picture of the Christian attitude towards body, which in his opinion remained un-
changed for a thousand years. Cf. M. Kuefler, Desire and the Body in the Patristic Period, in:
A. Thatcher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender, Oxford 2014,
244–252.
148 Anna Usacheva

Patristic reception of Platonic and other philosophical concepts.11 Thus, the

unbalanced and increasingly negative perception of the Christian conception
of body has been recently criticised by scholars who have shown that some
of the Christian authors were well-versed in medicine and contributed to the
progress of medical institutions and education.12 Recently, scholars of late an-
tiquity have openly acknowledged the insufficiency of previous research on
the Christian conception of body, and encouraged further investigation of this
topic.13
In this chapter, I explore how complex dualist-holistic ideas are featured in
the Christian views of ensoulment. I analyse the Patristic view of reproduc-
tion within the framework of Hellenic embryology. To tackle the diversity and
continuity between the various Christian ideas, I begin with theories from the
second–fourth centuries, and afterwards focus on two authors from the fifth
century. I shall demonstrate that, although we see various philosophical and
sometimes medical influences on the surface of Christian ensoulment views,
the rationale of Christian ideas throughout the first four (plus) centuries had al-
ways remained different from the metaphysical principles of the philosophical
schools and true to the fundamentally complex nature of Christian doctrine.

II. Early-Christian Ensoulment Theories

II.1 Traducianism and Aristotelian Embryology

General scholarly overviews of late-antique ensoulment theories normally iden-
tify two main trends. The first is the pre-existence of the soul that is associated

11 E.g., Ps.-Justin, in his Hortatory address to Greeks, offered the following curious interpre-
tation of Plato’s dualism: “For certainly they will never say that the soul has a head and
hands, and feet and skin. But Plato, having fallen in with the testimonies of the prophets
in Egypt, and having accepted what they teach concerning the resurrection of the body
(τῆς τοῦ σώματος ἀναστάσεως), teaches that the soul is judged in company with the body
(μετὰ τοῦ σώματος τὴν ψυχὴν κρίνεσθαι διδάσκει).” (Ps.-Just., coh. Gr. 26; Greek: Otto, 1879;
transl.: M. Dods, in: ANF 1. Retrieved from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0129.htm).
12 Cf.: A. Crislip, Thorns in the Flesh. Illness and Sanctity in Late Ancient Christianity.
Philadelphia 2013; H. Marx‐Wolf, Religion, Medicine, and Health, in: J. Lössl / N.J. Baker-Brian
(eds.), A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity, New York 2018; W. Mayer, The Persistence
in Late Antiquity of Medico-Philosophical Psychic Therapy, in: JLA 8 (2015), 337–351.
13 Cf.: V. Burrus, “Begotten, not made”: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity. New York 2000;
B. Feichtinger / S. Lake / H. Seng (eds.), Körper und Seele: Aspekte spätantiker Anthropologie,
Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 215, Berlin/New York 2006; A. Torrance / J. Zachhuber (eds.),
Individuality in Late Antiquity. Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity,
Ashgate 2014; Marmodoro / Cartwright (eds.), 2017.
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 149

with Platonic teaching. This is the belief that the soul comes into existence
before the body and that the soul descends into the body from outside (sc. a
variation of the external theory of ensoulment). The Second trend is traducian-
ism, which is coupled with the materialistic views of the Stoic and Peripatetic
schools, and which postulates that the soul is transmitted from the parents (sc.
a variation of the internal theory of ensoulment). In his recent article about
Christian ensoulment theories, Benjamin Blosser argued that early-Christian
authors were not particularly keen on issues of the provenance of the soul and
its connection with the body.14 Determined to refute the dualism of Gnostics,
early-Christian authors, in Blosser’s opinion, were inclined to adopt traduci-
anism, which undermined Gnostic dualism and endorsed the psychosomatic
unity of the human person. The fourth century, in Blosser’s account, brought a
more philosophically versed episcopate and a different vision of ensoulment:

A strong Neoplatonic conviction of the immateriality of the soul had ruled out
traducianism; an eagerness to exorcise any lingering remnants of Gnostic dual-
ism had ruled out pre-existence. The immaterial soul could have no material
origin; neither could it pre-exist its insertion into the body. Thus was born, out of
intellectual desperation, as it were, the new theory of creationism.15

Blosser’s account is somewhat misleading because it creates the impression

that the early-Christian authors were ready to roughly acknowledge the mate-
rialistic provenance of the soul while later Christian thinkers shifted to a more
dualist psychology under the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy.16 An exam-
ination of the early-Christian texts, however, demonstrates a different picture.
Authors such as Justin, Athenagoras, Tertullian and Methodius maintained the
external theory of ensoulment and the holistic vision of the human nature.

14 Cf. B.P. Blosser, The Ensoulment of the Body in Early Christian Thought, in: Marmodoro /
Cartwright (eds.), 2017, 207–223 (211).
15 Cf. Blosser, 2017, 216. Blosser also noted that the rudiments of traducianism survived in
the doctrine of original sin, which he presented as a late-antique argument for infant
baptism.
16 I believe that the chief cause of confusion in Blosser’s analysis of early-Christian ensoul-
ment theories comes from the unqualified use of the terms pre-existence and traduci-
anism, which represent just two varieties of the two major trends in the ensoulment
discourse—the external and internal theories of ensoulment. For example, although
Christian authors consistently supported the external view of ensoulment, some of them
vacillated on rejection of the pre-existence. Likewise, although the absolute majority of
Christian authors repudiated the internal view of ensoulment, most of the early and later
authors acknowledged various kinds of heredity traits transmitted from parents. Thus, it
appears important to employ a more detailed and specified terminology even in produc-
ing general overviews of the Christian ensoulment theories.
150 Anna Usacheva

For example, when Athenagoras affirmed that “souls do not produce souls
[…] but men produce men”17 in his De resurrectione, by “men” he clearly meant
the holistic soul-body compounds. Athenagoras emphasised the indispens-
ability of the soul-body synergy in the process of reproduction: “since the dif-
ference of male and female does not exist in them [the souls], nor any aptitude
for sexual intercourse, nor appetite for it, and where there is no appetite, there
can be no intercourse”.18 Further on in the same treatise, we find that, accord-
ing to Athenagoras, not only reproductive but also cognitive functions belong
to the man (sc. the soul-body compound), and not specifically to the soul.19
Athenagoras argued that, as the prime creature, man enjoys divine providence
and care about human reproduction (Athenag., res. 18.2–4). Thus, Athenagoras
pinpointed a collaboration between man and divine providence, which con-
tributes to the process of conception by ensouling the embryo.
At the beginning of his treatise, Athenagoras explicitly states that the male
seed gives origin to the body, while the power of God enables the shapeless
matter to become a live human being (Athenag., res. 3.1). The essential role of
God in the process of ensoulment was particularly important for Athenagoras’
argument because he took this point further by claiming that, similarly to the
moment of birth, God will reassemble the dissolved elements, reunite the bod-
ies with their souls and bring them back to life in the eschaton:

And it is no damage to the argument, if some suppose the first beginnings to be

from matter, or the bodies of men at least to be derived from the elements as the
first materials, or from seed. For that power which could give shape to what is
regarded by them as shapeless matter, and adorn it, when destitute of form and
order, with many and diverse forms, and gather into one the several portions of
the elements, and divide the seed which was one and simple into many, and or-
ganize that which was unorganized, and give life to that which had no life—that
same power can reunite what is dissolved, and raise up what is prostrate, and re-
store the dead to life again, and put the corruptible into a state of incorruption.20

17 Athenag., res. 23.3: οὐ γὰρ ψυχαὶ ψυχὰς γεννῶσαι τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς ἢ τῆς μητρὸς οἰκειοῦνται προ-
σηγορίαν, ἀλλ’ ἀνθρώπους ἄνθρωποι. (Greek: Schoedel, 1972. Retrieved from: http://stepha-
nus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?1205:002:62630).
18 Athenag., res. 23.4,3–5. Retrieved from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0206.htm;
transl.: B.P. Pratten, ANF 2.
19 Cf. Athenag., res. 15.3–6; res. 15.6: ὁ δὲ καὶ νοῦν καὶ λόγον δεξάμενός ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος, οὐ ψυχὴ
καθ’ ἑαυτήν· ἄνθρωπον ἄρα δεῖ τὸν ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων ὄντα διαμένειν εἰς ἀεί, τοῦτον δὲ διαμένειν
ἀδύνατον μὴ ἀνιστάμενον. (“But that which has received both understanding and reason is
man, not the soul by itself. Man, therefore, who consists of the two parts, must continue
forever”).
20 Athenag. res. 3.2: καὶ τῷ λόγῳ βλάβος οὐδὲν, ἐξ ὕλης ὑποθῶνταί τινες τὰς πρώτας ἀρχάς, κἂν ἐκ
τῶν στοιχείων ὡς πρώτων τὰ σώματα τῶν ἀνθρώπων, κἂν ἐκ σπερμάτων. ἧς γάρ ἐστι δυνάμεως
καὶ τὴν παρ’ αὐτοῖς νενομισμένην ἄμορφον οὐσίαν μορφῶσαι καὶ τὴν ἀνείδεον καὶ ἀδιακόσμητον
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 151

A similar line of eschatological argumentation was taken up by Justin, who

referred to the miracle of conception as a promise of the future resurrection
(Just., 1 apol. 19). Pseudo-Justin explicitly called the soul “a part of God” and
stated that it was inspired by Him.21 Methodius of Olympus gave an elaborate
account of the divine creative power that assists human procreation:

And now that these things are completed, it remains for you to apply this pic-
ture, my wisest of friends, to the things which have been already spoken of;
comparing the house to the invisible nature of our generation, and the entrance
adjacent to the mountains to the sending down of our souls from heaven, and
their descent into the bodies; the holes to the female sex, and the modeller to the
creative power of God, which, under the cover of generation, making use of our
nature, invisibly forms us men within, working the garments for the souls (τὸν δὲ
πλάστην τῇ ποιητικῇ δυνάμει τοῦ θεοῦ, ἥτις ἐπικαλύμματι τῆς γενέσεως ἡμῶν ὡς ἔφην
τῇ φύσει χρωμένη ἔνδον ἡμᾶς ἀοράτως ἀνθρωποπλαστεῖ, τὰ ἐνδύματα ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἐρ-
γαζομένη). Those who carry the clay represent the male sex in the comparison;
when thirsting for children, they bring and east in seed into the natural channels
of the female, as those in the comparison cast clay into the holes. For the seed,
which, so to speak, partakes of a divine creative power, is not to be thought guilty
of the incentives to incontinence. (Θείας γὰρ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν μοίρας τῆς δημιουρ-
γικῆς τὸ σπέρμα μεταλαμβάνον οὐκ αὐτὸ αἴτιον νομιστέον εἶναι τῶν τῆς ἀκολασίας
ὑπεκκαυμάτων.)22 (Meth., symp. 2.5,1–12).

Even Tertullian, who unlike the majority of Christian authors maintained

the corporeal nature of the soul, believed that the intelligible part of the soul
comes from God.23 The presented examples show that, contrary to Blosser’s
opinion, a number of famous early-Christian authors 1) generally supported

πολλοῖς καὶ διαφόροις εἴδεσιν κοσμῆσαι καὶ τὰ μέρη τῶν στοιχείων εἰς ἓν συναγαγεῖν καὶ τὸ σπέρ-
μα ἓν ὂν καὶ ἁπλοῦν εἰς πολλὰ διελεῖν καὶ τὸ ἀδιάρθρωτον διαρθρῶσαι καὶ τῷ μὴ ζῶντι δοῦναι
ζωήν, τῆς αὐτῆς ἐστιν καὶ τὸ διαλελυμένον ἑνῶσαι καὶ τὸ κείμενον ἀναστῆσαι καὶ τὸ τεθνηκὸς
ζῳοποιῆσαι πάλιν καὶ τὸ φθαρτὸν μεταβαλεῖν εἰς ἀφθαρσίαν.
21 Cf. Ps.-Just., res. 594a: ἀλλ’ ἡ μὲν ψυχή ἐστιν ἄφθαρτος, μέρος οὖσα τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐμφύσημα
(“the soul is incorruptible, being a part of God and inspired by Him”).
22 Cf. Greek: V.-H. Debidour / H. Musurillo (eds.), Méthode d’Olympe: Le banquet, SC 95,
Paris 1963. Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?2959:
001:28277; transl.: W.R. Clark, ANF 6.
23 Tert., anim. 3.4: “we claimed the soul to be formed by the breathing of God, and not out
of matter” (quia animam ex Dei flatu, non ex materia uindicamus); anim. 4.1: “We, how-
ever, […] teach that it had both birth and creation” (Et natam autem dpcemus et factam
ex initii constitutione); anim. 5.4: “Cleanthes, too, will have it that family likeness passes
from parents to their children not merely in bodily features, but in characteristics of the
soul. […] The soul certainly sympathizes with the body, and shares in its pain […] The
soul, therefore, is corporeal from this inter-communion of susceptibility (Igitur anima
corpus ex corporalium passionum communione).” (Latin: J. Leal [ed.], Tertullien, De l’âme,
SC 601, Paris 2019; transl.: P. Holmes, ANF 3.
152 Anna Usacheva

the external theory of ensoulment; 2) did not only demonstrate interest in the
question of the soul’s provenance and the nature of its liaison with the body
but sometimes also reveal their informed judgement about specific embryo-
logical matters.
In his profound analysis of early-Christian embryological theories, Bernard
Pouderon affirmed the strong influence of Aristotle on the procreation doc-
trine of the early church fathers.24 In Pouderon’s exposition, the Stagirite’s em-
bryology regarded the process of conception as a result of the emission of the
form-bearing male seed (τὸ εἶδος) into the female and the subsequent mixture
of the seed with the menses, which provide matter for the embryo (ἡ ὓλη). In
this picture, the male seed acts as the formal and efficient cause of the embryo,
while the female menses provide the material cause by nourishing and shelter-
ing the embryo (Arist., GA 2.4,738b; 2.3,737a).
In my opinion, Pouderon slightly overestimates the Aristotelian influence on
the early-Christian doctrine of procreation. Aristotle was a strong proponent
of the one-seed theory, and indeed most of the early fathers endorsed the same
position. However, the internal theory of embryology was also Aristotelian,
that is to say, he believed that the male seed alone is the transmitter of the
soul.25 In De generatione animalium, he said: “Hence it is clear both that the
semen possesses Soul, and that it is Soul potentially”26 (Arist., GA 2.2,735a).
In other words, the potential ensouling capacity of the seed proceeds to ac-
tion (sc. becomes actualised) whenever it is presented with the matter to be
acted upon (sc. the female menses in the womb). This picture describes the
essentially natural process of internal self-reproduction, which includes two
contributors: the mother and the father.

24 Cf. B. Pouderon, L’influence d’Aristote dans la doctrine de la procréation des premiers Pères
et ses implications théologiques, in: L. Brisson / M.-H. Congourdeaneau / J.L. Solère (eds.),
L’embryon: Formation et animation, Antiquité grecque et latine tradition hébraïque, chré-
tienne et islamique, Paris 2008, 161.
25 Aristotle said that the male seed is the vehicle of the vegetative and sensitive soul (Arist.,
GA 2.3,736b8–24). He also made a rather confusing statement about the rational soul,
which comes to the embryo from the outside (Arist., GA 2.3,736b27–29). This idea obvi-
ously clashed with the main rationale of his psychology built around the definition of the
soul as the ἐντελέχεια or the first actuality of the physical body (Arist., De An. 412b5–6).
Nowhere in his works did Aristotle provide an explanation for this discrepancy. However,
Aristotle’s ideas about the provenance of the rational soul should not prevent us from see-
ing his embryology as an internal ensoulment theory. As the transmitter of the entelechy,
the seed, in Aristotle’s view, is the source of life, and consequently the reproduction of life
is an internal process.
26 Greek text and English transl. from: A.L. Peck / T.E. Page et al. (eds.). Aristotle: Generation
of Animals, London 1943, 155 .
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 153

As I have demonstrated, early-Christian authors disproved of the internal

view of ensoulment because it was incompatible with their opinion about the
role of God in the process of conception. It is not unlikely that Christian au-
thors inherited the concept of divine partaking in the process of conception
from the Old Testament tradition, filled with accounts of divine intervention/
providence about the procreation of Israel (cf. the stories of Sarah in Gen 17:16,
Rebecca in Gen 25:21 and Rachel in Gen 29).
The difference between the early-Christian and Aristotle’s views of embry-
ology can be traced back to the contrary concepts of the soul that were held by
these authors. The Stagirite, in the first chapter of the second book of De anima,
famously defined the soul as “the first actuality of an organic body having life
in potentiality”27 (Arist., De An. 412a). As actuality (sc. entelecheia, or simply,
energy) of the body, the soul cannot be alive without the body. This is why, ac-
cording to Aristotle, the process of ensoulment is gradual and the “principles
whose activity is physical cannot be present without a physical body—there
can, for example, be no walking without feet”.28 Hence, Aristotle argued that,
at first, the embryo lives the life of a plant run by the nutritive soul, then—the
life of an animal with the sentient soul, and eventually the rational soul actual-
ises itself in the properly formed man (Arist., GA 2.2f.,735a–736b). This theory
explains why Aristotle considered abortion a totally decent measure until the
fortieth day of pregnancy, that is to say, “before it [the embryo] has developed
sensation and life” (Arist., Pol. 1335b).29
Unlike Aristotle, the early-Christian authors differentiated between the
principles of physical formation, transmitted by the seed, and the soul, provid-
ed by God. Thus, as I have demonstrated, Athenagoras, Justin, Tertullian and
Methodius affirmed that the bodily principles are contained in the seed, while
God ensouls the embryo at the moment of conception. Athenagoras professed
his admiration of the soft seed, which holds “such a variety and number of great
powers, or of masses, which in this way arise and become consolidated,”—
that is—“of bones, and nerves, and cartilages, of muscles too, and flesh, and
intestines and the other parts of the body” (Athenag., res. 17.2,3–5). In a similar
vein, Justin asserted that “from a small drop of human seed bones and sinews
and flesh” are formed into the shape of man (Just., 1 apol. 19.1).

27 Cf. Arist., De An. 412a: ἡ ψυχή ἐστιν ἐντελέχεια ἡ πρώτη σώματος φυσικοῦ δυνάμει ζωὴν ἔχο-
ντος. (Greek: W.D. Ross [ed.], Aristotle, De anima, Oxford 1961. Retrieved from: http://
stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?0086:002:44697; transl.: C. Shields
(ed.), Aristotle, De anima, Oxford 2016, 22).
28 Transl. Shields, 2016, 168f.; Greek: ὅσων γάρ ἐστιν ἀρχῶν ἡ ἐνέργεια σωματική, δῆλον ὅτι ταύ-
τας ἄνευ σώματος ἀδύνατον ὑπάρχειν, οἷον βαδίζειν ἄνευ ποδῶν· (Arist., GA 2.3,736b22–24).
29 Cf. H. Rackham / T.E. Page et al. (eds.), Aristotle: Politics, London 1943, 625.
154 Anna Usacheva

The conviction that ensoulment is simultaneous to conception rendered

every abortion as murder in the eyes of Christians.30 In this respect, the opin-
ion of Christians was different not only from the views of Peripatetics but also
from Platonists, Stoics and Galen.31
Although the early-Christian authors uniformly supported the one-seed
doctrine, this fact does not prove a strong Aristotelian influence on their ideas
about procreation. Unlike Aristotle, Christians believed in the external theory
of ensoulment, which in many respects was essential for the metaphysical
principles of their theology. Thus, external ensoulment agreed with the con-
cept of God—the creator, whose providential care had not ceased after the
hexameron. In addition, it supported the eschatological expectation of bodily
resurrection. Unlike Aristotle, Christians maintained the idea of simultane-
ous ensoulment at the moment of conception, which made them intolerant
of abortion.

II.2 Platonic Embryology

Generally speaking, the similarities between Platonic and Christian theo-
ries of embryology end at their mutual support of the one-seed concept and
the external ensoulment. For example, Gregory of Nyssa, arguing for the ex-
ternal theory, said that “nothing among the things in nature is brought into
existence without deriving its peculiar constitution from evil as its source”.32
Similar argumentation was often used by Neoplatonists, for it proceeded from
the conviction that the product is always an interior likeness of its producer.
James Wilberding recognised this idea as one of the three main principles of
Neoplatonic metaphysics.33 Porphyry formulated this principle with a refer-
ence to Plato:

according to him [Plato] the things that have been engendered from the sub-
stances of some things are always a step down from the things that had engen-
dered them in terms of power and substance, and it is impossible for them to be
of the same substance as the things that engendered them (AG 6.2=42.17–21).34

30 Cf. B. Pouderon, L’interdiction de l’avortement dans les premiers siècles de l’Église, in: RHPR
(2007), 55–73.
31 Cf. K. Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World, Duckworth 2002, 201–213.
32 Cf. Dialogus De anima et resurrectione 46.116,37–39: μηδὲν τῶν ὄντων εἰς γένεσιν ἄγεσθαι
δογματίζων, καὶ κακίας τῇ ἑκάστου φύσει τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐνδιδούσης (Greek: PG 86, Retrieved
from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?2017:056:0; transl.: NPNF 5.
Retrieved from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2915.htm>).
33 Cf. J. Wilberding, Forms, Souls, and Embryos: Neoplatonists on Human Reproduction, Issues
in Ancient Philosophy, New York 2017, 34.
34 Cf. transl. by J. Wildering, Porphyry, To Gaurus On How Embryos are Ensouled and
On What is in Our Power, London 2011, 39; Greek: K. Kalbfleisch, Die neuplatonische,
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 155

In tune with this principle, Porphyry maintained that the seed, which upholds
the principles of physical formation, is generated by “something worse than
itself”—the vegetative soul of the father (“ἡ ἐν ἡμῖν φυτικὴ χεῖρον ἐγέννα ἑαυτῆς,”
AG 14.3=54.12–13), cf. 3.1=36.16–18). As I have shown, Christians also saw in the
seed a provider of the form-principles of the physical body, and thus distin-
guished the contribution of the seed from the life-giving ensoulment provided
by God.35 Similarly to the Neoplatonists, Gregory of Nyssa professed that the
seed is generated by the vegetative soul of the father.36 Like most philosophers
and medical doctors of his time, Gregory maintained the tripartite vision of
the soul as comprised of the vegetative, sensitive and rational parts.37
While Aristotle argued that the seed contains in itself the form principles of
the vegetative and sensitive parts of the soul, Neoplatonists credited the male
seed with the transmission of the vegetative soul only. In the Neoplatonic view,
sensitive and rational souls do not enter the child before its birth because this
would contradict the hitherto described second metaphysical principle of their
doctrine. The distinctly hierarchical structure of the Neoplatonic psychology
rendered it impossible for them to accept that the vegetative soul of the father
could generate anything higher than the vegetative soul contained in the seed.

fälschlich dem Galen zugeschriebene Schrift Πρὸς Γαῦρον περὶ τοῦ πῶς ἐμψυχοῦνται τὰ ἔμβρυα,
APAW, Berlin 1895. Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/
Cite?0530:006:0.
35 Cf. Just., 1 apol. 32; Athenag., res. 3.2. Methodius criticised the idea that “this fleshly gar-
ment of the soul, being planted by men, is shaped spontaneously apart from the sentence
of God” (Meth., symp. 2.7,2f.).
36 Cf. Greg. Ny., hom. opif. 240.1–5=29.10: δυνατὸν γάρ ἐστι τὸν τῆς ζωῆς τρόπον κατανοήσα-
ντα, καὶ ὡς πρὸς πᾶσαν ζωτικὴν ἐνέργειαν ἐπιτηδείως ἔχει τὸ σῶμα καταμαθόντα, γνῶναι περὶ
τί κατησχολήθη τὸ φυσικὸν τῆς ψυχῆς παρὰ τὴν πρώτην τοῦ γινομένον διάπλασιν. (“For it is
possible for one who considers the mode of his own life, and learns how closely con-
cerned the body is in every vital operation, to know in what the vegetative principle of
the soul was occupied on the occasion of the first formation of that which was beginning
its existence”).
37 Cf. Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 176.9–19=14.2: Ἐπειδὴ δε τρεῖς κατὰ τὴν ζωτικὴν δύναμιν διαφορὰς
ὁ λόγος εὗρε, τὴν μὲν τρεφομένην χωρὶς αἰσθήσεως, τὴν δὲ τρεφομένην μὲν καὶ αὐξανομένην,
ἀμοιροῦσαν δὲ τῆς λογικῆς ἐνεργείας, τὴν δὲ λογικὴν καὶ τελείαν δι’ ἁπάσης διήκουσαν τῆς δυ-
νάμεως, ὡς καὶ ἐν ἐκείναις εἶναι καὶ τῆς νοερᾶς τὸ πλέον ἔχειν· μηδεὶς διὰ τούτων ὑπονοείτω
τρεῖς συγκεκροτῆσθαι ψυχὰς ἐν τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ συγκρίματι, ἐν ἰδίαις περιγραφαῖς θεωρουμένας,
ὥστε συγκρότημά τι πολλῶν ψυχῶν τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν εἶναι νομίζειν. (“But since our argu-
ment discovered in our vital faculty three different varieties—one which receives nour-
ishment without perception, another which at once receives nourishment and is capable
of perception, but is without the reasoning activity, and a third rational, perfect, and co-
extensive with the whole faculty—so that among these varieties the advantage belongs
to the intellectual—let no one suppose on this account that in the compound nature of
man there are three souls welded together, contemplated each in its own limits, so that
one should think man’s nature to be a sort of conglomeration of several souls”).
156 Anna Usacheva

Unlike the hylomorphic psychology of Aristotle, or the naturalistic psychology

of Galen,38 Neoplatonists considered the whole process of embodiment of the
rational soul as its degradation.39 In Neoplatonic eyes, the embodied status of
the soul was as unnatural as it was pitiable.
Christian authors stoutly opposed such views. The metaphysical attitude of
the Christian religion, which I mentioned in the introduction, maintained that
the paradoxical kind of union between mortal body and immortal intelligible
soul was designed by God. Moreover, this union of the soul and body was fas-
tened and sanctified by the incarnation of Christ and by the expectation of
the upcoming bodily resurrection. The early-Christian allegiance to holistic
anthropology remained in the fourth century. Thus, similarly to Athenagoras,
who gave a lengthy account of the soul-body interdependence,40 Gregory of
Nyssa argued:

38 Cf. S.M. Cohen, Hylomorphism and Functionalism, in: M.C. Nussbaum / O. Rorty (eds.),
Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima. Oxford 1995, 62; C. Gill, Naturalistic Psychology in Galen
and Stoicism, Oxford 2010.
39 Cf. Porphyry, De abstinentia 1 30.4f.=108: “In the same way we too, if we are going to
reascend from here to what is really ours (πρὸς τὰ ὄντως οἰκεῖα μέλλομεν ἐπανιέναι), must
put aside everything we have acquired from our mortal nature, and the attraction to those
things which itself brought about our descent (ἀποθέσθαι πάντα μετὰ τῆς πρὸς αὐτὰ προσπα-
θείας), and must recollect the blessed and eternal being and eagerly return to that which
is without colour or quality, engaging in two exercises. One is putting aside everything
material and mortal (πᾶν τὸ ὑλικὸν καὶ θνητὸν ἀποθησόμεθα), the other is working to return
and survive, ascending there in the opposite way to that by which we descended here”
(ἑτέραν δὲ ὅπως ἐπανέλθωμεν καὶ περιγενώμεθα, ἐναντίως ἐπ’ αὐτὰ ἀναβαίνοντες ἢ ἐνταῦθα
κατήλθομεν). Greek: A. Nauck, Porphyrii philosophi Platonici opuscula selecta, Olms 1963.
Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?2034:003:35789;
transl.: G. Clark (ed.), Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals, London 2000, 42.
40 Cf. Athenag., res. 15.2–3,6: “For if the whole nature of men in general is composed of an
immortal soul and a body which was fitted to it in the creation (ἡ τῶν ἀνθρώπων φύσις ἐκ
ψυχῆς ἀθανάτου καὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν γένεσιν αὐτῇ συναρμοσθέντος σώματος ἔχει τὴν σύστασιν),
and if neither to the nature of the soul by itself, nor to the nature of the body separately,
has God assigned such a creation or such a life and entire course of existence as this, but
to men compounded of the two, in order that they may, when they have passed through
their present existence, arrive at one common end, with the same elements of which they
are composed at their birth and during life, it unavoidably follows, since one living-being
is formed from the two, experiencing whatever the soul experiences and whatever the
body experiences, doing and performing whatever requires the judgment of the senses or
of the reason, that the whole series of these things must be referred to some one end, in
order that they all, and by means of all—namely, man’s creation, man’s nature, man’s life,
man’s doings and sufferings, his course of existence, and the end suitable to his nature,—
may concur in one harmony and the same common experience […] . But that which has
received both understanding and reason is man, not the soul by itself. Man, therefore,
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 157

For our purpose was to show that the seminal cause of our constitution is neither
a soul without body, nor a body without soul, but that, from animated and liv-
ing bodies, it is generated at the first as a living and animate being, and that our
humanity takes it and cherishes it like a nursling with the resources she herself
possesses, and it thus grows on both sides and makes its growth manifest corre-
spondingly in either part:—for it at once displays, by this artificial and scientific
process of formation, the power of soul that is interwoven in it, appearing at first
somewhat obscurely, but afterwards increasing in radiance concurrently with
the perfecting of the work41 (Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 30.29).

It is clear from this passage that Gregory renounced the critical Neoplatonic
attitude towards the embodied status of the soul and declared the body-soul
liaison as a mutually befitting and glorious union.
Although Gregory acknowledged the incremental development of both the
bodily and psychic powers of the embryo, his more detailed vision of this de-
velopment was different from the positions of Aristotle and Porphyry. Aristotle,
and also Galen, stood for epigenesis: the psychic powers of the embryo develop
gradually, following the formation of the bodily organs.42 Porphyry believed
that the formation of the bodily organs is not accomplished until the foetus
leaves the womb, hence the sensitive and rational souls enter it only at birth
(AG 10.3=46.24–47.5).
Gregory maintained that the moment of conception comprises two simul-
taneous processes: the formation of the embryo out of the male seed and the
menses, and the ensoulment somehow enabled and empowered by God. As a
result of conception, the embryo receives the “full package” of the necessary
bodily and psychic functions (in the state of potentiality). In other words, ac-
cording to Gregory, the vegetative, sensitive and rational parts (sc. powers) of

who consists of the two parts, must continue forever (ἄνθρωπον ἄρα δεῖ τὸν ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων
ὄντα διαμένειν εἰς ἀεί)”. Cf. also Tert., anim. 3.5.
41 Cf. Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 253.19–30: Τὸ γὰρ προκείμενον ἦν δεῖξαι τὴν σπερματικὴν τῆς συ-
στάσεως ἡμῶν αἰτίαν, μήτε ἀσώματον εἶναι ψυχὴν, μήτε ἄψυχον σῶμα, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἐμψύχων τε καὶ
ζώντων σωμάτων ζῶν καὶ ἔμψυχον παρὰ τὴν πρώτην ἀπογεννᾶσθαι ζῶον· ἐκδεξαμένην δὲ τὴν
ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν, καθάπερ τινὰ τροφὸν ταῖς οἰκείαις δυνάμεσιν αὐτὴν τιθηνήσασθαι· τὴν δὲ τρέ-
φεσθαι κατ’ ἀμφότερα, καὶ καταλλήλως ἐν ἑκατέρῳ μέρει τὴν αὔξησιν ἐπίδηλον ἔχειν. Εὐθὺς
μὲν γὰρ διὰ τῆς τεχνικῆς ταύτης καὶ ἐπιστημονικῆς διαπλάσεως τὴν συμπεπλεγμένην αὐτῇ τῆς
ψυχῆς ἐνδείκνυται δύναμιν, ἀμυδρότερον μὲν κατὰ τὴν πρώτην ἐκφαινομένην, καθεξῆς δὲ τῇ τοῦ
ὀργάνου τελειώσει συναναλάμπουσαν.
42 Cf. Arist., GA 734a.—Galen, in De foetuum formatione, argued that the first stage of the
foetus’ growth is marked by the formation of the liver, which marks the plant-like life of
the foetus (Foet. 4.665–667). Then the heart is formed, and the foetus lives like an animal
(Foet. 4.670f.). Lastly, the formation of the brain and the development of the cognitive
functions, which continue after birth, designate the final stage of the foetus’ formation
(Foet. 4.672–674; cf.: C.G., Kühn, Claudii Galeni opera omnia 4, Leipzig 1822).
158 Anna Usacheva

the soul are potentially present in the embryo from the moment of concep-
tion.43 A similar view of the incremental development of the embryo com-
bined with the idea of comprehensive ensoulment at conception was shared
by Basil of Caesarea.44
Another important aspect of the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic and Christian
versions of the one-seed theory was their explanation of the heredity traits of
the parents. Aristotle defined the male seed, generated from the fully concocted
blood, as the transmitter of κίνησις, able to set the menses (sc. non-concocted
blood) in motion, and thereby to conceive the embryo (Arist., GA 2.4,738b–
739a). As Roberto Lo Presti has persuasively demonstrated, the roles of male
and female in Aristotle’s view of the process of conception should not be un-
derstood in the terms of dominion vs submission, but rather as a pair of cor-
relatives or as a matching and effectual partnership.45 In such a way, Aristotle
remarked that, while the active power of the male seed acts upon the passive

43 Cf. Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 237.31–45: “As, then, in the case of those growing seeds the ad-
vance to perfection is a graduated one, so in man’s formation the forces of his soul show
themselves in proportion to the size to which his body has attained. They dawn first in
the fœtus, in the shape of the power of nutrition and of development: after that, they in-
troduce into the organism that has come into the light the gift of perception: then, when
this is reached, they manifest a certain measure of the reasoning faculty, like the fruit of
some matured plant, not growing all of it at once, but in a continuous progress along with
the shooting up of that plant. Seeing, then, that that which is secreted from one living
being to lay the foundations of another living being cannot itself be dead (for a state of
deadness arises from the privation of life, and it cannot be that privation should precede
the having), we grasp from these considerations the fact that in the compound which
results from the joining of both (soul and body) there is a simultaneous passage of both
into existence; the one does not come first, any more than the other comes after.”
44 Basil. Caes., De creatione hominis 1.12,269c: κατὰ τὴν πρώτην σύστασιν τὴν καταβληθεῖσαν ἐν
τῇ μήτρᾳ κατεβλήθησαν καὶ οἱ λόγοι τῆς αὐξήσεως. οὐ γὰρ μετὰ ταῦτα νεώτερόν ἐστι τὸ χάρισμα
τῆς ἡλικίας ἐπιγενόμενον, ἀλλ’ αἱ μητρῷαι καταβολαὶ συγκαταβεβλημένας ἔχουσι τὰς πρὸς τὸ
αὐξάνεσθαι ἐπιτηδειότητας. εἶτα προέκυψε τῆς μήτρας, ηὐξήθη τὸ ὅσον ἐν ταῖς ἀγκάλαις τῆς μη-
τρός. ἔπεσαν οἱ ὀδόντες, ἔγνωμεν ὅτι ηὐξήθη τόσον μέτρον. τριετὲς τὸ παιδίον ἐμέτρησεν ὁ πατήρ·
οἶδεν ὅτι τὸ διπλάσιον τούτου μέγεθος ἀπολήψεται ἐν τῇ τελειώσει. (“En rapport avec la consti-
tution première introduite dans la matrice, y ont été déposées également les raisons de la
croissance. Car après cela, ce que l’âge apporte en supplément n’est pas nouveau : les sub-
stances introduites chez la mère reçoivent en même temps les éléments qui les rendent
aptes à la croissance. Les dents sont tombées, et nous savons que la croissance a atteint
tel seuil. Le père qui mesure son enfant de trois ans sait que celui-ci atteindra une taille
double à la fin de la période”). (Greek text and French transl. : A. Smets / M. van Esboeck
(eds.), Basile de Césarée: Sur L’Origine de L’Homme, SC 160, Paris 1970, 198–201).
45 Cf. R. Lo Presti, Informing Matter and Enmattered Forms. Aristotle and Galen on the ‘Power’
of the Seed, in: British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Causing Health and Disease:
Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquity 22 (2014), 929–950.
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 159

power of the menses, the latter can act back.46 Besides, the matter provided by
the female can not only submit to the power of the seed but can also resist it,
therefore the result of the collaboration between the active male and passive
female powers can rightfully account for the heredity traits of both parents.47
Neoplatonists had a different understanding of conception. In Porphyry’s
view, the seed, generated by the vegetative soul of the father, lacks actual mo-
tion and receives it from the sensitive soul of the mother (AG 14.3=54.3–15). In
this way, as James Wilberding has convincingly demonstrated, Neoplatonists
explained the heredity traits of both parents by way of pointing to the creative
collaboration between the vegetative soul of the father and the vegetative and
sensitive souls of the mother.48
As for the early-Christian view of the transmission of heredity traits, the am-
biguous evidence we have about it makes our conjectures rather loose. On the
one hand, we have statements that seem to testify to the understanding that
the maternal contribution to the embryo and foetus does not extend to the
transmission of heredity traits. For example, Methodius declared that when a
man “is overcome by the desire of generation”, he offers his side to the divine
Creator, “so that the father may again appear in the son” (Meth., symp. 2.2). On
the other hand, Gregory of Nyssa professed that a child is “the very image of its
parents’ beauty” (Gr. Nyss., virg. 3). These and other similar statements about
the transmission of heredity traits may be easily considered equivocal and in-
terpreted in various ways. What can be said with certainty is that, with regard
to the birth of Christ, theologians demonstrated a more pronounced concern
about the maternal contribution to the embryo and foetus than in the case of
regular human reproduction. Thus, at the background of the dogma of Mary’s
virginity was a belief that the human nature of Christ was without sin because
he inherited it from his uncorrupted mother.49 At the turn of the fourth and

46 Cf. Arist., GA 4.3,768b: “The reason why the movements relapse is that the agent in its
turn gets acted upon by that upon which it acts (e.g., a thing which cuts gets blunted by
the thing which is cut, and a thing which heats gets cooled by the thing which is heated,
and, generally, any motive agent, except the ‘prime mover’, gets moved somehow itself in
return […])”. Transl. Peck / Page, 1943, 411.
47 Cf. P.J. van der Eijk, Les Mouvements de la Matière Dans la Génération des Animaux Selon
Aristote, in: V. Boudon-Millot / A. Guardasole / C. Magdelaine (eds.), La Science Médicale
Antique. Nouveaux Regards. Études Réunies en L’honneur de Jacques Jouanna. Paris 2007,
405–424.
48 Cf. Wilberding, 2017, 63–84.
49 Cf. Jerome in virg. 19.277, claimed that “from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born (ex
virginali conjugio virgo filius nasceretur).” (Latin text: PL 23.1, 213; transl.: W.H. Fremantle /
G. Lewis / W.G. Martley, NPNF 6).
160 Anna Usacheva

fifth century, Theodore of Mopsuestia framed the issue of Mary’s maternal

contribution to the formation of Christ’s nature in the following manner:

It was a novel thing to have been fashioned from a woman without marital in-
tercourse, by the power of the Holy Spirit, but He is associated with the human
nature by the fact that He is from the nature of Mary, and it is for this that He is
said also to be the seed of David and Abraham, as in His Nature He is related to
them.50

Christological discussions of the fifth century brought a new turn to the

Christian embryological discourse, which I shall touch upon in the following
section.

III. Christian Embryological and Ensoulment Theories of the

Fifth Century

In this section I analyse the contributions of two fifth century authors to

ensoulment theories in order to introduce a comparison between the early-
Christian period and the later time.
Theodoret of Cyrus and Nemesius of Emesa, whose legacies I examine in
this section, could be classed as representatives of the Antiochene school of
theology. Another common characteristic of these authors is that, compared to
previous Christian writers, they held somewhat innovative views of reproduc-
tion. Theodoret of Cyrus denied comprehensive ensoulment at the moment of
conception and instead believed in incremental ensoulment. He also explicitly
argued for internal ensoulment, although he did allow that divine assistance
was provided through the means of providence and the operation of the natu-
ral law of human physiology, established by God at creation.
In such a way, with a reference to Ex 21:22, Theodoret claims in a special
chapter devoted to the nature of man (Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου) that the ensoul-
ment of the foetus happens only after it has been fully formed in the moth-
er’s womb.51 In a different treatise, and again with a reference to Ex 21:22–24,

50 Cf. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Nicene Creed, Woodbrooke studies,

Christian Documents in Syriac, Arabic and Garshuni, ed., transl., with critical app. by
A. Mingana, vol. 5. Cambridge 1932, 18–116.
51 Cf. Thdt., affect. 5.52f.: “Speaking of a pregnant woman, whose miscarriage was brought
on by a stroke, [the lawgiver] said that first the fœtus is formed in her womb, and then it
is ensouled” (Περὶ γὰρ δὴ τῆς ἐγκύμονος τῆς ἔκ τινων πληγῶν ἀμβλωσκούσης διαλεγόμενος,
διαμορφοῦσθαι πρότερον ἐν τῇ νηδύϊ λέγει τὸ βρέφος, εἶθ’ οὕτω ψυχοῦσθαι). (P. Canivet [ed.],
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 161

Theodoret even more directly claims that the foetus, which is altogether
formed in the womb, has the soul, while the yet unformed foetus does not have
it.52 To support his opinion, Theodoret alludes to the well-known passage from
the book of Genesis that infers the sequential character of human creation:
“the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” (Gen 2:7).
This biblical citation concurred with the conviction, shared by Aristotle,
Galen and Neoplatonists, that the soul can only enter a fully formed body. As
I have shown, Aristotle and Galen believed in incremental ensoulment, while
the Platonists affirmed that the sensitive and intellectual souls enter the body
at birth.
Although Theodoret did not specify the time of ensoulment, neither did
he elaborate on the sequence of the formation of the bodily organs, it seems
likely that he thought ensoulment took place sometime before birth. The pas-
sage from Exodus, which he repeatedly referred to, describes the case of a mis-
carriage or premature birth, which proved that sometimes the foetus came
out fully formed and alive, while sometimes it did not. With a reference to
Job 10:9–12, Theodoret states the following sequence of the reproduction pro-
cesses: “[at first] the small semen takes on a thousand forms, and then the soul
is formed and joined with the body. After the throes of childbirth, divine aid
protects and guides [the child]”.53 Interestingly, according to Theodoret’s logic,
his vision of ensoulment coincided with the holistic anthropological ideas of
previous church fathers. He maintained:

The church, complying with the words of God, despises the view of such her-
etics, and turns away from such myths, and following the Scripture believes that
the soul is created together with the body and that it is not from the matter of the
seed whence it has the origin of its creation.54

Théodoret de Cyr: Thérapeutique des maladies helléniques 1–2, SC 57, Paris 1958, 243; transl.
mine).
52 Cf. Thdt., haer. 5,27: ὡς τὸ μὲν διαμεμορφωμένον ἔμψυχον, τὸ δὲ μὴ μορφωθὲν ἄψυχον.: Greek
Text: PG 83,484A; transl. mine.
53 Cf. Thdt., affect. 5.54.1–5: τὸν σμικρὸν ἐκεῖνον θορὸν εἰς μυρίας ἰδέας μεταμορφούμενον καὶ
τηνικαῦτα τὴν ψυχὴν δημιουργουμένην τε καὶ ξυναπτομένην τῷ σώματι, καὶ μέντοι καὶ μετὰ
τὰς ὠδῖνας τὴν θείαν ἐπικουρίαν φρουροῦσαν καὶ κυβερνῶσαν. Greek text: Canivet, 1958, 243;
transl. mine.
54 Cf. Thdt., haer. 5,24f.: Ἡ δὲ Ἐκκλησία, τοῖς θείοις πειθομένη λόγοις, τὸν μὲν τούτων διαφε-
ρόντως μυσάττεται λόγον, ἀποστρέφεται δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τοὺς μύθους· τῇ δὲ θείᾳ πειθομένη
Γραφῇ λέγει, τὴν ψυχὴν συνδημιουργεῖσθαι τῷ σώματι, οὐκ ἐκ τῆς ὕλης τοῦ σπέρματος ἔχουσαν
τῆς δημιουργίας τὰς ἀφορμὰς, ἀλλὰ τῇ βουλήσει τοῦ ποιητοῦ μετὰ τὴν τοῦ σώματος συνισταμέ-
νην διάπλασιν. Greek text : PG 83,481C; transl. mine.
162 Anna Usacheva

Importantly, the last part of this citation, which might create an impression
that Theodoret supported the external theory of ensoulment, should be com-
pared with his other statements. Thus, in the passage cited above from the
chapter On the nature of man, he declared that after the foetus is fully formed
in the mother’s womb, it receives the soul, “but not in such a way that the
soul comes from the outside, nor that it is engendered from the seed, but by
the natural law, from the beginning established by God, the foetus receives
its being”.55 Clearly in this passage, Theodoret implies the joined operation of
human physiology and divine providence.56
It is difficult to detect any particular philosophical or medical influence on
Theodoret’s views on reproduction. He explicitly mentioned a wide range of
special philosophical and medical literature about ensoulment and started his
chapter On the nature of man with a detailed analysis of various theories of the
Classical and Hellenic authors.57
Unlike Theodoret, his contemporary, Nemesius of Emesa, criticised those
who believed that cooperation of the human physiology and divine provi-
dence can account for the reproduction of human life.58 Nemesius pointed
out the difference between divine providence, focused on the preservation of
life, and the first creation of life ex nihilo (nat. hom. 2.31,16–19). According to
Nemesius, if the souls were born from internal reproduction and not created
ex nihilo, they would be mortal (nat. hom. 2.31,23–25). Nemesius also rejected

55 Thdt., affect. 5.52f.: οὐ θύραθέν ποθεν τῆς ψυχῆς εἰσκρινομένης, οὐδέ γε ἐκ τῆς γονῆς φυομένης,
ἀλλὰ τῷ θείῳ ὅρῳ κατὰ τὸν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐντεθέντα ἐν τῇ φύσει νόμον δεχομένης τὴν γένεσιν. Greek
text: Canivet, 1958, 243; transl. mine.
56 Cf. Thdt. haer. 5,21: Ὥσπερ γὰρ νῦν βουληθέντος αὐτοῦ τὸ ἔμβρυον ἐν τῇ μήτρᾳ δημιουργεῖται,
καὶ ἡ φύσις τοῖς ἐξ ἀρχῆς παρ’ αὐτοῦ τεθεῖσιν ὅροις ἀκολουθεῖ, οὕτως τότε ἀνθρώπινον ἐκ τῆς γῆς
ἐθελήσαντος αὐτοῦ συνεπάγη σῶμα, καὶ ὁ πηλὸς ἐγένετο σὰρξ, καὶ αἷμα, καὶ δέρμα, καὶ πιμελὴ,
καὶ νεῦρα, καὶ φλέβες, καὶ ἀρτηρίαι, καὶ ἐγκέφαλος, καὶ μυελὸς, καὶ τὰ τῶν ὀστῶν ὑπερείσματα
(“Nowadays still, by the will of the Creator, the embryo is created in the mother’s womb,
and nature follows the rules established by God at the beginning. Similarly then [at the
time of the first creation], according to His will, the human body was made up of earth,
and the clay became flesh, blood, skin, fat, nerves, veins and arteries, brain and marrow”).
Greek Text: PG 83,477D; transl. mine.
57 Thus, Theodoret mentioned Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon,
Galen and Plotinus (cf. Thdt., affect. 5.82f.).
58 Nemesius particularly addressed his critique to Eunomius, who, according to his words,
believed that “the universe is not yet complete,” and that the ongoing creation of incor-
poreal souls in the bodies will eventually fulfil the design of God, i.e. it “will complete the
number of souls required for the resurrection (τῶν πρὸς τῇ ἀναστάσει τὸν ψυχικὸν ἀριθ-
μὸν ἀποπληρούντων)” (Nemes., nat. hom. 2.31,9; 2.31,13). Greek: M. Morani (ed.), Nemesii
Emeseni de natura hominis, Leipzig 1987. Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.
libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?0743:002:0; transl.: R.W. Sharples / P.J. van der Eijk (eds.),
Nemesius of Emesa: The Nature of Man, Liverpool 2008.
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 163

the idea that “souls are born from souls, as bodies are from bodies”, which he
ascribed to Apollinaris (nat. hom. 2.32,3). Nemesius declared this position a
blasphemy because it represents God as “an accomplice of adulterers, since
children are begotten by them also” (nat. hom. 2.32,7f.). In addition, Nemesius
renounced the belief that souls are created by God at the moment of concep-
tion. In his view, this notion contradicted Genesis 2:2: God “rested from all
the works He had made”. Thus, Nemesius was left with the last logical expla-
nation of ensoulment—the pre-existence of the soul. Although he never ex-
plicitly acknowledged that such was his view, the rationale of his argument
suggests no other alternative.
This indirect support of pre-existence made him appear as a supporter of
the Neoplatonic teaching and, especially, of Platonic substance dualism in the
eyes of scholars.59 Indeed, Nemesius explicitly cited Ammonius (nat. hom.
3.39,16) and Porphyry’s Miscellaneous Questions (nat. hom. 3.43,2). He referred
to these authors as authorities in the question of the unconfused union, which
was topical in the Christological debate of his time.
Naturally, the context of the Neoplatonic discussion around the specific
kind of union between intelligible substances was very different from the
theological debates about the union between the intelligible soul and material
body, or even between the human and divine natures of Christ. For example,
when Porphyry describes the “divine and paradoxical” kind of union between
the vegetative souls of mother and father in the Ad Gaurum 10.5,1–10, he spoke
about the souls, i.e. intelligible substances. Hence, the union between soul and
body, and even the union between the intelligible divine nature of Christ and
his mixed human nature, did not exactly fit the context of the Neoplatonic
discussion.
However, it is true that in Neoplatonic teaching, the vegetative soul has the
complicated status of a medium between the abstract reality of Forms and the
empirical reality of the sensible word.60 If we add to this consideration the fact
that Porphyry (and also Nemesius) admitted that the soul can suffer together

59 Cf. G. Verbeke, Filisofie en echristendom in het mensbeeld van Nemesius van Emesa,
coll. Med. H. Vlaamse Acad. Wet. Lett. Schone Kunsten Belg., kl. Lett. 33.1, Brüssel 1971;
D. Krausmüller, Faith and Reason in Late Antiquity: The Perishability Axiom and Its Impact
on Christian Views about the Origin and Nature of the Soul, in: M. Elkaisy-Friemuth /
J.M. Dillon (eds.), The Afterlife of the Platonic Soul: Reflections of Platonic Psychology in
the Monotheistic Religions. Leiden 2009, 49; G., Karamanolis, Nemesius of Emesa, in:
D.H. Hunter, / P.J.J. van Geest / B.J. Lietaert Peerbolte (eds.), Brill Encyclopedia of Early
Christianity Online, 2018, (http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2589-7993_eeco_SIM_00002357).
60 Thus, Porphyry identified the vegetative soul with nature, and associated it with nourish-
ment, growth, and reproduction (AG 6.3=42.28f.).
164 Anna Usacheva

with its body,61 the “grey zone” localisation of the vegetative soul becomes
clear. Consider also Nemesius’ profound knowledge and admiration of Galen,
who declared his allegiance to the Platonic school and, at the same time, cre-
ated his essentially naturalistic psychosomatic psychology.62 In these circum-
stances, it is no wonder that Nemesius used Neoplatonic concepts solely for
the benefit of his own argumentation and with no binding influence of the
philosophical notions on his metaphysical principles.
Nevertheless, it is open to conjecture whether Nemesius was himself un-
aware of the distinction between the Neoplatonic and Christian discourses
around the concept of the unconfused union, or whether he deliberately chose
to ignore it for some reason. On the one hand, sometimes Nemesius gave rath-
er loose accounts of famous philosophical theories, but, on the other hand, his
knowledge of Porphyry was considerable.63 I believe that whatever Nemesius’
doxographical principles were, he clearly felt free to give his interpretation of
the philosophical concepts because the chief goal of his treatise was not doxo-
graphical but creative.64

61 Cf. Nemesius argued that the soul, “while remaining one and the same in substance,
changes its qualities, passing from ignorance to knowledge, and from badness to good-
ness” (“ψυχὴ δὲ μία καὶ ἡ αὐτὴ μένουσα κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ὑπαλλάττει τὰς ποιότητας ἐξ ἀμα-
θίας εἰς ἐπιστήμην μεταπίπτουσα καὶ ἐκ κακίας εἰς ἀρετήν,”—nat. hom. 2.30,14f.), and also
that unless the soul manages to attune its body “through reason and character” it will
be perverted together with it (ἐὰν μὴ σφόδρα νήψῃ, καὶ συνδιαστρέφεται αὐτῷ,—nat. hom.
2.26,2f.).
62 Thus, according to Morani’s count, the treatise contains about 70 citations of Galen,
sometimes explicit, extensive and verbatim (Morani, 1987, 139), while the 28 direct refer-
ences to the Bible are short, patchy, and applied as support for Nemesius’ argument and
never as its starting point. For an overview of Galen’s holistic psychology cf. P. Singer,
Galen, Psychological Writings, Cambridge 2017.
63 For Nemesius’ misrepresentation of philosophical theories, cf. e.g. Sharples / van der Eijk
(eds.), 2008, 53, note 230. According to Sharples / van der Eijk’s edition of Nemesius’ nat.
hom., index locorum Porphyrii included 21 citations from different treatises.
64 For a long time, the study of the nat. nom. has been propelled by such secondary in-
terests as doxographic research or the history of dogmatic theology, while the rich and
miscellaneous content of the treatise per se did not excite much scholarly curiosity (cf.
a bibliographic overview by A. Siclari, L’antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa nella critica
moderna, in: Aevum 5(6), 1973, 477–497). This status quo was first contested by William
Telfer (1962), Anastasios Kallis (1978), only tolerably recently Beatrice Motta (2004) and
Sabine Föllinger (2006), who persuasively demonstrates the independence and creativ-
ity of Nemesius’ ideas. Cf. W. Telfer, The Birth of Christian Anthropology, in: JTS 13 (1962),
347–354; A., Kallis, Der Mensch im Kosmos: das Weltbild Nemesios’ von Emesa, Münster
1978; B., Motta, La mediazione estrema. L’antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa fra pla-
tonismo e aristotelismo, Padova 2004; S. Föllinger, Willensfreiheit und Determination bei
Nemesios, in: B. Feichtinger / S. Lake / H. Seng, (eds.), Körper und Seele. Aspekte spätantiker
Anthropologie, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 215, Berlin/New York 2006, 143–157.
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 165

The rationale of Nemesius’ anthropology was fundamentally different

from the hierarchical structure of the Neoplatonic universe. Although he ac-
cepted the substantial difference between soul and body, he repeatedly praised
and admired the unity of these different substances.
For example, Nemesius employed a term introduced by Theodore of
Mopsuestia, who called man the bond of creation (σύνδεσμος), which joined
together intelligible and material substances for the mutual benefit of both.65
With reference to the Mosaic story of creation, and similarly to Theodore,
Nemesius asserts:

when intelligible reality and also visible reality had come to be, something
needed to come to be to bind them both together (σύνδεσμον ἀμφοτέρων), so that
everything should be one and in sympathy with itself (συμπαθὲς ἑαυτῷ) and not
foreign itself to itself. So man, the animal that binds both natures together, came
to be (τὸ συνδέον ἀμφοτέρας τὰς φύσεις ζῷον ὁ ἄνθρωπος) (nat. hom. 1.5,5–7).66

Significantly, Nemesius viewed man not simply as a boundary between the

different spheres67 but as a functional joint, or “μικρὸς κόσμος” (nat. hom.
1.15,6), manifesting organic continuity between visible and intelligible spheres.
Moreover, Nemesius also called man “the image of the whole creation” (πάσης
κτίσεως τὴν εἰκόνα) (nat. hom. 1.15,6), which may appear as a development of
Theodore’s “σύνδεσμος τῆς κτίσεως”. Nemesius never explicitly called man “the
image of God”, which was a clear shift from the popular anthropological con-
cepts of the Cappadocians.68
In his depiction of the organic unity between man and cosmos, Nemesius
went further than mere declarations. His treatise contains multiple examples
of the human psychosomatic integrity, human-environmental physiological
and psychological continuity69 as well as his teleological explanations of all

65 For example, in his commentary on Romans, Theodore said that by joining the soul with
the body, God created man—a bond of creation (“σύνδεσμος τῆς κτίσεως,” cf. Fragmenta in
epistulam ad Romanos (in catenis) 138.10, cited from: K., Staab, Pauluskommentar aus der
griechischen Kirche aus Katenenhandschriften gesammelt, Münster 1933. Retrieved from:
http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.libproxy.helsinki.fi/Iris/Cite?4135:015:65720.
66 Transl. Sharples / van der Eijk (eds.), 2008, 40.
67 According to Norris, Philo maintained that man was a boundary, or a mediator, be-
tween different spheres (cf. R.A. Norris, Manhood and Christ. A Study of the Christology
of Theodore of Mopsuestia. Oxford 1963, 147).
68 Cf., e.g., Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 133.51, et passim.
69 Cf. Nemes., nat. hom. 40.116,11: “[…] if the surroundings are dry, bodies become dry, if not
all in the same way, and if mother lives an unhealthy life and is luxurious her children
will in consequence be born with a poor bodily temperament and wayward in their im-
pulses. So it is clear from what has been said that people may find themselves with an
166 Anna Usacheva

these processes. For example, dwelling on Galen’s psychosomatic notions,70

Nemesius declared:

The Creator in accordance with his supreme foresight wove the functions of the
soul together with the natural and vice versa (συνέπλεξε τοῖς φυσικοῖς τὰ ψυχικὰ
καὶ ἀνάπαλιν,—nat. hom. 27.88,25).

Remarkably, among the psychosomatic functions Nemesius mentioned repro-

duction, which partially is subject to impulse and partially to reason:

the generative faculty belongs to the part which is not capable of obeying rea-
son: for we eject semen in dreams without wishing to, and the desire for sexual
intercourse belongs to nature, for we are moved towards it when unwilling. But
the activity is incontestably up to us and involves the soul: for it is accomplished
through the organs that are subject to impulse, and it is in our power to abstain
and conquer the impulse71 (nat. hom. 25.85,24–30)

Another shift from the familiar Christian views brought Nemesius’ support of
Galen’s two-seed theory (nat. hom. 25.87,1–5). Although Nemesius challenged
some wide-spread Christian psychological ideas in many ways, his efforts to
smooth out the dualist character of human nature unmistakably matches the
complex dualist-holistic nature of Christian doctrine, which I mentioned in
the introduction to this chapter. Thus, Nemesius, in tune with Paul, Irenaeus
and other early-Christian authors, professed that since the soul is already im-
mortal, the salvific efforts of men should be focused on the transformation
of the body understood as the psychosomatic unity of an individual person.

unfavourable bodily temperament either through the general environment or through

the preferred life-style of their parents or through themselves being damaged by luxuri-
ousness […]” (τοῦ γὰρ περιέχοντος ξηροῦ ὄντος ξηραίνεται τὰ σώματα, εἰ καὶ μὴ πάντα ὁμοί-
ως, καὶ μητρὸς οὐκ εὖ δεδιαιτημένης καὶ τρυφώσης ἀκολούθως τὰ τικτόμενα καὶ τοῖς σώμασι
δύσκρατα καὶ ταῖς ὁρμαῖς παράφορα γεννᾶται. δῆλον οὖν ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων ὅτι συμβαίνει καὶ
κράσει σώματος οὐκ εὐτυχεῖ περιπεσεῖν ἢ τῷ κοινῷ τοῦ περιέχοντος ἢ ἐξ ἑκουσίας διαίτης τῶν
γεννησάντων ἢ καὶ αὐτῶν ἐκείνων ἀπὸ τρυφῆς διεφθαρμένων).
70 In De motibus dubiis, Galen describes the instances of unconscious voluntary move-
ments such as breathing, or snoring (DMD 10.1; 164.1–5), and of the half-conscious, in-
voluntary movement such as the erection of the penis (DMD 4.17; 138.20–22), etc. Greek:
V. Nutton (ed.), Galen: On Problematical Movements, Cambridge Classical Texts and
Commentaries 47, Cambridge 2012.
71 Cf. Nemes., nat. hom. 25.85,24–30: Καὶ τὸ γεννητικὸν δὲ τοῦ μέρους ἐστὶ τοῦ μὴ κατηκόου
λόγῳ (ἀβουλήτως γὰρ ἐν ταῖς ὀνειρώξεσι προΐεμεν τὴν γονήν) καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία δὲ τῆς συνουσίας
φυσική· ἄκοντες γὰρ ἐπ’ αὐτὴν κινούμεθα. ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ὁμολογουμένως ἐφ’ ἡμῖν καὶ ψυχική, καὶ
γὰρ διὰ τῶν καθ’ ὁρμὴν ὀργάνων συντελεῖται, καὶ ἀποσχέσθαι καὶ κρατῆσαι τῆς ὁρμῆς ἐφ’ ἡμῖν
ἐστιν.
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 167

In other words, the teleological goal of the soul, according to Nemesius, is to

bring the body to immortality.72 Moreover, this task, in Nemesius’ view, has a
cosmological perspective because of the initial divine design to bind together
intelligible and corporeal natures through humans.

IV. Conclusion

At the introduction to this chapter, I outlined the complex dualist-holistic na-

ture of Christian doctrine and presented a hypothesis that, despite plentiful
influences of various philosophical and medical embryological concepts, the
rationale of Christian thought remained faithful to this complex nature. To
summarise the conclusions of the first section of this chapter, and thereby to
facilitate comparison between the early-Christian and later examples of en-
soulment theories, I present Table 1.
From the second and until the fifth century, Christian authors, together with
Aristotle, Plato and their followers, denied the existence of the female seed,
proposed by Hippocrates and his famous follower, Galen. Although theologians
and philosophers unanimously believed that the embryo is formed out of the
male seed and menses, they had different views of the process of conception.
Unlike Aristotle and Galen, and similarly to Platonists, Christians stood for the
external theory of ensoulment, which complied with their religious dogmas
about creation, incarnation and resurrection. However, similarly to Aristotle
and Galen but unlike the Platonists, Christians held a holistic view of the soul-
and-body union. In addition, also in tune with Aristotle and Galen but unlike
the Platonists, Christians supported epigenesis. However, while Aristotle and
Galen complemented their epigenetic concepts with the belief in incremental
ensoulment, Christians affirmed comprehensive ensoulment at the moment
of conception. Christian views on this issue also differed from the Platonic
conviction that ensoulment happens at the moment of birth. Unlike philoso-
phers and medical doctors, Christians were strong opponents of abortion.
Christian authors did not speculate upon the minute details of conception,
which could account for the heredity traits of both parents. Theologians re-
garded the male seed as a vehicle of the principles of physical formation, while
menses supplied the nutrition for the growing foetus. These ideas, however,
should not rule out the possibility that Christians accepted the transmission

72 Cf. Nemes., nat. hom. 1.6,17: “[man] was created mortal, but capable of becoming immor-
tal if perfected by progress: in other words, potentially immortal” (θνητὸς μὲν κατεσκευά-
σθη, δυνάμενος δὲ ἐκ προκοπῆς τελειούμενος ἀθάνατος γενέσθαι, τουτέστι δυνάμει ἀθάνατος).
168 Anna Usacheva

of maternal heredity traits (as did Aristotle and also the Platonists and Galen,
although, with different explanations). Since Christians admitted divine as-
sistance at conception, one should perhaps not expect from them a perfectly
natural explanation of all embryological processes. Thus, in the case of Christ’s
conception, theologians proclaimed that Mary mysteriously transmitted the
nature of David and Abraham, so that Christ could be lawfully called their
descendant.
By a rough and superficial count, we can observe that, in the matters of
embryology and ensoulment, Christians had three points in common with
Aristotle, two with the Neoplatonists and two with Galen. This perfunctory
statistic, in my opinion, does not testify to any superior influence of Aristotle
on Christian teaching. Framed by its basic metaphysical principles, Christian
thought showed a remarkable creativity at combining various aspects of various
concepts, without fully accepting any one of them. This attitude demonstrates
that in answering embryological questions Christian authors merely consulted
common philosophical and medical opinions of the time, while principally
theologians were guided by the logic of their own religious discourse.
In the fifth century, Christian interest in the mysteries of reproduction was
heated by the debates about the union of the divine and human natures of
Christ, and the details of Jesus’ generation. Some novel views of ensoulment
were introduced by such representatives of the Antiochene school of theol-
ogy as Theodoret of Cyrus and Nemesius of Emesa. Thus, Theodoret reduced
the extent of divine assistance at ensoulment to the joined operation of provi-
dence and human nature, and also renounced comprehensive ensoulment at
the moment of conception. Nemesius’ devotion to Galen and Porphyry made
him an explicit supporter of the two-seed embryology and an indirect propo-
nent of the pre-existence of souls. Nevertheless, Nemesius also retained a con-
tinuity with the Antiochene exegetic tradition (Theodore of Mopsuestia) and
gave an essentially holistic interpretation to the unconfused union of intelligi-
ble and corporeal natures in man. A brief analysis of Theodoret and Nemesius’
views of reproduction demonstrate that, although these authors closely en-
gaged with Aristotelian, Galenic and Neoplatonic concepts, their ideas pre-
serve continuity with early-Christian concepts. Thus, Theodoret and Nemesius
tried to outbalance the concept of the dualist human nature by emphasising
its functional unity, which they regarded as the essential point of the divine
plan concerning creation and salvation.
7. Christian Ensoulment Theories 169

Table 1

Authors / Aristotle Platonists Galen Christians until

Themes the 5th cent

One seed / 1 1 2 1
two seeds
Internal / Internal External Internal External
external (professional
ensoulment agnosticism)
Formation Gradual Uncertainty Gradual Gradual
of embryo & development of views, development development of
foetus of embryo prevailing idea of embryo embryo & foetus
& foetus of concurrent & foetus (epigenesis)
(epigenesis) body formation (epigenesis)
shortly before
birth
Manner of Incremental Ensoulment at Incremental Comprehensive
ensoulment ensoulment birth ensoulment ensoulment at
conception
Attitude to Tolerant of Tolerant of Tolerant of Against abortion
abortion abortion abortion abortion
Heredity Heredity traits Heredity Heredity Heredity traits
from the male traits from traits from from the male
seed & female the vegetative the male seed & female
menses souls of male seed & menses / female
& female female seed soul of the virgin
Mary
Anthropological Holistic Hierarchical Holistic Holistic
paradigm (hylomorphism) (varieties of (humoral (endowed with
dualism) theory) the image of God
at birth, man
awaits bodily
resurrection and
transformation)
Number of 4 2 2
points in
common with
Christianity
 chapter 8

From Garments of Flesh to Garments of Light:

Hardness, Subtleness and the Soul-Body Relation
in Macarius-Symeon
Samuel Kaldas

Abstract1

This paper explores the soul-body relation in the homilies of the fourth century
Syrian writer known as Pseudo-Macarius or Macarius-Symeon. Through a close
study of Macarius’ understanding and use of metaphor, I aim to partially unearth
the conceptual and philosophical framework underlying his ascetic theology.

The fourth-century Syrian ascetic known to us as Pseudo-Macarius or

Macarius-Symeon (Macarius hereafter) remains one of the most dynamic, in-
fluential and enigmatic figures of Eastern Christian asceticism.2 Along with
Evagrius of Pontus, Macarius occupies, a central place in the development of
ascetical theology; in the judgement of one contemporary scholar, “it is no ex-
aggeration to say that together [Evagrius and Macarius] gave to the spirituality
of the Christian East the shape which it has held to the present day.”3

1 The author would like to thank Anna Usacheva for her kind invitation to contribute to this
volume and for incredible patience during tumultuous times.
2 Macarius’ homilies survive in three chief collections, which (following convention) I refer
to as I, II and III. Collection I consists of the 64 homilies published in H. Berthold (ed.),
Makarios/Symeon. Reden und Briefe, 2 vols., Berlin 1973. Collection II is the most famous
collection, known as the 50 “spiritual homilies”, published in H. Dörries / E. Klostermann /
M. Krüger (eds.), Die 50 geistlichen Homilien des Makarios, PTS 4, Berlin 1964. Collection III
contains 43 homilies and is published in H. Berthold/E. Klostermann (ed.), Neue Homilien des
Makarius/Symeon, TU 72, Berlin 1961. References to the homilies are given in the form I 49.2,3
which refers to Collection I, homily 49, chapter 2, section 3. All translations from Collections
I and III are my own, while for Collection II I usually rely on G.A. Maloney (ed./transl.),
Pseudo-Macarius. The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, New York 1992. Occasional
deviations from Maloney’s translation are marked “my translation” in the footnotes. All cita-
tions from critical texts retrieved through TLG.
3 A. Golitzin, A Testimony to Christianity as Transfiguration. The Macarian Homilies and
Orthodox Spirituality, in: S.T. Kimbrough (ed.), Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality, Crestwood
2002, 129–156 (130).

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_009

8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 171

The focus of this paper however is not the ascetical theology for which
Macarius is chiefly remembered, but an important aspect of his thought which
undergirds that theology: namely, his “metaphysics” of souls and bodies. For
Macarius, as for many ascetical writers, the ascetical life is aimed at bringing
the unruly body into harmony with the soul and uniting the soul to God. But
what exactly is the soul and what (if anything) is it made of? How exactly does
it relate to the body, and is its embodied condition a good thing or a kind of im-
prisonment? These are questions more typically treated by philosophers, and
although Macarius was no philosopher himself, his ascetical theology rests on
a philosophical framework. Looking for Macarius’ answers to these questions
inevitably raises the question of Macarius’ “Platonism”, and just how much he
can be said to belong to the Hellenic thought-world so marked by Plato’s dis-
dain for embodied life.
However, the sort of “Platonism” I am looking for in Macarius is not the
explicit engagement with Platonic texts and vocabulary one finds in patristic
writers who wear their philosophical influences more openly. Plato is only men-
tioned by name twice in the Macarian corpus, and neither mention is positive:
in both cases, the point is that Plato (along with Aristotle and all those reputed
to be wise in Greek culture) have an outward appearance of earthly wisdom
but lacked genuine insight.4 Macarius never engages explicitly with Platonic
ideas or texts as Clement of Alexandria or the Cappadocians do; he owes no
conscious debt to Plato in that sense. This has no doubt contributed to the
(once ubiquitous but now fading) characterisation of Macarius as a Semitic,
literal-minded mystic who stands in sharp contrast the more Hellenized and
Platonized asceticisms exemplified by Origen and Evagrius of Pontus.5
It is beyond dispute that Macarius is hugely influenced by his Syrian/
Mesopotamian milieu, and indeed, that the unique cultural and literary tradi-
tions of that region are largely for most of what is most striking and idiosyn-
cratic about Macarius. It is my contention here, however, that a closer look
at Macarius’ language and imagery—particularly his choice of metaphors—
reveals a deeper affinity with the Platonic asceticism of his more Hellenized
contemporaries than his idiosyncrasies suggest. In itself, this is not a new in-
sight, and this paper owes much to Marcus Plested’s monograph The Macarian
Legacy, which, amidst an impressive survey of Macarius’ hidden influence

4 I 14.33,1; II 42.1.
5 For an overview and critique of this scholarly tendency, see M. Plested, The Macarian Legacy.
The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition, OTM, Oxford 2004, 59–71. A
more recent contribution is M. Horyacha, Monastic Thought on the Passions. Pseudo-Macarius
“versus” Evagrius Ponticus, in: Byz. 83 (2013), 113–147.
172 Samuel Kaldas

on later ascetics, provides a significant corrective to the tendency to ignore

Macarius’ Hellenic inspirations.6 My main purpose here, however, is to partially
unearth the philosophical and conceptual foundations that underlie Macarius’
conception of the soul-body relation and the ascetic struggle rather than to
trace Macarius’ influences. Much has been written on the philosophical think-
ing and implicit Platonism of figures like Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius, but
despite a renewed appreciation for his Hellenic culture, Macarius’ philosophi-
cal framework has received little attention.7
Since Macarius is not a philosopher, nor particularly interested in philosoph-
ical questions, we cannot rely on him to state his philosophical convictions
openly. Instead of looking for explicit statements of doctrine therefore, this
paper examines Macarius’ nearly ubiquitous use of illustrative metaphors—
arguably the most compelling feature of Macarian literature—and considers
what they reveal about his conceptual framework. This assumes (though I
hope the paper will bolster the assumption) that an author’s metaphors, par-
ticularly the extended metaphors which occur repeatedly in different contexts,
can provide genuine insight into their conceptual framework. In a recent study
of Gregory of Nyssa’s use of metaphor, Morwenna Ludlow points out that even
though “these portions of the text [scil. extended metaphors] are rarely care-
fully worked out analogies in the style of those used by a modern analytic phi-
losopher […] nevertheless they are more than mere illustrative asides. In some
cases, they allow Gregory to develop an idea and move an argument on.”8 The
same is true of Macarius: his metaphors provide real structure and form to
his ideas about the spiritual life, and taking these images seriously as scholars
allows us to do real interpretive work. More specifically, without denying the
significant Syrian influence on Macarius’ writings, I suggest that his metaphors
reveal him as standing firmly within the Hellenic thought-world of which
Platonic conceptions of the soul and body form an essential part.

6 See Plested, 2004, 30–45. 62–64. 70.

7 Some recent studies take some notice of Macarius’ philosophical culture, especially T. Sabo,
Origins of Eastern Christian Mysticism. AD 330–1022, New York 2019, 71–85 (75–77). Mariya
Horyacha’s compelling comparative study of the passions in Evagrius and Macarius also
very briefly considers the Platonic structure for both figures’ conceptions of the vices; see
Horyacha, 2013, 122–133 (122). On the Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius, see for
instance, C.P. Roth, Platonic and Pauline Elements in the Ascent of the Soul in Gregory of
Nyssa’s Dialogue on the Resurrection, in: VigChr 46 (1992), 20–30; D.E. Linge, Leading the Life
of Angels. Ascetic Practice and Reflection in the Writings of Evagrius of Pontus, in: JAAR 68
(2000), 537–568.
8 M. Ludlow, Christian Formation and the Body-Soul Relationship in Gregory of Nyssa, in:
A. Marmodoro / N.B. McLynn (eds.), Exploring Gregory of Nyssa. Philosophical, Theological,
and Historical Studies, Oxford 2018, 164.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 173

I proceed as follows. Section 1 introduces Macarius’ notion of two worlds,

one visible and the other invisible, and shows how his conviction that the
one resembles the other is the foundation for his persistent use of metaphors
drawn from the visible world. Section 2 identifies a particular set of words and
concepts that recur in metaphors to do with the soul and body, which Macarius
draws from his implicit “physical theory” of the different kinds of substances
that constitute the material world. For brevity, I call this set of words and con-
cepts the “hardness-subtlety antinomy.” In Section 3, I turn to the soul itself
and Macarius’ conviction that the soul is a “subtle body,” and consider how this
conviction is reflected in his metaphors. Section 4 examines Macarius’ view
of the soul-body relation, focusing on the recurring metaphor of the body as
a “garment” for the soul. Finally, Section 5 looks at Macarius’ doctrine of the
body’s eschatological destiny in the resurrection, and how his metaphors re-
veal a distinctive take on the widespread notion of the “luminous” resurrection
body.

I. Metaphors as Illustrations of the Invisible

For Macarius, there is an invisible world with invisible inhabitants superim-

posed atop the visible world, just as there are different “worlds” in the different
biospheres on earth:

There is […] one earth on which four-legged animals dwell and there is also an
“earth” in the air where the birds walk and live […] There is also a land that is the
homeland of Satan where the powers of darkness and the spirits of evil dwell
and walk about and find their rest. There likewise is a land, luminous with the
Godhead, where the camps and armies of angels and holy spirits walk about and
find their rest.9

These worlds, teeming with life and spiritual activity, exist just beyond the
reach of bodily perception: they are “invisible to human eyes” and cannot be
“touched or seen with physical eyes.”10 On this invisible plane, God and the
angels are engaged in a pitched battle against hordes of demons, both forces
trying to win human souls to their side.11

9 I I 14.6; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 106.

10 I I 14.6, ibid. 106.
11 I I 26.24.
174 Samuel Kaldas

Even though the invisible and visible worlds are profoundly different
from one another, they share a crucial structural similarity.12 Concisely put,
“all visible things are a shadow of the invisible things.”13 This conviction lies
at the heart of Macarius’ characteristic and distinctive penchant for using
concrete illustrations (ὑποδείγματα) to explain spiritual principles; one of
his most oft-repeated phrases is “let us take an illustration (ὑπόδειγμα) from
the visible world,” followed by an extended metaphor involving some earthly
phenomenon.14 In fact, according to Macarius, the visible world actually is an
“illustration” of the invisible world: “For the visible world is a type (τύπος) and
an image (εἰκὼν) and an illustration (ὑπόδειγμά) of the invisible and eternal
world of the Godhead.”15 One cannot help but be reminded here of Plato’s as-
sertion that “this world is an image of something.”16 Just as for Plato the visible
world is “modelled after that which is changeless,” Macarius holds that this
“imperfect and perishing world has many forms which resemble the perfect
and eternal world.”17 In this way, metaphors drawn from the visible world play
an essential pedagogical role by providing us with concrete ways to understand
a reality we might otherwise remain entirely ignorant of due to its invisibility.
It was for this very reason that the invisible Word of God took visible flesh:
Macarius even says that the incarnate Christ becomes himself an “illustration”
(ὑπόδειγμα) that leads human beings to God, just like the concrete illustrations
Macarius employs to instruct his hearers.18
Importantly, the soul itself, like the angels and demons fighting for it, be-
longs to the invisible world. This is why Macarius so frequently uses visual met-
aphors to convey matters to do with the soul. Occasionally, Macarius prefaces
one of these metaphors by making this explicit; for instance:

Let us take an example from visible things. For the body resembles (ἔοικε) the
soul, as also the things of the body resemble the things of the soul, and the mani-
fest things resemble the hidden things.19

12 See Plested, 2004, 32. 39.

13 I 23.1,3. Cf. I 23.1,3; 23.1,7; 27.1,1; 49.1,2 = II 4.2; II 31.1; 33.4.
14 ὑπόδειγμα δὲ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ὁρωμένου κόσμου λάβωμεν, I 29.2,4. See also ὑποδείγματι χρησώμεθα,
I 8.4,1; 13.1,7; 32.8,18; ὑπόδειγμα λάβωμεν, I 17.2,2; 19.1,4; I 49.1,2.
15 I 28.1,7.
16 Pl., Tim. 29a. All translations from Plato are taken from J. Cooper (ed.), Plato. Complete
Works, Indianapolis 1997.
17 Pl., Tim. 29a; III 4.1.
18 ὑ πόδειγμα γὰρ ὁ κύριος πᾶσι γεγένηται, I 10.1,10.
19 I 49.1,2 = II 4.2. Cf. II 31.1.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 175

Thus, visible things—from plants to cities to clothing and agriculture—are an

important source of insight into the mysterious principles and forces that on
which the soul’s salvation depends. And as readers of Macarius, this signals
to us that we ought to take his metaphors seriously, as providing real insight
and structure to his understanding of the beings, natures and processes that
inhabit the invisible realm.

II. The Hardness-Subtlety Antinomy in the Visible Creation

The set of metaphors Macarius uses to describe the soul’s nature and its rela-
tion to the body draw heavily on a particular physical concept which I will
call the “hardness-subtlety antinomy.” In brief, this antinomy describes two dif-
ferent kinds of substances: those which are heavy/coarse (σκληρός) and those
which are light/subtle (λεπτός). For Macarius, hardness and subtlety form the
opposite ends of a scale along which all the elements that constituting the vis-
ible creation can be ranked. At the bottom of this scale lie hard, coarse, heavy
substances like wood, stone, and metal, while at the top are light, subtle, nim-
ble substances like light, air and fire:

[God created] substances which are heavy and coarse (ὑποστάσεις παχείας καὶ
σκληράς)—by which I mean the heavy earth, mountains, trees; see what coarse-
ness (σκληρότης) belongs to the nature of such things?—and also those which
are intermediate (μέσα) and soft (ἁπαλὰ) such as water, among which things
he commanded birds to come into being, and things yet more subtle (καὶ πάλιν
λεπτότερα) such as air and winds, which, although they are bodies, are not seen
by the eye.20

This diversity of substances is a mark of God’s creative skill; the “difference”

(διαφορά) and “variety” (ποικιλία) of the creation expresses of God’s “manifold
wisdom” (πολυποίκιλος σοφία).21
As will be seen, these categories of heaviness and subtlety feature promi-
nently in many of the illustrations Macarius draws from the visible world to
explain spiritual concepts. Considering a few more examples will reveal more
about the characteristics of these two properties of matter, as well as some of
the important vocabulary he uses to refer to them. For instance, the adjective
λεπτός is applied to air and wind (as we have already seen),22 but it is also used

20 I 49.2,10–11 = II 4.10.
21 I 49.2,10–11 = ΙΙ 4.10–11; cf. Eph 3 10.
22 I 4.11,4; I 49.2.
176 Samuel Kaldas

for other light substances like hemp and fine thread.23 Another important word
for subtle—κοῦφος—is particularly associated with birds and aerial flight:
birds are “borne up into the expanse of the air by the lightness (κούφῳ) of their
wings, assisted by their wings and lightened (κουφιζόμενα) by the air itself.”24
On the other end of the spectrum, cold, hard substances like iron, ice and stone
are consistently described as σκληρός (rough), παχύ and βαρύ (heavy).25
Importantly, substances can be heavy in some respects and subtle in others.
For instance, the passage above includes trees along with mountains and earth
as a hard, coarse substance, but in the context of water and seafaring, Macarius
describes wood as light and subtle (κοῦφον, ἐλαφρὸν) enough to float on
water.26 Thus, God performed a great miracle through the prophet Elisha when
he transferred the buoyancy of the axe’s wooden handle to the sunken metal
axe-head which “by nature is heavy (βαρύ)”, causing it to float to the surface.27
In the same way, Macarius declares, God will send his “light (κοῦφον), subtle
(ἐλαφρόν), good, and heavenly Spirit” to raise up “the soul that has sunk into
the waters of evil and make it light (κουφίσει) to take up wings to the heights of
Heaven.”28 So although wood is hard when compared to air or water, it is light
and buoyant in comparison to metal.
Conversely, substances that are fundamentally subtle can be coarse and
hard in other respects. An important example of this kind is heavy fog, which
Macarius takes as a metaphor for sin which hangs around the soul, blocking
out the light of God’s grace:

It as if some dark, cloudy power hangs about [the soul] and covers it lightly
(ἐλαφρῶς), like a heavy air (ὡς ἀὴρ παχύς), and even though the lamp is always
shining and manifest, it is as though a veil lies upon that light.29

This “cloudy power” has properties of both heaviness and subtlety at once: it is,
paradoxically, a “heavy air”. In many places, sin and Satan are described likened
to “dark air”, a “fog” or a “fog-like force.”30 On the one hand, the fog is thick and
heavy enough to block our spiritual vision of the lamp of grace. But at the same

23 I 20.1,1; 55.2,7; III 9.2.

24 I II 4.2. Cf. also I 2.1,2; 48.6,9.
25 E.g. I 2.2,8; 36.5,3–4; 49.3,1–2=II 4.14; II 44.5.
26 I I 44.5.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 223f.
29 I 4.9,4. Cf. Evagrius’ description of anger as a fog and a cloud in the mind which blocks out
the sun; Evagr. Pont., spir. mal. 9 (PG 79, 1153C, under the name of Nilus of Ancyra). See
also Horyacha, 2013, 135f, esp. note 83.
30 I 6.3,5; 7.11,1; 14.11,1; 14.12,1; 16.1,11; 59.1,3.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 177

time, it is light and subtle enough that it easily evades our notice: sin operates
in the heart as a “hidden and subtle power”, one that lies within like “an abyss
of bitterness in subtleness and in depth.”31 This is why sin is so dangerous: it is
coarse enough to conceal God’s grace, but at the same time subtle enough to
escape our notice, leaving us not only cut off from God, but also unaware that
we are cut off.
This last example reveals another important aspect of the hardness-subtlety
antinomy worth noting: subtlety makes substances harder to see while heavi-
ness/hardness makes them easier to see. From Macarius’ examples, it appears
that the underlying reason for this is that hard substances are opaque while
subtle substances are transparent. As in the case of the “heavy air” of sin, heavy
substances are coarse and thick enough to block the passage of light, rendering
them visible and, more importantly, concealing whatever lies behind them.32
This association of heaviness and visibility hearkens back to Plato, for whom
the stuff of this world is “heavy, ponderous, earthy and visible.”33 By contrast,
subtle substances are so transparent that light passes them unobstructed,
rendering them harder to see, or even invisible. Macarius says that wind and
(oddly enough) fire “are not seen by the eye of the body on account of their
subtlety.”34 In fact, Macarius associates subtlety with being difficult to perceive
in more than just a visual sense. The gentle, quiet voice through which God
speaks to Elijah is (in the Septuagint) “a voice of a subtle breeze.”35 In a more
general but related sense, Macarius uses λεπτός for things which are hard to
grasp, like the soul itself,36 the mystery of the incarnation,37 the virtues,38 the
workings of grace,39 and the wisdom of God.40

III. The Subtle-Bodied Soul

With this important background in place, we can now turn to consider Macarius’
account of the soul itself, along with its fellow denizens of the invisible realm,

31 κ εκρυμμένη τις καὶ λεπτὴ δύναμις τοῦ σκότους, II 32.10; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 199f.
32 E.g. I 16.1,11; 18.5,2; 44.3,1.
33 ἐμβριθές […] καὶ βαρὺ καὶ γεῶδες καὶ ὁρατόν Pl., Phd. 81c.
34 δ ιὰ λεπτότητα μὴ ὁρώμενα τῷ τοῦ σώματος ὀφθαλμῷ, II 4.10 (my translation).
35 φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς (1 Kings/3 Kingdoms 19:12). Macarius quotes this verse in II 6.2.
36 I 18.1,1.
37 I 49.2,7.
38 I 19.1,2.
39 I 43.1,6; 55.2,7.
40 I 20.3,7; II 15.41.
178 Samuel Kaldas

the angels and demons. Macarius’ most explicitly philosophical account of the
nature of angels, demons and souls involves crucial vocabulary drawn from
the hardness-subtlety antinomy discussed above. In brief, Macarius considers
angels, demons and human souls to be very light and subtle bodies:

For each of these is a body (σῶμα), according to its particular nature: an angel,
a soul, a demon. For even though they are subtle (λεπτά) in substance (ὑποστά-
σει), form (χαρακτῆρι) and image (εἰκόνι), according to the subtlety (λεπτότην) of
nature they are [each] a subtle body (σῶμα λεπτόν).41

These creatures are all embodied, even though their bodies differ from the
heavier substances we ordinarily call bodies because of their “subtlety”
(λεπτότης).42 In a way, this puts souls and spiritual beings on the same scale of
hardness and subtlety Macarius applies to the visible creation: spiritual and
psychic bodies of this sort are substances that are even subtler and lighter than
air and fire.
This language makes it tempting to compare Macarius to a Stoic or Epicu­
rean materialist for whom the soul is nothing but “a body of subtle parts (σῶμα
λεπτομερές).”43 Indeed, Macarius even suggests that anyone with spiritual
vision keen enough to actually see a human soul will notice a visual similari-
ty—a similarity of form and image—between a person’s soul and that person’s
bodily appearance.44
But as Marcus Plested notes, on closer inspection, Macarius’ view of the soul
has more in common with Platonists and Gregory of Nyssa than with Stoics
or Epicureans.45 The conviction that (at least in their present form) souls had
subtle bodies was widely held among Platonists in Macarius’ time, who gener-
ally believed that all souls were attached to a light, ethereal body—a “vehicle”
(ὄχημα)—capable of bearing them up through the heavens to the One.46 If
anything, Macarius’ view of subtle-bodied souls places him most naturally in

41 I 49.2,7–9 = II 4.9.
42 For a brief overview of this concept in Macarius and some observations on potential phil-
osophical influences, see Plested, 2004, 34f.
43 Epicur., Ep. Hdt. 63.1 in A.A. Long / D.N. Sedley (eds.), The Hellenistic Philosophers 2. Greek
and Latin Texts, Cambridge 1987, 64.
44 I I 7.7; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 79.
45 Plested 2004, 34f. On Nyssen’s view of the soul’s subtle corporality, see J.W. Smith, Passion
and Paradise. Human and Divine in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa, New York 2004, 24f.
46 On Macarius’ psychology and the Platonic ὄχημα, see Plested, 2004, 35 and Sabo, 2019, 75.
For an overview of the Platonic ὄχημα, see C. Addey, In the Light of the Sphere. The “Vehicle
of the Soul” and Subtle-Body Practices in Neoplatonism, in: G. Samuel / J. Johnston (eds.),
Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West. Between Mind and Body, London 2013,
149–167.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 179

the company of the Cappadocians who in turn owe much to the Alexandrian
tradition.47 By way of example, John Cassian (who was Macarius’ younger
Latin contemporary and a devotee of Evagrius) writes:

For although we declare that some natures are spiritual, as are the angels, the
archangels and the other powers, our soul itself and of course the subtle air (aer
subtilis), yet these are by no means to be considered incorporeal (incorporeae).
They have a body appropriate to themselves (secundum se corpus) by which they
subsist, although it is far more refined (tenuius) than our own bodies.48

On this tradition, God alone is truly bodiless because only God is uncreated: as
a necessary consequence of their being created and limited, all lesser beings
are embodied in some sense, even if their bodies are extraordinarily light.49
These bodies are so light that by comparison to the heavy material sub-
stances we normally call bodies, they seem to be entirely bodiless. Origen re-
marks that demons are sometimes improperly thought to be bodiless because
“according to human custom, everything that is not [solid] is called bodiless by
the simple or uneducated, just as one says that the air we breathe is bodiless,
because it is not a body that can be grasped and held or resist pressure.”50 This
is why, even though Macarius clearly holds that souls are subtle bodies, he oc-
casionally speaks of souls and sometimes even angels as bodiless (ἀσώματος).51
But Bogdan Bucur has noted the same inconsistency, for instance, in Clement
of Alexandria for whom the corporality of spiritual beings “is entirely relative:
the beings on any given level [of the hierarchy] can be described at the same
time as ‘bodiless,’ from the perspective of inferior ranks, and ‘bodily,’ from the
perspective of superior levels of being.”52 Macarius’ conception of the soul as
a subtle body, therefore, fits quite comfortably in the Hellenic thought-world
of the Alexandrians and Cappadocians.

47 On Origen and Didymus’s notion of the subtle-bodied soul, see H.S. Schibli, Origen,
Didymus, and the Vehicle of the Soul, in: R.J. Daly (ed.), Origeniana Quinta. Papers of the 5th
International Origen Congress, Leuven 1992, 381–391.
48 Cassian, Conl. 7.13,1f., in: B. Ramsey (transl.), John Cassian. The Conferences, New York
1997, 256 (PL 49, 683A).
49 E.g. Cf. Clem., exc. Thdot., fr. 1.10,1; Or., princ. prooem. 8; 1.1.1–7; Ath., v. Anton. 31f.; Cassian,
Conl. 7.13. On the subtle corporeality of angels in Origen, see J. Leemans, Angels, in:
J.A. McGuckin (ed.), The Westminster Handbook to Origen, Louisville 2004, 51–53. See also
G.A. Smith, How Thin Is a Demon?, in: JECS 16 (2008), 479–512.
50 Or., princ. prooem. 8; J. Behr (transl.), Origen. On First Principles 1, Oxford 2018, 19.
51 I 7.6,10; 32.8,15; II 15.28.
52 B.G. Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology. Clement of Alexandria and Other Early
Christian Witnesses, Leiden 2009, 40f.
180 Samuel Kaldas

Naturally enough then, Macarius describes souls and spirits in terms very
similar to those he applies to the subtle elements of the visible creation: buoy-
ant wood, air, wind, wings, and so on.53 Macarius uses λεπτός alongside a range
of similar adjectives to describe the light, airy quality of souls and spiritual be-
ings: κοῦφος54 (fine, subtle), ἐλαφρός55 (light, nimble), εὔπτερος56 (well-winged)
and εὐκίνητος57 (mobile).
This association of souls and spiritual beings with subtle material bodies
like wind and air is frequently reflected in the metaphors Macarius uses to de-
scribe spiritual forces fighting for control of the soul, and the soul itself. Thus,
for Macarius, the power of the Devil lies upon the soul and upon the human
race like an “evil wind”58 or dark fog.59 Conversely, he speaks of “the winds of
the Holy Spirit” which blow into a faithful soul.60 The Holy Spirit, being divine
and uncreated, has no body, but as an economic dispensation, the ungraspable
and bodiless Godhead takes on a subtle form in order to commune with righ-
teous souls and angels.61 To this end he becomes like “luminous clouds, a sun
of righteousness, and pure air (ἀέρα καθαρόν).”62 Thus, the rival winds of the
Spirit and the Devil both blow over the ship of the soul, the one trying to lead
it safely to the harbor of salvation, the other trying to sink it or lead it astray.63
This association of spirits with the wind is hardly original with Macarius:
it is almost inevitable in Greek, where it is idiomatic to say (as Macarius often
does) that ὁ ἄνεμος πνεῖ, “the wind blows”, using the same verb from which
πνεῦμα is derived.64 And the association is only strengthened by the fact that
Macarius, like many ascetic writers, believed the lower atmosphere really was
filled with spirits which prevented an impure soul from rising up to meet God
and the angels in the higher reaches of heaven.65 In this context, Macarius

53 On Macarius’ vocabulary for describing the soul, see Plested, 2004, 34f.
54 I 7.5,1; II 44.5; III 4.2.
55 I 13.2,2; II 44.5; 46.5; III 18.2; 26.6.
56 I I 44.5, 46.5, 46.6; III 26.6, 26.7.
57 I I 46.6; III 26.7. The soul’s εὐκινησία is very much in line with Gregory of Nyssa’s meta-
physics as it appears in De hominis opificio, where Gregory emphasises that substances
which are subtle (λεπτός) have the property of being perpetually in motion (τὸ ἀεικίνητον)
and ready for motion (πρὸς τὴν κίνησιν ἐπιτηδείως ἔχειν), Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 1.2.
58 ἄνεμος πονηρός, II 2.2–4; cf. I 2.5,4; 14.14,1; II 5.2.
59 I 4.9,4; 14.11,1; III 1.3. Cf. Evagr. Pont., spir. mal. 9 (PG 79, 1153C, under the name of Nilus
of Ancyra).
60 οἱ ἄνεμοι τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, I 14.7,1.
61 I 49.2,7.
62 I 5.4,2.
63 I I 32.4.
64 πνέοντος τοῦ ἀνέμου, I 2.5,4. See also I 7.8,2; 14.14,1. Cf. Jn 3:8.
65 I 3.5,5; 4.19,1–2; 14.15,1; II 43.9. Cf. Ath., v. Anton. 66; Cassian, Conl. 1.8,12.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 181

describes the demons as “aerial” ἀέριος.66 This too has its roots in Scripture: it
is St Paul who first calls the Devil the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2;
cf. Eph 6:12). Nonetheless, Macarius’ persistent use of wind metaphors to de-
scribe the activity of subtle-bodied spiritual forces is a good example of how
Macarius’ metaphors reflect his underlying conceptual framework. It is no co-
incidence that air, wind and wings have qualities that make it easier for us to
understand spiritual realities, for as we saw in the previous section, Macarius
takes the entire visible world as a type or illustration of the spiritual world.

IV. The Body as Garment for the Soul

The previous sections have given us all we need to turn now to the question of
the soul’s relation with the body. As we have seen, the soul is a kind of body,
but an extremely light and subtle one, like that of an angel or demon. On earth,
though the subtle body of our souls is bound up with a solid, earthbound body
of flesh. The human being is therefore a remarkable hybrid of two substances
at the opposite ends of the hardness-subtlety scale.
Adopting a metaphor with both Syrian and Greek lineages, Macarius de-
scribes this coming together of the subtle soul and the heavy body by com-
paring the body to a garment worn by the soul.67 The subtle soul “wears” or
“puts on” the heavy body as an outer covering or garment: “For just as this body
is heavy (παχύ) in substance, likewise the soul—being a subtle body (σῶμα
λεπτὸν)—has surrounded itself with and put on the members of this body.”68
In Macarius’ metaphorical framework, to “wear” something in this way is to
be “mingled” with it:

[The soul] wears the eye through which it sees and likewise the ear through
which it hears; in sum, the soul has embraced the whole body and its members;
hand is fully blended (συνεκέρασθη) with hand, foot with foot, eye with eye, ear
with ear, through which it performs all the deeds of this life.69

66 I 14.15,1.
67 On the Syrian roots of the clothing motif, see H. Hunt, Clothed in the Body. Asceticism,
the Body and the Spiritual in the Late Antique Era, Abingdon 2016, 137–157. On Greek
philosophical and Alexandrian precedents, see Schibli, 1992, 382 (esp. note 16), and
D. Szymańska-Kuta. The Soul-Body Compound in Didymus the Blind’s Commentary on
Genesis and Its Neoplatonic Background, in: Studia Religiologica 48 (2015), 271–290
(273–275).
68 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν ὑποστάσει τοῦτο τὸ σῶμα παχύ ἐστιν, οὕτω καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ σῶμα οὖσα λεπτὸν περιε-
βάλετο καὶ ἐνεδύσατο τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος τούτου, I 49.2,8 = II 4.9.
69 I 49.2,7–9.
182 Samuel Kaldas

The union described here is intimate: the soul “fills” the body entirely, as a
hand does a glove.70 When worn in this way, the heavy, opaque body becomes
a visible sign of the thoughts and movements of the subtle, transparent soul,
making it perceptible on the visible plane in a way that it could never be in
its own natural subtlety. Had Macarius lived in the age of science fiction, he
might have compared the body to the bandages which H.G. Wells’ Invisible
Man wraps around himself to make his otherwise invisible form detectable to
the naked eye.
But is it good for the soul to be united and mingled with something so for-
eign to its own native subtlety? This is a good point at which to raise again the
question of Macarius’ Platonism and the extent to which his thought-world re-
sembles that of a Greek Christian thinker like Gregory of Nyssa. For a Platonist,
the body is a tomb or a cage which all prudent souls desire to escape once and
for all.71 In particular, the body threatens to infect the soul with its coarseness
and heaviness, weighing the soul down so that after the body dies, the soul
is unable to rise up to the divine realm and commune with God or the One.
Iamblichus, a Platonist and fellow Syrian with Macarius, quotes Plato’s warn-
ing that if the soul does not dissociate itself from the body through asceticism,
then:

it will never arrive purely to Hades, but instead, goes out still overfull of the body
(ἀναπλέα τοῦ σώματος), so that it will soon fall once again into another body
and […] in this way fails to be a participant in union with the divine, pure and
simple.72

The goal, in Plato’s own words, is for the soul to depart earthly life “pure […]
brining nothing of the body with it.”73 To this end, a good Platonist will prac-
tice asceticism, keeping their soul as detached and aloof from bodily things as
possible.
On this Platonic view, a soul that fails to sufficiently estrange itself from the
body loses its natural subtlety and becomes coarse, heavy and earthbound. In
the Phaedo, Plato takes this idea literally enough that he uses it to explain why
some souls appear as ghosts: “such a soul has become heavy and is dragged
back to the visible region […] It wanders […] around graves and monuments,

70 Metaphors of mingling and mixing are a significant category for Macarius; see Stewart,
1991, 170–203.
71 Pl., Crat. 400c–d.
72 Iamb., Protr. 69, in: H. Pistelli (ed.), Iamblichi protrepticus ad fidem codicis Florentini,
Leipzig 1888. Cf. Pl., Phd. 83d.
73 καθαρὰ […] μηδὲν τοῦ σώματος συνεφέλκουσα, Pl., Phd. 80e.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 183

where shadowy phantoms, images that such souls produce, have been seen,
souls that have not been freed and purified but share in the visible, and are
therefore seen.”74 In other words, souls that embrace their embodied condition
lose their natural lightness and transparency and become heavy and opaque
enough to be seen with the naked eye. Accordingly, a Platonic ascetic made it
their goal to separate their soul from the body as far as possible before death,
to give the soul the best chance of breaking free permanently after death.75
For Christian thinkers educated in Greek culture, this Platonic idea provided
a philosophical framework and vocabulary for conceiving of the Biblical theme
of the struggle between the Spirit and the flesh. It was relatively uncontrover-
sial for Origen to state that “our mind, when shut in by fetters of flesh and blood
[is] rendered, by its participation in such materials, duller and more obtuse.”76
One easily finds similar comments in Christian writers of Hellenic culture like
Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian and John Cassian.77 The same notion is
also readily discernible in Evagrius, to whom Macarius is often contrasted.78 In
Evagrius, it runs so deep that it provides the basic vocabulary for much spiritual
advice: “Much sleep weighs (παχύνει) down the mind, but good vigilance lightens
(λεπτύνει) it.”79 In De anima et resurrectione, Macarius’ contemporary Gregory
of Nyssa interprets the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Lk 16:19–31) in
terms strikingly reminiscent of Plato’s Phaedo. The difference between the soul
of the blessed beggar Lazarus and that of the wicked rich man is that after
departing the body, Lazarus’ soul “does not turn back to anything left behind,
whereas the rich man is still stuck to the fleshly life even after death, as if with
some gum.”80 The lesson in this parable, therefore, is that:

we who are alive in the flesh must, as far as we can, separate and free ourselves
somehow from its inclination by a life of virtue, so that after death we do not
need yet another death to cleanse us from the residue of this fleshly glue, but
that when the bonds around the soul are broken its course towards the Good
may be light (κοῦφος) and unimpeded, with no burden of the body to drag it
down.81

74 Pl., Phd. 81c–d.

75 Pl., Phd. 67d.
76 Or., princ. 1.1,6; Behr (transl.), 2017, 31.
77 E.g. Ath., gent. 1.2,2–4; Gr. Naz., or. 28.3; Cassian, Conl. 1.13,1; 3.7,3. See also Roth, 1992.
78 See K. Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory. Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century,
Abingdon 2009, 41–45. 50.
79 Evagr. Pont., sent. mon. 48. Cf. also Evagr. Pont., Expositio in proverbia Salomonis.
80 Gr. Nyss., anim. et. res. 6.4, in: A.M. Silvas (ed./transl.), Macrina the Younger. Philosopher
of God, Turnhout 2008, 207.
81 Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. 6.5; Silvas (transl.), 2008, 207.
184 Samuel Kaldas

Evagrius too speaks of the soul growing “a light wing” (πτέρον κοῦφον) with
which to soar above “earthly things” (τά γήϊνα).82 Although dressed in Biblical
imagery, the picture of the soul-body relation presented here is essentially that
of the Phaedo. As if to make the implicit reference even clearer, Gregory even
echoes Plato’s speculation about departed souls becoming visible due to their
earthy character.83
Macarius’ ascetic theology implies a picture of the soul’s relation to the
body basically in line with Gregory’s. For one, Macarius expresses concern
about the soul taking on the heaviness and opacity that characterises the body.
In Macarius’ spiritual scheme however, the immediate source of the heaviness
and darkness that infects a sinful soul is not the body, but the Devil, who is
himself a “material” and “earthy” spirit:

Satan, being matter-like (ὑλώδης) and earth-like (γεώδης), draws the mind to the
love of the world and to abominable things. But the energy that comes from God
is heavenly, and draws the mind away from the earth and from fleshly things.84

If a soul gives in to Satan’s promptings, it takes on the heavy, earthbound qual-

ity of Satan himself, the fallen angel who “died from the heavenly mindset, and
[gave] himself over entirely to the fleshly mindset and crawled about on the
earth.”85 Through sin, the formerly clear, pure air of the human soul has been
darkened and hardened:

All the opposing winds of wickedness and of the passions blow against the soul,
and the coldness of the power of darkness is come into it and turned that holy,
pure condition of the soft (ἁπαλῆς) heart into the unyielding hardness (σκληρό-
τητα ἀνυπότακτον) of a fleshly mindset.86

Thus, after Adam succumbed to temptation, his soul became “very hard” (ἀπό-
σκληρος).87 For Macarius, sin itself is σκληρός, and a soul mired in sin is charac-
terised by σκληρότης, opaque to the light of God’s grace.88

82 Evagr. Pont., spir. mal. 7 (PG 79, 1152C, under the name of Nilus of Ancyra).
83 Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. 6.6–8; Silvas (transl.), 2008, 207–208. Cf. also Greg. Nyss., hom.
opif. 12.9f.
84 I 5.4,3. Cf. I 11.2,2; 59.1,3.
85 I 2.3,19.
86 I 50.1,11.
87 I 50.1,9.
88 I 49.3,2. On the “darkening” of the soul through sin in both Macarius and Evagrius, see
Horyacha, 2013.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 185

Like Plato and Gregory of Nyssa, Macarius fears that such an earthy soul
will have trouble ascending to God. In one of earliest references to aerial toll
houses, Macarius expresses anxiety about such a soul’s ability to ascend to
heaven after death: “And upon leaving the body, if any was not purely puri-
fied here, [the demons] do not allow him to ascend to the dwelling-places of
heaven and meet with their Master; for they are dragged down by […] the aer-
ial demons.”89 By contrast, a soul that allows the Holy Spirit to transform it be-
comes light, subtle and most importantly, transparent and translucent: God’s
grace shines through its every part without obstruction. In the economically-
assumed form of a subtle wind or luminous clouds, God mingles himself with a
righteous soul: “But when the darkness no longer remains in [the soul], but it is
wholly and entirely filled with light by the True Light, as the earth in the aeth-
ereal air is [filled] by the sun, then it dwells eternally in the light, having had
all darkness drawn out, and dwelling eternally in the light, is perfected in the
light, and the soul itself becomes light.”90 Unlike the dark, earthy soul which is
caught by the demons in the air and prevented from reaching God, these souls
have sprouted light, subtle wings which allow them to fly up unimpeded into
the “divine air.”91
It is important to note that this does not mean Macarius thinks of the body
or embodiment as evil. As Hannah Hunt puts it, for Macarius, it is not that “it
is wrong to have a body, just that it must be detached from the things of the
world into order to bear fruit.”92 But Macarius shares Gregory’s conceptualiza-
tion of the ascetic’s need to restore and preserve the soul’s natural lightness so
that it can fly up to God unhindered, and his concern that a soul that gives in
to passions becomes heavy and earth-like. The Platonic influence here is not
as explicit as in the case of Gregory examined above; none of these passages
suggest Macarius had any direct acquaintance with Plato or Platonist texts. But
they do suggest that a broadly Platonic framework was, so to speak “in the air”
of Macarius’ thought-world.
Nonetheless, Macarius gives it his own distinctive spin, employing his rich
vocabulary of metaphors. For instance, to illustrate the mechanism by which
a sinful soul takes on the earthy character of Satan, Macarius returns to the
clothing metaphor. Just as the human soul is mixed into the body which it
wears as a garment, the devil himself mixes himself into a sinful soul and wears

89 I 14.15,1. Cf. II 43.9.

90 I 44.3,1; cf. I 22.2,12.
91 On growing subtle wings: I 11.1,2; 14.22,1; II 47.2; III 16.2. Macarius also speaks of flying up
into the “divine air” (ἀήρ θεϊκός), I 4.30,5; 4.30,8; 18.4,12; 28.1,7; 53.3,8 and “the air of the
Godhead” (ὁ ἀήρ τῆς θεότητος), I 11.1,2; 14.22,1; 35.1,5.
92 Hunt, 2016, 136.
186 Samuel Kaldas

that soul as a garment: at the Fall, Adam “sold himself to the devil and that evil
one put on Adam’s soul as his garment.”93 Sin “entered into man’s soul, became
its members.”94 As a result, a sinful human soul becomes a “body” for Satan, a
dark garment worn by the soul of Satan: “For the soul which still lives in the
world and in the darkness of sin […] still has the soul of wickedness in it […].
It is nurtured by such a sinful soul and is a body of darkness and is still a part
of that darkness.”95 This is just the sort of language that critics of Messalianism
would have fastened on as evidence of the heretical belief that all human be-
ings are possessed by demons before baptism.96 John Cassian for instance,
whose affinities to Macarius were noted earlier, vigorously protests against the
idea that the Devil could be “mixed” with the soul in this way.97
So even though Macarius adheres to the Platonic conceptual scheme of as-
ceticism we find in thinkers like Gregory and Origen (in his contrast of the
heaviness of sin to the subtlety of virtue), the metaphorical framework he
uses to describe it marks him out as quite distinct from the wider background
of Hellenized ascetical theology. And although it is beyond the scope of this
paper, it is worth noting that much of the most distinctive imagery here—
particularly metaphors to do with clothing and mixture—is drawn from
Macarius’ Syrian milieu.98

V. Garments of Light

This study of Macarius’ views on the soul and body would be incomplete
without a final look at his view of the body’s ultimate destiny. As we have
already seen, for a Platonist, embodiment was considered an evil condition
from which philosophers sought to be delivered at any cost short of actual sui-
cide. “As long as we have a body,” Plato laments in the Phaedo, “and our soul
is fused with such an evil, we shall never adequately attain what we desire.”99
But Macarius did not share the conviction of so many of his pagan predeces-
sors and contemporaries that “it was best for the soul to go away—perhaps to

93 I I 1.7; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 40.

94 I I 15.35; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 121.
95 I I 1.6; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 40.
96 E.g. Jo. D., haer. 80, in: P.B. Kotter (ed.), Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos 4, PTS 22,
Berlin 1981, 80.
97 Cassian., Conl. 7.13–15.
98 The Syrian context for Macarius’ imagery is discussed at length by Stewart, 1991, 84–95.
169–233 and Sabo 2019.
99 Pl., Phd. 66b.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 187

the stars—‘clean of a body,’ the diseased flesh melted at last from the mind.”100
He did not share Plato’s vision of a blessed future when “those who have been
sufficiently purified by philosophy will live entirely without a body.”101
On the contrary, Macarius vigorously affirms the resurrection of the body
against those who would deny it. Asked whether all the members of the body
will rise on the last day, he answers unambiguously: “in the resurrection all
members will rise. Not a hair perishes.”102 At the resurrection, God will “again
pull together the members of the body.”103 It will be changed and glorified, but
not so much that it becomes a different body: “All are immersed in light and
fire and are indeed changed, but are not as certain people say, dissolved and
transformed into fire so that nothing of their nature remains.”104 Co-opting
a popular metaphor which Origen had applied to the incarnation, the resur-
rection body is filled with grace and glory as “a needle that is put into a fire is
changed in color, becoming like the fire, yet retaining its own nature as iron.”105
Macarius’ conviction that the body will persist into the eschaton is, once
again, reflected in his metaphors. Since, as we saw above, the body is the gar-
ment of the soul, Macarius likens the ascetic life to holding one’s loose-fitting
garment firmly about oneself in a windy, treacherous valley filled with thorns
and mud. A traveler in such a valley must walk carefully, always “pulling up his
cloak on all sides with his hands and feet to avoid tearing in the thickets and
thorns or being dirtied by mud.”106 This traveler, Macarius explains, is like the
soul, “which is clothed with the attractive garment, namely, the body”; the soul
must “wrap around itself vigilance, courage, diligence, and attentiveness, and
control itself and the vesture of the body in such a way so as not to be torn by
the thickets and thorns of this world.”107 The soul must keep a firm hold of its
bodily garment, lest “his cloak, floating about him, [be] torn off by the thickets
and thorns […] because he does not hold it tightly around himself.”108 This is
what it means to “discipline the body and bring it into subjection” (1 Cor 9:27).

100 P. Brown, Body and Society. Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity,
New York 1988, 26.
101 οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς καθηράμενοι ἄνευ τε σωμάτων ζῶσι τὸ παράπαν εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον, Pl.,
Phd. 114c.
102 I I 15.10; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 111.
103 I I 11.1; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 89.
104 I I 15.10; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 111.
105 I I 15.10; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 111. Cf. Or., princ. 2.6,6.
106 I I 4.2; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 49.
107 I I 4.3; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 50.
108 I I 4.2; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 49f.
188 Samuel Kaldas

But at journey’s end, cloak and traveler arrive together at their destination.
On the day of resurrection, “the body itself will reign with the soul.”109 The
future glory of the garment of the body is exemplified even now by the flesh
Christ took up in the incarnation, for when Christ ascended to heaven and sat
down in glory, he took the garment of his human body with him to adorn him
as his royal purple:

For just as the purple of the king is co-glorified and the king is not worshiped
without his purple, so also the flesh of the Lord was co-glorified with his Godhead
and Christ is worshiped with his flesh. For the flesh and the soul have become
one thing (ἕν τι) with the divinity, even if they are two (κἂν δύο εἰσίν).110

As a direct consequence of this glorification of Christ’s fleshly garment, the

bodily of all human beings is glorified too:

The Lord therefore bought back all flesh through his own flesh, and all flesh that
believes and follows Him and accepts Him now is co-glorified with the flesh of
the Lord in that day.111

In another telling metaphor, the flesh is likened to a tympanum (τύμπανον), a

kind of tambourine, which provides a rhythmical accompaniment to the more
refined music of the soul, which is in turn likened to a stringed instrument
plucked by the plectrum of grace.112 The tympanum is no doubt deliberately
chosen for this metaphor, consisting as it does of leather (flesh) stretched over
a hollow frame, not unlike the “covering” of the flesh which the invisible soul
wears as a garment. But although clearly a lesser member of this orchestra, the
garment of the flesh plays an important and positive role in the symphony of
praise a believer must offer to God with his whole being.
Macarius’ firm belief in a bodily resurrection does not contradict his ascetic
mandate to liberate the soul from material heaviness. Like many of the fig-
ures we have considered alongside him such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and
Evagrius, Macarius believes the resurrected body will be light and luminous
rather than coarse and heavy, and therefore no longer an obstacle to commu-
nion with God.113 In other words, the resurrection body takes on the subtle,

109 I I 2.5; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 45f.

110 I 10.4,5–6. Marcus Plested analyses this remarkable, oft-ignored passage in detail in
M. Plested, The Christology of Macarius-Symeon in: StPatr 37 (2001), 593–596.
111 I 10.4,7.
112 I 11.3,6; cf. II 47.14.
113 For an overview of this tradition, see I. Ramelli (ed.), Evagrius’s Kephalaia Gnostika. A New
Translation of the Unreformed Text from the Syriac, Atlanta 2015, 266–269.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 189

translucent quality of the soul. This is most clearly reflected by his repeated
claim that at the resurrection, the body will be “illuminated” or even “become
light.”114 But it also implied in a more interesting way by what Macarius says
about the resurrection body’s inability to conceal the nature of the soul. In its
present condition, the coarse, opaque body covers the soul as a garment and
thus conceals the moral condition of the soul that dwells within. He warns
his spiritual children that even though in the visible realm, “all of us brethren
seated here are endued universally with the one image and face of Adam”, this
outward uniformity conceals the great interior difference between righteous
souls and sinful souls. “Do you see how different is the intellectual life, namely,
the interior man, from the exterior? For all of us appear to be as one, both those
who are with Christ and his angels and those who are with Satan and his un-
clean spirits.”115 Christ himself makes use of this concealing property of visible
flesh in the incarnation: like the veil that conceals a magistrate’s chamber from
the masses crowded outside, Christ’s flesh conceals the glory of his divinity
from those who might be frightened away by his greatness.116 So in this respect
at least, the visible, heavy flesh is not a sign or reflection of the invisible real-
ity: instead, it performs the opposite function, concealing the spiritual reality
behind an opaque screen.
At the resurrection, however, flesh no longer conceals the spiritual condi-
tion of the soul within. All seeds look the same when they are buried in the
earth, but when summer comes and they sprout, they can no longer hide what
sort of plant they are.117 On the one hand, the glory that now fills the souls of
the righteous will spill outward and flow over the body.118 Likewise, the bod-
ies of sinners will no longer be able to conceal the ugliness and deformity of
their souls: just as a child of adultery cannot be concealed once the embryo has
come to maturity, “those who conceive sin in their hearts and beget children of
lawlessness will not be able in that day to evade the fearful and all-consuming
fire, but their bodies and souls together will be condemned.”119
Interestingly enough, Macarius describes this process with a metaphor
that inverts the image of the body as garment for the soul. At the resurrection,
the inward character of the soul erupts from within and becomes the body’s
clothing. In other contexts, Macarius frequently exhorts his hearers to put
on the “invisible and heavenly” garment of divine glory to cover their soul’s

114 I I 5.9; 15.10–11; 20.3; 34.2.

115 I I 15.32; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 120. Cf. I 14.2.1.
116 I 4.30f.
117 I 18.6,5f.
118 I 2.3,14; 9.2,1; 18.6,2–5; 28.1,4; II 2.5; 15.10f.; 20.3; 32.2–3; 34.2; 36.1f.; III 3.4.
119 I 18.6,6. Cf. II 2.5.
190 Samuel Kaldas

nakedness.120 In this life, this glorious garment remains invisible, hidden be-
neath the flesh just as “a cheap, sackcloth purse filled with pearls.”121 But in the
day of resurrection, “the heavenly raiment that clothed and glorified their soul
in this present life […] will adorn their naked bodies which will rise from the
tombs.”122 Likewise, the darkness of sinful souls will flow outward and cover
risen body of sinners: “For the darkness which now covers the soul and the
heart will eclipse and overshadow the body too in that day, for it is covered up
by the shadowy bosom of the Evil One.”123
All of this suggests that for Macarius, although the resurrected body is cer-
tainly the same body that exists here as a coarse, heavy substance, it will be
raised in a state that grants it the transparency and translucency characteristic
of subtle bodies, and that this will hold not only for the righteous, but for sin-
ners as well.

VI. Conclusions

So, is Macarius a Christian Platonist? The answer is, of course, yes and no.
He is a Platonist inasmuch as his ascetic theology views sin as a hardening or
solidifying of the soul, and views growth in virtue as a lightening of the soul
that makes the ascent to God easier. But his imagery and vocabulary are far
more Biblical than they are Platonic; if Macarius is a “Platonist” in any sense,
his Platonism is of the implicit variety that runs through the cultural DNA of
nearly all Greek Christian writers. As Alexander Golitzin remarks, “Macarius
certainly owes much to the Platonic tradition, though […] I must also add that
I cannot think of any single, important patristic writer who does not owe a
fair bit to Plato.”124 Macarius can be considered a Platonist only in the general
sense in which Platonism was an unavoidable part of the philosophical vo-
cabulary of his age.
As at least a partial inhabitant of the Hellenic thought-world of Origen and
the Cappadocians, Macarius is suspicious of the heaviness and coarseness
of the body, and longs for this heavy body to be transformed into something
subtler, finer and more transparent to the effluxes of divinity. This confirms
Marcus Plested’s important insight that “Much of [Macarius’] thought-world

120 E.g. II 20.1f.; 30.2.

121 I 14.2.1.
122 I I 32.2; Maloney (transl.), 1992, 196; cf. II 5.10–12.
123 I 18.6,4.
124 Golitzin, 2002, 138.
8. The Soul-Body Relation in Macarius-Symeon 191

is fundamentally Hellenic in inspiration,” contrary to that trend in Macarian

scholarship which has sought to paint him as “an example of biblical or
Semitic Christianity, over and against the Hellenizing current associated with
Origen and Evagrius.”125 On the contrary, his demonology, psychology and
hardness-subtlety antinomy place him safely within the bounds of the same
Greek Christian thought-world as Origen and the Cappadocians. But his intri-
cate network of metaphors—clothing, mixing, opacity and transparency, wind
and wings—allow him to present this Hellenic framework in a distinctive and
idiosyncratic guise.

125 Plested, 2004, 30.

 chapter 9

Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance

after Death

David Bradshaw

Abstract

Following biblical texts such as the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, there
was broad agreement in the Greek patristic tradition that the soul cannot repent
after death. Nonetheless, a closer look reveals some complications. One is that
at least some such souls did repent, namely those who responded favorably to
Christ’s preaching in Hades. Another is that the precise reason why souls cannot
repent remained unclear; there was general agreement that the reason has to do
with the soul’s bodiless condition, but little consensus as to precisely why this is
decisive. This paper traces the development of patristic thought on these topics
and what it reveals about patristic views of the relationship of soul and body.

One of the ways in which Christian thought faces most squarely the question
of the relationship of soul and body is in its attempts to envision the fate of the
soul upon death. Although the New Testament offers abundant teaching on
this subject, the teaching is presented in figurative language that leaves many
questions unanswered. The question of the relationship of soul and body is
rarely, if ever, a topic in its own right; the focus is rather on what one must
do to prepare oneself for the coming judgment, as well as the hope of final
salvation. Consequently, although some basic points are clear enough, there
is much room for creative thought regarding the relationship of the soul and
body and the way it figures into expectations of the afterlife.
Here I will focus on just one aspect of this complex set of issues, the ques-
tion of whether there can be repentance after death. As we will see, the soul’s
inability to repent after death is owing, at least according to several leading
thinkers of the Greek patristic tradition, precisely to its dissociation from the
body. The effects of this dissociation were understood in various ways, so one
must consult a range of thinkers to get a sense of the variety and complexity
of patristic thought on this topic. Despite their differences, all agreed that only
the union of soul and body is a moral agent capable of repenting in a way that
would bring about a thoroughgoing change of character. Yet it can repent in

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_010

9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 193

another, weaker sense. Understanding this difference does much to illuminate

what the body contributes to human moral agency.

I. A Framework for Discussion

Let us first note two assumptions widely shared by thinkers in this tradition
that provided a framework for further reflection. One was that the soul sur-
vives in a conscious form between death and the resurrection of the body.1 This
was inferred from a number of biblical texts, such as the Parable of Lazarus
and the Rich Man, which portrays the souls of the dead in such an intermedi-
ate state, and the promise made by Christ to the penitent thief, “today you will
be with me in paradise”. It was also strongly suggested by the practice of prayer
to the saints, since this practice presupposes that the saints are in a position to
hear and respond to prayer. The most obvious alternative was a belief in “soul
sleep”. Although it did occur occasionally, this was generally regarded in the
Greek tradition as a heresy.2
As a concomitant to this view, a distinction came to be widely drawn be-
tween two different occasions of divine judgment. The first is the particular
judgment of each soul upon death, when it is allotted a temporary place of
blessedness or suffering while awaiting the resurrection. Often this judgment
was thought of as an interrogation or prosecution by demons, although natu-
rally the demons were seen as acting under divine authority.3 Eventually all
must still face the Last Judgment, when the soul will be reunited with the body
either to the “resurrection of life” or the “resurrection of judgment” (Joh 5:29).
It would seem that the scriptural texts dealing with divine judgment are pri-
marily about the latter; the particular judgment after death is not an explicit

1 See N. Constas, “To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”. The Middle State of Souls in Patristic and
Byzantine Literature, in: DOP 55 (2001), 91–124; J.-C. Larchet, Life after Death according to the
Orthodox Tradition, Rollinsford 2012; V. Marinis, Death and the Afterlife in Byzantium. The Fate
of the Soul in Theology, Liturgy, and Art, Cambridge 2017.
2 In the Syriac and Nestorian traditions it was more widely accepted. See discussion in Constas,
2001, 109–112; id., An Apology for the Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity. Eustratius Presbyter of
Constantinople, On the State of Souls after Death (CPG 7522), in: JECS 10 (2002), 267–285;
Marinis, 2017, 88f.; M. Dal Santo, Debating the Saints’ Cults in the Age of Gregory the Great,
Oxford Studies in Byzantium, Oxford 2012; D. Krausmüller, Sleeping Souls and Living Corpses.
Patriarch Methodius’ Defence of the Cult of Saints, in: Byz. 85 (2015), 143–155; id., Christian
Platonism and the Debate about the Afterlife: John of Scythopolis and Maximus the Confessor
on the Inactivity of the Disembodied Soul, in: Scrinium 11 (2015), 242–260.
3 See Constas, 2001, 105–109; Marinis, 2017, 12–23.
194 David Bradshaw

scriptural teaching, but was inferred in order to make sense of the existence of
the soul in the intermediate state.
The second point of wide agreement was that, with one important excep-
tion noted below, there is no possibility for repentance after death. (By this is
meant repentance of a sort that could lead to salvation; there will undoubt-
edly be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” as spoken of in the Gospels.) This was
a straightforward inference from the many biblical passages dealing with the
Last Judgment. As St. Paul says, “we must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body” (2 Cor 5:10).
Here and elsewhere, it is emphatically the deeds done in this life that are the
subject of judgment.4 There is no biblical text about the Judgment suggesting
that anything done after death can in any way alter the account that has thus
been formed. This point seems to have been recognised quite early. Already in
2 Clement, dating from the early second century, we find the exhortation: “Let
us, while we are in this world, repent with our whole heart of the evil things we
have done in the flesh, that we may be saved by the Lord while we yet have time
for repentance. For after we have departed out of the world we can no more
make confession there, or repent any more”.5 Similar statements occur in lead-
ing patristic authors such as Justin Martyr, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom,
Maximus the Confessor, and John Damascene, and the same idea is implicit in
many others who warn of the eternity of the punishments of hell.6
Yet it is one thing to affirm that there is no repentance after death, and an-
other to explain why not. With hindsight it is surprising how long it took for
this subject to receive much attention. The only early discussion I am aware of
is that in 2 Clement. There, just before the passage quoted, the author offers
the analogy of a vessel of clay that can be reshaped as needed by the potter

4 For the major biblical passages on divine judgment see Mt 3:7–10; 7:21–27; 12:31–37; 13:47–50;
16:28; 25:31–46; Mk 8:38; 9:39–50; Lk 9 26; 12 16–21; 12:42–48; 13:24–30, Joh 5:28–29; Act 17:30f.;
Rom 2:5–10; 14:10–12; 2 Cor 5:10; 1 Thess 1:6–10; Heb 9:27; Apk 20:11–15.
5 2 Clem. 8.2f. (J. Lightfoot / J. Harmer [ed. and transl.], The Apostolic Fathers, Grand Rapids 1984,
46f. 89).
6 See Just., 1 apol. 52; Bas., Spir. 16.40 (citing Ps 33:6 LXX); Gr. Nyss., anim. et res. (PG 46, 84B),
usur. (GNO 9, 204); Chrys., hom. in Mt. 14.6; hom. in 2 Cor. 9.4; hom. in Heb. 21.6; Laz. et
div. 4; Thphl. Al., Homily on Repentance and Self-control; Barsanuphius and John, Epistle 600,
607; Dorotheus of Gaza, Discourses 12; Max., ambig. 65.3; Jo. D., f.o. 18 (=II.4); Man. 75;
Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical Discourses 10; Theophylact of Bulgaria, Commentary
on the Gospel of Matthew (on Mt 22:13); Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (on Lk 13:25).
Many of these texts are discussed below. For references to patristic teaching on the eternity
of hell see B. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church. A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology, Grand
Rapids ²2010, and L. Farley, Unquenchable Fire. The Traditional Christian Teaching about Hell,
Chesterton 2017.
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 195

until he puts it into the oven, after which it can no longer be mended.7 Here
God is the potter, we are the clay, and death is the fire. It is an appealing anal-
ogy, but no more than that, since no explanation is offered of what there is
about death that makes it equivalent to the firing of the clay. After this we must
wait until Nemesius of Emesa, in the later fourth or early fifth century, for a
more sustained explanation.

II. Some Further Preliminaries

Meanwhile thought on two other subjects developed slightly more fully, and
they are worth noting before we turn to Nemesius. One of these was the in-
ability of the fallen angels to repent, along with the fixity in the good of those
who are unfallen. Already in Tatian it is asserted confidently that the demons
cannot repent because, although they possess aetherial bodies, they do not
possess flesh.8 Unfortunately, precisely why flesh is necessary for repentance is
not explained. On the other hand, Cyril of Jerusalem assumes that the angels
in general have both sinned and been forgiven.9 Evidently on such a view the
absence of flesh is not in itself an impediment to repentance and forgiveness.
Cyril does allow that repeated and entrenched sin can remove this possibility,
for he mentions later that the Devil has hardened his heart to the point where
repentance is no longer possible.10
The Cappadocians offer some further thoughts on this subject, although
they too are brief. According to Basil the angels are unable to sin, not by na-
ture, but by the grace that has been imparted to them “from their creation”.11
How this is consistent with some angels being fallen, he does not say. Gregory
of Nyssa is also confident that the unfallen angels cannot now sin, although he
does not explain why.12 Gregory Nazianzen is more diffident. He explains that
he would like to say that the angels are immovable owing to their immateriality
and nearness to God. In view of the existence of the fallen angels, however, he
concludes instead that they are “hard to move”.13 He makes no distinction be-
tween their state prior to and after the fall of the evil angels, so that even today,
presumably, they remain hard (but not impossible) to move.

7 2 Clem. 8.2.
8 Tat., orat. 15.
9 Cyr. H., catech. 2.10.
10 Cyr. H., catech. 4.1.
11 Bas., Spir. 16.38 (PG 32, 140B); cf. hom. in Ps. 32 (PG 29b, 333C–D); 44 (PG 29b, 388C).
12 Gr. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 15 (GNO 6, 446f.).
13 Gr. Naz., or. 38.9 (cf. or. 28.31; 31.15; 40.7; 41.11).
196 David Bradshaw

It is evident from this brief survey that there was no consensus on the rela-
tionship between materiality and the ability either to sin or to repent, at least
as regards the angels. The over-all tendency was to think that immateriality
made it hard but not impossible to sin, and that, once having sinned, it made
repentance difficult or impossible. However, the underlying chain of thought
remained obscure. As we will see below in connection with Nemesius and John
of Damascus, different explanations could be given that were not always care-
fully distinguished.14
The other subject we should note is the understanding of Christ’s descent
into Hades. This topic tended to be treated in isolation from other aspects of
the afterlife, but it obviously is of relevance to our interest in the possibility of
repentance after death. In fact, it is here that we find the sole exception to the
general denial of the possibility of such repentance. The important questions
pertaining to this topic for our purposes are, first, to whom precisely Christ
preached, and second, what factors determined their reaction. As regards the
first question, there was a tendency during the patristic era to widen the scope
of Christ’s preaching beyond its explicit biblical basis. 1 Peter identifies those
to whom Christ preached as “the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey,
when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah” (3:19f., RSV). Taken at face
value, this refers to a relatively small group of people.15 But already in the early
centuries, to judge from the apocryphal literature, there seems to have been
wide agreement that Christ preached at least to all the righteous of the Old
Testament, and perhaps to the righteous gentiles as well. The audience of his
preaching is variously described as “the patriarchs and prophets”, “Adam and
all the saints [that] followed him”, “Adam and all them that were with him”,
and “the righteous and the prophets”.16 Clement of Alexandria asserts more

14 We may note in passing that the question of why the demons remain beyond salvation
provoked a variety of answers in the West during the Middle Ages. David Keck offers a
helpful summary: “The demons cannot be redeemed either because of the withdrawal
of God’s grace (Peter Lombard); or the fact that since each angel is an individual genus,
there is no common angelic nature that Christ could assume to redeem as he had done for
humanity (Anselm of Laon); or the lack of external temptation, a sufficiently mitigating
factor in the case of humanity (the school of Laon); or simply the sufficiency of angelic
knowledge (Aquinas and Bonaventure).” D. Keck, Angels and Angelology in the Middle
Ages, New York 1998, 25.
15 A few verses later there is a reference to the Gospel being preached “even to the dead”,
but this may be merely a reference back to what was stated more fully earlier. The other
main biblical text on Christ’s descent, Eph 4:8–10, gives no specific information about the
audience.
16 See, respectively, Ev. Nicod. 18.1; 24.2; Ev. Barth. 9; Ep. Apost. 27 (M. James [ed., transl.], The
Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford 21986, 124. 139. 167. 494). See also further citations and
discussion in H. Alfeyev, Christ the Conqueror of Hell, Crestwood 2009, 20–42.
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 197

definitely that those who were saved from Hades included “those who had
lived in righteousness according to the Law and philosophy […] whose life had
been pre-eminent, on repenting of their transgressions”.17 Thus it was all the
righteous, both Jews and gentiles, who were saved.
No doubt in saying this, Clement assumed that is was also only the righ-
teous, for otherwise there would have been no point in stating such a restric-
tion. Indeed, he goes on to explain that Christ preached to all so that “all the
souls, on hearing the proclamation, might either exhibit repentance, or confess
that their punishment was just because they believed not”.18 John Chrysostom
makes this point more fully. Citing the saying of Christ that it will be more
tolerable on the day of judgement for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than
for the cities that reject his disciples, he observes that the descent of Christ
“indicates the destruction of the might of death, not the loosing of the sins of
those who had died before his coming”.19
The view that Christ by descending to Hades released all and only the
righteous among both Jews and gentiles became, thereafter, virtually unani-
mous.20 Admittedly, what it means to be “righteous” in this context is far from
clear. Chrysostom states that the fundamental requirement was “not to wor-
ship idols, and to know the true God”.21 Maximus the Confessor goes further,
speculating that many of those who perished not only in the Flood, but later at
the Tower of Babel, in Sodom, and during the plagues on Egypt—groups that
undoubtedly included many idolaters—were ultimately saved when they re-
sponded in faith to Christ’s preaching.22 For our purposes, the important point
is that whatever response was given was determined by the character the dead
had formed during their earthly life. To respond in faith no doubt involved re-
pentance, but the repentance was “weak” in the sense that it merely required

17 Clem., str. 6.6,45 (GCS 15, 454; transl. ANF 2, 490); cf. 2.9,43f.
18 Clem., str. 6.6,48 (GCS 15, 456; transl. ANF 2, 491). This is a point worth emphasizing,
for one occasionally finds the claim that according to Clement Hades was emptied (e.g.,
Constas, 2001, 95).
19 Chrys., hom. in Mt. 36.3 (PG 57, 416; transl. NPNF 1.10, 241).
20 See the survey of texts in Alfeyev, 2009, 52–81, with some further clarifications regard-
ing Cyril of Alexandria in D. Keating, Christ’s Despoiling of Hades according to Cyril of
Alexandria, in: St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 55 (2011), 253–269. The treatment in
J. Trumbower, Rescue for the Dead. The Posthumous Salvation of Non-Christians in the Early
Church, Oxford 2001, 91–108, is helpful but unpersuasive in its attempt to locate a dis-
agreement on this issue between Chrysostom and Cyril.
21 Chrys., hom. in Mt. 36.3 (above, no. 19).
22 Max., qu. Thal. 7.2. Maximus is commenting here on the statement of 1 Peter that “the
Gospel was preached even to the dead, so that they might be judged according to man in
the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit” (1 Pet 4:6). He interprets being “judged
according to man in the flesh” to indicate that some had been sufficiently punished by
their mutual reproaches and accusations.
198 David Bradshaw

the rejection and disavowal of errors that had been committed in ignorance.
As we shall see, in some cases a much stronger form of repentance may be
needed, one that not all of the dead are able or willing to embrace.

III. Two Early Explanations: Nemesius and Dorotheus

Let us turn now to the more explicit discussions of the possibility of post mor-
tem repentance. As I have mentioned, the first of these after 2 Clement was
that of Nemesius, who addresses the issue near the beginning of On the Nature
of Man. Nemesius sets up a parallel between two distinctly human privileges:
that of receiving pardon through repentance, which is given to the soul on
account of the body, and that of resurrection and immortality, which is given
to the body on account of the soul. He contrasts in this respect human beings
with the angels and demons:
Neither demons nor angels are thought worthy of repentance, and in this
especially God is shown and declared to be both just and merciful. For the
angels have no compulsion that leads them to sin, but they are free by nature
from bodily affections, needs and pleasures, and reasonably there is no pardon
given to them on repentance; but man is not only rational, but also an animal,
and animal needs and other affections often pervert his reason. So when he
becomes sober and flees from such things, and pursues the virtues, he receives
the just mercy of pardon.23
This position bears a superficial similarity to that of Tatian, in that it makes
the reason that human beings can receive forgiveness through repentance,
while demons cannot, lie in our possession of bodies. Nonetheless, the under-
lying rationale is quite different. Whereas Tatian seemed to have in view an
actual difference in ability, for Nemesius the difference lies in God’s attitude:
God is merciful toward human beings because our bodies furnish extenuat-
ing circumstances for sin, whereas the angels and demons, as spiritual beings,
have no such excuse.
A little thought will reveal some difficulties with this explanation. One is
that it leaves unclear precisely what is so critical about death. Granted that
after death we no longer possess bodies, we did possess them when we sinned,
so it seems that even after death God should still view our sins with leniency.
Furthermore, Nemesius’s explanation seems to posit a change in God’s attitude

23 Nemes., nat. hom. 1.7 (M. Morani [ed.], Nemesius: De natura hominis, Leipzig 1987,
10; transl. R. Sharples / P. van der Eijk [eds.], Nemesius: On the Nature of Man, TTH 49,
Liverpool 2008, 44f.).
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 199

from mercy prior to death to inexorable justice afterward. Such a view is ques-
tionable, not only in attributing change to God, but in the sharp line it draws
between the two fundamental divine attributes of justice and mercy.
After Nemesius, later discussions turned away from speculating about God’s
reasons for granting forgiveness to focus instead (as had already been suggest-
ed in 2 Clement) on the abilities of the disembodied soul. Dorotheus of Gaza
took a first step in this direction. He sees the union of the soul with the body as
a blessing in that it prevents the soul from fixating single-mindedly on its own
passions. This source of relief is removed upon death, with the result is that the
soul, left alone with its passions, can no longer remember God:
Through this body the soul gets away from its own passions and is com-
forted; it is fed, it drinks, sleeps, meets and associates with friends. When at last
it goes out of the body it is alone with its passions and, in short, it is tormented
by them, forever nattering to them and being incensed by the disturbance and
being torn to pieces by them so that it is unable to remember God. For the
mere remembrance of God comforts the soul, as it says in the Psalm, “I was
mindful of God and I was made glad” (Ps 76:3, LXX), and the passions do not
allow this to happen.24
Obviously if the soul cannot remember God, it cannot repent. Dorotheus
thus grounds the soul’s inability to repent in its isolation and entrapment with-
in its own passions.
A similar line of thought is developed with much more rigor and sophis-
tication by Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’s view depends heavily on the
metaphysical understanding of God that he had inherited from earlier au-
thors, particularly Dionysius the Areopagite. Before turning to Maximus, it will
therefore be helpful if we examine the groundwork for his discussion laid by
Dionysius.

IV. Dionysius the Areopagite

Although Dionysius does not deal specifically with the question of repentance
after death, he discusses at some length the nature of demonic evil. His discus-
sion became the most influential treatment of the nature of evil in the Greek
patristic tradition. It provides a precedent (and, I suspect, an important influ-
ence) for the texts we will examine in Maximus.

24 Dorotheus of Gaza, Discourse 12 (L. Regnault / J. de Préville [eds.], Dorothée de Gaza:

Oeuvres spirituelles, SC 92, Paris 1963, 384; transl. E. Wheeler [ed.], Dorotheus of Gaza:
Discourses and Sayings, CiSt 33, Kalamazoo 1977, 183f.).
200 David Bradshaw

Chapter 4 of Dionysius’s Divine Names is devoted to the divine names of the

Good and the Beautiful. Having described at length how God as the Good and
the Beautiful permeates all creation, Dionysius poses the question: “How is it
that the multitude of demons has no desire for the Beautiful and the Good and
indeed is inclined to the material and is lapsed from the angelic condition of
longing for the Good?”25 This is in essence the question of how one can have
a full awareness of God as the Good and yet not be drawn to him. In answer,
Dionysius first draws a parallel to a human being who lives intemperately:
He is deprived of the Good in direct proportion to his irrational urges. In
that respect he neither is nor desires things that truly are (οὔτε ἔστιν οὔτε ὄντων
ἐπιθυμεῑ). Nevertheless he has some share of the Good, since there is in him a
distorted echo of real love and real unity.26
To the extent that he has succumbed to vice, such a person “neither is nor
desires things that truly are”. This brief statement encapsulates a great deal of
the longstanding incorporation of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical psy-
chology into Christian thought. Already in Plato, it is axiomatic that all human
action is for the sake of the Good, although human perceptions of the Good
are inevitably partial and distorted.27 That to attain true knowledge of the
Good is also to attain or recover true being is intimated in the myth of the Cave
in the Republic and the Charioteer myth in the Phaedrus. Aristotle (although
not sharing Plato’s doctrine of the Good) offers his own version of these ideas,
particularly in his teaching that a life lived according to virtue is the full real-
ization of human nature.28 Thus for Aristotle, too, there is a sense in which by
seeking the good one becomes more fully real.
The Cappadocian Fathers readily embraced the identification of God with
the Good and the Beautiful, along with the ancillary notion that all human
action is an obscure way of seeking the Good.29 They also shared the com-
monplace identification (based on Ex 3:14) of God with Being. It follows readily
enough from these premises that to depart from the Good is in some sense to
fall away from true being. Likewise, it follows that to turn away from God is

25 Dion. Ar., d.n. 4.18 716A (B. Suchla et al. [eds.], Corpus Dionysiacum 1, PTS 33, Berlin 1990,
162; transl. C. Luibheid [ed./transl.], Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, New York 1987,
84 [modified]).
26 Dion. Ar., d.n. 4.20 720B (ed. Suchla 1, 1990, 167; transl. Luibheid, 1987, 87 [modified]).
27 Pl., R. 6.505e.
28 Arist., EN 1.7; cf. the fragments of the Protrepticus discussed in D. Bradshaw, Aristotle
East and West. Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom, Cambridge 2004, 3–5.
29 For example, Bas., reg. fus. Q. 2; Greg. Nyss., virg. 11; anim. et res. (PG 46, 89B–97A), v.
Mos. 2.224–238; cf. D. Bradshaw, Plato in the Cappadocian Fathers, in: R. Fowler (ed.), Plato
in the Third Sophistic, Berlin 2014, 193–210.
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 201

to desire that which is not, and so is ultimately doomed to frustration. There

is already a foundation for such views in the lapidary saying of Jesus, “What
does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8:36).
The Cappadocians in effect provided a philosophical framework in which this
central Christian teaching could be seen as a corollary of fundamental truths
about the nature of God and his relationship to the world.
Dionysius goes on to argue that the demons, like the intemperate man, are
not evil by nature but have become evil by not “holding to their originative
source”.30 They are good insofar as they are, but have through their own choice
turned aside to that which is not:
Whatever is, is from the Good, is good and desires the Beautiful and the
Good by desiring to exist and to live and to think the things that are. They
[demons] are called evil because of the deprivation, the abandonment, and
the rejection of the goods that are appropriate to them. And they are evil to
the extent that they are not, and they desire evil by desiring what is not (τοῡ μὴ
ὄντος ἐφιέμενοι τοῡ κακοῡ ἐφίενται).31
He goes on to repeat this point even more emphatically in chapter 7, de-
voted to the divine name of Wisdom. In the course of explaining how all intel-
ligence (νοῡς) derives from divine Wisdom, he adds:
Even the intelligence of demons, to the extent that it is intelligence, comes
from Wisdom, although insofar as it seeks to come upon what it desires irratio-
nally, it neither knows nor truly wants (μὴ εἰδὼς μήτε βουλόμενος), and is better
called a falling away from wisdom.32
To misuse the natural gift of intelligence so as to seek evil is, for Dionysius, a
kind of psychic fragmentation, in that one does not even truly want that which
one is seeking. It is in this sense that to turn toward evil is inherently futile and
a diminution of being.
The Divine Names does not discuss whether there is any hope that either
the demons or human souls in the afterlife might somehow repent. Given
that the entire discussion just summarized is aimed at explaining how the de-
mons could fully know God as the Good and yet remain alienated from him,
it seems unlikely that Dionysius would have countenanced this possibility.
A passage in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy offers some further clarification on
this point. In the course of discussing baptism or “illumination”, Dionysius
describes how “the goodness of the divine blessedness” illumines all who view
it with the eyes of the intelligence. He then adds:

30 Dion. Ar., d.n. 4.23 725A, quoting Jud 6.

31 Dion. Ar., d.n. 4.23 725C (ed. Suchla 1, 1990, 172; transl. Luibheid, 1987, 91 [modified]).
32 Dion. Ar., d.n. 7.2 868C (ed. Suchla 1, 1990, 195; my trans).
202 David Bradshaw

But it can happen that the self-chosen self-determination (ἡ αὐθαίρετος

αὐτεξουσιότης) of intelligent beings can fall away from the intelligible light and
can so desire what is evil that it closes off that vision with its natural capacity
for illumination. It removes itself from this light which is ceaselessly proferred
to it and which, far from abandoning it, shines on its unseeing eyes. With typi-
cal goodness that light hastens to follow it even when it turns away.33
Plainly Dionysius wishes to emphasize here the freedom of rational crea-
tures to turn away from God no matter how much he may offer himself to
them.34 Although Dionysius does not explicitly state that it is impossible for
the demons or human souls in the afterlife to repent, the whole thrust of his
discussion seems to rule this out. There is some confirmation of this point later
in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, when he denies that even the prayers of the
saints can be of any avail for one who dies in a state of confirmed sin.35
Evidently, then, the demons cannot repent because they already possess full
knowledge of God as the Good. Hence there is nothing more they could learn
or encounter that could move them to change. As we will now see, Maximus
seems to have accepted the force of this point and to have made it central to
his own reflections.

V. Maximus the Confessor

Just as Dionysius seeks to explain how the demons can know God as the Good
but persist in evil, Maximus seeks to answer the same question regarding
human beings. The question is made more pointed by Maximus’s insistence
that the full revelation of divine goodness makes it impossible to seek any
other, merely created good. In a well-known passage of Ambigua 7, Maximus
describes how, in the afterlife, “our free will (τὸ αὐτεξούσιον) […] will have

33 Dion. Ar., e.h. 2.3,3 400A (ed. Suchla 2, 1991, 74; transl. Luibheid, 1987, 205 [modified]).
That evil arises from a willful turning away from the divine light is a prominent theme in
Gregory of Nyssa, e.g. Gr. Nyss., or. catech. 6f., anim. et res. (PG 46, 120C–D).
34 Again one thinks of a ready source in the Gospels: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the
prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your
children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”
(Mt 23:37).
35 Dion. Ar., e.h. 7.3,6f. Admittedly, repentance and aid through prayer are not the same; the
point is that Dionysius again emphasizes the final and conclusive significance of choices
made in this present life.
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 203

surrendered voluntarily and wholly to God, and perfectly subjected itself to

His rule”.36 He explains:
All things without exception necessarily cease from their willful movement
toward something else when the ultimate object of their desire and participa-
tion appears before them and is, if I may put it this way, contained in them
uncontainably according to the measure of the participation of each […]. For
in that state nothing will appear apart from God, nor will there be anything op-
posed to God that could entice our will to desire it, since all things intelligible
and sensible will be enveloped (περιληφθέντων) in the ineffable manifestation
and presence of God.37
Maximus goes on to offer the analogy that God is like the sun and lesser
goods like the stars: when the sun appears, the stars can no longer be seen.
Helpful though it is, this analogy fails to capture the key point that lesser goods
are “enveloped” within God as the Good; that is, all that is good in them is
already precontained in God as their source.38 We might tweak the analogy
slightly by imagining that the stars, like the moon, shine only as reflections of
the sun. Then it would be true to say that when the sun appears, the light that
had previously appeared in them is not only overwhelmed, but is more directly
and truly manifest. It is for this reason that the blessed feel no temptation to
seek any created good before or instead of God.39
The passage is not only about the blessed, however, for it says that all things
cease from their movement toward any lesser good. The remainder of ambig. 7
elaborates further. In discussing the reason why God created man as a unity
of body and soul, Maximus explains that God’s aim was that through the ra-
tional governance of the body, “the many, though separated from each other
in nature, might be drawn together in a unity as they converge around the one
human nature”. This cryptic statement foreshadows the view of humanity’s
vocation as cosmic mediator—a vocation fulfilled by Christ—that Maximus

36 Max., ambig. 7.11 (ed. and transl. N. Constas, Maximos Confessor: On Difficulties in the
Church Fathers 1, Cambridge 2014, 89).
37 Max., ambig. 7.12 (ed. and transl. Constas 1, 2014, 91–93).
38 The term used by Maximus, περιληφθέντων, echoes the similar term προείληφε used by
Dionysius to describe the relationship of God to creatures (Dion. Ar., d.n. 1.7 597A; 5.8
824C; 7.4 872C).
39 See also Max., ambig. 15.7: in the presence of God “every motion of what is naturally
moved ceases, henceforth having nowhere, and no means whereby, and nothing to which
it could be moved, since it has attained its goal and cause, which is God, who is Himself
the limit of the infinity itself that limits all motion” (ed. and transl. Constas 1, 2014, 369,
slightly modified); also a similar statement at Max., qu. Thal. 22.7.
204 David Bradshaw

develops later in the Ambigua.40 Its importance for present purposes lies in
the immediate continuation:
When this happens, “God will be all things in everything” (1 Cor 15:28), en-
compassing all things and making them subsist in Himself, for beings will no
longer possess independent motion or fail to share in God’s presence, and it is
with respect to this sharing that we are, and are called, “gods”, “children of God”,
the “body” and “members” of God, “portions of God”, and other such things, in
the progressive ascent of the divine plan to its final end.41
Taken at face value this passage might seem to be an assertion of universal-
ism. Some have indeed taken it in that sense.42 However, it is hardly unknown
for Maximus to make a sweeping statement that he then qualifies in various
ways. Since he has as yet not even referred to the Final Judgment or to those
ostensibly damned, we would do well to see what he has to say on that subject
before drawing any final conclusion.
When Maximus at last turns to the fate of the damned, in ambig. 20, it is
clear that he sees a sharp separation between them and those who are to be
divinized. Having explained how divinization is something beyond nature, he
adds:
In the same manner, but in the case of what is contrary, the sages give the
names of “perdition”, “Hades”, “sons of perdition”, and the like, to those who
by their disposition have set themselves on a course to nonexistence (τὸ μὴ ὂν
ἑαυτοῑς ὑποστήσαντας), and who by their mode of life have reduced themselves
to virtual nothingness(αὐτῷ [sc. τῷ μὴ ὂν] διὰ πάντων γενομένους παρεμφερεῑς).43
As we see here, Maximus understands some as through their own disposi-
tion setting themselves on a path to “virtual nothingness”. This is an idea that
we have seen foreshadowed in Dionysius’s treatment of the intemperate man,
who “neither is nor desires things that truly are”, and the demons, who “are evil
to the extent that they are not”. It is in light of this descent into non-being that
God can be “all things in everything” and yet evil can persist.

40 See Max., ambig. 41.1–9.

41 Max., ambig. 7.31 (ed. and transl. Constas 1, 2014, 121 [slightly modified]).
42 For example, I. Ramelli, A Larger Hope? Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to
Julian of Norwich, Eugene 2019, 184. See also similarly categorical but brief statements of
Maximus elsewhere: Christ will accomplish at the end of the ages “a universal renovation
of the whole human nature” (Max., exp. Ps. 59 [PG 90,857A]; cited by Ramelli, 2019, 179);
Christ “accomplished the complete salvation of humanity” and “divinized all humanity”
(Max., ambig. 4.5,7 [ed. and transl. Constas 1, 2014, 27]; cited by Ramelli, 2019, 182); Christ
“filled the world above, by divinely bringing about on His own the salvation of all” (Max.,
ambig. 31.6 [ed. and transl. Constas 2, 2014, 47]; cited by Ramelli, 2019, 183).
43 Max., ambig. 20.2 (ed. and transl. Constas 1, 2014, 411).
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 205

Maximus returns to this subject in the next Ambiguum. There he first de-
scribes the soul that, by the right use of its natural powers, “arrives at God”. He
then adds in contrast:
If, however, it makes the wrong or mistaken use of these powers, delving
into the worrld in a manner contrary to what is proper, it is obvious that it will
succumb to dishonorable passions, and in the coming life will rightly be cast
away from the presence of the divine glory, receiving the dreadful condemna-
tion of being estranged from relation with God for infinite ages, a sentence so
distressing that the soul will not be able to contest it, for it will have as a per-
petually relentless accuser its own disposition, which created for it a mode of
existence that in fact did not exist (τὴν ὑποστήσασαν τὸ μὴ ὂν διάθεσιν κατήγορον
ἔχουσα).44
Plainly Maximus is not teaching here a form of annihilationism, for the ref-
erence to “infinite ages” shows that he assumes this state will continue forever.
He is instead, much like Dionysius, drawing out the implication of the identi-
fication of God as Being. Both authors present the diminution into non-being
as a consequence of the misuse of the natural powers bestowed by the Creator.
Such non-being is not the loss of existence; it is continuation in existence in a
diminished and perpetually frustrated state.
Maximus again returns to this subject in ambig. 42, where he connects it
with his well-known doctrine of the logoi of beings.45 He explains that it is in
accordance with their logoi that all things receive either well-being through
virtue or ill-being through vice, states that are the completion or failure of par-
ticipation in God. Nonetheless, God offers himself “wholly and simply to all”:
To put it concisely, they [scil. creatures] move in accordance with their pos-
session or privation of the potential they have naturally to participate in Him
who is by nature absolutely imparticipable, and who offers Himself wholly and
simply to all—worthy and unworthy—by grace through His infinite goodness,
and who endows each with the permanence of eternal being, corresponding to
the way that each disposes himself and is (διατέθειταί τε καὶ ἔστι)”.46
Here again it is the way that each has freely formed his own disposition
that determines whether and how he participates in God as the Good. As the
passage goes on to explain, to participate or not is tantamount to reward or
punishment:

44 Max., ambig. 21.12 (ed. and transl. Constas 1, 2014, 439). The final phrase could be ren-
dered more literally, “having for an accuser its disposition which has given subsistence to
(ὑποστήσασαν) non-being”.
45 For a brief discussion of the logoi see Bradshaw, 2004, 201–206.
46 Max., ambig. 42.15 (ed. and transl. Constas 2, 2014, 149).
206 David Bradshaw

For those who participate or do not participate proportionately in Him who,

in the truest sense, is and is good, and is forever, there is an intensification and
increase of punishment for those who cannot participate, and of enjoyment
for those who can participate.47
To be capable of participating in the Good requires oneself becoming good,
so far as within one’s power; likewise, to fail to become good, or (worse) to be-
come positively evil, brings with it a corresponding incapacity. This is an axiom
of classical philosophy that had been developed in various ways by Plato,
Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists and was incorporated into Christian thought
by the Cappadocians and Maximus.48 Maximus draws on it here to explain
how to have developed an evil disposition leads not only to a diminishment
into non-being but also to alienation from all that is good.
The question remains how it can be true that, as Maximus states in ambig.
7, at the full manifestation of the Good “all things without exception cease from
their willful movement toward something else”. Presumably the answer must
be that the damned no longer move in any way toward any subordinate good,
but are equally unable to participate in God as the Good. Maximus makes this
explicit in ambig. 65. There we learn:
To those who have willfully used the principle of their being contrary to
nature, He [scil. God] rightly renders not well-being but eternal ill-being (τὸ
ἀεὶ φεῦ εἶναι), since well-being is no longer accessible to those who have placed
themselves in opposition to it, and they have absolutely no motion after the
manifestation of what was sought, by which what is sought is naturally re-
vealed to those who seek it.49
Although Maximus speaks here of God “rendering” eternal ill-being to the
damned, we must remember that this is the same state described in ambig. 7
as that in which “nothing will appear apart from God”. Evidently the same di-
vine presence that is experienced by the blessed as bliss is experienced by the
damned as torment. Maximus states this explicitly elsewhere.50 He also offers

47 Ibid.
48 Classical antecedents include the Platonic understanding of the vision of the Good as
requiring the acquisition of the virtues (Pl., R. 7) and the Aristotelian view of habitua-
tion into the virtues as enabling moral knowledge (Arist., EN 1.3f.; 2.1; 3.4; 6.5). For the
adaptation of such views by the Cappadocians and Maximus see Bradshaw, 2004, 172–178.
197–201.
49 Max., ambig. 65.3 (ed and transl. Constas 2, 2014, 281.
50 “When […] I say ‘things contrary to nature,’ I mean the privation of grace producing un-
speakable pain and suffering, which God is accustomed to bring about by nature when He
unites Himself contrary to grace to those who are unworthy. For God, in a manner known
only to Himself, by uniting Himself to all in accordance with the quality of the disposition
that underlies each, imparts perception to each one, inasmuch as each one was formed
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 207

a number of lengthy descriptions of the torments of hell, envisaging it as “sepa-

ration from God and his holy powers, and belonging to the devil and the evil
demons, a state which lasts forever, without any prospect of our ever being
liberated”.51 Whatever its torments, the worst aspect of hell is to be “joined for-
ever with those who hate and are hated” even while one is “separated from
the One who loves and is loved”.52 And this is, in turn, a self-chosen and self-
determined state.

VI. Later Authors

Although it is not possible to give here a full history of our topic in the later
Byzantine era, a couple of prominent authors may be noted to give some sense
of further developments. John of Damascus largely follows Maximus, although
in a way that reflects his own distinctive concerns. In On the Orthodox Faith
he says simply that “although man, by reason of the infirmity of his body, is
capable of repentance, the angel, because of his incorporeality, is not”.53 This
mixes elements of two distinct lines of thought: in referring to the “infirmity”
of the human body, John seems to have in mind the idea of Nemesius that God
is willing to forgive human sin because of our corporeality, whereas in referring
to angels as not “capable” of repentance, he seems to have in mind a limita-
tion that is intrinsic rather than a matter of divine prerogative. Unfortunately,
neither line of thought is explained further.54
We find rather more in his dialogue Against the Manicheans. There John,
much like Maximus, affirms that in the age to come God intentionally punishes

by Himself for the reception of Him who at the end of the ages will be completely united
to all”. Max., qu. Thal. 59.8 (PG 90, 609C); transl. M. Constas, St. Maximos the Confessor:
On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture, Washington 2018, 418.
51 Max., ep. 1 (PG 91, 389A), transl. B. Daley, Apokatastasis and “Honorable Silence” in the
Eschatology of Maximus the Confessor, in: F. Heinzer / C. Schönborn (eds.), Maximus
Confessor: Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Par. 27, Fribourg 1982, 309–339
(334f.); cf. similar statements at Max., ep. 1 (PG 91, 380D–383A); 4 (PG 91, 416B–417A); 24
(PG 91, 612B–C).
52 Max., ep. 1 (PG 91, 389B).
53 Jo. D., f.o. 17 (= II.3) (P. Kotter [ed.], Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos 2, Berlin
1969–1988, 46; transl. F. Chase (ed.), Saint John of Damascus: Writings, FaCh 37,
Washington 31981, 206.
54 See also Jo. D., f.o. 18 (= II.4), stating that there can be no repentance for demons after
their fall, just as there can be none after death for man; and 44 (= II.30), stating that it
was best for man not to attain incorruption while still untested, since it was “by reason of
his incorruptibility” that the Devil, having fallen, could no longer repent. None of this is
explained.
208 David Bradshaw

no one. Rather, each makes himself capable of participating in God in his own
way, a participation that is delight to some and punishment to others.55 John
goes on to add that God always provides good things to all, but not all are will-
ing (θέλει) to receive them, preferring instead various lesser goods that in the
age to come will no longer be available.56 After death sinners still desire the
pleasures of their former life, but there is no longer the material by which to
sin (τὰς ὕλας τῆς ἁμαρτίας), so they exist in perpetual frustration, and this frus-
tration is itself a form of punishment.57 John thus offers two distinct ways of
understanding eternal punishment: (1) as the unmediated presence of God to
those whose characters are such as to find his presence repugnant, and (2) as
the deprivation of the lesser goods that the soul, due to its own voluntary for-
mation, eternally desires. These are not incompatible and are clearly in John’s
mind different ways of describing the same state.
Whereas the Maximian influence is evident in John, Theophylact of Bulgaria,
in his widely read biblical commentaries (c. 1100), returns to a more purely
scriptural approach. Commenting on the parable of the guest who is cast out
from the feast because he lacks a wedding garment (Mt 22:11–13), he writes:
The Lord then says to His servants, the angels of punishment, “bind his
hands and feet” (Mt 22:13), that is, the soul’s powers of action. For in this pres-
ent age is the time to act and to do, but in the age to come all of the soul’s pow-
ers of action are bound, and a man cannot then do any good thing to outweigh
his sins. Gnashing of teeth is the meaningless repentance that will then take
place.58
Although Theophylact here speaks of seeking to “outweigh” sins formerly
committed, he is not thinking of divine judgment as a weighing of sins against
good deeds, but rather of what is required to repent in a way that is truly ef-
ficacious. This emerges more clearly in a similar passage in his commentary on
the Gospel of Luke. Discussing the parable of the master of the house who says
to those who knock at his door, “I know not whence you are” (Lk 13:24–30), he
explains:
Indeed it is while we are still in this life that we must make spiritual prepa-
ration for the feast, before “the Master of the house is risen up”, that is, risen
up and come forth to judge, “and hath shut the door” (Lk 13:25), which means,
closed the pathway of virtue. For further progress on that path cannot be made

55 Jo. D., Man. 44 (PG 94, 1545D–1548A).

56 Jo. D., Man. 71 (PG 94 1570B–C).
57 Jo. D., Man. 75 (PG 94, 1575A–C).
58 Theophylact of Bulgaria, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (PG 123, 388B–C);
transl. C. Stade (ed.), The Explanation by the Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel ac-
cording to St. Matthew, House Springs 1992, 189.
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 209

after we leave this life. It is only while we are in this life that we can walk the
way of virtue. After their death, those who lived negligently in this life at last
begin to knock at the door, only now, because of their useless repentance, seek-
ing to find the path of virtue, calling out for it with mere words like so much
pounding and banging, but devoid of any deeds.59
For Theophylact, only in this life is it possible to “walk the way of virtue”. In
the afterlife, good intentions are “devoid of any deeds” and so are merely a use-
less “pounding and banging” at the door.
Theophylact here builds upon a longstanding understanding of the nature
of repentance. John Chrysostom was perhaps its most influential exponent.
Commenting on the warning in the book of Hebrews that “it is impossible to
restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened […] if they
then commit apostasy” (Heb 6:4–6), he lists six elements of a true and last-
ing repentance. They are: condemnation of one’s sin, humbleness of mind, in-
tense prayer with tears, almsgiving, forgiveness, and leading others away from
sin.60 Elsewhere he says more simply that “repentance is not doing the same
again”—and he goes on to add that to heal the wound one must also do the
opposite, so that if one has been covetous the cure is almsgiving, if one
has found fault with another the cure is to show him kindness, and so on.61
Obviously for Chrysostom repentance requires more than simply regret for
one’s deeds. The same point could be illustrated from a wide range of patristic
authors.62 This is not to say that there is a requirement for reparation or atone-
ment. Rather, the issue is what is required in order for an attitude of regret and
a desire to change to penetrate, as it were, into the depths of the soul. Nothing
is more plain from experience than that one may hate what one has done, want
to change, and even believe that one has done so, but find, when put to the test,
that one has not. The attitude of Chrysostom and Theophylact is therefore one
of simple realism. It recognizes that repentance, in order to be real, must be
realized and made effective through action.
Of course, there are well-known examples of persons who repented without
much opportunity for action—most famously the thief on the cross, as well as

59 Theophylact of Bulgaria, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (PG 123, 921C); transl.
C. Stade (ed.), The Explanation by Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel according to
St. Luke, House Springs 1997, 173.
60 Chrys., hom. in Heb. 9.8 (PG 63, 80f.); cf. similar discussions at hom. in Heb. 12.7; 31.3–6,
hom. in Mt. 10.6f., hom. in 2 Cor. 4.6, and diab. 2.6 (using the section numbers in NPNF).
61 Chrys., hom. in Jo. 34.3 (PG 59, 497).
62 See G. Lampe (ed.), A Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford 1961, s.v. μετάνοια, II.A and H;
A. Torrance, Repentance in Late Antiquity. Eastern Asceticism and the Framing of the
Christian Life c. 400–650 CE, Oxford 2013.
210 David Bradshaw

those martyrs who embraced the Faith at the last moment, such as the forti-
eth of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste. Such persons were still in the body,
and for them the mere act of facing death in an attitude of faith was one of
tremendous significance. Presumably in their case to have brought this act to
completion performed the crucial work of transforming the soul. After death,
however, there can be no faith, for the truth has been fully revealed; and even
if there were, it could not provide a basis for action. Thus there is no way that
the difficult work of repentance can begin.

VII. Conclusion

What can we learn from the views here examined about the underlying con-
ception of the relationship of soul and body? Setting aside Nemesius (whose
approach to our question was idiosyncratic), all of the authors we have con-
sidered emphasize that the soul after death is no longer a moral agent, in the
sense that it can no longer perform acts that would decisively transform its
moral character. Their reasons for this conclusion varied. For Dorotheos, the
crucial issue is the soul’s entrapment in its own passions; for Maximus, it is
the full manifestation of God as the Good, which renders further movement
impossible; for John it is the absence of the materials that would enable satis-
faction of the soul’s sinful desires; for Theophylact, it is the inability to engage
in bodily actions that could transform regret into repentance. These various
explanations are not incompatible, and it seems likely that each of the au-
thors would have accepted those of the others as having at least a good deal
of truth. The different emphases of each author are presumably due to their
specific aims and contexts: Dorotheus writes as a spiritual guide, Maximus as a
speculative theologian, John as a polemicist, Theophylact as a biblical exegete.
In addition, they may to some extent be focusing on different periods of the
afterlife. Maximus, at least, is evidently writing about the state of souls after
the resurrection and Last Judgment, when God will be fully manifest, whereas
what the others say would apply equally before and after the Last Judgment.
Of course, all such arguments must be seen in the context of other long-
standing Christian beliefs. In particular, there is the descent of Christ into
Hades. As noted earlier, the souls in Hades who respond to Christ’s preach-
ing repent in the minimal sense of renouncing errors committed in ignorance.
There is nothing about this that contradicts any of the views we have exam-
ined. Since these souls are righteous, they are not trapped in their passions
or focused on evil, as envisioned by Dorotheus and John; nor do they need to
repent in a way that would transform the depths of the soul, as in Theophylact;
9. Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death 211

nor, of course, has God yet been made fully manifest to them, as in Maximus.
Bearing this in mind, it would seem that the soul can act apart from the body,
but only in the minimal sense of further expressing and acting on the basis
of its established character. What it cannot do is engage in the thorough and
heartfelt change that is metanoia in the biblical sense.
This is a point of some importance for the perennial debate over universal-
ism. The patristic authors who deal with Christ’s descent to Hades seem to take
for granted that he preached only to those who were in Hades at the time (that
is, upon his death in 33 A.D.). They do not address whether his audience might
somehow include all in Hades, including those who died (or will die) long after
the time of Christ. It might seem that simple chronology would rule this out.
However, time itself is not a simple matter in patristic thought. Basil holds that,
whereas earthly time is the interval “coextensive with the existence of the cos-
mos”, there exists also a kind of “hypertime” (ἡ υπέρχρονος) of the angels.63 He
does not attempt to define its character precisely, except to note that it existed
prior to the creation of the physical world. His brother Gregory of Nyssa takes
this subject a bit further. He speculates that the angels are not subject to the
loss of the past as we are, but instead live in a kind of “ever-present good” that
is constantly growing through their own growth in goodness.64 For both au-
thors, although the angels can enter into human time, they exist also in their
own quasi-temporal order that is independent of and superior to our own.
Similarly, nothing prevents Hades from having its own quasi-temporal order
that is very different from ours. Precisely what it is like is unknown to us. As
Creator, however, Christ could surely preach to all the dead from all times in a
way that occurs, from an earthly standpoint, upon his death in 33 A.D.
It may also be (although whether this should be regarded as a distinct pos-
sibility is unclear) that Christ is now present in Hades in a way that conveys
to those there a knowledge of the Gospel as effectively as did his preaching.
Hilarion Alfeyev has suggested that something like this is implied in the Prayer
of the Anaphora in the Liturgy of St. Basil. There Christ is described as follows:
Descending through the Cross into hell that he might fill all things with him-
self, he loosed the pangs of death. He arose on the third day, having made for
all flesh a path to the resurrection from the dead, since it was not possible for
the Author of life to be conquered by corruption.65

63 Bas., Eun. 1.21 (PG 29 560B); hex. 1.5 (PG 29 13A); cf. D. Bradshaw, Time and Eternity in the
Greek Fathers, in: Thom. 70 (2006), 311–366.
64 Greg. Nyss., hom. in Cant. 6 (GNO 6, 174); cf. similar descriptions of the life of the blessed
at hom. in Cant. 8 (GNO 6, 245–247) and anim. et res. (PG 46 92A–96C).
65 Liturgy of St. Basil as cited by Alfeyev, 2009, 218. “Hell” is actually ᾁδης, Hades.
212 David Bradshaw

In making “for all flesh a path to the resurrection from the dead”, Christ, on
this reading, makes the Gospel available to all regardless of the date of their
death in a way that is simply unknown to us.
On either of these views, the descent of Christ into Hades continues to pres-
ent an opportunity for what I referred to earlier as “weak” repentance. Such an
understanding would seem to be more consistent with both divine justice and
divine mercy than to suppose that this opportunity is not somehow extended
to all.66 Yet it remains that there can be no repentance in the deep, character-
changing sense after death. This was a point of consistent agreement through-
out the Greek patristic tradition.67 The attempt to understand it led patristic
authors to engage a wide range of issues, achieving ultimately a deeper under-
standing of the integral role of the body in achieving salvation.

66 On the other hand, it seems unlikely that (as Alfeyev envisages) everyone might respond
positively to Christ’s preaching. At least the prayer seems to assume otherwise, for it goes
on to add, “and he shall come again to render to every man according to his works”. This
would hardly be necessary if Hades were by that time already empty.
67 It is noteworthy that even Gregory of Nyssa, who is usually regarded as a universalist,
seems to have taken for granted that there can be no repentance after death (Gr. Nyss.,
anim. et res. [PG 46, 84B]; usur. [GNO 9, 204]). He envisioned the recalcitrant as being
saved through a kind of forcible purification of the impurities in their soul, as in his anal-
ogy with a mud-encaked rope being drawn forcibly through a narrow hole (anim. et res.
[PG 46, 100A–B]).
 chapter 10

Treating the Body and the Soul in Late-Antique

and Early-Medieval Syriac Sources: The
Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan
and Sergius

Siam Bhayro

Abstract

This article attempts to contextualise the scholarship of the sixth-century Sergius

with reference to the earlier Bardaiṣan, in terms of them both according with
the traditional Mesopotamian model of scholarship, with the priest-physician-
scholar treating both body and soul, rather than the Greco-Roman model, in
which these roles were distinct.

I. Introduction

In the ancient Near East, the treatment of the body and the soul was practiced
simultaneously and in a complementary manner; indeed, the same practitio-
ner was concerned with both the treatment of the physical body and the rela-
tionship between the patient and the spiritual realm. This contrasts with the
Greco-Roman milieu, in which a supernatural cause of illness (both physical
and psychological) was rejected in favour of a humoral pathology, and physi-
cians were generally distinct from priests. In this paper, I intend to demonstrate
that the treatment of the body and the soul in late-antique and early-medieval
Syriac sources reflected the historic Syro-Mesopotamian approach, in that it
was also the same practitioner that treated the body and the soul simultane-
ously and in a complementary way.
I shall do this by demonstrating that the sixth-century Syriac scientific tradi-
tion, in having an articulated ideal of how philosophy, theology, science, and
medicine should all be studied together, should not be understood as reflecting
a Greco-Roman ideal. Although it is dressed up in Aristotelian garb, it actually
reflects a long-held Syro-Mesopotamian notion that associated the healing arts
and scientific scholarship with a priestly elite. Studies that have emphasised

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_011

214 Siam Bhayro

the Greco-Roman background, concentrating on the translation of Greek

scientific and philosophical sources, have tended to divorce the sixth-century
intellectual pursuits of Sergius and his generation from earlier Syriac scholarly
activity.1 Once we include late-antique scholarship, especially Bardaiṣan, in
our analysis, we see that the Syro-Mesopotamian scholarly tradition persisted
from Antiquity into Late Antiquity, and even into the medieval period, and this
permits us to better appreciate the Syro-Mesopotamian context of Sergius and
his scholarly efforts.
I hope to show that, when examining the lives, and especially the schol-
arly models, of Bardaiṣan and Sergius, we need to place them in their Syro-
Mesopotamian context. We should also ask whether there is a difference between
the two, with Bardaiṣan perhaps better representing the Syro-Mesopotamian
system, and Sergius displaying more evidence of Greco-Roman influence; we
should also attempt to discern the nature of this influence. Our analysis of
these two personalities and their scholarly activity, therefore, should allow us
to discern a Syro-Mesopotamian approach, which then continued alongside
imported Greco-Roman traditions.

II. Sergius’s Articulated Ideal of Scholarship

Writing in the early sixth century, Sergius of Resh ʿAyna was a remarkable indi-
vidual. He was Archiatros, or Chief Physician, of the city of Resh ʿAyna, but was
also a priest, theologian, philosopher, writer, prolific translator, and even a dip-
lomat who was heavily involved in the theological controversies of his time.2
Among Sergius’s original works is a seven-book introduction to logic, most
of which is a commentary on Aristotle’s Categories.3 In his Prologue to this
treatise, which is titled On the Aim of all the Works of Aristotle, Sergius began by
articulating his ideal of scholarship, advocating the virtues of asceticism and
devotion to study. He then continued thus:4

1 See, for example, the references given in note 6 below. I would like to thank Markham J. Geller
and Anna Usacheva for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
2 See, with further references, S.P. Brock, Sergios of Reshʿayna, in: S.P. Brock / A.M. Butts /
G.A. Kiraz / L. Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage.
Electronic Edition, 2018, https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Sergios-of-Reshayna.
3 See D. King, The Earliest Syriac Translation of Aristotle’s Categories. Text, Translation and
Commentary, Leiden 2010, 7.
4 For the Syriac text, see Birmingham Mingana 606, folio 52r‒v; a scan of this was kindly sent
to me by Daniel King. An English translation was published in S.P. Brock, A Brief Outline of
Syriac Literature, Moran Etho 9, Kottayam 1997, 202f. A French translation was published
in H. Hugonnard-Roche, La logique d’Aristote du grec au syriaque, Textes et traditions 9,
10. The Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius 215

When, therefore, we were translating various books of the physician Galen from
Greek into Syriac […] you asked me, “From where indeed did this man receive
the means and beginning of education? And did he acquire an abundance such
as this from himself, or from another man—from writers who were before him?”
And I […] replied, for the love of learning that is in you, “The chief of the be-
ginning and means of all education was Aristotle, not only for Galen and his
other fellow doctors, but also for all renowned writers and philosophers who
were after him.”

Sergius concluded by saying, “Without all this [scil. Aristotle’s works on logic]
neither can the meaning of writings on medicine be grasped, nor can the opin-
ions of the philosophers be known, nor indeed the true sense of the divine
Scriptures in which the hope of our salvation is revealed.”5 Sergius thus made
it clear that Aristotle should be considered the foundation of all learning, be it
scientific, philosophical, and even theological.
Given this, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that Sergius’s impres-
sive list of accomplishments and occupations derive from the Aristotelean and
hence Greco-Roman scholarly ideal. And, as it happens, this has been the im-
plicit assumption in scholarship on Sergius to date. Thus, from a medical his-
tory point of view, scholars have focussed on his translations of Galen; from a
philosophical perspective, scholars have focussed on his translations of, and
engagement with, Aristotle; and, regarding theology, some work has been done
on Sergius’s preface to, and translation of, the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus.6
But, as I hope will become clear, to view Sergius’s appeal to the legacy of
Aristotle as evidence for him epitomising the Greco-Roman scholarly ideal
would be an oversimplification. First, we need to consider the rhetorical as-
pects of such appeals because, as I have argued elsewhere in relation to later
Syriac medical sources, there was probably a rhetorical function for the use of

Paris 2004, 168. See also S. Bhayro, Sergius of Reš ‘Ayna’s Syriac Translations of Galen. Their
Scope, Motivation, and Influence, in: BAI.NS 26 (2012; published 2016), 121‒128 (124f.).
5 See Brock, 1997, 204.
6 Much more work has been done, comparatively speaking, on Sergius as a philosopher.
Regarding medicine, see, with further references, S. Bhayro, The Reception of Galen in the
Syriac Tradition, in: P. Bouras-Vallianatos / B. Zipser (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception
of Galen, Leiden 2019, 163‒178 (163‒167). Regarding philosophy, see, with further references,
Hugonnard-Roche, 2004; A. McCollum, Sergius of Reshaina as Translator. The Case of the
De Mundo, in: J. Lössl / J.W. Watt (eds.), Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity.
The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition between Rome and Baghdad, Farnham 2011, 165‒178;
S. Aydin, Sergius of Reshaina. Introduction to Aristotle and His Categories, Addressed to
Philotheos, Leiden 2016. Regarding theology, see, with further references, E. Fiori, Sergius of
Reshaina and Pseudo-Dionysius. A Dialectical Fidelity, in: J. Lössl / J.W. Watt (eds.), Interpreting
the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity. The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition between Rome
and Baghdad, Farnham 2011, 179‒194.
216 Siam Bhayro

Greco-Roman sources in Syriac technical literature. For example, it appears

that later Syriac medical sources used Galen’s works in order to establish the
authority of the medical practitioner, probably in the eyes of the patient, even
though the actual treatment was likely to have been of local rather than of
Greco-Roman origin.7 I would argue, therefore, that, just as later medical sourc-
es appealed to the legacy of Galen for largely rhetorical reasons, Sergius was
similarly dressing himself in Greek garb for mainly rhetorical reasons.8 Thus,
for example, while he boldly stated that Aristotle was essential for the study of
theology, in practice Sergius rarely (if at all) actually referred to Aristotelean
logic in his Christological writings.9 It would appear, therefore, that Sergius’s
appeal to Aristotle was more rhetorical than practical, and was designed to
establish his own credentials at a time of fierce theological controversy.10
I would argue that, despite his rhetorical appeal to Aristotle as the fount
of all knowledge, in practice Sergius actually represented a more Syro-

7 See S. Bhayro, Theory and Practice in the Syriac Book of Medicines. The Empirical Basis
for the Persistence of Near Eastern Medical Lore, in: J.C. Johnson (ed.), In the Wake of
the Compendia. Infrastructural Contexts and the Licensing of Empiricism in Ancient
and Medieval Mesopotamia, Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Cultures 3,
Berlin 2015, 147‒158.
8 I use this expression because of a trope that occurs in both Syriac and Arabic sources
in reference to Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. For example, in Syriac, Bar Hebraeus recounts how
Ḥunayn fell out of favour with Yuḥannā ibn Māsawayh and fled in tears. After a period
in exile in the West, and having learned Greek thoroughly, Ḥunayn returned to Baghdad
in triumph “in Greek garb”; see S. Bhayro, Syriac Medical Terminology. Sergius and Galen’s
Pharmacopia, in: AraSt 3 (2005), 147‒165 (154). Similarly, various Arabic sources refer to
Ḥunayn’s tendency to dress as a Greek; see, for example, E. Savage-Smith / S. Swain /
G.J. van Gelder (eds. and transl.), A Literary History of Medicine. The ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ
fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah. Volume 3–1 Annotated English Translation,
HdO 1.134, Leiden 2020, 499. It would appear, therefore, that, for Ḥunayn, his choice
of Greek attire, while living and working in Baghdad, was designed to send a specific
message about the quality of his scholarship. I would argue that, three centuries earlier,
Sergius was doing something similar when presenting himself as a true Aristotelean.
9 King, 2010, 6.
10 King is more willing to take Sergius’s words at face value in this regard, seeing Aristotelean
logic as being of a more indirect use for Sergius’s participation in the Christological dis-
putations of his day, in that it enabled him to “ground his teaching curriculum in demon-
strative logic […] before proceeding through physics, ethics, and metaphysics, ultimately to
attain within the student’s mind that Neoplatonist conception of cosmology and theol-
ogy”; see King, 2010, 6f. While this may indeed be the case, I would add that the rhetorical
function of insisting that no one can understand the truths contained in the Bible with-
out a thorough Alexandrian Neo-Platonic education is self-evident. Even the apparently
pious exception that Sergius includes in his argument, namely direct inspiration by the
Holy Spirit, is exclusionary, essentially daring his opponents to place themselves in the
same category as St Paul.
10. The Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius 217

Mesopotamian scholarly ideal. In order to appreciate this, there is one point

that needs to be emphasised right away; namely, in addition to being a physi-
cian, philosopher, and theologian, Sergius was also a priest.11 It is his status as
a priest that is crucial to our present line of argument because there is noth-
ing in the Greco-Roman world that matches this model of scholarship. Or, put
simply, Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen were not priests.
It is true that there are examples of physicians who were also priests in the
Greco-Roman world. For example, in the context of discussing how doctors
would show their support for Asclepius, their patron deity, Nutton mentions
Heraclitus of Rhodiapolis (1st‒2nd centuries CE), who, in addition to being a
physician, was also a priest of Asclepius and Hygieia. Another example, again
from Asia Minor, is Menodorus, also a physician and priest of Asclepius, who,
with his son, renovated the local shrine of Asclepius. It is noteworthy that his
son was a magistrate and priest, as this reflects the social aspect of the twin
physician-priest status of men such as Menodorus and Heraclitus. Just as
Menodorus funded the local shrine of Asclepius, Heraclitus funded a temple
for Asclepius and Hygieia and continued to support it financially. Wealthy
families were expected to hold public office and make public donations in this
way; it was an important signifier of their social status. As Nutton states, “a
background of wealth would lead almost automatically to such offices, medi-
cal as well as religious.”12
This is all a world away from Sergius, however, for whom wealth was not a
priority, despite accusations to the contrary, and for whom the seclusion of
monasticism was his scholarly ideal.13 Rather than being the scion of a pres-
tigious family who was seeking to enhance his social status, Sergius was first
and foremost a priest, and this provided the rationale for all his other pursuits.
It was because he was a priest that he was a theologian, philosopher, scien-
tist, and physician.14 And, as we shall see, it is his priestly status that places
Sergius in the Syro-Mesopotamian tradition of scholarship.

11 See, for example, Brock, 1997, 43.

12 V. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, London 2004, 281. It is possibly also significant that the
examples adduced by Nutton come from the Greek Near East.
13 See S. Bhayro, Galen in Syriac. Rethinking Old Assumptions, in: AraSt 15 (2017), 132‒154
(149f.).
14 Regarding Sergius as physician, this should also be contextualised within the distinctive
Syriac tradition of Christ and his followers as Physician/physicians (especially, but not
exclusively, of the soul); see, for example, R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom.
A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, London 1975, 199‒203. It is almost certain that, for
Sergius, the medical vocation was part of his Christian ministry.
218 Siam Bhayro

In order to establish that Sergius represents a continuity in the Syro-

Mesopotamian scholarly model, we need to do something rarely done in mod-
ern scholarship; instead of looking forward and comparing the sixth-century
Sergius to the ninth-century Ḥunayn, we should look backwards and compare
the sixth-century Sergius to the earlier Bardaiṣan of Edessa.15

III. Bardaiṣan’s Scholarship

A pagan convert to Christianity, Bardaiṣan flourished in the late second and

early third centuries, making him the earliest known Syriac author. Like
Sergius, Bardaiṣan’s list of accomplishments is impressive. He was an accom-
plished archer and poet, and, judging by his Dialogue on Fate, which is also
known as The Book of the Laws of the Countries, he was a brilliant theologian.
He was also an admired hymn writer, extremely well informed about the vari-
ous sciences of his day, especially cosmology and anthropology, and he pos-
sessed a keen and informed interest in the traditions of far-flung parts of the
world. The Book of the Laws of the Countries was written by his pupil, Philippus,
and is significant for many reasons, not least because it is probably the earliest
surviving original Syriac literary composition.16
Also like Sergius, Bardaiṣan appears to have been both a priest and a phy-
sician. Regarding the former, most modern scholars remain silent, although
Wright did observe that Bardaiṣan “betook himself as a missionary to the rude
mountaineers of Armenia.”17 But Bardaiṣan’s priestly status is certainly strong-
ly implied by the context for the theological debate between Bardaiṣan and
Awida, with which The Book of the Laws of the Countries opens, as well as his
other activities as a theologian, polemicist, and hymn writer.18

15 It is interesting that the tendency in modern scholarship to contextualise Sergius in

terms of comparisons with the later Ḥunayn, specifically in respect of them both as trans-
lators of Greek texts, reflects the medieval trend; see Bhayro, 2019, 169f.
16 See, with further references, S.P. Brock, Bardaiṣan (154‒222), in: S.P. Brock / A.M. Butts /
G.A. Kiraz / L. Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage.
Electronic Edition, 2018, https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Bardaisan. For The Book of the
Laws of the Countries, see H.J.W. Drijvers, The Book of the Laws of Countries. Dialogue on
Fate of Bardaisan of Edessa, STTr 3, Assen 1965. See also H.J.W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of
Edessa, Assen 1966.
17 W. Wright, A Short History of Syriac Literature, London 1894, 29.
18 It should also be kept in mind that we are discussing a very early period in the history of
Christianity, and it is thus not entirely clear precisely what (if anything) constituted or-
dination to the priesthood in this period and region. Bardaiṣan certainly appears to have
not only behaved like a priest, but also to have been accepted as such by his followers.
10. The Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius 219

The latter point is missed by modern scholars, but a careful look at the start
of The Book of the Laws of the Countries reveals that the narrative begins with
Bardaiṣan making a physician’s house call to check on the health of an older
priest, Shemashgram, who was sick and in need of medical attention: “Recently,
we had gone to visit our brother Shemashgram, and Bardaiṣan came and found
us there. And after he [scil. Bardaiṣan] had examined him [scil. Shemashgram]
and seen that he was faring well, he asked us.”19 Philippus thus narrates that he,
together with his colleagues, went to “visit” Shemashgram. The verb used here
is from the root SʿR, which is often used in a medical context to mean “to care
for, look after, heal”20. The narrative then confirms that this is indeed a medical
visit, as Bardaiṣan’s first act upon his arrival is to “examine” Shemashgram. The
verb used for this action is GŠ “to grope”, referring in this context to a physical
examination by means of touch as a means to establish Shemashgram’s state
of health.21 Apparently, Shemashgram was doing well enough for Bardaiṣan
to subsequently ignore him and turn instead to join in the argument that
Philippus was having with one of his colleagues.
It would appear, therefore, that Bardaiṣan was both a priest and physician.
Furthermore, he served in the royal court of Agbar VIII (r. 177‒212) in Edessa,
where he appears to have functioned as a palace wise man. Drijvers refers to
him as a “gentleman of the court […] distinguished by a high social position
and doubtlessly by great erudition.”22 In view of his mastery of several fields
of knowledge, his role in the palace, and his high social status, Bardaiṣan very
much resembles the āšipu and the magi (which are discussed below). In this
respect, we should keep in mind the comments of Drijvers, in which he ob-
serves that, at the court of Abgar VIII, “there was also a Parthian-Iranian re-
ligious influence, especially in the upper classes of the population, to which
Bardaiṣan belonged.”23

19 This differs from the translation in Drijvers, 1965, 5. For more details, see S. Bhayro, On the
Problem of Syriac “Influence” in the Transmission of Greek Science to the Arabs. The Cases
of Astronomy, Philosophy, and Medicine, in: Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 5
(2017), 211‒227 (220).
20 For example, in his account of the death of the Baghdadi physician Ibn Jazlah in
1100 CE, Bar Hebraeus comments that he was wealthy because he would only visit, using
the same verb SʿR, his friends for free when they were sick; the rest had to pay for his
services; see E.A.W. Budge, The Chronography of Gregory Abûʾl Faraj the Son of Aaron, the
Hebrew Physician Commonly Known as Bar Hebraeus 1, London 1932, 236.
21 Hence its use in the Syriac New Testament in Luke 24:39, where Jesus suggests to
Thomas that he physically touches his wounds.
22 Drijvers, 1966, 217.
23 Drijvers, 1966, 215.
220 Siam Bhayro

This, of course, raises an interesting question. Bardaiṣan flourished three

centuries before Sergius produced the first translations of Greek medical texts
in Syriac. So, when ministering as a physician to Shemashgram at the start of
The Book of the Laws of the Countries, which medical system was Bardaiṣan
using? While it could be argued that Bardaiṣan would have been able to access
Greco-Roman medicine in Greek, there are compelling reasons not to look
West for the answer to this question, not least the fact that Bardaiṣan’s own
milieu already possessed its own medical system, namely the millennia-old
near-eastern medical tradition that consisted of a range of treatments such as
herbal remedies, rituals, exorcisms, and prayers.24
Later writers, who are not entirely reliable witnesses, differ in how they
characterise Bardaiṣan, who is variously labelled “a Parthian, an Armenian, a
Mesopotamian and a Syrian”.25 Drijvers gives one example of Bardaiṣan being
identified as Babylonian, namely by Hieronymus (c. 347‒c. 419).26 In terms of
Bardaiṣan being associated with a knowledge of Greek science, Drijvers dis-
cusses the influence of Greek philosophy, particularly Stoicism, on The Book of
the Laws of the Countries.27 Furthermore, the fifth-century Historia Ecclesiastica
of Sozomenus refers to the use of Greek music theory by Bardaiṣan’s son
Harmonius.28 Interestingly, in respect of both the Stoicism of The Book of the
Laws of the Countries and Harmonius’s apparent use of Greek music theory,
we are dealing with those who followed Bardaiṣan, rather than Bardaiṣan
himself. Indeed, writing in the early twentieth century, Burkitt argued that
Bardaiṣan had no first-hand knowledge of Greek sources, and that such ele-
ments that appear in Bardaiṣan’s ideas probably derive from those who came
after him.29 None of this, therefore, detracts from our intention to place
Bardaiṣan in the Syro-Mesopotamian scholarly milieu, or from the following
remarks concerning Bardaiṣan’s engagement with the astral and thus medical
sciences.
The suggestion that the medicine practiced by Bardaiṣan was the historic
Syro-Mesopotamian system is supported by Bardaiṣan’s engagement with
another of the sciences, namely astronomy. Elsewhere, I have demonstrated
that, for the astral sciences, Bardaiṣan made use of a text called The Book of the

24 For a summary of the near-eastern medical system, see M.J. Geller, Ancient Babylonian
Medicine. Theory and Practice, Chichester 2010.
25 Drijvers, 1966, 217; Drijvers attempts to explain these designations in terms of various
aspects of Bardaiṣan’s life.
26 Drijvers, 1966, 175.
27 See, for example, Drijvers, 1966, 76f.
28 Drijvers, 1966, 180.
29 Drijvers, 1966, 43 (see also 9).
10. The Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius 221

Chaldaeans, which was probably a Mesopotamian astral text that preserved in

Syriac a body of lore that had been transmitted from Akkadian.30
For example, in a reply to Philippus, Bardaiṣan states, “For we do not find
seven laws in the world according to the number of the Seven stars, nor Twelve
according to the number of the signs of the Zodiac, nor thirty-six according to
the number of the decanal stars.”31 This excerpt shows both a terminological
and a thematic dependence on ancient Mesopotamian astral lore. Regarding
terminology, for “sign of the Zodiac”, the Syriac term ‫( ܡܠܘܫܐ‬malwāšā)
is used, which probably derives from Akkadian MUL lumāšu “star, zodiacal
constellation.”32 Regarding theme, the reference to thirty-six decanal stars
probably derives from the ancient Mesopotamian tradition of “astrolabes”, or
“Three Stars Each” texts.33 Although the The Book of the Chaldaeans is now
lost, Rudolf has demonstrated that there is clear evidence for the continued
transmission of Akkadian astral lore in Syriac sources even into the medieval
period.34
The reception of Akkadian astral traditions in Syriac sources should be
considered alongside their parallel reception in the other two major liter-
ary and confessional eastern Aramaic dialects, namely Mandaic and Jewish
Aramaic. For the former, probably the best example is the Mandaic text The
Book of the Signs of the Zodiac (Asfar Malwašia), which Rochberg has shown
to contain material directly translated from Akkadian.35 Müller-Kessler sub-
sequently asserted that this transmission most likely occurred in the sec-
ond century CE, when the Mandaeans would have come into contact with

30 See Bhayro, 2017, 211‒227 (212‒217).

31 Drijvers, 1965, 54f.
32 See S.A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic, AS 19, Chicago 1974, 67.
Müller-Kessler prefers to derive this term from a theoretical Akkadian word *mulmāšu <
Sumerian mul.maš, but I find this suggested etymology less convincing than that proposed
by Kaufman; see C. Müller-Kessler, Die Zauberschalentexte in der Hilprecht-Sammlung,
Jena, und weitere Nippur-Texte anderer Sammlungen, Wiesbaden 2005, 182. The same
Akkadian term is also loaned into both Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Mandaic; see
M. Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon. A Translation from the Latin, Correction, Expansion, and
Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum, Winona Lake and Piscataway 2009, 766.
33 The Mesopotamian astrolabe tradition, which assigned three stars to each month, prob-
ably emerged in the second millennium BCE; see H. Hunger / D. Pingree, Astral Sciences
in Mesopotamia, HdO 1.44, Leiden 1999, 50‒57. It proved to be a resilient tradition, prob-
ably, in part, due to its ideal rather than astronomically correct nature; see W. Horowitz,
The Three Stars Each. The Astrolabes and Related Texts, AfO.B 33, Vienna 2014, 8.
34 See S. Rudolf, Syrische Astrologie und das Syrische Medizinbuch, Science, Technology, and
Medicine in Ancient Cultures 7, Berlin 2018.
35 See F. Rochberg, The Babylonian Origins of the Mandaean Book of the Zodiac, in: ARAM
11‒12 (1999‒2000), 237‒247 (243‒245).
222 Siam Bhayro

functioning temples, which were the repositories for cuneiform texts, in cities
such as Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha.36 This, of course, means that the trans-
mission of the Mesopotamian astral sciences, from cuneiform Akkadian sourc-
es into Aramaic alphabetic sources, happened a couple of generations before
Bardaiṣan himself flourished.37 This is probably the context that produced The
Book of the Chaldaeans in Syriac, through which Bardaiṣan was then able to ac-
cess ancient Mesopotamian astral traditions. Given our discussion of the āšipu
and the magi below, it is significant that it was most likely the temples that
facilitated the transmission of ancient Mesopotamian scientific lore into the
later Aramaic literary dialects.
Bardaiṣan’s use of Mesopotamian astral lore in itself is not surprising; it
stands to reason that Bardaiṣan used the Mesopotamian astral system, as this
was the prevailing system of his day and region, and also the system that held
the most prestige in the ancient world.38 I would argue, therefore, that there
is no good reason to assume otherwise for his medical system. It is likely that
Bardaiṣan practiced the prevailing medical system of his day and region, which
had been practiced for over two millennia and was also considered to be presti-
gious.39 And, as it happens, just as with the astral sciences, we encounter a sim-
ilar situation when we look for evidence of the transmission of Mesopotamian
medical lore from Akkadian into Aramaic. For example, in terms of Jewish
Babylonian Aramaic, Geller has identified a passage in the Babylonian Talmud
in which earlier Akkadian traditions are preserved.40 Furthermore, in terms
of Syriac, we are now beginning to appreciate the extent to which the medi-
eval medical compendia, like the Syriac Book of Medicines, preserve ancient
Mesopotamian therapeutic lore.41

36 C. Müller-Kessler, The Mandaeans and the Question of Their Origin, in: ARAM 16 (2004),
47‒60 (53f.).
37 Cuneiform astral traditions were transmitted into Jewish Aramaic even earlier, howev-
er, as shown by some of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls; see J. Ben-Dov, Head of All Years.
Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in Their Ancient Context, StTDJ 78, Leiden 2008. This
pushes the earliest phase of the transmission of Akkadian sources into Aramaic back at
least into the Achaemenid period.
38 See Bhayro, 2017, 212‒217.
39 See Bhayro, 2017, 220‒225.
40 See M.J. Geller, An Akkadian Vademecum in the Babylonian Talmud, in: S. Kottek /
M. Horstmanshoff / G. Baader / G. Ferngren (eds.), From Athens to Jerusalem. Medicine
in Hellenized Jewish Lore and in Early Christian Literature, Pantaleon reeks 33, Rotterdam
2000, 13‒32.
41 See S. Bhayro, Studying the Syriac Medical Traditions. The Mesopotamian and Classical
Greek Legacies, in: N. Afif / S. Bhayro / P.E. Pormann / W.I. Sellers / N. Smelova (eds.), The
Syriac Galen Palimpsest. A New Paradigm for Cross-Disciplinary Research, in: PBA, London,
forthcoming.
10. The Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius 223

If the second century CE was the context for the reception of Akkadian as-
tral lore in Syriac, in time for it to be used by Bardaiṣan, then it is likely that
this period also witnessed the transmission of Akkadian medical lore into
Syriac. Given this, we can ask one further question: If Bardaiṣan’s astral schol-
arship and medical practice were based on the historic Syro-Mesopotamian
astral and medical systems, what about his overall scholarly model, namely
that of the priest-physician-scholar? We have already seen that this is not a
Greco-Roman phenomenon, so, once again, rather than look to the West, we
should consider Bardaiṣan’s own cultural context for this model of scholarship.

IV. Mesopotamian Healing Professionals

It is well known that the two main historic near eastern medical practitioners
were the asû and the āšipu, which we have tended to understand as herbal-
ist/physician and exorcist/magician respectively.42 These were not competing
practitioners, but were complementary, using their originally distinct skills to
treat the patient.43 In the first millennium BCE, however, the fortunes of these
two professions diverged markedly, for a number of reasons.
The asû appears to have been largely reliant on the patronage of local rulers
or simply acted as a private entrepreneur. With the advent of the Achaemenid
Empire and subsequent reorganisation of power structures, however, the

42 The following two papers are particularly useful, as they illustrate well the way the field
has approached the problem of these two professionals: N.P. Heeßel, The Babylonian
Physician Rabâ-ša-Marduk. Another Look at Physicians and Exorcists in the Ancient Near
East, in: A. Attia / G. Buisson (eds.), Advances in Mesopotamian Medicine from Hammurabi
to Hippocrates, The Cuneiform Monographs 37, Leiden 2009, 13‒28; J.A. Scurlock,
Physician, Exorcist, Conjurer, Magician. A Tale of Two Healing Professionals, in: T. Abusch /
K. van der Toorn (eds.), Mesopotamian Magic. Textual, Historical, and Interpretative
Perspectives, Ancient Magic and Divination 1, Groningen 1999, 69‒79.
 It should be borne in mind, of course, that, in terms of practical remedial healthcare,
there was a broad range of practitioners, in addition to the main scholarly categories;
these include root cutters, drug traders, herbalists, and midwives. See, for example,
L. Lehmhaus / M. Martelli, Introduction, in: L. Lehmhaus / M. Martelli (eds.), Collecting
Recipes. Byzantine and Jewish Pharmacology in Dialogue, Science, Technology, and
Medicine in Ancient Cultures 4, Berlin 2017, 1‒27 (19f.). This was a common (and prob-
ably reasonably consistent) feature of most ancient and medieval societies.
43 See, for example, Scurlock, 1999. For the magical aspect of the treatment as the psy-
chological complement to the physical aspect, see, for example, M.J. Geller, Freud and
Mesopotamian Magic, in: T. Abusch / K. van der Toorn (eds.), Mesopotamian Magic.
Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives, Ancient Magic and Divination 1,
Groningen 1999, 49‒55.
224 Siam Bhayro

institutional support for the asû, which was present in the Neo-Assyrian and
Neo-Babylonian periods, largely disappeared from tablet colophons and re-
cords. In the latter part of the first millennium BCE, therefore, there appears to
have been a decline in the status of the asû, indicated by a lapse of documenta-
tion. On the other hand, the āšipus were priests, and had thus long enjoyed the
institutional support of the temples—and these temples continued to thrive
throughout the Achaemenid and Parthian periods. The āšipu was also much
more flexible than the asû, absorbing and practising a much broader range of
scholarship and crafts, including the asûtu that had pertained to the asû, as
well as astral and other forms of divination.44 To quote Steinert:45

The āšipu mastered a far greater corpus of texts than the asû, and his knowledge
and activities were of a wider range and higher order. He focused not only on
applying medical treatments and healthcare services for individuals and house-
holds, but also attended to the concerns of the king and society at large by me-
diating (through rituals) between the human and divine world and preserving
wellbeing and divine order (cf. the āšipu’s role in rituals for the induction of di-
vine cult statues or in purificatory rituals for the king). Through their vast knowl-
edge and their employment of strategies to boost their social prestige, the āšipus
were in a better position to preserve institutional ties and support from local
temples throughout the Late Babylonian period, while the asûs seem to have lost
these strategic ties (e.g., with the shrines of healing deities), becoming largely
invisible in the written records […] By the Late Babylonian period, the field of
asûtu healing techniques seems largely to have been taken over and carried out
by the āšipu as well, although the profession of the asû may have survived for
some time, as a craft practiced outside the large institutions.

This model of āšipu as high status priest-physician and all round scholar con-
tinued throughout the Achaemenid period, and well into the Parthian period;
indeed, it persisted for as long as there was a continuity in the temples as insti-
tutions and the status and functions of their priests. In other words, as long as
the Mesopotamian temples continued to thrive, there were priests who were
also physicians and scholars, and who occupied a privileged and honoured sta-
tus in society and position in both temple and palace.
Indeed, what we know about the magoi, the professional class of scholar-
priests in the Iranian milieu whose sphere of activity expanded to include

44 See U. Steinert, Catalogues, Texts and Specialists. Some Thoughts on the Assur Medical
Catalogue, Mesopotamian Medical Texts and Healing Professions, in: U. Steinert (ed.),
Assyrian and Babylonian Scholarly Text Catalogues. Medicine, Magic and Divination, Die
babylonisch-assyrische Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen 9, Berlin 2018, 158‒200
(187‒191).
45 Steinert, 2018, 191.
10. The Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius 225

Mesopotamia in the Parthian and Sasanian periods, bears a striking similarity

to the above-quoted description by Steinert of the āšipu. The magoi were also
known for practising dream interpretation and other forms of divination,46
performing priestly rituals,47 and serving as intermediaries between the
human and divine realms at both temples48 and the royal court,49 where they
also served as scholars and teachers,50 being experts in cosmology,51 astrono-
my and astrology (particularly the Babylonian system),52 and, of course, practi-
tioners of magic53—a major part of the medical system of their day. They were
also the learned class and scribal elite of their day,54 often serving in the royal
administration at central or local level.55
To the outside observer, therefore, a magus was identifiable with an āšipu.
Thus, the following observation by Muhammad Dandamayev, if anything, is
probably an understatement: “The seeming confusion in the use of the words
‘Magi’ and ‘Chaldeans’ in Greek literature can be explained by the fact that
the activities of Babylonian priests and Iranian Magi were similar in some
aspects.”56 Furthermore, Boyce suggests that, from the Achaemenid period,
“Zoroastrian priests must have gone to live there [scil. Babylonia], some to care
for the needs of Persian officials and others, some probably simply to study
further—for Babylonian lore, especially in the fields of astronomy and astrol-
ogy, was to contribute largely to the development of Zoroastrian scholasticism
by western Iranian priests.”57 It seems clear, therefore, that, long after the term
āšipu ceased to be used, their scholarly tradition continued under other names
in other languages.58

46 See, for example, M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism Volume Two. Under the
Achaemenians, HdO 1.8,2, Leiden 1982, 67. 165.
47 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 70f. 117f. 133‒137. 184f. 228‒231.
48 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 201. 228‒231. 290.
49 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 66. 290.
50 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 200f. 261.
51 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 154.
52 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 33, 234f. 240f. 260.
53 See, for example, M.A. Dandamayev, Magi, in: A. Ashraf (ed.), Encyclopædia Iranica.
Online edition, 2012, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/magi.
54 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 84f. 278. 290.
55 See, for example, Boyce, 1982, 66. 290.
56 Dandamayev, 2012.
57 Boyce, 1982, 66; see also 33.
58 See also Geller, 2010, 126‒129.
226 Siam Bhayro

V. Bardaiṣan and Sergius as Priest-Physician-Scholar

In terms of his high social status, his reception and use of ancient
Mesopotamian technical knowledge, his practice of the healing arts, his in-
terest in cosmology and the astral sciences, and the location of his activities
in both the palace and among his community of fellow believers, Bardaiṣan
very much resembles an early Christian version of an āšipu or a magus. In
other words, Bardaiṣan is a wise man according to the traditional near eastern
model of priest-physician-scholar.
This traditional near eastern approach to scholarship probably continued
into the third century CE, when the historic Mesopotamian temples finally
ceased to function, but by which time Christianity had become well estab-
lished as a significant minority faith in the Near East.59 It thus stands to rea-
son that, as Christianity spread in the Near East, its near eastern adherents
who were also part of the educated elite would have adapted the prevailing
near eastern notions of scholarship and put them into practice in a Christian
context.
In this context, therefore, we are compelled to view the tradition of
Syro-Mesopotamian Christian priests, who were also physicians and scholars,
as a continuity, in terms of practice and scholarly model, of the earlier āšipus
and magoi. Or, to put it another way, both Bardaiṣan and Sergius should be
viewed as representing the traditional Syro-Mesopotamian scholarly model.
This conclusion should not surprise us at all, at least in respect of Bardaiṣan.
Indeed, it is possible that Bardaiṣan was well aware that he was part of a ven-
erable scholarly tradition, as its non-Christian counterpart still existed in his
day. Sergius, on the other hand, may not have been as aware of the antiquity
of his scholarly model, but may have been simply continuing an approach that
seemed normal to him.

VI. Sergius as Philosopher

The one crucial difference, of course, lies with the field of philosophy, which was
not a historic Syro-Mesopotamian pursuit and was very much a Greco-Roman

59 For the persistence of the traditional Mesopotamian temples into at least the third cen-
tury CE, see, for example, M.J. Geller, Tablets and Magic Bowls, in: S. Shaked (ed.), Officina
Magica. Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity, IJS Studies in Judaica 4, Leiden 2005,
53‒72 (53f.).
10. The Syro-Mesopotamian Context of Bardaiṣan and Sergius 227

import.60 We have already seen, however, that Bardaiṣan’s direct engagement

with Greco-Roman philosophy, and with Greco-Roman culture in general, is
doubtful; all such engagement is likely to pertain to his immediate followers.
And, as for Sergius, we have seen how there is room for debate regarding why
Sergius engaged with Aristotelean logic. Moreover, the scope of Sergius’s activ-
ities far exceeded that of either a typical Greco-Roman philosopher or a typical
Greco-Roman physician.
In terms of his engagement with Aristotle and Galen, Sergius displayed a
level of engagement with Greco-Roman sources that was missing in earlier stag-
es of Syriac scholarship; hence, Sergius was much more open to Greco-Roman
influence. So, although he was very much in the Syro-Mesopotamian scholarly
tradition, there were certainly strong Greco-Roman elements to his scholar-
ship. A large part of why this was the case must surely relate to the consequenc-
es of the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE) and the accompanying Christological
controversies that tore apart the churches of the East. Significantly, the often-
complex arguments concerning the nature of Christ were articulated in Greek
and contextualised in an overtly Aristotelean manner.61 Thus, even if Sergius
never directly employed Aristotelean logic in his theological writings, the rhe-
torical value of making Aristotle and his Neo-Platonic reception central to
these debates is clear. The absence of a historic near eastern tradition of phi-
losophy, moreover, would have made the acquisition of Greco-Roman philoso-
phy all the more appealing to someone like Sergius, whose scholarly tradition
valued mastering multiple disciplines.

VII. The Treatment of the Body and the Soul in the Syro-Mesopotamian
Milieu

There is, therefore, a clear difference between the Greco-Roman and Syro-
Mesopotamian milieux regarding the treatment of the body and the soul. In

60 See S. Bhayro, 2017, 211‒227 (217‒219).

61 See Bhayro, 2017, 218. For the consequences of Council of Chalcedon, particularly during
the reigns of Justin I (r. 518‒527) and Justinian I (r. 527‒565), see V.L. Menze, Justinian
and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church, Oxford 2008, 275f. For the importance
ascribed to Aristotle by the Chalcedonians, see D. Krausmüller, Aristotelianism and the
Disintegration of the Late Antique Theological Discourse, in: J. Lössl / J.W. Watt (eds.),
Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity. The Alexandrian Commentary
Tradition between Rome and Baghdad, Farnham 2011, 151‒153; Krausmüller states, “the
champions of Chalcedon remained fixated on Aristotle until the end of the Christological
discourse in the late seventh century” (164).
228 Siam Bhayro

the West, on the one hand, Greco-Roman medicine had long rejected a super-
natural cause of disease in favour of a humoral pathology, and physicians were
generally distinct from priests.62 In the Near East, on the other hand, the treat-
ment of the body and the soul happened together, in a complementary man-
ner, because the same practitioner, being both a priest and a physician, was
concerned with both the physical health of the body and the patient’s spiritual
wellbeing.63
The late-antique and early-medieval Syriac intellectual traditions, as re-
flected by Bardaiṣan and Sergius respectively, very much accord with the tradi-
tional near eastern model of scholarship. In their approach to scholarship and
the healing arts, Bardaiṣan and Sergius do not reflect the Greco-Roman model.
Although eventually dressed up in Aristotelean garb, their scholarly model
actually reflects a long-held Syro-Mesopotamian notion that associated the
healing arts, and scholarship in general, with a priestly elite.

62 This is not to say that Greco-Roman physicians did not aim to treat both body and soul.
Rather, the treatment of the latter was often linked to the treatment of the former on ac-
count of a perceived shared humoral pathology; see, for example, P. Donini, Psychology,
in: R.J. Hankinson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galen, Cambridge 2008, 184‒209.
63 On a personal note, I have long thought that, in terms of its holistic approach to health-
care, the ancient near eastern system was more sophisticated than often thought. See
note 43 above for an example of how some scholars have pioneered viewing the use of
exorcisms and other magical practices as the ancient equivalent to psychotherapy.
 chapter 11

Christ the Healer of Human Passibility: The

Passions, Apatheia, and Christology in Maximus
the Confessor’s Quaestiones ad Thalassium
Andrew J. Summerson

Abstract

Maximus the Confessor develops an account of human emotion in Quaestiones

ad Thalassium, drawing on the earlier ascetical tradition. In what follows, I dem-
onstrate how Maximus conceives of the passions and the misreading of Scripture
as symptoms of the same sickness of original sin. I then show how Christ heals
human passibility according to Maximus. I describe the role healed human pas-
sibility plays in Maximus’s eschatology and healthy communication with God on
earth.

I. Introduction: Maximus the Exegete

Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662) is considered one of the most important
theological architects for later Byzantine theology.1 He earned his epithet,
“the Confessor,” for his refusal to accept the Byzantine imperial compromise
regarding Christ’s human will2 and as a consequence suffered mutilation.
With both a severed tongue and right hand, he spent the remainder of his
life in exile in modern-day Georgia.3 The Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/681)

1 “It remains impossible, however, to understand the whole of Byzantine theology without
becoming aware of Maximus’s synthesis.” J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought,
Crestwood 21987, 131–151 (132).
2 For historical background, see P.M. Blowers, Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the
Transfiguration of the World, Oxford 2016, 9–63; J. Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian
Divisions. The Church 450–680 A.D., Crestwood 1989.
3 The Greek sources for Maximus’s life exist in three recensions, for discussion, see B. Roosen,
Maximi Confessoris Vitae et Passiones Graecae. The Development of a Hagiographic Dossier,
in: Byz. 80 (2010), 408–461. A Syriac version of Maximus’s life was edited by S. Brock and has
gained limited acceptance in Maximian studies. See S. Brock, An Early Syriac Life of Maximus
the Confessor, in: AnBoll 91 (1973), 299–346. For a careful reconstruction of Maximus’s life
based on these two divergent manuscript traditions, see P. Allen, Life and Times of Maximus

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_012

230 Andrew Summerson

vindicated Maximus and his position on the presence of both a human and
divine will in Christ.4 Retrieval of Maximus the Confessor in the twentieth cen-
tury emphasizes Maximus’s bold, theological vision for the cosmos based on
the Chalcedonian definition of Christ’s two natures.5 More modestly, Andrew
Louth has argued, “Although Maximus the Confessor is a speculative theolo-
gian of genius, he does not see himself, as would some later theologians, as
constructing a theological system. He sees himself as interpreting a tradition
that has come down to him, and interpreting it for the sake of others.”6 Despite
Maximus’s creative legacy enshrined in the work of later theologians, Maximus
the Confessor’s preferred mode of theology is commentary. In his largest work,
the Ambigua, Maximus interprets difficult passages belonging to Dionysius the
Areopagite and Gregory the Theologian. Quaestiones ad Thalassium, second in
size only to the Ambigua, explores two sets of difficulties in Scripture and the
human passions.

II. Healing the Human Heart with Christ the Divine Physician

Modern theological studies subdivide these themes into “biblical studies” and
“spirituality.” However, both subjects interpenetrate each other in the early
Church, as Peter Brown writes: “The monk’s own heart was the new book.
What required infinitely skilled exegesis and long spiritual experience were
the ‘movements of the heart,’ and the strategies and snares that the Devil laid
within it.”7 As a consequence, the early Church used instruments from the
available philosophical schools—primarily Stoicism—to interpret the inner
workings of the human psyche and to develop a program for moral improve-
ment. Writers such as Origen of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo describe

the Confessor, in: P. Allen / B. Neil (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor,
Oxford 2015, 3–18.
4 See R. Riedinger (ed.), ACO 2/2, Berlin 1990, 1992.
5 Among the modern treatments, see especially H.U. von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy. The
Universe According to Maximus the Confessor, San Francisco 2003; L. Thunberg, Microcosm
and Mediator. The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, Chicago 21995;
J.C. Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme selon Saint Maxime le Confesseur, Paris 1996. Most
recently, see P.M. Blowers, Maximus the Confessor and the Transfiguration of the World,
Oxford 2016.
6 A. Louth, Maximus the Confessor, London 1996, 21. Italics in the original.
7 P. Brown, The Body and Society. Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity,
New York 1988, 228.
11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility 231

this process as “plundering the Egyptians” (cf. Ex 12:35).8 As the Hebrews re-
purposed stolen Egyptian gold to construct the Ark of the Covenant, early
Christians refashioned Stoic ideas to fit Christian categories derived from
divine revelation.
With these tools in hand, Christians cultivated their own moral vision, aim-
ing to reform the heart, the seat of humanity’s entire psychological activity
in the biblical sense. The role the heart plays in the formation of the spiritual
vision of early Christian spirituality can hardly be overstated.9 The conversion
of the heart lays stress on the transformation of the whole person, as Kallistos
Ware writes: “Logos and eros, reason, emotions, and affections, are to be com-
bined with the other layers of our personality, and all of them are to be inte-
grated into a living unity, on the level of the deep self or the heart.”10 Owed
especially to the writings ascribed to Macarius of Egypt, the heart as the locus
of humanity’s spiritual improvement influenced later monastic writers, such
as Mark the Monk, Diadochus of Photike, and also Maximus the Confessor.
Together, their writings form the basis of the Philokalia, a classic compendium
of patristic and medieval spiritual and theological treatises for the Christian
East.11
Maximus discusses the healing of the human heart as apatheia in an explicitly
Christological key in Ad Thalassium. He depicts Christ as the wise doctor who
heals the venomous wound of sin by his own acceptance of human passibil-
ity through his enfleshment. Maximus’s discussion of the medicinal healing
of human emotion contributes to the early Christian trope of Christ as di-
vine physician par excellance, which we see in the Greek tradition as early as
St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 50–117): “There is one physician, both fleshly and
spiritual, both born and unborn, God come in the flesh, true life in death, from
both Mary and God; first passible and then impassable, Jesus Christ our Lord.”12

8 Cf. Or., ep. 2,1f.; Aug., Conf. 7.9,15. For discussion of this concept in the Patristic tradition,
see A. Casiday, Remember the Days of Old: Orthodox Thinking on the Patristic Heritage,
Foundations series 6, Crestwood 2014, 162–172.
9 For an overview of this theme, see T. Spidlík, La preghiera secondo la tradizione
dell’Oriente cristiano, Rome 2002, 304–344.
10 K. Ware, The Theology of Worship, in: id., The Inner Kingdom. Volume 1 of the Collected
Works, Crestwood 2000, 63. Italics in the original.
11 For the critical analysis of contemporary interpretations of this theme, see M. Plested, The
Macarian Legacy. The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition, Oxford
22007. For an overview of the legacy of the Philokalia, see the collected volume of es-
says: B. Bingaman / B. Nassif (eds.), The Philokalia. A Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality,
Oxford 2012.
12 Ign. Eph. 7, in: B.D. Ehrman (ed. and transl.), The Apostolic Fathers 1, LCL 24, Cambridge
2003, 227. For an overview of this theme of Christ the physician in Early Christianity,
232 Andrew Summerson

Here, Christ is a physician precisely through his enfleshment. In the Latin tra-
dition, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) expresses himself similarly in his ser-
mons, equating Christ’s healing with his humble condescension in the flesh:
“Indeed, the humble doctor came, he found the patient lying sick, he shared
the infirmity with him, summoning him to share his own divinity.”13 The inter-
action of Christ’s divinity and humanity opens a path for fallen human nature
to experience perfection.
Following this tradition, I argue that Maximus’s exegesis aims at the me-
dicinal healing of the human heart in Ad Thalassium. For Maximus, misread-
ing Scripture and the moral problem of the passions are symptoms of the
same spiritual sickness. Because of the fall, humans suffer from a distorted
vision, which focuses on the physical and obscures the spiritual. In the case
of Scripture, an improper exegete misreads the spiritual meaning of the sa-
cred words. Regarding the passions, fallen humanity misunderstands creation,
considering it solely a physical phenomenon. Maximus addresses these two
related themes in Ad Thalassium and offers a remedy to this problem drawn
from the Bible. According to Maximus, Scripture teaches that human passibil-
ity is an instrument to communicate with God in this world and to enjoy com-
munion with him in the divine life. Humanity perfects this instrument through
rigorous training, whether wrestling with difficulties found in the sacred word
or through ascetical renunciation in our lived experience. Both exercises dis-
pose the diligent Christian to grace. Through his Incarnation, Christ restores
human emotion and its good use and allows Christians to participate in this
redeemed passible state. After discussing this theme, I will explore the role
healed human passibility plays, both in its earthly and eschatological forms,
according to Maximus’s thinking. For the Confessor, apatheia is the ascetic face
of theosis. This perfected state requires that humans use their emotions to in-
teract with the divine during their earthly lives and that saints use it to interact
with God before his throne in heaven.

see L.M. Jefferson, Christ as Miracle Worker in Early Christian Art, Minneapolis 2014,
esp. 55f. Jefferson develops his argument in light of the work of A. von Harnack, who
suggests that this medicinal trope in early Christianity is meant to oppose the cult of
Asclepius. See A. von Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three
Centuries, New York 1962.
13 Aug., serm. 341A, in: E. Hill (transl.) / J.E. Rotelle (ed.), Saint Augustine, Sermons (341–
400). On Various Subjects, WSA 3/10, New York 22017, 30. For discussion of the Christus
medicus theme in Augustine’s soteriology, see R. Arbesmann, The Concept of ‘Christus
Medicus’ in St. Augustine, in: Tr. 10 (1954), 1–28; More recently, D.V. Meconi, The One Christ.
St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification, Washington 2013, 101–103.
11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility 233

III. Healed Humanity as Apatheia. The Stoic Contribution to a

Patristic Concept

Early Christian writers appropriate Stoic thinking on the passions and ap-
atheia to make sense of the moral transformation required of Christians.14 For
the Stoics, the passions (πάθη) are vicious, disruptive movements of the soul
toward perceived goods and evils. Stoics urge the elimination of these vicious
passions and thus they called human perfection passion-free, or apatheia. The
Stoic view of the passions is distinct from Platonism, which sought to moder-
ate these activities of the psyche, like a chariot driver who reins in the helm
of steeds.15 The severity of the Stoic position follows from their view of the
human psyche. Unlike classically conceived Platonism—which divided the
soul into three discrete parts: rational (λογικόν), irascible (θυμικόν), and desir-
ous (ἐπιθυμητικόν)—the Stoics hold a “monistic psychology.”16 This means that
the soul has no independently operating functions that could overwhelm the
rational aspect of the human soul. As a result, the passions are not a distinct
part of the soul separate from reason, but a specific type of deformed, rational
activity. The Stoics have an extensive taxonomy of the passions, but all are de-
rived from four cardinal vicious emotional states: desire (ἐπιθυμία)—to seek
to possess what we want; pleasure (ἡδονή)—to enjoy the things we want; fear

14 The influence of Stoic moral psychology on early Christian writers has received sig-
nificant scholarly attention. The best introduction to the history of this develop-
ment is M. Spanneut, L’apatheia chrétienne aux quatres premiers siècles, in: POC 52
(2002), 165–302; See also R. Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind. From Stoic Agitation to
Christian Temptation, Oxford 22010; J.M. Rist, What is Truth? From the Academy to the
Vatican, Cambridge 2004, 18–77; M. Frede, A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient
Thought, Berkeley 2011; For Augustine’s incorporation of Stoic moral psychology, see
S.C. Byers, Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine, Cambridge 2013;
J.M. Rist, Augustine Deformed. Love, Sin, and Freedom in the Western Moral Tradition,
Cambridge 2014, 153–174.
15 Pl., Phdr. 246a–254e.
16 On the Stoic account of the soul in contradistinction of the Platonic, see A.A. Long /
D.N. Sedley (eds.), The Hellenistic Philosophers 1. Translations of the principal sources with
philosophical commentary, Cambridge 102003, 321f. 421–423. See also B. Inwood, Ethics
and Human Action in Early Stoicism, Oxford 21999; M.R. Graver, Stoicism and Emotion,
Chicago 2007. Sara Byers has argued for reconciliation between the Stoic “unitary” psy-
chology and Platonic “tripartite” scheme. See, ead., Augustine on the Divided Self. Platonist
or Stoic?, in: AugSt 38 (2007), 106–111. Byers bases her argument on J.M. Rist’s reading of
Phaedrus and Republic. See id., Plato Says We Have Tripartite Souls. If He is Right, What Can
We Do About It?, in: M.-O. Goulet-Caze / G. Madec / D. O’Brien (eds.), Sophies Maietores:
“Chercheurs de Sagesse”: Hommage à Jean Pepin, Paris 1992, 103–124.
234 Andrew Summerson

(φόβος)—to be averse to what we do not want; sorrow (λύπη)—to mourn what

has happened against our will.17
Stoic apatheia is distinct from the colloquial English word “apathy,” which
indicates a cold-blooded emotional insensitivity. To quote Jerome, such a
state is worthy of only “God and stones.”18 In contrast, the Stoics understand
apatheia as the presence of healthy, good emotions (εὐπάθειαι) correlated to
the vicious passions. The Stoic sage experiences wise caution (εὐλάβεια) in
the place of vicious fear; joy (χαρά) instead of vicious pleasure; and positive
wish (βούλησις) instead of unbridled desire. Sorrow does not have a correlative
positive emotion, since the wise man regrets nothing.
Clement of Alexandria is the first Christian writer to systematically use Stoic
thought on the passions and apatheia in his theology. For Clement, Christ is
apathes and Christians restore their fallen God-likeness with the acquisition
of apatheia.19 Here, Clement blends the moral teaching of the Stoics with
Platonic ontology. According to Plato, to be altered (ἀλλοιοῦσθαι) happens least
to the best of things. God, the summit of perfection, is thus by nature impass-
able, that is, unable to be changed or acted upon.20 Early Christians regularly
used this metaphysical notion derived from Plato, since he likewise posits an
affinity between the human soul and God. The Platonic claim echoes Genesis’s
affirmation that humans are made in God’s image and likeness.21 However, un-
like Plato, Christians did not believe the soul is naturally immortal. The human
being instantiates divine likeness through virtuous acts. Cultivation of virtue
disposes us to the gift of immortality.
A fellow Alexandrian, Origen, who likely had direct access to instruction in
Stoicism, further incorporates discussion of the passions in his biblical theol-
ogy to explore difficult biblical passages, especially regarding Christ’s inner ac-
tivity at the Garden of Gethsemane.22 This revised Stoicism was later enshrined
in the monastic teaching of Evagrius Ponticus, who developed a sophisticated

17 For a classic definition, see Stobaeus, 2.88–90.

18 Ep. 133.3 (CSEL 56, 246).
19 See especially Clem., strom. 6.9,73.
20 Pl., R. 380E–381C.
21 Plato discusses ὁμοίωσις Θεῷ as a human ideal four times throughout his works: R. 10.613B;
Tht. 176AB; Ti. 90A; Lg. 716B. On the relationship of this concept and its development
within Christian tradition, see Rist, 2004, 29f.
22 See H. Chadwick, Origen, Celsus, and the Stoa, in: JThS 48 (1947), 34–49; J.M. Rist, Beyond
Stoic and Platonist: A Sample of Origen’s Treatment of Philosophy (Contra Celsum 4.62–70),
in: W. Beierwaltes (ed.), Platonismus und Christentum, Festschrift für Heinrich Dörrie,
Münster 21985, 228–238. For Origen’s use of Stoicism, see R.A. Layton, Propatheia. Origen
and Didymus on the Origin of the Passions, in: VC 54 (2000), 262–282; Graver, 2007, 102–
108 102–108; Spanneut, 2002, 205–207.
11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility 235

list of the principal passions or “thoughts” (logismoi).23 In his teaching for his
fellow ascetics, Evagrius advocated a program to battle vicious passions and to
acquire apatheia. In Evagrius, God is the physician of souls and heals the pas-
sions: “Here we should consider how the physician of souls heals the irascible
part through almsgiving, purifies the mind through prayer, and in turn withers
the concupiscent part through fasting. In this way the new self is formed, re-
newed, according to the image of its Creator.”24 Pace Jerome, Evagrius teaches
that apatheia is full of emotional content, with love as its most obvious sign.25

IV. The Passions as Symptom of the Disease of Original Sin

Maximus develops his account of human passibility out of this tradition of

practical exegesis and ascetic teaching in Ad Thalassium. In the Introduction to
the work, Maximus explains the origins of the passions through exegesis. He
begins with a definition of evil, drawn from the Neoplatonic tradition: “Evil is
a failure (ἔλλειψις) to actualize one’s inborn, natural powers toward their end,
and nothing else at all (καὶ ἄλλο καθάπαξ οὐδέν).”26 However, for Maximus, evil
is not simply a brute fact, but owed to a singular human act: our first parents,
beguiled by the serpent.

Hence the first man—since he failed (ἐλλείψας) [scil. ἐλλείψας] to exercise the
actualization of natural powers toward their end—was infected with the igno-
rance of God, and under the counsel of the serpent, he considered himself to be
God, the very thing the Word of the divine law commanded him to swear [not to
do] [scil. not to do].27

23 Cf. On Thoughts (Evagr. Pont., cap. pract. 6). For good introduction to Evagrius with atten-
tion to this theme, see A.M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, London 2006; More specifically
in relation to Stoicism, see Sorabji, 2000, 358–371.
24 On Thoughts 3, in: R.E. Sinkewicz (transl.), Evagrius of Ponticus: The Greek Ascetic
Corpus, OECT, Oxford 2003, 155.
25 Evagr. Pont., cap. pract. 81.
26 Max., qu. Thal, Intro (CChr.SG 7, 29). All translations of Maximus are my own unless
otherwise noted. Maximus’s language here is drawn from Dionysius the Areopagite, who
himself is dependent on Proclus. cf. Dion. Ar., d.n., 4.18–35. For Dionysius’s dependen-
cy on Proclus, see C. Steel, Proclus et Denys: de l’existence du mal, in: Y. de Andia (ed.),
Denys l’aréopagite et sa postérité en Orient et en Occident, Paris 1997, 89–116. For an analy-
sis of the relationship between the thought of Maximus and Dionysius, see Y. de Andia,
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor, in: P. Allen / B. Nell, The
Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor, Oxford 2015, 177–193.
27 Ibid.
236 Andrew Summerson

Here, Maximus introduces “ignorance of God,” a central theme that occupies

the remainder of his reflection at the beginning of Ad Thalassium. Maximus ex-
plains that ignorance of God “has mutilated the human mind,”28 which means
that fallen humanity collapses the distinction between the spiritual and the
physical and “partakes of knowledge solely and unabashedly through sensory
experience.”29 He further elaborates this fallen confusion, commenting on the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “If perhaps someone were to say that
the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the visible creation, he would
not fail to hit the mark of truth.”30 For Maximus, creation itself is ambiguous
and open to potential misinterpretation.
After the Fall, this impoverished viewpoint becomes the fundamental lens
for humanity’s interpretation of the created world. This outlook continues to
separate humanity from God, as it did Adam and Eve. In this way, the first par-
ents initiate humanity’s propensity for idolatry. Maximus turns to Rom 1:25 to
frame the problem in Genesis:

As is natural, man, already having mistaken thoroughly the intellectual beauty

of divine splendour, mistakes visible creation for God and divinizes it in order
to sustain his body. And man’s own body, which has a natural propensity to con-
sider creation to be God, loves creation because of its form and with all his zeal
“worships the creature instead of the creator (Rom 1:25).31

From this false divinization of matter, Maximus asserts that two basic passions
precede the rest: pleasure and pain. Fallen humanity is caught between the
continuous pursuit of pleasure and the flight from pain. Maximus explains this
“dance” in succinct parallelism: “Toward pleasure he aims all his desire, from
pain, every escape. In struggling for pleasure with all his forces, yet struggling
against pain with all his zeal.”32

28 “This therefore is evil as I have already said: the ignorance of the good cause of things, the
thing which has mutilated the human mind.” Max., qu. Thal. Intro (CChr.SG 7, 35).
29 Ibid.
30 For the patristic background on the exegesis of this passage, R.A. Norris, Two Trees in
the Midst of the Garden (Genesis 2:9b). Gregory of Nyssa and the Puzzle of Human Evil, in:
P.M. Blowers / A.R. Christman / D.G. Hunter (eds.), In dominico eloquio: In Lordly Eloquence:
Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert Louis Wilken, Grand Rapids 2002, 218–241.
For an analysis on Maximus’s comment in light of the prior tradition, see Thunberg, 21995,
162–168 and P.M. Blowers, Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor. An
Investigation of the Quaestiones ad Thalassium, CJAn 2017, Notre Dame 1991, 189–191.
31 Ibid. The passage Rom 1:25 is the subject of Max., qu. Thal. 14, the shortest of Maximus’s
responses (cf. CChr.SG 7, 99).
32 Max., qu. Thal. Intro (CChr.SG 7, 31). For comment, see C. von Schönborn, Plaisir et dou-
leur dans l’analyse de saint Maxime d’après les Quaestiones ad Thalassium, in: F. Heinzer /
11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility 237

Maximus subtly signals the solution by way of the problem of idolatry. The
worship of matter and the cult of pleasure depend on our own self-asserted
way of seeing the world. However, Maximus holds that divine assistance heals
this failed hermeneutic and argues that man’s abstention from the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil was not meant to be permanent. Within this tem-
porary situation, God wishes to teach to man an important lesson:

For this reason, perhaps, God forbade man, delaying—for a while—man’s

participation [scil. in this knowledge], first, as was most proper, through par-
ticipation in grace, man having understood his proper cause and by this partici-
pation, having affirmed that immortality is given by grace, just like impassibility
(ἀπάθειαν) and immutability (ἀτρεψίαν), consequently becoming like God
through theosis, so that man might examine God’s creation with God’s help,
without harming his freedom in order that man might appropriate knowledge
of these things as God does, not as man.33

According to Maximus, grace tutors us. Through this experience, God teach-
es us to see how he sees. With this change of vision comes a change of state.
Maximus describes the transformation in a clever reversal of terms. Instead
of divinizing creation through the assertion of a false interpretation of reality,
humanity is divinized through its willing acceptance of grace. Instead of liabil-
ity to the passions, humanity is granted apatheia. Instead of ignorance of God,
humanity is granted “salutary ignorance of the world,”34 which allows humans
to see creation unveiled from the confusion of the passions, but reflecting the
glory of God.

V. Christ the Wise Doctor: Ad Thalassium’s Controlling Metaphor

In Question 1, Maximus addresses another question about the potential value

of the passions: “Are the passions evil in themselves or are they evil because of
bad use: I mean pleasure, pain, desire, and fear, and the passions that follow
them?”35
By listing the four cardinal passions already defined by the Stoics and ac-
cepted into the Christian ascetical tradition, Thalassius asks Maximus to weigh
in on a long-standing debate within the Christian ascetical tradition. Maximus

C. Schönborn (eds.), Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Fribourg, 2–5 septem-
bre 1980, Par. 27, Fribourg 1982, 273–284.
33 Ibid. (CChr.SG 7, 37).
34 Ibid. (CChr.SG 7, 41).
35 Max., qu. Thal. 1 (CChr.SG 7, 47).
238 Andrew Summerson

is aware of the history of the argument, citing Gregory of Nyssa.36 In Gregory’s

view, the passions are not original to human nature. Rather, the passions “at-
tached” themselves to our nature after the fall.37 Gregory’s position follows
Origen’s reading of Genesis. Humanity is created in two distinct moments: the
creation of the soul as the image and likeness of God and the creation into male
and female subsequent to the Fall, understood as the garment of skins. Such
a view implies that emotional activity is connected explicitly to the physical,
which is a secondary, derivative state of human existence. Though not explic-
itly in Question 1, elsewhere Maximus distances himself from Gregory’s posi-
tion. As Paul Blowers correctly observes, Maximus avoids this two-step process
by collapsing the distance between Creation and the Fall. For Maximus, Adam
fell at the very moment he was created (ἅμα τῷ γίνεσθαι).38 Connected to the
concept of “ignorance of God,” which Maximus discusses in the Introduction,

36 Gregory’s key texts here are Gr. Nyss., virg. 12.18; hom. opif. 17f.; hom. in cant. 8.12. For an
analysis of Gregory’s doctrine on the passions in comparison to Maximus, see P. Blowers,
Gentiles of the Soul. Maximus the Confessor on the Substructure and Transformation of the
Human Passions, in: JECS 4 (1996), 57–85.
37 Max., qu. Thal. 1 (CChr.SG 7, 47). For a different view, see, J. Behr, The Rational Animal.
A Rereading of Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio, in: JECS 7 (1999), 219–247.
38 Here Blowers follows Balthasar’s interpretation: “Maximus is a realist and, we might
say in Balthasar’s own key, a ‘theo-dramatist’ who spends precious little time dwelling
nostalgically on the prelapsarian state of humanity. Such was more a potency than an
extended actuality in the Confessor’s thinking. For him, ‘the bronze doors of the divine
home are slammed remorselessly shut at the very start of our existence.’” P.M. Blowers,
The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire in Maximus the Confessor, in: VC 65 (2011),
425–451 (430); cf. Max., qu. Thal. 61 (CChr.SG 22, 85); See also, von Balthasar, 2003, 187.
Such a view contrasts with Augustine, who develops a robust account of human nature
while speculating on prelapsarian Adam and Eve. While I cannot discuss this in greater
detail here, there are more convergences between Maximus and Augustine, not least in
their engagement of Stoicism to develop their moral psychology. For Augustine’s view,
See J.C. Cavadini, Feeling Right: Augustine on the Passions and Sexual Desire, in: AugSt 36
(2005), 195–217. Maximus’s knowledge of Augustine has been subject to scholarly debate.
The evidence for direct influence of Augustine on Maximus is scarce at best, as we are
aware of no direct citation of Augustine’s work in Maximus, as the latter does frequently
with Gregory the Theologian and Dionysius the Areopagite. One exception are the refer-
ences to Augustine at the Lateran Council in 649, where Maximus was likely a participant
and possibly the editor of the acta, according to the hypothesis of R. Riedinger. See id.,
Kleine Schriften zu den Konzilsakten des 7. Jahrhunderts, Turnhout 1998. For an overview
of the possible relationship between Maximus and Augustine, see J. Börjesson, Augustine
on the Will, in: P. Allen / B. Nell (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor,
Oxford 2015, 212–233. For more specific overlap in Maximus and Augustine’s Christology
and Soteriology, see B.E. Daley, Making a Human Will Divine. Augustine and Maximus on
Christ and Human Salvation, in: G.E. Demacopoulos / A. Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox
Readings of Augustine, Crestwood 2008, 101–126.
11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility 239

passionate behaviour is a necessary consequence of space and time. Hence,

emotional activity and the risk of their vicious forms, the passions, are at the
origins of human existence.
Maximus affirms that wise Christians enjoy correlative “good passions”
(καλὰ παθή) to the vicious ones listed above.39 For Maximus, vicious passions
can be transformed, each having an end in God.

[scil. These wise ones] have turned desire (ἐπιθυμίαν) into a movement of the
intellectual appetite for divine things (τῆς νοερᾶς τῶν θείων ἐφέσεως) and pleasure
(ἡδονήν) into innocent joy (εὐφροσύνην ἀπήμονα) through the attractive move-
ment of the mind toward divine gifts; fear (φόβον) into a precautionary vigilance
(προφυλακτικὴν έπιμέλειαν) in view of the coming judgment of our sins; and grief
(λύπην) into corrective repentance (διορθωτικὴν μεταμέλειαν) from present evil.40

For Maximus, the passions are powers of the soul that can be used rightly or
wrongly. However, he emphasizes neither the moderation, nor their eradica-
tion. Instead, he insists on their transformation. Maximus describes the trans-
formation with an extended metaphor:

Put succinctly, just as the skilled doctors remove both the present and threaten-
ing affliction of their body by means of the deadly beast, the serpent, we use
these passions for the destruction of evil both present and incumbent, as well
as to acquire and to guard virtue and knowledge. Therefore, they are good—as I
have said—through their use by those “who take every thought captive in obedi-
ence to Christ.41

Maximus likens the good use of passions to an immunization. Just as a doctor

injects a form of the disease into the body to prevent a deadly virus, the serious
Christian can grab his own slithery passions by the tail to make them work for
good.42
Later in qu. Thal. 21, Maximus uses introductory medical metaphor to
develop his Christology. Christ embodies the wise doctor and passibility is
the snake venom Christ the physician uses for salutary purposes. Maximus
begins by interpreting Col 2:15, where Paul says that Christ puts on
(ἐνδυσάμενος) and puts off (ἀπεκδυσάμενος) the powers and principalities.
Maximus connects these terms to Christ’s enfleshment, where “in his love for

39 Max., qu. Thal. 1 (CChr.SG 7, 47).

40 Ibid.
41 Ibid. (CChr.SG 7, 47–49), cf. 2 Cor 10:5.
42 For comment on Maximus’s medical language, see C. Laga, Maximus as a Stylist in
Quaestiones ad Thalassium, in: Heinzer / Schönborn (eds.), 1982, 139–146.
240 Andrew Summerson

humanity, the only-begotten Son and Logos of God became perfect man.”43
In doing so, Christ takes on the “original condition of Adam,” including man’s
passible state. Recalling the Introduction, Maximus asserts that Christ reverses
our fallen relationship to pleasure and pain in his own person. When tempted
in the desert, Christ “puts off the powers and principalities” by resisting plea-
sure. Likewise, Christ willingly embraces the fullness of human pain on the
cross. Maximus describes the crucifixion as the surgical procedure. On Calvary,
Christ drains (κενοῦν) the venom (ἰός) from our human nature as from a gaping
wound.44
Christ continues the work of the wise doctor in the life of every Christian,
allowing them to use passibility as an instrument for their own salvation.
Maximus returns to the ultimate experience of human possibility—death—
in Question 61.45 Christ conquers sin through that which conquered man in
the first place: passibility.46 The passibility of death is not just repurposed but
transformed into a new opportunity for human nature: “Willingly submitting
to the condemnation imposed on our passibility [scil. by this I mean our pas-
sive subjection to suffering] he turned that very passibility into an instrument
for eradicating sin and its consequences.”47 Each baptized Christian must ap-
propriate what Christ has done objectively in his willing acceptance of suffer-
ing and death subjectively:

Because of Christ, who completely divested his human nature of the law of birth
through pleasure, and who willingly took up the use of death—which on Adam’s
account had condemned human nature—solely for purposes of condemning
sin, all who in the spirit are willingly reborn of Christ with the bath of regenera-
tion are able by grace to put off their original Adamic birth based on pleasure.48

43 Max., qu. Thal. 21 (CChr.SG 7, 129).

44 Ibid. (CChr.SG 7, 131).
45 Max., qu. Thal. 61 (CChr.SG 22, 89); (English translation: R.L. Wilken / P.M. Blowers
[transl.], On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, Crestwood 2003, 134).
46 On Christ’s assumption of human passibility, see C.A. Zirnheld, Le double visage de la
passion: Malédiction due au péché et/ou dynamisme de la vie. Quaestiones ad Thalassium
de s. Maxime le Confesseur XXI, XXII et XLII in: A. Schoors / P. Deun (eds.), Miscellanea in
Honorem Caroli Laga Septuagenarii, OBL 60, Leuven 1994, 361–380.
47 “Willingly submitting to the condemnation imposed on our passibility (by this I mean
our passive subjection to suffering), he turned that very passibility into an instrument for
eradicating sin and its consequences.” Max., qu. Thal. 61 (CChr.SG 22, 91). (English transla-
tion: Wilken / Blowers, 2003, 135).
48 “Because of Christ, who completely divested his human nature of the law of birth through
pleasure, and who willingly took up the use of death—which on Adam’s account had con-
demned human nature—solely for purposes of condemning sin, all who in the spirit are
willingly reborn of Christ with the bath of regeneration are able by grace to put off their
11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility 241

Christ’s “use of death”49 is not just a model for the Christian. Rather, by vir-
tue of baptism, the Christian enters into Christ’s death and continues to par-
ticipate in it through ascetic practice. In this way, Christians can repurpose
death for the attainment of eternal life. When Christians wield death in this
way, through ascetic renunciation and sacramental practice, they engage in
the same work, cooperating with the wise doctor introduced in Question 1
and revealed as Christ in Question 21. Maximus summarizes the wondrous ex-
change wrought by his conversion of passibility in Question 60: “By his passion
he grants us apatheia; by his sufferings, liberation; by his death, life eternal.”50

VI. Healed Human Emotion and Eschatological Rest

Wielding emotions in imitation of the Saviour allows human beings to par-

ticipate in the wondrous exchange in this life. But so far, we have only consid-
ered human emotion on this side of eternity. Reflecting on Scripture, Maximus
shows that human emotions have value even for the divinized in heaven.
For example, in Question 10, Maximus addresses two contrasting passages,
1 Joh 4:18 and Ps 33:10. The question reads: “If ‘the one who fears is not per-
fected in love,’ why ‘is there no lack for those who fear him?’ If there is no
deficiency, it is clear that it is perfected. How, then, is the one who fears not
perfect?”51 The tension between the passages is clear: Is fear good or not? In
his response, Maximus establishes a hierarchy. There are two forms of healthy
fear. The first is a propaedeutic fear for Christians on the way. We fear for our
salvation and we fear because of our continued state of repentance, thereby
teaching us what to avoid in order to obtain blessedness. Second, there is also
“holy fear.” This fear is more of a sense of awe. Perfect love needs fear lest it de-
forms into something less than divine. He writes: “For love, when it separates
itself from fear, tends toward ruin, just like many things corrupt.”52 Maximus
makes this statement more concrete, reflecting on a passage from Psalm 88,
“Fearsome and great is he to all those who surround him” (v. 8 LXX). Maximus
understands this passage as referring to the throne of God, and the divinized

original Adamic birth based on pleasure.” Ibid. (CChr.SG 22, 97–99); (English translation:
Wilken / Blowers, 2003, 139).
49 On Maximus’s description of Christ’s use of death and its implications for Christian an-
thropology, see J. Behr, Becoming Human. Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word
and Image, Crestwood 2013, 49–57.
50 Max., qu. Thal. 60 (CChr.SG 22, 91).
51 Max., qu. Thal. 10 (CChr.SG 7, 83).
52 Ibid. (CChr.SG 7, 87).
242 Andrew Summerson

ones before his throne experience love mixed (ἐγκεκραμένος) with fear. This
mixture is essential, for one can forget the singularity of the object of desire
leading it to regress into something less than divine love. In this sense, holy
fear bears in mind the grandeur of divine beauty and helps to maintain love’s
intensity. Maximus’s later description of the beatific vision emphasizes this
point: “The ones who stand in front of the Lord are the ones who, because of
their erotic boiling of their intellectual desire for divine beauty, are made wor-
thy of the enjoyment face to face.”53 For Maximus, fear is precisely the fire that
keeps the temperature of our desire running hot.
The eschatological value of emotion sheds light on Maximus’s account of
ever-moving repose. According to Polycarp Sherwood, Maximus’s principal
theological achievement is his correction of an Origenist reading of the trajec-
tory of creation: stasis, genesis, and kinesis.54 Stated simply, Origen holds that
our souls, which once enjoyed divine bliss (stasis), fell from perfection, entered
into created order (genesis), and therefore became subject to movement (kine-
sis), which leads ultimately to corruption. Maximus observes a difficulty in this
position. If the goal of humanity is to return to “stasis,” what can ensure our
permanent and abiding experience of God in the divine life without the threat
of another potential fall? In Amb. 7, Maximus converts this trifold scheme and
offers his own: genesis, kinesis, stasis. He reroutes the triad from the specula-
tive pre-fallen state, rooting it in the biblical, beginning with our creation. Our
movement here on earth (genesis) then is aimed toward stasis. In an effort to
fend off any thought of eternal return, Maximus conceives of this state dynam-
ically, calling it “Sabbath rest,” or “ever-moving repose,” borrowing from the
Neoplatonic tradition.55 Herein lies the problem. Anything subjected to move-
ment is likewise subject to corruption. In Maximus’s vision of “ever-moving
repose,” perfected human emotion offers a permanent experience without the
threat of corruption, since emotions are movements that are not entirely re-
ducible to material change. Emotion then provides a way to envision eschato-
logical movement not subjected to space and time, where movement implies
change and corruption. Maximus’s description of divine life as full of emo-
tional content defends against the Origenist threat of conceiving of movement

53 Ibid.
54 Max., Amb. 7 (PG 91, 1068D–1101D). See P. Sherwood, The Earlier Ambigua of Maximus
the Confessor and His Refutation of Origenism, Rome 1955; P.M. Blowers, Maximus the
Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Concept of ‘Perpetual Progress’, in: VC 46 (1992),
151–171.
55 S. Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena. An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of
the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition, SPAMP 8, Leiden 1978, 248–250; P.C. Plass, ‘Moving Rest’
in St. Maximus the Confessor, in: CM 35 (1984), 177–190.
11. Christ the Healer of Human Passibility 243

in heaven in too physical a manner, which risks deformation and further

lapse. Likewise Maximus builds his conception on the basis of Scripture, after
carefully interpreting biblical passages.

VII. Conclusion: The Passions and the Language of Divine Human

Communication

In Ad Thalassium, Maximus concerns himself with exploring our passible as-

pect of human existence in light of revelation. Maximus engages this existen-
tial question in various ways and shows how Christ uses human emotion to
deify humanity. In the Introduction and Question 1, scriptural difficulties and
our passionate entanglement are one and the same problem. Maximus’s ex-
position of how God untangles us from the thistle bush of the passions, which
play an essential role in the Christian life, comes from a critical reflection on
Scripture. In his conclusion of Question 1 about the good use of the passions,
Maximus observes a fundamental scriptural difficulty at the heart of the mat-
ter: What are we to make of the more passionate language of the Bible?:

Then, if something passionate is predicated in Scripture about God or about the

saints: Regarding God, it is said for our sake, to reveal to us through our passions,
the salutary and beneficial path of providence for us. Regarding the saints, it is
said because in no other way can they explain by corporal language the relations
and dispositions of their intellect regarding God, without knowing the passions
according to nature.56

Hence, what begins as an ascetical question finishes as an apologia for human

emotion as it shows itself in God, the saints, and in Scripture. According to
Maximus, the passionate language used by God and his saints is central to
God’s communication with man. Maximus maintains that even the saints—
whom he understands here as biblical figures, but by inference also the larger
communion of saints—speak passionately about God and to God because
this language is the only tool they have to articulate and enter into the divine
mystery.
I will conclude with a few brief points of summary and a suggestion.
Maximus understands the Fall as a wound to the passible part of our nature.
All sinful activity is symptomatic of this fundamental disease. In Maximus’s
reading of Scripture in Ad Thalassium, he proposes a remedy. Humanity is in-
vited to participate in Christ’s healing of human emotion that he inaugurates

56 Max., qu. Thal. 1 (CChr.SG 7, 49).

244 Andrew Summerson

in his earthly life and completes on the Cross. Drawing from the interaction
between God and the saints in Scripture, this divine-human interaction on the
level of emotion is itself medicinal. This exchange fine-tunes the instrument
of human emotion for salutary benefit. Emotions likewise indicate the kind
of “movement” one can expect in Maximus’s eschatological vision of “ever-
moving rest.” Maximus the Confessor’s ascetic Christology and Christian an-
thropology perhaps give new meaning to the quizzical end of Mark’s gospel.
Based on the example of the “wise doctor” metaphor introduced in Question 1,
Christian use of perfected, redeemed emotion is the way one can handle ser-
pents, drink poison, and not be harmed (cf. Mk 16:18).
 chapter 12

Maximus the Confessor’s View on Soul and Body

in the Context of Five Divisions

Vladimir Cvetković

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse how Maximus the Confessor understands the
unity between the body and soul, and how he fits this unity in the general frame-
work of the fivefold divisions or distinctions that exist in the world.

I. Introduction

Maximus the Confessor is one of a very few Greek Fathers who explicitly ar-
gued about predetermined Incarnation. In Maximus’ interpretation from Ad
Thalassium, the Holy Trinity created the world with the vision of the final unity
between divine and human.1 This vision also included the appearance of the
Logos of God in the body and his adoption of human nature,2 as the arche-
type according to which this unity will be modelled. If the world is created
with the foreknowledge of divine Incarnation and the final creaturely deifica-
tion, then one may argue that the fashioning of the world has also comprised
some unities of the lesser kind as the precondition for the final unity of divine
and human. Maximus’ doctrine of the fivefold division that exists in the na-
ture from his Ambiguum 41, points to lesser unities, i.e. unities between male
and female, paradise and the inhabited world, earth and sky and sensible and
intelligible nature as necessary steps towards the final unity between human
and divine. Since the unity between the divine and human nature is usually
interpreted by Maximus and other post-Chalcedonian authors by analogy with
the human body and soul, I argue in this paper that the body-soul union in the
human being is created as the perfect example of how two different natures

1 Maximus Confessor, Questiones ad Thalassium (=qu. Thal.) 60.4, in: C. Laga / C. Steel (eds.),
Maximi Confessoris Quaestiones ad Thalassium 2: Quaestiones LVI–LXV, CChr.SG 22, Turnhout
1990.
2 Max., qu. Thal. 60.7.

© Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657703395_013

246 Vladimir Cvetković

may exists in a perfect unity and as a model of how to achieve other unities on
the way towards the final union of humanity with divinity. As the general topic
of the present volume is the unity of body and soul in Patristic and Byzantine
thought, the aim of this paper is not only to explain how the unity of body and
soul is established by Maximus the Confessor, but also what was the purpose
of this unity and how the body-soul unity fits in the general plan of divine cre-
ation and incarnation and creaturely deification.
In the course of this paper, I will first explore the kinds of unity that Maximus
elaborates with a specific emphasis on the unity between the body and soul.
Then, I will focus on the analogy drawn between the unity of body and soul
and the unity of Christ’s divine and human nature and explore similarities and
differences of these two unities. Finally, the unity of body and soul will be ana-
lysed in the framework of the fivefold divisions or distinctions that exist in the
world.

II. Union of Body and Soul

One of the most appealing questions for Maximus the Confessor is the ques-
tion of the existing natural and supernatural unities. He deals with this ques-
tion in a number of his works, and particularly in opusc. 18 or the so-called
Unionum Definitiones written in 633.3 Here Maximus refers to several kinds
of unions: union according to essence (ούσία), union according to hypostasis
(υποστάσις), union according to relationship (σχέσις), union by juxtaposition
(παράθεσις), union by adjustment (άρμονίας), union by mixture (κρᾶσις), union
by blending (φύρσις), union by confusion (σύγχυσις), union by conglomeration
(σωρεία) and union by coalescence (συναλοιφή).4 The union according to es-
sence (ούσία) pertains to several hypostases or individuals who share the same
essence or nature. The union according to hypostasis (υποστάσις) relates to
several essences, as it is in the case of the soul and the body, while the union
according to relationship (σχέσις) is pertinent when it comes to different de-
liberations (γνώμη), that are unified in a single will. The next seven definitions
pertain to physical objects such as boards, stones and liquids in the case of
unions by juxtaposition, adjustment and mixture, dry and liquid elements
in the case of union by blending, elements which undergo melting in case of
union by confusion, between dry elements in case of union of conglomeration,

3 P. van Deun, L’Unionum Definitiones (CPG 7697,18) attribué à Maxime le Confesseur. Étude
et édition, in: REByz 58 (2000), 123–147.
4 Van Deun, 2000, 145.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 247

and diffusive elements, like fire, in case of the union by coalescence. Finally,
Maximus returns to the union according to essence and hypostasis, concluding
that the union according to essence relates to the realities of different hypos-
tases, while the union according to hypostasis concerns realities of different
essences.
Although only one of these twelve definitions mentions explicitly the
union of soul and body, they all originated in connection to the nature of soul-
body union. Already Peter Van Deun has pointed to Nemesius of Emesa and
Leontius of Byzantium as the possible sources that are behind these defini-
tions.5 Maximus follows Nemesius’ On the Nature of Man in regard to differ-
ent kinds of union. In elaborating the nature of union between soul and body,
Nemesius lists all possible kinds of union, relying on Alexander of Aphrodisias’
On the Soul and On Mixture.6 Nemesius denies that the union of body and soul
is the same like the unions between two pieces of wood, between pebbles or
stones, or between different liquids such as water and wine. He also rejects
the similarity of soul-body union with the union between melting elements
such as iron and the like, and the union between dry and liquid elements like
sponge and oil, and water and papyrus. Although he finds certain similarities
between the body-soul union and the unity between light and air and between
fire and wood, he finally rejects the similarities between these kinds of unities
due to their diffusive natures, as neither light nor fire is present as a whole in
air or wood, like the soul is present in the body.7 Thus, all seven kinds of union
that exist in the sensible nature that Nemesius refers to, are also present in
Maximus.
Another possible source for these terms is Leontius of Byzantium, who has
referred to unions by relation (σχέσις), essence (ουσία), juxtaposition (παράθε-
σις), mixture (μίξις), conglomeration (σωρεία), adjustment (αρμονία), adhe-
sion (κόλλησις), confusion (σύγχυσις), blending (φύρσις).8 Moreover, Leontius
may be also a possible source for the first three and the last two definitions
of Opusculum 18. In the first two and the last two definitions of Opusculum 18,
Maximus argues that the union according to essence relates to different hypos-
tases and the union according to hypostasis relates to different essences.9 This

5 Van Deun, 2000, 128.

6 Nemesius Emesenus, De natura hominis (=nat. hom.) 3, in: M. Morani (ed.), Nemesii Emeseni
de natura hominis, Leipzig 1987, 38,20–39,15. See also R.W. Sharples / P.J. van der Eijk (eds.),
Nemesius of Emesa: On the Nature of Man, TTH 49, Liverpool 2008, 79.
7 Nemes., nat. hom. 3 (Morani 39,1–14).
8 Leont. B., arg. Sev. (PG 86.2, 1925C); see English translation in: B. Daley (ed.), Leontius of
Byzantium: Complete Works, Oxford 2017, 282f.
9 Van Deun, 2000, 145.
248 Vladimir Cvetković

echoes Leontius’ differentiation between realities distinguished in species or

essences, but united in hypostasis and realities united in species or essences
but distinguished in hypostases.10 According to Leontius, the realities united in
species, but distinguished in hypostases have a simple kind of union, while the
realities distinguished in species but united in hypostases have a compound
kind on union.
In Pseudo-Maximus’ Opusculum de anima, one may also find examples of
the compound kinds of union like in Opusculum 18, but here the emphasis is
on the union of body and soul. In this treatise, erroneously attributed to
Maximus, the union of body and soul is analysed against the backdrop of other
kinds of union, such as union of pebbles, known as the union by adjustment,
as well as the union by mixture and the union by blending.11 The argumen-
tation here is similar, even identical, to Nemesius’ On the Nature of Man, not
only in regard to the kinds of the body-soul union,12 but also concerning defi-
nitions of soul, as immaterial, self-moved essence.13 However, apart from the
repetition of the previous patristic arguments regarding the union of body and
soul, Maximus also brings something new that differentiates him from both
Nemesius and Leontius of Byzantium.
In Ambigua ad Iohannem, and especially in Ambiguum 7, Maximus rejects
the Origenist stance about the pre-existence of soul. In this regard Maximus
disagrees with Nemesius. In order to prove the immortality and imperishabil-
ity of the soul, Nemesius adopted the Platonist doctrine that souls exist before
bodies and the view on the act of learning as an act of recollection,14 and there-
fore he argued against Eunomius’ view that souls are created at the same time
with the bodies and against Apollinaris’ view that souls are received from par-
ents like bodies.15 However, the view which Nemesius attributes to Eunomius
is also shared by Gregory of Nyssa, who maintained not only that the body and
soul of each human being is created simultaneously, but also that each human
being pre-exists in divine providence.16 Gregory of Nyssa is a probable source
of Maximus’ doctrine of preexistent logoi for each human being exposed in

10 Leont. B., Nest. et Eut. (PG 86.1, 1304A); Daley (ed.), 2017, 170f.
11 Max., anim. (PG 91, 356CD).
12 Nemes., nat. hom. 3 (Morani, 39).
13 Nemes., nat. hom. 2 (Morani, 18f.). See Max., anim. (PG 91, 356f.).
14 Nemes., nat. hom. 2 (Morani, 22,23–25); Sharples / van der Eijk (eds.), 2008, 60.
15 Nemes., nat. hom. 2 (Morani, 30,18–32,19); Sharples / van der Eijk (eds.), 2008, 69–71. See
also Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological Anthropology of Maximus
the Confessor, ASNU 25, Chicago 21995, 95–104.
16 Gr. Nyss., hom. opif. 28 (PG 44, 229BC; 235B). See also G. Verbeke / J.R. Moncho (eds.),
Némésius d’Émèse: De natura hominis, CLCAG. S 1, Leiden 1975, xlvii and notes 65–68.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 249

Ambiguum 7.17 Moreover, Maximus’ Ambiguum 7 proves that the question of

the pre-existence of the soul was a very actual in his time. This was not only
the reminiscence of the 6th century Origenist controversy, but also the conse-
quence of the 7th century debates with the radical anti-Origenists, who out-
numbered the disguised Origenists. In this work, Maximus repeated first the
main arguments against Origen’s teaching about Henad and the eternal exis-
tence of the minds with God and their coming as souls to the bodies as a result
of divine punishment for transgression, and then he refuted the opposite views
of the radical anti-Origenist that soul’s existence depends on the body. As reca-
pitulating the whole argument against Origen and his followers from ambig. 7
would take much space, it would be relevant to remind the reader of Maximus’
argumentation against the independent existence either of the soul or of the
body. For Maximus the union between body and soul falls into Aristotelian
categories of reciprocal relation (ὁ τοῦ πρός τι) and simultaneous becoming
(ἅμα… κατὰ τὴν γένεσιν),18 which assume that their relationship is constitutive
for the identity of each essence.19 Maximus argues that the termination of one
would lead by necessity to the termination of the other, because neither body
nor soul is “a species on its own” (καθ’ ἑαυτὸ εἶδος), but rather the parts of the
human being and one cannot exist apart from the other.20 However, for the
sake of the argument Maximus allows that soul and body are species or forms
in themselves:

Further, if the soul is a form in itself before it is joined to the body, and the body
is a form before it is joined to the soul, and if the conjunction of the two results
in a form that is different from what each is in itself, then this can only be attrib-
uted to one of two causes: either they have undergone a change or what they are
in their union is what they are by nature. If the former, the change they undergo
involves the destruction of their original form, transforming them into some-
thing they were not. But if what they become is what they are by nature, then
this will happen always because it is their nature, and thus the soul would never
cease changing bodies, nor the body cease changing souls. In my view, however,
this is not what happens, for the constitution of the whole as a form is neither
the result of corruption nor the natural power of the parts coming together, but
rather the simultaneous coming to be of the whole form with its parts.21

17 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1080B); M. Constas (ed.), Maximos the Confessor: On Difficulties
in the Church Fathers 1: ambig. 1–22, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 28, Cambridge
MA 2014, 96f.
18 Cf. Aristotle, Cat. 13 I4b24–15a12 (LCL 325, 100f.).
19 Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 483.
20 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1100D–1101B); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 41f.,136–139.
21 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1100D–1101A); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 41f.,136–139.
250 Vladimir Cvetković

In this lengthy passage Maximus analyses two solutions. In the first solution
Maximus investigates whether the soul united with the body and the body
united with the soul would be identical with the soul and the body that exist
independently one from another before or after the unification. He concludes
that due to changes they would undergo by unifying or by parting themselves
they will not be the same entities in the union as out of the union. In the thor-
ough analysis of this passage, Dirk Krausmüller considers Maximus’ argument
as the description of “the compound against nature.”22 The compound against
nature indicates that already perfect and complete natures of soul and body
would lose their perfect natures by entering in the human compound. Moreover,
Krausmüller states that Maximus’ exposition of the argument regarding the
compound against the nature reveals his strategy of arguing against the radical
anti-Origenist. Following Grigory Benevich, who holds that Maximus’ ambig. 7
is directed against naïve or radical anti-Origenists,23 Krausmüller claims that
Maximus’ argument is actually a subtle attack against the notion of “sleep of
the soul” or the stance propagated by the extreme anti-Origenists that after the
death of the body the disembodied soul is in a comatose state.24 Krausmüller
does not deem Maximus as a disguised Origenist, but by portraying the anti-
Origenist atmosphere in the late 6th and early 7th century as extreme, he ar-
gues that not only the classical Origenist topos of the preexistence of the souls,
but also the stance of soul’s self-sufficiency in afterlife held by Maximus, was
branded as Origenism.25 Therefore, according to Krausmüller, by integrating
his position about the soul’s self-sufficiency in afterlife in the argument against
the preexistence of the souls, Maximus’ intention was not to argue against
Origenist, but against the Chalcedonians who accepted the position of pre-
existing bodies.26 Krausmüller is right that in Maximus’ argument about the
compound against the nature everything applied to the soul is applicable to the
body as well. However, in reality this argument does not have an equal weight
when it is applied to the body, because even the hardline Nestorian arguments
for the pre-existence of the body either in the form of semen and menstrual

22 D. Krausmüller, Origenism and Anti-Origenism in the Late Sixth and Seventh Centuries,
in: J. Kalvesmaki / R. Darling Young (eds.), Evagrius and his Legacy, Notre Dame 2015,
288–316 (307).
23 G. Benevich, Maximus the Confessor’s Polemics against anti-Origenism. Epistulae 6 and 7
as a Context for the Ambigua ad Iohannem, in: RHE 104 (2009), 5–15.
24 Krausmüller, 2015, 289.298.
25 Krausmüller, 2015, 298.
26 Krausmüller, 2015, 308f.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 251

blood,27 or as the concrete body of Adam that is fashioned before it had re-
ceived the breath of life (Gen 2:7),28 presuppose the subsequent unification
with the soul. The Nestorian arguments do not consider body as self-sufficient
reality, to the same degree as the Origenist argument for the preexistence of the
souls considers the soul as a species in itself before it was embodied. Therefore,
Krausmüller claims that the argument on compound against nature does not
stand on its own but it is complemented with a second argument, that deals
with the so-called compound according to nature.29 This is the second solu-
tion that Maximus argues for, namely that only in the compound of human
being the soul and the body fully realise the potential of their natures. Driven
by the force to complete their natures “the soul would never cease changing
bodies, nor the body [would] cease changing souls”.30 This argument implies
transmigration of both souls and bodies. According to this scenario, for both
the soul and the body another body and soul would be instruments to pass
from the state of potentiality to the state of actuality. In this respect finding
a complementary body and soul would not lead to the perfection of human
being, but to the perfection of bodies and souls as entities independent from
the human compound. In his analysis of this solution, Krausmüller argues that
Maximus’ intention was to present this argument about the incompleteness
of both the soul and the body as unacceptable for the Christians for two con-
cealed reasons.31 The first reason implies that by rejecting the option of body
and soul as incomplete parts Maximus will also reject the Nestorian teaching
spread among some Chalcedonian Christians about the preexistence of the
bodies. The second reason derives from the first and it also reveals Maximus’
own position. Namely, the doctrine of the preexistence and consequently post-
existence of the body goes hand in hand with the teaching about the ‘sleep of
the soul’ after the death of the body, which Maximus repudiates. Krausmüller
offers as an evidence for his claim Maximus’ position in his Epistola 7 addressed
to John of Cyzicus, who is also the recipient of Ambigua, about self-sufficiency
of the soul after its departure from the dead body. Krausmüller concludes that
Maximus “insinuates that those who believe that the soul on its own is an in-
complete substance must subscribe to the outlawed Origenist view that souls
are repeatedly embodied”.32 Although Krausmüller is right in his portrayal of

27 Pamphilus Theologus, quaest. 5 (J.H. Declerck / P. Allen [eds.], Diversorum Postchal­

cedonensium Auctorum Collectanea, CChr.SG 19, Turnhout 1989, 154,38–45).
28 Leont. H., Nest. 1.27(PG 86.1, 1493B).
29 Krausmüller, 2015, 306.
30 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1100D); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 41,138f.
31 Krausmüller, 2015, 308f.
32 Krausmüller, 2015, 311.
252 Vladimir Cvetković

the theological settings at the beginning of the 7th century, I disagree with
his interpretation of Maximus’ argumentation, as well as his conclusion that
Maximus’ own position is that the soul is the complete substance.
It would be pertinent to draw a distinction between Maximus’ own position
and the position of his opponents regarding the faculties of the soul after the
death of the body. For the Chalcedonian Christians who accepted the doctrine
of the ‘sleep of the soul’ the soul loses all of their faculties when is separated
from the body. For Maximus however this is not acceptable, and Krausmüller
rightly argues on the basis of Epistola 7, that the soul remains self-sufficient.33
However, it is a question of soul’s self-sufficiency after the departure from the
deceased body. Does the soul still possess all the faculties it had in the union of
the body or not? Krausmüller points to Maximus’ claim from ep. 7 that if one
strips the soul of its constitutive qualities, i.e. rationality and intellectuality,
it will be either nothing or will suffer a change.34 Again Krausmüller rightly
points to intellectual and rational capacities of the soul as constitutive for
Maximus, but he wrongly concludes that the soul continues to fully function
after the death of the body,35 because the soul retains only two of its three nat-
ural capacities. According to Maximus, the “soul has three general movements
that converge into one: movement according to intellect [or mind], according
to reason, and according to sensation.”36 The activity of intellect or mind as
“simple and inexplicable” is directed towards God, and by this activity the soul
is “circling around God in a manner beyond knowledge, for the soul does not
know God after the manner of beings, owing to God’s absolute transcendence
of beings.”37 The second activity directed towards the objects of knowledge is
the activity of reason, by which the soul acquires the knowledge of “all the nat-
ural principles of whatever can be known solely in light of this cause, and these
principles give shape to the soul”.38 It is obvious from Maximus’ reasoning that
the intellectual activity of the soul directed towards God or the Logos of God,
as well her rational activity directed towards the logoi of beings cannot cease to
exist because of the soul’s relationship with the uncreated and eternal realities,
Logos of God and his logoi. However, the third activity of the soul, the activ-
ity of sensation directs the soul outside of itself, towards the creation, from
which the soul “obtains impressions of the principles of visible things”.39 This

33 Krausmüller, 2015, 309.

34 Max., ep. 7 (PG 91, 433AB). See Krausmüller, 2015, 309.
35 Krausmüller, 2015, 309.
36 Max., ambig. 10.3 (PG 91, 1112D); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 9,162f.
37 Max., ambig. 10.3 (PG 91, 1112D–1113A); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 9,162f.
38 Max., ambig. 10.3 (PG 91, 1113A); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 9,162f.
39 Max., ambig. 10.3 (PG 91, 1113A); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 9,162f.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 253

activity of the soul is suspended after the death of the body, since the senses,
and specifically the sense of vision, do not provide the impressions of the vis-
ible objects to the soul. Therefore, it would not be difficult to conclude that one
of the three constitutive faculties of the soul is missing after the death of the
body and that the state of the soul after the death of the body becomes worse
than in the body-soul compound. The soul’s activity of sensation is constitu-
tive for the soul, as much as the other two activities because for Maximus the
impressions of sensible things acquired by power of sensation are by means of
reason transformed into simple spiritual principles (logoi) of sensible things,
and unified by the power of intellect are offered to God.40 The soul’s faculties
of sensation, reason and intellect are by the divine intention in creation linked
for the sake of the process that brings the whole creation into relation with
God. According to Maximus the fall occurred when Adam replaced the intel-
lect’s natural desire for God with physical sensation, and “in his initial impulse
toward sensory objects, mediated through his senses, he came to know plea-
sure activated contrary to nature”.41 The immediate result of the redirection of
the soul’s powers towards the sensible nature is the disruption of the link that
soul had with God, which in final instance led to the death of the body. The
soul’s capacities of intellect and reason are not eradicated, but they are deeply
affected by the suspension of the soul’s faculty of sensation after the death of
the body.
I think that Maximus’ reasoning from Epistola 7 that the soul’s intellectual
and reasoning faculties remained intact after the death of the body is consis-
tent with the rest of his work, but it will be wrong on the basis of this reasoning
to conclude that the soul after the separation from the body will continue to
function in the same way as it functioned when it was united with the body.
Analogously to a car’s engine that converts the chemical energy of fuel into
thermal energy, which is transformed into mechanical energy that accelerates
the car, the soul’s faculty of reason converts the physical sensations provided
by the soul’s faculty of sensation into natural principles (logoi), which are uni-
fied by the soul’s faculty of intellect and transformed into natural desire for
God. In the same way in which the engine works only when the car is tanked
up with fuel, the soul functions properly when the soul’s rational and intellec-
tual faculties are supplied with physical sensations.

40 Max., ambig. 10.3 (PG 91, 1113AB); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 9,162f.
41 Max., qu. Thal. 61.2. See Maximos Constas’s English translation in: M. Constas (ed.),
St. Maximos the Confessor: On the Difficulties in Sacred Scripture. The Responses to Thalassios,
Washington 2018, 434.
254 Vladimir Cvetković

It goes without saying that Maximus’s position thus automatically opposes

the claim of the radical anti-Origenists that the soul received most of its func-
tions from the body. In order to reaffirm the incorporeal nature of the soul
Maximus argued in his Epistolae 6 and 7 against those who ascribed bodily
nature to the soul.42
Now I turn to the rest of Maximus’ argument dealing with the difference
between pre-existence and post-existence of the soul, as well as with the soul’s
and body’s reciprocal relation and their simultaneous becoming:

But if they should say that, because the soul is able to exist and subsist after the
death and dissolution of the body, there is nothing to prevent it from existing
and subsisting before the creation of the body, it would seem to me that their
argument falls rather wide of the mark, and this for the simple reason that the
principle of origin and the principle of being are not the same. The former con-
cerns the ‘when’ and the ‘where’ of a thing, along with its reciprocal relation to
something else. The latter concerns the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of a thing, along
with the basic fact of its existence. If this is so, then the soul, after it has come
to be, remains eternally in existence on account of its essence, and this is not
simply because it came to be, but because it did so in relation to a particular time
and place, and standing in a reciprocal relation to something else.43

It would be pertinent to draw first a distinction between preexistence and

post-existence of both the soul and the body, for the sake of Krausmüller’s rea-
soning that if the soul can exist in a comatose, but also in a self-sufficient state
after death the same should be possible for the time before the composition
with the body.44 According to Maximus this argument falls wide of the mark
and I will attempt in the following lines to detect his reasons for claiming this.
The preexistence of souls, that Maximus argued against at the beginning of
Ambiguum 7, is a constitutive part of the Origenian myth and it presupposes
that the souls existed as complete substances or natures before they were pun-
ished by God with imprisonment in angelic, human and demonic bodies. It is
obvious that by entering in the compound with the bodies, the souls changed
from better to worse. According to the same scenario, the souls would long for
being freed from the body in order to reclaim their true nature.
The second scenario presupposes that by entering the body or by acquir-
ing soul, both the soul and the body changed from worse to better, because in
the union with another reality, either the body or the soul, their natures may
be fully actualised. Therefore, in case of leaving the deceased body, the soul

42 Max., ep. 6 (PG 91, 428D–429A).

43 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1101AB); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 42,138f.
44 Krausmüller, 2015, 307.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 255

actually changes from better to worse, because it loses the opportunity to fully
realise its own nature. The question then arises to which degree this change
occurs. Maximus’ bipartite argument of either change or completion of nature
is not fully applicable to the preexistent soul of the Origenists, as Krausmüller
claims.45 The argument is pertinent partially and it may be applied only if the
change of nature takes place, because preexistent souls had changed their na-
ture for the worse by being imprisoned in bodies, and they will again change
their nature, but now for the better by leaving the bodies. In the case of the
souls that are not forms in themselves and need bodies in order to complete
their nature this argument is not applicable, because the idea of preexistent
souls already implies that these souls are forms in themselves. By considering
his opponent’s argument as false, Maximus opts for the scenario in which the
actualisation of the natural potentialities of body and soul is possible only in
the human compound. Maximus’ description of soul-body relation by means
of the Aristotelian category of reciprocal relation (πρός τι) and simultane-
ous becoming (ἅμα … κατὰ τὴν γένεσιν) is applicable in the aforementioned
case, because the reciprocal relation could not be constitutive for the body
and the soul if they can acquire the fulness of their potentialities indepen-
dently one from another. Therefore, the reciprocal character of their relation-
ship pertains only to the case when body and soul actualise their potentials
in the union of one with another. The second constitutional element for their
relationship is the simultaneity of their coming into the union, or better to
say their becoming. Simultaneity of their becoming automatically excludes the
scenario that either body or soul preexists and that it searches for the union
in which it will realise the fulness of its potential. If soul and body enter the
union once, there is no sense in their hypothetical continuation of changing
to another body or another soul, because in the very process of moving to an-
other body or acquiring another soul both body and soul will change for the
worse. Maximus distinguishes between two principles that equally pertain to
the soul and the body, the “principle of being or substance” (ουσίας λόγος) and
the “principle of coming-to-be” (γενέσεως λόγος). The second principle, which
defines the “when” (πότε), and “where” (που) of the soul’s and body’s becom-
ing, as well as their mutual relationship (σχέσις) or the “towards what” (πρός τι)
is not ancillary, but substantial for their relationship to the same extent as the
‘what’ (τί) and the “how” (πῶς) of the soul and body. According to Krausmüller,
Maximus’ argument about the simultaneity of body’s and soul’s coming to
being by which he complements the “principle of being” with the “principle of
coming-to-be” actually adds nothing to the definitions of the soul and body as

45 Krausmüller, 2015, 307.

256 Vladimir Cvetković

complete realities.46 For Krausmüller is illogical why Maximus claims that al-
though the soul remains fully functional after death it retains its relation to the
body. The reason why the soul retains its relationship with the body after death
is exactly because it is not fully functional without the body, as I have shown
above. Therefore, according to Maximus, after the death of a specific human
being, his or her soul and body would not be considered as soul and body per se
but still as the soul and the body of this specific human being.47 As counterar-
gument to Maximus’ linking of “when”, “where” and “towards what” categories
to the definitions of the soul and the body, Krausmüller introduces Leontius
of Byzantium’s reasoning that the extra-substantial categories of time, rela-
tion, and place have no relevance for the definition.48 Krausmüller builds his
case further against Maximus’ view of the relationality and simultaneity of
the soul and body relying on Leontius’ arguments from Contra Nestorianos et
Eutychianos.49
As it is mentioned above in his doctrine of the soul, the body and their union
Maximus relies mostly on Nemesius of Emesa and Leontius of Byzantium, but
he also differs from them. It is obvious that the main subject of departure from
Nemesius is Maximus’ refutation of the preexistence of souls that Nemesius
held. Now we arrive to the question of Maximus’ difference from Leontius.
Krausmüller brings Leontius of Byzantium’ views in the discussion in order to
discredit Maximus’ relational argument as being irrelevant for the definitions
of the body and the soul. Here is the text on which Krausmüller relies:

Soul is distinguished from its body by the difference in nature, and is united [to
it] by the category of hypostasis, which their mutually coherent life brings into
full being. The second or middle relationship preserves this. But man is com-
pletely distinguished from his body by itself and his soul by itself as being their
totality; because he has the first sort of relationship to his parts, he brings about
the second sort of sharing between them. So Christ, too, acts as a connecting
link between two extremes with regard to us and the Father, by means of his
parts—if we may consider him a whole made up of parts: he is wholly a hyposta-
sis over against the Father, because of his divinity and along with his humanity,
and he is wholly a hypostasis over against us, along with his divinity, because of
his humanity.50

46 Krausmüller, 2015, 300f.

47 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1101B); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 42,138f.
48 Krausmüller, 2015, 301.
49 Leont. B., Nest. et Eut. (PG 86.1, 1285C–1289D).
50 Leont. B., Nest. et Eut. (PG 86.1, 1288D–1289A); Daley (ed.), 2017, 148–151.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 257

As the focus of this passage is on the analogy drawn between the unity of body
and soul and the unity of Christ’s divine and human nature, the following chap-
ter will be focused on similarities and differences between these two unities.

III. Composite Hypostasis versus Composite Nature

By drawing the analogy of the body and soul with Christ’s divine and human
nature Leontius exposed himself to the criticism of the Monophysites. They
claim that if the body and the soul are complete natures then Christ will have
either one nature, like human beings have one nature which consists of two
natures, or three natures, i.e. the soul, the body and the divinity.51 Leontius’
notion of perfect and complete natures opens actually room for the attack of
Monophysites. He argues that the body and the soul are not imperfect per se,
but they are imperfect in relation to the human hypostasis.52 Leontius states
also that the same reasoning is applicable to Christ, because although both
the Logos and humanity are perfect, neither the Logos nor humanity are the
complete Christ.53 Here, Leontius emphasises that neither place nor time, in
which soul and body, as well as divine and human nature of Christ coming into
union do not affect the definition of their natures or essences. This means, as
Krausmüller insists, that the time and place in which two natures come into
union is perfectly irrelevant. The union of two natures that come to being si-
multaneously, such as the body and the soul, is identical to the union in which
one nature preexists the other, like the union between the divinity and human-
ity in Christ. The same is applicable to the place. It is completely irrelevant
for the natures or the essences of the body and the soul, as well as the divine
and human natures, whether they enter into relationship with one another
or not, because in both cases they remain complete. However, Maximus has
a different view on the relationship between the soul and the body and the
relationship between the human and divine nature in Christ. For Maximus,
as it is mentioned above, both ‘when’ and ‘where’ are crucial for the natures
or substances. He argues that human form testifies by itself that the body and
soul come into being simultaneously. First, the soul and the body are in rela-
tionship to each other and they are separable only in thought. Second, the soul
and the body are always the soul and the body of a specific human being and

51 N. Madden, Composite Hypostasis in Maximus Confessor, in: StPatr 27 (1993), 175–197 (175).
52 Leont. B., Nest. et Eut. (PG 86.1, 1281C); Daley (ed.), 2017, 138f.
53 Leont. B., Nest. et Eut. (PG 86.1, 1281CD); Daley (ed.), 2017, 138f.
258 Vladimir Cvetković

they are also unthinkable as being the soul and the body per se.54 Although
Maximus’ argument does not go in the direction of comparing this kind of
relationship with the relationship between divinity and humanity of Christ it
is obvious that the analogy cannot be drawn between the two through the per-
spective of time and place. Firstly, the simultaneous coming of the two natures
into union will violate the principle of natures in the hypostasis of Christ, be-
cause the beginningless divine nature has to come to being. Second, Maximus’
reasoning that the body and the soul are separable only in thought is not ap-
plicable to the human and divine nature, because the natures of the soul and
the body do not exist independently one from another, while the divine and
human natures are also separable in reality because they are independent one
from another. These are at least two reasons why the principle of simultaneity
applied to the union of the body and the soul cannot be applied to the union
of the divine and the human nature. In regard to the place in which the body
and the soul come to be, i.e. particular human person, this principle is again
not applicable to the union of the divine and human nature. The soul and the
body come to being in a specific human being and they are also unthinkable
without being parts of this particular human being. In the same way as the
simultaneous coming to being of the body and the soul results in the genera-
tion of a particular human being, the simultaneous coming to being of the
divine nature together with the human nature, should also result in a newly
generated composition. However, this is not the case because the hypostasis of
Logos which preexists from the eternity and bears the divine nature, assumes
the human nature at a certain point in time. One part of this composition,
namely the divine nature exists before the human nature in the hypostasis
of the divine Logos. Therefore, both the principle of reciprocal relationship
and the principle of simultaneity of coming to being that pertains to the unity
of the body and souls are violated in the case of the unity of the human and
divine nature in Christ. If one strictly applies the principle of simultaneity to
the union of the divine and human natures and if the beginningless divine na-
ture comes somehow to being together with the human nature, then the new
divino-human hypostasis will also come to life and one cannot speak about
the Holy Trinity anymore, but rather about the Holy Tetrad. Being aware of the
negative consequences of the aforementioned analogy Maximus avoids draw-
ing similarities between these two unions.
Maximus would not have been concerned with the hypothetical obstacles
of applying the principles relevant for the union of the body and the soul to
the union between human and divine nature without the threat that came

54 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1101B).

12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 259

from the Monophysites. The emphasis of the Monophysites, and especially of

Severus of Antioch, in this analogy was that as the intimate unity of body and
the soul implies one human nature, the intimate unity of divine and human
nature in Christ also implies one composite nature.55 In Ambigua to John, writ-
ten before 633/4, and perhaps in 628,56 Maximus tackles the question of com-
posite nature:

[…] no nature, to speak generally, whether intelligible or sensible—that is,

whether simple or composite—ever receives in any way the origin of its coming
into being from one of its parts, nor can it subsist with only half of its constitu-
tive elements. If the nature in question is composite, the absolute totality of it
subsists together with the absolute totality of the parts proper to it, there being
no temporal interval whatsoever dividing it either from itself or from the parts
of which it is composed.57

This Maximus’ argument is a continuation of his previous reasoning about

the Logos of God, who in Incarnation assumed human flesh through the me-
dium of a rational soul. As it has been previously mentioned, the Logos of
God existed in his divine nature and divine hypostasis within Trinity before
his incarnation. By defining the nature, and specifically the composite nature,
Maximus insists on the principles of reciprocal relationship and simultaneity
of its parts. The argument is actually directed against Severus’ identification of
Christ’s hypostasis with the composite nature. By claiming that nature nei-
ther originates from one of its parts, nor it exists with a half of its constitutive
elements, Maximus argues against Christ’s composite nature. If Christ has a
composite nature, then this composite divino-human nature would originate
from his divine nature that preexisted his human nature, and the Logos of God
would exist before his incarnation only in divine nature, which is only a half of
his composite nature. The specificity of the composite nature is a lack of tem-
poral interval between the parts that constitute the composite nature. In the
case of the soul and body this is known as the principle of simultaneity. As the
human nature comes into existence together with its constitutive parts and
it is not separated by a temporal interval from its parts, then one may deduce

55 Severus Antiochenus, Contra Impium Grammaticum 2, in: Joseph Lebon (ed.), Severi
Antiocheni Liber contra impium Grammaticum. Oratio prima et secunda 2, CSCO 112,
Louvain 1952, 91/71.
56 M. Jankowiack / P. Boot, A New Date-List of the Works of Maximus the Confessor, in: P. Allen /
B. Neil (eds.), The Oxford Handbook on Maximus the Confessor, Oxford 2014, 19–83 (28).
57 Max., ambig. 42 (PG 91, 1345AB); M. Constas (ed.), Maximos the Confessor. On Difficulties
in the Church Fathers 2: ambig. 23–71, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 29, Cambridge
MA 2014, 30,178f.
260 Vladimir Cvetković

that the human nature is a composite nature. On the contrary, Christ’s nature
is not composite because his divine and human natures are separated by an
interval. Consequently, the eternal hypostasis of divine Logos of God existed
prior to the composite hypostasis of Christ.
The second part of the same argument about the simple nature is not di-
rected against Severus, but rather it challenges the notion of perfection of cre-
ated natures that Leontius of Byzantium associates with the soul and body in
the composite hypostasis.58 For Maximus the simplicity of nature implies the
perfection and this perfection exists simultaneously with its proper principle
(logos). As the proper principle or the logos of particular being includes the
totality of its past, present and future states, while the particular being exists
only in the present, but not in past and future, there will be always a temporal
distance between a particular being and its proper logos, or between his being
and his perfection. Therefore, Maximus concludes that only God possesses
perfection simultaneously with its being.59 Similarly, in Epistola 1 addressed
to Marinus more than a decade letter (in 645/646), Maximus argues that the
human being desires the fullness and totality of its own being.60 By realising
that it does not possess the fullness of its own being and that it cannot identify
himself with a given being, the human being paradoxically goes out of itself
towards God to find the totality of its own being.
Apart from dealing with the problem of two natures of Christ from the
perspective of the body-soul union in his Ambigua to John, Maximus ad-
dresses it also in several subsequent letters, including Epistolae 12 and 13 and
Opusculum 13. The Epistola 13 to Peter the Illustris is the earliest of these let-
ters, written approximately at the same time as Ambigua to John, or between
629 and 633.61 Maximus deals here exclusively with Severus’ doctrine of one
composite nature. Maximus commences his refutation of Severus by draw-
ing a distinction between the union of body and soul and the union of divine
and human nature in Christ on the basis of freedom and necessity. He argues
that while the body-soul union results from the necessity of created order, the
union between divine and human nature is an act of love and freedom of di-
vine Logos. For Maximus the divine incarnation happened according to the
mode of divine economy and not according to the law of nature.62 Therefore,
Maximus rejects the possibility that Christ has a composite nature, which the

58 Leont. B., Nest. et Eut. (PG 86.1, 1281C); Daley (ed.), 2017, 138f.
59 Max., ambig. 42 (PG 91, 1345BC); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 30,178–181.
60 Max., opusc. 1 (PG 91, 12C).
61 Jankowiack / Boot, 2014, 33.
62 Max., ep. 13 (PG 91, 517B).
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 261

Monophysites attributed to him according to essence. However, being himself

a composite of divine and human nature, for Maximus Christ is a composite
hypostasis without having a composite nature.63 Maximus launches further
argumentation against Severus by confronting him with the dilemma whether
one composite nature is generic or singular.64 If Christ’s composite nature is
generic, like the union of the body and the soul is generic then this will result-
ed in many Christs. If however, the composite nature of Christ is singular then
Christ would neither have the same essence with his Father nor with human
beings.65 Maximus concludes that the natural composition cannot be applied
to Christ because this will challenge his uniqueness, as well as his natural iden-
tity and integrity. However, by way of hypostatic compound or composite hy-
postasis, Christ preserves both the unique character of his hypostasis, which
is not a common attribute of the whole species, and the identity of his two
natures by which he shares essential characteristics with the Father as well as
with humanity.66 Therefore, Maximus emphasises that Christ cannot be indi-
vidual, because this would imply that he is part of a species. Neither is Christ’s
nature generic, because that would presuppose a number of individuals of the
same kind.67 By the end of the letter Maximus returns to the analogy:

The point here, in my view, is not that there is no analogy at all between God and
the world, but that the correlation or analogy between body and soul belongs
to the natural realm and is necessary or unchangeable. The soul is given over to
the body, which is able to receive and ‘comprehend’ the activity of the soul due
to the simultaneous coming into being of both body and soul, just as much as the
body is handed over to the soul, which possesses the body and is acting within
it. The divine nature of Christ however, is not necessarily entering into such a
relation with created nature, because Christ’s divine nature is supernatural and
transcends such a necessary and reciprocal implication in created nature, which
cannot measure or comprehend the supernatural.68

Here Maximus introduces another argument for differentiating the soul-body

union from the union of Christ’s two natures, which is built on the necessity
of created realm. Thus, the body-soul union as natural union includes certain
necessity and reciprocity, while the union of Christ’s two natures is beyond

63 Max., ep. 13 (PG 91, 517BC).

64 Max., ep. 13 (PG 91, 517C).
65 Max., ep. 13 (PG 91, 516D–520D).
66 Max., ep. 13 (PG 91, 525D–529A).
67 Max., ep. 13 (PG 91, 529AD).
68 Max., ep. 13 (PG 91, 532B).
262 Vladimir Cvetković

nature, because there is no necessity from the side of divine nature to enter
such a union, nor reciprocity of the divine nature with human nature in Christ.
In his Opusculum 13 dating also before 633/4,69 Maximus revisits the two
natures of Christ, by affirming his position between the Scylla of Nestorianism
and the Charybdis of Eutychianism. By arguing against Nestorians who deny
the hypostatic union because of the difference of natures in Christ, and
Eutychians, who deny natural difference in the hypostatic union, Maximus in-
sists on both the hypostatic union and the natural difference in Christ.70 In his
ep. 15 addressed to Cosmas, an Alexandrine deacon, and dating probably from
633, Maximus explains the difference between Christ’s hypostasis and natures
and human hypostasis and natures. Maximus claims that by the account of
the commonality of nature of his own parts, that is the body and the soul, the
human being is of the same essence as other human being. However, by the
account of the proper feature of those same parts a particular human being
proves the fact that he is of a different hypostasis than another human being.71
The human species emerges from the composition of the body and soul and in
this respect one can speak of a common human nature, while the composition
of divine and human nature of Christ remains unique.
In the Epistola 12 written in 641 and addressed to John Cubicularius,72
Maximus summarises his position, by distinguishing between composite na-
ture and composite hypostasis.73 He repeats his previous argument but in a
more systematic way, extracting three main reasons why the analogy between
the two natures in Christ and the two natures in the human being is not ap-
propriate. First, Maximus emphasises the necessity by which the union of the
body and the soul emerges, concluding that the composite nature does not
have the power to unite its parts.74 Thus, Christ is excluded from the defini-
tion of composite nature, because he willingly united his divine nature with
the human nature in the incarnation. Second, Maximus repeats his argument
regarding the simultaneity of the body’s and soul’s becoming and forming a
human being. This was another argument for the composite nature. In the case
of Christ, his divine nature preexisted his human nature and therefore he can-
not be deemed to have one composite nature. Finally, Maximus revisits his
argument about the reciprocal relationship of the body and the soul as two
incomplete natures, which by way of their composition form a new species,

69 Jankowiack / Boot, 2014, 34.

70 Max., opusc. 13.9 (PG 91, 149A).
71 Max., ep. 15 (PG 91, 553A).
72 Jankowiack / Boot, 2014, 54.
73 Max., ep. 12 (PG 91, 488B).
74 Max., ep. 12, (PG 91, 488CD).
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 263

the species of human beings.75 Thus, the human species does not derive from
one common human nature, but from the commonality of natural unity of the
body and soul in each human being.76 The argument of the reciprocal char-
acter of the union is again not applicable to Christ because neither his two
natures are incomplete in themselves, nor by their composition a new spe-
cies emerges. By relying on Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus insists that Christ
cannot be defined.77 According to Maximus’ argumentation it is obvious that
the analogy of Christ’s and human’s double nature cannot serve as a basis for
claiming that the composite nature is also applicable to Christ as it is appli-
cable to human beings. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the body
and soul analogy is not relevant for Christology. Maximus maintains that the
body and soul that are different by nature are united hypostatically,78 and thus,
apart from being united in composite nature they are also united in compos-
ite hypostasis. The human composite hypostasis, regardless of its incomplete
natures brought together by necessity, remains a model for understanding the
composite hypostasis of Christ. Nicholas Madden rightly observes that it is
the human composite nature that gives rise to the composite hypostasis.79 This
observation might help us to understand how the human composite nature fits
in Maximus’s framework of fivefold divisions or distinctions that exist in the
world, which is the topic of the following chapter.

IV. The Body and Soul Union in the Context of Five Divisions

For Maximus the analogy of the body-soul unity with the unity of divine and
human nature is not only relevant for Christology, but also for eschatology. In
Ambiguum 7 Maximus describes how the creatures, who acted in accordance
with their logoi, will become the instruments of the divine nature in the es-
chatological realm. In order to describe the future state of human beings,
Maximus compares the role of the soul in the body-soul union with the role of
divine activity in the afterlife of humanity:

For God in His fullness entirely permeates them, as a soul permeates the body,
since they are to serve as His own members, well suited and useful to the Master,

75 Max., ep. 12 (PG 91, 488D).

76 V. Grumel, L’union hypostatique et la comparaison de l’âme et du corps chez Léonce de
Byzance et saint Maxime le confesseur, in: REByz 144 (1926), 393–406 (403).
77 Max., ep. 12 (PG 91, 488C).
78 Max., opusc. 14 (PG 91, 152A).
79 Madden, 1993, 181.
264 Vladimir Cvetković

who shall use them as He thinks best, filling them with His own glory and bless-
edness, graciously giving them eternal, inexpressible life, completely free from
the constituent properties of this present life, which is marred by corruption …
[God] will be to the soul, as it were, what the soul is to the body, and through
the soul He will likewise be present in the body (in a manner (τρόπον) that He
knows), so that the soul will receive immutability and the body immortality. In
this way, man as a whole will be divinised, being made God by the grace of God
who became man. Man will remain wholly man in soul and body, owing to his
nature, but will become wholly God in soul and body owing to the grace and the
splendor of the blessed glory of God, which is wholly appropriate to him, and
beyond which nothing more splendid or sublime can be imagined.80

Maximus draws a parallel between God and the soul in respect to the role of
divine activity in the divinised human being. It appears that God will become
to human being what the soul has been to the body. The original constitution
of human beings as composition of the soul and the body will remain in the
afterlife, but the human beings will be permeated with the divine energy, in the
same way in which the soul permeates the body. However, it would be wrong
to conclude that the reciprocal and necessary union of the body and soul is
a model for the much higher and ineffable union of human beings with the
divine. Maximus maintains that God created the world having in mind the es-
chatological Christ of the final union of the Logos with all his logoi. This means
that everything created is created for serving this final state of divino-human
unity. By relying on Gregory Nazianzus, Maximus argues that God created the
human being planting his image in the soul.81 On the one hand the role of
the soul was to cling to God by its intellectual and rational capacities in order
to gain divinisation. On the other hand, the role of the soul was to care for
and to prudently use the body by subjecting it to the mind through virtues.82
By creating the soul, God endowed it with a mediatory role between God and
the body. The twofold union, the necessary and reciprocal union of the soul
with the body, and free and willing union of the soul with the divine should
provide, according to the divine plan, both the immutability of the soul and
the immortality of the body. Thus, God created human beings as body-soul
compounds in order to give them a foretaste of the future union with the di-
vine, which although is supernatural will be felt as natural as natural is the
union of the body and the soul. Moreover, in the supernatural union with God,
the soul and the body will be inextricably united one to another, with a bond
much stronger than the natural bond. In order to understand how the union

80 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1088BC); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 26,110–112f.

81 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1092B); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 31,118f.
82 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1092B); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 31,119–121.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 265

of body and soul fits in the divine plan, it is worth consulting two hierarchies
that Maximus introduces, one cosmological and one psychological. Both are
dating from roughly the same period, namely before mid-630’s. The so-called
cosmological hierarchy is presented in ambig. 41 in the form of five divisions
or distinctions that exist in the nature. The psychological or epistemological
hierarchy is introduced several years later in Maximus’ Mystagogia, chapter
five, in the form of five pairs.
Similarly to Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus introduces hierarchies, but
instead of Dionysian enneads (divided into three triads), in Neopythagorean
fashion Maximus opts for decades (divided into two pentads).83 For Maximus
God proceeds in two decades, consisting of five pairs each. Broadly speaking
the cosmological hierarchy from Ambiguum 41 may be considered as relat-
ing to the body and the sensible creation, while the psychological hierarchy
pertains to the soul. Maximus uses the Neoplatonic notions of procession and
return, or to be more precise the “creative and sustaining procession” (ποιητι-
κή τε καί συνεκτική πρόοδος) and the “revertive and inductive return” (ἐπιστρε-
πτική τε καί χειραγωγική ἀναφορά).84 In Ambiguum 41, Maximus describes the
process of divine procession or creation of the five pairs in nature.85 In the
first instance God created nature which received its beings in the process of
becoming, distinguishing in this way the uncreated from created nature. God
then divided the created nature into sensible nature, which is perceived by
senses and intelligible nature, perceived by mind. In the next step God di-
vided the sensible nature into heaven and earth. Paul Blowers considers these
three divisions to be natural, while the next two divisions are the result of the
human fall.86 On several occasions Maximus expresses his conviction that
the fall occurred simultaneously with the creation (ἅμα τῷ γενέσθαι), and that
there was no temporal interval prior to Adam’s fall.87 As the fall occurred si-
multaneously with the creation of humanity, God could also reconsider his
existing plan of creation and to reshape the humanity in accordance to the
fallen state. One should dismiss the interpretation suggested by some scholars
that the simultaneity of the creation and the fall presuppose the Origenistic

83 Max., myst. 5 (C. Boudignon [ed.], Maximi Confessoris Mystagogia. Una cum Latina inter-
pretatione Anastasii Bibliothecarii, CChr.SG 69, Turnhout 2011, 27,419–429).
84 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91,1081B); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 20,100f.
85 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91,1305AB); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 2,102–105.
86 P.M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy. Creator and Creation in Early Christian
Theology and Piety, Oxford 2012, 284.
87 Max., qu. Thal. 59 (PG 90, 613C); Laga / Steel (eds.), 1990, 61,263–266; qu. Thal. 61 (PG 90,
628AB); Laga / Steel (eds.), 1990, 85,8–16.
266 Vladimir Cvetković

and gnostic scenario of soul’s embodiment,88 and that the materiality was the
consequence of the fall.89 As Aleksandar Djakovac has convincingly shown,90
Maximus considers that due to the simultaneity between the creation and the
fall, God introduced some changes in the humanity that are evident when one
compares them with Christ’s human condition. For example, the immaculate
conception of Christ and his birth from the virgin Mary, who remained virgin
after giving birth to Jesus, point to another way of generation different from the
animal-like generation that became characteristic of humanity after the fall.91
The last two divisions are introduced by God and therefore adapted to the
postlapsarian state of humanity. The fourth division is the division of the earth
into paradise and inhabited world (oikumenê). According to Maximus, para-
dise or paradisiacal state exists here just in potentiality. Finally, the inhabited
world is divided into male and female, which is an adaptation for the procre-
ation by copulation and generation. Maximus concludes his reasoning by ex-
plaining the purpose of the existing divisions:

Through this potential, consistent with the purpose behind the origination of
divided beings, man was called to achieve within himself the mode of their
completion, and so bring to light the great mystery of the divine plan, realising
in God the union of the extremes which exist among beings, by harmoniously
advancing in an ascending sequence from the proximate to the remote and from
the inferior to the superior. This is why man was introduced last among beings—
like a kind of natural bond mediating between the universal extremes through
his parts, and unifying through himself things that by nature are separated from
each other by a great distance …92

Although Maximus does not mention the union of the body and the soul, the
allusion that the human being is created the last among beings in order to be
a natural bond between already created extremes may be read in the light of
this union. By their bodies human beings belong to the sensible reality, while
by the souls, the humanity participates in the realm of intelligible beings, like
angels. The soul-body union indicates that the two created realms meet in
every particular human being and that by belonging simultaneously to the two
worlds the role of humanity is to mediate between two worlds. The appropriate

88 J.-C. Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme selon Saint Maxime le Confesseur, CFi 194, Paris
1996, 187.
89 D. Haynes, Grace and Metaphysics in Maximus Confessor, PhD thesis, Nottingham 2015, 215.
90 А. Djakovac, Rečeno i neirecivo [Spoken and Unspeakable], Beograd 2018, 42f. [in Serbian].
91 Max., ambig. 31 (PG 91, 1276AB); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 2,40f.; Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91,
1309A); Constas (ed.) 2. 2014, 7,110f.
92 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1305B); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 104f.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 267

employment of psychical and physical capacities in accordance with innate

logoi, as well as with the proper mode of existence, opens the possibility for the
harmonious advancement of human beings from “the proximate to the remote
and from the inferior to the superior”. However, a possible human employment
of the natural faculties contrary to their innate logoi, and particularly the ir-
rational movement of human intellectual capacities,93 not naturally towards
God, but unnaturally towards body and sensible nature, led God to introduce
another change that deviates from the original plan. Maximus reversed the
Origenian myth about the embodiment of the souls as divine punishment for
transgression, into the argument about divine adaptation of human nature in
the light of the foreseen transgression. Maximus distinguishes between the
original plan of God and the deviation of this plan. While the divine original
plan according to Maximus did not include the sexual division and the divi-
sion into paradise and inhabited earth, it certainly included the distinction
between soul and body as elements of which is composed human nature. In
this respect the Origenistic view on the embodiment of the soul as divine in-
tervention cannot be ascribed to Maximus. According to Maximus, the original
plan also included the stability and unchangeability of the soul and the incor-
ruptibility and immortality of the body. However, by foreseeing the possible
transgression of the human being, God changed the characteristics of the soul
and the body and he linked the soul, now unstable and exposed to passions,
to the sufferable, corruptive and, in the last instance, dissolvable body.94 The
purpose of this change was a detachment of the soul from body and matter,
inflicted by human physical suffering and hardship.95 For Maximus, God’s in-
tention was the awareness of the human being that the way back to their lost
stability, incorruptibility and immortality is by prioritising the soul’s natural
object of desire for God to the soul’s irrational lust for created things.
Therefore, it may be concluded that according to Maximus, the human
paradisiacal and prelapsarian state has never taken place and that from the
beginning the soul and the body had to wrestle with passions, corruptibility
and death. The question arises how does one know the real potential of the
human paradisiacal and prelapsarian state, if it never took place? Maximus’
response would be that the Logos of God through his incarnation gave us not
only a glimpse of the paradisiacal state, but also a foretaste of the future divin-
ised humanity.

93 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1093A); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 32,122f.

94 Max., ambig. 8 (PG 91, 1104AB); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 2,142–145.
95 Max., ambig. 8 (PG 91, 1104BC); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 2,144f.
268 Vladimir Cvetković

Christ has undertaken the process of reversion, called also gathering

(σύνοδος), by overcoming the existing divisions. Maximus claims that Christ
became a perfect man, which does not only mean that he became a fully
human, with the human soul and the body, but also that he reinstated the
original divine plan into human nature. This mainly pertains to the first divi-
sion between male and female. The immaculate conception and the birth from
the virgin points to another mode of multiplication of human beings, which
does not presuppose the existence of male and female and the procreation
by sexual copulation.96 By his resurrection from the dead Christ united the
inhabited earth with the paradise. As Maximus claims, Christ proved that “the
earth is one and not divided against itself, for it preserves the principle of its
existence free of any difference caused by division.”97 Maximus emphasises
here that the earth regardless of its division into inhabited earth and paradise
had only one logos of being, and not two. The same could be said for the sexual
division. In spite of the fact that the human nature is divided into male and
female, the sexes do not have separate logoi, but there is only one logos for the
human nature. This is the main reason why these two divisions are considered
by some scholars not to be natural, or to be against the nature.98 By ascension
into heaven, Christ has united heaven and earth in one logos of the sensible na-
ture.99 Christ’s passage through the divine and intelligible order of heaven has
resulted in uniting the sensible nature with the intelligible nature in the most
primal and most universal logos of being. Maximus recapitulates the whole
process done by Christ:

He united, first of all, ourselves in Himself through removal of the difference

between male and female, and instead of men and women, in whom this mode
of division is especially evident, He showed us as properly and truly to be simply
human beings, thoroughly formed according to Him, bearing His image intact
and completely unadulterated, touched in no way by any marks of corruption.
And with us and for us He encompassed the extremes of the whole creation
through the means, as His own parts, and He joined them around Himself, each
with the other, tightly and indissolubly: paradise and the inhabited world, heav-
en and earth, the sensible and the intelligible, since like us He possesses a body,
sense perception, soul, and intellect …100

96 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1309A); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 7,110f.

97 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1309B); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 8,112f.
98 Blowers, 2012, 284.
99 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1309C); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 8,112f.
100 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1309D–1312A); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 9,114f.
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 269

Maximus points out that before appearing in front of the Father, Christ as
human being fulfilled and completed all that is divinely preordered from
eternity for humanity.101 Christ’s appearance and session by the Father in his
perfected humanity is also his overcoming of the last division that existed be-
tween created and uncreated nature.
Maximus offers in this text a glimpse into the future transformation of the
body and the soul. The changes which Christ’s body has undergone pertain
to its generation, incorruptibility and immortality. Christ adapted the way
of human generation to the original plan, showing that the conception by
means of sexual intercourse, and subsequent birth from a woman, and thus
the existence of man and woman per se are not the only way of human pro-
creation. The body of Mary, the mother of God was subjected neither to plea-
sure during the immaculate conception, nor to pain during labor. Thus, her
body escaped the dialectical pair of pleasure and pain (ἡδονή—ὀδύνη), that is
attached to human fallen condition.102 The fact that the bodies of Mary, the
mother of God and of the infant Jesus were not exposed to corruption through
labor points to a different, more subtle existence of the body not exposed to
physical laws. The later events from Christ’s life, such as walking on water
(Mk 6:45–53) and performing various miracles in his pre-resurrection body or
passing through a closed door (Joh 20:19) or ascending into heaven (Lk 24:51)
in his post-resurrection body, reveal the real nature of the human body. This
all points out to the existence of a thin body which is not subjected to cor-
ruption. Nevertheless, the major event is the resurrection. In the scheme of
Christ’s overcoming of five divisions, the resurrection is placed in the second
division, or the division between the inhabited earth and paradise. According
to Maximus, by uniting the inhabited earth with the paradise, Christ united
his human body with his human soul that were separated in the moment of
his death on the cross. The human beings in the fallen state contrary to their
nature have united what has been naturally divided, such as the soul with the
sensible world, and they have divided what has been naturally united, such as
the soul with the intelligible world and God, endangering thus the whole cre-
ation to return to non-being.103 According to Maximus, the innovation of the
nature that took place with Christ’s action did not change their logos of nature,
but it changed their mode of existence.104 As it is mentioned above this new

101 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1309D); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 9,112f.
102 Max., qu. Thal. 33 (PG 90, 256AB). Also in: C. Laga / C. Steel (eds.), Maximi Confessoris
Quaestiones ad Thalassium 1: Quaestiones I–LV, CChr.SG 7, Turnhout 1980, 259–264.
103 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1308C); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 6,108f.
104 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1313D); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 12,120f.
270 Vladimir Cvetković

way of existence, by which the soul will receive immutability and the body im-
mortality, implies reattachment of the soul to God and the body to the soul.105
It is relevant to apply here the analogy between the soul and the body
and the human and divine nature. As due to the unity with divine nature the
human nature in Christ may act beyond the limits of its own nature, similarly
the nature of the body united with the soul may act beyond the limits of its
material nature. In both cases, by being fully permeated by the energies of
this other nature, the nature acts beyond its innate limits and appropriates
the characteristics of the other nature. Thus, by being fully permeated by the
divine energy, the human nature appropriates the characteristics of the divine,
although it remains fully human.106 Similarly, by being fully permeated by the
energy of the soul, the body appropriates the characteristics of the soul, re-
maining at the same time material.107 This was in accordance with the divine
plan, which presuppose the hypostatic union of divine and human, not only in
the incarnate Logos, but also in the deified humanity. By having this in mind,
God then structured the whole reality, finalising his creation by uniting divine-
like and immaterial soul with the material body. The role of the human being
was to fashion its body in accordance with its soul and the soul in accordance
with its divine origin, as well as to unite all other divisions existing in nature,
including the last division between the created and the uncreated nature. The
difference between composite nature and composite hypostasis, which was in
the focus of the previous chapter, still exists here. The human being remains
both a composite nature of the body and the soul, as well as a composite hy-
postasis. The human composite hypostasis does not only deliberately unite dif-
ferent natures in its hypostasis, but it also unites the natures estranged from
their natural logoi. For example, the unity of male and female in the human
hypostasis is not the unity of two different natures that are determined by two
logoi of nature, but the one and the same human nature that undergoes this
unnatural division. Similarly, God did not ascribe different logoi to the inhab-
ited earth and paradise, but they have one and the same nature defined by a
single logos. In these two cases one nature does not receive the characteristics
of another nature, like it is in the case of the body, which receives the charac-
teristics of the soul, but it rather acts in accordance with its logos of nature.
The sexual division would be suspended by one’s acting in accordance with the
logos of human nature. Therefore, the early Church praised the life in virginity
and in ascetical struggle, perceiving it as the most appropriate way of life for
human beings. Similarly, the division between inhabited earth and paradise

105 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1088BC); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 26,110–113.
106 Max., qu. Thal. 22.7.
107 Max., myst. 7 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 33–35,540–575).
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 271

will be abolished by the universal resurrection, because the human beings will
return to the state of immortality. Christ’s post-resurrection life on earth before
his ascension to heaven reveals the characteristics of the paradisiacal life, such
as the incorruptible and thin body, not subjected to the laws of nature. Many
of the Christian saints acquired during their lives some of the paradisiacal
characteristics, such as being served by wild animals, or being free from spa-
tial and temporal restrictions, which is evident in their abilities to levitate and
foresee future.
Each of the next three divisions united by Christ consists actually of two
natures. The mode (τρόπος) of existence is now employed not in order to
conform one single nature to its own logos of nature, but in order to regulate
the functioning of two natures in accordance with their respective logoi. The
proper mode of existence of human nature includes the soul’s and the body’s
functioning in accordance with their logoi, for the benefits of all humanity.
Similarly, by its proper mode of existence and similarly to Christ, the human
hypostasis has to unite earth and heaven in one sensible nature. According to
Maximus, the sensible nature, like the human nature, is composite, consist-
ing of dense earth and the thin air of heaven, which can be extended to other
celestial bodies and all galaxies. Christ has united earth and heaven in one sen-
sible nature by his bodily ascension to heaven. The unification of these two
natures in one sensible nature implies that the characteristics of one nature
will also be shared with another. In particular the dense earth and earthly be-
ings will also acquire the features of the thin air, escaping the laws of gravity
and other laws that are applicable to earth, but not to the outer space. The ul-
timate unification in the created nature was the unification of the sensible na-
ture with the intelligible nature, or the angelic orders. Here again one nature,
sensible in this case, receives the capacities of another nature, intelligible in
particular. By uniting these two natures in one created nature, the composite
human hypostasis acquires the features of intelligible, angelic nature, in spite
of its participation with the body in the sensible nature. As composed of the
soul, belonging to the intelligible realm, and the body, situated in the sensible
realm, the human being experiences the fullness of created nature. The final
step is to bring the unified created nature into communion with God. While
all previous unions were innate to human nature, the final union is beyond
nature, because the human beings receive the divine way of being. Thus, the
created nature becomes free of all restrictions which imply createdness and
apart from immortality, stability and eternity, it also acquires beginningless
and infinity by grace (άναρχους κατά χάριν κάι ατελεύτητους).108

108 Max., qu. Thal. 60, (PG 90, 617D); Laga / Steel (eds.), 1990, 69,30f.
272 Vladimir Cvetković

Maximus presents a similar process of the unification of five divisions in

Mystagogia 5. While in Ambiguum 41 the process of unification pertains to
the cosmological hierarchy, in Mystagogia 5 the whole process relates to the
soul and its capacities. Therefore the latter hierarchy is called psychological or
epistemological. As it has been mentioned above, Maximus considers that the
human soul is fashioned according to the image of God.109 Thus, the human
soul possesses some characteristics of divinity.
By relying on Dionysius the Areopagite,110 Maximus describes God as being
true, good, one and unique.111 God is truth in regard to his essence, good in
regard to his activity, while the divine oneness relates to his mode of existence
in the Holy Trinity and the uniqueness pertains to his incarnation. As the soul
consists of mind, reason and sensory apparatus,112 one may discern the image
of God as truth or God in his essence in the human mind, and the image of
God as goodness or God in his activity in the human reason. Therefore the
divine procession (πρόοδος) or creation of the soul consisted in imprinting
the characteristics of divine essence and energy in human mind and reason.
The procession of divine essence into human mind consists of five stages,
which are: truth, enduring knowledge, knowledge, contemplation, wisdom,
until it finally rests in mind. Similarly the procession of divine activity into
human reason goes through five successive stages: good, faith, virtue, action
and prudence until it reaches reason. It would be difficult to extract all these
elements from the realities to which they are attached. Loosely speaking the
pair of the enduring knowledge and faith correlates with the pair of intelligible
and sensible natures, the pair of knowledge and virtue corresponds to the na-
tures of sky and earth, the pair of contemplation and action is parallel to the
pair of paradise and inhabited earth and finally the pair of wisdom and pru-
dence relates to the pair of male and female. Finally, the mind and reason are
planted in the human soul, the former with the function to maintain the link
with God through wisdom and contemplation, and the latter to take care of the
body and the sensible creation through prudence and action. Maximus distin-
guishes between essence, potency, habit and activity in vertical paths that lead
both mind and reason to God.113 The potency of mind as essence is wisdom, the

109 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1092B); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 31,118f.
110 Dion. Ar., d.n. 4.35 (B.R. Suchla, [ed.], Corpus Dionysiacum I: Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita,
De Divinis Nominibus, PTS 33, Berlin/New York 1990, 179f.).
111 Max., myst. 5 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 27, 420f.): τῷ Θεῷ ἀληθινῷ τε καὶ ἀγαθῷ καὶ ἑνὶ καὶ
μόνῳ ἑνωθήσεται… See English translation in: G. Berthold (ed.), Maximus the Confessor:
Selected Writings, London 1985, 193.
112 Max., ambig. 10.3 (PG 91, 1112D); Constas (ed.) 1, 2014, 9,162f.
113 Max., myst. 5 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 24,374f.).
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 273

habit of mind is contemplation, and the activity of mind is knowledge. When

mind acts in according with its nature and acquires knowledge, God grants
it enduring knowledge as perpetual and unceasing movement towards God
that leads to God as the truth.114 Similarly, the potency of reason as essence is
prudence, its habit is action, and its activity is virtue. By realising its potency
in prudence, its habit in action and its activity in virtue, reason acquires faith
that further leads to God as the good.115
Maximus describes the returning process of the soul, particularly that of
mind and reason, to God as gathering (σύνοδος). The process of gathering as
the process of unification in Ambiguum 41, includes not only vertical but also
horizontal gathering. In the composite nature or composite hypostatic, one
nature receives the energy and characteristics of the other nature, apart from
exercising the energy of its nature. Therefore, the process of gathering does not
follow the opposite direction of procession. Mind does not directly revert to
wisdom, contemplation, knowledge, enduring knowledge, ending in truth, nor
does reason revert to prudence, action, virtue, faith, resting finally in goodness.
Relying on the Platonist tradition,116 Maximus introduces the middle terms as
natural bond between extremes.117 Before the soul unites itself to God, the five
pairs of the soul, such as mind and reason, wisdom and prudence, contem-
plation and action, knowledge and virtue, enduring knowledge and faith are
united in the middle terms.118 Reason is united with mind in one reasonable
mind, prudence as the potency of reason is united with wisdom as the potency
of mind into prudent wisdom, activity as the habit of reason is united with the
contemplation as the habit of mind into active contemplation, and virtue as
the activity of reason is united with knowledge as the activity of mind into vir-
tuous knowledge. The whole process leads further to the unification between
the faith of reason and the enduring knowledge of mind into faithful and en-
during knowledge of the soul. Finally, by the unification of pairs in the middle
terms and by ascending the fivefold ladder, the soul reaches truth and good-
ness, which are identical with the essence and the activity of God. It brings
soul into union with God that is beyond reason and mind, and consequently
beyond faith and enduring knowledge.119
By complementing his cosmological hierarchy exposed in Ambiguum 41 with
the psychological hierarchy from Mystagogia 5, Maximus reveals the destiny of

114 Max., myst. 5 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 24f.,375–382); Berthold (ed.), 1985, 192.
115 Max., myst. 5 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 25f.,390–396); Berthold (ed.), 1985, 192f.
116 Pl., Ti. 31c–32a.
117 Max., ambig. 41 (PG 91, 1305A); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 3,104f.
118 Max., myst. 5 (Boudignon[ed.], 2011, 26f.,415–436); Berthold (ed.), 1985, 193.
119 Max., myst. 5 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 29,459–464). See Berthold, 1985, 194 .
274 Vladimir Cvetković

the body and the soul in this life and the life to come. The unity of the body and
the soul seems to be a model for the unities in the cosmological and psycho-
logical hierarches. While the psychological unities of rational mind, prudent
wisdom, active contemplation, virtuous knowledge, faithful and unchanging
knowledge relate exclusively to the soul, the cosmological unities of gender-
less humanity, paradisiacal oikumenê, heavenly earth, intelligible matter, and
divinised creation pertain to human nature as the composite of the soul and
the body. Since both body and soul as parts of humanity, as well as mind
and reason as parts of the soul are bound by natural necessity, one may also
conclude that the cosmological unities correspond to the psychological uni-
ties. Thus, the state of genderless humanity requires prudent wisdom, para-
disiacal oikumene presupposes active contemplation, heavenly earth includes
virtuous knowledge, the intelligible matter necessitates the faithful and endur-
ing knowledge and the divinised creation means unification of the soul with
God, as truth in his essence and good in his activity. Maximus draws a paral-
lel between the human being and the universe, in which the human being is
identified with microcosm, while universe is macros anthropos.120
Maximus’s grandiose scheme of the unification of the cosmological and
psychological pairs or good reversal (καλή ἀντίστροφη)121 may be discerned in
the course of the liturgy. The entrance of bishops in the Church, as the symbol
Christ’s incarnation,122 refers to both genderless humanity and prudent wis-
dom. The chanting of hymns that glorify Christ’s cross, tomb and resurrection
relates to the paradisiacal world and active contemplation.123 The bishop’s as-
cendance into the sanctuary, as the symbol of Christ’s ascension into heaven,
relates to heavenly earth and virtues knowledge. The bishop’s descent from
the high place, that symbolises the second coming of Christ, together with the
closing of the church’s doors, links the altar (intelligible realm) with the nave
(sensible realm) into one intelligible matter and reveals the faithful and endur-
ing knowledge.124 Finally, as the reception of the body and blood of Christ, the
Eucharist points to divinised creation and final union of the human soul with
God.125 However, apart from embodying a certain symbolism that includes in
itself the parallel processes in the cosmos as well as in the soul, the cosmic
liturgy implies also divine presence in all these acts. The results of the divine

120 Max. myst. 7 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 35,568f.). See also D. Staniloae, The Experience of God
1. Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God, London 2000, 4–6.
121 Max., ambig. 7 (PG 91, 1084C); Constas (ed.) 2, 2014, 22,106f.
122 Max., myst. 8 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 37).
123 Max., myst. 10–13 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 39–42).
124 Max., myst. 14f. (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 43f.).
125 Max., myst. 21 (Boudignon [ed.], 2011, 48f.,760–775).
12. Maximus the Confessor ’ s View on Soul and Body 275

presence in the cosmic liturgy, and particularly in the offerings are evident
among the holy people, who already in this life received partial fruits of the
life to come.

V. Concluding Remarks

In this chapter I have argued that Maximus the Confessor perceives the body-
soul unity as the first among a number of unities in the created world that the
human being has to complete before it enters the final union with God. In
his understanding of the body-soul union Maximus both relies on and departs
from the views of Nemesius of Emesa and Leontius of Byzantium. Similarly
to Nemesius and Leontius, Maximus perceives the human being as the com-
pound of immaterial soul and material body, or as a hypostasis which accom-
modates in itself two different natures. However, by claiming the simultaneity
and reciprocity of the body and soul, he denies the preexistence of the soul
maintained by Nemesius, as well as the perfection of their natures held by
Leontius. Arguing against Severus of Antioch’s claim about Christ’s compos-
ite nature, Maximus distinguishes between the human composite nature and
Christ’s composite hypostasis. While the human nature is necessary a com-
pound of body and soul as imperfect elements, Christ’s composite hyposta-
sis consists of two natures independent of one another and distinguished by
temporal interval. Moreover, for Maximus Christ is neither generic, because
he would be thus the member of a species, nor singular, because he would not
have then the common nature with God and humanity. However, Maximus
does not reject the analogy between Christ as the union of two natures and the
body-soul union, because of the similarities between Christ and human being
as composite hypostasis. Christ’s composite hypostasis is the model for human
beings of how to arrange two different natures to act together in one compos-
ite hypostasis. Similarly to the human soul that permeates the body, the energy
of Christ’s divine nature permeates his human nature. The body-soul union
is applicable not only to Christology, but also to eschatology. Maximus intro-
duces five intermediate unions which the human being has to achieve before
it reaches the final union with God. They are divided into two hierarches, one
cosmological exposed in Ambiguum 41, and another psychological elaborated
in Mystagogia 5. By drawing a parallel between human being as microcosm
and cosmos as macros anthropos, Maximus considers all unities achieved by
human beings as cosmological unities. Thus, the human being unites male and
female in one genderless human nature, paradise and inhabited earth in one
paradisiacal oikumenê, earth and heaven in one sensible nature, sensible and
276 Vladimir Cvetković

intelligible nature in one intelligible matter, until it finally enters into union
with God and receives divinisation. In the parallel psychological hierarchy,
the soul unites intelligible realities, commencing with the mind and reason.
Thus, mind and reason are united by the soul in the reasonable mind, wisdom
and prudence into prudent wisdom, contemplation and activity into active
contemplation, knowledge and virtue into virtuous knowledge, and enduring
knowledge and faith into faithful and enduring knowledge. Finally, the soul
reaches truth as God in his essence by its mind and goodness as God in his
activity by its reason. These two parallel processes are actually one and the
same process explained from the perspectives of the human hypostasis and
of the soul. For Maximus, the present union of body and soul both needs and
anticipates the future union with God, in which God will be for the soul, what
the soul is now for the body.
Contributors

Prof. Jörg Ulrich

is Professor in Church History at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
From 2005–2020 he has also been adjungeret professor at the University of
Aarhus, Denmark, and from 2008–2016 he has been elected member of the
review board 107 (Theology) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Prof. Samuel Fernández

(PhD 1997, Istituto “Augustinianum”, Rome) is Professor in Early Christian
Theology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His areas of interest
are Origen, the Arian crisis of the fourth century, and the history of biblical
interpretation.

Prof. Ilaria Ramelli

FRHistS, has been Professor of Roman History, of Theology and endowed
Chair (Angelicum), Senior Fellow (Durham, Oxford, Princeton, Sacred Heart
University), Senior Visiting Professor (Harvard, Columbia, Boston University,
Erfurt, etc.). She is also Professor of Theology (Durham, Hon.), elected Senior
Fellow (Bonn), Humboldt-Forschungspreis Fellow (MWK) and Senior Member,
Platonism Centre (Cambridge).

Ilaria Vigorelli
PhD and ThD, teaches Systematic Theology at the Pontifical University of Holy
Cross (Rome). Her main research field is the relationship between Philosophy
and Theology in Late Antiquity, and particularly Clement of Alexandria and
Gregory of Nyssa. Her recent publications include Proprietà di parola. La meta-
fora in Jacques Derrida (2015), and La relazione. Dio e l’uomo (2020). She is a
member of the Association Internationale des Etudes Patristiques (AIEP), and
of the Italian association of philosophers Prologos.

Prof. Kuo-Yu Tsui

(PhD 2009, KU Leuven) is Associate Professor in the Department of History
and the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, National Chengchi University,
Taiwan. Her research interests include New Testament studies and early
Christian history.
278 contributors

Prof. Andrew Crislip

(PhD Yale, 2002), is Professor of History and Blake Chair in the History of
Christianity at Virginia Commonwealth University, USA. His research interests
include the writings and career of Shenoute of Atripe, early Christianity and
ancient medicine, and the history of emotions in late antiquity.

Anna Usacheva
(PhD 2011, Moscow State University) is Core Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium
for Advanced Studies (University of Helsinki). Her research interests include
Greek philosophy, epistemology, psychology and medicine, late antique and
Byzantine manuscript studies.

Samuel Kaldas
(PhD 2020, University of Sydney) is Director of Research at St Cyril’s Coptic
Orthodox Theological College (Sydney College of Divinity). His research inter-
ests include ancient and early modern philosophy, patristics, Orthodox theol-
ogy, and contemporary Coptic studies.

Prof. David Bradshaw

(PhD 1996, University of Texas Austin) is Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Kentucky. His research interests include ancient, patristic, and
medieval philosophy, with a special focus on the reception of ancient philoso-
phy within the Greek Christian tradition.

Prof. Siam Bhayro

(PhD 2000, University College London) is Associate Professor in Early Jewish
Studies at the University of Exeter. His research interests include the Bible,
Semitic languages, medicine in the Christian and Islamic orient, and Jewish
magic.

Andrew J. Summerson
(S.Th.D. Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2018) is a lecturer in Theology
and Philosophy at Calumet College of St. Joseph in Whiting, Indiana. His
monograph, Divine Scripture and Human Emotion in Maximus the Confessor,
will be published in Brill’s Bible in Ancient Christianity Series in 2021.

Vladimir Cvetković
(PhD 2007, University of Belgrade) is a research fellow at the Institute for
Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade. His research in-
terests include Patristics, Ancient and Byzantine Philosophy and Modern
Orthodox Theology.