Pagan Wisdom and Christian Theology According to the Tübingen Theosophy

The so-called Tübingen Theosophy is a Byzantine epitome of an appendix to the now lost treatise On True Belief (written around 500 C.E.) It includes several oracles of pagan gods and testimonies of Sages and Sibyls on the Christian tenets of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The Theosophy is a direct heir of the apologetic literature of the fourth and fifth centuries, such works as the Divine Institutes by Lactantius, Pseudo-Justin's Cohortatio ad Graecos, the Preparation of the Gospel by Eusebius of Caesarea, Didymus' De Trinitate and Cyril's Contra Julianum. Its aim was most probably that of refuting and replacing the anti-Christian treatise of Porphyry entitled Philosophy from Oracles, by demonstrating that pagan wisdom was in substantial agreement with the Christian faith as proclaimed by the Holy Scripture. On the basis of various impressive resemblances, the tentative suggestion is advanced here that the hitherto unknown author of the Theosophy could be identified with a theologian such as Severus of Antioch who had a wide knowledge of both the Christian apologetic literature and the pagan religious philosophy of that time.