Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (review)

61o JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:4 OCTOBER ~996 Housman in the twentieth, including along the way notable contributions from the sixteenth-century editors Adrien Turnebus, Frangois Foix de Candale, and Francesco Patrizi. Nevertheless, the standard edition of A. D. Nock and A.-J. Festugi~re (194654 ) is riddled with corrupt and meaningless passages. Translating the corpus is, consequently , a Herculean task; and though Copenhaver has attempted to clean out this Augean stable with every scholarly tool at his disposal, a considerable amount of manure remains on the floor. Even when the text is comprehensible, the language is often so abstruse and hieratic that he is unable to render it into readable English. The final sentence of the Pimanderis a case in point: "He who is your man wishes tojoin you in the work of sanctification since you have provided him all authority." While the level of accuracy is high, the odd solecism slips through: the verb agnoer,which Copenhaver usually correcdy translates as "to have no knowledge of," on occasion is clumsily rendered as "to ignore" (carelessly taken over from "ignorer" in Festugi~re's French version?); and the adjective kak0s is sometimes misleadingly translated as "vicious" rather than "vice-ridden" or "evil." Such failings are rare, however, and are more than compensated for by Copenhaver's thorough and compendious notes, in which he not only discusses the nuances of a large number of Greek and Latin words (for which he provides useful indices) but also scrupulously lists any alternative translation given by previous scholars. Together with his wide-ranging and erudite introduction, these notes will ensure that future readers of the CorpusHermeticumhave a much firmer foundation on which to construct their interpretations. * JILL KRAYE WarburgInstitute Christopher Stead. Philosophyin ChristianAntiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 261. Cloth, $59.75- Paper, $17.95. Excellent studies of intellectual life during the first few centuries of the Common Era by theologians and classicists abound, yet for this period there was a lacuna among works by philosophers. Christopher Stead's book brings recent philosophic methodology to bear on disparate authors, whose works are not considered elsewhere in a single volume and are not readily available in translation. The first third of the book is a survey of ancient philosophy, covering philosophers from the pre-Socratics through the Neoplatonists. This part of the book will be useful for novices, but Stead is correct that it may be skipped by anyone familiar with ancient philosophy (x). He points out in his chapter "Greek and Hebrew Conceptions of God" that Platonists, Stoics, and Pythagoreans, but not Epicureans, contributed to early Christian theology (104). An indication of those contributions in Part 1, when the pagan philosophies are presented, would have been helpful. Part 2, "The Use of Philosophy in Christian Theology," is the longest and most important portion of the book. This section advances the idea that mutual influence between philosophy (the philosophical heritage) and the thought of early Christian writers was minimal (93). Here are chapters on concepts of God, proofs of the exis- BOOK REVIEWS 611 tence of God, and discussion of the Trinity. Stead's approach is thematic rather than by author because "early Christian writers differ so greatly in their knowledge, competence and sympathy with regard to philosophy that there is no continuous development of Christian doctrine and theology" (x). Many of Stead's arguments are new. For instance, he concludes that the earliest form of the Christian Trinity was not influenced by non-Christian triadic theologies 055). His examination of the concepts of ous/a and hypostasis, interwoven throughout discussion of Trinitarian theology, repays careful consideration (161-86, 194-96). Thus the book supplements Wolfson's Philosophy of the Church Fathers 0956). Part 3 comprises a brief critical discussion of some elements of Augustine's philosophy and theology. It includes standard biographical material and brief synopses of Confessions, On the Trinity and Cityof God. The relationship of sense perception to other forms of knowledge, evil, free will, grace, and the philosophy of time are examined. Stead's book contains no overall summary or condusion. Throughout the book Stead finds pagan writers to be better philosophers than Christian...