Knowledge of God in the Graeco-Roman World (review)

This book features fifteen papers from the symposium "The Knowledge of God in Philosophy and Religion from Alexander the Great to Constantine," held in 1986 in Utrecht, Holland. As the title of the conference suggests, the focus is on divine knowledge in philosophy and in philosophical religion. While it is never easy to summarize a composite volume, the papers have been logically arranged and cluster around a number of discrete fields.

G. Mussies ("Identification and Self-identification of Gods in Classical and Hellenistic Times") introduces the collection by surveying material ranging from the Odyssey to Nag Hammadi codices to show how the gods of traditional polytheism were thought to reveal their identities to mortals, and how human recognition was mediated by certain known conventions. P. W. van der Horst ("The Unknown God [Acts 17:23]") relates the 'Αγνώστος Θεός [Agnōstos Theos] cited by Paul on the Areopagus to the θεοί [agnōstoi theoi] on Greek altar inscriptions, concluding that dedications to unknown god(s) were used during the Empire (contra E. Norden, Agnōstos Theos, Leipzig, 1913, who considered them oriental) to designate a foreign god whose real name was unknown, to refer to a deity whose name could not be uttered, or when one wished to include any or all potentially helpful deities in one's prayer or dedication.

Next comes a set of four papers on philosophical theories of naming and episteniology: M. Baltes ("Zur Theologie des Xenokrates") reconstructs from fragments the theories held by Xenocrates, Plato's Academic successor from 339-314 B.C.E., concerning the deity and the hierarchy of divine powers, and relates them to later developments in Platonic thought; D. T. Runia ("Naming and Knowing: themes in Philonic theology with special reference to the De mutatione nominum") assesses the Alexandrian's contribution in shifting the vehicle of divine contemplation from direct revelation to the speculation of God's nature by reflecting on names and attributes; J. Mansfeld ("Compatible Alternatives: Middle Platonist theology and the Xenophanes reception") harmonized the via negationis (the refusal to predicate divine attributes), the via analogiae (the listing of divine attributes by polarized opposites) and the via eminentiae (the progressive apprehension of the deity through the lower chain of beings), three approaches to divine knowledge often thought incompatible, by arguing that Middle Platonists in fact viewed them as valid but unequal options in descending order of preference; P. L. Donini ("La connaissance de dieu et la hiérarchie divine chez Albinos") explores the implications of the theory of a hierarchy of beings for divine knowledge. According to Albinus (fl. ca. 150), whose views here were characteristic of those of Middle Platonists generally, even lower divine powers had to behold the higher beings because they were unable to grasp them noetically; further, the distinction between knowing the higher and the lower god (i.e., the demiurge) meant that theology, the highest form being the via negationis, and science, which relied on the viae analogiae et eminentiae, had fundamentally different goals. These four papers, together with later articles treating gnostic (Van den Broek) and patristic writers (Dillon, Stead) who were influenced by Middle Platonic thought, cohere as a mini-corpus.

The next two articles treat Jewish material: M. Stone ("The Way of the Most High and the Justice of God in 4 Ezra") explains the character of the first vision of the prophet in IV Ezra; the recitation of the magnalia Dei was meant not so much to reveal knowledge about God but, by demonstrating the limit of human knowledge, lead man to realize that complete understanding of the way of the Most High, including why Israel was permitted to suffer, is impossible and should not be sought; P. W. Van Boxel ("Man's Behavior and God's Justice in Early Jewish Tradition: Some Observations") examines rabbinic and NT discussions of God's attributes as just and good, the...