Christian Platonism: A History ed. by Alexander J. B. Hampton and John Peter Kenney (review)

It is gratifying to find a volume devoted to Christian Platonism. The validity of this category is sometimes denied, especially with reference to patristic Platonism. In the Introduction, by editors Alexander J. B. Hampton and John Peter Kenney, the Harnackian model of a pure biblical Christianity as opposed to its Hellenization is rightly called into question. The volume is divided into three sections. Section I, “Concepts,” contains six chapters, from the perennial value of Platonism to participation. Section II, “History,” offers nine chapters that range from the Bible and early Christianity through the Renaissance to modernity. Section III, “Engagements,” contains six chapters that study such topics as natural science, the environmental crisis, and art. Of the twenty-four contributors, only three are women. In the interest of space, I must be very selective and cannot refer to my own scholarship in support of my points or agreements/doubts expressed, but they are all buttressed by arguments, either published or in process.

Lloyd Gerson reflects on the perennial value of Platonism—what I would call Platonism as philosophia perennis. Gerson rightly notes that patristic Christians who “wanted to reflect philosophically on their religion did so almost exclusively within a Platonic context” (15). Aristotle was received as propaedeutic to Plato. Gerson lists Aristotle as a Platonist (22; see his book, Aristotle and Other Platonists). Aquinas Christianized Platonic metaphysics (32). Something similar, I note, happened with the allegedly Aristotelian Liber de causis, based on Plotinus and Proclus. Plato’s language of Good, One, Being and Nous and beyond Being and Nous, and overflowing, was received by Origen, Nyssen, Dionysius, and others as terms of God. I agree that Plato’s ethical intellectualism has a metaphysical foundation (19), which can also be found in patristic Platonism, in evil as nonbeing—one of the pillars of the doctrine of apokatastasis, it can be added, in Origen, Evagrius, the early Augustine, Dionysius, and Eriugena. Gerson deals, among other things, with Numenius and Plotinus: the latter’s debt to Aristotle is highlighted (25), although Proclus seems to have charged Origen alone, not Plotinus (his fellow-disciple of Ammonius), with Aristotelian innovations. The One as ἔρως (26) was joined to God as ἀγάπη by Origen, Nyssen, and Dionysius. The three Neoplatonic movements, μονὴ–πρὸοδος–ἐπιστροφὴ (27), were received, I note, by patristic Platonists, such as Origen, Dionysius, and Eriugena, who consciously dovetailed or replaced ἐπιστροφὴ with apokatastasis. The unity-plurality relation (28, based on Proclus, Elements of Theology 1) is connected with the principle “all in all (but οἰκείως),” present in late “pagan” and Christian Platonism. “Having rejected the solution of Proclus, the problem that Damascius revealed appeared to indicate a plausible need for Christian revelation,” although Porphyry presented Christian revelation as irreconcilable with Platonism (30). It seems to me not accidental that some identify Damascius with Ps.-Dionysius after converting to Christianity, for there is a continuity between their ideas. Platonists are indifferent to history, Christians not (31)—because of Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. This is, I note, a charge against Origen, along with that of postulating many resurrections, although Origen insisted on the centrality and historical unicity of such events—even if they are repeated in the hearts of believers—one crucifixion being sufficient for the salvation of all rational creatures in all ages. The clash over history is also, I find, the reason why the Christian Platonist Dionysius uses the present tense when speaking of God and seems to some not to support apokatastasis because he did not use the future tense.

In chapter I.2, John Dillon and Daniel Tolan investigate the notion of the Ideas as thoughts of God. This theory is traced back to Xenocrates, Alcimus, Antiochus of Ascalon, Philo, Alcinous, and other early imperial Platonists such as Plutarch and Atticus. Clement, whose theory of the Ideas as God’s thoughts Origen arguably knew, is somewhat overlooked, but Origen’s view is examined...