ALBERT CAMUS

BETWEEN PLOTINUS ANDSAINT AUGUSTINE.

translated with a postscript by David Rathbone

1

CONTENTS page

Translators' Preface 3

BETWEEN PLOTINUS AND SAINT AUGUSTINE by Albert Camus 4Foreword to French Edition by Roger Quilliot 5Introduction.

1. The differences 92. The common aspirations 103. Position of the problem and the plan of this work. 12

Chapter One. Evangelical ChristianityI. Main themes of Evangelical Christianity 15

1. The tragic agenda 162. The hope in God 19

II. The Men of Evangelical Christianity1. the works 222. the men 27

III. The Difficulties and the Causes of the Evolution of Evangelical Christianity1. the concurrences 292. the resistances 313. the problems 32

Chapter Two. GnosisI. Main themes of the gnostic solution 36II. The elements of the gnostic solution 48III. Conclusion: Gnosticism in the evolution of Christianity 51

Chapter Three. Plotinus and Mystic ReasonI. The solution of Plotinus 53

1. Rational explanation according to procession 562. Conversion, or the path of ecstasy 65

II. Resistance 69III. The meaning and influence of Neoplatonism. 72

Chapter Four. Word and FleshI. The second revelation

1. The psychological experience of St. Augustine and Neoplatonism. 762. Hellenism and Christianity according to Saint Augustine 793. Faith and Reason according to Saint Augustine 86

II. Christian thought at the dawn of the middle ages. 88Conclusion. 89Bibiliography. 92

Postscript: Plotinus, Nietzsche, Camus and the Uses of Animal SymbolismIntroduction 96I : Plotinus Transcend the Beast

1. Hen, Nous and Psyche: the One, Intelligence and the Soul 972. Plotinus on animals 102

II : Nietzsche Interesting Animal1. Symbolism and animals in the Birth of Tragedy 1072. The animal and the mask in The Gay Science 1103. Zarathustras symbolic animals 116

III : Camus The Importance of the Implicit1. Transcendence, immanence and animal symbolism 1272. Ineffable experience in the presence of animals 131

Conclusion 140Bibliography 144

2

Translators' Preface

Two entries in Camus early notebooks shed light on the relation between the

project undertaken by the 23 year-old Camus in his thesis for the Diplme dtudes

Suprieures1 at the University of Algiers in 1936, and his subsequent career as a novelist.

In January of that year he jotted down this note :

People can think only in images. If you want to be a philosopher, write novels. 2

Then two years later in the September of 1938, he wrote:

Resume work on Plotinus. Theme: Plotinian reason. Reason not an unambiguous concept. Interesting to see how it behaves in history at a time when it must either adapt itself or perish. Cf. Diplme. It is the same reason, and it is not the same, because there are two kinds of reason, the one ethical and the other aesthetic. Pursue further: images in Plotinus as the syllogism of this aesthetic form of reason. The image as a parable: the attempt to express the undefinable nature of feeling by what is obvious and undefinable in concrete things.3

Obvious and undefinable: in this way, concrete things can become parables for feelings

when sensed through the logic of aesthetic reason. This theme runs implicitly through

Camus' fiction, and also remains in the background of his non-fiction works. Camus'

intention to bring this theme to the fore by resuming his work on Plotinus still remained

unfulfilled at the time of his premature death in a car accident in 1960 at the age of 47.

Would Camus ever have returned to this project? We can only conjecture; but the fact is

that the project itself remains incomplete, and this work is an attempt to reactivate it by

offering a new translation into English of Camus' thesis, together with an essay tracing

the theme of the image and the animal in Camus, in Plotinus, and also in Nietzsche. It is

in the field of tension generated between Plotinus's and Nietzsche's thoughts on the theme

of symbolism that we can situate Camus use of animal imagery, which is able for Camus

to to stand as an icon of languages failure, and so disseminate significance even or

rather, especially where language fails us. 1

The approximate equivalent of a Master's degree in the Anglophone world.2 In Philip Thody (tr. & ed.) Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942 (New York: Knopf, 1963), p.10.3 ibid p.103

3

Maurice Blanchots description of Albert Camus as a writer for whom writing is

as much an instrument of meditation as a means of expression4 indicates an atheistic

spirituality can be found in Camus' fiction. In the introduction to the volume of essays

entitled Hommage Albert Camus which he edited in 1967, Blanchot wrote:I think of that letter written to Tolstoy by the dying Turgenyev: I write to you to tell you how happy I was to be your contemporary. It seems to me that, through the death which hit Camus and which returned everything to us, already dying in a deep part of ourselves, we felt how happy we were to be his contemporaries, and in what a treacherous manner this happiness found itself at the same time both revealed and obscured, all the more so: as if the power to be contemporaries of ourselves, in this time in which we belong with him, suddenly sees itself gravely altered.5

Today we are no longer contemporaries of Camus and Blanchot, yet there are ways in

which we have inherited the alterations in thinking, and the changes they have wrought in

the ways available to us to be our own contemporaries.

4 Maurice Blanchot Faux Pas (1943) tr. C.Mandell (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2001).5 Blanchot (ed.) Hommage Albert Camus (Paris: Gallimard, 1967)

4

BETWEEN PLOTINUS AND SAINT AUGUSTINEby Albert Camus

Thesis submitted for the Diplme dtudes Suprieures at the University of Algiers, 1936.First published in French in Albert Camus: Essais Editions Gallimard, 1965, pp. 1220 - 1310.

Foreword to the French Edition by Roger Quilliot

Introduction.1. The differences between Plotinus and Augustine.2. Their common aspirations.3. Location of the problem and the plan of this work.

Chapter One. Evangelical ChristianityI. Main themes of Evangelical Christianity

1. The tragic plan2. The hope in God

II. The Men of Evangelical Christianity1. The works2. The men

III. Difficulties and Causes in the Evolution of Evangelical Christianity1. The concurrences2. The resistances3. The problems

Chapter Two. GnosisI. Main themes of the gnostic solutionII. The elements of the gnostic solutionIII. Conclusion: Gnosticism in the evolution of Christianity

Chapter Three. Plotinus and Mystic ReasonI. The solution of Plotinus:

1. Rational explanation according to procession2. Conversion, or the path of ecstasy

II. ResistanceIII. The meaning and influence of Neoplatonism.

Chapter Four. Word and FleshI. The second revelation

1. Neoplatonism and the psychological experience of St. Augustine2. Hellenism and Christianity according to St. Augustine3. Faith and Reason according to St. Augustine

II. Christian thought at the dawn of the middle ages.

Conclusion

Bibiliography.

5

Foreword to French Editionby Roger Quilliot (1965)

The culmination of the licence in philosophy is the Diplme dEtudes Superieures,

a preliminary for candidature in the Agregation1. In 1936, Camus was still planning to

take this examination: according to Charles Poncet, he dreamed of an overseas post which

would allow him sufficient opportunity for his personal travels.

In 1935 Camus lived on the Hill of Hydra2 and got to know Marguerite Dobrenn

and Jeanne Sicard, fellow students who assisted him in many of his undertakings. At this

time he pursued the courses offered by Professor Poirier dedicated to contemporary

philosophy: Kierkeggaard, Husserl, and Heidegger. Under his direction, Camus set

himself the task of studying the relations of Hellenism and Christianity, and the role of

neo-Platonism in Christian thought. No doubt this choice had also been influenced by

Jean Grenier, who remained his mentor.

For the young Camus, religion was either an affair for old ladies (i.e. a distraction

in the face of death), or else a vague expression of the surge of youth towards something

greater than oneself (i.e. the obscure desire to outlive oneself, and to give meaning to

existence) in short, the senses of the tragic, and of the sacred. In a way, Camus was at

once both a stranger to the religious spirit, but also profoundly moved by metaphysical

anxiety. His Diplme thus enabled him to deepen his intellectual knowledge of Christian

thought.

In his introduction, Camus distinguishes the Greece of light, and the Greece of

shadow recognizing both the serenity but also the torment of the ancient Greeks. He

evokes, as he does also later in his Nuptials, the running of a young man on the shore

alongside the reality of the ancient world, as the setting of the tragedy of man without

God. In this sense, Greek thought prefigures yet also at the same time rejects the

Christianity which gave to things the character of the tragic, and the necessity which is

lacking in certain games of the Greek spirit.

The first part of Camus' Diplme considers Evangelical Christianity, exposing its

physical terror in the face of a solitary death, its incarnation scandalous to human nature,

1 Competitive examination for a university fellowship.2 The house overlooking Algiers upon which The House Above The World of A Happy Death was based.

6

and its hope of redemption and salvation. Then, confronting Christianity with Greek

thought, he states: it is necessary to be Greek in order to believe that wisdom tells you

something nothing in Christian literature counts as moralistic until Tertullien. Then

following a careful study of the Gospels, Camus lingers next on the first attempt at a

conciliation between Hellenism and Christianity, namely that of Justin. Christian dogma

issues forth from Justin's combination of evangelical faith and Greek metaphysics.

The second part of the Diplme deals with Gnostisim, which he defines as an

attempt at a Greco-Christian intellectual collaboration, an attempt at reconciliation

between the spirit of knowledge and the search for salvation, or even an anachronistic

ancient Greek reflection upon Christian themes. Evoking Marcion, he writes these lines

into which the themes of the absurd and of revolt are woven: In this pessimistic view of

the world and this proud refusal of acceptance, the resonance of a fully modern sensibility

prevails. In fact it has its source in the problem of evil.

With part three, Camus arrives at Plotinus and Mystic Reason. He starts with

some interesting reflections on style, and the conceptual landscape of Plotinus: The

philosophy of Plotinus is the point of view of an artistit is then with his sensibility that

Plotinus seizes the intelligible. Is that not a method very close to that which Camus

instinctively uses in his own essays: thinking with his sensibility? Along with Plotinus,

Camus clearly partakes of a skepticism in the face of a pure faith which believes it is able

to do without virtue, and of a certain irritation with the arbitrariness inherent in the

whole doctrine of salvation.

The fourth part, Word and Flesh, introduces us to Saint Augustine, whom he

conceives as divided between sensuality, the taste for the rational, and the desire for faith,

which gives birth to the discovery of evil. Plotinus revived the thirst for knowledge and

the desire to understand, whereas Saint Augustine humiliates reason, unsuited to the full

comprehension of things and of beings. As Camus puts it: There is a limit to the

elasticity of intelligence.

The Diplme concludes with a double movement. On the one hand, a sympathy

for Christianity, considered as a refusal of indolence of heart and of Socratic serenity, as a

sort of spiritual heroism and permanent exaltation of engagement. But on the other, a

7

defiance before that which he calls "the providentially Christian," which to him seems to

emerge necessarily out of a philosophy of history. It emerges out of Greek innocence and

light; but it leads into the world of sin and generalized guilt.

Briefly summarized and without disentangling the innumerable references to

texts, commentators and historians (notably to M. de Labriolle), these are the major

themes of Camus' Diplme, in which all of this appears along with the personal

reflections of Camus. I have tried to shed light on this in order to make the movement

which culminates in The Myth of Sisyphus more clearly perceptible. Plotinus fortifies

himself with the uncompromising desire to understand. Saint Augustine, just like Pascal,

opposes insurmountable limits to knowledge. Plotinus advocates distrust in the

arbitrariness of all faith, and Saint Augustine in the erring ways of reason. Plotinus is

inclined to serenity, Augustine to intransigence and destitution. Camus feels closer to the

Greeks, for whom our kingdom is of this world, but has a Christian fascination with the

death which triumphs over the flesh. Drawn to Plotinus by his passionate effort to color

feelings in logical forms, by his returning to living reason its suppleness and emotion, and

by his creation of a mixture of water and light which reflects the beauty of the universe,

Camus is none the less seduced by the tragic anguish of Saint Augustine. And who could

fail to see that the description that he gives of Augustine could just as well suit Camus

himself: Greek in his need for coherence, Christian in the anxieties of his sensibility?

Camus thus finds himself at the crossroads of the two civilizations.

Or rather, he projects upon Hellenism as upon Christianity his own difficulties

and aspirations: to him, together they constitute a conceptual landscape which catalyzes

Camus's own spontaneous reactions. In writing his Diplme, perhaps Camus learnt as

much about himself as about Greek and Christian thought, which perhaps simply helped

him to delineate his own problems. For just as in The Right Way and the Wrong Way, the

absurd appears from the outset: the appetite for knowledge is satisfied neither by reason

nor by faith, and the appetite to live is shattered by death, which is not an appetite for an

eternity in the carnal world of beings and forms. We never possessed that which we have

lost, and innocence is always behind us. The mother and the son can only communicate

in silence. It is not even possible to be a son, for the intellectual variety no less than all

8

other kinds. Knowing himself to be at the same time both indifferent and sensitive, both

secretive and generous, Camus refuses to be judged, yet knows that he cannot avoid it: At the boundaries and beyond: the game. I deny, I am slack and weak, yet I behave as if I affirmed, as if I was strong and courageous. Question of will = to push the absurdity to the limit = Iam capable of How to seize the game: as the tragic in its effort, as the comic in its result (preferably indifferent). 3

Camus suffers from this duality of man, this conflict of aspiration and reality, but he

understands that he must content himself with it by means of lucidity and pride: Intellectual? Yes. And never to renounce. Intellectual = this one who unfolds. That pleases me. I am happy to be two. If that can unite itself? Practical question. It is necessary to apply oneself.4

This haughty and detached tone avoids deception. Of the tragedy of duplicity, Camus

willingly made a game, and even pushes it onto the stage; he decided to be happy even in

the heart of the absurd, happy in an ever new joy, always questioning and eroding anxiety.

Joy and torment, life and death: these are hereafter inseparable, as are Plotinian Greece

and Augustinian Africa, the two daughters of the shadows and of the light who sway

indefatigably across the Mediterranean.

The text reproduced here is based on a photocopy belonging to the Faculty of

Literature at Clermont-Ferrand. It is typewritten, and corrected in a few places in Camus

own handwriting, and the entire bibliography is handwritten. The photocopy did not have

a title, however, a typewritten manuscript in the possession of Mme. Camus bears the

following title: Hellenism and Christianity: Plotinus and Saint Augustine. It seems

nevertheless, consulting the work of M. Viggianni and my own notes from 1954, that the

exact title was: Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism, which is confirmed by the copy

held by the university library of the Sorbonne. I have settled on Between Plotinus and

Saint Augustine.

3Carnets I, May 1936, p.394ibid., p.41.

9

Introduction.In the paintings of the Catacombs,5 the Good Shepherd6 readily adopts the face of

Hermes.7 But if the smile remains the same, the symbol is altered in the transfer.

Christian thought, thus altered and compelled to express itself as a coherent system, tried

to inject itself into the mold of Greek thought and to express itself in metaphysical

formulas that it found already complete. But in doing so, Christianity transfigured these

formulas. The aim of the present work is to understand the originality of Christianity, and

the necessity for clarification of both that which constitutes Christianity's profound

meaning, as well as from a historical point of view the need to retrace its sources. All

research, in order to be coherent, needs to order itself following one or two basic steps.

This introduction enables us to define these steps, to the extent that, considering the

complexity of the historical subject matter which here occupies us, will nevertheless

enable us to exhibit some constants.

It is often asked what makes Christianity original in comparison to Hellenism.

Besides the evident differences, there are many themes in common. In fact, in all cases in

which a civilization is born, the main concern of humanity is a change of agenda

[changement de plans], not a substitution of systems. It is not in comparing Christian

dogma to Greek philosophy that we can get an idea of that which separates them, but

rather in noticing that the emotional agenda [le plan sentimental] in which the

evangelical communities are situated is foreign to the classical tone of Greek sensibility.

It is in the affective agenda [le plan affectif] where the problems are posed, and not in the

system which attempts to respond to them. And it is there that we must seek for that

which constitutes the novelty of Christianity. In its beginnings, Christianity is not a

philosophy, and even opposes philosophy; it is an ensemble of aspirations, a faith which

moves on a specific plan, and which seeks its solutions within this agenda.

But before speaking of that which is irreducible in the two civilizations, it is

appropriate first to take into account the nuances of the complexity of the problem. It is

5 Subterranean cemeteries composed of galleries and passages with side recesses for tombs and funerary urns under the Basilica of Saint Sebastian in Rome, dating from the third century A.D. 6 i.e. Jesus Christ7 Greek god of messages, roads, trickery and boundaries. Hermes was renamed Mercury by the Romans, after a substance which is both heavy and motile, partaking of both solid and liquid properties.

10

always arbitrary to talk of a Greek Spirit in opposition to a Christian Spirit.

Aeschylus stands next to Sophocles; the primitive masks,8 the Panathenaia,9 and the

vases of the fifth century are juxtaposed with the metopes10 of the Parthenon. And finally

the mysteries11 exist at the same time as Socrates: all of which supports the idea of the

development of a Greece of light alongside a Greece of shadows, less classical, but no

less real. On the other hand, it is certain that we can disengage from this civilization a

certain number of favorite topics, and, with the help of Socratism, to trace in the interior

of Greek thought a specific number of privileged patterns, the arrangement of which

inspires precisely that which we calls Hellenism. Something in Greek thought prefigures

Christianity, while at the same time something else in it rejects it in advance.

1. The Differences

We can contrast the irreconcilable attitudes in the face of the world of the Greeks

and the Christians in this way. As it formulates itself around the first centuries of our era,

Hellenism implies that man can be self-sufficient, and that he carries in himself

explanations of fate and of the cosmos. His temples are built to his measure. In a certain

sense, the Greeks accepted a sportive and aesthetic justification of existence. The curve

of their hills, or the young man on the running track: these delivered the whole secret of

the world to them. Their gospel said: our kingdom is of this world. This is the

Everything harmonises with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Cosmos of Marcus

Aurelius12.

This purely rational conception of life that the world can be entirely understood

8 All Greek actors wore masks on stage, and the drama itself evolved out of the Dionysika, a religious ritual in worship of the god Dionysus in which masked maenads and satrys danced the ritual orgia. See W.F.Otto Dionysus: Myth and Cult (Spring Publications, 1965) and J. Wise Dionysus Writes: the Invention of Theatre in Ancient Greece (Cornell University Press, 1998).9 Ancient Greek religious ritual in which fire is carried in a torch race from the grove of Akademos through the market place to the alter of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis.10 Square space for ornamentation at the top of Doric column. Camus in this passage is arguing for the thesis proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy that modern classicists have ignored Ancient Greece's dark (or Dionysian) side in favor of a biased overestimation of the importance of its light (or Apollonian) aspect.11 see M.W.Meyer ed. The Ancient Mysteries: a Sourcebook (Harper & Row, 1987)127 Meditations IV, 23: Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which they seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return.

11

leads to moral intellectualism: virtue is something which you learn. Without always

admitting it, all of Greek philosophy makes a wise man an equal of God. And God being

only a higher science, the supernatural does not exist: the whole universe centers itself

around man and his efforts. If then moral culpability is ignorance13 or an error, how do

you include the notions of redemption and sin in this attitude?

Also in the physical order, the Greeks' belief in a cyclic world, eternal and

necessary, could not accommodate a creation ex nihilo, nor an end of the world.14 In a

general way, attached to the reality of the pure idea, the Greeks could not understand the

dogma of a bodily resurrection. Celsus, Porphery, and Julian for example could not scoff

enough in this respect. Whether this would be a physical, a moral or a metaphysical

resurrection hardly mattered: the whole difference was in the way of posing the problems.

But at the same time some points in common remained. Neoplatonism, which is the final

effort of Greek thought, could not understand itself, nor Christianity, without considering

the background of common aspirations to which all thought of this era was obliged to

respond.

2. The Common Aspirations

Few epochs have been so tormented. In an extraordinary incoherence of races and

peoples, the old Greco-Roman themes joined with the new wisdom which came from the

orient. Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Persia sent thoughts and thinkers to the occidental

world.15 The jurists of the era were Ulpien, de Tyr, Papinien and dHerese. Ptolemy and

Plotinus were Egyptians; Porphery and Hamblique, Syrians; Diasconide and Gellius,

Asians. Even Lucien, that spirit consecrated attic, is from Commagne on the banks of

the Euphrates. It is in this way that in the same epoch the heavens were able to be

populated with the gnostic Eons, with the Judaic Jahweh, with the Father of the

Christians, with the One of Plotinus and even with the old Roman gods, still worshiped in

13 Cf. Epictetus: Dialogues I, 7: If you cannot correct the wicked then dont complain about them because all wickedness is corrigible; rather, complain about yourself, you who do not find in yourself sufficient eloquence and perseverance to bring in the good.14 Cf. Aristotle: Probl. XVII, 3 : If, then, there is a circle, and a circle has neither beginning nor end, men would not be before because they are nearer the beginning, nor should we be before them, nor they before us. (Loeb I 367).Cited by Rougier. Celse, chap. II, p. 76; cf. Plotinus: II, IX, 7. 15 Cf. F. Cumont: les Religions orientals dans le paganisme romain.

12

the countryside (paganus) of Italy.

Certainly we could find political and social causes here: such as

cosmopolitanism,16 or the actual economic crisis of the epoch. But also a certain number

of emotional claims [revendications passionnes] are conceived which will strive for

satisfaction by any means - the Orient was not solely responsible for that awakening. If it

is true that Greece had made the gods ethereal, and if it is also true that the problem of

the destiny of the soul had disappeared beneath Epicurean and Stoic ideas, then it is also

no less the case that through an actual tradition, the Greco-Roman world returned. But

something new also made itself felt.

In this world, where the desire for God grew stronger, the problem of the good

loses ground. The humility of spirits in pursuit of inspiration is substituted for the pride

in life which animated the ancient world. The aesthetic agenda [le plan esthtique] of

contemplation is obscured by the tragic agenda [le plan tragique] in which such

aspirations content themselves with the imitation17 of a God. One acts the painful drama

of Isis in search of Osiris,18 one dies with Dionysus,19 one is reborn with him. Bitterness

pursues Attis through the worst mutilations.20 At Eleusis,21 Zeus unites with Demeter in

the person of the great priest and hierophant.

At the same time, the idea is disseminated that the world does not orient itself

around the sunt eadum omnia semper22 of Lucretius, but that it serves rather as the setting

of the tragedy of man without God. The problems themselves become incarnate, and the

philosophy of history is born. From that moment one will be less repelled by the

admission of that alteration to the world which constitutes the redemption. It is not a

matter of knowing and understanding, but of loving. And Christianity will only embody

that idea, hardly Greek, that the problem for man is not to perfect his nature, but to escape

16 Alexander in his campaigns in the Orient had created more than forty Greek villages.17 Cf. Lhomme nouveau in the rites of purification at Eleusis; La deesse Brimo a enfant Brimos. Philosoph. : V. 8. Cf. Plutarch, de Iside, 27 apud Loisy: Mysteres paiens et mystere chretien, ch IV, p.139. After having compressed and suffocated the rage of Typhon, [Isis] did not want the battles that he had undergone to fall into oblivion and silence. She then instituted some very simple initiations which were represented by images, allegories and by scenes representing the suffering of her struggle. 18 Cf. Loisy, op. cit., ch. 1.19 Cf. Cumont, op. cit. appendix: les Mysteres de Bacchus. 20 Cumont, chap. III.21 Loisy, chap. 11.22 All are always

13

from it. Love of god, humility, imitation, aspirations towards a resurrection, all these

themes intertwine in the mysteries and oriental religions of Mediterranean paganism.

Above all, from the 2nd century B.C. (the cult of Cybele is introduced to Rome in 205),

the major religions prepared the road for Christianity by their influence and by their

extent. In the era that occupies us, these new problems are set down in all their acuity.

c. Position of the problem and the plan of this work.

To consider Christianity as a new form of thought suddenly following Greek

civilization would be to evade the problems. Greece continues into Christianity, which in

turn finds itself prefigured in Hellenic thought. It is all too easy to see in the dogmatic

Christian an addition to Greece: nothing in the evangelical doctrine legitimates that. But

on the other hand, one cannot deny the Christian contribution to the thought of the time,

and it seems difficult to exclude entirely the notion of a Christian philosophy.23 One thing

is common: an anxiety which gives birth to problems. It is the same evolution which

directs practical concerns, from Epictetus to the speculations of Plotinus, and from the

inner Christianity of Paul to the dogma of the Greek Fathers. Can one untangle that

which constitutes the originality of Christianity from similar confusions? That is the

whole problem.

From a historical point of view, Christian doctrine is a religious movement, born

in Palestine, and inscribed in Judaic thought. At a time which is difficult to determine

precisely, but which is certainly contemporary with the moment at which Paul authorizes

in principle the admission of the gentiles, and exempts them from circumcision, that is to

say towards the middle of the first century, Christianity parts with Judaism. At the end of

the first century, John proclaims the identity of the Lord and of the Spirit. Between A.D.

117 and 130 the epistle of Barnabus is already resolutely anti-Jewish. This is an

important point. Christian thought then parts with its origins and separates entirely from

the Greco-Roman world. The latter, prepared by its anxieties and the religions of the

mystics, eventually ends up accepting it.

23 Bulletin de la Societe franaise de Philosophie, mars 1931. Revue de mtaphysique et de morale (Brehier) april 1931; and ibid Juillet 1932 (Souriau).

14

It is no longer interesting after that point to separate the two doctrines absolutely,

but rather to search for how they unite their efforts, and to see what in each of them stays

intact in that collaboration. Such an Ariadne's thread leads a way through the confusions

of ideas and systems. Let us say immediately that that which constitutes the irreducible

originality of Christianity is the theme of the incarnation. The problems are made flesh,

and immediately take the character of tragedy and of necessity, which is lacking so often

in the games of the Greek spirit. Even after the Jews are rejected, and the Mediterranean

world accepts Christianity, Greeces deeply innovative character survives. However

Christian thought, which borrows inevitably from the already existing philosophy of the

ready-made formulas, also transfigures them. The role of Greece was to universalize

Christianity in orienting it toward metaphysics. The mystics had prepared it for this role,

as had a whole tradition which has its source in Aeschylus and the Doric Apollo. In this

way a movement is explained in which the Christian miracle was able to assimilate to the

Greek miracle, and to lay the foundation of a civilization sufficiently durable that we

could still be fully absorbed with it today.

Our task and our plan is now outlined. To trace in Neoplatonism the effort of

Greek philosophy to give a specifically Hellenic solution to the problems of the era; to

outline the Christian effort to adapt its dogma to its primitive religious life, up to the

moment when, recognizing in Neoplatonism the metaphysical framework already molded

by religious thought, Christianity opens out in that second revelation which is

Augustinian thought. There are three moments in this Christian evolution. Evangelical

Christianity from which it takes its source; the Augustinian dogma in which it ends in the

conciliation of the word and the flesh; and the spaces where it lets itself be carried along

to try to identify knowledge and salvation, that is to say the heresies of which Gnosticism

gives a complete model. Gospel, Gnosis, Neoplatonism, Augustinianism: we will study

these four stages of a common Greco-Christian evolution in the historical order, and in

the relation that they sustain with the movement of thought in which they appear.

Evangelical Christianity spurns all speculation but introduces from the outset the

theme of the incarnation. Gnosis pursues a particular solution where redemption and

knowledge merge. Neoplatonism endeavors to achieve its goals by trying to reconcile

15

rationalism and mysticism and, aided by its formulas, allow dogmatic Christians to model

themselves on Saint Augustine on the metaphysics of the incarnation. At the same time,

Neoplatonism sets in place a witness-doctrine. The movement which animates it is the

same as that which moves Christian thought, but to it, the notion of the incarnation

remains foreign. As early as the sixth century, this movement consummates itself:

Neoplatonism dies with the whole philosophy and culture of Greece: the sixth and the

seventh centuries are times of great silence.24

24 Emile Brehier: Histoire de la philosophie I, II, chap. VII, p. 484.

16

Chapter One. Evangelical ChristianityIt is difficult to speak of evangelical Christianity as a whole. But it is at least

possible to detect a certain state of spirit which serves as the source of later evolution.

The theme entitled to preference, which is at the center of Christian thought at that time,

and towards which everything converges as the natural answer to the aspirations of the

era, is the incarnation. The incarnation: the putting into contact of the divine and the

bodily in the person of Jesus Christ, the extraordinary adventure of a God taking upon

himself the sin and the misery of man, the humility and the humiliation presented as so

many symbols of redemption. But this notion crowns a group of aspirations that it is our

task to define.

There are two states of the soul in evangelical Christianity: pessimism and hope.

Evolving according to a certain tragic agenda [un certain plan tragique], humanity at that

time relies only upon God, and, placing in his hands all hope of a better destiny, aspires

only to him, sees only Him in the Universe, and abandons all interests except for faith,

incarnating in God the very symbol of that anxiety torn from ascension. One must choose

between the world and God. These are the two aspects of Christianity that we are going

to examine successively in the first part. The study of the milieu and of the literature of

the era will show us then the different themes among the men of evangelical Christianity.

The most certain method is to return to the New Testament texts themselves. But

a supplementary method consists in appealing each time it is possible to a pagan

polemicist.25 Their reproaches, effectively give us an exact idea of what in Christianity

was shocking to a Greek. And in closing, we consider the novelty of the contribution of

Christianity to Greek thought.

25 P. de Labriolle: la Reaction paienne, Lavis 1934.

17

I. Main themes of evangelical Christianity

1. The tragic agenda.

Ignorance of and contempt for all systematic speculation characterizes the state of

spirit of the first Christians. Facts blind and press them. And above all, the fact of death.

A. Death

At the end of the fourth century, Julius Quintus-Hilarianus, Bishop Proconsular of

Africa, calculates in his De mundi induratione that there remains 101 years to live in the

world.1 This idea of an impending end, linked directly moreover to the passion of Christ,

obsessed the whole first Christian generation.2 This is a unique example of a collective

experience of death.3 In the world of our experience, to realize the idea of our death gives

us a new sense of our life. What is discovered here effectively is the triumph of the carnal,

the physical terror in the face of that repulsive problem. And how amazing that Christians

had so sharp a sense of the humiliation and the distress of the flesh, and that these notions

are able to play a major role in the elaboration of Christian metaphysics. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle, and are spent without hope.4

We can see that the Old Testament already set the tone with Job5 and Ecclesiastes.6 But

the Gospels put this sense of death at the center of their devotion.

We cannot, in effect, reflect sufficiently upon the fact that Christianity is centered

around the person of Christ and his death. One can make of Jesus an abstraction or a

symbol. But the true Christians are those who realize this triumph of the martyred flesh.

Jesus being man, the whole stress had been put on his death: physically, one cannot go

1 P. de Labriolle: Histoire de la litterature latine chrietienne.2 On the imminence of that passion cf. Mark: VIII, 39-XIII, 30; Matthew: X. 23; XII, 27-28, XXIV, 34; Luke: IX, 26-27, XXI, 32. Cf. also the Vigilate; Mt. XXIV, 42-44; XXV, 13; Luke: XII, 37-40. 3 P. de Labriolle, op. cit., p.49: Pervaded by the sentiment that the world was going to die soon [one knowsthat this belief was common to the first Christian generations, but they appear to have been sincere with an intensity of entirely specific anguish] they wanted 4 Job VII, 5-6.5 Job II, 9; III 3; X, 8; X, 21-22; XII, 23; XVII, 10-16; XXI, 23-26; XXX, 23.6 Passim, but above all: II, 17; III, 19-21; XII, 1-8.

18

through something more horrible.7 It is upon certain Catalan sculptures, in the torn up

hands and cracked joints, that one should reflect in order to imagine the terrifying image

of torture that Christianity established in this symbol. But it is also enough to consult the

famous texts of the Gospel.

Another proof, if it is necessary, of the importance of this theme in evangelical

Christianity, is the indignation of the pagans: Let her remain as she pleases in her foolish deception, and sing false laments to her dead God, whowas condemned by right-minded judges, and perished ignominiously by a violent death.8

And again: He allowed himself to be struck, to be spat on in the face, to be crowned with thornseven if he had to suffer by order of God, he would have had to accept the punishment, but not to endure his passion without some bold discourse; some wise and vigorous words, addressed to Pilate, his judge, instead of allowing himself to be insulted like the any old rabble of the street corner.9

But that is enough to show the importance of the sense of death and the carnal message in

the thought which occupies us.

B. Render Unto Caesar

We are ridiculous, says Pascal, resting in a society of our fellow creatures:

miserable like us, powerless like us, they will not help us: we will die alone. The

experience of death brings about instead a certain position that is very tricky to define.

Many are the texts of the Gospel where Jesus recommends indifference or even hatred

towards ones close relatives as a means of achieving the kingdom of God.10 Is this the

foundation of an immoralism? No, of a higher moral: If any man come to me, and hate

not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his

own life also, he cannot be my disciple.11 One understands by these texts how much the

render unto Caesar marks a contemptuous concession rather than a declaration of

conformism. What is from Caesar is the coin where his effigy is printed. What is from

7 Cf. Renan: Vie de Jesus, ch. XXV, p. 438: The particular atrocity of the torture of the cross was that one could have lived three or four days in that horrible state. The hemorrhage of the hands stopped and was not mortal. The true cause of death was unnatural position of the body, which carried a ghastly trouble of the circulation, of terrible ills of the head and the heart, finally the rigidity of the limbs. 8 Porphyry, Philosophy from the Oracles, cited in Saint Augustine, City of God, XIX, 23, Modern Library Edition page 701.9 Porphyry, cited in P. de Labriolle, la Reaction painne, p.211.10 Mt., VIII, 22; Mt., X, 21-22; Mt., 35-37; Mt., XII, 46-50; Luke, III, 34; XIV, 26-33.11 Luke, XIV, 26-28.

19

God is the heart of man alone, having broken all attachment with the world. This is the

mark of pessimism and not of acceptance. But it is only natural that these rather vague

themes and attitudes of the spirit materialize and are summed up in the properly religious

notion of sin.

C. Sin

In sin man becomes aware of his misery and of his pride. No one is good 12 for all

have sinned13: the sin is universal. But amongst all of the significant texts14 of the New

Testament, few are as rich in sense and observation as this passage in the Epistle to the

Romans:...For that which I do, I allow not: for, what I would do, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do what I would not, it is no more I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.15

Here the Non posse non peccare of Saint Augustine is outlined. At the same time the

pessimistic soul of the Christians concerning the world is explicit. It is to this view and

to these aspirations that the constructive part of Evangelical Christianity responds. But it

is good to note beforehand that state of the spirit.Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows,and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition16.

But just as that Pascalian thought placed at the beginning of the Apology serves to bring

out the adherence to God, likewise, from those condemned to death, the hope which had

begun to transport them is gone.

12 Mark, X, 18.13 Romans, III, 23.14 I John, I, 8; I, Corinth., X, 13; Matthew, XII, 21-23; XIX, 25-26.15 VII, 15-24.16 Penses, no. 199 (Penguin page 165).

20

2. Hope in God

A. Disdain for Speculation.

Deum et animam scire Cupido, said Saint Augustine - nihil ne plus - nihil

omnio. 17 It is indeed this way in the Gospel, where only the Kingdom of God counts,

and for the conquest of which renunciation is so necessary here below. The idea of the

Kingdom of God is not absolutely novel in the New Testament. The Jews already knew

the word and the thing [le mot et la chose].18 But in the Gospels this kingdom has

nothing to do with the terrestrial.19 It is spiritual. It is the contemplation of God himself.

Besides this conquest, no speculation is desirable. Let no man beguile you of your

reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things

which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.20 It is the humility and the

simplicity of small children that one must endeavor to reach.21 It is to the children that

the Kingdom of God is promised, but also to the wise people who have known to despoil

their knowledge in order to understand the truth of the heart. In this way, they have added

virtue, even simplicity, to the precious merit of the care of the self. In Octavius, Minucius

Felix made Caecilius, defender of paganism talk in these terms: One must not become annoyed that the men who have not studied, strangers to letters, inept even in the lowly arts, spout opinions that they take for certain about everything that is most elevated and most majestic in nature, while philosophy has discussed it for centuries. 22

This disdain for all pure speculation explains itself among the people who took the

outpouring in God for the aim of all human effort. But a certain number of consequences

still follow.

B. Humility

Incorporating into the initial agenda the effort of man towards God, one

subordinates this whole movement. And the world organizes itself following that

orientation. History has the meaning that God wanted to give it. The philosophy of

17 God an animals alike know Cupid. Nothing is greater, nothing at all See Song of Solomon chs. 1, 2, 7.18 Wisdom of Solomon, X, 10: When the righteous fled from his brothers wrath, she guided him in right paths, shewed him the kingdom of God, and gave him knowledge of holy things. 19 Luke, XII-14; Mt., XVIII-11; Mt., XX-28.20 Colossians, II, 18.21 Mt.: XVIII, 3, 4; XIX, 16; Mk., X, 14, 15. 22 VI, 4.

21

history, a foreign notion to a Greek spirit, is a Judaic invention. The metaphysical

problems incarnate in time and in the world are only the carnal symbol of this effort of

man towards God. Thus major importance is still accorded to faith.1 It is enough that a

paralytic or a blind person believe - and they are made better. It is that the essence of that

faith is to consent and to renounce. Faith is always more important than works.2

The reward in the other world retains its unwarranted nature. It is of so high a

value that it surpasses the stringency of a price. And this again concerns an apology for

humility. One must prefer the repentant sinner to the virtuous one full of himself and of

his good works. The worker of the eleventh hour will be paid but a penny as always.

And one will have a party for the prodigal son in the house of his father. For repentant

sinners, eternal life. This very important phrase of eternal life is taken in its broad sense

of immortality each time it is cited.3

C. Incarnation

Here then the notion which interests us is introduced. If it is true that man is

nothing, and that his destiny is entirely in the hands of God, and that works are not

sufficient to assure man of his recompense, if the assertion that no one is good1 is well-

founded, who then will attain this kingdom of God? The distance is so great from man to

God that nobody could hope to span it. Man cannot attain it, and only despair is open to

him. But then the incarnation brings his salvation. Man cannot get back to God, but God

descends to him. And it is the universal hope in Christ which is then born. Man was

right to leave it up to God to decide, since God makes his grace towards man most

infinite.

It is in Paul that this doctrine express itself for the first time in a coherent fashion2.

For him, the will of God has only one aim: to save men. The creation and the redemption

are only two manifestations of this will, the first and the second of his revelations3. The

1 Matt. XIV, 33; XII, 58; XV, 28.2 Matt. : X, 16-18; XX, 1-16; XXV, 14-23. 3 Mt. XX, 46; XXV, 34-36; Mt., X, 17; Luke, X, 24.1Mark X: 182 Col., I, 15; Corinth., XV, 45; Rom., I, 4.3 Rom., I, 20; VIII, 28; Eph., I, 45; III, 11; Tim I, 9.

22

sin of Adam corrupted man and drove him to death.4 There are no personal means left for

him. The moral law of the Old Testament effectively contents itself with giving to man

the image of the need for attainment. But it did not give them the strength. It thereby

leaves him doubly culpable.5 The only way to save us was to come to us and release us

from our sins by a miracle of grace. It is Jesus, of our human race, of our blood,6 who

represents us and substitutes himself for us. Dying with him and in him, man paid for his

sin, and the incarnation is at the same time the redemption.7 But for all that, the total

power of God is not damaged, because the death and the incarnation of his son are his

grace, and not a reward owing to human merit.

This solution of events resolved all the difficulties of the doctrine, establishing

such a great gap between God and man. Plato who wanted to unite the Good to man was

forced to construct a whole ladder of ideas between these two terms, thereby creating a

discipline. In Plato this is a point of reasoning. But for Christianity this is a mere fact:

Jesus has come. Christianity opposes itself like a state of things to Greek wisdom, which

is only a science.

To understand finally the whole originality of a notion become too familiar to our

minds, let us ask the opinions of the pagans of the time. Even a mind as cultivated as

Celsus does not understand. His indignation is real. Something escapes him which was

too new for him: That if, said he, among the Christians and the Jews, it is from them that declares that a God or a Son of God, the ones, need to descend, the others, being descended, is there from their most honestclaimWhat meaning for a God could a voyage like that one have? Was it to learn that which happens among men? But does he know everything? Is he then incapable, given his divine power, to improve them without sending someone corporally to this effectAnd if, as the Christians affirm, he is come to help men to return to the right path, why is he only advised of these duties after leaving them in error for so many centuries.8

Likewise, the incarnation seems unacceptable to Porphyry:Even supposing that some of the Greeks were obtuse enough to think that the Gods inhabited statues, this was still a purer conception than admitting that the Divine descended into the breast of the Virgin Mary, that he became an embryo, that after his birth, he had been wrapped in blankets, entirely dirtied with blood, bile and worse still.9

4 Rom., V, 12-17; VI, 23. 5 Rom., III, 20; Rom., V, 13; Rom., VII, 7-8.6 Rom., I, 3; IV, 4.7 R.om., III, 25; VI, 6; Cor., VI, 20; Gal., III, 13.8 Celse: Discours vrai. Trad. Rougier: IV, 41.9 Porphyry: Contre the Chretiens. Fragment 77 in P. de Labriolle: la Reaction paienne, p. 274.

23

And Porphyry is amazed that Christ had to be able to suffer on his cross, when he became

by nature impassive.10 Nothing then is as specifically Christian as the notion of the

incarnation.

The obscure themes that we have tried to delimit amount to this. It is in this

evidence of an immediately comprehensible event that the movement of thought is

fulfilled. We must now look at life among those so animated.

II. The Men of Evangelical Christianity1. The Works.

The disgust for speculation; the practical and religious anxieties; the primacy of faith; the pessimism towards man; and the immense hope born of the incarnation: all so many themes which are resurrected in the men and the works of the first centuries of our era. And, in effect, one has to be Greek to believe that wisdom is learnt. From the outset Christian literature does not recognize any moralists until Clement and Tertullian.11 Saint Clement, Saint Ignatius, Saint Polycarpe, and the author, known as Barnabus, of the doctrine of twelve apostles and that of the Apocryphal Epistles, are only interested in the religious side of the problems. The literature known as apostolic12 is exclusively practicaland popular. It is necessary for us to examine its details in order to obtain a more precise idea of its spirit and characteristics. This literature developed from 50 to 90 A.D. In otherwords, it could present itself as reflecting the instruction of the apostles themselves. This literature consists of: a). from Rome, the first epistle of Saint Clement (93-97 A.D.); b). from Antioch and along the coast of Asia Minor, the seven epistles of Saint Ignatius (107-117 A.D.) ;c). from Egypt, the Apocryphal epistle or Didache of Barnabus (between 130 and 131 A.D.);d). probably from Palestine, the doctrine of the twelve apostles, (131-160 A.D. );e). from Rome the Pastor of Hermas (140-155 A.D.); and

from Rome or Corinth, two epistles of Saint Clement (150 A.D.);f). from Hierapolis in Phrygia fragments of Papias, (150 A.D.); and from Smyrna, the epistle of Saint Polycarpe and his Martyrdom (155-156 A.D.).

Let us look at each of them and try to retrieve the pure state of the passionate postulates

[postulates passionns] that we have already indicated.

10 Fragment 84-ibid11 Tixeront: Histoire des dogmes, chap. III; Le temoignage des Peres apostoliques.12 Ibid Chap. III, p.115: The name Apostolic Fathers is given to the ecclesiastical writers who lived until the end of the first or in the first part of the second century, and who were supposed to have received immediately the instruction that they transmit to us from the apostles or their disciples .

24

a) Clement

The first epistle of Saint Clement presents itself as if its only aim was to restore peace in

the Church of Corinth. Its character is thus purely practical. It insists on the filiation

which exists between the head of the Church and the Apostles, then next between this

latter and Jesus Christ whose Incarnation saved us.13 Wanting the Corinthians to submit

to their spiritual leaders, Clement shows them that the cause of discord resides in envy,

and he adopts the pretext of talking of humility and of the virtue of obedience which

accompany the praise of charity.14 It is by humility that we obtain the remission for our

sins. A second, specifically evangelical point of view can be introduced here: those who

are saved are not saved by their works but by their faith in God.15 A bit further on, in any

case, Clement speaks of the necessity of works and of the inefficacy of faith without

them.16

b) Ignatius

The letters of Saint Ignatius17 are nothing but occasional pieces, alien to all

methodological speculation. But Saint Ignatius is the apostolic Fathers who had the

keenest feeling for Christ made flesh. He fought with fury the tendency within

Christianity to docility. Jesus is Son of God following the will and the power of God,

truly begotten of a Virgin,18 of the race of David according to the flesh; he is son of man

and son of God."19 He affirms the real maternity of Mary20 Truly born of a virgin

He has really been pierced full of nails for us under Pontius Pilot and Herod the

Tetrarch.21 He really suffered, just as he really rose himself, and not, in the way that

certain unbelievers said who pretend that he suffered only in appearance.22 Ignatius

insisted more still, if he could, upon the humanity that adorned Christ. He affirmed that it

is in the flesh that Christ arose: I know that after his resurrection, Jesus had been in the flesh and I believe that he is still so. And

13 XXXI, 6, append. Tixeront: III, 2.14 XLIV, ibid.15 XXXII, 3, 4, ibid 16 XXXIII, 1, ibid17 For all that follows, cf. Tixeront, III, 5.18 To the inhabitants of Smyrna, I, 1.19 Eph., XX, 2.20 Eph., VII, 2. 21 Smyrna, I, 1, 2.22 Smyrna, II

25

when he came to those who were with Peter, he said to them: Come over, feel me, and see that I am not a spirit without a body. And straight away they touched him and they believed, being joined with his flesh and his spiritAnd after the resurrection, he ate and he walked with them, as being corporal although being spiritually united with his Father23.

Upon this communion of Christ in us, Ignatius established the unity of the Church

and the rules of religious life. For him, nothing counts but faith and love: All is faith and

charity: there is nothing more precious.24 And pushing to the extreme one of the themes

of primitive Christianity already indicated, he affirms that he who has faith does not sin:

The carnal cannot do spiritual works, nor the spiritual carnal works, no more than faith

can do works of infidelity, nor infidelity those of faith. The things that you do according

to the flesh are spiritual, because you do all in Jesus Christ.25 That is the character of

this exalted Christianity, extreme in its faith and in the consequences that it presupposes,

that we have already defined. We should not be surprised nevertheless to find in Saint

Ignatius tones of the most passionate mysticism: My love is crucified, and there is no

fire in me for the cause; but there is a live and speaking water which says within me: Go

to the Father.26

c) Barnabus

The epistle attributed to Saint Barnabus27 is above all a polemic work directed

against Judaism. It contains hardly any doctrinal elements and in any case only presents a

mediocre interest. The author insists solely on the redemption, and with much realism

and it is this which is to be noted. This flows from Jesus having delivered his flesh to

destruction, and our sprinkling of his blood.28 And it is the Baptism that enables us to

participate in that Redemption: We go down into the water, full of sins and stains, and

we come out of it bearing fruits, possessing in heart and in spirit, the hope in Jesus."29

d) The doctrine of the twelve apostles

There exist two paths, one of life, the other of death, but there is a great

difference between the two.30 The doctrine of the twelve apostles is connected only to the23 Smyrna, III.24 Smyrna, VI, 1.25 Eph., VIII, 2.26 Rom., VII, 2.27 Tixeront, op. cit., III, 8.28 V, I; VII, 3, 5.29 XI, XI, 1-8.30 I, I. Ap. Tixeront, III, 7.

26

teaching of what constitutes the path of life, and what one must do to avoid the path of

death. It is a catechism, a liturgical formula, which does not contradict our proposition of

the exclusively practical character of all this literature.

e) Hermas and Clement

The Pastor of Hermas and the 20th epistle of Clement are above all works of

edification.31 The common theme of these two works is penitence. This Hermas admits

only of his sins committed up until the moment when he wrote. And from this moment

the penitential doctrine becomes impregnated with the particular rigor of the pessimistic

doctrines. To the Christians of his time, he accorded this penitence only once.32 He

established a tariff according to which an hour of ungodly pleasure must be atoned for by

thirty hours of penitence, and a day by a year. According to him the wicked are doomed

to the flames, and whosoever knows God will be commended, however the bad will

expire eternally.33 The second epistle of Clement is a homily offering frequent analogies

with the Pastor of Hermas. The aim there remains wholly practical: to exhort the

faithful to charity and penitence. In chapter IX the real and tangible incarnation of Jesus

is demonstrated. The remainder endeavors to describe the punishments and the rewards

which will be inflicted or accorded after the resurrection.

f) Papias and Polycarpe

The narration which is given to us of his martyrdom in the fragments of Papias

ultimately does not teach us anything appreciably new.34 The epistle of Polycarpe is

dedicated to practical aims, and these works meet in an Antiocean Christology,35 a

classical theory of sin and the exaltation of faith. They in fact summarize faithfully what

was already known of this apostolic literature and its contempt for all speculation. Let us

only ask ourselves in which milieu this preaching developed.

2. The Men.

We could say that the thought of the apostolic fathers reflects the true face of the

era in which they lived. The first evangelical communities shared these worries and

31 Tixeront, III, 3 and 4.32 Manduc, IV, 3.33 Similit. IV, 4.34 Tixeront, op. cit., III, 6.35 Antioch = present day Antakya, Turkey, near the Syrian border.

27

withdrew from all intellectual ambition. Nothing better illuminates that state of mind

than the efforts of Clement of Alexandria to disperse it as a prejudice. If we remember

that Clement lived at the end of the second century,36 we see the tenacity with which

Christianity clung to its origins, and all the more since the fantasies of Gnosticism were

not fabricated to turn the mind towards philosophy.

Clement of Alexandria37 met vigorous resistance to Greek spirit and culture in his

milieu, and his whole effort was to rehabilitate pagan philosophy from out of disrepute,

and to accustom Christian minds to it. But these objections are of another order, and the

concerns that are often present in the Stromates show us the vexation of the author

concerning the strong hostility of the milieu towards all speculation. Those who Clement

calls the Simpliciores (simpletons) are certainly the first Christians, and we find in them

the postulates of the apostolic predication: The vulgar fear Greek philosophy like

children fear a bogey"38. But the vexation is palpable: Certain individuals who think that

spiritual people deem that one must mix neither with philosophy, nor dialectic, nor even

apply oneself to the study of the universe.39

Or again: There are some people who make this objection. What end does it serve to know the causes which explain the movement of the sun, or of the other stars, or to study geometry, dialectics or the other sciences? These things are not of any use, since it is a question of defining duties. Greek philosophy is only a product of the human intelligence: it does not teach the truth40.

The opinions prevalent in the Christian milieu of Alexandria were perfectly clear. Faith is

enough for man and the rest is literature. Let us compare rather an affirmation of

Tertullian, contemporary of Clement, with a text of the latter, which corresponds exactly:There is something in common, said Terteullian, between Athens and Jerusalem, between the Academy and the ChurchThe mores the pity for those who have brought up to date a Stoic, Platonic, or dialectical Christianity. For us, we do not have curiosity about Jesus Christ, nor research the Gospel41.

And Clement wrote: 36 Between 180 and 203 A.D.37 De Faye: Clement dAlexandrie, livre II, chap. II.38 Stromates, VII, 80.39 St., I, 43.40 VI, 93.41 De Perscriptione, VII Haereticorum.

28

I do not ignore that certain ignorant people who are afraid of the smallest noise, keep on saying that to know, one must confine oneself to the essential things, to those which relate to faith, and that one must neglect that which comes from outside and which is superfluous42.

But these simpliciens (simple ones) confined themselves to books of the Saints. Saint

Paul had put them on guard against the deceptive philosophy.43 None can be without

concern for others; without charity, one is a resounding gong or ringing cymbal.44 That is

why in the fourth century, Rutillius Namatianus defined Christianity as the sect which

turns souls into morons'45. This merely annoyed Clement of Alexandria, whereas Celsus

is indignant.46 This is positive proof of the vitality of a tradition that to us now appears as

established.

III. The Difficulties and the Causes of Evolution of Evangelical Christianity

If we cast a backward glance, we must conclude that primitive Christianity can be

summed up in a few elementary but vital themes around which communities group

together, full of those aspirations, and attempting to embody them through their example

or their preaching. These are the powerful and bitter values that this new civilization

implemented. Where does the exaltation which accompanies its birth and the interior

richness that it arouses among man come from?

But, on this basis, an evolution is prepared. The outline of it already appears from

Matthew to John. The kingdom of God cedes place to eternal life.47 God is spirit, and it

is in spirit that one must adore him. Christianity is already universalized. However, the

trinity, still shapeless, only half expresses itself. 48 Christianity has already surveyed the

Greek world, and, before surmounting other forms of its evolution, it must come to terms

with the causes which impel it to go constantly deeper into itself, and to propagate its

doctrines under Greek cover. The rupture with Judaism and the entry into the

Mediterranean mind created certain obligations for Christianity: to satisfy the Greeks 42 Sodom, I, 18.43 Colossians, 2: 8: See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition. 44 1 Corinthians 13: 1: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 45 De Reditu suo, I, 389, in Rougier-Celse, p.112.46 Discours vrai, III, 37, trad. Rougier.47 John, 3:16, 36; 4:14.48 V, 19, 26.

29

already won over to the new religion; to entice others by showing them a less Judaic

Christianity and a general way of speaking their language; to express itself in

comprehensible formulas, and consequently to introduce into the convenient molds of

Greek thought the uncoordinated flights of a very profound faith. These are the necessities

that we must clarify.

1. Concurrences.

During this epoch, and throughout the whole second century, Christianity attracts

adherents from amongst the most cultivated of Greeks.49 Many minds come to the new

religion, and cement the union of a speculative tradition with a renewed sensibility in the

Mediterranean basin: Aristides Apology to Antonin the Pious, from between 136 and 161

A.D.; Miltiade (towards 150); Justin, whose first Apology dates between 150 and 155, and

the second between 150 and 160, and from which the famous Dialogue with Tryphon had

been published towards 161; and finally Athenagole (Supplicatio pro christianos 176 -

178 A.D.)

From that moment on, it was for them a matter of reconciling a mind made Greek

by education with a heart penetrated by Christian love. Historically, these fathers were

apologists, because their whole effort was effectively to present Christianity in

accordance with reason. Faith, according to them, completes the facts of reason, and it is

not unworthy of a Greek mind to accept it. It is then on the terrain of philosophy that the

two civilizations meet each other.

Justin, in particular, will go very far in this direction. He relies on the

resemblances between Christian doctrine and Greek philosophies: the Gospel is

continuous for him with Plato and the Stoics.50 Justin sees two reasons for this

concurrence. Firstly, that idea, so widespread in the era51, that the Greek philosophers had

had knowledge of the books of the Old Testament, and from it were inspired (a

supposition without support, but which had enormous prosperity). Secondly, Justin

thinks that the logos was manifested in us in the person of Jesus, but that he pre-existed 49 Puech: les Apologistes grecs du II siecle.ibid Tixeront op. cit., V, I.50 Apol., II, 13.51 Apol., I, 44, 59; Tatien: Oratio ad Graecos, 40; Minutius Felix op. cit. 34; Tertullien: Apologet. 47; Clement dAlex.: Str. I, 28; VI, 153; VI, 159.

30

that incarnation, and inspired the philosophy of the Greeks.52 That does not prevent our

author from drawing conclusions about the moral necessity of revelation, because of the

incomplete character of pagan speculation.

At the same time as they sought rapproachment with the Greeks, the Apologists

also moved away more and more from Judaism. The hostility of the Jews towards the

new religion was a sufficient motive. But a political reason was also added, namely their

role keeping the Jews in persecution by their accusations.53 The whole argument of the

Dialogue with Tryphon is the demonstration of the accord between the Prophets and the

New Testament, from which Justin drew the prescription of the Old Testament and the

triumph of the Christian truth.54

2. Resistances.

But at the same time, resistances also developed. In any case we know the

contempt of Tertullian towards all pagan thought. Tatien55 and Hermias56 also became

apostles of this particularist57 movement. But resistance is the most natural tendency, and

the resistances of which we spoke were those of the pagans. One could say without

paradox that these resistances contributed greatly to the victory of Christianity. P. de

Labriolle58 insists that the pagans at the end of the second century and at the beginning of

the third made every effort to divert the religious enthusiasm of the era towards the

figures and the personalities modeled on Christ.59 Celsus had already touched upon this

idea when he opposed Jesus, Aesculapius, Hercules and Bacchus.

But this soon became a polemical system. At the beginning of the third century

Philostratus wrote the marvelous history of Apollonius of Tyane, which seems at many

points to imitate scripture.60 Socrates, Pythagoras, Hercules, Mithra, the sun, the

52 Ap. II, 13, 8, 10.53 Justin. Dialogue avec Tryphon: 16, 17, 108, 122, etc. Apologie: I, 31-36.54 Dialogue. 63 and sq.55 Oratio ad graecos (165 A.D.).56 Irrisio gent ilium philosopher (second century).57 Particularism: the doctrine that divine grace is provided only for the elect.58 La Reaction paienne: deuxime partie, ch. II.59 Cf. Boissier: la Religion romaine, preface, tome I, IX: paganism tries to reform according to the model of the religion which threatened it and against which it fought.60 Compare above all the episode of the daughter of Jairus (Luke, 8:40) and Life of Apollonius, IV, 45 (p. 184 of the Chassaing translation).

31

emperor: all help themselves to the favor of the Greco-roman world and figure in turn as a

pagan Christ. The method had its dangers and its advantages, but nothing shows better

how much the Greeks had understood the power and the seduction of the new religion.

But this Christianization of decadent Hellenism proves also that the resistances became

ingenious. Thus for Christianity, the necessity is to use its angles, to show preference for

its great dogmas on eternal life and the nature of God, and to introduce metaphysics into

itself in this way. In any case, we would not go wrong in saying that this was then the

role of the apologists. This work of assimilation came from the most high. It can be

traced back to Paul, born in Tarsus, an academic and Hellenic city. Chritianity is

particularly clear from a Judaic point of view, according to Philon. We have noted it only

in the apologists because it is the first time in history that this movement takes a coherent

and collective form. We will only consider the problems which resulted from it.

3. The Problems.

So from the combination of evangelical faith with Greek metaphysics the

Christian dogmas arose. Furthermore, bathed in that atmosphere of religious tension,

Greek philosophy yielded Neoplatonism.

But this did not happen overnight. If it is true that the oppositions between

Christian ideas and Greek ideas were alleviated by the cosmopolitanism which we have

indicated, nevertheless antimonies remained. We must reconcile creation ex nihilo

which excluded the hypothesis of matter, with the perfection of the Greek God who

involved the existence of that matter. The Greek mind saw the difficulty of a perfect and

immutable God creating the temporal and the imperfect. As Saint Augustine wrote much

later: It is difficult to comprehend the substance of God which makes changeable things,

without them undergoing any change, and of temporal things without any motion in

time.61

Put otherwise, history made it necessary for Christianity to go deeper into itself if

it wanted to universalize itself, to create a metaphysics. But it is not a metaphysics

without a minimum of rationalism. Intelligence is powerless to restate its themes when

61 De Trinitate: I, I, 3.

32

feelings vary with the infinity of nuances. The effort of reconciliation inherent in

Christianity will be to humanize and to intellectualize its sentimental themes, and to

restore the thought of the limits within which it struggles. Because to explain is in a

certain way to seize: it is to reduce slightly this disproportion between God and man that

Christianity had instituted. On the contrary, it certainly seems that at its beginnings,

Christian thought, under the influence of these values of death and of passion, in the fear

of sin and of chastisement, has arrived at the point at which, as Hamlet said, time is out of

joint.62 It is now necessary that intelligence give its endorsement.

This was the task, in a rather weak capacity, of the first theological systems of

Clement of Alexandria and of Origin, and of the councils in reaction to the heresies, and

above all of Saint Augustine. But, at this precise point, the thought is inflected.

Christianity entered into a new phase in which it was a matter of knowing if, in order

better to popularize, its profound originality would be jeopardized; or if, on the contrary,

its powers of expansion would be sacrificed to its need for purity; or if it would

eventually get to reconcile these equally natural preoccupations. But its evolution was not

to be harmonious. It was to follow some dangerous paths which would teach it prudence.

Namely, Gnosticism. Christianity used Neoplatonism and its convenient framework to

house religious thought. Definitively detached from Judaism, Christianity inserted itself

into Hellenism through the door that it kept open to the Oriental religions. Several

centuries of Christian speculation would go into raising the image of the crucified Saviour

on the altar to the unknown God that Paul had found in Athens63.

62 Let us go in together; And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right (Act II, scene V).63 Acts, 17:16-23.

33

Chapter Two. Gnosis

If one accepts this Christianization of Mediterranean Hellenism as an established

fact, one must consider the Gnostic heresy as one of the first attempts at Greco-Christian

collaboration. Gnosticism is effectively a Greek reflection on Christian themes. Thus it

was disavowed by the one no less than by the other. Plotinus wrote "against those who

say that the world is bad."64 And Tertullian reproaches the Gnostics in the Adversus

marcionem (as would Saint Augustine later the Manicheans) for believing that a rational

explanation could be added to the Gospel. It is nevertheless accurate to say that the

Gnostics had been Christian, for we find amongst them the theme of the incarnation.

The problem of evil obsessed them. They comprehended all the originality of the New

Testament and consequently, of the redemption. But instead of esteeming Christ made

flesh, symbolizing a suffering humanity, the Gnostics took the incarnation as wholly

mythological. On authenticated postulates, they devote themselves to all the subtle games

of the Greek mind. And on several simple and passionate aspirations of Christianity, they

built, as if on so many solid pillars, all the decorations of a metaphysical carnival.

But a difficulty lies in the historical scheme [le plan historique]. The Gnostic

schools succeeded one another for more than two centuries.65 Several generations of

Gnostics speculated in divergent directions. Valentine and Basilides are as different

minds, all things considered, as were Plato and Aristotle. How then do we define one

Gnosticism? This is a difficulty that we have already encountered. If it is true that we

can define only various Gnosticisms, it is, however, possible to characterize a Gnosis.

The first Gnostic generation,66 that of Basilides, Marcion and Valentine, supplied the

loom upon which later disciples wove. The small number of common themes suffice to

glimpse the sense of this heretical solution. Historically, Gnosticism is in effect a

philosophical and religious teaching, dispensed by initiates, based on Christian dogma,

mixed with pagan philosophy, and assimilating all therein which is splendid and brilliant

in these most diverse religions. But before indicating the main themes of the Gnostic

64 Enneads II, 9.65 From the beginning of the second century to the end of the third.66 First part of the first century.

34

solution and uncovering their origins, it is necessary to see how this solution fits into the

movement of thought considered in this work, defining Gnosis again, but this time

through the metaphysical agenda [le plan mtaphysique]. This poses the problems in a

Christian way, but it resolves it into Greek formulas.

Basilides and Marcion were effectively persuaded of the ugliness of this world.

They complain of its carnal aspect, they list a catalogue of sins and ugliness, and they

widen more and more the rift between man and God. There comes a moment where

neither penance nor sacrifice can leap such an abyss. It is enough to know God in order

to be saved.67 Otherwise through some kind of work, or through some other way, man

could be drawn out of his nothingness. That is, as we have seen, the Christian solution of

salvation through incarnation. It is also in a sense the Gnostic solution too. But Christian

grace preserves a character of divine arbitration. Not knowing the profound meaning of

the incarnation and so restricting it in its scope, the Gnostics transformed the notion of

salvation into that of initiation. Valentine effectively separated humanity into three

orders:68 the Materialists, attached to worldly goods, the Psychics, balanced between God

and matter, and the Spirituals, who alone live in God and know him. These latter are

saved, just as later the elected of the Manicheans will be.

The Greek concept thereby introduced itself the Spirituals are saved only by

Gnosis, a secret knowledge of God. They learnt this Gnosis from Valentine and others.

Salvation is learnt. It is thus an initiation. For if initially these two notions seem to be

descended from a common ancestor, analysis still detects some differences, subtle,

without doubt, but fundamental. Initiation gives man a grasp of the divine kingdom.

Salvation introduces it without partaking of such a result: one could believe in God

without thereby being saved. For the mysteries of Eleusis it is sufficient to contemplate.69

Baptism, in contrast, does not imply salvation. Hellenism cannot separate itself from that

hope, for them tenacious, that man holds his destiny in his hands. And, even within

Christianity, there was precisely a tendency to slowly return the notion of salvation to that

67 Cf. in Buddhism the parent form of Amidisme.68 De Faye: Gnostiques et Gnosticisme, I, ch. II. Amelineau: Essai sur le Gnosticisme egyptien.69 Cf. Hymne homerique a Demeter, 480-483 Happy, those of the men living on the earth who have seen these things. But those who have not been initiated into the sacred ceremonies and those who took part therewill never have the same destiny after death in the vast darkness. P. Loisy, op. cit., p.76.

35

of initiation. Just as the Egyptian fellah gradually won from the Pharaoh the right to

immortality, the Christian, through the intervention of the Church, eventually had the keys

to the celestial kingdom in his hands.

It is with good reason, we see, that we could consider Gnosticism as one of the

solutions, one of the Christian steps in the problem that we detected, for Gnosis is an

attempt at reconciliation between knowledge and salvation. Let us now see the details of

that attempt.

I. The Main Themes of the Gnostic Solution.

More or less pronounced among different authors, four fundamental themes

nevertheless converge at the heart of the whole Gnostic system: the problem of evil, the

redemption, the theory of intermediates, and a conception of God being ineffable and

incommunicable.

A). If it is true that the problem of evil is at the core of all Christian thought, then

nobody is as profoundly Christian as Basilide. This original figure is not very well

known. We know that he lived under the reigns of Hadrian and Antonin the Pious (that is,

circa 140 A.D.), and that he began writing probably around 80 A.D. The only partially

complete account of his thought is now considered not very well-founded; namely, that of

the Philosophumena, which in all likelihood deals with a pseudo-Basilide. Our more

important source remains Clement of Alexandria in his Stromates. Irenaeus speaks of

Basilide in his catalogue and Epiphane in his Contra Haeresios (chap. XXIV). We can

also reassemble some allusions in Origin.70

The origin and the cause of this bad doctrine, said Epiphane, is the research

into and the discussion of the problem of evil.71 It is, in effect, this which pertains to the

little that we know of Basilidian thought. Aloof from all speculation, he attached himself

to the problem of morality alone, and more precisely to that moral problem which gives

birth to the relation between man and God. That which interests him is sin and the human

aspect of our problem. He even made of faith a natural and real existence: Basilide

70 Comm. in Rom. V; Hom. In Luke I; Com. In Matt. 38.71 Contre Haer, XXIV, 6, 72 c.

36

seems incapable of conceiving of an abstraction. It is necessary that he dresses it in a

semblance of body.72 It is from this point of view that Basilide develops his thought, and

endeavors to establish a theory of original sin. To tell the truth, the word itself does not

appear, but only the idea of a certain natural predisposition to sin. He adds finally two

complementary affirmations: sin always entails a chastisement; and, there is an

improvement and a redemption to be drawn from suffering. These three themes are

attributed indistinctly to Basilide and to Isidore, his son.

Be that as it may, Basilide is vividly impressed by the lot of the martyrs.

According to him, theirs was not useless suffering. And each suffering demands a

preceding sin which legitimates it. It is necessary then to conclude that the martyrs

sinned. Besides, this state is reconciled perfectly with their saintliness. It is rightly their

privilege to be able to expiate so completely their past. But who is the greatest of the

martyrs, if not Jesus himself. If I am pushed, I will say that a man, whomsoever you

name, is always still a man, whereas God is righteous. Because as one says, nobody is

pure from all stain."73 The allusion is transparent, and one understands that this doctrine

is false in the eyes of Epiphanus. Christ does not escape the universal law of sin. But at

least he shows us the road of deliverance that is the cross. That is why Basilides and his

son Isidore introduced an ascetic life to a certain extent.74 In addition to which this was

necessary for Isidore, because it is to him that we owe the appendix theory of the

passions. The passions do not depend on us, but hang on the soul and exploit us. Isidore

well saw that such a theory could lead the wicked to appear as victims and not as

culpable, and hence the rule of ascetic life.

Consider what remains of the philosophy of Basilides. We do not see how these

few pieces of information could accord with the note of Hippolytus in the

Philosophumena75. According to him Basilides might have conceived of the idea of an

abstract God living in the ogdoad,76 separated from our world by the intermediate or

hebdomad77 universe. The God of this intermediate world, the great Archon, could have 72 De Faye, op. cit., page 31.73 Cited by De Faye, ch. 1.74 Cf. De Faye, op. cit., ch. I.75 Book VII.76 eighth heaven77 sevenfold : i.e., cosmos of the seven celestial spheres.

37

been identified by Basilides with the God of the Old Testament:The ogdoad is ineffable, but one can say the name of the hebdomad. It is this Archon of the hebdomad who spoke to Moses in these terms: I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and I didnot reveal the name of God to them, that is to say of the ogdoad who is ineffable.78

This metaphysical cosmology hardly seems compatible with the profound tendencies of

our author, above all when one attributes to him a) the idea that the crucified Christ is not

dead, but that he substituted Simon of Cyrene for himself; b) the grandiose e