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Ἀπάθεια, sometimes translated “impassivity” or “impassibility,” means the absence of passions or bad emotions, πάθη, as opposed to good emotions or εὐπάθειαι . Thus, it is not the absence of emotions tout court (see Graver, 2007; Ramelli, 2008), as it is sometimes misrepresented . Apatheia was a core ethical ideal in Stoicism and in most of Platonism, including Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. Porphyry of Tyre, for example, stated that the soul is joined to the body when it converts to the passions that originate from the body, but apatheia frees the soul (Porph. Sent. 7). The ideal o…

The origins of Christianity in China seem to go back to the first centuries CE, but it is very difficult to establish an exact date or even a period, since much depends on the interpretation of the relatively few sources (literary, archaeological, iconographic) at our disposal. A rather safe indication seems to be offered by Arnobius of Sicca, who around 300 CE states that the Christian message had been preached in China by that time, which points to the presence of at least some seeds of …

Together with Platonism, Stoicism is the Greco-Roman philosophical school that has most influenced patristic philosophy and theology. It is sometimes difficult to disentangle specifically Stoic doctrines, since Stoicism was not too monolithic (Inwood, 2012). Moreover, the presence of clear Stoic elements in so-called Middle Platonism – which exerted an incalculable influence on early Christian philosophy and theology – complicates the picture. Stoic influence on patristic thought is dist…

The notion of “double creation” refers to a creation in two stages, normally axiologically degrading, the first creation being superior to the second. In “Gnosticism” (Gnosis/Gnosticism) the creation of the human being is often represented as double: the intellect, soul, or spirit comes from the divine realm, while the body is molded by the Demiurge or the evil archons. Plato in his Timaeus offered a source of inspiration for such double anthropogonies: the intellect (νοῦς), the superior part of the soul, is created by the Demiurge, in other words God t…

From the historical viewpoint, the 3rd century CE was crucial to the development of thoughts about Christ both in his relation to the two other persons of the Trinity and in his composition of humanity and divinity.In the early 3rd century CE, Bardaisan of Edessa, a Christian philosopher and theologian influenced by Middle Platonism and Stoicism and well versed in Greek and Syriac, developed a remarkable logos Christology that revolved around the notion of the cosmic Christ (Ramelli, 2009a; 2013b). He elaborated a Middle Platonic concept of Christ- logos as the seat of the id…

Addai was a Christian apostle who, according to tradition, in the 1st century CE evangelized the city of Edessa and the region of Osrhoene in northern Mesopotamia. His name seems to be the Syriac form of Greek Θαδδαῖος and Latin Thaddaeus. His legend is related to that of the purported conversion of King Abgar Ukkama (“the Black”) of Edessa to Christianity. I. Ramelli (2015) investigates how the superimposition of different religious discourses and agendas over the centuries shaped the complex development of the Addai narrative t…

The Cappadocian Fathers were prominent 4th-century CE Christian theologians and bishops, profoundly influenced by Origen: Basil of Caesarea (b. 329/c. 330, d. end 378 CE), Gregory of Nazianzus (Nazianzen, b. 329/c. 330, d. 389/390 CE in Arianzus), Gregory of Nyssa (Nyssen), younger than Basil by some years (on Gregory’s life, see Ramelli, 2007; Silvas, 2007) – and the Cappadocian mother Macrina the Younger, the eldest sister of Basil and Nyssen and founder and leader of a double house-mo…

Bardaisan (154–222 CE) was a Christian philosopher and theologian. His interests embraced astronomy, archery, ethnography, geography, music, history, literature (including Christian “apocrypha”), poetry, and allegoresis. He was a friend of Abgar the Great (king of Edessa; Abgarids), with whom he had been educated in the Greco-Roman paideia, and a dignitary at his court. According to Eusebius of Caesarea ( Hist. eccl. 4.30), Bardaisan’s work Against Fate was dedicated to a Roman emperor, “Antoninus.” Julius Africanus, the Christian chronographer who correspo…

Ammonius Saccas (2nd–3rd cent. CE) was a philosopher, commonly regarded as the “Socrates” of Neoplatonism. He was the teacher of both the “pagan” philosopher Plotinus and the Christian philosopher and theologian Origen . His life is very scarcely documented, and his precise philosophical ideas are not much better known. His byname Saccas is malignantly etymologized by Theodoret of Cyrrhus of as a reference to the “sacks” that he purportedly carried in Alexandria’s harbor (Thdt. Affect. 6.60–73). Theodoret also sets Ammonius historically under Commodus and presents b…

The Abgarids were a Nabatean dynasty who reigned between 134 and 242 CE over the city of Edessa and the northern Mesopotamian region of Osrhoene, first a buffer state between Rome and the Parthians and later a vassal state of Rome (Ramelli, 1999). Recent research (see Ramelli, 2004) has demonstrated that the Abgarid monarchy endured in Edessa still for some decades after Caracalla, contrary to what was assumed earlier on the basis of the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Maḥre or Chronicle of Zuqnîn. This fixed the end of the Abgarids’ reign to 220/221 CE, because Pseudo…

The school of Alexandria, the Didaskaleion (διδασκαλεῖον τῶν ἱερῶν λόγων, school of sacred learning; Eus.  Hist. eccl. 5.10.1), was a Christian liberal arts, philosophical, theological, and exegetical “school” that was initially independent of ecclesiastical institutions, but later became dependent on the local bishop. Similar schools were those of Justin Martyr in Rome and of Bardaisan in Edessa between the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. From Hellenistic times onward, Alexandria had been a prominent cultura…

Ancient and Jewish Hellenistic philosophy forms an important background for early Christian reflections on the body. Plato insisted that the body is mortal, while the soul, or at least the intellectual soul, is immortal and the true self. In the Timaeus he posited that the “intellect” ( nous), the superior part of the soul, is created by the demiurge (God the Creator), whereas the inferior parts of the soul are produced by minor, “younger” deities. This difference derives from the tenet of theodicy, “God is not responsible for evil” (θεὸς ἀναίτιος), in the myth of Er at the end of the Republic:…

The notion of apokatastasis (ἀποκατάστασις) is that of restoration or restitution to an original state, from ἀποκαθίστημι, “I restore, reconstitute, return.”In Greek the term apokatastasis had a variety of applications, from the medical field (somebody’s restoration to health from illness; a displaced limb’s restoration to its proper place) to the military or political (somebody’s restoration to one’s military unit or homeland after expulsion or exile) and especially the astronomical (the return of a heavenly bo…

Edessa (ancient Urha/Orhay, modern Urfa/Şanl[i]urfa) is a city close to the River Balikh, a branch of the upper Euphrates. Its most ancient name was Adma, recorded in Assyrian sources in the 7th century BCE. In Hellenistic times, it was named Edessa, after the ancient capital of Macedonia, by Selucus I Nikator in 304 BCE. Under the Roman Empire, Edessa was the capital of Osrhoene, a buffer state between the Romans and the Parthians and, later, the Persian Empire (e.g. Ross, 2001; Edwell, …

Anthropology, from ἄνθρωπος (“human being”) and λόγος (“discourse, theory”), in its classical sense is a branch of philosophy and theology that studies the human being. Patristic anthropology is rich and rooted in Scripture – for example the doctrines of creation, the fall, and redemption – and in Greek philosophy (esp. Platonism, but with Stoic and Aristotelian elements), for example the tripartition of the human soul, the human as a microcosm, or the composition of human bodies from…

The Sentences of Sextus, or Sextii Sententiae, are a collection, compiled by a Christian, of mostly moral sentences ascribed to the Pythagorean Sextus. They are especially interesting in that they show how Stoic, Cynic, Platonic, and Pythagorean asceticism was taken up in a Christian milieu, with respect not only to sexual restraint, but also to voluntary poverty (Wealth; Ramelli, 2016a). The Greek text is extant in two manuscripts: Patmiensis 263, from the 10th century CE, and Vaticanus gr. 7…

Belisarius (5th cent. CE; Bellesarius in most mss.), called Scholasticus or rhetorician to distinguish him from the homonymous general who lived under Emperor Justinian (d. 565 CE), was a Christian Latin intellectual from the late 5th century CE. We know practically nothing about his life and career. His name, Belisarius, was originally a Thracian name; it was used in Visigothic Iberia and in the Italic kingdom of the Longobards (Wagner, 1984).He is the author of an acrostic in praise of Sedulius’ poetry, placed by the manuscript tradition at the end of Sedulius…

Cleanthes (c. 330–233/231 BCE) was the second school leader of the ancient Stoa, after Zeno and before Chrysippus, who was Cleanthes’ disciple.Cleanthes is especially famous for his Hymn to Zeus, which manifests his profound religiosity in a Stoic framework. He did not divide philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics, which is the standard Stoic partition, but into six parts, which result from the duplication of the aforementioned three: dialectics and rhetoric, ethics and politics, and physics and theology ( SVF 1.482; Ramelli, 2011). The last two, physics and theology,…

Acheiropoietai (ἀχειροποίηται) are images “not made by (human) hand,” a category first attested in the 6th century CE. The term, however, is more ancient: it was used by Paul in 2 Cor 5:1 in reference to Christ’s risen body, and shortly afterward it appears again in Mark 14:58 and Col 2:11. Thus, acheiropoietai are especially images that are considered to be direct impressions of Christ’s face: the Mandylion of Edessa; the Veronica of Rome; the Camuliana image, which Heraclius and other…

Anthropomorphism, a term that first appears in the mid-18th century, comes from ἄνθρωπος, “human being,” and μορφή, “form.” It is the attribution of human forms or traits to whatever is not a human being, for example an animal, an object, and especially a divinity. Anthropomorphisms ascribed to animals are typical of traditional fables that feature animals able to think and talk like humans. Examples in the classical world can be found in the Greek fables ascribed to Aesop, a historic…

Titus Flavius Clemens (d. c. 95 CE; Flavius Clement) was a Christian aristocrat of the Flavian family, a nephew of the Roman emperor Vespasian. His Roman three names ( tria nomina: praenomen, nomen, cognomen) are the same as those which the Christian Platonist Clement of Alexandria bore later, in the late 2nd – early 3rd century CE – not without possible connections with the same family. Flavius Clement was the son of Titus Flavius Sabinus, consul in 52 CE and prefect of Rome ( praefectus urbi) during the reign of Nero, and a brother of Titus Flavius Sabinus, consul in 82 CE. …

The reception of classical culture in early Christianity was complex and diversified, depending on times, areas, authors, and the many aspects of the classical heritage that were absorbed and transformed, to various degrees, in Christian culture. The most interesting facets of this reception surely concern literature and philosophy. Most ancient Christian intellectuals who received a thorough literary and philosophical education belonged to the clergy and were presbyters, bishops, monks, …

This essay will investigate the relations between the Christian church and the Roman Empire in the patristic age, mainly from the institutional point of view. It will first examine the possible reasons for the persecution of Christians in the empire, vetting the information regarding the  senatusconsultum  under Tiberius, attested by Tertullian, by the Acts of Apollonius, by Porphyry of Tyre or the “pagan” (Pagan/Paganism) polemicist in Macarius’  Apocriticus, and, indirectly, by Origen. Then, the essay will examine, in chronological order, the sources concer…

Soteriology is the doctrine of “salvation” (σωτηρία/ sotēria). The term was already in use in the Graeco-Roman world and in the Hebrew Bible (duToit, 2019). Patristic soteriology is based on both Scripture and philosophy and has as its main exponents Origen, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, and Maximus (Patrology/Patristics). All patristic theologians have a soteriological component in their thought, but they often did not devote specific attention to soteriology. …

Paul (Paul [Apostle]) in Gal 3:28 declared that there is no gender difference “in Christ,” a statement that was subject to a variety of interpretations in early Christianity and oftentimes was forgotten. Besides the New Testament and the Genesis accounts of the creation of humanity, Philo of Alexandria, a major figure in Hellenistic Judaism, exerted an enormous influence on early Christian thinkers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and others, also with respect to anthropology and the exegesis of the Genesis anthropogony.Philo read Scripture, including th…

An aeon (αἰών; aevum) in patristic authors is a long period, an age, or this world or the world to come, according to the biblical usage. Only in reference to God does αἰών mean “eternity.” Aeon is divine life or a divine being or emanation only in “gnostic” writings (Gnosis/Gnosticism).Origen, Didymus the Blind, the Cappadocians, the Antiochenes, and Pseudo-Dionysius are the patristic thinkers who most reflected on the meaning of αἰών and its cognate adjective, αἰώνιος. Origen provided the Christian definition of αἰών: “The time coexten…

Diodore (d. c. 393 CE) was a Christian exegete and theologian who served as bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia from 378 CE until his death. He received an excellent education in Athens, then embraced the monastic life. In Antioch, he led the ascetic school (ἀσκητήριον) for many years before his episcopate. Among his disciples, Theodore of Mopsuestia and John Chrysostom are prominent. He was a supporter of the Nicene orthodoxy and a strong opponent of Emperor Julian’s anti-Christian politics. Du…

Aphrahat (c. 270–c. 345 CE), “the Persian sage,” was a Christian ascetic and author who lived in Adiabene (northern Mesopotamia), within the Persian Empire. His very name, Aphrahat, seems to be the Syriacized version of a Persian name, but when he entered the Christian, or the monastic, life, he took on the Jewish-Christian name Jacob. He wrote in Syriac, likely between 337 and 344 CE, 23 Demonstrations, or Expositions, for his fellow ascetics, the “children [i.e. members] of the covenant.” Aphr.  Dem. 1, for instance, is on faith, Dem. 2 on charity, Dem. 3 on fasting, Dem. 4 on prayer, Dem. 8…

Claudius Galen (129–199/216 CE) was an exceptionally prolific Greek polymath, philosopher and physician, an expert in physiology, anatomy, and neurology, and the physician of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus (Emperor/Imperial Cult). He also was well-versed in Greek literature (Lacy, 1966; Rosen, 2013), and from the philosophical viewpoint concentrated on the soul and the soul-body relation issue (Hankinson, 1991; Tieleman, 1996; Dillon, 2022). He reports Marcus’ laudatory words about him as both a physician and a philosopher in Gal. Praen. 14.658…

The dialogue De recta in Deum fide or On the Orthodox Faith in God is also known as Dialogue of Adamantius from the name of its protagonist, Adamantius, who bears the Christian byname of Origen of Alexandria. This is a mysterious and severely understudied document, which features Adamantius as a champion of the orthodox faith engaged in a discussion with “heretics” such as Marcionites, “Valentinians,” and Bardaisanites. As demonstrated by I. Ramelli (2012; 2013; forthcoming a), contrary to what has been clai…

Allegory: in Greek Ἀλληγορία signifies “saying” (ἀγορεύειν) some things but meaning “others” (ἄλλα).This definition of allegory was given in the early imperial age by Heraclitus the grammarian, or rhetor, in his Homeric Allegories (5), an allegorical interpretation of the Homeric poems. This definition covers mainly the first of the two principal meanings of allegory:1.  as a compositional method – writing an allegorical text, in which the literal level differs from its symbolic meaning(s); 2.  as the allegorical interpretation of a text. The latter is also called …

The notion of  gnosis (γνῶσις) is that of knowledge, often regarded as secret or reserved to some “perfect” people, from γιγνώσκω, “I know.” This concept of “gnosis” was central not only to the thought of the “gnostics,” belonging to the various trends of the so-called Gnosticism in imperial and late antiquity (on which see e.g. Marjanen, 2008), but also to that of Christian philosophers-theologians such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, and Evagrius of Pontus, as will be …

The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 CE was the fifth ecumenical council. The council, indeed, was wanted by Justinian rather than by the bishop of Rome or other bishops. Pope Vigilius had been brought by force from Rome to Constantinople, by the emperor’s order, already in 546 CE. Justinian wanted him to ratify the condemnation of the “Three Chapters” (besides that of Origen, on which see below): Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, accused of Nestori…

The notion of evil (Gk κακόν, κακία; Lat. malum; lit. “evilness”), along with its opposite, the idea of good (ἀγαθόν; καλόν), is in the focus of early Christian philosophical and theological reflection, largely based both on Greek philosophy and on Scripture. From the philosophical side, for Socrates, at an ethical-gnoseological level, evil was vice and ignorance, as opposed to the good, which was virtue and science. Plato elaborated a metaphysical doctrine of the good, as opposite to evil, which is mere negativity: he put the good …

Nothing is known about Calcidius’ life (4th cent. CE); no ancient author mentions his name. Since he supports the divine inspiration of Moses and Genesis, alludes to Jesus’ birth, and speaks of the end of human life in apparently Christian terms, it is probable that he was a Christian. However, this is uncertain (Reydams-Schils, 2020; Ramelli, forthcoming) and did not significantly influence the philosophical outlook of his work, which is broadly Middle Platonist. He cites Origen, which supplies a terminus post quem, hence the general tendency to dating Calcidius before t…

Protology is the doctrine of “the first things” (τὰ πρῶτα/ ta prôta), which can refer:1.  to the First Principles, in Platonism the Unwritten Doctrines by Plato: the One and the Dyad as the definite and indefinite principles of all; the principles of the Good and the One, from which all descend; the Ideas/Forms and God the Creator, plus matter as a secondary principle; and in Neoplatonism the triad of Plotinus: One, Nous, and Soul, later elaborated into more complex triads, up to Proclus and Damascius;…