Daemons in Hellenic and Christian Antiquity

This book is set to revolutionise understanding of the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christianity in Late Antiquity.

Daemons in Hellenic and Christian Antiquity is a groundbreaking analysis of the interplay between Greek and Christian ideas in Late Antiquity, with a focus on how daemons were conceived of by intellectuals in both traditions. Its protagonists are Origen, the great third-century philosopher and theologian, and Porphyry, a philosopher of the next generation whose ideas were strikingly influenced by Origen. By critical comparative study of Origen's Contra Celsum and Porphyry's De Abstinentia, author Panayiotis Tzamalikos establishes beyond doubt that Porphyry's conception of daemons took its cue overwhelmingly from his predecessor's theories on the subject. Porphyry adopted Origen's ideas (and, at crucial points, his vocabulary) on daemons, at times very closely, thereby setting his daemonology apart from that of other Greek schools, while also he employed terminology interweaving Greek and Christian language. Throughout this inquiry, the author also builds further evidence that there was only one Origen, and that the modern invention of 'two Origens' (one 'Platonist', the other 'Christian') is untenable. This book is set to revolutionise understanding of the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christianity in Late Antiquity.

Autorentext

Panayiotis Tzamalikos, MSc, MPhil, PhD, is Professor of Philosophy at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His books include The Concept of Time in Origen (1991 -his Phd at the University of Glasgow, 1987); Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time (2007); Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology (2007); A Newly Discovered Greek Father - Cassian the Sabaite eclipsed by John Cassian of Marseilles (2012); The Real Cassian Revisited - Monastic Life, Greek Paideia, and Origenism in the Sixth Century (2012); An Ancient Commentary on the Book of Revelation - A critical edition of the Scholia in Apocalypsin (2013); Anaxagoras, Origen, and Neoplatonism - The Legacy of Anaxagoras to Classical and Late Antiquity (2 vols. 2016); Origen: New Fragments from the Commentary on Matthew (2020); Origen and Hellenism - The Interplay Between Greek and Christian Ideas in Late Antiquity (2022); Guilty of Genius - Origen and the Theory of Transmigration (2022); The Wisdom of Solomon and the Byzantine Reception of Origen (2023).

Inhalt

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION * Tensions in Late Antiquity

Origen and the Greeks

The figment 'Christian Platonism'

The 'mind that comes from without' (th th ni ni ) Tentative statements for mental exercise' (Gamma mini s ). Rufinus' translation

Greeks on Philology, Philosophy, and Theology *

CHAPTER 1: What is a daemon?

CHAPTER 2: Greeks on daemons

CHAPTER 3: Angels and daemons * The need for a systematic theory

Names and correlative activity

Angels as surrogates of divinity

Daemons and angels *

CHAPTER 4: Origen and Porphyry: a tender relationship * Porphyry and 'certain Platonists'

Symmetric and asymmetric bodies

Wickedness as irrationality

Rationality and human conduct

The rational soul and passions

* CHAPTER 5: Wrestling against daemons

CHAPTER 6: Names and correlative activity

CHAPTER 7: Philosophical affinities

CONCLUSION