Individuality in Late Antiquity PDF

Individuality in Late Antiquity
Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural

transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a new awareness
of human individuality. In this book an interdisciplinary and international group
of scholars documents and analyses this development. The authors assess the
influence of seminal thinkers, including the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but
also of cultural and religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well
as, more generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar
and Christian theology. Broad in both theme and scope, the volume serves as a
comprehensive introduction to late antique understandings of human individuality.
ASHGATE STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY
IN LATE ANTIQUITY
Series Editors
Dr Mark Edwards, Oxford University, UK
Professor Lewis Ayers, University of Durham, UK
The Ashgate Studies in Philosophy & Theology in Late Antiquity series focuses
on major theologians, not as representatives of a ‘tradition’, whether Christian
or classical, but as individuals immersed in the intellectual culture of their day.
Each book concentrates on the arguments, not merely the opinions, of a single
Christian writer or group of writers from the period AD 100–600 and compares
and contrasts these arguments with those of pagan contemporaries who addressed
similar questions. By study of the political, cultural and social milieu, contributors
to the series show what external factors led to the convergence or divergence
of Christianity and pagan thought in particular localities or periods. Pagan and
Christian teachings are set out in a clear and systematic form making it possible to
bring to light the true originality of the author’s thought and to estimate the value
of his work for modern times. This high profile research series offers an important
contribution to areas of contemporary research in the patristic period, as well as
providing new links into later periods, particularly the medieval and reformation.
Other titles published in this series:
Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries

Mark Edwards
Clothed in the Body

Asceticism, the Body and the Spiritual in the Late Antique Era
Hannah Hunt
The Spirit of Augustine’s Early Theology

Contextualizing Augustine’s Pneumatology
Chad Tyler Gerber
Evagrius and Gregory

Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century
Kevin Corrigan
Edited by
Alexis Torrance
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
and
Johannes zachhuber
Trinity College, University of Oxford, UK
© Alexis Torrance and Johannes Zachhuber 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Alexis Torrance and Johannes Zachhuber have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street
Union Road Suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
Surrey, GU9 7PT USA
England
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Individuality in late antiquity / edited by Alexis Torrance and Johannes Zachhuber.
pages cm. – (Ashgate studies in philosophy & theology in late antiquity)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-4056-7 (hardcover) – ISBN 978-1-4094-4057-4 (ebook) – ISBN
978-1-4724-0052-9 (epub) 1. Individuality. 2. Individualism I. Torrance, Alexis, 1985-
editor of compilation.
B824.I543 2014
126.09--dc23
ISBN 9781409440567 (hbk)

ISBN 9781409440574 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781472400529 (ebk – ePUB)
V
Contents
List of Contributors vii

Preface ix
Introduction 1
Johannes Zachhuber and Alexis Torrance
1 Individuality in Some Gnostic Authors, with a Few Remarks

on the Interpretation of Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram 11
Christoph Markschies
2 Astrology and Freedom: The Case of Firmicus Maternus 29

Mark Edwards
3 Plotinus on Sensible Particulars and Individual Essences 47

Riccardo Chiaradonna
4 Logico-grammatical Reflections about Individuality in

Late Antiquity 63
Julie Brumberg-Chaumont
5 Individuality and the Theological Debate about ‘Hypostasis’ 91

Johannes Zachhuber
6 Individuality and Identity-formation in Late Antique Monasticism 111

Alexis Torrance
7 Individuality and the Resurrection in Some Late Antique Texts 129

Yannis Papadogiannakis
8 John Philoponus on Individuality and Particularity 143

Christophe Erismann
9 The Religious Constitution of Individuality: One Motif of Augustine’s

Confessions in Modern Intellectual History and Theology 161
Wilhelm Gräb
vi Individuality in Late Antiquity
Bibliography 173
Index 189
List of Contributors
Julie Brumberg-Chaumont is Researcher in the Laboratory for the Study of

Monotheistic Religions (LEM) at the CNRS, University of Paris, France.
Riccardo Chiaradonna is Associate Professor of the History of Ancient

Philosophy at the University of Roma Tre in Rome, Italy.
Mark Edwards is University Lecturer in Patristics at the University of Oxford,

and Tutor in Theology at Christ Church, Oxford, UK.
Christophe Erismann is Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Professor of

Philosphy at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Wilhelm Gräb is the Professor of Practical Theology and Director of the Institute
of Sociology and Religion at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany and
Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Christoph Markschies is Professor and Chair of Ancient Christianity at Humboldt

University in Berlin, Germany.
Yannis Papadogiannakis is Lecturer in Patristics at the Center for Hellenic Studies

and Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK.
Alexis Torrance is Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology at the Aristotle University of

Thessaloniki, Greece and Visiting Scholar in Theology at the University of Notre
Dame, USA.
Johannes Zachhuber is Reader in Theology at the University of Oxford, UK and

a Fellow and Tutor at Trinity College, Oxford, UK.
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Preface
Individuality without a doubt has been a central problem of modernity and continues
to be controversial today. What are the historical and the intellectual roots of this
predicament? The contributors to the present volume seek to explore dimensions
of late ancient reflection about individuality as a background to more recent
developments. They are not the first to have done so: the last centuries of the Greek
and Roman civilisation have for a while now been recognised as a major turning point
in Western intellectual, cultural and religious history, a time during which century-
old traditions came to an end and new ideas were born and took shape that have ever
since dominated Western culture. Individuality has frequently been considered as one
of those, and distinguished students of this topic have, therefore, often chosen late
antiquity as the historical starting point of their enquiries.
The editors hope that their book takes this discussion forward primarily on
account of its interdisciplinary character. Individual chapters shed light on a wide
variety of late ancient contexts in which problems of individuality arose and were
discussed, from astrology and asceticism to grammar, Platonic philosophy and
Christian theology. Contributors are trained in history, philosophy or theology; they
therefore bring to their work differently schooled approaches to the texts that were
written, and the events that took place, during this period.
Their different disciplinary backgrounds with sometimes varying methodological
and ideological premises notwithstanding, the contributors share a commitment
to intellectual history and the principle that contemporary ideas can and should be
understood in the light of their transformations over the centuries. The editors hope that
this book provides practical evidence for the fruitfulness of these principles as creating
a bond and a commonality of purpose between an interdisciplinary group of scholars.
The chapters of this book were first presented as papers at a conference that took
place in September 2010 at Trinity College, Oxford. This conference was part of a
larger project, Individuality in Context, and the editors would like to thank its Principal
Investigator, Prof. Wilhelm Gräb, for his support of their plans and ideas. They would
also like to acknowledge the generosity of the Metanexus Institute, without whose
funding the event could not have happened. The Oxford Centre of Late Antiquity
and, in particular, Mr Bryan Ward-Perkins kindly provided institutional and financial
support. The collaboration with Ashgate was exemplary. The editors would wish
to thank especially Sarah Lloyd for her patient support; they also benefited from
detailed comments by the publisher’s anonymous readers.
Oxford/Thessaloniki, February 2014

Introduction
It has become customary in recent years to regard late antiquity, the centuries
following the establishment of monarchical rule in the Roman Empire, as one of
the great transformational periods in Western history. Guy Stroumsa, in his own
landmark interpretation of this epoch published as The End of Sacrifice, suggested
that Karl Jaspers’ phrase of an ‘axial age’ (Achsenzeit) could be applied to this period
with as much justification as it was to the preceding half-millennium by the German
philosopher himself.1 At least as a description of the current state of scholarship,
Stroumsa’s assessment seems indeed apt. Increasingly, historians of ideas seeking
to understand the specific vicissitudes of Western social, cultural, intellectual and
religious developments have turned to late antiquity in the hope, and with the
expectation, of discerning in this vast crucible of ideas and practices some of the
ingredients that have since constituted the identity of the occidental self.2
The chapters collected in the present volume can be inscribed into this larger
intellectual trend in two ways. On the one hand, they represent scholarship of late
antiquity, dedicated to the elucidation of the specific character of this particular
historical epoch, especially its religious and intellectual dimensions. Behind this
specialist research, however, stands the broader question of the significance of late
antiquity for subsequent developments up to and including our own contemporary
situation. These two interests combined provide for the allure of the topic of
individuality in late antiquity. There is no doubt that interest in, and concern
for, the individual is a hallmark of modernity and post-modernity. Searching for
conceptions of individuality in late antiquity, therefore, is a way of asking, broadly
speaking, about the genealogy of the modern self. While some contributors make
this link explicit more than others (most notably Wilhelm Gräb), it is nevertheless
present throughout the book. It is the task of this introduction to develop some of
1
G. Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity
(Chicago, 2009), pp. 5–6. Cf. K. Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte
(Munich, 1949).
2
Most influential has been Peter Brown’s work beginning with The World of Late
Antiquity (London, 1971). In his wake, the body of literature has been growing rapidly.
For recent contributions, see esp. D. Brakke, M.L. Satlow and S. Weitzman (eds), Religion
and the Self in Antiquity (Bloomington IN, 2005); M. Papoutsakis and P. Rousseau (eds),
Transformations of Late Antiquity (Farnham, 2009) and D. Gwynn and S. Bangert (eds),
Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2010).
2 Individuality in Late Antiquity
the implicit lines connecting individual contributions within the volume among
each other as well as with the larger shape and goal of the project.
The problem of individuality in late antiquity might appear at first blush as
a mere variation of the theme of the self, a topic that has been treated variously
in previous scholarship. And indeed, there are some rather obvious relationships
between the debate about the self and the problems discussed in the present book.
That late antiquity provided a novel and highly influential concept of the self has
been vigorously asserted by Michel Foucault.3 Foucault noted that throughout
antiquity technologies of the self, as he would call them, were in evidence: cultural
prescriptions instructing individuals to work on their bodies as well as their souls
in particular ways and with specific objectives. With the rise of Christianity,
Foucault saw a radical shift in the nature as well as the goal of those technologies.
Where classical antiquity had pursued an ideal of self-perfection predicated on
the potential for human autonomy and, consequently, aimed at the wise man or
philosopher, Christianity instilled in people the much more paradoxical sense
according to which the true self could only be gained by giving up, or sacrificing,
the earlier empirical and sinful self. Foucault found the main harbinger for this
new conception of the self in Christian asceticism: the need for public penance, the
imperative to confess and thus to verbalise one’s wrongdoings for him symbolised,
as well as indicated, a radically transformed notion of the self with wide-ranging
consequences for all aspects of human self-understanding, but also for fundamental
cultural institutions: for the law, for morality, for sexuality and so forth. Crucially,
Foucault claimed, institutional authority was bound to take on an altogether new
and higher significance: whereas the relationship of the philosophical student
to his master was by definition provisional and aimed at the student’s ultimate
perfection and intellectual as well as ethical independence, for the ascetic, and by
extension for the Christian in general, absolute obedience remained a fundamental
aspect of their existence.
Foucault’s analysis, which has been all-too briefly sketched here, has of course
had its fair share of criticism. Quite apart from its historical shortcomings –
readers soon pointed to the severe limitation in the sources he used4 – his intuitive
understanding of Christian identity as based on the annihilation or even the
sacrifice of the self arguably owed too much to rather specific religious and spiritual
traditions which, however dominant in modern French Catholicism, were in fact
innovations of the post-Tridentine period. As Michel Despland has shown, the
conceptions Foucault held to be most typical for Christianity tout court emerged,
3
M. Foucault, The Care of the Self (London, 1995) and idem, Hermeneutics of the
Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982 (New York, 2005).
4
Among the most important criticisms of Foucault by the world of classicists and
historians is the article by J. Porter, ‘Foucault’s Ascetic Ancients’, Phoenix 59/1–2 (2005):
pp. 121–32.
Introduction 3
in fact, as part of the French school of spirituality in the seventeenth century.5

Foucault, in other words, committed the most common error of identifying the
form of Catholicism he knew best with Christianity in its entirety. In antiquity
itself, as Richard Sorabji has argued, there is much more continuity between pre-
Christian and Christian ideas of the self than Foucault wanted to perceive.6
Yet if Foucault’s interpretation of the innovative character of Christian
technologies of the self in late antiquity cannot be upheld as such, it certainly
helps mitigate its main conceptual rival, the idea of interiorisation. The notion that
late antiquity added to earlier ideas about the self a new emphasis on ‘the inner
man’7 is dominant, for example, in Charles Taylor’s account. Characteristically,
the chapter in his monumental The Sources of the Self dealing with late antiquity
and, specifically, with Augustine, is entitled In interiore hominem.8 For Taylor,
Augustine represents late antiquity: he is essentially a Platonist but his Platonism
is modified precisely by his interest in human inwardness. For example, Augustine
continues to accept Plato’s Forms, but these Forms are now (as in much late ancient
Platonism) ideas in the mind of God.9
Augustine, arguably, is a special case: one of the most creative individuals
not merely in antiquity but in the entire Western intellectual tradition he is, in
an unprecedented way, concerned with the details of his own interior life.10 No
previous book in either Latin or Greek can, properly speaking, be compared with
the Confessions. Yet while Augustine, thus far, is an exception, Taylor is right
to perceive that a greater emphasis on the inner life of the human individual is
an important aspect of the cultural and religious transformation throughout the
entire period. In religion, there is a general, novel tendency to value internal
devotion over and against external practices: sacrifices in the traditional sense
largely disappear and are replaced and, theologically speaking, superseded by
prayers and the notion of the attunement of the individual will to the divine
command.11 The whole idea of individual faith and the adherence to religious
5
See M. Despland, Le recul du sacrifice: Quatre siècles de polémiques françaises
(Laval, 2009), pp. 80–85.
6
R. Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death
(Oxford, 2008), esp. pp. 52–3.
7
The phrase is used by Paul in Rom 7.22. The meaning and history of the phrase is
discussed in H.D. Betz, ‘The Concept of the “Inner Human Being” (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) in the
Anthropology of Paul’, New Testament Studies 46 (2000): pp. 315–41.
8
C. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge,
1992), pp. 127–42.
9
Taylor, Sources, pp. 127–8.
10
See P. Cary, Augustine and the Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian
Platonist (Oxford, 2000).
11
Stroumsa, End of Sacrifice, pp. 62–4, 74–5. In early Christian worship, the
distinction between the ancient sacrifices and the enactment of the Eucharist is often framed
in terms of its being ‘a sacrifice of praise’ or a ‘reasonable and bloodless sacrifice’: see
doctrines, so central to the new religions emerging in late antiquity, are predicated
on an emphasis on human interiority, even though it would be wrong to read the
later Protestant rejection of external cults into late ancient developments as has
frequently been done.
It seems plausible then that an emphasis on interiority is a crucial aspect of
the late ancient intellectual revolution. All the more important is the necessity,
however, not to lose sight of the countervailing evidence Foucault marshalled in
support of his own theory. In spite of its inherent shortcomings, this interpretation
becomes vitally important as a correction to the ‘Protestant’ narrative exclusively
focussed on interiorisation. Christianity, after all, emphasises human inwardness
only in order to radically doubt the human’s own integrity. The Christian imperative
to scrutinise every nook and cranny of the soul leads to the recognition of the
self’s utter sinfulness, and this insight cannot but influence the evaluation of the
very process of internal self-reflection in which, consequently, self-deceit must
always be considered at least as probable as the radical will to truthfulness.12 The
same logic, then, that favours interiorisation also nurtures suspicions about the
‘inner man’, and the invention and cultivation of institutions intended to provide
additional checks on spiritual and moral development appears as a perfectly logical
extension of this train of thought.
In spite of all their disagreements, however, Foucault and Taylor take for
granted that the major agent of change in late antiquity is Christianity. In other
words, for both of them the challenge of understanding how late antiquity is
a period of radical transformation is tantamount to the task of explaining how
Christianity created new religious and intellectual conditions that modified and,
in some cases, radically altered received ideas and practices. Is this, however,
the only or indeed the best way of approaching this period? Was the new religion
which, from the fourth century, took over the institutions of the Roman Empire the
only or even the main force of transition during these centuries? Could one not,
rather, see the success of Christianity as a function of its ability to answer new
needs that emerged independently and to which the more traditional institutions
of the Mediterranean world had too little to offer? And is not, at the same time,
Christianity at least as much a product of late antiquity as driving its development?
The strongest case for a continuous intellectual culture throughout antiquity (and
beyond) was made by Richard Sorabji.13 One may wish to doubt his overall vision,
but be this as it may, it is arguable that late antiquity cannot be reduced to the
rise of Christianity. In particular, careful attention to non-Christian developments
will guard against any one-sided attribution of social, cultural or even religious
transformations merely to the emergence of this one, new religion. Guy Stroumsa’s
emphasis on the role of Judaism may, in its own way, be exaggerated but it serves
G. Wainwright and K.B. Westerfield Tucker, The Oxford History of Christian Worship
(Oxford, 2005), esp. chs 1–4.
12
Foucault, Hermeneutics, pp. 363–6.
13
Sorabji, Self.
Introduction 5
as a reminder of the sheer complexity of the situation.14 The Changing Self has also
been studied specifically with an eye on Neoplatonist philosophers,15 and several
contributions in the present volume, notably those by Mark Edwards, Riccardo
Chiaradonna and Julie Brumberg-Chaumont, discuss changes occurring during
this period that cannot be attributed in any obvious way to the rise of Christianity.
How do the chapters collected in this volume relate to the debates about the
self? Investigating individuality in late antiquity is at once broader and narrower
than studying the self. On the one hand, the problem of individuality is one
particular way of asking about the self as it addresses the specific issue of the self
as an individual. Implied in this approach is the assumption that transformations of
the self in late antiquity did not only concern a reconfiguration of the relationship
between the exterior and the interior, or of soul and body, but also of community
and individuality. It seems evident that any conception of the self must in some way
negotiate the tension between individuality and commonality, a point emphasised
in the present volume by Christoph Markschies. The self is always both: part of
a larger whole and defined by its participation in such entities, and an individual
who comes into being at some point in time and ceases to be at some later moment.
The human self, at least, is both defined by and in continuity with social, ethnic
or religious groups and independent from them to varying extents. Asking about
individuality, then, is looking at the self precisely insofar as it is the latter. It means
asking for the self as non-identical with other members of its community.
Is there evidence for reflection about the self as individual in late antiquity?
Detailed answers can only be given in the individual chapters, but it seems clear that
the picture is mixed: Plotinus and Porphyry discussed the problem of individuals in
various ways. The former – as Riccardo Chiaradonna shows – looked in particular
at the problems posed for individuality by the Platonic theory of Forms (hence his
famous question of whether there are Forms of individuals). Porphyry on the other
hand largely operated within the framework of Aristotle’s Categories. Neither of
them, however, seemed particularly interested in the individual self as something
unique – not least because they both were happy to accept the traditional Platonic
assumption that individual persons will become reincarnated. While Plotinus
accepted the existence of an ‘idea’ or ‘form’ corresponding to Socrates, he thought
that, once Socrates was dead, the same idea would correspond to some other
human person yet to be born. The same solution was evidently unavailable for
those Christian authors who battled with the notorious difficulties of the doctrine
of the resurrection of the body.16 As Yannis Papadogiannakis’ contribution
demonstrates, the conceptual implications of this doctrine required a much more
14
Stroumsa, End of Sacrifice.
15
C. Steel, The Changing Self. A study on the soul in later Neoplatonism: Iamblichus,
Damascius and Priscianus (Brussels, 1978).
16
Cf. C. Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–
1336 (New York, 1995).
sustained reflection on the uniqueness of the self’s individual identity, including

body and soul.
In Christian authors, then, the latter kind of interest in the individual self is
paramount. It is the individual who is created, sins and will be saved, or in any
case be judged, by Christ. Yet within Christianity itself these notions caused
considerable difficulties. These come out particularly clearly in those second-
century Christian thinkers we now, in keeping with a name invented by their
theological foes, call Gnostics. The chapter by Christoph Markschies illustrates
these problems in some detail. The attraction was evidently strong at this point
to conceive the salvation of the self as precisely leaving behind its individual
instantiation in order to re-join the all-unity of the original community of spirits.
And yet the Gnostic evidence on this point is far from conclusive, and there are
equally clear hints of a real interest in individuality and in the role individuals play
in the process of their salvation.
One indubitably pagan context for reflections about the self as individual in late
antiquity was astrology, which can be seen as a systematic attempt to align human
existence precisely in its individual dimension to the eternal continuity of the
celestial bodies. As Mark Edwards’ chapter demonstrates, its enormous popularity
and almost stubborn perseverance throughout the centuries notwithstanding,
astrology was regularly met with stinging philosophical criticism – not just for
its conceptual weaknesses but for its purported damaging effect on morality. An
underlying philosophical presupposition of the late ancient astrological enterprise,
namely determinism, is explored in some depth. We meet with a number of late
antique arguments in this chapter for and against individual identity and destiny
as predetermined. While the arguments themselves, at least in more intellectual
circles, may have shifted gear over the centuries, Mark Edwards points out that the
basic issue at stake has endured.
Generally, however, the various contributions to the present book would
seem to support the assumption that it was Christianity, and Christian theology in
particular, that created a novel interest in the individual self in late antiquity: quite
apart from the eschatological reconstitution of each individual person, conceptual
necessities created by the Trinitarian and Christological debates beginning in the
fourth century created an unprecedented theoretical interest in the individual, as
in particular Johannes Zachhuber’s chapter illustrates. He elucidates how the need
to reconcile the individuality of Father, Son and Holy Spirit with the singleness
of the Godhead, on the one hand, and to allow for the combination of divinity and
humanity in the one individual Christ, on the other, created an array of philosophical
quandaries for post-Nicene and post-Chalcedonian theologians. Moreover, it is
shown that the implications such debates had for the conceptualisation of purely
human individuality were, if not always recognised at the time, nonetheless
significant.
This is not to say, of course, that Christianity in late antiquity was a religion of
individuality in any sense this term could possibly have. In some ways, arguably,
the role it ascribed to the religious community and, more specifically, the religious
Introduction 7
institution, the Church, with its authority to establish doctrinal and moral rules
to be obeyed by every believer and its central administration of the sacramental
means of salvation created a novel and rather rigid source of supra-individual
normativity and identity. Nowhere was this tension between a radical emphasis on
the isolated individuality together with an equally radical stress on the communal
forms of life with strict hierarchical structures of authority and obedience more
evident than in monasticism, as Alexis Torrance’s chapter shows.
Theological interest in ‘individuality’, however, also hints at a topic broader
than the human self. Christ’s humanity can probably be called a self but it is
questionable whether the whole Christological debate about the hypostatic
union, which clearly is concerned with individuality, can be summarised under
this heading. And it seems certainly arguable that the ‘individuality’ of divine
hypostases in the one Trinitarian Godhead is not a matter of individual selves.
Quite generally, transcendent entities, which many ancient thinkers postulated,
were sometimes considered individuals without necessarily being selves. Much
debated among Platonic philosophers was the individuality of Forms.17 Traces
of this philosophical controversy can be discerned in the Gnostic concern about
the precise status of the various aeons their mythology postulated, as Christoph
Markschies illustrates in his chapter.
The philosophical discussion of individuality or particularity, initiated in
Aristotle’s Categories (1b 3–9) and continued in late antiquity by philosophers,
theologians and grammarians, was also largely unconcerned with the problem
of the self. This debate was concerned with issues such as the principle of
individuation, the identifiability of individuals and its diachronic identity
throughout its existence. As Julie Brumberg-Chaumont’s chapter demonstrates,
reflection about individuality in this sense was of great interest in late antiquity
– driven by the need to explain grammatical phenomena, but this grammatical
reflection was closely connected with philosophy and most especially with logic.
Apart from Aristotle’s Categories, it was in particular the intellectual inheritance
of Stoicism that loomed large in these late ancient debates.18 In fact, interest in
the conceptualisation of the individual using a combination of Aristotelian and
Stoic notions constitutes a link between philosophers, such as Porphyry and
Philoponus (see the chapters by Riccardo Chiaradonna and Christophe Erismann),
grammarians such as Apollonius Dyscolus (see Julie Brumberg-Chaumont’s
contribution) and theologians such as Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa or
Leontius of Jerusalem (see Johannes Zachhuber’s chapter).
Did this debate take a radically new direction in late antiquity? Arguably,
there is no one single answer to this question, but contributions to this book will
provide important pointers. Porphyry, in his Isagoge permitted the individual to
be a predicable – a clear break with Aristotelian orthodoxy, and generally some
of the more innovative ideas in this introductory writing seem concerned with
17
Detailed references in Christoph Markschies’ chapter.
18
Sorabji, Self, pp. 83–93.
the conceptualisation of the individual.19 The rather sharp rejection his views
encountered in the slightly later Neoplatonic commentator Dexippus would
additionally suggest that Porphyry’s views on this topic were far from consensual.
At the same time, there is no evidence that this school-internal dispute was
particularly central to the concern of the Neoplatonists in the third and fourth
centuries.20
Things look different again in John Philoponus, the Christian philosopher
and Aristotelian commentator from the sixth century. As Christophe Erismann’s
chapter shows in detail, Philoponus took the traditional Peripatetic emphasis on
the ontological primacy of individuals or particulars to a new extreme by adopting
a radical version of particularism – a systematic denial of the ontological reality
of non-particular being. As Erismann’s careful investigation shows, there is no
evidence that this philosophical position was in any way influenced by Philoponus’
more specifically theological interests; in fact, it appears that he subscribed to his
version of particularism at a time prior to his conversion. At the same time, the
case of the sixth-century Alexandrian philosopher and theologian is instructive
in other ways as well: his work provides one of the earliest examples for a quasi-
scholastic use of philosophical method for the benefit of Christian theology, and
it is in particular his ideas about individuals that he brings to bear on contentious
issues such as Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, thus contributing to
the rather radical reconceptualisation of the individual happening within Christian
theology in this period, as shown in Zachhuber’s chapter.
Given how pervasive the problem of individuality has become in the modern
world, it was perhaps inevitable that investigations of its historical sources have
always been coloured by contemporary interests and concerns. Research into
ancient conceptions of individuality thus becomes itself part of the archaeology
of the modern self. Modern religious thinkers have sought to anchor their
identities by reference to real or purported historical precedents, but those with
more strictly political, intellectual or cultural agendas have equally researched
ancient conceptions of individuality in order to construct a historical pedigree
of one kind or other. This dimension of the volume’s theme is most explicitly
treated in Wilhelm Gräb’s chapter which traces the reception as well as the
inflection of Augustinian ideas about the self as an individual first in Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, then in Ernst Troeltsch and, finally, in Alfred Döblin’s novel Berlin
Alexanderplatz. Yet it would be wrong to look at the reception history of late
ancient conceptions of individuality as separate from their truly historical study.
Differences in methodology and style are never categorical; the lines demarcating
these discourses from one another are inevitably porous. In this sense, the more
19
See A. Lloyd, The Anatomy of Neoplatonism (Oxford, 1998), pp. 43–7 and the
contributions by R. Chiaradonna and J. Brumberg Chaumont below.
20
For the Peripatetic Alexander of Aphrodisias, see M. Rashed, ‘Alexander of
Aphrosisias on Particulars and the Stoic Criterion of Identity’, in R. Sharples (ed.),
Particulars in Greek Philosophy (Leiden, 2010), pp. 157–79.
Introduction 9
historical investigations contained in this book are self-consciously influenced by

contemporary debates about the individual and about individuality. By the same
token, editors and authors have the hope that these collected studies dealing with
the problem of individuality in late antiquity will be seen also, if not primarily, as
contributions to the ongoing clarification of the understanding of the individual
and of the place individuality occupies, and the role it plays, in our own world.
Chapter 1
Individuality in Some Gnostic Authors,
with a Few Remarks on the Interpretation
of Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram
Christoph Markschies1
Let me begin by posing a question that I believe is central for anyone seeking to
understand Valentinian thought: how does myth function in their different texts?
This question is in a sense far more fundamental than the ensuing problem of how
to analyse the myth in different texts or different accounts and how to differentiate
between schools or tendencies. Einar Thomassen, in his recent The Spiritual
Seed. The Church of the Valentinians,2 has successfully tackled the latter problem,
but is mostly content to briefly label the Gnostic myth of the Valentinians as ‘a
protological philosophical myth’3 and to categorise it as the third basic dimension
of Valentinianism without deeper analysis of the literary and systematic function
such a myth would have in a doctrinal system.4 I do not want to repeat my
answer to the question on the function of the myth here, although it is somewhat
obscurely concealed in a kind of Festschrift for the late Tübingen New Testament
Scholar Martin Hengel’s 80th birthday.5 Equally I will not deal with the central
question of how myth is related to salvation history and history in general. Einar
1
This chapter is based on a contribution presented in September 2010 at a conference
entitled ‘Individuality in Late Antiquity’ in Oxford. It was fully revised and given in Yale
as the keynote lecture at the meeting of Nag Hammadi and the Gnosticism Network in May
2011. A version may be found in C. Markschies, ‘Individuality in Some Gnostic Authors:
With a few remarks on the interpretation of Ptolemaeus, Epistula ad Floram’, Zeitschrift für
antikes Christentum 15/3 (2011): pp. 411–30. Used with permission.
2
E. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed. The Church of the Valentinians (Leiden-Boston,
2006). Cf. the reviews by Ph.L. Tite, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60 (2009): pp. 55–8
and W.A. Löhr, Cristianesimo nella storia 29 (2008): pp. 614–20.
3
Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, p. 133.
4
The same can be said of J.D. Turner’s, Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition
(Québec, 2001), pp. 20–23 and 457–74. Turner carefully describes Hans Jonas’ ideas on the
matter and analyses some Middle Platonic myths, for example Plutarch.
5
C. Markschies, ‘Welche Funktion hat der Mythos in gnostischen Systemen? Oder:
ein gescheiterter Denkversuch zum Thema “Heil und Geschichte”’, in Heil und Geschichte.
Die Geschichtsbezogenheit des Heils und das Problem der Heilsgeschichte in der biblischen
Tradition und in der theologischen Deutung (Tübingen, 2009), pp. 513–34.
Thomassen is absolutely right to raise objections in his Spiritual Seed to common

tendencies of categorising all Valentinian thought as pure myth and to establish a
fundamental difference between a Valentinian myth and the salvation ‘history’ of
ancient mainstream Christianity.6 My topic for this paper is an attempt to analyse
a structural principle of the protological myth by comparing Valentinian and
Platonic texts of the Early Roman Empire. And the key question of my analysis is
the following: is there a concept of individuality in these protological myths, and
if so, which entities are thought and portrayed as ‘individuals’? Approaching the
argument in such a detailed manner is also necessary in order to react to a recent
criticism of my interpretation of the Epistula ad Floram made by Herbert Schmid.7
I would like to start answering these questions by citing the so-called Grande
Notice (to use the term coined by Sagnard),8 from the evidently shortened and
modified Valentinian source at the beginning of Irenaeus’ Adversus haereses,
which, in most manuscripts of the late fourth-century Latin translation, is entitled
Narratio omnis argumenti Valentini discipulorum, ‘Tale of the complete story of
the disciples of Valentinus’.9 The quotation runs as follows: ‘Thus, then, they (i.e.
the Valentinians) tell us that the Aeons (or perhaps better: the eternities) were
constituted equal to each other in form and sentiment’ (οὕτως τε μορφῇ καὶ γνώμῃ
ἴσους κατασταθῆναι τοὺς αἰῶνας λέγουσι).
With these words, Irenaeus concludes the second paragraph of his famous
account of those Gnostics who regard themselves as followers in the tradition of the
Roman theologian Valentinus.10 This account, probably based on a ὑπόμνημα (or
rather on some ὑπομνήματα [memoranda/notes]) which Irenaeus had at hand when
writing his Exposure and Subversion of the falsely so-called Knowledge in the 80s
of the second century, is in my view the earliest preserved protological myth of
the Valentinians. Based on a line in the Latin translation from Late Antiquity that
does not quite stand up to critical examination, Sagnard and some scholars have
attributed the account to Ptolemy, a pupil of Valentinus: Et Ptolemaeus quidem
ita.11 In fact, the authors of the ὑπομνήματα [memoranda], probably paraphrased
by Irenaeus rather than cited (despite the one use of the formula αὐταῖς λέξεσι
6
Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, pp. 84–5, note 4.
7
H. Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad Floram der Demiurg?’, Zeitschrift
für antikes Christentum 15 (2011): pp. 249–71. Schmid is referring to C. Markschies,
‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 4 (2000):
pp. 225–54.
8
F.M.-M. Sagnard, La Gnose Valentinienne (Paris, 1947), pp. 31–50 and 140–232.
9
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.1.1 (SC 263.28.1–2 Rousseau and Doutreleau).
10
11
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.8.5 (SC 263.136.189 Rousseau and Doutreleau; cf.
SC 263.218) Et Ptolemaeus quidem ita; on the discussion on the philological problems, cf.
Markschies, ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, pp. 249–53.
Individuality in Some Gnostic Authors 13
λέγοντες οὕτως [expressing themselves in these words]),12 were pupils of Ptolemy

claiming to be pupils of Valentinus.13 Those calling themselves Οὐαλεντίνου
μαθηταί [disciples of Valentinus] are in fact οἱ περὶ Πτολεμαῖον [those around
Ptolemy]; one should not draw a distinction here, as Einar Thomassen has rightly
pointed out.14 At times Irenaeus adheres to this conventional self-designation
of his contemporary opponents, at others he uses the term ‘Valentinians’ with
a different meaning, causing confusion for both ancient and modern readers. It
remains uncertain whether this Ptolemy is identical to the second-century Roman
teacher of the same name whose martyrdom in the capital city is mentioned by
Justin with deep respect – this is one of the famous, somewhat radical hypotheses
from Adolf von Harnack’s so-called ‘Hypothesenschmiede’ (forge of hypotheses).
But careful analysis of the preface to Book I of Irenaeus’ Adversus haereses
establishes quite clearly that the Grande Notice is a work by the second generation
of Roman ‘Valentinians’, based on my reconstruction of this movement’s history,
and if, among the first generation, one does not count the heresiarch, who gave it
its name – he probably slipped away to Cyprus at some point in the second half of
the century and was regarded as Heros Eponymos of the movement ever since, as
he could not defend himself in person any more. Thus, in fact, his pupil Ptolemy
belongs to the first generation and οἱ περὶ Πτολεμαῖον or qui sunt circa Ptolemaeum
[those in Ptolemy’s circle] to the second generation.15 This fits perfectly with the
period of time in which Irenaeus’ great anti-heretical work was seemingly written.
The Grande Notice, therefore, appears to be a reasonably contemporary text,
probably dateable to the 70s of the second century.
But enough of introductory remarks. For what mainly concerns us here is the
question of whether this specific Gnostic movement – at its stage of development
in the 70s of the second century – possessed a concept of individuality in their
protological myth. With reference to the quotation mentioned earlier, this seems
to be the case only to a very limited degree: ‘Thus, then, they (i.e. the Valentinian
Gnostics) tell us that the eternities were constituted equal to each other in form and
sentiment’ (οὕτως τε μορφῇ καὶ γνώμῃ ἴσους κατασταθῆναι τοὺς αἰῶνας λέγουσι).
As we remarked, the second paragraph of Valentinian cosmogony rendered by
the Grande Notice concludes with this thought. Nor do the authors omit a single
rhetoric device to drum, as it were, the de-individualisation of the eternities into
their readers. The eternities were equalised (here we find the Greek verb ἐξισόω,
which usually refers to a technical dimension of adjustment and only gains a
12
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.8.5 (SC 263.129.909–10); interestingly the plural
is used here.
13
For more detail on this: Markschies, ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’,
pp. 249–51.
14
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.prol.2 (SC 263.22.35 and 263.23.44 Rousseau and
Doutreleau); cf. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, p. 11, note 6.
15
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.prol.2 (SC 263.23.44 Rousseau and Doutreleau).
metaphysical dimension in a Christian context16), they became equal to each other

(ἴσος) in ‘form and character’ (μορφή καὶ γνώμη) – that is with regard to outer
as well as inner dimensions. And just in case the readership had still not quite
understood it, the authors of the Grande Notice made their point yet again (recalling
a former catechetical Sitz im Leben of the Grande Notice):17 ‘And all (sc. male
eternities) became a mind, and a word, and a human, and a Christ. Accordingly, the
female aeons all became a truth, and a life, and a spirit, and a Church’. As I have
written elsewhere (and thus do not want to repeat here), the ‘eternities’ mentioned
earlier are clearly Christian-Gnostic ‘contrafacts’ of the Platonic ideas, which, in
turn, are the thoughts of God according to common Middle Platonic belief. I am,
incidentally, employing the musicological term ‘contrafact’ for the first time in this
paper, and I do so deliberately, since – by reworking the lyrics and maintaining
the melody – it actually indicates the use of a secular song for a sacral hymnus.
And so, within the Gnostic contrafact of Plato’s Theory of Forms, many features
of the Platonic theory survive as a theory of ‘eternities’ (αἰῶνες). As is the case
with most Christians of the imperial period, however, the term ‘idea’, sounding
distinctly heathen, is avoided18 and replaced by biblical terms referring explicitly
to the prologue of the Gospel of John as the protological text of the New Testament
– for example ‘Word’ (λόγος), ‘Christ’, ‘Truth’, ‘Life’, ‘Spirit’ and ‘Church’.
By means of the contrafact of the Theory of Forms, Valentinian (or rather:
Ptolemaic) Christians now had at their disposal, for missionary purposes in the
capital of the Empire, the conceptual framework of a Platonising protology of
all the events in the heavenly sphere before all time which – at least according to
themselves – could easily rival contemporary philosophy (although we know the
Platonists thought differently on this matter). The concept of the Grande Notice,
conspicuously illustrating the term ‘contrafact’, includes one detail added by the
authors of the Grande Notice to underline once again the de-individualisation
of the eternities already emphasised by the text: the choir of eternities, by now
uniformly shaped and brought into line, is offering a hymn to the primordial father,
the transcendent God, who – again put very Platonically – joins in their rejoicing
(πολλῆς εὐφρασίας μετασχόντα).19 Moreover, the thus standardised – and so de-
individualised – choir of eternities presents a joint gift, and again words pile up
to ensure that readers fully grasp the unity of the choir of ideas: the eternities
16
H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented by
H. St. Jones with the assistance of R. McKenzie with a revised supplement (Oxford, 1996),
s.v., p. 595; G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961), s.v. p. 497 and E.
Trapp u.a., Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität besonders des 9.–12. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1.
A–K (Vienna, 2001), s.v. p. 539.
17
Supporting the idea that it was, in fact, didactic literature, which Irenaeus is quoting.
18
M. Baltes, ‘Idee (Ideenlehre)’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 17
(Stuttgart, 1997), pp. 213–46, at 245. Baltes gives Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius
the Areopagite as examples.
19
offer everything βουλῇ μιᾷ καὶ γνώμῃ, with one design and desire, and with the
concurrence of Christ and the Spirit (συνευδοκεῖν); the Father also sets the seal of
his approval on their conduct (συνεπισφραγίζω). In listing the manifold literary
themes of de-individualisation in Irenaeus’ text, one can only repeat that the
above-mentioned names of these eternities also act in a de-individualising manner
– and intentionally so. According to the account of the Gospel of John, ‘Word’
(λόγος), ‘Truth’, ‘Life’ und ‘Spirit’ are not separate identities and individualities
per se; their abstractness – again according to the fourth evangelist – in fact gains
concreteness in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. They are not individuals but the
one Christ of the Father.20 Seen from this angle, the two types of pleromatology
A and B, between which Einar Thomassen distinguishes (those of the first group
‘characteristically do not specify the individual names of the aeons and the
numerical constitution of the Pleroma’ and the second group ‘details the names and
the numbers of the aeons’),21 are distinct perhaps more by a literary than a systematic
differentiation. We must query whether the eternities or aeons in type B are really
‘independent beings’ (as Thomassen labelled them).22 To answer correctly, one
must carefully observe the related or alleged philosophical background: the first
and principal Tetrad, which consists of the eternities ‘Depth’, ‘Silence’, ‘Reason’
and ‘Truth’, is called a ‘Pythagorean Tetrad’ by Irenaeus: καὶ εἶναι ταύτην πρῶτον
καὶ ἀρχέγονον Πυθαγορικὴν Τετρακτὺν, ἣν καὶ ῥίζαν τῶν πάντων καλοῦσιν (et hanc
esse primam et primogenitam phythagoricam Quaternationem, quam et radicem
omnium dicunt).23 But this ‘Pythagorean Tetrad’ must be understood in the context
of such writings as Pseudo-Iamblichus’ Theologia Arithmetica (Theologumena
Arithmeticae), where the Pythagorean theories of numbers are seen from a
Platonic perspective and interpreted against the background of the cosmogony
of Plato’s Timaeus (especially 35 b/c). Einar Thomassen has convincingly cited
parallels in Moderatus of Gades to explain the latter parts of the Valentinian
ὑπομνήματα [memoranda] in Irenaeus’ citation, in particular the origin of matter.24
But such sources can also help us to understand the very first paragraphs and, so
to speak, the early beginnings of protology. Moderatus tries to unify the δόγματα
[teachings] of the Pythagoreans and the νεώτεροι [the new teachings] in terms
of numbers.25 Already Nicomachus of Gerasa, one of the fathers of this Platonic
20
With a view to ‘Church’ one might ask oneself whether Pauline and Deutero-
Pauline conceptions of Christ as the head of the Church should be used here and were also
in the background in the case of the Valentinians.
21
Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, p. 193.
22
Ibid.
23
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.1.1 (SC 263.30.90–92 and 263.30.17–19 Rousseau
and Doutreleau): ‘these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad,
which they also denominate the root of all things’.
24
Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, pp. 270–97.
25
Moderatus, Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, 1.proem.8–9 (1.21.8–25 Wachsmuth);
cf. E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig,
reading of Pythagorean theories of numbers, in his ‘Introduction to Arithmetic’

conceptualised numbers as πλῆθος ὡρισμένον [limited multitude], as παράδειγμα
ἀρχέτυπον [archetypal paradigm] in God’s mind, pre-existing and pre-figuring
creation.26 But, by definition, the ideas in God’s own mind cannot be interpreted as
‘independent beings’. I am convinced, therefore, that the first and principal tetrad
in the ὑπομνήματα [memoranda] of Ptolemy’s followers must be understood as the
first product of the pure transcendent ἕν, not as a polytheistic fourfold cluster of
gods – which in any case sounds more like Tertullian’s polemic than an adequate
interpretation of Valentinian texts. I am furthermore basing my reading of the
Valentinian sources on the idea expressed in the Theologia Arithmetica, that the
μονάς potentially implies all numbers and to this extent σπερματικῶς ὑπάρχοντα
πάντα τὰ ἐν τῇ φύσει ὄντα [is seminally everything which exists].27
At this point I would like to call to mind that, according to a Platonic Theory
of forms or ideas adapted by Judaism and Christianity, the standardisation and de-
individualisation of the eternities must be understood not only as a contribution
to the understanding of protology (especially to the notorious problem of how τὰ
πάντα [all things] were derived from τὸ ἕν [the one]), but also as the ideal model
of eschatology – thus shaping both the beginning and the end of all things. To this
extent, the paragraph mentioned above demonstrates well how the Valentinians
conceive of eschatology: as perpetual divine service and the constant singing of
hymns by the de-individualised, who are perhaps even hymnologically forced into
line and, with regard to the Heavenly Host, uniformly shaped spiritual beings. Both
eternity in its form of ‘Wisdom’ (σοφία), as referred to earlier, and its salvation are
evidently to be understood as a prefiguration of the mundane fall of man on the
level of the celestial prototype; our late colleague from Münster Matthias Baltes
(and Barbara Aland, following in his footsteps) has repeatedly suggested that
such a Platonisation of the fall of man – a topic central to the Valentinian form of
Gnosticism – constituted a borrowing of Platonic Philosophumena in opposition
to their originally intended meaning and thus failed to arouse enthusiasm amongst
imperial philosophers28 – such as Plotinus. If we further comprehend the implicit
eschatological dimension of our protological myth, we should be cautious about
using the label ‘protological myth’: τὰ πρῶτα ὡς τὰ ἔσχατα καὶ τὰ ἔσχατα ὡς τὰ
1902), pp. 129–30 and C. Tornau, ‘Die Prinzipienlehre des Moderatos von Gades’,
Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, N.F. 143 (2000): pp. 197–220.
26
Nicomachus of Gerasa, Introduction to Arithmetic 1.6–7 (189 D’Ooge); cf.
Nicomachus of Gerasa and M.L. D’Ooge (trans.), Introduction to Arithmetic (New York,
1926), pp. 89–110.
27
Pseudo-Iamblichus, Theologoumena arithmeticae (6 Falco); cf. Zeller, Die
Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, pp. 134–5.
28
B. Aland, ‘Die frühe Gnosis zwischen platonischem und christlichem Glauben.
Kosmosfrömmigkeit versus Erlösungstheologie’, in idem, Was ist Gnosis? Studien zum
frühen Christentum, zu Marcion und zur kaiserzeitlichen Philosophie (Tübingen, 2009),
pp. 103–24, at 104–11.
πρῶτα [the first things as the last things and the last things as the first] (cf. Letter
to Barnabas 6.13).
So far, so good. The Platonising tendency of the protological and simultaneously
eschatological myth of the Roman Valentinians is evident. This concept – of
individuality existing only as a short-lived momentum in the process of self-
perception of the Divine and, upon its culmination, dissolving again into the higher
unity of the one God – undoubtedly constitutes a central facet of certain versions
of Platonism in the Early Empire. This is particularly relevant for the concept of
ἕν καὶ πᾶν [one and all], which – from the beginning of Plato’s so-called ‘secret
teachings’ (reconstructed according to the Tübingen school of Gaiser and Krämer)
until certain Middle Platonists – led to the coining of Neoplatonism and was later
reborn in the philosophy of German idealism. Allow me to phrase it somewhat
more succinctly: individuality – in the most radical variety of this type of Platonic
philosophy – is just a temporary, intermediate phase in the process of forming a
unity (regarding itself, despite all diversity, as unity), and thus again constitutes
itself as unity, albeit a unity of a higher order. But such a concept was evidently
behind the ὑπομνήματα [memoranda] of Ptolemy’s followers, which Irenaeus
cited. Even more succinctly, we can say that in the case of these Valentinians
we are therefore dealing with a kind of individuality, which – with regard to the
character of individuality – structurally distinguishes only the (good) tendency of
de-individualisation and the (evil) tendency of individualisation. I shall refrain
from making obvious remarks on the political consequences of such a concept of
individuality – certainly, following such a concept will never lead us to Sir Karl
Popper’s idea of an Open Society. Let us return to the Valentinians in Rome in the
70s of the second century: these Gnostics simply adopted the Platonic concept of
an individuality that is merely temporary from the philosophers – here the relevant
paragraphs from Adversus haereses of Irenaeus form an excellent proof.
Consequently, even if I have many doubts about this whole concept, it is
easy to understand why Adolf von Harnack, who regarded the ‘infinite value’ of
the individual human soul as one of the three central elements of the message to
Jesus from his father,29 saw a ‘Hellenising’ of the new religion in this Platonising
de-individualisation of the Gnostics,30 going far beyond Jesus’ initial message, as
well as a ‘foreign infiltration’ of the message of Jesus, highly suspicious to the
critical reader. If further, following Christian Nottmeier, one recognises in this
focus on a distinct individualisation raised far above all earthly entanglements the
29
In the lectures on ‘The Essence of Christianity’ the importance of the concept is
marked with a separate heading: ‘God the Father and the infinite value of the human soul’:
A. von Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums (Tübingen, 2007), p. 43.
30
For an explanation of ‘Hellenization’, knowledge of which is assumed here, cf.
C. Markschies, Does it make sense to speak about a ‘Hellenization of Christianity’ in
Antiquity? (Leiden, 2011), pp. 8–13.
crux of Harnack’s critical relationship with his teacher Albrecht Ritschl,31 it is even
less surprising that what Harnack calls ‘Gnosticismus’ quickly becomes a prime
example of the ‘akute Hellenisierung’ (acute Hellenisation) of Christianity.32 On the
other hand, however, it is also possible to understand Harnack’s protest against the
de-individualisation of each Christian, rooted as it is in philosophy and beginning
with protology and the eternities – but only until one realises that the final image
of a congregation unified in hymn-singing and presenting Eucharistic offerings
is not an invention of wicked Platonists, but an image taken from contemporary
Judaism, and a very traditional eschatological one at that, which naturally also
influenced authors of mainstream Christianity like Eusebius or Gregory of Nyssa
and many liturgical texts (and thus the personal piety of a large number of ancient
Christians). In other words, Gnostic de-individualisation of the individual as seen
by the Valentinians – which starts with the de-individualisation of the eternities
– simply enforces the already de-individualised character of Judaeo-Christian
eschatology: anyone who joins in the eschatological choir cannot very well follow
his own little tune.33
At this point I would like to take a step back and ask how the de-individualisation
of ideas in contemporary Platonism – which can hardly be doubted when one
considers the basic inclination towards a metaphysics of oneness, ἕν καὶ πᾶν –
takes shape in philosophy. This will enable us to further our comparison between
imperial Platonists and Valentinians. First of all, ideas (although not independent
beings) are to a certain extent individuals. This is not only the case according to the
Gnostic contrafact of eternities: the Placita philosophorum (a doxographical source
reconstructed by Hermann Diels and attributed to the early imperial philosopher
Aëtius, which is currently being edited by Oliver Primavesi and Christoph Rapp)
leaves no doubt that ideas are above all individuals: ‘The idea is an incorporeal
substance that actually exists out of itself’ (αὐτὴ μὲν [μὴ] ὑφεστῶσα καθ᾽ αὐτήν).34
In his great, but unfortunately unfinished commentary Der Platonismus in der
Antike, Matthias Baltes demonstrates beautifully how this definition, and thus the
representation of the individuality of ideas, was transcribed and quoted repeatedly,
in various doxographical transmissions of imperial Platonism. But in this very
era of imperial Platonism, literary devices and philosophical strategies to confine
31
C. Nottmeier, Adolf von Harnack und die deutsche Politik 1890–1930 (Tübingen,
2004), pp. 71–6.
32
P. Meijering, Die Hellenisierung des Christentums im Urteil Adolf von Harnacks
(Amsterdam, 1985), pp. 68–72; J. Jantsch, Die Entstehung des Christentums bei Adolf von
Harnack und Eduard Meyer (Bonn, 1990), pp. 134–9.
33
In his commentary on the Grande Notice Sagnard names neither the background
in intertestamentary Jewish literature nor the Platonic dimension: Sagnard, La Gnose
Valentinienne, pp. 241–2. This is further confirmation that it should be rewritten.
34
Doxographi Graeci, 308a (16–17 Diels) = Baltes, Der Platonismus in der Antike,
vol. 5, Baustein 127.1, p. 14. One can refer to Plato, Symposium 211b or Timaeus 37b to
document that this is a summary of core Platonic thought.
and limit, if I may say so, this individualism of ideas were already plentiful. The
north-African author Apuleius of Madaura, who died approximately around the
time the Grande Notice was composed, tells us that the idea was simplex, simple.35
Yet if we conceive individuality as reciprocal, differentiated complexity, then this
is nothing else but de-individualisation. Syrianus, a late Neoplatonist philosopher
of the fifth century, puts in even plainer terms that ideas are ‘single, indivisible
and unique’ (τελέως ἁπλᾶ καὶ ἀμερῆ καὶ μονοειδῆ).36 The sources of imperial
Platonism available to us today do not sufficiently consider how their distinctive
feature – that is, measuring both measureless matter and at the same time the
whole cosmos (the famous Didascalicus by Albinus/Alcinous, a small textbook of
Middle Platonism, describes the participation of things in ideas that constitute this
same thing)37 – relates to the fact that, as thoughts of God, they are simultaneously
also structures of the mind of God (or: of God, insofar as he is νοῦς [mind]) – who
can only be envisioned as one who, uniform in each single part, constitutes at least
the start and the end of the process of self-differentiation. Furthermore, the tension
described earlier between the necessary individuality of the idea and the equally
inevitable de-individualisation of ideas, given their identical structure as thoughts
of the one God, has not been resolved in any convincing way. In one passage
Sextus Empiricus explains a very precise neo-Pythagorean distinction between
identity (αὐτότης), that is identified with the One (τὸ ἕν respectively the μονάς),
and the otherness (ἑτερότης), identified with the ‘unlimited Dyad’ that proceeds
from the One (ἀόριστος δυάς), but which has to be differentiated from the simple
opposite.38 As far as I can see, this distinction has never been used for the theory
of ideas (forms) in contemporary Platonism.
Instead, these assertions remain largely thetic; consider, for instance, Plutarch
who says ideas οὐδεμίαν διαφορὰν ἐχούσαις πρὸς ἀλλήλας, ‘do not differ from
each other’ (not least due to the fact that they lack qualities such as colour and
quantities such as number),39 but who also asserts that a human’s idea is just what
a human being is (αὐτὸ ὅ ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος), the idea of a table is what a table is,
35
Apuleius, De Dogmate Platonis 1.6 (192–3 Beaujeu) = Baltes, Der Platonismus in
der Antike, vol. 5, Baustein 127.3, p. 18.
36
Syrianus, On Aristotle’s Metaphysics (106 Kroll) = Baltes, Der Platonismus in der
Antike, vol. 5, Baustein 127.7, p. 26.
37
Alcinous, Didaskalikos 9 (164 Whittaker/Louis) = Baltes, Der Platonismus in der
Antike, vol. 5, Baustein 127.4, p. 20.
38
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos 10.261 (BiTeu 2.357 Mutschmann); cf.
on this Porphyry, Sententiae 39 (BiTeu 47.3 Lamberz) and Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed,
pp. 286–7, and idem, ‘The Derivation of Matter in Monistic Gnosticism’, in J.D. Turner and
R. Majercik (eds), Gnosticism and Later Platonism. Themes, Figures, and Texts (Atlanta,
2000), pp. 1–17, esp. 9–10.
39
Plutarch, Platonicae Quaestiones 3.1 (1002a), cf. 3.2 (1002d).
and so on.40 This tension between the individuality of an idea on the one hand and
its individuality-transcending unity on the other is perhaps most aptly described in
the sarcasm of someone like Lucian. In his Philosophies for Sale, the protagonist
– a client interested in buying a philosopher – goes to the market place and asks
Socrates where precisely the ideas, which supposedly exist outside this world
(ἔξω τῶν ὅλων), are to be found. The philosopher answers a little mischievously:
‘Nowhere. Were they anywhere, they were not what they are’ (εἰ γάρ που εἶεν,
οὐκ ἂν εἶεν). It is no wonder the customer is keen to buy such a knowledgeable
and wise philosopher from Mercury for two talents.41 One does not have to be
an Aristotelian (or a Wittgensteinian, for that matter) to discern the immense
problems in the conceptual details of Plato’s theory of forms, certainly due to
more than a deficiency in quantity or quality of the sources (which are actually
not too unsatisfactory). Reflecting on individuality leads one right to the central
philosophical problem of the theory of forms.
With respect to these immense philosophical problems of the theory of forms,
the Valentinians, who once wrote the ὑπομνήματα [memoranda] recorded by
Irenaeus, do not come off too badly compared with other treatises, such as can be
found in the Didascalicus or in the Placita philosophorum. On the one hand, they
do enhance the individuality of ideas through the names assigned to the eternities –
in imperial Platonism the concept of ideas does remain rather blank; we only learn
what there are no ideas of, but unfortunately not exactly what ideas are, how many
ideas there are and so forth. On the other hand, the Valentinians clearly define and
thus limit the individuality of the eternities through the eschatological perspective
of their unification. They introduce the theme – taken from Judaic apocalypticism
– of a common Holy Service of the eternities before God’s throne, which all join in
the same hymn of God’s glory. To phrase it differently: on the Platonic ambivalences
relating to the Theory of Forms they confer an imagery and clarity, if only on a
literary level, which is, if I may say so, better than nothing. Moreover, one should
call to mind that even the few lines of Plato on the ‘interweaving’ of ideas (Sophist
259e) – evidently consisting in the fact that the more general ideas encompass
the more specific ones (Sophist 253d and Phaedrus 247e) – describe a problem
that confronts every concept of individuality: thus I might (cautiously) assert that
my own individuality as well as that of my wife are in some way encompassed
by the individuality of our family or the individuality of German federal society.
Bearing in mind their disposition for contrafacts, it comes as no surprise that the
Valentinians failed to offer a convincing solution; furthermore (following Harnack
once more), these first Christian theologians came from what we might call an
overly restricted and humble scholarly and sociological background.
40
Plotinus, Enneads 2.4 [12] 9.5–6 and Baltes, Der Platonismus in der Antike, vol. 5,
p. 237 (commentary on 127.3).
41
Lucian, Vitarum Auctio 18 = Baltes, Der Platonismus in der Antike, vol. 5, Baustein
131.1, p. 58; of course a reference to Plato’s Phaedrus 247c.
There now remains only one argument to be discussed and examined in its
relevance for the main question, namely the occasional claim that, contrary to
our earlier statement, the individuality of the Valentinian eternities as well as
that of the Gnostic himself are more significant and more enduring than might be
expected at first glance.
It is, if I am not mistaken, no coincidence that this argument was advanced
precisely by one of the great Hegelians among the scholars of Gnosticism,
Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) from Tübingen. In his book Die christliche
Gnosis (On Christian Gnosticism) from 1835, Baur employed the philosophical
concept of individuality to analyse the Valentinian sources. He suggested that the
individuals in need of salvation behave as individuals not only for the time of
their earthly existence. A full analysis of Baur’s thesis would require a longer
discussion of the so-called Valentinian doctrine of distinct classes of human
beings than can be given in the present place. According to Baur, Valentinian
Gnostics – unlike the Ophites (this is Baur’s term for the Gnostic groups today
often referred to as Sethians) – preserve the ‘Idee der geistigen Individualität’
(idea of spiritual individuality) in a purer sense than others. This corresponds
to their own ‘geistig-ideellen Charakter’ (spiritual-ideal character). As is well
known, and as Baur wrote in his History of the Christian Church of the First Three
Centuries of 1860, he regarded Valentinian Gnosticism – in line with his Hegelian
views – as the system that allowed the deepest insight into the ‘eigenthümlichen
Charakter der Gnosis’,42 the very peculiar character of Gnosis. According to Baur,
the Valentinians preserved the ‘Idee der geistigen Individualität’ better (compared
to the Ophites), because they understood πνευματικοί, that is, people ‘who have
attained the perfect knowledge of God and been initiated into the mysteries of
Achamoth’43 – not simply according to the Manichean principle of light but as
independent individuals.
As proof for this interpretation, Baur referred to the description of Valentinian
eschatology in the very Grande Notice we were discussing earlier. There we
find an account of how the Redeemer does not pull the souls towards himself
like rays of light, but how the Redeemer follows the redeemed into Pleroma:44
‘The pneumatics then are divested of their souls and become intelligent spirits
(πνεύματα νοερά). In an irresistible and invisible manner they enter in within the
divine fullness (πλήρωμα) and are bestowed as brides on those angels who wait
upon the saviour’.45
I must confess that, in contrast to Baur, I do not consider this sufficient proof
for the idea of spiritual individuality in Valentinianism. We are instead looking
at colourful imagery of Jewish apocalyptic eschatology which was then simply
42
F.C. Baur, Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, vol. 1 (Tübingen, 1863), p. 203.
43
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.6.1 (SC 264.92–3 Rousseau and Doutreleau).
44
F.C. Baur, Die christliche Gnosis, oder die christliche Religionsphilosophie in ihrer
geschichtlichen Entwickelung (Tübingen, 1835), p. 197; cf. also p. 262.
45
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.7.1 (SC 264.100–102 Rousseau and Doutreleau).
– but not necessarily just in its Gnostic aspects – adopted by Christianity. If one
really wanted to suggest the concept of a stable and separate individuality in
Valentinianism, one would have to take a much closer look at the so-called doctrine
of distinct classes following the work of Hermann Langerbeck on human φύσις in
Gnosticism and Platonism and the objections raised against his interpretation by
Barbara Aland46 and others.47 To suggest this kind of individuality in Valentinian
eschatology, as Baur does, is, I think, still problematic. It is not enough, I think, to
point to ideas of individual salvation for the pneumatikoi including their celestial
wedding and their eschatological existence as brides of the angels, as the angels,
after all, form a perfectly homogeneous choir, following the liturgy in exactly the
same way, according to the second paragraph of the Grande Notice.48 One can, of
course, ask whether the idea of eschatologically restituted or newly configured
angelic couples is a form of traditional Jewish apocalypticism preferred by the
Valentinians, or rather their innovation on the basis of traditional material;49
unfortunately, in the present place, I cannot pursue this exciting question of the
Jewish roots of Valentinian Gnosticism any further. What we have said so far, at
any rate, does not appear to need modification in light of Baur’s arguments. The
problem of how God can be ‘all in all’ (1 Cor 15.28) and how in this eschatological
vision the individuality of the redeemed can still be preserved remains ultimately
a variation of the Platonic problem of the individuality of ideas and, as such,
certainly not limited to Valentinianism.50
46
H. Langerbeck, ‘Die Anthropologie der alexandrinischen Gnosis. Interpretationen
zu den Fragmenten des Basilides und Valentinus und ihrer Schulen bei Clemens von
Alexandrien und Origenes’, in H. Dörries (ed.), Aufsätze zur Gnosis, aus dem Nachlaß
(Göttingen, 1967), pp. 38–82, esp. 73 and 77; by contrast, critical remarks by B. Aland,
‘Erwählungstheologie und Menschenklassenlehre. Die Theologie des Herakleon als
Schlüssel zum Verständnis der christlichen Gnosis?’, in M. Krause (ed.), Gnosis and
Gnosticism. Papers read at the Seventh International Conference on Patristic Studies
(Leiden, 1977), pp. 148–81.
47
J. Holzhausen, ‘Zur Seelenlehre des Gnostikers Herakleon’, in J. Holzhausen (ed.),
ΨΥΧΗ– Seele – Anima. Festschrift für Karin Alt zum 7. Mai 1998 (Stuttgart/Leipzig, 1998),
pp. 279–301; A. Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus. Gnostische Johannesexegese im
zweiten Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 8, 34, 59, and 82–5.
48
See above note 12: Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.2.6 (SC 263.46).
49
An initial examination of the relevant texts suggests the hypothesis of an original
formation in Gnosticism.
50
This problem is further accentuated in the monotheistic acumination of
Valentinianism by an unknown teacher about whom Irenaeus informs us in Adversus
haereses: Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.11.3 (SC 264.172–4 and SC 264.173–4 Rousseau
and Doutreleau); cf. on this C. Markschies, ‘Der religiöse Pluralismus und das antike
Christentum – eine neue Deutung der Gnosis’, in M. Knapp and T. Kobusch (eds),
Querdenker. Visionäre und Außenseiter in Philosophie und Theologie (Darmstadt, 2005),
pp. 36–49 = C. Markschies, Gnosis und Christentum (Berlin, 2010), pp. 53–83, esp. 75–8.
Let us attempt one final question: is it possible – following Baur ad bonam

partem, as it were – to nevertheless introduce the criterion of greater or smaller
de-individualisation as a category of distinction for Gnostic systems? Is it even
possible to use this criterion to determine the (degree of) ‘Christianity’ of certain
Gnostic systems or, contrariwise, (the degree of) their ‘Gnosticity’? A long line
of eminent scholars of Gnosticism have suggested exactly this – but a closer
look at their arguments shows how problematic their interpretations are. I will
concentrate on two examples – very characteristic ones, at least for German-
speaking scholarship. Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), for instance, suggested that
the identity of the heavenly primal man (Urmensch) and the individual soul of
man was the central element of the classical Gnostic myth. For this interpretation,
however, he drew on the now notorious ‘Gnostic myth of the primal man’
demolished since, with unsparing exactitude, by Carsten Colpe. Bultmann also
relied on a chronology of Manichaean sources which Hans Lietzmann had proven
wrong as early as 1930.51
The great philosopher Hans Jonas (1903–93) too described the existential
attitude of gnosis (‘Daseinshaltung der Gnosis’) only in very general terms. In
this sense, he wrote that only a ‘residual I’ (Ichresiduum) remained after salvation
of the self that was a stranger in the world: the non-individuated kernel of human
identity (‘der Individuation entzogener Kern im Menschen’).52 Jonas then, like
his sometime doctoral supervisor Bultmann, regarded de-individualisation as the
central criterion of gnosis. Still, there is evidence that later on he may have had
second thoughts on this subject as in a reference to a newly discovered sermon
from Nag Hammadi (the so-called Evangelium Veritatis [NHC 1.3],53 a text
51
R. Bultmann, ‘Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und
manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums’, Zeitschrift für die
Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 24 (1925): pp. 100–46, esp. 104; cf. H. Lietzmann, ‘Ein
Beitrag zur Mandäerfrage’, Sonderausgabe aus den Sitzungsberichten der preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse (Berlin, 1930), pp. 596–608 = idem,
Kleine Schriften, Bd. 1 Studien zur spätantiken Religionsgeschichte, vol. 1, ed. by.
K. Aland (Berlin, 1958), pp. 124–40 (on this debate, cf. C. Markschies, ‘Heis Theos?
Religionsgeschichte und Christentum bei Erik Peterson’, in B Nichtweiss (ed.), Vom Ende
der Zeit. Geschichtstheologie und Eschatologie bei Erik Peterson [Münster, 2001], pp.
38–64, esp. 54–9). Like Bultmann, Kurt Rudolph also defines the ‘soul’ of the individual
as part of the world soul: K. Rudolph, Die Gnosis. Wesen und Geschichte einer spätantiken
Religion (Göttingen, 2005), p. 128. The description of the journey of the soul to anapausis
can be found in Rudolph under the heading ‘Individual eschatology’ (p. 186). I am very
grateful to my PhD student Henrik Hildebrandt for several ideas in the following passages.
52
H. Jonas, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist, vol.1, Die mythologische Gnosis (Göttingen,
1988), pp. 170–71.
53
M. Malinine, H.-Ch. Puech and G. Quispel (eds), Codex Jung f. VIIIv–XVIv (pp.
16–32) / f. XIXr–XXIIr (pp. 37–43) (Zürich, 1956); M. Malinine, H.-Ch. Puech, G. Quispel
and W. Till (eds), Codex Jung f. XVIIr–f. XVIIIv (pp. 33–6) (Supplementum) (Zurich and
Stuttgart, 1961) and H.W. Attridge and G.W. MacRae, NHC I,3: The Gospel of Truth, in
whose theology has close links with Valentianism), he observed that most of
Valentinianism’s central concepts (such as unity or reunification, multitude and
dispersion) combined universal and individual aspects.54
Given the chronological uncertainties about Gnostic systems, as well as the
systematic complexities of a concept of individuality, it seems wise to refrain, at
least for the time being, from such broad claims – to me, at least, it seems that,
if they are possible at all, the time for them certainly is not yet ripe. One would
first have to subject further Gnostic texts to an analysis of their understanding of
individuality by way of ‘thick description’ as I have done here for Irenaeus’ Grande
Notice. Zostrianus (NHC 8.155), for example, seems to me especially interested in
the formation of human individuality as well as its role in the return to the One.
By contrast, it has recently been suggested that, according to both the Gospel
of Thomas, also discovered at Nag Hammadi, and further scripts from the second
codex,56 the term μοναχός is virtually ‘a technical term for the eschatological
state of being in which the individual features of human existence cease to be.
According to this, the μοναχός is the perfect Gnostic who has returned to the
divine μονάς in which he originated’.57 Such ambivalences would first need to be
precisely defined: an analysis of the literary strategies of reinforcing or weakening
individuality would have to follow, as well as confronting aspects of tradition-
history and individual problem solving.
This opens up a panorama which we will certainly not be able to discuss
here in full. But what we have seen is that this curious indetermination of most
Gnostic groups with regard to their respective concept of individuality58 is closely
H.W. Attridge (ed.), Nag Hammadi Codex I (The Jung Codex) (Leiden, 1985), pp. 55–122
and idem, Nag Hammadi Codex I (The Jung Codex) (Leiden, 1985), pp. 39–135.
54
H. Jonas, Gnosis. Die Botschaft des fremden Gottes (Frankfurt, 2000), pp. 88–9.
Jan Helderman also emphasises that the individuality of the pneumatic who has arrived at
the Pleroma is maintained in the EV, stating that there is no ‘evaporation’ through which
this individuality might be lost. Instead, his name is known to God, the pneumatic is
said to have his ‘own’, and furthermore he continues to exist united with his angel: Die
Anapausis im Evangelium Veritatis (Leiden, 1984), p. 342. Helderman also speaks of an
individual eschatology (ibid., p. 339). The pneumatic has a special interest ‘in his individual
experience of salvation’ (ibid., p. 341).
55
J.H. Sieber and B. Layton, NHC VIII,1: Zostrianos, in J.H. Sieber (ed.), Nag
Hammadi Codices VIII (Leiden, 1991), pp. 7–225.
56
B. Layton, ‘NHC II,2: The Gospel according to Thomas’, in B. Layton (ed.),
Nag Hammadi Codices II,2–7, together with XIII,2*, Brit. Lib. Or. 4926(1), and P. Oxy.
1.654.655 (Leiden, 1989), pp. 52–93 and U.-K. Plisch, Das Thomasevangelium. Originaltext
mit Kommentar (Stuttgart, 2007).
57
E.E. Popkes, Das Menschenbild des Thomasevangeliums. Untersuchungen zu
seiner religionsgeschichtlichen und chronologischen Einordnung (Tübingen, 2007), p. 165.
The concept of individuality is key to Popke’s analyses in general.
58
Carsten Colpe, for example, says that, in view of the type of ‘soul’ in the Gnostic
world of thought, a single ‘condensed spiritual individuality’ can rarely be singled out: C.
linked to general problems within each of these concepts, and furthermore to the
evident exacerbation of the problems arising from the development of a concept of
individuality within the framework of Plato’s theory of forms.
At the same time, our observations on individuality in Valentinian texts
contribute rather significantly to our understanding of the history of this variety
of Gnosticism and to our reconstruction of its previous history. So far – if we
disregard the momentous reconstruction by Einar Thomassen59 – we lack a
comprehensive history of later Valentinianism that interprets the different
source categories (such as material passed down in the context of contemporary
pagan, Jewish and other Christian comparative texts) and dares to attempt a
chronological classification of the material. For this reason, many seemingly self-
evident statements on Valentinianism, its writings and its luminaries are quasi-
hypothetical, founded on a relatively narrow source base and formulated with the
assistance of fundamental statements made by others on this form of Gnosticism.
We have focussed on the category of individuality in the hope of gaining a new
criterion for an analysis of Valentinian source texts and to reconstruct dependency
relationships of chronology and content. As we have seen, the Valentinian sources
characteristically differ in their efforts to emphasise the individuality of heavenly
and earthly entities. Some texts de-individualise in order to lay greater stress on
the belief in the one God. Others mention individual entities for the sake of the
literary structure of a philosophical myth, but without affirming their separate
individuality on the ontological level. In other words, the seemingly polytheistic
individuality of heavenly figures in various types of Valentinian Gnosticism is
a literary characteristic used in these groups’ philosophical or philosophising
artificial myths, but certainly not one that constitutes their identity. Rather the
ancient Christian heresiologists would like us to believe such a concept of
polytheistic individuality. It is thus a fundamental rule to regard individuality in
divine figures, at least initially, as a literary, stylistic device of mythological speech
and not as an ontological characteristic of the Valentinian principles theory. This
applies, of course, not only to the system of Ptolemy’s disciples as handed down
to us by Irenaeus in the Grande Notice, but even more so to the interpretation
of the texts and fragments of Valentinus and Ptolemy, which, too, must always
be interpreted in the context of an overall history of Valentinian protology and
eschatology compiled from the sources.60
Cope, ‘Die “Himmelsreise der Seele” außerhalb und innerhalb der Gnosis’, in Ugo Bianchi
(ed.), Le origini dello gnosticismo. Colloquio internazionale sulle origini dello gnosticismo
(Leiden, 1967), pp. 429–45, at 430. ‘This is why it repeatedly has its difficulties with the
individuality of the Gnostic soul’ (ibid., p. 440).
59
Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed.
60
At the same time, of course, texts that are passed on separately must initially be
interpreted as far as possible on their own merit: Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad
Floram der Demiurg?’, p. 253 with Markschies, ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’,
p. 227.
In the light of current events we close, as announced in the title, with a few
remarks on the interpretation of the above-mentioned Epistula ad Floram, the
letter to the Roman matron Flora written by the urban Roman Christian teacher
Ptolemy and recorded by the Late Antique heresiologist Epiphanius. In addition,
any interpretation of this letter to Flora61 must fall within an overall history of the
disciples and second-generation disciples of the urban Roman teacher Valentinus
Nongnosticus (or Gnosticus). Recently, as mentioned, Herbert Schmid has
attempted a more text-based analysis of this letter. The author tries to show that
Ptolemy (like later Valentinians) already distinguished between a saviour figure
(σωτήρ) and a creator figure (demiurge).62 At the same time he emphasises that the
letter’s system is ‘essentially monistic’.63 Yet he offers no answer to the question
that arises immediately of how profound a distinction there is between the saviour
and the demiurge in the Epistula ad Floram and in classical Valentinian systems:
is it a weak identity similar to the one attributed by classical Valentinianism to
aeons and other divine figures? Is the demiurge a mode of existence that only
acts independently in literary myth, or is it a shadow of the one divinity? Or is he
indeed a separate, ontologically independent second entity alongside the one, first
God and his derivatives? Schmid does not ask these questions. Rather, he analyses
both the classical Valentinianism of the Grande Notice according to Irenaeus and
the Epistula ad Floram against the background of the classical anti-Valentinian
clichés of their orthodox opponents, who accused this entire form of Gnosticism –
probably wrongly – of a kind of disguised, un-Christian polytheism and confused
dualism. Schmid calls the system behind Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram ‘more
complex’ than a simple Platonising doctrine of three gods.64 However, he hardly
discusses or explains the extent to which the doctrine of Ptolemy reconstructed
by him is perhaps just a simple four-god doctrine.65 Instead, he justifies his
interpretation of the saviour and demiurge as two seemingly separate individualities
with an interpretation (that he himself only calls ‘more probable’) of a certain
passage in the letter (that is, 3.6).66 However, the context (3.5) – a grammatically
61
See the opening pages of this chapter, above.
62
Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad Floram der Demiurg?’, pp. 257–71.
He thus contests the identification of the two figures in Markschies, ‘New Research on
Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, pp. 242–5.
63
Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad Floram der Demiurg?’, p. 268.
64
65
Of course, I did not yet do this myself in my interpretation of the letter, published
in 2000; it had to wait until the article published here. Cf. C. Markschies, ‘New Research
on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, pp. 242–5.
66
Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses/Panarion 33.3.6 (GCS 451.14 Holl = SC 24.52
Quispel). Linguistically it is not very likely that ἰδίαν relates to one of the following people,
as Schmid suggests: Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad Floram der Demiurg?’, pp.
257–9. The normal case, linguistically speaking, is the reference to the preceding sentence
that I argue for: cf. C. Markschies, ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, pp. 242–5
unambiguous reference to the Prologue of John’s Gospel – demonstrates clearly

that the saviour and the demiurge are connected by some kind of relationship of
identity (I am deliberately careful with my choice of words here), thus contradicting
Schmid’s interpretation.67 This does not deny the possibility that Ptolemy at times
also ascribed a certain separate individuality to them – perhaps for the purpose of
a philosophising, fabricated myth. Interestingly, however, this is precisely what he
does not do in his letter. Rather, he clearly leaves the question open as to whether
the two figures are identical or whether each has an individual existence. But this
textual openness should not be eliminated, as it were, by modern interpretation –
as Schmid does.68 One may also speak of the ‘fuzzy borders of identities’ (which
the author does not define in more detail, at least not in this introductory, exoteric
and isagogical text) with regard to the three principles in Ptolemy’s Epistula ad
Floram. However, this openness was probably also a feature of Ptolemy’s esoteric
texts, which were meant for the inner circle of the school. For, like his students,
according to Irenaeus, he generally assumed the principles and divine entities to
be individualities, which were ontologically very underdeveloped. The fact that
Ptolemy attributes an ‘otherness’ to the demiurge (more precisely: ‘another being
and nature’ ἑτέρας οὐσίας τε καὶ φύσεως)69 in his Epistula ad Floram must, of
course, be interpreted in the context of Pythagorean number theory (as also alluded
to by Irenaeus, when he speaks of the above-mentioned passage by an unknown
Valentinian teacher, which we interpreted analogously above). In a Platonic
context, otherness, ἑτερότης, is a fundamental characteristic of the nature of the
second God, just as it is a characteristic of the number two. Like other Valentinians,
Ptolemy is here simply following a widespread philosophical guideline theory in
the explanation of his principles theory. At the same time, of course, if there is
such a context of Pythagorean, Platonising number theory of principles, it cannot
be claimed that no kinship exists between the divine principles, as is constituted,
for example, by an emanation process. According to Schmid, the saviour already
differs from the demiurge, because, unlike the latter, he shares a common nature
with the Sole Good God and Father. Yet this, precisely, is not stated in the text.
Indeed, it is not explicitly asserted anywhere that the saviour is ‘of one and the
same being’ with the Sole Good God (ὁμοούσιος); Schmid himself has to admit
(also Thomassen and Rasimus, cf. Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad Floram der
Demiurg?’, pp. 258–9).
67
Ansgar Wucherpfennig has characterised the relation between Logos and Demiurge
in Heracleon’s commentary on John as ‘strukturierte Handlungseinheit’: Wucherpfennig,
Heracleon Philologus, pp. 158–60 and 414: ‘Der höchste Gott und sein Logos, der Erlöser,
und der Demiurg bilden durch ihre Kooperation ... eine strukturierte Handlungseinheit,
nicht zwei einander dualistisch entgegengesetzte Prinzipien’.
68
This needs to be stated more clearly than I did in the essay I wrote in 2000:
Markschies, ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, pp. 242–5.
69
Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses/Panarion 33.7.6 (GCS 457.3 Holl = SC 24.70
Quispel).
that there are only passages which, in his opinion, ‘suggest’ this.70 He writes: for
Ptolemy ‘the nature of the Father and the nature of the Son [are] similar, perhaps
even interchangeable’.71 In truth, therefore (and Schmid is forced to concede
this72), there is no explicit, categorical contradiction expressed in the text between
the letter’s statements on the nature of the saviour and of the demiurge. The nature
of the demiurge is as different from the nature of the Sole Good God and Father
as the natures of the highest principles can be in Platonic systems. Even so, one
can speak of a similarity of principles on the basis of the generic, emanatory
relationship. There is no contradiction (as constructed by Schmid) between the
two sets of statements: in analysing the letter, the saviour and the demiurge must
not necessarily be reconstructed as two strictly separate individualities. Indeed,
Ptolemy probably did not mean them to be. Creation and redemption are different
actions,73 which, in mythological speech, can be distinguished as different modes
of being of the same divine entity. By introducing the individuality of divine
figures with such weakness and changeability, Ptolemy uses a design principle for
his theory that will play a key role in many future Valentinian systems and will
represent no small problem for the Trinitarian and Christological debates of the
majority church in the time to come. Like the fragments of his probable teacher
Valentinus, of course, Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram belongs to a development
history of Valentinian Gnosticism which is yet to be written – especially after
the challenges posed by Einar Thomassen’s attempt. To this extent, the thoughts
presented here are certainly preliminary in nature.74 And at this point we must –
and can – stop this train of thought.
70
71
Ibid.
72
Of course, the methodological doubts vanish dramatically in the course of the essay
because of the unambiguity of his own interpretation: towards the end, what was previously
uncertain is suddenly certain: ‘Such an equation cannot, however, be proved either by the
interpretation of 3.6 or by comparing the statements on Soter, perfect God and demiurge’.
Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad Floram der Demiurg?’, p. 267. In truth, Schmid,
too, can only provide probabilities to back up his interpretation, as he himself has to admit
several times in the previous pages: cf. pp. 259 and 262.
73
Of course, the critical objection that the saviour would be repealing his own law
if the saviour and the demiurge were to be regarded as identical also applies to an entire
direction of majority theology when it pits Jesus’ teaching against the law of Mount Sinai;
it is therefore not an objection to identification: Schmid, ‘Ist der Soter in der Epistula ad
Floram der Demiurg?’, p. 266. As Schmid also admits, I myself had conceded a certain
degree of differentiation between the saviour and demiurge: ibid., p. 243.
74
Especially the relation between Ptolemy and Heracleon’s concept of a ‘strukturierte
Handlungseinheit’ [structured unity of action] (Wucherpfennig) of Logos and Demiurge. I
would like to analyse this in future in a broader sense (see note 67).
Chapter 2
Astrology and Freedom: The Case
of Firmicus Maternus
Mark Edwards
Astrology is the most exact of the sciences in antiquity.1 This fact, as it cannot be
denied, is acknowledged by modern scholarship with irony and regret. The true
science of astronomy has shown that a constellation is a phenomenon of parallax,
and that the stars are too remote to exercise even a gravitational effect upon the
planet, let alone to shape the conduct of its denizens. It is possible, though not yet
proved, that the latitude or season in which we are born can leave an impression
upon the character; but to seek the cause in the malice or benignity of a regnant
star, and not in the climate or other ambient factors, is to mistake a fortuitous
correspondence for an aetiology. Behind these latter-day criticisms stands the
old conviction that astrology, even if scientifically tenable, would be morally
enervating because it treats us as puppets of external forces, stealing from us that
spontaneity of choice and act which is presupposed in all our moral judgments. In
ancient as in modern times, the professional astrologer was frequently regarded as
a charlatan, and his clients as dupes who lack the will or courage to take control of
their own affairs. There was, however, less excuse in ancient times for imagining
that the astrologer was incapable of rebutting these accusations. I propose to study
here the most extensive and vigorous of such rejoinders, the Mathesis or book
of instruction published late in the reign of Constantine by Firmicus Maternus.
Deficient (as we are told) in the technical mastery of his discipline, he claims
our attention none the less in the opening book by his orotund attempt to meet
the philosophers on their own ground. As we shall see, his case is that we are not
slaves when we give the stars their due but when we mock them, that the man who
consults his horoscope can boast of more autonomy than the sceptic, as he does not
strive with the inevitable but employs such liberty as has been vouchsafed to him
in husbanding the virtues of his soul.
1
As demonstrated at length by O. Neugebauer and H.B. van Hoesen, Greek
Horoscopes (Philadelphia, 1959).
Sceptical Commonplaces
Almost as soon as astrology began to take root in the Greek world, in the third
century BC, we hear the whetting of philosophic axes.2 Carneades, the doyen
of the New, or sceptical, Academy, was generally agreed to have phrased the
objections with inimitable cogency though few of them (we may feel) would
escape a person of common intelligence today. His works perished like those
of almost all Hellenistic scholarchs, but the substance of his arguments was
preserved in the second century AD by Sextus Empiricus, whose ‘Pyrrhonism’
is not so much a philosophy as a compendium of stratagems for confounding the
philosophers. In his treatise Against the Mathematicians, which is the fifth book
of his lucubration Against the Dogmaticians, Sextus contends that only what
is necessary can be predicted with certitude. If there is any event that is truly
fortuitous, or any act that is freely willed, it cannot be predicted with infallible
accuracy: if the outcome of any chain of events were foreseeable, every link in
the chain would be predetermined, which is to say that it cannot proceed from
chance or from the autonomous operation of the will (Against the Dogmaticians,
5.46–9).3 He goes on to show that even if metaphysical impediments were set
aside, the astrologer could not hope to escape all error in his predictions, since
he is at the mercy of his imperfect tools. The casting of a horoscope for example,
requires him to know the time of conception with precision, but such knowledge is
seldom granted (5.55). How, in any case, could one hope to specify the instant of
birth, when the bringing forth of a child is a gradual process (5.65–7)? Moreover,
a sound prognosis demands exactitude in two distinct but concurrent observations,
for while one person records the time of birth another must have his eye trained
on the heavens; as they cannot communicate instantaneously, their perceptions
cannot be synchronised (5.69). Again we may ask what is meant by the exact
position of a constellation which is made up of many stars (5.79); finally, we must
not forget that our witnesses may differ in keenness of sight (5.81).
In the modern age not all of these objections are insurmountable. It is not,
however, likely to seem more credible to us than it did to Sextus that a whole
throng of human beings, all born under different signs, can be fated to perish
at the same time in a battle or the wreck of a single ship (5.72) While Sextus
and his Hellenistic mentor could not yet say that the constellations are illusory,
they knew that their names had been conferred arbitrarily, and hence that it was
absurd to suppose that those born under a sign would inherit the properties of
the animal with whom it happened to be associated: no causal law could ensure
that those born under Leo have leonine characteristics or that those born under
Taurus resemble bulls (5.97–8). It is still more paradoxical to suppose that the
2
For a general history see now Tamsyn Barton, Power and Knowledge (Ann Arbor,
1994), pp. 27–94.
3
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Dogmaticians 5.46–9 (LCL 382 Bury). Subsequent
in-text references are to this treatise.
Astrology and Freedom: The Case of Firmicus Maternus 31
constellations determine our physical attributes: that would entail, for instance,
that not a single Ethiopian is born under the sign of Virgo, which, according to the
astrologers, presides over whiteness of skin (5.103).
Arguments of the same tenor, some at least derived with acknowledgement
from Carneades, are rehearsed in Marcus Cicero’s dialogue On Divination, a more
familiar work than that of Sextus to the Latin-speaking audience of Firmicus.4 In the
first book, the author’s brother Quintus revives the Stoic argument that if the gods
love us they impart their knowledge of the future, and produces a string of anecdotes
attesting the efficacy of divination. Marcus in his response takes up his usual posture
as an Academic whose scepticism is critical rather than corrosive. It is true, he
admits, that the Stoics, apart from Pantaenus, subscribe to astrology (42), and that
Diogenes the Stoic allows that they govern the disposition of the newborn (43).
Their arguments, however, are vitiated by their reliance on the testimony of sight,
which is the weakest of our senses. It is also a parochial one: experience informs
us that observers at different points will not impose the same cartography on the
skies and will therefore return a different answer when they are asked to say in what
quarter a sign appeared (44). Furthermore, the region on earth which is governed
by a sign in heaven may be so diverse that we cannot speak of its being subject to
a single influence (45). Even if we are imbued with certain dispositions at birth, it
should be no more impossible to modify these than it is to overcome other natural
handicaps by our exertions (46). If each of us does indeed receive an inexorable
destiny from his horoscope, it is all the more incredible that every soldier who died
at Cannae was doomed to this end from the moment of his birth (47).
The Defence of Astrology
Astrologers, for the most part, seem to have gone about their business without
replying to these objections. The Alexandrian Claudius Ptolemaeus is the one
predecessor of Firmicus who takes note of them, and his strategy is not so much
to refute them as to embrace them as modifications to his own system. He accepts
that, like any science, astrology is in part stochastic: an astrologer can ascertain
what will probably come to pass, but his predictions are no more infallible than
a doctor’s remedies.5 He admits that nations have general characteristics which
are not governed by the stars and advises the practitioner to take climate and
circumstances into account before casting a horoscope from sidereal observations
(4.10). He prudently admonishes readers, and prospective critics, that the astrologer
will not hope to secure material benefits for himself (1.3).
Cicero, as we have seen, maintained that free will and divination are incompatible.
In his translation of the Phaenomena of Aratus he gave the Roman world a specimen
4
M. Tulli Ciceronis, De Divinatione (Pease). Subsequent in-text references are to
this edition.
5
Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos 1.2 (LCL 435 Robbins).
of astronomy uncloyed by superstition; if, however, he hoped to share the laurel of

his contemporary Lucretius, he was wasting his exertions. The only other scientific
poem to match the longevity of the De Rerum Natura was the Astronomicon of
Manilius, a smooth Stoic antidote to the abrasive verse and thought of the Epicurean.
In a series of declamations on Horatius, Lake Trasimene, Cannae, civil war and the
destinies of Marius and Pompey, he undertakes to prove, in refutation of Cicero,
that Rome was perpetually in thrall to fate, and that the vicissitudes of her famous
men should be ascribed to fortune rather than to their own merit or ineptitude. ‘Quis
tantum mutare potest sine numine fati’? is his peroration (Astronomicon 4.56): ‘who
could change so much were it not for the power of fate’? He goes on to argue – as
Stoics had always argued against the successors of Aristotle – that agents may be
liable to praise or blame even when they could not have acted otherwise:6
Nam neque mortiferas quisque minus oderit herbas

Quod non arbitrio veniunt sed semine certo;
Gratia nec levior tribuetur dulcibus escis
Quod natura dedit fruges, non ulla voluntas.
Sic hominum meritis tanto sit gloria maior
Quod caelo laudem debent, rursusque nocentes
Oderimus magis in culpam poenasque creatos.
For no-one hates a baneful herb the less

For acting as ’twas sown and not by choice.
Nor do we take less pleasure in sweet food
Because fruits spring from nature, not from will.
Thus the more praise accrues to human deeds
When heaven is the source, and we abhor
The rogue who’s born to sin and make amends.7
One thing at least is in our power – to refrain from idle defiance of our fates:
Solvate, mortales, animas, curasque levate,

Totque supervacuis vitam deplete querellis.
Fata regunt orbem, certa stant omnia lege.
Loose your souls, mortals, and relax your cares.

Empty your lives of all these fond complaints:
Fates rule the world, all stands by certain law.8
6
See further K. Volk, Manilius and his Intellectual Background (New York, 2009),
esp. pp. 259–65.
7
Manilius, Astronomica 4.109–10 (LCL 469 Goold).
8
Astral determinism is a gospel of deliverance no less than the libertarian

metaphysic of Lucretius. Whereas the latter denies that our prayers can move the
gods – and the system of Ptolemy too seems not to require a divine executive, or
even a legislator – the theism of Manilius is cordial and pervasive. Anticipating
Firmicus Maternus, as we shall see, he proclaims that it is by the light within that
we discover the intent of the powers above:
Quis caelum posset nisi caeli munere nosse,

et repetere deum nisi qui pars ipse deorum est?
Who can know heaven but by heaven’s gift,

Or seek god having no part in the gods?9
It is by the cultivation of mental discipline and social intercourse that humans have
attained this knowledge:
quae [sc. ratio] postquam in proprias deduxit singula causas

vicinam ex alto mundi cognoscere molem
intendit, totumque animo comprehendere caelum.
When reason has traced each thing to its cause,

It seeks to know the world that towers above
And with the whole mind grasp the neighbouring sky.10
Epicurus, according to Lucretius, climbed beyond the flaming ramparts of the

world to show that, once delivered from false religion, humans become their own
gods. Manilius replies that to comprehend the world in its fullness is to perceive
it as a theatre of divine providence, in which each is free to be what the gods have
made him, but cannot presume to the mastery of anything but his soul.
The Neoplatonists
Firmicus is at his most splenetic when responding to the arguments (or rather the
putative arguments) of the philosopher Plotinus, who had died in Italy 65 years
before the composition of the Mathesis. As a Platonist whose reflections are apt
to commence with a difficult passage or a seeming inconsistency in the dialogues,
Plotinus had inherited a strong belief in the soul’s power to ameliorate its lot in the
present world by ridding itself of false ambition and cupidity in order to cultivate
the unmixed pleasures of contemplation. At the same time, he had also learned
from Plato that the lot with which we begin has been determined by the soul’s
9
10
choices in the intervals between its previous lives; worse still, when it makes this
choice it is not yet free of the ignorance, turpitude and infirmity that have accrued
to it in its latest peregrination, so that one vicious life is apt to follow another.
The soul’s first life in the heaven above the heavens is said to end when she is
thrown to earth by her own impetuosity; at the same time the Phaedrus alludes
to stipulated periods of descent and return, while in the Timaeus the lesser gods
are responsible for the first descent of the soul from the stars and also for the
allocation of each new life as a punishment or reward for its performance in the
last. A faithful Platonist, therefore, would be unlikely to hold that our fortune in
the present life can be determined wholly by our voluntary endeavours.
In the Life of Plotinus, written some three decades after his death by his student
Porphyry, Firmicus will have read that he decided to test the pretensions of the
horoscope-casters and found them full of bombast and absurdity.11 Yet Porphyry
himself cannot deny at least a malign power to the stars, since it was through
this power that a sorcerer had been able to inflict such pain on Plotinus that he
confessed to feeling as helpless as a puppet.12 Such ‘neurospastic’ agonies had
furnished Stoics with a metaphor for the tyranny of fate (Life 10; cf. Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations 7.29), and it need not surprise us that, even after his soul had
proved too strong for this assailant, the philosopher took care not to lay himself
open to future attacks by revealing the time or place of his birth (Life 1 and 3).
Plotinus himself13 cannot deny, in Enneads 4.4, that the magician achieves his
ends when he is able to exploit the natural sympathy between elements.14 Earlier in
the same treatise (4.4.32) he concludes that the operation of this sympathy enables
the stars to act at times as causes and not merely as signifiers. The question is
agitated at greater length in Enneads 2.3, to which Porphyry attached the title On
Whether the Stars are Causes. Plotinus’ answer is not a simple negative, though
he is certainly not on the side of the astrologers. While such eternal configurations
cannot be wholly fortuitous it is possible for stars to signify without being causes
(2.3.1.1–5), and quite impossible that glory or disgrace can be products of sidereal
influence (2.3.1.6–10). It is true that we owe our souls to the stars (2.3.9.10–16; cf.
Timaeus 41 and so on), and not absurd to suppose that they have imbued the soul
with certain dispositions (2.3.11, 2.3.15, 4.4.31); each of us, however, possess not
only a soul but an intellect, and, since this remains unfallen, it is only when we
11
Porphyry, Vita Plotini (= Plotini Opera 1.1–41 Henry and Schwyzer), ch. 14
Subsequent in-text references are to this edition, i.e. Plotini Opera, ed. P. Henry and H.-R.
Schwyzer, 3 vols (Oxford, 1964-1982).
12
See further S. Berryman, ‘The Puppet and the Sage: Images of the Self in Marcus
Aurelius’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 38 (2010): pp. 187–210.
13
I have been greatly assisted in this part of my study by P. Adamson, ‘Plotinus on
Astrology’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 35 (2008): pp. 165–91.
14
Plotinus, Enneads 4.4.40 (Henry and Schwyzer). Subsequent in-text references are
to this edition.
belie our twofold nature and abandon the higher soul that we become enslaved to
fate (2.3.9. 27–31).
According to Plato every soul, on returning to the embodied state, is allotted to
a tutelary daemon. In an extended comment on this saying (Enneads 3.4), Plotinus
deprecates the inference that our course in life is steered by an agent stronger
than ourselves. At each stage in this course, he explains, the self that we know is
governed by the self in prospect – that is to say, by a higher level of consciousness
which acts as a beacon to our aspirations. Whatever plane of being the soul now
occupies, the plane that is immediately superior acts as its daemon in the present
life: the soul adopts this incipient self as its pilot and its star. Immanent causality
and causation from above this coincide without remainder, and a pattern of life
can be set before the soul without any abridgement of its freedom. Porphyry also
is aware of forces which, although they work through our instincts and desires, are
so ineluctable that we feel them to be extrinsic and coercive. Before the soul can
return home like Odysseus, and long before she can pass on from that haven to a
land where the din of the sea is heard no more, she must embrace a life of toil and
renunciation to propitiate the ‘marine and material deities’ whom she has slighted
in her wanderings (De Antro Nympharum 35). Renunciation may take many forms,
to judge by the letter to Marcella in which Porphyry declares that it is only to
appease his natal daemon that he has married a widow of comfortable means and
declining beauty (Ad Marcellam 2). Nowhere in the extant works of Porphyry is it
stated that this suzerain rules his vassals from the skies. Porphyry, indeed, is close
to persiflage in his Letter to Anebo when he begs his correspondent, an Egyptian
priest, to explain the ‘incomprehensible’ terms of genethlialogoi, or casters of
horoscopes. Who sends the natal daemon? Is he set over one of our members
or all? Is he in fact a being distinct from ourselves or a part of the soul?15 Anebo
is an imaginary figure and the aim of the letter may be to elicit an answer rather
than to disparage a people whom Porphyry elsewhere describes as outstanding in
sagacity (logiôtatoi). The answer of Iamblichus, in the ninth book of his treatise
On the Mysteries, presupposes what he has shown repeatedly in the previous eight,
that a daemon is not a portion or aspect of the soul but an imperfect apparition of
divinity. He is not to be equated with the paradigm which affords an ideal pattern
to the soul, nor with his oikodespotês, or ‘master of the house’.16 The latter is
the planet dominating the sign of the zodiac which the sun occupies at the time
of birth, and functions here as a counterpart to the lesser gods of the Timaeus,
who determine when and in what form the soul will commence a new life in the
sublunar realm.
Although Iamblichus entertains no theory of an undescended soul, it does not
follow that the embodied soul is in fetters. His Egyptian mouthpiece says that we
have two souls, only one of which is piloted by the daemon, while the other is free
15
See Iamlichus, De mysteriis 9.1 (Des Places).
16
Iamlichus, De mysteriis 9.2 and 9.5 (Des Places).
and cognisant of eternal principles.17 Knowledge of the future may be included

in this vision, but is never oppressive (as Porphyry imagines) because the objects
of divine prescience are always ‘boniform’.18 When the gods have led the soul to
an understanding of totality, it is entrusted to the ‘whole Demiurge’ in the first
stage of liberation. The details of this hybrid speculation remain obscure, but it
is evident that, whatever was taught in Egypt, this philosopher is a Platonist, for
whom virtue is the only measure of freedom but our freedom to be virtuous is
constrained by circumstances that we have little power to mend in the present life.
Christians and Gnostics
‘If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them
of his household?’ (Matt. 10:25). Christians were told that, while the star that
led the Magi to Bethlehem had been a true sign, it portended the overthrow of
powers that had hitherto kept heaven and earth in bondage. Apologists writing
for pagans were more likely to mock the efforts of pagan quacks to impose the
lawlike revolutions of the firmament on a world that behaved as though it knew no
law.19 Hippolytus gathers an inventory of commonplace refutations, then proceeds
to unmask those groups who have tried to knead this counterfeit science into
the gospel. He commences with the Peratae, who are pupils of the ‘Chaldaeans’
(Refutation 4.1–6), but lingers for a few chapters over the errors of numerologists
who predict a hero’s destiny by substituting arithmetic digits for the letters of his
name. Then follows a detailed account of the phrenologists who imagine that the
character which the stars bestow on an agent can be traced in his physiognomy
(4.15–26). Others again detect biblical allegories in Aratus, even discovering an
emblem of the Logos in the dog-star (4.46–9). Although historians might have
wished for more ample and less invidious synopses, Hippolytus has said enough
to prove that not all Christians of his epoch shared his antipathy to the practice of
divination by the stars.
We need not doubt his veracity, since the Nag Hammadi Codices, which enable
us to correct the early Christian accounts of a number of heresies, have also shown
that these accounts were not caricatures. They furnish us with more than one
original of the Gnostic myth – anathematised by watchful bishops and scholarly
philosophers – which traced the origin of the material cosmos to trespass and
schism in the Godhead.20 The transgressor in most versions is Sophia, the last and
17
Iamblichus, De mysteriis 8.6 (Des Places).
18
Iamblichus, De mysteriis 10.4 (Des Places).
19
Ignatius, Ephesians 19; Tatian, Oratio 9. For a full review see now Tim Hegedus,
Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology (Vienna, 2007).
20
See Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.1–2 and 1.29–30 (SC 263–4 Rousseau and
Doutreleau); Plotinus, Enneads 2.9.10 (Henry and Schwyzer); J.M. Robinson (ed.), The
Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco, 1990), pp. 110, 406, 411.
frailest emanation from the primordial Father: her own offspring, the Demiurge, has
no father and imagines himself to be the only God. Undertaking to reproduce the
structure of the invisible world in matter, he creates the seven planets and assigns
to each an archon, who acts as a jailer to every soul that is forced to inhabit the
lower realm. There is nothing to show that the Gnostics ever cast a horoscope, but
their sense of bondage to the astral powers can only have reinforced the common
belief that they denied the soul any power to choose its destiny. Plotinus could
almost be taken for a Christian when he complains that they have misrepresented
the glorious dance as a ‘tragedy of fears’ (Enneads 2.9.13.7).
The majority of Christian heretics in the second century are said to have come
from Egypt, and even had the Nag Hammadi Codices not been found there, it
would be evident from their contents that their authors were acquainted with the
traditions of that country. Analogues to both Gnostic and alchemical teaching are
easily discovered in a Hermetic tract, the Poimandres, where the planetary gods,
conceived now as rigorous judges rather than arbitrary despots, disencumber the
soul of its vices one by one as it returns to its celestial abode (Hermetica 1.25).21
The Greek Bible too is an Alexandrian legacy, and when Origen reached the Fourth
Day in his Homilies on Genesis, he was naturally afraid that God’s enthronement
of two great lights in the heavens for our guidance might be interpreted as a
mandate for the use of the stars in prophecy.22 If, he replies, such prophecy implies
predestination, it is inconsistent both with human liberty and with the justice of
God; the case against the freedom of the will refutes itself, because even in the
act of framing it we rely on our ability to execute a valid act of reasoning, and we
could not be sure of this if the mind were working under duress. Since, however,
the freedom of the creature does not preclude divine foreknowledge, and since
God has created nothing without a purpose, it is possible that he has made the stars
as a chronicle of things past and things to come. This is not to say that the Church
should countenance pagan rites of divination, for the wisdom of God ordains that
these prescient signs are legible only to the angels and (by grace alone) to the
foremost of the saints.23
Firmicus Maternus
Perhaps it was because the conversion of Constantine was inspired by a sign from
heaven that polemics against astrology subsided after his victory in the West, or
at least were subsumed in jeremiads against all polytheistic modes of vaticination.
It was during this emperor’s reign, none the less, that astrology found a Latin-
speaking champion in Firmicus Maternus, whose Mathesis can be securely dated
21
On Hermetism and astrology see A.-J. Festugière, La Révélation d’Hermès
Trismégiste, vol. 1 (Paris, 1950, reprinted 1986), 6.
22
Origen, Commentary on Genesis (72–4 Metzler).
23
Origen, Commentary on Genesis (102–4 Metzler).
by internal evidence to the years between the solar eclipse of 334 and the death
of Constantine in 337.24 In vindicating his art he has of course to meet the usual
charge that it cannot supply the proofs from observation that distinguish a rigorous
science. He was also conscious that in his native tongue he was a peddler of strange
wares, and that in this case Roman prejudice was supported by Greek arguments
that a man cannot owe his fortune simultaneously to his merits and to the stars.
He was one of the first, moreover, to practise his art in a Christian empire, where
one had to fear more than obloquy if one harboured erroneous notions about the
divine administration of the cosmos. For all these reasons, then, he was forced to
defend his system before he could expound it, though, as he urges in his preface,
his purpose is indeed expository and not merely apologetic:
Fronto enim noster Hipparchi secutus antiscia ita apotelesmatum sententias

protulit tamquam cum perfectis iam et cum peritis loqueretur, nihil de
institutione, nihil de magisterio praescribens. Sed nec aliquis paene Latinorum
de hac arte institutionis libros scripsit nisi paucos versus Iulius Caesar et
ipsos tamen de alieno opere mutuatos, Marcus vero Tullius, princeps et decus
Romanae eloquentiae, ne quid intemptatum relinqueret, quod fuisset divinum
eius ingenium assecutum, versibus heroicis etiam ipse de institutione pauca
respondit.
For our Fronto, taking as model the Scryings of Hipparchus, set out his teachings
on stellar influence as though he were addressing those who were already finished
adepts, giving no precepts for acquiring or teaching the discipline. Yet barely
any other Latin writer has written anything of this art of imparting discipline,
but for a handful of verses by Julius Caesar, which in fact were themselves
translated from another work. Marcus Tullius [Cicero] indeed, the prince and
glory of Roman eloquence, produced a few responses about the discipline in
heroic verses in order that he should leave untried no subject that his divine
intellect had studied.25
These precedents imply that only an ignorant critic could deem scientific enterprise
unworthy of a Roman. To ape the Greeks is certainly as vicious as to innovate;
both, however, are permitted if the Roman outdoes his model. Ancestral voices
come to the aid of Firmicus as he urges that he has put the commonwealth twice in
his debt by executing a useful work which will also be a literary treasure:
Omnia enim, quae Aesculapio Mercurius ... [lacuna] … quae Petosiris

explicavit et Nechepso et quae Abram, Orfeus et Critodemus ediderunt ceterique
24
See further T. Mommsen, ‘Firmicus Maternus’, Hermes 29 (1894): pp. 468–72; O.
Neugebauer, ’The Horoscope of Ceionius Rufus Albinus’, American Journal of Philology
74 (1953): pp. 418–20.
25
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 2.proem (Monat).
omnes huius artis scii, perlecta pariter atque collecta et contrariis sententiarum
diversitatibus comparata illis prescripsimus libris divinam scientiam Romanis
omnibus intimantes, ut hoc, quod quibusdam difficillimum videbatur propter
Latini sermonis angustias, ostensa Romani sermonis licentia veris ac manifestis
interpretationibus explicarem.
For everything that Mercury [imparted?] to Aesculapius ... that was expounded
by Petosiris and Nechepso, that was published by Abraham, Orpheus and
Critodemus and all the others who were cognisant of this art – all these in equal
measure I have read through and collated, comparing them with a variety of
contrary opinions, and have set out for instruction in these books. I have thus
communicated the divine science to every Roman, so that, having shown that the
Roman tongue permits this, I may give a true and plain exposition of a subject
that seemed hitherto very difficult to many because of the scant resources of the
Latin tongue.26
This work is to be measured, then, not only against its prototypes in Greek but
against such masters of the Latin tongue as Horace and Ovid, the first of whom
had emulated the Greeks in versatility of form, the second in plenitude of matter.
Above all it was Lucretius who made a virtue of his struggles with the penury of
his native speech as he undertook to distil a whole system of faith and conduct into
honeyed verse. His object was to mend the lives of his countrymen; if Firmicus
can do better it is because he sees divinity in the heavens where the Epicurean sees
only aggregates of senseless matter. Were there nothing divine within us divination
would be impossible; conversely, when we perceive that the alignment of every
star is dictated by a supernal intelligence, we shall not excuse the inaccuracy of
horoscopes by pretending that astrology, like other sciences, can deal only in
probabilities. If the soul were always mindful of its origins, our predictions would
be infallible; the miscarriages which are ridiculed by critics of astrology can result
only from incompetent calculation:
Vere enim sunt res arduae atque difficiles et quas non facile posit animus terrenis
sordium laqueis impeditus, licet ipse ignea sit divinitatis inmortalitate formatus,
facili inquisitionis ratione percipere.
These matters are indeed arduous and difficult, and not such as a man hampered
by the filthy toils of earth can easily penetrate by rational inquiry, even though it
owes its form to the deathless incandescence of divinity.27
This sagacity, and our very creation, we owe to the same God who upholds
the unshakable fabric of the universe. The astrologer will not, for all that, be a
26
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 3.proem.5 (Monat).
27
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 1.4.1 (cf. 3.3.6) (Monat).
monotheist in the strict sense, as both Roman policy and Platonic reasoning inform
him that a ruler can divide his cares without weakening his authority. It had now
become the custom not only to give the names of gods to the seven planets, but
to set them over the days of the week; to these lieutenants Firmicus addresses his
supplication on behalf of the Christian Emperor:
Constantinum maximum principem et huius invictissimos liberos, dominos et

Caesares nostros, consensu vestrae moderationis et dei summi obsecuti iudicio
perpetua his decernentis imperia facite etiam nostris posteris et posterorum
nostrorum posteris infinitis saeculorum continuationibus imperare.
Grant that Constantine, our august sovereign, and his ever-unvanquished sons,
our lords and Caesars, consenting to your regulation and obeying the judgment of
the supreme God who allots this perpetual empire to them, may bear sway over
our offspring and the offspring of our offspring through an infinite succession
of centuries.28
A subject can wish only good to his sovereign, but experience tells us that sidereal
agency is not uniformly benign. Where it is baneful it serves as an admonition to
those who deny the influence of the constellations. The most eloquent of these, and
the most severely castigated, was Plotinus, who before his death imagined that a
philosopher could draw up his own indemnities against fortune. Firmicus would
seem to have accepted Porphyry’s simplified redaction of his doctrines; he gives
no sign of acquaintance with the work of Plotinus, whose suffering he retails with
impassive prolixity:
ut contra fortunae omnes minas integro se et incorrupto praesidio virtutis

armaret ad collocandum sedem amoenum sibi Campaniae civitatis solum
elegisse narratur, ubi semper aeris quietae moderatio cunctos incolas salubri
vegetatione sustentat …. Ecce se illi in ista confidentiae animositate securo tota
fatorum potestas imposuit et primum membra eius frigido sanguinis torpore
riguerunt et oculorum acies splendorem paulatim extenuati luminis perdidit,
postea per totam eius cutem malignis humoribus nutrita pestis erupit, ut putre
corpus deficientibus membris corrupti sanguinis morte tabesceret; per omnes
dies et per omnes horas serpente minutae partes viscerum defluebant et quicquid
paulo ante integrum videras, statim confecti corporis exulceratio deformabat.
It is said that, in order to arm himself against all fortune’s menaces with the solid
and incorruptible shield of virtue, he choose a site for a city in Campania to serve
him as an idyllic seat, where the quiet and gentle air unfailingly nourishes the
inhabitants with wholesome vegetation ... But lo! While he was secure in his
overweening confidence, all the power of the fates descended upon him. First his
28
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 1.10 (Monat).
limbs grew stiff with a torpid freezing of the blood and his eyes lost sight of the
splendour of light as it slowly thinned; next a pestilence, fed by evil humours,
spread through the whole of his skin, so that as his limbs ailed his putrid body
was wasted by the deadly corruption of his blood. Daily and hourly small parts
of his entrails melted away under the insidious malaise, and whatever you had
seen to be solid a short while before was disfigured in an instant by the terminal
ulceration of his body.29
No other account of Plotinus’ fatal illness has survived apart from a more
sympathetic, though still repugnant, chapter in Porphyry’s life of him. Firmicus,
it would seem, has produced an acidified version of this, deriving additional
symptoms from a common fund of morbid literature on the deaths of philosophers.
He appears to have distorted Porphyry’s narrative once again by conflating two
episodes, the retirement of Plotinus to the house of a Campanian friend on the
eve of death and his earlier, but fruitless project to secure an imperial subsidy
for the establishment of a city of philosophers in the same region. Not even a
careless reading of the works of Plotinus himself can be detected in this passage,
and we may reasonably presume that the animosity of Firmicus is inspired by
Porphyry’s tendentious paraphrase of his master’s animadversions on the use of
horoscopes. The logic of the invective is not easily deciphered, since Firmicus can
hardly mean to imply that had Plotinus spoken well of the stars they would have
treated him more kindly. If his argument is that Plotinus wrongly imagined that his
philosophy made him secure against all vicissitude, he forgets that the security to
which he aspired was not the control of external circumstances but the mastery of
the soul amid all adversity and privation, and that, according to Porphyry’s record,
he resigned his body at last with the same detachment that he had exhibited, to the
astonishment and admiration of others, in the course of his previous life.
Firmicus, who can also derive a testimony to the power of the stars from the
death of Socrates, makes no allusion to Christian detractors of astrology. The
omission is worthy of note, since he was writing in the last years of the Emperor
Constantine, who had imitated his predecessors in passing laws against the private
use of divination. No doubt he feared conspiracy as much as any pagan, but his
own theology taught him that such practices were sacrilegious, even when not
seditious, if they presupposed the subjection of the elements to mechanical laws,
since this belied the universal providence of God. If there is such a fatal ordinance,
he declares in his Oration to the Saints, it implies the existence of a lawgiver;
otherwise ‘fate’ is an arbitrary term that disguises our impotence and lack of
understanding (Oration 6). The tacit corollary of this imperial logic is that fate,
not chance, brought the present occupant to the throne, just as it is a corollary of
his argument for the oneness of God that the Roman state cannot prosper so long
as its government is divided (Oration 3). Firmicus, as we have seen, believes that
humans owe their capacity for knowledge to the presence of a spirit infused by
29
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 1.7.14 (Monat).
the deity who has fashioned them from the elements; at the same time, we have
also seen that he commends his Christian overlord not only to the hegemonic
God but to his deputies in the cosmos. He is justified by Constantine’s adoption
of his sons as heirs and Caesars, in the light of which his own prayer for the
eternal perpetuation of Roman rule will have seemed more timely than Lactantius’
remonstration against the pagan abuse of military power.
The flattery of Constantine seems chaste when we compare the praise that
is showered on him in the oration by Eusebius of Caesarea which celebrates
the thirtieth year since his accession, or with Lactantius’ acclamation of his
deliverance of the Church from persecution in the West. These two had been the
leading propagandists for Christianity in their respective tongues, each consciously
outdoing his precursors in the scope and erudition of his apologetic writings.
Salvoes against the errors and impostures of Porphyry punctuate Eusebius’
Preparation for the Gospel, since the biographer of Plotinus had also been (or
was supposed to have been) an assiduous detractor of the church. Lactantius,
rolling a blear eye over previous apologies in Latin, had commended his own
Divine Institutes as a work that aimed, not merely to vindicate his faith against
calumny, but to lay out a comprehensive system of conduct and belief. His other
works include a short treatise on the divine creation of humanity. Firmicus, as we
have seen, makes common cause with the church against Porphyry, while boasting
that his own digest of astrological lore is not only a manifesto but a manual. If
the lucubrations of his Christian contemporaries were familiar to him, he may
have hoped that his readers, on perceiving these similarities, would deduce that
the astrologer is as pious a subject and as sound a theist as the Christian, who is
flaunting ignorance under the guise of piety when he reproduces sceptical, and
sometimes godless, libels on the science of reading the future from the stars.
We must surely assume that Firmicus already had some knowledge of
Christian teaching, for it was only a few years later, perhaps in 345, that he wrote
a tract exhorting the emperors Constans and Constantius to suppress the ‘error
of profane religions’. This work betrays a clear – not to say intransigent – sense
of the incompatibility of Christianity with other cults; if at times he appears to
exaggerate the likeness, it is to demonstrate that one charge covers all, that the
follies of Egypt, Persia, Syria and Phrygia are all diabolic parodies of the gospel. It
is not enough to confess the God of Moses as our creator: it is Christ who brought
truth into the world, and the work ends with an account of our fall and his expiatory
suffering that would have satisfied any canon of orthodoxy in this epoch. As the
author of this text cannot be (in Christian nomenclature) a pagan, is it possible that
he thought of himself as a Christian when he published the Mathesis? We might
say that he puts himself outside the fold by acknowledging lesser gods, but the
worship of angels and divine lieutenants is an aberration commonly attributed to
heretics; there were, as we have seen, professing Christians who did not despise
astrology, and Firmicus does not repudiate it in his assault on the ‘errors of profane
religion’. On the other hand, when he sketches the ideal type of the astrologer in
the Mathesis, he insists that such a man is no patron of nocturnal cults:
Sit tibi uxor, sit tibi domus, sit honestorum amicorum copia, sit ad publicum
assiduus accessus, esto ab omnibus contentionibus separatus, nulla negotia
nociva suscipias, nec te aliquando pecuniae augmenta sollicitent … numquam
nocturnis sacrificiis intersis, sive illa publica sive privata dicantur.
You may have a wife, a home, an abundance of honourable friends, and be

accessible at all times to the public: but hold aloof from all contention, undertake
no harmful transaction, and let no financial enrichment ever seduce you ... never
be present at any nocturnal sacrifice, whether these be deemed public or private.30
Gatherings by night could be forbidden by any magistrate who feared that they
might be used to disguise conspiracy. Foreign cults were assumed to be peculiarly
apt to harbour enemies of the public weal, and Pliny, in his interrogation of
Bithynian Christians, found it necessary to ascertain the content of the oath that
they took before sunrise. Innocuous as this proved to be, his strictures on their
‘depraved superstition’ echo Livy’s report of a much earlier senatorial proceeding
against the Bacchanals, which purported to have found evidence of licentious
sexual congress and homicide under cover of darkness. Under Christian rule the
charge of treasonable assembly was more plausibly urged against a pagan sect,
perhaps most plausibly of all against those whom Firmicus would soon commend
to the vigilance of the heirs of Constantine.
Conscious that he is writing an institution, a work to instruct practitioners
and not merely to exculpate them, Firmicus pursues his encomium of the true
astrologer. Just as Cicero’s orator – vir bonus dicendi peritus – is a good man and
not merely an adroit one, so the man who studies the revolutions of the cosmos
must himself be a microcosm of all the virtues:
Oportet enim eum, qui cotidie de diis vel cum diis loquitur, animum suum ita
formare atque instruere, ut ad imitationem divinitatis semper accedat … Esto
pudicus, integer, parvo victu, parvis opibus contentus, ne istius divinae scientiae
gloriam ignobilis pecuniae cupiditas infamet. Dato operam, ut instituto ac
proposito tuo bonorum institutum ac propositum vincas sacerdotum; antistitem
enim solis et lunae et ceterorum deorum, per quos terrena omnia gubernantur,
sic oportet animum suum semper instruere, ut dignum esse tantis caerimoniis
omnium hominum testimoniis comprobetur.
For he who speaks every day about the gods or with the gods is under a duty
to form and instruct his mind so that it achieves the imitation of divinity at all
times. Be shamefast, upright, content with a slender diet and slender means,
lest a craving for base emoluments should sully the glory of that divine science.
Take pains to surpass the discipline and resolve of excellent priests by your own
discipline and resolve; for if a man is a minister of the sun, the moon and other
30
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 2.30.8 (Monat).
gods, through whom all things on earth are governed, it behoves him always to
cultivate that discipline of mind which will be deemed worthy of such offices by
the universal suffrage of humanity.31
Two questions arise here, neither of which is fairly addressed, let alone resolved,
by the author. How, if the stars afford an infallible augury of our futures when
we are born, can any human being take responsibility for his own character?
And why, even if we are free to elect our own virtues, should the astrologer
possess a higher measure of virtue than any other agent? As to the first we may
reasonably surmise that Firmicus, not being graced with any rare capacity for
hard or original thinking, simply accepted a conventional bifurcation between
our bodily or external lives, which cannot escape the tyranny of the elements,
and the inner life which each of us is free to cultivate in accordance with his
own strength and probity of will. If the philosopher crows that this concession
grants him the whole of his case, the astrologer can reply that he has not
conceded anything, that it is only the philosopher who has chosen to ignore the
protestations of Manilius and Ptolemy, and to assume that if the stars move all
that the soul perceives, they must predetermine the movements of the soul itself.
At the deathbed of the philosopher, as Firmicus portrays him, it is possible to
surmise, in answer to our second question, why the astrologer should be the
better man. Adversity took Plotinus by surprise because he had not learned what
was in his power and what he was doomed to suffer; the astrologer, who knows
this, has a perfect grasp of his soul because he wastes no labour on circumstances
that he cannot mend.
Most Platonists of this epoch held that the severance of external ties is a
precondition of inward freedom: a true disciple gives up public duty with all its
perquisites, while marriage should be undertaken only (as Porphyry told his affluent
wife) to propitiate one’s natal daemon. Firmicus, as our last quotation shows, is no
ascetic even in principle, since the astrologer’s creed requires him to accept with
equanimity the office or the household that are decreed for him by the stars. St
Paul concurs in forbidding neither marriage nor abundance to the minister of God,
though, in contrast to Firmicus, he claims for himself the liberty to embrace or
relinquish either. The dominant tradition of Christian teaching demands obedience
but not renunciation; obedience is impossible without faith, but faith itself, as a
spontaneous act of will, is bound to no peculiar dress or mode of life. The catholic
tradition had not yet found a way of reconciling any doctrine of predetermination
with the justice of God and human spontaneity; but its quarrel was as much with
Stoics and Gnostics as with the content of the Mathesis, and it was only in the
latter work (for all its polytheistic annotations) that a Christian could discover a
clear acknowledgement that God creates the body as an inseparable companion to
the soul:
31
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 2.30 (Monat).
Nam posteaquam perfectum hominem vitalis aura susceperit et posteaquam se

corpori spiritus divinae mentis infuderit, compositi corporis formam pro qualitate
cursus sui Luna sustentat … Fabricator enim hominis deus cum animal hoc divina
ac singulari artificii ratione componeret, inmortalis animi divinitatem mortalis ac
terreni corporis vinculis obligavit, ut animus extrinsecus intrinsecusque diffusus et
magnae cuiusdam necessitatis obligatus imperio caducam servientis sibi corporis
fragilitatem divinae potestatis licentia gubernaret.
For after the breath of life has occupied the human frame, and after the spirit
of the divine mind has infused itself into the body [cf. Genesis 2.7], the Moon
sustains the form of the composite body according to the character of her own
course ... For God in creating humanity, having composed this animal with divine
and extraordinary craftsmanship, restrained the divinity of the immortal mind in
the bonds of a mortal and earthly body, so that the mind, spread forth without
and within, restrained by the behest of some great necessity, might govern the
body, its frail and perishable servant, by permission of the divine power.32
Science and theology in the modern West are at one in their denial that psychic
functions can be exercised in the absence of a body, or that such an attenuated survival
is even to be desired. This position seems to give the lie to all philosophies which
maintain that we owe our freedom to the presence of some immaterial component,
and in the light of all that is known about the correlation of physical and mental
states, it is hard to see how a rigorous divorce between the affections of the body and
the choices of the soul can be sustained. Theories of astral determination – banished
from the academy if not from the home – have given way to talk of genetic templates,
firing neurones and electrochemical sequences, which, since they occur within the
agent, are felt to leave no place for any citadel of unconditioned freedom. On such
a view, the extrinsic coercion posited by the astrologer threatens to rob us even
of the vestigial freedom that might otherwise have escaped the chain of immanent
causation. Perhaps it is for the reason that (if Adorno is right33) our horoscopes are
commonly aimed at readers of middling status and mundane appetites, while the
astrologer himself, however lofty his pretensions, will hope to be judged by his
virtuosity rather than his virtues – not so much by the truth as by the perennial
shrewdness of his recipes for confidence and workaday success.
32
Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 4.1 (Cf. 2.13.6; 3.proem) (Monat).
33
Theodor Adorno, The Stars down to Earth, ed. Stephen Crook (London, 2001).
Chapter 3
Plotinus on Sensible Particulars
and Individual Essences
Riccardo Chiaradonna
Sensible Particulars and Ideas of Individuals: Plotinus’ Treatise 5.7 [18]
Plotinus’ views on particulars are famously connected with his answer to the
question as to whether there are any ideas of individuals. These are the first lines
of 5.7, On the Question Whether There are Ideas of Particulars: ‘Is there an idea
also of each particular thing (εἰ καὶ τοῦ καθέκαστόν ἐστιν ἰδέα)? Yes, if I and each
one of us have a way of ascent and return to the intelligible, the principle of each
of us is there’. The title assigned to this treatise is based on its incipit and may be
rather misleading.1 This short work consisting of three chapters in Ficinus’ divisio
textus does not actually deal with the theory of separate forms; the treatise instead
provides an account of sensible particulars which traces the individual nature of
each particular being (especially that of individual human beings, who are the
focus of the treatise) back to the causal power of the metaphysical principles of
soul and logos.2 Plotinus’ overall view bears some similarity to the Stoic theory
1
See on this Cristina D’Ancona, ‘“To Bring Back the Divine in Us to the Divine
in the All”, VP 2, 26–7 Once Again’, in T. Kobusch and M. Erler (eds), Metaphysik und
Religion. Zur Signatur des spätantiken Denkens (München – Leipzig, 2002), pp. 517–65.
The literature on 5.7 [18] is abundant. I will only mention two recent studies which provide
an overview of the debate so far and a penetrating discussion of the main issues: Gwenaëlle
Aubry, ‘Individuation, particularisation et détermination selon Plotin’, Phronesis 53
(2008): pp. 271–89 and Christian Tornau, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un individu? Unité, individualité
et conscience de soi dans la métaphysique plotinienne de l’âme’, Les études philosophiques
90 (2009): pp. 333–60. A useful survey can be found in Richard Sorabji, The Philosophy
of the Commentators, 200–600 AD, 3: Logic and metaphysics (Ithaca NY, 2005), pp. 362–
6. Translations from Plotinus are taken from Arthur H. Armstrong’s Loeb edition of the
Enneads, 7 vols (Cambridge MA, 1966–88), with some slight alterations. The Greek text
is that of Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer’s editio minor, 3 vols (Oxford, 1964–82).
2
The relation between soul and logoi is a famous crux of Plotinus’ metaphysics. For a
recent valuable account, see Paul Kalligas, ‘The Structure of Appearances: Plotinus on the
Constitution of Sensible Objects’, Philosophical Quarterly 61: pp. 762–82, esp. 770–71:
logos ‘appears basically to operate like a productive and organising force transmitting the
structural principles, embedded within every soul as a result of its contemplative activity
directed towards their intelligible archetypes in Nous, and then imposing them on matter in
of the ‘properly qualified (ἰδίως ποιόν)’, with the obvious difference that Plotinus
regards the nature of each individual as dependent on incorporeal principles.3
Yet it would certainly be wrong to claim that this treatise is entirely unconnected
with the question of whether there are any ideas of particulars: Plotinus, after all,
opens his short work by raising this problem. The puzzling fact remains, however,
that he does not really answer the question in what follows, but rather immediately
shifts the focus of his discussion from the ideas to the individual soul. In order to
propose a tentative answer to this problem, one should first realise that Plotinus’
opening question concerned a standard problem in debates on the theory of forms.
Thus, Alcinous reports that
... most Platonists do not accept that there are forms of artificial objects, such
as a shield or a lyre, nor of things that are contrary to nature, like fever or
cholera, nor of individuals, like Socrates and Plato (οὔτε τῶν κατὰ μέρος, οἷον
Σωκράτους καὶ Πλάτωνος), nor yet of any trivial thing, such as dirt or chaff, nor
of relatives, such as the greater or the superior.4
Controversies about the range of the ideas are famously as old as Platonism itself
and their presence within Plato’s Academy is well attested by Plato’s Parmenides
and Aristotle’s Metaphysics. By raising the opening question of his treatise, then,
Plotinus was simply posing once more a traditional Platonic school problem.5
If compared to the conventional start of the treatise, what follows appears
rather disconcerting. In fact, Plotinus does not provide any clear motivation for
acknowledging or denying that an idea exists for each particular (human) being.
Rather, he cursorily mentions one of the most characteristic and less conventional
theories of his, namely that each single human being is at least in principle capable
of ascending to the Intellect in virtue of the highest and un-descended part of his/
her soul. This theory (commonly known as the ‘theory of the un-descended soul’)
is emphatically stated in Plotinus’ treatise 4.8, which opens with a vivid (first-
person) description of the ‘mystical’ experience of the individual human being
the form of “commands” or “mandates” that bring together or alternatively keep apart the
various parts of the material substrate so as to inform it into distinct unitary and structured
bodily entities’.
3
For further details, see Aubry, ‘Individuation, particularisation et détermination’.
4
Alcinous Didaskalikos 9 (163 Hermann). See John Dillon, Alcinous. The Handbook
of Platonism, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, 1993), pp. 16 and
97–8 (my italics).
5
See on this Heinrich Dörrie and Matthias Baltes, Der Platonismus in der Antike 5
(Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1998), pp. 70–79 (texts) and 336–49 (commentary) = Bausteine
132.0–132.2b. A recent discussion can be found in Francesco Fronterotta, ‘De quoi il n’y
a certainement pas de formes? Une question platonicienne et ses réponses chez Alcinoos
et Plotin’, Études platoniciennes 8 (2011) [Les formes platoniciennes dans l’Antiquité
tardive]: pp. 43–52.
Plotinus on Sensible Particulars and Individual Essences 49
who ascends to the Intellect and shares its life and its supra-discursive cognitive
activity (4.8.1.1–11). Indeed, Plotinus does not claim to be original, but presents
his theory of the soul as an exegesis of Plato (4.8.1.23–50). Yet, he was well aware
that his interpretation was far from conventional and that others held different
views on the issue (see 4.8.8.1–3).6
In the lines of 5.7.1 that immediately follow those quoted above, Plotinus
overtly equates Socrates’ un-descended soul with the absolute ‘Socrates in itself’
that resides in the intelligible world (αὐτοσωκράτης, which clearly echoes the
expression αὐτοέκαστον in Aristotle, EN 1096a35). Roughly speaking, Plotinus
argues that each human being has a counterpart in the intelligible world (his/her
un-descended soul, whose metaphysical status is similar, if not identical, to that of
the forms):7 in this way, individuals also exist in the intelligible world. However,
Plotinus believes in reincarnation and argues that each highest soul can be shared
by several (but not simultaneously existing) empirical human beings or persons:
‘the soul that was formerly Socrates becomes different people at different times,
like Pythagoras or someone else’ (5.7.1.6–7).8 Several details remain extremely
obscure, but Plotinus’ overall view seems to be that different non-simultaneous
empirical individual incarnations of the same intelligible psychic principle are
possible because each intelligible soul possesses the formative principles (logoi)
of all particular living beings (5.7.1.8–10). Accordingly, the empirical existence of
an un-descended soul entails the activation of one of the logoi that it contains in
itself.9 Significantly, Plotinus rejects the idea that all individual human beings are
nothing but the material instantiations of a unique idea of human being (5.7.1.19–
21). Rather, he suggests that the whole structure of each individual should be seen
as the corporeal expression of an individual formative principle (logos):
There cannot be the same formative principle for different individuals, and one
human being will not serve as a model for several human beings differing from
6
This is, again, a much debated topic. For further details, see Cristina D’Ancona et
al., Plotino. La discesa dell’anima nei corpi (Enn. iv 8 [6]). Plotiniana arabica (Pseudo-
Teologia di Aristotele, capitoli 4 e 7; Detti del sapiente greco) (Padua, 2003) and Tornau,
‘Qu’est-ce qu’un individu?’.
7
On this, see again Tornau, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un individu?’.
8
Aubry, ‘Individuation, particularisation et détermination’, pp. 278–9 rightly
emphasises the problems raised by the theory or reincarnation for Plotinus’ account of
individuality. Plotinus famously claims that human souls can pass into irrational animals
and even plants: see 3.4.2.11–30.
9
In 5.7.1.12–13 and 5.7.3.13–18 Plotinus appears to be suggesting that the number
of the individual logoi is finite and that each logos allows for many instantiations in
consecutive world-periods. However, he also argues that infinity is not to be feared at the
level of intelligible principles (5.7.1.25–6 and 5.7.3.20–23).
each other only by reason of their matter but with a vast number of special
differences of form (ἰδικαῖς διαφοραῖς μυρίαις) (5.7.1.18–21).10
Each historical individual human being should, then, be conceived as the sensible
manifestation of an incorporeal formative principle which accounts for his/
her entire structure and not just for a limited set of properties (such as ‘biped’
or ‘rational’). This view is further developed in the following chapters 2 and 3.
As Plotinus argues in 5.7.3, the formative principles ‘are equal to the number of
individuals which are different, and different not by reason of failure [to dominate
the matter] on the side of the form’ (5.7.3.5–6). As I see it, the overall aim of
this short and highly aporetic treatise may easily be explained if we assume that
Plotinus attempts to recast a conventional school problem (the question of whether
there are any ideas of particulars) within the framework of his own metaphysics
(that is, his own interpretation of Plato).11 Thus, according to Plotinus, the school
question of whether there are any forms of individuals may be solved, at least as
far as human beings are concerned, by assuming: (i) that there is an intelligible
‘part’ of each human being (his/her highest ‘self’); (ii) that the overall structure of
each empirical individual or person associated with this intelligible counterpart in
the cycle of reincarnations should be traced back to the causal power of intelligible
formative principles (the logoi).
It is difficult to determine just how far Plotinus’ theory in 5.7 is intended to
account for the structure of all sensible particulars: as noted above, Plotinus’ focus
are human beings and he obviously regards their status as different from that of other
biological species (and even more so from that of artefacts).12 Yet some passages
suggest that Plotinus regarded his view according to which a formative principle
accounts for the whole structure of particulars as susceptible of being extended to
non-human particulars as well. Thus, in 5.7.3 he most interestingly suggests that
formative principles are equal in number to individuals. Plotinus explains that a
craftsman, while making things of the same sort, will apprehend their sameness
by means of a ‘logical difference’ (λογικῇ διαφορᾷ), according to which he will
10
For further details on the relation between logoi and individuals, see now James
Wilberding, ‘Intelligible Kinds and Natural Kinds in Plotinus’, Études platoniciennes 8
(2011) [Les formes platoniciennes dans l’Antiquité tardive]: pp. 53–73. As Wilberding
notes, ‘We might say that these logoi [i.e. the logoi of wholes, each one of which maps
onto exactly one sensible individual in the world] represent the maximally specific formal
descriptions of the bodies that an individual soul can take up on earth during one of these
world-periods’ (Wilberding, ‘Intelligible Kinds’, p. 66).
11
The scholastic, dialectic character of 5.7 is rightly emphasised in Franco Ferrari,
‘Esistono forme di καθ’ἕκαστα? Il problema dell’individualità in Plotino e nella tradizione
platonica antica’, Atti della Accademia di Scienze di Torino, Classe di Scienze Morali 131
(1997): pp. 23–63.
12
Plotinus’ scanty remarks on the status of artefacts are now investigated by Kalligas,
‘The Structure of Appearances’.
‘bring some difference’ to the sameness, when making each individual product of
his craft (5.7.3.7–10). Individual differences, then, are directly connected to the
craftsman’s purposeful work of creation. In a similar way, Plotinus argues that
differences among individual natural beings should be connected to their forms,
which depend on the causal activity of the logoi (5.7.3.10). According to this view,
the individual form of each individual should be seen as a further determination of
its specific form, so that each single thing comes to be determined by an individual
formal nature.
In Plotinus’ account, the causal role of matter tends to vanish and the whole
structure of particular sensible things is seen as a form dependent on intelligible
causes. Indeed, this leaves some very difficult questions open, for an account of
this sort tends to set all the properties of sensible particulars on the same level by
suggesting that they should all be traced back to the causal action of intelligible
formative principles. Accordingly, the status of properties such as ‘biped’ or
‘rational’ should be paralleled without qualification to that of properties such as
‘tall’ or ‘short’ (let alone properties such as ‘being in Athens’). What is lacking
in 5.7 is an account of the internal structure of sensible particulars: the bare
statement that their whole individual structure should be seen as depending on
the intelligible logoi appears as somewhat vague and unsatisfying. Just to give an
example, the view that all properties of sensible particulars depend on intelligible
formative principles can be developed in two radically different ways: either all
such properties are essential (thus, all properties would make up an individual
essential nature) or they are all accidental (for substance resides in logos and
particulars should then be conceived as bundles of inessential form copies).
Elsewhere Plotinus opts for the second hypothesis (see below), but 5.7 provides
no clear answer to this problem.
The Structure of Sensible Particulars in 2.6.2
In order to shed some light on these questions, it is worth comparing Plotinus’

account of particulars in 5.7 (treatise 18) with that presented in the immediately
preceding treatise, that is 2.6 (treatise 17) On Substance and Quality:
We ought not to call what are said to be essential completions of substance

qualities, seeing that those of them which come from the formative principles and
substantive powers are activities; we should call qualities only what are outside
all substance and do not appear in one place as qualities but in other things as
not qualities; they contain that which is extra and comes after substance, for
instance, virtues and vices, and uglinesses and beauties, and states of health, and
being of this and that shape.13
13
2.6.2.20–26: Ἢ ταύτας μὲν οὐ λεκτέον ποιότητας, ὅσαι λέγονται συμπληροῦν οὐσίας,
εἴπερ ἐνέργειαι αἱ αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων καὶ τῶν δυνάμεων τῶν οὐσιωδῶν ἰοῦσαι, ἃ δ’
The overall aim of this treatise is remarkably similar to that of 5.7. Again,
Plotinus recasts traditional problems and theories within the framework of his
philosophy. The discussion of the distinction between substance and quality was
a commonplace in post-Hellenistic philosophy and it was closely connected to
the interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories. Building on the previous tradition,
Plotinus develops a highly distinctive approach to the distinction between ousia
and poiotês; he connects this distinction to some key notions of his metaphysics,
such as the theory of intelligible substance and (again) the doctrine of formative
principles (logoi).14 The parallel with 5.7 is striking, but still scarcely noted by
scholars. However, a crucial difference subsists between the view developed in
2.6 and that of 5.7, since (unlike what happens in 5.7) in 2.6 Plotinus presents an
(indeed very sketchy and obscure) account of the internal structure of sensible
particulars, which involves the distinction between different types of properties.
Plotinus’ view on sensible particulars in 2.6 proceeds along the following lines.
He seems to regard sensible particulars as non-essential in their overall structure
(they lack essence and pure being: see 2.6.1.50–58); as such, sensible particulars
are opposed to the realm of intelligible essences, which should not be conceived
of as part of the corporeal world. Grosso modo, this stance may be traced back to
Plato’s views on sensible beings as entirely qualitative, a view especially developed
in the Timaeus.15 Plotinus, however, does not refer primarily to Plato’s Timaeus
when discussing the nature of sensible particulars in 2.6; rather, he employs a set
of notions that stem from the exegesis of Aristotle’s Categories. Significantly, the
mathematical background of Plato’s physics in the Timaeus (most notably, the
theory of atomic triangles) is not given any weight by Plotinus, who instead makes
extensive use of concepts related to the hylomorphic analysis of the physical
world and to the theory of predication.16 Here, as elsewhere, Plotinus develops
his overall ‘Platonist’ view using Aristotelian notions within a distinctively un-
Aristotelian framework. As we shall see, this is far from being a neutral move.
ἐστὶν ἔξωθεν πάσης οὐσίας οὐ πῂ μὲν ποιότητες, ἄλλοις δὲ οὐ ποιότητες φανταζόμεναι, τὸ δὲ

περιττὸν μετὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ἔχουσαι, οἷον καὶ ἀρεταὶ καὶ κακίαι καὶ αἴσχη καὶ κάλλη καὶ ὑγίειαι
καὶ οὕτως ἐσχηματίσθαι.
14
Further details in Riccardo Chiaradonna, ‘Ἐνέργειαι e qualità in Plotino. A
proposito di Enn. II 6 [17]’, in Walter Lapini, Luciano Malusa and Letterio Mauro (eds),
Gli antichi e noi. Studi dedicati a Antonio Mario Battegazzore (Genua, 2009), pp. 443–59.
For the parallel with Porphyry, see below.
15
See Plato, Timaeus, 49 c ff. For further discussion, one need only refer to Allan
Silverman, The Dialectic of Essence. A Study of Plato’s Metaphysics (Princeton, 2002),
pp. 218–84 (‘The Nature of Material Particulars’). More recently, see Marwan Rashed,
‘Il Timeo: negazione del principio di necessità condizionale, matematica e teodicea’, in
Riccardo Chiaradonna and Mario De Caro (eds), Il platonismo e le scienze (Rome, 2012),
pp. 65–9.
16
See Riccardo Chiaradonna, ‘Plotinus’s metaphorical reading of the Timaeus: Soul,
mathematics, providence’, in Pieter d’Hoine and Gerd Van Riel (eds), Fate, Providence,
and Moral Responsibility, Festschrift Carlos Steel (Leuven, forthcoming).
Plotinus refers to the distinction between qualities that are ‘essential

completions of substance’ (in Plotinus’ words, ὅσαι λέγονται συμπληροῦν
οὐσίας) and mere accidental qualities. Such a distinction ultimately derives from
Aristotle’s bipartition of qualities in Metaphysics 5.14.1020b13–17 and was
widely used in the ancient commentary literature on Aristotle’s Categories. The
verb συμπληροῦν is closely connected to the adjective συμπληρωτικός, which was
used by commentators in order to denote features, such as specific differences, that
‘complete’ or ‘essentially constitute’ Aristotelian substances (that is, both specific
forms and the particulars under them). Such use is rather ancient and Simplicius
On Categories (CAG VIII.48.2–11 Kalbfleisch) attests that Lucius – a very
enigmatic exegete who possibly lived around the first century BC – was already
acquainted with it.17 This terminology points to a (roughly) ‘mereological’ idea:
substances are conceived of as composed of ‘parts’ (whose status is actually far
from clear), without which they could not be what they are; such ‘parts’ constitute
substances and should, in turn, be regarded as substances.18 As Porphyry puts
it in On Categories (CAG IV/1.95.33 Busse), τὰ συμπληρωτικὰ … τῶν οὐσιῶν
οὐσίαι. Sumplêrôtika characters are, then, definitionally predicated of particulars
belonging to a species and particular substances are what they are in virtue of
their constituent features. To take an all too conventional example, the specific
differences ‘rational’ and ‘biped’ are constituent parts of particulars belonging
to the species ‘human being’. Qualities such as ‘white’ or ‘tall’, instead, merely
qualify de facto particular human beings, who are essentially determined by their
constituent essential features. Intermediate cases also exist such as propria or per
se accidents, but these may be ignored in the present cursory discussion.19
Plotinus, then, refers to the school distinction between ‘constituent properties’
and ‘mere qualities’ in the lines quoted above. Furthermore, he connects this
distinction to the formative causal action of the logos. In 2.6.2.20–21, Plotinus
argues that constituents should not be regarded as qualities (ταύτας οὐ λεκτέον
ποιότητας, ὅσαι λέγονται συμπληροῦν οὐσίας), the reason being that such features,
which stem from the logoi and the essential powers, are activities (εἴπερ ἐνέργειαι
αἱ αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων καὶ τῶν δυνάμεων τῶν οὐσιωδῶν ἰοῦσαι). Unfortunately,
the Greek in this sentence is far from clear. As noted by Henry and Schwyzer
in the apparatus, ἐνέργειαι is predicate, αἱ … ἰοῦσαι is subject and the genitive
17
See John Ellis, ‘Alexander’s Defense of Aristotle’s Categories’, Phronesis 39
(1994): pp. 69–89.
18
See Jonathan Barnes, Porphyry. Introduction, Translated, with a Commentary
(Oxford, 2003), pp. 148–50, 180. The adagium according to which ‘parts of substances
are substances’ has a crucial (though somewhat ambiguous) position in Alexander of
Aphrodisias’ theory of sensible substance: see on this Marwan Rashed, Essentialisme:
Alexandre d’Aphrodise entre logique, physique et cosmologie (Berlin and New York, 2007),
pp. 42–52.
19
For a survey of these thorny issues, see Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators
200–600 AD: A Sourcebook 3: Logic and metaphysics, pp. 111–20.
αὐτῶν should be regarded as partitive. Both in the maior and in the minor edition,
Henry and Schwyzer hold that this partitive refers to ταύτας. If this were the case,
Plotinus would be arguing that essential constituents should not be regarded as
qualities because, among these constituents (αὐτῶν as a partitive referring to
ταύτας), those which come from the logoi and essential powers are activities.
Armstrong’s translation quoted above remains ambiguous: αἱ αὐτῶν is rendered as
‘those of them’, but what ‘them’ might refer to is not clear. Henry and Schwyzer’s
interpretation is, in my view, very unlikely, since Plotinus does not aim to isolate
a subset within the ‘essential completions of substance’. Rather, he aims to draw a
contrast between ‘essential completions’ and ‘mere qualities’ as two different kinds
of features. If this is the case, the partitive αὐτῶν cannot but refer to ποιότητας:
what Plotinus is arguing is that we should not regard as qualities those, among
qualities (αἱ αὐτῶν), which are said to complete substances (that is, particular
substances) and are actually activities that come from the logoi. Accordingly, I
suggest the following emendation be made to Henry and Schwyzer’s apparatus
ad loc.: ‘αὑτῶν (genetiuus partitiuus ad ταύτας)’ should be replaced with ‘αὑτῶν
(genetiuus partitiuus ad ποιότητας)’.
To sum up: in 2.6 Plotinus elaborates an overall ‘Platonist’ view on the status
of sensible particulars: their properties should not be regarded as essences; rather,
they are qualitative, non-essential copies that come from the intelligible formative
principles (the logoi). There is, however, an internal distinction within sensible
qualities, so that constituent qualities (that is, those qualities that should actually
not be regarded as qualities) are opposed to the other features. As Plotinus puts
it in 2.6.2.24–6, accidental qualities ‘contain that which is extra and comes after
substance, for instance, virtues and vices, and uglinesses and beauties, and states
of health, and being of this and that shape’. Plotinus, then, holds at the same time
that sensible particulars are integrally qualitative and that some of their qualitative
features (that is, those that come from the intelligible formative principles) are
‘more important’ than others. In her recent account, Pauliina Remes has lucidly
expressed this line of thought. As she remarks, Plotinus
... distinguishes properties that he calls ‘completions of essence’ … from

qualities … Completions are those properties without which the entity would
not be that (particular kind of) entity that it is. Qualities are either properties
that in some other particular could be completing properties but are not that in
the particular in question, or mere qualities, namely properties that are never
completions (2.6.2). In the end, then, there are properties in the conglomerate
that are vital to the explanation of what makes this particular the thing it is, and
therefore have a privileged status.20
20
Pauliina Remes, Plotinus on Self. The Philosophy of the ‘We’ (Cambridge, 2007),
p. 39.
Remes’ terminology is interesting: she treats ‘properties’ as a genus term, whose

species are ‘completing properties’ and ‘qualities’. Plotinus is much less precise.
As noted above, the Greek text can safely be interpreted in the following way: we
should not regard as qualities those, among qualities (hai autôn), which complete
substances and come from the formative principles. There is no genus concept
of property, therefore. Instead, Plotinus opposes two subsets of qualities, that
is, ‘qualities (note the use of the feminine tautas […] hosai at 2.6.2.20) that are
not correctly regarded as qualities’ (since they are the completions of particular
substances) and ‘qualities in the proper sense’. Such reading entails an obvious
predicament: how can completing characters be at the same time part of the genus
‘quality’ and intrinsically non-qualitative?
A passage from 6.1 is illuminating in this respect. According to Plotinus,
‘the specific differences which distinguish substances in relation to each other
are qualities in an equivocal sense, being rather activities and rational formative
principles, or parts of formative principles’ (6.1.10.20–22).21 There are slight
differences in terminology between the two passages, but their overall sense is
identical. As Plotinus puts it in 6.1.10, specific differences can only be regarded
as qualities equivocally (homonymously: see Aristotle, Categories 1a1–6).
Accordingly, they only bear the name of ‘qualities’, but do not share the nature
of qualities in the proper sense, since they determine essence and are activities
or rational formative principles. Arguments such as this frequently recur in the
Enneads. For example, in 6.3.8.30–37, Plotinus argues that ‘sensible substance’
is actually no ‘substance’ at all (more on that below); in 6.6.17.25, he claims
that intelligible geometrical forms are actually ‘without form’ (ἀσχημάτιστα: see
Plato, Phaedrus 247 c). Plotinus, then, applies the same term to the members
of a metaphysical distinction with the proviso that one of them is ‘that thing’
equivocally. Accordingly, completing qualities are ‘equivocally’ qualities; sensible
substances are ‘equivocally’ substances; and intelligible geometrical forms are
‘equivocally’ geometrical. If this is correct, the overall meaning of 2.6.2.19 ff.
becomes reasonably clear. Plotinus implicitly suggests that the notion of ‘quality’
may be taken in both a broad and a narrow sense.22 In a broad sense, all immanent
properties of sensible particulars are qualities (and differ, as such, from intelligible
essences). In a narrow sense, however, only accidental properties may be regarded
as qualities, since they are ‘outside all substance’ (2.6.2.23). Completing characters
21
Αἱ δὲ διαφοραὶ αἱ πρὸς ἀλλήλας τὰς οὐσίας διιστᾶσαι ὁμωνύμως ποιότητες, ἐνέργειαι
οὖσαι μᾶλλον καὶ λόγοι ἢ μέρη λόγων.
22
Here I follow George Karamanolis, ‘Plotinus on quality and immanent form’, in
Riccardo Chiaradonna and Franco Trabattoni (eds), Physics and Philosophy of Nature
in Greek Neoplatonism (Leiden, 2009) pp. 79–100, at p. 97: ‘Plotinus appears to operate
with a narrow and wide sense of quality. In a wide sense all features of a sensible x are
qualities. In a narrow and strict sense, however, only accidental features are qualities, while
immanent Forms, as the results of the activity of λόγοι, contribute to the coming to being
of something’.
are instead activities that come from the essential formative principle. They are
‘differences’ which determine the nature of sensible particulars and are not truly
qualities: they are only ‘homonymously’ so. Accordingly, among qualities (in the
broad sense), completions are not truly qualities, but activities.
The status of accidental qualities is not exempt of difficulties either. In
2.6.2.22–6 Plotinus argues that qualities in the narrow sense do not appear in some
things as qualities but in others as non-qualities. Significantly, some lines above
(2.6.1.18–23 and 36–8), Plotinus apparently follows a different line of thought
and raises the hypothesis that the same ‘thing’ (τὸ αὐτό) may be a difference,
in those things in which it completes a substance, and an accidental quality, in
those things in which it does not complete it. The same hypothesis appears at
2.6.2.3–5, where Plotinus asks whether we are to assume that the same thing (τὸ
αὐτό) may sometimes (ὁτὲ μέν, 2.6.2.3) be qualitative while at other times (ὁτὲ
δέ, 2.6.2.4) essentially completing a substance. As noted above, lines 2.6.2.20–
26 give a definitively negative answer to this question: completing qualities and
simple qualities are treated as two mutually exclusive sets. This is a different
conclusion from that of lines 2.6.1.18–23 and 36–8 and is reaffirmed at 2.6.3.24–9,
where Plotinus claims that one and the same thing cannot be both a quality and
a non-quality. It is indeed possible to propose a tripartition of qualities among:
(a) completing qualities (that is, ‘biped’ or ‘rational’); (b) qualities that in some
things are completing and in others are merely qualitative (for example, ‘hot’ or
‘white’); and (c) qualities that can only be outside substance (virtues and vices and
so on). This is a plausible solution and the examples used by Plotinus may lend
some support to it. The most one can say for sure, however, is that Plotinus does
not develop this issue adequately in treatise 2.6, and this fact (among other things)
shows how tentative and dialectical his enquiry really is. That Plotinus’ discussion
is aporetic is further demonstrated by the fact that at 2.6.2.23–6 he does not clearly
explain where merely qualitative features (those ‘outside all substance’) come
from. These features are opposed to those constituent ones which are activities
stemming from the logoi, yet Plotinus does not openly state that mere qualities
have a different origin, or suggest what this origin may be.
Sensible Particulars as Non-substantial Wholes: 6.3.8
Let us get back now to ‘completing qualities’. As noted above, such qualities
were conceived of in the Aristotelian tradition as the ‘constituents’ of sensible
particulars, as they make sensible substances the (kind of) entities that they are. In
virtue of their constituents, sensible particulars are essentially determined and are
the ultimate subjects of predication for their accidental properties. The theory of
completing qualities points, then, to a Peripatetic account of sensible particulars
as consisting of matter and endowed with essences. For example, Porphyry (apud
Simplicius, On Cateogries 48.21–4 [Kalbfleisch = 55F Smith]) argues (against
Lucius) that ‘white’ ‘in the case of snow is not in a subject, but completes the
substance as a part and is rather a subject according to the substance’.23 As shown

by Frans A.J. de Haas, Porphyry’s response is likely to be based on (or at least
connected to) Alexander of Aphrodisias’ reaction to Lucius; it may safely be
concluded that the notion of ‘completing qualities’ points to an ‘essentialistic’
view on the status of sensible particulars.24
What we know of Plotinus’ views on sensible particulars, however, plainly
contradicts this overall account. Plotinus usually regards sensible particulars as
non-essential in their overall structure. As he points out, the hylomorphic form is
‘dead’, that is, it lacks any causal power. ‘As such’ (that is, as sensible), sensible
particulars are mere collections of parts with no internal unifying and explanatory
principle. Interestingly, Plotinus regards the composite of matter and immanent
form as a mere ‘adorned corpse’ (2.4.5.18; see also 3.8.2.32).25 Conclusions such
as these raise several questions as to the status of sensible particulars. Plotinus
connects their non-essential status to their extension in space and time. While
intelligible causes such as the soul are fully determined as ‘one in number’ (see
4.3.8.22–3; 6.5.1.1), sensible particulars are ‘flowing’ and, as such, they are
divisible into extended parts and do not remain identical to themselves across time.
As Remes puts it, the ‘permanence of individual objects is permanence in a flux’.26
Indeed, properties such as ‘biped’ might be thought to have a significantly different
status from properties such as ‘tall’ or ‘fat’. Yet, given Plotinus’ overall account
of sensible particulars as non-essential in their overall structure, it is extremely
difficult to equate even ‘biped’ with a completion of substance. At any rate, since
there is no sensible substance here, it is inappropriate to talk of ‘completions of
(sensible) substances’. Rather, it may safely be assumed that all properties of
sensible particulars are non-substantial copies of forms, which depend on extra-
physical causal principles. According to such a view, sensible particulars should
not be regarded as substances, but as mere bundles of form-copies.
Plotinus’ statements are ambiguous to say the least: he claims that sensible
entities should not be seen as substances (see 2.6.1.51–2); yet, at the same time,
23
See Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200–600 AD, 3: Logic and
metaphysics, p. 115 (trans. by F.A. J. de Haas).
24
See Frans A.J. de Haas, John Philoponus’ New Definition of Prime Matter: Aspects
of its Background in Neoplatonism and the Ancient Commentary Tradition (Leiden, 1997),
p. 203. The reference study on Alexander’s views concerning substance and essence is
Rashed, Essentialisme.
25
These two passages are now discussed extensively in Denis O’Brien, ‘Plotinus on
the Making of Matter Part II: “A Corpse Adorned” (Enn. II 4 [12] 5.18)’, International
Journal of the Platonic Tradition 5 (2011): pp. 209–61.
26
Remes, Plotinus on Self, p. 46; see her overall account of sensible particulars as
‘flowing’ at pp. 35 ff. Plotinus’ theory about the ‘mode of existence’ proper to sensible
beings is now investigated by Vincenzo De Risi, ‘Plotino e la Rivoluzione Scientifica.
La presenza delle Enneadi nell’epistemologia leibniziana dello spazio fenomenico’, in
Riccardo Chiaradonna (ed.), Il Platonismo e le scienze (Rome, 2012), pp. 143–63.
he establishes a hierarchy between ‘completing’ and ‘accidental’ properties which

points to a different overall view. Problems become even more complex if we
compare the view on logos presented in 2.6 with that in 5.7. While in 2.6 Plotinus
only regards constituent properties as activities depending on the logos, in 5.7
he apparently conceives of logoi as causally responsible for the whole structure
of sensible particulars. It would be very implausible to solve these predicaments
by postulating some development in Plotinus’ thought, since the two treatises 2.6
and 5.7 are chronologically contiguous and an ambiguity of this sort remains in
Plotinus’ later works. As noted above, in the investigation on quality in 6.1.10,
Plotinus puts forward the same distinction (essential differences are opposed
to mere qualities). The third treatise On the Genera of Being (6.3), however,
further develops the enquiry on sensible substance and Plotinus stresses its non-
essential character with all desirable clarity.27 Here Plotinus argues that sensible
particulars should be regarded as mere conglomerations of matter and qualities
(συμφόρησίς τις ποιοτήτων καὶ ὕλης: 5.3.8.20); the distinction between completing
and accidental qualities is therefore rejected. It is worth quoting these lines in full:
I do not mean this in the sense than when it (i.e., a feature) is there with the
others it is substance, completing one mass of a particular size and quantity, but
elsewhere when it is not contributing to completion it is a quality, but that even in
the former case each particular (feature) is not a substance, but the whole made
up from them all is substance. And there is no need to object if we make sensible
substance out of non-substances; for even the whole is not true substance but
imitates the true substance …28
Plotinus criticises the view according to which the same feature in some things
can be regarded as a completion of substance (when it ‘completes’ the substantial
subject as a constitutive part) and in other things not. As noted above, the same
view is rejected in 2.6.2.20–26 and 2.6.3.24–29. Yet in 5.3.8 Plotinus provides
an interesting explanation for this fact, which actually suppresses all distinction
between completing features and mere qualities. As he puts it in 6.3.8, even in
the former case (μηδὲ ἐκεῖ, that is, even in the case of ‘completing’ features),
each single feature is not substance; rather, ‘the whole made of them all (τὸ ὅλον
τὸ ἐκ πάντων) is substance’. In 2.6.2 completing qualities are conceived of as
activities, which come from the intelligible formative principles; as such, they are
27
Klaus Wurm, Substanz und Qualität. Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation der plotinischen
Traktate VI 1, 2 und 3 (Berlin and New York, 1973) is still fundamental on this. For a more
recent account, see Riccardo Chiaradonna, Sostanza movimento analogia. Plotino critico
di Aristotele (Naples, 2002).
28
6.3.8.27–32: Καὶ οὐ τοῦτό φημι, ὡς ἐκεῖ μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων ὄν οὐσία, συμπληροῦν
ἕνα ὄγκον τοσόνδε καὶ τοιόνδε, ἀλλαχοῦ δὲ μὴ συμπληροῦν ποιόν, ἀλλὰ μηδὲ ἐκεῖ ἕκαστον
οὐσίαν, τὸ δ’ ὅλον τὸ ἐκ πάντων οὐσίαν. Καὶ οὐ δυσχεραντέον, εἰ τὴν οὐσίαν τὴν αἰσθητὴν ἐξ
οὐκ οὐσιῶν ποιοῦμεν· οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸ ὅλον ἀληθὴς οὐσία, ἀλλὰ μιμούμενον τὴν ἀληθῆ.
opposed to mere qualities (qualities in the proper sense). In 5.7 Plotinus adopts a
different approach and regards all features of sensible particulars as depending on
intelligible formative principles; yet he does not explain whether these features
should be regarded as essential or not. In 6.3.8 Plotinus instead very clearly
argues that if ‘sensible substance’ is the holon resulting from all of its features,
and no clear distinction is drawn between completing and accidental qualities, the
reason is that sensible ‘substance’ is integrally non-substantial. Rather, it is a mere
qualitative imitation of ‘true’ substance. As he claims in 6.3.15.29–31: ‘… the
formative principle of human being is the being a “something” (τι), but its product
in the nature of body, being an image of the form, is rather a sort of “something
like” (ποιόν τι)’. The distinction between the ‘something’ (τι) and the ‘something
like’ (ποιόν τι) ultimately derives from Plato’s Timaeus (49d–e) and Seventh Letter
(343b–c). Again, Plotinus makes rather free use of such authoritative notions in
order to convey his overall ideas about the non-substantial status of immanent,
hylomorphic form as opposed to that of the rational formative principle.
One may legitimately wonder whether the view developed in 2.6 is consistent
with that of 6.3.8. In a previous contribution on this topic, I argued that the two
views are mutually inconsistent, that 6.3.8 gives us Plotinus’ last word on the
status of sensible particulars and that he was well aware of the fact that he was
rejecting his former view on the issue.29
However, I would be more wary here of adopting a ‘developmentalist’
interpretation of Plotinus. As noted above, the distinction between completing
qualities and qualities in the proper sense does not only occur in 2.6.2. In 6.1.10
Plotinus draws a very close distinction between differences and mere qualities.
6.1 is simply the first part of a single treatise that also includes 6.2 and 6.3 and it
is highly implausible to suppose that the development of Plotinus’ philosophical
ideas may be traced within a single treatise. Furthermore, as noted above, the
notion according to which sensible particular substances are not true substances,
but mere imitations of their essential principles, is not neglected at all in 2.6.
In 2.6, Plotinus employs the distinction between completing and accidental
qualities in order to shed light on the internal structure of a non-substantial whole.
This seems to be the overall aim of 2.6.2. Such an attempt, however, is open to
some objections and could ultimately be seen as self-contradictory, since the
existence of completing qualities strongly suggests the idea according to which
29
See 6.2.14.14–22, but the interpretation of these lines is very controversial. The
status quaestionis may be found in Chiaradonna, Sostanza movimento analogia, p. 140 note
167. More recent discussions include Christoph Helmig, ‘Die atmende Form in der Materie
– Einige Überlegungen zum ἔνυλον εἶδος in der Philosophie des Proklos’, in Matthias
Perkams and Rosa Maria Piccione (eds), Proklos: Methode, Seelenlehre, Metaphysik
(Leiden, 2006), pp. 259–78 at pp. 265–6 and Laurent Lavaud, D’une métaphysique à
l’autre: figures de l’altérité dans la philosophie de Plotin (Paris, 2008), pp. 102–3, who
provide interesting critical remarks against my previous reading. I hope to come back to
this issue in a future contribution.
sensible particulars are endowed with essence. But this plainly conflicts with
Plotinus’ view on the non-essential status of sensible substances. As I see it, this
is the reason why in 6.2.14 and 6.3.8 Plotinus argues that the overall structure of
sensible entities is a qualitative imitation of their essential principles. Accordingly,
no really constitutive property exists and sensible particulars should be conceived
of as integrally qualitative wholes. As a matter of fact, Plotinus’ notion of an
integrally qualitative bundle leads him to equate (for example, in particular human
beings) the status of a difference such as ‘biped’ to that of qualities such as ‘tall’.
But this is a troublesome conclusion and Plotinus hesitates to give up the idea
that sensible particulars have an internal structure, where some qualities have a
privileged status.
The ‘Ambivalent’ Legacy of Aristotle’s Hylomorphism:

Plotinus and Porphyry
As I see it, Plotinus’ views on sensible particulars cannot escape such difficulties:
either he conceives of sensible particulars as endowed with an internal structure,
which corresponds to a hierarchical order among their properties (but this comes to
be too close to the notion of ‘essential property’, and according to Plotinus sensible
particulars are not endowed with essences), or he conceives of sensible particulars
as integrally qualitative wholes, where completing and extrinsic properties cannot
be opposed (but this apparently jeopardises an adequate account of sensible
particulars, where some properties are more ‘important’ than others). I must admit
that I cannot find any adequate solution to this predicament within Plotinus’ way
of reasoning. As I see it, such problems closely depend on the fact that Plotinus
makes use of Aristotelian hylomorphic concepts in order to express a radically
different philosophical view drawn from Plato (and especially the Timaeus): that
according to which sensible particulars are nothing but degradations of higher,
supra-sensible causal principles.
In drawing towards a conclusion, I would like to briefly compare Plotinus’
views on sensible particulars to those of Porphyry. In two famous passages
from the Isagoge and the short On Categories Porphyry regards individuals as
combinations of proper features or qualities (ἄθροισμα ἰδιοτήτων, Porphyry,
Isagoge 7.22 [Busse]; συνδρομή ποιοτήτων, Porphyry, On Categories [CAG
IV/1.129.10 Busse]). This theory raises several problems and has been the focus of
much research.30 I will not dwell on it; rather I only wish to note some similarities
and differences between Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s views. Both philosophers regard
30
See Riccardo Chiaradonna, ‘La teoria dell’ individuo in Porfirio e l’ἰδίως ποιόν
stoico’, Elenchos 20 (2000): pp. 303–31; more recently, Michael Chase, ‘Individus et
description. Contribution à une histoire du problème de la connaissance des individus dans
la philosophie néoplatonicienne’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 95
(2011): pp. 3–36.
particulars as ‘bundles’ of properties. Certainly, a close parallel may be drawn

between Plotinus’ statement in 5.7.1.21 (according to which each individual
human being is determined by ‘a vast number of special differences of form’)
and Porphyry’s claim that each individual human being should be seen as a
‘conglomeration of properties’. In both cases, it is easy to detect an echo of the Stoic
ἰδίως ποιόν: as a matter of fact, a fragment from Porphyry’s lost commentary on
the Categories Ad Gedalium reports that he openly compared Aristotle’s particular
substances in the Categories to the Stoic ‘properly qualified’: see Simplicius, On
Categories (CAG VIII.48.11–15 Kalbfleisch = 55F Smith). These similarities
notwithstanding, some crucial differences should be noted. In the present paper I
aimed to show that Plotinus’ views on particulars are part of his account of sensible
substances as ontic degradations of intelligible formative principles. This overall
theory accounts for Plotinus’ complex and somewhat ambivalent approach to the
problem of essential properties. Porphyry’s philosophical framework is different,
since he accepts Aristotle’s hylomorphism without qualification as an account of
the physical world.31 The crucial metaphysical problem which shapes Plotinus’
discussion of these issues (that is, how physical hylomorphism may hold within
an overall ‘Platonist’ metaphysics according to which sensible particulars are
nothing but degradations of higher essential principles) is apparently not raised by
Porphyry. In consequence of this, the distinction between essential and accidental
properties is never questioned by Porphyry, who through his view on individuals
aims to solve the problem of the principium individuationis within an overall
Aristotelian account of substance and predication.32
31
For more details on this, see Riccardo Chiaradonna, ‘Porphyry and Iamblichus on
Universals and Synonymous Predication’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica
medievale 18 (2007): pp. 123–40.
32
The present account of Porphyry’s view is indebted to Lloyd, Anatomy, pp. 43–
7. On Porphyry’s treatment of differences and completing qualities, see Concetta Luna,
Simplicius. Commentaire sur les Catégories d’Aristote. Chapitres 2–4 (Paris, 2001), pp.
236–7.
Chapter 4
Logico-grammatical Reflections about
Julie Brumberg-Chaumont
The problem of individuality has been addressed in fields as diverse as philosophy,

patristic studies and grammar. The idea of an individual property has been seen
as a key concept by many ancient thinkers. One of the most influential theories of
this kind has been the Stoic notion of a ‘peculiar (or particular) quality’, a model
that has experienced an important and ongoing tradition in grammar,1 compared
with other areas of knowledge. The description of the signification of proper
nouns (or ‘names’ in the Stoic terminology) has often been considered as a guide
for a philosophical or theological inquiry into the notion of individuality.2 This
chapter will therefore illuminate ideas about individuality in late ancient thought
by focussing on this Stoic concept and on its ‘avatar’, the Porphyrian theory
of the unique combination of properties, as received in semantic contexts, and
especially in grammatical texts, Apollonius Dyscolus and Priscian in particular.
Since the Stoic, Peripatetic and Porphyrian theories of individuality have been
the subject of several excellent and recent studies,3 I will provide a brief overview
1
‘The grammarian has kept this Stoic notion alive and well helped by the fact that
the basic analysing of things as something with a quality was also acceptable to ancient
Platonists’, S. Ebbesen, ‘The Traditions of Ancient Logic-cum-Grammar in the Middle
Ages – What’s the Problem?’, Vivarium 49 (2007): pp. 136–52, at p. 149.
2
As seen in recent studies on Basil’s theory of proper names: D.G. Robertson ‘A
patristic theory of Proper names’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 84 (2002): pp.
1–19 (‘[Basil’s theory] deals with the meaning of proper names, mixing in ideas from
metaphysical theory of individuation’, p. 11) and P. Kalligas, ‘Basil of Caesarea on Proper
Name’, in Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources, ed. K. Ierodiakonou (Oxford,
2002), pp. 31–48. Unfortunately, these papers do not take into account the possible late
dating of the Technè, and are mostly interested in a comparison with the modern theory of
proper names as ‘rigid designators’, ‘abbreviated descriptions’ and so on. D.G. Robertson
compares Basil especially to Stoics and to grammarians on the one hand, and to Kripke and
Searle on the other hand, rather than to Porphyry, and consequently finds in Basil a new,
unheard of, theory of the descriptive content of a concept arrived at by the hearer when
coming across a name (p. 14).
3
See, for instance, R. Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality,
Life, and Death (Chicago, 2006); R. Chiaradonna, ‘Porphyry and Iamblichus on Universals
and Synonymous Predication’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 18
of the authors concerned, underlining some important distinctions (individuality/

individuation, peculiar quality/bundle of properties, properties/accidents), for
a better understanding of the proper contribution of grammatical texts. Stress
will also be laid on Boethius’ notion of platonity, establishing a clear contrast
between late ancient notions of individuality with the properly medieval doctrine
of ‘individuation by accidents’.
This approach has the broader implication that the interactions between
grammar and philosophy need to be taken into account for a full understanding of
intellectual developments during this period and beyond.
Introduction
Interactions Between Grammar and Philosophy: Historical Framework
As noted by Luhtala in the introduction to her book, Grammar and Philosophy

in Late Antiquity,4 the study of the relationships between technical grammar and
philosophy in late antiquity has been revolutionised by the now generally adopted5
late dating of the Technè grammatiké attributed to Dionysius Thrax: the central
period has moved from the Hellenistic context to that of the Imperial Age and late
antiquity. While Apollonius Dyscolus’ works become a landmark in this history,
the full canonisation of technical grammar is now thought to have happened during
the fourth century. As for Priscian’s Grammatical Institutions, they are dated to the
beginning of the sixth century.
(2007): pp. 123–40; ‘La teoria dell’individuo in Porfirio e l’ἰδίως ποιόν stoico’, Elenchos
XXI/2 (2000): pp. 303–31; M. Rashed, ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias on Particulars and the
Stoic Criterion of Identity’, in R.W. Sharples (ed.), Particulars in Greek Philosophy: The
Seventh S.V. Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy (Leiden, 2010), pp. 157–79; M.
Chase, ‘Individus et description. Contribution à une histoire du problème de la connaissance
des individus dans le néoplatonisme’, Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques
95 (2011): pp. 123–40. See also the overview of the problem proposed by J. Zachhuber in
his contribution in the present volume: ‘Individuality and the Theological Debate about
“hypostasis”’.
4
A. Luhtala, Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Amsterdam, 2005), pp.
1–10.
5
First argued by V. Di Benedetto, ‘Dioniso Trace e la Techne a lui attributa’, Annali
della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (Pisa, 1958), pp. 169–210 and Annali della Scuola
Normale Superior di Pisa (Pisa, 1959), pp. 87–118. See J. Lallot, La Grammaire de Denys le
Thrace (Paris, 1998) (2nd edition), pp. 20–26 and F. Ildefonse’s hypothesis in La Naissance
de la Grammaire dans l’Antiquité grecque (Paris, 1997), pp. 448ff. (the Techne is seen as a
late adaptation of Dionysius of Thrax’s Precepts elaborating on the teaching of Apollonius
and Herodianus).
Logico-grammatical Reflections About Individuality in Late Antiquity 65
This shift in chronology means that continuous interactions6 and a variety

of philosophical influences have to be taken into account; Luhtala wrote of
‘Hellenistic syncretism’,7 and Ebbesen, more recently, of ‘Logical LAS’ (Logical
Late Ancient Standard) corresponding to the ‘Grammatical LAS’.8 Applying this
new framework to Greek grammarians in the Apollonian tradition9 raises the
possibility that the doctrinal elements they received from the Hellenistic period
(especially from Stoicism) were already ‘contaminated’ by later influences, Medio-
platonism,10 Peripateticism and then, after Apollonius Dyscolus, Porphyry and
Neoplatonism in general.11 The present chapter represents a step in this direction:
I assume that the notion of ‘peculiar quality’ used in Apollonian grammar and
the Apollonian tradition is already inflected by the late interpretation of the Stoic
notion within the opposition of peculiar and common qualities, and by of the idea
of a plurality of individuating properties, which were later developed by Porphyry
into the notion of a unique bundle of properties. As for Priscian, the philosophical
sources of his grammatical reflection have been thoroughly explored in recent
research.12
6
See D. Blank, Ancient philosophy and grammar. The Syntax of Apollonius Dyscolus
(Chico, CA: 1982), Introduction, p. 4.
7
See Luhtala, Grammar, pp. 30–37.
8
See Ebbesen, ‘Traditions’.
9
By ‘Apollonian tradition’ I mean Apollonius and the Scholiae to the Techne, mostly
influenced by Apollonius.
10
See A. Wouters, ‘Plutarch’s Comments on Plato’s “grammatical” (?) Theories’, in L.
Van Der Stockt (ed.), Plutarchea Lovaniensia, A Miscellany of Essays on Plutarch (Louvain,
1996), pp. 309–28. A. Wouters thinks that the grammarians to which Plutarch’s defence of
Plato should be referred are not Ancient Stoic but rather Alexandrian grammarians. But the
later dating of the Techne is not taken into account. On the other hand, the text is reconstructed
by H. Cherniss on the basis of the Stoic division of parts of speech where the prosegorai
(appellations, our appellative nouns) are counted apart from the onomata (nouns, our proper
nouns) (see Plutarch’s Moralia in Seventeen Volumes, XIII/1, Cambridge/London, 1976, p.
126, note a). For a recent study about the grammatical question of Plutarch and the adverb
being ‘forgotten’, see A. Garcea and A. Giavatto, ‘(Silence on) Adverbs in Plutarch Plat.
Quaest 10’, Histoire Épistémologie Langage 27/2 (2005): pp. 167–77.
11
See J. Lallot, ‘Les philosophes des grammairiens, les allusions aux philosophes
dans les textes grammaticaux de la tradition alexandrine’, in R. Petrilli and D. Gambarara
(eds), Actualité des Anciens sur la théorie du langage (Münster, 2004), pp. 111–27.
12
See M. Baratin, La Naissance de la syntaxe à Rome (Paris, 1989); Luhtala,
Grammar; idem, ’Priscian’s Philosophy’, in L. Holtz, M. Baratin and B. Colombat (eds),
Priscien: Transmission et refondation de la grammaire de l’Antiquité aux Modernes
(Turnhout, 2009), pp. 109–24; S. Ebbesen, ‘Priscian and the Philosophers’, in Priscien:
Transmission et refondation de la grammaire de l’Antiquité aux Modernes, pp. 85–107;
and A. Garcea, ‘Substance et accidents dans la grammaire de Priscien’, in Priscien:
Transmission et refondation de la grammaire de l’Antiquité aux Modernes, pp. 125–38.
Interactions Between Grammar and Philosophy: Methodological Issues
The study of the notion of individuality in grammatical texts obviously raises the
question of the relationship between philosophy and grammar, but it also, and
more generally, indicates methodological problems due to the strong eclecticism
of late ancient philosophy. Chiaradonna has recently criticised the notion,
introduced by Jonathan Barnes, that many Stoic terms occur in Porphyry’s
philosophy only as elements of a lingua franca, deprived of philosophical
significance.13 I agree with Chiaradonna; within grammatical writings too,14
philosophical concepts must be taken seriously as such, both because the
division of ‘disciplines’ remains artificial and anachronistic, even after the
emergence of a technical grammar, and because grammatical texts are partly
a source for our very understanding of concepts that are poorly documented
elsewhere, such as, precisely, individuality. Many notions are rooted as much
in logic as in grammar, such as (proper) noun,15 accident, subject, predicate,
13
R. Chiaradonna, ‘What is Porphyry’s Isagoge?’, Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione
Filosofica Medievale XIX (2008): pp. 1–30, at p. 16.
14
See F. Ildefonse’s approach, who sees a common episteme (in terms of logos
apophantikos) between ancient grammar and philosophy, so that grammatical texts are also
philosophical texts (See La Naissance de la Grammaire, pp. 15–16, 32–40, 253–4, 262,
271 and Conclusion); about Apollonius: ‘Détacher ainsi, sans l’abandonner, la justification
de la normativité, définir la tâche grammaticale comme justification de la langue, corpus
bien formé, et justifier du même geste l’originalité grammaticale qui engage une telle
activité, reprendre dans les analyses grammaticales le soucis apophantique du monde
sensible, c’est encore rester logicien’, p. 255. See also J. Lallot, La Grammaire de Denys
le Thrace (Paris, 1998), p. 39: ‘Il reste cependant que certains domaines de la grammaire
gardent, au moins au niveau du vocabulaire, sinon des concepts sous-jacents, la marque
d’une théorie philosophique. Dans ces cas, bien sûr, je me suis efforcé de montrer les
dépendances, et éventuellement aussi les distorsions’. Also I. Sluiter, Ancient Grammar in
Context (Amsterdam, 1990), pp. 40–41. Ebbesen thinks on the contrary that Priscien’s use
of philosophical notions taken from the Categories is deprived of philosophical sense (see
Ebbesen, Priscian and the Philosophers).
15
See J. Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘Sémantiques du nom propre: sources anciennes et
discussions médiévales à l’époque d’Abélard’, Histoire épistémologie langage XXXIX/1
(2007): pp. 137–66. About proper names in Ancient grammar see M. Baratin, ‘À propos
du nom propre dans l’Antiquité: quelques points qui ont fait débat’, Corpus 50 (2006):
pp. 229–37 and J. Lallot, ‘L’invention du nom propre dans la tradition grecque ancienne’,
Lallies 27 (2007): pp. 233–46 reprinted in J. Lallot, Études sur la grammaire alexandrine
(Paris, 2012), pp. 327–40.
declarative sentence (logos apophantikos),16 substance and quality,17 but also

individuality, since the ‘peculiar quality’ originally belongs to this part of the
Stoic dialectic where many scholars have seen a ‘Stoic grammar’, and the
analysis of the semantics of proper nouns has been a locus for epistemological
and ontological discussions of individuality.
By the end of late antiquity, Priscian’s Institutions are all the more open to this
reading as they are characterised by a strong influence of logical concepts. For
those who want to pay attention to them, it is not difficult to detect the vocabulary
of Categories and the Isagoge in the grammatical treatise. Conversely, a
‘semantic’ inflection in the formulation of logical problems is observed, especially
in Boethius.18
The grammarians’ purpose, of course, was not a theory of individuality, but the
definition of proper nouns and pronouns. Consequently, the character of their texts
is different from that of philosophical writings, which we must bear in mind when
scrutinising the concepts that underlie their linguistic theories.
Individuals, Individuality, Individuation
It is easy to forget how marginal a topic individuality was for ancient philosophers,
and how individuation as such was not subjected to philosophical inquiry at all:
as such, it is a properly medieval problem. The identity of individuals had been
tentatively explained with the idea of a ‘peculiar quality’ in Ancient Stoicism. Yet
the notion of individuation19 was superfluous in this context, since individuals are
the primary components of the world, not to be derived from a more universal
16
See Garcea ‘Substance et accidents dans la grammaire de Priscien’, and Baratin,
for whom the couple substance/quality is substituted by the couple subject/predicate in
grammar (La Naissance de la syntaxe à Rome, pp. 377–9 and M. Baratin, ‘Sur les notions
de sujet et de prédicat dans les textes latins’, Archives et documents de la Société d’histoire
et d’épistémologie des sciences du langage 10/2 (1994): pp. 49–79). Ildefonse considers
the logos apophantikos as a common object of grammar and philosophy (as seen in the
previous note). See also on that topic J. Lallot, Syntaxe (Paris, 1997), ‘introduction’, p. 33,
note 58 and ‘Sujet/prédicat chez Apollonius Dyscole’, Archives et documents de la Société
d’histoire et d’épistémologie des sciences du langage 10/2 (1994): pp. 35–47, reprinted in
Lallot, Études sur la grammaire alexandrine, pp. 155–64.
17
On these notions in grammar and logic see J. Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘La signification
de la substance chez Priscien et Pierre Hélie’, in L. Holtz, M. Baratin and B. Colombat
(eds), Priscien (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 503–19; ‘Les sens de “Substance” chez Apollonius
Dyscole’, Lettras Classicas 11 (2012): pp. 11–50, 327–40.
18
See J. Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘Grammaire et logique du nom d’après les Gloses
sur Priscien de Guillaume de Conches’, in I. Caiazzo and B. Obrist (eds), Guillaume de
Conches: Philosophie et science au XIIe siècle (Florence, 2011), pp. 377–465 (§1.1.1).
19
Sometimes D. Sedley (‘The Stoic Criterion of Identity’, Phronesis XVII [1982]:
pp. 255–75) does use the word ‘individuation’ but it is clear from the context that individual
identity is meant.
reality. As for Peripateticism,20 Rashed has recently pointed out that an orthodox
Aristotelian like Alexander of Aphrodisias did not feel compelled to address the
problem of individuality in his numerous writings.21 Rashed has also noted that
Porphyry’s definition of the individual as a unique combination of properties
would have been rejected by Alexander despite its rather obvious intrinsic merit
of facilitating a formal approach to the problem of individuality. It is, nevertheless,
this very approach that prevailed throughout late antiquity in philosophy and
grammar, as well as in other fields, such as theology.
Porphyry’s definition may owe its success partly to its occurrence in his
Isagoge, the writing that was to become the most widely read introductory text to
the study of Aristotle’s Organon and thus to logical schooling in general. It soon
became the object of commentaries itself, and consequently philosophers had to
wrestle with this definition of individuality as well. Most of them understood the
‘properties’ (idiomata) in Porphyry’s account as accidents. This interpretation led
to the idea of an ‘accidental individuality’ explicitly mentioned by Boethius.
Subsequently, it gave rise to the rather strange theory of ‘individuation by
accidents’, developed in the High Middle Ages and harshly criticised by Abelard
as a process without a subject (neither the species nor the individual can be that
which is individuated).22 This idea is not yet present in Boethius’ commentaries,
not even with the notion of platonity, as we shall see, although some passages
might be read as implying it.
This theory of individuation by accidents results from an amalgamation of
two separate questions, one about individuality, the other about the constitution of
substantial individuals as substances. It thus merged two philosophical concepts
that had been carefully distinguished by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry and
even Boethius, namely, that of the essence of the individual – in Aristotelian terms,
the substantial form immanent in one individual – and that of the individual form
which, according to Porphyry, is a bundle of properties.
I would like to suggest that the understanding of ‘peculiar quality’ in the
grammarians provides us with a fundamental ingredient for this later theory of
‘individuation’ of the species. They explicitly regarded the common quality as
included in the peculiar quality, an idea never found as such elsewhere, except
20
As recently shown by Rashed (Essentialism) and R. Chiaradonna, ‘“Boethus,
Alexander and other Peripatetics”, The theory of universal in the Aristotelian Commentators’,
in G. Galluzzo and R. Chiaradonna (eds), Universal in Ancient Philosophy (Pisa, 2013),
one should rather speak about ‘Peripateticisms’, a clear-cut distinction having been drawn
between Boethus and Alexander on the topic of forms and universals, which have important
bearing on the formulation of the question of individuality.
21
Rashed, ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias’.
22
See J. Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘Le problème du substrat des accidents constitutifs
dans les commentaires à l’Isagogè d’Abélard et du Pseudo-Raban (P3)’, in A. Schiewind
and C. Erismann (eds), Compléments de substance, Études sur les propriétés accidentelles
offertes à Alain de Libera (Paris, 2008), pp. 67–84.
later on in Cappadocian authors,23 and this made it possible to understand the

latter in full analogy to the definition: as the species was defined, according to
Aristotle, by proximate genus and specific differences so the individual quality
could be conceived of as a specific property together with individuating properties.
Combined with the idea of an individuation by accidents, this means that we have
an immanent universal whose individuation is to be explained. In this way, the
reflection about individuality leads to a theory of the process of individuation
whose true subject is the universal species, with individuals as a mere ‘by-product’.
Philosophical Background I: Ancient Stoicism
No account of the notion of peculiar quality in ancient thought can be given without
some reference to the Stoics, who first introduced it. Unfortunately, their writings
remain only in fragmentary form, and the meaning of those fragments is often
far from clear. From the variety of ancient and contemporary interpretations that
have been offered, I wish to retain only some fundamental and uncontroversial
elements of the Stoic theory for the present purpose: the unique or peculiar quality
is a cornerstone of Stoic physics; it is unique for each individual and endures
throughout its life (‘uniqueness thesis’24). Consequently names (that is, our ‘proper
nouns’), signifying the peculiar quality, have the ability to identify their referent,
although the names themselves cannot lead to ‘definite propositions’ (‘Socrates
runs’) in the way ‘articulations’ (that is, our demonstrative pronouns) do (‘this
one runs’). Like ‘appellations’ (that is, our ‘common nouns’), [proper] nouns can
contribute to build ‘intermediary propositions’ because they tell us what is the
species of the thing but do not demonstrate (deixis) them as pronouns do.25
Our sources are silent on the content of this peculiar quality. Brunschwig
has therefore suggested that the Stoics adopted a Socratic ‘naïve’ approach to
23
Despite the use of the term ‘individuation’ in his book on Gregory of Nyssa (‘the
Cappadocian author understands the hupostasis as by nature individualizing the ousia …’,
Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa [Leiden, 2000], p. 76) and in the chapter published
in the present volume, Johannes Zachhuber has sufficiently shown how the common
substance gains existence, is ‘hypostatised’ by being in the individuals though not properly
‘individualised’, since Gregory of Nyssa insists that there is no ‘individual nature’. This
is precisely the reason why Zachhuber labels the Cappadocians’ theory of individuality
a ‘weak theory’ of individuality, faithful to late ancient philosophical doctrines, and
why a stronger conception of individuality becomes necessary for later theologians in
Christological discussions following the Council of Chalcedon. Here some comparisons
could rightfully be made with the Latin medieval discussion on individuation.
24
See Sedley, ‘The Stoic Criterion’, p. 264.
25
See Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians 2.96–8 (287–8 Bury).
‘physical’ explanations,26 while other scholars have attempted to be more specific,

whether in terms of a genetic code recognised through fingerprints,27 or the soul28
or an embryological theory about the ‘cooling’ of the breath like a tempered
metal at birth depending on cosmological determination.29 But they agree that any
reference to description such as ‘the bald snubnosed Athenian philosopher teacher
of Plato’ must be avoided in the context of ancient Stoicism.
This consensus presupposes that Dexippus’ testimony about individuals as
bundles of properties is discarded as being not a reference to Stoic doctrine, but to
the teaching of Porphyry.30
In the same way, testimonies suggesting that the opposition between
peculiar and common qualities was at the heart of the Stoic system of categories
are understood to be a later contamination. The association between all the
testimonies on Stoic categories, where the ‘qualified’ is mentioned tout court, and
the testimony on the signification of the appellation (prosegoria) and the name
(onoma) as common quality and peculiar quality by Diogenes Laertius has led to
the idea that the distinction of a common and a peculiar quality belonged to the
Stoic categories of the ‘qualified’.31 This has been seen by recent research as a later
elaboration, which does not take into account the essentially physical role devoted
to the Stoic notion of peculiar quality against the ‘Growing argument’, whereas
common quality plays no part in Stoic physics.32
26
J. Brunschwig, ‘Remarques sur la théorie stoïcienne du nom propre’, Histoire,
Épistémologie, Langage 6, 1984, pp. 3–19, reprinted in Études sur les philosophies
hellénistiques (Paris, 1995), pp. 115–39.
27
Sedley, ‘The Stoic Criterion of Identity’, p. 266.
28
E. Lewis, ‘The Stoics on Identity and Individuation’, Phronesis XL (1995): pp.
89–108.
29
Rashed, ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias’.
30
Pace A. Long and D. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers I, Cambridge, 1987, pp.
173–4 and Sorabji, Self, p. 147. See Chiaradonna, ‘La teoria dell’individuo’, p. 119, and
below our comment on Porphyry. Although they suggest that there is a sufficient number
of convergent testimonies in favour of the description of the peculiar quality as a bundle
of (common) properties, Long and Sedley acknowledge how weak this theory would be
compared to the fundamental functions this quality is to perform in Stoic ontology, see The
Hellenistic Philosophers II, p. 174.
31
See Long and Sedley, Hellenistic philosophers I, the standard, but now outdated,
diagram of the division of the categories (p. 163) and their comments, pp. 173–4.
32
J.B. Gourinat, La dialectique des Stoïciens (Paris, 2000), p. 135. True enough, one
source (Simplicius, On Categories [CAG VIII.48.11–15 = 55F Smith) mentions Porphyry’s
testimony about the existence of two subjects in Stoic categories, first matter and the subject
which subsists ‘commonly or particularly qualified’ (ho koinos poion e idios huphistatai).
This extract of Porphyry’s commentary Ad Gedalios on Categories has also been judged as
probably not faithful by R. Chiaradonna, an additional example of a contamination between
Stoic and Aristotelian notions: ‘Porphyry, then, fitted Aristotelian and Stoic notions about
matter, qualities and “subjects” within a single doctrinal framework. Not only did he
The same obviously applies to the idea that common properties are ‘included’
in peculiar properties according to the testimony of Syrianus.33 On the contrary,
the notion is explicitly present in grammatical texts and it has been proposed by
Lloyd and by Ebbesen in their reconstruction of Porphyry’s semantics, as we
shall see.
Some studies have used the notion of ‘essence’ for the Stoic peculiar quality in
order to underline the idea that it was to be neither a transitory, accidental property
nor a property necessarily attached to the individual without being constitutive of
him (such as fingerprints alone).34 I think this might be misleading: the peculiar
quality is not ‘essential’ in an Aristotelian sense, where inseparability, essentiality
and necessity are distinguished in principle, but rather it is necessarily attached to
an individual with which it is convertible, thus being, in a way, ‘essential’.
A formal approach to individuality seems impossible in a Peripatetic framework,
where a difference added to the last species (man) would turn this species into a
genus and the individual into a species within the ‘Porphyrian tree’. This is not a
problem in a Stoic context, where the individual being is conceived as the ‘lowest
species’ (infima species). As shown by Chiaradonna, Porphyry’s introduction of
the Stoic notion of a peculiar quality into an Aristotelian framework of essence
and accident (where essence is supposed to be universal) generated deep tensions
because it implied a logical and ontological analogy between the species and
the individual, including the idea of an individual essence, neither of which is
compatible with traditional Aristotelianism.35
Philosophical Background II: Platonic, Neoplatonic and

Peripatetic Approaches to Individuality
Let us begin with a brief reminder of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ position. As already

seen, two issues must be kept apart in order to maintain a measure of fidelity to
the Aristotelian ontology of the sensible world: that of the particularisation of the
adopt current terms of Stoic origin, terms that by Porphyry’s day were bereft of distinctive
philosophical connotations; but, at least in some cases, he also consciously made use of
Stoic theories in his exegesis of Aristotle’s Categories (cf. Simplicius, On Categories,
CAG VIII, pp. 2, 8). This passage [that is, Fr. 55 Smith] suggests that Porphyry integrated
Aristotle’s theory of substance and the Stoic theory of matter and quality – the individual
substance of Aristotle’s Categories being conceived, then, as “what subsists ... peculiarly
qualified”’: ‘What is Porphyry’s Isagoge?’, Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica
Medievale XIX, 2008, pp. 1–30, at p. 15. See also Chiaradonna, ‘La teoria dell’individuo’,
p. 320.
33
See Syrianus, In Aristotelis Metaphysica (CAG VI/1.28.18–19): ‘Even the Stoics
place the commonly qualified before the peculiarly qualified’.
34
Sedley, ‘The Stoic Criterion’, p. 266.
35
Chiaradonna, ‘La teoria dell’individuo’.
essential form and that of individuality; in other words, the question concerning
the immanent substantial form, ‘the form of the individual’ (to hekastou eidos),
and the question of the ‘individual form’ (morphe), its tri-dimensional realisation
in a given individual, slightly different for each individual because of matter.36
The form subsists as ‘partially individuated’, as Rashed puts it,37 with ‘material
differences and conditions’. The individuals such as Socrates and Callias are
described as ‘produced’ (poien) by the immanent common form with the material
conditions and differences with which it subsists, leading to something proper
(idia) for each of them. But those features are not to be expressed in a descriptive
form, contrary to Porphyry’s theory, there being no definition for particulars.38
The difference between individual men comes from the matter while the form
according to which they are all men is the same.
When Alexander says that individuals are produced by the common form with
material differences, he is not saying that the common form is individualised by
the differences, since it remains common within each individual. Nor is he saying
that the expression of the individual property of each individual contains the
common item, since no description can be given of each individual’s individuality.
The substantial form is certainly singular, since it is numerically different
in each individual, but it is not strictly speaking individualised, since it retains
its ability to be ‘communicated’ in a biological process (‘lineage form’). In this
precise sense, there is no problem of universals in Alexander according to Rashed,
nor is there any need to discuss the individualisation of the form.39 Individuality
in turn, as already seen, was addressed by Alexander not because it was required
as such by Aristotelian philosophy, for which individuals without individuality
were enough, but because of questions introduced under Stoic influences about
the possibility of the return of an identical individual. As underlined by Rashed,
one cannot say whether the arguments adduced by Alexander according to
Philoponus against the return of numerically the same individual40 are really (or
only ‘dialectically’) adopted by Alexander, especially in relation to determinism in
individual life: here a ‘flaw’ can be observed in Alexander’s doctrine.
What about the Platonic, Academic and Neoplatonic traditions? Sorabji has
found in Plato the idea of an individual being constituted by a bundle (athroisma)
36
See Rashed, Essentialisme. Alexandre d’Aphrodise entre logique, physique et
cosmologie (Berlin, 2007), p. 247.
37
Rashed, Essentialisme, p. 259. He clearly means particularised.
38
See Quaestiones 1.3, with emendations of the Greek text and translation in Rashed,
Essentialism, pp. 257–8.
39
See Rashed, Essentialisme, esp. pp. 246ff.
40
These are: 1) if two astral configuration were exactly the same so that the peculiar
quality tempered at birth would be the same, the reborn Socrates would not be numerically
the same Socrates as before because numerical identity implies persistence and cannot have
intervals; 2) in any case, two astral configurations cannot be exactly the same: see Rashed,
‘Alexander of Aphrodisias’, pp. 162–4.
of properties such as a snub nose, but this reconstruction has tenuous textual
justification since it draws on various passages of Platos’ Theaetetus whose
status and topic are quite heterogeneous.41 The idea was nonetheless taken up by
Alcinous who speaks of a bundle (athroisma) about honey and, generally, about
the sensible world.42
Another interesting text can be adduced from Sextus Empiricus,43 where the
notion of a bundle (sundromé) of presentations (phantasia) is proposed: here
a stable set of properties must appear to us in order to assent to the truth of a
statement about a given man being Socrates, just as a cluster of symptoms is
necessary for a doctor to deduce a disease. In addition, no property within the
cluster must give rise to a doubt.
Chiaradonna has shown in the present volume how Plotinus’ position about the
metaphysical constitution of (sensible) individuals is very difficult to reconstruct;
quite contradictory data are observed, in different parts of the Enneads. Two
points can nevertheless be kept in mind: the possibility of a formal approach to
individuality with an idea of singulars and logoi proper to each of them, and the
ambiguous attitude of Plotinus who contrasts essential and accidental properties
while affirming that nothing is substantial in the sensible world, that is, in sensible
individuals.44
Porphyry presumably synthesised these two aspects derived from Plotinus, the
notion of a bundle of properties found in the Platonic, Medio-platonic and Academic
traditions,45 the Stoic concept of a peculiar quality, and the Alexandrinian idea
of a non-essentially differentiated-though-associated-with-particuliar-material-
circumstances immanent form in each individual. But he has arranged them
within general reflections on the Aristotelian ontology of the sensible individuals
as substances (contrary to his master Plotinus) formally differentiated from one
another while not differentiated according to the species. This formal difference is
also an identifying principle since it is expressed in a description.
41
In 209C Plato speaks about the ‘differences’ of each individual such as a peculiar
snubness; in 157BC he speaks about athroisma, but it refers as much to man as to a singular
animal, because here Socrates echoes Heraclitus’ opinions.
42
Alcinous, Didascalikos 4 (156.2 and 12 Hermann).
43
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos 7.179; Against the Logicians 1.179 (97
Bury). See Chiaradonna, ‘La teoria dell’individuo’, p. 327 and Kalligas, ‘Basil of Caesarea
on Proper Name’, p. 37.
44
See Chiaradonna, ‘Plotinus on sensible particulars and individual essence’ in the
present volume.
45
See Chiaradonna’s suggestion about Porphyry’s use of the notion of sundrome, ‘La
teoria dell’ individuo’, pp. 326–7: he speaks about the ‘previous scholastic tradition’, in
which the texts of Plato, Alcinous and Sextus Empiricus previously mentioned are adduced.
Philosophical Background III: Porphyry
Chiaradonna has convincingly argued that the theory of the unique combination of
properties was intended to solve the problem of individual difference.46 The Stoic
notion of a peculiar quality, however, had been intended to explain the diachronic
identity of each individual rather than the way in which the individual differs from
other individuals of the same kind. For that reason, as seen, the notion of a definite
description apparently played no part in the Stoic theory: at least, our sources do
not refer to properties or bundles of properties in that context. The influential idea
of the unique combination of properties as a theory of individual difference, then,
must be considered Porphyry’s own, even though it was to become the standard
way the Stoic notion was understood in late antiquity.
Here is Porphyry’s famous passage: ‘Such items are called individuals because
each of them is constituted of proper features (idiotes) the assemblage (athroisma)
of which will never be found the same in anything else’.47 It is echoed in the
commentary on the Categories where Porphyry insists on the idea that individuals
do not differ according to the species, that is, substantial dividing differences,
but according to a bundle of qualities: ‘For Socrates does not differ from Plato in
virtue of specific differentiae, but in virtue of a peculiar combination (sundrome)
of qualities (poiotes) in virtue of which … Plato is differentiated from Socrates’.48
With Porphyry, too, the question of immanent substantial form in a given
individual and that of individuality are dealt with through two distinct lines of
reasoning. The collection of properties may well ‘constitute’ each individual as
the individual it is, and ‘constitute’ may well be given here an ontological sense,
not only an epistemological or semantic one. But, as noted by Lloyd,49 it does not
constitute the individual as the substance it is but as the individual it is.
As recently shown by Chase,50 the bundle of properties was linked by Porphyry
to the notion of description (hupographe), used for all those objects that cannot be
defined properly, that is, by genus and differences. The description ‘explains the
property (idiotes) of the substance’.51 The notion is used about the logos tes ousias
corresponding to proper names of individuals in the discussion on homonyms: it
allows an analogon of a definition and has an identifying function when homonyms
46
Chiaradonna, ‘La teoria dell’individuo’.
47
Porphyry, Isagoge (CAG IV/1.7.22–4 Busse), trans. J. Barnes, Porphyry,
Introduction (Oxford, 2003), p. 8.
48
Porphyry, On Categories (CAG IV/1.129.9–11 Busse), trans. S.K. Strange,
Porphyry, On Aristotle’s Categories (Ithaca/New York, 1992), p. 140.
49
A.C. Lloyd, The Anatomy of Neoplatonism (Oxford, 1990), p. 46.
50
Chase, ‘Individus et description’.
51
See Porphyry, Ad Gedalios, apud Simplicus, On Categories (CAG VIII.29.19–20
and 30.12–15 Kalbfleisch).
such as ‘Ajax’ are concerned.52 We shall meet the two Ajax again in a grammatical
context.
While Porphyry thus extended the divisions beyond the species to the individual,
when he introduced the species among the predicable (which was not the case in
Aristotle’s Topics), he nevertheless dealt with the latter in a special way, so that
the unique collection of properties explains the differences between individuals,
but does not constitute a differentiation of the species, that is, an ‘individuation’
of them. At the level of intermediary species, that is, species that are also genera,
the differences dividing the superior genus are exactly the same as the differences
setting species apart from each other. Thus ‘rational’ divides man from the genus
animal and also differentiates man from other species of the same genus (beasts,
irrational animals). This is what it means to call ‘rational’ a substantial difference:
it is constitutive of the species and divisive of the genus. When it comes to the
last species and to individuals, however, Porphyry dissociates the two functions.
The reason is that the last species is not properly divided but multiplied: therefore,
the unique combination of properties that characterises the individual and sets it
apart from other individuals of the same species does not restrict or divide the
species. Properly and technically speaking, the last species only has a logical and
ontological relationship with its superior genus; no analogous relation exists with
what comes below.53
The phrasing used by Sorabji is thus problematic; he says that the species ‘acts
like a genus and is differentiated by [the individual’s] specific characteristic’.54
This is contrary to Porphyry’s very words: according to the Isagoge, the species is
not divided by what is beneath it in the logical tree, and individual properties do
not, therefore, explain what individuates species:
[The intermediary items] stand in two relations, one to the item before them
(in virtue of which they are said to be their species) and one to the item after
them (in virtue of which they are said to be their genera). The extremes have a
single relation … The most special item has a single relation, the one to the item
before it, of which it is a species, whereas it does not have the relation to the
item after it. True it is called the species of the individuals – but the species of
52
See Porphyry, On Categories (CAG IV/1.64.14–21 Busse).
53
When this fundamental difference between the intermediary species and the last
species in relation to individual is blurred, a ‘material essence theory’ (a theory in which the
species is the ‘matter’ of individuals in the same manner as the genus is the ‘matter’ of the
underlying species) is developed in the early twelfth century by William of Champeaux, the
master of Abelard. See J. Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘Les universaux dans le commentaire du
Pseudo-Raban à l’Isagoge (P3): entre Boèce et la théorie de l’essence matérielle (TEM)’,
in I. Rosier-Catach (ed.), Arts du langage et Théologie aux confins des XIe et XIIe siècle
(Paris, 2011), pp. 309–433. ‘P3’ is the first Latin commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge,
whose attribution to William of Champeaux has been discussed.
54
Sorabji, Self, p. 143.
the individuals in so far as it contains them … [is] that which, being a species,
we shall not divide into species.55
The intermediary species, then, is a species of the superior genus stricte dictu,
but also, the genus of the next lower species. The same, however, is no longer the
case for infima species and individuals: Boethius later expresses this distinction by
saying that the genus is not the whole essence of the species (because substantial
differences are added), but the species is the whole essence of the individual, since
at this ontological level nothing is added to the species so that individuals of a
certain kind are produced.
When applying the notion of ‘individual essence’ to Porphyry, therefore, it
is imperative not to confuse it with the bundle theory: the former is the essence
inherent in one individual (‘man’ in Socrates), as such clearly distinguished from
the combination of properties that make the individual unique.
Porphyry never explicitly calls the properties ‘accidents’, which in their unique
combination make up the individual, either in the Isagoge or in his commentary on
the Categories, as underlined by Erismann.56 Yet these properties have always been
identified with accidents by ancient (Ammonius,57 Olympidorus,58 Simplicius,59
Boethius60) – and modern – commentators. The first author to make this step may
have been Gregory of Nyssa in the Ad Graecos.61
I think it cannot be incidental that the vocabulary of the accident is not used
by Porphyry, and I see it as part of his strategy of not recasting his notion of
individuality as a bundle of properties into the ontological framework of the
discussion about the constitution of individuals, where the distinction between
accidental and essential properties cannot be avoided.
This aspect of Porphyry’s theory could be seen as a remnant of his Stoic
inheritance: the individual quality, after all, is not inscribed into the (Aristotelian)
essence-accident dichotomy but is attached to the individual in a unique
and necessary way. Porphyry’s ambivalence may also betray his continuing
indebtedness to Alexander of Aphrodisias, insofar as his theory still dissociates
individuality from the issue of the substantial form of the individual, a form that is
individual only in the sense that it belongs to one given individual (for example,
‘man’ as particularised in Socrates).
55
Porphyry, Isagoge, CAG IV/1, pp. 5, 13–16, trans. J. Barnes, Porphyry, p. 6.
56
See C. Erismann, ‘L’individualité expliquée par les accidents, Remarques sur la
destinée chrétienne de Porphyre’, in A. Schiewind and C. Erismann (eds), Compléments de
Substance, pp. 51–66.
57
See Ammonius Hermiae, In Porphyrii Isagogen (CAG IV/3.56.15–17 Busse).
58
Olympiodorus, In Alcibiadem 204.8–12 (128 Westerink). This opinion is attributed
to the Peripatetics, but clearly Porphyry is the target.
59
See Simplicius, On Categories (CAG VIII.55.2–5 Kalbfleisch).
60
See below.
61
See Erismann, ‘L’individualité expliquée par les accidents’, pp. 60–62.
In order to avoid the idea that individuals are just a bundle of accidents (since
he identifies properties with accidents), Lloyd has rightly insisted upon the idea
that the bundle does not constitute the individual as the substance it is, but just
as the individual it is. Bearing in mind the idea that the bundle of properties
constitutes the individual as the individual it is may in fact help us understand
why Porphyry never explicitly identifies the properties with accidents: for Ajax,
being the son of Telamon may well be an accident to his being a man, but is
it really an accident in relation to the individual he is? Being a substance or an
accident can by no means be negotiated from an ontological point of view (except
for the special case of ‘substantial qualities’, the specific differences); properties
are indeed accidents from this point of view. However, from a logical point of
view being a substantial or an accidental property is a relative notion that depends
on the subject considered, as the Ancient commentators knew well (being white is
incidental for man, but not for snow).62
Something like a property which is neither an accident nor a definitional
property can in fact be found in the Isagoge: the proper of a given species, of
which the bundle of properties could easily have been seen as an analogon for the
individual, is not described by Porphyry as a convertible accident, contrary to its
later (especially Boethian) interpretation. As shown by Barnes,63 when explaining
how a ‘system’ of predicables is found nowhere in Porphyry (in contrast to
Boethius), the proper is a necessary-convertible-non-definitional-property without
which the species cannot subsist;64 it is even described by Porphyry as univocally
predicated of the species in the same manner as the genus.65 This could be a good
description of the relationship between the bundle of properties and the individual.
While the interpretation of Porphyrian properties as accidents has no explicit
basis in texts and is not really necessary from a doctrinal point of view, the same
cannot be said about another reconstructed doctrine proposed by Lloyd in order to
escape the idea that individuals would be only bundles of properties (accidents).
This is the doctrine that ‘essential’ properties, such as the common property
corresponding to the species ‘man’, would be included in the bundle of properties
of a corresponding individual (Socrates) as ‘composing’, not ‘individuating’,
62
As underlined by Barnes quoting Pseudo-Arethas (Arethas of Caesarea’s Scholia
on Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories, ed. M. Sharpe [Paris/Bruxelles, 1994]) if
individuals are themselves considered as an accidental reality, accidents could be essential
properties of something that is an accidental being as an individual, Socrates, while being
accidental properties for the individual as one instance of the species, this man (‘“Individuals
are not strictly substances except by way of their subject”. That is to say “Socrates” does
not designate a substance – rather “this man” does’, Porphyry, Introduction, p. 228): this is
precisely the step I think Porphyry wants to avoid.
63
See Porphyry, Introduction, pp. 303–5.
64
Porphyry, Isagoge (CAG IV/1.21.21–2 Busse).
65
properties.66 This hypothesis may have no textual justification and is probably

at odds with the fact that the individual difference is not meant to explain the
difference between the last species and its individuals. Yet it nevertheless fills a
real gap in Porphyry’s theory as reconstructed by scholarship. The dissociation
of the notion of an essential form particularised by its being immanent in one
individual on the one hand, and of an individualising bundle of properties on the
other hand raises an important problem from a logico-semantic point of view: it
is not possible to explain how nouns such as ‘Socrates’ belong to the category
of substance, since the noun’s belonging to a category is not decided by what
it designates or that of which it is predicated, but by the significate according
to which it is said of a subject (kata ti semainomenon67). This can be seen in
Chiaradonna’s reconstructions, who frequently points to the difficulties raised
by Porphyry’s notion of individuality: ‘Socrates’ will signify the analogon of an
individual essence as enmattered in the subject and as abstracted in the predicate
in the proposition ‘Socrates is Socrates’; but in the proposition ‘Socrates is a man’
it will have to signify the ‘ranged’ man (enmattered and particularised by its being
immanent in Socrates) while ‘man’, the predicate, will signify the same essence
as ‘unranged’, abstracted.68 This is a real difficulty since individuals are at the
bottom of the Porphyrian tree as individual substances, reached by the transitivity
of essential predication, so that they cannot be designated by accidental names
through only non-essential properties, in the same way as ‘the detective’ would
indicate Sherlock Holmes.69
The model provided by Ebbesen admittedly solves this problem. It follows the
path initiated by Lloyd while keeping the description on a purely logical, conceptual
level. It analyses ‘Socrates is a man’ in terms of ‘X + Y = X’, where the first X
is the ‘ranged man’ and the second X the ‘unranged man’, while Y is the unique
collection of properties, ‘eliminated’ in the analysis of the essential predication
as a partial tautology: this explains how the predication can be essential while the
signification through which the subject is denoted is accidental.70
66
Lloyd, The Anatomy, p. 46.
67
Porphyry, On Categories (CAG IV/1.58.14–20 Busse).
68
Chiaradonna, ‘La teoria dell’indivuduo’, p. 311. See also R. Chiaradonna, ‘Essence
et Prédication chez Porphyre et Plotin’, Revue des Scienes philosophiques et théologiques
LXXXII (1998): pp. 577–606, at p. 592.
69
Lloyd, The Anatomy, pp. 44–5.
70
‘If we say [Socrates is an animal], we mention “Socrates”, but we invite people to use
their concept “Socrates” only to single out the thing that we talk about and then to consider
him via the concept “animal”, i.e. to pay attention to those components of “Socrates” that are
also components of “animal”’, Ebbesen, Commentators and Commentaries on Aristotle’s
Sophistici Elenchi, a study of post-aristotelian ancient and medieval writings on fallacies,
Volume I, the Greek tradition (Leiden, 1981), p. 151. For medieval solutions to this problem
see Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘Sémantiques du nom propre’.
As far as Porphyry’s own semantics is concerned, this theory is only a modern,

scholarly reconstruction; it is clearly documented, however, in earlier grammatical
texts, and perhaps also later on, in the patristic context with Gregory of Nyssa.71 A
link between these two approaches has, at any rate, been suggested by Zachhuber:
just as, for the grammarians, a description of Socrates presupposes that he is a
human being, so, for the Cappadocians, the description of Paul as an individual
includes the notion of his human nature.72
Grammatical Theories of Individuality
Apollonius Dyscolus
As seen, Apollonius Dyscolus is one of the major authorities in the history of

Ancient Grammar. But since the section of Apollonius’ grammar that was devoted
to the parts of speech is essentially lost, the primary source must be his Syntax:
only a reconstruction of Apollonius’ main ideas about the notion of peculiar quality
can be presented here.
Apollonius inherited the notion of peculiar quality from ‘Stoic grammar’:
‘The institution of nouns was devised for [the signification] of qualities, whether
common, for instance “man”, or peculiar, for instance “Plato”’.73
The existence of a special form of noun for each thing, preserved through
flexion, in contrast to pronouns (where no regularity is observed), is explained by
the absence of deixis in nouns: the ‘character’ of each noun must correspond to the
‘character’ of the referent.74
The proper noun signifies a peculiar quality, but it does not constitute its own
separate part of speech as in Ancient Stoicism; rather, together with the appellative
it becomes a sub-category of the noun, which according to Apollonius is divided
into proper and appellative nouns. The proper noun can be replaced by a pronoun,
which, through its demonstrative power, designates the substance as such:
71
See [Basil] Letter 38: ‘[In the formula that gives us knowledge of each of them
(gnoristikos logos)] [what is] common is found to belong’ (2.29–30); ‘He who says “Paul”
shows the nature subsisting in the thing indicated by the name’ (3.6–8).
72
Zachhuber, Human Nature, p. 82 on the grammarians’ influence: ‘arguably the
presence of the particular quality “Socrates” presupposes that of the universal quality
“man”, while the opposite is not the case’. Also when he explains how the hypostasis
includes both its individual and its specific properties: ‘giving an explanatory account of
one individual one can hardly think of Socrates or Paul except as men’: pp. 76–7.
73
Apollonius, Syntax 2.22 (GG II/2.142.1–2). See F.W. Householder, The Syntax of
Apollonius Dyscolus (Amsterdam, 1981), p. 93. The translation provided by Householder
has been amended.
74
See Syntax 2.22, 23, 24.
Using a construction with a noun we ask about the substance of the subject (ousia
… tou hupokeimenou) [i.e. the reference], since this is the sole designation of
the pronouns … but when we ask with a pronominal construction we already
have grasped the substance (ousia) but not yet the additional property (idioteta)
implied by the institution of the noun (tou onomatos thesis). So it is clear that
pronouns are put instead of proper nouns.75
And again: ‘The proper noun is potentially to be understood with the pronoun,
though I do not mean the noun according to the phonological [shape], but what
is designated by it, that is, the peculiar quality of the subject (idia poiotes tou
hupokeimenou)’.76
The ability of a proper noun to identify one individual and no other comes
from the unique and exclusive relationship between the peculiar quality and this
individual. For this reason, the name can perform the same precise identification of
the referent as the pronoun does, even though denotation by pronoun is ultimately
more reliable because equivocity can never be fully ruled out in the case of a
noun. Such ambiguity, however, can in principle always be avoided by adding
individuating features, such as ‘the great’ or ‘the son of Telamon’ for ‘Ajax’:
If the answer to those questions [i.e. with ‘who?’ (tis) alone] is made with a
pronoun, no other question is needed … because these indicate definite persons.
But if the answer is made with a noun, because of the possibility of homonymy,
the construction given in the answer is not definite in the same degree. If
someone answers ‘Ajax’, the next question will be: ‘which one?’ because of the
homonymy previously mentioned, and the answer to this, in turn, will be the
property tied to one of them, ‘the great’ or ‘the son of Telamon’, in a construction
with an article, as already mentioned.77
Also attached to the peculiar quality is the notion of unity or oneness which is
therefore indicated by the proper nouns as a ‘consignification’: ‘With its peculiar
quality “Ajax” additionally conveys (paruphistamenon) the “one” (to heis)’.78
In the case of the common quality – and thus the appellative noun – it is a
‘common notion’ (koine ennoia) and the idea of a plurality of objects that are
indicated. This is the reason why proper nouns do not need articles as appellative
nouns do:
Proper nouns, because they have in themselves their particularity (idioteta) do

not need the article in the same manner as those [nouns] to which a common
conception (koine ennoia) belongs. The addition of the article potentially
75
Apollonius, Syntax 1.120, trans. F.W. Householder, Syntax, p. 69.
76
77
78
narrows down their quality from the plurality (tes polles): ‘[A] boy dined and
went to bed’ is indefinite (aoristodes), but not ‘the boy dined and went to bed’.79
It is for this very reason that pronouns can only substitute proper nouns: ‘Pronouns
are not put instead of appellative [nouns] or epithets, as they are defining one
something (hen ti), whereas the appellative noun applies to a plurality’.80
Apollonius never says that the peculiar quality is composed of various
properties, however his comments on homonyms might imply such a view even
though the properties adduced for disambiguation could be properties added to the
two peculiar qualities signified by one ambiguous proper noun, and not properties
singled out within each of them. The idea that the common quality is included
in the peculiar quality could also suggest a plurality of properties. This is the
important text:
When inquiring about the identity (huparxis) of some subject (hupokeimenon),

we say ‘Who (tis) is moving?’ … when it is clear that there is motion … but
the person who is acting is unclear. We offer nominal answers, with appellative
[nouns] or proper [nouns] – proper nouns also convey [generic] substance
(ousia) – The answer may be: ‘a man / a horse / Tryphon (the latter being also
inclusive of ‘man’) walks’. Or we may have a word which is used instead of a
noun – I mean a pronoun, as when one says ‘I [walk]’.81
This means that the proper noun gives more information about the quality of the
subject since it also signifies the common quality (here designated as ‘substance’82)
indicated by appellative nouns (but the converse is not true). Obviously the common
quality cannot be the sole component of the peculiar quality in which case the
latter would be common also. We can therefore surmise that Apollonius probably
had in mind the type of definite description later developed by Porphyry, namely
individuating properties, presupposing83 the common property corresponding to
the species within the peculiar quality.
79
Apollonius, Syntax 1.112, trans. F.W. Householder, Syntax, pp. 64–5.
80
Apollonius, Peri antônumias (GG II/1.26.9–11).
81
82
About this ‘quality’ which is a ‘substance’, to be also distinguished from the
‘substance’ signified as a ‘property of signification’ by pronouns because of the deixis
attached to them, see Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘Les sens de “Substance” chez Apollonius
Dyscole’.
83
For this notion of presupposition, see Ildefonse, La naissance de la Grammaire, pp.
305 ff. and my discussion in ‘Les sens de “substance” chez Apollonius’.
Priscian’s Grammatical Institutions
Priscian’s Grammatical Institutions are largely dependent on Apollonius Dyscolus,

to the point that they can be considered as a development of what we might call
a ‘Greek grammar of Latin’. The texts previously quoted from Apollonius about
proper nouns generally have a correspondence in Priscian.84 There are, however,
features specific to Priscian’s grammar, some of which impinge on the topic here
at hand, especially because of a shift in the description of the signification of name
as indicating ‘substance and quality’.85
In the first place, it has to be noted that Priscian gives a stronger philosophical
turn to the description of the noun. As can be seen in the following table, based
upon Baratin,86 he offered a twofold division of nouns, reminiscent of the Isagoge.
First according to categories (although Priscian does not give the full Aristotelian
list of ten), then, within each category, according to the predicables: more general
genus, genus, last species, individual.87
84
This can easily be seen in the parallel texts found in Apollonius and Priscian about
the topic here addressed: Apollonius, Syntax 2.22 (see note 83) // Priscian, Institutions (GL
III.145.16–18 (Nominum positio inventa est ad significationem qualitatum vel communium
vel propriarum … ut ‘homo’, Plato); Syntax 1.31 (note 91) // GL III.122.1–6 (Nam
substantiam alicuius suppositi quaerentes dicimus ‘quis movetur?’, ‘quis ambulat?’, ‘quis
loquitur?’, ‘cum manifestus’ … ideo subiectiones nominativae fiunt appellativorum vel
propriorum, propriis manisfestantibus etiam generalem substantiam. Respondemus enim
vel ‘homo ambulat’, vel ‘equus’, vel ‘Trypho’, in quo etiam ‘homo’ intelligitur.); Syntax
1.120 (note 85) // GL III.129.12–17 (Et manisfestum ex hoc quoque, quod, quando nomini
adiungitur, substantiam definitam in aliqua certa persona quaerimus suppositi; hanc enim
solam ostendunt pronomina, quorum demonstratio sibi quoque accidentia consignificat,
unde ad omne suppositum pertinent. Quando vero pronominibus iungitur ‘quis’, substantiam
quidem intelligimus, non etiam proprietatem qualitatis, quae nomine explanatur); Syntax
1.121 (note 87) // GL III.130.1–6; Syntax 2.41 (note 86) // GL III.149.8–10 (Vi enim proprium
nomen intelligetur per pronomen: non dico vocis nomen, sed quod ex ea ostenditur, id est
propria qualitas suppositi); and Syntax II.45 (note 88) // GL III.150.23–7 (Non igitur quod
non habet tertias personas nomen, ideo excogitata sunt pronomina, sed quoniam expers est
demonstrationis, quae est in pronominibus). Where no parallels are found, this is often for
technical reasons, for instance due to the absence of the article in Latin, or to the change in
the grammatical category of certain words, which gave rise to the idea of ‘general nouns’
over and above ‘generic nouns’, as we shall see.
85
‘The proper of the noun is to signify the substance and the quality (Proprium est
nominis substantiam et qualitatem significare)’: Institutions 2.18 (GL II.55.l.6).
86
M. Baratin, La Naissance de la syntaxe à Rome (Paris, 1989), p. 458.
87
Itaque sunt nomina generalem significantia vel substantiam vel quantitatem
vel quantitatem vel numerum quae necessario et infinita sunt, quippe cu omnia suarum
generaliter specierum comprehendant in se nomina: Priscian, Institutiones 17.37 (GL
III.131.l.3–6); Substantiae et qualitates generales et communes et speciales et individuae,
in quibus sunt nomina, non habent certam discretionem personarum, ut puta ‘omnis homo’
et substantia potest dici ct animal et homo, ct nominari ‘Plato’ vel ‘Cicero’ vel ‘Virgilius’:
Noun Substantive Adjective: Adjective: Adjective:

quality quantity numeral
Appellative: Quis/Qui Qualis/Talis Quantus/Tantus Quot/Tot
general
Appellative: Animal – – –
generic
Appellative: Homo Prudens Maximus Multus
specific
Individuals Iulus – – –
Proper
Central for our purpose is the distinction between proper nouns and appellatives.
Like Apollonius, Priscian refers to the common quality for the latter; appellatives
naturally refer to a plurality of objects whereas proper nouns do so only
accidentally, in the case of homonymy. Naturally, proper nouns refer to a single
object because they signify a particular quality, which is uniquely and exclusively
related to a particular individual: ‘This is why it lacks natural community. If several
[individuals] were to be called by the same proper name, this would happen by
chance and according only to the vocal sound, but not according to a common
conception of the substance’.88 This reference to the natural signification of nouns
Institutiones 17.71 (GL III.25–9); Generale est, quod in diversas species potest dividi, ut
‘animal’, ‘arbor’. Speciale est, quod a genere dividitur, ut ‘homo’, ‘equus’: Institutiones
2.31 (GL II.61.l.28–62.1.1). [nomen generale = generic noun]; Hoc autem interest inter
proprium et appellativum, quod appellativum naturaliter commune est multorum, quos
eadem substantia sive qualitas vel quantitas generalis specialisve iungit: generalis ut
‘animal’, ‘corpus’, ‘virtus’; specialis ut ‘homo’, ‘lapis’, ‘grammaticus’, ‘albus’ … Proprium
vero naturaliter uniuscuiusque privatam substantiam et qualitatem significat, et in rebus
est individuis, quas philosophi atomos vocant, ut Plato, Socrates: Institutiones 2.24–5
(GL II.58.l.14–59.l.1; Nec mirum propria quae insecabilem substantiam demonstrant, ut
‘Socrates’, ‘Scipio’ nec non appellativa, quae secabilem [id est] generalem vel specialem
[quae dividi potest] substantiam indicant, ut ‘animal’, ‘corpus’, ‘homo’, ‘taurus’, ‘equus’,
‘aurum’, ‘lapis’, non egere coniunctione: diversae enim substantiae in uno coniungi non
possunt … Accidentia autem, quae substantiae iam ante suppositae accidunt, possunt
esse in diversa in eadem substantia, ut, si dicam ‘Marcus Tullius Cicero’, quia una est
substantia, non eget coniunctionibus, si autem dicam ‘sapiens et eloquens et felix Cicero’,
diversa ostendo accidentia in una substantia, itaque egent coniunctione: Institutiones
11.10–11 (GL II.553.l.25–554.l.11).
88
Itaque caret communione naturali. Cum igitur evenit ut multi eodem nomine proprio
nuncunpentur, fortuitu et sola voce, non etiam intellecu communis alicuius substantiae vel
qualitatis hoc fieri soleti: Institutiones 2.25 (GL II.59.1–4). See also a parallel text: sunt
quaedam nomina semper singularia vel natura vel usu: natura ut propria, quae naturaliter
individua sunt: ‘Iuppiter’, ‘Venus’, ‘Ceres’, ‘Achille’, ‘Hector’, ‘Sol’, ‘Luna’, ‘Italia’ […]
usu quae singulariter proferri tradidit usu, ut ‘sanguis’, ‘pulvis’. In his tamen ipsis est
quando vel eventus vel partitio regionum vel diversae opiniones vel auctoritas veterum
cogit vel quando pro appellativis proferuntur, ut etiam plurali numero proferantur: eventus,
is reminiscent of the pephuke of Aristotle when he distinguishes between universal

and singular subjects in the Peri hermeneias (17a38–17b3), a text where Boethius
will introduce the notion of platonity, parallel to that of humanity.
Priscian also distinguishes between nouns that signify substance and nouns
that signify other, accidental, categories. This is apparent in his description of
appellative adjectival nouns:
Even these nouns which derive from a special quality or quantity, namely
adjectives, naturally pertain to many: they are called ‘adjectives’ because they
are attached to other appellative nouns – which signify substance – or even to
proper nouns, to show their quality or quantity, which can increase of diminish
without destroying the substance, e.g. ‘a good animal’, ‘a big man’.89
Priscian’s theory could be judged inconsistent since all nouns are supposed to
signify substance and quality and yet, in this text as well as his sections on common
nouns, some nouns are said to signify substance, and others quality or quantity.
As Baratin has convincingly shown, this is due to the presence in Priscian of two
meanings of ‘quality’ and ‘substance’.90 All nouns signify substance with quality,
where ‘quality’ is understood in a broad way (first meaning), that is to say, all
nouns associate an attributive determination with a substantial signification. But
this quality or ‘attributive determination’ is sometimes a substance, which yields
the nouns of substance, such as ‘man’, while in other cases the quality of the noun
may be adjectival (‘white’) or quantitative (‘small’). Thus:
All nouns signify substance 1 (substantial signification)

and quality 1 (attributive determination)
Quality 1 = substance 2
Some nouns signify ‘homo’ (noun of substance)
(substantive signification)
‘albus’ (qualitative adjectival
Quality 1 = quality 2
noun)
‘parvus’ (quantitative
Quality 1 = quantity
adjectival noun)
quod evenit saepe eodem proprio nomine duos vel plures nuncupari, ut ‘Aeneas’ Ancisae
filius et Silvius, ‘Pyrrhus’ filius Achillis et ‘Pyrrhus’ rex Epirotarum, ‘Aiax’ Telamonius et
‘Aiax’ Oilieus filius. Haec enim non naturaliter communia sunt, quippe nullam qualitatem
communem significant, sed casu diversis contigere personis: Institutiones 5.52–3 (GL
II.174.23–175.11).
89
Priscian, Institutiones 2.24 (GL II.58.19–24).
90
Baratin, La Naissance, p. 402.
From this brief overview of Priscian’s theory of the noun and its links to the system
of categories and predicables, several conclusions can be drawn about the notion
of peculiar quality and the signification of proper nouns:
1. Together with appellatives that are general (‘who’), generic (‘animal’) and
specific (‘man’), proper nouns such as ‘Socrates’ belong to the category
of nouns of substance, that is, nouns that signify substance, contrary to
adjectives.
2. Proper nouns naturally signify an individual because of the unique and
exclusive relationship between the individual and the peculiar quality.
Likewise, appellatives signify a plurality of things due to the relationship
between the common quality and a plurality of individuals.
3. The reason why proper nouns such as ‘Socrates’ belong to the category
of nouns of substance cannot be their ‘substantial signification’, since the
latter is shared by nouns that signify quality or quantity, such as ‘white’ said
of Socrates, whose substance signified (substantial signification) is also
Socrates, i.e. Socrates as being white. Adjectives share the same substantial
signification as the ‘substantive’ nouns, but they confer a determination
corresponding to an accident, which Priscian understands along the lines
of Aristotle and Porphyry. By contrast, proper nouns participate in the
‘substantive signification’ as do nouns signifying genera and species within
the category of substance (like ‘animal’ and ‘man’).
4. As for Apollonius, indirect evidence supports the assumption that for
Priscian the peculiar quality is a Porphyrian bundle of properties that
includes the common quality of the species to which the individual belongs,
together with a plurality of individual features.91
5. Unlike Apollonius, Priscian does not adopt the principle that proper
nouns unequivocally identify their referent (homonymy being excluded),
even though he admits that they were devised in order to distinguish one
individual from all others. Instead, he denies the proper noun referential
power unless accompanied by a pronoun, because of the impossibility of
circumscribing the full set of properties within the peculiar quality:
Even though they were so instituted that each one is distinguished from all
others, proper nouns nonetheless do not ascertain [the reference] since they
cannot show all the qualities of the one they are supposed to single out from
all others without the help of the demonstration provided by the pronoun.
Even if we know that Virgilius is a poet and the son of Maro, if we were to
isolate of him, were it possible, we would not be able to know that it is his
name, unless someone, pointing at him, says: ‘this one is Virgilius’.92
91
See texts in note 84 above.
92
Propria quoque nomina, quamvis ideo ponantur, ut unumquemque ab aliis omnibus
discernant, incerta sint tamen, cum non possint omnes eius qualitates, quae illum separant
This seems to be due to the fact that these properties are relational, differentiating
one individual from all others. Their enumeration is therefore potentially endless
since individuals are themselves infinite in number. Priscian’s problem here is
reminiscent of the difficulty Barnes raised with regard to the unique collection
of properties in Porphyry. If the bundle of properties differentiates the individual
from the infinity of all other individuals within the same species, the enumeration
of what differentiates one individual from all others seems bound to be endless
too.93 Admittedly this problem, raised by the relational character of differentiating
properties, would not be faced by an author like Gregory of Nyssa for whom,
according to Zachhuber, not only the number of divine Persons is limited, for
obvious reasons, but also the number of human individuals.94
Boethius: Substantial Individual, Accidental Individuality, Platonity
Accidental Individuality
As noted above, Porphyry’s properties are understood as accidents by late ancient

commentators, especially Boethius. Boethius’ contribution to the late ancient
discussion on individuality is found in his second commentary on the Isagoge.
Here he developed his main ideas: individuality is understood as a unique
combination of accidents;95 in the process of individuation, nothing ‘substantial’
is added: the species is thus the whole substance of the individual;96 universal
ab aliis omnibus, ostendere absque demonstationis auxilio, quae fit per pronomen. Quamvis
enim sciamus, quod poeta sit Virgilius et filius Maronis, cernentes eum, si possit fieri,
nesciebamus, eius esse hoc nomen, nisi si quis nobis eum demonstrans dixisset: ‘hic est
virgilius’: Institutiones 17.63 (GL III.145.16–146.6).
93
Barnes, Porphyry, p. 151.
94
See Zachhuber’s contribution in the present volume.
95
Socratis enim proprietas, si fuit caluus, simus, propenso aluo ceterisque corporis
lineamentis aut morum institutione ut forma uocis, non conueniebat in alterum; hae enim
proprietates quae ex accidentibus ei obuenerant eiusque formam figuramque coniunxerant,
in nullum alium conueniebant … At uero hominis proprietas, id est specialis, conuenit et in
Socratem et in Platonem et in caeteros, quorum proprietates ex accidentibus uenientes in
quemlibet alium singularem nulla ratione conueniunt: see Boethius, In Isagogen 2 (235.5–
236.6 Brandt).
96
Specialissimae vero species licet ipsae individuis praeponuntur, tamen praepositi
habitudinem non habebunt idcirco quoniam illa quae speciei ultimae supponuntur
talia sunt ut quantum ad substantiam unam quiddam sint non habentia substantialem
differentiam sed accidentibus efficitur, ut numero saltem distare videantur, ut paene dici
possit et pluribus praeesse species et quommodo nulli omnino esse praepositam: Boethius,
In Isagogen 2 (214.6–13 Brandt); Nam cum species substantiam monstret unam quae
omnium individuorum sub specie positorum substantia sit, quodammodo nulli praeposita
est, si ad substantiam quis velit aspicere. At si accidentia quis consideret, plures de quibus
predicables, genera and species, are individuated when inhering in individuals;97

the ‘theory of a single subject’ for universality and singularity is offered as an
answer to Porphyry’s celebrated questions at the outset of the Isagoge and agrees
perfectly with the previous thesis: the same thing (res) is universal when thought
and individual in particulars;98 this can also be said of the theory of the species as
cogitatio collecta.99
From these observations, it may be deduced that Boethius holds both a
theory of accidental individuality100 and a theory of the particularisation of the
immanent universal within each individual. In such a theory, a universal species is
particularised by means of its inherence in the individual whose complete substance
it constitutes, but we have no idea of the way in which the particularisation is done.
As a result, nothing is a substance qua individual. This means that in Boethius too
individuality and the substantial form of the individual are two notions kept apart,
because individuation is an accidental process for the individual substance as such.
As for platonity, it is introduced in the commentary on the Peri hermeneias,
and, contrary to the interpretations it has been given in the subsequent tradition
(both medieval and contemporary), it is utterly alien to the Isagoge’s approach in
predicetur species fiunt, non substantiae diversitate sed accidentium multitudine: Boethius,
In Isagogen 2 (214.13–19 Brandt); Speciem vero substantiam nuncupamus, nec ita est
species substantia individuorum quemadmodum speciei genus; illud enim pars substantiae
est, ut animalis homo. Relinquae enim partes rationale sunt atque mortale, homo vero
Socratis atque Ciceronis tota substantia est; nulla enim additur differentia substantialis ad
hominem, ut Socrates fiat aut Cicero sicut additur animali rationale atque mortale, ut homo
integra definitione claudatur: Boethius, In Isagogen 2 (215.11–216.2 Brandt).
97
Animal enim, quod genus est, de pluribus praedicatur sed cum hoc animal in Socrate
consideramus – Socrates enim animal est – ipsum animal fit indiuiduum, quoniam Socrates
est indiuiduus ac singularis. Item homo de pluribus quidem hominibus praedicatur sed
si illam humanitatem quae in Socrate est indiuiduo consideremus, fit indiuidua, quoniam
Socrates ipse indiuiduus est ac singularis: see Boethius, In Isagogen 2 (185.16–186.11
Brandt).
98
Ita quoque generibus et speciebus, id est singularitati et uniuersalitati, unum
quidem subiectum est; sed alio modo uniuersale est cum cogitatur, alio singulare cum
sentitur in rebus his in quibus esse suum habet …: see Boethius, In Isagogen 2 (166–7
Brandt).
99
Itaque haec sunt quidem in singularibus, cogitantur uero uniuersalia. Nihilque
aliud species esse putanda est nisi cogitatio collecta ex indiuiduorum dissimilium numero
substantiali similitudine: see Boethius, In Isagogen 2 (166 Brandt).
100
The same theory is to be found in the theological treatises: Sed numero
differentiam accidentium varietas facit. Nam tres homines neque genere, neque specie sed
suis accidentibus distant; nam vel si animo cuncta ab his accidentia separemus, tamen
locus cunctis diversus est quem unum fingere nullo modo possumus; duo enim corpora
unum locum non obtinebunt, qui est accidens. Atque ideo sunt numero plures, quoniam
accidentibus plures fiunt: Boethius, De trinitate (8 Moreschini).
terms of a bundle of properties, not to mention the ontological distinction between

accidental and substantial properties.
Platonity
If any notion seems profitable when addressing the topic of individuality in late
antiquity, it is certainly the concept of ‘platonity’ as advanced by Boethius, widely
developed later in medieval philosophy, that comes to mind. It has also often been
mentioned in discussions of Porphyry’s notion of individuality. Contrary to what
might be expected, however, the notion of platonity is of little use for a philosophical
discussion on the notion of individuality, except perhaps in a negative way: this
is because the sole text in which it appears gives no description whatsoever of
its meaning. The term is simply introduced in order to explain the Aristotelian
distinction between the universal and singular subject – rephrased by Boethius
in terms of universal and singular nouns – through the quality signified by the
nouns and inherent in the things of which the noun is predicated. For Boethius, the
character of the predication and the signification of a noun depend on the nature
of the quality signified in the object or objects to which it referred. What could
this quality be in the case of nouns that signify the individual substance, such as
‘Plato’? Boethius’ answer is well known: the signified quality is ‘platonity’. What
is platonity? This question is not answered by Boethius:
We can see that there are other qualities in things that do not suit another
thing, but only one particular and singular substance (substance). So [quality]
is either singular, as is that of Socrates or that of Plato, or one communicated
(communicata) in many that is entirely present in each singular and in all, as is
humanity itself. There is a quality that can be entirely (tota) in each singular and
in all. Whenever we mentally contemplate such a thing, this mental conception
does not lead us by the name (nomen) to some unique person, but to all, whoever
they are, who participate in the definition of humanity. As a result this [quality]
is common to many, whereas the other one is incommunicable to all of them,
but proper to one. If we were to coin a name, we would call this singular quality,
incommunicable to any other subsistence (subsistentia), with a coined name,
so that our position would be clarified. Let us then call the incommunicable
property of Plato ‘platonity’. We can name this quality by the coined name
‘platonity’ in the same way as we say that the quality of man is humanity. This
platonity belongs to only one man, and not anyone, but only to Plato, whereas
humanity contains by this name Plato and any other one. Because platonity suits
only one, Plato, the mind of the one who hears the name of Plato directs itself to
one person and one particular substance, but where he hears ‘man’, the intellect
directs itself to as many [individuals] as humanity is known to contain. Because
humanity is both common to many and entirely in each of the singulars – all
men possess humanity to an equal degree as each does, otherwise the definition
of the species of man (homo specialis) would never suit the particular human
substance – so because those [qualities] are such, it follows that man is said to be
universal whereas Plato and platonity itself [are said to be] singular.101
Within the context of Boethius’ commentary, platonity is introduced only as

an element of the logico-semantic analysis. It serves to explain the identity of
the referent of proper nouns so that two singular propositions, where one is the
negation of the other, are always contradictory (one false, one true). It is in fact a
function without content: Boethius does not mention any concrete property, or a
collection of properties or indeed accidents.
His silence, however, is no coincidence; it has strong philosophical motivations.
Boethius is bound to make no ontological commitment regarding platonity in
order to save the logical value of this notion as a tool for explaining the semantics
of ‘singular propositions’. Whereas what is signified by nouns is never defined
by Aristotle, Boethius gives a strong ontological twist to his reading of the Peri
hermeneias: nouns are understood within the framework of the Categories, that
is, as signifying ‘substance’ or something ‘as a substance’, whereas verbs signify
‘accidents’, something ‘as an accident’. This is the reason why Boethius is not
silent about the metaphysical nature of the quality signified by universal names: it
is clearly a common essence, an immanent universal, the object of the definition
shared by all the individuals belonging to the same species. As for the individual
quality, it can neither be accidental, because that would remove the noun from the
category of substance (as ‘the policeman’ or ‘this white [person]’), nor essential,
because there is no substantial difference beyond the last species. Platonity is an
empty shell and must remain so.
Conclusion
The impact of grammatical treatises on the philosophy and theology of the High
Middle Ages was considerable; it is during the latter period that the reflections of a
‘philosophical grammar’ about the ‘peculiar quality’ merge most fruitfully with the
ideas of ‘dialecticians’ and that ‘proper nouns’ become in themselves a philosophical
concept – a status they have kept until now in philosophical logic and philosophy
of (ordinary) language. Boethius’ platonity is, then, systematically identified
with the peculiar quality of the grammarians, itself identified with the bundle of
accidents of the Isagoge: it is seen as a ‘collection of collection’, consisting of
the collection of substantial properties (for example, for Socrates: animal, mortal,
rational), and of the collection of accidents proper to Socrates (philosopher, snub-
nosed and so on), individuating man within Socrates, so that ‘Socrates’ can be the
subject of both essential singular predications. Abelard considers this approach
to be specifically the result of the bad influence of grammarians on logic, and
his solution consists in dissociating utterly the signification of proper nouns in
101
Boethius, In Peri Hermeneias (II.136.1–137.25 Meiser).
grammar (where it may include accidental individuating properties) and in

logic (where ‘Socrates’ means nothing besides ‘this man’).102 While a detailed
exploration of the medieval reception of late ancient theories is beyond the scope
of the current chapter, it is worth pointing out, by way of conclusion, that these
later developments, however impressive, must not dictate our interpretation of
the earlier texts and their intention. We should therefore guard ourselves against
the temptation to extrapolate philosophical theories of individuality starting
from connections between concepts that will become self-evident only later on:
between individuality and individuation, between peculiar qualities and bundles
of properties, between properties and accidents, between platonity and the unique
collection of properties. The examination of the role of the ‘peculiar quality’ and
the signification of proper nouns in grammatical texts, read together with other
philosophical sources, for instance, with patristic texts,103 contributes to this
clarification and may help shed some light on the stages of the development of the
notion of individuality in late antiquity.
102
See Brumberg-Chaumont, ‘Sémantiques du nom propre’.
103
See Zachhuber’s contribution in the present volume.
Chapter 5
Individuality and the Theological
Debate about ‘Hypostasis’
Johannes Zachhuber
The purpose of this chapter is to elucidate ways in which Christian theology in late
antiquity contributed to the conceptualisation of the individual. It is often alleged
that it did and, more specifically, that the major trinitarian and Christological
debates of the Patristic period inspired some of the most significant and lasting
innovations theology bequeathed to the Western intellectual tradition. By looking
at these doctrinal developments against the backdrop of earlier and contemporary
philosophical theories, I shall seek to come to an evaluation of such claims.
I am aware that my approach, which is focused largely on the history of ideas,
simplifies a more complex picture. It abstracts from the various contexts in which
these ideas developed and which, no doubt, influenced or even determined them.
Arguably, theories about the individual and about individuality are never detached
from the social and cultural constructions of the individual and from attitudes to
it. Early Christianity evidently has much to teach us in that regard.1 While Ancient
Christianity, of course, was not a religion of the individual let alone a religion of
individuality, it was a new, and hence non-traditional religion and therefore, for
much of Antiquity at least, a religion of individual or small-group conversions.2
In that regard, Late Ancient Christianity was very different from Early Medieval
Christianity in the West, for example, which was much more characterised by
an alignment of religious, political and cultural homogeneity.3 At least until the
fifth century, Christianity presented itself to the individual as an option in a way
unknown to European societies throughout much of their history, and whatever
the reasons were for taking this particular option, they would inevitably tend to
1
Cf. G. Stroumsa, ‘Cor salutis cardo: Shaping the Person in Early Christian Thought’,
History of Religions 30 (1990): pp. 25–50 and the contribution by Alexis Torrance in the
present volume.
2
N. McLynn, A. Papaconstantinou and D. Schwartz (eds), Conversion in Late
Antiquity: Christianity, Islam and Beyond (Farnham, 2013).
3
C.M. Cusack, Rise of Christianity in Northern Europe, 300–1000 (London-New
York, 1998).
align religious existence and personal biography, as is evidenced by prominent

examples from Justin Martyr4 to Augustine.5
How did theological and doctrinal debates in the Early Church influence
conceptions of the individual? Scholars examining this question have often turned
to the Trinitarian debates of the fourth century. There, they have argued, and
especially in the final settlement reached in the final third of the fourth century by
the so-called Cappadocian theologians, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus
and, especially, Gregory of Nyssa, in the final third of the fourth century, a novel
and immensely rich notion of individuality or even personality was born. The
reasoning is simple: as it became necessary to achieve a finely tuned balance
between unity and ‘trinity’ in the Godhead, the individual ‘person’ was inevitably
promoted to the status of a fundamental ontological category, for the first time in
Western history.6
As we shall see, the truth is somewhat more complex. It is the case that
Cappadocian reflection about the Trinity led to a particular theory of individuality
but the really transformative development occurred during the later Christological
debates. In fact, the Cappadocian framework, which was widely taken for
granted by Greek theologians of later centuries and applied to the more recent
Christological quarrels, proved only partly helpful for the novel challenges posed
by that doctrinal development, and the various theories of the individual that arose
in its course were all marked by more or less conscious deviation from the view
originally proposed by those fourth-century theologians.
In order to advance this interpretation, I shall start from some terminological
and conceptual clarifications, before moving on in a second part of my argument
to an elucidation of the Cappadocian position. I shall subsequently show how this
theory faces considerable difficulties when applied to the Christological problem.
I end by pointing to two rival theories emerging form this conundrum: they both
represent considerable conceptual innovation with wide-ranging consequences for
the foundations of philosophy and theology.
Terminological and Conceptual Foundations
Philosophical Background
The problem of the individual or of individuality is more equivocal than might

appear at first sight. In fact, there are at least two separate issues, and for the
purposes of my argument it is crucial to distinguish between them. On the one
hand, there is the need to identify individual items. The sixth-century comedian
4
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 3 (PG 6.477–81).
5
Augustine, Confessions 8.12 (PL 32.762).
6
J. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church
(Crestwood NY, 2002), pp. 39–41.
Individuality and the Theological Debate about ‘Hypostasis’ 93
Epicharmus of Kos offered a famous example which subsequently became

popular with philosophers: a man refuses to pay his debt with the argument
that the person who took the loan was not he but someone different.7 At issue
here is the diachronic identity of an individual. At the same time, however, we
must be able to tell apart similar but distinct particulars (identical twins are a
notorious example). In extremis, the outcome of a court case may well depend
on establishing the truth in a case of mistaken identity. Apparently, we need
conceptual tools protecting the identity of one and the same thing through its
extended temporal and spatial existence while allowing it to be distinguished
from other, potentially similar items.
Besides this need to identify the individual, there exists a different question
as well, however: is the individual special or unique? And if so, in what does
this uniqueness consist? Is uniqueness what matters about an individual and
even makes it interesting? The two questions are not, of course, unrelated. Only
when we have found ways of identifying the individual can we even consider the
possibility that its individuality is something special and worthy of consideration.
Broadly speaking, we can say that while ancient philosophy has shown
great interest in the former issues, the latter never became a pressing concern
for these thinkers.8 There was a general preference for the universal over and
against the particular; the fact that sensible beings existed in the form of separate
individuals was usually seen as indicative of its lower ontological rank, not as
something inviting specific reflection let alone celebration. Even Peripatetics,
such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, for whom particular being was, in one sense,
ontologically foundational, had ultimately little to say about individuals qua
individuals. This can hardly come as a surprise if one recalls the way the very term
‘individual’ (atomon) was first introduced into philosophical language in Aristotle’s
Categories. While Aristotle there refers to individuals as ‘primary substances’,
their ‘individuality’ does not seem to concern him at all. In-dividuals, as their
name suggests, are merely the smallest parts into which more universal beings,
species and genera, are divided. Their definition is thus a purely negative one: a
primary substance is a being that ‘is neither said of a subject (καθ᾽ ὑποκειμένου)
nor in a subject (ἐν τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ)’ (2a 12–3).9 It is thus, as it were, unsayable.
Indeed, we may find the later idea of the individual as the truly ineffable being
(individuum est ineffabile)10 foreshadowed in Aristotle’s definition, and Porphyry
consciously followed the classical paradigm when, in his influential introductory
7
A reconstruction of Epicharmus’ fragmentary text is attempted in D. Sedley, ‘The
Stoic Criterion of Identity’, Phronesis 27 (1982): pp. 255–75.
8
Cf. M. Frede, ‘Der Begriff des Individuums bei den Kirchenvätern’, Jahrbuch für
Antike und Christentum 40 (1997): pp. 38–54; esp. p. 39.
9
Cf. M. Frede, ‘Individuen bei Aristoteles’, Antike und Abendland 24 (1978): pp.
16–39.
10
Cf. B. Sandkuhle, ‘“Individuum est ineffabile”: Zum Problem der Konzeptualisierung
von Individualität im Ausgang von Leibniz’, in W. Gräb and L. Charbonnier (eds),
writing Isagoge, he stated that ‘no knowledge was possible’ (μὴ γὰρ ἂν γενέσθαι
ἐπιστήμην11) of individuals because they exist in infinite number.
A very different approach to the problem of individuality was taken by the Stoics
who held that each individual is characterised by a unique ‘individual quality’
(ἰδίως ποιόν).12 This seems to indicate a greater interest in individuality but, as
David Sedley has shown, the Stoic theory was developed in response to a sceptical
argument (the so-called αὐξανόμενος λόγος or Growing Argument) challenging
precisely the identifiability of the individual. It is thus once again the former of
our two questions that is in view. A consequence of Sedley’s link between the
Stoic theory and the αὐξανόμενος λόγος is that he sharply distinguishes between
the ‘individual quality’ and any theory of definite description. We can easily see
why: part of the force of the Sceptics’ argument seems to lie in the aporia that an
enumeration of individual properties would always either be too vague to exclude
mistaken identity or so prescriptive that it jeopardises an individual’s diachronic
identity. For this reason, Sedley dismisses out of hand the derivation of Porphyry’s
influential notion of the individual as a ‘bundle of properties’ from the Stoic theory,
as suggested in a passage in Dexippus’ Commentary on the Categories.13
Yet while Sedley’s reasoning is cogent as far as the original, anti-sceptical
context of the Stoic theory is concerned, Porphyry’s own contribution appears in
a different light once it is integrated into its (proper) Aristotelian framework. It is
Porphyry’s aim, in the Isagoge, to introduce species and, notably, the individual
as further predicables in addition to the ones Aristotle had originally allowed.
This interest, as Riccardo Chiaradonna has shown in a subtle analysis of a central
passage of the Isagoge, led Porphyry to draw on and modify the Stoic notion of
the ‘individual quality’. The result is a dual understanding of the individual: on the
one hand, there is the ‘particular’ (τὸ κατὰ μέρος): the individual, concrete object
underlying the properties. The term individual (ἄτομον), on the other hand, is used
for a definite description that can identify such an object (‘this white thing, and
this person approaching, and the son of Sophroniscus’14) as well as the individual
nature that corresponds to such a definitional account.15 This idea is recurrent in
Individualität: Genese und Konzeption einer Leitkategorie humaner Selbstdeutung (Berlin,

2012), pp. 153–79.
11
Porphyry, Isagoge (CAG IV/1.6.16 Busse).
12
Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. H. von Arnim, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1903), no.
395 (130.44–5). Cf. E. Lewis, ‘The Stoics on Identity and Individuation’, Phronesis 40/1
(1994): pp. 89–108; T.H. Irwin, ‘Stoic Individuals’, Noûs 30, Supplement: Philosophical
Perspectives 10, Metaphysics (1996): pp. 459–80.
13
Dexippus, In Aristotelis categorias commentarium (CAG IV/2.30.23–7 Busse).
14
Porphyry, Isagoge (CAG IV/1.7.20–21 Busse). I accept the textual emendation
proposed by Francesco Ademollo in ‘Sophroniscus’ son is approaching: Porphyry, Isagoge
7.20–1’, Classical Quarterly 54 (2004): pp. 22–5.
15
R. Chiaradonna, ‘La teorie dell’individuo in Porfirio e l’ἰδίως ποιόν stoico’,
Elenchos 21 (2000): pp. 303–31 (here p. 307).
Boethius, who, to illustrate it, famously introduced abstract terms derived from
proper names (Platonitas16); via Boethius it subsequently influenced medieval and
modern theories.17 Ultimately, there is little evidence that even Porphyry’s interest
went beyond the problem of individuals’ identification and their logical function.
His conceptual and terminological differentiations could be used, however, by
Christian authors whose theological needs prompted a very different kind of
concern for the individual.
Theological Background
In order to appreciate the specifically theological theories about the individual

that came to be developed in the Greek-speaking church of the first millennium,
it is essential first of all to consider what appears to be a veritable terminological
idiosyncrasy. As we have seen, the philosophical tradition provided a number
of established technical terms, such as individual (ἄτομον) and particular (τὸ
κατὰ μέρος). Greek-speaking theologians, however, while not exactly shunning
these two words, came to choose and retain an altogether different one, namely
hypostasis.18 For us, this usage seems intuitively plausible since we are so much
accustomed to speaking of the ‘Persons’ of the Trinity and therefore think that
hypostasis was simply one Greek equivalent for this expression. However, this
connection is of a secondary nature and only arose after Basil of Caesarea had
decided to adopt hypostasis for his own trinitarian theology in precisely this sense.
As important as it is to realise that the words commonly used by philosophers
for the individual referred to their participation in the species, it is crucial for the
further theological debate to realise that hypostasis, when used by philosophers
and theologians between the second and mid-fourth century, referred to the actual
existence of a given thing. It is therefore more common to speak of a thing’s
hypostasis meaning either the fact, or the origin of, its existence, than to call
something ‘a hypostasis’ although it is easy to see how the former gave rise to the
latter usage. Hypostases would then be things that in a real or full sense existed.
The question, of course, of which things or which kinds of things existed in this
way was controversial between the philosophical schools, and it is for this reason
16
Boethius, In de interpretatione 2.7 (137.3–7 Meiser). Cf. also Julie Brumberg-
Chaumont’s contribution to the present volume.
17
Cf. C. Erismann, ‘L’individu expliquée par les accidents. Remarques sur la destinée
“chrétienne” de Porphyre’, C. Erismann and A. Schniewind (eds), Compléments de
substance. Études sur les propriétés accidentelles offertes à Alain de Libera (Paris, 2008),
pp. 51–66.
18
For the earlier history of the concept cf. H. Dörrie, ‘Ὑπόστασις, Wort- und
Bedeutungsgeschichte’, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen.
Philosophisch-Historische Klasse (1955): pp. 35–92; J. Hammerstaedt, ‘Hypostasis’, in
Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol. 16 (Stuttgart, 1994), pp. 986–1035.
that one sometimes gets the impression of a confusing variety of actual uses of the
term.19
When Origen introduced the term hypostasis into Christian theology for
the first time, it was evidently his intention to press home precisely this point:
Father and Son are two not only in thought or conception (λόγῳ), but in reality
(τῷ ὑποστάσει).20 This use of hypostasis in trinitarian theology, then, supported
an anti-monarchian agenda – against those people who mitigated the difference
between Father and Son in order to maintain the unity in the Godhead it was to
be maintained that those two had, in whatever precise sense, separate existence or
subsistence. The same interest was paramount in those ‘Origenist’ bishops who, in
the later third and throughout the fourth century, emphasise the need to call Father,
Son and Spirit ‘hypostases’: they did so in order to emphasise their full, eternal,
separate existence against their opponents who, in their view, compromised this
principle.21
Things really only changed when Basil of Caesarea, around 370, decided for
partly political reasons22 to adopt this very terminology within the framework
of a trinitarian theology whose primary interest consisted in an emphasis on the
equality of the Trinitarian Persons. Insofar as they are God, he contended, they
are all equal. To underwrite this point, he pioneered for the first time the idea that
certain predicates would mark out unity and difference in the Trinity. To the extent
that properties characteristic of divine nature could be said of all three Persons,
the latter are the same while their respective individuality was expressed through
predicates that could only be said of one of them.23
It is precisely this combination of the Origenist tradition of divine ‘hypostases’
– that is, independently existing entities within the Trinity – and Basil’s interest
in the intratrinitarian differentiation by means of properties that gave birth to the
19
Cf. M. Frede, ‘Begriff des Individuums’, pp. 42–4.
20
Origenes, Contra Celsum 8.12 (229.31–230.2 Koetschau). The analogous pair
ἐπινοίᾳ–ὑποστάσει is employed, for example, by Alexander of Aphrodisias, In Aristotelis
metaphysica commentaria B 5 (229.31–320.1 Hayduck).
21
Cf. the so-called Second Antiochene Creed: Athanasius, De synodis 23.6 (249.33
Opitz) = A. Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der Alten Kirche (Breslau:
Morgenstern, 3rd edition, 1897), § 154.
22
V.H. Drecoll, Die Entwicklung der Trinitätslehre des Basilius von Cäsarea. Sein
Weg vom Homöusianer zum Neunizäner (Göttingen, 1996), pp. 337–8.
23
Cf. Basil, Adversus Eunomium 1.19 (PG 29.556AB): εἰ δὲ οὕτω τις ἐκλαμβάνοι τὸ
τῆς οὐσίας κοινὸν, ὡς τὸν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον ἕνα καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπ’ ἀμφοῖν θεωρεῖσθαι, ὥστε καὶ
εἰ καθ’ ὑπόθεσιν φῶς ὁ Πατὴρ τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ νοοῖτο, φῶς καὶ τὴν τοῦ Μονογενοῦς οὐσίαν
ὁμολογεῖσθαι, καὶ ὅνπερ ἄν τις ἀποδῷ ἐπὶ τοῦ Πατρὸς τὸν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον, τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον
καὶ τῷ Υἱῷ ἐφαρμόζειν· εἰ οὕτω τὸ κοινὸν τῆς οὐσίας λαμβάνοιτο, δεχόμεθα· καὶ ἡμέτερον
εἶναι τὸ δόγμα φήσομεν. Κατὰ τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ θεότης μία·δηλονότι κατὰ τὸν τῆς οὐσίας λόγον
τῆς ἑνότητος νοουμένης, ὥστε ἀριθμῷ μὲν τὴν διαφορὰν ὑπάρχειν, καὶ ταῖς ἰδιότησι ταῖς
χαρακτηριζούσαις ἑκάτερον· ἐν δὲ τῷ λόγῳ τῆς θεότητος τὴν ἑνότητα θεωρεῖσθαι.
specifically theological notion of the individual as hypostasis. For Basil found it

convenient to apply to the Trinity the analogy of individual and species or genus:
If you ask me to state shortly my own view, I shall state that ousia has the same
relation to hupostasis as the common item has to the particular. For each of
us partakes of being (εἶναι) through the common formula of being (τῆς οὐσίας
λόγος), but he is one or the other through the properties attached to him. So
also there (sc. in the Godhead) the formula of being is the same, like goodness,
divinity and what else one may conceive of: but the hupostasis is seen in the
properties of fatherhood or sonship or the sanctifying power.24
All this may have seemed innocent enough at the time, yet it had in fact far-
reaching consequences. Henceforth, the preferred term for ‘individual’ in Greek
theology was a term, which in its original meaning signified what really or truly
existed. We shall see how this influenced further development of the concept
of individuality, which became inextricably tied to precisely this notion of
subsisting being.
The Cappadocian Theory of Individuality
The innovative Cappadocian settlement to the Trinitarian debate provided the

backdrop for the first theological theory of the individual, cast as a definition of
hypostasis. It is to be found in a writing that has been transmitted in the collection
of Basil’s letters as Epistle 38 though many scholars today ascribe it to his brother
Gregory of Nyssa. For the present purpose a decision about the authorship is not
essential.25
This theory has two elements corresponding, more or less, to the two aspects
Chiaradonna identified in Porphyry’s account. On the one hand, there is the
individual as the particular thing (πρᾶγμα). Such an object, according to the
Cappadocian author is the concrete realisation of a nature (κοινὴ φύσις), a universal
which, as a whole, encompasses all its individual members. This universal nature
is also essence (ousia): it contains the being for the whole class in its entirety
which, therefore, is homoousios.
For its concrete existence, however, nature is dependent on individuals. In this
sense, precisely, the latter are hypostases: they individuate the universal which
without them would have no existence of its own. The author argues that, due
to its universality, ousia lacks stability (στάσις: the word is meant to allude to
hypostasis) and therefore needs the hypostasis. In this sense, he contrasts the use
of the universal term with that of the proper name:
24
Basil, Letter 214.4.9–15 (3.205 Courtonne).
25
J. Zachhuber, ‘Nochmals: Der “38. Brief” des Basilius von Cäsarea als Werk des
Gregor von Nyssa’, Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 7 (2003), pp. 73–90.
For he who says ‘man’ produces in the ear a somewhat scattered notion on
account of the indefiniteness of its signification so that the nature is indicated
from the name, but the subsisting thing (πρᾶγμα), which is specifically indicated
by the name, is not signified. But he who says ‘Paul’ shows that the phusis
subsists in the thing indicated by the name.26
Why is the meaning of the universal term ‘indefinite’ (ἀόριστος)? The answer,
it seems, must be that the author does not here think of its signification as this is
reasonably clear for a word like ‘man’. Rather, he thinks of its referential function:
a word like ‘man’ does, after all, refer to a human individual but it does so with a
certain vagueness. If several people are present in the same room, the use of the
term ‘man’, while excluding furniture and (potentially present) animals, cannot be
unequivocally related to any one particular person. This I take to be the meaning
of the author’s somewhat enigmatic claim that ‘what subsists and is specially and
peculiarly indicated by the name is not signified’ by the universal term. By contrast,
the use of the proper name demonstrates, by way of its reference to a specific
object (πρᾶγμα), that a nature exists or subsists (ὑφεστῶσαν!) in one particular
thing. Once again, there is a clear allusion to the technical term hypostasis. The
individual, we might say, is the nature considered in its concrete existence.
It is helpful at this point briefly to recall the theological motivation for this
approach. The Cappadocians defended the formula of Nicaea, still controversial
at the time, according to which the Son is homoousios with the Father. One of
the most common objections to this phrase throughout the fourth century was
that its use would imply the existence of a further item, an antecedent substance,
ontologically prior to both Father and Son. This was meant as reductio ad absurdum
as it was generally accepted that God the Father himself had to be the fundamental
ontological principle, the arche.27
A popular Nicene reply to this charge was that the Father, in fact, was the
substance properly speaking and the Son’s consubstantiality consisted in his
derivation from the Father’s ousia.28 For certain reasons the Cappadocians were
unwilling to use this line of argument. All the more, everything depended on
26
[Basil], Letter 38.3.2–8: Ὁ γὰρ ἄνθρωπον εἰπὼν ἐσκεδασμένην τινὰ διάνοιαν τῷ
ἀορίστῳ τῆς σημασίας τῇ ἀκοῇ ἐνεποίησεν, ὥστε τὴν μὲν φύσιν ἐκ τοῦ ὀνόματος δηλωθῆναι,
τὸ δὲ ὑφεστὸς καὶ δηλούμενον ἰδίως ὑπὸ τοῦ ὀνόματος πρᾶγμα μὴ σημανθῆναι. Ὁ δὲ Παῦλον
εἰπὼν ἔδειξεν ἐν τῷ δηλουμένῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ ὀνόματος πράγματι ὑφεστῶσαν τὴν φύσιν.
27
Cf. Athanasius, De synodis 51.3 (274.35–275.4 Opitz); Contra Arianos 1.14.1
(123.31–3 Tetz); R. Williams, ‘The Logic of Arianism’, The Journal of Theological Studies
34 (1983), pp. 56–81 (here p. 66); and P. Widdicombe, The Fatherhood of God from Origen
to Athanasius (Oxford, 1994), pp. 172–5.
28
For this interpretation cf. Apollinarius of Laodicea in: [Basil], Letter 362.4–23;
J. Zachhuber, ‘Derivative Genera in Apollinarius of Laodicea: Some remarks on the
philosophical coherence of his thought’, in S.-P. Bergjan (ed.), Apollinaris von Laodizäa
und die Folgen (Tübingen, forthcoming).
their ability to develop the relationship between universal nature and individual
person in perfect symmetry: accordingly, the individuals are nothing other than
the universal nature in its concrete existence (hence they all are of the same being),
while the nature exists or subsists exclusively in its ‘hypostases’. In the case of
the Trinity, there are three, neither more nor less; in the case of humanity there are
many more but their number, as we know from Gregory of Nyssa,29 is by no means
infinite. Human nature exists as a limited number of individuals and once their
fullness (πλήρωμα) is reached, history as we know it will come to an end.
The author of Epistle 38, then, presents the individual as the nature in its
concrete existence. Yet there is another aspect of his theory and one that appears
dominant in the one passage that most closely resembles a definition of hypostasis.
The word hypostasis, the author there states succinctly, indicates that ‘which is
said specifically’ (τὸ ἰδίως λεγόμενον). This same point is then further developed:
This, then, is hupostasis. It is not the indefinite notion of ousia, which finds no
stability (στάσις) on account of the community of what is signified. It is that
notion which sets before the mind a circumscription in one thing (πρᾶγμα) of
what is common and uncircumscribed by means of such properties as are seen
with it (ἐπιφάνομαι30).31
While this text is not easily interpreted, it seems clear that the author here aims
at an individual’s intellectual content rather than its concrete reality. We thus find
in the Epistle 38 a duality analogous to the one which, according to Chiaradonna,
existed in Porphyry’s Isagoge as well. The parallel can hardly surprise: after all,
the Cappadocian author shares, albeit for different reasons, the twin-interest of the
Platonist philosopher: on the one hand, the Trinitarian Person for him is, and has to
be, a hypostasis, a really and truly existing reality in the Origenist tradition. On the
other hand, the doctrine of idiomata, introduced by Basil, requires the emphasis
on a definite description making the individual divine Person distinct from the
other two.
Let me conclude this part of my chapter with two observations. First, while
it is evident that the Cappadocian settlement of the Trinitarian controversy
in the late fourth century necessitated for the first time a subtle and thorough,
specifically theological theory of the individual, this theory does not decisively
move beyond the framework established by Porphyry in his influential Isagoge.
While individuals (‘hypostases’) must of necessity exist to individuate universal
29
Gregory of Nyssa, De Anima et Resurrectione (PG 46.128CD).
30
Here: ‘appear on the surface’ cf. LSJ, s.v. (for example, of the Platonic idea in its
images).
31
[Basil], Letter 38.3.8–12: Τοῦτο οὖν ἐστιν ἡ ὑπόστασις, οὐχ ἡ ἀόριστος τῆς οὐσίας
ἔννοια μηδεμίαν ἐκ τῆς κοινότητος τοῦ σημαινομένου στάσιν εὑρίσκουσα, ἀλλ’ ἡ τὸ κοινόν
τε καὶ ἀπερίγραπτον ἐν τῷ τινὶ πράγματι διὰ τῶν ἐπιφαινομένων ἰδιωμάτων παριστῶσα καὶ
περιγράφουσα.
natures, their mere ‘hypostatic’ existence is in practice all that matters for them.
Their difference from each other is only relevant to the extent that it permits their
mutual distinction. While it is true that God and man are both ‘one and many’,
for what they are, for their being or nature, their unity is clearly more important
than their plurality. The Cappadocians agree with Porphyry in their denial of
any essential difference between individuals of the same species. In fact, this is
absolutely fundamental for their defence of Nicaea: the three divine Persons, like
any number of human individuals, share one and the same substance; it is only in
their separate existence (hypostasis) that they are distinct. While the Cappadocians
are famous for introducing idiomata characteristic of the Trinitarian Persons, such
as ‘unbegotten’ for the Father and ‘begotten’ for the Son, this amounts to little
more than that one is distinct from the other qua hypostasis.
My second observation concerns the relationship between the two elements
constituting the Cappadocian theory, the concrete individual item and the intellectual
content characteristic of it. It seems evident to me that for the Cappadocians these
two elements are merely two sides of the same reality: individuals ‘hypostatise’
nature by means of specific properties. By mentioning the ‘bundle of properties’,
therefore, we speak of the concrete thing and of nothing else. In other words, the
two elements were meant as complementary accounts of the same reality, not as
competing interpretations of it.
It appears plausible, however, to assume that these two elements would become
tensional once the question arose whether something truly was an individual.
This, precisely, was the novel issue raised when Christology became a major
topic of controversy beginning from the late fourth century. In this debate, which
continued with unabated intensity until the end of the eighth century if not longer,
a question came to prominence for the first time which hitherto had been of no
great interest to either philosophers or theologians. The specific problem was how
Jesus Christ, the God-man, could be understood as one individual or hypostasis; in
order to formulate an answer, however, it seemed necessary to tackle the broader
issue of what in general made an individual an individual. Attempts to give a
doctrinally acceptable answer, as we shall see, led theologians to radically new
decisions which transformed not only the framework offered by the Cappadocians
but stretched to breaking point the foundations of ancient ontology.
The New Challenge: Christology
The Cappadocian theory soon became widely accepted, and when the Christological
controversy gathered pace all major participants started from the assumption that
the conceptual and terminological tools offered by Basil and the two Gregories
should be applied to the new problems as well. Part of the reason must have been
that Gregory of Nyssa himself, towards the end of his life, became embroiled
in a debate about Christology with Apollinarius of Laodicea and in this context
pioneered this approach.
The central question on which, in many ways, the controversy turned concerned
the possibility for one and the same individual to partake equally of divine and
human natures. A corollary of this main argument, however, may be even more
instructive for the present purpose. Gregory, in order to explain how Jesus Christ
could partake of two natures, made ample use of the logic he had previously
employed in the Trinitarian context. In anticipation of the language used by the
Council of Chalcedon in 451, he applied the term homoousios to the relationship
between Christ and universal human and divine nature: as far as he is human,
Christ is homoousios with us and thus part of human nature32 apparently in the
same way his divinity is related to the divine substance of the Trinity.33 On closer
inspection, however, it appears that he drew on only one half of his original theory.
For it is only its abstract side, the distinction between universality and particularity
by means of properties, that he uses in his Christological argument. By contrast, its
other aspect, according to which individuals are concrete realisations of universal
natures, has entirely vanished in the present context, and Gregory now pretends
that all it takes to call something, for example, ‘man’ is its participation in universal
humanity. His position, in other words, has now become entirely essentialist; the
need, so fundamental for the defence of Nicene trinitarianism, to understand the
individual as the concrete realisation of a universal nature – in order to exclude the
possibility of an ‘antecedent substance’ – is no longer recognised.
What does this mean for the theory of individuality? A particular strength of
the original Cappadocian view was that it provided a reason for the existence of
individuals: they were needed for the hypostatic realisation of natures; universal
being could only exist in and through ‘hypostases’. The new, essentialist position
has apparently given up on this tenet. The individual is now a brute fact whose
existence and internal unity are merely presupposed.
The conceptual difficulties that began to emerge in Gregory of Nyssa came
to dominate the complex and subtle theological debates from the sixth century
onwards. This of course raises the question of why the original theory, developed
by Basil and his theological companions, and expressed classically in the Epistle
38, had to be changed in the first place? The answer, I believe, is crucial and of direct
relevance for an understanding of the development of theories of individuality in
ancient Christian theology. Ultimately, the Cappadocian theory, much like earlier
philosophical theories, was not interested in individuals as something special or
unique. We might say it was interested in individuals more than in the individual.
The former were important within a broader metaphysical system but for this to
work they could perfectly well be more or less homogeneous parts making up the
world in its entirety.
32
Gregory of Nyssa, Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium (GNO III/1.165.7–14
Mueller).
33
Gregory implies this in his argument at Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium (GNO
III/1.157.27–158.9 Mueller).
I am, then, taking a rather sceptical view of the grand claim made by some
scholars, according to which the Cappadocians pioneered a new appreciation of
individuals.34 Without even a closer look at contemporary debates in philosophy,
which would in any case be needed for such a comparative statement, it appears that
the ontological appreciation of the hypostasis, which indubitably existed in Basil
and Gregory, is considerably mitigated by the limited function assigned to them
within the larger ontological framework the Cappadocians employ. Individuals
are precisely not primary beings, but merely hypostases, existing instances of
universal natures. As such their mutual distinctness (and thus far individuality in
the sense we usually attach to this term) is of relatively minor importance.
Significantly, the Cappadocian view leads to a sense of equivalence between
particular and universal being, which is arguably distinct from otherwise
predominant Platonic patterns.35 Trinitarian doctrine required an equal emphasis
on both, ousia and hypostasis, thus universal and particular become mutually
complementary in a novel way. This leads to considerable ontological and
theological innovation which can be observed, for example, in the eighth-
century theologian Maximus Confessor who offers an extended and embellished
but essentially faithful version of the fourth-century Cappadocian position. For
Maximus, it is as true to say that universal being ‘consists’ of particulars (and
could not, in that sense, exist without the latter), as it is to stress that individuals
could not be without their species and genera.36
By contrast, it was the Christological controversy that raised a fundamentally
new concern with the individual qua individual. At the same time, the specific
setting of the issue, the need to explain how one person, the saviour, could be both
God and man meant that reference to universal natures alone could not settle the
issue. What was needed was a theory capable of explaining the radical singularity
and uniqueness of the individual. For such a theory, as we have seen, precedent
was lacking, and the theologians who sought to develop it therefore had to become
innovative as it turned out that an answer to this particular question implied novel
approaches to a wide range of logical and metaphysical problems.
Chalcedon and the Christological Problem
The Council of Chalcedon, held in 451, has attracted radically divergent

evaluations. While for many it has been, and continues to be, the climax of ancient
34
L. Turcescu, Gregory of Nyssa and the Concept of Divine Persons (Oxford, 2005).
35
Thus far, Zizioulas is right. Cf. n. 6 above.
36
Maximus, Ambigua 2.10.42 (PG 91.1189BC). For the broader point cf. J.
Zachhuber, ‘Universals in the Greek Church Fathers’, in R. Chiaradonna and G. Galuzzi
(eds), Universals in Ancient Thought (Pisa, 2013, pp. 425–70).
doctrinal development,37 others have pointed out its near-universal rejection in the
Eastern Church which was only partly overcome through the massive political
pressure exerted by the Byzantine Emperor – to the East of the Roman Empire
few Chalcedonians could ever be found.38 Whatever its merits, the Council caused
the first major schism in the Christian Church, the effects of which continue to the
present day.39
The major stumbling block for many of the Council’s critics was its affirmation
that the Incarnate Christ existed ‘in two natures’ (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν), divine and
human. While it is unlikely that the uncompromising and very nearly fanatical
rejection of this formula by so many in the Greek-speaking East had merely
theological and philosophical reasons, the conceptual difficulties the Council’s
opponents could muster were considerable. They were, we should note, directly
connected to the Council’s explicit endorsement of the logic Gregory of Nyssa had
originally used in his anti-Apollinarian polemic and according to which Christ was
consubstantial (homoousios) with God according to his divinity and consubstantial
with us according to his humanity.40
We have seen how, in Gregory already, this logic jarred with the carefully
balanced theory that had been developed in the Trinitarian context. Its unique
emphasis on the ‘essentialist’ side of the original theory totally neglected the
notion that hypostasis was meant to denote the universal nature in its concrete
existence. The latter principle however seemed to imply that, if Christ was to have
two natures, divine and human, according to the Council of Chalcedon, he must
have two hypostases as well – this was the problem referred to (fairly or unfairly)
as Nestorianism.
A second difficulty concerned predication (grammatical, logical and ontological
issues were always closely related). According to the Cappadocian position, all
predicates would either apply to the universal or to the particular level. If the
former, they would be true for all members of the class, if the latter, only for
one individual. In this way, they thought they could explain how the common
divinity was characterised by shared properties contained in an ‘account of being’
(λόγος τῆς οὐσίας) that could be equally predicated of all three Persons, while each
hypostasis was distinct by virtue of their individual property (ἰδίωμα). Gregory
pointedly rejected the idea that, apart from universal natures and individuals there
could also be individual natures.41 Note then how an opponent of the Council of
37
For a summary see M. Edwards, Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church
(Farnham, 2009), pp. 137–8.
38
Cf. for a particularly harsh judgment A. von Harnack, Lehrbuch der
Dogmengeschichte, vol. 2 (Tübingen, 4th edition, 1909), p. 397.
39
A grandiose survey is offered by A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2
in four parts (London, 1987–2013).
40
Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum 2.1.2 (129.26–7 Schwartz): ὁμοούσιον τῷ πατρὶ
κατὰ τὴν θεότητα καὶ ὁμοούσιον ἡμῖν τὸν αὐτὸν κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα.
41
Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Graecos (GNO III/1.23.4–13 Mueller).
Chalcedon, quoted by Leontius of Byzantium in the sixth century,42 begins his

attack on the Council’s teaching:
By assuming a human nature, did the Logos assume it as it is seen in the species
or in the individual?43
It is easy to see how this way of putting the question would create difficulties for
the Chalcedonians: if they affirmed that Christ’s human nature was a universal
(which clearly was Gregory of Nyssa’s view and also the implicit teaching of
Chalcedon), it would seem to follow that ‘being God incarnate’ was a property of
humankind in general, but this was apparently not the case.44
The same problem existed on the divine side as well. While Christianity would
seem to hold that in Christ God became human, this was not meant to say that
all three trinitarian persons had become incarnate. Rather, it meant that in the
Incarnation of the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, God had become man
(John 1.14). This again was different from saying that the Logos had become
incarnate only insofar as he was different from the other two persons.
Leontius, however, pretended not to see the challenge and simply rejects the
alternative: the ‘nature’ of which the Council had spoken, he argued, was indeed
universal but as such it was one in the whole class as well as whole in every single
individual.45 Yet this is hardly an answer. According to the theory introduced by
Basil and Gregory – and Leontius clearly takes it as authoritative – a universal
nature could only exist as individuated in and through hypostases. Individuals in
this theory had to be there because the universal only existed in this particular way.
At the same time, it is only through hypostases that universals are individuated.
Either way, the dogma Leontius defends does not, prima facie, allow for Jesus
Christ as a human individual unless one is prepared to admit the ‘Nestorian’
assumption of a human hypostasis as well.
The problem, however, is not merely theological. By embracing the purely
‘essentialist’ argument of Gregory’s anti-Apollinarian treatise, Leontius and his
collaborators abandon the full theory of individuality that was found, for example,
42
He is called Acephalos in the dialogue but this probably is a placeholder for Severus
of Antioch. Cf. R. Cross, ‘Individual Natures in the Christology of Leontius of Byzantium’,
Journal of Early Christian Studies 10/2 (2002), pp. 245–65, at p. 254).
43
Leontius of Byzantium, Epilysis 1: Φύσιν ὁ Λόγος ἀναλαβὼν ἀνθρωπίνην, τὴν ἐν
τῷ εἴδει θεωρουμένην, ἢ τὴν ἐν ἀτόμῳ ἀνέλαβεν; (PG 86.1916D–1917A).
44
The same objection is made in more detail in: Severus of Antioch, ap. John of
Caesarea (Grammaticus), Apologia Concilii Chalcedonensis 14 (8.72–5 Richard): ‘Si vero
dicitis Christo duas esse substantias, necessario dicendum est et Patrem et Spiritum et,
ut summatim dicamus, ipsam sanctam Trinitam toti humanitati incarnatam esse, id est
humano generi’.
45
Leontius of Byzantium, Epilysis 1 (PG 86.1917AB). A similar argument is used
later by Anastasius of Antioch, Oratio 3 (54.15–28 Sakkos).
in the so-called Epistle 38. They sever the link the Cappadocians established
between nature and hypostasis and in this way lose any plausible explanation for
the individuation of natures and for the necessity of individual being.
The Individual in Miaphysite Theology: Severus of Antioch and John

Philoponus
It is helpful at this point to cast a glance at the miaphysite opponents of the Council
of Chalcedon – so called because of their adherence to the view that divine and
human had become ‘one nature’ in the Incarnate. Apart from rejecting theologically
the formula of Chalcedon, the leading thinkers from that camp also had their own
views about individuals and individuation. Their major representative, Severus
of Antioch (c. 465–c. 542), denied that the Incarnation could be explained on the
basis of universal natures; instead he advocated the introduction of the concept of
individual natures. Their postulation was in principle nothing new. Philosophers
had used them for centuries to explain how it is correct that, when Socrates dies,
we say that ‘a human being dies’. Universal human nature apparently does not die,
but neither does Socrates’ death concern only his individual features. Rather, it is
somehow ‘his own’ humanity, complete with generic and individual properties,
that ceases to exist. This individual nature, then, can be healthy or ill, rich or poor
without any immediate logical implications for universal humanity.46
In precisely this sense, Severus argues, ‘God’ has become human in the
Incarnation: ‘God’ in this statement denotes divine nature as individuated in
the second Person of the Trinity. ‘Man’ likewise would signify the individual
humanity of Christ even though in the actual Incarnation both became a single
nature.47 Gregory of Nyssa, as we have seen, rejected individual natures; the
position of Severus and his miaphysite friends has therefore usually been seen
as a conscious break with the Cappadocian tradition.48 Yet this is to simplify
things. While Severus’ advocacy of individual natures does indeed depart from
Cappadocian teaching, this deviation is caused by his concern to preserve the other
main aspect of the Cappadocian theory, precisely the one that had been lost on
the Chalcedonian side: in his affirmation that natures only exist individuated in
hypostases, Severus is fully and completely in agreement with the Cappadocian
Epistle 38. The Chalcedonians gave up that tenet in the interest of what I have
called here a purely ‘essentialist’ theory. They thus detached the individual from
its connection with universal being and reduced it, in practice, to the notion of
46
Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Quaestiones 1.3 (7.23–8.12 Bruns).
47
Severus of Antiochien, Contra impium grammaticum 2.22 (187–8 Lebon). Cf. also:
J. Lebon, ‘La christologie du monophysisme syrien’, in A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht (eds),
Das Konzil von Chalkedon. Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3 vols (Würzburg, 1954), vol. 1,
pp. 454–67.
48
Cf. Cross, ‘Individual Natures’, p. 253 with n. 29.
pure existence. In Severus, on the other hand, the unity of being and existence
is preserved but at the price that ‘being’ is increasingly individual being whose
identity with that of other individuals cannot any longer be really affirmed.
The weak flank of Severus’ theory, then, is that it tends to particularism.
There is, as far as I am aware, no evidence that he himself ever contemplated this
philosophical option. His major opponent, however, the Chalcedonian John the
Grammarian, saw the writing on the wall and argued that, pursued to its logical
conclusions, Severus’ theory would lead to tritheism.49 In this he proved prophetic:
only one generation after Severus, there arose those among his disciples who felt
that Trinitarian theology too needed to be reconsidered in view of more recent
theological and philosophical insights.50 The most influential among them was the
philosopher and theologian John Philoponus. He took Severus’ intuitions to their
logical conclusion. In order to understand the individual as the concrete realisation
of a nature, he flatly and unequivocally rejected universal nature as ontologically
real:
Now, this common nature of man, in which no one differs from any other, when
it is realised in any one of the individuals, then is particular to that one and is not
common to any other individual […]. Thus that rational animal that is in me is
common to no other animal.51
It is sometimes alleged that Philoponus’ theory in its entirety was due to his
philosophical schooling and hence to his philosophical convictions about universals
and particulars.52 Yet this is unlikely. While his philosophical training cannot have
been without an impact on his doctrinal position, his ultimate motivation seems to
have come from a theological reflection which, in continuity with Severus and the
miaphysite tradition, sought to preserve the unity of nature and individual, and thus
of being and existence, under the conditions created by the latest developments of
the Christological debate. Theology needed the ability unambiguously to express
49
John of Caesarea (Grammaticus), Apologia Concilii Chalcedonensis 14 (8.76–
80 Richard): ‘Putant enim [sc. adversarii, i.e. Severus] divinitatis substantiam divisioni
subiacere eiusque partem quidem in Patre, partem autem in Filio, partem autem in Spiritu
sancto apparere, ita ut unaquaeque ex hypoastasibus in parte, non autem in omnibus iis,
quae divinitatis propria sunt, concipiatur’.
50
A. van Roey and P. Allen (eds), Monophysite Texts of the Sixth Century (Leuven,
1994), part II; R.Y. Ebied, A. van Roey and L.R. Wickham (eds), Peter of Callinicum. Anti-
Tritheist Dossier (Leuven, 1984).
51
John Philoponus, Arbiter 7 = John of Damascus, Liber de haeresibus (5.52–5
Kotter). English Translation: C. Erismann, ‘The Trinity, Universals, and Particular
Substances. Philoponus and Roscelin’, Traditio 63 (2008), pp. 277–305 at pp. 289–90).
52
Cf. Erismann, ‘The Trinity’ and, for a different interpretation, U. Lang, John
Philoponus and the Controversies over Chalcedon in the Sixth Century. A Study and
Translation of the Arbiter (Leuven, 2001), pp. 55–7.
that the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, had been incarnate, more precisely
the Son in his divine nature (Philoponus could go so far as to speak of the ‘one
incarnate nature of God the Logos’53). Uwe Michael Lang summarises Philoponus’
doctrinal reasoning as follows:
The common nature of the divinity that is recognised in the Trinity has not
become incarnate, otherwise we would predicate the Incarnation also of the
Father and the Holy Spirit. Neither has the common intelligible content of
human nature been united with God the Logos, otherwise the whole human race
before and after the advent of the Logos would have been united to him.54
Philoponus’ option for particularism seemed inevitable then – as much as it had

been looming in the background of Severus’ argument already – due to conceptual
necessities created by the Christological debate, specifically the development of
a novel account of the individual as a radically unique being. Both Severus and
Philoponus, in this situation, rejected the solution propagated by Leontius and
other Chalcedonians, a solution that vacated the individual of being and turned
individuality into purely factual existence (hypostasis!). Instead, they opted for
a theory that made individuals the paradigmatic, and ultimately the only, beings
properly speaking thereby giving up the principle, equally central for Basil and
Gregory, of the identity of nature in all individuals of the same species.
The Chalcedonian Solution: Individual Natures and the Anhypostaton
A particularist theory of the individual was not, however, the only one produced
by the post-Chalcedonian debates. The Chalcedonians too, after spending some
considerable time in a state of denial, developed a theory which was as novel and
innovative as the one emerging on the miaphysite side of the debate. As we have
seen, Leontius of Byzantium roundly rejected the need for individual natures;
eventually, however, the later Chalcedonians took a different view on this issue.
The notion they introduced under this name, however, had little in common with
the eponymous concept used by their opponents; instead, it shared considerable
similarities with the ‘bundle of properties’ advocated by Porphyry and adapted in
the Cappadocian Epistle 38. Yet while the Cappadocian author held this bundle
to be identical with the concrete individual, the upshot of the later theory is that,
on the contrary, this abstract essence can, at least in principle, be distinguished
from the hypostasis. It is this consideration that makes possible the notion of an
‘unhypostatised’ individual – a complete set of generic and individual properties
53
Philoponus, Arbiter 7 = John of Damascus, liber de haeresibus (52.86–53.87
Kotter).
54
Lang, John Philoponus, p. 62.
yet without actual existence – that was needed for the final working-out of the
Christological doctrine.
In parallel with this theory of individual nature, the idea of hypostasis is
increasingly reduced to the notion of pure existence. Both tendencies emerged
centuries ago: they are clearly visible in Leontius’ argument, whatever his precise
position on individual natures, but can be discerned in nuce, I would argue, already
with Gregory of Nyssa’s ‘essentialist turn’ in his anti-Apollinarian writing and
in the Council of Chalcedon’s use of this kind of language.55 The result was the
full separation between a thing’s essence and its existence: unlike at any point
in previous ancient thought, the individual nature of later Chalcedonian theory
permits conceiving of an individual in abstraction from its actual realisation.56
Characteristically, Leontius of Jerusalem, one of the early advocates of individual
natures among the Chalcedonians, defends their conceptual independence from
their hypostatic reality by citing examples of people who lived in the past:
We are not ignorant of the being of Enoch and Noah, but do we therefore claim to
know them as persons? … It is not, therefore, necessary as you [sc. his Nestorian
opponents] claim to know a nature always through a hypostasis.57
The argument is designed to support Chalcedonian Christology against its

Nestorian detractors but it also cements a new way of thinking about the individual
and, ultimately, about being. In this perspective, the conception of an individual,
its intelligible content, can be perfectly separated from its existence; essence
and existence are set apart in a way unprecedented in earlier ancient thought. It
now seems no longer far-fetched to argue, as Immanuel Kant will 1,000 years
later, that existence is not a property. While it would be too bold to claim that
this consequence would have been clear to Leontius of Jerusalem or to John of
Damascus, but the fact remains that, in the interest of solving the Christological
problem, they introduced concepts that changed not only the understanding of
the individual but, ultimately, shook the foundations of ontology itself. It must
55
Grillmeier notes this development and commends it as ‘overcoming’ the
Cappadocian bundle theory in favour of the theologically more suitable notion of hypostasis
as existence: A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. II/2 (London, 1995), p. 282
and passim.
56
For an insightful argument along similar lines cf. C. Erismann, ‘A World of
Hypostases. John of Damascus’ Rethinking of Aristotle’s Categorical Ontology’, Studia
Patristica 50 (2011), pp. 269–87.
57
Leontius of Jerusalem, Contra Nestorianos 2.19 (PG 86.1580AB): Ἐνώχ δὲ καὶ
Νῶε διότι τὴν οὐσίαν οὐκ ἀγνοῦμεν, ἆρα καὶ τὰ πρόσωπα εἰδέναι βεβαιωσόμεθα … οὐκ
ἀνάγκη δι᾽ ὑποστάσεως, ὥς φατε [sc. the Nestorians], καὶ πάντως τὴν φύσιν γινώσκεσθαι
… Cf. D. Krausmüller, ‘Divine Self-Invention: Leontius of Jerusalem’s Reinterpretation of
the Patristic Model of the Christian God’, The Journal of Theological Studies 57 (2006),
pp. 526–45.
be counted as one of the great ironies of the history of ideas that this innovation,
which, for all we can perceive, was introduced in the interest of defending the
most central dogma of the Church, ultimately paved the way towards one of the
most severe crises of Christian theology throughout its history.
Conclusion
Christian theology in late antiquity produced three major theories of individuality.

The first was developed in the late fourth century by the Cappadocian theologians,
Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. According to this view, the individual is
the concrete realisation of a universal nature to which corresponds an intelligible
content, a notion expressive of its particular quality. This theory was originally
intended to explain relationships within the Trinity; it could without too much
difficulty be applied to the world as a whole as long as the latter was seen as a
largely organic cosmos consisting of homogeneous parts. As in most other ancient
theories of the individual, the emphasis of this theory is on their identity, not on
their individuality or their distinctness as such.
This theory, which in many ways was in continuity with contemporary
philosophical theories, came under severe strain once the Christological problem
was felt in its full intensity. The miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon
sought to hold fast to the Cappadocian identity of being and concrete existence but
gave up on the universal character of being – most radically in John Philoponus’
particularism. The Chalcedonians, on the other hand, transformed the original
theory into a pure essentialism. They radically separated individual hypostases
from any necessary connection with being and reduced them, as such, to mere
existents. This provided the opportunity to introduce individual natures as the
purely abstract concept of a universal nature with added individual properties.
Their hypostatic existence, consequently, became strictly contingent.
Chapter 6
Individuality and Identity-formation
in Late Antique Monasticism1
Alexis Torrance
There are several problems that confront the scholar who tries to better understand
the concept of individuality in early Christian monasticism. The first is our
understanding of individuality in this context. On the one hand, the concept of
the monk stands as an affirmation of radical individuality to the rest of society,
an individual par excellence, a master of le souci de soi.2 But on the other hand,
if by individuality we mean a form of individualism which implies a consistent
suspicion of community and authority, and a way of life whose basis and fulfilment
could be found in the power of self-determination, then the early Christian monk,
in general, will disappoint. A second problem revolves around the ways in which
identities of the individual monk – I mean here the ideal individual monk – were
formed, and how these ought to be approached and assessed methodologically.
What are these ways, and how do we access them? Do we examine (if it were
possible) all evidence relating to early monks from hagiography, apophthegmata,
letters, treatises, papyri fragments, ostraca, architectural remains and so on and
find common denominators? If so, do we divide the sources by region (if so,
how?), do we establish chronological markers (if so, why?) and do we conduct our
research with or without reference to such categories as orthodoxy and heresy?
My own answers to such questions are still, and perhaps always will be, in a state
of development. The third problem to face the scholar is how to distinguish the
concept of individuality in early monasticism from individuality not simply in
wider Christian circles, but in the non-Christian world. How far do the notions
overlap or influence one another, if, that is, we can even speak of a distinct concept
of individuality peculiar to the early monastic world?
1
I would like to sincerely thank Averil Cameron for responding to an earlier version
of this article, as well as Johannes Zachhuber, for originally inviting me to offer a chapter on
this topic.
2
I use the terms of Foucault souci de soi and techniques de soi in this chapter for
convenience, given that these concepts have conditioned much of the literature on the
period of late antiquity. This by no means implies a wholesale endorsement, on my part, of
Foucault’s work. On the significance of Foucault for late antique studies, see A. Cameron,
‘Redrawing the Map: Early Christian Territory after Foucault’, The Journal of Roman
Studies 76 (1986): pp. 266–71.
Aspects of these three problems will be addressed here in turn, in an inevitably

incomplete, yet hopefully constructive way: 1) the individuality of the monk; 2)
the methods by which monastic individuality is forged according to the sources
(concentrating on some of the monk’s more prominent techniques de soi); 3) the
ways in which Christian monastic identity-formation might relate to non-monastic
conceptions, both in terms of the reception and interpretation of monastic ideals in
the wider Christian church, and the commensurability or lack thereof between the
self of the Christian monk, and that of the pagan philosopher. In addressing these
questions, I will depend largely on Greek monastic texts spanning the fourth to
seventh centuries, or from Antony to John Climacus.3
The Monk as Individual
To preface this discussion, it would be worth dwelling for a moment on the

choice of ‘monk’ and ‘monasticism’ here rather than ‘ascetic’ and ‘asceticism’.
For one, ‘monk’ being the narrower of the two concepts makes the topic slightly
more manageable. That said, I would be inclined to emphasise with Susanna Elm
that distinguishing the two too sharply has serious and unhelpful consequences,
especially when examining the so-called ‘birth’ of monasticism in the third/fourth
centuries. As she writes, ‘the methodological distinction between asceticism
and monasticism is not only unnecessary but anachronistic, and thus counter-
productive when examining the very early forms of the movement’.4 This is
because monasticism has its concrete precedents not simply in the (slightly
abstract) idea of taking up the yoke of the martyrs in a peaceful setting, but in
ascetic ideals and practices stretching back to the New Testament.5
I recognise the monasticism of the fourth and subsequent centuries, then, as
a manifestation of asceticism in Christianity, perhaps the clearest manifestation,
but by no means the only one. As such, it is a movement that embraces ‘the
choice of discipline as a way of virtue, purity, and enlightenment’.6 If we were
3
I follow Peter Brown in using John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent as a symbolic
marker of ‘the end of late antiquity’: P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and
Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988), p. 239.
4
S. Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1994),
p. 14.
5
For some discussion see, for instance, G. Florovsky, ‘The Ascetic Ideal and the
New Testament’, in Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Vol. X, the Byzantine Ascetic
and Spiritual Fathers (Vaduz, 1987), pp. 17–59; L.E. Vaage and V.L. Wimbush (eds),
Asceticism in the New Testament (New York, 1999); and H. Chadwick, ‘Pachomios and the
Idea of Sanctity’, in S. Hackel (ed.), Byzantine Saint (London, 1981), pp. 11–24.
6
A. Cameron, ‘On Defining the Holy Man’, in J. Howard-Johnston and A. Hayward
(eds), The Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown
(Oxford, 1999), pp. 27–43, at p. 34.
Individuality and Identity-formation in Late Antique Monasticism 113
to follow Richard Valantasis’ definition of asceticism (drawing, in part, on

Geoffrey Harpham), the monks are a specimen of those ‘who resist in order to
create new selves, different ways of socialising, and a cohesive way to relate
to the physical world’ and monasticism a kind of ‘performance … designed to
inaugurate an alternative culture, to enable different social relations, and to create
a new identity’.7 One caveat should be included here, however. The conclusion
Valantasis seems to draw from his analysis of asceticism is that all forms of
counter-cultural ‘performance’ – his examples include the desert fathers, body
builders and cult members – more or less come down to the same thing.8 Whether
or not such a conclusion is to be followed, it strikes me as ultimately rather weak
as a conceptual framework. I mention this only to attempt to set the parameters
of my terms. I am looking at monasticism here as a manifestation of asceticism,
but not of an asceticism which is so broadly defined as to be indistinguishable
from the asceticism of a Branch Davidian or an Arnold Schwarzenegger. It will be
argued that in forming individuality through discipline, the monk was employing
an asceticism that was almost always distinctively Christian (even if elements of
pagan asceticism might overlap considerably with the monks’ practices), and that
the distinctiveness of this asceticism was not only there, it also mattered.
To begin considering the monk as an individual, we need only concentrate
on the name μοναχός. By definition, the monk is a solitary, a singleton, who
shuns the weary multiplicity of family and society for a life of ascetic solitude
in the presence of God (an impulse so vividly depicted in Peter Brown’s Body
and Society).9 The degrees and expressions of this withdrawal vary, of course,
but this sense of solitude remains an underlying principle, crystallised by the
term μοναχός. The Plotinian ‘flight of the alone to the Alone’ comes to mind, and,
indeed, one ‘old man’ when questioned about the correct nature of the monk claims
that it is to be ‘alone with the Alone’ (μόνος πρὸς μόνον).10 That said, to thereby
lay the entire concept of monastic solitude at the door of Plotinian Neoplatonism
would, I think, be rather naïve. The idea of individual abandonment to the one
God was hardly new with Plotinus, and as Osborn shows, this specific idea of ‘the
alone to the Alone’ is already being worked out, in its own Hellenistic Jewish and
Christian way, by Philo and Clement.11 In any case, whatever the precise lineage
of this concept, the more general idea of the monk as fundamentally ‘alone’ vis-
7
R. Valantasis, The Making of the Self: Ancient and Modern Asceticism (Eugene OR,
2008), pp. x, 8. See also G. Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism
(Chicago IL, 1992).
8
See esp. Valantasis, Making of the Self, p. 57.
9
P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early
Christianity (New York, 1988).
10
For the text in Plotinus, see Enneads 6.7.38 (Henry and Schwyzer). For the words of
the old man, see Apophthegmata (Systematic Collection) 21.4 (SC 498.200 Guy).
11
For Clement and Philo, see E.F. Osborn, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge, 2005),
pp. 88–9.
à-vis society at large permeates monastic literature. For Lucien Regnault, this
was the basic conditioning proposition of early monasticism, namely the forming
of individuals alone with their God.12 It is epitomised in the first apophthegm of
Alonas (repeated in Letter 346 of Barsanuphius): ‘if man does not say in his heart,
“God and I are alone in this world”, he will not find peace’.13 In what follows, I
wish to sketch some of the various definitions of the μοναχός in the sources which
both support this vision of singularity and which also provide a tension with it.
For Dionysius, who was probably a monk of Syrian provenance writing
in the late fifth/early sixth century, the definition of the monk retains a strong
individualistic character. The monks are devoted to ‘the undivided and single
life’ and are ‘under an obligation to be unified to the One, and to be assimilated
to a holy Monad’.14 And yet, in spite of its Neoplatonic language, Dionysius’
discussion of monks consistently speaks of them in the plural as having a common
calling to pursue ‘the science of the unifying commandments’15 which unites them
as a group ‘into a God-like Monad, and God-loving perfection’.16 In other words,
while the monk represents a radical undivided singular, his purpose as such is to
assimilate both to the other monks in his ecclesiastical rank as well as, ultimately,
to God himself, through the keeping of the Scriptural commandments. This sense
of being involved not simply with the great Other but with other monks in an
ecclesial reality introduces a tension into the individuality of the monk. It is not
simply the monk and God, but at the very least, the monk, God, and other monks.
In Evagrius, the monk as an individual for God over and against the world
is further challenged or nuanced. His classic definition is of the monk as he who
‘having been separated from all is also united to all’.17 He offers another definition
of the monk immediately after this: ‘A monk is he who considers himself one with
all, and unceasingly sees himself in each [person]’.18 This definition might come
across as individualistic to the extreme, where the monk projects his own self into
everyone he meets and allows this to govern his social interactions. Perhaps this
happened from time to time, but what Evagrius has in mind is the capacity to treat
all people as neighbours, who are to be loved as one’s own self. A few lines before,
Evagrius considers blessed the monk ‘who regards every human being as a god
12
See L. Regnault, ‘Les Apophtegmes et l’idéal du désert’, in J. Gribomont (ed.),
Commandements du Seigneur et libération évangélique, Studia Anselmiana 70 (1977): pp.
47–79.
13
Apophthegmata (Alphabetical Collection) Alonas 1 (PG 64.133A), found also in
Barsanuphius, Letter 346 (SC 450.360 Neyt, Angelis and Noah).
14
Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 6.1.3, 6.3.3 (PG 3.533A, 533D).
15
ἐν ἐπιστήμῃ τῶν ἑνοποιῶν ἐντολῶν ἐνεργουμένην – Dionysius, Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy 6.3.2 (PG 3.533D).
16
Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 6.3.1 (PG 3.533A).
17
μοναχός ἐστιν, ὁ πάντων χωρισθεὶς, καὶ πᾶσι συνηρμοσμένος – Evagrius, De
Oratione 124 (PG 79.1193C).
18
Evagrius, De Oratione 125 (PG 79.1193C).
after God’ and again, ‘blessed is the monk who looks on the salvation and progress
of all as though they were his own, with all joy’.19 This regard for others, even if
only in a rather abstract and hypothetical way, is nonetheless a key component of
early monastic consciousness. Already in Serapion of Thmuis’ letter on the death
of Antony, the latter is referred to not simply as an exemplary solitary, but as such
someone ‘who prayed for the whole world’ and thereby helped and protected the
people.20 The challenge for the monk, in the words of Isaac of Syria, was to ‘love
all men, but keep distant from all men’.21
What we have, then, is a monastic identity based on a radical tension. On the
one hand there is the monk as ‘he who has withdrawn his mind from sensory objects
and who ceaselessly cleaves to God by self-mastery, love, psalmody and prayer’;22
‘who strictly controls his nature and unceasingly watches over his senses’ and who
is ‘a willing exile from his home’.23 Yet on the other hand, the purpose of withdrawal
(ἀναχώρησις) for union with God was also a struggle to keep ‘the second great
commandment’ of love for one’s neighbour. This need is expressed most tangibly,
of course, with the development of the cœnobitic communities championed by
Pachomius and Basil. But likewise in stories, apophthegms and treatises related
to the eremitic life, we often find a focus on the monastic self or individual as yet
bound to the wellbeing of the world. The tension is admirably expressed in the
anonymous Syriac homily On hermits and desert dwellers (attributed to Ephraim
the Syrian).24 The homily emphasises the solitude of the hermits: ‘They see only
animals instead of people; and instead of families they left behind, angels come
down to them’ (93). Yet it also emphasises their compassion for the world: ‘When
their tears stream down, they banish harm from the earth; and when their petition
is raised, it fills the world with assistance’ (105). We are told that ‘civilization,
where lawlessness prevails, is sustained by their prayers. And the world, buried in
sin, is preserved by their prayers’ (501). The whole tension is put poetically thus:
‘the wilderness that all fear has become a great place of refuge for them, where
assistance flows from their bones to all creation’ (497).
One might argue that this homily and similar works do not necessarily contribute
to ‘monastic identity-formation’ since their authors are not necessarily monks. One
can agree, to an extent, with Benedicta Ward’s view that the early monks tended
19
Evagrius, De Oratione 122–3 (PG 79.1193BC).
20
See R. Draguet, ‘Une lettre de Sérapion de Thmuis aux disciples d’Antoine (A.D.
356) en versions syriaque et arménienne’, Le Muséon 64 (1951): pp. 1–25.
21
Isaac the Syrian, Homily 64 (446–7 Bedjan); English translation in D. Miller
(trans.), The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian (Brookline MA, 1984), pp. 307–8.
22
Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Love 2.54 (PG 90.1001C).
23
John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 1.5–6 (PG 88.633C) and Step 3.5
(PG 88.665A).
24
[Ephraim], On hermits and desert dwellers (16–28 Beck). English translation by
J. Amar in V. Wimbush (ed.), Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook
(Minneapolis, 1990), pp. 68–80.
to define themselves and speak of themselves in terms simply of sinfulness and

weakness, not as models of perfect withdrawal with great cosmological import.25
Yet at the same time, monks had a sense of the ideal, a sense which may often have
been best described by non-monastics (although if we were to consider ascetic
bishops a kind of monk, the balance would completely shift), but a sense which
simple monks themselves also described; not necessarily vis-à-vis themselves, but
certainly as regards their fellow monks, and less often also as a theoretical ideal.
I would thus challenge Regnault’s argument that the concept of an ideal in the
desert fathers ‘is foreign to their vocabulary and also … to their spirit. One looks
in vain in the Apophthegmata for a concept or theory of sanctity’.26 If anything, the
apophthegmata are nothing but monastic conceptions of an ideal, and while their
simplicity and lack of a theoretical framework might upset our own expectations
for the conception of ideals, it does not follow that the early monks held none.
Having begun to examine the monk as an individual who is both extremely
alone with his God yet somehow united to others, I wish to turn now to the methods
for the formation of such an individual. How is a monk formed?
Forming Monastic Identity
Reading early monastic literature, one comes away with the impression that
there are any number and combination of ways/methods/techniques to form the
ideal monastic self: through obedience, repentance, withdrawal, poverty, ascesis,
chastity, watchfulness, endurance, fasting, prayer (whether one’s own or that of
others), love, compassion, almsgiving, renunciation, self-blame, anti-demonic
warfare, mourning, compunction, tears, thanksgiving, rejoicing, humility and so
on. Where, then, to begin? In Anthony Meredith’s assessment of Christian and
Greek asceticism, five elements are emphasised in the context of Athanasius’ Life
of Antony: Scripture, withdrawal, ascesis, prayer and demons.27 Aryeh Kofsky and
Bruria Bitton-Ashkelony, in their Monastic School of Gaza, discuss Foucault’s
presentation of obedience and penitence as new technologies of the self in
monastic culture, which they wish to supplement with the concept of prayer.28
Claudia Rapp, in her Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity notes the importance of
penance and prayer as ‘essential components of the monastic life’ which ‘have not
25
B. Ward, Lives of the Desert Fathers: Historia Monachorum in Aegypto (Kalamazoo
MI, 1981), p. 13.
26
Regnault, ‘Les Apophtegmes et l’idéal du désert’, p. 47.
27
See A. Meredith, ‘Asceticism – Christian and Greek’, Journal of Theological
Studies 27.2 (1976), p. 315.
28
B. Bitton-Ashkelony and A. Kofsky, The Monastic School of Gaza (Leiden, 2006),
p. 160.
been sufficiently explored in scholarship’.29 Here, while acknowledging that not

all elements can be looked at, I wish to concentrate on three especially pertinent
aspects of monastic identity: Scripture and the commandments (taken together),
obedience and repentance.
The role of Scripture in the formation of monastic identity is seldom
acknowledged, let alone explored. Yet, as Burton-Christie puts it, when dealing
with late antique monasticism, what faces the scholar is ‘a culture steeped in
Scripture’ where ‘the monks sought to reshape their imagination around the
world of Scripture and to allow it to penetrate to the core of their beings and their
communities’.30 If anything, the monastic self was a product of Scriptural texts and
ideas, approached with a particular hermeneutical lens, of course, but Scriptural
nonetheless.31 The monastic life of Antony began, we are told by Athanasius, on
account of a Scriptural injunction heard by Antony in church: ‘if you would be
perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor … and come; follow me’ (Mt
19.21).32 Not only did Scripture have the injunction of renunciation, however; it
contained all the precepts for the monastic life: ‘blessed are those who mourn/
weep’ (Mt 5.4 // Lk 6.21), ‘watch, for you know not when the Son of man comes’
(Mt 24.42 // Mk 13.35), ‘repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Mt 3:12,
4.17 // Mk 1.15), ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thess 5.17), ‘we must through much
tribulation enter into the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14.22), ‘some are made eunuchs
for the kingdom of God’s sake’ (Mt 19.12) and so on.
There are, of course, countless Scriptural references in monastic sources, but
the text which most clearly relates Scripture to the formation of the monastic self,
it seems to me, is Evagrius’ Antirrheticus (Talking Back).33 The text is divided into
eight sections corresponding to the Evagrian eight vices, which are each divided
into dozens of potential attacks springing from each particular vice, together with
a Scriptural counter to each attack. As David Brakke puts it, ‘by pairing each
thought or condition with a biblical verse, Evagrius invited the monk to understand
his experience in light of the Bible. He sought to shape the self into a self that
speaks to its temptations and fears in biblical language’.34 Another monastic text
which, in a different way, maintains a strong emphasis on the role of Scripture and
Scriptural figures in the monastic life is the work ‘To the Monks’ by Hyperechios
29
C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: the Nature of Christian Leadership in an
age of Transition (Berkeley CA, 2005), p. 77.
30
D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness
in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford, 1993), p. vii.
31
See esp. E.A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early
Christianity (Princeton NJ, 1999).
32
Athanasius, Vita Antonii 2 (PG 26.841C).
33
Evargius, Antirrheticus (472–545 Frankenburg).
34
D. Brakke, ‘Making Public the Monastic Life: Reading the Self in Evagrius
Ponticus’ Talking Back’, in D. Brakke, M.L. Satlow and S. Weitzman (eds), Religion and
the Self in Antiquity (Bloomington IN, 2005), p. 225.
(probably late fifth century).35 He defines the work of the monk thus: ‘the monk’s
ascesis is meditation on Scripture and the practice of the commandments of God’
(4). He praises the practice of psalmody as the ‘hymn of the angels’ (33), and lists
personalities of the Bible that should serve as examples and instructors to the
monk: John the Baptist (26, 48), Elijah (48), James (49), John the Evangelist (50),
Moses (74, 147), Abel (76), the publican (73) and of course Paul (72, 107). Each
of these figures offers a particular virtue to learn from and imitate: the meekness
of Moses, the patience exhorted by James, the humility of Paul and so on. The
monk, in other words, was called to be formed according to primarily Scriptural
patterns of behaviour.
Scripture, for the monks, goes hand-in-hand with the commandments. If one
simply imagines reading or singing from the Book of Psalms for several hours
each day, the notion of the commandments/precepts/statutes/ordinances of the
Lord would never be far from one’s thinking. For Regnault, however, the frequent
references throughout monastic literature to the importance of the commandments
is little more than a generic trope that was more of an abstract than a concrete
notion: ‘the ancient monks do not seem to worry themselves much over the
commandments of the Lord in themselves’.36 It is true that most references to the
commandments, particularly in the apophthegmata, do not elaborate on the notion,
even if they are seen as crucial.37 Yet the concreteness of the commandments is not
precluded from their conception. If, for a moment, we try to enter their world of
renunciation, with its tiring rota of psalm-singing, praying, prostrations, fasting,
vigil, manual labour and so on, the commandments would, I think, be a very real
presence. If anything, it was the concrete sense of the commandments of God that
held this way of life together.38
The reason, it seems, that Regnault distances the monks from a preoccupation
with the commandments, is a desire to detect in them a sense of freedom from
constraints. Using examples of monks who exercised their freedom to change
locality or disappear from their disciples unawares for sometimes years at a
time, Regnault thereby argues that the monks generally kept a sense of their own
freedom and self-determination. The argument, I think, is weak insofar as it pits
35
Hyperechios, To the Monks, PG 79.1473A–1489C.
36
Regnault, ‘Les Apophtegmes et l’idéal du désert’, p. 49.
37
See for instance Apophthegmata (Alphabetical Collection) Agathon 29 (PG
64.117AC), Theodore of Perme 18 (PG 64.192AB), Or 11 (PG 64.440B).
38
See, for instance, Anthony’s First Letter which speaks mainly of the whole
purpose of the monk’s life as consisting in the Spirit leading the monk ‘in the way of
the commandments’: discussion and translation in S. Rubenson, The Letters of St Antony:
Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis MN, 1995), pp. 197–202. The most
in-depth discussion of the nature and purpose of the commandments that I have hitherto
come across in monastic literature can be found in the works of Mark the Ascetic (also
known as Mark the Monk or Mark the Hermit), esp. his treatises De Paenitentia (SC
445.214–58 Durand) and De Lege Spirituali (SC 445.74–128 Durand).
two concepts against one another that the monks themselves were happy to keep
together. Submission to the commandments did not preclude the possibility of
choosing to change location, provided that the change led to a fuller keeping of
the commandments. Many monks moved about (though officially, this was much
discouraged),39 but this stemmed, at least in theory, not from a show of individual
freedom, but from a desire to better adhere to the Lord’s commands. What was
important in the choices of the monk was not that they were his own, but that they
coincided with the will of God. The Scriptural commandments provided a basic
and key way of nurturing the monk’s will towards this end, but the task implied a
wider concept, one based upon Scripture but not limited to it, namely the concept
of obedience.
The greatest enemy for the monastic self in the sources is often depicted as the
will, particularly at the outset of the monastic life. It is the relinquishing of this will
in obedience that provides the surest route to the forming of a successful monastic
identity. The basic reason for this is the perceived fallenness of the will and the
desires of the human being, which, if indulged, distort the monastic journey: ‘until
you have eradicated evil’, explains Mark the Monk, ‘do not obey your heart; for it
will seek more of what it already contains within itself’.40 Instead, the monk must
learn obedience, which is ‘the tomb of the will and the resurrection of humility’.41
Without obedience or learning to cut off one’s will for others, the person tends
toward a selfish pride, to a state in ultimate conflict with God: ‘whoever wants
to impose his own will’, Barsanuphius warns one monk, ‘is a son of the devil’.42
Thus obedience meant a cutting off of one’s will. But for what, or whom?
We mentioned Scripture and the commandments as a focus of obedience, and
this was of course an abiding and vital aspect of monastic obedience. But what
early monasticism is better known for, particularly in the East, is the concept of
obedience (absolute obedience) to an elder or abbot.43 The chief perceived benefit
of such a practice was the protection of the elder’s prayers and its approximation
to Christ’s voluntary ‘obedience unto death’ (cf. Phil 2.8). The goal, according to
Barsanuphius, was a love and connection between spiritual father and child akin to
the relationship of oneness between the Trinitarian Father and Son.44 If obedient,
the monk could be promised the elder’s protection both here and in the hereafter.
39
On the phenomenon of the wandering monk, see D. Caner, Wandering, Begging
Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkley
CA, 2002).
40
Mark the Monk, On those who think to be justified by works 177 (SC 445.186
Durand).
41
John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 4.4 (PG 88.680A).
42
Barsanuphius, Letter 551.18–9 (SC 451.706 Neyt, Angelis and Noah).
43
On which see esp. I. Hausherr, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East (CS
116; trans. A. Hufstader; Kalamazoo MI, 1991) and A. Müller, Das Konzept des geistlichen
Gehorsams bei Johannes Sinaites (Tübingen, 2006).
44
Barsanuphius, Letter 188 (SC 427.604–6 Neyt and Angelis-Noah).
Alluding to Ezekiel 3.18–19//33.8–9, Barsanuphius states elsewhere, ‘I bear all

your care before God; and he will seek your blood from me, if you do not disobey
my words’.45 Evagrius is particularly strict on the sin of monastic disobedience:
‘the monk who quits guard over the words of his father will blaspheme the grey
hairs of the one who begot him and will speak ill of the life of his children. But
him, the Lord will utterly destroy’.46
Paying unquestioning allegiance to an elder or abbot increasingly became
the hallmark of success in the formation of the monastic individual. In Evagrius,
obedience to one’s elder was one part, it seems, of a larger notion of obedience,
which included subjection on an equal level to God’s ordinances and the Church.
Thus he can write, ‘blessed is the monk who guards the commands of the Lord,
and holy the one who closely keeps the words of his fathers’,47 maintaining the
commandments and the advice of elders in parallel. Similarly, he can speak in
strong terms of the need of obedience to the institutional church: ‘the one agitating
the church of the Lord, fire will completely consume him. The one resisting a
priest, the earth will swallow him up’.48 In other writers, however, and particularly
in the sixth and seventh centuries, the need for a monk’s obedience to a single
spiritual director seems generally to take precedence over other forms. Thus
Barsanuphius claims that the monk should obey his abbot to the point of murder,
clearly setting obedience to one’s elder above the commandments themselves.49
While there is fortunately little evidence that such Abrahamic obedience was ever
actually called for, the idea is nonetheless striking (if not potentially frightening).50
The presupposition, of course, was that the elder or abbot, as ‘the image of Christ’
to his spiritual children, would act like Christ.51 Viewed in this light, Climacus
could speak of obedience to one’s elder as more important than obedience to God,
since if God is offended, the elder can reconcile easily, but the reverse is more
difficult.52
Before moving on to repentance as the context of monastic identity-making,
I wish to highlight an obvious potential benefit and an equally obvious potential
drawback of the central role of obedience in early monastic identity-formation. A
great benefit of this system of a strict sense of obedience to the older generation
ensured to a great extent the perpetuation of early monastic ideas and practices,
45
Barsanuphius, Letter 614.95–7 (SC 451.460 Neyt and Angelis-Noah).
46
Evargius, Ad Monachos 88 (Gressmann).
47
Ad Monachos 92 (Gressmann).
48
49
See Barsanuphius, Letter 615 (SC 451.862–6 Neyt and Angelis-Noah).
50
For the story of a monk who, as a test of obedience, is ordered to spend a year
watering a withered branch stuck in the ground (after which it miraculously flourishes), see
Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues 1.19 (PL 20.195D–196B).
51
John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 4.33 (PG 88.692B).
52
John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 4.100 (PG88.725D–728A).
the passing down of a heritage which remained, especially in the East, largely
homogenous in its concepts and ideals.53
The benefit of continuity proposed by such unquestioning obedience has to
be placed side by side, however, with an obvious potential drawback, namely
the alarming potential for abuse (a topic with which modern Christianity is all
too familiar). The thirst for power over souls was generally recognised by the
monks as a grave distortion of spiritual authority. It was evidence, in the end, of
an impure and unhealed will, something that the structure of monastic formation
(with its insistence on long-term obedience prefacing eldership) tried its best to
undermine. Unsurprisingly, it was not necessarily always successful.54 But when
it was successful, it produced spiritual guides with an unusually anti-authoritarian
and compassionate outlook. For example Poemen, when asked how to treat lazy
monks who sleep during church services, swiftly replies: ‘for my part, when I
see a brother dozing, I put his head on my knees and let him rest’.55 Similarly,
Barsanuphius sees his role as spiritual father primarily in terms of burden-bearing
and intercession, not authority as normally understood. The disciple should ‘do
whatever he can’, but Barsanuphius time and again refuses to give prescriptions
or specific rules to be followed. His policy is summarised by his closest disciple
John (also a spiritual director): ‘we do not give any commandments in order not
to afflict anyone’.56 Such eldership had a boldness to it that at times purported to
challenge the will of God. On the fall of a disciple of Abba Sisoes, for instance,
the latter raises his hands to heaven saying, ‘God, whether you will it or not, I will
not let you leave him unhealed’. ‘And immediately’, continues the apophthegm,
‘he was healed’.57
In the end, the potential to form compassionate elders such as these, and to be
in turn formed by them, made the institution of obedience a monastic structure too
precious to forego, despite its obvious dangers. But a sense of obedience, whether
to God, Scripture, the commandments or one’s elder, was not the only technique
de soi discussed by the monks. Another, and in a way the most comprehensive,
was the concept of repentance.
53
The danger that went hand-in-hand with this continuity-through-obedience was
the potential of maintaining certain doctrinal errors inherited without question from one’s
teachers, a danger explored in Letter 604 by Barsanuphius (SC 451.814–24 Neyt and
Angelis-Noah): his solution is for monks to set aside doctrinal questions (which are to be
left to the hierarchy), and concentrate on weeping for their sins.
54
See, for instance, the story of Acacius in John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent,
Step 4.85–8 (PG 88.720A–721A).
55
Apophthegmata (Alphabetical Collection) Poemen 92 (PG 65.344C).
56
John, Letter 743.7–9 (SC 468.186 Neyt and Angelis-Noah).
57
Apophthegmata (Alphabetical Collection) Sisoes 12 (PG 65.396A).
The concept of repentance furnished monasticism with its general framework

for the formation of the ideal self.58 What I have in mind here is not, primarily,
the idea of confessing one’s deeds or thoughts to a priest, abbot or elder (although
this was often a crucial element of repentance, as well as obedience). Rather,
repentance (μετάνοια) comes across in many monastic texts as a comprehensive
term, describing and encapsulating all aspects of the monastic individual’s true
self-formation. Here I will briefly discuss the most articulate spokesman of this
way of thinking that I have yet come across, Mark the Monk (first half of fifth
century). The basis for Mark’s preoccupation with μετάνοια is, predictably,
Scripture. The need to bear in mind that Christ’s public ministry begins, in the
gospels of Matthew and Mark, with the present imperative μετανοεῖτε (‘repent
ye’/’keep repenting’), as well as that the term is key in countless other New
Testament texts, cannot be overestimated when examining how the early monks
approached the concept, particularly Mark. In his treatise On Repentance, Mark
opens with an incisive exegesis of Christ’s initial command as found in Mt 4:17
(‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’), one which serves as a fitting
keynote to his whole vision of repentance. He writes:
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the power and wisdom of God, foreseeing for the salvation
of all what he knew was worthy of God, decreed the law of liberty by means of
various teachings, and to all set a single goal (εἷς σκόπος), saying: ‘Repent’, so
that we might understand by this that all the diversity of the commandments is
summed up by one word: repentance.59
Far from being an avoidable and best avoided facet of Christian life, for Mark
repentance is inescapable for the monk, inasmuch as he understands the practice
of repentance to be coterminous with the keeping of the gospel commandments:
‘repentance, in my opinion, is neither limited to times or actions, but it is practised
in proportion with the commandments of Christ’.60 Just as he eats, drinks, listens
and speaks, so for the monk repentance is a necessity of nature, and to fix a
term on it ‘is to turn backwards and renew the falls of times past’.61 To deny
repentance is tantamount, Mark explains, to denying Christ, who is the guarantor
58
For a more detailed study of the concept of repentance during this period, see
A. Torrance, Repentance in Late Antiquity: Eastern Asceticism and the Framing of the
Christian Life (Oxford, 2012).
59
Mark the Monk, De Paenitentia 1.1–7 (SC 445.214 Durand).
60
Mark the Monk, De Paenitentia 6.25–7 (SC 445.232 Durand). This sentence, along
with others in the same vein, is cited by the late seventh-century Syrian ascetic Dadisho
Qatraya in his Commentary on Abba Isaiah (CSCO 326–327), Discourse 14.6 (see also
15.43 and 3.9).
61
Mark the Monk, De Paenitentia 12.3–5, 15–17 (SC 445.252 Durand).
of repentance.62 Even the hypothetical absence of sin cannot be used as an excuse

not to repent, Mark goes on, given the status of repentance for him as the most
basic and overarching commandment of Christ: ‘He who lives in faith lives for
the sake of repentance, even if it was not because of our own sin, but because of
the sin of the transgression, that we were purified by baptism and once purified,
received the commandments’.63 Even the saints, then, need repentance. Indeed, if
the righteous monks neglect repentance, they prove themselves to be like Samson,
Saul, Eli and his sons, who may have gained a certain measure of sanctity, Mark
says, but because of their rejection of repentance they suffered fearful deaths.64
There is always room and a necessity, according to Mark and the early monks
in general, for a measure of humble self-blame in order to healthily form the self.
‘If a person does not think in his heart that he is a sinner’, says Abba Moses matter-
of-factly, ‘God will not hear him’.65 It was encouraged that such self-blame should
be expressed with mourning and tears, of course, but also with thanksgiving:
‘thanksgiving pleads on behalf of our weakness before God’, Barsanuphius
and John repeatedly state.66 Likewise, in an anonymous apophthegm, humble
thanksgiving is described as equivalent to mourning and lamentation for the
eradication of sins.67
This description of repentance as central to monastic identity-formation has
been necessarily brief, but it cannot be underestimated. The monk, to be a true
monk at all, was increasingly expected to have a repentant outlook. This need not
have meant a melancholic or morbid outlook, but certainly one which refused to
judge anyone or anything but his own self, and that harshly. It meant the forging
of an individuality and a self intensely aware of, and ever in mourning over, its
own imperfection, but with the comforting assurance that such was the will of
62
‘Christ became the guarantor of repentance for us: the one who abandons it rejects
the guarantor’: Mark the Monk, De Paenitentia 12.19–20 (SC 445.252 Durand).
63
Mark the Monk, De Paenitentia 12.6–9 (SC 445.252 Durand). It is suggested in K.
Ware, The Ascetic Writings of Mark the Hermit (DPhil thesis; University of Oxford, 1965),
pp. 199–200, 348 that this and two other passages (De Paenitentia 10.15–38 [SC 445.246–8
Durand] and On the Spiritual Law 155 [SC 445.114 Durand]) may imply a person repenting
for original as well as actual sin. The point, however, in the passages from Paen is not that
there is a need to repent for original sin, but that original sin necessitates that all, even a
perfect person, find salvation in Christ, who commands us to repent (and so repentance is
unavoidable). The most natural reading of On the Spiritual Law 155 is that a person should
consider himself responsible for the vain chatter of others because of ‘an old debt’ in his
own life, not ‘the ancient debt’ of Adam.
64
Mark the Monk, De Paenitentia 11.10–13 (SC 445.248–50 Durand).
65
Apophthegmata (Alphabetical Collection) Moses 16 (PG 65.288B).
66
Barsanuphius, Letters 77.36–8 (SC 427.358 Neyt and Angelis-Noah); 92.26–7 (SC
427.390 Neyt and Angelis-Noah); 123.23–8 (SC 427.460 Neyt and Angelis-Noah); 214.16–
18 (SC 427.666 Neyt and Angelis-Noah); cf. Apophthegmata (Anonymous Collection), N
637 (Nau).
67
Apophthegmata (Anonymous Collection), N 186 (Nau).
the Master, who would reveal his perfection in this mourning over imperfection,
choosing the ‘weak things of this world to shame the strong’ (cf. 1 Cor 1.27).
Philip Rousseau sees in ‘the schola, the world of the paidagogos … the milieu
that the Christian ascetic wished to capture, to colonize, to redefine’. ‘We are
talking about a new kind of teacher’, he goes on, ‘and a new kind of paideia’.68
This new paideia, I would argue, was inextricably bound to the monastic concept
of repentance as a path of perpetual self-formation, a way in which submission
to Scripture and the commandments of Christ, as well as the way of obedience
generally, could be learned and lived out. It was, in many of its expressions, a
deliberate effacing, even destruction, of the self, yet this avenue was ultimately
seen as the only authentic path of self-affirmation and formation. The monks knew
all too well the words, ‘whosoever will lose his ψυχή for my sake shall find it’ (Mt
16.25 // Mk 8.25 // Lk 9.24).
Monastic Individuality and the Non-monastic World
An outline has been attempted of some of the chief methods used by the monks
in their attempt to form the ideal self. In this last section, I wish to look at two
further questions: first, the influence of monastic conceptions of identity on the
wider Christian world, and secondly, the ascetic individuality of the monk and
non-Christian counterparts.
For the first question, it should be reiterated that monasticism did not spring
out of nowhere. As was implicitly underlined when dealing with monasticism and
Scripture above, this was a movement with firm foundations in the Christianity
that preceded it. This means that while monasticism undoubtedly influenced non-
monastic Christianity, it was not influencing it as an outsider. The heritage of both
monastic and non-monastic Christianity was a shared one, and it was lived out, in
many ways, in common. As Averil Cameron points out, ‘ascetics and others did
not live in the separate worlds that the literature leads us to expect’.69 At the same
time, a difference was clearly perceived between the two. With the explosion of
monasticism as a distinct way of life in the fourth century interest grew, among
bishops in particular, in relating this phenomenon to the wider church (whether to
extol or warn against it).
One who especially championed the monks as models with a particular
rhetorical flourish was the ascetic bishop John Chrysostom. While constantly
praising the tears, asceticism, prayers and general example of the monks, he
repeatedly insists on the lay capacity to imitate them. Consider the following:
68
P. Rousseau, ‘Ascetics as Mediators and as Teachers’, in The Cult of the Saints, pp.
45–59, at 55, 57.
69
A. Cameron, ‘Ascetic Closure and the End of Antiquity’, in V.L. Wimbush and R.
Valantasis (eds), Asceticism (New York, 1995), pp. 147–61, at 156.
For even one dwelling in a city may imitate the self-denial of the monks; indeed,
one who has a wife, and is busy with a household, can pray, and fast, and learn
compunction. Since they also, who were first to be instructed by the apostles,
though they lived in cities, still showed the piety of those who occupy the
deserts; and still others did too, who had to govern workshops, as Priscilla and
Aquila. And the prophets also, all had wives as well as households, as Isaiah,
as Ezekiel, as the great Moses, and received no damage from these as regards
virtue. These then let us also imitate, and continually offer thanksgiving to God,
and continually sing hymns to him. Let us give heed to temperance, and to all
other virtues, and the self-denial that is practised in the deserts let us bring into
our cities.70
Not only John Chrysostom, but the monks themselves could speak with respect
for the laity. Barsanuphius and John, for instance, gladly advised laity without any
sense of distance or disdain. As Bitton-Ashkelony notes, ‘in questions regarding
ascetic morality … the Old Men seem seldom to have made an essential distinction
between monks and lay people’.71 In other words, monasticism was, for better or
worse, becoming a school for the formation of the self not only amongst its own
ranks, but throughout the Christian world. There were rare times when the monks
considered it possible to learn from the laity, but only as a tool of reproach for not
living out their higher calling: Evagrius could say, for instance, ‘better a gentle
worldly man than an irascible and wrathful monk’,72 and again, ‘better a worldly
man serving a brother in sickness than an anchorite not pitying his neighbour’.73
Even more rarely, a pious layman might serve as an example to the best of monks,74
yet instances such as these merely prove the rule. On the whole, monasticism
provided a basis for the formation of Christian identity not only among its own
adherents, but among an increasingly aware and attentive lay audience.
The second and last aspect of the problem I wish to touch on is the relationship
between the Christian monastic ideal and non-Christian identities. When the
scholar brings to mind the ascetical and often mystical characteristics of early
monastic literature, normally some kind of association is assumed between these
texts and Neoplatonism, Stoicism or sometimes Gnosticism. But as Columba
Stewart warns, ‘having only texts, we forget that the authors had more, and we
project a purer sense of Platonism or Stoicism onto Christian texts than their
70
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 55.8 (PG 58.548–9).
71
Bitton-Ashkelony and Kofsky, Monastic School, p. 85.
72
Evagrius, Ad Monachos 34 (Gressmann).
73
74
As in the story of the gardener who constantly prays ‘all will go to the kingdom, I
alone shall perish’, found in Apophthegmata (Systematic Collection) 20.22 (SC 498.192–4
Guy).
authors’ own understandings would bear’.75 There is something to be said for a

‘popular morality’ shared between many pagans, Gnostics, Jews and Christians
of the period: the concepts of bodily abstinence and moderation, for instance,
were popular and widely respected moral traits. But beyond a sense of popular
morals, major differences in approach and understanding existed, particularly
between Christian monasticism and the pagan philosophical tradition. Firstly, the
renunciation of the world for the monk was, for the most part, a real geographical
phenomenon, not simply the inner disengagement and withdrawal of Epictetus,
Marcus Aurelius and Plotinus.76 The evidence for pagan hermits is so scarce as
to be virtually non-existent.77 Secondly, the notion of prayer in the philosophers
has a quite different role than that found in monasticism. Prayer is the basis of
the monk’s life and actions, and can deliver him from danger, while for Plotinus,
prayer is not a solution for the challenges of life brought about by one’s own
shortcomings.78 Philostratus indeed recommends a prayer in the Life of Apollonius,
but the form it takes – ‘O gods, give me what I deserve’ – is inimical to the kind of
repentant prayer promoted by the monks.79 Similarly, tears are for the philosopher
the property of infants,80 but for the monk they are the treasure of old age. Indeed,
the concept of repentance itself by which the monk sought to realise and establish
his authentic self and individuality is largely foreign to the mind of the philosopher
(and, I would add, to the mind of the Gnostic too). Repentance was not a regrettable
state for the Christian monk as it was for the philosopher, it was his goal. Already
in Origen’s Contra Celsum (3.62–6), we find Celsus mocking the unintelligible
idea that God would come to ‘call not the righteous, but sinners’ (Mk 2.17 // Lk
5.32), but for the monk, to acknowledge oneself as righteous was immediately to
forfeit the righteousness of Christ.
These are simply preliminary comments, both about monastic and pagan
identities and about the question of individuality and monasticism more broadly.
To finish, I would like to highlight something mentioned above, namely that
the formation of individual identity in monasticism, on the whole, bore its own
irreducible uniqueness. It was, of course, an ascetic movement, and as such shares
a degree of overlap with any number of counter-cultural ascetic practices. But it
had also, unlike, for instance, Gnostic groups, a place and function within a larger
75
C. Stewart, ‘Introduction’, in H. Luckman and L. Kulzer (eds), Purity of Heart in
Early Ascetical Literature: Essays in Honor of Juana Raasch, OSB (Minneapolis, 1999),
p. 3.
76
On this, see Meredith, ‘Asceticism’, p. 316.
77
Meredith, ‘Asceticism’, p. 317.
78
Plotinus, Enneads 3.2.8–9 (Henry and Schwyzer).
79
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.11 (Jones).
80
On which see A. Charles-Saget (ed.), Retour, Repentir et Constitution de Soi (Paris,
1998), p. 14.
body, namely the Church.81 As such, the ideal monastic self strove not only to serve
(and occasionally to represent) the Church, but likewise saw himself as subjected
to the Church: her hierarchy, dogmas, and ordinances. Orthodoxy mattered to the
monk, not as a matter of debate (many representative monastic texts display an
aversion to engagement in any doctrinal controversy), but as a matter of truth.
Without this concept of truth acting to govern the monk’s self-formation (truth
about God and the call to be conformed to this God in Christ), the ascesis of the
monk would, I suggest, look very different. The resources for the formation of the
monastic self could be found in Scripture and the early church. Of course, they
were culturally conditioned, but by no means so as to be unrecognisably Christian.
The historian, of course, could justly feel somewhat uneasy with this overall
assessment, at least if it claimed to present the reality of how monks really lived.
But that is not the purpose of this chapter. It is clear that monks themselves not
always lived up to their ideal, or, indeed, that they embraced other ideals and
goals. Yet I suggest that there was, on the whole, at least in the major and widely
disseminated monastic texts of the fourth–seventh centuries, a defined goal for the
individual monk. He was to begin as a son: a son of the Church, of his elder or abbot,
and so ultimately of God. Through obedience to these, and the comprehensive
practice of repentance, he engaged in the Pauline ‘renewal of mind’, the shaping
of a new self ‘not conformed to this world’ (cf. Rom 12.2), but which nevertheless
helped the world. We saw that the monk was called to be radically individual, yet
in his individuality he was to be radically ecclesial too: a self not for himself, but
for obedience, love and compassion towards the other. The successful monk was
meant to be a sign not of a divided humanity, but of humanity reconciled. This
was, ultimately, what early monastic identity-formation claimed to offer.
81
On Gnosticism as inassimilable to the institution of the Church, see G. Stroumsa,
‘Ascèse et Gnose: aux origines de la spiritualité monastique’, Revue Thomiste 81 (1981):
pp. 557–76.
Chapter 7
Individuality and the Resurrection
in Some Late Antique Texts1
Yannis Papadogiannakis
Resurrection, one of the most important articles of Christian faith, has also, from
the very start, posed one of the most intractable problems for Christians.2 Christ’s
resurrection and its accounts became controversial even among his disciples
(Doubting Thomas: John 20.24–9). Pointing to the centrality of the resurrection,
Paul declared: ‘But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen:
and if Christ is not risen, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith
has been in vain’ (1 Cor 15.12–14). But when pressed to explain the how of the
resurrection Paul’s pronouncement in 1 Cor 15.44, ‘it is sown a physical body, it
is raised a spiritual body’ left the state of the resurrected human beings gloriously
undefined and vague, raising more questions for Christian exegetes and posterity
than it actually answered.3
And yet, despite some evidence of interest in the problem of individuality
and the self in pre-Christian antiquity,4 it has been argued that ‘the discussion
among the church fathers of the resurrection of people is the real beginning of the
1
The author wishes to express his gratitude to the European Research Council for a
Starting Grant that made this chapter possible
2
Katharina Schneider, Studien zur Entfaltung der altkirchlichen Theologie der
Auferstehung (Bonn, 1999). For a recent argument that the belief in the resurrected Christ
in the first two centuries was slow to emerge see Markus Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection in
Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament (Farnham, 2011).
3
For recent interpretations of Paul’s views on the resurrection see Jorunn Økland,
‘Genealogies of the Self: Materiality, Personal Identity, and the Body in Paul’s Letters
to the Corinthians’, in Seim Turid Karlsen and Jorunn Økland (eds), Metamorphoses:
Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity (Berlin, 2009),
pp. 83–107. Vigdis Songe-Møller, ‘“With What Kind of Body Will They Come?”
Metamorphosis and the Concept of Change: From Platonic Thinking to Paul’s Notion of
the Resurrection of the Dead’, in Karlsen and Økland (eds), Metamorphoses: Resurrection,
Body, pp. 109–22. The most complete discussion and review of patristic opinion remains
François Altermath, Du corps psychique au corps spirituel: interprétation de 1 Cor. 15,
35–49 par les auteurs chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles (Tübingen, 1977).
4
For an overview see Richard Sorabji, ‘Soul and Self in Ancient Philosophy’, in
M. James C. Crabbe (ed.), From Soul to Self (London, 1999), pp. 8–32. More expanded
discussion in Richard Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life,
philosophical debate over personal identity’.5 The reason why the doctrine of the
resurrection is so deeply involved with the problem of identity and individuality6
lies in the paradoxical assertion that our resurrected bodies will be spiritual
(πνευματικόν) and yet numerically identical to the bodies of flesh we possessed
during our life on earth. How can one square material with psychological continuity
in the face of such a dramatic rupture and discontinuity brought about by death?
How can one come to terms with this contradictory combination of change and
continuity, and the notion of an unchanging thing subject to change?7
To delve into and study late antique Christian notions of individuality, it must
be stated at the outset, is to be faced with a dramatic disjuncture. For, in the words
of a modern scholar, modern notions of individuality, ‘characterised by radical
reflexivity, a sense of inwardness, a first-person standpoint, and disengagement
from body and world – would have been incomprehensible for people in the past
or other cultures’.8 We are still a long way off from the Cartesian bodiless self that
has defined modern conceptualisations of individuality and personhood.9
The reduction of the self to consciousness as a function of soul or brain is a
relatively late development. Only in the seventeenth century, under the influence
of Cartesian metaphysics, did emphasis on psychosomatic unity shift to the unity
of mind, the latter becoming the defining element of identity. Subsequently, the
seat of the soul was sought within the brain. The notion of a seat of the soul did
and Death (Oxford, 2006) and Christopher Gill, The Structured Self in Hellenistic and
Roman Thought (Oxford, 2006).
5
Martin Raymond and John Barresi, The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: an Intellectual
History of Personal Identity (New York, 2006), p. 56.
6
Following the semantic range of the term as laid out in the Oxford English Dictionary,
the term is used and understood here as the ‘condition of existing as an individual; separate
and continuous existence’ but also as ‘the aggregate of properties peculiar to an individual;
the sum of the attributes which distinguish an object from others of the same kind; individual
character’. In this latter sense it can almost certainly be used interchangeably with the term
identity.
7
For a set of modern, predominantly philosophical approaches to this problem see
the essays in Georg Gasser (ed.), Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive
Our Death? (Farnham, 2010).
8
Fernando Vidal, ‘Brains, Bodies, Selves, and Science: Anthropologies of Identity
and the Resurrection of the Body’, Critical Inquiry 28/4 (2002): pp. 930–74, at 934. This
view admits qualification in light of current debates on the notion of the self in Antiquity
generated by the simultaneous appearance of two monographs on the subject: see Gill, The
Structured Self, and Sorabji, Self. See also Richard Sorabji, ‘Graeco-Roman Varieties of
Self’, in Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola (eds), Ancient Philosophy of the Self (Dordrecht;
London, 2008), pp. 13–34, and Gwenaëlle Aubry and F. Ildefonse (eds), Le moi et
l’interiorité (Paris, 2008).
9
For the debate as to whether a Cartesian notion of subjectivity and individuality can
be found in the ancient world see Gill, The Structured Self, pp. 325–44 and Sorabji, Self,
pp. 48–9, 265–77.
Individuality and the Resurrection in Some Late Antique Texts 131
not imply the existence of an organ that was the soul but rather that of a structure
where the body and soul would interact and operate the synthesis of sensations,
knowledge and memory that constitute the foundation of personal identity. From
the nineteenth century on, the quest of a seat of the soul was replaced by research on
cerebral localisations, and later, cerebral functions. The questions left unresolved
are dealt with by neuroscientific investigations into the mind-brain. By the late
twentieth century, the discourses and interests surrounding these investigations had
turned the brain into a major fetish of Western cultures, giving rise to processes of
disembodiment (disincarnation) and neuropsychologisation of personal identity.10
As a result of this ‘We “have” bodies only in the perspective of the post-Lockean
possessive individualism that makes us their owners; objectified and distanced
from our “selves”, our bodies are for us things we own, not entities we are’.11
Given this development, and as debates about the resurrection of the body were
among the means with which notions of Christian identity and individuality were
elaborated and through which such notions came into existence, they can be
used as a lens through which we can understand the ways in which late antique
Christians conceptualised individuality.
It can be argued that, from the apostle Paul to the present, the history of debates
on the resurrection has revolved around working out the paradox (and to many
modern people oxymoron) of the spiritual (πνευματικόν) body. The broad array of
arguments, images and metaphors employed by Christian authors in the process of
debate with pagans and other Christians has been analysed by Caroline Bynum in
a well-known study.12 And yet through a corpus of extremely popular texts outside
the scope of her study, that have gone unnoticed by modern scholars, resurrection
features prominently for what it is, a problem/mystery.
Authors and Texts
Late antique sources such as the (probably) fifth-century Pseudo-Justinian

Quaestiones et responsiones ad orthodoxos (hereafter QRO),13 the seventh-century
erotapokriseis of Anastasios of Sinai14 and the Pseudo-Athanasian Quaestiones ad
10
Summary by Vidal, ‘Brains, Bodies, Selves, and Science’, p. 939.
11
Vidal, ‘Brains, Bodies, Selves, and Science’, p. 935.
12
Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity,
200–1336 (New York, 1995).
13
Psuedo-Justin, Quaestiones et responsiones ad orthodoxos, ed. A. Papadopoulos-
Kerameus (St. Petersburg, 1895; reprint Leipzig, 1976). On this collection see Yannis
Papadoyannakis, ‘Defining Orthodoxy in Pseudo-Justin’s Quaestiones et Responsiones ad
Orthodoxos’, in Holger Zellentin and Eduard Iricinski (eds), Heresy and Identity in Late
Antiquity (Tübingen, 2008), pp. 115–27.
14
Anastasius of Sinai, Quaestiones et responsiones, ed. M. Richard and J.A. Munitiz,
CCSG 59 (Turnhout, 2006). John Haldon, ‘The Works of Anastasius of Sinai: A Key
ducem Antiochum (hereafter QAD) from the same period15 register a sustained,
intense interest in the problems that the doctrine of bodily resurrection threw up
as part of the eventualities awaiting the deceased. It is worth highlighting that
apart from the belief in the soul’s ability to survive the death of the body and
an affirmation of a future resurrection into a status determined by one’s earthly
actions, the Eastern/Byzantine church never officially elaborated on the details
of life after death or the how of the resurrection of the body. Faced with such
declarations as ‘not a hair of your head will perish’ (Luke 21.18), it was only to
be expected that human imagination and curiosity would conspire to probe into
this mystery, trying to fill this lacuna.16 Such was the task, in part, of the question-
and-answer literature. Alongside other formal treatises and homilies, it is these
collections of questions and answers that allow us to follow the rhythm of the
worries of late antique society with unusual immediacy and directness. It is in
them that the most pressing issues that recurred (or were expected to recur) in the
everyday life of late antique Christians are concentrated.
Source for the History of Seventh-Century East Mediterranean Society and Belief’, in A.
Cameron and L.I. Conrad (eds), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Papers of
the First Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Princeton NJ, 1992), pp. 107–47.
Joseph Munitiz, ‘Anastasios of Sinai: Speaking and Writing to the People of God’, in M.B.
Cunningham and P. Allen (eds), Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and
Byzantine Homiletics (Leiden, 1998), pp. 227–45.
15
Pseudo-Athanasius, Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem, PG 28.597–700. There
are significant overlaps between Anastasios’ and Pseudo-Athanasios’ collections and an
ongoing debate about which collection came first. On the nature of this collection and for the
unsatisfactory state of the text see Caroline Macé, ‘Les Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem
d’un Pseudo-Athanase (CPG 2257). Un état de la question’, in Marie Pierre Bussières
(ed.), La littérature des questions et réponses dans l’Antiquité profane et chrétienne: de
l’enseignement à l’exégèse. Actes du séminaire sur le genre des questions et réponses tenu
à Ottawa les 27 et 28 septembre 2009 (Turnhout, 2013), pp. 121–50. On the relationship
between the two collections and arguments for their exact dating see Haldon, ‘The Work
of Anastasius of Sinai’, pp. 118, 121–3 and Vincent Déroche, Études sur Léontios de
Néapolis (Uppsala, 1995), pp. 273–4. A new edition of Pseudo-Athanasios’ Quaestiones
ad Antiochum Ducem is being prepared by Dr Ilse De Vos in the framework of a European
Research Council-funded project run by the author at King’s College, London, with the title
‘Defining Belief and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Role of Interreligious
Debate and Interaction’.
16
Nicholas Constas, ‘“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”: The Middle State of Souls
in Patristic and Byzantine Literature’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001): pp. 91–124;
Nicholas Constas, ‘An Apology for the Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity: Eustratius
Presbyter of Constantinople, On the State of Souls After Death (CPG 7522)’, Journal of
Early Christian Studies 10/2 (2002): pp. 267–85.
Pseudo-Justin
What some enquiries and responses in Pseudo-Justin’s collection bring into focus
with unusual clarity is that the person exists only in an embodied form; possession
of the same body attests to possession of the same self. The problem is how to
understand the notion of the same body and its relation to identity/individuality.
Nowhere does this become more apparent than in the famous episode of Christ’s
appearance to his disciples after his resurrection (John 20.19):
Q.128: If passing through locked doors is not possible for the gross (παχυμερὲς)
body, how is it that after the resurrection the Lord came to his disciples through
‘locked doors’ [Jn 20.19]? But if it is true that the body rushed inside despite the
locked doors, how is it that the stone that lay in the tomb of the Lord was moved
by an angel for the resurrection of his body? If what the scripture says about the
locked doors is true, it is obvious that a spirit came through and not a body. If
the body turned now into spirit and now into body, how is it that the substance
of the body did not suffer alteration?17
Though not the only one,18 this passage was an important testimony to the
relationship between the state of Christ’s body before and after the resurrection.
As the ultimate paradigm illustrating the state of the resurrected body, its
interpretation became the focus of intense and prolonged debates. In his response,
the anonymous author uses the miracle of Jesus in Matthew 14:25 as proof that
rather than changing his body by using his divine power, Jesus altered the laws of
nature, altering the sea so that he could walk on it. That this is so, Pseudo-Justin
continues, is shown by the fact that Peter could follow him by walking on the sea
too.19 This episode is taken to be a precedent for and proof of Christ’s ability to
manipulate nature’s laws which allowed him to go through closed doors. What
is emphatically stated is that in both instances, Christ’s body was unchanged (ἐν
ἀτρέπτῳ σώματι). It is not possible, however, to use natural means to describe
supernatural activities, the author concludes.20
This contentious issue is part of a wider debate that is playing out in the fourth
and fifth centuries on the nature of Christ’s resurrected body. Many Christian
authors had refuted views about the ‘spiritual’ nature of Christ’s resurrected
17
Pseudo-Justin, QRO 128 (119–20 Papadopoulos-Kerameus).
18
Anna Maria Schwemer, ‘Das Problem der Mahlgemeinschaft mit dem
Auferstandenen’, in Christian Grappe (ed.), Le Repas de Dieu = Das Mahl Gottes: 4.
Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Upsal, 11–15 septembre 2002 (Tübingen, 2004), pp.
187–226.
19
Pseudo-Justin, QRO 128 (119 Papadopoulos-Kerameus).
20
body that had been attributed to Origen.21 Whether this view was Origen’s or an
Origenist interpretation is not entirely clear. Cyril however thought it important
to counter any such views that de-emphasised the corporeal qualities of Christ’s
resurrected body.22 Common to both Cyril and Pseudo-Justin is the concern to
safeguard the identical nature of the body before and after the resurrection in the
face of interpretations that seemed to cast doubt on it.
The same issue reappears in questions dealing with the problem of ‘kindred
recognition’, the ability of the deceased to recognise each other in the resurrected
state.23 As bodies were considered integral to persons, and given the changes a body
underwent during a lifetime, it was far from obvious what constituted a person’s
own body. The problem is posed in Question 66 first in specific terms and then in
more general terms, echoing the refutation of Origenistic views of the resurrection.
It gains, however, a wider significance for the broader conceptualisation of the
individuality of the resurrected body:24
Question 66: If male and female were created [different] for the sake of
procreation, and since [procreation] does not happen in the resurrection, are
people resurrected with this differentiation in their genitals [lit. childbearing
parts]? And if so, why is it not redundant to bear these members idle?25
In his response the author uses this enquiry as an opportunity to support the
material and psychological continuity of the person after death by stressing that
… even if genitals are not useful for the procreation of children after the
resurrection, they are useful for the remembrance (ἀνάμνησιν) of the fact that
through these they received their birth, and their growth and their dwelling [on
earth]. For we are led through them to an understanding of God’s wisdom that
21
Henri Crouzel, ‘Les critiques adressées par Methode et ses contemporaines à la
doctrine origénienne du corps réssuscité’, Gregorianum 53 (1972): pp. 697–791.
22
Marie Odile Boulnois, ‘La résurrection des corps selon Cyrille d’Alexandrie: une
critique de la doctrine origénienne?’, Adamantius, Rivista del Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca
su “Origene e la tradizione alessandrina” 8 (2002): pp. 83–113. Marie Odile Boulnois,
‘Cyrille d’Alexandrie est-il un témoin de la controverse origéniste sur l’identité du corps
mortel et du corps ressuscité ?’, in Lorenzo Perrone (ed.), Origeniana octava, Origen and
the Alexandrian Tradition (Leuven, 2003), vol. II, pp. 843–59.
23
On kindred recognition in general, see Nicholas Constas, ‘Death and Dying in
Byzantium’, in Derek Krueger (ed.), Byzantine Christianity (Minneapolis, MN, 2006), pp.
124–45, at p. 144.
24
Psuedo-Justin, QRO 66 (66–7 Papadopoulos-Kerameus). On the sexual
differentiation of human bodies in their resurrected state see Ernst Dassmann, ‘“Als Mann
und Frau erschuf er sie”. Gen. 1,27c im Verständnis der Kirchenväter’, in Manfred Wacht
(ed.), Panchaia: Festschrift für Klaus Thraede (Münster, 1995), pp. 45–60.
25
Psuedo-Justin, QRO 66 (66 Papadopoulos-Kerameus).
placed these as a device that safeguards, through the succession of those who are
born, our race in immortality against death.26
The issue of the preservation of individual physical characteristics in the resurrected

body was raised, among others, by Methodius in his response to Origen, and in the
dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection by Gregory of Nyssa.27 Pseudo-Justin,
however, is making here a stronger case, emphasising the combination of a physical
and psychological dimension in the preservation of physical characteristics.
Another enquiry and discussion of the possibility of ‘kindred recognition’
takes place in the context of the famous parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Lk.
16.19–31):
Q. 74: If the difference in appearance (διαφορά κατά τάς μορφάς) is useful for
us in this world for the needs of the body and [other] pursuits and dealings,
[and if this differentiation] is unnecessary in the resurrection once the body is
resurrected, if we resurrect in the aforementioned differentiated shape, how
is this difference not useless? If [we resurrect] looking all similar, what is the
proof for this? How does the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man not show
the difference in appearance [after the resurrection]? It is certainly from this
difference in appearance that the Rich Man recognised Lazarus. If some were
to say that this knowledge was given to him for the recognition of Lazarus and
Abraham, what [evidence] can they adduce? In the case of the Lord when ‘the
bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised’ [Mt 27:52] certainly each
person was easily recognisable in their own familiar appearance to their familiar
people.28
In his answer Pseudo-Justin seems to favour material and psychological continuity

by stating that there are many reasons why the resurrected have to rise in their
own familiar appearance. First in order to show the divine and great knowledge of
God, who was capable in such a countless multitude of the risen to preserve their
own, familiar shape (ἐκάστῳ ἀποσῴζειν τὴν οἰκείαν μόρφωσιν). For Pseudo-Justin
it is equally important that not only the physical basis of human nature remains
the same after the resurrection, but also the individual aspect of each person’s
life too, by the preservation of a recognisable appearance and personality with
26
Psuedo-Justin, QRO 66 (66–7 Papadopoulos-Kerameus).
27
Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione (PG 46.145). See Henriette M.
Meissner, Rhetorik und Theologie: der Dialog Gregors von Nyssa De anima et resurrectione
(Frankfurt am Main, 1991); J. Warren Smith, ‘The Body of Paradise and the Body of the
Resurrection: Gender and the Angelic Life in Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio’,
Harvard Theological Review 92/2 (2006): pp. 207–28; and Bynum, Resurrection of the
Body, pp. 63–71. On Gregory’s views of the resurrection see Jean Daniélou, ‘La résurrection
des corps chez Grégoire de Nysse’, Vigiliae Christianae 7/3 (1953): pp. 154–70.
28
their own life-history on the basis of which they will be judged and will receive
their recompense. This emphasis on the preservation of the uniquely individual
and contingent bodily features clearly illustrates that for Pseudo-Justin there is
more to individuality or the person than mind or memory. The parable of Lazarus
and the Rich Man, a classic proof-text for the afterlife, is interpreted as a way of
ascribing enormous significance to expressions of individual uniqueness which
after all define the individuality of an individual and provide the material and
psychological basis for the Final Judgment and the appropriate recompense in the
Last Judgment.29 This same parable comes up for discussion in both Anastasios’
collection and in Pseudo-Athanasios, where a different interpretation is offered
than in Pseudo-Justin. In the enquiry that is posed the parable is taken by the
enquirer to be evidence for the possibility of kindred recognition precisely on
the basis of the preservation of individual characteristics. Q. 21: ‘If the departed
do not recognise one another in the other world, how did the rich man recognise
and implore Abraham and Lazarus, and not that only, but he also remembered
his own five brothers who were in his house?’.30 Like Pseudo-Justin, Anastasios
points out that ‘Christ composed that story as a parable and symbol, but not as a
factual account (πραγματικῶς)’. The parable is interpreted here as proof that the
full punishment or reward has not yet come, neither for the sinners nor for the just.
The Final Judgment necessitates the presence of both body and soul. Should this
not happen, ‘what sort of justice would that be, if the soul were to be punished
or crowned without the body, the body and the soul having sinned or done right
together?’ Anastasios asks. As a proof of this, he quotes Paul in 2 Cor 5.10: ‘So
that each of us may receive recompense for what has been done through the body,
good or bad’.
Other texts highlight the need for the survival of this complex of physical
attributes – on top of psychological ones – that distinguish each person. A striking
example comes from Gregory of Nyssa in his De anima et resurrectione. In
the context of a detailed argument that questions the notion of an unchanging
resurrection body, which throughout its life has been the subject of continuous
change, Macrina’s interlocutor in the form of Gregory’s persona raises the question:
What does it mean to me if someone else comes back to life? How could I
recognise myself in myself? For I would not be truly I if I were not identical
with myself in all details? How, then, will the Resurrection affect myself, when
instead of me someone else will come to life? Someone else, I say; for how
could I recognise myself when, instead of what was once myself, I see some
29
Pseudo-Justin QRO 74 (73 Papadopoulos-Kerameus). For the various and differing
patristic interpretations of this parable see Monique Alexandre, ‘L’interpétation de Luc
16.19–31, chez Grégoire de Nysse’, in J. Fontaine and C. Kannengiesser (eds), Epektasis:
mélanges patristiques offerts au cardinal Jean Daniélou (Paris, 1972), pp. 425–41. Nicholas
Constas, ‘The Middle State of Souls’, p. 99.
30
Anastasius, Quaestiones 21 (95 Richard and Munitiz).
one not myself? It cannot really be I, unless it is in every respect the same as
myself.31
An older contemporary of Pseudo-Justin, Dorotheos of Gaza goes even further in

his emphasis on psychological continuity after death by asserting that thoughts
and memories from the earthly life will be carried over to the life after death and
will continue to exert the same or more profound influence over the person of the
deceased.32
The belief in the resurrection was being challenged in other ways too. A case
in point was the Pauline metaphor of the seed in Question 122. The seed that
rises again as a sheaf of wheat had come to express both the idea that material
continuity guarantees identity and the notion that salvation is victory over partition
and decay; over change itself.
Q. 122: If the apostle used, in his [letter to the] Corinthians, as an important

example for the bodily constitution in the resurrection that of the seed, [1
Corinthians 15.35], how will those who have been cut up or burnt be resurrected,
since the grain once cut or burnt, does not sprout, but is instead completely
destroyed?33
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyril of Jerusalem, among others, drawing on the Pauline

metaphor of the seed, had used the image of sprouting wheat to express the
paradoxical conviction that the body that rises is profoundly the same and
profoundly changed.34 Here, however, Pseudo-Justin is challenged to respond to
an objection to the very metaphor that his predecessors had heavily employed to
explain the resurrection. Pseudo-Justin is arguing that while the seed is subject to
the laws of nature, and cutting it up or burning it would result in its destruction,
God is not subject to the laws of nature (οὐ γὰρ νόμῳ καὶ μέτρῳ φύσεως ἐργάζεται
ὁ θεός, ἀλλ’ αὐθεντίᾳ βουλῆς τῆς ἐν μηδενὶ ἀπορουμένης πρὸς ποίησιν ὧν βούλεται
ποιεῖν). Hence he is capable of resurrecting the bodies that have been burnt or
cut up. Apostle Paul used the seed metaphor, the author continues, as a model to
render credible (ὑποδείγματι πρὸς πίστωσιν) the doctrine of the resurrection. Just
as the seed seemingly dies by being buried in the soil but sprouts afterwards, so
must we not doubt the resurrection of the body. For God who brought about the
sprouting of the seed through its death, is also able to raise the dead.35
31
Gregory of Nyssa, De Anima et Resurrectione (PG 46.140).
32
Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourse 12 (385–8 Régnault). Discussion in Constas, ‘The
Middle State of Souls’, p. 100.
33
34
For an analysis of the variety of the images employed to describe the resurrection of
the body see Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity,
200–1336 (New York, 1995), pp. 19–114.
35
Anastasios of Sinai and Pseudo-Athanasios
The most puzzling difficulty, however, concerned the substance of persons eaten
by cannibals or by animals who were in turn eaten by humans. This objection, also
known as chain consumption argument, initially raised by pagans, continued to
recur in different guises and to exercise Christians long after the disappearance of
paganism.36 In Anastasios of Sinai’s collection Question 22 it appears thus:
The hearts of many of the faithful contain a lurking difficulty and doubt about
the resurrection of our bodies: they think to themselves, ‘How can a body that
has been eaten up by lots of animals and birds, or that been drowned in the sea
and destroyed by countless fishes, then excreted into the deep and dissolved,
how can such a body be reunited and come to a resurrection?’37
Anastasios quotes Genesis 2.7 (‘And God took dust from the earth and fashioned
man, and he breathed into his face a breath of life’) adding:
Indeed if we believe that he is all powerful, it is absolutely certain that he who

brought man into being out of nothing will be able to more easily reshape and
renew the creature that was created by him and undone through death. If we
believe, as David said, that the ends of the earth are in the hand of God (Ps.
94.4), then no matter where the body goes, even if it is dissolved, or burnt, or
eaten up, still the fire, the water, the beasts and whatever else, are in the hand of
God, and God brings out of them the body that they have eaten and taken and
drowned.
Anastasios employs the theory of the four elements to account for the reconstitution
of the body in the resurrection:
The reason is that a dead body does not undergo annihilation. Even if it is
destroyed by any number of animals or other causes, it departs into the four
elements from which it came: viz. the heat to the sun, the cold to the air, the
damp to the waters, and the dry to the earth. It is laid up among the elements as if
in a sort of warehouse, and kept there until the day of the resurrection, when the
36
On the background of this debate see Robert M. Grant, ‘The Resurrection of the
Body’, The Journal of Religion 28/2 (1948): pp. 120–30; 28/3 (1948): pp. 188–208. B.
Pouderon, ‘La chaîne alimentaire chez Athénagore. Confrontation de sa théorie digestive
avec la science médicale de son temps’, Orpheus 9/2 (1988): pp. 219–37.
37
Anastasius, Quaestiones 22 (42 Richard and Munitiz). Translation in Anastasios of
Sinai, Questions and Answers, trans. J.A. Munitiz (Turnhout, 2011), p. 98.
power of God will join it together once more out of them, just as in the beginning
when he made it.38
Then he concludes:
The one who could establish in being out of nothing by sheer will and word
the incorporeal powers of the angels, the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and
all the visible and invisible creation, will find it much more easy and devoid of
trouble to resurrect and re-form by simple word and command even the bodies
of the dead, in a way which he will order and in a manner which he alone, as
creator of them, comprehends.39
Pseudo-Athanasios deals with a similar question (Question 114) albeit differently

phrased: many deem the resurrection of thoroughly destroyed bodies impossible
and implausible. ‘How’, they are asking, ‘will the flesh of those who were
shipwrecked multiple times and eaten by a thousand fishes which were in turn
consumed by a thousand people who were in turn consumed by a thousand lions,
resurrect?’ The author begins his reply by castigating the enquirer and stating, like
Anastasios, that if God is almighty and capable of creating human beings out of
nothing, he is also capable of refashioning human bodies in an ineffable way. He
then resorts to the favourite image of the potter refashioning the broken pieces of
a pot, combining it with the Pauline seed metaphor and the attendant implication
that the body is fluid, dynamic, potential, open to infinite development. Pseudo-
Athanasios uses another example from nature: just as the heat from a kiln that
has stopped working returns to the sun which is the ultimate source of heat in the
universe, so will the particles reassemble. He then employs the popular theory of
the four elements. No matter how much the human body is dissolved in the bellies
of vultures, beasts, or fish, it is nonetheless broken down into the four elements
from which it was made in the first place. On the Day of Judgment, through God’s
invisible command each of the elements will yield their share for the reassembling
of the body, and the soul will run up to join the body in a way that only he who
created man knows, and human beings will be resurrected.40
38
Anastasius, Quaestiones 22 (42 Richard and Munitiz), trans. Munitiz, p. 100. For a
similar argument see Gregory of Nyssa’s De opificio hominis (PG 48.225) and De anima et
resurrectione (PG 46.20): ‘when the combination of elements in the body is broken up each
element is likely to be drawn to its own kind. The very nature of the elements returns each
to its own kind by some inevitable attraction. The warmth in us is united to warmth, the
earthy is united to the solid earth, and each of the other parts rejoins that which is related to
it’, The Soul and Resurrection, trans. C. Roth (New York, 1993), p. 30.
39
Anastasius, Quaestiones 22 (42 Richard and Munitiz), trans. Munitiz, p. 103.
40
Pseudo-Athanasios, QAD 114 (PG 28.668–9). This is reminiscent of Gregory
of Nyssa’s argumentation in De opificio hominis (PG 44.225). Elsewhere in the Pseudo-
Athanasian collection in Q. 8, Gregory, more specifically his De opificio hominis, is one the
Where the issue of individuality recurs and figures prominently is, as in Pseudo-
Justin’s collection, in the discussion of recognition after death. More specifically
Question 128 captures the abiding desire of the soul not just simply to have a body
but to recover the one to which it had been joined: ‘How is my soul going to find
my body after death without mistakenly entering another body?’ The assumption
here is that the persistence of one’s self is ensured by the bodily identity of the
resurrected person. The author offers a naturalistic explanation: ‘just as the little
lambs that have been separated from their mothers in the afternoon are set free
in the morning and because of their natural intuition are able to recognise her
unmistakeably among so many similar-looking sheep and rejoin her, so we must
understand that the souls will rejoin their bodies after the resurrection’.41
A combination of the popular understanding of the four elements and humours
with a naturalistic explanation is employed as a response to the question about
the precise way in which the soul is separated from the body (Question 18).
Pseudo-Athanasios is correlating the four elements with the four humours. The
four humours will revert to and be absorbed by the four elements. Then he adds
that the soul is enclosed in the body like a dove in the four walls of a house. When,
by God’s assent, the time of death arrives, these four walls fall apart and the soul
departs like the aforementioned dove.42
The issue of individuality recurs in the context of ‘kindred recognition’ after
death in Question 22. The enquirer is disturbed by the thought that it will not be
possible for fathers to recognise their sons, brothers to recognise their brothers
and friends to recognise their friends (καὶ γὰρ φοβερὸς ὁ λόγος καὶ ξένος, ὅτι οὐκ
ἐπιγινώσκομεν ἀλλήλους ἐκεῖ, ἀλλὰ ἀγνώριστοι ἀδελφοὶ ἀδελφοῖς, καὶ πατέρες
υἱοῖς καὶ φίλοι φίλοις καθεστήκαμεν). In his reply the anonymous author stresses
that since kindred recognition depends on the existence of bodily features and
marks, and since the bodiless souls awaiting the final resurrection in Hades will
look alike – just as bees or spotless, similar-looking pigeons look alike – the ability
to recognise each other (ἐπιγνωρισμός) will be bestowed to the righteous souls
alone by God as a gift whereas the condemned souls will not be able to recognise
each other.43 Even when the interlocutor presses the author by adding ‘will the
sinners not be able to recognise each other in the resurrection even if they come
few authorities referred to by name in the enquiry on the ranks and essence of the angels
(PG 28.604). Despite sustained subsequent interest in the problem of chain consumption,
one would have to wait until the early eighteenth century to find a satisfactory solution in
the work of the Dutch naturalist, philosopher and mathematician Bernard Nieuwentijt: see
Vidal, ‘Brains, Bodies, Selves, and Science’, pp. 945–61.
41
Pseudo-Athanasios, QAD 128 (PG 28.677). A similar image is used by Gregory
of Nyssa De opificio hominis (PG 44:225) to describe the way in which each soul in the
resurrection will attract the elements for the reconstitution of the body it belonged to.
42
Pseudo-Athanasios, QAD 18 (PG 28.677).
43
Pseudo-Athanasios, QAD 22 (PG 28.612). This view is clearly reminiscent of
Gregory of Nyssa’s argument in De opificio hominis (PG 44.225).
from the same land, home and lineage?’ the reply is ‘not even in the resurrection’.
Explaining his view further in response to a follow-up question (Question 23),
Pseudo-Athanasios argues that all the bodily features and accidental characteristics
are removed in the resurrection along with procreation and corruptibility (σὺν τῇ
σπορᾷ καὶ φθορᾷ). In arguing thus, both Pseudo-Athanasios and Anastasios seek
to do away with the problem of the exact state of the resurrected body. Pseudo-
Athanasios’ interlocutor raises the following issues:
How then, tell me, is the father going to recognise his child who died as an
infant, [if] risen as a thirty-year old adult like Christ who was baptised at the age
of thirty?44 How is the Ethiopian going to be recognised [if] he is risen as a white
person or those who died maimed [if] they rise with all of their body-parts?45
In the resurrected state all human beings will look like Adam in shape and build,
and the distinction between male and female will be abolished. The proof text is
Matthew 22.30 which is interpreted to mean that resurrected bodies will resemble
the appearance and shape of the angels. By being sown, buried and sprouting again,
human beings return to their original prelapsarian incorruptibility (σπειρόμενος
δὲ διὰ τοῦ θανάτου καὶ χωννύμενος ἐν τῇ γῇ, ἀναβλαστάνει ὥσπερ ἦν ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς
ἄφθαρτος).46 In Question 19 of his collection, Anastasios argues similarly in the
process of responding to a question on the nature of the soul, its fate after death
and its separation from the body.47
For all their differences in style, tone and argumentation, what these collections
of enquiries show is an abiding concern for the material and psychological
prolongation of life. Above all they show that this intense questioning about bodily
resurrection was an expression of a profound, intrinsic interest in the question of
individuality.
44
On the patristic view of the age of the resurrected body based on Paul’s Eph. 4,13
see C. Gnilka, ‘Retractatio oder Warum der Christ über das Alter klagen darf’, in Gnilka,
Sieben Kapitel über Natur und Menschenleben (Basel, 2005), pp. 172–87, at p. 181.
45
Pseudo-Athanasios, QAD 23 (PG 28.612). For an overview of this debate in early
Christian sources see Christian Gnilka, ‘Neues Alter, neues Leben: Eine antike Weisheit
und ihre christliche Nutzung’, in idem, Sieben Kapitel über Natur und Menschenleben
(Basel, 2005), pp. 105–48, at pp. 129–48.
46
Pseudo-Athanasios, QAD 23 (PG 28.612).
47
‘However even after the resurrection we shall not recognise each other by a process
of physical recognition: for there cannot be in that situation any smallness of bodies, no
whiteness or blackness, no infancy or old age. All of us who have fallen asleep in this age
shall arise in the same form in which Adam came to be. Just as the tiny grains that fall from
the ear of corn and are buried in the earth do not rise up small, but fill out and become ears
of corn, as they were before their falling. Resurrection is defined by the holy fathers as
an apokatastasis to the primitive state of the first man. So no one will recognise another
for physical reasons, but many will recognise many through God’s command’. Anastasios,
Quaestiones 19 (34–35 Richard and Munitiz), trans. Munitiz, pp. 92–3.
Although the emphases of the authors we looked at were different, their focus
was essentially the same, even if it is far from certain that these authors thought
about bodily identity in the same way as we would today and even if they did
not necessarily set themselves the task of solving the problems of identity and
individuation as such: resurrection is the restoration both of bodily material and of
bodily wholeness or integrity, made incorruptible (which includes blessed beauty,
weightlessness and impassibility).
Conclusion
Discussions and debates on the resurrection in lLate aAntiquity demonstrate very

clearly a valorisation of the body as an indispensable and irreducible component
of personhood and individuality. In an age in which the tendency to minimise
the place and role of flesh and to replace the resurrection of the body with a
resurrection of brain-located psychological identities is stronger than ever, the
body runs the risk of becoming irrelevant. This is a major challenge that scholars
of early Christianity are challenged to react to. Criticising this pervasive attitude,
a modern scholar writes:
But why bother with the body? All we need for Judgment Day is an accountable
and conscious personality. To the extent that the brain is responsible for it, why
not limit resurrection to the brain? And why not go a step further? If only part of
the brain is necessary to be a person, shall we need it whole to enjoy the beatific
vision? Maybe just a fraction will suffice. This fraction will have to contain the
information necessary for defining the self. A computer program might therefore
be enough. The resurrected I need be nothing other than the computer equivalent
of my brain. In this way, thanks to the progress of technology, to resurrect might
eventually mean to be emulated by supercomputers; thus resurrected, we shall
inhabit a hereafter whose technical name is cyberspace. But how much can we
disembody ourselves without becoming simulacra? Are ‘we’ still ‘us’ in a state
of ‘postorganic’ immortality?48
To questions like these perhaps, the late antique Christian conceptualisation of

what it is to be a human individual, with its emphasis on the importance of the
body for personhood, may provide valuable insights and answers.
48
Vidal, ‘Brains, Bodies, Selves, and Science’, p. 972.
Chapter 8
John Philoponus on Individuality
and Particularity1
Christophe Erismann
The Alexandrian philosopher and Christian theologian of the sixth century John
Philoponus2 offered some insightful claims about the philosophical problem of
individuality, a consequence of his philosophical commitment to ontological
particularism. An ontology in which the extra-mental existence of universals
is rejected gives de facto a particularly interesting role to individuals. It is now
established that, at least during the second part of his career, Philoponus was a
particularist: according to him, everything that exists is particular. One of the aims
of this paper is to demonstrate that his particularist frame of mind dates back to the
time of his exegetical work on Aristotle. Before embarking on this topic, however,
three points should be raised: first, regarding what is meant by the philosophical
problem of individuality; second, regarding a peculiarity of Philoponus’ work;
and, third, regarding the current state of research.
Taking the first point, if we consider the issue of individuality in a philosophical
perspective, or more precisely in the perspective of the history of logic, two
different problems must be distinguished:
1. the issue of the constitution of the individual as an individual, that is,

the problem of individuality, which has a number of sub-problems, such
as: What makes a given individual an individual?; What makes a given
individual this very individual?; and What makes an individual one?
1
I would like to thank Riccardo Chiaradonna and Johannes Zachhuber for comments
on a first draft of this chapter.
2
For a useful presentation of the various aspects of the thought of Philoponus, though
not detailed on issues of logic and ontology, see R. Sorabji, Philoponus and the Rejection
of Aristotelian Science (2nd ed.: London, 2010). See also E. Booth, ‘John Philoponos:
Christian and Aristotelian Conversion’, Studia Patristica 17 (1982): pp. 407–11; T.
Hainthaler, ‘Johannes Philoponus, Philosoph und Theologe in Alexandria’, in A. Grillmeier
(ed.), Jesus der Christus im Glauben der Kirche, Band 2/4: Die Kirche von Alexandrien
mit Nubien und Äthiopien nach 451 (Freiburg, 1990), pp. 109–49; T. Hermann, ‘Johannes
Philoponus als Monophysit’, Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die
Kunde der älteren Kirche 29 (1930): pp. 209–64.
2. the issue of particularity as opposed to universality. A particular is defined in

contrast to a universal. A universal is a repeatable entity capable of multiple
instantiation, something common to many things. Hence a universal is
located in the many places in which these things are located. A particular,
by contrast, is a non-repeatable item; it has a unique occurrence or location.
Although these problems are connected, they cannot be reduced to one another:
every individual is a particular, but it is not the case that every particular is
an individual, such as for example the red of this rose and the rationality of
Socrates.3 Philoponus has a strong position on particularity (problem 2), less so on
individuality (problem 1). He rejects universals and holds that the only existing
items are particular. However, we can find in his work elements in answer to the
first set of issues also.
My second point has to do with the evolution of Philoponus’ thought.
Various hypotheses have been offered as to the career and coherence of the
intellectual project of Philoponus. The most convincing and influential is that of
Koenraad Verrycken, who distinguishes two phases in the philosophical activity
of Philoponus. A first phase extends until 529, encompassing the years during
which Philoponus edited the works of his master Ammonius and commentated on
Aristotle. During this period, he also gave a simplified version of the Platonism
of Proclus. The second period, from 529 onwards, was that of Philoponus’ focus
on Christianity, during which he worked on understanding the Christian doctrine
of creation and concentrated on his theological writings.4 I will not endorse this
explanation; I just acknowledge the fact that his literary production can be divided
into various groups of works of which two will be of particular interest to us
here: his commentaries on Aristotle and his treatises on Trinitarian theology and
Christology.
3
See M. Frede, ‘Individuals in Aristotle’, in idem, Essays in Ancient Philosophy
(Oxford, 1987), pp. 49–71.
4
See K. Verrycken, ‘The development of Philoponus’ thought and its chronology’,
in R. Sorabji (ed.), Aristotle Transformed: the Ancient Commentators and their Influence
(London, 1990), pp. 233–74. He recently summarised his hypothesis as follows: ‘The first
of these systems (Philoponus I) can be called an “Alexandrian” form of Platonism. It does
not constitute, as Praechter and others thought of Ammonius’ and Philoponus’ philosophy
as a whole, a return to a pre-Plotinian form of Platonism. Neither is it identical without
qualification with contemporary Athenian Platonism. The philosophy we find in Ammonius,
Asclepius and the early Philoponus can rather be described as a form of Platonism that has
been simplified in comparison with the system of Proclus, Ammonius’ master. From 529
onwards, by contrast, Philoponus’ philosophical work is based on the Christian idea of
creation, and rejects the basic tenets of his own earlier philosophy (Philoponus II)’, K.
Verrycken, ‘John Philoponus’, in L.P. Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge History of Philosophy
in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), vol. II [733–55], p. 737. For criticism of this thesis,
see C. Scholten, Antike Naturphilosophie und christliche Kosmologie in der Schrift ‘De
opificio mundi’ des Johannes Philoponos (Berlin–New York, 1996), pp. 118–43.
John Philoponus on Individuality and Particularity 145
My third point refers to the state of the research. Although we do not yet
have any studies on the ontology of John Philoponus, research on this topic has
been prepared by two very important works: the English translation of some of
Philoponus’ philosophical works, coordinated by Richard Sorabji in his Ancient
commentators project5 on the one hand, and the excellent study by Uwe Michael
Lang on the Arbiter and the Christology of John Philoponus on the other.6 I will
use both in what follows.
I will not consider the treatises in the order in which they were written. I will begin
with Philoponus’ late work because especially strong statements on particularity
can be found there. These particularist statements are a key argumentative step in
Philoponus’ explanation of Trinitarian theology. They ground his thesis according
to which the Trinity is constituted of three particular substances (merikai ousiai).
The issue of whether Philoponus’ beliefs about Trinitarian theology, which
his opponents qualify as ‘tritheist’,7 are the result of the application of radical
Aristotelian logic to the case of the Trinity is still under discussion. An alternate
reading holds that the theological beliefs are primary and that logic is only brought
in, in order to argue and justify a position.8 I have elsewhere supported the first
position,9 but this is not the topic of this chapter.
5
The following commentaries on Aristotle by Philoponus have been translated into
English: On Aristotle’s On the Soul 1.1–2 (trans. P. van der Eijk, 2005), 1.3–5 (trans. P. van
der Eijk, 2006), 2.1–6 (trans. W. Charlton, 2005), 2.7–12 (trans. W. Charlton, 2005), 3.1–8
(trans. W. Charlton, 2000), 3.4–8 (trans. W. Charlton, 1991), 3.9–13 (trans. W. Charlton,
2000); On Aristotle’s On Coming-to-be and Perishing 1.1–5 (trans. C.J.F. Williams, 1999),
1.6–2.4 (trans. C.J.F. Williams, 2000), 2.5–11 (trans. I. Kupreeva, 2005); On Aristotle’s
Physics 1.1–3 (trans. C. Osborne, 2006), 1.4–9 (trans. C. Osborne, 2009), 2 (trans. A.R.
Lacey, 1993), 3 (trans. M. Edwards, 1994), 5–8; Corollaries on place and void (trans. D.J.
Furley, 1991); On Aristotle’s On Meteorology 1.1–3 (trans. I. Kupreeva, 2011), 1.4–9, 12
(trans. I. Kupreeva, 2011); On Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics 1.1–8 (trans. R. McKirahan,
2008), 2 (trans. O. Goldin, 2009).
6
U.M. Lang, John Philoponus and the Controversies over Chalcedon in the Sixth
Century: A Study and Translation of the Arbiter (Leuven, 2001).
7
See H. Martin, ‘Jean Philopon et la controverse trithéite du VIe siècle’, Studia
Patristica 5 (1962): pp. 519–25.
8
See U.M. Lang, ‘Patristic Argument and the Use of Philosophy in the Tritheist
Controversy of the Sixth Century’, in D.V. Twomey and L. Ayres (eds), The Mystery of
the Holy Trinity in the Fathers of the Church: the Proceedings of the Fourth Patristic
Conference, Maynooth, 1999 (Dublin, 2007), pp. 79–99; U.M. Lang, ‘Notes on John
Philoponus and the Tritheist Controversy in the Sixth Century’, Oriens Christianus: Hefte
für die Kunde des christlichen Orients 85 (2001): pp. 23–40; U.M. Lang, ‘The Controversies
over Chalcedon and the Beginnings of Scholastic Theology: the Case of John Philoponus’,
Doctor Angelicus 5 (2005): pp. 179–96.
9
See C. Erismann, ‘The Trinity, universals, and particular substances: Philoponus
and Roscelin’, Traditio 53 (2008): pp. 277–305.
In order to shed new light on this debate, we can also consider this issue
through the analysis of the philosophical beliefs of John Philoponus in his earlier
work as an Aristotelian commentator. If none of the ontological and logical theses
which Philoponus uses in his theological argument can be found in his work as
an exegete of Aristotle, this would provide, I believe, a good argument in favour
of the idea that the philosophical position is ad hoc and merely required by the
theological position. However, I do not believe this to be the case; I think the
ontological theses of the theologian John Philoponus are already present in his
work as a commentator on Aristotle. In order to show the presence of the main
philosophical tenets of Philoponus the theologian already in the exegetical work
of Philoponus the philosopher, the argument will proceed in two stages and will
deal mainly with the issue of particularity:
1. A presentation of the ontological theses which Philoponus puts forth in his

theological writings.
2. A study of some texts from his commentaries on the De anima, the Physics
and the Categories, in order to show that, already in these texts, there is a
commitment to ontological particularism.
In addition, I will consider a text from the commentary on the Posterior Analytics
attributed to Philoponus, which offers very different and original theses on
individuality. This will provide an opportunity to have a closer look at the issue
of the constitution of the individual as an individual. However, given the great
difference in philosophical position this text demonstrates both with regard to
Philoponus as a commentator on Aristotle and as a theologian, it seems questionable
to hold that he is really its author.
The issue of particularity is not a minor problem in the thought of John
Philoponus, either in theology or in philosophy. On the contrary, as the issue of
particular natures, it is one of the central reasons of his parting with Chalcedonian
theology; in philosophy, as we shall see, Philoponus’ ontology is clearly based on
anti-realism.
The Ontology of the Theological Tractates
Philoponus explicitly rejects the idea that an entity may exist at the same time in
several spatio-temporally distinct individuals. A metaphysically common entity
cannot exist; everything that exists (essential and accidental properties, thus
specific essences, differences and accidents) is particular. In consequence of this
ontological principle, there are as many natures as there are hypostases, which
means that there are as many essences as there are individuals: each individual or
hypostasis has its own particular nature, its individual substance.
Philoponus thinks that substances are necessarily particular. In chapter 7 of the
Arbiter, he rejects the idea that a substance can be common to several individuals:
Now, this common nature of man, in which no one man differs from any other,
when it is realised in any one of the individuals, then is particular to that one and
is not common to any other individual, as we set forth in chapter 4. Thus that
rational mortal animal which is in me is common to no other animal.10
And a few lines further:
Thus that rational mortal animal which is in me is not common to any other man.
Neither would the animal nature which is in this particular horse be in any other,
as we have just shown.11
The substance, the essential being of an individual, is proper to it. The humanity of
Socrates is not that of Plato. Socrates and Plato share no real common universal.
Each species is a unique common nature; but each individual of this species
possesses its own nature or substance, which is a particularised version of the
common nature (and thus different from it); a species comprises a plurality of
particular natures or substances. This thesis makes very probable Philoponus’
acceptance of the principle of the essential individuation of the particular. If the
humanity of Socrates is proper to Socrates and cannot be found in any other man,
this ontological fact is sufficient to explain both Socrates’ individuality and the
fact that Socrates is different from Plato.
In Philoponus’ view, particularism is not limited to substances and differences,
and can be extended to the other categories. He states that ‘when a man, an ox or
a horse suffers, it is not impossible for other individuals of the same species not to
suffer’ (52.55–7). Once reformulated in terms closer to those of the Categories, this
can be taken to mean that an accident of passion cannot be instantiated by several
individuals. This point is fundamental in Philoponus’ theological argumentation.
According to him, community of substance and of properties among the persons
in the Trinity must be rejected; otherwise, the Father and the Spirit would have
become incarnate with the Son.
The thesis of ontological particularism is completed by the statement according
to which a universal substance can only be a product of the mind. The nature, man
or horse, can only exist if there are individual men or horses. A Syriac fragment
10
Kotter): Αὕτη δὴ οὖν ἡ κοινὴ φύσις, ἡ ἀνθρώπου, καθ’ ἣν οὐδεὶς ἄνθρωπος οὐδενὸς
διενήνοχεν, ἐν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ἀτόμων γινομένη ἰδία λοιπὸν ἐκείνου καὶ οὐδενὸς ἑτέρου κοινὴ
γίνεται, καθὼς ἐν τῷ τετάρτῳ κεφαλαίῳ ὡρισάμεθα. Τὸ γὰρ ἐν ἐμοὶ ζῷον λογικὸν θνητὸν
οὐδενὸς ἄλλου κοινόν ἐστιν.
11
Kotter): Τὸ γὰρ ἐν ἐμοὶ ζῷον λογικὸν θνητὸν οὐδενὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων ἐστὶ κοινὸν οὐδὲ
ἡ ἐν τῷδε τῷ ἵππῳ τοῦ ζῴου φύσις ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ γένοιτ’ ἄν, ὡς ἀρτίως δεδείχαμεν.
illustrates this: ‘Nothing which is called ‘common’ has existence of its own apart
from the particular: there exists only this horse, only this man, only this angel’.12
Philoponus states that ‘it is impossible for a nature to subsist by itself without
being considered in some individual’ (55.168). The central point of Philoponus’
argument is that the nature as realised in an individual is irreducibly distinct from
the nature as universal. Philoponus does not believe in any sort of real universal
existence of common natures. He insists on the fact that they are not separated
from the individuals; on this point, Philoponus follows both a classical theological
thesis13 and the Aristotelian principle of the immanence of secondary substances.
Philoponus claims that the genus and the species ‘have their existence in the
individuals – as in Peter and Paul for example – and apart from the individuals
they do not subsist’ (51.49–52.50). The common nature cannot exist outside the
individuals. But in the individual, it does not exist as common, but as a nature
particular to it, and it is identical to it. The only mode of being of the common
nature is as a concept. The Syriac fragments provide a clear confirmation of the
merely conceptual status of universal entities. The following fragment from the
first book of Philoponus’ treatise on the Trinity gives a particularistic interpretation
of the distinction between primary and secondary substances formulated in the
Categories, read in the light of the passage from the De anima which states the
posteriority of the universal (1.1.402b7):14
However, species and genera are posterior to particular individuals, and – to say
it simply – each common thing is constructed by our intellect from particulars.
For this reason, the Ancients called such things posterior and intellectual beings.
For, correctly speaking, Peter, John and every individual man are animal and
substance, and the same goes for this horse and that ox. However, these names
passed from these (particulars) to what is called genera and species, that is, from
things which subsist in substance to those which are inferred by our intellect.
This is why the important physicist, Aristotle, says: the universal either is nothing
or is posterior. Nothing, because no universal has a proper existence, and our
idea about them is not, correctly speaking, a substance. Particulars are called
principal and first substances, whereas that which is said of many, i.e. genera
and species, is called substance only in a secondary way. And this is why, when
we speak not metaphorically, but properly, we call hypostases ‘substances’.15
12
Contra Themistium, fragment 22, in A. van Roey, ‘Les fragments trithéites de Jean
Philopon’, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 11 (1980): pp. 135–63.
13
In Christological thought after Chalcedon, non-existent (anupostatos), that is, non-
instantiated, universals were rejected because of the two natures of Christ: it is necessary
for the universal man to be entirely present (instantiated) in the individual Christ in order
for him to be completely God and completely man.
14
Aristotle, De anima, 1.1.402b7: ‘the universal animal either is nothing or is
posterior’, τὸ δὲ ζῷον τὸ καθόλου ἤτοι οὐθέν ἐστιν ἢ ὕστερον.
15
Fragment 1, in van Roey, ‘Les fragments trithéites de Jean Philopon’, p. 148.
A universal is a concept constructed by the mind through a process of abstraction.

This makes it posterior to individuals and devoid of proper existence. Another
fragment confirms this interpretation: ‘Nothing common has an existence of its
own nor does it exist prior to particulars; on the contrary, the mind abstracts it from
the latter, and it only exists in [the mind]’ (Fragment 2, transl. Lang). Philoponus’
particularist commitment leads him to deny existence to common entities, which
are only concepts. This is confirmed by a fragment from Philoponus’ Contra
Themistium, quoted by Peter of Callinicum, in which implicit reference to the
passage from the De anima can be identified:
We have proved that the nature called common has no reality of its own alongside
any of the existents, but is either nothing at all – which is actually the case – or
only subsists as (formed) by our mind from particular things.16
The common nature is a construct of the mind, an abstraction formed by our mind
on the basis of the particular natures of the individuals. Note that Philoponus
develops an intensive understanding of the universal – he often insists in the
Diatetes on the idea that the universal is an intelligible content, as opposed to
an extensive conception of the universal which would take the universal to be a
collection of particulars.
We can identify two theses as central to the ontology Philoponus develops in
his work as a theologian, both in Trinitarian theology and in Christology in the
Diatetes.
1. No common entity exists. Everything that exists is particular.

According to Philoponus, this thesis is valid for essences or natures, for specific
differences, for properties and for accidents. He does not admit of any property,
be it essential or accidental, common to several individuals. To exist is to be
particular. As a consequence of the first thesis and of accepting the definition of
the universal as posterior in the De anima, the only mode of being which can be
attributed to universal entities is that of concepts.
2. Universals are posterior to individuals and their universality is conceptual.

Universal natures are conceptual constructions that only exist in the
human mind.
The ultimate reference of Philoponus when he considers universals is not the
Categories (its theory of secondary substances must have seemed to him too
favourable to common entities), but the passage from the De anima on the
posteriority of the universal. This text is quoted in a Syriac fragment. Contrary
to the Categories, this text was not part of the usual references of theologians;
16
Contra Themistium, Fragment 18a, trans. by R.Y. Ebied, A. van Roey and L.R.
Wickham, in Peter of Callinicum: Anti-Tritheist Dossier, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta
10 (Leuven 1981), p. 26.
Philoponus was able to refer to it because he had the wide knowledge of the
writings of Aristotle a scholar of the School of Alexandria would have had. This
leads us to consider the first set of Philoponus’ writings, his commentaries of
Aristotle’s treatises.
The Commentaries on Aristotle
As A.C. Lloyd demonstrated,17 the idea that universals are abstracted forms whose
existence as universals is in the mind only, and that species and genera become
actual when they are realised by – that is, as – particulars, is fairly common
among the fifth and sixth century Alexandrians. I am therefore not attributing to
Philoponus an original thesis or stating that he was an exception. I am merely
trying to get a more precise idea of his beliefs as a commentator on Aristotle, even
if they were shared by his ‘colleagues’. It is important to note that ontological
particularism is a recurrent idea in Philoponus’ thought: in logic evidently, but
also when, commenting on the Physics, he touches on the notion of nature and,
when commenting on the De anima, he touches on psychology. Ontological
particularism therefore does not seem to be a specifically logical thesis, but more
of a general truth. Its application to theology therefore appears less surprising.
We know that John Philoponus was very interested in the Physics. We can note,
in his commentary on this work, an almost naturalistic justification of ontological
particularism:
To resolve this puzzle our reply is that nature never makes the things that are
general and indiscriminate, but always makes what is individual and articulated.
When we declare that the thing approaching is a body we can apply this notion
‘a body’ to anything – inanimate, animate, equine, human – and nothing prevents
the mental image of ‘a body’ from being applied to any one of these; but it is not
as if nature does the same, and when in the course of making Socrates, she first
puts forth a body, she puts forth a body of such a kind that the same one can do
equally for a stone or a horse. Not a bit of it. Indeed the body will not even do for
any human being you like, but rather a body can only be Socrates’ body – that
is how nature puts it forth. Similarly she makes Socrates’ animal and Socrates’
human being. So that nature makes only particulars.18
17
A.C. Lloyd, The Anatomy of Neoplatonism (Oxford, 1998), chapter 2; see also A.C.
Lloyd, ‘Neoplatonic Logic and Aristotelian Logic I’, Phronesis 1 (1955): pp. 58–72.
18
Philoponus, In Aristotelis Physicorum (CAG XVI.14.3–17 Vitelli): φαμὲν οὖν ἡμεῖς
τὴν ἀπορίαν ταύτην ἐπιλυόμενοι, ὅτι οὐδέποτε ἡ φύσις τὰ κοινὰ καὶ συγκεχυμένα ποιεῖ, ἀλλ’
ἀεὶ τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα καὶ διηρθρωμένα. οὐ γάρ, ὥσπερ ἡμεῖς τὸ προσιὸν ἀποφαινόμενοί τι
σῶμα εἶναι δυνάμεθα τὸ τὶ σῶμα τοῦτο φέρειν καὶ κατὰ ἀψύχου καὶ ἐμψύχου καὶ ἱππείου
καὶ ἀνθρωπείου, τῆς φαντασίας τοῦ τινὸς σώματος οὐδαμῶς κωλυομένης ἐπί τι τούτων
φέρεσθαι, οὕτω καὶ ἡ φύσις, ὅταν ποιοῦσα τὸν Σωκράτην πρῶτον προβάλληται σῶμα,
Nature does not create universals, she does not create universal animality, but
Socrates’ particular animality. The fact that Philoponus insists that nature only
makes particulars (τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα) highlights his belief that universality, by
contrast, is a human construct. Particulars are the work of nature; universals are
a creation of the human mind. As concepts, universals are taken to be human
products. A few lines further in the same text, Philoponus gives a particularly clear
statement of this:
For since nature, in making each of the particulars (given that nature makes
none of the universals, as we said) adopts some such principles for the creation
of each thing, and adopts the same principles in the same way for all things, it is
clear that generality and universality is posterior, and derives its existence from
the creation of the particular things.19
The common (τὸ κοινὸν) and the universal (καθόλου) are posterior (ὕστερόν),
according to Philoponus; in this context, being posterior means being a construct of
the human mind. Philoponus often states that the universal (καθόλου) is posterior;
however this statement is surprising when it pertains to that which is common. The
best way to make sense of this is probably to hold that the common does not really
exist as common, but only in a particularised form; as common, the common is
only conceptual and in this sense can be compared to the universal.
Note that just as, earlier, the thesis from the De anima was brought in to
explain the Categories, here the same passage is referred to in order to explain the
Physics. Indeed, the thesis of the posteriority of the universal finds its main textual
authority in the De anima. In commenting on this text, although not in the passage
on the universal, Philoponus insists unsurprisingly on the conceptual nature of
universality:
Then [Aristotle] adds the reason why some things fall upon us from outside
and others not: that sense is of particulars, and these are [each] in its private
existence, and the animal has need of these for its being (for it is with an eye to
the need for these that sense is given to the animal), but knowledge apprehends
universals, and universals, he says ‘in a way are in the soul itself’. He is accurate
τοιοῦτον προβάλλεται, ὡς δύνασθαι τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ λίθῳ ἐφαρμόζειν ἢ ἵππῳ. οὐδαμῶς· ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ
τῷ τυχόντι ἀνθρώπῳ, ἀλλὰ μόνως Σωκράτους δυνάμενον εἶναι σῶμα οὕτω προβάλλεται.
ὁμοίως καὶ τὸ Σωκράτους ζῷον ποιεῖ καὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον. ὥστε μόνως τὰ μερικὰ ἡ φύσις
ποιεῖ. Trans. Osborne, p. 35.
19
Philoponus, In Aristotelis Physicorum (CAG XVI.15.20–24 Vitelli): ἐπεὶ γὰρ
ἡ φύσις ἕκαστον τῶν κατὰ μέρος ποιοῦσα (οὐδὲν γὰρ τῶν καθόλου ποιεῖ, ὥσπερ εἴπομεν)
παρέλαβε τοσάσδε τινὰς ἀρχὰς εἰς τὴν ἑκάστου γένεσιν, καὶ ἐπὶ πάντων τὰς αὐτὰς ἀρχὰς
ὁμοίως παρέλαβε, τὸ κοινὸν δηλονότι τοῦτο καὶ καθόλου ὕστερόν ἐστι καὶ ἐκ τῆς τῶν κατὰ
μέρος πραγμάτων γενέσεως ὑπέστη, καὶ συγκεχυμένον δὲ διὰ τὸ μὴ διαρθροῦν τίς ποτέ ἐστιν
ἡ ἰδιότης ἑκάστης ἀρχῆς. Trans. Osborne, p. 36.
in adding ‘in a way’, either because ‘in it’ is like ‘in a certain place’ (as he
himself also says in what follows [429a27–8], ‘and they say well who say that
the soul is the place of forms’), but they are not, of course, genuinely in [it as
a] place, but by analogy; or else because the existence (ὑπόστασις) of universals
too is in particulars, but when they are taken as universals and common they
come to be in the soul. For their existing as common consists in this, that their
commonness is thought of, and thoughts are in the soul.20
A little known passage from Philoponus’ commentary to the Categories may be

of some interest to our enquiry. Philoponus’ commentary on the Categories relies
heavily on Ammonius’ interpretation. The parallel reading of both commentaries
allows us to notice many similarities. Seldom does Philoponus distance himself
from Ammonius’ reading, although he does sometimes complete it with
developments or examples. One of the rare cases in which Philoponus does not
follow Ammonius’ reading is directly relevant to my argument. It is a passage
in which Philoponus wonders what are the universals Aristotle speaks of in the
Categories when he speaks of secondary substances, in particular with regard to
the priority of primary substances. Like Ammonius, he rejects the universals which
are before the multiple.21 But, while Ammonius said that Aristotle was referring to
the universals in the multiple,22 Philoponus, by contrast, says that Aristotle refers
to the post rem universals:
[Identification of the universals referred to by Aristotle]
20
Philoponus, In Aristotelis De anima (CAG XV.307.25–308.2 Hayduck): εἶτα καὶ
τὴν αἰτίαν προστίθησι τοῦ τὰ μὲν ἔξωθεν προσπίπτειν τὰ δὲ μή, ὅτι ἡ μὲν αἴσθησις τῶν καθ’
ἕκαστά ἐστι, ταῦτα δὲ ἐν ἰδίᾳ ὑποστάσει, ὧν καὶ χρῄζει εἰς τὸ εἶναι τὸ ζῷον (πρὸς γὰρ τὴν
τούτων χρείαν ἡ αἴσθησις τῷ ζῴῳ δέδοται), ἡ δὲ ἐπιστήμη τῶν καθόλου ἀντιλαμβάνεται, τὰ
δὲ καθόλου, φησίν, ἐν αὐτῇ πώς εἰσι τῇ ψυχῇ. ἀκριβῶς δὲ τὸ πῶς προσέθηκεν, ἤτοι ἐπειδὴ τὸ
ἐν αὐτῇ ὡς ἔν τινι τόπῳ, ὥσπερ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τοῖς ἑξῆς φησι ‘καὶ εὖ δὴ οἱ λέγοντες τὴν ψυχὴν
τόπον εἰδῶν’, οὐ κυρίως δὲ δῆλον ὅτι ἐν τόπῳ, ἀλλὰ κατὰ ἀναλογίαν, ἢ ὅτι καὶ τῶν καθόλου
ἡ μὲν ὑπόστασις ἐν τοῖς καθ’ ἕκαστά ἐστιν, ὅταν δὲ ὡς καθόλου καὶ κοινὰ λαμβάνηται, ἐν
τῇ ψυχῇ γίνεται· τὸ γὰρ κοινῶς αὐτοῖς εἶναι ἐν τῷ νοεῖσθαί ἐστι τὴν κοινότητα αὐτῶν, τὰ δὲ
νοήματα ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ. τὸ δὲ διὸ νοῆσαι μὲν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ εἶπεν, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐπ’ αὐτῇ, τουτέστιν ἐν τῷ
ἔχοντι τὴν ψυχήν. Trans. Charlton, p. 116.
21
This term refers to the Neoplatonic doctrine of three kinds of universals: 1. The
transcendent universal, separate from the particulars (before the multiple, ante rem); 2. The
enmattered universal, which exists in each individual of the given universal (in the multiple,
in re); 3. The conceptual universal (after the multiple, post rem). For a formulation of this
doctrine, see Ammonius, In Porphyrii Isagogen (CAG IV/3.41.10–20 Busse) and Proclus,
In primum Euclidis elementorum librum commentarii (50.16–51.6 Friedlein).
22
Ammonius, In Aristotelis Categorias Commentarius (CAG IV/4.41.5–16 Busse),
esp. 41.5–6: ‘He [i.e. Aristotle] does not speak of the [universals] before the multiple, but
of the [universals] in the multiple’, καθόλου δὲ λέγεται οὐ τὰ πρὸ τῶν πολλῶν, ἀλλὰ τὰ ἐν
τοῖς πολλοῖς.
The universals of which we say that they are predicated are not those which are
before the multiple; it is not those which are in the multiple either. According
to the general opinion, the latter are destroyed with the primary substances.
Indeed, animal cannot exist by itself: it is neither a man, nor Plato, nor any of the
particular men. For common characters are observed in the multiple and in each
thing. Clearly, they are not usually predicated of individuals (indeed, certainly
nothing is predicated of itself). Only universals which are after the multiple and
conceived in our mind are usually predicated of individuals. Indeed, what we
usually predicate of things is the concept we have of them. This is why these
universals are destroyed when the particulars are destroyed, because if there are
no things, there cannot be concepts of them either. So if there are no particular
substances, there are no universal substances or accidents either. It is therefore
adequate that the primary substances be called primary.23
First, note that Philoponus’ reading here is fairly opinionated. He chooses to

interpret the ontology of the Categories as conceptualist. He only considers the
secondary substances from the point of view of predication, before defining
predication as the attribution, not of a thing or of a name, but of concepts: ‘what
we usually predicate of things is the concept (τὴν ἔννοιαν) we have of them’.
He then gives his own version of the Aristotelian thesis of the posteriority of
universals. The usual reading of this passage is the following: if all individual
cats disappeared, there would not be a universal cat any more, which is usually
understood as meaning that there would be no more essence or substantial form
cat, no catness. John Philoponus’ interpretation is different: ‘If there are no things,
there cannot be concepts of them either’. On the basis of this passage, it seems that
Philoponus holds that if there were no individual cats, there would be no concept
of cat – that such a concept would be impossible to grasp. This thesis is very
debatable. While it can be admitted that if there were no individual cats, it would
not be possible to make a true predication such as ‘This is a cat’, and therefore that
the act of predication would be compromised,24 it seems more problematic to state
23
Philoponus, In Aristotelis Categorias commentarium (CAG XIII/1.58.13–59.1
Busse): καθόλου δὲ λέγομεν κατηγορεῖσθαι οὐ τὰ πρὸ τῶν πολλῶν, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ τὰ ἐν τοῖς
πολλοῖς· καὶ ταῦτα μὲν γὰρ συναναιρεῖται ὁμολογουμένως ταῖς πρώταις οὐσίαις· οὐ γὰρ
ἔστι τὸ ζῷον καθ’ ἑαυτὸ ἐν ὑπάρξει, ὃ μήτε ἄνθρωπός ἐστι μήτε Πλάτων μήτε τις τῶν κατὰ
μέρος ἀνθρώπων· ἐν γὰρ τοῖς πολλοῖς καὶ καθ’ ἕκαστον τὰ κοινὰ θεωρεῖται. οὐ μέντοι ταῦτα
κατηγορεῖσθαι εἰώθασι τῶν ἀτόμων (αὐτὸ γάρ τοι ἑαυτοῦ οὐδὲν κατηγορεῖται), μόνα δὲ
εἰώθασι κατηγορεῖσθαι τῶν ἀτόμων τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς πολλοῖς καὶ ἐννοηματικά· τὴν γὰρ ἔννοιαν
ἣν ἔχομεν περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων ταύτην εἰώθαμεν καὶ κατηγορεῖν αὐτῶν. ἅπερ καὶ αὐτὰ τῶν
μερικῶν ἀναιρεθέντων συναναιρεῖται· τῶν γὰρ πραγμάτων μὴ ὄντων οὐδ’ ἂν αἱ περὶ αὐτῶν
ὑπάρξαιεν ἔννοιαι· μὴ οὐσῶν οὖν τῶν μερικῶν οὐσιῶν οὐδὲ τὰ καθόλου ἔσται οὐδὲ τὰ
συμβεβηκότα· εἰκότως οὖν αἱ μερικαὶ οὐσίαι πρῶται λέγονται. My translation.
24
Ammonius seems to follow this line of argument: ‘In the same way universals,
unable to be said of any subject, would be destroyed, too’, see Ammonius, In Aristotelis
Categorias (CAG IV/4.41.5–6 Busse). Trans. Cohen and Matthews, p. 51.
that the concept also would cease to exist; it seems difficult to reject our obvious
experience of the use of clear and useful concepts of inexistent things, such as that
of the phoenix for example. Whatever the value of this thesis, it is quite clear that
it is part of an opinionated reading of Aristotle’s text. And the direction in which
Philoponus carries the text is clearly that of conceptualism.
Another interesting point of this text is the opposition which Philoponus
emphasises between ta koina – the common properties – and ta katholou – the
universals. It seems that Philoponus introduces here a distinction whose origin
is to be sought in Alexander of Aphrodisias. According to Shlomo Pinès,25 we
can find in Alexander of Aphrodisias a distinction between that which is common
(koinon) – that is, the natures or essences – and that which is universal (katholou)
– the genera and species as predicables. It appears that this scheme is used here.
According to Philoponus and against an important tradition, Aristotle only talks
about the katholou in the Categories. The koina do not belong to the topics of
study of the Categories, and the scope of this work is limited by Philoponus to
predication. We have seen that the position of Philoponus as a theologian is even
more explicit in that it does not admit of the koina.
However, in order better to compare the two positions, we need to know the
mode of being of the koina in the individuals according to Philoponus. If it is
as particularised – the most likely interpretation – then there is no significant
difference. And this does seem to be the case here. Philoponus says: ‘[the common
properties] are not usually predicated of individuals (indeed, certainly nothing is
predicated of itself)’. It seems to me that, in order to make sense of the second half
of the sentence – the statement according to which nothing is predicated of itself –
we must admit that the koina, insofar as they exist, are identical to individuals and
only exist as particularised. If this were not the case they could be predicated of
individuals. Assuming this interpretation is correct, we have here exactly the same
thesis as that defended by Philoponus later, when he rejects – like all Miaphysites
– the Cappadocian distinction between ousia and hypostasis, arguing that the
essence or nature only exists as individual, and that, as such, it is identical to the
individual, or hypostasis.
At least in this passage, Philoponus chooses to bring the issue of concepts
into the system of the Categories. The post rem universal is the universal of the
De anima. Indeed, it is very probable that the phrase ‘animal cannot not exist by
itself’ is a reference to the passage from the De anima. So, on this precise point,
Philoponus felt it necessary openly to contradict Ammonius whom he otherwise
follows, and this contradiction has exactly the character of the ontology which he
was to develop later in his career.
We can draw three conclusions from this brief survey of an aspect of Philoponus’
ontological thought: the first, as to the nature of the position held by Philoponus,
25
S. Pines, ‘A New Fragment of Xenocrates and Its Implications’, Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society, New Series, 51 (1961): pp. 3–34.
the second as to the presence of the particularist claim in the different periods of
his intellectual activity, the third as to his understanding of individuality.
1) The position which Philoponus defends is clearly Peripatetic and reminiscent
in many ways of that of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Let us mention ontological
particularism and the statement that the only possible mode of existence for
universal entities is in the individuals, in a particularised state, as universals can
only exist in the mind. Alexander wrote:
For universals and common items have their existence in particulars and
enmattered things. When they are thought apart from matter they become
common and universal, and then they are an intellect when they are thought.
And if they are not thought, they no longer exist. Thus once these have been
separated from the mind thinking them, they are destroyed, given, at least, that
their being lies in being thought.26
If the universal and common items become such – that is, universal and common
– in the intellect, this means that in reality, they only subsist as particulars. The
appearance of the theme of particularism in the Commentary to the Physics can be
seen as another proof of the closeness of Philoponus to Alexander of Aphrodisias,
according to whom there is no logic independent from physics.27 However, note
that while Philoponus, just like Alexander, sees a close connection between physics
and logic, his physics are different from Alexander’s. Alexander’s conception
of universality rests on the eternity of species, as demonstrated by an important
text from the De providentia;28 Philoponus rejects the eternity of the world and
therefore, de facto, that of species, and therefore cannot found his theory on this
principle.
2) On the issue of ontological particularism at least, the ‘rupture’ and ‘deep
gap’ perceived by Verrycken between Philoponus the Alexandrian scholar and
Philoponus the theologian of after 529 does not exist. He was convinced from
the beginning of his academic career and remained certain that the solution to the
problem of universals is given by the definition of the De anima of the universal
as posterior. This concept of posteriority is referred to both in several of his
commentaries on Aristotle and in his theological works. The passage from the De
anima which is so central to Philoponus’ theological thought was already the main
26
Translation by M. Tweedale in ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Views on Universals’,
Phronesis 29 (1984): [279–303], p. 281.
27
On the relation of logic and physics in Alexander, see M. Rashed, Essentialisme.
Alexandre d’Aphrodise entre logique, physique et cosmologie (Berlin–New York, 2007).
28
Alexander of Aphrodisias, De providential (87.5–91.4 Ruland); for an analysis
of this text, see Rashed, Essentialisme, pp. 252–4. See also R.W. Sharples, ‘Alexander
of Aphrodisias on divine providence: two problems’, Classical Quarterly 32 (1982): pp.
198–211.
point of reference of Philoponus as a philosopher, to the point that he referred to it

in order to explain other texts of the corpus Aristotelicum.
This allows us to state a suggestion as to the issue of whether his so-called
tritheism, or more precisely his doctrine of the Trinity as three ousiai merikai,
is the result of the application to the Trinity of a conception of Aristotelian
logic. While we cannot give a final answer to this question, we can reject the
hypothesis according to which Philoponus put together a logical position in
support of his theological convictions. His logical and ontological orientations
were already present in the first phase of his work and are thus not ad hoc. A
particularist Aristotelianism based on the conceptual model of the De anima is
certainly the most adequate philosophical position for a Miaphysite who has to
argue the identity of nature understood as necessarily particular and individual.
However, given the texts, it seems difficult to hold that this was Philoponus’
only motivation. On the contrary, he acquired his particularist beliefs early in his
career, and certainly before beginning his work as a theologian. Would it not be
more adequate to see Philoponus as a convinced anti-realist who cannot admit
the amount of realism required by Cappadocian Trinitarian theology, or the
lesser amount required by Chalcedonian Christological thought? Or at least to
say that these theological rejections are justified by his philosophical thought?
So, for both philosophical and theological reasons, Philoponus cannot admit
reading the Categories in the Cappadocian fashion, in which ousia is necessarily
a common entity. Philoponus believes in particular natures or essences – a point
which motivated John of Damascus’ criticism29 and makes Philoponus’ position
incompatible with Chalcedonian theology. We may conclude that particularism
was a stable conviction held by Philoponus, which can be identified in works from
different periods of his life. There is no need, then, to refer to a conversion or
evolution of thought between a first and a second Philoponus on this issue.
3) Our study of the issue of particularity allows us to draw some conclusions
on the question of individuality. The most obvious is the idea that the posteriority
of the universal implies the priority of the individual. Far from being considered
as a degraded version of a superior principle, the individual is taken to be the true
and only reality.
The fact that Philoponus insists on particular natures or essences, the merikai
ousiai, testifies to his understanding of the individual as essential. An individual
is what it is because of its own essence. According to Philoponus, individuation is
essential, as each human being possesses his or her own particular humanity. But
this does not imply that the individual possesses essential properties in addition
to those of its species. Philoponus insists upon the fact that the humanity of Paul,
his rationality and so on are particular. More generally, all the properties that
constitute the individual Paul are particular, which avoids Philoponus having to
refer to a theory such as that of the bundle of properties in order to explain the
29
See R. Cross, ‘Perichoresis, Deification and Christological Predication in John of
Damascus’, Mediaeval Studies 62 (2000): pp. 69–124.
individuality of the individual. With his theory of particular natures, he has a solid
tool both to explain both what makes an individual an individual of such and such
a species, and also what makes an individual this individual.
Appendix: The ‘realist’ Conception of Individuality in ‘Philoponus’: in Aristotelis

Analytica Posteriora
The most interesting of Philoponus’ texts on individuality is probably not by

Philoponus. It is found in a commentary to the Posterior Analytics, whose
attribution to Philoponus has been questioned. Clearly, this work does not fit
in well with the other texts of Philoponus; this general statement is true also of
the following passage which, for example, does not contain any element of the
ontological particularism which is so present in the other works, and demonstrates
unusual realism. If we set aside these considerations on the authenticity of the
attribution, the text is interesting because it proposes a modified version of the
standard explanation of individuality for a philosopher who does not admit
essential individuation. If the individual is not made such by an essence proper to
it, it must be made so by non-essential, that is, accidental properties, the bundle
of which, as stated by Porphyry,30 cannot be found in any other. The theory we
have here is a modified version of this idea since it includes essential properties
in the bundle:
He calls ‘undifferentiated’ the things that are undifferentiated and similar in

species, as Socrates and Plato are undifferentiated and similar in species. In the
same way both human being and horse are called undifferentiated in species.
For they are both animals. And just as the most specific species is assembled
from the particulars, so in turn is the genus from the species. So he clarifies
how this comes about. When perception acted on certain particulars that are
undifferentiated in species, then all at once this single percept came to a stand in
the imagination and made an imprint in it. This percept not only takes on the stand
of certain properties and accidents out of which the particulars are constituted
and on the basis of which they come to be known, but it is also stamped by
the universal. A universal is a common nature which all the particulars have
in common. The particular human beings have animal, rational and mortal as
common features. Now when perception sees Socrates and Alcibiades and is
stamped with the particular properties in them (the particular properties are that
the one [man] is long-haired and pale, and that another [man] is not like this)
and one of the common features observed in them, for example, that they are
animals or that they are rational or some such thing, it transmitted this first to
the imagination. When this ‘primitive’ percept is imprinted in it, it also instilled
‘in the soul’ a certain murky knowledge of the ‘universal’. In the same way,
too, the second, third and fourth percepts, which are similar and, since they
30
have something of the common features within them too, are imprinted with the
properties and accidents of things among the particulars, both instil these things
in the imagination and these things in the imagination also instil in the soul the
knowledge of the universal. For perception apprehends not only individuals, that
is, accidents and properties, out of which the particulars are constituted, but also
the universal human being, that is to say, also certain things out of which the
universal human being is constituted.31
This text does not fit in with the interpretative line I have presented. It is very
distant from the ontological particularism which is the hallmark of Philoponus
as a theologian and as the author of his other commentaries on Aristotle. We are
in the presence of a realist theory in which there is talk of ‘common features’.
The Philoponus we have studied would never have written that ‘A universal is a
common nature which all the particulars have in common’ because according to
him community is only conceptual and does not exist in individuals.
However, this text does offer a very interesting version of the explanation of
individuality through accidents. Besides the fact that it includes essential properties
in the bundle, this text has another peculiarity. It states that not only the individual,
but also the specific universal are grasped through sensible perception. I quote
the last lines: ‘For perception apprehends not only individuals, that is, accidents
and properties, out of which the particulars are constituted, but also the universal
human being, that is to say, also certain things out of which the universal human
being is constituted’. So, according to this theory, when I look at Felix the cat, I
31
[Philoponus], In Aristotelis Analytica Posteriora commentaria cum anonymo in
librum II (CAG XIII/3.437.10–438.2 Wallies): Στάντος γὰρ τῶν ἀδιαφόρων ἑνός. Ἀδιάφορα
λέγει καὶ τὰ κατ’ εἶδος ὄντα ἀδιάφορα καὶ ὅμοια, ὡς ὁ Σωκράτης καὶ ὁ Πλάτων κατ’ εἶδός
εἰσιν ἀδιάφοροι καὶ ὅμοιοι ὡσαύτως καὶ ὁ ἄνθρωπος καὶ ὁ ἵππος ἀδιάφοροι λέγονται τῷ εἴδει·
ζῷα γὰρ ἄμφω. καὶ ὡς ἐπισυνάγεται τὸ εἶδος τὸ εἰδικώτατον ἐκ τῶν μερικῶν, οὕτως αὖθις τὸ
γένος ἐκ τῶν εἰδῶν. καὶ διασαφεῖ πῶς τοῦτο γίνεται. ἡ αἴσθησις ἐνεργήσασα περί τινα μερικὰ
ἀδιάφορα κατ’ εἶδος ἅπαξ τὸ ἓν τοῦτο αἴσθημα ἔστησεν ἐν τῇ φαντασίᾳ καὶ ἐνετύπωσεν οὐ
μόνον ἔχον ἀπόμορξιν ἰδιοτήτων καὶ συμβεβηκότων τινῶν, ἐξ ὧν τὰ μερικὰ συνίστανται
καὶ γνωρίζονται, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀπομάσσεταί τι τοῦ καθόλου. καθόλου δέ ἐστιν ἡ κοινότης καθ’
ἣν κοινωνοῦσι πάντα τὰ μερικά οἱ γοῦν μερικοὶ ἄνθρωποι τὸ ζῷον, τὸ λογικόν, τὸ θνητὸν
κοινὰ ἔχουσιν. ἡ γοῦν αἴσθησις ἰδοῦσα τὸν Σωκράτην καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδην καὶ ἀπομόρξασα μετὰ
τῶν μερικῶν ἰδιωμάτων τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς (μερικὰ δὲ ἰδιώματά εἰσι τὸ τὸν μὲν εἶναι κομήτην
καὶ λευκόν, τὸν δὲ μὴ τοιοῦτον) καί τι τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς θεωρουμένων κοινῶν, ἤγουν ἢ ὅτι ζῷά
εἰσιν ἢ ὅτι λογικὰ ἤ τι τοιοῦτον, παρέπεμψε τοῦτο πρώτως τῇ φαντασίᾳ· ὃ πρῶτον αἴσθημα
ἐντυπωθὲν ἐν αὐτῇ ἐνεποίησε τῇ ψυχῇ καὶ γνῶσίν τινα ἀμυδρὰν τοῦ καθόλου. ὡσαύτως καὶ
τὸ δεύτερον αἴσθημα καὶ τὸ τρίτον καὶ τέταρτον ὅμοια ὄντα καὶ μετὰ τῶν ἰδιωμάτων καὶ
συμβεβηκότων τῶν ἐν τοῖς μερικοῖς ἔχοντά τι καὶ τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς κοινῶν ἐντυπωθέντα καὶ
ταῦτα τῇ φαντασίᾳ ἐνεποίησαν τῇ ψυχῇ καὶ γνῶσιν τοῦ καθόλου· ἡ αἴσθησις γὰρ οὐ μόνον
ἀντιλαμβάνεται τῶν καθ’ ἕκαστα, ἤγουν τῶν συμβεβηκότων καὶ ἰδιοτήτων, ἐξ ὧν τὰ μερικὰ
συνεστήκασιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦ καθόλου ἀνθρώπου, ἤγουν ἀλλὰ καὶ τινῶν ἐξ ὧν ὁ καθόλου
ἄνθρωπος συνίσταται. Trans. Goldin, p. 139.
not only perceive the accidental properties of Felix – his grayness, the stripiness
of his fur, his fluffiness – but also the essential common properties that constitute
his catness. Needless to say, for the other Philoponus, this position would be
unacceptable: given that he rejects such common or universal properties, there is
nothing other than the particular properties to perceive.
Chapter 9
The Religious Constitution of Individuality:
One Motif of Augustine’s Confessions in
Modern Intellectual History and Theology
Wilhelm Gräb
In the modern world, we tend to associate the topic of individualisation with the
term ‘individuality’. This is a central issue within contemporary societies1 as
we witness a decline of those cultural and religious institutions which represent
traditional ways of belonging and norms of social conduct. The situation of
religion in most countries of Europe is dominated by the fact that the mainline
churches have lost their power and no longer shape people’s worldviews, their
lives and their values. The mainline churches have lost the status as institutions
of religious socialisation that they once held. One of the most important socio-
structural reasons for this development is the fact that modern societies are
functionally differentiated so that the social integrative function of religion is no
longer indispensable to them. Individuals do not feel obliged to attach importance
to the churches’ systems of belief or to observe the norms of social conduct
prescribed by them. Those who are searching for a deeper meaning to life – a
search that once lay primarily within the purview of the churches – now feel
free to choose the most convincing answers among the concepts being offered
to them. The churches’ prescriptions of meaning are now treated as merely one
option among many, with many other competing options being available, from
new religious communities to a variety of offerings within popular culture and
its weaker forms of transcendence. So a religious market is emerging, enabling
people to make their individual choices.
In academic theology, as well as within the churches, the sociological
diagnosis of individualisation is considered to be endangering the maintenance
of cultural and religious institutions. The thesis of individualisation has become
a substitute for the secularisation thesis. Until the 1980s the secularisation thesis
had been used to question the legitimacy of modernity [‘Legitimität der Neuzeit’
(H. Blumenberg)]. But now in academic theology and in the churches the
1
Cf. the contributions in the first publication within the interdisciplinary project
‘Individuality in context’: Wilhelm Gräb and Lars Charbonnier (eds), Individualisierung
– Spiritualität – Religion. Transformationsprozesse auf dem religiösen Feld in
interdisziplinärer Perspektive (Studien zu Religion und Kultur Bd. 1) (Berlin, 2008).
individualisation thesis is discussed in order to point to the loss of authority that

traditional religious institutions and systems of belief have been suffering. An
objective truth is claimed – represented by revelation, tradition and institution –
and considered to be superior, while the claim of individual belief and individual
faith is suspected to rely on a weak and detached kind of individualism.
Discourse surrounding individualisation in general and the individualisation
of religion in particular often carries a distinctly negative tone, both in the
field of sociology as well as in cultural studies. There is agreement about the
fact that individualisation points to a dominant signature of social change in
the modern world and names significant transformations in the religious field.
But usually this diagnosis is linked with assessments or normative claims that
convey a deeply critical perspective on those phenomena which the notion of
individualisation is meant to summarise.
All of these debates overlook the fact that modern processes of
individualisation are based on a historical concept of individualisation. The
concept of individualisation with which I am concerned refers to a long concept-
history in Christianity and Christian theology. Individualisation in this context
may be understood and explained as a process partially carried out by religion
rather than having been inserted into religion from the outside or through social
processes of modernisation. My chapter will comment on this question.
First, I will present and discuss how a Christian individual speaks about
oneself and one’s personal history of becoming a self-identical individual
through Augustine’s Confessions. Second, I shall analyse some examples of
how this original type of religious individuality, based on its divine ground, was
represented in intellectual history until late modernity and finally combined with
the Cartesian concept of a self-reflective and self-expressive individuality.
The ontological aspect of Augustine’s conceptualisation of individuality, in
the sense of singularity, is based in Aristotelian philosophy. What was new in
Augustine’s thinking, and indeed maintained its relevance until modernity, was
the fact that he connected the Principuum Individuationis with the Christian
experience of becoming a new person through the cognition of God. For
Augustine, Christian experience, on the one hand, means the experience of the
infinite significance of the individual and therefore of the ontological priority
of individuality. On the other hand, Christian experience proves to him that
human beings are not individuals by themselves but become individuals through
experiencing themselves and the world they are confronted with as rooted in
their divine ground of being. According to Augustine, the fact that individuality
possessing self-awareness is religiously constituted becomes discernible through
Christian experience.
The Religious Constitution of Individuality 163
Augustine: Individuality, the Becoming of the Person

and the Opposition of Sin and Grace
In his Confessions,2 Augustine takes up his personal history and Christian

experience as a literary and theological subject matter. He deals with the theological
doctrines of God, grace and sin, and discusses their significance in connection
with the biographical course of a Christian life. Christian experience is formed by
the opposition of sin and grace and is based on the transformation of becoming a
new person through the cognition of God’s love towards His creatures. Although
an individual experience, it stands for a universal truth. Augustine himself is the
exemplary individual experiencing God’s love. The Confessions are therefore a
self-reflective act of biographical experience. With their self-reflectiveness they
create an understanding of individuality that is characterised by two aspects – first,
individual self-reflectiveness, and, second, the fact that being a person who is able
to reflect on her life course is based on a transcendent ground, on God.
Augustine saw his own life course as an example of the origin of individuality
discovering itself through God’s action. The biblical story of creation and salvation
is crucially important here. The fall into the abyss of chaos and formlessness is
followed by a ‘conversion’ to the right order of creation. Conversion means return
to the love of God through the experience of the bitter pain of homelessness: God
has made us. But we have abandoned Him by preferring external things and by
labouring under the illusion that happiness can be found in sensual satisfaction.
Therefore, the self is falling apart and, as the lost son in the parable told by Jesus,
has no choice but to get lost further in the vanity of the world. Nevertheless,
the desire for reintegration and wholeness is not lost. It finds fulfillment in the
cognition of God’s love through the death of Jesus Christ, who is the mediator
of God’s love. God has made us for himself, and our heart can find no peace but
in Him. Through the structure of Christian experience, the individual recognises
himself in his individuality while walking a path of deeper self-reflection and
cognition of God, thus overcoming sin.
There are two moments that helped Augustine shape the concept of individuality
as it is found in his Confessions and which have been dominant until today:
a. Those individuals possess individuality and are characterised by it who are

self-reflexive, meaning simply that they reflect on themselves.
b. Those individuals possess individuality and are characterised by it who
understand themselves as identical individuals by the difference of old and
new. That is to say, they know that their ground of being lies not within
themselves and their sinful life but, in the final analysis, has a transcendent
origin: namely, God, who knows them better than they know themselves
through their self-reflexivity.
2
Aurelius Augustinus, Confessiones. Edition and commentary by Kurt Flasch and
Burkard Mojsisch (Stuttgart, 2009). See also PL 32.659–868.
Rousseau: Immanent Self-constitution of Self-constitutive Individuality
A modern account of individuality from a different point of view can be found in

J.J. Rousseau’s Confessions (1782).3 Rousseau has indeed rejected the opinion
that our transitory life is incomplete and therefore has to turn to God as the ground
of a higher form of self-confidence. Rousseau’s biography does not relate to a
turning point between the old self, lost in sin, and the new self, constituted by
God. Rousseau narrates a life course in its completeness, lived by itself, with its
ups and downs and with everything that was good or bad. In his view, a life course
has to be justified by God and by human beings, but it can also justify itself.
Therefore he tells his story in such a way that it functions as a justification of a
life that has been lived in a singular, irreversible way. Instead of a turning point
between the old, transitory life and the new, eternal life Rousseau establishes a
construction of continuity. The individual grasps himself in the course of his finite
life, understanding himself as complete and portraying himself in his individuality.
Augustine’s concept of the religious constitution of individuality is therefore
rejected by Rousseau. But Rousseau, too, sees the individual’s individuality – in
the sense of self-referential self-consciousness – based on the emphatic claim of
an absolute ground of self-constitution. Rousseau has to apply the qualities of
wholeness and singularity to life as it has been lived effectively, while Augustine
applies both qualities to the self that is experiencing the love of God. Rousseau
places the individual achieving individuality under enormous pressure by having
a concept of self that requires one to self-justify one’s own life. Compared to the
excessive nature of such a demand, the popularity of Augustine’s model until today
is not so surprising, for here the individual is constituted through the absoluteness
of God, not through itself.
But Rousseau’s model of a self-sufficient and self-expressive individuality is the
signature of the post-Cartesian concept of individuality. Charles Taylor describes
this concept of a self-expressive individuality as one of the strongest sources of
the self within the modern culture, though not the only one. For Taylor shows, too,
that modernity witnessed the construction of a hybrid or syncretistic individuality
in which the orientation to a substantial truth in the Augustinian tradition has
tended to be combined with the concept of an autonomous and self-expressive
individuality coming from the Cartesian tradition. In the following sections,
I want to follow the former – the Augustinian traces – in order to demonstrate
the persistence of his concept of the transcendent grounding of individuality in
modern intellectual history.
3
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions (Paris, 1841).
Ernst Troeltsch: Crisis and Maintenance of Christianity

as a Religion of Individuality
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ernst Troeltsch found that those
processes of individualisation that are typical for modern societies tend to provoke
a crisis of the Christian concept of individuality first articulated by Augustine.
Troeltsch also saw in Christianity, however, the potential to overcome this crisis
by an active recollection of the religious foundation of individuality. In his view,
Christian religion can or even ought to contribute to the creation of an integrated
personality (‘Aufbau der einheitlichen Persönlichkeit’).4 Troeltsch’s statements
about the processes of individualisation referred to the sociological argument
that modern functional differentiated societies lead people to the loss of social
integration in stable communities, traditions and moral norms on the one hand and
transform them into standardised objects of the capitalistic market of goods on the
other hand. Given these processes of individualisation shaping modern society,
Troeltsch stressed that the Christian religion should contribute to the construction
of individuality. Christian religion should lead to the self-understanding of the
unity of consciousness in a transcendent ground of being.5
Troeltsch identified the process of social modernisation with the process of
individualisation, and saw it spreading to all aspects of life.6 He saw a close,
mutually interpreting relationship between the historical-hermeneutic category of
individuality and a sociological understanding of the process of modernisation in
which individuality has a key role.7 In hermeneutics, the notion of individuality
refers to the opposition of particularity to the abstraction of the universal law,
that is, positively, the singularity and particularity of historical matters and the
fact that history cannot be repeated.8 In a sociological sense, individuality means
opposition to the traditional, hierarchic (status-oriented), segmented structure of
society. Individualisation means that individuals have been set free from social
forms and relationships that used to influence their behaviour, and that traditional
4
Ernst Troeltsch, Zur Frage des religiösen Apriori (1909), in idem, Gesammelte
Schriften (=GS) II (Tübingen, 1922), pp. 754–68, 758.
5
Ernst Troeltsch, ‘Religionsphilosophie’, in Wilhelm Windelband (ed.), Die
Philosophie im Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg, 1907), pp. 423–86, 477:
‘Selbsterfassung der Einheit des Bewusstseins in einem transzendenten Grunde’.
6
About this concept of modernity, cf. Ulrich Beck, Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg
in eine andere Moderne (Frankfurt, 1986), pp. 205–19.
7
Ernst Troeltsch, Gesammelte Schriften (=GS) IV, Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte
und Religionssoziologie (Tübingen, 1925), pp. 317f.
8
Ernst Troeltsch, Der Historismus und seine Probleme. Erstes Buch: Das logische
Problem der Geschichtsphilosophie, GS III (Tübingen, 1922), p. 120: ‘Gegensatz gegen
die Abstraktheit des allgemeinen Gesetzes, also die Einmaligkeit, Unwiederholbarkeit und
Besonderheit der historischen Gegenstände’.
knowledge of action, beliefs and norms, as well as inner security experienced by

individuals, are all decreasing.9
Individualisation is, on the sociological account, no longer connected with
the concept of becoming a person or with the notions of singularity or freedom.
Individuals have experienced detachment from traditional relations of power,
order and care. They have also experienced a loss of the meanings found within
traditional practical knowledge structures and the orientating function they offer.
Creating one’s own concept of life has become decisive for individuals. Life plans
are no longer determined by social origin or social status.
Troeltsch also saw that a new kind of social relationship drives the process of
individualisation characteristic of modern societies. Biographical patterns of social
status, class or family are vanishing. But at the same time they are replaced by the
integration of detached individuals into the mechanisms of a capitalistic society
of consumers tending to even out differences, resulting in the standardisation of
life forms. Cut off from traditionally important bonds, individuals have to adapt
to capitalistic society with its market principles. Dependence on trade and market
means that individuals are being controlled by a new external principle, even if
they gain individual freedom in terms of politics, law and first of all religion.
For Troeltsch, individuality in the sense of a self-conscious singular existence
is not socially determined but represents a practical and, first of all, a religious
challenge. He was greatly concerned that, in the end, a capitalistic economy
would produce a complete interchangeability of individuals regarding all aspects
of life. That would be a danger to the existence of an autonomous personality
(Persönlichkeit) capable of decisions. Troeltsch remarks with resignation:
The individualism of the 18th century was but a period of transition from a culture
of traditional social bonds to a culture of new social bonds. Individual freedom
is maintained in the principle of equality and as political participation in the
emergence of state interests, perhaps also in freedom of religious conviction and
in group formation. But, as a principle of society and of production, freedom is
vanishing more and more behind the self-organisation of work, of enterprise and
of social politics launched by a government supporting a host of civil servants
and pensioners. Whether it wants to or not, the government is forced under such
circumstances to establish a form of state socialism in the widest sense in order
to overcome the modern struggle of classes.10
9
Troeltsch, GS IV.632–40.
10
Troeltsch, GS IV.635–6: ‘Der Individualismus des 18. Jahrh. war nur eine
Übergangsperiode aus einer Kultur alter Bindungen in eine solche neuer. Die individuelle
Freiheit bleibt als Rechtsgleichheit und als politische Mitbeteiligung an der Bildung des
Staatswillens, vielleicht als Freiheit der religiösen Überzeugung und Gruppenbildung. Aber
als das Wesen der Gesellschaft und der Produktion wird sie immer mehr verschwinden
hinter der Selbstorganisation der Arbeit, des Unternehmertums und der Sozialpolitik als ein
Heer von Beamten und Pensionisten unterhaltenden Staates, der mit oder ohne Willen unter
Especially in modern society, individuality is no longer a natural quality of

individuals. By promoting general indifference and interchangeability in the process
of individualisation, individuality is a quality that individuals will have to achieve.
They are able to do so by understanding themselves in relation to a transcendent
ground of being, distinguished from their own self. The individualisation of modern
society urgently requires a new religious basis of individuality. Individualisation
shows that one must create or produce one’s individuality through articulating
and maintaining oneself in a singular and distinctive way. As Troeltsch put it,
‘Individuality is not just there but has to be created’.11
For the modern crisis of individuality, provoked by the process of
individualisation, Troeltsch developed a concept of individuality going back to
Augustine’s claim that only those individuals possess individuality who: (a) relate
to themselves in a self-conscious way, and (b) define themselves on the basis of
a transcendent ground that does not depend on social power.12 Those individuals
possess individuality who are more than mere single objects, who reflect on
themselves consciously and therefore are rooted in a transcendent ground of
being situated beyond themselves as well as beyond society. The individuality
of individuals can be defined as a mixture of that which is real and that which
ought to be. As it is always dynamic and creative it can never be determined in
a timeless or universal manner.13 Therefore Troeltsch, like Augustine, put much
weight on the view that individuality should include creational productivity.14 In
creational productivity as well as in self-consciousness of the transcendent ground
of individual human life lies the power to resist the dangers individuality faces in
modern societies undergoing the process of individualisation. If individuality has
a religious basis it is able to resist the instability of relativism as well as the power
of an economic system that evens out differences and thus destroys individuality,
with concussive effects for all aspects of life.
Troeltsch further argued that Christian religion includes the creation of
an integrated personality.15 In his view the function of Christian religion is,
as Augustine also claimed, to enable the self-understanding of the unity of
diesen Umständen im weitesten Umfange zum Staatssozialismus genötigt ist und nur so die
modernen Klassenkämpfe zu überwinden hoffen kann’.
11
Troeltsch, GS III.271: ‘Individualität ist nicht ohne weiteres da, sondern muß
geschaffen werden’.
12
This also reveals the distinction between individuality and personality. The
difference is that while one can call someone else a personality, the term individuality only
applies if this term refers self-reflexively to oneself.
13
Troeltsch, GS III.211: ‘das stets bewegliche und neuschöpferische, darum nie
zeitlos und universal zu bestimmende Ineinander des Faktischen und des Seinsollenden’.
14
Troeltsch, GS II.428–32.
15
Troeltsch, GS II.758: ‘Aufbau der einheitlichen Persönlichkeit’.
consciousness in a transcendent ground of being.16 The ontological status of the

category of individuality is based on theological arguments.17 As individuality
relies on a transcendent ground only theology may guarantee the maintenance of
individuality in the modern capitalistic society where it is so much endangered in
its effectiveness.
But Troeltsch knew well that the established religion of the church no longer
participated in social reality in such a way that it could contribute to creating self-
conscious individuality.18 The claim of the individual’s autonomy [‘Autonomie
des Individuums’] has begun to shape the modern worldview outside the Church,
while inside the Church mostly aspects of church authority and community are
considered.19 Christianity inside the Church is marginalised in relation to the
culture of individuality being successful in modern society, although, as Troeltsch
still believed was the case, the Christian religious basis of individuality connects
church and culture closely. As he wrote: ‘The main point remains the same for
both: the metaphysics of personalism, which sees all values of personal life rooted
in God, and the ethics of the person, raised from the mere bonds of nature in order
to be united with God’.20
Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Transcendent Basis of Individuality

in a Nameless God
Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz21 is the story of Franz Biberkopf, a man

whom life treats unkindly but who still thinks that he can make an effort on his
own to achieve something anyway. Life hit him hard once, but now he wants to
16
Ernst Troeltsch, Religionsphilosophie, in W. Windelband (ed.), Die Philosophie im
Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg, 1907), pp. 423–86, 477: ‘Selbsterfassung
der Einheit des Bewusstseins in einem transzendenten Grunde’.
17
Cf. Gerhold Becker, ‘Die Funktion der Religionsphilosophie in Troeltschs Theorie
des Christentums’, in Horst Renz and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf (eds), Troeltsch-Studien Bd.
3, Protestantismus und Neuzeit (Gütersloh, 1984), pp. 240–56.
18
Ernst Troeltsch, Der Historismus und seine Überwindung. Fünf Vorträge (Berlin,
1924), p. 52.
19
GS IV, pp. 329f.: ‘die Rücksicht auf kirchliche Autorität und Gemeinschaft
vorherrschen’.
20
Troeltsch, GS IV.330: ‘Beiden gemeinsam bleibt die Hauptsache: die Metaphysik
des Personalismus, die alle Werte des persönlichen Lebens in Gott verankert, und die Ethik
der Emporhebung der Person aus aller bloßen Naturgebundenheit zur Einheit mit Gott’.
21
Berlin Alexanderplatz is a novel by Alfred Döblin published in 1929. The story
concerns a small-time criminal, Franz Biberkopf, fresh from prison, who is drawn into the
underworld. When his criminal mentor, Reinhold, murders the prostitute whom Biberkopf
has been relying on as an anchor, he realises that he will be unable to extricate himself from
the underworld into which he has sunk.
behave well. Considering it superficially one could think life does not work like
that; the man is a victim simply of circumstances, of social conditions, of society.
Such a view would be incorrect in this case, however, as Döblin’s narrator
already mentions in the prologue. Franz Biberkopf, the reader is told, indeed does
not make it, but that is because he started wrongly. The reason lies in his life course
(‘Lebensplan’).22 In the end he himself will come to understand this when his eyes
are opened (wenn ihm ‘der Star gestochen’ wird – literally: an eye operation). He
will realise what it is that makes life successful in spite of all obstacles put in one’s
way. The terrible thing that his life has been will come to make sense.23 Telling the
story of how a terrible life can begin to make sense anyway is, according to the
narrator at the outset, the intention of the novel as a whole.24 ‘To consider this and
to hear it will be worth it for many who are situated in a human skin like Franz
Biberkopf, and to whom the same thing happens as happened to Franz Biberkopf,
namely to wish that there were more to life than bread and butter’.25
The story of Franz Biberkopf is then told following this introduction. The
particular individual functions as an example, and the novel narrates what happens
to him and how he is eventually defeated by evil powers turning against him from
the outside. The years of the Weimar Republic and the proletarian neighbourhoods
of East Berlin become his powers of destiny. Finally, the novel narrates how
Biberkopf’s life turns out to be good anyway.
The reader is supposed to learn how it is possible, on the one hand, that life
may fail and end up in a disaster but how, on the other hand, a miracle may happen
and a new beginning become possible. Biberkopf, the poor hero of the novel, is not
depicted as a positive example because he managed to make something of himself
in spite of unfavourable circumstances – by virtue of a personal development, for
example, or because he matures through coping with moral failure and strokes of
fate. On the contrary, the narrator presents him as a model, as the example of an
individual who proves unable to regain control of his life by means of physical and
moral efforts. Against all expectations, his last breakdown transforms him into a
new person with a changed perspective on life and with changed priorities. The
reader can learn, from Biberkopf’s story and from his experience of transformation,
that the one who is prepared to lose life will gain it.
In his novel, Döblin makes use of the reality of a modern city in order to break
through to those aspects of reality which concern all individuals. He tells the story
22
Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz. Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf
(Zürich/Düsseldorf, 1996), p. 11. Originally published 1929.
23
Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, p. 11: ‘Das furchtbare Ding, das sein Leben war,
bekommt einen Sinn’.
24
Cf. Gabriele Sander, Berlin Alexanderplatz. Erläuterungen und Dokumente
(Stuttgart, 1998) and G. Sander, Alfred Döblin (Stuttgart, 2001).
25
Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, p. 12: ‘Dies zu betrachten und zu hören wird sich für
viele lohnen, die wie Franz Biberkopf in einer Menschenhaut wohnen und denen es passiert
wie diesem Franz Biberkopf, nämlich vom Leben mehr zu verlangen als das Butterbrot’.
of an individual who achieves individuality not by his own power but by a power
from beyond. Unlike Troeltsch, Döblin does not refer to individuality interpreting
itself in relation to God, but like him he also states that individuality needs a
transcendent basis. More clearly than Troeltsch, though not explicitly, Döblin
relates to Augustine’s account of Christian experience. For him, too, it is the
miracle of divine grace that, after a biography of failure, makes a new beginning
possible. Using literary methods, Döblin works with the same strong motifs that
Paul Tillich and Karl Barth echo in their own way during the development of a
theology of crisis in the 1920s.
At almost the same time that Berlin Alexanderplatz was published, the
theologian Paul Tillich discovered a so-called higher realism by going through
the literature and art of his time. In his book The Religious Situation,26 Tillich
considers this realism as a new religious beginning. He notes that there are some
new beginnings after World War I, namely the reference to revelation in the
theology of Karl Barth, the spirit of utopia in the philosophy of Ernst Bloch and
the wide spectrum of aesthetic expressionism in literature, art and music as a sign
that the age of bourgeoisie with its narrow-minded sense of reality was coming to
an end. If therefore the spirit of the bourgeois society is identical with the spirit
of what is finite and remains with itself, a critique of this spirit ought to mean
breaking through what is finite.27
Overcoming finitude by a breakthrough (‘Durchbruch’) is exactly what Döblin
intends with his way of depicting the city of Berlin during the 1920s in a realistic
way. The singular case of Franz Biberkopf stands for an interpretation of human
existence touching metaphysical questions, regarding what does not cease to
concern human existence but actually cannot be grasped because it is the ground
of being. The question of how to deal with the absolute and the monstrous in an
adequate way is also raised.
There are numerous biblical quotations in the novel. But Döblin alters them
considerably. He does not just put them in a different context, thus changing their
meaning; rather, he also takes away their explicit theological content, the reference
to God. Job, for example, whose destiny is compared with Biberkopf’s destiny
finds himself in dialogue with the voice of someone he does not know and which
afterwards turns out to be the voice of Death, not the voice of God.28
The biblical allusions are not meant to describe Biberkopf as a religious person.
He does not read the Bible nor does he go to church. Moreover, the novel shows no
interest in the institutional forms of Christianity in the Berlin of that time, except
that the Salvation Army is mentioned. Biberkopf listens to their songs because
26
Paul Tillich, Die religiöse Lage der Gegenwart (Berlin, 1926).
27
Tillich, Die religiöse Lage der Gegenwart, p. 68: ‘Wenn nun der Geist der
bürgerlichen Gesellschaft der Geist der in sich bleibenden Endlichkeit ist, so müsste die
Kritik an diesem Geist zugleich Durchbruch durch die Endlichkeit bedeuten’.
28
Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, pp.144–6; 429–34.
he is touched by them, as they speak of conversion, of a turning point in life, of

becoming a new person.
Rather than summarising the religious content of the novel, the biblical
quotations serve instead to realise an epic style. First of all, they are meant to
show that the story of the individual Franz Biberkopf is not like any story but
that it has an exemplary meaning for human existence and thus for individuals
achieving self-reflective individuality. In the beginning of the second part of the
novel this becomes clear when Biberkopf tries to start a new life. In the beginning
the narrator makes the following remark: ‘But he, Franz Biberkopf, is not like any
man. I have summoned him not in order to make him play games but to make him
experience his own existence that is hard, true and enlightening’.29
Döblin refers here to Adam and Eve in paradise, the beginning of humanity.30
Job plays a role which is especially important. In the fourth part, after the first
stroke of fate, Biberkopf is compared with Job.31 Like Job, Biberkopf, too, has lost
everything. He is suffering, and he experiences temptation. The question posed
to him is whether he will finally learn to draw the right conclusions from life’s
buffetings. Repeatedly he draws the wrong conclusions. He keeps to his decision
to master life by behaving well. He relies on the wrong persons. He is not able to
get away from Reinhold. He believes that he will make it by his own power.
Biberkopf is again compared with Job in the eighth part of the novel when after
the third stroke of fate the turning point is coming near.32 Again he is asked – by
the voice of Death, not by God or by Satan – whether he wants to keep up his good
intentions, and whether he still thinks that he can trust in his own abilities and in
his dubious friends.
In the fifth part, the prophet Jeremiah is quoted,33 again, with the warning
message that he who relies only on human beings or even just on himself must fail
in life. In the sixth part, which narrates how Biberkopf becomes a criminal again,
sticking to the friendship with Reinhold, Döblin suddenly refers to the account of
the sacrifice of Isaac in Gen 22. Döblin’s intention is not to suggest that Biberkopf
should obey God and His commandments. The biblical allusion is meant to point
to Abraham’s devotion and even self-denial in the story. He is willing to sacrifice
what he loves most, his son. His obedience to God’s commandment is also an act
of self-denial, an act despite himself. Here lies the parallel to what Biberkopf has
to learn. The three strokes of fate are aimed at destroying his arrogance and his
will to assert himself by relying on his own small physical and moral power.
29
Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, p. 47: ‘Aber es ist kein beliebiger Mann, dieser
Franz Biberkopf. Ich habe ihn hergerufen zu keinem Spiel, sondern zum Erleben seines
schweren, wahren und aufhellenden Daseins’.
30
Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, p. 49.
31
Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, pp. 143–6.
32
33
Whoever tries to rely on his or her own power in order to cope with life is
misled because nobody, not even the strongest person, can control all conditions
of her existence in general. Whoever wants to cope with life must learn to accept
the absoluteness of the absolute. Berlin Alexanderplatz, as a parable, shows how
Biberkopf attains this basic religious insight. Biberkopf learns not to rebel against
the strokes of fate. It does not help at all to ignore what has happened and simply
to continue relying on one’s own good will and good intentions. Exactly this
behaviour prevents Biberkopf from noticing that others are offering their help.
Angels accompany his way in the end, but Biberkopf doesn’t see them. Good
friends are supporting him, but he is not aware of the fact that he could have turned
to them long ago. His blindness is due to his conviction that he can cope with life
relying on his own physical and moral power.
The biblical quotations Döblin has inserted in his novel all speak about the
vanity of human efforts to secure life, of the foolish attempt to rely on one’s own
power and to change the world with the help of morality or by proclaiming values.
Jeremiah and Qohelet receive frequent mention. They prepare the reader to hear
the message that is articulated in confrontation with Death in the ninth and last
part: Salvation must come from outside – or, perhaps Döblin means to say, by
not saying it: Only God can help. A person cannot pull herself up by her own
bootstraps. Humans are in need of salvation.34
Salvation means a radical transcending of the self, going beyond one’s self,
surpassing one’s own limited abilities. Transcending one’s self is the condition of
becoming a new person by a power that reaches beyond life. The single individual
finds security and recognition in a great other. Referring to a transcendent reality
requires belief to be a part of it and not to lose oneself in the life of the city with
its pleasures and foul play.
One could say from Biberkopf’s perspective that salvation means a sudden
change of perspective that is imposed on him. He suddenly sees the light because
his eyes are opened (weil ihm der ‘Star gestochen’ wird). He realises that he cannot
take control of his own life and that he does not have to do so anyway. He becomes
aware of the fact that his new life, his true life, is based on a great other beyond
himself. All his attempts to secure life by his own efforts have failed and finally
end up in a biographical disaster. His new life starts in such way that Biberkopf
learns to rely on others and, finally, the great other. The general circumstances
of his life, poor enough, are scarcely altered. But in the end there is still a great
calmness resulting from religious faith. However, Biberkopf’s new life after the
turning point is not narrated, which is yet another similarity with Augustine’s
Confessions.
34
It is true that Döblin does not tell us where the redemption comes from. Cf. the first
reference to the Book of Job: p. 146. Job’s pain ceased as he got silent and did not revolt
against his fate.
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BBTT Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations

CAG Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca
CCSG Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
GCS Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller
GG Grammatici Graeci
GL Grammatici Latini
GNO Gregorii Nysseni Opera
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
LCL Loeb Classical Library
NHS Nag Hammadi Studies
NPB Nova Patrum Bibliotheca
NTA Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen
PG Migne, Patrologia Graeca
PL Migne, Patrologia Latina
PTA Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen
PO Patrologia Orientalis
SC Sources Chrétiennes
SH Subsidia Hagiographica
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Index
Academy 30, 48 Resurrection body 133–5, 141

Accident 64–9, 77, 149, 158 Spiritual body 129, 131
Accidental individuality 87–90 Boethius 76, 86–9
Accidental properties 51, 55, 58, 61, Commentary on Isagoge 86–7
71, 73, 76, 146, 157, 159 Commentary on Peri Hermeneias 84,
Accidental qualities 53, 54, 56, 59 88–9, 95
Aëtius 18 Brain 130–31
Alcinous 19, 48 Brown, Peter 113
Alexander of Aphrodisias 57, 68, Bultmann, Rudolf 23
71–2, 76, 93, 154–5
Ammonius Hermiae 152, 154 Carneades 30–31
Anastasius of Sinai 136, 138–42 Catholicism 2
Antony the Great 112, 115, 117 Christ, see also Jesus Christ
Apollinarius of Laodicea 100–101 Christianity 2, 4–6, 16, 23, 42, 124, 165–8
Apollonius Dyscolus 7, 63, 65, 79–81 Early Christianity 91–2
Syntax 79 Christology, see also Jesus Christ 6–8,
Apuleius of Madaura 19 100–109, 156
Aratus 36 Church 7, 120, 124, 127, 161, 168, 170
Phaenomena 32 Cicero 43
Aristotle 85, 89, 94, 149–59 On Divination 31–2
Categories 7, 93 Claudius Ptolemy 31, 33, 44
De Interpretatione 84 Commandments 114–15, 118–24
Metaphysics 48 Common notion (κοινὴ ἔννοια) 80
Topics 75 Community 5–6, 168
Asceticism 112–13, see also Monasticism Constans 42
Athanasius 117 Constantine 29, 37–8, 40, 43
Life of Antony 117 Oration to the Saints 41–2
Augustine 3, 92, 167, 170 Constantius 42
Confessions 161–3 Conversion 37, 91, 163
Authority 7, 121 Council of Chalcedon 101–5, 109,
Autonomy 2, 29, 168 Council of Nicaea 98
Cyril of Alexandria 134
Barsanuphius 121, 125
Barth, Karl 170 Death 40–41, 130, 132, 134–5,
Basil of Caesarea 95–6, 99–102, 109 137–8, 140–41, 170, 172
[Basil], Epistle 38 97–9 Determinism 33
Baur, Ferdinand Christian 21–2 Dexippus 8, 70, 94
Biography 92, 163 Difference (logical) 53, 56–61, 71–6,
Bloch, Ernst 170 78, 89, 147, 149
Body 5–6, 41, 45, 113, 127, 129–42, 150 Diogenes the Stoic 31
Diogenes Laërtius 70 Mind of God 3, 16, 19, 45

Dionysius Thrax Sole Good God 27–8
Technè grammatiké 64 Gospel of Thomas 24
Döblin, Alfred Grace 37, 163, 170
Berlin Alexanderplatz 168–72 Gregory of Nyssa 18, 76, 79, 86,
Dorotheos of Gaza 137 92, 99, 103–5, 108–9
Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium
Epicharmus of Kos 93 100–101
Epicurus 33 Epistle 38, see Basil of Caesarea
Epiphanius of Salamis 26 On the Soul and the Resurrection
Eschatology/eschatological 16–18, 20–25 135–7
Essence, individual, see Substance/essence Growing argument (αὐξανόμενος λόγος)
Essential constituent properties 53–6 70, 94
‘Eternities’ (αἰῶνες) 12–21
Eusebius of Caesarea 18, 42 Harnack, Adolf 13, 17–18, 20
Preparatio evangelica 42 Hippolytus
Evagrius Ponticus 114–15, 120, 125 Refutation 36
Antirrheticus 117 Horoscope 29–45
Evangelium Veritatis 23–4 Hyperechios
Existence 95–102, 105–9, 148–55 To the Monks 117–18
Hypostasis 95–100, 105–8, 146
Fall (of Man) 16, 42 Hypostatic union 7
Fate 32–5, 41, 169–72,
see also Determinism Iamblichus
Firmicus Maternus De mysteriis 35–6
Mathesis 37–42 Idea, see Form
Form/Idea 49–51, 53, Idiomata 68, 99, 100
Abstracted Forms, see Universal Immanent form, see Form
Form/Idea of Individuals, see Individual, see also Particular
Individual As bundle (ἀθροίσμα) of properties 61,
Immanent Form 57, 59, 68–9, 72–4, 64–5, 68, 70, 72–8, 85–6, 88, 90,
78, 87, see also Substance/Essence 107, 157–8
Plato’s Theory of Forms/Ideas 14, 16, De-individualisation 13–19, 23, 25
19–20, 25, 48, Definite description of individuals 74,
Foucault, Michel 2–4, 116 81, 94, 99
Free will, see also Will 30, 32, 37, 119 Finite in number (according to Gregory
of Nyssa) 99
Gaiser, Konrad 17 Idea of individuals in Plotinus 47–9
Genus 69, 75–7, 82, 85, 87, 93, 97, 148, Individual form 51, 68, 72
150, 154, 157 Individual/particular nature 47–8, 51,
German idealism 17 94, 103–9, 146–9, 156–7
Gnosticism/Gnostic 11–28, 36–7, 125–7 Individual/particular/peculiar quality
God, see also Jesus Christ, Trinity 17, 19, (ἰδίως ποιόν) 63–5, 67–74, 79–81,
37, 39–42, 96, 98, 113–27, 135–40, 83, 85, 88–9, 94, 103, 109
162–4, 168, 170–72 Infinite in number (according to
Divine nature/substance 96, 100–101, Porphyry) 86, 94
105, 107 Primary substance 93
Knowledge of God 21 Individualisation 72, 161–2, 165–7
Index 191
Individuation 64, 67–70, 75, 86, 105, Myth 11–12, 25–8, 36

142, 147, 156–7 Gnostic myth of the Primal Man
Interiorisation 3–4 (Urmensch) 23
Inwardness 3–4, 130 Protological myth 11–13, 16–17
Irenaeus of Lyons 12–15, 17, 20–22,
24–7, 137 Nag Hammadi 23–4, 36–7
Isaac of Syria 115 Nature 27–8, 133–4, 137, 139,
149–51, 168
Jaspers, Karl 1 Common/universal nature 89,
Jesus Christ 6, 15, 17, 28, 42, 100–105, 97–109, 147–9, 154, 158
120, 122–7, 129, 133, 136, 141, Divine Nature, see God
148, 163 Human Nature 79, 100, 104, 135
John Chrysostom 124–5 Individual nature, see Individual
John of Damascus 108, 156 Two natures of Christ 103
John Philoponus 8, 72, 106–7, 143–59 Neo-Pythagoreanism 15–16, 19, 27
Jonas, Hans 23–4 Neoplatonism/Neoplatonists 5, 17,
Judaism 4, 16, 18 33–6, 65, 72–3, 113–14, 125,
Justin Martyr 13, 92 Nicomachus of Gerasa 16
Noun
Kant, Immanuel 108 Adjectival noun 84
Krämer, Hans-Joachim 17 Common noun (appellation) 69,
79, 81, 83, 85
Lactantius 42 Proper noun (name) 63, 67, 69,
Last Judgment 136 79–83, 85, 89–90
Leontius of Byzantium 104–5
Leontius of Jerusalem 108 Obedience 2, 7, 44, 116–17, 119–22, 124,
Logic 7, 143, 145, 150, 155–6 127, 171
Logos (formative principle), see Plotinus Olympiodoros 76
Love (of God and neighbour) 114–6, 119, One, the (τὸ ἕν) 16, 19, 24, 114,
127, 163–4 Origen 96, 134–5
Lucian Contra Celsum 126
Philosophies for Sale 20 Homilies on Genesis 37
Lucretius 39
De rerum natura 32–3 Pantaenus 31
Particular/particularity, see also Individual
Magi (Mt 2) 36 47–61, 64, 72, 87, 93, 102,
Manilius 44 106, 148–59, 165
Astronomicon 32–3 Particular substance 88
Mark the Monk 118–19, 122–4 Particularism (ontological) 106–7, 143,
Maximus Confessor 102 145–50, 155–8
Methodius of Olympus 135 Peculiar/particular quality (ἰδίως ποιόν),
Middle Platonism/Middle Platonists 11, see Individual quality
14, 17, 19, 65, 73 Penance 116
Mind of God, see God Peripatetic 56, 63, 65, 68, 71, 76, 93, 155
Moderatus of Gades 15–16 Person/personality 49–50, 80–81,
Modernity 1, 161–4 88–9, 92–6, 98–100, 102–5, 107–8,
Monasticism, see also Asceticism 111–27 130–31, 133–8, 140–42,
Monk, the 112–16 147, 163, 165–72
Philoponus, see John Philoponus Predicate 67, 77–8, 88, 96, 103, 107,
Philostratus 153–4
Life of Apollonius 126 Primal Man (Urmensch), see Myth
Plato 34–5, 49–50, 60 Priscian 63–5
Platonic ideas/forms, Grammatical Institutions 67, 82–6
see Forms/Ideas Protology 14–16, 18, 25, see also Myth
Phaedrus 20, 34, 55 Pronoun 67, 69, 79–81, 85
Secret teachings 17 Proper noun, see Noun
Seventh Letter 59 Pseudo-Athanasius
The Sophist 20 Quaestiones ad ducem Antiochum
Timaeus 15, 34–5, 52, 59, 60 131–2, 136, 138–41, see also
Theaetetus 72–3 Athanasius
Platonism 3, 17–20, 22, 48, 144 Pseudo-Iamblichus
Platonity 88–9, 95 Theologia Arithmetica 15–16,
Plotinus 16, 20, 33–7, 40–42, 44, see Iamblichus
113, 126 Pseudo-Justin
Bipartition of qualities 54 Quaestiones et responsiones ad
Logos as formative principle 47, orthodoxos 131, 133–7, 140,
49–52 see Justin Martyr
On numerical identity 57 Ptolemy (Christian Gnostic theologian)
On non-substantial qualities 54, 56–9 12–13, 16–17, 25–7
Reception of Aristotle’s categories Epistula ad Floram 26–8
52–3 Pythagorean Tetrad 15–16,
Reception of Aristotle’s hylomorphism see also Neo-Pythagoreanism
52, 60
On sensible particulars as bundles of Quality 82–5, see also Plotinus
matter and qualities 58–9 Common quality 65, 68, 70, 80–81, 85
On sensible particulars 51–60 Individual/particular/peculiar quality,
On sensible substance 57–9 see Individual
On specific difference 55–6 Question-and-answer literature 132
On the un-descended part of the soul
48–9 Realism 156–7
Plutarch 19 Higher realism 157
Poimandres 37 Reincarnation 49–50
Popper, Karl 17 Repentance 116–17, 120–27
Porphyry 36, 40, 42, 44, 68, 70–73, Resurrection 129–42
74–9, 85–8, 93–5, 97, 100, 107 Chain consumption argument against
Ad Marcellam 35 bodily resurrection 138, 140
De antro nympharum 35 Kindred recognition in the resurrection
Isagoge 60, 74–7, 94, 99, 157 134–6, 140
Letter to Anebo 35 Resurrection body, see Body
Life of Plotinus 34, 41 Ritschl, Albrecht 18
On Categories 53, 57, 60 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Reception of Aristotle’s Confessions 164
hylomorphism 60–61
Sensible particulars in Porphyry 60–61 Sacrifice 1–3, 43
Prayer 3, 33, 42, 115–16, 119, 124, 126 Salvation 6–7, 11–12, 16, 21–4, 115,
Predicable 7, 75, 77, 82, 85, 87, 94, 154 122–3, 137, 163, 172
Index 193
Scepticism 29–31, 42, 94 Antecedent substance 98, 101

Scripture/Bible/biblical 116–19, 121–4, Divine substance, see God
127, 133, 163, 170–72 Particular substance, see Particular
Secularisation 161 Primary substance, see Individual
Self 2–8, 35, 112–19, 122–9, 140, 142, Substantial form 68, 72, 74, 76,
Self-consciousness 164, 166–7 87, 153
Self-perfection 2 Syrianus 19, 71
Self-reflection 4, 162–3, 167, 171
Serapion of Thmuis 115 Taylor, Charles 3, 164
Severus of Antioch 104–7 Technique de soi 111–12, 121
Sextus Empiricus 19, 73 Tillich, Paul 170
Against the Mathematicians 30 Transcendence/transcendent 7, 14, 16,
Simplicius 53, 56, 61, 70, 76 152, 161, 163–5, 167–8, 170, 172
Sin 115, 120, 123, 163–4 Trinity 92, 95–7, 99, 101, 104–7, 109,
Sorabji, Richard 3–4, 72–3, 75, 145 145, 147–8, 156
Soul 5–6, 17, 21, 23–5, 29, 32–7, 39, 41, Tritheism 106, 156
44–50, 57, 70, 121, 130–32, 136, Troeltsch, Ernst 165–8, 170
139–41, 151–2, 158
Species 50, 53, 55, 68–9, 71, 73–77, 81, Universal 67–9, 71–2, 87, 89, 93, 97–9,
85–7, 89, 93, 95, 97, 100, 102, 101–6, 109, 143–5, 147–59
104, 148, 150, 154–7 Immanent universal 69, 72, 87, 89
Infima/last species 78, 82, 89, Universal as abstracted form 150
94, 107, 147–8, Unlimited Dyad (ἀόριστος δυάς)
Spirit 14–15, 41, 45, 116, 118, 133, 170
Holy Spirit 6, 96, 107, 147 Valentinus/Valentinian 12–28
Stars 29–31, 34, 36–8, 41–2, 44–5
Steel, Carlos 5 Will 30, 119, 121, 123–4,
Stoic/Stoicism 7, 31–2, 34, 44, 47, 61, see also Free Will
63, 65–7, 69–71, 74, 79, 94, 125
Stroumsa, Guy 1, 4–5 Zostrianus 24
Subject 56–8, 66, 78, 80–81,
84, 87–8, 90, 93
Substance/essence (ousia) 18, 51–61,
67–9, 71, 73–4, 76–89, 97, 107–8,
146–9, 154, 155–6

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Individuality in Late Antiquity

Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural

Other titles published in this series:

Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries

Clothed in the Body

The Spirit of Augustine’s Early Theology

Evagrius and Gregory

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

ISBN 9781409440567 (hbk)

List of Contributors  vii

1 Individuality in Some Gnostic Authors, with a Few Remarks

2 Astrology and Freedom: The Case of Firmicus Maternus  29

3 Plotinus on Sensible Particulars and Individual Essences  47

4 Logico-grammatical Reflections about Individuality in

5 Individuality and the Theological Debate about ‘Hypostasis’  91

6 Individuality and Identity-formation in Late Antique Monasticism  111

7 Individuality and the Resurrection in Some Late Antique Texts  129

8 John Philoponus on Individuality and Particularity  143

9 The Religious Constitution of Individuality: One Motif of Augustine’s

Julie Brumberg-Chaumont is Researcher in the Laboratory for the Study of

Riccardo Chiaradonna is Associate Professor of the History of Ancient

Mark Edwards is University Lecturer in Patristics at the University of Oxford,

Christophe Erismann is Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Professor of

Christoph Markschies is Professor and Chair of Ancient Christianity at Humboldt

Yannis Papadogiannakis is Lecturer in Patristics at the Center for Hellenic Studies

Alexis Torrance is Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology at the Aristotle University of

Johannes Zachhuber is Reader in Theology at the University of Oxford, UK and

Oxford/Thessaloniki, February 2014

in fact, as part of the French school of spirituality in the seventeenth century.5

sustained reflection on the uniqueness of the self’s individual identity, including

historical investigations contained in this book are self-consciously influenced by

Thomassen is absolutely right to raise objections in his Spiritual Seed to common

λέγοντες οὕτως [expressing themselves in these words]),12 were pupils of Ptolemy

metaphysical dimension in a Christian context16), they became equal to each other

reading of Pythagorean theories of numbers, in his ‘Introduction to Arithmetic’

Let us attempt one final question: is it possible – following Baur ad bonam

unambiguous reference to the Prologue of John’s Gospel – demonstrates clearly

The Defence of Astrology

of astronomy uncloyed by superstition; if, however, he hoped to share the laurel of

Nam neque mortiferas quisque minus oderit herbas

For no-one hates a baneful herb the less

Solvate, mortales, animas, curasque levate,

Loose your souls, mortals, and relax your cares.

Astral determinism is a gospel of deliverance no less than the libertarian

Quis caelum posset nisi caeli munere nosse,

Who can know heaven but by heaven’s gift,

quae [sc. ratio] postquam in proprias deduxit singula causas

When reason has traced each thing to its cause,

Epicurus, according to Lucretius, climbed beyond the flaming ramparts of the

and cognisant of eternal principles.17 Knowledge of the future may be included

Christians and Gnostics

Fronto enim noster Hipparchi secutus antiscia ita apotelesmatum sententias

Omnia enim, quae Aesculapio Mercurius ... [lacuna] … quae Petosiris

Constantinum maximum principem et huius invictissimos liberos, dominos et

ut contra fortunae omnes minas integro se et incorrupto praesidio virtutis

You may have a wife, a home, an abundance of honourable friends, and be

Nam posteaquam perfectum hominem vitalis aura susceperit et posteaquam se

Sensible Particulars and Ideas of Individuals: Plotinus’ Treatise 5.7 [18]

The Structure of Sensible Particulars in 2.6.2

In order to shed some light on these questions, it is worth comparing Plotinus’

We ought not to call what are said to be essential completions of substance

ἐστὶν ἔξωθεν πάσης οὐσίας οὐ πῂ μὲν ποιότητες, ἄλλοις δὲ οὐ ποιότητες φανταζόμεναι, τὸ δὲ

List of Contributors vii

2 Astrology and Freedom: The Case of Firmicus Maternus 29

3 Plotinus on Sensible Particulars and Individual Essences 47

5 Individuality and the Theological Debate about ‘Hypostasis’ 91

6 Individuality and Identity-formation in Late Antique Monasticism 111

7 Individuality and the Resurrection in Some Late Antique Texts 129

8 John Philoponus on Individuality and Particularity 143