What then about that implacable opponent of Arius and Arianism, Athanasius (born 295), Bishop of Alexandria from 328 to till his death iri 373? Contrary to Arius, Athanasius did produce a substantial corpus of writings, many of which are still extant .54 Most of these arc controversial or topical in nature, intimately connected with his ecclesiastical and doctrinal struggles. As Von Campenhausen observes?
. . . with him a new era begins in theology. Athanasius was the first Greek Father of the Church who was not at home in the academic atmosphere of Christian philosophy. He was a ‘Churchman’ who was also well-versed in theological matters, but he was trained in the administration of the Alexandrian hierarchy. His spiritual home was the divine service and the administrative desk in the ecclesiastical office, not the school platform.
Although his dogmatic discussions often centre on the exegesis of crucial texts, he wrote almost no scriptural commentaries. Athanasius is almost totally uninterested in secular or non-Christian learning. In none of his works is Philo ever mentioned by name.56
But Athanasius grew up and received his theological training in Alex- andria. What applies to Arius also applies to him, namely that he must be read against the background of Alexandrian theology. The extent to which the Philonic heritage may have played a role here is almost totally terru incognita. It will require a thorough examination of his writings in order to determine whether he may have had a direct acquaintance with the Philonic corpus, or whether certain ideas filtered through at second or third hand. To my knowledge there are no studies which directly examine any aspect of
52 See further below 9 12.3 (a).
s3 54
See above 0 1. I (13), and below 9 12.5 (where a translation is cited).
PG 25-28; see the listing at CPG 2.12-60 (more than half are of dubious attribution).
s5 Von Campenhausen (1963) 69.
s6 Cf. the list of cited authors in Muller (1944-52), from which it emerges that the Bishop cited non-Christian authors very rarely indeed (e.g. Plato 3 times, Epicureans once, Stoics 3 times).
IN THE ALEXANDRIAN TRADITION 195
the relation between Philo and Athanasius. There is, however, one brief but promising observation on Athanasius’ exploitation of Philonic ideas that should be mentioned. In her last major article on Patristic philosophy, a remarkable survey that begins with Phi10 and goes right through to John of Damascus and John Scotus Eriugena, De Vogel appeals to Athanasius, the great champion of Chri$tiar8 orthodoxy, as a vital witness in her argument against Dt)rri&s sharp&vi&an between Platonism and Christianity.57 If it can be shown ia .tbrab’ca~a of dtbanasius that Platonic metaphysics was essential to hiI&., u$ for the Christian faith, then this must surely pertain to P@ri#&& @ought as a whole. For this reason Athanasius is invoked in *&t ,&ort discussion of the Philonic contribution. ‘It is particularly irWr&@;’ she claims, ‘to see how in Athauasius’ Discourses against the Aritzn~ again and again images used by Philo are taken over and used to ex- the relation of the Father and the Son.‘58 One passage is particularly inter&sting and persuasive. Athanasius is giving a lengthy explanation of Prov. 8:22 (the same text that was so important for Arius59).
When Sophia (equated with the Logos) says that ‘the Lord created me for his works’, this does not mean that her substance has been created. No, she is speaking of the mark or impress (zbxoq) that is embossed in created reality. Atbanasius explains by means of an image:60
And it is like when the son of a king, if his father wishes to build a city, engraves his own name on each of the works that are produced, with a view to the security and permanence of the works on account of the appearance of his name on each of them, and so that by means of his name they can remember both him and his father. If on completion of the task he should be asked how it was made, he would say, ‘it has been made securely, for in accordance with the father’s will I am imaged in each work, for my name has been created in the works. In saying this he does not signify that his own substance has been created, but rather his impress by means of the name...
Athanasius, De Vogel argues, is modifying Philo’s famous image of the king and the architect at the beginning of the De opifcio mundi. The archi- tect has become the Son, and the image that he leaves of himself in the 57 De Vogel (1985), on which see above $3.1 at n. 50. She is arguing against Dorrie (1972).
58 Ibid. 12.
s9 Seeaboven.51.
6o C. Ar. 2.79, PG 26.316A, discussed by De Vogel (1985) 12-13 (partly her translation;
note that the crucial verb KT~<CII is rendered by ‘create’, but this is also the technical term for
‘founding’ a city).Thetextreads: Kai ijonep Bv &~q f3aod.h~ uibq,&hovzo~ nazpb<
oiKo60~~aa~n6h~v,KainotLjv~v ~K~~~z(~)z~vY~vocL~vvov&wov~~“~~~~~~~~~~ kawoCijvopa, hscpaheia~ '5~ x&ptv TOG Gtapkvmv 715 &pya 6& r;lv kv k~&cmp ~06 i)vi)pa70~ ain05 cpavzaoiav, KaiYv' dK TOTI 6v6~a~o< &va~+yncecr0a~ a&oG m Kai ~0% narpb< a&o<
66vovzat~ xh(;)oa~ 6k ei Epwrr&iq zspi .r?ts n&o<, x&i< y+ovev, ~(inot hv. &ocpahGq y~+ove* Kazix. y&p rb ~0iAqpa ~0% naTpbq, iv klccimq &pyq k&Kovia&lv . zb r&p kubv hopa
kv TOis kpYotq r%.veKzio&1.~o~ro 6k hkyywv, o-l, 2+ kawoG 060iav Kdkiaav oquaivct, cihh&
Tbv kauzo~i,~nov6~2Lzo~i,vb~a~o~...
196 CHAPTER TEN
created cosmos is conveyed through his name. Just like Philo, Athanasius adds to the imagery of likeness (man created ‘according to the image’) the imagery of ‘impression’.61 Elsewhere, we may note, the images of king and city and architect and city return. In one text the Logos is king and ruler, in another God is compared to an architect. 62 It must be admitted that this image is common, and it would be hard to prove beyond all doubt on the basis of the above texts that Athanasius is indebted to the specific Pbilonic passage.63 But we have already seen that in the 3rd century the image drew attention, and it is not unlikely that it led a privileged life.64 If De Vogel’s rapprochement is accepted, then it is intriguing to observe the Church father’s modifications. Of course the relation of Father and Son is added to the image. Moreover Athanasius emphasizes the Father’s will (8%ovzo~ xaz&), whereas Philo’s image is somewhat ambiguous on this aspect.65 Most importantly the imagery of ‘impression’ is used by Phi10 for the mental activity of the Logos-architect, whereas in Athanasius it is used for the immanent ‘signature’ of the Logos on created things.
In his treatise De incarnatione verbi Athanasius directs some sharp polemic against the Jews, who in their unbelief refuse to accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and God’s Son, the Logos (533-40).66 The argu- ments, based mostly on Old Testament testimonia, are for the most part entirely conventional. Of interest, however, is the unusually heavy stress placed on the Logos’ incarnation. This might well be directed at what, from the Christian point of view, is the crucial weakness in Philo’s Logos doc- trine.67 In spite of his Alexandrian background, it is hard to imagine Atha- nasius belonging to those Church Fathers who saw Philo as a Christian avant la lettre.
61 De Vogel (1985) 13; cf. Opif. 16-20. The shift in imagery is also found in Middle Platonist authors. Note that the monograph specially devoted to the conception of ‘image of God’ by Bernard (1952) almost wholly ignores the Philonic background of the theme.
62 C. Center 43,47; cf. Meijering (1984) 141, 152.
63 For the image as ropes see Runia (1986) 168.
64 Cf. above $1.3 on Rabbi Hoshai’a. The reference that Siegfried (1875) 358 finds at Origen
&mm. Job. 1.22 is rather general (it does not mention the king at all). See also the follow- ing section on Didymus, Q 10.4(c) v.
65 I.e. the king does not will the founding of the city in Opif. 17, but in the explanation at
$19 God does ‘decide’ to found it; cf. my discussion at (1986) 167, with further observations in (1989b).
66 On Athanasius’ attitudes to Jews and Judaism see Schreckenberg (1982) 283ff.
67 E.g. $38.35 (text Thomson (1971)): &E o& y&ove ~&a, pi pi he cd& b TOG 8~06 k&O< dV fXhjlaT1 lKXpC+OVE; $40.34 iiTt b X~OCp~TElK$lEVO~ id ‘II&J YfXiCpGjV l‘$NO~ ild.Ct~~E tjj oiKouu&p Kai h+&vq awpau@ai)Gj.
IN THE ALEXANDRIAN TRADITION 197
4. Didymus the Blind
A slightly younger contemporary of Athanasius was the Alexandrian exe- gete and theologian Didymus the Blind (313-398). It was Athanasius who appointed him to be head of the Catechetical School, in spite of his
handicap, which he incurred while still a young child, but which did not prevent him from developing a prodigious knowledge of the Scriptures and of the learning required to expound them. Out of deep respect Jerome, who briefly attended his lectures, called him ‘the one who sees’, i.e. possessing spiritual insight in spite of his physical blindness, while for Euagrius Ponticus he was the great teacher full of spiritual knowledge (b u&ya~ K&
yvoozt& 6d&a~ahoq), a description that uses the same epithet that Cle- ment had claimed for his ideal Christian two centuries earlier. Didymus stands squarely in the Alexandrian tradition, and is in fact its last great teacher.68
According to Jerome, Origen was for Didymus ‘the master next to the apostles of the churches in importance’ (post upostolos Ecclesiarum magis- trum).@ Not only was Origen the source of inspiration for his exegetical activity, but he also took over certain speculative doctrines such as the pre- existence of the soul and the final upocatustasis. This loyalty to the Alex- andrian tradition was to prove fatal when Origenism later came into dis- repute. Didymus’ works were anathematized in the 6th century and disap- peared from the manuscript tradition, with the exception of numerous frag- ments preserved in the Catenae. 70 But the spectacular find at Tura near Cairo in 1941 of five codices, amounting to some 1800 pages of Greek text, which loyal Origenists had hidden away, has altered the situation completely. We are now in an incomparably better position to view Didy- mus as an exegete, scholar, theologian and controversialist. But it is his exegetical activity that has been illuminated most. All five works focus on the interpretation of the Old Testament. Three are commentaries on the books Genesis, Psalms, Zachariah. The other two, on the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, are stenographed records of oral teaching, giving a priceless glimpse of Alexandrian teaching methods. The arduous task of publishing the material-many of the pages are damaged, some so badly that the text cannot be reconstructed-was undertaken by a team of German and French
@ On Didymus’ life, career cf. Bienert (1972) 5-8, Kramer (1981) both with references.
From his writings it appears that the notion of spiritual light and sight was crucial for Didymus himself, cf. Henrichs (1968b) 45, 73 (where texts are given in which Didymus follows Philo and the Alexandrian exegetical tradition in connecting the name Israel with
‘seeing God’ and &wpia), Lamirande (1989) 137 n. 2.
69 Jerome, De nom. hebr. praef, CCL 72.59.26, cited by Bienert (1972) 6.
7o Controversy has raged on whether the extensive work De rrinirure attributed to him is authentic or not; cf. CPG 2.111.
lc)8 C‘HAPTER TEN
scholars, and is now, nearly half a century after the find, nearing comple- tion.7’ The time is thus ripe for more detailed treatments of the many subjects that the new writings furnish. As more than one scholar has remarked, much scholarly research remains to be done.72
The subject of Didymus’ knowledge and use of Philo is an interesting ex- ample of how our picture of the theologian has had to be completely revised in the light of the Tura find. In the standard monograph on Didymus pub- lished by Leipoldt in 1905 not a single mention is made of his knowledge of Philo. In the chapter on Didymus’ Bildung Leipoldt moves seamlessly from his knowledge of the ‘heidnische Philosophie’ to that of Christian litera- ture.73 Even when discussing Didymus’ debt to Origen and his use of Hebrew etymologies we do not meet with the name of Philo.
Such neglect can no longer be justified after the discovery of the papyri, for in the texts edited so far Didymus refers to Philo at least 7 times by name, and also at least once in a periphrasis that clearly refers to him.75 Nevertheless at the present moment the subject of Didymus’ knowledge of Philo is largely unexplored terrain. It cannot be our task to fill this lacuna now. Our procedure will be to look briefly at the above-mentioned pas- sages, taking the papyri in chronological order of publication. At the end of the discussion we shall also note a number of synoptic studies on Didy- mus’ method of exegesis and its debt to Philo.
(a) The Commentary on Zuchuriah. In his splendid edition of this work (the first to be prepared on the Didymus papyri) Doutreleau notes the anonymous reference to Philo behind the description ‘one of the sages engaged in Mosaic learning’ (ztq z&v oocp& rcepi ztiv uooa’it&lv rcai&uotv), where Philo’s exegesis of Gen. 12:l at Migr. 2 is partly taken over and partly modified .76 He could not yet know that Didymus refers to the same exegesis in his Genesis commentary.77 Discussing Didymus’
appropriation of etymological and arithmological lore Doutreleau remarks that ‘la <<dyade indCfinie>>, la <<vierge hebdomadekj, la &trade>> qui Porte en puissance la <<decade>>, image de la <<monade>>, representent les notions d’un univers specifiquement pythagoricien, que le christianisme jusqu’alors
71 On Didymus’ writings see the inventory of the papyrus find at Koenen-Doutreleau (1967), and further CPG 2.104-l 10 (1974), Berkowitz-Squitier (1986) 107-109.
72 Cf. the comments of Kramer (1981) 745, Lamirande (1989) 137.
73 Leipoldt (1905) 48-52,
74 Cf. ibid. 46, 52ff. Another monograph, Bardy (1910) only mentions Philo twice very briefly; cf. 220, 228.
7s See the complete list references in the Appendix.
76 Comm. in Zuch. 320.9-10, and the comments of Doutreleau (1962) ad lot. (with a further comment in his introduction on p. 108).
77 Doutreleau (1962) 108, 887; cf. Nautin (1976-78) 2.141, who explains an obscure cross- reference by suggesting that the exegesis was given on a missing page, but does not note the parallel in the other work.
IN THE ALEXANDRIAN TRADITION 1%) avait peu explore’. 78 This seems to me highly questionable, and certainly
ignores the extensive exegetical use that Philo makes of such notions.
(b) The Commentary on Ecclestiastes. The first text in this Commentary
in which Philo is mentioned is of more than usual interest.79 Didymus, commenting on Eccl. 9:9a (‘regard the life you lead with the wife whom you love’), cites a parallel text at Prov. 5:18 (‘rejoice with the wife of your youth’), which he proceeds to give both a literal and an allegorical inter- pretation. Literally the lines support monogamy, but this explanation is un- satisfactory, because a man will clearly gain more offspring if he has more than one wife. Didymus continues ‘I will give you a better explanation of the words ‘of your youth’. I do not say something new that cannot be found in some written treatise of other, nor do I say something that has not been observed by marry others. The ‘wife of your youth’ is the true wisdom (fi
?&n&l.\ oocpia) or the true ethical virtue (;I &%T$~VTJ fietdl &pez$.’ After a
long mutilated passage in which it is claimed that true wisdom and true virtue naturally precede their spurious counterparts, he continues by appealing to the sequel of the Proverbs text (5:20): ‘But it is also neces- sary that we stay for a short time with ‘another’s wife’, that is with the foreign wisdom (7cpi)s 4v k&&v oocpiav).’ He then cites Philo: ‘In a simi- lar way Philo showed that Hagar*a produces offspring before perfect virtue does. For if one does not beget children by these (women) of inferior status, one cannot become father of undefiled achievements and of the teachings of wisdom’. Finally the exegete turns to Paul and says: ‘The same relationship is called letter and spirit by the Apostle. It is indeed impossible to understand the anagogic interpretation without first articu- lating the historical (i.e. literal).’
In a discussion to which the above summary is heavily indebted, Hen- richs makes clear how the entire passage stands within the Alexandrian exegetical tradition (as Didymus himself explicitly indicates).81 The con- nection that he makes between Prov. 5: 18-20 and Gen. 16 is exactly the same as that made by Clement two centuries earlier.82 Didymus is aware of the fact that Paul allegorized the passage in a different way.g3 He attempts to reconcile them, but appears- in this passage at least-to show a preference for the ‘Philonic’ reading in which Sarah symbolizes wisdom 78 Doutreleau (1962) 114.
79 Comm. in Eccl. 275-276; translations based on Henrichs (1968a) 448-449, with some modifications.
Ro There is a difficulty filling in the mutilated text of the papyrus. Henrich’s suggestion, (1968a) 449, T[ap]iav is considered ‘paleographisch ausgeschlossen’ by the later editor Gronewald (1979) lb, who suggests ‘vielleicht orav, also ‘Ay&(p)?‘.
81 Henrichs (1968a), esp. 446450.
x2 See further Van den Hoek (1988) 25ff. on SW. 1.28-29, and our discussion above at $8.3 (a) i.
x3 As we briefly discuss above at $4.6(b).
200 C H A P T E R TEN
(rather than freedom) .*4 Two other observations are made by Henrichs. A text in the Catenae attributed to Didymus gives the same exegesis, also connecting Prov. 5: 18-20 and Gen. 16. 85 The correctness of the attribution is thus now proven. Moreover a much longer passage in the Commentary on Genesis discusses the same themes. As we shall see below, Philo is again explicitly referred to.
In a further passage in the same Commentary Philo is briefly named again. Unfortunately the papyrus is very damaged at this point. Com- menting on the text Eccl. 10:7-8, with its mention of a ‘royal priesthood’, Didymus cites the words ‘if the philosophers were kings and the kings philosophers’. The doctrine obviously derives from Plato’s Rep. 473d. But the words are preceded in the papyrus by the text z@ Moathq f%cp, to which the editors have rightly prefixed the supplement @,ihov bvl.86 Didymus relies on his memory, so the wording of the quote deviates from Philo’s actual phrasing at Mos. 2.2 (which stands closer to the Platonic ori- ginal). But the effect is clear: Philo is cited as a vehicle for a patently Plato- nic doctrine. It is a great pity that the context of the remark cannot be stu- died. A further text that might indirectly refer to Philo is a comment on the flowering of the almond tree in Eccl. 125: ‘Those who have pronounced on the nature of plants say this about the almond tree: in the spring it shoots forth leaves earlier than all other plants, and it sheds them after all other trees have lost theirs. It is therefore something steadfast. For this reason the priestly rod is also called ‘made of nutwood’.’ The exegesis here makes clear use of Philo’s exposition of Num. 17:23 at Mos. 2.186.*’ The opening words are perhaps best seen as an expansion of Philo’s ‘it is said’ (h&y&- it) rather than a reference to Philo himself. Unfortunately the following words polemicizing against a ‘Jewish tradition’ cannot be reconstructed.
(c) The Commentary on Genesis. As ‘we might expect, this is the work where the most use of Philo is made. 251 pages of this work survive, covering the text from Gen. 1: 1 to 17:3, almost exactly the section treated in Philo’s Allegorical Commentary .8s Unfortunately parts of the text, inclu- ding the first section expounding the first six verses, are in a stiverely damaged condition. The extremely arduous task of editing and recon- structing this text was undertaken by the distinguished French scholar
R4 This is my conclusion, not Henrichs’.
8s Henrichs (1968a) 446, referring to Sacru Parallela PG 96.344A-B. It is not indicated where the passage may have come from. A commentary on Proverbs may be suspected. Here the Philonic and the Pauline allegorizations are even more clearly coalesced.
86 Binder-Liesenborghs (1969) 100 at Comm. Eccl. 300.15-16.
R7 As noted by the editors, Binder-Liesenborghs (1969) ad 356.10-14, and earlier Liesen- borghs (1965) 17.5.
8X Pp. 77-80 and 197-208 have not been traced. Either they were originally missing, or, more probably, have disappeared since the find. According to Nautin (1976-78) 20 the commentary probably ended at Gen. 17.
I N T H E ALEXANDRIAN T R A D I T I O N 201 Pierre Nautin. Its result is contained in two volumes of the Sources ChrC- tiennes series.89 Nautin does not undertake a full study of the contents of the commentary and its exegetical background, arguing that this task can only be done with reference to Didymus’ entire cl?uvre. He notes that it is clear that before Didymus started on the commentary, he first made a study of existing commentaries. The chief source for the Commentary is Origen.90 But Didymus does not explicitly name him, resorting to anonymous refe- rences when he wishes to indicate his source. The reason for this is the anti-Origenist movement that was gaining momentum during Didymus’
lifetime. Another clear source is Philo, who is mentioned explicitly six times in four separate passages. Some of the Philonic material will have been derived via Origen. But it is clear that Didymus also had a direct acquain- tance with Philo’s writings.91
The passages in which Didymus refers to Philo are the following?2
(i) 118.24-29, 119.3-s: “And she [Eve] added to give birth to the brother of Cain, Abel (Gen. 4:2)‘. Philo wishes them to be twins from the same conception. That is why, he says, to the words ‘she gave birth to Cain’ are attached the words ‘she added to give birth to his brother Abel’. Whether he is right or not is for the reader to examine and judge. It is possible that they were born separately at different times.. . The allegorization that Philo develops on this passage will be known to the lover of learning (cpth&cahoq), but nevertheless we must expound it as best we can. The soul, when it tumbles into oversight and failure, gives birth to a wicked progeny.. . ’ The precise Philonic passage on Cain and Abel as twins cannot be located, but it is consistent with statements in Philo elsewhere.93 Didymus’ text has been excerpted in the Catenae under Philo’s name.94
(ii) 139.1&15: ‘If one wishes to give the passage (Gen. 4:18) an anagogic inter- pretation, one should take one’s start from the interpretation of the names, making sure to do this without pedantry (~qpohoyaiv). Philo has given an explanation of these matters, which the lover of learning (cpthb~aho~) will consult with due profit.’ The reference here is to Post. 66-75, where the names in the text are etymologized and explained (cf. Nautin ud lot.).
(iii) 147.15-18: ‘This is the explanation given of the passage (Gen. 5:3-5) for the moment. But if someone should be interested in the number of the years and in the interpretation of the names of the people born, Philo could give a mystical explanation devoid of pedantry (~qpohoy&iv again). Consult him, therefore, for it will be useful.’ Again no specific passage in the extant Philo can be adduced in order to explain this cross-reference: Philo does explain the etymology of Adam and Seth, but not Adam’s 700 and 930 years. The reference may be to a missing part of the Allegorical Commentary between Post. and Gig. which we know nothing about. Another possibility is that Didymus is thinking particularly of
89 90 91 92 93
Nautin (1976-78).
Ibid. I .22-24.
Ibid. I .26-27. Nautin says rather inaccurately that ‘he names him [Philo] three times’.
My translations, with assistance from Nautin’s French version.
Cf. QG 1.78 and the comparison with Esau and Jacob at Suer. 4, 17. These passages are pointed out by Royse (1989) 223-225, who corrects Nautin’s comment ad lot.
94 Cf. Royse (1991) 22-23, arguing that Didymus may be citing a lost Philonic work.