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Patristic Arguments against the Eternity of the World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Harry A. Wolfson
Harry A. Wolfson
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

According to Aristotle himself, all the philosophers before him are agreed that the world was generated, which implies that he was the first to introduce the conception of an ungenerated world; but, according to John Philoponus, Aristotle was only the first among the natural philosophers who discovered a new method to establish the principle that the world had no beginning. Among the Church Fathers, Lactantius sometimes attributes the belief in the eternity of the world explicitly to Aristotle, but sometimes he refers it vaguely to “those who say that the world always existed.” Vague references to a belief in the eternity of the world, or to such a belief described as held by some people or by some philosophers, are to be found also in the works of such Fathers as Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Origen, Arnobius, Basil, Augustine, and Diodorus Tarsus. Two pre-Socratic philosophers are mentioned by some Fathers as exponents of the belief in the eternity of the world: Xenophanes by Hippolytus, Eusebius, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus; Pythagoras by Tertullian. Various arguments are used by the Fathers in their refutation of this view. These arguments, selected and grouped into six types, are the subject of discussion of the present paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , October 1966 , pp. 351 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1966

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References

1 De Caelo I, 10, 279b, 12–13.

2 De Opificio Mundi, p. 82, lines 10–12 (ed. G. Reichardt, 1897).

3 Cf. below n. 44, 56.

4 Cf. below n. 63.

5 Cf. below n. 19.

6 Ad Autolycum II, 4; II, 8.

7 Cf. below n. 29.

8 Adversus Nationes II, 56 (PL 5, 898 B).

9 Cf. below nn. 28, 58.

10 Cf. below n. 91.

11 Cf. below n. 25.

12 Cf. Zeller, Phil d. Griechen, I6, 663, n. 2.

13 Refutatio Omnium Haeresium I, 14.

14 Praeparatio Evangelica I, 8, 23a.

15 Graecarum Affectionum Curatio IV (PG 83, 900 C).

16 Cf. Zeller, op. cit., I6, 516, n. 4.

17 Apologeticus 11 (PI 1, 333 B).

Clement of Alexandria's statement that Heraclitus held that “there was a world eternal” besides a world “perishable” (Stromata V, 14 [PG 9, 157 B]) refers to an eternal succession of perishable worlds (cf. De Caelo I, 12, 297b, 14–17, and Zeller, op. cit., I9, 865–75). This is not the kind of eternity of the world dealt with in this paper.

18 Timaeus 28 B.

19 Dialogus 5.

20 Cf. below, Argument 2.

21 Dialogus 2.

22 Timaeus 41 A.

23 De Caelo I, 12, 282b, 3.

24 Phys. VIII, 2, 252b, 9–12.

25 Photius, Bibliotheca 223 (ed. Bekker, 1824, p. 209b, lines 11–14). Cf. Metaph. XII, 2, 1069b, 12: “alteration is change according to affection”; Phys. I, 2, 185a, 34–185b, 1: “Substance or quality or affection cannot be infinite.”

26 De Fide Orthodoxa I, 3 (PG 94, 796 A–C).

27 Phys. VIII, 9, 265a, 29–34.

28 Hexaemeron I, 3 (PG 29, 9 AB).

29 De Principiis III, 5, 2.

30 Phys. III, 6, 206a, 25–26.

31 Ibid. 1, 4, 187b, 7.

32 De Principiis IV, 4, 10 (37).

33 Metaph. XII, 7, 1072b, 19–21.

34 Moreh Nebukim III, 20.

35 Summa Theologica I, 14, 12.

36 De Aeternitate Mundi 23, 117.

37 Ibid. 24, 121.

38 Ibid. 24, 125–127.

39 Ibid. 27, 143.

40 Cf. above n. 23.

41 De Aeternitate Mundi 24, 130–131.

42 Ibid. 27, 145.

43 Divinae Institutiones II, 11 (PL 6, 311 B-315 A).

44 Ibid. (315 A).

45 Cf. Zeller, op. cit., II, 28, p. 508, n.1.

46 Phys. III, 6, 206a, 25–27.

47 De Universi Natura III, 1.

48 Bibliotheca Historica I, 6, 3; also quoted in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica I, 7, 19a.

49 Philo, De Aeternitate Mundi II, 55; 13, 69.

50 Divinae Institutiones II, 11 (315 A).

51 Ibid. (315 B).

52 Ibid. (316 A).

53 Metaph. IX, 4, 1047b, 4–5.

54 This is how Aristotle's statement is explained by Crescas. Cf. my Crescas' Critique of Aristotle, p. 249 and n. 3 on p. 551.

55 Cf. above n. 23.

56 Divinae Institutiones VII, 1 (PL VI, 735 A – 736 B).

57 Ibid. (736 B).

58 Hexaemeron I, 3 (PG 29, 9 C).

59 Ibid. (12 A).

60 Ibid. (9 A).

61 Ibid. I, 7 (17 BC).

62 Ibid. I, 3 (12 A).

63 Divinae Institutiones VII, 3 (745 A).

64 Ibid. (745 B – 746 A).

65 Other translations of this expression are: “the framing of the heaven” (William Fletcher, 1871); “l'avvicendarsi delle stagioni” (Gino Mazzoni, 1937); “order in heavens” (Mary Francis McDonald, 1964). But see the same expression as used in the corresponding statement by Cicero quoted below.

66 The term aequalis here, I take it, reflects the Greek μαλ in Physics VIII, 9, 265b, 11, so that the phrase aequalis in ipsa varietate means that all the celestial bodies are uniform in the circularity of their motions and that each celestial body moves with a uniform velocity, even though they differ among themselves in the direction and the velocity of their motions. Ct. the term aequabilitas in the corresponding statement of Cicero quoted below.

67 De Natura Deorum I, 2, 4.

68 Ibid. II, 1, 3.

69 Ibid. 11, 30, 75

70 Ibid. II, 5, 13.

71 Ibid., 15.

72 Ibid. I, 2, 4.

73 Ibid. II, 5, 15; II, 34, 87; II, 37, 94.

74 Reflects Cicero's statement (ibid. I, 43, 120): “Democritus, the fountainhead from which Epicurus derived his stream that watered his little garden.”

75 The term sponte here is a translation of the Greek αὐτομτως in the sense of π τχης Cicero himself in his De Natura Deorum uses the terms fortuita = τ π τχης (II, 5, 15) and casu = αὐτομτως (II, 34, 87; 39, 94) indiscriminately as a description of the Epicurean chance.

76 “Divinae Institutiones VII, 3 (PL 6, 745 B).

77 Phys. II, 4, 196a, 23–24; 8, 198b, 23–32.

78 Ibid. 11, 4, 196a, 24–28.

79 Ibid. II, 5, 196b, 17–19; 8, 198b, 10–11; 199a, 3–8.

80 Divinae Institutiones VII, 3 (PL 6, 745 A).

81 Eth. Nic. III, 3, 1112a, 30–31.

82 Ibid., 113a, 9–11.

83 Ibid. VI, 2, 1139a, 31–32.

84 Phys. II, 5, 196b, 17–19.

85 Ibid. II, 8, 199b, 26–28.

86 Eth. Nic. III, 3, 1112a, 34 – 1112b, 2.

87 Phys. II, 8, 199b, 28; cf. Ross in his Commentary ad loc.

88 Ibid., 28–29.

89 Ibid., 29–30.

90 Eth. Nic. II, 3, 1112a, 34 – 1112b, 1.

91 De Civitate Dei XI, 4, 2.