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Phusikos Kai Theologikos Logos, St Paul and Athenagoras at Athens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

T. F. Torrance
T. F. Torrance
Affiliation:
37 Braid Farm Road Edinburgh EH10 6LE
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Extract

In the early Christian treatise Peri tes anastaseos ton nekron, written in the last quarter of the second century, Athenagoras of Athens drew a distinction between two kinds of theological discourse or argument (logos), ‘on behalf of the truth’ (huper tes aletheias) and ‘concerning the truth’ (peri tes aletheias), in which he clearly had in mind St Paul's missionary address to the Athenians on Mars' Hill. Owing to its nature discourse concerning the truth is of primary importance for it provides necessary knowledge of the actual subject-matter, while discourse on behalf of the truth is of secondary importance for it does not establish the truth but is useful in opening the way for it by removing the undergrowth of false and hostile opinion. It is in this light that Athenagoras' two extant works are to be appreciated, Presbeia ton Christianon which is admittedly of an apologetic nature, and Peri tes anastaseos ton nekron in which he offered a reasoned account of the truth of the resurrection.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , February 1988 , pp. 11 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1986

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References

1 Athenagoras, Peri anastaseos, 1.3; 11.3; cf. Presbeia, 9.1.

2 Acts 17.16–31.

3 I have used the fine edition by Schoedel, W. R., Oxford Early Christian Texts, edit, by Chadwick, H., 1972Google Scholar. The connection between the two works is clearly made at the end of the first, Presbeia, 37.

4 Athanasius, Kata Hellenon, 1, and Peri Enanthropeseos, 1.

5 See Athenagoras, Peri anastaseos, 1.3–5; 11.1–6.

6 See my assessment of Athanasius' theological reasoning, Theology in Reconciliation, 1975, pp. 255ffGoogle Scholar.

7 There seems to be an implied contrast with Socrates' visits to the market place – cf. Plato, Apology, 31 A.

8 Cf. Philostratus on the disputations of Apollonius, Vita Apollonii Tyanae, 4.19.

9 See Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, I.2, pp. 305Google Scholarff.; II.1, pp. 121ff.

10 For St Paul's own assessment of this kind of preaching see Romans 1.16–32. Cf. also Acts 14.15–17.

11 Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus, 1; Aratus, Phenomena, 5.

12 Plato, Phaedo, 85cd; cf. 99b where pselaphao is used to speak of people who feel or grope about in the dark in vague guesses at truth.

13 For further development under the impact of ‘The Three Hierarchs’, Basil, Nazianzen and Chrysostom, see ‘The Greek Christian Mind’, Ch. 1 of The Christian Frame of Mind, Edinburgh, 1985Google Scholar.

14 Prabeia, 3ff., 6ff., lOff, 15f., 30f.

15 Presbeia, 13.1.

16 Unlike Irenaeus his contemporary or Athanasius later, Athenagoras was not always clear or consistent about this – compare Presbeia, 15–16 with 19.1–2; and 4.1; 6.1; 15.1; 24.1 with 10.3; 15.3; 19.4.

17 Presbeia, 8; 13; 15–16; 25.2f.

18 Presbeia, 8–10.

19 Presbeia, 5–6; 15–23; 28.

20 Plato, Timaeus, 28c.

21 Presbeia, 6.2.

22 Presbeia, 4.1f.; 7–8.

23 Presbeia, 23.5–7.

24 Cf. Athanasius, who deployed the same argument, Kata Arianon, 1.57; Pros Serapiona 1.9, 15, etc.

25 Presbeia, 7–12.

26 Cf. the powerful discussion in Presbeia, 8.

27 Presbeia, 10.2–5. See also 4.2;.6.2; 12.3; 18.2.

28 Presbeia, 8–10; 12; 15; 18; 24–25.

29 Presbeia, 19; 36–37; Peri anastaseos, 2–11; 14f; 18.

30 Presbeia, 7ff.; 13; 16; Peri anastaseos, d 12.3.

31 Presbeia, 4; 6–10; 15; 24ff.; Peri anastaseos, 12–14.

32 Presbeia, 6.3–4; 20.3; 22.12; 25.2; Peri anastaseos, 19.1–3.

33 Presbeia, 7–10; 25; 31; Peri anastaseos, 18–19.

34 Presbeia, 3; 25.2; 26.1

35 Presbeia, 7–8; 15–16; 24–25. This was the conception of ‘the laws of nature’ expounded by St Basil in his influential Hexaemeron. See Dragas, G. D., ‘St Basil the Great's Doctrine of Creation’, Ekklesia kai Theologia, III, 1982, pp. 1113f., 1120fGoogle Scholar.

36 Presbeia, 8.8. The rigid determinism of Epicurus rested upon the opposite teaching: ‘Out of nothing, nothing comes; into nothing, nothing can be turned.’ Diogenes Laertius, De vitis philosophorum, X.38.

37 Presbeia, 11–12; Peri anastaseos, 13–15.

38 Presbeia, 3.3; 24.2–3.

39 Presbeia, 25A. Cf. Peri anastaseos, 12ff.

40 See G. D. Dragas, op. cit., p. 1102, who finds a similar idea in Basil's teaching, that God has imbued the world with a ‘moral dimension’.

41 Peri anastaseos, 12–15.

42 Cf. W. R. Schoedel, op. cit., p. xxxi.

43 Peri anastaseos, 5ff.; 12–13; 17–19; 24–25.

44 Peri anastaseos, 23.1. Also Presbeia, 12; 24.4–5; 25.4; cf. 31.4; Peri anastaseos, 15–16; 18–23.

45 Peri anastaseos, 3–5.

46 Peri anastaseos, 3–8.

47 E.g., the alleged impossibility of reconstituting human bodies after they had been devoured and digested by wild animals, Peri anastaseos, 4–9.

48 Presbeia, 13.1. See above p. 15 and n. 14.

49 Peri anastaseos, 11.1f.; 18.1f.

50 Peri anastaseos, 11.7.

51 Peri anastaseos, 12–13.

52 Peri anastaseos, 15.6.

53 Peri anastaseos, 13.7–16.3. Cf. Theophilus, Pros Autolukon, 24 and 27; Justin Martyr, Dialogos, 5–6; Pseudo-Justin, Peri anastaseos, 8; Irenaeus, Kata haereseis, 2.34.

54 Peri anastaseos, 18–25.