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Bóg niezdolny do gniewu. Obrona apathei Boga w teologii aleksandryjskiej: Filon, Klemens i Orygenes

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Mrugalski D.

Verbum Vitae

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2018

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vol. 33

279-314

EN

Ancient Alexandria was the locus of an encounter between Greek philosophy and the Bible. It is where the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, came into being, and also there that the first philosophical commentaries on the Greek Pentateuch appeared. The trained philosophers who examined this inspired text came across many anthropomorphic representations of God that they could not accept – precisely because of their education and their philosophical culture, which they valued as much as their faith. Yet insisting, for example, that God cannot have a body because He is transcendent, or that God cannot be angry because He is impassible, does nothing to explain why anthropomorphism occurs in the Bible. This article explores how the Alexandrian thinkers of the first three centuries CE, whether Jewish or Christian, explained the appearance of anthropomorphic representations of God in the sacred text, and the important functions they attributed to these controversial images.

PL

Starożytna Aleksandria to miejsce spotkania filozofii greckiej z Biblią. To tam powstało greckie tłumaczenie Biblii hebrajskiej zwane Septuagintą i to tam pojawiły się pierwsze filozoficzne komentarze do greckiego Pięcioksięgu. Wykształceni filozoficznie komentatorzy tekstu natchnionego natrafiali w nim jednak na wiele antropomorficznych przedstawień Boga, których nie mogli zaakceptować – właśnie ze względu na swe wykształcenie i kulturę filozoficzną, którą cenili tak samo jak swoją wiarę. Stwierdzenie, iż Bóg nie może posiadać ciała, gdyż jest transcendentny, oraz że nie może się gniewać, gdyż jest niecierpiętliwy, nie wyjaśnia kwestii, dlaczego w ogóle antropomorfizmy pojawiają się w tekście, który jest natchniony. Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu przedstawienie, w jaki sposób aleksandryjscy myśliciele, żydowscy i chrześcijańscy, trzech pierwszych wieków naszej ery wyjaśniali fakt pojawienia się w Biblii antropomorficznych przedstawień Boga oraz jakie funkcje im przypisywali.

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O pojęciu hellenizacji

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Mrugalski D.

Verbum Vitae

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2021

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vol. 39

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issue 3

639-657

EN

The term Hellenization refers to the spread of Greek culture and its adoption by non-Greek peoples, in the era that begins with the conquests of Alexander the Great (i.e. from the second half of the 4th century BC onwards). The term is defined likewise or similarly in many modern dictionaries and encyclopedias of antiquity. The term became problematic when, in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, historians of religion associated it with certain kinds of value judgements and sometimes even ideology. Therefore, some contemporary scholars propose abandoning the concept of ‘Hellenization’ in the study of antiquity, or to replace it with others that would describe the phenomena occurring in the Hellenistic era neutrally. This article shall present an overview of selected positions with regard to the notion of ‘Hellenization’ itself, and attempt to answer the question whether this ideologically loaded term can be avoided in contemporary research on the Hellenistic Age

PL

Pojęcie hellenizacji odnosi się do rozprzestrzeniania się greckiej kultury i przejmowania jej przez ludy niebędące Grekami w czasach, które zapoczątkowują podboje Aleksandra Wielkiego (czyli od drugiej połowy IV w. p.n.e.). W taki lub podobny sposób termin ten zostaje zdefiniowany w wielu współczesnych słownikach i encyklopediach dotyczących starożytności. Pojęcie to stało się problematyczne, gdy w drugiej połowie XIX w. i pierwszej połowie XX w. historycy religii powiązali je z pewnego rodzaju sądami wartościującymi, a niekiedy nawet ideologicznymi. Dlatego też niektórzy współcześni uczeni proponują porzucenie pojęcia „hellenizacja” w badaniach nad antykiem bądź zastąpienie go innymi, które w sposób neutralny opisywałyby zjawiska zachodzące w epoce hellenistycznej. W niniejszym artykule przedstawiono przegląd wybranych stanowisk w odniesieniu do samego pojęcia „hellenizacja”, a także podjęto próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy we współczesnych badaniach dotyczących epoki hellenistycznej można uniknąć tego obciążonego ideologicznie terminu.

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Stwarzanie wieczne i poza czasem. Filozoficzne źródła koncepcji "generatio aeterna" Orygenesa

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Mrugalski D.

Verbum Vitae

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2019

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vol. 35

373-418

EN

Timaeus, a dialogue of Plato regarded by scholars as “the Platonists’ Bible”, was interpreted allegorically even in the time of the Old Academy (4th century BCE). In the Hellenistic period (1st-3rd centuries CE), especially among the philosophers known as Middle Platonists, there was great debate over the theses that appear in it. The main question was whether the world was created in time or ab aeterno, and most of the Middle Platonic philosophers believed that the world must be eternal. By the first century CE, this discussion had also been joined by Jewish and Christian Platonists such as Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria and Origen. In their opinion, God, because he is unchanging but at the same time good, must not have started to operate only at the moment of the creation of the world, but before. Yet the Scriptures state that the world began to exist at a particular point in time. Therefore, Christian Platonists postulated the eternal generation or production of the world of ideas (kosmos noetos), which, since it is the world of God’s thoughts, exists ab aeterno in the Divine Logos. The concept of generatio aeterna (that is, the eternal generation of the Son by the Father), which we find in Origen’s works, is related to this ongoing discussion about the eternal nature of the world. This article aims to present the facets of this ancient debate while emphasizing the links between the arguments advanced by the Middle Platonists and those found in the various hypotheses of Origen.

PL

Dialog Platona Timajos, uznawany przez uczonych za „Biblię Platoników”, był interpretowany alegorycznie już w Starej Akademii (IV w. przed Chr.). W epoce hellenistycznej (I–III w. po Chr.) natomiast, w kręgach filozofów zwanych medioplatonikami, toczyła się poważna dyskusja na temat tez, które w nim się pojawiają. Zasadnicza kwestia dotyczyła tego, czy świat powstał w czasie, czy też istnieje ab aeterno. Większość filozofów medioplatońskich uważała, że świat musi być odwieczny. W dyskusji tej, począwszy od I w. po Chr., uczestniczyli również platonicy żydowscy i chrześcijańscy, tacy jak Filon Aleksandryjski, Klemens Aleksandryjski i Orygenes. W ich opinii Bóg, ponieważ jest niezmienny a zarazem dobry, nie zaczął działać dopiero w momencie stworzenia świata. Pismo Święte stwierdza jednak, że świat zaczął istnieć w czasie. W związku z tym, postulowani oni odwieczne rodzenie świata idei (kosmos noetos), który jako świat myśli Boga, istnieje ab aeterno w Boskim Logosie. Koncepcja generatio aeterna (czyli odwiecznego rodzenia Syna przez Ojca), którą znajdujemy w dziełach Orygenesa, jest związana z prowadzoną w tym czasie dyskusją na temat wieczności świata. Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu przedstawienie tej dyskusji i uwypuklenie zależności, jakie zachodzą między argumentami stawianymi przez medioplatoników, a tymi, które znajdujemy w różnych hipotezach Orygenesa.

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Nieskończoność Boga u Orygenesa: przyczyna wielkiego nieporozumienia

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Mrugalski D.

Vox Patrum

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2017

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vol. 67

437-475

EN

Many historians of ideas – philosophers and theologians – believe that the first thinker to introduce the concept of a positive understanding of the infiniteness of God was Plotinus. In Greek philosophy, however, something infinite was understood as “unfinished” and therefore “imperfect”. All the same, according to many scholars, Christianity took the concept of the infiniteness of God precisely from the founder of neo-Platonism. One of the reasons for which researchers of the doctrines of the ancient world persist in this thesis even today is the fact that, in the writings of Origen – who lived at the time of Plotinus – we find the expressions which might give readers the impression that God’s power is finite, since God brought into existence a finite number of created beings. This article argues that this widely-held interpretation is wrong. Philo and Clement, a Jewish and a Christian thinker, both of Alexandria – from whose doctrines Origen borrowed abundantly – wrote of an infinite God before Origen did. In the surviving works of Origen, moreover, he nowhere states explicitly that God’s power is finite, although it is true that, according to him, God created a finite number of creatures. The controversial thesis of a finite God is found only in fragments written by ancient critics of Origen’s teaching. A detailed analysis of Origen’s own original pronouncements on the nature, power and knowledge of God leads one to the conclusion that the fragments that have led many historians of ideas into confusion, either do not represent the views of Origen himself or present Origen’s teachings inaccurately. Moreover, in Origen’s surviving Greek writings, we find the term ¥peiron used in reference to God. This is precisely the term used by Greek philosophers to designate infinity. We may posit, then, that the concept of the infiniteness of God, positively understood, was born of the encounter of Greek philosophy with the Bible – that is, with the Jewish and Christian doctrines of the first centuries of the common era. Origen, who came slightly later, continued the thought of his predecessors and does not contradict them anywhere in his surviving works. What remains to be examined is the question of whether Plotinus himself made use of the work of Jewish and Christian thinkers in forming his doctrine of an infinite God, rather than those thinkers leaning on Plotinus, as is usually assumed.

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Metamorfozy Platońskiej „metafory słońca” (Respublica 509b) w hetero- i ortodoksyjnej teologii (I-III w.): gnostycyzm, Klemens z Aleksandrii i Orygenes

100%

Mrugalski D.

Vox Patrum

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2017

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vol. 68

21-58

EN

The metaphor of the sun, in which Plato (Republic 509b) compares the idea of the Good to the sun that dwells above the earth yet affects the phenomena occurring on it, was an inspiration for both heretical and orthodox theology in the first Christian centuries. The Gnostics, Clement of Alexandria and Origen all believed that God, like the Platonic idea of the Good, is radically transcendent in relation to the world, but at the same time is the cause of everything that exists in it. Unlike Plato, who believed that the idea of the Good is knowable and can be the subject of science, the Christian theologians of the first centuries believed that God was like a blinding light. This means that God, according to them, though intelligible, is unknowable in His essence. Therefore, God cannot be the subject of science. Another modification of the Platonic metaphor was the introduction of the element of sunlight, to which the philosopher from Athens did not refer. For the Gnostics, the rays of the sun were “eons” – spiritual beings that existed in the space between the first principle of all things and the material world. For Clement and Origen, the light that comes from the sun was the Son – the power and wisdom of God. In contrast to the Gnostics, who believed in the progressive degradation of the spiritual world through successive emanations, the Alexandrian Fathers believed that the Son possessed all the knowledge of God and therefore revealed to man the true God. Yet the revelation of God by the Son, and even the grace that assists human beings in the process of learning about God, do not give man complete knowledge of the essence of God. Thus the Gnostics, Clement and Origen, despite some doctrinal differences, all accepted the concept of the radical transcendence of God on the ontological and epistemological levels.

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Potentia dei absoluta et potentia dei ordinata u Orygenesa? Nowa próba wyjaśnienia kontrowersyjnych fragmentów "De principiis"

100%

Mrugalski D.

Vox Patrum

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2018

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vol. 69

493-526

EN

The medieval dispute over the absolute and the ordered, power of God (potentia Dei absoluta et potentia Dei ordinata) began with a tract by Peter Damian entitled De divina omnipotentia. One of the questions posed in this work was whether God could indeed do everything, including those things that God did not in fact do. The same question, and a similar answer, appears in Origen’s work Contra Celsum: God can do everything except that which is evil. The impossibility of doing evil, however, does not diminish the omnipotence of God, because evil, is by its very nature, non-being. Beyond that, Origen, in numerous statements appearing in his exegetical works, distinguishes between the absolute power of God, which is infinite, and the power of God that creates the world and operates within it, which has a certain God-given limit – that is, this power is adapted to the abilities of the creatures who receive it. The purpose of this article is to show that, in the light of the distinction of the potentia Dei absoluta and the potentia Dei ordinata, fragments of De principiis (II 9.1 and IV 4.8), in which a finite world and finite power of God are posited, can be interpreted in a new way. Many contemporary scholars, on the basis of these fragments, conclude that Origen inherited from the Greek philosophers a negative understanding of infinity as something imperfect, but the analysis carried out in this article shows something different. In talking about a certain range of God’s power, which is available to creatures, or in which creatures participate only partially, Origen does not actually exclude the proposition that, in God himself, power – existing in an absolute way – can be infinite.

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Bóg niezdolny do gniewu. Obrona apathei Boga w teologii aleksandryjskiej: Filon, Klemens i Orygenes

O pojęciu hellenizacji

Stwarzanie wieczne i poza czasem. Filozoficzne źródła koncepcji "generatio aeterna" Orygenesa

Nieskończoność Boga u Orygenesa: przyczyna wielkiego nieporozumienia

Metamorfozy Platońskiej „metafory słońca” (Respublica 509b) w hetero- i ortodoksyjnej teologii (I-III w.): gnostycyzm, Klemens z Aleksandrii i Orygenes

Potentia dei absoluta et potentia dei ordinata u Orygenesa? Nowa próba wyjaśnienia kontrowersyjnych fragmentów "De principiis"