This collection is a product of the research project ‘Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies’ directed by Marmodoro at Oxford University (2011–2016) and is in that sense a companion volume to Marmodoro and B.D. Prince (edd.), Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity (2015). Its multi-disciplinary approach gives a sense of the wide variety of ways in which divine power was conceived and engaged with during the first five centuries of the Christian era.
The introduction describes the collection's aim as to ‘explore how some of the most prominent philosophers and theologians of late antiquity conceptualize the idea that the divine is powerful’ (p. 1) in order to sketch the period's ‘power theology’ in the sense of ‘all speculations (philosophical or other) on the divine that ascribe a key role to the notion of power (dunamis in Greek, potentia in Latin)’. It was a time that saw the ‘successive development and mutual influence of two major strands in the history of Western thought’ (p. 1), namely Neoplatonism and early Christian thought, and the book's structure reflects this, comprising two parts of six chapters each, the first entitled ‘The Powers of the Gods: from Plotinus to Proclus’, and the second, ‘The Powers of God: from Philo of Alexandria to the Cappadocian Fathers’. The introduction surveys the philosophical background (pp. 2–8) and includes abstracts of the chapters (pp. 9–13).
Chapter 1, ‘The Sources and Structures of Power and Activity in Plotinus’ by K. Corrigan, argues that Plotinus inscribes Aristotle's dunamis-energeia theory within a primarily Platonic framework while developing in new ways the dynamism common to both. For Plotinus bodily organisation and matter are merely the tips of a vast iceberg – body is in soul, and the entire physical world rooted in three much larger principles, viz. all Soul, all Intellect and the One (p. 20), and while Plotinus advances several models of power and activity and there are irreducible ambiguities in his scheme, the picture that emerges is that power ‘pervades and makes possible the articulation of Intellect, Soul, and the physical world’ (p. 35), while activity ‘unfolds power in the self-articulating structures of Intellect and Soul as procession/conversion’ (p. 36).
Chapter 2, by P. Remes, focuses on ‘Human Action and Divine Power in Plotinus’ to ask how human agency and action fit into a ‘vertical’ causal system according to which true causes belong to an explanatory level transcendent of, and irreducible to, sensible and material things. Actions seem to resist such explanation since the causal changes they involve appear to connect items on the same level of explanation. Remes argues that, while Plotinus treats acting as an expression of divine power, he also recognises the features that distinguish it as taking place within the sensible realm. His theory ‘amalgamates classical influences in an original fashion’ by thematising action in a roughly Aristotelian way but locating it in a Platonic overall framework (p. 39), and Remes concludes by comparing it to modern approaches.
In Chapter 3, ‘Divine Powers and Cult Statues in Porphyry of Tyre’, Viltanioti argues that in Porphyry's treatise On Statues, a work known principally from fragments in Eusebius’ Praeparatio evangelica, powers played a central role associated with Porphyry's doctrines of double power and the ascent of the soul. Viltanioti suggests that, given Porphyry's dynamic understanding of the Neoplatonic hypostases, his ‘aim was to instruct novice philosophers on the way in which proper contemplation of the images of the gods could serve in obtaining unification of power and thus elevation of the soul towards Intellect and the One’ (p. 71). This reading suggests that rather than being a work of Porphyry's youth, On Statues is a mature work dating to his time with Plotinus or afterwards. An appendix (p. 73) lists in Greek the plethora of gods (I counted 36) and associated powers in Porphyry's On Statues.
In Chapter 4, ‘Iamblichus on Divination: Divine Power and Human Intuition’, P. Struck argues that Iamblichus distinguishes between two opposed types of divination: that deriving wholly from divine power and that which involves lower-order human cognitive power. He proposes that ‘a closer look at the third book of the De mysteriis not only reveals Iamblichus’ particular reshaping of the powers of the divine in new and more remote ways [but] brings into sharper focus that, prior to this, the idea that we might know something in the uncanny way we [refer to as intuition] was left without a designation’, suggesting such phenomena had previously been subsumed ‘under the large and robust Greek cultural form of divination’ (p. 87).
Chapter 5, ‘Powers and Poiēsis: Status Animation and Divine Manifestation in Proclus Diadochus’ Commentary on the Timaeus’ by T. Krulak, focuses on an allusion to the ritual of statue animation, whereby statues were rendered fit through consecration and ‘ensoulment’ by the deity to communicate oracles. He concludes that ‘[b]ased upon the relative success of the rite itself and the extent to which the image was made suitable for illumination, different levels of the invoked deity were participated by the statue. It is likely that Proclus’ awareness of the participative variance was born of experiences that he understood to be encounters with the divine’ (p. 106). In addition to enabling divine elampsis of statues, such rites could assist the philosopher in purifying their soul preparatory for its ascent to higher ontological levels.
Chapter 6 is ‘The Sceptre and the Sickle: the Transmission of Divine Power in the Orphic Rhapsodies’ by M.A. Santamaria Álvarez. Theogonic poems describe the genealogy of the gods and their struggle for power in terms of the activities of Eros and Eris, the former promoting union and procreation, the latter separation and strife (p. 108). The Orphic Hieros Logos in Twenty Four Rhapsodies is a late example and differs from Hesiod's Theogony and the Orphic theogonies of the Derveni papyrus in that the involuntary and violent transmission of power, symbolised by the sickle, is complemented by its voluntary and peaceful transmission, symbolised by the sceptre.
In Chapter 7 B.S. Decharneux focuses on ‘Divine Powers in Philo of Alexandria's De opificio mundi’. Philo's doctrine of divine dunameis as expressions of the unknowable divinity was a foundational influence on patristic thinkers including Clement, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, and the De opificio is of especial interest both because it focuses wholly on the creation of the world and because it advances for the first time a monotheistic reading of Plato's Timaeus, thus paving the way for that dialogue's appropriation by the Church Fathers. Decharneux argues that Philo's treatment of divine powers in this treatise is equally influenced by biblical and Greek (mainly Platonic) ideas (p. 127) and that the De opificio’s ultimate lesson is that there is no salvation without acknowledgement of God's powers (p. 139).
In Chapter 8, ‘The Self-giving Power of God’, J. Hill argues that a distinctive new understanding of divine power emerges in first-century Christian authors, notably Paul and Luke in Acts. Motivated primarily by concerns relating to apostolic mission and preaching, it construes God's dunamis in terms of christology, communication, pneumatology, kerygma, pre-eminence and weakness, which sit alongside more traditional notions of the divine from the Septuagint. Hill considers how these features of divine dunamis are reinterpreted by Ignatius of Antioch, Hermas and Justin Martyr, concluding (p. 161) that ‘Justin's appropriation and extension of the communicative and weakness aspects of the concept of divine power, drawn primarily from Paul, represent the most developed form of these ideas in second-century Christianity’.
In Chapter 9 M. Edwards examines ‘The Power of God in Some Early Christian Texts’ in order to delineate a typology of divine dunamis in sources including the New Testament, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen and Athanasius. He argues that late-antique Christianity should be regarded as a philosophical school with its own texts and first principles and that accordingly any investigation of dunamis in Christian writings must begin and perhaps remain with the scriptures. Against those for whom this would disqualify such thinkers from being considered philosophers he notes that they ‘argued with integrity from [the school's] own premises, interpreted its own texts with fidelity, and thus consistently gave its own sense to terms that it used in common with other schools’ (p. 176).
Chapter 10, ‘Divine Power in Origen of Alexandria: Sources and Aftermath’ by I.L.E. Ramelli, focuses on Origen's doctrine of divine powers and its sources (including Justin Martyr, Bardaisan of Edessa, the pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo, Philo, Pantaenus and Ammonius Saccas) and aftermath (mainly in Gregory of Nyssa) as a case study for the internal unity of pagan and Christian Platonic investigations of the topic. For both Origen and Gregory divine power is manifest primarily in creation and salvation, its greatest manifestation being in the resurrection as both a re-creation and the principle of salvation.
In Chapter 11, ‘Powers and Properties in Basil of Caesarea's Homiliae in hexaemeron’, A. Radde-Gallwitz brings Basil's account of the elemental powers into dialogue with Galen and Aristotle. Noting the awkwardness in Basil's attempts, following Philo, to preserve the literal meaning of Genesis, Radde-Gallwitz argues that Basil responds to the charge that it portrays God's creative activity as arbitrarily imposed on the natures of things by assigning key roles to water and earth in the creation of living beings. The chapter abstract on Oxford Scholarship Online, excluded from the print book, concludes that Basil is ‘of two minds with respect to the powers and properties of things created – they are inherent in the elements themselves, but also dependent upon divine command and artistry. For Basil, divine power is not mere force but also craftsmanship’ (p. 199).
Chapter 12, ‘Gregory of Nyssa on the Creation of the World’ by Marmodoro, addresses the question of whether, and if so how, the Christian belief in creatio ex nihilo can be reconciled with ‘the causal principle, widely held in antiquity, that “like causes like”’ (p. 218). Noting Gregory's awareness of the problem, and in contrast to interpretations that have supposed him to maintain a form of idealism, she argues that his answer is that ‘the immaterial generates intelligible qualities, from which bodies are made up’ (p. 221), and that consequently he is not an idealist, his qualities are not thoughts in a mind, and the matter resulting from their combination is fully concrete. For him ‘the immaterial God created immaterial qualities of objects, which are physical aspects of objects, and which compose with one another to give rise to material bodies’ (p. 233). Marmodoro concludes by noting resonances with recent theories of the metaphysics of abstract objects.
The book contains a number of minor typographical errors, including ‘stoics’ (p. 7), ‘assent’ instead of ‘ascent’ (p. 78) and both ‘Gaia’ and ‘Gea’ in Chapter 6, but is otherwise beautifully produced. It is to be recommended highly both for the quality of its scholarship and the range of material it encompasses.
