The work of Maximus the Confessor (580–662) presents the philosophical world view of the Greek-speaking Christian tradition in its most fully developed form. It is comprehensive both in the extent to which it draws upon earlier authors – including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, Nemesius of Emesa, Evagrius of Pontus, Cyril of Alexandria, and Pseudo-Dionysius, among others – and in its far-ranging scope. Pride of place among the influences on Maximus must undoubtedly go to Pseudo-Dionysius. Like the Areopagite, Maximus regards ‘good’ as the pre-eminent divine name, and he welcomes the Platonic description of the Good as ‘beyond being’ as appropriate to the Christian God. He is also like Pseudo-Dionysius in his vision of the cosmos as fundamentally theophanic, a manifestation of intelligible or spiritual reality in sensible form. However, Maximus is more explicit than Pseudo-Dionysius about the role of the divine will in creation, and he gives a more prominent role to the Incarnation as the central act by which the divine is made manifest. Accordingly, whereas Pseudo-Dionysius can be (and often has been) read as implicitly denying that God is a personal being, for Maximus the personal character of God is never in question.

Any attempt to situate Maximus within the history of philosophy must begin with some disclaimers. Maximus writes as a theologian rather than a philosopher, and many of his most interesting ideas are presented through elaborate allegorical interpretations of Scripture. To winnow out the philosophical elements, as we shall do here, can inevitably present only a partial picture of his thought.

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DAMASCIUS (AROUND 462 – AFTER 538)

Biographical data

The chronology of the Platonic Academy in later ancient times is relatively well known, owing to the description Damascius furnishes in his Vita Isidori (a biography of Damascius’ beloved teacher, who was probably also one of his predecessors as the head of the Academy). Concerning Damascius’ own life, however, we do not have very detailed knowledge. One of the few facts that are known with certainty is that he originated from Damascus (as we know from Simplicius, In Phys. 624.38 Diels, and from Damascius’ own Vita Isidori 200 Photius). The only dates that are certain are circumstantial to Damascius’ life: the closing down of the pagan schools by the Emperor Justinian in 529, which led to Damascius’ exile; and the date of a stele, found in Homs (Emesa, Syria) in 1925 and dated 538 ce. It bears an epitaph that was known from another literary tradition (the Anthologia Palatina), to be attributed to Damascius:

Zosime, who has been a slave only in body, has now found freedom even from her body.

(Anthologia Palatina VII, 553)

The stele quotes the verse in the first person (‘I, Zosime …’), which suggests that this is the original version of the text, written for this occasion. If that is true, then it is more than probable that Damascius was living in Syria around 538 ce.

According to his own Vita Isidori, Damascius had been in Athens already before 485, when Proclus died. He had been studying rhetoric in Alexandria, and then came to Athens as a teacher of rhetoric.

From the second half of the fourth century ce until the death of Augustine in 430 Christian theology fully matured. The fact that Marius Victorinus and Augustine wrote in Latin hardly suffices to justify our setting them outside of the dialogue of Christians and pagans within the ancient Greek philosophical world. Even when Latin speakers learned their philosophy from the books of Latin authors like Cicero, what they learned was ancient Greek philosophy. The refined vocabulary of ancient Greek philosophy was the starting point for the expression of theological doctrine. The well-known example of the controversy over how to express the relation between the persons of the Trinity turns upon the understanding of one of the central terms of Greek philosophy – ousia. As theologically motivated students of philosophy learned almost immediately, the Greek philosophers differed in their understanding of ousia. Plato in his Republic has Socrates state that the Good is ‘above’ ousia, primarily owing to the absolute simplicity of the first principle of all. Aristotle in his Metaphysics states that the question ‘what is being?’ is just the question ‘what is ousia?’ He goes on to argue that the primary referent of ousia is the thinking of a divine mind ‘beyond’ which there is nothing. This fundamental disagreement is reflected in the philosophical schools throughout period. So, the question of whether the first person of the Trinity was in any way ‘beyond’ the second and the third is inseparable from the question of whether the first principle must be absolutely simple.

Any attempt to describe and understand the transition between ancient and medieval philosophy is immediately confronted by the enormous quantity of writings to be evaluated and by the complexity of their interrelations. In the face of such a challenge, certain methodological premisses guiding the selection of authors, texts and themes must be established, even if that selection can only be fully justified at the conclusion of the project. The analysis to be undertaken here will employ the following explicit criteria.

First, the authors of the texts transmitted and their privileged themes will be used as the basis for investigating the readers of the transmitted texts and their privileged themes rather than the reverse. To provide some concrete examples, we will employ the ancient writer Calcidius’ presentation of the three principles of Platonism as a starting-point for the discussion of Hugh of St Victor’s medieval treatment of the same topic, or the ancient writer Boethius’ definitions of nature as a starting-point for Iohannes Scottus Eriugena’s treatment of the same issue during the ninth century, or again the ancient writer Proclus’ placing of the One beyond Being as a starting-point for Berthold of Moosburg’s medieval treatment of the same question. Discussion of the actual medieval context of such philosophical questions in a systematic or chronological manner will not be our primary concern.

Little is known of the life of Priscian of Lydia (born late fifth century ce), who is not to be confused with his older namesake Priscian of Caesarea (fl. c. 500 ce), the famous Latin grammarian. Priscian of Lydia is one of the six philosophers listed by Agathias Histories 2.30–1 to have accompanied Damascius on his journey to the Sassanian king Chosroes I (reign 531–79 ce). Agathias suggests they came of their own accord guided by the false impression that Chosroes’ reign resembled a Platonic state; he does not connect their journey to the famous closure of the Athenian school in 529. The philosophers soon discovered that Chosroes was far from the ideal king and resolved to leave quickly. Because Chosroes was well disposed towards them Priscian and the others were able to leave Chosroes under the safeguard of a treaty the Persian king concluded with Rome in 532, which comprised a clause that ‘these men should be allowed to return to their own country and live there henceforth in safety, without being forced to adopt opinions which they did not hold, or to change their own faith’. Whether they settled in Athens, or perhaps in Carrhae (Harran), where over a century later a centre of Platonic philosophy was flourishing, is still a matter of controversy.

SOLUTIONES AD CHOSROEM

Priscian is credited with a work apparently written for King Chosroes, and known to us in Latin translation3 under the title Solutiones eorum de quibus dubitavit Chosroes Persarum rex. The text does not give us any indication about the circumstances in which it originated.