One of the strongest reasons for positing a development in Aristotle’s views between the composition of the lost dialogue, the Eudemus, and the De anima is that the Eudemus appears to have argued for the immortality of the soul—and to have done so in a manner similar to Plato’s, specifically in the Phaedo. In the De anima, by contrast, Aristotle rather maintains that the soul is an (inseparable) entelecheia and presents a schematic in which perhaps intellect alone may be separable and immortal. However, there is no explicit account of the intellect’s separability and immortality in Aristotle’s extant texts and, even if there were, this still does not amount to the (Platonic) view of the entire soul as a separable, immortal substance which Aristotle seems to have advocated for in his lost dialogue on the soul.
In opposition to the application of (any kind of) developmental thesis to Aristotle’s lost works,Footnote 1 a few scholars (Reese, Cherniss and, slightly less emphatically, Düring)Footnote 2 argued that there is no reason to assume that the Eudemus argued for the view that the soul in its entirety is immortal as Plato does. Rather, we should assume a compatibility between the De anima and the Eudemus as our starting point and look to reports of the lost work which rather endorse the view that is at least not in contradiction with what we find in De anima: that (perhaps) intellect alone is immortal. However, in the existing collections of fragments of the Eudemus there are scant reports upon which these scholars can rely; indeed, they make their argument based almost exclusively on a single remark made by Themistius (in De an. 106.29–107.5), coupled only with the consideration that we have no overpowering reason to assume anything other than a continuity with De anima. This consideration is reasonable but not terribly convincing—especially not for the generation of scholars for whom the developmental thesis seemed the more fashionable choice. Thus the view that the Eudemus argued for the immortality of intellect, along with the mortality of soul, has become a minority position.
This article however argues for this same view, approaching the task by examining an essentially new body of evidence, namely the accounts of Aristotle in the writings of the Church Fathers—accounts largely left out of the existing collections of Aristotle’s fragments. Because the earlier scholars restricted themselves to the collections of fragments assembled by Rose, Walzer, Ross and Gigon,Footnote 3 they missed these reports of Aristotle’s lost views of the soul which would have substantiated their intuition and made fruitful their attempts to harmonize the lost Aristotle with the extant Aristotle. In this article, I present a passage in Tertullian, paralleled in two other figures in the Patristic tradition, Origen and Clement of Alexandria, which substantiates Themistius’ claim that Aristotle argued for the immortality of the intellect in the Eudemus. First, however, I provide a literature overview by way of presenting the situation as it stands, looking at the collections of fragments compiled to date.
I. OVERVIEW OF SCHOLARSHIP: ELIAS, THEMISTIUS AND PROCLUS (CICERO AND IAMBLICHUS)
If we look at the content of, for example, Ross’s collection of fragments of the Eudemus,Footnote 4 we find that the bulk of the philosophical substance of the dialogue is reported in frr. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7. All others contain something along the lines of myths or anecdotes which seem to imply an afterlife for the human soul based on a common nature between humans and the gods (as is evidenced, for example, in the prophetic power of dreams). Fr. 7 (= Philop. in De an. 141.22; 144.21; Simp. in De an. 53.1–4; Them. in De an. 24.13; Olymp. in Phd. 173.20; Sophon. in De an. 25.4–8) provides a long set of parallels in Philoponus, Simplicius, Themistius and Sophonias, where a series of arguments against the view of the soul as a harmony, similar to those of Plato’s Phaedo, are attributed to Aristotle’s Eudemus.
Despite the attempts of, for example, Jaeger (n. 1) to say that Aristotle’s echoing of Plato’s arguments against the soul as a harmony necessarily commits him to a Platonic view of the soul as an immortal and separable substance, such is far from evident. First, arguments against the view of the soul as a harmony may have led to further premises which were then rejected in favour of the view of intellect alone as immortal. Second and more crucially, we do not know what role these arguments played in the wider drama of the dialogue—they could have been placed into the mouth of the adversary, not that of Aristotle’s spokesperson.Footnote 5
Of the fragments that affirm that Aristotle maintained that the soul was immortal, we are left with those of Elias, Proclus and Themistius. Elias provides a contrast between the methodology of Aristotle’s published and unpublished works:Footnote 6 ‘Aristotle puts forth the immortality of the soul in his acroamatic writings as well, and there by conclusive arguments, but in the dialogues he establishes it by probable arguments.’Footnote 7 He then concludes: ‘It is mostly in the dialogues that Aristotle seems to put forth the immortality of the soul.’Footnote 8
First, this is an inaccurate portrayal of Aristotle’s view of the soul in his esoteric works, namely, that in the De anima Aristotle conclusively argues for the immortality of the soul. Moreover, in so far as Elias does not have direct access to the Eudemus, his portrayal of Aristotle’s view on the immortality of the soul is questionable. He does not echo the other reports in saying that Aristotle used arguments in the manner of the Phaedo to argue against the view of the soul as a harmony, and the claim that Aristotle only makes arguments in the style of the libation arguments seems suspiciously out of character—even if such arguments were discussed in the dialogue, it is unclear whether Elias (or his source) has taken these arguments out of context or not. For example, we do not even know which character makes these claims.
Beyond this, let us consider also the two reports of Proclus which are included in Ross’s collection: in Tim. 3.323.16–324.4 and in Remp. 2.349.13–26.Footnote 9 The first fragment contains only the view that Aristotle divides the labour between his dialogues and his treatises, namely ‘handling the soul from the point of view of natural philosophy in his treatise De anima, making no mention of the soul’s descents or its allocated stations, whereas in his dialogues he offered a separate discussion of them and wrote up his proposed principal topic’.Footnote 10
Although in neither fragment does Proclus explicitly state that Aristotle thinks that the entire soul is immortal à la Plato, in in Remp. 2.349.13–26 he seems to be attributing to Aristotle an account of the soul exiting the body and continuing on its journey in the afterlife: ‘The divine Aristotle states also the cause for which the soul, which comes “here” from “there”, forgets what it has seen “there”, but when it leaves “here”, it remembers “there” its experiences from “here”.’Footnote 11 Jaeger naturally relies heavily on these fragments to make his case for the ‘early’ or ‘Platonic’ period in the development of Aristotle’s views on psychology. Relying on Proclus, however, opens Jaeger up to the objection, made by Düring, Chroust and Rees,Footnote 12 that there is not much reason to think that in Remp. 2.349.13–26 is reporting Aristotle’s view regarding the immortality of the soul in its entirety. Moreover, Aristotle merely provides a reason why the soul would forget its life before entry into the body but remember its experience here when it passes beyond. This does not mean that Aristotle himself necessarily advocated the view that the soul takes such a journey. Indeed, the point about forgetfulness in changes of state from health to sickness could be completely taken out of context and simply appropriated into Proclus’ argument for his own, distinct position.
The final report of Aristotle’s having argued for some kind of immortality of the ‘soul’ in the existing collections rather tells us that Aristotle maintained the immortality of nous, or more specifically nous poiêtikos. This is found in Themistius,Footnote 13 who crucially identifies that the point of commonality between the views of Plato and Aristotle is their shared belief that only nous poiêtikos is immortal: ‘And most of the weightiest arguments concerning the immortality of the soul that [Plato] propounded essentially refer back to the intellect … as also the more credible of those elaborated by Aristotle himself in the Eudemus. From these [texts] it is clear that Plato too believes that … the [productive] intellect is “alone immortal ….”.’Footnote 14 What we find in Themistius is an inverse of the inaccuracy which we find in Elias. To build a harmony between Plato and Aristotle, Elias brings Aristotle into harmony with Plato by saying that Aristotle considers the soul to be immortal—this is either his own doing or he is parroting an attempt at harmonization in some earlier report. If Aristotle maintained that the intellect is immortal, it is not entirely wrong to say that he thinks the soul is immortal because the intellect is part of the soul. We then find Themistius doing the opposite: he tries to bring Plato into harmony with Aristotle not by attributing Plato’s view to Aristotle, but Aristotle’s view to Plato. Themistius’ analysis—if accurate—would undermine very much the credibility of Elias’ account, and if Elias’ account is undermined, there is little reason further to believe Proclus.
Scholars who have argued against Jaeger (and those who follow him in the developmental reading such as Chroust, Ross and Nuyens)Footnote 15 and in favour of the view that Aristotle maintained that the intellect alone is immortal have all stopped here—and it is not a bad place to stop. Themistius’ account seems the most believable and, if we reject Proclus’ statement regarding the journey of the soul as a ‘real’ fragment, then there is not much reason to believe that Aristotle maintained that the soul in its entirety was immortal. None the less, as noted above, such a non-developmental view never caught on, probably because while the argument for the ‘whole soul is immortal’ view is weak, the argument for ‘only the intellect is immortal’ is not much stronger. We are, after all, relying only on Themistius.
Restricting ourselves still to the standard collections of fragments, we may note that Pseudo-Simplicius’ comment should provide a tentative substantiation of Themistius’ assessment of the situation.Footnote 16 Pseudo-Simplicius considers that Aristotle in the Eudemus posited the intellective soul (τὴν νοητικήν) specifically, and not the whole soul, to be an ϵἶδός τι, because only the intellective soul is receptive of forms. This report then would give credence to Themistius’ claim that the intellect alone is immortal. However, this is still far from conclusive evidence.
We find an indication of support also in the reports of Aristotle’s lost dialogues found in Cicero, specifically those taken to belong to the De philosophia. In discussing the ‘principle common to gods and men’ which he finds in Aristotle’s works, Cicero refers to this principle as mens (Fr. 27 = Acad. 1.7.26; Tusc. 1.27.66)—as is noted by Effe, who considers intellect (not soul) to be the focus of the De philosophia.Footnote 17 The only place where Cicero uses animus with reference to Aristotle is in Tusculan Disputations (Fr. 27 = 1.10.22; 1.17.41; 1.26.65), where it is clear that he is blurring the lines between intellect and soul because he is in the midst of arguing for the immortality of the soul and is trying to rope Aristotle in on his side of the debate.
To further contextualize these comments, let us consider a final passage, now from Iamblichus’ Protrepticus, long taken as a fragment of Aristotle’s Protrepticus:Footnote 18
βέλτιον δὲ τὸ κατὰ ϕύσιν ἀρχικώτϵρον καὶ μᾶλλον ἡγϵμονικόν, ὡς ἄνθρωπος πρὸς τὰ ἄλλα ζῷα· οὐκοῦν ψυχὴ μὲν σώματος βέλτιον (ἀρχικώτϵρον γάρ), ψυχῆς δὲ τὸ λόγον ἔχον καὶ διάνοιαν· ἔστι γὰρ τοιοῦτον ὃ κϵλϵύϵι καὶ κωλύϵι, καὶ δϵῖν ἢ μὴ δϵῖν ϕησι πράττϵιν. ἥτις ποτὲ οὖν ἐστιν ἀρϵτὴ τούτου τοῦ μέρους, ἀναγκαῖον ϵἶναι πάντων αἱρϵτωτάτην ἁπλῶς τϵ πᾶσι καὶ ἡμῖν· καὶ γὰρ ἂν τοῦτο, οἶμαι, θϵίη τις, ὡς ἤτοι μόνον ἢ μάλιστα ἡμϵῖς ἐσμϵν τὸ μόριον τοῦτο.
Now that which is by nature more capable of being the ruler and principle is better, just as man is relative to other animals; thus, soul is better than body (being more of a principle), and better than soul is that which has reason and thought; for such is what commands and forbids, and says what we should and should not do. That which is the excellence then of this part is of necessity the most desirable for all things and for us in particular; for certainly, I believe that one would maintain that this part is either only or especially what we are.
While not naming intellect as ‘separate’ from soul or ‘divine’, Iamblichus is drawing a clear line between intellect and soul for Aristotle, and one which we do not find made so emphatically in Aristotle’s extant works. Based on this report by Iamblichus, it would then seem plausible, if not likely, that Aristotle would have gone on further to assert that this ‘part’ that is ‘either alone or above all things’ is what is immortal, not the soul considered as a whole.
This is indeed how this fragment has been interpreted; however, it has been taken always to be a fragment not of the Eudemus but of the Protrepticus. Understanding that this stands in contradiction with his interpretation of the Eudemus as having advocated for the immortality of the entire soul, Jaeger explains away the inconsistency by saying that the Protrepticus was written after the Eudemus, when Aristotle had already discarded the view that the soul is immortal.Footnote 19 Jaeger’s developmental thesis, at this point, becomes suspicious.
Why then is it justifiable to bring Iamblichus’ Protrepticus into play here? First, a significant amount of literature brings into question the neat hypothesis that Iamblichus is relying solely upon Aristotle’s Protrepticus in the composition of his own work, notably Flashar.Footnote 20 According to Flashar, Iamblichus’ Protrepticus is a synthesis not only of a number of works of Aristotle, but also a variety of works of Plato. Indeed, this technical point about the distinction between soul and intellect rather seems to fit better into the context of the Eudemus (a work on the nature of the soul) than that of an exhortation to philosophy.
This suffices for an examination of the relevant issues in the fragments assembled in the standard collections. A sympathetic reader at this point may think that the scales tip slightly in the direction of the ‘only intellect is immortal’ reading. However, there is better and more conclusive evidence—better, indeed, because it lies in sources closer in time to Aristotle. Let us therefore take a step further back to the second and third centuries a.d.
II. CLEMENT, ORIGEN AND TERTULLIAN
Noting a peculiarity regarding Origen’s and Clement’s views of Aristotle on the immortality of the soul, Runia thus characterizes the situation:
In the case of the doctrine of the soul it is not the Platonizing views of the Eudemus that entered the doxographic tradition but the doctrine of ἐντϵλέχϵια as found in the De anima. Various aspects of the Aristotelian psychology are perfectly acceptable to the Fathers, notably the distinction between rational and irrational parts or powers shared with Plato. What is unacceptable is that the soul is not immortal. But is this fair? Aristotle speaks of the νοῦς θύραθϵν or χωριστός, and the doctrine does not go unmentioned in the doxographical tradition. Should not the Fathers have taken more notice of this (it is mentioned explicitly by Clement and anonymously by Origen)?Footnote 21
Runia is right: among the Greek Fathers of the Church, we find Clement and Origen among a scarce few who think that either Aristotle or ‘someone’ considered part of the soul to be immortal—namely, the rational part, the intellect. Runia is also right that the view of many of the Church Fathers that Aristotle considers the soul to be mortal—full stop—is a hasty and unfair reading. There would be indications, in De anima alone, that Aristotle would at least entertain the view that intellect (that is, a specific part or kind of soul) is immortal and separable. Yet it is not surprising that the Greek Fathers, many of whom are sufficiently hostile to Aristotle, would not entertain the kinder reading of this text. Thus formulations of Aristotle’s views such as Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 25.2.1–5Footnote 22 and Eusebius, Praeparatio euangelica 15.9.6–8, which state unequivocally that Aristotle denies any immortality to the soul, are quite common.
Let us assume, as this seems most likely, that the majority of the Greek Church Fathers did not have direct access to Aristotle’s lost work, the Eudemus. Accordingly, it would make sense that they end up repeating a view of Aristotle derived solely from the De anima, and that this view is not the most generous interpretation of that work, given their other motivations and biases at work here. Thus there is nothing peculiar about their understanding of Aristotle as maintaining a mortal soul.
Rather, the peculiarity pertains to Origen and Clement.Footnote 23 Clement names Aristotle as being in agreement with Plato and the Pythagoreans regarding the origin of intellect: ‘Hence the Pythagoreans say that intellect comes to man by divine providence, as Plato and Aristotle avow.’Footnote 24 Without however naming Aristotle explicitly, Origen refers to the idea among the Greeks that the intellect alone may be immortal: ‘let [Celsus] meet the arguments, which are not lightly advanced among Greeks and Barbarians, regarding the immortality of the soul, or its duration (after death), or the immortality of the intellect (τῆς τοῦ νοῦ ἀθανασίας) …’.Footnote 25 With respect to Origen in particular, we may wonder where this view regarding the immortality of intellect alone comes from, in so far as elsewhere he refers to Aristotle as having rejected Plato’s view of the soul as immortal.Footnote 26
Unlike many of the other Fathers, Clement had access—either direct or indirect, but substantial—to the dialogues of Aristotle.Footnote 27 Clark considers that Clement’s reference to Aristotle above either may be paralleled with the above-discussed passage in Iamblichus (Protr. 7.41.27–42.4), thereby implying a common source, or is based on Nicomachean Ethics 10.7, a passage discussed below as being a possible basis also for Tertullian’s De anima.Footnote 28 The latter possibility seems difficult to believe in so far as the Eth. Nic. indicates nothing about intellect coming to man because of divine providence. It does rather seem that Clement had access to some other text, perhaps a common source between himself and Iamblichus. This furthermore would explain the fact that both Clement (Protr. 1.7.4.3–6.1) and Iamblichus (Protr. 8.47.21–48.9) report the same narrative of the binding of the living with the dead, a fragment which belongs either to the Protrepticus or the Eudemus.Footnote 29
It is tempting to think that Origen had access to the same texts as Clement, simply because both worked in Alexandria. However, while Porphyry (according to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.7–8) considers Origen to have read a large number of Greek philosophical writers, he does not include Aristotle in his list. One difficulty is that Origen rarely references Aristotle by name, yet he often seems to lift ideas and terminology from Aristotle’s texts. For example, there is a clear parallel between Origen’s definition of God as intellect or beyond intellect (νοῦν τοίνυν ἢ ἐπέκϵινα νοῦ) in C. Cels. 7.38.1 and Simplicius’ quotation from Aristotle’s On Prayer (in Cael. 485.21–2) as ὁ θϵὸς ἢ νοῦς ἐστιν ἢ καὶ ἐπέκϵινά τι τοῦ νοῦ.Footnote 30 Similarly, Tzamalikos considers that Origen relies on Aristotle for his argument for apokatastasis, namely the restoration of all creation to a state of perfection (in Ioan. 2.13), again without ever naming him explicitly (for example, καὶ ὥσπϵρ Ἑλλήνων τινές ϕασιν, ϵἶναι τῶν “οὔ τινων” τὰ γένη καὶ τὰ ϵἴδη …).Footnote 31 Thus while Origen seems to have access to Aristotle, and freely uses his texts, the question of the precise extent of his access to Aristotle has yet to be answered conclusively.Footnote 32
Returning now to the specific peculiarity regarding the comments of Origen and Clement on Aristotle’s view of intellect, if we assume that they both have some kind of (possibly indirect) access to Aristotle’s Eudemus, and if the Eudemus, as Runia (along with the majority of scholars) assumes, advocated for the immortality of soul, two questions come to mind. First, why are Origen and Clement deferring to the De anima’s vague indication that intellect may be immortal? And why, if they are so deferring, do they give this kinder reading of the text, while figures like Tatian and Eusebius simply state the worst possible reading, that Aristotle thinks the soul is mortal?
Perhaps Origen and Clement do not defer to the view of the whole soul as immortal put forth in the Eudemus because no such view was put forth there. Unfortunately, there is not much more to say than this, since the reports by Origen and Clement are quite brief, and Origen’s does not even name Aristotle explicitly.
This is where another figure in the Patristic period, Tertullian, proves useful. Like Clement, he had extensive access to the lost writings of Aristotle.Footnote 33 Waszink, for example, demonstrates two themes which Tertullian has taken up from Aristotle within his De anima: a narrative of Hermotimus of Clazomenae (De an. 44.1–2) and a story of a Saturn who dreams (De an. 46.10).Footnote 34 The narrative of the dreaming Saturn is included in Ross’s collection of the Protrepticus (fr. 20), while it is more prudently included by Gigon in his collection of fragments whose connection to a specific work cannot be certain (fr. 979). Waszink also admits that the narratives about Saturn and Hermotimus are probably derived from another work, such as the Eudemus, since the theme of dreaming is echoed in fr. 1 Ross = Cic. Div. 1.53 and fr. 9 Ross = Plut. Quaest. conv. 8.9.3 (733c5–8), the latter of which, however, Gigon assigns (incorrectly) to the Iatrika (fr. 353).Footnote 35
It is appropriate that Waszink found these references (potentially) derived from Aristotle’s Eudemus in Tertullian’s De anima. Let us now consider yet another passage of this work, which summarizes a view contained in the Eudemus:Footnote 36
hoc etiam Aristoteles denotauit, nescio an sua paratior implere quam aliena inanire. denique et ipse definitionem animi cum differret, interim alterum animi genus pronuntiauit, illum diuinum, quem rursus et inpassibilem subostendens abstulit et ipse eum a consortio animae. cum enim animam passibilem constet eorum quae sortita est pati, aut per animum et cum animo patietur, si concreta est animo, non poterit animus inpassibilis induci, aut si non per animum nec cum animo patietur anima, non erit concreta illi, cum quo nihil et cui nihil patitur. porro si nihil per illum et cum illo anima patietur, iam nec sentiet nec sapiet nec mouebitur per illum, ut uolunt. nam et sensus passiones facit Aristoteles. quidni? et sentire enim pati est, quia pati sentire est. proinde et sapere sentire est et moueri sentire est. ita totum pati est. uidemus autem nihil istorum animam experiri, ut non et animo deputetur, quia per illum et cum illo transigatur. iam ergo et commiscibilis est animus aduersus Anaxagoran et passibilis aduersus Aristotelen.
ceterum si discretio admittitur, ut substantia duae res sint animus atque anima, alterius erit et passio et sensus et sapor omnis et actus et motus, alterius autem otium et quies et stupor et nulla iam causa, et aut animus uacabit aut anima. quodsi constat ambobus haec omnia reputari, ergo unum erunt utrumque et Democritus obtinebit differentiam tollens et quaeretur, quomodo unum utrumque, ex duarum substantiarum confusione, an ex unius dispositione. nos autem animum ita dicimus animae concretum, non ut substantia alium, sed ut substantiae officium.
Aristotle has also noticed this contradiction; I do not know whether he meant it to build up his own system, or simply to destroy those of others. He himself puts off providing a definition of intellect (animus), and meanwhile, he puts forth as one of the two classes of intellect that divine one which he considers to be impassible and which he removes from all association with the soul (anima). It is evident that the soul is affected by those things by which it suffers, either it suffers through the intellect (animus) or with the intellect (animus). If the soul is conjoined with the intellect, one cannot come to the conclusion that the intellect is impassible; if the soul suffers neither through the intellect nor with the intellect, the soul is therefore not conjoined with the intellect, by which the soul suffers nothing and the intellect is impassive. Now if the soul suffers nothing through the intellect or with the intellect, then it neither senses, nor knows, nor moves in virtue of the intellect, as is claimed. For Aristotle maintains the senses to be passions. And how not? For sensing is to suffer because suffering is to sense. Therefore, knowing is sensing and being moved is sensing. So everything is suffering. But we see the soul experience none of these, so they also cannot be attributed to the intellect, because through it and with it they are accomplished. Therefore now the intellect can be mixed, contrary to Anaxagoras, and it is passible, contrary to Aristotle.
Furthermore, if the distinction is admitted, so that the intellect and the soul are two different substances, then suffering, feeling, any sensation of taste, and action and movement will belong only to one of the two, and to the other will belong rest and calm and stupor and it will be no cause; either the soul is useless or the intellect is useless. And if one can attribute all of these things to both of them, then they are one and Democritus is correct to remove all differentiation between the two, and is it to be asked in what way can the two be one, either from a confusion of the two substances or by a disposition of the one? We maintain that the intellect is compounded with the soul, and is not a different substance, but it is like the agent of the substance.Footnote 37
The only passages in Aristotle’s extant corpus on which Tertullian could be relying for this assessment of Aristotle’s views are De an. 413b25–30 and 430a17–23, which contain respectively Aristotle’s tentative proposal that intellect may be a different kind of soul, and the well-known passage regarding the separability of nous poiêtikos. In particular, the latter passage may seem at first glance to be Tertullian’s source (430a17–23):
καὶ οὗτος ὁ νοῦς χωριστὸς καὶ ἀπαθὴς καὶ ἀμιγής, τῇ οὐσίᾳ ὢν ἐνέργϵια· ἀϵὶ γὰρ τιμιώτϵρον τὸ ποιοῦν τοῦ πάσχοντος καὶ ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς ὕλης. [τὸ δ’ αὐτό ἐστιν ἡ κατ’ ἐνέργϵιαν ἐπιστήμη τῷ πράγματι· ἡ δὲ κατὰ δύναμιν χρόνῳ προτέρα ἐν τῷ ἑνί, ὅλως δὲ οὐδὲ χρόνῳ, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὁτὲ μὲν νοϵῖ ὁτὲ δ’ οὐ νοϵῖ]. χωρισθϵὶς δ’ ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθ’ ὅπϵρ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιον …
Intellect in this sense [that is, active] is separable, impassive and unmixed, since it is essentially an activity; for the agent is always superior to the patient, and the originating cause to the matter. Actual knowledge is identical with its object. Potential is prior in time to actual knowledge in the individual, but in general it is not prior in time. Intellect does not think intermittently. When isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting …Footnote 38
It seems unlikely, though, that Tertullian (of all our reporters) would put the effort into reading these texts of Aristotle in such a kind or nuanced manner. Moreover, there are clear points that demonstrate that the above-mentioned De anima passages in Aristotle are not parallel to Tertullian’s. What is missing from Aristotle’s De anima passages, which would make a potential parallel evident, is the claim that intellect is divine, which Tertullian attributes to Aristotle: ‘that divine one which he considers to be impassible and which he removes from all association with the soul (anima)’. For such a view, one would have to assume that Tertullian is not only relying on Aristotle’s De anima, but creatively synthesizing it with passages from, for example, Metaphysics 12, which indicate God as being intellect, and therefore one might call intellect ‘divine’. Yet Metaphysics 12 offers no explicit statement that the human intellect is divine. More plausibly, Tertullian draws on the claim in the Nicomachean Ethics about the divinity of intellect. Yet again, this passage states only the following regarding the intellect: ‘If then the intellect is something divine in comparison with man, so is the life of the intellect divine in comparison with human life.’Footnote 39
While this statement endorses the view that the human intellect is divine, it contains no kind of explicit explanation of the division between soul and intellect which separates soul and intellect—such as the one Tertullian provides with much elaboration in his presentation of Aristotle’s views in De an. 12. The crux of the point which Tertullian makes in his own text is different from what Aristotle entertains in his De anima: Tertullian asserts that the intellect is separate from the soul while in the De anima Aristotle states that intellect is (potentially) separable from (supposedly) the individual. While the language is similar, the point being made has a different nuance. Indeed, Tertullian’s explanation of this distinction between soul and intellect is not explicit in the text of Aristotle’s De anima, by which Aristotle could mean merely that the kind of soul which is rational is separable, as he indeed intimates at De an. 413b25–30, saying that the intellect may be a further class of the soul. Conversely, if Tertullian were looking at the more precise distinction which Aristotle makes between active and passive intellect in De an. 430a 17–23, Tertullian’s argument would make no sense: here, Aristotle would be able to respond that there is a way by which the intellect may be affected towards knowledge, namely via the passive intellect.
This is all to say that while one could perhaps argue that the more general statements about the superiority and immortality of the intellect in Origen and Clement could be derived from the De anima, or perhaps from the Nicomachean Ethics, it seems quite unlikely that Tertullian’s more detailed account is a reporting of views contained in Aristotle’s treatises, since we find no such views rendered explicitly in any of Aristotle’s extant works.
CONCLUSION
The goal of this article has been to resolve a long-standing—or rather long-abandoned—debate about the question of a division between soul and intellect in Aristotle’s lost Eudemus by turning to the early Christian reception of Aristotle. Central here has been bringing into play a synthesizing reading of three early figures of the Patristic period: Tertullian, Clement and Origen, whose views are confirmed in the later Neoplatonic writings of Iamblichus and Themistius (and more gently implied by both Cicero and Ps.-Simplicius).
Of the three belonging to the Patristic period, however, Tertullian’s comment proves all-important—not only in so far as it allows us to confirm and contextualize the passing comments made by Clement and Origen (and indeed in Origen only anonymously), but in so far as Tertullian’s analysis of Aristotle’s views is long and detailed in distinguishing soul from intellect. It is therefore an invaluable source, allowing a substantial step forward in reconstructing the lost views of Aristotle. Such an account has far-reaching consequences with regard to the supposed development of Aristotle’s thought according to which the dialogue represents only an early phase and presented views which Aristotle later rejects. If this reconstruction is correct, the Eudemus argued for the immortality of intellect, not of soul, and this does not contradict the De anima. Rather, it provides but one possible way of reading the difficult lines of De an. 430a14–25. This brings us to a second point: if again Tertullian’s comment is to be accepted as an authentic representation of a view which Aristotle put forth in the Eudemus, and if we cast aside the assumption of a development of Aristotle’s philosophical positions, such position would undermine the view that the goal of the De anima is to introduce some single ‘external’ agent intellect (namely, God) who alone is immortal—rather we may understand De an. 430a14–25 as simply indicating the immortality of the higher part of our soul: intellect.
Tertullian’s account illuminates the reception of Aristotle in the Patristic period, pointing as it does to the possible source material for Clement and Origen as well. This is particularly important with respect to Origen, whose use of Aristotle is much less explicit than Clement’s. The contrast between Clement and Origen with respect to their use of Aristotle has indeed perplexed scholars.Footnote 40 It seems peculiar that a man as learned in the philosophy of the Greeks as Origen, a point which Porphyry readily concedes, would not have been interested in the ideas of Aristotle beyond definitions of words.Footnote 41 Yet if Origen’s claim about intellect alone being the immortal principle should be taken as a reference to Aristotle, then we uncover a new way of thinking also about Origen’s method of receiving ideas taken from Aristotle’s works, namely that he does so without referencing Aristotle explicitly.
This brings us to a final point regarding more generally the influence of Aristotle’s lost works during the early Patristic period. Current collections of fragments tend to favour the later Neoplatonic reception or the pre-Christian works of figures such as Cicero or Plutarch, while the Church Fathers are often omitted. This is a missed opportunity—granted that looking to the Patristic period is more complex because the reports which we may dig out of Tertullian or Clement are harder to spot in comparison with, for example, Themistius’ explicit reference to the Eudemus. Yet, if it is the case that figures who live before the death of Alexander of Aphrodisias in c. a.d. 250 (the date commonly held as the cut-off point for the circulation of Aristotle’s dialogues) have the best access to Aristotle’s dialogues,Footnote 42 the early Patristic period should be of critical importance.
There is indeed a further problem with a preference for later Neoplatonic sources. In the list of fragments of Aristotle’s Eudemus in the published collections, every fragment which provides strictly philosophical content, rather than relating stories or myths told in the dialogue (as we find in Cicero and Plutarch), is provided by later Neoplatonists. These reports are not only one step removed from Aristotle, but they are also (with the exception of Proclus) all removed from Aristotle and mediated through essentially one source: Alexander of Aphrodisias. More importantly, the late antique commentators (Themistius, Pseudo-Simplicius, Elias) have an approach to reading the lost works of Aristotle which resembles the developmental view of Jaeger. They wish to see a Platonism in Aristotle’s dialogues—yet they extend this Platonism to Aristotle’s treatises as well. Relying then on the late antique commentators skews the picture of the dialogues by either emphasizing or exaggerating Aristotle’s endorsement of and harmony with Platonism. The Christians of the Patristic period do not have such commitments, and thereby their reports of Aristotle—although more difficult to discern—are of utmost value as they provide not only new content, but a new context against which we may evaluate reports found in other historical periods and philosophical schools. Interest in Aristotle’s lost writings and efforts in reconstructing them have reached a kind of stalemate in the past fifty years; a study of Aristotle’s influence on the Church Fathers offers a path forward.
