² 1 Cor. 2:6–7 (NRSV).

³ For example, Martin, Dale, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 37, 59–61Google Scholar. Several studies, including some recent ones, have looked closely at Paul's knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy, while others have compared Pauline communities to philosophical communities. For example, Malherbe, Abraham, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1989Google Scholar); Malherbe, Abraham, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987)Google Scholar; Meeks, Wayne, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, Paul and the Stoics (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2000)Google Scholar; Stowers, Stanley, “Does Pauline Christianity Resemble a Hellenistic Philosophy?” in Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, ed., Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2001)Google Scholar.

⁴ For a review of twentieth-century scholarship up to the 1980s, see Johnson, E. Elizabeth, The Function of Apocalyptic and Wisdom Traditions in Romans 9–11, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 109 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 23–29Google Scholar. A more recent discussion can be found in Witherington, Ben E. III, Jesus the Sage (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994)Google Scholar.

⁵ Brown, Peter, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Toward a Christian Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), 36–37Google Scholar.

⁶ Ibid., 39.

⁷ See 1 Cor. 1:18–21.

⁸ See Gal. 3:27–28.

⁹ Tertullian, Praescr. 7: quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? Quid academiae et ecclesiae? See Irenaeus Haer. 2.14.

¹⁰ In this paper, I refrain from using the terms “pagan” and “paganism” when referring to the Greek philosophers. It is not a self-designation, but rather a Christian description of the other that developed in the western empire in the fourth century. In the context of the present discussion, it would be confusing and inappropriate because it is an all-encompassing term that included all non-Christians and non-Jews, with no distinction of social or intellectual location. Carrying the original semantic connotation of the term (“peasant,” “rustic,” “unlearned”), it was used to class both philosopher and peasant together on the basis of religious allegiance. I have opted to call the non-Christian philosophers “Greeks” (and Neoplatonists, when the context warrants more specificity). This is a self-descriptive term, found both in their own writings and in Christian texts, which “was endowed with the same metaphysical oecumenicity that Christianity claimed for itself” by those who considered themselves as such (Athanassiadi, Polymnia and Frede, Michael, eds., Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], 6Google Scholar). I am using the terms “Greek” and “Christian” to refer to the parties of an elite intellectual class within the same cultural world, who were struggling to negotiate and transform it in different directions. For a discussion of the use of the terms “pagan,” “heathen,” and “Hellene” in the study of pagan and Christian monotheism, see Athanassiadi and Frede, Pagan Monotheism, 1–8.

¹¹ Bourdieu, Pierre, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 82–83Google Scholar.

¹² See, for example, Goldhill, Simon, Being Greek Under Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Swain, Simon, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996)Google Scholar; Whitmarsh, Tim, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

¹³ Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 5. See also Schmitz, Thomas, Bildung und Macht: zur sozialen und politischen Funktion der zweiten Sophistik in der griechischen Welt der Kaiserzeit (Munich: Beck, 1997), esp. 26–31Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Urbano, Arthur, Lives in Competition: Biographical Literature and the Struggle for Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 2005)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Nasrallah, Laura, “Mapping the World: Justin, Tatian, Lucian, and the Second Sophistic,” Harvard Theological Review 98:3 (July 2005): 283–314Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Ibid., 299.

¹⁷ Ibid., 307.

¹⁸ Tertullian, Pall. 5.4: secessi de populo.

¹⁹ Ibid., 6.1: melior iam te philosophia dignata est ex quo christianum vestire coepisti.

²⁰ Basil, Ep. 340.

²¹ I am thankful to Peter Brown for sharing this perspective.

²² For the argument that the Athenian Academy ceased to function as an institution with a continuous succession by the first century b.c.e., see Glucker, John, Antiochus and the Late Academy (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978)Google Scholar.

²³ G. R. Boys-Stones, Post-Hellenistic Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press), 102–104. This excellent study considers the Platonism of the early centuries of the common era as an entirely new philosophical movement and explores how these new Platonists, responding to the demise of the Hellenistic schools, constructed a Platonist narrative of the transmission of truth based on a Stoic theory of primitive wisdom.

²⁴ For the text, see Des Places, É, Numénius: Fragments (Paris: Le Belles letters, 1973), frag. 24. 47–51Google Scholar.

²⁵ Ibid., frag. 24.12. For the reference to Pentheus, see frag. 24.71–72.

²⁶ Ibid., frag. 24.66–70 (my translation).

²⁷ Hopkins, Keith, “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6:2 (summer 1998): 208–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ According to Hopkins, less than 2 percent of the adult male population of the Roman empire was “sophisticated literates.” Christian intellectuals would have made up about the same proportion, or slightly higher, among the Christian population, and should be considered as a party within the overall 2 percent of the Roman intellectual elite: Hopkins, “Christian Number,” 206–211.

²⁹ Watts, Edward, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Of the more than sixty fragments and testimonia of Numenius that have been preserved, twenty-six are in Eusebius, eight are in Porphyry, and five are in Origen. Of the Neoplatonists after Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus are the sources for Numenius. See Des Places, Numenius, 147–149.

³¹ Vit. Plot. 3. See Dillon, John, The Middle Platonists: A Study of Platonism, 80 b.c. to a.d. 220 (London: Duckworth, 1977)Google Scholar: “It looks as if, in the person of Ammonius, Plotinus came into contact with the ‘Neopythagorean underground’” (381). Porphyry reports that the treatises of Numenius the Platonist were read aloud and discussed in Plotinus's lectures: “But it was far from his way to follow any of these authors blindly; he took a personal, original view, applying Ammonius’ method to the investigation of every problem” (Vit. Plot. 14). Some of Plotinus's critics even accused him of plagiarizing Numenius, a charge vehemently rebuked by his students. Amelius, who had worked extensively on the works of Numenius while studying with Plotinus, defended his teacher from these charges with a work titled The Difference between the Doctrines of Plotinus and Numenius (Vit. Plot. 17). At Hist. eccl. 6.19.5–8, Eusebius cites the testimony of Porphyry, who wrote in his polemic against Origen in his lost work Against the Christians, that Origen had been an “auditor” (ἀκρoατής) of Ammonius. In the same passage, Porphyry also remarks that Origen, “the very man whom I happened to meet when I was very young,” was well-read in the major works of Greek philosophy, including Plato and Numenius. He admits that Ammonius had been a Christian but had abandoned this way for the philosophical life, a claim that Eusebius rejects (6.19.9–10). Porphyry further contrasts Ammonius and Origen: whereas Ammonius had been raised as a Christian but abandoned Christianity for wisdom and philosophy, Origen, who had been educated in Greek learning, continued to cling to Christianity, thereby negating any claim he might have to the pedigree of Ammonius. Much scholarly debate has surrounded the identity and number of Origens and Ammonii named in these texts, a debate that F. M. Schroeder has characterized as “prosopographical schizophrenia” (“Ammonius Saccas,” ANRW II.36.1: 504). In a classic treatment of the question, Dörrie, H. (“Ammonios, der Lehrer Plotins,” Hermes 83 [1955]: 439–477Google Scholar) argued that there were two Ammonii in question, one the teacher of Plotinus, the other a teacher of Origen, whom Porphyry had confused. M. Edwards, who follows Dörrie, (“Ammonius, Teacher of Origen,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44:2 [April 1993]: 169–181)Google Scholar, identifies the Ammonius who taught Origen with an otherwise unknown Alexandria Peripatetic named in Vit. Plot. 20. I do not think the evidence necessitates such a distinction, pace Dörrie and Edwards. While it must be admitted that the evidence is somewhat inconclusive, there has been a tendency to multiply the number of people bearing the same names within a relatively small circle of intellectuals as a way to avoid mixing Greek (read, pagan) and Christian teachers and students. What we seem to have in this textual debate between Porphyry and Eusebius are the claims of the intellectual heirs of Ammonius (Porphyry through Plotinus, and Eusebius through Origen) to the direction and ownership of the philosophical renewal.

³² Athanasius, , Vit. Ant. 80 (The Life of Antony: The Coptic Life and the Greek Life, trans. Vivian, Tim and Athanassakis, Apostolos [Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2003])Google Scholar. Note that in the Corinthian correspondence, Paul never denotes “the wisdom of the world” as specifically “Greek.” But here, in the Vit. Ant., the Apostle's words are understood as a dichotomy between Christian faith and Greek philosophy. The Greek critical text is that of Bartelink, G. J. M., Vie d'Antoine, Sources chrétiennes 400 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1994)Google Scholar.

³³ See Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 75.

³⁴ Schmitz, Bildung und Macht, 28.

³⁵ Swartz, David, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 75Google Scholar.

³⁶ Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 6.

³⁷ Bourdieu, Cultural Production, 5. As Swartz explains, habitus comprises deeply internalized master dispositions that tend to function unconsciously and are “fairly resistant” to change (Culture and Power, 101–107).

³⁸ Schmitz, Bildung und Macht, 29.

³⁹ Momigliano, Arnaldo, The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 12Google Scholar; Cox, Patricia, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 6Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Hägg, Tomas and Rousseau, Philip, eds., Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Peripatetics, in particular, contributed to the development of the biographical genre. Among the Peripatetics who continued this tradition, Jerome (De viris illustribus 2.821) names several, including Hermippus, Satyrus, Antigonus, and Sotion, most, if not all, of whom seem to have written works of collective biography. Sotion composed a work titled “The Succession of Philosophers”: see Momigliano, Development, 65–76.

⁴¹ The Christian authors of Late Antiquity knew and understood Plutarch's metaphor and used it to express the purpose of their own works. For example, Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Life of Constantine, also compared his role as author to that of the “human painter,” dedicating a “verbal icon” (διὰ λóγων ɛἰκóνα) to the memory of the deceased emperor (Vit. Const. 1.10). Likewise, Gregory of Nyssa in the Life of Moses used the language of artistic production as a Platonic metaphor for the biographical enterprise in which he attempted to “sketch in outline” (τύπῳ ὑπoγραϕῆναι) the life of Moses as a model for the perfect life (Life of Moses, 1.3).

⁴² Plutarch, Alexander, 1. The analogy of the biographical text and the sculpted image was already present in previous works. Isocrates (Evagoras, 73) expressed his preference for written “likenesses of deeds and of the character” to statues.

⁴³ In a 1978 article (“Biographies of Philosophers and Rulers as Instruments of Religious Propaganda in Mediterranean Antiquity,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 16:2, 1619–1651), Charles Talbert classified bioi according to functions within what he called the “social-intellectual-spiritual milieu” of the communities that produced them. For example, bioi could serve propagandistic and didactic purposes by providing a hermeneutical framework for interpreting the texts, practices, and memory of philosophers. They could also maintain a sense of continuous authoritative tradition through lines of succession. Likewise Patricia Cox, in Biography, called attention to the way in which the literary characteristics of ancient biographies addressed sociopolitical and cultural concerns.

⁴⁴ By “philosophical bioi,” I mean those Christian and non-Christian bioi that skillfully employ explicit philosophical language and imagery, and follow the general structure of and include the tropes of classic biographical genres—birth, childhood, education, deeds that demonstrate character, works, followers, succession, etc.

⁴⁵ Both Greek and Christian authors often used the economic metaphor of “philosophy” as an inheritance or wealth. See, for example, Theodoret, Religious History 16.1 (Maron heaps up a “wealth of philosophy” [τῆς φιλoσoφίας συναθρoίζων τὸν πλoῦτoν] through his labors). See also Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina 37.22. Marinus, in the Life of Proclus, describes the philosopher Proclus's arrival in Athens as his taking possession of his rightful “inheritance,” the tradition of Platonic philosophy (Vita Procli 10). The economic imagery fits well with the economic metaphor Bourdieu uses in his theory of symbolic and cultural goods.

⁴⁶ Libanius, Ep. 170 (Autobiography and Selected Letters, trans. A. F. Norman, Loeb Classical Library 478–479, 1992). πῶς oὐκ ἂν καὶ᾽ Αρραβίῳ παιδί γε ὄντι καὶ αὐτῷ καὶ μᾶλλόν γε ἢ᾽κείνῳ; τὸ μὲν γὰρ τῶν λόγων και` παρά τῷδɛ, τò δὲ καὶ δι᾽ αι‘´ματoς oὐ παρ' ὲκɛίνω. See also Ep. 1266 (Libanii Opera, trans. R. Foerster [Teubner, 1963]): παῖδας γὰρ ɛ'´γωγɛ καλῶ τoὺς μαθητάς. Many more examples are listed in Petit, Paul, Les étudiants de Libanius (Nouvelles Éditions latines, 1957), 33–36Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Libanius, Ep. 1165 (Foerster), and other examples in Petit, Étudiants, 31.

⁴⁸ See, for example, the volume of Pierre Bourdieu, co-authored with Passeron, Jean-Claude, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, trans. Nice, Richard (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1970)Google Scholar. Bourdieu argues that education is the means by which a cultural heritage is conserved, inculcated, “consecrated” (or legitimated), and reproduced. It provides students with the necessary formation and skills that equip them to participate in cultural competition.

⁴⁹ The precise date of the composition of this section of the Hist. eccl. is debated. It is generally agreed, however, that the first seven books of the work predate Constantine, and probably the Great Persecution. See Barnes, T. D., Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 146Google Scholar, and Cameron, Averil, “Eusebius of Caesarea and the Rethinking of History,” in Gabba, Emilio (ed.), Tria Corda: Scritti in onore di Arnaldo Momigliano (Como: Edizioni New Press, 1983), 71–73Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ For example, see Hist. eccl. 6.2.14: Origen demonstrates “clear proofs (δɛίγματα) of his orthodoxy concerning the faith”; and 6.18.1: Ambrose, a Valentinian heretic, converts to “ecclesiastical orthodoxy” (τῆς ɛ'κκλησιαστικῆς o'ρθοδοξίας) upon listening to Origen.

⁵¹ After Pamphilus's death in 309, Eusebius composed a bios to memorialize him. It is no longer extant, but Eusebius refers to it several times in the Hist. eccl. (for example at 6.32.3 and 7.32.25).

⁵² See Eusebius, Martyrs of Palestine (11.1.d, long recension). According to Barnes, the longer recension was the first edition of the text published in 311, shortly after the publication of the Edict of Milan. The short recension would have been completed in 313, upon Constantine's capture of Rome. The longer recension is preserved in Syriac in the manuscript tradition. The shorter recension is included in four Greek manuscripts of the Hist. eccl. immediately after book 8. See Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 149.

⁵³ Athanasian authorship has not gone without challenge, though the current scholarly consensus recognizes the hand of Athanasius behind the extant Greek version of the Vit. Ant., as either author or redactor. I do not believe there is any compelling reason on textual, linguistic, or theological grounds to call this into serious doubt. Antony died in 356. Gregory Nazianzen credited Athanasius with the writing of the Vit. Ant. about 380: “He wrote the Life of the divine Antony in the guise of a monastic rule in the form of a narrative” (Or. 21.5). In De viris illustribus (ca. 392), Jerome made the same attribution: “We have from him [that is, Athanasius] … a history containing the life of the monk Antony” (87). He continues, “The monk Antony, whose life Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, expounded in a remarkable book, etc.” (88). Jerome also attributed the Latin translation to Evagrius who, he added, translated from the Greek version of Athanasius (125). Fifth-century authors also named Athanasius as author (Rufinus, Hist. Eccl. 1.8; Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii, prol.; Palladius Hist. Laus., 8.6; Socrates Hist. Eccl., 1.21 and 4.23). Athanasian authorship was first questioned in the sixteenth century by Reformers, mostly on the basis that no Greek text of the work was known. The publication of the Syriac text in 1980 by Draguet (La vie primitive de S. Antoine conservée en Syriaque) and his theory that it was a translation of a copticizing Greek original, different from the extant Greek version, seemed to preclude the possibility that Athanasius was the author. In his revision of Draguet, Barnes, T. D. (“Angel of Light or Mystic Initiate? The Problem of the Life of Anthony,” Journal of Theological Studies 37:2 [1986] 353–368)CrossRefGoogle Scholar posited an original Coptic version behind the Syriac instead of a copticizing Greek version. On the basis of vocabulary, Barnes argues that Athanasius could not have been the redactor of the extant version, which was made for a more urban Greco-Roman audience (“Angel,” 367). Tetz hypothesized that the extant Greek version was a reworking of an original written by bishop Serapion of Thumis. He concluded this on the basis of the allusion to the author's source of information mentioned in the prologue (Vit. Ant., pro. 5). Louth, Lorenz, Bartelink, Brakke, and Brennan all accept Athanasian authorship. In a study of the Syriac version, Brakke concluded that it was a fifth-century revision of the extant Greek written by Athanasius. Bartelink lists a number of parallels in ideas and content between the Vit. Ant. and the apologetic works Contra gentes and De incarnatione to conclude that Athanasius was indeed the author of the bios. For a more detailed treatment of the various theories, see Bartelink, Vie d'Antoine, 29–36. In my own discussion of the work, I adopt the view of Bartelink. As I hope my discussion will demonstrate, there are enough similarities between Athanasius's philosophical views in Contra gentes, De incarnatione, and Vit. Ant. to suggest that we are dealing with the same author. This is a view held also by Anatolios, Khaled (Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought [New York: Routledge, 1998], 166, and n. 27)Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Bartelink, Vie d'Antoine 47.

⁵⁵ For the contributions of Rousseau (“Antony as Teacher in the Greek Life,” 89–109) and Samuel Rubenson (“Philosophy and Simplicity: The Problem of Classical Education in Early Christian Biography,” 110–139), see Hägg and Rousseau, Greek Biography and Panegyric.

⁵⁶ All agree that these companion works were written before 338, when Athanasius returned from his first exile. The apparent absence of any explicit allusion to the Arian crisis led some to believe that the work was very early (Winden, J. C. M. Van, “On the Date of Athanasius' Apologetic Treatises,” Vigiliae Christianae 29:4 [December 1975] 291–295CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Kannengiesser, Charles (“La date de l'Apologie d'Athanase ‘Contre les Païens’ et ‘Sur l'Incarnation du Verbe’,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 58:3 [July–September 1970] 383–423)Google Scholar held that it was written during the exile in Trier. Slusser, Michael (“Athanasius, Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione: Place and Date of Composition,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 37:1 [April 1986]: 114–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar) argued that the works were written before the exile, thus before 335. It is very probable that Athanasius used Eusebius's Theophany as a model for these works, especially in its criticism of paideia. See Thomson, R. W., trans., Athanasius: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), xxi–xxiiGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ Rubenson, “Philosophy and Simplicity,” 111.

⁵⁸ This, of course, raises the question of the relationship between the “historical Antony” and Athanasius's representation of him in the Vit. Ant. Because of space constraints, the focus of the present article is on the representation of Antony in the Vita. On the relationship to the historical Antony, Rubenson argues in The Letters of St. Antony that the letters attributed to Antony are in fact authentic and depict the ascetic as an educated “man of letters” (185) who demonstrates a familiarity with Platonism and betrays an Origenist influence. While the differences between the Antony of the letters and the Antony of the Vita are significant, there is not a complete disconnect—as will be demonstrated below, the Antony of the Vita acts as a mouthpiece for the theological and political designs of Athanasius; nevertheless, as Rubenson notes, much of the philosophical and theological background of the Vit. Ant. is shared in the letters (140). Both the self-representation of Antony and Athanasius's portrayal of him depict a Christian teacher who instructs on the basis of a philosophical interpretation of scripture. The main difference lay in how each acquired his knowledge and skills—while it seems most likely that the historical Antony would have been educated in a Coptic Christian school where both Christian and Greek literature was studied (for this possibility, see Rubenson, 109), the Antony of the Vita was “unschooled” and was instead theodidaktos, “taught by God.”

⁵⁹ Vit. Ant. 81. One is reminded of the chreia, recorded in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, relating the encounters of Alexander the Great with Diogenes the Cynic: “When he was sunning himself in the Craneum, Alexander came and stood over him and said, ‘Ask of me any boon you like.’ To which he replied, ‘Stand out of my light’” (6.38, Hicks, LCL). See also 6.32, 60, 63, 68. For Constantine at the Council, see Vit. Const. 3.10–13, in Cameron, Averil and Hall, Stuart G., eds., Life of Constantine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Like Irenaeus (Haer. 3.24), Athanasius linked Christian heresy to the study of Greek philosophy. See Meijering, E. P., Orthodoxy and Platonism in Athanasius: Synthesis or Antithesis? (Leiden:Brill, 1974) 15Google Scholar. It is also interesting to note that to distinguish Greek philosophy further from Christianity, Athanasius does not use the term “wisdom” (as Paul does) for each. In the Vit. Ant., Christian knowledge is never sophia or philosophia. It is pistis. In the apologetical works, Athanasius, alluding to 1 Cor. 1:24, refers to Christ as “the wisdom of God,” that is, the phrase is interchangeable with the concept of the Logos (Contra gentes 1.40). This wisdom of God, having become incarnate, condescended to the level of fallen humanity in order to teach it and to lead it away from idolatry and the foolish “wisdom of the Greeks” (see Inc. 15; 46.4; 48.9).

⁶¹ C. gent., 8.

⁶² See, for example, Origen, Letter to Gregory.

⁶³ Dörrie, H., “Die Vita Antonii als Geschichtsquelle,” in Nachrichten von der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen (1949): 345Google Scholar: Athanasius had a thorough knowledge of Hellenic thought; Meijering, Orthodoxy and Platonism, follows Dörrie and adds that while Athanasius uses philosophical arguments in C. gent., he only speaks negatively about Greek philosophers, even when admitting that some Platonic ideas were almost right (121, 127). Meijering also states in his commentary on C. gent. that Athanasius does not display any profound knowledge of contemporary Neo-Platonism (C. gent., 16). He cites Plato frequently (for example, at C. gent. 10.36; Inc. 2.3.2; 43.7.2) and Porphyry, “the enemy of θɛοσɛβɛία,” only once (De decr. Nic., 39.1.3). He never mentions Plotinus or Iamblichus.

⁶⁴ The details of Athanasius's early life are far too sketchy to draw any firm conclusions. In the Oration in Honor of Athanasius (Or. 21, composed ca. 380), Gregory Nazianzen wrote that the patriarch of Alexandria had received enough of a Greek education (o'λίγα τῶν ɛ'γκυκλίων φιλοσοφήσας) so as not to appear ignorant of matters he so despised and vehemently refuted. He had little time and toleration for Greek “vanities” (ματαίoις) and chose instead to devote himself to the study of the Old and New Testaments. In this way, he matured in the intellectual and ethical ways of life (Or. 21.6).

⁶⁵ Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.13–14. See note 31 above.

⁶⁶ The nature of the “catechetical school” of Alexandria and its relationship to the episcopal see of that city remain difficult problems. According to Eusebius, Bishop Demetrius designated Origen as the head of the catechetical school when he was just eighteen years old (Hist. eccl. 6.3.1). In this capacity, he most likely prepared catechumens for baptism. At the same time, it appears that Origen taught privately as a grammaticus, and eventually his private school developed into a sort of philosophical school that attracted Christian and non-Christian students. In Eusebius's account, the distinction between the catechetical school and the school of philosophy is not clear. It is often the case that he combines the two into some sort of formal ecclesiastical educational institution (probably on the model of what he knew in Caesarea) that fell under the jurisdiction of the bishop. He also co-opts Origen's “predecessors,” Clement and Pantaenus, into this “institution,” portraying their probably private and independent schools as the same “catechetical school.” For more on the schools of Alexandria and Caesarea, see Bardy, Gustave, “Aux origens de l'ecole d'Alexandria,” in Recherches de science religieuse 27 (1937)Google Scholar; Hornschuh, Manfred, “Das Leben des Origenes,” in Zeitschrift für der Kirchengeschichte 71 (1960)Google Scholar; McGuckin, John, “Caesarea Maritima as Origen Knew It,” in Origeniana Quinta: Papers of the 5th International Origen Congress, Boston College, 14–18 August 1989, ed. Daly, R. J. (Louvain, 1992), 3–25Google Scholar; van den Broek, Roelof, “The Christian ‘School’ of Alexandria in the Second and Third Centuries,” in Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity (New York: Brill, 1996), 197–205Google Scholar; van den Hoek, Annewies, “The ‘Catechetical’ School of Early Christian Alexandria,” Harvard Theological Review 90:1 (January 1997) 59–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McGuckin, John, ed., The Westminster Handbook to Origen (2004), 4–7Google Scholar, and voces “School of Alexandria” and “School of Caesarea.”

⁶⁷ Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.18.3 (Loeb translation with modifications).

⁶⁸ See van den Hoek, “‘Catechetical’ School,” 61; van den Broek, “The Christian ‘School,’” 44–47.

⁶⁹ Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.14.

⁷⁰ Watts, City and School, 169–170.

⁷¹ See Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.8.

⁷² Watts, City and School, 175–177.

⁷³ Anatolios, Athanasius, 28. The characterization of Christianity as ά'λογος, “irrational,” or “without reason,” goes back to Celsus (Origen, Contra Celsum 1.9). Christian intellectual apologists from Origen to Eusebius (Praeparatio evangelica 1.5.2) to Athanasius defended their doctrines against this charge by providing “reasonable” arguments supporting the central revealed tenets of the Christian faith, such as the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. In Inc. 41, Athanasius once again states that his purpose is to convince the Greeks of the truth of the doctrine of the incarnation by using “reasonable arguments.”

⁷⁴ C. gent. 1.3.

⁷⁵ Inc. 41.

⁷⁶ C. gent. 1.1 (trans. mine).

⁷⁷ See for example, C. gent. 1.10 (scripture is sufficient for truth); 45–46 (scripture alone, as revelation, confirms all reasonable arguments). A similar theme is expressed by Antony in his inaugural sermon to the monks: τὰς μὲν γραφὰς ι‘κανὰς ɛι‘⌢ναι πρòς διδασκαλίαν (Vit. Ant. 16.1).

⁷⁸ C. gent. 1.10 (The writings of the “blessed” [μακαρίων] teachers aid in the interpretation of scripture); 2.4 (The “holy man” [o‘ α‘′γιος] Paul as ethical model); 35.19 (The “theologians” [θɛολόγων ἀνδρῶν], including Paul, teach on the immortality of the soul, creation of the world, revelation of God, etc.).

⁷⁹ Meijering, Orthodoxy and Platonism, 107.

⁸⁰ Inc. 50.

⁸¹ Athanasius cites the Wisdom of Solomon 14:12–16 to demonstrate that the deification of the passions and the eventual fall of humanity into idolatry was explained by scripture. Cf. Romans 1:18–32. For this section of Romans understood as a narrative of “decline” explaining the origins of Greek civilization, see Stowers, Stanley, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 83–125Google Scholar.

⁸² C. gent. 13–14. These chapters attack the practice of “idolatry” as a hindrance to virtue. This argument is taken up again in Vit. Ant. 37. In Vit. Ant. 76, Antony criticizes the Greek practice of allegorizing myths. Plato also criticized the allegorical interpretation of myths (Resp. 376) and was embarrassed by the behavior of the gods (Resp. 378b–c).

⁸³ Vit. Ant. 94.2 (trans. mine).

⁸⁴ See also C. gent. 1; Ep. de Synodis 6; Ep. ad episcopos Aegypti et Libyae 4.

⁸⁵ Brakke, David, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 254–255Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ Rubenson, “Philosophy and Simplicity,” 111–113.

⁸⁷ Clarke, M. L., Higher Education in the Ancient World (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1971), 86Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ Plato, Leg. 1.643e–644b.

⁸⁹ See Watts, City and School, passim, on the history and culture of these important educational centers in the Late Antique world.

⁹⁰ It is important to emphasize that Antony is not portrayed as “illiterate,” but as unschooled. His distaste for γράμματα is a rejection of Greek schooling, not reading per se (“learning” is the sense of the word in Plato Ap. 26d). In the world of the bios, Antony refers to the practice of reading scripture (for example, Vit. Ant. 25.2). Rubenson calls the notion of the “illiterate” Antony a “late prejudice” (Letters of St. Antony, 185). Indeed, if the letters attributed to Antony are authentic, a case Rubenson makes strongly, then he was far from illiterate!

⁹¹ This is one of several passages that Rubenson has identified as having direct parallels to the biographical tradition of Pythagoras. Building on and correcting the philological approach of Reitzenstein, Richard (Das Athanasius Werk über das Leben des Antonius. Ein philologischer Beitrag zur Geschichte des Mönchtums [Heidelberg: Carl Winters, 1914])Google Scholar, Rubenson regards the Vit. Ant. as “an apologetic anti-Pythagorean … treatise.” He maintains that Athanasius had knowledge of and drew from the Pythagorean biographies of Porphyry, and perhaps Iamblichus, while at the same time engaging and criticizing the models of the “holy man” that each of these texts present on the issue of the “source” of wisdom and holiness. I think it is difficult to ascertain how much these parallels are related on a textual level and how much they are familiar tropes. While I would not limit Athanasius's polemic to one directed against Neopythagoreans, but against a broader, competing, and developing Greek philosophical tradition (which certainly had Pythagorean sympathies), I do think Rubenson is correct in reading the text as part of the larger philosophical debate of the period: Rubenson, Samuel, “Antony and Pythagoras: A Reappraisal of the Appropriation of Classical Biography in Athanasius’ Vita Antonii,” in Beyond Reception: Mutual Influences between Antique Religion, Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. Brakke, David et al. 191–208. Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006)Google Scholar.

⁹² In Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras, the founding father of philosophy is educated among the “barbarians,” collecting skills and knowledge from foreign and exotic peoples—from the Egyptians, he learned geometry; from the Phoenicians, the science of numbers and mathematics; from the Magi, the rites of the gods; and from the Chaldeans, he learned the art of contemplating the sky. Thus, Pythagoras was a collector of scattered wisdom who organized a complete Greek system: see Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 6–7.

⁹³ Anatolios, Athanasius 189.

⁹⁴ C. gent. 34: “For just as they turned away from God with their mind and invented gods out of nothing, so they can rise towards God with the mind of their soul and again turn back towards him.”

⁹⁵ C. gent. 29.5.

⁹⁶ Anatolios, Athanasius 181.

⁹⁷ Ibid., 194.

⁹⁸ See Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 104–105, where the author discusses examples in Philostratus and Longus.

⁹⁹ It is through prayer and ascetical practices that Antony is open to, receives, and cooperates with the divine power of Christ, his “co-worker” (συνɛργός), and turns his mind back to the contemplation of God that was the original activity of Adam: see Anatolios, Athanasius 189.

¹⁰⁰ Athena describes Odysseus in this way at Od. 13.332; Plato at Leg. 747b—mathematics awakes the dull and makes them “shrewd.”

¹⁰¹ For discussion of a similar strategy in Lucian, see Nasrallah, “Mapping,” 295–296.

¹⁰² Cf. 1 Cor. 11:1; 3 John 11.

¹⁰³ Cf. C. gent. 8.

¹⁰⁴ Swain, Hellenism and Empire, 64.

¹⁰⁵ τò μὲν γὰρ παρ' η‘μῖν λɛγόμɛνον ἀνδρɛίας ɛ'στι` τɛκμήριον, και` καταφρονήσɛως θανάτου γνω´ρισμα˙ τὰ δὲ ὑμɛ´τɛρα ἀσɛλγɛίας ɛ'στι πάθη. Cf. De incarnatione 47.

¹⁰⁶ The echoes of Rom. 1 are abundantly evident.

¹⁰⁷ Vit. Ant. 75.

¹⁰⁸ At C. gent. 2, Athanasius describes Adam as a philosopher, created for contemplation and for knowing likeness to God.

¹⁰⁹ At C. gent. 45b–46, Athanasius argues that the revelation found in scripture confirms reasonable arguments.

¹¹⁰ Vit. Ant. 79.

¹¹¹ Bartelink, Vie d'Antoine, 95.

¹¹² See Augustine, Conf. 8.6.