Creatio ex Nihilo

246 Pages·2015·4.18 MB·English

by  James Noel Hubler

UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff PPeennnnssyyllvvaanniiaa
SScchhoollaarrllyyCCoommmmoonnss
Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations
1995
CCrreeaattiioo eexx NNiihhiilloo:: MMaatttteerr,, CCrreeaattiioonn,, aanndd tthhee BBooddyy iinn CCllaassssiiccaall aanndd
CChhrriissttiiaann PPhhiilloossoopphhyy TThhrroouugghh AAqquuiinnaass
James Noel Hubler
University of Pennsylvania
Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations
Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Ancient Philosophy
Commons, Christianity Commons, History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, Other
Classics Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of
Religion Commons
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Hubler, James Noel, "Creatio ex Nihilo: Matter, Creation, and the Body in Classical and Christian
Philosophy Through Aquinas" (1995). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 980.
https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/980
This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/980
For more information, please contact [email protected].
CCrreeaattiioo eexx NNiihhiilloo:: MMaatttteerr,, CCrreeaattiioonn,, aanndd tthhee BBooddyy iinn CCllaassssiiccaall aanndd CChhrriissttiiaann
PPhhiilloossoopphhyy TThhrroouugghh AAqquuiinnaass
AAbbssttrraacctt
Creatio ex nihilo marked a major redefinition of the material cosmos by the Christian apologists of the
late second century, Tatian and Theophilus of Antioch. Other scholars have properly assigned the origin of
creatio ex nihilo to these thinkers, notably Gerhard May and David Winston, but the reasons for the
teaching' s appearance remained unexplained. By examining the Classical philosophical views of matter,
the challenge that Greek views of matter raised for the Christian message become evident. For Stoic,
Platonist, and Peripatetic alike matter imposed the natural necessity of corruption upon the body. The
moral limitations imposed by matter made a bodily resurrection seem offensive. Christian hopes for a
resurrection seemed misguided both intellectually and morally. The Christian apologists of the late
second century struck back by redefining matter as a creature of God, which he directed to his purpose.
The religious claims of the Christian apologists signalled a major philosophical change. Within a century,
Plotinus developed a rigorous monistic system of emanation within the Greek philosophical tradition. In
his system, even matter was derived from the One. Nevertheless, because it was wholly indefinite, matter
remained evil and the sage eschewed it. Augustine gave creatio ex nihilo its first careful philosophical
consideration in the Christian tradition. Turning the valences of the Classical world on their heads, he
argued that as something capable of being formed into good things, matter itself was good and a
creature of the good God. The next major philosophical consideration of creatio ex nihilo in the Christian
tradition came at the hands of Aquinas, who taught that creatio ex nihilo meant that nothing was
presupposed to God's creative act, not matter, forms, natures, essences, ideas, laws of nature, or a
hierarchy of being. The creature depended entirely on God's creative act. Despite the great dependence of
the creature upon God, Aquinas taught that the creature still bore a genuine likeness to God, in his highly
developed teaching of participation.
DDeeggrreeee TTyyppee
Dissertation
DDeeggrreeee NNaammee
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
GGrraadduuaattee GGrroouupp
Religious Studies
FFiirrsstt AAddvviissoorr
James F. Ross
KKeeyywwoorrddss
Thomas Aquinas, saint, religion and theology
SSuubbjjeecctt CCaatteeggoorriieess
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity | Ancient Philosophy | Christianity | History of
Christianity | History of Religion | Other Classics | Philosophy | Religious Thought, Theology and
Philosophy of Religion
This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/980
CREATIO EX NIHILO: MATTER, CREATION, AND THE BODY IN
CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY THROUGH AQUINAS
}. Noel Hubler
A DISSERTATION
in
Religious Studies
Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
1995
Supervisor of Dissertation
/c -
Graduate Group Chair
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
COPYRIGHT
JAMES NOEL HUBLER
1995
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
tfs
V
mms
mein
HI
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
So many have helped me along the way, that now memory proves the
poorest aide of all.
First I would like to thank the Religious Studies Department as a whole,
both faculty and students, for providing a sympathetic yet dynamic home for
growth and learning. I would particularly like to thank Ann Matter for laboring
so aggressively to see that it remains that way. I also thank her for the
personal and academic guidance she provided along the way.
I wish to thank my advisor, James Ross, for the many hours of intense
discussion and supervision he provided over the years. As an intellectual
challenge to his students, he knows no equal.
I would like to thank Robert Kraft for his kind support shown throughout
the years and the careful reading and welcome insight he provided this project.
I am extremely grateful to Amy Ayres for the proof reading and
suggestions she offered so willingly. I thank my sister, Kathryn Hubler for the
careful copy-editing and encouragement that she performs with equal skill.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge my wife,An, and children, Hannah,
Samuel, and Nathaniel, who shared the burdens of student life with me.
Their smiles and cheer are more than anyone could desire.
iv
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
ABSTRACT
CREATIO EX NIHILO: MATTER, COSMOS, AND THE BODY IN CLASSICAL AND
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY THROUGH AQUINAS
J. NOEL HUBLER
JAMES F. ROSS
Creatio ex nihilo marked a major redefinition of the material cosmos by the Christian
apologists of the late second century, Tatian and Theophilus of Antioch. Other scholars
have properly assigned the origin of creatio ex nihilo to these thinkers, notably Gerhard
May and David Winston, but the reasons for the teaching’s appearance remained unexplained.
By examining the Classical philosophical views of matter, the challenge that Greek views
of matter raised for the Christian message become evident. For Stoic, Platonist, and
Peripatetic alike matter imposed the natural necessity of corruption upon the body. The
moral limitations imposed by matter made a bodily resurrection seem offensive. Christian
hopes for a resurrection seemed misguided both intellectually and morally. The Christian
apologists of the late second century struck back by redefining matter as a creature of God,
which he directed to his purpose. The religious claims of the Christian apologists signalled
a major philosophical change. Within a century, Plotinus developed a rigorous monistic
system of emanation within the Greek philosophical tradition. In his system, even matter
was derived from the One. Nevertheless, because it was wholly indefinite, matter remained
evil and the sage eschewed it. Augustine gave creatio ex nihilo its first careful philosophical
consideration in the Christian tradition. Turning the valences of the Classical world on
their heads, he argued that as something capable of being formed into good things, matter
itself was good and a creature of the good God. The next major philosophical consideration
of creatio ex nihilo in the Christian tradition came at the hands of Aquinas, who taught that
creatio ex nihilo meant that nothing was presupposed to God’s creative act, not matter,
forms, natures, essences, ideas, laws of nature, or a hierarchy of being. The creature
depended entirely on God’s creative act. Despite the great dependence of the creature upon
God, Aquinas taught that the creature still bore a genuine likeness to God, in his highly
developed teaching of participation.
v
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Monism: Egyptian and Milesian 1
Chapter 2. Matter in Plato, Aristotle, and Their Successors:
Eternal realm of change or passing illusion 26
Chapter 3. Cosmogony and Material in the Near East,
Biblical Texts, and Early Judaism 72
Chapter 4. Early Church: The origins of creatio ex nihilo 102
Chapter 5. Plotinus and Augustine: Evil and the generation
of matter 127
Chapter 6. Being and Difference: Creatio ex nihilo and
participation in Aquinas 156
Appendix Hieroglyph and Cuneiform, Texts and
Transliterations 205
Bibliography 211
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 1, Monism: Egyptian and Milesian
In the sixth century B.C.E. in Miletus on the southwestern coast of Asia
Minor, Greek speculation about the origin of the world took a dramatic turn.
Previously Hesiod1 and the near contemporaries Pherecydes2 and
Akusilaos3 explained the origin of the world in terms of anthropomorphic
genealogy. Breaking with tradition, the Milesian cosmologists, Thales,
Anaximander, and Anaximenes adopted from Egypt a single, divine, yet
undifferentiated material source which produced the world by its own physical
transformations and continued as an immanent force in the world. For Thales
the source of the world and life was water; for Anaximander, the infinite (see
below); and for Anaximenes, air. It is hard to overestimate the impact the
new teaching had on Greek thought. The archaic genealogical approach
assumed that Zeus and the Olympians had received their powers by overcoming
their parents, rendering the origins of the world to the stuff of ancient lore.4
The new Milesian metaphysics presumed cosmic birth from still active physical
’Hesiod traced the lineage of all gods and nature to Gaia, Tartaros, and Chaos. For
Hesiod Chaos was a gap. Etymologically it is related to chasm. On this basis, Cornford related
the cosmology in Hesiod to other cosmogonic myths of separation of heaven and earth (in
Principium Sapientiae: the origins of Greek philosophical thought, New York: Harper, 1965;
p. 194f.). The difficulty with Cornford's interpretation is that heaven, Ouranos, does not arise
until the second generation, as the offspring of Earth. It would seem better to take the original
Chaos as the gap between earth and Tartaros. The first act of creation was the separation of
Earth and Tartaros. Their separation produced Eros (the fourth and final god listed at the
beginning) and the subsequent birth of the other gods.
^Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. Walther Kranz, Berlin:
Weidmann, 1951, 7.B.I.
’Diels, 9.B.1
4Hesiod's succession myth is the most developed example. In the Theogony, Kronos
seizes power from his father Ouranos, as does Zeus from Kronos. Zeus also needs to overcome
the Titans, vestiges of the earlier powers. The notion of succession is presupposed by Homer,
who presents the Olympians as younger gods, although without narration of their rise to power.
References to the succession myth can be found in Pherecydes who mentions the Titanomachy
(Diels, 7.B.4) and in Akusilaos who mentions the castration of Ouranos (Diels, 9.B.20).
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
principles allowing the study of the cosmogony to be part of the study of every
day phenomena. It had the reciprocal effect of raising the importance of study
of natural phenomena to unprecedented levels.
Although crucially important to Greek philosophy, the Egyptian
contribution has yet to be recognized because no study of adequate scope has
been undertaken on the relevant Egyptians texts. G. S. Kirk made brief
comparisons of Thales' work to Egyptian and Babylonian cosmogonies which
began from water and Egyptian cosmology in which earth floated upon waters.5
Even Kirk's general and modest comparisons to things Near Eastern have
drawn a skeptical response. In the Cambridge Ancient History, T. F. R. G.
Braun has argued that the difficulty of translation made exchange of ideas
between Greeks and Egyptians difficult and that if communication had occurred,
"it is hard to believe that Greek speculative thought would have gained."6
In similar arguments, G. E. R. Lloyd charges that contacts between Greek and
Near Eastern thought remain an "assumption."7 He further objects to drawing
comparisons between myth and philosophy, arguing that myth does not
influence philosophy as philosophy: The philosopher's "theses are arrived at,
and supported or defended, by reasoned argument and (where appropriate)
appeals to evidence."8
5 G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1971, p. 90. Other commentators have compared Greek mythologists to
Babylonian and Egyptian predecessors. Cornford compared Thales to Hesiod and Hesiod to the
Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, p. 248f. W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek
Philosophy, v.l, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962, compared both the Orphics'
and Hesiod's cosmogony to the undifferentiated waters of Babylon and Egypt, p. 68.
6T. F. R. G. Braun, 'The Greeks in Egypt," Cambridge Ancient History, III.3, 2nd ed., J.
Boardman and N. G. L. Hammond, edd., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, p.55.
7G. E. R. Lloyd, 'The Debt of Greek Philosophy and Science to the Ancient Near East,"
Pedilavium, 1982, p. 5. The article was republished in G. Lloyd, Methods and Problems in
Greek Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 278-298.
8G. Lloyd, p. 10.
2
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.