Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity

220 Pages·1999·1.8 MB·English

by  Polymnia Athanassiadi

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Pagan Monotheism in
Late Antiquity
edited by
Polymnia Athanassiadi
and
Michael Frede
CLARENDON PRESS • OXFORD
1999
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3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Pagan monotheism in late antiquity
edited by P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Monotheism—History. 2. Rome—Religion. I. Athanassiadi,
Polymnia. II. Frede, Michael.
BL221.P34 1999 291.2'11'0937—dc21 98-37019
ISBN 0-19-815252-3
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset in Minion
by Regent Typesetting, London
Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by
Biddles Ltd., Guildford & King’s Lynn
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Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction 1
polymnia athanassiadi and michael frede
1 Towards Monotheism 21
m. l. west
2 Monotheism and Pagan Philosophy in Later Antiquity 41
michael frede
3 Monotheism in the Gnostic Tradition 69
john dillon
4 The Cult of Theos Hypsistos between Pagans, Jews, and
Christians 81
stephen mitchell
5 The Chaldaean Oracles:Theology and Theurgy 149
polymnia athanassiadi
6 The Significance of the Speech of Praetextatus 185
wolf liebeschuetz
Index 207
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List of Contributors
Polymnia Athanassiadi is professor of late antique history at the
University of Athens; her most recent publication is Damascius, The
Philosophical History:Text with Translation and Notes(Athens, 1999).
JohnDillonis regius professor of Greek at Trinity College, Dublin, and
a member of the Royal Irish Academy. His most recent book is Alcinous:
The Handbook of Platonism(Oxford, 1993).
Michael Frede is professor of the history of philosophy at the
University of Oxford. He is, with G. Patzig, author of a commentary on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics Zeta.
Wolf Liebeschuetz is professor emeritus of Nottingham University
and a Fellow of the British Academy. His most recent book is Barbarians
and Bishops(Oxford, 1990; repr. 1998).
Stephen Mitchell is professor in the Department of Classics and
Ancient History at the University of Wales, Swansea. He is author of
Anatolia:Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor (Oxford, 1993) and of
Pisidian Antioch:The Site and its Monuments(London, 1998).
M. L. Westis a senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and
the author of many critical editions of Greek poets, and books and
articles about Greek literature. His most recent work is The East Face of
Helicon(Oxford, 1997).
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Introduction
POLYMNIA ATHANASSIADI and MICHAEL FREDE
The six chapters in this volume owe their origin to a seminar on ‘pagan
forms of monotheism in late antiquity’, held at Oxford in Hilary Term
1996. The interest shown in the subject matter of the seminar by
colleagues from a variety of disciplines and the lively discussions which
ensued conWrmed us in the idea that we were pursuing an important
topic which gave rise to questions of more general signiWcance. Hence
we decided to publish revised versions of the papers in the hope of
involving a larger audience in a discussion of the issues raised.
The seminar itself arose out of our dissatisfaction with what we take
to be a misconception found not only among laymen but even among
scholars: that in the Graeco-Roman world—to speak only of what is of
direct relevance to this volume—Christianity, in the tradition of Jewish
monotheism, succeeded in replacing invariably polytheistic systems of
religious belief with a monotheistic creed.1By contrast it is our view that
monotheism, for the most part quite independently of Judaism and
Christianity, was increasingly widespread by the time of late antiquity,
certainly among the educated and in particular in the Greek east. And we
are inclined to attribute much of the success of Christianity in that world
to its advocacy of a way of seeing things, of thinking and acting, which it
shared with a growing number of pagans.
Another even more important cause of our dissatisfaction is a general
attitude associated with the above, reXecting the simple unqualiWed
belief that, in being converted to Christianity, pagans were induced to
reject their polytheism in favour of a monotheistic religion. This
approach, which ultimately derives from the Christian Apologists of late
¹ The unquestioned acceptance of the axiom that the Middle East has produced three
monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—has recently led to a reaYrma-
tion of the term ‘polytheism’ to describe religious belief and practice in the area outside the
territory of these three religions. A useful book questioning this convenient terminology
and discussing the crucial role of angelology in monotheistic religions is H. Corbin’s Le
Paradoxe du monothéisme(Paris, 1981).