The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity (Sather Classical Lectures)

276 Pages·1982·30.26 MB·English

by  Albrecht Dihle

The Theory
of Will
in Classical
Antiquity
ALBRECHT DIHLE
SATHER CLASSICAL LECTURES
Volume Forty Eight
The Theory of Will in
Classical Antiquity
T h is One
BXD4-8NS-CUZK
naterial
The Theory of Will
in
Classical Antiquity
ALBRECHT DIHLE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley * Los Angeles • London
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1982
The Regents of the University of California
Printed in the United States of America
12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Dihle, Albrecht.
The theory of will in classical antiquity.
(Sather classical lectures; v. 48)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Free will and determinism—History. 2. Philosophy, Ancient—
History. I. Title. II. Series.
BI87.F7D54 128'.3 81-7424
ISBN 0-520-04059-7 AACR2
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CONTENTS
PRPFArE VII
I COSMOLOGICAI CONCEPTIONS IN THF SECOND
CENTURY A.O. 1
II THF GRFFK VIFW OF HUMAN ACTION I 20
IÎI THF GRFFK VIEW OF HUMAN ACTION Π 48
IV ST. PAUL AND PHILO te
V PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION IN LATE ANTIQUITY 99
VI ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS CONCEPT OF WILL 123
m
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II Ι M)
NOTES 159
BIBLIOGRAPHY 24i
INDFX OF GRFFK AND LATIN WORDS 259
INDFV OF PASSAGES CITED ?6()
GFNFRAI INDEX ?fiX
PREFACE
This book contains the text of six lectures which I had
the honour of delivering at Berkeley in 1974. They are presented in
a version considerably fuller than that which was given originally, al
though their oral style has been preserved.
I am glad to be given the opportunity to express my profound grati
tude to all those who have kindly helped me, directly or indirectly, in
producing and publishing the present book. First of all, I wish to
thank the members of the Department of Classics of the University of
California at Berkeley and their chairman in 1974, Professor T. E.
Rosenmeyer. They elected me to serve as a Sather Professor at Berkeley,
they extended their warm and generous hospitality to my family, and
they made my stay at Berkeley stimulating and rewarding beyond all
expectation.
Mr. (now Professor) G. W. Most kindly went through the whole
manuscript in order to Anglicize—wherever this was possible—what I
had formulated according to the rules of English elementary grammar.
Moreover, he added valuable remarks and prevented me from many
mistakes. The manuscript was finished in 1978.
The subject of the lectures is large and complex, and inevitably im
plies problems which are, strictly speaking, outside my competence.
So I tried to make clear both in the text and notes whenever I had to
depend on previous scholarship. Yet my being indebted to colleagues
and friends extends far beyond these documented cases, especially in
the field of theological and philosophical studies. In this area I was
greatly helped and continuously instructed, over many years and quite
independently from the production of this book, by Professor Hans von
Campenhausen and Professor Gunther Patzig. The errors and mistakes,
however, which specialists are likely to discover in various passages of
this book, are entirely my own.
1 wish to thank Mrs. Karin Harmon for the great pains she took in
producing the typescripts of several versions of the book. Miss Wal-
VII
Co;?yr ghlec material
vin Preface
traut Foss and Dr. William Furley for sharing the tedious cask of proof
reading and indexing, and the staff of the University of California Press
for their accurate operation.
My wife made greater sacrifices for my scholarly work than anyone
else. She also created the conditions under which this book could be
produced.
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I.
Cosmological Conceptions
in the Second Century AD
BF.TWFF.N λ.Γ>. 170 and 180 the famous physician
Gaten published, among other works, the treatise. On tlx Parts of the
Human Body. In the chapter on the eyes he deals in great detail with rhe
fact that eyelashes are characteristically different in size, number, and
quality from any other kind of human hair, and points out that this
very fact can be easily explained by the function of eyelashes in the
human organism. His argument, therefore, is worked out entirely
along the lines of Aristotelian or Stoic teleology.
In this context Galen inserts an interesting digression. The Jews, he
says, derive rhe origin and structure of the universe exclusively from
the arbitrary intention of the divine creator.' He can transform a lump
of earth into a horse or a bird or whatever he pleases. Creation depends
solely and entirely on the will of the creator. This opinion, according to
Galen, is certainly preferable to the aleatoric conception of Epicurus
who attributes everything to chance. But it is quite incompatible with
Greek ideas of cosmology and cosmogony as expounded most clearly by
Plato and Aristotle. The Greek creator or demiurge brings to reality
only what reason evinces as being possible,'1 and from all possibilities he
always chooses the best one.'
A hundred years earlier, in about A. 15. 60 or 70, the Elder Pliny
{/tat. hist. 2.27) had already formulated the very same creed of Greco-
Roman intellectuals wirhour any reference to Jewish ideas. "Not even
for God are all things possible . .. he cannot bestow eternity on mor­
tals . . . he cannot cause twice ten not to be twenty or do other things
along similar lines, and these facts unquestionably demonstrate the
power of nature." Seneca (ep. 95.-19) made a similar statement at nearly
che same time, in Stoic terms and with special reference to the relation
between God and man: Errat qui deos pillai nacere nolle: non poisunt.
"They who believe the gods do not want to do harm are mistaken; the
gods cannot." The nature of the gods makes it impossible for them to do
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2 Cosmological Conceptions in the Second Century A.D.
any harm, and even a god is nor able to change his nature.''Cicero does,
in fact, regard the will of the creator as the ultimate cause of man's
distinguished position in the universe (tfe kg. 1.27). Yet this will does
not mean arbitrary intention or unpredictable exercise of divine power.
Every act of divine rule over the universe is but a detail of a comprehen
sive and perfectly rational programme by which is caused the order, the
beauty, and the usefulness of the cosmos.
Theology in the tradition of Greco-Roman philosophy was hardly
concerned with the problem of divine power, the most significant dif
ference between man and God according to the fundamental religious
experience: ènei ή πολύ φέριεροί eioiv (since, in truth, they are might­
ier by far), to use a Homeric formula. Greek philosophical theology
concentrated instead, from the very beginning, on the order, reg­
ularity, and beauty that are established and maintained through divine
activity. Here Greek philosophy found the mast striking, though un­
derstandable and almost predictable, manifestation of the divine—in
contrast to ideas prevailing in many other religions (cf. Heraclitus Β
114). At the end of the dialogue De divinalione, Cicero distinguishes
between superstitio and reÎigio: the first depresses the hearts of believers
by making them afraid of the power and the unpredictable actions of
the gods. The other leads to admiration and understanding of the order
and beauty which are brought about by the divine rule (2.148).
This philosophical theology or cosmology rests on a basic presup
position: the human mind has to be capable of perceiving and under
standing the rarional order of the universe and, consequently, the na
ture of the divine. Everything that goes on in the universe has been
arranged and initiated by the same reason that man has been given, so
that he may understand his own position in rhe universe and act accord
ingly. There is no need for assuming behind or apart from the entirely
rational programming of reality a will of which the impulse or man
ifestation is unpredictable. The word ιό θέλον, used by the astrologer
Vettius Valens (5.9) in order to denote what is going to happen accord­
ing to the cosmic order, has not that connotation of will. Narure, cos­
mos, order of the universe, providence—all these concepts illustrate
that everything happens only in consequence of a preconceived and ra­
tional arrangement without a separate will spontaneously interfering
with the process. That presupposition is not invalidated by the fact that
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Cosmoiogical Conceptions in the Second Century λ.ι>. 3
man, in his empirical condition, is not always capable of lull apprecia­
tion of the cosmic order.
That very conception underlies a great many philosophical theories.
For the Stoics, for inscance (Cleanthes ap. Sen. ep. 41.1, quaest. rial.
2.35), the purpose of prayer was only to ascertain the identity between
reason as the ruler of the universe and reason as the leading force in the
human soul. But even Platonists like Plutarch Us. el Os. 1) or Maximus
of Tyre (OK 5) who regarded prayer as a dialogue between two partners,"
explicitly rejected the idea that prayer could influence or change the
intention of God. Such a change could only lead to something worse,
since God could not possibly improve on his own perfect rationality.
Prayer had only to contribute to a fuller cognition of God. It seemed
useless to a Platonist to comply with the intention of God without try­
ing to understand it.
The practice of popular religion, in Greece and elsewhere, had al­
ways used prayer to influence or change rather than to understand the
intention of the divinity involved. So prayer, in the popular sense, re­
ferred to the gods' power and benevolence and was nor primarily meant
to appreciate the immovable order of their government. The notion
that divine rule over both cosmic and human affairs is perfect and ra­
tional was, after all, a concept resulting from philosophical specula­
tion.'' It was with regard ro the popular notion of prayer that the physi­
cian and philosopher Sextus repeatedly contrasted prayer with telling
the truth {adv. math. 7.401, hyp. 3.244 etc.). To pray according to
popular practice means, from the philosophical point of view, to dis­
regard the perfect order which the gods have established. Their power,
sublimity, goodness—all result from their perfect rationality, accord­
ing to the belief of Galen and his contemporaries. ""
This belief, however, which Galen formulated to contest the Biblical
concept of creation, was deeply rooted in the philosophical tradition,
which had become, in the course of nearly five centuries, one of the
main factors of general education. Both conceptions, the Greek and the
Biblical, were monotheistic, despite their disagreement in many other
respects. Whenever Greek philosophers became involved in theological
problems, they ended, with a few exceptions, at the conception of a
divine monarch of the universe.I: Proclus, the Neoplatonist of the fifth
century A.15., found this conception fully developed already in Homer
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