Nicholas of Methone on Divine Ideas: Between Proclus and the Early Byzantines

Jonathan Greig

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Chapter 8 Nicholas of Methone on Divine Ideas: Between Proclus and the Early Byzantines

In: Nicholas of Methone, Reader of Proclus in Byzantium

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Jonathan Greig

Jonathan Greig HU Berlin
KU Leuven

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Pages:: 201–232

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004512900_009

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1 Introduction¹

The topic of “divine ideas” is well-known throughout medieval philosophy and theology, insofar as it was invoked to account for how God knows creatures throughout eternity and produces them on the basis of his knowledge. The notion, of course, finds its roots in Plato’s theory of the Forms or “Ideas” (ἰδέαι), posited to account for the true cause or reason for the essential structure of each particular being:² for instance, each individual tree finds its true cause in the intelligible Form explaining all trees, “Tree-itself”. In the Christian context this notion of the Ideas is expanded to include particular creatures, not just creatures or beings of a particular type (like the tree example), while the Ideas become associated with thoughts in the mind of God.³ Hence, God produces creatures based on his own thoughts, or reasons, concerning each particular creature—not just each kind of creature. One may associate this position most with the entrenched disputes between Franciscans and Thomists of the 13th-/14th-centuries CE who both attempted to reconcile the simplicity of God’s being with the plurality of ideas (i.e. rationes, λόγοι, ἰδέαι, etc.) according to which God produces the varying kinds of beings in the cosmos.⁴

Although not well studied in recent scholarship, the notion of the divine ideas also brought about great interest in the later Byzantine intellectual world, especially in the aftermath of John Philoponus’ critique of Proclus’ view of the universe’s eternity. In this period one sees not so much the problem of squaring simplicity with the plurality of ideas in God, but rather how God can eternally hold and think the divine ideas without simultaneously producing for all eternity, if one holds that God can produce being simply by his thinking. This indeed appears to have been one of the main problems in the background of Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology (Ἀνάπτυξις τῆς Θεολογικῆς Στοιχειώσεως Πρόκλου), particularly in the propositions discussing divine causality.

With this in mind, I would like to look at Nicholas’ commentary on Proposition 76 in Proclus’ Elements, where Nicholas discusses “the ideas of beings which pre-exist in God” (ἰδέας τῶν ὄντων ἐν τῷ θεῷ προϋφεστώσας) in the context of God’s production of changeable entities. Though the discussion in this and other passages is relatively brief, we can see in outline Nicholas’ conception of the relation between God, the divine ideas, and created beings. In looking at Nicholas, we can also see aspects of earlier Byzantine arguments based on the divine ideas and a creationist response to eternalist positions, seen for instance in pagans like Proclus or Christian heretics like Origenists of the 5th–6th centuries CE. For this paper, I would like to look at two particular early Byzantines, Maximus the Confessor (~580–662 CE) and John Philoponus (~490–570 CE), in the background to Nicholas. As we will see, Nicholas adapts his language for the divine ideas from Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (~5th–6th centuries CE), while emphasizing a creationist account of the ideas that is notably lacking in Ps.-Dionysius’ account. Here, Maximus plays one potential influence, insofar as he interprets Ps.-Dionysius’ framework within a creationist context, in responding to Origenists. In turn, Philoponus’ own, earlier response to Proclus plays some role in Maximus’ use of Ps.-Dionysius, while elements of Philoponus’ reply may be found in Nicholas (as well as certain, notable contrasts, as we will see).

2 Nicholas on Prop. 76: The “Ideas of Beings”, Eternalism, and the Divine Will

The main text where Nicholas discusses the divine ideas in God is in his commentary on Prop. 76 in Proclus’ Elements of Theology, where Proclus claims that “all that comes to be from an unmoved cause has an unchanging subsistence, while all that comes to be from a moved cause, a changeable subsistence.”⁵ In effect Proclus argues that all beings that either have an eternal existence or an existence that changes (i.e. a temporal existence) come from causes that themselves are correspondingly eternal and unmoved (for eternal beings) or in motion themselves (for temporal beings). What particularly concerns Nicholas is the first half of the proposition, where, in making the first claim, Proclus argues that the unmoved cause, as eternal, must also produce an eternal effect:

For if the maker is entirely unmoved, it produces its secondary [effect], not through motion, but by its own being (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι) from itself. And if this is the case, it contains the effect which comes from it, as concurrent with its own being. And if this is so, then while it may exist, it produces. But it exists always: therefore, it brings to existence always that which is after it, so that the latter comes to be always from it and always exists, attaching that which is always by its own procession to that which is always by [its cause’s] perpetual activity.⁶

In this passage, Proclus presents two means by which causes produce or “make” (τὸ ποιοῦν): either “through motion” (διὰ κινήσεως) or “by [the cause’s] own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι). One finds this latter phrase, αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι, often repeated in Proclus’ understanding of causality for the higher levels of being, where the effect receives its character from the cause which embodies that character to a higher degree: in other words, the effect is by derivation what the cause is in its own being.⁷ This is ultimately related to Proclus’ principle of causal synonymy, where the effects mirror their cause’s nature:⁸ for instance, bodies which are determined by motion presuppose a cause which is identified with motion in itself—in other words, souls which are self-moved. In turn, higher principles, like intellects, which are unmoved by their nature, necessitate a cause which is also unmoved in itself—in other words the One, or more proximately, Being.⁹ One can see how Proclus argues in Prop. 76 that changeable effects (like bodies) require a cause which is itself in motion (like souls), while unchanging effects (like intellects) require a cause which is itself unmoved (like Being).

As it turns out, this notion of causal synonymy becomes a problem for Nicholas. Much of Nicholas’ commentary on Prop. 76 is aimed against the eternalist implications of Proclus’ framework, particularly when Proclus argues that both unmoved and unchanging causes eternally, or always (ἀεί), bring about their effects. In De aeternitate mundi we find Proclus arguing for the cosmos’ eternity in the work’s fourth argument—effectively an elaboration on Prop. 76’s argumentative structure.¹⁰ In the first third of the argument, Proclus specifies the distinction between unchanging causes and causes which produce “through motion” (διὰ κινήσεως): unchanging causes produce “by [their] own being (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι), without making a transition from producing to not producing, or from not producing to producing; for if it did make such a transition, it would undergo a change […] and if it underwent a change, it would not be unmoving.”¹¹ In other words, if the effects do not initially exist, and then come to exist, the cause would change from “not producing” to “producing”—implying the cause’s imperfection. As Proclus draws out later in the proof, if the cause of the cosmos is unmoved, and if it is also perfect (τέλειον), then it must perpetually produce, and hence its effect—the cosmos—must also be perpetually produced. Mutatis mutandis, if the cosmos came to be in time, then the cosmos’ cause must be imperfect (ἀτελὲς).¹² Hence, if the cause is unmoved and eternally remains a cause, its effect must also be eternal, even if also in perpetual motion.

We see Nicholas effectively respond to this kind of argument when he critiques the inference of the cause’s nature from its effects: for Nicholas, God as the first cause is incomprehensible (ἀκατάληπτον), and a fortiori that God’s power and activity are equally incomprehensible.¹³ On the one hand Nicholas clears the ground by claiming that one cannot make an inference about the world’s nature, and more so God’s nature, based on reason alone. Nicholas then asserts that anything that “comes to be” (τὸ γινόμενον), in any sense, by its own nature implies change from non-being to being, and vice versa, unless the “goodness of the Creator holds [that being] together (συνέχει) and preserves it in being”.¹⁴ From this, Nicholas concludes:

It is then better (ἄμεινον) to attribute both the manner of creation (ποιήσεως) and the persistence or change of things that have come into being or have been created to the intention (βουλήματι) of the Creator, who defines according to his will (θέλημα) the manner of creation, the measures of its persistence, and the order (τάξιν) and change into one another of the things made […].¹⁵

Nicholas here infers from the case of God “holding together” a being, which would otherwise not continue to exist without God’s action, that it is then “better” (ἄμεινον) to attribute such holding together, alongside change and creation generally, to God’s intention (βούλημα) or will (θέλημα). Nicholas eventually contrasts the attribution to the will with Proclus’ attribution of production to the cause’s own being (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι)¹⁶—in other words, God’s production by willing is ἄμεινον than by God’s mere being. But before this, one can already see one reason why Nicholas rejects the attribution of the creation of beings to God’s being: if the divine nature is incomprehensible, a fortiori attributing production to the divine nature is incomprehensible. This establishes the foundation for Nicholas rejecting Proclus’ attribution of the production of beings to the cause’s own being, i.e. αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι.

The rest of Nicholas’ commentary on Prop. 76 hinges on the will as the main basis of all creation. For Nicholas, Proclus errs greatly when, by “rejecting the divine will, and determining by the Creator’s mere being (τῷ εἶναι μόνῳ) the production of what comes into being, [he] seems to introduce creation as involuntary (ἀκούσιον) for the Creator.”¹⁷ Just as Proclus distinguishes causation “through motion” and “by [the cause’s] own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι), Nicholas also distinguishes between causation by willing (θέλημα) and by the cause’s “mere being” (τῷ εἶναι μόνῳ, like Proclus’ αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι). We may initially ask: why is production being “involuntary”, or αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι, a problem for Nicholas?

We find an implied answer just afterward, when Nicholas ties the goodness of God’s causation to willing: the divine nature “created all things because of goodness, and that it did so, therefore, having willed to create, and not unwillingly, lest, with the denial of will, it should be denied goodness as well.”¹⁸ Here we find perhaps a difference in first principles held between Proclus and Nicholas. For Nicholas, since the expression of the cause’s goodness is no longer tied to the cause’s nature, but rather to its “will”, production from the cause’s being alone (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι) cannot explain the goodness of either the cause or its effect; instead it is only in the cause’s explicit willing, rather than “involuntary” causation, that the goodness of the cause is expressed.¹⁹ Hence one can see Nicholas’ claim: if willing is not affirmed in God, neither can goodness, since willing and goodness are linked to each other for Nicholas.

Readers of Proclus will recognize a subtle but important contrast here. Elsewhere in the Elements of Theology, Proclus emphasizes the goodness of productive causes, simply in their subsistence (ὑπάρξις)²⁰—especially the highest causes, the One and the henads—without attaching the attribute of willing as an essential aspect of that goodness, or at least the expression of that goodness.²¹ The Elements has no occurrence of θέλημα, while only three variations of βούλ- show up in the work, two of which refer either to productive causes in general (Prop. 7)²² or to the henads, as gods, in their capacity as the measure (μέτρον) of beings (Prop. 117).²³ The latter case is especially instructive, insofar as the henad, as entirely unitary (ἑνιαῖον), “intends (βούλεται) to measure and delimit the things in which it would be present, and by its power to bring such a being [which is undefined] into definition.”²⁴ Notably Proclus identifies the henad in itself, as a divine first cause,²⁵ with that which “intends”: in other words, one finds no distinction between one and the other. One can see this also earlier in Prop. 13, where Proclus argues that every principle characterized as “good” (ἀγαθὸν), including the Good-itself, unifies and “conserves and holds together” (σωστικὸν καὶ συνεκτικὸν) all beings.²⁶ No distinct factor outside the Good’s mere presence brings about its effect. From what we have seen above, the eternalist implication of this causal framework is ultimately what Nicholas seeks to attack when he identifies will, and not “mere being”, as the main factor in God’s causality of creation.

It is within this frame that Nicholas discuss the “divine ideas” in connection with God’s will, as the cause of created beings:

For this reason, Dionysius, who is divine and great in divine things, when speaking of the pre-existing ideas of beings (ἰδέας τῶν ὄντων) in God, calls these “the divine and good wills” (τὰ θεῖα καὶ ἀγαθὰ θελήματα). And clearly God produces nothing among beings “by his very being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι), [i.e.] without willing, so as also “to have concurrently with his own being the [being] produced from him”,²⁷ but all things are posterior to his unoriginate subsistence; only his begetting of the Son and “projecting” of the Spirit is “by his very being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι), and for this reason these are co-unoriginate and co-eternal and con-substantial with the Begettor and Projector. “Involuntary” (ἀκουσίου) has no place there, but [God produces beings] by one will common to the three [persons], insofar as the goodness of the Begettor and Projector, of the Begotten, and of the Projected, is one and common.²⁸

Here we find Nicholas’ positive, articulated response to Proclus when he connects the “ideas of beings” to God’s “wills” or “intentions” (θελήματα) (here quoting Ps.-Dionysius’ De divinis nominibus V.8) and makes a two-fold distinction in God’s causality: between (1) God producing “by his own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι) and (2) God producing by the “one common will” (ἑνὶ θελήματι καὶ κοινῷ) of the three Trinitarian persons. Intriguingly, Nicholas does not excise Proclus’ concept of αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι but instead classifies the production of the Son (the “Begotten”) and the Holy Spirit (“the Projected”) as αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι. Hence God in the capacity of the Father (or “Projector/Begettor”) eternally produces the Son and Spirit without willing, in juxtaposition to the production of created beings by “the one will common to the three [persons]”, i.e. the Father, Son, and Spirit. In this sense, Nicholas does not have a problem with the notion of necessitated causality within the Trinity, and accepts Proclus’ notion of causality αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι, except with this difference: whereas Proclus distinguishes the subsistences (ὑπάρξεις) of the gods which produce their distinct, lower effects αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι, it appears that Nicholas preserves the subsistence (ὑπάρξις) of God as one while considering the Son and Spirit to be “consubstantial” (ὁμοούσια) with the Father as their cause, i.e. as not distinct in subsistence—at least in Proclus’ sense.²⁹ While certain questions could be raised about how Nicholas sees Trinitarian procession and causation,³⁰ for now it is enough to point out that Nicholas accepts the notion that God causes αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι.

The more pertinent question is how Nicholas understands the “one common will” (ἑνὶ θελήματι καὶ κοινῷ), which he implicitly equates with the many “ideas of beings”: in what way is this distinct from that which is “by [God’s] own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι)? Presumably Nicholas would not want to make a hard distinction between the two notions, in the way that creatures are distinct from God, while he would concede the co-eternity of the ideas with God. And yet Nicholas still seems to argue for a kind of ontological distinction between the ideas, as the “common will”, and God’s being (especially with the inner-procession of the three persons).

Nicholas’ distinction recurs in his reply to Prop. 167,³¹ where Proclus argues that the first Intellect thinks itself alone, while all subsequent intellects after the first think both themselves and their prior causes, i.e. the higher intellects above themselves.³² One of the main problems this presents for Nicholas’ Christian framework is that the angels are intellects, while God is also intellect, yet all created beings, including the angels as created intellects, do not know God in himself.³³ Nicholas modifies Proclus’ claim and argues that angels, as lower intellects, cannot think of God in the same way that they think themselves: they can only know God in a lower way compared to the way they know themselves.³⁴ This distinction in turn leads to another interesting, if initially puzzling claim, about how God thinks himself and the beings he produces:

However, [God] does not think (νοεῖ) only Himself, but He also thinks all the beings of which He Himself is cause; for if [He did] not also [think] these things, He would not think Himself as cause of these, which indeed is absurd; therefore He thinks also these, except in a way that is superior to the way these beings [think] themselves.³⁵

At first glance, one might think this is just polemical hair-splitting from Nicholas. Proclus later in Prop. 170 claims that every intellect thinks all things (πᾶς νοῦς πάντα ἅμα νοεῖ), while in Prop. 173 he claims that all intellects are “the same as both the things before [them] and the things after [them]—the latter by causality, the former by participation”:³⁶ in other words, the intellect would think its effects in the same way it thinks itself. Yet this is perhaps the exact issue at hand, as we saw in the framework set out by Nicholas in his reply to Prop. 76, above: God cannot produce created beings simply “by his own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι), but can only do so by his will (ἑνὶ θελήματι καὶ κοινῷ). Nicholas’ reply to Prop. 167 effectively brings out this distinction, when he claims it is not enough for God to know himself without qualification, but rather he must know himself qua cause of created beings.

One can see this in Nicholas’ subsequent reply to Prop. 169, where Nicholas follows up his earlier Prop. 167 claim by concluding that “intellect (νοῦς) and intelligible (νοῆτον) are not the same, nor therefore is intellection (νόησις) the same as these two, but all intellection is proper to the intellecting agent and sometimes is superior to the things intellected, and other times inferior.”³⁷ In this Nicholas is responding to Proclus’ argument in the proposition that intellect, its intelligible object (νόητον), and the activity of intellection (νόησις) are all identical with each other, even while Being, as the intelligible object, pre-exists Intellect. This is perhaps one time where Nicholas’ critique touches on not just a dispute between a Christian and pagan framework, but also a philosophical issue in Proclus’ theory. As it turns out, Proclus’ successor, Damascius, also critiques the thesis that intellect and the intelligible are identical (ταὺτον) with each other and makes a similar claim to Nicholas’ argument that the activity of intellection (νόησις) is proper to the thinking agent rather than the object of its thought. For Damascius, just as for Nicholas, the object of knowledge is relative to the knower’s mode of being, while the knower and the object known remain ontologically distinct in themselves.³⁸ In any case, this may make sense of Nicholas’ initially puzzling claim that God must think his effects, as their cause, distinctly from thinking himself without qualification.³⁹

Nicholas’ reply to Prop. 174 helps to further clarify the reason for this distinction. In the proposition, Proclus claims that “every intellect gives rise to its consequents by intellection: its producing is in intellecting, and its intellecting is in producing.” Nicholas here disputes Proclus’ identity claim and maintains that intellection in itself entails knowledge of beings, whereas Being-itself is responsible for the production of beings:

Therefore, as Intellect [i.e. the very first and beyond-intellect Intellect (τὸν πρώτιστον μόνον καὶ ὑπέρνοον νοῦν)] thinks all the things after it, and as Being it causes these to subsist from itself and makes [them] to be, and its intellection is making and [its] making is intellection. But it intellects the things after it more greatly than they are—in a way proper for itself, that is—according as it even makes by intellection, and, since it is both transcendent Intellect and the Being before all things, it also thinks itself as Being and pre-being, wherefore it is not said to make itself; for Being, or rather pre-Being (τὸ προόν), is not made, and since it has nothing before itself, it would not be said either to make or to think anything before itself.⁴⁰

In his commentary on Prop. 174, Nicholas pushes back against Proclus’ claim that “every” intellect creates when it thinks. One problem is that the angels, as intellects, do not create beings, but rather they “transfer the divine participations” (τὰς θείας διαπορθμεύουσι μετοχάς):⁴¹ in this sense, the angels only convey God’s causality, while in themselves, as pure intellects, they do not cause or create beings. One can see Nicholas’ motivation to disassociate Intellect from the production of beings: instead, it is the principle, Being, rather than Intellect, that is responsible for this. Hence, God is the sole creator of beings in his capacity as Being-itself (αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν), “or rather the pre-Being” (μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ προόν). Proclus’ Prop. 174 for Nicholas can only refer to God as a special case, inasmuch as God is both αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν/τὸ προόν and νοῦς/ὑπέρνοος, where the two coincide (σύνδρομον) in God, while the concepts of αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν and νοῦς are distinct in themselves.

Overall, Nicholas is cautious to emphasize a distinction in God between (1) God’s knowledge of himself (and the divine persons’ knowledge of each other), alongside the essential production of the Son and Spirit from the Father; and (2) God’s knowledge of created beings as the “divine ideas”, which Nicholas relates to the “one, common will” (θέλημα) of the divine persons. While these appear to be two really distinct objects, Nicholas sees the two implying each other in the case of God: God’s knowledge of himself implies knowledge of beings, and God’s knowledge of beings implies knowledge of himself; and even while Nicholas claims that there is a distinction between God’s thinking and producing beings (especially in light of distinguishing between God-as-Intellect and God-as-(pre‑)Being, above), Nicholas also affirms that God’s “intellection is making and [its] making is intellection”. Yet it is still noteworthy that Nicholas denies that God’s knowledge of himself is unqualifiedly identical with the “divine ideas” (i.e. Ps.-Dionysius’ “wills”), or that God’s knowledge of himself necessitates knowledge of beings in the same way. We thus find a notional distinction in Nicholas between the two, although how this distinction is to be understood is not spelled out by Nicholas.

3 Nicholas’ Predecessors on the Divine Ideas: Ps.-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and John Philoponus

As we saw above, Nicholas draws on Ps.-Dionysius for his articulation of the divine ideas contained in God, and based on which God creates beings. However, Nicholas’ interpretation of Ps.-Dionysius is mediated by a concern for creationism—a concern, it should be noted, not present or explicit in Ps.-Dionysius himself. As will become apparent, Nicholas’ reading of Ps.-Dionysius involves a concern imported from other, earlier Byzantine figures, of which Maximus the Confessor and John Philoponus are two witnesses, if not possible influences, for Nicholas. But first we should briefly look at Ps.-Dionysius in himself.

3.1 Nicholas’ Initial Source for the Divine Ideas in Ps.-Dionysius

In the commentary on Prop. 76, Nicholas’ reference to Ps.-Dionysius’ terminology for “pre-determinations” and “wills” in God goes back to the De divinis nominibus V, where Ps.-Dionysius discusses the attribute of being as it pertains to God, and how God functions as the cause of beings. In De divinis nominibus V.8, after expressing how God is the direct cause of all intellects, souls, and material beings, Ps.-Dionysius goes on to show in what way God is a paradigm for the different kinds of beings:

But we say that the paradigms [of beings] are the being-producing and unifying logoi which have pre-existed in God, which theology calls both divine pre-determinations (προορισμοὺς) and good wills (ἀγαθὰ θελήματα), which are delimiting and productive of beings, according to which what is beyond being (ὁ ὑπερούσιος) both pre-determines and produces all beings.⁴²

Ps-Dionysius’ language of the paradigms of beings which function as “pre-determinations” and “good wills” should be familiar from Nicholas’ commentary. One may initially think that Ps.-Dionysius’ ascription of the paradigms of beings (in the same way as the divine ideas) to the divine “wills” and “pre-determinations” is the same kind of argument we see in Nicholas. However, it is striking that Ps.-Dionysius does not appear to be worried about making an explicit distinction between the “wills” in God and God’s thoughts—much less between God’s being and his producing. For instance, earlier in De divinis nominibus I.5, Ps.-Dionysius claims that “by his own being (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι) [God] is the cause of all beings” and that “this existence [i.e. God’s] by being is productive of the universe”.⁴³ Yet this contrasts with what we saw in Nicholas earlier, where God’s causality αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι only refers to the production of the Trinitarian persons—not the production of created beings. Instead, Ps.-Dionysius seems to take the same formula that Proclus does in ascribing the causality of beings to God’s being in himself (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι), without qualification.

One might, indeed, wonder whether Ps.-Dionysius’ position is any different from Proclus’ own position. If anything, it is tempting to see Ps.-Dionysius as tacitly accepting Proclus’ eternal emanative position: God’s mere existence alone, regardless of any distinct volition or operation, brings about all beings. All the more striking is the absence in Nicholas’ commentary of Ps.-Dionysius’ own use or interpretation of the term, αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι, to describe God’s causality of beings. Hence, it may well be possible that Nicholas tries to safeguard Ps.-Dionysius’ statement against the “emanative” interpretation that he recognizes in Proclus’ formulation of causation by the cause’s mere being (αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι).

In any case, it seems clear that Nicholas appeals to a distinct anti-eternalist argument in his interpretation of the divine wills from Ps.-Dionysius—one reflecting a concern notably lacking in Ps.-Dionysius. Nicholas’ concern is not unique: the concern over an eternalist view of the world was commonplace among Byzantines up to Nicholas’ time, seen for instance one century before Nicholas in the Byzantine philosopher, John Italos.⁴⁴ While tracing these proximate sources in Nicholas is a desideratum, here I would like to look at two early sources for this kind of anti-eternalist interpretation of Ps.-Dionysius that appears in Nicholas: proximately Maximus the Confessor and, behind Maximus’ arguments, John Philoponus. As we will see, Maximus’ understanding of the divine ideas in Ps.-Dionysius is mediated by Philoponus’ creationist framework. To understand Maximus, we should also look at Philoponus, whose strategy of arguing against Proclus, in turn, is worth comparing with Nicholas’ own.

3.2 Maximus the Confessor: Mediating Ps.-Dionysius’ Divine Wills within a Creationist Context

We see Maximus’ interpretation of Ps.-Dionysius’ De divinis nominibus V.8 in Ambiguum 7, when Maximus refers to the principles (logoi) of created beings as “pre-determinations” (προορισμούς) and “divine wills” (θεία θελήματα),⁴⁵ much in the same way that Nicholas does. Like Nicholas, Maximus uses Ps.-Dionysius’ framework in the context of an anti-eternalist critique—albeit, for Maximus, against the Origenist notion of the eternal pre-existence of the soul.⁴⁶ For Maximus, against the Origenist stance, creatures do not in themselves pre-exist creation in God, but rather the logoi of creatures exist in God before their emergence.⁴⁷ It is in this context that we see a particular creationist argument put forward by Maximus, when he argues that God eternally wills the production of beings “in actuality” (κατ᾽ ἐνέργειάν) while creatures exist in potentiality rather than simply in actuality:

By truth itself, that which belongs to all beings is in him and by him, even while all things themselves—both beings which are and beings which will be—are not brought into being at the same time with their logoi, nor with their being known by God. Rather, every being is brought into being at the right moment according to the wisdom of the creator, being created in a manner fitting to their logoi and by receiving being in actuality in themselves. [Such is the case] since God is always a creator in actuality (ὁ μὲν ἀεὶ κατ᾽ ἐνέργειάν ἐστι δημιουργός) while beings exist in potentiality but not yet in actuality, because what is unlimited and what has been limited do not belong together.⁴⁸

Here Maximus emphasizes that creatures are not “brought into being with their logoi”, or principles, even though God has and thinks the logoi throughout eternity. Instead, the distinction between potentiality (δύναμις) and actuality (ἐνέργεια) obtains for creatures, as such, while God “always” (ἀεὶ) exists, in such a way that the distinction does not obtain for him.⁴⁹ In turn, this makes possible the eternality of God possessing the logoi of beings—insofar as they exist always (ἀεὶ) in God—with the created beings existing eternally in themselves, since they first exist potentially (δυνάμει).

At the same time, Maximus qualifies in what way God possesses and knows the logoi. On the one hand the logoi are identified with God, so that God knows himself in knowing the logoi. On the other hand, it is notable that Maximus does not say that God knows beings by unqualifiedly knowing himself, but rather that God knows beings in the following way:

[…] we say that [God] knows beings as his own, proper wills (ὡς ἴδια θελήματα), and they [i.e. the so-called “disciples of Pantainos”] added the following reasonable statement of the account: for if (1) [God] has made all things by will—and no one denies the statement—and if (2) it is always pious and right to say that God knows his own will, and (3) [God], as willing, has made each of the things that have come to be, then God therefore knows beings just as his own wills (ἴδια θελήματα), since, as willing, he has made beings.⁵⁰

Again, using Ps.-Dionysius’ language of “wills” (θελήματα), Maximus argues that God knows beings through knowing his own, proper wills (ἴδια θελήματα), which solves the difficulty of how God can know creatures without knowing them by sensation or intellect: for, as Maximus concedes just beforehand, God does not know beings in the manner of beings themselves (κατὰ τὰ ὄντα)—i.e. neither by sensation (αἰσθητικῶς) nor intellectively (νοερῶς)—since he transcends all beings.⁵¹ Given this restriction, Maximus still allows knowledge in God, although not in an intellective way (νοερῶς) but inasmuch as God possesses wills, or intentions (θελήματα), for the beings in question.⁵²

If we look back at Nicholas’ discussion of the divine ideas in his response to Proclus, we can see aspects of Maximus’ framework in the background that potentially illuminate Nicholas’ own framework. In particular, we saw Nicholas emphasize a distinction between God in himself and the ideas of beings by which God produces beings. We also see a similar emphasis in Maximus emphasizing that God knows beings “as his own wills” (ἴδια θελήματα) rather than just in unqualifiedly knowing himself or in producing created beings “by his own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι). Similarly to Nicholas, Maximus does not use the language of God producing beings αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι, but rather that of God producing by means of the “wills” or logoi which exist eternally in God.⁵³ Once again, this contrasts with Ps.-Dionysius’ conflation of God’s causality of beings as “by his own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι) with the “pre-determinations” and “wills” belonging to God. In Maximus, as in Nicholas, one finds an emphasis that God produces beings in a respect distinct from merely his own being: namely in terms of the “wills” (θελήματα).

In turn, the emphasis on God producing in terms of “will” or “wills” is correlated with beings which contingently exist: as Maximus argues, beings exist “in potentiality but not yet in actuality” (τὰ δὲ δυνάμει μέν ἐστιν, ἐνεργείᾳ δὲ οὐκ ἔτι), while God “exists always as creator in actuality” (ἀεὶ κατ’ ἐνέργειάν ἐστι δημιουργός). Though Nicholas does not use the language of actuality and potentiality, Maximus’ distinction between God and created beings in terms of actuality and potentiality would correspond with Nicholas’ claim that beings produced by God are not “concurrent” with God’s own being (σύνδρομον ἔχειν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ εἶναι τὸ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ παραγόμενον). Just as in Maximus, this mode of contingent production depends on God’s causation by will (θελήματι).

3.3 John Philoponus: A Background to Maximus, and a Similar Anti-Eternalist Critique of Proclus

While there are other sources in the background to Maximus’ creationist argument in his interpretation of Ps.-Dionysius,⁵⁴ one particular, possible influence behind this argument in Maximus is John Philoponus.⁵⁵ We see this kind of argument in Philoponus’ response to Proclus’ fourth argument in the De aeternitas mundi,⁵⁶ when Philoponus argues that God does not produce beings “involuntarily”—a key premise in Nicholas’ response to Prop. 76:⁵⁷

For God does not bring his creations into existence by an involuntary (ἀβουλήτῳ) necessity of nature in the way that the sun illuminates and fire heats as soon as they are present by an involuntary necessity of nature. The cause of all things is above all necessity, for which reason it is not at all necessary that whatever is thought by God should exist simultaneously with the thought.⁵⁸

One of Philoponus’ main points in this passage is that God’s possession of the principles, or reasons (logoi), of beings does not, in itself, entail that their products are necessitated or come to be. Before this passage, Philoponus refers to an example of a shipwright and builder who possess the principles for building the ship or house, yet need not always be building their respective products.⁵⁹ The example of the sun/fire then becomes the very opposite to the example of the shipwright or builder with their products. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that Philoponus’ sun/fire example directly hearkens back to a standard Platonist analogy for causation, seen in Plato’s Republic VI with the sun’s analogy to the Good,⁶⁰ and extended to Neoplatonist descriptions of the Good’s, or One’s, production of beings.⁶¹ Philoponus’ negative interpretation of the sun/fire metaphor becomes a motif for later Byzantines, like Nicholas, to describe rather the dis-analogy to God’s causality of beings, where heat results immediately from the presence of fire, and in turn light results necessarily from the sun’s presence. Instead, Philoponus uses examples of rational agents like the shipwright and builder to describe God’s causality, where they are said to “project” or “bring forward” (προφέρειν) the soul’s thoughts into the outside world, whether in speech or physical actions.⁶² In cases like this, one then finds a two-step process: (1) the possession of the logoi, and (2) the logoi being brought forward or “projected” in production.

Philoponus applies this to God, but also draws a contrast to the human examples:

For [God] everlastingly (ἀιδίως) possesses the thoughts (νοήσεις) and principles (λόγους) of beings, according to which indeed he is a creator, in exactly the same way, and does not become different in any respect whether he produces or does not produce. For generally, it is not right to say that capacity (ἕξιν) and activity (ἐνέργειαν) are different [things] in the case of God: the two are one and the same thing and difference arises in the sphere of that which participates [in God].⁶³

In this last line Philoponus emphasizes the unchangeability of God’s being by denying any distinction between God’s capacity and activity to produce: while the distinction obtains in the created world, capacity and activity are the same (ταὐτὸν) in God.⁶⁴ On the flip side: the change between possession (ἕξις)—much less potentiality (δύναμις)—and actuality (ἐνέργεια) characterizes beings in a way that it does not for God, who both possesses the logoi of beings and wills their production from eternity. If we put this line of argument together with Philoponus’ claim that beings are not produced by God “involuntarily” (ἀβουλήτῳ), this suggests that the production of beings characterized by potentiality involves volition. In turn, this implies that the actuality that characterizes God’s being, which is necessary, must be distinct from the kind of actuality that characterizes God’s volition behind the temporal production of beings: in other words, Philoponus, like Maximus, recognizes that there must be a distinction which affirms the eternity of God’s being and the contingency of the production of beings—even if God’s willing this contingent production is eternal.

One can see a possible influence of Philoponus’ argument in Maximus’ distinction between God, the logoi, and created beings.⁶⁵ First, just as Maximus emphasizes that God’s eternal thinking of the principles (logoi) of beings does not necessitate their actual existence, so Philoponus argues against the notion that God’s eternal thinking of beings necessitates their production. Both Philoponus and Maximus argue that God exists as an eternal creator, either as complete (in Philoponus: ὁ θεὸς ἀεὶ τέλειός ἐστιν πάντων δημιουργὸς)⁶⁶ or as in actuality (in Maximus: ὁ […] ἀεὶ κατ᾽ ἐνέργειάν ἐστι δημιουργός).⁶⁷ In turn, both employ the distinction between potentiality (δύναμις), or capacity (ἕξις), and actuality (ἐνέργεια) to characterize creatures in contrast to God: in the case of Maximus, creatures exist “in potentiality but not yet in actuality” (τὰ δὲ δυνάμει μέν ἐστιν, ἐνεργείᾳ δὲ οὐκ ἔτι);⁶⁸ in the case of Philoponus, capacity (ἕξις) and actuality (ἐνέργεια) differ for creatures (“that which participates in God]”), while both are the same in God (ἔστιν γὰρ ταὐτὸν ἄμφω).⁶⁹ For both, the change from potentiality, or capacity (ἕξις), to actuality obtains for the domain of creatures, while God eternally thinks, and wills, the generation of beings without implying eternal production.

Where we do find one difference is in how this argument is employed. Philoponus, in the passage’s context, employs this distinction to argue that there is no change between capacity and actuality in God, insofar as God produces creatures in time. Maximus, by contrast, uses the distinction to argue for the fact of creatures’ contingent existence in contrast to God, while he does not explicitly argue against change in God—even though the denial of change is implied in Maximus’ assertion that God is a creator in actuality. Still, both Byzantines maintain the same point that God’s possession of the logoi of beings, like the shipwright possessing the idea of the ship, does not necessitate the actual, eternal production of beings. Instead, the distinction between the divine ideas and created beings allows for a way to articulate how God possesses divine ideas without necessitating their simultaneous instantiation. Philoponus’ defense of the position that God possesses the logoi of beings without their necessary, concurrent production can thus be seen in Maximus the Confessor’s own position that God possesses the logoi of creatures, while creatures in themselves are conditioned by their potential existence in time. In turn, we can see how this argument makes its way to Nicholas.

3.4 Assessing the Relation between Maximus the Confessor and John Philoponus in Nicholas

If we look back at Nicholas’ framework, adapted from Ps.-Dionysius, we can see certain aspects made clearer from looking at Maximus and Philoponus in the background. For instance, Nicholas’ distinction of the “ideas of beings” (ἰδέας τῶν ὀντῶν) apart from what belongs to God’s own being from Prop. 76 shows the possible influence of Maximus’ distinction between the logoi contained in God and God’s own eternal being: in both cases we find the emphasis on the contingency of the principles of beings in God, where God’s eternal being does not necessitate the eternal production of creatures. Although Ps.-Dionysius calls the principles in God “wills”, it is in Maximus that we find the emphasis on the contingent temporality of beings produced through God’s “wills”, or logoi: an aspect reflected in Nicholas’ distinction between God’s production of beings as “by will” (θελήματι) apart from what is “by God’s own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἰναι).

In addition, Nicholas’ argument in Prop. 167 that God knows beings not through intellection unqualifiedly, but through specifically thinking of beings as their cause, mirrors Maximus’ argument that God knows beings also not through intellection but rather in virtue of the distinct wills or intentions (θελήματα) in God. Although Nicholas accepts intellection in God in contrast to Maximus’ denial of intellection,⁷⁰ one nevertheless finds a parallel in how Nicholas and Maximus qualify God’s knowledge of beings in the same way—i.e. only in terms of the principles contained in God. Although Maximus seems little concerned with the pagan philosophical context in contrast to Philoponus, one nevertheless finds the survival of an anti-Proclean distinction in Maximus between God’s own being and God’s knowledge of beings.

So far this section has looked at Maximus as an influence in Nicholas’ creationist interpretation of Ps.-Dionysius on the divine ideas, and it has considered Philoponus, in turn, as an influence in Maximus. While we have already seen certain parallels between Nicholas and Philoponus, as mediated through Maximus, it is worth briefly comparing the argumentative strategies of Philoponus and Nicholas in their respective rejections of Proclus’ eternalist framework. As we saw in the Elements’ Prop. 76, Proclus argues that unchanging causes produce unchanging effects, and that if an unchanging cause were to produce a changing effect, this would implicate the cause in change; hence, the cause must be changeless. Philoponus’ response to Proclus is to reject the notion that change obtains in God by the production of contingent beings: capacity and actuality are the same in God, even if they are different in created beings.⁷¹

In Nicholas’ response to Prop. 76, we see a somewhat different response. Nicholas’ argument hinges on two aspects: (1) that “the manner of the creation, and the persistence or change of things that have come into being (γεγενημένων) or have been created (πεποιημένων), [should be attributed] to the purpose (βουλήματι) of the Creator.”⁷² And (2) that the goodness of the divine cause is expressed only by willing—whereas not to attribute willing to the divine cause would fail to express the cause’s goodness. Nicholas, in effect, does not appear to address Proclus’ charge that God is implicated in change by affirming God as the cause of changeable beings: instead Nicholas attributes change to God’s willing, or purpose (βούλησις), rather than God’s “own being” (τῷ εἶναι μόνῳ).⁷³ On the one hand it seems that Nicholas would follow Philoponus in denying that change obtains in God—at least change which pertains to creation. On the other hand, unlike Philoponus, he does not maintain that God is unmoved (akinêton): elsewhere, Nicholas critiques Proclus’ attribution of being unmoved to God, affirming instead that God is preeminently self-moving, rather than unmoved.⁷⁴ However, in Nicholas’ reply to Prop. 76, this aspect does not come up (as one might expect), but instead he appears to sidestep the issue by assigning the causation of created, changeable beings to God’s βούλησις. Nicholas might perhaps respond to Proclus differently from Philoponus in this way: change does not obtain in God, as creating changeable beings, since changeability is assigned rather to God’s will or purpose—but this does not implicate God’s own being (τῷ εἶναι μόνῳ). Perhaps this also goes together with the opening lines of Nicholas’ commentary on Proposition 76 that God’s being (and thereby creation) is “incomprehensible” (ἀκατάληπτον)—an additional argument one does not see emphasized in Philoponus. This different strategy from Philoponus would be one point against the possibility that Nicholas adapted Philoponus’ refutation of Proclus.

Still, certain aspects of Philoponus’ framework may find a parallel, if not influence, in Nicholas. For instance, Philoponus emphasizes the superiority of causality by willing rather than without willing—one of the main premises in Nicholas’ response to Proclus.⁷⁵ In turn, Philoponus’ emphasis on the contingency of beings produced by God’s willing, based on their logoi in God, can also be found in Nicholas (and Maximus, as noted above) when he argues against beings as “concurrent” (σύνδρομον) with God’s being.⁷⁶ It may well be that these kinds of arguments were common by, or just prior to, Nicholas’ time (e.g. in John Italos, as we will see below). In any case, we can see in Philoponus—and by proxy, Maximus—two witnesses to an anti-eternalist argument which can be seen—at least aspects of it—in Nicholas’ use of Ps.-Dionysius in his own response to Proclus: a context which, again, Ps.-Dionysius in himself appears little concerned with.

4 Conclusion: Nicholas’ Creationist Account of the Divine Ideas amidst the Byzantine Concern against Eternalism

In Sect. 1 we looked in depth at Nicholas’ understanding of the divine ideas as the means by which God produces created beings. One curious aspect in Nicholas’ argument, seen especially in his response to Proposition 167, is his distinction between God thinking himself and thinking of created beings as their cause. This can be related together with his two-fold distinction in causality, from his response to Proposition 76: God causes either (1) “by his own being” (αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι), i.e. in the production of the Trinitarian persons, or (2) by the “one, common will” (ἑνὶ θελήματι καὶ κοινῷ) of the Trinitarian persons, i.e. in the production of created beings. Finally we also see a two-fold distinction in his response to Proposition 174, between God thinking created beings, as Intellect-itself, and God producing beings, as Being-itself. These distinctions can be seen as Nicholas’ attempt to distinguish how God can eternally possess the logoi or divine ideas for all created beings, while only contingently producing beings in time: all in contrast to Proclus, for whom God’s, or the gods’, possession of the principles of beings is simultaneous with the eternal production of those beings (as seen, again, in Prop. 76).

In Sect. 2 we looked at two particular early Byzantines as possible influences Nicholas’ creationist argument: proximately to Nicholas, Maximus the Confessor, and in the background to Maximus, John Philoponus. As noted, where Ps.-Dionysius equates God’s production of beings αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι with the divine ideas or “wills” (θελήματα), it is in Maximus that we find an implicit distinction between the two: i.e. God produces on the basis of the logoi, which he eternally possesses, while producing beings which are contingent by their nature. The same distinction we find in Philoponus in the background, for whom the production of changeable, contingent beings does not impute change in God—against Proclus’ claim to the contrary. One can see aspects of these arguments in the background to Nicholas’ response to Proclus and his use of Ps.-Dionysius’ notion of the divine ideas.

Why Nicholas himself is concerned with eternalism in his articulation of the divine ideas, outside the earlier context of Philoponus and Maximus, is not entirely clear. Although this paper’s focus is on the early Byzantine sources behind Nicholas’ articulation, another important, more proximate context for Nicholas may be the middle Byzantine, Komnenian-era controversy surrounding John Italos and his ecclesial condemnation in 1082—some 70–80 years before Nicholas’ Refutation. Although explicitly aimed at Italos, the synodal condemnations appear to be a more wide-ranging, general critique of various ancient philosophical theses, like metempsychosis, the denial of the soul’s immortality, and, more pertinently, the eternity of matter and created beings.⁷⁷ The picture is more varied with Italos himself: in texts like Quaestio 71, Italos appears, rather, to critique the idea of the pre-existence of matter and the eternity of the world, while re-using arguments for the world’s eternity from Proclus and Aristotle. Among a barrage of arguments, Italos argues that the first cause’s production of beings “by choice” (προαιρέσει), rather than “by nature” (φύσει), implies that it does not produce eternally.⁷⁸ In this Italos appears to refer to Philoponus’ argument distinguishing the eternal actuality of the creator from the actuality of the created being, as we saw above.⁷⁹ Although both Italos and the ecclesial condemnation are several decades removed from Nicholas’ time, the proximity of this kind of argument against the eternity of the world—and the awareness of these kinds of arguments which triggered Italos’ condemnation—may well have been fresh on Nicholas’ mind, perhaps in connection with the linking of Proclus with contemporary heresy in Nicholas’ time.⁸⁰

Given this, various questions still remain. For instance, it is still not clear how one should understand the kind of “simultaneity” of the divine ideas in God—which are only contingently produced—and the causality of the divine persons, “in” or as God—which are necessarily and eternally produced: if Nicholas conceives of God as ‘intellect’—or rather in his words, “pre-Intellect”, following Ps.-Dionysius’ language—how does one understand the unity of God as intellect, while maintaining the distinction between divine ideas and the divine nature/persons in itself/themselves? While this question cannot be answered here for now, we can see that Nicholas defends a creationist account of the divine ideas, and in doing so continues a trend from earlier Byzantines which we can see traced back, at least, to Maximus the Confessor and John Philoponus.

I would like to thank Joshua Robinson, Lela Alexidze, and István Perczel, as well as Carlos Steel, Jan Opsomer, Arthur Oosthout, and Sokratis-Athanasios Kiosoglou for their immensely helpful comments and feedback with earlier versions of this paper and some of the ideas therein. This study and the resulting paper was generously supported by the European Research Council (within the framework of the project Neoplatonism and Abrahamic Traditions [NeoplAT], grant ref. ERC_CoG_771640) and the Research Foundation—Flanders (FWO) (within the framework of the project Substance and the Sensible World between Pagan Platonism and Early Byzantine Christians, grant ref. 3H210442), alongside the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Institut für Mittelalterforschung), KU Leuven (De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy), and HU Berlin (Institute für Klassische Philologie).

Among various examples, see Plato, Phaedo, 96a–102a (esp. 100b–e); on the notion of “cause” in relation to the Forms in this context, see D. Sedley, “Platonic Causes”, in Phronesis 43/2(1998), pp. 114–132.

Among other early Christian sources for the notion of Forms as ideas or rational principles (λόγοι) in the mind of God, see Philo of Alexandria, De opificio mundi 19–20, as well as Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis I.19.114. The idea recurs in various pagan Middle Platonists, as especially Alcinous, Didaskalion X.3. See further G. Boys-Stones, Platonist Philosophy 80 BC to AD 250: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 147–183 (esp. pp. 158–159 on Philo) and G. Karamanolis, The Philosophy of Early Christianity (London: Routledge, 2021²), pp. 85–86.

See I. Zavattero, “In Augustine’s Footsteps. The Doctrine of Ideas in Franciscan Thought”, in J.F. Falà, I. Zavattero (eds), Divine Ideas in Franciscan Thought (XIIIth–XIVth Century) (Canterano: Aracne editrice, 2018), pp. xi–xxvii; C.A. Vater, Divine Ideas: 1250–1325, PhD dissertation, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America, 2017, and more generally the collection of Falà, Zavattero (eds), Divine Ideas in Franciscan Thought.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 76, l. 1–2: πᾶν μὲν τὸ ἀπὸ ἀκινήτου γινόμενον αἰτίας ἀμετάβλητον ἔχει τὴν ὕπαρξιν· πᾶν δὲ τὸ ἀπὸ κινουμένης, μεταβλητήν. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 76, l. 3–8: εἰ γὰρ ἀκίνητόν ἐστι πάντῃ τὸ ποιοῦν, οὐ διὰ κινήσεως, ἀλλ’ αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι παράγει τὸ δεύτερον ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ· εἰ δὲ τοῦτο, σύνδρομον ἔχει τῷ ἑαυτοῦ εἶναι τὸ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ· εἰ δὲ τοῦτο, ἕως ἂν ᾖ, παράγει. ἀεὶ δὲ ἔστιν· ἀεὶ ἄρα ὑφίστησι τὸ μετ’ αὐτό· ὥστε καὶ τοῦτο ἀεὶ γίνεται ἐκεῖθεν καὶ ἀεὶ ἔστι, τῷ ἐκείνου ἀεὶ κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν συνάψαν τὸ ἑαυτοῦ κατὰ τὴν πρόοδον ἀεί.

See Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 18, esp. l. 16–18: λείπεται ἄρα τὸ μὲν εἶναι πρώτως ὃ δίδωσι, τὸ δὲ δευτέρως ὃ τὸ διδόν ἐστιν, ἐν οἷς αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι θάτερον ἐκ θατέρου χορηγεῖται. The juxtaposition between causation in this latter sense and “through motion” (διὰ κινήσεως) goes back to Prop. 26, where Proclus claims that every productive cause (τὸ παρακτικὸν) “produces the next and all subsequent [beings] while remaining steadfast in itself” (cf. Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 26: Πᾶν τὸ παρακτικὸν αἴτιον ἄλλων μένον αὐτὸ ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ παράγει τὰ μετ’ αὐτὸ καὶ τὰ ἐφεξῆς). In the proposition, Proclus considers a counter-factual case where the One produces its effects through motion: if this were so, the One would necessarily change from being one to losing its oneness, since motion implies change. Hence, the One—and all productive causes like the One—remain in their own nature while they produce.

See e.g. Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 28: “Every producer brings to existence things like to itself before the unlike” (πᾶν τὸ παράγον τὰ ὅμοια πρὸς ἑαυτὸ πρὸ τῶν ἀνομοίων). On this principle of synonymy, see J. Greig, The First Principle in Late Neoplatonism: A Study of the One’s Causality in Proclus and Damascius (Leiden: Brill, 2021), pp. 90–97; see also J. Opsomer, “A Much Misread Proposition from Proclus’ Elements of Theology (Prop. 28)”, in The Classical Quarterly (New Series) 65/1(2015), pp. 433–438.

See Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 14 and 20.

For the surviving fragment of Proclus’ argument, see John Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 55, l. 25–p. 56, l. 26. On Proclus’ De aeternitate mundi, see H.S. Lang, A.D. Macro, On the Eternity of the World (De aeternitate mundi), Proclus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), esp. pp. 50–51 on the fourth argument.

Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 55, l. 26–p. 56, l. 6 (trans. Chase, slightly modified): εἰ γὰρ τὸ ποιοῦν ἀκίνητον, ἀμετάβλητόν ἐστιν, εἰ δὲ ἀμετάβλητον, αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι ποιεῖ μὴ μεταβαῖνον ἐκ τοῦ ποιεῖν εἰς τὸ μὴ ποιεῖν μηδὲ ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ποιεῖν εἰς τὸ ποιεῖν· μεταβαῖνον γὰρ ἕξει μεταβολὴν αὐτὴν τὴν ἐκ θατέρου μετάβασιν εἰς θάτερον, εἰ δὲ ἕξει μεταβολήν, οὐκ ἂν εἴη ἀκίνητον.

Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 56, l. 10–26.

Nicholas of Methone, Ἀνάπτυξις τῆς Θεολογικῆς Στοιχειώσεως Πρόκλου Πλατωνικοῦ Φιλοσόφου / Refutation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology. A critical edition with an introduction on Nicholas’ life and works by A.D. Angelou (Athens / Leiden, The Academy of Athens / Brill, 1984), 76, l. 1–4: “That whose being is incomprehensible, the power and activity of this [principle, scil. God] are also incomprehensible, so that both the creation and its manner are incomprehensible; foolish is he who investigates ‘the how’ and tries to subject this to demonstration. But that the divine is incomprehensible is agreed upon by all” (trans. Robinson, slightly modified). (Οὗ τὸ εἶναι ἀκατάληπτον, τούτου καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ ἐνέργεια ἀκατάληπτος, ὥστε καὶ ἡ ποίησις καὶ ὁ κατ’ αὐτὴν τρόπος· καὶ μάταιος ὁ τὸν τοιοῦτον τρόπον περιεργαζόμενος καὶ ἀποδείξει ὑπάγειν πειρώμενος. ὅτι δὲ ἀκατάληπτον τὸ θεῖον πᾶσιν ἀνωμολόγηται.) Nicholas’ strategy of arguing based on unknowability reflects a general trend in Byzantine intellectual authors towards employing skeptical argumentation in relation to the possibility of any certainty in reason apart from revelation: on this see J. Greig, “Reason, Revelation, and Sceptical Argumentation in 12th- to 14th–Century Byzantium”, in Theoria 88 (2022), pp. 165–201. On Nicholas’ apophaticism in contrast to that of Proclus, see J. Robinson, “Dionysius Against Proclus: The Apophatic Critique in Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation of the Elements of Theology”, in D. Layne, D. Butorac (eds), Proclus and His Legacy (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), pp. 249–270.

Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 76, l. 5–8 (translation from J.M. Robinson, Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation of Proclus: Theology and Neoplatonism in 12th century Byzantium. A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Notre Dame (Indiana), 2014).

Trans. Robinson, modified; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 76, l. 8–13: ἄμεινον οὖν τῷ βουλήματι τοῦ ποιοῦντος ἀνατιθέναι τόν τε τρόπον τῆς ποιήσεως καὶ τὴν διαμονὴν εἴτε μεταβολὴν τῶν γεγενημένων εἴτουν πεποιημένων ὁρίζοντος κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ θέλημα καὶ τὸν τρόπον τῆς ποιήσεως καὶ τὰ μέτρα τῆς διαμονῆς καὶ τὴν τάξιν καὶ τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα μεταχώρησιν τῶν πεποιημένων […].

Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 76, l. 17 ff.

Trans. Robinson, slightly modified; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 76, l. 15–18: οὗτος δὲ τὸ θεῖον θέλημα παραιτούμενος καὶ τὴν παραγωγὴν τοῦ γινομένου τῷ εἶναι μόνῳ τοῦ ποιοῦντος ἀφοριζόμενος ἀκούσιον ἔοικε τῷ ποιοῦντι τὴν ποίησιν εἰσάγων.

Trans. Robinson; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 76, l. 25–27: δι’ ἀγαθότητα πάντα ποιῆσαι, ὥστε καὶ θελῆσαν, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἄκον, ἵνα μὴ τῷ μὴ θελῆσαι συναρνηθῇ καὶ τὴν ἀγαθότητα.

One sees this in Nicholas’ commentary on the adjoining Prop. 77, when he critiques and modifies Proclus’ claim that all things which exist in potentiality are brought to actuality by a prior principle already existing in actuality. Nicholas takes Proclus’ claim to mean that the first principle, or God, is the actuality of all beings in themselves, which he ends up denying in Refutation 77, l. 17–21 (trans. Robinson): “But we say that neither potentially nor actually is the divine all things, but transcendently and causally, and that, being itself creator of the matter too, it forms from this the individuals according to the pre-determinations of the beings in itself, or the divine wills.” (ἡμεῖς δὲ τὸ θεῖόν φαμεν πάντα εἶναι οὔτε δυνάμει οὔτε κατ’ ἐνέργειαν ἀλλ’ ὑπερεχόντως καὶ κατ’ αἰτίαν, αὐτὸ δὲ ὂν καὶ τῆς ὕλης δημιουργόν, ἐκ ταύτης εἰδοποιεῖν τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα κατὰ τοὺς ἐν αὐτῷ τῶν ὄντων προορισμοὺς ἤτοι τὰ θεῖα θελήματα.) Nicholas’ claim against construing God and the divine ideas as the “actuality” (ἐνέργεια) of creatures further underlines the detachment between God’s being (as well as the divine ideas’ being in God) and that of created beings. This in turn would make sense of Nicholas tying God’s causality to the will, rather than simply to God’s nature in itself.

Here I translate ὕπαρξις in Proclus as “subsistence” rather than “existence”, since Proclus tends to use ὕπαρξις in a more restricted sense to indicate the specific, primary existence of an entity in itself (e.g. Soul-itself rather than the property “soul” in a body), whereas Proclus uses ὑπόστασις to indicate existence in a generic, loose sense (i.e. the term may indicate a self-subsistent entity [= ὕπαρξις] or a property that inheres in another entity, or e.g. evil as a “parhupostasis”). On this, see C. Steel, “Ὕπαρξις chez Proclus”, in F. Romano, D.P. Taormina (eds), Hyparxis e hypostasis nel Neoplatonismo (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1994), pp. 79–100, and Greig, The First Principle, p. 80, n. 27.

Cf. Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 119 and esp. 13.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 7, l. 23.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 117, l. 5; see also 134, l. 10, where all things desire (βούλεται) the Good.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 117, l. 4–6: τὸ δὲ ἑνιαῖον μετρεῖν καὶ περατοῦν, οἷς ἂν παρῇ, βούλεται, καὶ περιάγειν εἰς ὅρον τὸ μὴ τοιοῦτον κατὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ δύναμιν.

Proclus, In Platonis Parmenidem commentaria, ed. C. Steel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007–2009), VI, 1048.1–5.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 13, l. 3–8.

Cf. Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 76, l. 5 (which Nicholas quotes here): σύνδρομον ἔχειν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ εἶναι τὸ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ.

Trans. Robinson, modified; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 76, l. 27–37: ὅθεν ὁ θεῖος καὶ τὰ θεῖα πολὺς Διονύσιος ἰδέας τῶν ὄντων ἐν τῷ θεῷ προϋφεστώσας τὰ θεῖα λέγει καὶ ἀγαθὰ ταῦτα θελήματα. αὐτῷ δὲ τῷ εἶναι, μὴ θέλων, δηλαδὴ παράγει τῶν ὄντων οὐδέν, ὡς καὶ σύνδρομον ἔχειν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ εἶναι τὸ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ παραγόμενον, ἀλλὰ πάντα τῆς αὐτοῦ ἀνάρχου ὑπάρξεως ὕστερα, μόνον δὲ αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι γεννᾷ τὸν υἱὸν καὶ μόνον προβάλλει τὸ πνεῦμα, ὅθεν καὶ συνάναρχα ταῦτα καὶ συναΐδια καὶ ὁμοούσια τῷ γεννῶντι καὶ προβάλλοντι, οὐδ’ ἐκεῖ τοῦ ἀκουσίου χώραν λαμβάνοντος, ἀλλ’ ἑνὶ θελήματι καὶ κοινῷ τῶν τριῶν, καθὸ καὶ ἡ ἀγαθότης μία καὶ κοινὴ τοῦ μὲν γεννῶντός τε καὶ προβάλλοντος, τοῦ δὲ γεννωμένου, τοῦ δὲ προβαλλομένου.

One can, of course, see the inheritance of language from the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) to refer to the Son, alongside the Spirit, as “consubstantial” (ὁμοούσιος) with the Father; on the philosophical and theological background behind the term in this period, see J. Zachhuber, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 103–110.

One may wonder how Nicholas understands the nature of the Trinitarian persons and their procession when it is “God” which is the implicit subject for both the production of creatures (lines 29–30: αὐτῷ δὲ τῷ εἶναι, μὴ θέλων, δηλαδὴ παράγει τῶν ὄντων οὐδέν) and the production of the Son and Spirit (lines 32–33: μόνον δὲ αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι γεννᾷ τὸν υἱὸν καὶ μόνον προβάλλει τὸ πνεῦμα)—suggesting that the subject, “God”, is (rather?) the person of the Father. On the one hand this might suggest subordinationism, i.e. the Son and Spirit as posterior to “God” (i.e. the Father) in the same way creatures are. On the other hand, Nicholas’ qualification in the later lines 35–37 (ἀλλ’ ἑνὶ θελήματι καὶ κοινῷ τῶν τριῶν […]), with the production of creatures by “the begettor and projecter”, alongside “the begotten” and “the projected”, implies a different subject for the production of creatures (i.e. the three divine persons) from that of the production of the Son and Spirit (i.e. the Father alone). I wish to thank Dirk Krausmüller for raising this question.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 167, l. 1–4: “Every intellect (νοῦς) thinks itself, but the very first intellect thinks itself alone, and intellect and intelligible are one in the latter [first intellect], whereas each subsequent intellect simultaneously thinks itself and the intellects before it, and by this the intelligible is in one respect the same [as it], in another respect [the intelligible] is that from which it is [scil. its prior].” (πᾶς νοῦς ἑαυτὸν νοεῖ· ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν πρώτιστος ἑαυτὸν μόνον, καὶ ἓν κατ’ ἀριθμὸν ἐν τούτῳ νοῦς καὶ νοητόν· ἕκαστος δὲ τῶν ἐφεξῆς ἑαυτὸν ἅμα καὶ τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ, καὶ νοητόν ἐστι τούτῳ τὸ μὲν ὅ ἐστι, τὸ δὲ ἀφ’ οὗ ἐστιν.)

For more on intellect for Nicholas, see Lela Alexidze’s chapter in this volume.

See Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 167, l. 18–21, who appeals to Matthew 11:27 where Christ says that no one knows the Son except the Father: for Nicholas this implies that no knowledge of the divine nature is possible for created beings.

Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 167, l. 25–29 (trans. Robinson, modified): “And the divine intellects think themselves as they are, but they think the things above them not as these are but in a lesser way, and they think the things after themselves as well, although [as] over which the things themselves are, functioning as mediators and ministers of the divine pre-thinking; and for this reason this would not be called a ‘return to the inferior’ [cf. Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 167, l. 7–11].” (οἱ δὲ θεῖοι νόες νοοῦσι μὲν ἑαυτοὺς ὥς εἰσι, νοοῦσι δὲ καὶ τὰ ὑπὲρ αὐτούς, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὡς ἐκεῖνά εἰσι ἀλλ’ ἡττόνως, νοοῦσι δὲ καὶ τὰ μετ’ αὐτούς, ἀλλ’ ὑπὲρ ὃ ταῦτά εἰσι, τῆς θείας προνοίας μεσῖται καὶ διάκονοι χρηματίζοντες· ὅθεν οὐδὲ τοῦτο ῥηθείη ἂν πρὸς τὸ χεῖρον ἐπιστροφή.) Nicholas here and elsewhere calls the angels “divine intellects”, albeit disagreeing with Proclus in saying they are divine by nature, but rather by grace (cf. Refutation, 165, 28–34): on this topic, see J. Greig, “Soul and Deification in Proclus, Nicholas of Methone, and the Palamite Controversy”, in S. Wear, C. O’Brien (eds), Platonic Principles (Steubenville, OH: Franciscan University Press, forthcoming).

Trans. Robinson, lightly modified; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 167, l. 4–7: ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ μόνον ἑαυτὸν νοεῖ ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντα τὰ ὄντα, ὧν αὐτός ἐστιν αἴτιος· εἰ γὰρ μὴ καὶ ταῦτα, οὐδ’ ἂν ἑαυτὸν νοῇ ὡς τούτων αἴτιον, ὅπερ ἄτοπον· νοεῖ ἄρα καὶ ταῦτα, πλὴν ἀλλὰ κρειττόνως ἤπερ αὐτὰ ἑαυτά.

Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 173, l. 1–3: Πᾶς νοῦς νοερῶς ἐστι καὶ τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ μετ’ αὐτόν· τὰ μὲν γάρ ἐστι κατ’ αἰτίαν, ὅσα μετ’ αὐτόν, τὰ δὲ κατὰ μέθεξιν, ὅσα πρὸ αὐτοῦ· […].

Trans. Robinson, modified; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 169, l. 1–3: Ἐδείξαμεν ὅτι οὐχ ἑαυτὸν μόνον νοεῖ· ὥστε οὐδὲ ταὐτὸν νοῦς καὶ νοητόν, οὐδ’ ἄρα ἡ νόησις ταὐτὸν ἀμφοῖν, ἀλλ’ οἰκεία μὲν πᾶσα τῷ νοοῦντι, τῶν δὲ νοουμένων ἡ μὲν κρείττων, ἡ δὲ χείρων, […]. See Lela Alexidze’s chapter for a more detailed analysis of this in comparison with Petritsi’s interpretation of Proclus on intellect.

See Damascius, De Principiis II, 149.12–20 and 158.8–16. Cf. S. Gertz, “Knowledge, Intellect and Being in Damascius’ Doubts and Solutions Concerning First Principles”, in Ancient Philosophy 36/2(2016), pp. 479–494 and, in the context of causality, Greig, The First Principle, pp. 120–137, esp. pp. 125–128.

There is a further parallel to Damascius in Nicholas’ commentary on Prop. 169. In the second half of his response (lines 5–19), Nicholas argues against Proclus’ claim that intellect is unmoved (ἀκίνητος). For Nicholas, the divine intellect is moved (κινεῖσθαι) both in the Trinitarian procession of persons, and also in producing beings: “And in another way [the beyond-intellect (ὁ ὑπέρνοος)] would be said to move by the overflowing of its goodness in producing and holding together and returning beings to itself and in simply providing.” (trans. Robinson; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 169, l. 6–9: λέγοιτο δ’ ἂν καὶ ἄλλως κινεῖσθαι τῇ ὑπερχύσει τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ἀγαθότητος ἐν τῷ παράγειν καὶ συνέχειν καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστρέφειν τὰ ὄντα καὶ τῷ ἁπλῶς προνοεῖν.) Although Damascius does not use the terminology of motion (κινεῖσθαι, κίνησις), he speaks in similar terms of the cause “departing from itself” in causing its effect: “For the producer departs from itself and distinguishes the produced thing from itself: it therefore gives distinction to itself and to [the produced thing].” (Damascius, De Principiis II, 158.1–4: τὸ γὰρ παράγον ἀφίστησιν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ διακρίνει ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ τὸ παραγόμενον· αὐτὸ ἄρα δίδωσι καὶ ἑαυτῷ καὶ ἐκείνῳ τὴν διάκρισιν). Although arguing from different contexts, there may be a similar thought process between Nicholas and Damascius: insofar as God, or the cause, produces its effect, the cause must necessarily contextualize itself in relation the emergence of its effects. In the case of Nicholas, this kind of distinction would seem to go together with his creationism. For more on Nicholas’ argument the intellect as unmoved, see in this volume Joshua Robinson’s chapter, “The Motion of the Fertile One in Nicholas of Methone and Earlier Sources”.

Trans. Robinson, modified; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 174, l. 20–27: ἡμῖν δὲ τὸν μὲν πρώτιστον μόνον καὶ ὑπέρνοον νοῦν ὁμολογοῦσι σύνδρομον ἔχειν τῇ νοήσει τὴν ποίησιν εὔδρομος ὁ λόγος προχωρεῖ καὶ ἀπρόσκοπος, ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὸν αὐτόν φαμεν εἶναι νοῦν τε ὑπέρνοον καὶ ὂν ὑπερούσιον. οὐκοῦν καὶ ὡς μὲν νοῦς νοεῖ πάντα τὰ μετ’ αὐτόν, ὡς δὲ ὢν ὑφίστησι ταῦτα παρ’ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ εἶναι ποιεῖ, καὶ ἔστιν αὐτοῦ ἡ νόησις ποίησις καὶ ἡ ποίησις νόησις. ἀλλὰ καὶ νοεῖ τὰ μετ’ αὐτὸν κρειττόνως ἤπερ εἰσίν, οἰκείως δηλαδὴ ἑαυτῷ, καθὸ καὶ ποιεῖ τῇ νοήσει, αὐτὸς δὲ ὢν καὶ νοῦς ὑπέρτατος καὶ ὁ ὢν πρὸ πάντων νοεῖ καὶ ἑαυτὸν ὡς ὄντα τε καὶ προόντα, διὸ οὐδὲ ποιεῖν ἑαυτὸν λέγεται· οὐ ποιεῖται γὰρ τὸ ὄν, μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ προόν, πρὸ αὐτοῦ δὲ μηδὲν ἔχων οὔτε ποιεῖν τι πρὸ αὐτοῦ οὔτε νοεῖν λέγοιτ’ ἄν.

Cf. Nicholas of Methone, Refutation 136, l. 8–15.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, De divinis nominibus, ed. B.R. Suchla (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990), V.8, p. 188, l. 6–10: παραδείγματα δέ φαμεν εἶναι τοὺς ἐν θεῷ τῶν ὄντων οὐσιοποιοὺς καὶ ἑνιαίως προϋφεστῶτας λόγους, οὓς ἡ θεολογία προορισμοὺς καλεῖ καὶ θεῖα καὶ ἀγαθὰ θελήματα, τῶν ὄντων ἀφοριστικὰ καὶ ποιητικά, καθ᾽ οὓς ὁ ὑπερούσιος τὰ ὄντα πάντα καὶ προώρισε καὶ παρήγαγεν.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, De divinis nominibus, I.5, p. 117, l. 11–15: Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ὡς ἀγαθότητος ὕπαρξις αὐτῷ τῷ εἶναι πάντων ἐστὶ τῶν ὄντων αἰτία, τὴν ἀγαθαρχικὴν τῆς θεαρχίας πρόνοιαν ἐκ πάντων τῶν αἰτιατῶν ὑμνητέον. Ἐπεὶ καὶ περὶ αὐτὴν πάντα καὶ αὐτῆς ἕνεκα, ‘καὶ αὐτή ἐστι πρὸ πάντων, καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῇ συνέστηκεν’.

See below, pp. 227–229.

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 24, l. 1–3 (= PG 91, 1085A).

See Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 2, l. 5–12 (= PG 91, 1069A–B). For an analysis of this passage and what kind of target (Origenist and/or otherwise) that Maximus have had in mind, see P. Sherwood, The Earlier “Ambigua” of Saint Maximus the Confessor and His Refutation of Origenism, in Studia Anselmiana 36(1955), pp. 72–92; S. Gersh (ed), From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978), pp. 219–220; and J. Greig, “Proclus’ Reception in Maximus the Confessor, mediated through John Philoponus and Dionysius the Ps.-Areopagite: A Case Study of Ambiguum 7”, in D. Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, Volume 3. On Causes and the Noetic Triad (Leiden: Brill, 2022), pp. 120–126.

It is striking how both Maximus and Nicholas use Ps.-Dionysius against the eternalist arguments, broadly construed, of their opponents, i.e. Origenists and Proclus respectively. Of course, the kind of “eternalism” each directly critiques is distinct: for Maximus it is the eternal pre-existence of the soul (held by Origenists), and for Nicholas it is the eternal pre-existence of the whole cosmos (held by Proclus).

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 19, l. 3–12 (= PG 91, 1081A–B): ὡς ἐν αὐτῷ καὶ παρ’ αὐτῷ ὄντων αὐτῇ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τῶν πάντων, κἂν εἰ αὐτὰ τὰ πάντα, τά τε ὄντα καὶ τὰ ἐσόμενα οὐχ ἅμα τοῖς ἑαυτῶν λόγοις ἢ τῷ γνωσθῆναι ὑπὸ θεοῦ εἰς τὸ εἶναι παρήχθησαν, ἀλλ’ ἕκαστα τῷ ἐπιτηδείῳ καιρῷ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ δημιουργοῦ σοφίαν πρεπόντως κατὰ τοὺς ἑαυτῶν λόγους δημιουργούμενα καὶ καθ’ ἑαυτὰ τὸ εἶναι τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ λαμβάνῃ. ἐπειδὴ ὁ μὲν ἀεὶ κατ’ ἐνέργειάν ἐστι δημιουργός, τὰ δὲ δυνάμει μέν ἐστιν, ἐνεργείᾳ δὲ οὐκ ἔτι· ὅτι μηδὲ οἷόν τε τῶν ἅμα εἶναι τὸ ἄπειρον καὶ τὰ πεπερασμένα.

Comparing with Philoponus, it is noteworthy how Philoponus in Contra Proclum p. 76, l. 27, describes God’s possession and thinking of the logoi as ἀιδίως (“everlasting”, “perpetual”, etc.), while for Maximus God’s possession and thinking of the logoi is ἀεὶ (“always”). Although explicating this difference goes beyond the confines of this chapter, we can briefly note that this potentially reflects a difference in Philoponus’ and Maximus’ conceptions of eternity: Philoponus, later in Contra Proclum p. 114, l. 19–p. 116, l. 1, describes eternity as a measure of eternal beings, which should be conceived as a “certain breath” (τι πλάτος) and “extension” (παράτασίν τινα) that stretches alongside the eternal beings themselves. On this, see K. Verrycken, “John Philoponus”, in L.P. Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 748–749. By contrast, Maximus seems to accept implicitly the conception of eternity as at a point with his description of God’s existence as ἀεὶ.

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 24, l. 13–20 (= PG 91, 1085A): ([…] ὡς ἴδια θελήματα γινώσκειν αὐτὸν τὰ ὄντα φαμέν), προσθέντες καὶ τοῦ λόγου τὸ εὔλογον· εἰ γὰρ θελήματι τὰ πάντα πεποίηκε, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀντερεῖ λόγος, γινώσκειν δὲ τό ἴδιον θέλημα τὸν Θεὸν εὐσεβές τε λέγειν ἀεὶ καί δίκαιόν ἐστιν, ἕκαστον δὲ τῶν γεγονότων θέλων πεποίηκεν, ἄρα ὡς ἴδια θελήματα ὁ Θεὸς τὰ ὄντα γινώσκει, ἐπειδὴ καὶ θέλων τὰ ὄντα πεποίηκεν. Numbering added by me.

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 24, l. 1–13 (= PG 91, 1085A): “In the same way, the disciples of Pantainos (who became the teacher of the great Clement [who wrote the] Stromateis) also say that they are called by Scripture ‘divine wills’. For when they were approached by some of those who boast in their secular learning, and [were asked] how Christians believe that God knows beings (τά όντα)—since each believed [God knows] intelligible beings in an intellective way, and sensible beings by sensation—they answered that God neither knows sensible things by sensation nor intelligible things in an intellective way (for it is not possible, as the argument demonstrated, for that which is beyond beings to apprehend beings according to the mode of beings (κατά τά όντα), but we say that [God] knows beings as his own wills (ὡς ἴδια θελήματα)) […].” (ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ οἱ περὶ Πάνταινον, τὸν γενόμενον καθηγητὴν τοῦ Στρωματέως μεγάλου Κλήμεντος, “θεῖα θελήματα” τῇ Γραφῇ φίλον καλεῖσθαί φασι. Ὅθεν ἐρωτηθέντες ὑπό τινων τῶν τὴν ἔξω παίδευσιν γαύρων, πῶς γινώσκειν τὰ ὄντα τὸν Θεὸν δοξάζουσιν οἱ Χριστιανοί, ὑπειληφότων ἐκείνων νοερῶς τὰ νοητὰ καὶ αἰσθητικῶς τὰ αἰσθητά, γινώσκειν αὐτὸν τὰ ὄντα ἀπεκρίναντο μήτε αἰσθητικῶς τὰ αἰσθητὰ μήτε νοερῶς τὰ νοητά (οὐ γὰρ εἶναι δυνατόν, ἐστὶν ὁ ἀποδεικνὺς λόγος, τὸν ὑπὲρ τὰ ὄντα κατὰ τὰ ὄντα τῶν ὄντων λαμβάνεσθαι, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἴδια θελήματα γινώσκειν αὐτὸν τὰ ὄντα φαμέν) […].)

The thought behind Maximus’ phrasing is likely little different from Proclus’ view of the henads’ knowledge of beings: see e.g. Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 121 (esp. lines 14–18), which argues that the henads, as gods, possess providence by virtue of pre-containing Intellect and thus pre-containing all forms of knowledge pertaining to beings (cf. Prop. 134).

It is also noteworthy that the phrase αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι or variations of the phrase in its causal context, as seen in Ps.-Dionysius or Proclus, does not show up anywhere in Maximus’ corpus.

For example, Basil of Caeserea, In Hexaemeron, I, p. 17, l. 17b–c, argues that conceiving of God as an eternal creator would imply that creation took place spontaneously (αὐτομάτως), without choice (ἀπροαιρέτως), implying that creation must come about rather through will. On this see Karamanolis, The Philosophy of Early Christianity, pp. 80–83. For a discussion on creationist vs. eternalist/emanationist arguments between early Christians and Platonists/Aristotelians, see B. Gleede, Platon und Aristoteles in der Kosmologie des Proklos (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009) and B. Gleede, “Endorsing a Cliché: On Liberty and Necessity in Christian and Neoplatonist Accounts of Creation”, in J.D. Turner, K. Corrigan, P. Wakefield (eds), Religion and Philosophy in the Platonic and Neoplatonic Traditions: From Antiquity to the Early Medieval Period (Sankt Augustin: Academia-Verlag, 2012), pp. 277–294.

For comparisons of Philoponus and Maximus on anti-eternalist arguments, see M. Varlamova, “Philoponus’ Dispute Against the Eternity of the World and Its Influence on the Byzantine Philosophy”, in Scrinium 13(2017); G. Benevich, “John Philoponus and Maximus the Confessor at the Crossroads of Philosophical and Theological Thought in Late Antiquity”, in Scrinium 7–8/1 (2011), pp. 102–130 (esp. pp. 123–124); T. Shchukin, “Matter as a Universal: John Philoponus and Maximus the Confessor on the Eternity of the World”, in Scrinium 13 (2017), pp. 361–382; and “Proclus’ Reception in Maximus the Confessor, Mediated through John Philoponus and Dionysius the Ps.-Areopagite: A Case Study of Ambiguum 7”, in D. Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, Volume 3: On Causes and the Noetic Triad (Leiden: Brill, 2022), pp. 135–149.

From Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 57, l. 1 onward.

Although Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 76, l. 34, noticeably uses the word, ἀκούσιον, instead of ἀβούλητον in Philoponus’ case in Contra Proclum, p. 78, l. 12, perhaps implying different dimensions of involuntariness: e.g. in the former case, being constrained (in contrast to what is ἐκούσιον, i.e. from one’s being), while in the latter case, unwished or un-willed (in contrast to what is βούλητον, i.e. what is wished).

Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 78, l. 11–17 (trans. Share, modified): οὐ γὰρ ἀβουλήτῳ φύσεως ἀνάγκῃ, ὡς ὁ ἥλιος ἅμα τῷ παρεῖναι φωτίζει καὶ τὸ πῦρ θερμαίνει, οὕτω καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἀνάγκῃ φύσεως ἑκὼν καὶ ἄκων εἰς τὸ εἶναι παράγει τὰ δημιουργούμενα· ὑπέρτερον γὰρ ἀνάγκης ἁπάσης τὸ πάντων αἴτιον. ὅθεν οὐ πάντως ἅμα τῇ περί τινος τοῦ θεοῦ νοήσει καὶ τὸ νοούμενον εἶναι ἀνάγκη.

Cf. Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 36, l. 27–p. 37, l. 8 (trans. Share, modified): “A shipwright and a builder may be in possession of the logoi [i.e. principles] for [building] a ship or a house but not yet be creating [anything] based on them. The being of such logoi consists in their being thoughts of a certain kind, but when the creator acts in accord with them, they become paradigms as a consequence [of that]. If, then, the generated beings based on them do not in every case immediately follow upon [the existence of] creative logoi, nothing prevents the world from not always existing even if the creative logoi for the world are eternal.” (ἐπεὶ καὶ ναυπηγὸν καὶ οἰκοδόμον ἐνδέχεται νεώς τινος ἢ οἰκίας τοὺς λόγους ἔχοντα μήπω δημιουργεῖν κατ’ αὐτούς· τὸ μὲν γὰρ εἶναι τοῖς τοιούτοις λόγοις ἐν τῷ νοήσεις τινὰς αὐτοὺς εἶναι ὑφέστηκεν, παρακολουθεῖ δὲ αὐτοῖς τὸ παραδείγμασιν εἶναι, ὅταν κατ’ αὐτοὺς ὁ δημιουργὸς ἐνεργήσῃ. εἰ οὖν μὴ πάντως ἅμα τοῖς δημιουργικοῖς λόγοις ἕπεται καὶ τὰ κατ’ αὐτοὺς γινόμενα ἀποτελέσματα, οὐδὲν κωλύει τῶν δημιουργικῶν τοῦ κόσμου λόγων αἰωνίων ὄντων μὴ ἀεὶ εἶναι τὸν κόσμον.) It is worth comparing this passage with Ps.-Dionysius’ ascription in De div nom. V.8 (above) of the “paradigms” of beings to the divine “wills” (θελήματα) and “pre-determinations” (προορισμοὶ): while Ps.-Dionysius simply relates the two sides of wills/pre-determinations and paradigms, Philoponus emphasizes that it is only when God wills the actual creation of beings that the logoi in God become paradigms (παραδείγματα).

Plato, Republic, VI, 507c–509b.

A noteworthy example is Plotinus’ principle that all entities possess an internal and external activity: for instance, the fire possesses its internal activity, as constitutive of its essence, while its external activity lies in heat as its exterior product or effect: see e.g. Plotinus, Enneads, V.1.3, l. 6–12. Plotinus applies this principle to the One’s production of Intellect, and Intellect’s production of Soul, and so on. On this see E.K. Emilsson, Plotinus (London / New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 48–57; and in comparison with Proclus’ principle of causation αὐτῷ τῷ εἴναι, see C. D’Ancona Costa, “Plotinus and Later Platonic Philosophers on the Causality of the First Principle”, in L.P. Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 356–385, esp. pp. 361–362.

Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 77, l. 10–15.

Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 76, l. 26–p. 77, l. 3 (trans. Share, modified): τὰς γὰρ νοήσεις καὶ τοὺς λόγους τῶν ὄντων ἀιδίως κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχει, καθ’ οὓς καὶ δημιουργός ἐστιν, οὐδὲν ἀλλοιότερος ἐκ τοῦ ποιεῖν ἢ μὴ ποιεῖν γινόμενος· ὅλως γὰρ οὐδὲ διαφέρειν ἐπὶ θεοῦ ἕξιν τε καὶ ἐνέργειαν λέγειν θεμιτόν· ἔστιν γὰρ ταὐτὸν ἄμφω, περὶ δὲ τὸ μετέχον ἡ διαφορὰ γίνεται.

At face value this is somewhat puzzling: Philoponus’ arguments suggest that some form of distinction exists in God, even though one cannot disentangle a distinct stage for a capacity that is not also in act in God, insofar as God is outside time. This reflects a tension in reading Philoponus, one which Koenraad Verycken (2010) recognizes when he argues that it would seem that “a separate divine volition, distinct from God’s eternal will to create the world, is needed in order to bring about the real existence of the world, which would be incompatible with the immutability of God’s willing activity” (p. 747). At least it is clear that Philoponus denies that there is a real distinction between capacity and act in God, although, as we have seen in Nicholas, he does not show how there may still be a distinction in God between the two while still affirming unity in God. For now, it is enough to point out that Philoponus provides a mechanism to understand God’s possession of the logoi as distinct from God’s activity of producing, and the type of transition between the two.

Cf. Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 76, l. 26–p. 77, l. 3 and above, n. 50. See also Varlamova, “Philoponus’ Dispute”, pp. 396–398.

Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 76, l. 21–22.

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 19, l. 9–10.

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 19, l. 10–11.

Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 76, l. 21–22.

Cf. Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum, 7, sect. 24, l. 13–20 (= PG 91, 1085A), and p. 218 above.

Cf. Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 77, l. 10–15, and p. 221, above.

Trans. Robinson; Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 76, l. 8–11: ἄμεινον οὖν τῷ βουλήματι τοῦ ποιοῦντος ἀνατιθέναι τόν τε τρόπον τῆς ποιήσεως καὶ τὴν διαμονὴν εἴτε μεταβολὴν τῶν γεγενημένων εἴτουν πεποιημένων (…).

Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 76, l. 15–18: “But Proclus, rejecting the divine will, and determining by the mere being (τῷ εἶναι μόνῳ) of the Creator the production of what comes into being, seems to introduce the creation as involuntary (ἀκούσιον) for the Creator.” (trans. Robinson) (οὗτος δὲ τὸ θεῖον θέλημα παραιτούμενος καὶ τὴν παραγωγὴν τοῦ γινομένου τῷ εἶναι μόνῳ τοῦ ποιοῦντος ἀφοριζόμενος ἀκούσιον ἔοικε τῷ ποιοῦντι τὴν ποίησιν εἰσάγων.)

See e.g. Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, 14, l. 54–60. On Nicholas’ notion of God as self-moved, see Joshua Robinson’s chapter in this volume.

See earlier n. 58.

Cf. above, pp. 208–210.

On the latter, see the Synodikon of Orthodoxy in J. Gouillard, Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie: Édition et commentaire, Paris, Éditions E. de Boccard, 1967, p. 59, l. 198–202. For a discussion of the condemnations in this period, see M. Trizio, “Trials of Philosophers and Theologians under the Komnenoi”, in A. Kaldellis, N. Sinissioglou (eds), The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), esp. pp. 463–464.

John Italos, Quaestiones, 71, l. 54–57: “[And when they say that] if the universe is corruptible, then the cause of the world is diminished in dignity, let them tell us whether the cause creates by an act of will or by nature. If it creates only by an act of will, then its nature is not such that it is eternally creating. If it creates by nature, too, then, so also the next one and so on, and the regress will stop at something everlasting, after which there is no [other] everlasting [entity]” (trans. Kraft–Perczel, lightly modified). (εἰ δ’ ὅτι φθειρομένου τοῦ παντὸς τῆς ἀξίας ἠλάττωται τὸ τοῦ κόσμου αἴτιον, λεγέτωσαν πότερον προαιρέσει ἢ φύσει ποιεῖ. εἰ μὲν οὖν προαιρέσει μόνον, οὐκ ἀεὶ πέφυκε ποιεῖν· εἰ δὲ καὶ φύσει, καὶ τὸ μετ’ ἐκεῖνο ἄρα, καὶ ἔτι τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο, καὶ στήσεται ἡ κάθοδος μέχρι τινὸς ἀϊδίου, μεθ’ ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀΐδιον.) Italos here implicitly refers to Plato and his “successors” when speaking of “they” (οἱ ἀπὸ Πλάτωνος): cf. lines 29–32. Italos eventually argues that the corruptibility of created things lies in its matter in the subsequent lines (58–70), implicitly preserving the first cause’s dignity (cf. the end of Proclus’ fourth argument in De aeternitas mundi in Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 55, l. 16–22). On this passage see A. Kraft, I. Perczel, “John Italos on the Eternity of the World: A New Critical Edition of Quaestio 71 with Translation and Commentary”, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 111/3(2018), pp. 696–699.

See Kraft, Perczel, “John Italos on the Eternity of the World”, p. 698, referencing Philoponus, Contra Proclum, p. 46, l. 3–p. 49, l. 8; cf. also Contra Proclum, p. 76, l. 26–p. 77, l. 3, discussed earlier.

One sees this explicitly in the Refutation’s prologue, l. 17–26. To what degree Nicholas is directly responding to Italos and/or Italos’ teacher, Michael Psellos, rather than to a contemporary nearer his time, is unclear; however, see J. Robinson, “ ‘A Mixing Cup of Piety and Learnedness’: Michael Psellos and Nicholas of Methone as Readers of Proclus’ Elements of Theology”, in D. Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, Volume 2: Translations and Acculturations, (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 56–93, for some indicators that Nicholas may be directly responding to Psellos.

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Nicholas of Methone, Reader of Proclus in Byzantium

Context and Legacy

Series: History of Metaphysics: Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Volume: 7

Cover Nicholas of Methone, Reader of Proclus in Byzantium

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004512900

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 12 May 2025

Subjects
- Classical Studies
  - Ancient Philosophy
- Philosophy
  - Ancient Philosophy
  - Medieval Philosophy

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Part 1 Nicholas of Methone and His Contemporary Intellectual Context

Part 2 The Refutation and Nicholas’ Other Works

Part 3 Nicholas of Methone’s Reception and Legacy

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Chapter 8 Nicholas of Methone on Divine Ideas: Between Proclus and the Early Byzantines

1 Introduction1

2 Nicholas on Prop. 76: The “Ideas of Beings”, Eternalism, and the Divine Will

3 Nicholas’ Predecessors on the Divine Ideas: Ps.-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and John Philoponus

3.1 Nicholas’ Initial Source for the Divine Ideas in Ps.-Dionysius

3.2 Maximus the Confessor: Mediating Ps.-Dionysius’ Divine Wills within a Creationist Context

3.3 John Philoponus: A Background to Maximus, and a Similar Anti-Eternalist Critique of Proclus

3.4 Assessing the Relation between Maximus the Confessor and John Philoponus in Nicholas

4 Conclusion: Nicholas’ Creationist Account of the Divine Ideas amidst the Byzantine Concern against Eternalism

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Nicholas of Methone, Reader of Proclus in Byzantium

Context and Legacy

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1 Introduction¹