1 Introduction*1
In the Byzantine and Byzantino-Caucasian philosophical tradition, there are two complete, or almost complete, commentaries on Proclus’ Elements of Theology, with opposite intentions: that of Nicholas of Methone, in Greek, from the late 1150s,2 commenting upon and refuting 198 propositions, and that of Ioanne Petritsi, in Georgian, commenting upon 211 propositions, of which one (128bis) is different from those commented upon by Nicholas—obviously, because Nicholas’ copy of the Elements did not contain this proposition—and which fails to comment on one of Nicholas’ propositions (149)—obviously, because Petritsi’s copy of the Elements did not contain this proposition. Received wisdom has it that Petritsi had studied in Byzantium before returning to his native Georgia. Yet, when this had happened and who his teachers of philosophy had been, this is a hotly debated question, as we shall see. Alternatively, Psellos, John Italos, or some unspecified later schoolmasters have been proposed as Petritsi’s teachers. Yet, the metaphysical system revealed by Petritsi’s commentary seems to be rather unique, such that it is difficult to situate his oeuvre in the development of Byzantine philosophy. As to Nicholas of Methone, his commentary obviously aims at refuting a contemporary Byzantine Platonist circle, which used the Elements—written by a pagan philosopher—as a handbook of metaphysics for logically treating questions relative to Trinitarian and Christological theology. However, how to identify this circle? Had we not thought for long—although this becomes less and less tenable—that the Proclus Renaissance in Byzantium, initiated by Psellos, was forcibly stopped by the condemnations striking Italos in 1082, and that Byzantine philosophy under the Komnenian dynasty turned to an exclusive Aristotelianism?
Although there is an obvious parallel between Nicholas and Petritsi, their commentaries have never been compared to see to what extent Petritsi’s ideas match those refuted by Nicholas. If they do, then one could suppose that Petritsi was a representative or, rather, predecessor of the circle against whom Nicholas wrote his commentary/refutation. Whether a representative or a predecessor, this would depend on how we date Petritsi’s activities, a question to which I will return in this study. Be this as it may, the present study will argue that such a comparison would be heuristically fertile for mutually illuminating both Nicholas’ and Petritsi’s agenda but will not engage in this work. Instead, it is intended to serve as an introduction to such comparative studies, by giving a report on a work in progress.
For many years, Levan Gigineishvili and I have been working on what we are calling “a critical translation” of Ioanne Petritsi’s commented translation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology (hereafter, for brevity’s sake, Proclus Ibericus). First, I will place our philological work in the context of ongoing research on Petritsi. The presentation of the older literature, below, will be largely based on Levan Gigineishvili’s published summary.3 This will be supplemented by a selective survey of more recent publications, focusing on the relationship of the putative Greek manuscript of Petritsi to the extant Greek textual tradition, as well as on the questions raised by Petritsi’s chronology and his place in the development of Byzantine philosophy and theology. In the second part, I will propose a solution for the riddle of Petritsi’s education in Byzantium, inspired, on the one hand, by Michele Trizio’s studies on Eustratios of Nicaea and, on the other hand, by the studies of András Kraft and myself on John Italos. Finally, in the light of this solution, I will return to the quaestio vexata of the textual tradition of the Greek original of Petritsi’s text of the Elements of Theology and to the relevance of Petritsian studies for understanding Nicholas of Methone’s Anaptyxis as well as to the relevance of Methonian studies for understanding Petritsi.
2 Petritsian Studies, 1909–2021: A Selective Survey
2.1 Georgian Scholarship Founding Petritsian Studies
The modern study of Petritsi was inaugurated by Niko Marr in 1909,4 followed by Shalva Nutsubidze and Simon Kaukchishvili, who published the critical edition of the commented translation of the Elements of Theology in 1937 and 1940.5 This remains the only critical edition to date, although Nutsubidze and Kaukchishvili were not able to collate the earliest, thirteenth-century manuscript of the text. Nutsubidze’s Introduction to the edition set the tone for the study of Ioanne Petritsi and his contribution to Georgian Platonist philosophy. Nutsubidze considered Petritsi a representative of old Georgian paganism. Although this was questioned by Korneli Kekelidze in The History of the Old Georgian Literature,6 Kekelidze did not found his opinion on an internal analysis of Petritsi’s authentic writings, but on a number of ecclesiastic translations wrongly attributed to Petritsi in the tradition. Recent philological research has proven the inauthenticity of these translations attributed to Petritsi.7 Naturally, Nutsubidze’s study claiming Petritsi’s alleged paganism was welcomed in Soviet times. Yet, its implausibility notwithstanding, it has set the tone for further studies, as historians of philosophy still tend to consider Petritsi simply as a continuator of Neoplatonist philosophy, often neglecting his Christian theological thought.
These initial contributions were followed by a plethora of scholars, writing in Georgian, Russian, and then, increasingly, in German and English. Within Georgian scholarship, I would mention here, knowing that I am omitting very important contributions, only the great milestone publication in 2016, by Damana Melikishvili and Natia Mirotadze, of a new diplomatic edition provided with critical notes of the oldest, 13th-century, manuscript (Institute of Manuscripts MS H-1337) of the Proclus Ibericus.8 When Shalva Nutsubidze and Simon Kaukhchishvili published their edition in 1937, they were aware of this manuscript but were not able to have access to it, and so had to content themselves with publishing the readings of 17th–18th century copies. The next great milestone for a better study of Petritsi’s text is Maya Raphava’s edition of the Armenian translation by Symeon of Płndzahank’ of the Proclus Ibericus, published in 2017.9 As this translation was made in 1248 from the Georgian original, it has great value for establishing the original readings of Petritsi’s text.
2.2 E.R. Dodds, Lela Alexidze and Hans-Christian Günther
As to non-Georgian scholarship, in 1933 was published E.R. Dodds’ critical edition and translation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology. This was re-published in a revised and improved version in 1963.10 As the oldest extant Greek manuscripts, namely Marcianus gr. 512 (col. 678) [= M] and Parisinus gr. 2423 [= P], are from the end of the 13th century, while Petritsi’s translation can be safely dated to the twelfth—even its oldest manuscript antedating the oldest Greek manuscripts—necessarily, Dodds had to deal with Petritsi’s translation. For the first edition, Kaukchishvili had sent to Dodds a text of the first five propositions, based on a manuscript of the Institute of Manuscripts in Tbilisi. Dodds got these translated by David Lang, Reader in Caucasian Studies at SOAS.11 Between the first and the second editions of Dodds, the edition of Kaukchishvili and Nutsubidze had been published and Lang was able to acquire a copy of it. He translated for Dodds over fifty selected passages. Based on Lang’s translation of the Georgian text, Dodds passed a negative judgment on Petritsi’s translation, saying that “it exhibits many errors which are unlikely to go back to the Greek. Some of these are evidently due to a failure to follow Proclus’ reasoning (…).” He has established that “Petritsi’s exemplar belonged to the MPQW group”, that is, out of the three families of the Byzantine textual families distinguished by Dodds, to families
Yet, Dodds also found that Petritsi’s exemplar, indicated by the sign Geo, may preserve some correct readings that have “vanished from the direct tradition”.13 So, while admitting that Geo has a certain value for the reconstruction of the text of the Elements, he found that this role had to remain limited. This view was most probably triggered by Dodds’ conviction that the manuscripts BCDE of the
A particular difficulty was posed by the fact that Petritsi’s translation omits Proposition 149, on the limited number of the divine henads, but includes instead another proposition, missing from the entire direct tradition and inserted between Proposition 128, which treats the different ways of participating in the henadic gods, and Proposition 129, which treats the divine bodies that are participating via the divinised souls and the divine minds. This additional proposition, numbered conveniently 128bis, treats the way the divine and the demonic souls (demons in the sense of higher but not yet divine beings) are cognising in their spherical motions following the gods (see Phaedr. 247b) via the passive intellect, which is memory. Based on Lang’s translation, which apparently was incorrect, Dodds concluded that the proposition was inauthentic and was an intrusion into the text.14
Dodds’ view was questioned by Lela Alexidze in a study written in Georgian in 1984, followed by a German article,15 whose main arguments were re-elaborated in the German translation by Lela Alexidze and Lutz Bergemann of Petritsi’s Commentary on the Elements of Theology.16 Alexidze has pointed to the fact that the initial sentence of the proposition quoted by Dodds was seriously mistranslated by Lang, so that Dodds’ conclusions on the inauthenticity of the proposition, based on his impression that the proposition contradicts Prop’s. 170 and 184, are simply invalid. Alexidze has also demonstrated that, according to the correct understanding and translation of the text, Prop. 128bis perfectly corresponds to the philosophical doctrine exposed in Prop’s. 170 and 184 and does not contain anything un-Proclean.
The late Hans-Christian Günther also argued for the authenticity of Proposition 128bis, but thought that it should have been placed after Proposition 184, which treats the different kinds of souls. According to Günther, Petritsi’s version testifies to the fact that, in the 12th century, there existed a version of the Elements with Prop. 128bis and without Prop. 149, which was more authentic than that of the direct textual tradition published by Dodds.17 In a monograph published in 2007, Günther even tried to reconstruct Petritsi’s Greek Vorlage based on the German translation of 20 propositions, provided by Lela Alexidze.18 However, as Günther admittedly did not know Georgian sufficiently well, and as his Greek retroversions are not grammatically sound, his work remains unconvincing.
2.3 Petritsi beyond Georgia
In 1984, a commented Russian translation of Petritsi’s commentary was published by Gulam Tevzadze, N.R. Natadze and I.D. Pantskhava, which made Petritsi quite popular in Russian-speaking intellectual circles.19 This was followed by the substantial work, mostly published in German, by Lela Alexidze20 and Tengiz Iremadze,21 including a German translation of Petritsi’s commentaries on the Elements of Theology by Lela Alexidze and Lutz Bergemann.22 However, both the Russian and the German translations aim at translating only the commentary, while it would have been desirable to also include the text of the Elements of Theology in Petritsi’s version.
Levan Gigineishvili has written the first comprehensive English monograph on the metaphysical system of Petritsi. The great merit of this work is that it breaks away from the tradition of considering Petritsi merely as a Neoplatonist and aims at reconstructing his theology, too.23 The book is a revised version of Gigineishvili’s Ph.D. thesis written at Central European University under my supervision. He was the first to identify the theological concepts of Petritsi with his metaphysical ideas, showing for example that Petritsi identified the One with the Father, the Limit with the Logos, Infinity with the Holy Spirit, and the Unified, or True Being, with Christ’s pre-existent Intellect in the Evagrian sense.24 Also, he was the first to trace the Patristic references in Petritsi’s commentary, being helped by his shadow co-supervisor Dr. Basile Markesinis, whose great assistance should be profusely thanked here.
2.4 Carlos Steel’s Revision of Dodds’ Theories
The place of Petritsi’s putative original Greek text was re-examined by Carlos Steel in the framework of his recent reconsideration of Dodds’ interpretation of the textual tradition of the Elements.25 This study reassesses the entire textual tradition of the Elements of Theology and, revising Dodds’ superficial judgment, attempts to integrate Petritsi’s text into the general textual tradition of the treatise. For this, Levan Gigineishvili and I have communicated to Carlos Steel our draft translation of Petritsi’s work and discussed with him the arising questions. Although our views on Proclus’ textual tradition remain divergent, this interaction was mutually beneficial. Steel maintains Dodds’ distinction of three families of Greek, Latin, and Georgian manuscripts (
The great merit of Steel’s study is that it rejects the priority of the
Steel also analyses the odd Proposition 128bis, of which he publishes a retroversion, which he had thoroughly discussed with Levan Gigineishvili and myself.32 At the end of a thoroughgoing and illuminating analysis, he concludes that the proposition can hardly be from Proclus himself and that it is also improbable that it would be the work of a Byzantine author, due to its manifestly pagan content. In fact, this is the only proposition treating the divine and the demonic souls and their omniscience, in the sense of the pagan religion underlying the Neoplatonist philosophy, which considers the demons superior, semi-divine beings. The subject of this proposition is manifestly incompatible with the Christian teaching, which considers the demons to be fallen angels, certainly powerful beings but evil and ignorant. As a result, Steel raises the possibility that, “if this proposition is an ancient addition, Petritsi’s copy must have represented a textual tradition that was older than the entire Greek textual tradition.”33 However, he rejects this possibility as he thinks it improbable that Geo would be independent of the Byzantine versions. Thus, he proposes the hypothesis that the additional proposition was originally a marginal note in the archetype of the Byzantine versions but was copied only in Geo, while it was omitted from the other copies.
One must note that, even if we are to accept the hypothesis of the additional proposition being a marginal note inserted in the series of propositions, Geo would prove older and independent from the entire Greek textual tradition, since either it or its model would go back directly to the archetype of all the extant Greek texts. However, in the following I will propose that Steel’s first intuition, which he subsequently rejected, was correct: Geo represents an independent textual tradition of the Elements, one that antedates what I call the Byzantine revision of the text, from which the three families established by Dodds derive. This does not mean that Geo is a “better text” as Günther has claimed, but only that it is an independent version of a text that, as we will see, had served as a handbook of metaphysics, and had other versions besides the Byzantine one represented by the extant Greek manuscripts.
2.5 Petritsi’s Dates and His Place in the History of Byzantine Philosophy
By now, many questions related to Petritsian studies are dealt with in European languages, as Petritsi has become important for the history of Neoplatonism and Byzantine philosophy. Due to the work of a plethora of scholars, we begin to get to know a unique Christian Platonist philosophical system born on the soil of Byzantine intellectual life but developed in Georgia, the like of which could not be produced in Byzantium itself because of censorship. However, to place Petritsi’s oeuvre in the Byzantine philosophical tradition, we should establish the approximate dates of his life and of the composition of his Proclus Ibericus work. This is far from being an easy task.
A sure terminus ante quem is the date of the Armenian translation of the work, by Symeon of Płndzahank’, dated 1248.34 Until recently, the majority of Georgian scholars had thought that Petritsi had had an immediate contact with the Constantinopolitan school of Psellos and Italos. According to a popular theory, he would have been a pupil of Italos who, after his teacher’s condemnation in 1082, would have escaped to Bulgaria, to the Petritsoni Armeno-Georgian Monastery in Bačkovo, newly founded by the Byzantine general Gregory Pakourianos (Grigol Bakurianisdze, Grigol Bakurian, d. 1086), from where, or from his later stay in the Monastery of the Black Mountain near Antioch, he would have been invited by King David IV the Builder (1073–1125, reigned from 1089) to return to Georgia.35 Even, Korneli Kekelidze proposed the hypothesis of identifying Petritsi with the addressee of one of Italos’ letters, an “Abazg grammarian”,36 as “Abazgos” (Abkhazian) at that time meant a native of Western Georgia, and as Petritsi’s language displays Western dialectal characteristics.37 The tradition that Petritsi was from Guria, W. Georgia, comes from a later source that is adduced by S.R. Gorgodze.38
Yet, several elements in Kekelidze’s proposal, including his proposed dating for Petritsi’s activities, have been seriously reconsidered, not to say, refuted, by recent Georgian scholarship. After the elimination of the spurious writings attributed to Petritsi, Georgian scholars attribute three extant works as being his genuine compositions: a Georgian translation of Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis, a Preface to Petritsi’s lost translation of the Psalms (thought earlier to be an Epilogue to the Proclus Ibericus)39 and his commented version of the Elements. However, many scholars, such as Lela Alexidze and Lutz Bergemann, are not convinced by Chelidze’s and Gigineishvili’s arguments and continue to hold that the Epilogue, its clear references to the Book of Psalms notwithstanding, belongs to the Proclus Ibericus40 and was formulated as a Christian recapitulation of the commentaries on Proclus. As it will be seen from the arguments that follow, on the one hand, I am accepting Chelidze’s thesis on the Epilogue being a Prologue to Petritsi’s lost translation to the Psalms and, on the other, I believe to find in its text a reference to the fact that its writing preceded the completion of the Proclus Ibericus.
A possible terminus post quem for Petritsi’s literary activity is 1106, the foundation of the Gelati monastic and educational complex, to which Georgian scholarship generally links his activity. However, there is no positive evidence for this view, and it does not appear before the eighteenth century. Even the following marginal gloss in one of the late manuscripts (in fact, from the nineteenth century) containing the Georgian translation of Nemesius, is not a proof as it can be based on the recent, eighteenth-century, tradition:
From the language of the Hellenes this [book] was translated into Georgian by our marvelous philosopher, Petritsi, called Ioane, in a cell of Gelati.41
Although this gloss has no proving force, there is nothing improbable in supposing that Petritsi was one among the intellectuals, along with Arsen Ikaltoeli, who were invited either by King David the Builder, or his son and successor, Demetrius (Demetre) I (c. 1093–1154, reigned from 1125), to participate in the new Hellenistic type of teaching introduced in the Gelati monastic school.42
That what was traditionally thought to be the Epilogue to the translation of the Elements of Theology—a view that is still maintained by prominent Georgian scholars—is in fact about a new translation of the Psalms, is rather clear from the text itself. Petritsi clearly speaks about a “Book of Prayers” written by “Orpheus”, meaning here David, the son of Jesse, and the author of Psalm 75 (76):
And now, we have investigated this, and by the succour of the Word of God the Father we reasoned about and touched upon this Book of Prayers, which is like a vessel or a sentry of the vineyard of the Father of Christ. In fact, the one who is infallible in ⟨His⟩ promises,43 will come for pressing them [i.e., the grapes of this vineyard] (see Isaiah 63: 1–3, and Revelations 16, 17–20),44 and the wage of each one is with himself. Only let him give the wine of his prayers to the Most High, for he [David] says: “Pray and offer to the Most High” [cf. Ps 75 [76]:12].45
Now, let the discourse say about this spiritual Organon:46 What kind of arrangement is there of the book of Orpheus,47 who could describe the quality and quantity of its goodnesses,48 being those of the supremely victorious one?49 Do not wonder, for the Spirit of the First Intellect50—for the sake of creating the holinesses of His activity—⟨has chosen the son of⟩ Jesse, whom He desires, saying, “I have found a man desirable to me” [1 Kings [1 Samuel] 13:14 and Acts 13:22], and in this man and king He stirred the strings of His music in order to embellish51 in this book the road of the souls towards the Father of the souls.52
Petritsi ends his text with these enigmatic verses:53
Translating those one hundred and fifty spiritual Muses,A mimos of the word, I am removing the akanth-erma-s.And may you understand that he, being a hērōs,has made A-pollôn the summit in a Hermes-like manner!54
In this carefully constructed Hellenizing poem, there is one Greek word in Georgian transcription in each of the first three lines, but two in the fourth. The “one hundred and fifty spiritual Muses” are songs or melodies: meaning obviously the Psalms. Mimos (
Moreover, apparently, at the end of his Preface / Epilogue, Petritsi mentions his previous translation of Nemesius as well as his commentaries on the Elements of Theology, but the latter as something planned or in progress, rather than as something achieved:
Had I been shown a tiny bit of love and support on their [his Georgian contemporaries’] part, I would have followed that which is providentially destined to me by God, and I do swear by my very longing for the theories, that I would have shown that the capacities of [the Georgian] language are equal to those of [the Greek] language and, so, I would have Aristotelized,55 embarking upon the theoretical thought of the philosophers presenting the Theology that stands aloof of matter. Yet, even now, I shall venture [to translate the Psalms] within the limits of my powers, relying on the mercy of God and, likely, on the understanding, mercy, and support of [the prophet] David himself.
In fact, in addition to all that was said above, there is one more problem: It is a usual habit among us to embellish and beautify the language when dealing with easy and habitual texts; however, in dealing with the intellectually difficult texts of the philosophers, while I do try to follow all the simplicity and the properties of our language, I do so only to the extent to which excessive simplicity will not destroy or harm the meaning. Actually, all my ideas have to do with the meaning and the theory that is hidden in them [that is, in the Psalms]—be it a logical, a mathematical, a physical, or a metaphysical theory. I have already undertaken the same task when I translated the book of Nemesius.56
“The theoretical thought of the philosophers presenting the Theology that stands aloof of matter”57 seems to be nothing other than a planned or already in-progress translation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology, which later Petritsi edited and provided with commentaries.
Lela Alexidze is of a different opinion. As she thinks that the Epilogue of earlier Georgian scholarship is indeed part of the Proclus Ibericus and is written in reference to the already completed commentaries on the Elements, she is inclined to understand the statement “I would have Aristotelized etc.” as indicating the desire to write an independent treatise on “Platonic theology” that has never materialized.58 I would object that this independent treatise has been in fact written by Petritsi, and is nothing other than his detailed commentaries on the Elements of Theology.
If the above interpretation of Petritsi’s claim, i.e. “I would have Aristotelized etc.”, is correct, this would mean that, in the series of Petritsi’s extant authentic works, the commented translation of the Elements must be the third, as proposed by Levan Gigineishvili.59 Thus, if we are to link Petritsi’s literary activity to the Gelati school, the more than 24-year time gap between Italos’ condemnation in 1082 and the foundation of the Gelati complex in 1106 does not bode well for Kekelidze’s proposed chronology. Also, recent linguistic research by Edisher Chelidze and Damana Melikishvili60 has revealed that Petritsi’s language differs from that of the early Hellenising translators of the Gelati school, namely from that of the philosophical translations of Arsen Iqaltoeli and from that of the Gelati Bible translation, while he seems to be aware of the linguistic innovations of the Gelati school. The linguistic analysis points to a twelfth-century, even possibly early thirteenth-century, date, the terminus ante quem being, as mentioned above, 1248. Thus, nothing assures that Petritsi was among the first intellectuals educated in Byzantium who began teaching at the Gelati monastic school.
3 Petritsi and John Italos
To the above results of the Georgian scholarship of the last decades one might add that there are remarkable divergences between Italos’ and Petritsi’s thought, which also may speak against making Petritsi a direct pupil of the condemned Consul of the Philosophers. Here are some points of comparison between Italos and Petritsi:
3.1 Their Relationship to Proclus Is Different
While Italos is critical of Proclus and creates his own Christian metaphysics against Proclus, often going back to Plotinus and, most of all, to Origen (as we will see in the following), for Petritsi Proclus is an unquestionable authority, whose teaching is interpreted as coinciding with and illuminating Christian doctrine. In his introduction to the Elements of Theology, Petritsi summarises what Marinus writes in the Life of Proclus or Concerning Happiness but transforms Marinus’ life into a quasi-Christian hagiography:
This Proclus, the successor of the chair of the divine Plato, according to his origin was from Ionia, an offshoot of most noble parents, who did not have a child and through prayers continuously called on the temples of divine mercy. On this account they got a promise from a divine oracle: “You will be given a son who will spend all stages [of life] in contemplation of the reality above.” As the years of his adolescence proceeded, through the holiness of the powers in him he eclipsed all, beyond any comparison of measures. First, I will mention his chastity and the extinction in him of the youthful burnings, through which the power of the perceptible things and of the imaginations beset the souls that have fallen into becoming. Next, the concentration and sharpness in toils of studying, either in logical or in natural theories, or in arithmetic, geometry, and even music itself, through which one can discover the embroidery and plaiting of the constitution of beings, their mutual communication and division, and how through those things one can discover that the good art of God, the Originator of all, surpasses the contemplator. However, he transcended those theories that are intertwined with nature, for he left those transient forms of time and becoming, which only imitate Being—in fact, most of what they consist of is connected to the non-being—and attained to the True Being and Essence. However, he did not set the limit of his contemplations here, but followed the lead of his predecessors, I mean the Platonists, and tried to know, as much as possible, the One—the object of desire and love of all beings, who is inaccessible even to that Superior Intellect, having revealed what is sealed and hidden in Plato’s dialogues. He kindled the wisdom within them, that is, the faith “co-present with beings”,61 and how, in them, Plato thirsted for that unimaginable One and for the entire intellectual and supra-intellectual ornament.62 Moreover, he refuted the word that is formed by the laws of the Peripatetics, the followers of Aristotle, who proliferated like fire, and he revealed and demolished the truth that is claimed to be based on the syllogistic laws discovered by Aristotle himself, through which the Peripatetics attacked Plato. Thirdly, to all these he added the purity and clarity of demonstrations and, to the loftiness of his contemplations, [he added] the spring of his interpretation [of Plato], for which reason he was called by his followers Diadokhos, which means the “Successor of Plato”. This we have said in passing about Proclus.63
Marinus builds up his biography on the double triadic structure of the series of Neoplatonic virtues: in the first instance, natural, moral, and social (political) virtues and, in the second, purificatory, contemplative, and theurgical virtues. Petritsi replaces this with the fourfold structure of the Evagrian spiritual ascent: first the praktikē, that is ascetic practice, second, the first natural contemplation, meaning the contemplation of the reasons (logoi) of the corporeal beings, thirdly, the second natural contemplation, meaning the vision of the reasons of the incorporeal or intelligible beings, and finally, the vision of the Trinity.64 I think that, in Petritsi’s reshaped Platonist system, reaching the level of what he calls the True Being and Essence, and the Superior Intellect, whom he identifies with the Evagrian Christ-Intellect, corresponds to Evagrios’ second natural contemplation, that is, the vision of the intelligible beings. The final level is to attempt to know the One, whom he identifies with the Father of Christian theology, while the Limit of Proclus’ theology corresponds to the Logos, and Infinity to the Holy Spirit (see above).
Thus, via a Christian Platonist/Origenist reinterpretation, Proclus becomes a contemplator of the one God. Nowhere does Petritsi speak about the gods as Marinus does, but Proclus’ whole life is converted to monotheist worship. The pagan temples become dedicated to the “divine mercy”, and in the natural contemplation Proclus becomes initiated into “the good art of God, the Originator of all.” Moreover, a hagiographic element is added, absent from Marinus’ Vita, according to which Proclus’ parents had been childless until their prayers are heard, and a divine oracle announces to them the birth of an extraordinary child. This is as good as baptizing Proclus—evidently against his original intentions—and completely fusing his metaphysics with Christian theology. This, Italos, who was critical of Proclus, had never done.
3.2 They Diverge in the Question of the Eternity versus Temporal Creation of the World
Although one of the anathemas condemning Italos imputed to him the teaching of the eternity of the world,65 this accusation was false. Italos has written a treatise in which he refutes, mainly summarizing Philoponus’ arguments against Proclus, the doctrine of the eternity of the world.66 There, Italos’ position is that the world as a composite of form and matter has a beginning, namely its creation, and will have an end, the second coming. However, its form is eternal, so that there will be a formal, not numerical, identity between the present world and the world to come.67 Unlike Italos’ position, Petritsi adopts without any qualms the doctrine of an eternal world. Here is one example taken from his commentary on Proposition 50 of the Elements of Theology:
For “was” and “will be” differ from each other (Elements of Theology 50, 48.19–20). This means that time is divided by “was” and “will be”, and in between them is “now”, that is, in Greek in, estin, este (
ἦν ,ἐστίν ,ἔσται )—these three have divided the reality of time, for wherever time and temporal motion govern, nothing can escape those three. In fact, those three first subjected the first and the most divine of the bodies, I mean that of the sky, for there was the cycle of the spheres, there is the cycle of the spheres and there will be the cycle of the spheres. Now, learn that the past, the existing, and the future, which comprise time, are seen differently in the sky and differently in the mortals, for the past of the sky is linked with the future and is made one with it, and its end becomes the start and beginning of the other and it remains immortally and inextinguishably, and yet, through repetition and not as simply immortal, for the simple immortality is changeless and unalterable, while the immortality in the sky is changing and repetitive. In fact, such as the activities are, such are also the essences. However, the nature of those that are altogether perishable is not so, for it can neither unite the beginning and the end of the activities—unlike the power in the sky—so as to make them immortal, nor, furthermore, sustain its essence in the bliss of immortality, but it perishes and is extinguished in both ways.68
This is quite a radical difference between Italos’ anti-Proclian, Philoponian, position on the one hand, and Petritsi’s Proclian eternalist position on the other. As Italos is developing a genuine Christian Platonist but not fully orthodox doctrine, arguing for the eternity of the forms which was one of his propositions condemned, there is no probability for a dissimulation here, while it is true that, concerning other doctrines, such as that of a world soul or that of all the souls constituting parts of a whole, Italos is hiding, albeit in a transparent way, his own doctrines.69
3 Their Respective Metaphysical Systems Are Different
While the two philosophers share the tendency of identifying the Christian theological concepts with standard Neoplatonist metaphysical principles, their systems differ considerably. Italos exposes his metaphysical and theological system in Quaestiones quodlibetales, quaestio 68. I am citing the beginning of this text, which contains Italos’ doctrine on the first principles and is cryptically exposing his Trinitarian theology, too.70
The foremost theologians of the Hellenes are positing a triple most principal hypostasis among the intelligibles, among which they call the first, Being, the second, Intellect, and what is after these, Soul. They also say that there is something else before these, which they call the Beyond, and also the One, and the Good. They are not speaking about these hypostases randomly, nor by an awkward concept but—so they assert—as demonstrating Him.71 For they are saying that the very First is the principle of beings, in which the beings are directly participating—so that there is nothing, whether being or non-being, that would not participate in It—named not simply but as something else.72 What is that in which all things participate, this is no easy task to find out, but we are going to say the following.73 In fact that, in which they participate, is not soul, for thus, all things would be animated and no being would be without a share in soul. In fact, something should reach from the first Cause to those that derive from It, if at all it is the principle of these things by nature and not only by will.74 It behoves the supreme Goodness that first It should communicate its quality to those who have been born from It.75 However, as not all things have a share in soul, therefore, Soul is not the principle of the beings. Then, perhaps, that which is beyond the Soul, whom we call Intellect? Yet, there is something that has no share in it, nor in Being. In fact, the privations are not beings but participate in the One. Therefore, as not all things participate in Soul, nor in Intellect, nor in Being, but there is nothing that would not have a share in the One or that would not desire the Good—for all things desire It and partake in It as far as possible76—thus, it is clear that the One and the Good is the principle and cause of the beings. It is in this that all things participate, being made good through their unification through It, and are being, and one, and good, as much as this is possible for each one according to its own capability.
As It (the One or the Good) is the principle of beings as it has been shown, it is clear that, if there is another [principle] after this, it is a principle not absolutely, but only towards those coming after it. It holds its logos of being principle and cause from It, but not any more towards the absolute principle. Rather, it returns towards It, desires It, continuously depends on It, and is perfected by it, being, so to say, deficient and in need of the enlightenment coming from there. Therefore, it is imitating and would imitate its own principle, from which it proceeded. It is in It and is not cut off, even if It is cut off, just like the light of the sun, for it is not possible to say that the One who came out from God77 would be cut off once for all in this way and still be [what it is].
In fact, this system cannot be found in any Greek philosopher, as it is a revised version of Plotinus’ doctrine of the three principal hypostases, enriched by elements borrowed from later Neoplatonism, mainly Proclus, such as asserting a Being-Intellect-Soul intelligible triad subordinate to the One, or positing Being as a hypostasis separate from Intellect, in which Intellect participates. Moreover, it is a system in which God is described as consisting of three hypostases, Being, Intellect, and Soul, and a supra-hypostasis, which is not called a hypostasis, the One. This is, in fact, Italos’ own unavowed metaphysical system, in which he combined the principal hypostases of this quasi-Plotinian system into the three hypostases of the Christian Trinity. However, the theological interpretation of this metaphysical system is far from being obvious. Two Christian principles/persons, God the Father and Christ, can be identified based on Italos’ confession of faith submitted to emperor Alexios Komnenos in April 1082, which included a paraphrase of, or parallel text to, the second paragraph of the above text, with a clear Trinitarian meaning:
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John Italos, Credo, ed. Gouillard, Le procès, p. 145, ll. 164–168 (my italics): |
John Italos, Quaestio 68, ed. Ketschakmadze, p. 181, ll. 4–1 2: |
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I believe in the Father without beginning and in the Son who is equally without beginning but on the other hand with a beginning in causality but not in time; he is of the same substance and same power, begotten from the Father before the ages and remaining in Him and reverting to Him; for He [the Son] is not different in substance, even though He became another according to His hypostasis. |
As it (the One or the Good) is the principle of beings, as it has been shown, it is clear that, if there is another [principle] after this, it is a principle not absolutely, but only towards those coming after it. It holds its logos of being principle and cause from Him, but not any more towards the absolute principle. Rather, it reverts towards It, desires It, continuously depends on It, and is perfected by it, being, so to say, deficient and in need of the enlightenment coming from there. Therefore, it is imitating and would imitate its own principle, from which it proceeded. It is in It and is not cut off, even if It is cut off, just like the light of the sun, for it is not possible to say that the One who |
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came out from God would be cut off once for all in this way and still be [what it is]. |
Thus, in Quaestio 68, Italos describes the Neoplatonic concept of the second principle, the hypostasis of the Intellect (
It is also worth remembering that the synodal Fathers of the council of 1082 condemned Italos’ confession of faith not only as subordinationist but also as Sabellian.78 They derived this conclusion from Italos’ claim that,
[T]here are not three eternals but only one eternal, given that there are not three uncreated, nor three incomprehensibles but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.79
How he meant this is elucidated by the statement in Qu. 68, according to which,
[T]he foremost theologians of the Hellenes are positing a triple-most principal hypostasis among the intelligibles, among which they call the first, Being, the second, Intellect, and what is after these, Soul. They also say that there is something else before these, which they call the Beyond, and also the One, and the Good. They are not speaking about these hypostases randomly, nor by an awkward concept but—so they assert—as demonstrating Him.
This seems to indicate that the three elements of the one triple hypostasis—Being, Intellect, Soul—are names or manifestations pertaining to the only one God, the One or the Good, or the Father, so that there is “only one uncreated and one incomprehensible”. Dirk Krausmüller, who proposed a subtle analysis of Italos’ confession of faith and Quaestiones 5, 8, 71, and 88,80 has arrived at a diametrically opposed conclusion. According to Krausmüller, Italos was simultaneously a quasi-Sabellian and a tritheist. Krausmüller explains this paradox by claiming that Italos interpreted the common substance (
But if there is God and God and again God, then how is there nevertheless one God and one nature and one power? This [difficulty] does not necessarily follow. In fact, the many people are not different natures of people, but rather, the nature is a monad, while number belongs to the hypostases. However, if It [i. e., the Godhead] is simple, how is It a number? It is a number in relation to us, because this is how we can naturally understand and know It, but It is not subject to number, nor is It subordinate to nature, or to a plurality of names, or to anything else that is said concerning human beings.81
Rather than being a Philoponian tritheist position, this structure seems to be inspired by Origen, according to whom the “only source of divinity is the Father”,82 while the Son and the Spirit are participating in the Father’s divinity.
Besides an Origenist reworking of the Plotinian metaphysical system, Italos amply uses the metaphysical logic of Proclus, elaborated in the Elements of Theology. In fact, the relationship of the Christ-Intellect to the One-Father is described in terms of Propositions 29–32 of the Elements of Theology. According to Prop. 29, “all procession is accomplished through likeness of the subsequent to the first”; according to Prop. 30, “all that is immediately produced from a principle both remains in its producer and proceeds from it”; according to Prop. 31, “all that proceeds from a principle, reverts substantially to that from where it proceeds”;83 and according to Prop. 32, “all reversion is accomplished by means of the likeness of those that revert to the principle to which they return.” I am not analyzing here all the minute details, in which Italos uses the vocabulary of these propositions. Suffice it to say that the conciliar Fathers of 1082 were well informed about Italos’ sources, so that they declared that he had taken the doctrine of the procession of the Son from the Father and His reversion to Him from Proclus and Iamblichus.84
Petritsi’s metaphysical-theological doctrine is like this as far as it also contains an identification of Neoplatonist metaphysical principles with the hypostases of the Trinity, and as it is also highly reminiscent of the Origenist doctrines. He also uses Propositions 29–32 to define the intra-Trinitarian relations. However, he identifies the three Persons of the Trinity with Proclus’ transcendent triad, not with the Plotinian three principal hypostases, and thus avoids the same subordinationist savour. By identifying the Father with the Proclian One, the Logos with the Limit, and the Holy Spirit with Infinity, Petritsi elevates the three hypostases beyond the sphere of the intelligible and plays on the concept that the two highest henads belong to the world of the One and are perfectly one while carrying their own properties—a well-found analogy with the transcendent Christian Trinity. There is also room for the Evagrian created Christ-Intellect, which is Petritsi’s “True Being and First Intellect”, corresponding to Proclus’ Unified, or Compound, being the unification, or mixture of the three supra-essential hypostases. Here is one example from Petritsi’s commentary on Proposition 29 of the Elements.85
Every essential procession is accomplished through the likeness of those subsequent to those prior (Elements of Theology 29, 34. 3–4). Listen, that the whole meaning of this chapter is that he (Proclus) introduces the likeness as a mediator between the producer and the produced and he explains the birth of the effect from the cause as well as its reversion to its origin through the same likeness. For the Likeness is the cause of both the production and, again, of the reversion to the origins; and the more alike one thing is, the closer it is, and the closer it is, the more alike it is. For which reason, the word of my sun-minded Paul enters here, because he says that He is the Image, and Likeness, and ekmagio86 of the One, whom the discourse dared to also call God the Father. Now, with the reference to the likeness he says that He is the “changeless Image”.87 This addition of “changeless” here indicates to us the likeness that is measureless and dense.88 Again, he (Paul) says that “He carries the whole wealth” of the Father in Him.89 These and all such things show for us the measurelessness of the Word, who is born before the beings and even before the henads, whom the Philosopher calls “the Idea of the ideas” and “the Limit of the limits”.90
This passage is a typical illustration of Petritsi’s method. He explains Proclus’ text by means of Christian theological texts and, vice versa, Christian theology by means of Proclus, implying that the two perfectly coincide. This part of the commentary interprets Proclus by means of two Christian authorities, Gregory of Nazianzus and Origen. Gregory is cited under the name of the Apostle Paul, while Origen, under the name of Aristotle (the Philosopher). Gregory’s text is the following (in bold are highlighted the expressions taken over and reinterpreted by Petritsi):
That was the Word of God Himself, the Pre-eternal, the Invisible, the Uncontainable, the Incorporeal, the Principle from the Principle, the Light from the Light, the Source of Life and of Immortality, the Imprint of the original Beauty, the unmovable Seal, the changeless Image, the Limit and Word of the Father. He comes to His own Image, bears flesh for the flesh and mingles Himself to an intellectual soul for the sake of my soul, cleansing His likeness through the Likeness.91
In fact, Gregory calls the Logos
The Philosopher here is indeed Aristotle, as he was usually called, meaning that he was the par excellence philosopher.94 However, the Christological reinterpretation of this term goes back to Origen who, in Contra Celsum 6.64, defines the divine Logos as “the Idea of the ideas”:
There is much to say which is hard to perceive about substance, and especially if substance in the proper sense is the unmoved and incorporeal substance, so that we may find out whether God “is beyond substance in rank and power” (Plato, Republica, 509B), and grants a share in substance to those to whom He gives share according to His Word, and through the Word-itself, or He is Himself substance, but is said to be invisible by nature in the words that say of the Saviour: “Who is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). That He is incorporeal is indicated by the word “invisible”. One should also inquire whether we ought to say that the Only-begotten (John 1:18) and “Firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15) is the Substance of Substances, and the Idea of ideas, and Principle (Jn 1:1), and that his Father and God is beyond all these.95
According to the metaphysical Christological doctrine that is outlined here, and which will be developed in the so-called “Origenist” tradition which I prefer to simply call the par excellence Christian Platonist tradition,96 the Logos is the “Idea of ideas” or “Form of forms”, that is, using Aristotle’s terminology, the universal Intellect containing the fullness of the ideas/forms, the Principle (
Origen’s is a subordinationist doctrine, too, which became problematic after the adoption of the doctrine of consubstantiality at Nicaea. Thus, a new Christian Platonist metaphysical doctrine was elaborated by Evagrios of Pontos, who did not any more identify the Word of God with the Intellect but distinguished between an uncreated Wisdom and a created Wisdom, the first being the Logos, for whom Evagrios gives an ontological definition: Henad (
3.4 Petritsi and Eustratios of Nicaea
Thus, if Petritsi had most probably not been Italos’ direct student or, at least, if he was, he was not following his teacher’s metaphysical doctrines, then, where could he get his rhetorical, logical, and philosophical education? The question should be asked in this triple form, as Petritsi, unlike Italos, is fond of using rhetorical tropes in his writings, believes in the universal value of Aristotelian syllogisms, and builds up his metaphysics, but also his biblical exegesis, by means of syllogisms. A quite probable answer to this question has been suggested by Michele Trizio. Trizio thinks that among the Byzantine philosophers Petritsi’s thought is closest to Eustratios of Nicaea (c. 1050–1120). According to Trizio, “the closest parallel to Petritsi is Eustratios’ very radical acceptance of Proclus’ metaphysics. I hope my contribution on Eustratios”—meaning here his grand 2016 monograph on the Neoplatonism of Eustratios of Nicaea—“helps assessing the difficult issue of Petritsi’s education.”102 In the following, I will show that this is indeed the most probable scenario. Let it be said in advance that Trizio’s monograph has indeed achieved what it claims in its English-language summary:
Against the commonly accepted view of Eustratios as an intellectual seeking to restore Aristotelianism against the Platonism of the earlier Michael Psellos and John Italos, this book demonstrates that Eustratios was rather a Neoplatonist who intriguingly shaped Proclus’ works with themes and motifs from the Christian monastic tradition.103
Eustratios, being an ecclesiastic in the rank of a deacon, and the head (proximos) of a grammar school at the Monastery of Saint Theodore in the Constantinopolitan quarter called Ta Sphorakiou, studied philosophy with Italos, and was interrogated during the latter’s trial.104 Together with three other deacons, he denied to share his teacher’s “impiety in which he had been convicted, and anathematized the propositions contained in his [Italos’] written confession that he had given to our powerful emperor, as being strange doctrines that are alien to the Christian Orthodox Church.”105 Thus, the four deacons were cleared of all the charges and received the permission to continue their teaching activities.106 Soon Eustratios was consecrated presbyter, became a trusted court theologian, received the rank of “teacher of the oecumene” (
The 24 heretical positions condemned at Eustratios’ trial110 indicate a similar development to the one between Italos and Petritsi. Apparently, as we have seen, Italos considered the three principal hypostases of Plotinus, the One, the Intellect, and the Soul, as synonyms of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, defining the divine nature of Christ as consisting of the compound of Being/Logos and Intellect. As a result, he could not avoid a certain subordinationism, his claim of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father notwithstanding, as this principle depends on the first principle and returns to it. Also, as I tried to demonstrate, for this, he had venerable predecessors, from the pre-Plotinian speculations of Clement of Alexandria to those, post-Plotinian, of Theodoret of Cyrus and Cyril of Alexandria.
Italos’ subordinationist doctrine was condemned in 1082, and his pupil Eustratios signed the condemnatory decisions, a move that earned for him the licence of being able to teach. Although his Christological writings have been lost, the anathemas of 1117 show in what sense he had changed his teacher’s system. This time, Eustratios’ Christian Platonist metaphysical system is not being condemned for any subordinationist doctrine about Christ’s divine nature but for detaching Christ’s assumed human nature (
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Anathemas 4 and 5 against Eustratios (Joannou 32) |
Italos, Quaestio 68, ed. Ketschakmadze, p. 181, ll. 4–9: |
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4. That it (the human nature) desires It (the divine nature) and is perfected by It even more than the others (the other rational beings), to the extent that it is united to the perfecting Logos in one hypostasis. 5. That it returns toward It, given that for all the creatures, to be inclined toward the Creator and to return to It as much as this is possible constitutes their ascent and perfection. |
As it (the One or the Good) is the principle of beings, as it has been shown, it is clear that, if there is another [principle] after this, it is a principle not absolutely, but only towards those coming after it. It holds its logos of being principle and cause from Him, but not any more towards the absolute principle. Rather, it returns towards It, desires It, continuously depends on It, and is perfected by It, as it is reasonable, being, so to say, deficient and in need of the enlightenment coming from there. Therefore, it is imitating and would imitate its own principle, from which it proceeded. |
I believe that these parallels show clearly enough that Eustratios has indeed rejected Italos’ subordinationist doctrine as to the divine nature of Christ, which Italos had identified with the Being/Intellect compound, but has preserved the Origenian/Evagrian idea of the Christ consisting of an intellect-soul-body compound, which depends on the divinity (this time common to the Trinity), returns to it, is perfected by it, and has the pre-eminence over all the rational beings due to its hypostatic union to the Logos. Eustratios has also adopted Evagrios’ distinction between the uncreated Wisdom—the divine Logos—and the created Wisdom of the Proverbs—the Christ-Intellect—as demonstrated by the following parallel:
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Anathema 18 against Eustratios (Joannou 33–34) |
Evagrios, Scholia ad Proverbia, s. 88 (ad Prov. 7, 4): |
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88. |
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18. [Eustratios has said] that, if Wisdom is a creature according to its birth here-below, the one born here-below is a creature by all means. If so, how is it God simply? Just as the Logos, being God, is not a creature, so also the assumed nature, being a creature, is not God as the Logos is but in another manner. And the manner [in which it is God] is clearly [the fact] that it is enhypostasised. |
s. 88 (ad Prov. 7, 4: “Say that Wisdom is your sister, take prudence a kinswoman for yourself”) “Wisdom” is our “sister”, because the Father who has created the incorporeal nature has also created her. Here he does not designate by “Wisdom” the Son of God but the Contemplation of the bodies and the bodiless and of the judgment and the providence which are in these, whose different kinds are prudence, science, instruction and intelligence. |
All this shows that Eustratios indeed wanted to escape the condemned subordinationism of Italos but also that he wanted to preserve the basic Origenist structure of Christian metaphysics, as can also be seen in Petritsi’s expositions. However, how did Eustratios handle the metaphysical content of the consubstantiality of the Trinity? As we have seen, Petritsi had found this metaphysical content in a—presumably new—identification of the Trinity with the highest triad in Proclus’ metaphysical system, the One, the Limit, and Infinity, while identifying Evagrios’ Christ-Intellect with Proclus’ Compound (
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Eustratios, In Analyticam posteriorem II, p. 9, 35–10, 32 |
English translation |
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Just as the One is First among all things and is abstracted from those that come out from It, as it is inexpressible and unspeakable for all |
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word, unknowable and ungraspable for all knowledge, First Cause, which traverses all things that originate from It and not abandoning any one from those that come after It, so also the question about “if something is” extends over all and is considered in itself before all the others, and accompanies all the others, in itself not asking about a species, or about a cause, but simply about existence itself. […] Just as it is said there that the Limit and the Infinity had been established before all from the First Cause, the first [that is, the Limit] defining the beings and being the cause of stability and coherence for all things, while the second [that is, Infinity] being the cause of proceeding to new births and of multiplication, so also here the “what something is” and the definition, which is alike to the Limit, shows the property of each thing, limits, defines and maintains the things defined and makes them remain in their own existences, while the question “whether something is in this way?” gives the principle of combination and of multiplicity to the questions, by this fact already duplicating the things, and presents the subject of the query as something else. Moreover, just as there it is said that the Compound is constituted of the Limit |
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and the Infinity and this [principle] is posited as triadic, being a mixture of the aforementioned two, while the One is completing the mixing, so also here the question of “why is something this way?” shows the definition by attributing the cause and confesses that something is in the way it is, as well as the simple existence of the two definitions of the conclusion, and the triadic nature of the entire composition of the two extreme terms and of the middle. […] However, if you agree, let us keep the first things in silence, as if hidden in holy sanctuaries, namely the one Cause and those that are shown and shining forth from It but are neither created nor made, and let us start our discourse from the created things, among which let Being be the first, that is to say, the Intelligible, then [second] the Life, that is to say, the Intellection, then [third] the Intellect, that is to say, the Intelligent being, and last the Soul. |
This carefully constructed text, seemingly intended to explain the principles of Aristotelian semantics and the construction of the syllogisms by their analogy to universal metaphysics, is in fact intended to formulate Eustratios’ metaphysical system, thoroughly inspired by Proclus, with reminiscences of Pseudo-Dionysius. According to this system, there are three divine principles, which “are neither created nor made”—these are “the one Cause and those that are shown and shining forth from It”, that is, the Limit and the Infinity, while the series of the created things begins with Being, which is identical with the universal Intellect, having a threefold structure, that is, consisting of the Intelligible/Being, of Intellection/Life, and of the Intelligent being/Intellect, after which comes the Soul, whose life, as Eustratios explains in the continuation, is in discursive thought.
This system is directly derived from that of Proclus but contains the same simplifications thereof as those of Petritsi, thus omitting the complicated hierarchical structures of the intelligible, intelligible and intellectual, and intellectual principles, which Proclus identifies with the many gods of pagan polytheism, and reducing the system to the divine Triad/Trinity, and the first universal creature, which is the First Being/First Intellect. This is in fact the same system as the one that we find in Petritsi’s commentaries on the Elements but also in Petritsi’s Prologue to his lost translation of the Psalms. What we do not find, though, is the explicit identification of the One with the Father, the Limit with the Logos, and the Infinity with the Holy Spirit, and finally the Compound with the Christ-Intellect being the universal intellect and being also the assumed human nature. However, the expressions used by Eustratios make this identification necessary. Thus, the only difference between this system and that of Petritsi consists in these explicit identifications by the latter. This difference is well explainable by the stricter Church censorship in Byzantium, and the relative freedom provided by the Georgian language. The importance of this passage for Eustratios’ metaphysics as well as for understanding the environment of Nicholas of Methone’s Anaptyxis has been indicated by Angelou.112 Yet, without the parallels in Petritsi, it was nearly impossible to recognize that Eustratios speaks here of the Holy Trinity in metaphysical terms, so this has not been mentioned by Angelou.
4 Petritsi, a Possible Pupil of Eustratios, and the Peculiarities of His Text of the Elements of Theology
As a conclusion to this lengthy analysis of the respective metaphysical and theological systems of Italos, Eustratios, and Petritsi, I would propose that Petritsi was closer to Eustratios than to Italos and perhaps he was even his pupil. He could have studied with Eustratios when the latter was Maistōr, that is, teacher of rhetoric, in the Patriarchal School of Constantinople, in the years between 1086 and 1090, or perhaps later, during Eustratios’ time as oikoumenikos didaskalos. Nothing prevents nor proves him to be identical with the “Abazg Grammarian”, the addressee of one of Italos’ letters but, be this as it may, he seems to owe his metaphysical and theological formation to Eustratios. Eustratios’ school must have been both a continuation of Italos’ school and an independent one, not situated any more in the Magnaura Pandidakterion, the imperial University of Constantinople, but in the rival Patriarchal School, and breaking away from the traditions of the condemned courtier of the Dukids. Petritsi could move to Georgia after 1117, Eustratios’ condemnation, but this could have happened earlier, too, as David the Builder was inviting Georgian intellectuals, well trained in Byzantium, to teach in the newly founded Gelati monastic school.
Petritsi as a pupil of the Patriarchal School could have had access to the School’s rich library, where he could have read a wide range of philosophical and patristic authors whose impact can be detected in his works, including most works by Proclus. Just like in the case of Eustratios, the “Great and the Small Theologies”, that is, the Platonic Theology and the Elements of Theology, as well as Proclus’ commentaries on the Timaeus, the Parmenides, the Republic, and Alkibiades, have influenced Petritsi’s thought and his metaphysical system, along with the texts of the Cappadocian Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and even Symeon the New Theologian. He might have got his own copy of the Elements of Theology, which he translated when he was back in Georgia in the Gelati monastic school, also in the library of the Patriarchal School. This might explain the peculiarities of his text of the Elements, which differs in many respects from the Byzantine textual tradition with its three branches as established by Dodds and re-examined by Carlos Steel. Yet, as we know very little about the Patriarchal School and know nothing on its library, this remains highly speculative and is not more than an explicative hypothesis.
In Petritsi’s text of the Elements not only is there a difference in the chapter structure—namely that Petritsi’s copy omitted Proposition 149 yet added another proposition, inexistent in the extant Greek copies and indicated by the number 128bis—but there are also numerous major differences in the texts of many propositions, which would be difficult to explain by Petritsi’s loose translation method, or by his misunderstanding the text. A general difference can be observed in the following peculiarities. It seems that the text of the Elements had suffered extended corruption by iotacism in the pre-eleventh century tradition. This must have happened in the phase when the text was copied in uncial manuscripts. To this, one should add that uncial manuscripts rarely had a thoroughgoing accentuation and aspiration, or a clear distinction of words. This must have resulted in insecurity in distinguishing
One can observe that the middle and late Byzantine textual tradition of the Elements of Theology, represented by all our extant Greek manuscripts, is fairly consistent in the interpretation of these variants, which indicates that all the three families distinguished by Dodds go back to the same standardisation procedure, carried out presumably in one scriptorium. At the same time, Petritsi’s text, Geo according to Dodds’ sigla, is independent of the Byzantine standardisation. Nor does it stand to reason that Geo is following the tradition of family
All this seems to indicate that all our Greek manuscripts of the Elements, as well as the one that had served as model for Moerbeke’s translation, are coming from a standardised Byzantine version. Apparently, this was the text read in the schools of Psellos and of Italos, that is, the text that was available in the Magnaura Pandidakterion. Carlos Steel has made a compilation of all the citations of Psellos from the Elements, and came to the conclusion that the variants correspond to the family
The annotated translations in Appendix 2 to this study of Propositions 29 to 32 and of 61, 62 of the Georgian version are destined to give a taste of the variants and the philological challenges presented by Petritsi’s text.
The variants in these propositions show that, often, W and Geo are the only witnesses to a certain variant, over against
All this shows Geo’s independence from the Byzantine tradition and, also, that any critical edition based on the extant Greek texts and on Moerbeke’s translation can only aim at reconstructing the hyparchetype of Byz but not the original Elements. Most probably, the Elements, serving as a universal handbook of metaphysics, took different shapes in different schools, with such a wide range of variations that it would be vain to aim at reconstructing the original text. A collation of Geo’s readings with the witnesses of Byz also shows that, within the latter tradition, the
5 Petritsi and Nicholas of Methone
In the previous part, treating Eustratios’ and Petritsi’s Platonist metaphysico-theological systems, I have shown how intricately these systems incorporate the Neoplatonist elements borrowed from Proclus into the Christian theological thought that is called in the anti-heretical literature “Origenism”. I have also shown that, in a way much more critical of Proclus and leaning toward Plotinus, Italos was creating a similar synthesis.113 Looking for the possible opponents against whom Nicholas of Methone’s Exposition had been written, Angelou designated, on the one hand, Eustratios of Nicaea as a philosopher-theologian making heavy use of Proclus and, on the other hand, two contemporary teachers of the Patriarchal School, Nikephoros Basilakes and Michael of Thessalonike, as probable opponents teaching Origenist doctrines. Angelou speculates, based on Nicholas’ anti-Origenist work on 1 Cor 15, 28, that the expression of an Origenist interpretation of “so that God may be all things in all things” played a role in the downfall of Nikephoros and Michael.114 All this seems to indicate that, after Eustratios had left his position of the Maistōr teaching rhetoric, his methods and ideas survived in the Patriarchal School.
However, Angelou wonders whether we can infer from Nicholas’ refutation that Proclus’ Elements were taught in any philosophy school outside of private circles:
It is significant that Nicholas did not refute Proclean doctrines in general but specifically the propositions of the Elements of Theology, chapter by chapter. We are entitled to infer that this “Hellenic” text was not merely read but studied in detail. We have no evidence though of its being taught in a school during the entire twelfth century; in fact we have no evidence, as we have said, of any official teaching of philosophy from the death of Theodore of Smyrna till the appointment of Michael
ὁ τοῦ Ἀγχιάλου asὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων .115
Yet, this missing evidence is provided precisely by the Proclus Ibericus, that is, Petritsi’s commented translation of the Elements, which is, as I mentioned in the exordium to this study, the closest parallel in Byzantino-Caucasian literature to Nicholas’ Exposition, though the two are with opposite signs. Petritsi’s Prologue to his translation and commentaries reveals the school environment in which the Elements were studied, even Petritsi explicitly calls the Elements of Theology a “handbook” of philosophy:
Let us add a few words also about reading, that is, how one should read such handbooks.116 Actually, even about Socrates it has been said that he read as did small kids, repeatedly returning to what he had already read, for not only a formal aspect of reading should be adhered to, but the reading is for knowing and understanding. For this purpose, it is proper to mind separation and connection, returning, and extracting meaning from the previous passages and, in order to grasp the meaning unerringly, it is proper for us to use, together with the sounding and visibility of the word, dots and all the other diacritical marks, such as the acute accent—oksia, and the varia, which is grave, and the perispomeni, which is circumflex,117 and all the rest. Moreover, we also should consider that loud reading ruins the contemplation because the pulsation of the voice carries along with it the contemplator—which is the soul. As much as this about this issue.118
This text shows, on the one hand, that Petritsi considered the Elements a school handbook and, on the other hand, that he was reading a fully aspirated and accentuated minuscule manuscript. However, as the breathings, the accents, and the solutions adopted for the iotacised words do not match the standard Byzantine textual tradition, this indicates that his minuscule manuscript was independent of the Byzantine standardisation of the Magnaura Pandidakterion.
Thus, it seems to me that, after Italos’ condemnation and after the abolition of the office of the Consul of the Philosophers, and with the activity of Eustratios of Nicaea, the main hub for teaching philosophy, although this was not necessarily recognised officially, had become the Patriarchal School, where Petritsi was a pupil for a while. When he moved to Georgia and founded his own school, he reproduced the teaching methods that he had learned in Constantinople. Also, he had taken a copy of the handbook of metaphysics that was in the focus of the teaching of his teacher Eustratios, which he translated and commented. Some decades later, Nicholas was engaging with the teachers in the Patriarchal School because of their Origenist leanings, and perhaps also because of their methodology of teaching Christian metaphysics with the help of the Proclian handbook. In fact, we have seen how inextricably Byzantine Origenist doctrine, represented by Italos, Eustratios, and Petritsi, had been entangled with Proclian metaphysics, and especially with the Elements of Theology. In his refutation of the theses of Propositions 29–32, about which we have seen that all the three authors had used them for explaining the intra-Trinitarian relations, Nicholas is not attacking Proclus on the grounds of his original purpose of establishing the laws of a hierarchic metaphysical universe that gives room to the Hellenic gods and demons, but he strives to prove that the logic of procession and reversion exposed in these propositions cannot be applied to the Holy Trinity. This seems to indicate that, even after Eustratios’ condemnation, and Petritsi’s departure for Georgia—although we do not know when the latter happened—the practice of using Proclus for Trinitarian and Christological speculations continued in Constantinople, and this, within a school environment. Thus, the Proclus Ibericus and Nicholas’ Expositions are two independent witnesses to a school practice in Constantinople.
Why, then, were Petritsi and Nicholas of Methone using texts of the Elements belonging to different textual traditions, namely the latter being the reworked Byzantine standardised text of the group
6 Conclusions
To resume the results of this study: The recognition that Petritsi most probably had not been a pupil of the Magnaura Pandidakterion under Psellos or Italos as it had been previously supposed, and that his metaphysical and theological system has its closest parallel in that of Eustratios of Nicaea, has manifold heuristic values. I believe that it assigns to Petritsi his proper place in the Byzantine philosophical tradition and presents him as a genuine continuator of Eustratios, rather than an odd outlier. This also confirms Michele Trizio’s suggestion that the Byzantine Platonist renaissance was not quenched by the condemnations of Italos. Rather, it took a new turn. While Eustratios and Petritsi integrate the Byzantine Christian spiritual tradition more thoroughly into their philosophical systems than Psellos and Italos, they are also much less critical of the Neoplatonist metaphysics, and namely of Proclus, than their predecessors. Thus, Italos’ condemnation did not put an end to Proclus’ reception in Byzantium but rather gave it a new impulse. The suggestion that Petritsi was a pupil of the Patriarchal School of Constantinople may explain the oddities of the putative Greek text that he was using for his translation as, in the library of the School, he could have access to a copy of the Elements, which was independent of the standardised Byzantine edition used in the Magnaura Pandidakterion. As the latter text became the standard, later copyists stopped copying the version that we can reconstruct based on the Proclus Ibericus, so the latter remains the only witness—to our knowledge—of this version. Yet, an inquiry into contemporary authors using the Elements—and first of all, into Eustratios’ writings, may reveal other examples for the usage of this version.
This study, together with another, twin study on Italos119 has also shown how intricately the Byzantine Proclus Renaissance is intertwined with a renewal of Origenist speculation. This combination has been initiated by the mysterious author of the Dionysian Corpus, whose influence was paramount in Byzantium.120 Finally, Petritsi’s and Nicholas’ commentaries on the Elements of Theology, although with opposite signs, seem to be independent witnesses to a school practice in Byzantium, which had used the Elements as a handbook of metaphysics—also of Christian metaphysics. Petritsi transferred this Constantinopolitan school practice to Georgia, from where it also entered Armenia with Symeon of Płndzahank’s Armenian translation made in 1248.
Appendix 1: Critical Edition of the Beginning of John Italos’ Quaestio 68
Sigla
| B |
Vaticanus gr. 316, fol. 65r, saec. XIII |
| M |
Marcianus gr. Z. 265 (coll. 516), fol. 86v–87r, saec. XIII2 |
| V |
Vindobonensis phil. gr. 203, fol. 102v–103r, saec. XV1 |
| e |
EscorialensisX-I-11, fols 159v–160r, saec. XVIMED |
| m |
Monacensis99, fols 354v–355r, c. ann. 1550 |
| n |
Matritensis 4754, fol. 119rv, c. ann. 1550 |
| o |
Vaticanus gr. 1457, fol. 129v–130r, saec. XVIMED |
| p |
Parisinus gr. 2002, fols 254r–256r, ann. 1620 |
Editions
| Jo |
Perikles Joannou (ed). 1956. Ioannes Italos: Quaestiones quodlibetales (Studia patristica et byzantina, 4). Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, p. 135. |
| Ket |
Natela Ketschakmadze (ed). 1966. Ioannis Itali Opera. Textum graecum secundum collationem a Gregorio Cereteli confectam edidit et praefatione instruxit N. Ketschakmadze. Tbilisi: “Metsniereba”, pp. 216–217. |
Appendix 2: Annotated Translations of Propositions 29–32 and 61–62 in the Georgian Translation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology
(translation and notes by Levan Gigineishvili and István Perczel)
Sigla
The sigla are those of E.R. Dodds, reinterpreted and supplemented according to the principles of the present study.
Codices
| B |
Vaticanus 237, 14th c. |
| C |
Vaticanus 626, 13th–14th c. |
| D |
Ambrosianus 648 + 727, end of 14th c. |
| E |
Parisinus 1256, 15th cent. |
| G |
Parisinus 2045, xv. cent. |
| L |
Leidensis Voss gr14, xvi. cent. |
| M |
Marcianus 678, 13th/14th c. |
| O |
Bodleianus Laud. 18,1358. |
| P |
Parisinus 2423, 13th c. |
| Q |
Marcianus 316, 14th c. |
| Arg |
Codex Argentorianus, lost and only known from Schweigerhauser’s description |
| W |
the putative original of William of Moerbeke’s Latin translation |
| Geo |
the putative original of Ioanne Petritsi’s Georgian translation |
|
first family of the Byzantine manuscripts, containing or issuing from Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation, comprising MSS BCDE |
|
|
second family of the Byzantine manuscripts, comprising MOWGLArg |
|
|
third family of the Byzantine manuscripts, comprising PQ |
|
|
consensus of codices BCDMPQ, and BCDMQ after Prop. 77 |
|
| Byz. |
The consensus of all the manuscripts issuing from the Byzantine standardisation, including W |
Editions
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, edition, translation, introduction and commentary E.R. Dodds, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 19632.
Proclus, Institutio Theologica, ed. A. Portus, Hamburg, Ap. Rulandios, 1618, pp. 415–502.
Proclus, Institutio Theologica, ed. F. Creuzer, Frankfurt a. Main, In officina Broenneriana, 1822.
29. Every essential procession121 is accomplished through the likeness of those subsequent to those prior. Now, if the producers make stand the like before the unlike, therefore, it is the likeness that makes stand the produced from the producers; for, in fact, the like are made like through the likeness and not through the unlikeness; therefore, the essential procession122 in the downward movement will preserve the identity of the born towards the parent, and as that is in a primary way, the same way it shines forth the subsequent, for in fact the latter has its hypostasis through likeness.123
30. Everything that is produced from something124 immediately, is remaining in the producer and is produced125 from it. In fact, if every product is of those remaining and first,126 and is made perfect127 through the likeness, the like coming to standing128 before the unlike, then the product is somehow remaining in the producer.129 In fact, if it were produced altogether, it would have no identity and remaining in the producer,130 but would be altogether split from it.131 However, if it has anything common and united to it, that will remain in it as it is remaining in itself.132 Yet, if it only remains, it would not be produced and in no way would be separated from its cause, to which it belongs and become other, while it would remain. And if other, it is split and separated from it; and if separated, it will remain in it133 and proceed from it so that which is remaining in it be separated.134 In fact,135 the product has identity with the producer and so remains in it, whereas by difference it proceeds from it. And is simultaneously alike through the identity, and also different. Therefore, it simultaneously remains and is produced and neither one is without the other.
31. Everything that is produced from something essentially, reverts to that, from which it had proceeded. In fact, if it were only to proceed but it would not revert136 to the cause that had produced it,137 then, it would not desire its cause; in fact, every desirer reverts towards that which it desires. All desire the Good, and its obtaining138 is through their proximate cause. In fact, each thing desires its cause. For, from whichever each term has its being, from the same it also has the goodness; and from which the goodness, towards that the longing is in the first place; and towards which the longing is in the first place, towards that also the reversion.
32. Every reversion is accomplished through the likeness of those reverting, to that, to which they revert. In fact, everything strives towards the object of reversion139 in order to be conjoined, and desires to participate in, and get tied with it. Thus, likeness ties everything, as the unlikeness divides and separates. In fact, if the reversion140 is a sort of participation and unification, and every participation and unification141 is through likeness, therefore every reversion is accomplished through likeness.
61. Every undivided and unitary power142 is143 cause of more,144 whereas the divided, of less, and of inferior ones.145 In fact, as it has become divided,146 it proceeded towards multiplicity. And if it is so, it has become more remote from the One and, if so, it will be less able than the One147 and will be separated from that which encompasses it and be inferior, for the goodness of each thing148 is to remain in its unity.
62. Every multitude that is closer to the One will be149 less in quantity than that which is farther away150 but stronger in power. In fact, it is more alike to the One due to its greater closeness,151 and the One is the producer of all152 without multiplication. Therefore, that which is most alike to It, is cause of more, for which reason it is most unitary of all and undivided.153 In fact, that which is less multiplied is more akin to the One—the Cause and Producer of all.154
With the contribution of Levan Gigineishvili (Ivane Javakishvili Tbilisi State University).
This study is the fruit of many years of collaboration, besides Levan Gigineishvili, with Carlos Steel and, more recently, András Kraft. It also owes much to the remarks and suggestions of Michele Trizio. I am immensely grateful to all four of them.
Nicholas of Methone,
L. Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology of Ioane Petritsi (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2007), pp. 23–29 and passim.
N. Marr, Ioane of Petritsi: A Georgian Neoplatonist (St. Petersburg: Russian Imperial Archeological Society, 1909) [in Russian].
Ioanne Petritsi, Opera. Tomus II, Commentaria in Procli Diadochi
See Chapter V.1 (entry “Ioane Petritsi”) in K. Kekelidze, History of the Old Georgian Literature, vol. 1 (Tbilisi: “Metsniereba”, 1980), p. 284 [in Georgian].
E.g. John Climacus, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, commentaries on the Gospels of Luke and Mark by Theophylact of Ochrid etc.: see E. Chelidze, “The Life and the Literary Activities of Ioane Petritsi”, [in Georgian] Part 1, in Religia 1994/3–5(1994), pp. 113–126; E. Chelidze, “The Life and the Literary Activities of Ioane Petritsi”, [in Georgian] Part 2, in Religia 1995/1–3, pp. 76–89; D. Melikishvili, “On the Question of the Unity and Individuality of the Linguistic Style of the Gelati Literary School”, in Transactions of the Gelati Academy of Sciences 2(1996), pp. 65–74 [in Georgian]; Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology, p. 22.
Ioanne Petritsi, Proclus Diadochus—Platonic Philosopher, Elements of Theology (Georgian Version), translation, introduction and commentaries by Ioane Petritsi, part 2, Diplomatic Edition of MS H-1337, ed. D. Melikishvili, N. Mirotadze (Tbilisi: Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2016).
Ioane Petritsi, The Armenian Translation by Symeon of Płndzahank’ of Proclus Diadochos’ Elements of Theology and Ioane Petritsi’s commentary, ed. M. Raphava (Tbilisi: Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2017) [in Georgian].
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, edition, translation, introduction and commentary E.R. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19632).
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, pp. xli–xlii.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, p. 343.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, p. 343.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, p. 343.
L. Alexidze, “The Grades of Knowledge in the Works of Proclus and Ioane Petritsi”, in Matsne (Journal of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, Series for Philosophy and Psychology), 2(1984), pp. 41–47 [in Georgian]; L. Alexidze, “Das Kapitel 129 der Elementa der Theologie des Proklos bei Ioane Petrici”, in Georgica (Zeitschrift für Kultur, Sprache und Geschichte Georgiens und Kaukasiens) 17(1984), pp. 47–53.
Ioane Petritsi, Kommentar zur Elementatio theologica des Proklos. Übersetzung aus dem Altgeorgischen, Anmerkungen, Indices und Einleitung, translation, annotation and introduction L. Alexidze, L. Bergemann (Amsterdam / Philadelphia: B.R. Grüner, 2009), pp. 20–24.
H.-C. Günther, “Zu Ioane Petritzis Proklusübersetzung”, in Georgica (Zeitschrift für Kultur, Sprache und Geschichte Georgiens und Kaukasiens) 22(1999), pp. 46–55.
H.-C. Günther, Die Übersetzungen der Elementatio theologica des Proklos und ihre Bedeutung für den Proklostext, Einige vorläufige Bemerkungen zur Bedeutung von Petrizis Übersetzung der Elementatio für die Textkonstitution (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Ioane Petritsi, An Overview of the Platonic Philosophy of Proclus Diadochus, ed. N.R. Natadze, G. Tevzadze [Russian translation I.D. Pantskhava], Filosofskoe Nasledie, vol. 91 (Moscow: Progress, 1984).
L. Alexidze, “Griechische Philosophie in den Kommentaren des Joane Petrizi zur Elementatio Theologica des Proklos”, in Oriens Christianus. Hefte für die Kunde des christlichen Orients, 81(1997), pp. 148–168; L. Alexidze, “Ioane Petritsi”, in Gersh (ed), Interpreting Proclus, pp. 229–244; L. Alexidze, “The Demiurge in Ioane Petritsi’s Commentary on Proclus’ Elements of Theology”, in Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía 47.1(2021), pp. 149–165.
T. Iremadze, “Zur Rezeption und Transformation der Aristotelischen und Proklischen Ursachenmodelle bei Joane Petrizi”, in Archiv für mittelalterliche Philosophie und Kultur, Heft XVII(2011), pp. 96–111; T. Iremadze, “Die erkennende Seele des Menschen und ihre Funktion im Proclus-Kommentar von Joane Petrizi”, in Quaestio (Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics) 15(2015), pp. 201–209; T. Iremadze, “Joane Petrizi”, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), online at the following address
Ioane Petritsi, Kommentar zur Elementatio theologica.
Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology.
On this, see also L. Gigineishvili, “The One, the Limit, and the Infinity in the Philosophy of Ioanne Petritsi”, Phasis 2–3(2000), pp. 141–146; L. Gigineishvili, “The Doctrine of Logos and Intellect in the Philosophy of Ioanne Petritsi: Evagrian Origenist Influences”, in L. Perrone (ed), Origeniana Octava. Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition. Papers of the 8th International Origen Congress. Pisa, 27–31 August 2001 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), pp. 1139–1148; L. Gigineishvili, “Proclus as a Biblical Exegete: Bible and its Platonic Interpretation in Ioane Petritsi’s Commentaries”, in D.A. Layne, D.D. Butorac (eds), Proclus and his Legacy (Berlin / Boston: de Gruyter, 2017), pp. 241–248, passim but especially 71 ff.
C. Steel, “La tradition du texte de l’Elementatio theologica de Proclus”, in G. Aubry, L. Brisson, Ph. Hoffmann, L. Lavaud (eds), Relire les Éléments de théologie de Proclus. Réceptions, interprétation antiques et modernes, (Paris: Hermann, 2021), pp. 27–68.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, p. 55.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, p. 54.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, p. 53, n. 23.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, p. 53.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, p. 54.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, p. 48.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, pp. 55–66.
Steel, “La tradition du texte”, p. 66: “Mais s’il s’agit d’une addition ancienne, la copie dont disposait Petritsi devrait représenter une tradition du texte plus ancienne que toute la tradition grecque du texte.”
This translation is contained in two manuscripts of the Matenadaran No. 1500 and 1832 and was published by Maya Raphava (Cf. Ioane Petritsi, The Armenian Translation).
Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology, p. 14.
John Italos, Opera. Textum graecum secundum collationem, pp. 161–165.
Kekelidze, History of the Old Georgian Literature, p. 285, n. 4; Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology, p. 17, n. 54.
Ioane Petritsi, ნემესიოს ემესელი, 1914, p. viii.
Chelidze, “The Life and the Literary (2)”, pp. 81–89; Tskitishvili, T., “Concerning the Essence and Meaning of an Original Work by Ioane Petritsi” (in Georgian: იოანე პეტრიწის ერთი ორიგინალური ნაშრომის რაობისა და მნიშვნელობისთვის), in Bulletin of Kutaisi University 4(1995), pp. 121–139; Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology, pp. 20–23; Gigineishvili, “Ioane Petritsi’s Preface”, pp. 194–198.
Cf. Ioane Petritsi, Kommentar zur Elementatio theologica, pp. 34–37; L. Alexidze, “Imago et Similitudo Dei (Platon—Philon von Alexandrien—Kirchenväter—Ioane Petrizi)”, in Phasis 12(2009), pp. 48–72, here pp. 54–57.
Ioane Petritsi, ნემესიოს ემესელი, 1914, p. xiv [translation L. Gigineishvili]. The gloss is found in MS A2; the manuscript is from the nineteenth century and is reproduced in Gorgodze’s introduction to his edition. Translation and data from a personal communication of L. Gigineishvili, 14.04.2023. The text is cited also in a shorter form in Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology, p. 17. I thank Lela Alexidze for stressing, during our recent encounter in Tbilisi (on 31 October 2024), the unreliability of the gloss’ information.
D. Melikishvili, “The Gelati Monastic and Literary School” [in Georgian], in Bulletin of Kutaisi University 1–2(1995), pp. 6–24; Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology, pp. 1–12.
Or: “… who is infallible in ⟨both⟩ testaments.”
“The one who is flawless in His promises” is Christ. Isaiah 63:1–3 was traditionally interpreted as a prophecy about the advent of Christ. Here Petritsi refers to the Second Coming.
The Psalmic verse is not cited literally. According to the Septuagint: “Pray and give to the Lord, your God!”
“The spiritual Organon” is the Book of Psalms. Here Petritsi equates its role in the spiritual life to the Organon of Aristotle for logic.
Here “Orpheus” is a metonym for David.
“Goodnesses”,
“The supremely victorious one” is God.
“The First Intellect” in Petritsi’s parlance is Christ. His Spirit is the Holy Spirit.
L. Gigineishvili’s note to his translation: “Embellish” here translates a transitive verb, of which the direct object is “the road.” Perhaps, this means that God does not embellish a road that already is there before this embellishment, but sets or paves this road in this book, so that “embellish” here may mean “beautifully paves.”
Ioanne Petritsi, Opera. Tomus II, p. 208; new translation of Levan Gigineishvili, modifying Gigineishvili, “Ioane Petritsi’s Preface”, pp. 200, 202; Georgian text ibid. pp. 201, 203. Here and in the following, the translations of Alexidze and Bergemann (Ioane Petrizi, Kommentar zur Elementatio theologica) and of Gigineishvili (“Ioane Petritsi’s Preface”) of the texts cited from the Prologue / Epilogue are radically different both from each other and from the present solutions, showing the difficulty of the text. Gigineishvili and I believe that the present translation is more precise than the previous ones.
Ioanne Petritsi, Opera. Tomus II, p. 223; new translation by Levan Gigineishvili, modifying “Ioane Petritsi’s Preface”, p. 234; Georgian text ibid., p. 235; see also Ioane Petrizi, Kommentar zur Elementatio theologica, p. 370.
asergasist’a amat’ sulist’a mus-t’a//enat’maqcevi aqanterma-t’a davstsk’ued//sitk’vis mimo-i da icann me-iro-eman//man erma-ulad imtsvervalen a-pollo.
That is: “philosophize like Aristotle”.
Ioanne Petritsi, Opera. Tomus II, p. 222, tr. L. Gigineishvili, “Ioane Petritsi’s Preface to his annotated translation of the Book of Psalms”, in T. Nutsubidze, C.B. Horn, B. Lourié (eds) with the contribution of A. Ostrovsky, Georgian Christian Thought and its Cultural Context: Memorial Volume for the 125th Anniversary of Shalva Nutsubidze (1888–1969) (Leiden: Brill, 2014), p. 232, slightly modified by Gigineishvili himself.
Gigineishvili has modified his earlier translation, which had read as follows: “and would have Aristotelized, embarking upon the theoretical thought of philosophers, presenting the Theology that stands aloof of matter.” The change is that of the removal of the comma after “philosophers”. which changes the meaning, and makes it clear that Petritsi speaks here about his—then still unfinished or only planned—translation of the Elements of Theology.
A view expressed at our meeting on 31 October 2024.
Gigineishvili, The Platonic Theology, p. 17.
Melikishvili, “On the Question of the Unity”.
See Proclus, Platonic Theology I. 1. 5. 9–10:
This word stands for “world” (
Ioanne Petritsi, Opera. Tomus II, pp. 4–5; Ioanne Petritsi, Proclus Diadochus—Platonic Philosopher, pp. 116–118. Levan Gigineishvili has treated this issue in Gigineishvili, “Proclus as a Biblical Exegete”, pp. 242–243, in the subchapter “ ‘Saint’ Proclus”, where he also gave a somewhat paraphrastic translation of the same passage. The present, more precise, translation is due to our joint revision of that original translation. See its German translation in Ioane Petritsi, Kommentar zur Elementatio theologica, pp. 64–67, with insightful commentaries.
See P. Géhin, “Introduction”, in Évagre le Pontique, Scholies aux Psaumes, vol. I (Psaumes 1–70) (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2021), subchapter “Les étapes de la vie spirituelle”, pp. 62–87.
Fourth anathema against Italos: J. Gouillard, “Le procès officiel de Jean l’Italien: Les actes et leurs sous-entendus”, in Travaux et Mémoires 9(1985), 59.198–202.
Critical edition, English translation, and commentary in 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. 659–720. A further analysis of Italos’ creationist doctrine will be published in A. Kraft, I. Perczel, “John Italos on the Soul, Matter, and the Resurrection: A new critical edition of Quaestiones 86 and 89 with translation and commentary” (forthcoming).
Greek text: Kraft, Perczel, “John Italos on the Eternity of the World”, pp. 676.58–677.70, the English translation at p. 684, and commentary pp. 699–704.
Ioanne Petritsi, Opera. Tomus II, p. 110; Ioanne Petritsi, Proclus Diadochus—Platonic Philosopher, pp. 247–248.
N. Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 82; and Kraft, Perczel, “John Italos on the Soul”. Here I should apologize for misquoting Sinissioglou in Kraft, Perczel “John Italos on the Eternity of the World”, p. 712, n. 117. We hastily attributed to him a position that he had never held. Even the page number in the reference to his book was incorrect.
Cf. John Italos, Opera. Textum graecum secundum collationem a Gregorio Ceretel, ed. N. Ketschakmadze (Tbilisi: Metsniereba, 1966), pp. 180–181. For a new critical edition of the Greek text of this passage, see below Appendix 1.
That is, the hypostases are demonstrating the one God. The manuscripts read here unanimously
This is a very difficult sentence. Apparently, it means that, while all the beings are directly participating in the first principle, it is impossible to name it, unless indirectly, through its effects: the beings. This is both a Proclian and Pseudo-Dionysian principle.
See Plato, Timaeus 28c3–5:
See Proclus, Elements of Theology 122: [sc.
See Proclus, Elements of Theology 122.
See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.1, 1094a:
See John 8:42: (…)
See Gouillard, “Le procès officiel”, pp. 149, 233–236.
Gouillard, “Le procès officiel”, pp. 221–223.
D. Krausmüller, “Between Tritheism and Sabellianism: Trinitarian Speculation in John Italos’ and Nicetas Stethatos’ Confessions of Faith”, in Scrinium 12(2016), pp. 261–280.
Italos, Quaestio 71, 146–151, in Kraft, Perczel, “John Italos on the Eternity of the World”, p. 689, Greek text at p. 680.
Origen, De princ. I.3.7, 247 sqq.: [C]um unus deitatis fons verbo ac ratione sua teneat universa, spiritu vero oris sui quae digna sunt sanctificatione sanctificet […].
For a discussion of “essential (
Gouillard, “Le procès officiel”, pp. 147, 202–208.
In the present study, Petritsi’s commentaries on the Elements of Theology are cited according to the English translation, in preparation, by Levan Gigineishvili and István Perczel.
Georgian transcription of the Greek
See 2 Cor 4:4:
See John 3:34:
See Col 2:3:
See Aristotle, De anima 432a2, and Origen, Contra Celsum 6.64.
Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian), Oration 38, On Theophany, 13 (= PG 36, 312):
See John 1:18:
“The etymology is from zg’va, which means “sea” since the Georgians were not a sailing nation and considered the sea as the ultimate limit of the land” (explanation by Levan Gigineishvili).
See Aristotle, De anima 432a2:
Origen, Contra Celsum 6.64:
“Origenism” has been repeatedly condemned as a heresy but, at the same time, many reputed Church fathers also belong to the same movement. Evagrios is condemned in the Chalcedonian Churches and is venerated as a saint in the Church of the East and the miaphysite Churches. The letters of Saint Antony, the founding father of monasticism, testify to a theology very similar to Evagrios. Saint Maximus the Confessor comes from a Palestinian “Origenist” background. John Italos was condemned for teaching that the risen body will have a different kind of matter from that of the earthly body, but this is the teaching of Saint Symeon the New Theologian, too. Thus, considering “Origenism” a “heresy” is creating inextricable problems as some of the representatives of this trend were condemned as heretics, while others are venerated as saints.
See Origen, Contra Celsum, 6. 65–70.
See the classical article of E.R. Dodds, “The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic ‘One’ ”, in The Classical Quarterly 22, No. 3/4 (Jul.-Oct. 1928), pp. 129–142.
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, IV, 25, 155–157.
See Theodoret of Kyros, Curation of Hellenic Diseases, 1. 82–87; Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julianum imperatorem, 8. 30–31 (= PG 76, 917d–919c).
For a detailed exposition of this metaphysical Trinitarian doctrine, see I. Perczel, “Notes sur la pensée systématique d’Evagre le Pontique”, in M. Girardi, M. Marin, (eds), Origene e l’alessandrinismo cappadoce (III–IV secolo): Atti del V Convegno del Gruppo Italiano di ricerca su ‘Origene e la tradizione alessandrina’ (Bari, 20–22 settembre 2000) (Bari: Edipuglia, 2002), pp. 277–297.
Email communication to the author on 26 September 2018.
M. Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio di Nicea (Bari: Edizioni di pagina, 2016), p. 228. The strong Proclian influence on Eustratios has been noted earlier. See Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, pp. lvi, lix–lxi; C. Steel, “Neoplatonic Sources in the Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics by Eustratios and Michael of Ephesus”, in Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 44(2002), pp. 52–54. Yet, Trizio has given a systematic exposition of Proclus’ presence in Eustratios’ oeuvre in M. Trizio, “Neoplatonic Source-Material in Eustratios of Nicaea’s Commentary on Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics”, in C. Barber, D. Jenkins (eds), Medieval Greek Commentaries on the Nichomachean Ethics, Leiden / Boston, Brill, 2009, pp. 71–109; Trizio, “Eleventh- to twelfth-century Byzantium”, pp. 182–215; Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio. See also recently S. Gersh, “Universals, Wholes, Logoi: Eustratios of Nicaea’s Response to Proclus’ Elements of Theology”, in Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus. Volume 2, pp. 32–55.
His name is mentioned in the Acts of the Synod held against Italos on 11 April 1082. See Gouillard, “Le procès officiel”, p. 159, n. 434. For Eustratios the Metropolitan of Nicaea being identical with the deacon Eustratios being interrogated in the lawsuit, see Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio, pp. 5–7.
Gouillard, “Le procès officiel”, pp. 449–452.
Gouillard, “Le procès officiel”, pp. 452–463.
Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio, p. 9; A. Rigo, M. Trizio, “Eustratios of Nicaea: A Hithertho Unknown ‘Master of Rhetors’ in Late Eleventh Century”, in C. Dendrinos, I. Giarenis (eds), Bibliophilos: Books and Learning in the Byzantine World. Festschrift in Honour of Costas N. Constantinides (Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter), 2021, p. 364.
Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio, pp. 10–11.
Joannou, “Eustrate de Nicée”; Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio, p. 11.
Joannou, “Eustrate de Nicée”, pp. 32–34.
I write “presumably new”, because David Evans, whom I consider the most important precursor to my studies on fifth, sixth-century Origenism, had suggested, in D.B. Evans, “The Christology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite”, in Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 41.1–2(2001), pp. 154–155, that this identification is already there in Pseudo-Dionysius. Yet, I am doubtful about this identification, which Evans treats quite briefly. The Trinitarian theology of Pseudo-Dionysius is a very difficult question, most of all because, as I have been able to demonstrate recently, the Greek text of Pseudo-Dionysius, probably written in the 480s, had undergone a thorough re-edition and re-writing in the 530s, 540s, during the Second Origenist Controversy, which eminently affected the trinitarian passages (see Perczel, “Notes on the Earliest Greco-Syriac Reception of the Dionysian Corpus”, in M. Edwards, D. Pallis, D. Steiris (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite (Oxford: OUP), 2022; and I. Perczel, “Christology and the Eucharist in Two Redactions of Pseudo-Dionysius”, in: G. Klima (ed), The Metaphysics and Theology of the Eucharist—A Historical-Analytical Survey of the Problems of the Sacrament (Cham: Springer), 2023, pp. 1–29). The original version is preserved in the Syriac translation of Sergius of Reshaina and in the testimonies to the first reception of the Corpus (Perczel, “Notes on the Earliest Greco-Syriac Reception”). Thus, drawing conclusions on Dionysius’ trinitarian doctrine uniquely based on the sixth-century rewriting of the Corpus is necessarily misleading.
Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, pp. lv–lvi.
Italos’ synthesis will be treated in more detail in Kraft, Perczel, “John Italos on the Soul”.
Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, p. lxiii.
Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, p. lviii.
Petritsi uses here the Georgian expression sa-stsavl-o tsigni (“study book”), from the verb stsavla, “to study”.
Oksia, varia, and perispomeni are Georgian transcriptions, according to the Byzantine pronunciation, of the names of the accents:
Ioanne Petritsi, Opera. Tomus II, p. 6; Ioanne Petritsi, Proclus Diadochus—Platonic Philosopher, pp. 118–119.
See Kraft, Perczel, “John Italos on the Soul”.
See, among others, I. Perczel, “Notes on the Earliest Greco-Syriac Reception of the Dionysian Corpus”, in M. Edwards, D. Pallis, G. Steiris (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2022; and Perczel, “Christology and the Eucharist”, pp. 1–29.
Petritsi translates here
The Georgian term is carmo-dg-omil. Petritsi translates
“It would have no identity and remaining in the producer” may be an interpretative translation of
“The cause that had produced it” translates
“Undivided and unitary power” is a hendiadyoin translation for
Petritsi connects
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