[B-Greek] Titus 2:13

Harold Holmyard hholmyard at ont.com
Fri Aug 25 22:41:24 EDT 2006


Dear Edgar,

You wrote:

>Maximus of Tyre (Dissertatio 2.10) and I wonder
>whether it has any relevance to the aforesaid rule:
>
>hO MEN GAR QEOS, hO TWN ONTWN PATHR KAI DHMIOURGOS,
>[hO] PRESBUTEROS MEN hHLIOU . . . 
>
>Of course, Maximus is extracting concepts from Timaeus 28C:
>
>TON MEN OUN POIHTHN KAI PATERA TOUS hEUREIN. . . 
>
>Plato seems to have one entity in mind, although
>[Numenius] interprets Timaeus 28C as a reference to a
>transcendent Father along with a Demiurge.
> 
>
>It is Numenius of Apamea (floruit 150 CE). See Ropbert M.
>Grant. _Gods and the One God_ (Philadelphia:
>Westminster Press, 1986), 81.
>
>See Numenius (Fragment 17).
>  
>

HH: Maybe Numenius was predisposed to intrerpret like that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numenius_of_Apamea

His chief divergence from Plato is the distinction between the "first 
god" and the "demiurge." This is probably due to the influence of the 
Valentinian Gnostics and the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophers (especially 
Philo and his theory of the Logos). According to Proclus (Comment. in 
Timaeum, 93), Numenius held that there was a kind of trinity of gods, 
the members of which he designated as "father," "maker," and "that which 
is made," i.e. the world. The first is the supreme deity or pure 
intelligence, the second the creator of the world, the third the world. 
His works were highly esteemed by the Neoplatonists, and Amelius (who 
was critical of gnosticism see Neoplatonism and Gnosticism) is said to 
have composed nearly two books of commentaries upon them.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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