5. Does Basil in De Sp. S. use Plotinus directly at all?
JOHN M. RIST
It is not clear how much of this would be acceptable to Henry and Schwyzer, whose Index testium still suggests that Basil in De Sp. S. is using Plotinus directly, though Gribomont253 and (apparently) Danielou254 have accepted the thesis that it is only De sp., not Plotinus, that is the immediate Neoplatonic source to be found in De Sp. S. At any rate,
Dehnhard's book has re-emphasized that the relationship between De sp. and De Sp. S. is at the very centre of the problem of the relationship between Basil and Plotinus. All the relevant texts deserve to be scrutinized again, at the very least to check on the claims originally made by Henry in the light of more recent comment. Where decisive evidence has already been accumulated, I shall not linger; yet certain points need further clarification.
It has always been believed that Ennead 5.1 is the Plotinian text which Basil is most likely to have known. It is in De sp. that this treatise is used especially, and there is no need to go over again the ground covered by Henry and Dehnhard: De sp. makes very extensive use of Ennead 5.1.
Five questions, however, immediately arise:
1. What is the significance, if any, of the fact that De sp. only uses 5.1 ?
2. Is the author oïDe sp. Basil, and if not, who is he?
3. Is Dehnhard's thesis correct that De Sp. S. 9 depends on De sp. for its Plotinian material?
4. Can we now assert that there is no Plotinian influence in De Sp. S. outside chapter 9 ?
5. Does Basil in De Sp. S. use Plotinus directly at all?
If these matters can be clarified, one can turn to the possibility of other Neoplatonic influences on Basil, thence to the wider and more general question of Basil's use of Plato and earlier Platonists.
Β. DE SPIRITU AND ENNEAD 5.1
There is no reason to believe that the author of De sp. uses any text of Plotinus other than Ennead. 5.1. There is, however, equally no immediate reason to assume that he knew no other text of Plotinus than Ennead 5.1.
Now we have already observed that 5.1 is one of the two texts of Plotinus which are used by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Praeparatio evangelica. It is therefore quite possible that, if the author of De sp. knows more
253 J. Gribomont, review of Dehnhard, RHE 60 (1965) 492; (also, idem, "Intransigencia e irenismo en S. Basilio," ETrin 9 [1975] 240 n. 61).
254 J. Danielou, review of Dehnhard. p. 161.
BASIL'S "NEOPLATONISM"
Plotinus than Eusebius quotes, the source of De sp. is the same as that of Eusebius, namely, in all probability, some non-Porphyrian version of the work of Plotinus. Possibly, but not necessarily, the author of De sp. obtained this material in the library at Caesarea. Later Christian writers such as Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret bear witness that 5.1 was an unusually well-known and influential text of Plotinus.
C. THE AUTHORSHIP OF DE SPIRITU-. SOME PRELIMINARY REMARKS
Following up Jahns suggestions, Henry claimed255 to have vindicated the Basilian authorship of De sp., and Dehnhard has little to add to this vindication. For him too, the composition of De sp. by Basil as a young man provides us with clear evidence that Basil himself was familiar with at least one Plotinian text at first hand. But is it certain that Basil was the author of De s/?.? Doubt has been cast on the question again by Gribomont; and perhaps even Gribomont has not pursued his inferences and facts to their most likely conclusion. Before glancing at the MS evidence and the evidence from the treatise itself— and it is only the latter with which Dehnhard has concerned himself — we should consider the general nature of the Plotinian material in De sp.. As has been rightly said,
De sp. is a Plotinian cento — though to say this is not necessarily to deny the additional influence of Origen and of Gregory Thaumaturgus which Dehnhard has suggested. (We shall return to this later.) However, the tone of De sp. makes it clear that its author has a tremendous respect for the Plotinus he knows. He has studied Ennead 5.1 carefully and valued it to the extent of virtually transcribing a fair section of it. That fact alone might seem to make Basilian authorship unlikely. After all, as we have already shown, it was hardly in Constantinople or Athens, where he studied, that Basil could have been introduced to fervent admirers of Plotinus; and he himself, despite his lengthy but mainly rhetorical education, makes no mention of Plotinus by name in his later works.
Indeed, if Dehnhard's theory is correct, he may not even use the text of Plotinus directly again in his writings after the heady enthusiasm of his youth represented by De sp. But, comes back the reply, outside the early
Philocalia he only mentions Origen — and that not with unmixed enthusiasm — once, in the late De Sp. S.-,256 this particular argument from silence is not strong. Could not the co-author of the Origenist compilation
255 E.g., États, pp. 162-169.
256 De Sp. S. 29.73. ed. Pruche. p. 506; PG 32: 204A-B.
JOHN M. RIST
known as the Philocalia be — and at about the same time — the author of the Plotinian cento known as De spiritu ?
The most we can safely conclude at this stage is that it is, to say the least, strange that a man with the devotion to Ennead 5.1 displayed by the author of De sp. should, if he be Basil, exhibit so little concern for Plotinus in other, including nearly contemporary, writings. Let us turn therefore to other kinds of evidence.
On the matter of the manuscripts the salient points have been assembled elsewhere:257 none of the manuscripts of Basil's C. Eun. which bear witness only to the three authentic books provides a text of De sp., nor does De sp. occur by itself. De sp. only appears as the last section of the spurious fifth book C. Eun., frequently attributed to Didymus the Blind.258
But even if this work is by Didymus, which may well be doubted, that would seem to be little help for De sp. De s/?.'s deep dependence on Ennead 5.1 has no parallel in Didymus any more than it has in the author of C. Eun. 4-5 or in Basil himself. There is, indeed, no particular reason to think that the author of De sp. and the author of C. Eun. 4-5 are the same person. Thus although in the manuscripts De sp. forms the end of C. Eun.
5, there is no internal explanation for this. It is quite reasonable to propose that whoever first tacked C. Eun. 4-5 on to Basil's C. Eun. 1-3 brought in De sp. at the same time. Hence the fact that books four and five of C. Eun. are not by Basil does not carry the necessary implication that De sp. is non-Basilian as well.
Why does Dehnhard still think that De sp. was written by Basil?
Perhaps partly because Timothy Aelurus (460-475) cites C. Eun. 4-5 as of Basil, thus showing that the attribution was already current about 100 years after the composition of De sp.259 Gribomont suggests that perhaps
Basil's executors found De sp. in Basil's desk along with the C. Eun. and the spurious C. Eun. 4-5, and put the whole thing together.260 But this, though possible, is grasping at straws; all we have for certain is that within a hundred years of Basil's death, knowing that Basil wrote about the Holy
Spirit and against Eunomius, someone added our books 4 and 5 against Eunomius, as well as De sp., to the undoubtedly Basilian C. Eun. 1-3.
257 Gribomont, review of Dehnhard, p. 488.
258 For some rather disorganized comment on this see W. M. Hayes, 77ie Greek Ms.
Tradition of (Ps.)-Basifs Adversus Eunomium (Leiden 1972) pp. 25-39. For hesitations about invoking Didymus, W. A. Bienert, "Allegoria" und "Anagoge" bei Didymos dem
Blinden von Alexandria (Berlin 1972) pp. 10-12.
259 Hayes, The Greek Ms. Tradition, pp. 5-6.
260 Gribomont, review of Dehnhard, p. 482.
BASIL'S "NEOPLATONISM"
Dehnhard scarcely offers any argument at all for regarding De sp. as by Basil, unless we are to extract one from his claim that Basil, when writing
De Sp. S., used De sp. as a source; or alternatively unless we are to deduce from the claim that De sp. shows links with the Creed of Gregory
Thaumaturgus that its author must be Basil. Such indeed seems to be the point of Dehnhard's discussion of chapter 29 of De Sp. S.,261 where he draws attention to the significance Basil attaches to Origen and his followers, and to Gregory Thaumaturgus in particular. But all that this shows is that Basil (in company doubtless with most other "Cappadocians") respected Gregory Thaumaturgus and Origen, not that he alone might have used Gregory to Christianize Plotinus. As a reply to Dehnhard, and in Dehnhard's terms, Gribomont's comment is well taken:262 the De sp.. he says, is from a Cappadocian milieu; it depends on Gregory
Thaumaturgus and is connected with Basil. Dehnhard's further arguments, to which we shall return later, about parallels to De sp. in genuinely Basilian sources, would only show that Basil used De sp., not that he wrote it — a conclusion perhaps confirmed by the unbasilian characteristics of style Gribomont has observed in precisely those passages of De sp. where the author is not following Plotinus.263 At this point we must insist that the authorship of De sp. remains uncertain.
D. DE SPIRITU SANCTO OUTSIDE CHAPTER 9
Dehnhard finds that in chapter 9 of De Sp. S. Basil develops the Plotinian material from De sp. for his own new purposes; he does not discuss other chapters of De Sp. S. where Basil may depend on either Plotinus or on De sp. It is now necessary to consider whether this limitation is appropriate.
Various other "Plotinian" passages of De Sp. S. have been suggested, for example by Henry in the États-. 16.38, 17.41, 18.44, 18.45, 18.47, 30.77.
Pruche, in his edition of De Sp. S., accepts most of these, sometimes slightly varying the text of the Enneads to which Basil is said to allude.
Furthermore, he adds a comparison between 22.53 and Ennead 1.7.1, though noting more appositely that this chapter generally has a "saveur platonicienne" — by which phrase he means to refer directly to Plato264 as well as to Plotinus; and in fact there is no specific reference to Plotinus.
Finally, Pruche finds no particular allusion to Plotinus in chapter 30 — where it is identified by Henry — referring in his note only generally to 261 Dehnhard, Das Problem, pp. 32-38.
262 Gribomont, review of Dehnhard, p. 492.
263 Ibid., p. 491.
264 Ph. 67A; Phaedr. 250CD; Rep. 611B ff.
JOHN M. RIST
the reversion to paganism in general which Basil suggests is characteristic of the Arians. Before examining chapter 9 of De Sp. S., therefore, I propose to discuss the other possible references to Plotinus in De Sp. S. in sequence. i. De Sp. S. 16.38.20-21 : καί μηδείς οίέσθω με ή τρεις είναι λέγειν αρχικός υποστάσεις This is one of the more well known supposed quotations of Plotinus by Basil; it is cited as such, for example, by Henry in the États, by Henry and Schwyzer in their edition of Plotinus, and by Pruche in his edition of De
Sp. S.. It does not occur in De sp., so could not be derived from that source. It does, however, occur in one of the quotations from Plotinus to be found in Eusebius,265 a work which Basil certainly read. In itself, therefore, it provides no proof that Basil had read Plotinus either in Porphyry's edition or that of Eustochius. We should also note the context:
Basil is rejecting an interpretation of his words which would have him, in effect, teaching tritheism and a doctrine that makes the "act of the Son" incomplete. In other words, as Christians of the time were given to put it, he says he is neither a pagan nor a Jew (for subordinationists, those who diminished the significance of the Son, were often said to Judaize). It should be admitted, however, that the word αρχικός does not apparently occur in such discussions; talk is more usually, as in Athanasius, of μερισμέναι υποστάσεις.
266 Here certainly a division of the godhead is being referred to — and repudiated — just as Basil repudiates it in our text.
Presumably no Christian would say, as such, that there is more than one αρχή, or αρχική ύπόστασις. The language that Basil uses is, therefore, of pagan origin, though he may have heard it, in polemic, from a Christian opponent. If so, that opponent, though not necessarily Basil, may have known its origin. At all events we are making no progress in discovering this. If the passage reached Basil from a source other than Eusebius — and that it is Eusebian, as I shall suggest, is more likely than that it comes from Plotinus directly — all we know is that it did not come from De sp. ii. De Sp. S. 17.41
This section deals with the notion of ύπαρίθμησις and, according to Pruche, 267 Basil is probably thinking of Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophy
265 Praep. ev. 11.16.4.
266 So Athanasius, Exp. fid. 2. The point is clearly made by Dionysius of Rome (arguing against the Sabellians) ap. Athanasius, De deer. 26.
267 B. Pruche, Basile de Césarée, Sur le Saint Esprit (Paris 1968) p. 392.
BASILS "NEOPLATONISM"
when he says that this notion comes from "the wisdom of the world."
Henry is a little more hesitant, 268 but thinks that Basil has Neoplatonism chiefly in mind. But there is no reason to believe that the term itself is
Neoplatonic. Basil's opponents, as the entry ύπαρίθμησις in PGL suggests, are most likely to be Anomoeans of some kind or another, whose source may be a work of Stoicism or Aristotelianism — we have discussed τεχνολογία already — but which is certainly not Neoplatonic. In fact we have to admit we do not know the precise origin of the technical language in this chapter: the only thing we do seem to know is that it is neither
Platonic nor Neoplatonic. I can see no evidence that the other supposed parallels marked in Henry's États are parallels at all. iii. De Sp. S. IX.44-45 According to Henry269 the polytheism rejected here is certainly the theory of three hypostases as taught in Ennead 5.1. But our discussion of the traditions of Middle Platonism is sufficient to remind us270 that both
Middle Platonists and Christians influenced by them before the time of Plotinus were liable to talk of first, second and third gods. Certainly these texts of De Sp. S. refer to a theory of three principles; and certainly
Plotinus held such a theory. But from that it does not follow that Basil had Plotinus totally or primarily in mind; or even that he had him in mind at all. As in the language of chapter 17, Basil has enough Christian opponents to account for his denying subordinationism. We should further add that the brief De sp., which does not talk of three principles, is not the source of De Sp. S. at these points.
Finally Pruche tells us271 that the Plotinian inspiration of the formula μονάς προς μονάδα seems beyond doubt. Plotinus' version (of course) is μόνος προς μόνον, 212 and, if that is what Pruche has in mind, it should be observed that it is not a peculiarly Plotinian phrase
273 (though by the twentieth century it may seem so); nor in De Sp. S. does Basil avail himself of Plotinus' special use of μόνος προς μόνον, which refers to the relation of the soul to God.
268 États, p. 183.
269 États, p. 183.
270 For further reminders see Dillon. The Middle Platonists, pp. 367 ff.
271 Basile, p. 408.
272 6.9.11. etc.
273 See E. Peterson, "Herkunft und Bedeutung der ΜΟΝΟΣ ΠΡΟΣ ΜΟΝΟΝ-Formel bei Plotin." Philologus 88 (1933) 30-41.
JOHN M. RIST
iv. De Sp. S. 18.47
Again we have a passage about first, second and third gods; again there is no reason to see any specific allusion to 5.1, as Henry does, attaching himself merely to the words τρίτη δέ ή τής φυχής φύσις ... τρίττα appearing in 5.1.10.1-6. More originally, Pruche finds an allusion to Ennead 5.4.1.4, but this is no better. Again, to be sure, there is talk of first, second and third; but again there is no reason to suppose Basil is thinking of this text.
Now Ennead 5.4 is not quoted by Eusebius, nor by the author of De sp.-, were Basil in DeSp.S. 18 thinking of 5.4 he would have to know Plotinus first hand. But we are far from being able to demonstrate that he is going beyond what was a Middle Platonic as well as a Neoplatonic commonplace.
v. De Sp. S. 30.77
This passage tells us that those who confuse the persons (Sabellians) are judaizing, those who oppose the natures (Arians) are paganizing: a standard charge, as our discussion of 16.38 has already suggested. Pruche wisely declines to follow Henry at this point; thus he sees no reference to Plotinus in particular.
This brings us to the end of our discussion of texts of De S p. S. outside chapter 9, where Basil has sometimes been said to be using Plotinus. Our conclusion must be that in these sections Basil does not use Plotinus via
De sp., nor does he obviously allude to any text of the Enneads either directly or through the quotations in Eusebius. Our only hesitation is with the title τρεις άρχικαί υποστάσεις — and this, as we have seen, affords no clear evidence for direct contact with Plotinus' text. More likely than that Basil thought of Plotinus specifically, when he used the title, and nothing more, of Ennead 5.1 in De Sp. S. 16 is that the phrase άρχικαί υποστάσεις, perhaps coined originally by Plotinus, signified by Basil's time a wellknown and objectionable set of attitudes. It remains possible, of course, that this is incorrect, and that Basil drew the title, and nothing more, from Plotinus directly, or more probably from Plotinus in Eusebius'
Praeparatio evangelica.
I revert to De sp. If Basil wrote De sp., he knew more about Ennead 5.1 than he could find in Eusebius, and probably he knew the title of the treatise directly as well as from Eusebius. Hence the likelihood of his
274 Perhaps we should note that Pruche (Basile, p. 413) finds Basil alluding with the phrase δόγμα της μοναρχίας to Dionysius of Rome (in Athanasius, De deer. 26), a possible source we have already considered (note 266) for talk of three hypostases.
BASIL'S "NEOPLATONISM"
using 5.1 directly anywhere in De Sp. S. increases, though we still have the anomaly that only the title looks like a specific reference in De Sp. S.
(apart from chapter 9) to Ennead 5.1. But in any case we have already observed that the authorship of De sp. is still an open question. And if Basil did not write De sp.. we cannot even claim that he knew from Plotinus what the title of Ennead 5.1 was. If Basil is innocent of De sp., his knowledge of the title of 5.1 in De Sp. S. 16 is derived from Eusebius or from some other now unidentifiable source.
E. DE SPIRITU AND DE SPIRITU SANCTO 9
We must now turn to chapter 9 of De Sp. S., written, according to an important proposal of Dörries, somehwat later than chapters 1 to 8 and 10-27,275 which latter reflect the debate at Sebaste in 373 between Basil and Eustathius. Chapter 9, therefore, is possibly open to other theological influences. Even the scholar who doubts Dörries' thesis would have to admit that it would gain plausibility if we could show Basil behaving relatively differently in chapter 9 on the one hand and in chapters 1 to 8 and 10 to 27 on the other. Let us consider a number of texts: i. De Sp. S. 9.22.25 ff: προς δ πάντα έπέστραπται τά αγιασμού προσδεόμενα, ού πάντα έφίεται ...
276 he is cautiously followed by Pruche who finds the influence of Plotinus undeniable throughout chapter 9 but does not specify. But ου πάντα έφίεται, used elsewhere by Basil in unplotinian contexts, is a well-known echo of the opening of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Henry compares Ennead 1.7.22-23; 271 and the notion of "conversion" to God is a Christian commonplace.
278 But, runs the objection, conversion to God (neuter) accompanied by the Aristotelian echo is a conjunction found in Ennead 1.7. Does not the coincidence mean something? As further evidence on the matter we should observe that in De Sp. S. 5.7 Basil uses the words εις αυτόν έπέστραπται τά σύμπαντα, and continues with some
275 H. Dörries. De Spiritu Sancto (Göttingen 1956). Dörries' thesis is doubted by B.
Pruche, "Autour du traité sur le Saint-Esprit de Saint Basile de Césarée," RSR 52 (1964) especially 216-223. It is hospitably received, however, by J. Gribomont, "Ésotérisme et tradition dans le Traité du Saint-Esprit de saint Basile," Oecumenica 2 (1967) 40-41.
276 Étals, p. 178.
277 1094A. So Dehnhard, Das Problem, p. 71; but Dehnhard wrongly suggests the influence of Eusebius' On Psalms: see Gribomont, review of Dehnhard, p. 490.
278 Cf. Clement, Strom. 7.7; and generally P. Aubin, Le problème de la "conversion"
(Paris 1963).
JOHN M. RIST
similar remarks about the desire of the soul (άσχέτω πόθω, άρρητώ στοργή, etc.) which remind us, though not clearly enough to suggest immediate derivation, of Ennead 1.6.7.13 ff, a section where Plotinus uses the verb ορέγομαι of our desire for the good. So one could say that in De Sp. S. 9
Basil echoes his own έπέστραπται and not unreasonably associates it with a well-known Aristotelian tag. Indeed Plotinus' phrase προς αυτό έπιστρέφειν πάντα could itself, by Basil's time, have become well-known; thus the use of it would not entail direct use of Plotinus even though the phrase is plotinian. At this point we must suspend judgment: Dehnhard certainly seems to neglect the possible importance of the coincidence of famous phrases; we should not, however, overestimate its importance at this stage. ii. De Sp. S. 9.22.25·. άλλα ζωής χορηγόν · ού προσθήκαις αύξανόμενον ...
279 Pruche sees two clear parallels with the Enneads™ ζωής χορηγόν echoes Ennead 6.9.9.49, while προσθήκαις αύξανό μενον depends on 6.7.41.16-17. This is an important claim, if true, for it
Following Henry, may ensure Basil's direct use of two treatises of Plotinus other than 5.1.
But it is not to be believed lightly. For, if correct, it would imply that Basil is consciously making the kind of use of Plotinian texts which, in view of what everyone would have to say is his limited interest in Plotinus, would need clear demonstration. Basil may have heard these phrases in general discussions without knowing that they had any particular connection with Plotinus; and if that is the explanation, it hardly encourages us to talk of Plotinus' influence on Basil. Dehnhard proposes a possible solution: ζωής χορηγόν is to be compared with a section of De sp. (ζωήν παρέχει, τρόπος τής χορηγίας?* 1 where Dehnhard finds the author of De sp. dependent on other material, in this case, he thinks, the Creed of Gregory Thaumatur gus. as well as on Ennead 5.1.
282 The word αγιασμού in De Sp. S. 9.22.2627 might seem to confirm this; it is absent in all the Plotinian texts, but present in Gregory Thaumaturgus and De Sp. S. 9, while De sp. has τους άγιους αγίους έποίησε. So much, if so, for a direct quotation of Ennead 6.9, but a final word must await comment on Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Dehnhard's case is weakened by the too general "parallels" he sees in the following section. As for the phrase ού προσθήκαις αύξανόμενον, it certainly reminds us of Ennead 6.7, but cannot be said to be derived from it in any significant sense.
279 États, p. 179.
280 Pruche, Basile, p. 325.
281 Dehnhard, Das Problem, p. 52.
282 Ibid., p. 8.
BASIL'S "NEOPLATONISM"
iii. De Sp. S. 9.22.39-40-. οι απολαύει τά μετέχοντα όσον αυτά πέφυκεν 283 followed again by Pruche, thinks of Ennead 2.9.3.1 -3, but the similarities are again very general and limited in scope. A similar idea occurs, but to argue derivation is to assume that only Basil and Plotinus ever wrote or thought about the ideas in question. Again on the theme of direct influence, we must conclude "unproven," and indeed "implausi ble." The same — more so — applies to Henry's further comparison of Ennead 5.1.6.37.
Henry, iv. DeSp. S. 9.23.1-23 The opening of this chapter, with its language of οίκείωσις and άλλοτριότης, seems to provide stronger evidence of direct linkage between Basil and Plotinus. Henry and Pruche confidently cite Ennead 5.1.10.24-26 (a passage not quoted by Eusebius or De sp.), and the parallel is more substantial and sustained. It cannot be said to be conclusive, but direct use by Basil of Ennead 5.1 at this point in chapter 9 is more credible than the other parallels we have considered. The same cannot be said, however, of Henry's claim that in lines 9 ff. Basil moves to the use of Ennead 1.6.9.11 ff. Pruche again follows Henry here, though Henry admits that the vocabulary now is "less plotinian," but he seems unwise to do so. It is interesting to note that while certain Plotinian commonplaces occur both in Plotinus and in Basil, the peculiarly Plotinian (and Numenian) archaism άγλάία (Ennead 1.6.9.14) does not appear in Basil — who interestingly uses όμμα where Plotinus has οφθαλμός-, a little point, but significant against direct borrowing. Henry's case is again weakened when he has to cite other Plotinian texts (2.9.2.16-18; 5.8.10.26-27) to account for De Sp.
S. 9.23.18-19 (άποστίλβει ... έλλαμφθείσαι); again we are supposed to posit Basil as cento-maker, a much more implausible notion in 375 than in 360.
But Dehnhard's 284 attempt to explain this latter material as an expansion of an earlier version in De sp. is also very much less than convincing. Basil's use of philosophical commonplaces is probably adequate to deal with the whole section. v. De Sp. S. 9.23.24-25: ή έν θεώ διαμονή, ή προς θεόν όμοίωσις, τό άκρότατον τών όρεκτών, θεόν γενέσθαι.
Much of this language, and all of the content, is to be found in Christian writers before Basil.
285 as well, of course, as in Platonists of various sorts.
283 États, p. 179.
284 Dehnhard, Das Problem, p. 53.
285 See C. F. H. Johnston, The Book of St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit (Oxford
1892) p. 54. n. 4; he offers many references.
JOHN M. RIST
286 This must, he believes, be directly Plotinian: the source is the θεόν γενόμενον of 6.9.9.59. It must be granted to Henry that the phrase is very striking, and that no exactly worded parallel has thus far been adduced. But we should note that it is the two words alone for which a good case might be made for direct derivation from Ennead 6.9; the rest could come from any
Platonic or Christian Platonic source, verbal or written. And it is legitimate to wonder whether reference to the text of Plotinus is required to account for so striking a phrase. We must allow that Basil may have quoted Ennead 6.9 here, though so striking a phrase could have been familiar to the learned or fairly learned while its origins were unknown to the person using it. So we have to conclude not that Henry is right, and that we have an unambiguous use by Basil of Ennead 6.9, but that there is a possible use of Plotinus in this passage. It is interesting that in the Index testium of Henry-Schwyzer, volume 3, this reference no longer appears.
But Henry wants to draw particular attention to θεόν γενέσθαι. vi. Conclusion What then are our conclusions about De Sp. S.l That it is possible, but far from necessary or even likely, that Basil used Ennead 1.7 in 9.22.20 ff; that it is even less likely that he used 2.9 and 5.1 in lines 39-40; that it is more likely that he used 5.1 in section 23; that it is possible that θεόν γενέσθαι in section 23 derives directly from Ennead 6.9. And of Dehn hard's case that De Sp. S. 9 uses not Plotinus directly, but De sp. as a source, only one dubious passage (9.23.25 ff.) remains. At least this much of a positive nature may be concluded: that whereas in the remaining chapters of De Sp. S. it is almost certain that there is no direct use of Plotinus, or use of Plotinus via De sp., in chapter 9 the matter is in doubt.
Clearly this tells in favour of Dörries' thesis of a later composition of chapter 9 — after the remaining chapters of De Sp. S. We may now consider possible Plotinian influence on other texts of Basil outside De sp. and De Sp. S.
F. OTHER TEXTS OF BASIL
i. HFide [15]m In the États Henry288 suggested that the opening sections of HFide [15]
(θεού μεμνήσθαι ... αίσθήσεται) 2* 9 are influenced by Ennead 5.1.1.1-33. But 286 États, p. 182. For θεοποίησις see Nygren, Agape and Eros, p. 428.
287 P G 3 1 : 464 ff.
288 États, p. 175.
289 464B-C.
BASIL'S "NEOPLATONISM"
the thought-context is entirely different; an example: when Plotinus cites τόλμα as an origin of evil for souls, Basil says it is τολμηρόν to try to speak in detail in theology. In general Plotinus is talking of souls forgetting their fatherland, Basil of the difficulties of theologizing and the necessity of silence. Happily the Henry-Schwyzer Index has dropped the suggestion that at this point Plotinus is the source of Basil.
After his supposed use of 5.1.1 Basil, according to the États, moves to Ennead 5.1.2.14-17 (and back to 1.6.7.37-39, 1.6.8.1-3, and finally
6.9.9.1-2); this takes him from σύ δέ, ει βούλει to γεννηθείς Υιός, 290 after which he moves to a section in which he restates his position against various Arian or semi-Arian formulae. In the Henry-Schwyzer Index some of these claims are dropped, but Basil is still said to be dependent on 5.1.2.14-18 and 6.9.9.1-2. For the sake of completeness we will comment on the whole passage.
As far as 5.1.2.14 ff. goes, despite the authority of the Henry-Schwyzer Index, it is interesting to note that Basil does not use the terms ησυχία or ήσυχος here, despite the appearance of ήσυχον in 5.1 and in De sp., and his own use of ησυχία in EGNaz. [2], a passage which we shall consider shortly. Secondly while De sp. takes over the phrase περικείμενον σώμα
(presumably from 5.1.2), Basil in HFide [15] has only the much less impressive τό σώμα σεαυτού. Thirdly although HFide [15] has a sequence γήν, θάλασσαν, αέρα, ούρανόν, the striking ήσυχος μέν γή, ήσυχος δέ θάλασσ of Ennead 5.1 is absent. The De sp. version, which uses ήσυχον, but merely lists ουρανός, γή, θάλασσα, seems to fall between the two. At this point we can only conclude that if there is a Plotinian source at all for this part of HFide [15], De sp. is more likely than 5.I.2.
291 As for 1.6.7.37 ff. the only "worthy" parallel is "earth," "air," "water"; and that is simply not enough. For 1.6.8 we have only κάλλος άμήχανον, which goes back to Plato's Symposium-, 292 there is no reason to posit Plotinus as an intermediairy.
Which brings us to the possible use of 6.9.9.1-2, claimed by Henry in the États291 and again in the Henry-Schwyzer Index as the source of the opening of chapter 2. This passage is particularly informative in that we can observe within a short space the technique of parallel passages, its uses and abuses. The essence of the argument appears to be that Plotinus
0 465A 12, 465c 13, respectively.
'' So Dehnhard. Das Problem, pp. 60-61.
'2 218E2.
13 États, p. 176.
JOHN M. RIST
writes, sequentially, as follows: πηγήν ζωής, πηγήν νού, αρχήν δντος, αγαθού αίτίαν, ρίζαν ψυχής. Basil in the parallel passage, has the following: φυσική άγαθότης, πάντων αρχή, αίτια τού είναι τοις οΰσιν, ρίζα τών ζώντων, πηγή τής ζωής. Surely no further comment is needed on what Henry called an "Indice net d'une réminiscence précise des Ennéades." Dehnhard prefers to invoke the influence of Gregory Thaumaturgus.294
So far we appear to have drawn a blank with the HFide [15], at least in so far as a hunt for specific Neoplatonic sources rather than vague terminological parallels with Platonism is concerned. Our last hope — for HFide [15]295 — must rest with the set of passages Henry lists from Ennead 5.1.4, to which Dehnhard adds other sections of Ennead 5.1.4 and 5.I.3.296 For these latter passages Dehnhard prefers to see the influence of De sp.-, but the comparison in three columns which he sets up between Plotinus, De sp. and HFide [15], while certainly showing once again the very close connection between Plotinus and De sp., also reveals how much vaguer are the "references" in HFide [15] to either of its possible sources. Dehnhard certainly has shown that Ennead 5.1.3-4 could be the ultimate source for HFide [15], but the language of HFide [15] is substantially different from the other two in parts, while in other parts remaining close. For example both Plotinus and De sp. have ή συνούσα θερμότης, where HFide [15] shows συνουσιώμενος and later άχώριστον τώ πυρί τό θερμαίνειν, Plotinus again has ούκ έπίκτητον, άλλ' έν αίώνι πάντα and De sp. ουδέν έχον ... άλλ' αίδίως πάντα έχον, while HFide [15] has the variant ουδέν έπίκτητον αύτω ουδέ ύστερον έπιγενόμενον. Definite conclusions from all this as to the relationship of HFide [15] either to De sp. or to Ennead 5.1 are hard to draw. Of course, we know that at some stage Basil did read (some say write) De sp.. and also that this part of Plotinus was not available to him in Eusebius. We might deduce from the later evidence that Cyril of Alexandria knows Ennead 5.1 (and, to judge from his silence about the rest, 5.1 alone — but not merely from Eusebius) that this treatise circulated separately, at least from Porphyry's edition, a phenomenon we have previously considered in the light of its use by Eusebius. If that is so. then its use by Basil in HFide [15] would become slightly more likely. But not very likely; the vagueness of the allusions in HFide [15] is far from suggesting that when writing his homily Basil took a fresh look at his text of Plotinus. Perhaps slightly more plausible is a modification of Dehnhard's position: if but only if Basil is influenced by 294 Dehnhard, Das Problem, p. 58, n. 33.
295 PG 31: 468c ff.
296 Dehnhard, Das Problem, p. 57.
BASIL'S "NEOPLATONISM"
297 it is more likely that De sp. is the intermediary than that Basil quotes Plotinus directly. any "plotinian" material in HFide [15], The parallels offered by Henry for Ennead 5.1.6 and HFide [15] are too vague to need further discussion.
298 We have to settle for no direct and only slight indirect "Neoplatonic" material in the HFide [15] as a whole.
ii. Epistula Gregorio sodali (EGNaz. [2]) Chapter 2 of Basil's letter to Gregory of Nazianzus contains much praise of ησυχία. That — and a few more commonplaces — induced
Henry to think of Ennead 5.1.2.11-14, 5.1.12.12-20. 6.9.7.14 ff., 300 and Theiler to invoke Porphyry, De abstinentia 109.9.
301 Of course ησυχία and its virtues are extolled by Plotinus 302 and Porphyry, and it is hardly surprising that Basil, doubtless finding well-known ideas to his taste, speaks similarly in an early letter. iii. In Hexaemeron 2.7 and 6.9: the Hexaemeron and Contra Eunomium
In his edition of Basil's Hexaemeron for the series Sources chrétiennes Giet has said most of what needs to be said about Basil's sources in this work.303 Although Giet, following Gronau,304 exaggerates the influence of Posidonius — which is at best unproven — his account is mostly sensible and well-based on provable references. He has in fact developed in his edition the earlier studies of Courtonne,305 and for Hex. 7 and 8 those of J.
Levie.306 In particular Giet has followed Levie in arguing that for much of Hex. 7 and 8 Basil's principal source is some kind of epitome of Aristotle.
This epitome does not reproduce Aristotle particularly faithfully; in it traces of Aelian, Oppian, Theophrastus and others may be detected. All of which makes it rather surprising that Giet seems to betray no uneasiness with the alleged use of the text of Plotinus by Basil argued for by Henry in 2,7 PG 31: 468c ff.
298 Étais, pp. 177-178.
299 Courtonne, 1: 6-8; PG 32: 224-228.
300 États, pp. 171-172; cf. 5.5.8.3.
301 W. Theiler. review of États. BZ 41 (1941) 172.
"" See V. Cilento. "Mito e poesia nelle Enneadi di Plotino," in Les sources de Plotin
(Geneva 1960) pp. 307-309. For Basil's general interest in ησυχία see Dehnhard, Das
Problem, p. 48; also T. Spidlik, La sophiologie de s. Basile (Rome 1961) pp. 88-91.
303 S. Giet. Basile de Césarée, Homélies sur VHexaéméron (Paris 1968) pp. 47-69.
104 K. Gronau, Posidonios, eine Quelle fur Basilius' Hexahemeron (Braunschweig 1912).
305 Y. Courtonne. 5. Basile et l'Hellénisme (Paris 1934).
306 J. Levie, "Les sources de la 7e et la 8e homélies de saint Basile sur l'Hexaéméron,"
Musée belge (1920) 113-149.
JOHN M. RIST
the États. And Basil's sources are said to be not only the plausible 5.1, and the less plausible 1.6, but, according to Henry, the downright unlikely 2.8.
Such indeed is the weight of tradition and blind respect for authority.
Ennead 2.8, as Bréhier already realized when writing his Notice in the Budé edition of Plotinus, is a school treatise:307 it is concerned with the question of why distant objects appear smaller. In it Plotinus discusses five school views and gives his preference to one of them, that of Aristotle. It is likely that Plotinus himself is using a manual at this point, and if Plotinus, why not Basil who, as we have already noted, is not averse to the use of manuals. To defeat this reading of the situation very strong evidence would be required, which Henry has not provided. First he cites the (Porphyrian) title of Plotinus' tract, the weakest evidence of all; and far from even verbally identical with what is found in Basil's Hex. 6.9. He then compares Basil's πεδίον ... πολύ with Plotinus' ορών ... πολλάς. And that is all from Ennead 2.8.1. Chapter 2 provides merely πολύ ... τό όρος and έπί τοϋ ουρανού, plus όφις ... έκτεινομένη, as though phrases of this sort were not virtually unavoidable in discussion of so technical a topic.
Henry believes that Hex. 6.9 is very closely related to C. Eun. 3.6, where two of the supposed echoes of Plotinus recur: ορών τε παμμεγέθων and later ούρανοϋ\™ % C. Eun. also contains the phrase τό περικείμενον σώμα, and for this Henry recalls Ennead 5.1, as he did when he found the phrase in De sp. We may note first that τό περικείμενον σώμα does not occur in the Hexaemeron, only in C. Eun. 3.6
309 — which substantially, if not totally, weakens the case for Plotinian influence on Hex. 6.9. As for C. Eun. 3.6,
Ennead 5.1 or De sp. might be the origin, as Dehnhard has argued. But for the words τό περικείμενον σώμα in isolation, or rather accompanied only by ορών τε παμμεγεθών and ουρανού (not from 5.1 or De sp.), only a scholar would have avoided the obvious conclusion: they are a banality going back to Aristotle.
We turn now to Henry's "parallel" between Hex. 2.7 and Ennead I.6.
311 The situation is rather similar. Again there are a few, indeed slightly more, verbal parallels between Plotinus and Basil. But, according to Henry, it is not these which persuade him of Basil's use of Plotinus; it is
"l'allure de tout le passage et l'ordre dans lequel les idées sont exposées."
307 Theiler (BZ Al [1941] 171) inevitably thinks of Porphyry, though he notices the possibility of pre-Plotinian sources for Basil.
308 For all this see États, p. 174.
309 See also Dehnhard. Das Problem, p. 62.
310 GA 764B30.
311 États, pp. 172-173.
BASILS "NEOPLATONISM"
The first of these claims is subjective, and the second has no weight if it looks as though we are dealing with traditional school doctrine. And that is exactly what we have in this case. In Ennead 1.6.1 Plotinus refers to a standard and especially Stoic view that the beauty of an object is to be explained in terms of the symmetry of its parts.312 Basil refers to the same standard view in his discussion, but he is particularly concerned with the question of the beauty of light, of gold and the evening star (Plotinus has gold, lightning and stars in general); and Basil's discussion is largely in terms of the pleasurable impact of light during the process of vision, a question with which Plotinus does not concern himself. It is only the banal parts of the texts, those dealing with a communis opinio that Basil and Plotinus have in common. Such a communis opinio is perfectly adequate to explain the similarities of vocabulary. Courtonne observes that both Basil and Plotinus are concerned about the beauty of "simples," that is, substances supposedly composed of similar parts, which, it is said, are not accounted for in the Stoic theory.313 But while Basil is thinking of light and gold, of material objects, the whole point of Plotinus' treatment is to move to the beauty of immaterial "simples." Furthermore, it should be noted that whereas Plotinus, for philosophical reasons, rejects the "symmetry" theory of beauty in toto, it is possible that Basil, confusedly, only rejects it for some (viz. "simple") bodies.
So much for Basil's use of Plotinus (as claimed by Henry and others) in the Hexaemeron -, and for that matter in Contra Eunomium as well. For I can find no further evidence of his influence in either work.
G. BASIL AND PLOTINUS: PROVISIONAL RESULTS
In all the Basilian or putatively Basilian texts that we have considered, the influence of Plotinus, whether direct or indirect, can be detected with certainty only in De sp. and in De Sp. S. 9. De sp. certainly uses Ennead
5.1 while De Sp. S. 9 uses 5.1 independently of De sp. Furthermore, the remote possibility of Basil's use of 6.9, and even 1.7 and 2.9, cannot be denied for De Sp. S. 9; perhaps further enquiry may bring one of these possibilities a little nearer to probability. Of other Basilian texts it is just possible that Basil used De sp. in H fide [15]; it is rather less likely that he used 5.1. Nor should we forget that Basil (though he apparently neglected
2 Cf Cicero, Tusc. Disp. 4.13.31 (SVF 3: 279).
3 Courtonne. S. Basile, p. 132.
JOHN M. RIST
this source) could have known Plotinus through the passages of Enneads 4.7 and 5.1 to be found in Eusebius. What then does all this tell us about Basil's utilization of Plotinus? First of all that De Sp. S. 9 shows that he uses Ennead 5.1 directly — and that it is possible on the evidence so far that this is the only Plotinian treatise he so uses. He makes no use of the texts of 4.7 he could have found in Eusebius. Now I have already suggested, as a result of a consideration of the use of 5.1 by Eusebius,
Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret, that this treatise probably circulated separately. That factor might also supply the clue to why Basil probably knew very little Plotinus. If he read 5.1 in Porphyry's edition, or even in that of Eustochius, he would presumably have read much more Plotinus along with it. But Porphyry's account in his Life of Plotinus makes it quite clear that some of the treatises, especially the earlier ones — 5.1 is number
10 — were in circulation long before any complete edition of Plotinus was published. For the sake of clarity I should mention that 6.9 immediately precedes 5.1: number 9 in Porphyry's collection; thus if Basil knew 6.9 our general thesis would hardly be affected. 1.7 and 2.9 are chronologically 54 and 33, so that if I was convinced that Basil knew these two treatises, I should have further minor difficulties on my hands.
But I am not so convinced.
But the question of 6.9 affords us a good way to return to the still unresolved problem of De sp. and of its author, for related to this question is the matter of Basil's attitude to Plotinus in general. I have already observed that Dehnhard finds the phrase ζωής χορηγόν in De Sp. S. 9.22.25 to be dependent not on Ennead 6.9.9.48, but on the Creed of Gregory
Thaumaturgus in De sp. Here we should also advert to our discussion of the phrase θεόν γενέσθαι in De Sp. S. 9.23, which, some say, derives directly from Ennead 6.9.9.59. We held this claim to be still unproven, though it is more plausible than the claim for ζωής χορηγόν, since this time
De sp. cannot be the source.
At this point, a definitive conclusion about the status of De sp. can be delayed no longer. I have noted Gribomont's doubts that it was actually written by Basil and, in some measure, approved them. Let me pursue the matter further in the light of the now complete analysis of "Plotinian" material in Basil. Dehnhard's view of De sp. is that it is a document composed by Basil on the basis of Ennead 5.1, the Creed of Gregory
Thaumaturgus, Origen and other sources. This interpretation of the content of De sp. is largely accepted by Gribomont, but has recently been challenged by Abramowski in an article in which she argues that the socalled "Creed of Gregory Thaumaturgus," so far from being a source for Basil (or the author of De sp), is rather to be regarded as itself in some