Note to the Reader
NOTE TO THE READER
This note concerns how I have used the English words “God” and “god” throughout this book as well as the translations of Scripture I have used.
ON THE USE OF “GOD” VS. “god”
This book concerns how ancient (mostly Platonic) philosophers and early Chrisians understood the nature of divinity. Not all the authors examined in this book held a monotheistic theology. In light of this, I have used the capitalized term “God” whenever it is obvious that a supreme divine first principle was in view. This is obviously the case whenever I am discussing Judeo-Christian theologians (Philo of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and so on). But I have also used the capitalized “God” to speak of the “primal God” (ὁ πρῶτος θεός) in the Middle Platonist philosopher Alcinous. Even though I do not wish to imply that Alcinous was a monotheist, I think it justified to use the capitalized “God” in this case since Alcinous clearly identified the primal God as the highest simple first principle in his metaphysical system. I have lowercased all uses of “god” when discussing Plato, both when he speaks of “god” in the singular and when he uses the article since it is clear that whenever Plato is speaking of theos in The Republic, he is referring to one of the classical deities in ancient mythology. This convention follows from the fact that in this book I am not committed to interpreting Plato as proposing a monotheistic theology. For a similar reason, I have used the lowercase “god” when speaking of Epicurean and Stoic theology.
Origen poses an additional challenge as he clearly differentiated between ho theos with the definite article (= God the Father) and theos without the article (= all other deities who participate in ho theos for their divinity). I have consistently translated ho theos as “The God.” Whenever Origen is speaking of the divine Logos and wisdom, Jesus Christ the Son of God, I have used the capitalized “God” whenever it makes sense to indicate that Origen differentiates the divinity of Jesus Christ from the divinity of those deified through participation in Jesus Christ (e.g., the Holy Spirit, angels, and the rest of humanity). But this convention breaks down whenever I am discussing Origen in places where he is attempting to accentuate the continuity between the divinity of Jesus Christ and the divinity of the rest of the gods (theoi, cf. Ps. 81:1 LXX). In these cases, I have used the lowercase “god” to refer to all theoi without the article since the ambiguity between when theos should be capitalized and when it should not is telling about Origen’s own Trinitarian theology. He intentionally leaves this ambiguity in many places and uses other qualifiers instead to differentiate between Jesus Christ as theos and other beings (e.g., human beings, heavenly bodies, and so on) as theoi.
ON THE TRANSLATIONS OF SCRIPTURE USED
I have made use of existing English translations of primary sources whenever possible. When no existing English translation is available, I have suppled my own. Each English translation of Scripture is taken from the standard translation of the particular primary source discussed (e.g., in the case of Philo, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Novatian, Tertullian, and Origen). This is because, very often, these authors put forward exegetical arguments that make sense only in the light of a particular version of Scripture (e.g., a Greek or Latin text of the Hebrew Bible, a variant reading of one manuscript, and so on). This explains why, whenever I cite Scripture in this book, I use the translations of the Scriptural citations contained in the primary sources rather than modern translations of the Bible.