Chapter 2 From the Simple God to the Simple First Principle
CHAPTER 2
From the Simple God to the Simple First Principle
In an essay on the genealogy of the “philosophical concept of God” in early Christian theology, Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that divine simplicity emerged primarily in the context of reflections on the first origin of all there is, the ἀρχή of all things. For early Christians, “Everything composite can also be divided again, and consequently is mutable.”1 The ultimate origin, however, cannot be composite. This is because every composite has a “ground” of its composition outside of itself and so is preceded by this ground. Hence, a composite cannot be the ultimate cause and origin of all things since whatever grounds the composite would constitute a more fundamental reality than the composite itself. Therefore, the ultimate origin must be simple. On this account, the identification of God as the ἀρχή constitutes the source for the emergence of divine simplicity in early Christian theology. Pannenberg’s genealogy accentuates the problem I highlighted at the end of the previously chapter. In the locus classicus, The Republic, we encounter primarily the ethical sense of simplicity: a divine being is simple in the sense of self-consistency and trustworthiness. Nevertheless, divine simplicity did not emerge in early Christian theology with this as its obvious primary sense. Rather, metaphysical qualifications were central in early Christian expressions of divine simplicity. How do we account for the rise of these further qualifications? The aim of this chapter is to address this issue by documenting the crucial development in the Middle Platonic period that will account for the transition from the locus classicus of divine simplicity to the form of the doctrine in early Christian theology.2
Pannenberg, like G. C. Stead, contrasts divine simplicity with the idea of faithfulness and trustworthiness (“ethical simplicity”).3 But the picture is more complex. Pannenberg is no doubt correct in suggesting that divine simplicity is reliant on metaphysical reflections concerning the nature of the first principle (ἀρχή). But these considerations are only intelligible when understood in light of their connections with the core idea found in The Republic, as I shall endeavor to show. In other words, these reflections should be treated as development from the locus classicus rather than as the locus classicus itself. What I have undertaken in this chapter is an exercise of mapping out the intelligibility of this connection. My central thesis is that between The Republic and early Christian theology, there became available in the Middle Platonic period a coherent way to synthesize the simple deity and the simple first principle.4 In this period, the simple deity of The Republic is often explicitly identified as the supreme first principle of all things. This identification, then, is responsible for the further metaphysical qualifications of divine simplicity that anticipate the early Christian form of the doctrine. To unfold this argument, I will rely on two sources in this period, the Middle Platonist Alcinous (c. mid–second century CE) and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20–15 BCE to 45–50 CE). Examining these two sources will allow me to spell out the developments responsible for the transition from the simple deity in Plato’s Republic to the God who is identified as the simple ἀρχή of all things in early Christian theology.
DIVINE SIMPLICITY IN ALCINOUS’S DIDASKALIKOS
Alcinous’s Didaskalikos bears a title that translates literally as “instruction manual.”5 Such a manual could have been written for beginners, but it is more likely that it was written to serve as a reminder for those who have had some preliminary instructions in the doctrines of Platonism. The manual sets out a basic presentation of Platonism according to the tripartite division of philosophy: logic, physics, and ethics.6 Theology is situated as a discussion of one of the three first principles in physics. It is in chapter 10 of the Didaskalikos that we find Alcinous’s theology. While the theology presented in this chapter is unique and hardly presents a “representative” Middle Platonic position, nevertheless, the Didaskalikos sheds significant light on the transition from the simple deity in Plato’s Republic to the simple God in early Christian theology.7 For Alcinous illustrates how, by this period, the doctrine of divine simplicity has acquired further metaphysical dimensions. He develops the doctrine further by integrating insights from other Platonic dialogues as well as adopting Aristotelian considerations wherein a deity is explicitly identified as the supreme intellect, the unmoved mover, and the highest first principle.8
God as Intellect
At the beginning of Did. 10, Alcinous introduces a deity as a first principle (ἀρχή) through what he calls a process of induction (ἐπαγωγή).9 According to him, even though Plato indicates that such a principle is “more or less beyond description (ἄρρητον),” nonetheless, it is possible to arrive at some notions of the divine. The process for determining the nature of the divine is sketched out as follows:
1. If there are intelligibles (νοητά), then these neither are sense-perceptibles (αἰσθητά) nor participate in what is sense-perceptible (μετούσια τῶν αἰσθητῶν).
2. Rather, intelligibles participate in “certain primary objects of intellection” (πρώτων τινῶν νοητῶν).
3. Thus primary objects of intellection in an absolute sense (πρῶτα νοητὰ ἁπλᾶ) must exist.
4. Given that we accept that there are intelligibles (e.g., for Platonists, forms exist), there must be primary objects of intellection.
As John Dillon has noted, the argument probably boils down to this: “If there are objects of intellection at all (and we accept that there are),10 there must be primary objects of intellection (and therefore an intellect to cognize them).”11 But what is the nature of the intellect that is appropriate to cognize these primary objects of intellection? Such an intellect cannot be a human intellect. This is because, as Alcinous qualifies in Did. 10,164.13–18, human intellects cannot apprehend the intelligibles in a “pure and uncontaminated mode.” Whenever human intellects are attempting to apprehend the intelligibles, they still retain sensible images through their imaginations such that notions of size, shape, or color accompany their apprehension of intelligibles. In other words, human intellects struggle to shrug off sense-perceptible notions in order to arrive at a pure conception of the intelligible. What is required, however, is a divine intellect that is free from sense-perception and thus is able to apprehend the intelligibles (forms) in a pure and uncontaminated mode. This, then, is the conclusion of Alcinous’s argument: inferring from the existence of primary objects of intellection, which Platonists affirm to exist, a first principle in the form of a purely intellectual deity must exist. Given the pure intellectual nature of this deity, this conclusion explains with Plato’s predication in Tim. 28c, namely, that human modes of intellection that are “contaminated” will find it difficult to comprehend the nature of divinity. So, despite difficulties, Alcinous concludes that Platonist philosophers can grasp at least that there exists a divine first principle that is purely intellectual.
Alcinous, however, goes further to identify a supreme intellect as the primal God (ὁ πρῶτος θεός). In an argument from a “hierarchy of value,” as Dillon aptly calls it, Alcinous moves through a series of comparisons to establish this conclusion.12 Intellect is superior to soul. But intellect ἐν ἐνέργειαν (“actualized intellect”) is superior to intellect ἐν δυνάμει (“potential intellect”) since the former “cognises everything simultaneously and eternally” (πάντα νοῶν καὶ ἅμα καὶ ἀεί). But then the cause (ὁ αἴτιος) of actualized intellect is finer still. So whatever existed prior to the cause of actualized intellect would be the primal God.13 This primal God is also said to move other intellects without itself being moved and must be “everlastingly engaged in thinking of itself and its own thoughts.”14 The nature of the primal God, therefore, is best identified as the most perfect, most supreme, and most primordial intellect.15 Alcinous, then, not only identifies the divine as a first principle that is purely intellectual in nature; he also identifies a primal God as the highest and most perfect principle.
The identification of divinity as purely intellectual was most notably developed by Aristotle in MetaphysicsΛ. What we have seen is that this idea also finds an important place in Alcinous’s theology.16 Through the two arguments, the primal God, as the highest first principle, is described by Alcinous as the supreme intellect. In what follows, I will show that Alcinous further spells out the simplicity of the primal God, which I will refer to simply as “God” with a capital “G,” with further metaphysical qualifications that go beyond the doctrine of divine simplicity in The Republic. I shall suggest that it is the identification of God as the supreme first principle by Alcinous that led to these further qualifications of divine simplicity.
Divine Partlessness and Its Implications
In The Republic, the simple deity is single in form. But the sense of oneness connected with the simplicity of God is developed much further by Alcinous.17 As a systematizer of Platonism,18 he actualizes the potential latent in The Republic to identify a simple deity as the supreme first principle that unifies all intelligible forms. This enables Alcinous to further qualify the sense of oneness associated with the simple God. In Did. 10, 164.31–165.4, he lists a number of attributes that qualify the sense of perfection worthy of God, writing: “The primary god, then, is eternal, ineffable, ‘self-perfect’ (that is, deficient in no respect), ‘ever-perfect’ (that is, always perfect), and ‘all-perfect’ (that is, perfect in all aspects); divinity, essentiality, truth, commensurability, good.” In a remarkably dense sentence in the middle of enumerating the divine attributes, Alcinous expresses concern for safeguarding God’s oneness in the face of the appearance of multiple divine attributes: Λέγω δὲ οὐχ ὡς χωρίζων ταῦτα, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς κατὰ πάντα ἑνὸς νοουμένου (But I do not say these things as though one is separated from another, but as though one thing is conceived according to all of them).19 Prima facie, what Alcinous seems to propose here is what has sometimes been called the “identity thesis,” the idea that since multiple divine attributes are one in God, they are to be conceived as identical with one another, with each attribute identical to God.20 But I suggest that the meaning of this sentence will become clear if we take Alcinous to be developing a possibility latent in The Republic, since in that work, as I have indicated previously, we find a close connection between the description of the simple deity and the essential characteristic of a form. Both are described as unchangeable and one in the sense of lacking the possibility of appearing in a state contrary to itself. If we take the simple deity to be the absolute standard of goodness, beauty, truth, and being, applying the essential characteristic of a form, then it follows naturally that the simple deity must be perfectly one without the possibility of contraries in him.21 Interpreting the sentence in this light, Alcinous seems to be saying that while the enumeration of divine attributes might imply that God is composed of multiple attributes possessing independent existence, rather a single divinity is to be conceived from all the multiple attributes in a harmonious manner such that no contrary qualities can possibly be associated with it. This dense sentence, then, suggests that Alcinous considers God, his supreme first principle, also the highest Form that unifies the multiple divine attributes; hence, the divine attributes cannot be conceived as possessing an independent existence in which God participates in order to acquire these qualities.22 The identification of God as the highest first principle, a possibility latent in The Republic, therefore, leads Alcinous to further qualify God’s oneness beyond the sense in The Republic.
This identification of God as the highest first principle leads Alcinous to further elaborate on God’s simplicity by developing a theology that synthesizes a wide range of Platonic sources. In Did. 10, 165.5–16, the terms he attributes to God reveal their origin in the First Hypothesis of Plato’s Parmenides.23 To begin, “God is not a part of anything, nor is he in the position of being a whole which has parts” (οὔτε μέρος τινός, οὔτε ὡς ὅλον ἔχον τινὰ μέρη). This description draws on the language of Parm. 137c–d, according to which the One (τὸ ἕν) cannot be a whole that consists of parts because this would result in the contradiction that the One is many. Further, for Alcinous, “Nor is he [God] the same as anything or different from anything; for no attribute is proper to him, in virtue of which he could be distinguished from other things” (οὔτε ὥστε ταὐτόν τινι εἶναι ἢ ἕτερον· οὐδὲν γὰρ αὐτῷ συμβέβηκε καθ᾽ ὃ δύναται τῶν ἄλλων χωρισθῆναι). Here the language is reminiscent of Parm. 139c, where Plato states that the One neither “can . . . be the same with another or with itself; nor again other than itself or another.” Finally, Alcinous’s God “neither moves anything, nor is he himself moved” (οὔτε κινεῖ οὔτε κινεῖται). This final clause draws from the language of Parm. 139b, where the same conclusion is drawn regarding the One. The language about the One as part of the logical exercise in the Parmenides has thus been transposed by Alcinous into a theological key.24 God, then, must also be one without parts (ἀμερής).
Alcinous defends God’s partlessness through an argument in Did. 10, 165.34–36: “God is partless, by reason of the fact that there is nothing prior to him. For the part, and that out of which a thing is composed, exists prior to that of which it is a part.” He invokes a brief example from geometry to back up this point, but Alcinous’s thinking here seems to be closely related to considerations associated with Plato’s argument for the soul as noncomposite (ἀξύνθετον).25 In Phae. 78b–81a we find a distinction set out between composite and noncomposite things. On the one hand, every composite by nature is liable “to be decomposed, in the same way in which it was compounded” (διαιρεθῆναι ταύτῃ ᾗπερ συνετέθη). On the other hand, only a noncomposite thing (ἀξύνθετον) cannot be decomposed. Noncomposites, then, are things that “always remain the same and in the same state” (ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως), whereas composites are those that “vary from one state to another and are never the same” (ἄλλοτ’ ἄλλως καὶ μηδέποτε κατὰ ταὐτά).26 “Composites,” thus, refers to those things that lack permanence, whereas “noncomposites” refers to those things that possess permanent existence. Now in order to refute the suggestion that the soul is like a harmony (τὸ ἁρμονίαν), Phae. 92a–95a examines the dependence relation that exists between a composite and its parts. This consideration sheds light on the reasoning underlying Alcinous’s argument for divine partlessness. According to this passage, composition entails a relative order of priority regarding the existence of the composite and its parts. A composite could not pre-exist the elements or parts from which it is constituted because it is necessary that the elements exist before a composite is formed by putting together the parts. For example, a harmony is created from the putting together of the sounds made by physical instruments. So it is a composite in that it is put together out of the sounds of the instruments. But it is clear that a harmony could not exist before the instruments because without the latter, the sounds would not exist.27 In this manner, the existence of the parts of a composite must always precede the existence of the composite itself. Noncomposition, therefore, could express a sense of priority of existence because only noncomposites could have nothing existing prior to themselves. Further, composition, Socrates argues, implies a sense of the dependence of the composite on its parts. A composite cannot be in a different state from its parts because it cannot act or be acted upon in any different ways from the ways its parts are acting or acted upon.28 This sense of dependence leads to a sense of contingency in a composite regarding its characteristics. A composite’s characteristics are always contingent upon how its parts are put together. Consider the example of a model that consists of various parts. If it is put together well, it is a better model. If it is put together less well, it is a worse model. Thus a composite, as a whole consisting of parts, is dependent on how well its parts are put together. The logic of noncomposition in Phaedo thus clarifies the underlying reasoning behind Alcinous’s defense of divine partlessness. Putting it in Alcinous’s own terms, the point Phaedo establishes is that only a noncomposite is primordial (ἀρχικός). In the case of God, since he is the supreme first principle of all things, nothing can be prior to him. Now if God is a whole consisting of parts, that is, if he is composite, then he cannot be primordial. It follows that God must be without parts. Deploying reasoning perhaps similar to that found in Phaedo, Alcinous was able to expand on the logic of divine simplicity through a defense of divine partlessness.
Alcinous’s integration of Parmenides’ language of the One (and perhaps Phaedo’s reasoning on the nature of noncomposites) into his theology results in two further consequences: God is (1) motionless and (2) incorporeal. That God is motionless (ἀκίνητος) amounts to the requirement of immutability that follows from the basic sense of divine simplicity in The Republic. Alcinous’s defense of God’s motionlessness actually uses the same argument for divine immutability we examined previously when discussing Rep. 380e–381e.29 God cannot be subjected to change because he cannot be changed by someone stronger, which is absurd and he would not choose to change for the better or the worse, which is absurd for a perfect being. Alcinous, then, has little problem in identifying the sense of immutability entailed by God’s simplicity as also a consequence of God’s partlessness. The idea that God is without a body, however, is not explicitly found in the constellation of ideas connected to divine simplicity in The Republic. The logic underlying the connection between God’s simplicity and his incorporeality is set out clearly here by Alcinous. If God is partless, then he must also be incorporeal (ἀσώματον). Alcinous’s argument is as follows:
1. Every body is composed of matter and form (ἐξ ὕλης . . . καὶ εἴδους).
2. If God has a body, then he must be composed of matter and form.
3. But if God is composed of matter and form, then he is composed of parts.
4. But God is partless, which amounts to saying he is simple and primordial.
5. God cannot have a body.
The key steps in this argument are 3 and 4. Premise 3 is not spelled out explicitly by Alcinous, but it is in essence contained in what was said earlier in Did. 10,165.35–36, where a part (τὸ μέρος) is explicitly identified with “that out of which a thing is composed” (τὸ ἐξ οὗ). In other words, for Alcinous, to be a composite of matter and form is to have parts. If 3 is granted, then 4 follows given Alcinous’s previous argument for God’s partlessness. Hence, from this argument, God’s incorporeality follows naturally from divine partlessness.
In summary, building on a number of Platonic sources, the nature of Alcinous’s supreme first principle, the primal God, is described as partless, noncomposite, immutable, motionless, incorporeal. What is unmistakably clear is that this ἀρχή is the simple deity of The Republic. This is clear from Did. 10,166.5–7, where we read that it is “absurd” (ἄτοπον) for God to be composed of matter and form on the ground that this would contradict the fact that God is simple (ἁπλοῦς) and primordial (ἀρχικὀς). The self-consistent and nondeceitful deity described in The Republic as ἁπλοῦς now becomes, for Alcinous, the supreme ἀρχή of all things. This identification is further supported by the fact that the argument for the immutability of the simple deity in The Republic was applied by Alcinous to his supreme first principle, the primal God. Alcinous’s theology, then, showcases how, in the Middle Platonic period, the simple deity of The Republic has acquired further metaphysical qualifications that follow from the consideration of the nature of the ἀρχή (partlessness, noncomposition, immutability, motionlessness, incorporeality). As I have suggested, this was made possible by the potential already latent in The Republic, namely, the identification of the simple deity as the highest first principle that unifies all the intelligible forms. Furthermore, Alcinous’s theology reveals how the simple deity of The Republic, now further qualified as partless, can also be conjoined with the Aristotelian idea of the divine as the most supreme intellect. Hence, Alcinous’s theology also demonstrates how an organic link between divine simplicity and pure intellectuality, one that was not explicitly spelled out in The Repubilc, might be established. As we shall see, the idea that divine simplicity is integrally connected to God’s pure intellectuality will be a recurrent theme among ante-Nicene Christian writers.
DIVINE SIMPLICITY IN PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA’S QUOD DEUS SIT IMMUTABILIS
No passage from Platonic philosophy to early Christian thought, however, can proceed without going through the Jewish exegete and philosopher Philo of Alexandria. This is especially so with regard to divine simplicity since this doctrine arguably forms the heart of Philo’s theology.30 Since the connections between Philo’s account of divine simplicity and ante-Nicene theology are numerous, a comprehensive inquiry here will not be possible. But in what follows, I shall restrict my attention to a key work, Quod Deus sit Immutabilis.31 In this work, Philo demonstrates clearly how divine simplicity could be applied as a “pattern for theological speech,” as suggested by The Republic, in the context of the monotheistic theology set out in the biblical text. In Philo’s case, of course, the monotheistic theology in question is a Jewish one. But so far in our narrative, I have been at pains to stress that the discussion of divine simplicity in Platonic sources does not necessarily suppose a monotheistic theology. Philo’s Deus thus reveals the possibility in antiquity of an intelligible transposition of divine simplicity as a “pattern for theological speech” from Platonism to Judeo-Christian monotheistic theology. And it is not surprising that, as we shall see, in several aspects Philo anticipates in Deus how ante-Nicene writers draw upon divine simplicity to regulate Christian theological discourse.
The overall context of Philo’s Deus 20–69 is the interpretation of Genesis 6:5–7: “The ‘Lord God,’ says Moses, ‘seeing that the wickednesses of men were multiplied upon the earth and that every man intended evil in his heart diligently all his days, God had it in His mind that He had made man upon the earth, and He bethought Him. And God said, ‘I will blot out man, whom I made, from the face of the earth.’”32 The problem arising from this passage is that some readers, whom Philo judges to be “careless inquirers” (τινὲς τῶν ἀνεξετάστων), might arrive at the conclusion that God “repented” of creating the world when he saw the corruption of humanity and hence was filled with anger, wishing to destroy the whole race through the flood to come. In his exegesis, Philo offers two discussions of divine immutability (Deus 20–32, 51–69) to correct an anthropomorphic reading that implies that God changes.33 The fundamental premise of Philo’s exegesis, which gives this work its title, is summed up in Deus 22: “For what greater impiety could there be than to suppose that the unchangeable changes” (τί γὰρ ἂν ἀσέβημα μεῖζον γένοιτο τοῦ ὑπολαμβάνειν τὸν ἄτρεπτον τρέπεσθαι)? In what follows, I will highlight how Philo’s theology here, as Dillon and Winston have remarked, is unmistakably shaped by Plato’s second law of theological speech in Rep. 380d–383b.34 As in The Republic, Philo sets out a doctrine of divine simplicity to safeguard divine self-consistency and uses it as a rule to shape his interpretation of Genesis’s anthropomorphic language of God. But as a philosopher in the Middle Platonic period, Philo, like Alcinous, also identifies the simple God as the first principle of all things. In Philo the understanding of simplicity as self-consistency was conjoined with the understanding of simplicity as without composition (and hence incorporeal). The identification of God as the supreme first principle leads Philo to articulate an anti-anthropomorphic account of the theological language found in the biblical text.
Deus 20–32: Divine Simplicity as a Pattern for Biblical Interpretation
In Deus 20–32, Philo offers his first argument against an anthropomorphic reading of Gen. 6:5–7, which implies that God is changeable. This argument is grounded in an exploration of what we might call the state of perfection. Among humans, who generally display “vacillation of mind and judgment,” perfection is found only in students of philosophy, who acquire as their reward “that they do not change with changing circumstances, but with unbending steadfastness and firm constancy take in hand all that it behoves them to do.”35 For Philo, the sense of immutability associated with perfection is mentioned by the lawgiver in the Torah. Philo interprets Deut. 5:31, “Remain immobile here with me” (σὺ δὲ αὐτοῦ στῆθι μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ), as a divine exhortation to the philosopher to move toward the state of an immutable will that is “unbending, unwavering, and broadbased.”36 In other words, the teachings of the philosophers and the divine lawgiver both confirm that the state of perfection among humans is characterized by absolute immutability in the sense of self-constancy.
Further on, Philo elaborates what this state of perfection is like in the soul of the philosopher:
Wonderful indeed is the soul of the Sage, how he sets it, like a lyre, to harmony not with a scale of notes low and high, but with the knowledge of moral opposites, and the practice of such of them as are better; how he does not strain it to excessive heights, nor yet relax it and weaken the concord of virtues and things naturally beautiful, but keeps it ever at an equal tension and plays it with hand or bow in melody. Such a soul is the most perfect instrument fashioned by nature, the pattern of those which are the work of our hands. And if it be well adjusted, it will produce a symphony the most beautiful in the world, one which has its consummation not in the cadences and tones of melodious sound, but in the consistencies of our life’s actions.37
The philosopher, like a lyre, sets out his acts as though they form a perfect harmony or symphony. Philo, no doubt aware of the critique of modeling the soul as a harmony in Plato’s Phaedo, is keen to qualify throughout that the picture of the soul as a lyre producing harmonies is not to be interpreted literally. This is simply an image that aids our understanding. The harmony of the soul, then, is a harmony not of high and low notes, but of “the knowledge of moral opposites” and their “practice.” The symphony of the soul is to be found not in the “cadences” and “tones of melodious sound,” but “in the consistencies of our life’s actions.” With this caveat in mind, Philo commends this analogy as possessing a powerful image of what God is like. If the perfection of the philosopher is best reflected in the “unbending steadfastness” and “firm constancy” of his soul, which Philo invites his readers to understand as a consequence of the perfect harmony and consistency between all acts, then God must indeed be most appropriately thought of as one who “ever holds fast to what he purposed from the first without any alteration” (μένει δὲ ἐφ᾽ ὧν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐβουλεύσατο οὐδὲν αὐτῶν μετατιθείς).38 Philo’s God, then, is one who is always consistent with what he wills, never appearing to contradict his purposes. The soul of the philosopher thus serves as an analogy for the divine who is described in The Republic as simple and truthful.
Further parallels between Philo’s God and Plato’s simple deity in The Republic emerge when we turn to the next stage of the argument for divine immutability in Deus 27–28. According to Philo, there are two ways in which common men are subjected to change. This occurs through “instability whether it be in themselves or outside them” (ἢ διὰ τὴν ἐν αὐτοῖς ἢ διὰ τὴν ἐκτὸς ἀβεβαιότητα). He then turns to refute both of these possibilities for God. It is illuminating to compare side by side the structure of Philo’s argument with that of Plato’s (see Table 2.1).
Table 2.1. Philo’s Quod Deus sit Immutabilis 27–28 and Plato’s Republic 380e–381e Compared
As is clear, the individual steps and the ordering of the steps in Philo’s argument differ considerably from Socrates’ argument in Rep. 380e–381e. On the possibility that God might be changed by changing himself, Philo focuses on illustrating this in the realm of human affairs. For humans frequently change their minds in an arbitrary way from one original judgment to its opposite. This, Philo argues, cannot be found in God. Socrates’ argument in The Republic proceeds in a more logical manner, focusing on setting out why God would not change himself. On the possibility that God might be changed by something else, the steps of the two passages are more closely aligned. The two arguments converge in the line of thought that the divine, as the most perfect, is the least liable to change by something else. This is set out generically in The Republic, but Philo develops this argument in a new direction by introducing God’s perfection through his foreknowledge. According to Philo, unlike human beings, since God is the creator of the whole universe, including time, God is not subject to future uncertainties. There might be an additional hidden premise that Philo introduces into his argument, namely, that humans are liable to change by something else due to their lack of foresight about future events, which in turn leads human beings to act in contradictory ways under external influences. The overall comparison shows that while there are significant differences, the overarching structure of Philo’s argument remains the same as that in Rep. 380e–381e. Like Alcinous’s argument for God’s motionlessness, the overall logic of Philo’s Deus 27–28 is also structured to establish God’s immutability based on the external/internal division found in Rep. 380e–381e. God is immutable because, first, God cannot be changed by another, and second, God would not change himself. Thus Philo’s theology is reminiscent of that in The Republic not only at the level of his description of God but also at the level of the surface structure of his argument for divine immutability.
Deus 20–32, then, can be read as Philo’s application of the second pattern for theological speech in The Republic in the context of biblical interpretation. Doing so leads Philo to his basic interpretation of Gen. 6:5: Given divine simplicity, it is not possible to interpret this verse as suggesting that God “repented.” For how could a perfectly self-consistent God change his mind? Just as myths and fables concerning deities in Plato’s ideal state should be “filtered” through the rule of divine simplicity, the language of God in the biblical text should likewise be interpreted. In this way, Philo showcases how the simplicity of God can enter as a “grammatical rule” into the domain of biblical interpretation.
Deus 51–69: Divine Simplicity and Anti-anthropomorphism
As in the case of Alcinous, Philo’s understanding of divine simplicity also goes beyond The Republic. This is evident in Philo’s second consideration of divine immutability, set out in Deus 51–69, a passage concerned with the exegesis of Gen. 6:7: “I will blot out man whom I made from the face of the earth, from man to beast, from creeping things to fowls of heaven, because I was wroth in that I made him.”39 What Philo illustrates additionally in this section is how the metaphysical qualifications of divine simplicity supply a foundation for his critique of reading the anthropomorphic language of God in the Hebrew Scriptures literally. Hence Philo highlights the potential of divine simplicity for transforming the understanding of God in biblical monotheism.
Some people, on reading this passage, would take it that God, whom Philo identifies as “Being” (τὸ ὄν), feels wrath and anger. But those who read this passage rightly, Philo argues, respect that God is by nature distinct from humans. These readers, whom Philo calls lovers of the soul, are able to behold the truth that
He [i.e., God] is not susceptible to any passion at all [ἔστι δ’ οὐδενὶ ληπτὸν πάθει τὸ παράπαν]. For disquiet is peculiar to human weakness, but neither the unreasoning passions of the soul, nor the parts and members of the body in general, have any relation to God [ἀσθενείας γὰρ ἀνθρωπίνης τὸ κηραίνειν ἴδιον, θεῷ δὲ οὔτε τὰ ψυχῆς ἄλογα πάθη οὔτε τὰ σώματος μέρη καὶ μέλη συνόλως ἐστὶν οἰκεῖα].40
Grasping that God is not like humans, who are composed of bodily parts—since lovers of the soul are able to “converse with intelligible and incorporeal natures”—these readers will not be tempted by an anthropomorphic reading of the passage because they have learned to detach from their conception of God every idea gained from created things.41 In their approach to God, lovers of the soul dissociate qualities (ποιότητες) that belong to created beings from God so that it is possible “to descry existence needing nothing in its unique solitariness, and free from all admixture and composition in its absolute simplicity” (μόνην καὶ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὴν ἀπροσδεᾶ καῖ ἁπλῆν φύσιν ἰδεῖν ἀμιγῆ καὶ ἀσύγκριτον).42 Elsewhere, Philo offers further clarification of what this absolute simplicity entails:
God is alone, a Unity, in the sense that His nature is simple not composite, whereas each one of us and of all other created beings is made up of many things. I, for example, am many things in one. I am soul and body. To soul belong rational and irrational parts, and to body, again, different properties, warm and cold, heavy and light, dry and moist. But God is not a composite Being, consisting of many parts, nor is He mixed with aught else.43
The language used in this passage reflects that, like Alcinous, Philo also conceives God’s simplicity with the help of familiar metaphysical considerations. God’s unity is further qualified by partlessness and noncomposition. Further, this state of simplicity is taken to imply divine incorporeality. Hence, in addition to what we have seen previously in Deus 20–32, where God’s perfect self-consistency differentiates the divine nature from that of humans, Philo is able to further differentiate God’s simple mode of existence as the highest first principle from the composite mode of existence common to created beings. The superiority of lovers of the soul, then, is summed up by their ability to encounter God as he is, refusing to let go of God’s simple nature by mingling this nature with created qualities.
If divine simplicity lies at the heart of the theology that belongs to the lovers of the soul, then the doctrine also forms the ground of Philo’s robust critique of a second group of readers whom he calls lovers of the body. In contrast with lovers of the soul, lovers of the body, who read Gen. 6:7 as suggesting that God was getting angry at the actions of his people, are unable to throw off the bodily senses. As a result, lovers of the body fail to recognize that God, as a simple being, does not operate like a composite being: “And [they] do not reflect that while a being which is formed through the union of several faculties needs several parts to minister to the need of each, God being uncreated and the Author of the creation of the others needs none of the properties which belong to the creatures which He has brought into being.”44 Being uncreated, God does not need the parts or properties that are proper only to creatures. God is not like humans composed of several faculties, each of which needs a particular part that forms the whole being. In Deus 57–59, Philo helpfully expands on what he means through specific examples of human operations. God, unlike humans, who need sensory faculties for seeing, hearing, walking, and receiving, has no needs for the corresponding bodily parts (i.e., eyes, ears, limbs, and hands) to carry out these functions. This is because, in the case of humans, each bodily faculty is responsible for a specific sensory function. Seeing, hearing, walking, and receiving are separate senses that require separate bodily parts to carry out these functions. Whereas God is simple and incorporeal. God thus has no need for separate bodily faculties to carry out these functions. Philo offers a mixture of imaginative explanations to account for this claim. Since God is present everywhere, he needs no limbs to get around. God has no need to receive anything because, as creator, he possesses all things. Moreover, he gives gifts to creation through his minister, the Logos. Hence, God has no need for hands to receive and give. God’s vision is unlike human vision because, while humans require external light from the sun or a fire to perceive anything, God himself is his own light, which has illumined his own vision before the creation of the world. So God does not need bodily eyes for sight. God, unlike humans, has no need for renewed nourishment. Anthropomorphism is a failure to recognize that all the bodily parts that are necessary for humans to perform basic functions are unnecessary for God. Since lovers of the body fail to recognize the central quality of the divine life, its simplicity, as incomprehensible in terms of the operations of human life, they were led to a faulty exegesis of biblical language.
The foregoing analysis reveals that Philo establishes divine simplicity as a pattern for theological speech to govern how Scriptural language of God, in this case Gen. 6:5–7, should be interpreted. His understanding of divine simplicity testifies to the key development in the Middle Platonic period we have already seen in Alcinous, namely, the identification of simple God as the highest first principle. Hence Philo’s God is perfectly self-consistent as well as without composition and incorporeal. But Philo also witnesses a further development. In the hands of the Jewish exegete of the Hebrew Bible, God’s simplicity is transposed into the domain of biblical monotheism, leading to a robust critique of anthropomorphism. Thus, in Philo the anthropomorphic language of God in the Hebrew Scriptures is criticized and filtered through the principle of divine simplicity, which states that God’s life and operations cannot be understood in terms of human categories and operations. The use of divine simplicity as an anti-anthropomorphic strategy to safeguard the radical distinction between divine and human operations will be a recurrent theme in later Christian sources, making Philo a great precursor to the ante-Nicene doctrine of divine simplicity.
In the Middle Platonic period, a crucial development occurred that accounts for the transition from the doctrine of divine simplicity of The Republic, its locus classicus, to the form of the doctrine found in ante-Nicene Christian thought, a subject that will form the subject of the remaining chapters. In this chapter I have argued that this crucial development was the identification of a simple deity as the supreme first principle of all things. This possibility was already latent in Plato. Actualizing this possibility, Alcinous and Philo were able to offer in their own ways further metaphysical qualifications of divine simplicity that are familiar in later sources: God is partless, without composition, without the possibility of change through passions, and incorporeal. Without speculating further on the exact development that led to this synthesis, in this chapter I have illustrated how, by the Middle Platonic period, further metaphysical qualifications of divine simplicity have arisen in a coherent manner.45 It will be in this form that divine simplicity is found in ante-Nicene Christian discourse.
This conclusion, however, needs to be further qualified. It is worth stressing that the development of metaphysical qualifications of divine simplicity by no means implies an abandonment of the sense in The Republic. These further qualifications are intelligible only when they are viewed as integrally connected to the basic intuition set out in The Republic. That such a close connection exists is already hinted at by Philo’s analogy between the perfect state of the souls of the philosophers and God in Deus 24–25. The perfect human life is the imitation of the life of the one who is truly simple, that is, both metaphysically (partlessness, immutability, incorporeality) and ethically (self-consistency and truthfulness).46 Joseph Amstutz, in his philological investigation of the meaning of simplicity in Philo, concludes that God’s simplicity “for Philo is not merely a metaphysical aside, but an essential element of his spiritual teaching.”47 This is because, for Philo (e.g., Deus 56), only the perfect man is able and worthy to apprehend the perfect simplicity of God. This Philonic vision is possible only if metaphysical simplicity and ethical simplicity were to be conceived as two interconnected aspects of a single idea of perfection. So, when someone is defending God’s metaphysical noncomposition or immutability in the early Christian era, the thought of safeguarding God’s perfect constancy and trustworthiness is unlikely to be far away. We shall see this synthesis in full when we turn to Origen.
To conclude, we must return to Philo once more. In Deus 82–83 he draws out one further aspect of divine simplicity. It turns out that simplicity should regulate not only the language of God, whom Philo speaks of as monas, but also the nature of the word (Logos) produced by God’s act of utterance. Commenting on Ps. 61:12 (LXX), “The Lord spake once, I have heard these two things,” Philo writes:
“Once” is like the unmixed, for the unmixed is a monad and the monad is unmixed, whereas twice is like the mixed, for the mixed is not single, since it admits both combination and separation. God then speaks in unmixed monads or unities. For His word is not a sonant impact of voice upon air, or mixed with anything else at all, but it is incorporeal and unclothed and in no way different from the monad.
According to Philo, if God is simple, a monas, it follows that the divine act of utterance must also be singular and unmixed as well. This is why the divine writ contrasts the “once” of God’s utterance with the “twice” of human utterances to indicate this difference in the modality of speech. But if God is simple and the divine act of utterance is simple, Philo concludes that the result of this utterance, God’s word (ὁ λόγος αὐτῷ), shares the nature of its originator. This follows because that which is simple utters “unmixed unities” (μονάδας . . . ἀκράτους). Since what is simple is unmixed, it is impossible for a simple God to utter something that is in any way different from himself. This observation will prove to be the starting point for divine simplicity to occupy a central place in the formation of Christian Trinitarian language in the ante-Nicene period.