Middle Platonism

In chapter three, I backtrack to the Pauline corpus, which I present as a significant source for Christian cosmic pessimism, if one can indeed be found. Specifically, I contend that Gnostics borrowed the concept of heimarmene from contemporary debates in Middle Platonism, but they read these debates through the interpretive lens of Pauline exegesis. Paul himself did not use the term heimarmene, but in his undisputed letters he does indeed refer to enslavement to the cosmos —a metaphysical state of bondage that, Paul beheved, Christ Jesus came to rectify. This potent image... 

Although the designation Middle in Middle Platonism has recently come under fire, I continue to use it here, mainly for reasons of terminological convenience. The secondary scholarship on Stoic and Middle Platonist interpretations of fate is extensive. Most germane... 

In Christianity, as in Middle Platonism, it became necessary to introduce the theory of multiple providences in response to enduring questions concerning the relationship of the divine and human will. Both Christians and pagans accepted that celestial daimones directly influenced human action, although only in Christianity do we hnd the conviction that these daimones were evil, demons in the proper sense of the word. 

Before any explicit analysis of the use of the term heimarmene in Apjn and Orig. Wld, it is necessary to briefly review the history of the concept in Greek philosophy, particularly in Stoicism and Middle Platonism, since the authors... 

If the collection of references to heimarmene in these texts reflect a diversity of opinions on the nature and scope of fate, then the confusions and debates of their authors differed in no way from those of their Middle Platon-ist contemporaries. Still a matter of discussion was the precise relationship between fate and lower providence. Less ambiguous was the equation of fate or lower providence with the action of daimones stationed around the earth as guardians of human affairs. In Hermetic teachings, these celestial daimones were often associated with the passions and often explicitly identified with heimarmene. The connection between passions, demons, and heimarmene is also made clear in the Apjn and Orig. Wld. Yet here, the influence of key Jewish apocalyptic texts—particularly i Enoch—can be felt as it pushes Middle Platonist demonology in a new, even startling direction. 

Three significant movements in Middle Platonism bear on the subject at hand ... 

Gersch, Stephen. Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism The Latin Tradition. Notre Dame, IN. University ofNotre Dame Press, 1986. 

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