Conclusion
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“It is almost always a futile attempt to estimate the relative importance of outward events and of inward tendencies in determining the course of any mans life and the development of his character,” says Alice Gardner in attempting to evaluate Synesius. [1] Yet we must undertake this task insofar as it is possible. With this in mind, let us first briefly review and criticize some of the main theories about Synesius.
Evagrius, the Church historian, sees Synesius as a brilliant philosopher and good man who stood in relation to the Church as a sympathetic outsider. He believed that divine grace, “since it is never content to leave its work unfinished,” completed the conversion of Synesius. [2] This is also the opinion of Photius, who thought that the dogma of the Resurrection became an article of faith with Synesius after his elevation to the episcopate. [3] Among the most interesting of all is the Byzantine Pratum Spirituale, which depicts Synesius as a devout man who convinces a learned pagan, Evagrius, of the very dogmas in which, as we know, he himself did not believe. [4] This is an interesting reversal, to say the least. As we mentioned earlier, some early modern scholars such as Pétau (who uses Portus, a Renaissance humanist), follow this pattern, but employ more careful scholarly methods to demonstrate their thesis. Synesius himself, however, wrote a letter after he had become a bishop, in which he states:
If I am unable to say any of the things which you are used to hearing, I am to be forgiven and you are to be blamed in this matter; because you have chosen a man who does not have knowledge of Gods Scriptures instead of one of those who are acquainted with them. [5]
1. Gardner, Synesius 91.
2. Evagrius, HE 15.
3. Phot. Bibl. 1.26.
4. Pratum Spirituale in PG 66.1043-1046.
5. Ep. 13, 1349C: εἰ δὲ μηδὲν ἔσχον εἰπεῖν, οἵων ἀκούειν εἰώθατε, συγγνώμη μὲν ἐμοὶ τοῦτο, ἔγκλημα δὲ ὑμῖν, ὅτι τὸν οὐκ εἰδότα τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν εἰδότων ἀνθείλεσθε.
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But any real conversion to orthodoxy, unless it occurred at the last moment, would surely have led the newly baptized and ordained Christian bishop to a more careful and thorough study of the Scriptures.
As we have already pointed out many times, Synesius’ ignorance of Scripture, his failure to mention Christ where one would expect otherwise, his approach to dogma and exegesis, all bear witness to his uniqueness. In these places we have often implicitly made use of an argumentum ex silentio in an attempt to establish his originality, spiritual isolation, and lack of familiarity with the Christian tradition. Such an argument is compelling because we can trace the original way in which he approached Christianity on those very points where one would most expect him to base his arguments on the New Testament and the Fathers.
Other scholars as Marrou and Lacombrade approach the subject more cautiously and are careful about their conclusions. As we have seen, Marrou and Lacombrade tried to fit Synesius into the mold of a transitional figure who was both devoted to the Hellenism of the past and looking forward to the orthodox Christianity of the future. But the pattern which they try to impose on Synesius’ spiritual development is somewhat artificial; e.g., they largely ignore elements, such as Chaldaean theology, which make a different interpretation highly probable—one which allows him to remain a Neoplatonist.
Wilamowitz’s assertion that Synesius remained a de facto pagan has much validity. In general, his views are a necessary criticism of his predecessors. His great contribution was the discovery that Hymn X is a spurious work. This did much to undercut any argument that claimed Synesius finally underwent a total conversion to orthodox Christianity through Christ.
Geffcken takes a balanced view, for which there is much to be said. As we have noted, he sees Synesius as a pagan who was not hostile to Christianity per se, but only to certain forms of the Christian life that seemed barbarous to him. His conversion was a slow process without any sudden or drastic change. Christianity never became the living reality for him that it did for Marius Victorinus. But Geffcken does not attempt to analyze Synesius’ method or to resolve all of the contradictions presented by the evidence in the short space he devotes to him. Nor does he deal with his relationship to the Oracles—but this was not a real possibility before the work of Lewy and Theiler was completed.
Gardner tries to work out the conversion of Synesius in religious and philosophical terms. [6] She claims that after the pagan temples closed,
6. Gardner, Synesius 89.
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Synesius satisfied his religious needs by celebrating Christian mysteries in churches, that philosophically he believed the gods to be forms of Nous as did Julian and Iamblichus, that he eventually associated these with angels and ceased to look on them as objects of worship. But there is no evidence of this: on the contrary, we have seen that Synesius maintained his cosmos-piety. In addition, we know that angels (as distinct from “gods”) form part of the Neoplatonic and Chaldaean scheme of emanation, so that Synesius’ hypothetical shift from gods to angels cannot be the one-level process that Gardner envisions. She also feels that he began to identify Christ and the Christian Logos with the Neoplatonic Nous. This is correct, but not unique to Synesius: it is one of the natural theological meeting-points between pagan and Christian Neoplatonism.
Fitzgerald has given us a fine, annotated translation of the works of Synesius, but I believe that his views both of Neoplatonism and of Synesius prevent him from fully understanding some of the issues. He is drawn to Synesius and sees in him the attractive figure of a learned gentleman in a semi-barbarous age. As for Neoplatonism, he thinks it a weak, final attempt to revitalize a philosophy that was once a living reality and that ends in the very antithesis of rational Greek philosophy: it is irrational, oriented toward magic and theurgy, merely an escapist attempt to achieve ecstasy without the use of reason. After thus oversimplifying and distorting the Neoplatonic position, he claims that Synesius, who was neither an escapist nor an otherworldly mystic, cannot be a true Neoplatonist.
Having started out with these now very dated assumptions, Fitzgerald tries to prove his hypothesis. At best he oversimplifies, at worst he is simply wrong. Quite often, both the text he is translating and evidence he introduces into his notes provide a refutation of his theories. For instance, Fitzgerald tries to prove that Synesius is a “Platonist” rather than a Neoplatonist by showing how much he quotes Plato, but every Neoplatonist thought of himself as a Platonist and quoted and commented on Platos works extensively. Synesius himself would find this argument unintelligible.
Let us now attempt, in conclusion, to establish the nature and significance of Synesius’ spiritual development.
First, we must ask exactly how Synesius viewed the historical mission of Christianity. If it was to replace all the other cults with the religion of Christ, was it not necessarily the prophesied new dispensation and not merely the one new cult par excellence, which had absorbed all the others? This is a very difficult question to answer, for Synesius does not deal with it directly, so that we must attempt to infer the answer from his behavior and his writings.
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One possibility is that Synesius saw the success of the Church as the result of historical circumstances (tyche) to which it was necessary to accommodate himself. However, given his stated providential theory of history, this is not likely. Nor did Byzantine historians use the word tyche in the way Thucydides, or even Polybius, used it: simply as Fortune, cosmic or otherwise. What was Chance to us here below was, if not predetermined, at least eternally known by God through his providence (pronoia). [7] Given Synesius views of these matters, it is quite possible that he considered the Church’s success as somehow connected with providence.
The Christian religion did not entail a “transvaluation of all values” for Synesius, but it was to be the historical means for the preservation of the old values in a somewhat altered setting. The new world could not maintain the old cults. Neoplatonic philosophy, the religion of the few, would continue within the Church, presumably among the ranks of the higher clergy and perhaps philosophically inclined monks. For a Hellene in a fragile empire, this certainly could seem providential.
Synesius’ beliefs were, for the most part, esoterically compatible with and analogous to some Christian ideas: he identified the innermost Chaldaean-Neoplatonic triad with the Persons of the Trinity: he equated the Chaldaean “seal” of Nous with the Christian seal of baptism; he accepted the Incarnation and Resurrection allegorically and symbolically; he allowed for divine intervention in the economy of providence. He also might have assumed that the philosophical schools would be permitted to continue even if cults and mysteries were outlawed. Indeed, the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria did continue as a Christian institution until the Arab invasion of 641. Needless to say, its graduates could have become excellent philosopher-bishops.
As bishop, Synesius was obliged to dispense the sacraments, excommunicate, persecute heretics and perform the other spiritual and temporal functions inherent in his office. If we accept his piety and sincerity as genuine, he truly believed that the divine could be mediated to the people through Christian ritual and symbolism. The meaning of these rituals and symbols was another matter. So was the source of their authority: philosophy.
Although he did not partake in the external conflict between paganism and Christianity, in a sense that conflict took place within his own soul.
7. On early Byzantine historiography and the ideas of Tyche and Pronoia, cf. Evans, GRBS XII. 81 -100, esp. 93-100. For an excellent study of how the early Church historians transformed and adapted these ideas to their Christian interpretations of history, see Chesnut, 61-189.
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His personal attempt at resolution of the conflict within himself and his subsequent resolution of the problem is of the greatest significance for the study of the Christianization of the aristocracy of the East in the late Roman Empire. Some sympathizers of Julian and the circle of Symmachus and Praetextatus would think of him as a “collaborator.” Indeed, he was an ally of Theophilus, the man who had destroyed the Serapeum. There can be no doubt that Synesius was well aware of this fact. It was also fortunate that he probably did not live to see the murder of Hypatia. But the result of that might have been increased hostility toward certain “barbaric” forms of the Christian life rather than towards the Church itself. [8] Had he been able to watch the development of the Christian Church for the next thousand years, he would have approved of some things while disapproving of others; the Church, after all, did not go in a direction entirely unfavorable to those with the beliefs of a Synesius. He would have been fascinated by the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a man whose Christian mysticism was so strongly influenced by Proclus that it has been called a system of Christian theurgy. [9] Characteristically, Dionysius’ doctrine narrowly escaped condemnation; and fortunate it was for the mystical theology of the high Middle Ages that it did escape. Synesius would have also been perfectly at home with Renaissance mystics and philosophers such as the Florentine Platonists and Nicolas of Cusa.
It has been said of the circle of Symmachus that they were noble but myopic men who clung to the past without understanding the future. [10] The same cannot be said about Synesius. Whatever else is true, he opened a philosophical path into the Church for aristocrats of the old classic Greco-Roman mold. For this reason, he is of great importance for the history of late Roman culture and society. Synesius, and others like him, were the Church’s best answer to the movement of Julian and his followers.
Thus Synesius must remain a complex and interesting figure. The best we can do is to bring out as many of his characteristics as possible in the hope of continually gaining new insights. He was able to live in an era of profound change without compromising his philosophy.
8. Indeed, Socrates, HE 7.15, condemns the deed in no uncertain terms, saying that it was both harmful to the Church and most un-Christian.
9. Cf. Sheldon-Williams, 457-459. But see now Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena, who discusses certain Cappadocian influences on Pseudo-Dionysius and Christian aspects of his thought. According to Gersh the dominant influence on Pseudo-Dionysius is theurgic Neoplatonism, but he is not simply a “Proclus baptized” (p. 20); see also especially pp. 4, 21, 138, 152-190, and 283. Synesius, on the other hand, might at most be called a “baptized Porphyrian. ”
10. For this opinion see McGeachy, 192.
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Perhaps the one thing that most makes him a fitting subject for study is, as we pointed out earlier, that he was a remarkable combination of all eras of classical antiquity in one person. He was the noble descended from the hero Eurysthenes, the classical Greek who wrote in late Attic and Doric and was proud of his Lacedaemonian heritage, the Neoplatonic philosopher who was initiated into the Hellenistic mysteries of Alexandrian thought by Hypatia, the Roman provincial of the curial class who was able to speak eloquently before the emperor and make important friends at court, and finally the Christian bishop, ordained as if by some divine artist to make this portrait complete.
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This work has attempted to demonstrate that Synesius was primarily a philosopher. He never confessed a creed such as the Nicene, nor did he believe in redemption through Jesus Christ the Logos. He was not a convert who appropriated classical paideia for religious purposes. He did not equate the theoretikos bios with Christian theology or the Christian life. For him, philosophy was Neoplatonism, of the non-theurgic Porphyrian variety taught by Hypatia. All of his work points toward the Way of Philosophy, not the Way of Christian Religion.
His ideas of salvation were basically those of Plato and the “Orphies” as interpreted by the Neoplatonists. The Savior figure he presents in his Hymns as Jesus is much closer to the theios aner of mystical Hellenistic syncretism than the Jesus of the Gospels, and closer to Apollonius or Pythagoras as man-god than the Jesus of Logos-theology (except to the extent that that theology was influenced by Platonism). One senses that Synesius would have been much more comfortable discussing eschatology and related questions with the Socrates of the Phaedo than discussing the coming kingdom with Jesus and his disciples.
Historical circumstances led him into the Church. He had common interests with orthodox Christians against the barbarian Arian Goths. The orthodox feared an Arian Empire as much as a barbarian one. But for Synesius, the issue was barbarism versus Greco-Roman civilization. He found allies among orthodox Christians (educated in the manner of the Cappadocians) who supported his policies. The Theodosian age had taught him that paganism as cult and mystery was on the decline. He realized that the best in Hellenism would have to be saved in a Christian Empire, and he acted accordingly.
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Thus, he created the idea of the philosopher-bishop. In this we see his brilliance and originality.
Plotinus had said that the gods should come to him, not he to them. [11] Yet at times he does admit that cult was somehow divinely inspired. Porphyry interpreted pagan religion philosophically. Both of these philosophers understood that philosophy itself was the “true mystery”: this was already an old tradition. Later Hellenes were syncretists who thought that all religions were “true,” and that their truth was best understood in philosophical terms.
Synesius brought this tradition to its logical conclusion: living in an age when a re-valorized paganism was in decline, he fully understood the independence of philosophy. It could be used to interpret Christian myths and mysteries as well as pagan ones. It could still claim preeminence. Herein lie his real originality and flexibility.
We have suggested that among thinkers within the revealed traditions, his ideas resembled those of Islamic philosophers such as Al-Fārābī more than those of any contemporary Christian: he interpreted religion as philosophy and affirmed the primacy of reason. But Al-Fārābī and the others lived in a world where Islam was an established fact; indeed, Avicenna found no problem in simply equating Islam and philosophy. Synesius could not do this: he was part of a world in which a conflict of religions was taking place. He was forced to make a choice.
After he became a bishop he did not change. His Christian allegorical exegesis and sermonizing are the work of a Neoplatonist who still preferred the term Nous to Logos. He maintained contact with Hypatia philosophically as well as socially. In difficult times, he read Epictetus rather than the Gospels: philosophy was his salvation. His social and political connections, his perception of his age: these ultimately led him into the Church. Such things happened often in the world of late antiquity. But Synesius was too serious a Neoplatonist to care more about his social connections than about his ideas and view of the One, Man, and the Universe. If we take the long view, it seems to me that Synesius, and those like him, did more for the future of philosophy as an independent force than for philosophy as the ancilla theologiae.
Thus, finally, we see Synesius as a late antique man in his unique historical position. For him Zeus was Nous: the second term in the equation was the one that mattered. Quietly the pupil of Hypatia moved into the Church. But we can only say that he was a Christian insofar as he accepted the title of bishop and performed the functions of his office.
11. Porphyry, Vit. Plot. X.36-37.
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For him the Church was a new type of Platonic republic in which religion had the same status as it did in Plato’s Laws. This is what the philosopher-bishop believed—and ideally a Synesian church would be ruled by philosopher-bishops! He did not believe that the Church was the True Israel, nor did he expect the New Jerusalem to descend from Heaven. Indeed, in a somewhat different spirit from that of Tertullian, were it possible, one would like to ask Synesius what Athens has to do with Jerusalem. Nor did he ever say credo ut intellegam. If he had been confronted with the ontological proof, he would have judged it on philosophical grounds. He would not have accepted it as something which reinforced a revelation in which he already had faith. For Synesius believed not in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He believed in the God of the philosophers.