Judaic Authority in Nemesius of Emesa's de Natura Hominis (390 CE) PDF

Judaic Authority in Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis (390 CE)
D. L. Dusenbury i
De Wulf-Mansion Centre, Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven
In the middle of the 4th century, Eusebius of Emesa († c. 359) – the author of a significant
Genesis commentary which incorporates midrashic elements1 – bitterly denounced the
synagogues of Syria as enclaves of unbelief.2 In the last of his hexaemeral sermons, preached
in the spring of 378, Basil of Caesarea (†379) cautioned against the “slipperiness” of rabbinic
exegesis, and fulminated against “that race hostile to the truth, the Jews.”3 And finally, in the
autumn months of 386 and 387, John Chrysostom (†407) delivered a series of venomous
sermons adversus Iudaeos in the city of Antioch.4 These episcopal denunciations indicate the
prevalence of anti-Judaic invective in 4th-century Syria and Asia Minor. It is therefore notable
that there is no trace of anti-Judaic rhetoric in Peri physeôs anthrôpou (c. 390 CE), an
anthropological treatise composed by Nemesius of Emesa († c. 400),5 in which Judaic sources
figure prominently.
1
Cf. R. B. TER HAAR ROMENY, A Syrian in Greek Dress: The Use of Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac Biblical Texts in
Eusebius of Emesa’s Commentary on Genesis (Leuven: Peeters, 1997); idem, ‘Eusebius of Emesa’s Commentary
on Genesis and the Origins of the Antiochene School,’ in J. FRISHMAN and L. VAN ROMPAY (eds.), The Book of
Genesis in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretation: A Collection of Essays (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 125–
142; W. LIEBESCHUETZ, ‘How God Made the World in Seven Days: The Commentaries on Genesis of John
Chrysostom (Homilies 1–12) and of Eusebius of Emesa (1–10), Two Distinct Representatives of the School of
Antioch,’ Antiquité Tardive 22 (2014), 243–253.
2
R. HENNINGS, ‘Eusebius von Emesa und die Juden,’ Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 5 (2001), 240–260.
3
Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron 9,6, GIET. The translation is taken from D. T. RUNIA, ‘“Where, Tell Me, is the
Jew …?”: Basil, Philo and Isidore of Pelusium,’ Vigiliae Christianae 46 (1992), 172–189, here 173.
4
W. PRADELS, R. BRÄNDLE, and M HEIMGARTNER, ‘The Sequence and Dating of the Series of John Chrysostom’s
Eight Discourses Adversus Iudaeos,’ Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 6 (2002), 90–116, here 91–92, 103–106.
5
The finest introductions are G. VERBEKE and J. R. MONCHO, ‘L’Anthropologie de Némésius,’ in Némésius
d’Émèse, De natura hominis. Traduction de Burgundio de Pise, ed. G. VERBEKE and J. R. MONCHO (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1975), IX–LXXXV; H. B. WICHER, ‘Nemesius Emesenus,’ in Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum:
Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries. Volume VI, ed. P. O. KRISTELLER and F. E.
CRANZ (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 31–72; and M. CHASE, ‘Némésius
d’Émèse,’ Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, IV: de Labeo à Ovidius, ed. R. Goulet (Paris: CNRS, 2005). The
1
Indeed, in Nemesius’ deeply Hellenistic text – which has been known, since the
Renaissance,6 as De natura hominis – there is simply “no trace of odium theologicum.”7 The
irenic tone of this text may be due to the fact that, as the bishop of Emesa suggests in a number
of passages, he meant for it to be read not only by Christians, but by Hellenes and Jews. The
purpose of this essay is to survey Nemesius’ use of authoritative Judaic material – in the form
of sayings ascribed to ‘Moses,’ and doctrines derived from ‘the Hebrews’ – throughout De
natura hominis (hereafter Nat. hom.). Nearly all of this material concerns the origin of the
world, and most of it interlocks in a complex way with his appropriation of Hellenic philosophy.
But it is Nemesius’ appeal to Hellenic, Judaic, and Christian ‘scriptures’ in the penultimate
chapter of the Nat. hom. which will serve to introduce our theme.
I. Hellenic, Judaic, and Christian scriptures in De natura hominis §42
In the last chapters of what is certainly a truncated or unfinished text (Nat. hom. §§42–
43),8 Nemesius sets his concept of human freedom in light of a Christian doctrine of providence
(pronoia), which he is at pains to differentiate from ‘Egyptian,’ Platonic, and Stoic doctrines of
fate (heimarmenê).9 The question of providence impinges on the question of human nature –
definitive transmission and reception-history is M. MORANI, La tradizione manoscritta del “De natura hominis”
di Nemesio (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1981).
6
Nemesius’ first Renaissance edition is G. VALLA (Latin trans.), Nemesii philosophi clarissimi De Natura Hominis
liber utilissimus (Lugduni [Lyons] 1538).
7
W. TELFER, Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa (London: SCM, 1955), 210.
8
There are a number of indications that the Nat. hom. is an unfinished or – what is less likely – a mutilated text.
The most unequivocal appear in Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; M. MORANI (ed.), Nemesii Emeseni, De natura hominis
(Leipzig: Teubner, 1987), 123,1–14. Nota bene: Quotes from Nemesius’ De natura hominis will follow a joint
translation by R. W. SHARPLES and P. VAN DER EIJK, On the Nature of Man (Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 2008), but will not infrequently contain new wording, or the older wording found in W. TELFER, Cyril of
Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa (London: SCM, 1955). Translations of other ancient texts will not be cited,
since they have – with few exceptions – been modified to reflect the author’s sense of the original. The author
hereby registers his debts.
9
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §§35–38; MORANI 104,12–112,6. The question of heimarmenê is introduced in Nat.
hom. §35 (MORANI 104,12–106,13). Only the Stoic scholarch Chrysippus and a poorly attested 2 nd-century Stoic
author, Philopator – to whom Nemesius here attributes a treatise On Fate (Peri heimarmenês), and to whom Galen
refers in one of his books – figure in Nat. hom. §35. A concept of heimarmenê which is ascribed to “the wise men
of the Egyptians” is then sketched and discredited in Nat. hom. §36 (MORANI 106,14–107,26). An idea of
heimarmenê ascribed to “the wisest of the Hellenes” is rejected in Nat. hom. §37 (MORANI 108,1–109,8); and a
Platonic doctrine of heimarmenê is criticized in Nat. hom. §38 (MORANI 109,9–111,13). Nemesius’ refutation of
heimarmenê concludes with a brusque dismissal of the Stoic idea – destined to be revived by Louis-Auguste
Blanqui and Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century – of “the reconstitution of all things” (tên apokatastasin tou
pantos) in Nat. hom. §38 (MORANI 111,14–112,6). “Some say that the Christians imagine the resurrection (tên
anastasin phantazesthai) because of this [Stoic] reconstitution (tên apokatastasin).” This is “far wide of the truth,”
Nemesius warns, “for the oracles (logia) of Christ foretell that the resurrection will occur once and not cyclically
(ou kata periodon)” (MORANI 112,3–6).
2
and thus, belongs in the Nat. hom. – since “nature is part of providence” (esti gar meros
pronoias hê physis).10
From its first sentence, the Nat. hom. maintains that humankind has been “eminently
(arista) constructed.”11 Human nature exhibits a distinctive “union (henôsis) of soul and
soulless body (sômatos apsychou),”12 and Nemesius takes this union itself to be a sign of
providential care. His question of human physis is cosmic, in part, because the human form is
“a microcosm” (mikros kosmos).13 The human body cannot be comprehended without a theory
of the elements, since “all bodies come to be from the gathering (synodou) of these four
elements.”14 And correspondingly, the human soul cannot be comprehended without a theory
of “the demiurge (dêmiourgos) of all things,”15 since our intellect is “born in the image and
likeness of God.”16 The concept of physis, in the Nat. hom., has an intrinsically theological
aspect. Therefore, to misconceive what Nemesius calls “the nature of God” (physin … theou)
is necessarily to misconceive human nature,17 which is a “child of God” (theou teknon esti).18
Theology, no less than elemental theory, is integral to Nemesius’ anthropology. Nevertheless,
he composes his Nat. hom. for those – Hellenes, Jews, and Christians – who do not hold a
common theology.19
Nemesius’ negotiation of this difficulty is most interesting and elaborate in Nat. hom.
§42, where he begins his defence of providence, and where he refers – for the only time in the
Nat. hom. – to ‘a Jew.’ In terms presumably familiar to Nemesius (since they are taken from
two Pauline epistles, one of which is quoted in the Nat. hom.),20 a late-antique ‘Jew’ would
have been likely to identify as a “descendant of Abraham,” and as one born of “the nation of
Israel.”21 This is how Nemesius relates the figure of a ‘Jew’ to his Christian conception of
providence:
10
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §43; MORANI 128,11.
11
12
13
14
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §5; MORANI 50,8–10.
15
16
17
18
19
Note, in passing, that the term theologia is not found in the Nat. hom.
20
Nemesius quotes from Romans – specifically, from Rom. 9:19–21 (§43; MORANI 130,1–2), and Rom. 11:33
(§43; MORANI 133,2–5) – but not from Philippians. (See following note.)
21
Cf. Rom. 11:1, NESTLE-ALAND28: ek spermatos Abraam; Phil. 3:5: ek genous Israêl.
3
Now no Jew (Ioudaios), even if he were mad (mainomenos), could fail to recognize providence,
knowing the wonders that took place in Egypt, and having heard of those in the wilderness in which
providence appeared to humans more far-shining than visible things, and having clearly perceived,
in the prophets and during the Babylonian captivity, many works of providence that admit of no
doubt (mêdemian amphibolian).22
The prophetic history of Israel saves this ‘mad’ Jew – a figure which could strike us as being
anti-Judaic or ‘Judeophobic’23 – from a strain of ‘madness’ that Nemesius calls out in a number
of highly respected Hellenes.
“Who if not mad (mainomenos),” he later demands, “would accuse God of slackness?”24
This question in Nat. hom. §43 is rhetorical, but Nemesius has answered it himself in Nat. hom.
§42:
 “Democritus, Heraclitus, and Epicurus,” he writes there, “deny that there is

providence.”
 “Aristotle and others,” he continues, “deny that there is a providence for
particulars (ta … hekasta).”
 “The Stoic philosophers,” finally, “who revere fate (heimarmenên) … leave no
space for providence (pronoia).”25
Clearly a number of the most astute Hellenes are less ‘sane,’ in Nemesius’ view, than his
hypothetical ‘mad’ Jew. This immensely complicates the rhetorical effect of ‘madness’ in this
passage – a passage which is not, by intent or design, anti-Judaic.
To the contrary, Judaic history is introduced in Nat. hom. §42, in part, as a non-Hellenic
corrective to a tendency of Hellenic philosophy to diminish or deny providence. Nemesius also
notes, however – and this is no less crucial – that Judaic history forms a link between Christians
and Jews, thus lessening the difficulties that face him in composing the Nat. hom. He states this
himself, after he gestures towards the “many works of providence” in the annals of Israel’s
history.26 “Christians, for their part, are instructed by all these things” – the wonders that Moses
22
23
Cf. P. SCHÄFER, Judeophobia: Attitudes towards the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge MA: HUP, 1997).
24
25
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §43; MORANI 126,22–127,14.
26
4
worked in Egypt, and so on.27 It is only with what Nemesius calls, here, “the incarnation of
God” (ensômatôsis tou theou), that the sacred history of Christians diverges from that of Jews.28
Prior to the Incarnation, Judaic history is Christian history; Judaic scripture is Christian
scripture. It is as a consequence of this that Judaic scripture claims a priority in Nat. hom. §42.
Since Jews and Christians alike accept their testimony, Nemesius privileges them in the
historical phase of his defence of providence – on which, more presently.29
But what of the Hellenes? This is a question that concerns Nemesius, leading him to
clarify his task in the same paragraph of Nat. hom. §42:
Since this argument is not directed to these alone (pros toutous monous = ‘to Jews alone,’ or ‘to
Jews and Christians alone’),30 but also to Hellenes (pros Hellênas), then let us demonstrate
(apodeixômen) that there is providence by things that the Hellenes themselves believe (pisteousin).31
This sentence indicates that much of the argument of the Nat. hom. – culminating in its defence
of providence – is directed to Hellenes, Jews, and Christians. It is therefore of decisive
importance for any interpretation of the Nat. hom. No less important in the present context,
however, is Nemesius’ use of the verb ‘to believe’ (pisteuein), here, apropos the Hellenes. He
intends to “demonstrate that there is providence by things that the Hellenes themselves believe
(pisteousin).”32 This theologically resonant verb is hardly represented in the Nat. hom. (Its rarity
is suggestive: the Nat. hom. is not composed, in the first instance, to elicit ‘belief.’) Nemesius
only uses pisteuein four times,33 and only one of these usages sharpens the sense that it has in
Nat. hom. §42.
27
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; MORANI 120,19–20. Compare this sentence to I Cor. 10:1–13 (esp. vv. 6 and 11), a
locus classicus of Christian typological interpretation. There is almost certainly a Pauline echo, here, which
Nemesius’ editors and commentators have failed to register.
28
29
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §2; MORANI 21,22–24.
30
According to TELFER, Nemesius of Emesa, 424 n. 3 (who only cites a Renaissance Latin translation in his
support); and to SHARPLES and VAN DER EIJK, Nature of Man, 205 n. 990 (who only cite Telfer in their support);
the text here permits of two constructions: pros toutous monous can refer, either, ‘to Christians alone’ or ‘to
Christians and Jews alone.’ This, however, is highly doubtful. One 12 th-century manuscript of the Nat. hom.
(Codex Da 57) reads pros ioudaious monous, here: ‘to Jews alone.’ Although Matthaei and Morani both accept
the more common reading, pros totous monous (cf. MATTHAEI, De natura hominis, 333; MORANI, De natura
hominis, 120), the context confirms that ‘to Jews alone’ is the more likely sense of pros toutous monous. For
instance, when Nemesius writes that “both the Hebrews’ scriptures and the Hellenes’ writings are full of such
accounts” (§42; MORANI 121,9–10), the parallel he draws between Jews and Hellenes reflects his stated intent to
defend providence “not … to these alone [= to Jews alone], but also to Hellenes” (§42; MORANI 120,22–23).
31
32
33
Cf. MORANI, De natura hominis, 173, s.v. πιστεύω.
5
In Nat. hom. §13, Nemesius confesses that he is anxious that Christians should not
“appear to believe (pisteuein) what is being said without reason (alogôs).”34 In this passage, his
topic is the localization of cognitive functions in the brain (to which we will return).35 And as
a consequence of his anxiety, Nemesius resolves to “demonstrate” (epideixai) his claims.36 In
Nat. hom. §13, it should be noted that ‘belief’ is contrasted with his demonstration of a
speculative physiological question; yet in Nat. hom. §42, ‘belief’ is constitutive of his
demonstration of a controverted theological–cosmological doctrine. “Let us demonstrate
(apodeixômen),” the bishop resolves in Nat. hom. §42, “that there is providence by things that
the Hellenes themselves believe (pisteousin).”37 Why is this?
Nemesius is not confused. In Nat. hom. §13, his demonstration of cognitive localization
takes the form of a morbid but skilfully drawn case-history in Galen’s corpus, which Nemesius
reports, introducing it with the phrase: “Galen records such a case” (toiouton anagraphei
Galênos).38 To believe Galen’s case-history, and to believe – on its authority – Nemesius’
account of cognitive localization, is not to believe “without reason.”39 And similarly, in Nat.
hom. §42, Nemesius proceeds to demonstrate providence on the basis of Hellenic sacred history,
which is set down – like Judaic sacred history – in a body of authoritative texts. He compares,
for instance, the ‘revelation’ of Susanna’s persecutors in Judaic history, and the ‘revelation’ of
Ibycus’ murderers in Hellenic history.40 “Both the Hebrews’ scriptures (tôn Hebraiôn graphai)
and the Hellenes’ writings (ta … Hellêsi syngrammata),” says Nemesius, “are full of such
accounts (tôn toioutôn historiôn).”41 Indeed, the accounts of divine solicitude “recorded by the
ancients” are so numerous that a collection of them would be “infinite” (apeiron).42 To believe
34
35
The Nat. hom. is the first (surviving) text in which cognitive functions are ‘mapped’ onto the surface of the
human brain: Nemesius assigns sensation to a frontal ventricle (koilia), thought to a central ventricle, and memory
to a posterior ventricle. Cf. T. MANZONI, ‘The Cerebral Ventricles, the Animal Spirits and the Dawn of Brain
Localization of Function,’ Archives Italiennes de Biologie 136 (1998), 103–152; P. VAN DER EIJK, ‘Nemesius of
Emesa and Early Brain-Mapping,’ The Lancet 37 (2008), 40–41; F. C. ROSE, ‘Cerebral Localization in Antiquity,’
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 18 (2009), 239–247; P. VAN DER EIJK, ‘Philosophy, Christianity and
Medicine: Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa, On the Nature of Human Beings,’ Asklepios. International Annual for
History and Philosophy of Medicine 5 (2011), 27–30.
36
37
38
39
40
41
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; MORANI 121,9–10. Cf. a comparison of the Hebrews’ prophets and the Hellenes’
sybils at Theophilus Antiochenus, Autol. 2,9, GRANT.
42
6
such accounts, and to accept – on their authority – Nemesius’ defence of providence, is not to
believe without reason.
The Hellenes who criticize or deny such accounts – Democritus and Epicurus, for
instance, who deny providence with their “first principles” (tais idiais archais)43 – hold
opinions which must be refuted philosophically. The philosophical phase of Nemesius’ defence
of providence occurs in Nat. hom. §43. It is prior to this, in Nat. hom. §42, that his defence
traverses an historical – and more specifically, a scriptural – phase, which is of particular
importance in the present context. For it is here that Nemesius invokes the joint testimony of
Christian, Judaic, and Hellenic scriptures.
Of course, it should not pass unnoticed that Nemesius attaches different terms to “the
Hebrews’ scriptures (graphai)” and “the Hellenes’ writings (syngrammata)” in Nat. hom. §42.44
His choice of graphê to denote the Judaic canon here – twice, in close succession45 – is surely
a mark of reverence. As early as the 1st century, graphê is reserved by Christian authors for
texts they hold to be inspired.46 In keeping with this early Christian practice, Nemesius uses
graphê as a technical term for ‘scripture’ throughout the Nat. hom.47 Of special note is his
appeal to “the divine scriptures” (tais theias graphais) as an authoritative source of Christian
doctrine in the last sentence of Nat. hom. §3.48 Nevertheless, in the last paragraph of Nat. hom.
§2, he is not unwilling to call the Christian canonical texts “writings” (grammata),49 much as
the Hellenes’ texts are called “writings” (syngrammata) in Nat. hom. §42.50 Thus, having noted
the terminological distinction of graphê, it is still possible to speak of a concept of ‘Hellenic
scripture’ in the Nat. hom.
Nemesius is convinced that providence reveals its “care of humankind not in one way
only, but in many and various ways (kata pollous kai diaphorous)”;51 and he is convinced that
Hellenic scripture gives evidence of this. The Hellenes’ poets, historians, and oracle-collectors
43
44
45
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; MORANI 121,10–11: … tôn Hebraiôn graphai … en men tê graphê.
46
Note, for instance, the three occurrences of graphê in Galatians – likely one of Paul’s first surviving letters – all
of which refer to the Pentateuch: Gal. 3:8, 3:22, and 4:30.
47
Cf. MORANI, De natura hominis, 154, s.v. γραφή and γράφω – noting that only seven of these terms’ sixteen
occurrences denote ‘scripture.’ A number of other occurrences refer to ‘paintings’ and secular ‘writings.’
48
49
50
51
7
testify that “there have been many divine epiphanies (epipaneiai tou theiou) in times of need
… [and] many predictions fulfilled in every generation.”52 Nemesius clarifies this idea of diffuse
revelation in a sentence towards the end of Nat. hom. §42, which concludes the historical phase
of his defence of providence, and which is directed – as he states in an aside – “to the
Hellenes.”53 The bishop refers, here, to numberless “prophetic utterances, omens, and divine
portents (diosêmeiai)” which have been sent to the Hellenes; and then refers to a mass of
Hellenic texts which “preserve, according to their own reasoning (kata ton oikeion logon), as
they themselves say, the outcomes of their revelations.”54 These texts constitute a ‘scripture’ in
which many of “the Hellenes themselves believe (pisteousin),” and to which, therefore,
Nemesius can turn in his attempt to “demonstrate (apodeixômen) that there is providence.”55
Revelation and prophecy, in the Nat. hom., are not a special preserve of Jews and
Christians. The Hellenes, too, have ancient texts containing prophetic and oracular speech. Nor
is philosophy, in the Nat. hom., a special preserve of the Hellenes. The term philosophia occurs
only once in Nemesius’ text, in a chapter in which Nemesius tries to identify the proper objects
of deliberation (Nat. hom. §34). Here, he indicates that philosophia is a task that ‘we’ –
Hellenes, Jews, and Christians – have in common. “We do not deliberate,” he writes, “about
what is called theoretical philosophy”; “since we neither deliberate about God,” he reasons,
“nor about things that occur out of necessity.”56 In short, the Athens–Jerusalem dichotomy has
no applicability to the Nat. hom. The Hellenes possess scriptures; the Jews and Christians
practise philosophy.
The diffusion of prophecy and the ubiquity of cult – including the myriad ‘pagan’ cults
of late-antique Syria – testify, at once, to the unity of human physis and the reality of a divine
physis. “The need for prayer and service to the divine (therapeuein to theion) by means of
sacred offerings and holy places” – a need which is “confessed by all humans in common” (to
koinê de para pasin anthrôpois homologoumenon) – is itself “an indication of providence.”57
Thus, even the persistence of non-Christian and non-Judaic cults in late-antique Syria is a sign
– however shadowy – of the “many and various ways” in which Nemesius’ God cares for
52
53
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; MORANI 124,23: pros Hellênas gar ho logos.
54
55
56
57
8
humankind.58 Nevertheless, the bishop of Emesa is of course – by office, and by faith – a
Christian. And as such, intriguingly, he counts himself among “those who revere … the
Hebrews” in a unique way.59
This ‘reverence’ is a salient element in the Nat. hom. In the absence of a comprehensive
study of Judaic authority in the Nat. hom. (which would be a much lengthier study), there are
two observations which seem never to have been made, and which will limit and structure a
preliminary investigation. The first is that Judaic authority in the Nat. hom. is centred upon the
name of ‘Moses.’60 (Or said differently, citations of Judaic scripture are in a noticeable way –
and in a numerable way – centred upon ‘Mosaic’ statements.) The second is that there is a non-
scriptural source of Judaic authority in the Nat. hom., which is channelled through doctrines
that Nemesius attributes vaguely to ‘the Hebrews.’ In light of these preliminary observations,
there is every reason to believe that an analysis of ‘Mosaic’ statements and doctrines of ‘the
Hebrews’ – most of which concern the origin of the world – will introduce us to the origins and
effects of Judaic authority in Nemesius’ text.
II. ‘Words of Moses’ in the De natura hominis
Moses is named with remarkable frequency in the Nat. hom., and is quoted whenever he is
named. The most illuminating contrast, here, is to Nemesius’ citations of Job, Christ, and Paul.
 The name ‘Job’ appears three times in the Nat. hom. (This makes him the most
frequently cited figure in Judaic scripture, apart from Moses.) Nevertheless, the book of
Job is only quoted – or rather, paraphrased – once.61
 The name ‘Christ’ appears three times in the Nat. hom. (Note, however, that Nemesius
refers to him on other occasions as ‘God the Word’ and ‘the Son of Man.’)62 There is
58
59
60
Moses cannot be called a ‘figure’ in the Nat. hom., since he is never given the slightest characterization. He is
never introduced as a ‘legislator’ or a ‘prophet.’ His name remains, throughout, a bare name.
61
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §5; MORANI 53,13: en de tô Iôb eirêtai. See note 152, infra.
62
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §3; MORANI 42,9–43,18; and §43; MORANI 134,16. Nemesius’ inclusion of the title
“Son of Man” (tou huiou tou anthrôpou) is of special interest, since it appears in an anthropological setting. But
no less important, of course, is his repeated insistence – apropos Porphyry – that Christ is “God the Word” (tou
theou logou … ho de theos logos … ton theon logon).
9
only one dominical citation, when – in Nat. hom. §38 – Nemesius appeals to “the oracles
of Christ” (tou Christou … logia).63
 The name ‘Paul’ appears four times in the Nat. hom. (None of the other apostles is even
alluded to.) Still, Paul’s name is only associated with his words on one occasion, when
– in Nat. hom. §1 – sensualists are described “as by Paul” (kata Paulon) in I Corinthians
15.64
By way of contrast, the name ‘Moses’ appears seven times in the Nat. hom., and his words are
cited seven times in connection with his name. This disparity is striking, and should not be
discounted: Moses is Nemesius’ pre-eminent Judaic authority.
This pre-eminence is of course topical, not theological. There can be no doubt that the
intrinsic authority of Christ, whom Nemesius holds to be the Word of God,65 outshines, for him,
the prophetic authority of Moses.66 But given that his topic is anthropology, it is not surprising
that Nemesius turns and returns most frequently to the first pages of Genesis – and thus, to the
work of ‘Moses.’ The time has come to examine – in concrete terms, and in close succession –
how Nemesius incorporates this ‘Mosaic’ material.
Moses and the wisdom of the demiurge
In the first pages of Nat. hom. §1, Nemesius gives a “concise account of the wisdom of
the demiurge” (tês sophias tou dêmiourgou syntomôs).67 Despite its concision, this is a striking
piece of late-antique Naturphilosophie.68 Moses first appears in this context, shortly after the
appearance of a “truly rational creature” – humankind.69 It is the wisdom of the demiurge to
have “joined all things together harmoniously,” writes Nemesius, “and bound them together
and collected into one things intelligible and things visible, by the medium (mesês) of the
generation of humankind.” He then continues:
63
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §38; MORANI 112,1–6. Note that the words of Christ are quoted in §40 (MORANI 115,28–
116,1), but that Nemesius cites “the gospel” (en tô euangeliô), here, and not ‘Christ.’
64
65
66
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; MORANI 120,15–21.
67
68
Cf. G. B. LADNER, ‘The Philosophical Anthropology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12
(1958), 59–94, here 71–72.
69
10
So also Moses, in his exposition of the creation (tên dêmiourgian ektithemenos), correctly
(kalôs) said that the human creature came to be last (teleutaion) … because when intelligible
and also visible reality had come to be, something needed to come to be to bind them both
together, so that the whole should be one and in sympathy with itself and not foreign to itself
(sympathes heautô kai mê allotrion auto heautou). So the human creature, the animal that binds
both natures together (to syndeon amphoteras tas physeis zôon), came to be.70
This paragraph does not set out a new doctrine in the Nat. hom.71 Rather, it is meant to
confirm a doctrine that Nemesius has introduced a couple of pages previously, where – without
citing any authority – he asserts:
The demiurge (dêmiourgos) appears to link together the different natures by small differences,
so that the whole creation is one and akin (hôste mian einai kai syngenê tên pasan ktisin), by
which it is particularly evident that the demiurge (dêmiourgos) of all things is one. For he not
only unified the existence of each individual thing, but he also linked them together with each
other fittingly.72
This doctrine of unity in Nat. hom. §1 – a unity which, it should be noted, is at once
cosmological (‘the whole creation is one’) and theological (‘the demiurge … is one’) – is not
derived from any authority. Thus, when Moses first appears in the Nat. hom., it is not to
introduce but to confirm one of Nemesius’ basic convictions: ‘So also Moses, in his exposition
of the creation, correctly said ...’
Moses and the shock of recognition
This is not the case, however, when Moses is cited for the second time in the Nat. hom.
Here, the words of Moses are cited as ‘prophecy’ or ‘revelation’ (though Nemesius uses neither
term here). In this passage, it is only the non-Hellenic testimony of Moses which serves to
disclose that, in the beginning:
God did not want [the first human] to know his own nature prior to being made perfect (pro tês
teleiôseôs gnônai tên oikeian physin), so that he might not recognize himself to be lacking in
many things and attend to his bodily needs (tês sômatikês epimelêthê chreias), while abandoning
the care for his soul (tês psychês pronoian). For this reason God prevented him from partaking
70
71
72
11
of the fruit of knowledge. But when [the first human] did not heed and came to know himself,
he fell away from perfection (teleiôseôs) and became subject to bodily needs. At any rate, he
immediately sought covering, for Moses says, “He knew that he was naked” [≈ Gen. 3:7].
Previously, God had made him ecstatic (en ekstasei auton) and ignorant of himself (en agnôsia
heautou).73
This second reference to ‘Moses’ occurs in the passage of Nat. hom. §1 in which
Nemesius first mentions ‘the Hebrews’ (we will return to this).74 It is interesting that Hellenistic
references are entirely absent from this passage of Nat. hom. §1. The contrast is stark when we
turn to Nat. hom. §2, for instance, which opens with a remarkably comprehensive doxography
of ideas of the soul.75 The whole of Nat. hom. §2 is thick with Hellenistic references – as is the
whole of Nat. hom. §3. In the cenral paragraphs of Nat. hom. §1, however, it is Judaic authority
that presides.
In the passage just quoted, a decisive moment in the Mosaic narrative – the shock of the
first humans’ awareness of their nudity, after the Fall – is quoted directly, and more or less
faithfully. (Nemesius reduces the original couple, here, to a solitary human.)76 This moment in
the Genesis narrative authorizes his belief that the first humans must originally have lived
undistracted by their “bodily needs.”77 Nemesius manages to correlate this belief to a Hellenistic
theory of archaic potencies,78 which later supports “the medical treatment of humankind”
(therapeian anthrôpou);79 to a basically Hippocratic and Galenic elemental theory;80 and to a
virtually Epicurean theory of the coalescence of city-states out of the primitive wilderness, on
the principle that “no one is self-sufficient in all things” (eis gar oudeis autarchês heautô pros
hapanta).81 The datum itself, however – ‘He knew that he was naked’ – is distinctly Mosaic;
and its veracity, for Nemesius, is assured by this fact. His introduction of Edenic nudity, in Nat.
hom. §1, and the Judaic authority which attests it, is therefore prophetic.
Moses and the harmony of reason
73
74
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §1; MORANI 6,6–15,3.
75
76
Cf. Gen. 3:7 (LXX), RAHLFS: kai egnôsan hoti gymnoi êsan; and Nemesius, Nat. hom. §1; MORANI 7,6: egnô
hoti gymnos ên.
77
78
79
80
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §1; MORANI 7,12–8,15; and a brief discussion in D. L. DUSENBURY, ‘Elemental Theory
in Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis (390 CE)’ [forthcoming].
81
12
When Nemesius next cites the ‘words of Moses,’ in Nat. hom. §2, this prophetic
authority is interlocked with the authority of reason. The doxography of Nat. hom. §2 is too
dense to be reprised here, but Nemesius’ topic in this chapter is the human soul. Moses is a
figure who recurs in a part of this chapter in which he rebuts the doctrine of soul put forward
by one of his contemporaries, the radical Arian bishop Eunomius of Cyzicus († c. 394).82 After
he attributes Eunomius’ error to his misapprehension of “the teaching of Aristotle” (tês
Aristotelous didaskalias),83 Nemesius writes:
… everything that has a bodily (somatikên), and thus temporal (chronikên), origin is perishable
and mortal. The words of Moses harmonize with this (synadei de toutois kai ta Môuseôs): for in
sketching (hypographôn) the origin of sensible things, he did not explicitly assert that the nature
of things intelligible, too, came to be in this genesis. But some conjecturally believe this (touto
doxazousin), though not all agree with them. If someone were to believe that the soul came to
be after the body, because the soul was inserted after the formation of the body, he errs from the
truth (diamartanei tês alêtheias). For neither does Moses say (oute gar ho Môusês tote autên
ektisthai legei) that it [= the first human’s soul] was created then when it was inserted in the
body, nor is that in accordance with reason (oute kata logon houtôs echei).84
The one who ‘errs from the truth,’ here, is Eunomius, who believes that ‘the soul came to be
after the body.’ This passage’s heresiographical content, however, is not our primary interest.
Nemesius’ choice of the Greek verb synadein in the phrase, “the words of Moses
harmonize (synadei) with this,” is suggestive.85 There is only one other occurrence of this verb
in the Nat. hom., when Nemesius distances himself from Origenist themes which are “not suited
to the divine scriptures nor in harmony (synadousas) with Christian doctrine.”86 In Nat. hom.
§2, the ‘harmony’ which Nemesius seeks to establish – although it is of course, for him, pre-
established – is that of Moses and reason. The non-Hellenic authority of Moses is harmonic: it
compels because it resounds with truths of reason.
82
Cf. Eunomius, The Extant Works, ed. with English trans. R. P. VAGGIONE (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), xiv.
83
84
85
86
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §3; MORANI 44,20–21. Note, however, that symphônein appears in this anti-Eunomian
section of Nat. hom. §2, in a clause which is bracketed by Morani but should arguably be restored: SHARPLES and
VAN DER EIJK, Nature of Man, 69 n. 333. That restoration would insert our ‘Mosaic’ occurrence of the term
synadein into Nemesius’ more elaborate theme of philosophical symphônein: MORANI, De natura hominis, 177
s.v. συμφωνέω, συμφωνία, and συμφώνως.
13
It is illuminating to compare the Mosaic harmony of Nat. hom. §2 with a comment of
Nemesius’ on the Syrian scholarch, Iamblichus of Chalcis († c. 320),87 which he makes later in
the same chapter. “Iamblichus seems to me,” the bishop writes, “to have discerned better not
only Plato’s meaning (tês Platônos gnômês), but also the truth itself (tês alêtheias autês), as can
be established by many diverse proofs (hôs esti kai ek pollôn men kai allôn epideixai).”88 The
doxographical question at issue, here, cannot detain us. What matters is Nemesius’ double
reference to the authority of texts – here, texts by Plato and Iamblichus – and to the authority
of truth. For it is his reference to truth which leads Nemesius to lay out ‘many diverse proofs’
of one Neoplatonic interpretation of the soul’s fate. And similarly, it is his reference to truth
that induces Nemesius to interleave his Mosaic doctrines with ‘proofs’ derived from
philosophical and medical reason. A prophetic doctrine that harmonizes with reason is open to
‘many diverse’ forms of rational demonstration.
Moses and the generation of souls – by way of Eunomius of Cyzicus

It is precisely because Nemesius holds the Mosaic books to be “divinely inspired”
(theopneustos),89 that he believes Mosaic doctrine to be “in accordance with reason” (kata
logon).90 And it is this intrinsic harmony which primes the rhetoric of ‘absurdity’ in Nemesius’
last citation of Moses in the Nat. hom. (apart from his joint citations of Moses and ‘the
Hebrews,’ to which we will turn presently). At the close of his anti-Eunomian polemic,
Nemesius opposes the idea that “fifty thousand new intellectual beings (ousiai noêtai)” – by
which he means, human souls – “are added to the cosmos each day.”91 A number of
systematically related Eunomian doctrines – concerning the creation of human souls, the
destruction of the cosmos, and so on – are introduced and dismissed in as many sentences of
the Nat. hom. These doctrines cannot be entered into. What must be noted is the fact that
Nemesius, before he cites Moses, asks the Eunomians – needless to say, rhetorically – “Could
anything be more irrational (alogôteron) than this?”
Nemesius holds that if human souls are generated “by successive birth” (ex
allêlogonias),92 they must be inherently mortal. To deny this is, as his rhetorical question
87
It is interesting to recall, here, that Iamblichus was a scion of the line of Hellenistic priest-kings in Emesa: J. M.
DILLON, ‘Life and Works,’ in Iamblichi Chalcidensis, In Platonis Dialogos Commentariorum Fragmenta (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1973), 3–25, here 4–6.
88
89
90
91
92
14
suggests, ‘irrational.’ The human soul, however – as he is in the process of arguing in Nat. hom.
§2 – is not inherently mortal. Therefore, human souls cannot be generated ‘by successive birth.’
Against Eunomius (and with the Platonists), Nemesius reasons that the souls of human infants
are not, like their bodies, ‘new.’ If they were, it would be necessary to conclude that the cosmos
itself is only partially created; and therefore, that “the statement of Moses that God ‘rested from
all the works that he had made’” – a compression of Genesis 2:2 – “is not true.”93 Both of these
conclusions, however, are “absurd” (atopa); therefore, Nemesius reasons, human souls are not
still being generated.94
It is imperative to note that this argumentum ex absurditate – the possibility of a
fallacious statement in the Mosaic books is ‘absurd’ – occurs in a heresiographical section of
Nat. hom. §2. This is not – and for Nemesius, could not be – an anti-Hellenic argument. His
anti-Hellenic arguments in Nat. hom. §2 are strictly dialectical. Rather, this argument is
premised on a belief that Nemesius and Eunomius hold in common – namely, that the
statements of Genesis can be trusted. What is most revealing in this, however, is how the
authority of Moses and the perspicuity of logic are presumed to interlock. Nemesius’ anti-
Eunomian dialectics, and his commitment to the veracity of the Mosaic text, are made to yield
an identical conclusion – that intellectual souls are not generated by birth.
As Nemesius’ citation of Edenic nudity indicates, there is no tendency in the Nat. hom.
to strip Mosaic authority of what could be called its prophetic specificity. The bishop of Emesa
seems to have no appetite for allegory, and – as this indicates – seems to “move within” the
tradition of Antiochene scriptural exegesis.95 Nevertheless, his commitment to one of the
Alexandrians’ cardinal principles – namely, that every statement penned by Moses discloses a
truth “in accordance with reason” (kata logon)96 – is absolute.
III. ‘Doctrines of the Hebrews’ in the De natura hominis
Moses occupies the summit of Judaic authority in the Nat. hom. And since the Nat. hom.
contains no echo of Psalms 90 (LXX 89), a canonical “prayer of Moses,”97 or of extra-canonical
93
Cf. Gen. 2:2 (LXX), RAHLFS; Nemesius, Nat. hom. §2; MORANI 31,26–27.
94
95
A. SICLARI, L’antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa (Padova: La Garangola, 1974), 39.
96
97
Cf. Ps. 89:1 (LXX), RAHLFS.
15
books such as the Ascension of Moses (Analêpsis Môuseôs),98 it is reasonable to conclude that
whenever the ‘words of Moses’ are cited, they derive from the Pentateuch in its LXX version.
Nemesius’ meaning is far less definite, however, when he refers, on four occasions, to an extra-
canonical source of Judaic authority, ‘the Hebrews’ (Hebraioi).99
In his source-critical study of 1914, Nemesios von Emesa, Werner Jaeger states in no
uncertain terms that ‘the Hebrews’ is a veiled reference to Philo of Alexandria. Jaeger takes
Philo to be “the typical theologian of the Ioudaioi” – for Nemesius, as for Gregory of Nyssa
and Basil of Caesarea.100 Eiliv Skard carries Jaeger’s hypothesis forward in a 1936 essay,101
and William Telfer approvingly cites Skard on this question in his 1955 commentary on the
Nat. hom.102 Alberto Siclari is more cautious in his 1974 monograph, L’antropologia di
Nemesio di Emesa, in which he cites the Jaeger hypothesis, but commits himself only to the
following suppositions:
 Origen “probably” uses the term Hebraioi to reference Philo’s Genesis

commentaries;103 and
 Nemesius “presumably borrows Philo’s thought by way of Origen,” signalling this debt
with the term Hebraioi.104
Even the latter supposition is in excess of the evidence, however. It is generally not clear which
sources lie behind Nemesius’ citations of Hebraioi. As we shall see, Nemesius’ literary milieu
illuminates his meaning; but there remains the possibility that he spoke directly to Christian
98
The Ascension of Moses is cited, for instance, in Origen, Princ. III,2,1, GÖRGEMANNS–KARPP (preserved here
in Rufinus of Aquileia’s translation): … in Ascensione Moysi, cuius libelli meminit in epistola sua apostolus Iudas
...
99
The fifth occurrence of Hebraioi is canonical: in Nat. hom. §42, Nemesius refers to “the Hebrews’ scriptures”
(tôn Hebraiôn graphai). That passage is treated in section II, supra. We are here concerned with ‘the Hebrews’ as
a source of extra-canonical authority.
100
W. W. JAEGER, Nemesios von Emesa. Quellenforschungen zum Neuplatonismus und seinen Anfängen bei
Poseidonios (Berlin: Weidmann, 1914), 141: “Es ist klar, die ‘Hebräer,’ welche Nemesios als Quelle zitiert, sind
Philon, nach bekannter Zitierweise steht der Plural. Auch für Basileios oder Gregor von Nyssa ist dieser stets
typische Theologe der Ἰουδαῖοι.”
101
E. SKARD, ‘Nemesiosstudien 1. Nemesios und die Genesisexegese von Origen,’ Symbolae Osloenses 16 (1936),
23–43.
102
TELFER, Nemesius of Emesa, 238 n. 1.
103
SICLARI, L’antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa, 39 n. 13: “Sappiamo che Origene, il quale suole indicare Filone
con l’esspressione Ἑβραῖοι, ha probabilmente usato il commento filoniano a Genesi per la sua opera esegetica ...”
104
SICLARI, L’antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa, 39: “Nemesio si muove quindi entro la tradizione dottrinale
della Scuola antiochena allora che, mutuando presumibilmente per il tramite di Origene il pensiero di Filone, che
egli tuttavia modifica e riadatta alle proprie prospettive, espone la dottrina della ‘Ebrei’ circa la natura umana.”
16
‘Hebraists’ – or indeed, to Syrian Jews – rather than relying upon texts. And in any case,
Nemesius seems to have meant for Hebraioi to be a vague appellation.
The Hebrews and bodily immortality – by way of Theophilus of Antioch
Nemesius introduces the term Hebraioi in a passage of Nat. hom. §1 which sets the arc
of his opening chapters, and arguably of his treatise.105 Here, he suggests that the first humans
were “potentially immortal” (dynamei athanatos).106 Immortality in Paradise, like virtue in “the
present condition of our life,”107 hangs in the balance of a free-born human soul. The Nat. hom.
closes with a return to this theme, in chapters that are structured by Hellenistic philosophical
controversy. In Nat. hom. §1, however, it is a non-Hellenic authority which introduces the
theme.
The Hebrews say (Hebraioi … phasin) that humankind came into existence in the beginning as
neither incontestably (homologoumenôs) mortal nor immortal, but at the boundary of each
nature, so that, if they should pursue (akolouthêsê) bodily passions, they would be subjected
also to bodily alterations, whereas, if they should rank more highly (protimêsê) the goods of the
soul, they might be thought worthy of immortality (tês athanasias axiôthê).108
This is perhaps the passage of the Nat. hom. in which the likelihood of a direct Philonic
influence is highest. Nemesius’ phrase, “at the boundary of each nature” (en methorios
hekateras physeôs),109 seems to recollect Philo’s Op. mund., in which humankind occupies “the
boundary between mortal and immortal nature, participating in each to the extent that is
necessary” (ton anthrôpon thnêtês kai athanatou physeôs einai methorion hekateras hoson
anankaion esti metechonta).110
Nevertheless, as the late Robert Sharples pointed out, the logic of these sentences
contradicts Philo’s in the Op. mund., while it distinctly recollects – directly or not – a chapter
in the Autol. of Theophilus of Antioch († c. 183).111 This is Theophilus:
105
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §1; MORANI 6,6–15,3.
106
107
108
109
110
Philo, Op. mund. 46,134–135, COHN and WENDLAND.
111
Cf. SHARPLES and VAN DER EIJK, Nature of Man, 37 n. 193, 41 n. 214.
17
[Humankind was made] neither mortal nor immortal by nature. For if God had made humans
immortal from the beginning, he would have made them God (theon auton pepoiêkei). Again,
if he had made humans mortal, it would seem that God was the cause (aitios) of their death. God
therefore made them neither immortal nor mortal but, as we have said before, capable of both.
If humans should incline to the things of immortality (epi ta tês athanasias), by keeping the
commandment of God, they would receive immortality as a reward from Him and would
become God (kai genêtai theos); but if they should turn to the things of death (epi ta tou thanatou
pragmata), disobeying God, they would themselves be the cause (aitios) of their death. For God
made humankind free and autonomous (eleutheron gar kai autexousion epoiêsen ho theos tôn
anthrôpon).112
There are a couple of striking correspondences between Nemesius’ first report of ‘the Hebrews’
in the Nat. hom., and these sentences in Theophilus’ Autol. These correspondences also mark
Nemesius’ divergence from the Philonic interpretation of Eden in the Op. mund. – and thus,
compromise Jaeger’s hypothesis.
In the first place, Nemesius’ report of what ‘the Hebrews say’ takes the form of a double
negation: “Humankind came into existence in the beginning as neither … mortal nor immortal
(oute thnêton … oute athanaton gegenêsthai).”113 This matches Theophilus’ formulations, in
which humankind is originally “neither mortal nor immortal by nature” (oute oun physei
thnêtos egeneto oute athanatos),114 for the reason that “God made them neither immortal nor
mortal” (oute oun athanaton auton epoiêsen oute mên thnêton).115 Philo’s doctrine, on the
contrary, takes the form of a double assertion: “Humankind was born at the same time, both
mortal and immortal” (kai gegenêsthai thnêton homou kai athanaton).116
In the second place, Philo writes in Op. mund. that humans were originally “mortal as
to the body (kata to sôma), but immortal as to the intellect (kata de tên dianoian)”; by which
he means, “mortal according to that part (merida) … which is visible,” but “immortal according
to that part (merida) which is invisible.”117 Philo therefore inscribes the body of his “first
human” among “the mortal things” (ta thnêta).118 When he sets humankind at “the boundary
112
Theophilus Antiochenus, Autol. 2,27, GRANT.
113
114
115
116
Philo, Op. mund. 46,135, COHN and WENDLAND.
117
118
18
(methorion) between mortal and immortal nature,”119 he makes this methorion cut between the
first human’s body and soul. Mortality, for Philo, is intrinsic to corporeity – and therefore, to
the human body in Paradise. Theophilus’ objection to the Philonic logic is that it renders God,
as creator of the first humans’ bodies, “the cause of their death.”120 When Theophilus writes
that “God made [the first humans] neither immortal nor mortal,”121 he refers specifically to the
human body.
Theophilus, like Philo, holds that the human soul – that is, the intellectual soul – is
“immortal from the beginning” (athanaton … ap’ archês).122 Unlike Philo, however,
Theophilus conceives of the human body as “neither mortal nor immortal by nature (physei).”123
It is not corporeity, in the Autol., but autonomy that ensnarls humankind in “the things of
death.”124 The indetermination of Theophilus’ doctrine of human mortality in Eden is precisely
an indetermination that is afforded and required by his doctrine of human autonomy. The human
body in Paradise is “capable of both” (dektikon amphoterôn) mortality and immortality,125
because – in Theophilus’ bold line – “God made humankind free (eleutheron) and autonomous
(autexousion).”126 This line may have an echo in Nat. hom. §2, where Nemesius characterizes
human reason as “free (eleutheron) and autonomous (autexousion).”127
The human body is not predestined to die, in Theophilus’ Autol., because the human
soul is not predestined to sin. What Philo calls ‘the boundary between mortal and immortal
nature’ – a boundary which falls between the first humans’ bodies and souls, in the Op. mund.
– rather falls within the souls of the first humans, in Theophilus’ Autol. And Nemesius follows
Theophilus.128 When he writes in Nat. hom. §1 that the first humans were “potentially
immortal,”129 the bishop of Emesa – who methodically defends the immortality of the human
119
Philo, Op. mund. 46,134–135, COHN and WENDLAND.
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
What is more, a rich tradition follows Nemesius. A masterful introduction to this tradition is G. VERBEKE, ‘Man
as “Frontier” according to Aquinas,’ in Aquinas and the Problems of His Time, ed. G. VERBEKE and D. VERHELST
(Leuven: Leuven University Press – The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 195–223, esp. 202–214.
129
19
soul in Nat. hom. §2 – means that their bodies were potentially immortal. The human soul, in
the Nat. hom., is necessarily immortal.
This coheres with, and perhaps explains, Nemesius’ virtually pharmacological

interpretation of what he calls “the fruit of knowledge” (tou karpou tês gnôseôs) in the Genesis
narrative of the Fall.130 “For there were – or rather, still are now – tremendous powers
(dynameis) in plants,” Nemesius observes. “Yet then,” he speculates, “as it was the very origin
of creation (hôs en archê tês kosmopoiias), these powers were intact and their activity
(energeian) was at its strongest.”131 Since it is, for him, precisely the mortality of the body that
is at stake in Eden, it is not illogical to trace death to the “tremendous powers” that suffused
fruits at “the very origin of creation.”132 Moreover, this coheres with Nemesius’ concept of
bodily immortality in the last paragraphs of Nat. hom. §1, where he writes that ours is “the only
body” on earth which is destined to be “immortalized” (to sôma toutou monou thnêton on
apathanatizetai).133 Nemesius stresses this. Humankind is “alone among the other living
creatures” (to monon tôn allôn zôôn), because it is only the human body that “resurrects after
death and proceeds to immortality” (meta ton thanaton anistasthai kai eis athanasian
chôrein).134 In the Nat. hom., bodily immortality is a specific difference of humankind.
This is not the place to deepen our analysis. It is possible to link Nemesius’ first report
of what ‘the Hebrews say’ to a passage in Philo’s Op. mund. – but it is necessary to link this
report to a passage in Theophilus’ Autol. The decisive influence here is not that of Philo, but of
Theophilus. The question therefore presents itself, why Nemesius credits ‘the Hebrews’ with
an Eden-interpretation which he takes over – directly or not – from a 2nd-century Christian
apologist. Theophilus does not himself attribute his Eden-interpretation to ‘the Hebrews,’ and
neither Theophilus’ nor Nemesius’ text contains any explicit citations that would permit us to
settle this question. However, Theophilus’ “tendances judaïsantes,”135 and the “nombreux
parallèles entre 1’exégèse théophilienne et la tradition juive des midrashim, des Targumin et
du Talmud,” have been noted by Nicole Zeegers-Vander Vorst;136 and there is no reason to
130
131
132
133
134
135
N. ZEEGERS-VANDER VORST, ‘La création de l’homme (Gn 1,26) chez Théophile d’Antioche,’ Vigiliae
Christianae 30 (1976), 258–267, here 260.
136
N. ZEEGERS-VANDER VORST, ‘Satan, Ève et le serpent chez Théophile d’Antioche,’ Vigiliae Christianae 35
(1981), 152–169, here 162. Cf. R. M. GRANT, ‘The Problem of Theophilus,’ Harvard Theological Review 43
(1950), 176–196, esp. 188–196.
20
suspect that Nemesius’ first reference to ‘the Hebrews’ is calculated to mislead. Throughout
the Nat. hom., he proves himself ready to cite his sources. We may therefore conclude that
Nemesius believed Theophilus’ conception of autonomy and potential bodily immortality in
Eden to have been present in certain texts or oral traditions of ‘the Hebrews.’
‘A doctrine of the Hebrews’ – by way of Psalms 104
The second occurrence of Hebraioi in the Nat. hom. led Skard and others to assert that
the term refers to Origen (and through him, to Philo), and that the report it introduces is likely
taken from Origen’s Homiliae in Genesim137 or Contra Celsum.138 The textual evidence for this
connection is thin, however, and it is not Skard’s fixation on the term itself, Hebraioi, that
proves to be illuminating. This is Nemesius:
It is a doctrine of the Hebrews (Hebraiôn de dogma) that all things (to pan) came to be because
of humankind – immediately for his sake such things as beasts of burden and oxen used for
farming, and fodder for their sake. For of things that came to be, some did so for their own sake,
some for the sake of others; for their own sake all rational beings (ta logika panta), for the sake
of others irrational creatures and inanimate things.139
Both the context of this passage, and the phrase ‘doctrine of the Hebrews,’ suggest that
Nemesius meant for Hebraioi to be a vague appellation of a recognizable type. The basic
function of the term Hebraioi is not to encrypt Nemesius’ borrowings, but rather to introduce
ideas that he believes to have originated with one of the sects in his ternary division of
humankind – Hellenes, Jews, and Christians.
The context suggests this, because his ‘doctrine of the Hebrews’ follows a half-page
gloss on the quintessentially Hellenic definition of humankind as ‘rational animal.’ Nemesius
is allusive when he introduces this definition. “They define (horizontai) humankind,” he writes,
“as a rational animal, mortal, and receptive of intellect and knowledge.”140 In his apparatus
fontium, Moreno Morani notes an exact antecedent to this definition in Pseudo-Galen’s
137
Origen, In Gen. hom. 1,12, DOUTRELEAU (extant only in Rufinus of Aquileia’s Latin translation): Vult enim
Deus ut magna ista Dei factura homo, propter quem et uniuersus creatus est mundus, non solum immaculatus sit
ab his quae supra diximus [at In Gen. hom. 1,11 (quoting Paul, at Col. 3:5): “fornication, impurity, passion, evil
desire …”] et immunis, sed et dominetur eis.
138
Origen, Cels. 4,74, BORRET.
139
140
21
Definitiones medicae, and gestures towards “many other sources” (aliique multi) in which it
appears.141 Nemesius may well have lifted this definition from Pseudo-Galen, but the question
of whether or not he did so is perhaps unimportant. Nemesius cites no source for this definition
because he takes it to be emblematic of Hellenic anthropology. And similarly, he takes his
‘doctrine of the Hebrews’ to be emblematic of a Judaic discourse concerning human nature.
The phrase “doctrine of the Hebrews” (Hebraiôn de dogma) is suggestive,142 because

dogma in the Nat. hom. tends to register a distinctive tenet or conviction. This could of course
be predicted, but consider the following:
 Nemesius refers to the “peculiar doctrine” (to oikeion dogma) of a schismatic bishop,
Apollinaris of Laodicea († c. 390), on the first page of the Nat. hom.,143 and later to the
“personal doctrine” (to idion … dogma) of Thales, Heraclitus, and other pre-Platonic
figures.144
 In Nat. hom. §2, Nemesius remarks that “all the Hellenes (pantes Hellênes) … who
declared the soul to be immortal held the doctrine of re-embodiment (tên
metensômatôsin dogmatizousin),” but that Plato’s statements “concerning this doctrine
(dogma)” gave rise to sharply diverging opinions.145
 At the close of Nat. hom. §3, Nemesius warns that certain elements of Origen’s corpus
are “not in harmony with Christian doctrine (tôn Christianôn dogmasi).”146
Hellenes and Christians hold distinctive but collective dogmata, whereas ‘peculiar’ or
‘personal dogmata’ are labelled as such, in the Nat. hom., and linked to exponents’ names
(Thales, Heraclitus, etc.).147 We can infer from this that when Nemesius cites a ‘dogma of the
Hebrews,’ he is not obscuring his debts to the ‘personal dogma’ of a given author – Philo,
Origen, etc. He is instead orienting his inquiry, successively and periodically, to what he takes
to be salient dogmata of one of the late-antique Mediterranean’s most prominent sects – ‘the
Hebrews.’
141
MORANI, De natura hominis, 11.
142
143
Where his name is written ‘Apolinarios’: Nemesius, Nat. hom. §1; MORANI 1,13–14. Cf. SHARPLES and VAN
DER EIJK, Nature of Man, 35 n. 185.
144
145
146
147
Cf. D. T. RUNIA, ‘Philo of Alexandria and the Greek Haeresis-Model,’ Vigiliae Christianae 53 (1999), 117–
147, here 121: “Each haeresis had a body of distinctive doctrines, the ἀρέσκοντα or δόγματα, [which were]
generally attributed directly to the founder rather than to the haeresis as a whole.”
22
Finally, it is important to recall that when Nemesius writes that ‘it is a doctrine of the
Hebrews that all things came to be because of humankind,’ his source could be no more exotic
than the cosmogonical poetry of Psalms 104 (LXX 103) or a comment thereon (extant or not):
You [o Lord] make …

plants to serve humankind (chloên tê douleia tôn anthrôpôn);
That they may bring forth food from the earth;
and wine to gladden the heart of humankind (kardian anthrôpou);
Oil to make a cheerful countenance,
and bread to strengthen the heart of humankind.148
That Nemesius interposes ‘oxen’ (etc.) between humankind and plant-life of course places him
at a certain distance from these lines of Psalms 104. But that all things are created – like plants
in this psalm – ‘to serve humankind’ and to minister to ‘the heart of humankind,’ is still the
basic Hebraic dogma that he educes in Nat. hom. §1.
The Hebrews and creatio ex abysso – by way of Apollinaris of Laodicea

With one exception – to which we will turn below – all of Nemesius’ Hebraic dogmata
relate to his concept of ‘creation’ (ktisis), a concept that he formally defines late in the Nat.
hom. as “the making well (to kalôs poiêsai) of things that come to be.”149 Since all of his Mosaic
citations also concern ‘creation,’ it is not surprising that Nemesius intermingles his preeminent
sources of Judaic authority – ‘Moses’ and ‘the Hebrews’ – in one paragraph of Nat. hom. §5.
Those who revere the [doctrines] of the Hebrews (hoi de ta tôn Hebraiôn presbeuontes) differ
about heaven and earth.150 For while almost all the others [= Christian exegetes] say that heaven
and earth came to be from no previously existing matter (ex oudemias prohypokeimenês hylês)
– since Moses says (Môusês phêsin), “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” [= Gen.
1:1] – Apollinaris holds that God made heaven and earth out of the abyss (ek tês abyssou). For
while Moses did not mention (Môusês ouk emnêmoneusen) the abyss as having come to be in
the genesis of the world (en tê genesei tou kosmou),151 in Job it says: “He, who made the
148
Ps. 104:14–16, NRSV (modified); Ps. 103:14–15 (LXX), RAHLFS.
149
150
The current English translations supply the word ‘doctrines,’ here, sans square brackets. Cf. TELFER, Nemesius
of Emesa, 316: “… doctrines of the Jews”; SHARPLES and VAN DER EIJK, Nature of Man, 98: “… doctrines of the
Hebrews.” The mid 12th-century Latin translation by Burgundio of Pisa (†1193) is more fastidious. Cf. VERBEKE
and MONCHO, De natura hominis, 68: Qui autem ea quae Hebraeorum sunt venerantur …
151
It is worth noting that the book of Genesis is referred to under the title, Genesis of the World (Genesis kosmou),
at Theophilus Antiochenus, Autol. 2,29, GRANT.
23
abyss.”152 Therefore he [= Apollinaris] claims that all other things came to be from this as their
matter … [so that] the word ‘abyss’ indicates the infinity of matter (tês hylês apeiron). But how
this is makes no difference (ouden diapherei). For in either case, God is shown to be the
demiurge (dêmiourgos) of all things, and to have made all things out of nothing (kai ex ouk
ontôn pepoiêkôs ta panta).153
The outline of this paragraph is plain. Nemesius cites the first sentence of the Pentateuch; then
notes that Moses is silent concerning the creation of the ‘abyss’; and then relates this Mosaic
sentence and silence to a 4th-century controversy among Christian exegetes.
It is interesting, en passant, to contrast Nemesius’ reasoning with a contemporary Latin
treatment of the ‘abyss’ in Augustine’s Confessions (c. 397 CE).154 Unlike the bishop of Hippo
Regius, the bishop of Emesa sees no objectionable difference between a concept of creatio ex
abysso, which he attributes to Apollinaris; and a more prevalent articulation of creatio ex nihilo,
which can be traced to the Autol. of Theophilus (seemingly known to Nemesius),155 and to
surviving works of one of Theophilus’ contemporaries, Tatian of Assyria († c. 180).156
Nemesius’ inability to differentiate between creatio ex abysso and ex nihilo could strike us as
obtuse – especially in light of Theophilus’ forceful assertions in the Autol.157 But Nemesius’
reference, here, “must be to some lost and unnamed work” (as Telfer concludes).158 Apollinaris’
exegesis of Genesis 1:1 may not have implied a rejection of creatio ex nihilo. And in any case,
this appears to be an irenical gloss. Nemesius’ intention, in writing it, is to blur out the
152
This quote has no counterpart in the LXX version of Job, as is plainly stated by MORANI, De natura hominis,
53: in Iob non invenitur. According to VERBEKE and MONCHO, De natura hominis, 68, the pertinent text is Prov.
8:24. Others cite several verses in Job: TELFER, Nemesius of Emesa, 316 n. 4; SHARPLES and VAN DER EIJK, Nature
of Man, 98 n. 484. Sharples’s note on this ‘quote’ is adequate. What Nemesius claims, here, is “certainly implied
by passages” in Job – and, we could add, by Prov. 8:24.
153
154
Note that the Vetus Latina text of Gen. 1:1 contains the Greek loanword, abyssus. Augustine, Conf. 12,22,31,
O’DONNELL: si aliquid Genesis tacuit deum fecisse, quod tamen deum fecisse nec sana fides nec certus ambigit
intellectus, nec ideo ulla sobria doctrina dicere audebit istas aquas coaeternas deo, quia in libro Geneseos
commemoratas quidem audimus, ubi autem factae sint non invenimus, cur non informem quoque illam materiam,
quam scriptura haec terram invisibilem et incompositam tenebrosamque abyssum appellat, docente veritate
intellegamus ex deo factam esse de nihilo ideoque illi non esse coaeternam, quamvis ubi facta sit omiserit enuntiare
ista narratio?
155
Cf. G. MAY, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Christian Thought, trans.
A. S. Worrall (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 157: “[The] idea of creatio ex nihilo had already been formulated
at Antioch before Theophilus, but we cannot say precisely at what date or in what circles – whether Jewish,
‘orthodox’ Christian, or gnostic – this first happened.”
156
MAY, Creatio Ex Nihilo, 150: “Tatian is the first Christian theologian known to us who expressly advanced the
proposition that matter was produced by God.”
157
Cf. Theophilus Antiochenus, Autol. 2,4, GRANT.
158
TELFER, Nemesius of Emesa, 317 n. 5.
24
distinction between creatio ex abysso and ex nihilo. His purpose is to reconcile the
interpretations of Apollinaris and “almost all the others” (hoi … alloi schedon pantes).159
What is most salient for us, however, is that the author of the Nat. hom. numbers himself,
in this paragraph, among “those who revere (presbeuontes) … the Hebrews.”160 Nemesius’
phrasing, here, bears a certain resemblance to Eusebius’ in the first sentence of Praeparatio
evangelica 7,161 and his choice of the verb presbeuein is notable since it only occurs in two
other passages of the Nat. hom. Only the first of these passages is relevant for us. In Nat. hom.
§36, Nemesius criticizes the use of natal astrology among “the wise men of the Egyptians,”162
a likely reference to the ‘Egyptian’ sources of Iamblichan theurgy.163 He writes that ‘nativity-
casting’ is a practice which these sophoi “revere above all others (pro tôn allôn presbeuousin)
as a strong and a true institution.”164 Given this later occurrence of presbeuein, Nemesius’
stance towards the traditions of ‘the Hebrews’ can usefully be compared to a theurgist’s trust
in divination “through the stars,” and to the hermetic traditions which informed this practice.165
For the bishop of Emesa, Judaic scriptures and midrashim166 – or Christian dicta which he
receives and transmits as midrashim167 – comprise “a strong and a true institution” (ischyron ti
kai alêthes pragma).168
The Hebrews and true divination – by way of Pythagoras Palaestinus

That Judaic authority is integrally related to scripture is proved by Nemesius’ blending
of Mosaic and Hebraic elements in Nat. hom. §5, and by his reference to “the Hebrews’
159
160
161
Cf. Eusebius, Praep. evang. 7,1, GIFFORD.
162
163
TELFER, Nemesius of Emesa, 402–403; SHARPLES and VAN DER EIJK, Nature of Man, 186 n. 924. The reference
could, however, be more general. Cf. G. FOWDEN, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan
Mind (Princeton: PUP, 1986), 135: “It looks as if Egyptian priests were regarded [in late antiquity] as the
authorities par excellence on theurgy.”
164
165
166
For the use of midrashic material by Christian authors in 4 th-century Syria – and specifically, in Emesa: TER
HAAR ROMENY, ‘Eusebius of Emesa’s Commentary on Genesis,’ 139–141.
167
It is important to recall that by the end of the 4 th century, even a Philonic influence is ‘Christian’ in terms of
transmission and reception. Cf. D. T. RUNIA, ‘Why Does Clement of Alexandria Call Philo “The Pythagorean”?’
Vigiliae Christianae 49 (1995), 1–22, here 1: “In our extant sources [Philo] is first mentioned by Josephus
(Antiquities 18.258), who describes him as ‘a man respected in every way … not unskilled in philosophy.’ But this
is the last reference to Philo by a Jewish author until the 16 th century.” The vacant space between Josephus and
Clement of Alexandria – a period in which there is no extant reference to Philo – is made visible by the table
printed in D. T. RUNIA, ‘References to Philo from Josephus up to 1000 AD,’ in Philo and the Church Fathers: A
Collection of Papers (Leiden – New York: E. J. Brill, 1995), 228–239, here 230.
168
25
scriptures” in Nat. hom. §42.169 That Judaic identity is linked to ancestry and the history of
Israel is shown by his brief depiction of ‘a Jew,’ also in Nat. hom. §42.170 Yet Nemesius’ final
allusion to a doctrine of ‘the Hebrews’ suggests that Judaic authority has a natural aspect which
surpasses its strictly ‘Judaic’ character. Nemesius writes this in Nat. hom. §12:
The different kinds of thought are judgement, assent, avoidance and impulse … It is this [=
thought, dianoêtikos] also which foretells the future to us through dreams, which the
Pythagoreans say (hoi Pythagoreioi legousin) is the only true method of divination, following
the Hebrews (tois Hebraiois akolouthêsantes). Its organ (organon) is also the central ventricle
of the brain (mesê koilia tou enkephalou) and the psychic pneuma within that ventricle.171
The foregoing is the core of Nat. hom. §12, Nemesius’ remarkably short chapter on
thought.172 This chapter comprises the second of a three-part survey in Nat. hom. §6–13, in
which Nemesius reviews the “powers of the soul” (hai psychikai dynameis) on the basis of a
hypothetical distribution of their interface with the brain. The soul, he stipulates at the end of
Nat. hom. §5, has three signal powers – “imagination, thought, and memory” (phantastikon kai
dianoêtikon kai mnêmoneutikon)173 – and these powers must, he postulates, be channelled by
and through distinct sub-structures of the brain. His sharpest formulation of this comes in Nat.
hom. §13, where he writes that “the origins and roots (archas kai rhizas) of sensation lie in the
frontal ventricles of the brain (koilias … tou enkephalou)” – he is treating sensation, here, under
the rubric of imagination – “of thought in the central ventricle, and of memory in the posterior
ventricle.”174 Nemesius’ cognitive topology corresponds to a novel cerebral topology (which
gives rise to the “ventricular” or “cell doctrine” that will control medical philosophy and
physiology until the early 16th century).175 To reflect both typologies, Nemesius characterizes:
 sensation in Nat. hom. §6–11 (frontal ventricle);

 thought in §12 (central ventricle); and
 memory in §13 (posterior ventricle).
169
170
171
172
Nat. hom. §12 covers ten lines in Morani’s edition. The only shorter chapter is Nat. hom. §10, a seven-line
statement on the sense of hearing.
173
174
175
Cf. ROSE, ‘Cerebral Localization in Antiquity,’ 245–246; M. R. BENNETT and P. M. S. HACKER, History of
Cognitive Neuroscience (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 201–205.
26
In Nat. hom. §14, he returns in a slightly more discursive way to the question of thought, treating
it not “according to the division of certain parts of the body,” as in Nat. hom. §12, but according
to a division of the soul’s “rational aspect” into tacit and explicit logos.176
It is in this context – which is to say, in the border zones of late-antique physiology and
psychology – that Nemesius makes his last mention of ‘the Hebrews.’177 And here, the
Pythagoreans – and this is the sole occurrence of Pythagoreioi in the Nat. hom. – ‘follow’
(akolouthein) the Hebrews. Judging by the sense that Nemesius seems to give to akolouthein in
other parts of his text,178 he presumably means that the Pythagoreans received from the Hebrews
a ruling that oneiric divination is “the only true method of divination” (monên alêthê
manteian).179 This is very interesting.
There is no allusion, in the Nat. hom., to what Walter Burkert calls the “Herakleides-
Anekdote,”180 that is, to an incident which is first attested in a fragment by Heraclides of Pontus
(† c. 310 BCE), according to which Pythagoras is the first to deny that he is a ‘wise one’
(sophos), preferring to call himself a ‘lover of wisdom’ (philosophos).181 There is indeed no
hard evidence, in the Nat. hom., with which to plead that Nemesius traces the origin of the
Hellenic term and institution of philosophia to Pythagoras. Nevertheless, the priority of
Pythagoras and his phratry is so common in late-antique doxographies that there is no cause to
doubt that when Nemesius cites the Pythagoreioi, he means to cite Hellenic philosophy’s first
and most august ‘school.’
Since Nemesius asserts in Nat. hom. §12 that the Pythagoreioi ‘follow’ the Hebraioi on
so grave a matter as the ‘true method of divination,’ it is reasonable to take this as evidence, in
176
177
We will recall that there is of course one further occurrence of the term Hebraioi, but there it designates a
source of canonical authority: Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; MORANI 121,10. See section II, supra.
178
Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §1; MORANI 1,9–12 (Apollinaris ‘follows’ Plotinus, et al., in his doctrine of soul); §2;
MORANI 29,19–21 (Xenocrates ‘follows’ Pythagoras in his doctrine of soul), etc.
179
180
W. BURKERT, ‘Platon oder Pythagoras? Zum Ursprung des Wortes “Philosophie,”’ Hermes 88 (1960), 159–
177, here 163.
181
Pieter van der Horst suggests, on the basis of a Heraclitean dictum which contains the first extant occurrence
of philosophos (Fr. 35, DIELS), that “it may be the case that Heraclitus [in this fragment] ridiculed or criticized
Pythagoras’ use of the word philosophos.” In view of Heraclitus’ surviving attack on Pythagoras (Fr. 40, DIELS)
– which may have been invited by the opening lines of a Pythagorean text On Nature (cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives
8,1,6, HICKS) – this is not an unreasonable conjecture. Thus, it may still be possible – conjecturally – to trace the
term philosophos to Pythagoras ‘himself,’ that is, to archaic Pythagorean circles. Cf. P. W. VAN DER HORST,
‘Philosophia epeisaktos: Some Notes on Josephus, Ant. 18.9,’ in Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
(Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2014), 54–65, here 55–56.
27
the Nat. hom., of what has been termed the “dependency theme” in Patristic literature.182 If the
Hebraioi are instructed by Moses, while the Pythagoreioi ‘follow’ the Hebraioi, then it is not
rash to conclude that Pythagoras – the Hellenes’ first philosopher – must himself have been
instructed by Moses, or by the Pentateuch. Chronologies arrived at by Patristic ventures in
‘universal history’ would demand the latter.183
A Hellenistic version of this ‘dependency theme’ is distilled in a question which is

(reputed to have been) put by a Syrian Neopythagorean philosopher,184 Numenius of Apamea,
in the mid 2nd century CE: “What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic (attikizôn)?”185 Given that
Nemesius cites ‘Numenius the Pythagorean’ at the head of Nat. hom. §2,186 it is not reckless to
conjecture that this celebrated question – for which Eusebius cites ‘Numenius the
Pythagorean’187 – might figure in the backcloth of Nemesius’ text. It is by no means necessary,
however, to trace Nemesius’ allusion to a theory of Hebraic priority to Numenius. For the
Neopythagorean’s theory is roughly contemporary with a Christian theory introduced by Justin
Martyr in his First Apology,188 and intensified by his protégé, Tatian, in the diatribe To the
Greeks (Oratio ad Graecos).189 Tatian accuses the Hellenes of ‘imitating’ the arts of barbarian
peoples – and most notably, the ‘barbarian philosophy’ of Moses.
Ultimately, however, Nemesius’ allusion to a Judaic–Pythagorean nexus is not Christian

or Hellenic. It can be presumed to stem from a Judaic theory which can be traced, by way of
parallel testimonies in Clement’s Stromateis (c. 198–203)190 and Eusebius’ Praeparatio
182
Cf. D. RIDINGS, The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in Some Early Christian Writers (Göteborg: Acta
Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1995).
183
No effort is taken to delineate a ‘universal history’ in the Nat. hom., but this concern is prevalent in Nemesius’
milieu, and in several of his sources – notably, Theophilus and Eusebius. Cf. M. WALLRAFF, ‘The Beginnings of
Christian Universal History: From Tatian to Julius Africanus,’ Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 14 (2011), 540–
555.
184
Mark Edwards sees in this nothing but “a false parallel between Plato and the Pentateuch, condensed into a
motto which may not even have been his [= Numenius’] own.” Cf. M. J. EDWARDS, ‘Atticizing Moses? Numenius,
the Fathers and the Jews,’ Vigiliae Christianae 44 (1990), 64–75, here 73. A less sceptical approach is taken in G.
F. STERLING, ‘The Theft of Philosophy: Philo of Alexandria and Numenius of Apamea,’ The Studia Philonica
Annual 27 (2015), 71–85.
185
J. G. COOK, The Interpretation of the Old Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2004), 36–41, here 36.
186
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §2; MORANI 17,16–18: Noumêniou tou Pythagorikou.
187
Eusebius, Praep. evang. 11,9–10, GIFFORD: Noumêniou tou Pythagoreiou. Cf. Clement, Strom. 1,22, STÄHLIN:
Noumênios … ho Pythagoreios philosophos.
188
Justin, Apol. I 59–60, OTTO.
189
Tatian, Or. ad Graec. 31, 36–41, MARCOVICH.
190
The datings proposed by A. MÉHAT, Étude sur les Stromates de Clément d’Alexandrie (Paris: Éditions du Seuil,
1966), are carried forward by R. E. HEINE, ‘The Alexandrians,’ in The Cambridge History of Early Christian
Literature, ed. F. YOUNG, L. AYRES, and A. LOUTH, with A. CASSIDAY (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), 117–130, here
118.
28
evangelica,191 to an early Alexandrian commentator on the Pentateuch, Aristobulus († c. 145
BCE).192 According to Eusebius, Aristobulus wrote, in a commentary dedicated to one of the
Ptolemies (likely Ptolemy VI Philometor),193 that “Pythagoras transferred many things from
our [= Judaic] laws and inserted them into his own body of doctrines.”194 To this, Eusebius
appends a further statement by Aristobulus: “It seems to me that he [= Moses] has been
meticulously followed (katêkolouthêkenai) in all this [= the origin of the world in Genesis 1]
by Pythagoras.”195 It is not a mark of dependence, per se, but we should not fail notice that
where Aristobulus speaks of Moses being “meticulously followed (katêkolouthêkenai) … by
Pythagoras,”196 Nemesius speaks of “the Pythagoreans … following (akolouthêsantes) the
Hebrews.”197 Even though we posit no dependence on Aristobulus (via Eusebius), the
provenance of Nemesius’ theory begins with this Alexandrian commentator (whom Eusebius
calls a “Hebrew philosopher”).198
This foray into the history of Pythagoras Palaestinus – a tradition which tended,
incidentally, to assign Pythagoras’ birthplace to Syria199 – has been necessary to fill out
Nemesius’ elliptical reference to ‘Pythagoreans’ in Nat. hom. §12. Nemesius holds that certain
beliefs and practices of ‘the Pythagoreans’ derive from the laws and customs of ‘the Hebrews’;
and given his milieu, we can infer that he holds that Pythagoras extracted certain tenets and
prohibitions from a pre-LXX Greek rendering of the Pentateuch.200 The theory of Hebraic
priority, however, and the sense of Hellenic dependence that it is meant to inculcate, should not
block our realization that Nemesius cites ‘the Hebrews,’ in Nat. hom. §12, as a Judaic authority
which coincides with that of a Hellenic philosophical ‘school.’ On the question of divination,
the authority of Moses’ phratry is virtually indistinct from that of Pythagoras’ phratry. When
191
Clement, Strom. 1,22, STÄHLIN; Eusebius, Praep. evang. 13,12, GIFFORD.
192
Cf. M. R. NIEHOFF, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: CUP, 2011), 59:
“The available excerpts from his ‘commentary works’ (βίβλοι ἐξηγητικαί) indicate that he [= Aristobulus] raised
‘questions’ on the biblical text and solved them by extended answers.”
193
Apud Clement, Strom. 1,22, STÄHLIN. Cf. P. GORMAN, ‘Pythagoras Palaestinus,’ Philologus 127 (1983), 30–
42, here 31–32; M. LEFEBVRE, Collections, Codes, and Torah: The Re-characterization of Israel’s Written Law
(New York – London: T & T Clark, 2006), 191–193.
194
Eusebius, Praep. evang. 13,12, GIFFORD. Cf. Clement, Strom. 1,22, STÄHLIN.
195
Eusebius, Praep. evang. 13,12, GIFFORD.
196
197
198
Eusebius, Praep. evang. 13,11, GIFFORD: … Aristoboulou, tou ex Hebraiôn philosophou.
199
GORMAN, ‘Pythagoras Palaestinus,’ 37: “Pythagoras was not only known as a borrower from the Mosaic law
to both Alexandrian Jews and Greeks of the pre-Christian era, but also as a native of Syria who had sojourned in
Phoenicia and lived the life of an anchorite and prophet, like Elijah, atop Mt. Carmel in Palestine.”
200
GORMAN, ‘Pythagoras Palaestinus,’ 32: “Aristobolous assumed the existence of a pre-Septuagint Greek
translation of the books of Moses which, according to Aristobolous, Pythagoras apparently consulted so that the
τῶν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν naturally refers to the Pentateuch and could be supplemented by νομίμων.”
29
Nemesius reports that “the Pythagoreans say [that oneiromancy] is the only true method of
divination, following the Hebrews,”201 the truth of Pythagorean divination is in no way
diminished or impugned.
Nemesius’ theory of Hebraic priority is a Judaic theory, and in this sense, his reference
to ‘Pythagoreans’ in Nat. hom. §12 is a mark of Judaic influence. But it is crucial that Nemesius
nevertheless holds to a theory of doctrinal transferral. Aristobulus relates that “Pythagoras
transferred many things from [the Hebrews’ laws] and inserted them into his own body of
doctrines.”202 Once this (mythic) transferral of Hebraic doctrines had been effected, it becomes
possible to cite a ‘doctrine of the Hebrews’ or a ‘doctrine of the Pythagoreans’ without
distinction. With Nemesius’ last reference to ‘the Hebrews,’ therefore, there is a sense in which
Judaic authority has ceased to be Judaic. In purely doxographical terms, Nat. hom. §12 features
a ‘Hebraic’ precept which has become integrally ‘Hellenic.’ But there is a more profound sense
in which the Judaic authority of Nat. hom. §12 has ceased to be Judaic. This is because it
concerns a matter which is, on Nemesius’ reckoning, purely natural.
Nemesius holds that “things that are natural are the same for all (ta auta para pasin),”203
and, furthermore, he seems to be convinced that oneiric divination is the only natural mode of
divination. When he comments that it is given to some to “prophesy the future” (prophêteuei ta
mellonta),204 the bishop seems to have in mind a divine office.205 Oneiric divination, however,
is for him a natural capacity of the human soul. It is simply given in the Nat. hom. that ‘thought’
(dianoêtikos) can, on occasion – as Nemesius puts it in Nat. hom. §12 – “foretell (thespizon)
the future to us through dreams.”206
Sleep in the Nat. hom. is caused by the soul’s ‘separation’ (chôrismos) from the body –
or rather, by a distancing of soul and body. During sleep, says Nemesius, the soul is “in a way
separated from the body” (tina chôrizmenên tou sômatos).207 For, if the soul were in no degree
201
202
203
204
205
Prophêteuô is a hapax in the Nat. hom., and given its context – an encomium – its denotation must remain
nebulous. However, cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. §42; MORANI 120,18: en prophêtais (citing the prophets of Israel);
and §42; MORANI 122,17: kai prophêteia kai pasa prognôsis (defending the validity of prophetic and mantic
phenomena – but also, crucially for us, distinguishing them).
206
207
30
‘separated,’ nocturnal arousal and lascivious dreams would be ‘up to us’ (which they are not);208
yet if the soul were totally ‘separated,’ a sleeper would slip into a comatose state, cease to
breathe, and “utterly perish” (pantelôs apolêtai).209 In this recurrent – and purely natural –
distancing of soul and body, Nemesius believes that the human soul remains “active in its
dreams, foretelling the future and associating with things intelligible” (en tois oneirois energein
thespizousan to mellon kai tois noêtois plêsiazousan).210
Like contemplation, which Nemesius later calls – in fine Neoplatonic fashion – a state
of ‘separation,’211 oneiric divination is a natural potency of the human soul in its interface with
the organ of ‘thought.’ This means, for Nemesius, that contemplation and divination are alike
channelled by and through the human brain’s central ventricle and the psychic pneuma which
saturates it.212 That Nemesius links oneiromancy and contemplative reason, and seats both in
the brain’s central ventricle, can be inferred from the foregoing sentence – “… foretelling the
future and associating with things intelligible.”213 But it is no less clear that he links
oneiromancy and discursive reason. The bishop notes in Nat. hom. §14 – his treatment of tacit
and explicit logos – that “we frequently go through a whole reasoning process by ourselves in
silence, and converse in dreams (en tois oneirois dialegometha).”214 Both are modes of tacit
logos, and the latter is no less natural than the former. Oneiric ‘converse’ is thus a natural form
of human cognition.215 It is common to the Hebrews and the Pythagoreans, a form of diffuse
revelation.
“There have been many divine epiphanies in times of need,” Nemesius asserts in Nat.
hom. §42, “many remedies given to the sick in dreams (di’ oneirôn), many predictions fulfilled
in every generation (kath’ hekastên genean),” and so forth.216 It is on this terrain, in the Nat.
208
209
Nemesius, Nat. hom. §3; MORANI 40,12–19. Cf. ‘separation’ as the cause of death in §1; MORANI 2,11–13.
210
211
212
213
214
215
Nemesius’ choice of dialegomai, here, to denote this type of oneiric ‘converse’ is suggestive. At the height of
his encomium to human nature, in Nat. hom. §1 (MORANI 15,9–20), he says that humankind “crosses the seas; …
communicates by writing with whomever he wishes beyond the horizon, unimpeded by the body; … converses
with angels and with God (angelois kai theô dialegetai); … discovers the nature of things (tôn ontôn physin),” and
so on.
216
31
hom. – the terrain of natural cognition, diffuse revelation, and universal history – that the
Pythagoreans ‘follow’ the Hebrews on the question of “the only true method of divination.”217
IV. Conclusions
Nemesius’ Nat. hom. is a late-antique Christian treatise which is not only composed for
Christians, but for Hellenes and Jews. Nemesius numbers himself, as a 4th-century Syrian
bishop, among “those who revere … the Hebrews,”218 and his inclusion of ‘Mosaic’ dicta and
‘Hebraic’ doctrines in the Nat. hom. reflects the high esteem in which he holds them.
The non-Hellenic authority of Moses is made to harmonize, in the Nat. hom., with the
highest and firmest conclusions of ‘reason’ – which means, in concrete terms, with the most
compelling principles of Nemesius’ Hellenic authorities. Yet the bishop of Emesa has no
appetite for allegory, and he betrays no tendency to strip Mosaic authority of its prophetic
specificity. It is precisely because the Mosaic books are held to be divinely inspired, that Mosaic
doctrines are believed to be in accordance with ‘reason.’
The non-canonical authority of ‘the Hebrews’ complements that of Moses. Pace Werner
Jaeger’s early 20th-century hypothesis, the function of the term Hebraioi in Nemesius’ text is
not to encrypt citations of Philo, but to designate elements which Nemesius attributes to the
most ancient and authentic interpreters of the Mosaic texts – namely, ‘the Hebrews.’ With one
exception, all of these elements relate to his concept of ‘creation’ (ktisis), and thus, to the
creation narrative of Genesis.
The last ‘doctrine of the Hebrews’ in the Nat. hom. – touching the “true method of
divination”219 – is of particular interest, since there is a sense in which Judaic authority, here,
ceases to be Judaic. This is because it concerns a matter which is purely natural. One of
Nemesius’ first principles is that “things that are natural are the same for all,”220 and oneiric
divination is held to be a natural form of human cognition. This ‘true method of divination’ is
thus not only recognized by the Hebrews, but by the Pythagoreans. It is a form of diffuse
revelation – common to Hellenes, Jews, and Christians.
217
218
219
220
32
i
Without the generosity, good counsel, and trust of Gerd Van Riel, this research could not have been
seen through to completion. Comments made by Mauro Bonazzi and Jan Opsomer on a draft of this
essay helped to sharpen my subsequent investigations. Geert Roskam and Jos Verheyden were
meticulous and sympathetic editors. I am grateful to the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in
Washington, D.C., for a brief but idyllic fellowship in January 2016, during which my reading of the
Nat. hom. was significantly deepened. And finally, I wish to dedicate this essay to John Buchtel, Head
of Special Collections at Georgetown University – and authority on Jacobean literary dedications – for
twenty or so dawn-time conversations en route to Dumbarton Oaks.
33

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Judaic Authority in Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis (390 CE)

De Wulf-Mansion Centre, Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven

I. Hellenic, Judaic, and Christian scriptures in De natura hominis §42

 “Democritus, Heraclitus, and Epicurus,” he writes there, “deny that there is

II. ‘Words of Moses’ in the De natura hominis

Moses and the wisdom of the demiurge

Moses and the shock of recognition

Moses and the harmony of reason

Moses and the generation of souls – by way of Eunomius of Cyzicus

III. ‘Doctrines of the Hebrews’ in the De natura hominis

 Origen “probably” uses the term Hebraioi to reference Philo’s Genesis

The Hebrews and bodily immortality – by way of Theophilus of Antioch

This coheres with, and perhaps explains, Nemesius’ virtually pharmacological

‘A doctrine of the Hebrews’ – by way of Psalms 104

The phrase “doctrine of the Hebrews” (Hebraiôn de dogma) is suggestive,142 because

You [o Lord] make …

The Hebrews and creatio ex abysso – by way of Apollinaris of Laodicea

The Hebrews and true divination – by way of Pythagoras Palaestinus

 sensation in Nat. hom. §6–11 (frontal ventricle);

A Hellenistic version of this ‘dependency theme’ is distilled in a question which is

Ultimately, however, Nemesius’ allusion to a Judaic–Pythagorean nexus is not Christian

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