The historical period he has studied has led Hadot to be especially sensitive to the ways in which different systems of thought Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Christian
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have interacted with one another. At the end of antiquity, one is foccll with n
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3
vast phenomenon of transposition, a gigantic mela-phora in which all the forms of structures, political, juridical, literary, philosophical, artistic, have crossed over into new environments, have contaminated themselves with other forms or structures, thus modifying, more or less profoundly, their original meaning, or losing their meaning, or receiving a new meaning (which sometimes is a "mistranslation") [contresens]}
For example, the development of a Latin philosophical language required the adaptation of Greek models, so that to each term of this technical Latin language corresponded a quite specific Greek term; but "on the occasion of this translation many slippages of meaning, if not misinterpretations," were produced.5 Furthermore, when it was a question of the philosophical and theological exegesis by Latin Christian writers of biblical texts, additional problems were posed by the presence of Latin versions of Greek versions of the original Hebrew. Along with the misinterpretations brought about by these translations, Christian writers added their own lack of understanding of Hebraic ideas. Hadot gives the wonderful example of Augustine, who read in the Latin version of Psalm IV: 9 the expression ;,, idipsum. Although the Hebrew text contains wording that simply means "at this very moment" or
"immediately," Augustine, prompted by Neoplatonist metaphysics, discovers in this in idipsum a name of God, "the selfsame." He thus discovers here a metaphysics of identity and divine immutability, interpreting the expression as meaning "in him who is identical with himself." 6 Both a Latin translation and a Neoplatonist metaphysics come between his reading and the text.
To take another example, in Ambrose's sermon De Isaac vel anima, we find undeniable borrowings, indeed literal translations, from Plotinus; more specific11lly, the use of texts from Plotinus that relate to the detachment from the body 11nd to the withdrawal from the sensible as a condition of contemplation. These texts of Plotinian mysticism are joined to texts of Origenean mysticism that derive from Origcn 's commentary on the Song of So11gs. But in this encounter between Plotinian and Origenean mysticism, Plotinian mysticism loses its specificity. One dues not find in Ambrose any important trace of what is essential to Plotinus'
thought, namely the surpassing of the intelligible in order to attain the One in (.'CKtruly. Such texts concerning the mysticism of the One are translated by Ambrose in such a way that they lose this meaning and arc related to the union of lhe soul with the Logos. So Hadot speaks of "a Plotinian ascesis put in the KC:f\' ice of an Origenean mysticism that is a mysticism of Jesus." 7 Thus Ambrose nm identify the Good and Christ, since with respect to the Good he brings in 1'1aul'11 Colossians I: 20, which does indeed concern Christ. Yet, as Hadot remarks,
"thi11 idcntifiuation is absolutely foreign to the whole economy of the Plotinian 11yNtc:m." � Borrowings, ro1111·esms, the introduction of a logic into texts that had a tlilfort<nl logic''
1hi11 whole phenomenon is central to the development of 1111dm1 1huul(lll, 1md, 1111 I l11dot m11kc11 clear, not to ancient thought alone.
4
lntroduclion
In his essay "La fin du paganisme" Hadot examines the struggles, contaminations, and symbioses between paganism and Christianity at the end of antiquity. We can relatively straightforwardly reconstruct the philosophical struggles and divergences; for instance, the claim on the part of pagan polemicists that at the time of his trial and death Jesus did not behave like a sage, the pagan philosophy of history that charged Christians with lacking historical roots and that denied them the right to claim that their tradition was the sole possessor of the truth, the pagan argument that the Christians imagined God as a tyrant with unforeseeable whims who carries out completely arbitrary and irrational actions, such as the creation of the world at a specific moment of time, the election and then rejection of the Jewish people, the incarnation, the resurrection, and, finally, the destruction of the world.1°
We can also discover in the pagan world certain attempts to assimilate Christian elements, and even, in certain epochs, the phenomenon of symbiosis between pagan and Christian thought. Thus, for example, the emperor Alexander Severus used to render honor to certain portraits (effigies) of men who, thanks to their exceptional virtue, had entered the sphere of divinity.
Among these men were Orpheus, Appollonius of Tyana, Abraham, and Christ, and so the emperor made a place for Christ in his pantheon.11 In the case of some individuals one could legitimately wonder whether they were pagans or Christians. The Hymns of Synesius could be considered as having been inspired by the Christian trinitarian doctrine or, on the contrary, as a representative of a pagan theology that one could link to the tradition of Porphyry .12
More historically subtle is the process that Hadot has labeled "contamination," that is, "the process according to which paganism or Christianity were lead to adopt the ideas or the behaviors characteristic of their adversary." 11
Such contamination, which could operate with different degrees of awareness, extended from specific doctrines and behaviors to very general ideas and institutions. Eusebius of Caesarea could bring together the doctrines of Plotinus and Numenius on the First and Second God with the Christian doctrine of the Father and the Son and their relations. 14 And the emperor Julian could wish to impose the organization of the Christian church on paganism, wanting the pagan church to imitate the Christian church's activities.15
Most important from a
point of view, Christianity borrowed
the very idea of theology, its methods and principles, from paganism. As Hadot has shown, both pagans and Christians had an analogous conception of truth; truth was an historical reality of divine origin, a revelation given by God to humanity at a particular time. As a consequence, their conceptions of philosophy and theology were identical - "human thought could only be exegetical, that is, it must try to interpret an initial datum: the revelation contained in myths, traditions, the most ancient laws." 11' Not only wns
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Christianity contaminated by the pagan idea of theology, but the ancient Christian idea of hierarchical monotheism, so central to early Christianity, could be found within the evolution of paganism itself, especially under the influence of the imperial ideology. The conceptions of monotheism and hierarchy that served to define the Byzantine Christian world were thus also contaminations from the pagan world; indeed, these ideas could be said to sum up the entire essence of late paganism. 17 These contaminations inevitably led to distortions, deformations, misunderstandings of all kinds, but the overlap and intersections brought about by these contaminations also led to the evolution of thought, the development of fresh ideas, the creation, by way of creative misinterpretations, of new concepts, categories, arguments, and conclusions.