Of all the approaches to the concept of dualism in Origen’s thought, this article concerns the issue which does not seem very obvious : his understanding of the expression heteros theos. Is it possible to call Jesus “the other God”, existing aside from the only God ? Thanks to the Dialogue with Heraclides, we can judge the profundity of the issue. According to the Dialogue, heteros theos resembles the language used by Marcion, in which “the other God” means the Demiurge, an antagonist of the merciful God. But the expression also invokes the Judeo‑Christian inspired Christology, in which “the other God” signifies a manifestation of the God Jehovah, or a secondary deity, subordinate to Jehovah. In his other writings, Origen usually avoids calling Christ heteros theos, precisely because of the similarity to marcionism and monarchianism. However, forced to resolve the theological problem presented in the Dialogue, Origen decides to explain the meaning of the term “heteros”. His explanations are inspired by Aristotle’s categories, much simplified and illustrated by examples from the Bible. Origen shows that “difference” can be understood as opposition, but there are other possible interpretations of the term. More than anything, it is relative towards a particular characteristic. Origen’s argumentation, in comparison with other discussions concerning the term (Justin Martyr and Tryphon, Peter and Simon the Magician), illustrates that the understanding of God as “different” may lead to the emergence of dualistic concepts, which are often very radical.

In his De Iside, Plutarch uses the example of the Osirian myth and the cases of Osiris, Horus and Typhon (Seth) to define his doctrine of dualism which according to him offers an explication for the philosophical problem of the existence of Good and Evil. Since the philosopher has based himself on Egyptian mythology, the present study seeks to elucidate what the documentation of “pharaonic” Egypt teaches us about the conception of an opposition between Good and Evil, about the place that the complex figure of Seth takes within this concept, and about the typically Egyptian binary way of thinking.

The Chaldaean Oracles are works of Middle Platonist poetry in Greek dating from the late 2nd century AD and attributed to Julian the Theurgist, who may have produced them together with his father Julian the Chaldaean. Only fragments survive, most via late antique Neoplatonists, whose many and varied individual interpretations often deviate from any meaning possibly deducible from the primary text. The question of dualism in the Chaldaean Oracles can be seen from two perspectives. From an ethical point of view, man stands in the middle between the intelligible and the material and has to choose his way. The material world is described in negative terms as a kind of netherworld and a most dangerous dwelling‑place for man who is exposed to seduction by material pleasure and attacked by demons personifying the passions ; he should turn his mind towards the intelligible. From an ontological point of view, however, matter is not an autonomous (and evil) principle, but originates from the highest entity, the intelligible Father ; for this reason, it is called πατρογενής (although this might be an inference by the interpreters of the Oracles). Ethical dualism is thus combined with ontological monism. The Chaldaean notion of not two, but three worlds, material, ethereal, and fiery (= intelligible), as well as the idea that in special cases a material body might be transformed into an ethereal one, could be interpreted as a kind of mediation of the two positions.

The term ‘Manichaean’ has come to be regarded as synonymous with a radical dualistic perspective, and is now utilised in all sorts of contexts such as literature and politics. Gardner examines what can be known of the actual teachings of the third‑century sage and self‑declared ‘Apostle of Jesus Christ’ known as Mani or Manichaios. His extant writings are surveyed in order to determine what he says about the nature of God and the origin of matter and evil. Particular attention is given to the terminology and symbolism applied to the idea of two eternal and opposite principles, the kingdoms of light and darkness. Gardner considers possible origins for Mani’s teachings in the Judaeo‑Christian, Gnostic and Iranian traditions ; together with the question of further developments within the community after its founder’s death.

The Stoic system is alternatively described as “dualist” because its physics relies on two principles, God and matter, or as “monist”, because these two principles are intimately linked, and belong to the same body. It is difficult to describe the Stoic system as monist, since every substance is a body, and the two principles, while united in the same body, coexist from all eternity since matter is not created by God. But it is inappropriate as well to describe it as “dualist”, because the inferior principle is completely passive and is not a cause, but endures the effect of the active cause. Moreover, matter is not responsible for evil, even if some interpreters, ancient and modern, claimed it : the only metaphysical principle which accounts for the existence of evil is the “affinity of the contraries”, according to which good cannot exist without evil and agent without patient, but this is not a dualist explanation.

Contrary to what is often assumed since the seminal studies of Puech, I argue that Numenius’ interest in Oriental Wisdom is part of his Platonist stance. The most important testimony is fr. 1a des Places, which shows that Plato is not only the reference‑point but also the criterion and measure to judge the truthfulness of the other philosophical traditions and religions. Numenius’ dualism therefore can be explained as an attempt to preserve the transcendence of the first principle, the typical problem of Middle Platonists as opposed to Hellenistic philosophies such as Stoicism.

L’article examine la tension qui existe entre tendances monistes et dualistes dans l'ancien hermétisme et propose de considérer que les écrits hermétiques, tout en opérant dans un cadre dualiste pluriforme (ontologique, cosmologique, anthropologique), soutiennent un modele moniste de la réalité issue d’une divinité transcendante et tout‑englobante. L’imposition d’un état d’esprit dualiste est typique pour les premieres étapes de l’initiation hermétique, suivies par un dépassement progressif de toutes les dualités (Aufhebung) et l’acquisition finale d'un point de vue totalisant et noétique du monde.

Known primarily through the heresiological writings, Hermogenes goes down in history as a dualist, almost a ditheist, who claimed the doctrine of two coexisting and ingenerated principles : God and the matter. Cleared up the commonplaces and the heresiological strategies of our sources, the analysis of the fragments and of the testimonies about Hermogenes shows that his doctrine was the expression of a specific ontological dualism : far from being an innovative thinker, Hermogenes refused the emerging doctrine of the “creatio ex nihilo” and affirmed the traditional view of the creation as the result of the demiurgic act of God who fashioned and ordered the preexistent matter. According Hermogenes, this dualism did not undermine monotheism, because God and the matter are unequal regarding their essence. It was on the basis of this axiom that he elaborated a theological system characterized by a sophisticate interlacement of anthropological, Christological and soteriological implications.

Pauline anthropology is of a fundamentally Hebrew nature : the body‑σῶμα is a holistic concept that designates man as creature in the world. The body is the way “I” is present in the world : man does not have a body, he is a body. Portraying the whole person, the body is the “temple of the Holy Spirit”, the setting for a sacred presence that transcends humankind (1Cor 6 : 12‑20). However, this body is also the scene of a conflict between flesh and spirit. The flesh‑σάρξ concept does not apply to a part of man but to the whole of man as a precarious, fragile and mortal being. As such, the human being stands up as an enemy of God, taking his human condition on as the foundation of his values (Rom 8 : 5‑8). The Spirit‑πνεῦμα is God’s sphere of influence in the world, to which one becomes affiliated through his spirit. Flesh leads to death while the Spirit turns to life. These two forces compete for the human body. Yet, such a dualism is not by nature ontological but historical : one remains capable of choosing between remaining a prisoner of mortal flesh or letting the Spirit of God dwell in him (Rom 8 :10).

Cette contribution est le résumé d’une communication sur la notion de la matiere dans le commentaire de Calcidius sur le Timée de Platon. Pour arriver a un dualisme minimal, Calcidius (a) combine des éléments d’Aristote, des Stoiciens, et de Numénius, mais (b) rejette la notion qu’il attribue aux Hébreux, certains aspects de la notion de Numénius, et d’une notion qu’il attribue a certains Platoniciens.

The Augustinian definition of the concept of natura rules out any form of dualism : all nature depends on God, it is what God wanted ; but, in the case of man, nature changes according to the actual relation to God, just as the image of God in the soul can be distorted by sin or reshaped by grace. This historical conception of nature sets Augustine against the Manichaean and Pelagian conception of nature as a static datum.

Sāṃkhya, which is one of the oldest systems (darśana) of Indian Philosophy, advocates an uncompromising dualism in its theoretical metaphysical teachings. There is a fundamental dualism or split at the very heart of reality, and this dualism or split is the fundamental fact of existence.According to Sāṃkhya, there are two co‑present and co‑eternal realities. The first one is the principle of pure Consciousness, the Puruṣa, which is inactive, indifferent, eternally free and Alone. Puruṣa is the soul, the self, the spirit, the subject, the knower. The other of the two co‑present and co‑eternal realities of Sāṃkhya is Nature or Prakṛti : it is the primordial and unconscious “stuff ” of the entire unmanifest and manifest world, whereas Puruṣa is the presupposition of individual consciousness. Nature or Prakṛti is the ultimate material principle and thus the substratum from which manifest, in the presence of the self (puruṣa), the gross and subtle bodies including the mental organs of all living beings. But Sāṃkhya is not a dualism of mind and body or even a dualism of subject and object.In classical Sāṃkhya the world is not derived from consciousness, nor is consciousness derived from the world. The classical Sāṃkhya refuses to understand the world simply as a product of consciousness. It refuses to see the world as an illusory projection of consciousness, and thus it rejects any idealistic monism. Similarly, it refuses to see consciousness simply as a product of the world, and thus it rejects any kind of materialism or naturalism. Thus, it steers an intermediate course or path between the Indian notion of a conscious, cosmic Self or its equivalent, which is the ground of all being, on the one hand, and the notion of a conscious self, which is only an empirical, relative construction, on the other. It maintains, rather, a fundamental dualism, the opposite poles of which function in a kind of dialectical interaction. The fact of consciousness and the fact of the world are two irreductible realities in constant interplay with one another. Though quite separate and unconnected, Spirit and Nature mutually interact to bring about the process of creation, self‑awareness and, finally, enlightenment. But Spirit or Puruṣa and Nature or Prakṛti are always only in proximity to one another, never in actual contact. This is a puzzling notion if one thinks of Puruṣa and Prakṛti as two things. Puruṣa and Prakṛti are two realities of a completely different order.Right knowledge is the knowledge of the separation of the Puruṣa from the Prakṛti. The individual soul (jīva) has to realize itself as the pure Puruṣa through discrimination between Puruṣa and Prakṛti.From a rational point of view, classical Sāṃkhya can be regarded as a bundle of contradictions. Some problems regarding its interpretation are the problem of the nature of the Sāṃkhya dualism and the problem of the connection or relationship of Puruṣa and Prakṛti. The Sāṃkhya system clings to spiritualistic pluralism and dualistic realism, but its very logic indeed impels it to embrace idealistic monism or absolutism.

As the most rigorous upholder of monotheism, the pseudo‑Clementine homilist is at strife with the Marcionite dualism. More precisely, he comes up against the Apelles’ doctrine, which is all the more dangerous as it establishes the unicity of God and reduces the demiurge of the world and author of the Law to a created power. The theory of the «false pericopes» of the Scriptures is specially directed against Apelles, in order to protect the identity between the supreme God and the Creator of the world. It seems that the conjectures about the origin of the Evil One, which attempt to avoid a new form of dualism, are also directed towards the refutation of Apelles : to the obedient demiurgical angel is opposed the providential function of the Evil One, who has to put the human beings’ piety to trial ; and against Apelles who maintains the severance between corporeal reality and God’ being, the homilist makes use of the audacious theory of the mixing of the elements to settle both the connaturality of the Evil One and of the body of God and the blamelessness of God with reference to the will of the Tempter, which is contingent.

La discussione sull’idea del buono (to agathon) occupa uno spazio marginale nel libro VI della Repubblica, ma comporta un eccezionale impegno teorico : di qui la vastita della letteratura esegetica che contrasta con la brevita del testo platonico. Il problema cruciale e questo : in Repubblica VI 504a‑509c to agathon non e piu solo un principio di valorizzazione e un criterio di valutazione di cose e condotte – com’e consueto in Platone – ma assume il ruolo di principio ontologico ed epistemologico. Questa posizione ha spesso suggerito interpretazioni di tipo “teologico” dell’idea del buono (identificata a volte con l’Uno neoplatonico, altre con il Demiurgo del Timeo). Quello che si puo affermare sulla base del testo, e che Platone ha conferito in queste pagine della Repubblica un primato al vertice etico del triangolo i cui altri vertici sono quello ontologico e quello epistemologico ; l’intento e quello di offrire una fondazione etica assoluta (antiprotagorea), mediante la connessione della sfera del valore con quelle dell’essere e della verita (quindi anche in ambito politico una giustificazione ultimativa al diritto dei filosofi a governare).L’unificazione delle dimensioni etica, ontologica ed epistemologica sarebbe parsa teoricamente insostenibile ad Aristotele, cui si deve una critica devastante alla teoria platonica del buono.

The article again treats the question of whether ≪the Idea of the Good is a Reality in the Universe, or beyond it. Is it immanent or transcendent ?≫ (Rufus Jones, 1863‑1948). Plato scholars such as Matthias Baltes (1940‑2003) and Luc Brisson have defended the thesis that Plato’s Idea of the Good is, on the one hand, beyond being (epekeina tes ousias) in dignity and power, but, on the other, is nevertheless not transcendent over being. The article delivers first (I) the most important arguments for the thesis of Baltes and Brisson. Then (II), it gives two counterarguments against the thesis. Third (III), it concludes with some general questions concerning the deflationist interpretation of Plato’s Republic 509b9‑10, and defends again the transcendence of the Idea of the Good.

Un debat tres vif eut lieu parmi les commentateurs medioplatoniciens sur le rapport entre la forme du bien de la Republique et le demiurge du Timee. Certains d’entre eux, comme Plutarque et Atticus, parvinrent a identifier ces deux entites, d’autres, comme Numenius, a situer les deux principes dans une relation hierarchique, en attribuant au bien la qualification de ≪premier dieu≫ et de pere (pater) et au demiurge celle de ≪second dieu≫ et de producteur (poietes). Cet article se propose d’examiner la question de l’identite de la forme du bien avec le demiurge sur des bases nouvelles, en prenant comme point de depart une interpretation metaphorique de la figure du demiurge, qui ne se presente pas comme un principe metaphysique independant, mais comme une description metaphorique de l’element causal‑efficient du monde des formes, c’est a dire du vivant intelligible. Le demiurge coinciderait donc avec la totalite active et dynamique du monde intelligible (panteles zoon). Dans la seconde partie de l’article est prise en consideration l’hypothese que la superiorite de la forme du bien par rapport aux autres formes est du meme genre que celle du demiurge, dans la mesure ou le bien aussi peut etre compris comme la totalite du kosmos intelligible. Il s’agit d’une hypothese qui ne va pas sans difficultes, mais qui merite d’etre examinee jusqu’au bout.

Self‑sufficiency of the Good and dependency of Being ? From Republic to Sophist. Even thought Parmenides doesn’t use αὐτάρκης and any noun derived from this root, the Being is conceived by him as self‑sufficient (v. 8,33). Plato, for its part, never uses this term concerning the intelligible reality ; however, in the Sophist, he allusively challenges Parmenides self‑sufficiency of Being and outlines an ontology that is conflicting with it. On the other hand self‑sufficiency is explicitly ascribed by Plato to the human good (Philebus, 20d, 67a), to the divine world (Timaeus, 33d), and also to the virtuous man (Republic, 387d). This paper aims to demonstrate that these facets (theological or anthropological) of self‑sufficiency are consistent with the supremacy of the idea of the Good in the Republic, which can be understood as a structural kind of self‑sufficiency.