At the Source of the Christian Concept of Evil — St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Side Notes on Marian Zdziechowski's Work, Pessimism, Romanticism and the Foundations of Christianity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/TiCz.2025.012Keywords
Plotinus, St. Augustine, evil, St. Gregory of NazianzusAbstract
The article attempts to review Marian Zdziechowski's interpretation of evil in the philosophy of St. Augustine and to assess its validity by re-establishing the historical intellectual context of Augustine’s postulates. The latter are contrasted and compared with the statements of his patristic peers from the Greek-speaking world (the Cappadocian Fathers) and with the concept of evil in Plotinus, the preeminent philosopher of the Late Antiquity. A survey of the statements of the Cappadocians helps establish the scope of homogeneity of the Christian approach to the problem of evil, while Plotinian metaphysics of evil is retraced to recreate the necessary background for St. Augustine views that Zdziechowski omits. The concept of evil as a phenomenon that lacks substance, the role of free will in combating evil and the role of suffering in spiritual life are reviewed and discussed. Within this context the author concludes that Zdziechowski’s interpretation of St. Augustine’s doctrine as pessimistic is not sufficiently founded.
References
Anselm of Canterbury. “On freedom of choice.” W Truth, freedom and evil: three philosophical dialogues, edited and translated by Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1967.
Aristotle. Metaphysica, edited and translated by Werner Jaeger. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957.
Armstrong, Arthur, Hilary and Markus, Robert, Austin. Christian faith and Greek philosophy. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1960.
Augustine. Against the Academicians. Translated by Patricia Garvey R.S.M. Wisconsin: University Press Milwaukee, 1957.
Augustine. Letter 186: Letters 156–210, edited and translated by Boniface Ramsey. New York: New City Press, 2004.
Augustine. On free choice of the will. Translated by Anna Benjamin and L.H. Hackstaff. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.
Augustine. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. Vol. I, Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1871.
Augustine. The Enchiridion on faith, hope and love. Translated by Joseph Shaw. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1961.
Augustine. The Spirit and the Letter. Translated by William John Sparrow-Simson. London: Society for promoting Christian knowledge, 1925.
Emilsson, Eyjólfur. Plotinus. London: Taylor&Francis. 2017.
Gilson, Étienne. The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine. Translated by L.E.M. Lynch. New York: Random House, 1960.
Gregory of Nazianzus. “Oration 14.” W Select orations. Translated by Martha Vinson. Bloomington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003.
Gregory of Nazianzus. “Oration 16.” W The Early Church Fathers and Other Works. Translated by Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow. Edinburgh: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1867.
Gregory of Nazianzus. “Oration 40.” W From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series. Vol. 7. Translated by Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1894.
Gregory Of Nyssa. Letter to Eustathia, Ambrosia, and Basilissa: The Letters. Translated by Anna M. Silvas. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2007.
Gregory of Nyssa. “On the Making of Man.” W From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series, Vol. 5. Translated by Henry Austin Wilson, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.
Krąpiec, Albert. Dlaczego zło. Rozważania filozoficzne. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 1995.
Miłosz, Czesław. Prywatne obowiązki. Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Pojezierze, 1990.
Osek, Ewa. „Grzech jako choroba duszy w homilii św. Bazylego Wielkiego O tym, że Bóg nie jest sprawcą zła.” Vox Patrum 49 (2006).
Plato. Sophist: Theaetetus, Sophist. Translated by Harold N. Fowler. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1921.
Plotinus. Enneads. Translated by Arthur Henry Armstrong. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966–1988.
Przyszychowska, Marta. „Czy Ojcowie Kościoła przed Augustynem mówili o grzechu pierworodnym?” Vox Patrum 59 (2013).
Rist, John. Plotinus – the road to reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
Rist, John. “Plotinus and Christian philosophy.” W The Cambridge companion to Plotinus, edited by Lloyd Gerson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Sheldon-Williams, I.P. “The Greek Christian Platonist Tradition from the Cappadocians to Maximus and Eriugena.” W The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, edited by Arthur Hilary Armstrong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
Skoczyński, Jan. Pesymizm filozoficzny Mariana Zdziechowskiego, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1983.
St Gregory of Nyssa. “The Great Catechism.” W From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5. Translated by William Moore and Henry Austin Wilson, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1893.
Turek, Waldemar. “Id non culpam, sed poenam esse iudicabam.” (Confessiones VII 3, 5).
Turzyński, Piotr. „Cierpienie jako droga w ujęciu św. Augustyna.” Vox Patrum, no. 55 (2010).
Zdziechowski, Marian. Pesymizm, romantyzm a podstawy chrześcijaństwa, t. 1. Kraków: Drukarnia Czas, 1915.
Zdziechowski, Marian. Pesymizm, romantyzm a podstawy chrześcijaństwa, t. 2. Kraków: Drukarnia Czas, 1915.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Justyna Kroczak
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
CC BY ND 4.0. The Creator/Contributor is the Licensor, who grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work on the fields indicated in the License Agreement.
- The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work/related rights item specified in § 1 within the following fields: a) recording of Work/related rights item; b) reproduction (multiplication) of Work/related rights item in print and digital technology (e-book, audiobook); c) placing the copies of the multiplied Work/related rights item on the market; d) entering the Work/related rights item to computer memory; e) distribution of the work in electronic version in the open access form on the basis of Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 3.0) via the digital platform of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press and file repository of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
- Usage of the recorded Work by the Licensee within the above fields is not restricted by time, numbers or territory.
- The Licensor grants the license for the Work/related rights item to the Licensee free of charge and for an unspecified period of time.
FULL TEXT License Agreement
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 137
Number of citations: 0
