Abstract

The basic theme is the development of the Platonic notion of Eros and its relation to the soul from the Platonic texts through the neo-Platonic and early Christian writers. Rist is concerned to modify Nygren's thesis that Eros is situated as a radically upward movement, while the downward movement of love is to be assigned exclusively to the Christian notion of Agape. He tries to show how Plato, and even more Plotinus, and finally Origen associated a downward movement with Eros and attributed it to the Good, the One, or to God, as the case might be. Some other suggestive contributions are his criticism of J. Gould's attempt to apply the Rylean distinction between "knowing how" and "knowing that" to an interpretation of the Socratic dictum that "Virtue is knowledge"; and his pointing out of the hyperintellectualization of the notion of virtue beginning with Aristotle's sharp distinction between theoria and praxis, continuing into the neo-Platonic tradition, until its eventual disintegration, under the partial influence of Gnosticism, into anti-nominianism.—E. A. R.