Abstract

Among the corpus of extant Greek works attributed to Gregory the Wonder-worker is a little treatise about the soul addressed to a certain Tatian. A fragment of the same work, which is missing its introductory preface, appears among the works of Maximus the Confessor. In addition, there are two manuscripts of a Syriac translation that also lack the introductory preface. One of these Syriac manuscripts was found at St. Catherine’s at Mt. Sinai and dates from the seventh century, which indicates that the attribution of the work to such a late figure as Maximus the Confessor is incorrect. Yet the work, which I shall call De animafor the purpose of this inquiry, does not exhibit many obvious linguistic parallels with the admittedly quite small extant corpus of Greek works that are securely attributed to Gregory. Moreover, no early external evidence confirms that Gregory indeed wrote a treatise on the soul. In several of the Greek manuscripts as well as in the Syriac manuscripts the work remains unattributed to any author. In this paper I shall argue that: 1. earlier arguments that De anima depends on Nemenius of Emesa’s De natura hominis are dubious 2. the work displays some linguistic parallels with the extant works of Justin Martyr, which may suggest that it was directed at Justin’s student, Tatian the Syrian, either by Justin himself or by another student of Justin.