- Home
- Speakers
- Alexander of Lycopolis
- Chap Xxi. -Some Portions Of The Virtue Have Good In
Alexander of Lycopolis
Alexander of Lycopolis (fl. c. 300 CE). Born around the late 3rd century, likely in Lycopolis, Egypt (modern Asyut), Alexander was a philosopher, possibly a Neoplatonist, known for his treatise Against the Doctrines of Mani. Little is known of his early life or education, but he was trained in Greek philosophical methods, likely in Alexandria’s intellectual hub. Not a traditional preacher, his work resembles a sermon in its reasoned critique of Manichaeism, a dualistic religion he encountered through Mani’s associates, as noted in his text’s second chapter. Written around 275–300 CE, the 26-chapter treatise uses sharp logic to challenge Mani’s teachings as vague and unphilosophical, favoring Christianity’s ethical clarity without explicitly endorsing it. Some, like Photius, later claimed he was a bishop, but scholars like Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont (1697) and Otto Bardenhewer argue he remained a pagan Platonist, given his detached tone. No personal details, like family or death, survive, and he authored no other known works. Alexander said, “The philosophy of the Christians is simple, but it forms manners with care.”
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
Alexander of Lycopolis discusses the concept of virtue and its varying degrees of goodness, using the analogy of the sun and moon remaining uncorrupted despite their interaction with matter, unlike other things that have become depraved. He delves into the idea that within the divine virtue, there are portions with differing levels of goodness, similar to the centaurs with the human part being superior. Alexander explores the notion that the sun and moon, through wise choices, selected less evil parts of matter for their interaction, maintaining their perfection. However, as time passed, the excess evil in matter affected different objects to varying degrees, leading to some parts remaining pure while others became corrupted.
Chap Xxi.--Some Portions of the Virtue Have Good In
CHAP XXI.--SOME PORTIONS OF THE VIRTUE HAVE GOOD IN THEM, OTHERS MORE GOOD; IN THE SUN AND THE MOON IT IS INCORRUPT, IN OTHER THINGS DEPRAVED; AN IMPROBABLE OPINION. But if any one were to apply his mind to what follows, the road would not appear to be plain and straightforward, but more arduous even than that which has been passed. For they say that the sun and moon have contracted no stain from their admixture with matter. And now they cannot say how other things have become deteriorated contrary to their own proper nature. For if, when it was absolute and by itself, the divine virtue was so constituted that one portion of it was good, and another had a greater amount of goodness in it, according to the old tale of the centaurs, who as far as the breast were men, and in the lower part horses, which are both good animals, but the man is the better of the two; so also, in the divine virtue, it is to be understood that the one portion of it is the better and the more excellent, and the other will occupy the second and inferior place. And in the same way, with respect to matter, the one portion possesses, as it were, an excess of evil; while others again are different, and about that other the language will be different. For it is possible to conceive that from the beginning the sun and moon, by a more skilful and prudent judgment, chose for themselves the parts of matter that were less evil for the purposes of add mixture, that they might remain in their own perfection and virtue; but in the lapse of thee, when the evils lost their force and became old, they brought out so much of the excess in the good, while the rest of its parts fell away, not, indeed, without foresight, and yet not with the same foresight, did each object share according to its quantity in the evil that was in matter. But since, with respect to this virtue, nothing of a different kind is asserted by them, but it is to be understood throughout to be alike and of the same nature, their argument is improbable; because in the admixture part remains pure and incorrupt, while the other has contracted some share of evil.
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download
Alexander of Lycopolis (fl. c. 300 CE). Born around the late 3rd century, likely in Lycopolis, Egypt (modern Asyut), Alexander was a philosopher, possibly a Neoplatonist, known for his treatise Against the Doctrines of Mani. Little is known of his early life or education, but he was trained in Greek philosophical methods, likely in Alexandria’s intellectual hub. Not a traditional preacher, his work resembles a sermon in its reasoned critique of Manichaeism, a dualistic religion he encountered through Mani’s associates, as noted in his text’s second chapter. Written around 275–300 CE, the 26-chapter treatise uses sharp logic to challenge Mani’s teachings as vague and unphilosophical, favoring Christianity’s ethical clarity without explicitly endorsing it. Some, like Photius, later claimed he was a bishop, but scholars like Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont (1697) and Otto Bardenhewer argue he remained a pagan Platonist, given his detached tone. No personal details, like family or death, survive, and he authored no other known works. Alexander said, “The philosophy of the Christians is simple, but it forms manners with care.”