The Problem of Evil and the Theory of Contraries from Alexandria and Athens to Armenia in Late Antiquity

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to trace the reception of the problem of evil in Armenian philosophical literature in Late Antiquity. As preliminary material, it offers a detailed discussion of the philosophical tenets of the debate as developed by the Neoplatonists, and especially by the Greek Alexandrian commentators, with a particular focus on David the Invincible. It provides the edition and theoretical analysis of an Armenian pseudepigraphic text, the so-called “Every Evil Is Punishable”, which is attributed to David the Invincible in the Armenian tradition, and has been generally considered as the Armenian translation of (pseudo-)Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Manicheos. The paper also draws a comparison between the Armenian text and (pseu do-)Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Manicheos, on the one hand, and between the Armenian text and two other Greek texts, namely Didymus the Blind’s Contra Manicheos and John of Caesarea’s Syllogisms, on the other.