Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie

Charlotte Köckert investigates the cosmologies of three prominent theologians of the third and fourth centuries - Origen, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. As the literary and systematic locations for their cosmological speculations, she presents their hexaemeral writings and places them within the context of the ancient cosmological debate that has its main origin in the debate on the interpretation of Plato's Timaeus. This debate is outlined in the first part of the doctoral thesis, in which the author analyzes how Platonists of the early Roman Empire (Plutarch, Atticus, Numenius, Alcinous and Porphyry) interpreted Plato's myth. In the second part, the author provides a detailed analysis of the hexaemeral writings and shows the similarities and the differences between Christian and Platonic cosmological speculations. She proposes a reassessment of prominent key concepts, such as the concept of divine will or the idea of creatio ex nihilo, and a redefinition of the relationship between ancient Christian cosmology and contemporary philosophy.