ŚLĄSKIE STUDIA HISTORYCZNO-TEOLOGICZNE

The critique of faith in destiny and the conception of human free will in the treatise of Eusebius of Caesarea Against Hierocles
The apologetic treatise of Eusebius of Caesarea contains a philosophical and theological critique of fatalistic determinism expressed by Apollonius of Tyana in his teaching about the Fates and Necessity. According to Eusebius, attributing one’s own activity to destiny and to superior beings, like the Fates and Necessity, one negates God’s Providence, personal responsibility and human free will. A follower of such views should be considered godless and foolish, but not a true philosopher. In the conception of the Christian author the man is free in his choice of things “which are within our power” and he is responsible for his choices.

Sossianus Hierocles’ The Lover of Truth
Sossianus Hierocles was a high official of the emperor Diocletian and an ardent supporter of the persecution of Christians at the beginning of the 4th century. In 303, in order to give propagandistic reasons for the strict repressions towards the followers of the new religion he published a treatise The Lover of Truth in which, among other things, he drew a comparison between Apollonius of Tyana and Christ. From this lost work we know only a few quotations included in the writings of Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea. The antichristian treatise of Hierocles must have been dangerous for the doctrine of the Church and must have put forward Apollonius as a strong rival of Christ, since it provoked both Christian writers to make a polemical reply. In this article we try to show the circumstances of the origin of The Lover of Truth and to present its character and contents