Paenitentia, patientia, profectus: Penance, endurance, and moral progress in Origen and the Alexandrian tradition of interpretation of Pss 37--38 (LXX)

This dissertation, Paenitentia, Patientia, Profectus: Penance, Endurance, and Moral Progress in Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition of Interpretation of Pss 37--38 (LXX), argues that the Alexandrian Fathers Origen, Ambrose, and Didymus the Blind present two conflicting models of the relationship between repentance and moral progress in their exegesis of Pss 37--38 (MT 38--39). According to the traditional model, the Alexandrians distinguish between repentance and moral progress. According to a second model, repentance is a part of moral progress. The presence of a second model of repentance and moral progress is significant since the concepts of repentance and moral progress come from two different traditions---repentance from the Bible and moral progress from Stoicism. The biblical literature does not connect repentance with virtue; Stoicism views repentance as a passion, a subcategory of grief. The Alexandrian Fathers, however, describe the effect of repentance and that of virtue in parallel ways; they even call repentance "progress" using the technical term for moral progress in Stoicism (profectus ). In order to incorporate repentance into moral progress, the Alexandrian Fathers also defend the role of the emotions in repentance using a traditional Stoic term, propa&d12; q3ia . This amalgamation of the biblical/Jewish concept of repentance and the Stoic concept of moral progress in the Alexandrian Fathers requires a revision of the traditional scheme of repentance and moral progress that Walther Volker presents in Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes and in his other books on moral progress in the Alexandrian tradition. By making repentance a part of moral progress, the Alexandrians build upon the foundation which Philo laid down, but also advance beyond it. The presence of two conflicting models of the relationship between repentance and moral progress in the Alexandrians shows that the Fathers either were not aware of the conflict or that they were unable to resolve it.