Nemesius of Emesa on Fate

Abstract

This paper analyses the section of Nemesius of Emesa’s treatise On the Nature of Man dedicated to fate. The main objective is to analyse Nemesius’s response to the supporters of a notion of fate within the framework of astral determinism, Stoicism, and Middle Platonism. Following a mainly descriptive method, the paper focuses on Nemesius’s own thought and not just on his treatment of his sources, as much of the existing literature has done until now. Without pretending to give a definitive answer on the originality of his own philosophy, we examine how Nemesius assigns some of the functions of fate in one of his Middle Platonic sources to divine providence. In doing so, he develops a personal theology in which he gives an innovative prominence to divine free will and transcendence in the traditional philosophical problem of providence.

1. Introduction

As is well known, early Christian thought had a complex relationship with the notion of fate (Karamanolis 2021, pp. 158–61; Burns 2021, pp. 71–72). The most widespread position was to limit the power of fate and even to deny its existence, in order to exalt divine providence above it. At the end of the fourth century, we find an interesting Christian criticism of the notion of fate in Emesa of Syria. It is due to an author of whom we know very little, except his name, Nemesius, and his authorship of a famous treatise, De Natura Hominis (hereafter De Nat. Hom.). Apparently, he was bishop of Emesa (present-day Homs) and enjoyed an acquaintance with Greek medicine and philosophy (Dusenbury 2021, pp. 5–8; Karamanolis 2018; Ritter 2018, p. 1579; Chase 2005, pp. 626–28; Motta 2004, pp. 19–31; Vanhamel 1982, col. 92–93; Amann 1931, col. 62–63).

De Nat. Hom. is a writing on human being. It is even the very first extant work on human being studied in a holistic way, not from the point of view of physiology (like the homonymous treatise belonging to the Corpus Hippocraticum) or in the general framework of a study on life or the soul (as Aristotle proceeds in his De Anima). Instead, while introducing several elements of medical science, this treatise fundamentally intends to carry out a philosophical exploration of human beings and their very nature (Moreschini 2013, p. 834). In this framework, Nemesius concludes his book by studying how human beings relate to fate and providence. He sees this inquiry as a natural continuation of his account on free will (Streck 2005, p. 27) and an important part of it, especially if we bear in mind that the target audience for his work is not only composed of Christians, but also non-believers (De Nat. Hom., 42; Morani 1987, p. 120, line 22).

Amand (1973, pp. 568–69) suggested that the section on ‘fate’ (εἱμαρμένη) of De Nat. Hom. (chap. 35–38) was an independent treatise inserted later in Nemesius’s writing. From a redactional point of view, it is true that the section has its own unity. However, the whole of the book is actually constructed by overlapping one section next to the other such that the author exploits different sources for each section. Consequently, the unity of the work is not quite achieved (Amand 1973, p. 551), although this does not mean that the book does not follow an organised plan (Dusenbury 2021, pp. 26–28). In that sense, the section on fate is no more editorially separate from the rest of the work than other parts. Moreover, a mention of this section can already be found in the second chapter of the book (Morani 1987, p. 34, line 17).

As for the sources on fate in De Nat. Hom., Nemesius seems to be dealing mainly with Greek works. He aligns with Philo and other earlier Christian authors in rejecting astrological determinism, drawing on the argumentation of Carneades (Amand 1973, pp. 568–69). Although he is based in Syria, it is not easy to find in his book evident influence of the important work inspired by Bardaisan, The Book of Laws (Drijvers 1965), in which we find a suggestive development of the notion of fate contraposed to nature and subjected to divine providence (Jurasz 2021; Ramelli 2021). Nemesius’s predecessor at Emesa, Eusebius, who is much closer temporally to him (Cebrián 2018, pp. 28–31), includes several passages in his homilies that bear some similarities to Nemesius’s treatment of fate, as we shall see. Indeed, the connections between their concerns on the question of determinism and free will have been pointed out by Winn (2011, pp. 114–15, note 66).

My programme in this article is to study chapters 35–38, in which Nemesius deals with fate in the context of the question of ‘what is up to us’ (τὸ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν), the actions that are under our control. This is a technical term typically employed in this context by other authors such as the Stoics or Alexander of Aphrodisias. Such a study is close to the treatment of the concept of ‘deliberation’ (βούλευσις), a notion taken up by Nemesius in order to delineate a theory of free will.

The purpose of this article is rather modest: I simply aim to showcase Nemesius’s exposition and criticism of fate in the aforementioned chapters, detailing aspects of his arguments that were until now presented by scholarship in the form of rather general accounts. Nemesius has largely been studied as a witness to various philosophical doctrines. My aim, however, is not to focus primarily on this aspect, but rather on Nemesius himself. This means examining the reasons he provides for rejecting certain views on fate and presenting his personal perspective on this matter. While it is true that our author draws on his sources both to critique his intellectual adversaries and to support his own views, this does not preclude him from formulating a personal synthesis. Nevertheless, although several of his sources will be considered, the primary goal of this paper is not to argue the degree to which Nemesius is original in this regard. It is sufficient for me to highlight the internal coherence of his treatise.

2. Criticism of Astral Determinism

Chapter 35 is the first devoted to the question of fate. By way of clarification, I would like to begin by stating that it seems preferable to translate εἱμαρμένη as ‘fate’ rather than ‘destiny’. Indeed, later on (chap. 37), Nemesius gives a definition of what he understands by fate by appealing to the Stoa: “Fate is a concatenation of causes, for this is how the Stoics define it, i.e., as an order and binding together that admits of no exception”.1 Thus, fate is a causal concatenation a tergo and therefore not a ‘destiny’ in the sense of a goal, a telos. This way of understanding fate encourages us to exclude a term such as ‘destiny’, which rather points to an aim or a goal to be reached. It must be said, however, that Nemesius himself holds a personal conception of fate that does not correspond to the Stoic one, which we will see below.

Chapter 35 continues the question of ‘deliberation’ studied in chapter 34 in relation to ‘what is up us’ (τὸ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν). As mentioned in the introduction, this topic is central to the question of fate in philosophical literature. In chapter 34, it is established that we deliberate about things that are up to us and are therefore contingent, i.e., that they may or may not happen and are liable to be prevented by certain causes.

From this point onwards, throughout the entire section on fate in De Nat. Hom., there is a successive refutation of a series of views of fate that are incompatible with the Christian worldview as understood by Nemesius.

Chapter 35 first refutes the idea of astrological fatal determinism (everything is determined by the action of the heavenly bodies) by giving the following reasons.

• If the astrological causal determinism of fate were true, then praise, reproach, punishments, rewards, etc. and all laws would become useless. It is an argument inspired by Aristotle (Eth. Nic. III.5, 1113b21–33) integrated in the discussion of Carneades, and it will be repeated many times in the different philosophical accounts of fate: if everything happens necessarily, it is absurd to praise and reproach men, to punish or reward them, because they only act according to what is dictated by fate.
• If all events were determined by the stars, then ‘what is up to us’ (τὸ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν) and ‘what is contingent’ (τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον) would disappear. In a word, all events would be necessary and there would be nothing contingent and nothing free.
• Astral determinism would also be destructive for divine providence (πρόνοια) itself and consequently also for εὐσέβεια, human piety towards God: if everything is necessary, then there would be no divine freedom, everything would respond to a fatal necessity and not to a deliberate divine design. Therefore, it makes no sense either for human beings to freely thank God or to beg for gifts from Him, for the divinity would not be free to give them to the human beings or to freely answer their prayers.
• If astral determinism were true, then the stars themselves would become evil, for they would be responsible for many evils. Moreover, God would be unjust since he is the creator of the stars. Consequently, a theodicy founded on ‘free will defence’ would become impossible.

As we can see, first Nemesius’s criticism centres on the usual argument against fate as a form of determinism that would endanger freedom of will on the one hand, and the very conception of a provident God on the other. This first section of Nemesius’s account of fate is not particularly original and has parallels in many other Christian authors (Hegedus 2007, pp. 113–18; Torrijos Castrillejo 2025, pp. 114–19). Significantly, we find it in his predecessor at Emesa, Eusebius (Eusebius Emesenus, De Arbitrio; Buytaert 1953, pp. 18, 22). However, Dusenbury (2021, pp. 132, 145) has recognised in it a personal feature of Nemesius’s thinking: if fate guided all things, including the human ones, the human being would become a “mere instrument” of fate. But, as Nemesius believes, human dignity is above this.

3. Criticism of Stoicism

In the same chapter, Stoic determinism and compatibilism (Salles 2005; Boeri 2014) are also contested. In her famous book on Stoic determinism, Susanne Bobzien (1998, pp. 368–69) believes that Nemesius attests in this section to a critique of Stoic compatibilism that is not only dependent on Alexander of Aphrodisias, but also takes on a new face, probably relying on Philopator, On Fate. In fact, he quotes Chrysippus and Philopator, but it seems likely that he could know their thought through a secondary source. In any case, this section is considered an important testimony of Stoic thought (Boeri and Salles 2014, p. 718, §29.1).

Nemesius expounds the view of the Stoics, attributing to them a compatibilist understanding of the relationship between fate and free will: “Some say that both our freedom and fate are preserved. For fate [they say] contributes something to each thing that happens”.2 According to the Stoics, every action (1) that is brought about by an internal impulse can be said to be ‘up to us’, (2) provided that neither fate nor any other external cause prevents the realisation of that impulse.

Nemesius’s refutation of their doctrine is based on Stoic principles themselves. His reasoning follows these steps:

• “In the presence of identical causes, as they themselves say, there is every necessity that the same things should happen”.3
• It is not possible that there are causes in the universe other than the ones that are in fact there.
• Therefore, every living thing will always act in the same way: the same actually existent causes will always apply and will necessarily produce the same effects. But this contradicts our experience.

Moreover, Nemesius denies the major premise in two ways:

• He believes that ‘what is up to us’ cannot always produce the same effect. By its very nature, it must be able to produce either one effect or another. But if the ‘impulse’ and the ‘judgement’ (which, according to the Stoics, are up to us) depend on fate, then the result is not up to us.
• If, in the presence of certain causes, the ‘impulse’ does not occur, then the major would be false: it is not true that in the presence of certain causes, certain effects are produced.

In resolution, if the Stoics’ position were true, a human being would be no more ‘master of his acts’ than are other entities, which also have an internal impulse that arises from certain causes. Within Nemesius’s approach, since he establishes a profound gap between animal and human action, the Stoics’ account of action is too physicalist.

Later, in chapter 38, Nemesius alludes to the Stoics again. I bring this mention forward here, since it is then a little out of place in relation to the very programme of the criticism of fate set out by Nemesius. There, he recalls the idea of the ‘eternal return’ and the ‘great year’, by which all history is completed: when the stars will align again and all the elements of the universe will be settled as they were at the beginning, a new ‘great year’ will begin and all events will be repeated down to the smallest detail: “For Socrates and Plato will exist again, and each person with the same friends and fellow-citizens, and they will have the same experiences, meet with the same events and undertake the same activities”.4 This return is infinite and will be reproduced incessantly forever. However, Nemesius does not provide any criticism of this position, because he must consider it to be included in his preceding refutation of Stoic compatibilism.

In the same passage, he does take the opportunity to dismiss the misconception of some people who suggested that Christians had derived their idea of the resurrection of the flesh from this Stoic assertion. von Harnack (1916, p. 100) suggested that this accusation may have been due to Porphyry’s Contra Christianos. Nevertheless, the association between resurrection and eternal return is earlier. In fact, Tatian (Ad Graecos 3) refers to the doctrine of the Stoics, saying that “by means of the universal conflagration the same men will resurrect to do the same actions”.5 In this sentence, he employs the verb ἀνίστημι, generally used to refer to resurrection. Moreover, he is contrasting there the doctrine of resurrection with that of conflagration. Origen also refers to the thesis of the conflagration and the successive worlds to compare it with the resurrection of the flesh in Against Celsus 5, 20 (however, his interlocutor, Celsus, said that the resurrection was inspired not by the conflagration but by the metempsychosis: see Against Celsus 2, 54).

4. New Criticism of Astral Determinism

After Nemesius’s first criticism of Stoicism, astrological fatal determinism is again challenged in chapter 36. In particular, Egyptian astrological divination is targeted for his criticism. The source on which our author might rely here is perhaps a lost work from Origen, of which we learn from Philoponus in De Op. Mundi, IV, 18 (Reichardt 1897, pp. 195–96). Nemesius’s first refutation of the existence of the alleged divinatory art is developed thus:

• Fate concerns necessary things.
• But Egyptian priests claim to be able to change it by means of certain rites.
• Therefore, according to 1, fate is about necessary things, but according to 2, it is about contingent and non-necessary things: this entails a contradiction.

After this first argument, Nemesius lists a series of theses that he considers absurd:

• That ‘the trajectories’ (σχήματα) do not correspond to the prediction because ‘a god has prevented it’.
• That it is only ‘up to us’ to pray, but not to choose our actions: Aren’t prayers a kind of human action that should therefore also not be ‘up to us’?
• The distribution of the divinatory art seems unsound insofar it is possessed only by some and not by all men. Accordingly, he infers:
  • If everyone could possess it, then everyone could change fate: for, if one could change fate, then, for him ‘fate is nothing’, but, if everyone could, fate would be nothing to none.
  • If only some people possess the art of divination, according to what criteria would it be distributed?
    • If it is distributed by fate (as one could think, since it is something ‘divine’), then changing the fate is not up to us.
    • If it is distributed by something else, that thing would be above fate.
    • In any case, if such an art is unequally distributed, this would seem to be an injustice, even if it were distributed according to the merits, because merit itself would be produced by fate.

As a Christian, Nemesius is convinced that it is possible for a human being to know the future if God, who knows it (De Nat. Hom., 43; Morani 1987, pp. 129–30), reveals it. However, if knowledge of the future were to respond to some other cause different from God, then various absurdities would follow.

5. The Outcome of Actions as the Work of Providence, Not of Fate

In chapter 37, Nemesius criticises another compatibilist doctrine, which has proved difficult for scholars to identify. However, in chapter 38, he attributes to Plato the idea that our choices are ‘up to us’ despite the fact that the ‘outcome’ of them depends on some fatal necessity (Morani 1987, p. 110, lines 9–15). Thus, he might be referring to a Middle Platonic approach, the author of which is difficult for us to identify. That this idea is linked to a Platonic source seems plausible, since it could be associated with an interpretation of the myth of Er from Plato’s Republic (X, 617e), quoted by Nemesius in chapter 38: the choice and the responsibility lies with human beings, the consequences of choices are determined by fate.

According to the authors reported by Nemesius, a distinction must be made between the ‘choice’ (αἵρεσις) and its ‘outcome’ (ἀπόβασις). The choice is ‘up to us’, but the outcome ‘depends on fate’. In order to refute it, Nemesius draws the following absurd consequences from this theory:

• If this is true, then fate would be imperfect, since it only deals with certain things (outcomes) while leaving others out of its power (choices).
• Human beings would be masters of fate, since they would determine the works of fate and they would not be determined by it. Indeed, if the results, which supposedly depend on fate, depend primarily on preceding choices, which depend on human beings, then they are the first determiners of the effects of fate.
• A problem arises with people with mental disorders and incapable of deliberation. Their disease may be attributable to two types of cause:
  • A cause different from fate: then, they represent an exception to its universal power.
  • The fate is the cause of their disease: (1) it is evident that these people also act, although there is no choice in them; (2) however, the ‘outcome’ of their actions still depends on the power of fate; (3) thus ‘everything happens according to fate’. In the case of these human beings, therefore, there is no area outside the intervention of fate, as the authors of this theory claimed when they put the ‘choice’ outside the power of fate.
• If only the choice were in our hands, but not the outcome of the action, the battle between reason and the sensitive appetites of the person who has self-control (ἐγκρατής) and the person who lacks it (ἀκρατής) would become superfluous6: in fact, at the end of the day, everyone will do whatever fate determines.
• To say that fate controls the ‘outcomes’ means also to say that fate also controls the ‘choices’, since the outcome includes not only what is done but even how it is done.

Despite his criticism of this position, Nemesius believes that although it is true that the choice, which is up to us, is the main cause of the outcome of our actions, the outcome itself does not depend only on us. Nevertheless, it is not under the power of fate, but rather divine providence. As we shortly shall see in the texts, divine providence is not governed by men: on the contrary, it is God who governs them. It is God, in accordance with a free and rational plan, who decides that sometimes human decisions will be fulfilled and sometimes not. In this sense, Nemesius does accept the distinction between the choice and the outcome of free action, and even admits that a cause outside the choice is involved in the outcome. However, he removes fate from this intervention in order to introduce providence. He will present this view in chapter 40. There, after giving a couple of biblical examples where the centrality of the interior act of choice as opposed to the exterior execution appears, Nemesius adds: “For choice is the beginning of sin and of righteousness; for the deed is sometimes permitted by providence and is sometimes prevented”.7 He had already expressed this idea in chapter 38 (Morani 1987, p. 110, lines 19–23): although moral choices are up to us, it is not up to us alone to bring them to completion. This does not diminish our responsibility but leaves the effective control of the cosmos in the hands of divine providence, even relying on the free acts of certain creatures at the same time. Similarly, in chapter 37, Nemesius argues that it is God’s providence that determines the outcomes of actions, as opposed to fate:

But one must say that providence is the cause of the outcome of actions; for this is the work of providence rather than of fate. For it is peculiar to providence to assign to each according to what is suitable for each, and for that reason the outcome of choices will sometimes be advantageous and sometimes will not.8

In contrast to fate, God’s providence can choose which outcome is to be brought about and which is not, because it acts according to rational and benevolent criteria. Nemesius applies this understanding of divine providence even in the case of sin, in order to explain how the outcomes of human actions are ultimately directed toward the greater good (De Nat. Hom., 2; Morani 1987, p. 32, lines 15–19). On the opposite side, fate, as a necessary chain of causes, can neither derive good from evil nor pursue different goods in varying circumstances: instead, it exerts a homogeneous and uniform influence, much like any purely natural cause.

Moreover, within the framework of Nemesius’s thought, once fate is removed from the control of human free will, human action unfolds without external interference. As we have seen in the preceding section, he admits the possibility of divine foreknowledge of the future. However, divine providence does not disrupt free will itself, even though it determines whether the outcome of an action is realised. Thus, there is genuine freedom of will in internal human decisions, even though external actions remain subject to God.

6. Criticism of Platonic Fate

In chapter 38 (Morani 1987, pp. 109–12), Nemesius studies fate in the framework of Plato’s thought. In his reconstruction of the Platonic account, he seems to rely on some Middle Platonic source. His famous description of a triple providence (De Nat. Hom., 43; Morani 1987, pp. 125–26) substantially coincides with that of Ps. Plutarch: this has led some to think of a common source (Sharples and Van Der Eijk 2008, p. 27). Both agree (with other Middle Platonists) in attributing to Plato a distinction between fate’s ‘substance’ (οὐσία) and ‘activity’ (ἐνέργεια) (Burns 2020, p. 46). The same is found in the treatise on fate by Ps. Plutarch (De Fato, 2–3), etc. The ‘law of Adrasteia’ (Ps. Plutarch, De Fato, 10, 574b) is also mentioned in this work. Nemesius states that fate for Plato is at the same time providence. However, he immediately seems to distinguish in Platonism between providence and fate, and subordinates fate to providence:

He [sc. Plato] says that this active fate is also in accordance with providence, for fate is delimited by providence. For everything that occurs by fate does so also in accordance with providence, but everything providential is not also fated.9

That fate is under divine providence is a Middle Platonic teaching (Magris 2008, pp. 480–81; Vimercati 2020, pp. 119–20) that can be traced, once again, in Ps. Plutarchus (De Fato, 9, 573b) or in Chalcidius (Chalcidius, Timaeus, 147; Wrobel 1876, p. 206). Christian authors in the atmosphere of Neoplatonism also admit that providence is above fate. Nemesius himself will later (in chapter 39) provide a summary of his own understanding of fate in relation to other Aristotelian concepts. Although in this passage he is outlining the ideas of his opponents, these words likely reveal the framework in which his own philosophy situates the role of fate in the universe:

Of God the work is existence and providence: of necessity the process of things that are always the same; of fate to bring to pass of necessity what is fated (for it too is a kind of necessity); of nature birth, growth, decay, plants and animals; of luck the rare and unexpected.10

According to Nemesius, fate seems related to heavenly causality, whereas the causality of nature (which is not ‘always the same way’ but ‘usually’, ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ) would not be properly ‘fatal’. In short, his view is that everything is subject to the power of divine providence, while the role of fate (understood as astrological influence) is limited. Now, Nemesius agrees with most Platonists in the subordination of fate to divine providence. What is his disagreement with Plato?

Let us see first how Nemesius describes Plato’s fate in order to understand his criticism later. According to Nemesius, Plato would have spoken of a hypothetical necessity. Therefore, we are able to do whatever we want, but once we have made our choice, there is a ‘law’ that follows inexorably:11 ‘If you do that, the consequence will necessarily be that’. Also within Middle Platonism, we find this hypothetical necessity understood as a ‘law’ (Dillon 1977, pp. 296, 322–23). In fact, Nemesius quotes the famous passage from the myth of Er narrated by Plato: “Responsibility lies on him who has chosen. God is not responsible” (Resp., X, 617e; Morani 1987, p. 110, lines 5–6; Sharples and Van Der Eijk 2008, p. 192) in the same sense as Chalcidius (Timaeus, 154).

In the Platonic account, Providence and fate would also direct all things in a conditional way (hence the idea of ‘law’, which commands hypothetically). The conditions are the judgements and impulses that are ‘up to us’, while what follows from them is an outcome set by fate. Therefore, the outcome of fate is not predetermined, but depends on the conditions we set (recall the distinction between choice and outcome in the preceding section of this article).

Thus, Nemesius’s main criticism of Plato is that the Athenian philosopher is associating fatal necessity with a fixed law, while the outcome of human actions should rather depend on divine providence: it is God who allows that our actions be fulfilled or not according to His free and rational design. God does not act uniformly, but proceeds in each case in one way or another according to His personal design. Nemesius’s understanding of divine control over the outcome of human actions (as stated in the preceding section of this paper) has the advantage of leaving open the possibility of prayer: if the outcome were always fixed, there would be no point in asking God for anything.

7. Divine Providence Above the Necessity of Fate

The criticism of Plato in chapter 38 introduces a passage of great doctrinal interest in which the originality of Nemesius’s theology is revealed. According to him, “the acts of providence do not come about of necessity, but contingently”.12 God is above all, and is therefore the author even of causes which in the ancient world were considered ‘necessary’, since they were imperishable, such as the heavens. Fate itself, as the effect of the unfailing action of the heavens, is also considered necessary. However, not even the necessary things are necessary in all respects in relation to God, since He is the author even of the necessary. Therefore, even fate is, in a certain sense, ‘contingent’, since it is contingent in comparison with God. This does not mean that the causes that the standard philosophy of nature considers ‘necessary’ (as, for instance, the heavens) cease to be necessary. They are indeed necessary in relation to the creatures subject to them. However, their causality springs from God insofar as they are creatures:

For God is not subordinate to necessity, nor is it lawful to say that his will is the slave of necessity: for he is even the creator of necessity. For he placed a necessity upon the stars, so that they always move in the same courses, and he laid bounds upon the sea13, and he placed a necessary limit on the universal and generic. If they want to call him fate, since things come about wholly and completely in accordance with necessity in such a way that everything that comes to be ceases to be in its turn, it is of no account. For we do not quarrel with them about words.14

The necessity of the stars is also subject to God’s power such that even fate is under divine providence. Divine providence also controls this realm of reality. God is not chained by necessity, but rather is the one who has established its chains. Nemesius recognises that this understanding relativises the meaning of the word ‘fate’ itself, since its forces are subjected to divine power.

Nemesius is placing divine power and its creative capacity at the crux of the variety of this world and is aware that not even what we judge ‘necessary’ is above His activity. This places God on a higher ontological plane that distances Him from created causality by elevating Him to a different form of intervention in the world:

God himself is not only set outside all necessity, but is also its lord and maker. He is authority and his nature is authoritative, and he does nothing either by natural necessity nor by the dictate of law: everything is contingent to him including what is necessary.15

As ‘author’ of necessity, He stands ‘outside’ it such that the Middle Platonic notion of ‘law’, which establishes a hypothetical dictate of providence and sees its results as a necessary consequence, proves insufficient. Divine power is therefore on another plane: that even necessary things become ‘contingent’ for Him (Torrijos Castrillejo 2023, pp. 190–192). As we can observe, divine causality is on one hand more powerful than the causality of fate, since even what is deemed necessary within non-Christian philosophical paradigms is subject to its power. On the other hand, divine ‘authority’ does not make God an ‘even more necessary’ cause, but a cause ‘outside’ the regime of ‘necessity and contingency’, which are now only creatural properties. In a way that may seem paradoxical at first sight, God becomes a freer cause than fate, but also a firmer and more infallible cause than it, since He is the author even of fate.

The last paragraph quoted allow us to recognize that in Nemesius, we find a shift of the problem of divine providence from the realm of knowledge to the realm of God’s freedom. Certainly, he regards providence as an act of the divine will (De Nat. Hom., 42; Morani 1987, p. 125, lines 6–7). God has ‘authority’ (ἐξουσία) insofar as He is the creator, but His power is also seen in His freedom, since it is characterised by His being a free subject: let us not forget that αὐτεξούσιος is the word for a person as free (De Nat. Hom., 39).

Hence, the distinctive element of Nemesius’s position on fate and divine providence lies in his own way of introducing transcendence and freedom in God. The tendency of early Christian thought was to rely on Middle Platonism to defend human freedom against the threat of astrological or Stoic determinism (Félix 2013), yet characteristic of the Christian approach is a more ‘personal’ understanding of God (Burns 2020, pp. 55, 100). Nemesius is sympathetic to this approach, and in line with Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism, sees fate as occupying only a limited place in natural causation, along with other forms of causation: he also accepts from them the sovereignty of divine providence over all causes, both necessary causes controlled by fate and free causes. In this, he departs from the Stoic approach, which identifies the extent of the power of providence and that of fate. However, the originality of Nemesius’s position compared to other Platonic positions, including Christian ones, is the insistence on a form of transcendence in God that places him in a metaphysical position above the difference between necessity and contingency. In this, Nemesius reveals a distinct Neoplatonic influence, yet imprints a uniquely Christian character by recognizing in God a power that transcends all necessity, while also affirming His free will. This is a subject that requires specific study. Nevertheless, in the freedom of Nemesius’s God, we already recognize a genuine capacity to act one way or another, or not to act, much more truly ‘free’ than the freedom admitted by Plotinus for the divine, as a mere exemption from external coercion (Reale 1987, p. 526). In a similar way, Nemesius’s idea of God above necessity itself we recognize a characteristic Christian way of divine transcendence.

8. Conclusions

We find in the section on fate in the treatise De Nat. Hom. by Nemesius of Emesa the usual criticism of an astrological fatalism that many times accompanies the defence of free will in ancient philosophy. However, these arguments are accompanied by a somewhat more subtle criticism of Stoicism, in which Nemesius reveals himself to be an interesting source of information on the compatibilism of the Stoa that complements the information provided by Alexander of Aphrodisias. He also criticises another form of compatibilism, probably coming from a Middle Platonic source. Although he agrees with Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism that fate exists and is subject to providence, we find in his conception of providence as sovereign over fate a specifically Christian advance towards a consistent theology. In Nemesius’s Christian theology, God becomes a more transcendent entity not only as the creative origin of the universe, which is typical of the Neoplatonist milieu in which he moves, but also because God is openly free. Divine freedom makes providence a more robust cause than the necessary causality of fate, but also more transcendent than it. God is free because He can self-regulate His own causality through a deliberative principle. Divine transcendence is evident in the fact that God’s causality transcends the very distinction between contingency and necessity. Finally, the prominence of divine providence in his work highlights that for Nemesius, the question of fate is not inherently of great significance, as his philosophical contribution centres not on fate, but on God’s providence.