Pythagoreanism, Oral Teachings, and Neoplatonic Textuality

The language of Neoplatonism is the language of symbols. In the next chapters I want to discuss two different systems that are quite pervasive within Neoplatonism: Orphic symbolism and Pythagorean symbolism. These systems are tied together historically, inasmuch as the traditions that their names represent are often conflated among ancient authors. Nevertheless, two distinctive series of metaphors are associated respectively with Orphism and Pythagoreanism. Whereas the Orphic tradition is cosmological (Orpheus sings about the birth of the cosmos, and so narrates a cosmogony), Pythagorean symbolism is essentially nonnarrative and involves mathematical and geometric concepts. Disparate as ways of framing the world, both these systems are central to Neoplatonic texts and become important vehicles through which the Neoplatonists attempt to convey their non-discursive methodologies.

The thought exercises that have been the subject of the previous pages involve mathematical and geometric symbolism. In this chapter, I show that the history of this symbolism in Neoplatonic texts helps us to enter into a reconstruction of Neoplatonic self-representation precisely because these symbols are so powerfully charged by their historical eminence and also by their traditional weight. Within the history of Platonism, oscillation between a tendency to Platonize and a tendency to Pythagoreanize forms the basis of an ongoing dialogue concerning the nature of philosophical purity and authenticity. By engaging with the Pythagorean tradition, the Neoplatonists bring about their own insertion into a tradition that they perceive as primordial or as a pristine form of philosophy.

LIFE AND WORK

Proclus was born in 412 in Byzantium in a Lycian family, still faithful to the old Hellenic religion in a society already dominated by Christianity. The talented young man did not opt for a career in the imperial administration as his father had done, but decided to devote his life to philosophy. After completing his studies in Alexandria, Proclus arrived in Athens in 430 where he joined the Platonic Academy and was first educated by the elderly Plutarch. Under Plutarch the Athenian Academy had turned to the new form of Platonic philosophy that was initiated by Plotinus and propagated by Porphyry. Under the influence of Iamblichus, this Platonic philosophy had become more and more linked to the old beliefs and rites of paganism, of which it offered a rational justification. This tendency increased when Syrianus became the new head of the Academy in 432.1 During more than fifteen years Proclus not only followed Syrianus’ courses, but was also initiated by him in theurgic rituals. Proclus was deeply influenced by his master and he often praises him lavishly (cf. In Parm. 1.618.2– 9). After Syrianus’ death (around 437), he became the head of the school and thus ‘successor (diadochos) of Plato’, a position he held for almost fifty years until his death in 485.

LIFE

The few facts we have about Simplicius’ life come from his own works and a few other sources. He came from Cilicia (south-eastern Anatolia) as Agathias tells us (Hist. 2.30). He was educated by Ammonius in Alexandria (fl. 490 ce, cf. In Cael 26.18–19) and Damascius (fl. 520 ce) in Athens (In phys. 601.19). Among influential figures on his philosophical outlook are Porphyry, the learned pupil and biographer of Plotinus (245–320), Iamblichus (fl. 300 ce, referred to as ‘the divine Iamblichus’, In phys. 60.7; 639.23 etc.), and Proclus (‘the teacher of my teachers’, In phys. 611.11–12, cf. 795.4–5). The expulsion of Platonists from Athens in 532 ce after Justinian’s ban on pagan teaching ended school activities in 529 ce (Malalas Chronicle 18.47), the cross-references between the extant works, and the lack of evidence after 540 ce suggests that his life-span comes roughly to 480–560 ce. Allusive comments in a discussion of the role of the philosopher in the city in his commentary on Epictetus (In Epict. 32.65.30– 9 D. with reference to Plato Rep. 496d) make it probable that he wrote that commentary before the others while still in Athens, as does his mention of the oppressive situation in Athens (ibid. epilogue). His personal note on friendship (In Epict. 87.39–44/354 Hadot) indicates that he experienced help from friends who looked after his family while he was away, but we cannot establish the nature and date of this event.

Plotinus is generally acknowledged to be, after Plato and Aristotle, the dominant figure in the entire history of ancient Greek philosophy. Beginning in the eighteenth century, German historians of philosophy gave Plotinus and his successors the pejorative label ‘Neoplatonists’. With this label ‘Neo’ they explicitly intended to indicate a decline in the rational purity of Platonic thought. Plotinus, however, in no way regarded himself as an innovator. He consistently maintained that he was explicating and defending the philosophical view that we know as ‘Platonism’ and that he believed was found primarily, though not exclusively, in the dialogues of Plato. Typical of all Plato’s disciples, Plotinus welcomed insight into the nature of Platonism from the testimony of Plato’s immediate disciples – especially Aristotle – and from what we can only suppose was the continuous oral tradition beginning within the Old Academy and leading up to Plotinus himself. At least part of the appearance of innovation arises from Plotinus identifying as authentically part of Platonism what he took to be necessary implications of claims made explicitly in the dialogues. In addition, Plotinus as well as his successors, taking Aristotle to be an Academic – albeit at times a dissident one – were content to articulate Platonic claims in Aristotelian language. We shall find throughout this book that Aristotelian terminology and arguments are regularly used by self-declared disciples of Plato to express the Platonic world view.

The present work is a successor to The Cambridge History of Late Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (CHLGEMP) which appeared in 1967 under the editorship of A. H. Armstrong. Since the publication of that work, an enormous amount of fundamental philological and historical scholarship pertaining to the philosophical works of late antiquity has appeared. New critical editions, commentaries and translations of important philosophical texts have made this vast complex of material more accessible to historians, who in turn have made considerable advances in the understanding of the last phase of ancient philosophy. Although this more than forty years of labour seems justification enough for a new survey of the period, it should not be supposed that all or even most of the assessments made in the earlier work have been summarily invalidated. Hence, the sense in which the present work is a ‘successor’ to the earlier work does not indicate that it is a replacement. Students of this period will no doubt continue to profit from consulting the earlier work, which deserves to be recognized as groundbreaking.

It will be useful to point out how The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity (CHPLA) differs in some obvious ways from its worthy predecessor. First, the reader will notice that the subtle change in title presumes that much of what was once labelled – no doubt with a certain amount of diffidence – ‘early medieval’ is now more properly brought within the ambit of ancient philosophy. The reasons for this will be discussed below in this introduction and in various places throughout the volume. Here, it may simply be noted that the new title indicates a vigorous recognition of the extension of the canon of ancient philosophy far beyond the all-too-narrow confines of the fourth century bce.

THE HEIRS OF THEODOSIUS I: CONSTANTINOPLE VERSUS RAVENNA

In the fall of 394, as his entourage – victorious after fighting along Istria’s Frigidus River – moved steadily toward Milan, the southwestern imperial capital, Theodosius I (378–95) could have been excused for thinking that heaven had amply rewarded his piety. His sons had outlived the heirs of Valentinian I (364–75), so his family alone held claim to the throne. He had successfully put down not one but two usurpers, Magnus Maximus in the 380s and most recently Eugenius at the Frigidus River. And the emperor’s recent edicts nourishing the now officially orthodox Nicene form of Christianity aimed to stifle, if not extinguish, all other forms of religious expression save Judaism, which was still tolerated, despite events in Callinicum (CTh. 16.1.2; 16.10.10–12). Certainly, Augustine saw the entire history of the Christian message as culminating triumphantly in this period (Comm. in Psal. 6.10–12). Nevertheless, in the time he took to travel between the battleground and the capital city, Theodosius, now in his late forties, became gravely ill. He sent for his son Honorius, residing in Constantinople with his older brother, Arcadius, ruling as eastern Augustus in his late teens under the watchful eye of his praetorian prefect. The nine-year-old arrived, and Theodosius appointed as his guardian Stilicho, his magister utriusque militiae (Zos. 4.59). By 17 January 395 the emperor was dead.

In this concluding section, an overview is provided of the three streams of philosophical thought flowing out from late antiquity. The aim here is to show how ancient Greek philosophy and its Christianized versions were received. Philosophy in early Byzantium seems to have been completely subordinated to theological and ecclesiastical ends. Nevertheless, that explicit constraint did not prevent the further exploration of the ontological and epistemological issues that constitute the permanent inheritance of the ancient Greek philosophical tradition. When the political and theological controversies between Latin West and Greek East later erupt, it will become evident that philosophical disputes, for example, regarding the interpretation of Aristotle’s account of the activity of divinity, are much to the fore. With the fall of Byzantium in 1453, the exodus of Greek scholars to the West will provide the groundwork for another encounter of Greek philosophy with Christianity, this time with Scholasticism. It is now increasingly a commonplace that the primary transmitters of ancient Greek philosophy to the West were the Arabic Muslim scholars of Alexandria and Baghdad and elsewhere who translated and thereby preserved a significant number of basic texts. It is not infrequently the case that these Arabic translations can fill in lacunae owing to the disappearance or defective condition of Greek originals. But it is in the construction of an Islamic philosophical theology that a fruitful and challenging encounter of one religious tradition with ancient Greek philosophy can be found.

PRELIMINARY ISSUES

The study of early Byzantine philosophy raises certain preliminary issues that one needs to bear in mind from the start, for they concern the very definition of this field of scholarly research. It is only sixty years ago, when Basil Tatakis’ La philosophie byzantine (1949) appeared as a supplement in Emile Bréhier’s Histoire de la philosophie, that Byzantine philosophy emerged as a subject matter worth investigating in the history of philosophy. There is no doubt that the attitude towards Byzantine philosophy and its different periods has in the meantime changed considerably, but it is still helpful to first investigate its credentials as a legitimate part of the history of philosophy, and thus to justify the inclusion of its early period at the end of a narrative on the philosophy of late antiquity. Let us, therefore, begin by commenting on the nature and status of our subject matter.

Is there Byzantine philosophy?

The question regarding the very existence of something that can be called ‘Byzantine philosophy’ is raised even in recent contributions, although not in the same terms as in Tatakis’ book. Sixty years ago the discussion was primarily focused on the possibility of and the conditions for the existence of a Christian philosophy, a more general issue that during the 1930s occupied principally the French historians of philosophy. The outcome of this discussion was to establish the study of a western medieval Christian philosophy, which had originated from the writings of the Christian Fathers and centred on the works of Thomas Aquinas.