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Porphyry and the intelligible triad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

M. J. Edwards
M. J. Edwards
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Extract

Passages from Plato often inspired in late antiquity a speculative profusion of ingenuities that can scarcely have been intended by the author. Even in the Timaeus, however, few passages could be found which were to undergo so much elaboration as the sparse and incidental remarks in the Sophist concerning Being, Life and Mind. These terms are given some prominence in the Enneads of Plotinus, where it remains nonetheless very difficult to reconstruct a hierarchical order either of dignity or of procession, or to give the triad that cardinal place in his system which is certainly accorded to the triad One-Mind-Soul. If the term Life is to take a place between Being and Mind it must be sharply distinguished from Soul, which is always inferior to the intellect in the ontology of the true Platonist. Plotinus is one of the most exact of philosophers, and if he fails to make the discriminations which would be necessary to anyone wishing to understand this nomenclature, it is because he is not expounding such a triad even as a subordinate part of his system: at most it might be thought to be implied or presupposed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 110 , November 1990 , pp. 14 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1990

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References

1 See in particular Enneads i 6.7; v 4.2; v 6.6.

2 See Dodds, E. R., Proclus: the elements of theology (Oxford 1963)Google Scholar for observations upon this passage and its antecedents.

3 See Hadot, P., Porphyre et Victorinus (Paris 1968)Google Scholar i passim.

4 On the Coptic Allognes and Zostrianus see Appendix and the remarks on the Gnostics of Plotinus below.

5 Hadot, P., REG 74 (1961) 410–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The relevant articles are cited below. Hadot's attribution of the Commentary is assumed to be correct by A. C. Lloyd in The Cambridge history of later Greek and early medieval philosophy 291–2. Qualified assent is expressed by Wallis, R. T. in his Neoplatonism (London 1972) 97 and 114–18.Google Scholar

7 See Kroll (1892) cited below, n. 41.

8 ‘Être, Vie, Pensée chez Plotin et avant Plotin’ in Entretiens Hardt v: Les Sources de Plotin (Geneva 1960) 108–57.

9 Hadot (n. 8) 122 and 139.

10 Hadot (n. 8) 122–30.

11 See Hadot, P., ‘La métaphysique de Porphyre’ in Entretiens Hardt xii: Porphyre (Geneva 1965) 127–63.Google Scholar

12 Cited in Zeller's Die Philosophie der Griechen III ii 705 n. I. This is fr. 17 in Deuse, W.Theodoros von Asine: Sammlung der Testimonien und Kommentar (Wiesbaden 1974).Google Scholar

13 See nn. 4, 6, 12 and 17; also Rist (n. 52).

14 Dodds (n. 2) 253 against Kroll.

15 For relevant citations see Hadot (n. 8).

16 See Enneads ii 9.2 etc. Enneadi ii 9.6 and ii 9.10 present close parallels to the extant Zostrianus, which is discussed in the Appendix. For an explanation of the Gnostic position as expounded in that tractate see Sieber, J. in Novum Testamentum xv (1973) 233–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Republic 353; see also Proclus, Elements of theology 188–9 and 197. The later position appears to be that Soul is the communicator of life, but not Life itself; this distinction appears to be unknown in the early school, and even if we distinguish ‘source of souls’ from ‘soul’ in Theodorus, we have not proved that Life itself could stand between Intellect and Being.

18 See especially Enneads ii 9.10 for the myth of Sophia.

19 fr. 12.13 ff.

20 20 fr. 11.13 ff.

21 See Dodds (n. 2) 253 against Kroll. Festugière, A. J. in his translation of the Commentary on the Timaeus, Vol iv (1964) 88–9Google Scholar finds it impossible to distinguish the contribution of Theodorus from that of Porphyry.

22 See Pauly-Wissowa, , RE v A2 (1934) 1833 ff.Google Scholar

23 Saffrey, H. D., ‘Le ‘Philosophe de Rhodes’ estil Théodore d'Asine?’ in Lucchesi, E. and Saffrey, H. D. (eds) Mémorial A. J. Festugière (Geneva 1984) 65–76.Google Scholar

24 fr. 37 Deuse. Numenius seems bound to support the position that ‘the soul is all the intelligibles’ in fr. 41; moreover, he makes the soul identical with its first causes (fr. 42). Perhaps this belief was confined to the rational soul (see fr. 44).

25 fr. 12 Deuse. Note that the third term is again ‘Source of Souls’.

26 The passage contains many difficulties: for the most part I have followed the translation of Des Places in his edition of 1973. I do not suggest that Theodorus has been faithful to the meaning of Numenius, only that such a passage as this could easily have been subjected to a tendentious exegesis which would produce the system ascribed to him by Proclus at In Tim. ii 274.

27 On Hecate in the Chaldaean oracles see Lewy, H., The Chaldaean oracles and theurgy (Paris 1956) 142.Google Scholar As will appear below a student of the Oracles (such as Porphyry) could equate Hecate with dunamis without introducing the term Life. What Theodorus made of this figure we cannot tell.

28 Porphyre et Victorinus, i 102 n. 3. Hadot maintains in the same note that the passages are different in context, which, if true, deprives the present one of any evidential value in his argument.

29 On the interpretation of Timaeus 39e, and on the ‘hypercosmic soul’ of Porphyry, see Dillon, J., TAPA c (1969) 63–70Google Scholar, and Corrigan, K., ANRW xxxvi 2 (1987) 978–84.Google Scholar

30 Hadot (n. 11). The value of this article cannot be exaggerated, but I think that Hadot attempts to prove too much.

31 Hadot (n. 11) 139–40.

32 Hadot (n. 11) 140.

33 See Des Places, E. (ed.) Les oracles chaldaïques (Paris 1971) 189–201.Google Scholar

34 See Sophist 248b and c. and Proclus, Comm. in Timaeum, Vol i p. 17 17.23 etc. Also Dodds (n. 2) 253.

35 Zoê relevant only at 96.2; dunamis probably relevant at 3.2, 4, 5.5, 56.2, 96.1, 136.2 and 137.

36 Rist (cited below, n. 52) gives only qualified assent to this ‘working hypothesis’ adopted by Hadot and Theiler.

37 Porphyre et Vtctorinus, i 266 and especially 475. For an edition with commentary of the de regressu animae see Bidez, J., Vie de Porphyre (Ghent 1913) 27*—44*.Google Scholar

38 Porphyre et Victorinus, i 46–74.

39 Porphyre et Victorinus, i 50–7. We might speculate that only the relation of Son to Father is in question here, perhaps with an appeal to some distinction such as that between vita and vivere; but the language of Augustine appears to make this position untenable, and even if we cannot hope to interpret him, we ought to respect his confusions.

40 See Dillon, J., Phronesis xviii (1973) 180–5.Google Scholar The statement that Porphyry called the doctrine ‘Persian’ on the authority of a certain Antoninus does not, of course, prove that it was not Chaldaean. The fact that Proclus declines to recognise it as such is a mark of his animosity to the fanciful Theodorus.

41 For text see Porphyre et Victorinus, ii 64 ff. The text was first produced with commentary by Kroll, W. in RhM 47 (1892) 599–627.Google Scholar

42 xiv 16–26; see Porphyre et Victorinus ii 110–2.

43 See Hadot (n. 5) 114 f.

44 Hadot (n. 5) 438.

45 See Eunapius, Vitae philosophorum 455 Boissonade. Among admirers of Numenius we must count Amelius and Theodorus (pp. 17, 22).

46 Hadot (n. 5) 418 and n. 36.

47 xii 32–3; see Porphyre et Victorinus, ii 106 and Hadot (n. 5) 418 f.

48 See Numenius fr. 20 Des Places.

49 Numenius, fr. 20.5 and 20.11.

50 Frr. 16.9 and 14; 20.12. For to agathon see frr. 16.4 and 5; 19.12.

51 Frr. 5.5 and 14; 6.7 and 8; 7.2; 8.2, etc.

52 Rist, J. M., ‘Mysticism and transcendence in later Neoplatonism’, Hermes xcii (1964) 213–25Google Scholar discusses this question, admitting the prima facie case against such a deviation on Porphyry's part.

53 Sententiae xxvi; see Rist (n. 52) 220.

54 See Rist (n. 52) 223–4.

55 See Rist (n. 52) 220–2.

56 For edition of the de regressu animae see Bidez, cited above (n. 37). For analysis see Lewy, H., The Chaldean oracles and theurgy (Paris 1956)Google Scholar ch. 1 and Excursus on Porphyry and the Oracles.

57 On the dating, which Rist (n. 52) 223 is inclined to follow, see Bidez. Even those who believe with O'Meara, J. J., Porphyry's philosophy from oracles in Augustine (Paris 1959)Google Scholar that this work was identical with the Philosophy of the oracles will be inclined to think that it represents his mature thought.

58 Commentary i 18–20 = Porphyre et Victorinus, ii 66. See Kroll (n. 41) 619.

59 See notes to Porphyre et Victorinus ii 66.

60 Kroll (n. 41) 620; Damascius admits that the One is elusive, but denies its smallness, attributing the inaccurate opinion to Speusippus. See Kroll 619.

61 See Origen, Werke, i 261.26 Koetschau.

62 Hadot (n. 5) 431–4.

63 The words discussed in this paragraph are listed in Hadot (n. 5) 434–8.

64 Zoroaster may have been the descendant of Zostrianus and recipient of the revelation, just as Messos is in the Allogenes. All four names appear as the titles of separate treatises in VP 16.

65 Sieber (n. 16) finds it ‘long enough to merit the lengthy attention of Amelius’ and must there-fore consider it authentic. On p. 238 he remarks that the use of terms is ‘cosmological rather than logical’, which may support my contention that they have re-applied the terms of some earlier Platonist.

66 On the four versions of the Apocryphon of John and their discrepancies see S. Giversen's edition (Copenhagen 1963).

67 See Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus, ii 62 and 276.

* Vocabulary and pagination as in the translations of these texts edited by Robinson, J. M., The Nag Hammadi library in English (Leiden 1977).Google Scholar