Calcidius on Plato's Timaeus: Greek Philosophy, Latin Reception, and Christian Contexts 1108420567, 9781108420563

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CALCIDIUS ON P LATO’ S T I M A E U S

This is the first study to assess in its entirety the fourth-century Latin commentary on Plato’s Timaeus by the otherwise unknown Calcidius, also addressing features of his Latin translation. The first part examines the authorial voice of the commentator and the overall purpose of the work; the second part provides an overview of the key themes; and the third part reassesses the commentary’s relation to Stoicism, Aristotle, potential sources, and the Christian tradition. This commentary was one of the main channels through which the legacy of Plato and Greek philosophy was passed on to the Christian Latin West. The text, which also establishes a connection between Plato’s cosmology and Genesis, thus represents a distinctive cultural encounter between the Greek and the Roman philosophical traditions, and between non-Christian and Christian currents of thought. gretchen reydams-schils is a Professor within the Program of Liberal Studies and a Fellow of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. She holds concurrent appointments in Classics, Philosophy, and Theology. Her areas of specialization are the traditions of Platonism and Stoicism and she is the author of Demiurge and Providence: Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s Timaeus (1999) and The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection (2005). She is also the editor of Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon (2003), Thinking Through Excerpts: Studies on Stobaeus (2011), and Pouvoir et puissances chez Philon d’Alexandrie (2016).

CALCIDIUS ON PLATO’S TIMAEUS Greek Philosophy, Latin Reception, and Christian Contexts

GRETCHEN REYDAMS-SCHILS University of Notre Dame, Indiana

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108420563 doi: 10.1017/9781108354745 © Gretchen Reydams-Schils 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data names: Reydams-Schils, Gretchen, J., author. title: Calcidius on Plato’s Timaeus : Greek philosophy, Latin reception, and Christian contexts / Gretchen Reydams-Schils, University of Notre Dame, Indiana. description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. identifiers: lccn 2019060024 (print) | lccn 2019060025 (ebook) | isbn 9781108420563 (hardback) | isbn 9781108354745 (ebook) subjects: lcsh: Calcidius. In Platonis Timaeum commentarius. | Plato. Timaeus. classification: lcc b387.c343 r49 2020 (print) | lcc b387.c343 (ebook) | ddc 113–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019060024 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019060025 isbn 978-1-108-42056-3 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations

page vii ix

Introduction: Beyond the Calcidius Pass

1

part one 1 An Authorial Voice

9

2 How to Read Plato’s Timaeus

21

3 The Coherence of the Commentary

37

part two 4 Time and the Universe

49

5 On Soul and Souls (1): The World Soul

59

6 On Soul and Souls (2): The Human Soul and Its Relation to the World Soul

71

7 God and Gods

85

8 Providence and Fate

99

9 Matter and Evil

118

10 Matter, Being, and Form

128

v

vi

Contents

part three 11 Calcidius and Aristotle

141

12 Calcidius and the Stoics

151

13 Source and Sources (1): Numenius

163

14 Source and Sources (2): Porphyry

172

15 Calcidius Christianus? (1): An Authorial Voice Revisited

191

16 Calcidius Christianus? (2): God, Matter, and Creation

204

Conclusion: Who Is Calcidius?

216

Bibliography Index Locorum

221 233

Acknowledgments

Slow academia, not hurried along by grant proposals for multi-year projects, or other extraneous considerations. On February 2, 1991 (it says on the flyleaf) I bought a copy of Waszink’s edition of Calcidius’ work in one of the second-hand bookstores in Berkeley – I forgot which one. It was the first relatively expensive scholarly work I bought for myself. I was approaching my Ph.D. exams at the end of that spring semester, and in the process of coming up with a dissertation topic. Ultimately, the final chapter of the published version of the revised dissertation was devoted to Calcidius (Reydams-Schils 1999). But I could not let go of the work because it had raised so many issues worth pursuing – or at least, so I thought. Thus for the next twenty years or so I kept returning to Calcidius to explore further one aspect or another of the commentary and the Platonism it represents. As I say in the book, since Waszink’s monumental edition our scholarly understanding of the commentary tradition in Antiquity has deepened considerably, there has been a revival of interest in the philosophical currents from the first century BCE to the end of the second century CE, and our understanding of what it meant to be a Christian in the fourth century CE has also been considerably enriched. Without these broader scholarly developments, this book would not have been possible. In the early stages of the project I also benefited greatly from exchanges of ideas with David Sedley, John Dillon, Carlos Lévy, Stephen Gersh, and Anna Somfai, and at a later stage from crucial interactions with Charlotte Köckert, Béatrice Bakhouche, John Magee, Christina Hoenig, and George Karamanolis. The last four were present at a workshop on Calcidius I organized at the University of Notre Dame in the spring of 2015. I am deeply grateful to Philippe Hoffmann for having given me the opportunity to deliver a series of four seminars on Calcidius at the École Pratiques des Hautes Études in Paris in the spring of 2004. Some of the material presented in this book was developed during multiple research vii

viii

Acknowledgments

stays from 2005 to 2007 at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, funded by a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation, and graciously hosted by Michael Erler. I also learned much about later Platonism from Irmgard Männlein-Robert in that period. Given the time it took me to crystallize these views on the commentary and its relation to the translation, many people need to be thanked, and I have tried to do them justice in the notes to each chapter. But I would be sorely remiss if I did not explicitly thank here Kirsten Anderson and Alexander Pierce, two graduate students from the Notre Dame Theology department, for their invaluable assistance, as well as the reviewers for Cambridge University Press, and Michael Sharp and his team at the press (with a special thanks to Nigel Hope for his copy-editing). The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts needs to be thanked for its financial support in the final stage of the manuscript preparation. Even though I was supposed to be working on the notion of the self in philosophical texts of the first three centuries CE (which I also did), the sabbatical funded by the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (at Hebrew University in Jerusalem) and a EURIAS Senior Fellowship, for participation in the research group headed by Maren Niehoff and Ishay Rosen-Zvi, gave me the necessary time and intellectual space to wrap up this project – which announced its completion, such as it is, in its own good time.

Abbreviations

LS SVF

A. A. Long and D. Sedley (eds.), The Hellenistic Philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge University Press, 1987 H. F. A. von Arnim. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. 4 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–1924

ix

Introduction Beyond the Calcidius Pass

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Calcidius’ work on Plato’s Timaeus, which consists of a partial Latin translation and commentary.1 So many links in the extensive commentary tradition of the Timaeus are no longer extant. We have snippets from Crantor, a mere allusion (and a highly debated one at that) to a possible commentary by Posidonius,2 part of a translation by Cicero, allusions to Adrastus’ commentary, a commentary by Theon of Smyrna that deals only with the mathematical issues, and a mere shadow of Porphyry’s commentary, to name but some. Because of these lacunae Calcidius’ work becomes all the more valuable. Moreover, Calcidius presents one of those very rare cases of a Latin philosophical commentary. As the knowledge of Greek started to wane at the end of Antiquity, Calcidius became one of the main channels through which Plato’s legacy was transmitted to the Middle Ages.3 Indeed, his work is one of the four master-texts of that era, as Édouard Jeauneau points out (1975: 30), together with Boethius’ On the Consolation of Philosophy, Macrobius’ commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, and Martianus Capella’s On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury. In the subsequent tradition Plato at times elided Calcidius’ authorship altogether, and the work came to be seen as simply presenting Plato’s views. Given the translation and commentary’s important role in the Middle Ages, Calcidius has been studied mostly by medievalists. The work, however, also presents a very distinctive and rich cultural encounter not only between the Latin and the Greek philosophical traditions, but also between so-called “paganism” and Christianity. My main purpose, therefore, is to 1 2 3

The translation goes up to 53c and the commentary covers the section from 31c to 53c. Posidonius F85 Kidd. For a list of commentaries on the Timaeus, see Krause 1904: 46–54; Baltes and Dörrie 1993: 48–54, 162–224. Dutton 2003; see also Lemoine 1997. For a succinct overview of the reception history of the work in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and beyond, see Bakhouche 2011 I:47–67.

1

2

Introduction

give Calcidius’ commentary the attention it is due in its own right, and to examine the commentary’s relation both to the preceding traditions and to contemporaneous currents of thought. From very early on, for instance, Plato’s Timaeus was read alongside Genesis, as in the works of Philo of Alexandria (25 BCE–50 CE, Runia 1986), and Calcidius’ commentary also draws on this tradition (chs. 276–278). Yet a close examination of the commentary forces us to reconsider the intellectual and cultural boundaries of the fourth century CE, and to rethink widely accepted categories such as Latin Christian Neoplatonism. Despite the importance of the work, we know next to nothing about its author, Calcidius. The editor of the text, J. H. Waszink,4 dates Calcidius to the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth century CE (as opposed to earlier conjectures that dated it to the first half of the fourth century). He locates the author in the Christian milieu of Milan and Italy,5 thereby insisting on Calcidius’ Christian identity.6 These assertions have guided interpretations of the commentary, but it may make more sense to pursue the inquiry in the other direction, starting with what the work can tell us about its author and his operating assumptions, as this study sets out to do. Our understanding of the commentary has also suffered from viewing it either as a window onto the preceding philosophical tradition (as if it were merely a sourcebook and a collection of fragments from other authors), or from the vantage point of its reception and influence on later writers. Wedged between these two concerns, the work itself has all but disappeared from view and has been treated merely as a channel for the transmission of older ideas, or what I dub the “Calcidius pass.” Since Waszink’s edition, however, scholarship has provided valuable new insights into the practices of the commentary tradition that can yield a clearer understanding of the overall purpose of the work and its place in this commentary tradition.

4

5 6

Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. J. H. Waszink, Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi, Plato Latinus 4 (Leiden and London 1962; revised version 1975). All references to Calcidius are to this edition, to the chapters, and in some cases also to the page and line numbers. Bakhouche 2011 has a slightly revised text, with translation, a long introduction, and extensive notes. Bakhouche’s work is now the best instrument for an initial approach to the text. Moreschini 2003 provides a translation in Italian, and notes; Magee 2016 provides the first full translation in English. Detailed analyses of sub-treatises of the commentary have been written by van Winden (1959, on matter, reprinted in 1965, with supplementary notes), den Boeft (1970, on fate), and (1977, on demons). For a good overview see Bakhouche 2011 I: 7–13. On this point, he is followed by Moreschini 2003: xxxi–xxxix.

Introduction

3

Two examples should suffice here to demonstrate the risks inherent in overlooking the nature of the work.7 The first of these examples is an instance of uncritically treating Calcidius’ commentary as a source book. Relatively recently a number of scholars have used Calcidius as evidence for an account of Stoic psychology that allegedly differs from the standard model described elsewhere.8 According to the standard account, the ruling principle (hēgemonikon), the five senses, speech, and reproduction are assigned to the soul, whereas other functions such as nutrition and growth are assigned to the “nature” level of a living being (LS 53). (The Stoics posit a scale of nature consisting of cohesion in inanimate things, nature in plants, soul in animals, and rational soul in humans, LS 47.) Calcidius (ch. 220), by contrast, is said by these scholars to provide testimony that Chrysippus also attributed the lower functions of growth and nutrition to the soul. In response to this assumption, one can state, first, that it is not always easy to distinguish between a literal quotation and an interpolation by the author quoting the material – a problem that is common to many sources of this type. The second and more serious objection is that Calcidius’ wording may not actually bear out this interpretation (232.19–233.6). He progresses from the (elsewhere attested) eight parts of the soul – the ruling part, the five senses, speech, and reproduction – to the claim that these parts of the soul “extend throughout the whole body and fill all its parts in every quarter with the vital breath; they regulate and control” the body “with innumerable and diverse powers (. . . reguntque et moderantur innumerabilibus diuersisque uirtutibus . . .): nourishment, growth, locomotion, sensory equipment, and the impulse to action (nutriendo, adolendo, mouendo motibus localibus, instruendo sensibus, compellendo ad operandum; trans. Magee, emphasis added).”9 All this claim need imply is that the soul of humans and animals can also make use of the powers belonging to the level of nature as instruments to guide the organism as a whole, not that these lower powers actually belong to the soul itself. All functions of an organism presumably are subsumed under the coordinating direction of the governing principle, without being controlled directly by the soul. The third and most important objection, however, is that if one looks at the sub-treatise on the human soul as a whole (chs. 213–235),10 it becomes 7 8 9 10

As van Winden already pointed out, 1959: 9–10; see also Macías Villalobos 2015: 12–13. Tieleman 1996: 96–101, reviewed by Reydams-Schils 2004; Powers 2012: 258–260; on this issue see also Reydams-Schils 2006 and Ju 2007. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from Magee 2016. See also sections 6.3 and 12.2 in this study.

4

Introduction

apparent that Calcidius works with some kind of master-list that integrates as many features of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic psychology as possible, in order to underscore the view he himself endorses, which posits both a life principle and a principle of reason within the soul. He has harmonized his rendering of the different positions by inserting into each elements of the others. Thus, I would argue, the list of nutrition, growth, locomotion, sensation, and impulse in the testimony of Chrysippus’ view of the human soul is an interpolation (by Calcidius or his source) with Peripatetic overtones, and we should handle the testimony with great caution. If this first example pertains to our use of Calcidius as a quarry for older views, a second example can serve as a cautionary tale against using a text’s reception as a window into its interpretation. It is common knowledge that in late eleventh- and twelfth-century medieval readings of Plato’s Timaeus, the question of how the triad God, Mind, and World Soul aligns with the Trinity comes to the fore. In particular, the claim that the World Soul is the equivalent of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity becomes a commonplace, only to be hotly contested.11 Yet there is no trace of this view to be found in Calcidius’ commentary. An interpretive move, or a series of such moves, must have been made both to enhance Plato’s alleged compatibility with the Christian perspective and to insert material from Calcidius into this Christian framework in such a way as to serve, or at least not contradict, this purpose.12 Such a picture of the transmission of ideas appears less strange if we keep in mind the traditional methods of reading and commenting on texts through excerpting, summarizing, or compiling series of nested notes. The latter are the so-called glosses, which, in some cases, could constitute stand-alone commentaries in their own right (as with the famous examples of Bernard of Chartres’ and William of Conches’ glosses on the Timaeus). Inevitably, such compilations obscure the lines of continuity in the accounts from which they derive their material. In this case the chain of notes masks the fact that Calcidius himself does not establish such a connection between the World Soul and the Holy Spirit. It is high time, then, to bring Calcidius’ translation and commentary into the purview of the commentary tradition in Antiquity and to examine 11 12

Kobusch 2005: 249–250, with bibliography; Speer 2005: 222–226; Dronke 2008: x–xi; Gersh 2010: 897. For instance, in his Glosae super Platonem, ch. 71, 124.13–14 Jeauneau, William of Conches states that “some” (quidam) equate the World Soul qua spirit with the Holy Spirit, a position which he himself, as he states here, neither rejects nor supports (quod nec negamus modo, nec affirmamus); see also ch. 74. For William’s position on this claim in his other writings, see the notes ad loc.

Introduction

5

more closely what they can tell us in their own right. To that end, the chapters that follow have three main goals. First, they provide an overview of the key themes in the commentary and of the consistent line of interpretation of the Timaeus which Calcidius develops (Part Two). Under this heading fall his treatments of time, the World Soul and the human soul, the divine, Providence and Fate, the Forms, matter, and evil. The second goal is to discern Calcidius’ voice as a commentator, his hermeneutical principles, and the unity of his commentary (Part One). Finally, these insights shed new light on other questions pertaining to Calcidius’ work, such as his use of Aristotelian and Stoic material, his sources, and his alleged Christian identity (Part Three). We may not know much about Calcidius, but his work does reveal how he positioned himself in his cultural landscape, and what that landscape might have looked like.

part one

chapter 1

An Authorial Voice

Calcidius is a highly self-assured author who reflects on the relation between his translation and commentary, and who clearly positions himself vis-à-vis potential rivals and the preceding tradition. These features of the work provide us with our first insights into its overall purpose. Calcidius uses the stock theme of the obscurity of philosophical texts to define his role more clearly, building on the fact that the problem of obscurity would be even worse for someone reading Plato’s Timaeus in a Latin translation. He is also aware that by sharing this knowledge with an audience of relative beginners (though his addressee would not necessarily fall into that category), he is running counter to an established practice of the philosophical schools. Moreover, Plato, as he represents him, appears to be in need of a rescue operation, to undo damage inflicted not only by philosophers representing other currents of thought, but also by those who claim to have been his followers in the Platonist tradition.

1.1

On Obscurity

Commentators on philosophical texts in Antiquity faced a double bind. First, they had to be careful not to diminish the reputation of the thinker whose work they were elucidating – why, after all, would a text need a commentary, if it were not because of inherent deficiencies? Second, they could not afford to insult the intelligence of their addressees, and, through the addressees, that of their potential broader audience.1 We can observe these issues being addressed throughout the commentary tradition. In his work Calcidius solves this problem by inserting a mini-treatise on the issue of “obscurity” (obscuritas, ch. 322) into his handling of the admittedly thorny topic of prime matter 1

This chapter is a revised version of Reydams-Schils 2007b: sections I.i and ii (303–310).

9

10

An Authorial Voice

(silua). Succinct as this treatment is, it ranks among the most complete overviews we have on this common theme.2 According to Calcidius, there are three causes for obscurity: the first lies with the author, the second with his audience, and the third with the subject matter of the exposition. Obscurity on the part of the author, he notes, can be intentional, as is the case with Aristotle (see also ch. 287) and Heraclitus, or it can be the result of a weakness of expression (ex imbecillitate sermonis). The audience can struggle either because it is not familiar with the topics being discussed, or because it is “slow” and dim-witted (pigriore ingenio ad intellegendum). Finally, there could be difficulties embedded in the topic itself, as with prime matter, which eludes our ordinary cognitive faculties. But in the case of Timaeus as a speaker and his listeners – that is, within Plato’s account – we are safe, Calcidius claims: Timaeus is a reliable speaker and his audience is up to speed. Therefore, Calcidus informs his audience, it is the topic itself that poses the problem. As readers of Calcidius, from a vantage point that is external to the Timaeus, we are also invited to adopt an attitude of confidence towards Plato as author and towards his reader, who happens to be, in this case, Calcidius’ addressee, Osius: Plato knows what he is doing3 and we are not to assume that Osius is dim-witted. As emerges from Calcidius’ dedicatory letter and from the Preface to his commentary, the challenge of the Timaeus as a whole does not reside in any weakness in Plato’s language (non ex imbecillitate sermonis, ch. 1, a claim Cicero had already made),4 but in the degree of specialized knowledge it presupposes. Even the ancients had considered it to be a difficult text, Calcidius reassures Osius. (And Osius was not the first to ask for help, for that matter: in the opening of his De tranquillitate animi, 465E, for instance, Plutarch mentions that a certain Roman, Pacius, had asked him to write an explanation of some aspects of the Timaeus.5) The ability to follow Plato’s exposition, Calcidius 2

3

4 5

For analyses of common practices in commentaries and their prefaces, cf. I. Hadot, Hoffmann, and P. Hadot 1990: 113–122. For an English summary, cf. I. Hadot 1991; see also Mansfeld 1994. In his treatment of obscurity, however (see especially his ch. 5), Mansfeld does not include this passage from Calcidius. See also I. Hadot 1996; Praechter 1990; Westerink 1990. For a succinct rendering of the topos in the tradition of commentaries on Aristotle, see Barnes 1992. See also Karamanolis 2006: 204–205. See also ch. 326, in which Calcidius claims that Plato “in order to dissipate any cloudiness attaching to this point of natural obscurity, casts the light of a brilliant illustration upon” matter (ut omne nubilum naturalis discuteret obscuritatis adhibito splendore illustris exempli); chs. 345–346. Cicero, Fin. 2.15; the best parallel for Calcidius’ treatment of obscurity is in Galen’s compendium of the Timaeus, 1.14–16 Kraus-Walzer; see also his In fract. comm. 18.2, 319.7ff. Kühn. There also circulated compendia versions of the Timaeus, as in the text published by Stover 2016: esp. 20–22.

1.1 On Obscurity

11

notes, requires a thorough preliminary training in the sciences, or in what he calls artificiosa ratio, that is, in arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Thus, Calcidius invokes the less damning aspect of his second cause of obscurity, namely the audience’s lack of familiarity with certain topics, and by implication the third cause, the degree of difficulty of the topic. His approach to the Timaeus invites comparison with the opening remarks in Theon of Smyrna’s account of the mathematical knowledge one needs in order to follow Plato’s arguments (Rer. math., second century CE). Theon states that he wrote his work on behalf of those who had not been trained since childhood in the mathematical sciences required both to understand Plato’s work and to gain access to other forms of knowledge. As Ilsetraut Hadot (2005: 70) has pointed out, this recognition of the problem by Theon and Calcidius attests to the fact that, in their respective periods, an education in mathematics was not to be taken for granted. In the Preface to his commentary Calcidius addresses the opacity of the Timaeus along with other standard topics such as the purpose of the work, and its division into chapters. He alludes to Plato’s staging of the exchange and gives reasons for his choice of characters, though without deploying a symbolic interpretation. These points follow the older of two versions of the introductory schema for interpreting Plato’s and Aristotle’s work (the so-called “prolegomena” schema, Mansfeld 1994), which is also employed in such texts as the Christian Origen’s Preface to his commentary on the Song of Songs.6 Yet despite the real challenges presented by the Timaeus, Calcidius notes, Plato himself does attempt to make things easier for his readers. Like earlier interpreters, going back to Speusippus and Xenocrates,7 Calcidius holds that Plato uses temporal language for the process of ordering the world merely to convey the world’s eternal dependence on a higher cause.8 Given that people have an easier time grasping a causal relation if it is cast in the language of “before” and “after,” as in the relation between a father and son (ch. 26), Calcidius claims that Plato applies such language for pedagogical purposes (τρόπος or χάριν διδασκαλίας, as this is called in the Greek tradition). Similarly, Calcidius points out, Plato uses a mode of direct speech when the Demiurge addresses the younger gods (41a7–d3) to give his audience a break from abstract discourse, to allow for 6 7 8

Cf. also Dillon 1999; Porphyry In Cat. 55.3–57.15 Busse; Anon. in Tht. 1.1–4.27 Diels and Schubart; Origen, Cant. 61–88 Baehrens; Macrobius, In Somn. 1.4.1. Cf. Baltes 1976–1978; Speusippus F41, 61, 72 Tarán; Xenocrates F54, 68 Heinze. See also ch. 4 in this study.

12

An Authorial Voice

an easier assimilation of his thoughts, and to claim divine authority for his views (ch. 138). Even with these pedagogical concessions on Plato’s part, however, Calcidius acknowledges, the Timaeus remains a difficult text. Calcidius compares Plato’s account to an intelligible form that is hidden, or obscure in the sense of not being easily accessible, and his own Latin translation to a copy of that model. Given that the original is difficult, the translation risks being even more obscure because, as a mere copy, it is necessarily weaker than its model (exemplum-simulacrum, Letter 6.8–10; Preface ch. 4). As we will see, however, Calcidius’ translation has in effect already made the Timaeus more accessible by simplifying complexities in Plato’s account. He makes the Timaeus easier to read by offering specific interpretations of Plato’s intentions, which would otherwise be left to the reader to determine. Thus, in order to understand how the commentary works, one also needs to investigate the relationship between the translation and the commentary, because the process of digesting the Timaeus for a less-experienced audience starts with the translation.9 Calcidius shrewdly borrows the ontological language of the Timaeus in order to register a hermeneutical point.10 (The issue of the link between ontology and hermeneutics permeates the ancient commentary tradition, and is one to which we will return, ch. 2.4.) With his commentary he comes to the aid of his readers by creating the bridge between the model, the Timaeus, and the copy, his translation. In doing so he, not unlike Plato’s character Timaeus, performs the philosopher’s task of providing a bridge between the sensible and intelligible realms and redirecting the audience’s gaze towards the truth.11 Thus he implicitly imbues Plato’s account with a highly authoritative status, making it as exemplary as the Forms and the divine. Moreover, Calcidius also implies that as a model the Timaeus is not to be surpassed or cast aside by a different and higher truth, such as the one claimed by Christianity.12 9

10 11 12

This is the main approach of Hoenig 2013, 2018a: 442–447, and 2018b: 160–214. Bakhouche 2011 I: 27–30, 105–124 provides a detailed analysis of Calcidius’ method of translation (surveying also the previous secondary literature on the topic), in comparison with Cicero’s. She arrives at the conclusions that Calcidius translates as an exegete, implying that his translation serves the commentary, and that there is no evidence to suggest that Calcidius relied on the previous Latin translation by Cicero. For an analysis of Calcidius’ translations of Greek poetry (including philosophical texts), see Bertolini 1990: 104–109. Dutton 2003: 189; Somfai 2004: 206–208; Hoenig 2018b: 168–177, who also draws on Calcidius’ rendering of εἰκὼς μῦθος as mediocris explanatio. As Hoenig, forthcoming a, has pointed out, ch. 349 of the commentary echoes the image from the Republic of emerging from the cave, from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth. See also chs. 15 and 16 in this study.

1.2 Sharing Knowledge

13

Calcidius uses the relation between model and copy elsewhere to describe how the Timaeus, as a discourse on nature, relates to Plato’s Parmenides, which treats the very origin of reality (ch. 272, 277.5–9). Macrobius, too, uses the same analogy to describe the relation between Plato’s Myth of Er in his Republic and Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” (In Somn. 1.1.2). But what is particularly striking about Calcidius’ opening move is that it allows him to instate himself as an author, with a strong firstperson voice that he will maintain throughout the commentary. By relying on the model/copy analogy Calcidius expresses his awareness of his important role and responsibility.

1.2 Sharing Knowledge In the polished rhetoric of the dedicatory letter, as one would expect, Calcidius extols his addressee’s capacities, and modestly devalues his own (see also ch. 119), no doubt to avoid insulting Osius, as I pointed out above.13 The argument of the dedicatory letter hinges on the theme of friendship. Like virtue, friendship makes the impossible feasible. And its requirement of generosity (generosa magnanimitas) also demands that one give one’s very best to a friend, even if a request seems daunting. One could easily be lulled by the rhetorical commonplaces of this letter into dismissing it as an ornament. Yet, apart from the fact that rhetoric is rarely ornamental, what seems in the letter, at first glance, to be a rather commonplace reference to generosity immediately acquires a sharp edge and polemical tone in the Preface, revealing a tension that provides valuable information about Calcidius’ position in the Platonist tradition. The Timaeus, Calcidius here claims, appears to have been composed for an audience of specialists in the sciences. But those very same specialists refuse to share the advantage of their knowledge with others, a detestable lack of generosity he blames on a malicious and unfortunate invidiousness. Calcidius does not mince his words: “Although they had an obligation to share with others the extraordinary light of their knowledge, acting under the detestable restraints of an infelicitous ill will they kept back for themselves the outpouring of bountiful happiness” (Quos cum oporteret tantam scientiae claritudinem communicare cum ceteris, infelicis inuidiae detestabili restrictione largae beatitudinis fusionem incommunicabilem penes se retinuerunt, Preface ch. 3). Unlike those specialists, we are meant to infer from the preceding dedicatory letter, Calcidius will share whatever he 13

Curtius 1948: 93 calls this the topos of “affected modesty” (“affektierte Bescheidenheit”).

14

An Authorial Voice

knows through his commentary rather than simply limit himself to a translation.14 In the Preface, therefore, Calcidius joins his strong first-person voice with an avowed polemic against other interpreters. His attack on the specialists appears to target the schools of professional philosophers, and in particular the Platonists, who had a reputation of wanting to train an intellectual elite of select pupils, the circle of so-called “friends” or hetairoi. This criticism curiously reads like the reverse of a complaint lodged against the adherents of Christianity that by spreading their message indiscriminately among the widest audience possible, including the rabble and unlearned people, they demeaned its value.15 But the same criticism of esotericism and secrecy could also be leveled against the Christians.16 Christian interpreters of Scripture such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, for all of their Platonist sympathies, indeed had to walk a very fine line between not detracting from the value of the surface meaning of the text, accessible to all,17 and allowing for a deeper meaning that would be available only to the initiated. If that debate over the accessibility of teachings was on his mind, Calcidius could have been trying to forestall a potential criticism from Christian quarters and a prejudice against the elitism and exclusivity of so-called pagan and Platonist philosophy. This reading in itself does not imply that Calcidius is a Christian but merely suggests that his addressee may be, allowing us to see Calcidius’ move here as a concession in an overall strategy to ensure Osius’ goodwill and capture his attention.18 In this way Calcidius presents himself in the commentary as a cultural mediator, not merely between the Roman and the Greek tradition but also between Christianity and nonChristian philosophy, especially Platonism (to the extent that one can make that distinction).

1.3

Plato, Platonists, and Others

In Calcidius’ eyes Plato is gifted with a “divine combination of ingenuity and wisdom” (pro ingenii prudentiaeque diuinitate, ch. 257; see also ch. 302). Plato represents the culmination of all philosophy not only because he holds the 14 15 16 17

18

On the obligation to share one’s knowledge, see also Seneca, Ep. 6.4. As in Minucius Felix, Oct. 5.4, 8; Celsus in Origen, C. Cels. 3.44, 55. See, for instance, Origen, C. Cels., the opening move of Celsus’ criticism of the Christians, 1.1, 1.3 (with a reference to the Pythagoreans). Cf. Mansfeld 1994: 13, 159–160; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5 and 7 passim; Origen, Princ. 4.2–3; Philoc. 1.14–21 (see also 2.3); for Porphyry’s criticism of Origen’s hermeneutics, cf. F39 Harnack = Eusebius, HE 6.19 = F6 Becker. See also chs. 15 and 16 in this study.

1.3 Plato, Platonists, and Others

15

truth, but also because he provides the most complete explanations of the structure of reality.19 As we can see in other works of the Platonist tradition, such as Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus, it was common for one Platonist to argue against another about the correct interpretation of Plato, often in order to resolve apparent contradictions. In the Greek commentaries such debates could also include discussions of different versions of the text, but not surprisingly these discussions are absent from Calcidius’ work in Latin. Occasionally he does, however, present a range of possible interpretations. In the key passages on the composition of the World Soul (chs. 26–31),20 for instance, Calcidius discusses two proposals for the meaning of the notions of “divisible” and “indivisible” Being, gives arguments for each, and then settles on what he considers to be the right one. Like other Platonists Calcidius also defends Plato against criticisms that presumably come from outside the Platonic tradition. In ch. 20, for instance, he presents an anonymous critic who objects that positing two intermediaries between the solid bodies of fire and earth (Timaeus 31b–32c) will not work. According to Plato’s own analysis, the objection goes, the geometrical structure of earth (cube) is mathematically incompatible with that of fire (pyramid; 54b–d), and therefore the continuity among the four elements cannot be secured. In his response (chs. 21–22) Calcidius claims that Plato forestalled this challenge by using the physical properties of the elements rather than their geometrical structure to guarantee the continuity among them (Somfai 2004). This solution is based on properties that the Timaeus itself elsewhere (55e–56b; 61d6–62a5) assigns to the different types of polyhedra that make up the elements. Calcidius returns to the issue of the relation between the elements in the commentary’s section on matter, this time forestalling a potential problem not just for the continuity between the elements but for their actual transformation into one another. (Continuity is presumably a necessary condition for the possibility of such transformations.) In his discussion of how the transformation of the elements happens in matter (based on Tim. 49b–c), Calcidius presents an argument that if earth did not change into any of the other elements and thus would be exempt from the cycle of transformation, this cycle would be bound to come to an end. Everything would eventually become earth “since the other elements will be transformed into it but it will admit of no transformation into any of them” (ch. 324, siquidem cetera in 19

20

Cf. also Plutarch, De def. or. 435F–436A and Aulus Gellius Noct. Att. 9.5.7 = Taurus T14 Petrucci, discussed in Petrucci 2018: 15–16; on this topic see also Reydams-Schils 2006: 184–186, and, for the general background in Middle Platonism, Boys-Stones 2018: ch. 1. See also section 5.1 in this study.

16

An Authorial Voice

ipsam conuertentur, ipsa autem in nihil eorum habebit conuersionem). Here Calcidius changes tack by claiming that Plato made a distinction between what actually happens, that earth does change into the elements, and what appears to be the case, that earth cannot do so. Given that proof is based on observation, and earth has never been observed to turn into water or any of the other elements, Calcidius avers, Plato did not want to undermine the reliability of sense-perception. This latter claim is a first indication that “doxastic reason,” i.e. opinion based on sense-perception, does not have an irredeemably low epistemological status in Calcidius’ interpretation of the Timaeus.21 In this case Calcidius’ response relies on an implied tension between the way things appear at the level of sensible reality, and their structure at a deeper level of analysis. But when Plato himself returns to the topic of the structure of the elements (53c), he says the exact opposite: it is precisely the mathematical structure of earth, which eludes observation, that accounts for its incompatibility with the other elements, whereas at the level of appearance all four elements seem to turn into one another. Plato now states explicitly that this appearance is wrong (54b: οὐκ ὀρθῶς φανταζόμενα). Calcidius’ translation and commentary come to a stop before this passage, so we do not know how he would have addressed these claims in a more detailed analysis. But in what we do have, we can see how an Aristotelian method of “saving the phenomena” (that is, of coming up with explanations that can also account for the way things appear) could be retrojected onto Plato.22 It is striking that in his attempts to defend Plato and what he sees as the correct interpretation of the Timaeus, Calcidius does not make a strong distinction between Platonists (thinkers who would consider themselves direct followers of Plato), and thinkers belonging to other schools of thought, but rather tends to lump them together under a generic label such as “the ancients” (ch. 29: a veteribus). Calcidius is remarkably consistent in his cold attitude towards Plato’s successors. At the end of the subtreatise on demons, for instance, he states that most of the followers of Plato (and even some other thinkers who could be aligned with him, such as Pythagoras) mistakenly hold the view that the demons, good and bad, are merely human souls that have been liberated from the body (ch. 136).

21 22

See also sections 6.3 and 6.4 in this study. For the echoes of Aristotle in ch. 324, see Bakhouche 2011 II: 868, based on van Winden 1959: 180–181; for Aristotle’s overall function in the commentary, see also ch. 11 in this study.

1.3 Plato, Platonists, and Others

17

Except for a few cases (as in chs. 136 and 300) he lets the grand master stand on his own, without any reference to other Platonists. Calcidius uses this procedure of singling out Plato for other topics as well, such as fate, dreams, and matter, but he shows his hand most clearly in his discussion of the sense of sight (ch. 243, 255.2–4), where he claims that Plato: put forward a complete account and explained the actual cause of seeing as well as other things that follow from and assist the cause, including those without which vision cannot occur . . .23

In this formulation Plato surpasses all other philosophers because he both identifies the real cause and takes all concomitant factors into account, a claim that relies on the notion of auxiliary causes, which Calcidius borrows from the Timaeus itself (46c–47e, cf. also ch. 212). By contrast, when discussing Plato’s successors, again both inside and outside the Platonist tradition, Calcidius declares that they managed to grasp only part of the truth: later interpreters after extracting parts of the full theory pronounced on those same parts as though on the whole; and so in their giving voice to truths they make legitimate progress, but since the part is possessed of no completeness they to some extent fall short, as the actual reality will show once Plato’s view has been expounded. (ch. 243, 255.4–8 continuation of previous passage)24

Like Lady Philosophy at the opening of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Calcidius elsewhere turns entire groups of thinkers into marauders, who got away with whatever bits of truth they could lay their hands on (ch. 246, 256.14–16): “later philosophers, behaving like selfish heirs who vainly dissipate their paternal estate, carved a rich and complete doctrine up into mutilated little opinions (in mutilas opiniunculas).”25 In this approach to Plato we can detect an echo of Atticus and Numenius (rather than Porphyry, who is often claimed to be Calcidius’ main source).26 To contrast Plato’s comprehensiveness with other 23 24

25 26

Nam cum ille perfectam rationem attulerit docueritque tam ipsam causam uidendi quam cetera quae causam sequuntur atque adiuuant et sine quibus non potest uisus existere, . . . . . . iuniores sumptis ex plena sententia partibus de isdem partibus tamquam de uniuersitate senserunt proptereaque, ut qui uera dicant, merito mouent; sed quia nulla partis perfectio est, aliquatenus succidunt, ut exposita Platonis sententia res ipsa monstrabit. . . . iuniores philosophi, ut non optimi heredes paternum censum in frustra dissipantes, perfectam atque uberem sententiam in mutilas opiniunculas ceciderunt. On the issue of Calcidius’ sources, see chs. 13 and 14 in this study.

18

An Authorial Voice

philosophers’ piecemeal method, both Middle Platonist authors use the image of Pentheus’ body being torn limb from limb and scattered.27 Whereas Atticus applies the image to emphasize Plato’s superiority over his predecessors (F1 des Places), Numenius brandishes it as a weapon against Plato’s successors in the Academy (the generations of Platonists who in their quarrels, he claims, ruined Plato’s legacy) in a treatise called, in case we would miss the point, “On the Stand-Off between Plato and the Academics” (Περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀκαδημαικῶν πρὸς Πλάτωνα διαστάσεως, F24-28 des Places). In his invective, Numenius also emphasizes the connections between Plato and Pythagoras, lampoons the shameful behavior of other schools, and shames the Platonists by pointing to the unity in the Epicurean ranks. Numenius, however, still had some respect for the first generations of Platonists, notably for Speusippus and Xenocrates, and if Nemesius’ rendering is accurate, could even bring himself to cite Xenocrates (F4b des Places = Nemesius 2. 17–19). Not so Calcidius. Of course, being aware of the potential gap between Plato and his interpreters could also have its exegetical advantages. Calcidius establishes a direct connection between himself and Plato; unlike Boethius, for instance, in his work on Aristotelian logic, Calcidius never mentions a tradition of commentators (commentatores).28 Forging this direct connection with Plato himself allows Calcidius to make some very astute observations, such as the claim, which he repeats twice, that Plato himself did not use the term hulē to designate the receptacle, or third ontological principle (278.1–2; 309.4–6).29 In drawing our attention to this point, he does better than many an ancient reader, and even later scholars. The insight, however, does not prevent Calcidius himself from rendering hulē in his own famous translation in the commentary as silva: he is always commenting both on the Timaeus itself and on a range of different philosophical views. (For his consciously drawing attention to this translation, see ch. 123.) He does use the word receptaculum too, but for a different purpose, as when he mentions the different parts of the body that are to receive the different soul functions (ch. 201), or in order to describe the function of matter (chs. 318, 344, 350). Yet in spite of his overt polemic, Calcidius does not dismiss the Platonist tradition entirely. He does mention both Numenius and Philo of 27

28

Cf. also Philo of Alexandria, Congr. 150 (but on the relation between philosophy and the particular sciences); Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.13.57.1–6; cf. also Strom. 6.7.55.3. Cicero, Fin. 1.72 makes a similar point about what he claims to be the original consensus between Plato, the Old Academy, and the Peripatetics. As in Boethius, 1InDI, 2InDI, passim. 29 See also chs. 9 and 10 on matter in this study.

1.3 Plato, Platonists, and Others

19

Alexandria – a fact that does not in itself entail that he used these authors as direct sources. On the contrary, given that he tends to cover up his immediate sources, his explicit mention of these two thinkers would work against the assumption that he had direct access to them. Be that as it may, it remains striking that he chooses to highlight thinkers who from our current (and possibly mistaken) perspective are not part of mainstream Platonism. In addition to mentioning Numenius and Philo of Alexandria, there is the tantalizing possibility that Calcidius may have thought he was quoting at least one other Platonist when he referred to an interpretation of Genesis by “Origen” (ch. 276).30 Although this claim requires some unpacking, it goes a long way towards signaling the gulf separating our understanding of the ancient tradition and that of the ancients themselves. Although Waszink (1962: xi and 1972: 236) relies heavily on this citation to build his case that Calcidius is a Christian, to claim that only a Christian would cite the Christian Origen is a petitio principii. Perhaps Calcidius did not realize that the Platonist and the Christian of the same name (second to third century CE) could have been two different people.31 If this conflation was a mistake, it had already been made in Antiquity: Eusebius (HE 6.19.4–8) claims to have found it in Porphyry (his C. Christ.), and corroborates the assumption. One possible reason for this confusion is that the Christian “Origen” is also heavily indebted to Platonism; he is said to have embraced “Greek” ideas on the nature of the world and the divine, and to have had enough of a reputation for even philosophers to cite him. The Platonist “Origen,” for his part, is said to have had a strong interest in the Timaeus,32 and although he reportedly left very little in writing, he composed a treatise on demons.33 Furthermore, both the Christian and the Platonist “Origen” allegedly had an interest in Numenius, (Neo)Pythagoreans, and Stoics – the Christian in his now lost Stromateis.34 According to Jerome the latter also contained material from Aristotle and the Peripatetic tradition. There appears to be plenty of room for confusion, and the combined persona of a Platonist-cum-Christian Origen could have constituted an ideal meeting ground between Calcidius and his interlocutor. We need to keep in mind too that an interest in Hebrew Scriptures is attested for other 30 31 33 34

On Calcidius’ use of Origen, see also sections 15.4 and ch. 16 in this study. See Goulet’s groundbreaking article, 1977. 32 See e.g. Proclus, In Tim. 1, 63.21–65.3 Diehl. According to Longinus at Porphyry, Plot. 20.41. For the hypothesis that Origen’s Stromateis is in fact Calcidius’ main source, see Beatrice 1999.

20

An Authorial Voice

Platonists, such as Porphyry, and Numenius,35 as well as for authors such as Galen (UP 11.14).36 One more piece worth adding to the Origen puzzle here is that according to Proclus, the Platonist Origen interpreted Plato’s Parmenides as having a primarily ontological focus, dealing with the realm of intelligible reality,37 an interpretation, unlike later Neoplatonist ones, that appears to be in line with Calcidius’ own reading – a point to which we will return.38 Because he is also engaged in a project of translation, we have in Calcidius a remarkably self-conscious commentator who reflects on the relation between translation and elucidation, and who for the most part casts the Platonist tradition aside in order to establish a direct and unmediated rapport with Plato. Though he may, in fact, on at least one occasion borrow the first person in his translation from a source,39 if Calcidius were to have borrowed his authorial voice entirely from one source or a few, this would be one of the most peculiar instances of ventriloquism in Antiquity. It is much more likely that Calcidius himself as author provided the interpretive framework and the continuity throughout the commentary. 35 36 37 39

See e.g., F1a, 9–10, 13, 30, 56; for an excellent discussion of the issue, see Zambon 2002: 196–204. See also ps.-Longinus, Subl. 9.9. Brisson 2002; see also section 15.3 in this study. Cf. Proclus, PT 2, 31.4–22 Saffrey and Westerink. 38 See section 2.3 in this study. Ch. 280, 284.1–15 in comparison with Aristotle, Met. 983b18–33, as van Winden 1959: 72 points out. But while it is true that Calcidius’ opinor could be a rendering of Aristotle’s ἴσως, it still remains the case that this rendering enhances the first person voice. As John Magee pointed out to me, of the ca. 65 occurrences of opinor in the text, this is the only one to be woven into a clause; it is not merely an interjection.

chapter 2

How to Read Plato’s Timaeus

So, what is it, generally speaking, that this self-confident commentator wants to accomplish with his exposition on the Timaeus? A close examination of the commentary itself provides many indications of Calcidius’ intentions. The list of topics in the Preface announces that Calcidius’ treatment is going to be largely thematic, and the division of the different branches of philosophy that he delineates (ch. 264) provides insights into the overall structure of the commentary. This division also reveals what Calcidius considers to be the main topic of the Timaeus and explains how he views its place in a curriculum of Plato’s works, specifically in relation to the Republic and the Parmenides. Finally, it emerges that contrary to the Neoplatonists Calcidius endorses a hermeneutic of reading the Timaeus sequentially, an approach that is also reflected in his view of the structure of reality.1

2.1

Headings

In his Preface to his commentary, Calcidius gives a list of thematic headings for the Timaeus that goes as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The question raised first, on the generation of the world. Thereafter, on the origin of the soul. Then, on harmonic modulation. On numbers. On the fixed and wandering stars, among which are included the sun and moon. 6. On the heaven. 7. On the four kinds of living beings: the celestial, winged, aquatic, and terrestrial. 1

This chapter is a revised and expanded version of Reydams-Schils 2007b: sections II.i and ii.

21

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How to Read Plato’s Timaeus

8. On the origin of the human race. 9. The reasons why a good many human beings are wise and the rest unwise. 10. On vision. 11. On images. 12. Praise of vision. 13. On matter (silua). 14. On time. 15. On the primary material components (materiis siluestribus) and their transformations. 16. On the different bodily humors and phlegm. 17. On the senses of smell and taste. 18. On the variety of colors, their conversion from one to another, and things resembling colors. 19. On the ruling principle of the vital substance. 20. On the soul, its parts, and (their) locations. 21. On the members and limbs of the body. 22. On the breeds of different peoples. 23. On disease of the body. 24. On disease of the soul. 25. On the treatment of both (utriusque materiae). 26. On the world as a whole, and all that it embraces. 27. On the intelligible god (trans. Magee, slightly modified). This list is not as straightforward as it might appear at first glance. It gives the impression of covering the Timaeus in its entirety, whereas the translation and commentary only run up to 53c. Is it meant to give an overview of the Timaeus, to provide a table of contents for the commentary, or both? As a third option, is it the outline of a commentary that Calcidius uses as his main source (Bakhouche 2011 I: 22–23)? Given that Calcidius seems to have used the first thirteen headings to arrange his commentary, Waszink (following Wrobel) inserted them into the relevant sections of his edition.2 But upon closer examination, the headings do not map perfectly onto the structure of the commentary. For one thing, they obscure the articulation of the sub-treatises. The section “On the four kinds of living beings . . .” (7), for instance, ends up being very long and contains both Calcidius’ treatment of the demons and his very elaborate excursus on fate. Moreover, these headings mask the lines of 2

In one case the heading also shows up in the mss., ch. 26: de ortu animae.

2.1 Headings

23

continuity in the commentary, especially in the summary passages and transitions, in which Calcidius appears to speak more in his own voice, as, for example, in the short section of chs. 202–207 grouped together under the heading “On the origin of the human race” (8). If the headings were meant to provide the structure of Calcidius’ commentary, it is possible that the extant work is incomplete (Dutton 2003: 190–191). This possibility could imply either that he did not finish it or that the remainder of the work has been lost. Calcidius indicates in his letter to Osius that he is submitting to him a first installment (primas partes) for his approval, and at the end of the list of headings he claims that his “exposition of the book [i.e. Plato’s Timaeus] will treat of each of these subjects in order” (quorum omnium singillatim secundum ordinem libri expositio fiet). Expositio here clearly refers to his commentary. The list of headings, however, could also refer simply to the Timaeus itself, and Calcidius could be suggesting that the commentary as it stands has, in fact, covered most if not all of the themes, even if not always in that order. To support this line of reasoning, Calcidius also draws on material from other parts of the Timaeus, beyond 53c, the point at which his own commentary ends. For instance, in chapter 20, he alludes to the section of the Timaeus in which geometrical solids are paired with the elements (55d7–56c7), and chapter 211 contains clear allusions to the ending of the Timaeus in which Plato argues for a balance between soul and body (86c–88c).3 When he discusses the human soul, Calcidius includes information about the lower soul parts which are made by the younger gods (69c–72d). When discussing matter qua principle, he also mentions the idea that matter qua necessity is the sine qua non for the structure of the world (68e6–69a5). Moreover, Calcidius appears to insert themes such as the relation of the universe and time (heading 14) or the intelligible god (27) elsewhere in his commentary, thereby not adhering to the order of this initial list. But even if the list is meant merely as an overview of the Timaeus itself, it already represents an interpretation of Plato’s account. It is not merely what today we would think of as a table of contents of Plato’s work. As Béatrice Bakhouche points out (2011 I: 22–23), Calcidius uses species as a label for this list, not capitula, which in itself could already be indicative of a thematic treatment. If we do not include the opening of the Timaeus, the Atlantis story, and the opening statement of the character Timaeus’ contribution (more on this below), the list does move, generally speaking, 3

This parallel is not noted by Waszink 1962, nor by Moreschini 2003 and Bakhouche 2011.

24

How to Read Plato’s Timaeus

through the main components of the text, beginning with a section on the World body and Soul, then turning to the receptacle (called “matter” as was common in the tradition), followed by some aspects of the elemental transformations, the human soul, the human body, their afflictions, and ending with a grand finale about the order of the universe. Nonetheless, placing a section on time after the discussion of the receptacle/matter cannot be mapped easily onto the Timaeus. Although one can see how Plato’s mention of the Demiurge ordering a “preexisting” chaos (53a–b) in that section might lead interpreters to revisit the issue of the relation between the origin of the universe and time, the heading is clearly a thematic insertion on the part of the commentator. Similarly, heading 19, “On the ruling principle of the vital substance,” has Stoic overtones and reflects the distinct perspective on the human soul that Calcidius will go on to expound in his commentary. Heading 27, “On the intelligible god,” appears to be a kind of summary statement with a clear focus. And heading 22, “On the breeds of different peoples,” has no clear counterpart in Plato’s account. In sum, then, the list of headings already reflects an attempt to structure broader thematic treatments of issues raised by the Timaeus and an intervention to systematize the account. Even if Calcidius had found the list ready-made in another work, it does not necessarily follow that there is a single, primary source behind the commentary. On the contrary, the discrepancies between the list and the commentary may well be indicative of Calcidius’ own hand in the overall structuring of his material. A thematic overview of the Timaeus would have served Calcidius’ purpose, as revealed by his commentary, in at least two distinct ways. Given that he is not dealing with the Greek text, the κατὰ λέξιν aspect of the commentary, which focuses on the wording of the original, is limited and restricted mostly to lemmata from the translation or reformulations.4 Instead Calcidius favors the κατὰ ζητήματα approach, which focuses on the issues raised by the text. Moreover, the thematic arrangement also allows Calcidius to insert sometimes highly elaborate overviews of other positions besides Plato’s, in so-called doxographies. But while the thematic list of the Preface provides a better understanding of Calcidius’ undertaking, it does not fully reveal the guiding principles and structuring devices Calcidius uses to arrange his material, to which we turn next. 4

An exception to this general pattern is Calcidius’ overview of the different senses of the word caelum (ch. 98), in which he pays attention to the etymology of the Greek term (ouranon) but not to its Latin counterpart.

2.2 The Structure of the Commentary

25

2.2 The Structure of the Commentary In the introduction to his edition, Waszink (1962: xvii–xxxv) adopts van Winden’s proposal for the general structure of Calcidius’ commentary.5 In this view, the commentary hinges on a distinction derived from the Timaeus itself (47e), between the works of reason and providence (quae prouidae mentis intellectus instituit, 273.8–9), on the one hand, and those of necessity, on the other (ea quae necessitas inuexit). This produces two main parts of the commentary, following the Preface: the first comprising chs. 8–267 and the second chs. 268–355 (end). But as van Winden and Waszink note, the first part of the commentary is in turn divided into two parts, which they term the generation of the world (chs. 8–118) and its further completion (chs. 119–267, or, in Waszink’s version, its condition after its generation). Thus, this basic schema would look as follows: A. Works of Reason and Providence (chs. 8–267) a. Generation of the World (chs. 8–118) b. Completion of the World (chs. 119–267) B. Works of Necessity (chs. 268–355) In Calcidius’ transitional paragraph (ch. 119), however, the break between the “generation” (Aa) and “completion” of the world (Ab) is not expressed solely in these terms. Furthermore, in the transitional passages between A and B Calcidius himself actually gives us another clue to the structuring devices he may have used, in addition to the hinge phrase from the Timaeus quoted in ch. 268. This clue is provided by his division of the different fields of philosophy. In ch. 264 he claims that philosophy (officium totius philosophiae) can be exhaustively divided into theory (consideratio, which he appears to use as an alternative to contemplatio, cf. Preface) and practical philosophy (actus), leaving out logic. Theory in turn is divided into (1) theology (theologia), (2) physics (naturae sciscitatio), and (3) “science” (scientia praestandae rationis), the first of which deals with the search for the divine and pietas, the second with the heavens and the causes of things, including the starting points of that which has a beginning in time, and the third with topics such as the cycles of time, numbers, and measure. The closest parallel to Calcidius’ division is to be found in Alcinous (Didask., chs. 3 and 7), whose divisions amount to theoretical philosophy (theōretikē), practical philosophy (praktikē), and dialectic (dialektikē), 5

van Winden 1959: 10–23.

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How to Read Plato’s Timaeus

including logic in this context. Under the heading of theoretical philosophy we find, as in Calcidius, (a) theology, which deals with the first causes, the unmoving and divine (ch. 3), and the highest and most fundamental principles (ch. 7); (b) physics, which covers the movements of the celestial bodies, the composition of the universe (ch. 3), the nature of the whole, the kind of living beings humans are, their place in the universe, whether there is a divine providence, whether there are other, secondary gods, and the nature of the rapport between humans and the gods (ch. 7); and (c) mathematics, including sciences such as geometry and the like (ch. 3), which examine planes and three-dimensional nature, as well as motion and impetus (ch. 7). Perhaps most notably, these schemes differ from the most common division of philosophy in Antiquity (attributed even to Xenocrates,6 but made canonical by the Stoics) into logic, ethics, and physics.7 This is the division which Macrobius, for instance, uses in the final paragraph of his commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio. Calcidius indicates he is also familiar with this alternative scheme (ch. 147, 185.4–5). But because such a division overlooks the radically transcendent side of reality, Platonists found fault with it in their ongoing squabble with the Stoics: for followers of Plato there is something beyond the study of nature as it is captured in physics. And thus they came up with a range of strategies to accommodate the problem. One such strategy is to borrow Aristotle’s distinction between practical and theoretical philosophy, and to have the latter start with mathematics and extend beyond physics so that it also covers theology. This is the strategy which Alcinous and Calcidius adopt. Another strategy, the one adopted by Macrobius, is to subsume the transcendental dimension under logic as dialectic in the Platonic sense, by establishing a connection between logic in the more technical modes of the Peripatetic and Stoic approach, and Platonic ontology. Or one could simply add a level of theology as the “epoptic” kind of knowledge, which refers to the advanced stage in a process of initiation.8 The solution Porphyry uses to arrange his edition of Plotinus’ Enneads, also adopted by the Christian Origen,9 is a combination of these last two strategies, producing the sequence of ethics, 6 7 8

9

F1 Heinze = Posidonius F88 Edelstein and Kidd. One of the best papers on this topic is P. Hadot 1979. Theon of Smyrna 14.18ff., I. Hadot 2005: (1) mathematics, (2) logic, politics, physics, (3) epoptic knowledge (in the sense of Platonic dialectic); Clement, Strom. 1.28.176.1–3; Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 382D–E. Cant. 75.5–27 Baehrens; see also his epGr., and Gregory Thaumaturgus, Pan. Or. 7–15, which does include logic/dialectic, but as a propaideutic discipline; cf. Mansfeld 1994: 170.

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physics, and “epoptic” knowledge, which is simpler than the more elaborate scheme of Alcinous and Calcidius. Traces of this debate on the proper division of knowledge can also be found in Aulus Gellius’ rendering of the Pythagorean curriculum as allegedly taught by Taurus (1.9). Here the highest step of learning, achieved after a range of preliminary studies (his scientiae studiis ornati), is physics, which, however, as in Stoicism, would embrace both the structure of the universe (mundi opera) as well as its principles (principia). In this scheme, therefore, the notion of physics itself is adjusted in order to cover a broader range of reality. How does the division of theoretical philosophy into mathematics, physics, and theology help us to understand the structure of Calcidius’ commentary? We can in effect distinguish the same three nearly equal parts in the commentary according to this division, which is “pedagogical” in the sense that it represents a gradual progression from the most basic and preliminary type of theoretical knowledge taught by mathematics, that is, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (chs. 8–118), to physics (chs. 119–267), and all the way up to the most fundamental principles of reality. Thus the first part of the commentary would be devoted to mathematics (the artificiosae rationes), the first half of the second part to physics, and the second half of the second part to theology, which Calcidius approaches from the angle of the question of matter (chs. 268–355). Unlike the schema proposed by Waszink and van Winden, this structure would look as follows: A. Mathematics and the Universe (chs. 8–118) B. Ba. Physics (chs. 119–267) Bb. Theology, the principles of reality (chs. 268–355) In addition to respecting the division into a first and a second part both of the translation and of the commentary that came down to us through the manuscript tradition (i.e., the second part of the translation and commentary starts at 39e and ch. 119), this revised schema has several interpretive advantages: it explains why Calcidius skips Timaeus’ opening speech, helps us to discern how Calcidius views the relation between mathematics and philosophy, and provides a more fitting structure for the commentary. First, Calcidius’ intention to cover theoretical philosophy in a pedagogically motivated order accounts for his omissions not only of the preface of the Timaeus and the Atlantis story – a move to which he himself draws attention (ch. 4) – but also (and much more strikingly) of Timaeus’

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opening speech. This speech can be considered a kind of philosophical prooimion, in which Timaeus makes the key distinctions that arguably provide the basis for his entire exposition: between Being and Becoming, between model and copy, and between different types of discourse (27d5–29d3). The account is one of the most widely commented-upon passages of the Timaeus, and was in itself sufficient to trigger influential debates about such topics as whether or not the world has a beginning in time. Yet Calcidius omits this section without any acknowledgment, despite including it in his translation. Waszink (1962: xviii) and van Winden (1959: 14) suggest that Calcidius left out this passage because it did not require an explanation in mathematical terms, but this suggestion seems less plausible if we take into account the prooimion’s highly intricate nature and its central importance for Timaeus’ exposition. Calcidius’ pedagogical approach to the Timaeus offers an alternative explanation: he could not have started his commentary with Timaeus’ opening remarks because they represent too advanced a level of philosophical discourse, drawing as they do on ontology. Instead, Calcidius picks up Plato’s text at the discussion of the World body’s composition and the elements, with a relatively basic point about mathematical proportions and numerical analogy. He accordingly postpones the treatment of themes raised in Timaeus’ introductory speech until the third part of the commentary, though he does draw upon the fundamental distinction between Being and Becoming already in the first part. In fact, at one point in his commentary, Calcidius explicitly states that this is how he is proceeding and that he is postponing the discussion of matter (ch. 107, 156.2–3). Here too a structural feature of the Timaeus helps to justify this exegetical strategy. Plato’s Timaeus makes a fresh start in discussing his principles (47e3–49a6) when he adds the “third genos,” the so-called receptacle, to Being and Becoming, a feature of the Platonic account which Calcidius can put to use for treating the principles in one systematic exposition in the closing part of his commentary. In doing so, Calcidius refers back to the distinctions from Timaeus’ prooimion in his ch. 273. Second, one of Calcidius’ important hermeneutical choices is to treat mathematics as the first step in the curriculum of theoretical philosophy, rather than as a preparatory step. Whereas Theon of Smyrna gave his work a title referring to the material with which one had to familiarize oneself before tackling Plato’s work, Calcidius builds these expositions into an actual commentary on one of those works. This approach stands in marked contrast to Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus, which refers readers who

2.2 The Structure of the Commentary

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need more help with mathematics to an appendix, now lost.10 Consequently, the type of mathematics Proclus does include in his commentary neither stands on its own nor simply precedes other forms of knowledge, but rather simultaneously relates to physics and theology,11 to which he also refers as philosophy and “reality” (τὰ πράγματα). Moreover, Proclus’ higher-order mathematics – if we might call it this – clearly functions as an ontological bridge between physics and theology, or between sensible and intelligible reality, which would make Proclus’ sequence physics, mathematics, and theology, rather than mathematics, physics, and theology, as in Calcidius’ division. Third, the sequence of mathematics, physics, and theology in Calcidius’ text yields a good transition to the second part, on physics (ch. 119), in which Calcidius briefly alludes again to his discussion of the artificiosae rationes before moving on to the next level of discourse. He also circles back to this theme of technical knowledge in the commentary’s concluding section, albeit very succinctly. At the end of his exposition, Calcidius again cleverly borrows a few words from the Timaeus in which Plato’s main character refers to the expertise of his interlocutors: “since you are well schooled in the fields of learning in terms of which I must of necessity proceed with my exposition, I’m sure you’ll follow me” (53b7–c3, trans. Zeyl). This claim echoes Socrates’ earlier point that, unlike the poets and the sophists, Timaeus and his companions have the prerequisite knowledge to undertake the inquiry Socrates has requested (19d–20c). So, here too Calcidius elucidates a relation between himself as author (as a stand-in for Timaeus), his potential rivals (those bunglers who do not know their business), and his audience (Osius, presented as gifted) from within the setting of the Timaeus itself. In his closing remarks Calcidius quotes the Pythagorean Cebes to reemphasize that the curriculum of philosophy consists of several steps culminating in its highest truth. Waszink and van Winden, therefore, were right in noticing that Calcidius uses features of the Timaeus as structuring devices, but his pedagogical order of inquiry also drives the commentary. For now, we should bear in mind that Calcidius uses the Timaeus as a vehicle for a comprehensive and step-bystep overview of what he calls theoretical philosophy. Moreover, as Christina Hoenig has shown, given that Calcidius considers the Timaeus to be a discourse “on nature” (see 2.3), he translates the famous εἰκὼς μῦθος (“likely account”) designation (which the character Timaeus applies to his 10 11

Festugière 1966–1968 III: 60, n. 3; Proclus, In Tim. 3, II 33.30–34.1 Diehl; see also 3, II 76.24ff. See e.g. Proclus, In Tim. 3, II 218.8–20 Diehl.

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How to Read Plato’s Timaeus

own speech, 29c), as a mediocris explanatio, i.e. a mid-level or intermediary account.12 This translation tells us that the commentary is not meant to deal with the most advanced topics of theology. Finally, when Calcidius mentions Plato’s fresh start in his discussion of necessity at the beginning of the section on matter, from ch. 268 onwards, he again picks up the theme of the elements with which he opened the commentary, but this time from the point of view of the basic principles of reality and the intelligible realm. In this case too he tells us as much. The commentary starts with the assumption that the world is a perfect body (ch. 8; corpus perfectum). In the section on matter, however, Calcidius says (ch. 274) that although bodies appear to have a perfect substance (corpora . . . perfectam uidebuntur habere substantiam) when considered by themselves, one must dig deeper to find their true origin. So, where Plato’s Timaeus claims that “to find the maker and father of this universe is hard enough, and even if I succeeded, to declare him to everyone is impossible” (trans. Zeyl, 28c3), Calcidius transposes this double challenge from the Demiurge to matter: Now, at first he [i.e. Plato earlier on in his exposition, which also refers to the start of the commentary proper, ch. 8] constructed the world according to an account which for the sake of brevity assumed the four principal material elements. But since it is the task proper to the philosopher to search, through the highest level of mental care and an exceptionally diligent process of examination, all that pertains to causality, and since reason asserts that a receptivity of matter underlies the diversity of bodies, he rightly and reasonably determined that this line of reasoning should itself be drawn out into the light of intelligence, and that although the task would prove extremely difficult to grasp, to explain and teach it would nevertheless prove far more difficult. (trans. Magee, modified, emphasis added)13

2.3 The Platonic Curriculum The structure of philosophy as Calcidius presents it in his commentary appears to be framed by two Platonic dialogues: the Republic and the 12 13

Hoenig 2013 and 2018b: 168–177. Porro corpora, si per se ipsa spectentur, perfectam uidebuntur habere substantiam, sed si ad originem eorum conuertis mentis intentionem, inuenies cuncta et eorum scatebras siluae gremio contineri. Tunc ergo compendio principalibus materiis quattuor sumptis exaedificauerat sermone mundum, sed quia erat philosophi proprium cuncta quae ad causam pertinent summa cura mentis et diligentiore examine peragrare, ratio porro asserit subiacere corporum diuersitati siluae capacitatem, recte rationabiliterque censuit hanc ipsam rationem trahendam usque ad intellegentiae lucem, difficile opus omnino uel assequi, longe tamen difficilius declarare ac docere.

2.3 The Platonic Curriculum

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Parmenides. The pedagogical approach to philosophy in Calcidius’ scheme could, of course, be derived from the educational program which Plato develops in the Republic. In his Preface Calcidius explicitly states that he reads the Timaeus as a sequel to the Republic. Both works treat the moral and political dimension of justice. Whereas the Republic, Calcidius claims, deals with “positive justice” in human matters (ch. 6: iustitia quae uersaretur in rebus humanis, positiua), the Timaeus deals with natural justice, in the community of the gods (naturalis iustitia, qua diuinum genus aduersum se utitur). The notion of the universe as a city, shared by humans and gods, became prominent particularly with the Stoics,14 and although the Timaeus clearly has its own ethical agenda, that agenda ultimately was understood in a way that very much shaped the debate between Platonists and Stoics, as I have argued elsewhere.15 Hence both Alcinous’ and Calcidius’ treatments of physics focus on the question of divine Providence in relation to a range of other divine entities and human beings in the ordered universe. The Christian Origen also draws attention to the connection between physics and ethics (Cant. 75.20–21 Baehrens), but (if the rendering in Latin is accurate) from a noticeably more Christian perspective, claiming that a proper knowledge of nature leads one not to use it contrary to the purposes ordained by the divine Creator. How does Plato’s Parmenides enter into Calcidius’ commentary? If the Timaeus takes over where the Republic left off, the Parmenides would in turn lift its readers to a yet higher level of discourse. He indicates that the Parmenides deals with a higher level of reality than the Timaeus and uses the word epoptica to refer to the former, whereas he calls the latter naturalis (ch. 272). But epoptica – a term derived from the practice of initiation rites, as we have seen above – is for Calcidius clearly a relative notion: thus a discussion of demons is of a more epoptica nature than one of the physical universe,16 just as “matter” is a more advanced topic than physical reality (with the naturalis/rationabilis distinction, ch. 107, 156.2–3 Waszink). Calcidius describes the Parmenides as dealing primarily with the Forms and intelligible reality (ch. 272), addressing also such questions as the mode of participation of sensible reality in its intelligible counterpart (ch. 335: quatenus res existentes idearum participarent similitudinem). According to 14 15 16

On the issue of the influence of Stoicism on the commentary, see ch. 12 in this study. Reydams-Schils 1999. For an ethical reading of the Timaeus, see also accounts such as Plutarch, De tranq. anim. 477C–F. Ch. 120, 165.5; ch. 127, 170.10 Waszink. As Hoenig 2018b: 201–206 points out, the focus of Calcidius’ account of the demons is on their alignment with the elements, as would befit a discussion on physics.

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a doxographical schema of Platonist interpretations of the Parmenides preserved by Proclus,17 Calcidius (or his source) would thus fall into the group of thinkers who interpret the Parmenides as dealing with ontological matters, rather than mere logic. Yet while providing an ontological reading of the Parmenides Calcidius appears not to take his interpretation beyond the level of intelligible reality, to the notion of a radically transcendent One, as Proclus himself and other Neoplatonists do. This is where the Platonist Origen comes in, as I mentioned before,18 as an earlier Platonist whose attested position is similar to Calcidius’ own. There is a catch, however, with assuming that Calcidius endorses a lower-level ontological interpretation of the Parmenides: it is also possible that he holds back because he is addressing someone who is not an advanced student of philosophy. In doing so, he would conform to the Neoplatonist practice of adjusting the level of his discourse to his addressee’s abilities, not necessarily revealing all he knows. But apart from the fact that Calcidius would then go counter to his self-avowed principle of sharing knowledge – which is not impossible – a closer examination of his view of the divine reveals that he does not in fact posit an alltranscendent highest divine principle,19 and thus this type of lower-level ontological interpretation of the Parmenides would be consistent with the commentary’s overall approach. The pairing of the Timaeus and the Parmenides, from Iamblichus onwards (second half of the third century to the fourth century CE), occupied a crucial position in an elaborate Neoplatonist curriculum for teaching philosophy generally and Plato’s works specifically.20 But according to that pedagogical arrangement, the Timaeus and the Parmenides constitute the crowning and finishing course in their respective fields: the Timaeus in physics, and the Parmenides in theology or the highest form of knowledge. In other words, pupils following this course of study would not delve into the Timaeus until they had reached a very advanced level of training. Calcidius, in contrast, uses the Timaeus as a kind of general handbook of Platonist “theory” in a broader philosophical context, for an addressee who has limited experience with the material. As we have seen, his commentary orders its key themes from more preliminary to more advanced. In addition to teaching Osius about Plato’s views, this approach

17 18 20

PT 1.32–55 Saffrey and Westerink; In Parm. 630.15–645.8 Cousin. 19 See section 1.3 in this study. On this issue, see ch. 7 in this study. A seminal article on this topic is Festugière 1971. For a good summary see also O’Meara 2003: 61–68.

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also provides him with a compact history of philosophy in the doxographical sections. We can find traces of this use of the Timaeus in earlier strands of Platonism, as in Diogenes Laertius’ report (3.62) that “some start with the Timaeus,” or in Albinus’ reduced and basic curriculum of the Alcibiades I, Phaedo, Republic, and Timaeus (5), designed for a student seriously committed to philosophy (possessing the prerequisite knowledge – προτετελεσμένος τοῖς μαθήμασι – one should add, which Calcidius’ addressee Osius does not have), but who was not necessarily a member of a Platonist circle. An addressee such as Osius who, because of his cultural context, may not have had full access to the philosophical curriculum and to Plato’s works in Greek, would have needed an approach tailored to his specific needs. Some generations later in the Latin tradition, Macrobius would take this approach even further than Calcidius, by using an already existing Latin reflection on Plato’s Myth of Er, namely Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, as a gate of entry to all of philosophy, ethics, physics, and logic-dialectic. But to use the highly complex and cherished Timaeus, of all texts, as the vehicle for a more basic overview, as Calcidius did, could well have struck contemporary Platonists as a bold or even shocking move.

2.4 Hermeneutics and Ontology The difference between Calcidius’ and Neoplatonist readings of the Timaeus runs deeper still than the issue of where the Timaeus would fit into the curriculum. Calcidius, for his part, has a strict sense of sequence and rearranges the Timaeus so that each section of his commentary reflects a specific step in an ascent of theoretical knowledge. In terms of hermeneutics, however, the Neoplatonist curriculum is much more complex because, in addition to positing a sequence, it also relies on a markedly synoptic mode of exegesis that is, in turn, anchored in a specific worldview. The most succinct rendering of a Neoplatonist notion that establishes the link between hermeneutics and ontology appears in Porphyry’s Sententiae (10): “everything is in everything, but in a mode that is proper to the being of each” (πάντα μὲν ἐν πᾶσιν, ἀλλὰ οἰκείως τῇ ἑκάστου οὐσίᾳ).21 According to Iamblichus this principle goes back even to 21

But matters are never simple with our evidence for Porphyry’s views: Proclus criticizes Porphyry for not following through consistently on the implications of this principle and the theory of hypostases, at In Tim. 2, I 352.5–8, 11–16 Diehl. The notion was crucial to Proclus, see also In Parm. 965.10ff. Cousin.

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Numenius (ap. Stob. 1, 365.15 Wachsmuth). In ontological terms the notion implies that in Neoplatonism each level of reality – the so-called hypostases – reflects all the other levels but according to its own specifications. For example, the intelligible level of Nous knows not only the Forms but also sensible reality, only not in sensible terms but in a non-sensible, intelligible manner suited to its mode of being. In the Latin tradition Boethius would make this formula famous in his expression that things are known not according to their own nature, but according to the nature of the knower.22 If we now transfer this ontological ground rule to the Neoplatonist mode of interpreting Plato, Plato’s texts can be read as revealing the very same feature of reality. According to the Neoplatonists any given philosophical discourse is situated at a certain ontological level, but from that specific vantage point and in its specific mode, it encompasses all of reality. Thus, while the Timaeus’ proper domain would be physics, it can also address issues of the physical world’s connections to the divine and intelligible realms; the Parmenides, in turn, would have the highest level of reality as its privileged domain but could encompass, so to speak, nature as well. The same applies to any section within a given work. As already mentioned, the mathematical sections of the Timaeus in Proclus’ commentary point to a specific mode of existence, yet are not to be dissociated from physics and theology. Similarly, the Atlantis myth is true both in historical and literal terms, and in its allegorical connections to higher reality (In Tim. 1, 77.24–80.8 Diehl). Proclus interprets even the structural features of a Platonic dialogue in terms of the different levels of reality, so that each work becomes a universe in its own right (In Alc. 10.3ff.; see also Anon. Prolegomena 4 Westerink). Moreover, what pertains to the relations between the different levels of reality and to those between philosophical discourse and reality also pertains to intra- and inter-textual relations: every section of Plato’s work makes sense only from the vantage point of the work in its entirety; every work needs to be read in light of Plato’s entire oeuvre, or even in light of all of philosophy and literature such as Homer’s poetry. If one turns to Calcidius’ commentary with this powerful Neoplatonist connection between hermeneutics and ontology in mind, it becomes apparent that he does not embrace the synoptic mode of exegesis. On the issue of the correct way of reading the Timaeus he argues explicitly against readers who blur the sequence of topics. Early on in the commentary, in a passage that functions 22

Cons. 5.4.24–5, 6.1; see also section 16.1 in this study.

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as an important hermeneutical key to the entire exposition (chs. 29–31), he disagrees with those who would interpret the World Soul’s composition out of indivisible and divisible Being in terms of Form and matter.23 Calcidius prefers the reading that indivisible Being refers to a purely noetic type of soul, and divisible Being to a basic root-soul (anima stirpea) that is the source of life and the inseparable companion of bodies (inseparabilis corporum comes). His motivation for this preference is what matters here, because he argues for it in terms of sequence. It would be absurd for Plato, Calcidius states, after having finished his discussion of the World body and having moved on to the higher level of soul, to retrace his steps and, given that matter is a condition for corporeality, to return to the topic of body. The excessive emphasis in Latin on the alleged absurdity of a meandering Plato is hard to translate: Primo omnium praeposterum esse . . . rursum ad priorem tractatum retrorsum iri, ut de silua et corporibus mundi formaque eorum tractatus de integro fieret et a genitura animae recederetur. First they held that it would be utterly backwards if . . . there should again be a return to the earlier treatment, resulting in a renewed treatment of matter, the bodies that make up the world, and their form, and a movement away from the generation of the soul. (ch. 31, 80.14–18, part; trans. Magee, slightly modified)

We can hardly miss the point that Calcidius prefers a sequential reading of the Timaeus to a synoptic approach. A Neoplatonist reader would bring the entire Timaeus to bear on any given section. For Calcidius, by contrast, when one talks about body, or even more specifically, the four elements, one focuses on issues pertaining to that topic, and when one discusses the soul, returning to a previous level of discourse would be a sign of confusion. Once Calcidius has moved on to the third part of his commentary, he can, without violating his own exegetical rules, introduce matter as one of reality’s foundational principles, both because of his pedagogical schema and because Plato himself now introduces his “third genos,” the receptacle, into Timaeus’ account. Beyond his rejection of a synoptic exegesis, Calcidius does not adopt the ontological view underpinning Neoplatonist hermeneutics either. This difference in approach becomes most explicit in his discussion of the relations between fate, human freedom, and divine Providence (ch. 162).24 There he tells his reader that god knows each thing according to its nature, rather than to his own: quod deus sciat quidem omnia, sed unumquidque pro natura sua 23

See section 5.1 in this study.

24

On this issue, see also sections 8.4 and 16.1 in this study.

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ipsorum sciat. The key difference with the Greek version of the formula, as well as with Boethius’ Latin rendering, is Calcidius’ addition of ipsorum, which puts it beyond doubt that he has the nature of the things known in mind, not the nature of the knower (in this case, god’s nature). Following this premise even the divine maker of the kosmos would have to respect the hierarchical structure of and the ontological distinctions between the different levels of reality. Such a position would become part of one of the most intense philosophical debates in Antiquity and beyond, the debate over divine (fore)knowledge and human freedom. In philosophical terms, there is a lot at stake in this one line of Calcidius’ commentary, and its full implications emerge only if we see how the claim relates to his view of the world and of the project of philosophy as presented by the exegesis in its entirety.

chapter 3

The Coherence of the Commentary

As we have seen,1 the first part of the commentary looks very different from the second and third parts. It deals with the first step in the educational program Calcidius outlines for what he calls “theoretical” philosophy (ch. 264) by focusing on mathematics, music, and astronomy. The diagrams accompanying this section led to an entire tradition of their own.2 The exposition bears a strong resemblance to Theon of Smyrna’s work, and scholars have debated whether Theon’s treatise On Mathematics Useful for the Understanding of Plato and Calcidius’ commentary both go back to a now lost commentary by the Peripatetic Adrastus.3 Although it seems highly probable that there was a single principal source behind this particular section, it does not immediately follow from this hypothesis that the same would hold for the remainder of the commentary.4 Moreover, even this first part has features that betray Calcidius’ own hand in the ordering of his material: it shows how he manages both to create a coherence within this part of the commentary and to anticipate topics that will be treated in the other two parts. These topics are essential to the line of continuity that runs through the entire commentary. As different as this part of the commentary looks from the sections following it, Calcidius has taken great care to weave in strands that hold together the work as a whole. 1 2 3

4

See section 2.2 in this study. On these topics see also van der Tak 1972; Somfai 2002 and 2005; Eastwood 2007: 313–372; and Bakhouche 1990 and 2011 I: 78–88. Cf. Waszink 1962: xxxvi–xxxviii, c; see also 1964: ch. 1, building on earlier scholarship by Hiller, Switalski, and Borghorst; Bakhouche 2011 I: 36–37 claims that Calcidius used Theon’s work rather than Adrastus’ commentary. For a recent reassessment of the evidence, with an emphasis on the differences between Calcidius and Theon, see Petrucci 2012b: esp. 517–8 and 2012a. On the issue of Calcidius’ sources, see chs. 13 and 14 in this study.

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3.1

Mathematics, the World Body, and the World Soul

Calcidius opens his commentary by explaining how the Demiurge makes the World body, starting with fire and earth (31c). Because those elements are solid bodies, Plato himself states, we need two intermediaries, air and water. These four elements together are meant to be arranged in a proportional order. Calcidius (chs. 8–22) gives both arithmetical and geometrical versions of how such proportions could be arranged, and the latter both for plane figures (with only one intermediary) and solids (with two intermediaries). He ultimately opts for what he calls a continuous geometrical proportion or analogy (ch. 16): as fire stands to air, air stands to water, and water stands to earth (ch. 22, with an echo of the Timaeus 32b5–6) – as opposed, we can assume, to a discontinuous proportion whereby fire merely stands to air as water stands to earth. But with this proposal Calcidius immediately runs into the problem of the relation between physics and mathematics.5 In one of the chapters in which Calcidius refers to a passage in the Timaeus that falls outside of the frame of his commentary,6 he explains that by Plato’s own account (55–56) the mathematical structure which the Demiurge bestows on fire (a tetrahedron or pyramid) has nothing in common with that of earth (a cube). (Plato indeed claims, 54b6–d3, that fire, air, and water can change into one another because they are made of the same right-angled scalene triangle, the half-equilateral, whereas earth cannot partake in these transformations because it is made of right-angled isosceles triangles.) To address this problem of mathematical incompatibility, Calcidius avers, Plato resorts to a scheme of physical properties, whereby each element has three properties and shares two of these with the element next to it in the chain: fire = sharp, rare, mobile; air = blunt, rare, mobile; water = blunt, dense, mobile; earth = blunt, dense, immobile (derived from Timaeus 55e–56b; 61d6–62a5).7 In this manner the continuity among the elements would be guaranteed. But such a solution, again, arguably begs the question of the exact relation between these properties and 5

6 7

As, for instance, per the objections Aristotle famously raised against Plato’s geometrical atomism, Gen. corr. 1.2.316a2–4; DC 3.7–8.306a1–307b24. On this topic and the response in the Neoplatonist tradition, see Opsomer 2012. On the broader implications of cosmic harmony here and throughout the commentary, see Hoenig forthcoming a. On this issue see also section 1.3 in this study. On this topic, cf. also Waszink 1964: 74–82, whose reconstruction of the sources, however, is open to questioning, see chs. 13 and 14 in this study. Proclus, In Tim. 3, II 39.20–41 Diehl attributes this version to ps.-Timaeus Locrus; see also Nemesius, Nat. hom. 5.51.25–52.13; Bakhouche 2011 II: 637–638, n. 66.

3.1 Mathematics, the World Body, and the World Soul

39

mathematical proportions. The puzzle is embedded in Plato’s account itself, which starts out with the corporeal, visible, and tangible qualities of the elements (30b3), and mentions traces of the elements that provide the receptacle with physical properties independently of the mathematical configuration bestowed by the Demiurge (52d–53a). Further complicating this problem is the fact that Calcidius himself actually refrains from attributing a mathematical structure either to physical things or to the World or human soul. He says repeatedly, for instance, that the structure of the World Soul is merely like a mathematical structure.8 At this juncture, which is not very far into the commentary (ch. 23), Calcidius already interrupts the flow of his exposition to ask how the ordering of the world, both body and soul, relates to time.9 He alludes for the first time to Timaeus’ prooimion and the Demiurge’s speech. In this context he mentions the model after which the world has been made as an image (28b7–8 and 28c5–29a3), and states that although the world has come into being, it will be exempt from destruction (41a7–b6; see also 32c2–3, 38b6–7; 43d6–7). Turning next from the World body to the World Soul (ch. 26), Calcidius first discusses the latter’s composition out of the Same, substance/essence (35a1–4; substantia, translating Plato’s ousia), and the Other. In this context he also claims that Cicero is responsible for the translation of ousia as essentia (ch. 27, 78.2–3). This is a difficult passage in Plato’s own account, and we will take a closer look at Calcidius’ interpretation in the chapter on the World Soul (ch. 5). From ch. 32 on he focuses on the mathematics related to the structure of the World Soul, giving an analysis of its proportional structure in terms of arithmetic (chs. 32–39, with Pythagorean elements), music, and geometry (building on number theory, chs. 40–50, again with Pythagorean elements, using the lambda figure to render the structure of the soul). Of these three disciplines, he claims, geometry is the most foundational (ch. 32, 82.2–3; though in ch. 53, he claims numbers are most foundational). Calcidius tells his readers right away that these proportions refer not so much to the Soul itself as to its relation with the body (ch. 33). Via the notion of the monad he establishes a connection between the number one (arithmetic) and the point (geometry, ch. 33, 83.9–10).10 Chs. 51–55 constitute a summary statement of the composition and functions of the World Soul in which Calcidius draws his

8 10

See also section 5.2 in this study. See also ch. 38, 88.1–4; 53, 102.2–4.

9

See ch. 4 in this study.

40

The Coherence of the Commentary

readers’ attention to the broader implications of the technical details of his account. From ch. 56 on Calcidius turns to astronomy and to Plato’s exposition of the heavenly bodies – the stars and the planets – and how these fit into the structure of the World Soul. Chs. 59–91 are devoted to an excursus about the stars and the planets11 that again interrupts the flow of the commentary on the Timaeus, and could be read as a sub-treatise in its own right. (We will see many more instances of this technique in the second part of the commentary.) Calcidius here makes the standard claim that the irregularities we observe in the heavenly bodies are only apparent and can, in fact, be accounted for by circular motions with the help of the two equivalent models of epicycles or eccentric circles (illustrated by the case of the sun). From ch. 92 on Calcidius returns to Plato’s text, first providing a summary of the points he developed in the long excursus and then, from ch. 98 to the end of the first part of the commentary (ch. 118), devoting his attention to the relation of the World Soul to the heavens and to time. In this second section on astronomy he repeats a number of points related to the heavenly bodies (Bakhouche 2011 II: 703), without any reference to the previous systematic excursus, and he uses different diagrams. Thus the commentary gives the impression of containing doublets, by which I mean statements about the same or related topics that are not fully integrated. For example, this section attributes a different duration to the revolution of Venus than the one given in the preceding excursus (in ch. 70 approximately the same as the sun, 365¼ days; in ch. 112, 584 days; Bakhouche 2011, II: 714, n. 703). Together, the heavily technical nature of the excursus and the meandering of Calcidius’ organization of his material put a heavy strain on the cohesion of this part of the commentary.

3.2 Coherence of the First Part of the Commentary Despite these tensions, however, Calcidius has also clearly made an effort to unify the commentary, both within this first part and between it and the remainder of his exposition. In his introductory chapters, as we have seen,12 Calcidius indicates that he wants to come to the aid especially of readers who do not have much experience, if any, with the mathematical disciplines or the technical forms of knowledge he has grouped under the umbrella of artificiosa 11 12

A more detailed outline of that section can be found in Waszink’s edition 1962: xxx–xxxi, and in Eastwood 2007: 427–432. See ch. 1 in this study.

3.2 Coherence of the First Part of the Commentary

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ratio. He reminds us explicitly of this purpose of the commentary at the beginning of the long excursus on the heavenly bodies: “Again, in order that a means of understanding may be passed along to those who are inexperienced in astronomy, those subjects which pertain to the present discussion will be briefly and clearly explained according to their nature” (ch. 59, 106.17–19).13 Here the “clearly” (dilucide) alludes to the obscurity problem mentioned in the introductory chapters. Moreover, as mentioned already,14 the beginning of the second part of the commentary also refers to the artificiosae rationes and Calcidius closes this circle by returning to this same theme at the end of the exposition as we have it. In order to frame the long excursus Calcidius also relies on the Timaeus in a distinctive manner, by reusing the same passages. In the transition chapters, chs. 52–58, he first combines two key passages (ch. 52): (a) 36b6–c2, in which Plato describes how the Demiurge sliced the compound of the World Soul in two along its length, created an X-figure, and then bent back the ends to create two circles; and, skipping a few lines (quibusdam interpositis), (b) 37a2–b3, a recapitulation of the structure of the World Soul with its cognition of things pertaining to the Same and the Other. (This rendering of Plato’s account deviates enough from the original to read more like a paraphrase – Bakhouche 2011 II: 606; see also section 5.2 in this study.) In the subsequent chapters of the transition, Calcidius expands on both of those core texts: (b) is repeated and expanded first in ch. 56, to 37a2–c5, to cover the full section on the cognitive functions of the World Soul (but, again, in a quite abridged and simplified version compared to Plato’s original). (a) is repeated and expanded, in ch. 58, to 36b6–d7, to include the information that the movement of the outer circle would be the movement of the Same, the movement of the inner circle that of the Other; and that the sixfold division of the inner circle provides orbits for the seven planets, which move according to different speeds. One can easily detect the reason for Calcidius’ inversion of the passages when he uses them the second time: the passage about the division of the 13 14

Rursum quo etiam expertibus astronomiae assecutio tradatur aliquatenus, ea quae ad praesentem tractatum pertinent breuiter dilucideque, prout natura eorum est, explicabuntur. See section 2.2 in this study.

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The Coherence of the Commentary

inner circle of the Other provides the ideal transition to the long excursus about the heavenly bodies. When Calcidius returns to the letter of Plato’s account, as he explicitly announces at the start of ch. 91, he repeats the core passages for a third time, although in this context they are no longer used to introduce his main themes, but are fully integrated into the flow of the commentary, with expositions and diagrams attached. And thus we now also get the passages which he had initially left out: 36d8–e5, on how the World Soul is fitted to the World body (in ch. 98) and 36e5–37a2, on the World Soul as incorporeal (incorporea; Calcidius’ translation has “invisible,” inuisibilis) and as the most perfect of all the things made by the Demiurge (ch. 102). So, in sum, he uses the same passages first to give a more systematic account of the World Soul, then to create a transition to the excursus, and finally to resume the thread of his commentary on Plato’s work. In addition to relying on passages from his translation of the Timaeus to structure his exposition, Calcidius regularly provides summary passages to ensure that his readers are still following his main points. Chs. 51–55 constitute such a summary, followed by the transition, Chs. 56–57, to the excursus on the heavenly bodies. In these chapters Calcidius steps away from a detailed exposition of the structure of the World Soul to ask why Plato would attribute such a structure to the soul of the universe and then gives a twofold answer: the World Soul is arranged as it is so that (a) it could know all things (cognitive aspect) and (b) it could take care of all things (providential aspect).15 One oddity in his discussion of the soul as a self-mover is that he simply copies a Latin version of a passage from Plato’s Phaedrus (ch. 57, 245c5–246a2; Bakhouche 2011 II: 672–675), preceded and followed by passages from the Timaeus, so that we get three chapters that consist almost entirely of translations of Plato. He reminds his reader twice (ch. 51, 100.3–5; ch. 53) that so far he has discussed the components that have gone into the structure of the World Soul (indivisible and divisible Being, Same, and Other) and addressed its relation to mathematical structures (including music). Similarly, after the excursus on the heavenly bodies and before he picks up the thread of Plato’s account again, in ch. 92, Calcidius briefly reminds 15

For a more detailed discussion of these two functions, see section 5.2 in this study.

3.3 Unity of the Commentary

43

his readers of the components of the World Soul, gives a more detailed summary of its mathematical structure, and recapitulates his earlier discussion of the construction of the World body, with two intermediaries between fire and earth (144.23–145.2). This summary thus also allows him to posit that the ratios pertaining to the World Soul are analogous to those of its body. Ch. 102 provides a summary yet again and reminds his readers of one of the two main reasons for the structure of the World Soul, its knowledge of all things (a point developed in chs. 51–55). By the end of this final summary statement, Calcidius has succeeded in weaving together all the main points of his exposition in a distilled version apparently intended for mnemonic purposes.

3.3

Unity of the Commentary

In addition to the features that give the first part of the commentary its internal coherence, that section of Calcidius’ work also provides important connections with the remainder, which tie together the commentary as a whole. For instance, as Anna Somfai (2003 and 2004: 215–216) has argued convincingly, the continuous geometrical proportion (or “analogy”) on which he relies in his explanation of the construction of the World body serves as a leitmotif for Calcidius’ worldview throughout the commentary.16 This ratio resurfaces in his small treatise on demons,17 in which Calcidius makes a similar claim about the principle of plenitude (ch. 120). In this instance he first applies the properties immortal/mortal and patibilis/impatibilis to delineate the whole category of demons as intermediary between the heavenly divine beings, who are immortal and not liable to passions, and human beings, who are mortal and subject to passions, indicating that the demons are immortal but liable to passions (ch. 131; with an explicit reference to his earlier discussion of means in relation to the World body). Next he posits a second intermediary within the category of demons: demons assigned to ether (which in this schema, derived from ps.-Plato, Epinomis, comes after fire) are invisible and the least contaminated by passion; demons located in air are also invisible, but are less pure; and finally, demons located in water are not always invisible, can assume different shapes, and can harm human beings (they are used by god to punish humans). 16 17

Christina Hoenig develops a similar argument for the notion of harmony (forthcoming a). Chs. 127–136 (see especially ch. 129, 172.10–11); but also chs. 131–132. For a fuller discussion of these passages see den Boeft 1977.

44

The Coherence of the Commentary

But is the continuity in the commentary provided by “analogy” reasoning disrupted when at a later stage in his argument Calcidius returns to the relations between the elements? In his discussion of matter he relies on different properties from the ones he has mentioned in the first part of the commentary. Instead of using three properties, as he had done before, he now invokes pairs (chs. 317–318): fire is dry and hot, air is hot and wet, water is wet and cold, and earth is cold and dry.18 Trying to reconcile these two approaches, Somfai (2004: 216–217) makes the plausible suggestion that the second description applies to the state of the elements “before” the ordering influence of the Demiurge, whereas the first one represents the outcome of this ordering influence. Finally, Calcidius returns explicitly to the method of analogy in the concluding chapter of the extant commentary, with its closing reflection on the necessity of a knowledge of the sciences. With the question of the relation of the world to time, after his discussion of the construction of the World body, Calcidius raises an issue that is relevant for any interpretation of the Timaeus as a whole. Which components in the make-up of the world exist independently of one another, and which are dependent on the ordering influence of the Demiurge? Although the question of time pertains first and foremost to the World body and the World Soul, each of which owes its structure to the causal agency of the Demiurge, it is also highly relevant for the role of matter: whether or not matter exists independently as one of the foundational building blocks of the world is itself open to debate, as the third part of the commentary clearly attests.19 Accordingly Calcidius builds an explicit reference to a fuller discussion of matter into the first part of his commentary (end of ch. 107), as a topic that would be rationabilis rather than naturalis, by which, I submit, he means that it pertains to a higher, metaphysical, as we would call it, reflection, according to the pedagogical program he has set out for himself.20 The claim he makes here, that matter in itself is in no substance because it is defined as potentiality (possibilitas), anticipates and is in agreement with the position he will eventually endorse in the subtreatise on matter.

18 19 20

These are the Aristotelian properties from the tradition of interpreting Gen. corr. 2.4. On the issue of matter, see chs. 10 and 11 in this study. Pace Waszink 1984: 365, who claims that the term rationabilis entails that the topic would fall outside of the scope of the commentary altogether, given that the Timaeus is a treatise on nature (Preface ch. 6 and ch. 272). As we have seen already (section 2.3), rationabilis, like epopticus, can be a relative notion used to indicate that one topic is on a more advanced level than another.

3.3 Unity of the Commentary

45

But it is really in his first discussion of the composition of the World Soul (chs. 27–31), which we will examine more closely (ch. 5), that Calcidius creates an arc for the entire commentary. In this passage Calcidius reports on a debate about the meaning of indivisible Being or essence and of divisible Being, which both contribute to the construction of the World Soul. As we have seen (section 2.4), one group of interpreters equates indivisible Being with the Forms and divisible Being with matter. Others, with whom Calcidius aligns himself, see indivisible Being as some kind of higher, noetic soul, whereas they interpret divisible Being as referring to a lower soul, an inseparable companion of bodies and a lifeprinciple. When Calcidius discusses Numenius’ position in greater detail near the end of the commentary (chs. 295–299), it becomes apparent that Numenius would fall under the heading of those who posit two primordial souls, a higher, and a lower, evil one. In the conclusion of his exposition on matter (ch. 352), however, Calcidius ends up parting ways with Numenius’ view that the primary cause of evil resides with the lower soul.21 Several other features of Calcidius’ discussion of the World Soul also anticipate later parts of his commentary. For instance, his claim that the stars are the equivalent of reason and the planets of spirit and appetite (ch. 95, 148.9–11) anticipates the connection between the World Soul and the human soul.22 Similarly, Calcidius’ comment that the sun is like a vital principle and the heart in the World Soul (ch. 100) does not acquire its full meaning until we get to his sub-treatise on the human soul. In yet another example, a brief allusion to the effect that the motions of the heavenly bodies can have on events on earth (ch. 76), for which there is a parallel in Theon of Smyrna’s treatise, functions as an anticipation of the sub-treatise on fate.23 The most striking foreshadowing of later sections of the commentary occurs in a description of the role of the divine as monad, or the apex of the lambda-figure used to render the structure of the World Soul: [No figure is more suited than the lambda with an apex.] The point I am making is that no shape is more suitable than this one, in which the unity placed at the top is seen to hold the place of the summit or pinnacle, so that through it as a kind of conduit, so to speak, a certain bountiful river, as it were, might flow as if from the depths of the perennial fount of provident intelligence and the unity itself be understood to be mind, intelligence, or the craftsman god himself. For as the origin of numbers, providing from itself being for all things and itself embracing both the simple and manifold 21 23

22 See ch. 13 in this study. On this issue see section 6.4 in this study. Discussed in ch. 8 in this study.

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The Coherence of the Commentary rational principles that determine them, it is alone in its inviolable sovereignty (inconcusso iure) and perseveres, forever the same in its proper state, forever immutable, forever a unity, like all things divine, which are unaltered by any temporal progression and exist forever in a state of impassible felicity; all this, while through increase and decrease the other numbers undergo change and recede from their proper nature. (ch. 39)24

Even though the notions of monad (and dyad, commonly associated with Pythagoras, see also ch. 53) will eventually drop out of Calcidius’ view of the divine,25 in due course all the other elements will come more fully into their own: (1) the alignment of mind, intelligence, Providence, and Demiurge; (2) the claim that this god bestows substance on other things out of itself; and (3) the relation between this god and law (ius).26 The third of these points also refers back to the Preface, in which Calcidius posits that the main theme of the Timaeus is natural justice, at the level of the divine (ch. 6). Finally, the last point of the passage also refers to the discussion of the relation between the divine and time. By the end of the first part of the commentary, in other words, we have already moved considerably beyond the image of Calcidius as a mere compilator of sources at his disposal. A close reading of the text reveals that he has a strong awareness of the importance of his role as a commentator vis-à-vis his addressee and potential audience, that he asserts with great self-assurance a relative independence from the tradition of Platonism, and that he clearly shows his hand in the ordering of his account, even in parts of the commentary that appear to depend on one primary source or on a limited range of material, such as the exposition on the heavenly bodies. To gain an even clearer sense of the kind of Platonism Calcidius represents, the next chapters provide a systematic treatment of key themes in the commentary. 24

25 26

Nullam dico esse aptiorem figuram quam est haec in qua singularitas cacumini superimposita summitatem atque arcem obtinere consideratur, ut per eam uelut emissaculum quoddam tamquam e sinu fontis perennis prouidae intellegentiae quasi quidam largus amnis efflueret ipsaque singularitas mens siue intellegentia uel ipse deus opifex intellegatur esse. Cum enim sit origo numerorum omnibusque ex se substantiam subministret rationesque eorum tam simplices quam multiplicatas ipsa contineat, ceteris numeris incrementis imminutionibusque mutatis atque ex propria natura recedentibus sola inconcusso iure est atque in statu suo perseuerat semper eadem, semper immutabilis et singularitas semper, quem ad modum diuina omnia quae nulla temporis progressione mutantur suntque semper impetibili felicitate. Discussed more fully in ch. 7 of this study. Waszink, in the note to this passage in his edition (see also Waszink 1964: 20 n. 1), claims, following van Winden 1959: 105–106 (see also 43), that this passage shows the influence of Numenius. But as we will see (ch. 13 in this study), this claim needs to be nuanced considerably.

part two

chapter 4

Time and the Universe

Whether Plato intended the world as we know it to have had a literal beginning constitutes one of the most important debates in Antiquity about the Timaeus.1 That time comes about with the world, and more precisely with the making of the heavenly bodies, does not settle this question in the negative, because an unmeasured flow or duration of some kind would still allow for succession in terms of “before” and “after” prior to the fully structured flow of time, as Cicero’s spokesperson the Epicurean Velleius had already stated in his De natura deorum (1.21; see also Aristotle, Phys. 223a21–29).2 In other words there still could be some (unmeasured) duration “before” the Demiurge turns to the task of ordering the world and the world could have a literal beginning in that sense. Aristotle rejected what he interpreted as Plato’s notion that time had a beginning by coming to be together with the universe (Phys. 251b16–18; DC 279b32–280a2). But most interpreters in Antiquity held the view that Plato used time designations merely as an educational device in order to talk about the eternal structure of the world.3 Plutarch and Atticus were notable exceptions,4 and recently scholars have tried again to make the case for an actual beginning (Sedley 2007: 98–107; Broadie 2012: 243–277). Calcidius, so it appears, sides squarely with those who do not espouse 1 2 3

4

For a good overview, cf. Baltes 1976–1978. See also the broader context provided by Boys-Stones 2018: ch. 7. See also Zeyl 2000: xxiv, going back to Vlastos 1965: 409–414. Sorabji 2006: 272–275 provides a helpful succinct overview. Such a position is already attested for Speusippus (F41, 61, 72 Tarán) and Xenocrates (F54, 68 Heinze), probably coming to Plato’s rescue against a criticism such as the one leveled against him by Aristotle (DC 1.10–12); see also section 1.1 in this study. Mentioned together by Proclus, In Tim. 2, I 276.30–277.1 Diehl = Atticus F19 des Places: Plutarch and Atticus make a distinction between unmeasured time before the ordering of the universe, and ordered time coming about with the universe. Cf. the position which Calcidius, via Numenius, attributes to the Pythagoras, ch. 295, 297.11–16 (discussed in ch. 13 in this study). But as Sedley 2007: 107, n. 30 has reminded us, there were other Platonists who endorsed a literal reading; see also Philo, Aet. 13.

49

50

Time and the Universe

a literal reading of the Timaeus. For him, as for others who do not accept that the world had a beginning, the horizontal temporal language of “before” and “after” stands for a vertical dependence on a higher cause or other primordial principles, and he gives us quite valuable insights into how such an interpretation could be constructed.

4.1

Translation and Commentary in Tension?

Before we turn our attention to the manner in which the commentary addresses this question,5 however, we first need to address an oddity in Calcidius’ translation, which may, at first sight, run counter to the claim that he indeed espoused the position of an eternal world, without beginning or end. As Alain Galonnier (2009) has noted, whereas Plato deliberately plays on a double register of temporal and a-temporal meanings of the same words in his initial expression of the question (28b6–8), Calcidius in his translation has rewritten the account in an unambiguously temporal sense. Plato’s Greek version goes as follows: πότερον ἦν ἀεί, γενέσεως ἀρχὴν ἔχων οὐδεμίαν, ἢ γέγονεν, ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς τινος ἀρξάμενος. γέγονεν·

In Greek archē can mean both “starting point” (or “principle”) and “beginning” in a temporal sense (just as initium in Latin can have both temporal and a-temporal senses); similarly, gegonen (from the verb gignesthai) can mean “has become” in a temporal sense, or, it can mean “is in a permanent state of becoming” (Baltes 1996). Here, by contrast, is Calcidius’ rendering in his translation: Item mundus fueritne semper citra exordium temporis an sit originem sortitus ex tempore, considerandum – factus est. Also, one has to consider whether the world has always been, beyond any beginning of time, or whether it has drawn its origin from time. It was made.

The double mention of time (tempus) pulls the entire line clearly in the ambit of a temporal interpretation, which carries over into the factus est. So, are the translation, which renders the Timaeus passage in a temporal sense, and the commentary, which argues away that temporal dimension, pushing their readers in opposite directions, as Galonnier has suggested? 5

On this topic, see also Rudolph 2000.

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Not necessarily. An alternative explanation presents itself. In his translation Calcidius already starts to clear up difficulties and ambiguities in Plato’s account, in order to make it more accessible.6 Hence he has opted for a clear temporal dimension here. But the question to be considered (considerandum) is to what extent a temporal beginning applies to the world. A clear, univocal temporal reading of Plato’s text in the translation is subsequently reinterpreted in the commentary in a clear, univocal allegorical way as a dependence on a higher cause. Such a procedure actually makes it easier for Calcidius to get his point across because he does not have to dwell first on ambiguities in Plato’s account itself. The technique provides a much clearer distinction between the surface meaning of the text and its deeper, real intention. Calcidius, as we will see, carries out a similar simplification in his rendering of key passages that describe the structure and functions of the World Soul.7

4.2

Time and Causality

How, then, does Calcidius address the question of the world’s beginning in his commentary? As mentioned already, it is the first systematic treatment of a question that interrupts the flow of his exegesis of specific passages about the construction of the World body. He discusses the topic of time (chs. 23–25; Baltes 1976–1978: 172–184) to advance three reasons why the law that generation is followed by corruption and birth by death (cum quae fiunt quaeque nascuntur facta dissoluantur, nata occidant) does not apply to the world,8 even though it is said to have been made, and, moreover, made as a corporeal entity. The first reason pertains to its maker (a quo factus sit), the second to its composition (ex quibus constet), and the third to its model (ad quod exemplum institutus). This way of phrasing the question is in itself still compatible with the notion that the world has a beginning in time but

6 7 8

Hoenig 2014; see also Hoenig 2018b: 181–194, which provides an overview of the terminology pertaining to time which Calcidius uses in his translation of the Timaeus. As discussed in ch. 5 in this study. In his edition, Waszink (followed by Bakhouche 2003: 19) claims that this phrase is an echo of the nature of Christ as defined by the Council of Nicaea, and hence an indication that Calcidius was a Christian. But this is an overinterpretation: apart from the fact that there is no direct connection between the topic at hand and the second person of the Trinity, the combination of fieri and nasci is here the result of the structure of Calcidius’ argument, which relies on the contrast between things in nature (which come about, nasci) and things made by god (fieri), as Baltes 1976–1978: 172, n. 327 points out (see also ch. 15 in this study). For similar language, see also Apuleius, Mund. 24.343: [the Demiurge] . . . genitor est omnium, qui ad conplendum mundum nati factique sunt, Hoenig 2018b: 133.

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Time and the Universe

will go on to exist forever. Calcidius, however, opts for a radically different approach. In addressing his first line of inquiry, concerning the maker of the world, Calcidius starts from the assumption that all things that are, are works of god, of nature, or of human beings who imitate nature. Because nature and time coexist (par enim et aequaeuum natale naturae ac temporis), the works of nature, which grow out of seeds, are bound by the temporal processes of birth and decay. God, however, is outside of time altogether, and he works not through seeds, but through a causality that answers to divine Providence (causae . . . perspicuae diuinae prouidentiae; here the importance of Providence in Calcidius’ worldview again asserts itself, discussed more fully in ch. 8 in this study); his effect on the world is not temporal but causal (origo causatiua, non temporaria). And just as god is eternal in the sense of being outside of time altogether, so are his causes, and thus, the argument goes, the works brought about by this type of causality, such as the world in its entirety, are eternal too. To register the point that divine eternity has nothing to do with time whatsoever, Calcidius in this context already anticipates his fuller discussion of time (tempus) as an image (simulacrum) of eternity (aeuum), to which he will turn in due course (chs. 105–107). So, whereas the Timaeus literally posits a beginning for the world, yet claims that it will go on to exist forever, Calcidius here explicitly opts for an interpretation that makes the world considered as a whole exempt from the process of time;9 time applies only to processes within the world.10 Let us now return to Calcidius’ translation of the earlier passage from the Timaeus (28b6–8), keeping in mind the solution that he has proposed in ch. 23: Item mundus fueritne semper citra exordium temporis an sit originem sortitus ex tempore, considerandum – factus est. Also, one has to consider whether the world has always been, beyond any beginning of time, or whether it has drawn its origin from time. It was made.

The commentary explains that the world has indeed been made, in the sense of depending on a higher cause. But it has not drawn its origin from time (originem sortitus ex tempore); it has a causal origin, not a temporal 9

10

In agreement with Baltes 1976–1978: 176–177, and pace Bakhouche 2011 II: 640–641, and 2003, who claims that Calcidius here holds on to the notion of a beginning of the world; see also Bakhouche 2011 II: 643 n. 97, for ch. 25 discussed below. See also ch. 302, about sensible things in time, and chs. 321 and 329.

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one. Thus, considered as a whole it is beyond the condition of time (fueritne semper citra exordium temporis). As Christina Hoenig (2018a: 443–446) reminds us, Calcidius has actually prepared the ground in his translation of 29b2 for his first argument against a literal interpretation of the Timaeus in ch. 23, which relies on a distinction between different kinds of causes. Whereas Plato underlines the importance of finding any principle/beginning (παντός, 29b2), Calcidius appears to focus his translation on the origin of the world (by not rendering the παντός). Moreover, whereas Plato’s original talks about the affinity of different forms of discourse (logoi) with their subject matter, Calcidius renders this as an affinity between different types of causes and that of which they are the cause (causae, quae cur unaquaeque res sit ostendunt, earundem rerum consanguineae sunt).11 His first argument for exempting the world considered as a whole from the condition of time (ch. 23: nulla temporis lege teneatur) relies, precisely, on the difference between the divine causality of its maker, who stands outside of time altogether, and the type of causality we see at work in nature. Calcidius’ second argument (ch. 24) is more clearly derived from the Timaeus itself (32c5–34a7), and proves only that the world will never be destroyed (it does not focus on its origin). Given that the elements have been completely used up in the making of the World body, there is nothing left outside of the kosmos that could undermine its integrity. Nothing flows in or out of the universe, Calcidius avers, and the elements are continuously recycled within the kosmos, in a flux that does not undermine it internally either (but in this context he leaves out Plato’s claims that the world is unique, that it has a spherical shape, and that it does not need arms or legs, nor sense-organs, given that it has no outside with which to interact; Bakhouche 2011 II: 638–639). The third argument (ch. 25) relies on the relation between the kosmos and its intelligible model: the latter is outside of time, like god, and exists eternally, and processes of the world imitate this feature of eternity by existing through all of time (Hoenig 2014). In contrast to his earlier point that the world as made by god is exempt from time, Calcidius here claims that the sensible world does exist throughout time (per tempora); presumably he is now considering the world from within, so to speak. The relation between a-temporal eternity and an infinite extension of time can also be derived directly from Plato’s account, and more specifically from his discussion of time and eternity (37c6–38c5; hence Calcidius repeats this 11

See also Bakhouche 2011 II: 601, n. 275, with a reference to Baltes and Dörrie 1996: 358, n. 1.

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argument in similar terms in ch. 105). But Calcidius is explicit about extending time into the past as much as into the future: as an image of a-temporal eternity – that is, of the intelligible model that always is (76.6, semper est) – the world always was, is, and will be (semper fuit est erit).12 Plato’s original here does not have “forever” (ἀεί, or an equivalent thereof), but states that the world has been, is, and will be for all time (38c2: διὰ τέλους τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον), a formulation that is compatible with the idea that measured time has a definite starting point and that the world merely has existed for as long as time has. Calcidius’ translation has semper for the model (Plato has πάντα αἰῶνα) and per omne tempus for the world, but his commentary uses semper for both, eliding the difference between the two. Moreover, in Plato’s context, if we interpret the account literally, time itself has a beginning with the making of the planets (38c4: ἵνα γεννηθῇ χρόνος), a notion which Calcidius has omitted from his exposition here. He does discuss the generation of time (genitura temporis) when he gets to the relevant passage from the Timaeus in the sequence of his commentary (ch. 108, see also ch. 101, on time being generated together with the world, and the “indefatigable and unceasing life” of the World Soul being “passed along,” propagata, to time and its course), but by then he has already established that “generation” here is not to be understood in a literal sense. Moving from body to soul, Calcidius reinforces his point of a non-literal interpretation of generation in the first chapter about the construction of the World Soul (ch. 26). Whereas Plato focuses on the problem of sequence in discussing soul after body, even though the former is more venerable and thus “older” than the latter, Calcidius again directs his reader immediately to the problem of generation. After establishing the connection between the “making of the world” and the “making of the soul,” Calcidius states a general interpretive principle: the Timaeus is the only one of Plato’s accounts in which he talks about the “generation” of eternal things (aeternarum rerum genituras), but Plato adopts such temporal terms merely as a concession to his audience, and thus for pedagogical reasons, Calcidius avers.13 This pedagogical tactic is necessary, first, because some people may think that the excellence of the god is being diminished if we posit that some things are co-eternal with him, since we have the habit of 12 13

See also Philo, Aet. 53. See also section 1.1 in this study. On the specific claim that Plato describes eternal things as generated for the sake of teaching, see Taurus, as recorded in Philoponus, Aet. 6.21, 186.21–187.1; see also his series of reasons as to why Plato would have adopted this method, 187.3–189.9. For a fresh assessment of Taurus’ position see Petrucci 2018.

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associating status with precedence in time, as in the case of a father and his offspring, or of founders and their cities. These people confuse precedence in time with the dignity of preeminence, and god is superior in virtue of the latter, not the former. A second group of people has a tendency to ascribe the authority over a task more to the work of hands than to a disposition of the mind. A third group mistakenly considers divine nature to be similar to human nature, and cannot envision anything existing that has not been generated (or been “born”). So, to summarize Calcidius’ argument, because of limitations in ordinary understandings of the divine, of authority and preeminence, and of the possible modes of existence, Plato adopts a discourse that would be easier to grasp on an immediately accessible level. In this context Calcidius reminds us of the main reason why he does not endorse the position that the world could have a beginning in time without being liable to destruction: to be generated in this sense inevitably leads to destruction; there are no exceptions (77.16; an echo of ch. 23, 73.7–8) – more on this below. As we have seen, in order to be eternal the world as a whole has to be exempt altogether from this law of temporality. In the sub-treatise on the human soul Calcidius returns to the topic of the “making” of soul (ch. 228): if the soul is made somehow out of indivisible Being, divisible Being, the Same, and the Other (and this mixture goes into the rational part of the human soul as well), would the soul then not be a composite entity (composita/compositio)? But being composite, he goes on, entails being generated at a certain moment in time (quod ex aliquo initio temporis natum factumue sit; with the same use of nasci and fieri as in ch. 23), which does not apply to soul: So when Plato says that soul came into being and was made and put together by the craftsman god, he does not mean that it takes the starting point for its being from a fixed point in time, or that a previously nonexistent soul subsequently began to be, but that it has a structure analogous to that associated with coming-to-be and a process of composition; and when he says that it is without a process of generation or composition, he explicitly denies it any beginning point or any origin in the process of composition. (ch. 228, 244.6–10)14

That the generation of the world should not be taken at face value is a view Calcidius consistently adopts throughout the commentary. When he 14

Igitur cum dicit Plato natam animam et ab opifice deo factam compositamque, nec ex certo tempore initium substantiae dicit trahere nec ut, quae non fuerit ante, post esse coeperit, sed quod habeat rationem ortus et compositionis; cum uero sine genitura et sine compositione dicit, aperte nullum ei dat initium nec ullam originem compositionis.

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discusses the Demiurge’s speech to the younger gods (Timaeus 41a), he affirms again that the younger gods made by him “do not exist by virtue of any process of birth in time but because of the wish of the highest god, which traverses the whole of time from its origins” (ch. 139: non enim sunt ex ullo ortu temporario sed ex uoluntate summi dei emensa omnem temporum antiquitatem; see also ch. 201). Whereas Plato’s point is that the Demiurge’s will constitutes the strongest bond possible, strong enough to prevent the younger gods’ (and by implication, the universe’s) destruction, Calcidius in his interpretation of that passage lifts the younger gods above the framework of time altogether. Similarly, in the sub-treatise on matter he explicitly approves of Aristotle’s notion of an eternal universe without beginning or end, which he interprets as in perfect harmony with Plato’s position (ch. 283). There is a possible exception to Calcidius’ otherwise consistent position that the universe is eternal in his discussion about the relation between time and eternity (ch. 105), where he claims that the sensible world has been made in a single instant (uno eodemque momento mundus exaedificabatur sensilis, Reydams-Schils 2010: 503). One could detect at least two aspects to positing a starting point for the world: one, that it has a beginning, the other, that its ordering took up a certain amount of time in a sequential process. One can deny the second, by claiming that the world was made all at once, while still endorsing the first, by holding the view that the world had a beginning; Calcidius rejects both views. Calcidius’ statement about the world being made in a single instant does not contradict his claim about its eternity if we assume that the instant he has in mind does not refer to a moment in time, but to the divine eternal present, and this usage is attested for Numenius, Philo, Plutarch, Porphyry, and later Platonists.15 It is not likely that he means at the first moment of time, in the sense that the world came about together with time, even though that is how the later tradition tries to reconcile his account with Genesis (Gersh 2010: 897). First, as we have seen, for Calcidius it is nature, as a term that encompasses processes within the world, that is coeval with time (ch. 24, 74.3–4: par enim et aequaeuum natale naturae ac 15

Numenius F5 des Places, on Being: ἔστιν ἀεὶ ἐν χρόνῳ ὁρισμένῳ, τῷ ἐνεστῶτι μόνῳ, O’Brien 2015: 141; Philo, Opif. 13, 28; Plutarch, De E 393A–B. Porphyry and Proclus explicitly use the adjective “non-temporal,” cf. Sent. 44: ἐν ἀδιαστάτῳ τῷ νῦν ἀχρόνῳ παραστήματι; Proclus, In Tim. 2, I 395.10–21 Diehl (use of ἀχρόνως combined with ἀθρόως); 3, II 102.6–9 Diehl: Ὁ μὲν θεὸς ἀθρόως πάντα καὶ διαιωνίως παράγει). See Plato, Parm. 152e. (The reference to an alleged view of Porphyry attested in Philoponus, Aet. 6.8, 148.25–149.11, Köckert 2009: 186, is less helpful in this context, because the examples mentioned, lightning and the snapping of fingers, clearly occur in time.) See also Sallustius, Diis mund. 4 and 13.

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temporis); time is an internal mechanism of the universe, but the universe in its entirety is not bound by it. Second, Calcidius extends time infinitely into the past as well as into the future. Calcidius’ stance on the relation between the universe and time allows his readers to discern which aspects of his universe he considers to be primordial and coexisting – and grasping this point is essential to a correct understanding of the commentary. It would not come as a surprise that he considers the Demiurge god and the intelligible model of the universe as primordial. But as we shall see (ch. 9 in this study), in keeping with the Timaeus, matter is primordial as well, and thus not dependent on or derived from any divine principle, not even in a non-temporal, causal sense. In ch. 31 he extends his range of the fundamental principles of the universe to include (a) both the higher, noetic soul and the lower, vital soul, and (b) “the power of body”: [They held that] there always existed the power of both soul and body, and that god did not make the world from things that did not exist but rather gave order to things that existed without order or limit, and hence that he conferred order on things that existed rather than generated things that did not, . . . (ch. 31, 80.21–22; trans. Magee, slightly modified)16

The Demiurge ordered the disorderly motions of the lower soul by bringing them under the influence of intellect (in the World Soul), Calcidius goes on to say, and he imposed order on the erratic motions of bodies. In sum, if we translate the temporal language into causality, as Calcidius wants his readers to do, the fact that matter and other components of the universe existed “before” the ordering intervention of the Demiurge means that these coexist independently with the divine side of reality; and the intervention of the Demiurge has to be reinterpreted as the ordered universe’s causal dependence on a higher, divine agency. The answer to the question how the lower soul and corporeality relate to matter has to wait until the very end of the commentary. But by combining information from different passages in the Timaeus (notably 30a; 53b: the last section of this translation, and 69b–c2, which falls outside the frame of the translation and commentary) Calcidius has already laid the groundwork for this answer. Thus, the claim that the Demiurge did not make the world out of things that 16

fuisse enim semper tam animae quam corporis uim nec deum ex his quae non erant fecisse mundum sed ea quae erant sine ordine ac modo ordinasse; itaque potius ea quae existebant exornasse quam generasse quae non erant.

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did not exist before, but merely imposed order on pre-existing things – with the understanding, again, that the temporal language is interpreted in a non-literal sense as indicating a causal dependence of the ordered world on god – becomes one of the general assumptions that drives Calcidius’ entire exposition.

chapter 5

On Soul and Souls (1) The World Soul

In his rendering of the construction of the World Soul, Calcidius makes the Timaeus more accessible to his audience and develops themes that will run through the commentary in its entirety. As mentioned already, many features of the World Soul as Calcidius sees it in his translation and the first part of his exposition come into their own only in the course of the commentary; the connection with his mini-treatise on the human soul (chs. 213–235), which we will examine next, is particularly revealing in this respect.

5.1

Making the World Soul

After his discussion of the relation between the World Soul and time,1 Calcidius turns his attention to the making of the World Soul (chs. 27–28) with a discussion of Being, Same, and Other (Timaeus 35a). He belongs to a tradition that interprets the World Soul as consisting, first, of an intermediary between indivisible Being and divisible Being, second, of the Same (as aligning with indivisible Being), and third, of the Other (as aligning with divisible Being). Just as there are two kinds of Being, Calcidius argues, “nature” (Plato does use φύσις here) is also dual and consists of the Same and the Other. With regard to the latter pair he does not assume an actual intermediary between Same and Other, but rather posits that the World Soul has a nature that partakes of both. Hence he talks in some contexts about the World Soul as consisting of four components (indivisible Being, divisible Being, Same and Other; as in ch. 53, beginning and end, 54 end), and in others, of three (Being or essence, Same and Other, as in ch. 92; 102). Calcidius’ translation reflects this reading, with his addition of ex gemina biformique natura (that “nature is double,” Bychkov 1995), which is Calcidius’ own explanation, rather than a literal translation of Plato’s account. 1

Discussed in ch. 4 of this study.

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It has been Grube’s (1932) merit to point out, however, that Proclus’ rendering and interpretation of the crucial passage from the Timaeus is the accurate one. On this reading, Plato posits an intermediary for the Same between one kind that is aligned with indivisible Being and the other aligned with divisible Being, and analogously an intermediary Other, so that Same and Other each apply both to indivisible Being as well as divisible. So, we can contrast Calcidius’ interpretation with Plato’s original as follows: Calcidius’ Four-Component Model Indivisible Being World Soul (consists of) >

[intermediary Being] Divisible Being

Nature: Same // [partaking of] // Nature: Other

Plato’s Six-Component Model

World Soul >

Indivisible Being

Same

Other

[intermediary]

[intermediary]

[intermediary]

Divisible Being

Same

Other

As we will see, Plato’s model is also at work in his quite complex description of the cognitive functions of the World Soul. On the other hand, it has to be admitted that Plato, too, privileges the use of the Same for the intelligible realm and of the Other for the sensible realm, as when, for instance, he calls the outer circle of the World Soul, which contains the fixed stars, the circle of the Same, and the inner one, which gets divided into seven circles for the planets, the circle of the Other (Reydams-Schils 1999: 25–26). But what does Plato mean by the distinction between indivisible and divisible Being in the first place? Here (chs. 29–31) Calcidius renders what he calls a debate among the “ancients” (ueteres), and for now, until we address the question of his source(s), I would like to hold on to the hypothesis that these passages, which provide a key to the entire commentary,2 result from his own attempt to create some kind of order among a range of views. As we 2

See also section 3.3 in this study. Parts of this chapter are derived from Reydams-Schils 2006.

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have seen, he presents us with two options (ch. 29). According to one interpretation, indivisible Being would refer to the Forms, and divisible Being to matter, as the “origin and source of bodies” (quae uelut exordium et fons est corporum). Plutarch helps us to understand who may be behind this interpretation: Crantor and Posidonius (with the latter we face the complication, of course, whether a Stoic can be said to have endorsed something analogous to Platonic ideas).3 The interpretation Calcidius himself endorses, however, is that indivisible Being refers to some type of radically transcendent and purely noetic type of soul, and divisible Being to a rudimentary life force, uitalis uigor, that is the inseparable companion of bodies, which he also calls a “root soul” (anima stirpea): Or by “indivisible” Being does Plato instead mean a higher level of soul which is subject to no embodiment and whose venerable purity is inviolable by any bodily contagion, and by “divisible” Being the soul that provides vital force not only to all forms of animal (animalibus) but also to plants and trees, so that a third, rational kind of soul might be blended from the two, to prevent the bodies, namely, animals (animalia), that received life from being completely mute and without reason, and there might additionally be a kind of animal (animantium) which in its capacity for reason, learning, and intellect would venerate its author in contemplating the wondrous plan and disposition of the divine work that is the world? (ch. 29, 79.14–23; trans. Magee, slightly modified)4

The first problem which this reading raises is the status of plants: the existence of a “root” soul would imply that plants have souls too, and the passage just quoted might suggest as much. If that were the case, Calcidius would not be entirely consistent: in the treatise on soul we read that only animals have souls (ch. 225, 240.17), which would pose a problem for the extra-corporeal and noetic soul as well.5 This oscillation reflects the 3

4

5

Plutarch, De an. procr. 1012D, 1012F, 1013B–C, 1022E, 1023B–D = Posidonius F141a Edelstein and Kidd; cf. also the ps.-Timaeus Locrus 94a, 95e, 97e; cf. Cherniss’ notes in the Loeb edition, and Ferrari and Baldi 2002. an potius indiuiduam Plato substantiam censeat eminentiorem animam, quae nulli sit incorporationi obnoxia cuiusque ueneranda puritas nulla corporis contagione uioletur, diuiduam uero substantiam illam animam dicat, quae non solum cunctis animalibus sed etiam stirpibus et arboribus dat uitalem uigorem, ut sit ex his duabus conflatum tertium animae genus rationabile, idcirco ne omnia muta essent et ratione carerent quae uitam sortirentur corpora, uidelicet animalia, sed esset praeterea genus animantium huius modi, quod rationis disciplinaeque et intellectus capax diuini operis admirandam rationem dispositionemque intellegens veneraretur mundani operis auctorem. In line with Calcidius’ use of animal (79.17) as a term to designate “animals” as opposed to “plants” and “trees,” I translate the subsequent animalia and animantium (79.20) also as referring to animals. The designation “living beings,” which Magee uses, is broader because it also includes plants in Calcidius’ account, and would thus muddle the debate on the issue whether plants have souls too (see also ch. 6 in this study). On this issue see also ch. 7 in this study.

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positions of the different schools of thought, but presumably Calcidius could also have in mind an implicit difference between soul in the strict sense – of animals – and soul construed in a broader sense. Moreover, Calcidius is actually quite careful with his wording here: he says that the lower soul bestows a vital force (vitalis vigor) not only on animals, but also on plants and trees (see also ch. 54). It is thus reasonable to assume that plants partake only of the lower soul, and only in a rudimentary manner at best, below the threshold of ensouled beings. Calcidius’ reading of the passage from the Timaeus on divisible and indivisible Being, which also draws on a tradition of interpreting the two kinds of soul from Plato’s Laws (896d–e), allows him to read the rapport between the World Soul and the human soul as a very close one, a point to which we shall return,6 and to minimize the ontological differences between them. And with this attempt, he finds himself in excellent Middle Platonist company. Analogous views are attested for the following: • Plutarch: The focal text here is De animae procreatione in Timaeo Platonis. It would appear that for Plutarch the two components that make up the World Soul are intellect and lower soul, not higher and lower soul. But the distinction between mind and soul for the higher component is not always clear-cut in his writings or in the testimonies (cf. for instance De Is. et Os., 370F; Proclus, In Tim. 3, II 153.25–154.1 Diehl, which groups Plutarch with Atticus, F35 des Places, see below).7

• Atticus: as reported by Proclus, via Porphyry’s critique, see Proclus, In Tim. 2, I 381.26–382.12 Diehl (F23 des Places), 391.6ff., 394.9ff., 3, II 153.25–154.1 (F35 des Places).

• Galen: Compendium of the Timaeus, 4, 42–44 Kraus and Walzer.8 • Alcinous (author of Didask.): the focal texts are chs. 10 and 14, which in this instance hinge on a distinction between potential and actual nous in the World Soul.

• Numenius: our source for Numenius’ views on this issue is actually Calcidius (chs. 295–299, cf. also 352; ch. 13 in this study); but see also F44 des Places.9

6 8 9

In section 6.4 in this study. 7 On this point, see Opsomer 2001. Deuse 1983: 49ff. thinks this is derived from Atticus. For the broader context, see also Boys-Stones 2018: ch. 8. Cf. Phillips 2003, who takes issue with Deuse on this topic, but who overlooks the fact that in prePlotinian philosophy, Numenius was not the only one to endorse the notion of an undescended, purely noetic soul (see above).

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In ch. 30 Calcidius lets the proponents of the first view, who interpret indivisible Being as referring to the forms (intellegibilis species) and divisible Being to matter, defend their view with the claim that Plato could not possibly have a lower soul-principle in mind already at this point in his account because the entities that are to receive life from this soul (animals, trees, and the other things) do not exist yet (nondum natis – which could either imply a literalist reading of the world’s creation or refer merely to the order of Plato’s exposition). Here is the full version of Calcidius’ response in which he provides the interpretation which he endorses himself: But those who maintained that from indivisible Being (i.e., soul which is immune to embodiment) and another form of Being which is the inseparable concomitant of body (i.e., the root soul) a third kind of soul (i.e., the rational) was formed, supported their view as follows: (a) First, they held that it would be utterly backwards if, after the treatment earlier of the constitution of the world body and the shift thereafter to the generation of the soul which was to vivify the sensible world, there should again be a return to the earlier treatment, resulting in a renewed treatment of matter, the bodies that make up the world, and their form (forma), and a movement away from the generation of the soul. (b) Further, they held that the claim that the root soul cannot yet exist since the animals it was to vivify did not yet exist would be idle; for they held that there always existed the power of both soul and body, and that god did not make the world from things that did not exist but rather gave order to things that existed without order or limit, and hence that he conferred order on things that existed rather than generated things that did not, and that by conferring intellect he brought the disordered wanderings of soul (animi), its agitations resembling that of waves, from a disordered tossing about to order, and that he reined in the unstable movement of body too by a healthy and tempered agitation and conferred upon body suitable form, shape, and order, as he indicated earlier [30a]: he considered the fortune of ordered things preferable to that of disordered ones. (c) They held that this, the establishment of a soul suitable for the sensible world, explains why its origin stems from the indivisible Being which is mind or intellect and another form of Being which is universally divided and distributed throughout bodies, and why it is situated intermediate between the indivisible and divisible souls. This implies that the soul that is immune to embodiment always stays within the intelligible universe (in mundo intellegibili), whereas the root soul sustains both mute and nonsentient beings. And since it was necessary

64

Soul and Souls (1) that there should be in the world a class of animals which would employ reason, the intermediate soul was to administer life and breath to the same, and being situated between the two natures, Same and Other, would by turns contemplate the divinity of the nature of the Same by raising its gaze on high and in turning down toward the realm of the nature of the Other provide dispensation for earthly things according to the decrees of their maker and confer Providence upon them. (ch. 31; trans. Magee, modified)10

The first section of this long quote (a) indicates that Calcidius prefers a sequential reading of the Timaeus in terms of its ontology.11 We already took a closer look at the second section (b) in the context of the world’s relation to time.12 So here I will focus on Calcidius’ rendering of the role of the World Soul, and, as it turns out, this role has been expanded considerably in comparison with Plato’s original. In the Timaeus the World Soul provides a framework, so to speak, for the heavenly bodies, the fixed stars and the planets, and it has a predominantly cognitive function. For Calcidius, in the passage just quoted, the World Soul has the additional task of bestowing life on those animals that are endowed with reason, including human beings (see also ch. 53, 102.6–7), and, more importantly, it has a major role in governing the world and passing along Providence. (This second aspect

10

11

At uero hi qui ex indiuidua substantia, id est immuni ab incorporatione anima, item alia inseparabili corporum comite, id est stirpea, conflatum tertiae animae genus asserebant, id est rationabile, sic assistebant sententiae propriae: primo omnium praeposterum esse, cum de constitutione mundani corporis in superioribus tractatum esset finitoque eo tractatu peruentum foret ad animae genituram, quae uiuificaret sensilem mundum, rursum ad priorem tractatum retrorsum iri, ut de silua et corporibus mundi formaque eorum tractatus de integro fieret et a genitura animae recederetur. Deinde frustra dici animam stirpeam nondum esse posse propterea, quia quae uiuificatura erat animalia nondum essent: fuisse enim semper tam animae quam corporis uim nec deum ex his quae non erant fecisse mundum, sed ea quae erant sine ordine ac modo ordinasse; itaque potius ea quae existebant exornasse quam generasse quae non erant, inordinatos quippe animi errores et agitationem fluctibus similem intellectu assignato ex inordinata iactatione ad ordinem redegisse, corporis etiam motum instabilem salubri moderataque agitatione frenasse et eidem formam et figuram congruam et conuenientem ornatum dedisse, ut ipse in superioribus dixit meliorem ordinatorum fortunam inordinatis ratus. Quare cum sensili mundo conueniens anima instituatur, ortum eius ex indiuidua una, quae mens intellectusque est, et alia, quae per uniuersa corpora diuiditur et scinditur, prouenire eamque mediam inter indiuiduam et diuiduam animas locatam, scilicet ut immunis quidem ab incorporatione in mundo esset intellegibili semper, stirpea mutis et item nihil sentientibus opitularetur, haec uero media, quia necesse erat in mundo fore genus animalium, quod ratione uteretur, huic eidem generi uitam et spiritum ministraret interque duas posita naturas, eandem diuersamque, modo eiusdem naturae contemplaretur diuinitatem attollens aciem ad sublimia, modo ad ima sedemque diuersae naturae uergens haec etiam iuxta opificis scita dispensaret terrenisque impertiret prouidentiam. See section 2.4 in this study. 12 See section 4.2 in this study.

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borrows features from Plato’s account of the good soul in Book Ten of his Laws, Reydams-Schils 2017a.)

5.2

The Role of the World Soul

Calcidius returns to the cognitive and the providential functions of the World Soul in chs. 51–55, in which, as we have seen (ch. 3), he sums up what he has explained so far about the structure of the World Soul and its relation to numerical proportions. Chs. 51–52 focus on the cognitive function: the components of the World allow it to “know all things, both intelligible and sensible” (ch. 51, cognitricem rerum omnium, quae sunt tam intellegibiles quam sensiles) or to “be knowledgeable of the starting points [of all things] as well as of things that follow from those starting points, in sum of everything that exists, and pass judgment on all things” (ch. 52, ut et ipsorum initiorum et quae initia sequuntur et prorsus omnium rerum existentium scia esset ac de omnibus iudicaret). Calcidius bases this interpretation on the principle of “like being known by like,” for which he adduces the support of Pythagoras and Empedocles (ch. 51; Plutarch attributes this view also to Crantor, De an. procr. 1012F–1013A). Calcidius’ rendering of this cognitive function of the World Soul, which as we have seen is spread out over three chapters throughout the first part of the commentary, has greatly simplified Plato’s account through his translation.13 Rather than assuming that he simply did not understand this complex passage of the Timaeus, I think, again, that it would be safer to posit that already in his translation Calcidius decided to make the Timaeus more accessible. Calcidius reduces Plato’s account to a much simpler binary structure according to which the World Soul with the circle of the Same focuses on the intelligible realm, as the realm of the Same, and with the circle of the Other focuses on the sensible realm, as the realm of the Other. This simplification would also be in line with his earlier account of the composition of the World Soul (cf. supra). Let us take a closer look at how Calcidius brings about this transformation. To paraphrase, Plato’s account (37a2–c5) has these components: (i) Whenever the World Soul comes into contact with both indivisible and divisible Being, it is stirred throughout its entirety, and declares sameness and difference with regard to both types of 13

Chs. 52, 56 and 103–104, see ch. 3 in this study.

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objects; that is, Same and Other apply to both indivisible and divisible Being. (ii) Both types of contact, with the two objects, give rise to true accounts; the circle of the Other, running straight, proclaims, without physical utterance or sound, to the whole Soul similarities and differences pertaining to the sensible realm, leading to true and firm opinions (Reydams-Schils 1997); the circle of the Same proclaims again to the whole Soul similarities and differences pertaining to the intelligible realm, leading to understanding and knowledge. So, in Plato’s account, the circle of the Same and the circle of the Other each have their special domains, indivisible and divisible Being respectively, but they nevertheless each make pronouncements of sameness and difference about both domains to the entire World Soul. This is how the passage is rendered in Calcidius’ translation, which is much more succinct than Plato’s version. Again, to paraphrase: (i) The World Soul comes into contact with indivisible and divisible Being, and can easily discern what pertains to the Same and what pertains to the Other; it sees the causes of all things that happen and can gauge future events based on these (this feature of the World Soul is clearly related to the question of whether the positions of the heavenly bodies can be used to predict the future, see also ch. 8 in this study). Calcidius here omits to say that in the process of cognition Same and Other both apply to indivisible and to divisible Being, he glosses “knowledge” as “knowledge of all causes” (emphasizing again the notion of causality, see ch. 4 in this study) and adds the ability to foresee the future, which is not in Plato’s account. Similarly, (ii) When the World Soul sees something sensory and the circle of the Other runs correctly (with accurate results: ueridico sensu) then correct opinions worthy of belief come about; when it focuses on the indivisible Being and that which remains always the same, then understanding and knowledge become firm. The changes from Plato’s original are so numerous that we really need to consider this rendering an interpretation rather than a translation. As his commentary on this passage (ch. 104) confirms, he has recast the second part of Plato’s passage so that the World Soul in its entirety becomes the subject, and either turns towards the sensible realm, which is the realm of

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the Other (containing, in an echo of his discussion of the World body and time, “things that are born and die, that are the result of manual labor, and that have sense-perception,” see ch. 4 in this study), or towards the intelligible/Same. In doing so, Calcidius also diminishes the epistemological status of opinion. Whereas Plato emphasizes that the opinions of the World Soul are true and firm, Calcidius states that they are worthy of belief, and he emphasizes the gap between knowledge and opinion (ch. 104, 154.4), a gap which Plato’s version had intended to narrow. (In other contexts, as we shall see in ch. 6 of this study, he assesses the role of opinion more positively.) Turning his attention from the cognitive function of the World Soul to its second role of “caring” for the universe (ch. 54), this is how he renders this function: (a) [There appears to be a lacuna at the beginning of the paragraph, but Bakhouche’s conjectures read it as echoing the ending of ch. 31, so that the World Soul, on the one hand, venerates the divine maker of the world (or perhaps, alternatively, the divine realm of the Same) and on the other] offers guidance to lower things . . ., complying with the divine commands, imparting its Providence to the things that come to be, blessed by its likeness to eternal things based on its natural affinity to them, an aid and protectress to things subject to dissolution. (b) The signs of this power of forethought and reasoning are apparent in the behavior of man, who in uniquely worshipping god bestows vigilant care upon domestic animals; and indeed, they are apparent in the same powers of the soul as those by which the sensible world is fostered, since in supervening upon all the vital capacities shared by human beings, beasts, and plants, i.e., those of growth, selfmovement, appetite, and forming mental images, reason perfects the soul that is proper to human beings such that it not only possesses the capacity for life but is not without the capacity for choosing to live well. And so human life is tempered by the cohabitation of the natural and the rational soul.14 14

Haec est illa rationabilis mundi anima, quae gemina iuxta meliorem naturam ueneratione, tutelam praebet inferioribus, diuinis dispositionibus obsequens, prouidentiam natiuis impertiens, aeternorum similitudine propter cognationem beata, dissolubilium rerum auxiliatrix et patrona. Cuius in consulendo ratiocinandoque uirtutis in moribus hominis apparent insignia, qui cultor eximius dei diligentiam mansuetis impertit animalibus; isdem quippe uirtutibus animae quibus sensilis mundus fouetur, quando ad ceteros uitales uigores, qui sunt communes hominibus et bestiis, stirpibus etiam, id est crescendi mouendi semet appetendique et imaginandi, accedens ratio propriam hominis

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In giving it such an important providential role, Calcidius belongs to that strand of Platonism that extends the demiurgic function to the World Soul. In general, Calcidius creates a chain of Providence, which also includes demons (as in ch. 135, see section 8.1 in this study) and human beings, so, in sum, all beings endowed with reason. This approach has to be contrasted with a view that has a supra-cosmic entity take over the task of the World Soul, as in Philo of Alexandria (Runia 1986: 204ff.; Reydams-Schils 1999: 152–154) or Maximus of Tyre (Or. 41, Reydams-Schils 2017b). The second half of ch. 54 establishes the parallel between the World Soul and the human soul, and anticipates the treatise on the human soul of the second part of the commentary (discussed in ch. 6 in this study). From this initial wording, one can tell already that Calcidius leans towards an interpretation that underscores the affinity between the cosmic and the human soul, instead of dwelling on their differences: a human being is said to be equipped with the same features as the universe, of both vital powers and reason. As a summary and transition, the sequence of chs. 51–54 not only addresses the two main functions of the World Soul, but also sums up its relation to mathematical features (ch. 51, 100.4–5: quem ad modum natura eius numeris modisque conveniat; see also ch. 3 in this study). Calcidius does not quite go to the extent of calling the soul number(s) but couches his analysis systematically in terms of a kinship or a matching: the structure of the soul reflects certain relationships among numbers (as with his use of congruere, conuenire, or concinere; see also ch. 32). As his inspiration Calcidius cites Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans; there is, again, no explicit trace of Xenocrates or Speusippus to be found.15 Here too Plutarch helps us discern what is at stake. In his De animae procreatione in Platonis Timaeo, Plutarch explicitly, and vehemently, takes issue with Xenocrates for having claimed that the soul’s essence is selfmoving number (1012D–1013D, in which he also criticizes Crantor for a different position). Plutarch concludes: By means of number and ratio and concord he [Plato] did arrange its [the soul’s] substance underlying and receiving the fairest form, which by their agency (hupo toutōn) arises in it; but it is not the same, I think, to say that the soul is put together on a numerical pattern (kat’ arithmon) and to say that its essence is number, since it is put together on the pattern of

15

animam perficit, ut non solum uitae compos sit, sed etiam bene uiuendi non desit optio; atque ita naturalis et rationabilis item animae contubernio uita hominum temperatur (text Bakhouche, followed by Magee). On this issue see also section 1.3 in this study.

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a concord (kath’ harmonian) but is not a concord, as he himself proved in the work on the Soul [Phaedo].16 (1013C–D, trans. Cherniss)

It is one thing to claim that the World Soul is put together after a pattern of harmonies, and quite another to say that it actually consists of such harmonies, though it would be challenging to conceptualize the difference, especially if the World Soul is meant to be incorporeal. The extension of the World Soul in Plato’s Timaeus also poses a problem for its alleged incorporeality: it is meant to be “woven through” (diaplakeisa) the World body from the center to the limit of the heavens, and to envelop the latter (36e). Behind attempts by Platonists to explain this feature is a controversy with the Stoics, who posit three-dimensionality as a hallmark of bodies.17 Calcidius uses the language of “similarity” to address this issue. In ch. 33, he argues that given that the World Soul would breathe life (inspiratur) into bodies with surfaces (superficiem) and volume (soliditas), it would need “powers similar” (similes . . . uires) to volume and surface, on the principle that “like goes together with like” (paria paribus congregantur), a principle that echoes the explanation of the cognitive function of the World Soul. When Calcidius returns to the same issue in ch. 92, he talks again about a “similarity” with body, or between soul and body (ut esset in animae textu corporis similitudo; inter animam corpusque similitudo). But how is one to envisage such an affinity? The sequence of chs. 51–54 is followed by Calcidius’ first reference to a view of a group which he elsewhere calls “the Hebrews,”18 but here designates as “a venerable sect and one very skilled in its understanding of the divine” (sectae sanctioris et in comprehensione diuinae rei prudentioris). They state that God made the body of human beings from earth, drew life from the celestial vault, and bestowed his own breath on the soul (inspirationem proprio flatu intimasse) as reason. Even though this passage strictly speaking applies only to the human soul (as is also the case in similar passages in Philo of Alexandria),19 a number of the locutions Calcidius has been applying to the World Soul, all having to do with “breath” and without equivalent in Plato’s account, now start to make sense: right at 16

17 18 19

ἀριθμῷ δὲ καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἁρμονίᾳ διακεκόσμηκε τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτῆς ὑποκειμένην καὶ δεχομένην τὸ κάλλιστον εἶδος ὑπὸ τούτων ἐγγιγνόμενον. οἶμαι δὲ μὴ ταὐτὸν εἶναι τῷ κατ’ ἀριθμὸν συνεστάναι τὴν ψυχὴν τὸ τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτῆς ἀριθμὸν ὑπάρχειν· ἐπεὶ καθ’ἁρμονίαν συνέστηκεν ἁρμονία δ’ οὔκ ἐστιν, ὡς αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ περὶ Ψυχῆς (Phaed. 92) ἀπέδειξεν. See for example the doxography in Nemesius, Nat. hom. 2.17–19 Sharples and van der Eijk; cf. also Waszink 1964: 10-12; Reydams-Schils 1999: 59-60; see also ch. 12 in this study. This issue is discussed more fully in section 15.3 in this study. E.g. Philo, Opif. 69 and 72–75; Runia 1993: 283–284.

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the start of his exposition on the World Soul (ch. 26), Calcidius talks about “insufflation” (inspiratio animae, see also ch. 33, 100.11) and he claims that the World Soul bestows life and breath on the lower rational beings (uitam et spiritum, ch. 31, 81.14; so if we compare ch. 31 with ch. 55, spiritus in ch. 31 may actually refer to reason). Waszink (in his note to ch. 26, 76.9) interprets these features as an extended influence of Numenius, who is known to be favorably disposed towards the Hebrews for their contributions to the wisdom tradition. But as Baltes (1976–1978 I: 178 n. 358) points out, Platonists had more generally co-opted the language of “breath” in connection with the soul.20 Moreover, we are likely also meant to keep in mind that the Stoics considered the soul to be breath (pneuma).21 In other words, we are dealing with a rather complex convergence between different traditions. When from ch. 92 onwards Calcidius picks up the thread again of his commentary on the Timaeus, after the long excursus on the stars and the planets, we rediscover many of the features we have discussed so far:22 that the World Soul is made out of Being, Same and Other (ch. 92); that it has an affinity with the body of the world (ch. 92); that it has a cognitive function (chs. 102–104); and that it has a relation with time (chs. 101; 105–108 beginning). Other features, however, such as the sun being the center of the vital power in the universe (chs. 99–100), will come into their own only in the context of Calcidius’ treatment of the human soul. 20 21 22

Baltes refers to Marius Victorinus, Adv. Ar. 4.11.37ff. and Proclus, In Remp. 2, 212.23ff., and assumes the source is Porphyry. On the latter issue, see ch. 14 in this study. On the issue of the role of Stoicism in the commentary, see ch. 12 in this study. On the coherence of this part of the commentary, see also section 3.2 in this study.

chapter 6

On Soul and Souls (2) The Human Soul and Its Relation to the World Soul

According to Calcidius, “man is called a ‘miniature universe’ by the Ancients” (hominem mundum breuem a ueteribus appellatum) because the World body and the human body are made out of the same materials, and the World Soul and the human soul share the same nature (ch. 202). This succinct rendering of the theme became a Leitmotiv in the tradition (Kurdzialek 1971). Calcidius devotes an entire sub-treatise to the human soul, and more precisely to the related questions of its substance and the location of its principal part (chs. 213–235).1 His treatment of this topic elaborates on the claim that a human being has both a natural and a rational soul in the first part of the commentary (ch. 54). This chapter takes a closer look at how Calcidius handles the doxographical tradition, that is, the views of predecessors. The benefit of such a detailed analysis is that it allows us to acquire a better sense of Calcidius’ method as a commentator (and thus also of his relation to potential sources, discussed in chs. 13 and 14 in this study). Which basic doxographical pattern does Calcidius adopt? Which choices does he make in his rendering of the different positions? How does he harmonize these views to allow for a better basis of comparison in light of the position he endorses? Finally, what is the broader context for this specific treatise in the commentary as a whole?

6.1

Doxography

So, let us start with an outline of Calcidius’ doxographical schema. First Calcidius presents a series of positions that consider the soul to be intimately related to matter, and hence to be corporeal (I). But given that there 1

This chapter is based on Reydams-Schils 2006. Cf. also Dörrie 1957; Dillon 1977: 401–408; Baltes 1976–1978 I: 172–184; Deuse 1983 (who pays no attention to Calcidius in his own right); Gersh 1986 II: 483–492; Mansfeld 1990: 3112–3117; Trabattoni 1993; Emilsson 1994; Baltes and Dörrie 1998: 164.4: 360–374; and for the broader context, Boys-Stones 2018: ch. 9.

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are different views on matter, different subheadings fall under this first position. There are those who consider matter to be divisible (substantia siluae diuidua, in the sense of divided, not in the sense of infinitely divisible; see ch. 275, 279.11),2 who do not assign a specific place in the human body to the principal part of the soul (IA). Among the representatives of this view Calcidius lists Asclepiades, Democritus, and Epicurus, but the information he provides here is derived mostly from Asclepiades, as a comparison with other sources reveals (see Waszink’s edition), and this attests to Calcidius’ interest in the medical tradition. After the first group of people who hold matter to be divided, there are next those who consider matter to be unified and continuous (silua adunatione quadam sibi continuata, Calcidius does not use the term individua in this context, which he tends to reserve for Being3), IB, and here we find a view attributed to Empedocles (IB1), the Hebrews (IB2), which Calcidius only partly rejects, and the Stoics (IB3), of whom he mentions Zeno and Chrysippus by name. Empedocles, the Hebrews, and the Stoics are said to have located the principal part of the human soul in the heart. So far Calcidius has assessed the positions of those who consider the soul to be corporeal and therefore establish a connection between their views on the soul and on matter, considering matter either divided (IA) or continuous (IB). Aristotle appears to occupy a middle ground (II): while not considering the soul itself to be corporeal – and this is a significant improvement in Calcidius’ eyes – Aristotle’s views on the relation between soul and body, and his notion of entelechy or perfect realization (prima perfectio, as Calcidius renders it) in particular, still intertwine the soul too intimately with the body. As a result, Calcidius indicates, he also downplays its rational functions and compromises its immortal nature. Aristotle too is said to locate the principal part of the soul in the heart. Last we turn to Plato’s alleged view (III), of an incorporeal human soul, that in its rational aspect (I am keeping my terminology deliberately vague here for the time being) has a divine kinship with the intelligible realm, is selfmoving, and, of course, immortal. Plato, we are then told, in fact allocated two ruling principles to the human soul, the one, spirit (uigor as different from mere anger, iracundia), located in the heart, in charge of the lower soul, which includes the appetites as well as the vital functions, and the other constituting the 2 3

van Winden 1959: 52. In ch. 38 he applies the term to a perfect mathematical body: corpus indiuisum atque indiuiduum, quo nihil est perfectius.

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rational soul, located in the head, which is supposed to govern the entire soul–body compound. Noteworthy here is that the term uigor animae (chs. 229, 232–233) for the second soul-principle is ambivalent enough to refer both to “spirit” (thumos) and to the more rudimentary vital force, that is the soul as principle of life (uitalis uigor; as in the description of the lower soul in ch. 29), which embraces functions such as nutrition and growth (see also ch. 137, 177.20–178.7):4 Since, then, the principal powers of the soul are two, one deliberative and the other the one that impels it to seek something, and the deliberative one is the power proper to a rational animal while the other is essential to its being alive, the bodily members are consequently assigned analogously and in a manner suited to the powers. (ch. 230, 244.21–245.2; trans. Magee, modified)5 That other principle, however, which we said earlier is of secondary rank, defines not the rational animal, but the element essential to its being alive. It is therefore common, situated in the heart or mid-section of the thing qua being alive but in its brain qua rational animal. And so while other animals have the use of one (commanding) principle that is in the heart, man has the use of two, one in the heart and the other in the head. (ch. 232, 246.9–13; trans. Magee, modified)6

In a schematic form, then, Calcidius’ overview looks as follows: I. chs. 214–221: soul related to matter = corporeal soul A. chs. 214–217: the substance of matter is divisible (substantia silvae dividua, here: actually divided into smallest particles) >Asclepiades, Democritus, Epicurus ^no specific location for the hēgemonikon B. chs. 218–221: matter is continuous (silua adunatione quadam sibi continuata) >1. Empedocles >2. Hebrews >3. Stoics (Zeno, Chrysippus) ^locus in the heart 4 5

6

Theiler 1973; Baltes and Dörrie 1998: 369–370. Quia igitur principales uires animae duae sunt, una deliberatiua, altera quae ad appetendum quid impellit, et est deliberatiua quidem uirtus propria rationabilis animantis, illa uero alia id ipsum animantis, consequenter competentia uiribus et apta membra dimensa sunt. Illud uero aliud principale, quod secundae dignitatis esse praediximus, non rationabilis animantis, sed id ipsum animantis. Commune ergo ut animalis in corde ac medietate, ut uero rationabilis animantis in cerebro. Unde cetera quidem animalia uno utuntur principali, quod in corde est, at uero homo duobus, uno in corde, altero in capite.

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II. chs. 222–225: soul not corporeal but intimately connected to body >Aristotle and Peripatetics: soul form of body, entelecheia ^locus in the heart III. chs. 226–235: soul incorporeal, related to intelligible forms, selfmoving, and immortal >Plato ^locus, ch. 232: two ruling principles, one in the head, the other in the heart Calcidius’ treatise is distinctive because it combines three issues: views on matter, on the substance of the soul, and on the location of the soul’s ruling principle. The commentary gives us much more than a jumbled, bare-bones list of views; the account is clearly structured, follows a logical progression, and documents the views it covers. Calcidius gives arguments and counterarguments, and demonstrates that he has thought about the connections between the headings that are typical of doxographies. For ancient thinkers, one’s position on what it means to be a corporeal entity can legitimately be said to have a connection with one’s view of matter; and any theory about the nature of the corporeal would also have implications for the nature of the soul. Calcidius’ account is clearer, for instance, than Cicero’s, in Book One of the Tusculanae disputationes (1.18–22 = 151.1 Baltes and Dörrie), and more developed than the Placita snippets (386–393 Diels), or a sketch we find in Macrobius (In Somn. 1, 14, 19–20 = 151.3 Baltes and Dörrie). In sum, the treatise is a “smart” doxography. This realization led Waszink, the editor of the text, to posit that Calcidius, who is supposed to be mediocre, derived this information from Porphyry. But this is a petitio principii, which we will examine more closely when we address the question of Calcidius’ sources (in chs. 13 and 14 in this study). Moreover, the treatise on the human soul is well integrated into the commentary as a whole: it echoes Calcidius’ treatment of the World Soul in the first part of his commentary,7 and the headings on matter reoccur, but from a different angle, in the long treatise on matter that concludes his commentary (chs. 275, 276–301).

6.2 Method As compact as Calcidius’ doxographical outline for the first view is, it reveals much about his method. Jaap Mansfeld identified the 7

See ch. 5 in this study.

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doxographical schema behind ch. 214,8 and if we take a synoptic view of the sources Mansfeld cites,9 this schema looks as follows. Among the people who hold that matter is divided (IA), there are four subgroups: (1) those who claim a theory of partless basic components – expertia in Calcidius’ wording, ἀμερῆ in Greek (Diodorus Cronus); (2) those who adhere to parts that are indistinct – partes indifferentes, sui similes, ὁμοιομερῆ (Anaxagoras, Archelaus); (3) those who claim parts with distinctions, both (a) atoms – atomi, ἄτομα (Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus) and (b) “masses,” moles, ὄγκοι (Asclepiades, Heraclides). Note that this is a theoretical reconstruction: the passages in the sources do not all mention the same options, in the same order, and with the same names, and there is no exact parallel in the extant sources for Calcidius’ listing. Moreover, in the treatise on the human soul, he lists by name some representatives of the atoms and the “masses” theories only: Democritus, Epicurus, and Asclepiades. But elsewhere in the commentary he shows that he actually knows representatives of the other views too. In chs. 203 (222.11) and 279 (284), he mentions Diodorus Cronus as adhering to a theory that posits minimal bodies (corpuscula, ch. 203; exiguitas indiuiduorum corporum, ch. 279), and in those same contexts he mentions Anaxagoras as representing the homoiomerē view (similium, singulis materiis). In ch. 203, he also mentions Leucippus and Democritus as atomists, leaving out Epicurus. These three passages taken together (the one from the treatise on the human soul, as well as chs. 203 and 279) attest to an independent and conscious use of a doxographical schema on Calcidius’ part, in which his choices are guided by the contexts and requirements of the specific section of his argumentation. When we turn to those who consider matter to be continuous (IB) Calcidius’ interest in views of the “Hebrews” raises the question of possible connections with Philo of Alexandria, whom he actually mentions by name once (ch. 278, 282.8 Waszink).10 Among the Platonists, this interest was by no means limited to Porphyry (and not merely to his polemics either), and is well attested for Numenius.11 It also shows up in less expected contexts, such as in Galen’s De usu partium (11.14; see also ps. Longinus, Subl. 9.9).12 8 9

10 11 12

Mansfeld 1990: 3113, n. 238. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Mixt. 213.18–214.6 Bruns (also in connection to the question of a unified or a divided matter), Sextus Empiricus, Pyr. 1.147, 3.32; Math. 9.363–4; ps. Galen, Hist. phil. 18 = Doxographi Graeci 610.20–611.3 Diels. On this issue, see also sections 1.3 and 15.4 in this study. See e.g., F1a, 9–10, 13, 30, 56; for an excellent discussion of the issue, see Zambon 2002. Brisson 2002.

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The material on the Stoics, in turn, is quite extensive and detailed. In fact, in Calcidius we have some of our most valuable accounts of how the Stoic hêgemonikon interacts with the rest of the human organism. But like the Peripatetic and Platonic material, the Hebrew and Stoic views have been tailored to fit Calcidius’ interpretive framework (see below) and hence some caution is in order.13 Calcidius’ case against a corporeal soul can be compared with accounts attributed to Numenius (F4b des Places = Nemesius 2. 8–14 = 152.3 Baltes and Dörrie) and to Cassius Longinus (F72 Männlein-Robert = Eus. PE 15, 21.1–3 = 152.4 Baltes and Dörrie). We will take a closer look at Calcidius’ handling of Aristotle and the Peripatetics and his incorporation of Stoic material in an overall assessment of his use of those strands in the tradition (chs. 11 and 12). But how does the Platonic camp fare in Calcidius’ account? Platonist interpreters, as distinct from Plato himself, are notably absent from his overview, in marked contrast to Porphyry’s doxographical account of the soul (in Eusebius and Stobaeus, F240–267 Smith). Calcidius turns directly to the master and does not mention any other Platonist interpretations with which he may agree or disagree. (Which is, of course, not to say that he did not, in fact, use other sources besides Plato.) Implicit in this approach is the claim that Plato surpassed all other thinkers because he came up with the most complete theory, a strategy we have already discussed (section 1.3).

6.3

View Attributed to Plato

As potential antecedents of Calcidius’ claim that the human soul has two principal parts or powers, Matthias Baltes14 cites a passage from the Placita, in which Pythagoras, under the heading of the soul’s hêgemonikon, is said to have distinguished between a principle of life (ζωτικόν) situated in the heart, and a rational principle in the head (λογικόν, Diels 391a23ff.). He also cites Ptolemy’s On the kritērion and hēgemonikon (16, 22.13ff. Lammert), which distinguishes between two ruling principles, one of life, located in the heart, the other of the good life (compare this to Calcidius ch. 54, 102.18–19), located in the head, as well as a passage from Philo of Alexandria (Det. 82). But the parallel with Philo is limited because he discusses two powers of the human soul, a vital and a rational one, but does not assign two ruling principles to two different locations. Moreover, by assigning blood to the life power, and breath to the rational one, he may actually have the view in mind that locates the hēgemonikon in the heart. 13

See Introduction and section 12.2 in this study.

14

Baltes and Dörrie 1998: 367, n. 148.

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(Throughout his writings, Philo oscillates between the cardiocentric and the cephalocentric view, and in a number of passages leaves the question open.15) The distinction between the rational and life principle in the other two texts, attributed to Pythagoras and from Ptolemy, also yields only a limited parallel, because Calcidius’ second and lower soul-principle embraces more than merely the functions usually ascribed to the vital principle, by including spirit, which is in direct control of desire. Willy Theiler mentions one more parallel for Calcidius’ use of uigor,16 namely a passage from Galen,17 which hinges on the use of the word tonos, tension, in itself a central notion of Stoic physics. Of the physiological equivalent of Plato’s second soul part, spirit, Galen writes: The second source (archē) is seated in the heart; its work is by itself to provide the “tone” (tonos) of the soul, to be constant and unyielding in the things that reason commands, and in states of passion to provide the boiling, as it were, of the innate heat, as the soul at such times desires to avenge itself on the supposed wrongdoer, and this kind of thing is called anger (thumos); in its relation to other things its work is to be the source of warmth for the several parts and of pulsing motion for the arteries. (trans. De Lacy)

But by stipulating three soul archai, Galen, unlike Calcidius, sticks to Plato’s tripartition in the context of this passage, rather than adopting the dual scheme predominant in Calcidius and Middle Platonists. Calcidius chooses his doxographical battles. Throughout the treatise, for instance, he oscillates between assigning a principal “part” or a principal “power” to the human soul. And he justifies this oscillation: dismissing in one aside an issue that is crucial to Porphyry (F251-55 Smith), he claims that it makes no difference whether we talk about “parts” or “powers” as long as we keep in mind that “the soul is not corporeal and has no magnitude” (ch. 223, 238.4–5).18 Despite the difference between the positions Calcidius describes, these have also to a certain extent been harmonized, to allow for a better basis of comparison. As we will see in greater detail below, he is not interested in the contrast between a soul principle and a life principle, but in the distinction between a higher and a lower soul-principle, which has ties 15 17

18

Reydams-Schils 2002b. 16 Theiler 1973: 316. Galen, PHP 7, 438.24–441.3 De Lacy: ἑτέρας δὲ τῆς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ καθιδρυμένης, ἧς ἔργα καθ’ ἑαυτὴν μὲν ὁ τόνος ἐστὶ τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τὸ μόνιμον ἐν οἷς ἂν ὁ λογισμὸς κελεύσῃ καὶ τὸ ἀήττητον, κατὰ πάθος δ’ οἷον ζέσις τῆς ἐμφύτου θερμασίας ποθούσης τιμωρήσασθαι τῆς ψυχῆς τηνικαῦτα τὸν ἀδικεῖν δόξαντα, καὶ καλεῖται τὸ τοιοῦτον θυμός, ἐν δὲ τῷ πρός τι θερμασίας ἀρχὴ τοῖς κατὰ μέρος εἶναι μορίοις ἀρτηρίαις τε κινήσεως σφυγμικῆς. See also Galen, PHP 6, 368.20–26 De Lacy.

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with, but is not limited to, the principle of life. The polemics of authors such as Galen and Plutarch have accustomed us to seeing an almost insurmountable stand-off between Stoics and Platonists on the issue of whether the soul is unified or actually has an irrational component that can, to some extent, operate independently from reason. But there is not a trace to be found of that polemic in Calcidius either. Instead he uses a different doxographical schema that was also quite common in Antiquity: a kind of master-list of rational and irrational soul functions that tried to accommodate as many Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic elements as possible. The irrational soul functions can include: from Stoicism, representation and impulse (also present in animals) and lower-soul functions such as the five senses and reproduction; from Platonism, spirit and appetite; and from the Peripatetic tradition, vital functions such as growth and nutrition. There are variations in the manner in which different authors compile such a list, but the basic underlying approach is the same: to use the dual distinction of rational/irrational soul components in order to establish a common ground between different schools of thought. By the time Porphyry became interested in this model (see for instance F253 Smith), it already had a well-established tradition of its own. We can also see it at work in Philo of Alexandria, for instance, as I have argued elsewhere.19 How can we detect the presence of such a master-list in Calcidius’ work? The lists of soul functions attributed to the different thinkers throughout the commentary (and not just in the treatise I am considering here) regularly combine elements of different origins. Thus Calcidius uses the Stoic connection between soul and “natural” pneuma (by which Chrysippus may have actually meant pneuma sumphuton, not the socalled “nature” level in the Stoic scale of being20) to highlight that the human soul, with the ruling part and the seven instrumental parts (the five senses, speech, and reproduction), also directs the vital pneuma, as well as nutrition, growth (adolendo), and motion – with these latter functions sounding like a gesture towards Peripatetic accounts (ch. 220; see also ch. 11 in this study). The Peripatetic list of soul functions includes under the appetitive soul “anger” and “desire,” key notions in Platonic psychology, of course. And to close the circle, in Calcidius’ account of the Platonic soul functions, the senses have been promoted considerably: their headquarters, so to speak, are right with the rational principle, because they are its 19 20

Runia 1986; Reydams-Schils 2002b. See also Seneca, Ep. 92 and Alexander of Aphrodisias, DA 94.7–100.17. SVF 2.778, 773–789; Ju 2007: 102–103; see also section 12.2 in this study.

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“companions and messengers” (comites rationis et signi, ch. 231, 245.7–8; see also ch. 234), in a clear echo of the Stoic passages Calcidius has chosen. According to this reading (which we also find attested in Philo of Alexandria, and which could have derived some support from Plato’s Laws 964e–965a), the senses largely take over the auxiliary role of spirit as the natural ally of reason. Despite his reservations about the reliability of sense-perception and opinion elsewhere (see below), Calcidius in this context transforms Plato’s epistemology to allow more room for doxastic reason, yielding a fruitful and harmonious cooperation between senseperception and reasoning that is more in line with a Peripatetic and a Stoic perspective. Another harmonizing feature in the treatise is Calcidius’ attempt to prepare the ground for the two-principle view which he endorses. Even in the first view, which according to him assigns no specific location to the soul’s principal part, Calcidius already draws his reader’s attention to a distinction between the contributions of the heart and the head (ch. 214). The Hebrews’ position, he goes on to argue, can be salvaged if they would pay attention to a distinction embedded within their own views, between the rational and the irrational soul, with the latter containing the appetites. The Stoics, according to Calcidius, also distinguish between a “natural” principal soul power in animals, and a “rational” ruling principle in humans – a distinction, if it were genuinely Stoic, that would create problems for the difference between “nature” and “soul” in the Stoic system (compare this to ch. 54, 102.19–20): pneuma allegedly manifests itself as “cohesion” in lifeless things, as “nature” in plants, as “soul” in animals, and as “rational soul” in human beings (see also section 12.2 in this study). Calcidius’ version of the master-list runs through his entire commentary. In the treatise on fate, for instance, he renders the scale of being as follows: And so by virtue of their association with body (consortium corporis) there is between humans, beasts, and other, lifeless things the fellowship and communion of corporeal experiences. Moreover humans have birth, nourishment, and growth (nasci nutriri crescere) in common with the other [living beings], whereas they have sense perception (sentire) and impulse (appetere) in common only with animals that are dumb and lack reason. Next, cupidity (cupiditas) in animals, either wild or tame, is an irrational impulse, as is spirit (iracundia); in the case of a human being, however, whose proper characteristic is the application of mind to reason, it is [a] rational [impulse]. Lastly, proper to a human being, who stands at the greatest remove from

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Calcidius starts his scale of being with corporeality, which is also shared by lifeless things, followed by the functions all living things including plants share, namely, birth, growth, and nourishment. In addition to these functions, animals also have sense-perception and impulse. In animals this impulse, which includes desire and spirit, is irrational, whereas in human beings who use reason it is rational. Finally, the use of reason considered by itself (i.e. not in relation to the lower soul functions) is common only to human beings and the gods.

6.4 Human Soul and World Soul The main reason why Calcidius wants to set up his schema in terms of two basic types of soul, the noetic and the life-principle (ch. 29), is that this in turn allows him to highlight, in his treatise on the human soul (chs. 232–233), a threefold analogy between the human soul, the city (as in Plato’s Republic), and the universe. Already in his introduction (ch. 6) he had made it explicit that he reads the Timaeus as the sequel to the Republic: whereas the Republic dealt with “positive” justice among humans, the Timaeus is meant to treat natural justice, of the type the gods use with each other.22 With this approach, he echoes the notion of the cosmic city that had found such eloquent proponents in the Stoics. As with many Middle Platonists, as well as with their later successors, quite a number of the features of Calcidius’ sub-treatise on the human soul become intelligible only if read against the backdrop of his detailed discussion of the World Soul’s composition in the first part of the commentary (ch. 5 in this study; Reydams-Schils 1999: 215–225). 21

22

Ideoque ob consortium corporis est inter homines bestiasque et cetera uita carentia societas communioque corporeorum prouentuum, siquidem nasci nutriri crescere commune est hominibus cum ceteris, sentire uero et appetere commune demum hominibus et mutis tantum ac ratione carentibus animalibus. Cupiditas porro atque iracundia uel agrestium uel mansuetorum appetitus inrationabilis est, hominis uero, cuius est proprium rationi mentem applicare, rationabilis. Ratiocinandi tamen atque intellegendi sciendique uerum appetitus proprius est hominis, qui a cupiditate atque iracundia plurimum distat; illa quippe etiam in mutis animalibus et multo quidem acriora, cernuntur, rationis autem perfectio et intellectus propria dei et hominis tantum. See section 2.3 in this study.

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In Calcidius’ treatise on the human soul theories that would establish a connection between the soul and numbers or musical harmony are strikingly missing. He limits his reflection on this theme to the claims that the soul is modulated (modulata) and that it has a kinship with numbers (habet cum numeris cognationem, ch. 226, 242.6–7; see also ch. 267 on music). But, as we have seen in the previous chapter, the topic of this merely short-hand reference has received considerable attention in the first part of the commentary: among the basic aspects of reality Calcidius lists not only indivisible and divisible essence, the Same and the Other, but also the monad and the dyad, the principles of number (with number, in turn, governing geometrical figures), as well as musical harmony. Yet in that context, too, Calcidius stops short of actually attributing a mathematical structure to the World Soul itself. Calcidius tends to emphasize the affinity between the World Soul and the human soul, and to downplay the ontological gap between them. Admittedly the narrative structure of the Timaeus had left its readers with some latitude concerning the rapport between World Soul and human soul. If one asks what would make the human soul deficient in comparison to the World Soul, the Timaeus appears to give at least three different answers: in the first instance, the human soul is said to have been made by the Demiurge of the same ingredients as the World Soul, but in a less-pure mixture (41d), in the second we are told that it is the human body that wreaks havoc on the soul upon its first incarnation (42a-b, 43a– 44d). The third and final account about the two mortal soul parts spirit and appetite and their specific locations in the human body, though assigned previously to the younger gods (42d–e), has to wait until much later (69c– 70d). Less-pure mixture, pernicious influence of a body that is only a part of the whole, and lower, mortal soul parts – these are the answers the reader receives as he or she moves through the Timaeus. (Those answers can be reconciled, but the Timaeus itself is not our central concern here.) Now Calcidius, as it turns out, privileges the first answer at the expense of the others. Both the World Soul and the human soul are composed of the two types of primordial soul listed early on in the commentary: the purely noetic kind and the life-principle that exists in bodies (ch. 29). (As mentioned above, it is the human soul’s relation to the “root soul,” the uitalis uigor, that allows Calcidius to draw on the word play in Latin of uigor as referring both to vital strength and to the Greek thumos, in the sense of uigor irae.) Because the World Soul has also been made out of the “root” soul, it has reliable opinions about the sensible realm (ch. 51, 100.8–10; ch. 52, 21–22), in addition to knowledge about intelligible reality.

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Moreover, the planets can be said to be like, that is, have a function analogous (ut) to, that of spirit and appetite in humans (ch. 95, 148.9–11). This is not to say, of course, that the World Soul has, in fact, irrational functions: it merely has a corollary to what in humans would be components that could undermine reason. But because human souls are “less pure,” they have been contaminated more by the “root” soul. Hence human souls, like animals but to a lesser extent, have to deal with the problem of irrationality, and contain spirit and appetite (ch. 140, 180.13–15). Plants have yet other functions as a result of their relation to the “root” soul, such as the vital ones of growth, nutrition, and reproduction (in Peripatetic terms). This schema allows Calcidius to construct his own scale of nature, as we have seen above, with human beings also having the functions of animals and plants, in addition to reason. Yet he also claims that spirit and appetite are of a higher order in humans than in animals precisely because in human beings these functions are meant to serve reason, and hence are rationalized, as “rational impulses,” to some extent (chs. 182, 187). Whereas the World Soul does not need sense-perception (the World body has no sense organs), for human beings sense-perception, if used properly, comes to the aid of reason in forming correct opinions. Calcidius cannot ignore Plato’s claim (42e–44c) that after a human soul’s first placement in a human body sense-perception is one of the factors that disrupts the soul’s proper functioning (chs. 207–211, preceding the subtreatise on the human soul).23 Yet, he also proceeds to attribute a much more positive role to sense-perception and doxastic reason: “the starting point and seeds, so to speak, of understanding and wisdom are in senseperception” (initium et quasi quaedam intellegendi sapiendique semina sunt in sentiendo, ch. 234; see also ch. 231). In sum, by downgrading the epistemological status of “correct opinion” in the World Soul, from “true and firm” in Plato’s original to merely worthy of belief (ch. 104, 154.4),24 and upgrading the value of sense-perception and opinion for the human soul, Calcidius can once again narrow the gap between the two (and prepare the ground for his discussion of Plato’s praise of sight, 46e– 47b, chs. 264–266, and hearing, 47c–d, ch. 267). Thus, it is no surprise that Calcidius embellishes his account with details that would help to underscore the similarities between the World Soul and the human soul. The circle of the Other in the human soul, for instance, 23 24

See also ch. 342, with a reference to the Divided Line in the Republic, which distinguishes between opinion and sense-perception. See section 5.2 in this study.

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like its counterpart in the World Soul, gets cut into seven bands, although one cannot help but wonder what the counterpart to planets in a human soul is supposed to be (ch. 140, 180.18–19). More interesting even, as I mentioned at the end of the previous chapter, is Calcidius’ reference to the interpretation “by some” of the World Soul’s extension throughout the universe’s body from the middle to the periphery, and enveloping it from the outside (ch. 100). The “middle” here, as those quoted by Calcidius suggest, is not to be interpreted as the earth, but as the center of the vital principle in the universe, the universe’s counterpart to the heart in a human body, and this center in the universe would have to be the sun. Such a viewpoint has been attributed to the Pythagoreans,25 and is also attested for the Stoics.26 Although Calcidius does not push the point, positing two governing principles instead of one only strengthens his structural analogy between the World Soul and the human soul. There is more than a superficial assimilation and taming of Stoic material going on here (as we will examine more closely in ch. 12). That Calcidius minimizes the differences between World and human soul is also evident in his response, in the treatise on the human soul (chs. 228–229), to a challenge by critics of Plato, who would claim that Plato contradicted himself in the Phaedrus and the Timaeus: in the first account, he says the soul is non-composite, and in the Timaeus he goes on to discuss at great length how the soul has been composed. Calcidius responds to this challenge only in terms of the composition of the World Soul, out of an intermediary between divisible and indivisible Being, the Same and the Other. But he leaves the crucial issue unaddressed, that of the Timaeus’ view of spirit and appetite as added, mortal soul parts. Calcidius does not resort here to a solution Alcinous proposes in the Didaskalikos, namely that divine souls in fact do have a counterpart to spirit and appetite, and that these functions suffer a deterioration upon a human soul’s incarnation (25, 178.39–45). As Baltes has argued, the response to Plato’s critics deals with two issues which Calcidius has conflated, first, whether or not the soul is a composite entity, and second, whether or not the soul has been generated.27 Calcidius, Baltes also claims, has made a mistake with respect to the first issue, in referring to a potential contradiction between the Timaeus and the Phaedrus (245c5–246a2, the very same passage which he cited in Latin in his 25 26 27

Cf. Theon of Smyrna 138.16–18, 187.14–188.7 Hiller. Cleanthes in particular, Diogenes Laertius 7.139, cf. also SVF 1.499 (= Eusebius, PE 15.15.7); Cicero, Nat. d. 2.24, 40–41, 83; Plutarch, De fac. 928A–C; Macrobius, In Somn. 1.20.6. Baltes 1976–1978 I: 181–184.

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treatment of the World Soul, ch. 57), whereas he should have quoted the Phaedo instead (78b4–80b10). In the Phaedrus too the soul is a composite entity. But the “mistake,” if it is one, is understandable, first, because Calcidius focuses on the World Soul here, and not on the human soul (even though he does conclude his analysis with the three soul powers) nor on the soul of the gods, and second, because he interprets the issue of composition as one of generation (ch. 228, 244.9–10), with composition referring in this context to the mixing of divisible and indivisible Being, Same, and Other. In the Phaedrus soul is said to be eternal also in the sense of being ungenerated, and that is the issue on which Calcidius’ opposition between the Timaeus and the Phaedrus hinges here. It is not as if he ignores altogether the passages from the Timaeus that assign the creation of the lower, mortal soul parts to the younger gods; he alludes to this statement repeatedly (ch. 137, in which he also includes the functions of locomotion and nutrition among the occiduas portiones; chs. 139, 186). His use of the Phaedrus to discuss whether the World Soul is generated or not is attested for Plutarch as well (De an. procr. chs. 8–9), but with the key difference that Plutarch posits a real beginning for the World Soul, whereas Calcidius, as we have seen (ch. 4), like many other Platonists systematically reads the “becoming” language allegorically, as a dependency on a higher cause. If one interprets the generation of the World Soul allegorically, the apparent contradiction between the Timaeus and the Phaedrus disappears. Calcidius once again turns out to be remarkably consistent in his line of reasoning.

chapter 7

God and Gods

In the first part of his commentary (ch. 39) Calcidius has anticipated a notion of the divine that aligns Providence with Plato’s Demiurge, claiming that this god bestows substance on other things out of itself and is a lawgiver.1 In the sub-treatise on fate he returns to this notion, and develops it further into a hierarchical system of different aspects of the divine. Exhibit A consists of two passages that have drawn scholarly attention:2 First, all things that are, including the world itself, are embraced and ruled principally by the Supreme God who is the Supreme Good “beyond all being” and all nature, who is superior to thought and Intellect, whom all things seek because of His being of complete perfection and requiring no fellowship, and about whom to say anything further in the present context would be to digress. Then they are embraced and ruled by the Providence which is second in preeminence to that Supreme God and which the Greeks call Nous;3 it is, moreover, intelligible being that emulates Goodness in virtue of its tireless conversion toward the Supreme God, and from the latter it possesses a draft of the Goodness by which it is itself adorned and other things, thanks to His authority, are no less ennobled. And so men refer to this will of God, this wise guardianship, as it were, of all things, as “Providence” [foresight], so called not, as many suppose, because it is a precursor in seeing and understanding events to come but because understanding, which is the act proper to mind, is a property of the divine Mind; and the Mind of God is eternal, hence the Mind of God is the eternal act of understanding. 1 2 3

See section 3.3 in this study. This chapter is based on Reydams-Schils 2007a; see now also Hoenig 2018b: 194–201, 206–213, summarized in 2018a: 438–441. Unlike Magee 2016 and Moreschini 2003, and in agreement with den Boeft 1970 and Bakhouche 2011, I take the quem that introduces the notion of “mind” as referring to the second god, and hence insert an “and” in the translation and accept Waszink’s punctuation, whereas Magee’s translation suggests that the notion of “mind” applies to the first god (“second . . . to that Supreme God which the Greeks call Nous”).

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God and Gods Fate, the divine law promulgated by the wise harmony of intelligence for the governance of all things, follows this Providence. That which is called the Second Mind, i.e., the tripartite World Soul, obeys it, as has been explained above; it is as if one were to refer to the soul of a skilled legislator as the law. (chs. 176–177; trans. Magee, slightly modified, emphasis in translation)4

Calcidius presents the second passage as a summary: In order, then, to summarize briefly these many points, we must mentally conceive of the arrangement of this matter as follows: (1) that the origin of things from which being is administered to all things that are is the Supreme and ineffable God; (2) that the Second God after him is his Providence, the legislator for both kinds of life, the eternal and temporal; (3) and that there is a third substance called the Second Mind or Intellect, a kind of guardian, as it were, of the eternal law; . . . Thus the Supreme God commands, the Second one ordains, the Third communicates, . . . (ch. 188; trans. Magee, slightly modified and emphasis added)5

An outline of this triadic structure of the divine looks as follows: first god

second god (first) mind ^ (Demiurge)

4

5

third god second mind World Soul

Principio cuncta quae sunt et ipsum mundum contineri regique principaliter quidem a summo deo, qui est summum bonum ultra omnem substantiam omnemque naturam, aestimatione intellectuque melior, quem cuncta expetunt, cum ipse sit plenae perfectionis et nullius societatis indiguus; de quo plura dici nunc exorbitare est. Deinde a prouidentia, quae est post illum summum secundae eminentiae, quem noyn Graeci uocant; est autem intellegibilis essentia aemula[e] bonitatis propter indefessam ad summum deum conuersionem, estque ei ex illo bonitatis haustus, quo tam ipsa ornatur quam cetera quae ipso auctore honestantur. Hanc igitur dei uoluntatem, tamquam sapientem tutelam rerum omnium, prouidentiam homines uocant, non, ut plerique aestimant, ideo dictam, quia praecurrit in uidendo atque intellegendo prouentus futuros, sed quia proprium diuinae mentis intellegere, qui est proprius mentis actus. Et est mens dei aeterna: est igitur mens dei intellegendi aeternus actus. Sequitur hanc prouidentiam fatum, lex diuina promulgata intellegentiae sapienti modulamine ad rerum omnium gubernationem. Huic obsequitur ea quae secunda mens dicitur, id est anima mundi tripertita, ut supra comprehensum est, ut si quis periti legum latoris animam legem uocet. Ut igitur breui multa complectar, istius rei dispositio talis mente concipienda est: originem quidem rerum, ex qua ceteris omnibus quae sunt substantia ministratur, esse summum et ineffabilem deum; post quem prouidentiam eius secundum deum, latorem legis utriusque vitae, tam aeternae quam temporariae; tertiam porro esse substantiam quae secunda mens intellectusque dicitur, quasi quaedam custos legis aeternae . . . Ergo summus deus iubet, secundus ordinat, tertius intimat . . . Here I translate tertiam porro esse substantiam as “there is a third substance,” rather than as “third is the substance” in Magee’s and Bakhouche’s translation.

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Both Stephen Gersh and John Dillon have analyzed these passages in detail, pointing out that this triadic structure of the divine does not necessarily betray a Neoplatonist influence.6 There are plenty of traces of such structures to be found in earlier Platonism. Yet despite the fact that we can come up with parallels for Calcidius’ different designations of the divine, there is no exact match for his specific combination. As far as our current evidence goes, there really is something to the distinctiveness of this commentator in his treatment of the divine.

7.1 A Dynamic Model of the Divine The question that is central here, however, is not just what the divinities are and how they are described, but the dynamic that governs the structure. How, in other words, do these divinities relate to each other? (i) The first problem is the exact meaning of the highest god as “above substance” (substantia, an echo of the famous phrase ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας, Plato Rep. 509b9). Does this mean that the highest god merely surpasses “being” in the sense of (a) being(s) (étant – τὸ ὄν)? Or does this also imply that the god surpasses the ontological mode of being (être – τὸ εἶναι) altogether? (This distinction, of course, is notoriously difficult to express in English, hence my addition of the French counterparts.7) Is Calcidius even aware of the distinction? (ii) The second issue brings us back to the two types of soul out of which the World Soul supposedly has been put together (chs. 29–31; see section 5.1 in this study): one type of soul is the equivalent of indivisible Being, and is a radically transcendent, purely noetic soul, which Calcidius also simply calls nous or intellectus; the other, as the equivalent of divisible Being, is a lower soul type, a principle of life that is the inseparable companion of bodies. But how would the higher, purely noetic soul relate to the first mind? Are they one and the same entity (as I think they are)? Is the nous-soul merely an aspect of the first mind, or does it constitute a separate level in its own right, between first mind and World Soul? The fact that the latter is called “second” mind rather than “third” would argue against that last possibility. But these questions indicate an absence of strict demarcations and thus point to a fluidity in Calcidius’ ontological 6 7

Dillon 1977: 401–408; Gersh 1989 and 1986 II: 421–492. This position goes back to the famous article by Dodds 1928. For the notion of the divine in Calcidius’ translation, see Militello 2008. Cf. Anon. in Parm. 12.22–27.

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hierarchy that will not come as a surprise to scholars familiar with Middle Platonism. (iii) The third issue will be my main vantage point in this chapter, and will help us address the two previous ones as well. Upon closer examination, none of the divine agents in Calcidius’ account constitute separate levels of an ontological hierarchy. The use of genitive constructions is the first clue: the second god, or first mind, is called the will of god (dei uoluntatem), the mind of god (mens dei), and his providence (prouidentiam eius); the possessive genitive constructions appear to refer back to the first god; similarly, the first passage refers to “the soul of a lawgiver” (legum latoris), and the second passage confirms that the lawgiver is, in fact, the second god (latorem legis). So, the second god is the mind of the first; it is also in some respects a soul, and the third god has a relation to the “soul” of the second. This relation between the three components of the triadic structure requires further elucidation from the broader context of the passages, in the treatise on fate as well as in the commentary as a whole.

7.2 Three Gods Calcidius consistently refers to the second god, Providence, or the mens prouida, with a possessive genitive construction (in the sense of “belonging to god”), as he does also in the opening passage of this chapter. In ch. 139, on the Demiurge, he mentions the uoluntas (will) of the highest god (summi dei, as in ch. 176); in ch. 189, one who follows the law expressed in fate is said “to follow the venerable traces of the first god” (sequatur principis dei veneranda uestigia); ch. 201 discusses the order made by the highest god, clearly referring to the Demiurge (ordinatio summi opificis dei), and conflating the highest god and the Demiurge (as also in ch. 287 and ch. 354, in the sub-treatise on matter). Note also that the highest and the second god (ch. 176) are said to be holding together and governing (contineri regique) the universe. The highest god is said to be doing this principaliter – that is, in the pregnant sense of principle. These are tasks which Plato ascribes to the Demiurge. Moreover, in Calcidius’ usage (see Waszink’s index) continere is the Latin equivalent of both συνέχειν and περιέχειν. In the first sense, the highest god would be holding the universe together; in other words, maintaining it and keeping it from dissolving again;8 in the second sense, god would be containing the 8

Cf. Plato Tim. 41b4–6: συνδεῖν; Phaedo 99c6: συνδεῖν and συνέχειν used together.

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entire universe. And perhaps one could even make the case that, because god actually contains the universe, he can also preserve it in its existence. Three sentences that belong together can clarify the status of the Demiurge: a. ch. 139, 179.10–11: (on the Demiurge) pater est et opifex non substantiae sed generationis (he is the father and maker, not of substance, but of generation). b. ch. 188, 212.22–23: (on the highest or first god) originem quidem rerum, ex qua ceteris omnibus quae sunt substantia ministratur (the origin of things, from which substance is provided to all other things that exist). c. ch. 191, 214.24–26: (on the Demiurge): praestantissimum quidem animal id esse quod ceteris caelestibus animalibus substantiam ex se largiatur, colat autem aliud multo praestantius, in quo sit origo rerum (the most prominent living being is the one that bestows substance from itself upon the other heavenly living beings, but that in turn worships something else much more prominent, in which the origin of things is located). These three statements cannot easily be reconciled. Taking (a) and (b) together does not pose a major problem: the Demiurge is the father and maker, not of substance, but of generation; it is the highest god who is the origin of things, and who bestows substance upon everything else that exists. Without mentioning the distinction between être and étant, and without calling the highest god “One,” (b) does give us a clue about what Calcidius could mean by considering the highest god as above “all substance and all nature” (ultra omnem substantiam omnemque naturam, ch. 176). Let us compare Calcidius’ wording in (b) with a line from Macrobius, who, in his commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis., reveals a much more distinctly Neoplatonist influence, mentioning even sources by name (Plotinus and Porphyry):9 b.1 (Calcidius): (on the highest or first god) originem quidem rerum, ex qua ceteris omnibus quae sunt substantia ministratur (translation see above). b.2 (Macrobius): Deus, qui prima causa et est et uocatur, unus omnium quaeque sunt quaeque uidentur esse princeps et origo est. (Passage continues: Hic superabundanti maiestatis fecunditate de se mentem creauit. Haec mens, quae nous uocatur, qua patrem inspicit, plenam similitudinem seruat auctoris, animam uero de se creat posteriora respiciens, 1.14.6). 9

Deuse 1997: 260, with bibliography.

90

God and Gods The god who is and is called the first cause, is the one and only principle and origin of all things that exist and appear to exist. This god, because of the superabundant fecundity of his majesty, has created mind from himself. To the extent that this mind, called nous, looks at the father, it conserves a full resemblance with its maker, but it creates soul from itself by turning towards subsequent levels of reality.

Both the similarities and the differences between the two passages are striking; they use similar terminology, but the outcome is quite different. First, the three levels of reality are more clearly demarcated in Macrobius; second, Macrobius posits the first principle as the origin of all that has being (omnium quae sunt), whereas for Calcidius it is the origin of everything else that has being (ceteris omnibus quae sunt). Calcidius’ version allows for the possibility that his first god is not above being altogether and that we should read the phrase ultra omnem substantiam omnemque naturam (ch. 176) as a hendiadys. This figure of speech would imply that Calcidius means “substance” in the sense of a specific nature, or substance in the Aristotelian sense of specific being(s; étant), with the second component, “nature,” narrowing down the first, “substance.” One must keep in mind here, as Waszink’s index reveals, that substantia in Calcidius can mean both essentia (cf. ch. 27, 78.2–3, mentioning Cicero; ch. 53, 101.14–15; ch. 325, 320.5) and res substantiua, including an alignment, in our context, with natura.10 That the first god is not above being as such is also underscored by the fact that in the summary statement of ch. 188, soul, or, the third god, is called the third substance (tertia substantia), not the second. If we can easily reconcile the statement that the Demiurge is not the maker of substance (a) with the claim that the highest god is the origin of substance (b), how would we fit in the notion that the Demiurge gives “substance out of himself” (substantiam ex se largiatur) to other things (c)? The Demiurge has substance and can bestow it on other things, but he is not the ground of his own substance; that he derives from a higher principle, namely the first god. Yet the reflexive use of ex se, pointing back to the Demiurge, seems to have a deeper meaning: if the second god is the mind or the will of the first, then the boundaries between the two are not strict. We really seem to be talking of one and the same god, but from different perspectives – that is, god in himself and god involved with the task of ordering the universe. 10

Cf. den Boeft 1970: 88–89, referring to van Winden 1959: 221 (based also on Waszink’s index), who gives three meanings of substantia: (1) substantia = essentia = natura (οὐσία), (2) substantia = existence (ὑπόστασις), (3) substantia = substratum (ὑποκείμενον). It is the first meaning we need here.

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The realization that the second god is both identical and subordinated to the first god is confirmed by the remainder of the commentary, in which Calcidius returns to a familiar Middle Platonist tripartite structure of god, the Ideas (as model), and matter (ch. 307, 308.14–309.2). Moreover, Calcidius oscillates between describing the Ideas as the thoughts of god, and seeing them as the work of god.11 One particular example of this structure is worth examining more closely (ch. 304). In the treatise on matter Calcidius discusses the way in which human beings can have access to the divine, through compositio.12 Now, order is incapable of existing without harmony, and harmony is ultimately a concomitant of proportion, and proportion is similarly coupled with reason, and reason is ultimately found to be the indivisible concomitant (comes indiuidua) of Providence; but Providence is not without intellect, nor intellect without mind. Thus the mind of god tempered, ordered, and adorned the whole of the corporeal structure; thus the divine origin of the craftsman (diuina origo opificis) has at last been found. And the craftsman puts into effect and adorns everything according to his rational power and the majesty of his works; but his works are his thoughts, which by the Greeks are called ideas; and the ideas are the exemplars of natural realities. And in this way the third, exemplary origin of things is found. Thus . . . by following the principles of synthesis we have found the craftsman god himself; and from the works of the craftsman god we have found the Exemplar. (ch. 304; trans. Magee, slightly modified)13

In my translation above, I left a literal rendering of opificis origo diuina. The parallel with tertia exemplaris origo rerum, and with origo siluestris in the previous paragraph (ch. 303, 305.15) could justify van Winden’s translation of the craftsman as a divine principle (Magee has “the divine origin arising from the craftsman”); but the phrase could also refer to the relation between the second god and the first, as the origin of the second, and hence of all beings. We run into the by now familiar phrase mens dei, which 11

12 13

Ideas as thought(s) of god: ch. 273, 278.5–6; ch. 330, 324.24–325.1; ch. 339, 332.7; ch. 340, 333.16; ch. 342, 334.23–24; ch. 349, 340.9–10; Ideas as god’s work: ch. 24, 74.11–12; ch. 304, 306.5–7, cf. Gersh 1989: 89 and 1986 II: 465–467; see also section 10.3 in this study. See section 10.4 in this study. Ordo autem sine harmonia esse non potest, harmonia demum analogiae comes est, analogia item cum ratione et demum ratio comes indiuidua prouidentiae reperitur, nec uero prouidentia sine intellectu est intellectusque sine mente non est. Mens ergo dei modulauit ordinauit excoluit omnem continentiam corporis; inuenta ergo est demum opificis diuina origo. Operatur porro opifex et exornat omnia iuxta uim rationabilem maiestatemque operum suorum; opera vero eius intellectus eius sunt, qui a Graecis ideae vocantur; porro ideae sunt exempla naturalium rerum. Quo pacto inuenitur tertia exemplaris origo rerum. Igitur . . . iuxta [legem rationemque] compositionis uero praecepta ipsum opificem deum [invenimus], ex operibus porro dei opificis exemplum.

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is Calcidius’ short-hand for this relationship, or the two highest gods considered together. Similarly, I render individua, which van Winden translated as “inseparable” (same in Magee) more literally as “indivisible,” because it could be a reference to the connection between the nous-soul and indivisible Being (Calcidius uses the expression inseparabilis comes elsewhere, for an “inseparable companion,” as in ch. 31, 80.12). Another indication that Calcidius’ first god is not above being altogether is to be found in his interpretation of the Parmenides.14 He reads this work of Plato as dealing with the issue of the participation of sensible in intelligible reality (ch. 272, 276.15–277.8). This implies that he remains within the tradition of ontological interpretations of the Parmenides, and does not belong with those Neoplatonist readers who used this work of Plato to back up their notion of a One so transcendent that it would be above being (être) altogether.15 So much for the implications of the broader context for the relation between the first and the second god. Before examining next the relation between the second and the third god, let us explore further how the overlapping of first god and Demiurge affects the commentary as a whole. This conflation is crucial for a correct understanding of passages such as the following (from the treatise on the human soul; see ch. 6 in this study): But if they [the Hebrews] confess to the human soul’s being rational, then they should believe their own claim, that after having made human beings God “breathed” into them his divine “breath,” by which we employ reason and intellect, and by which we piously venerate God and possess a natural affinity with his divinity and are said to be “gods and sons of” the highest “god.” (ch. 219)16

Waszink relies on this passage as prime evidence for Calcidius’ alleged Christian identity,17 but this claim needs to be nuanced considerably. The passage occurs in a dialectical disagreement with the Hebrews. The complete argument runs as follows: if the Hebrews want to posit blood as the substance of the human soul, then they contradict their own belief that the soul originates from divine breath. Calcidius hence does not always endorse the positions he ascribes to the Hebrews.18 14 15 16

17

See section 2.3 in this study. According to Proclus’ doxography, In Parm. 630.15–645.8 Cousin; PT 1, 8–11, 32–55 Saffrey and Westerink. Si autem confitentur [Hebraei] animam hominis rationabilem fore, credant sibi, quod deus a se hominibus factis inspirauerit diuinum spiritum, quo ratiocinamur quoque intellegimus et quo ueneramur pie deum estque nobis cum diuinitate cognatio diique esse dicimur et filii summi dei. Waszink 1962: xi–xii and 1972: 236. 18 See also chs. 276–278; section 15.3 in this study.

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I will argue that the language of “a kinship with the divine” and “gods and the sons of the highest god” does not so much Christianize the Timaeus as posit a possible common ground between a Platonist and a Christian perspective (see section 15.2). The distinction is crucial for a correct understanding of the commentary, because it would prevent us from interpreting it systematically through a Christianizing lens. The “highest god” is Calcidius’ first-and-second god or Demiurge, and Plato called this Demiurge a “maker and father.” Let us turn our attention now to the relation between the second and the third god, between Providence as the first mind and the World Soul as second mind. The key to this issue is Calcidius’ positing fate as the link between the two, and his distinction between fate in substance and fate in act.19 Fate qua substance is the World Soul, but “we recognize its being and the kind of power it has from its acts, which belong . . . with the second god, or Providence.”20 Fate qua act is an edict or law pronounced by Providence; it governs everything except divine and intelligible reality (ch. 145, 183.19–20);21 fate qua substance is the World Soul, because it has been given this law as an informatio. Calcidius may use this word in a more pregnant sense than a mere “instruction” (as den Boeft rendered it): the law makes the World Soul what it is.22 So, at first glance, the connection between the second and the third god is not as tight: the second god commands, the third passes on the law and obeys; and we need an intermediary, called “fate.” As we have seen, however, law can also be considered as the soul of the expert lawgiver, as the soul of Providence, or the second god, with the same kind of genitive construction which Calcidius uses also to connect the first and the second god. Yet, in all likelihood, the phrase “the soul of the lawgiver” is a slight trace of and allusion to the purely noetic and transcendent soul, which, as we have seen, Calcidius posits as the equivalent of indivisible Being. The World Soul has a relation with this noetic soul, in the sense that the latter goes into the mixture of the former, but together with a lower soul-type, which is the equivalent of divisible Being.

7.3

Possible Parallels?

The parallel passages to Calcidius’ tripartite schema of the divine have been discussed by other scholars, but I would like to revisit some of these in light 19 20 21 22

See also ch. 143; ch. 8 in this study. See also ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 568C–D; Nemesius, Nat. hom. 38; Plotinus, Enn. 3.3.5. See also chs. 148, 150–158, 181, 189. See also ch. 147, 185.1: diuina lex est mundi animae insinuata.

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of the relationship between the different components of this schema.23 Let us return to a much-debated fragment of Numenius from this vantage point.24 Numenius’ schema consists of three minds: the first, called “father,” is the Good itself, and the Demiurge of Being (but not a Demiurge in the strict sense of “maker”); the second contains the Forms, is the maker or the Demiurge of becoming,25 is a “lawgiver,” and, I would suggest, the equivalent either of the second god or of the purely noetic soul in Calcidius;26 the third is the World Soul,27 or universe. One fragment in particular comes to mind: Numenius places the first [god] at the level of “the Living” and claims that it thinks by using the second, the second god he places at the level of “mind,” and this one, in turn, is a demiurge by using the third, the third god he places at the level “discursive reason” (F22 des Places, cf. also F13).28

The first god, “the Living,” thinks (νοεῖν) with the aid of the second, the second god, mind, makes (δημιουργεῖν) with the aid of the third. This dynamic reveals a clearly reciprocal relationship between the different entities, whereby the higher entity also turns towards the lower, and not only the lower to the higher. We seem to be dealing with a dynamic continuum, as distinct from the Neoplatonist dynamic of emanation and return, and thus the label “hypostases” for the different levels in Numenius’ thought should be used only with due caution. (This is also the main reason why we have such a hard time pinning down these entities.29) It is Proclus who has preserved the passage above for us, and his critique – regardless of whether his rendering of Numenius is entirely accurate or not – is loud and clear: one has to deny of the first principle all relations with lower levels of reality (δεῖ δὲ ταῦτα μὲν ἀναπέμπειν ἐπὶ τὸ πρῶτον, ἐκείνου δὲ πᾶσαν ἀφαιρεῖν σχέσιν, In Tim. 2, I 304.10–11 Diehl).30 23 24 25 26

27 28

29

30

For the broader context in Middle Platonism, see also Boys-Stones 2018: ch. 6. For a fuller discussion of Numenius as a source for Calcidius’ commentary, see ch. 13 in this study. Cf. Calcidius, ch. 139, 179.10–11. Cf. Calcidius, ch. 29, in comparison with chs. 297–99, in which Calcidius mentions Numenius by name, for the debate on this issue, see Deuse 1983: 73–76 and Phillips 2003. See also Numenius F13, F18.6ff., F44. Dillon 1977: 374; Frede 1987: 1068. Νουμήνιος δὲ τὸν μὲν πρῶτον κατὰ τὸ “ὅ ἐστι ζῷον” τάττει καί φησιν ἐν προσχρήσει τοῦ δευτέρου νοεῖν, τὸν δὲ δεύτερον κατὰ τὸν νοῦν καὶ τοῦτον αὖ ἐν προσχρήσει τοῦ τρίτου δημιουργεῖν, τὸν δὲ τρίτον κατὰ τὸν διανοούμενον. Dodds 1960; des Places 1973: 13–14; Dillon 1977: 371–372; Frede 1987: 1070; Gersh 1989: 89; Opsomer 2005: 51–99. See also Anon. In Parm. 9.1–8; and the debate over Alcinous, Didask. 10: Donini 1988: 118–131; Mansfeld 1988: 92–117; Reydams-Schils 1999: 198, n. 90; Abbate 2002: 55–75. See also Proclus, In Tim. 2, I 304.6–7, 305.2–4 Diehl; In Parm. 912.19–27 Cousin, Opsomer 2005: 64, n. 65.

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Though we have three minds in Numenius’ view, the second god is properly called mind, and the first thinks through the second; though both the first and the second god are also called Demiurges, strictly speaking demiurgy belongs to the third, but only in function of its relation to the second. Numenius says explicitly that the god who is second and third is one, or, this god is the second insofar as it turns its attention to itself and the Good, and the third insofar as it turns to matter and sensible reality (F11). Thus, in Numenius’ schema the relation between the second and the third god would be closer than in Calcidius’ account. On the relation between the first and the second god, Proclus reports that Numenius has a twofold notion of the Demiurge, one that applies to the first god (as father) and one that applies to the second god (as maker).31 Calcidius could have interpreted the latter claim as supporting his view of the close ties between his first and second god (even though he does not adopt the distinction between father and maker). Important too is Numenius’ way of keeping the first god in contact with intelligible being: the first god is said to be being itself (αὐτοόν F17), to be fused with being (σύμφυτον τῇ οὐσίᾳ F16), or to be riding on being (ἐποχούμενον ἐπὶ τῇ οὐσίᾳ F2, 16).32 So, like Calcidius, Numenius is struggling to make a distinction between being as such and the being of the Forms, without having recourse to a difference between être and étant. There is a distinction between Calcidius’ first and second god, yet by describing the relation between the two as one being the mind of the other, he also reminds us of the language of a Philo of Alexandria, and his notion of god’s logos.33 The possible parallels with Philo would reward further inquiry. We know that Philo’s God is Being, and that this God is said to affect all of reality, or “to contain everything, without being contained” (περιέχων οὐ περιέχεται). God is also above any specific form (Deus 55, God as ἄποιος).34 Yet the differences between Philo and Calcidius should not be argued away either. First, Philo’s structure of the divine and of God’s powers is much more complex (cf. Fug. 94–100); second, he does call 31 32 33

34

F21 = Proclus In Tim 3, II 103.28–32 Diehl: ὥστε ὁ κατ’ αὐτὸν δημιουργὸς διττός, ὅ τε πρῶτος θεὸς καὶ ὁ δεύτερος. See also Alcinous’ term οὐσιότης, Didask. 10, 164.34. For Philo, see Winston 1985; Runia 1986: 3, 2.7, 450–451; Reydams-Schils 1999: 145–156; . A key passage is Opif. 24; cf. also e.g. Abr. 119–123 (God as one and three simultaneously), Sacr. 60, Post. 12–20, Mut. 27–28, the Greek fragment of QG at Eusebius, PE 7.13.1–2. See also section 15.4 in this study. See also Calcidius ch. 305, on principles in general, including god, and Alcinous 10.165.10–13: God as neither ποιός nor ἄποιος.

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God (the) One; and third, he limits considerably the role of the World Soul.35 We know, too, that Porphyry came under attack by later Platonists for having blurred the lines of his hypostases and for not having thought through carefully enough the implications of his theory.36 What exactly Porphyry is supposed to have gotten wrong is notoriously difficult to assess, but it is plausible that he was still too much under the influence of an earlier Platonist view on the dynamic of the divine.37 But it is also worth keeping in mind that Plotinus’ structure of the divine may still have been fluid as well.38 After all, Porphyry presented himself as a faithful pupil of Plotinus, one who had understood the true meaning of his master’s teachings.

7.4

A Stoic Influence

Despite extensive parallels in the three authors’ treatment of fate, there is no counterpart to Calcidius’ tripartite schema of the divine in either ps.-Plutarch’s or Nemesius’ account, which would, again, point to an independent use of the doxographical material on Calcidius’ part.39 As counterintuitive as this may sound at first, one could make the case that the dynamic of the relationship between the different components of the tripartite divine schema in Calcidius (and other texts discussed here) has a stronger affinity with a Stoic view of the divine than with later Neoplatonist developments.40 If we examine more closely the dynamic of the divine in Calcidius from a theoretical perspective, we notice that it is in important respects the reverse of the Neoplatonist one, with its hypostases and processes of emanation and return. The first, second, and third divinities in Calcidius’ account, as in the Numenius passage we examined, are distinct entities, but as such – in contrast, for example, to Macrobius’ schema discussed above – they are nevertheless co-related: we can look at the divine as god in himself, as turned towards the ordered universe, or as actually present in and maintaining this order. For the Stoics, as is well known, the different ways of looking at the divine all ultimately go back to one active principle: the names “god,” “reason,” “providence,” and “world soul” 35 37 38 39 40

Cf. Runia 1986: 2, 5.1.2, 204ff. 36 See section 2.4 in this study. See Porphyry, Sent. 13 and 30; Zambon 2002: 230–239, 281–293. See e.g. Plotinus, Enn. 6.7.39.26–27, on ascribing Providence indirectly to the One, 6.8.17.18–21. The ps.-Plutarch, Fat. has a threefold structure of Providence in ch. 9 (572F–573A), but that schema provides a different framework; see also Nemesius, Nat. hom. 43. On this topic, see Sharples 2003. On the role of Stoicism in Calcidius’ commentary, see ch. 12 in this study.

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capture the same reality.41 Yet the Stoics do also allow for different levels of the divine when they posit lower gods with partial responsibilities in the universe, which represent a specific aspect of the one active divine principle.42 So, the Stoic influence on Calcidius would be twofold. First, the reciprocal relations in a network of co-related entities show that even some of the Platonist triadic schemas for the divine may be indebted to Stoicism. Second, as I have argued elsewhere, the basic pair of first principles of reality, god and matter, which subsumes the Ideas under god as the latter’s thoughts,43 itself owes a debt to the Stoics.44 Yet a Platonist cannot simply adopt the Stoic model without making some crucial modifications45 in order to take into account the allimportant ontological distinction between the sensible and the intelligible realms, as well as the notion of transcendence. The first key difference is signaled by Calcidius’ claim that the first god is above “all nature” (ch. 176, ultra . . . omnem naturam), a claim that would make no sense in the context of Stoic physics. The second crucial Platonic modification is that in Calcidius’ account the sense in which the second god is not entirely coextensive with the first is different from the sense in which the third god is not entirely coextensive with the second. The second god is an aspect of the first, but the first encompasses more than the second, as the very ground of being. The third god, the World Soul, is related to the second god or purely noetic soul, but it is also related to a lower soul type and matter, which stand outside of the intelligible realm altogether. In the network of reciprocal relationships, the three gods are then truly distinct in the sense that they are not coextensive; yet the second god is an aspect of the first as well as the third, but not in the same manner. Here another comparison may prove revealing, this time with Boethius’ account of the divine in his De consolatione philosophiae (4.6).46 Whereas Boethius cites the same factors of divine agency as Calcidius does, the former’s structure of the divine could not be more different. In this passage Boethius makes it clear that there is only one god, who is the highest mind 41 42 44 45

46

SVF 1.160, Diogenes Laertius 7.135, see also Cicero, Acad. 1.29. 43 See also Xenocrates F15 Heinze. See also section 10.3 in this study. Reydams-Schils 1999: 43–44, 145–147. To assess the shift in methodology in recent scholarship, one can compare the work cited in this volume with the approach taken by Dörrie 1975. Dörrie overlooks the fact that the Timaeus available to the Middle Platonists had already been Stoicized, and he relies too much on the problematic hypothesis of Posidonius and so-called “Middle Stoicism” as catalysts in philosophical developments. Reydams-Schils 2002a: 198–201. See also section 16.1 in this study.

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and whose agency we can perceive differently according to the realm to which it is applied. Boethius covers a series of intermediaries for divine agency, but his lack of commitment is striking. His view is not only monistic, but also monotheistic; whereas Calcidius’ stance at best leans towards monism, but would still be better described as a “minimal dualism,” because, as we shall see, like Aristotle and the Stoics, he posits matter as an independent principle.47 In sum, the reasoning behind Calcidius’ dynamic continuum of the divine is sophisticated and remarkably consistent. 47

See ch. 9 in this study.

chapter 8

Providence and Fate

If we were to identify one central theme in Calcidius’ commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, it would have to be Providence. Plato’s Demiurge is good and cares for the universe by making it as perfect as possible, but the notion of Providence as such does not play a major role in the Timaeus. Plato mentions it once when he says that the world was endowed with soul and nous as a result of divine providence (30c1), a benevolent attitude which the younger gods will imitate in their actions (44c7, 45b1). But there are aspects of the physical universe which Plato’s Demiurge cannot control and transform.1 For Calcidius, by contrast, divine Providence is central, and in this respect he betrays a very strong Stoic influence.2 The notion is so important for Calcidius that he in effect rewrites Plato’s account in crucial passages to make room for it. But an all-encompassing Providence does raise the issues of its relation with fate and the role of human free will.

8.1

Providence

Calcidius does not make the case for Providence, but assumes its role and importance. Already early in the commentary, in his discussion of the lambda figure for the proportions that make up the structure of the World Soul, Calcidius associates intelligence, Demiurge, and Providence (ch. 39).3 As we have seen,4 this Demiurge would constitute the second level in Calcidius’ divine hierarchy. Throughout the commentary he emphasizes the connection between the divine mind and Providence, as when he states in the sub-treatise on demons, for instance, that “divine counsel and 1

2 3

Reydams-Schils 2009 (review of Sedley 2007); Reydams-Schils 2017b (response to Bryan 2013): 133–137. On this topic in Calcidius, see also Bergjan 2002: 307–316, esp. 313–315. For the broader context in Middle Platonism, see Boys-Stones 2018: chs. 11 and 12. See van Winden 1959: 29–30; Reydams-Schils 2002a and 1999; for a fuller discussion of the Stoic influence see also ch. 12 in this study. 4 See section 3.3 in this study. Ch. 7 in this study.

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Providence” (diuino consilio prouidentiaque) has provided specifically also for the needs of human beings (ch. 128).5 The providential role of the Demiurge manifests itself not only in his ordering of the world, however, but also in his preserving it for all time from destruction (as in ch. 132, for instance: creator omnium et conseruator deus). Plato makes this point at the beginning of the speech which the Demiurge delivers to the younger gods, after the god has completed his part in the ordering of the world: O gods of gods, works divine whose maker and father I am, which, having come to be by my hands, cannot be undone but by my consent. Now while it is true that anything that is bound is liable to being undone, still, only one who is evil would consent to the undoing of what has been well fitted together and is in fine condition. This is the reason why you, as creatures that have come to be, are neither completely immortal nor exempt from being undone. Still, you will not be undone nor will death be your portion, since you have received the guarantee of my will – a greater, more sovereign bond than those with which you were bound when you came to be (41a–b; trans. Zeyl, modified). Θεοὶ θεῶν, ὧν ἐγὼ δημιουργὸς πατήρ τε ἔργων, δι’ ἐμοῦ γενόμενα ἄλυτα ἐμοῦ γε μὴ ἐθέλοντος. τὸ μὲν οὖν δὴ δεθὲν πᾶν λυτόν, τό γε μὴν καλῶς ἁρμοσθὲν καὶ ἔχον εὖ λύειν ἐθέλειν κακοῦ· δι’ ἃ καὶ ἐπείπερ γεγένησθε, ἀθάνατοι μὲν οὐκ ἐστὲ οὐδ’ ἄλυτοι τὸ πάμπαν, οὔτι μὲν δὴ λυθήσεσθέ γε οὐδὲ τεύξεσθε θανάτου μοίρας, τῆς ἐμῆς βουλήσεως μείζονος ἔτι δεσμοῦ καὶ κυριωτέρου λαχόντες ἐκείνων οἷς ὅτ’ἐγίγνεσθε συνεδεῖσθε.

The opening line of this passage poses considerable problems in the Greek original itself, and has been the subject of many discussions in the tradition and the scholarly literature.6 Here I will focus on the statement of the Demiurge that his works “cannot be undone but by his consent” (ἄλυτα ἐμοῦ γε μὴ ἐθέλοντος). As the remainder of the passage makes clear, the point is that things that derive their origin directly from the ordering activity of the Demiurge, or depend on him as their cause, cannot, by themselves, be expected to last forever. The Demiurge, however, puts himself forward as the guarantee that the dissolution of the heavenly bodies and all the younger gods (as well as, presumably, the universe in its entirety) will never happen: his will (βούλησις) proves to be an even stronger bond than the ties that currently make up their constitution. 5 6

See also ch. 139; and ch. 254, on dreams; and ch. 265: god gave sight to humans so that they could observe circuitus mentis prouidentiaeque. Taylor 1928: 248–251; Cornford 1937: 367–370.

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Thus, the Demiurge is not only responsible for the overall ordering of the universe, but also maintains this large-scale order. Calcidius does not so much translate the Greek here as explain it, as he does in other contexts, and this is why we should be wary of using his rendering as a witness to the original.7 Where the difficult Greek8 has only the aluta (the things that cannot be undone), Calcidius’ Latin translation hinges on the pair dissolubilis/indissolubilis: dissolubilia natura, me tamen ita uolente indissolubilia. By nature the heavenly bodies and younger gods can be undone, but because the Demiurge wills it (with the addition of ita) they will be preserved. Moreover, in the commentary (ch. 139), Calcidius reinterprets this notion of the divine will by taking it out of time altogether:9 the younger gods will not be liable to destruction because they “do not originate in time but from the will of the highest god which is beyond the entire span of time.” The implication here is that in itself the direct causal dependence on this divine agent is sufficient to guarantee preservation. One of Calcidius’ most striking and important insertions of the notion of Providence into Plato’s account is found in the opening of the subtreatise devoted to the discussion of matter. At a crucial juncture in his work (47e), right before his introduction of what he calls the third genos or the receptacle, Plato distinguishes between “the works of reason” (τὰ διὰ νοῦ δεδημιουργημένα), which he has been discussing up to that point, and those “of necessity,” to which he will turn his attention next (δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ δι’ἀνάγκης γιγνόμενα τῷ λόγῳ παραθέσθαι). This is how Calcidius renders Plato’s wording: Since with very few exceptions we have considered all that the intellect of the provident mind established, it is necessary now to speak also about the things which necessity brings about (ch. 268; trans. Magee, slightly modified). Nunc quoniam cuncta exceptis admodum paucis executi sumus, quae prouidae mentis intellectus instituit, oportet de illis etiam quae necessitas inuexit dicere.

In his commentary on this passage, Calcidius attributes the mens provida to god (dei), and he uses providus a third time in the space of a couple lines 7

8 9

See also Alcinous, Didask. 15, 171.22–23: ὃ δὴ πᾶν λύσιν οὐκ ἔχει κατὰ τὴν ἐκείνου βούλησιν, “the all cannot be undone in keeping with his [the Demiurge’s] will”; note that Alcinous applies the principle to the universe in its entirety. The Greek μὴ ἐθέλοντος, as opposed to the version ἐθέλοντος, is confirmed also by Cicero in his translation (me inuito); see the discussion in Taylor 1928: 250–251. On this issue see ch. 4 in this study.

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(providis rationibus). Divine Providence hence looms large in Calcidius’ rendering, whereas there is no trace of this notion in the Greek counterpart. In Plato’s phrase, “the works of reason” (or, as in Zeyl’s translation, “what has been crafted by Intellect”), nous is rather underdetermined: whose nous? Presumably, the Demiurge’s. But how is this nous related to divine agency and Providence? The importance of Providence for Calcidius is underscored by his deliberate and insistent creation of a chain of providential agents, from higher to lower (see also the ending of ch. 188).10 Unlike its role in Plato’s Timaeus, the World Soul in Calcidius’ account does not merely have a cognitive function, but would also “govern” the things below “according to the dispensations of the Demiurge and impart Providence to earthly matters” (ch. 31, ch. 54; see section 5.2 in this study). In the sub-treatise on demons, Calcidius presents their traditional function of mediating between gods and humans in terms of their taking care of human beings (chs. 131, 132, 134, 254). The providential function of the younger gods, to which Calcidius returns in ch. 201, is more easily derived from the Timaeus account itself, given that Plato’s Demiurge explicitly delegates some tasks to them (41b–d). Human beings too are inserted into this chain of providential agency. In the first part of the commentary, Calcidius already mentions that human beings inherit a providential function from the World Soul in overseeing tame animals (ch. 54). We are also told that the human soul provides life and well-being to the body which it inhabits (ch. 204). In the sub-treatise on fate (chs. 142–189), he starts by pointing out the two cognitive functions in the human soul,11 parallel to his analysis of the World Soul, although he parses these two functions differently. The World Soul has opinions and knowledge or understanding (scientia or intellectus); the human soul that directs its attention to the nature that always remains the same (like the circle of the Same in the World Soul) strengthens its wisdom (sapientia, as a return to higher reality), but its attention to the things that change and are subject to generation (as with the World Soul’s circle of the Other) yields opinion, or “prudence.” Prudence, prudentia, with its overtones of Aristotelian phronēsis, immediately conjures up the notion of the active life and the human being’s governing of mortal matters (ch. 180: in dispositione rerum mortalium, contrasted with sapientia; see also the reference to 10 11

Waszink 1969: 275–278; on this issue in Atticus and Middle Platonism in general see Boys-Stones 2016. See ch. 6 in this study.

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deliberation in ch. 199: deliberat). From this point of view, even anger and desire acquire a positive function. The right kind of moral indignation can make anger an ally of reason, as Plato had already pointed out in the Republic (440e), but Calcidius stipulates that there is also an honorable kind of desire. Anger and desire rightly ordered help the human being to take care of earthly matters, so that his looking down from the higher reality would also prove to be effective (despectus aeque ne esset otiosus, ch. 187; ch. 200; see also ch. 6 in this study). Thus, it comes as no surprise that Calcidius stipulates as the primary purpose of the incarnation of human souls the specific providential role that has been assigned to them (ch. 191: ad tuenda terrena; ch. 192). More surprising is the fact that he ends up connecting a form of Providence even with matter, through the notion of necessity as a “providential form of obedience . . . founded upon reason” (prouida parentia ratione nixa necessitas, ch. 270; see also ch. 9 in this study). Once the Demiurge in Plato’s Timaeus has fashioned the immortal part of the human souls from the less pure remains of the World Soul, he mounts them on the heavenly bodies. Calcidius interprets this action as indicating that without assistance from the god himself, no human soul would be able to comprehend anything divine (ch. 141). Moreover, whereas Plato merely claims that the Demiurge “showed” these souls “the nature of the universe” (τὴν τοῦ παντὸς φύσιν ἔδειξεν, 41 e), Calcidius (ch. 143), once again, states that this order of the universe represents Providence. Calcidius’ concern with the providential ordering of the universe leads him both to mistranslate and paraphrase wrongly the phrase συστήσας τὸ πᾶν in Plato’s account (41d8): Plato refers to the whole of the mixture that is then divided among the individual human souls, whereas Calcidius interprets it as referring to the ordering of the universe (coagmentata mox uniuersae rei machina in the translation, post mundi constitutionem in the commentary).12 How does Calcidius introduce the concept of fate? Where Plato says that the Demiurge “described to them the laws that have been foreordained” (νόμους τε τοὺς εἱμαρμένους εἶπεν αὐταῖς, 41e), Calcidius now paraphrases this point by claiming that the Demiurge “revealed the complete series of fates” (uniuersam fatorum seriem reuelasse). Plato’s “laws that have been foreordained” are restricted specifically to the cycle of reincarnations of human souls, but Calcidius could be drawing from the (false) etymological connection the Stoics establish between εἱμαρμένη, fate, and εἱρμός,13 12 13

den Boeft 1970: 8–9; see also ch. 147. Nemesius, Nat. hom. 37.108; SVF 2.284 (Diogenianus ap. Eusebium); on fate as the sequence of causes, see also SVF 2.917, Gellius 7.2.3 = SVF 2.1000; and Cicero, Div. 1.125–126 = SVF 2.921.

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chain, to make the statement refer to a notion of fate that covers a much wider range of occurrences. And thus, in the space of a couple of lines, Calcidius has opened up these actions attributed to the Demiurge to the relationship between Providence, fate, and free will (mentioned in the preceding chapter, 142). He makes his transition to the treatment of the creation of the human body with the grand summation that Providence takes care of all existing things, mortal and immortal (ch. 201).

8.2 Fate: The Target of Calcidius’ Polemic The sub-treatise on fate can be divided in three sections (den Boeft 1970, 4–6). After an introduction (ch. 142), he presents the following: I. Plato’s doctrine of fate (chs. 143–159) II. Refutation of views of opponents, most likely Stoics (chs. 160–175) III. Return to a more systematic overview of the relation between Providence and fate (chs. 176–189) There are significant parallels between this section of the commentary and material that shows up in a text wrongly attributed to Plutarch, Περὶ εἱμαρμένης, and in Nemesius’ De natura hominis (from ch. 104, section 35 onwards). But these parallels should not be exaggerated: the structure of Calcidius’ sub-treatise on fate is not reflected in either parallel text; Calcidius’ account of three levels of the divine does not match the three levels of Providence in either ps.-Plutarch (572F–573A) or Nemesius’ account of Plato’s position (42.125–43.126);14 and both ps.-Plutarch and Nemesius have a more sophisticated awareness of the Stoic position (even though the ps.-Plutarch text appears to be very sketchy near the end).15 As in the parallel accounts, Calcidius combines elements from the Timaeus, the Phaedrus (its mention of the “law of Adrasteia”16), and the myth of Er from the Republic (especially 617d–620d, chs. 143–144). A number of features of this sub-treatise stand out. In this context, Calcidius declines to give a doxographical overview; it would take too long, he says, to survey the opinions of others about this widely debated topic (ch. 142), and he contents himself with a rapid overview of the different possibilities for the role of fate and free will. The treatment appears to be rougher than other sections of the commentary, which could be an 14 15 16

Cf. Waszink 1969: 278 and Bergjan 2002: 314–315; see also Sharples 2003; see ch. 7 in this study. See also Apuleius, Pl. 1.12. Cf. Plato, Phaedrus 248c2; see also Calcidius, chs. 143–144; 152; a digression in ch. 178.

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indication that Calcidius is borrowing more from his source(s) or working on the basis of notes without ironing out all the wrinkles or spelling out all the connections. Ideas from Aristotle have been subsumed under Plato’s view without their origin being signaled (see below, and ch. 11 in this study). In effect, the sub-treatise appears to be driven largely by a polemic against one specific group of thinkers, the Stoics. Criticism of their doctrine of fate was indeed a staple of anti-Stoic polemic, as attested also by Cicero’s De fato and Alexander of Aphrodisias’ work devoted to the same topic. Calcidius’ attack is not limited to the middle section of the sub-treatise: earlier on he already anticipates the challenge posed by divination (ch. 157) and the polemic surrounding that specific issue, in claiming that the authority of its predictions can be preserved on Plato’s view as he presents it. And in the second systematic exposition, he returns to the theme that divination is compatible with Plato’s position (chs. 185–186). Remarkably absent from Calcidius’ account is any overt polemic against the Epicureans (or the atomist tradition more broadly construed), who are typically attacked for their denial of divine Providence. He borrows one line of reasoning that elsewhere is attributed to Epicurus as applying to god:17 in ch. 173 he lists a number of possibilities concerning the relation between fate and evil: (i) that fate wants all things to be good, but lacks the power; (ii) that fate has the power, but does not want all things to be good; and (iii) that it lacks both power and will. In an Epicurean context (and in the skeptical tradition, as attested in Sextus Empiricus18), given the existence of evil, this listing of options leads to an impasse, because all three possibilities are unacceptable for divine agency. And if we posit (iv) that fate has both the power and the will to do good, where does that leave the existence of evil? For the Epicureans this line of reasoning would underscore the view that the divine has no care for such matters at all. But Calcidius presents this fourth possibility not in order to undermine the existence of fate but to connect the notion that fate has both the power and the will to bring about good with the stipulations that it is the cause of all good things and evil has no bearing on it. We will examine more closely below first, how he thinks that such a position (a) does not lead us back to the first option, that fate lacks power, and yet (b) allows for the existence of evil; and second, how exactly he sees the relation between Providence and fate. 17

den Boeft 1970: 73–74; Lactantius, ID 13.20–21.

18

Sextus Empiricus, Pyr. 3.10–11.

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The presentation of the Stoic view has some odd features. In the first systematic exposition, Calcidius mentions Chrysippus and Cleanthes as holding different views about the relation between Providence and fate, but without a strong polemical undertone – though he ends up disagreeing with both positions. In the polemical section proper, however, Calcidius talks about the Stoics (presumably) merely in the undefined third person (“they say,” aiunt, ch. 160; Bakhouche 2011 II, n. 255). He mentions them explicitly only when he discusses the Stoic theory of perversion (perversio/ διαστροφή; SVF 3.229a), which stipulates that humans are led astray either by the attraction inherent in things themselves or under the negative influence of others (ch. 165).19 Elsewhere in the commentary, Calcidius is usually clearer and more precise in his attribution of certain views to the Stoics. A brief comparison with Cicero’s De fato may be helpful to understand what is at stake here. In ch. 142, Calcidius rapidly enunciates three logical possibilities: (i) the view that nothing happens according to fate, (ii) the view that everything does, which leaves no room for human freedom, or (iii) a mixed view, according to which some things result from fate and others depend on an act of will (see also the transition at the end of the subtreatise, ch. 190). Cicero presents his readers with a similar schema, listing two of the three possibilities (Fat. 39): there are those who “thought that all things come about by fate” (trans. LS 62C), matching the second possibility mentioned by Calcidius, versus “the holders of the other view,” who “believed that there are voluntary motions of our minds, free from all fate” (matching Calcidius’ third position). But under the view of what we may call radical determinism, Cicero lists Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle, whereas he says that Chrysippus presented himself as wanting “to strike a happy medium.” The reason, in other words, why Calcidius presents the determinists’ position with an anonymous “they” may well be that in the tradition this position was seen not to be unique to the Stoics, even if they did become the primary target in debates about the role and extent of fate. In Calcidius’ account, views that ultimately are derived from Aristotle do not end up on the side of determinism, but he could well be arguing against a broader range of thinkers, and not just the Stoics. As we will see, Calcidius himself ends up endorsing a form of compatibilism that allows for human freedom while placing human agency not outside of the reach of fate altogether.20 19 20

See Graver 2012. Reydams-Schils 1999: 225–243; Boys-Stones 2007; Sharples 2007; and Bonazzi 2014.

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Moreover, ch. 156 of Calcidius’ commentary, in which he expounds Plato’s view, could be seen as co-opting features of Chrysippus’ position: reason is presented as the movement internal to the principal part of the soul (the equivalent of what the Stoics would call the hēgemonikon); “impression” (phantasia) comes to us from the outside, whereas “assent” and “impulse/desire” (appetitus) move of their own accord.21 In sum, Calcidius’ stance towards Stoic views in this sub-treatise is very complex, and we will need to return to this topic.22

8.3 Fate: Calcidius’ Solution If Chrysippus, according to Calcidius (ch. 144), holds that Providence and fate are coextensive, and Cleanthes allegedly holds that everything that falls under Providence also falls under fate, but not the other way around (i.e. not everything that falls under fate falls under Providence), Calcidius’ Plato endorses the position that is the converse of the latter: everything that falls under fate also falls under Providence, but not the other way around (ch.143, see also Nemesius 38.109.15–20). So, for Calcidius, Providence is the notion that encompasses everything that happens in the world (chs. 145, 147 and 189), and this, again, brings out its importance. Divine beings that are purely intelligible and are closest to Providence do not fall under fate, but all natural and corporeal things do, including the heavenly bodies, which are corporeal (ch. 177). The other exception to the rule of fate is human freedom, which the exposition is meant to secure against the determinist position. But that second exception, as we will see, needs to be qualified: Calcidius does not want to oppose human freedom to fate, but to make them compatible, in a manner that is different from the Stoic approach. The determinists as Calcidius presents them are, again, radical, in the sense of not even trying to leave room for human freedom in a manner in which Chrysippus is reported to have done (section 12.1 in this study); Calcidius is not claiming that this Stoic attempt at compatibilism does not work,23 he is not recognizing it as a “middle ground” at all. Calcidius systematically couches human freedom and responsibility in Latin terms that have a voluntarist connotation or indicate that human beings have a choice between alternatives, and not just between giving or withholding assent, as in Stoic psychology. In this respect his view is closer 21 23

22 See also section 6.3 in this study. See section 12.1 in this study. As Plutarch does, for instance, in his Stoic. rep. 1055D–F; Nemesius, Nat. hom. 35.105–106, too includes Stoic compatibilism, as does Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 181.13–182.20.

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to the Aristotelian notion of deliberation (see ch. 184). The terms he uses are: uoluntas, arbitrium, optio, and electio. In order to allow for the solution to the conundrum of human freedom which he ends up endorsing, Calcidius borrows other elements from the Peripatetic tradition as well. He uses the list of Providence, fate, human free choice, fortune, and chance (ch. 145). His treatment of fortune and chance clearly echoes Aristotle’s account from his Physics (2.4–6, with the distinction between τύχη and ταὐτόματον, the spontaneous), and chs. 158–159 contain examples which can also be found in Aristotle’s account. Fortune is at work in the sphere of human action and rational decisionmaking, when causal lines accidentally intersect, for instance, when someone who digs a hole to plant something discovers a treasure (ch. 159); chance is the equivalent of such crossing of causal lines in things devoid of reason. Both fortune and chance, however, are “embraced by the edicts of fate” (ch. 179; see also chs. 188–189). The second Peripatetic distinction that is essential for Calcidius’ argument is the one among occurrences that (i) happen invariably, (ii) happen for the most part, (iii) occur with a more balanced possibility of going either way, and thus are as likely to happen as not (ch. 156), and (iv) happen rarely.24 Thus the heavenly bodies, while falling under fate, are governed by what Calcidius calls a “happy necessity” (ch. 177: beata necessitate) in their eternal and invariable condition that reflects their close proximity in the ontological hierarchy to Providence, whereas fortune and chance belong with the rare occurrences, which are exceptional deviations from the norm (ch. 172). Things in the natural and earthly realm happen “for the most part,” that is, they display regularity, but of a kind that allows for exceptions and for things to go wrong (as with the birth of monsters, for instance, chs. 172 and 177). Many aspects of a human being’s existence would fall under this heading too, but rationality in human beings and the right kind of decision-making can improve the odds for right outcomes. Thus, human behavior insofar as it depends on deliberation, in effect, would fall under the things for which the probability of happening or not happening is more balanced (ch. 156; defined as “that which is up to us”).25 In order to grasp his solution for making human freedom compatible with fate, and through fate, with Providence, we also need to take into account how Calcidius defines the relation between the necessary and the contingent (ambiguum, ch. 155). Calcidius endorses the position (i) that 24 25

See also Nemesius, Nat. hom. 34.103.17–104.11; and ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 571C. See also Nemesius, Nat. hom. 40.114.21–22; ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 571D.

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both the necessary and the contingent are sub-species of the possible; (ii) that the necessary is something possible the contrary of which is impossible; and (iii) that the contingent is something possible the contrary of which is also possible.26 Given this view of the relation between the possible, the necessary, and the contingent, the way out of the tension between human freedom and fate/Providence is to rely on hypothetical necessity (a view that is present in a range of Middle Platonist accounts),27 which, Calcidius claims, is analogous to the relation between axioms (initiis) and theorems in geometry (ch. 150). If a human being undertakes a certain action, then certain consequences will follow, or, as in the famous example (ch. 153), Apollo prophesies that if Laius fathers a child, that child will end up killing him. According to this view, it is still up to Laius and fully within the freedom of his decision-making not to father a child. Fate (and through it Providence) does encompass this occurrence, by stipulating the connection between antecedent and consequent, but without determining the antecedent.28 Just as human laws that stipulate the penalty for treason do not turn someone into a traitor, the divine law expressed in fate (as its act, whereas the World Soul is its substance29) punishes those who deviate from the right life, and awards those who do not (chs. 179–180). This analogy between human and divine law echoes the distinction Calcidius made in his introduction to the commentary, between justice in human affairs, treated in Plato’s Republic, and natural or divine justice (ch. 6), to which, he claims, the Timaeus is devoted.30 It is in the sub-treatise on fate that this initial distinction comes to its full fruition. Calcidius, in other words, uses the notion of hypothetical necessity to preserve both the range of fate and human freedom, in his compatibilist proposal. When he asks how fate can be all inclusive (ch. 148), that is, regulate our universe in its entirety, and yet have determinate limits, the 26

27 28

29

ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 571B–C; Nemesius, Nat. hom. 34.103.20–21; also of Aristotelian inspiration, see Int. 13, 23a15–16, and the discussion in ch. 9; An. pr. 1.13, 32a18–29. As Mansfeld 1999: 144–148 points out, this view does not reflect Stoic modal logic, see section 12.1 in this study. See also Tacitus, Ann. 6.22; Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 740C–D; Alcinous, Didask. 26; Porphyry, ap. Stob. 2.5.39–42 = Wachsmuth 2, 169.8–20 = Smith F271. The Stoics, by contrast, appear to have interpreted the same conditional prediction as being itself interwoven in the fated causal nexus. Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 202.8–15, 21–25: Apollo knew that Laius would disobey, but the prophesy was needed, was a necessary condition, to set the chain of events in motion; Apollo merely gave Laius the impression (φαντασία) that he could avoid the outcome. And as we know, it is precisely by trying to prevent the outcome after he had fathered a child that Laius brought on the tragic consequences. In that sense fate acted through Laius; see also Epictetus, Diss. 3.1.16–18; Diogenianus, in Eusebius, PE 4.3.12. See ch. 7 in this study. 30 See also ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 573D.

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answer is that fate and the events it regulates are embedded in the cyclical time structure of the Great World Year (Timaeus 39d4–5). Thus, fate can govern all aspects of corporeal reality, so long as it is both confined within cyclical time and also allows for human freedom and an independent factor of moral evil. There are important elements from other Middle Platonist accounts which Calcidius leaves out – and thus, as in other instances, his omissions are revealing too. Alcinous, for instance, relies on the distinction between the intelligible and sensible realms to make the claim that human beings are free precisely insofar as through the rational function of their souls they turn to the intelligible realm and aim at becoming godlike.31 Although in the sub-treatise on the human soul he alludes to its affinity with intelligible forms (ch. 225), Calcidius does not build his argument for human freedom on this affinity. Preserving human freedom is important for human beings because it would allow them to recover from their mistakes and return to their original divine condition (ch. 189). But Calcidius is concerned first and foremost with preserving divine agency. Positing a rigid chain of causes would, the strongest objection goes, amount to eliminating the very existence of Providence or gods, because what would there be left for god to do if all is ruled by necessity (ch. 175)?32 Moreover, divine agency also needs to be protected from any contamination by evil. It would be monstrous, he avers, to state that evil follows from reason (ch. 175). “God is not responsible.”33 As a result the entire series of divinities are cleared from the potential charge of causing evil. Fate too cannot be the cause of both good and evil, because one and the same thing cannot encompass opposites (ch. 172), and, as we have seen, to say that fate only wants the good, but cannot make everything so, is to weaken divine power; to say that it can prevent evil, but does not want to, is to make the divine cruel; to say that it neither wants all things to be good nor can bring this about amounts to impiety (ch. 173). So, the only option remaining is that an all-encompassing fate is the cause of good, and the responsibility for evil has to lie elsewhere, namely in human freedom, which, however, is still governed by fate through hypothetical necessity. An analogous line of reasoning can be extended to the heavenly bodies (and by implication 31 32 33

As in Alcinous, Didask. 2; for a detailed discussion of this passage and others, see Vimercati 2020. See also Nemesius, Nat. hom. 35.104.15–20. θεὸς ἀναίτιος, as in the myth of Er from the Republic, 617e4–5, with a similar notion in the Timaeus, 42e3–4; Calcidius chs. 154 and ch. 199.

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the World Soul), which do affect other things – a point to which we need to return below – but cannot be the cause of both good and evil. Actually, given their divine and perfect nature, they cannot be the cause of evil at all (ch. 174). Human beings’ freedom and responsibility is also meant to let the younger gods, which Calcidius equates with the heavenly bodies, off the hook for their making of the body and the two lower parts of the mortal soul, spirit and appetite (ch. 201). But despite Calcidius’ claim that human action would fall under the heading of things that could happen just as well as not, and his invocation of hypothetical necessity, the odds for virtue and vice are not actually balanced in human beings because they consist of both soul, which also includes lower irrational functions, and body. Laius may have had a choice, but his propensity towards intemperance pushed him towards fathering a child (ch. 153), and similarly, Achilles’ violent temperament and thirst for honor made him choose the option of a short but glorious life (ch. 154; see also ch. 169, for Cyrus and Croesus). In the Stoic-sounding passage about assent moving of its own accord (ch. 156), Calcidius points out that many factors can lead to a wrong decision, including bad habits or the tyrannical influence of vice. Thus, when Calcidius, in the polemical section of the sub-treatise, discusses the double perversion theory of the Stoics (chs. 165–167), the attraction inherent in things themselves and the corrupting influence of others, he is not rejecting that point of view as such, which is, after all, reminiscent of the Socratic claim that “nobody errs willingly.” It is true that the attraction pleasure and honor exert can lead us astray, or that mothers, nurses, and poets (as Plato says in the Republic 377b) can push us in the wrong direction.34 Even a certain mixture of humors in our body can make us more prone to certain vices, such as lust and anger, and the vicissitudes of life too can turn us away from the pursuit of the true good. Thus, would-be sages need all the help they can get (ch. 168): a good rearing that also disciplines the body to serve the soul, good teachers, and divine assistance, like the daimōn that watched over Socrates from his childhood. But the view that many factors push against a human being’s ability to practice virtue cannot be used as a pretext to abdicate responsibility and accountability. It turns out that against these quite overwhelming odds, only reason can take a stand (chs. 181–182). It is true that, by nature, some people have a better disposition, as a result of a better mix of the humors that make up their constitution, than others. But it is precisely because of this fact that 34

See also Cicero, Tusc. 3.2.

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Providence ensured that reason could make a salutary intervention (rationis consiliique salubritas), provided that the capacity for reasoning is strengthened through the right kind of education and influence. And while it is also true that spirit and appetite can create considerable mayhem, fighting either with reason or with one another (chs. 183–184), even these lower parts of the soul have a positive role to play in the life of human beings (ch. 187), allowing them to care for the things around them in the terrestrial realm, as we have seen above.

8.4 Refuting the Arguments in Favor of Determinism So, what exactly is it that the determinists, among whom Calcidius ranks the Stoics, would hold against a view of hypothetical necessity such as the one he outlines? It is striking that in the second section of the sub-treatise on fate the discussion is not presented merely as a critique of the determinists but as a debate between the two camps. Moreover, as I have indicated already, the section is not governed entirely by a polemic, but represents some common ground as well. Following den Boeft in this respect (1970: 49), we can detect four lines of reasoning in defense of the determinists’ notion of fate (chs. 160–161). The first has to do with divine foreknowledge and power: if god has foreknowledge of everything that happens, not only pertaining to the necessary and eternal heavenly phenomena but also to those parts of the universe that are liable to contingency (dubiam illam naturam), including human decisions, and if he controls past, present, and future, this implies that everything has been arranged from the start. The second point is a corollary to the first: the notion of co-fatality ensures that matters pertaining to the laws and other forms of exhortation, and to sciences such as medicine, also fall under fate: if something is destined to happen, the means by which this is to take place are determined as well. For example, a person destined to be just will have such and such parents to give him the right education, or a person destined to be cured from an illness will be healed by this specific doctor, or even by a nonexpert, if fate has so arranged it. It is striking that Calcidius does not present this argument as itself a response to a criticism leveled against the Stoics for their determinism, the so-called Lazy or Idle Argument, as, for instance, in the claim that if it is fated that either you will or will not recover from an illness, it makes no difference whether you call in a doctor or not, and hence human actions of this type become futile.35 35

Cicero, Fat. 28–29; Origen, C. Cels. 2.20.

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Third, praise and blame are often allocated in an unexpected manner, so that good people and deeds are punished instead of rewarded, and this, the truncated claim implies, can only be explained on the basis of fate. Fourth, and last but not least, the art of divination shows that everything has already been arranged; otherwise no predictions could be made. Calcidius addresses these objections in a different order, leaving the issue of unexpected outcomes last, presumably because nothing registers the problem of moral evil as strongly as the unjust treatment of good people, illustrated poignantly by cases such as the condemnation of Socrates or the killing of prophets (ch. 172). We will take a closer look below at how he handles divine Providence and divination. The second challenge, of cofatality, leads to a different approach, already discussed above, from the end of ch. 163 onwards (up to ch. 168), by taking into account the Stoic theory of perversion. That is, in a sense, yes, many factors affect human beings’ ability to make the right choices and decisions, but these, in the end, do not alter the fact that the choices and decisions are theirs to make, and that there remains an irreducible freedom that would also allow one to overcome significant odds.36 The first issue, of divine foreknowledge, is not limited to this section of the commentary, or to Calcidius’ second divinity, that is, Providence proper. Already in the first part of the commentary, when he discusses the cognitive function of the World Soul, Calcidius adds a feature to his translation that is not present in the original (37b; Bakhouche 2011 II, n. 391; ch. 52), namely its ability to foresee the future (quae sint futura metitur). But in the sub-treatise on fate, he focuses his attention on Providence and fate. In a first move, which we have already observed several times,37 Calcidius lifts Providence and its edicts, which constitute the act of fate, outside of time altogether: Providence [foresight], so called not, as many suppose, because it is a precursor in seeing and understanding events to come but because understanding, which is the act proper to mind, is a property of the divine Mind; and the Mind of God is eternal; hence the Mind of God is the eternal act of understanding. (ch. 176; trans. Magee, emphasis in his translation)38 36

37 38

See also Cicero, Fat. 10–11, with the story of the painter Zopyrus who claimed that Socrates’ physiognomy was not very promising, and the point that he, Socrates, had managed to overcome his natural weaknesses. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 171.11–16. See also ch. 4 in this study. prouidentiam homines uocant, non, ut plerique aestimant, ideo dictam, quia praecurrit in uidendo atque intellegendo prouentus futuros, sed quia proprium diuinae mentis intellegere, qui est proprius mentis actus. Et est mens dei aeterna: est igitur mens dei intellegendi aeternus actus.

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Second, it is not the case that things are known according to the nature of the knower, but rather that god knows each thing according to its nature (see also ch. 177: omnia reguntur, secundum propriam quaeque naturam).39 Let us take a closer look at this passage: (1) What will we respond? That god does indeed know all things, but that he knows each and every thing in virtue of its proper nature: a. as subject to necessity insofar as it is liable to necessity, b. and as contingent insofar as it is endowed with a nature for which deliberation opens up a path. (2) For god does not know the contingent as something certain and constrained by necessity (for in that case he will be deceived and not know) but in such a way as to know it in virtue of its proper nature, as truly contingent. (3) What, then, do we say? That god knows all things and that his knowledge is confirmed from eternity; a. but that some of the objects of his knowledge are divine and immortal b. and others mortal and temporal; a. that the substance of immortal things is stable and fixed, b. and that of mortal ones mutable and contingent, being differently disposed through time owing to the inconstancy of its nature. (4) Hence too god’s knowledge a. of divine things, whose happiness is certain and secured by perpetual necessity, is certain and necessary knowledge, both because of the certain comprehension in the knowledge itself and by virtue of the substance of the objects known. b. But, although his knowledge that uncertain things are uncertain and by disposition contingent as to their outcome is necessary (for they cannot be other than their nature is), they themselves are nevertheless capable of opposite outcomes rather than subjugated to necessity. (5) Contingent events, then, are not also rigidly disposed and decreed from the start, except perhaps for the very fact of their having to be uncertain and dependent upon an outcome one way or the other. And so, the fact that the nature of the human soul is such as in one instance to apply itself to virtue but in another to lean toward malice, as with the body’s health wavering between health and sickness, is obviously fixed and decreed from the beginning as well. But it is neither decreed nor ordained who is destined to be evil or good; hence our laws, instructions, deliberations, exhortations, warnings, education, steady 39

See also ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 570E–F; Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 201.16–18; Reydams-Schils 2002a: 199–200; 2010: 504–505; sections 2.4 and 16.1 in this study.

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attention to nourishment, praise, blame, and all such things. For the choice of living rightly is within our control.(ch. 162–163; trans. Magee, slightly modified)40

We can tell how carefully this argument is set up. Sections 2 to 4 are meant to explain in fuller detail section 1. God indeed (i) knows everything, but (ii) he knows each thing according to its nature. Section (1a) talks about necessity in general; 1(b) focuses on the specific case of the contingent in human deliberations (which, as we have seen, Calcidius posits as working with relatively equal odds, though he also acknowledges that in many cases the odds are against virtue). In sections 2 to 4, however, Calcidius appears to have the contingent in general in mind, covering presumably also occurrences that happen for the most part. God’s knowledge of divine, immortal things is necessary and certain, both as far as the quality of his knowledge is concerned and in keeping with the being of the things known. Of contingent matters, however, he still has necessary knowledge, but precisely about their nature as being uncertain and contingent, namely as also allowing for the contrary possibility. (Calcidius actually stops short here of calling god’s knowledge uncertain.) And thus, Calcidius will go on to conclude (5), it has been predetermined that human beings are such as to oscillate between virtue and vice, without it being determined which human being will go which way. (The analogy with the body’s health and sickness again indicates that Calcidius for the sake of his argument here has conflated both cases of contingency, of things that happen

40

. . . quid respondebimus? Quod deus sciat quidem omnia, sed unumquidque pro natura sua ipsorum sciat: necessitati quidem subiugatum, ut necessitati obnoxium, anceps uero, ut quod ea sit natura praeditum, cui consilium uiam pandat; neque enim ita scit ambigui naturam deus, ut quod certum et necessitate constrictum (sic enim falletur et nesciet), sed ita, ut pro natura sua uere dubium sciat. Quid ergo dicimus? Deum scire omnia scientiamque eius ex aeternitate solidari, porro quae sciuntur partim diuina esse et immortalia, partim occidua et ad tempus; immortalium rerum substantiam stabilem et fixam fore, mortalium mutabilem et dubiam aliasque aliter se habentem ob naturae inconstantiam. Ergo etiam dei scientia de diuinis quidem, quorum est certa et necessitate perpetua munita felicitas, certa et necessaria scientia est, tam propter ipsius scientiae certam comprehensionem quam pro eorum quae sciuntur substantia; at uero incertorum necessaria quidem scientia, quod incerta sint et in euentu ambiguo posita – nec enim possunt aliter esse quam est natura eorum –, ipsa tamen in utramque partem possibilia sunt potius quam necessitatibus subiugata. Non ergo etiam dubia ex initio rigide disposita atque decreta sunt, nisi forte id ipsum, quod incerta esse et ex ancipiti euentu pendere debeant. Quare, quod animae quoque hominis natura talis sit, ut interdum ad uirtutem se applicet, interdum ad malitiam praeponderet (perinde ut corpus modo sospitati modo aegritudini proximum), fixum plane est et decretum ex origine. Quis porro malus sit futurus aut bonus, neque decretum neque imperatum, proptereaque leges magisteria deliberationes exhortationes reuocationes institutiones nutrimentorum certa obseruatio laus uituperatio quaeque his simulantur, quia recte uiuendi optio penes nos est.

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for the most part in nature – as with the body’s health, which is, after all, its normal condition – and human deliberation, which has more balanced odds, in principle.) Calcidius does not want merely to preserve divine Providence, but also to maintain the importance of divination, or, more specifically, the fact that the heavenly bodies do affect other occurrences in the universe, and thus that there is a greater order with implications for everything that happens in the sublunary realm. This theme comes to the fore in ch. 76 of the first part of the commentary, where Calcidius discusses occurrences such as birth and death, growth and decline, and all kinds of changes, including the change of place, which “all derive their origin from the movements of the planets.” It is not the case that the heavenly beings have been arranged thus for the mere sake of mortal beings, but rather that they would provide a model to be imitated, to a limited extent, by the sublunary realm. Among the opening passages of the second part of the commentary, we find a statement that heavenly bodies that reappear after long intervals can be indicative of future events for those who can read them correctly. In this context, these heavenly bodies are not the cause of future events but rather a sign of things to come (ch. 125). This same point is repeated in the sub-treatise on demons, when Calcidius brings to bear the principle of plenitude, that there have to be intermediaries between the divine heavenly beings and humans. So, by the time he turns his attention to the sub-treatise on fate he already has a strong vested interest in preserving divination and prophesy (through oracles or otherwise). The goal of the sub-treatise on fate, again, is to mount a defense against the radical determinists without jeopardizing the divine order of the universe. Thus, the first discussion of divination already preempts the criticism of the polemical section. Divination is best interpreted as reflecting hypothetical necessity as well: an astrologer can consult the heavenly bodies to discover certain conjunctions, of the type “if this happens, that will follow,” or the most opportune moment for a certain action, once it has been decided upon (ch. 157). In the polemical section Calcidius stipulates that prophesies concerning contingent matters that have not been settled yet are deliberately ambiguous to leave room for a range of possibilities. For instance, the famous oracle that Croesus would ruin the greatest empire if he crossed the Halys hinges, on the one hand, on the fact that the war itself may have been inevitable, given the propensities of the antagonists, but, on the other, that the outcome of the conflict was still open (ch. 169). Sometimes god actually gives advice about the right course

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to take – advice, however, that is still up to human beings to follow or not (ch. 170). In the case of the Hebrews, god clearly pointed out the path of flourishing (ch. 171), precisely in hypothetical terms: “if you do this, that will follow.” In his final treatment of the subject, Calcidius returns to the signs which predictions about contingent matters interpret: such predictions, he claims, merely rely on a rational evaluation, of the kind a doctor makes in his examination of a patient, or a captain of a ship in searching the sky for signs of impending weather (ch. 185). That the latter cases may entail the worry of some form of determinism after all, however, even if they are mere signs of underlying causal connections and patterns,41 Calcidius seems to realize by going on to state that such predictions pertain to the body or to souls that are especially tied to the body, not, we are meant to infer, to the rational ability of making decisions and choices (ch. 186). Calcidius ends the sub-treatise on fate (ch. 189) by restating that Providence holds everything in its embrace and governs everything well. By now his readers should have realized how central the notion of Providence is to Plato’s worldview as he presents it. But the problem of evil is not limited to the moral realm of human actions and decisions. Is there also such a thing as ontological evil, in the very structure of the physical universe itself? In order to address that problem, Calcidius will also need to tackle the role of Plato’s receptacle, or what he, like many before him in the tradition, calls matter. 41

For the debate on this topic, see Bobzien 1998: 165, n. 55.

chapter 9

Matter and Evil

Calcidius devotes about a third of the commentary to matter as a principle of reality.1 Given the importance of Providence as a Leitmotiv of the commentary, he has to come to terms with the problem of evil, and that problem, in turn, requires that he address the function of matter in the lower, sensible level of reality. In light of the educational program he has set for himself, the topic of this sub-treatise represents the most advanced level in theoretical philosophy within the commentary (and as we have seen, Calcidius would have expected Plato’s Parmenides to pick up where the Timaeus as a discourse on nature would have left off).2 The treatise also deals with the broader question of origins or the principles of the universe as the primary and foundational building blocks of reality, and thus includes a more systematic exposition of the role of Forms in Plato’s account (chs. 337–344), which we will examine more closely in the next chapter. Calcidius draws attention to the fact that Plato himself does not use the term hulê (matter) to designate the receptacle (chs. 273, 308). Yet he uses this designation in his commentary because it became the technical term in the tradition, and thus allows him to provide an overview and comparison of different philosophical positions. A correct understanding of Calcidius’ use of the doxographical tradition and his own final view must take into account the intricate structure of this longest sub-treatise of the work: Chs. 268–354: I. Introducing Plato’s view, chs. 268–274 II. Doxography A. Generated matter: Hebrews, chs. 276–278 1 2

This chapter is an expanded version of a seminar presentation, a summary of which was published as Reydams-Schils 2015, with a response by Bakhouche. See sections 2.2 and 2.3 in this study. For the broader context in Middle Platonism, see Boys-Stones 2018: chs. 3 and 4.

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B. Ungenerated Matter a. those who consider matter to consist of particles vs. those who see it as continuous; among the latter: those who attribute some form to matter, such as the Presocratics, vs. those who see matter as deprived of form and quality, chs. 279–282; among the latter: b. Aristotle, chs. 283–288 c. Stoics, chs. 289–294 d. “Pythagorean” Numenius, chs. 295–299 C. Disciples of Plato, transition, chs. 300–301 III. Systematic section, focus on principles, chs. 302–320 IV. Return to line-by-line commentary, chs. 321–354 If one keeps this structure in mind, it should already be clear that the view(s) which Calcidius adopts as reflecting Plato’s position are to be found in his line-by-line commentaries of sections I and IV and in his systematic exposition of section III.

9.1

The Initial Account of Matter

As he has done consistently throughout the commentary up to this point, Calcidius starts the sub-treatise on matter with a more succinct rendering of what he presents as Plato’s position. He provides an overview of all the components that would go into a definition of matter and its function as a principle that coexists with God and intelligible reality (ch. 268): i. Matter is that out of which (ex qua) “the universal array of things” (rerum uniuersitas) arises. ii. As such it is entirely passive (patibilis natura) in the sense of (a) “being for body the primary substrate (subiecta corpori principaliter) in which (in qua) qualities, quantities, and all accidental phenomena occur” and (b) as that which, while not receding from its proper nature, changes according to the different features and forms of the things which it receives. For Calcidius matter’s passive nature also implies that it willingly submits itself to divine reason (ch. 269), and that there exists even a “providential form of obedience” in “necessity founded upon

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reason.” In other words, even matter makes a contribution to the chain of Providence.3 But he is aware that such a view of the role of matter might clash with Plato calling it an “errant cause” (τὸ τῆς πλανωμένης εἶδος αἰτίας, 48b6–7), an expression which Calcidius connects to matter’s disorderly motion (inordinata iactatio, ch. 271) before the intervention of the Demiurge. And although Plato’s account also claims that the Demiurge had to use force to some extent, Calcidius emphasizes the Demiurge’s reliance on persuasion more strongly (ch. 270), in an interesting political contrast between the rule of a tyrant and power exercised through “imperial sanctity” (sanctitatis imperatoriae). A universe governed by force, he argues, would not be able to last forever. At this stage in the argument one can already anticipate that, given this view, Calcidius will have to come up with an explanation for the original disorderly state of matter. For Calcidius (contrary to the Stoics, ch. 289) the claim that matter is the primary substrate for body in itself implies, first, that matter itself cannot be corporeal (or, as Calcidius will go on to stipulate: it is neither corporeal nor incorporeal, ch. 319–320).4 Matter, Calcidius claims, is called necessity because it is a sine qua non for corporeality (ch. 271). Second, the elements, precisely because these are bodies, cannot rank among the first principles of the universe, and one could consider matter to be the primary element (primum elementum, ch. 272). Calcidius’ first definition of matter and its role is embedded in a reflection about what it means to talk about origins, or principles (initia). As such it presents us with a first view of the role of intelligible reality and with a reference to Plato’s Parmenides.5 Already in this context Calcidius reflects on the kind of reasoning needed to understand matter (ch. 274): one cannot rely on examples, because nothing else exists that would be comparable; one cannot use syllogistic reasoning, which deduces a conclusion from previous premises, because nothing precedes an origin. One can merely have a sense of what matter stands for through a process of abstraction in thought whereby one removes, one by one, all the features inhering in it,6 through, as Calcidius puts it in an oxymoron, “an obscure preconception, as it were, of light” (obscura quadam luminis praesumptio).

3 5

4 See section 8.1 in this study. See also Alcinous, Didask. 8, 163.7–8 and Apuleius, Pl. 1.5.92. 6 On this issue see also section 2.3 in this study. See section 10.4 in this study.

9.2 Calcidius’ Stance

9.2

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Calcidius’ Stance

Given the length and intricate structure of the sub-treatise on matter, it helps to start with the end, that is, to know where Calcidius is headed with his exposition. In the final chapter of this sub-treatise (before turning his attention to the ordering of the traces of the elements in the last chapter of the commentary as we currently have it) Calcidius not only gives us his ultimate view of matter but also brings together a number of threads that run throughout the entire commentary. The passage is thus very illuminating for Calcidius’ working methods. Here is the chapter in question: a. “But,” he says, “after taking the decision to bring everything back within measure.” He means the provident will of God, and says that God b. “decided first to give binding unity to fire, earth, air, and water; not in their present states but” as faint “traces” thereof. For a trace of fire is not yet fire, nor are traces of other bodies the actual bodies; for “trace” signifies the potency in a thing, not the thing, and a body is even further removed from being signified by the word “trace”; thus “before the adornment of the world” matter too was a “trace” of body. c.

7

a.

“Despite the squalor,” he says, “and deformity manifested by things that lack divine foresight.” i. Rightly so indeed, for in the absence of the divine activity what will be beautiful or endowed with gracefulness? Thus the apparatus existed even at the point when the elements were in a crude state of confusion, but it did not yet exist as the world, nor was there the clarity that came to it on the occasion of the providential ordering. ii. Thus there was matter, along with its natural capacity for receiving beauty and gracefulness, to act as substrate; and there were the potencies of the four bodies, their confused and still disordered traces. iii. And so in disposing and ordering them at his will, God graced this immortal living being that is the sensible world with determinate shapes and qualities and with formative patterns destined to endure unto eternity. iv. Moreover, Plato bids us to hold that all that comes to be comes to be in the “best possible way” because of the divine mind and will, and asserts that there is nothing truer than such a conviction. (ch. 354; trans. Magee, slightly modified)7

Sed ubi cuncta, inquit, redigi ad modum placuit. Dei uoluntatem significat prouidam, complacuisse dicit

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We have seen many instances by now of the manner in which Calcidius keeps the different components of his commentary together. The structure of the doxography on matter in this sub-treatise (chs. 275 and 279–280), for instance, has already been partially anticipated by the minitreatise on the human soul (ch. 214; see section 6.1 in this study). When Calcidius discusses the relation between the human soul and matter, in those theories that consider the soul to be corporeal (chs. 214–221), he uses a distinction between some views that consider matter to be divided into particles of some sort (substantia siluae diuidua, chs. 214–217) and others that consider it to be continuous (silua adunatione quadam sibi continuata, chs. 218–221). This same distinction resurfaces in the treatise on matter (chs. 275 and 279–280), when Calcidius starts out listing a number of theories that consider matter to be ungenerated (the Hebrews are not included here, because they, according to Calcidius, consider matter to be generated, see below). Again we can see how Calcidius uses similar doxographical schemata in different contexts, and adapts his usage to those contexts. Calcidius’ concluding remarks on matter in the passage quoted above rely on a specific notion of the divine, for which he has carefully prepared the ground throughout the entire commentary. From his very first mention of divine agency, he has highlighted its providential function,8 and, as we have seen,9 he keeps inserting that notion in his rendering of the Timaeus even when the Greek of the original does not

b.

ignem primo terramque et aera atque aquam continuasse, non talia ut nunc sunt, sed eorum exigua uestigia. Quippe uestigium ignis nondum ignis est nec uero ceterorum corporum uestigia ipsa corpora sunt; uestigium quippe potentiam rei, non rem significat multoque etiam minus corpus significatur uestigii nomine; ergo silua etiam uestigium corporis fuit ante mundi exornationem.

c.

In eo, inquit, squalore ac deformitate qui apparet in his quibus diuina deest prospicientia. i. ii. iii. iv.

8

Iure meritoque; quid enim diuina opera carens pulchrum aut uenustate erit praeditum? Apparatus ille igitur erat etiam tunc, elementis confusis incondite, nondum mundus nec claritudo quae ex opportunitate prouidae ordinationis accessit. Erat igitur subiecta silua cum naturali opportunitate suscipiendae pulchritudinis ac uenustatis, erant etiam quattuor corporum potentiae seu uestigia confusa adhuc minimeque ordinata. Haec ergo cum uoluit deus disponens et ordinans immortale hoc sensilis mundi animal figuris et qualitatibus conuenustauit certis et in aeternum duraturis rationibus. Omnia porro quae fiunt optima diuina mente ac uoluntate fieri praesumere nos iubet; qua praesumptione nihil esse uerius asseuerat.

See section 3.3 in this study.

9

See section 8.1 in this study.

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carry it. Thus, right at the opening the treatise on matter (ch. 268), Calcidius renders Plato’s notion of the “works of reason” (nous, Timaeus 47e) as the works of “provident reason” (prouida mens). Similarly, in this concluding passage he has rendered the Greek “without the presence of god” (ὅταν ἀπῇ τινος θεός, 53b2–4) as the absence of divine Providence (c. diuina prospicientia). In addition to emphasizing divine Providence, Calcidius combines the concepts of the mind and will of god (in section “a” of the quoted passage: dei uoluntatem significat prouidam, and in “c.iv”: diuina mente ac uoluntate). We know from ch. 176 of the commentary and elsewhere that for Calcidius the Platonic Demiurge appears to stand for a combination of the first and second god, the latter of whom is called, precisely, the will and mind of god (i.e. the first and highest god). The providential function is ascribed to this second god. Thus the combination of the notions of Providence, mind, and will occurs consistently throughout the entire commentary, and resurfaces here one last time.

9.3

Harmonizing Different Traditions

As in previous sections of the commentary,10 Calcidius tries to create common ground. In other cases (for example, the doxography on the human soul, discussed in ch. 6 in this study), he is the one who ends up inserting aspects of other views in any given view in order to retroject onto Plato a harmonized perspective that contains as many different aspects of these views as possible. In this case, however, he also explicitly relies on an agreement between a number of different schools of thought to achieve this goal. Although each philosopher applies these tenets in a different way, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics do agree, he states (ch. 280), that (a) the ordering of matter (constitutio siluae) is the work of Providence (prouidentiae opus); (b) matter is continuous throughout; and (c) is without form or quality (informis et sine ulla qualitate; see also ch. 310: sine qualitate esse ac sine figura et sine specie). Similarly, in his systematic exposition of the principles, Calcidius claims that the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Stoics agree that matter is the origin of things (ch. 308) and that it is eternal (ch. 312).11 10 11

See also section 1.3 in this study. As Karamanolis (forthcoming) points out, Aristotle is not included in the list of ch. 308 because Calcidius here includes him among the auditores Platonis, which makes him all the more reliable as an interpreter of Plato (see ch. 11 in this study).

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Because for him Plato always represents the pinnacle of philosophical truth, Calcidius appropriates one of Aristotle’s charges against Plato, that the latter in effect had developed an incomplete model by positing only two principles, form and matter or form and privation (ch. 288; based on Physics 1.9.192a3–34), not three.12 Calcidius transposes the structure of that polemical strategy to state that, before Plato, none of the Ancients had recognized all three factors necessary to explain reality (ch. 350). Most of them, such as Empedocles, he avers, posited merely the existence of sensible bodies; others, such as Parmenides, recognized only intelligible reality. Only Plato came up with the notion of matter, in combination with the other two factors. The double approach of both creating a common ground and attributing it to Plato is evident in Calcidius’ summary statement about matter, the chapter under discussion, in which he clearly integrates Stoic and Aristotelian features. Apart from the prominence of the notion of Providence, mentioned already, Calcidius renders the relation between God and matter in other, clearly Stoic terms as well. In the opening section of the treatise on matter, he describes this relation as follows: Providence is the operative agent, while matter is passive and offers itself without resistance for adornment, since the divine mind penetrates and forms it completely and in every quarter – not like the arts, which provide form only superficially, but in the way that nature and soul vivify all solid bodies by permeating them. (ch. 269)13

As long as one rejects too biological a notion of seminal logoi (ch. 294; see also 311), does not make god the cause of evil,14 and posits that matter cannot be corporeal nor incorporeal (as opposed to ch. 289), the basic Stoic schema can be put to work in this Platonic context. Calcidius accepts from the Stoics that matter is neutral and completely amenable to a divine ordering principle that permeates it (see also chs. 307 and 319). This picture presents matter as not resisting order (see also ch. 270). Last but not least, Calcidius also calls matter ousia (essentia, ch. 273; substantia, ch. 330), a point to which we will need to return (see ch. 10 in this study). From the extensive section on Aristotle, which also includes a rendering of Physics 1.9.192a3–34, Calcidius is happy to borrow the notions of 12 13

14

See also the criticism in Met. 1.6.988a7–17. operante quidem prouidentia et agente, silua uero perpetiente exornationique se facilem praebente, penetratam siquidem eam usque quaque diuina mens format plene, non ut artes formam tribuentes in sola superficie, sed perinde ut natura atque anima solida corpora permeantes uniuersa uiuificant. On this issue, see also sections 8.3 and 8.4 in this study.

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potentiality (ch. 354, b and c.ii) and privation as the cause of deficiency (c.i, diuina opera carens; chs. 288 and 301: carentia).15 Already in the opening passages of the treatise (chs. 268–274), Calcidius combines Aristotelian phrasing with a description of the relation between matter and Providence that sounds distinctly Stoic. In Calcidius’ version of the Aristotelian claim, “[matter] is a passive nature that is the primary substrate of body” (eademque patibilis natura, quippe subiecta corpori principaliter, ch. 268, 273.16– 17); but the passivity of matter as well as its role as a substrate can also be attributed to the Stoics (ch. 289). The passive nature of matter implies that it “underwent its [Providence’s] action and let itself be adorned willingly” (ch. 269, from the passage quoted above). Thus, according to Calcidius, both Aristotle and the Stoics endorse a notion of prime matter, that is, a matter that is completely devoid of any features.16 Moreover, as Calcidius interprets Aristotle, matter, far from being a principle of disorder, is not merely amenable to order, but actually tends towards it (c.ii: cum naturali opportunitate suscipiendae pulchritudinis ac uenustatis; see also Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 372E–F). In his overview of Aristotle’s position (chs. 283–288), he claims that Aristotle holds the view that matter as the “mother” principle not only cooperates with the process of formation but even positively desires order and structure (chs. 286–287; from his translation of Aristotle, Physics 1.9.192a3–34). Such a view of matter would, of course, lead us right back to the problem of the receptacle being in disorderly motion when considered separate from the Demiurge’s ordering intervention (see also ch. 271).

9.4

Rejected Views

As important as the philosophical views which he borrows are the positions Calcidius rejects. First of all, he rejects the view which he attributes to the Hebrews (chs. 276–278) of matter being generated, even if that generation can be understood figuratively as matter’s eternal dependence on god. This rejection poses a considerable challenge for attributing a Christian identity to the commentator,17 especially in light of the fact that it is only here, in this context, that Calcidius mentions the possibility of god himself having 15

16 17

Pace van Winden 1965 (reprint of 1959 with supplementary notes): 252, the use of this word in the Aristotle section indicates that it is meant to render στέρησις, “privation,” not the Plotinian ἔλλειψις, as in Enn. 3.2.5. Charlton 1970, Appendix on Prime Matter, see esp. 144, holds Calcidius’ commentary responsible for the view that Aristotle had such a notion of prime matter. (I owe this reference to Mary-Louise Gill.) See section 16.2 in this study.

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created the matter he needed for making the world (ch. 278). For Calcidius, matter is ungenerated in the sense of being an independent principle that coexists with the divine principle. Similarly, he cites Numenius as opposing those Pythagoreans who hold that matter as dyad is derived from god as the monad (ch. 295; section 13.1 in this study). Equally important is the fact that he eventually parts ways (ch. 352) even with the position he ascribes to the “Pythagorean” Numenius, that the disorderly motion, caused by an evil lower soul, is intrinsic to matter. Such a view, which sees matter as evil in its own right, is much more dualist than Calcidius’ stance. If we pay close attention to the structure of the doxographical section of the treatise on matter, the claim in ch. 298 that Plato considers evil to be inhering in the world because of the badness of the “mother” principle, matter, reflects the interpretation of Plato by the Pythagoreans and Numenius, not Calcidius’ own view of what Plato says.18 For Calcidius, in contrast to the majority opinion, as he himself indicates, motion is not intrinsic to matter, and thus the motion in the receptacle does not require us to postulate the existence of an evil soul: And so it happened that most came to think of this disorderly movement, this foreign “jolting,” as an “agitation” deep within matter and proper to it in virtue of its nature, and consequently judged it to be animate and in possession of life. (ch. 352)19

Contrary to this majority opinion, Calcidius considers the movement within matter as coming from outside (alienus pulsus). He posits a feedback mechanism, whereby motion gets introduced into matter by bodies; not by full-fledged bodies, however, but rather by traces of the elements (ch. 354), and matter in turn reinforces this motion. As a corollary to this view, Calcidius considers the lower soul, which is the inseparable companion of living bodies (see chs. 29–32),20 not necessarily to be evil. Its primary function, for him, is not to cause the disorderly motion in the receptacle but to bestow life (ch. 29).21 Last but not least, he counters the view of certain Platonists (chs. 300–301, with an echo of a position attributed to Porphyry, that the elements as bodies (a) cause disorderly motion in matter and (b) are 18 19

20 21

Pace Bakhouche 2015: 249 and 255 and in agreement with van Winden 1959: 236 and Waszink 1962: lxxviii, ch. 298. Ex quo factum ut hunc inordinatum motum intimam siluae propriamque et ex natura eius agitationem plerique esse censerent, qui alienus pulsus est, proptereaque animatam eam uitaeque compotem arbitrarentur. On this issue, see also section 5.1 in this study. On this issue, see also section 13.2 in this study.

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principles.22 For Calcidius, by contrast, (a) it is not the elements themselves that affect matter in its primary state, but their traces (ch. 354) and (b) elements cannot have the status of principles (ch. 307; see also ch. 272, where matter is called the “first element,” discussed above), because, as a combination of matter and form, they are not simple and foundational enough to qualify as principles. In sum, if we return now to the key passage at the end of the commentary (ch. 354), Calcidius has what I would call a minimally dualist worldview, which consists of these three main premises: (a) Matter, as one of the two fundamental and coexisting principles of reality, is not evil: it is neutral and amenable to order, or even oriented towards the good. (b) The disorderly motion in the receptacle is caused by mere traces of elements, described as potentialities and in terms of privation. (c) To the extent that bodies or corporeality are a source of deficiency, bodies do not have the status of basic principles of reality, but are derivative. This position, while allowing for different levels in reality, ends up minimizing the notion of ontological evil or deficiency – i.e. evil as an essential component in the make-up of reality. The primary type of evil remaining, then, is moral evil resulting from human freedom of choice, which Calcidius in the treatise on fate has defended against what he perceives to be Stoic determinism. Yet that Calcidius does not entirely want to argue away the tensions which matter can create is clear from his interesting analysis of the relation between force and persuasion in the ordering of matter (ch. 270). While clearly leaning to the persuasion side, as we have seen, he does not overlook that force (uis) has a role to play too, and parses the relationship as “persuasion bringing in force, and force persuasion” (hoc est ut persuasio uim et uis adhibeat persuasionem), as in the case of patients willingly submitting themselves to being burned and cut by physicians. 22

On this issue, see section 14.2 (3) in this study.

chapter 10

Matter, Being, and Form

The sub-treatise on matter is first and foremost an exposition on the principles of the universe. One cannot understand the notion of matter, Calcidius implies, if one does not understand its relation to Form and Being, and thus the sub-treatise also contains a systematic exposition of the intelligible side of reality, or the Platonic Forms (chs. 337–344). As we have seen, because of his linear reading and presentation,1 Calcidius does not provide a commentary on Timaeus’ introduction, with its distinction between Being and Becoming. Given that in Calcidius’ view of theoretical philosophy the treatment of the principles of reality falls under the heading of theology, and theology follows upon mathematics and physics, any discussion of the implications of the distinction between Being and Becoming has to wait until the final part of the commentary. In the context of the section on matter, however, it is Plato’s subsequent distinction between intelligible Forms and sensible things in his account of the receptacle (51b7–52c7) that allows Calcidius finally to pick up the thread of Timaeus’ introduction and to tackle the subject of the intelligible realm and the Forms.

10.1 Matter and Being Matter’s relation to Being constitutes a very thorny problem in the Platonist tradition. Strictly speaking, and according to Timaeus’ introduction to his account, Being applies to the intelligible realm and Becoming to the sensible. But where would this framework leave matter? It cannot be said “not to be,” in the absolute sense, because then it would be nothing at all, and as Plato states, the receptacle can indeed be grasped even if only by some form of “bastard reasoning” (λογισμῷ τινι νόθῳ, 52b2). Here we need to remember that Plato himself did not use “matter” as a designation 1

See sections 2.2 and 2.4 in this study.

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for his “third kind,” or receptacle. Plato’s account wavers between considering the third kind as a space – χώρα – that is, as that in which the imitations of the Forms inhere, and as a constituent component of sensible things. “Matter” serves both these functions. A Christian such as Clement of Alexandria pushes matter as far as possible to the side of non-being, because he cannot accept it as a principle of the universe, coexisting with God:2 But the philosophers, the Stoics and Plato and Pythagoras, even Aristotle the Peripatetic, posit matter among the first principles; and not one first principle. But they should take into account that what they call matter is said by them to be without quality, and without form, and more daringly by Plato, non-being. And does he not say in the Timaeus in very mystical terms, with the knowledge that the true and real first principle is one . . . (Strom. 5.89.5–7)3

So, for Clement, the fact that matter in itself does not have any features implies that it falls short of being a principle of the universe; its ontological status is simply too low for it to assume such a crucial role. Calcidius, by contrast, not only posits that matter is a principle, he also calls it essence/substance.4 Since these bodies cannot exist on their own, per se, or without a substance that functions as a substrate to engender them from within itself . . . (ch. 273; trans. Magee, modified)5

How can matter be called an essence/substance? Already in the first part of the commentary (ch. 107),6 Calcidius alludes to the position he ends up endorsing in the treatise on matter, namely, that matter is potentiality, and, as such, is deprived of perfection. In this context, he briefly alludes to the problem of talking of things that “are not” as if they “are” (for which 2 3

4 5

6

For parallels in the Platonist and Neo-Pythagorean tradition, see Lilla 1971: 193–196; see also section 16.2 in this study. ἀλλὰ ὕλην ὑποτίθενται οἱ φιλόσοφοι ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς, οἵ τε Στωϊκοὶ καὶ Πλάτων καὶ Πυθαγόρας, ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης ὁ Περιπατητικός, οὐχὶ δὲ μίαν ἀρχήν. ἴστωσαν οὖν τὴν καλουμένην ὕλην ἄποιον καὶ ἀσχημάτιστον λεγομένην πρὸς αὐτῶν, καὶ τολμηρότερον ἤδη μὴ ὂν πρὸς τοῦ Πλάτωνος εἰρῆσθαι. καὶ μή τι μυστικώτατα μίαν τὴν ὄντως οὖσαν ἀρχὴν εἰδὼς ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ αὐταῖς φησι λέξεσιν . . . See also Porphyry, Sent. 20, in comparison with Plotinus, Enn. 3.6.7.3–27; Numenius, 3.8–12; 4a7 des Places. essentia, ch. 273, cf. also the chs. 289–292, the section on the Stoics, more fully discussed in ch. 12 in this study; substantia, ch. 330, 324.11. Quae quidem corpora cum sola et per se ac sine suscipiente ex eadem essentia essentia esse non possunt, in the version of Bakhouche and Magee. Van Winden 1959: 47, Waszink, and Moreschini have: sine suscipiente [ex] eadem essentia esse non possunt, see the apparatus criticus in Waszink’s edition. See section 3.3 in this study.

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Plato’s Sophist provides the background, 237aff.). The claims he makes here (in passing, because he defers the more detailed discussion) would apply to any kind of matter considered as matter: or when Plato says, in consideration of the fact that material objects possess no degree of perfection, that matter is in no substance; for while still in their raw material state the objects are shapeless, lacking order and form. For example, stones: even if they possess a natural potentiality such that through the application of artistry a statue or some other such thing were to result, that which evidently is in mere potentiality and lacks actuality is not insofar as it is deprived of perfection. (ch. 107)7

But if matter is “in no substance,” how, then, can matter be called essentia/substantia? It looks most likely that Calcidius borrowed an idea he attributes to the Stoics (whether rightly or wrongly),8 namely that they call matter ousia because it is the cause for other things to be (ch. 290: ut sint causa est). Calcidius adopts a view along the lines of the one which he attributes to the Stoics, but with the crucial restriction that matter is merely a necessary condition for corporeal substances (ch. 271). For this role he coins a distinctive phrase, calling matter the fomes, “kindling,” of body (ch. 317), in keeping with his translation of hulē as silua, “wood.” Strictly speaking, however, and from the point of view of Platonic ontology, it is the intelligible Form that is the cause for other things to be endowed with qualities (ch. 338) or the cause of the existence of sensible things that resemble it (see below; ch. 350: causa existendi). Thus, the images of intelligible reality “receive substance” in matter (ch. 321: accipiunt substantiam in silua; ch. 330; ch. 349), or, “matter acquires being” (ch. 344: silua . . . sumit substantiam) from the form that inheres in it (see below). When Calcidius distinguishes (ch. 330) between “that which forever is” (quod semper est, i.e. the Forms), “that which forever is not” (quod semper non est, i.e. matter), “and that which is not forever” (quod non semper est, i.e. sensible things), it makes most sense to interpret the nonbeing here attributed to matter, which Calcidius also claims is always the same and immutable (ch. 329), as pure potentiality.9 (According to the section on Aristotle, non-being in the strict sense would in this context apply to privation, ch. 288.) 7

8 9

uel cum idem Plato siluam esse dicit in nulla substantia propterea quod nulla siluestria habeant ullam perfectionem. Dum enim sunt adhuc siluestria, informia sunt ac sine ordine ac specie, ut saxa, quorum tamen est naturalis possibilitas, ut accedente artificio simulacrum fiat uel quid aliud huius modi; quod uero sola possibilitate et sine effectu uidetur esse minime est, utpote carens perfectione. On this issue, see section 12.3 in this study. Cf. Aristotle, DC 282a. On this issue, see also section 14.2 (4).

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10.2 Intelligible Matter? There are indications in the commentary that Calcidius knows of the notion of intelligible matter, that is, a principle of potentiality that is at work at the intelligible level too, though it would have to function quite differently at that level than it does in the sensible realm. In the introductory section of the sub-treatise on matter, Calcidius mentions a two-level theory of the Forms. Intelligible Form combines with matter to bring about the intelligible and “pure” Forms of the four elements, and those in turn bring about, presumably again in combination with matter, the sensible elements one can see at work in the universe: To be sure, the primary element of the universe is matter, deprived of form and quality, which intelligible Form informs in order that there may be a world; and from them, namely, matter and Form, pure and intelligible fire and the other unadulterated and intelligible substances arise, and from them finally these sensible material elements (materiae) with dominant shares of fire, water, earth, and air. And pure fire and the other unadulterated and intelligible Forms of substance are for corporeal beings the paradigms, called ideai. (ch. 272)10

This section is followed by the claim that in this context Plato postpones this high-level discussion, which he treats, Calcidius indicates, in greater detail in the Parmenides.11 Strictly speaking, however, the notion of intelligible matter does not appear in this paragraph (nor does it appear in Aristotle’s rendering of the two-level account in terms of the One and the dyad of the Great and the Small; Met. 1.6.988a). Calcidius does not apply the notion of “intelligible” to matter. The situation is different in the section of the doxography that is devoted to the position of the Hebrews (who, as we should recall, consider matter to be generated, though not in a temporal sense, see ch. 9 in this study). There, Calcidius does explicitly mention the option of an intelligible matter: But if a previously formless corporeal matter which Scripture calls “earth” was made by God, then, I suppose, there is no need for despair concerning

10

11

Quippe primum elementum uniuersae rei silua est informis ac sine qualitate quam, ut sit mundus, format intellegibilis species; ex quibus, silua uidelicet et specie, ignis purus et intellegibilis ceteraeque sincerae substantiae, [quattuor] (Magee) e quibus demum hae materiae sensiles, igneae aquatiles terrenae et aereae. Ignis porro purus et ceterae sincerae intellegibilesque substantiae species sunt exemplaria corporum, ideae cognominatae. See also section 2.3 in this study.

132

Matter, Being, and Form there having been an intelligible matter of the incorporeal kind as well, which is given the name “heaven.” (ch. 278)12

The translation here of non est desperandum as “there is no need for despair” may be too strong, and could be better rendered as “there is no need to give up on” – that is, it may indicate a mere willingness to leave open the possibility rather than express a strong commitment (with a first-person opinor). Apart from the fact that this claim occurs in a section that presents a view which Calcidius rejects, it is more likely that the doxographical pattern that provides the structure of the chapter accounts for the occurrence of intelligible matter in this context. The structure appears quite lapidary, but becomes much clearer if we assume that Calcidius goes through a schema of options, in a logical progression. At issue is the interpretation of the “heaven” and “earth” in the opening line of Genesis.13 The first option, that these would refer to the sensible heaven and earth as we can observe them in the universe, Calcidius rejects out of hand (ch. 277) because the sensible heaven and earth came about at a later stage in the process. The first heaven and earth, he claims, have to be grasped by the intellect rather than the senses. So, the first option would have both heaven and earth refer to the level of sensible reality. The second option, which Calcidius attributes to Philo of Alexandria (ch. 278), would interpret both heaven and earth as intelligible paradigms. The third option in the logical progression would have heaven refer to the intelligible realm and earth to the sensible realm – not to the sensible things as such, but to “that which is the substance of bodies and which the Greeks call hylē” (quae substantia est corporum quam Graeci hylen uocant; I take the discussion of this option to span 282.10–283.9 Waszink). This third position assumes “earth” to refer to corporeal matter (silua corporea). As a fourth possibility, if we assume the existence of corporeal matter (which, as we know, Calcidius does not accept), we can also allow for the existence of intelligible matter. In sum, the schema proceeds as follows: (1) (2) (3) (4) 12

13

heaven = sensible and earth = sensible; heaven = intelligible (Form) and earth = intelligible (Form); heaven = intelligible (Form) and earth = sensible (matter); and heaven = intelligible (matter) and earth = sensible (matter).

Quod si facta est a deo silua corporea quondam informis, quam Scriptura terram uocat, non est, opinor, desperandum incorporei quoque generis fore intellegibilem siluam, quae caeli nomine sit nuncupata. See also the discussion in section 15.4 in this study.

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133

In other words, the appearance of intelligible matter in this context is dictated by the doxographical schema on which Calcidius relies to order his material. In the other parts of the commentary, that first-level matter, whether intelligible or not, does not play a role. For as Calcidius has already determined, this topic is not relevant for the discussion at hand – that is, the Timaeus is a discourse on nature.

10.3

Form

When Calcidius initially discusses the “features” that inhere in matter (ch. 268), he combines many terms: qualitates, quantitates, quae . . . accidunt, species, formae. His preferred term for the Platonic Forms is species,14 though he also transliterates the Greek idea.15 The relation between Forms and sensible things is described mainly in language borrowed from the Timaeus. He uses the relation between “model” (exemplum)16 or “archetype” (archetypus)17 and “image” (imago)18 or “impression” (signaculum, ch. 329, 324.4), speaks in terms of likeness (similitudo),19 and occasionally of participation (ch. 338, particeps). For Calcidius, the Platonic Forms are clearly subordinated to the providential and demiurgic function of the second god in his triadic structure of the divine, as the thoughts of that god.20 As Alexandra Michalewski (2014) has shown recently, this was the dominant model for conceiving of the Forms in Middle Platonism. An early passage in the commentary, however, might suggest that the intelligible realm exists independently of the divine mind: [According to one group of interpreters] Is it that by “indivisible” Being he indicated the Form of the intelligible world after whose likeness [the craftsman god] transferred to bodies the Forms conceived in his mind? (ch. 29)21

This fragment on the composition of the World Soul is essential to the commentary as a whole (see sections 3.3 and 5.1 in this study) and it 14 15

16 17 18 19 21

In ch. 329, he talks about species as “having form” (323.10: speciebus formam habentibus). As in ch. 272, 276.15; ch. 273, 278.6; ch. 304, attributed to the Greeks in general 306.6; ch. 329, 323.25; ch. 330; ch. 339; ch. 342ff. For the broader context in Middle Platonism, see also Boys-Stones 2018: chs. 3 and 5. As in ch. 272; ch. 304, 307.7; ch. 307, 309.1; ch. 329, 323.12; ch. 330; ch. 337ff.; ch. 349. As in ch. 272; ch. 329, 323.12; ch. 349. As in ch. 273; ch.302, 304.16; ch. 321, 317.4 (with simulacra); ch. 329 (with simulacra); ch. 330; ch. 337. As in ch. 329, 324.3; ch. 330; ch. 337ff.; ch. 349. 20 As in chs. 273, 304, 330. Num speciem intellegibilis mundi ad cuius similitudinem formas mente conceptas ad corpora transferebat indiuiduam substantiam nuncupauerit.

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represents a view that Calcidius does not adopt – he interprets “indivisible” Being as referring to a higher, purely noetic soul. Moreover, the meaning of this passage is ambiguous; it could refer to a view that states, (a) that the Demiurge conceived the thoughts in his mind after the likeness of the intelligible world, or (b) that he transferred to bodies the Forms conceived in his mind so that the bodies would end up resembling the intelligible world. The latter is assumed in Magee’s translation, and it is the correct one, given the view of the Forms expressed elsewhere in the commentary.22 The thoughts of the Demiurge or his intellect constitute the intelligible world. To assist his readers, Calcidius provides a good summary statement of the role of the Forms: To state the point, then, in a kind of broad outline: in relation to us, who possess intellect, the primary Form is the first intelligible; in relation to God, it is his perfect intellect; in relation to matter, it is the limit and measure of corporeal and material realities; in relation to Form itself, it is an incorporeal substance and the cause of all the things that obtain their element of likeness [50d] from it; and in relation to the world, it is the eternal exemplar of all the things which nature has brought forth. And to state the point concisely: the primary Form or Idea is definable as a substance which lacks corporeality, color, shape, and tangibility, but is nevertheless comprehensible by the intellect in combination with reason, and is the cause of all the things that obtain their element of likeness from it. (ch. 339)23

In the sub-treatise on the human soul,24 Calcidius has argued that soul, presumably because of its affinity with the intelligible Forms, should not be confused with the Aristotelian notion of a form-in-a-body (240.3–6).25 This point becomes clearer in this context, in which it turns out that Calcidius distinguishes between two levels of forms: the primary kind is the 22 23

24

Unlike the translation by Bakhouche, which renders the first option: “à l’image duquel il a conçu les formes.” Moreschini translates in Magee’s vein. Est igitur principalis species, ut cum aliqua dicatur effigie, iuxta nos quidem, qui intellectus compotes sumus, primum intellegibile, iuxta deum uero perfectus intellectus dei, iuxta siluam modus mensuraque rerum corporearum atque siluestrium, iuxta ipsam uero speciem incorporea substantia causaque eorum omnium quae ex ea similitudinem mutuantur, iuxta mundum uero exemplum sempiternum omnium quae natura progenuit; atque ut conceptim dicatur, primaria species, quae idea est, substantia definitur carens corpore colore figura, sine tactu, intellectu tamen cum ratione comprehendenda causaque omnium quae ex se similitudinem mutuantur. Cf. also the parallel in Alcinous, Didask. 9, 163.14–17; discussed by van Winden 1959: 210–211. 25 See ch. 6 in this study. An argument for which we can find a parallel in Plotinus, Enn. 4.2.

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intelligible Form, or, in his preferred designation, the species intellegibilis, and the secondary kind, the form inhering in matter that constitutes sensible things in the likeness of the primary, intelligible Form. Calcidius also calls this secondary type species natiua, because it is subject to the natural processes of generation and destruction.26 We can once again turn to one of Calcidius’ summaries of his interpretation of Plato’s account: The following three things, then, are distinct and examined separately from one another: the Idea is an intelligible Form, being comprehensible by pure intellection; the form subject to birth is perceptible by opinion and therefore opinable; matter, being comprehensible by neither intellection nor sense perception, is neither an intelligible nor an opinable but is accessible to suspicion, and suspicion is a certain spurious or bastard form of reasoning. (ch. 347; trans. Magee, slightly modified)27

10.4 How to Discover the Principles? One section of the commentary that has received considerable attention in the secondary literature is Calcidius’ presentation of the different epistemological processes for uncovering first principles. Most of the attention has been devoted to parallels and potential sources,28 but, as in other instances, one would do better to start from an understanding of the structure of Calcidius’ exposition in its own right and its context in the commentary. At the start of the systematic section of the treatise on matter (chs. 302–304), Calcidius distinguishes between different methods of proof. He first 26

27

28

As in chs. 337; 343–44. The distinction between two types of forms is also attested in Alcinous, Didask. 10, 166.4, 4, 155.39–41; Seneca, Ep. 58.20; Philo of Alexandria, Leg. 2.12; Apuleius, Pl. 1.192; and possibly Galen, in his compendium of the Timaeus (see the introduction by Kraus and Walzer to their edition, 9). Diuisa ergo a se sunt tria illa separatimque examinata, et est idea quidem intellegibilis species, utpote quae puro intellectu comprehendatur, species uero natiua opinione percipibilis proptereaque opinabilis, silua porro neque intellegibile quid neque opinabile, quia neque intellectu neque sensu comprehendatur, uerum est suspicabilis, suspicio autem spuria quaedam ratio est atque adulterina. Cf. van Winden 1959: 128–136; Gersh 1986 II: 436–439 (see especially n. 68); Bakhouche 2011 II: 858–860; 2013; Hoenig 2018b: 208–213 and forthcoming b. The latter, however, while mentioning the parallels with Alcinous, emphasizes, correctly in my opinion, that “with regard to the divergent mental processes described by Alcinous and Calcidius, we perhaps fare best by conjecturing that both writers were drawing upon a pool of various logical and dialectical methods, and that Calcidius may have combined for his own purposes several methods of reasoning he drew from different contexts of philosophical exegesis” (2018b: 211).

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distinguishes between the method of syllogism and of analysis. In the method of syllogism, one argues from premises, or things known already and prior, to a conclusion that follows from, i.e. is posterior to, the premises. In the second method, which he calls “analysis” (resolutio), “on the basis of posterior things [one] reaches the investigation of prior ones by steps.” We know already from an earlier claim in this treatise that the syllogistic method would not work for arriving at first principles (ch. 274): they are “not deducible from some antecedent ground, for nothing is prior to an origin,” a point that Calcidius echoes in this context to argue for the use of the second method. In order to make this argument, however, he also needs to clarify what he means by “prior,” which he does on the basis of the Aristotelian distinction between “what is prior to us,” i.e. sensible reality, versus “what is prior in the order of nature, the principles of existence” (ch. 302).29 So, one could rewrite the non-syllogistic method for arriving at first principles as reasoning from “what is prior to human beings” to “what is prior in nature,” i.e. truly prior in reality, not just from a human perspective. In order to establish what is prior from an ontological perspective, in turn, he relies on the distinction taken from Plato’s account of the receptacle (51b7–52c7) between sensible things and the intelligibles as that between the different objects of sensation and intelligence. Having established these points, he first sets out to describe how one can arrive at the notion of matter (ch. 303).30 After a rather elaborate description of the elements and the sensible qualities in the human as well as the World body, he states, as before, that we arrive at the notion of matter in our reasoning process if we strip it of all its features (see also ch. 274, with the use of resolutio, chs. 319 and 327). Calcidius concludes his discussion of “analysis” by stating that it is one of the two kinds of proof, presumably the two with which he started out, the other being syllogism. The opening of the next chapter, however, has baffled interpreters: “Let us now consider the other kind, which is called synthesis” (ch. 304: Nunc illud aliud consideremus quod compositio cognominatur). Does the illud aliud here refer to the first type of proof, the syllogism? That does not seem very likely, given that Calcidius is still using a mode of reasoning that starts with what is close to human beings, what they can observe, namely the order in the natural world. Another option would be to translate illud aliud as that other (well-known, important) kind of proof, that is, as not referring back, but announcing a third type of proof. This method of proof would be tagged on, but the flow of the exposition would be made easier by the fact that we are still dealing 29 30

As in Aristotle, Phys. 1.1.184a16–26. Calcidius attributes the same procedure to Numenius, see section 13.2 in this study.

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with an argument that moves from what is prior to human beings to what is prior in nature, or with a non-syllogistic mode of reasoning. Now we are asked to reintroduce in thought the features which we removed in the previous line of reasoning, and Calcidius provides his audience with what looks like a very compact argument from design (ch. 304):31 order implies harmony, harmony “goes together with” proportion, proportion with reason, reason with Providence, Providence with intellect (intellectus), and intellect with mind (mens). This chain of entailment leads us, so Calcidius claims, to the divine Demiurge. Finally, in an even more rapid, tagged-on move, he goes from the notion of “the works” of this Demiurge to “his thoughts,” which turn out to be the Forms as exemplars of natural things. This last line of reasoning does not fit with his distinction between different modes of proof. There is slippage in the structure, but its overall gist is clear enough, if one does not muddle the issue with parallels first. Calcidius, as John Magee argues (2016: 757–758), does return to the syllogistic mode of reasoning in a subsequent section of the commentary, in order to present an argument for the existence of Forms (ch. 341), an argument that is based on the distinction between someone who uses intellect and someone who merely holds a true opinion (see also ch. 302). But for my purpose here we can fittingly borrow Calcidius’ conclusion: Thus by following the rational law of analysis we have found matter; and by following the precepts of synthesis we have found the craftsman God himself; and from the works of the craftsman God, we have found the exemplar. (ch. 304)32 31 32

Cf. Philo, QG 2.34. For this and other parallels cf. Hoenig forthcoming b. Igitur siluam quidem iuxta legem rationemque dissolutionis inuenimus; iuxta compositionis uero praecepta ipsum opificem deum; ex operibus porro dei opificis exemplum.

part three

chapter 11

Calcidius and Aristotle

Because he considers Plato to be the pinnacle of philosophical truth and because he attributes to him the most complete view and system,1 Calcidius consistently retrojects arguments from later philosophers into Plato’s thought. The earliest example of a systematic attempt to harmonize Aristotle with Plato is attested for the first-century BCE philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon. If Cicero, our most important source for Antiochus, is to be trusted, Antiochus created an alignment between Plato, Aristotle, the Old Academy (as opposed to its skeptical phase under the so-called New Academy), and the Peripatetics, co-opting the Stoics where possible, or dismissing their innovations as mere changes in terminology.2 A recent reevaluation of the Pythagorean pseudepigrapha indicates that Aristotelian elements may have been integrated into the Pythagorean tradition earlier than is commonly assumed.3 Varro’s interest in many philosophical schools might also need to be taken into account for an early assimilation of Aristotelian ideas. Finally, for the Stoics Posidonius and Panaetius too an interest in Plato and Aristotle is attested.4 Calcidius manifestly belongs with that strand of Middle Platonism that sees Aristotle’s views overall as compatible with Plato’s.5 His use of Aristotle is thus much more straightforward than his treatment of Stoic material, towards which he has a very complex attitude. We will turn to Calcidius’ use of Stoicism in the next chapter. In some cases material from Aristotle has simply been subsumed under Plato’s view, without 1 3 4 5

See section 1.3 in this study. 2 As in Cicero, Acad. 1.3, 15–19, 33, 35, 37, 43. See Ulacco and Opsomer 2014. For Panaetius, cf. for instance Cicero, Fin. 4.78; for Posidonius’ interest in Plato, cf. F85 Edelstein and Kidd. For an overview of the reception of Aristotle in Middle Platonism, with excellent bibliography, see Michalewski 2016. Moraux 1971–2001 remains a foundational work, and see also Karamanolis 2006. On the role of Aristotle in Calcidius’ commentary, see Karamanolis forthcoming, and Bakhouche 2013. Unfortunately, Erismann 2016 does not include any material from Calcidius, and no passages from Calcidius are included in the index of Falcon 2016.

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acknowledging his contribution, as in the treatise on fate. In the treatise on the human soul, we have a good example of a more hierarchical form of coopting: Aristotle got some key insights right, Calcidius claims, but his view is still inferior and incomplete compared to Plato’s. Finally, in the treatise on matter, Aristotle is both explicitly mentioned and used as a lens through which to interpret Plato because their respective views are seen as amounting to one and the same theory. Thus Calcidius’ commentary displays a wide range of views on the relation between Plato and Aristotle, all based on the assumption of at least some compatibility.

11.1 Aristotle on Fate As we have seen, Calcidius’ exposition in the treatise on fate has strong Aristotelian and Peripatetic affinities that go unacknowledged. Similarly, through Adrastus, allegedly, a number of Peripatetic features have found their way into the first part of the commentary, without being signaled as such.6 On the topic of fate, the parallel accounts of Nemesius and ps.-Plutarch have this same feature, and the ps.-Plutarch goes even so far as to attribute Aristotle’s definition of chance (Phys. 2.5.197a5ff.) to the “Platonists.”7 We can see a tradition of systematic appropriations of material from Aristotle behind this practice. Just as Calcidius’ treatise on fate combines several proof texts from Plato’s works (the Timaeus, the Phaedrus, and the Republic), it also builds on passages from Aristotle’s Physics (2.4–6), Metaphysics (5.30.1025a15–16), and Nicomachean Ethics (3.3.1112a17), as do the parallel accounts of ps.-Plutarch and Nemesius. Yet the passages from Aristotle as well as the three parallel accounts all list different examples of “fortune” and “chance” (or “chance” and “spontaneity” in Aristotle’s terms). The example of someone digging and accidentally finding a treasure is briefly mentioned in chapter 3 of Book 3 of the Nicomachean Ethics. That connection is relevant because in this same context of discussing his notion of deliberation, Aristotle uses the phrase “that which is up to us” (τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν) which in the discussions of fate by Calcidius, ps.-Plutarch, and Nemesius is meant to indicate that which is in a human being’s power as opposed to being determined. Calcidius renders it as iuris nostri (as opposed to extra nostra potestatem, ch. 164). But Calcidius connects “that which is up to us” to what is as likely to happen 6

7

See Calcidius on time (discussed in ch. 4 in this study), for instance, or on the meaning of caelum (ch. 98). See also Waszink 1964 and 1984. In ch. 84 Calcidius explicitly mentions Aristotle on the fifth element and the heavenly bodies, see also Karamanolis forthcoming. See ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 572Β, κατὰ τοὺς ἀπὸ Πλάτωνος; Karamanolis 2006: 179.

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as not, whereas Aristotle does not connect deliberation and “that which is up to us” to occurrences that have even odds. On the contrary, he applies deliberation to “things that happen in a certain way for the most part.”8 But possibly drawing from Aristotle’s claim that virtue is related to the power to act or not to act,9 the accounts of Calcidius, ps.-Plutarch, and Nemesius, with their emphasis on balanced odds, clearly belong in a context in which human freedom was being defined as the ability to do otherwise (Bobzien 1998: 396–412). In his account Aristotle himself indicates that “chance” and “spontaneity,” which result from incidental causes, are posterior to intelligence and nature.10 But in Calcidius, as well as ps.-Plutarch and Nemesius, the role of nature has been taken over by Providence, or rather, they see an intelligent Providence at work in nature – a notion that owes a considerable debt to Stoicism.11 As we will see below, there are different strands in the tradition of interpreting Aristotle on the question of whether or not he endorsed an all-inclusive notion of Providence. Calcidius, in his treatise on matter, appears to lean towards the assumption that he did (even though he too is critical in a different context; more on this below); Nemesius, on the other hand, appears to side with those who claim he did not. So, on this central issue, Calcidius and Nemesius part ways, and this parting is another sign of Calcidius’ relatively independent use of his sources (see chs. 13 and 14 in this study).

11.2

Aristotle on the Human Soul

In the treatise on the human soul we can detect two more ways of using material from Aristotle and the Peripatetic tradition. One consists of interpreting Aristotle as occupying some kind of middle ground between completely erroneous views and Plato’s position; the other approach includes him, but with an explicit acknowledgment this time, in “common ground” positions, that is, views on which Plato and other thinkers happen to agree. To remind ourselves,12 in his doxographical schema, Calcidius lists Aristotle’s position after he has discussed the erroneous views that consider the soul to be corporeal, yet before he turns to the correct view of Plato. Thus, in the very structure of the schema Aristotle represents a middle ground, and we get a clear ascending hierarchy, beginning with 8 9 10 11

NE 3.3.1112b, τὸ βουλεύεσθαι δὲ ἐν τοῖς ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ. NE 3.5: ἐν οἷς γὰρ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν τὸ πράττειν, καὶ τὸ μὴ πράττειν, καὶ ἐν οἷς τὸ μή, καὶ τὸ ναί. Phys. 2.6.198a, ὕστερον ἄρα τὸ αὐτόματον καὶ ἡ τύχη καὶ νοῦ καὶ φύσεως. 12 See ch. 12 in this study. See ch. 6 in this study.

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the Stoic position (listed in the first group), followed by Aristotle, and then Plato. The three chapters devoted to Aristotle (222–224) read like a very compact digest or a collage of claims mostly from his De anima, and Calcidius’ response (ch. 225) is equally compact.13 The exposition starts with Aristotle’s definition of the soul from his De anima (2.1.412a27–28): “The soul is the first perfection [= actuality]14 of an organic natural body potentially having life” (anima est prima perfectio corporis naturalis organici possibilitate uitam habentis). The first chapter devoted to Aristotle (222) elucidates the different components of Aristotle’s definition. In this context the relation between soul and body is explained in the more general terms of the relation between form and matter, or between actuality and potentiality. Thus, this section anticipates the sub-treatise on matter.15 Chs. 223 and 224 draw implications from Aristotle’s (and the Peripatetics’ – see below) view of the relation between the soul and the body. Ch. 223 brings in material from other passages of the De anima to state that the soul (1) while not itself being corporeal, nevertheless has to be in a body, of which it constitutes the perfection; (2) is in itself without movement; (3) is without any quantity, and indivisible; (4) and thus, even though it has several faculties and powers, does not consist of different kinds. Ch. 224 draws on material from other works of Aristotle’s (such as De generatione animalium and De partibus animalium) to elaborate on the physiology of the relation between soul and body, and to elucidate the claims that the soul (5a) stretches through the entire body; (5b) and has its principal part in the heart. In his compact response (ch. 225) Calcidius starts out with explicit praise for Aristotle, that he got most things about the soul right, in agreement with Plato’s position, but that he was wrong about the substance of the soul. Contrary to what Aristotle claims, Calcidius implies, the soul has an affinity with the intelligible Forms (i.e., Forms not embedded in matter) 13 14 15

See also some parallels in Nemesius, Nat. hom. 2.26.10–29.20; Bakhouche 2011 II: 799–803. In his edition Waszink has corrected the manuscripts to attribute to Calcidius the notion of entelechia (236.6ff.); see Bakhouche 2011 II: 800, n. 598 and Bakhouche 2006. See ch. 9 in this study.

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that guarantees its eternal existence, both before and after its life in bodies. Contra (2) above, moreover, the soul is in perpetual motion (a point Calcidius repeats twice). As corollaries to his first point, Calcidius adds two more criticisms of Aristotle’s notion of “perfection” (entelechy): first, that it cannot account for the fact that only animals have souls and plants do not (the view which Calcidius himself endorses) – plants are living things that can reach a stage of perfection too – and second, that Aristotle’s notion would imply that soul develops together with the body (a reply possibly directed in part at points 5a and 5b above), whereas in reality the soul is eternal and is not subject to birth (and death). Finally, contra point (4) above, which he presents as Aristotle’s view, Calcidius posits different kinds of soul, with a first division between “reason” and “appetite” (appetitus), and then a further subdivision of each kind: for reason, into intellect and opinion, and for appetite, into spirit and desire. Each of these kinds uses a certain part of the body merely as its instrument (a claim that weakens the connection between soul and body). So, in sum, Calcidius objects to Aristotle primarily because his view ties the soul too closely to the body, and thereby also compromises its eternal and immortal nature. Calcidius mentions “Peripatetics” in addition to Aristotle, but unlike other sources does not note dissension in the Peripatetic ranks. We do not hear, for instance, about the view that the fifth element could be the substance of the human soul,16 nor about other views that interpret the soul rather as corporeal,17 or even as a mere epiphenomenon of the body.18 While it is possible that Calcidius may not have had access to this information, it would also not have fit the structure of a gradual progression, wherein Aristotle represents a major improvement on the more crude, “corporealist” doctrines, but still falls short of Plato’s perfection.19 Perhaps for the same reason, the Aristotelian distinction between active and passive mind has fallen by the wayside. That distinction might leave room for some type of immortality, even though it is far from clear how exactly.20 16 17 18 19

20

Attributed to Aristotle himself by Cicero, Tusc. 1.18–22, F27 Ross, to Critolaus in Macrobius, F18 Wehrli, and to Theophrastus in Iamblichus, De an. 9 Finamore and Dillon. Dicaearchus, 387.5 Diels, Wehrli F11; see also Strato of Lampsacus, F108, F123 Wehrli. Also attested for Dicaearchus: Cicero, Tusc. 1.18–22, F7 Wehrli; Iamblichus, De an. 9 Finamore and Dillon (see also their commentary, 95–100). The Middle Platonist Atticus (F7 des Places = Eusebius, PE 15, 9.1–14 = 152.1 Baltes) also wrote against what he perceived to be Aristotle’s view of the connection between soul and body, but his tone towards Aristotle is much less conciliatory than what we find in Calcidius. Pace Bakhouche 2011 II: n. 622, I do not think that the phrase intellectus agitatus et rationabiliter ignitus in ch. 224 refers to the active mind as discussed in Aristotle, De an. 3.5.430a15. The context here is a different one, namely a discussion of the physiology behind the admittedly mysterious relation between intellect and heart. Agitatus here, I take it, refers to some kind of process of

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The other approach to Aristotle in the treatise on the human soul consists of including elements of his psychology in a kind of master-list of rational and irrational soul functions that accommodates as many Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic elements as possible.21 This is the “common ground” approach that is also prominent in the treatise on matter, which contains the longest section in the commentary with explicitly acknowledged Aristotelian material.

11.3

Aristotle in the Treatise on Matter

From Calcidius’ extensive use of Aristotle in the treatise on matter (see ch. 9 in this study) I want to examine more closely two issues: (1) Calcidius’ attribution to Aristotle of his own notion of Providence; and (2) Calcidius’ application of the Aristotelian categories. Let us start with the latter. In keeping with his interpretation of Plato’s Parmenides,22 Calcidius presents the Aristotelian categories primarily as ontological predicates (appellationem, ch. 319),23 that is, as referring to reality (ch. 336: omnia decem quae sunt genera; ch. 226), in this case sensible reality. His analysis first shows how the categories apply to bodies (ch. 319) and then how they apply to the universe as an ordered reality (ch. 336). He uses the categories to describe bodies in order to make the case that matter taken by itself cannot possibly be considered a body, because the predicates that apply to body do not apply to matter. So, from this point of view, one could not even ascribe passivity as such to matter, because in itself matter never changes its condition. When that same matter, however, is viewed from the perspective of the order imposed on it through forms, then one can use all categories to describe its condition. In this second move both activity and passivity can be attributed to matter because it causes the forms that inhere in it to move and in turn is put in motion by these forms.24 So, in the first step, Calcidius removes all features from matter, and in the second, when considering matter in relation to form, he reintroduces those same features.

21 23

24

quickening. Ignitus must mean more than merely “illuminated,” but rather something along the lines of “fired up,” or “imbued with heat.” Magee translates the phrase as: “being stirred and ignited.” 22 See section 6.3 in this study. See section 2.3 in this study. Of particular relevance here are Alcinous, Didask. 6, 159.43–160.30, which relates the categories to Plato’s Parmenides, and Plutarch, De an. procr. 1023D–F, which connects the categories to the knowledge of the World Soul. It is not necessary to assume that Calcidius derived his position from a commentary on the Categories; for the early tradition of these commentaries, see Griffin 2015. See ch. 9 in this study.

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An earlier section in the commentary from the treatise on the human soul (chs. 226–227), however, makes clear that Calcidius not only credits Plato himself with this theory of categories, but also believes that this schema can be applied to incorporeal beings (ch. 227: quia duplex essentia est, altera corporea, altera carens corpore). Plato, Calcidius avers, defines the soul as “an incorporeal self-moving rational substance” (ch. 226: substantia carens corpore semet ipsam mouens rationabilis). One can apply the category of substance also to soul because, just as the body, it is liable to contraries, such as justice (which is analogous to health in the body) and iniquity (analogous to bodily disease). Yet while the soul does have an affinity with the intelligible Forms, and cannot be equated with the enmattered form (specialis essentia; see ch. 6 in this study), we are still one step short of a view that would have the categories also apply to the intelligible Forms (which are not subject to contraries). When he revisits the theme of Providence in the treatise on matter Calcidius manages to co-opt Aristotle even for this purpose. In Book 12 of his Metaphysics Aristotle famously claims that “the beings [or the world] refuse[s] to be governed badly” (1076a4–5).25 Yet who or what does the “governing,” and how, became focal questions in the tradition. What exactly is the relation between the ordered universe, the kosmos, and an Unmoved Mover, pure actuality and pure self-thinking thought, which as final cause exerts its attraction because it is the “object of desire” (1072a26: τὸ ὀρεκτὸν) and “object of thought” (τὸ νοητόν)? A cluster of related inquiries emerged among interpreters of Aristotle: what exactly is the relation between the Unmoved Mover and the (first) heaven(s)? Is there one Unmoved Mover or a series of them, ordered in a hierarchy? What exactly is the content of its thought as thinking itself? And, finally, how does it relate to the world? It is this last question I want to focus on, from the vantage point of Providence.26 Calcidius provides a radical interpretation of Aristotle’s highest god by attributing to this divinity a full-fledged Providence – and that move is highly unusual in the tradition. Most often, if Aristotle is considered to endorse Providence at all, it is said to be limited to universals, and does not cover particulars, or to extend only to the realm above the moon, and does not govern sublunary phenomena.27 25 26 27

τὰ δὲ ὄντα οὐ βούλεται πολιτεύεσθαι κακῶς. Focal texts for the debate are, in addition to the Metaphysics passage, Phys. 8; DC; Pol. 7.3.1325b. For a good overview, see Sharples 1983 and 2002 (the latter discussing the complex view of Alexander of Aphrodisias). For the first view, see, for instance, Nemesius 43.127.15–20; for the second (which possibly occurs as early as Critolaus), see, for instance, Atticus F3, 8.2 des Places; Diogenes Laertius

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So, on what grounds and how does Calcidius advance the view that Aristotle can be marshaled for a robust notion of Providence? In the doxographical overview of the treatise on matter, the section devoted to Aristotle relies heavily on Physics 1.8–9, and ch. 286 contains a long paraphrase of 1.9. These chapters from Aristotle’s Physics provide an explanation for change, or coming-to-be and passing-away, that is based on the triad matter, form, and privation. Despite mentioning some criticism which Aristotle directed against Plato on the number of causes (ch. 288), in this section of the commentary Calcidius presents Aristotle as overall in agreement with Plato. As we have seen already,28 Calcidius borrows extensively from Aristotle for his notion of matter, including the views that matter is pure potentiality, and that matter as such not only is not evil, but actually desires the order imposed on it by form, just as the female desires the male (and we can detect here an echo of Plato’s designation of the “receptacle” as mother, with its allusion to procreation). When one lifts it out of its original broader context, however, the chapter from the Physics which Calcidius paraphrases (1.9) can be interpreted as agreeing with Plato in other respects as well. The description of form/actuality as “something divine, good, and desirable”29 (192a16–17) could easily be applied to the Platonic Forms too. This parallel is strengthened by the fact that Calcidius ends up combining the more Aristotelian notion of form-in-matter with the Platonic notion of the Form as intelligible paradigm.30 Similarly, the claim that privation, as “but the other part of the contrariety,” “may often seem, if you concentrate your attention on it as an evil agent, not to exist at all” (192a14–16; trans. Hardie and Gaye)31 also becomes part of Calcidius’ favored interpretation of Plato’s receptacle.32 But how does Calcidius create an alignment between what he presents as Plato’s notion of Providence and Aristotle’s? At first it seems as if Calcidius goes along with a standard interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of

28 30 31 32

5.32; see also Epictetus 1.12.1–3. The ps.-Aristotle, Mund. 6.397b30 might be an exception, but it describes divine agency in terms of power (δύναμις), not Providence. But note that Apuleius in his Latin translation of the ps.-Aristotle text replaces δύναμις with prouidentia, Mund. 24.343 (Hoenig 2018b: 133, 148–158; Petrucci 2018: 94–96). See also Cicero, Nat. d. 2.37.95, which attributes an argument from design to Aristotle. For a recent assessment of the crucial issues (focusing on Atticus), see Michalewski 2017. 29 See ch. 9 in this study. . . . ὄντος γάρ τινος θείου καὶ ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἐφετοῦ . . . See section 10.3 in this study. ἡ δ’ ἑτέρα μοῖρα τῆς ἐναντιώσεως πολλάκις ἂν φαντασθείη τῷ πρὸς τὸ κακοποιὸν αὐτῆς ἀτενίζοντι τὴν διάνοιαν οὐδ’ εἶναι τὸ παράπαν. See ch. 9 in this study.

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Providence. In an earlier section of the commentary, devoted to the topic of dreams, Calcidius echoes the critique that Aristotle limits the reach of Providence to the supralunary realm (ch. 250). Aristotle, so Calcidius avers, recognizes for the realm below the moon “no governance by the decrees of Providence, no support through the aid and counsel of angels and no intervention on the part of demonic foresight.”33 Consequently, Calcidius goes on, Aristotle eliminates divination and recognizes only the type of dreams that is based on waking experiences. He is not wrong in Calcidius’ eyes for acknowledging this category of dreams, but because of his “disdainful neglect” (fastidiosa incuria) of the other kinds. Calcidius consistently relies on the polemical strategy that, compared to Plato, all other philosophers at best present merely partial truths.34 In the context of the treatise on matter, however, Calcidius appears to interpret Aristotle as aligning himself with Plato’s concept of Providence. Calcidius makes this move right at the opening of his discussion of Aristotle: He [Aristotle] says that the world has by divine Providence been made to continue through perpetuity, without coming to be or passing away; and since his view is distinguished, noble, and well suited to the consideration of Platonic doctrine, it should not be casually overlooked. (ch. 283)35

Aristotle receives considerable praise here precisely because Calcidius perceives his position to be in harmony with Plato’s, on two counts: namely, that of the eternity of the world (see ch. 4 in this study) and that of the role of Providence. As was the case with his rendering of Plato’s key distinction between “the works of reason” and “necessity” (Timaeus 47e, ch. 268),36 it is probably Calcidius himself who has added the notion of Providence to the view that the world should be considered eternal. In this passage, however, the role of Providence is still restricted to the universe considered in its entirety.37 Such a restriction does not apply to a subtle but essential modification Calcidius adds to his summary of Aristotle’s account in Physics 1.9. Here is the original Greek, a passage already mentioned above. Aristotle says of form/actuality: 33 34 35

36

infra uero neque prouidentiae scitis regi nec angelorum ope consultisque sustentari nec uero daemonum prospicientiam putet interuenire. See section 1.3 in this study. Idem sine genitura et sine interitu dicit mundum esse diuina prouidentia perpetuitati propagatum; cuius sententia cum sit praeclara et nobilis et ad Platonici dogmatis considerationem satis accommodata non otiose praetereunda est. 37 See section 8.1 in this study. See also Cicero, Tusc. 1.70.

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Calcidius’ rendering, in the paraphrase of Aristotle’s provided in ch. 286, goes as follows: cum species diuina res sit et appetibilis

But when he returns to a summary of that same passage, of which he now claims to elucidate the somewhat obscure content,38 he renders it as follows: Speciem laudat ut summi dei similem diuinitatem pleno perfectoque nixam bono ideoque appetibilem. (ch. 287) Form he [Aristotle] praises on the grounds that it is a divinity, like the highest god, and desirable by virtue of it being supported by the full and perfect good.

The phrase, “form is a divinity like the highest god” allows Calcidius to establish a connection with his own concept of the divine (van Winden 1959: 89–90). As we have seen,39 Calcidius considers the intelligible Forms to be the thoughts of god. Although he distinguishes between a first and a second god in his divine triad,40 elsewhere in the commentary “the highest god” refers to the Demiurge as the combination of the first and the second god, with the latter being the mind of the first, and Providence. In sum, behind Calcidius’ rendering of this key passage stands an interpretation of Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover that posits the intelligible Forms as the content of that god’s self-thinking. Such an interpretation opens the way for a demiurgic Providence as representing not only a perfection in actuality that is to be emulated by other existing things, but also a kind of agency that orders the world and strengthens the ties between intelligible and sensible reality. And so, with only a couple minor modifications, Calcidius has reconciled Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover with Plato’s Demiurge. 38 40

See section 1.1 in this study. 39 See section 10.3. Calcidius, chs. 176–177 and 188; see ch. 7 in this study.

chapter 12

Calcidius and the Stoics

Calcidius’ criticism of the Stoics is much sharper than his occasional disagreements with Aristotle. Yet paradoxically the influence of Stoicism on Calcidius’ commentary is, I would argue, also much more far-reaching than that of Aristotle and the Peripatetic tradition, and it has generally been underestimated in the secondary literature.1 Calcidius’ hermeneutical stance toward Stoicism is very complex, and for that reason all the more interesting.2 Aristotle appears relatively easy to co-opt for specific philosophical positions, but the views of the Stoics are both deeply attractive for Calcidius in some respects and fundamentally at odds with Plato’s thought in others. Calcidius was not only familiar with Stoic doctrine, as cited in his doxographical overviews, but he was also significantly influenced by it, despite his overt polemic against the Stoics in the treatises on fate, the soul, and matter.3 He cites Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus by name (see Waszink’s index) and there are possible echoes of Posidonius as well. In some cases, his reports (as, for example, the one on psychology, attributed to Zeno and Chrysippus) are among the best sources we have.4 In the treatise on fate, in which the tripartite schema of the divine is to be found, he cites Chrysippus and Cleanthes (ch. 144). These citations occur neither in ps.-Plutarch’s De fato nor in Nemesius’ De natura hominis (chs. 35–43, though the latter does cite Chrysippus and “the Stoics” in different contexts), the two most important parallel texts for this section of Calcidius’ treatise. Similarly, in his doxographical overview of the different positions 1 2

3 4

Waszink in his edition of 1962, den Boeft 1970 and 1977, and van Winden 1959, in their commentaries, all played down the importance of Stoicism for Calcidius. Switalski 1902 argued for a strong Stoic influence, but relied on a view of Posidonius’ role in the tradition that is no longer tenable. As is the case with Falcon 2016 (see previous chapter in this study), Calcidius is also absent from the important overview of the Latin Stoic tradition by Colish 1990. See also the Stoic position on dreams, ch. 251. In this chapter, I expand on and revisit issues addressed in Reydams-Schils 1999, ch. 5. See also ch. 6 in this study.

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on matter, Calcidius devotes an entire section to the Stoics and again mentions Chrysippus and Zeno by name. Stoicism does not merely manifest itself in certain sections of the commentary and in some of the views which Calcidius attributes to Plato. It has also shaped the commentary as a whole. The notion of an allpowerful, entirely good Providence that is central to Calcidius’ interpretation of the Timaeus throughout,5 for instance, is in itself a sign of a tremendous debt to Stoicism, which had manifested itself already in Middle Platonist authors such as Plutarch and Atticus. In the introduction to his commentary Calcidius highlights two aspects of Plato’s Timaeus: first, its preoccupation with scientific and technical matters (the artificiales rationes), which makes it a difficult exposition,6 thereby creating the need for a commentator, and second, its focus on ethical questions (chs. 5–6). Regarding the latter Calcidius claims that the Timaeus explores the theme of natural law and justice (naturalis aequitas), as opposed to Plato’s Republic, which deals with justice on a human level (iustitia in rebus humanis). He then goes on to describe natural law and justice as “the kind of justice which the gods use towards each other in what could be called the common city and republic of this sensible universe.”7 Plato’s Timaeus was traditionally seen as an inquiry into nature.8 What is surprising in Calcidius’ account here is his emphasis on ethics. The Timaeus admittedly deals with the normative status of the divine, the ontological standard of excellence, and rules of conduct for human beings who want to emulate this standard. But it is Calcidius who has supplied the idea of a cosmic state. It is true that the beginning of the Timaeus presents this dialogue as some kind of sequel to the Republic, but this in itself, again, hardly suffices to account for Calcidius’ choice of emphasis. The Early Stoics developed the notion of the cosmic state in all its philosophical consequences, and it is even possible that they started to read the Timaeus as a cosmic Republic.9 But whenever this explicit merging of the Timaeus and the Stoic notion of a cosmopolis occurred, it is clearly present in Calcidius’ interpretation of the Timaeus. Providence and the cosmopolis go hand in hand.

5 7 8 9

6 See section 8.1 in this study. See section 1.1 in this study. Calcidius, ch. 6, 60.2–3: eam iustitiam qua divinum genus adversum se utitur in mundi huius sensilis veluti quadam communi urbe ac re publica. See section 2.3 in this study. Cf. Reydams-Schils 1999, ch. 1. On the relation between the cosmos and the political order in Plutarch, see also van Nuffelen 2011: 157–175.

12.1 Stoics on Providence and Fate

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Stoics on Providence and Fate

As we have seen, Calcidius creates a schema according to which for Chrysippus Providence and fate would be coextensive; for Cleanthes fate would encompass Providence but not the reverse;10 and for Plato Providence would encompass fate. In the context of this presentation of Stoic material Calcidius uses a description of the divine that clearly anticipates the view which he himself ends up adopting (in chs. 176 and 188, see ch. 7 in this study): Some, then suppose that a difference between Providence and fate is presumed, when in fact it is only one reality: for Providence is the will of god, and his will is a series of causes, and it is called Providence because his will is foresight but fate because it is also a series of causes, from which it results that the things which are according to fate are also from providence and likewise that the things which are according to providence are from fate, as Chrysippus supposes. (ch. 144)11

Calcidius too renders his second god and Providence as the will of the (first) god. From a Platonist perspective, however, he reintroduces a transcendental dimension and projects this view onto an ontological hierarchy in which a first god stands above all beings, and the second god is the will of the first, but at a lower ontological level. This relationship between first and second god resembles the manner in which the other traditional Greek gods represent aspects of the one divine principle in Stoicism,12 with the important difference that the Stoics do not endorse a transcendent notion of the divine. Calcidius’ ontological hierarchy, however, should not obscure the significance of the Stoic influence on his interpretation. Similarly, despite the polemic, which could be directed at a broader group of thinkers and not just the Stoics,13 Calcidius integrates key Stoic elements in his view of how fate works.14 But before turning to those Stoic

10 11

12 14

See also section 8.3 in this study. For an assessment of this evidence, see Dargona-Monachou 1973; Mansfeld 1979: 158–159; and Alessandrelli 2013. Itaque non nulli putant praesumi differentiam prouidentiae fatique, cum reapse una sit, quippe prouidentiam dei fore uoluntatem, uoluntatem porro eius seriem esse causarum, et ex eo quidem quia uoluntas prouidentia est, porro quia eadem series causarum est, fatum cognominatum, ex quo fieri ut quae secundum fatum sunt etiam ex prouidentia sint, eodemque modo quae secundum prouidentiam ex fato, ut putat Chrysippus. 13 See section 7.4 in this study. See ch. 8 in this study. On this point see also Boys-Stones 2007. Bobzien 1998: 402 makes an analogous claim for Alexander of Aphrodisias.

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features, let us assess first the quality of Calcidius’ report on the Stoic position (or one like it). There are some odd contaminations in the “Stoic” material of the treatise on fate. For instance, when discussing the Stoic notion of perversion, Calcidius claims that newborns are driven primarily by their attraction to pleasure and aversion to pain. But the standard Stoic view, in the theory of “appropriation” (oikeiōsis), posits self-preservation, not the attraction to pleasure, as a young animal’s primary impulse, and for the sake of selfpreservation humans and animals would be willing to endure even pain.15 When he discusses a potentially Stoic view that fate accomplishes its purposes through the actions of humans (as in the theory of co-fatality),16 Calcidius states that this process would turn human beings into merely a necessary condition for fate’s agency (ch. 161: sine quibus agi non potest). This claim, however, does not accurately reflect the very complex Stoic picture of the different forms of causality interacting in human decisionmaking.17 Human freedom and responsibility according to the Stoics do not consist in the freedom to do otherwise but in the human beings’ own contribution to the causal nexus, through the disposition of their minds and the faculty of assent, the principal causes of the outcome, as opposed to external forces and representations (phantasia) that deliver information about the outside world.18 Calcidius’ rendering of this position already reads as a polemical misrepresentation. This is not what the Stoics themselves would say, but what an opponent of the Stoics could retort: “Look, your Stoic theory of fate reduces human decision-making to a mere necessary condition.” Such a misrepresentation elides what the Stoics would consider distinctive about human decision-making, namely, the reasoning process involved. If one leaves aside rational decision-making, in this minimalist sense fate could also be said to be at work through a falling stone or a charging animal. In such cases one could make a similar distinction between outside forces and the nature of the things in question. A stone, for instance, would fall both because of a push, the outside factor, and because it is in its (internal) nature to fall.19 But one would not ascribe 15 16 17

18 19

For good analyses of this issue, see Bénatouïl 2006: 115–116 and Graver 2012. See LS 55S and 62F–G. See Cicero, Fat. 39–46; Aulus Gellius 7.2; Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 181.13–182.20; and Nemesius, Nat. hom. 35.105.6–106.13. The best analysis to date of the issues with the different types of causes involved is Bobzien 1999. On this issue see also Salles 2005. This is in fact the problem with the cylinder example mentioned by Cicero, Fat. 42ff. On this issue, see also Nemesius, Nat. hom. 106.7–9, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 181.13–182.20; Bonazzi 2014. Marcus Aurelius (10.33) makes sure to avoid this potential misunderstanding, in claiming that an

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any freedom to a stone or a charging animal. Thus, the objection seems to go, merely granting some role to an entity in the execution of fate still falls short of accounting for human freedom. In addition to these misrepresentations, Calcidius’ view of the relation between the possible, the necessary, and the contingent (ch. 155) overlooks the sophisticated and controversial Stoic moves (developed probably by Chrysippus) of introducing modalities that would allow for counterfactual possibilities20 and factual non-necessities.21 Another essential Stoic move not included in Calcidius’ account is that, for fated future truths covered by divination, the Stoics do not use hypotheticals, if p then q, but statements of the type, “not: both p and not-q.” For example, the conditional: “if someone is born at the rising of the Dogstar, (s)he will not die at sea” gets rewritten as: “not both ‘someone is born at the rising of the Dogstar’ and ‘(s)he will die at sea.’” This move is intended to prevent the necessity of past events, such as “you were born at the rising of the Dogstar” (which Calcidius accepts as well, ch. 169) from carrying over automatically to future ones.22 Given these two crucial omissions and the misrepresentations of the Stoic position, we can again see that the determinists as Calcidius presents them are meant to be radical. They are not even trying to leave room for human freedom in a manner in which Chrysippus allegedly did. As far as Calcidius goes, the Stoics did not present some middle ground or allow for a form of what we would now call compatibilism. Yet, while he presents the determinist position in its most extreme, and hence, arguably, weakest form, and turns it into a strawman, Calcidius also integrates key features of Stoicism into his own view. First, the kind of free, rational decision-making Calcidius attributes to human beings can be described in terms of both Aristotelian deliberation and the Stoic assent to impressions (ch. 156). Second, Calcidius does not reject the Stoic theory of perversion as such, but he rejects the Stoic psychology that underpins

20

21

22

external force could hinder an object such as a cylinder in its motion, but that nothing can hinder the exercise of rationality in a human being (except for one, presumably, whose reasoning ability itself has been affected by disease, disability, or injuries). Something that is never true yet remains possible; for example, even if it is certain that a jewel will never be broken, it is still possible for it to be. See Cicero, Fat. 12–15 = LS 38E; Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 176.14–23. Something that is always true, i.e. future truths and something that is fated to happen, yet remains contingent: for example, even if the oracle had foretold it, and it was true then that this was going to happen, it had not been necessary that Cypselus should rule in Corinth. See references in the previous note and Bobzien 1998: 116–119; this view presupposes a distinction between Fate as Necessity and the modality “is necessary”; see also Plutarch, Stoic. rep. 1055 D–F. See Cicero, Fat. 14.

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it.23 He holds on to the notion of human freedom and responsibility through the concept of hypothetical fate (even while strongly rejecting the view that moral evil can be part of the divine rational plan for the universe). Last but not least, the solution he espouses of a hypothetical fate also allows Calcidius to present the view that fate encompasses all corporeal things, including human beings, and that Providence, as the will of god, encompasses all of reality.

12.2 Stoics on Soul In the treatise on the human soul (see ch. 6 in this study) Calcidius devotes a continuous exposition to the views of the Stoics Zeno and Chrysippus, which is generally considered to be among our most reliable sources, with one important exception that has led to misunderstandings in some of the secondary literature (ch. 220).24 According to Calcidius the Stoics share with Empedocles and the Hebrews the view that matter is continuous and that the main principle of the soul is located in the heart. Unlike them, however, the Stoics posit that the soul is “breath” (spiritus; the Latin equivalent of pneuma), not blood. Calcidius quotes a syllogism he attributes to Zeno: That upon the departure of which an animal dies would be the soul; an animal dies when the natural breath (naturalis spiritus) departs from the body; therefore the soul is natural breath.25

Chrysippus, Calcidius avers, agrees with this reasoning and has his own variant of the syllogism, which hinges on the proposition that animals breathe and live by virtue of one and the same thing. The main challenge posed by this account is the notion of “natural breath,” by which Chrysippus probably meant the pneuma sumphuton; the pneuma that coexists with a body.26 The phrase, “natural breath” which Calcidius uses is too ambiguous from the point of view of Stoic doctrine as attested elsewhere. The Stoics posit a scale of existent things that assumes

23 24 25 26

See ch. 6 in this study. Tieleman 1996: 96–101 (reviewed by Reydams-Schils 2004); Powers 2012: 258–260; on this issue see also Reydams-Schils 2006 and Ju 2007. See Introduction and section 6.3 in this study. Quo recedente a corpore moritur animal, hoc certe anima est; naturali porro spiritu recedente moritur animal, naturalis igitur spiritus anima est. SVF 2.778, 773–789; see also section 6.3 in this study.

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that pneuma is present as “cohesion” in lifeless things, as “nature” in plants, as “soul” in animals, and as “rational soul” in human beings. The first problem with Calcidius’ account is that he ends up attributing functions to the soul that the Stoics in other sources attribute to the lower level of “nature” in their scale of beings. Second, he distinguishes between a “natural” soul power in animals and a rational one in human beings, and thus, in a reverse move, pushes the soul in animals down to the level of “nature.” In both cases the Stoic distinction between the beings with “soul” and those that fall under the heading of “nature” gets erased. From one perspective, cohesion, nature, soul, and rational soul are all manifestations of nature in its most general Stoic sense, as a designation for the activity of the divine principle in the ordering of the universe, but in that usage the distinction between “nature” and “soul” would not apply. Moreover, it would not make sense to contrast “rational” with “natural,” as Calcidius does, because the “rational” would be “natural” too. From another perspective, “nature” in Stoicism specifically designates plants, but in that case the Stoics, unlike Calcidius here, distinguish between “nature” and “soul,” and thus both the attribution of “nature” functions to the soul and the notion of a non-rational, natural soul would be problematic. Stoic usages of the label “nature” would thus be either too general or too specific to fit Calcidius’ purpose, and the conclusion imposes itself that he is blurring Stoic distinctions in this passage. So, the first problem with Calcidius’ account is that functions such as growth and nutrition, which animals share with plants, now appear to fall under the soul pneuma, and not merely to belong with the “nature” aspect of animals. This is a direct consequence of his assumptions (a) that there are two soul-principles, and (b) that the lower one also includes vital functions. But Calcidius’ actual wording in this instance is quite cautious: he merely indicates that the soul, with its ruling part and seven instrumental parts, “fills” all the parts of the body with vital spirit (usque quaque vitali spiritu complent) and “regulates and controls” (reguntque et moderantur) these parts “with innumerable and diverse powers” (innumerabilibus diversisque virtutibus), including nourishment and growth. This wording does not need to imply that all these powers are the soul’s own, but leaves open the possibility that the soul uses some of them merely as instruments. It makes sense to argue that in animals the soul ends up directing all functions of the body. And such a position does not entail a departure from standard Stoic doctrine. As we have seen (section 6.3), it is Calcidius who is harmonizing different views of the soul in order to attribute to Plato the most complete view,

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and who is integrating into each view elements borrowed from the other models. One such attempt hinges on a distinction between rational and irrational (also in the sense of non-rational) or natural aspects of the soul, which the Stoics would not accept and which Calcidius projects onto Stoic psychology, thereby creating the second problem I have identified, of positing a natural soul power: And he [Chrysippus] defines the mind’s inner deliberation as follows: the inner movement of the soul is its rational power. (To be sure, dumb creatures too have a principal power of soul by means of which they discern their sources of nourishment, form mental images, avoid hidden dangers, leap over precipitous drops, and acknowledge that which they have need of; they have no rational power, however, but rather a natural one): among mortal beings man alone enjoys the use of the principal good of mind, i.e. reason, as Chrysippus says. (ch. 220, 233.13–19)27

The lines of the passage in between the two quotes of Chrysippus, set off by round brackets, are, I submit, Calcidius’ interpretation. The wording of the chapter as a whole indicates also that it is Calcidius who establishes a connection between what he calls the natural soul power in animals and the lower vital functions, such as growth and nutrition, which for a Stoic would fall under the “nature” heading in the scale of being. In his description of actions that would be guided by the non-rational or natural soulprinciple Calcidius alludes to the Stoic psychological functions of “representation” (phantasia) and “impulse” (hormē). Representation and impulse represent what an adult human being, according to the Stoics, has in common with pre-rational children and non-rational animals; in adult human beings another function is added, assent, because of the advent of reason.28 This projection on Calcidius’ part of the rational/irrational distinction (with its equivocations) onto Stoic psychology need not have come at the 27

28

Definit idem intimam mentis deliberationem sic: “Intimus est motus animae uis rationabilis.” Habent quippe etiam muta uim animae principalem, qua discernunt cibos, imaginantur, declinant insidias, praerupta et praecipitia supersiliunt, necessitudinem recognoscunt, non tamen rationabilem quin potius naturalem; solus uero homo ex mortalibus principali mentis bono, hoc est ratione, utitur, ut ait idem Chrysippus. The alignment between human and animal perception and impulse, leaving out reason and assent, appears to have played a role in polemics against the Stoics (as in Plutarch, Adv. Col. 1122C–D, with the Academic claim that we do not need assent to explain human action). Both Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 181.13–182.20 = LS 62G and Nemesius, Nat. hom. 35.105.6–10 = LS 53O also try to erase the differences between human and animal psychology in Stoicism, this time by attributing assent to both (see Inwood 1985: 87ff.). But such an alignment by no means remains confined to polemics; it also became a doxographical tool for harmonizing different psychologies.

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expense of the important realization that, according to the Stoics, human representation and impulse do not merely coexist with reason, but are transformed by it: whatever adult human beings do falls under the reign of reason, whether used correctly or not. Calcidius’ entire claim about the value of doxastic reason rests on such a realization. Calcidius ends his overview of the Stoic position with a critique of their view that soul as pneuma would be corporeal (ch. 221). In order to accomplish his purpose, he turns the Stoics’ own list of different types of mixtures against them: if the soul is a body, then a corporeal entity would have to be mixed with the body in the strict sense, but none of the possible mixtures would actually work. If we assume mere “juxtaposition” (applicatio), the soul as pneuma could not permeate and give life to the body; if we assume, on the other end of the scale, “intermixture” (permixtio), the soul would lose its unity, and, finally, “aggregation” (concretio) would presuppose that two bodies could occupy the exact same place.29 Calcidius repeats this argument in the systematic exposition of Plato’s psychology (ch. 227). What is most striking in this context is that he rejects the idea that the soul would be corporeal precisely because he agrees with the Stoics that a human soul, like the World Soul in the universe, “penetrates the entire body and gives it life” (quod omne corpus penetret idque uiuificet). So, we have here an instance of the polemical strategy of attempting to improve the Stoics’ theory for them. As we have seen (section 6.3), Calcidius has also integrated aspects of Stoic psychology into what I call his master-list of soul functions. Moreover, as in the case of the treatise on fate, Calcidius has co-opted other features of Stoic thought, expressed most clearly in the strong analogy between World Soul and human soul (ch. 140; section 6.4 in this study). For the World Soul, Calcidius posits a principal part situated in the sun as the equivalent of the human heart (chs. 99–100), and functions that are analogous to spirit and appetite in human beings (ch. 45). Even for opinion pertaining to sensible reality, or doxastic reason, Calcidius has narrowed any potential gap between the World and the human soul. (He shows his awareness of the Stoic inextricable connection between divine and human reason in the short treatise on dreams, ch. 251.) The view that the human being is a microcosm, containing the same elements in body and soul as the universe (ch. 202), is, after all, easier to maintain in a Stoic than in a Platonic framework, because the former posits the strongest possible continuity between a corporeal active divine principle at work in 29

On the background of this polemic, see also Groisard 2016: 207–211.

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the universe and the constitution of human beings, whereas the latter assumes a number of ontological rifts between these two levels of reality.

12.3

Stoics on Matter

At first glance the treatise on matter may appear to be less critical of the Stoics than the other sections of the commentary. The Stoics are included in a position that Calcidius establishes as common ground between a number of philosophical schools, and which he also endorses (see ch. 9 in this study). Like Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, the Stoics, Calcidius avers, consider matter to be continuous and to be deprived of form, which also entails that the order imposed on matter is the work of Providence (ch. 280). The Stoics consider matter to be the “origin of things” (ch. 308: origo rerum), as one of the fundamental principles of reality; as such it exists eternally (ch. 312). As we have seen, Calcidius adopts a Stoic account of the interaction between the divine principle and matter in his initial presentation of the latter’s function (ch. 269), and like the Stoics he considers matter to be entirely amenable to the order imposed by the divine principle (chs. 270, 307, and 319), calling it even an ousia (chs. 273 and 330). The doxographical section on the Stoics’ view of matter (chs. 289–294) starts out with the general view that god is the craftsman and matter the substrate for his action, and that both are considered bodies, one as acting, the other as being acted upon. In this account, however, Calcidius immediately introduces the example of a statue which is made out of a certain material, and for which one can then raise the question what the substrate of that material would be, and so on, until one arrives at the most fundamental matter that is one of the principles of all reality. As the remainder of this doxographical section goes on to show, there may be a contamination from a Peripatetic distinction between primary and secondary matter in this account.30 Zeno and Chrysippus are said (ch. 290) to reserve the label substance only for matter qua principle, and not to use it for other types of matter inherent in things (such as bronze in a statue). So, “substance” would be reserved for “that which is the cause of existence” (ut sint causa est) for all things. As in other instances, this report too needs to be handled with caution, because other sources indicate that the Stoics did not consider 30

Charlton 1970: 144 claims that Calcidius’ account is partly responsible for the attribution of the notion of “prime matter,” erroneous in his opinion, to Aristotle.

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matter to be a cause,31 and the wording could diminish the importance of the active, divine principle. (In a polemical move Calcidius himself will actually downplay the role of the active principle in his rendering of the Stoic position – see below.) Another way to distinguish between “substance” and “matter” (ch. 291) is to consider the first in terms of the foundation of a work (operis fundamentum) and the second in relation to a maker (opificis). In his final account of the Stoic notion of matter, which he attributes to Zeno, Calcidius provides more details about how the active divine principle is intended to interact with matter (ch. 292): it is a breath (spiritus) that moves matter rationally, now in its entirety, now only in part. It is said to be not (merely) nature but to be a rational soul of the universe. This reason, according to the Stoics in Calcidius’ report (ch. 293), runs through matter “like semen on its way through the genital organs” (ut semen per membra genitalia). It is the true craftsman, acting on an entirely passive matter. The divine principle is the “by which” (a quo) and the matter that “from which” (ex quo) something comes to be. Calcidius ends this overview with a Stoic criticism of Plato: the existence of an intelligible paradigm for the world is redundant given that seminal reason (ratio seminum) is sufficient to account for its structure. This Stoic critique of Plato leads to the breakdown of the peace in Calcidius’ textual universe, and he now engages, again, in an explicit polemic against the Stoics (ch. 294), which, upon closer examination, he has already anticipated, and which he will continue in the report of Numenius’ position (see ch. 13 in this study). Where the Stoics’ view of the principles of reality is similar to Plato’s, they committed plagiarism (a view already put forth in Cicero’s report on Antiochus32); where their view deviates from Plato’s account, they are wrong. They err in particular in considering the divine principle to be a body, and if not the same as matter, then at least to be an inseparable quality of the passive principle. In this context Calcidius expresses his disgust at the notion of “seminal reason,” although earlier on (ch. 137) he had co-opted a cleaned-up version of this theory, one might say, for the intelligible realm, with the claim that “the seeds of a lower nature exist within the exemplar, i.e. within the intelligible world” (cum in exemplari, hoc est intellegibili mundo, inferioris naturae semina intellegibiliter extent). 31 32

Duhot 1989: 139–152; Seneca, Ep. 65.2ff.; 89.16. For Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonius, cf. also Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.13.1c = SVF 1.89, 2.336; Posidonius F95 Edelstein and Kidd. See Reydams-Schils 2013.

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Other passages from the commentary indicate that with their view of god the Stoics would come dangerously close, in Calcidius’ eyes, to the position that sees the order of the universe as merely arising out of matter (ch. 275), and thus would risk making the craftsman altogether redundant (ch. 311). The Stoics would thereby end up undermining their own view of the role of the divine active principle as craftsman and Providence. Finally, Calcidius objects that the Stoics’ view would make god also responsible for evil (and we have seen his rejection of this position in the treatise on fate, sections 8.3 and 8.4 in this study). Because of his overt polemic against the Stoics, the importance of this current of thought for Calcidius’ commentary has been underestimated. This chapter, however, has drawn attention to the crucial influence Stoic ideas had on Calcidius’ rendering of Plato’s worldview. Through the channel of Calcidius’ work this influence would continue to make itself felt in the rich tradition of the reception of the Timaeus.

chapter 13

Source and Sources (1) Numenius

To date most of the scholarship on Calcidius has focused on his sources. Waszink, as editor of the text, simply assumes that Calcidius was too mediocre an author to have come up with the main lines of this commentary himself,1 and hence must have relied on other sources – and according to this approach, the closer we can get to one master source, or as few sources as possible, the better (though Waszink rejects the hypothesis of one master source for the entire commentary, 1962: cvi). But to the extent that we have reason to believe, as I have argued, that Calcidius shows his own hand in the structuring of his material, this starting assumption is questionable (as van Winden 1959: 9–10 points out). A second major complication arises from the fact that Calcidius, like many other authors of the period, has a tendency not to mention his direct sources by name; he may be using such sources also as depositories of older material which shows up in his doxographical overviews, but he does not reveal who they are. This chapter examines one of two potential influences on Calcidius, Numenius, and the next reassesses the role of Porphyry.2

13.1

Calcidius on Numenius

In the sub-treatise on matter an entire section is devoted to the views of Numenius (chs. 295–299, with a summary passage in ch. 300 that includes Numenius). This is the last position on the role of matter which Calcidius mentions in his doxographical overview, right before he turns his attention to a systematic exposition of what he considers to be Plato’s theory. This ordering itself already indicates that Numenius holds pride of place. But the configuration in which Calcidius embeds Numenius’ account is very complex. Calcidius has just mentioned a Stoic 1 2

Waszink 1962: xiv, on his terminology; cvi; see also Switalski 1902: 113. See also the assessment in Bakhouche 2011 I: 34–41.

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criticism of Plato’s view, specifically of his reliance on an intelligible model for the things existing in the world. He brings in Numenius to counter this criticism. Numenius is said to refute the Stoics on the basis of Pythagorean views that, according to Calcidius, are in agreement with Plato. So right away we have many different layers of discourse: (1) an alleged polemic between Plato and the Stoics, (2) “Pythagorean” views, but (3) as filtered through Numenius, who comes to Plato’s aid in this perceived polemic. The divine principle which this account attributes to the Pythagoreans and Numenius is the monad, whereas matter is the dyad, or unlimited. The order of the universe requires such a higher divine principle, the argument against the Stoics goes. Even nature itself derives its powers from this transcendent principle. In a move with which we are familiar by now,3 the Demiurge is represented not merely as reason facing necessity and chance, but as Providence. One discovers the second principle, matter, the report continues, through a process of abstraction, by removing its corporeal features one by one (ch. 299). Numenius, as quoted by Calcidius, mentions two Pythagorean views of matter: one he attributes to Pythagoras and appears to endorse, and another he attributes to some “Pythagoreans” and rejects. According to the first view, matter in its disorderly state is ungenerated and coeval with god; “generated” matter represents a “later” stage that reflects the ordering interventions of the Demiurge: (a) . . . that insofar as it is indeterminate this dyad is ungenerated, whereas insofar as it is determinate it is generated. That is, that prior to being adorned by the reception of form and order it was without birth or generation, but once adorned and illuminated by the god who gave it order it was generated; and that since the circumstance of generation is a later one, the unadorned and ungenerated should thus be considered coeval with the god by whom it was brought into order. (ch. 295)4

3 4

See also section 8.1 in this study. Numenius ex Pythagorae magisterio Stoicorum hoc de initiis dogma refellens Pythagorae dogmate, cui concinere dicit dogma Platonicum, ait Pythagoram deum quidem singularitatis nomine nominasse, siluam uero duitatis; quam duitatem indeterminatam quidem minime genitam, limitatam uero generatam esse dicere, hoc est, antequam exornaretur quidem formamque et ordinem nancisceretur, sine ortu et generatione, exornatam uero atque illustratam a digestore deo esse generatam, atque ita, quia generationis sit fortuna posterior, inornatum illud minime generatum aequaeuum deo, a quo est ordinatum, intellegi debeat.

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This position shows an affinity with a view attributed to Atticus and Plutarch,5 who endorse a literal beginning of the world. The temporal connotations of “before” and “after” in Calcidius’ account (ch. 295, antequam and posterior) look like traces of a literal reading of the Timaeus.6 Perhaps some Pythagoreans and Numenius interpret the temporal language allegorically, that is, as indicating the dependence of ordered matter on a divine cause. But if that is the case, Calcidius does not tell us. Moreover, the claim that only indeterminate matter is coeval with god also suggests a literal interpretation of the beginning of the world. The second view of the relation between god/the monad and matter/the dyad runs as follows: (b) . . . but that some Pythagoreans, in misinterpreting what was meant by this view, thought that the indeterminate and immeasurable dyad was intended as well, that it was produced by the solitary monad as the latter receded from its own natural unity and migrated to the state of the dyad. “Misinterpreting” in the sense that the monad that was would have ceased to be while the dyad that was not would have come to be, and there would have been a conversion, matter from god and the immeasurable and indeterminate dyad from the monad – an opinion unsuitable even for men of modest learning. (ch. 295)7 This view echoes a position attributed to Eudorus of Alexandria, who maintains that matter, whether in its ordered or disordered state, is also derived from the divine monad/One.8 According to this perspective, then, matter is not coeval with god at all, neither in its disordered nor in its ordered state. The critique addressed to this stance, however, is a polemical misrepresentation: it is not the case, according to our sources, that the monad would depart from its own natural state of unity and turn into the

5

6 7

8

See also Proclus In Tim. 2, I 283.27–30 Diehl = Atticus F20 des Places; Plutarch, De an. procr. 1014A– B. Proclus (In Tim. 2, I 276.30–277.7 Diehl = Atticus F19 des Places) also claims that Plutarch and Atticus make a distinction between unmeasured time before the ordering of the universe and ordered time coming about with the universe. See ch. 4 in this study. Sed non nullos Pythagoreos uim sententiae non recte assecutos putasse dici etiam illam indeterminatam et immensam duitatem ab unica singularitate institutam recedente a natura sua singularitate et in duitatis habitum migrante – non recte, ut quae erat singularitas esse desineret, quae non erat duitas subsisteret, atque ex deo silua et ex singularitate immensa et indeterminata duitas conuerteretur; quae opinio ne mediocriter quidem institutis hominibus competit. Simplicius, In Arist. Phys. 181 Diels.

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dyad; as far as we can tell, Eudorus assumed the existence of a highest monad from which the pair of a lower monad and dyad is derived.9 This detailed exposition of Pythagorean notions of matter is a long prelude to Numenius’ criticism of the Stoics, who, Numenius thinks, wrongly assume matter to be defined and limited (ch. 295, definitam et limitatam), whereas Pythagoras correctly stated that matter/the dyad is infinite and limitless (infinitam et sine limite). But, of course, according to the Stoics, matter derives its structure from the divine principle with which it always coexists. So, this criticism is another version of the claim that the Stoics confused, or intertwined too strongly, the divine active principle with matter. Numenius’ Pythagoras agrees with the Stoics that “matter is fluid and without quality” (ch. 296, fluidam et sine qualitate). Unlike the Stoics, however, Pythagoras is said to hold the view that matter by itself is not considered neutral, but evil. Based on a reading of Book Ten of Plato’s Laws, this position claims that Plato allegedly explains the evil nature of matter by positing the existence of two World Souls (ch. 297, duas mundi animas), one of which is evil and is inextricably connected to matter. Even in the ordered universe this evil soul makes its influence felt. This section of the commentary attributed to Numenius does not rest content with refuting the Stoic critique of Plato; it carries out its own counterattack (chs. 297–298) with the claim that the Stoics cannot provide an explanation for the existence of evil. If the Stoics allow only for a divine principle and a neutral matter, they need to rely on an unexplained theory of “perversion” to account for moral evil. The idea here appears to be that the Stoics merely drag in their theory of “perversion” to fill a gap in their theory. A subsidiary line of reasoning uses against the Stoics their own notion that events are caused by the movements of the stars (cum quae proueniunt ex motu stellarum prouenire dicantur): given that the stars are corporeal entities, they too, would be affected by the negative influence of disorderly matter, Numenius’ alleged argument goes, and this feature explains why the stars, in turn, can negatively affect human beings. An intrinsic flaw in the ontological structure of the world, as the true cause of evil, would make the Stoic notion of “perversion” redundant.

9

Simplicius, In Arist. Phys. 181 Diels; see also Porphyry F236 Smith, from Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics in connection with a report on the Neo-Pythagorean Moderatus – the view which Porphyry himself endorses, see also ch. 14 in this study.

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13.2 Numenius and the Commentary As both Waszink and van Winden noted,10 this section of the treatise on matter gathers up a number of threads from the fabric of the commentary as a whole. In some cases there are verbal echoes of the language Calcidius uses in the Numenius section. For instance, in the exposition of Numenius’ view, the provisions (consultis) of Providence are called “salutary” (salubribus),11 and this word makes it into Calcidius’ translation of a passage from the Timaeus (48a2–5, see also ch. 270): whereas the Greek merely has τῷ πείθειν, Calcidius renders it as salubri persuasione. The thematic and methodological connections are even more important and striking. (i) As we have seen in an early passage of the commentary (chs. 29–31; 53–54), Calcidius himself endorses a reading of the Timaeus that posits the existence of two souls, one the inseparable companion of bodies, indicated by Plato’s notion of divided substance (diuidua substantia), and the other a transcendent, purely noetic soul, which allegedly stands for Plato’s “undivided substance” (indiuidua substantia).12 (ii) For Calcidius too, the notion of Providence is essential to the order of the universe, and to such an extent that he ends up inserting it in his translation of passages in which the Greek does not include it.13 (But this feature also implies that it may have been Calcidius rather than Numenius who highlighted Providence in this section of the commentary.14) (iii) Moreover, attributing the idea of Providence – properly understood, that is – to Plato is central to Calcidius’ polemic against the Stoics in the sub-treatise on Fate,15 and the specific points of the polemic against the Stoics in the Numenius section are also present in the exposition on fate. In ch. 165 Calcidius discusses the Stoic theory of “perversion,” and in ch. 174, he rejects the view that stellar movement causes evil (in which case evil human actions would be fated; both themes occur together in the Numenius account – ch. 298; Waszink 1962: lix). 10 11 12 14

See also van Winden’s 1965 reprint, pp. 248–259. As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, the notion of consultis is an echo of the idea that the second god is a lawgiver (Numenius F13.6 des Places); see also ch. 7 in this study. 13 See sections 3.3 and 5.1 in this study. See section 8.1 in this study. 15 Pace Waszink 1962: xl–xlii. See ch. 8 in this study.

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(iv) In ch. 303 Calcidius also proposes that the method for discovering matter consists in a process of abstraction, or what he calls resolutio (analysis) in this context (parallel to ch. 299 in the Numenius account).16 (v) Through material preserved in other sources, we can detect an influence of Numenius even in Calcidius’ hermeneutical principle that Plato’s views represent the complete picture of the truth, whereas his successors tended to focus instead on only partial answers.17 (vi) We also know from other sources that Numenius included the Hebrews in his version of the wisdom tradition.18 In spite of these connections, however, Waszink and van Winden went too far in attributing all these other sections of the commentary in their entirety to Numenius, extending his alleged influence even further, for instance, to include Calcidius’ view of the threefold structure of the divine (chs. 176–177 and 188). While there are some affinities between Calcidius’ position and the views attested for Numenius in other fragments of his work, there are also crucial differences. As in Numenius’ view of the divine, the boundaries between the different levels of Calcidius’ hierarchy are fluid and both present a dynamic model of the relations between these different levels, but the latter’s hierarchy does not match what we find in the remaining fragments of Numenius.19 The same can also be said of other affinities between the two. Whereas Providence is central to Calcidius’ own line of interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus, the key Pythagorean notions of monad and dyad for god and matter are not, even though he does mention them briefly in the first part of the commentary (ch. 39; see also chs. 53–55). Even more importantly, contrary to Numenius, Calcidius does not consider matter intrinsically evil, and he adopts a much more minimal dualism than the one he attributes to Numenius and the Pythagoreans.20 Moreover, if indeed Numenius attributes the view to Pythagoras that the world had a real beginning in time and aligns himself with this position, this too would constitute a major divergence from Calcidius, who interprets the temporal language allegorically as matter’s eternal dependence on a higher divine cause.21 As a corollary to his view of matter, Calcidius does not consider the lower soul that is intertwined with bodies evil per se; his emphasis is on this 16 18 20

17 See also Hoenig forthcoming b and section 10.4 in this study. See section 1.3 in this study. As in F1a-c, F9–10, F30, F56 des Places. 19 See also section 7.3 in this study. 21 See ch. 9 in this study. See ch. 4 in this study; Deuse 1983: 63–64.

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soul’s role as life-force.22 It is true, as van Winden points out (1965 reprint: 256–257), that in ch. 31, in the context of his discussion of the lower and the higher soul, Calcidius talks about the Demiurge bringing order by means of the intellect to the disorderly movements of the lower soul, as to waves (agitationem fluctibus similem),23 but he stops short of calling it evil (see also Waszink 1962: xlix). There are other indications in the commentary that Calcidius wants to distance himself from the concept of an evil, lower World Soul. In the treatise on demons (ch. 135) he mentions this view as a position held by the ueteres, and in the treatise on fate (ch. 172 and ch. 174) he merely leaves room for the hypothesis of the existence of an evil soul, but clearly with the intention of rejecting it (Bakhouche 2011 II: 770, n. 336). A close comparison between the relevant chapters from the treatise on fate (chs. 165 and 174) and the passage from the Numenius section that deals with the negative influence of the stars (ch. 298) reveals the fundamental difference between Calcidius’ and Numenius’ approaches to the problem of evil (den Boeft 1970: 75–77). Numenius allegedly argues that the Stoic notion of “perversion” is redundant because one can attribute a negative influence to the heavenly bodies themselves. Qua bodies they have an affinity with matter and thus cannot entirely escape being affected by the latter’s deficiency: Moreover, the stars are bodies or celestial fires; and matter is the nurse of all bodies, so that those things too which to no apparent purpose or to ill effect are driven by the stars are seen to originate in matter, which is possessed of much intemperance, an improvident drive, the element of chance, and a randomly motivated determination . . . [T]he natural defect could not be eliminated altogether. (ch. 298)24

Calcidius, by contrast, pursues the line of thinking that would deny the stars any such negative influence, on the basis of the claim that they are divine and perfect: What, then, is the origin of evil? They [the proponents of fate, including the Stoics] indict stellar movement. But what is the origin of that movement? Does the movement proper occur such that, while it remains the same, both 22 23 24

On this issue I follow Deuse 1983: 73–76, esp. 76 pace Phillips 2003. As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, the sea metaphor could be an echo of Numenius F18 des Places. Stellae porro corpora sunt ignesque caelites; omnium quippe corporum silua nutrix, ut etiam quae sidereus motus minus utiliter et improspere turbat originem trahere uideantur ex silua, in qua est multa intemperies et improuidus impetus et casus atque ut libet exagitata praesumptio . . . naturale uitium limari omnino nequiret.

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Source and Sources (1): Numenius goods and evils issue from it, and if so, then with the stars willing it or not willing it? If with them willing it, then the stars are living beings and move according to purpose; if with them not willing it, then they have no capacity for action. To be sure, either all stars are divine, good, and productive of no evil or certain ones are maleficent. But given that all heavenly bodies are full of celestial wisdom, and we know that evil arises from mindlessness, to what extent is it appropriate to speak of the stars – in that place, so holy and full of goodness – as being maleficent? Unless perhaps we are to imagine the unspeakable, that the same stars alternate between being good and malign and therefore bestow benefits and harm indiscriminately. But this is absurd, to suppose, not that the celestial substance endowed with one and the same nature is the same in all stars, but that many of them degenerate, as it were, from their proper nature. – But surely the stars endure this against their will? – And what will be that necessity so great as to compel them to do wrong against their will? And this soul itself, will it be divine or malign? (ch. 174)25

The range of possibilities Calcidius covers here is meant as a rhetorical amplification to underscore the absurdity of attributing any responsibility for evil to the stars. Given the thrust of the passage, it is also clear that when he raises the final issue, whether it is a divine or malign soul that would compel the stars to exert a negative impulse, he intends to reject the possibility of an evil cosmic soul. Thus, this paragraph, like his position on matter, reads like a refutation of the view which Calcidius attributes to Numenius. What all of this evidence tells us, I believe, is that the question of Calcidius’ sources can send us down the wrong path. Instead of attributing to Numenius as one of Calcidius’ main sources all the passages of the commentary that have affinities with the section from the treatise on matter, either directly or indirectly, it makes much more sense to posit that Calcidius made independent use of the ideas he found in his material on Numenius. It is Calcidius who sets up the distinction between the two types of primordial souls early on in the commentary, and he does so in 25

Unde ergo mala? Motum stellarum causantur. Sed ipse motus unde? Et utrum uolentibus stellis motus ipse talis fit, ut ex eodem motu et mala proueniant et bona, an inuitis? Si uolentibus, animalia sunt stellae et iuxta propositum mouentur; si inuitis, nullus est earum actus. Certe aut omnes stellae diuinae sunt et bonae nec quicquam faciunt mali aut quaedam maleficae. Sed maleficas esse in illo sancto et pleno bonitatis loco quatenus conuenit, cumque omnia sidera plena sint caelestis sapientiae, malitiam porro sciamus ex dementia nasci, quatenus conuenit maleficas stellas esse dicere? Nisi forte – id quod fas non est – interdum easdem bonas, interdum malignas esse existimandum proptereaque promisce beneficia et maleficia praebere; sed hoc absurdum est, putare caelestem substantiam una eademque natura praeditam non in omnibus stellis eandem esse sed plerasque tamquam a propria degenerare natura. Sed nimirum hoc inuitae stellae patiuntur. Et quaenam erit illa tanta necessitas quae inuitas cogat delinquere? Et haec ipsa utrum diuina erit anima an maligna?

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terms broad enough to encompass a position such as the one attributed to Numenius, without being limited to it, possibly even leaving room for other similar Platonist positions.26 Passages such as these show us both how he orders his material and how he lays the groundwork for the views which he himself eventually endorses as representing the truth of Plato’s philosophy. In sum, Numenius’ influence on Calcidius’ account is real and significant, but Calcidius as author does not follow him in all respects, and this signals the relative independence of his authorial voice. If we need to be much more cautious in claiming entire sections of Calcidius’ commentary as lost fragments, or, more modestly, testimonia of Numenius, things become even murkier and more complex in the case of Porphyry. In his 1962 edition of the text, Waszink argued for the importance of both Numenius and Porphyry, but as time went on, he leaned more and more towards the hypothesis that Porphyry, and more specifically, his lost commentary on the Timaeus, was Calcidius’ principal source. It is high time to revisit this assumption as well. 26

See section 5.1 in this study.

chapter 14

Source and Sources (2) Porphyry

For those scholars who posit his commentary on the Timaeus and other works of his as (one of) Calcidius’ principal source(s),1 Porphyry serves a function similar to that of the Stoic Posidonius in earlier scholarship: any feature of later accounts that looks like a combination of Stoic and Platonic elements tended to be attributed to Posidonius, even if the source of a passage in question did not explicitly mention him. As a result, Posidonius’ role in the chain of transmission of Stoic views was greatly exaggerated.2 Since then this “pan-Posidonianism” has been seriously challenged, and what is considered Posidonian in origin has been reduced to much more realistic proportions. The time may have come to do the same for Porphyry, and Calcidius’ commentary is an excellent case in point for such a reassessment.3 The earlier approach relies on a number of questionable methodological assumptions: parallels between Calcidius and fragments of Porphyry 1

2

3

The strongest proponent of this influence is Waszink 1962 (confirmed in the reprint of 1975): lxii– lxxxii (arguing that Numenius’ influence reached Calcidius through Porphyry); xc–xcv (on p. xcv he mentions Porphyry’s commentary on the Timaeus as Calcidius’ principal source); 1964; 1966: 53, 58–62, 65, 71; 1972: 240–241 (bringing in Sodano’s collection of fragments from Porphyry’s commentary on the Timaeus as corroborating this view – but Sodano himself relies on Waszink’s thesis; see below). Gersh (1989) endorses the view of a strong Porphyrian influence. See also den Boeft 1970: 55, where he argues for the parallel between Porphyry as mentioned by Proclus In Tim. 2, I 352.11–16 Diehl and Calcidius’ claim (ch. 162) that God knows things according to their natures (see also sections 2.4, 8.4 and 16.1 in this study) but overlooks the fact that Proclus’ criticism of Porphyry is contradicted by Sent. 10, 22, and 33; and den Boeft 1970: 98, with the claim that Calcidius’ hierarchy of the divine (chs 176–177, 188) was mediated by Porphyry; van Winden 1965 (reprint of van Winden 1959): 248–259; see also den Boeft 1977: 52–65. For Switalski (1902: 86–91, 109–112) Posidonius’ alleged commentary on the Timaeus is the primary source of the commentary; see also 113 where he relies on the assumption that Calcidius is too mediocre a figure to have had much of a hand himself in the arrangement of the material. For a good overview of the debate before Waszink’s 1962 edition, see van Winden 1959: 4–10. On the issue of the role of Porphyry see especially Steinheimer 1912 and the response by Jones 1918. In what follows I align myself with Jones’ concerns about the method used by scholars who see an ample role for Porphyry, and with the much more cautious approach exemplified in recent work on Porphyry’s Contra Christianos such as Männlein-Robert 2017.

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preserved by later Platonists, such as Proclus and Nemesius, are automatically identified as instances of Porphyry’s influence on Calcidius.4 The limits of this methodology are readily apparent. Even if we find parallels with passages that are explicitly attributed to Porphyry, such parallels cannot automatically be taken as proof that Calcidius used Porphyry as a source. Porphyry may merely have culled material or integrated views from older sources that were also at Calcidius’ disposal (Jones 1918). The method becomes even more problematic if it relies on parallels between Calcidius and views that are not explicitly attributed to Porphyry in later sources, but for which a Porphyrian origin is posited (see below). The most useful starting point for any discussion of Porphyry’s influence on Calcidius is to ask whether any aspects of the contents of Calcidius’ commentary bear the former’s specific signature: that is, do they reflect interpretive strategies and positions that are distinctive of Porphyry, which he was known to have presented in his own name? This approach is complicated by the fact that the extant evidence we have for Porphyry also shows him owing a considerable debt to Middle Platonism (Zambon 2002) and often reveals internal contradictions. It is also possible that Porphyry wrote more than one exegetical account on the Timaeus, or that somehow Calcidius had access to material from his pre-Plotinian days.5 Nevertheless, we do need to start with this question, and not with positions that were more broadly shared and common. The answer may turn out to be rather surprising, and hence problematic for the assumption of Porphyry’s influence on Calcidius: not only are traces of a distinctive Porphyrian influence hard to find, but a number of claims Calcidius makes effectively run counter to what we know about Porphyry from other sources.

14.1 Porphyry’s Commentary on the Timaeus Central to this investigation is Porphyry’s own commentary on the Timaeus.6 If one brackets for a moment the passages from Macrobius which Sodano includes in the collection of fragments of this work (65–68, and 82–83 in the Appendix) and limits oneself to the evidence provided by Proclus and Philoponus, one is struck immediately by how different Porphyry’s approach is from Calcidius’ undertaking. The opening parts 4 5 6

See for instance Waszink 1964: 69–82 on Calcidius, chs. 20–25. As an anonymous reviewer pointed out. For a good overview of Porphyry’s interpretation of the Timaeus, see Köckert 2009: 175–222, with bibliography.

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of Plato’s work and the Atlantis story are essential to Porphyry’s commentary, whereas Calcidius leaves these out. Porphyry appears to have adopted an ethical reading of the account (F3–5; 26 Sodano) that focuses on the vicissitudes of the human soul7 and demonology (F10–27 Sodano), whereas Calcidius starts from the view that the Timaeus is about natural justice in the cosmopolis. Demonology, it turns out, is essential to Porphyry’s overall interpretation of the Timaeus (see below, F57). By contrast, Calcidius locates his main treatment of demonology very specifically in the context of Plato’s reference to the plurality of gods (40d–41a). That treatment draws on a broader doxographical tradition with many elements that are not unique to Porphyry.8 The next section of Porphyry’s commentary, as preserved in Proclus, deals with the preface of Timaeus’ speech (F28–53 Sodano), which, again, Calcidius omits.9 This is the context in which Porphyry addresses the questions of the principles of the order of the universe, whereas Calcidius turns to this topic in the final sub-treatise of his commentary, the one devoted to matter. Here we can see a general pattern emerge: the points on which Porphyry and Calcidius agree are shared by others and represent a broader strand in Middle Platonism and the doxographical tradition; the more detailed views that are specific to Porphyry, however, are not to be found in Calcidius. Thus, Porphyry’s analysis of the value of prayer draws on the theme of Providence, as is the case, broadly speaking, in Calcidius, and both authors have knowledge of the Hebrew tradition. Both also endorse the view that the world does not have a beginning in time (F34–39 Sodano, from Philoponus, Aet.),10 that matter in itself is not the cause of disorder or evil, and that the basic schema of reality consists of god, matter, and form (F47 Sodano, from Philoponus, Aet.).

7

8

9 10

Cf. F13 Sodano, on the periodic conflagrations (Tim. 22d3–5): ὁ δέ γε φιλόσοφος Πορφύριος καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς ψυχὰς ἀπὸ τῶν φαινομένων μετάγει τοὺς λόγους καὶ . . . See also the claim (F26 Sodano) that one first has to have one’s soul in proper order before embarking on the theoretical aspect of philosophy. Jones 1918: 200–203 and Hoenig 2018b: 201–206. By contrast, den Boeft 1977: 52–65, while noticing the importance of the Epinomis for Calcidius’ account, and the many features shared with Middle Platonist demonology, ends up (65) suggesting, on the basis of alleged parallels between Calcidius and Hierocles as well as the latter’s alleged dependence on Ammonius Saccas, that a now lost Middle Platonist treatise on demonology was adapted by Ammonius and that elements of this adaptation reached Calcidius through Porphyry. This is a case in point for the “Porphyry hypothesis” having gotten out of hand. See section 2.2 in this study. On this issue see especially Baltes 1976–1978 I: 136–169; Köckert 2009: 183–194.

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Calcidius, however, appears to lose sight of his notion of the hypercosmic noetic soul in his account of the three levels of god, positing a highest god, a second god as first mind, and the World Soul as a third god and second mind (chs. 176–177 and 188). By contrast Porphyry distinguishes between the hypercosmic (ὑπερκόσμιος) soul and mind (F41, 42, 53) in his claim that the hypercosmic soul is the equivalent of the makerDemiurge in Plato’s account (Deuse 1997: 238–249). The mind of this hypercosmic soul, according to Porphyry, is the Living Being itself, or the intelligible paradigm. So, whereas Porphyry establishes a close relationship between the hypercosmic soul and its mind and emphasizes the demiurgic role of the former, Calcidius, as we have seen, combines his first and second gods together as the Demiurge (see ch. 7 in this study). At the other end of the ontological scale, there appears to be no equivalent in the extant evidence for Porphyry’s views of Calcidius’ lower soul-principle. A second and no less crucial difference emerges: whereas Calcidius is quite content to posit a plurality of principles, letting matter stand by itself along with god and the forms, Porphyry argues that all these principles are ultimately dependent on one highest principle.11 Moreover, Calcidius provides an explanation of the role of matter and its relation to the elements that runs explicitly counter to a view attested for Porphyry (more on this below). Finally, we have a section of the Timaeus which is treated by both Porphyry (F57–81 Sodano) and Calcidius (Tim. 31c–41e). This section contains the discussion of the World body, the World Soul, time, and the heavenly bodies, as well as the speech of the Demiurge to the younger gods. The difference in approach of each commentator stands out here too. In the first part of Calcidius’ commentary the treatment of these passages (or to be more precise, the section up to 39e) is mostly devoted to technical and mathematical issues, broadly conceived. And while we need to be sensitive to a selective bias in Proclus, who may be leaving out more technical sections, Porphyry appears to interpret this section primarily from an ontological rather than a mathematical perspective (which does not exclude the possibility that he may have devoted some attention to the mathematics). Thus, when he comments on the constitution of the elements, Porphyry’s primary focus is on the relation between fire and earth and different types of demons (F57 Sodano; also treated by Calcidius in 11

F51 and 56 Sodano; Köckert 2009: 195–201. See also Porphyry, Mat. F236 Smith, in which he connects this view to the Neo-Pythagorean Moderatus; it bears strong resemblances to the first of two Pythagorean views discussed by Numenius as presented by Calcidius (ch. 295), which Numenius is said to reject (see section 13.1 in this study).

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the second part of his commentary, ch. 129). He discusses the middle of the World Soul (F61) as the intermediary between sensible and intelligible reality; with regard to its division, he focuses on the harmony binding together its many powers (F69 Sodano). In his treatment of the movements of the heavenly bodies, he applies the ontological structure of Being (οὐσία), mind (νοῦς), and life (ζωή, F79 Sodano). (One additional implication of this emphasis could be that in his discussion of the mathematical issues Macrobius relies on Porphyry significantly less than is often assumed, but that assessment falls outside my scope here.12) When he does turn his attention to the more technical aspects, Porphyry, unlike Calcidius, as Waszink (1962: ci) himself points out, does not use the lambda-figure to render the mathematical proportions in the construction of the World Soul.13 In addition, according to a passage in which Macrobius does mention Porphyry by name,14 the latter would endorse a different interpretation of the planets’ respective distances from earth than the one we find in Calcidius’ commentary.15 On the other hand, notions that are essential to Porphyry’s interpretation, such as the soulvehicle or the idea that the human soul acquires its different powers in its descent through the different spheres of the heavenly bodies,16 are missing from Calcidius’ account. The upshot of the above analysis of the potential parallels between Porphyry’s and Calcidius’ commentaries on the Timaeus is that it yields no compelling evidence to posit the former as a major influence on the latter.17 (This in itself already implies that we need a thorough revision of Sodano’s inclusion of many sections from Calcidius in the notes and Appendix to his collection of fragments from Porphyry’s commentary on the Timaeus.18) But what about other parallels between the two authors on which scholars have drawn to make the case for a strong affinity?

12 13 14 15 16 17

18

For a similar cautionary note see also Köckert 2009: 176–177. Proclus, In Tim. 3, II 171.4–9 Diehl, not included in Sodano, but mentioned in the notes, 58; not in Smith. See Waszink 1964: 26, 35–36; Macrobius, In Somn. 2.3.14–15 = F72 Sodano. Waszink 1962: ci; 1964: 82 does not posit Porphyry’s commentary on the Timaeus as the sole primary source for the first part of Calcidius’ commentary. Porphyry, F80 Sodano; see also Sent. 29. See also Moreschini 2003: xxiv–xxx who assesses critically Waszink’s hypothesis that Porphyry’s commentary on Plato’s Timaeus would have been Calcidius’ main source and Bakhouche 2011: I 38–39, who includes a discussion of the section on dreams from Calcidius’ commentary (ch. 256). See also Köckert 2009: 177–178.

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14.2 Other Parallels? (1) The human soul For the sub-treatise on the human soul we can find in the extant material of Porphyry parallels to some of Calcidius’ arguments, including the possibility reported by Suidas that Porphyry too wrote against Aristotle’s notion of entelechy.19 Let us take a closer look at one possible parallel: both authors’ use of a Stoic division of different types of mixtures. Calcidius argues against the Stoic view of the soul as corporeal, and in doing so he discusses the three types of mixture of bodies the Stoics allegedly posit (ch. 221).20 None of these mixtures would work for the relation between soul and body, and thus, assuming that this list of possibilities is exhaustive, Calcidius concludes that the soul cannot be corporeal. For his part, Porphyry – that is, if the relevant passage from Nemesius can be attributed to him in its entirety21 – also uses three different types of mixtures, but without in this instance explicitly mentioning the Stoics.22 The purpose of this investigation, however, is not to address the simpler question whether the soul can be corporeal but to find a way to account for the relation between soul and body that maintains the substance of both in their unity—or, in the case of the soul, both its own substance as unfused and free from destruction (ἀσύγχυτον καὶ ἀδιάφθορον) and its unity with the body (Dörrie 1959: 34). (By contrast, Nemesius’ critique in his preceding chapter of the notion of a corporeal soul relies on different Stoic material than we find in Calcidius – the only point of contact between Calcidius and that chapter in Nemesius is a brief reference to the idea that the notion of juxtaposition cannot account for the manner in which the soul animates the entire body. But even that claim is not represented in the same manner in both accounts.23) The argument in the context of which Porphyry’s Symmikta Zetemata is mentioned proceeds according to the following doxographical schema: 19 20 21 22 23

Gersh 1986 II: 485; see P31 = T240 Smith and P32 (Adversus Boethum de anima) = T241, F247 and F249. See also Mansfeld 1992: 141–147. Cf. SVF 2.473 = LS 48C; section 12.2 in this study. On this issue see Sharples and van der Eijk 2008: 18–19; see also Sent. 33. F259–261 Smith, preserved in Nemesius, Nat. hom. 3; see also Porphyry, Sent. 33. Cf. Nemesius, Nat. hom. 2.22.10–17 (echoed in 3.39) and Calcidius, ch. 221, 234.9–10. The argument in Nemesius relies on the specific claim that “it is impossible for the whole of one body to lie alongside the whole of another” (trans. van der Eijk and Sharples), whereas Calcidius states more simply that in juxtaposition the soul-breath would not be able to penetrate through to the innermost body (non permanat ad corpus intimum).

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(a) Complete fusion (here with the verb ἡνῶσθαι, as a more general heading; also language related to σύγχυσις) would i. create a unity between soul and body, but ii. make the soul liable to change and destruction together with the body; (b) juxtaposition (παράθεσις) would i. not allow for the unity between soul and body, ii. but would not make the soul liable to change and destruction either; (c) mixture (κρᾶσις) i. would not allow for the unity between soul and body (because the two components could still be separated out), ii. and yet would make the soul liable to change and destruction.24 In the evidence preserved by Nemesius, these distinctions are transposed to argue that the soul is fully unified with the body (as in the first case, of fusion) but keeps its own identity (as in the second case, of juxtaposition), so that it would not be liable to change and destruction. Nemesius attributes the notion of an “unfused unity” to Ammonius. This move rules out the Stoic view that “blending” (case c above) both (i) creates a unity with the body, and yet (ii) allows the soul to preserve its own substance. On the contrary, in a clearly polemical move it presents “blending” as the worst option because it would make the soul liable to change and destruction without even allowing for a unity between soul and body. So we can present the different options as follows:

fusion juxtaposition blending in Nemesius

unity of soul/body

liability to change and destruction together

yes no

yes no

no in Alexander of Aphrodisias, as attributed to Chrysippus yes unfused unity attributed to Ammonius yes 24

yes no no

The account of this case is complicated by the fact that it also reduces “mixture” to a type of juxtaposition, but one that is not perceptible. The notion that in krasis the components could be destroyed is not in keeping with the evidence on the Stoics preserved in Alexander of Aphrodisias, Mixt. 216.14–218.6 = SVF 2.473 = LS 48C.

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In sum, from this evidence it looks like Porphyry is using the Stoic distinctions for a different purpose than Calcidius does, by discussing them in the context of the problem of the unity between soul and body.25 His approach would then be notably more sophisticated in the manner in which he co-opts Stoic distinctions for the position he endorses. (2) Transmigration of the human soul into animals Another pièce de resistance for Porphyry’s alleged influence on Calcidius consists of their respective positions on the transmigration of human souls into animals (Waszink 1962: xci; 1972: 241). Like Calcidius in the sub-treatise on fate (ch. 198), Porphyry is supposed to have denied that degenerated human souls can literally transmigrate into animals, and to have endorsed an allegorical reading of this claim: that such humans become like animals, savage like a lion, or cruel like a wolf, for instance. Here is how Calcidius presents this view: Plato, however, does not think that the rational soul assumes [42c] the countenance or appearance of an irrational animal, but that as the body succumbs to its lingering defects, the embodiment becomes beastly, with vices increasing in the soul according to the conduct of its prior life; and that the irascible but also brave human being shifts fully to the savageness of a lion, while the savage but also rapacious one attains the nearest likeness to the nature of wolves, and so on in other cases. Given, however, that the return to a prior lot is available to souls (and can occur only if a pure return to the civilized conduct worthy of a human being has been effected), but that the correction or repentance of rational deliberation does not arise in beings that live without reason, the soul of what was once a human being is, according to Plato, in no way transferable, to beasts. (ch. 198)26

25

26

Thus, in my opinion Dörrie 1959: 31; 33–35 is right in assuming a Middle Platonist background for Calcidius’ account; Mansfeld 1990: 3112–3117 considers the Porphyry thesis “not implausible” (3113) but prefers the assumption of doxographical collections of material, in the Placita tradition. See also Chiaradonna 2005: 132–137. Sed Plato non putat rationabilem animam uultum atque os ratione carentis animalis induere, sed ad uitiorum reliquias accedente corpore incorporationem auctis animae uitiis efferari ex instituto uitae prioris, et iracundum quidem hominem eundemque fortem prouehi usque ad feritatem leonis, ferum uero et eundem rapacem ad proximam luporum naturae similitudinem peruenire, ceterorum item. Sed cum sit reditus animis ad fortunam priorem – hoc uero fieri non potest, nisi prius reditus factus erit purus ad clemens et homine dignum institutum – rationabilis porro consilii correctio, quae paenitudo est, non proueniat in his quae sine ratione uiuunt, anima quondam hominis nequaquam transit ad bestias iuxta Platonem.

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In reality, however, the evidence for Porphyry’s view is conflicting. Augustine (CD 10.30) claims that Porphyry rejected transmigration into animals.27 Other sources may be interpreted as stipulating both a metaphorical and literal interpretation (though that claim is contested),28 which has led scholars to argue that Porphyry came up with a compromise position along the lines of one attested for later NeoPlatonists. According to this position a human soul can find itself housed in an animal without turning into an irrational soul (Deuse 1983: 129–167, Smith 1984). But regardless of whether this was actually Porphyry’s position, such a compromise is excluded by Calcidius’ wording, that “Plato does not think that a rational soul can take on the countenance of an animal that lacks reason” (Plato non putat rationabilem animam vultum atque os ratione carentis animalis induere) and that “the soul of what once was a human being can absolutely not cross over to a beast according to Plato” (anima quondam hominis nequaquam transit ad bestias iuxta Platonem). Moreover, at least one source appears to put Porphyry squarely in the camp of the literal interpretation as opposed to the allegorical one, namely Nemesius, whose excursion on fate does show extensive parallels with Calcidius’ exposition.29 We need to take a close look at this complex passage in its entirety: A. Κοινῇ μὲν οὖν πάντες Ἕλληνες οἱ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀθάνατον ἀποφηνάμενοι τὴν μετενσωμάτωσιν δογματίζουσιν, διαφέρονται δὲ περὶ τὰ εἴδη τῶν ψυχῶν· (1) οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἓν εἶδος τὸ λογικὸν λέγουσιν, τοῦτο δὲ καὶ εἰς φυτὰ καὶ εἰς τὰ τῶν ἀλόγων σώματα μεταβαίνειν, i. οἱ μὲν κατά τινας ῥητὰς χρόνων περιόδους ii. οἱ δὲ ὡς ἔτυχεν. (2) ἄλλοι δὲ οὐχ ἓν εἶδος ψυχῶν, ἀλλὰ δύο, λογικόν τε καὶ ἄλογον· (3) τινὲς δὲ πολλά, τοσαῦτα ὅσα τῶν ζῴων τὰ εἴδη. B. μάλιστα δὲ οἱ ἀπὸ Πλάτωνος περὶ τὸ δόγμα τοῦτο διηνέχθησαν.

27 28 29

See also Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus 893A–B, a passage in which Porphyry is grouped together with Iamblichus. Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.49.59–61 and Macrobius, In Somn. 1.9.5. My reading of this passage differs from Dörrie 1957: 426–431. Waszink 1966: 44 argues away the tension by claiming that the position attested in Nemesius represents an earlier stage in Porphyry’s thought. The reading presented here is endorsed by Finamore and Dillon 2002, on Iambl., De an. 4.24: 141–142; see also the detailed analysis in Dörrie and Baltes 2002: 179.2, 367–372. On the parallels between Calcidius and Nemesius, see also ch. 8 in this study.

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εἰπόντος γὰρ Πλάτωνος τὰς μὲν θυμικὰς καὶ ὀργίλους καὶ ἁρπακτικὰς ψυχὰς (25) λύκων καὶ λεόντων σώματα μεταμφιέννυσθαι, τὰς δὲ περὶ τὴν ἀκολασίαν ἠσχολημένας ὄνων καὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἀναλαμβάνειν σώματα, (10 ) οἱ μὲν κυρίως ἤκουσαν τοὺς λύκους καὶ τοὺς λέοντας καὶ τοὺς ὄνους (20 ) οἱ δὲ τροπικῶς αὐτὸν εἰρηκέναι διέγνωσαν τὰ ἤθη διὰ τῶν ζῴων παρεμφαίνοντα. (A1 + B10 > B100 ) Κρόνιος μὲν γὰρ ἐν τῷ περὶ παλιγγενεσίας οὕτω δὲ καλεῖ τὴν μετενσωμάτωσιν λογικὰς πάσας εἶναι βούλεται. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ Θεόδωρος ὁ Πλατωνικὸς ἐν τῷ Ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ πάντα τὰ εἴδη ἐστί, καὶ Πορφύριος ὁμοίως. (A2 and A3 + B20 > B200 ) Ἰάμβλιχος δέ, τὴν ἐναντίαν τούτοις δραμών, κατ’ εἶδος ζῴων ψυχῆς εἶδος εἶναι λέγει ἤγουν εἴδη διάφορα· γέγραπται γοῦν αὐτῷ μονόβιβλον ἐπίγραφον Ὅτι οὐκ ἀπ’ ἀνθρώπων εἰς ζῷα ἄλογα οὐδὲ ἀπὸ ζῴων ἀλόγων εἰς ἀνθρώπους αἱ μετενσωματώσεις γίνονται, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ ζῴων εἰς ζῷα καὶ ἀπὸ ἀνθρώπων εἰς ἀνθρώπους. A. All the Greeks in common who declare the soul to be immortal hold the dogma of transmigration. But they differ about the species of souls. (1) For some say there is one species, the rational, and that this passes over into the bodies of plants and non-rational animals. i. Some say that it is at certain stated periods of time. ii. Some that it happens randomly. (2) But some say that there is not only one species of soul, but two, the rational and the non-rational. (3) Some say that there are many species, as many as there are species of living creatures [missing premise from 200 : and these deny cross-species transmigration]. B. The followers of Plato particularly differed [among themselves] about this dogma. ➢ For Plato said that fierce and proud and greedy souls take in exchange the bodies of wolves and lions; those that were given to self-indulgence assume the bodies of asses and the like 0 (1 ) and some understood this literally to mean wolves, lions, and asses, (20 ) while others discerned that he had spoken metaphorically, as obliquely referring to habits via beasts.

(A1 + B10 > B100 ) For Cronius in his work on palingenesis, which is what he calls transmigration, claims that all souls are rational. Similarly the Platonist Theodorus in his That the Soul is the Totality of Forms, and Porphyry likewise.

182

Source and Sources (2): Porphyry (A2 and A3+ B20 > B200 ) Iamblichus takes the opposite course to them; he says that here is a species of soul for each species of animal, i.e. a different species [of soul]; at any rate he wrote a monograph That transmigrations do not occur from men into irrational animals nor from irrational animals into men but from animals to animals and from men to men. (Nemesius, Nat. hom. 2.34–35, trans. Sharples and van der Eijk)

The structure of this passage is essential to understanding how Nemesius sets up the different groups. He treats two issues together: the differences between a range of views on whether, first, there are different species of souls and, second, human souls can engage in cross-species transmigration. The opening line of the passage indicates that Nemesius intends to map the divisions concerning the second issue, of the transmigration of the human soul, onto the divisions concerning the first, the question of the different kinds of souls. The first section (A) presents views held by “all the Greeks” and includes also the option of transmigration into plants; the second (B) focuses on a Platonist debate about transmigration into animals. The sections clearly complement one another. If we pair A1 with B10 and B100 , we can complete the information of B100 by inferring from A1 that the people who endorse a literal interpretation of Plato (B10 ) are the ones who hold that there is only one species of soul (which would still allow for differences of degree), the rational kind (B100 ), which therefore can pass “over into the bodies of . . . non-rational animals” (A1). So: A1: For some say there is one species, the rational, and that this passes over into the bodies of . . . non-rational animals. ➢ [B. For Plato said that fierce and proud and greedy souls take in exchange the bodies of wolves and lions; those that were given to self-indulgence assume the bodies of asses and the like] 0 B1 : and some understood this literally to mean lions and asses, A1 + B10 > B100 : For Cronius in his work on palingenesis, which is what he calls transmigration, claims that all souls are rational. Similarly the Platonist Theodorus in his That the Soul is the Totality of Forms, and Porphyry likewise.

Conversely, if we pair up A2 and 3 with B20 and 200 , we can complete information from A2 and 3 by inferring from B200 that people who endorse an allegorical reading of Plato’s claim (B20 ) are the ones who allow for more than one species of soul (either two, rational and irrational, A2, or as many species as there are species of living beings, A3) and therefore do not permit transmigration between rational and irrationals animals (B200 ). Thus:

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183

(A2: But some say that there is not only one species of soul, but two, the rational and the non-rational) A3: Some say that there are many species, as many as there are species of living creatures ➢ [B. For Plato said that fierce and proud and greedy souls take in exchange the bodies of wolves and lions; those that were given to self-indulgence assume the bodies of asses and the like] … B2′: while others discerned that he had spoken metaphorically, as obliquely referring to habits via beasts A3 (and A2) + B20 > B200 Iamblichus takes the opposite course to them; he says that here is a species of soul for each species of animal, i.e. a different species [of soul]; at any rate he wrote a monograph That transmigrations do not occur from men into irrational animals nor from irrational animals into men but from animals to animals and from men to men.

That the three groups under A are replaced by only two under B can be explained by the fact that the crucial distinction between positing only one kind of soul, the rational one, and positing two or more souls is sufficient to account for the difference between the literal and the allegorical readings: as soon as one admits more than one kind of soul, an unbridgeable gap between the rational and irrational soul(s) opens up. In sum it turns out that in this source Porphyry finds himself grouped together with the neoPythagorean Cronius and with Theodorus (B100 ) as endorsing a literal interpretation of Plato’s claim (B10 ), by assuming that there is only one type of soul, the rational kind, that can cross over into animals (A1).30 So, if we were to follow the lead of Nemesius and take into account the ambiguities of Porphyry’s position as reported in a range of sources, it would be more plausible to posit Iamblichus as Calcidius’ source here rather than Porphyry, because the former is presented as rejecting the literal reading of transmigration into animals, as Calcidius does. Moreover, just as Iamblichus is said to do so in this testimony, Calcidius assumes the existence of more than one species of soul (ch. 223, 238.6–13 Waszink). But, of course, even this conclusion cannot stand: Calcidius may well have run into a more generic version of the idea in his source material. It is complications such as these that make it much harder to pin entire sections of Calcidius’ commentary onto Porphyry as his main source.

30

See also the discussion of Porphyry’s view that animal souls too have logos in Zambon 2002: 218–219.

184

Source and Sources (2): Porphyry (3) Matter

In one instance of an allusion to the Platonic tradition (auditores Platonis, ch. 300),31 we actually find one of the few explicit echoes of Porphyry that are both confirmed elsewhere and quite specific. The first point matters in order to avoid a kind of circular reasoning, whereby one first assumes that there is a direct connection between Porphyry and Calcidius, only then to use Calcidius as a source for Porphyry, and notably for his commentary on the Timaeus. The second stipulation, of specificity, helps us to discern that if we are dealing with themes and arguments that are relatively widespread and not unique to Porphyry, we may have a connection with doxographical accounts rather than directly with Porphyry.32 Here is the text of the parallel passages. This is Calcidius’ rendering into Latin of a certain position on matter and the question of its connection to evil. Among the auditores Platonis who endorse the view that matter is eternal and not generated we find those: who hold that Plato remarked earlier upon the disorderly and tumultuous motion [30a] as being, not in matter, but in the material elements and bodies which are considered the first principles and elements of the world. (ch. 301)

Calcidius’ wording here invites a comparison with a passage in Philoponus,33 explicitly attributed to Porphyry (as noted in Waszink’s edition): Calcidius’ Latin: Nec desunt qui putent inordinatum illum et tumultuarium motum Platonem non in silva, sed in materiis et corporibus iam notasse, quae initia mundi atque elementa censentur. Philoponus’ Greek: ὁ γοῦν Πορφύριος ἐν τοῖς εἰς τὸν Τίμαιον ὑπομνήμασιν αὐτὸ δὴ τοῦτο τοῦ Τιμαίου τὸ μέρος ἐξηγούμενος οὐ τὴν ὕλην φησὶν μετὰ τῶν ἰχνῶν τὸ πλημμελῶς εἶναι καὶ ἀτάκτως κινούμενον, ὡς ἐν τούτοις ὁ Πρόκλος φησίν, ἀλλὰ τὰ ἤδη ἐξ ὕλης καὶ εἴδους γενόμενα σώματα, ἐξ ὧν ὁ κόσμος συνέστηκεν· οὐ γὰρ εἶναι κόσμου ἀρχὰς ὕλην καὶ εἶδος, ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν σώματος εἶναι ἀρχὰς (ἐξ ὕλης γὰρ καὶ εἴδους τὰ σώματα), κόσμου δὲ ἀρχὰς τὰ ἐξ ὕλης καὶ εἴδους συστάντα σώματα·

In comparing the two passages, one can tell that Calcidius’ wording is a condensed version of a longer argument that comes in two steps: the first is that the source of evil and of disorderly motion is not in matter, but in 31 33

32 See also section 1.3 in this study. See also Reydams-Schils 2007b: I.iii, 311–314. Philoponus, Aet. 14.3, 546.3–15 Rabe, discussed by Sodano in his note to his F47; cf. also 6.14, 164.18–165.6 = F47 Sodano.

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the elements; the second – which gives us the reason for the first – is that matter and form are the principles merely of bodies, and that the elements qua bodies in turn are the principles of the universe. So, this position involves two levels of ontological principles. Waszink claims that the stance Philoponus attributes to Porphyry coincides with Calcidius’ own line,34 that evil does not result from matter itself, but from corporeality, which has a derivative and secondary ontological status.35 If Waszink is right, this surely would attest to Porphyry’s influence on Calcidius. Yet there are at least two major problems with Waszink’s hypothesis. First of all, there is a crucial difference between Calcidius’ own stance and the one he has reported in his doxographical overview: for him the elements, precisely because of their derivative status, cannot be considered principles (initia/ἀρχάς). He argues explicitly against calling the elements “principles” in ch. 307. So even if he did use Porphyry in citing this argument, he also asserts his independence. Moreover, another major difference emerges if we take a closer look at the Philoponus passage quoted above, as Köckert (2009: 191–192) points out: whereas Calcidius talks about Platonists who reject the view that the disorderly motion inheres in matter, according to Philoponus Porphyry rejects the view that the disorderly motion would inhere in matter and the traces of the elements. The continuation of the Philoponus passage, as well as another fragment from Proclus, confirms that Porphyry associates the disorderly motion with the fullfledged elements, but before they have been ordered properly.36 For Calcidius, by contrast, as we have seen (ch. 9 in this study), disorderly motion does result from the traces of the elements, which are potentially bodies and which put matter in motion, with matter then, in turn, reinforcing that motion (chs. 351–354). Calcidius thus endorses the view that the disorderly motion does not arise from matter as such, but precisely from the combination of matter and the traces of the elements – the view which, according to Philoponus, Porphyry rejected. The second point is equally problematic. Calcidius has included in his doxography, and not in the main body of his argument, a position that is similar to one elsewhere attested for Porphyry. It is not plausible to assume that Porphyry included himself in a doxographical schema, from a thirdperson standpoint, rather than presenting himself as giving his own view. It 34 35 36

Waszink 1962: lxxix, xci, and notes to the relevant passage. Endorsed also by van Winden 1965: 251–252 and Moreschini 2003: n. 827. Philoponus, Aet. 14.3, 546.15–25 Rabe = F48 Sodano; Proclus, In Tim. 2, I 391.4–396.26 Diehl, see especially 394.26–30 = F51 Sodano 37.21–25.

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is much more likely that a view like Porphyry’s (and perhaps even like a predecessor’s?) was already included in a doxographical schema which Calcidius derived from another source than the Platonist, or that he himself drafted the schema based on his reading, which could have included some Porphyry – provided we are willing not to discard altogether real autonomy on Calcidius’ part. (4) Form, sensible things, and matter The most convincing parallel between Calcidius and Porphyry may be the view that there are three modes of being, one for the intelligible paradigm, the second for sensible reality (or, alternatively, the generated forms, that is, the forms inhering in matter), and the third for matter.37 Of the two relevant parallel passages, the one preserved in Proclus (In Tim. 2, I 257.3 Diehl = F31 Sodano) is more complex than what we find in Calcidius (see below), but the second, preserved by Simplicius (In Arist. Phys. 135.1–14 Diels, F134 Smith, not in Sodano) is more promising (and thus Smith lists the passage from Calcidius in his notes to this fragment). The passage in question runs as follows: [comparing the generated form to offspring] for it is situated between (a) the nature which is truly existent, constant, and forever the same, namely the idea or eternal intellect of the eternal god; and (b) the nature which indeed is but is not forever the same, i.e., matter, for by its nature matter is none of the things that are, since it is eternal. (c)

37

Thus that which is situated between these two natures is not truly existent. For i. being the image of a truly existent reality, it has to some degree the appearance of being, but ii. in its not enduring and its undergoing change within itself it is not truly existent as the exemplars are; for the examples thrive on fixed and immutable constancy. (ch. 330, 324.23–325.6)

Cf. Gersh 1989: 89; see also Dörrie and Baltes 1996: 104.4, 281–283, with endorsement of the claim by Waszink and P. Hadot that this section goes back to Porphyry (see below). See also chs. 9 and 10 in this study.

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In Latin: . . . est enim haec posita inter (a) naturam uere existentem constantem eandemque semper, nimirum idean quae intellectus dei aeterni est aeternus, et (b) eam naturam quae est quidem sed non eadem semper, id est siluam, quippe haec natura sua nihil est eorum quae sunt, cum sit aeterna. (c)

Ergo quod inter has duas naturas positum est uere existens non est. i. Cum enim sit imago uere existentis rei, uidetur esse aliquatenus, ii. quia uero non perseuerat patiturque immutationem sui, non est existens uere, ut sunt exempla illa quippe exempla rata et immutabili constantia uigent

In the Greek passage preserved in Simplicius that reports Porphyry’s view the parallels have been underlined: Φησὶ δὲ ὁ Πορφύριος τὸν Πλάτωνα καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν λέγειν εἶναι, οὕτως μέντοι εἶναι ὡς μὴ ὄν. (a) τὸ μὲν γὰρ ὄντως ὂν ἀπεφήνατο εἶναι τὴν ἰδέαν καὶ ταύτην ὄντως εἶναι οὐσίαν, (b) τὴν δὲ ἀνωτάτω πρώτην ἄμορφον καὶ ἀνείδεον ὕλην ἐξ ἧς τὰ πάντα ἐστὶν εἶναι μέν, μηδὲν δὲ εἶναι τῶν ὄντων. αὐτὴ γὰρ ἐφ’ ἑαυτῆς ἐπινοουμένη δυνάμει μὲν πάντα ἐστίν, ἐνεργείᾳ δὲ οὐδέν. (c) τὸ δὲ ἐκ τοῦ εἴδους καὶ τῆς ὕλης ἀποτέλεσμα i. καθ’ ὅσον μὲν εἴδους μετέχει, κατὰ τοῦτο εἶναί τι καὶ προσαγορεύεσθαι κατὰ τὸ εἶδος, ii. καθ’ ὅσον δὲ τῆς ὕλης καὶ διὰ ταύτην ἐν συνεχεῖ ῥύσει καὶ μεταβολῇ τυγχάνει, πάλιν μὴ ἁπλῶς μηδὲ βεβαίως εἶναι.

Even though the information provided under each heading is not quite the same, the structure of the passage attributed to Porphyry maps exactly onto the one we find in Calcidius, and the meaning of Calcidius’ Latin phrases becomes clearer when we read them against the Greek. Calcidius’ uere existens captures the meaning of the ὄντως ὄν; he echoes the claim that matter, while being in some sense, “is none of the things that are,” and like Porphyry, Calcidius asserts that sensible things (or generated forms) can lay claim to being only to the extent that they imitate or participate in the intelligible form. In Simplicius, the context for this passage is different from that in Calcidius: it is a discussion of the senses of non-being in Plato’s

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Sophist.38 But this difference can be accounted for by excerpting practices. The conclusion Calcidius draws from these distinctions, which we do not find in the Simplicius passage, has been interpreted as an echo of the passage about Porphyry preserved by Proclus (In Tim. 2, I 257.3 Diehl = F31 Sodano):39 Hence there will be the following three things: that which forever is [Form]; that which forever is not [matter]; and that which is not forever [sensible things/generated form]. (ch. 330, 325.7–8)40

If we compare Calcidius’ formula with the distinctions which Proclus attributes to Porphyry, once again Calcidius’ version turns out to be a simpler alternative. In line with the point he has just made about the intermediate status of the engendered form (in sensibles), Calcidius presents a threefold distinction. According to Proclus, Porphyry presents a schema with four components: two extreme terms, Being (τό τε πρώτως ἀεὶ ὄν; or Form), Becoming (τὸ μόνως γενητόν; or matter), and two intermediaries, that which while being is also becoming (τὸ ὂν καὶ γινόμενον; the level of the souls), and that which while becoming is also being (τὸ γινόμενον καὶ ὄν; the highest part of engendered things). It is misleading to claim that Calcidius has three of the four components listed by Porphyry (or that his intermediary term conflates Porphyry’s two intermediaries, as P. Hadot proposes, 1968 I: 163–165); these are different schemata altogether, even if they rely to some extent on similar terminology, which, in any case, can be traced back to Aristotle.41 Calcidius talks about engendered form as having the intermediary status, Porphyry posits souls and “the highest part of engendered things” (the exact meaning of which does not need to concern us here) as intermediaries. Despite the significant similarities between the Simplicius passage and Calcidius, and, the partial reliance on similar terminology in the Proclus passage and Calcidius, Bakhouche (2011 II: 871–872) is right to caution against inferring a direct connection between Porphyry and Calcidius. Given that Porphyry’s own position on the issue of being and non-being is more complex, as attested in Proclus (and Sententiae 26), it could be that Porphyry merely recorded, in a doxographical sense, a reading of three 38 40

41

39 See also section 10.1 in this study. As discussed in P. Hadot 1968 I: 163–165. Erunt igitur tria haec: quod semper est; item quod semper non est; deinde quod non semper est. (The latter designation would pose problems for the cases of the heavenly bodies and the universe considered as a whole.) Aristotle, DC 1.12, 282a4ff.; Int. 12, 21a37ff.

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modes of being and non-being to which Calcidius also had access independently. Or, according to another possible scenario, similar to the case of matter, Calcidius could have had access to doxographical material that also contained some information culled from Porphyry. Be that as it may, in comparison with Porphyry’s schema, Calcidius presents a simplified framework.

14.3 Porphyry as a Doxographer? Regarding Calcidius’ dependence on Porphyry, another claim that sometimes surfaces is that Calcidius mined Porphyry’s works primarily for the latter’s doxographies or overviews of other positions.42 If there were such sections, for instance, in Porphyry’s commentary on the Timaeus, just as there are in Proclus’ commentary, these were not marked as such in later sources that provide fragments of this commentary. Proclus, however, does mention that Porphyry recorded Numenius’ views (In Tim. 1, 77.22–24 Diehl). In this case too we may be dealing with selective bias in the later sources, which could have left out or truncated the doxographical sections in Porphyry’s works. But then Calcidius’ practice would have been the reverse: he would have drawn only from the doxographical sections and ignored Porphyry’s own interpretations altogether. In Porphyry’s extant texts there are indeed overviews of other positions on certain subjects, such as the soul, but they are not as extensive as what we find in Calcidius. And if, for instance, we want to posit Porphyry’s Historia philosophiae as a source, then we face the fact that according to one testimony at least the work ended with Plato and his times (T198 Smith = Eunapius, Vitae sophistarum 2.1, 2.14–18). Moreover, Porphyry’s view that Plato posited three hypostases, a highest god (or the good), the demiurge, and the World Soul (F221 Smith) represents too widespread an interpretation of Plato in Middle Platonism for us to assume that Calcidius derived his schema specifically from him. In sum, where we can detect similarities between Porphyry and Calcidius, these similarities are part of a broader Middle Platonist discourse. For views that are distinctive of Porphyry, on the other hand, we find no parallels in Calcidius. Thus, John Dillon (1977: 403–404) was right to question Porphyry’s alleged influence on Calcidius. The most plausible 42

Waszink 1962: xc–xci, lxii mentions Porphyry’s Phil. orac., but the connection is tenuous. On this work see now also Tanaseanu-Döbler 2017: 137–176. See also Karamanolis 2006: 265–266 on Porphyry’s quoting practices.

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claim is that perhaps some material derived from Porphyry, as one of the Platonici, was part of the doxographies and sources Calcidius consulted. But this position is a far cry from positing Porphyry as Calcidius’ main source, or even one of his main sources. If the conclusions of this and the previous chapter hold, Calcidius had much more of a hand in arranging the material and sources at his disposal than is commonly assumed. But a second important conclusion also emerges: in Calcidius’ work we have a strand of philosophy in Latin from Late Antiquity in which Porphyry does not play nearly as prominent a role as he did in the Italian milieu of Marius Victorinus, Ambrose, and Augustine.

chapter 15

Calcidius Christianus? (1) An Authorial Voice Revisited

Ever since Waszink’s monumental edition, Calcidius has commonly been grouped together with Latin Christian Neoplatonists, a designation that would include Marius Victorinus and Augustine. But how tenable is this working assumption after all, given the main aspects of Calcidius’ thought as examined in this study? In light of the range of options for expressing a Christian identity in the late third to the beginning of the fifth century CE, it is probably impossible to prove that Calcidius was not a Christian. But a more fruitful approach to this issue may be to ask what difference the assumption of a Christian identity would make for our understanding of the commentary. The answer is, as I will argue in this chapter and the following, next to no difference at all.1 We can also rephrase this issue as the question how one would go about ascertaining the Christian character of a text in the fourth century CE.

15.1 Silences Arguments from silence, in and of themselves, have limited value, but combined with other evidence they can become quite revealing. If we look at a number of Christian voices of the fourth century CE, Calcidius turns out to be markedly different from all of them. Unlike the elder Arnobius, Lactantius, or Firmicius Maternus, who after converting to Christianity 1

See Dillon 1977: 402: “Various small indications suggest the author is Christian, but it must be said that he wears his faith lightly.” Calcidius’ alleged Christian identity has been challenged by Somfai 2002: 12; 2003: 141; Hoenig 2014: 92–96; and Magee 2016: x–xiv; pace Waszink 1962: xi–xii; Moreschini 2002; 2003: xvi–xvii, xx–xxx (esp. xxix–xxx), xxxi–xxxix, 2017; and Bakhouche 2011 I: 42–44. In a 1969 article, so, seven years after his edition, even Waszink includes Calcidius among those who “although Christian, nevertheless rarely or almost never let their belief system affect their interpretation” (“obwohl Christen, dennoch ihre Glaubenslehre ganz selten oder fast nie auf ihre interpretatorische Arbeit einwirken lassen,” 271). But in his entry for the Nachträge zum Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum (1972), he again vigorously defended the thesis of Christian traces in the commentary.

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became critical of pagan culture, Calcidius displays no hostility towards the non-Christian philosophical tradition. In fact, the absence of polemics – apart from his negative attitude towards Plato’s successors and other Platonists2 – is striking. It is as if some elements of Christianity and the non-Christian tradition coexist peacefully in his mental universe, though not on an equal footing: Plato has pride of place. Unlike the earlier Clement of Alexandria, and unlike Eusebius of Caesarea (as in PE 10 Preface, 3–4) and Nemesius, who make it very clear that Christianity outstrips all other claims to truth, we find no such authority claims in Calcidius’ commentary. Clement of Alexandria uses the same image as Calcidius does of individual thinkers snatching snippets of truth, but for Clement only Christian teaching can lay claim to this unity of truth.3 Nemesius, in his work On the Nature of Man (late fourth century CE, though the date is debated), can happily go on for long stretches with minimal allusions to Christian teachings, but he also makes unequivocally clear how he sees the non-Christian tradition in relation to Christian doctrine: There are many proofs in Plato and the rest, but those are very difficult, hard to comprehend, and scarcely well-understood by those brought up in these sciences. For us let the teaching of the sacred books suffice as a proof of the soul’s immortality, for it is reliable in itself, since it is divinely inspired. But for those who do not accept the Christian writings, it suffices to prove that the soul is none of those things that perish. For if it is none of the things that perish, and is imperishable, it is also immortal. So, this matter should be set aside as being in a satisfactory state. (2.38, trans. Sharples and van der Eijk)4

Like Calcidius (Preface, ch. 3),5 Nemesius draws a distinction between those who are insiders to a philosophical or other technical discourse (such as medical treatises), and those who are not. The more technical proofs for the immortality of the soul are difficult even for insiders who are wellversed in this type of knowledge. But those proofs, Nemesius goes on to say, are superfluous for non-specialists, both Christians and non-Christians alike. Christians can fall back on the authority of revelation in Scripture, 2 3 4

5

See section 1.3 in this study. Calcidius, ch. 243; Clement, Strom. 1.57.1; cf. also Strom. 6.55.3. πολλαὶ μὲν οὖν εἰσι τῆς ἀθανασίας αὐτῆς ἀποδείξεις παρά τε Πλάτωνι καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις, ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖναι μὲν περισκελεῖς καὶ δυσκατανόητοι καὶ μόλις τοῖς ἐντεθραμμένοις ἐκείναις ταῖς ἐπιστήμαις γνώριμοι. ἡμῖν δὲ ἀρκεῖ πρὸς ἀπόδειξιν τῆς ἀθανασίας αὐτῆς ἡ τῶν θείων λογίων διδασκαλία τὸ πιστὸν ἀφ’ ἑαυτῆς ἔχουσα διὰ τὸ θεόπνευστος εἶναι· πρὸς δὲ τοὺς μὴ καταδεχομένους τὰ τῶν Χριστιανῶν γράμματα ἀρκεῖ τὸ μηδὲν εἶναι τὴν ψυχὴν τῶν φθειρομένων ἀποδεῖξαι· εἰ γὰρ μηδέν ἐστι τῶν φθειρομένων, ἔστι δὲ ἄφθαρτος, ἔστι καὶ ἀθάνατος, ὥστε τοῦτο μὲν ἀρκούντως ἔχον παραλειπτέον. See sections 1.2 and 1.3 in this study.

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and for non-Christians it is sufficient to realize that the soul cannot be ranked among perishable things, and thus is immortal. Nemesius is openminded enough to include “pagan” non-specialists in his audience, yet the claim of a superior kind of truth for Christians is unmistakable.6 By contrast, for Calcidius, again, Plato represents the authority for truth, and nowhere in the commentary is this authority called into question or relativized, in spite of his awareness of Genesis and some aspects of Christian teachings (see below). In the case of Marius Victorinus, we have a conversion attested by Augustine (Conf. 8.1–4), and his works display a very high level of sophistication in his familiarity with Neoplatonist theories of the different levels of reality as well as Christian Trinitarian doctrine. These last two features are absent from Calcidius’ work, as we will see. And in the case of another Christian with strong Platonist leanings, Synesius, we have evidence, in a letter from him, attesting to his uncertainty concerning differences between Christian doctrine and Platonist views he was reluctant to let go of, despite his official role in the Church (Ep. 105). Calcidius, for his part, appears to have no qualms about inhabiting a Platonic universe. But perhaps, one could argue, this stance is largely determined by the fact that he is, after all, writing a commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. This very undertaking, though, cannot be interpreted as a neutral endeavor in the at times highly acrimonious rivalry between Christians and “pagans” expressed in their writings. Even compared with the later Boethius, Calcidius’ alleged Christianity proves to be more problematic, a point to which we will need to return.7

15.2 Allusions to Christian Views It is indeed the case that there are some traces of Christian views in Calcidius’ commentary, but these traces need to be carefully assessed to see how exactly they function. First, there are a number of allusions phrased in the second person. It seems most natural to interpret these allusions as concessions to the person addressed. Thus, it would be (H)Osius, whoever he happens to be, who would presumably be a Christian. By these allusions, Calcidius would merely be indicating 6 7

For other instances, see sections 37–38, 42.120 Sharples and van der Eijk. Pace Moreschini 2017: 276 (see also 2002: 435) I highlight here the differences between Calcidius, on the one hand, and Synesius and Boethius, on the other. On Synesius, see especially TanaseanuDöbler 2008.

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that he is aware of his addressee’s sensitivities. Let us take a closer look at two such instances (see also Hoenig 2014). In chapter 126, in the context of a mini-doxography on the role of heavenly bodies as signs, we read: There is also another more sacred and venerable account that maintains that the rising of a given star does not announce illnesses and deaths but the descent of the venerable god, for the sake of the preservation of humans and of mortal beings. And when during a journey at night this star was detected by truly wise men among the Chaldeans, with adequate experience in the contemplation of heavenly matters, they are said to have gone in search of the newborn god, and upon having discovered this infant majesty, to have venerated it and addressed it with prayers befitting a god of this stature. All of which you are much more acquainted with than anybody else. (my trans.)8

The passage expresses respect for the account of the Magi (here called Chaldeans), and clothes it in terms of veneration which one could expect a Christian to endorse, without calling these into question.9 Yet, it is also underdetermined in at least one crucial respect, as in the phrase ad . . . rerum mortalium gratiam; literally “for the sake of [the preservation of] (though it is not clear whether this genitive is also governed by conseruationis) mortal beings.” This expression is vague: does Calcidius have in mind a preservation of the entire universe, just as the Demiurge in the Timaeus promises to the younger gods that he will maintain the universe for all eternity through his will?10 Bakhouche overdetermines the phrase by interpreting it as referring to the “resurrection of the dead” (2011 I: 365: “la resurrection des mortels”), making the passage sound more Christian than the Latin requires. Nowhere in the commentary, at any rate, does Calcidius allude to the doctrine of the resurrection; he appears to endorse a straightforwardly Platonic doctrine of the 8

9

10

Est quoque alia sanctior et uenerabilior historia, quae perhibet ortu stellae cuiusdam non morbos mortesque denuntiatas sed descensum dei uenerabilis, ad humanae conseruationis rerumque mortalium gratiam. Quam stellam cum nocturno itinere suspexissent Chaldaeorum profecto sapientes uiri et in consideratione rerum caelestium satis exercitati, quaesisse dicuntur recentem ortum dei repertaque illa maiestate puerili ueneratos esse et uota tanto deo convenientia nuncupasse. Quae tibi multo melius sunt comperta quam ceteris. By contrast, it is unlikely that Celsus, who also mentioned this episode in his polemic against the Christians, would have expressed such respect, cf. Origen, C. Cels. 1.34, 58–60. Note that from Origen’s point of view, Calcidius would be making the same mistake as Celsus by confusing the Magi with the Chaldeans (1.58). In this passage (1.59) Origen also refers to the Stoic Chaeremon (On the Comets) as having allegedly claimed that such heavenly portents do not always have to announce or accompany disasters, but could also be harbingers of good news. For the broader context, see especially DelCogliano 2012: 48–54. Plato, Timaeus 41b. Cf. also ch. 132: creator omnium et conseruator deus. I disagree with Moreschini 2003: 721, n. 261, who interprets this wording as a Christianizing trait. (His interpretation is also rejected by Bakhouche 2011 II: 735, n. 89.)

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immortality of the soul and does not challenge the notion of Platonic reincarnation when he mentions it (as in ch. 198). Magee overdetermines the phrase in a different manner, by translating gratia as “grace” and conseruatio as “salvation:” “the descent of a venerable God to bestow the grace of salvation upon mankind and mortal beings” (emphasis mine). The ad gratiam here, I would suggest, is better translated as “for the sake of” (and neither Moreschini nor Bakhouche introduce the notion of “grace” into their renderings). The grammatically awkward ad plus the accusative gratiam and a genitive construction (perhaps as the equivalent of in gratiam) – rather than gratia by itself plus a genitive, or propter plus accusative – is governed, I submit, by the movement implied by “descent.”11 It is striking, moreover, that conseruatio (preservation) is a philosophical term, and as such is more neutral than the Christian “salvation” (for which Latin Christian authors prefer words related to salus). It seems that Calcidius has either muddled a Christian expression related to the Nicene Creed,12 or rendered it in more neutral terms. Thus, it would be more helpful in this instance to stay as close as possible to the text itself, and to avoid loaded terms such as “the resurrection,” “grace,” or “salvation” in the translation. The final line of this passage makes it clear that Calcidius is making a concession to his interlocutor: “all of which you are much more acquainted with than anybody else.” Would the use of ceteris here instead of aliis constitute a problem for this interpretation? Aliis would refer to others in general, whereas ceteris could refer to a circle to which Osius, and possibly Calcidius himself, belong. But the word choice does not allow us to infer that all members of this circle would have had to be Christians, nor does it allow us to define the identity of that circle more fully. Here is the second passage in question, in the context of a treatise on demons (ch. 133): Nor should the name [“demons”] by virtue of its being imposed indifferently upon good and evil beings be for us a cause of concern, for the name “angels” occasions no concern even though some angels are God’s servants (and those who are, are called holy) but others minions of the adverse power, as you know perfectly well.13 11 12 13

A possible parallel is provided by Ambrose (without a verb implying motion), Hel. 4.7, 416.3 Schenkl: plantauit dominus paradisum ad gratiam beatorum. τὸν δι’ ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν, κατελθόντα; there appears to be no version similar to his Latin formulation in the preserved Latin Christian texts. Nec nos terreat nomen promiscue bonis et improbis positum, quoniam nec angelorum quidem terret, cum angeli partim dei sint ministri – qui ita sunt, sancti uocantur – partim aduersae potestatis satellites, ut optime nosti.

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Through his use of a “sociative” “we/us” (van Hoof 2010: 53–54), Calcidius establishes a rapport with his addressee, and acknowledges that a Christian may be put off by non-Christian philosophical views, in this case, on demonology. Yet the turn from the first- to the second-person voice locates the concerns of a specifically Christian version of intermediary powers with the addressee.14 In contexts in which he does not use the second-person voice to draw attention to Osius’ conviction, he uses a different strategy of establishing common ground between himself and his addressee. Such is the case in this passage, which Waszink considers essential for establishing Calcidius’ Christian identity (ch. 219): But if they confess to the human soul’s being rational, then they should believe their own claim, that after having made human beings God “breathed” into them his divine “breath,” by which we employ reason and intellect, and by which we piously venerate God and possess a natural affinity with his divinity and are said to be “gods and sons of” the highest “god.”15

Here again Calcidius uses a “sociative” “we/us.” But who is the “we” said here to venerate god, to have a kinship with the divine, and to be called gods as well as sons of god (Reydams-Schils 2007a: 252)? This wording arguably does not so much Christianize the Timaeus as establish a potential point of agreement between a Platonist and a Christian. While the phrase could echo a New Testament passage,16 it also aligns itself beautifully with the Timaeus. The “highest god” is Calcidius’ first god-cum-Demiurge,17 and Plato called this Demiurge famously, even if enigmatically, a “maker and father” (Tim. 28c). The Demiurge in Plato’s account also indicates that human beings are meant to venerate their divine origin (Tim. 42a: τὸ θεοσεβέστατον). Perhaps Calcidius is relying here on a technique of intentional ambiguity in order to establish a basis of common understanding between Platonists of his stripe and Christians,18 a strategy that would also explain cases in which scholars have noticed his use of terminology found in other, Christian authors (Ratkowitsch 1996). The main methodological problem 14 15

16 18

In the section on dreams (ch. 250), when discussing Aristotle’s view, Calcidius himself uses “angels” and “demons.” Si autem confitentur [Hebraei] animam hominis rationabilem fore, credant sibi, quod deus a se hominibus factis inspirauerit diuinum spiritum, quo ratiocinamur quoque intellegimus et quo ueneramur pie deum estque nobis cum diuinitate cognatio diique esse dicimur et filii summi dei. As in John 10.34; Matthew 5.9; Luke 20.36; but see also Psalms 82.6. 17 See ch. 7 in this study. Kahlos 2007: 33. I owe this reference to Alfons Fürst.

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with the assumption that Calcidius’ use of vocabulary also present in Christian authors would make him a Christian is that a common parlance and shared set of themes had already developed between Christian and non-Christian authors – that is, mostly in the direction from the nonChristian to the Christian tradition – and thus the mere fact that a certain phrase also shows up in a Christian context is insufficient to prove a Christian identity. Hence, it is hard to understand, for instance, why in the translation overseen by Moreschini (2003: 695, n. 16) the phrase mundi sensilis fabricator would be designated as Christian, given that it contains nothing that would sound odd to a non-Christian Platonist.19 Conversely, there are glaring gaps in Calcidius’ word choice if his allegiance to Christianity were strong. Although he uses verbs such as facere to refer to the divine agency of making of the world – a word intimately related to the notion of a Demiurge – creare/creatio in this sense is noticeably absent (an absence that is especially striking in chs. 276–278, more on this below, section 15.4). He does use creator as a designation for the Demiurge.20 Creatio is a relatively rare word in Antiquity, which, however, did gain currency with Calcidius’ Christian contemporaries.21 Calcidius’ favored term, instead, is exornatio, a Latin equivalent for diakosmēsis, which suits both the Timaeus, as portraying a Demiurge imposing order on a receptacle with disorderly motions, and Stoic cosmology in which Providence is central (see section 8.1 and ch. 12 in this study).

15.3

The Hebrews

In addition to the traces of Christianity discussed so far Calcidius includes passages from Genesis and the Hebrew Scriptures in his commentary. To conclude, as Moreschini does, from the presence of these passages that Calcidius must have been a Christian, however, begs the question.22 We know of a well-established interest in the Hebrew Scriptures on the part of 19 20

21 22

See also the discussion of the phrase quae fiunt quaeque nascuntur (ch. 23) in section 4.2 in this study, n. 7. See Calcidius’ translation of Timaeus 42e and chs. 132 (creator omnium et conseruator deus) and 146. In his translation of 49c, he uses creare in a broader sense (aer porro exustus ignem creat; see also his translation of 51a, with the passive creatum; chs. 79, 215). As John Magee has pointed out to me, the usage in ch. 215 applies to Epicurean atoms “creating” soul (anima), and thus Calcidius uses creare for processes in natural philosophy. A word search reveals that it is attested for Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, and in texts attributed to Firmicus Maternus and Marius Victorinus, among others. Moreschini 2002: 435–437; 2003: xxxi; 2017; 270–275.

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non-Christian thinkers, such as Numenius and Porphyry, who included the Hebrews in their overview of wisdom traditions.23 According to Origen,24 Numenius “the Pythagorean” included the Jews in his synthesis of wisdom traditions in his work On the Good, as endorsing the notion of an incorporeal god, and “did not hesitate to quote the sayings of the prophets in his book and to give them an allegorical interpretation” (trans. Chadwick). So, the mere fact of the inclusion of such passages in Calcidius’ commentary does not in itself help us settle the question of his identity. Nor can we automatically assume that Calcidius must have had access to this material only through the mediation of a Christian source such as Origen.25 Perhaps we can take this issue a step further.26 The view which, according to Calcidius, Numenius attributes to Pythagoras and endorses himself, namely that matter in its disordered state is ungenerated and inhabited by an evil primary soul, is summarized in ch. 300 of the commentary. (1) In the summary (ch. 300) this view is given support by a claim attributed to the Hebrews that God breathed only the rational soul into human beings, but that the irrational soul deriving from matter (ex silva) was given to the irrational animals. (2) In the section on the Hebrew view of matter, Calcidius presents Origen as claiming that the translation “but the earth was in a certain state of dumb admiration” (terra autem stupida quadam erat admiratione, ch. 276, 280.9–12) is closer to the Hebrew original. In the subsequent overview of the different interpretations of “heaven” and “earth” (ch. 278),27 this reading recurs: The phrase, “in a state of dumb admiration,” on the other hand, identifies a certain power or likeness to soul, since it was struck dumb by the majesty of its craftsman and maker. (ch. 278, 283.6–8)28

23

24 25 26 28

See e.g. Numenius F1a, 9–10, 13, 30, 56; for an excellent discussion of the issue, see Zambon 2002 and Boys-Stones 2001; ps.-Longinus, Subl. 9.9; Galen, UP 11.14, on the latter see Brisson 2002. According to Origen, C. Cels. 4.51 (F10a des Places), Numenius even includes “a story about Jesus” in his On the Good, though without mentioning his name. For a critical assessment of Numenius’ appreciation for and knowledge of the Hebrews, see Edwards 1990. See also Eusebius on Amelius’ allusion to the beginning of the Gospel of John, PE 11.19; I owe this last reference to an anonymous reviewer. Origen, C. Cels. 1.15 = F1b des Places. As Beatrice 1999 does, but rightly challenged by Moreschini 2003: xxxii–xxxv and 2002. See also Bakhouche 2018: 224–225, 230–232. 27 See section 10.2 in this study. “Stupidae” uero ex “admiratione” significatio animae uim quandam similitudinem declarat, siquidem opificis et auctoritas sui maiestate capta stuperet.

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The “soul” which is “struck dumb,” associated with earth, here stands for the lower, irrational soul. So, this evidence suggests that Calcidius interprets Origen’s rendering “but the earth was in a certain state of dumb admiration” (Gen. 1.2a, ch. 276) with reference to some lower, irrational soul intimately connected to matter (ch. 278), that is, Numenius’ view.29 Moreover, Numenius’ view as summarized in ch. 300 is in turn supported by a position endorsed by the Hebrews that also includes the notion of a lower, irrational soul derived from matter. In other words, it appears that Calcidius reads material he found in Origen from the perspective of Numenius’ position, and not the other way around. Can we glean more information from the manner in which Calcidius refers to the Hebrews? First, the views “of the Hebrews” do not always meet with his unmitigated approval; second, some passages are cited merely as being in agreement with the philosophical views he summarizes; and, last but not least, often these passages are merely integrated into doxographical overviews without having much of an effect on the commentary as a whole. We find notable disagreements in the doxographies on the human soul (ch. 219) and matter (chs. 276–278). In his treatment of the human soul, Calcidius takes issue with the Hebrews’ association between blood, as the vital principle, and the soul. As long as this association is restricted to the lower, irrational soul, Calcidius avers, it is acceptable, but the rational soul has been breathed by God directly into the human beings he made (Reydams-Schils 2002a). To provide an even more telling example: a section on the Hebrews’ view of matter, to which we will return in the next chapter, belongs with the position that matter is generated, which Calcidius entirely sets aside because he opts for considering matter ungenerated. In a number of instances, Calcidius points out that the Hebrews “agree” with a view already laid out; his preferred verb for this agreement is concinere. Thus, the Hebrews are said to agree with the view that the heavenly bodies too must be ensouled and rational (ch. 130: Hebraeorum quoque sententia concinit), and to have their version of a lower, irrational 29

Hence I disagree with van Winden 1981: 461, who claims that this is Origen’s own interpretation of the translation; on the contrary, this is how Calcidius interprets it in the context of his treatise on matter, having in mind Numenius’ view of the connection between a lower, evil soul and matter. With this alternative, and much simpler, hypothesis we do not need to have recourse to Valentinian Gnosis as recorded by Irenaeus and echoed by Tertullian (van Winden 1981: 462–466). For the question of the connection between Wisdom and matter, see below, section 15.4.

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soul issuing from matter (ch. 300). The latter claim, as mentioned already, aligns with Calcidius’ representation of Numenius’ view,30 from which he also ultimately distances himself. So, the Hebrews would in this important respect agree with a view attributed to Numenius (here not named explicitly, but grouped with alii), and Calcidius, in the end, would disagree with both. When Calcidius merely inserts a view of the Hebrews in doxographical overviews, he uses a minimal connective such as (quo)que, which makes the quote seem like an item in a list (as in chs. 171, 219). In his exposition devoted to fate, for instance, divine warnings from Hebrew Scriptures are listed among other stock examples (ch. 171; see also ch. 154), and prophets are listed side by side with Socrates and Aristides as examples of the just having suffered wrongly (ch. 172). Curiously his mode of operating here seems to be the reverse of Origen’s in his Contra Celsum: whereas the latter occasionally brings in a non-Christian example in a discourse dominated by Christian views, Calcidius merely integrates some instances from Hebrew Scriptures in his overviews. Despite his manifest respect for this wisdom tradition (ch. 55: eminens quaedam doctrina sectae sanctioris et in comprehensione diuinae rei prudentioris), these passages have little or no impact on the general gist of his commentary. Moreover, nowhere does Calcidius claim that Plato’s views and the Greek philosophical tradition are merely derivative and dependent on an older Hebrew tradition, a standard trope in Christian texts. One potential exception to this general pattern in his use of the “Hebrews” could be Calcidius’ adoption of the notion that god “breathed” the rational soul into humans,31 in his rendering of Plato’s account of the origin of the soul (ch. 26: de inspiratione animae; ch. 55). But this theme is central also to Philo of Alexandria’s view of the human soul (as in Opif. 135). And given that the role of Philo in Calcidius’ commentary is intimately linked to that of Origen, we can now turn our attention to an entire section in the commentary which scholars claim Calcidius culled directly from Origen’s lost Commentary on Genesis.

15.4 Calcidius and Origen In these three chapters (276–278) Calcidius discusses a view of matter as being generated which he attributes to the Hebrews, based on Genesis.32 30 31 32

See ch. 13 in this study. Moreschini 2003: 698, n. 37, picking up on Waszink’s suggestion in his edition. See also section 10.3 in this study.

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He quotes translations by Aquila and Symmachus, as well as a version of Genesis 1:2a that he attributes to Origen, though it is not attested in Origen’s extant work (van Winden 1981). He explains that, although matter is generated, this generation does not have to be understood in a temporal sense, but rather in terms of matter’s dependence on God. Ch. 277 goes on to clarify that the heaven and earth first mentioned in Genesis are not the same as the heaven and earth of the physical universe. Ch. 278 then lists three different interpretations of this primordial heaven–earth pair, including one from Philo of Alexandria (282.7–11): (1) heaven and earth stand for the intelligible models of our heaven and earth (Philo); (2) heaven stands for intelligible reality and earth for the foundation of sensible and corporeal reality, i.e. matter (attributed to alii); (3) a view which Calcidius introduces in a first-person voice, opinor, which posits a distinction between earth/corporeal matter (silua corporea) and heaven/ intelligible matter (silua intellegibilis). It is not entirely clear how the third view relates to the second. We do not need to assume that Calcidius merely adopts the opinor from his source;33 it may indicate his handling of his source(s). The exposition is quite lapidary, and Calcidius appears to have abbreviated his material (for a full discussion, see van Winden 1959: 52–66). How much of this section should be attributed to Origen? Charlotte Köckert has made the strongest case to date for the view that the entire section goes back to Origen.34 But given the speculative nature of her reconstruction, there is room for doubt. The main point of interest here is that the section betrays more traces of Philo of Alexandria than the one view Calcidius explicitly attributes to him, or than scholars have realized (including Runia 1993: 281–290). In the opening chapter of this section of the commentary (ch. 276, after his discussion of the different translations) Calcidius discusses a view which he attributes to the Hebrews, namely, that they consider matter to be generated. This generation, however, is not to be interpreted in a temporal sense, but as the eternal dependence of matter on God.35 To illustrate this point, Calcidius goes on to discuss the eternal relationship between God and Wisdom. The phrase “that there cannot have been any time in which 33 34

35

As he does in ch. 280, 311.8 in a passage derived from Aristotle; there are other instances of his use of the first-person voice: see ch. 1 in this study. Köckert 2009: 224–311, esp. 229–237. See also my review in Reydams-Schils 2012. On the basis of Köckert’s analysis, chs. 276–278 from Calcidius’ commentary have been included in the collection of fragments from Origen’s lost commentary on Genesis by Metzler 2010: 47–53 (under category C, that is among the testimonia about the content of Origen’s commentary; see also Metzler 2005). Heine 2005 does not include these chapters in his overview. A crucial point overlooked by Alexandre 1976: 178–179.

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God was without Wisdom” (trans. van Winden), used to underscore a non-temporal sense of principle (initium), posits a major theological and ontological problem. The parallels in Origen, which both the editor of the text, Waszink, and Köckert adduce, describe the relationship between God the Father and Christ. But in and of itself this relationship can do nothing to illuminate the status of matter.36 Hence van Winden (1959: 57) was probably right in positing as a missing link in Calcidius’ argument something along the lines of Tertullian’s claim that Wisdom is the “matter of matters” (Adv. Herm. 34.22–25 Waszink). But there is another candidate for this role. Philo applies designations for matter derived from the Timaeus, such as “(foster)mother” and “receptacle,” to knowledge, ἐπιστήμη (Ebr. 30–31), suggesting that as a feminine principle in relation to God as father and maker of the universe, knowledge takes on a role analogous to that of matter.37 Like Calcidius, Philo uses Proverbs 8.22 to underscore this claim, albeit in a different version of the text. Calcidius or his source(s), in other words, could be drawing from an older Jewish wisdom tradition, which also underlies a view such as Tertullian’s, but which predates Christian views about the rapport between the second and the first persons of the Trinity. As such the passage would not have to be interpreted as referring to this specific Christian concern. Philo too dwells on the distinction between heaven and earth of the first day of generation, and between the firmament and dry earth mentioned later in the Genesis account (Opif. 36; cf. also 29). But there are even more traces of Philo to be found. The claim at the end of ch. 278 of Calcidius’ commentary, that God, unlike human artisans, is the kind of Maker who creates his own material, and in the exactly sufficient amount, is attested, rightly or wrongly, for Philo, in the fragment of his De prouidentia preserved by Eusebius (PE 7.21) right after an excerpt from Origen on the same topic (PE 7.20). Thus, views that can be connected to Philo run through this entire section of the commentary. But if we have succeeded in pushing back the influence for some of these passages from Origen to Philo of Alexandria, perhaps this latter connection would still point to a Christian identity for Calcidius. Apart from the fact that Calcidius may have found this Philonic material in Origen, is it not the case that in Antiquity Philo is quoted and used primarily, if not exclusively, by Christian authors? Though we do not have definitive 36 37

A problem overlooked by Moreschini 2003: 761, n. 743, but registered by Bakhouche 2014 and 2018: 226, 229. Here I endorse Dillon’s interpretation (1977: 164) pace Runia 1986: 285–286 (with further bibliography there).

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proof, there is at least one non-Christian thinker who is likely to have known Philo: Numenius,38 who, as we have seen,39 is essential to the commentary as a whole. But regardless of how one would disentangle the question of Calcidius’ sources, this section of his commentary presents an interpretation that does not have to contain any specifically Christian views, as distinct, that is, from claims that were circulating also in Hellenistic Judaism.40 38 39 40

According to Runia 1993: 8–12, another plausible candidate would be Plotinus. See section 7.3 and ch. 13 in this study. Bakhouche, 2014: 354, agrees with this conclusion: “At this time point of our study, it is hard to corroborate the hypothesis of the filiation of the Calcidian [sic] text with Origen’s Commentary on Genesis. A Judeo-Greek source is more probable, itself influenced by philosophical interpretation.” Bakhouche 2018 makes the case for an influence of the Sethians, but I think that the Philo affiliation presents a simpler hypothesis.

chapter 16

Calcidius Christianus? (2) God, Matter, and Creation

If we turn our attention now from more formal features of the commentary, that is, the manner in which Calcidius presents his material, to content, what light can his views of the divine and matter shed on the question of his Christian identity? Put succinctly, there is nothing specifically Christian about Calcidius’ views of the divine, and his view of the role of matter runs directly contrary to any Christian notion of creation, let alone creatio ex nihilo.

16.1 God To remind ourselves, this is the structure of the divine which Calcidius adopts,1 based on chs. 176–177 and 188: first god

second god first mind

\

third god second mind World Soul

/ Demiurge

For most of the commentary “god” stands for a demiurge who seems to unite the first and the second god from Calcidius’ hierarchy, and the World Soul is the third god. Even if we allow for the facts that, for an extended period in Christian thinking, and long after the Council of Nicaea, the exact relation between God the Father and Christ as the second person of the Trinity continued to hover between identity and subordination, and that Calcidius’ view of the close connection yet difference between his first and second god could, to some extent, be compatible with the range of Christian views, we would be 1

See also ch. 7 in this study.

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hard pressed to find any traces of specifically Christian Trinitarian doctrine in his commentary. Eusebius, in his Praeparatio Evangelica (11.20.1–3), for instance, notes a potential parallel between the three Christian divine persons and Platonic triadic structures. But all he does, really, is to juxtapose the two systems very succinctly, without commenting on similarities or differences. The earlier Origen, for his part, went further in providing such information, and this passage is worth quoting in full (see also Kritikos 2007): (1) Let us now move on and briefly investigate whatever we can about the Holy Spirit. (2) All who feel that providence exists in one way or another, that God is unbegotten, and that he created and arranged the universe also confess and acknowledge that he is the parent of the entirety. (3) We are not the only ones to proclaim that he has a Son, although this would seem quite shocking and incredible to those so-called philosophers, Greeks and barbarian alike. Several of them, however, seem to hold this opinion when they confess that all things were created by God’s Word and Reason.2 . . . (4) No one, though, could have had any clue about the Holy Spirit’s subsistence except those who were versed in the law and prophets, and who professed to have faith in Christ. (Princ. 1.3.1, trans. Storin)3 Origen states clearly that from his point of view, there is considerable common ground between Christianity and the philosophical tradition on the first two persons of the Trinity. Like Calcidius he uses allusions to the Timaeus and its history of interpretation in a framework that heavily emphasizes Providence.4 Drawing on the famous designation of the Demiurge as Maker and Father of the kosmos (28c), Origen highlights the role of God as a parent (parentem), in line with the Christian notion of 2 3

See also Origen, C. Cels. 6.8: Plato has the notion of the Son of God, based on Ep. 6 323d; and Clement, Strom. 5.102 (see also the previous ch. in this study). 1) Consequens igitur est nunc, ut de spiritu sancto quam possumus breuiter requiramus. 2) Et omnes quidem qui quoquomodo prouidentiam esse sentiunt, deum esse ingenitum, qui uniuersa creauit atque disposuit, confitentur eumque parentem uniuersitatis agnoscunt. 3) Huic tamen esse filium non nos soli pronuntiamus, quamuis satis hoc et mirum et incredulum uideatur his, qui apud Graecos uel barbaros philosophari uidentur; tamen a nonnullis etiam ipsorum habita eius uidetur opinio, cum uerbo dei uel ratione creata esse omnia confitentur. 4)

4

... De subsistentia uero spiritus sancti ne suspicionem quidam ullam habere quis potuit praeter eos, qui in lege et prophetis uersati sunt, uel eos, qui se Christo credere profitentur.

See section 8.1 in this study.

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the first person of the Trinity. Moreover, in his Contra Celsum (6.60) Origen calls God the Father the primary Demiurge (πρώτως δημιουργός) and the Son the immediate Demiurge (προσεχῶς δημιουργός). In his treatment of the second person, Origen, unlike Calcidius,5 does not focus on the notion of children of God, but instead on the role of the Logos in the creation of the universe, which in the Latin translation of his work is rendered by the hendiadys uerbo . . . uel ratione. Calcidius for his part, in his translation of the Timaeus (29a4–b2) uses ratio prudentiaque. He transfers Plato’s phrase πρὸς τὸ λόγῳ καὶ φρονήσει περιληπτὸν, “after that which is grasped by a rational account” (trans. Zeyl), from the cognitive functions with which intelligible reality can be grasped (by any rational being) to functions of the Demiurge himself, described as ille auctor maximus, which the latter uses to adapt the world as image to the intelligible realm as model.6 Ratkowitsch (1996: 143–144) sees in Calcidius’ phrase a reference to Logos and Providence, but translating phronēsis with prudentia in this context may imply rather that Calcidius has a form of “practical reasoning” in mind. Be that as it may, by Ratkowitsch’s own admission, the phrase ratio prudentiaque is not unique to Christian writers. It is actually more telling than Ratkowitsch seems to realize (144 n. 17) that this wording shows up in Cicero’s account of the Stoic view of the gods in his De natura deorum (2.79), with its systematic emphasis on divine Providence. As we have seen, a significant Stoic strand of thinking about the divine has been coopted in Calcidius’ Platonist triad and his notion of Providence.7 It is true that subtle shifts in Calcidius’ translation of the Timaeus bring out a more unified sense of the divine than the original displays. But Plato’s account in its own right lends itself to this kind of shift: in the second half he often switches to the singular “god,” despite the fact that the Demiurge has delegated the fashioning of the irrational human soul functions, the human body, and the lower life forms to a group of younger gods (as in 71a7, e3, 73b8, etc.). Moreover, in the tradition of interpreting the Timaeus, 5 6

7

Ch. 219, see section 15.2 in this study. Plato’s version: παντὶ δὴ σαφὲς ὅτι πρὸς τὸ ἀίδιον· ὁ μὲν γὰρ κάλλιστος τῶν γεγονότων, ὁ δ’ ἄριστος τῶν αἰτίων. οὕτω δὴ γεγενημένος πρὸς τὸ λόγῳ καὶ φρονήσει περιληπτὸν καὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἔχον δεδημιούργηται· τούτων δὲ ὑπαρχόντων αὖ πᾶσα ἀνάγκη τόνδε τὸν κόσμον εἰκόνα τινὸς εἶναι. Calcidius’ version: Quod cum sit rationis alienum, liquet opificem deum uenerabilis exempli normam in constituendo mundo secutum: quippe hic generatorum omnium speciosissimus, ille auctor maximus, operisque sui ratione prudentiaque his quae semper eadem existent accommodatus imago est, opinor, alterius. See section 8.1 and ch. 12 in this study.

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among both Platonists and Stoics, a more unified sense of the divine increasingly came to the fore – as with Cicero’s translation (Lévy 2003), which shows traces of Hellenistic debates. Aspects of that interpretive tradition have grafted themselves onto Calcidius’ rendering of the Timaeus. So, if Calcidius can be ranked among those whom Origen would see as sharing some key features of a Christian theology of the first two persons of the Trinity, Origen’s claim about the third person, the Holy Spirit, is also highly relevant, but for an opposite reason: only a Christian, he avers, could have the notion of the Holy Spirit.8 In Calcidius’ commentary we can find no trace of the Holy Spirit, in spite of his triadic structure of the divine. Even if one takes into account the fact that the exact role of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity took even longer to settle than that of the second person, and that there were Christian sects that denied the importance of the Holy Spirit, this absence in Calcidius’ account is striking. But in this case, we are not merely dealing with silence: key features of Calcidius’ view of the divine leave no room for an inclusion of the Holy Spirit. Although earlier in his account Calcidius posits a transcendent, purely noetic primary soul – which is prior to the World Soul in a causative, not a temporal sense, i.e. the World Soul depends on it – when he presents his triadic structure of the divine, that soul appears to have been subsumed under his second god. The World Soul, which he calls second mind and third god, is not a good candidate to represent the Holy Spirit because, unlike the two higher entities, the World Soul straddles the dualist divide in Calcidius’ universe: it is not purely noetic, but is also related to a lower soul that is the “inseparable companion of bodies,” which is prior to it. In the World Soul, in other words, the two coexisting structures of the divine, on the one hand, and of factors clustering around matter, on the other, meet – a view that is widespread in pre-Plotinian Platonism.9 Even a limited number of examples from the Christian tradition can show what is at stake here. The tribute of Gregory Thaumatourgos to Origen provides useful counterevidence for discerning what is distinctive about Calcidius’ approach. This account is saturated with the Greek philosophical tradition, and, moreover, it explicitly raises the question of the value of this type of learning, as made clear also by a letter from Origen to Gregory. Gregory tells us (13.151) that Origen exposed his students to the widest range of poets and philosophers (leaving aside only “atheist” 8

On this topic see especially Ziebritzki 1994.

9

See section 5.1 in this study.

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thinkers) both to familiarize his students with this thought, but also to prevent any attachment to a specific school. One could easily read large portions of Gregory’s tribute as reflecting primarily a non-Christian philosophical strand of thinking, yet when it comes to the divine (4.35–39), a Christian point of view unmistakably asserts itself. Terminology derived from the interpretive tradition of the Timaeus is interspersed in the account: we have the one God and father, the language of kingship, of Providence, and of Demiurge. But the entire passage, which does not include a reference to the Holy Spirit, is centered on the relationship of the second person of the Trinity with the first. Logos – here called animated, or “empsuchos” – and Wisdom are the key names of the Son. The passage also reflects Christian worship (eucharistia) and soteriology. In the example from Gregory Thaumatourgos, one could argue, we can find what a Christian co-optation of the Greek philosophical tradition might look like. In Calcidius, by contrast, we merely have a Platonist framework with some features also found in Christian authors. The fact that some features of this framework appear in Christian authors does not make the framework itself Christian, in the context of Calcidius’ commentary.10 My second example comes from an author and text that provide a relatively secure ground for the assumption of a crypto-Christian identity, based on other preserved writings of his: Boethius in his De consolatione philosophiae (Reydams-Schils 2002a). Despite the time gap between Calcidius and Boethius, and the considerable differences in their cultural contexts, and apart from the question of sources, the comparison is useful and revealing because of the absence in both texts of controversies over Christian Trinitarian doctrine, because of the importance of the Timaeus for Boethius’ worldview as well, and because of parallels in thoughtpatterns and structures of argument. Both Boethius and Calcidius posit that the mind of god is eternal, and hence does not “run ahead in seeing and grasping future outcomes” (praecurrit in uidendo atque intellegendo prouentus futuros in Calcidius’ wording, ch. 176); they also agree that Providence encompasses Fate, so that whatever comes under Fate also falls under Providence, but not the other way around. Boethius’ account (4.6.7ff.) includes all the agents of Calcidius’ worldview: mind, Providence, Fate, the World Soul, nature, the heavenly bodies, angels, and demons. Yet the onto-theological structure Boethius adopts is radically 10

On this issue, see also Köckert 2010.

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different. Boethius makes it clear that there is only one god, who is the highest mind and whose agency we can perceive diversely according to the realm to which it is applied. Boethius covers a series of possible intermediaries through which the divine order may operate, but his lack of commitment to any one of these is striking. Both accounts are monist, in the sense that the highest divine principle does anchor all of reality – with some important qualifications concerning Calcidius’ highest god, though, more on this below – but Boethius’ view is also monotheistic, whereas Calcidius’, I have argued, is not.11 If the second and the third persons of the Christian Trinity are absent from Boethius’ exposition, it is because, one could argue, he focuses here on what would be the equivalent of the first person, or perhaps on the central meaning of “god” common to all three persons. Calcidius, by contrast, does opt for a triadic structure for the divine, but a Platonist one, which in key respects differs radically from a Christian counterpart. Thus, it is much easier to see how Boethius’ account might be compatible with a Christian perspective. This conclusion is underscored by other differences between the two accounts. Let us return to two crucial claims in Calcidius’ view of the relation between Providence, that is, the “second god” and also “first mind,” in his terms, and the ordered universe, which we have analyzed before in the chapter on Providence and Fate:12 i. iuxta hanc legem, id est fatum, omnia reguntur, secundum propriam quaeque naturam (ch. 177: according to this law, that is, Fate, everything is ruled, each according to its own nature). ii. quod deus sciat quidem omnia, sed unumquidque pro natura sua ipsorum sciat (that god knows everything, but each according to its own nature; ch. 162: everything is known, each according to its own nature). Boethius would agree with the first claim, “that each thing is ruled according to its own nature,” but, like other Platonists,13 takes a very different route for the second claim, not building on the nature of the object of knowledge, but instead on the nature of the knower: “all men believe that the totality of their knowledge is obtained solely from the impact and nature of things known. But the reality is wholly different: all that becomes known is apprehended not by this impact, but rather by the capability of those who grasp it” (5.4.24–25),14 or, “Given that . . . all that is 11 13 14

12 See section 7.4 in this study. See sections 2.4 and 8.4 in this study. See section 2.4 in this study. Cuius erroris causa est quod omnia quae quisque nouit ex ipsorum tantum ui atque natura cognosci aestimat quae sciuntur. Quod totum contra est; omne enim quod cognoscitur non secundum sui uim sed secundum cognoscentium potius comprehenditur facultatem.

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known is known not through its own nature but through the nature of those who apprehend it, let us now, in so far as divine law allows, examine what is the nature of the divine being, so that we may likewise come to know what his knowledge is” (5.6.1, trans. Walsh).15 From this follows the famous development that: since god’s status is abidingly eternal and in the present, his knowledge too transcends all movement in time. It [god’s knowledge] abides in the simplicity of its present, embraces the boundless extent of past and future, and by virtue of its simple comprehension, it ponders all things as if they were enacted in the present. Hence your judgment will be more correct should you seek to envisage the foresight by which God discerns all things not as a sort of foreknowledge of the future, but as knowledge of the unceasingly present moment. (5.6.15–17, trans. Walsh)16

What matters for my purposes here is the combination of Boethius’ monotheism, that is, the absence of different levels of hypostases in his onto-theology, with his stance on God’s mode of knowing, which preserves divine omnipotence. What can we learn from this comparison between Boethius and Calcidius? Calcidius worries about how to make fate limited and defined, even though it encompasses an infinite number of events (ch. 148), a concern not shared by Boethius; Calcidius too rejects the interpretation of Providence as priority in time, but does not follow up on the potential of the specific mode of god’s knowledge, because he embraces the position that things are known according to their own nature, rather than according to the nature of the knower. Consequently, the knower-god’s, that is Providence’s, knowledge of contingent matters turns out to be restricted somehow, because he knows them as contingent. Calcidius’ Providence, in any case, is in turn dependent on a higher divine principle in an explicit delineation of different even if related levels of god. In addition to Ratkowitsch’s analysis of Calcidius’ Latin terms for the divine, Benz (1932: 343–350) tried to build the case for a Christian connection on the notion of the “will of god” in Calcidius’ schema. Let us recall 15

16

Quoniam igitur, uti paulo ante monstratum est, omne quod scitur non ex sua sed ex comprehendentium natura cognoscitur, intueamur nunc quantum fas est quis sit diuinae substantiae status, ut quaenam etiam scientia eius sit possimus agnoscere. Quoniam igitur omne iudicium secundum sui naturam quae sibi subiecta sunt comprehendit, est autem deo semper aeternus ac praesentarius status, scientia quoque eius omnem temporis supergressa motionem in suae manet simplicitate praesentiae infinitaque praeteriti ac futuri spatia complectens omnia quasi iam gerantur in sua simplici cognitione considerat. Itaque si praeuidentiam pensare uelis qua cuncta dinoscit, non esse praescientiam quasi futuri sed scientiam numquam deficientis instantiae rectius aestimabis.

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how Calcidius applies the phrase “the will of god” to the relation between his first and his second deity: And so men refer to this will of God, this wise guardianship, as it were, of all things as “Providence.” (ch. 176; see also ch. 144; see also ch. 7 in this study)

The “will of God” does play an important role in Christian accounts of creation. A standard formula appears to have been that the universe was created “through the Son (second person of the Trinity) in accordance with the will of the Father,”17 and we have instances in which Christ himself is called the will of the Father.18 But the notion of the will is, after all, present in the famous phrase from the Demiurge’s speech, who promises through his will to keep the universe from falling apart, and was already brought to the fore by the Middle Platonist Alcinous, with the statement that god “by his own will has filled all things with himself.”19 More importantly the notion also received a crucial impetus from Stoic quarters.20 In light of the evidence examined, we find ourselves on ice too thin to claim with any confidence, as Moreschini does (2003: 722, n. 275), that Calcidius’ calculation of the number of demons as three times ten thousand (ch. 134) contains an oblique reference to the Trinity. Given the widespread importance of triadic structures and interest in numerology,21 such a claim would only make sense if we could find clear evidence of the Trinity in Calcidius’ treatment of the different manifestations of the divine. On the assumption that Calcidius is a Christian, one could read such a calculation as an allusion to the Trinity, but it is precisely that assumption that is debatable. This specific number, three times ten thousand, in fact, goes back all the way to Hesiod (Op. 252–253), as Calcidius explicitly acknowledges (etiam Hesiodo placet), and shows up in other accounts of demonology as well (as in Maximus of Tyre, Or. 8.8). 17 18 19 20

21

As in Clement, Strom. 5.103.1–2: τὸν υἱὸν δὲ δεύτερον, δι’ οὗ “πάντα ἐγένετο” κατὰ βούλησιν τοῦ πατρός. As in Athanasius, C. Ar. 3.63, 65. Alcinous, Didask. 10, 164.42–165.1: κατὰ γὰρ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ βούλησιν ἐμπέπληκε πάντα ἑαυτοῦ; cf. Reydams-Schils 1999: 201; see also Atticus, F4 des Places, and section 8.1 in this study. See, for instance, Cicero, Nat. d. 1.19, 3.70; Plutarch, Stoic. rep. 1056C; Comm. not. 1076E; Marcus Aurelius 6.40, 9.1; ps.-Plutarch, Fat. 572F; Diogenianus in Eusebius, PE 6.8.8; Bobzien 1998: 45. For a recent reassessment of the importance of divine will for Atticus, see Petrucci 2018: 120. Marius Victorinus (Rhet. 1.24) attests to a debate between Christians and the non-Christian tradition on the notion of the divine will and its relation to nature. As Bakhouche (2011 II: 737, nn. 102–103) rightly points out.

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16.2 Creation and Matter If in Calcidius’ views of the divine we already find features that cannot easily be reconciled with a Christian framework, we definitely reach a breaking point with his account of the ordering of the world and matter. Calcidius belongs with those Platonists who interpret the making of the world in Plato’s Timaeus allegorically, as rendering in temporal terms what are in reality structures of causal dependence in an eternally existing universe.22 Thus, the World Soul is eternal, but it is causally dependent on a supra-sensible, purely noetic soul or a second god that is nous (and through him on the highest deity Calcidius posits) and is also related to a lower cosmic soul.23 There is no room for a creation account in Calcidius’ commentary,24 and this feature also explains why he prefers exornatio and eschews the use of creatio.25 If we are looking for what Christians from the milieu of Milan (allegedly contemporary with Calcidius, according to Waszink 1962 and Courcelle 1973) think of a worldview such as the one Calcidius endorses, Ambrose obliges with a succinct but potent rejection: “What . . . would be more inconvenient than . . . to associate the eternity of the work [= the world] with the eternity of the omnipotent God?”26 Finally, as we have seen,27 in his minimal dualism Calcidius posits matter as a second principle (archē/initium), side by side with the ordering system of the divine in his universe. If we follow the doxographical division of the treatise on matter (which Calcidius also weaves into his excursus on the human soul) Calcidius moves on from the view that matter is generated (chs. 276–278), to the view that it is not (ch. 279). When he turns to Plato’s position (ch. 300), he again explicitly criticizes those Platonists who assume matter to be generated. Why would even an allegorical reading of “generated,” in which matter is causally dependent on god, a view he attributes to the Hebrews (chs. 276–278), not do for Calcidius? If matter is merely eternal, while dependent on God, it cannot be a principle in its own right, and Calcidius unequivocally endorses the latter view. It is worth noting that with such a move he sets aside not only the position which he attributes to the Hebrews – including the claim that God himself made sufficient matter 22 24 26 27

23 See ch. 4 in this study. See section 5.1 in this study. Pace Ratkowitsch 1996: 149 and 153, Bakhouche 2011 I: 43. 25 See section 15.2 in this study. Hex. 1.1.2: Quid . . . tam inconueniens quam . . . aeternitatem operis cum dei omnipotentis [coniungere] aeternitate? I owe this reference to Galonnier 2009: 204. See also Courcelle 1973. See ch. 9 in this study.

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for the creation of the world – but also a view of matter defended by Platonists from Plotinus onwards, explicitly advanced by Porphyry,28 and already present in Eudorus.29 Calcidius’ stance, for all intents and purposes, blocks the way for any notion of a creatio ex nihilo. But could the argument hold that just as Calcidius harks back to a prePlotinian phase in Platonism (with the exception of Eudorus), so also he could have recourse to an earlier stage of Christian teachings? The problem with this assumption is that, whereas we might already need to posit a time lag between the developments in Platonism and Calcidius’ fourth-century work, that time lag would be considerably greater in the case of the Christian tradition: already at the end of the second century CE, with writers such as Theophilus (May 1994: 156–163), Christian authors firmly reject the idea that matter eternally coexists with God.30 Let us turn one final time to a counterexample, from the first book of Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John (1.90–124), in which he discusses the meaning of “beginning.”31 According to his Contra Celsum (6.49), Origen also treated this question in his Commentary on Genesis, the work scholars have posited as a main source for Calcidius’ section on the Hebrews (chs. 276–278).32 Like Calcidius, Origen discusses several senses of the word “beginning,” but he explicitly mentions that this is a common theme: “It’s not just the Greeks who claim that the designation ‘beginning’ has many different meanings” (1.16.90). The range of meanings Origen discusses, however, is much wider and more complex than what we find in Calcidius. Origen uses the notion of Demiurge (as in 17.102),33 applies it to Christ (19.110–111), and goes even as far as to stipulate that created beings are made “according to” (kata) the Son, who is himself the image of God the Father (17.105). But Origen also leaves no doubt that among the many names applying to the second person of the Trinity, for him the central designations of Christ are Wisdom, Logos, Life, and Truth 28 29

30

31 33

See section 14.2 (3) in this study. See also F368 Smith, quoted by Aeneas of Gaza precisely in support of the Christian position on matter; cf. also Proclus, In Tim. 2, I 391.12–393.2; 3, II 102.7–11 Diehl. I owe these references to Köckert 2009: 195–200. On Eudorus, see Simplicius, In Arist. Phys. 181 Diels. Edwards (2015: 54) misinterprets the phrase that “God is the opifex or articifer of matter” (ch. 311, silvae opifex; in a response to the Stoics): this phrase does not mean that the Demiurge made matter too, but rather, as the remainder of the paragraph makes explicit, that through the forms he imposed order on matter (opifex siluae formas insigniet). As Moreschini (2017: 259) points out, in Justin Martyr (Apol. 1.10.2; see also 59.3) and Athenagoras of Athens (10.3; 15.2–3; 22.2) one can still detect the view that matter coexists with God; for a good overview see also Pépin 1964: 57. Cf. Köckert 2009: 240–247. 32 See section 15.4 in this study. See also F1 Preuschen from the Com. Jn.

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(20.123). Of these, Wisdom, which contains the intelligible models of reality (19.114), here appears to be the primary designation of Christ in himself as principle (19.118), whereas Logos describes him in his rapport with God the Father. Last but not least, Origen, though he may not yet have a fully developed account of creatio ex nihilo in all its implications, explicitly rejects the notion of a coeternal matter. He distinguishes his in-group of “believers,” “us” (πὰρ’ ἡμῖν τοῖς πειθομένοις), from a group of “them” (παρὰ τοῖς . . . ἐπισταμένοις), for whom matter is a principle because it is ungenerated (ἀρχὴ παρὰ τοῖς ἀγένητον αὐτὴν ἐπισταμένοις). Believers, Origen avers, hold that God created beings from non-being.34 He is even willing to entertain the notion that the second person of the Trinity, here called “ensouled wisdom” (ἔμψυχον σοφίαν), bestowed existence (ousia) on beings and matter (19.115).35 According to this schema, Calcidius would clearly belong with the group of “them,” whose view on matter Origen, as spokesperson for his community of “believers,” firmly rejects. All of the evidence examined in this and the previous chapter would suggest that Calcidius made only minimal use of a Christian Origen as his source. Even scholars such as Ratkowitsch (1996) who make a case for a Christian identity grant that Calcidius does not present us with a Christianized version of the Timaeus, and Moreschini too admits (2003: lxxx) that “in the end there is very little in Calcidius that identifies him as a Christian.” While Ratkowitsch’s hypothesis that Calcidius wants to lure reluctant pagans with tidbits of Christianity is attractive, the evidence we have lends itself better to the hypothesis that he wants to make the non-Christian philosophical tradition available to Christians. In sum, the commentary was probably written with an audience in mind that also included Christians; it made some concessions to his addressee and that audience, but shows no strong effort to accommodate such sensitivities. Or, to put this point differently, the assumption that Calcidius is a Christian does not do much, if anything at all, to unlock the governing principles of the commentary and clarify the positions Calcidius endorses. To say that the commentary occupies a middle ground between Platonism and Christianity (Moreschini 2002: 440; 2003; xxxix; and 2017) is true up to a certain point, but only if we keep in mind that 34

35

For a similar position, see also Clement of Alexandria, for whom matter is coexistent as mē on, but explicitly not as a principle (Strom. 5.89.6; Lilla 1971: 193–196 and May 1994: 17–18 for this view in Philo of Alexandria); see also section 10.1 in this study . ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ τύπων τοῖς οὖσι καὶ τῇ ὕλῃ τὴν πλάσιν καὶ τὰ εἴδη, ἐγὼ δὲ ἐφίστημι εἰ καὶ τὰς οὐσίας.

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allusions to Christianity are minimal and clearly subordinated to a Platonist framework.36 On the other hand, if we define that so-called “middle ground” too vaguely and too broadly, it risks losing its significance altogether. We have no information about Calcidius as a person, but based on the text we do not even have sufficient evidence, I would argue, for ranking him among the incerti as defined so carefully by Kahlos (2007): there is nothing ambiguous about the Platonist commitments in Calcidius’ account. Thus, it is seriously misleading, from a historical point of view, to reckon Calcidius among Christian Neoplatonists: he was a very different kind of Platonist and his commentary does not present a Christianized account of the order of the world and human beings’ place in it. 36

Hence I do not endorse the view that Calcidius presents some kind of synthesis between Platonism and Christianity, as expressed in Moreschini 2017: 262, 269–270. Nor do I agree with Dronke (2008: xiv–xviii) who sees in Calcidius a “free-seeker.” Such a label would presuppose that Calcidius resisted any potential restrictions imposed on him by Christian teachings, whereas his work presents itself as unaware of such restrictions. Edwards 2015: 54–58 describes Calcidius as a “hybrid” and also calls him a “Christian Platonist” (58).

Conclusion Who Is Calcidius?

So, in the final analysis, in which cultural context should we locate Calcidius given the features of his commentary to which this study has drawn attention? This otherwise unknown author presents himself with a strong and confident awareness, often expressed in the first person, of his role as transmitter of a Greek philosophical legacy through his translation of and commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. He systematically presents Plato as holding the most complete and true view, and appears either critical of or indifferent towards the Platonist tradition, that is, other followers and interpreters of Plato. He uses the Timaeus to give his addressee (and his readers) a thematically arranged overview of “theoretical philosophy,” divided into mathematics (science), physics, and those aspects of theology that fit with the perceived focus of the Timaeus as a discourse on nature. It is also part of Calcidius’ teaching strategy to present complex problems and intricate debates in the philosophical tradition in simplified versions, with an approach we can see at work in the translation as well.1 The view that runs through the entire commentary presents a minimal dualism in an eternally existing world: on the divine side of reality, we find (1) a highest god, (2) a second god and first mind, who represents the will of the first god, and (3) a supra-cosmic noetic soul (which however is not included in Calcidius’ explicit hierarchy of divine levels in chs. 176–177 and 188). In most instances Plato’s Demiurge appears to stand for the first and second god taken together, but with an emphasis on the latter. At the other end of the spectrum, we find (1) a completely neutral matter, which coexists eternally with the divine agents, (2) traces of the elements that introduce motion into matter but that are not full-fledged bodies, and (3) a lower soul, a life-force that is the inseparable companion of bodies. The World Soul, which Calcidius mentions as his third god, is some kind of 1

The absence of Calcidius from socio-cultural collections of essays such as van Hoof and van Nuffelen (2014) on paideia and self-presentation is thus quite striking.

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combination of the purely noetic and the lower soul. The notion of Providence is central to Calcidius’ concept of the ordered universe, but without it undermining, through the edicts of fate, human moral freedom. Given the high status Calcidius grants Plato, he approves of Aristotle when the latter’s views can be interpreted as agreeing with Plato’s and is critical when they cannot. Aristotle thus ends up occupying a middle ground not uncommon in the Platonist tradition. Calcidius’ use of Stoic material, which he appears to know rather well, is much more complex: despite his readily apparent criticism Calcidius (or the source on which he relies for any given section) co-opts important Stoic tenets for his own views. The last third of the commentary, the sub-treatise on matter, presents a strong agreement on the status and role of matter between Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Calcidius represents a fourth-century strand of philosophical commentary in Latin that is not dominated by the reception of Porphyry. The hypothesis that Porphyry is one of the main source-authors behind Calcidius’ work is not tenable. Numenius, on the other hand, does constitute a major influence on Calcidius, but this influence in itself does not tell us whether Calcidius had direct access to his work. Moreover, while Calcidius appears to have relied on him for some features of the general framework of his commentary, he also asserts his independence from Numenius’ interpretation of Plato. Rather than attempting to find the smallest number of master sources possible, this study has highlighted Calcidius’ own hand in the commentary, not only in the consistent line of interpretation which he advances, but also in his structuring of his material. In light of this analysis it is most likely that he had direct access to some texts himself and that he also used a range of compendia and doxographical overviews (with excerpts; Macías Villalobos 2015: 41). The assumption that Calcidius was a Christian himself is highly questionable, even if it is impossible to prove that he was not. His authorial voice is markedly different from that of contemporary Christians who had an interest in philosophy (as well as later ones, such as Synesius and Boethius), and for him Plato’s views present the highest truth. His use of views he attributes to the Hebrews do not point to a Christian identity either, and this realization implies that we should be very cautious with attributing the entire section of the alleged Hebrew view of matter (chs. 276–278) to Origen. In content Calcidius presents his reader with what in essence is the equivalent of a Middle Platonist divine triad and he posits matter as a principle, that is, as a foundational building block of reality that exists co-eternally with divine agency. The

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few explicit references to Christian views make most sense as concessions to his interlocutor, who appears to be a Christian. As John Magee (2016: xiv–xv) has argued, it is clear from the Latin calques of Greek expressions and grammatical structures that Greek was the dominant language for Calcidius. Yet his Latin was good enough to write on the often highly technical subjects of the commentary. He mentions Cicero (chs. 27, 266), Terence (ch. 184), and quotes Vergil (ch. 66; see also ch. 353, Bertolini 1990), but otherwise draws from Greek material. The dominance of an originally Greek linguistic framework complicates attempts at dating the work that are based on style. It also means that we should be wary of locating Calcidius in the Latin West and applying certain expectations for Latin writers to Calcidius (pace Moreschini 2017: 261–262). The arguments which Waszink (1962: xiv–xvii) advanced to situate Calcidius in Milan and Italy in the second half of the fourth century, or even later, in the milieu from which Marius Victorinus, Ambrose, and Augustine emerged, are too tenuous, even though we have an Osius attested for that period and place who could be a match for Calcidius’ addressee (Bakhouche 2011: I 8–13; Magee 2016: viii–xi) – more on this below. An earlier date fits the commentary much better, in the first half of the fourth century, as had traditionally been assumed before Waszink, and has now been reasserted by Dronke (2008: 3–7) and Moreschini (2017). We can use Origen for a terminus post quem, and we can also factor in some delay, that is, assume that Calcidius may not have been fully aware of the latest developments in Platonism and Christianity. But another angle also presents itself here: it is not uncommon in accounts of later Antiquity to find such time lags. In his critiques of Stoicism Plutarch, for instance, appears to limit himself to the founders of that school in the Hellenistic era and does not engage directly with contemporary Stoics, or, in another example, Diogenes Laertius’ thirdcentury Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers does not bring the list up to date with contemporary philosophers either. Moreover, it is worth reminding ourselves in this context that not all later Platonists followed the line of the main thinkers most often studied now. Thus, as Moreschini has convincingly claimed (2003: xix; 2017: 262) not all Platonist works of the fourth century CE necessarily relied on Plotinus and Porphyry (or even Iamblichus) as their primary reference points. In the first print of his edition Waszink had used the terminological similarities between Calcidius and other Latin writers as an argument in favor of a late date, on the basis of the assumption that Calcidius is too

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mediocre a writer and thinker to have been developing new Latin technical terms. Apart from the dubiousness of such a petitio principii, Waszink himself conceded in the less well-known revision of his edition that in the case of Ambrose, as Courcelle (1973) had argued, the influence probably went in the direction from Calcidius to Ambrose, and he also conceded that the same observation may hold for Favonius Eulogius.2 Courcelle wanted to date Calcidius two decennia earlier than Waszink, around 480, but the door had now, in effect, been reopened for an earlier date. Moreover, based on the evidence marshalled by Courcelle, the connections between Calcidius and Ambrose are also tenuous, at best. The only argument remaining for a late date would be based on features of style, namely, the nature of Calcidius’ prose (see above) and the kind of metrical clausulae he used. But these features are notoriously difficult to date, and there are many gaps in the Latin tradition. In an oft-quoted analysis of the metrical clausulae in the letter of dedication, Mensching (1965) claims that on the basis of these data, one would have to situate Calcidius between Arnobius and Favonius Eulogius. Assuming that he meant the elder Arnobius, it is a mystery to this reader at least why he thinks even that observation would date Calcidius c. 400 CE. In sum, I would like to return to the hypothesis of an earlier date, around midfourth century CE. Waszink (1962: x–xvii) rightly cautioned against the automatic assumption that Calcidius’ addressee was Osius, the bishop of Cordoba who played a pivotal role in the Council of Nicea in 325. Two lines of reasoning tell against Spain (see also Waszink 1972: 237): the first, that Isidore of Seville does not mention Calcidius (though other scholars have detected traces of Calcidius’ work in the latter, Bakhouche 2011: I 54–55), the second, and more important one, that to date we have no manuscripts from that area. It is possible, however, that Osius, if Calcidius’ addressee was indeed the bishop of Cordoba, commissioned this work during one of his travels. In 1959, a couple of years before the publication of Waszink’s monumental edition, van Winden considered the possibility that Calcidius “accompanied his bishop, Ossius [sic], to the Near East and there gathered his material.” I would argue that we cannot exclude the possibility that Osius met Calcidius while traveling and commissioned the work in that 2

For the most detailed analysis to date on the parallels between Calcidius and Favonius Eulogius, see Dorfbauer 2011. He makes a very convincing case for the sequence Calcidius, Favonius Eulogius, and Macrobius.

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context. In his 1972 contribution Waszink too admitted (237) that this possibility should be considered. And as I have shown, Calcidius does appear to present a garbled allusion to the Nicene Creed (in his ch. 126). It seems to make most sense to place Calcidius in an era in which Christianity was gaining decisive ground, but had not yet become so dominant and so caught up in theological polemics as to make a Latin commentary on Plato’s Timaeus itself a charged undertaking (Dillon 1977: 402; Moreschini 2017). Given that there is no trace in the commentary of any of the debates on the doctrines of the Trinity and creation, or of the controversy about Origen, and that the work appears to reflect an older layer of Platonism predating Plotinus and Porphyry (but with the caution on this point expressed above), the earlier date also fits better. If Calcidius had been connected to the Milan milieu at the end of the fourth century CE, he must have appeared strangely out of place, if not entirely clueless. That milieu had a more advanced understanding of post-Plotinian Platonism and of Porphyry, and was fully immersed in the theological controversies of the day. It is thus fundamentally misleading to group Calcidius with Latin Christian Neoplatonism. As we move away from the Milan/Italy hypothesis, the most important reason for greater caution in using the category of Latin Christian Neoplatonism is that the range of voices then becomes much wider and much more interesting.3 In a cultural context that was often dominated by a fierce polemic between Christian and non-Christian thinkers, Calcidius’ voice shows a distinctive attempt at a non-polemical encounter between these two formidable cultural forces from the point of view of a Platonism that firmly adheres to what is presented as Plato’s truth, against some rival positions and interpretations of Plato’s work, and with a confidence that appears to require no justification. For Calcidius the Timaeus and Plato constitute the ultimate frame of reference, but in Osius and through him Calcidius also addresses a Christian audience. Calcidius himself as author provided the interpretive framework and the continuity throughout the commentary. Not that this helped him much. In the later tradition, ironically, his work often came to stand simply for the views of Plato himself, and his name disappears behind that of the grand master.4 He was such an effective cultural mediator, then, that he ultimately managed to erase himself. 3 4

I share the concerns about the category of Christian (Neo)Platonism voiced by Charlotte Köckert (2009: 542 and 2010). Dutton 2003: 193–194.

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Index Locorum

Anonymi Commentarius in Parmenidem 9.1-8: 94 12.22-27: 87 Anonymi Commentarius in Theaetetum (ed. Diels–Schubart) 1.1–4.27: 11 Anonymi Prolegomena philosophiae Platonicae (ed. Westerink) 4: 34 Apuleius De mundo 24.343: 51, 147 De Platone et eius dogmate 1.5.92: 120 1.12: 104 1.192: 135 Aristotle Analytica priora 1.13.32a18-29: 109 De anima 2.1.412a27-28: 144 3.5.430a15: 145 De caelo 1.10-12: 49 1.10.279b32-280a2: 49 1.12.282a4ff.: 130, 188 3.7–8.306a1–307b24: 38 De generatione animalium: 144 De generatione et corruptione 1.2.316a2–4: 38 2.4: 44 De interpretatione 9: 109 12.21a37ff.: 188 13.23a15-16: 109 De partibus animalium 144 Ethica Nicomachea 3.3: 142, 143 3.5: 143

Aeneas of Gaza Theophrastus 893A–B: 180 Albinus Isagoge 5: 33 Alcinous Didaskalikos 2: 110 3: 25–26 4, 155.39-41: 135 6, 159.43-160.30: 146 7: 25–26 8, 163.7-8: 120 9, 163.14-17: 134 10: 62, 94 10, 164.34: 95 10, 164.42–165.1: 211 10, 166.4: 135 14: 62 15, 171.22-23: 101 25, 178.39-45: 83 26: 109 Alexander of Aphrodisias De anima liber 94.7-100.17: 78 De fato 105 171.11-16: 113 176.14-23: 155 181.13-182.20: 107, 154, 158 201.16-18: 114 202.8-15, 21-25: 109 De mixtione 213.18-214.6: 75 216.14–218.6: 178 Ambrose De Helia et ieiunio 4.7.416.3: 195 Hexaemeron 1.1.2: 212

233

234 Aristotle (cont.) Metaphysica 1.3.983b18–33: 20 1.6.988a: 131 1.6.988a7-17: 124 5.30.1025a15-16: 142 12.7.1072a26: 147 12.10.1076a4-5: 147 Physica 1.1.184a16-26: 136 1.8–9: 148 1.9.192a3-34: 124–125 1.9.192a14-16: 148, 150 1.9.192a16-17: 148 2.4-6: 108, 142 2.5.197a5ff.: 142 2.6.198a: 143 4.14.223a21–29: 49 8: 147 8.1.251b16–18: 49 Politica 7.3.1325b: 147 Fragments (ed. Ross) F27: 145 Ps. Aristotle De mundo 6.397b30: 147 24.343: 147 Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos 3.63: 211 3.65: 211 Athenagoras of Athens 10.3: 213 15.2–3: 213 22.2: 213 Atticus Fragments (ed. des Places) F1: 18 F3: 147 F4: 211 F7: 145 F8.2: 147 F19: 49, 165 F20: 165 F23: 62 F35: 62 Augustine Confessiones 8.1-4: 193 De civitate dei 10.30: 180 Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae

Index Locorum 1.9: 27 7.2: 154 9.5.7: 15 Boethius De consolatione philosophiae: 1, 17, 36, 208–210 4.6: 97 4.6.7ff: 208–209 5.4.24–25: 34, 209 5.6.1: 210 5.6.15–17: 210 6.1: 34 In librum Aristotelis De interpretatione commentaria: 18 Calcidius Commentarius in Timaeum Letter: 12, 13, 23 Letter 6.8–10: 12 Preface: 11, 13, 14, 21, 24 Preface, ch. 1: 10 Preface, ch. 3: 13, 192 Preface, ch. 4: 12, 27 Preface, chs. 5-6: 152 Preface, ch. 6: 31, 44, 46, 80, 109 Chs. 8–267: 25 Chs. 8–118: 25, 27 Chs. 8–22: 38 Ch. 8: 30 Ch. 16: 38 Chs. 20–25: 173 Ch. 20: 15, 23 Chs. 21–22: 15 Ch. 22: 38 Ch. 23–25: 51–54 Ch. 23: 39, 51–53, 55, 197 Ch. 24: 53, 56–57, 91 Ch. 25: 52, 53–54 Chs. 26–31: 15 Ch. 26: 11, 22, 39, 54–55, 70, 200 Chs. 27–31: 45 Chs. 27–28: 59 Ch. 27: 39, 90, 218 Chs. 29–31: 35, 60–65, 87, 126, 167 Ch. 29: 16, 61–62, 73, 80, 81, 94, 126, 133 Ch. 30: 63–65 Ch. 31: 35, 57, 70, 92, 102, 169 Chs. 32–39: 39 Ch. 32: 39, 68 Ch. 33: 39, 69–70 Ch. 38: 39, 72 Ch. 39: 45–46, 85, 99, 168 Chs. 40–50: 39 Ch. 45: 159 Chs. 51–55: 39, 42, 43, 65–69 Chs. 51–52: 65–67

Index Locorum Ch. 51: 42, 68, 81 Chs. 52–58: 41–42 Ch. 52: 41, 65, 113 Chs. 53–55: 167, 168 Ch. 53: 39, 42, 46, 59, 64, 90 Ch. 54: 59, 62, 67–68, 71, 76, 79, 102 Ch. 55: 69–70, 200 Chs. 56–57: 42 Ch. 56: 40, 41, 65 Ch. 57: 42, 84 Ch. 58: 41 Chs. 59–91: 40 Ch. 59: 41 Ch. 66: 218 Ch. 70: 40 Ch. 76: 45, 116 Ch. 79: 197 Ch. 84: 142 Ch. 91: 42 Ch. 92: 40, 42–43, 59, 69–70 Ch. 95: 45, 82 Ch. 98: 24, 40, 42 Ch. 99–100: 70, 159 Ch. 100: 45, 83 Ch. 101: 54, 70 Chs. 102–104: 70 Ch. 102: 42, 43, 59 Chs. 103–104: 65 Ch. 104: 66–67, 82 Chs. 105–108: 52, 70 Ch. 105: 54, 56 Ch. 107: 28, 31, 44, 129–130 Ch. 108: 54 Ch. 112: 40 Ch. 118: 40 Chs. 119–267: 25, 27 Ch. 119: 13, 25, 27, 29 Ch. 120: 31, 43 Ch. 123: 18 Ch. 125: 116 Ch. 126: 194–195, 220 Ch. 127–136: 43 Ch. 127: 31 Ch. 128: 100 Ch. 129: 43, 176 Ch. 130: 199 Chs. 131–132: 43 Ch. 131: 43, 102 Ch. 132: 100, 102, 194, 197 Ch. 133: 195–196 Ch. 134: 102, 211 Ch. 135: 68, 169 Ch. 136: 16–17 Ch. 137: 73, 80, 84, 161

Ch. 138: 12 Ch. 139: 56, 84, 88–89, 94, 100, 101 Ch. 140: 82, 83, 159 Ch. 141: 103 Chs. 142-189: 102 Ch. 142: 104, 106 Chs. 143-189: 104–117 Chs. 143-159: 104 Chs. 143-144: 104 Ch. 143: 93, 103, 107 Ch. 144: 107, 151, 153, 211 Ch. 145: 93, 107, 108 Ch. 146: 197 Ch. 147: 26, 93, 103, 107 Ch. 148: 93, 109, 210 Chs. 150-158: 93 Ch. 150: 109 Ch. 152: 104 Ch. 153: 109, 111 Ch. 154: 111, 200 Ch. 155: 108, 155 Ch. 156: 107, 108, 111, 155 Ch. 157: 105, 116 Chs. 158-159: 108 Ch. 159: 108 Chs. 160-175: 104 Chs. 160-161: 112 Ch. 160: 106 Ch. 161: 154 Chs. 162-163: 114–116 Ch. 162: 35, 172, 209–210 Ch. 163: 113 Ch. 164: 142 Chs. 165-167: 111 Ch. 165: 106, 167, 169 Ch. 168: 111, 113 Ch. 169: 111, 116, 155 Ch. 170: 117 Ch. 171: 117, 200 Ch. 172: 108, 110, 113, 169, 200 Ch. 173: 105, 110 Ch. 174: 111, 167, 169–170 Ch. 175: 110 Chs. 176-189: 104 Chs. 176–177: 85–98, 150, 168, 172, 175, 204–211, 216 Ch. 176: 113, 123, 153 Ch. 177: 107, 108, 114 Ch. 178: 104 Chs. 179-180: 109 Ch. 179: 108, 109 Ch. 180: 102 Chs. 181-182: 111 Ch. 181: 93

235

236

Index Locorum

Calcidius (cont.) Ch. 182: 79–80, 82 Chs. 183-184: 112 Ch. 184: 108, 218 Chs. 185-186: 105 Ch. 185: 117 Ch. 186: 84, 117 Ch. 187: 82, 103, 112 Ch. 188-189: 108 Ch. 188: 86–98, 102, 150, 153, 168, 172, 175, 204–211, 216 Ch. 189: 88, 93, 107, 110, 117 Ch. 190: 106 Ch. 191: 89, 103 Ch. 192: 103 Ch. 198: 179–180, 195 Ch. 199: 103, 110 Ch. 200: 103 Ch. 201: 18, 56, 88, 104, 111, 120 Chs. 202–207: 23 Ch. 202: 71, 159 Ch. 203: 75 Ch. 204: 102 Chs. 207-211: 82 Ch. 211: 23 Ch. 212: 17 Chs. 213-235: 3, 59, 71–84 Chs. 214-221: 73, 122 Chs. 214-217: 73, 122 Ch. 214: 75, 79, 122 Ch. 215: 197 Chs. 218-221: 73, 122 Ch. 219: 92, 196, 199, 200, 206 Ch. 220: 3, 78, 156 Ch. 221: 159, 177 Chs. 222-224: 74, 144–145 Ch. 223: 77, 144, 183 Ch. 224: 145 Ch. 225: 61, 110, 134, 144–145 Chs. 226-235: 74 Chs. 226-227: 147 Ch. 226: 81, 146, 147 Ch. 227: 147, 159 Chs. 228-229: 83–84 Ch. 228: 55 Ch. 230: 73 Chs. 232-233: 73, 80 Ch. 231: 79, 82 Ch. 232: 73, 74 Ch. 234: 79, 82 Ch. 243: 17, 192 Ch. 246: 17 Ch. 250: 149, 196 Ch. 251: 151, 159 Ch. 254: 100, 102

Ch. 256: 176 Ch. 257: 14 Ch. 261: 80 Chs. 264–266: 82 Ch. 264: 21, 25, 37 Ch. 265: 100 Ch. 266: 218 Ch. 267: 81, 82 Chs. 268–355: 25, 27, 118–137 Chs. 268-274: 118, 125 Ch. 268: 25, 30, 101–102, 119, 123, 125, 133, 149 Ch. 269: 119, 124–125, 160 Ch. 270: 103, 120, 124, 127, 160, 167 Ch. 271: 120, 125, 130 Ch. 272: 13, 31, 44, 92, 120, 127, 131, 133, Ch. 273: 18, 28, 91, 118, 124, 129, 133, 160 Ch. 274: 30, 120, 136 Ch. 275: 72, 74, 122, 162, 175 Chs. 276-278: 2, 92, 118, 125–126, 197–202, 212, 217 Ch. 276: 19 Ch. 277: 132 Ch. 278: 75, 126, 131–133 Chs. 279-282: 119 Chs. 279-280: 122 Ch. 279: 75, 212 Ch. 280: 20, 123, 160, 201 Chs. 283-288: 119, 125 Ch. 283: 56, 149 Chs. 286-287: 125 Ch. 286: 148, 150 Ch. 287: 10, 88, 150 Ch. 288: 124–125, 130, 148 Chs. 289–294: 119, 160–162 Ch. 289: 120, 124–125 Ch. 290: 130, 160–161 Ch. 291: 161 Ch. 292: 161 Ch. 294: 124, 161 Chs. 295–299: 45, 62, 119, 163 Ch. 295: 49, 126, 164, 175 Ch. 296: 166 Chs. 297-299: 94, 166 Ch. 297: 166 Ch. 298: 126, 167, 169 Ch. 299: 164, 168 Chs. 300-301: 119, 126 Ch. 300: 17, 163, 198–199, 200, 212 Ch. 301: 125, 184–186 Chs. 302-320: 119 Ch. 302-304: 135–137 Ch. 302: 14, 52, 133, 136–137 Ch. 303: 91, 136, 168 Ch. 304: 91–92, 133, 136–137 Ch. 307: 91, 124, 127, 133, 160, 185

Index Locorum Ch. 308: 18, 118, 123, 160 Ch. 310: 123 Ch. 311: 124, 162, 213 Ch. 312: 123, 160 Chs. 317–318: 44 Ch. 317: 130 Ch. 318: 18 Chs. 319-320: 120 Ch. 319: 124, 136, 146, 160 Chs. 321-354: 119 Ch. 321: 52, 130, 133 Ch. 322: 9 Ch. 324: 15–16 Ch. 325: 90 Ch. 326: 10 Ch. 327: 136 Ch. 329: 52, 130, 133, Ch. 330: 91, 124, 130, 133, 160, 186 Ch. 335: 31 Ch. 336: 146 Chs. 337-344: 118, 128, 133 Ch. 337: 133, 135 Ch. 338: 130, 133 Ch. 339: 91, 133, 134 Ch. 340: 91 Ch. 341: 137 Ch. 342: 82n.23, 91, 133 Ch. 344: 18, 130 Chs. 345–346: 10 Ch. 347: 135 Ch. 349: 12, 91, 130, 133, Ch. 350: 18, 124, 130 Chs. 351–354: 185 Ch. 352: 45, 62, 126 Ch. 353: 218 Ch. 354: 88, 121–127 Cebes Tabula: 29 Cicero Academica 1.3: 141 1.15-19: 141 1.29: 97 1.33: 141 1.35: 141 1.37: 141 1.43: 141 De divinatione 1.125-126: 103 De fato: 105 10-11: 113 12–15: 155 14: 155 28-29: 112 39–46: 152

39: 106 42ff.: 154 De finibus 1.72: 18 2.15: 10 4.78: 141 De natura deorum 1.19: 211 1.21: 49 2.24: 83 2.37.95: 147 2.40-41: 83 2.79: 206 2.83: 83 3.70: 211 Tusculanae disputationes 1.18-22: 74, 145 1.70: 149 3.2: 111 Clement of Alexandria Stromateis: 19n.34 1.57.1–6: 18 1.28.176.1–3: 26 5: 14 5.89.6: 129, 214 5.102: 205 5.103.1-2: 211 6.55.3: 18, 192 7: 14 Critolaus Fragments (ed. Wehrli) F18: 145 Dicaearchus Fragments (ed.Wehrli) F7: 145 F11: 145 Diogenes Laertius Vitae philosophorum: 218 3.62: 33 5.32: 147 7.135: 97 7.139: 83 Epictetus Dissertationes 1.12.1-3: 147 3.1.16-18: 109 Eunapius Vitae sophistarum 2.1.2.14–18: 189 Eusebius of Caesarea Historia ecclesiastica 6.19: 14, 19 Praeparatio evangelica 6.8.8: 211 7.13.1-2: 95

237

238

Index Locorum

Eusebius of Caesarea (cont.) 7.20–21: 202 10 Preface, 3–4: 192 11.19: 198 11.20.1–3: 205 15.21.1-3: 76 Galen Compendium Timaei Platonis (ed. KrausWalzer) 1.14–16: 10 4: 62 De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 7, 483.24-441.3: 77 6, 368.20-26: 77 De usu partium 11.14: 20, 75, 198 In Hippocratis librum De fracturis commentarii (ed. Kühn) 18.2: 10 Ps. Galen Historia philosophiae 18: 75 Genesis: 2, 19 1.2a: 199, 201 Gregory Thaumaturgos Oratio panegyrica 4.35–39: 208 7–15: 26 13.151: 207 Hesiod Opera et dies 252–253: 211 Iamblichus 32 De anima 9: 145 4.24: 180 ap. Stob. (ed. Wachsmuth) 1, 365.15: 33–34 John 10.34: 196 Justin Martyr Apologia 1.10.2: 213 1.59.3: 213 Lactantius Divinae institutiones 13.20-21: 105 Longinus Fragments (ed. Männlein-Robert) F72: 76 Ps. Longinus De sublimitate 9.9: 20, 75, 198 Luke 20.36: 196

Macrobius Fragments (ed. Wehrli) F18: 145 In somnium Scipionis 1, 26, 33 1.1.2: 13 1.4.1: 11 1.9.5: 180 1.14.19-20: 74 1.14.6: 89 1.20.6: 83 2.3.14–15: 176 Marcus Aurelius Ad se ipsum 6.40: 211 9.1: 211 10.33: 154 Marius Victorinus Adversus Arium 4.11.37ff.: 70 Explanationes in Ciceronis Rhetorica 1.24: 211 Martianus Capella De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii: 1 Matthew 5.9: 168 Maximus of Tyre Orationes 8.8: 211 41: 68 Minucius Felix Octavius 5.4: 14 5.8: 14 Nemesius De natura hominis (ed. Sharples and van der Eijk) 2.17-19: 18, 69, 76 2.22.10-17: 177 2.26.10-29.20: 144 2.34–35: 180–183 2.38: 192–193 3: 177–179 3.39: 177 5.51-52: 38 34.103.17-104.11: 108 34.103.20-21: 109 35-43: 151 35.104.15-20: 104, 110 35.105-106: 107, 154 35.105.6-10: 158 37–38: 193 37.108: 103 38: 93 38.109.15-20: 107 40.114.21-22: 108

Index Locorum 42.120: 193 42.125-43.126: 104 43: 96 43.127.15-20: 147 Nicene Creed: 195 Numenius Fragments (ed. des Places) F1a–c: 168 F1a: 20, 198 F1b: 198 F2: 95 F4b: 18, 76 F5: 56 F9-10: 20, 75, 198 F10a: 198 F11: 95 F13: 20, 75, 94, 167, 198 F16: 95 F17: 95 F18: 94, 169 F21: 95 F22: 94 F24–28: 18 F30: 20, 75, 168, 198 F44: 62, 94 F56: 20, 75, 168, 198 Origen Contra Celsum: 200 1.1: 14 1.3: 14 1.15: 198 1.34 (58–60): 194 1.58–59: 194 2.20: 112 3.44: 14 3.55: 14 4.51: 198 6.49: 213 6.8: 205 6.60: 206 De principiis 1.3.1: 205–207 4.2–3: 14 Epistula ad Gregorium 26 Epistulae 6.323d: 205 In Canticum Canticorum (ed. Baehrens) 61–88: 11 75.5–27: 26 75.20–21: 31 In Genesim (Commentarius) 200–202 47-53 Metzler: 201 In Iohannem 1.16.90: 213

1.90–124: 213–214 17.102: 213 17.105: 213 19.110–111: 213 19.114: 214 19.115: 214 19.118: 214 20.123: 214 Philocalia 1.14–21: 14 2.3: 14 Philo of Alexandria De Abrahamo 119-123: 95 De aeternitate mundi 13: 49 53: 54 De congressu eruditionis gratia 150: 18 De ebrietate 30-31: 202 De fuga et inventione 94-100: 95 De mutatione nominum 27-28: 95 De opificio mundi 13: 56 24: 95 28: 56 29: 202 36: 202 69: 69 72–75: 69 135: 200 De posteritate Caini 12-20: 95 De providentia: 202 De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 60: 95 Legum allegoriae 2.12: 135 Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesim 2.34: 137 Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat 82: 76 Quod Deus sit immutabilis 55: 95 Philoponus De aeternitate mundi contra Proclum: 174 6.8, 148.25–149.11: 56 6.14, 164.18–165.6: 184 6.21, 186.21–187.1: 54 6.21. 187.3–189.9: 54 14.3, 546.3–15: 184 14.3, 546.15–25: 185

239

240 Placita (ed. Diels) 386-393: 74 391a23ff.: 76 Plato Leges 10: 65 10.896d–e: 62 12.964e-965a: 79 Parmenides: 13, 31–33, 34 152e: 56 Phaedo 78b4-80b10: 84 92: 69 99c6: 88 Phaedrus 245c5–246a2: 42, 83 248c2: 104 Respublica: 30–31 377b: 111 440e: 103 509b9: 87 617d-620d: 104 617e4-5: 110 Sophist 188 237aff.: 130 Timaeus 19d–20c: 29 22d3–5: 174 27d5–29d3: 28 28b6–8: 39, 50–53 28c: 30, 196, 205 28c5–29a3: 39 29a4–b2: 206 29b2: 53 29c: 29–30 30a: 57, 63, 184 30b3: 39 30c1: 99 31b–32c: 15 31c–41e: 175 31c: 38 32b5–6: 38 32c2–3: 39 32c5–34a7: 53 35a: 59 35a1–4: 39 36b6–d7: 41 36b6–c2: 41 36d8–e5: 42 36e: 69 36e5–37a2: 42 37a2–c5: 41, 65 37a2–b3: 41 37b: 113 37c6–38c5: 53

Index Locorum 38b6–7: 39 38c2: 54 38c4: 54 39d4-5: 110 39e: 27, 175 40d–41a: 174 41a7–d3: 11 41a-b: 39, 100–101 41a: 56 41b-d: 102 41b: 194 41b4-6: 88 41d: 81 41e: 103 42a-b: 81 42a: 196 42c: 179 42d-e: 81 42e: 197 42e-44e: 82 43a-44d: 81 43d6–7: 39 44c7: 99 44d: 81 45b1: 99 46c–47e: 17 46e-47b: 82 47c-d: 82 47e: 25, 101–102, 123, 149 47e3–49a6: 28 48a2–5: 167 48b6-7: 120 49b–c: 15 49c: 197 50d: 134 51a: 197 51b7-52c7: 128, 136 52b2: 128 52b2-4: 123 52d–53a: 39 53a–b: 24 53b: 57 53b7–c3: 29 53c: 16, 22, 23 54b: 16 54b–d: 15, 38 55–56: 38 55d7–56c7: 23 55e–56b: 15, 38 61d6–62a5: 15, 38 68e6–69a5: 23 69b–c2: 57 69c–72d: 23 69c-70d: 81 71a7: 206

Index Locorum 71e3: 206 73b8: 206 86c–88c: 23 Ps. Plato Epinomis: 43 Plotinus Enneades 3.3.5: 93 4.2: 134 6.7.39.26-27: 96 6.8.17.18-21: 96 Plutarch Adversus Colotem 1122C–D: 158 De animae procreatione in Timaeo: 62 Chs. 8-9: 84 1012D: 61 1012D–1013D: 68–69 1012F–1013A: 65 1012F: 61 1013B–C: 61 1014A–B: 165 1022E: 61 1023B–D: 61 De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos 1076E: 211 De defectu oraculorum 435F–436A: 15 De E apud Delphos 393A–B: 56 De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet 928A-C: 83 De Iside et Osiride 370F: 62 372E–F: 125 382D–E: 26 De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1055D-F: 107, 155 1056C: 211 De tranquillitate animi 465E: 10 477C–F: 31 Quaestiones conviviales 740C-D: 109 Ps. Plutarch De fato: 104, 151 568C-D: 93 570E-F: 114 571B-C: 109 571C: 108 571D: 108 572B: 142 572F-573A: 96 572F: 211 573D: 109

Porphyry ap. Stob. (ed. Wachsmuth) 2.5.39-42: 109 Contra Christianos: 19 Fragments (ed. Becker) F6: 14 Fragments (ed. Harnack) F39: 14 Fragments (ed. Smith) F134: 186 F221: 189 F236: 166, 175 F240-267: 76 F240: 177 F247: 177 F249: 177 F251-255: 77 F253: 78 F259–261: 177 F368: 213 T198: 189 T240: 177 T241: 177 In Categorias (ed. Busse) 55.3–57.15: 11 In Timaeum (ed. Sodano) F3–5: 174 F10–27: 174 F13: 174 F26: 174 F28–53: 174 F31: 186, 188 F34–39: 174 F41: 175 F42: 175 F47: 174, 184 F48: 185 F51: 175, 185 F53: 175 F56: 175 F57–81: 175 F57: 174, 175 F61: 176 F65–68: 173 F69: 176 F72: 176 F79: 176 F80: 176 F82–83: 173 Sententiae 10: 33, 172 13: 96 22: 172 26: 188 29: 176

241

242 Porphyry (cont.) 30: 96 33: 172, 177 44: 56 Symmikta Zetemata: 177 Vita Plotini 20.41: 19 Posidonius Fragments (ed. Edelstein and Kidd) F85: 1, 141 F88: 26 F95: 161 F141a: 61 Proclus In Alcibiadem 10.3ff: 34 In Parmenidem (ed. Cousin) 630.15–645.8: 32, 92 912.19-27: 94 965.10ff: 33 In Rempublicam. 2, 212.23ff.: 70 In Timaeum (ed. Diehl), 28–29 1, 63.21–65.3: 19 1, 77.22–24: 189 1, 77.24–80.8: 34 2, I 257.3: 186, 188 2, I 276.30–277.7: 49, 165 2, I 283.27-30: 165 2, I 304.6-7: 94 2, I 304.10-11: 94 2, I 305.204: 94 2, I 352.5–8: 33 2, I 352.11–16: 33, 172 2, I 381.26–382.12: 62 2, I 391.4–396.26: 185 2, I 391.12–393.2: 213 2, I 391.6ff.: 62 2, I 394.9ff.: 62 2, I 395.10–21: 56 3, II 22.30–34.1: 29 3, II 39.20–41: 38 3, II 76.24ff.: 29 3, II 102.6–9: 56 3, II 102.7–11: 213 3, II 103.28-32: 95 3, II 153.25–154.1: 62 3, II 171.4–9: 176 3, II 218.8–20: 29 Theologia Platonica (ed. Saffrey and Westerink) 1, 8-11: 92 1, 32–55: 32, 92 2, 31.4–22: 20

Index Locorum Proverbs 8.22: 202 Psalms 82.6: 196 Ptolemy On the kritêrion and hêgemonikon 16, 22.13ff: 76 Sallustius De diis et mundo 4: 56 13: 56 Seneca Epistulae 6.4: 14 58.20: 135 65.2ff.: 161 89.16: 161 92: 78 Sextus Empiricus Adversus Mathematicos 9.363-4: 75 Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes 1.147: 75 3.10-11: 105 3.32: 75 Simplicius In Aristotelis Physica (ed. Diels) 135.1–14: 186–189 181: 165, 166, 213 Speusippus Fragments (ed. Tarán) F41: 11, 49 F61: 11, 49 F72: 11, 49 Stobaeus Eclogae (ed. Wachsmuth) 1.13.1c: 161 1.49.59-61: 180 Stoics The Hellenistic Philosophers (LS) (ed. Long and Sedley) 38E: 155 47: 3 48C: 177, 178 53: 3 53S: 158 55S: 154 62C: 106 62F–G: 154 62G: 158 Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (SVF) (ed. von Arnim) 1.89: 161 1.160: 97 1.499: 83

Index Locorum 2.284: 103 2.336: 161 2.473: 177, 178 2.773-789: 78, 156 2.917: 103 2.921: 103 2.1000: 103 3.229a: 106 Strato of Lampsacus Fragments (ed. Wehrli) F108: 145 F123: 145 Synesius Epistulae 105: 193 Tacitus Annales 6.22: 109 Tertullian Adversus Hermogenem (ed. Waszink) 34.22-25: 202

243

Theon of Smyrna Expositio rerum mathematicarum ad legendum Platonem utilium (ed. Hiller): 11, 28, 37, 45 14.18ff.: 26 138.16-18: 83 187.14-188.7: 83 Ps. Timaeus Locrus 94a: 61 95e: 61 97e: 61 William of Conches Glossae super Platonem (ed. Jeauneau) Ch. 71, 124.13–14: 4 Ch. 74: 4 Xenocrates Fragments (ed. Heinze) F1: 26 F15: 97 F54: 11, 49 F68: 11, 49