The Platonic Heritage: Further Studies in the History of Platonism and Early Christianity 140944662X, 9781409446620

Citation preview

Also in the Variorum Collected Studies Series:

JOHN DILLON The Great Tradition Further Studies in the Development of Platonism and Early Christianity

JOHN DILLON The Golden Chain Studies in the Development of Platonism and Christianity

ANDREW SMITH Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus Philosophy and Religion in Neoplatonism

GILLIAN CLARK Body and Gender, Soul and Reason in Late Antiquity

HAROLD TARRANT From the Old Academy to Later Neo-Platonism Studies in the History of Platonic Thought

JOHNW. WATT Rhetoric and Philosophy from GreelcrwµaTL)- that is to say, the head - though it is spoken of as 'raising us · up from earth to heaven.' 20

21

22

We have here a bit of word-play (noun ekhein normally means simply 'to have good sense') rather reminiscent of a conceit attributed by Aristotle to Xenocrates (Fr. 81 Heinze/236 Isnardi Parente), in which he etymologizes eudaimon, normally 'happy', fortunate', as 'being in a good relationship with one's daimon '. Indeed, one is tempted to wonder whether this whole scheme, characterized as it is by tripartition, might not go back in essentials to Xenocrates. Again, we are back with the Phaedrus myth, this time 247B, where it is actually the gods who are described as having conveyances (ox~µaTa) which are Eu~vLa. This is perhaps Plutarch's way of saying that his highest class of men is quasi-divine. He characterizes them just below, indeed (592C), as TO µavTLKOV Kal 0EOKAUTouµEvovyEvos-. E.g. Philo, De Gigantibus, 60-1; Plotinus, Enn. V 9, 1, and, on the Gnostic side, Clement, Exe. ex Theod. 54.

40

XI Plutarch and the Separable Intellect

thoroughly satisfactory relationship to their nous-daimon, and even in their case we may reasonably ask whether their contact with it is of the nature of normal, continuous consciousness, or rather a matter of periodic, abnormal flashes of special insight. In this connexion, the story of Hermodorus23 of Clazomenae, relayed at 592CD, is enlightening. Hermodorus was said to have had the power to allow his soul to leave his body and travel about the heavens, 'witnessing many things said and done in remote places', but, as the spirit guide explains, this is. an inaccurate account of what occurred; in fact, Hermodorus' soul did not leave his body: it just had a very good relationship with its nousdaemon, which was the entity that did the travelling, and with which Hennodorus could commune in a trance state. The suggestion here is that the nous is an entity with which you can only commune in non-ordinary states of consciousness, though it is always there, exerting a benign influence over you, if you allow it to.

This, after all, would seem to have been the case with the daimonionof Socrates, as Plutarch understands it. In the conversation leading up to the myth (588DE), we are told that "Socrates 4 had an intelligence (nous/ which, being pure and free from passion, and commingling with the body to a minimal extent, for necessary purposes only, was so sensitive and delicate as to respond at once to what reached him" - and so he was fully attuned to the promptings of his daimonion,which communicated wordlessly with his reasoning faculty: "For speech is like a blow - when we converse with one another, the words are forced through our ears and the soul is compelled to take them in -; whereas the intelligence of the higher power (6 TOD KpELTTOVOS' vovs-) guides the gifted soul, which requires no blows, by the touch of its thought; and the soul on its part yields to the slackening and tightening of its movements by the higher intelligence.'' Here, Socrates' daemonic sign is presented as external to himself, though in close touch, but the 'true' situation is revealed a little later in the myth: it is actually the highest element _in his make-up, an element which transcends normal consciousness, but with which he is abnormally well attuned. In truth, Plutarch's position on this question is not free from vacillation. If we turn back for a moment to the exposition of the tripartition of manin the De Facie, we find the rather different situation that, on death, intellect is envisaged as parting from soul, in at least some cases, just as thoroughly as soul parts from body, and it ascends to the region of the sun, while the souls remain around the moon (943Bff.).

23

24

Or rather Hermotimus (cf. Diogenes Laertius VIII 5, from Heraclides of Pontus); Porph. V. Pyth. 45; Tert. De An. eh. 44). Plutarch has made a slip. His enemies, alerted by his unfaithful wife, burned his body while he was 'absent' from it, leaving him rather stuck. There is a problem of terminology here. Nous here is actually being used in a more 'orthodox' Platonic sense as referring to the rational part of the soul, as becomes apparent just below, while the separable nous is presented as his daimon .

41

XI

"While the goddess here (sc. Demeter) dissociates the soul from the body swiftly and violently, Phersephone (sic) gently and by slow degrees detaches the intellect 25 from the soul, and has therefore been called 'single-born' (µovoyEvtjs) because the best part of man comes to be (y(yvETaL) 'single' when separated off by her."

There follows a long description of the fortunes of various types of soul in the region of the moon (943C-944E), after which we hear how the better class of daimones achieve a full separation of intellect from soul, the intellect rising to the sphere of the sun, while the soul remains on the moon. Some of these souls wither quietly away, blending into the moon (945A), but others, the more ambitious and irascible ones, break loose and return to incarnation, causing havoc on earth, before the moon can recall them to herself. This is a strange picture, indeed - souls breaking loose on their own, quite devoid of intellect. Normally, it would seem, the sun sows intellect in the moon, and she receives it, and creates new souls (945C), which are then duly incarnated; but Plutarch also seems to envisage a sort of life for souls without intellects.

It is in this connexion that I would like to adduce the interesting doctrine found in Tractate X of the Corpus Hermeticum, the so-called Kleis, or 'Key'. This document proba-

bly post-dates Plutarch 26, but there is no reason to suppose that it is in any way dependent on him; rather, both he and the author of CH X are drawing on some earlier source. Let us look at a few key passages. The subject of the tractate as a whole is the nature of God, and the means of our attaining knowledge of him. In § 16, the author turns to the subject of the fate of the soul after its departure from the body . Hermes' system involves, as does that of Plutarch, a tripartite distinction within the human being of body, soul, and intellect - but also a distinction, not present in Plutarch, though characteristic both of Gnosticism and of later Platonism, among the non-corporeal elements of the human being, between intellect, soul, and pneuma, this last in the sense of the basic life-force, which forms a sort of 'cushion' for the soul when 7 united to a body (the 'pneumatic vehicle' of later Platonism/ . 28

"When the soul rises up into itself, the pneuma is drawn into the blood , but the intellect, since it is divine by nature, becomes purified of its garments and takes on a fiery body, ranging about everywhere, leaving the soul to judgement and the justice it deserves." 25

26

27

28

This is, of course, quite fanciful. Persephone was called monogenes as being the "only-born' daughter of Demeter. The denial of transmigration of human souls into animals in §19 has been taken, plausibly, as indicating a post-Porphyrian date (sc. 300 A.D. or so), since this does not seem to have become an issue in Platonism before him; but the Hermetic tradition may have taken an independent line on this. Not that much later than Plutarch, however; we have evidence from Proclus (In Tim. III 234, 9ff.) that such Platonists as Atticus and Albinus postulated a pneumatic vehicle. I omit, as a gloss, the next phrase in the mss., ~ 8E tt;ux~ Eis TO iTVEuµa. It makes no sense in the context, but could be an ignorant conclusion from an earlier passage, § 13.

42

XI Plutarch and the Separable Intellect

Tat is intrigued by this pronouncement, and asks: "What do you mean, Father? How is intellect parted from soul and soul from 9

pneuma, when you say that soul is the garment (Ev8uµal of the intellect, and pneuma the garment of the soul?" This gives Hermes the opportunity to explain the relationship between nous and psyche. Nous, he explains (§§ I 7-18), only takes soul as a garment (rrEpL~oAaLov)for the purpose of entering the body, since the body could not sustain the immortal power of nous without the cushioning force of soul and pneuma. When nous departs from the body, on the other hand, it takes on a 'fiery garment' (rrupLvos XLTwv), drawn from the celestial realm, and lives a life of its own. As for the soul, we are told that the soul that is pious (EvoE~llS")- that is, in Hermes' terms, one that has acquired gnosis, knowledge of God - becomes 'daemonic and indeed divine' (oaLµov(a Kal 0E(a). This seems to involve more or less becoming identical with nous (OAT}vovs y(vETaL); whereas the impious soul "remains in its own essence, punishing itself, seeking an earthly body to enter" - an ambition which it very quickly fulfils.

This presents us with a firm distinction, similar to that which we found in the myth of the De Facie (945AB), whereby some souls are left wholly devoid of nous, and in that state even manage to get back into bodies, engendering a brutish class of men (though not, it seems, irrational animals). More remarkably still, in the Hermetic document (§21), the nous, "when it has become a daimon, is directed to receive a fiery body in order to be at the service of God, and, entering into an impious soul, it afflicts that soul with the scourges appropriate to sinners"; whereas in the case of a pious soul, it leads it to the light of knowledge (yvwaLS')30. The idea that the nous might in some cases become a punitive daemon (TLµwpos 8a(µwv) to the individual soul is to be found also in the Poimandres, the first tractate of the 1 Corpus (CH I 21-3)3 • There, Poimandres, in answer to a question from the disciple, "Do not then all men possess nous?", replies as follows: "Hush, fellow! I, as Nous, am present only to the holy and good and pure and charitable - in a word, to the pious - and my presence brings support to them, and they worship the Father with love, and give thanks to him with benedictions and

hymns in due order with affection." He goes on to say that, as Nous, he frees them from all bodily desires and affections, guarding them from the things of this world. From the wicked, on the other hand, he stands afar, handing them over to the tender mercies of a timoros daimon, who "applies to them the sharpness of fire," and goads them on to even worse crimes, so that they may be punished the more. 29 30

This is a relatively rare word, but it is used by Porphyry, in the same sense, at De Abst. I 31, 4. Hermes appears less than consistent here. Just above, as we saw, the pious soul was declared to become 'wholly nous.' But the inconsistency is not too serious, I think. What we may understand is that the pious soul is thoroughly at one with its nous, to the extent that they are practically indistinguishable; but the nous is still the guiding element.

43

XI

This is not quite the same situation, admittedly, as that found in CH X. Here, Poemandres is rather the cosmic, demiurgic Nous than anyone's individual nous. But the timoros daimon over to whom he hands the wicked could certainly be seen as an individual nous - and even Poemandres himself might reasonably be assumed to delegate his beneficent supervision of the good to their own individual noes; he, after all, has higher matters to attend to. The chief thing, though, is that we have in the Hermetic tradition a clear separation of intellect from soul, with considerable indications that souls can exist on their own, bereft of intellect, albeit in a miserable condition. And so, finally, back to Plutarch. What interests me in the present context, as I have said, is the question of our relation with our separable intellect. Is it something with which we can be continually, and normally, in touch, or is it rather a sort of su·per-ego, like the undescended intellect of Plotinus, with which only a select few enlightened persons (like Plotinus himself, and of course Socrates) have much conscio~s contact, and even then, only as a consequence of meditation, in particularly favourable circumstances - when not bothered by senators, society ladies, or wards of court? I do not, as I say, see Plutarch as much of a mystic in any strong sense, but I do feel that there is some significance in his downgrading of soul to something essentially irrational (though desirous of being rationalized - the figure of Isis in the Isis and Osiris comes to mind, in particular), and the corresponding distinction of intellect from soul. Intellect thus becomes something rather special, not readily accessible to the mass of humankind. His remarks at the beginning of the Isis and Osiris,dedicatinf the work to his friend, the priest3 ess Clea, are pertinent here, and with them we may end : "All good things, my dear Clea, sensible men must ask from the gods; and especially do we pray that from them we may, in our quest, gain a knowledge of themselves, so far as such a thing is attainable by man; for we believe that there is nothing more important for man to receive, or more ennobling for God of his grace to grant, than truth. God gives (8(8watv) to men the other things for which they express a desire, but of intellect and wisdom (vou~ Kal 4>p6v17crts) he gives only a share (µETa8(8wcrLv),inasmuch as these are his special possessions and sphere of activity." Intellect, then, is indeed something slightly superhuman, only to be fully enjoyed either when the soul has left the body, or when the individual, in one way or another, has attained a non-ordinary state of consciousness. And that, I think, is about as near to mysticism as we are going to get with Plutarch.

31

One might be tempted to see the timoros daimon as little more than the gnawings of a guilty conscience, but the problem is that, in the Poemandresespecially, it is portrayed as actually goading the sinner on to even worse actions, in order that he may be punished the more - though criminal psychologists would testify, I think, that a guilty conscience can have this effect with some people.

32

I borrow here the Loeb translation of F.C. BABBITT, with minor alterations .

44

XII

Plutarch and God: Theodicy and Cosmogony in the Thought of Plutarch

In the case ()f a figure such as Plutarch ()f Chaerc)nea, it becomes a seri()US problem for exegesis to distinguish what is personal from what he ma~y have inherited from his tradition, which is, of course, the Platonic tradition. Plutarch was, after all, in his own mind, a faithful Platonist, even though he is conscious of going against the grain of tradition in at least some respects. 1 And y'et he seems to us in many respects idiosyncratic, to the extent that some are hesitant to grant him the status of a Platonist at all2 - though this position is based on the illusory notion that there existed in his day some secure repository of Platonist 'orthodoxy' to which he could be opposed. I would like to focus, on this occasion, on two aspects in particular of Plutarch's theology, which between them seem to characterize it most distincti, rely, his dualism (under which rubric I would rank both his identification of an 'e, il' or negative power in the universe, and his postulation of a secondat) T, 'demiurgic' divinit) , S()meh()\V cc)ntrasted "'-ith the highest gc)d); and his conception of divine prov"'"idence (with \\ 1hich is associated his belief in a temporal creation of the world). Before, however, turning to his positive doctrine , it ma y not be out of place, in ,Tiew of the overall theme of this s>rmposium, to consider briefl>T Plutarch's relationship with the major theological system of the Hellenistic era proper _,that of the Stoics. 3 There is in fact much in the Stoic position with which Plutarch would agree, such as the doctrine that God is 'a li-\ring being, .immortal, rational, perfect or .intelligent in happiness, admitting into himself nothing evil, taking providential care of the world and all that is in it, but not 7

7

Notably, of course, on the question of the literal interpretation of th e 1z,naeus account of the creation of the worlcl in time, and the postulation of a pre-cosmic, disord erly, 'evil', soul \vhich is attendant on that. 2 E.g. Dorrie 1971, 36-56. Dorrie assumes here a tradition of 'Schulplatoni smt1s', to which Plutarch is someho\v external, which seems to me an unjustifi ed assumption. 3

This topic ha s been dealt "vith, thorou ghly and well, by Daniel Bab ut , in eh . IV o f his great \vork Plutarque et le Stoicisme,Paris 1969, to which the interested reader is referred for detail s.

XII Plutarchand God

2

of human shape.' 4 All of this would be common ground bet\veen Stoics and Platonists; where Plutarch differs from the Stoics, and differs profoundl:y7,is on the question of the di,rinit y's materialit) 1 (despite the virtual immaterialit~y7of the rrupvot:p6vof "'rhich it is composed), and on the periodic destructibilit y of all the gods, including, of course, the heavenl} 1 bodies, except Zeus himself (as representing the World-Soul), at the £Knupwoi~.His opposition to this aspect of Stoic theol()g) r comes C)ut most clearl y, perhaps, in the polemical context of his De ~S~toicorum Repugnantiis(1051Eff.), but it surfaces at man y points in his works. He is not here, of course, being quite fair to the Stoics, for whom the gods other than Zeus are reall}1just aspects of one single divine power, 'which takes on different names according to the places in which it appears and the functions which it assumes'; 5 thus what is essential survives the ekp_yrosisJ subsuming all other matter into itself. What Plutarch really objects to here is the concept of the ek,p_yrosis in general, since that goes against the Platonist assumption of the eternity of the heavenl) r realm. Polemics apart, however, Plutarch's vievv of the supreme deity is rather more of a development of the Stoic one, in the direction of complete transcendence and immaterialit) r, than a direct contradiction of it. That said, let us lool( first, before turning to details, at a basic statement of Plutarch's view of the supreme deitj r, from the dialogue On the Eat Delphi.6 It is actually put in the mc)uth c)f his teacher, Ammc)nius, but there can be little cloubt that it is a formulation that Plutarch himself would approv e (De E 393AB): But Gc)d is - if there be need tc) say S()! - and he exists for no stretch of time (khror1os),but for eternity (aion) which is immovable, timeless and undeviating, in " rhich there is no earlier or later, no future nor past, no older nor younger; but he, being 'One', has with onl~yone 'no, v' completely filled 'forever'; and Olli) l when Being is after his pattern is it

4

TEAElOV

Dio genes T..aertius "\TIT 147 (= SVF TT 1021) : ec:ov o'EtVal ~Qov a:8avaTOV, Aoy1K6v,

AVOEpov EVEUbatµov{~, KUKOU rravroc;

CXVETitbEKTOV'rrpoVOflTlKOV Kooµou TE KC(LTWV

EV

KOOµy)· µ~ Eiva1µ£VT01 av8pwrr6µopcpov . .f l/I7 11 1021; 1027; 1070 - this last from Servius, ad C eo,~. l 5; with ,vhich, ho\ve·ver, Plutarch "\vould not entirely agree, as we shall see, since Servius states, among other equivalences, .'.)

that th e Stoic s equate the Sun, Apollo, and Dion ysus, something that Plutarch doe s n ot wish to do. 6

Thi s pa ssage, at least insofar as it concern s the supreme g od, is w ell discu ssed , and its

sources in·vestigated, by \~lhittaker 1969.

XII Plutarchand God

3

in reality Being, not having been fl()t about to be, nor has it a beginning nor is it destined to come to an end. 7 (trans. F.C. Babbitt, slightl)r altered)

This impressive statement of Platonist faith - quoted later "1~thapproval b1r Christian authorities such as Eusebius (PE XI 11) and C~yrilof Alexandria (in his polemic against Julian, Adv. Jui. VIII) - combines terminology T from the Timaeus and the First H}rpothesis of the Parmenidesto produce a classic characterization of the Platonic first principle. However, in close proximitj Tto this we find sentiments that are distinctl>r unplatonic - though not, perhaps, so veryr out of line with developments in Platonism in the second centur 1r C.E. Ammonius goes on immediatel; r (393BC) to extol the essential unit) 7 and simplicity of the supreme God, whom he identifies with Apollo rather than Zeus, 8 but then proceeds to exempt him from an)' direct invol\Tement vvith the multifariousness and changeability' of the physical world. Our world of change is presided over by another, inferior divinity, whom he identifies with Pluto or I-Iades (393F-394A). It is impious, and indeed absurd, to suggest - here a dig at the Stoics 9 - that the supreme god produces alterations in himself (turning himself into fire, for example) or in the ~Totld as a whole, like a child building sand-castles and then knocking them down again: '10 Por on the contrary, in respect of anything whate, rer that has come to be in this world, for this 11 he binds together its substance and prev,.ails over

; 'A/\.X£0TlV6 0£6c;,El XP~cpava1,Kai EOTl Kerr'ou8iva xp6vov aXAa KC(T(lrov aiwva TOV aKivrrcovKai axpovov Kai aviyKAlTOV l, TOUTO cruvbEl T~V oucriavKaiKparEl acr0EVEtar see an Alexandrian Platonist background to that of Valentinus.

Bibliography Babut, D., Plutarqtteet le Stoicisme,Paris 1969. to the Chief' Greek Texts, Paris 1929. Benveniste, R., The _l)ersian.Religionaccording Deuse, W., Untersuchungenzur mittelplatonischenund neoplatonischenSeelenlehre, Wiesbaden 1983. Dillon, J.,The .Middle ljlatonists,J..ondon and Cornell 1977 (2nd ed. 1996). -, 'Female Principles in Platonism', Itaca I, 1986, 107-23 (repr. in The GoldenChain, Aldershot 1990). Dorrie, H., 'Die Stellung Plutarchs im Platonismus seiner Zeit', in JJhi/omathes: ~rtudiesandEssq;·sin Memoryof PhilipMerlan,ed. R. Palmer and R. HamertonI, with in either case the connotation of superiority to the entity in question, be it theos or ousia. However that may be, other epithets find a more exact correspondence in Did. 10. There the primal god is described as 'eternal (aionios), ineffable (arrhetos), self-perfect (autoteles)-that is, deficient in no all-perfect respect- ever-perfect (aeiteles)-that is, always perfect-and (panteles)-that is, perfect in all respects' (164. 30-3). All this is to emphasize his total superiority to, and independence of, all of the rest of creation. Of the epithets appearing in the Apoc. Joh., 'unlimited' (presumably apeiros), Ka8o 01}µatVETal

q>wvwv. (Simplicius, In Categorias 13.13-16)

(It concerns) simple and primary and generic words, insofar as they are significatory of realities (ovTa), and it instructs us at all events also about the things signified by them, and about the concepts in accordance with which things are signified by words.

14

Taken up later by Elias, Jn Categorias 130.14ff.

15 Sia:nplicius does, after alt make an interesting distinction between the first group of authorities, from the Alexanders to Porphyry, . saying that Iamblichus "assents,, to them (entqsT)qr((;E\), and Syrianus ''clarifies" (aauxos Kat a:v€vipyT)Tos). I presume that by this he means simply the structural proportions or other visible features of an object, which supervene on the imposition of quality by the logos in question. He only mentions this latter entity because, although Aristotle, he claims, distinguishes these senses of logos, many people confuse them. Ag~in, at In Categorias 27 l .6ff. we are given what Simplicius calls lamblichus' BEwpEnKWT€patEntaTaaets, his "more theoretical interpretation," of the fourth class of qualities, that is, ''shape and the external fonn of each thing" (crxfiµa Tt Kat ~ nept eKaoTov u11apxouoa µop4>11), set out by Aristotle at l0al 1-26. Here Iamblichus takes his start from the observation that Plato in the Timaeus (55dff.) postulates ax11µa:Ta,29 that is, the primary shapes formed by combinations of triangles, as the causal principles of the differences between bodies, deriving all qualitative differentiae from the differences between the basic axiiµaTa. Plato, however, says Iamblichus, would distinguish between purely mathematical crx11µaTa, wisdom, and temporary conditions, such as walking or sitting. The reason that this terminology seems hardly suited to Academic sceptics is that he goes on, after commending them for identifying these EKTawith the Forms, to criticize at least some of them ·(/n Categorias 217.24ff.) for saying both that the Forms are "possessed" (exEa8at) and are "separate" (xwptoTa). They should have . distinguished more clearly between "forms-in-matter,,or 1'6-yot,which is what these EKTareally are, and transcendent Forms. But one does not have the impression that the New Academy concerned itself with such questions . 29

In fact, Plato does not happen to use the term oxrf µaTa to describe the .basic shapes anywhere in the passage 55d-57d., but merely owµaTa or Et611. This~ however, does not disturb lamblichus.

XX 74 which would serve as the transcendent causes of the physical shapes of bodies, and the immanent crxiiµa Ta, which are material and physical and involved in motion. Aristotle,

lamblichus has to admit, does not here recognise immaterial or mathematical crx~µaTa as causal principles,30but only immanent, enmattered (EvuAa) ones, which come into being with bodies, and define and shape their surfaces. On the other hand, he maintains, Aristotle is not declaring the shapes actually to be

-bodies, as do the Stoics, because Aristotle classes bodies under Quantity, not under Quality. Aristotle's doctrine, then, says Iamblichus (In Categorias 271.23ff.), is median between that of Plato, which talces shapes as being entirely immaterial, and that of the Stoics, which holds them to be material. But Iamblichus plainly feels that Aristotle is not expressing himself here with sufficient clarity, and he adduces the formulation of Archytas to throw light on what Aristotle really means. 31 Archytas declares that this species of Quality does not consist in shape (e:v crxl}µaTt), but · rather in shaping (Ev crxl)µaTtcrµQ),3 2 indicating a distinction between the constitution of the shapes and the actual shapes in bodies.- Even so, however, the shapes being dealt with here are not the original logoi, which would be analogous to the Platonic ''primary bodies,"' but those shapes which supervene upon the shaped bodies.

Time forbids the examination of much more of Iamblichus' exegesis on the present occasion, 33 but I feel that, in conclusion, I sho~ld not neglect a topic on which Iamblichus has a good deal to say that is interesting, that of Time itself. R. Sorabji has subjected lamblichuS' doctrine of Time to a fascinating examination in chapter 3 of his major synoptic study, Time, Creation and the Continuum, 34 but I think that there is still something to be said on the subject from a Neoplatonic perspective. In fact, as we know, Aristotle was particularly sarcastic about the efficacy of the basi~ triangles. cf. De Caelo 3.7-8.305b27ff. We may note, incidentally, that. though Plato nowhere uses 3O

the tenn crx11µaTa to describe the primary bodies, Aristotle in this passage does. 31

This passage is of particular interest, as being one of the comparatively few places where a

degree of criticism of Aristotle is evident. Plainly if Aristotle is deviating in doctrine from the divine Plato, he cannot be correct. It is not his business to ''mediate" between Plato and the Stoics! 32

Iamblichus is here getting a good deal of mileage out of pseudo-Archytas' bald statement (/n Categorias page 24.19): Kat T-ijs nolOTl'J'TOS 6la«i,opa'l 1°eoaapes· -ro µEv yap au,■11s E