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Overview
The first volume in a landmark commentary on an important and influential work of ancient philosophy
This is the first volume of a groundbreaking commentary on one of the most important works of ancient philosophy, the Enneads of Plotinus—a text that formed the basis of Neoplatonism and had a deep influence on early Christian thought and medieval and Renaissance philosophy. This volume covers the first three of the six Enneads, as well as Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, a document in which Plotinus’s student—the collector and arranger of the Enneads—introduces the philosopher and his work. A landmark contribution to modern Plotinus scholarship, Paul Kalligas’s commentary is the most detailed and extensive ever written for the whole of the Enneads.
For each of the treatises in the first three Enneads, Kalligas provides a brief introduction that presents the philosophical background against which Plotinus’s contribution can be assessed; a synopsis giving the main lines and the articulation of the argument; and a running commentary placing Plotinus’s thought in its intellectual context and making evident the systematic association of its various parts with each other.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781400852512 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/12/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 728 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
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The Enneads of Plotinus
A Commentary Volume 1
By Paul Kalligas, Elizabeth Key Fowden, Nicolas Pilavachi
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2014 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4008-5251-2
CHAPTER 1
Porphyry: On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books
Introduction
The Author, His Times, and His Work
Porphyry (ca. 232–ca. 304), from Tyre in Phoenicia, was one of the most important representatives of early Neoplatonism. Because our basic source of information about his life is the VP itself, there is no need to expand on that theme here. It is enough to remark that before he went to Rome and Plotinus' school there, he spent some time in Athens, where he studied with the mathematician Demetrius, the grammarian Apollonius, perhaps the rhetor Minucianus, and—most important—with the philologist and philosopher Longinus, with whom he maintained long-lasting and warm relations. But it is obvious that the most significant and definitive influence on him was that of Plotinus. He remained in his school in Rome for about five years (263–68) and quickly came to play an important role within it. By his own account, Porphyry was assigned by P., among other things, the editing and publishing of his writings, a task that Porphyry would accomplish with great success, but also with notable delay, as the edition appeared thirty years after the death of his teacher. After a psychological crisis, Porphyry left Rome, only a little before P.'s death, and settled in Lilybaeum in Sicily. The evidence suggests that from there he journeyed to North Africa and to his homeland, Phoenicia, before returning again to the imperial capital, probably during the reign of Aurelian. We know precious little about his life after this return. It is reasonable to suppose that it was during this period that he was most active as writer and teacher, but it is debatable whether he succeeded P. as leader of the philosophical school in Rome—if there even existed a school in which such a succession could take place. Late in life he married Marcella, the widow of a friend and mother of seven children. There are good reasons to suspect that he took part in the preparations for the Great Persecution of the Christians, and it appears that he died before Diocletian's abdication in May 305.
The history of the tumultuous time in which P. and Porphyry lived, and which more recent historians usually term the "Third-Century Crisis," cannot be presented here, even in brief. Suffice it to say that in the period of one hundred years between the birth of P. and the death of Porphyry, there reigned some thirty emperors, among whom—if we exclude the members of the tetrarchy, all of whom died after 304—only two, Septimius Severus and Claudius II, died a natural death. For a very summary picture of the political and cultural setting for this period, readers may refer to the chronological table following the "System of Dating" section below.
Porphyry was a multifaceted and prolific writer. The primary features of his work are exceptionally wide-ranging knowledge combined with a sensitivity characteristic of his era, which causes him to oscillate between scholarly sobriety and the occasionally melodramatic sentimentality of the "torch-bearer." He was concerned about the broader dissemination of Neoplatonic philosophy, with the result that some of his works possess a marked popularizing and introductory character. This fact has earned him the dubious reputation of a vulgarisateur, especially because his great works of systematic philosophy and his philosophical commentaries have been lost. He also wrote on historical themes, religion, philology, grammar, astrology, music theory, and other subjects. These writings bear witness to a very broad competence in all the areas of study that would soon constitute the triuium and the quadriuium of medieval education.
The Composition and Character of the VP
As appears from its title and final phrases, the VP was written as an introduction to the edition of the Enneads, P.'s complete written work, organized by Porphyry in a systematic manner according to themes. To judge by a reference Porphyry apparently makes to his own age (23.13–14), this work must have been composed during the period between the summer of 299 and the summer of 301. The phraseology at 26.37–40 gives one to understand that during this period the editorial work on the Enneads had not yet been completed, but cannot have been much further delayed, making it possible for us to say that the entire work was published in about 300–301.
The result is a work of exceptional importance, the like of which has not been preserved from antiquity: the presentation of the life of a great philosopher written by a close friend and disciple, who was also an unusually learned philologist with notable experience as a historian, and a determination to undertake his subject with completeness and—to the extent that the spirit of his age allowed—sobriety. But in order to appreciate properly its contents, as well as its omissions, we must bear in mind its place in the entire undertaking of the publication of the Enneads. We will then understand why, for example—even though it would not be fair to call this work a "hagiography"—only the positive aspects of P.'s personality are emphasized, and in particular those which pertain either directly or indirectly to his teaching activity; why stress is laid on the circumstances surrounding P.'s various writings and the order and manner in which they were produced; why Porphyry foregrounded so prominently his own role as instigator of, and confidant in, his teacher's intellectual production; and finally, why there is such a preoccupation with contemporary opinions of P.'s books, where the modern reader would prefer fuller and more substantial information about subjects such as Ammonius, P.'s adventures in Mesopotamia, the story of Platonopolis, the development of the relationship between P. and Amelius, the economic and social arrangements during the period when he was living and teaching in Rome, and so forth. Porphyry's purpose is not historical, nor is it purely biographical. First and foremost it is introductory—he is primarily concerned to prepare readers and to entice them toward the text of the Enneads.
The Organization and Sources of the VP
The organization of the VP is quite clear, straightforward, and at the same time revealing of the preferences and interests of its author. It can be presented in outline as follows (the arabic numerals are the numbers of the chapters):
I. Prologue: The philosophical and physical death of P.
1 His shame of being in a body
2 His illness and death
II. Narration of P.'s life
3 His youth until his establishment in Rome
P.'s writing activity
4 The first period
5 The second period
6 The third period
P.'s circle
7 The students
8 Digression: How P. composed his works
9 Women and children
Stories about the school
10 Olympius
The invocation at the Iseum
Amelius' love of sacrificing
11 The necklace of Chione
Polemon
Porphyry's melancholy
12 P.'s relations with the imperial couple and Platonopolis
13 Transition: How P. taught
III. P.'s intellectual presence
His relations with the other philosophers
14 Earlier thinkers
Longinus
Origen
15 Porphyry
16 The Gnostics
17 Numenius
Amelius' Letter
18 Comments on the Letter
External assessments
19 Longinus
The Letter to Porphyry
20 Comments on the Letter
The On the End
21 Comments on the On the End
22 The oracle of Apollo
23 Comments on the oracle
IV. The arrangement and publication of the Enneads
24 The first volume
25 The second volume
26 The third volume
The administration of the publication
It is evident even from this outline that Porphyry collected a sequence of documents at the end of the biographical part of the VP (17–23), where he presents them unaltered but also extensively annotated by himself. Nevertheless, other sections of the work also obviously depend on evidence whose sources Porphyry only sometimes divulges. We know, for example, that the description of P.'s illness and death (2.11–31) depends on Eustochius (see 2.12, 23, and 29), that the information relating to his youth (3.1–35) comes from P. himself (see 3.1), and that Amelius is the source for everything concerned with his first years of teaching in Rome (3.35–43; see 3.37–38) and the oracle of Apollo (22.8–63; see 22.8–9). But we can also deduce that the description of the incident with Olympius derives from P. himself (10.1–13; see my comments ad loc.); while Amelius is the source for the testimonies about the portrait of P. (1.4–19; see my comments at 1.14–17), the invocation at the Iseum (10.15–33; see my comments at 10.31) and perhaps also the episodes surrounding Chione's necklace (11.2–8), "Platonopolis" (12.3–12), and the appearance of Origen at P.'s seminar (14.20–25). We should consider the remaining material to be derived from Porphyry's own personal experience during the five years he spent at his teacher's side.
All the sources Porphyry uses are the best we could hope for. But their trustworthiness necessarily varies in relation to the idiosyncrasy of each author. It is the elegant and loquacious Amelius who most reasonably incurs our suspicion that he elaborated his materials in a novel-like manner, but we should not overlook the probable effect on his own testimony of Eustochius' rather naive admiration for P.
The System of Dating
Much ink has been spilt over the chronological data Porphyry provides in considerable abundance at various points in the VP. For that reason, it is somewhat disheartening that one of the most recent studies on the subject concludes with a reference to "the hope for a new investigation of the chronological system of the Life of Plotinus." I shall not attempt here to engage in the details of this complex problem. But because I am not in complete agreement with any of the views thus far espoused, a brief review of the problem is necessary.
Porphyry gives us three forms of time reckoning: (a) absolute dates, based on the corresponding regnal year; (b) dates tied to either P.'s or Porphyry's age; (c) calculations of the length of time intervening between two events.
(a) For the first type, a substantial number of dating systems have been proposed—as well as various combinations of these systems—on the basis of which it is possible to calculate the regnal years in such a way as to correlate them with contemporary evidence from other historical sources. But both the manner in which Porphyry chooses to express himself (usually with the general phrase "the nth year of the reign of x") and the improbability that in the introduction of such an ambitious endeavor as the publication of the Enneads Porphyry would employ a geographically restricted calendar—such as the Egyptian, or Syro-Macedonian—or some specialized system of his own invention strongly suggests, in my opinion, the dies imperii as the starting point. That is to say, Porphyry's system employed a year that began with the ascension to the throne of the emperor of the day. All scholars agree that this is the most obvious solution. However, all but Boyd eventually reject it because of difficulties that emerge from attempts to link this dating system with information relayed in the VP. Nevertheless, after the most recent findings concerning the death of Claudius Gothicus (about which see my comments at 2.29–31), a careful investigation reveals that all the difficulties derive from the acceptance of P.'s date of birth according to Porphyry's calculations. In my commentary on 2.34–37, I question the accuracy of Porphyry's calculations and attempt to identify the reason for the error. If my estimation is correct, then P. was born not in the thirteenth, but the twelfth year of Septimius Severus' reign (April 204–5). In this way, all the remaining dates in the VP fall into line, if interpreted in accordance with a system based on the dies imperii, as mentioned above. That this is correct is affirmed by a glance at the chronological table below, in which appear all the dates and their equivalents in the Julian calendar.
(b) The dates based on the ages of either P. or Porphyry are, as a rule, linked to those of the first category and provide the opportunity to cross-check and verify information. In most instances ages are expressed by inclusive reckoning and refer to the as-yet-uncompleted current year of the age of the person in question (usually with a phrase such as "in his xth year"). In three cases, however (2.29–30, 3.23–24, and 4.8–9), exclusive reckoning is used, registering completed years of age: the first of these occasions refers to P.'s age at the time of his death, as mentioned earlier. For the other two, there is no reason to suppose, as do many scholars, that Porphyry confuses exclusive with inclusive reckoning. The somewhat indefinite reference to P.'s age at 4.6–8 allows us, as I argue in my comments ad loc., to accept without any problem that the date is determined according to exclusive reckoning.
(c) Finally, scholarly opinion also differs with regard to the precise meaning of the expression holon eton, which we encounter at various points in the VP, referring to some (usually large) time span (see 3.20, 34, 41, and 9.20). If, as seems more reasonable at first sight, we consider that it refers to full years, then certain problems arise with the dating of events. The most significant refers to the length of time Amelius spent with P. (3.38–42): the third year of Philip's reign began in March 246, and the first year of Claudius' ended in August 269. It is impossible for twenty-four full years to fit between these dates, and it is worth noting that even translators who in other cases follow the interpretation referred to above (such as, e.g., MacKenna, Harder, and Armstrong) are forced at this point to abandon that system. Boyd 1937, 252n.34, already argued that the phrase means "in all," and that consequently it is not necessary for the years to be complete. Igal 1972a, 86, advanced serious objections to this but was forced to take refuge in the desperate solution that Porphyry did not write what he meant (see also nn. 22, 24, and 50 in his translation). Goulet 1982b, 206–7, returns to Boyd's view but without supporting it with new arguments.
However, in my opinion, there is a fragment of Porphyry (apud Proclus In Ti. I, 63.29) that justifies Boyd's view. There it is recounted that the Platonist Origen developed an argument over the course of three days (trion holon hemeron): obviously, it is not meant that his lecture lasted three full twenty-four-hour periods, nor—as Igal 1972a, n. 41, would understand it—three days without interruption, but that from the beginning of the argumentation to its completion more than two days had passed, while the emphasis is on the fact that it was an exceptionally long period of time. I believe that we should understand the phrase in the VP in a similar fashion: the period when P. did not write lasted ten "whole" years (3.34), that is, more than nine years, namely, from the second half of 244 until (at most) September 254; Amelius was with P. for twenty-four "whole" years (3.41), from 246 until 269; and P. himself sojourned in Rome, without making any enemies, for twenty-six "whole" years (9.20), from the second half of 244 until the first half of 270. For the period when P. studied with Ammonius (3.20), we cannot cross-check our information, which anyway does not derive from Porphyry, but from P. himself.
The other chronological calculations present no particular problems, and they all fit easily into the chronological table that follows below.
We may conclude that Porphyry's dating in the VP is, generally speaking, accurate; it follows consistently a system that was widely accepted in his day and one that corresponds to what we would expect from an experienced chronographer and historian, especially in a work as important as this was for him and one that he clearly made constant efforts to substantiate as best as was possible.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Preface to the English Edition viiTranslator’s Preface xvii
Main Abbreviations xix
Porphyry: On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books
Introduction
The Author, His Times, and His Work 3
The Composition and Character of the VP 4
The Organization and Sources of the VP 5
The System of Dating 7
Chronological Table 9
Map 16
Other Testimonies concerning the Life of Plotinus 18
Commentary 19
Appendixes
A. Iulius Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis I 7, 13-22 93
B. The Figural Representations of Plotinus 94
C. Porphyry in Sicily and His Literary Activity There 95
First Ennead
I 1 [53]. What Is the Living Being, and What Is Man? 101
I 2 [19]. On Virtues 131
I 3 [20]. On Dialectic 148
I 4 [46]. On Well-Being 161
I 5 [36]. On Whether Well-Being Increases with Time 187
I 6 [1]. On Beauty 192
I 7 [54]. On the Primal Good and the Other Goods 219
I 8 [51]. On What Are and Whence Come Evils 223
I 9 [16]. On Going out of the Body 241
Second Ennead
II 1 [40]. On Heaven 249
II 2 [14]. On the Movement of Heaven 267
II 3 [52]. On Whether the Stars Are Causes 277
II 4 [12]. On Matter 304
II 5 [25]. On What Exists Potentially and What Actually 327
II 6 [17]. On Substance, or on Quality 336
II 7 [37]. On Complete Transfusion 346
II 8 [35]. On Sight, or How Distant Objects Appear Small 353
II 9 [33]. Against the Gnostics 363
Third Ennead
III 1 [3]. On Destiny 413
III 2-3 [47-48]. On Providence, Books I-II 440
III 4 [15]. On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit 481
III 5 [50]. On Love 501
III 6 [26]. On the Impassibility of Things without Body 534
III 7 [45]. On Eternity and Time 577
III 8 [30]. On Nature and Contemplation and the One 620
III 9 [13]. Various Considerations 646
List of Variant Readings 657
Key to the Chronological Order of Plotinus’ Treatises 669
Suggested Further Readings on Individual Treatises 671
Figures 679
Index of Passages Cited 681
What People are Saying About This
"Kalligas's commentaries are a major event in the study of Plotinus. Kalligas is sensitive to the demands of exegesis, philology, and history, but also to the more subtle and challenging demands of philosophical analysis. His commentary displays extraordinary mastery of the full text of the Enneads and a sophisticated appreciation of the relevant contexts—from Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism to skepticism, Middle Platonism, and the entire tradition of Neoplatonism."—Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, University of Texas, Austin