UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff PPeennnnssyyllvvaanniiaa SScchhoollaarrllyyCCoommmmoonnss Departmental Papers (Classical Studies) Classical Studies at Penn 2010 AAlllleeggoorryy aanndd AAsscceenntt iinn NNeeooppllaattoonniissmm Peter T. Struck University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, and the Classical Literature and Philology Commons RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn ((OOVVEERRRRIIDDEE)) Struck, P.T. (2010). Allegory and Ascent in Neoplatonism. In Copeland, R. & Struck, P.T. (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Allegory, 57-70. Cambridge University Press. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/181 For more information, please contact [email protected]. AAlllleeggoorryy aanndd AAsscceenntt iinn NNeeooppllaattoonniissmm AAbbssttrraacctt In Late Antiquity a series of ideas emerges that adds a kind of buoyancy to allegorism. Readers' impulses toward other regions of knowledge begin to flow more consistently upward, drawn by various metaphysical currents that guide and support them. A whole manner of Platonist-inspired architectures structure the cosmos in the early centuries of the Common Era, among thinkers as diverse as the well- known Origen and the mysterious Numenius. Plato's understanding of appearances had always insisted on some higher, unfallen level of reality, in which the forms dwell, and to which we have no access through our senses. This other level seems to invite allegorical aspirations. Of course, Plato himself prominently declined the invitation, and it is no small irony that his work should have become the font of such heady visions. DDiisscciipplliinneess Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity | Arts and Humanities | Classical Literature and Philology | Classics This book chapter is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/181 4 PETER T. STRUCK Allegory and ascent in Neoplatonism InLateAntiquityaseriesofideasemergesthataddsakindofbuoyancyto allegorism. Readers’ impulses toward other regions of knowledge begin to flowmoreconsistentlyupward,drawnbyvariousmetaphysicalcurrentsthat guideandsupportthem.AwholemannerofPlatonist-inspiredarchitectures structure the cosmos in the early centuries of the Common Era, among thinkersasdiverseasthewell-knownOrigenandthemysteriousNumenius. Plato’s understanding of appearances had always insisted on some higher, unfallen level of reality, in which the forms dwell, and to which we have no access through our senses. This other level seems to invite allegorical aspirations. Of course, Plato himself prominently declined the invitation, and it is no small irony that his work should have become the font of such heady visions. He consistently disparages poetry’s claims to any kind of truth, let alone the grandiose varieties that allegorical readers tend to ascribetoit.Thedistancebetweenthesensibleworldandtherealsourceof truth operates for him as a chastening agent, a message of epistemological cautionechoingoverachasm.(Platotypicallyleavesthetaskofmediatingit to the colorless verb metechoˆ “participate.”) But his later followers do not feel such stringent compunctions. They will embrace Plato’s metaphysics offallenness,butthenshifttheiremphasisfromthedistancethatseparates us and the highest truths to the notion that the world here and now is (somehow) connected to a higher order – a position inarguably Platonic but rarely more than implicit in the master’s work. To greater or lesser degrees this group of readers will transform Plato’s world of mere images, always and everywhere pale imitations of the real truth, into a world of manifestations, always potentially carrying palpable traces of that higher world. This period represents something of a departure from the earlier ages, butitisworthnotingalsotheimportantcontinuitieswithearlierallegorical readers. The Neoplatonists of late antiquity carry forward the Stoic ideas that myth might be a repository of profound truth, and that the dense 57 peter t. struck language of poetry has the capacity to convey truths that exceed the grasp of plain speech. They carry forward an idea that we see in the Derveni commentatorandinStoicetymology:thatlanguageisnaturallylinkedtoits meaningsandthatsinglewordsmightserveasdiscretesitesofinterpretation and yield sometimes profound insights. Further, they continue and deepen a sense that allegorical ways of conveying meaning are not only capable of butparticularlyappropriatetodiscussingthedivine. Plotinus Plotinus’ (205–69/70 ce) interests in literature are not central in his cor- pus,butheleavesbehindfascinatingreadingsoftraditionaltexts(especially Homer’s)inarticulatinghisphilosophicalsystem.Thecontemporaryscholar LucBrissonrightlypointsouttheeasewithwhichPlotinusengagesinalle- gorical interpretation of myth as a mode of exposition of even his core philosophicalideas.1 MythgivesPlotinusameansbywhichhecanexpress synchronicrealitiesinadiachronicnarrativeform.InthecontextofPlotinus’ work,thisisnotthesimpleideathatastorymightcaptureanabstractidea– since at the heart of his corpus Plotinus struggles with the idea of translat- ing the utter transcendence on which his world centers into the discursive, sequentiallogicoflanguage.2 Despite this attention to poetry in explicating his philosophy, Plotinus produces no discrete theorizing or criticism of poetry. He produces state- ments on aesthetics, in On Beauty and On Intelligible Beauty, which are notableespeciallyfordisplacingproportion,whichhadbeenthecenterpiece of classical aesthetics, in favor of the idea that beauty emerges from the radianceofthedivineinasinglepoint.3 Moreimportantforthehistoryof allegory,andinfactofcentralimportance,arethepositionshedevelopsin metaphysics. While it may be too strong to say that Plotinus is responsible fortheshapeoftheworldinlateantiquity,itisonlyalittletoostrong.He inheritedfromtheMiddlePlatonicfermentthatprecededhimafewcritical notionsuponwhichheputadistinctivestamp,onethatboreauthorityasa touchstoneforcenturiestocome.Insodoinghesetoutauniversethatgave 1 LucBrisson,HowPhilosophersSavedMyths:AllegoricalInterpretationandClassical Mythology,CatherineTihanyi,trans.(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,2003). 2 ThebestsummarytreatmentofPlotinianmetaphysicsremainsA.H.Armstrong, “Plotinus,”intheCambridgeHistoryofLaterGreekandEarlyMedievalPhilosophy (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1967),pp.195–270. 3 ThemostserviceabletranslationsareA.H.Armstrong,trans.,Plotinus,LoebClassical LibrarySeries(Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress;London:W.Heinemann, 1966–88). 58 AllegoryandascentinNeoplatonism allegorical strategies of reading a distinct resonance. I will give the whole picture first, then point out the elements of it that are most significant for allegoricalinterpreters. AccordingtoPlotinus,theuniverseisconstitutedandsustainedbyasingle, immaterial, and utterly transcendent entity, beyond even being itself, that eternally emanates pure being out from itself and so produces the entire cosmos in all its dimensions. This font of being, the One, radiates out a realitythatprecipitatesaseriesoflayersbelowitself:thetierclosesttoitisthe realmofMind(nous)inwhichallintellectualrealitydwells,includingPlato’s forms;theregionoftheSoul(psycheˆ)constitutesthethirdtier,andiswhere life emerges; last in this chain of being comes the material realm (huleˆ), a shadowworld,asclosetoevilandpurenon-beingasanyproductoftheOne might become. The significance of this basic understanding for allegorical interpretationishardtooverstate.First,thetieredontologymeansthatany givenentityhereinthephysicalworldalwaysalsohasother,hiddenaspects to it. Visible manifestations of objects increasingly take on the character of the tips of so many ontological icebergs. Second, the idea of emanation, claiming that the universe unfolds through an ontological flow, carries the corollary that invisible connections exist in the very being of things. Such ontologicalconnectionsofferlaterthinkersabasisforsemanticlinks.Such connections,whichsinceAristotle’stimehadhadtosettleforthethinbeerof resemblance,couldnowrestonrealtiesintheirverybeing.Theyconstitute a new register to which those claiming hermeneutic connections will have appeal. Third, his view of the One as an entirely transcendent entity that alsostill(somehow)manifestsitselfinvisible,tangible,concretereality,sets out a paradox that is a natural incubator of allegorical thinking. It will give impetus and provide an authoritative parallel to an allegorical habit ofclaimingthatallegoricalliteraryconstructionsrenderthetranscendentin theconcrete,anduselanguagetoexpresswhatisbeyondlanguage.Finally, heproducedlyricalmeditationsofunmatchedpowerlayingouttheproper practiceandpurposeofhumanlifeasthepursuitofperfectunionwiththe divineviamysticalascent.Philosophyhasamissionofsavingthesoul,and reading and interpretation play a part in such a soteriological drama. This aspect of his thinking introduces an extraordinary development, nurturing the view in later figures that allegorical reading itself might offer a kind of pathway for this ascent, and that hermeneutic activity might lift one up throughontologicallayers,anagogically,towardtheOne.Plotinusproduces anewandpowerfulpossibilityforunderstandingfigurationaccordingtoa logic of synecdoche, as opposed to imitation. Such a possibility is not fully exploited in a literary context until two centuries later, in the work of Proclus. 59 peter t. struck Porphyry Plotinus’ literary executor leaves behind the most extended surviving alle- gorical commentary on a single passage from the whole of antiquity. Por- phyry’s(234–c.305ce)essayonHomer’sCaveoftheNymphsinOdyssey 13isavirtuosoperformance,betrayingahighlysophisticatedliterarymind, attuned to subtleties of language and sense.4 He writes a densely argued interpretation of Homer’s sparsely articulated image, that sees it as a med- itation on the births of human souls into their bodily lives. In Porphyry’s case, the influence of the new metaphysical developments of Neoplaton- ism is most keenly felt not so much in the methods he develops and puts to use as in the contents of those interpretations. Indeed, his practice of taking a word, image, or group of images from Homer and then making a set of associations from many registers of cultural experience past and present, does not separate him much from a figure like the Stoic Cornutus. Of course, the revolutionary possibilities for re-understanding representa- tionthatPlotinus’metaphysicsoffersweresurelynotlostonhimandlikely influenced his views on how expansively one might interpret a particular literaryimage,andexpansivehesurelywas,butwefindonlyinlaterfigures explicittheoreticalstatementsinthisdirection. Porphyry’s commentary runs for some twenty pages of detailed expo- sition on a proof text eleven lines long. He mentions a debt to the earlier thinkersNumeniusandCronius,buthisversionofthiscommentaryremains authoritativefortherestofantiquityandbeyond.Homerusesafewlinesto depictacaveintowhichthePhaeaciansdepositOdysseusandhislootwhen they return him to Ithaca. The description is both bare and peppered with extraordinaryfeatures:itissacredtonaiadnymphs,containsstonemixing bowls,stonejarsusedbybeestostorehoney,stoneloomswherethenymphs weave purple cloth, an eternal spring, and two entrances, one for mortals andoneforimmortals,andanolivetreesitsadjacenttoit.Beginningfrom a premise allegorical commentators hold in common, Porphyry takes the obscurityofthepassageasasignalthatthesceneconveyssomehiddenmes- sage.Thispositionstandsinrichcontrasttoliterarycriticismintheancient rhetorical tradition, in which something unclear is thought to be a flaw of style. He signals a defensive position, offering a justification of allegorical explanation,wheresomecritics,heworries,willseeonlyforcedreading.He dismisses the idea that Homer’s cave is a simple flight of poetic fancy, and 4 ThemostusefultranslationisPorphyry,OntheCaveoftheNymphs,RobertLamberton, trans.(Barrytown,NY:StationHillPress,1983).Forthebesttextandcommentary,seeThe CaveoftheNymphsintheOdyssey,ArethusaMonographs1,L.G.WesterinkandSeminar 609,eds.,(Buffalo,NY:StateUniversityofNewYorkPress,1969). 60 AllegoryandascentinNeoplatonism therefore not to be seriously interpreted, on the grounds that Homer after all allowed his fancy to fly in a particular direction. These oddities compel theinterpreter’sattention. Porphyry’s goal is to reconstruct the senses which “the ancients” (hoi palaioi)mighthaveattachedtothecaveandtheelementsinsideit.Thisindi- catesahistoricalsenseonhispart.TounderstandthemeaningofHomer’s poem one needs to reconstruct what it may have meant during Homer’s time.Inmethod,Porphyryhasacatholicapproachtoevidence.Heisready to argue from parallels within Homer’s text (25–27) and from etymology (28–29), but his method is especially characterized by a broad exploration ofwhateverheisabletocollectaboutcavesfromtheirmanyancientcultural associations(Greekandnon-Greek).Hewillthentypicallyendorsethecul- tural associations he sees as most relevant with his own phenomenological arguments.Heespeciallysurveysreligiousandphilosophicaltraditionssur- roundingcaves.Therearemanyexamples.Heenlistscommontreatmentsof thecaveasamicrocosmofthesensiblecosmos(Mithraism,Plato,Empedo- cles)withitsmutabilityandinscrutability,andthenendorsesthisassociation byclaimingthatcaves,asphenomenaofnature,areindeedmadeofearthly matter and surrounded by a single mass whose outside border is function- allylimitless,andwhosedarkinteriorsrenderthemdifficulttounderstand. Water, he says, is especially associated with the birth of souls and so this caveispopulatedbynaiadnymphs.HeadducestheopeningoftheBookof Genesishere,aswellasEgyptianassociationsofgodswithwater,andHera- clitus’views,whichhethenendorsesbypointingoutthecriticalimportance offluidslikewater,blood,andspermtolivingthings.Thisdoublemodeof argumentation–appealtoculturalassociationsandthenapprovalofthose senses with his own natural observations – produces a powerful ground of linkage, which marries the authority of the ancient ways of doing things andtheevidentiaryappealofthenaturalsciences.Eachofthecomponents withinthecave–honey,stonebowlsandjars,stoneloomsandpurplecloth, thewaysformortalsandimmortals–isthenreadinsimilartandemfashion, witheachpieceaddingtoanoverallpicturethatthecaverepresentsakind ofbirthingstationwheresoulsassumebodiesandenterthematerialworld. AshasbeenshownbyGlennMostabove,amongsomeStoicreaders,this wisdom conveyed by the poet may be due to his or her own intention or it may not. Porphyry shows some nuances on this question also. An urge to recover the author’s intention (bouleˆsis) animates his hermeneutics, to be sure, but at one point he is willing to leave open just whose intention he is recovering. He is both curious about and willing to remain entirely agnostic on the question of the facticity of the cave (4, 21). Either Homer created a fictive cave with a hidden message, or some unknown ancient 61 peter t. struck cave-makers produced a real cave with these strange characteristics, and Homerdescribedit.Eitherwaywehaveareadablecave,andeitherwaythe greatnessofHomer’spoetryisenhancedbyit.Thisindifferenceillustratesa common allegorical sense that tends not to exclusively venerate the techneˆ of poetic language or construction, but instead values the conveying of profound wisdom, through placement of potent symbols, coiled nodes of uncannyinsight,waitingforanattentivereadertoreleasethecatch.Atthe closeofthecommentaryhemakesclearthat,whoevermadethecave,Homer shouldreceivethecreditforhavingplaceditinthepoem.PraisingHomer’s intelligence and excellence, he shows how precisely the cave fits into the poem’s overall message. Having been stripped of all material possessions at this point in the story, his material self withered, Odysseus will now take Athena’s counsel and turn to wisdom, in order to eliminate the soul’s treacherous appetites (the suitors). This is a turn away from the material worldandtowardtheintellectualworld.Hisfinaltask,toplantanoarfor Poseidon so far inland that it could be mistaken for a winnowing fan, is read as an effort to move as far as possible from the world of corrupting materialandchange,forwhichtheseaissaidtostand.Finally,thecavelies in a harbor named after Phorcys, the cyclops Polyphemus’ grandfather, as Homer tells us. It positions his turn to Athena after landing in the cave as a second try at escaping the material world, with his attempt to blind the concupiscentmonsterasafirst,unsuccessfulone.Itisunsuccessfulbecause it is a violent attempt to escape from matter – which only leaves one still enmeshedinthematerialworld.Onlyalongandharddiscipline,whereone resistsandbeguilesthepleasuresofthefleshoneatatime(Odysseus’labors), willleadawayfromthebodyandtowisdom,whichwillallowfortrueand lasting liberation from the corporeal world. Porphyry sees Odysseus’ story as a tale of a man passing through the stages of genesis, descending to the materialbody,andthenreturningtowisdom. Interlude Certain currents of pre-Plotinian Platonism, in which neither Plotinus nor Porphyryshoweddeterminativeinterest,becomecentralagainforlaterfig- ures, and so deserve some special mention before we move on. Before the third century ce a group of texts emerges, including the Hermetic corpus, Gnostic texts, and the works of Numenius, which draws from the same pool of Middle Platonic sensibilities. These writers set about elaborating medial layers of reality and installing within them choirs of exotic divine and quasi-divine figures like the demiurge, Hecate, the junges, Sophia, and the noetic father, ontological genealogies that succeeding generations of 62 AllegoryandascentinNeoplatonism philosophers became more and more confident describing in proliferating detail. They rushed in where the more circumspect Plotinus and Porphyry feared to tread. Succeeding generations of Neoplatonists could eventually traceindividualchainsofbeingdownthroughtheheavenstotheirendpoints at particular points of the material realm. In this group, a text particularly importantforthepresentpurposes,knownastheChaldeanOracles,emerges inthesecondcentury.ThelaterNeoplatonistsmakethiscollectionofenig- maticsayings,whichsurvivesonlyinfragments,intoakindofwisdomtext, rivaling the authority of Plato and Homer. A man named Julian claimed to have extracted the oracles via his son, also named Julian, after the son fellintoamediumistictrance.Thefathercarriedthefullerdesignation“the Chaldean.”ItispossiblethattheelderJuliancouldhaveactuallybeenfrom Chaldea,anametheGreeksusedfortheregionaroundancientBabylonia, sinceTrajan’sexpeditionsfacilitatedcontactwiththearea.Butbecausethe text carries little that is verifiably Chaldean, and quite a bit that is identifi- ably Platonist, more likely the lineage emerges from the legendary aura of thatregion,which,sincelateclassicaltimes,theGreekshadassociatedwith mysticalinsight.ThislineageisofapiecewithcertainEgyptomaniacalcur- rents that also ebb and flow through Greek philosophy during this period. Theselaterfigureslookedtotheseexoticcultures,ofwhichtheirknowledge waslimited,asrepositoriesofanancientwisdomextractableviaallegorical reading. TheChaldeanOraclesareellipticalstatementsoncosmogony(theorigins ofthecosmos),cosmology(itsarrangement),anthropology,andtheology.5 Similar collections of dubious lineage had circulated since the earliest days of known writing in Greek, prominently including the Sibylline Oracles, and collections handed down under such names as Bacis and Orpheus – a phenomenon discussed by Dirk Obbink above. The prominence of these collectionsisproportionaltotheircapacitytoprovokeallegoricalinterpre- tation. Iamblichus, Proclus, and many others produce allegorical commen- taries on the work of the Chaldeans. These texts’ status as oracles is often insufficiently emphasized. It reminds us of the connection between allegor- ical reading and divinatory interpretation, which is attested since at least the time of the Derveni Papyrus. In both practices, one finds dense and opaquetextsandexuberantinterpretivepracticesinamutuallyreinforcing relationship. Such a connection between divination and allegorism is also apparent in the extant Greco-Roman dream books. Artemidorus finds two kinds of 5 SeeHansLewy,TheChaldeanOraclesandTheurgy:Mysticism,Magic,andPlatonismin theLaterRomanEmpire,2ndedn.,ed.MicheleTardieu(Paris:E´tudesaugustiniennes,1978). 63 peter t. struck dreams.6 There are the straightforward ones, which require no interpreta- tion, and the interpretable ones, which are the focus of his work, and are named, precisely, “allegorical” (alleˆgorikoi). The statements of method he makes for interpreting them are all but indistinguishable from statements of allegorical hermeneutics in a literary dimension. Macrobius’ Commen- tary on the Dream of Scipio shows this elision even more starkly, since his introduction lays out, entirely paratactically, a statement of allegorical literary theory next to a theory of allegorical dreams (heavily indebted to Artemidorus).7Macrobiusproceedswithhiscommentarywithouteverfeel- ing the need to clarify whether he considers himself doing literary allegory ordivinatorydreaminterpretation,anomissionwhichcouldonlybemade in a case where the traditions were very close indeed. This elision in Mac- robiuswillprovetremendouslyinfluentialintheMiddleAges,wheredream narrativeisthefieldparexcellenceofallegoricalpoeticsandinterpretation. MacrobiusisthekeyLatinfigureintransmittingadistillationoftheGreek traditionsofallegoricalreadinganddivinationtotheWesternMiddleAges. Macrobius’ effacing of difference between literary allegory and divination was precisely what authorized the medieval idea that poetic myth (fabula) contains a philosophical truth waiting to be divined by the attentive and wisereader(formoreonthis,seeWhitman’sessaybelow). Iamblichus An intense family squabble among Plotinus’ heirs comes to light after the great man’s death. The second of his two most prominent followers, Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325 ce), disagreed seriously with Porphyry over a practicethatPorphyrycalledmagic(goeˆteia)andIamblichushimselfcalled “theurgy,” coining a term from theos + ergos (meaning divine action) on analogyto“theologia”(meaningdivinediscourse).Iamblichususesthenew term to advance his advocacy of a set of ritual activities meant to aid in contemplation and bring devotees closer to Plotinus’ goal of union with the divine. Porphyry strongly objects, opting for a pure contemplationist position, and produces a broadside attack. He writes with an expansive, scathing criticism, ridiculing in detail not only exotic practices – including standingonsecretdivinesignsandcallingdowndivinities–butalsohighly traditionalreligiousacts,likesacrifice,setatthecoreofancientreligion.In short, he objects that any action we might perform in the physical world 6 Artemidorus,TheInterpretationofDreams,RobertJ.White,trans.(ParkRidge,NJ:Noyes Press,1975). 7 Macrobius,CommentaryontheDreamofScipio,WilliamHarrisStahl,trans.(NewYork: ColumbiaUniversityPress,1990). 64