PHILOPONUS Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 6-8 This page intentionally left blank PHILOPONUS Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 6-8 Translated by Michael Share Duckworth LONDON(cid:2)(cid:222)(cid:2)(cid:48)(cid:39)(cid:57)(cid:2)(cid:38)(cid:39)(cid:46)(cid:42)(cid:43)(cid:2)(cid:222)(cid:2)(cid:48)(cid:39)(cid:57)(cid:2)YO(cid:52)(cid:45)(cid:2)(cid:222)(cid:2)SYDN(cid:39)(cid:59) Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2005 by 50 Bedford SGquearraeld Duckworth & Co. L1td38.5 Broadway 9L0o-n9d3o nCowcross Street, London EC1NMe w6 BYoFrk WC1B 3DP NY 10018 Tel: 020 7490 7300 UK USA Fax: 020 7490 0080 [email protected] www.ducknet.co.uk Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Preface © 2005 by Richard Sorabji First published in 2005 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. Introduction, t(cid:51)r(cid:68)a(cid:83)n(cid:72)s(cid:85)(cid:69)la(cid:68)(cid:70)t(cid:78)io(cid:3)(cid:72)n(cid:71) (cid:76)a(cid:87)(cid:76)n(cid:82)(cid:81)d(cid:3) (cid:192)n(cid:85)o(cid:86)t(cid:87)(cid:3)e(cid:83)s(cid:88) (cid:69)©(cid:79)(cid:76) (cid:86)2(cid:75)0(cid:72)0(cid:71)5(cid:3)(cid:21) (cid:19)b(cid:20)y(cid:23) (cid:3)Michael Share All rightPs rreefasceer ©ve 2d0.0 N5 boy p Raircht aorfd t Shoirsa bpjuiblication Introduction, translation and notes © 2005 by Michael Share may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, Richard Sorabji andMichael Share have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs (cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:71)(cid:3)m(cid:51)(cid:68)e(cid:87)c(cid:72)h(cid:81)a(cid:87)(cid:86)n(cid:3)(cid:36)ic(cid:70)a(cid:87)(cid:15)l(cid:3)(cid:20), (cid:28)p(cid:27)h(cid:27)o(cid:15)(cid:3)t(cid:87)(cid:82)o(cid:3)c(cid:69)o(cid:72)p(cid:3)(cid:76)(cid:71)y(cid:72)in(cid:81)(cid:87)g(cid:76)(cid:192), (cid:72)r(cid:71)e(cid:3)c(cid:68)o(cid:86)r(cid:3)(cid:87)d(cid:75)i(cid:72)n(cid:3)(cid:36)g(cid:88) o(cid:87)(cid:75)r (cid:82)o(cid:85)t(cid:86)h(cid:3)(cid:82)e(cid:73)(cid:3)r(cid:87)(cid:75)w(cid:76)(cid:86)is(cid:3)(cid:90)e(cid:82),(cid:85)(cid:78)(cid:17) without the prior permission of the publisher. 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Foundation; the Arts and Humanities Research Board of the British A Aspcaedceimaly ;g trhaen Ets fmoére t Fhaei rpbraeirpna Crhaatrioitnab olef Tthruisst ;v tohleu Hmeen rfyo rB rporwenss was provideTdr ubsyt; Mthre a nCdo Munrsc iNl . oEfg oGnr; ethseh Nameth Cerolallnedgse O, rtgoa nwishatiicohn ftohre series editor(cid:54) i(cid:70)s(cid:76)(cid:72) v(cid:81)e(cid:87)(cid:76)r(cid:192)y(cid:70) (cid:3)(cid:53)gr(cid:72)(cid:86)a(cid:72)t(cid:68)e(cid:85)f(cid:70)u(cid:75)l(cid:3).(cid:11)(cid:49)(cid:58)(cid:50)(cid:18)(cid:42)(cid:58)(cid:12)(cid:30)(cid:3)(cid:87)(cid:75)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:38)(cid:88)(cid:79)(cid:87)(cid:88)(cid:85)(cid:68)(cid:79)(cid:3)(cid:36)(cid:87)(cid:87)(cid:68)(cid:70)(cid:75)(cid:112)(cid:3)(cid:82)(cid:73)(cid:3)(cid:87)(cid:75)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:42)(cid:85)(cid:72)(cid:72)(cid:78) Embassy in London. The editor wishes to thank Frans de Haas, James Wilberding, and Andrea Falcon for their comments and John Bowin, Devin Henry and Inna Kupreeva for preparing the volume Typesetfo br yp rResasy. Davies A specialP grrainntt efodr athned p breopuanradt iionn Gof rtehaist vBolruimtaei nfo rb pyress was provided by Bthied Cdoleusn cLilt odf, G Kreinshga’sm L Cyonllneg, eN, toor wfohlikch the series editor is very grateful. Typeset by Ray Davies Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 Departures from Rabe’s Text 7 Translation 11 Chapter 6 13 Chapter 7 87 Chapter 8 116 Notes 129 Select Bibliography 155 English-Greek Glossary 157 Greek-English Index 166 Subject Index 191 Index of Passages Cited 199 This page intentionally left blank Preface Richard Sorabji This volume continues the translation of Philoponus’ work in 18 chap- ters, which is one of the most interesting of all post-Aristotelian Greek philosophical texts. It was written at a crucial moment in the defeat of paganism by Christianity. In 529 AD, the Emperor Justinian put an end to teaching in the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens, where Proclus had in the fifth century AD been the most devout pagan teacher, St Benedict is thought to have founded the monastery in Monte Cassino, and, again on behalf of Christianity, Philoponus in Alexandria attacked Proclus’ arguments that the universe had no beginning in his Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World. Philoponus was one of the cleverest of the Neoplatonist philosophers, a pupil of Ammonius in Alexandria, but he was a Christian, and he used his profound knowledge of the Neoplatonist and Aristotelian traditions to turn the pagans’ own views against themselves. Our text records, and replies to, the 18 arguments of Proclus’ Against the Christians on the Eternity of the World, as well as quoting a little of Proclus’ Examination of Aristotle’s Objections to Plato’s Timaeus. It will suffice to indicate just a few of the original arguments and ideas in chapters 6 to 8, and I shall select two issues from the longest chapter, 6. In VI.29, 238,3-240,9; and VIII.1, 297, 21-300,2, Philoponus reports that Proclus had adapted an argument from Aristotle’s Physics 8.10. Since bodies are finite in size, the largest body, the universe, cannot house the infinite power needed to maintain it in existence (Aristotle had only said ‘in motion’) for ever. That power must therefore be housed in something incorporeal and external to it, God. Proclus in Athens laments Aristotle’s failure to apply the argument to existence as well as to motion. But Proclus’ pupil Ammonius in Alexandria claimed that this was what Aristotle had intended (so Simplicius in Phys. 1363,4-12), and this interpretation of Aristotle was to prevail. Philoponus now infers from Proclus’ view that the world is perishable so far as its own nature is concerned and that hence God has to override its nature. The imperishability it acquires from God is therefore above its nature or super-natural (huper phusin), 237,10-15; 240,22. Conse- viii Preface quently, Philoponus infers, 242,15-22, since it is perishable so far as its own nature is concerned, it is also subject to being generated with a beginning. As Lindsay Judson has pointed out, there is a tacit assump- tion here that God could not override its natural generability in the way he overrides its natural perishability.1 The argument is set out more clearly in the Arabic summary of a lost longer exposition by Philoponus.2 At VI.7-8, Philoponus makes much of Plato himself having described the universe in Timaeus 27C, 28B-C, 37D-38C as ‘generated’. His discussion reveals the techniques of interpretation applied to Plato’s text by others. In VI.8, 145,13-147,25, we learn that the Middle Platon- ist Taurus had tried to evade the most obvious implication of ‘generated’ by distinguishing 4 alternative senses of ‘generated’, and the Neoplaton- ist Porphyry had tried to add others. Two of Taurus’ meanings had been exploited by Proclus. Taurus had also, as we learn in VI.22, 191,15ff., interpreted Plato’s question at Timaeus 27C whether the universe has come to be, or is ungenerated, as if the ‘or’ meant ‘if’. Others had emended Plato’s text. Alexander is said at VI.27, 214,10-20, to have reported others as emending ‘or’ to ‘even though’, while others again, according to Philoponus at VI.22, 193,9-11, had emended ‘ungenerated’ (agenês) to ‘ever in process of generation’ (aeigenês). Aristotle had already recorded that some people took Plato’s talk of the universe having been generated to be a fiction like that used by geometers drawing diagrams, to clarify the structure of something by showing it being built up in sequences, when it was never really so built, On the Heavens 279b32 - 280a10. Here we have a window onto ancient tech- niques of textual criticism. * A new introduction to the Commentators will appear in R.R.K. Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200-600 AD: A Sourcebook, Lon- don, Duckworth, 2004. Notes 1. Lindsay Judson, ‘God or nature? Philoponus on generability and perish- ability’, in Richard Sorabji (ed.), Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, London & Ithaca, NY 1987. See also Richard Sorabji, Matter, Space and Motion, London & Ithaca, NY 1988, ch. 15. 2. Translated by S. Pines, ‘An Arabic summary of a lost work of John Philoponus’, Israel Oriental Studies 2, 1972, 320-52, at 323-4, and reproduced in Sorabji Matter, Space and Motion, London & Ithaca, NY 1988, ch. 15. Introduction This translation is made from Rabe’s 1899 Teubner edition,1 the only modern critical edition of the Greek text. Departures from Rabe’s text, many of which are based on Rabe’s own suggestions in the critical apparatus, are mentioned in the notes as they occur and listed sepa- rately in front of the translation. Words in square brackets in the translation do not occur in the Greek but have been inserted to clarify the sense. Greek words are occasionally given in transliteration when it is thought their presence may help the reader. The single manuscript on which our knowledge of the Greek text of Philoponus’ work is based is incomplete at either end, and the original title of the work is quite uncertain. I discussed the ancient references to the work and the status of Rabe’s Latin title, on which the English title on the title-page of this volume is based, in the introduction to my translation of its first five chapters in this series, to which I refer the reader. In this introduction and in the notes I shall refer to Philoponus’ work as Aet., an abbreviation based on the Latin title. Proclus’ proofs have recently been re-edited and translated into English by Helen S. Lang and A.D. Macro and there is an earlier English translation of them by the English Neoplatonist Thomas Taylor and a German one by Matthias Baltes.2 In contrast, only small portions of Philoponus’ refutations of them have ever been translated into any modern language. Since they also apply here, it is probably worth repeating the remarks I made in the introduction to my translation of chapters 1-5 of Aet. on some of my translation decisions.3 In Plato’s Timaeus, from which much of the terminology used in Aet. and in the creation debate in general derives, the world, or universe, is variously referred to as ho kosmos,ho ouranos or to pan. kosmos originally meant ‘order’ and, secondarily, ‘adornment’, and it never lost these connotations, but by Plato’s day the meaning ‘world- order’ or simply ‘world’ was well-established. Common English equiva- lents are ‘cosmos’ and ‘world’ and I have opted for the latter.4 ouranos literally means ‘heaven’ but in the Timaeus Plato uses it interchangeably with kosmos (cf. Tim. 28B) and Aristotle at Cael. 278b ff. says that it may be used of (a) the outermost circumference of the universe, (b) the heavens as a whole, including the stars, the sun, the