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„Clarifications“ of Obscurity: Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading of Plato’s Parmenides

„Ciarifications“ of Obscurity:
Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading
of Plato’s Parmenides
Florin George Cäl ian
Exegetical work on philosophical systems requires not only that one give
an account of the structure of a system’s assumptions and arguments,
but also of its forms, such as the form of expression (or genre: dialogue,
poem, aphorisms, and so on), or its form of argumentation (clear cut discursive
exposition, logical forma l i zation, metaphorical, a l legorical discourse,
and so forth). These formal considerations may seem to be secondary,
merely ornamental issues, but they can raise unexpected questions.
The literal reading of a text has its counter-part in al legorical
interpretation. This way of reading, which must have Started with the
first readers of Homer and found a fertile ground i n Phi lo’s a l legorical
commentaries on the Bible, was amazingly natural for Proclus (c. 4 1 1 –
485), whose writings and commentaries represent the last phases of late
antique phi losophy, and particularly of the relation between philosophy
and rhetoric.
Proclus was a major systemic philosopher of late Neoplatonism. Beside
his fame as one of the last notable heads of the Platonic Academy, he
was also known in his youth as a rhetorician with a profound curiosity
about divination and theurgy. He was a practitioner of magic and it is
said that he knew how to bring rain and that, through a particular rite, he
saved Attica from a dreadful drought.1 Proclus was devoted to the Greek
gods, especially Athena, whom he i nvokes at the beginning of his commentary
on the Parmenides:
I pray to all the gods and goddesses to guide my mind . . . to kindie in me a
shining light of truth . . . to open the gates of my soul to receive the i nspired
guidance of Plato.2
Marinus, Vita Procli, 28. See Marinus, Proclus ou Sur Je Bonheur, ed. and French
trans. Henri-Oominique Saffrey and Alain Philippe Segonds (Paris: Les Beiles Lettres,
2001), 33. Vita Procli, a hagiographic<l biography written by his pupil, Marinus,
is the main source of information that we have about Proclus.
Glenn R. Morrow and John M. Dillon, Proc/us‘ Commentary on P!ato’s Parmenides
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 19. See also Proclus, Theologie pla1
6 FLORIN GEORGE CÄLIAN
He consistently opposed Christianity and supported the dying old religions,
and, paradoxically, he i nfluenced medieval Christian phi losophy to
a considerable degree, through Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s „plagiarism“
of his work.3
Proclus used the a l legorical method at length i n his philosophical
commentaries on Plato’s dialogues and developed a substantial a l legorical
technique, even in his commentary on the Parmenides, a d i alogue
which would, at first glance, hardly seem l i kely to inspire an a l legorical
reading, given its technicalities and aridity.4 His efforts to charge the text
with heavy allegorical meaning challenge both the l i terary critic and the
philosopher to clarify what he was doing. Some tenets of Proclus’s commentary
on Plato’s Parmenides w i l l thus be scrutinized as a case study i n
the present article, in a n attempt t o d e l i neate and t o d iscuss the main
Suppositions of the Proclean allegorical reading. My hypothesis is that
allegory is a phi losophical rather than a l i terary mechanism and bears
for Proclus philosophical implications as one of his main methodological
devices. The main question addressed here is: Why would someone
question al legorica l ly a phi losophical text? Or, in other words: What are
the prerequisites for using al legory as part of a phi losophical inquiry? I
wish to focus on why one would read a philosophical text allegorically
rather than how such a reading was done (discovered, i nvented, transm
itted through a certain tradition, etc.)
tonicienne I, 1, 2, 4, ed. and French trans. L. G. Westerink and H. D. Saffrey (Paris:
Les Beiles Lettres, 1 968), 7-8, 17-18. For a comparative reading of the invocations
from the Parmenides and Platonic Theology see Robbert Maarten van den
Berg, Proc/us‘ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2001),
225-26.
A consistent overview of the hidden prese,ce of Proclean philosophy in medieval
thinking is provided in Proclus, The Elements of Theology: A Revised Text with
Translation, lntroduction, and Commentary, ed. E. R. Dodds, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 1992). Pseudo-Diorysius’s plagiarism of Proclus was massive:
„he followed Proclus slavishly in many of the detai ls of his doctrine“ (Dodds
in Proclus, The Elements of Theology, xxvii·xxviii). See also Egbert P. Bos and P. A.
MeUer, eds., On Proclus and His lnfluence in Medieval Phi/osophy (Leiden: Brill,
1991).
The most studied allegorical commentaries of Proclus are those that focus an
Homer. See Oiva Kuisma, Proclus‘ Defence of Homer (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum
Fennica, 1 996); Anne D. R. Sheppard, Studies on the 5th [fifth] and 6th [sixth]
Essays of Proclus‘ Commentary on the Republic (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1980); and Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorica
l Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (London: University of California
Press, 1989).
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL REAOING OF PLATO’S PARMENIDES 1 7
Opacity and Clarity
A phi losophical discourse is not always a model of clear speech, clear argumentation,
or clear ideas. On the contrary, it is frequently full of obscure
concepts and follows an obscure paradigm, or may be expressed in
such obscure language and rhetoric that it verges on gratuitous meaninglessness.
For late antique phi losophy, the tension between non-figurative
speech and rhetorical speech, which could be found in Plato’s
d i alogues (the tension between Iogos and mythos, or between philosophy
and poetry), was a means for finding further layers of meanings. Like the
Christian exegesis of the Bible, Platonist commentators tried to clarify
and make sense of the rhetorical and decorative features of Plato’s dialogues.
Far from reading Plato literal ly, the Neoplatonists followed the
principle that Plato’s texts always require more than a prima facie reading,
both where the text is obscure phllosophically (because of unclear
argumentation) and where the text is not at a l l philosophical, but merely
a kind of rhetorical exposition (a captatio benevolentiae).
l n his Commentary an Aristotle’s Categories (6.33), Simplicius notes
that
Aristotle did not use myths or symbolic enigmas in the way some of his predecessors
did [Pythagoras and Plato}. but [ … ] preferred obscurity of formulation
to every other form of concealment.S
lt was thus natural to charge philosophers with using intentionally obscure
language,6 and Aristotle is thought. accordi n g to Simplicius, to have
had a preference for itJ How was it possible that the language of phi loso-
Cited in Proclus, A Commentary on the F1rsc Book of Euctid’s Elements. tr. G. R.
Morrow (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), xxiv. The formulation is
very unclear. Why is „myth“ or „symbolic eni9ma“ an alternative to „obscurity of
formulation“? ls Aristotle deliberate in his obscurity? Simplicius is perhaps referring
to the so-called esoteric writings as opposed to the exoteric ones.
Aristotle’s obscurity was a subject of study for the ancient reader as weil as for
the modern one. Bishop Hippolytus thinks that Aristotle’s account of the soul is
obscure, while Atticus affirms that he is seeking to avoid criticism by using „obscure
language.“ See Jonathan Barnes, „Metacommentary,“ in Jonathan Barnes,
Method and Metaphysics: Essays in Ancient Philosophy I, ed. Maddalena Bonelli
(Oxford: Oxford University Press. 201 1 ), 195.
Simplicius made a similar claim in the Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (8. 1 8-
20): Aristotle practiced „obscurity, thereby discouraging the more idle students“
(Barnes, „Metacommentary,“ 1 97).
1 8 FLORIN GEORGE CÄLIAN
phy, which, according to modern ideas, should avoid obscurity, was perceived
as intentionally obscure? lt seems that for ancient philosophers
one had to use an obscure discourse to d iscuss the intelligible world. For
example, in a passage from his commentary on the first book of Eucl i d ’s
Elements ( 1 1 ) , Proclus notes that in the Republic (533d), Plato observes
that
Secrates describes the knowledge of the understandable as being more obscure
than the highest science, but clearer than thejudgments of opinion .B
I n cantrast to Aristotle’s obscurity, which was supposed to be intentional,
the obscurity of Plato’s language was perceived as being, in a
sense, natural, that is, necessary. However, there are passages i n the Platonic
corpus that are so obscure that one cannot be sure that the reason
for this Iack of clarity is precisely a „higher science,“ which cannot be expressed
by unambiguous speech.
T hroughout his prose and in curious ways at times, Plato was an enigmatic
writer. Two small examples may i l l ustrate the nature of some of
the puzzles Plato’s writings pose. ln Phaedo, the d i a logue which presents
the last hours of Socrates, Plato writes, surprisingly, that he was sick and
absent from the scene. lt is the only self-referential passage of all the Platonic
dialogues and it has intrigued scholars for a lang time: why does
Plato mention hirnself only here as a dramatis persona – indeed, as an
absent dramatis persona? Again, the same dialogue offers the riddling
last words of the dying Socrates: „Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius:
please pay the debt, and don’t neglect it.“9
Moreover, why did Plato choose to write phi losophy in the form of
dialogues? Can one ignore the l iterary form, the narrative frame, and focus
solely on the ideas it contains? Why did he choose the specific characters
he did and not other ones? Why do some characters appear more
Proclus, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, 10.
Plato, Phaedo 1 1 8, 7-8, trans. David Gallop (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 72.
This is not the only type of intentional obscurity to be found in Plato’s dialogues:
there are several. For example, the passage i n the Republic in which Plato speaks
about a eugenic number, the so called, „nuptial number,“ became notorious for its
obscurity (Republic, V I I I , 546b). Comparing a riddle of Atticus with Plato’s description
of the „nuptial number,“ Cicero exclaims: „Your enigma of the juicemerchants
from Velia has simply defeatec me, it’s darker than the Platonic Number“
(„Aenigma succonum ex Vel ia plane non intellexi; est enim numero Platonis
obscurius“; Letters to Atticus V I I , 1 3. 5, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton-Bailey
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004]. 1 6- 1 7 ) .
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL READING OF PLATO’S PARMENIDES 1 9
frequently than others? These dialogues are full of conflicting remarks
and uncertain claims.
The puzzling passages-which still puzzle scholars nowadays and
which elude phi losophical elucidation as weil as other sorts of interpretations
(e.g. historical-critical ones)-are abundant i n a l l dia logues and
are present at different narrative layers. There was thus d i sagreement
about the interpretation of Plato’s writings almost immediately after his
death. Speusippus reformulated Plato’s philosophy in terms of mathematics.
Xenocrates followed the same l i ne of interpretation. Aristotle attributed
to Plato ideas that can hardly be found in his dialogues; and so
on. All these interpretations-each of them with its peculiarities-were a
natural consequence of the fact that Plato was by no means a c/ear author.
For Proclus, a philosophical text’s resistance to clear interpretation
led to a suspicion that it might be read a l legorically. As John Oillon remarked
in the introduction to the first book of Proclus’s commentary on
the Parmenides, a l legorical exegesis uses such „apparent contradiction in
the text to reveal a higher truth.“10 Thus allegory is a way to unify a text
and make it meaningful even when it Iacks any obvious unity or clear
meaning.
Al legorizing Plato’s Parmenides
Proclus’s learned commentary on the Parmenides is not, however, an a l legorical
interpretation o f t h e entire d ialogue. lt attempts, rather, t o elucidate
allegorically some of the apparently unintelligible passages of the
introduction of the Parmenides that sets the stage for the phi losophical
discussion that follows, passages that could easily be overlooked by the
modern reader si nce, in the economy of the dialogue, the i ntroduction
might not be considered part of the argument. Thus, Proclus’s al legorical
method of i nterpretation actually discovers, or creates, further „obscurities“
in the dia logue. The transmission of the original conversation, the
characters, their determinations and other details, l i ke, for example, the
place of the conversation, are shown to function as mythical and eternal
archetypes. This a llegorical i nterpretation of the introduction raises the
narrative frame to the Ievei of mythical story.
10 See Morrow and Dillen, „lntroduction“ to Book I in Proclus‘ Commentary on
Plato’s Parmenides, 14.
20 FLORIN GEORGE CALIAN
The Parmenides11 starts with the arrival at Athens of the narrator of
the dialogue, an unknown character named Cephalus of Klazomenae,
along with his countrymen, who are genuinely interested in philosophy.
Adeimantus welcomes them and they ask h i m to take them to Plato’s
half-brother, Antiphon, whom they ask to talk about a discussion that
took place a long time ago between a young Secrates and two E leatics:
Zeno (who was then in his forties) and Parmenides (who was then about
sixty-five). Antiphon teils them that he heard and learned by heart a description
of the discussion from Pythodorus (a student of Zeno), who had
been present at the original dialogue which had taken place in his house,
and then begins h i s narrative.12
Uni ike the narrator of most Platonic dia logues, the raconteur of the
Parmenides was not present at the original talk. With the exception of the
Symposium, the Parmenides is the only other text in Plato’s corpus i n
which the information that lies a t the core o f the dia logue has been
transmitted through three successive stages (the original discussion is
retold by Pythodorous. then by Antiphon, and fina lly by Cephalus).13
There are some scholars who think that this manner of telling the story
1 1 lt is surprising to learn that the Neoplatonists thought that Plato’s Parmenides, a
dialogue that others have always considered a model and a masterpiece of phi losophical
obscurity, contained the clearest presentation of Plato’s theological program
and was the key to understanding all the other dialogues and all of Plato’s
other mythologies and philosophical programs. The second part of the dialogue,
which seems to be more of a logical exercise, was the starting point for the construction
of a mystical metaphysics by Neoplatonic philosophers.
12 Cephalus, who memorized the whole discussion from Antiphon, starts narrating
the original conversation ex abrupto to an unknown audience and i n an unknown
place. lnterestingly, he is able to recount :he entire conversation, but starts with
the confession that he is unable to remember the name of Adeimantus’s halfbrother
(126b): „Your half brother on your mother’s side – what was his name?
l’ve forgotten“ (Piato, Complete Works, ed. John Madison Cooper and 0. S. Hutchinson,
trans. Mary Louise Gill and Paul Ryan [lndianapolis: Hackett Publishing,
1997], 360). lt remains unclear why Plato introduced the apparently unnecessary
intermediaries between Cephalus, the final narrator, and Pythodorus, the initial
narrator.
13 See also Reginald E. Allen, Plato’s Parmenides (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1997), 69-72. Samething similar can be seen in a passage from the Timaeus,
where the myth of Atlantis is learned from a fifth generation narrator: Plato narrates
an account he heard from Critias, who heard it from an old man, who heard
it from Solon, who heard it from an Egyptian priest.
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL REAOING OF PLATO’S PARMENIDES 2 1
is principally decorative, while others believe that „this complex narrative
scheme is not accidental“14 and suggest that
the more one reads Plato, the more one becomes aware that the literary elements,
such as setting, character, prologue, and epilogue, are carefully chosen
to give an aesthetic Statement about the entire dialogue’s structure and intention.
15
Proclus pays as close attention to the dramatic qualities of the dialogues
as he does to their main arguments. Accordingly, Proclus does not think
that either Plato’s choice of characters or the way in which he constructs
the sequence of transmission of the original d i scussion is accidenta l.
These Features may seem to be rather insignificant details for the modern
reader,16 but for Proclus they provide additional meaning to the entire
d i a logue.17 For the modern reader, the prologue of the dialogue may
not seem to contribute to the philosophical argument developed in it, but
for Proclus it is a genuine philosophical language that resembles metaphysics.
For an exegete like Proclus, the effect of the mise-en-scene goes beyond
pure esthetics and touches metaphysical principles. He bel ieves
that it i s impossible to understand Plato’s complete philosophical program
i n this d i alogue without paying close attention to the sequence of
narrators. The layers of communication are necessary and indicate that
one cannot have d i rect access to Platonic forms. The prologue and the
core content of the dialogue therefore cannot be separated. ln his commentary
on the Alcibiades, Proclus says this plainly:
The i ntroductions to the dialogues of Plato accord with the1r overall aims and
have not been invented by Plato for the sake of dramatic charm . . . nor do they
aim at mere accurate narrative, as some have considered . . . these circumstances
depend on the general purpose ofthe dialogues.18
14 Allen, Plato’s Parmenides, 69.
15 Robert Sherrick Brumbaugh, Plato on the One: The Hypoeheses in the Parmenides
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 26.
16 Tarrant remarks that „to the modern reader Proclus‘ ingenuity will probably
seem like a reduction ad absurdum of the view that prologues are signif1cant“
(Harold Tarrant, Plato’s First Interpreters [lthaca: Cornell University Press, 2000].
40).
17 Reading a dialogue as a whole in which each feature has its meaning is specific to
the Neoplatonists and is a late development: „the significance of each detail of the
text is plainly a pnnciple of post-lamblichean allegorizing“ (Dillon, „lntroduction,“
in Proclus‘ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, 13).
1B Proclus, ln Alcibiadem 18.13-19.10, trans. W. O’Neill, i n Proclus: Alcibiades 1 : A
Translation and Commentary (The Hague: Martinus NUhoff, 1 97 1 ) , 1 1 -12. See
22 FLORIN GEORGECÄLIAN
ln his commentary on the Parmenides, furthermore, Proclus says:
studying any Platonic dialogue we must Iook especially at the matters that are
its subject and see how the details of the prologue prefigure them.19
Proclus’s way of i nterpreting suggests that it is inappropriate to ask if
the exposition is fictive or historical. Proclus i nterprets the prologue as a
chronicle of metaphysical princi ples, neither historical nor fictive, which
describes plastically how the forms enter the world. He a l legorizes everyth
ing he can. For example, being „outside the city walls“ signifies the
transcendence of the gods. He also al legorizes the transmission of the
i n itial conversation, the characters, and the origin of the characters, as
follows:
Allegorization of the narrative transmission.2o Proclus interprets the
various stages in the transmission of the original conversation as the
progression of the forms into matter, as a chain of ontolog ical Ieveis:
Cephalus’s audience represents the primordial material (hypodoche) i n
which the Demiurge, accordi n g t o the Timaeus, i m presses the forms; Antiphon’s
speech to Cephalus represents the progression of the forms into
physikai ousiai; Pythodorus’s description of the conversation to Antiphon
stands for the progression of the forms into souls (Antiphon’s interest i n
horses i s related to the image of the soul i n Plato’s Phaedrus) ; the conversation
itself stands for the Nous and the intel ligible world of the
forms.
Allegorization of the characters.21 According to Proclus, Parmenides
is an analogon for the unparticipated and divine lntellect (Nous); Zeno is
an analogon for the participated lntel lect (nous); and Socrates represents
(eoike) the particular i ntel lect. Proclus discovers other kinds of analogia
as wei l : Parmenides is the symbol of Being, Zeno that of Life, Secrates
that of lntellect, Pythodorus stands for the angels, Aristoteles for individual
sou/s (the fact that he becomes one of the thi rty tyrants signifies the
keenness of the souls to descend into the tyranny of the passions), Pythodorus
for the „divine Soul“ (he uncovers the intelligible world and receives
Iogoi from it), Antiphon for the „demonic soul“ (his association
with horsemanship hints that he desires to rule the physical world),
Cephalus for the „individual soul.“ These a l l egorizations a l low Proclus to
also James A. Coulter, The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the
Later Neoplatonists (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 84-85.
19 Proclus‘ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 659, p. 4 7.
2o Proc/us‘ Commentaryon Plaw’s Parmenides 626-27, p. 25-26.
21 Proclus‘ Commentary on P!ato’s Parmenides 628-30, p. 27-28.
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL READING OF PLATO’S PARMENIDES 23
further allegorize the phases of the initial d i scussion. For example, he
interprets Socrates’s turning from Zeno towards Parmenides as the return
of the Nous through Life towards Being.22
Allegorization of the origin of the characters.23 Unexpectedly, Proclus
i nterprets even the origins of the main characters. With respect to the
first /emma-„When we arrived in Athens from our home in Clazomenae,
we encountered Adeimantus and Glaucon in agora“ (1 26a)-Proclus
identifies the city Clazomenae with the lonian school, which is a symbol
of Nature, and Parmenides and Zeno with the ltalian school, a symbol of
the intellectual being:
Iet us take lonia as a symbol (symbolon) ot nature, ltaly as a symbol of i ntellectual
being, and Athens as the interme<Hary that prov1des a way up for the souls
who are aroused to move from nature to lntellect.
Arriving from Clazomenae „expresses the activity of gods which transcend
the reason-principles in nature,“ while meeting with Glaucon and
Adeimantus „ind icates the sovereignty of the dyad in the u nified plurality.“
As a consequence, he writes:
22
23
2•
But these things. as I said, bear the likeness (eikon) of gods themselves and
make it very easy for those who w1sh to follow the analogy (analogia).2′
Dillen rightly asks how one should camprehend the characters: as eikones or
symbola? He concludes that since they represent a „higher“ truth, they should be
taken as symbola. On the other hand, as Dillen observes, the arrangement of the
three passive listeners in the Timaeus (I 9) is understood as an eikon. Later on (I
198), the arrangement of speeches is understood as symbolon for the creation of
the Universe (John Dillen, „Image, Symbol and Analogy: Three Basic Concepts of
Neoplatonic Allegorical Exegesis,“ in The Significance of Neoplatonism, ed. R.
Baine Harris [Norfolk, Virginia: International Society for Neoplatonic Studies,
1 9 76]. 253).
Proclus‘ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 660-64, p. 48-51 .
Proc/us‘ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 662, p. 49. This last elucidation creates
some technical problems. Analogy is here understood as a way of establishing
relations between the apparent meaning of the text and the transcendent
realm. lt assumes a theory of correspondence in which each semantic element
corresponds to a metaphysical one, and the term retains the sense of „geometrical
proportion“ from its mathematical uses. l n this context „it signifies the correspondence
between the surface meaning of the text (or of the characters, things
and actions ment1oned in text) and the metaphysical truths of which it, or they,
are the expressions“ (Dillen, “ I mage. Symbol and Analogy,“ 255). According to
Dillen, Proclus’s interpretations show that he did not distinguish between symbolon
and eikon. Some Neoplatonists used a more specific meaning of symbolon to
mean „any object or any message capable of a double Ievei of interpretation,“ a l though
this meaning was, a s Luc Brisson puts it, „reserved t o a small number of
24 FlORIN GEORGE CAUAN
Conditions for Al legory and Likeness
The attempt to explain al legorica lly philosophical obscurity (Piato’s reasons,
for example, for choosing a specific storyline) was fam iliar to the
late antique reader and student of phi losophy. Neoplatonic philosophers
were especially open to the allegorical interpretation of Plato’s works
because they believed
( 1 ) that nothing in Plato’s corpus is uni ntended or there by chance
(2) that his writings were divinely inspi red
(3) in the principle „panta en pasin“
These interrelated beliefs are necessary conditions for the a l legorical
i nterpretation of Plato’s work. The third is in fact more than a condition;
it is one of the foundational Neoplatonic metaphysical principles. Let us,
therefore, Iook at each of them more closely.
( 1 ) The belief that nothing in Plato’s corpus is unintended or there by
chance. I n the ln Alcibiadem ( 1 0.3), Proclus asserts that the d ialogues
must possess what the whole cosmos possesses; and an analogous part must
be assigned therein to the good, part to the intellect, part to the soul, part to
the form and part to the underlying nature itself.25
And indeed the late Platonists understood the dia logue as a cosmos, and
the cosmos as a dialogue. The Anonymaus Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy
thus describes the vi rtues of the dia logue form i n the following
manner:
For in the same way that a dialogue has different personages each speaking in
character, so does the universe comprise existences of various natures expressing
themselves in various ways; for the utterance of each is according to
initiates“ (Luc Brisson, How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorica/ Interpretation
and C/assical Mythology [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008], 58). Additionally,
it seems that the ancient allegorists did not distingutsh between symbol
and al/egory, „but used the terms as synonyms“ (Peter T. Struck, „AIIegory and
Ascent in Neoplatonism,“ in The Garnbridge Campanion to Allegory. ed. Rita
Copeland and Peter T. Struck [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 201 0],
69). The key notion in the above commentary is ana/ogia, which seems tndistinguishable
from allegoria. As Dillen puts it, Proclus’s analogia is the heart of his
allegorical interpretation, but he provides „no clue as to what precise rules are to
be followed in fixing the analogiai.“ l ndeed, adds Oil lon. „there were in fact none
that could be formulated,“ although this does not mean that „the resulting allegory
i s arbitrary“ (Oillon, „Image, Symbol and Analogy,“ 256).
25 O’Neil, Proclus: Alcibiades I, 6-7.
PROCLUS’S ÄLLEGORICAL READING OF PLATO’S PARMENIDES 25
its nature. lt was 1n Imitation, then, of Gocfs creation, the cosmos, that he did
this. Either this is the reason, or it isthat the cosmos is a kind of dialogue.26
This way of thinking was rei nforced by the belief that „the dialogues as a
whole constituted a well-ordered arrangement, or cosmos. of interconnected
conversations.“27 The dia logue is a microcosm of the cosmos; it is
understood „as a microcosmic organism, and as a corollary, its creator as
microcosmic demiurge.“28
Moreover, in speaking about the functions of Plato’s prologues i n the
in Alcibiadem (19). Proc lus insists that:
on the one hand, the subject matter in fact or ward is adapted to the immediate
aim, while on the other hand what is wanting to the completion of the topic
under discussion is supplied; but all together, as in an Initiation, have reference
to the overall ach1evement of the objects of enqUiry.29
Each element is necessary and none can be ignored lest the puzzle remain
incomplete. This holistic view is yet another condition for a correct
a l legorical i nterpretation. l n fact, Proclus’s ideas on this subject resemble
ideas in the Phaidros (246c). where Plato concludes that:
Every speech must be put tagether like a living creature, with a body of its
own; 1t must be neither without head nor without legs; and it must have middle
and extremities that are fitting both to one another and to the whole
work.30
A dia logue thus presents itself to the commentator as a complex riddle
whose every part can say or suggest something about another part.l1
Like the parts of the cosmos. each of wh1ch resonates with the whole, the
parts of a dialogue resonate with the whole of the dialogue. with its
26 Anonymaus Prolegomena to Piatonic Philosophy 1 5, ed. and trans. Leendert Gerrit
Westerink (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co .. 1962). 28.
27 Jacob Howland, „Re-Reading Plato: The Problem of Platonic Chronology.“ Phoenix
45.3 (1991): 194.
28 Coulter, The Literary Microcosm, 102.
29 O’Neil. Proclus: Alcibiades I, 1 2. See also Coulter, The Literary Microcosm. 85.
30 Plato, Phaedrus (246c), trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff
(lndianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995), 62.
31 The ancient commentator (both the Neoplatonist and the Christian one) struggles
to go beyend the text, but does not specify explicitly his method of forcing
the text to say something eise. ln this regard, Lamberton remarks that the goal of
the commentator „is to find the hidden meanings. the correspondences that carry
the thrust of the text beyend the explicit. Once he has asserted their existence, he
rarely feels the need to provide a theoretical substructure for his claims“ (Lamberton,
Homer the Theologian, 20).
26 FLORIN GEORGE CAUAN
skopos.32 A d i alogue thus needs a solution and Proclus’s interpretation
functions as a cipher. Through the a l legorical method he decodes the
hidden message. ln the case of the Parmenides, Proclus offers the key to
understanding the text in the chain of transmission depicted in the prologue:
metaphysical hierarchy is depicted as narrative hierarchy.
(2) The belief that Plato’s writings were divinely inspired. Plato’s Neoplatonic
commentators considered his dialogues to have been „divinely
inspired.“JJ This is why each text is a whole with multiple layers of meaning.
Coulter considers that, for the Neoplatonists, Plato „was, in a very
real sense, a god and far a bove criticism.“J4 Proclus hirnself writes in h i s
Platonic Theology ( 1 , 1 ) that Plato was the only m a n through whom secret
theological knowledge was made public, while in the beginning of the
commentary on the Parmenides (61 7-61 8), he assumes that his elucidation
of this specific dia logue is l i ke „the initiation into a mystery cult,“Js
praying „a l l the orders of the divine beings help . . . to share in this most
i l l uminating and mystical vision that Plato reveals to us in the Parmenides.“
36
(3) The belief in the principle “panta en pasin. “ Late antique phi losophers
found l i kenesses between philosophical systems and religious bel
i efs, between philosophical texts and religious scriptures, between the
32 The streng unity of each dialogue justifles the commentator’s „meticulous
examination of every word in the text. . . There can be no purely extraneous elements
in the dialogue, nor any unit of meaning so small that it plays no role in the
overall plan of the werk.“ The unity of the dialogues „often took the form of allegorical
readings of the text“ (Dirk Baltzly and Harold Tarrant, „General lntroduction
to the Commentary, “ in Tarrant, Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, vol. I
33
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007]. 17).
ln both traditions, the exegete must make sense of the obscurities that could be
turned into an occasion for pleasing and explaining. At least, in the case of Augustine
it can be said that „the purpese of allegory is two-fold: to please and to explain
(what cannot be expressed or understood directly). For Augustine, these
purposes are complementary, not contradictory“ (Frederick Van Fleteren, „Principles
of Augustine’s Hermeneutic: An Overview,“ in Augustine: Biblical Exegete,
ed. F. V an Fleteren and J. C. Schnaubelt [New York: Peter Lang, 2001]. 9).
3• Coulter, The Literary Microcosm, 46.
35 V an Den Berg, Proclus‘ Hymns: Essays. Translations, Commenrary, 226.
36 Proclus‘ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 659, p. 19. Not surprisingly. PseudoOionysius
the Areopagite Substitutes Jesus for Plato in his plagiaristic
paraphrase of Platonic Theology. For textual correspondences see lstvan Perczel,
„Pseudo-Oionysius and the Platonic Theology: A Preliminary Study,“ in A. P.
Segonds and C. Steel, eds., Proclus et Ia th!KJiogie platonicienne (Paris: Les Beiles
Lettres. 2000}, 500-01 .
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL REAOING OF PLATO’S PARMEN/DES 2 7
text as microcosms and the texture of the universe.37 The formal structure
and the content of Platonic texts thus imitated those of the universe
and similar tools were needed to read the book of nature and a Platonic
text. Nothing, moreover, obliged a reader to Iimit a Platonic text to only
one meaning. The different layers of meaning a reader can discover in a
Platonic text depend on his erudition and intention, and a I I the meanings
one can discover in a text are interrelated according to the doctrine
panta en pasin.3B Given these beliefs, and given the correspondences between
the physical and intelligible worlds, a l legorizing a text is a very
natural philosophical and religious behavior. A religious attitude toward
a text and a meta-textual reading are simply two of the consequences of
these beliefs. These bel iefs do not explain Proclus’s ideas about how to
perform an a l l egorical reading or why he preferred one allegorical
read ing to another one, but they do show that his a l legorical reading was
part of a continuum, an expected consequence of his conception of the
world.
Plato hirnself was one of the First phi losophers who thought that it
was inadmissible to take ad litteram the words of Homer, which, at first
37 The links between the structures of the text and metaphysical principles are as·
sured by the same principles that make theurgy possible. Theurgy confers au·
thority on allegorical analysis, and it is worth noting that Proclus. unlike Por·
phyry, believed that theurgy is superior to all human wisdom (Piatonic Theology,
I, 25 ). Theurgical beliefs imply that mater al things share divinity: a Statue is not
an imitation of divinity: it is a divinity (since it replicates divine Features). For the
language of theurgy, and that of mysteries as weil, as used in allegory see
Sheppard, „AIIegory, Symbols and Mysteries,“ in Studies on the 5th {fifth] and 6th
{sixth] Essays of Proclus‘ Commentary on the Repub/ic, 1 45-61 .
38 The conviction that everything is related to everything seems to be a common
place for late antique thinking. Proclus uses the principle of panta en pasin explicitly
in his Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, 627, and he formulates it in
proposition 103 of h1s The Elements of Theology (Proclus, The Elements of Theology,
92-93). Talking about the unity of everything, Proclus differentiates also be·
tween „a hidden unity, in which everything is everything,“ and a „differentiated
unity, in which all things partake of one another“ (Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides,
627, p. 1 28). The panta en pasin principle has a long history: Syrianus
ascribed it to the Pythagoreans, and lamblichus to Numenius (Proclus, Elements
of Theology, 93, 254}. See also Cristina d’Ancona Costa, „Les Sentences de Por·
phyre entre les Enn􀌽ades de Plotin et les (lements de th􀌽ologie de Proclus,“ i n
Porphyre, Sentences /, ed. Luc Brisson (Paris: Libra1rie Philosophique J . Vrin,
2005), 1 89-92.
28 FLORIN GEORGE CALIAN
glance, were an affront to the gods.39 Proclus’s solution to this problern
was to discover allegories of philosophical principles in myths and poetic
stories and he thus dismissed the platonic interdiction on poetry in the
philosophical polis. Poetry’s affront to the gods became a pretext for a l legorizing,
which became a modus operandi for Neoplatonism.40 lf, for
Plato, poetry isjust a copy of a copy, for the Neoplatonists, and especially
for Proclus, imitation is significant, indicative of other layers of meaning.
Especia l ly in the sixth essay of the commentary on the Republic, Proclus
claims that the mimetic layer is surpassed by that of the didactic, which
is in turn exceeded by the symbolic 41
Plato would have dismissed such a llegorical reading.42 There is a
trace of reserve in Proclus’s enterprise as weil. His interpretations are
neither true nor false. They are rather meditations in the margin of the
39 lt is worth noticing that Augustine (Oe Civitate Dei, II. 7) is sympathetic with
Plato: „Once all worshippers of such gods are motivated by … ‚Iust imbued with
the heat of poison‘ they [some philosophers] prefer to investigate the doings of
Jupiter rather than Plato’s teachings“ (See Augustine, City of God Books I & II, tr. P.
G. Walsh [Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2005]. 1 1 5).
•o l n this respect, Dillen rightly observes that the „’scandal‘ of immoral stories had
been used ever since the beginnings of allegory as a compelling reason why these
stories must be allegorized“ (Dillen, „Image, Symbol and Analogy.“ 252). lndeed,
Marinus ( Vita Procli, 22) testifies ardently that for Proclus myth is a bearer of
truth: Proclus „learned with ease all of Greek and non-Greek theology and also
that truth which had been hidden in the form of myths; he explained all these in a
very enthusiastic manner to all who wished and were able to understand, and
brought them into harmony“ (See „Marianus· Life of Proclus,“ in L. J. Rosan. The
Philosophy of Proclus: The Final Phase of Ancient Thought [New York: Cosmos.
1949]. 25). Nevertheless, Plato, in the Republic II (378 a-e), rejects stories in the
polis. even if they are allegorical: „we won’t admit stories into our city-whether
allegorical or not“, since „the young can“t distinguish what is allegorical from
. ,
what isn’t“ (tr. G. Grube, rev. C. Reeve i n Plato, Complete Works, 1 01 7) .
Proclus. Commentaire sur Ia Republique 191 .25-193, trans. Andn!-Jean Festugiere
(Paris: librairie Philosophique Vrin, 1970), 209-10.
•2 What Iooks like a secondary trope in Plato, but was used sometimes as a
philosophical tool (e.g .• the „allegory of the cave“ from the beginning of the book
vii of the Republic), was taken as a way. if „10t the way, of do1ng philosophy i n late
Neoplatonism. However. the Middle Platonists resisted using allegory as a tool. at
least to some degree, and criticized the practice of allegorical interpretation as an
alteration of the text; in this respect, Plutarch notes that „Some commentators
forcibly distorted the stories [i.e. myths] through what used to be termed ‚deeper
meanings‘ but are nowadays called ‚allegorical interpretations'“ (Brisson, How
Philosophers Saved Myths, 58).
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL READ ING OF PLATO’S PARMENIOES 29
text.43 The text is a pretext for what seems to be a theological exercise.
Distancing hirnself both from Plato and from his own commentary. Proclus
says:
ln general these analogies should not be taken as unimportant, especially if we
believe Plato. who said that nothing eise is so beneficial to the soul as what
draws it from phenomena to being, freeing us from the former and making it
easy for us to imagine immaterial nature with the help of these.44
He points out that it is more i mportant to have a meta-textua l read ing
than a I i tera I one. Even if the accuracy of a text’s content is hard to establ
ish, the effort of interpreting it al legorically wi II ultimately elevate
the soul. Proclus further adds:
So that even if Plato h irnself did not formulate these matters in this way it
would be beneficial for us to do so. For it is a good exercise for a weil endowed
soul which is capable of moving from imc:ges to their archetypes and delights
in observing these all-pervading analogies.45
ln this passage one can see the Platonic theory in action: every structure
in the phenomenal world corresponds to its intelligible archetype; there
is no such thing as a non-archetypal structure in the world, since a l l
things have a d i v i n e model. Plato’s text itself is a perfect copy o f its intelligible
archetype and it can transport the reader from the phenomenal to
the intelligible world.
Conclusion
For Proclus, the prologues, the characters, and the main speakers of
Plato’s dialogues are not gratuitous. but full of significance and cannot be
neglected in the economy of philosophical argumentation. The d i alogues‘
plain, non-philosophical Features stand for metaphysical realities. His
reading is a philosophical exegesis with elements that resemble religious
practices. By the fifth century. his method of interpretation had become
an established tool of late Platonism. existing alongside and, to some degree,
in competition with the interpretational practices of Alexandrian
Christians with respect to bibl ical texts (especially Philo’s reading of the
43 Proclus’s use of hypothetical formulations-for example, „lf we should be required
to give a likely analogy“ (Proclus‘ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 628.
p. 27)-gives the impression that he is aware that his technique and his allegorical
commentary provide a model of allegorical interpretation.
44 Proclus‘ Commentary on Pla to’s Parmenides 6 7 5, p. 59.
45 Proclus‘ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 6 7 5-76. p. 59.
30 FLORIN GEORGECÄUAN
Book of Genesis, or Augustine’s quest for an al legorical reading of bibl ical
books). Even if Proclus was hostile to Christianity, he shared with these
Christians a taste for and a pleasure i n meta-mean i ng.
Like deconstruction or structuralism in recent decades, a l legorical i n terpretation
i n the late antique world was a means o f „clarifying“ obscurities
by an even more obscure discourse (since one can figure out the
conditions for a l l egorical reading, but not the intemal reason for a llegorizing
i n one manner and not in another). The al legorical method clarifies
the obscurity-or, in other words, clarifies the apparent gratuity of the
rhetoric-in philosophical d i scourse. Proclus creates the frame for an
analysis that is neither true nor fa lse, but is rather a sort of a game for
which the rules are to some extent flexible (the most undeniable rule
being the sacred nature of the text) and which is potentially endless (depending
an the abil ities of the interpreter).46
Proclus’s commentaries show that al legorical readi ngs of Plato created
a specia lizedjargon for the philosophy of the fifth century. The purpose
of his a l l egorical commentaries was to initiate readers into the multiple
layers of Plato’s text and presupposed that „the author intended
that the reader seek beneath the surface some second or indirect meaning.“
47 Proclus’s introductive commentary on the Parmenides, which was
most probably a handbook for his students, can be taken as an example
of how to i nterpret a l legorically, i.e., how to elevate one’s comprehension
beyond the literal Ievei of a text. The extravagance of his commentary
should in fact secure h i m a place in the history of religion,48 rather than
in that of l iterary criticism,49 since his attitude towards the text turns
46 This taste for unpacking layers of meanings would subsequently have an impressive
role in the theological discourse and its multi-layered reading of the Bible
and, even later, in understanding the language of nature, in which each physical
event can be interpreted through otherwise analysis.
47 Coulter, The Literary Microcosm, 25.
48 See, for example, Donald Andrew Russell, Criticism in A ntiquity (Berkeley:
University of Cal ifornia Press, 1981 ), 95. where allegory is said to „have to da
more with the history of religion and ethics than with that of literary criticism,“
or Peter T. Struck, Birth of the Symbol (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2008), 7: „The allegorists‘ interpretive exuberances, of course, fall outside of literary
criticism as Aristotle defined it, so one is more likely to see allegorism
classified as speculative philosophy, naive science, or theology.“
49 I am inclined to think that Coulter’s remark that Proclus „surely merits a more
secure place i n the history of l i terary criticism“ (Coulter, The Literary Microcosm,
vii) is a bad-turn in understanding the function and purpose of allegory in the
case of the Neoplatonists.
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL READING OF PLATO’S PARMENIDES 3 1
Plato’s dialogue into a fetish and comes close to magical thinking, divination,
or theurgy.
Obscurity in Medieval Texts
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
SONDERBAND XXX
Obscurity in Medieval Texts
edited by
Lucie Dolezalova, Jeff Rider,
and Alessandro Zironi
Krems 2013
Reviewed by
Tamas Visi
and Myriam White-Le Goff
Cover designed by Petr Dolezal with the use of a photo of the interior of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (photo Lucie Dolezalova)
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG
DER
CHARLES UNIVERSITY RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
„UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF ÄNCIENT AND MEDIEVAL
INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS“
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80TH AT THE FACULTY O F HUMANITIES, CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE
UNDDER
CZECH SCIENCE FOUNDATION
WITHIN THE RESEARCH PROJECT
„INTERPRETING AND APPROPRIATING ÜBSCURITY
IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT CULTURE“
(GACR P405/1 0/Pl 1 2)
A l l e Rechte vorbehalten
-ISBN 978-3-901094-32-13′.3
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
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Acknowledgements
List of Figures
T able of Contents
Textual Obscurity in the Middle Ages (lntroduction)
Lucie Dole2alov􀭟. Jeff Rider. and Alessandro Zironi
„Ciarifications“ of Obscurity:
Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading of Plato’s Parmenides 1 5
Florin George Cäl ian
Lucifica nigris tune nuntio regna figuris. Po!!tique textuelle de I‘ obscuritas
dans I es recueils d‘!!nigmes latines du Haut moyen Age (V He-V I I I • s.) 3 2
Christiane Veyrard-Cosme
The Enigmatic Style in Twelfth-Century French Literature 49
Jeff Rider
Mise en abyme in Marie de France’s „Laüstic“ 63
Susan Small
Perturbations of the Soul: Alexander of Ashby and Aegidius of Paris an
Understanding Biblical Obscuritas 75
Greti Dinkova-Bruun
Versus obscuri nella poesia didascalica grammatocale del X I I I sec. 87
Carla Piccone
Disclosing Secrets: Vorgil on Middle High German Poems 1 1 0
Alessandro Zironi
Obscuritas tegum: Traditional Law. Learned Jurisprudence, and Territorial
Legislation (The Example of Sachsenspiegel and fus Municipale Maideburgense) 124
Hiram Kümper
Ta Be Born (Aga in) from God:
Scriptural Obscurity as a Theological Way Out for Cornelius Agrippa 1 45
Noel Putnik
Obscuritas in Medoeval and Humanist Translation Theories 157
R!!ka Forrai
The Darkness Within:
First-person Speakers and the Unrepresentable 1 72
Päivi M. Mehtonen
Contributors 1 90
Index nominum 1 94
Index rerum 197
Acknowledgements
This volume grew out of a conference held in Prague in October 6-8. 201 1 .
The conference and the book were supported by a post-doctoral research
grant from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, “ l nterpreting and
Appropriating Obscurity i n Medieval Manuscript Culture“ no. P405/1 0/
P1 1 2 undertaken at the Faculty of Arts at the Charles University in Prague,
by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports through l nstitutional
Support for Longterm Development of Research Organizations to the
Faculty of Humanities of the same university (PRVOUK 1 8 and UNCE
204002), and by the European Research Council under the European
Community’s Seventh Framewerk Programme ( FPJ/2007-2013) I ERC
grant agreement No. 263672. We are much grateful to these i nstitutions.
Further thanks goes to the individual contributors to this volume who have
been very quick and patient during the process, as weil as to Petr Dolezal
for the cover design and Adela Novakova for the index.
List of Figures
Figure 1 : Scene from one of the Saxon Mirror’s codices picturati (Wolfenbuttel, HerzogAugust-
Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 3.1 . Aug. 2°, fol. 34r).
Figure 2: Index for a manuscript of the Richtsteig Landrecht (Göttweig, Sti ftsbibliothek,
Cod. 364rot, fol. 526r).
Figure 3: Printed text of a Saxon Mirror with Gloss (Christi an Zobel, Leipzig, 1 569).
Figure 4: A remissorium from a Saxon Mirror edited tn 1536 by Chistoph Zobel (Leipzig).
Figure 5: Editorial report for a Saxon Mirror pri nted in 1545 by Nikolaus Wolrab
(Leipzig).
Figure 6: Sebastian Stelbagius, Epitome sive summa universae doctrinae iusticiae legalis
(Bautzen, 1 564 ).
Figures 7 and 8: Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und Gloß in eine
richtige Ordnung gebracht (Leipzig 1 572).

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