Dominic j. O'Meara
The various Pythagoreanizing tendencies reviewed in the preceding chapter converged in the programme to Pythagoreanize Platonic philosophy elaborated by Porphyry's former pupil and frequent rival Iamblichus. This programme surpassed its predecessors in its comprehensive and systematic quality and succeeded, as I shall attempt to show in Part Two, in playing a decisive role in the history of later Greek philosophy. It will be necessary, however, first to examine Iamblichus' Pythagoreanizing programme in some detail. Traces of it can be found in reports concerning Iamblichus' lost commentaries on Plato and on Aristotle and in the surviving remains of other more systematic writings. But the most accessible expression of the programme is the multi-volume work Iamblichus devoted specifically to the theme, On Pythagoreanism. When Iamblichus wrote this work, or when more generally his Pythagoreanizing programme was developed, is unclear. I shall give grounds below (pp. 91 ff.) for not accepting an early date for the work. It and the programme to which it belongs and which appears also in the commentaries on Plato and Aristotle ought to be dated in all likelihood to the time when Iamblichus had already left Porphyry (probably well before the end of the third century) and had set up his own philosophical school in Syria, in Apamea, and/or in Daphne. 1
1 On the evidence and problems concerning Iamblichus' biography cf. Dillon (1973), 4-14; although the evidence that Iamblichus was Porphyry's pupil is not conclusive, so much points in this direction that Dillon simply assumes this (correctly, I believe) as a fact.
In Chapter 4 the traces of a Pythagoreanizing programme that can be found in what little has survived of Iamblichus' many other philosophical writings will be examined. An obvious point of departure however is provided by the work On Pythagoreanism. This work has been transmitted to us by one manuscript, 'F' (fourteenth century), from which all of the later manuscript copies derive. 2
2 The importance of F (Florence, Laur. 86, 3) has been demonstrated by Pistelli (1888).
Manuscript
end p.30
F begins with a Table of Contents (pinax) listing the titles of nine books constituting the work. The pinax is followed, however, by the first four books only. The remaining books have since disappeared. We may suppose that this might easily have happened if the work had been transmitted bound in two volumes (codices) of which the second, containing the last five books of the work, came to be mislaid or ignored. 3
3 For other cases cf. Whittaker (1974), 354.
The loss of the last five books occurred at any rate after the eleventh century, when the Byzantine polymath Michael Psellus was still able to read and make excerpts from Books V-VII. This process of dismemberment of Iamblichus' work, begun thus negligently enough, was completed with true philological furor in the last one hundred years. The surviving first four books of the work were published as if separate, independent works; and Deubner, in his edition of the first book, On the Pythagorean Life (1937), even neglected to print the pinax for the work as a whole, which helps us relate On the Pythagorean Life to the following books making up the work. The dismemberment was carried out most diligently, however, within each of the first three books: each was ransacked for what could be extracted from it of lost writings by (or on) Pythagoreans, Aristotle, Speusippus . . . A silent decapitation finally resulted from a lack of serious interest even in what the title of the work as a whole might be. 4
4 Cf. the remarks of von Albrecht (1963), 7-8; Larsen (1972), 66.
In this chapter I shall try to restore some unity to Iamblichus' work, beginning with its title and overall plan and proceeding through the first four books considered to the extent to which they relate to an overall plan. In Chapter 3, the excerpts in Psellus from Books V-VII of the work will be analysed and will lead to some general conclusions in the following chapter concerning the purpose and significance of Iamblichus' work, its relation to traces of a Pythagoreanizing programme in his other works, and to the varieties of Pythagoreanism presented in Chapter 1.
In examining below the first four books of On Pythagoreanism I shall be concerned more with the ways in which Iamblichus understood and used the Pythagorean (and other) materials he assembled in composing these books, than with the materials themselves; more with his intentions, than with his sources. 5
5 The following pages might be compared with Larsen (1972), 66-147, who has similar goals but reaches, I believe, somewhat deficient results.
end p.31
1. The Title and Overall Plan
Three possible titles for Iamblichus' work might be considered:
(i) |
On the
Pythagorean Sect
(Π
6
The pinax
is found on fol. 1r
and is printed by Nauck (1884),
xxxiv. The title is also found at the end of Comm.:
τ
λος
του
γ′λ
γου
. . . τν
ς
Πυθαγ
ου
α This title is also given by Syrianus in the fifth century (In Herm. I 22, 4-5). |
(ii) |
The
Collection of Pythagorean Doctrines
( |
(iii) |
Pythagorean
Commentaries
(Πυθαγ
ια
7 F, fol. 47v (cf. Pr. 6, 10 ff., app. crit.). |
τν
ς
Πυθαο
ικη
ς
α
σ
ως),
a title attested in the pinax
preserved at the head of manuscript F. 6
σ
ως.
τω
ν
Πυθαγο
ων
δογμ
των
συναγωγ
),
a title found also in Syrianus (In
met.
140, 15; 149, 30) that has been preferred by modern scholars.
πομν
ματα),
a title which is found also in manuscript F. 7
Which of these three titles should be used?
The third title has the least authority for it and in any case is not a formal title, but a loose description. This latter point is true also of the second title, as can be seen from the fact that Syrianus refers by means of it to the writings of Iamblichus and of Nicomachus (In met. 103, 6-7): again a loose description, not a title. The first title has the strongest authority for it, both manuscript F and Syrianus.
A possible
objection to adopting the first title as the right one is that 'sect'
(α
σις)
is too restrictive: Iamblichus' work covered not only the Pythagorean
sect but also (and especially) its doctrines and sciences. If this
point can apply to the English word 'sect', it cannot hold for the
Greek term α
σις
which had already, some centuries before Iamblichus, come to signify,
not only the members of a religious or philosophical movement, but
also the doctrines and theories of the movement. 8
8 Cf. Glucker (1978), 166-92.
Such is the meaning of α σις also in Iamblichus 9
9 Cf. Pr. 7, 14-15; 8, 3-6; 124, 24.
in a passage, for example, at the beginning of the Protreptic (i.e. the second book of the work under consideration) which also provides further authority for the first title:
In the preceding
we have said what is appropriate about Pythagoras, about his kind of
life and about the Pythagoreans. Let us begin our account as to the
rest of his sect (τ
λοιπ
ν
α
του
τη
ς
α
σ
ως)
. . . (6, 12-15)
end p.32
Thus the treatment of the Pythagorean α σις continues from the first into the second book, which treats of Pythagorean doctrines and which is itself, as will be seen below, introductory to the following books of the work which also concern Pythagorean doctrine.
Such then is the authority for the first title that there can be little doubt that it is the correct one. To avoid the misleading connotations of the word 'sect' I shall translate the Greek title as On Pythagoreanism so as to include both the personalities concerned and their theories.
It is less easy to determine whether Iamblichus' On Pythagoreanism was originally made up of nine or of ten books. The pinax in manuscript F lists nine books. However, at the end of the fourth and last surviving book (In Nic. 125, 19-24) Iamblichus mentions the subjects he will cover later, namely music (= Book IX), geometry (= Book VIII), and astronomy. As there is no book devoted to the last subject in the list of nine books given in the pinax, it is reasonable to infer that a tenth book was (or was to have been) devoted to it. In any case his work, written in true Pythagorean spirit, should have contained ten books, even if it did not. It probably once did. 10
10 Cf. above, ch. 1 n. 52; Larsen (1972), I 44-5.
The titles of the books of On Pythagoreanism as given in the pinax are:
|
)
οτ
πτικ
ς
π
ιλοσο
αν)
)
)
)
)
11
)
)end p.33
|
)To this list we should probably add then a tenth and final book:
|
It has already been noted that of the whole work only the first four books are extant, together with excerpts from Books V-VII.
The unity of plan underlying the sequence of books will be brought out below in a detailed examination of the surviving books and fragments. However, it will be useful at this stage to propose an overall scheme for On Pythagoreanism as this emerges from combining the book titles of the pinax with programmatic passages in Books II and IV. 12
12 Cf. Tannery (1885a), 179-81.
In the passage quoted above from the beginning of the Protreptic Iamblichus moves from his account of Pythagoras, Pythagorean life, and the Pythagoreans in On the Pythagorean Life to a general preparation, presented in the Protreptic, for 'all education, learning, and virtue' (6, 15-16). This general preparation is intended as a stage leading the reader to a more specifically Pythagorean philosophy and science introduced at the end of the Protreptic and in the following books:
As the soul progresses gradually from lesser to greater things . . . and finally finds the most perfect goods, thus the turning (π οτ οπ ) must progress along a route starting from what is general and common (τω ν κοινω ν). (Pr. 7, 8-12)
The succession of books in Iamblichus' work is thus related to a pedagogical progression from the general and common to what is more difficult, higher, and specifically Pythagorean. The progression is a 'protreptic': it is designed to lead the soul up to 'greater things'. The protreptic function is not only evident in the Protreptic itself: it will also be seen below to be present already in the first book, On the Pythagorean Life.
A second programmatic passage is found at the end of Book IV. Having presented in this book an introduction to arithmetic based on Nicomachus, Iamblichus gives a foretaste of what is to come:
We will study such other consequences as arise from the numbers, from the monad up to the decad, ordering matters according to a physical ( υσικ ς),
end p.34
an ethical
(
θικ
ς),
and furthermore (and prior to these) a theological (θ
ολογικ
ς)
account, so that it will be easier to convey to you the teachings of
the following three introductions, i.e. the introductions to music,
geometry, and astronomy. 13