C. Myths or Texts?

What has been outlined above amounts to a general theory of interpretation that might be applied to virtually any system of meaning, any discourse. With reference to Proclus, it is important, though, for us to ask the question that has been posed in various forms with regard to the other "critics" examined thus far: Was Proclus in his writings ever concerned with works of literature as such, or was he an interpreter primarily of myth, a religious thinker and a mystic for whom the text as such had little importance? The extravagance of some of his interpretations might lead one to suspect that the text would, for him, constitute little more than a means to an end beside which it faded into insignificance.

When we take a broad view of Proclus's activities and opinions, however, we find that there is a certain amount of conflicting evidence. His biographer and student Marinus provides us with a fascinating picture of the man, organizing his treatment not around the simple chronology of his master's life, but rather around a pyramid of "excellences" or "virtues"

in which his master stood out among other men,^[38] along with the various divine interventions that steered Proclus along his destined path. We learn from Marinus that Proclus began his studies in Lycia and initially concerned himself with grammar. He went from there to Alexandria, where he studied under a sophist named Leonas and a grammarian named Orion, and "as a young man seemed to take pleasure in rhetoric above all else."^[39] Fortune intervened and led him back to his birthplace, Constantinople, where the patron goddess took him in hand and turned him in the direction of philosophy. After a further sojourn in Alexandria, he went to Athens, where he arrived still aged under twenty. There is no available information that would permit us to date Proclus's abandonment of his grammatical and rhetorical studies with precision,^[40] but it is striking that, like Porphyry two centuries earlier, he had moved on from an early interest in language and style that, to judge by his biographer's emphasis, must have gone beyond mere compliance with the demands of the traditional course of study, to a more mature pursuit of philosophy. The fact that Porphyry had made the

[38] Marinus Vit. Pr . 3.

^[39]

[40] Cf. Rudolph Beutler, "Proklos," col. 187.

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shift at roughly thirty,^[41] whereas Proclus focused his attention on philosophy at perhaps eighteen, is, of course, significant, but does not destroy the parallel.

Whatever may have been the nature of Proclus's early bookish pursuits, they were clearly less serious and less extensive than those of Porphyry. He retained, however, a profound and cautious respect for the power of language and literature over men's minds, as the anecdote with which Marinus closes his biography suggests. Marinus is making the point that, among his own works, Proclus placed the commentary on the Timaeus before the others:

And he was in the habit of saying, "If I were master, the only ones of all the ancient books I would have people read would be the Chaldaean Oracles and the Timaeus , and I would do away with all the others for the men of our time, because they harm some of those who approach them casually and without due examination."^[42]

This revealing statement is a reminder of Proclus's proximity to certain patterns of thought that we may consider characteristic of the Christian Middle Ages, but at the same time it is sobering to realize that this attitude as he expresses it no doubt sprang from long and serious meditation on the critique of literature and society in Plato's Republic .

Little more can be gleaned from Marinus on Proclus's attitudes toward literature, but late in life the philosopher wrote hymns, of which seven survive.^[43] In these he uses Homeric style to celebrate the sun, the gods collectively, the Muses, Aphrodite, "Lycian Aphrodite," and "Athena Polymetis." This last title

is interesting in that it addresses Athena under an epithet Homer applies most frequently and conspicuously to Odysseus, her protégé (though the application to Athena herself is anticipated in a single occurrence of the epithet in the Homeric Hymn to Athena , and this can be taken to be Proclus's source for the work in question).^[44] For Proclus Odysseus represents a

[41] See Bidez, Vie de Porphyre , p. 58.

^[42]

[43] Cf. Beutler, "Proklos," col. 207. Texts of the complete hymns can be found in Victor Cousin's 1864 edition of the Opera inedita of Proclus, pp. 1314-23, but a recent edition by Ernest Vogt does them more justice.

[44] Hom. Hymn 28.2.

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soul participating in the divine "procession" stemming from Athena, and so the transferred epithet further emphasizes the continuity and integration of the entire procession, from its unified source in the realm of

to the fragmented level of everyday experience. In any case, Proclus's hymns are abundant evidence of his intimate knowledge of Homer and of the hexameter tradition, which he imitates skillfully. It is even tempting to believe that an echo of such worldly non-epic poetry as Sappho's great hymn to Aphrodite can be heard in the cadence of the fifth line of Proclus's hymn to Athena Polymetis.^[45] Several fragments of autobiographical mystical poetry from Proclus's hand, quoted by Marinus,^[46] and two epigrams further indicate that his poetic activity may have been considerable and varied.^[47] In the fragments as well, the language is Homeric, but the content suggests that Parmenides may have been closer than Homer to the poet's mind. That Proclus knew Callimachus is demonstrated by three citations in the Republic commentary (1.4,125,150), where a fragment of Solon likewise occurs (In Rep . 2. 172). No other non-epic poetry is quoted in the commentary on the Republic .

If we leave aside for the moment the major defense of Homer, we have a certain amount of evidence concerning Proclus's activities as a commentator and "critic" of non-philosophical literature. Among the fifty works by (or attributed to) Proclus that Rudolf Beutler lists are two general works on Homer entitled Notes on the Whole of Homer (

) and On the Gods in Homer

,^[48] but these titles have no authority beyond the Suda , where both are attributed to Proclus's master Syrianus as well as to Proclus himself. Aside from the philosophical literature that occupied him during most of his productive life, Proclus wrote essays or commentary on Hesiod's Works and Days and on several works in the mystical hexameter tradi-

^[45]

[46] Marinus Vit. Pr . 28.

[47] On the epigrams of Proclus, see the exhaustive and important study by Gelzer, "Die Epigramme des Neuplatonikers Proklos," where they are discussed in the light of Proclus's conception of literature and of allegory.

[48] On these titles and the relationship of the works to those of Proclus's master Syrianus, see Beutler, "Proklos," col. 205, and Friedl, Homer-Interpretationen des Neuplatonikers Proklos , p. 51.

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tions: the Hymns of Orpheus and the Chaldaean Oracles .^[49] When one finds Homer (and for that matter Hesiod) in this company, it is tempting to believe that Proclus made no sharp distinctions among the hexameter poets, and there is every reason to believe that he felt that Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, and the Oracles all tapped a single tradition of wisdom that was also represented in different form in Pythagoras and Plato.^[50]

The Chrestomathy

that comes down to us under Proclus's name by way of a summary in the Bibliotheca of Photius, would, if it is properly attributed, be evidence of quite extensive literary studies and of a high esteem for traditional literature extending at least to the epic cycle. The sequence and contents of the poems that recounted the Panhellenic traditions of the heroic age—that vast panorama of epics of which our Iliad and Odyssey are the major survivors—would be virtually unknown today if we did not have the summaries that Photius and others derive from this Proclus. Modern scholars have questioned the attribution of the Chrestomathy to Proclus the Neoplatonist, but the Suda confirms that it was accepted in the Byzantine period, and we have no compelling reason to reject it.^[51] Photius furthermore attri-

[49] A title not mentioned by Beutler, but attributed to Proclus by J. E. Wen-rich, De auctorum graecorum versionibus et commentariis Syriacis Arabicis Armeniacis Persicisque , might be added here: "A Commentary on the Carmina Aurea of Pythagoras." See Rosán, Philosophy of Proclus , p. 223, n. 7, and his comment that the work in question might be one by Proclus's contemporary Hierocles of Alexandria.

^[50]

[51] Cf. Beutler, "Proklos," cols. 207-8 and Friedl, Homer-Interpretationen des Neuplatonikers Proklos , pp. 53-55. Friedl believed, with Schmidt and others, that internal evidence demonstrated convincingly that Proclus the Neoplatonist was not the author of the Chrestomathy . Nevertheless, there is no compelling evidence that this work is not simply an example of an otherwise unattested side of Proclus's literary interests. Furthermore, at least one of Friedl's demonstrations is based on a misunderstanding. He claims (pp. 52-53) that for Proclus it was historical fact that Homer was blind, whereas in fact Proclus at In Rep . 1.174.7-13 interprets Homer's blindness as symbolic—an attitude not inconsistent with that of the author of the Chrestomathy (cf. Homer [OCT], vol. 5, p.101, lines 3-5). G. L. Huxley (Greek Epic Poetry from Eumelos to Panyassis , pp. 123-24) alludes briefly to the problem and considers it still unresolved. Albin Lesky (Geschichte der griechischen Literatur [2nd ed.] p. 100, n. 1) points to Martin Sicherl's demonstration of the extreme weakness of the positive external evidence for the attribution of the Chrestomathy to the Neoplatonist (Gnomon 28 [1956], pp. 210-18). I can add only that the marked contrast between the sober paraphrases of the Chrestomathy and the allegorizing of epic in the commentaries of Proclus has been an obstacle to the attribution, and that my own work has convinced me that such contrasts are widespread in the writings of Platonists concerned with literature. I can see no reason why the Chrestomathy should not be attributed to Proclus the Successor.

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butes to Proclus the opinion that the hexameter was first invented for prophecy (hanging his argument by an exceptionally weak etymological thread),^[52] and this adds support to the presumptive evidence that Proclus associated theurgical powers with the very form of epic diction. That he was primarily concerned with the content of literary works and their truth value to the exclusion of stylistic criticism is clear when he expresses casual disdain for "troubling over style."^[53]

The Pythagoreans' use of passages from Homer for incantations was familiar to Proclus, and as Boyancé points out, he would appear to have used Pythagorean musical purification with a double force, both medical and spiritual.^[54] The fact that he echoes a verse from the passage in which Athena opens Diomedes' eyes (Il . 5.127) in one of his hymns,^[55] and that he turns this into a dynamic and personal prayer, provides us with a vivid illustration of Proclus's attribution of supernatural power to Homer's words.^[56]

The internal evidence from the defense of Homer in the commentary on the Republic does not convince the reader that Proclus is paying the texts he discusses the kind of meticulous attention that characterizes Porphyry's description of the cave of the nymphs. Occasionally, an argument is based on careful attention to the interpretation of a single word,

^[52][53]

[54] See ch. 1D above and Boyancé, Le Culte des Muses chez les philosophes grecs , pp. 121-31.

^[55]

[56] Cf. Boyancé, Culte des Muses , pp. 127-28.

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but all too often when this does happen, we find that Proclus's interpretation of the word or expression in question is not easily supported.^[57]

The general picture that emerges from this evidence concerning Proclus as a student of literature is revealing but somewhat disappointing. He knew the Homeric diction well enough to mimic it and to be a competent hexameter poet, but he sometimes demonstrates surprising insensitivity to the meanings of words or expressions in his interpretations. He appears to have had considerable knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, and literature, and to have been quite sensitive to the power and complexity of literature itself, as well as of the experience of a literary text. Nevertheless, there are obstacles to classifying him as a literary critic, even in the sense in which the term applies to Porphyry, because he would appear never in his mature life to have taken an interest in literature beyond its capacity to illuminate the transcendent realities on which his attention was fixed. An amazingly prolific annotator, he was, when he examined works we place in the category of literature, concerned primarily with seeing through the texts on which he worked. In spite of his occasional close attention to the wording of a given passage, one must conclude that his own use for literature is summed up in the verses of the hymn mentioned above:

Hear me, great saviors, and from the most sacred books grant me holy illumination, scattering the mist, so that I may clearly recognize immortal gods and men.^[58]

^[57]

[58] See n. 55 above.

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