PROCLUS
Commentary on Plato’s Vimaeus
VOLUME V
Book 4: Proclus on Time and the Stars
TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
DIRK BALTZLY
University of Tasmania and Monash University
3 CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PROCLUS
Commentary on Plato’s Vimaeus
Proclus’ Commentary on the dialogue Timaeus by Plato (d. 347 Bc), written in the fifth century ap, is arguably the most important commen- tary on a text of Plato, offering unparalleled insights into eight centuries of Platonic interpretation. It has had an enormous influence on subse- quent Plato scholarship. This edition nevertheless offers the first new English translation of the work for nearly two centuries, building on sig- nificant recent advances in scholarship on Neoplatonic commentators. It will provide an invaluable record of early interpretations of Plato’s dialogue, while also presenting Proclus’ own views on the meaning and significance of Platonic philosophy. The present volume, the fifth in the edition, presents Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus, dealing with Proclus’ account of static and flowing time — an aspect of Neoplatonic metaphysics that has already attracted significant scholarly attention. In this volume we see Proclus situating Plato’s account of the motions of the stars and planets in relation to the astronomical theories of his day. The volume includes a substantial introduction, as well as notes that will shed new light on the text.
Dirk Baltzly is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania and Adjunct Research Professor at Monash University. His recent pub- lications include Reading Plato in Antiquity (co-edited with Harold ‘Tarrant, 2006); Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, vol. ILI (Cambridge, 2006); and Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, vol. IV (Cambridge, 2009).
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS University Printing House, Cambridge cpz 88s, United Kingdom
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/978052 1846585
© Dirk Baltzly 2013
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2013 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives ple A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-521-84658-5 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urts for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Richard Charles Baltzly and Linda Knight Baltzly eo8Adv Lev yao aT’ EoBAG Uabroear
(Theognis, Eleg. 1.35)
Contents
Acknowledgements Note on the translation
Introduction to Book 4
The structure of Book 4
The eighth gift of time: Eternity and the higher time The ninth gift: visible time and the planets
Platonic exegesis and contemporary astronomy
The greatest gift of all: the four kinds of living creature Conclusion
Works cited
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4, Proclus on Time and the Stars
Analytical table of contents
Translation
References English-Greek glossary Greek word index General index
vil
page viii =
37 39 42
273 294 342
Acknowledgements
The project to translate Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus received initial financial support from the Australian Research Council in the form of a Discovery grant spanning the period 1999-2004. The translation team supported by this grant included Harold Tarrant (Vols. 1 and v1), David Runia and Michael Share (Vol. m) and Dirk Baltzly (Vols. m1, 1v and v).
Support for my work on this volume in particular has been provided by the USA’s National Endowment for the Humanities through a fel- lowship at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study in the northern hemisphere academic year 2010-11. I am enormously grateful to the NEH for this support. As for the Institute for Advanced Study, words fail me. If there is a heaven for scholars, it looks very much like the Institute. Heinrich von Staden is, as everyone knows, the soul of kind- ness. My time at IAS was also shared with Stephen Menn, from whom I learned a great deal. Marian Zelazny and the staff at the Institute made the transition from Melbourne winter to Princeton summer and back again administratively frictionless.
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Harold Tarrant. He read a complete draft of this volume — as he did with Volume tv — and pro- vided invaluable feedback, both on matters of philosophical import and also on matters of accuracy in translation. Alan Bowen has helped me with the thorny astronomical portions of Proclus’ text. I enjoyed testing out some of Proclus’ readings of Plato with the Greek reading group at Princeton on Plato’s Timaeus. I thank John Cooper, Melissa Lane, Hen- drik Lorenz, Donald Morrison, Alexander Nehamas, Christian Wild- berg and the Princeton PhD students who participated. I think they were not wholly persuaded that Proclus has grasped the mystagogy of the divine Plato. This volume has benefited from the attention of a most capable research assistant, John Burke, who prepared the Greek word index and caught yet more mistakes and infelicities on my part in the process. In addition L. Elaine Miller and Anuradhi Jayasinghe both read the introduction and gave me some helpful comments on it. Finally, I would like to thank Jo North who copy-edited the manuscript for Cambridge University Press.
viii
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my mother and father, who, between them, taught primary and secondary students in the Maysville school district for 60 years. Such has been their ethic of service that I would love and respect them even if I had not had the great good fortune to be their son.
Note on the translation
In this translation I have sought to render Proclus’ text in a form that pays attention to contemporary ways of discussing and translating ancient philosophy, while trying to present the content as clearly as possible, and without misrepresenting what has been said or importing too much interpretation directly into the translation. I have not sought to repro- duce Proclus’ sentence structure where this seemed to create a barrier to smooth reading, for which reason line and page numbers will involve a degree of imprecision. The French translation by A. J. Festugiére is an invaluable starting point, and it is still a useful and largely faithful rendition of Proclus’ Greek.’ However, my collaborators in this series and I consider it worthwhile to try to make the philosophical content and arguments of Proclus’ text as plain as possible. To that end, we have not hesitated to break lengthy sentences into smaller ones, shift from passive to active voice, or provide interpolations that are indicated by square brackets.
In all five volumes in this series, the text used is that of Diehl.* Devi- ations from that text are recorded in the footnotes. Neoplatonism has a rich technical vocabulary that draws somewhat scholastic distinctions between, say, intelligible (moétos) and intellectual (noeros) entities. To understand Neoplatonic philosophy it is necessary to have some grasp of these terms and their semantic associations, and there is no other way to do this than to observe how they are used. Volumes in this series mark some of the uses of these technical terms in the translation itself by giving the transliterated forms in parentheses. On the whole, we do this by giving the most common form of the word — that is, the nominative singular for nouns and the infinitive for verbs — even where this corre- sponds to a Greek noun in the translated text that may be in the dative or a finite verb form. This allows the utterly Greek-less reader to readily recognise occurrences of the same term, regardless of the form used in
Festugiére (1966-8). All the volumes in this series are enormously indebted to Fes- tugiére’s fine work, even if we have somewhat different aims and emphases. Our notes on the text are not intended to engage so regularly with the text of the Chaldean Oracles, the Orphic Fragments, or the history of religion. We have preferred to comment on those features of Proclus’ text that place it in the commentary tradition.
Proclus (1904).
v
Note on the translation
the specific context at hand. We have deviated from this practice where it is a specific form of the word that constitutes the technical term — for example, the passive participle of metechein for ‘the participated’ (to metechomenon) or comparative forms such as ‘most complete’ (teledtaton). We have also made exceptions for technical terms using prepositions (e.g. kat? aitian, kath’ hyparxin) and for adverbs that are terms of art for the Neoplatonists (e.g. protés, physikos).
This policy is sure to leave everyone a little unhappy. Readers of Greek will find it jarring to read ‘the soul’s vehicles (ochéma)’ where ‘vehicles’ is in the plural and is followed by a singular form of the Greek noun. Equally, Greek-less readers are likely to be puzzled by the differences between metechein and metechomenon or between protés and protos. But policies that leave all parties a bit unhappy are often the best compro- mises. In any event, all students of the Timaeus will remember that a generated object such as a book is always a compromise between Reason and Necessity.
Our volumes in the Proclus Timaeus series use a similar system of transliteration to that adopted by the Ancient Commentators on Aristo- tle volumes. The salient points may be summarised as follows. We use the diaeresis for internal breathing, so that ‘immaterial’ is rendered aiilos, not abulos. We also use the diaeresis to indicate where a second vowel represents a new vowel sound, e.g. aidios. Letters of the alphabet are much as one would expect. We use ‘y’ for v alone as in physis or hypostasis, but ‘wv’ for u when it appears in diphthongs, e.g. ousia and entautha. We use ‘ch’ for y, as in psyché. We use ‘rh’ for initial p as in rhétor; ‘nk’ for yx, as in ananké; and ‘ng’ for yy, as in angelos. The long vowels n and w are, of course, represented by é and 6, while iota subscripts are printed on the line immediately after the vowel as in diogenés for @oyevis. There is a Greek word index to each volume in the series. In order to enable read- ers with little or no Greek to use this word index, we have included an English-Greek glossary that matches our standard English translation for important terms with its Greek correlate given both in transliterated form and in Greek. For example, ‘procession: proddos, 1ed080s’.
The following abbreviations to other works of Proclus are used:
in Tim. = Procli in Platonis Timaeum commentaria, ed. E.. Diehl, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903-6).
in Remp. = Procli in Platonis Rem publicam commentarii, ed. W. Kroll, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1899-1901)
in Parm. = Procli commentarius in Platonis Parmenidem (Procli philosophi Platonici opera inedita pt. 11), ed. V. Cousin (Paris: Durand, 1864; repr. Olms: Hildesheim, 1961).
Note on the translation
in Alc. = Proclus Diadochus: Commentary on the first Alcibiades of Plato, ed. L. G. Westerink. (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1954). Also used is A. Segonds (ed.), Proclus: Sur le premier Alcibiade de Platon, vols. 1 et m (Paris, 1985-6).
in Crat. = Procli Diadochi in Platonis Cratylum commentaria, ed. G. Pasquali (Leipzig: Teubner, 1908).
ET = The Elements of Theology, ed. E. R. Dodds, 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
Plat.Theol. = Proclus: Théologie Platonicienne, ed. H. D. Saffrey and L. G. Westerink, 6 vols. (Paris: Société d’édition “Les belles let- tres”, 1968-97).
Hyp. = Procli Diadochi hypotyposis astronomicarum positionum, ed. C. Manitius (Leipzig: Teubner, 1909).
de Aet. = Proclus: on the Eternity of the World, ed. H. Lang and A. D. Marco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
Proclus frequently mentions previous commentaries on the Timaeus, those of Porphyry and Iamblichus, for which the abbreviation im Tim. is again used. Relevant fragments are found in:
R. Sodano, Porphyrii in Platonis Timaeum Fragmenta (Naples: Instituto della Stampa, 1964).
John Dillon, Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis Dialogos Commentario- rum Fragmenta (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973).
It is now possible to add a collection of fragments by Proclus’ teacher.
S. Klitenic Wear, The Teaching of Syrianus on Plato’s Timaeus and Parmenides (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2011).
Proclus also frequently confirms his understanding of Plato’s text by reference to two theological sources: the ‘writings of Orpheus’ and the Chaldean Oracles. For these texts, the following abbreviations are used:
Or. Chald. = Ruth Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1989). Orph. fr. = Orphicorum fragmenta, ed. O. Kern (Berlin: Weid-
mannsche, 1922).
Majercik uses the same numeration of the fragments as E. des Places in his Budé edition of the text.
Finally, we are now able to add a remarkable new reference work on late antique philosophy to our list of standard abbreviations:
CHPLA = Lloyd Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
xil
Note on the translation
References to the text of Proclus’ in Timaeum (as also of in Remp. and in Crat.) are given by Teubner volume number, followed by page and line numbers, e.g. in Tim. IL. 2.19. References to the Platonic Theology are given by book, chapter, then page and line number in the Budé edition. References to the Elements of Theology are given by proposition number.
Proclus’ commentary is punctuated only by the quotations from Plato’s text upon which he comments: the lemmata. These quotations of Plato’s text and subsequent repetitions of them in the discussion that immediately follows that lemma are in bold. We have also followed Fes- tugiére’s practice of inserting section headings so as to reveal what we take to be the skeleton of Proclus’ commentary. These headings are given in centred text, in italics. Within the body of the translation itself, we have used square brackets to indicate words that ought perhaps to be supplied in order to make the sense of the Greek clear. Where we suppose that Greek words ought to be added to the text received in the manuscripts, the supplements are marked by angle brackets.
xill
Introduction to Book 4
THE STRUCTURE OF BOOK 4
Book 4 of Proclus’ Timaeus Commentary continues the structure intro- duced at the opening of Book 3. Proclus takes Plato’s dialogue to provide an account of ten gifts bestowed on the visible cosmos by its creator, the Demiurge.’ Each of these gifts makes a progressively greater contribu- tion to the goodness of the Demiurge’s creation, rendering it ever more perfect and its life ever more divine and blessed. Book 2 (Volumes 1m and tv in this series) deals with the first seven gifts of the Demiurge:
An
7:
. Being perceptible due to the presence of the elements (Tim. 3 1b). . Having its elements bound together through proportion or analo-
gid (31C).
. Being a whole constituted of wholes (32¢). . Being spherical in shape so that it is most similar to itself and
similar to the paradigm upon which it is modelled (3 3b).
. Being self-sufficient or autarchés (3 3C¢). . Rotating upon its axis makes it similar to the motion of Intellect
(Tim. 34a, cf. Laws 10. 898a). Being animated by a divine World Soul (Tim. 34b).
Book 4 (the present volume) provides the last three Demiurgic gifts to the cosmos:
8.
9.
‘Time, in virtue of which it is a moving image of eternity had by its intelligible paradigm, the Living Being Itself (Tim. 36e-37a). ‘The heavenly bodies in it, which Plato describes as the ‘instru- ments of time’ and Proclus as ‘sanctuaries of the gods’ (Tim. 39d; in Tim. 11 5.28).
* Kutash (2011) argues that this notion of the ten gifts structures the entirety of Proclus’ dialogue — not merely the commentary subsequent to the introduction of the gifts at in Tim. 1 5.17-31. I agree that the notion of the ten gifts structures Proclus’ commentary in the present volume and the previous two in this series (Book 3). I have some hesitation about the manner in which Kutash thinks that it organises the material in volumes 1 and u. Moreover, I think that the influence of the ten gifts as an organising principle peters out in Book 5 (the sixth and final volume in this series).
Introduction to Book 4
10. All the living things within the visible cosmos make it an even more perfect or complete imitation of its paradigm since the Liv- ing Being Itself contains four genera of living things: celestial, aerial, aquatic and terrestrial living things (39e—-40A).
Proclus’ commentary in Book 4 does not exhaust the tenth and final gift of the Demiurge. The present volume contains his account of the celestial genus of living things. The final section of the present work begins his discussion of the sub-lunary gods, a topic that continues in Book 5. The nature of the breaks between the books, however, finds some rationale in Plato’s text. At 4od4—5 Timaeus says that he is finished dis- cussing the visible and created gods. He next turns to a genealogy of the ‘traditional gods’ such as Ouranos, Okeanys and Tethys, referring to them initially as ‘daemons’. In fact, Proclus’ discussion in Book 4 is a sort of preface to the discussion of the traditional gods taken up in Book 5, for at the end of Book 4 he raises the question of why Plato called these gods ‘daemons’. So Book 5 actually starts with the first substantial discus- sion of these traditional gods — beings whom Proclus now denominates ‘sub-lunary’ or ‘generation-producing gods’. Allowing for ten pages that form this transition to Book 5, the sections of Book 4 dedicated to each of the Demiurgic gifts are roughly equal - about fifty pages each.
The subject matter of these sections, however, is not as sharply sep- arated as the architectonic implied by the notion of the ten gifts might suggest. The planets involved in the ninth gift come about for the sake of ‘distinguishing and preserving the numbers of time’ (Tim. 38c6-7). Proclus in fact treats this gift as tantamount to granting the cosmos a second kind of time, which he calls ‘visible time’. Thus there is a strong connection between the seventh and eighth gifts. Moreover, the Sun, Moon and planets — which are the principal means through which the numbers of visible time are manifested — are themselves members of the class of celestial living beings. Since celestial living beings are the first among the four kinds of living thing granted to the cosmos in the tenth gift, there are strong connections here too. In this introduction, I'll take up three issues that arise in Book 4.
First, Proclus’ insistence that the ten gifts bestow progressively greater blessings upon the cosmos might seem initially puzzling. After all, Plato himself says that the visible cosmos could not be made eternal in the same manner in which its intelligible paradigm is. So the gift of time looks a bit like a prize for being runner-up. How can the world’s temporality be a greater benefit to it than the fact that it is animated with a divine World Soul (the sixth gift)? Doesn’t time simply measure the activities of the World Soul and the things that transpire in the cosmos that it enlivens? As we shall see, however, this objection treats time all too passively — as
2
The eighth gift of time
if it were nothing more than a metric of events that take place in the world. Proclus’ view of time makes it much more elevated and much more active.
Next, there is a series of puzzles about Proclus’ treatment of Plato’s account of the motions of the stars and planets. Proclus’ commentary was written several centuries after the composition of Plato’s text. The study of astronomy did not stand still in the intervening years. Proclus and the other Neoplatonists regard Plato’s text as revealing a divine truth inti- mated to its author by the gods themselves. Yet Plato’s dialogue contains an account of the movements of the stars and planets — and perhaps even the Earth itself (4ob8)! — that is not quite that of the astronomical theo- ries of Proclus’ own day. How should a Platonist weigh the apparently competing accounts of the ‘modern’ models, which include epicycles and eccentrics, against the authority of Plato?
Finally, the place of the tenth gift as the final one in the order of exposition — and thus the most important — also raises a puzzle. How can it be that adding kinds of living creatures to a cosmos that is itself a living creature, endowed with soul and intellect (Tim. 30b8), should make it ever so much better? Given the correlation between unity, simplicity and divinity on the one hand, and multiplicity on the other, it seems strange to think that adding multiplicity to the cosmos should be the best present that the Demiurge can give. Proclus’ solution to this puzzle will come back again to the various notions of whole and wholeness that run through the entire Timmaeus Commentary.
In the following sections I shall provide a brief overview of these three issues.
THE EIGHTH GIFT OF TIME: ETERNITY AND THE HIGHER TIME
The Neoplatonists’ views on time have been the subject of a significant body of secondary literature.* Indeed, this is one of the most closely scrutinised aspects of Neoplatonic metaphysics. ‘This is perhaps for two reasons. First, one of the earliest investigations of the subject proposed parallels with twentieth-century discussions on the distinction between static and flowing time or McTaggart’s A and B series.3 Thus it was initially thought that the Neoplatonic view of time, at least, might have more connection with contemporary metaphysics than other features
Nv
For the period 1949-92 see Scotti Muth (1993). For 1990 to the present, the De Wulf- Mansion Centre maintains an online bibliography at http://hiw.kuleuven.be/dwmc/ ancientphilosophy.
Sambursky (1962), 17-20.
w
Introduction to Book 4
of their philosophy. The second reason for this scrutiny has to do with our sources. The scholarly discussion of the individual Neoplatonists’ views on time has been encouraged by the existence of Simplicius’ Coro/- lary on Time.* This is an extensive digression in which Simplicius breaks the flow of his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (773.8-800.25) to dis- cuss competing views on the nature of time among his predecessors. This discussion includes valuable information about subsequent Neo- platonists’ critical reception of Plotinus’ views about time and eternity (Ennead 111.7), as well as Iamblichus’ alternative to the Plotinian view. Proclus is discussed only briefly and Simplicius believes that he holds ‘pretty much’ the same view as Iamblichus (795.4-6).
The fact that Simplicius’ discussion appears in the context of a com- mentary on Aristotle’s treatment of time is, I think, significant in explain- ing the attention given to the views of the Neoplatonists on time. To be blunt: Aristotle’s discussion of time is much closer to the problems and presuppositions that animate contemporary work on the subject than Plato’s Timaeus is. What Simplicius relates about his predecessors is tantalising for us moderns because the context in which he presents it dictates that he emphasise those aspects of the Neoplatonists’ views that are relevant to the Aristotelian puzzles about time. These puzzles, in turn, are puzzles that we moderns can readily understand. But in fact we don’t get very far trying to understand the views of Iamblichus, Syrianus and Proclus on time by approaching them via Aristotle’s puzzles about time. This fact was brought home to me by reading Steel’s magisterial essay on the Neoplatonic doctrine of time.>
Steel begins by noting Albert the Great’s complaint that Aristotle’s account of time doesn’t get at what is rea/ly important: the relation of time to eternity. If you ask a modern philosopher what the relation is between these two, then — assuming that he or she is willing to grant that there is such a thing as eternity — the answer will simply be that they are opposite and incompatible ways in which objects exist. Abstract objects like numbers or sets exist timelessly, while concrete particulars all exist in time. Except for discussions of God’s relation to time in philosophy of religion, contemporary work on the philosophy of time does not have much to say about eternity. Likewise, Aristotle himself did not give much attention to the nature of eternity. Perhaps the closest we get to an account of it on Aristotle’s part is that it is ‘the fulfilment (telos) of the whole heaven, the fulfilment which includes all time and infinity’ (Cael. 1.11, 279426). Taking this seriously, we would say that the relation between eternity and time, then, is that the former includes the totality of the latter: eternity is simply everlastingness. But this seems
4 Translation in Urmson and Siorvanes (1992). 5 Steel (2001).
4
The eighth gift of time
slightly at odds with Aristotle’s remarks in the previous lines (279a11- 23), which suggest an atemporal notion of eternity.° So Albert the Great’s complaint about the absence of a discussion of the really important issue about time — its relation to eternity — points to a strong similarity between Aristotle’s approach to the philosophy of time and that of contemporary philosophers.
Although there was a tradition of commenting on Aristotle’s Physics, the Neoplatonists did not begin by theorising about time from Aristotle’s puzzles in Physics 4.10. Rather, they started from Plato’s Timaeus. The key fact about time that needs to be explained, by their lights, is how it can be true that time is — as the divine Plato tells us — an image of eternity, one that is mobile according to number, while eternity remains in one (Tim. 37d1-7). None of these three ideas in Plato’s text is perfectly clear. The Neoplatonists started their elucidation of Plato’s view of time with the first clause. Since the paradigms of which images are images were regarded as causes by Platonists, eternity is thus prominent among the causes of time. While Aristotle asks about what time consists in — motion? the numerable aspect of motion? — he does not inquire after its causes. This latter question, however, is utterly central to the Neoplatonists’ accounts of time. The reason for this difference lies in the different methodologies of Aristotle and the Neoplatonists. Aristotle’s discussion of the nature of time is aporetic: it begins from a set of puzzles that emerge when we push to their logical conclusions common-sense beliefs about time (Phys. tv.10). Plotinus, Iamblichus and Proclus, however, take as their point of departure reflections on Plato’s Timaeus. This inspired text itself tells us that the ways that we commonly speak about eternity (and presumably thus about eternity’s image — time-—too) involve fundamental confusions (Tim. 37e5). So the Neoplatonists would think that of course we should investigate time by interpreting Plato’s works rather than by means of Aristotle’s aporetic method. We can’t rely too much on common sense and our ordinary ways of talking. We know that our everyday platitudes about time are not a good starting point because Plato tells us that our ordinary usage is riddled with confusions and Plato’s text is inspired. Plato’s dialogues thus have a primacy for the Neoplatonists that they do not have for modern philosophers of time, who tend to pursue a methodology much closer to Aristotle’s. When we seek to understand the nature of time, we take truisms about time, as well as our best theories in physics, as starting points for theorising.’ If we
® For discussion, see Sorabji (1983), 125-7.
7 Four-dimensionalism and presentism are competing views of time, but recent books by proponents of each seek to show how their preferred view derives support from platitudes about time as well as showing that their theory is consistent with the theory of relativity. Cf. Sider (2001) and Bourne (2006).
Introduction to Book 4
want to understand the views of Proclus and the other Neoplatonists on time we must first consider some of the key comments in Plato’s Timmaeus. To the extent that Plato’s text is alien to contemporary philosophical theorising about time, so too are the views of the Neoplatonists.
Some aspects of Plato’s discussion of time in Timaeus 37c6-38b5 seem familiar enough. He remarks that time came into being with the heavens (38b6) and that prior (prim) to their existence there were no divisions of time, such as days, months or years (37e1-2). Reading this, we might short-circuit the problem about how one could speak coherently about what occurs prior to time by imagining that Plato is only expressing a kind of mutual dependence between things that undergo change and the time in which changes take place. It is not that there was some sort of quasi- time before the Demiurge created the heavens and thus inaugurated real time.* Rather, if the story of the cosmos’ creation is read non-literally, this aspect of Plato’s discussion of time simply points to the fact that there is some sort of intimate connection between time and change. So this thread in Plato’s text looks much like the considerations upon which Aristotle constructs his definition of time as ‘the measure of motion with respect to before and after’.
The less familiar aspects of Plato’s discussion involve the relation of time to eternity and the relation of the visible cosmos to the Living Being Itself upon which it is modelled. As noted above, Plato calls time a mov- able image of eternity. Temporal existence is the best that the Demiurge can do to make the visible cosmos resemble its eternal paradigm. The former ‘goes along according to number’ while the latter ‘remains in one’ (37d5-8). This passage suggests that time itself has one or more non-temporal explanations or causes: the eternity that characterises the Living Being Itself and the Demiurge’s activity in creating something that can resemble in some ways that eternity. This aspect of Plato’s dis- cussion looks far stranger from a modern perspective. Yet it was this aspect that primarily motivated Neoplatonic theorising about time from Plotinus onward.
It was clearly part of Plato’s view that the visible cosmos is itself a living being, which has its life in virtue of a World Soul. Plotinus understood Plato’s realm of Forms as having a kind of life as well.? Plotinus’ innovation with respect to time and eternity was to connect these two things with the /ife of the soul and that of intellect respectively (1.7) So when Plato says that time is an image of eternity, Plotinus
Or at least Proclus and the other Neoplatonists did not think so. This reading was defended in antiquity by Plutarch and Atticus (cf. Proclus, in Tim. 1 276.31-277.7 and II 37.7-38.12) and again in the modern era by Vlastos (1968).
9 Cf. 11.8.8; v.1.7; v1.6.8.
The eighth gift of time
understands this to mean that the life of the soul is an image of the sort of life had by the intelligible Forms. This is one way to explicate the cryptic claim that time is an image of eternity. But it is not an explanation that was accepted by the subsequent Platonic tradition.
Proclus gives a variety of reasons for rejecting Plotinus’ view, but the very first one in his list is that it fails to be consistent with Plato’s Timaeus.*° (The priority of this objection illustrates my claim that the Neoplatonists take this dialogue to be the primary evidence which any adequate theory of time must account for.) If time were identified with the discursive life of the World Soul, then the Demiurge would have con- ferred time upon the cosmos at the point at which he made it ensouled. But in the progressive addition of Demiurgic gifts that Proclus supposes to structure Plato’s dialogue, time comes after the visible cosmos’ ensoul- ment and it is granted by the Demiurge, not by the World Soul. ‘Thus time cannot be the life of the World Soul or any consequence of psychic activity. Proclus’ objection thus rests not only upon the idea that the Timaeus is the ultimate arbiter for views about the nature of time, but also upon his view about the structure of that work - specifically that each of the ten gifts of the Demiurge is a greater and greater contribution to the sensible cosmos’ divinity.
Neither would the subsequent Platonic tradition rest content with the idea that eternity is the life of intellect. While Plotinus supposed that the realm of Forms was also in some sense a realm of intellects with its own life and the realm of being, there is no rigorous treatment in Plotinus of the relations between Being, Life and Mind (or Intellect) as these things pertain to the intelligibles. It was left to subsequent Pla- tonists — perhaps beginning with Porphyry, but certainly and especially Iamblichus — to systematise the intelligible stratum of Plotinus’ ontology that lies between the One and soul. Part of that systematisation resulted from thinking carefully about the relative priority of different predicates. Plato said that the intelligible Living Being Itself was eternal. But if it is eternal, then Eternity™' is something distinct from it and prior to it. Proclus puts the point this way:
‘0 in Tim. wt 21.14-24.31. This textual criticism probably derives from Jamblichus’
Timaeus Commentary, cf. fr. 63 (Dillon) = Simplicius in Phys. 793.23, ff. Cf. Joly (2003). In what follows, I'll write ‘Eternity’ with a capital letter where the context suggests we are talking about some specific intelligible principle, like a Form. While this convention works well enough for Plato, with someone like Proclus the matter is more complicated because there are different orders of intelligible things. In fact, it turns out that for Proclus Eternity is not a Form — it is higher than the intelligibles and among their causes. Even so, the use of the capital letter indicates that we are in a context where we are looking for a specific intelligible, belonging to some order or other, rather than just talking about eternity in the abstract.
Introduction to Book 4
If the Living Being is, and is said to be, eternal as a result of participation, but Eternity has not been said to participate in the Living Being, nor been found to be derived from it eponymously, then it is obvious that the former is secondary and the latter is simpler and more fundamental, since Eternity does not participate in the Living Being due to the fact that [Eternity] is not a living thing, for neither is visible time something living . . . For this reason, Eternity is something greater than [the eternal Living Being], for that which is eternal is neither identical to Eternity nor something greater than Eternity. Just as everyone says that what is ensouled or is endowed with intellect comes after soul or intellect, so too surely that which is eternal is secondary to Eternity. (#7 Tim. 111 10.11-21)
Thus Plotinus must be wrong: Eternity cannot be the life of the Liv- ing Being Itself nor of any other eternal intelligible object. If these things are eternal, then they are not Eternity itself, nor is their activ- ity the source of Eternity. Eternity is something higher in which they participate. Iamblichus located Eternity perhaps in the Good or perhaps in the One-Being. In any event, it is among the ‘hidden’ things that are ‘beyond Being’ — that is, above intelligibles like the Living Being Itself. Proclus follows Iamblichus (and Syrianus) in this respect and identifies Eternity with ‘the single comprehension (mia perioché) of the intelligible henads’ (1m 12.14-15). As such, Eternity is not merely responsible for ‘the changeless continuation (anexallaktos diamoné, 12.18) of the things subsequent to it. It ‘arranges them, forming them, as it were, and by this very fact at the same time makes them to be wholes’. This active role for Eternity foreshadows a similarly active role for its image — time. As we shall see, on Proclus’ view time does not merely provide a metric for the changes that take place in time: it actively orders what takes place.
Let us now turn away from eternity to the question of time. Temporal things participate in time. This is what makes them temporal. Proclus accepts Iamblichus’ general account of the metaphysics of participation. This involves a distinction between, on the one hand, an unparticipated monad (or paradigmatic cause), and on the other hand, the participated Form which results from the former and which in turn accounts for the character of the things that participate in it. Proclus states this principle in the following terms:
For in every order there is an unparticipated unit at the head, prior to the things that are participated. There is also an appropriate and connate number corre- sponding to the unparticipated things, and from the unit the dyad results, just as is the case with the gods themselves. (in Tim. 1 240.6-10 = fr. 54 (Dillon), cf. ET prop. 53)
This principle applies to time as well. In his Corollary on Time, Sim- plicius explains how Iamblichus applied this line of reasoning to the case of time:
The eighth gift of time
he seems to postulate a single ungenerated ‘now’ that is prior to those that are participated, and from this [results] the things that are transmitted to the participants. As in the case of the now, so too in the case of time. There is one time prior to temporal things, and there are several times that come into being in what participates — cases in which doubtless one [time or event?] is past, another is present, and another is future. (in Phys. 793.3-7)
This distinction between the unparticipated monad of time and par- ticipated time in Iamblichus has been characterised as a difference between static and flowing time. Sambursky argued that it approximated McTaggart’s A and B series.'* Sorabji, however, correctly pointed out that Iamblichus’ higher-order time was posited on the basis of very dif- ferent philosophical considerations and served a very different purpose within Iamblichus’ Neoplatonism. "3
Proclus accepts a similar distinction between the unparticipated monad of time and the time whose passage gets enumerated when we say that another day has gone by.
We seek the cause of the existence of numerable time. This, therefore, is some- thing that itself remains immobile, unfolding what gets counted in accordance with itself. If, generally speaking, visible time (emzphanes chronos) is mobile [or such as to flow (kinétos)] ... it is necessary for there to be time that is immobile in itself, in order that there should be the kind of time that is mobile [i.e. that which can flow]. That time which exists in the former respect is time as it truly is in itself, and that through which [there is another time] in the things that participate. The latter is mobile along with these participants, extending itself into them. (111 26.2 1-30)
Just as the unparticipated monad of Eternity belongs above the intel- ligibles, so too the unparticipated monad of time is an intellectual nature that is prior to soul (111 27.19-25). Hence Plotinus was wrong here too:
™ Sambursky (1971).
3, Sorabji (1983), 12. Sorabji concedes that there is some resemblance between Iamblichus’ notion of flowing time and McTaggart’s A-series, but thinks that we ought not credit Iamblichus with anticipating the modern distinction unless there is clear evidence that he has anticipated McTaggart’s notion of the B-series as well. Sorabji argues that he did not. I am inclined to go further than Sorabji: because Iamblichus’ distinction seems to be a consequence of applying more general principles about participation to the case of time, it does not seem quite right to say that he anticipates even McTaggart’s A-series. McTaggart’s distinction arises from reflections on tense. If we suppose that a philosophical distinction consists not merely in the drawing of a boundary that isolates a class, but in the reasons for isolating it, it seems to me that it is a mistake to credit Iamblichus with even half of McTaggart’s distinction. What Iamblichus was doing was part of a very different philosophical project, with only tenuous connections to that of McTaggart.
Introduction to Book 4
time is not the life of the soul or any other result of psychic activity. ‘Time — at least the unparticipated monad of time — is prior to the soul and provides the participated time in virtue of which the soul’s activi- ties are measured. Proclus does appeal to a parallel argument to the one above concerning the eternal character of the intelligibles: since soul’s activities take place in time, it is not the source of time (1m 22.1-8). But this is not the first consideration that he advances against Plotinus’ view. The principal objection to making soul the source of time is that this does not fit Plato’s text:
In the first place, Plato — the person with whom we all wish to agree on matters pertaining to the divine — said that time was established by the Demiurge when the cosmos a/ready had an arrangement both in terms of its soul and its body. He did not say that time was established within the very soul, as he did when he said that the harmonic ratios were set up within the soul by the Demiurge. (111 21.13-18)
The evidential priority given to consistency with the Platonic text again illustrates the way in which the Neoplatonic view of time is grounded in the authority of the Timaeus rather than in reflec- tions on our common-sense views about time, as Aristotle’s account is.
This is not to say that Proclus’ view of time is a simple explication of Plato’s obvious intention in the Timaeus. It is a consequence of unpar- ticipated time’s intellectual status — prior to all soul and to the visible cosmos — that it is a cause of changes in the lower psychic and visible realms. Perhaps this is an idea that is consistent with Plato’s Timaeus, but itis surely far from obvious that it is one that his spokesman, Timaeus, expressly intends. It is also a view that finds only dubious support among our common-sense remarks about time. When we say things like “Time has not been kind to this battered copy of Proclus Diadochus in Platonis Timaeum Commentaria we do not literally mean that it is tie that has caused its pages to become brittle. It is the exposure of the acid in the paper to humidity or UV light that has caused the pages to become brit- tle. While this exposure takes place in time, it seems implausible to think that time itself is a cause, distinct from the presence of the acid and the exposure to humidity or UV light. Proclus, however, argues that time is shown to be a substance, not a mere accident, by its status as an important cause of change.
Furthermore, if time was not a substance (ousia), but was instead an accident (symbebékos), it would not have exhibited the creative power that it actually does, whereby it makes some things come to be eternally, while others have a limited temporal duration. (111 23.22—-4)
10
The eighth gift of time
Thus time does not merely measure the lifespan of this book: it is among the causes of its lifespan. Proclus uses this observation as a further argument against the Plotinian view that time is a product of soul. Soul makes things move or change. Time, however, ‘is what has aroused (egeirein) the products of creation toward their own ends and is the mea- sure of the wholes and what provides a certain eternity [for the world]’ (111 24.1-2). So when we consider our decrepit book, soul provides the life (i.e. the source of specific changes that take place in it), while time provides the span, so to speak.
Several factors explain this rather extraordinary conclusion on the part of Proclus. On the one hand, there is the insistence that time plays a parallel role for the visible cosmos that Eternity plays for the intelli- gible one. Since Eternity or Aeon is among the highest causes — being not merely among the henads, but the comprehension or perioché of the henads — Eternity does not merely endow the intelligibles with their eter- nality. It ‘includes in a transcendent manner the essences and henads of the intelligibles’ (111 24.17-18). Eternity ‘arranges them, forming them, as it were, and by this very fact at the same time makes them to be wholes’ (uu 12.212). So if time is to play a similar role for temporal things that Eternity plays for the eternal ones, it will need to do more than just measure their duration.
But why think that Eternity plays such an active role among the intel- ligibles in the first place? Dodds first considered the possibility that the substantial role for Eternity in Iamblichus and Proclus owed something to its identification with Aeon in the Chaldean Oracles (fr. 49 = in Tim. Il 14.3-10).'* Great gods do things: they don’t merely lend their effects a single quality like eternity. So Neoplatonic efforts to weave together Plato with the Oracles may have given Iamblichus and Proclus a reason to accord Eternity a very active role.
Even if we leave aside this potential motivation, there are other fea- tures of Neoplatonic metaphysics that lend credence to the idea that time should play an important causal role in ordering the visible cos- mos. Time is a perfectly general and universal ingredient in every causal interaction. When the pages of a book become brittle through acidifica- tion, time passes. When the stars move along their courses, time passes. In Neoplatonic metaphysics, the more general the feature, the closer it is to the One and thus the higher it is as a cause. Simply being is more general than being a wombat. Hence Being is a higher, and thus more powerful, cause than Wombat Itself. Given the omnipresence of time in all that happens, it is only natural to suppose that time is among the highest of all causes.
™ Dodds (1963), 228.
11
Introduction to Book 4
THE NINTH GIFT: VISIBLE TIME AND THE PLANETS
On the one hand, Plato’s text tells us that time is an image of eternity. On the other, he says it came into being with the heavens. If Eternity transcends the things that are eternal, then time should similarly tran- scend the things that are temporal. However, the idea that time came to be with the heavens suggests that in some sense it is there — in the heavens.
Proclus utilises the distinction between the unparticipated monad of time and participated time to accommodate both aspects of Plato’s discussion. The higher time is ‘hypercosmic’ and intellectual, while the lower time is ‘encosmic’.
Having now provided such a distinction between these two kinds of time and the conceptions that pertain to the single and simple kind of time, Plato intends to deal with the remaining kind and to make the text at hand about the mul- tifarious kind of time that is participated in a divisible manner — an [objective] toward which the theory about the planets makes a contribution (for it is through motions of these things dancing around the Sun that the kind of time that is understood in conjunction with [them] is produced). This introduces the ninth Demiurgic gift to the cosmos. (11 53.16-26)
Proclus finds further evidence of this distinction between the two kinds of time in Plato’s specific choice of terminology. At 37c6, when he first broaches the topic of time, Timaeus tells us that the Demiurge gave thought (epinoein, c8) to what he could do in order to make the visible cosmos more like its intelligible model. At 38c3, however, Plato writes that the Demiurge generates the planets as instruments of time ‘as a result of his reasoning (/ogos) and discursive thought (dianoia)’. Proclus is quick to fasten on this distinction between non-discursive intellec- tual apprehension (noésis) and discursive thought and reasoning (dianoia) as evidence that Plato intends to distinguish higher, intellectual time from the lower, flowing time (111 53.27, ff.). This will probably strike most modern readers as the sort of molehill-to-mountain construction project that is characteristic of the Neoplatonic commentary tradition. It is, however, entirely consistent with their methodology for reading Plato. Each dialogue has a skopos or objective and every aspect of the dia- logue may be interpreted in terms of it. There is nothing about a Platonic dialogue that is merely accidental: every aspect contributes to the com- munication of Plato’s divinely inspired philosophy. This episode also illustrates the manner in which Plato’s dialogue — indeed, every detail of Plato’s dialogue — was regarded as the primary and most salient evidence for the construction of a correct theory of time.
12
The ninth gift
A similar attention to detail is present in Proclus’ discussion of the relation between time and the heavens. Proclus notes that Plato tells us that time came to be together with (meta) the heavens (38b6). This shows that neither the heavens nor time came to be in the sense of having a beginning.'® Whatever comes to be in that sense comes to be in (en) time (111 50.2—4). But clearly there could be no coming to be of time at some moment of time. Thus the claim that time came to be together with the universe indicates only that the visible universe is the first thing to participate in time with respect to both body and soul. (Soul itself is, of course, a prior participant. But the visible cosmos is the first participant that shares in time with respect to both its body and soul.) Plato’s words, correctly understood, affirm that both time and the universe are ungenerated and can never be destroyed.
Specific aspects of the visible cosmos ‘preserve and distinguish the numbers of time’ (Tim. 38c6). Thus, different heavenly bodies make known the numbers of various temporal periods such as a day, a month or ayear. This is not to say that a day or a year is the motion of the sphere of the fixed stars or the completion of the Sun’s cycle. Rather, the day or the year is the transcendent god in which each day or year participates:
The Month Itself or the Year — the individual period, that is — since it is always one is itself a specific god who determines the measure of a motion in a manner that is motionless. After all, from whence does it come about that these periods are always the same unless it is from some cause that is unmoved? And from whence does the difference between their complete cycles (apokatastasis) come about other than from differences among the unmoved causes? And from whence do we get the incessant character [of their rotations] that repeats again and again to infinity unless it is from the infinite powers in these [causes]? (111 88.30-89.4)
‘This metaphysical conclusion finds a welcome agreement in both the ‘sacred tradition’"® and Plato’s Laws (x 899bz2).
Where we have numbers, we have a unit or a monad in terms of which those numbers are defined. That is, two is twice the monad; three thrice the monad and so on. The monad of the numbers of time is the Platonic Great Year (39d2-7). This number is:
a measure by which all the other measures have been encompassed and in terms of which the entire life of the cosmos has been defined, as well as the diverse articulation of bodies and the lifespan that takes place across the all-perfect period. (111 g1.13-16)
5 See pp. 20-2 of Introduction to Volume 1 in this series for an extended discussion of Proclus’ arguments against the literalist reading of the universe’s creation.
‘6 Tt appears that there may have been rituals associated with the Oracles celebrating the Seasons, Months, etc.
13
Introduction to Book 4
Here too Proclus is keen to go beyond an approach that is doxastikos — that is, one that relies on sense perception. He is critical of attempts to calculate the length of time it takes for the stars in the heavens to come back to the very same place and argues that we should take a more ele- vated (epistémonikos) approach to the matter. The Platonic Great Year should instead be thought of in terms of a number or power that extends to every aspect of the life of the cosmos. Its procession, its bending back toward its starting point, and its convergence upon itself mean that it temporally figures the atemporal “process” of remaining, procession, and reversion. At least in the context of the Timaeus Commentary, Pro- clus seems largely uninterested in calculating the number of solar rota- tions corresponding to this ‘whole or universal period of time’. What is genuinely important is how the monadic unit of visible time mimics Eternity:
the time that belongs to the period of the universe [i.e. the Great Year] is complete [unlike a day or a month] because it is not a part of anything [i.e. of any greater duration]. Rather, it is universal or total (4o/os) in order that it may imitate Eternity. The latter is indeed wholeness in the primary manner, but the one which conveys its wholeness simultaneously to every substance. But time does so in conjunction with duration, for temporal wholeness is the articulation (ana- lixis) of the wholeness which remains in a concentrated form (synespeiramends) in Eternity. (m1 92.18-24)
Proclus thus eschews entering into the existing debate on the actual length of a Platonic Great Year’? and concentrates on the contribution that the Great Year makes to the completion or perfection of the visible cosmos. Plato’s dialogue is philosophy of nature — to be sure — but it is a higher philosophy of nature. It does not omit discussion of the paradig- matic causes of that which takes place in nature, as Proclus alleges that others do (in Tim. 12.1, ff.). Unlike, say, the question of the physical com- position of the heavenly bodies (in Tim. 11 42.5-51.1; Il 114.9-115.4), this is one of those cases where Proclus seems anxious to concentrate on the higher causes rather than dwelling on the astronomical details."®
The same emphasis on higher paradigmatic causes is also evident in his treatment of the planets and their motions. Each visible planet is both a living being (zéion) and also divine. However, the visible planetary creature is merely the lower life of the god that is its cause. Each planet, Proclus insists, has a double life: one intellectual, the other divisible in terms of the body (im 71.28). In virtue of the former, it is a god,
17 For this thriving industry, see Callatay (1996).
8 Lernould (2001) argued that the theological aspect of Proclus’ treatment of the Timaeus largely dominates his treatment of Plato’s dialogue as a work of physiologia. For a useful corrective, see Martijn (2008), especially 6-7.
14
The ninth gift
while in virtue of the latter, it is a living being. Keeping in mind what the planets really are (in Proclus’ view) perhaps helps to explain why he is so opposed to astronomical theories that make use of epicycles and eccentrics in order to explain the complex motions exhibited by the planets. Even if one could envision a coordinated system of such nested circles that would describe the motion of the visible body of a heavenly god around the universe, it is hardly proper to imagine that divine souls are associated with bodies that get shunted around by such mechanisms.
In fact, none of these hypotheses [purporting to explain planetary motion by eccentrics or epicycles] satisfies the standard of the probable. Some stand opposed to the simplicity of divine things, while others that have been contrived among the more recent [theorists] posit a motion for the heavens like it were a machine. (ur 56.28-31)
Plato’s concern in his discussion of the planets, then, is not principally with the movements of the visible living creatures in the heavens, but rather the nature of the divine intellectual souls upon which these plan- etary creatures depend.
The idea that Plato’s dialogue, properly interpreted, addresses higher concerns than those of contemporary astronomy is clear from Proclus’ initial comments on Timaeus 38e6—39a4.'°
You might say that the oblique motion of the Different shows the obliquity of the [circle of] the Zodiac (for the motion of the planets is one that takes place with reference to the poles of the zodiac, to put it in technical terminology — for such a definition is not without some value for those who are discussing the celestial bodies). However, the more enlightened (epoptikéteros) alternative is to say that it shows the cause of genesis and the deviation (parallaxis) that pre-exists in the things in the heavens, for genesis participates in Difference and variety derives from the revolution of the Different, while Sameness derives from the [circle of] that Same that is always invariant. (111 73.27-74.7)
Some of Proclus’ terminological choices here call for comment. First, he is rather casual about the technical terminology. When he says that the motion of the planets is kat& yap Tos Tot GoSiaKkot TrdAous.. . (iva woOnuatiKdss eftraouev), he must realise that the more common way to put the point is to say Trepi ToUs Tot ZaS10Kot TréAous — terminology he knows well since he uses the phrase six times in his own astronomical work, the Hypotyposis. The use of kat& here is probably meant to pick up on the first words of the lemma: kat& 87) Thv Batépou Popa TAayiav otoav. So the conventional language of astronomy is at the beck and call of Plato’s divinely inspired text. Moreover, the term parallaxis has
"9 The lemma begins: “They [sc. the planets] started to turn according to the motion of the Different which was oblique...’
15
Introduction to Book 4
an established astronomical sense in which it refers to the apparent dif- ference in the location of a heavenly body resulting from the different positions from where the observations are made (cf. Proclus, Hyp. 4.53), as well as the more general sense of deviation or mutation. It seems to me that here Proclus plays with that double sense: the rea/ parallaxis in the heavens is the pre-existent cause of sub-lunary changes. This cause is associated with the motions of the planets and thus the rotation of the World Soul’s circle of the Different with which they are associated. (Recall that this invisible and non-spatial psychic circle is “positioned” relative to the circle of the Same at the angle the ecliptic makes with the celestial equator (Ti. 36d1—4).) Rather than entering into competition with the theories of the astronomers, Plato’s dialogue points to a higher, ‘more enlightened’ perspective from which we can see the more general truths about the cosmos. These observations about the manner in which Proclus transposes Plato’s claims about the actual motion of the visible planets into a higher theological key bring us to our next topic. This transposition takes the Platonic text out of competition with contempo- rary views about astronomy and also reinforces the point that Platonic physiologia is the most elevated form of natural science.*°
PLATONIC EXEGESIS AND CONTEMPORARY ASTRONOMY
Some conflicts with contemporary astronomical theory, however, could not be avoided. Plato’s dialogue provides an unambiguous order for some of the planets. The Earth is in the centre and above it we find in order: the Moon, Sun, Venus and Mercury (38d1-3). This order agrees with the order of whorls in the Myth of Er in the Republic (616e-617b) and with the Epinomis (986a-87b). From about 200 sce, however, the so-called ‘Chaldean order’ became much more widely accepted. This order places the Sun in the middle with a triad of heavenly bodies on either side: Moon-Mercury—Venus, Sun, Jupiter-Saturn—fixed stars.*’ This appears to be an issue where one must decide between contemporary astronomy and Plato, for they appear to be quite incompatible. A second issue also arises in Proclus’ Commentary: that of the precession of the equinoxes. We will discuss Proclus’ response to both these specific problems after looking at the general question of the place of developments in astron- omy for interpreters of Plato.
2° Cf. in Tim. 1 2.5, ff. 21 Cf. Macrobius, in Som. Scip. 1.19 for a discussion of the competing orders and the claim that the Chaldean order has become the dominant one.
16
Platonic exegesis and astronomy
Physical astronomy and philosophical hyperastronomy
As Segonds (1987) pointed out, Plato’s philosophy stresses the impor- tance of studying the heavens for overcoming the confused thinking that results from the soul’s embodiment (Rep. vu 527d; Tim. god; Epinomis 678d). Soa good Platonist has reason to attend to astronomy. But, on the other hand, Plato’s own astronomical speculations were very much part of the infancy of the study. If one both takes Plato’s clear advice to study the heavens and also holds that Plato’s writings are divinely inspired — as the Neoplatonists did—then following the first bit of advice at least seems to throw doubt on the authority of Plato’s texts. What is a Platonist to do?
Pythagoreanising Platonists such as Adrastus and Theon sought to read subsequent astronomical developments like epicycles into the vague places in Plato’s text.** (Eccentrics were clearly out of the question, since the myth of Er insists that the whorls upon which the planets are mounted are all homocentric.) But the Iamblichean insistence on explicating Plato from Plato frowns on this approach, so another tactic was developed. Whatever role Iamblichus himself might have played in this interpretative strategy, we can see it stated most clearly in Proclus.
Proclus’ Exposition of Astronomical Hypotheses serves both as an intro- duction to the underlying assumptions of Ptolemy’s (second century cE) astronomy and also as an occasion for Proclus to distinguish the properly philosophical approach to the heavens from the merely mathematical or physical ones.
My friend, the person whom the great Plato deems a true philosopher is happy to abandon sense perception and the entire errant Being of the heavens and to study astronomy beyond the heavens (hyperastronomein) — up there [in the intelligible realm] — and to investigate Speed Itself and Slowness Itself in true number. (Hyp. I.1.I-I.2)
As Segonds has shown, this description of truly philosophical astron- omy is really a cento of near quotations and allusions from Plato’s dia- logues. Hyperastronomy — the proper business of the philosopher — then studies, not the bodies in the heavens or the mathematical models that might ‘save the phenomena’, but the bypercosmic causes of these things.
Hyperastronomy is not simply an option that one might take instead of conventional astronomy. We must ascend to such hypercosmic causes if we wish to understand, for the hypotheses of the astronomers fail by their own lights. If the point of astronomy as Ptolemy and other astronomers practise it is to provide an account of the physical causes whereby the
22 Theon 188.25-188.1 (Hiller) cited in Segonds (1987), 321.
17
Introduction to Book 4
planets are moved by regular circular motions on a series of spheres, then Proclus thinks that their effort fails. Near the end of the Exposi- tion, Proclus presents the proponents of epicycles and eccentrics with a dilemma.*} Either these things are real or they are merely conceptual constructions, adopted for the purpose of making predictions (or post- dictions) of the positions of the heavenly bodies. If the former, then the astronomers have not in fact shown the movements of the heavenly bod- ies to be regular, but instead they are irregular and filled with changes. If, however, the epicycles or eccentrics are merely conceptual, then the astronomers have unwittingly slipped from dealing with physical bodies to dealing with mathematical concepts and are providing causes for nat- ural motions on the basis of things that have no existence in nature. The argument behind the first arm of the dilemma is nicely summarised by Proclus in the Timaeus Commentary.
The hypothesis of eccentric circles, according to Proclus, ‘destroys the common axiom for natural things: that all simple motion is either around the centre of the universe or away from the centre or toward the centre’ (146.2 1-3). If a planetary body is moved on an eccentric orbit, then the centre of the universe (i.e. the Earth) is not the centre around which it rotates. The hypothesis of eccentric orbital circles was invoked to explain changes in the velocity or brightness of heavenly bodies, as well as the inequality of the astronomical seasons.*+ Proclus’ criticism is that this proliferates the natural motions in the universe because we are now postulating a heavenly body that has something other than the three natural motions: going around the Earth in a circle, going straight down toward the Earth, or going straight up away from the Earth. It is true one can correctly describe the planet’s motion as describing a perfect circle around some point. But the fact that this point is not the Earth means that our inventory of natural simple motions is now greatly expanded — at least if one insists that all simple natural motions are to be defined by reference to the centre of the universe where the Earth is stationed. It is presumably on the basis of the primacy of the cosmic centre and Earth’s location there that Proclus claims that the astronomers have failed at their task.
This may not be a fair criticism, since astronomers do not seem to take themselves to be committed to the task of explaining the movements of the heavenly bodies in terms of regular circular motions around the central Earth. Geminus, for instance, says only that ‘it is assumed generally in astronomy that the Sun, the Moon and the five planets undergo circular motion with regular velocity in the opposite direction to the cosmos’
3 Hyp. 7.50.3-53.1 74 Lloyd (1973), 61-5.
18
Platonic exegesis and astronomy
(i.e. to the fixed stars).*5 Proclus presumably feels justified in enforcing this additional constraint upon them because of the special status of the centre of the universe (in Tim. 11 106.15—23) and the fact that the Earth is ‘the first and most senior of the gods’ (Ti. 40cz) means that it must be stationed there (im Tim. m1 143.14-25). Once again, I think we see here the evidential primacy of Plato’s inspired text.
The hypothesis of epicycles brings with it the same problems as eccentrics. After all, even if the system in question locates the centre of the deferent”® on the centre of the cosmos, it is nonetheless the case that the planet that moves on the epicycle has a putatively natural motion that is not simple circular motion around the universal centre (or simple linear motion toward or away from it). In addition, Proclus raises difficul- ties about the manner in which the deferent and epicycle are combined. Do the spheres that account for the epicycles have a similar or different composition from the deferent sphere? If the former, then why are they moved in different ways? If the latter, then we are proposing to explain the natural motion of the heavenly body as a function of the motion of spheres that have different composition and thus lack natural community (sympatheia) with one another (im Tim. 11 146.24-8).
Given that the astronomers cannot save the phenomena by appeal to spheres that move with a simple geocentric motion, Proclus thinks we should accept that there is, in fact, an irregular aspect to the motions of the heavenly bodies.*? As a good Platonist, however, he cannot allow that their movements are irregu/ar in a manner that implies a genuine ‘wandering’ incompatible with their divinity. Plato, after all, expressly warns us against this kind of impiety (Laws vu 82 1b-822c) and Proclus takes this warning seriously (in Tim. 111 56.21—5). The planetary motions of progression, station and retrogradation are to be explained in terms of acts of wil] on the part of the divine souls that rule over each of the heavenly bodies (11 117.9—19). While the fixed stars exhibit only two per- fectly circular motions — rotating on their individual axes and moving with the movement of the Same — planetary divine souls have a move- ment that is ‘regularly irregular or irregularly regular’ (m1 57.6). This irregularity or anomélia is not the kind that is incompatible with divin- ity. It isn’t the consequence of anything like human indecision or revi- sions of a plan in light of new information.** We can know this because
25 Elementa astronomiae 1.19.1-3 “YTrKeital yap TPds SANV Thy aoTPOAOYIav *AIOV TE Kad OAT TV Kal TOUS € TAG} TAS IDOTAXAS Kal EYKUKAIoNs Kai UTEVaVTIONs TH KOON KIVEIOBaL. That is, the large circle upon whose circumference the epicycle is located.
27 Pedersen and Hannah (2002) credit Proclus with being the first to call into question the presupposition that celestial motion must be circular.
Cf. Geminus, Elementa astronomiae 1.20.5-7 for the contrast between the perfectly regular and circular motions of the heavenly bodies and human fallibility.
26
28
19
Introduction to Book 4
planets do the same complex dances again and again. As Proclus says, they have ‘apokatastasis’ — that is, cycles that bring them back to the same relative position with the other heavenly bodies at regular intervals. The planetary souls move the associated heavenly bodies within their plan- etary depths (i.e. have apogee and perigee), as well as moving forward or backward in their orbits or standing stationary, because this pattern is a middle term between the perfectly regular and exclusively circular motions of the fixed stars and the very irregular rectilinear motion that is supposed to be characteristic of the sub-lunary realm. Moreover, the reg- ularly irregular motion of the planets serves as a paradigm that the much more irregular motions in the sub-lunary regions imitate imperfectly. In technical Neoplatonic terminology, the regularly irregular planetary motions ‘antecedently comprehend’ (trpoAauBdverv) the sub-lunary ones by having them in a ‘causal-anticipatory way’ (kot’ aitiav).
There is continuity between different orders of being in Proclus’ metaphysics (111 122.1-25). If A and B are in some sense opposed (as reg- ularity and irregularity are) then the metaphysics of procession requires that there be an intermediate between them that is ‘both A and B’. Thus there must be a sequence from entirely orderly or twavtn TeTaypEéveov to the entirely disorderly or tavtn &téktoov that goes via an intermediate stage of orderly disorder or tetaypévn &veouadia.*? Nature abhors vacu- ums and gaps. So the self-initiated spiralling motion of the planets is not an affront to the divinity of the heavens. It is precisely what the conti- nuity of the cosmos requires. The real explanation of complex planetary motions is thus ultimately metaphysical or theological, appealing to the necessity of a middle term between extremes of just the sort that we find in the case of the planets.
Astronomers who invoke eccentrics and/or epicycles to give a quasi- mechanical explanation*® of such matters are misguided. This is not to say that astronomy of the sort that we find in Ptolemy is entirely pointless. Their models should be regarded instrumentally since they ‘analyse the complex motions [of the planets] into simple ones so that through them we might more easily get hold of the points at which these complex motions make a complete cycle (apokatastasis) since the grasp [of these facts] doesn’t come about easily from the motions themselves but is built up only from simplifications’ (111 145.25-7).3' We can use
9 At in Tim. 111 80.5—10 Proclus specifies more exactly the nature of this regular irregu- larity: the planets’ motion is that of the spiral. This is an intermediate motion between the strictly circular motion appropriate to the fixed stars (79.14) and the rectilinear motion that is found in the realm of Becoming. Cf. 148.31 for the idea that the length of a spiral can be calculated from straight lines and circles.
3° Cf. 111.56.30-1, dotrep Ud UNXavi|s UTTOTIBEevTaI Ti Kivnol TdéVv OUpaviev.
3% Reading é« tév étrAddv with Schneider for the manuscripts’ &trAavedv.
20
Platonic exegesis and astronomy
these models to retrodict the positions of the planets for the purposes of casting horoscopes, but it is a mistake to regard them as explanatory.
Proclus and Ptolemy on the planetary order
By the time of Proclus, Ptolemy’s works were by far the most influential and authoritative source for astronomy and astrology. In Chapter 1 of Book 9 of the Syntaxis (or Almagest) he takes up the question of planetary order. He notes the ancient consensus that Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are the outermost of the planets, while the Moon is closest to the central Earth. On the order of the remaining planets, he observes the disagree- ment between the Platonic—Pythagorean order and ‘that of the more ancient astronomers’, i.e. the Chaldean order. He notes that one argu- ment in favour of the former — that we never see the Sun eclipsed by Mercury or Venus in the same manner in which we witness lunar eclipses — is hardly decisive. Measurements of the distances to the plan- ets would settle the matter of their order, but since we don’t have a visible parallax for any of the stars, this method is not available to us. Having no better basis for making a decision, Ptolemy opts for the Chaldean order on the grounds it is more natural. Putting the Sun at the mid-point separates Venus and Mercury (who always appear near the Sun) from those planets that can appear at any elongation from the Sun.
Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypotheses take up the question again, and Ptolemy again notes that ‘we cannot settle this matter with certainty’. He does, however, present new arguments to explain the fact that there are no observed occultations of the Sun by anything other than the Moon, thus further clearing any obstacle to the Chaldean order. More importantly, he provides a calculation of planetary distances. However, this calculation in fact assumes the Chaldean ordering and then works out the distances based on the minimum and maximum distances of the Sun and Moon that were computed in the Syntaxis and the ratios of the greatest to the least distance for Mercury and Venus. So the Chaldean order is a hypothesis utilised to work out the planetary distances. Thus one cannot, strictly speaking, infer the order from the distances calcu- lated in this manner — a point that Proclus makes in his discussion of the Chaldean order (in Tim. ut 63.20).
Nonetheless, Ptolemy also gives another argument based on planetary motion. The motions of the Moon and Mercury are similarly complex, involving both an epicycle and a centre for the deferent that orbits the Earth.*’ In the Planetary Hypotheses this fact is attributed to their mutual proximity to the air, for ‘spheres nearest to the air move with many kinds
3? See figure 3 in Jones (1990), 8.
21
Introduction to Book 4
of motion and resemble the nature of the element that is near them’.33 This resort to physical factors to explain planetary motions contrasts with Ptolemy’s purely mathematical method in the Syntaxis.5+ Proclus’ Timaeus Commentary does not discuss this argument, though it does dis- cuss the calculation of planetary distances. Perhaps this omission may be explained. Proclus presumably would not have given much credence to this argument since he rejects eccentrics wholesale. Such eccentrics are incompatible with the centrality of the spindle of Necessity in the Republics myth of Er, and moreover, Proclus argues that they would necessitate either void or spheres that pass through one another (in Remp. II 227.28—-229.7).
Given his efforts to show that considerations offered for the Chaldean order are not decisive, you might expect that Proclus would defend the Platonic order. This is not so however. There is one bit of evidence about the order of the planets that is decisive: the testimony of Julian the Theurgist.3>
The theurgist, however, obviously deems that the matter stands thus when he says the god integrated the Sun’s fire into their midst as a seventh and made the six other Zones dependent upon it — [an assertion] it would not be licit to remain unpersuaded by.3° (111 63.2 1-4)
Proclus goes on to explain the Platonic order given in the Timaeus as a result of the fact that Plato was attending to the way in which the Sun and Moon are associated, since they come from the same hypercosmic cause.
33 Planetary Hypotheses 1.2.3, Goldstein (1967), 7. 34 Taub (1993), 111-12.
35 Julian the Theurgist was the son of Julian the Chaldean. The Chaldean Oracles were believed to have been dictated by the gods to Julian, either directly or through the medium of his son. The son himself was a wonder-worker of prodigious repute who conjured rainstorms, stopped plagues and cast thunderbolts at the emperor’s enemies. See CHPLA, 161. This passage seems to be drawn from a prose work by Julian the Theurgist that Proclus quotes at several points with variations. Lewy (1956), 123-5 draws them all together and translates the combination as follows: “The demiurge bent heaven into a curved shape, and attached to it the great multitude of the fixed stars, forcing fire to fire, so that they may not move through wearisome strain, but by a fixture that is not subject to vagaries. He sent underneath six planets, and in their midst the seventh: the fire of the Sun; and he suspended their disorder on the well-ranged girdles of the spheres.’ Given the identity of the writer, this must be treated as a divine revelation about the order of the planets that, as Proclus says, it would be impious to disbelieve.
@ ut) Suis dtrioteiv. I am unsure how much to read into Proclus’ way of putting this point. It seems just possible that the order of the planets — considered now as the visible bodies of the heavenly gods — are merely matters for pistis. Pistis or doxa is the cognitive attitude that correlates with sensibles and it is inferior to the attitudes we may have toward more intelligible objects. Hence, nothing too important is at issue in the question between the Platonic and Chaldean orderings of the planets.
36
22
Platonic exegesis and astronomy
Presumably the fact that the Moon’s light is borrowed from the Sun makes this evident, since Proclus goes on to say that Eudemus reported that Anaxagoras was the first to assume this.” In a related passage in the Republic Commentary, Proclus argues that Plato was simply speaking in terms that his contemporaries would understand.
Thus, Plato too followed the astronomers of his time, by which it is also clear that the father of the myth did not announce all things as he himself saw them, but rather he added such things as were most widely accepted at the time — as is doubtless the case with the claim that the Sun is seventh from the sphere of the fixed stars and immediately above the Moon. For it is not only here [in the myth of Er] that one finds this idea, but he also appears to say this in the Timaeus. I also know that some astronomers say that the Sun is in the middle of the seven planets, although this has not been demonstrated through assumptions that are altogether necessary. How, in general, they have tried to do this, we have discussed sufficiently in the Commentary on the Timaeus. Nonetheless, when one hears from the Chaldeans among the theurgists that ‘the god then integrated the Sun among the seven and made the six other Zones dependent upon it’, or one hears from the gods themselves that ‘god established the solar fire in the place of the heart’ (Or. Chald. 58), then might you not fear that — as Ibycus said — ‘I have traded honour among men for sinning against the gods.’ (A line that Socrates also quotes in Phaedrus [242d1]). While I adhere to what has been revealed by the gods, I also say that on these matters Plato conformed with the astronomy of his time, for Aristotle too thought this, adhering to the astronomical views of those around Callippus. (in Remp. 1 220.1-21)
So while Plato’s wisdom is divine, it is more indirect than that of other divine revelations, such as the Oracles or Julian. In any event, the true value of Plato’s distinctively Pythagorean natural philosophy lies not in its attention to the specific spatial relations among heavenly bodies, but to the non-spatial relations among their intelligible causes. Remember that, on Proclus’ view, Plato communicates the point that the Sun and Moon stem from the same hypercosmic cause by (merely apparently?) giving them spatial positions proximate to one another.
Proclus’ attitude in these matters follows that of Iamblichus (fr. 70 = in Tim. 1 65.7-66.8). According to Iamblichus, the Platonic order of the planets is due to the causal role that the planetary gods play in relation to Becoming. The Sun and Moon (whose light is borrowed) are the Father and Mother of Becoming respectively, while Mercury and Venus work in close association with the Sun. The specific causal roles that they play in relation to the sub-lunary realm of Becoming appear
37 Plato himself reports that Anaxagoras thought that the Moon’s light was dependent upon the Sun (Crat. 4ogag—b1 = A76; cf. B18). It is unclear whether Anaxagoras took this as evidence that the Sun was positioned immediately above the Moon. Heath (1981), 85 mentions this evidence from Proclus.
23
Introduction to Book 4
to be adapted from astrological notions of planetary influence. Neither Proclus nor Iamblichus says so explicitly, but it seems to me that their general strategy is to read Plato’s claims about spatial order as claims about associations among causes. This affords Plato a ‘higher truth’ to reveal through his claims about the order of the planets: claims that are only seen as mistaken by those who view these things as doxastikés rather than epistémonikés.
The precession of equinoxes
Comparing his own observations with those of earlier Greek astronomers, Hipparchus (second century sce) noted that the star Spica had moved 2° relative to the position of the autumnal equinox. Hip- parchus concluded that the equinoxes move relative to the signs of the Zodiac at a rate of ‘not less than 1/rooth of a degree a year’. Two and a half centuries after Hipparchus, Ptolemy’s observations confirmed this movement in the longitude of the stars relative to the equinoctial and solstitial point. He also added that it takes place around the pole of the ecliptic (Syntaxis, vu1.2-3).
Since this movement is a motion of the sphere of the fixed stars rel- ative to the solstitial and equinoctial points, we could think of it in two different ways. We could suppose that the position of the equinoctial point simply changes. Perhaps the Earth moves ever so slowly. Alter- natively, we could suppose that the sphere of the fixed stars slips ever so slightly eastward. The latter is certainly Ptolemy’s understanding of the observations (Syntaxis, v1.4). Hipparchus’ own understanding of the phenomenon of precession may have been cosmologically neutral.3*
Such an additional stellar motion, however, is not in any way hinted at in Plato’s Timaeus, so Plato’s text looks incomplete relative to the state of contemporary astronomy. Moreover, from the point of view of Proclus’ metaphysical hyperastronomy, the assignment of mu/tiple motions to the sphere of the fixed stars would be very undesirable. Since the sphere of the fixed stars is the highest heaven, it would be fitting for it to have only a single motion. Simplicity in motion correlates with degree of perfection and the sphere of the fixed stars is the most perfect or most complete (teleitatos), since this sphere contains the entire sensible cosmos. The occupants of the highest sphere of the visible heavens — the individual star-gods — should then have two motions, rotating with the sphere while each also turns upon its own axis (im Tim. W1 123.11-20). Accordingly, Proclus argues that Ptolemy is simply wrong: the observations do not support the claim that the sphere of the fixed stars has any additional
38 Siorvanes (1996), 290.
24
Platonic exegesis and astronomy
motion. Proclus presents two arguments. The first is that Ptolemy’s view makes predictions that are not empirically verified. The second is an appeal to various authorities.
Proclus thinks that if Ptolemy’s account of precession were correct, then Ursa Major should not now be visible.3? On the basis of Iliad 18.487- 9 Proclus assumes that Ursa Major is (at least from the latitude where the Greeks live) a circumpolar constellation (i.e. one whose stars never dip below the horizon). This is in fact true. He assumes that Homer lived about 1500 years before him. A rough figure for precession is one degree eastward motion every 100 years. (In fact, on Hipparchus’ figures itis 1° 15’, which is doubtless why Proclus says ‘more than’ 15 degrees.) Since the path of the ecliptic lies at an angle to the celestial equator, precession should result in observed changes in latitude as well as changes in longitude in a star’s position relative to the equinoctial and solstitial points. In short, Proclus thinks that if the stars were moving in the manner and at the rate at which Ptolemy says, Ursa Major should not be continually visible by now — that is, during Proclus’ lifetime. But it is. Therefore Ptolemy’s view of precession is mistaken.
However, the Ptolemaic theory of precession does not in fact have the observational consequence that Proclus attributes to it. This is because the extent of the change in stellar position is not uniform. It depends on the star’s declination. The change of 1° 15’ per century is a maximum, not a minimum. It appears that Ptolemy was aware of this fact (Syntavis, 7.3, I9.1-I0).
Proclus also appeals to authorities to reject Ptolemy’s interpretation of precession (in Tim. 11 124.26-125.4; 125.17-31, ff.). First, he notes that the Chaldean Oracles speak of the forward motion of the stars. (Pre- sumably, he thinks they speak only of the forward motion of the stars and not, in addition, of any other motion.) Julian the Theurgist denies that the fixed stars wander. Thus Ptolemy is wrong. Second, the Egyp- tians and Chaldeans had many, many more observations to work with and they agreed with Plato. Finally, Proclus insists that the Chaldeans were master astrologers, but they did not utilise the ‘notional signs’ that Ptolemy introduces to compensate for the fact that the constellations of the Zodiac are on the move through the ecliptic.
Proclus is alone among the Platonic philosophers and astronomers in simply denying the precession. Theon of Alexandria (fl. 364) before him accepted the precession, as did Simplicius and Ammonius after him. Sim- plicius claims that Ammonius observed Arcturus right where it should be given Ptolemy’s observations and the lapse of time (in Cael. 462.20). Sim- plicius himself notes just the metaphysical considerations that I alluded
39 in Tim. 1 125.4—-16; cf. Hyp. vit 234.7-23.
25
Introduction to Book 4
to above: if the sphere of the fixed stars were really fixed, then we would have a nice, tidy progression — one simple movement for the sphere, two for each fixed star, and then each planet would have three (its own, that of the sphere containing it, and the motion of the universe). However, because of the observations, Simplicius accepts precession and posits a sphere uninhabited by stars outside the sphere of the stars. This final ‘blank’ sphere moves the sphere of the fixed stars and all that it con- tains ‘with a simple motion to the east’ (462.26). Simplicius learned to live with this additional complication, but apparently Proclus couldn’t. Is this an intellectual scandal? Was Proclus simply being ‘whimsical’ or ‘dogmatic’?#°
Itis important to put this in context. Proclus stands among a very small number of philosophers and astronomers who actually address the ques- tion of precession. We have, in fact, mentioned most of them already. It is notably absent from the writings of Geminus, Cleomedes, Theon of Smyrna, Manilius, Pliny, Censorinus, Achilles, Chalcidius, Macrobius and Martianus Capella where discussion of it would seem to be salient.*" So it is not the case that Proclus stands out as someone who denies pre- cession while everyone around him accepts it. The evidence we have on the matter suggests that very few, even among the educated, were aware that there was an issue to be resolved one way or the other.
It is also true that the precession has implications for astrological practice. Proclus is not mystery-mongering in appealing to the astrolo- gical practices of the Chaldeans as an objection to precession. Ptolemy stands at the head of the method that is now called ‘tropical astrology’ where the signs of the Zodiac are identified not with the constellations — which shift, thanks to the precession — but with regions of the ecliptic. In Tetrabiblos 1.22 Ptolemy pegs the first degree of Ares to the vernal equinox and identifies the twelve signs with divisions of 30° each.
[I]t is reasonable to reckon the beginnings of the signs also from the equinoxes and solstices, partly because the writers make this quite clear, and particularly because from our previous demonstrations we observe that their natures, powers, and familiarities take their cause from the solstitial and equinoctial starting-places, and from no other source. For if other starting-places are assumed, we shall either be compelled no longer to use the natures of the signs for prognostications or, if we use them, to be in error, since the spaces of the zodiac which implant their
4° Sambursky (1962), 145-9 and Taylor (1928), 209 cited in Siorvanes (1996), 285. To the list of critics we might add Bouché-Leclercq (1899) who, having just discussed Proclus’ view, contrasts his school with the Aristotelian one in the following terms: ‘Le grain de folie mystique qui travaille les cerveaux platoniciens n’entre pas dans I’école d’Aristote’
(p. 115). 4* Evans (1998), 262.
26
Platonic exegesis and astronomy
powers in the planets would then pass over to others and become alienated. (trans. Robbins (1940))
This is a substantive theory about how astrology works and one that the friends of real, as opposed to merely notional, signs might reasonably reject. Moreover, the shift to tropical astrology represents a discontinuity with the earlier, Chaldean sidereal tradition. Ptolemy himself seeks to downplay the extent of discontinuity in his discussion of the Chaldean system (Tetrabiblos 1.21), but any reader insightful enough to see the manner in which he utilises precession to argue for the tropical frame of reference will see the extent of the innovation. The Christian Origen (Philocalia 23.18) grasped the implications of precession and urged it as an objection against astrology.**
Careful examination of the evidence we have for the practice of cast- ing horoscopes in the time period after Ptolemy supports Proclus’ con- tention that most astrologers had no need of his innovations.*3 Com- menting on the conservatism in astrological practice, Jones remarks:
The real objection to Ptolemy’s precession theory was not astronomical in nature but astrological. Change the frame of reference for a horoscope, and you will find the Sun, Moon, and planets not only at different degrees, but often in different zodiacal signs possessing radically diverse qualities and influences; and when the equinoctial and solstitial points shift, this affects also the division of the zodiac by the ascendant and the other cardinal points. The interpretation of the horoscope will be utterly different. But the old methods resulted in successful astrological predictions, did they not? (1990, 38)
Citing the passage from the Timaeus Commentary that we have been concerned with, Jones concludes that Proclus’ scepticism was reasonable in context. Even by Proclus’ day, horoscopy based on Ptolemy’s system could not claim a track record of success that would allow it to compete with (what nearly everyone at the time regarded as) the well-documented success of the older precession-free theory.
Throughout this introduction I have been urging the view that Pro- clus is best understood as a philosopher who accords Plato’s dialogues a kind of evidential primacy over nearly every other consideration. This explains the peculiar emphasis on time’s relation to eternity as well as his curiously non-physical interpretation of planetary order and his theory of planetary motion. Curiously, however, the rejection of precession,
# Cf. Hedgus (2007), 32.
43 “The spread of Ptolemy’s tables during the first two centuries after Ptolemy, as evinced by the extant copies on papyrus and the planetary almanacs dependent on Ptolemy, seems to have had surprisingly little effect on the methods of generating horoscopes.’ Jones (2009), 32.
27
Introduction to Book 4
which initially appears to be a shining example of putting Plato first,+* actually turns out to be a well-founded conservatism about astrological practice.*
THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL: THE FOUR KINDS OF LIVING CREATURE
At Timaeus 39e4-9 the visible cosmos is made more like its intelligi- ble paradigm by the introduction of the four kinds of living being. The paradigm — Living-Being Itself — had four Forms of living crea- ture present to it and the Demiurge now introduces sensible counter- parts to these four intelligible kinds into the cosmos that he (timelessly) creates. Given the opposition between unity and divinity, on the one hand, and multiplicity on the other, you might wonder how the Demi- urge’s gift of more kinds of living being makes the sensible cosmos more divine.
One obvious thought is that by putting the stars and planets in it, he puts gods in it (inter alia). Surely that must contribute to making it divine and blessed? But Proclus’ view is in fact more subtle than that. By putting visible counterparts of the four genera of living beings in it, the Demiurge bestows the final form of wholeness upon the cosmos. In this case, adding more things equates to making it more unified because of the kind of whole that these additional things make up.
Proclus famously distinguishes three notions of wholeness.*° Some wholes are wholes-prior-to-the-parts. Other wholes are wholes-in-the- parts, while yet others are wholes-of-parts. We can see this triadic under- standing of wholeness illustrated earlier in the Timaeus Commentary at u 196.25, ff. where Proclus applies this threefold distinction among wholes to the genesis of the World Soul by the Demiurge.
The Demiurge makes the soul one whole, prior to its division into parts — i.e. prior to the introduction of the portions that correspond to the number series 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 27 and the means that fill the intervals between them (Tim. 35b4-36b5). Prior to this division, the Demiurge
44 Cf. Segonds (1987), 331: ‘Les astronomes se trouvent donc tout simplement ruiner Pordre de Univers, et le choix entre des hypothéses qui finissent par contredire l’ordre du monde et, au contraire, les enseignements parfaitement clairs des Dieux eux-mémes ou de Platon, n’est pas vraiment difficile. C’est l’autorité des Dieux qu’il faut suivre, c’est enseignement de Platon qu’il faut défendre, puisque l’on ne viole pas l’ordre de Punivers en le faisant.’
45 Siorvanes (1996), 292-3 reaches a similar conclusion about Proclus’ reasonableness in rejecting precession, though for somewhat different reasons. He thinks that Proclus was justified on grounds of theoretical simplicity and economy.
46 See ET prop. 67. For discussion, see Baltzly (2008).
28
The four kinds of living creature
mixes the two kinds of Being, Sameness and Difference (the divisible and indivisible kinds) into an intermediate mixture (Tim. 35a1-35b3) which forms the substrate of the ‘soul stuff that he goes on to divide out in portions. This is supposed to correspond to the whole-before-the- parts, since ‘the Demiurge does not destroy the whole when he uses it up in the parts’ (iv Tim. 1 195.32—-196.1). It is thus analogous to the transcendent and unparticipated Form that is the paradigmatic cause of the participated Form. It communicates F-ness to its effects without being divided among them. It ‘remains in itself. Similarly, this soul- mixture retains its wholeness in spite of being ‘parcelled out’ in portions corresponding to the number series just enumerated. What is true of a material thing, like bread dough divided into portions, is not true of the immaterial ousia of the World Soul. Proclus says that this is because the Being, Sameness and Difference from which it is composed is both divisible and indivisible. So it is divided into portions (in one sense) but also remains a whole. It is thus a whole-prior-to-the parts.
The phase of the psychogony corresponding to the portioning out into the sequence 1, 2, 3, etc. establishes the whole-of-the-parts. It is the harmony - i.e. the ratios — between the portions that makes this a whole essentially constituted by these parts. The Demiurge makes just the requisite amount of soul stuff to constitute these parts for ‘the whole- of-parts is neither more nor less than the appropriate parts’ (in Tim. Il 236.2-3).
The phase of the psychogony where the Demiurge forms a continu- ous strip of the psychic stuff, then splits it down the middle, and joins the two strips end to end, constituting the circles of the Same and the Different, corresponds to the whole-im-the-parts. The relevant consid- eration here seems to be that the three ingredients (Being, Sameness and Difference) as well as a// of the harmonic ratios are in each of the circles. This notion that the whole in its entirety is in each part is the distinctive characteristic of the ‘whole-in-the-parts’. A whole-in-the-parts is some- thing that resembles the unity of the intelligible world, where ‘each is in all and all is in each’.
In the discussion of the wholeness conferred upon the universe in the tenth gift, Proclus applies these different notions of wholeness to the universe itself rather than just the World Soul. The visible universe gets the first kind of wholeness — the wholeness-prior-to-the parts — when the Demiurge makes it a living being endowed with soul and intellect (Tim. 30b8). Proclus writes:
when that which was moved in a discordant and disorderly fashion was arranged and received order, then soul, intellect and divine unification super- vened (étt1yevopévns). (tn Tim. W1 97.22—-4)
29
Introduction to Book 4
This is a case of wholeness-prior-to-the-parts, because although these features may presuppose a certain arrangement, they are not constituted by it. They are prior.*’
The visible universe is also a whole-composed-of-parts. But it is not composed of just any parts: the universe is a whole composed from whole parts. Proclus places significant weight on Tim. 33a7 where Timaeus says that the Demiurge made the universe ‘a single whole, composed from wholes’ (éva dAov SAwv é€ &trdvtoov). The visible universe enjoys the second kind of wholeness because of the harmony that is established between these parts as a result of their being bound by proportion. The following passage illustrates this phase of the creation of the universe:
As the dialogue goes on, he then gave the second kind of wholeness to it when the double revolutions [of the circles of the Same and the Different corresponding to the celestial equator and the ecliptic] were set up, and the elements [in the world’s body] were bound together by proportion, as well as when the circles of the soul were arranged in terms of the monad, the triad, the tetrad and the heptad, for the universe is composed out of these things as parts. In fact, these things essentially constitute the universe as the universe. (in Tim. m1 97.24—-9)
Elsewhere Proclus argues that the heavenly spheres that make up the greater part of the universe are such that (a) they couldn’t make up anything but the universe and (b) the universe couldn’t be made up of anything but them (11 62.17-24). The essentially constitutive character of the universe’s parts means that they are harmonised — just as the portions within the World Soul are harmonised — and thus it too is a whole-of-parts.
The third form of wholeness — the whole-in-the-parts — arises as a result of the fact that the parts that make the universe a whole-of-parts are themselves wholes. This means that they are such that every part of the whole is in each one. As such, each such whole is itself a (micro) cosmos and the whole (#7 Tim. 11 99.5).
In any case, in the words at hand (Tim. 39e4-6) he gives the third form of wholeness to it, for it is necessary for each part of it to become a whole or for each part to have all things in a manner that is appropriate to itself, so while
47 Compare in Parm. 826.37-827.1 where certain qualities which supervene upon bodies (t& Emrryryvopeva Tos ocpao1) come about by virtue of rational-forming principles (Jogo) since the mixture of these bodies is not sufficient for them. Such rational-forming principles are like Aristotelian Forms in providing an internal origin of change and development. They may presuppose a certain material composition for their presence, but they have a causal efficacy above and beyond that of the matter. This is particularly true in the Neoplatonic adaptation of the notion of rational-forming principle, since here matter — considered in itself, and not simply as a qualified kind of proximate matter — is causally inert.
30
The four kinds of living creature
the heaven [has all things] in a celestial manner, the air [has all things] in an aerial manner, and the Earth terrestrially. This is the whole-in-the-part, and it is through [exhibiting] this [kind of wholeness] that what includes all the living beings [sc. the cosmos] is assimilated to a greater degree to the paradigm [sc. the Living Being Itself]. (111 97.24-98.6)
On Proclus’ understanding, then, the creation of the four kinds of living being within the visible cosmos (Tim. 39e4-9) is simply a specific case of a more general endowment. The Demiurge endows the visible cosmos with the wholeness-in-the-parts in a very general sense. He does this in a very specific sense in making the four kinds of living being.
In the case of the kinds of living being, Plato’s text distinguishes four kinds based on where they reside: celestial, aerial, aquatic and terrestrial (Tim. 39e10-40a2). Proclus considers the relation of this division, based on habitation, to the division between gods, angels, daemons, demi-gods and mortal creatures that he thinks is part and parcel of Platonism. He rejects the view that this passage assigns gods to the celestial region, daemons to the air, demi-gods to the water and mortal creatures to the Earth, as Epinomis 984b might suggest (111 107.30-108.5). Instead, he follows Syrianus** in locating a// these ranks within each of the four kinds of living being — though he maintains silence, in this passage, on whether there are any mortal, celestial creatures.*? He is clear, however, that there are gods, daemons, heroes and even mortal creatures (i.e. birds) that are found in the aerial kind. It is consistent with what he writes here that all should be present in the aquatic and terrestrial kinds too.°° In fact, if he wants to carry through with the idea that in engendering the four kinds of living being within the visible cosmos the Demiurge introduces the kind of wholeness characteristic of a whole-in-the-parts, he must think this. It is characteristic of a whole-in-the-parts that all that is in the whole of which it is a part is in the part in a manner appropriate
4 108.5—-28 = Syrianus, in Tim. fr. 19 in Klitenic Wear (2011). I disagree with what I take
to be Klitenic Wear’s reading of this passage, for it appears that she assigns only mortal
creatures to the terrestrial kind and only spirits and fish to the aquatic kind.
Proclus might point to the fact that the Timaeus assigns each human soul to a heavenly
body. Alternatively, he seems to take seriously the Orphic notion that the Moon is
‘another Earth’. Cf. Orph. fr. 91 (Kern) quoted at 1 48.15 and 11 142.15 and mentioned
again at 1 282.11 and m1 172.21.
5° in Tim. 1 108.13-16 TO 8& EvUBpov TrdvTOOV Tdv SicAaXdovtov TO USwp yevoov kai Tddv év USaT1 TPEPOLEVOoV, TO SE TrEZOV TOV TI YTV KATAVEILAEVOOV Kal év yt] CUVIOTOEVOOV Te kai puouévoeov Copoov. If the notion that the rank of god is manifested in the terrestrial case causes you alarm, recall that the Earth is itself ‘the very first and most senior of gods of all such gods as have come to be within the heavens’ (Tim. 4oc2—3). Proclus claims that the physical, terrestrial body is not that which is most truly the Earth, but it is nonetheless the final manifestation of the intelligible Earth and filled with life (in Tim. 11 135.20).
4!
Ne)
31
Introduction to Book 4
to it. If the tenth gift bestows this kind of wholeness upon the visible universe, then each of the four kinds of living being must exhibit all the ranks — gods, daemons, demi-gods and mortal creatures — that occur in the visible universe.
In any event, the status (taxis) of god as opposed to daemon is a rela- tional notion, according to Proclus, so we may expect some terminolo- gical fluidity. At the conclusion of Book 4, Proclus raises the question of why Plato refers to what Proclus regards as ‘sub-lunary gods’ as daemons (Tim. 40d6—7). Here too he thinks that Syrianus’ teaching solves the problem:
He [sc. Syrianus] says that there are daemons among the celestial beings as well as gods among the things in the sub-lunary realm. But all [the members of] the genus up there are called ‘gods’ because he calls the form (idea) of the celestial gods a genus (genos) (and daemons too have been brought in through this term). However in this case [i.e. in the lemma under discussion] the entire plurality [of superior beings are referred to as] daemons. In the former [context], the property that is distinctive of divinity predominates, while here it is the property that is distinctive of daemons — a fact which, when looked upon in isolation, led some people to separate the divine and the daemonic in terms of the celestial and the realm of Becoming. But it is requisite to station both [kinds] in both [places], and although the divine [kind] abounds up there and the daemonic down here, nonetheless the divine [sort] does exist down here. (111 154.32-155.9 = Syrianus in Tim. fr. 20 (part) in Klitenic Wear (2011))
The immediate effect of what the Demiurge does is that none of the parts that compose the visible god that is the universe are themselves exempt from divinity. There are gods (as well as daemons) everywhere — even here in the sub-lunary region. Syrianus and Proclus anticipate that some people might object to the idea that gods could be present to the gross matter of the sub-lunary region. In response, our Platonists point to the success of theurgical animation of statues. Here the theurgist fashions matter in such a way that it can participate in a god. Are we to believe that the Demiurge is unwilling or unable to do just what the theurgist does? Of course not!
These implications of the tenth gift of the Demiurge to the visible cosmos are not insignificant to Proclus’ view of matters. When mod- ern interpreters wrestle with the problems of Plato’s Timaeus, questions about the meaning and significance of 4od6-e2 do not loom large.5’ Yet this passage provides Proclus with occasion for one of his relatively rare allusions to the problems that beset his world (mm 152.32-153.16). He
5t The index locorum for the 600-page Oxford Handbook of Plato (Fine (2008)) yields exactly zero citations of Timaeus 40d-e.
32
Conclusion
comments that people — and I think we may assume that Saffrey was cor- rect and that Proclus means specifically Christianss* —- more easily forget the gods that are nearest to them. Every cult or sect agrees that there is a single first principle that is divine, and they call upon this highest god for aid. Some of them stop there with only the one god, while others acknowledge that there are additional gods and also daemons, but forget about heroes. All of these people neglect the gradations of divinity that are more proximate to them. Proclus claims that the greatest task for philosophy is to fill in all the stages of procession so that we know both the intermediates and the final terms. In short, Proclus thinks that too many people ignore the divinity that is immediately present to us even in the region below the Moon. Proclus claims that Plato’s own words alert us to this very danger.
Plato right at the beginning celebrated and announced the generation of the sub- lunary gods as divine and intellectual, there being no need whatsoever of any such [corresponding] indication in the case of the celestial gods. (111 152.27-30)
‘The implication of the last remark is that there is no need to stress the fact that the stars and planets are gods. Every right-thinking person — leaving aside, of course, the Christians5} — knows that already. But even right-thinking Platonists (e.g. Plotinus) may have failed to appreciate the extent to which the gods are present right here in the sub-lunary region.°+
Lane Fox (1987) documents the evidence that pagans in late antiquity sincerely hoped for a direct manifestation of the gods and believed that this was possible. Proclus’ interpretation of the tenth gift of the Demi- urge locates a basis for such hope in the inspired text of Plato’s Timaeus.
CONCLUSION
Throughout his commentary on this portion of the Timaeus, Proclus treats Plato’s words as the best guide to the truth about the nature of time and eternity. It is truly an inspired text and thus has evidential primacy in providing an account of the nature of time. Where Plato discusses the motions of the stars and planets, or alludes to the Great
> Saffrey (1975), 558-9.
53 Cf. mt 71.5-8 where Proclus claims that in Tim. 38e3—6 Plato provides an account of the fact that each planet is a living being, dependent upon a divine soul, ‘for those who are capable of seeing it’. Festugiére asks who might be deemed incapable of seeing this, and the answer, of course, is the Christians. Cf. Clement, Protrepticus 6.67.2.10 where Clement complains that those who regard the stars and planets as gods confuse God with God’s works.
54 Shaw (1995) argues that Iamblichus was anxious to restore divinity to the realm of material things in response to Porphyry and Plotinus.
33
Introduction to Book 4
Year, Proclus seeks to understand his words as referring primarily to the intelligible causes of these things. Plato’s text is altogether more “elevated” and thus not in direct competition with writers like Ptolemy. While the Demiurge’s population of the visible cosmos with various divinities does not occupy modern readers of the dialogue to any great extent, Proclus regards this as a key part of Plato’s text. The basis of this difference is not hard to understand. Proclus regards the goal of living as assimilation to the divine. Plato’s account of the population of the cosmos with all the kinds of living things — and especially gods and daemons —~ assures us that the gods that we seek to become like are everywhere. We are not severed from the divine even here in the realm of Becoming.
Works cited
BALTZLY, D. (2008). ‘Merological Modes of Being in Proclus’. Ancient Philos- ophy 26(2): 395-411.
BOUCHE-LECLERCQ, A. (1899). L’astrologie grecque. Paris: Leroux.
BOURNE, GC. (2006). A Future for Presentism. Oxford University Press.
CALLATAY, G. D. (1996). Annus Platonicus: A Study of World Cycles in Greek, Latin and Arabic Sources. Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, Université Catholique de Louvain.
DODDS, E. R. (1963). Proclus: The Elements of Theology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
EVANS, J. (1998). History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Oxford University Press.
FINE, G., ed. (2008). The Oxford Handbook of Plato. Oxford University Press.
GOLDSTEIN, B. R. (1967). “The Arabic Version of Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypotheses’. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 57(4): 3-55.
HEATH, S. T. (1981). Aristarchus of Samos: The Ancient Copernicus. New York: Dover.
HEDGUS, T. (2007). Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology. New York: Peter Lang.
JOLY, E. T. (2003). “Time is nota Product of the Soul: Proclus versus Plotinus’. Laval théologique et philosophique 59(2): 225-34.
JONES, A. (1990). Ptolemy’s First Commentator. Philadelphia: American Philo- sophical Society.
(2009). ‘Ancient Rejection and Adoption of Ptolemy’s Frame of Reference for Longitudes’, in Ptolemy in Perspective: Use and Criticism of his Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. ed. A. JONES. Dordrecht: Springer, 11-44.
KLITENIC WEAR, S. (2011). The Teachings of Syrianus on Plato’s Timaeus and Parmenides. Leiden: Brill.
KUTASH, E. (2011). The Ten Gifts of the Demiurge: Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. London: Duckworth.
34
Works cited
LANE FOX, R. (1987). Pagans and Christians. New York: Knopf.
LERNOULD, A. (2001). Physique et Théologie: Lecture du Timée de Platon par Proclus. Pas-de-Calais: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
LLOYD, G. E. R. (1973). Greek Science After Aristotle. New York and London: Norton.
MARTIJN, M. (2008). Proclus on Nature: Philosophy of Nature and its Methods in Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Leiden: Brill.
PEDERSEN, S. and HANNAH, R. (2002). ‘Celestial Dynamics at the Cross- roads: Proclus’ Reassessment of Plato in the Light of Empirical Science’. Antichton 36: 65-79.
ROBBINS, F. E. (1940). Ptolemy: Tetrabiblos, Edited and Translated into English. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SAFFREY, H. D. (1975). ‘Allusions antichretiennes chez Proclus: le diadoque Platonicien’. Revue des Sciences Philosopbiques et Théologiques 59: 553-62. SAMBURSKY, 8. (1962). The Physical World of Late Antiquity. New York: Basic
Books.
SAMBURSKY, S.andPINES, $.(1971). [he Concept of Time in Late Neoplatonism. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
SCOTTI MUTH, N.(1993). Proclo negli ultimi quarant’anni : bibliografia ragionata della letteratura primaria e secondaria riguardante il pensiero procliano e i suoi influssi storici (anni 1949-1992). Milan: Vita e Pensiero.
SEGONDS, A. (1987). ‘Proclus: Astronomie et philosophie’, in Proclus: Lecteur et interprete des anciens, ed.J. PEPIN andH. D. SAFFREY. Paris: Editions du CNRS, 319-34.
SHAW, G. (1995). Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of lamblichus. Univer- sity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
SIDER, T. (2001). Four-dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford University Press.
SIORVANES, L. (1996). Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.
SORABJI, R. (1983). Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. London: Duckworth.
STEEL, C. (2001). “The Neoplatonic Doctrine of Time and Eternity and its Influence on Medieval Philosophy’, in The Medieval Concept of Time: Stud- ies on the Scholastic Debate and its Reception in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. p. Porro. Leiden: Brill, 3-31.
TAUB, L. C. (1993). Ptolemy’s Universe: The Natural Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Ptolemy’s Astronomy. Chicago: Open Court.
TAYLOR, A. E. (1928). Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
URMSON, J. 0. and sIORVANES, L. (1992). Simplicius: Corollaries on Place and Time. London: Duckworth.
VLASTOS, G. (1968). “The Disorderly Motion in the Timaeus’, in Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics, ed. R. E. ALLEN. London: Routledge, 379-420.
35
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4
Proclus on Time and the Stars
I.
II.
Analytical table of contents
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time A. The transition to eternity: Tim. 37c6—d2 1. General discussion 2. Lexis B. The relation of Eternity to Time: Tim. 3743-7 1. The common conception of Eternity 2. Aristotle’s account of Time and Eternity 3. The Platonists’ account of time a. Eternity and the Living Being Itself b. Eternity is not among the five genera c. Proclus’ account of Eternity 4. Lexis C. The nature of Time 1. Mistaken views about time a. Time is neither a concept nor an incidental cause b. Time is not a consequence of soul’s thinking 2. Proclus’ account of what time is 3. Appendix: specific criticism of “the physicists” 4. Earlier Platonists on the sense in which time is ‘an image of Eternity’ D. The parts and forms of time, Tim. 37e1-4 1. What are days, nights, etc.? 2. What are the tenses? 3. Problem: why do the heavenly gods need time? 4. The harmony of Plato and the Theurgists E. The proper limits of tensed language 1. Explication of Tim. 37e4-38a1 a. General observations b. The source of our confusion about tensed language 2. Explication of Tim. 38a1-9 3. Explication of Tim. 38a9—b5 F. The relation between time and the heavens a. Lexis for Tim. 38b6-c2 G. Summary of the teaching on time
The ninth gift of the Demiurge: the stars A. Explication of Tim. 38c¢3-6 1. Visible and invisible time 2. The contributions of the planets toward visible time
39
108 108 Tig
113 113 113 115
III.
Analytical table of contents
3. The procession of time a. Two puzzles about the order of procession resolved B. Explication of Tim. 38c5—d1 C. The planets and their movements 1. The order of the planets a. The Platonic ordering b. The astrological ordering of the planets 2. The equal speeds of the Sun, Mercury and Venus a. The mathematicans b. Porphyry and Theodore of Asine c. Iamblichus 3. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn . The influence of the planets . The lives of the planets . The motions of the planets 1. General remarks 2. The relative speeds of the planets 3. The spiral motion of the planets 4. The primary role of the Sun, Tim. 39b2-c1 a. General interpretation b. Lexis for Tim. 39b2-c1 5. Night and day a. General interpretation b. Lexis for Tim. 39c1-d2 6. The Platonic Great Year 7. Conclusion of the discussion of time
gra
The tenth gift of the Demiurge: the cosmos is filled with all the kinds of living being A. Introduction, Tim. 39e4-6 B. The Living Being Itself, Tim. 39e7-9 1. General interpretation 2. Lexis: what does the phrase 6 éot1 Zé0v mean? a. Proclus’ explanation b. The agreement of Plato and Orpheus c. Two corollaries d. The views of Amelius, Numenius and Iamblichus on this passage C. The forms within the Living Being, Tim. 39e10-40a2 1. The discourse mirrors its subject matter 2. Why are there four forms? 3. What are these forms? 4. Assorted observations D. Composition of the celestial genus, Tim. 40a2-4 E. Shape of the celestial creatures, Tim. 40aq-5 F. The position of the celestial creatures, Tim. 40a4—7 G. The motions of the celestial genus, Tim. 40a8-b4
40
118 119 121 123 123 123 125 128 128 129 132 135 136 140 144 144 146 152 154 154: 158 161 161 167 169 173
176 176 179 179 181 181 182 186
187 189 189 190 193 198 201 206 208 212
Analytical table of contents
1. General interpretation — the two motions 2. Lexis 3. Related topics a. Correlations between motions and order b. The forward motion of the fixed stars c. Against the precession of the equinoxes H. Fixed stars and planets, Tim. 4ob4-8 1. Lexis 2. General interpretation 3. Assorted considerations a. Composition of heavenly bodies and spheres b. The possibility of planetary satellites c. The planets and time d. Celestial fire again e. Planetary satellites resolve Aristotle’s question I. The Earth, Tim. 4ob8-c3 . Order of exposition . What is the Earth? . The sense in which the Earth is ‘our nurse’ . The interpretation of iAAouevnv . The Earth is guardian and creator of both day and night . The Earth is most senior among the gods . What it means to say the Demiurge ‘contrived’ the Earth J. The dances of the stars, Tim. 40c3-d4 1. The scope of this discussion 2. Mathematical interpretation 3. Philosophical interpretation K. Conclusion of the discourse on the visible gods, Tim. 4od4—5
Wanwm Bw ry
v. The traditional gods A. Sub-lunary gods and daemons, Tim. 40d6-7 1. How these beings are known 2. Why are the sub-lunary gods called daemons? 3. Where does the daemonic order fall? 4. Are there irrational daemons?
41
213
215 216
N H n
217
t H ‘Oo
i) N AM onPwr OON ANN BBY HH
ioe}
ee eS eh See ee oo » NR NY NY KR KR WN WNW
Rm MN KR NY KR KY KR RP WKY WKY KY KR KY WKY KY WY WKY WKY WKN NN
wn ab
wa mewal
Le Se DANN wo ST St ST
a
Io
15
20
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
I. THE EIGHTH GIFT OF THE DEMIURGE: TIME A. The transition to eternity: Tim. 37c6—dz
When the Father who generated the universe regarded (noein) it as something in motion and alive, an image of the eternal gods, he was delighted and rejoiced in it, and then gave some thought to what could be done in order to make it even more like its paradigm. So in as much as its model was itself an eternal living being, he thus set about to produce a universe that had the same character to the extent that this was
possible. (Tim. 37c6—dz)
1. General discussion
The single [Creator] who invariably (kata tauton) creates the things that are wholes all at once (athroés)' both generates and brings about the reversion of his products upon himself, and both perfects and assimilates them to their paradigms. [This happens] either via one and the same power which is both generative and such as to call creations back to their cause (anaklétikos), as well as perfective and assimilative — a view pleasing to some among the older [interpreters] — or via different ones, according to other [interpreters]. Itis as if the intermediate position amid the disagreement and opposition between these men were nothing of any moment, for neither would those who are for unifiying [these functions] be willing for the one [Creator] to be without a trace of plurality, nor can those who distinguish [among the Creator’s powers] bring themselves to say that the number of these powers is irregular or such that one could be left out, and the latter party would instead willingly declare that [the number of powers] is comprehended by its own proper monad and unified by it. As a result, some of them say that these powers are a ‘tetradic monad’, while others say that on the contrary it is a ‘unified tetrad’ or, if you like, a ‘monadified tetrad’.* Now it is clear since the Demiurge under
* Oupev cis kai GAG Sqloupyav &Opdws KATa TAUTOV aTTOyEevVa TE Kal ETTIOTPEPEL Kal TEAEIOT Kal &pouotoi Tois Tapadelyuao Ta ExuTOU SnuIoupy ata. Both the adverbs — &Opdcs kaT& tavTov— go with the participle. The discussion of the creation of the World Soul (in Tim. 1 102.7) opened with the claim that the Demiurge brings forth all these products all at once and throughout eternity (40pdws Kai Sicicvies). The introduction to the discussion of eternity now reiterates this point. The ‘wholes’ that the Creator produces should be understood in relation to the three moments in Timaeus’ discussion of his creative activity (11 2.9-3.6). Though ‘whole’ is a term that takes on different meanings in different contexts for Proclus, at this point it likely refers to the idea that the Demiurge is responsible for the universal, general or ‘whole’ aspects of creation. These wholes include the elements considered in their totality, the psychic substance from which the World Soul is formed, the World Soul itself, and the spheres that make up the heavens. Itis not easy to assign names to the parties in this debate, but it appears that the resolution of the question of the singleness or diversity of the Demiurgic powers here finds a parallel
42
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
discussion here is also a single one, it is obvious that he implants all in one go (homou men) the assimilative power in the junior creators who come after him when he directs them to imitate his own power with respect to their own creation. On the other hand, they receive the generative power all in one go (omou de) at such time as he might move them to generate and fashion living things.* Additionally, they would receive the power to call creations back to their cause at the same time as he bids them to receive once again those portions of the universal (4o/os) elements and to recycle them (anakalein) into these universal elements again when the things that have been composed from them decay.) On top of all these, a guardian power [is also implanted in the junior creators], doubtless a result of the fact that the Demiurge directly establishes the Rulers of the Cosmos’ as guardians of the numbers of time and the Earth as the guardian of day and night.’ Therefore, just as | was prompted to say from the beginning, the Demiurge is that from which all things come, and he has established it all together with himself and has assimilated it [to himself], perfected it, and caused it to revert upon him.* Their order has not been run together as a result of the fact that they have been revealed “all at once” as it were, but rather the order is to a greater degree preserved and rendered continuous. And in as much as this happens, the inferior things are not denied the leadership of their betters, nor are the things that are more perfect denied the authority requisite to them over those beings that are less perfect than they are. After all, one thing is not called forth prior in time to another, nor do the secondary beings remain unprovided for,
in the resolution of the question of One, Being, Sameness and Difference at the limit of the intellectual order in Plat. Theol. 11 69.15-70.11. This makes some sense. The Demiurge is equated with the limit of the intelligible order of gods. Proclus could doubtless find one (or more than one!) correlation between the greatest kinds onto the four powers that are under discussion here.
Sotav aUTOIS TrapaKeAeUNTAI YINEioFa1 Tiv EaUTOU SUvapIv Trepi Thy avTdV yéveolv.
w
Cf. Tim. 4ic5—6 pipoupevol Try Eun SUvaulv trepi Thy UuETEpav yeveoiv. vik’ dv Kivi) Gada attols crrepydZecba1 Kai yevvav. Cf. Tim. q1d1—2: d8avatoo vn tov
zB
Tpoovupaivovtes, atrepyaCeobe Coda Kal yevvere.
There is not as close a textual parallel here, but it seems likely that Proclus has in mind the Demiurge’s instructions to the young gods that continue the previous passage: tpopriv te SiSdvtes avEdvete kai plivovta 1éAw Séxe08e. (412-3).
Cf. in Remp. 17.5 and in Tim. 1 101.5, as well as Iamblichus Myst. 1 3.15 for the use of this terminology to denote the planets in the neoplatonic tradition. It is presumably derived from its similar use in astrology.
On the heavenly bodies generally as the guardians of the numbers of time, cf. Tim. 38c3-6. For the special role of the Earth with respect to day and night, Tim. qoc1—2: QuAOKa Kal SNWIOUPYOV VUKTOS TE Kai T}LEPAS EUNXAVT|OATO.
That is to say, the four powers enumerated at the beginning (1.11-12) all find their source in the Demiurge, even if some of these powers are manifested via the young gods or divinities such as the celestial gods or the Earth.
wn
N
43
Io
15
20
25
30
Io
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
nor are those things with greater seniority standing idle or being fruitless simply because those [secondary beings] that will be receptive of their providential activities have not existed
We, however, who are unable to conceive or to any greater extent explain the eternal beneficence of the Father of Wholes? with respect to the cosmos, we are inclined to envisage and to teach that at one moment he creates something, but at another moment he adds further adornments to it, while at yet another moment he perfects it, and at another time he renders things similar — which is surely the effect that the present words of the philosopher tend to have upon us, for the uni- verse has already participated in motion and life according to the teaching we have about it (since the soul now dwells with it, possessing its own distinctive acts of understanding (gnésis) — acts of understanding through which it both knows intelligibles and the things within the cosmos, pre- serving this along with itself, not only teeming with motion and life but communicating this to the entire mass (ongkos) of the body). Because of this fact alone, or primarily because of it,'° the universe has been cre- ated as a product that is an image of the intelligible gods — one which delighted the Demiurge and in which he rejoiced (Tim. 37¢7) and which he proceeded to make more perfect and similar to the intelligibles by making it eternal in a sense (hoion aidios), for the intelligible is eternal (aidios) in the strict and primary sense, while that which unfolds in paral- lel with the procession of time [is eternal] in a secondary sense. The word ‘always’ (to aei) has two senses: the one eternal, the other temporal."
For what reason, then, does he introduce this eighth gift of the Demi- urge on top of all of the [other] things that have been given to the whole cosmos previously? Surely it is because [this eighth gift] is greater and more perfect, and confers upon the image the highest degree of simi- larity toward its paradigm. Once one sets out to convey in language the
9 Cf. Iamblichus, Myst. 1 21.12; Proclus in Tim. 1 100.9; 110.24. The phrase tratpds tév édoov in Proclus probably has as its background Tim. 33a7 where Timaeus calls the universe éva 6Aov dAoov é€ étrévtoov and thus it is equivalent to ‘Father of the Universe’.
0 The ensoulment of the universe is the seventh of the ten gifts of the Demiurge to the visible cosmos that are enumerated at the opening of Book 2 of the commentary
(11 5.17-31). The ensoulment of the universe plays a particularly crucial role in making
it like its paradigm, since the ensoulment provides the basis for the intellectual activity that it manifests and the Paradigm is, of course, intelligible.
Proclus does draw a distinction between being everlasting and being eternal, but he does not mark this distinction by any terminological one, such as that between aiénios and aidios. Nor does he think that the sort of eternity conferred upon the visible universe is simply a matter of existing at every time. See in Tim. 1 253.31-254.8 where he chides Aristotle for offering such a proposal. Rather things that are eternal in the latter sense
‘are brought forth for the whole duration of time from their own causes and their entire
being is [concentrated] in their coming into being’ (254.7-8, trans. Runia and Share).
44
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
genesis of the things that are wholes, it is necessary to go from those that are less perfect to those that are more so. For in a way, this very same fact occurs in the parallel case where the things that exist in themselves and those that are immanent in others are opposed to one another. This is because among the things that are established in themselves and never in any way come to be the accidents of other things, it is necessary to say that those that are more dignified come first and that it is in virtue of them and because of them and by them that those subsequent to them are manifested. However, among the things that are participated by oth- ers, the things that are less complete presuppose [those that are more so] and become like an underlying subject for what is more perfect and what has been accustomed to arrive later.'* Such, then, is the entire purpose of words at issue.
The next thing is to say what sort of being time is, and what were the reasons why the Demiurge of Wholes brought it forth together with the soul and the heavens, "3 and what are the sort and extent of the goods for which it is responsible. This is particularly important since even many of the friends of Plato" have taken time to be some indistinct sort of form or merely the numerable aspect of motions, not understanding that among the ten things that the Father has doubtlessly given to the cosmos, each
™ This rather involved argument is meant to provide a metaphysical parallel for the fact that Timaeus’ order of presention bestows what Proclus regards as gifts of ever increasing value to the cosmos. But this order of presentation, which saves the best for last, runs contrary to the order of emanation in which higher causes are superior. I think Proclus’ first move (lines 13-15) is to blame this on language. Then he offers what I take to be an additional consideration (kai yap Tros). If we look at characteristics not as causes, but as things that individuals have a share in, then those that are less complete or fully specified (e.g. being an animal) presuppose and come before what is more specific (e.g. being a wombat). That is, being a wombat is one way of being an animal and, viewed from the point of view of participated forms, the genus is matter for the species. (Not, of course, viewed from the point of view of unparticipated or paradigmatic forms!) But what is less complete is less perfect, given the multiple meanings of te/eion. Hence the order of the gifts makes sense if we look at it from this point of view.
™3 The Greek ‘to ouranos’ is, of course, singular. However, ‘the heavens’ is idiomatic in English while ‘the heaven’ is not. The singular without the direct object in English — ‘heaven’ — carries eschatological connotations that are not appropriate. So in most cases I will translate ‘to owranos’ as ‘the heavens’. This concession to idiomatic English should not be taken to imply that Proclus thinks that what is up there is just a chance collection of celestial spheres with some associated visible bodies. “The heaven’ has a unity that is prior to the spheres that it encompasses.
™4 ‘The ‘friend of Plato’ who assumes time merely to be measure of motion is, of course, Aristotle. It is unclear whether Proclus has in mind someone else who regards time as ‘some unclear sort of form’ or whether this is meant to be another way of describing Aristotle’s view. I suspect the latter, for one might justifiably regard the role played by ‘number’ or ‘measure’ in Aristotle’s account of time as ‘the number or measure of motion with respect to before and after’ as unclear and perhaps related to form.
45
oy)
20
a5
30
Io
15
20
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4
subsequent gift is greater than one that came before it in every respect. If, therefore, he has a/ready ensouled and made it a blessed god (Tim. 34b8), and after this he gave time to the universe, it is clear from this that time and life [lived in a] periodic manner that is defined in temporal terms") must be something greater than the soul and the blessed life that results from the soul. Consequently, if it were something of this sort, time would not turn out to be such as the many say, but rather will be possessed of an essence more divine and superior to that of souls and of psychic goods. This is a point we will urge again later (27.18) through more considerations.
2. Lexis Passing on now to the specific terms, let us say that [in order] to regard (noein)'° the life, motion and order of the universe and the way in which it has been given form, [the Demiurge] does not look to the cosmos itself'’ (for in general the cosmos is not an intelligible object throughout the whole of itself, but is rather the object of opinion, thanks to its mass, and apprehended ‘together with irrational sense perception’ (Tim. 282). Moreover, the Demiurge is not led to look somewhere outside himself in his activity of cognition (noésis), but has been reverted entirely upon himself. Rather, since he cognises (zoeim) himself and possesses in himself the genetic and providential causes of wholes, he contemplates both the essence and the perfection of his own products by virtue of the fact that he cognises himself.
Plato says that the cosmos has been created as an image of the eternal gods — not that it is an image of the encosmic gods (for he does not speak
5 Cf. ET 198 and 199.
‘6 Proclus does not state the word in the form in which it appears in the lemma, but it is clear that this is the first term to be scrutinised in the lexis section of this lesson. Plato uses the verb évonoe, probably because he likes the effect of coupling it with étrevoroev in the next clause — ‘thinking about’ or ‘regarding’ (noein) the fine job he had done so far, the Demiurge ‘gave some thought’ (epinoein) to how the universe might be an even better image of its model. However, Proclus regards the verb noein as a technical term for the kind of cognition or understanding that one has of intelligibles. Moreover, it would not do to have the Demiurge contemplating his product rather than the intelligible paradigm upon which the product is modelled. It is pretty clear that this is just what Plato imagines, since he is not obsessive about technical terminology nor about the idea of causation as by-product of self-contemplation as Proclus is. However, Plato’s syntax perhaps affords Proclus a loophole: Ws 8é kivn Sev avTS Kai Cddv évdnoev. The Demiurge regards the visible universe as something in motion and alive — not by looking at it, but by looking to the causes within himself in virtue of which the product is alive and in motion.
7 Festugiére is right to reject Diehl’s emendation in eis avtov 6pavta Tov Kdouov. All the manuscripts have avtov and it makes sense.
46
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
merely about the corporeal-formed aspect of the universe, but about the living being that is ‘endowed with soul and intellect’ (3 0b8), which surely includes the encosmic gods within itself too), but rather that it is an image of the intelligible gods, for it has been filled up with their divinity and the processions of the encosmic gods into it are like ‘canals’'® of a sort or illuminations (eHampsis) of the intelligible gods. The cosmos receives these processions not merely in virtue of its celestial part, but thanks to all the parts of itself, for there are presences of earthly, aquatic and aerial gods in the earth, the seas and the air.'? Therefore the cosmos has been filled with divinity throughout the whole of itself and because of this it is, throughout the whole of itself, an image of the intelligible gods, not receiving the intelligible gods themselves (for images do not receive the transcendent essence of the gods which are wholes),*° but rather having illuminations channelled to it from thence, since it has been organised by a secondary order of beings that have been derived from the intelligible gods to whom they stand in a symmetrical [relation].
[The fact that] by [the words] the eternal gods*' he means the entirely intelligible gods and not those [eternal gods] in it [sc. the
The terminology derives from the Chaldean Oracles, cf. frs. 65, 66, 110 and Proclus in Tim. 1 107.7 and 130.27.
9 Cf. Iamblichus, Myst. 1 9.
ovdt yap Ta dy dAuaTa Tas OvoIas Tas EEnpnEevas TddV SAcov UTrOSéxeT a [TV] Bedsv. This is one of those contexts in which it is difficult to decide between ‘whole’ or ‘universal’. It is tempting to keep the second occurrence of tév and translate ‘the essence of the gods of the wholes’, i.e. the elements and heavenly spheres. Festugiére suggests that Proclus is here relying on a specific sense of &ya&Ayata — the statues of the gods that are purportedly brought to life by practitioners of the telestic arts. Cf. Lewy (1956), 247-8.
The exegetical issue taken up here is also discussed by Taylor (1928), 184-6, albeit in a slightly different manner. The lemma says that the universe is an image of the eternal gods. What are these eternal gods? Taylor thinks that nothing in the dialogue has prepared us for such an announcement, but is hesitant to identify them with the four forms within the Paradigm (Tim. 39e7) as Martin (1841) and Archer-Hind (1888) do. He offers two possible solutions. The first is to either read 6edv as the genitive plural of 6éa and to understand Plato to be saying that the Demiurge made the cosmos an image of his eternal objects of contemplation. The other alternative is to simply bracket 6edv. Cornford (1957), followed by Zeyl (2000), relies on the broader associations of é&yoAua and translates ‘a shrine for the eternal gods’. This means that the Demiurge makes the universe a temple within which the planetary and astral gods dwell.
Proclus’ concern in this passage is rather different. He is not concerned that Timaeus makes the universe an image of some, as-yet-unidentified gods. Since Proclus reads the Timaeus as a part of the systematic Platonic philosophy, there is no question that there are gods in the background who have not yet been explicitly mentioned. The problem is simply to identify which of the many gods in the Platonic philosophy are meant here. Proclus thinks that there are gods within the cosmos who are eternal (in the derivative sense). The fact that Plato immediately goes on to mention the Paradigm is supposed
21
47
25
30
Io
15
20
25
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4
generated cosmos] is one that he made evident by immediately adding the following words so in as much as its model was an eternal living being, since when he says this, it is clear that it is the intelligible [living being that is at issue]. Now that the gods in question are also intelligible, we may infer on the basis of the method of division, for they must be taken to be things that are either prior to the Living Being Itself, or else they are in the Living Being Itself (like the monads of the four forms [of living being] up there,) or else they are posterior to it. To rank them prior to the Living Being Itself would be absurd (for they would then include the Eternity to which he has not yet said the universe has been made similar). Nor is it possible to rank them within the Living Being Itself, for if, as he says (30c4), the universe is not an image of any of the partial forms that are encompassed by the All-perfect Living Being, these [forms] could not be those eternal and intelligible gods [that we are seeking], for the forms (idea) found within the partial forms (e/dos) encompassed by the All-perfect Living Being are not gods. It remains, therefore, that the eternal gods come after the Living Being Itself, all of them falling between the intelligible paradigm and the Demiurge, for the universe seems to be like them all to the extent that the form of each of them includes the wholeness of the cosmos. This fact, then, has been demonstrated and those who assume that these everlasting gods are forms included within the Living Being Itself do so in vain. He does not wish the universe to be made similar [merely] to these forms. After all, how could Plato intend to refer to the universe as an image of those forms to which even the constituent parts (p/éréma) of the universe have not yet been assimilated in the course of the dialogue? In fact, he does do this later as the dialogue proceeds, at the point at which he intro- duces the partial (merikos) constituents of the universe.** Consequently,
to show that these are not among the eternal gods at issue. The universe must be an image of gods who are both eternal and intelligible as well, for the paradigm is an intelligible paradigm. But this does not narrow the field very much since there are lots of intelligible gods. Proclus homes in on the intelligible gods at issue in the lemma by process of elimination. They cannot be intelligible gods that are higher than the Paradigm, for what’s beyond the Paradigm is Eternity and the cosmos has not yet been assimilated to Eternity. Nor can the intelligible gods at issue be the four forms of living thing within the Paradigm (Tim. 39e7), for though these are intelligibles, they are not gods. And in any event, the assimilation of the parts that make up the universe to these intelligible forms takes place when the Demiurge gets the young gods to populate the world with the terrestrial, aquatic and aerial species of living things. It remains that the eternal gods of whom the universe is an image at this point in the dialogue are located after the Paradigm but prior to the Demiurge.
This is the familiar opposition between partial or ‘part-like’ demiurgy and universal or ‘whole-like’ demiurgy; cf. in Tim. 1 2.9 and the contrast immediately above with the ‘universal’ or whole-like elements at mm 2.7.
22
48
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
he could not have said [in the lemma under discussion] that the universe has already become an image of these forms, but rather he would have had to say instead that it wi// become one. In any case, the cosmos is an image of the intelligible gods when it is taken together with soul and intellect [bestowed upon it] and the divinity that has subsequently vis- ited upon it. But it is a moving and living image, filled with divinity; [one which] serves all the things within itself and within that which preserves everything, and is filled all at once with all the good things that derive from the Father. In particular, it recetves motion predominantly from nature, while from soul it receives life and motion, and from intellect it receives cognition (moésis) and life and the fact that it is a receptacle (hypodoché) of the encosmic gods. It is from them — the encosmic gods — that it is at last rendered an image of the intelligible gods in the truest sense.
Again, it is clear from this how Plato establishes the Demiurge as among the foremost of those who practise theurgy (telestai) since he por- trays him as statue-making for the cosmos.*} This is parallel to the way in which Plato earlier established the Demiurge as author (poiétés) of divine names and one who reveals the divine characters — names and characters through which he completed and perfects the soul [of the universe].*+ These [activities] are the things that those who are truly conductors of the Mysteries do: producing the statues [of gods] through characters and names that have the power to bring them to life* and bringing it about that they live and undergo motion. So the Father of Wholes is quite rightly delighted with his own creation, and rejoices in it because he has made it more like its paradigm. He is delighted and amazed - not with what has proceeded and has been made this way because of him — but rather he is delighted and amazed with his own capacity to have brought about from what was ‘moved in a disorderly and discordant manner’ (Tim. 30a4-5) a universe that is well-ordered, ensouled, and endowed with intellect and filled with god. Just as in knowing himself, he knows the cosmos, so too in being amazed at his own creative power, he makes
3. The term that Plato uses at 37¢7, aga/ma, can mean either an image of some unspecified sort or a statue in particular. This prompts Proclus to connect the Demiurge’s activities in making the cosmos an image of its eternal paradigm with the activities of the telestai who make statues that “channel” the presence of the gods to us. The same comparison is drawn at in Tim. 1 273.11-16. On the “animating” of statues of the gods, see Lewy (1956), 248-9.
4 Cf. in Tim. 1 255.11-256.14 for the Demiurge as author or ‘poet’ of the names and characters of the circles of the Same and the Different which bring to completion the composition of the World Soul. For the use of names and characters in theurgic rituals, see Lewy (1956), 252-3.
25 Sid YapakTNPwv Kal 6voudTov CwTiKkdv. PAKTT)
49
30
Io
ED
20
25
30
Io
a)
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
that which he creates something delightful and a veritable image of the eternal gods, for in a sense, the universe has been said to be an image (agalma) as a result of the fact that the god is delighted (agallesthai) in it. He was delighted, however, not by rejoicing in something situated exter- nal to himself (for being intellect, how would he look outside himself?), but rather [he was delighted by the fact that] his own boniform will is fulfilled and in the procession of the beneficent power itself in a sharing and provision of more perfect goods that is without envy.”° This is a fact that Plato himself has indicated sufficiently when he said and rejoicing he considered how [the cosmos] might be made even more like its paradigm, for he rejoiced primarily in virtue of the cognition that is internal to himself by virtue of the fact that it is simple, unimpeded,*’ such as to simultaneously encompass the intelligible universe in a single thought, and by virtue of the fact that it has been made well-disposed to him* through its perfect rest and unity. He rejoices in a secondary manner, if it is lawful to say so, because of the aptitude (epitédeiotés) of those things that receive the abundance of goods that proceed from him.
You can also see from this how Plato imparts [to the reader] the three causes of the particpation (metousia) in those goods that proceed into our cosmos from the Father. The most primary [among these causes] is that which results from the power of the efficient cause (for it is he [sc. the Demiurge] who now produces time, desiring all the first, mid- dle, and final goods because of the selflessness that is proper to him and his surplus of fertility*’). Second [among these three causes] is the aptitude of the thing that is to receive [the procession from the efficient cause] (for the one who bestows the good things is then delighted when the thing that has a share [in these goods] is aptly disposed to serve as a receptacle for them). The third cause is the commensurability (symme- tria) that arises from both and, as it were, their symbiosis (sympnoia) and
This recalls Tim. 29e2 where the Demiurge is said to create the cosmos because he is good and free from envy.
°7 ‘The suggestion that pleasure might consist in the unimpeded activity ofa natural state in Aristotle’s NE 1153b10 becomes solidified in the commentary tradition; cf. Alexander Quaest. 134.29, ff.
Kal pIAOppovouLEevy 1c THs TIPds AUTO OTdCEWS Kal Eveooews TeAgas. An unusual idea. It seems that the stable and unified character of the noésis renders the noésis well-disposed toward the person who has it. Presumably people who are well-disposed toward us are something to rejoice in, so the Demiurge’s intellection provides a similar reason for him to rejoice in it. I fail to see how Festugiére’s translation accommodates the passive participle: ‘et qui répand ses bienfaits grace 4 la fixité et la parfaite unité qu’elle présente relativement a l’objet’.
29 Cf. in Tim. 1 25.16. The ydviun trepiouoia that is responsible for the procession of higher causes to lower effects is a common theme in the Platonic Theology as well. Its presence here with 81c tiv oixeiav dpBoviav again recalls Tim. 29e2 to his audience.
50
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
concord (symphénia). After all, it is for this reason that — even though the gods always hold out to everyone all the good things that are coordinate with the particular essences of those [gods] — nonetheless not all of these goods are always received, because we fail to possess the aptitude or are in a state somehow incommensurate with the power of the things that are offered. If, then, we want the divine to delight in us — since it is surely natural for it to delight and rejoice on account of us, even if it is always disposed in the same manner — we must make ourselves aptly disposed to be a receptacle for those things that are good for us which are extended by him to us, lest the gift of god should be inoperative upon us, in spite of its being of such a nature as not to be hindered by anything. These, however, are matters for a different undertaking — one worthy of a more thorough examination. For the moment, let us see how the universe has become more similar to its paradigm with the birth of time.
The fact that the Paradigm is eternal in the primary sense makes it clear in advance to everyone that unless the visible universe had received a kind of secondary eternity, it would be less like the intelligible [universe]. It is also not difficult to see that what has a genesis in change is not only not eternal apart from time, but could not stand even for a minute.3° Consequently, in order that it may be made more like the intelligible [Paradigm, the universe] needs a certain sort of eternity — one whereby it is eternal, but not by having eternity simultaneously present to itself (as the intelligible has it entirely present) — it needs [instead] the totality of time.3’ Moreover, if one were to investigate the nature of time, one would know more clearly not only how time contributes toward making both the whole cosmos and the greater parts of it eternal, but also how it assists each and every one of them toward perfection and happiness. This is just what we intend to reveal as our interpretation proceeds, as we scrutinise the constituent parts of time.
B. The relation of Eternity to Time: Tim. 37d3-7
Now since the nature of the Living Being was eternal, it was not possible to confer this in an entirely-complete manner upon that which was generated. So he contrived to make a sort of movable image of eternity,
3° Kai Sti TO év yeTAaBoA Thy yéveoiv Exov TOU xpdvou yapis OK [STI] diSiov, GAN’ OS’
akapt} Siayévev oidv 7’ fv, o YaAeTrOv ouvibeiv. Cf. in Tim. 1 346.21 where 16 pév yop
évudov dei TpeTTOLEVvov Kai péov similarly could not stand for a minute.
37 ovK éxovTl S& Guo Trapotoav aUTa Tiv G1b1oTHTA, KabdtTrep TO vonTOV Tr&OaV éxXEl, xpdvou tot ovytravtos. The genitive phrase at the end of this sentence is not easy to understand apart from Proclus’ later references to the ‘entire supply of time’ or ‘the fullness of time’. Cf. m1 50.26-30 dotrep TK VoNTE Ti GUETIAGAav SUvVauIV Tot aiddvos évooTikty oVoav Kal OUvEKTIKTY 757 Kal GUOU Kai &Bpdas Kai Eviaiens UTTOSexeTal, OUTad Kail 6 KOOUOS TH OULTTAGAV TOU xPOVOU XopPEIaV LEPIOTAHS Kai SinPTNLEVODS.
51
20
25
30
Io
15
20
=>)
30
Io
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
and at the same time that he arranged the heavens he made of eternity remaining in one, an eternal image proceeding according to number. It is surely this that we have called time. (Tim. 3743-7)
1. The common conception of Eternity
That the Living Being Itself is the plenum (p/éréma) constituted from the plurality of intelligible living beings and that it is always the same and changeless — these are among the propositions that have frequently been considered and accepted by those philosophers and there is no dispute among the philosophers who follow Plato about what has been pointed out. However, what eternity is, and what it is for time to imitate eternity in a manner that involves motion — this}* is something that it is utterly difficult to conceive and interpret authoritatively. It is nonetheless neces- sary to relate the more useful of the things that the older philosophers found acceptable on these two points and to endeavour to add whatever we are able toward a clear and distinct resolution to the investigation of the matter before us.
The majority of people have some conception or awareness of time.?3 Looking to the motion of the things in the sub-lunary realm or that of the celestial [bodies], they have some notion}+ that time has something to do with motion — whether it be the number of motion or the dimension (paratasis) of motion or some other such thing. The more gifted among them proceeded to a consideration of eternity and observed that there was not merely motion in the universe but an eternal motion that was orderly and circling around in a manner that was always the same. From this observation these people were prompted [to recognise] that this invariant, eternal [character] belonged to the things that were moved, not as a result of the things themselves, but as a result of something else. Now, this something else is either unmoved or else it is something that is itself in motion. If the latter, then either it is in motion at some time or there is no such time and it has always been in motion. If it is in motion at some time [and not at all times], then how is it responsible for the fact that [the heavenly bodies] a/ways move in the same way? If, on
3? Ttis not clear to me why Diehl brackets the 8é in line 23 rather than the one in 24. Surely it answers the pév at line 18 and serves to mark the contrast between what is easy and undisputed about this passage, on the one hand, and what is difficult and controversial on the other. Surely the presence of dyes at 24 renders the 8 there superfluous. In spite of the difficulty and attendant disagreement, Proclus will go on to recount the views of the ancients and add whatever he is able.
33, On common notions concerning time, see Van den Berg (2009).
34 KivtjoEeas TI TOV Xpdvov Eival vouiZovtes, ciov &piOyov 7] TapaTaolv 7) GAAO TI TOIOUTOV. Cf. the nomima of the lovers of sights and sounds concerning the nature of Beauty in Rep. v 479a-d.
52
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
the other hand, [the putative source of the heavens’ motion] is always in motion, then once again the eternal character of its motion will be due to something else. So we will either be left with an infinite regress or we will come to something that is motionless that is responsible for the eternal motion of the things that always moved. The activity of this motionless thing will no longer be temporal but rather eternal, for the distinctive characteristic of things that are temporal is that they always come to be, while it is characteristic of things that are eternal that they always are. ‘The common conception is thought to mean that the word ‘eternity’ (to dion) is derived from ‘to be always’ (to aei on),35 just as the word ‘time’ (to chronon) is derived from ‘dance’3° (choreia) which is motion and has its existence in coming to be. Because of these things, most people — and all of those who are wise — seem to me to grasp time, and those who are wise at least have grasped the primary concept about eternity as a result of looking to the nature that is always being moved and that which is always stable (sonimos). However, it is now necessary to say what each of these is and it is especially important to do so in terms of the teachings of the divine Plato.
2. Aristotle’s account of Time and Eternity
Now Aristotle defined time as the number of motion, not the number with which we count, but that which gets counted.}’ Given this definition he quite plausibly inquired what it is that does the counting, since time is that which gets counted (for these things are relatives (pros ti) and if the one exists, then so too does the other),3° but his resolution of this problem is insufficently bold since he said that some sow/ is that which does the counting,+° for it is necessary for there to be that which does the counting eternally prior to the eternal number [that gets counted] in order that it should always make it, since what comes to be [as a result of the counting] always exists. Having defined time as the countable [aspect] of motion he also says that Eternity is intelligible: since the word ‘eternity’ (aién) has been derived eponymously from always being (to aei on) and because it possesses and contains all the time there is. As a result of this he says that everything is dependent upon Being and Life, some things
35 The same etymology is given in Aristotle, Cael. 1 9 279427.
Simplicius has a slightly different version of this ancient wisdom according to which xpdvos is derived from yopeia tivi Tis yuxiis Trepi TOV vouv (in Cat. 351.34).
37 Aristotle, Physics tv 11, 21gb5-8: &piOyds &pa T1s 6 XPdvos. étrel F &p1Oyds éoT1 S1X Ads (Kad yap TO &piOpoupevov Kai TO &piOunTov &piOyov A€youev, Kal & &piBuotpev), 6 51) ypdvos totiv TO &p1uouEvov Kai ovY @ &p1GyoUpEv.
Cf. Aristotle, Cat. 6a36—7: pds T1 SE TK ToladTa AgyeTa, 60a adTa &trep éoTtiv EtEPCV eival A€yeTal 7) OTTAGOUY GAAwSs IPOs ETEPOV-
39 Physics wv 12, 223a21-29.
53
15
20
25
30
Io
Io
15
20
25:
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
in ways that are indistinct, while others [show this dependence] more clearly.
3. The Platonists’ account of time
At present, however, it is necessary for us to see as clearly as possible what eternity is and what time is according to Plato, and not to accept [an account of] time which is merely [an account of] the image of time, nor to accept that intelligible eternity is simply some god, but to determine exactly in what order of intelligibles it has first been established. This is the thing that is particularly special about Plato’s science (epistémé).
It is antecedently obvious to everyone that eternity is something more dignified, fundamental and stable (as it were) than the Living Being Itself — even though the latter is indeed the most beautiful and perfect among the intelligible living beings, as Plato said at first (30d2). If the Living Being is, and is said to be, eternal as a result of participation, but Eternity has not been said to participate in the Living Being, nor been found to be derived from it eponymously, then it is obvious that the former is secondary and the latter is simpler and more fundamental, since Eternity does not participate in the Living Being due to the fact that [Eternity] is not a living thing, for neither is visible time something living. Nor is it [sc. Eternity] some other living thing [coordinate with the Living Being], for it has been shown that since the Living Being is eternal, it is one of a kind.*° For this reason, Eternity is something greater than [the eternal Living Being], for that which is eternal is neither identical to Eternity nor something greater than Eternity. Just as everyone says that what is ensouled or is endowed with intellect comes after soul or intellect, so too surely that which is eternal is secondary to Eternity.”
a. Eternity and the Living Being Itself
‘What then could eternity be’, someone might say, ‘if it is more dignified than the Living Being Itself — something which he has already said to be “the most beautiful among the objects of thought and perfect in every way” (Tim. 30d2)?’ More precisely, it is most beautiful since even if it has received the highest degree of beauty through its extensive participation, it has not similarly received the highest degree of the good for it was not
4° Accepting Diehl’s emendation in line 18 povoyevis 16 atto%@ov aidviov <édv>. Cf. Tim. 31a8—b3 and Proclus’ commentary on this passage at 1 458.1-6 where he argues that the uniqueness of the cosmos indicates that it is an image of Eternity and the One-Being.
4" That is to say, just as what is ennoun or empsychon is dependent upon the prior existence of nous or psyché, so too what is aiénion is dependent upon an aién that is prior to it.
54
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
said to be the best. Consequently, it would then be possible for it to be subordinate to that which is best. In addition, it was not said to be the most beautiful of all the intelligibles sipliciter, but to be the most beautiful of all of the ving beings that are objects of thought. Therefore [eternity] is not itself a living being, but if it is indeed life, it is infinite life. With respect to the next point, it is not in fact necessary that what is perfect in every way should be the very first [in order], for what is perfect has everything, so it has beginning, middle and end.** But that which is superior to this division [into first, middle and last] would then be superperfect (byperteleios). Therefore nothing prevents Eternity from being ranked higher than that Living Being which is the most beautiful and perfect in every respect (there being many living things that are the object of intellection) if Eternity is in fact best and superperfect.
The next thing to observe is that the Living Being Itself has been given a more honoured status than the plurality of living beings that are intellectualised (nooumenos). It is because of this fact, then, that he says: ‘the most beautiful among the objects of thought and perfect in every way’ (Tim. 30dz). Moreover Eternity is also superior to the plurality of intelligible (moétos) living things (for the latter are things that are eternal, but eternal things participate in Eternity) and is not coordinate with the plurality of them. In fact, they stand opposed to it in a sense, for it unifies
# Tt is difficult to find a form of words in English that brings out the argument here since this trades on the dual sense of te/eion as perfect or complete and lacking nothing. Proclus argues that what is totally complete/perfect (to kata panta teleion) need not be the thing that is most primary or basic. Granted, it has everything and so has what is first, middle and end. That is, there’s nothing missing. But somehow things that transcended the multiplicity of beginning, middle and end, could nonetheless be superior to this.
43 Proclus makes use of existing mathematical terminology here. A number is hyperteleion or superperfect if the sum of its factors is a number greater than itself. Thus 12 is a superperfect since 6 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 16. Superperfects stand opposed to perfect numbers which equal the sum of their factors. In the Pythagorean tradition, perfects are equated with symmetry and thus, of course, beauty. By contrast superperfects (as well as their opposites, deficient numbers) are equated with vice, disease and inappropriateness. For the definition, see Nicomachus, Arith. 1§14. The moral and aesthetic connotations that are already present in Nicomachus are further elaborated by Asclepius in his com- mentary on Nicomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic (106.25 ff.) and summarised briefly in Elias, in Porphry. Isagog. 24.31 ff. There is thus evidence that these negative moral and aesthetic associations had a long history within the Pythagorean—Platonic tradition. This makes it initially somewhat surprising that Proclus is willing to use hyperteleion as an epithet for Eternity. However, his point in doing so emerges when we consider the fact that he is proposing to rank Eternity before the Autozdon which Plato has described as all-perfect or pantelon. How can there be anything beyond perfect? By being super- perfect! Presumably he would be able to reassure any listeners who were acquainted with the Pythagorean associations around hyperteleion that this case was quite different.
55
30
II
Io
15
20
25
30
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
the plurality and it has been said to remain in the One,** in as much as it has itself not been pluralised. The Living Being Itself, however, includes all such intelligible living things*> and for this reason it stands in need of Eternity in order to have a share in unification, continuity, and motionless, changeless life through it. It is doubtless for this reason that when Plato adds that it [sc. the Living Being Itself] is eternal (Tim. 37d1- 3), he does not say that it possesses plurality in itself, but rather refers to it in the singular. This signifies the unity that is especially present in it due to Eternity, since the entire essence (ousia) of the intelligible living things is made manifest as a single nature.
b. Eternity is not among the five genera
Of course if these things have been said correctly, then it could not be the case that Eternity is some particular genus of Being, as some have thought — for instance, Being or Rest or Sameness (for these things are parts of the Living Being Itself and each of them possesses a sort of oppo- site as it were: the first opposed to not-Being, the second to Motion and the last to the Different. But Eternity is opposed to nothing. In any event, all these things at least are similarly eternal, viz. Sameness, Dif- ference, Rest and Motion, which would not be the case if one among them were Eternity, for it is not the case that Rest is similarly Rest and Motion,*° but all the intelligibles are eternal and always existent in the same way. Therefore Eternity is not opposed to any thing, either among these [forms] nor among those things that come after them, for even time — which might seem to be in some relation of opposition to Eternity — is, in the first place, not caught up with the same things as Eternity, but rather deals with things that are unable to receive main- tenance from the Eternal. Secondly, time is an image of Eternity, not an opposite to it, as has already been stated — and as we shall provide an additional demonstration later.+” Therefore Eternity cannot be either
44 Cf. Tim. 37d6: pévovtos aiddvos év evi.
45 At Tim. 31a4-5 the Paradigm or the intelligible Living Being is said to tepiéxov Tavta étréca vont Ga. That which includes a plurality of things in such a way as to nonethe- less be one thing, must stand in need of some unifying principle that is prior to it. Thus Eternity is prior to the Living Being.
4° The argument seems to require that we accept Kroll’s proposal here of ov yap Syoics otdéols | oTdo1s Kal [7] kivnois for the text’s od yap dpoias oTdoIs f oT&OIS Kal 4 KivNols. This argument is parallel to the one at in Parm. 1171.23 that the One can be neither Motion nor Rest. Proclus regards this as a general argument schema: TroAAckis Kolvov TIepl TOUTOV KaVvova 6VTA TOIOUTOV.
47 Cf. 17.17-18.12 for Proclus’ discussion of what is implied in saying that time is an image of Eternity and 32.32-34.13 for his discussion of Iamblichus, Porphyry, Amelius and Numenius on this question.
56
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
one genus of Being [considered individually] nor the collection of all the genera of Being taken together, for if there were plurality in Eternity, it would stand in need of the unification that results from ‘remaning in one’ (Tim. 37d6). But being eternal is a matter of remaining in one. As a result, [if Eternity were the collection of all the kinds of Being] it would both remain in one and not remain: it would remain in as much as it is eternal and the cause of the unification that is present to things that are, but it would not remain in one in as much as it is something compounded out of a plurality.
In addition to these [considerations] the intellect that is composed from these genera and thinks its products is present to everything [just as Eternity is].4° But the concept (ennoia) of Intellect is one thing, while that of Eternity another, just as the concepts of soul and time are different. For while the activity of Intellect is changeless cognition (ametabatos noésis), the activity of Eternity is indivisible everlastingness (aidiotés ameristos). The things [that engage in these activities] have also been distinguished from one another in this manner. However, those who have collapsed everything into the same level, and place only one Intellect between Soul and the Good, are compelled to say that ‘intellect’ and ‘eternity’ have the same meaning.
c. Proclus’ account of Eternity
What, then, is eternity if it is neither some one among the genera of Being nor that which arises from the five [genera] taken together, since all these things are eternal or not far from eternity? What can it be other than the single comprehension (ma perioché) of the intelligible henads? — I mean by ‘henads’ the forms of the intelligible living beings and the genera of all of these intelligible forms. In any event, the single compre- hension of them and of the highest gradations of their pluralities is also
48 TIpds SE TOUTOIS TOI VOUS éoTIV 6 Ek TddV yevdv Kail voei TA &troTeAOUUEva. As Festugiére notes, this is very obscure. His translation takes t&o1 with toWtors: ‘Outre tout cela, ce qui est composé des Genres de I’Etre est un Intellect, et il intellige en fait les étres dont il est la cause.’ This is certainly possible, but this leaves the line of argument somewhat obscure. If we see these two datives playing different roles, then the transition to the difference in the activities of intellect and Eternity makes more sense. Both mous and Eternity play some role in making the intelligibles the kinds of things that they are. Could they be the same thing? If their activities make different results to the intelligibles, then the answer must be No. It is unclear who is the target of the criticism in the final sentence. Perhaps Proclus thinks that anyone, like Plotinus, who does not create a stratified order of intellects within the intelligible realm is open to such a charge.
57
I2
Io
oy)
20
25
30
13
Io
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
the cause of the unchangeable continuation (anexallaktos diamoné)*? of all things. It is not im the many intelligibles themselves, nor is it some- thing that is a result of them being taken as an aggregate, but rather it is present to them in a transcendent manner, and by itself arranges them, forming them, as it were, and by this very fact at the same time makes them to be wholes.‘° The manifold form of intelligibles has not been introduced immediately after the Good which is entirely without a hint of plurality, but rather there are intermediate natures which are, on the one hand, more unified than the plurality of what is all-perfect, but, on the other hand, exhibit within themselves a hint (emphasis) of the birth- pangs of the generation and maintenance of wholes. The number and character [of these henads] the gods know in a manner that is divine, but which the mystical tradition of the Parmenides teaches in a manner that is human and philosophical. However, the precise exegesis of these matters we will put off until we deal with that dialogue.
For the moment, however, we point out that the Eternal is above the All-perfect Living Being and that it is proximately above it — facts that are indicated through the very words of the philosopher. On the one hand, since he says that it [sc. the Living Being] is eternal (Tim. 37d1), it must be secondary to Eternity. On the other hand, since there is nothing eternal prior to it, it would have to be positioned immediately after Eternity. How does it follow that there is nothing eternal prior to the All-perfect Living Being? I would say that it is because there exists nothing temporal prior to the All-perfect Living Being’s image, but rather it is the case that both the cosmos participates in a primary way (prétés) in time and the Living Being Itself participates in a primary way in Eternity. If Eternity stands to time as the Living Being stands to the cosmos, then — ‘alternating the proportion’ as children say when they are doing geometry — as Eternity stands to the Living Being, so time stands to the cosmos. Furthermore, the cosmos is the first thing to participate in time (for generally speaking there was no such thing as time prior to the arrangement of the heavenly bodies (Tim. 38b6)), and hence the Living Being Itself is likewise the first participant in Eternity. But if time is not identical with the perceptible living being that is the universe (for time came into existence along with it, but what has come
49 Tt is likely that éve§4AAoxKTos is a Proclean neologism. We find the word first attested in his works and subsequent usages are largely confined to the Neoplatonic tradition. As here, it is frequently conjoined with verbs associated with rest or stability.
5° Or perhaps ‘by this very fact constitutes them as universals’ (kai a1d totto <ta> &ua 6Aca ivor troiotca). Though the details of this account of the role of Eternity are difficult, its general import is clear. Eternity is situated above the level of the henads and plays the role of an intermediate through which plurality is manifested from the One - from which it is absolutely absent — to the henads which are plural in number.
58
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
to be along with something is not the same as that with which it has come to be), then neither is Eternity the same thing as the intelligible Living Being. As a result, Eternity is not even a living thing, lest there be two intelligible Living Beings, for it has been demonstrated that the Living Being Itself which is right after Eternity is one of a kind.>' So if Eternity is not a living thing, it will not be a living thing other than the Living Being Itself. So in general, Eternity is not a living thing [at all] — for [it would have to be] either different from the Living Being Itself or the same. But it is not possible to say either of these, as we have demonstrated. ‘The first is impossible because the Living Being is one of a kind. The second alternative is impossible because time is not the same as that which is temporal. And if [Eternity] is subject to participation by the Intelligible Living Being, but it does not itself participate in the Intelligible Living Being, then it would be prior to the Living Being Itself. While Eternity is an intelligible god, it is not yet a living thing, for [Eternity must be a god,] if the Living Being Itself is in fact a god, and the latter [clearly is the case] if the cosmos is in fact a god (Tim. 34b). Up there [among the intelligibles] that which is subject to participation by something that it does not itself participate in is entirely more universal (bolikéteros). Furthermore, it is clear that the mode of participation is not equivalent in the two cases [i.e. in the intellible and sensible realm], for the association (koinénia) and unification among the intelligibles which we have just now — abusing the language — called ‘participation’ is one thing, but the participation that takes place in the case of sensible things down here is quite another. The position (taxis) that Eternity has in relation to the Living Being Itself has thus been made clear: that the former is above the latter, and proximately above it, and it has also been made clear that it is the cause whereby the intelligibles are always the same and invariable. (For if someone were to make Rest the cause of this, there is nonetheless, on the one hand, the cause that is at the same level and is to do with activity rather than the invariability, on the other hand, there is also that cause which is transcendent.)>* Finally, it has been
5™ It seems that we must read bm’ ato tpocexés rather than the text’s tpdtepov. Cf. Festugiére’s translation: ‘...le Vivant-en-soi qui est immédiatement sous PEternité’.
3? 6t1 TOU KATE TE ANTE Kal cats éxeEIv EoTiv aitia ToIs VoNTOIs (kal yap Ei Thy oTaoIV TOUTOU TIS AITIOTO, GAA’ f} Nev EoTL OUVTETAY EVN aiTio Kal Trepi THY évéepyElav TAPEXOLEVT] BaAAOV TO doolTas, f Se Enpnuévn). Festugiére takes toWtou with aicv and supposes that whatis referred to here is ‘le Repos de|’Eternité’. In view of the pév. . . 8é that follows he amplifies this to insert: ‘encore est-il qu’il ya a deux sortes de Repos, l’un qui est cause coordonnée et qui présente davantage l’uniformité dans l’ordre de I’activité, l’autre qui est cause transcendante’. It is certainly possible that Eternity might have its own Rest, as Soul has its own Motion, Rest, Being, Sameness and Difference. Proclus certainly
59
15
20
25
30
14
Io
15
20
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
made clear that Eternity is a comprehension (perioché) or unification of many intelligible henads. It is for this reason that Eternity was said by the Oracles to be ‘father-begotten light’ since the unifying light surely shines upon all things:
For [Aeon] alone, copiously plucking the flower of intellect from the strength of the Father has the power to cognise the Paternal Intellect <and> to impart <Intellect> to all sources and principles, and to whirl them about®} and keep them forever in ceaseless motion. (Or. Chald. 49, trans. Majercik)
Since it is saturated with Paternal Divinity, which the Oracles call the flower of intellect, it illuminates all things with intellect and the thought that is invariably the same, and the activity that is revolved around the first principle of all things ina manner that is filled with love (erétikés). But these are matters that I unfold ‘in the inaccessible recesses of thought’ (Or. Chald. 178).5+
4. Lexis
Once more pursuing it from every direction, let us take hold of the philosopher’s conception behind the words of the eternity that remains in one. Let us consider what sort of thing is meant by this ‘one’. Is it then the Good, as the most theologically inclined of the interpreters supposed? But the Good is not able to remain in itself due to its simplicity — a simplicity about which we have learnt in the first hypothesis of the Parmenides (138a2—b5) where he said that it is neither in itself nor in another. In general nothing is iz the Good nor with it, due to the fact that it transcends anything that one might suppose to be
goes on to describe the Being of Eternity (15.11-13). But it seems equally possible to take the genitive toUtou and the verb aiticopa to attribute causal responsibility for the invariable sameness of the intelligible to Rest. I suspect that Eternity is, for Proclus, a higher cause than Rest. So the next clause means that Rest is a coordinate cause to the other intelligibles of the stability of their activity, while the transcendent cause of their invariable sameness is Eternity. 53 Reading Koi 8iveiv for kai 16 voeiv in line ro with all three editors of the Oracles. 54 This is one of the fragments that Tardieu and Lewy (1978) found doubtful, so perhaps it is better to give it the sense that Festugiére does whereby it amounts to the admission that this interpretation of Or. Chald. 49 is Proclus’ own inspired insight — ‘Mais ce sont la choses que je développe seulement dans les plus secrétes retraites de ma pensée.’ Another possibility is that this alludes to the ‘unwritten evening classes’ that Proclus held (Marinus, Vit. Proc. 22, 547-53). On this subject, see Lamberton (2001), 453. Diehl initially took this interpreter to be Iamblichus, but in the corrigenda to volume m1 supposes this to be a reference to Syrianus, not Iamblichus. Dillon (1973) 343, however, argues that this is unlikely. Hence he includes in Tim. 111 14.16—19 as fragment 61 of Iamblichus’ Timaeus Commentary. The most detailed study of Syrianus’ view on time — Klitenic Wear (2008) — concurs with Dillon’s judgement on this matter.
5
mn
60
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
coordinate with it. Moreover, it is not typically called ‘good’ or ‘one’ but rather ‘the Good’ or ‘the One’, with the inclusion of the definite article to show that we should conceive its monadic [i.e. singular] superiority above and beyond all the natures that are known by us. But in the text at hand it is not said that Eternity remains in the One, but that it remains in one. Consequently, Eternity is not in the Good.
Well then, do the words of the eternity that remains in one reveal Eternity’s being unified, as it were, and its remaining in its own one, and the fact that it does not proceed into plurality, nor number in gen- eral, in order that it may be the cause of unification for the plurality of intelligibles? Or is this also true, as we ourselves say — that [eternity remains in one] in order that it may provide stability and wholeness to itself prior to providing it to the things that are eternal (for this is what it is to remain in one), having the whole and its very existence present to it simultaneously and unchangeably. In any event, every divine thing originates its activities from itself, so that Eternity will establish itself and sustain itself invariably in the one that is prior to the things that are eternal. Thus the cause of continuation (diamoné) is not Being (to on), as Strato the physicist®° said, but rather it is Eternity [that is the cause] — not, however, of a continuation that is always coming to be, [but rather Eternity is the cause whereby things continue] unchangeably in one sub- stance, as Timaeus said. And if Eternity exhibits a dyad — though this is something that we would often be happy to conceal (for the ‘always’ is invariably connected to ‘being’ [in the phrase ‘that which always is’] and ‘that which always is’ (to aei on) just is eternity (ai6n)) — then it seems to possess the monad of Being prior to it and the One-Being,>’ and to remain in this one, as our teacher [Syrianus]5° too thought concern- ing this ‘one’. It does this in order that it may be a one prior to being a dyad, since it is hardly likely to have departed from the One. The dyad within it which presents a premonition of plurality is united to the One-Being in which Eternity remains. However, the plurality of
5° Strato of Lampsacus was the head of Aristotle’s school after Theophrastus. He is thought to have died somewhere between 287 and 269. in Tim. mt 15.8-11 = fr. go in Wehrli. Strato’s book On Being, seems to have caught the attention of the Neopla- tonists. The only evidence we have for its content comes from Proclus and Damascius. 57 The One-Being (to hen on) alludes to the second hypothesis of the Parmenides (142e- 155e). As in Tim. 1 230.6—14 indicates, one question that occupies the Neoplatonic interpreters is the relative rank of the to ben on and ‘that which always is’ or the ‘always- existent’ (to aei on). Syrianus and Jamblichus seem to have had slightly different views on this subject, and Proclus’ own view seems somewhat different again. See Introduction pp- 8-10. Il 15.11-16.1 = Syrianus, in Tim. fr. 17 (Klitenic Wear). Her commentary has a useful diagram representing the various levels in question.
58
61
25
30
15
Io
ee)
20
25
30
16
Io
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
intelligibles is united to Eternity Itself which includes and sustains all of their highest gradations in a manner that is transcendent and unitary.°? It is clear, then, that the concepts of the One-Being and the Eternity differ from one another, for ‘to be always’ and simply ‘to be’ are entirely different. In any case, if something always is, it exists simpliciter, but not the contrary — it is not the case that if something exists, this thing exists always. Therefore ‘to be’ is more universal (bolikéteros) and generic than ‘to be always’ and because of these facts the former [sc. the One-Being] is closer to the cause of everything — of the things that are, of those henads that are present in the beings, of generation itself, and of matter. These three things then are in order: 1) the One-Being as the monad of things that are, 2) Eternity as a dyad that possesses Always together with Being, 3) the Eternal that participates in Being and Always and is not the thing that always is in the primary manner, as Eternity is. The One-Being is the cause of being simpliciter (to einai monés) to all such things as <are>°° in any way, whether they genuinely are (ontés) or whether they fail to genuinely be (ouk ontés).°' Eternity, by contrast, is the cause of things’ continuation in being (diamoné en to einai). Strato ought rather to have said this, and not defined Being (¢o om) as the continuation of things that are, as he has written in his book On Being, thereby transferring the distinctive feature (to idion) of Eternity to Being. [Parity of reasoning shows that] in the case of generated things that ‘to come to be’ is not the same thing as ‘the continuaton of becoming’. Rather, the distinguishing feature of becoming is to exhibit now one thing and now another, while the distinguishing feature of the continuation of becoming is the time in which the genesis comes to be. But time plays the same role as regards Becoming that Eternity plays with respect to Being (ousia). However, let our exposition of the greatest of the eternal gods that have remained in one cease at this point.
Why did he use the past tense in the phrase the nature of the Living Being was eternal rather than the present tense, if indeed present tense (to nun) is better adapted to eternity than that which has already happened
59 Cf. 12.17-22 above where Eternity is equated by Proclus with the single comprehension of the highest gradations of the intelligibles’ plurality.
Reading otow in the lacuna at 15.32 with Diehl. Cf. 15.15-16 Kai Strep érri TowTNs 6 XpOvos, TOUTO étti Tis OUoIas 6 aidv.
Cf. 1 233.2 and m 128.1 where Proclus gives the following four-fold division: (1) the noetic realm = what genuinely is (to ontés on); (2) Soul = that which is not genuine being (to ouk ontés on); (3) Sensible things = that which is not genuinely not-being (to ouk ontés ouk on); (4) Matter = that which is genuine not-being (to ontés owk on). The One-Being will be the cause of the existence of 1-3, while the One alone is the cause of matter; cf. ET prop. 59.
60
61
62
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
is?®? He has of course used the past tense in other places as well, as when he says about he who is good always [sc. the Demiurge] that he was good (Tim. 29e1). This form of diction does not signify that the Demiurge was this way from some time, but that he was always this way. This shows that when it comes to things that are divine, the ends are prefigured in, and coincide with, the beginnings prior to the entire sequence. Now [i.e. in the text at hand], however, is an opportune moment to use the past tense. After all, since he “creates the cosmos” [only] in a hypothetical sense, [then in the narrative order of the hypothetical creation] prior to the actual ordering there would be no time. Instead, therefore, the intelligibles and such things as are present with them possess a priority of value [rather than a temporal priority], so for this Plato has used the past tense, was. But his use of the present-tense participle of ‘to be’ (ousa) [to complement the past tense finite verb] comes to the rescue of this weakness, for he has made it substantial (ousiédés) as well. The sentence about Eternity was thus no less appropriate to [its subject matter] than the present tense, since he gave his sentence completeness through the use of [a past-tense verb], while introducing substantial being alongside this through the use of the present participle of ‘to be’.°? Enough, however, about these little points of grammar.
Why was it not possible to confer this [eternal character of the model] in a manner that is entirely-complete upon that which was generated? It is because the universe is generated. You might say that it has its existence in the process of change, while that which is com- pletely eternal is changeless and ungenerated. Since these natures are opposed to one another, if one were to impose ‘that which is eternal in an entirely-complete manner’®+ upon ‘that which has come to be’, this would not make it changeless but would rather destroy its nature. If the Eternal cannot be present in an entirely-complete manner to what is sensible, is it therefore present in some manner or other? How could we fail to agree with this? That which participates in the image of eternity
62 The question is why we have 1 pév obv Tot Zou quars ETUyavev ota aidvios at Tim. 37d3 while Timaeus goes on to make the point that the past and future tense of verbs are not properly applied to that which always is at 37€3-5. Recall that Eternity (ai6n) is equated with what always is (aei on). Presumably the use of the past tense conveys the connotation of ‘always’, since if Plato saw Socrates last Tuesday, then it is henceforth a/ways the case that Plato saw Socrates on that day. The ‘is’ part of the composite is provided by the present tense participle of the verb ‘to be’. I suspect that this making of interpretative mountains out of grammatical molehills might reflect something in the content of Porphyry’s Timaeus Commentary — a response, perhaps, to a puzzle raised about Plato’s use of language within the school of Longinus. 64 +4 SE TravTEAds aidoviov — that is, to be eternal in the manner in which the Paradigm or the All-perfect Living Being is. On the use of modes or manners of being that Proclus expresses with such adverbial phrases, see Baltzly (2008).
63
63
oy)
20
25
30
17
Io
15
20
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
participates in some way in eternity too, even if it is not in the same way as that which participates in Eternity in an unmediated way. Gen- erally speaking, it is always the case that the higher causes order and have authority over those that are subordinate. Consequently, Eternity is present in a way to those things that are ordered by time. On the one hand, All-Perfect Limit®> is together (suneinai) in a unitary manner only with intelligible beings, but on the other hand it is nonetheless able to be present (pareinai) to encosmic beings in a manner that is pluralised thanks to the divisible perfection and determinate measures of life and especially through the Being of the celestial souls. The cosmos itself receives Eternity’s indivisible presence and illumination, not in such a way that it is itself as Eternity is, for it is not said to be eternal, but to be able [to receive Eternity’s indivisible illumination in a divisible way]. This special good, therefore, that belongs to the divine cause and com- prehension (perioché) is also in Eternity, wherefore it doubtless includes, by virtue of a preliminary causal concatenation, the things that are divis- ible and opposed in a way to its own nature.°’ That is enough on such matters.
In what sense is time said to be an image of Eternity? Is it because, while Eternity remains in the® one, time proceeds in accordance with number? This contrast, however, is more indicative of the dissimilarity between time and eternity than their similarity, for it oppposes almost all
65 Perhaps a synonym for the Eternity. Cf. Plat. Theol. 1 62.5.
66 Diehl’s text is: kai SeXeTAI AUTOS 6 KdoLOS OUY ws ~oTIV fF avTOs 6 aid, 510 UNS aicvios eivai Aéyeta, GAN ws SUvatai Ti duépiotov avToU Trapouoiay Kai ~AAauiv. His note reads: priore loco avtév s, sed debuit tov aidva. That’s one solution. But Harold Tarrant suggests instead reading ovy as gotiv attds <as> 6 aicov which yields our text by haplography. For the philosophical point supplied in the square brackets, see 11 100.19. The universe is eternal by existing at each moment that there is in eternal time. Forms, such as Eternity itself, are eternal by receiving the whole of time simultaneously or, as we would put it, by being timeless.
67 This is pretty obscure: Selas dpa kai Totito aitias Kai Teployiis Eaipetov cyabdv éotiv év TH aidvi, Sidtrep St) Kai Ta WEploTa Kai Wotrep UTrevavtia pds Thy ExUTOU QUOI kat aitias émimAokiyy trepiéxel. Festugiére translates: ‘En cela donc aussi, il faut voir le privilege d’une cause et d’un principe compréhensif divins, c’est pourquoi elle enveloppe, en vertu d’une connexion causale, méme les étres divisés et qui sont comme en contradiction avec sa propre nature.’ I find this perplexing. Does ‘il faut voir’ mean that Festugiére is taking @eias as a verb rather than with aitias kai trepioy7is? But what then of ‘d’un principe compréhensif divins’? And where is év té oidvi? I suspect that the divine and comprehensive cause is the eternal Living Being upon which the visible cosmos is modelled. The ‘special good’ that is the cosmos’ beginningless and endless temporal existence must be in some sense prefigured in the timelessly eternal cause.
Given the emphasis that Proclus has just placed on absence of the definite article in
the lemma at 14.27-8 (vuvi 5é ox “év Té Evi” pévelv 6 aidv eipntai, aAA’ “év Evi”) it is
somewhat surprising to find here pévei yév 6 aicov év Te Evi.
68
64
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
these things to all [others]: going out to remaining; numerical sequence to being in one; the image to the thing itself. Hence it is surely better to say that the god has introduced these two — I mean Eternity and time — forth as measures or metrics of different things; the one of beings that exist intelligibly, the other of encosmic beings. Therefore just as the cosmos has been said to be an image of the intelligible, so too the cosmic metric has been denominated an image of the metric of the intelligible. Eternity, however, is a measure in the way the one or the unit is, while time is a measure in the way that number is.°? Each of these two performs some measuring, but while the first measures those things that are made one, as well as the continuation (diamoné) of things that are, the other measures those things that are numbered and the dimension (paratasis) of things that come to be. These apparent oppositions do not really reveal some sort of dissimilarity between the measures themselves, but reveal that secondary things have been brought forth from those that are senior to them, for procession comes from Rest (moné), while number comes from the One.
But perhaps time is also an image of Eternity for this reason too — because it is such as to produce the completeness of encosmic things in the same way that Eternity is [responsible for] the completeness of the things that are, as the ‘Connectors’ or ‘Guardians’ are.’° Just as those things which are incapable of living in accordance with intellect are brought forth under the order of Fate lest, as a result of having abandoned the divine, they should become completely disorderly, so too those things that have proceeded from Eternity and have not been enabled to participate in the whole of stable perfection, simultaneously and forever the same,”’ are perfected”* under the authority of time, and are prompted by it toward their own proper activities. Because of this
69 We need to keep in mind that in the Pythagorean tradition, one or the unit is not itself
a number: it is the source of number. When eternity ‘measures’ something unified and calls it one, it is not counting it. We count or measure things in accordance with number only where we have a plurality.
7° ‘These are divinities within the system of the Chaldean Oracles. The Connectors (sunox- eis) protect various parts of the universe and serve to create harmony within it. Cf. Majercik (1989) and Brisson (2003).
7™ Reading towta for todta in &ya koi dei tatta Teddi with Festugiére. Since intelligibles are the things that participate directly in Eternity, Proclus presumably connects this with the idea of things that are invariably the same or dei Kata TowTe.
7 oUTo Bt) Kai Ta TPOEADOVTEA TOU aidvos Kai UT] SUVNGEVTA LETEXELV Tis EOTAONS TEAELOTN- Tos SANs aUa kai del TAUTE TeAi ev Eis TIv ETTIKPaTELAV TOU ypOovoU, Sieyeip|eTar 5é Trap’ avTtoU Trpds Tas TIPOTPdpoUS EauTOIs évepyeias. As it stands, the text leaves it a complete mystery what the subject could be for teAci. If, however, we read a passive teAeitor parallel to the S1eyeipetai with the coordinate Sé then the t& tpoeASdvTa can clearly serve as the subject for both.
65
25
30
18
Io
15
20
25
30
19
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
they have been enabled to achieve the ends that have been appointed to them through a certain regular temporal cycle.
It is a good thing that he called the Demiurge’s creation of time a ‘device’ (epinoia), for to grant to things that are by nature not eternal a temporal everlastingness that is foreign to them, and to give perfection to those things that are not perfect, and to give a regular circular motion to things that are disposed to go ina straight line — well, this seems close to qualifying as a ‘device’ or ‘contrivance’. It is for this reason that in the text that follows (Tim. 373) he describes the god as having contrived the generation of the parts of time.
But in what sense is the image of Eternity said to be movable? Is it because it is everywhere in motion and the whole of time is in motion? No, this is impossible, for nothing undergoes motion in every respect, 73 not even things that undergo substantial change, for the underlying sub- strate remains in these cases. To a far greater extent, then, will the things that undergo the other kinds of change’* remain [unchanged] with respect to their essence, whether they undergo growth, or alter- ation, or are moved locally. If the things that undergo change did not remain [the same] in some respect, then their motion would be destroyed along with them, for every change or motion is a change im something.’ Therefore nothing undergoes change in every respect, just as we said, and this is especially the case with such things as are eternal — things which surely must be ensconced in their appropriate first principles and must remain in themselves if they wish to be continually preserved. An image of Eternity is especially obliged somehow to possess stability and to be always invariant. As a result it is impossible for time to be itself subject to change (kinétos) in every respect if it is not to be different from everything else. Some aspect of it must then remain of necessity if it is in fact true that everything that moves is moved with respect to some aspect of itself which remains. * * *7° Accordingly there is a monad of time dependent upon the Demiurge that remains [in itself], but
73 ovBév yap Kaf SAov EauTO kiveiTou; literally, ‘undergo motion throughout the whole of itself, but in this context what is meant is radical Heraclitean flux.
74 As in Aristotle, the word ‘kinésis’ is contextually sensitive. Following the remark about substantial change (60a petoPdAAei Kat’ ovciav) we shift to a context where ‘kinésis’ refers not to local motion — one species of change — but rather the genus of which substantial change, growth, alteration and local motion are species.
75 Cf. Aristotle, Phys. 3.2, 202a13—16. Since the change is in the subject that undergoes it,
if a subject were changing in every way, we would have no stable subject in which the
change could exist. Thus there would be no change in the first place. Hence nothing undergoes change in every respect at any time.
Our manuscripts have 11 pévov éxutot to éxov. Since it is hard to see any connection
between to éxov and what comes before, Diehl supposes that something has fallen out.
Something more than <tot> is required since éautot already conveys the idea that
76
66
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
because it is full of the capacity to measure, and because it wishes to mea- sure both the motions of the psychic substance as well as those of nat- ural and corporeal substances — existence as well as their activities and affections — time also proceeds in accordance with number. Since time remains [in itself] by virtue of its own internal activity that is indivisi- ble, it is by means of its external activity being contained by the things it measures that it proceeds according to number — that is to say, in accordance with specific intellectual forms,but especially in accordance with the very first number itself which, as Parmenides would say, plays a leading role among intellectual (noeron) beings analogous to the role that the One-Being plays among intelligible (noéton) beings. It proceeds therefore in accordance with this number and this is why it assigns the proper measure to each of the encosmic forms.
Furthermore, one might say with more precision’’ that time as it truly is proceeds in accordance with number, numbering the things that participate in it, since it is an intellectual number — one which Socrates spoke of somewhat cryptically at the point at which he said that ‘in that which is truly number’ (Rep. 529d1-5) there exists Speed Itself and Slowness Itself. It is by means of these [forms] that there is a difference among the things that are numbered by time between those that undergo motion more swiftly or more slowly. It is for this reason that Timaeus has not produced a long speech about that [higher] number, since the day before Socrates had revealed all this perfectly, but rather he speaks about that which has proceeded from it, for since the former is that which is truly number, Timaeus said that the latter time proceeds in accordance with it.’° Let it therefore be admitted that it proceeds in accordance with
this aspect with respect to which a thing undergoes change is something that belongs to it. 77 Literally, ‘closer’ as in ‘closer to the facts about the matter at hand’. Cf. 1 139.13 and 140.11. Here again Proclus uses the dramatic date of the Timaeus as a reason for connecting the two dialogues rather more intimately than modern interpreters would perhaps be inclined to do. Because of the conversation that Socrates led the day before, ‘Timaeus can now say that time is a movable image of Eternity proceeding according to number and have his listeners recognise that the number in accordance with which it proceeds is none other than the true number of the previous day’s conversation. The corresponding passage in the Republic Commentary is worth quoting at length: Furthermore Eternity is not a number either but is instead prior to all num- ber since it ‘remains in one’ as Timaeus says (37d6), for number is up there wherever there is Difference, but Eternity is prior to Difference and prior to the All-perfect Living-Being. But since visible time circulates according to number, as Timaeus says (38a7) the number for the circle would have to be prior to this since it is such as to bring every period to the com- pletion of its cycle. And if this number were in the realm of generation,
67
Io
Sy)
20
25
30
20
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
intelligible?? number on the one hand, but, on the other, it also proceeds in accordance with that by which it numbers the things that participate in time. Correspondingly, the time that is in the participants proceeds in accordance with that which numbers it, since it is the very thing that gets counted — something that possesses an image of substantial time, through which all things get counted by the greater or smaller numbers that determine their lifespan. So, for instance, an ox lives this long but a man that long, while the Sun or the Moon return to the start of their cycles in such and such a time, and Saturn and the other planets complete their cycles in accordance with other measures.
I.
C. The nature of Time Mistaken views about time
4. Time is neither a concept nor an incidental cause
‘Time, therefore, is a measure of motions [or more broadly changes], not in the sense of that by means of which we measure (for it is the concept (ennoia)*° that is concerned with time that does this, not time itself), but
79
80
then once again there would have to be another number in accordance with
which it comes to be and so on to infinity. But if there is a number that
is the sole cause for time always being circulated according to number — a
number that is itself intellectual and thus time in the sense of something
that is dancing intellect (choronoon; cf. 28.1 below) — it is something that
is cause whereby the cosmos dances (since the circular completion of the
cycle [of the cosmos] is said to be a dance) *** in book vu of the Republic ***
Socrates refers to it as ‘true number’ and says Speed Itself and Slowness Itself
are in it. (in Remp. 11 17.13-18.4) In view of the fact that we have just been told that time is an intelectual number (atts dv voepds &p10yds) at line 16 and in view of the fact that time plays a role among the intellectual beings that is analogous to the role that the One plays among the intelligible beings (19.11) and that it is a specific intellectual form (19.9), it is very tempting to emend vontdv to voepds here. On the other hand, as Festugiére points out, this ‘true number’ is one in which we find Speed Itself and Slowness Itself. These are presumably intelligible forms. It is not entirely clear, but the target of this criticism may be the Stoics. Proclus will later characterise their view as one that makes time something that exists merely in thought (95.10-11 of uév Kat’ étrivoiav WiAty adTov ouvioTaévtes GuEvnVoV Kai yyloTa Tov ut) évtos = SVF 2.521 (part)). The ground for Proclus’ criticism is that time is, on the Stoic view, an incorporeal and all incorporeals lack the capacity to cause things. While it is true that our sources do list time among the incorporeals, it is unclear how well this fits with the Stoics’ more widely reported definition of time as interval of the world’s motion (cf. Simplic. in Cat. 350.16: Sid0THNA THs TOU KOoNOU KIvT}GEws = SVF 2.510 (part)). Nonetheless, the general thrust of this section is to argue against any view of time that fails to recognise time’s active role in structuring the cosmos.
68
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
rather in the sense of that which is such as to produce and to delimit the lifespan and all other changes among the things that are located in time or as that which measures these temporal beings in relation to their paradigms and assimilates them to the latter. [With respect to this latter role], just as its own assimilation to Eternity refers back to paradig- matic causes of inclusion and measure, so too the things that have been completed or perfected by time point back toward a more dignified imi- tation of the eternal first principles by means of the circles they spell out together. Moreover, how could it be, if Time is a god so great and venerable, that He should [simply] be the measure of motion (as that by means of which we count) or the countable [aspect] of the motion of the bodies that circulate [around the heavens], or more generally [any bodies in] motion, as it has appeared to certain persons who lacked an aware- ness of time’s power or its creative presence in the case of all things? And when they say that time is the cause of corruption rather than gen- esis, or the cause of oblivion (/éthé) rather than preservation (sétéria), or that it is [a cause of these things] incidentally and not per se,*' then these people are like those who are entirely asleep and who can therefore neither consider what psychic and corporeal benefits result from time, nor calculate the extent to which the entire heaven and all generation is afforded good things throughout itself due to time and time’s agency. But the Theurgists would not say such things, since they doubtless say that He" is a god and have given us the invocation whereby it is possible to move this god to appear to us in person,” and they celebrate this god as
81 The argument is directed at opponents who, generally, deny that time is a cause. Even when they concede that things decay ‘through the passage of time’ they qualify this con- cession by making it an incidental cause. We may speak of, for instance, mental acuity declining through ageing, but strictly speaking it will be specific chemical processes in the body that cause this. ‘Ageing’ is just a way of gesturing toward these as-yet-unknown causes. Proclus, of course, disagrees with this idea.
It seems that Chronos is the subject here, but there is a disagreement about whether Chronos and Aion were in fact equated in the Chaldean system. See Majercik (1989), 213 for references. Certainly Proclus says that this god is eternal —not that he is Eternity. Whatever may have been the teaching of the Oracles on the relation between Time and Eternity, Proclus will be strongly motivated to read them as drawing such a distinction since this accords better with Plato.
kal ayy avtot TrapéSocav tiv, SV js eis adTOPavelay KIvelv avTOV BUVaTév. Lewy (1956), 230 regards this as a theurgical technique of ‘leading’ one of the gods of time to a ‘self-manifestation’. Such a self-manifestation is achieved through invocation. Cf. Iamblichus, Myst. 1 12.4-5 Avtopaviis yap Tis £o71 Kal ov TOBEATS 1 S1& THV KAT|CE~V ZAAauis. At 89.18 Proclus says that conjunctions, invocations and self-manifestations for the Month and the Year regarded as gods have been handed over from the ‘sacred tradition’. Viewed in light of this passage, this probably means the Oracles or Julian the Theurgist’s prose works. See also Lewy (1956), 445.
82
83
69
Io
15
20
25
30
21
Io
15
20
On the Timaeus of Plato: Book 4.
‘older’, ‘younger’, ‘unrolled in a spiral’ and ‘eternal’.*+ He is eternal not merely as an image of Eternity, but as antecedently comprehending and cognising in an eternal manner the sum total number for all the things in the cosmos that undergo motion, thanks to which he draws round all the things that are moved and brings them back to the beginning of their regular cycles, whether they be swift or slow. In addition to this, they [celebrate this god as] limitless (aperantos) on account of its power (for that which comes round again and again is an infinite potentiality (apeirodynamia). Together with these [epithets of Time], they also [cel- ebrate this god] as a spiral form (Or. Chald. 199*)*> since He is such as to measure things that undergo rectilinear motion as well as those that are moved in a circle, and since the helix includes in a unified manner both what is straight and what is moved in a circle. In view of these facts, we must not follow those who would reduce time to a bare conception (epinoia) or to some incidental property.
b. Time is not a consequence of soul’s thinking
But neither should we follow those more worthy men who are getting closer to the facts of the matter about time’s distinctive property, if they say that it is something that results from the World Soul’s discursive activity;*° that is,°’ while the sow/ is itself present all at once and exists changelessly, nonetheless its activity measures the celestial rotations and the periods of other souls by means of time. We must not commit our- selves to this position, even if these people are not too far off the real truth.
In the first place, Plato — the person with whom we all wish to agree on matters pertaining to the divine — said that time was established by the Demiurge when the cosmos already had an arrangement both in terms of its soul and its body. He did not say that time was established within the very soul, as he did when he said that the harmonic ratios were set up within the soul by the Demiurge. Nor, unlike the case where he said the god ‘framed the corporeal inside’ (36d9) of the soul in order that the soul should rule and have the body for its slave (34c5), does he
84 Tardieu and Lewy (1978), 680 argue that these terms do not derive from the Oracles themselves, but rather from Julian the Theurgist’s prose work.
The planets, whom Proclus calls the Rulers of the Cosmos, have a special role in the production of visible time. Their paths through the heavens are spiral in form (Tim. 396).
It seems likely that Proclus has Plotinus in mind here, probably on the basis of m1 7.11, 43-45 Ei otv ypdvov Tis A€yor wuyijs év KIvfjoel YeTaBaTiKT EE GAAou eis GAAOv Biov Coorv evan, &p’ dv Soxoi T1 Aéyeiv; On Proclus’ objections see Joly (2003).
Retaining 7 with Festugieére.
85
86
87
70
The eighth gift of the Demiurge: time
teach that the god brought about or engendered time too in the soul. Instead it was after he had spoken about the essence, harmony, power and motions of the soul, as well as its various acts of understanding — having brought about the completion of both body and soul in addition to all these things — it was then that he brought in the single essence of time in order that it might preserve, measure and assimilate all these things to their paradigmatic principles. After all, what benefit would the things within the cosmos obtain if they possessed everything in the best manner, but nonetheless failed to maintain them a/ways?** How would it benefit [the cosmos] to have imitated in some manner or other the form of the paradigm, were it not to unfold everything within it to the greatest extent possible and to receive in a divisible manner its indivisible cognition (noésis)? Due to these facts, the philosopher has doubtless established a Demiurgic cause for the procession of time — not a psychic one.
Next if you were to look at the facts of the case, you would have to say that if the soul engendered time, then the soul would not participate in such a way as to be made complete or perfected by it. However, it is not hard to see that, at least with respect to its activities, the soul is made complete and measured by time. This is so since everything that does not already have the entirety of its activities simultaneously and all at once requires time to achieve its perfection and to return to its starting point — time through which it accumulates for itself all those goods that are appropriate to it, which is something that cannot be done in a manner that is indivisible or atemporal. As we said earlier [17.23], there are these two measures of the continuation or of the perfection of the things that are: eternity and time. The first is the single comprehension of the intelligible henads that does not admit of being made plural. The second is a boundary or limit and a Demiurgic measure of the things that have proceeded from up there — a measure of their continuation forever, or for a long time or for a short while. If the soul grasped all the things that it knows in the same manner as Intellect or the gods [grasp the objects of their knowledge]-— that is, by means of a single conception that is always the same, cognising them in an unchangeable manner — then while soul might perhaps have engendered time, it would not itself have stood in need of time in order for the soul to be complete.