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PROCLUS’ COMMENTARY ON PLATO’S PARMENIDES |o| 1^ |a] Translated by GLENN R. MORROW and JOHN M. DILLON with Introduction and Notes by JOHN M. DILLON PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 1987 Copyright © 1987 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 (n the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Oxford All Kkihts Reservcd Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN ()-691-()73i)5-8 ISBN (>-691-02089-2 (pbk.) First Princeton Paperback printing, with corrections, 1992 This book has been composed in Linotron 13cnibo Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-frcc paper, and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on IVoduction Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 UXORI DIL£CTISSIMAE CONTENTS PREFACE IX GENERAL INTRODUCTION xi A. Life and Works, with a Brief Introduction to Proclus’ Philosophical System ^ B. Previous Commentary on the Pannenides XXIV C. The Place of the Parmenides Cemmentary in Proclus’ Work D. The Problem of the Forty of Zeno xxxviii E. Previous Editions and Translations xliii xlv NOTE ON THE PRESENT TRANSLATION Book I. Introduction 3 Commentary 19 Book 11. Introduction 93 Commentary 101 Book III. Introduction 145 Commentary 157 Book IV. Introduction 195 Commentary 210 Book V. Introduction 324 Commentary 332 Book VI. Introduction 385 Commentary 400 Book VII. Introduction 474 Commentary 492 BIBLIOGRAPHY 605 609 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES SUBJECT INDEX 611 INDEX OF PLATONIC PASSAGES 614 PREFACE In 1973, Glenn Morrow, Adam Scybcrt Professor Emeritus of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, died, while still rather less than half way through a translation of Proclus* Commentary on the Parmenides, He had published the Commentary on the First Book of Euclid in 1970 and had plainly developed in his retirement a taste for the tortuous ramifications of Proclus’ style and thought. Charles Kahn of the University of Pennsylvania, Morrow’s literary ex ecutor, asked me if 1 would be willing to complete the work. I accepted the task without much thought, although I had various other commit ments, since I felt that it would be a good excuse to give a close reading to a work that I might otherwise be tempted to avoid. The consequence was ten years of hard labour (though with many interruptions), the re sults of which I present to the world with relief not unmixed with trepidation. Nicholas of Cusa is said to have valued Proclus’ Commentary on the Parmenides above all other books (the Sacred Scriptures, wc trust, apart), and it has been a major influence on many other thinkers, both in the Greek East, and later, through William of Moerbeke’s translation (probably done in the 1280s), in the Latin West, The roll call begins with Damascius and “Dionysius the Arcopagitc,” includes such figures as Aquinas, Ficino and Pico, and may best be seen, perhaps, as ending with HegeP and Schelling. As a useful interpretation of Plato’s Parmenides^ the Commentary be gan to be dismissed in the last century, as the new critical approach to Plato began to take effect. I present it here, not primarily as an exegesis of Plato’s text (though from time to time Proclus’ insights are useful, or at least challenging), but rather as a monument of Neoplatonic met aphysics, disguised, as so much Neoplatonic philosophy is, in the form of a commentary. 1 have been enormously helped in the preparation of this translation by the unstinting aid provided by Prof L. G. Wescerink of SUN Y Buf falo, who patiently checked every page of it and provided a host of cor rections, often involving brilliant emendations of the text. For access to William of Moerbeke’s Latin translation, and for many fruitful sug gestions over and above it, as well as much enjoyable discussion of the problems, I am greatly indebted to Dr. Carlos Steel of the University ^ As witness Hegel’s praise of the Parmenides Commentarf in his Vorlesunjien über die Geschichte der Philosophie I i (Werke, 2d cd., vol. XIV, p. 206), and Phaencmenoiogie des Geistes, preface, vol. II, p. 55. PREFACE of Louvain, who is currently completing an edition of the Latin text, the first volume of which has already appeared,- with the second to ap pear shortly. Steel will then embark on a Bude edition of the Greek text, which will put the text at last on as sound a footing as can be hoped for. IdeaDy, this translation should have waited for that happy event, but in faa most of the necessary emendations in the text are al ready embodied in it, owing to the fortunate circumstances outlined above. 1 am most grateful, also, to Professor Ehzabeth Anscombe and Dr. Lotte Labowsky for allowing me to make use of their translation of the final portion of the commentary on the First Hypothesis, which is only preserved in Latin. For the immense patience and energy in typing and retyping a vast and tedious manuscript I extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to my wife, Jean, to whom my share of the work is dedicated, and the secretary of the School of Classics of Trinity College, Dublin, Mrs. Rosemary Doran. I would like to express my gratitude also to Eliza beth Powers of Princeton University Press for her heroic work on my rather troublesome manuscript. 2 Proclus: Commentaire sur le Pamhiide de Platon: Traduction de Guillaume de Moerbeke^ Tome I: Livres I a IV, Leuven, 1982. GENERAL INTRODUCTION A, LIFE AND WORKS, WITH A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO PROCLUS’ PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM I do not propose to devote much space to a survey of Proclus’ career and philosophical position, since this has been done adequately else where, not least by Glenn Morrow in his introduction to Proclus’ Eu clid Commentary, which may be regarded as a companion volume to this,* but for the convenience of the reader something should be said. Life Proclus was born in Constantinople, of a prosperous Lycian family from Xanthos, on February 8, a.d. 412.^ His father, Patricius, a law yer, was there on business at the time, but returned shortly afterwards to Xanthos, where Proclus received his basic education. It is plain that Proclus’ parents were staunch pagans (Marinus describes them as “out standing in virtue,” VP 6) and it is interesting to observe how relatively comfortably Patricius operated in the empire of Theodosius II (408- 450). As soon as was reasonable (perhaps in his mid-teens), his father sent Proclus to study in Alexandria, with a view to his following him into the legal profession. There he lived with a prominent sophist, Leonas, who introduced him into the ruling circles of Egypt, including Theo- dorus, the governor at the time. At some point around year 430, Leonas was sent by the governor on a mission to Constantinople and took the young Proclus with him to continue his studies. Proclus was at this stage, it seems, already inclining to philosophy rather than law, and at Constantinople he seems to have come to some sort of decision about his future, which Marinus piously attributes to the influence of Athena (VP 9), but which may be more plausibly ascribed to the ex- * Sec also the accounts ofR. T Wallis, in Ntoplatonism, ch. 5, A. C. Lloyd in ch. 19 of the Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, and Saffrey and Wes- tcriuk in the introduction to vol. 1 of their Bude edition of the Platonic Theology. The older work of L. J. Rosan, The Philosophy of Proclus, is still useful. Excellent also is R. Bcutlcr’s RE article, “Proklos,” Band XXIII, 1(1957): cols, 186-247. ^ Our almost exclusive source for Proclus* life is the liagiographical biography of his pupil (and successor as head of the School) Marinus. Marinus actually gives us Proclus’ horoscope (PP 35) and thus an exact date for his birth. Marinus tells us also that he died on April 17,485 (124 years from accession ofjulianin 361). Proclu.s, in a way character istic of Neoplatonic philosophers, cells us virtually nothing about himself. GENERAL INTRODUCTION perience of meeting students and professors of philosophy who had been through the schools of Athens. On his return to Alexandria, he enrolled in the lectures of the Aristotelian Olympiodorus and not long afterwards, becoming dissatisfied with the approach to philosophy he experienced in Alexandria, set sail in 430 or 431 for Athens in search of deeper truths. What his father had to say about this is not recorded by Marinus, but it does not seem that his allowance was cut, so we may assume paternal good will. Once arrived in Athens, he attached himself to the Platonic School of Syrianus and the aged Plutarch, and made an excellent impression. Plutarch had officially retired, but agreed to read Aris totle’s De Anitna and Plato’s Phaedo with the young man, and even took him in to live with him. No commentary by Proclus on either of these works survives, but Plutarch apparently urged him to write up his notes on their sessions, so this early experience probably had consid erable influence on his doctrine of the soul. After Plutarch’s death two years later, Proclus moved in with Syri anus and in the next two years worked through the whole of Aristotle with him (VP 13), and following on that, the works of Plato. Since Marinus emphasises that he went through Plato “in proper order,” we may infer, I think, that Syrianus observed something like the lambli- chean sequence often dialogues,^ beginning w’ith the Alcibiades I and ending with the Philebus, followed by the two “summits” of Platonic philosophy, the Timaeus and the Parmenides, This admittedly would not provide for either the Republic or the Laws, which Marinus in chap ter 14 assures us that he studied as well, so space was fotmd for them in the course at some stage. Marinus also tells us that by the age of twenty-seven, after about eight years of residence in Athens, Proclus had composed a commentary on the Timaeus, “and many other trea tises.” The problems of dating which this statement involves are dis cussed below (insect. C). By the time of the Timaeus Commentary, Syri anus would appear to have died, to judge from the past tenses in which Proclus consistently refers to his views. The generally agreed date of Syrianus’ death is “c. a.d. 437,” though the evidence is not very defi nite. All we know (from Marinus, VP 26) is that, after the completion of their Platonic studies, Syrianus proposed to Proclus, and to his fel low-student Domninus, that he expound to them either the Orphic poems or the Chaldaean Oracles, as being the ultimate repositories of theological wisdom, but Proclus and Domninus could not agree as to which they wanted to read, and Syrianus died shortly afterwards. Proclus then seems to have succeeded to the headship of the Platonic ^ Cf. Prod. In Ale. 11.11, and Anon. Prole£. to PlatonicPkihsophyy cli. 26.