Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (Transformation of the Classical Heritage)

381 Pages·1992·91.69 MB·English

by  Lamberton

ROBERT LAMBERTON
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Neoplatonist Allegorical
Reading and the Growth
of the Epic Tradition
T H I
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE
CLASSICAL HERITAGE
Peter Brown, General Editor
I
Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity
by Sabine G. MacCormack
II
Synesius of Cyrene: Philosopher-Bishop
by Jay Bregman
III
Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion
in Late Antiquity
by Kenneth G. Holum
IV
John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality
in the Late Fourth Century
by Robert L. Wilken
V
Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest
for the Holy Man
by Patricia Cox
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VI
Pachomius: The Making of a Community
In Fourth-Century Lgypt
by Philip Rousseau
VII
Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh
and Twelfth Centuries
by A. P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein
VU1
Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul
by Raymond Van Oam
IX
Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical
Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition
by Robert Lamberton
X
Procopius and the Sixth Century
by Averil Cameron
XI
Guardians of the Language:
The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity
by R. A. Raster
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HOMER THE THEOLOGIAN
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The Title Page of Chapman's Odyssey (1614?)
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ROBERT LAMBERTON
HOMER
THE THEOLOGIAN
Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading
and the Growth of the Epic Tradition
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley · Los Angeles · London
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This book is a prim-on-demand volume. It is manufac-
tured using loner in place ol ink. Type and images may
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
First Paperback Printing 1989
© 1986 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lamberton, Robert.
Homer the theologian.
(Transformation of the classical heritage; 9)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
Homer—Religion and ethics. ?.. Homer—Allegory and symbolism.
3. Religion in literature. 4. Allegory. 5. Neoplatonism.
6. Epic poetry--History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
PA4037.L32 1986 883'. 01 85-1184
ISBN 0-520-06622-7 (alk. paper)
Printed in the Lnitcd Stales of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (K 1997)
[Permanence of Paper). @
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CONTENTS
PR Κ F AC fi Vil
ACKNOWI.KOGMENTS ΧΪΪί
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS XV
I THE DIVINE HOMER AND THE BACKGROUND
OF NEOPLATONIC ALLEGORY ι
A. Homer's Pretensions ι
B. Interpretation, Allegory, and the Critics of Homer ID
C. Homer as Theologos 22
D. The Pythagoreans 31
Π MIDDLE PLATONISM AND THE INTERACTION
OF INTERPRETIVE TRADITIONS 44
A. Philo of Alexandria 44
B. Numenius 54
C. Clement and Origcn 78
III PLOTINIAN NEOPLATONISM 83
A. Plotinus 83
B. Porphyry 108
C. Julian and Sallustius 134
IV THE INTERACTION OF ALLEGORICAL
INTERPRETATION AND DELIBERATE ALLEGORY 144
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VI CONTENTS
V PROCLUS 162
A. introduction 162
Β. Language as a System of Meaning 164
C. Myths or Texts? (74
D. The Major Exegesis of Homer in the
Commentary on the Republic 180
E. The Meaning of the Iliad and Odyssey 197
VI THE TRANSMISSION OF THE NEOPLATONISTS'
H O M E R TO THE LATIN MIDDLE AGES 233
A. The Paths of Transmission 233
B. The Arabic Tradition 236
C. The Greek East 241
D. The Latin Tradition 249
E. The Late Middle Ages and Dante 282
AFTERWORD PRECONCEPTION AND UNDERSTANDING:
THE ALLEGOR1STS IN MODERN PERSPECTIVE 298
AP P E N D I X I A n Interpreta t ion of the M o d e s t Chariclea
from the Lips of Philip the Philosopher. 306
APP E N D I X 2 Proclus's Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato,
1.341.25343.15. 312
A P P E N D I X 3 A Sampling of Proclus's Use of Homer. 315
APPENDIX 4 The History of the Allegory
of the Cave of the Nymphs. 319
WORKS C I T E D : A N C I E N T AND MEDIEVAL AUTHORS 325
M O D E R N AUTHORS 330
A N C I E N T AND MEDIEVAL PASSAGES CITED 341
INDEX OF GREEK TEKM5 3 5 3
GENERAL INDEX 3 5 5
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PREFACE
The Homeric poems provide our eaïliest direct insights into the religious
thought of the Greeks, and, with few interruptions, the presence of
Homer in the Greek religious imagination, pagan and Christian, re-
mained continuous until the decline of the Byzantine church in the late
Middle Ages. Indeed, when we find Nikolaos Mesa rites, a metropolitan
of Ephesus early in the thirteenth century, describing a striding image of
St. Paul in a mosaic at Constantinople with a phrase borrowed from a
description of a Homeric hero (θέα µοι τούτον µακρά βιβώντα) and bor-
rowing from the Homeric chimaera the qualities to describe the teach-
1
ings of the Apostles (τούτων ai δίδαχαί πνέονσι µένος πνρός), it is clear
that for the Creeks not only the myths but the very diction of Homer
never ceased to be a part of that highly charged realm of imaginative ex-
perience that is the province both of poets and of religious thinkers.
Nevertheless, the relationship of the Homeric poems to the various
conceptions of divinity successively articulated in the Greek tradition
between the sixth century B.C. and the Christian Middle Ages was never
a comfortable one. It is surely one of the great and characteristic ironies
of Greek intellectual history that, at the source of the tradition and at the
dawn of Greek literacy, we find in full bloom a tradition of oral poetry
apparently so utterly secularized, irreverent, and disillusioned that the
gods could be used for comic relief. As has often been noted, Homer has
a gTeat deal in common with his Ionian compatriots of the sixth century,
whose rationalism was to pave the way for the effective demythologizing
of Greek metaphysical thought in the fifth and fourth.
i. G. J. M. Bartclink, "Homerismen in Nikolaos Mesarites' Beschreibung der
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