Proclus: On the Existence of Evils

169 Pages·2014·1.642 MB·English

by  Jan Opsomer, Carlos Steel

PROCLUS
On the Existence of Evils
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PROCLUS
On the Existence of Evils
Translated by
Jan Opsomer & Carlos Steel
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published in 2003 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
Paperback edition first published 2014
© Jan Opsomer & Carlos Steel 2003
Jan Opsomer and Carlos Steel assert their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage
or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action
as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-0-7156-3198-0
PB: 978-1-4725-5739-1
ePDF: 978-1-4725-0103-5
Acknowledgments
The present translations have been made possible by generous and imaginative funding from the
following sources: the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research Programs,
an independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy;
the Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centro Internazionale A. Beltrame di Storia dello
Spazio e del Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucci; Liverpool University; the Leventis Foundation;
the Arts and Humanities Research Board of the British Academy; the Esmée Fairbairn
Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation
for Scientific Research (NWO/GW). The editor wishes to thank Kevin Corrigan and Anne Sheppard
for their comments and Eleni Vambouli and Han Baltussen for preparing the volume for press.
Typeset by Ray Davies
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations and Conventions viii
Introduction 1
Translation 55
Notes 105
Philological Appendix 133
Select Bibliography 147
Index of Passages 154
Subject Index 156
Index of Names 160
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Preface
This volume is the result of an intense collaboration during the last
three years at the Institute of Philosophy in Leuven. Though we are
now academically separated by the Atlantic, we share with some
nostalgia pleasant memories of our animated discussions on Neopla-
tonic philosophy with Gerd Van Riel, Bert van den Berg and Guy
Guldentops, and other friends at the De Wulf-Mansion Centre for
Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. The translation has profited from
the advice and corrections of many people: David Butorac, Maria
Desmond, John Steffen and Douglas Hadley in Leuven. A provisional
version of the translation was used in a seminar at the Institute of
Classical Studies in London and in a seminar at the Philosophy
Department of Harvard University: we profited from the comments
of Anne Sheppard, Bob Sharples, Richard Sorabji, Harold Tarrant,
and the referees for this series. In the preparation of the manuscript
for the publisher, we are greatly indebted to the collaborators of the
Ancient Commentators Project in London, and in particular to Han
Baltussen.
We are very happy that Richard Sorabji has welcomed this Neopla-
tonic treatise into his monumental series ‘The Ancient Commentators
on Aristotle’. Even if Proclus would not have appreciated being con-
sidered a commentator on Aristotle, he would surely have been
pleased that, thanks to this great international project, his treatise
On the Existence of Evils will find many more readers than ever
before (if we exclude readers of the plagiarist Dionysius the pseudo-
Areopagite).
Looking back at a wonderful collaboration over the years, which
has brought us in contact with many scholars, we have come to
understand that Proclus was right when he argued that from ‘evil’ (in
this case the long and arduous philological preliminaries) divine
providence can create beautiful things.
2002 J.O. & C.S.
Abbreviations and Conventions
DMS = De malorum subsistentia, On the existence of evils
ET = Elementatio theologica, Elements of theology
OD = De omnifaria doctrina (Michael Psellus)
SVF = Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (ed. von Arnim)
TP = Theologia Platonica, Platonic theology
The chapter and line number references are to Boese’s edition of the
Tria opuscula.
Brackets are used in the translation as follows:
[…] expanding or clarifying the meaning
<…> addenda (implies an emendation of the text)
Introduction
1. The fate of a text
1.1. The treatise in the work of Proclus
Among the works of the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus (412-485),
there are three short treatises that are devoted to the problems of
providence, free will and evil.1 As their modern editor, Helmut Boese,
observes, those three ‘opuscula’2 stand apart somehow in the volumi-
nous oeuvre of the Platonic Diadochos, between the great commentar-
ies on Plato and the theological works. Whereas in commenting
Proclus has to stick close to the texts of Plato, in his Elements of
Theology and his Platonic Theology he aims at the composition of a
grandiose synthesis, which sets other constraints on his philosophis-
ing. But here, in the Tria opuscula or monobiblia as he called them,
he seems to enjoy a greater freedom to develop a philosophical prob-
lem in itself and to analyse the different arguments that have been
offered in the tradition. His style of writing is intermediate as well:
not the grand rhetoric of the Platonic Theology, not the almost
mathematical austerity of the Elements of Theology, not the scholas-
tic exposition of the Commentaries. When discussing such fundamen-
tal questions as the nature of evil or the problem of free will, Proclus
seems to address a larger philosophical audience than the privileged
group of students in his school.3 The problems raised are, indeed, of
great philosophical interest and have continued to stir up the debate
ever since the Hellenistic schools brought it to the fore: is there
providence in the world? And how can it be reconciled with the
experience of evil? Is free agency possible in a deterministic universe?
What is the nature of evil?
Proclus probably composed the three treatises in the same order as
they have been transmitted in the manuscripts. Though dealing with
related problems, they each have their own character. The first
treatise is, as its title indicates, a discussion of Ten problems about
providence. That there is providence in this world is undeniable. It is
shown by Plato’s arguments in the Laws and the Timaeus, and by the
Chaldaean Oracles. But what exactly providence is, whether it ex-
tends to all levels of reality or only to the celestial spheres, how it
exercises its activity in this physical world without losing its tran-