Ten Gifts of the Demiurge: Proclus on Plato's Timaeus

320 Pages·2013·2.41 MB·English

by  Kutash

The Ten Gifts of the Demiurge
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The Ten Gifts of
the Demiurge
Proclus’ Commentary on
Plato’s Timaeus
Emilie Kutash
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published in 2011 by Bristol Classical Press
© Emilie Kutash 2011
Emilie Kutash has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Authors 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 or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-0-7156-3854-5
E-pub: 978-1-4725-1982-5
E-pdf: 978-1-4725-1981-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
978-1-4725-1960-3
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements x
1. Introduction: The Ten Gifts of the Demiurge 1
2. The Prevailing Circumstances: Theological Rhetoric and the 22
Athenian School
3. Contrariety and Perceptibility: Athena, Goddess of Wisdom 43
and of War
4. Bonded Genesis and Foundational Mathematics 64
5. The Third Gift: ‘He Makes it a Whole’ 92
6. ‘He Makes it a Sphere’: The Anatomy of the Autozôion 115
7. The World Soul: Animating the Universe from the Centre 139
8. Proclus’ Golden Ratio: As Time is to Soul, so Intellect is to 159
Eternity
9. ‘The Sanctuaries of the Gods’: The Ontological Status of the 177
Lesser Pantheon
10. All Too Mortal: The Proclean Soul and its Inability to 193
Assimilate
11. Man as a Microcosm: Providence, Fate and the Soul’s 216
Descent
12. Beyond Plato: Nature, ‘Woven by the Intellective Light of 234
Athena’
Bibliography 289
Index Locorum 297
General Index 299
v
To Jordan and Danielle
Beginning with the body of the world. [Plato relates how the Demiurge
grants the cosmos certain gifts]
He first makes it perceptible with respect to the extreme terms of sense
perception [viz. sight and touch] (31b). Next – what is more perfect than this
– he grants to it a bond which binds together the bodies in it through
proportion (31c). Then third, he makes it a whole constituted of the whole of
the elements (32c). Then fourth, he makes it a sphere in order that it would
be most similar to itself in respect of form (33b). Then fifth, he declares that
all things that it undergoes it undergoes by itself (33c-d). Then sixth, he
provides it with a motion fitting to intellect (34a). Then seventh, he animates
it by means of divine soul (34b). Then eighth, he imparts to it revolution in
time (36e-37a). Then ninth, he establishes the sanctuaries of the gods in it
who together produce ‘the perfect year’ (39d5). Then tenth, he makes it
all-complete (pantelês) by producing all the living things in the likeness of
the four Forms [included in the Paradigm] (39c-40b].
Through the decad he thus completes the entire creation.
Proclus, in Tim. II.5.17-32, tr. Baltzly
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Preface
Proclus was first presented to me, brilliantly, by Reiner Schurmann, in the
course of my graduate studies at the New School for Social Research. In
the years since, Proclus scholarship has proliferated. Proclus is increas-
ingly being discovered as an important philosopher with a permanent
place in the history of thought. His most well-known work, Elements of
Theology, is translated by E.R. Dodds. His Parmenides Commentary is
translated by Glenn Morrow and John Dillon, and there is now a newly
completed translation of this work by Carlos Steel. Proclus’ Euclid Com-
mentary is available in English translation by Glenn Morrow, and Platonic
Theology is translated into French by H.D. Saffrey and L.D. Westerink.
The Commentary on Timaeus is now in English translation by Dirk
Baltzly, Harold Tarrant, David Runia and Michael Share. De Malorum
Subsistentia (On the Existence of Evils) is now translated into English by
Jan Opsomer and Carlos Steel, On Providence by Carlos Steel and On the
Eternity of the World by Helen Lang and A.D. Macro, while Proclus’ Hymns
are available through a translation by Robbert van den Berg. As a result
of the plethora of active and diligent work of recent years, the student of
late antiquity is gaining increased access to the full range of Proclus’
thought. At the same time, secondary scholarship has burgeoned, as
shown by the growing Proclus bibliography at the DeWulf-Mansion Centre
for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy in Leuven.
My intention is to enable the reader of the Commentary on Timaeus to
contemplate its ‘vision of the whole’, to recognize it as a system of meta-
physics that integrates much of the classic Platonist tradition, and to
appreciate the unique historical context, that of the Athenian school of late
antiquity. An even greater goal of mine is to allow the reader of Proclus to
understand him in his own terms. Making ease of access a priority has
required me to focus on the ‘bigger picture’ and leave the pursuit of
detailed exegesis of the text to the translators and scholars who have
commented on specific doctrines. I refer the reader to the masterful
translation of the Commentary on Timaeus mentioned above, recently
published with annotations, and to the proliferation of secondary litera-
ture springing up in greater and greater richness as scholars recognize the
value of this work.
The Commentary on Timaeus, an intricately woven fabric of metaphysi-
cal doctrine, scientific and mathematical explanation, Platonic exegesis,
and Orphic, Pythagorean and Chaldaean lore, can be overwhelming. My
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Preface
goal has been to make it less so by accomplishing the following goals. (1)
To provide enough passages from the text for the reader to experience the
‘flavour’ and texture of Proclus’ language and thought on key issues. (2) To
identify central philosophical themes and aporiae, the perennial problems
that metaphysics has always addressed. (3) To contextualize, when possi-
ble, Platonic, Chaldaean, Aristotelian and scientific contexts for certain
themes. (4) To provide a sense of the whole rhythm of this monumental
work. (5) To help the reader of Proclus to get an aesthetic appreciation of
this exotic fusion of theology and philosophy. (6) To convey a sense of the
kind of issues that have been taken up in the contemporary secondary
literature. In short, I hope to enable the reader to see that the Commentary
on Timaeus is a ‘cosmos’. As such, it fits Proclus’ definition of beauty: that
the parts are ‘whole parts’ and fit together within a ‘whole of wholes’. The
friendship and sympathy of all its components, fugue-like, synchronically
play to the supervening prescient themes of Providence, demiurgic be-
stowal, super-cosmic causality and the intellectual transparency of
nature.
On every occasion that I have reread the Commentary and mined it for
themes and patterns, I discovered more and more ‘gold’ concealed in its
dense prose. Interpreting this text could be likened to Proclus’ most
inferior infinity, an endless process of division and dissection. In the words
of the Chaldaean Oracles, quoted by Proclus, I have opted, instead, to
‘pluck’ Empyrean fruits and soul-nourishing flowers and present them to
the reader as tempting offerings. I hope this will motivate the reader to
study the text itself and to read the extensive scholarship that is now
available.
*

In the text that follows I have marked each quoted passage with the
initials of the author of the translation used: Baltzly (B), Tarrant (T),
Runia and Share (R&S), Fowler (Fowl.), Finamore (F), Siorvanes (S), Steel
(St), Sorabji (RS), van den Berg (vdB), Sambursky and Pines (S&P).
Whenever there is no initial beside a passage, it is based on my own
amended version (by reference to the Diehl text), of the Thomas Taylor
translation or my own translation. When using the Baltzly, Tarrant or
Runia and Share translations I have taken the liberty of inserting Greek
terms whenever I thought it was important for the reader to see the
terminology for key concepts, which Proclus very consistently applies
throughout the Commentary. When referring to notes found in the Baltzly,
Tarrant or Runia and Share translations, I have cited the name, CPT
volume number and note number. I have chosen to capitalize terms that
are associated with hypostases: Soul, Intellect, the One, Time (as a Monad)
and Eternity, and terms that are principles: Megista Genê, Being, Same-
ness, Difference, Equality, Essence, Existence and Limit/Unlimited. In
viii
Preface
addition I have capitalized Circle of the Same, Kratêr, Circle of the Other,
Autozôion (and all terms referring to it, such as Living-being-itself), Mo-
nad, Dyad, Demiurge, Paradigm, Forms, Empyrean, Aetherial, Provi-
dence and Fate.
The following abbreviations have been used in the book:
CPT = Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007-2009).
De Mal. Subs. = Proclus, De Malorum Subsistentia, tr. J. Opsomer and C.
Steel as Proclus: On the Existence of Evils (London: Duckworth &
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
De Myst.= Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, tr. E. Clarke, J. Dillon and J.
Hershbell (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
De Prov. = Proclus, On Providence, tr. C. Steel (London: Duckworth &
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007).
El. Phys.= Proclus, The Elements of Physics, or Institutio Physica, tr.
(German) A. Ritzenfeld (Leipzig: Teubner, 1912).
El. Theol. = Proclus, The Elements of Theology, ed. E.R. Dodds, 2nd edn
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
in Crat. = Procli Diadochi in Platonis Cratylum commentaria, ed. G.
Pasquali (Leipzig: Teubner, 1908).
in Eucl. = Proclus, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements,
tr. G.R. Morrow; Foreword by Ian Mueller (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press 1970, 1992 edn).
in Metaph. = Syrianus, On Aristotle Metaphysics 13-14, tr. John Dillon
and Dominic O’Meara (London: Duckworth & Ithaca: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 2006).
in Parm. = Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, tr. Glen R.
Morrow and John Dillon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).
in Remp. = Procli in Platonis rem publicam commentarii, ed. W. Kroll, 2
vols (Leipzig: Teubner, 1899-1901).
in Tim. = Procli in Platonis Timaeum commentaria, ed. E. Diehl, 3 vols
(Leipzig: Teubner, 1903-6).
Meta. = Aristotle, Metaphysics.
Phys. = Aristotle, Physics.
Plat. Theol. = Proclus, Théologie Platonicienne, ed. H.D. Saffrey and L.G.
Westerink, 6 vols (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1968-97).
Tim.= Plato, Timaeus, tr. R.G. Bury (Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press, 1989).
V.Procli = Vita Procli, tr. M.J. Edwards in Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives
of Plotinus and Proclus by their Students (Liverpool: Liverpool Univer-
sity Press, 2000).
ix