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THE FAR-WANDERER: PROCLUS ON THE TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SOUL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2018

Simon Fortier
Simon Fortier*
Affiliation:
University of Liege
*
simon.fortier@uliege.be
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Extract

While commonly referring to us as ‘human’, ‘particular’ (μερικαί), or ‘rational’ (λογικαί) souls, in one striking passage, Proclus (In Ti. 3.259.21–7) instead describes us as

τὸ πολυπλανὲς καὶ μέχρι τοῦ Ταρτάρου κατιὸν καὶ αὖθις ἀνεγειρόμενον παντοῖά τε εἴδη ζωῆς ἀνελίττον ἤθεσί τε χρώμενον ποικίλοις καὶ πάθεσιν ἄλλοτε ἄλλοις καὶ μορφὰς ζῴων ἀλλαττόμενον πολυειδεῖς, δαιμονίας ἀνθρωπίνας ἀλόγους, κατευθυνόμενον δ’ οὖν ὅμως ὑπὸ τῆς Δίκης καὶ εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀπὸ γῆς ἀνατρέχον καὶ εἰς νοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς ὕλης περιαγόμενον κατὰ δή τινας τεταγμένας τῶν ὅλων περιόδους.

a far-wanderer, who descends all the way to Tartarus only to be raised up again, who unfolds all possible forms of life, making use of diverse manners and suffering one passion after another, who takes on the forms of living beings of every sort, daemons, men and irrational creatures, and yet is guided by Justice, ascending from earth to heaven and from matter to intellect, being led round and round in accordance with certain prescribed revolutions of the universe.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , May 2018 , pp. 305 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

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References

1 All translations are my own. This work has been supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec–Société et culture, as well as by a Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellowship, co-funded by the University of Liege and the European Union. I should like to thank Marc-Antoine Gavray and the anonymous referee for CQ for their helpful comments.

2 The so-called ‘immaculate souls’, which we shall discuss below, may be equally described as such.

3 Especially in view of the current interest in Neoplatonic reflections on selfhood and subjectivity. With the exception of Trouillard's, J. two late articles, ‘Proclos et la joie de quitter le ciel’, Diotima 11 (1983), 182–93Google Scholar, and ‘Métensomatose proclienne et eschatologie érigenienne’, Annales de l'Institut de philosophie de l'Université de Bruxelles (1984), 87–99, there exist only passing treatments of Proclus’ reflections on transmigration in the context of broader surveys of transmigration amongst late antique Platonists in general. For an example of such a survey, see Dörrie, H., ‘Kontroversen um die Seelenwanderung im kaiserzeitlichen Platonismus’, Hermes 85 (1957), 414–35Google Scholar.

4 This, at least, is the opinion of Westerink, L.G., The Greek Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo (Amsterdam, Oxford and New York, 1976), 1.18Google Scholar.

5 Iamblichus himself seems to have held that some form of release from the cycle of transmigration was possible. See, inter alia, Gertz, S., Death and Immortality in Late Neoplatonism: Studies on the Ancient Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 187–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 On the origins of this idea, see Dodds, E.R., Πρόκλου Διαδόχου Στοιχείωσις Θεολογική. Proclus: The Elements of Theology. A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, 1963 2), 302–3Google Scholar; Ramelli, I., The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Leiden, 2013), 7–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Severus specifically, see Procl. In Ti. 1.289.6.

7 That is, every soul that is permanently attached to a three-dimensional body (Procl. In Ti. 2.143.31–2; 3.252.24–5).

8 Dodds (n. 6), 302.

9 See, inter alia, Procl. In R. 2.169.27–2.171.6; In Ti. 3.129.16–3.130.3; 3.290.12–17.

10 As described in Book 4 of his Platonic Theology, Proclus understands each of the ‘places’ through which the souls pass in the palinode to symbolize a different order of intelligibles.

11 On the governance of the cosmos, see, inter alia, Procl. In Alc. 149.1–8. Proclus is drawing, of course, on Phdr. 246e4–6.

12 In keeping with his allegorical reading of the palinode, Proclus holds that the soul does not actually stick its ‘head’ outside of the cosmos (Phdr. 248a1–5), but that this is an image which is meant to convey that the soul is linked to something which transcends the cosmos within itself, i.e. an intellect. See Procl. In Ti. 2.105.30–2.

13 On this body, see, inter alia, ET 207–9; In Ti. 3.236.31–3.238.26; 3.298.12–3.299.9; Dodds (n. 6), 320–1; Griffin, M., ‘Proclus on place as the luminous vehicle of the soul’, Dionysius 30 (2012), 161–86Google Scholar; Opsomer, J., ‘Was sind irrationale Seelen?’, in Perkams, M. and Piccione, R.M. (edd.), Proklos: Methode, Seelenlehre, Metaphysik (Leiden, 2006), 136–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 As well as by the periods of the ‘Same’ and the ‘Different’ that are said to reside in the soul at Pl. Ti. 42c. See Procl. In Ti. 3.296.19–25.

15 Dodds (n. 6), 320.

16 On this subject, see Opsomer (n. 13), 152–61.

17 On this subject, see Lernould, A., Physique et théologie: lecture du Timée de Platon par Proclus (Villeneuve d'Ascq, 2001)Google Scholar, 59 n. 68, 60 n. 75.

18 On the definition of philosophy in general for the members of the School of Athens as an assimilation to the divine, see, inter alia, Amm. In Porph. Isag. 4.5–14.

19 A doxography may be found at Iamblichus, De anima 375.5–16. See also Festugière, A.-J., La révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste (Paris, 1986), 3.69–96Google Scholar.

20 On the location of this ‘meadow’, see below.

21 These daemons are, of course, not maleficent per se but only relative to certain particular souls. From a cosmic perspective, they simply enforce the ‘decree of Adrasteia’ by tempting those souls unfit to stay above into generation. See Procl. De mal. sub. [Strobel] 17.10–23.

22 On the troubles associated with incarnation, see Ti. 43a6–44b1; In Ti. 3.323.14–3.348.20.

23 e.g. Dillon, J., Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentariorum fragmenta (Leiden, 1973), 243CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 This passage, however, which states that the immaculate souls, like us, must descend once per cosmic period, is seemingly contradicted at In Crat. 69.1 [§117], where it is said that these souls ‘pass many periods there [i.e. outside of the world of generation]’. Barring an error on Proclus’ part or a shift in his teachings, this may simply be a mistake on the part of the reportator or the excerptor of the In Crat.

25 We say ‘at least’, as Damascius, who is drawing on Proclus’ lost commentary on the Phaedo, mentions that there are also human souls inhabiting ‘the bottom of the sea’ (In Phd. 1.552.10–11). Proclus’ passing mention of rational beings ‘in the other elements’ (In Ti. 3.280.23, 3.230.15–16) does not exclude this possibility.

26 Proclus (In Ti. 3.309.25–30) takes Pl. Phd. 111a5–6 to refer to such beings.

27 Dodds (n. 6), 307. The Platonic inspiration for the idea that the soul entering generation should accumulate a series of elemental ‘tunics’, as Proclus calls them (ET 209), is found at Pl. Ti. 42c–d.

28 On the pneumatic vehicle, see, inter alia, Procl. In Ti. 3.235.9–3.238.23, 3.297–8; ET 207–9; Dodds (n. 6), 319–21; Opsomer (n. 13), 140–1.

29 In reference to Pl. Phdr. 250c6. See, inter alia, Procl. In R. 1.119.14.

30 An indication that Proclus attempted this sort of harmonization as well is to be found at De mal. sub. (Strobel) 24.11–13, where he says that souls, during their initial descent, stop in the ‘meadow’ mentioned in the myth of Er and even pass under ‘the throne of Necessity’ (Pl. Resp. 621a1).

31 On Proclus’ assimilation of the judgment scenes from the myth of Er and the Gorgias, see Finamore, J., ‘What the Hades? Iamblichus and Proclus on judges and judgment in the afterlife’, Mediterranean Perspectives: Philosophy, Literature, and History 1 (1998), 45–59, at 50–2Google Scholar.

32 In the line ‘such then were the punishments and retributions; and, on the other hand, the blessings were the antistrophes of these’ (Pl. Resp. 616a8–b1), Proclus apparently understood the ‘blessings’ (εὐεργεσίας) to refer to something which occurred during the chthonic journey rather than the blessings of the aforementioned heavenly journey.

33 For a summary of the basic points of his interpretation, see Procl. In R. 2.264.31–2.266.26.

34 There will, of course, be moments when a greater number of souls are choosing than others. In such cases, the overall number of different types of existences will not change, but there will simply be a greater diversity of qualitative differences between similar types.

35 On this paragraph, see Procl. In R. 2.264.17–30; 2.273.6–2.274.21.

36 For the mocking description of this doctrine by the Christian author Aeneas of Gaza, see Theoph. 14.7–16.12.

37 S. Montiglio, Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture (Chicago, 2005), 3.

38 Porphyry here tells us that this was already the reading of Numenius. Proclus’ understanding of the Odyssey as a whole, given that he read the Iliad as an allegory for the soul's descent and its sufferings in generation (In R. 1.175.15–21), resembled that of Porphyry.