Table Of ContentPORPHYRY
To Gaurus On How Embryos are Ensouled
and
On What is in Our Power
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PORPHYRY
To Gaurus On How Embryos
are Ensouled
and
On What is in Our Power
Translated by
James Wilberding
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published in 2011
Paperback edition (cid:192) rst published 2014
© 2011 by James Wilberding
James Wilberding has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identi(cid:192) ed 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: 978-0-7156-3858-3
PB: 978-1-4725-5787-2
ePDF: 978-1-4725-0167-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Acknowledgements
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 Council; Gresham College; the
Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown Trust; Mr
and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation for Scienti(cid:192) c
Research (NWO/GW); the Ashdown Trust; Dr Victoria Solomonides,
the Cultural Attaché of the Greek Embassy in London.
The editor wishes to thank John Dillon, Vivian Nutton, and
Andrew Smith for their comments, Sarah Francis for preparing
the volume for press, and Deborah Blake at Duckworth, who has
been the publisher responsible for every volume since the (cid:192) rst.
Typeset by Ray Davies.
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Preface vii
Conventions ix
Abbreviations xi
To Gaurus On How Embryos are Ensouled 1
Textual Emendations and Conjectures 3
Introduction 7
Translation 31
Notes 57
Appendix 1: Anonymous Christianus, Hermippus or On 83
Astrology 2.17
Appendix 2: Michael Psellus, from On How the Soul of 86
the Body Enters and from When Embryos are Ensouled
English-Greek Glossary 89
Greek-English Index 92
Subject Index 114
On What is in Our Power 119
Textual Emendations and Conjectures 121
Introduction 123
Porphyry’s Commentary on Plato’s Republic (181-187F 135
Smith)
Translation 141
Notes 148
English-Greek Glossary 155
Greek-English Index 160
Subject Index 169
Bibliography 171
v
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Preface
My interest in the Ad Gaurum was kindled years ago as I was
working on the first draft of the commentary on Plotinus’ Ennead 2.1
that was ultimately published as Plotinus’ Cosmology. In 2.1.5
Plotinus appeals to the different souls responsible for the formation
of human bodies and celestial bodies in order to explain why the
latter but not the former are everlasting. As is often the case in
Plotinus, the passage seemed at least prima facie ambiguous regard-
ing the identity of the soul responsible for human formation: Was it
the individual lower soul of the offspring, that of the parent, or the
World-Soul? All three seemed to be reasonable candidates, and in-
deed I soon discovered that this is a question that was much dis-
cussed by Platonists (cf. Galen On the Formation of Fetuses 699,3ff.),
which should come as no surprise given the complexity and scope of
soul in the Neoplatonic universe. And so I was very grateful when I
discovered that the Ad Gaurum, a treatise most probably to be
attributed to Plotinus’ student Porphyry, supplied a considered and
carefully articulated response to this question along with much else
of value to those interested in Neoplatonic psychology. The trans-
lation of On What is in Our Power has been added to complete the
volume, since both approach the issue of how and why a particular
soul enters into a particular body, albeit from very different starting
points. These are two important treatises by Porphyry that are
appearing in English now for the first time.
I would like to thank Williams College and the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation for funding research leaves during which most
of the work on this translation was completed, and specifically Chris-
toph Horn and Andreas Speer for generously welcoming me into the
University of Bonn and the Thomas Institute in Cologne respectively.
I also owe a number of colleagues and friends my warmest thanks.
Ian Mueller, Andrew Smith, Philip van der Eijk and an anonymous
vetter all took time to read and comment on the translation and
introduction of the Ad Gaurum, and F. Gavin Hardy, Dominic
O’Meara and Jan Opsomer kindly discussed individual passages or
problems of the Ad Gaurum with me. Wolfgang Hübner and Dorian
Gieseler Greenbaum graciously agreed to check over the astrological
details in my translation of On What is in Our Power, and I received
additional help from Christian Helmig and the anonymous vetter for
vii
Preface
the series. Two of my students, Elaine Watts and Vanessa Hollaway,
deserve thanks for their efforts and patience with this rather difficult
text in a Greek seminar. I am grateful also to Richard Sorabji for
making this work possible as well as providing valuable input. I owe
thanks and apologies to Fiona Leigh for her patience and effort on a
project that ultimately did not reach its completion during her ten-
ure, and finally to Sarah Francis for all the subsequent editing. The
final product has surely profited greatly from all of these contribu-
tions, but for the errors that doubtless remain I am alone responsible.
Just prior to receiving the proofs for this volume I learned of the
untimely death of my PhD supervisor and mentor Ian Mueller, and
I would like to dedicate this volume to his memory in gratitude for
all he has done for me.
viii
Conventions
[ ] Square brackets indicate content that is only implicitly contained in
the text but that is desirable to make more explicit in the translation.
< > Angle brackets indicate additions to the Greek text, only where
these are not already included in the body of Kalbfleisch’s printed
text.
{ } Curly brackets indicate restorations in the text, only where
Kalbfleisch’s suggested restoration is not followed.
(cid:125) A series of dots indicates text that Kalbfleisch has been unable to
restore.
ix
