Table Of ContentWilliam O'Neill
Proclus:
Alcibiades I
Second Edition
PROCLUS: ALCIBIADES I
A TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY
PROCLUS: ALCIBIADES I
A TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY
by
WILLIAM O'NEILL M.A.Ph.D.
University of Southern California
SECOND EDITION
•
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. 1971
@ I97 I by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Martinus Nijhoft, The Hague, Netherlands in I97I
Ali rights reserved, including the right to translate ar to
reproduce this book ar parts thereot in any tarm
ISBN 978-94-017-2782-2 ISBN 978-94-017-2780-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-2780-8
PREFACE
This translation and commentary is based on the Critical Text and
Indices of Proclus: Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato,
Amsterdam 1954, by L. G. Westerink. Index II has been of great help
in the translation, and the commentary is much indebted to the
critical apparatus. Dr. Westerink has also been kind enough to forward
his views on the relatively few problems which the Greek text has
presented.
A further debt is owed to the review of Dr. Westerink's text by Prof.
E. R. Dodds in GNOMON 1955 p. 164-1, chiefly for some references
and some emendations to the Greek text. W. R. M. Lamb's Loeb
translation of Alcibiades I has helped considerably in construing the
lemmata, which Signor Antonio Carlini has found to have been inserted
by a later hand from a Plato MSS. of the W family. Evidence for this
is their discrepancy with the text as read in the main body of the
commentary (d. Studi Classici e Orientali, vol. x, Pisa 1961).
On the personal side, the whole work has received the benefit of
constant advice from Prof. A. H. Armstrong. It was he who first
suggested the undertaking, and he has been kind enough to read
through the translation and commentary, making many corrections
and helpful suggestions. In particular lowe him the parallels with
Plotinus and thanks for a Socratic patience in my more obtuse moments.
To Prof. E. R. Dodds I am grateful for many corrections in the
translation and some suggestions in the notes. The many remaining
defects must be laid at my own door.
WILLIAM O'NEILL
University of Southern California,
February 1964
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this work has been to present a fairly readable and reason
ably accurate translation of Proclus' Commentary on the First
Alcibiades of Plato, together with an adequate commentary that will
prove intelligible to English readers. The Alcibiades was regarded by
the Platonic School as the dialogue which served as the most fitting
introduction to Plato's thought, and was therefore the subject of
several commentaries. However Proclus does not confine himself
to the text: rather he makes it the basis for a brief but comprehensive
survey of later Neoplatonism that serves as a suitable introduction
to the subject.
Background references to Neoplatonic Theology have been drawn
mainly from the edition of the Elements of Theology by Prof. E. R.
Dodds, and not from the Platonic Theology. The latter work presents
a highly complicated theological scheme, available only in the text of
Aemilius Portus 1618 (although a text, translation and commentary
of Book II has been prepared by H. D. Saffrey, who is working in
conjunction with L. G. Westerink on a complete text of the Platonic
Theology); whereas the former gives a concise exposition together
with a very helpful translation and commentary. In addition frequent
reference has been made to the commentaries on the Timaeus, Republic
and Cratylus, in the Teubner editions, and some use has been made of
the commentaries on Aristotle by Alexander of Aphrodisias.
Proclus is always concerned with harmonising his Neoplatonism
with what he regarded as two sources of divine revelation - the
Chaldeaen Oracles and the teachings of the Orphics. In addition to the
references to Kroll: Oracula Chaldaica, special use has been made of
Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy by Hans Lewy; and for the Orphics,
Orpheus and Greek Religion by W. K. C. Guthrie has been utilised to
supplement Kern: Orphicorum Fragmenta.
VIII INTRODUCTION
Questions of Logic are often raised throughout the commentary,
and in his analyses of them Proclus reveals himself as a faithful
follower of Aristotle, whose works are often quoted almost verbatim.
There is also a fondness for parallels from ancient medicine and rites
of initiation.
From a study of this commentary Proclus emerges as perhaps a
somewhat more readable author than has generally been allowed:
perhaps too as a somewhat more original thinker than his critics have
considered, although his debt to Iamblichus and Syrianus is hard to
assess. On several occasions he is at variance with Plotinus, and does
not hesitate to depart from his interpretations. Certainly the differences
between early and later Neoplatonism are well illustrated, as also the
fallacy of regarding the school started by Plotinus as merely descending
progressively with each of his followers into more and more over
elaboration and arid commentary.
Finally it is hoped that this translation and commentary may prove
some inducement to those beginners wishing to acquaint themselves
with later Neoplatonism in a form more narrative than that of the
Elements of Theology and less involved than that of the Platonic
Theology.
CONTENTS
page
Preface v
Introduction VII
Proclus the Successor on the first Alcibiades of Plato I
Fragments 223
Appendix 229
Select Bibliography 23I
Select Index to the Commentary 233
Addenda et Corrigenda 237
PROCL US THE SUCCESSOR
ON THE FIRST ALCIBIADES OF PLATO
< t > The most valid and surest starting-point for the dialogues of Plato, and,
practically for the whole of philosophical consideration, is, in our
opinion, the discerning of our own being. If this is correctly posited,
we shall in every way, I think, be able more accurately to understand
both the good that is appropriate to us and the evil that fights against
it. Of the things that are, as it is natural for each one to differ in being,
so also their perfection varies in different cases, according to their
descent in the scale of being. Either both being and the good proceed
<2> from the same hearth and primal spring, as Aristotle 1 asserts, in which
case individual objects must receive their limit of perfection according
to the measure of their being; or the good has come to things from one
source, higher and more holy, and being and existence from another,
in which case, as each one shares in being more dimly or more clearly,
so also it will participate in the good, the primary beings in a greater
and more perfect good, those that are assigned to an intermediate
position, according to their own station, in a secondary good, and the
lowest beings in a lowest good. How could beings admit of any other
condition, under the guidance of the gods and providence, than
arrangement in the scale of the good according to worth? For it is not
the case that while Intellect guides beings to their rank and provides
each with their appropriate measure of being, the Good, which in
itself is superior to the Intellect, communicates itself to beings and
showers them with goods in a disorderly manner, and either bestows a
share in the same goodness on things differing in being (I mean, for
<3> instance, causes and effects), or apportions the perfections of both the
more primal and the subsequent to objects the same in regard to their
being. "It neither was nor is lawful," says Timaeus, 2 "for the highest
1 cf. Ar. Eth. Nic. IOg6a23 "good" has as many senses as "being" (Ross)
2 cf. Timaeus 30 a-b.
2
good to effect anything other than the supremely beautiful and
proportioned." But the same good is not supremely proportioned to
primary and secondary beings, nor perfection, varied according to
being, to similar beings; but, as the Athenian stranger 3 observes, the
equality that assigns the unequal to the unequal, a greater portion to
the greater, and a lesser to the less, is the most harmonious and best of
all. Now according to this equality the good varies in different beings,
and the natural good therein doubtless corresponds to the nature of
each. Therefore the perfection of intellect is in eternity, but of soul in
time; the soul's good is according to intellect but the body's according
to nature; again the perfection of gods differs from that of angels and
spirits, 4 which in turn differs from that of individual souls. Whoever
thinks that, in these cases, although their being differs, their perfection
is the same, misses the truth in beings; "since their race is never the
<4> same," as Homer 5 declares, either "of gods and men" or of the classes
between these and both the extremes.
If this has been rightly assumed, it is surely necessary, in the case of
each class of beings, to ascertain their being before their perfection; for
perfection is not of itself, but of the being by which it is participated.
This, then, must first be considered e.g. whether it is one of the
undivided beings 6 or of those 7 divided in association with bodies or of
those 8 in middle rank; whether it is of those that are eternal 9 or
3 cf. Laws 757a "for when equality is given to unequal things, the resultant
will be unequal, unless due measure is applied" (Loeb).
4 Between gods and men lie intermediate beings of three kinds, angels,
spirits and heroes. cf. p. 32.
5 cf. Homer, Iliad V 440-42.
6 cf. EL TheoL p. II5, 22: "the primary participant of the supra-existential
henads will be undivided Being." ibid. p. 151, I: "Every intelligence is an
indivisible existence."
7 cf. ibid. p. 167, 6-13: "For such principles (i.e. those divided in association
with bodies) are wholly inseparable from their substrates; they are partitioned
together with partitioned bulk, and falling away from their own nature, which
is without parts, they are infected with corporeal extension; if they be of the
the order of vital principles, they belong as life principles not to themselves but
to their participants; if they be of the order of Being and the Forms, they belong
as forms not to themselves but to that which they inform."
8 cf. ibid. p. 167, I: "Every soul is intermediate between the indivisible
principles and those which are divided in association with bodies." cf. also
Timaeus 35a and Taylor's commentary ad loc: Plot. Enneads IV, I.
9 cf. ibid. p. 147, 32: "Every intelligence has its existence, its potency and
its activity in eternity."
