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Porphyry's on the Cave of the Nymphs in Its Intellectual Context

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Porphyry's on the Cave of the Nymphs in Its Intellectual Context Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs in its Intellectual Context by NILUFER AKCAY A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy University of Dublin Trinity College 2016 Declaration I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and it is entirely my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library conditions of use and acknowledgement. ________________________________________ i Contents Summary ........................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements............................................................................................ vi Abbreviations ................................................................................................... vii Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 .......................................................................................................... 13 Allegory as a Way of Thinking in On the Cave of the Nymphs ............................. 13 1.1. Allegory and Allegorical Interpretation before Plato ............................................................ 13 1.2. Allegorical Interpretation in Plato ......................................................................................... 25 1.3. The Stoics and Allegory .......................................................................................................... 38 1.4. Allegorical Interpretation in Later Platonism ........................................................................ 44 1.4.1. Neopythagoreans’ Influence on Neoplatonism ............................................................. 45 1.5. Porphyry and On the Cave of Nymphs ................................................................................... 50 1.5.1. On the Cave of the Nymphs ............................................................................................ 56 Chapter 2 .......................................................................................................... 78 The Cave as Symbol and Image of the Cosmos ................................................... 78 2.1. The Materialisation of the Cave ............................................................................................. 79 2.1.1. The Cave, Cosmos, and Matter ....................................................................................... 79 2.1.2. The Cosmos: Beautiful and Dark ..................................................................................... 84 2.1.3. The Mithraic Cave and Mithras as the Maker and Father of All and Ruler of Genesis . 99 2.2. The Cave in Mind .................................................................................................................. 122 2.3. Epilogue ................................................................................................................................ 130 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................ 134 Embodiment ................................................................................................... 134 3.1. The Naiad Nymphs as Symbol of Daimones and Souls ........................................................ 135 3.1.1. Preliminary Remarks on Numenius Fragment 30......................................................... 136 3.1.2. Daimones and Souls on the Descent into Genesis ....................................................... 140 3.2. Reading Dunamis in De Antro 13.25-29 and the Body-Creation ......................................... 156 3.3. The Pneumatic Body ............................................................................................................. 170 ii 3.4. Honey as Symbol of Pleasure: a Trap ................................................................................... 180 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................ 196 The Path Towards the Immortality of the Soul ................................................. 196 4.1. The Journey of the Soul through the Sensible World ........................................................... 197 4.1.1. The Solstitial Gates: Numenius Fragments 31 and 32 .................................................. 199 4.1.2. The Gates of the Sun and the Moon ..................................................................... 208 4.2. Philosophy: the Great Liberator of the Soul ......................................................................... 215 4.2.1. The Journey through the Intelligible Realm ................................................................. 217 4.2.2. The Goddess Athena as symbol of phronesis ............................................................... 229 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 239 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 249 iii Summary The primary aim of my research project is to analyse and evaluate the symbols and images found in the treatise, On the Cave of Nymphs, in the Odyssey by the Neoplatonic philosopher, Porphyry of Tyre (234–c305 C.E.) and to offer an exegesis of Porphyry’s allegorical interpretation against the backdrop of his wider oeuvre. The treatise is a significant landmark in both the history of allegorical interpretation and in the history of Neoplatonic philosophy, and can be deemed to be indicative of the Neoplatonic movement in the direction of mystery religions. As developed by Porphyry, Iamblichus and their contemporaries, Neoplatonism came to share more and more features with philosophically inspired mystery cults such as mysteries of Mithras, Orpheus or Eleusis. According to Plato, the higher level of reality, the world of immutable forms, is incomprehensible to our senses. Later Platonists sought to connect the material world and the world of higher truths through allegory. Allegory, a mode of symbolic interpretation and thinking, had been employed since the sixth century B.C.E., but was systematised, especially by the Stoics in the Hellenistic period, and became increasingly prominent during the Roman Empire. Instead of opposing mythological figures and stories of traditional Greek literature, such as the Homeric epics, to the principles of a philosophical system, Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation seeks to expound how literary texts present philosophical ideas in an enigmatic and coded form, offering to those who can decipher them an alternative way to the same higher truths. The approach that is needed to gain access to this symbolic meaning was not developed by the Neoplatonists themselves, but was derived from earlier thinkers, first of all their master Plato; even Plotinus does not consider himself an innovator, only an interpreter of Plato’s thoughts (Enneads 5.1.8). Regardless of their genre, Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation treats texts, including religious or poetic texts, as objects worthy of philosophical reflection in their own right, being potentially no less enlightening iv than the dialogues of Plato. Literary criticism, thus, becomes an important ally to dialectic in the Neoplatonic mission to save the human soul. In this thesis, I intend to show that On the Cave of the Nymphs, although ostensibly a literary-critical, rather than a conventional philosophical text, in fact, provides valuable insights into Porphyry’s philosophical thought. On the Cave of the Nymphs is an elaborate allegorical reading of Odyssey 13.102-112, Homer’s description of the cave near the harbour of Phorcys in Ithaca, where Odysseus is dropped by the Phaeacians and in which, under the guidance of the goddess Athena, he stores the Phaeacians’ valuable gifts. Porphyry analyses these lines and provides a setting for an allegorical interpretation of the Odyssey as a narrative of the cyclical journey of the human soul. This soul becomes embodied in the material world where all kinds of pleasures try to beguile it and keep it from attaining the intelligible realm, and, after its dissociation from the body, the soul returns to its point of departure, the intelligible realm. Porphyry’s interpretation is, in essence, a legitimation of the doctrines of Plato and Plotinus. His treatise is a unique example of how the Neoplatonists use canonical literary texts for their own philosophical and theological speculations. These texts, they claim, include symbols which point to philosophical truth but which are only comprehensible to a small group of people, that is, philosophers. Homer’s text, as interpreted by Porphyry, enables those enlightened readers to attain the philosophical, metaphysical and theological truth in a similar way as the initiates of mystery cults do. Porphyry’s ultimate goal is to illustrate that virtue attained through philosophy is the ideal path to salvation for the human soul; it is a universal path which shares important features with religious rituals and other approaches but is, in the end, a superior path. v Acknowledgements It is customary in this page to thank all the persons who, in various ways, contributed to the development of this thesis from my early classical lecturer to my supervisor, Dr.
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