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A. in De Anima 1.1-20 We Present the Opening of the Commentary Not A. In De Anima 1.1-20 We present the opening of the commentary not because it contains an important lamblichean interpretation of Aristotle or the soul but because it shows the high esteem in which the commentator holds Iamblichus. Although it is safe to conclude that the commentator usually follows lamblichus in his interpretations, there is at least one point of disagreement between them, on the interpretation of Aristotle's active and passive Intellect. Iamblichus believes that these are the unparticipated and participated Intellects and are, therefore, above the soul in rank. The commentator, on the other hand, believes that they are in the soul, although he attempts to argue that he and Iamblichus are not at odds but only looking at the same issue from different perspectives. See 313-314 and Steel 142-145 and 153- 154. i] 1tEpt a\rrffiv tffiv npayJ.tcitcov tffiv t£ aA.A.cov . The Greek term for "metaphysical realities" is auta ta npayJ.tata, literally "the facts themselves" or "the actual circumstances" or "the matters of import­ ance." The commentator repeats the term below (1.13-14), where it is contrasted with the text (A.EI;tc;) of Aristotle. There it seems to be the soul itself, i.e., the metaphysical principle at issue in the De Anima. The noun is used again in line 18, where it refers to external realities including the soul. Urmson (15) translates the first instance as "things themselves," the second as "the subject-matter itself," and the third as "things." Another difference between Urmson's translation and ours concerns the number of conjuncts in the first clause. Urmson (15) translates: "The primary and most important object of concern is the truth about things themselves, both about other things and concern­ ing the soul." He therefore separates i] 1tEpt autffiv tffiv 1tpayj..lcitcov from tffiv t£ aA.A.cov. This cannot be right. The commentator is distinguishing two conjuncts, marked both by the repeated article i] and the use oft£ ... Kat ("both ... and"). Thus t£ does not separate npayj..tcitcov from tffiv aUcov, but rather conjoins them: "both the truth about other npciyj..lata and the (truth) about the soul." roc; 'tql aptO''t(!l tfic; aA.Y]SEiac; Kpt ti] OOKEt tq)' laj..tPAixou ... As we have seen, various passages from lamblichus' own De Anima support the PSEUDO-SIMPLICIUS AND PRISCIANUS COMMENTARY 253 statement that Iamblichus believed both that Plato and Aristotle's theory of the soul was compatible and that later Peripatetics misinter­ preted what Aristotle meant. We agree with Blumenthal that Iamblichus did not write a separate commentary on Aristotle's De Anima. See H. Blumenthal, "Did Iamblichus write a Commentary on the De Anima?," Hermes 102 (1974) 540-556. The references to Iamblichus' "writings on the soul" are therefore to his own De Anima. B. In De An. 5.38-6.17 Festugiere gives a French translation (254). This passage concerns Iamblichus' doctrine that the soul is a mean between the realm of generation and the Intelligible realm. See Iamblichus, De An. section 7 (365.22-366.11 W). This passage, however, exhibits a doctrine stronger than any of the surviving passages in Iamblichus' De Anima. For in the De Anima, Iamblichus says that the soul is indeed a mean between unchanging realities and the world of generation, but he does not anywhere state the almost contradictory tension inherent in the human soul. Here, however, the tension is introduced and start­ lingly articulated. The soul is somehow both divided and undivided, departing and returning, simultaneously abiding and changing, gener­ ated and ungenerated, and destroyed and preserved. Iamblichus, as it seems, argues that the soul is neither undescended (as he thinks Plotinus held) nor completely descended. It is a mean, and as such is in tension with itself, never fully at either extreme. (Possibly Iambli­ chus has Heraclitean notions in mind here.) He says: "it is a mean between what is permanently abiding and in every way changing." Thus the soul cannot be either extreme, but an ever-changing mean. This explains his statement: "when it has gathered itself together into partlessness as much as is possible for it." For the soul cannot be completely indivisible, or it would not be a mean. It would become Intellect rather than "imitate" it. The statement that the soul "remains pure in its declination toward what is secondary to it" requires further explanation. For, as we have seen, the soul does not strictly remain "pure" (or indeed remain in any state). Rather what Iamblichus must have in mind is that the soul qua soul remains exactly what it is, a mean term, neither here nor there, as it were, but always in between. This is the .
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