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Numenius: Portrait of a Platonicus

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Numenius: Portrait of a Platonicus chapter 11 Numenius: Portrait of a Platonicus Polymnia Athanassiadi I Realia About Numenius’ life and career we know next to nothing, while for his contri- bution to philosophy we have to rely on a disparate group of fragments and tes- timonies found mainly in the works of Christian authors. Our sources variously qualify him as Pythagorean or Platonist. Yet the fact that the same authority can present him as belonging to both categories is symptomatic at once of the philosophical mood of early imperial times, and of Numenius’ own sense of identity.1 Indeed a review of the ideological climate in the decades preceding and following the establishment of the Roman Empire reveals a growing ten- dency towards the formulation of a dogmatic Platonism which is centered on metaphysics and increasingly associated with new forms of Pythagoreanism. In the globalized world of the Long Hellenistic Age, philosophy became ever more intermingled with religion, while the distinction between a high and a low spirituality progressively disappeared. As we shall see, Numenius’ contri- bution towards providing a focus for both these trends, which are epitomized in the formula ὁμοίωσις Θεῷ, borrowed from Tht. 176b, as the ultimate goal of all philosophical and theosophical endeavour, was decisive.2 The only reliable clue in an attempt to establish Numenius’ dates is pro- vided by the attribution to him by Clement of Alexandria (150s–216), of the dictum: “What is Plato but an Atticizing Moses?”3 For the rest, his chronology depends on an assessment of the influences undergone by Numenius and of 1 Pythagorean: Origen, CC I 15 etc; V 57; Eusebius, PE IX 7.1 etc; Nemesius, de Nat. Hom. 2.70.1– 2 (p. 17.17–18 Morani); Calcidius, in Tim. 295, 1–2 Bakhouche. Platonist: Iamblichus, de An., Stobeus, Anth. I 374, 21.25 Wachsmuth; Proclus, in Remp. II 96.11. For Longinus (ap. Porphy- ry, V.Plot. 20.72–77), along with a number of other thinkers including Plotinus, Numenius “expounded the principles of Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy”. Unless otherwise stated, “fr. 1” etc. refers to the fragments of Numenius in the edition of E. des Places (1973). 2 For these tendencies, Gerson (2013); on the ingredients of the philosophical koine which emerged at this time, Athanassiadi and Macris (2013), 47–50 and on “the Long Hellenistic Age”, 46. 3 Strom. I 22.150.4 (= fr. 8.13). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004355385_013 184 Athanassiadi the impact made by his own thought on others. A comparative analysis of the works of thinkers, such as Atticus, in the light of the philosophical novelties introduced by Numenius argues persuasively for a floruit around the middle of the second century.4 Yet if Numenius’ dating can be only approximately de- termined, there is at least substantial agreement as regards his origin: accord- ing to sources chronologically and ideologically close to him, Numenius was a Syrian and more specifically an Apamean. This is how Longinus, Amelius and Porphyry present him (VP 17.18). More significantly, the move in 269 to Apa- mea of the Italian Gentilianus Amelius – an ardent admirer of Numenius’ philo- sophical output most of which he knew by heart (VP 3.44–46) – suggests that by the late third century a tradition initiated by our philosopher had turned the city where he lived and taught into a center actively, and it would appear uninterruptedly, dedicated to his philosophical heritage. The Amelius who emigrated to Apamea had been for over two decades the most prominent pupil of Plotinus,5 in whose school at Rome Numenius was read and commented as an authority. Indeed there is ground for surmising that Numenius had already occupied a place of honor in Ammonius Saccas’ lecture room, from which both Plotinus and Longinus emerged as experts on Numenian philosophy.6 Nemesius’ testimony in this respect is significant, for in reporting Ammonius’ theories on the immateriality of the soul, he as- sociates him (κοινῇ) with Numenius.7 More specifically, when Nemesius de- tails how Ammonius succeeded in solving the problem of what happens to the essence of the soul when it comes together with the body, this solution, which rests on the soul’s essential immutability, faithfully echoes Numenius’ psychology as presented in Porphyry’s Cave of the Nymphs.8 Equally valuable towards detecting Numenius’ influence on Ammonius is the testimony of the 5th century Platonist Hierocles of Alexandria, who presents him as the 4 Karamanolis (2013), sec. 1. If the Cronius to whom Lucian dedicates his Peregrinus shortly after 165 is to be identified with Numenius’ hetairos, then we have an additional clue for placing the floruit of our philosopher in the mid-2nd century: cf. Dillon (1977/1996), 362. What bolsters this hypothesis is the rarity of the name Cronius, which allows us to suggest that by dedicating to him a satire on the irrationality of the hardships of a Cynic existence Lucian is mocking the ascetic morals proclaimed by Numenius and Cronius in The Cave of the Nymphs. 5 To Longinus’ mind at least, Amelius’ philosophy was as original as that of Plotinus: Porphyry, V.Plot. 20.70–72. 6 Porphyry, V.Plot. 20.37–38, for Longinus’ schooling with Ammonius. 7 de Nat. Hom. 2.69.11–70.2 (p. 17.16–18 Morani). 8 de Nat. Hom. 3.129.8–130.7 (p. 39.16–40.6 Morani). Cf. below, p. 199..
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