The Nature of the Scholia on Plato's Phaedrus

Phronesis 63 (2018) 449-476 brill.com/phro The Nature of the Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus Simon Fortier Département de Philosophie, Université de Liège, Place du 20-Août, 7, 4000 Liège. Belgium [email protected] Abstract While we know that the interpretation of the ‘soul’s pilot’ (Phaedrus 247c7-8) found in Hermias’ Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus differs considerably from that of Syrianus and Proclus, this difference has not shifted the prevailing opinion that the Scholia are a faithful transcript of Syrianus’ lectures on the Phaedrus. I argue, however, that the difference over the soul’s pilot is only the first in a series of elements which are difficult, if not impossible, to ascribe to Syrianus. This, I believe, is compelling evidence that the Scholia contain the ideas of both Syrianus and Hermias. Keywords Hermias of Alexandria – Syrianus – Proclus – Plato – Phaedrus – scholia 1 Introduction Syrianus, head of the Neoplatonic School of Athens,1 taught the Phaedrus to his students Hermias and Proclus sometime in the mid-430s CE.2 We know this 1 According to his biographer, Marinus, Proclus did not begin studying Plato with Syrianus until after the death of the previous scholarch (or ‘successor’, in the terminology of the School), Plutarch of Athens. We may therefore assume that Syrianus was scholarch at the time of his lessons on the Phaedrus. On the date of Plutarch’s death, see Luna and Segonds 2012, 1080. 2 Marinus tells us that Proclus, born in 412, arrived at the School of Athens at around the age of nineteen, studied under Plutarch for two years, then studied Aristotle exclusively under Syrianus for somewhat less than two years before beginning to study Plato. Syrianus later died when Proclus was only twenty-five (in 437). Syrianus’ lectures on the Phaedrus were © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15685284-12341357Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 07:06:01AM via free access 450 Fortier thanks to several exchanges between the students and their teacher preserved in Hermias’ Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus. These exchanges seem to indicate that the Scholia are derived, at least in part, from Hermias’ lecture notes. There is, however, a disagreement over just how derivative they really are. While it is widely held that the Scholia represent ‘a more or less faithful reproduction’ of Syrianus’ lectures,3 at least two scholars have defended the thesis that the Scholia contain both the teachings of Syrianus and the ideas of Hermias himself.4 As they have argued, the attempt to establish the Syrianine provenance of not just some, but all the contents of the Scholia, which seems necessary to prove the total dependence of Hermias upon his master, ‘has so far yielded scarce fruit’.5 Yet it is not simply for want of evidence that they have rejected the prevailing opinion on the authorship of the Scholia. These scholars have also adduced a positive proof of their own position in the form of a divergence between the Scholia and Syrianus’ Commentary on the Metaphysics over the identity of the so-called ‘soul’s pilot’ (Phdr. 247c7-8) which alone observes the ‘Being that truly is’ (247c7). While the Scholia, apparently following Iamblichus, declare this pilot to be our highest faculty, ‘the one of the soul’, Syrianus, in his Commentary on the Metaphysics, instead holds that the pilot is an intellect, an interpretation also championed by Proclus.6 This evidence, however, has been met with skepticism.7 Syrianus may, after all, simply have altered his interpretation of the pilot over time, or taught different interpretations in different contexts. Moreover, even if the Scholia are not an exact transcript, Hermias’ contribution may have consisted in nothing more than supplementing his lecture notes with material gleaned from ear- lier commentators, as Asclepius is assumed to have done in his commentary on the Metaphysics.8 therefore undoubtedly given sometime after 433. On this chronology, see Endress, Luna and Segonds 2012, 1548-9. 3 Manolea 2013, 158. Moreschini 1992, 452 in fact refers to this as the ‘communis opinio’, which is hardly an exaggeration given the long list of scholars who have either openly defended or tacitly accepted this thesis, including: Praechter 1912; Gelzer 1966, 22; Saffrey and Westerink 1968-1997: iv, pp. xxix-xxxvii and vi, pp. xx-xxviii; Wallis 1972, 141, 144; Dillon 1973, 63; Sheppard 1980, 13, 20; O’Meara 1989, 124-8; Westerink 1990, p. x n. 1; Saffrey 1992, 42; Cardullo 1995, 28; Van den Berg 1997, 159; Manolea 2004, 47-58; 2009, 501; Wear 2011, 206 n. 12. 4 Moreschini 1992; 2009; Bernard 1997, 13-19. 5 Moreschini 2009, 520. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. 6 For textual references, see further below. 7 E.g. Menn 2012, 45 n. 3; Luna 2016, 689-91. 8 As Bielmeier 1930, 33 writes: ‘Hermias, industrious compiler that he was, conscientiously copied out his authors of reference, especially Iamblichus, but showed not the least criti- cal acumen to compensate for this.’ I say ‘assumed’ because we are today no more certain PhronesisDownloaded 63from (2018) Brill.com09/24/2021 449-476 07:06:01AM via free access The Nature of the Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus 451 The stakes of this debate are high. Syrianus was one of the most important thinkers of Late Antiquity, and yet, of his numerous philosophical works, we now possess only a partial commentary on the Metaphysics and (perhaps) two commentaries on the rhetorical treatises of Hermogenes of Tarsus.9 There is thus an understandable desire to treat the Scholia as an accurate reflection of Syrianus’ teachings on a major Platonic dialogue. Nonetheless, one must keep in mind that the ‘faithful reproduction’ thesis is the more radical of the two competing theories regarding the nature of the Scholia, and it presup- poses that, if not all, at least nearly all the contents of the Scholia are ἀπὸ φῶνης Συριάνου. If, therefore, any reasonable doubt can be cast upon the Syrianine provenance of an important section of the Scholia, then we have good reason to question Hermias’ faithfulness as a reportator. Although the difference over the interpretation of the soul’s pilot has failed to shake the received opinion on the nature of the Scholia, I believe that there is further evidence to consider. As I will argue, the difference over the pilot is only the first in a series of elements in the scholia on Phaedrus 247c6-d1 which are difficult, if not impossible, to ascribe to Syrianus. Indeed, the most plau- sible explanation is that these scholia contain the work not only of Syrianus, but of Hermias as well, and that the Scholia are therefore not a mere transcript. 2 The Text of Phaedrus 247c6-d1 The passage concerning the soul’s pilot, 247c6-d1, appears in modern editions of the Phaedrus as follows: ἡ γὰρ ἀχρώματός τε καὶ ἀσχημάτιστος καὶ ἀναφὴς οὐσία ὄντως οὖσα, ψυχῆς κυβερνήτῃ μόνῳ θεατὴ νῷ, περὶ ἣν τὸ τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἐπιστήμης γένος, τοῦτον ἔχει τὸν τόπον. For the colourless, shapeless, intangible Being that truly is, observable only by the soul’s pilot, intellect, with which the class of true science is concerned, holds this place. Were Iamblichus or Hermias to have had this text before them, one might imagine them hard pressed to defend their interpretation of the pilot. Yet this lemma, a notorious locus corruptus, was variously read throughout Antiquity. regarding the real nature of Asclepius’ contribution to the Metaphysics commentary than was Cardullo nearly two decades ago (see Cardullo 2002, 512-13). 9 On the attribution of these commentaries to Syrianus, see Luna 2016, 702-3. Phronesis 63 (2018) 449-476 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 07:06:01AM via free access 452 Fortier For example, the entire manuscript tradition contains at least one signifi- cant error (θεατῇ for θεατή), while in our best manuscript of the Phaedrus, Codex Clarkianus 39 (B), the passage reads as follows: ἡ γὰρ ἀχρώματός τε καὶ ἀσχημάτιστος καὶ ἀναφὴς οὐσία ὄντως ψυχῇ οὖσα κυβερνήτῃ μόνῳ θεατῇ νῷ (‘For the Being that truly is both colourless and shapeless and truly intangible by soul, observable only to the pilot, the intellect’). It is difficult to say when this particular reading first emerged, but it is likely that it and others diverging from our own were already in circulation during the Imperial period.10 The members of the School of Athens, however, including Syrianus, Proclus, Damascius, and Hermias, appear to have read this sentence exactly as we do today, except that the latter did not read the crucial νῷ.11 As we shall see below, Hermias was clearly aware that other interpreters read a νῷ after θεατή. However, as the texts of Plato were in a far more fluid state at the end of Antiquity than they are today, the Neoplatonic commentators were obliged to be as much philologists as philosophers (although relying on philosophical intuition rather than any textual science for their emendations). If even con- temporary scholars feel compelled to ask whether the dative νῷ was not ‘added to our manuscript tradition at some stage in antiquity to clarify just what Plato was referring to’,12 i.e. to make explicit what seems to be the implicit referent of the pilot, then one can hardly blame an ancient commentator such as Hermias for ignoring it in the name of what he took to be a more coherent philosophical interpretation. In sum, the textual difficulties of Phaedrus 247c6-d1 cannot in themselves explain the dissent between Hermias and his colleagues. The apple of discord was first and foremost philosophical. 10 Plotinus, for instance, as Tarán 1969 has argued, seems to have understood this sentence in yet another manner.

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