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Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology

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Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology Edited by Torrance Kirby, Rahim Acar and Bilal Ba~ CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING CONTENTS Contributors .................................................................................. ·.········ .... ix Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology, Acknowledgements .................................................................................. .. xi Edited by Torrance Kirby, Rahim Acar and Bilal B~ This book first published 2013 Abbreviations and Acronyms ................................................................... xii i Cambridge Scholars Publishing Introduction ............................................................................................. xvn 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK Part 1: Philosophy and Exegesis in Antiquity British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Chapter One .............................................................................................. ·.. 3 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Philo's Moses and his Pagan, Christian, and Islamic Successors Wayne Hankey Copyright 10 2013 by Torrance Kirby, Rahim Acar and Bilal B~ and contributors Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 17 All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, Philo Judreus of Alexandria: The Paradigmatic Exegete or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Emily Parker ISBN (10): 1-4438-4043-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4043-9 Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 29 Paideia in Genesis: Interpreting Sarah and Hagar with Philo and Clement of Alexandria Jennifer Otto Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 45 Exegesis and Identity among Platonist Hellenes and Christians Elizabeth DePalma Digeser Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 57 The Philosopher as Spiritual Guide: Transmission of a Third-Century Image Heidi Marx-Wolf Chapter Six ............................................................................................ .... 69 Interpretation of Scripture in Eusebius ofCaesarea's ' Imperial Theology' Bilal BO$ CHAPTER EIGHT PROCLUS: PHILOSOPHY AS THE EXEGESIS OF 'SACRED' TEXTS D. GREGORY MACISAAC Introduction Many of the papers in this volume examine the employment of Greek philosophy for the interpretation of sacred texts in the three Abrahamic religions. A central question which has to be asked about this employment I is where the practice of philosophy ends and the practice of scriptural I interpretation begins. Is philosophy once it is taken into a sacred discourse ! still philosophy? I argue in this paper that we have good reason to hold I that it is, because an important part of the Greek tradition on which t Judaism, Christianity, and Islam draw does not really allow a hard I distinction between the two practices. In this Greek tradition, someone who interprets a revealed text is engaging in philosophy, and conversely, the philosopher engaged in reading philosophical texts thinks of them as 'sacred' in an important sense. The main part of my argument consists in an examination of Proclus, a late-antique pagan Greek Neoplatonist. 1 I look at Proclus for a few reasons. First of all, it is sometimes a bit easier to see how reason and revelation interact in a tradition to which one does not oneself subscribe, so the study of pagan Neoplatonism is informative for members of all three Abrahamic faiths. Second, Proclus is the pinnacle of the Greek pagan tradition, whose earlier figures influenced people like Philo and Augustine, and he himself had a great influence on the philosophy of the 1 Abrahamic religions through such conduits as Boethius, the Pseudo­ Dionysius, and the Liber de Causis. So he is a very significant figure. I 412-487 C.E. 96 Chapter Eight Proclus: Philosophy as the Exegesis of ' Sacred' Texts 97 Finally, Proclus has what initially seems to be a clear distinction between a considered as revealed texts. Most importantly, however, although the more 'philosophical' and a more 'religious' mode of discourse. At some dialogues are sacred texts, Proclus thinks that Plato's act of authorship and times he seems to be a rigorous Platonic philosopher, while at others he his own act of interpreting Plato are squarely within the practice of seems to fall prey to late-antique religious fervour. I will argue that despite philosophy, because philosophy, or dialectic, is just one mode of discourse its appearance of plausibility, this distinction has no basis in Proclus' way that expresses the truth about the gods, alongside the inspired (in the of thinking. stricted sense), the symbolic, and the mode that uses images. The particular topic that I will examine is Proclus' doctrine of the At the end of the paper, I want to suggest that Proclus' conception is provenance and interpretation of divine names, as it is found in his instructive for our understanding of the relation between revelation and Commentary on the Cratylus ofPlato. Proclus' Platonic commentaries are philosophy in Medieval Christianity, and likely for Judaism and Islam as valuable for insight into his own system of thought but are in general not well. Further, I want to suggest that it says something about the textual very useful for what we would think of as an 'accurate' reading of the nature of philosophy. Through a very brief comparison with Derrida, an dialogues. The Cratylus commentary is an extreme example of this. In it, author who engages with Platonism but whose doctrine of interpretation is Proclus turns his attention to the etymologies of the names of the gods that in some ways diametrically opposed to the Neoplaton.ic orientation Socrates lays out in the Cratylus. However, although it is fairly clear to us towards truth, I will suggest that there is a certain common philosophical that Plato meant them to be taken ironically, these etymologies are taken methodology shared not only between pagan 'theology' and 'philosophy', in earnest by Proclus as sure guides to the divine natures. Therefore, and between pagan and Abraharn.ic philosophy, but even between the because this text seems to be exclusively and overwhelmingly 'religious', Ancient and Medieval practice of philosophy and contemporary and because it seems to be a completely misguided reading of Plato, it has philosophical schools. received very little attention even by Proclus scholars.2 This is a shame, because the text is very enlightening. I will argue that Part One: Late-Antique and Medieval philosophy according to his Cratylus commentary Proclus thinks that, although an oracle or a poet is the customary promulgator of a divine name, it is the and scriptural interpretation philosopher who is the authoritative interpreter of that divine name. The A. Proclus' theory of Names, from his Commentary reason for this is that the philosopher has the same access to the source of revelation as does the oracle or the poet, because the source of revelation on the Cratylus ofPlato is the same as the source of human reason, namely our intellection (noesis) A.l Natural names of the nature of the gods. Because of this, Proclus calls the true philosopher divine. There have not been many of them, but the most In his commentary on Plato's Cratylus Proclus picks up Socrates' discussion important of them was Plato, whose dialogues are therefore to be of whether names3 are by nature (phusei) or by convention (thesei) (4.7).4 2 The more relevant studies are: J. Trouillard, "L'activite onomastique seton Proclus," in De Jamblique a Proc/us, neuf exposes suivis de discussions (Entretiens 3 Onoma in Greek means "name," but it also means a ''word" as opposed to rhema Hardt, 21) (Vandoeuvres-Geneve, 1975) 239-251; A.D.R. Sheppard, "Proclus' which is an expression. In grammatical terms onoma also means a noun as opposed Philosophical Method of Exegesis: the Use of Aristotle and the Stoics in the to rhema which is a verb or predicate. Commentary on the Cratylus," in Proclus: Lecteur et interprete des anciens. Actes 4 All references to the In Cratylum will be to Pasquali's Greek Teubner text (1908, du colloque internationale du C.N.R.S. Paris (2-4 octobre 1985) ed. J. Pepin and repr. 1994), and will be given in the body. In my quotations of Proclus I have in H.D. Saffrey (Paris, 1987) 137-151; F. Romano, "Proclo lettore e interprete del many cases modified published English translations or supplied my own. Note that Cratilo," in J. Pepin and H.D. Safftey (1987) 113-136. The only full study of the the Cratylus commentary consists of passages written by Proclus, and passages commentary is R.M. Van den Berg, Proclus ' Commentary on the Cratylus in which seem to have been added by the 'Excerptor' who put together the text using Context (Leiden: Brill, 2008), half of which, however, is on the context. The Proclus' original work. This might have been a student of Proclus, and the whole commentary has also recently been translated by Brian Duvick for the Ancient work could possibly be a student's notes of Proclus' lectures, with the student's Commentators on Aristotle series (London: Duckworth,
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