Peter VanNuffelen There’sAlwaysthe Sun Metaphysics and Antiquarianism in Macrobius Abstract: The present paper asks how Macrobius thinks his extensive allegories of statues of the gods and other elements of traditional religion are possible. He can be shown to espouse aNeoplatonic theory of images. This entails that truthful im- ages are onlypossible of the Soul and the lower levels of the world, whereas the two highest hypostases cannot be graspedbylanguageand man-made images. Even so, as the sun is an imageofthe highest principle, Macrobius’ reduction of all deities to the sun can be understood as adiscourse on the highest deity,albeit obliquely. How are images, then, truthful?Hedefends acommon theory of inspira- tion, accordingtowhich the creators of images participate in the Logoswhencreat- ing them. Philosophyisseen as the primordial discipline, containingthe knowledge necessary to create and interpret images. These conclusions allow us to pinpoint more preciselythe differences between Middle and Neoplatonism. How does one justify the use of man-made images of the divine if one posits asu- preme divine being that is beyond languageand discursive knowledge?More precise- ly:onwhat conditions can aNeoplatonist presume thatatraditionalcult imageof, say, Saturn, represents metaphysical truths?That myths, ceremonies, and cult im- ages could be interpreted as containing knowledge about the world is awell- known fact: allegoricalinterpretations are prominent in the Stoic and Platonist tra- dition.Ifscholars have often asked the question of what precise technique of allego- ry wasapplied to understand poetry,myth, and cult as philosophy, the question of how the sheer possibility of such an exercise was explained has onlyrecentlystarted to draw attention. Boys-Stones has argued thatinthe late Hellenistic Period philos- ophersdevelop anarrative accordingtowhich earliest man (in all cultures) pos- sessed full knowledge of the world and translated this knowledge into expressions of human culture. This ancient wisdom is then rediscovered by great philosophers, such as Plato, whose authority is duetothe fact thatthey managed to overcome later corruptions. In an earlier publication, Ihavedetailed the consequences of the idea of ancient wisdom for religion. Asymbolsystem thatwas created by wise men of old, religion can be decoded by later philosophers, who try to recover the original wisdom. Such atheory helps to justify the philosophical interpretationsof The research leading to these resultshas received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’sSeventh Framework Programme (FP/–)/ERC Grant Agreement n. and from the Flemish ResearchFund. DOI 10.1515/9783110517569-006 Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 16.10.19 14:25 128 Peter VanNuffelen Greek and foreign cults that philosopherssuch as Plutarch propose. It also explains the extensive talk about ‘wise ancients’ in later ancientphilosophy.¹ Boys-Stones has argued that this idea of ancient wisdom underlies Post-Hellen- istic philosophy, which for him includes Neoplatonism as well. There is much to be said for continuity in this respect.Itwould indeedbeeasy to catalogue the numerous occurrences of aspectsofthe preceding view in Neoplatonic texts and there is aten- dency to consider late antique religious thought as acontinuation of imperial tendencies.² Yet, as Ihavealreadysuggested,³ Neoplatonism distinguishes itself from earlier Platonist philosophyinsome important respects. In particular, it puts agreater emphasis on divine transcendence(that is, transcendenceofthe highest principle(s)), which expresses itself in doubts as to the power of languagetoexpress something about these principles. Tying everything,albeit indirectly, to the highest principle, Neoplatonismalso stresses more the unity of all that is.⁴ Thispaper wishes to ask what consequences such differences in metaphysics had for the justification of allegorical readings of images of the divine. Ishallargue that there is continuity be- tween Middle-Platonism and Neoplatonisminterms of the narrative used to justify allegorical readings,but also differences that oftenremain unarticulatedbut can be detected in the waythe narrative is deployed. The material object of my chapter is Macrobius,⁵ the author of two works (prob- ably) dated to the second quarter of the fifth century: the Saturnalia,a7(or 8) book account of asymposium with adramatic date of 17– 19 December 384⁶,and acom- mentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio,which sets out aNeoplatonic world view.The question this chapter opened with is most acute for the first book of the Saturnalia, for it contains the famous account that identifies all deities as manifestations of some aspect of the highestgod, the sun.⁷ To that end an impressive array of antiquar- ian lore is marshalled, with an interesting lack of explicit justification thatsuch a readingoftraditionalcult statues, rites, and myths, as well as earlier scholarship, would even be possible. That all of these constitute in some wayimages of the high- est godseems taken for granted. The massive deployment of evidence mayconstitute arhetorical tool to avoid this question, but Ishall suggest thatwecan find traces of a philosophical justification in Macrobius. As said, Iamnot interested in the precise Boys-Stones (); VanNuffelen (). Forlateancient allegory,see Brisson (). Foranimportantrecent synthesis,see Athanassiadi and Macris (). VanNuffelen () –. Forgeneral overviews,see Smith (); Gerson (). On the problem of discourse, see Rappe (); Banner (). Forstatus quaestionis on the person Macrobius,see Caiazzo () –;Bruggisser (); Goldlust () –;Armisen-Marchetti ()vii–xvi. Cameron () – argues for ;Döpp () suggests .Kaster()xxiv notesthe difficulty of establishingthis date. Macr. Sat. ,–. Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 16.10.19 14:25 There’sAlways the Sun 129 techniques of allegory thatallow Macrobius to read the images as images of the sun,⁸ but in his views on whysuch areading is at all possible. Prolegomena Before we can proceed,Imust brieflyaddress some recent views on Macrobius and his Saturnalia,views that,ifaccepted, would render this question entirelymeaning- less. Recent scholarship on Macrobius’ Saturnalia tends to downplaytheir philo- sophical nature or,atleast,theirphilosophical background and sees them as a mere collection of material, adidactic encyclopaedia.⁹ This view has arisen as are- sponse to the conviction of scholars that the antiquarian focus of the work is an il- lustration of the culturalpagan resistancethat was supposed to flourish in fourth- and fifth-century Rome.¹⁰ As Cameron has shown, classicismand antiquarianism are not in themselvesenough to identify someone as apagan, for they reflectcultural attitudes that werewidelyshared in the late Roman elite. Yetthe new imageofMac- robius as amere philologist with limited interests is hardly satisfactory.Inthe intro- duction to his recent Loeb edition, Kaster,following Cameron, puts forward the fol- lowing imageofMacrobius and the role of the theological passages of the first book: The crucial point is that the manner of proceeding is not theological at all – not concerned with establishingbasic principlesofdivinity and exploringthe systematic relationship of these prin- ciples with one another – but is morenearly, and moresimply, philological, concerned with ac- cumulatingdata to support aseries of definitions that have the general form ‘God Xisthe sun because…’¹¹ This is not avery fruitful approach. Ishall leave aside the rather dim view Kaster has of his own profession: do philologists merelysupplythe proofs for agiven proposi- tion?Isthe processofselection of topic and material, choice of genre and organisa- tion into atext merelypassive? Equally, his definition of theologyishardlysuited for Antiquity, for it would also disqualify Cornutus’ Introduction to Greek Theology and Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride (both works by authorswith philosophical street cred- ibility)and reduce theologytometaphysics.Given the obvious parallels of Macro- bius’ theological focus on the sun with Neoplatonist authors such as Porphyry,Jam- blichus, and Julian, thereisroom for the prima facie contention that Macrobius’ interests tie in with some wider intellectual currents – even if one decides to leave See the paperbyG.F.Chiai in this volume, pp. –. EspeciallyCameron (); Kaster(); Gerth (). See De Labriolle (); Flamant () ;Franteantonio (); Ratti ()and (). Kaster()xxi. See also Liebeschuetz () f.: ‘an academic lecture’.Somewhat in this direction Altheim and Stiehl () ,criticised by Flamant () . Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 16.10.19 14:25 130 Peter VanNuffelen the issue of direct influenceaside.¹² Macrobius refers to the Symposium of Platoin the prefaceofthe Saturnalia,¹³ and is the author of the highlyphilosophical (and theological in Kaster’sterms) Commentaryonthe Dream of Scipio. Allofthis should warn against reducingMacrobius to amere philologist. The reductive readingofMacrobius is the basis for amore audacious contention by Kaster and Cameron: that he is aChristian.¹⁴ The theologyexpressed in the Sat- urnalia and the Commentary is then nothing more than aphilological board game. Yetthis contention cannot stand. Not so much because Macrobius’ frame of thought is Neoplatonic(which most Christians were), nor because he sees the sun as the vis- ual expression of the highest divine being (a metaphor Christians werefond of