The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  After Plutarch, we have records of a number of commentaries on some of Plato’s dialogues. Theon, primarily known for his work on mathematics in Plato (discussed above), also alludes in that work, in a discussion of the myth or Er, to his own commentary on the Republic; this is the only evidence we have for it. Like Theon, Numenius also wrote a commentary on the Myth of Er (as reported by Proclus), which is perhaps connected to Porphyry’s citation of Numenius’s exegesis on the Cave of the Nymphs in his work of the same name.40 And as for Atticus’s commentaries, we also have evidence from Proclus for commentaries on the Timaeus and the Phaedrus.41

  Porphyry, in his Life of Plotinus (14), writes that “commentaries” (ὑπομνήματα) of Gaius were read in Plotinus’s seminar. It is worth quoting the whole section of that text, to give an idea of the company Gaius’s work kept:

  In the meetings of the school he used to have the commentaries read, perhaps of Severus, perhaps of Cronius or Numenius or Gaius or Atticus, and among the Peripatetics of Aspasius, Alexander, Adrastus, and others that were available.

  That said, if these commentaries are actually the outlined classroom notes made by Albinus (mentioned above), then it may be that we have no evidence of any writings of Gaius.

  Galen tells us that he wrote synopses of eight Platonic dialogues (all lost), including one on the Timaeus. He also wrote a single commentary, also on the Timaeus, some of which survives in fragmentary form.42 As would make sense given his interests, the fragments we have show an emphasis on physiological, rather than metaphysical topics. Galen also actively worked on Aristotle: he mentions as well a (lost) commentary on the Categories. And, in this vein, we might also recall his numerous commentaries on Hippocratic works, all as part of a general increase in commentary work during the Second Sophistic.

  Evidence of commentaries of Taurus include reference to the first book of a commentary on the Gorgias (NA 7.14), and to the first book of a commentary on the Timaeus (John Philoponus De aeternitate mundi p. 520, 4 Rabe). Dillon (1977, 240) also includes Iamblichus’s reference in his On the Soul of Taurus’s views on the descent of souls into bodies, and suggests that this may be referring to the Timaeus commentary or to a work on the soul. A commentary on Plato’s Republic, attributed to a certain Taurus of Sidon, has also been argued to be by this Taurus.43

  The case of Severus is interesting, if only because we have evidence from Proclus (In Ti. 1.204, 17) for a commentary by him on the Timaeus. We are told that he was an object of attack by the Peripatetics (In Ti. 3.212, 8) and that he, like Plutarch, proposed that the world had a beginning in time. We are also told that he introduces a qualification from Plato’s Statesman (280b) in order to argue that the cosmos has two cycles, one in which it is at present turning, and so is created and had a beginning, and a cycle which is opposite to it, and in the absolute sense eternal (In Ti. 1.289, 7). Besides showing a greater Stoic influence, there does not seem to be another clear example of this use of the Statesman in this way by a Platonist during the Second Sophistic.44

  We end this section with the anonymous commentary on the Theaetetus, which has been dated anywhere between the first century BCE45 and the second century CE.46 This fragmentary commentary is found on a Berlin papyrus datable from 150 CE. What survives starts at the end of the preface in that dialogue to 153d–e, with another section from 157 to 158. The work is significant, since it is the only extant commentary of the kind we only otherwise hear about. A straightforward exegesis of the text with some notes on grammar, the text does not itself seem to take a strongly skeptical position, but engages with skeptical readings of Plato, and with the controversy between the Old and New Academy. At a lemma for Theaetetus 150c4–7 (where Socrates is discussing his intellectual midwifery, and as a result does not offer any answers of his own), the author tells us that some think that Plato was an Academic, as not having doctrines. Not only is that not the case, but in fact “even other Academics, with very few exceptions, have doctrines”; in fact, “the Academy is unified by the fact that even those hold the most important doctrines in common with Plato.” The fact that Plato held doctrines, and declared them with conviction, then, can be understood from Plato himself.47 In the fragments we have of the commentary, there are moments of excursus or criticism of the Stoics, Epicureans, and, as we saw, the Skeptics. Tantalizingly, the author also mentions his own commentaries on the Phaedo (section 48), Symposium (70), and, perhaps, the Timaeus (35).

  PLATONISM AFTER THE SECOND SOPHISTIC

  The interests and scholarship of those working on Platonism during the Second Sophistic live on in two ways: in the philosophy of Plotinus (and those who follow him), and in the philosophy of later Christians. We started in the Platonic classroom above, and Platonism in the Second Sophistic might be thought of as ending there as well with, perhaps symbolically, both Plotinus and, it seems, the Christian theologian Origen attending lectures of the influential Ammonius Saccus (fl. third century CE).

  We hear that Ammonius taught Plotinus for eleven years, from 232 to 243 (as well as, perhaps, the Christian theologian Origen48). In Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus (3), we are told that Ammonius’s students (Erennius, Origen, and Plotinus) had made an agreement not to disclose any of his doctrines which he had revealed to them in his lectures. Plotinus kept the agreement, and, though he held conferences with people who came to him, maintained silence about the doctrines of Ammonius. We are told that, like his teacher,49 Plotinus for a long time continued to write nothing, but began to base his lectures on his studies with Ammonius. But, we are told, Plotinus “did not just speak straight out of these books but took a distinctive personal line in his consideration, and brought the mind of Ammonius’s to bear on the investigation in hand” (14). Leaving Ammonius’s classroom, Plotinus would in turn teach; and with Plotinus, a new phase in the organization and understanding of Plato begins. Plotinus emerged out of the relative chaos of the Platonism during the Second Sophistic, and would significantly shape the understanding of Platonic philosophy.

  On the Christian side of the equation, Plato would have an impact on the thought of a number of authors, notably in Methodius of Olympus’ Symposium, a dialogue between ten women extolling the virtues of chastity, which is replete with Platonic quotations and allusions. The work of these Platonists also has impact on the thought of Augustine (354–430 CE), who praises Plato as having perfected philosophy by combining the active study of Socrates and the contemplative study of Pythagoras (De civ. D. 8.4). In his discussion of demonology in that book, the Platonici he names are: Apuleius, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. In his Confessions, he tells us that he took on the habit of the (New) Academics (academici) for some time (Conf. 5.14.25), before finally coming upon the Platonizing influence of Ambrose and “some books of the Neoplatonists translated from Greek into Latin” (7.9.13). There has been great speculation what these books might have been. These allowed him, as he says (7.10.16), to overcome his common-sense materialism and they provided him a metaphysical framework that differentiated between the sensory world of becoming (which is neither completely existent nor completely nonexistent, 7.11.17) and nonphysical being (what abides unchangingly). In his Retractiones, however, written near the end of his life, he regrets the concessions he had made to the Platonists in his early writings (1.1).

  In some important and similar ways, both Platonism and Christianity were gaining their respective footing during the Second Sophistic.50 Both had multiple competing views regarding what exactly they should be, and for both there were a number of widely competing directions regarding where they should go. Each, in fact, attacked the other for this very diversity of views, according to Origen (e.g., C. Cels. 3.10); and, later, Eusebius (Praep. evang. 1.7–8) invites us, not casually but leisurely and with careful consideration, to observe the mutual disagreement of the philosophers whom he quotes.51

  During the Second Sophistic, we effectively see the start and end of (pre-Plotinian) Platonism. There is very little that might unify these
Platonists and their work, save, perhaps, a desire to go back to and elucidate Plato’s true philosophy. Generally speaking, BCE invention had given way to CE elucidation, even if that understanding requires the incorporation of terminology and even concepts from other sources. In the end, the work these Platonists did on metaphysics and theology, as well as how we might behave in the world, was all in the name of clarifying Plato’s philosophy, whatever the actors understood the specifics to be.

  FURTHER READING

  Due to the generally scattered nature of this source material, general surveys are a good place to start. Dillon 1977 (revised in 1996 with a new Afterword) is still essential; a more recent overview of the time period is found in Boys-Stones 2001. For shorter overviews there is Tarrant 2010, which focuses on Platonism, and perhaps Fowler 2010, which focuses slightly more on the rhetorical use of Plato during the Second Sophistic, both in the two-volume Gerson 2010; there is in that volume a helpful overview by Elizabeth Digeser (“The Late Roman Empire from the Antonines to Constantine”), as well as relevant entries on Numenius of Apamea by Mark Edwards, Galen by R. J. Hankinson, Philo of Alexandria by David Winston, and Origen by Emanuela Prinzivalli (for the next time period, there is a series of entries in section III: “Plotinus and the New Platonism”). For Alcinous, there is Dillon’s 1993 translation of the Handbook. For an edition of the anonymous commentary on the Theaetetus, see Bastianini and Sedley 1995. Volume 2 of Sharples and Sorabji 2007 has numerous relevant contributions on Platonists and Academics. More recent for Galen is Singer 2014. On Apuleius’s Platonism, there is Fletcher 2014. Finally, Fowler 2016 provides new translations of both Albinus’s Introduction and Apuleius’s On Plato.

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