Neoplatonic Exegeses of Plato's Cosmogony ( Timaeus 27C-28C)

Neoplatonic Exegeses of Plato's Cosmogony(Timaeus27C-28C) JOHN F. PHILLIPS AMONGTHE MANYCONTROVERSIESto which the long history of interpretation of Plato's Timaeus has given rise, that concerning the eternity of the cosmos is one of the most enduring and complex, and the source of almost continuous debate from the time of Xenocrates to the present. The importance to all Platonists of a doctrinally consistent answer to the question of whether or not the universe had a beginning in time is made amply clear in the statement attributed to Iamblichus by Proclus (In Tim. I 219, 90) that proper understanding of the creation of the world is crucial for the entire theory of Nature. Iamblichus here refers obliquely to the orthodox Platonist position that the universe is not a temporal being subject to decay and destruction. The principal problem for all of them, of course, was that, taken literally, Plato's account of the creation in the Timaeus, particularly the passage 27C-a8C, appears to be an unequivocal affirmation of a temporal beginning to the cosmos. Especially troublesome was Plato's use of the verb y~yovev in Timaeus 28b 7, which seems to be an explicit claim for an &QX1]in time. That this passage did indeed refer to a temporal beginning was a point that was made repeatedly and forcefully by the chief opponents of the Platonists on this issue, the Peripatetics , who, following Aristotle, read the Timaeus creation account literally.' To counter such opposition, and to enhance their respective positions in their own internecine struggles centered on this question, various Platonists took ever more subtle interpretive approaches, some of the most contentious involving explanations of how Plato's use of y~yovev in 28B 7 could be seen to be compatible with the orthodox position that the creation of the universe was nontemporal. Most notable in this regard is the list, compiled by the Middle Platonist Calvenus Taurus in the second century A.D., of all the possible ' For the argument of Alexander Aphrodisias, see SimpliciusIn De Caelo I ao, pp. ~96ff. Reimer. [173] 174 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:2 APRIL 1997 nontemporalist senses of the word 'created' (yewl~6v) which the best efforts of the Platonic exegetical tradition had produced. According to the Christian Neoplatonist John Philoponus, Taurus identified four such meanings2: M1) That which is not actually created, but is of the same genus as things that are created (zb ~d] yev61xevov Ix~v, ~v 6~ ~ cdJx~, 6v y~vet xo~gyev'q~o~g). M~) That which is conceptually composite, even if it has never in fact been combined (~6 ~mvo~q o~v0e~ov, xa~ et M1 ovwe0,fi). M3) That which is perpetually in the process of becoming (6e~ ~v t 0 y~veo0ctt). M4) That which has the cause of its existence in a higher source external to it (~b etvctt ct~ &D.ox60ev ~o'r~v • ~aQh ~o~ 0eo~). This list of meanings was for centuries the standard resource for Platonist exegeses of Timaeus 27C-28C, with the different schools arguing for one or more of them as the sense or senses in which Plato's use of the term was to be understood. Of these many and varied interpretations,s all of which were attempts to read a nontemporalist account into what is certainly on a prima facie reading a temporalist description of the creation of the universe, I wish to consider several which incorporate one or more of the meanings on Taurus' list, specifically M2, which holds that the universe is created in the sense of being a composite of matter and form; M 3, what Matthias Baltes4 terms the "physicalist" interpretation, according to which there was no moment when the cosmos came to be; it is rather perpetually becoming, or, to give it the common expression of antiquity, it has its being in its becoming; and M 4, the 2De Aet. Mundi VI 8, pp. 145, 13--147, 6 Rabe. Taurus' list was later expanded by Porphyry (ibid. VI 8, p. 148, 7ft.). These attempts to establish nontemporalist definitionsof yevrlx6vwere in part inspired by Aristotle'sown list of meanings in De Caelo 28ob15ff. Cf. Proclus In Tim...