THE ARABIC PLOTINUS: A STUDY OF THE "THEOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE"

AND RELATED TEXTS

Peter S. Adamson

UMI Co. Dissertation # 9971880

DEDICATION

This dissenation is dedicated to my grandparents,

Anhur and Florence Adamson.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS AND TRANSLATIONS vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

INTR0 D UCTI0 N " _ _ .

CHAPTER I: THE ARABIC PLOTINUS TEXTS AND THEIR ORIGIN 91.1 The Arabic Plotinus corpus 9

1.1.1 Th.A 91.1.2 DS 111.1.3 GS _ II1.1.4 The common Arabic Plotinus source 121.1.5 The nature of the paraphrase 141.1.6 The order of Th.A and its place in *AP 19

1.2 The origins of AP 391.2.1 The identity of the Adaptor 401.2.2 The role of Porphyry 42

1.3 Other texts related to AP .471.3.1 Early works related to AP _ 471.3.2 The later influence of AP 50

CHAPTER 2: THE PROLOGUE AND THE "HEADINGS" 582.1 The Prologue 58

2.1.1 Sources of the Prologue: the Metaphysics and AP ..__ mm.612.1.2 AI-KindT as the author of the Prologue 692.1.3 The conception of philosophy in the Prologue 76

2.2 The ..Headings_ 792.2.1 The textual basis of the headings 802.2.2 The purpose of the headings 822.2.3 Philosophical views in the headings 85

CHAPTER 3: SOUL 873.1 Aristotelian influence on the Adaptor's theory of soul 87

3.1.1 Mfmar III and the question of enlelechia 883.1.2 Soul's relationship to body 943.1.3 AP and the Arabic paraphrase of the De Anima 105

3.2 Ethical Views in AP 1133.2.1 Virtue and the cosmos 114

iii

3.2.2 Desire__. .._ _._ _. .__ _._._. __ __ 1223.2.3 Memory and the fall of the soul_ .._._ _ ._._ -.--_.. 128

CHAPTER 4: INTELLECT__ _ _._ _._._._ _.._._ .._ _._ __.__ __ .1394.1 Learned ignorance .._ . _. __ _._ _._._. _ _..__. . 139

4.1.1 The doctrine of mfmar [I..._._ __ _._. .._._. _._ ...._..._. __._.1404.1.2 A potency higher than act._. _ _. __.. ._._ 1474.1.3 Porphyry and learned ignorance in AP .__ __ _._..__ __.157

CHAPTER 5: THE FIRST PRlNCIPLE _ _. __ .._ ._.. _.. ._1645.1 Oivine predication .. _._ _ _ ._._ . .__._.._164

5.1.1 Negative theology in AP ._.__.._._ _ _ _ _. _ 1655.1.2 Positive theology in AP __ _ _._. ._._._. ._ _ . J705.1.3 Predication by way of causality and eminence __ ._ _.._ _ 1735.1.4 Is the First Principle "complete"?.._._._ ._ _ __ ..__ _.177

5.2 God and being..__.. ._.. _ _ _ _. . ._. ._ __.._ __ 1865.2.1 The terminology of existence.._ _.._ _ _. .._.._.. __ ._.1875.2.2 God as the First Being and only being_._ __ __ 1935.2.3 God as pure actuality and Cause of being _.. _._ _.1995.2.4 The background of the doctrine of attributes and God

as anniyya faqa[ in AP .._ _.._. _._. __ ._._ _ __._.2055.3 Creation __....-..... .....__ .._._..._..._..... _._ _._.._._. .__. _ _ _.._.218

5.3.1 Mediated creation vs. unmediated creation _._ __ ._.2195.3.2 Creation and time _.._. __._ _ _ _ _ _.._._. __ .__ .. __2255.3.3 Creation and necessity.._.._ _._. ._.__ ..__ ._..__ ..2305.3.4 God and thinking __ __ ._ __ ._._ ._._ _ 236

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ._ _ _. __ . _._. __ 2446.1 The coherence of the Adaptor' s thought ._ _ _ _ _..2456.2 What sources influenced the Adaptor?_ _ _.._._ __.._ _.._..__ ..__2506.3 Who was the Adaptor? ._. __ ._._ _ _. 256

APPENDlX A: AL-KINDI AND THE ARABlC PLOTlNUS.._ _.260A.l God and being._ ._.. __ .__ ._._._. ._ _ _ _ _ __.267A.2 The emanative hierarchy__ _ _._ _..__ _ _. _ 272A.3 Theory of the intellect _. .. ._ _ _ _._279A.4 The soul and recollection _._. _ _ _..__.__ 285A.5 Astrology _ _ __ _ _.._.,.._ _'._ _. _ 291

APPENDlX B: IBN SINA AND THE '''THEOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE~ _.._.303B.I The treatment of soul in Ibn Slnffs commentary ._ __ 307B.2 Mystical knowledge in Ibn Srn~rs commentary _ _ _312B.3 Creation and emanation in Ibn SIna~s commentary 319

IV

APPENDIX C: TRANSLATION OF IBN SINA~S NOTES ON THE"THEOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE" _._._ __ ._ _ _._323C.I Notes on MTmar 1 _._ _._._ _.._._._ _ __.__ ._ _323C.2 Notes on MTmar If._.._ _ _ _ _ _ _ __.._ _333C.3 Notes on MTmar IV. _.._ _ _. ._._._.._ _ 340C.4 Notes on Mimar V _ _._ __.._ _ _._._ _..344C.5 Notes on MTmar VII._ __.._ _. __ ._._ __ _ _._._._._ _ _ __.350C.6 Notes on MTmar VIIf _._._ _._ _. .__ _ _.._.355C.7 Notes on MTmar fX 358

BIBLIOGRAPHY

v

361

A NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS

AND TRANSLATIONS

The following abbreviations have been commonly used in this dissertation:

B: References to the Anlbic text in Badawl. A. (ed.), AI-Aflatfinivva al-Muhdatha"inda 31-' Arab, (Cairo: 1955).

Lewis: References to the English translation in P. Henry & H.-R. Schwyzer (eds.), PlotiniOpera. Tomus II: Enneades IV-V: Plotiniana Arabica ad codicum fidem anglice vertit G.

Lewis (Paris & Brussels: 1959).

Th.A: The '-Theology of Aristotle," Arabic text in B.

GS: The "Sayings of the Greek Sage," Arabic text in B.

DS: The '"Letter on Divine Science," Arabic text in B.

All quotations from the Arabic Plotinus texts use section numbers from Lewis, with the

page number from B given in brackets (e.g. Th.A IVA [B 44]).

Enn: References to the Greek text in Plotinus, Enneads, translated by A.H. Armstrong,

7 volumes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966-1988).

All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. Arabic and Greek terms are

transliterated, with aspirated consonants in Arabic cnderlined (where the consonantwould normally have been underlined, e.g. in the title of a book, I have not underlined the

aspirated letters).

vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

[ would like to gratefully acknowledge the following people for their generous

support of this project. First my advisors, David Burrell and Stephen Gersh, for their

comments on the work and their enthusiasm for the project. I am equally grateful to my

two unofficial" advisors: Richard Taylor of Marquette University, who first suggested

the project. and Cristina 0'Ancona Costa of the Universities of Padua and Pisa. Both

were extraordinarily supportive of the dissertation; indeed it would be difficult to imagine

two distinguished scholars who would be more giving of their energy and time for the

work of younger researchers like myself. [would also like to thank the Philosophy

Department of Notre Dame in general, and Paul Weithman, David O'Connor, Michael

Loux, Ken Sayre in particular for their advice during my graduate career.

My biggest debt of thanks is, however, to my family. I dedicate this dissertation

to my grandparents Arthur and Florence, in thanks for their support and encouragement

before and during my studies. Likewise my parents Joyce and David could not have been

more supportive, and I am thankful to them for more than I can say here. Above aU I

would like to thank my wife Ursula, for her love and for her endurance and patience,

without which I never could have completed this project or my degree.

vii

INTRODUCTION

Open any book on Islamic intellectual history, and you are liable to find a

sentence or two on the so-called ""Theology of Aristotle."I The importance of this text in

the classical era of Arabic philosophy can scarcely be exaggerated. The '"Theology" was

a translation or paraphrase of the writings of Plotinus, yet it was mistaken for a work of

Aristotle. To imagine the importance that was attached to this text, one need only

consider the situation of the earliest Muslim thinkers who described themselves explicitly

as philosophers. They regarded Aristotle as the greatest representative of Greek wisdom,

yet Aristotle's works fell far short of providing answers to some rather pressing

questions. What did Greek philosophy have to say about the nature of God or creation,

for instance? Philosophers from John Philoponus onwards sensed the inadequacy of the

genuine Aristotelian corpus for answering these questions: thus Aquinas, for example,

articulated how Christian revelation was needed to flesh out Aristotle's notion of God as

a cause of motion. But in the "Theology of Aristotle:" the Arabic world found a text that

ex pounded such topics at length. It is unclear when this text of Plotinus was first

mistaken for one by Aristotle, and how long the misconception persisted. But whether or

J A representative example can be found in Alben Hourani. A History of the Arab Peoples(Warner Books: New York. 1991). 172-173: "The line of philosophers which culminated in Ibn Sina foundthe answer to questions [about God) in the Neo-Platonic version of Greek philosophy, made moreacceptable by the fact that a major work of the school. a kind of paraphrase of pan of Plotinus' Enneads.was generally regarded as being a work of Aristotle (the so-called 'Theology of Aristotle'):' CompareMajid Fakhry. A History of Islamic Philosophy (Columbia U. Press: New York. 1970). 19-26.

not the first readers of the ""Theology" thought it was a genuine work from the

Aristotelian corpus is beside the point, for as we shall see, at this period there was a

tendency to see all of Greek philosophy as one harmonious piece. Thus Plotinus was

used to extend and even complete the Aristotelian philosophical heritage.

This is the standard picture of the historical relevance of the ""Theology," and it is

correct as far as it goes. It is an understanding that underlies almost all of the work done

on the 'Theology" beginning in the late 19th century and continuing through the late 20th

century. In general this work has focused on broadly philological issues relevant to the

"Theology": who wrote it, when was it written, on what sources did it draw, and what did

the original text look like? These are of course important issues, but for a long time they

overshadowed another aspect of the text, namely the substantive philosophical changes

that were introduced into Plotinus' thought by whoever translated it into Arabic. It is

only within the last decade that these changes have been given serious study. At the risk

of engaging in polemic, let me suggest a reason for this. Generally speaking, there is a

tendency on the part of Western scholars to study Arabic philosophy from one of two

points of view. Either it is seen as setting the stage for 12th and 13th century European

philosophy, and particularly Aquinas, or it is seen as carrying on Greek philosophical

ideas on as they became unavailable in Europe. It is the latter point of view which

dominated studies of the Theology": the text was primarily seen as important because it

conveyed Plotinus to the Arabic world, not as a work in its own right with original

philosophical importance. To say that Muslim thinkers drew on the '"Theology" is, on

this view, just to say that they drew on Plotinus.

2

This way of approaching the ""Theology" has been challenged implicitly by recent

studies of the text, especially by Cristina D'Ancona Costa and Richard Taylor. This

dissertation is an attempt to carry the challenge further by providing a systematic study of

what is philosophically new and interesting in the Arabic version of Plotinus. Before

undertaking this task, it may be useful to give some background which would explain

how a work that is, after all, just a translation could be of such philosophical significance

in its own right.

As we will see below, the Arabic Plotinus was produced in the translation circle

of the first Muslim to think of himself as a i"'philosopher~'~ ai-KindT (died shortly after 276

A.H./870 A.D.). What I have said above about studies of the ""Theology" could also be

applied to studies ofal-KindT"s circle: it is only recently that scholars have provided

satisfactory studies of the context in which this group of translators operated. Their

devotion to Greek philosophy and its transmission is beyond question. But, in the words

ofone Muslim scholar~ the translation movement led by ai-KindT "was by no means an

'innocent' operation or 'neutral' educational endeavor naturally flowing from the

intellectual evolution of the time. Instead, it was part of a broader strategy used by the

newly established Abbassid dynasty to confront hostile forces, namely the Persian

aristocracy.":! This suggestion is fleshed out at much greater length in a superb recent

work by Dmitri Gutas.3 Gutas argues that the'Abbasid caliphate supported Greek

philosophy as a rival intellectual tradition which could challenge the Zorastrian tradition

:! Mohammed 'Abd al-labri. Arab-Islamic Philosophv: a Contemporary Critique. translated by AzizAbbassi (Center for Middle Eastern SlUdies at U. Texas at Austin: Austin. 1999).49. See also GerhardEndress. "The Circle ofai-KindT:' in The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism. edited byG. Endress and R. Kirk (Research School CNWS: Leiden. (997).45.

.l Dmitri Gutas. Greek Thought. Arabic Culture (Routledge: London. 1998).

3

in their seat in Persia. Without going into the intricacies of his argument~ let us note the

importance of the idea that there was a political or ideological motivation behind the

translation movement in the time of theAbbasids.

One effect of this motivation was a desire on the part of al-Kindf and others to

present Greek philosophy as a unified whole. Given that their purpose was to set Greek

philosophy over against other rival intellectual currents,4 it would have been

counterproductive for them to acknowledge the tensions and debates within Greek

philosophy that tend to occupy the modern historian of philosophy. In addition~ the

translation movement was at least in part an attempt to provide answers to the pressing

questions and problems of the historical context in which the translations were made~ i.e.

9th century Islam. Again. this means that al-Kindf and his translators were keen to

present Greek philosophy as answering such questions and as giving one coherent answer

when possible. Gerhard Endress has captured this situation in saying that "The growing

insistence on the essential unity of philosophical truth~ on the harmony between Plato's

and Aristotle's doctrine... is indicative of an attitude of compromise which made

philosophy fit to serve as a scientific interpretation of monotheistic and creationist

religion.,,5

These pressures had the consequence that translators who rendered philosophical

texts from Syriac and Greek into Arabic did not aspire to present "objective" or simply

"correct" translations. Instead, they felt free to change the text at will and even to

.: In addition to the intellectual threat posed by the Persian tradition. it is likely that al-Kindi wasopposing anti-rationalist movements within Islamic theology. Thus he was to some extent sympathetic withthe rationalist Mutazilites, whether or not he fully espoused their doctrines. The ideological struggle infavor of Greek philosophy was, then. being waged by ai-KindT and his circle on at least two fronts.

5 Endress ( 1997), 52.

4

introduce completely original passages amplifying or interpreting the views of the

original author. We find an extreme example of this in the Arabic Plotinus. but the case

is not unique: another well-known example is the Book on the Pure Good. a paraphrase of

Produs' Elements of Theology which would be known in the Latin west as the Liber de

Causis. (Indeed. this text departs even more from its source than does the Arabic

Plotinus, containing very little in the way of direct translation from the Greek source.) In

accordance with the motivations described above. the changes are generally of two types:

(a) [n order to present Greek philosophy as a unified whole, translators did not hesitate to

alter their sources to bring them into line with other, authoritative Greek texts. Many

examples of this strategy are provided in this dissertation, such as the alteration of

Plotinus' theory of soul to make it accord with Aristotle's De Anima.

(b) In order to answer problems from their own intellectual milieu. translators went so far

as to construct original philosophical arguments and views that they introduced into the

body of the paraphrase. Many of the mest interesting changes to be studied below. such

as the theory of learned ignorance. the use of divine attributes. and the characterization of

God as pure Being. fall into this category. This is not to say that the translators did not

depend partially on other Greek sources such as Aristotle. Rather. it is to highlight the

original way in which they took ideas from several Greek texts (as weB as their own

ideas) and wove them into new and original positions relevant to the contemporary

situation.6

6 In a similar vein. Dmitri Gutas has described the translation activiry as ""a creative process": "Thechanges and additions that we frequently see in the translated text vis-a-vis the Greek original were eitheramplificatory and explanatory. or systematic and tendentious. This means that some of the translations weredeliberately not literal because they were made for a specific purpose and to serve certain theoreticalpositions already held" (Gutas (1998), 146).

5

The texts that resulted from this process -- and there is perhaps no better example

than the Arabic Plotinus -- are thus important and interesting in two ways. First, the

original arguments themselves are often quite sophisticated and should be taken seriously

as positions on important topics in theology, philosophy of religion, metaphysics and so

on. Second, in many cases the version of the text produced by the translator is of

immense historical importance. For one thing the text shows that Greek philosophy was

already being interpreted and developed upon its first entry into the Arabic speaking

world. Also, these translations and the Arabic Plotinus in particular were the source for

Neoplatonism in Islamic philosophy. So we cannot properly understand the way that

figures like ai-KindT, al-FambL Ibn STniL and the Persian Illuminationists drew on Greek

philosophy unless we acknowledge that their engagement with these translations was /lot

equivalent to a confrontation with the original writings of Plotinus and others. I have

attempted to show how our understanding of these later figures might be enhanced by a

study of the Arabic Plotinus in appendices included here, on ai-KindT and Ibn STna.

So much, then, for the reasons why it is worthwhile to study the Arabic Plotinus

and take it seriously as a work of philosophy in its own right. I close this introduction

with a brief overview of the dissertation:

In Chapter I, I explain some of the vexed philological issues surrounding the text. This

is a necessary preliminary to understanding the philosophical aspects of the Arabic

Plotinus. However, I also try to engage these issues in such a way as to make plausible

my interpretation of the Arabic Plotinus as an original, well-thought out adaptation of the

Enneads (it has often previously been thought of as the work of a sort of translator hack

or dilettante).

6

In Chapter 2. I deal with two parts of the Arabic Plotinus materials that demand a

separate treatment from the paraphrase proper: the Prologue to the "'Theology" and a set

of "headings" which preface the "'Theology." Among other things, I argue that the former

may have been the work of ai-Kindt.

The rest of the dissertation is arranged according to the ascending levels of the Plotinian

hierarchy: Soul, Intellect, and the First Principle. In Chapter 3 on soul I examine how the

Arabic Plotinus is affected by the authors familiarity with Aristotle's De Anima. and also

deal with a cluster of issues in the paraphrase relevant for ethics.

Chapter 4 is devoted to the study of one important theme in the Arabic Plotinus: the

concept of an '"ignorance higher than knowledge." I suggest that this notion may have

come to the author from a Greek source, but that his understanding of such ""learned

ignorance" is an original one ba~ed again on Aristotle.

Chapter 5 deals with the treatment of God in the Arabic Plotinus. In particular, I show

that the author has original and systematic views on divine attributes and the metaphysics

of God and creation, and that these views respond to contemporary debates in Islam.

After a briefconclusion. three appendices are devoted to (a) al-Kindrs use of the

Arabic Plotinus. (b) a study of Ibn STna's commentary on the ....Theology."' and (c) a

translation of Ibn SIna's commentary.

7

CHAPTER I

THE ARABIC PLOTINUS TEXTS AND THEIR ORIGIN

The main purpose of this study is the examination of the philosophical doctrines

presented in the Arabic Plotinus texts. This analysis requires, however, a discussion of

the nature of these texts and of the complicated question of their origins. Indeed. it would

be fair to say that the present study is only now possible because of decades of research

into these issues. I do not hope to settle here most of the significant philological

questions surrounding the Arabic Plotinus. and in fact I will argue in this chapter that

several of these questions cannot be answered with certainty. at least in the absence of

textual evidence that may yet be discovered. Still, as will shortly become clear. a

profitable discussion of the philosophy in the Arabic Plotinus requires frequent reference

to the history of the texts. With this in mind, in this chapter I wilJ first give a detailed

description of the Arabic Plotinus corpus, and then go on to discuss some of the more

important issues surrounding the origins of that corpus. The latter section may at the

same time serve as a survey of much of the previous scholarship on these texts. since the

bulk of research on the Arabic Plotinus has centered on these textual and historical issues.

Finally. I will briefly address the later influence of the Arabic Plotinus in Islamic

philosophy by mentioning some of the later sources that bear directly on these texts.

8

1.1 The Arabic Plotinus corpus

The Arabic Plotinus materials have come down to us in the form of three texts. The first,

the most well-known and by far the longest of the three is the so-called Theology of

Aristotle (hereafter Th.A). The second, and shortest, is the Letter on Oivine Science

(hereafter DS). The third and final ""text" actually consists of a number of fragments

attributed to ""the Greek Sage (aJ-shaykh al-yfiniinf)," which are collectively referred to as

the Savin2s of the Greek Sage (hereafter GS). These collected texts represent the Arabic

Plotinus corpus (hereafter AP). An Arabic edition of almost all this material was

published in 1955 by "Abdurrahman BadaWf, and this is the Arabic text which I use here. I

The scholar Geoffrey Lewis, having completed an improved critical edition of the Arabic

as his dissertation at Oxford, has provided us with an English translation of all three texts,

which is available in the second volume of the Henry and Schwyzer edition of Plotinus'

works.:! [will cite all three texts by the section numbers in Lewis' translation, though aU

translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

1.1.1 Th.A

The existence of a '"Theology of Aristotle" was first made well-known last century with

the publication of an Arabic text and subsequent German translation by F. Oieterici,

though it was not at that time clear that the text was in fact a paraphrase of Plotinus'

I Badawr. A. (ed.), AI-Atlatfiniyya al-muhdatha 'inda al-Arab. (Cairo: 1955). For the Greek textof [he Enneads I have used volumes IV, V and VI of Plotinus. Enneads. translated by A.H. Armstrong. 7volumes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1966-1988).

9

Enneads. Dieterici's version~ though it was based on manuscripts fewer than and inferior

to those used by Badawf and Lewis. has the same fonn as the text ofTh.A we have now:

it is divided into ten so-called mayiimir, mfmar being a Syriac word meaning "chapter:~

The mayiimir vary in length, and cover parts, but not all~ of Enneads IV-VI. As in all three

parts of AP, the text takes the form of a translation-cum-paraphrase of Plotinus: most

sentences are at least in part direct translations of the Greek~ but also contain original

material. There are also complete departures from the Greek ranging in length from one

sentence to entire paragraphs~ though the latter are relatively rare. The text includes the

occasional "title," sometimes based on a title of one of Plotinus' treatises, both at the

beginning of some mayiimir and also, more unusually, in the middle of a mfmar. The ten

mayiimir collectively make up the paraphrase" portion ofTh.A. There are two

additional parts of the text: the first is a Prologue bearing an inscription attributing the

text to Aristotle, and mentioning the names of the commentator, translator, and editor of

the text. After this inscription. the Prologue gives a short explanation of the task to be

undertaken in Th.A and finally a list of topics to be covered in the text. Between this

Prologue and the paraphrase is a list of ru 'iis -- headings, or heads, or chief points" --

which present themselves as an itinerary of issues to be raised in the text. However, the

r1l "iis are in fact a series of short paraphrases. more or less in the style of the main

paraphrase, paralleling Enn IVA. 1-34.

[n terms of content, Th.A raises, in the course of covering parts of eight treatises

by Plotinus, many of the major issues familiar to readers of the Enneads, including

Z P. Henry & H.-R. Schwyzer (eds.), Plotini Opera. Tomus II: Enneades V-V: Plotiniana Arabicaad codicum fidem anglice venit G. Lewis (Paris & Brussels: 1959). Parts of the translation ofGS in thisvolume are by Rosenthal.

10

detailed discussions of the First Cause (Plotinus' One) and Intellect. The soul is,

however, the level of Plotinus' cosmos which is treated at greatest length: of the ten

maylimir, six have soul has their main focus, and the remaining four each have significant

sections devoted to soul. Below I address the question of whether this focus on soul is

accidental or by design.

1.1.2 OS

Though its title suggests that DS should be some kind of epistle, the text is in fact simply

another continuous paraphrase of Plotinus, this time of Enn V.9, V.3, VA, and V.5 (in

that order, with a concluding fragment from V.9). It contains two "titles" like those

found in Th.A, corresponding to the titles ofEnn V.3 and VA (OS 47, (56). Unlike

Th.A. OS has little to say about soul and concentrates on the Intellect and the First Cause.

Its total length is about that of one of the longest of Th.As mayiimir. The text was

originally misattributed to al-Farab.. but was sho\\ll by Paul Kraus to belong to AP.3

1.1.3 GS

The final surviving portion of AP is a set of fragmentary "sayings" culled from three

sources, and generally exhibiting the paraphrastic style of Th.A and DS. Almost all of the

sayings are taken from a manuscript discovered at Oxford. published and translated by

Franz Rosentha1.4 Further fragments from the Oxford MS were found and made available

., Kraus. P.. "Plorin chez les Arabes: Remarques sur un nouveau fragment de la paraphrase arabedes El1Ileades:' Bulletin de rJnstitul dEgvple. 23 (1941).263-95 .

.s Rosenthal. F.. 'Ash-Shaykh al-Yl1nani and the Arabic Plolinus Source: Orientalia 21 (1952),461-92: 22 (1953).370-400: 24 (1955).42-66.

II

(in the translation mentioned above) by Lewis.s The remaining fragments (translated in

Lewis' GS IX) are culled from the Muntakhab siwiin al-hikma and al-Shahrastanf's Kiliib

ai-mila! ,va a!-niha!, each of which quote a body of sayings attributed to a "Greek sage,"

presumably drawing on the same source, the Siwiin a/-lzikJlla.6 Unsurprisingly, the two

sets of quotes overlap to some extent. A number of passages in GS 1-vm also overlap

with passages from Th.A, sometimes adding material to what has been preserved in Th.A.

Neither of these two texts overlap with OS, however.

I. 1.4 The common Arabic Plotinus source

It is clear from the style and paraphrastic nature of these three texts that they all represent

an original Arabic Plotinus source, which we may call *AP.7 It is equally clear that our

AP may lack a good deal of the material originally contained in *AP. Perhaps this

material included the entirety of Enn IV-VI, though the extent of the paraphrase must of

course remain a matter of conjecture. The consistency of style in what is left to us of the

paraphrase, on the other hand, makes it virtually certain that one person composed the

paraphrase in *AP, whether or not it was actually based directly on the Greek text of the

Enneads. Much of the scholarship on AP has been devoted to speculation as to the

identity of this author. The philosophical study of the text to be undertaken here will

provide us with important evidence towards answering this question. For now, I will

5 See Henry & Schwyzer ( 1959). xxxiii.6 The Mlmtakhab was originally attributed to al-Sijistani. which is why Rosenthal's translation

marks one set of sayings as al-Sijistanrs. See F.W. Zimmerman. ''The Origins of the So Called Theology ofAristotle:' in Kraye et al. (1986).208-9.

7 I follow Zimmermann in marking non-extant texts with an asterisk. For the stylistic unity of theArabic Plotinus text'i. see G. Endress. Proclus Arabus: Zwanzig Abschnitte aus der InstilUlio Theologica in

12

refer to the person who composed *AP as "the Adaptor.n It is worth noting that whatever

the Adaptor had in front of him while writing the paraphrase, we can be certain that his

source was ultimately based on Porphyry's edition of the Enneads. The restriction of AP

to the latter three Enneads suggests this, since these treatises were taken out of

chronologicaJ order and placed together by Porphyry. In addition, sometimes the

paraphrase passes immediately from one treatise to another preserving Porphyry's order.

For example, Th.A 1.20 parallels the ending of Enn IV.7 (Plotinus' 2nd treatise,

chronologically), and Th.A 1.21 parallels the first sentence of Enn IV.S (6th

chronologically). Even more convincingly, the beginning of Th.A II parallels the

beginning of Enn 1V.4 and thus preserves a sentence break introduced by Porphyry.8

What else can be said with certainty about *AP? [n short, not very much. On the

basis of stylistic similarities, Gerhard Endress has shown that the AP texts belong to the

body of translations and adaptations made by al-Kindi~s circle in Baghdad in the 9th

century.9 This includes the well-known adaptation of Proclus' Elements of Theology, the

Book on the Pure Good, known later in the West as the Liber de Causis. Since the

Prologue of Th.A infonns us that aI-KindT '''corrected (a~la!laf' the paraphrase, this

evidence confirms the testimony of the text itself. [t is tempting to think. on this basis,

that the Prologue may actually have prefaced *AP in its entirety, and not just Th.A.

Further evidence for this is provided by doctrinal and terminological parallels between the

Prologue and AP. indicating that it was written by the Adaptor or one of his collaborators

Arabischer Obersctzung (Beirut & Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag. 1973). 186. For the unity of DS and Th.A.see Kraus ( 1941). 292-294. For the unity of GS and Th.A. see Rosenthal (1952).465-468.

8 See Zimmermann (1986).228 fn.23. and H.-R. Schwyzer. "Die pseudoaristotelische Theologieund die PJotin-Ausgabe des Porphyrios:' Rheinisches Museum f"tir Philoloeie. 90 (1941),223.

13

(ai-KindY being one intriguing possibility). For example. the Prologue uses the

characteristic phrase "'Cause of causes" (ProI.14), and as we will see in chapter 2,

generally fits the philosophical profile of the Adaptor. One might then further speculate

that the attribution of Th.A to Aristotle would have been applied to the entirety of *AP.

In fact, though, there is reason to think that this misattribution only occurred later. lo At

any rate, we can proceed on the assumption that all the elements belonging to AP

mentioned above were originally united as a single work based either on Porphyrys

edition of the Enneads, or some later modification of that text. Further, the Arabic text

*AP \vas produced by al-KindTs circle~ though so far it is unclear whether this group was

also responsible for the original changes from the Greek text: the Arabic text could

simply be a translation of a paraphrase done in Syriac or Greek.

I. 1.5 The nature of the paraphrase

The paraphrastic nature of AP has been elegantly expressed with a device used in Lewis'

translation. Those parts of the text which are based directly on the Greek text of the

Enneads, as we have it today. are written in italics, and the rest in roman lettering.

Merely by skimming through Lewis' translation, one can thus get a sense of how closely

the Adaptor is sticking to Plotinus. own words: it is rare that he strays far from the task of

translating, but even more rare that he restricts himself to translation. As helpful as

Lewis' practice of italicizing direct quotation may be, it should also be said that the

italic/roman distinction can be quite misleading. Even in the case of "direct" translation,

of course. we might expect a fair amount of divergence between AP and the Enneads

simply because of the dissimilarity of Arabic and Greek. But comparison of Lewis'

translation to the original Arabic and Greek texts reveals that the italicized portions are

often only tangentially related to what Plotinus himself wrote. Take. for example. a

section of AP (OS 18) paralleling the first sentence of Enn V.9.6: Lewis translates "The

mind is all things and contains all t/zings: it does not, however, contain them as a

substrate to them. but as their maker, and it is to them as cause." with the entire sentence

in italics. [n the Greek we find ....Intellect is the beings (fa onta) and it has them all in it

not as in a place. but as having itself and being one with them." At the very least. the

passage in AP must be considered an "interpretation" of Plotinus. for example by

substituting the notion of "substrate (mawdit)" for "place (topOS):11 And in fact the

'translation" adds two ideas which are not in this passage of Plotinus at all. though

Plotinus might agree to them: the characterizations of intellect as maker and cause of all

things. This is far from an isolated example. Indeed one is hard pressed to find

significant portions of italic text that could be considered "neutral" translation.

At the same time. the roman passages in Lewis can often be seen as in fact related

to the Greek, even if they are not strict translation. For instance. consider this passage

from GS. The translation is mine. but [ retain Lewis' italics:

GS 1.32-36 [B 188]: The Greek Sage said: the first originated intellect does nothave a form. When it connects to the First Originator. it comes to have a form,because it is limited. For it is molded and comes to have a shape and a form. Asfor the First Originator. He has no form. because there is not something else aboveHim which He would wish to limit Him. and there is nothing below Him whichHe would want to limit Him. For He is without limit in every way. Therefore He

II A better word to translate topos would be maw!i.i", which has the same root -- perhaps thissuggested the "interpretation" to the Adaptor.

15

comes to not have a shape or a fomz. If the First Originator were[onn, theintellect u-,ould be some logos (kalima). And the intellect is not a logos, and thereis no logos in it, because it was originated without its Originator having anattribute or a fonn, so that he would have put that form and logos in it. For theintellect is not a logos nor is there a logos in it, but rather it makes the logos in thethings, because it has an attribute and a shape. For when it makes the thing, itimpresses the thing with some of its attributes. This impression is the active logosin the thing. It is necessary that the First [not] be multiple in any way. Othenvisethe multiplicity in Him would be attached to another One before Him. Rather, itis necessary that He is one, and pure good, and that He is the originator of onegood thing which has a form of goodness: either it is the impression from the FirstOriginator, or it is the impression of its impression.

Now consider the parallel Greek text:

Enn VI.7.17: Thus intellect is also a trace of that, but since intellect is fonn and inextension and multiplicity, that [i.e. the One] is shapeless and formless; for thus itmakes fonns. But if that were form, intellect would be logos. But the first mustnot be multiple in any way, for the multiplicity of it would depend on anotherbefore it.

Clearly Lewis is right that very little of the Arabic directly parallels Plotinus' Greek. But

it is just as clear that the views presented in the Arabic are directly inspired by the Greek

text, even as they are being modified. The use of the word kalima throughout the passage

is perhaps the most obvious indicator of this. Again, it is not unusual that non-italic

passages "parallel" the Greek in this looser sense. 12 Since both the italics and non-italics

in Lewis' translation can be misleading in this way, we will be well served by closely

comparing ail Arabic texts to the Greek of Plotinus. This is the procedure I will normally

follow in the following chapters.

We have seen, then, that the Adaptor is responsible for a great deal of material

"original" to AP, in other words not found directly in parallel passages of the Enneads.

16

This is true not only of the longer independent passages scattered through APt but also on

a sen tence-by-sentence basis throughout the paraphrastic translation. What. then, is the

relationship between the original parts of AP and the parts which are taken directly from

Plotinus? Or. to put the same problem another way, what was the Adaptor's attitude

towards the text of Plotinus he had before him, given that he saw fit to introduce non-

original elements into the text? There are four possible answers to this question:

(a) The simplest possibility is that the Adaptor is just trying to comment on Plotinus in

order to explain Plotinus' own meaning more clearly, or to bring out the structure of

Plotinus' often rather compressed arguments. On this view the paraphrase would be

chiefly an attempt at explication. The Adaptor is clearly engaged in this task at some

points in AP: he often explicitly states what he takes to be the premises of Plotinus'

arguments (as at Th.A ill.7). or formulates more clearly the position Plotinus is attacking

(as at Th.A IX. 14).

(b) Again. the Adaptor may see himself as a faithful expositor of Plotinus. but one who is

actually giving an interpretation of Plotinus -- a commentator of sorts. Commentary is of

course difficult to distinguish from mere explication, but also seems to fall within the

Adaptor's intent. At Th.A X.14. for instance, he tries to explain why Plotinus calls the

activity of soul an "image." Of course, even in cases where the Adaptor seems to be

making a good faith effort to explore Plotinus' thought more deeply. we may find that the

"commentary" actually diverges from the views supported in the Enneads.

12 To give only one other ex.ample. Th.A V.38-42 is, as Lewis indicates, verbally a digression fromits Greek source. Yet it is also based on that source. as an extension of Plotinus' discussion of the fact thatthe "why" of intellect is in intellect itself.

17

(c) The Adaptor may also introduce material that is extraneous to Plotinus, yet only

tenuously engaged with the ideas in the parallel text. Occasionally, for instance, we find

physical theories thrown into AP almost as an afterthought (such as the assertion at Th.A

VrII.IO that flesh is solidified blood), as well as more significant passages introducing

non-Plotinian philosophical doctrines.

(d) Finally. the Adaptor may actually take it upon himself to "correct" the doctrines

presented in the Enneads. While it seems true that, as EW. Zimmermann has remarked,

the Adaptor "endeavors, above all. to give a fair and sympathetic account of Plotinus," it

has not been sufficiently noticed that the Adaptor makes a number of intentional and

sometimes philosophically sophisticated changes in the paraphrase that can only be

described as corrective. There are passages where the Adaptor makes a point which is the

reverse of what Plotinus holds in the parallel Greek text. A banal example is Th.A

Vlli.25. which asserts that the "'last motion" of mind is like a line or homogeneous body,

which in fact is precisely what Plotinus denies (Enn VI.7.13). More commonly. additions

in the paraphrase make subtle but crucial modifications to the position Plotinus holds.

Many of the passages we will examine in the course of the coming chapters faIl into this

category. One of the most striking examples parallels the famous beginning of Enn V.2,

itself drawn from Plato' s Parmenides: '~heOne is all things and not one of them." In

Arabic we find: "The Pure One is the cause of all things, and is not like any of the things"

(Th.A X.I). This "translation" obviously does not differ from its source because the

Adaptor misread the Greek. Rather, the Adaptor has deliberately chosen a different

locution.

18

Such corrections raise the possibility that the Adaptor has set out to provide not

only access to Plotinus' philosophy, but also a philosophy of his own which both depends

on Plotinus and goes beyond it in various ways. Certainly, the paraphrase exhibits all

four of the above relationships to its source text; it is only after a thorough philosophical

analysis that we will be able to confidently say whether the Adaptor saw himself chiefly

as an expositor. a commentator, or a corrector of Plotinus. But these brief remarks on the

relationship between the paraphrase and the Greek original should already suggest that

the Adaptor was not merely. as has been suggested by some, a translator of questionable

erudition, given to fanciful enlargements on his source. On the contrary, as I hope the

following chapters will show. the Adaptor was a philosopher in his own right.

1.1.6 The order of Th.A and its place in *AP

One of the most obvious textual problems confronting a reader of AP is that the

paraphrase does not follow the order of the Enneads. A section from Enn VI may be

followed by one from IV, and so on. We might expect this in the case ofGS. The

"sayings" are. after all, clearly fragments left over from *AP, and it is not therefore

surprising that they might be out of order. One might extend this argument: since in fact

all three parts of AP are only portions of the original *AP, all three may well have lost

their original ordering while undergoing the vicissitudes of text transmission. This is in

fact the opinion of Zimmennann. the author of the most detailed discussion of the origins

of the Arabic Plotinus. 13 He remarks that "there is no rational plan behind the choice and

order of passages in" Th.A. and that the text follows a chaotic path back and forth

13 Zimmermann (1986). For more on his views. see section 1.2.1 below.

19

without rhyme or reason."lol In Zimmermann~s view, this is the result of a textual

catastrophe which resulted in the dispersion of loose fragments of the original *AP, two

of these sets of fragments being represented by GS and DS. A remaining set, which

Zimmermann describes as essentially a pile of loose leaves from *AP or a copy thereof,

were stitched together by a later editor and have come down to us as Th.A. Thus the

order of Th.A tells us nothing about the original order of *AP, and indeed it should be

presumed that *AP simply followed the order of the Enneads. 15 Now, I think

Zimmermann is right that some measure of textual disorder has befallen the text which

we now have as Th.A. This is particularly evident in mfmar vm, as we will see below.

However, [ would argue that the text of Th.A is not nearly as chaotic as Zimmermann

thinks. A reader predisposed to see some ordering principle in Th.A will, [suggest, find

the traces of such a principle, as well as traces of its disturbance.

[ can show this only with a specific discussion of the themes central to each of the

maylimir, which happily can serve at the same time as a survey of the issues addressed in

the text. This will also be of some use in laying the background for the following

chapters on the philosophical doctrines of AP. Two preliminary points are in order.

First. we should bear in mind that if the Adaptor was in fact trying to re-order the

I.tZimmermann(1986). 119. 125.15 His full views on the matter can be found in "Appendix IX: Codex *Kappa/*kappa and the

Editor of K:' Zimmermann (1986).152-162. Brietly. he argues as follows: if the manuscript confonting theeditor of the Th.A was just the "tattered remains" (152) of *AP. we should expect a number ofjarringbreaks in the text. Zimmermann explores the hypothesis that this editor set out to smooth over such breaks.adding a'i little as possible but enough to finish incomplete sentences, etc. Major breaks. some of them atleast. were bridged by adding the mfmur headings. This hypothesis. argues Zimmermann. is borne out by astudy of the bridging passages between "breaks." Without going into a detailed discussion ofZimmermann's arguments. it is wonh pointing out here that whatever was thus contributed by the editor ofthe Th.A could just as easily have been contributed by the Adaptor. That is. if the Adaptor produced a textwhich was out of order with the Enneads, he may have written his own "bridging" passages - I give anexample of this in what follows.

20

Enneads according to some plan, the possibilities open to him were restricted by what he

found in Plotinus (perhaps only Enneads IV-VI, and indeed not even necessarily all of

these treatises. since some have no parallel in AP). That is, he would be trying to impose

an order by selecting passages of the Enneads with given themes, which would give rise

to a rather loosely ordered compilation in any event. Second, it may help my argument to

provide an example in which the Adaptor has unquestionably not followed the text of the

Enneads. This example is the transition from DS 63 to DS 64. The text reads as follows:

DS 63 [B 171-172]: This is the first intelligible. And the first intellect is thatexisting in act. because it is not the intellect in potency, but rather it is in act. so itsintelligible is also in act.64: We direct our discourse to the intellect which is intellect, and it is that aboutwhich we said that it and the intelligibles are one thing, and it is the true intellect,and its intelligibles are true intelligibles...

The fonner passage parallels Enn V.3.5.40-42. the latter parallels V.3.6.28ff.. so that

there is a gap of 36 lines of Greek between the two. If AP followed the order of the

Enneads throughout. this gap would originally have been filled by further paraphrase.

which we no longer have. But if we direct our attention to the Greek paralleling 64, we

find the following: ..Let [the soul] therefore transpose (meta/heto) the image to the true

intellect..... The Adaptor has intentionally mistranslated metarhero. rendering the phrase

as "Let us direct our discourse..:' Thus he changes the sense of the verb to refer to the

shifting of the argument in his own paraphrase. This change allows him to write a

bridging passage between 63 and 64. so it could only have been written by the Adaptor

(since he was the one with access to the original Greek). Then it was the Adaptor who

smoothed the transition over this gap in the paraphrase, not a later editor. 16

16 Other examples in DS where the Adaptor is a more likely source for bridging passages are 93-4.97-8. and J49-150.

21

If this is right~ then the Adaptor was apparently selective in choosing which

passages he would paraphrase. This suggests that he may also have been willing to adjust

the order of the text as part of that same selectivity. Why would the Adaptor do this? We

can only speculate. but one obvious motive would be greater interest in some passages as

opposed to others. This kind of motivation seems to explain another skipped portion of

Greek between Th.A X.8l and 82. Having paraphrased up to Enn VI.7.6.19 or so (the

paraphrase is fairly loose). the Adaptor skips a stretch of Greek containing reference to

pagan demons and gods. and then picks up at Enn VI.7.7.l8. leaving out 35 lines of

Greek. Perhaps the Adaptor was embarrassed or simply uninterested in the references

Plotinus makes to daimolles; we cannot tell. What is quite suggestive. though. is the fact

that he resumes his paraphrase immediately following an admission by Plotinus that the

intervening passages were a digression from the main problem at hand: "in following

from one thing to another we have arrived at this. But our argument (logos) was in what

way sensation is of man and how those [i.e. noetic things] do not look towards birth:'

Taking note of Plotinus' cue, the Adaptor skipped those passages not germane to the

main line of the argument. This reinforces our sense of the Adaptor as a selective and

critical translator. and suggests that he may have been capable of imposing his own order

on Plotinus' text. Granting that this is a possibility. what order can be discerned in the

apparent confusion of Th.A?

!vlimar I: One of the simplest pieces of evidence for the Adaptor's role in altering the

order of his source text is the use of the word mfmar itself. The word is Syriac, which

22

suggests that a Syrian played some role in the formation of Th.A. 17 If this was the case.

two explanations are possible: first. that *AP was based on a Syriac version of the

Enneads; perhaps the paraphrase was already to be found in this version. Second. it was

used by the Syrian translator Ibn Na"ima al-Him~i.who has been identified as a likely

author for the paraphrase. The second possibility. it should be added. is rather more

persuasive than the first: Why would a translator charged with translating the entirety of

*AP from Syriac into Arabic hesitate to also translate the word mimar? At any rate. if

either of these is the correct explanation. then the division of *AP into the mayiimir took

place very early in the history of *AP, indeed at the point of its translation into Arabic at

the latest. 18 And the re-ordering of the text cannot. of course. have happened any later

than the addition of the mayiimir titles.

Consideration of the content of this first mimar provides. I think. a striking piece

of evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the order of Th.A is at least partially

intentional. After an introductory section describing the status of soul in the Plotinian

cosmos (Th.A 1.1-16), the paraphrase begins to introduce the views of "the Ancients" in

favor of the eternity and fall of soul. This is accomplished in three sections. 1.17-20 is

17 Although it does not prove this. because the word was used by non-Syrians occasionally in the9th century. See Zimmermann (1986). 151-2.

[~ Zimmermann (1986) argues (151 ) that the beginning of Th.A II shows that the use of the wordmlmar is a later addition to the text. It reads as follows: '"The first of the questions (masa'il) of the secondpart (maqiila) of the Book of Theology." Zimmermann thinks this derives from the title of the parallelGreek text. Enn IVA: "On Problems of the Soul. the Second (deuteron):' The later editor ofTh.A wouldthen have mistaken this for an announcement that the second chapter ofTh.A itself was now beginning. andaccordingly supplied the additional heading "al-mimar al-lhiinl:' and also the words "of the Book ofTheology" in the first sentence. The scenario Zimmermann describes is possible. but not necessary -- !:!im~fmay have used the word maqiila to refer to Plotinus' treatise. and reserved the word mimar for the chaptersof his own paraphrase. Nor is there any reason to think that the beginning of IVA could not have beendeliberately taken as the paraJleltext for the beginning ofTh.A II. Zimmermann's interpretation would befar more convincing if the phrase he attributes to !:!im~f looked like a title or heading. but "The first of thequestions..:' looks more like the beginning of the text itself. Then it may well have been Him~i. or whoeverthe Adaptor was. who added the mimar title.

23

based on Plotinus' argument that common religious practices confirm that the belief in

the immortality of the soul is widespread (the parallel Greek text is the end of Enn IV.7).

Th.A 1.21-43 continues on into Enn IV.8, and includes Plotinus' quotation of various

ancient philosophers (Heraclitus, Empedocles, Pythagoras, Plato), also arguing for the

sours higher status and fall into this world. Finally, a section independent of the Greek

text (1.44-58) concludes the first mlmar, attributing to Plato many of the basic

cosmological principles that will be defended in AP. The paraphrase draws heavily on

the doctrines of the Enneads in this section, even though it does not parallel any specific

text.

What. then, unites the content of Th.A I? In short, the mfmar presents a

doxography of the soul. Indeed, if one were looking for a long passage in the Enneads

which cites the opinions of others as to the nature of soul, one could hardly do better than

to choose the passages running from the end of 1V.7 until IV.8.1. And there is a good

reason why the Adaptor would do this: as we know from the Prologue to Th.A, the

Adaptor sees the paraphrase as either fitting into the Aristotelian corpus or actually

representing a work by Aristotle. But all the most important works of Aristotle begin

with a survey of the views of previous philosophers. The fact that mfmar I also offers a

doxography fits perfectly into the Prologue's presentation ofTh.A as an Aristotelian work

or a work in the spirit of Aristotle. It might be objected that, if this were the case, the first

milnar would surely cover more of Enn IV.8, which is throughout an explicit presentation

of the views of Plato. This objection is sharpened by the fact that much of this

presentation has been preserved in AP, as GS 1.47-91. This suggests that the fragment in

GS was originally attached to what is now the conclusion of mfmar J. This is certainly

24

possible, and in fact does not present a serious challenge to the hypothesis that his first

mTmar is intended as a doxography: the fragment in GS explicitly draws on Plato (1.47)

and returns, as does Plotinus, to mention Empedocles and Heraclitus (1.88-89). However,

I think it is more likely that mimar I did in fact have the form it does now. This is

suggested, first of all, by the fact that mfmar [ ends with a lengthy independent passage

which is clearly intended to replace the discussion of Plato's views in Enn IV.8 with a

summary of those views. Secondly, the fragment in GS seems to be designed as an

independent piece of text. It is introduced by the addition "Plato says..:' at GS 1.47,

which the Adaptor must have written (since it would require reference to the Greek to

know that Plato' s views are being presented). And it concludes with a passage that both

caps the argument of the section and depends on the Greek (which, again, means the

Adaptor wrote this conclusion). This strongly suggests that the GS fragment was

originally separated from mimar I, perhaps because it dealt with a more specific problem

than was appropriate for the introductory part of Th.A, or because it seemed to have

intellect and not soul as its primary theme. 19

Another objection against the idea that the first mimar is intended as the

beginning of a reorganized text is provided by Zimmermann. The first sentence of the

mima,. reads: "Now to our topic (amma ba'du): as it has been made clear and proven that

the soul is not bodily, and that it does not die, does not corrupt, and does not perish, but is

permanent and eternal, we wish to investigate about it also how it separates itself from the

1'1 As we will see below, the beginning of Th.A VII also seems to be originally written by theAdaptor as the start of the mfmar: this part of the paraphrase follows what is preserved in GS 47-91. TheAdaptor's procedure here. then. was to paraphrase the first part ofEnn IV.S as the end of his doxography. toIhen paraphrase most of the middle of IV.S as the free-standing fragment ofGS, and finally to take theconclusion of rv.s as a summary of Plotinus' own views to begin mimllr VII of Th.A.

25

intellectual world and descends to this sensible~ corporeal world and comes into this

gross, transient body falling under genesis and corruption." Zimmermann remarks:

'lhat's no way to begin an account. however unsystematic. of God. Mind~ Soul and

Nature,..:!O Yet there are other explanations for the fact that this opening seems to take

some tasks as already accomplished. Perhaps the Adaptor is referring to other works of

Aristotle or, indeed~ of the Ancients in general, in other words taking it to be a well-

known fact that the soul is incorporeal and immortal. And Zimmermann himself argues

that *AP was only part of a larger work (which he calls the *Theology) containing

paraphrases of other ancient philosophers~ like Alexander and Proclus. If this is the case,

then the reference could go back to earlier sections of this larger group of texts. Thus the

sentence does not disprove our current hypothesis. The worst that this passage actually

proves that the Adaptor is tolerant of redundancy, since he later paraphrases further

arguments for the soul's immortality.

Afimar U: If the first mlmar is designed to introduce the main topic of Th.A, that suggests

that the paraphrase will be concerned above all with soul. We have already mentioned

above that Th.A does in fact spend most of its time on the subject of soul. but does it do

so in an organized fashion? A possible clue is given at the outset of mlmar ill: "'As we

have established what introductory discussion was necessary about the intellect, the

universal soul, the rational soul. the brute soul and the growing and natural soul, and have

arranged the discussion of it in a natural order, following the course of nature, we now

discuss the explanation of the quiddity (miihiyya) of the substance of the soul.'~ The

~o Zimmermann (1986), 125.

26

question, then, is whether the first two mayiimir could be construed as giving such an

introductory discussion of the soul.

As we have already seen, mfmar I gave a doxography of the soul. The second

mJmar falls into two parts. The first, IT. I-56, raises the question of the soul's status while

joined to the intellectual world. Specifically, what does the soul remember of this lower

world when it is in the higher world? While this is the putative point of the section, in

fact 1-56 presents a comprehensive discussion of the relationship between soul and

intellect: the contrast between soul's thought and intellect's thought forms a basis for a

general contrast between the two hypostases. The section ends with a long independent

passage which concludes quite emphatically, asserting among other things that "the

quality (kaY.f(vya) of the soul and its state after its arrival in the intellectual world and its

return to if' has been described (IT.55). The second section, IT.57-99, discusses the way in

which soul comes to be in the body, and how it is related to the body and yet distinct from

it. The section ends with an equally explicit conclusion, also original in the paraphrase:

So it has been made clear and proven that the soul is not in the body according to any of

the ways which we have mentioned and made clear" (U.99). While the function of this

mJmar is not, perhaps, as obvious as that of the first, these two sections do seem to offer

an "introduction" to the question of soul by summarizing sours relation to the two worlds

between which soul resides. The discussion of sours bodily faculties also may provide

the basis for the claim in ill. I that the various "kinds" of soul have already been

discussed. 21

21 See Th.A 11.19-20.60.63-82.

27

J'vfimar Ill: This mfmar is devoted to refuting mistaken theories of soul. It falls into three

parts: a refutation of simple materialism ( I-53), of the Pythagorean theory that soul is the

harmony of the body (54-66), and of the Peripatetic theory that soul is the elltelechia of

body (67-76). The three parts are united, however, by the fact that the Adaptor (and to

some extent, Plotinus as well) sees the latter two possibilities as somewhat more

sophisticated varieties of materialism.:!2 Thus the entire mfmar follows naturally from the

concluding passage of mfmar n, cited above. Since Th.A ill falls entirely within Enn

IV.7 there is also little difficulty in assuming that it was a continuous part of *AP. The

only problem with its internal order is the passage m.27-33, which returns to paraphrase a

section of Greek text immediately before that paralleled by the beginning of ill. Even

stranger, ill.33 and IDA repeat the paraphrase of the same sentence of Greek. This latter

fact, I think, suggests that it was again the Adaptor who was responsible for this particular

bit of re-ordering, since a later editor would not have known to transfer the same passage

from UI.33 to IlIA. Only the person with the Greek text in front of him would have

known that this same passage both preceded the text paralleled in li.5 and followed that

paralleled in IlI.32. Why the Adaptor returned to paraphrase the passages from before his

own beginning is less clear, except that the parallel text for the beginning of In

(paralleling rOA-5) sounds more like the beginning of an argument: HThat the bodies can

do what they can by bodiless powers is clear from the following points (ek ronde delon):'

i'vfimar IV: The title of the fourth mfmar suggests that it will depart from the theme of

soul and begin to discuss the intellect: "On the Nobility of the World of Intellect and its

~l In chapter 3. we will see that the Adaptor is even willing to accept the doctrine of eme/echia aslong as it does not collapse into a form of materialism.

28

Beauty:' This parallels the title of Enn V.8 (Peri tOll noetou kallous), however, so it is

not necessarily the Adaptor's own notion of what will be the dominant topic of the

mT!nar. 23 And in fact, the portion of Enn IV.8 paralleled in Th.A IV deals not chiefly

with intellect, but with the beauty of the sensible world: the argument is chiefly

concerned to show that this sensible beauty has its source in a higher reality. Thus we are

in a sense still dealing with the rejection of materialism. One might also consider the

focus of Th.A IV to be the relationship of soul to intellect, since Plotinus' point is of

course to urge the soul to direct its attention towards the higher realities, and not the

sense-world (see, for instance, 1V.45). If this is the case, IV (soul's relationship to

intellect) makes a reasonable bridge between the discussion of materialism in ill (soul's

relationship with matter) and V (soul's relationship with the First Cause, as we shall see

shortly). Some evidence for this interpretation is provided by the fact that the last passage

paralleled in Th.A IV is the beginning of Enn V.8.4, after which Plotinus begins a

discussion of nOlls proper, which has little bearing on soul. The abrupt ending of IV,

however, may well indicate some kind of corruption in the text, even though the closing

section (IV.59) continues the trend of ending the mayiimir with a passage original in the..,~paraphrase.-

:!J The Adaptor routinely translated the titles he found in his source text - these titles sometimescome in the middle of a mfmar. Zimmermann takes the latter fact to argue against the idea that the Adaptoris responsible for the mayiimir headings. The point does not seem decisive. At most. it shows that theAdaptor translated what was in front of him unless he had a reason not to.

:!-t Furthermore. in the case ofTh.A JV.57 and Th.A X.137 we have another Greek passage whichis paralleled twice: ...and they see everything (ta pallta)... and themselves in others:' (V.8.4.3-4). Sincethe Greek is paralleled further after IV.57, it cannot be that this part of X was simply detatched from the endof IV. Rather it suggests that the Adaptor. having perhaps lost interest in Enn V.8 for the purposes of thefourth mimar. returned to the same point in the text later. re-paraphrased the same sentence. and continued\\lith the text which is preserved in the tenth mimal". This seems especially likely in light of the fact that thetwo paraphrases of this same Greek passage are somewhat different: only the Adaptor could have producedtwo different translations of the same Greek sentence.

29

Afimar V: It has already been suggested that Th.A IV-V constitutes an ascent up the

Plotinian hierarchy with reference to soul. The title itself bears out this hypothesis:

although it is based on the Greek title of Enn V1.7, it adds references to the Creator:

"Regarding the Creator (a/-barf) and the origination of what He originates, and the state

of things with Him." (In Greek: "How the Multiplicity of Fonns was Generated and on

the Good.") The parallel text surely inspired the Adaptor's characterization of the topic

under discussion: it begins by referring to '"the God (ho rheos)" sending souls into the

lower world. 25 The text continues by discussing whether origination entails discursive

thought. Again, we have the contrast between soul and the higher principles. In a brief

independent section the Adaptor indicates that he is still chiefly interested in soul: "If this

is the case, then we revert and say that the souls, when they were in their world before

descending into generation. were sensitive; except that their sense was an intellectual

sense'~ (Th.A V.I5). Five more lines of Arabic text on the soul intervene before the

Adaptor returns to his source text. Eventually the mimar turns to Plotinus' own topic,

which is actually the intellect, but shortly thereafter the text concludes with another,

apparently conclusory, independent passage (V.52). Certainly nothing in this mimar

forces us to see it as fitting into the order suggested so far. But neither is it an obvious

product of a chaotic manuscript, and V. I 5-16 suggests that it belongs in the Th.As

general plan of concentrating on the soul, however tangentially.

AlTmar VI: Perhaps the most puzzling mfmar for anyone trying to reconstruct a rational

order to Th.A is the sixth. Paralleling Enn [VA, it deals with the relation of stars to

25 Though. typicaJly. the Adaptor gives the paraphrase a much more monotheistic cast. changing"tht: God or some god (ho theos e l/zeos lis)" to "the First Creator."

30

things in the rest of the sense world, and with the question of how magic works. But VI

is not obviously out of place in the order suggested thus far: it is drawn from one of the

treatises on "Problems of the Soul,n and in fact the issues of the stars and magic are

relevant to the Th.As conception of soul. It may be that the Adaptor, having first given

an introduction to the soul. then a discussion of its nature. and then treatments of its

relation to intellect and God. is now ready to deal with more specific problems relating to

soul. But just as likely, the mimar is an indication of the some textual corruption. As we

will see, some amount of corruption must be allowed to explain the present state of Th.A.

This is of course compatible with the thesis of intentional ordering defended thus far: the

presence of some textual disruption does not mean that all departures from the order of

the Enneads are fortuitous.

}vfimar VII: As the title (original in the paraphrase) announces. the seventh mfmar returns

to the topic of sours nature. The Greek text covered by this mimar is the end of Enn

IV.8: the same treatise which was the source for much of the doxography in mfmar I. The

fact that the ending of mimor VII parallels the end of IV.8 suggests an original break in

the text. and the beginning of VII is also suggestive. It starts just at the point where

Plotinus is turning from his discussion of Plato's theory of soul to his own concluding

comments: "Then [the soul], despite being divine and from a place above, comes inside

the body and, [despite] being the lowest god. descends on its own (alilexolls;o) and

because of its power and thus puts in order what is after this." If it is true that the

Adaptor left the middle parts of Enn IV.8 out of his doxography. he may have returned to

finish the last part of the text in this separate mfmar as a summary of Plotinus' own views

31

on the same subject.26 It is less clear, however, why this mfmar would come so late in

Th.A. Given that this section of the Enneads is concerned mostly with the fall of soul

into body and what causes that fall, the Adaptor could have considered it as addressing a

more sped fie point. On the basis of mfmar VI. we have already hypothesized that these

later mayamir are devoted to particular problems dealing with soul. This part of the

paraphrase, then, may bear out that hypothesis. We will see shortly that mimar IX does

so as well.

l\timar VII/: The eighth mfmar, among the longest in Th.A, is clearly marked by textual

corruption. As Zimmermann has remarked. the beginning seems to have followed X.136

in the original paraphrase, so that the heading would be the work of a later editor.27 The

topic in the first part of vm (I-52), furthermore, does not seem to fit weB with a set of

texts on the soul. Rather, the comparison pursued here (paralleling Enn VI.7) is between

the sensible and intellectual worlds.28 After the first part of vrn, the textual chaos

becomes even more obvious: Vrn.53 is prefaced by the note: ""This section (bab) had no

heading (ra's) in the copy,',29 This means that Vrn.53ff. need not have originally

folIowed Vm.I-52, and indeed probably did not. The second part of VIII, at any rate,

begins with a very long independent passage discussing the soul's potentiality (52-66),

~6 See fn.18 above.'17 Zimmermann (1986). 160-1.'1S It may be relevant that the paraphrase breaks offjust before Enn VI.7.15. where Plotinus turns

from discussing !lOllS proper to the relationship between flotlS and the One. I will argue below that Th.A isthe result of an attempt on the part of the Adaptor to present a group of texts concentrating on soul. and thatother remains of *AP come from sections devoted to intellect and God. The break after VIII.52 is evidence.though slight evidence. that the Adaptor also separated texts dealing with llOUS from texts dealing with theFirst Principle. A very similar break occurs after VIII. 143. which parallels EnnV.I.6. Again. in whatfollows Plotinus shifts his focus to the One. leaving the topic of flOIlS behind. Here the division is not soclear. however: some of the discussion bearing on the One (in particular. how it is able to generate nOils) isretained before the paraphra'ie breaks off.

32

and then resumes the paraphrase of the treatise (Enn IV.4) dealt with in the first part of

mimar II. If it is true that Th.A was a collection of texts on the soul. this may well have

been part of it. Given considerations that I will note below (section 4.1.2), it seems

possible (as Zimmermann would also have to maintain) that this section originally

followed Th.A II.56. Against this interpretation, one might point out the emphatic

concluding tone of II.56, which does not seem a natural segue into the continued

arguments of Vrn.52ff, though of course this final sentence could have been written by a

later editor. At any rate, it seems safe enough to conclude that Vm.53-97 represents a

fragment from the paraphrase dealing with soul, which was corrupted and mixed with

other texts to form mimar VID. (The end of this section. Vm.97, is sufficiently abrupt

that it seems unlikely to have been the original conclusion for this part of the paraphrase.)

What follows in VIII tends to support this hypothesis. It is a long section (98-143) on the

One and intellect that overlaps with parts of GS. The same (with the exception of overlap

with GS) is true of the remainder of vm (144-189). This last section could have

belonged to a part of AP devoted to intellect since, as pointed out in the concluding

passage (VIn. J89), it concentrates on the beauty of the noetic world.

Allmar IX: After the chaos of vm, the ninth mimar seems to constitute a return to the

familiar concerns of Th.A. Again. the mima,. falls into two parts: the first (1-63) is drawn

from Enn IV.7 and argues for the immortality of the soul. This section seems to be

designed as a self-contained chapter ofTh.A: it begins with the first sentence of IV.7 and

ends with an original conclusion of the kind familiar from previous mayiimir.30 The

19 See p. 99. fn.9 in Badawi"(1955)..~O And again. lhere is a shift in the argument immediately following in Plotinus.

33

placement of mfmar lX sorts well with the exploration of specific problems related to

soul in VI and VII (and perhaps Vill.53-97). Having shown early in Th.A that the soul is

not a body, the Adaptor here proves on the basis of this that the soul is immortal.

The second part (64-90), paralleling Enn V.1, is another matter. It begins with the

heading "Some odd points," and the evidence of the text does not seem to speak strongly

for or against including it in an original mfmar IX. The section does begin with a one

sentence introduction, but this can easily be taken as a later addition. The closing

sentence does not have the emphatic finality of some we have seen, but it parallels the

end of V.I and so probably does preserve an original break in the text. This latter fact is

the most persuasive reason to think the second part of IX belongs where it is, attached to

the first part. A reference to materialism added by the Adaptor in 1X.78 also helps to

unite the two parts. Still, it may well be that the second part of IX was only attached to

the first part later, as the heading seems to suggest.31

Afimar X: The final mlmar of Th.A, according to its title, deals with "The First Cause and

the Things that Originate From It." This is based on the title of Enn V.2 C'On the Genesis

and Order of Those After the First"), though the Arabic title puts more emphasis on the

First itself as the topic. In fact, turning to the text we find that the first section of X (1-

33) deals largely with intellect and soul, and their relation to the higher principles,

especially the One. In other words, as one might suspect, the Greek title represents the

content of the section more accurately. The section paraIIels the entirety of the short

.'1 The other possible interpretation of the heading is that the Adaptor wrote it to indicate that hewas changing topic between 63 and 64. and that the lalter portion simply covers points that did not fit easilyinto any other pan of *Th.A.

34

treatise V.2, and ends with an original concluding passage of the sort now familiar to us

(31-33).

In section two of mfmar X (34-136), drawn from Enn VI.7, the text focuses on the

status of things as Forms in the intellect, and in particular on the nature of man in the

noetic realm. Or, as it is put at X.78ff., the chief question is the relationship between "the

man of soul" and "the man of intellect." Shortly thereafter comes the gap (X.81-2) which

we suggested above is a sure sign of selective paraphrase on the part of the Adaptor. The

ending of this second section is quite abrupt, and no wonder: for this is the missing

paraphrase from before the first section of mfmar VID. The clear implication is that

X.34-136 preceded VID.I-5 I in the text. If it is the case, as we argued above, that vm.l-

51 was not part of the original order of Th.A, then neither was X.34-136. The same

argument would hold for the third and final section of X (137-194), which also focuses on

the intellectual realm. All this raises the question of how much, if any, of the last mfmar

could have fit into an intentionally ordered text whose purpose was to present a doctrine

of the soul. Certainly, everything following X.34 is the product of textual corruption. It

is possible that the first section of the mfmar, however, was designed as a concluding

discussion of the soul's relation to the upper principles, or perhaps even as a bridge

between the part of *AP dealing with soul and that dealing with intellect and the One.

But given the title of mfmar X, I am inclined to think that the entirety of X must be

excluded from a work chiefly dealing with soul.

Before drawing any further conclusions, let us summarize the themes of the

mayiimir:

35

I: A doxography on the topic of soul.

II: I-56 discusses relation of soul to intellect; 57-99 the relation of soul to body.

III: Refutation of materialism regarding soul.

IV: Continuation of rejection of materialism; the relation of soul to intellect.

V: The First Principle, with a possible focus on sours relation to that Principle.

VI: The stars and magic. The first of a series of specific problems regarding soul?

VII: Fall of the soul.

VIII: Obviously corrupt. The second section (53-97) is germane to soul.

IX: Immortality of the soul. The second section (64-90) was probably not originally

attached.

X: Obviously corrupt. The first section (1-33) could be a conclusion to the paraphrase on

soul.

Far from the obvious chaos Zimmermann finds in Th.A, we have here the traces

of a possible organization for the text. The most striking features of this are the

apparently doxographic function of mimar I, the focus throughout almost the entire text

on soul, and the progression of the text from the nature of soul to its relation to the other

hypostases of the Plotinian cosmos, followed perhaps by sections dealing with more

specific problems regarding soul. It is also worth noting that the mayiimir most difficult

to reconcile with this scheme are vm and X, which are certainly corrupt and therefore no

reliable indicator of the original state of Th.A.32 Against Zimmermann's hypothesis that

Th .A was pieced together from a pile of loose parts of *AP, then, I would suggest the

~2 It may also be significant that these two mayiimir differ strikingly in length from the other eight.being roughly twice as long as most of the others. This alone suggests that they may have been altered bythe addition of extraneous material from elsewhere in *AP.

36

following as a possible history of the text. Confronted with a text of the Enneads or, very

likely, the second half thereof (Enn IV-VI), the Adaptor set out to reorganize the text

according to the Plotinian hierarchy. The entire resulting text was the original *AP, and

since it included the Prologue the title of .heology" probably applied to this complete

text. One part of *AP. which we can call *Th.A, was intended to deal with soul. and

most of the current Th.A consists of parts of this text. Given the likelihood that the word

'mtmar' dates from very early in the fonnative history ofTh,A, we may hypothesize that

*Th.A was divided by the Adaptor into sections that he called mayiimir. Other portions

of *AP were devoted to the intellect and the First Principle (it is unclear whether intellect

was dealt with separately from the One). Given the focus of OS on these higher

principles, it derives from these other portions. This, incidentally, provides us with an

excellent explanation for why Th.A and OS do not overlap. As for GS, it is difficult to

say more than that it represents fragments from various parts of *AP.33 The entire text

*AP did undergo a process of serious corruption, as Zimmermann argues, yet this

corruption was not as complete as he supposes. It was, however, disruptive enough to

split up the corpus into three different texts. A later editor in the possession of *Th.A (or

parts of it) and other fragments from *AP affixed the fragments to *Th.A, perhaps using

the Adaptors word mfmar when re-titling the confused results (namely Th.A vrn and X).

It is of course a matter of speculation to try to separate the re-orderings of the Adaptor

33 Two things are worth noting in passing about GS. despite its obviously fragmentary nature. Thefirst is that these fragments may also preserve some intentional re-ordering by the Adaptor. For example.the section GS 1I.59ff, which is drawn from Enn IV.4. deals with the universal soul. and follows a section(GS 11.45-58) which has the same theme. but is taken from Enn IV.9. The two sections also resonate withone another through their use of the signet-ring metaphor (GS 11.53 and 61 ). Another example is thetransition from GS 72-3: the parallel passages are separated by over 100 lines of Greek. but the two parts ofthe paraphrase are united by their use of the same example of light's presence in air. The second is that

37

from those of the editor of Th.A, but cenainly the more jarring and nonsensical junctures

(which are mostly in the later parts of Th.A) are the work of this editor. In most cases, it

seems, the editor ofTh.A did far less editing than even Zimmermann supposed, which is

why some breaks in the text are completely abrupt or marked by admissions of textual

confusion.

All this tends to cast doubt on, or at least force us to examine more critically, the

views of Zimmermann on the origins of Th.A. Yet there are also a variety of points to be

raised against our revised history. Why, for instance, do the mfmar labels preface the

corrupt parts ofTh.A, and why don't they appear at all in other parts of AP? The former

could be ascribed to the editor of Th.A, as just suggested, and the latter could be a

combination of bad luck (the titles have been lost) or the fact that the Adaptor only used

the word in his section on the soul. Still, the fact is awkward. Further, if the ordering

principle is as we have described, then why doesn't the Adaptor make it more explicit?

The only explicit suggestion of a master plan for the text is at the end of the Prologue, and

its support for our thesis is to some extent ambiguous.34 Surely, if the Adaptor had gone

to the trouble to rearrange pans of the Enneads into Th.A, he would have drawn attention

to the fact more conspicuously. Another hypothesis, taking these last points into account,

would be that the Adaptor was not the person who rearranged *AP into a section on soul.

That is, there could be three levels of "adaptation": (I) the Adaptor himself, who wrote a

paraphrase of the last three Enneads, (2) a first editor who separated the texts according to

there are fragments in GS which deal with soul: given the corruption in the later parts of Th.A. it is possiblethat these fragments were originally in the pan of *AP dealing with soul. that is, in *Th.A.

:4 If the Prologue does support my interpretation. then it suggests that the pans of *AP dealingwith the intellect and the One were originally before *Th.A. not after it. But the opposite is suggested by

38

topic. (3) a final editor responsible for our Th.A, who patched up a corrupted copy of the

work of editor (2). But given that the re-ordering in the paraphrase can sometimes be

attributed with confidence to the Adaptor. as I have argued above, I think this hypothesis

is exceedingly unlikely. If there was an intentional re-ordering of the text, it was almost

certainly the Adaptor who did it.

This brings us back to what is, for the purposes of this study, the most important

lesson of our discussion of the order of AP. The Adaptor mayor may not have been the

one who seriously changed the sequence of the Plotinian texts in the paraphrase. But

several pieces of evidence adduced above make it clear that he was to some extent

selective in choosing what to paraphrase: we saw at least two places where he was almost

certainly responsible for a "gap" in what was paraphrased.35 This has important

implications for our analysis of the philosophy of AP, because it shows that the Adaptor

was a critical reader of Plotinus. We will see many examples in the following chapters

that show his philosophically critical attitude. The evidence thus far demonstrates the

extent to which this attitude governed the entire project of rendering Plotinus into Arabic.

1.2 The origins of AP

As remarked above. the bulk of research on the Arabic Plotinus is devoted to determining

the origins of AP, and the possible sources on which the Adaptor drew in composing it.

Below I discuss some of the most important contributions and outstanding questions

regarding AP's history and the influences that may be detected in it. Foremost among

the fact that it is the latter parts of Th.A which are seriously corrupted. On the other hand. perhaps the orderof topics in the Prologue simply reflects the importance of the topics. not their order in the text.

3