Maximus of Tire

The beginning of the lectures of Maximus von Tire in the oldest manuscript, Paris, National Library, gr. 1962,
fol. 1 recto (9th century)

Maximus of Tire ( Greek  Μάξιμος Τύριος ) was an ancient orator and philosopher . He lived in the late 2nd century. As a philosopher he was a Middle Platonist , as a speaker he is counted to the "Second Sophistic ".

Life

Little is known about the life of Maximus. He came from the city of Tire in the province of Syria or at least had his center of life there. At the time of Emperor Commodus (180-192) he traveled to Rome and gave lectures there. At that time he had already made a name for himself as a speaker.

Research is considering identifying him with Cassius Maximus, to whom Artemidor von Daldis dedicated the first three books of a treatise on the interpretation of dreams. The possibility is also being considered that Lukian means Maximos by an unnamed "Sidonian" (citizen of the Syrian city of Sidon ), about whom he mockingly tells an anecdote in his biography of Demonax . The Sidonian, a sophist who boasted a broad knowledge of different philosophical directions, is said to have achieved a reputation as a teacher in Athens. Both identifications are controversial.

Works

A collection of 41 lectures ( dialéxeis ) on philosophical and religious questions has been preserved. The authenticity of the handwritten titles of the individual lectures is controversial; in some cases they only describe the content imprecisely, which is used as an argument against their authenticity. The length of the lectures varied between twenty minutes and half an hour. First and foremost, Maximos addressed young people whom he wanted to introduce to philosophy. The lectures were designed for an educated audience, but the listeners were not philosophers; Maximos expressed himself in a generally understandable manner and avoided technical terminology. As a starting point for discussing a question, he liked to choose an example from history, mythology or a fable, in which he was able to benefit from his unusual erudition. Sometimes he strayed a lot from the subject. Occasionally one lecture served to defend a point of view that was rejected in another lecture.

Most of the topics covered belong to the field of ethics; only a few lectures are mainly concerned with other areas such as the theory of gods, the theory of nature, the science of the soul and epistemology . The logic is completely ignored. The traditional titles include: "Whether to put statues on gods"; "Whether Socrates acted right when he did not defend himself"; “Who had a better idea of ​​the gods, the poets or the philosophers?”; “Whether to pray”; “What is Science?”; “Whether the findings are memories”; “Whether one should repay the wrongdoing one”; "Whether, if there is divination, something is in our power"; "That the contemplative way of life is better than the active one"; "Whether Plato rightly removed Homer from the state"; “What is the love art of Socrates?”; “What is the goal of philosophy?”; "Whether the cynic life is preferable"; “Whether one becomes good by divine providence”; "If God does the good, where do the evils come from?"

The Maximos style shows characteristics of Asianism in the rhythm of sentences , but in terms of vocabulary, morphology and syntax it is based on Atticism . Therefore he is considered a moderate atticist. He speaks to his audience directly, sprinkles in exclamations, formulas and rhetorical questions and pays attention to a lively expression, which also includes correcting himself or adding something afterwards when speaking. The accumulation of metaphors as well as mythological and historical references and quotes from the classics is striking.

Teaching

In his philosophical convictions Maximus proves himself to be a Platonist; He explicitly refers to Plato several times, often quotes him and also makes many allusions to Plato's works. His metaphysics , his theory of the soul and his ethics are platonic. In politics, too, he shares Plato's attitude, as shown by his praise for the ideal Platonic state and his criticism of democracy. In keeping with the tradition of Platonism, he turns against the sophists and polemicises against Epicurus . In addition, however, the influence of Aristotelianism , Cynicism and, above all, the Stoa can also be seen in his remarks . Openness to stoic ideas was widespread among the Middle Platonists and is therefore not noticeable. Maximos knows the concepts and ideas developed in other philosophical directions and resorts to them if necessary, but adheres to the fundamental teachings of Platonism. Hence it is incorrect to call him an eclectic . He likes to refer to the example of Socrates, who was venerated in the Platonic as well as in the Stoic and Cynic tradition.

He is not an independent thinker; his concern is the promotion of a philosophical way of life through the spoken word. He does not discuss the questions systematically, but speaks in a preaching-rhetorical manner. The oral presentation, which is apparently subject to a time limit, results in the requirement of a relatively brief, summarizing presentation of the material. This circumstance may have contributed to the fact that some lines of thought are not worked out carefully and without contradictions. A revision for the purpose of publication in writing does not seem to have taken place.

In the first lecture, Maximos compares the philosopher with an actor. Just as actors take on different roles and musicians have to master several keys, the philosopher should also be able to shape his speech “polyphonic and diverse” by taking into account the different needs of his listeners. At the same time, it shows that it does justice to the diversity and variability of life and is able to adapt flexibly to the requirements of different circumstances.

Maximos shares the conviction widespread in ancient Platonic circles that in reality there are not different competing philosophical systems, but only one authentic philosophy that forms a self-contained unit and correctly describes reality. In his view, all schools of philosophy, with the exception of the Epicureans , in which he sees no real philosophers, are based on this one truth and just express it differently. Among the most important exponents of the authentic doctrine of wisdom Maximus counts alongside Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras and the Cynic Diogenes von Sinope as well as Homer, whose poetry is one of his favorite subjects. He does not take some of Homer's statements in the literal sense, but rather interprets them allegorically . Ethical aspects are in the foreground in his interpretation of Homer; The hero Odysseus in particular appears as a model of virtue. In early poetry, to which he also counts Orphic poetry in addition to the works of Homer and Hesiod , Maximos sees a legitimate way of knowing reality; for him it is on an equal footing with philosophy. Poetry uses mythical images to express what philosophy formulates with “bare words”; Philosophers like Aristotle and Chrysippus are no smarter than Homer and Hesiod. The old poetry is divinely inspired, Homer was taught by Apollo and the muses and is thus a mediator between gods and humans. With his extraordinary esteem for Homer, Maximos comes in contradiction to Plato's attitude, who excludes the poets from his ideal state and criticizes Homer in particular. Here Maximos takes a balancing stance. His allegorical interpretation of Homer enables him to defuse the contrast between Plato and Homer. He does not defend Homer against Plato, but tries to excuse Plato's prohibition of reading Homer in the ideal state.

Maximos is a follower of a pessimistic cultural philosophy widespread in antiquity, which assumes that the history of mankind is marked by a process of decline; the refinement of civilization is counted as degeneration. This general decline also affects philosophy. There it manifests itself in the division of the originally uniform and absolutely true teaching into different doctrinal opinions of rival schools. In particular, Maximus regards the emergence of Epicureanism as a phenomenon of decline. The logical consequence of this is that the oldest wisdom teachings must be the best. Accordingly, Maximos even places Homer's wisdom above that of Plato and believes that Plato learned even more from Homer than from Socrates. The old poets had used a veiled, only suggestive mode of expression, with which they would have stimulated the search for truth; In the present decay, however, there is an improper directness.

reception

Antiquity, Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

After his death Maximos was apparently quickly forgotten; There is no evidence or evidence of the reception of his work from the following three centuries. In the 10th century Maximos was honored with a brief entry in the Suda , a Byzantine encyclopedia, which is based on information in the only fragmentary dictionary of authors by the late antique historian and literary historian Hesychios von Miletus . The citation in Hesychios' lexicon, which dates from the 6th century, is the only clear trace of an ancient Maximos reception.

The handwritten tradition does not begin until the second half of the 9th century. At that time the oldest surviving codex was made in Constantinople , on which the entire later text tradition depends. Today it is in the French National Library (Parisinus Graecus 1962).

Preface by Cosimo de 'Pazzi to his Latin translation of the lectures of Maximus in the dedication copy for Pope Julius II. Manuscript Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 2196, fol. 1r (early 16th century). Cosimo is shown in the miniature.

After the creation of the oldest manuscript in Byzantium, interest in Maximos seems to have died out again, as further traces only appear in the late Middle Ages: one manuscript from the second half of the 13th century and six from the 14th century. The statesman and scholar Theodoros Metochites (1270-1332) knew and used the lectures . A pupil of Metochites, Nikephoros Gregoras , was also interested in Maximus; he put together excerpts from the lectures .

In the 15th century several copies came to Italy, where the lectures were noticed by humanists . Marsilio Ficino made use of this source in his commentary on Plato's Symposium . Cristoforo Landino regarded Maximos as a literary model; In his Disputationes Camaldulenses he used the statements of the ancient speaker on active and contemplative life (15th and 16th lecture). Angelo Poliziano was particularly interested in Maximos' portrayal of the Socratic conception of love; he quoted him in several of his works, especially in his Enarratio in Sapphus epistolam . Zanobi Acciaiuoli , who made numerous conjectures , tried to criticize the text . North of the Alps, Johannes Reuchlin was the first humanist to study Maximos and to consult the lectures ; In 1488 he published a translation of the 41st lecture into Latin. A Latin translation of the entire collection was not available until the early 16th century; it was made by Cosimo de 'Pazzi (Cosmus Paccius), Archbishop of Florence, and printed in Rome in 1517. In his foreword, Cosimo praised Maximos' literary achievement. Soon after the Latin translation appeared, it was revised by Beatus Rhenanus ; his version was published by Johannes Frobenius in Basel in 1519 . It was not until 1557 that the first edition of the Greek text was printed; she appeared in Paris with Henricus Stephanus .

The first complete French translation was published in 1617, and the first German translation by Christian Tobias Damm in 1749 (2nd edition Berlin 1764). A full English translation was only available from 1804; it came from the Platonist Thomas Taylor .

The interest in the lectures in the early modern period related primarily to their value as a cultural-historical source, but occasionally the philosophical content was also considered; Hugo Grotius dealt with Maximos' position on fate and free will and found in the eleventh lecture material that he could use in the context of his apologetics for the treatment of natural theology . The Platonist Ralph Cudworth also referred to the lectures . In the literature on poetics , Maximos has been cited as an authority for making arguments to justify Homer against philosophical criticism. The writer Robert Burton used the lectures for his famous work Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).

In 1774–1775 a new edition of the lectures was published by Johann Jacob Reiske . In the foreword, Reiske rated Maximos' performance very negatively, which initiated a lasting change in the assessment of the lectures .

Modern

In the modern age, interest in Maximos is largely limited to research in the field of antiquity; there has hardly been any broader reception. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff said that Maximos was “in his essence a rhetorician”, and commented: “His rhetoric rattles, but sometimes has no small effects.” Eduard Nord's judgment was less favorable ; he saw in Maximos a "frivolous fellow" who had fought the sophists but was "himself a sophist through and through"; his style is "very polished". Also Albin Lesky noted that talks were "crafted in effect, written in the style mannered papers". In the more recent research, however, Maximos' literary achievement is assessed more positively. Otto and Eva Schönberger write that there are “approaches to get over the often repeated prejudices of earlier philologists”, that the lectures are “excellently structured” and that their end is “always an effective climax”.

Text editions and translations

• George Leonidas Koniaris (ed.): Maximus Tyrius, Philosophumena - ΔΙΑΛΕΞΕΙΣ. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1995, ISBN 3-11-012833-0 (critical edition)
• Otto Schönberger , Eva Schönberger (translator): Maximos von Tyros, philosophical lectures . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2090-1
• Michael B. Trapp (Ed.): Maximus Tyrius, Dissertationes . Teubner, Stuttgart and Leipzig 1994, ISBN 3-8154-1535-7 (critical edition)

literature

Overview representations

• Javier Campos Daroca, Juan Luis López Cruces: Maxime de Tyr . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, CNRS, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 324-348
• Irmgard Männlein-Robert : Maximus of Tire. In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Hrsg.): Philosophy of the imperial era and late antiquity (= outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity. Volume 5/1). Schwabe, Basel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7965-3698-4 , pp. 659–664, 703 f.

Investigations

• Jacques Puiggali: Etude sur les dialexeis de Maxime de Tyr, conférencier platonicien du IIème siècle . Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses, Lille 1983, ISBN 2-7295-0017-0
• Michael B. Trapp: Studies in Maximus of Tire. A second-century philosophical orator and his Nachleben, AD 200-1850 . Dissertation (University of Oxford), Oxford 1986
• Frédéric Fauquier, Brigitte Pérez-Jean (ed.):  Maxime de Tyr, entre rhetorique et philosophie au II ^e  siècle de notre ère. Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, Montpellier 2016,  ISBN 978-2-36781-214-4
• Panagiota Daouti:  Homère et Platon chez Maxime de Tyr.  Montpellier 2015 (Dissertation Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier III and Université Capodistria d 'Athènes; online )

Web links

• The Dissertations of Maximus Tyrius (English translation by Thomas Taylor )

Remarks

1. ↑ Jacques Puiggali advocates identification: Etude sur les dialexeis de Maxime de Tyr, conférencier platonicien du IIème siècle , Lille 1983, p. 11 f., Michael B. Trapp, on the other hand, expresses himself in: Philosophical Sermons: The 'Dialexeis' of Maximus of Tire . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World (ANRW), Vol. II 34.3, Berlin 1997, S. 1945–1976, here: S. 1946 Note 1. See also Javier Campos Daroca, Juan Luis López Cruces: Maxime de Tyr . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 324-348, here: 326 f.
2. ↑ Lukian, Demonax 14.
3. ↑ See also George Leonidas Koniaris: On Maximus of Tire: Zetemata (I) . In: Classical Antiquity 1, 1982, pp. 87–121, here: 102–110 (for authenticity) and Michael B. Trapp: Maximus of Tire, The Philosophical Orations , Oxford 1997, p. XV, LVIII (against authenticity ).
4. ↑ On the age of the audience, see George Leonidas Koniaris: On Maximus of Tire: Zetemata (I) . In: Classical Antiquity 1, 1982, pp. 87–121, here: 113 f .; Michael B. Trapp: Maximus of Tire, The Philosophical Orations , Oxford 1997, pp. XX – XXII.
5. ↑ On the style, see Otto Schönberger, Eva Schönberger (translator): Maximos von Tyros, Philosophical lectures , Würzburg 2001, p. 12 f .; Javier Campos Daroca, Juan Luis López Cruces: Maxime de Tyr . In: Richard Goulet (Ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 324–348, here: 340.
6. ↑ Michael B. Trapp: Philosophical Sermons: The 'Dialexeis' of Maximus of Tire . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World (ANRW), Vol. II 34.3, Berlin 1997, pp. 1945–1976, here: 1948; Michael B. Trapp: Maximus of Tire, The Philosophical Orations , Oxford 1997, pp. XXVIII – XXX.
7. ^ On the Socrates reception of Maximos see Klaus Döring : Exemplum Socratis , Wiesbaden 1979, pp. 130-138.
8. ↑ See for example Vittorio Fazzo: La giustificazione delle immagini Religose dalla tarda antichità al Cristianesimo , Vol. 1, Napoli 1977, pp. 140-142, 149.
9. ↑ See also George Leonidas Koniaris: On Maximus of Tire: Zetemata (II) . In: Classical Antiquity 2, 1983, pp. 212-250, here: 213-225.
10. ↑ Jan Fredrik Kindstrand: Homer in the Second Sophistic , Uppsala 1973, pp. 45–71.
11. ↑ Jan Fredrik Kindstrand: Homer in the Second Sophistic , Uppsala 1973, p. 163 ff.
12. ↑ Jan Fredrik Kindstrand: Homer in the Second Sophistic , Uppsala 1973, pp. 187-189; Javier Campos Daroca, Juan Luis López Cruces: Maxime de Tyr et la voix du philosophe . In: Philosophy antique 6, 2006, pp. 81-105.
13. ↑ Javier Campos Daroca, Juan Luis López Cruces: Maxime de Tyr . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 324–348, here: 344–346; Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Platonism in antiquity , Vol. 7.1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2008, pp. 290-294.
14. ↑ Karin Hult (Ed.): Theodore Metochites on Ancient Authors and Philosophy , Göteborg 2002, p. 86 f. and note 6, pp. 162 f .; Börje Bydén: Theodore Metochites' Stoicheiosis astronomike and the Study of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in Early Palaiologan Byzantium , Göteborg 2003, pp. 330–334.
15. ↑ Michael B. Trapp: Maximus of Tire, The Philosophical Orations , Oxford 1997, p. LXIV f.
16. ^ Maximi Tyrii philosophi Platonici Sermones e Graeca in Latinam linguam versi Cosmo Paccio interprete , Basel 1519 ( digitized version of the University and State Library of Düsseldorf ).
17. ↑ George Leonidas Koniaris: On Maximus of Tire: Zetemata (I) . In: Classical Antiquity 1, 1982, pp. 87–121, here: 114.
18. ^ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff u. a .: Greek and Latin literature and language , 3rd edition, Leipzig / Berlin 1912, p. 252.
19. ^ Eduard Norden: Die antike Kunstprosa , vol. 1, Leipzig / Berlin 1923, p. 391, note 1.
20. ^ Albin Lesky: History of Greek Literature , 3rd edition, Bern / Munich 1971, p. 982.
21. ^ Otto Schönberger, Eva Schönberger (translator): Maximos von Tyros, Philosophical Lectures , Würzburg 2001, pp. 13, 15; Jacques Puiggali also expresses himself positively: Etude sur les dialexeis de Maxime de Tyr, conférencier platonicien du IIème siècle , Lille 1983, pp. 576-579. For judgments on the philosophical content see Pieter W. van der Horst: Maximus of Tire on Prayer . In: Hubert Cancik u. a. (Ed.): History - Tradition - Reflexion , Vol. 2, Tübingen 1996, pp. 323–338, here: p. 323 and note 1; see. Jan Fredrik Kindstrand: Homer in the Second Sophistic , Uppsala 1973, p. 192.