Moderatos from Gades

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Moderatos von Gades ( ancient Greek Μοδέρατος Modératos , Latin Moderatus ) was an ancient philosopher . He was active in the second half of the 1st century and belonged to the direction of the New Pythagoreans . In ontology he anticipated thoughts that were later worked out by Plotinus and are therefore considered specifically Neoplatonic .

Life

Moderatos came from Gades, today's Cádiz in Andalusia . Presumably he was a relative of the writer Columella ( Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella ), who carried the same cognomen and was also Gaditan. Almost nothing is known about his life. The only concrete clue is provided by Plutarch , who reports that an Etrurian student of the Moderatos named Lucius was taking part in a banquet that Sextius Sulla, a friend of Plutarch's, held when Plutarch returned to Rome after a long absence. Since the banquet took place in the nineties of the 1st century AD, it can be assumed that the teaching activity of the moderatos falls into the second half of the 1st century. Apparently he lived in Rome at least temporarily.

According to Plutarch's description, Lucius adhered to the rules of the Pythagorean way of life, so he placed value on the practice of a lifestyle oriented towards philosophical goals. It is unclear whether this is due to the influence of his teacher Moderatos and thus allows conclusions to be drawn about his attitude.

Lost works and their reception

Except for fragments, the Moderato's writings have been lost. The Neo-Platonist Porphyrios quotes or paraphrases in his biography of Pythagoras a passage from a work by Moderatos, in which the doctrines of the Pythagoreans were compiled, which apparently primarily concerned the Pythagorean theory of numbers. It is uncertain whether this writing consisted of ten or eleven books. A Moderatos fragment, which the Neo-Platonist Simplikios has handed down to us, who took it from a lost treatise by Porphyry on matter, probably comes from her . The late antique scholar Johannes Stobaios handed down two fragments about the theory of numbers . The Eastern Roman author Stephanos of Byzantium mentions a text “Pythagorean lectures” in five books that Moderatos wrote. The Neo-Platonist Iamblichus reports a doctrine of the Moderatos about the soul ; to which work he is referring is unknown. The Neo-Platonists Syrianos and Proclus also mention views of the Moderatos. The church father Jerome calls him an outstanding writer ( virum eloquentissimum ) whom Iamblichos imitated.

Teaching

A difficulty in determining the doctrinal opinions of the moderatos arises from the fact that Porphyrios, who quotes or paraphrases a text of the moderatos in his biography of Pythagoras, does not indicate where exactly the reproduction of the moderatos's statements begins and ends. Another problem is that Porphyrios may have inserted or changed individual pieces of text, so that it is to be expected that in his presentation the way of thinking and terminology of the moderatos appears more "neo-Platonic" than it actually was. Depending on how much of the text handed down by Porphyrios is ascribed to Moderatos, the picture that emerges of his philosophy changes. It is unclear and controversial in research whether Porphyrios took his presentation from an opinion of Pythagoreans about the relationship of later philosophers to the Pythagorean teachings from a work by Moderatos. According to this view communicated by Porphyrios, which according to some researchers corresponds to the position of Moderatos, the essential achievements of Greek philosophy are due to Pythagoras. Later philosophers such as Plato, the Platonists Speusippus and Xenocrates as well as Aristotle and Aristoxenus would have done no more than appropriate the fruitful contents of the Pythagorean doctrine, whereby they would have made only minor changes. On the other hand, they would have distanced themselves from everything that could appear questionable and vulnerable in the Pythagorean tradition by presenting it as specifically Pythagorean ideas. Moderatos probably came to this idea of ​​the history of philosophy by reading pseudepigraphs from Pythagorean treatises in which he found Platonic and Aristotelian ideas. He mistakenly believed these writings to be authentic works by Pythagoreans who had lived before Plato, and concluded that the early Pythagoreans already had the philosophical insights presented in Plato's dialogues .

Moderatos understood the Pythagorean theory of numbers as an attempt to dress statements about metaphysical conditions in a catchy language for didactic reasons. The function of the numbers in the explanations of the Pythagoreans corresponds to that of drawn figures in geometry; Just as the drawings are not the geometric figures themselves, but only illustrate them, so the numbers for the Pythagoreans are aids and symbols that are meant to make understandable what is meant, which is difficult to express verbally. The one stands for the principle of eternal unity and equality, the continuation of what is always self-identical. It points to the essential togetherness of all things that result from their common origin. The duality is the principle of diversity and inequality, of divisible things and of that which is constantly changing. The three express the essence of something that has a beginning, a middle and an end and thus turns out to be complete. In this way one could also interpret the remaining numbers up to ten, the most perfect number.

It is uncertain whether a further passage in Porphyrios is also based on explanations of the Moderatos. There it is reported that Pythagoras showed his students a way to happiness by taking them in small steps from dealing with the material and the transitory to the consideration of the immaterial, immortal and real.

The Neoplatonist Simplikios reports on a metaphysical teaching of Moderatos, which he knows from a treatise by Porphyry. In this system, the term “ the one ” designates three different conditions on three different ontological levels. At the highest level, the One is overshadowing, that is, beyond the realm of things and substance . Below is a level on which “the One” stands for the true being or the world of (Platonic) ideas ; that is the intelligible one. This is followed by a third level, that of a mental “one” who on the one hand has a share in the first and second one and on the other hand forms the starting point for the existence of things that can be perceived by the senses. The one - it is uncertain which one is meant - contains the principle of the inherently empty, formless and shapeless quantity, the existence of which is made possible by the fact that the one empties itself of its own principles and forms. The quantity is thus thought negatively, it owes its existence to the fact that a logos is robbed of all of its contents. Moderatos expressly does not allow the sense objects any participation in the overarching One or in the intelligible world, but regards them only as a reflection of the ideas. The material world is far from good and therefore appears to moderate as bad. But its badness is not absolute, because it is limited by the regulating laws to which it is subject, it is mathematically structured and thus not entirely removed from the influence of the good.

Apparently this doctrine is influenced by the spurious second epistle ascribed to Plato. In a study published in 1928, Eric Robertson Dodds put forward his hypothesis, according to which the ontological model of the moderatos is the result of a metaphysical interpretation of statements in Plato's dialogue Parmenides and that the New Pythagorean metaphysics anticipates elements of Neoplatonic thought (especially the Neoplatonic interpretation of Parmenides ). This view has found approval in research, although the formulations handed down by Simplikios may not come from Moderatos, but from the reporter Porphyrios and reflect his Neoplatonic ideas. To what extent Moderatos is to be regarded as a forerunner of Plotin's Neoplatonism is debatable.

In his conception of the soul, Moderatos followed a direction which defined the soul within the framework of the theory of numbers and described its function as that of a factor producing harmony between different elements. In his view, this approach was compatible with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which the New Pythagoreans took for granted.

swell

  • Marie-Luise Lakmann (Ed.): Platonici minores. 1st century BC - 2nd century AD. Prosopography, fragments and testimony with German translation (= Philosophia antiqua , volume 145). Brill, Leiden / Boston 2017, ISBN 978-90-04-31533-4 , pp. 183–190, 618–629 (critical edition)
  • Cornelia J. de Vogel (Ed.): Greek Philosophy. A collection of texts with notes and explanations . Vol. 3: The Hellenistic-Roman Period . 3rd edition, Brill, Leiden 1973, ISBN 90-04-03743-8 , pp. 348-351

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Enrique A. Ramos Jurado: Moderato de Gades: estado de la cuestión. Cronología y forma de vida . In: Habis 34, 2003, pp. 149-160, here: 157-159.
  2. ^ The conclusion is supported by John Dillon : The Middle Platonists , London 1977, p. 345; Bruno Centrone disagrees differently: Introduzione ai pitagorici , Rom and Bari 1996, p. 174.
  3. ↑ See Gregor Staab: Pythagoras in der Spätantike , Leipzig 2002, p. 79, note 177.
  4. ^ Charles H. Kahn: Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. A Brief History , Indianapolis 2001, p. 105.
  5. ↑ Porphyrios, Vita Pythagorae 46 f .; see Gregor Staab: Pythagoras in der Spätantike , Leipzig 2002, p. 80 f.
  6. ↑ See Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, pp. 176–179 (text of the Simplikios passage with translation), 478–481 (commentary).
  7. ^ Eric Robertson Dodds : The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic "One" . In: The Classical Quarterly 22, 1928, pp. 129-142, here: 136-140.
  8. ↑ Henri Dominique Saffrey and Leendert Gerrit Westerink (eds.) Argue against anticipating Neoplatonic metaphysics : Proclus: Théologie platonicienne , Vol. 2, Paris 1974, pp. XXXII – XXXIV; Harold Tarrant: Thrasyllan Platonism , Ithaca (NY) 1993, p. 177, note 53 and Jens Halfwassen : Speusipp and the metaphysical interpretation of Plato's “Parmenides” have a different opinion . In: Ludwig Hagemann, Reinhold Glei (ed.): ΕΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΛΗΘΟΣ - Unity and multiplicity. Festschrift for Karl Bormann on his 65th birthday , Würzburg / Altenberge 1993, pp. 339–373, here: 346 f.
  9. ^ John Dillon: The Middle Platonists , London 1977, p. 350.
personal data
SURNAME Moderatos from Gades
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moderatus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient philosopher, New Pythagorean
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 1st century or 2nd century