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The Figure of Socrates in Numenius of Apamea: Theology, Platonism, and Pythagoreanism (fr. 24 des Places)

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Volpe E.

Peitho. Examina Antiqua

2022

vol. 13

issue 1

169-184

Numenius is one of the most important authors who, in the Imperial Age, deal with the figure of Socrates. Socrates is important in the Platonic tradition, in particular in the sceptical tradition, when the Socratic dubitative “spirit” of the first Platonic dialogues became important to justify the “suspension of judgement.” Numenius criticises the whole Academic tradition by saying that the Academics (particularly the sceptics) betrayed the original doctrine of Plato and formulated a new image of Socrates. For Numenius, Socrates plays a central role because Plato would have inherited his doctrine. What does Socrates’s doctrine consist in? According to Numenius, Socrates theorised a “doctrine of three Gods” (which can be likely found in the second Platonic epistle) which is strictly bound up with the main aspect of Plato’s thought. In fact, in Numenius’s view, Plato belongs to a genealogy which can be linked to Pythagoras himself. From this perspective, Numenius says that Socrates’s original thought is a theology which also belongs to the Pythagorean tradition and which Plato further developed. For Numenius, Socrates is not the philosopher of doubt, but a theologian who first theorised the existence of three levels of reality (Gods), which is also the kernel of Numenius’s metaphysical system. For this reason, Numenius puts Socrates within a theological genealogy that begins with Pythagoras and continues with Socrates and Plato, and that the Academics and the Socratics failed to understand.

Causality at Lower Levels: The Demiurgical Unity of the Second and Third God according to Numenius of Apamea

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Volpe E.

Peitho. Examina Antiqua

2023

vol. 14

issue 1

85-98

Numenius is an author who straddles the line between Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. In this contribution, I focus on the differences between the second and the third God, which emerge from analyses of the relevant fragments. Numenius emphasizes, on several occasions, how the second God (i.e., the demiurge) has a dual nature. In this paper, I investigate the role of the demiurge in Numenius and examine in what sense the second and third God are “one.” On the one hand, Numenius seems to be stressing the unity of the second and third levels of reality, but on the other hand, he also appears to be differentiating them. The present analyses concentrate on fragments 19F, 24F, 29T and 30T (respectively 11, 16, 21, and 22 in des Places’ edition). My purpose is to demonstrate that, according to Numenius, the second and the third God are one because they both can be regarded as demiurgic. Thus, Numenius conceives a kind of “double demiurgy,” which preserves the distinction between the second and the third God, who are distinguished from an ontological point of view, but who, at the same time, share a demiurgic function. The second God is then the paradigm, whereas the third God is immanent in matter as a ruling principle of the cosmos, which is similar to the World Soul, as he operates on matter in order to make it rationally ordered.

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2 Peitho. Examina Antiqua

2 Volpe E.

1 2023

1 2022

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The Figure of Socrates in Numenius of Apamea: Theology, Platonism, and Pythagoreanism (fr. 24 des Places)

Causality at Lower Levels: The Demiurgical Unity of the Second and Third God according to Numenius of Apamea