Bos on Aristotle Protrepticus Etruscan passage

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289A R I S T O T L E O N T H E E T R U S C A N R O B B E R S

* Abraham P. Bos is Professor of Ancient and Patristic Philosophy at the Free University,Amsterdam.

Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 41, no. 3 (2003) 289–306

[289]

Aristotle on the Etruscan Robbers:A Core Text of “Aristotelian

Dualism”

A B R A H A M P . B O S *

1 . A N O N - P L A T O N I C D U A L I S M I N A R I S T O T L E ’ S L O S T W O R K S

THE SOUL OF A MORTAL ON EARTH IS NOT “AT HOME,” says Aristotle in his dialogue Eudemus.The story about the mantic dream of the expatriate Eudemus and his expectationthat he “will return home”1 is well known. It makes clear that, in Aristotle’s view,the death of the human individual should be interpreted as the soul’s “return toits homeland.”2 This is strongly suggested by “the revelation of Silenus” whichPlutarch (first century CE) passes down in a literal quotation from the Eudemus.3 Itcontains the theme of human life on earth as a punishment (timôria). The motifof human life as a punishment is central to two texts by Iamblichus (250–325 CE)and Augustine (354–430 CE), which are usually connected with Aristotle’sProtrepticus.4 I want to examine these texts in more detail here. My intention in thefollowing exposition is to propose a non-Platonistic explanation of these texts. Inmy opinion they have wrongly been read as testimonies of a “Platonistic” phase inAristotle. The existence of such a phase in Aristotle’s development has never beenproved. Besides, the interpretation of these texts suffered from the fact that

1 Cicero, De divinatione, I 25, 53 = Aristotle, Eudemus fr. 1 W. D. Ross, Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955); fr. 56 O. Gigon, Aristotelis Opera, vol. III: Deperditorum librorum fragmenta(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987).

2 However, it is not immediately clear what that true homeland of the soul is. In Hippolytus,Haereses I 20, 4 we have a report that according to Aristotle the soul survived the death of the indi-vidual but in time is dispersed into the fifth element of the heavenly spheres; cf. also I 20, 6. Thismight indicate that also in Aristotle’s lost works true eternity was attributed to the incorporeal intellect.

3 Plutarch, Moralia (Consolatio ad Apollonium) 115B-E = Aristotle, Eudemus fr. 6 Ross; fr. 65 Gigon.4 Augustine, Contra Iulianum Pelagianum IV 15, 78 = Aristotle, Protrepticus 10b Ross; C 106: 2

Düring; fr. 823 Gigon; and Iamblichus, Protrepticus 8 (47, 21–48, 9 ed. H. Pistelli) = Aristotle, Protrepticus10b Ross; B 106–7 Düring; fr. 73 Gigon. Cf. E. Berti, La filosofia del primo Aristotele (Padova: Cedam,1962), 453–7, 541; repr. (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1997), 395–8, 466.

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290 J O U R N A L O F T H E H I S T O R Y O F P H I L O S O P H Y 4 1 : 3 J U L Y 2 0 0 3

Aristotle’s De anima had also been explained in an unhistorical way since Alexanderof Aphrodisias in the third century CE.

2 . R E V I S I N G T H E M O D E R N V I E W O F A R I S T O T L E

We have to make a different assessment of Aristotle’s contribution to the discus-sion on the soul compared with what was current until recently. For after W. Jae-ger5 and F. Nuyens6, modern scholars became inclined to leave Aristotle’s dia-logues out of consideration, because they regarded them as “Platonizing.” But afundamental correction is necessary on this point.7 Jaeger led modern Aristotlestudies in a wrong direction by assuming a sharp distinction between Aristotle’slost dialogue Eudemus and his surviving treatise De anima. Although nowadaysJaeger’s theory for many scholars is something of a dead horse, nevertheless a realalternative has not been proposed. We still have to get rid of the consequences ofthe Jaegerian paradigm and develop a unitary interpretation of Aristotle’s entireoeuvre. Even more consistently than O. Gigon has already done,8 we should as-sume that Aristotle’s lost works and his surviving biological writings and De animadid not propose two (or more) different psychological theories but one and thesame. Because this one Aristotelian psychology was a non-Platonistic but neverthe-less dualistic psychology, we have much more reason than could be recognized inthe past to assume Aristotelian influence on this discussion.

On one essential issue Aristotle disagreed with his teacher Plato: the soul,9 moreparticularly the indissoluble bond of the soul with a body. Aristotle radically and

5 W. Jaeger, Aristoteles. Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung (Berlin: WeidmannscheBuchhandlung, 1923). A French translation was published as late as 1997: Aristote. Fondements pour unehistoire de son évolution, translated and introduced by O. Sedeyn (Combas: Éd. de l’Éclat, 1997). For thesake of references I will use the English translation Aristotle. Fundamentals of the history of his development,R. Robinson, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934; 2nd ed. 1948; repr. 1962).

6 F. J. C. J. Nuyens, Ontwikkelingsmomenten in de zielkunde van Aristoteles. Een historisch-philosophischestudie (Nijmegen/Utrecht: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1939). A French edition of this work was publishedunder the title L’évolution de la psychologie d’Aristote, F. Nuyens (Louvain: Institut Supérieur de Philosophie,1948).

7 Cf. A. P. Bos, “Aristotle’s psychology: diagnosis of the need for a fundamental reinterpretation,”American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73 (1999): 309–31; “Aristotle’s doctrine of the instrumentalbody of the soul,” Philosophia Reformata 64 (1999): 37–51; “Plutarch’s testimony to an earlier explana-tion of Aristotle’s definition of the soul,” Plutarco, Platón y Aristóteles, A. Pérez Jiménez, J. García López,and R. M. Aguilar, eds. (Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 1999), 535–48; “Why the soul needs an instru-mental body according to Aristotle (De anima I 3, 407b13–26),” Hermes 128 (2000): 20–31; “Aristotle’sDe anima II 1: The Traditional Interpretation Rejected,” Aristotle and Contemporary Science, vol. 2, D.Sfendoni-Mentzou, J. Hattiangadi, and D. Johnson, eds. (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 187–201;“The distinction between ‘Platonic’ and ‘Aristotelian’ dualism, illustrated from Plutarch’s myth in Defacie in orbe lunae,” Estudios sobre Plutarco, A. Pérez Jiménez, and F. Casadesús, eds. (Madrid-Málaga:Ediciones Clásicas, 2001), 57–70; “Aristotle’s psychology: the modern development hypothesis re-jected” (Aristotle Today. International Conference 2001 [Naoussa, Greece, 2002], 389–402); “‘Aris-totelian’ and ‘Platonic’ dualism in Hellenistic and early Christian philosophy and in Gnosticism,”Vigiliae Christianae 56 (2002), 273–91. See also De ziel en haar voertuig. Aristoteles’ psychologie geherinterpreteerden de eenheid van zijn oeuvre gedemonstreerd (Leende: Damon Press, 1999) and The Soul and its Instrumen-tal Body. A Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Philosophy of Living Nature (Leiden: Brill, 2003).

8 O. Gigon, op. cit., 230.9 Cf. Hippolytus, Haereses I 20, 3: kai; scedo;n ta; plei`sta tw`/ Plavtwni suvmfwnov~ ejstin plh;n tou`

peri; yuch`~ dovgmato~: oJ me;n ga;r Plavtwn ajqavnaton, oJ de; ’Aristotevlh~ ejpidiamevnein kai; meta; tau`ta kai;tauvthn ejnafanivzesqai tw`/ pevmptw/ swvmati and I 20, 6. Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum I 13, 33 = Aristotle,

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consistently argued for the distinction between nous and psychè.10 For Aristotle thenous-in-act is always wholly incorporeal. But he considered it characteristic of thesoul that it cannot carry out its functions “without body.”11

However, the crucial question is: what body does Aristotle mean when he saysthat the soul cannot perform its specific activities “without body”? Jaeger andNuyens were wholly convinced that Aristotle was referring to the visible, externalbody of a human being, animal, or plant. Hence they saw a yawning gap betweenAristotle’s views in De anima and his position in the dialogue the Eudemus. In theEudemus Aristotle had clearly argued that the soul can perform its own functionsvery well, indeed better, without the galling and oppressive visible body.12 But in Deanima II 1, in his famous definition of “the soul,” Aristotle says that the soul isinextricably bound up with a “sôma physikon organikon.”13 Jaeger and Nuyens, fol-lowing an almost unanimous tradition since Alexander of Aphrodisias in the thirdcentury CE, interpreted this sentence in the sense that the soul is the formal prin-ciple or entelechy of an “organic body” or a “natural body equipped with organs,”i.e., the visible body of a plant, animal, or human being.14 This traditional inter-pretation must be rejected. For a “natural body” in Aristotle is never the body of aliving creature but always an “elementary body” or a composition of elementary

De philosophia fr. 26 Ross; fr. 25, 1 Gigon, where I follow J. Pépin, Théologie cosmique et théologie chrétienne(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), 140 in reading: “Aristoteles in tertio de philosophia libromulta turbat a magistro uno [Platone] uno dissentiens.” These testimonies cannot be brushed aside byclaiming that there were various differences between Plato and his pupil. The point is that all thesedifferences can be reduced to one essential disagreement. Cf. also Atticus fr. 7 (= Eusebius, PraeparatioEvangelica XV 9, 14): pavntw~ de; kai; ejn touvtoi~ diafevretai Plavtwni: oJ me;n gavr fhsi nou`n a[neu yuch`~ajduvnaton ei\nai sunivstasqai, oJ de; cwrivzei th`~ yuch`~ to;n nou`n.

10 This point is sharply formulated by E. Barbotin, La théorie aristotélicienne de l’Intellect d’aprèsThéophraste (Louvain/Paris: Publications Universitaires, 1954), 220: “En somme, le schisme intérieur quidivisait le composé humain chez Platon subsiste chez son disciple, mais subit une transposition progressive: au lieud’opposer le sw`ma à la yuchv, celui-ci oppose finalement la yuchv au võus’”; dans la hiérarchie des principesconstitutifs de l’homme, le dualisme s’est déplacé de bas en haut.” This Aristotelian position is best set out withreference to a passage in Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae 28, 943A: nou`~ ga;r yuch`~ o{sw/ yuch; swvmato~a[meinovn ejsti kai; qeiovteron—“the intellect is so much more excellent and divine than the soul as thesoul is in relation to the body”; Alcinous, Didaskalikos X 164, 18: ejpei; de; yuch`~ nou`~ ajmeivnwn. . . . Cf. A.P. Bos (2001): 57–70.

11 Cf. Aristotle, De anima I 1, 403a5–18, a5: faivnetai de; twn pleivstwn oujqe;n a[neu swvmato~ pavsceinoujde; poiei`n. a15: ajei; meta; swvmatov~ tinov~ ejstin (A. Jannone, 1966); II 2, 414a20–1: sw`ma me;n ga;r oujke[sti, swvmato~ dev ti, kai; dia; tou`to ejn swvmati uJpavrcei. . . .

12 Cf. Aristotle, Eudemus fr. 1 Ross; fr. 56 Gigon; fr. 6 Ross; fr. 65 Gigon. See also Protrepticus fr. 10bRoss; fr. 73 and 823 Gigon (texts which it is also better to connect with the Eudemus).

13 De anima II 1, 412a27–412b1; 412b4–6: eij dev ti koino;n ejpi; pavsh~ yuch`~ dei` levgein, ei]h a]nejntelevceia hJ prwvth swvmato~ fusikou` ojrganikou`.

14 Cf. R. D. Hicks (1907), 51: “the first actuality of a natural body furnished with organs”; W.Jaeger, Aristotle, 334: “the entelechy of the organic body”, cf. 45; W. S. Hett (1936), 69: “the firstactuality of a natural body possessed of organs”; F. Nuyens (1939), 220: “een natuurlijk bewerktuigd(organisch) lichaam” (“a naturally instrumented [organic] body”); W. Theiler (1959), 25: “dievorläufige Erfüllung des natürlichen mit Organen ausgestatteten Körpers”; D. W. Hamlyn (1968), xand 9: “the first actuality of a natural body which has organs”; R. Bodeüs (1993), 137: “la réalisationpremière d’un corps naturel . . . pourvu d’organes.”

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bodies.15 And in the whole of Aristotle’s oeuvre “organikon” never means “equippedwith organs” but always “serving as an instrument” or “instrumental.”16

That is to say, Aristotle emphasizes in his definition in De anima II 1 that thesoul forms a composite substance with a “natural body” which serves the soul asan instrument. Once this has been recognized, and the important role of pneumain Aristotle’s biological writings has been acknowledged, it becomes clear thatwhat Aristotle is saying in his definition is that the soul (as regards the realizationof its typically psychic functions) is indissolubly linked with pneuma, which is thevehicle and instrument and shell of the soul17 (in human beings and bloodedanimals; for lower animals and plants Aristotle supposes that an “analogon” formsthe instrument of vegetative and animal souls).18

Therefore, I will defend the thesis that the anthropological view of Aristotle’slost works is compatible with the one of Aristotle’s preserved biological works andeven with the (corrected) one of the De anima. In doing so I will privilegeAugustine’s text, because it explicitly mentions Aristotle as the author of an imageof the body-soul relationship which Cicero quotes at the end of his Hortensius.

3 . T H E E T R U S C A N R O B B E R S

In Contra Iulianum Pelagianum IV 15, 78 Augustine states:

It seems significant that some of them approximated the Christian faith when they per-ceived that this life, which is replete with deception and misery, came into existence onlyby divine judgment, and they attributed justice to the Creator by whom the world wasmade and is administered. How much better and nearer the truth than yours were theviews about the generation of men held by those whom Cicero, as though led and com-pelled by the very evidence of the facts, commemorates in the last part of the dialogueHortensius. After mentioning the many facts we see and lament with regard to the vanityand the unhappiness of men, he says:

From which errors and cares of human life it results that sometimes thoseancients—whether they were prophets or interpreters of the divine mind bythe transmission of sacred rites—who said that we are born to expiate sinscommitted in a former life, seem to have had a glimpse of the truth, and thatthat is true which Aristotle says, that we are punished much as those were whoonce upon a time, when they had fallen into the hands of Etruscan robbers,were killed with studied cruelty; their bodies, the living [corpora viva] with the

15 See my discussion in A. P. Bos (2001): 188–9 and Aristotle, De motu animalium 10, 703a26;Metaphysica Z 2, 1028b8ff.; and De caelo I 1, 268a4–5. Note also that Aristotle, De anima II 1, 412a12calls the “physical bodies” “the principles of the others.”

16 See also De anima III 9, 432b18; b25. Cf. S. Everson, Aristotle on Perception (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1997), 64 and J. Barnes, ed. Classical Review 49 (1999): 121. The notion of “instrumental body”has been prepared for by Aristotle in De anima I 3, 407b13–26 where to; dexovmenon swma should be takenas “the instrumental body” which receives the soul principle in distinction from the visible body that is tobe produced in the way described in De generatione animalium II 1, 734b7–19. Cf. A. P. Bos, “Why the soulneeds an instrumental body according to Aristotle (De anima I 3, 407b13–26),” Hermes 128 (2000):20–31.

17 Cf. A. L. Peck, Aristotle, Generation of animals (London: W. Heinemann, 1942), vi, lix.18 It might seem obvious to ask: if Aristotle means to be talking about pneuma as “the instrument

of psyche” here and elsewhere in De anima, why does he never say so? The answer is at least as obvious:in De anima Aristotle does not only discuss higher animals and human living beings which possesspneuma but also plants and lower animals which do not possess pneuma but do have an “analogon” asthe instrumental body of their soul.

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dead, were bound so exactly as possible one against another: so our souls,bound together with our bodies, are like the living joined with the dead.

Did not the philosophers who thought these things perceive more clearly than you theheavy yoke upon the children of Adam, and the power of justice of God, though not awareof the grace given through the Mediator for the purpose of delivering men?19

Compare this with the text of Iamblichus, Protrepticus 8:

Which of us, looking to these facts, would think himself happy and blessed—which of us,all of whom are from the very first beginning (as they say in the initiation rites) shaped bynature as though for punishment [timôria]? For it is an inspired saying of the ancients thatthe soul pays penalties [timôria] and that we live for the punishment of great sins. For,indeed, the conjunction of the soul with the body looks very much like this. For as theEtruscans are said often to torture captives by chaining dead bodies [nekrous] face to facewith the living, fitting part to part, so the soul seems to be extended throughout and af-fixed to all the sensitive members of the body.20

In the above passage from his polemic against the Pelagian Julian, Augustine re-fers to Cicero’s dialogue Hortensius,21 which Augustine says was meant as an exhor-tation to philosophy. This work, later lost, made an overwhelming impression onAugustine when he read it at the age of nineteen, as he describes in his Confes-sions.22 In retrospect he says that its effect was to make him desire the immortalityof wisdom and help return him to God. It is often surmised that Cicero’s model

19 Saint Augustine, Against Julian, M. A. Schumacher, trans. (Washington, DC: The Catholic Uni-versity of America, 1957). The Latin text reads: Videntur autem non frustra christianae fidei propinquasse,qui vitam istam fallaciae miseriaeque plenissimum non opinati sunt nisi divino iudicio contigisse, tribuentesutique iustitiam conditori, a quo factus est et administratur hic mundus. Quanto ergo te melius veritatique viciniusde hominum generatione senserunt quos Cicero in extremis partibus Hortensii dialogi velut ipsa rerum evidentiaductus compulsusque commemorat. Nam cum multa quae videmus et gemimus de hominum vanitate atque infelicitatedixisset: “Ex quibus humanae,” inquit, “vitae erroribus et aerumnis fit ut interdum veteres illi, sive vates sive insacris initiisque tradendis divinae mentis interpretes, qui nos ob aliqua scelera suscepta in vita superiore poenarumluendarum causa natos esse dixerunt, aliquid vidisse videantur verumque sit illud quod est apud Aristotelem,simili nos affectos esse supplicio atque eos qui quondam, cum in praedonum Etruscorum manus incidissent,crudelitate excogitata necabantur, quorum corpora viva cum mortuis, adversa adversis accommodata quam aptissimecolligabantur: sic nostros animos cum corporibus copulatos ut vivos cum mortuis esse coniunctos’. Nonne qui istasenserunt, multo quam tu melius grave iugum super filios Adam et dei potentiam iustitiamque viderunt, etiamsigratiam, quae per mediatorem liberandis hominibus concessa est, non viderunt? See also IV 16, 83: Huiusevidentia miseriae gentium philosophos nihil de peccato primi hominis sive scientes, sive credentes, compulit dicere,ob aliqua scelera suscepta in vita superiore poenarum luendarum causa nos esse natos, et animos nostroscorruptibilibus corporibus eo supplicio quo Etrusci praedones captos affligere consueverant, tamquam vivos cummortuis esse coniunctos.

20 I. Düring, trans. Iamblichus, Protrepticus 8 (47, 21–48, 9 ed. Pistelli). The Greek text reads: Tiv~a]n ou\n eij~ tau`ta blevpwn oi[oito eujdaivmwn ei\nai kai; makavrio~, oi} prw`ton eujqu;~ fuvsei sunevstamen,kaqavper fasi;n oiJ ta;~ teleta;~ levgonte~, w{sper a]n ejpi; timwriva/ pavnte~; tou`to ga;r qeivw~ oiJ ajrcaiovteroilevgousi to; favnai didovnai th;n yuch;n timwrivan kai; zh`n hJma`~ ejpi; kolavsei megavlwn tinw`n aJmarthmavtwn.pavnu ga;r hJ suvzeuxi~ toiouvtw/ tini; e[oike pro;~ to; sw`ma th`~ yuch`~. w{sper ga;r tou;~ ejn th`/ Turrhniva/ fasi;basani;zein polla;ki~ touv~ aJliskomevnou~, prosdesmeuvonta~ kat’ ajntikru; toi~ zwsi nekrouv~, ajntiproswvpou~e{kaston pro;~ e{kaston mevro~ prosarmovttonta~ ou{tw~ e[oiken hJ yuch; diatetavsqai kai; proskekollh`sqaipa`si toi`~ aijsqhtikoi`~ tou` swvmato~ mevlesin.. On this text cf. also E. Berti, La filosofia del primo Aristotele(Padova: Cedam, 1962), 453–7, 541; repr. (1997), 395–8, 466.

21 Cf. L. Straume-Zimmermann, Cicero’s Hortensius (Bern/Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 1976);M.T. Cicero, Hortensius, Lucullus, Academici libri, edited, translated, and commentary by L. Straume-Zimmermann, F. Broemser, and O. Gigon (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990).

22 Augustine, Confessiones III iv, 7–v, 9; cf. Beata vita 1, 4.

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for the Hortensius was Aristotle’s Protrepticus.23 But it may also well be that he usedAristotle’s Eudemus, which he certainly knew and which doubtless had protrepticfeatures as well.24

I note here that these texts, which are themselves of a later date, unmistakablyattribute to Cicero, and via him to Aristotle, a conception involving:

(a) the entire race of human mortals living on earth;(b) human life on earth as a form of penance and punishment;(c) penance and punishment for grave crimes which have been committed;(d) a condition of the human soul which entails alienation from its original (andhappy) condition as a result of this punishment; and(e) a connection with traditions of ancient mysteries and initiations.

These texts do not talk about punishments in an earthly existence which are dueto a previous (evil) existence on earth of an individual or his ancestors. The hu-man condition as such is presented here as the result of guilt, which must benecessarily a guilt which beings of a higher-than-human status have taken uponthemselves.

Jaeger dealt with these texts in his chapter on Aristotle’s Protrepticus,25 which hedated before Plato’s death. His treatment strongly influenced the entire discus-sion, because he believed the work did not contain an Aristotelian conceptionbut was still entirely in line with Plato’s views.26 Like the Eudemus, the Protrepticusproclaims, according to Jaeger, a profoundly pessimistic view of life on earth.27 Toexpress this, Aristotle uses the language of Plato’s Phaedo,28 most notably in thecomparison of the Etruscan robbers. Jaeger concluded: “In spite of the self-tor-menting crassness of this simile it bears the marks of genuine personal experi-ence and sensitive emotion. The young Aristotle had really felt the pains of man’sdualistic existence as Plato and the Orphics had felt them before him.”29

Following Jaeger, Nuyens regarded the Protrepticus as typical of Aristotle’s earlyPlatonizing phase.30 But he sees in the Protrepticus a distinct difference with regardto the theory of the soul. Besides the dualistic theory of the soul particularly foundin the text about the Etruscan robbers,31 it contains, for the first time, a morepositive, instrumentalist view of the relationship between body and soul in whichthe visible body is seen as the “instrument” (organon) used and needed by the

23 See n. 34 below.24 Cf. H. Flashar, “Platon und Aristoteles im Protreptikos des Aristoteles,” Archiv fuer Geschichte der

Philosophie 47 (1965): 53–79 and A. P. Bos, “Aristotle’s Eudemus and Protrepticus: are they really twodifferent works?”, Dionysius 8 (1984): 19–51.

25 W. Jaeger, op. cit., 54–101.26 W. Jaeger, op. cit., 84: “All the essential parts of it are in fact Platonic, not merely in language

but also in content.”27 W. Jaeger, op. cit., 98.28 W. Jaeger, op. cit., 99.29 W. Jaeger, op. cit., 100.30 F. Nuyens, Ontwikkelingsmomenten, 80–3; French ed. 90–3.31 F. Nuyens (1939), 84 n. 38; French ed. 93 with n. 34.

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soul.32 Though Nuyens does not consider these two positions incompatible, hedoes see Aristotle’s later development as an almost inevitable result of furtherreflection on their consequences.33 Nuyens bases his theory of an “instrumental-ist psychology” in Aristotle on information deriving from a long passage inIamblichus’s Protrepticus, which, following I. Bywater,34 he accepts as an almostliteral rendering of a passage in Aristotle’s Protrepticus.

I. Düring, in his edition of the texts which he believed can be related toAristotle’s Protrepticus,35 included Iamblichus’s text as a “fragment” (B 106–7) andAugustine’s text as a “related text” (C 106: 2). He bases this view on the hypoth-esis that Iamblichus’s Protrepticus almost literally adopts large parts of Aristotle’swork of the same name. In his opinion, Cicero’s translation, or at least Augustine’sreproduction of it, is “remarkably washy.”36

In 1963 J. Brunschwig published a valuable study devoted to the texts aboutthe Etruscan robbers.37 Unlike Düring, he holds that Augustine’s quotation fromCicero corresponds closely to Iamblichus’s text.38 Brunschwig also discerns “lepessimisme ultra-platonisant du jeune Aristote” in these texts.39 Plato had often drawna sombre picture of earthly life. In the Phaedo he referred to the secret traditionwhich talked about life on earth as a “being held in custody.”40 The playful etymol-ogy of sôma in the Cratylus links up with this: the people around Orpheus regardthe body as the wall of a prison which detains the soul for the length of its pen-ance. Or as others say: it is the sepulchral monument of the soul which is buriedin it.41 The atrocities of the Etruscan pirates seem to imply an even more negative

32 F. Nuyens (1939), 83–5; French ed. 93–5, where Nuyens refers to Iamblichus, Protrepticus 7(41, 15–8 ed. Pistelli) = Aristotle, Protrepticus fr. 7 Ross; fr. 73 Gigon: e[ti toivnun to; mevn ejsti yuch; twnejn hJmi`n to; de; sw`ma, kai; to; me;n a[rcei to; de; a[rcetai, kai; to; me;n crh`tai to; d’ uJpokei`tai wJ~ o[rganon.

33 F. Nuyens (1939), 85; French ed. 95.34 I. Bywater, “On a lost dialogue of Aristotle,” Journal of Philology 2 (1869): 55–69. Bywater’s

theory rests mainly on the correspondences in the content of the passage from Iamblichus and that ofAugustine’s quotation from Cicero’s Hortensius. For Cicero mentions Aristotle as author. And TrebelliusPollio says that Cicero wrote his Hortensius “ad exemplum Protreptici” (Historia Augusti 2, 97, 20–2 =Aristotle, Protrepticus test. a Ross; C 6: 5 Düring). For no good reason Bywater takes this to mean “onthe model of the Protrepticus, i.e. the Aristotelian dialogue entitled the ‘Exhortation to Philosophy’”(55). This view was already disputed by R. Hirzel, “Über den Protreptikos des Aristoteles,” Hermes 10(1876): 80–3. See also W. G. Rabinowitz, Aristotle’s Protrepticus and the sources for its reconstruction (Ber-keley: University of California Press, 1957), 23–7, 93–4.

35 Aristotle’s Protrepticus. An Attempt at Reconstruction, I. Düring (Göteborg: Almquist and Wiksell,1961). In this work Düring dismisses the highly critical study by W. G. Rabinowitz as excessively sceptical.But Düring’s enterprise founders on a failure to recognize that Iamblichus in his Protrepticus presentsthe same kind of instrumentalist psychology which he had read into Aristotle’s De anima, and thispsychology is based on an incorrect interpretation of Aristotle’s definition of the soul in De anima II 1.

36 I. Düring (1961), 265.37 J. Brunschwig, “Aristote et les pirates tyrrhéniens (A propos des fragments 60 Rose du

Protreptique),” Revue philosophique de la France 88 (1963): 171–90.38 J. Brunschwig (1963), 172. He does admit on 182 n. 4 that Iamblichus’s pa`si toi`~aijsqhtikoi`~ tou` swvmato~ mevlesin is more precise than Augustine’s rendering.39 J. Brunschwig (1963), 172 with reference to W. Jaeger, op. cit., 100 and F. Nuyens (French

ed.), 90–4. On 171 he talks about “la violence de son pessimisme et l’outrance étrangement baroque de sonimagerie.” Of course, it would be very strange if after 353 BC Aristotle still held the same view whichPlato presented in his Phaedo around 390.

40 Plato, Phd. 62b: wJ~ e[n tini froura`/ ejsmen oiJ a[nqrwpoi.41 Plato, Cratylus 400c: sh`ma .. th`~ yuch`~, wJ~ teqammevnh~ ejn tw`/ nu`n parovnti.. and: dokou`si mevntoi

moi mavlista qevsqai oiJ ajmfi; ’Orfeva tou`to to; o[noma, wJ~ divkhn didouvsh~ th`~ yuch`~ w|n dh; e{neka divdwsin,tou`ton de; peri;bolon e[cein, i{na swv/zhtai, desmwthrivou eijkovna.

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assessment of the human situation on earth: not just imprisonment but lifelongtorture.42 However, Brunschwig provides an illuminating background to the Aris-totelian motif. He points out that Herodotus relates a story in which the inhabit-ants of the city of Agylla were massacred by the Etruscans in 534 BC. This laid acurse on the region which later inhabitants, instructed by the oracle in Delphi,were able to ward off by making large sacrifices and instituting periodical games.43

And Virgil, Aeneid VIII, 478–88, mentions that this kind of Etruscan torture hadbeen used already by order of King Mezentius, entirely in accordance with themethod described by Aristotle. Brunschwig concludes that the story about theEtruscan atrocity was already associated in Antiquity with the theme of divinepunishment.44

However, Brunschwig also refers to the ancient tradition which connectsEtruscan pirates with the god Dionysus. In this tradition Dionysus was imprisonedas a boy by Tyrrhenian pirates on one of their ships. The scoundrels, believingthey held a scion of a royal family, hoped to secure a large ransom, and ignoredthe warnings of their helmsman. But Dionysus’s bonds were magically loosenedand the terrified pirates jumped overboard and were changed into dolphins.45

Brunschwig goes on to connect the Etruscans as “enemies of Dionysus” with theTitans, who, according to a different tradition, lured Dionysus away, tore himapart, and devoured him.46 Though the author points out that this tradition isonly reported in extenso by relatively late texts, he believes it is implied in a num-ber of texts by Pindar, Plato, and Xenocrates.47

Finally, in regards to the origin of these texts in Augustine and Iamblichus,Brunschwig opts for a relationship with Aristotle’s Eudemus. He thus avoids Nuyens’sproblem that two different psychological theories were propounded by Aristotlein one work, the Protrepticus.48 And he can establish a link between Silenus—Dionysus’s traditional companion—who figures as a prisoner of King Midas inAristotle’s dialogue Eudemus and the prisoners of the Etruscan pirates.49

The discussion was continued by J. Pépin.50 He is full of praise for the work ofBrunschwig. And he starts by underscoring the pessimism which these texts ex-press. This leads him to connect them with “the young Aristotle who was still very

42 J. Piquemal, “Sur une métaphore de Clément d’Alexandrie: les dieux, la mort, la mort desdieux,” Revue philosophique de la France 88 (1963): 191 neatly puns that Aristotle has made Plato’s“grave” into a “sarcophagus.”

43 Herodotus, I 167.44 J. Brunschwig (1963): 173–5.45 Cf. Hymni Homerici VII 7–8, where lhi>stai; .. Turshnoiv are mentioned. The same activity of

Dionysus as one who loosens bonds is central in Euripides, Bacchae, 432–47, 497, 613ff., and 643ff.46 J. Brunschwig (1963): 178–80.47 Recently this hypothesis has been vigorously disputed by L. Brisson in various articles collected

in his Orphée et l’Orphisme dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1995). But he fails topay sufficient attention to the texts about the Etruscan robbers that may be important also for thehistory of Orphism.

48 This entails a rejection of Düring’s premise that Iamblichus in his Protrepticus quoted onlyAristotle’s work of the same name.

49 J. Brunschwig (1963): 185.50 J. Pépin, “La légende orphique du supplice tyrrhénien,” in L’art des confins. Mélanges offerts à M.

de Gandillac, A. Cazenave and J. F. Lyotard, eds. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1985), 387–406.

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much a Platonist.”51 The aim of Pépin’s contribution is to show that the crime ofthe Etruscans already formed part of the Orphic tradition.52 But Pépin also pointsout the interesting fact that the pirates tied together the living prisoner and thecorpse “face to face,” so that the corpse forms, as it were, a mirror image of theliving prisoner. Moreover, this coupling can be seen as a kind of “copulation.”53

For Pépin this indicates the importance in the Greco-Roman tradition of the “mir-ror motif,” and an extra link with the tradition about Dionysus, whom the Titanslured by means of, among other things, a “mirror.”54 Pépin also suggests that theterm “extended,” which Iamblichus uses for the soul, has an intentional etymo-logical connection with the name of Dionysus’s enemies—the Titans.55 Finally,Pépin upholds the attribution of these texts to Aristotle’s Protrepticus.56

Yet there is still something unsatisfactory about the hypothesis that Aristotle’simage of the human condition in the Eudemus is far more negative than Plato’sconception in the Phaedo, which may have been written a number of decadesearlier. This is all the more true if Plato’s own position on the soul’s relationshipwith the body became less negative in later years.57 Some authors have thereforetried to excuse Aristotle by suggesting that the Eudemus was written in a mood ofdeep pessimism brought on by the death of Aristotle’s dear friend Eudemus ofCyprus, and they argue that the conception of man proposed in the Eudemuscannot be regarded as typical of Aristotle.58 A. H. Chroust, who went very far indeveloping this train of thought, assumes too readily that Aristotle acquired agreat reputation in Antiquity with a work which did not promote his own views.Such a course of events is not easily demonstrable in the history of philosophy.

51 J. Pépin (1985): 388: “L’essentiel de cette conception—ce qui ne surprend pas dès lors qu’il s’agit du‘jeune’ Aristote, encore largement platonicien—se rencontre déjà dans les dialogues de la maturité de Platon.”

52 J. Pépin (1985): 389.53 J. Pépin (1985): 390. For “copulation” Iamblichus’s text uses “suvzeuxi~”. Augustine/Cicero

has: “copulatos.”54 J. Pépin (1985): 392. On this motif, cf. also J. Pépin, “Plotin et le miroir de Dionysos (Enneads

IV 3 [27] 12, 1–2),” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 24 (1970): 304–20.55 J. Pépin (1985): 393 on diatetavsqai with reference to Proclus, In Timaeum III (ed. E. Diehl,

vol. II 146, 14–8): kai; tavca a[n to; dia; panto;~ tou` kovsmou tetamevnhn ei\nai th;n yuch;n tou` Titanikou`merismou` tou;~ jOrfikou;~ ajnamimnhvskoi, di’ o{n ouj movnon hJ yuch; perikaluvptei to; pa`n, ajlla; kai; tevtataidi’ aujtou` pantov~ and In Cratylum 106 (ed. Pasquali): 56, 13–7. Pépin (1985): 394 also shows thatPlato, with his doctrine of an immaterial soul, could say in exactly the same way that the soul extendsthroughout the visible body (Timaeus 34b, 36e; cf. Phaedo 67c).

56 J. Pépin (1985): 399–400.57 Cf. H. J. Drossaart Lulofs, De ogen van Lynceus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967), 20.58 Cf. A. H. Chroust, Aristotle. New light on his life and on some of his lost works, vol. 2 (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), 43–54, esp. 53–4: “a consolatio mortis is hardly the proper documentfor reliable inferences as to the author’s true and ultimate philosophical convictions or teachings,” 70;F. L. Peccorini, “Divinity and immortality in Aristotle: a de-mythologized myth?”, The Thomist 43 (1979):225. I. Düring, Aristoteles (Heidelberg: Carl Winter-Universitätsverlag, 1966), 554–6, sharply attacksthe persistent “fables convenues” which have come to surround the Eudemus. He believes the work’s aimwas not to advance a distinct view of its own but rather to give a broad orientation on the main posi-tions. See, however, J. M. Rist, The mind of Aristotle. A study in philosophical growth (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1987), 166: “Consolation literature, if not philosophically serious, would hardly con-tain attacks on the logic of the theory of the soul as some kind of harmony.” An entirely distinct Aristo-telian position in the Eudemus is argued by H. J. Drossaart Lulofs (1967), 15–8.

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4 . A N O P P R E S S I V E B O N D W I T H D E A D B O D I E S

However, I think that the text in Augustine and the related text in Iamblichus canbe explained in a new way if we take our cue from our new view of Aristotle’spsychology. That might take away the impression that Aristotle’s image offers amore pessimistic view of life on earth than Plato had presented. Perhaps we shouldsurmise that Aristotle used a different image because he had developed a differ-ent conception of the soul and believed it could best be expressed by a new im-age. As I said before, there is no solid basis for Jaeger’s hypothesis of a Platonisticphase in Aristotle’s philosophy. There is no reliable evidence for the claim thatAristotle ever accepted the doctrine of Ideas.59 And though the Eudemus talksabout the soul as a kind of eidos, De anima, too, calls the soul the eidos of a naturalbody.60 We should also take note of Cicero’s statements that Aristotle had assumeda special relationship between the soul and the fifth element.

Augustine describes the torment which the Etruscan pirates inflicted on theirvictims as follows: “their bodies, the living with the dead, were bound as exactly aspossible one against another.”61 Augustine connects this with the situation of thesoul in relation to the body: “our souls, bound together with our bodies, are likethe living joined with the dead.”62

Two things are remarkable here. The soul is compared with a composite, namelywith a “body which possesses life,” in contrast to something simple—a body whichdoes not possess life. Second, it is suggested that the soul has a certain dimension-ality and is wholly congruous with the content of the visible, earthly body. Thiscannot be properly connected with any of the traditional interpretations ofAristotle’s theory of the soul:

(a) Not with the view of the Eudemus in Jaeger’s interpretation, where the soul is akind of eidos in the sense of “an Idea or something of the nature of an Idea.”63

(b) Not with the traditional view of De anima, in which the soul is seen as theincorporeal form of a visible natural body equipped with organs.

But it may be that the texts of Augustine/Cicero and Iamblichus suggest a view ofAristotle’s psychology which differs from the usual one. Interestingly, a number ofother reports do the same. Cicero repeatedly assures us that, according to Aristotle,man’s soul consists of the same substance which makes up the celestial beings.64

Eminent Aristotelian scholars have often dismissed these statements as unreli-

59 Cf. J. M. Rist, op. cit., 9, 14.60 Aristotle De anima II 1, 412a20; 2, 414a13–9. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, V 33: levgei d’ ejntelevceian,

h|~ ejstin ei\dov~ ti ajswvmaton.. Cf. J. M. Rist, op. cit., 46–7.61 In Latin: “corpora viva cum mortuis, adversa adversis accommodata quam aptissime colligabantur.”62 In Latin: “sic nostros animos cum corporibus copulatos ut vivos cum mortuis esse coniunctos.” Düring

reads “cumulatos” instead of “copulatos.”63 W. Jaeger, op. cit., 45–6 with reference to Simplicius, In Aristotelis de Anima Commentarii 221,

20–3 = Eudemus fr. 8 Ross; fr. 64 Gigon.64 Cicero, Academica I 7, 26; Tusculanae disputationes I 10, 22; I 17, 41; I 26, 27–65, 66 = Aristotle,

De philosophia fr. 27 Ross; T 18, 1 and fr. 994, 995, 996 Gigon.

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able.65 But others have staunchly argued that Cicero’s information is specific andaccurate and shows so many affinities with acknowledged Aristotelian positionsthat it should be taken seriously.66 Moreover, Aristotle’s extant work contains theexplicit statement that the dynamis of every soul has something of a body which isdifferent from and more divine than that of the so-called elements.67

Bearing this in mind, we can take another look at the texts about the tormentsundergone by the prisoners of Etruscan robbers. These texts talk about two bod-ies being bound together. But the important difference is that one body is a deadbody, a corpse, and the other a body which still possesses its vitalizing principle. Atfirst sight, therefore, Aristotle’s anthropology here sees man’s earthly, visible bodyas a material entity which remains as a corpse if one abstracts from the presencein it of something else which is a complex entity. And this complex entity is alsosaid to be a bodily substance, but one which differs crucially from a corpse owingto the presence of a vitalizing principle. That which makes the visible body of aliving creature into a living body thus seems to have been presented by Aristotle asa body too, but a body with a very special nature.

It is surprising that this information has never led to another solution than theone usually proposed by commentators. For in a number of works in the extantAristotelian Corpus, Aristotle also explained the vital phenomena of the visiblebody by means of another, special body, namely pneuma. And his conception ofthis pneuma was emphatically non-materialistic, for he says that it is led by an in-corporeal soul-principle. Clear examples of this are given by De motu animalium,De generatione animalium,68 and the Parva naturalia.69 The most explicit statementis found in De motu animalium 10, which talks about a special body that is thevehicle of orexis and that functions in “ensouled bodies” as that which causes move-ment by being moved itself.70 Aristotle says that this special body is pneuma andthat it functions as the soul’s instrument71 and that lower kinds of animals andplants possess an analogous substance. It is wholly acceptable to surmise that, inhis story about the Etruscan tortures, Aristotle made the corpse correspond to thevisible body and the living body to pneuma plus the incorporeal soul-principle.

The dimensional aspect of the soul could then be easily explained by means ofAristotle’s theory of pneuma, which is present throughout the visible body as a

65 P. Moraux, “Quinta essentia,” Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Enzyclopaedie, 74 Halbband (Stuttgart, 1963),1209–26. See also D. E. Hahm, “The fifth element in Aristotle’s De philosophia,” Journal of HellenicStudies 102 (1982): 60–74.

66 C. Lefèvre, “‘Quinta natura’ et psychologie aristotélicienne,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 69(1971): 5–43. See also P. Merlan, in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, A.H. Armstrong, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967; repr. 1970), 40–1 n. 9: “Much inthe history of the Peripatos can better be understood if we side with Kampe and Arnim and take intoaccount that the materialistic interpretation of Aristotle was in antiquity very frequent and started veryearly.”

67 De generatione animalium II 3, 736b29–31: Pavsh~ me;n ou\n yuch`~ duvnami~ eJtevrou swvmato~ e[oikekekoinwnhkevnai kai; qeiotevrou twn kaloumevnwn stoiceivwn. See on this text my paper “Pneuma and Aetherin Aristotle’s philosophy of living nature,” in The Modern Schoolman 79 (2002): 255–76.

68 Cf. De generatione animalium I 22, 730b14–22; II 3, 736b33–5.69 Cf. De memoria 1, 450a27–b5; De iuventute 4, 469b3–11; 6, 470a19–20; 27, 480a16–17.70 De motu animalium 10, 703a5–6: ejsti;n hJ o[rexi~ to; mevson, o} kinei kinouvmenon: ejn de; toi~ ejmyuvcoi~

swvmasi dei` ti ei\nai sw`ma toiou`ton. The same theory is formulated in De anima III 10, 433b19.71 De motu animalium 10, 703a20.

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mediating entity between the soul-principle and the visible body.72 Because pneumais present throughout the entire living creature, Aristotle can say in De generationeanimalium that it is impossible “that a face or a hand or flesh or another part iswhat it is if the sensitive soul is not actually or potentially present in it, in a relativeor in an absolute sense. For (if this is not the case) then it is a corpse or part of acorpse.”73 We should bear in mind here that Aristotle explicitly held sensation tobe an activity that could not be realized “without a body,”74 and that he locatedthe soul-principle itself in the heart.75

The same idea of living people bound to corpses (nekroi) is expressed inIamblichus’s parallel text. We could interpret this, too, as an indication that Aristotleregards pneuma as “ensouled” in a primary sense, while the visible body, whichremains as a corpse when the soul-complex withdraws from it, is “ensouled” onlyin a secondary, derivative sense. But an extra element in Iamblichus’s text is hisstatement that “the soul seems to be extended throughout and affixed to all thesensitive members of the body.”76

Iamblichus does not talk about sensible but about sensitive members of thebody.77 If we recall that, for Aristotle, the soul as entelechy is seated in the heart asits command center, Iamblichus must again be referring to (psychically character-ized) pneuma, which passes on all sensations from the senses to the center of con-sciousness in the heart and conveys all the emotional reactions back to the partsof the body.78

5 . A C O M P A R I S O N W I T H C O R P U S H E R M E T I C U M X

Can we imagine the procedure which Aristotle used to explain why “being born”has such a negative effect? I know of only one text in the tradition which offers anexplication that comes very close to what Aristotle could have meant. The nameof Aristotle is not mentioned in this text, but it does evoke an Aristotelian atmo-sphere in all kinds of ways. I am referring to treatise X of the Hermetic Corpus,entitled “The Key.” This treatise talks about gnôsis as the key to perfect happinessfor the soul, but also about “ignorance” as the greatest evil to befall the soul:79

72 Cf. De iuventute 4, 469b6; De spiritu 2, 481b19: to; de; pneu`ma di’ o{lou to; suvmfuton. Cf. 3, 482a33;De mundo 4, 394b9–12.

73 De generatione animalium II 5, 741a10–3: ajduvnaton de; provswpon h] cei`ra h] savrka ei\nai h] a[llo timovrion mh; ejnouvsh~ aijsqhtikh`~ yuch`~ h] ejnergeiva/ h] dunavmei kai; h] ph/ h] aJplw~: e[stai ga;r oi|on nekro;~ h]nekrou` movrion. Cf. I 19, 726b20.

74 De anima I 1, 403a7.75 Cf. De generatione animalium II 5, 741b15ff.; De iuventute 4, 469b3–8.76 Iamblichus, Protrepticus 8 (48, 7–9 ed. Pistelli): ou{tw~ e[oiken hJ yuch; diatetavsqai kai;

proskekollh`sqai pa`si toi`~ aijsqhtikoi`~ tou` swvmato~ mevlesin.. Cf. C. Santaniello, “Traces of the lostAristotle in Plutarch,” in Plutarco, Platón y Aristóteles, A. Pérez Jiménez et al., eds. (Madrid: EdicionesClásicas, 1999), 629–41, 636f.

77 This is pointed out by J. Brunschwig (1963): 182 n. 4. I. Düring had translated: “all the sensi-tive members of the body.”

78 J. Pépin (1985): 394–5 points out that the Stoics later used the same terminology(ajntiparekteivnein and ajntiparhvkein) to explain that the fine-material soul is present throughout thevisible, coarse-material body.

79 Corpus Hermeticum X 8: kakiva de; yuch`~ ajgnwsiva. Cf. Corpus Hermeticum, tome I (Traités I–XII),Greek text by A. D. Nock, A. J. Festugière, trans. (Paris, 1946; repr. 1972).

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A soul which has not achieved gnôsis of the things that are and their essence and of theGood is blind, and is shaken by the passions resulting from its bond with the body and,being unhappy through lack of self-knowledge, is subject to bodies which are alien to itsessence and pernicious. It drags the body along as a burden, not ruling it but being ruled.This is the evil of soul.80

The soul’s “blindness” is reminiscent of the text in which Aristotle compares thehuman condition with that of bats, which cannot see in daylight.81 The soul’s“subjection” is discussed by Aristotle in a passage which states that human natureis “unfree” in many respects.82 The shaking of the soul by alien bodies suggests theimage of a ship in a flying storm. These “bodies” must be the four sublunaryelements, which together form the visible body. The soul has nothing “in com-mon” (koinônia) with them.83 For the “garment” of the soul is a complex matter, asthe following passage shows: “The intellect is in reason; reason is in the soul; thesoul in the pneuma. Pneuma pervades the veins and the arteries and the blood andin this way sets the living creature in motion and drags it along, as it were.”84

Pneuma pervades the body via the blood, and therefore some people have iden-tified blood with the soul, says the author. But this is a mistake. For the death of abody does not occur owing to a change in the blood, but because blood no longerflows when the pneuma has withdrawn to the soul.85 It is remarkable that the au-thor talks about “the death of the body” here. He thus concurs with Plutarch, whoin the final myth of De facie in orbe lunae distinguished between the “first death”and the “second death,” in which the soul-body is abandoned by the intellect.86

This distinction is a logical consequence of Aristotle’s fundamental separation oftheoretical intellect and productive soul.87 Some modern scholars believe thatthe identification of blood with the soul (which the author attributes to somephilosophers) was influenced by the Jewish conception and the Septuagint.88

However, it is clear only that the Hermetic author was familiar with Aristotle’scriticism of those who identified the soul with blood.89

80 Corpus Hermeticum X 8: yuch; gavr, mhde;n ejpignousa twn o[ntwn mhde; th;n touvtwn fuvsin, mhde; to;ajgaqovn, tuflwvttousa dev, ejntinavssei toi~ pavqesi toi~ swmatikoi~, kai; hJ kakodaivmwn, ajgnohvsasa eJauthvn,douleuvei swvmasin ajllokovtoi~ kai; mocqhroi`~ w{sper fortivon bastavzousa to; sw`ma, kai; oujk a[rcousa ajll’ajrcomevnh. au{th kakiva yuch. I have used the translation by B. P. Copenhaver, Hermetica (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1992).

81 Aristotle, Metaphysica a 1, 993b9–11.82 Aristotle, Metaphysica A 2, 982b29: pollach`/ ga;r hJ fuvsi~ douvlh tw`n ajnqrwvpwn ejstivn.83 In De anima I 3, 407b17, Aristotle stresses the need of a koinônia between the soul and the body

that receives the soul.84 Corpus Hermeticum X 13: yuch; de; ajnqrwvpou ojcei`tai to;n trovpon tou`ton: oJ nou`~ ejn tw`/ lovgw/, oJ

lovgo~ ejn th`/ yuch`/, hJ yuch; ejn tw`/ pneuvmati: to; pneu`ma dih`kon dia; flebw`n kai; ajrthrivwn kai; ai{mato~ kinei`to; zw`/on kai; w{sper trovpon tina; bastavzei.

85 Corpus Hermeticum X 13: dio; kaiv tine~ th;n yuch;n ai|ma nomivzousin ei\nai, sfallovmenoi th;n fuvsin,oujk eijdovte~ o{ti prw`ton dei` to; pneu`ma ajnacwrh`sai eij~ th;n yuch;n kai; to; ai|ma pagh`nai kai; ta;~ flevba~kai; ta;~ ajrthriva~ kenwqh`nai kai; tovte to; zw`/on kaqelei`n: kai;tou`tov ejstin oJ qavnato~ tou` swvmato~.

86 Cf. Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae 942F ff.87 Cf. Hippolytus, Haereses I 20, 4 and 6, where it is said that according to Aristotle soul is dis-

solved into the fifth body. From Hippolytus’s treatment of Basilides as an Aristotelianizing Gnostic inbook VII, however, it becomes evident that something higher than soul remains.

88 Corpus Hermeticum, translation, introduction, and commentary by R. van den Broek and G.Quispel (Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1991), 126 n. 16.

89 Cf. Aristotle, De anima I 2, 405b2–8, where Critias is mentioned as a supporter of this naive view.

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Next, this cosmology and anthropology is put in a strictly monarchianist frame-work: “All things depend on one principle, and this principle (depends) from theOne which is alone. And the principle is set in motion so that it becomes theprinciple (of motion of all other things). But the One which is alone stands stilland is not in motion itself.”90 The One which is alone is clearly the transcendentUnmoved Mover in Aristotle’s theology. The principle that is set in motion is theexternal celestial sphere of the fixed stars, which is the first mover that is set inmotion. The term which is used here for the dependence of all things is typicallyAristotelian too.91 It recalls the image of the magnet with its pull.92 Hence theauthor can say: “God holds fast the cosmos; the cosmos holds fast man. And thecosmos is the son of God; man (is the son) of the cosmos and thus, as it were, thegrandson of God.”93

Man’s relationship to God is then elaborated in a typically Hermetic way: “Godis not unknowing with regard to man, but knows him well and wants to be knownby him. And this alone is for man the means of preservation, the Knowledge ofGod. This is the ascent to Olympus.”94 The theme of ascent as the way which thesoul goes when it acquires gnôsis is opposite to the way of man’s genesis. For genesisis the process in which the soul undergoes a “dialysis” and suffers a loss of concen-tration.95 Only when it possesses gnôsis of God can the soul be characterized asgood.96 When it has undergone “dialysis of itself,” it brings about oblivion in itselfand no longer shares in the beautiful and the good.97 A. J. Festugière translatesdialysis and “to dialyse itself” as “to be separated from its real self.” But we maysurmise that in this way a Neoplatonic view is being read into a text that has adifferent background. We can also think here of a process of “dilution” or “solu-tion”98 that is due to the development of the visible body which is produced andruled by the soul.

90 Corpus Hermeticum X 14: ejk mia~ de; ajrch~ ta; pavnta h[rthtai, hJ de; ajrch; ejk tou eJno;~ kai; movnou,kai; hJ me;n ajrch; kinei`tai, i{na pavlin ajrch; gevnhtai, to; de; e}n movnon e{sthken, ouj kinei`tai.

91 Corpus Hermeticum X 14: h[rthtai. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysica L 7, 1072b14; De caelo I 9, 279a28-30; and De motu animalium 4, 700a5 (where the term functions in an allegorical explanation of Homer’spassage on the “golden chain”). Cf. A. J. Festugière (1946), 129-30 n. 51. Earlier this author noted:“cette notion d’un Dieu-Bien n’agissant que par son vouloir, c’est-à-dire sa pensée, paraît bien dériverassez directement d’Aristote, Méta. L 6–7” (ibid. 118-9, n. 10).

92 Cf. Plato, Ion 533d ff.; 536a.93 Corpus Hermeticum X 14.94 Corpus Hermeticum X 15: touto movnon swthvrion ajnqrwvpw/ ejstivn, hJ gnwsi~ tou qeou. a”uth eij~

to;n[ Olumpon ajnavbasi~.95 Corpus Hermeticum X 15: yuch;n paido;~ qevasai, «w tevknon, aujth;n diavluain aujth`~ mhdevpw

ejpidecomevnhn.96 Corpus Hermeticum X 15: ou{tw movnw~ ajgaqh; yuchv, A. D. Nock. (But the reading of this passage

and what follows it is uncertain.) It is relevant to note that the term “good” places the soul on the levelof the divine Origin. Corpus Hermeticum X 12 said that the cosmos is “not good” because it is in motion,but “not bad” because it is imperishable. By contrast, man was characterized as “bad” because he ischangeable and mortal.

97 Corpus Hermeticum X 15: dialuvsasa de; ejauth;n ejggenna`/ lhvqhn, kai; tou` kalou` kai; ajgaqou` oujmetalambavnei.

98 For Aristotle’s use of the term diavlusi~ see De caelo III 7, 306a1 where he talks about th`/ tw`nejpipevdwn dialuvsei, by which he means the breaking up of concrete bodies into a multitude of triangles(in Plato’s Timaeus). De somno 1, 454b8 mentions diavlusi~ of the soul. De generatione animalium II 3,737a11 speaks of “dialysis” (“solution”) of sperm fluid.

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The author illustrates this process of “soul-dilution” by comparing it to thedevelopment of a child. The beauty of the soul in a newly born child is still recog-nizable.99 But as the child grows, his soul is, as it were, “torn apart” and stretchedthrough all parts of the visible body.100 We might suspect that the author hereimagines birth, i.e., the entrance into a material body, as a process in which thesoul is tied more and more tightly to the material body, like the prisoners of theEtruscan pirates in the description of Aristotle’s Eudemus, and in which it is “tornapart,” as happened to the young Dionysus at the violent hands of the Titans.

Chapter 16 explains how the death of mortal man is like a return to the condi-tion of the perfectly happy soul of a newborn child. The soul of the individual canthen restore its relationship with the World-Soul.101 The following stages are dis-tinguished in this process: “the soul ascends and withdraws into itself; the pneumawithdraws into the blood; the soul contracts into the pneuma. The intellect is thusfreed of its garments [endymata], for its nature is divine, and receives a fiery body,with which it roams through all space, and it leaves the soul behind to be judgedand receive just punishment.”102

We thus find here the doctrine of the separation of intellect and soul(-body),implicitly attested as Aristotelian by Hippolytus103 and also described in Plutarch,De facie in orbe lunae. The soul with its pneuma can apparently be called a “garment”of the intellect. The source of this doctrine must be the Aristotelian theory thatthe soul (as distinct from theoretical intellectuality) cannot carry out its specificactivities “without corporeality.”104

These doctrines are unknown to the novice and he asks for a further explana-tion: “What do you mean, my Father? Is the intellect separated from the soul andthe soul from the pneuma, when you say that the soul is the ‘garment’ (endyma) ofthe intellect and the pneuma of the soul?”105 This gives Hermes Trismegistus theopportunity to go into more detail: “The combining of these garments occurs inan earthly body. For the intellect cannot seat itself alone and naked in an earthlybody.”106 The quality of the intellect does not admit of physical contact with an

99 At this stage the individual soul’s unity with the World-Soul still exists too: e[ti scedo;n hjrthmevnhnth`~ tou` kovsmou yuch`~.

100 Here, too, the text is clearly defective. A significant passage reads: o{tan de; ojgkwqh`/ to; sw`ma kai;kataspavsh/ aujth;n eij~ tou;~ tou` swvmato~ o[gkou~, dialuvsasa de; eJauth;n ejggenna/` lhvqhn. B. P. Copenhaverreads here: “when the body gets its bulk and drags the soul down to the body’s grossness.” Cf. AristidesQuintilianus, De Musica II 2, p. 53, 19 (R. P. Winnington Ingram): kataspa`/ te aujth;n kai; ajpofoita`nkwluvei.

101 Corpus Hermeticum X 16: to; de; aujto; sumbaivnei kai; toi`~ tou` swvmato~ ejxiou`sin.102 Corpus Hermeticum X 16: ajnadramou`sa ga;r hJ yuch; eij~ eJauth;n, sustevlletai to; pneu`ma eij~ to;

ai|ma, hJ de; yuch; eij~ to; pneu`ma, oJ de; nou`~ kaqaro;~ genovmeno~ tw`n ejndumavtwn, qei`o~ w]n fuvsei, swvmato~purivnou labovmeno~ peripolei pavnta tovpon, katalipw;n th;n yuch;n krivsei kai; th/ kat’ ajxivan divkh/. Aristotle,De motu animalium 10, 703a21 had already noted that pneuma can “contract.” On sustolhv as “contrac-tion” of the soul see J. Pépin (1985): 396-7.

103 Hippolytus, Haereses I 20, 4, 6.104 Aristotle, De anima I 1, 403a5-8; a16-8.105 Corpus Hermeticum X 16: Pw`~ tou`to levgei~, w\ pavter; oJ nou`~ th`~ yuch`~ cwrivzetai kai; hJ yuch;

tou` pneuvmato~, sou` eijpovnto~ e[nduma ei\nai tou` me;n nou` th;n yuch;n, th`~ de; yuch`~ to; pneu`ma.106 Corpus Hermeticum X 17: hJ suvnqesi~ tw`n ejndumavtwn touvtwn, w\ tevknon, ejn swvmati ghivnw/ givnetai:

ajduvnaton ga;r to;n nou`n ejn ghivnw/ swvmati gumno;n aujto;n kaq’ eJauto;n eJdravsai. Cf. Plato, Timaeus 30b;Philebus 30c.

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earthly body.107 Again the background here is formed by Aristotle’s anthropology,with its sharp distinction between the immaterial intellect and the soul, whichcannot operate without a body. This view cannot possibly be regarded as Stoic inorigin, first of all because of the fundamental rejection of Stoic materialism by allGnostic conceptions. The solution to the problem is: “the intellect has adoptedthe soul as a garment, and the soul, which is itself something divine, uses thepneuma as its servant. And the pneuma governs the living creature.”108

Two remarks can be made here. The soul’s relationship to the pneuma is that ofa user and an instrument. This is in line with what Aristotle says in De anima I 3:“technè must use its instruments, and the soul its body.”109 The pneuma is called the“servant” of the soul. In comparable fashion Aristotle called vital heat “most ser-viceable” to the productive activity of the soul.110 “When the intellect has got freefrom the earthly body, it clothes itself in its own mantle [chiton], the fiery one,which it could not keep on when taking up residence in the earthly body. … Butthe body that goes with the intellect is fire. Because the intellect is the demiurgeof all things, it uses fire as its instrument [organon] for this production.”111 Theauthor is talking here about the human intellect and the intellect of the World-Soul. The Platonic notion of the divine Demiurge has been corrected in accor-dance with Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s Timaeus: the production of material thingsis impossible “without corporeality.” Hence the intellect of the World-Soul needsa “natural body” as its “instrument” (organon). This is underscored by the state-ment: “Without being clothed in fire the human intellect cannot create divineproducts, since it has a human condition as a result of its dwelling-place.”112

To sum up, we can see that this text in the Hermetic Corpus presents a numberof remarkable doctrines which are clearly connected:

(a) The fundamental system is not a two-way division of man but a trichotomy ofvisible body, soul, and intellect. The intellect is not a function of the soul butdiffers essentially from the soul in its ability to achieve knowledge of the transcen-dent and to become separated from all corporeality.

107 Corpus Hermeticum X 17: ou[te th;n tosauvthn ajreth;n ajnascevsqai sugcrwtizovmenon aujth/ paqhto;n(dunatovn ejsti).

108 Corpus Hermeticum X 17: e[laben ou\n w{sper peribovlaion th;n yuchvn, hJ de; yuch; kai; aujth; qeiva ti~ou\sa kaqavper uJphrevth/ tw`/ pneuvmati crh`tai: to; de; pneu`ma to; zw`/on dioikei.

109 Aristotle, De anima I 3, 407b25-26: dei` ga;r th;n me;n tevcnhn crh`sqai toi`~ ojrgavnoi~, th;n de;yuch;n tw`/ swvmati.

110 De partibus animalium II 7, 652b10: toi`~ th`~ yuch`~ e[rgoi~ uJphretikwvtaton tw`n swvmatwn to;qermovn ejstin. See also De generatione animalium V 8, 789b10-2; De spiritu 9, 485a28-b3.

111 Corpus Hermeticum X 18: o{tan ou\n oJ nou~ ajpallagh/ tou ghivnou swvmato~, to;n i[dion eujqu;~ ejneduvsatocitw`na, to;n puvrinon, o}n oujk ejduvnato e[cwn eij~ to; ghvinon sw`ma katoikh`sai. Cf. Plotinus, Enneads IV 3(27) 9, 3, where the soul’s fire-body and air-body is also distinguished from the gross-material earthlybody: nou`~ de; ojxuvtato~ w]n pavntwn tw`n qeivwn nohmavtwn kai; to; ojxuvtaton pavntwn tw`n stoiceivwn e[ceisw`ma, to; pu`r: dhmiourgo;~ ga;r w]n oJ nou`~ tw`n pavntwn, ojrgavnw/ tw`/ puri; pro;~ th;n dhmiourgivan crh`tai. Sothe author draws a clear distinction between the cosmic Intellect and God, who is called Father andthe Good in X 1-3. We should realize that all elementary physical bodies are used as “instrumentalbodies” by soul-principles. I take that as the purport of Aristotle, De anima II 4, 415b18-20, in connec-tion with De generatione animalium III 11, 761b13-23.

112 Corpus Hermeticum X 18: gumno;~ ga;r w]n tou` puro;~ oJ ejn ajnqrwvpoi~ nou`~ ajdunatei` ta; qei`adhmiourgei`n, ajnqrwvpino~ w]n th`/ oijkhvsei.

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(b) The soul survives after death and so is relatively independent. But the soul, inturn, is shed and abandoned by the intellect, which casts off all materiality.(c) The doctrine of soul is connected with the doctrine of pneuma as the “instru-mental body” of the soul. That is to say, the pneuma doctrine is that of Aristotleand not that of the Jewish tradition starting with Philo of Alexandria.(d) The soul-body is presented as the vehicle (ochêma) of the soul, but also as its“garment” (endyma) or “mantle” (chiton, peribolaion).

These doctrinal details make for a striking relationship with the anthropology inthe final myth of Plutarch’s De facie in orbe lunae. The most plausible theory for thesource of this anthropology is that it embroiders on Aristotle’s lost writings suchas the Eudemus and De philosophia.

There is one more interesting point. The earlier part of “The Key” mentionsthe god Kronos, of whom it is said that, when he shares in the perfect contempla-tion, he “moves out of his body.”113 Plutarch’s De facie also talks about the godKronos, who, bound in the shackles of sleep, is only occasionally allowed to sharein Zeus’s counsel.114 We know from Tertullian that this theme played a role in oneof Aristotle’s lost works.115 It appears to be evident that Aristotle—through thatmythical story about the dreaming Kronos—hinted at the metaphor of sleepingand waking that he used to indicate the condition of the soul as first entelechyover against the condition of the actualized entelechy.116

Thus the text of treatise X in the Hermetic Corpus gives us valuable extrainformation about the way in which the doctrine of a soul-body can have its placewithin a non-materialistic anthropology, and can be combined with the notion ofthe soul surviving the death of the individual.

After this lengthy digression on the anthropology of the Hermetic Corpus, Inow return to the texts of Augustine and Iamblichus which formed my starting-point. I conclude that the Hermetic text offers solid grounds for interpreting thetexts about the Etruscan robbers not as Platonistic but as an important exampleof “Aristotelian dualism.” Finally, this interpretation, if valid, lends credence tothe view that the two texts should not be traced back to Aristotle’s Protrepticus, if infact this was a separate work, but to Aristotle’s dialogue Eudemus or On the soul.117 Itbecomes even clearer, too, that the Eudemus was not just a consolatory work or anoccasional text, but a serious contribution to the ongoing philosophical debate.118

113 Corpus Hermeticum X 5.114 Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae 941A-942B.115 Cf. Tertullian, De anima 46. See J. H. Waszink, “Traces of Aristotle’s lost dialogues in Tertullian,”

Vigiliae Christianae 1 (1947): 137-49; idem, “The dreaming Kronos in the Corpus Hermeticum,” MélangesH. Grégoire = Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et Histoire 10 (1950): 639-51; and A. P. Bos, Cosmicand meta-cosmic theology in Aristotle’s lost dialogues (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 16-20.

116 Aristotle, De anima II 1, 412a25-6.117 But for I. Bywater [(1869): 60] it was precisely Cicero’s mention of Aristotle’s name which

furnished decisive proof that Iamblichus’s text derived from Aristotle’s Protrepticus Assigning this textto the Eudemus therefore has very negative consequences for the possibility of reconstructing an inde-pendent work Protrepticus by Aristotle.

118 Contra A. H. Chroust and F. L. Peccorini (mentioned above) and K. Gaiser, “‘Ein Gesprächmit König Philipp. Zum ‘Eudemos’ des Aristoteles,” in J. Wiesner, Aristoteles, Werk und Wirkung (dedi-cated to P. Moraux), Bd I (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1985), 473, who thinks it unlikely “dass Aristotelesin dem literarischen Werk einen genuin philosophischen Beitrag zur Frage der Unsterblichkeit der Seele leisten wollte.”

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119 De anima II 1, 412a6-b6.120 De anima II 1, 412a16.121 See S. Everson, op. cit., 64. Aristotle, De anima III 9, 432b18, b25.122 Cf. Diogenes Laertius, V 33; Plutarch, Platonicae quaestiones 8, 1006D with the commentary by

H. Cherniss (Loeb Classic Library, 1976), 80-1; Hippolytus, Haereses VII 24, 1-2.

But we could then assume that the theory of the life of creatures in Aristotle’sbiological works in the Aristotelian Corpus is perfectly compatible with that of hislost works. And this could embolden us to take a further step. If, in one of his lostworks on the soul, Aristotle talked about the soul as a complex entity which alsohas a corporeal component, this can be connected with the theory of De anima II1. Aristotle argues there that the soul is the eidos of a “natural body which poten-tially possesses life and is organikon.”119 In this connection he speaks of a “com-pound substance.”120 If we translate the term “organikon” as “serving as an instru-ment,” which is the only possible meaning in Aristotle121—and is how it is translatedby all the authors who discussed Aristotle’s definition of the soul before Alexanderof Aphrodisias122—it is clear that there, too, Aristotle conceived of the soul as theincorporeal form-principle which forms a complex unity with a special naturalbody that the soul uses as its “instrument.”

In that case the hypothesis of a three-phase development in Aristotle’s psychol-ogy, which was based on the observation of an unbridgeable gap between thepsychology of the Eudemus and that of De anima, has become totally superfluous.

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