The Exodus-Metaphysics

(Ricardo Slles: Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought. Themes from the work of Richard Sorabji, Oxford: Clarendon, 2005)

A book is dedicated to the great scholar of ancient philosophy, Richard Sorabji.

An excellent book containing articles from different scholars. Shall make notes of several of them.

Just read one chapter from it:

Platonism in the Bible: Numenius of Apamea on Exodus and Eternity. (by M.F. Burnyeat)

1) Numerius is famous for his saying: "What is Plato but Moses talking Attic?" (in his On the Good). This sentence was quoted twice by the Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. Numerius took it for granted the Moses knew Greek and spoke Attic, because Attic, in contrast to Doric, in it the obscure Pythagorean writings are made, is the language of clarity, says Burnyeat.

2) The second point Burnyeat tries to clarify is whether Plato's God, i.e. the First Principle, can be equated with Being. Numenius's First God is called the "egô eimi ho ôn" in the Septuaginta-translation of Book Exodus. But Plato did also bring the First Principle into connection with the Being. Though in his Republic 509b9 the First Principle is known to be the Good, which is beyond being (epekeina tês ousias), later, in the same book, Plato mentions that the Good is the brightest part of being (518c9). A similar combination of God and the Being can also be found in Plutarch's On the E at Delphi, where he interpreted the engraved "E" to be "ei" (is), so the God of Plutarch could as well be called the "ho ôn".

3) So popular opinion among modern scholars, that the Platonic Good transcends the Being, can be challenged by the interpretation of Numenius. But also by the testimonies of the Middle and Late Platonics. Seneca, for example, wrote in his Epistle 58 that the supreme genus is that which is (quod est). And Aetius wrote that Plato's God is that which is really as well as the One. And Alcinous, who wrote the Handbook of Platonism, argues that God as the first principle of Platonism, is not totally inexpressible as Moderatus had claimed. Rather like the elements of Theaetetus, God can be named but not described, and among his names we find Goodness, Proportion, Truth and Divinity, and also Beingness (ousiotês, 164.33-4).

Conclusion (according to my understanding of Burnyeats argument): The so called Exodus-Metaphysics is not a new element brought by the Christianity nor by the reception of the Greek Septuaginta. It was already an innate moment of the Platonic philosophy itself.

4) the third point which Burnyeats wants to clarify is the Platonic concept of Eternity. Sorabji interprets the Eternity as timelessness. But Burnyeats shows with text of Numerius, that the Platonics rather took Eternity to be a kind of Presence. And a text passage from Timaeus seems to fortify this position: there it is mentioned that the Demiurg created the Past and the Future, but not the Presence. Boethius made the distinction between the nunc stans and the nunc fluens. But in which way the Eternity in Plato's Philosophy should be interpreted? The nunc stans of Boethius seems to be abstracted from the time. But the Eternity, which is a kind of Presence in Platonism, is not tenseless, though not in the continuity of time? A question, which Burnyeats doesn't seem to have given us an answer (if it is not due to my carelessness while reading).