This chapter focuses on an allusion to the ritual of statue animation found in Proclus’ Commentar... more This chapter focuses on an allusion to the ritual of statue animation found in Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus. Through this ritual, statues were considered as being consecrated, ‘ensouled’ by deity, and thus rendered fit to communicate oracles. In the Commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus hints that the deity could appear in lesser or greater degrees. Those who obtained but a dim manifestation of the god, experienced only the secondary and tertiary powers of the deity, while those who encountered the god fully and clearly, were thought to participated in its creative activities. The chapter argues that ‘powers’ and ‘creative activities’ are technical terms and seeks to unpack how Proclus may have understood them to function in this context and what they might signify with respect to the benefits of the rite for the telestic expert.
Damascius as head of the Academy reduced but did not reject Proclus’ emphasis on ritual in approa... more Damascius as head of the Academy reduced but did not reject Proclus’ emphasis on ritual in approaching the divine, stressing instead its subordinate but important role.
This study examines Porphyry of Tyre’s fragmentary work Περί ἀγαλμάτων (On Statues) and suggests... more This study examines Porphyry of Tyre’s fragmentary work Περί ἀγαλμάτων (On Statues) and suggests that it was a pedagogical document designed to instruct budding philosophers in the adoption of a proper attitude towards the ritual image. This component of philosophical training was one way that the educated philosopher could distinguish himself or herself from the ignorant masses that viewed statues merely as carved stone. Philosophy was about more than the cementing of one’s social status, however; rather, psychic union with the divine was the ultimate goal of the late Platonist program and On Statues contributes to the attainment of this end. The treatise and the images described therein served to remind the philosopher of the true qualities of the gods. More important, however, is what the very existence of the document says about Porphyry’s view of the ritual image. A divine statue was no Tylorian construct, existing without any connection to the thing it represented, but had philosophical value and, further, had a very real connection to the gods. These claims will be fleshed out more fully through an examination of Platonic/Socratic and Plotinian theories about writing and statues, respectively.
Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, 2014
Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman... more Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, J. D. Rosenblum, L. C. Vuong, and N. P. DesRosiers (eds.), (Gottingen, 2014), 192-99.
The centrality of sacrifice in ancient life has elicited a steady stream of scholarship on the su... more The centrality of sacrifice in ancient life has elicited a steady stream of scholarship on the subject that continues unabated. Treatments of the ritual in the works of the philosophical authors of this period and, in particular, within Late Platonism are less prevalent. The occasional references to θυσία in modern studies tend to be chronologically front-loaded and to focus primarily on Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234 c.e.–c. 305 c.e.) and Iamblichus of Chalcis (third–fourth centuries c.e.), two of the initial philosophers in the tradition. The official resurgence of the practice under the emperor Julian (reigned 360–3 c.e.) in the wake of the limitations on and outright bans of the practice by Constantine and his sons, along with the brief explication of sacrifice by Julian's comrade, Sallustius, have also received some scholarly attention. The fortunes of the ritual in the Platonic Academy of fifth-century Athens have come under even less scrutiny. This essay seeks to make its own c...
A. Marmodoro and E. F. Viltanioti, eds., Divine Powers in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press... more A. Marmodoro and E. F. Viltanioti, eds., Divine Powers in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2015), 90 - 106.
Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman... more Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, J. D. Rosenblum, L. C. Vuong, and N. P. DesRosiers (eds.), (Gottingen, 2014), 192-99.
This chapter focuses on an allusion to the ritual of statue animation found in Proclus’ Commentar... more This chapter focuses on an allusion to the ritual of statue animation found in Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus. Through this ritual, statues were considered as being consecrated, ‘ensouled’ by deity, and thus rendered fit to communicate oracles. In the Commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus hints that the deity could appear in lesser or greater degrees. Those who obtained but a dim manifestation of the god, experienced only the secondary and tertiary powers of the deity, while those who encountered the god fully and clearly, were thought to participated in its creative activities. The chapter argues that ‘powers’ and ‘creative activities’ are technical terms and seeks to unpack how Proclus may have understood them to function in this context and what they might signify with respect to the benefits of the rite for the telestic expert.
Damascius as head of the Academy reduced but did not reject Proclus’ emphasis on ritual in approa... more Damascius as head of the Academy reduced but did not reject Proclus’ emphasis on ritual in approaching the divine, stressing instead its subordinate but important role.
This study examines Porphyry of Tyre’s fragmentary work Περί ἀγαλμάτων (On Statues) and suggests... more This study examines Porphyry of Tyre’s fragmentary work Περί ἀγαλμάτων (On Statues) and suggests that it was a pedagogical document designed to instruct budding philosophers in the adoption of a proper attitude towards the ritual image. This component of philosophical training was one way that the educated philosopher could distinguish himself or herself from the ignorant masses that viewed statues merely as carved stone. Philosophy was about more than the cementing of one’s social status, however; rather, psychic union with the divine was the ultimate goal of the late Platonist program and On Statues contributes to the attainment of this end. The treatise and the images described therein served to remind the philosopher of the true qualities of the gods. More important, however, is what the very existence of the document says about Porphyry’s view of the ritual image. A divine statue was no Tylorian construct, existing without any connection to the thing it represented, but had philosophical value and, further, had a very real connection to the gods. These claims will be fleshed out more fully through an examination of Platonic/Socratic and Plotinian theories about writing and statues, respectively.
Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, 2014
Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman... more Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, J. D. Rosenblum, L. C. Vuong, and N. P. DesRosiers (eds.), (Gottingen, 2014), 192-99.
The centrality of sacrifice in ancient life has elicited a steady stream of scholarship on the su... more The centrality of sacrifice in ancient life has elicited a steady stream of scholarship on the subject that continues unabated. Treatments of the ritual in the works of the philosophical authors of this period and, in particular, within Late Platonism are less prevalent. The occasional references to θυσία in modern studies tend to be chronologically front-loaded and to focus primarily on Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234 c.e.–c. 305 c.e.) and Iamblichus of Chalcis (third–fourth centuries c.e.), two of the initial philosophers in the tradition. The official resurgence of the practice under the emperor Julian (reigned 360–3 c.e.) in the wake of the limitations on and outright bans of the practice by Constantine and his sons, along with the brief explication of sacrifice by Julian's comrade, Sallustius, have also received some scholarly attention. The fortunes of the ritual in the Platonic Academy of fifth-century Athens have come under even less scrutiny. This essay seeks to make its own c...
A. Marmodoro and E. F. Viltanioti, eds., Divine Powers in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press... more A. Marmodoro and E. F. Viltanioti, eds., Divine Powers in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2015), 90 - 106.
Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman... more Published in Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, J. D. Rosenblum, L. C. Vuong, and N. P. DesRosiers (eds.), (Gottingen, 2014), 192-99.
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