Il neoplatoniscmo di Ermia di Alessadnria: uno studio sugli In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia

Abstract

The present study consists of a critical analysis of Book I of the Commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus by Hermias of Alexandria (fifth century AD), that is, the only ancient commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus that has been handed down to us. We have divided our work into three major chapters. In the first chapter, entitled ‘The school of Alexandria’, we have tried to outline a precise picture of the historical and philosophical context in which the figure of Hermias of Alexandria, professor of Platonic philosophy between around 435 and 455 AD, has flourished. We have preferred to trace a history of the philosophy in Alexandria in the Late Antiquity rather than the history of the ‘commentary tradition’ in Antiquity: in fact, numerous and important works have already been dedicated to the latter theme (Mansfeld, Hadot, Blumenthal, Baltussen), all of which are at the basis of our study and are often recalled. Rather, there are two points of interest in the first section of our thesis. On the one hand, we have put forth a new insight into the relationships of Hierocles and Hermias with the Christian authorities of Alexandria; on the other, we have undertaken a critical analysis of the communis opinio according to which the Notes to the Phaedrus – which is a translation nearer to the Greek Εἰς τὸν Πλάτωνος Φαῖδρον Σχόλια – would be nothing more than a commentary ἀπὸ τῆς φωνῆς: that is to say, nothing more than a collection of notes that the young Hermias put up during his master Syrianus’ classes on the Phaedrus, in Athens. We try to argue, in one case, that Hermias has been deliberately preferred to Hierocles on the chair of Platonic philosophy in Alexandria by the Christian authorities of the city, headed by Patriarch Cyril. Hierocles, although he was older and more famous than Hermias, not only has not been officially recognized, through the concession of economic benefits, as was the case of Hermias, but he has also experienced the exile from Alexandria and the torture in Constantinople by the Christian authorities of the city. On the contrary, Hermias, described in our sources as a mild and studious personality, received some economic privileges from the city and, as we will see, made use in his Commentary of a lexicon attested only in the works of Cyril. In the other case, by critically sifting the arguments in support of the vulgate, we try to claim the authorship of the Commentary to Hermias himself, as the manuscript tradition suggests. Nonetheless, in the absence of irrefutable evidence in both directions, this section does not want and cannot be an apodictic section, but rather a problematic and hypothetic one. However, the first chapter is not limited to a historical examination, but also opens to a first philosophical analysis of the Commentary, addressing the questions of theurgy, that is to say, of rituality, material and immaterial, and that of the one of the human soul, that is, that divine component of the human soul thanks to which the human being is enabled to receive the divinity into himself, joining the divine in himself with the divine tout court. ... [edited by Author]