| dc.description.abstract | The primary aim of my research project is to analyse and evaluate the symbols and images found in the treatise, On the Cave of Nymphs, in the Odyssey by the Neoplatonic philosopher, Porphyry of Tyre (234–c305 C.E.) and to offer an exegesis of Porphyry’s allegorical interpretation against the backdrop of his wider oeuvre. The treatise is a significant landmark in both the history of allegorical interpretation and in the history of Neoplatonic philosophy, and can be deemed to be indicative of the Neoplatonic movement in the direction of mystery religions. As developed by Porphyry, Iamblichus and their contemporaries, Neoplatonism came to share more and more features with philosophically inspired mystery cults such as mysteries of Mithras, Orpheus or Eleusis. According to Plato, the higher level of reality, the world of immutable forms, is incomprehensible to our senses. Later Platonists sought to connect the material world and the world of higher truths through allegory. Allegory, a mode of symbolic interpretation and thinking, had been employed since the sixth century B.C.E., but was systematised, especially by the Stoics in the Hellenistic period, and became increasingly prominent during the Roman Empire. Instead of opposing mythological figures and stories of traditional Greek literature, such as the Homeric epics, to the principles of a philosophical system, Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation seeks to expound how literary texts present philosophical ideas in an enigmatic and coded form, offering to those who can decipher them an alternative way to the same higher truths. The approach that is needed to gain access to this symbolic meaning was not developed by the Neoplatonists themselves, but was derived from earlier thinkers, first of all their master Plato; even Plotinus does not consider himself an innovator, only an interpreter of Plato’s thoughts (Enneads 5.1.8). Regardless of their genre, Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation treats texts, including religious or poetic texts, as objects worthy of philosophical reflection in their own right, being potentially no less enlightening than the dialogues of Plato. Literary criticism, thus, becomes an important ally to dialectic in the Neoplatonic mission to save the human soul. In this thesis, I intend to show that On the Cave of the Nymphs, although ostensibly a literary-critical, rather than a conventional philosophical text, in fact, provides valuable insights into Porphyry’s philosophical thought. On the Cave of the Nymphs is an elaborate allegorical reading of Odyssey 13.102-112, Homer’s description of the cave near the harbour of Phorcys in Ithaca, where Odysseus is dropped by the Phaeacians and in which, under the guidance of the goddess Athena, he stores the Phaeacians’ valuable gifts. Porphyry analyses these lines and provides a setting for an allegorical interpretation of the Odyssey as a narrative of the cyclical journey of the human soul. This soul becomes embodied in the material world where all kinds of pleasures try to beguile it and keep it from attaining the intelligible realm, and, after its dissociation from the body, the soul returns to its point of departure, the intelligible realm. Porphyry’s interpretation is, in essence, a legitimation of the doctrines of Plato and Plotinus. His treatise is a unique example of how the Neoplatonists use canonical literary texts for their own philosophical and theological speculations. These texts, they claim, include symbols which point to philosophical truth but which are only comprehensible to a small group of people, that is, philosophers. Homer’s text, as interpreted by Porphyry, enables those enlightened readers to attain the philosophical, metaphysical and theological truth in a similar way as the initiates of mystery cults do. Porphyry’s ultimate goal is to illustrate that virtue attained through philosophy is the ideal path to salvation for the human soul; it is a universal path which shares important features with religious rituals and other approaches but is, in the end, a superior path. | |
