The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (65 page)

236. al-Hallaj, “Kitab al-Tawasin” (see Nicholson’s
Mystics of Islam
, p. 151).

237. I use the terms Provence, Languedoc, and Poitou more or less synonymously for the part of southern France that gave birth to Occitan poetry (poetry from the region where
oc
meant “yes”). Technically, Provence is the region east of the Rhône and Languedoc is west of it. Languedoc is part of Poitou, a region in west-central

France. Poitiers was the capital of Poitou, which was part of (lower) Aquitaine. See Fig. 4 (the map in ch. 3).

238. Anderson,
Dante the Maker
, p. 83.

239. E.g., Luigi Valli (
Il linguaggio segreto di Dante e dei “Fedeli d’Amore,”
Rome, 1928).

240. Cavalcanti, IV; in D. G. Rossetti, trans.,
Early Ital. Poets
.

241. Judah Leon Abrabanel’s
Dialogues of Love
is available in English as Leone Ebreo,
The
Philosophy of Love
.

242. Among many sources for the Ascent by Love, I have found Friedlander’s
Plato
, ch. 3, and Hadot’s
Plotinus
to be especially informative. Castiglione’s version of Bembo’s ascent is in his
Courtier
(Book IV, Chas. 50–70). I have followed Castiglione’s fictional 310 endnotes

account because it is more genuinely Platonic than Bembo’s original (
Gli Asolani
, Bk. III, pp. 173–95).

243. Plato,
Symposium
(henceforth “PS”), 178a–c.

244. Hesiod,
Theogony
, lines 116–22, my trans.

245. PS 202e, after translation by Tom Griffith.

246. The original meaning can be found in the
Oxford English Dictionary
.

247. Quoted in Hadot,
Plotinus
, p. 58.

248. After PS 206a.

249. PS 206b.

250. PS 204b.

251. Ficino, letter 1.47 (Ficino,
Med. on Soul
, #80).

252. The myth of Narcissus can be found in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
, Book 3, beginning at line 341. I have quoted the classic translation by Dryden, Pope, Addison, Congreve,

et al. The story of Echo immediately precedes that of Narcissus.

253. Ovid,
Met
., Bk. III, Dryden et al., trans., lines 534–537.

254. Ovid,
Met
., Bk. III, Dryden et al., trans., lines 567–572.

255. The allegorical interpretation is from Ficino,
On Love
, Sixth Speech, Ch. 17 (Sears trans., p. 212).

256. Ovid,
Met
., Bk. III, Dryden et al., trans., lines 496–500.

257. Gaius’ story comes from Damascius (fr. 102), the last head of the Platonic Academy in Athens, who was writing about a century after Hypatia’s death. Since the

would-be lover is not named, I have called him “Gaius,” which was the name of one

of her students, about whom nothing else is known. The obvious assumption is

that the menstrual napkin was recently used and set aside for this purpose, but an-

other possibility is that it was from her menarche, preserved as a kind of talisman, as was sometimes done (see Deakin, pp. 62–3, 180). The basket is my invention,

but it seems plausible that the napkin was contained in something. I have imagined

a small
cista mystica
(mystic basket), such as used in the Mysteries. Dzielska (p. 50) observes that the story might preserve the only authentic quotation from Hypatia:

“In truth, this is the focus of your yearning, young man, but it is nothing beautiful”

(Deakin, pp. 141). Gaius’ profession of love is adapted from Musaeus’ lyric poem

Hero and Leander
, lines 135–152, using the translations by Sikes (p. 18) and Greene (pp. 9–10). Musaeus was probably a Christian Neoplatonist who wrote around a

endnotes 311

century after Hypatia’s death and seems to have spent time in Alexandria (Loeb ed.,

pp. 297–302).

258. Plato,
Phaedo
(66c–d), Jowett trans.

259. Plato,
Phaedo
(67e), Jowett trans.

260. From Synesius’
Fifth Hymn
, trans. Alan Stevenson.

261. Adapted from Ficino,
Commentary on Plato’s Symposium
, Sears trans., p. 214.

262. Adapted from Plotinus,
Enneads
, 5.8.13.

263. Adapted from Proclus’ Hymn VII, To Polymetis (Athena); trans. van den Berg, pp.

304–5.

264. Rumi,
Divan
310, trans. Raficq Abdulla,
Words of Paradise: Selected Poems of Rumi
(London: Frances Lincoln Ltd., 2000), p. 42, used with permission.

265. Plato,
Phaedrus
, 249c. I give the Greek words in their nominative singular form so that they are easier to compare.

266. Adapted from Plotinus,
Enneads
, 1.2.6, MacKenna trans.

267. From Synesius’
First Hymn
, trans. Alan Stevenson. I have replaced “intellectual” by

“the noetic,” which is less misleading. It is likely that he wrote this hymn between 395 and 397 CE while he was studying with Hypatia, or shortly thereafter, and before he converted to Christianity (Bregman,
Synesius
, pp. 25, 29). Bregman (p. 36) says, “We have here, then, in a hymn of only 134 lines, a complete outline of the

entire Neoplatonic system.”

268. Hesychast practices in the contemporary Orthodox Church retain many Neopla-

tonic practices, in a Christianized form. I have used Ware’s
Orthodox Way
and Le-loup’s
Being Still
as sources on them.

269. The guides on the three paths are based on Proclus (Rosán, p. 188; cf. pp. 172–3).

270. Ficino, letter 1.106 (see Ficino,
Med. on Soul
, #3, p. 5).

271. From Synesius’
Fifth Hymn
, trans. Alan Stevenson.

272. This reference to Proclus is anachronistic, since he was born the same year Hypatia died. The Four Degrees of Virtue are discussed in Porphyry’s
Launching Points
, also known as
Sentences Leading to the Intelligible World
(henceforth, “PLP”), pp. 27–33, and in Reale’s
Schools of the Imperial Age
, pp. 408–9.

273. PLP 27.

274. Hierocles’
Commentary of the Pythagorean Golden Verses
(henceforth “HC”), Proem 4, trans. after Rowe. Hierocles of Alexandria was a Neoplatonist and younger contemporary of Hypatia (see Ch. 2).

312 endnotes

275. HC, Proem 4, after Rowe trans.

276. Plotinus,
Enneads
(PE) 1.2.1.

277. PLP 27.

278. PE 1.2.7, Guthrie trans.

279. HC, Proem 3, adapted from Hall trans.

280. HC, Proem 3, trans. after Rowe, but comes from Plato’s
Phaedo
67b2 and was often quoted by philosophers.

281. Plotinos,
Complete Works
, adapted from Guthrie trans. (henceforth “PG”), p. 1332

#14.

282. Adapted from Plato’s
Seventh Letter
(henceforth “P7”), 343e, trans. Fowler et al.

283. The standard Neoplatonic curriculum began studying Plato’s dialogues with these ten:
Alcibiades
I,
Gorgias
,
Phaedo
,
Cratylus
,
Theaetetus
,
Sophist
,
Statesman
,
Phaedrus
,
Symposium
, and
Philebus
(see Iamblichus,
Pyth Way Life
, Dillon & Hershbell ed., 22).

284. Herbert,
The Temple
, p. 195.

285. P7 342a–344d.

286. P7 342b.

287. P7 341c–d, trans. Fowler et al.

288. P7 344b, trans. L.A. Post.

289. The summary of exemplary virtues is from PE 1.2.7.1–7.

290. In Greek,
monô monon
. Plotinus (PE 1.6.7.9, 6.7.34.8, 6.9.11.51) seems to have got it from Numenius (fr. 2, line 11; see Petty).

291. After PE 5.8.13, Guthrie trans.

292. PG, p. 1331 #3.

293. After PG, p. 1332 #22.

294. PG, p. 1332 #11.

295. After PE 1.2.6, MacKenna trans.

296. This is from one of the earliest alchemical manuscripts,
The
Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra
, written by Cleopatra of Alexandria, who lived a century or so before Hypatia.

297. Monoïmos was Gnostic, quoted in Hippolytus,
Refutatio
, VIII 15, 2, my trans.

298. Kaplan, 57–8.

299. Ware, 122.

300. Psalms 70:1.

301. Cohen, 12.

302. This is, of course, a commonplace in both Western and Eastern spiritual traditions.

endnotes 313

303. In Epistle 28.9 Seneca attributes this to Epicurus.

304. PG, p. 1331 #1.

305. After PG, p. 1331 #2 (cf. PE 6.9.11.50).

306. HC, Proem 4, trans. Schibli.

307. Iamblichus’
On the Mysteries
(
De mysteriis
) provides much of the Neoplatonic theoretical background for the theurgic art. For information on ancient theurgy, see

Rosán (1949, pp. 204–17), Dodds (1951, pp. 291–9), Lewy (1978, Chas. III, IV), Majercik (1989, pp. 21–46), Shaw (1995, pt. III), Siorvanes (1996, pp. 189–99), and Clarke (2001). Van den Berg (2001) is a comprehensive discussion of Proclus’ use of hymns

in a theurgical context. Addey (2003, Ch. 6) presents theurgy in a modern context.

308. John of Nikiu, in Deakin (p. 148).

309. Synesius, letter to Herculian (Deakin, p. 157).

310. From Synesius’
Second Hymn
, trans. Alan Stevenson.

311. Robert Johnson’s
Inner Work
is a good, practical introduction to the techniques of
active imagination
, which is the contemporary analytic equivalent of theurgy. Many of Jung’s writings on the topic are collected in Chodorow’s
Jung on Active Imagination
(look under “Jung” in Bibliography); Hannah’s
Active Imagination
is also informative.

Two of my own papers (MacLennan, Ev. Jung. Theurgy; Indiv. Soul) discuss theur-

gic practices from the perspective of depth psychology.

312.
Chaldean Oracles
(henceforth “CO”), fragment 108, my trans.

313. Adapted from Ficino’s letter 4.46 (Ficino,
Med. on Soul
, #78), who adapts the last two lines from Virgil’s
Aeneid
6.730. The description of the planets and their gifts is from this letter, letter 3.8 (
Med. Soul
, #89), and Ficino’s
Commentary on Plato’s Symposium
(Sixth Speech, Ch. 4).

314. From Synesius’
Third Hymn
, adapted from the Stevenson trans.

315. The place of icons—venerated images—in Christianity, and its relation to Neoplatonism, is surveyed in Armstrong,
Camb. Hist. Later Gk. & Early Med. Phil.
, ch. 33.

316. Meier (1967) explains incubation from the perspective of depth psychology. Additional background is in Dodds (1951, Ch. 4), Kingsley (1995, pp. 284–8; 1999, pp.

77–86), and Eliade (1964, Ch. II, pp. 101–9).

317. On the dating of the Asclepeia, see Meier’s
Healing Dream and Ritual
(Ch. II); the entire book is an excellent discussion of ancient incubation in the context of contem-

porary depth psychology.

314 endnotes

318. Synesius’ imaginary presentation on dream divination is drawn largely from Synesius’
On Dreams
(henceforth “SD”), trans. A. Fitzger
ald, at http://www.livius.org/

su-sz/synesius/synesius_dreams_01.html (accessed 2012-11-03).

319. SD (Migne page 1288).

320. Adapted from SD (Migne p. 1288).

321. Adapted from SD (Migne p. 1301).

322. SD (Migne p. 1301).

323. CO, fr. 148, my trans.

324. CO, fr. 142, my trans.

325. The Theurgic Ascent is discussed by Lewy (1978, Ch. 3) and Majercik (1989, pp.

36–45).

326.
Pythagorean Golden Verses
, lines 70–1, trans. adapted from Thomas Stanley.

327. Adapted from Plotinus,
Enneads
(PE) 2.9.9, lines 45–6, Armstrong trans.

328. PE 2.9.9, lines 46–8, Armstron trans.

329. PE 2.9.9, adapted from lines 48–51, Armstrong trans.

330. Adapted from Plato,
Theaetetus
, 176b2, Jowett trans.

331. From Synesius’
Third Hymn
, adapted from Alan Stevenson trans. Technically it should read “noeric” rather than “noetic,” but the distinction is not important for

this book.

332. From Synesius’
First Hymn
, trans. Alan Stevenson.

333. The conclusion of Synesius’
First Hymn
, trans. Alan Stevenson.

334. Adapted from PE 1.2.6, MacKenna trans.

Additional Reading

We are now fortunate to have two excellent up-to-date books on Hypatia:
Hypatia of Alexandria
by Maria Dzielska (1995) and
Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr
by Michael A. B. Deakin (2007). Both explain the political, cultural, and religious context of Hypatia’s murder. I think that Dzielska captures Hypatia’s philosophical orientation better, but Deakin (a mathematician) does better on her mathematical and astronomical work.

Also, Deakin provides English translations of all the primary texts relating to Hypatia, which is very convenient. Both, but especially Deakin, seem reluctant to admit her spiritual practices (a common prejudice many academics have about Neoplatonism). To some

extent we all project our ideals and expectations onto her.

Pierre Hadot’s
Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision
is perhaps the best explanation of Plotinus’ Neoplatonism and will do much to illuminate Hypatia’s thought. It is a little gem.

Hadot’s
Philosophy as a Way of Life
and
What is Ancient Philosophy?
are good explanations of ancient philosophy (including Neoplatonism) as a spiritual path and a practice of care for the soul.

The best current translation of Plotinus’
Enneads
is by Armstrong (in seven volumes with facing Greek). More accessible is the early twentieth-century translation by Stephen MacKenna, which is less literal, but perhaps more inspired. It is available in many inexpensive editions, both complete and abridged. Uždavinys’
Heart of Plotinus
is a good, recent selection from the MacKenna translation, and a good place to start your study of the
Enneads
.