Proclus in the

Jewish Tradition

Tzvi Langermann
Bar Ilan University
Goals of this presentation:

To locate, and explicate,

Instances of direct citations from Proclus or

references to him by name

Instances where his presence can be

established even if neither he nor any of his
writings is named
Proclus is not cited by name in any
Jewish text of the medieval period!
He does however have a significant
presence in medieval Jewish
thought for two reasons:

Arguments for Eternity of Cosmos

Liber de causis
 Arguments for Eternity of Cosmos
Herbert A Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation,
and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and
Jewish Philosophy

The significance for medieval Islamic and Jewish

thought of Proclus... is a subordinate theme of this
book (p. 7)
Observation...

Unbeknownst to Jewish thinkersand the

great majority of Christian and Islamic
thinkers working in the medieval period,
Proclus is the author of the main arguments
against creation; the many and manifold
rebuttals or accommodations with
eternalism cross confessional lines and are
not, at the very least from a literary point of
view, a response to Proclus...see Davidson
for these arguments...
 Liber de Causis
State of Research: Research of Jean-Pierre
Rothschild has produced a thorough survey
of the four Hebrew translations, stemma of
manuscripts, and French translation of the
text with detailed discussion of different
translation strategies and terminologies,
etc.; but little has been done to determine
who read the book and why, and what
impact it had.
 Inventory of Hebrew Liber de Causis
Zerahia ben Shealtiel Hen Gracian, from
Arabic (end 13th century)
Hillel of Verona, from Latin (mid-13th
century)
Yehuda ben Moshe Romano, from Latin
(early 14th century)
Eli Habillo, from Latin (ca. 1477)
Cambridge University
Library T-S 91.29

Genizah fragment
Kitab al-Khayr al-
Mahd
 Thus far:
1. No Jewish thinker was aware that Proclus
is the source of arguments against
creation; no Jewish author was aware that
Proclus is the author of (the major source
or Urtext of) Liber de Causis.
2. Let us look for other signs of Proclus'
presence in medieval Jewish thought.
Shlomo Pines, A Tenth Century
Philosophical Correspondence

The text is a reply by the famous Christian

philosopher of Baghdad, Yahya ibn Adi (873-974)
to two Jews from Mosul: Bishr bin Saman, to
whom the letter was addressed, and his teacher,
Ibn Abi Said.
 The Platonist Proclus has refuted the opinion of
him that believes that providence does not attain
human individuals and [gives as his reason the
fact] that worldly (al-dunyawiyya; literally: of
this world) evils, such as illness, lack of fame,
lowliness of station and poverty, befall the good;
and that [things] antithetical to these that we have
enumerated, and making for terrestrial (ardiyya)
rejoicing, such as health, fame, high rank and
wealth, (are the lot of) the wicked. (pp. 203-204)
A few examples ought to illustrate and at the
same time explain that Sefer Yetzirah, in its
thought as well as in its terminology, is
dependent upon the teaching of Proclus,
the last great Neoplatonist. Furthermore,
the decisive passages of the Sefer Yetzirah
are none other than the transference of this
Greek scholastic's system into Jewish
thought and biblical language. (translation
Scott Thompson)
Philip Merlan: If we were to replace
'Proclus' with 'Proclus and his like-
minded compatriots in Neoplatonism,'
Baeck's thesis would seem to be
essentially correct," Journal of the
History of Philosophy, 1965, p. 181
(trans. Thompson)
Observation: Although Baeck's claims go far
beyond the evidence, his study deserves to
be brought back into the ongoing discussion
concerning Sefer Yesira. In particular,
measured against Professor Pines' list of
points of similarities between Sefer Yesira
and a pseudo-Clementine homily, Proclus
appears to be a closer fit. Still, one must
emphasize that Sefer Yesira is not simply
Proclus dressed in Jewish garb.
Further Observation: The obsession with
Quellengeschichte, and the perceived need
to identify specific sources, and to prove
their status as sources by citing parallels,
has not served Jewish studies well. We
would do much better to accept Merlan's
criticism, and see in Sefer Yesira the impact
of neoplatonism in general, rather than
pressing for a specifically Proclan source.
More on this methodological point later.
Proclus holds a particularly prominent
place in development of religious
aspect of Neoplatonism, e.g., in
elaborating the three stages of
ascent to the divine: (1)purification of
the soul; (2)illumination by intellect;
(3)enthusiasm or union with the
divine. (p. 185)
Isaac Israeli adopts the Neoplatonic
tradition of the three stages of the
upward way which we have traced,
and which he may have known from a
variety of sources (p. 186)
As we have noted in the preceding
chapter, Proclus' scheme of the soul's
ascent was adopted by the Ikhwan, al-
Kindi, and Israeli. It is therefore not
unlikely that his description of self-
knowledge as 'the starting point of all
philosophical contemplation' was also
known to tenth-century philosophical
thought. (p. 205)
In al-Kindi and Israeli self-knowledge is not
explicitly connected with the scheme of
purification and ascent, as we find it in
Proclus, the Ikhwan, and pseudo-
Empedocles. One might even say that by
interpreting self-knowledge as the
knowledge of the microcosm, i.e. soul and
body, al-Kindi and Israeli are completely at
variance with Proclus' stress on the soul as
the only object worthy of introspection.-->
But one need not go to any such lengths in
assessing the implications of their
statements...they follow both Porphyry in
elaborating the microcosm motif...and
Proclus in giving prominence to the soul as
the true object of self-knowledge. Al-Kindi
and Israeli would likewise have agreed that
the ultimate purpose of self-knowledge is to
understand the true nature of the soul and
its ascent to the upper world. (p. 207)
Observation: Altmann & Stern, and many
scholars who followed in their path, are
pressed to argue for a link to Proclus even
when the evidence is scanty at best
because they do not recognize an
autonomous and legitimate Jewish or
Islamic neoplatonism that has evolved out
of the pagan Hellenistic tradition. These
later neoplatonisms will display similarities
with late antique versions, but will not be
identical to them.
 Late Renaissance and Early
Modern Jewish Thought

Many know of Proclus by name, some have

studied his writings closely; they read them
in Latin or Greek.
Yosef
Shlomo
Delmedigo
(1591-1655)
Salient points of his biography...

Born in Crete, native speaker of Cretan

dialect of Greece

Scion to family of scholars with strong

connnections with Italy, especially Elijah
Delmedigo, collaborator with Pico

Studied with Galileo at Padua

Traveled widely through eastern

Mediterranean, eastern Europe, and more
About a dozen references to Proclus,
including some passages presented as
close paraphrases if not direct citations.
Most fall under one of these rubrics:

Commentary to Euclid
Arguments for Eternity of the Cosmos
Theory of Light
 Some Observations on my raw data

Source of direct quotations as yet

unidentified
Refers several times to Proclus Twenty (!)
Arguments for Eternity
Distinguishes between Proclus and
Philoponus refutation of Proclus
Anticipates modern scholarship in seeing
that al-Ghazali and others are really refuting
Proclus
Delmedigos numbering of Proclus
arguments is a puzzle;
His precise formulations, and the medieval
sources he adduces as having cited, or
reckoned, with Procluss arguments, show
just how much Proclus own arguments had
become intertwined with medieval
elaborations of infinity, potentiality and
actuality, and so forth
 First reference to Proclus arguments for the
eternity of the cosmos (Novelot Hokhma, 84b):
The first argument is [this]: since the power
of the blessed deity is without limit, and,
from the aspect of the world, there is no
impossibility in its existing before the time
that it came to be, then why did He not
create itbeforehand, [but instead He]
delayed it until then [the moment of
creation]? This is the first argument of
Proclus.[The question as posed is found in
Proclus Commentary to the Timaeus]
 Second reference to Proclus arguments
(Novelot Hokhma, 86a):
The third argument is [this], that if Exalted God is the order
(nimus) and arrangement of all that exists, then it is not
proper that He should be without the existents. For the
intellectum that has no subject outside of the soul is
considered be false. If Plato did not posit an idea in the
Intellect of Exalted God for hyle, since it has no form, then
how much more so, a fortiori, [should that hold true for]
absolute non-being, such as the word was before it was
created. For Aristotle, this objection is even stronger: if the
deity is the mover of the daily orb, then it cannot be the
case that at one time He has a connection and relation to
it, but at another time He does not. This argument is raised
by the author of The Light of God [Hasdai Crescas] but he
did not answer it properly. Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel copied it
from him in The Works of God (Mifalot Elohim), book six,
chapter one. Now you should know that the Greek sage
Proclus raised a similar objection in the twenty arguments
that he arrayed against creation
 Third reference to Proclus arguments
(Novelot Hokhma, 86a):
In the fourth argument he [Proclus] said that the
paradigm of the cosmos is eternal in His [may He
be Exalted] Intellect, just like the idea of every
thing is eternal, because no intellectum that had
not yet been is produced in the Intellect of God.
Since the form along with that which is informed
belong to the category of relation, the world must
eternal just like its paradigm in the Intellect of
God, which is eternal; otherwise, one of the
correlates would exist without the other, and that
would be false. [This is Proclus second
argument, reformulated!]
 Fourth reference to Proclus arguments
(Novelot Hokhma, 87a):
The fourth argument is great and mighty. It is the sixth
[proof] of the above-mentioned Proclus [actually the fourth
according to our count!], and it is taken from the aspect of
change. Should you say that God beforehand had the
potential to create the world, then afterwards He actually
created it, then God has emerged from being a creator in
potentia to being one in actu. [This in Ghazalis first
argument of the Tahafut] There is no greater change than
that! It is heresy to say that He changed, when the prophet
declares, I am the Lord, I have not changed! Proclus went
on to say that if He changes, He moves, because all
change is either motion or the result of motion. But if He
moves, then he is imperfect, because motion is a defective
action [scil. action of a defective being]
Observation: In a nutshell, the story is as
follows: for centuries, Jewish thinkers
much like their Christian and Muslim
counterpartswere carrying on a debate
with Proclus, although the name Proclus
meant nothing at all to them. (Jewish
thinkers as a rule thought their foe, the
proponent of eternalism, to be Aristotle; or,
at best, as Maimonides put it, Aristotle as
understood by his later interpreters.)
In the early modern period, Proclus
resurfaced, as it were, and Yosef Shlomo
Delmedigothough not a historian and not
particularly interested in the history of the
creationism vs. eternalism controversy
reinsinuated Proclus into the debate.
Proclus arguments have by then become
encrusted with many layers of medieval
elaboration, showing clearly the signs of
centuries of submersion in the sea of
forgetfulness, so to speak.
Delmedigo on light...

Interest in physics of light

Light not a mere metaphor in

theology...apparent concern that theological
application of light conform to scientific
study of light

These concerns arise not just from his

study of philosophy and science, but also
from his interest in kabbalah, especially the
new Lurianic kabbala
(Novelot. 12b-13a) ...and this is the opinion of John
the Grammarian, as he said in his first
controversy with Proclus. He maintains that light
comes to be in the diaphanous on account of the
presence [existence] of the luminary; when it
moves on, it [light] vanishes. It does not move
along with it [the luminary]. He wrote that this is
the opinion of Proclus as well.
First argument (trans. Share, pp. 26-27) For the
parallels they adduce for the world being co-
everlasting with God, [by which] they show, as
they suppose, that certain effects are coexistent
with their causes, have nothing in common, as I
see it, with the [case] under investigation. (The
sun, they claim, being responsible for light,
creates it just by being, and the light is neither
prior nor posterior to the sun nor the sun to the
light; and bodies in light are responsible for
shadows that spring from them and are always
coexistent with them).
Theories of light ascribed to Academicians, here
Platonists:
(Novelot, 11a) The School of Academicians maintain that
light is an immaterial body, and, for that reason, it is able
to interpenetrate other bodies In several places Plato
also thinks this to be so ... And those who follow in his
footsteps support his doctrine One [or:some] of them
says that light is a force [power, potentia, dunamis ] of
the intellective soul of the world, which pours or spreads
over the world as a whole; they call it a fifth body. The
diaphanous comes about from the light (!?). So also do
you find Iamblichus saying that light is a divine act
spreading through the world, [issuing] from an act of the
divine intellect...
Delmedigo sums up his discussion of the theory of light,
adding also why this is important for theology:

(Novelot 14a) I have gathered together what I have to be [the

opinion] that most philosophers are comfortable with, as the
author reported them in his books on natural science. I
accept that the radiation (nitzotzot) does not really issue
forth and move. Instead, the image of the sun is light, and
the radiation is that which is impressed everywhere. Light is
one and the same, uanceasing; it is not the case that a
different light is produced at each moment.
My lengthy discourse on the nature [literally: quiddity] of
light and all that it entails is not superfluous, because many
great issues depend upon it, as you shall hear. All the divine
scientists [theologians] of the nations likened spiritual
things to light, and so did also our scholars of old and the
interpreters of our Torah.
After a lengthy and thorough look at the
different positions, Delmedigo opts for a
theory of eternal creation, or emanation,
that he has learned from Hasdai Crescas
The relation between the deity and the world
is best understood as that between the sun
and its light (which is not produced anew by
the sun, but rolls with it)
In this conclusion Delmedigo does not
mention Proclus and shows no awareness
of the similarities to Proclus view...
Abraham
Cohen Herrera
(d. 1635)

Puerto del
Cielo
A. Altmann on Herrera, in his contribution to Jewish
Thought in the Seventeenth Century, (p8 n46)

Delmedigo probably met Herrera in

Amsterdam in 1629. They could hardly
see eye to eye. They were divided, one
might say, by a common interest in
Sarug and Lurianic Kabbalah in
general. Herreras Platonic idealism
was poles apart from Delmedigos
skeptical frame of mind...
From the translation and study of Kenneth Krabbenhoft:
 Elijah
Benamozegh
(1822-1900),
Livorno, Italy
Interface
between
traditional and
modern
academic
scholarship,
between
actors and
critics
Thank you for listening!