a surge of interest in the East as a source of primordial wisdom.152 Thanks in part to its nod to Judaism and its reception among the church fathers,153 Numenius’s fragment from his dialogue On the Good remains the most memorable example: “With respect to this, the one speaking and providing an interpretation about something will go beyond the Platonic tradition and fuse it (ἀναχωρήσασθαι καὶ συνδήσασθαι) with the sayings of Pythagoras. Then, he must appeal to the justifiably famous nations, addressing their rituals, doctrines, and accomplishments, insofar as Brahmins, Jews, Magi, and Egyptians are in accord with one another, but only to the extent that they agree with Plato (συντελουμένας Πλάτωνι ὁμολογουμένως ὁπόσας Βραχμᾶνες καὶ Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ Μάγοι καὶ Αἰγύπτιοι διέθεντο).”154 This passage has often been invoked in the context of Gnosticism, a movement that seems to meld some kind of Greek philosophical learning with Oriental revelation (to say nothing of dualism). The relevance of this problem for the social context of the Platonizing Sethian literature is obvious: the Sethian apocalypses bear the names of ancient Eastern sages. They discuss Greek metaphysics, but cite no Greeks, notably omitting Plato, to whom their debt is clear. Modern interpreters have therefore explained the Gnostic reliance on extra-Platonic sources, as reported in Neoplatonic testimonia, with recourse to the Antonine-Severan philosophical appeal to alien wisdom made famous here by Numenius.155 Conversely, some argue that Numenius himself was in the thrall of “la gnose orientale.”156
Alien wisdom was an issue, but not as formulated by Numenius. First, in much of the literature of the Second Sophistic and second-to-fourth-century Platonism, alien (or barbarian) wisdom is invoked in order to be subjugated by Hellenic παιδεία.157 Second, the period also witnesses the rise of what I will refer to as “auto-Orientalizing” texts that contain Platonic teaching under the guise of an Eastern provenance. Together with a more general fetishization of Eastern wisdom that we find in Plato and Plutarch, we thus glimpse a diversity of “Platonic Orientalisms,” which evoke, distance, and assimilate a manufactured image of Eastern learning in order to stake out a position on the Hellenic identity that was so important for the context of philosophizing in the Roman Empire.
This turn to the East as a source of wisdom in Greek philosophy is commonly chalked up by historians of Roman religion to the infusion of new Oriental cults (of Serapis, Isis, Attis, and Cybele, etc.) into Roman religion;158 the result, a quasi-philosophical cultic “syncretism.”159 However, while these cults certainly were of great interest to those in educated circles and provided new points of reference in religious life, the Oriental cults are a red herring in the search for the significance of alien wisdom.160 Rather, the reach to the Eastern civilizations as a source of wisdom is as old as Greek literature itself. By the first century CE, the idea of “the ancients” became bound to the idea that the Stoic λόγος (rational principle), and all the knowledge concomitant with it, is to some extent incarnate in all things.161 Plutarch fully articulated this view (regarding divine providence): “Wherefore this very ancient opinion (παμπάλαιος) comes down from writers on religion and from lawgivers to poets and philosophers; it can be traced to no source, but it carried a strong and almost indelible conviction, and is in circulation in many places among barbarians and Greeks alike, not only in story and tradition, but also in rites and sacrifices.”162 Beyond the ethnographer’s natural interest in the exotic, these texts display an appreciation for the pedigree of Eastern civilizations; by virtue of their age, they must know something.163 Moreover, this single knowledge is consonant with that of the Greeks but expressed in variable myths and rites, humanity’s understanding of which is fading.164
With the turn of the second century, however, one begins to glimpse the subordination of this discourse about alien wisdom to the primacy of Plato and Pythagoras.165 At first glance, this subordination is masked by interest in discussing barbarian wisdom. The trope of scholarly pilgrimages to the Orient to obtain scientific and ritual knowledge is a fixture of the period’s literature. Diogenes Laertius relates that Thales spent time in Egypt with the priests and measured the pyramids.166 Pythagoras reportedly studied with “Zaratas” (Zoroaster),167 explored Egypt,168 and is assigned many travels by Apuleius.169 Porphyry has him study with the Phoenicians and Hebrews.170 Plato himself reportedly traveled to Egypt and wished to visit Persia and India.171 In Philostratus, the Theban Dionysius travels to India, and Protagoras is said to have studied with the Persian magi during Xerxes’ invasion of Greece.172 A great deal of the Life of Apollonius is occupied with philosophical pilgrimages to Babylon, India, and Egypt.173 Finally, Plotinus, too, tried to go to India—the only evidence of his interest in learning east of Egypt, hardly indicative of a debt to Indian thought.174
The study-sabbatical abroad was recommended by Hellenists in the early empire for two reasons.175 One is the presumption, based on Posidonius’s logos theology, that there exists a universal religion whose origin is prior to all contemporary civilization and whose evidence can be found among other, elder cultures.176 For Dio Chrysostom, as for Plutarch, God’s existence and benign rule is “a conception of him common to the whole human race, to the Greeks and to the barbarians alike, a conception that is inevitable and innate in every creature endowed with reason.”177 Lucian agrees that worship of the gods is universal, but adds that it originated among the Egyptians.178 We see a somewhat different principle, however, in Pseudo-Apollonius and Philostratus. Hellenism is necessarily cosmopolitan and therefore often found outside the geographical confines of Hellas itself, sometimes in a purer state.179 The question, then, is whether the universal religion is identified with Hellenism (as in Philostratus) or beyond it (with Plutarch et al.)
At the same time, second-century CE Greek philosophical literature remains deeply ambivalent about its relationship with Eastern teaching. In his Borysthentica, Dio Chrysostom details a myth composed by Zoroaster and preserved by the Magi both in song and “secret rites” (ἐν ἀπορρήτοις τελεταῖς), but also distances himself from the tale, on ethnic grounds;180 presumably, he relates the story to tantalize the barbarian (yet Hellenophile) Borysthenians.181 Meanwhile, Diogenes Laertius introduces his doxography by rejecting barbarian claims to archaic wisdom, even asserting that the first civilization was Greek civilization.182 While the Chaldeans, druids, Indians, and Persians were all innovators in astronomy, allegory, and ritual worship, he says, the first to actually worship the gods were primordial Greek ancestors, Musaeus and Linius. Philosophy began with Anaximander and Pythagoras; “thus it was from the Greeks that philosophy took its rise; its very name refused to be translated into barbarian speech.”183
Similar ambivalence is found in second-century Platonists—even Numenius, who as quoted above (fragment 1a) asserts that the wisdom of the barbarian nations is consonant with that of the Greeks.184 Some have asked if he particularly esteemed Judaism, or was even a Jew;185 after all, Numenius knew some Hebrew scripture, and probably read Philo.186 Yet only a superficial knowledge of Judaism is evident here. His supposed quotation of Ex 3:14—that God is ὁ μέν γε ὤν (“he who is”)—has been widely taken as evidence of deep interest in Judaism, but is textually problematic.187 However, Numenius elsewhere identifies Moses with “Musaeus,” Orpheus’s heir and founder of the Greek religion itself.188 Fragment 1a (quoted at the beginning of this section), meanwhile, emphasizes that the nations should only be consulted after the Platonists and Pythagoreans, and then only insofar as they agree with Plato.189 Most of Numenius’s extant fragments explicitly cite Hellenic authorities: Homer, Hesiod, the Orphic texts, Pherecydes, Parmenides, and the Eleusinian mysteries, and it is by the standard of these authorities that he judges other sources of wisdom.190
Celsus, too, invokes “an ancient doctrine which has existed from
