instead excluding Christianity and Judaism from “barbarian philosophy.” It is worth noting, however, that Celsus compares Christian faith to the credulity of charlatans from the Orient, and that when he refers to “ancient traditions” (πάλαι δεδογμένα) as the foundation of his teaching, he provides a summary of Plato.192
A similar range of views are in third-century sophistic and Platonic texts. Philostratus leaves open the possibility that Greeks can learn from other peoples, but never is Greek wisdom upstaged or altered, while the scope of interests of comparison remains firmly in the realm of Hellenic thought.193 Pythagoras and the Egyptians obtained the doctrine of the transmigration of souls from India;194 Egypt, India, and Pythagoras are all in agreement in the polemic against blood sacrifice.195 Notably, Palestine is mentioned only to be disparaged.196 Philostratus also makes explicitly negative references to barbarian wise men, mentioning Egyptian and Chaldean frauds who took advantage of the need for religious comfort after earthquakes west of the Hellespont.197 With his subject charged with being a sorcerer (μάγος) on account of the pilgrimages to Persian and Egyptian magi (μάγοι), Philostratus claims, as did Diogenes Laertius, that Empedocles, Pythagoras, and Plato all learned from the Orientals without becoming μάγοι themselves.198
Porphyry’s position on the Greek tradition in the context of ancient wisdom (παλαιά σοφία) is complex and at times appears contradictory. Some scholars focus on his derogatory comments about the Greeks as a relatively young and ineffectual culture in the face of ancient wisdom.199 In On the Cave of the Nymphs, he traces the use of caves as the first temples back to the consecration of Zoroaster, recalls Numenius’s citation of Gen 1:2, and discusses Egyptian symbolism.200 Just as Porphyry sometimes refers to Jesus positively as one of many representatives of the “ancient wisdom,” he includes the Jews in the ranks of barbarian races that have tapped into universal truths.201 Indeed, he appears to have sought a via universalis.202 At other times, however, he suggests that the philosopher (assuming already the adoption of vegetarianism) ought to adhere to the cultic path of his or her native land,203 thus emphasizing the distinctive character of his own background—Greek thought.204 His Life of Plotinus provides a clue as to how to resolve these attitudes: the student Eustochius is said to have acquired “the character of a true philosopher by his exclusive adherence to the school of Plotinus.”205 Throughout his career, Porphyry is adamant about asserting the authority of the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition, particularly as manifest in the teaching of Plotinus. Like Numenius, he esteems barbarian wisdom but subjugates it, in the service of his own Greek tradition.
Iamblichus’s attitude toward barbarian wisdom is even more ambivalent. In On the Pythagorean Life, he asserts that Pythagoras obtained knowledge of geometry and astrology from Egypt, numbers from Phoenicia, and astrology from Chaldea, yet the sage’s trademark numerical theology is Orphic.206 Iamblichus demarcates Greek and barbarian in the same breath as humans and animals, philosophers and the common rabble.207 Disagreeing with Porphyry in his Timaeus commentary, he accuses his doctrines of being “alien to the spirit of Plato” or simply “barbarous.”208 On the other hand, in his commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, he repeatedly sets the opinion of “all the ancients” (ἀρχαῖοι πάντες) against Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, or simply “Platonists and Pythagoreans.” Sometimes they agree, sometimes not, as when the “ancients” affirm that the souls of the pure are spared judgment, because they are pure already, while “the Platonists and Pythagoreans do not agree with the ancients on this matter, but subject all souls to judgment.”209 Writing in De mysteriis under the guise of an Egyptian priest, “Abammon,” he prioritizes “Assyrian” and ancient Egyptian wisdom as the sources of Pythagoras and Plato.210 In the same work, he invokes the Dekadenztheorie that we have already observed in Plutarch: primordial wisdom is being forgotten, and who better to remind the Hellenes of its contents than an Egyptian priest?211 Yet one can also read this fetishization of Oriental wisdom as typical Hellenism, rather than a departure from Hellenism.212
The incongruency between these attitudes, noted but not resolved by commentators, is difficult to explain.213 Iamblichus could have simply changed his mind over the course of his life, affirming Hellenism at some times more strongly than others. Unverifiable, this thesis also suffers from the impossibility of determining a chronology of his corpus.214 Second, he may have chosen his rhetoric according to polemical context; if the Vita of Pythagoras is an anti-Christian work, as some have suggested, perhaps Iamblichus amplified the Hellenic tone accordingly.215 With Porphyry, on the other hand, he would have required a different approach: to assume the pose of an Egyptian priest (Mysteries) or tar his opponent with the brush of barbarism (Timaeus Commentary). Third, like many innovators, Iamblichus commonly delights in “condemning his predecessors”; his identification with the “ancients” of the East may be less ideological than simply rhetorical convenience.216
After a review of this evidence, it seems clear that, under the early Roman Empire, classical clichés about universal learning and cultic practices of hoary, Eastern provenance underwent a dual change: intensification (hence increased frequency in the sources) but also reconsideration. With “ancient wisdom” universally present and accessible, the Greeks—identified with Plato, and especially his Pythagorean and Orphic sources—became, for some, first among equals. Dio Chrysostom’s coy invocation of the “barbarous” Zoroastrian myth to communicate typical Stoic cosmology anticipates this development, and Diogenes defends the Greek origins of learning more zealously than any other pre-Julianic thinker. Yet the most consistent approach, mediating the doctrine of alien wisdom and the Greek tradition as the best manifestation of it, is somewhat later and mostly Platonic: Numenius, Philostratus, and Porphyry.
This shift away from the classical universalism of Plutarch (and Plato) coincides, not surprisingly, with the Second Sophistic and its celebration of Hellenic identity in παιδεία and civic cult. A second context, crucial for the more philosophically inclined sources discussed here, is the rapid growth of the Neopythagorean movement and the identification of Platonists with it.217 “Plato pythagorizes” became a new cliché.218 Numenius argues that Plato and Socrates were both actually Pythagoreans.219 Pythagoras became a Hellenic culture hero by which the Greeks both engaged and subdued barbarian wisdom.220 Third, the period witnesses the adoption of Orpheus, a barbarian by virtue of his Thracian heritage, as a Greek.221 In earlier catalogues of sages, he is simply one of the ancient theologians of the barbarians;222 but Diogenes claims Orpheus for the Greeks, Plotinus begins his anti-Gnostic work, the so-called Großschrift, with an allegorical reading of an Orphic cosmogony, Porphyry identifies Greek learning with Orphic hymns, and Iamblichus simply sets Pythagoras in the Orphic tradition.223 By the time we arrive at Proclus, a Thracian is the Greek theologian par excellence.224
ALIEN PLATONISTS (AUTO-ORIENTALISM)
Other Platonists rallied instead to the Chaldeans and Egyptians: Julianus the Theurgist and Hermes Trismegistus. The Middle Platonic, Greek hexameters known as the Chaldean Oracles were reportedly produced by one “Julian the Chaldean” or his son, “Julian the theurgist,” or both. Next to nothing else is known about them, and, despite, their association with the East, there is nothing in the Oracles that need be identified outside the realm of imperial Platonism.225 Its doctrines of a transcendent first principle, a feminine World-Soul, ascetic ethic, and emphasis on soteriology and ritual are all at home in Middle Platonism, probably belonging to the second century CE.226 Only Greco-Roman deities such as Zeus or Hecate are mentioned in the text, and the collection did not become known by its modern title—“Chaldaean Oracles of Zoroaster”—until the fourteenth century.227 The “Chaldaean” origin of these verses is a facade used to layer an exotic veneer over Greek philosophy in Greek verse, but its Oriental pose was precious to its readers—the
