6 - Numenius of Apamea

Summary

Numenius of Apamea on the Orontes is a thinker whom we know only from the reports of later witnesses who were anything but dispassionate historians of philosophy. The Christians who transcribe his difficult prose are seeking pagan affidavits to Biblical miracles, the temporal creation of the universe and the Trinitarian character of God. To Platonists of the third century, he is a reputable allegorist and a forerunner of Plotinus, though by no means the only source of his philosophy. For Proclus in the fifth century, he is one of the earliest exegetes of Plato whose opinions deserve a hearing, though they are seldom to be followed. Even his dates must be deduced from subsequent notices. He is quoted by the Christian apologist Clement of Alexandria, who was born about 160 ce, and as his pupil Harpocration taught in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, his acme may be assigned to the middle of the second century. Little survives of his works On Space (fr. 1c4 des Places), On Number (fr. 1c5), On the Imperishability of the Soul (fr. 29.9–10) and On the Inexpressibles in Plato (fr. 23); we can guess that his Epops played on the likeness of sound between the word for a hoopoe and the noun epoptēs, which denotes a privileged witness of the mysteries (Origen, Contra Celsum 4.51 = fr. 1c). Excerpts from his treatise On the Defection of the Academy are abundant by comparison; while a text on the cave of the nymphs in Homer’s Odyssey can perhaps be reconstructed from the testimonies of Porphyry and Macrobius.