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MIKLÓS VASSÁNYI
kai aya8ov, kalon-kai-agathon). Arguing for the identity of the Good and
the One in the wake of Proclus (Elementatio theologica 12-13) and Plotinus
(Enneads 54),' he formulates his theodicy based on the doctrine of the
accidental existence, parhypostasis, of evil following chiefly Proclus’ De
malorum subsistentia.” Leaving the question of theodicy aside here, I will try
While Plotinus and Proclus perform an outright identification of the One and the Good,
there is at least one indication that Plato had already done the same. One of Aristotle’s direct
disciples, the musical theoretician Aristoxenus of Tarentum (floruit around the middle
of the 3rd century BC) casually remarks that in Aristotle’s account, Plato used to teach
in his lectures that the Good is the One: ...ApıototeAng dei Stnyeito tovcs MAgiotousg TMV
aKovodvtwv rapd IIAatwvog tiv nepi taya8od axpoaow nabeiv. ...dte 5 paveinoav oi Aoyot
nepi nadnuätwv Kal ApıYu@v Kal yewpEtpiac kai doTpoAoyias Kai Td Tepac STL ayaBdv got. év,
TavtehW¢ oipat Tapadokov ti éqaiveto adtoic (AppoviKd ototxeta / Elementa harmonica, Book
2, 30-31 = Henry S. Macran (ed.), The Harmonics of Aristoxenus, Edited with translation,
notes, introduction and index of words, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1902, 122; cited passage
mistranslated on page 187).
Denys’ dependence on Proclus for the theory of evil was noticed as soon as the editio
princeps of Guillelmus de Moerbeka’s 13th-century Latin translation of De malorum
subsistentia had been published by Victor Cousin in 1820 (Procli philosophi Platonici opera
e codd. mss. Biblioth. Reg. Parisiensis, tum primum edidit, lectionis varietate, versione
Latina, commentariis illustravit Victor Cousin, Tomus primus, continens tria opuscula
de libertate, providentia et malo, Parisiis, J.-M. Eberhart, 181-288). Namely, the German
church historian J. G. V. Engelhardt wrote in the same year that “Venerunt interea ad manus,
quae hucusque inediti in bibliotheca Parisina latuerunt, tres Procli libri, in quibus de malo
vnus, quos edidit Victor Cousin hoc ipso anno, eosque ad illustrandum et explicandum hunc
nostrum de malo locum <=De divinis nominibus IV, 18-35> multum facientes” (Dissertatio
de Dionysio plotinizante, praemissis observationibvs de historia theologiae mysticae rite
tractanda, Erlangae, Typis Hilpertianis, 1820, 76). This is a clear acknowledgment that
the Tria opuscula, and among them especially the De malorum subsistentia, had been
the sources of Denys’ theodicy. Three years later Engelhardt published a full, two-volume
German translation of the Corpus Dionysiacum, in which he flatly stated that Denys’ theory
of evil had entirely been drawn from Proclus: “Seine <=of Dionysius> ganze aus dem Proclus
geschoepfte dialektisch-spitzfindige Lehre vom Boesen findet er in der Stelle vom guten
und argen Baume, Matth. 7, 18” (Die angeblichen Schriften des Areopagiten Dionysius,
uebersetzt und mit Abhandlungen begleitet von J. G. V. Engelhardt, Sulzbach, J. E. von Seidel,
1823, Volume I, 271). He also offered a good line of historical reasoning for why Denys had
utilized Proclus in general (ibidem, 212-214).—Around the middle of the century, then,
the French scholar Léon Montet concluded that the Areopagite depends on Proclus for his
idea of ontological hierarchy, and on Plotinus and Proclus for his theory of evil: “pour le
faux Denys comme pour Plotin et Proclus, ... c’est ... la méme doctrine ou plutôt la même
négation du mal...” (Des livres du Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite, Paris, Joubert, 1848, 115).—
Next, De malorum subsistentia was amply proved to have been Denys’ immediate source in
a bipartite 1895 article written by the Jesuit scholar Joseph Stiglmayr (Der Neuplatoniker
Proclus als Vorlage des sogen. Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre vom Uebel, Historisches
Jahrbuch <der Görres-Gesellschaft> 16/2, 253-273; sequel ibidem, 721-748). Stiglmayr
points out that Denys borrowed ideas “directly and often slavishly” from Proclus (ibidem,
257), and demonstrates step by step Denys’ dependence on De malorum subsistentia,
arguing convincingly that Denys looted Proclus’ text in a desultory manner, very often
depriving arguments from their context: “Dabei wird natürlich manches verschoben,
umgebogen, und zerknittert; statt des feinen Organismus der Vorlage <=Proclus> erhalten wir
zusammengewürfelte Bruchstücke” (ibidem, 733). —Independently of Stiglmayr, Tübingen
scholar Hugo Koch essentially reinforced the same thesis in an article published in the same
+ 186 +
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