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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 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 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 186 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:19
