Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BridgHe (Bridging Greek Philosophy, Christianity, and Islam: An Edition of the Late Antique Testimonies of Heraclitus)
Reporting period: 2023-12-01 to 2025-11-30
The chief objective of the project is to produce the first complete collection of the Late Antique testimonies concerning the early Greek philosopher Heraclitus. This source collection will include an English translation of the texts in the various relevant languages (mainly Greek and Arabic, but also Latin, Coptic, and Syriac) and a running commentary of the testimonies, highlighting both the philological and the philosophical importance of the Late Antique afterlife of Heraclitus. The project will thus also provide the very first in-depth study of the reception of the thought and the tenets of Heraclitus in this fundamental period.
The name of Heraclitus was still resonating in third century Rome, fifth century Alexandria, and ninth century Baghdad, but no one has put together the existing evidence to tell that story yet. The main philosophical and exegetical objective of the project thus consists not only in the analysis of the various ways in which different authors have expounded the views and the sayings of Heraclitus, but also in the assessment of the remarkable patterns of continuity and change that characterise the Heraclitean interpretations in the broad chronological span of Late Antiquity.
The figure of Heraclitus lies, indeed, at the intersection of historical periods and exegetical traditions that tend to be considered separately. My project aims to challenge this approach by showing that the literary and philosophical production pertaining to research fields such as Greek Philosophy, Christianity, and Islam has to be jointly taken into account if we want to understand both the interpretative history and the theoretical relevance of the tenets of Heraclitus. For this reason, the project includes not only the Greek reception of Heraclitus but also domains neglected by scholarly research such as the Gnostic writings of the Nag Hammadi library and the texts produced in the framework of the translation movement from Greek into Syriac and Arabic.
The name of Heraclitus was still resonating in third century Rome, fifth century Alexandria, and ninth century Baghdad, but no one has put together the existing evidence to tell that story yet. The main philosophical and exegetical objective of the project thus consists not only in the analysis of the various ways in which different authors have expounded the views and the sayings of Heraclitus, but also in the assessment of the remarkable patterns of continuity and change that characterise the Heraclitean interpretations in the broad chronological span of Late Antiquity.
The figure of Heraclitus lies, indeed, at the intersection of historical periods and exegetical traditions that tend to be considered separately. My project aims to challenge this approach by showing that the literary and philosophical production pertaining to research fields such as Greek Philosophy, Christianity, and Islam has to be jointly taken into account if we want to understand both the interpretative history and the theoretical relevance of the tenets of Heraclitus. For this reason, the project includes not only the Greek reception of Heraclitus but also domains neglected by scholarly research such as the Gnostic writings of the Nag Hammadi library and the texts produced in the framework of the translation movement from Greek into Syriac and Arabic.
The research conducted in the framework of the project has hitherto focused on the ascertainment of the three aspects listed below. These aspects are set out in the project as working hypotheses and have been largely confirmed by my examinations, even though a complete demonstration will be provided at the end of the project:
(1) The first aspect is that a major common trait of the Late Antique Greek and of the Islamic reception of Heraclitus is represented by Plotinus’ interpretation. I tried to show that Plotinus' exegetical efforts exerted a pervasive influence on and played a key role in the subsequent readings of the tenets of the early Greek philosopher. This influence was shared by later Neoplatonic and Islamic authors alike and makes it possible to disclose the widely common interpretative horizon within which they developed their readings. One can, in this sense, draw a line that connects Plotinus’ Enneads to the textual constellation of its Arabic adaptations through philosophers such as (the pagan) Iamblichus and (the Christian) Aeneas of Gaza.
(2) The second aspect is that Neoplatonic authors – starting with Plotinus – and Gnostic ones were concurrently engaged in an interpretation of sayings of Heraclitus linked to crucial themes such as the destiny of the soul, its descent into the sensible world, and its longed-for ascent (i.e. return) to the intelligible realm. This point has been established through a detailed analysis of the texts of the Gnostic Nag Hammadi library (especially of Sethian sources), featuring Coptic translations of treatises composed originally in Greek, which have been compared with the relevant Neoplatonic testimonies. The assessment of the Gnostic interpretation of Heraclitus is also fundamental insofar as it constitutes the exegetic architecture of key sources such as Clement of Alexandria and the Pseudo-Hippolytus of Rome, who have transmitted to us a major part of the fragments of Heraclitus.
(3) The third aspect, linked to the previous ones, is that the Christian-Gnostic tradition constitutes, along with Neoplatonic thought, a further shared feature of the afterlife of Heraclitus in the Islamic world: the relevance of this tradition is already evident from the fact that the Pseudo-Hippolytus, with his peculiar blend of Stoic, Gnostic, and Christian interpretation, has been one of the main sources of the Arabic doxographies – most importantly, of the doxography of the Pseudo-Ammonius (Kitāb Amūnīyūs fī ārā’ al-falāsifa, “The Book of Ammonius on the Opinions of the Philosophers”). From a theoretical point of view, the monotheistic interpretation of the Presocratics, including Heraclitus, is a sign of this continuity and can be observed in a number of relevant Arabic sources.
(1) The first aspect is that a major common trait of the Late Antique Greek and of the Islamic reception of Heraclitus is represented by Plotinus’ interpretation. I tried to show that Plotinus' exegetical efforts exerted a pervasive influence on and played a key role in the subsequent readings of the tenets of the early Greek philosopher. This influence was shared by later Neoplatonic and Islamic authors alike and makes it possible to disclose the widely common interpretative horizon within which they developed their readings. One can, in this sense, draw a line that connects Plotinus’ Enneads to the textual constellation of its Arabic adaptations through philosophers such as (the pagan) Iamblichus and (the Christian) Aeneas of Gaza.
(2) The second aspect is that Neoplatonic authors – starting with Plotinus – and Gnostic ones were concurrently engaged in an interpretation of sayings of Heraclitus linked to crucial themes such as the destiny of the soul, its descent into the sensible world, and its longed-for ascent (i.e. return) to the intelligible realm. This point has been established through a detailed analysis of the texts of the Gnostic Nag Hammadi library (especially of Sethian sources), featuring Coptic translations of treatises composed originally in Greek, which have been compared with the relevant Neoplatonic testimonies. The assessment of the Gnostic interpretation of Heraclitus is also fundamental insofar as it constitutes the exegetic architecture of key sources such as Clement of Alexandria and the Pseudo-Hippolytus of Rome, who have transmitted to us a major part of the fragments of Heraclitus.
(3) The third aspect, linked to the previous ones, is that the Christian-Gnostic tradition constitutes, along with Neoplatonic thought, a further shared feature of the afterlife of Heraclitus in the Islamic world: the relevance of this tradition is already evident from the fact that the Pseudo-Hippolytus, with his peculiar blend of Stoic, Gnostic, and Christian interpretation, has been one of the main sources of the Arabic doxographies – most importantly, of the doxography of the Pseudo-Ammonius (Kitāb Amūnīyūs fī ārā’ al-falāsifa, “The Book of Ammonius on the Opinions of the Philosophers”). From a theoretical point of view, the monotheistic interpretation of the Presocratics, including Heraclitus, is a sign of this continuity and can be observed in a number of relevant Arabic sources.
The project results lead beyond the state of the art in several ways. First and foremost, the collection of Late Antique testimonies of Heraclitus, supplemented by translation and commentary, that lies at the heart of the project is unprecedented not only regarding scholarship on Heraclitus but with a view to research on early Greek philosophy more generally. Second, the study of the reception and of the use of the tenets of Heraclitus in understudied domains such as the Coptic, Syriac, and Arabic tradition constitutes an almost absolute novelty and makes it possible to shed light on a wide array of texts and authors who had recourse to Heraclitus. It thus contributes not only to the clarification of the tradition of the ideas and the sayings of Heraclitus himself, but also to the furtherance of our understanding of the historico-philosophical position and of the theoretical interests of those who quote him or refer to his views. Third, the fact that the project has a broad outlook and is not limited by means of external criteria – e.g. of linguistic, cultural, or religious nature – paves the way for research on related topics, on the one hand, and highlights the importance and the interest of the patters of continuity and of the lines of tradition that can be uncovered by adopting such an approach.