• 1 Suda, II, 1, 347; Hesychius, Onomasticon, 123, 16; Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. “Τέργις.”
• 2 Therapy of Greek Maladies, II, 35; 62, 3.

1The Roman Stoic Lucius Annaeus Cornutus was a philosopher, a teacher of philosophy, and a man of letters, active in Rome in the age of Nero. The dates of his birth and death are unknown, as well as the circumstances of his death. His birth is located in Leptis Magna by late sources, the Suda, Hesychius, and Stephanus of Byzantium.1 We do not know whether this information is based on reliable sources. Cornutus’ profound culture is attested by Macrobius, Saturnalia, V, 19, who characterises him twice as doctissimus, and by Cassius Dio, who under the year 65-66 CE mentions that “Annaeus Cornutus was illustrious for his culture” (ἐπὶ παιδείᾳ, Roman History, LXII, 29, 2). Theodoret specifies that Cornutus was a “philosopher” (φιλόσοφος) and “offered a synthetic exposition of Greek theology.”2

• 3 According to B. Inwood, “The Legacy of Musonius Rufus,” in T. Engberg-Pedersen (ed.), From Stoicism (...)
• 4 I. Ramelli, “Anneo Cornuto e gli Stoici Romani,” Gerión 21, 2003, pp. 283–303; ead., “Lucius Annaeu (...)

2Like a contemporary of his, the Stoic Musonius,3 Cornutus was exiled by Nero to an island. According to Cassius Dio, LXII, 29, 1–4, Nero planned to compose a history of the Romans in epic verse, and consulted Cornutus about this. Cornutus replied that the projected 400 books would be too long and nobody would read them. Nero objected: “But Chrysippus, whom you praise and imitate, composed many more!” Cornutus answered: “But these are useful for human life!” This triggered his exile, which was surely facilitated by his links with the Annaei and in particular with Lucan.4

• 5 I. Ramelli, Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery. The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from (...)

4In Satire 5, Persius calls Cornutus “beloved friend,” “planted deeply in the recesses” of his heart. Cornutus received Persius’ youth into his own “Socratic bosom”—which highlighted that Stoic ethics had Socratic roots. Cornutus straightened Persius’ morals, and modelled his soul on Stoic ethics. Cornutus is represented by Persius as devoted to nightly study and the education of the young, based on Cleanthes’ doctrine, particularly Stoic ethics, which teaches true freedom, the focus of Satire 5. This is not juridical, but moral freedom from passions—the real, inner masters.5 Only philosophy can teach freedom, grounded in the distinction between truth and appearance: for the Stoics, who inherited Socrates’ ethical intellectualism, bad moral choices depended on wrong assumptions. They are based on defective knowledge, which philosophy must rectify.

• 6 Anthology, Physics, I, 49, 43; p. 383, 28 Wachsmuth.
• 7 The index is preserved by Codex Parisinus Graecus 1759.

5Cornutus wrote philosophical, literary, rhetorical, and grammatical works, mostly lost. From a philosophical work of his, Stobaeus drew his information concerning Cornutus’ view of what happens at death: “The soul is eliminated before the body, or together with the body, as Cornutus maintains.”6 An ancient index, compiled on Diogenes Laertius’ oeuvre when this was still entirely extant, testifies that Book VII of his Lives and Doctrines of Philosophers, which was devoted to the Stoics, covered all the Stoics until Cornutus7—while today this book stops abruptly in the middle of the treatment of Chrysippus.

• 8 P. Krafft, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung von Cornutus’ Theologia Graeca, Heidelberg, C. Winter (...)
• 9 Anneo Cornuto, Compendio di teologia greca, saggio introd. e integrativo, trad. e apparati di I. Ra (...)

7Cornutus’ Handbook of Greek Theology, unlike other works of his which are lost, survives in Greek in about forty manuscripts.8 Its full title is: Ἐπιδρομὴ τῶν κατὰ τὴν ἑλληνικὴν θελογίαν παραδεδομένων, “Survey of the traditions of Greek theology.”9 Now, Greek theology is entirely allegorised in the Handbook, according to the Stoic allegorical tradition. The Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. “Zeus,” cites section 2 of Cornutus’ Handbook, attesting to a shorter form of its title: Περὶ Ἑλληνικῆς θεολογίας, On Greek Theology.

• 10 As argued by I. Ramelli, Allegoria. I, L’ età classica, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 2004, chap. 6.

8Cornutus’ Handbook addresses a child; an immediate pedagogic function is indeed probable, also given the compendious nature of the work and Cornutus’ job as teacher of Stoicism. In the last chapter (35), Cornutus refers to unnamed philosophical predecessors, surely Stoics, for a fuller treatment. Indeed, he was strongly influenced by previous Stoic allegorists such as Chrysippus (most of all), Cleanthes, Apollodorus of Athens, and Crates of Mallus.10

• 11 M. Wojciechowski, “Pseudo-Cornutus, His Religious Physics, and the New Testament,” Biblica et Patri (...)
• 12 M. Wojciechowski, “Pseudo-Cornutus, His Religious Physics, and the New Testament,” art. cit., p. 12 (...)
• 13 Analysis of this testimony in my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinkin (...)

9Some critics consider the attribution of the Handbook to Cornutus a misattribution.11 The argument from poor style, which has pointed to the origin of the text in notes taken at Cornutus’ school, is more weighty than the other argument that “this work was virtually unknown in the antiquity; only one ancient author noted that Cornutus had written something on the Greek gods. It became popular and quoted in the Middle Ages and later.”12 The reference is to Theodoret, quoted above. The objection does not take into account that Porphyry (Against the Christians, F 39) attests that Origen, between the second and the third century CE, was always reading Cornutus as a prominent example of ancient allegoresis, which Origen transferred on to Scripture.13 Indeed, as we shall see later, Origen was familiar with Cornutus’ work and with Stoic allegoresis in general, as Clement and Philo also were. So, the objection does not hold. Even the apparently careless style of the Handbook could be partially a result of scribal errors and in general it is certainly related to the compendious and simple manual style.

• 14 On the taxonomy of Greek myths see J. Bremmer, “What Is a Greek Myth?,” in id. (ed.), Interpretatio (...)
• 15 See my Origen of Alexandria Philosopher and Theologian: A Chapter in the History of Platonism, Camb (...)

11Thus, for Cornutus, the ancients were no “people of no account” (οἱ τυχόντες, Handbook, 35), but able to philosophise by means of symbols and allegories or enigmata. Something similar was already suggested by Plato in Phaedrus, 69 c–d. Socrates is comparing the passage from vice to virtue to the initiation mysteries preparing people to dwell with the deities, and he declares that the mystics of old, who created the mysteries, “turn out to have philosophised in the right way” (πεφιλοσοφηκότες ὀρθῶς, 69 d). It is possible that Aristotle was polemicising against Plato when he maintained that the ancients were, instead, “people of no account” (οἱ τυχόντες, Politics, II, 1269 a 4–8). Cornutus, by claiming that the ancients, on the contrary, were not at all “people of no account” (οἱ τυχόντες), but able “to philosophise,” seems to reject Aristotle’s position verbally, and to embrace Plato’s (and Posidonius’) position, even echoing Plato in the choice of the verb “philosophise” (φιλοσοφῆσαι in Handbook, 35 = πεφιλοσοφηκότες in Phaedrus, 69 d). Posidonius was surely known to Cornutus as well, and expressed a similar view: “Some of the most recent Stoics claim that the first humans, born from the earth, were much superior to the present ones in intelligence . . . as though they had possessed some further perceptive faculty, they applied the acumen of their mind to the divine nature and conceived of some divine powers” (ap. Sextus Empiricus, Aduersus mathematicos, IX, 28). Cornutus was following the Stoic idea of the excellence of the first humans, who could directly access the truth and expressed it through myths and rituals.14 He joined this theory to the Stoic notion of direct, common access to truth though common innate notions (κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι), a concept that Origen, who knew Cornutus very well, inherited from the Stoics.15 The result was the support of the inclusion of mythological allegoresis in philosophy. From the perspective of Cornutus—and of Chrysippus, who theorised it, as we shall see—poetry and other forms of transmission of ancient “theology,” such as rituals, cultic epithets, and visual representations, express various truths in a symbolic way, which allegoresis had to decipher.

• 16 On the distinction between allegory and allegoresis, see A. Ford, The Origins of Criticism: Literar (...)

12In his Handbook, Cornutus offers an allegorico-etymological interpretation of each divinity’s names and epithets, attributes, aspects of myths and rituals, and the like. He thus applied allegoresis, i.e. the allegorical exegesis of given texts, who have, or are taken to have, allegories in them.16 Section 1 is devoted to Ouranos, the Sky; section 2 to Zeus, section 3 to Hera, 4 to Poseidon, 5 to Hades, 6 to Rhea-Atargatis, 7 to Kronos, 8 to Oceanos, and 9 again to Zeus and his multiple epithets. Section 10 deals with the Erinyes, section 11 again with Zeus, section 12 with the Prayers, section 13 with Zeus as Fate, Necessity, and Adrasteia, section 14 with the Muses, section 15 with the Graces—to which I shall return below, in connection with Seneca’s probable criticism—, and long section 16 with Hermes. Section 17 is more methodological and reflects on the various mythological traditions of different peoples: “many and various myths about the gods were composed by the ancient Greeks, as others by the Magi, others by the Phrygians, and again the Egyptians and Celts and Libyans, and other races” (we shall see that a comparative method was suggested in this connection). Section 18 addresses Prometheus and Epimetheus, section 19 Athena and Hephaestus, lengthy section 20 again Athena, section 21 Ares and Enyo, 22 Poseidon again, 23 Nereus, 24 Aphrodite, 25 Eros, 26 Atlas, 27 Pan as cosmos, 28 Demeter and Hestia, 29 the Hours, 30 Dionysus, 31 Heracles as universal logos, 32 Apollo and Artemis, 33 Asclepius, 34 the epithets of Artemis, and 35 again Hades, his epithets, and the conclusions, in which, as we have seen, the excellence of the ancients as philosophers was spelt out.

• 17 I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 4.

13Physical allegory prevails by far in Cornutus’ Handbook, although there are also examples of ethical allegory, and even of historical exegesis along the lines of that provided by Palaephatus and his tradition—which was closer to the Aristotelian than to the Stoic school.17 For example, in section 30, Cornutus provides an etiological account of the myth of Dionysus torn apart by the Titans. He explains that once farmers mixed grape clusters together and separated from one another the parts of the grapes, which the myth handed down as “the limbs of Dionysus”—while in fact what happened historically was just the separation of grapes. Likewise, in section 19 Cornutus suggests that Hephaestus is said to have been thrown to earth from heaven by Zeus, because once upon a time the first people to use fire found it where it had been started by a thunderbolt. The factor that is in common with Stoic allegoresis is the reduction of deities to natural elements.

• 18 Examination in my “The Philosophical Role of Allegoresis as Mediator between Physikē and Theologia, (...)
• 19 On Stoic theology and its materialism see, e.g., S. Dienstbeck, Die Theologie der Stoa, Berlin, W.  (...)
• 20 I use the edition by I. Ramelli, Anneo Cornuto. Compendio, op. cit., which has some changes vis-à-v (...)

15Stoic physical allegoresis, however, is by far prevalent in Cornutus. This reflects a predominance of this kind of allegoresis in the whole of the Stoic allegorical tradition, which can be clearly explained within the framework of Stoic immanentism: physical allegoresis shows the material nature of the divine, the Stoic reduction of theology to physics.18 For example, what ancient theology called Zeus is a symbol of the ether; what is called Hera is an allegory of the air, Hephaestus of fire, Poseidon of water, and so on.19 For instance, in Handbook, 2–3, Cornutus offers this summary of Stoic allegoresis supported by etymology with reference to Zeus:20

• 21 I. Ramelli, “Valuing Antiquity in Antiquity by Means of Allegoresis,” in J. Ker, C. Pieper (ed.), V (...)

16Ancient poetry and other modes of transmission of ancient theology expressed truth symbolically, and the task of Stoic philosophical allegoresis is to decode those symbols. Such a task is philosophical, and precisely theological, insofar as its focus is the truth about nature and the divine. In Stoic immanentism, theology and physics are two sides of the same coin, and the application of allegoresis to traditions handed down from antiquity reveals this, by showing that each deity is a part of the physical world.21

• 22 As maintained by A. A. Long, “Allegory in Philo and Etymology in Stoicism: A Plea for Drawing Disti (...)
• 23 I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 9.2.2, with documentation and critical discussion.
• 24 See I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 9.

17Cornutus, like other Stoic allegorists, had extensive recourse to etymology in the service of philosophical allegoresis. Indeed, etymology is a tool consistently deployed in Stoic allegoresis. However, Stoic philosophical allegoresis cannot be reduced to the application of etymologies or to a linguistic disambiguation exercise22—any more than Philo’s allegoresis, applied to Scripture, can be reduced to a mere etymological exercise, although Philo too, like the Stoics, used etymology a great deal. Etymology was employed by the Stoics in the service of allegoresis because it was a constituent of the Stoic theory of language, according to which names are “by nature.” This view could be traced back to Plato’s Cratylus.23 According to the Stoics, the “first sounds” imitated the objects that the ancients experienced around them. Names were formed on this basis. The ancients are, again, those responsible for their constitution, and Stoic philosophical etymology is called to interpret them, by detecting in words their first constituents and meanings. Thus, philosophical etymology provides the original, true (ἔτυμος) sense of words. Therefore, etymology was considered to be a tool both for grasping the nature of deities, since etymology goes back to the authentic meaning of a name, and for showing how ancient names and epithets of deities reflect their nature, thus revealing physical or ethical truths. This same nature is expressed allegorically in ancient theological myths. This shows that the allegoresis of ancient traditions can catch the truth, because according to Stoic linguistics etymology has a direct grasp on nature itself.24

• 25 This is investigated in my “Stoic Homeric Allegoresis,” in C.‑P. Manolea (ed.), Brill’s Companion t (...)
• 26 I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 2.4; ead., Allegoristi dell’età classica, Milano, Bompian (...)

18Theological allegoresis was applied to myths from the very beginning of the Stoa, from the first three scholarchs, Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus onwards. Zeno wrote Homeric Questions in five books, allegorising the Homeric poems, which were a major target of all of Stoic and Platonic allegoresis.25 Chrysippus composed a systematic allegorical treatise, On Divinities (Περὶ θεῶν). Especially in Book II, he used allegoresis as a key to interpret and value ancient poetry and religious traditions, for instance Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod. What is more, he provided the first theory of Stoic allegoresis in Book I On Divinities.26 Here, he clarified the relationship of allegory to theology, the latter as expressed in poetry, rituals, iconography, and religious traditions in general. In this programmatic piece, Chrysippus declared that the Logos was expressed in different ways by philosophers, poets, and institutors of laws and customs in various cities, including rituals (SVF, II, 1009):

• 27 SVF, II, 1021; cf. Cornutus, Handbook, 3.
• 28 On Crates see I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 3; ead., Allegoristi dell’età classica, op. (...)

20Chrysippus’ disciple, Diogenes of Babylon, wrote a book On Athena (SVF, III, Diogenes, 33), in which he rejected anthropomorphic concepts of divinities and equated Apollo with the sun and Aremis with the moon, whereas Zeus, identified with the pneuma that is the foundation of all things, is manifested in various guises, for example Poseidon in the sea, Hera in the air, and so on. Diogenes’ follower Apollodorus of Athens also wrote an allegorical treatise On Deities, like Chrysippus. The Stoics principally interpreted the poets along physical lines, equating Hephaestus with fire, Poseidon with water, Hera with air, because of the affinity of her name with ἀήρ, etc. The last example is representative of the above-mentioned etymologising habit of the Stoics: likewise, Athena is derived from ἀθρεῖν (“to see”), Zeus from ζῆν (“to live”), and Δία (accusative case of Zeus) from διά (“because of”), which characterise Zeus both as life and as the cause of things.27 These derivations were then circulating, as evidenced by Plato’s Cratylus, but the Stoics seem to have been the first to exploit them in the service of a systematic philosophical theology. Their influence extended widely over writers such as Crates of Mallus, who exerted a remarkable impact on Cornutus.28

• 29 I. Ramelli, “The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and Its Reception in Platonism, ‛Paga (...)

22The prominence of allegoresis in Stoicism is beyond doubt, and I have argued elsewhere for its philosophical role.29 Now, Stoic philosophical allegoresis, of which Cornutus was the heir, had not simply an “apologetic” role: when the Stoics used it, they did not merely aim at supporting their own philosophical system against other philosophical schools or ways of thinking. This might have been the case at the beginning of their school, but less so already in Chrysippus’ day, and much less so in Cornutus’ time, in imperial Stoicism.

• 30 On Heraclitus see Heraclitus. Homeric Problems, ed., trans. D. A. Russell, D. Konstan, Leiden, Bril (...)
• 31 Analysis of the Stoic argument in I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 5; text and commentary (...)

25As mentioned above concerning Heraclitus, from Zeno down to the early imperial age, the time of Cornutus and Heraclitus’ Homeric Allegories and the pseudo-Plutarchean Life and Poetry of Homer,30 Stoics continued to represent Homer as well steeped in a variety of disciplines, especially physics and geography, besides all sorts of literary devices. This was obviously meant to project onto antiquity, at the origin of culture, the Stoic ideal of a unity grounded in the Logos. In this connection, it is meaningful that in Cicero’s de Natura deorum, among the speeches delivered (the Epicurean in Book I, the Stoic in book II, and the Academic in Books I and III), the Stoic is the most extensive of all, with a dramatic disproportion, and also includes a much broader spectrum of disciplines than the others.31 Thus it reflects very well the Stoic ideal of the construction of a wide-ranging cultural unit revolving around theology and physics, and additionally embracing logic, mathematics, physiology, cosmology, astronomy, ritual, legends, customs, traditions, poetry, rhetoric, linguistics, etymology, and more. In the Stoic view, antiquity is a source of philosophy, if opportunely decoded, and the proof of the naturalness of philosophy: the ancients, spontaneously inspired by the logos and, as it were, philosophers by nature, expressed philosophical truths under symbolic veils. One primary task of contemporary philosophy, according to the Stoics, was the decrypting of those symbols.

• 32 E.g., SVF, II, 528-533, 576, 620, 945, and 1013.

26The cultivation of cultural unity has much philosophical value from the Stoic perspective, because it refers to the unity of the Logos. The Stoic is a distinctively monistic, holistic, and unitary system centred in the Logos-Pneuma (allegorised by Zeus) that extends to all nature and all thought and reasoning. The Stoics speak a great deal of unity and conceive the cosmos itself as a whole (τὸ ὅλον, τὰ ὅλα). Chrysippus (SVF, II, 945) insists that in the universe, τῶν ὅλων, nothing happens independently of all the rest, because the whole cosmos is directed by the same Logos and all causes are interconnected. Many other fragments, mostly from Chrysippus or ascribed to the Stoics in general, stress the unity of the cosmos.32

• 33 SVF, II, 35 and 38.
• 34 Τὰ μέρη τῆς φιλοσοφίας ἀχώριστά ἐστιν ἀλλήλων, SVF, II, 38.

27Since allegoresis detects the identity of theology and cosmology, then it covers all, because there is nothing beyond the cosmos and the divine, and the latter is coextensive with the former. This is a strong support for the ideal of the unity of all. Philosophy must reflect this unity, and indeed both Chrysippus and Posidonius insisted that, although philosophy has three parts (physics, ethics, and logic), it is a unity:33 “The parts of philosophy are inseparable from one another.”34 There is “one and the same virtue” (μία ἀρετή) for all of philosophy (so Chrysippus, or “the Stoics,” in SVF, II, 35). The ideal of cultural unity was dear to the Stoics because of their own multifarious cultural interests; suffice it to think of Chrysippus, Posidonius, Apollodorus and Crates, the above-mentioned speech of Balbus in Cicero, and Cornutus.

• 35 G. Most, “Cornutus and Stoic Allegoresis: A Preliminary Report,” ANRW, II, 36, 3, 1989, pp. 2014–20 (...)
• 36 I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 6.6.

28Most Stoics embraced allegoresis as an important philosophical tool. Exceptions are very few and include Seneca, another contemporary of Cornutus. Seneca polemicised against the allegoresis of myths,35 and probably specifically against Cornutus and Musonius, as I suggested elsewhere.36 Seneca, unlike Chrysippus and Cornutus, never used allegoresis applied to religious myths as a philosophical tool. He thought myths did not conceal philosophical truths; thus, the condition for allegoresis was lacking in his perspective, although Seneca sometimes applies etymology to divine names and epithets (e.g., Gifts, IV, 7, 1). But in Gifts, I, 3, 2–4, Seneca considers the interpretation of the mythological details concerning the Graces—such as why they are young, virgins, smiling, etc.—to be irrelevant to the philosophical treatment of gifts (beneficia). In Gifts, I, 3, 5 he reports the interpretation of the mythological particulars only to reject such hermeneutical exercises, which are in his view sterile. The names given by Hesiod to the Graces carry no philosophical meaning (ibid., I, 3, 6). A very different perspective from that of Chrysippus and Cornutus.

• 37 G. Picone, Le regole del beneficio. Commento tematico a Seneca, De beneficiis, libro I, Palermo, Pa (...)
• 38 I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., pp. 333–334.

29That the main target of Seneca’s criticism is Chrysippus' exegesis of poetic myths and its aftermath in Cornutus emerges clearly from Gifts, I, 3, 8–9. Seneca here disavows a tenet of Stoic etymologico-allegorical hermeneutics of the kind practiced by Chrysippus and Cornutus: namely, that mythological names and epithets, especially of deities, which appear in ancient poets, are truth-bearing (ἔτυμοι). According to Seneca, poets did not aim at truth (Gifts, I, 3, 10). Cornutus himself admitted that later poets sometimes altered the original myths by their own inventions. But Seneca here suggest that poets in general do not convey, as a rule, philosophical truths. Picone,37 albeit referring to Ramelli,38 remarks that Seneca was not really uninterested in the allegorical meaning of the Graces’ myth. However, Seneca, unlike Chrysippus and Cornutus, never uses allegoresis applied to religious myths as a philosophical tool. Especially Seneca’s remark that the etymology of the name of the Graces’ mother cannot be relevant to the symbolic meaning of the Graces, because mothers are not named after their children, but vice versa (Gifts, I, 3, 9), perfectly corresponds to Cornutus’ strategy in Handbook, 15: deducing the symbolic meaning of the Graces from the etymology of their mother’s name. This is why I suspect that Seneca was targeting Cornutus and his Chrysippean background. Because of his critique of traditional religion and myths, Seneca was appreciated by Christian authors. According to Tertullian, he “often” spoke “like a Christian” (On the Soul, 20). Indeed, in Apologeticum, 12, 6 Tertullian depicts Seneca as “haranguing with many bitter words about your superstition.”

• 39 See I. Ramelli, “The Philosophical Stance,” art. cit. R. Chlup (Proclus: An Introduction, Cambridge (...)
• 40 E.g., Persian Magi, Babylonian Chaldaeans, and Celtic Druids: Diogenes Laertius, I, 1.
• 41 See my “Diogene Laerzio e Clemente Alessandrino nel contesto di un dibattito culturale comune,” ETF(...)

30The philosophical role of allegory, established in Stoicism as I have pointed out above, was inherited by Middle and Neoplatonists, all the more so when Platonism began to verge toward the religious.39 Philo and Plutarch, both close to “Middle Platonism,” renounced Plato’s criticism of Homer and viewed the work of this most ancient poet as useful for philosophy. Middle and Neoplatonists valued Ur-traditions, not only Greek, but of various peoples, to be interpreted allegorically in order to discover an original, uncontaminated wisdom in them. Of course, the choice of these ancient traditions was crucial. While writers such as Herodotus and Plato had emphasised the intellectual debt of Greek thinkers to the ancient Egyptian tradition, Diogenes Laertius insisted that, although there are traditions of wisdom in other peoples,40 philosophy is the great invention of the Greeks.41 Plutarch significantly rewrites travel stories, in which itinerant Greeks become bearers, and not receivers, of wisdom.

• 42 ἐν μυθαρίου πλάσματι εἰκόνας τῶν θειωτέρων ᾐνίσσετο (Porphyry, Homeric Questions, 36, 10–12).

34For, as Porphyry explains at the end of The Cave of the Nymphs, Homer’s intelligence and perfection in every virtue allowed him to “express allegorically, in the fiction of a despicable myth, images of more divine truths.”42 This is why in his Homeric Questions Porphyry, albeit without recourse to allegoresis here, aimed at demonstrating that Homer never errs, something maintained by Crates and Heraclitus the Rhetor. Porphyry’s attitude is the same as Origen’s or other Christian exegetes’ towards the Bible: valuing one’s own ancient authoritative text—often accompanied by the denial of any authoritative status to other ancient texts felt as threatening. This is why Porphyry and other “pagan” Platonists, at least in their anti-Christian writings, denied any authoritative status to the Bible, while Christians denied any authoritative status to “pagan” myths.

• 43 Proclus, Platonic Theology, I, 4, p. 20 Saffrey-Westerink.
• 44 E.g., M. Edwards, Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries, Burlington, Ashgate, 2013, (...)

35Both Proclus and his teacher Syrianus are ascribed by the Suda (s.v. “Πρόκλος” and “Συριανός”) a lost work On the Agreement between Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Chaldaean Oracles. This work reflects well the ideal of the Neoplatonic School of Athens, which contemplated the construction of a scientific theology embracing all traditional divinities read in the light of Plato’s philosophy by means of allegoresis, whose structural role is the same as in Stoic theology. From Proclus’ and Syrianus’ viewpoint, truth is one (Plato’s truth) but first it was expressed symbolically by Homer and Hesiod, then in images by the Pythagoreans, then dialectically by Plato, and finally in a theosophic form by the Chaldaean Oracles—whose status was not axiologically inferior to that of the Platonic dialogues and was the same as that of Scripture for the Christians43 (It is indeed methodologically flawed to consider that Christians valued only Scripture as authority and Platonists only Plato,44 since various Platonists regarded texts such as the Chaldean Oracles or Corpus Hermeticum as not inferior to Plato in authority, and Origen, Eusebius, Synesius and other Christians valued Plato as the highest philosophical authority, preferred his philosophy, inspired by the Logos, to what unlearned Christian believed, and interpreted Scripture allegorically in light of Platonism).

• 45 Proclus, Platonic Theology, I, 5, pp. 25–26 Saffrey-Westerink.

36Proclus remarks: “All of Greek theology is the child of Orphic mystagogy: Pythagoras was the first who received initiation from Aglaophamos, and Plato in turn received from the Pythagorean and Orphic doctrines perfect knowledge concerning the gods.”45 In his Commentary on the Republic, at the beginning of the sixth essay, Proclus prepares his project of reconciling Plato with Homer through an account of archaic myths as containing philosophical truths, to be interpreted allegorically. This task, exactly like that of the Stoic allegorists, also aimed at preserving ancient Greek cultural and literary heritage for future generations.

• 46 See I. Ramelli, “Cornutus in Christlichem Umfeld,” in Cornutus, Die griechischen Götter: Ein Überbl (...)
• 47 I. Ramelli, “The Philosophical Stance” and “Origen’s Allegoresis of Plato’s and Scripture’s Myths,” (...)

37Cornutus and Chaeremon of Alexandria—another early imperial Stoic allegorist—, who both inherited the ancient Stoic allegorical tradition, also represent a bridge between Stoic and Christian allegoresis. Not so much because in Christian circles Cornutus was held in esteem and even became a martyr,46 but because the allegorical work of both Cornutus and Chaeremon, applied to Greek and Egyptian mythography respectively, was very familiar to Origen of Alexandria († 255/6 ca. CE), who, following Philo’s and Clement of Alexandria’s strategy, applied philosophical allegoresis to the Bible’s “myths.”47

• 48 See I. Ramelli, “Philo as Origen’s Declared Model. Allegorical and Historical Exegesis of Scripture (...)

39Porphyry considers Origen responsible for the transfer of the allegorical exegetical method from traditional Greek myths to the Bible. Interestingly, he does not mention Clement, nor Philo or other Jewish allegorical exegetes of the Bible. The same significant omission is already found in Celsus (ap. Origen, Against Celsus, IV, 51). Origen himself noted this omission, and rather claimed Philo as his own allegorical model.48 Celsus and Porphyry, though, aimed at severing Christianity from its Jewish roots and at representing Christianity as opposed to Judaism; this may be one possible explanation of Celsus’ and Porphyry’s omission and the reason why Porphyry insists only on the Stoic antecedents of Origen’s allegoresis, mentioning Cornutus and Chaeremon, but not Philo (or Clement, whom he may have not known—while he certainly knew Origen very well). Notably, the same criticism that he levelled against Origen—that of misappropriating the method of allegoresis—Porphyry also addressed to the Neopythagorean Cronius in the preface to his work On the Styx.

• 49 Argument in my “The Logos in the Johannine Prologue and Its Philosophical Reception,” in S. E. Port (...)

40Porphyry’s malaise vis-à‑vis an allegorical interpretation of Scripture is also evident from other passages. In particular, in The Cave of the Nymphs, 4, Porphyry praises Numenius’ interpretation of Genesis 1:1, but without saying that this was Biblical allegoresis, and vaguely mentioning “a prophet” instead of Moses. But both the Middle Platonist and Neopythagorean Numenius and the Neoplatonist Amelius, from Plotinus’ circle, had no problems in allegorising passages of Scripture, from both the Old and the New Testament. I even deem it possible that Amelius, when he commented on the Prologue of John, did so with Origen’s Commentary on John at the back of his mind. There are telling clues in his fragments that point to this conclusion.49

• 50 For further developments in later Platonism, see my “Macrobius: Astrological Descents, Ascents, and (...)

43In his works, Origen indeed shows reminiscences of allegorical exegeses that are found in Cornutus and the Stoic allegorical tradition, and of Stoic etymological interpretations. For example, in First Principles, II, 8, 2–3, ψυχή (“soul”) is said to derive from ψῦχος, ψῦξις (“cold, cooling down”) according to an old Stoic etymology (SVF, II, 222–223). In Against Celsus, I, 24 Origen even mentions the Stoic etymological principles based on the Stoic notion of language “by nature,” and displays allegorical interpretations of Greek mythological figures that remind readers of those of the Stoic tradition. The Stoic exegesis of Hades as the tenebrous air that surrounds the earth, as developed in Cornutus (Handbook, 35) on the basis of earlier Stoic allegorical tradition, is also present in Origen, First Principles, IV, 3, 10: the dead descend to Hades, i.e. this world, because they are judged deserving of occupying the region around the earth.50 Origen might have drawn this interpretation from Numenius, F 32 des Places, but he certainly knew Cornutus’ reference as well, since he was very well acquainted with his work and knew it.

• 51 On Porphyry see P. F. Beatrice, “The Oriental Religions and Porphyry’s Universal Way for the Soul’s (...)
• 52 G. Boys-Stones, “The Stoics’ Two Types of Allegory,” in id. (ed.), Metaphor, Allegory, and the Clas (...)
• 53 I. Ramelli, Allegoria, I, op. cit., chap. 7.1; Allegoristi dell’età classica, op. cit., chap. 9.
• 54 I. Ramelli, “Plato in Origen’s and Gregory of Nyssa’s Conception of the ἀρχή and the τέλος,” in R.  (...)

44Also, the method suggested by Cornutus to discover the philosophical truth hidden in myths and rituals, mentioned above, was taken up both by Middle/Neoplatonists such as Plutarch or Porphyry,51 and by Origen himself. That method was a comparison between the Greek and other peoples’ mythological and cultic traditions,52 an interest which is also evident in Cornutus’ contemporary Chaeremon, who allegorised Egyptian mythology and was concerned with the symbolic value of hieroglyphics. His work was very well known to both Clement of Alexandria and Origen.53 Origen himself applied Cornutus’ method: he engaged in a rather systematic and very significant comparison between Plato’s myths and Scripture’s myths, as I have sought to demonstrate elsewhere.54

• 55 Ap. Origen, Against Celsus, VII, 18.
• 56 See references in n. 54.

46Celsus’ refutation of Christian allegoresis of Scripture, in the last sentence, is based on its purported incoherence. But more radically, Celsus believed “that in the Law and the prophets there is no deeper doctrine [λόγος] beyond the literal sense of the words.”55 Celsus' position was refuted by Origen, who intended to legitimise his own transfer of the allegorical method from classical mythography—to which Cornutus and the ancient Stoics applied it—to the “myths” of Scripture.56

• 57 On which see I. Ramelli , “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism,” art. cit.

47Structurally, the inclusion of allegoresis within philosophy, as an essential philosophical tool, is the same in the Stoic allegorical tradition, in Middle and Neoplatonism—which incorporated significant Stoic elements—and in Origen. It is significant, indeed, that Origen chose to include his theory of Biblical allegorical exegesis, not in any of his academic commentaries, but in his philosophical masterpiece, On First Principles, Book IV,57 in the very same way as the Stoics considered allegoresis to be part and parcel of philosophy.

• 58 On Origen as a “zetetic” see my Origen of Alexandria, op. cit., chap. 5; a systematic, separate wor (...)

49In this connection, it is also notable that Origen attaches to the study of Scripture the very lexicon of philosophical investigation (ζητητικωτέρους, ἐξετάσεως, πεῖσμα ἀξιόλογον, ζητεῖν).58 Origen observes: “But sometimes a useful discourse does not appear [in Scripture]. And on some other occasions, even impossible things are prescribed by the Law, for the sake of those who are more expert and particularly fond of investigation, that, applying themselves to the toil of the examination of Scriptures, they may be persuaded by reason that in Scriptures it is necessary to look for a meaning that is worthy of God” (First Principles, IV, 2, 9: I emphasised in italics the philosophical, “zetetic” expressions). The reason for Origen’s use of philosophical terminology in connection with allegorical exegesis of Scripture is that, in Origen’s view, the allegoresis of the Bible was an important part of philosophy; this is also why he decided to include his theorisation of biblical allegoresis in his philosophical masterpiece and not anywhere else.

• 59 The unintelligent exegete does not realise this (Homily 3 on Psalm 36:7).

50In this connection, the very function of the few Biblical passages that are deprived of a literal meaning is to have the intelligent exegete realise that a philosophical scrutiny of Scripture is needed.59 This philosophical examination aims at finding in the Bible meanings that are “worthy of God.” This seems to have been one of the very first factors that produced in Greece a search for allegorical meanings of myths whose literal sense sounded “unworthy of the divine.” Origen’s overall principle that Biblical allegoresis had to find out meaning “worthy of the divine” in Scripture was exactly the same that triggered the Stoic allegorical method inherited by Cornutus: to find in traditional myths and rituals meanings “worthy of the divine”—explaining away objectionable elements in myths, such as divine anthropomorphisms and gods subject to passions—and to discover in ancient authoritative texts philosophical truths on the divinity and the cosmos.