Maximus of Tyre
Maximus of Tyre (Greek Μάξιμος Τύριος ) was an ancient orator and philosopher. He lived in the late 2nd century. As a philosopher, he was Mittelplatoniker, as a speaker, he is counted in the " Second Sophistic ".
Life
Little is known about the life of Maximus. He came from the city of Tyre in the province of Syria or had there at least center of his life. At the time of the Emperor Commodus ( 180-192 ), he traveled to Rome, where he gave lectures. At that time he had already made a name as a speaker.
In research, it is contemplated to identify him with Cassius Maximus, Artemidorus of Daldis devoted the first three books of a treatise on dream interpretation. Consideration is also possible that Lucian with an unnamed " Sidonians " ( citizens of the Syrian city of Sidon ), he tells about the life in his description of the Demonax mocking an anecdote Maximos says. The Sidonians, a sophist, who boasted a broad knowledge of different philosophical directions is said to have attained in Athens as a teacher standing. Both identifications are controversial.
Works
Get a collection of 41 lectures ( dialéxeis ) on philosophical and religious issues. The authenticity of the handwritten traditional titles of the lectures is controversial; partly they describe the contents only inaccurate, which is used as an argument against their authenticity. The duration of the lectures ranged from twenty minutes to half an hour. Primarily, Maximus turned to the young men that he wanted to introduce into philosophy. The presentations were matched to an educated audience, but the audience were not philosophers; Maximos was expressed commonly understood and avoided technical terminology. As a starting point for the discussion of a question he would like to chose an example from history, from mythology or from a fable, where it proved useful to his extraordinary erudition. Sometimes he rambled much on the topic. Occasionally served a lecture defending a position which was rejected in another lecture.
The topics covered include most of the area of ethics; only in a few lectures is mostly about other areas such as mythology, natural science, psychology and epistemology. Is skipped entirely logic. Among the traditional titles: " Whether one should put gods still images "; "Whether Socrates acted properly when he did not defend "; " Anyone who has had the better idea of the gods, the poet or the philosopher? "; "Whether one should pray "; " What is science? "; "Whether the findings are memories "; "Whether you're doing the, the injustice, to repay the injustice "; "Whether, if there is divination, something in our power "; "The fact that the contemplative life is better than the active "; "Whether Plato rightly Homer away from the state "; " What is love art of Socrates? "; " What is the goal of philosophy? "; "Whether the Kynikerleben is preferable "; " Whether by divine providence is good "; "If God brings good, then how come the evil? "
The style of the Maximos has the prosody features of Asianism, but with regard to vocabulary, morphology and syntax it is based on Atticism. Therefore, he is regarded as a moderate Attizist. He speaks to his audience directly, scatters an exclamation, protestation formulas and rhetorical questions and ensures a lively expression, including the fact that he corrected himself when talking or something added later. What is striking is that the proliferation of metaphors and mythological and historical references and the classic quotes.
Teaching
In his philosophical convictions do Maximos proves Platonists; he refers several times explicitly to Plato, quoted him often, and also takes many allusions to works of Plato reference. His metaphysics, his doctrine of the soul and its ethics are platonic. In politics he shares Plato's attitude, as his praise of Plato's ideal state and its criticism of democracy shows. In keeping with the tradition of Platonism he turns against the sophists and argues against Epicurus. In addition, however, the influence of Aristotelianism, the Cynicism and especially the Stoics is evident in his remarks. Openness to Stoic ideas was common among Mittelplatonikern and is therefore not striking. Maximus knows the techniques developed in other philosophical trends concepts and ideas and engages when needed back at them, but remains committed to the fundamental doctrines of Platonism. Therefore, it is incorrect to refer to him as an eclectic. Gladly he refers to the example of Socrates, who was worshiped in both the Platonic and the Stoic and Cynic of tradition.
An independent thinker, he is not; his concern is the promotion of a philosophical way of life through the spoken word. It discusses the issues are not systematically, but speaks to preach adherent rhetorical Art From the oral, obviously a time limiting underlying performance style results in the requirement of a relatively scarce, summary presentation of the substance. This fact may have contributed to the fact that some thoughts are not carefully and consistently worked out. A revision for publication in written form seems not to have occurred.
In the first lecture Maximos compares the philosopher with an actor. Just as an actor diverse roles inherit and musicians have to master several keys, the philosopher should be able to make his speech " polyphonic and varied " by taking into account different needs of his listeners. He also shows that he is the variety and variability of your life and can flexibly adapt to the needs of different circumstances.
Maximos shares the widespread in ancient Platonikerkreisen belief that there is not in reality different competing philosophical systems, but only one authentic philosophy, which forms a self-contained unit and the reality correctly describes. In his view, are all philosophical schools, with the exception of the Epicureans, in which he sees no real philosophers, based on this a truth and express it only different. Among the most important representatives of the authentic teaching of wisdom Maximos counts next to Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope also Homer, whose poetry is one of his favorite topics. He does not grasp some statements Homer literally on, but interprets them allegorically. Ethical aspects are in his interpretation of Homer in the foreground; so in particular the hero Odysseus appears as a model of virtue. In the early poetry, to which he counts alongside the works of Homer and Hesiod, the Orphic poetry, Maximos sees a legitimate path to knowledge of reality; it is for him an equal footing with the philosophy. The poetry expresses with mythical images, what philosophy formulated with " bare words "; Philosophers such as Aristotle and Chrysippus are not smarter than Homer and Hesiod. The old seal is divinely inspired, Homer was instructed by Apollo and the Muses, and is thus a mediator between gods and men. With its extraordinary appreciation of Homer Maximus gets in contrast to the attitude of Plato, which excludes the poets from his ideal state, and especially severe in Homer criticizes. Here Maximos takes a balancing posture. His allegorical interpretation of Homer enables him to defuse the opposition between Plato and Homer. He does not defend Homer against Plato, but Plato attempted prohibition of Homer - reading in the ideal state to apologize.
Maximos is a supporter of a widespread in antiquity pessimistic philosophy of culture, which assumes that the history of mankind is marked by a process of decay; the refinement of civilization is seen as degeneration. This general decline relates to the philosophy. There he shows up in the splitting of the originally uniform and absolutely true teachings in different doctrines of rival schools. In particular, the emergence of Epicureanism Maximos considered as a sign of degeneration. Consequently, results from the fact that the oldest wisdom teachings must be the best. Accordingly, Maximos, the wisdom of Homer even above that of Plato and thinks Plato learned even more than of Socrates by Homer. The ancient poets would have a veiling, only suggestive expression served and thereby have stimulated search for truth; in the current decay time, however, prevails an unseemly directness.
Reception
Antiquity and Middle Ages
After his death, Maximus became apparently quickly forgotten; of the following three centuries are no known evidence or clues for reception of his work. In the 10th century Maximos in the Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia, was honored with a tight entry that where only fragmentary Author lexicon of late antique historian and literary historian Hesychius of Miletus is based on information provided. The deduced from the Suda citation in Hesychius ' lexicon, which dates from the 6th century, is the only clear trace of an ancient Maximos reception.
The manuscript tradition begins only in the second half of the 9th century. At that time the oldest preserved codex was made in Constantinople Opel, on which depends the entire subsequent textual tradition. He is now in the French National Library ( Pari Sinus Graecus 1962).
After the preparation of the oldest manuscript the interest in Maximos seems to be gone again in Byzantium, for only in the late Middle Ages dive additional tracks: a manuscript from the second half of the 13th century and six from the 14th century. The statesman and scholar Theodoros Metochites (1270-1332) knew and used the lectures. Also a student of Metochites, Nikephoros Gregoras, was interested in Maximos; he put together excerpts from the lectures.
Early Modern Times
In the 15th century, several copies arrived in Italy, where the lectures were in compliance humanists. Marsilio Ficino made in his commentary on Plato's Symposium from this source use. Cristoforo Landino looked Maximos as literary model; in his Disputationes Camaldulenses he utilized the designs of the ancient orator on the active and the contemplative life (15 and 16 lecture ). Angelo Poliziano was particularly interested in Maximos ' representation of the Socratic conception of love; he quoted him in several of his works, especially in his Enarratio in Sapphus epistolam. To view the text criticism Zanobi Acciaiuoli tried, who completed many conjectures. North of the Alps Johannes Reuchlin was the first humanist who dealt with Maximos and the lectures consulted; he published in 1488 a translation of the 41 lecture into Latin. However, a Latin translation of the whole collection was only in the early 16th century available; it was made by Cosimo de ' Pazzi ( Cosmo Paccius ), Archbishop of Florence, and printed in 1517 in Rome. In his preface, Cosimo gave the literary power of Maximos the highest praise. Soon after the publication of the Latin translation was revised by Rhenanus; his version was published in 1519 in Basel at John Frobenius. Only in 1557 the first edition of the Greek text was printed; she appeared in Paris by Henricus Stephanus.
1617 the first complete French translation was published in 1749 the first German, who prepared Christian Tobias Damm ( 2nd edition Berlin 1764). Only in 1804 was also a complete English translation; it was from the Platonist Thomas Taylor.
The interest in the presentations in the early modern period was referring primarily to its value as a cultural- historical source, but occasionally found also the philosophical content of attention; as Hugo Grotius dealt with Maximos ' position on the fate and free will, and found in the eleventh lecture material that he could use as part of his apologetics for the treatment of natural theology. Also, the Platonist Ralph Cudworth took on the lectures reference. In the literature on poetics Maximos was quoted as an authority, as it provided arguments for the justification of Homer against philosophical criticism. The writer Robert Burton drew the lectures zoom for his famous Anatomy of Melancholy ( 1621).
1774-1775 seemed a concerned by Johann Jacob Reiske new edition of the lectures. In the preface judged Reiske Maximos ' performance is very negative, which he commenced a sustained turnaround in the assessment of the lectures.
Modern
In modernity, the interest in Maximos largely restricted to the altertumswissenschaftliche research, a wider front desk has hardly taken place. Said Ulrich von Wilamowitz- Moellendorff, Maximos is " by its very nature quite rhetorician " was, and said: ". Rattles His rhetoric, but sometimes not achieved minor effects " Unfortunately was the judgment of Edward North; he saw in Maximos ' by itself and by Sophist " a " frivolous fellows "who had fought against the sophists, but was; his style was "very dressed up ." Also Albin Lesky noted that talks were " in effect crafted in styles mannered wrote treatises ". In more recent research, however, Maximos ' literary achievement is viewed more positively. Otto and Eva Schönberger write that there are " approaches, beyond the widely nachgesprochenen prejudices of earlier philologists get over " the talks were " built up excellent" and its end offers " always a striking climax ."
Text editions and translations
- George Leonidas Koniaris (ed.): Maximus Tyrius Philosophumena - ΔΙΑΛΕΧΕΙΣ. De Gruyter, Berlin - New York 1995, ISBN 3-11-012833-0 ( critical edition )
- Otto and Eva Schönberger: Maximus of Tyre, Philosophical lectures. King & Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2090-1 (only translation )
- Michael B. Trapp ( ed.): Maximus Tyrius Dissertationes. Teubner, Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1994, ISBN 3-8154-1535-7 ( critical edition )