Inaug.-diss.-Breslau. / Vita. Cover title.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität zu Köln, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [252]-262) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität zu Köln, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [252]-262) and index.

No comprehensive study of the manuscripts of Macrobius' Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis has appeared in print since the edition of Ludwig von Jan in 1848, although in the 1950s A. la Penna published valuable articles in which he announced the importance of the two 9th-cent. manuscripts, Paris lat. 6370 and Paris lat. 16677. The surviving medieval manuscripts of the Commentary, with or without a separate text of the Somnium Scipionis itself, number around 230 - the figure includes fragments but not excerpts. The total for the Saturnalia is just under 100. The Commentary and the Saturnalia are rarely found written together in one manuscript, and the two manuscript traditions are almost entirely separate. The work summed up in the thesis is based on detailed 'codicological' descriptions and collations of sample passages for about 150 out of the total of c. 230 manuscripts of the Commentary. An attempt has been made to apply the skills of the palaeographer and historian of medieval libraries equally with those of the textual critic in extracting palaeographical and textual evidence from a manuscript treated as a whole. The aim of the work is to discover what the manuscripts themselves can contribute towards the history of Macrobius' text in the Middle Ages, and to distinguish families of manuscripts as a preliminary to the establishing of the text. By the beginning of the 12th cent., it is broadly true to say that a 'vulgate' text of Macrobius' Commentary had been established; the tradition by then was so heavily contaminated that the general impression given by later manuscripts is one of total eclecticism. The later manuscripts do not fall into any major divisions, and only occasionally into identifiable localised groups. Although the 150 manuscripts analysed are from all periods, it has been decided to restrict the thesis to the earlier manuscripts, up to the end of the 11th cent. Here two important families of manuscripts can be discerned, which I have christened 'the Φ group' and 'manuscripts of the abbreviated form'. These account for the majority of surviving manuscripts up to c. 1100, but there is still a residue which are difficult to classify. It would be wrong to say that these remaining manuscripts form a third family, for their only common element lies in the fact that they do not belong to one of the two groups. Although I have the information about these manuscripts at hand, I have largely ignored them in the thesis in order to concentrate on those which belong to recognisable families. The thesis falls into two parts. Pt.I consists of chapters in which the ideas suggested by the combination of textual and palaeographical information are elaborated. Pt. II contains full descriptions of most of the major manuscripts discussed in Pt. I. These descriptions are not intended as reading-matter, but as a corpus of reference material to illustrate the background of facts and detailed research on which the speculations of Pt. I are based; they incude a number of discoveries about indivisual manuscripts, e.g. the re-connecting of several sets of membra disiecta. Because of problems of space, it has been decided to tender full descriptions of a limited number of manuscripts rather than summary descriptions of them all; those included represent only a sample of the total work done. In Pt. I, chapter I concerns the subscription of Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, consul of A.D. 485. The implications of the subscription for the very early history of the text are first discussed, and a small piece of new evidence which may possibly have a bearing on the nationality of Macrobius is brought forward. The nine manuscripts which contain the subscription are then listed and analysed, with a view to finding out whether any of them may be direct descendants of the copy corrected by Aurelius Memmius Symmachus. For six of them it is demonstrated that the subscription must have been an addition, either in these manuscripts themselves or in their immediate ancestors; there remain three which may descend from Symmachus' copy. Finally, it is suggested that the ancient manuscript itself survived the Dark Ages, and passed from Ravenna before 485 to the circle of Lupus of Ferrières between 859 and 862; a parallel is drawn between the histories of the ancient copy of Macrobius' Commentary and the miscellany of Rusticus Helpidius Domnulua which was the exemplar of Vat. lat. 4929, and was used by Lupus and his pupil Heiric of Auxerre. Chapter II concerns the oldest surviving manuscript of the Commentary, Paris lat. 6370 (s.ix⅓, ?Tours), and opens with a discussion of the manuscript as it originally stood before correction. C.H. Beeson identified the hand of Lupus in some 9th-cent. corrections; an attempt is made to confirm the suggestion of É. Pellegrin that another 9th-cent. hand which makes additions in the manuscript can be identified as that of Heiric. Chapters III-V concern the Φ group of manuscripts. In ch. III, the three 9th-cent. manuscripts are analysed with regard to provenance and textual relationships. Two are from Fleury, one from Corbie. The discovery that Reg. lat. 1587, fols.65-80, containing a 9th-cent. copy of De senectute, is from the same manuscript as Paris lat. 16677 (Macrobius' Commentary) introduces the definition of a 9th-cent. corpus, Cato de senectute cum Macrobio, which incorporated the Φ strain of Macrobius' text. The chapter ends by tracing the Insular background of Φ. Ch. IV concerns the later descendants of the 9th-cent. Fleury manuscripts, and it is shown that Macrobius was copied and read with great attention at Fleury under Abbo at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. Ch. V deals with the members of the Φ group written in Germany, and shows that the 9th-cent. Corbie manuscript, Paris nouv. acq. lat. 454, had two 11-th cent. German descendants. Ch. VI deals with an abbreviated form of the Macrobius' text, containing the mainly astronomical section from I.14, 21 to II.9, 10, found in many German manuscripts of the 10th and 11th centuries. But the earliest manuscript was written in France (Berne 347, fols 1r - 22r, ? Auxerre, s.ix²); a codicological argument is put forward that Berne 347 shows marks of editorial manipulation and is therefore the archetype of the group. The conclusion is that the earliest manuscripts of Macrobius' Commentary were written in the French centres such as Tours, Fleury, and in them can be detected the signs of an Insular pre-history. Although the tradition is heavily contaminated, the definition of the two major groups should help us to establish the text on a new basis.

Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 2004. / online-publiziert: 2008.

Le but de la présente thèse est d’étudier les témoignages sur la doctrine de l’« Hadès ouranien » du IVe siècle avant J.-C. au VIe siècle après J.-C. et de dégager les éléments essentiels. L’« Hadès ouranien », traduction de l’expression ὁ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ᾍδης, est un thème de pensée qui caractérise tout un millénaire de la philosophie et de la religion de l’Antiquité païenne. En traitant ce thème historico-religieux, on se veut le plus complet possible mais tout en étant prudent envers nos sources, qui sont fragmentaires et qui proviennent, pour la majorité, de la tradition platonico-péripatéticienne et de ses commentateurs. Aussi, s’efforce-t-on de montrer que l’Hadès ouranien est un lieu de purification pour l’âme et donc, un purgatoire. D’une manière générale, notre recherche est la première entièrement consacrée au sujet de l’Hadès ouranien et à son évolution durant l’Antiquité. Pour ce faire, sur la base d’une approche contextualisée, nous croyons devoir distinguer en réalité trois lieux où l’Hadès céleste a été situé : il y a d’un côté l’emplacement dans la Voie Lactée (Héraclide du Pont) ; il y a aussi un effort, assez divers en ses formes, de situer ce Purgatoire entre la Lune et la terre ou aux alentours de la Lune (les académiciens, les stoïciens, Cicéron, Virgile, Plutarque, les écrits hermétiques) ; finalement, Numénius et les néoplatoniciens latins l’ont situé entre la sphère des fixes et la terre. Quant à l’évolution des éléments qui constituent notre thème, la thèse montre que le platonisme et le néoplatonisme ont fourni un milieu propice pour le développement et la propagation dans l’empire gréco-romain des doctrines sur l’Hadès céleste. De plus, ces mouvements ont aidé à la spiritualisation progressive de cet espace purgatoire. Par ailleurs, on établira certaines caractéristiques de notre thème : l’échappée de l’âme hors du corps, l’allégorie physique et la division, ontologique et physique, entre les mondes sublunaire et supralunaire. Dans une première partie, on traitera de la doctrine de l’Hadès ouranien dans l’ancienne Académie platonicienne (Héraclide, Xénocrate, Philippe d’Oponte) et dans le stoïcisme. La deuxième partie est consacrée à l’analyse du Purgatoire chez Plutarque de Chéronée. La doctrine du Purgatoire selon Cicéron et Virgile et chez leurs interprètes néoplatoniciens, ainsi que dans l’hermétisme et le gnosticisme sera traitée dans la troisième partie. Dans la quatrième et dernière partie, on explorera la doctrine du Purgatoire dans le Oracles chaldaïques et dans les écrits de Proclus, particulièrement dans son Commentaire sur la République de Platon. / The aim of the present dissertation is to study the testimonies concerning the doctrine of the “Celestial Hades” from the 4th century BCE to the 6th century CE and to uncover its essential elements. The “Celestial Hades”, translation of the Greek expression ὁ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ᾍδης, is a pattern of thought that characterizes a millenary of the philosophy and the religion of Pagan Antiquity. In analysing this historico-religious motif, we try to be as exhaustive as possible, though we are very prudent towards our sources, which are in most cases fragmentary and originate from the Platonico-Aristotelian tradition. Hence, an effort has been made to show that the celestial Hades is a place of purification for the soul and thus a Purgatory. Generally speaking, our investigation is the first to be entirely dedicated to the study of the doctrine of the Celestial Hades and to its development during Antiquity. To achieve this aim, and following a contextualist approach, we have tried to distinguish three places where the Celestial Hades has been situated: it has been situated either in the Milky Way (Heraclides of Pontus); or between the Moon and the Earth or around the Moon (the Academicians, the Stoics, Cicero, Virgil, Plutarch, the Hermetical writings); finally, it has been situated, according to Numenius and the Latin Neoplatonists, between the sphere of the fixed stars and the Earth. As regarding its development, our study shows that the Platonist and Neoplatonist traditions have provided a favourable milieu for the propagation of this doctrine in Antiquity. Moreover, certain characteristics regarding our theme will be established: the ascension of the soul, the doctrine of physical allegory and the division, ontological et physical, between the sublunary and the supralunary worlds. In the first part of our research, we analyse the doctrine of the Celestial Hades on the Early Academy of Plato (Heraclides, Xenocrates, Philip of Opus) and in the Stoic school. The second part is dedicated to Plutarch’s doctrine of Purgatory. Thirdly, the same doctrine will be analysed in Cicero and Virgil, and their exegetes, as well as in the Hermetic treatises and Gnosticism. The fourth and last part will explore the celestial Purgatory in the Chaldaean Oracles and in the writings of Proclus, particularly his Commentary on the Republic.

Le but de la présente thèse est d’étudier les témoignages sur la doctrine de l’« Hadès ouranien » du IVe siècle avant J.-C. au VIe siècle après J.-C. et de dégager les éléments essentiels. L’« Hadès ouranien », traduction de l’expression ὁ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ᾍδης, est un thème de pensée qui caractérise tout un millénaire de la philosophie et de la religion de l’Antiquité païenne. En traitant ce thème historico-religieux, on se veut le plus complet possible mais tout en étant prudent envers nos sources, qui sont fragmentaires et qui proviennent, pour la majorité, de la tradition platonico-péripatéticienne et de ses commentateurs. Aussi, s’efforce-t-on de montrer que l’Hadès ouranien est un lieu de purification pour l’âme et donc, un purgatoire. D’une manière générale, notre recherche est la première entièrement consacrée au sujet de l’Hadès ouranien et à son évolution durant l’Antiquité. Pour ce faire, sur la base d’une approche contextualisée, nous croyons devoir distinguer en réalité trois lieux où l’Hadès céleste a été situé : il y a d’un côté l’emplacement dans la Voie Lactée (Héraclide du Pont) ; il y a aussi un effort, assez divers en ses formes, de situer ce Purgatoire entre la Lune et la terre ou aux alentours de la Lune (les académiciens, les stoïciens, Cicéron, Virgile, Plutarque, les écrits hermétiques) ; finalement, Numénius et les néoplatoniciens latins l’ont situé entre la sphère des fixes et la terre. Quant à l’évolution des éléments qui constituent notre thème, la thèse montre que le platonisme et le néoplatonisme ont fourni un milieu propice pour le développement et la propagation dans l’empire gréco-romain des doctrines sur l’Hadès céleste. De plus, ces mouvements ont aidé à la spiritualisation progressive de cet espace purgatoire. Par ailleurs, on établira certaines caractéristiques de notre thème : l’échappée de l’âme hors du corps, l’allégorie physique et la division, ontologique et physique, entre les mondes sublunaire et supralunaire. Dans une première partie, on traitera de la doctrine de l’Hadès ouranien dans l’ancienne Académie platonicienne (Héraclide, Xénocrate, Philippe d’Oponte) et dans le stoïcisme. La deuxième partie est consacrée à l’analyse du Purgatoire chez Plutarque de Chéronée. La doctrine du Purgatoire selon Cicéron et Virgile et chez leurs interprètes néoplatoniciens, ainsi que dans l’hermétisme et le gnosticisme sera traitée dans la troisième partie. Dans la quatrième et dernière partie, on explorera la doctrine du Purgatoire dans le Oracles chaldaïques et dans les écrits de Proclus, particulièrement dans son Commentaire sur la République de Platon. / The aim of the present dissertation is to study the testimonies concerning the doctrine of the “Celestial Hades” from the 4th century BCE to the 6th century CE and to uncover its essential elements. The “Celestial Hades”, translation of the Greek expression ὁ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ᾍδης, is a pattern of thought that characterizes a millenary of the philosophy and the religion of Pagan Antiquity. In analysing this historico-religious motif, we try to be as exhaustive as possible, though we are very prudent towards our sources, which are in most cases fragmentary and originate from the Platonico-Aristotelian tradition. Hence, an effort has been made to show that the celestial Hades is a place of purification for the soul and thus a Purgatory. Generally speaking, our investigation is the first to be entirely dedicated to the study of the doctrine of the Celestial Hades and to its development during Antiquity. To achieve this aim, and following a contextualist approach, we have tried to distinguish three places where the Celestial Hades has been situated: it has been situated either in the Milky Way (Heraclides of Pontus); or between the Moon and the Earth or around the Moon (the Academicians, the Stoics, Cicero, Virgil, Plutarch, the Hermetical writings); finally, it has been situated, according to Numenius and the Latin Neoplatonists, between the sphere of the fixed stars and the Earth. As regarding its development, our study shows that the Platonist and Neoplatonist traditions have provided a favourable milieu for the propagation of this doctrine in Antiquity. Moreover, certain characteristics regarding our theme will be established: the ascension of the soul, the doctrine of physical allegory and the division, ontological et physical, between the sublunary and the supralunary worlds. In the first part of our research, we analyse the doctrine of the Celestial Hades on the Early Academy of Plato (Heraclides, Xenocrates, Philip of Opus) and in the Stoic school. The second part is dedicated to Plutarch’s doctrine of Purgatory. Thirdly, the same doctrine will be analysed in Cicero and Virgil, and their exegetes, as well as in the Hermetic treatises and Gnosticism. The fourth and last part will explore the celestial Purgatory in the Chaldaean Oracles and in the writings of Proclus, particularly his Commentary on the Republic.