1

Flos Intellectus:
Notes on the transfer of a Neoplatonic doctrine from Alexandria to
Constantinople

In the prologue to his Commentary on Book I of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Eustratius of

Nicaea (c. 1050-c.1120) begins, as had long been customary in Late Antique commentaries, by
discussing the book’s skopos. It is, says Eustratius, the achievement of happiness (eudaimonia),
the goal of human life and reason for which human beings have been brought into the world. It
begins by achieving the moderation of passions (metriopatheia), which restrains the irritability
and lack of measure of the passions that have been joined to us, and persuades them to obey
reason; and it ends with the state of impassibility (apatheia), “which”, Eustratius points out “we”
– that is, the Christians? – call blessedness” (makariotês). For it is necessary to hasten toward the
final mortification (nekrôsis) of the irrational faculties, so that only reason (logos) can be active
in the person, with no impediments from irrationality. When this happens, Eustratius continues,

The human soul, through the continuous and uniterrupted activity of reason, rises up to the
intellect (nous) and becomes intellectiform (nooeidês), or an intellect by participation (nous kata
methexin)1, then deiform, insofar as it is united with God (hôs theôis henôtheisa) in accordance
with the one that is within it (kata to en autêi enkeimenon hen), which the great Dionysius called
the flower of the intellect (anthos nou)2.

At first sight, Eustratius’ citation is surprising. One will search in vain for an occurrence of the
expression anthos nou in the Corpus Dionysiacum as it has come down to us today3. As we shall
see, however, this same notion – of a cognitive faculty higher than the intellect, by which human

1
For this concept, cf. Proclus, Platonic Theology 1.91.16; ET prop. 129. For Psellus, the nous kata methexin can more
appropriately be called an intellective illumination (ellampsis noera, De omnifaria doctrina, p. 32, 2-5 ed. Westerink).
2
Eustratius, In EN 1, p. 4, 33-37 ed. Heylbut: οὗ γενομένου ἡ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ διὰ τῆς συνεχοῦς καὶ ἀδιακόπου
ἐνεργείας τοῦ λόγου εἰς νοῦν ἄνεισι καὶ νοοειδὴς γίνεται ἤτοι νοῦς κατὰ μέθεξιν, εἶτα δὲ καὶ θεοειδὴς ὡς θεῷ
ἑνωθεῖσα κατὰ τὸ ἐν αὐτῇ ἐγκείμενον ἕν, ὅπερ ἄνθος τοῦ νοῦ ὁ μέγας ὠνόμασε Διονύσιος. This text is commented
and luminously explained in Trizio 2017, 71f.
3
Cf. Des Places 1981, 326; Trizio 2017, loc. cit. For a survey of the literature, cf. Perczel 2000, 507-510.
 2

beings can enter into contact and even union with the divine – was not known by this name
alone. It went by a wide variety of aliases, including, but not restricted to, “flower of our essence”
(anthos tês ousias hêmôn), “highest part of the soul” (akrotaton tês psukhês); “highest existence
of the soul” (akrên huparxin tês psukhês)4; “the one within us” (to en hêmin hen), “one of the
soul” (unum anime), “summit of the mind” (apex mentis), “conscience” (sinderisis), “principal
part of the heart or mind” (principale cordis5/mentis6), “spark of the soul” (scintilla animae,
Seelenfunke); “virginal portion of the soul” (pars virginalis animae)7, “operation of birth-pangs”
(ὠδῖνος operatio), intrinseca unius intelligentia8.

Whereas a great deal of exemplary recent work has been done on the origin, nature, and
function of this faculty of the Flower of the Intellect or One in the Soul in Proclus, less attention
has been paid to this idea in Hermias. In what follows, I will therefore concentrate on Hermias,
referring to Proclus only with a view to pointing out the quasi-identity of the views on this subject
of these two great representatives of Alexandrian and Athenian philosophy, a commonality
which can no doubt be explained by the immediate influence of Syrianus, and the more distant
one of Iamblichus. In conclusion, I will briefly discuss testimonies from the work of John of
Scythopolis – some well known, others less so – in order to suggest the importance of the role of
this little-known figure in the transmission of this Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonic theme,
first to Constantinople, and thence to the Latin and Germanic West.

1. Origins of the doctrine of the Flower of the Intellect. The Chaldaean Oracles

The earliest attestation of this expression seems to be in the Chaldaean Oracles. In fr. 1 Des
Places, we read:

4
Proclus, In Alc. I, 247, 6-7
5
Origen, Homily 10 on Numbers, Migne PG XI 639D.
6
Augustine, De Trinitate, XIV.8.11.
7
Beierwaltes 1972, col. 715; 19792, 368; von Ivánka 1990, 314-312.
8
Proclus, In Parm. VII 45, 11: VII 54, 12, cited by Beierwaltes 19792, 371 n. 24; 372
 3

For there exists a certain Intelligible which you must think by the flower of mind (noou anthei).
For if you should incline your mind toward it and think it as if thinking a specific thing, you would
not think it. For it is the power of strength, shining all around, flashing with intellectual divisions9.

The expression recurs in fr. 49 Des Places10:

“For (Aion) alone, copiously plucking the flower of intellect from the strength of the Father,
has the power to perceive the Paternal Intellect”.

As Hans Lewy points out11, for the Chaldaeans this “flower of the intellect” is thus the organ
or faculty that enables cognition of the highest noetic object. It also designates the “offshoots of
the Paternal Intellect”, by which this supreme Chaldean power “imparts his essence to the noetic
orders”12.

As we shall see, this aspect of the “flower of the Intellect”, according to which it is the faculty
which allows human beings to cognize the first principles, is the predominant one in the later
Neoplatonic tradition. At some stage in the tradition, however, it seems to have been combined
with the doctrine of innate ideas.

2. Flower of the Intellect and doctrine of innate ideas

9
Chaldean Oracles, fr. 1 Des Places (translation Majercik, modified):
Ἔστιν γάρ τι νοητόν, ὃ χρή σε νοεῖν νόου ἄνθει·
ἢν γὰρ ἐπεγκλίνῃς σὸν νοῦν κἀκεῖνο νοήσῃς
ὥς τι νοῶν, οὐ κεῖνο νοήσεις· ἔστι γὰρ ἀλκῆς
ἀμφιφαοῦς δύναμις νοεραῖς στράπτουσα τομαῖσιν.
10
Chaldean Oracles, fr. 49 Des Places (translation Majercik, modified) :
πατρογενὲς φάος· πολὺ γὰρ μόνος ἐκ πατρὸς ἀλκῆς
δρεψάμενος νόου ἄνθος ἔχει τὸ νοεῖν πατρικὸν νοῦν
<καὶ νόον> ἐνδιδόναι πάσαις πηγαῖς τε καὶ ἀρχαῖς
καὶ δινεῖν αἰεί τε μένειν ἀόκνῳ στροφάλιγγι.
11
Lewy 2011, p. 167f.
12
Cf. Gersh 1978, 119 n. 191, who cites the additional Chadaean fragments 34-35; 121-128 Des Places.
 4

This notion derives from the Platonic doctrine of anamnêsis as set forth in the Meno and other
dialogues, but the key text was Plato’s description in the Phaedrus (247a ff.) of the journey of the
human souls, prior to their incarnation on earth, as they follow the chariots of the gods in their
journey throughout the huperouanios topos. During this journey, the souls have unrestricted
vision of the intelligible forms, and so acquire all possible knowledge. At some point, however,
for reasons that are explained in a wide variety of ways in the Neoplatonic tradition, the souls
leave their noetic paradise and embark on the descent to the sensible world that will lead to their
incarnation within a sensible body. Since immaterial souls cannot travel, howver, the souls are
first provided with a vessel (Greek okhêma) made of a pneumatic substance intermediate
between air and fire, which allows them to be transported through the celestial spheres13 and
also serves, during the soul’s earthly existence, as the intermediary between soul and body, in
the form of a pneumatic body, the condition of which depends, according to Porphyry, on the
quality of one’s ethical existence on earth14. As the soul descends through the seven planetary
spheres, it accumulates excrescences at each one: lust as it passes through the sphere of
Aphrodite, anger at the sphere of Venus, etc. By the time the soul arrives on earth, then, its noetic
nucleus – containing its memories of the intelligible forms in the form of ennoiai or innate ideas
– is enveloped like an onion within many layers of adventitious incrustations. These successive
layers obcure and “cool down” the ennoiai, which are conceived a spark or a flame (Greek
spinthêr, Latin scintilla animae) buried under ashes15. Although obscured, however, these embers
are still smouldering and can be revived and fanned back into flames: this is the task of the
Neoplatonic philosophical curriculum16.

13
This version of the theory, prominent in Porphyry, was common to Gnosticism and Hermetism; cf. Chase 2004.
14
Cf. Porphyry, Sentence 29. On the pneuma as intermediary between soul and body, see the text from John of
Scythopolis cited infra.
15
For this idea in Eustratius, In Apo, cf. Trizio 2017, 73f., and for a Latin example from a text attributed to Boethius,
Chase 2014.
16
The best account of this process is provided by Simplicius, In Cat., p. 12, 15-13, 11 ed. Kalbfleisch, with the
commentary by Hoffmann 1987.
 5

This complex of ideas can be illustrated by a passage from John Philoponus’ Commentary on
the Posterior Analytics17. Although it is true, as the Peripatetics assert, that the senses are
necessary for the acquisition of knowledge1, he writes:

Yet we do not therefore say that the senses are the causes (aitiai) of the sciences – for it is not permitted for
the inferior to be the cause of the superior – but that our souls, as if spellbound by torpor or sleep of the
world of becoming, require the senses to awaken and stir up the spark (spinthêr)18 of knowledge2 hidden
within us. And as someone who had fallen into deep forgetfulness of one of his friends might not achieve a
notion of him unless some external starting-point (aphormê19) occurred to him, but when someone displays
the friend’s cloak or some other belonging, he is immediately moved to the notion of his familiar and stirs up
the impressions (tupoi) within him, so sensible things incite (erethizousi) the soul to project (proballesthai)
the rational principles (logoi) of the models with which it has been substantialized. For instance, when we
look at the heavens and see the good order in them, we come to the notion of he who has set them in order,
and we return from the bodies to the incorporeal power. Yet we also come to judge the truth by hearing, and
from sensible harmony to the universal rational principles (logoi) of harmony. This is why Plato says that ears
and eyes were given to us by the Demiurge, by means of which we obtained the kind of philosophy; for that
it is not from the sensibles that the goal derives its knowledge1 of realities, was sufficiently shown in the
commentary on the Phaedo.

Pace the Peripatetics, says Philoponus, sensible things are not the efficient cause of the
formation of universal concepts, but merely a contributing cause or the conditio sine qua non,
providing the occasion which triggers the process of reminiscence of the universal knowledge –
that is, the ennoiai – that is innate within each of us. The formation of universals is thus nothing
but the reawakening of this innate knowledge, as if the ashes or the ennoiai were stirred or
fanned in order that the smouldering embers of our once-universal knowledge may once more

17
Philoponus, In Apo, p. 214.18-215.5 ed. Wallies: καὶ οὐ δήπου διὰ τούτων τοῦτό φαμεν, ὅτι αἱ αἰσθήσεις αἴτιαί
εἰσι τῶν ἐπιστημῶν (οὐ γὰρ θέμις τὸ χεῖρον τοῦ κρείττονος αἴτιον εἶναι), ἀλλ’ ὅτι αἱ ψυχαὶ ἡμῶν ὡς ὑπὸ κάρου ἢ
ὕπνου τῆς γενέσεως κατεχόμεναι δέονται τῶν αἰσθήσεων ἐξυπνιζουσῶν καὶ ἀνακινουσῶν τὸν ἐν ἡμῖν τῆς γνώσεως
σπινθῆρα κρυπτόμενον. καὶ ὥσπερ ἐν λήθῃ τινὸς τῶν φίλων βαθείᾳ γενόμενος οὐκ ἄν ποτε ἴσως ἔλθοι εἰς ἔννοιαν
ἐκείνου μηδεμιᾶς αὐτῷ ἔξωθεν ἀφορμῆς γενομένης, ἐπειδὰν δὲ ἱμάτιόν τις τοῦ φίλου δείξῃ ἢ ἕτερόν τι, εὐθὺς
κινεῖται εἰς ἔννοιαν τοῦ γνωρίμου καὶ τοὺς ἐν ἑαυτῷ τύπους ἀνακινεῖ, οὕτω δὴ καὶ τὰ αἰσθητὰ ἐρεθίζουσι τὴν ψυχὴν
προβάλλεσθαι τοὺς συνουσιωμένους αὐτῇ τῶν παρα δειγμάτων λόγους. οἷον εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναβλέψαντες καὶ
τὴν τῶν ἐν ἐκείνῳ εὐταξίαν ὁρῶντες εἰς τὴν τοῦ τάξαντος ἐρχόμεθα ἔννοιαν, καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν ἀσώματον δύναμιν ἐκ τῶν
σωμάτων παλινδρομοῦμεν. ἀλλὰ δὴ καὶ δι’ ἀκοῆς ἐπὶ τὴν κρίσιν τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἐρχόμεθα καὶ ἐκ τῆς αἰσθητῆς
ἁρμονίας ἐπὶ τοὺς καθόλου τῆς ἁρμονίας λόγους. διὸ καὶ ὁ Πλάτων δεδόσθαι φησὶν ἡμῖν ὦτα καὶ ὀφθαλμοὺς παρὰ
τοῦ δημιουργοῦ, δι’ ὧν τὸ τῆς φιλοσοφίας ἐπορισάμεθα γένος. ὅτι γὰρ οὐκ ἐκ τῶν αἰσθητῶν λαμβάνει τὴν τῶν
πραγμάτων γνῶσιν ἡ ψυχή, δέδεικται ἱκανῶς ἐν τοῖς εἰς τὸν Φαίδωνα.
18
On the psukhaion spinthêr, cf. Chaldaean Oracles, fr. 44 Des Places. Compare the scintillula animae in Boethius,
Consolatio 1.6.20, on which see Chase 2014, 84-87.
19
Compare the Greek title of Porphyry’s Sententiae: Aphormai eis ta noêta.
 6

burst into flame and revive20. What is perhaps most interesting here is the fact that Philoponus,
who is presumably transcribing the teachings of his teacher Ammonius son of Hermias (c. 445–
517/526), the great Alexandrian Neoplatonist who taught an entire generation of Alexandrian
and Athenian Neoplatonists, seems to reveal the source of this complex of doctrine: Ammonius’
lost Commentary on the Phaedo21.

In any case, having originated in the exegesis of Plato’s dialogues, the doctrine was combined
at some point with Stoic theories of the ennoiai as innate ideas, perhaps in the circle of Antiochus
of Ascalon. The result of this combination is evident in a Middle Platonist like Alcinoos, and
became a key feature of the thought of Porphyry. In subsequent Neoplatonic tradition, however,
the idea seems to have been gradually modified. From the time of Iamblichus at the latest, the
emphasis is no longer so much on the importance of innate ideas as on an entire faculty which,
like the ennoiai, requires human effort to be reawakened, incited, or stimulated. What is more,
this faculty no longer serves, as it did in Middle Platonism and in Porphyry, merely as a launching
pad from which one may begin the ascent from the sensible to the intelligible world, but
becomes, for later Neoplatonists, the means by which one may have direct contact with, and
unite with, God or the gods.

20
The examples Philoponus mentions – a person reminded of a friend by the sight of an item of his clothing; the
inference from the observed beauty and order of the cosmos to the goodness of the Creator; hearing sounds as
leading to knowledge of harmonics – are probably inspired by Plato’s Timaeus 47b, which Philoponus quotes, and
which was discussed in the context of the Neoplatonic commentaries on the Phaedo (Olymp. In Phaed., sections 7-
8, ed. Westerink; Damascius, In Phaed.1, section 82; 335; In Phaed.2, section 40). Elsewhere, it is specified that it is
the philosophy teacher who, by means of words that are consonant with the logoi of the Forms, carries out this task
of stirring and reivving our innate idas (ennoiai); cf. Simplicius, In Cat. 12, 19-13, 3, with the discussion by Hoffmann
1987.
21
Westerink, note to p. 83 of his edition of Olymp., In Phaed. Might the originally correct reading have been;
“Commentary on the Phaedrus”? I confess I do not understand why, in his translation of Philop. In Apo (2012, p. 138
n. 504), R. D. McKirahan thinks that the Christian Philoponus may be referring, anonymously and favorably, to the
commentary on the Phaedo by Philoponus’s contemporary, the ferociously anti-Christian Damascius. The conceptual
scheme expressed in Philoponus and in Damascius are, to be sure, very similar, but it seems much more likely that
both are deriving it from their common teacher, Ammonius. In any case, this text poses a difficulty: whoever the
author of this text is, and whenever he wrote, he is certainly presupposing, while explaining the Posterior Analytics,
that his students have already read Plato’s Phaedo and are familar with a commentary on it. Yet according to the
standard Alexandrian reading order, the reading of Aristotle traditionallly precedes that of Plato, to which the
Stagirite’s work is considered a kind of introduction.
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3. The Flower of the Intellect in Hermias

Hermias of Alexandria (c. 410-450 CE), son of Ammonius, was the fellow-student of Proclus at
the classes of Syrianus. The extent to which what has come down to us as Hermias’ Scholia on
the Phaedrus is a mere transcription of the teachings of Syrianus remains controversial, but need
not concern us here. What is important for this presentation are the numerous and extensive
testimonies to the doctrine of the “One of the soul” that are preserved in this work.

It is Hermias who informs us that the doctrine seems to have been elaborated by Iamblichus .
Commenting on Phaedrus 247c:

For the colourless, formless, and intangible truly existing essence, with which all true knowledge is concerned,
holds this region and is visible only to the mind (monôi theatê nôi), the pilot of the soul (psukhês kupernêtêi).

Iamblichus distinguished between the “pilot of the soul” (psukhês kupernêtês), which he
identified with “the one of the soul”, and the charioteer in Plato’s famous image of the soul as a
chariot drawn by two horses, which was to be identifed with the intellect of the soul. According
to Iamblichus, the fact that the pilot is superior both to the charioteer and his horses is indicated
by Plato’s use of the term theatê, etymologically akin to theôria, the standard Greek word for
“contemplation”, which implies that the pilot does not cognize the intelligible by means of
otherness, but is united with it and enjoys it, for “the one of the soul (to hen tês psukhês) naturally
tends to unite with the gods”22.

22
Hermias, In Phaedr., 2, p. 157, 5-15 ed. Lucarini-Moreschini = Iamblichus, In Phaedr., fr. 6, p. 96 ed. Dillon: Ὁ θεῖος
Ἰάμβλιχος κυβερνήτην τὸ ἓν τῆς ψυχῆς ἀκούει, ἡνίοχον δὲ τὸν νοῦν αὐτῆς· τὸ δὲ θεατὴ οὐχ ὅτι καθ’ ἑτερότητα
ἐπιβάλλει τούτῳ τῷ νοητῷ, ἀλλ’ ὅτι ἑνοῦται αὐτῷ καὶ οὕτως αὐτοῦ ἀπολαύει· τοῦτο γὰρ δηλοῖ τὸν κυβερνήτην
τελειότερόν τι τοῦ ἡνιόχου καὶ τῶν ἵππων· τὸ γὰρ ἓν τῆς ψυχῆς ἑνοῦσθαι τοῖς θεοῖς πέφυκεν.
 8

As far the doctrine itself is concerned, Hermias/Syrianus gives the following account of nature
and functions of the One of the soul23. The rational soul is divided into two principal parts,
opinion (doxa) and discursive thought (dianoia). In turn, dianoia is subdivided into three levels.
At the lowest level is dianoia properly so called; it is the lowest or most “pedestrian” (pezotatos)
sense of the term. Above it is the highest part (akrotaton), also known as the intellect of the soul
(nous tês psukhês), which some call the potential intellect (dunamei nous)24. Finally, situated
above these two levels is the highest, most unitive part of the entire soul25, which gives itself
over entirely to the gods. As an image (indalma) of supraessential One, it unites the entire soul26.
Since the rational soul is produced by what precedes it, i.e. the gods and the intellect, it possesses
the one (ekhei to hen) insofar as it is produced by the gods. This one unites and unifies the
multiplicity of its powers into one27. As the first to receives the gifts of the gods, it makes the
soul’s essence boniform, and it is in accordance with this One that the rational soul connects with
the gods and its united with them28. It is also in accordance with this one of the soul, situated
above discursive intellect and the soul’s intellect, that true enthusiasms take place. Indeed,
although there are many kinds of enthusiasm or possession by the gods, enthusiasm 29, in the
true and most proper sense of the word, also known as inspiration and illumination30, takes place
when the one of the soul, which is above the intellect, is awakened (anegeiretai) toward the gods
and receives its inspiration thence31.

23
Hermias, In Phaedr., 2, p. 88.30-89, 18 ed. Lucharini-Moreschini.
24
Note this interesting identification with a technical term of Peripatetic philosophy. In the thought of Alexander of
Aphrodisias, the potential intellect is the first stage of the intellect, present in all human beings at birth; it is followed
by the stages of intellect in act, acquired intellect, and agent intellect.
25
Hermias, In Phaedr., II, p. 88, 25-28 L-M: Ἄλλο δέ ἐστιν ὑπὲρ τοῦτο, ὅ ἐστιν ἀκρότατον τῆς πάσης ψυχῆς καὶ
ἑνικώτατον (...) ὃ καὶ ἓν λέγεται τῆς ψυχῆς.
26
Ibid, 28-29: ἴνδαλμα φέρει τοῦ ὑπερουσίου ἑνός (cf. Proclus, In Parm., 1071, 21 on the one within us as eikôn tou
henos) πᾶσαν ἑνίζον τὴν ψυχήν. Cf. Proclus, Phil. Chald., 5.2 on the one as pantôn tôn en hêmin henopoion; which,
“unites the the multitude within us” (ln Alc. 247, 8sqq.).
27
Ibid., p. 89, 2-3: πάσας αὐτῆς τὰς δυνάμεις καὶ πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος ἑνίζει καὶ ἑνοῖ εἰς ἕν.
28
Ibid., p. 89, 3-4: καθὸ καὶ συνάπτεται τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ ἑνοῦται πρὸς αὐτούς.
29
Ibid., p. 91, 18-19: περὶ τὸ ἓν τῆς ψυχῆς γίνεται ὁ κυρίως ἐνθουσιασμὸς καὶ ὅτι ἐπίπνοια καὶ ἔλλαμψίς ἐστι τῶν
θεῶν.
30
On the one in the soul as illustratio anime in Proclus, cf. Beierwaltes 19792, 374.
31
Ibid., p. 89, 33-90, 1: Ὁ μέντοι κυρίως καὶ ἀληθῶς ἐνθουσιασμός ἐστιν, ὅταν τὸ ἓν τοῦτο τὸ ὑπὲρ νοῦν τῆς ψυχῆς
ἀνεγείρηται πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ἐπιπνέηται. Plotinus had already spoken of the need to of awaken
(anegeirai) another vision, which all possess, but few use “ (Enn. I.6.8). On the importance of the verbe egeirein and
 9

In this new, probably Iamblichean formulation of the doctrine of the One of the soul or the
Flower of the intellect, the aspect of reawakening or stimulating our innate ideas is still
perceptible, but recedes into the background, surviving only as a reference to “awakening” the
one in the soul.

Hermias goes on32 to provide a metaphysical, and, as it were, aitiological justification for this
doctrine. He describes a four stage process of the soul’s descent, from its state of contact with
the gods (sunêpto, theias henôseôs 18-19), to intellect, to rational and discursive thought, and
finally to the world of becoming. At each stage, the directness of the soul’s cognitive contact with
the gods is diminished. However, this process of increased dispersion and disunity can be
reversed with the help of the four types of madness Plato describes at Phaedrus 244Bff
(prophetic, telestic, poetic, erotic). In its current fallen state, the soul’s only option for salvation
is to rise back up to its principles (eis tas oikeias arkhas anadramein), returning to the place
whence it has descended33. This is where four types of mania which Plato distinguishes in the
Phaedrus come in: they assist this ascent (anodos) and this restoration (apokatastasis), via a
process that amounts to a gradual restoration of lost unity. First, music restores the parts of soul
from disturbance and indefiniteness to harmony. Next, Dionysian possession or telestic madness
makes the soul whole and complete, preparing it to act intellectively (noerôs energein). Third,
Apollonian madness converts and awakens (ἐπιστρέφει καὶ συνεγείρει) the soul’s powers, which
have been rendered multiple, into one34. Finally, once the soul has been re-unified, erotic

its compounds in Proclus, cf. Beierwaltes 19792, 375, citing In Alc. 247.8; In Tim. 2.287.31; De Prov. 31.4; 141; Theol.
Plat. I.3, 7, 29.
32
Hermias, In Phaedr., 2, p. 193, 18ff. L-M.
33
Hermias, loc. cit., p. 193, 26-17 L.-M.: πάλιν ἐπὶ τὰς οἰκείας ἀρχὰς ἀναδραμεῖν, καὶ ὅθεν κατῆλθεν ἐκεῖ πάλιν
ἀνελθεῖν.
34
Hermias proves this from the etymology of Apollo’s name: he is so called because he leads the soul up from the
many to the one (ὡς ἀπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ἐπὶ τὸ ἓν ἐπανάγων τὴν ψυχήν, 94, 9-10); cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.17.7,
probably for Porphyry’s lost work On the Sun. In what may be a Chaldaean fragment, Psellus, Opusculum 48 (ed. M.
Duffy, Michaelis Pselli philosophica minora, Leipzig: Teubner, 1992, ll. 51-62), speaks of two Apollos, corresponding
to the visible and the invisible sun. Both Apollos are so called κατὰ στέρησιν τῶν πολλῶν (...) τῷ ἑνὶ προσπελάζοντες
καὶ τῆς ἑνώσεως ὄντες ἐπάρχοντες.
 10

madness takes this one of the soul (touto to hen tês psukhês) and connects it (sunaptei) to the
gods35.

Crucial to note here is the fact that it is Apollo who is responsible for, as it were, gathering
together the one of the soul which, from this perspective, is thus a product of a specific stage in
this process of restoration (apokatastasis) of the soul’s lost unity and direct contact with the
gods, which it had enjoyed in the intelligible world but lost in the course of its descent to the
realm of generation and corruption. In the background to this idea may be a text from Plato’s
Phaedo (67c):

Doesn’t purification (katharsis) then, as the ancient account would have it, turn out to be the separation of
the soul as far as possible away from the body, accustoming it to gathering itself (sunageiresthai) and
assembling itself (athroizesthai) by itself, withdrawn from all parts of the body and living as far as possible
both in the present circumstances and in the future alone by itself, released, as it were, from the chains of
the body?”36

Here, Plato’s term sunageiromai (“to collect, to gather together”) is very close to the verb
sunegeirô (“to help to raise, to stir up”) used by Hermias in relation to Apollo:

The Apollinian madness converts and helps to raise up (sunegeirei) all its plurified powers and all of itself
toward its one (eis to hen autês). This is why he has been called “Apollo”, in that he brings back (epanagei)
the soul from the many toward the one37.

In later Neoplatonic commentaries on the Phaedo, both Alexandrian and Athenian

(Olympiodorus, Damascius), Apollo’s salvific function is spelled out more fully. The implicit

35
Ibid., 94, 11-12: ἡ δὲ Ἐρωτικὴ λοιπὸν ἡνωμένην παραλαβοῦσα τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦτο τὸ ἓν τῆς ψυχῆς τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ
τῷ νοητῷ κάλλει συνάπτει.
36
Plato, Phaedo 67c, translation Jones-Preddy, modified. Κάθαρσις δὲ εἶναι ἆρα οὐ τοῦτο συμβαίνει, ὅπερ πάλαι ἐν
τῷ λόγῳ λέγεται, τὸ χωρίζειν ὅτι μάλιστα ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ ἐθίσαι αὐτὴν καθ’ αὑτὴν πανταχόθεν ἐκ
τοῦ σώματος συναγείρεσθαί τε καὶ ἁθροίζεσθαι, καὶ οἰκεῖν κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ ἐν τῷ νῦν παρόντι καὶ ἐν τῷ ἔπειτα
μόνην καθ’ αὑτήν, ἐκλυομένην ὥσπερ [ἐκ] δεσμῶν ἐκτοῦ σώματος;
37
Ibid., 94, 7-10: ἡ δὲ ἀπολλωνιακὴ πάσας τὰς πεπληθυσμένας αὐτῆς δυνάμεις καὶ πᾶσαν αὐτὴν ἐπὶ τὸ ἓν αὐτῆς
ἐπιστρέφει καὶ συνεγείρει.
 11

reference here is to the Orphic myth38 in which the Titans, acting on the orders of spiteful Hera,
lure the child Dionysos with various toys and mirrors, whereupon they seize him and tear hims
to pieces. Undeterred, Apollo saves the day by gathering together the pieces of the young
Dionsysos. Damascius describes the parallels between this myth and the ontological-
psychological process of the soul’s embodiment as follows39:

First, the soul must constitute an image (eikôn) of herself within the body (...) that is what animating the body
means (...) having entered into the partitioned body, she is torn asunder with it (sundiaspasthênai) and falls
into the utmost partitioning (merismos); until through a life of purification (dia tês kathartikês zôês) she
gathers herself together (sunageirêi ... heautên) from her dispersed state (skorpismos), (...). The myth
describes the same events as taking place in the prototype. When Dionysos inserted the image in the mirror,
he followed it, and was thus partitioned (emeristhê) into the universe. Apollo, however, gathers him together
(sunageirei) and leads him upwards, for he is the purifying god and truly the savior of Dionysos 40.

As we can see, the verb sunageirô occurs twice in this passage from Damascius, the student
of Ammonius son of Hermias. This seems to add weight to the the suspicion that the correct
reading at Hermias, In Phaedr. p. 94, 10 Lucarini-Moreschini may be sunageirei, rather than
suneigeirei41.

38
Cf. Orphic fr. 309F, in A. Bernabé, ed., Poetae Epici Graeci, Testimonia et fragmenta. 2, Orphicorum et orphicis
similium testimonia et fragmenta, 1, Munich/Leipzig: Saur, 2004, p. 252-253.
39
Damascius, In Phaedonem I, 128, p. 81 Westerink: Ὅτι δεῖ πρῶτον ὑποστῆσαι εἰκόνα τὴν ψυχὴν ἑαυτῆς ἐν τῷ
σώματι (τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι ψυχῶσαι τὸ σῶμα), (...) ἐν τῷ μεριστῷ γενομένην συνδιασπασθῆναι αὐτῷ καὶ εἰς τὸν
ἔσχατον ἐκπεσεῖν μερισμόν, ἕως ἂν διὰ τῆς καθαρτικῆς ζωῆς συναγείρῃ μὲν ἑαυτὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ σκορπισμοῦ, λύσῃ δὲ
τὸν δεσμὸν τῆς συμπαθείας, προβάληται δὲ τὴν ἄνευ τοῦ εἰδώλου καθ’ ἑαυτὴν ἑστῶσαν πρωτουργὸν ζωήν.(129)
Ὅτι τὰ ὅμοια μυθεύεται καὶ ἐν τῷ παραδείγματι. ὁ γὰρ Διόνυσος, ὅτε τὸ εἴδωλον ἐνέθηκε τῷ ἐσόπτρῳ, τούτῳ
ἐφέσπετο καὶ οὕτως εἰς τὸ πᾶν ἐμερίσθη. ὁ δὲ Ἀπόλλων συναγείρει τε αὐτὸν καὶ ἀνάγει καθαρτικὸς ὢν θεὸς καὶ
τοῦ Διονύσου σωτὴρ ὡς ἀληθῶς.
40
Similarly, Proclus (In Tim., I, 198, 11ff. ed. Diehl) reminds us that Apollo is “the god who collects (sunagôn) and
reunites (henizôn) the dismembered limbs (ta meristhenta melê) of the lad Dionysus in accordance with the will of
the father” (translation Baltzly modified).
41
The editors report no variant mss. readings ad loc. The two verbs sunageirô, sunegeirô are not only extremely
close orthographically, but are also very close in meaning: the combination of these two factors could easily have
facilitated scribal errors in the manuscript tradition. At Proclus, Platonic Theology 1.3, p. 16, 22-23 Saffrey-Westerink,
the editors print καὶ πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος τῆς ψυχῆς συναγείρειν ἀεὶ πρὸς τὴν ἕνωσιν ταύτην; yet Portus’ edition had
συνεγείρειν instead of συναγείρειν; cf. Beierwaltes 19792, 369 n. 15.
 12

4. Proclus on the one of the soul

Proclus, Hermias’ fellow-student under Syrianus, provides the most extensive evidence for the
doctrine of the flower of the intellect/ one of the soul. His references to both concepts are
extremely numerous42: but here, I will focus on a few passages.

In sections 27-32 of his De providentia, which exists only in the Latin translation of William of
Moerbeke and the partial Greek paraphrase by Isaac Sebastocrator, Proclus provides an account
of five cognitive modes (modi cognitionum)43. The first, attributed to those whose are at the
beginning of their path of purification44, is opinion (Latin opinio = Greek doxa), which knows only
the existence of things, not their cause45. Next, the same philosophical school – i.e., the
Peripatetics – describes the mode of dialectic, which is higher than mere opinion in that it takes
causes into account and draws necessary conclusions. Here, as in mathematics and geometry,
one starts out from suppositions and reaons syllogistically. Yet since this stage rises only as far as
the principles, without adequately investigating their nature, it falls short of perfect knowledge.
The third form ascends as far as the One, by the complementary paths of division and synthesis
of forms. This is the level of Platonic dialectics, which makes the many from the one and the one

42
For a thorough account, see now Trizio 2017. Cf. Beierwaltes 19792, 368-377; Perczel 2000, 507-510.
43
As Steel (2007, ad loc.), points out, this passage is closely paralleled in the Commentary on the Alcibiades, p. 245.6-
248.3 ed. Westerink, where we have the same cognitive levels, progressing from desires, sensations, imaginations
or representations (phantasiai) and opinions, to certain knowledge (epistêmê), intellect or the intellective life (noera
zôê (identifed as an illumination that reaches the soul from the transcendent Intellect), the intelligible essence, and
finally the flower, one, or huparxis of the soul, which must be awakened (anegeirai, 247, 7). This is the faculty
according to which we are one, and which unifies the multitude within us; it is that by which we contact
(sunaptometha) the divine, become “enthused” (entheoi), and finally become one, active in a unified way (ἓν
γενόμενοι καὶ ἑνοειδῶς ἐνεργήσαντες).
44
The goal of this stage of spiritual progresss, says Proclus, is the “purgation of the measurelessness of the passions”,
and is a path towards impassibility by way of the moderation of the passions (immensurationis passionum et multò
magis que impassibilitatem à mediocritate passionum via §27, 10-11). Compare the text from Eustratius, cited
above: ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο ἐξ ἀρχῆς μὲν μετριοπάθεια, τὸ ἀγριαῖνον καὶ ἄμετρον τῶν συνεζευγμένων ἡμῖν ἀλόγων
παθῶν καταστέλλουσα καὶ ὡς ἀρχηγῷ τῷ λόγῳ ἄγεσθαί τε καὶ φέρεσθαι πείθουσα, τελευταῖον δὲ καταντᾷ εἰς
ἀπάθειαν, ὅπερ μακαριότης παρ’ ἡμῖν λέγεται. As Trizio has shown (2017), these parallels make it likely that
Eustratius had Proclus’ text in mind when he wrote. In the Neoplatonic scheme of the virtues, first set forth
systematically in Porphyry’s Sentence 32, this initial stage corresponds to the purificatory virtues. Suitable for
beginners, its goal is to moderate the passions in order to ensure peaceful coexistence within society.
45
In Aristotelian terms, it grasps the hoti of things, not the dioti: cf. APo 1.13.
 13

from the many46, and includes analysis, synthesis, division and demonstation. The fourth form
of knowledge is that of the intellect (Latin intellectus = Greek nous). Here, one has transcended
the dialectical methods and contemplates beings by simple intuition and immediate vision47. As
the intellect sees the intellectual realities by direct vision, knowing both itself and all realities
within itself, so the soul, by imitating the intellect, becomes an intellect, raising its intellectual
eye to the true realities. At this stage, however, its vision is still discursive: it sees, or rather
touches, one intelligible form at a time. Finally, at the fifth and highest stage of this spiritual
progress, we leave Aristotle behind, and accede to what Plato and his predecessors praised as a
knowledge above the intellect, and a truly divine madness48. Proclus, or rather William of
Moerbeke, then characterizes this mode of knowledge as follows:

They say that it awakens the one of the soul, no longer that intellectual <faculty>, and unites it with the
One49.

As all things are known only by what is similar to them, Proclus continues, so the One must be
known by what is unitive (uniali) in us. Yet as the soul, when it intelligizes, knows itself and all
that it intelligizes by a kind of touch (contingentia), so, when it hyper-intellligizes
(superintelligens), it is unaware both of itself and of the objects of its hyper-intellection. At this
stage, closed to thoughts (clausa cognitionibus), it becomes mute and silent with a silence that is
intrinsic (muta facta et silens intrinseco silentio). Indeed, says Proclus, how could the soul
approach the most ineffable of all things, if not by silencing the incessant chatter within itself50?

46
§29, 3-4: ad unum ascendentem et usque ad insuppositum per omnes, ut est dicere, species, has quidem
dividentem, has autem resolventem, ex unoque multa facientem et ex multis unum. On this definition of dialectic,
cf. Chase, In Press. As the point is in geometry and the monad in arithmetic, so this mode of thought seeks to uncover
the simplest principle (arkhê) of each separate discipline.
47
§ 30, 3-4: epibolais, id est, adjectionibus simplicibus et velut autopticis et per se visivis entia speculantem. On the
term epibolê, see the Plotinian parallels adduced by Beierwaltes 1988, p. 36 n. 75.
48
§ 31, 5: cognitionem suprà intellectum et maniam ut vere hanc divinam.
49
Proclus, De providentia, 31, p. 140, 2-3 ed. Boese: ipsam aiunt unum anime, non adhuc hoc intellectuale
excitantem et hoc coaptantem uni. I read ipsam with Boese and ms. A; for a defense of the reading ipsum (mss.
OSV), cf. Strobel 2014, 638. The Greek participle which Moerbeke translates by excitantem was probably egeirousan
or anegeirousan, cf. Strobel ad loc., p. 538, who compares Proclus, In Alc., 247, 7-9 ed. Westerink.
50
Ibid., 31, 14.15: Etenim quomodo utique adjaciet indicibilissimo omnium aliter quam soporans quæ in ipsa
garrulamina?
 14

This most divine among the soul’s operations, Proclus concludes, occurs when one believes
only in oneself, that is, the flower of the intellect51, having quieted all internal and external
motions. At this point, one has become a god, insofar as this is possible for the soul52, and one
sees realities as the gods see them, i.e. ineffably and by means of the one that is within them53.
This mode of knowledge is indivisible and supra-eternal, since in the One there is neither time
nor eternity.

We have seen that in this passage from the De Providentia, Proclus refers, albeit dicreetly, to
the need to “awaken” this flower of the intellect or one of the soul, a notion which, I have argued,
rather than a mere repetition of a Stoic doctrine (Ivánka 1990), is a development of the
Neoplatonic doctrine of common notions or ideas (ennoiai). The importance of awakening,
rousing, or exciting this faculty is emphasized even more strongly in another eloquent passage
by the Lycian, this time fom his Commentary on the Parmenides54:

For we do possess, inasmuch as we hold the rank of souls, images (eikonas) of the primal causes, and we
participate in both the whole Soul and the plane of Intellect and the divine Henad; and we must awaken
(anegeirein) the powers of those entities within us (...). Or how else are we to become nearer to the One, if
we do not awaken beforehand (proanegeirantes)55 the One of the soul, which is in us as a kind of image
(eikôn) of the One, by virtue of which the most accurate of authorities declare that enthusiasm most
especially comes about56? And how are we to make this One and flower of the soul (to hen auto touto kai to
anthos tês psukhês) shine forth, unless we first of all act in accordance with intellect? For the activity
according to the intellect leads the soul towards the actvitity that is at rest and in accordance with the One57
(...) rousing up (anageirantes) the One within us and, thereby, warming up the soul58, we may connect

51
Ibid., 32.1: soli credens sibi ipsi, scilicet flori intellectus. By failing to translate sibi ipsi, Steel’s translation “and
entrusts himself only to the flower of the intellect”, does not do justice here to this surprising identification of the
flower of the intellect with one’s self. Steel was probably following Strobel, who argues ad loc. (2014, p. 541), that
the Greek original translated by Moerbeke read: μόνῳ πιστεύσας ἑαυτὸν τῷ ἄνθει τοῦ νοῦ “confiding himself to the
flower of the intellect alone”. Yet in the passage from the Alcibiades commentary as well, the flower of the intellect
is designated as our existence (εἰς τὸ ἄνθος τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἡμῶν, 248, 3-4).
52
Ibid. 32.4: Deus factus, ut anime posibile.
53
Ibid., 32, 4-5: omnia indicibiliter cognoscunt (...) secundum le unum quod sui ipsorum.
54
Proclus, In Parm., 1071, 15-1072, 11, translation Dillon & Morrow, modified.
55
μὴ τὸ ἓν τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς προανεγείραντες.
56
In all likelhood, Iamblichus, who seems to have been, if not the inventor, then at least the definitive systematizer
of the doctine of the One of the soul/fllower of the intelllect; cf. Dillon/Morrow p. 425 n. 49; Steel 2007 p. 82-83 n.
145.
57
“a state and activity of calm” Dillon /Morrow, who neglect to translate the key phrase κατὰ τὸ ἓν.
58
Anathalpsontes: Cf. Proclus, In Alc., § 32, where the verb anathalpomai ("to reheat, reanimate") occurs alongside
two other verbs often associated with the reawakening of innate ideas: egeirô and anazôpureô.
 15

ourselves (sunapsômen) to the One itself and, as it were. find mooring, taking our stand above everything
intelligible within ourselves and eliminating all other activity on our part, in order that we may be with it alone
and perform a dance around it, leaving behind all the intellections of the soul which are directed to secondary
things.

In these texts from Proclus, then, as in those we saw previously from Hermias, we have a fully
developed doctrine of a faculty of the soul that goes beyond what Proclus understands as the
four cognitive levels59 distinguished by Aristotle. It is a faculty which, like the similar Neoplatonic
doctrine of the innate ideas (ennoiai), must be awakened and/or collected (anageirô/anegeirô).
It is supra-rational, and resembles a kind of touching rather than any kind of vision. It is therefore
supra-linguistic: indeed, as in many schools of Buddhist meditation, reaching this level of hyper-
cognition presupposes that one has been able to achieve stillness, ceasing all physical and
intellectual motion and, above all, silencing what the Buddhists call “monkey-mind”: the
incessant discurisive chatter of our self-talk, which occupies so much of our cognitive actitivity. If
this mode of thought allows us to unite with the gods, and perhaps even with the One, it is
because this activation of the “flower of the intelllect” is precisely the cognitive mode of the gods
themselves, by which they see and know all things simultaneously. This mode of thought – freed
of the categories of time, space, and the separation between subject and object, cause and effect
– is eloquently described, following Proclus’ De Providentia, in the fifth book of Boethius’s
Consolation60 , and it is hinted at in the Arabic Theology of Aristotle, where it is designated as
“intellectual imagination” 61. It is, as we saw from Hermias, identical to the state we enjoyed
when, as noetic essences prior to our descent into the sensible world, we enjoyed direct contact
with the gods. In this sense, the cogniitve mode designated as the one in the soul or the flower
of the intellect is both the means and the goal of the process of restoration (apokatastasis), which
allows us to regain our lost paradisiacial state: it is the ultimate goal of all spiritual progress, for

59
In the Alcibiades passage, as we have seen, instead of one level of doxa, Proclus speaks of a level consisting of
desires, sensations, imaginations, and opinion. The fourfold division into subrational faculties, knowledge,
intellective life and intelligible substance is, of course, conditioned by Plato’s simile of the Divided Line. Its connection
with the fourfold division of Neoplatonic virtues requires further study.
60
Cf. Chase 2014.
61
tawahhum ʿaqlī, Theology of Aristotle, p. 72.3-10 ed. Badawi.
 16

which, according to the Alexandrian and Athenian Neoplatonists, all of philosophy is nothing but
a preparation62.

5. Back to Dionysius

These detours through the thought of Hermias of Alexandria, father of Ammonius, and
Proclus, the most eminent representative of Athenian Neoplatonism, have given us a coherent
picture of the nature and function of the psychic faculty known as the flower as the intellect or
the one of the soul, among its many other aliases. Rather than a direct takeover from Stoicism,
as von Ivánka argued (1990), it is the end result of the long development of the Middle and
Neoplatonic doctrine of innate ideas, combined with the Iamblichean exegsis of the Chaldean
Oracles.

However, this still has not solved our opening question: how and why did Eustratius wrongly
cite Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite as an authority for this post-Iamblichean Neoplatonic
doctrine? The answer may lie with John of Scythopolis63.

6. John of Scythopolis

As Bishop of Scythopolis in Palestine from 536-ca. 553, John was among the first
commentators on the recently-constituted Corpus Dionysiacum (hereafter CD), which he may
have commented on to defend the work against accusations of Origenism64. The writings of John,
who had access not only to the CD, but also an extensive Neoplatonic library, including texts by
Plotinus, were extremely influential. John's scholia on the CD were rendered into Syriac, as well,

62
At the end of the passage from the Alcibiades commentary cited above, Proclus speaks of Socrates as “preparing
the blessed life for us (ὁ Σωκράτης προευτρεπίζων ἡμῖν τὴν μακαρίαν ζωὴν).
63
This has been convincingly shown by Trizio 2017, who discusses the first, but not the second extract from John’s
Scholia on the CD which I will examine below.
64
Cf. Rorem & Lamoreaux 1998.
 17

and they were translated into Latin by the papal librarian Anastasius Bibliothecarius in the mid-
9th century65.

In at least two of John’s scholia on the CD, we find mention of the doctrine of the Flower of
the Intellect66. Commenting on the opening paragraph of On Divine names, where the Pseudo-
Areopagite speaks of “the power granted by the Spirit to the scripture writers, a power by which,
in a manner supassing speech and knowledge, we reach a union superior to anything available to
us by way of our own abilities or activities in the realm of discourse or of intellect”67, John
writes68:

All human wisdom collects the plausibilities of demonstrations from sensible things, for the great necessity
of syllogisms takes up the starting-points of geometry. In the case of incorporeals, however, or rather the
hyper-incorporeal things that are above all substance, how could one rationally understand them ineffably,
if he were,not barely able to understand, unutterably, through pure piety, by the highest flower of the
intellect, the ignorance concerning God, whatever He may be?

As in the Neoplatonist philosophy of Hermias and Proclus, then, so for John, this highest flower
of the intellect is a specific human faculty or organ that allows us to understand or think of God,
or rather the divine ignorance (tên peri theou agnôsian) in which, for Dionysius as for Proclus, the
only possible human cognition of God consists69.

In his ninth Epistle, ps.-Dionysius provides an introductory explanation of the fact that
Scripture makes use of two modes of communication: one is ineffable and mysterious, making

65
Suchla 1980, 37ff.
66
Cf. Rorem & Lamoureaux 1998, 117-118; 136f.
67
Pseudo-Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, p. 108, 2-5 ed. Suchla: τῆς πνευματοκινήτου τῶν θεολόγων «δυνάμεως»,
καθ’ ἣν τοῖς ἀφθέγκτοις καὶ ἀγνώστοις ἀφθέγκτως καὶἀγνώστως συναπτόμεθα κατὰ τὴν κρείττονα τῆς καθ’ ἡμᾶς
λογικῆς καὶ νοερᾶς δυνάμεως καὶ ἐνεργείας ἕνωσιν, translation Luibheid & Rorem 1987.
68
John of Scythopolis, Scholia on the Divine Names of Dionysius, 185B21-27, p. 155, 1-8 ed. Suchla: Πᾶσα ἀνθρωπίνη
σοφία ἐκ τῶν αἰσθητῶν τὰς πιθανότητας τῶν ἀποδείξεων ἐρανίζεται. ἡ γὰρ μεγάλη τῶν συλλογισμῶν ἀνάγκη τῆς
γεωμετρίας τὰς ἀφορμὰς παραλαμβάνει. ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ἀσωμάτων, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ὑπερασωμάτων καὶ ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν
οὐσίαν <ὄντων> πῶς ἄν τις λογικῶς ἐπιστήσειεν ἀνερμηνεύτως, εἰ μὴ μόλις τῷ ἀκροτάτῳ ἄνθει τοῦ νοῦ τὴν περὶ
θεοῦ ἀγνωσίαν, ὅ τι ποτέ ἐστιν, διὰ {τῆς} εἰλικρινοῦς εὐσεβείας ἀλαλήτως συννοεῖν δυνάμενος. For another
translation, cf. Trizio 2017.
69
Cf. Proclus, On Providence, 31, 15 ed. Boese: Fiat igitur unum ut videat le unum, magis autem ut non videat le
unum.
 18

use of symbolism and initiation; while the other, open and more evident, is philosophical and
demonstrative. This explains why symbolism is found in both the Old and the New Testaments.
Jesus’s overthrowing of the tables of the money-changers symbolizes not only the fact that the
Holy of Holies should not be sullied by the mob, but also that human life, which is both divided
and undivided, should be enlightened by divine knowldge in an appropriate way. The impassive
element of the soul, Dionysius continues, is attuned to simple, inner visions of images that have
the shape of the divine; whereas the passionate element of the soul is guided upwards by
previously contrived representations of figurative symbols70.
Clearly, this difficult text required a commentary, and John of Scythopolis proposed the
following71:

The human soul. I think he said the human soul is indivisible and divisible, the former because of the fact that
the soul is partless and incorporeal, and the latter because of the variegated and multipartite nature of the
body. See, however, how wonderfully he transmits the doctrine of the soul: He says that part of it is indivisible,
which he calls “impassible” (apathes). This is the purest part of the soul, and, as one might say, the very
flower (auto to anthos), which is the intellect. It is what pours forth the rational faculty, according to which
the soul is intellect and intellective; that intellect by which it contemplates scientifically the simple mysteries,
as it were stripped naked of symbols. The other part of it, which he also calls “passible”, is divisible: that is,
that power of the soul which is united with the senses through the spirit that is between the soul and the
body. It is in that spirit that the powers of sensation and of thoughts that achieve knowledge by investigation
are fixed (enapestêrigmenai)72. This, then, is the passible part of the soul, in that it is through the senses that
it is brought down to cling to the sensibles. That is to say: this part of the soul cannot, like the intellect,

70
τοῖς προμεμηχανημένοις τῶν τυπωτικῶν συμβόλων ἀναπλασμοῖς “by carefully combined elements of the
representations” Luibheid/Rorem, a clearly inadequate translation; “per mezzo di preparati e ben disposti allegorici
simboli” Turolla 1956.
71
<John of Scythopolis>, Scholia on Dionysius, Epist. IX, Migne PG IV col. 565 A6-C2: τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ζωήν. Ἀμέριστον
οἶμαι εἰρηκέναι αὐτὸν τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ζωὴν καὶ μεριστὴν, τὸ μὲν διὰ τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἀμερὲς καὶ ἀσώματον, τὸ δὲ διὰ
τοῦ σώματος ποικίλον τε καὶ πολυμερές. Ὅρα δὲ, πῶς θαυμασίως τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς παραδίδωσι. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῆς
ἀμέριστόν φησίν, ὃ καὶ ἀπαθὲς καλεῖ· τοῦτο δέ ἐστι τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἀκραιφνέστατον, καὶ αὐτὸ, ὡς ἄν τις εἴποι, τὸ
ἄνθος, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ὁ νοῦς, ὁ καὶ τὸ λογικὸν προχέων, καθ᾽ὃν νοῦν καὶ νοερὰ ἡ ψυχὴ, ἐν ᾧπερ νῷ τὰ ἁπλᾶ καὶ οἷον
γυμνὰ συμβόλων χωρὶς μυστήρια ἐπιστητῶς ἐποπτεύεται. Τὸ δὲ αὐτῆς μεριστόν ἐστιν, ὃ καὶ παθητικόν φησι, τοῦτο
δέ ἐστιν ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς δύναμις, ἡ πρὸς τὰς αἰσθήσεις ἐνουμένη διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ μέσου τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τοῦ
σώματος, ἐν ᾧ πνεύματι ἐναπεστηριγμέναι εἰσὶν αἱ τῆς αἰσθήσεως καὶ τῶν διανοήσεων τῶν διὰ τῆς σκέψεως
γνωριζομένων δυνάμεις. Τοῦτο οὖν παθητικόν ἐστι τῆς ψυχῆς, ἅτε διὰ τῶν αἰσθήσεων εἰς προσπάθειαν ταύτης τῶν
αἰσθητῶν καταφερομένης. Τοῦτο δὲ τὸ μέρος, φέρε εἰπεῖν, τῆς ψυχῆς, ὡς ὁ νοῦς, οὐκ ἔστι καθαρόν, οὔτε
ἐποπτεῦσαι δύναται τὰ θεῖα καὶ ἐπιστητὰ καὶ νοητὰ ἀμέσως, ἀλλὰ δεῖται μέσου τινὸς παχυτέρου, καθάπερ
χειραγωγοῦντος αὐτὸ ἐπὶ τὰ ἁπλᾶ καὶ ἀμέριστα, ὅπερ ποιεῖ τὰ σύμβολα, διὰ τῶν μεριστῶν, τουτέστι τῶν αἰσθητῶν
καὶ φαινομένων ἐπὶ τὰ ἄρρητα ξεναγοῦν.
72
The rare verb enapostêrizô (“to be fixed in”) occurs only six times in the TLG (and never, as here, in the form of a
perfect participle). One of these occurrences is in Proclus’ De Decem Dubitationibus (§ 22, p. 37, line 8 ed. Boese),
where William of Moerbeke translates it by “firmata”.
 19

contemplate the divine, knowable, and intelligible things immediately, but it requires more dense medium,
as if leading it up toward the simple and indivisible things. That is what symbols do, guiding toward the
ineffable things by means of the the divisible, that is, the sensibles and the phenomena.

Thus, for John, the flower of the intellect is the purest, impassible part of the soul. It produces
the lower level of the intellect within the soul, and contrasts with the lower cognitive faculties of
discursive thought (dianoia) and sensations. As in Hermias and Proclus, it is this flower of the
intellect or “one in us” that allows the contemplation of divine and spiritual entities, and even
the One or God himself, which remain inaccessible to the lower faculties.

7. Conclusion

It therefore seems probable, as Trizio (2017) has shown, that when Eustratius attibutes the
doctrine of the flower of the intellect to Dionysius, he has these scholia by John of Scythopolis in
mind. John himself, as we have seen, was Bishop of Scythopolis, not far for Caesaria in Palestine.
But when, three centuries after John's death, Anastasius, librarian of the Apostolic See at Rome,
came to translate into Latin the scholia on the CD, including those of John, it was in
Constantinople that he found them73. The case of Flower of the Intellect/One in us thus
represesents an instance of a Neoplatonic doctrine which, current in the schools of Alexandria
and Athens, found its way, via Palestine, to Contantinople, whence it was to exert tremendous
influence on the Latin and German-speaking West74.

73
His attention may have been drawn to these scholia at Rome, by legates from Contantinople (Suchla 1980, 37 n.
38). He probably found the scholia in 869-870, when he came to Constantinople to take part in the Eighth Ecumenical
Council (Suchla 2012 44-45). Harrington opines, without stating his reason, that Anastasius found the ms. of the CD
with John’s scholia “probably in the Papal Library” (2004, 18), but this is contradicted by Anastasius himself, who,
describing his discovery of the scholia in his second letter to Charles the Bald of 875, writes (Epsitola II ad Carolum
Calvum Imperatorem, Migne PL 129, B3-5): "cum ecce paratheses sive scholia in eum (quae Constantinopoli positus
videram) ad manus venere".
74
As a starting-point for the study of the posterity of this theme in from the 12th century Dominicans to the
Rhineland mysticism of Meister Eckart and his disciples, cf. von Ivánka 19902, 309-373; Haas 1996, 24f.;, 299 397
 20

Michael Chase
(chasemike780@gmail.com)
CNRS Centre Jean Pépin -UPR 8230-ENS-PSL, Paris-Villejuif
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
 21

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