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Robbert van den Berg on Proclus’ Hymns

Robbert van den Berg introduces and contextualises Proclus’ surviving hymns to the gods. We begin with a brief survey of the Greek hexametre hymn from the Homeric Hymns onward, followed by a discussion of Proclus’ seven surviving hymns (plus a couple of hymns which have been attributed to Proclus, but probably aren’t really by him), including of the curious anthology of hymnic materials in which the Proclean hymns have come down to us (Here Georgios Gemistos Plēthōn makes a cameo appearance, as a man who owned a copy of the hymn-anthology, and gave Proclus’ hymns their standard titles). We then turn to the theory and practice in which these hymns will have been composed and used by Proclus and his circle, and their specifically-theurgic significance. Discussion of the symbolon ensues.

Interview Bio:

Bert van den Berg is a University Lecturer at the Centre for the Arts in Society at the Universiteit Leiden. He specialises in the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans. He has written a number of studies on aspects of ancient philosophy, concentrating especially on Late Platonism and related currents.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Primary:

Cleanthes’ hymn to Zeus: see now Johan Carl Thom. Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Number 33 in Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2005.

Marinus, Proclus as priest for the whole world: VP § 19.

George Gemistos Plēthōn: for the Book of Laws, see still C. Alexandre, editor. Pléthon. Traité de lois. J. Vrin, Paris, 1982. partial reprint of Paris: Librairie Firmin Didot, 1858.

Thales, ‘The world is full of gods’: DK 11A22.

Secondary:

Robbert M. van den Berg. Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary. Brill, Leiden, 2001.

Recommended Reading:

On Proclus’ Hymns:

For Proclus’ hymns, the most recent edition is Ernst Vogt. Procli Hymni. Number 18 in Klassisch-Philologische Studien. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1957; for an English translation with extensive commentary, essays, etc., see Robbert M. van den Berg. Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary. Brill, Leiden, 2001. For those interested in that mysterious, loose Hymn to the God (Beyond all Others), see Andrei Timotin. A Hymn to God Assigned to Gregory of Nazianzus and Its Neoplatonic Context. International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, 12:39–50, 2018; Timotin gives a line by line translation with the Greek.

Also of interest:

Robbert M. van den Berg. Theurgy in the Context of Proclus’ Philosophy. In Pieter d’Hoine and Marije Martijn, editors, All from One: A Guide to Proclus, pages 223–39. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017.

Robbert M. van den Berg. Proclus’ Prayers for Health: practising civic and theurgic prayer. In Philipe Hoffman & Andrei Timotin, editor, Théories et pratiques de la prière à la fin de l’Antiquité , pages 193–207. Brepols, Turnhout, 2020.

U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff. Die Hymnes des Synesios und Proklos. Sitzungsberichte der Köninglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 14:272–95, 1907 [Wilamowitz is right about everything, generally speaking, but he didn’t get Proclus’ hymns, in my opinion; reckoned they were without ‘true religious feeling’. Still, a classic study].

On Related Hymnic Topics:

Gábor Buzási. Solar Theology in Neoplatonism: A Commentary on the Emperor Julian’s Hymn to the Sun King. PhD thesis, 2009.

Nicholas J. Richardson. Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010.

Willy Theiler. Die Chaldäischen Orakel und die Hymnen des Synesios. Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, 18:1–41, 1942.

Robbert M. van den Berg. The Homeric Hymns in Late Antiquity: Proclus and the Hymn to Ares. In A. Faulkner, A. Vergados, and A. Schwab, editors, The Reception of the Homeric Hymns, pages 203–19. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016.

Athanassios Vergados. A Commentary on the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2013.

Martin L. West. Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003.