1 Introduction¹

The aim of this contribution is to compare the argumentative method of Nicholas of Methone and that of Proclus in the Elementatio theologica and to evaluate the philosophical effectiveness of his polemic. I thus refrain from examining its historical aims and effectiveness. This is not to say the historical context can be fully ignored. Hellenic philosophy, and in particular the Platonism of figures like Iamblichus and Proclus, exerted a strong attraction on certain Byzantine intellectuals of Nicholas’ day. Interest in Proclus had been revived about a century earlier by Michael Psellos, and later by his student John Italos, by Eustratios of Nicaea and Isaac Sebastocrator. These thinkers introduced Neoplatonic ideas into Christian speculations about God and the Trinity, thus posing a threat to Christian theological orthodoxy as Nicholas understood it. Specialists of Byzantine intellectual history agree that Christian thinkers were Nicholas’ primary target.² When he was attacking Proclus, Nicholas was also, or primarily, polemicizing against them. This already appears from the full title of the work: Explication of the Elements of Theology of Proclus of Lycia the Platonic philosopher: that those who read this book might not be seized by its seemingly compelling persuasion and be tempted against the true faith.³

The intellectual history of Nicholas’ environment, however, is not the focus of this article. I would maintain that despite this historical context the work formally is an attack on Proclus, and it deserves to be judged also on this basis. After all, Nicholas could just as well have attacked the views of his contemporaries directly. Instead, he disguises his aims by attacking Proclus, whom he even directly addresses (e.g. Refutation, 10, 15.1). Nicholas seeks to undermine his opponent’s authority by sniggering at his alleged mistakes, questioning his intelligence, and scorning him. Nicholas recognized that one specific work by Proclus exercised a strong pull on some of his contemporaries and therefore deemed it worthy of his efforts. He specifically highlights the persuasive force of the demonstrations it provides (hence the word πειθανάγκη in the title). This explains why Nicholas professes to engage with the Elements of Theology on an argumentative level, commenting not just on the doctrines but also on the arguments. He engages in an attack on all fronts: he seeks to undermine the authority of Proclus by means of attacking his person, questioning his intelligence, and ridiculing him. And he attempts to refute the elements of the Hellenic-Platonic worldview and the arguments supporting it.

It is important to point out that Nicholas’ Explication deals with a specific text, not with Proclus’ philosophy in general. Hence it should be measured against that text, that is, not just against its doctrinal contents but also against its argumentative standards. Hence we should ask ourselves whether Nicholas’ treatment of the text can be considered philosophically effective against Proclus’ stoicheiosis of his Platonic views on god and the gods.

There is one common type of argument found in Nicholas that I shall ignore. It can be summarised as: “what Proclus says here does not agree with the doctrine of the Trinity”—what he means is: “with my or our interpretation of the Trinity, which also happens to be the only correct way of conceptualising the Trinity.” From a philosophical perspective, this is not a very interesting strategy. All Proclus would have to reply, in an imaginary dialogue, is that he neither believes in the Christian Trinity nor in the authorities on which the doctrine rests, and that’s it.

2 The Argumentative Model of the Elements of Theology

The Elements of Theology are inspired, in part, by the argumentative model presented by the manuals of geometry.⁴ Proclus was very familiar with the mos geometricus. In several other works he mentions the geometric method and, more importantly, he is the author of a commentary on the first book of Euclid’s Elements. A work modelled on the geometric manuals is meant to stand on its own. It is almost, to appropriate a concept developed in the work itself, an autoteles hypostasis, in the sense of an object that has all the resources it needs within itself. There is, however, one important qualification, to which I will return later. The fact that Proclus’ treatise is modelled after a specific literary genre, the manuals of geometry, has important implications. Not only does this literary genre require certain stylistic features and a certain organisation of the philosophical content into a system of theorems and proofs, with occasional corollaries, it also comes with a very specific argumentative model. According to this model, the author is not allowed to bring in assumptions from outside: each theorem requires a demonstration, and the demonstrations can only make use of premises that have been proved earlier in the work. Later theorems can be justified exclusively on the basis of earlier proofs and theorems.

Such a demonstrative system, however, would need starting points. In geometrical manuals, these are provided in the form of definitions, axioms, common notions, postulates, or hypotheses—the nomenclature is not very stable, and the textual transmission of the key terms is uncertain.

Be that as it may, such lists are conspicuously absent from Proclus’ text. The title of the work is immediately followed by the first theorem and its proof. A closer study of the first theorems and proofs reveals, however, that Proclus’ modus operandi here consists in teasing out the theorems from a very limited number of concepts, whose meanings and mutual relations are gradually being articulated. Such concepts are “one”, “many”, “whole”, “part”, “participation”, “to bring forth”, “goodness”, “priority”, “self-sufficiency”, “need”, “to strive”, “cause”, “sameness”, “difference”. Proclus moreover implicitly distinguishes between “one” as expression of cardinality (1) and as denoting unity, that is, the lack of internal division. He also needs the expression “X-itself”: applied to “one” its meaning is that the One-itself (τὸ αὐτοέν) is that which is one and nothing but one. Apart from elementary concepts, there are also the elementary propositions stating relations between these concepts. The proposition expressing the fundamental relation between one and many, for instance, states that the one is not many; the relation between whole and part is expressed by the statement that the whole is greater than the part. As to participation, Proclus does not explicate the sense of the term as denoting an asymmetric relation, but rather argues that the relation, applied to theological realities, must be asymmetric.⁵ The argument in the first ten or so⁶ propositions completely depends on these elementary concepts and their relations. Progressively, Proclus derives new concepts, for instance “the unified” (prop. 4), from the most basic concepts, and further theorems from the fundamental propositions.

From other works, such as the Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, the Commentary on Plato’s Republic, the Commentary on Plato’s Cratylus, the Commentary on Euclid, and the Platonic Theology, we know that Proclus considers the propositions “the one is not many” and “the whole is greater than the part” as indemonstrable axioms. The basic concepts are designated as axioms of theology⁷ and called common notions in those works (the first term refers to their position in the structure of a science; the second to our epistemic access to them).⁸ The terms “common notion” and “axiom” are exactly what one finds in the lists at the beginning of a geometric manual, but in the Elements of Theology Proclus remains silent about them.

Yet in this work, too, he appeals to these concepts and premises, using them implicitly as common notions and axioms. Their function is double: they enable us to understand, and hence also to develop, the arguments, and they serve to provide the justification of those very basic arguments. They are not, however, mere Aristotelian endoxic principles.⁹ Proclus rather thinks that the rational soul directly inherits them from Intellect.¹⁰ This intellective content is infallibly true and thus builds the stable starting points for our discursive reasoning. For these arguments, we draw upon our intimate, pre-discursive knowledge of reality. The type of reasoning developed in the Elements of Theology corresponds quite closely to what Plato in the Republic, and Proclus in the Commentary on the Republic, describe as dialectic: the highest science, but still a science that proceeds discursively, disclosing the highest realities and tracing their origin back to an unhypothetical principle. The implicit idea is that the first propositions are immediately based upon the common notions, and hence are certain.

Many readers, including Nicholas, have thought that the first proposition immediately introduces the One, that is, the Neoplatonic first principle of reality. The proposition in question could be rendered literally as “every plurality in some way participates the One” (πᾶν πλῆθος μετέχει πῃ τοῦ ἑνός). A closer look at the proof for this proposition, however, shows that this cannot be what is meant. The author makes a general point about the relation between unity and plurality, stating that there can be no pure plurality, since every plurality needs to partake of unity. Hence it is far preferable to translate τοῦ ἑνός as “oneness” or “unity”. The idea is indeed that there can be no pure manifold, a manifold that in no way participates oneness. For any multitude ultimately must needs consist of units. It is only with the fifth proposition that we arrive at the conclusion that the one that is a pure unity, and nothing but unity, exists and is unique. This “one” is indeed the One, the first principle of reality. With the seventh proposition Proclus starts an elaborate argument that shows that the One is productive of reality and is identical with the primary Good, that is, that at which the entire reality produced by the One is directed and on which it depends for its goodness.

An obvious objection to this interpretation is that any Platonist reading the beginning of the Elementatio theologica would unfailingly understand that Proclus is speaking about the first One. How should we address this objection? It is true that the first theorem can indeed be applied to the first One. Yet to start reading the text in that vein is to misunderstand how the text and the literary genre it belongs to function. Readers respecting the rules of the mos geometricus should set aside any Platonic convictions that they may have. They are supposed to bracket their belief that the first principle of reality is the One. They should instead start from their common notions and see where they lead, following the argument. Once they have reached the conclusion that the One-Good exists, they may return to the first theorem and see that it also applies to the first principle.

Nicholas does not play by these rules. He immediately takes the first theorem to be about the Platonic God. Insofar as one is looking at the deeper meaning of the text, he is even right about this. What is more, one could even argue that his basic intuition is right: the first theorem is also about what he thinks is the first God. In this sense, but only in this sense, is he justified to think it is about the Trinity; and his fear that it threatens the very structure of the Trinity and undermines this core doctrine is vindicated.

3 Nicholas of Methone’s Approach to the Elements of Theology

Does Nicholas consider the specificity and the exigencies of the argumentative model of Proclus’ text? The answer is negative. His anti-Proclean tract does not show him to be terribly worried about the constraints posed by the geometric approach. Either Nicholas is not aware of them at all, or he deliberately ignores them. Obviously, it was clear to him that the text was intended to convey an impression of rigorous logic. Already the title makes this clear, as do his remarks in the proem.¹¹ Repeatedly he mentions Proclus’ use of logical argumentation. He seems particularly delighted when he has managed to point out an inconsistency or a seeming inconsistency,¹² not only because that is something bad for any text, but also because it strikes at the heart of what Proclus aimed to do. Nevertheless, Nicholas’ neglect of the argumentative model of the stoicheiosis damages his argument in important respects.

To be sure, Nicholas was under no compulsion to respect the rules of the mos geometricus. He is not writing a manual in the geometric style and is in no way committed to their argumentative standards. Nor is he bound by the laws of this literary genre. He is writing a polemical tract, and the rules of polemic are the only rules he needs to worry about. There is no superordinate, objective standard by which he is supposed to be “fair” to Proclus. In the ethics of argumentation, fairness counts as an argumentative virtue: do not avail yourself of means that you deny of your adversary. But why would a polemicist embrace this virtue? Well, it may at least be advantageous to seem to be fair while refuting them. After all, the author wants to persuade his intended audience and in order to do so he would need at least to be perceived as taking Proclus’ arguments seriously. Fairness, or its appearance, would then have an instrumental value. If his arguments are recognisably eristic or sophistic, he is more likely to fail in the eyes of his intended audience. At one point, he addresses the latter as “you, worshipper of the Triad” (Refutation, 99.6–7, σὺ […] ὁ τῆς τριάδος προσκυνητής). Proskynesis does not need to exclude rational argument, even if the kind of rationality does not always meet the standards of twenty-first century scholarship.

The polemicist, whose aim it is to refute the arguments and claims of their adversary one by one, needs to engage in textual exegesis. And this is, to an extent, what Nicholas does. Any act of exegesis needs to appeal to some form of the principle of charity, because without charity, not even an elementary understanding is possible.¹³ But polemical charity does not have to go very far. Modern readers of Nicholas have remarked that he does not seem to be very charitable to Proclus.¹⁴ Again, for a polemicist that may not be too bad. He merely has to see to it not to overdo it.

However, if we look at Nicholas’ text from the perspective, not of historical success, but of philosophical effectiveness, the standards must be set higher. If we want to examine whether Nicholas offers a philosophically effective refutation of his adversary, we should first make sure that he has understood his opponent correctly. Understanding the argumentative model underlying Proclus’ text, so I claim, is necessary for an adequate understanding of the text.

I shall examine the arguments from the perspective of a critical student of Proclus: someone who has a fair understanding of the intricacies of Proclus’ manner of argumentation and reads his arguments with the charity assumed by their author. Would or should Proclus have been impressed by the appeal to some presumed revelations of an atheist sect, by someone who wrote extensive commentaries on such religious texts, or by an author who pilfered texts and ideas Proclus could have recognised as his own, and passed them off as his, assuming a fake identity? (I am talking, of course, of Dionysius the Areopagite.) To pose the question in these terms is to answer it. One could object that it is rather obvious that Proclus would not recognise foreign authorities, but that this points to a glaring weakness of his own position: Proclus’s own philosophical system stands and falls on the reliance on authoritative figures and texts of a similar nature, but merely of a different tradition. However, since we are not dealing with an attempted refutation of Proclus’ commentaries or of a work such as the Platonic Theology, but instead of the peculiar work that is his Elementatio theologica, this objection has no real force here. For it is the very idea of a stoicheiosis in the manner of the geometers that it stands on its own and does not rely on any textual authorities.

4 Starting Points

In the manuals of geometry, arguments rely on earlier theorems, whereas the first theorems and arguments rely on starting points that need to be stated explicitly in lists of hypotheses, common notions, postulates, or axioms (the terminology is not stable, as I have explained). Proclus’ Elements of Theology, though largely using this argumentative model presented in this literary genre, does not provide any such list. As I have argued above, his argument in the first propositions relies on a common understanding of the meaning of certain key concepts—stemming from ordinary language and not specific to any philosophical school—and a basic understanding of relationships between them. From other works we know that Proclus thinks of them as common notions to which we have intellective, that is intuitive, access—but that is not essential for our purposes here. Proclus is at any rate careful not to bring in any stronger philosophical assumptions. Whether he is successful in avoiding this completely is again a different matter. Nicholas is not unaware of the requirement that no unwarranted assumptions are to be introduced into a philosophical discussion. Maybe he even associates this requirement with the specific nature of the Elements of Theology, but we cannot be certain of that. An indication could be that he occasionally argues that even Proclus brings in undemonstrated assumptions.¹⁵

While for Proclus the starting points of his demonstration were the common notions (koinai ennoiai), introduced in a manner that is both subtle and implicit, Nicholas states his starting points unambiguously. Occasionally, mostly in the first part of his treatise, he tries to overthrow Proclus’ arguments by pointing out (alleged) logical fallacies, inconsistencies or unwarranted assumptions. Yet his most important strategy is to try to refute Proclus by means of starting points that Nicholas considers to be commonly accepted. More in general, Nicholas situates the starting points of his argument in the Christian revelation—needless to say that it is a revelation not recognised by his opponent (but recognised, for sure, by his intended audience): “But we, taking the principles of our demonstrations from above, from the very Being, Life, and Truth who said: I am he who is [Ex. 3:14], and again, I am the Life and the Truth [Jn. 14:6].”¹⁶ He moreover refers to what he mistakes for common sense beliefs, a mistake that is perfectly understandable in the light of his indoctrination (to be understood in a neutral sense). In the same vein, in his discussion of proposition 116 Nicholas cites Romans 1:22, on the wisest of the Greeks being foolish, a quip originally designed as an instrument of defence for a small religious sect and used profitably ever since as a means to shore up the flock of the worshippers. In the present context Nicholas uses the quotation to support his claim that the purportedly wise Proclus is in fact a fool because he does not acknowledge the self-evident and commonly accepted view that it is possible for two natures to come together in one hypostasis.¹⁷ This is a rhetorical exaggeration. The postulate that two natures can be present in one hypostasis may have been common in Nicholas’ theological circles, but it is certainly not a view that is self-evident or common to all humankind.

The doctrinal point made on the basis of a doctrinally specific terminological distinction is not unlike another distinction Nicholas makes, namely that between “natural” (φυσικῶς) and “demiurgic” (δημιουργικῶς) production, that is, between “begetting” (γεννάω) and “bringing forth” (παράγω).¹⁸ Yet here the point is not entirely reducible to an idiosyncrasy of Trinitarian speculation: Nicholas makes the point that in the case of procreation, the cause and the product are alike in nature, whereas for Proclus all production entails diminution.¹⁹ Nicholas could therefore be said to make an observation about our common knowledge about procreation in order to establish a finer theological point, which could be relevant for Proclus. However, it is not correct to state that Proclus falls prey to terminological confusion. It is rather the case that Proclus, and Neoplatonists in general, refuse to conceptualise theological production on the model of natural procreation. Instead, he maintains that, as far as theology is concerned, every producing cause is superior to its effects (prop. 7).

5 Authorities and Pseudo-Authorities

The mos geometricus is impersonal in more than one way: not only is the author meant to remain invisible; the genre forbids the appeal to authorities and the use of assumptions derived from them in the demonstrations. It is therefore striking that Nicholas’ refutation is the opposite in both respects: not only does he regard Proclus as an opponent whom he names and shames ad nauseam (addressing him, with malign irony, as “the sage” (ὁ σοφός)),²⁰ he also very frequently cites his own authorities (primarily the Scriptures, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Gregory of Nazianzus) in order to combat Proclus’ views, thus disregarding the rules of Proclus’ game.

Proclus may have intended the Elements of Theology as a text that abstains from appealing to any external authorities, but Nicholas considers this document as the offspring of the entire Hellenic wisdom tradition, a sophistic²¹ attempt to defend the pagan impious pseudo-wisdom, compared to the tower of Babel, with the apparent coherence of logical demonstrations, as he says in no ambiguous terms in his proem to the text.²²

Had Proclus ever been able to read what his opponent wrote about the Elements of Theology, there is no doubt that he would have been underwhelmed by a name and title such as “Gregory the Theologian”. And he certainly would have been scandalised if he had ever found out what the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite had done with his work (a forgery of which Nicholas was unaware). The crucial point, however, is not that Proclus would not recognise these authorities, but rather that an exercise such as the Elements of Theology requires that its author and readers refrain from any appeal to authority—except the authority of reason. The common notions to which Proclus implicitly appeals are inherent to reason and are held to be of a completely different nature than endoxa, the consensus among scholars and scientists, the agreement of the many, or the revelation in holy books of every stripe.

Hence, even the appeal to the authority of Plato and Aristotle, used against Proclus, misses the point. Nicholas’ reason for citing Plato and Aristotle at all lies probably in the fact that he must have realised that the authorities he usually cites would (while not failing to make an impression on his intended readership) have lacked the power to convince. Who better to cite, then, than Plato? This is precisely what Nicholas does when he tries to refute proposition 85, according to which “all that perpetually comes to be, has an infinite potency of coming to be.” Nicholas surmises that a Platonist ought not ascribe power to “becoming” when Plato denies that “becoming” has being.²³ Nicholas does not just ignore that Plato has, in his later ontology (think of the Timaeus, the Parmenides, or the Philebus), overcome the crude dichotomy between being and becoming, but also that, with a proposition such as this, Proclus actually develops a distinction that is more refined than the initial distinctions from which he started. Incidentally, this is a common pattern that we observe in this polemic, as we will see in more detail below. It is part of Proclus’ textual strategy first to establish the fundamental doctrinal distinctions, and then to qualify them by developing more refined distinctions or by formulating exceptions.²⁴ In such cases, Nicholas is wont to cite the original distinction in order to find Proclus guilty of inconsistency. In Nicholas’ defence, one could say that Proclus could often have explained more clearly in what manner two propositions that seem to be inconsistent can in fact be reconciled. Had Nicholas been more charitable, however, he could have looked more carefully for an interpretation that would avoid the inconsistency. Of course, this does not fit the polemicist’s strategy. At any rate, more to the point than a defence of Proclus based on a more nuanced interpretation, is to state that no proposition of the Elements of Theology can be refuted by an appeal to any other thinker, or indeed not even to another work by Proclus.

Nicholas is even more explicit in his comments on proposition 72, which states that in composite beings that have a hylomorphic structure—or structures analogous to hylomorphic composition—the substrate is caused by principles that are superior to the principles that cause the formal aspect. The substrate is, as it were, prepared by higher causes so as to receive the forms that stem from causes lower than those. In the corollary, Proclus states that (prime) matter is produced directly by the One, whereas body and soul are produced by causes below the One. From this Nicholas incorrectly infers that Proclus thinks that matter is more venerable than body or soul. And this, he says, goes against the teaching of Plato.²⁵

A special case are the occasions where Nicholas appeals to Aristotle. The case is special because Nicholas himself adopts a broadly Aristotelian position in ontological issues: he regards time and, analogously, also eternity, as non-substantial, that is, as accidental;²⁶ and he appears to be a nominalist in the question of universals,²⁷ which he even claims are non-beings. While I do not consider Aristotle himself to be a nominalist, there can be no doubt the nominalism which we find in Nicholas is broadly Aristotelian in inspiration. Along the same lines, Nicholas denies that limit and the unlimited are hypostatic substances, as they are mere relations beheld in beings (οὐκ οὐσίαι τινές εἰσιν ὑφεστῶσαι ἀλλὰ σχέσεις τινὲς τοῖς οὖσιν ἐνθεωρούμεναι),²⁸ and even says they are nothing (πέρας καὶ ἀπειρίαν, τὰ μηδὲν ὄντα).²⁹ The last statement surely goes far beyond Aristotle. When citing Aristotle against Proclus, Nicholas delights in the idea that he is citing a thinker who should enjoy a high epistemic authority for Proclus, just as he does for himself, at least in the epistemic domain in question³⁰ (as a matter of fact, Proclus is often critical of Aristotle, as Nicholas could have known had he carefully studied other works by him, for instance the Timaeus Commentary).³¹ In agreement with his own nominalist reading of Aristotle, Nicholas approvingly cites an expression that triggers associations with the latter’s critique of Platonic ontology when he argues that Proclus’ distinction of grades of intellects and souls are bare concepts (ψιλὰ μόνον εἰσὶν ἐννοήματα) and, “as Aristotle would agree, mere chatter” (καί, ὡς ἂν Ἀριστοτέλης συμφήσειε, τερετίσματα).³² In other works, he uses the same term, τερετίσματα, to denounce the Platonic ontology.³³ The use of this derogatory term in this context can be traced back to Aristotle, who had thus qualified the theory of Forms in the Posterior Analytics.³⁴ In late antiquity, it was apparently used by those who interpreted the Categories as pertaining to post rem universals, as Philoponus informs us.³⁵ This suggests that Nicholas’ ontology is close to nominalist interpretations of Aristotle’s Categories and of the critique of Plato’s theory of Forms. A reason for this stance, apart from the historical reasons, may be that if one were to consider universals and, in particular, relations as having hypostatic reality, the Trinity would be even more crowded than it already is with just the three persons.

6 Nicholas’ Concerns

Nicholas’ principal criterion for judging philosophical views appears to be piety. In essence, Nicholas sees Proclus’ work as an attack on piety.³⁶ However, on a rare occasion wherein Nicholas agrees with something Proclus says, he applauds him—Εὖγε, εὖγε (116.12)—and praises the theorem as pious. Before we become all too enthusiastic because of his magnanimity, I should add that Nicholas immediately adds that Proclus must have stolen the thought in question from the great Dionysius (the modern reader will certainly appreciate the irony).³⁷

In the context of this polemic, piety appears to amount primarily to the following four, closely related, issues:³⁸

1. The view that God is unknowable and ineffable.

2. Orthodoxy regarding the Trinity.

3. The rejection of polytheism in favour of what Nicholas thinks is monotheism.

4. The doctrine that the Trinity creates everything else directly, without mediation.

Proclus’ Elements of Theology poses a serious threat on all four fronts.

1. His arguments lead him to make positive assertions about what the first principle is and does.

2. His emphasis on the absolute unity of the first principle, and the argumentative rigour with which he shows this, make the idea of a Triad as highest deity questionable.

3. The system defended in the Elements of Theology posits a plurality of divinities,

4. … who are all causes that together produce a complex reality.

Of all perceived threats, the most worrying, from Nicholas’ perspective, appears to lie in the prohibition to state that the One-itself, τὸ αὐτοέν, is at the same time three. Our text’s emphasis on the unknowability of the divine seems to be there merely in order to shield the doctrine of the Trinity from critical questioning. Strangely enough from a non-partisan perspective, it has not prevented Nicholas from making strong claims about the internal structure of the Trinity and about its causal role toward the rest of reality.

I shall now examine some points in more detail, restricting myself to the actual polemic, rather than the doctrine Nicholas espouses. Nicholas’ text contains in addition a great deal of doctrinal exposition, where he explains to his readers what “we” believe.

7 The Unknowability of God

The first thing to be said is that, in a polemic, the same standards should apply in evaluating both sides. Nicholas considers God to be unknowable and ineffable.³⁹ However, despite his protestations to the contrary, his repeated assertions relative to the Trinity state certain features of it, no less than what happens when Proclus says that the first principle is one, is a cause, and is good. One could argue that when Proclus identifies the One with the Good, he is referring to what the first principle is from the perspective of the reality that depends on it. It is obvious, however, that the Elements of Theology is a much less apophatic text than some other works by Proclus. To be sure, also in the Elements of Theology, Proclus asserts the unknowability of the gods, in particular that of the first God. Notwithstanding this theorem, which comes rather late in the work (Elements of Theology, 123), Proclus does call the first principle one (Elements of Theology, 5, 6.20–21), good (Elements of Theology, 8), and cause (Elements of Theology, 11). But did Proclus perhaps change his mind when he gave more strongly apophatic accounts, for instance in the seventh book of the Commentary on the Parmenides or the third book of the Platonic Theology (chs. 7–9)? That is unlikely, I believe. The absence of a strong apophatic bent from the Elements of Theology can be explained in a different manner. It resides in the very nature of the geometric model of metaphysics. The Elements of Theology is a work of propositions and proofs. It is all about certain statements and supporting them by means of an apodeixis. In other words, the work by definition proceeds discursively and scientifically; its goal is to make certain pronouncements on the divine causes of reality. Had Nicholas paid closer attention to the formal character of the work, he might have realised that it only presents one, restricted, way of approaching theological issues. The Elements of Theology, despite its flaws, displays greater logical rigour, but is less sophisticated than the Platonic Theology and the Commentary on the Parmenides. At the risk of engaging in circular reasoning, I would say that this can be explained by the very nature of the work, because it adopts the formal paradigm of the mos geometricus.

This notwithstanding, Nicholas has a point when he says that Proclus is not completely consistent: if he really means what he says about God’s ineffability and unknowability of the first principle, he should refrain from ascribing causal power, oneness, and goodness to him or it. One could of course retort: tu quoque! But this does not exonerate Proclus.

8 Knocking Down the Attack on the Trinity

Nicholas is convinced that it was an important part of the actual purpose of Proclus’ work to attack the doctrine of the Trinity, and that he starts his attack with the very first proposition. Accordingly, Proclus’ fundamental criticism of the Trinity would be that it is not one.⁴⁰ Nicholas states this view very clearly in his introductory remarks (Refutation, Proœm., 4.3–15): with the first theorem Proclus says that “every plurality in some way participates the One” (πᾶν πλῆθος μετέχειν πῃ τοῦ ἑνός); in the fifth proposition he makes the even stronger statement that “multitude participates the One in every way” (καὶ πάντῃ μετέχειν τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ ἑνὸς), which “obviously” also means that “the One is participated in every way by the plurality” (ὡς ὑπὸ τοῦ πλήθους πάντῃ δηλονότι μετεχομένου τοῦ ἑνός); but in the twenty-fourth proposition he claims that “the first One, which is one alone, is in every way unparticipated” (πάντῃ ἀμέθεκτον εἶναι τὸ πρῶτον ἕν, καὶ ὃ μόνον ἕν ἐστιν), that is, neither participated by any plurality nor by any “one”. This, Nicholas says, amounts to a clear contradiction by which Proclus overturns himself: the same thing is supposed to be both participated and unparticipated. Nicholas here highlights what he thinks is most important in Proclus’ work and why Proclus is wrong. The assumption about Proclus’ intention is, however, groundless:⁴¹ there is no indication in the work of any polemical intent against the Christians⁴² (that is not to say that the effect of Proclus’ analysis of plurality and unity could not be detrimental for the theological positions Nicholas holds). As I have argued before, the first proposition is not even about the Neoplatonic One but is a general statement about the relation between plurality and unity.

The perceived contradiction between the One being participated and unparticipated is at the heart of Nicholas’ argument.⁴³ Again, it rests on a misunderstanding. Proclus argues that each plurality in some way participates unity (Elements of Theology, 1), and that there can be no plurality that in no way participates unity (Elements of Theology, 5, 4.25).⁴⁴ He indeed continues that any multitude participates unity in every way (Elements of Theology, 5, 6.2–3).⁴⁵ Then, he asks himself whether the reverse is true: does every “one” participate plurality? He argues that this leads to a vicious regress and concludes that there must be one “one” for which this is not the case. This is the One-itself. Thus the regress is blocked (Elements of Theology, 5, 6.7–21). From these arguments it cannot be inferred that every plurality, or any plurality, participates in the first One, the One-itself. Hence, when Proclus later introduces the unparticipated (Elements of Theology, 23–24) and argues, or demonstrates, that the first One is unparticipated (Elements of Theology, 116), he creates no inconsistency. Every plurality needs to participate in unity (Elements of Theology, 1), but there is no need that this unity be the absolute One. Depending on the ontological rank of the participant, there will always be some other form of unity—some henad, being the participated manifestation of the One—that does the job.

Unparticipated is in some sense a relative⁴⁶ term: an entity is unparticipated with respect to the series dependent from it, and qua unparticipated does not participate in anything higher. But the same thing can be a participant qua caused by a higher principle (Elements of Theology, 24; 99). The first One, however, is unparticipated in an absolute sense. I do not think that there is any view to which Proclus is committed that would compel him to admit that the first One is also participated.⁴⁷ Nicholas, however, thinks that Proclus is hopelessly confused in this regard. Hence, he assumes that Proclus’ view is that the One is both participated and unparticipated. This may also be why he does not take him seriously when Proclus claims that “every god is participable, except the One” (Elements of Theology, 116), and therefore wrongly thinks that there is a class of unparticipated henads.⁴⁸ The idea that God is both participated and unparticipated is fine for Nicholas, because he thinks it can be applied without detriment to the Trinity (Refutation, 116, 113.6–11).

Attempting to refute the first few, but crucial propositions, it is Nicholas’ strategy to show that neither the theorems themselves nor their demonstrations force us to abandon the view of the Trinity that he espouses: “This third chapter, too, is not at all against our faith” (Refutation, 3, 7.17–18: Οὐδὲν οὐδὲ τὸ τρίτον τοῦτο κεφάλαιον πρὸς τὴν καθ’ ἡμᾶς πίστιν, trans. slightly modified). This is also conspicuous in his discussion of the fourth proposition: Nicholas is not at all interested in the newly introduced concept of the “unified”; he merely argues that there are no consequences for Trinitarian doctrine.⁴⁹

Stating that your views withstand an attack is one thing, showing it quite another. Let us see how well Nicholas fares.

The first time he mentions the attack on the Trinity, Nicholas begins by citing⁵⁰ Dionysius the Areopagite, who says:

1. that the Trinity is both one and three,

2. that it is neither one nor three, because it transcends every “one” and every “three”, that is, because it transcends number, and it transcends every word and concept.

The first statement (a) seems to constitute a violation of the principle of non-contradiction (PNC) insofar as one is not three. The first (a) conjoined with the second (b) seems to produce two further violations, in the form of two further tokens of the same two propositions: Trinity is one and Trinity is not one; Trinity is three and Trinity is not three. In the second statement (b) the terms one and three are plainly said to be numbers, so that maybe the combination with the first (a) statement does not deliver violations of PNC, provided that in (a) the terms have different meanings. But that still leaves us with (a) itself, which violates PNC if one accepts that one is not three. We are here in apophatic territory. If no concept or word is applicable to the Trinity, we cannot say anything about it. Yet Pseudo-Dionysius does and must be thinking that he is pronouncing words that mean something. After all, he does not say that the Trinity is four and five and neither four nor five.

Be that as it may, we should look at what Nicholas states in his own name, while explaining Dionysius’ words.⁵¹ Nicholas starts by saying that the Triad is what “we” agree is God and that this is the same thing as “monad” and “one” (4.28–29). Hereby he confirms the functional equivalence of the Triad and what Proclus talks about when he talks about the One. Having established that they are somehow talking about the same thing, he argues that by saying “it is one” we, i.e. the Christians, do not say “it is not three”, and that by saying “it is three” we do not say “it is not one”. On the contrary, by affirming it is one, we confirm that it is three and by affirming it is three we confirm that it is one. He explains that the word “triad” here does not stand for what is measured by number, but rather for that which gives substance to every three and to every number. Hence the Triad is not a countable three and is not a multitude because the triad is not a countable number. It is one single triad, and this (i.e. its being only one in cardinality and its being unique) it does not owe to a participation in unity, but rather to the fact that it is the One-itself (4.29–5.3).

With these words Nicholas identifies the Triad with the One-itself of proposition 5 (Elements of Theology, 5, 6.20–21), which is nothing but one and does not participate in unity (Elements of Theology, 5, 6.20–21; 2, 2.15). It is, in other words, not the kind of plurality that was the subject of proposition 1 and the participant mentioned in proposition 2, which is both one and not-one, but rather that which is “nothing else besides its own unity, a bare ‘one’ ” (Elements of Theology, 2, 2.18).

To what extent is Nicholas’ argument successful? Insofar as we take “triad” to be just a name that denotes no plurality, but is instead a name for “unity”, Nicholas’ point stands, even though “triad” is a bizarre name for something that is a bare unity. But even so, another problem remains. God is called both triad and monad, or both three and one—a claim repeated throughout the work. Moreover, the names monad and triad (or three and one) do not denote exactly the same thing. And the ascription of two different characters to it inevitably introduces duality.⁵² God would then fall short of the absolute unity that Proclus, but more to the point, Dionysius and Nicholas would like him to have. The duality in question is not unlike that of the Plotinian or Proclean Intellect: although there its thinking and its being thought are meant to coincide, there remains a duality because what it means to think is not the same thing as what it means to be thought. For this reason, Intellect, despite being a unity, cannot be the One-itself, just like, I would add, the Trinity, despite being one, cannot be what Proclus means by the One-itself.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the Trinity, not unsurprisingly, consists of three things: Father, Son, and Spirit.⁵³ This complicates the problem, as it gives us a supplementary reason to think that the Trinity is internally multiple—which we could already have inferred from its appellation, “Triad”. Occasionally, Nicholas even admits that “we, too” count the persons in the Trinity, but that we do not understand what differentiates them.⁵⁴ Thereby he seems to undermine his initial defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, according to which “three” does not stand for anything countable.

In his discussion of the first proposition, Nicholas explicates the structure of Proclus’ argument, commenting that Proclus combines division with “the axiom of contradiction” (1, 5.29, τὸ τῆς ἀντιφάσεως ἀξίωμα = PNC). Nicholas, however, claims⁵⁵ that the laws of logic and demonstration, including PNC, do not apply when talking about God.⁵⁶ Hence, he argues, we should admit that our intellect⁵⁷ is incapable of grasping the One. Giving up “every sensation, every intellection, every scientific and logical method, together with our very intellectual power” (6.24–25: πᾶσαν αἴσθησιν, πᾶσαν νόησιν, πᾶσαν ἐπιστημονικὴν καὶ λογικὴν μέθοδον μετ’ αὐτῆς τῆς νοερᾶς ἡμῶν δυνάμεως), we should abandon ourselves and “become wholly of God”. Obviously, if God can only be intuited by an abdication of reason, the entire project of a theological stoicheiosis would be pointless. Nicholas resorts to an apophatic approach in order to protect the Trinity from rational critique,⁵⁸ but he conveniently does so only when it suits him. It does not prevent him either from making assertions about God⁵⁹ or from saying that Proclus is wrong. But actually, that road would have to be barred for him.

As Carlos Steel⁶⁰ has shown, Proclus is careful not to abandon PNC when talking in a scientific, discursive way about the One, not even in his Commentary on the Parmenides. And Proclus certainly does not give it up in the Elements of Theology, whose very method is based upon this principle of logic. Even negative theology as Proclus understands it—which is to be distinguished from Pseudo-Dionysius’ version—does not force one to reject PNC. This need not concern us here, however, as negative theology is not relevant in the context of the Elements.

Commenting on the second proposition—“All that participates unity is both one and not-one”—Nicholas explains⁶¹ that the triad is one and not-one, but not in virtue of participating unity. He thus denies the converse of Proclus’ second theorem. God is one, not because of participation in unity; and God is not-one, but not in the sense that he merely participates oneness. God is rather One and Triad in a manner that super-transcends multitude. These claims can only be made sense of, I think, if one either abandons PNC or denies the very meaning of the terms plurality, one, and three. Nicholas, however, thinks that Proclus’ arguments can only work in case one considers the parts and wholes in question as actually divided: “This wise man seems to advance the argument of his demonstration as if concerning something divisible, reducing to impossibility the thesis that the One-in-itself could be both one and not-one, since then the One would be a part of the pair of elements, which indeed is the one and not-one; but, according to us, the One-in-itself is called both one and not-one, yet it is not called thus as if it is divided into the one and the not-one, as one thing and another, etc.”⁶²

This piece of reasoning agrees with his criticism that Proclus is unable to conceive divine realities without thinking about them in bodily terms.⁶³ Nicholas is convinced he can get away simply by denying that the Triad is actually divided (8.24: τὴν τριάδα φαμὲν οὐ μερίζοντες). This is a serious underestimation of the force of the arguments: they apply to any duality or multiplicity, even if it is merely conceptual. As soon as two terms are predicated of the same entity and their meaning is not completely identical, the arguments about multiplicity apply. And this appears to be the case in Nicholas’ account of Trinity, which contains several persons and therefore also relations between them. There seem to be just a few options left: either to allow for plurality (which for him amounts to the nefarious polytheism he tries to combat); or to say that there is a first God within the Trinity, to which the two other members are subordinated; or to accept a One above the Trinity; or, finally, to remain silent and forsake reason.

9 Concluding Remarks

I have focused on Nicholas of Methone’s defence of the Trinity, which needed to confront Proclus’ denial of a plurality that is not preceded by the purest conceivable unity. Nicolas’ polemic, however, is much broader than that. He rejects Proclus’ hierarchic structure of the divine realities, because he wants to deny at all costs that there is more than one God. His God is not only a Triad, but is the One, Being, and Intellect in one.⁶⁴ The causal actions of these different principles are, according to Nicholas, combined in one and the same God who directly creates the entire Reality.

In many instances, especially in the second half of the work, Nicholas often merely states how things are,⁶⁵ without looking closer at Proclus’ argument and without paying attention to distinctions he makes. More could be said about flaws in his polemics. For instance, he takes certain terms (e.g. ἐνέργεια, κίνησις)⁶⁶ in a sense different from Proclus’, arguing against Proclus as if he were using the words as Nicholas intends them. He does likewise for the notion of reversion, which he simply redefines.⁶⁷ Needless to say that this is not very convincing.

At other occasions, he manages to point out real difficulties in Proclus’ doctrines. An example would be his comments on the notions of the self-sufficient and the self-constitutive (τὸ αὔταρκες, τὸ αὐθυπόστατον): Nicholas points out that Proclus fails to explain how the same thing can bring itself about completely and be caused by something else.⁶⁸ This may not be an unsurmountable problem for the doctrine of the authypostaton, but arguably Proclus should have done more to clarify the concept so as to dispel this ambiguity. Modern interpreters wrestle with the same issues, but also succeed in presenting solutions that are based on a more sophisticated understanding of conceptual distinctions and their relations.⁶⁹ As a polemicist, Nicholas also needs to be an exegete of the author who is his target.⁷⁰ Regrettably, his exegesis is consistently not of the best quality, as we have seen. This is one of the reasons why Nicholas of Methone’s refutation of Proclus fails to be philosophically convincing. Another reason is that he refuses to engage with Proclus’ text on its own terms. Despite occasionally discussing the demonstrative structures of Proclus’ text, Nicholas in general ignores the argumentative standards underlying the Elements of Theology and, as far it comes to refutation, his own argumentative standards are rather poor.