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Numenius Fr. 13 and Plato’s Timaeus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

H. A. S. Tarrant*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney

Extract

John Whittaker has again challenged the assumption that Numenius fr. 13 (des Places = fr. 22 Leemans) requires emendation at the beginning of the second sentence:

Without doubt he is correct in assuming that Numenius must have been familiar with the Judaeo-Christian manner of referring to the supreme God as ‘he who is’; one notes that other philosophers of his age, less concerned than he with Jewish religion, had adopted doctrine which would support such a formula; and it does not seem inappropriate that Numenius, who was capable of referring to this divinity as αύτοὸν (fr. 17 dP = 26 L), should use the expression ὸ ὢν as well. I have little doubt that the text does not require emendation, but I do not believe that the principal factor which has led Dodds, Thillet, and Dillon to propose emendations has been fully understood; and a more difficult problem concerning the fragment’s relation to Timaeus 41a ff. requires considerablediscussion.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1979

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