SOME NOTES ON THE ‘NEW APULEIUS’

In 2016 Justin Stover published an important editio princeps of a fragmentarily preserved text that was originally discovered by Raymond Klibansky in the first half of the twentieth century: a kind of Summarium librorum Platonis which Klibansky took as a Latin translation of a lost Greek original, whereas Stover argues it was written by Apuleius, namely as the third book of his De Platone.¹ The following notes deal primarily with details pertaining to the constitution of the text, but I will start with one remark on a detail of Stover's translation and close with a discussion concerning the alleged medieval reception of the so-called ‘New Apuleius’. Chapters, pages, Latin text, apparatus criticus entries, and translations are quoted according to Stover's edition; all bold highlights are mine, as are all translations from works other than the ‘New Apuleius’ if not indicated otherwise.

1.15 (PAGE 96)

placet illi maiores natu … honoribus fungi.²

He is of the opinion that those who are greater by birth should receive honours.

This is not about ‘those who are greater by birth’ but about ‘those who are older’, the usual meaning of maior natu. If there is any need for additional confirmation, cf. the Platonic source of the passage, as indicated by Stover, Resp. 3.412c: πρεσβυτέρους τοὺς ἄρχοντας δεῖ εἶναι. See also 17.6 (page 114) parentes liberis suis imperare, maiores natu minoribus, which is translated as ‘… the elder by birth command the younger'. Furthermore, honoribus fungi here certainly means ‘to hold office’, not ‘to receive honours’.

2.1 (PAGE 96)

placet illi in optimo statu esse ciuitatem cuius ciues medium quendam tenorem fortuitorum habeant ita ut <nec> ultra modum diuites sint nec intra necessaria pauperes.

He is of the opinion that a city is in the best state whose citizens hold a certain middling level of goods, such that they are not rich beyond moderation nor in poverty below the level of what is necessary.

The translation renders the sense of this passage properly but ‘below’ does not really match the Latin intra. One should emend intra to infra, the latter balancing the preceding ultra to the result of medium. For a parallel in another philosophical text, cf. Boethius, Cons. 4.7.21 (Bieler, CCSL 94, page 87.43–5): firmis medium uiribus occupate: quicquid aut infra subsistit aut ultra progreditur habet contemptum felicitatis (‘keep the middle with all might: whatever stands below it or goes beyond it holds contempt of happiness’).

My first thought was that intra could be a typing error or perhaps even a reading error on the part of the editor, but a look into the online reproduction of the one relevant manuscript, Vatican BAV Reg. lat. 1572 (= R),³ confirms that the thirteenth-century scribe actually wrote intra. The confusion of t and f, especially in the case of intra et infra, is so trivial that it does not tell us anything about the type of script in which it happened.

There is another passage in the text, which at first sight may seem to suffer from the same corruption: 16.14 (page 112) intra duodeuiginti autem annos agenti aetatem <uinum> uniuersum denegat, rendering Leg. 2.666a τοὺς παῖδας μέχρι ἐτῶν ὀκτωκαίδεκα τὸ παράπαν οἴνου μὴ γεύεσθαι.⁴ However, Latin usage confirms the authenticity of intra here; see some of the examples collected in TLL 7.2.40.35–73 as well as the Regula magistri 27.41 (De Vogüé, SC 106, page 148.87–8): infantuli uero intra duodecim annos agentes in hieme binas caldos accipiant.

8.25 (PAGE 106)

nam et uniuscuiusque hominis proprium δαίμονα, quem nos genium appellamus.

For there is also an individual daimon (which we call Genius) of each person.

Of course, in Latin it is not impossible to omit esse in a sentence like this, and the transmitted et might be understood in the sense of etiam. However, the author of our text normally does not dispense with esse (cf., for example, 3.14, 3.27, 5.6, etc.), and I could not find any definite instance for its omission in a comparable case.⁵ So my first idea was to conjecture esse instead of the transmitted et. On the other hand, the combination nam et is found as an introduction to a sentence also in 1.13 (page 96), where its authenticity can hardly be doubted.⁶ So perhaps it is preferable to leave the nam et in 8.25 as it stands, and to insert esse later in the line. Since the language of the so-called ‘New Apuleius’ tends to be nearly as repetitive as its contents,⁷ the parallel 19.17 (page 116) denique uniuscuiusque hominis esse propria genium et fortunam both serves as corroboration for the conjecture and also indicates the place where esse should be added in 8.25, namely after hominis, which gives: nam et uniuscuiusque hominis <esse> proprium δαίμονα, quem nos genium appellamus.

14.1 (PAGE 110)

Socraticae igitur philosophiae, quae eadem est uerae philosophiae, in his maxime libris quos supra nominaui auctorem habuimus Platonem.

philosophiae: philosophia R

We have held therefore that the author of the Socratic philosophy—which is the same thing as true philosophy—found especially in the books I have named above is Plato.⁸

From Stover's apparatus criticus one cannot determine which of the two philosophiae in the first line is actually transmitted as philosophia. A look into the online reproduction of MS R (cf. n. 3 above) makes it clear that it is the second philosophia, the manuscript reading socratice igitur philosophie que eadem est uere philosophia … . On a more conservative approach, the transmitted est uere philosophia could be defended (‘which truly is philosophy’). However, in view of the parallels adduced by Stover,⁹ and also in view of Latin usage in general, I agree that uere here should be taken as an adjective and be brought into congruence with philosophia. If so, I would find it more natural to change the transmitted uere to uera to get quae eadem est uera philosophia.

***

From two short notes in works by Albert the Great (†1280), claiming that Apuleius had translated Plato's Republic into Latin, Stover infers that the scholastic master had some knowledge of our text, although, going through the available pieces of information, he finally has to conclude that Albert did not possess a copy ‘or even knew the text in any detail’.¹⁰ There are problems with this view which deserve to be pointed out.

The first of the two passages in question reads as follows (Commentarii in octo libros Politicorum Aristotelis 2.1; Borgnet, pages 91e–92a; transl. Stover [n. 1], 7–8):

et est attendendum, quod Politia Platonis est altera pars libri, qui dicitur Timaeus, et tractauit in ea de iustitia positiua et ordinatione ciuitatium, sicut in prima parte de iustitia naturali; quae apud Latinos rara est, quamuis habeatur a quibusdam, et transtulit eam Apuleius philosophus, sicut primam partem de iustitia naturali transtulit et commentatus est Chalcidius.

You must keep in mind that the Republic of Plato is the second part of the book which is called the Timaeus, and in it, he discusses positive justice and the ordering of cities, just as in the first part he discusses natural justice. It is rare among the Latins, although some people have it, and Apuleius the Philosopher translated it, just as the first part on natural justice was translated and commented upon by Calcidius.

This leaves little room for doubt that Albert was not thinking of some doxographic handbook, as our Summarium librorum Platonis is, but of a full translation of the Platonic Republic or at least of some major part of it, just as (sicut) the work of Calcidius, which Albert characterizes by the same verb transtulit, is a full translation of the first half of the Timaeus (17a–53c). Furthermore, what Albert here says about the relationship between the Republic and the Timaeus finds no parallel in the relevant chapters of the so-called ‘New Apuleius’.¹¹

Now for the second passage (Summa theologiae 2.tr.10.q.39.ad3; Borgnet, page 453; transl. Stover [n. 1], 8):

et hoc expresse dicitur a Platone in Politegia, quam non de uerbo ad uerbum, sed per sensus et sententias transtulit Apuleius philosophus.

And this is said expressly by Plato in his Republic, which Apuleius the Philosopher translated not word-for-word, but according to its meaning.

The preceding sentence in Albert finds no counterpart in the so-called ‘New Apuleius’,¹² so hoc expresse dicitur a Platone in Politegia can hardly refer to it. Moreover, this passage confirms that Albert was thinking of a full, albeit free, translation. For to render the Republic ‘not word-for-word, but according to its meaning’ cannot be interpreted as producing a kind of summary or doxographic handbook. What Albert describes is just the same as Jerome—in a text the doctor uniuersalis certainly knew—said he did with the Book of Judith, that is, to produce a full, albeit not literal, Latin translation: magis sensum e sensu quam ex uerbo uerbum transferens (Jer. Jdt. prol.).¹³

A third passage relevant to the topic apparently was overlooked by Stover. Commenting on the Book of Job 40.16 (sub umbra dormit), Albert states (Commentary on Job 40.16; Weiß, page 480.37–42):

unde Apuleius in libro, qui de politica Platonis est, Platonem inducit dicentem, quod concupiscentiam in infimis quasi in inferno sepeliuit, ubi umbra est ex caligatione rationis.

Therefore, in his book on Plato's Republic Apuleius quotes Plato, saying that [God] buried concupiscence in the lower regions [of the body], like in an underworld, where there is shadow because of the eclipse of reason.

The title De politica (Platonis) can hardly refer to a text other than the Politia/Politegia mentioned in the two passages treated above. The words Platonem inducit dicentem may suggest at first glance that Apuleius in that work introduced Plato as a speaking character, but actually this is just a phrase Albert uses for ‘to quote’.¹⁴ The idea expressed in the following ‘quotation’ is, of course, basically Platonic, but it resembles Ti. 70d–71a more closely than any passage of the Republic (see, especially, 4.439d–441c).¹⁵ Most importantly for our concerns, there is again no clear parallel in the so-called ‘New Apuleius’, the relevant part of the summary treating the Timaeus being much shorter and very different in its wording (32.36–7; page 134: consistere … desideria rursus in iocinere).

To sum up: Albert is obviously thinking of a full translation (or, at least, of a translation of a major part) of the Platonic Republic by Apuleius; what he says about the contents of that text does not match up at all with the so-called ‘New Apuleius’. Thus it seems far too rash to conclude that his words ‘cannot but be a reference’ to the latter.¹⁶ It should also be emphasized that Albert, pace Stover, nowhere says ‘that a new text, a Latin translation of Plato's Republic, had been found’, and that this text was ‘a newly available work’.¹⁷ This is not to say that Albert, in the passages discussed above, could by no means have had our Summarium librorum Platonis in mind; but if he had, there were obviously some major areas of confusion.

Against this background, it is worth pointing out that there actually exists one passage in an earlier writer, which may suggest the existence of a Latin translation of Plato's Republic by Apuleius, and which has indeed been interpreted that way, at least in modern times.¹⁸ It is found in Fulgentius ‘the mythographer’: celocem dicunt genus nauicellae modicissimum, quod bamplum dicimus, unde et Apuleius in libro de re puplica ait: ‘qui celocem regere nequit, onerariam petit’ (Serm. ant. 44; ‘a very small kind of ship, which we call “bamplum”, they call “celox”; thus Apuleius says in his book on the Republic: “He is unable to navigate a celox but desires a freighter”’).¹⁹ Of course, from this single quotation one cannot readily deduce that the supposed translation was non de uerbo ad uerbum, sed per sensus et sententias, but it is perfectly possible that Albert was not relying on his own reading but on second-hand information, coming from some murky source that had already misunderstood and embellished Fulgentius: his remark habeatur a quibusdam certainly points to second-hand knowledge. One must not forget that the doctor uniuersalis took a lot of his information concerning older literature not from the original texts but from (more or less obscure) medieval works of reference, partly based on dubious sources themselves, which sometimes resulted in serious distortions and errors, even when Albert was referring to the works of theological authorities one would expect him to know well.²⁰

As things stand, knowledge of the so-called ‘New Apuleius’ by Albert the Great cannot be assumed as naturally as Stover does, and the possibility of a serious confusion, ultimately rooted in the passage of Fulgentius ‘the mythographer’ quoted above, should not be prematurely excluded.²¹