Umberto Verdura, Columbia University
In the eleventh book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Lucius recovers his human form thanks to Isis’ intervention. The first contact between the goddess and the ass takes place in 11.2 when he prays to the moon. Scholars have focused on the prayer and on the relationship between Lucius and Isis but have seldom discussed whether Lucius in ass form pronounces the prayer out loud or not. In this paper I will argue that Lucius does not, in fact, pronounce the prayer. After a brief discussion of the scholarship, I will analyze the consequences of his silent prayer, drawing comparisons from other imperial authors [cf. Van Nufflen 2011]. I suggest that one of the possible readings of the Isiac finale is as a manifestation of the apophatic discourse—a negative engagement with the knowledge of God caused by the weakness of human speech. By way of conclusion, I will survey other instances of apophatic discourse in Apuleius’ oeuvre [Verdura 2023], to take stock of the philosophical implications of Lucius’ silent prayer.
Analyses of Lucius’ attempts while an ass to communicate with humans point out that he fails to do so, often in ridiculous ways [Slater 2020; Adkins 2022]. Some scholars have argued, however, that in his first prayer to Isis Lucius recovers his human voice, interpreting this as a hint at his salvation [Finkelpearl 1998], as an actual discourse but in a dream [Harrison 2013; Tilg 2015], or as a way to blur the “human/animal divide” [Finkelpearl 2018: 258]. The text does not suggest that Lucius has recovered his human voice [GCA; Slater 2020; Adkins 2022], therefore I argue that a silent
and internally pronounced prayer is more appropriate for Lucius.
Indeed, silent prayer was not common in the Graeco-Roman world. It became widespread practice after the first century CE [van der Horst 1994; Timotin 2016] and bore the connotation of being the prayer of the philosophers. Indeed, Plutarch’s Socrates (De gen. 558e), a fragment of Apollonius of Tyana’s Peri thusion found in Porphyry (Abst. 2.34.1–2: “To the god who rules over all, as a wise man said, we shall offer nothing perceived by the senses, either by burning or in words”), and Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella 16, all suggest silence as the only way for wise men to communicate with the gods.
I argue that Lucius’ silent prayer in Met. 11.2 hints at the fact that he has become wiser after his adventures, and that it invites readers to interpret book 11 as an expression of apophatic discourse, culminating in the third revelation to an unknown divinity [Verdura 2023]. This reading of the end of Book 11, suggested at its beginning by the silent prayer, would resonate with the apophatic declaration of Apol. 64 (quid sit deus meus taceo). In the Apology, Apuleius expresses his apophatic beliefs, while, more radically, in the Metamorphoses he shows them. This fits in the broader 2nd-century religious context and echoes the Plutarchian formula “in speaking we have men as teachers, but in keeping silent we have gods” (De garr. 505f).