The Philosophical Life

The Stoics notoriously argued that it was possible for someone progressing (a proficiens) towards wisdom and virtue to achieve these utterly distinct states without being aware of it (SVF 3.539-541). Seneca clearly alludes to this position when he writes in the Epistulae Morales that the most advanced proficientes lack only this awareness, for “they are ignorant that they are wise” (scire se nesciunt; Ep. 75.9).

Despite unprecedented booms in both the field of magic and studies of Apuleius over the past few decades, one of the most intriguing questions about his life and career has been all but ignored: How is it that this philosophus Platonicus, sophist and novelist gained a reputation as a great miracle-worker a century after his death, a reputation so grand that he would be compared with Jesus, the Apostles, and Apollonius of Tyana? The earliest sign of this phenomenon is to be found in the polemics of Porphyry and Lactantius (PL 26, 1056D; Lact., Div.

Overview

This paper presents a sketch of Apuleius’ descriptions of the lives of both historical personages and literary characters; it then compares these with the preoccupations and techniques of ancient biography. This is an approach largely missing in the critical literature. Through an examination of selected examples drawn from the range of Apuleius’ oeuvre, the paper exposes a similarity in approach and technique between Apuleius and ancient biographers.

Context and Examples

Plato’s critique of Homer in the Republic is by and large one of emotion: poetry causes its audience to neglect sophrosyne (self-control by the rational principle) and to absorb—and later reenact through behavioral mimesis—the anger, lust, and excessive self-pity they see on literary display. Aristotle’s defense of poetry in the Poetics largely ignores this challenge, offering but one possible solution through the famously unexplained and unexemplified assertion that poetry achieves catharsis of emotion.

One of the most famous Ancient Stoic doctrines is that the ideal life requires the elimination of all emotions or passions (pathē) that could impede the attainment of a perfectly rational state of mind. So famous is this doctrine that in modern usage, the term “stoic” refers to a state of complete freedom from the passions. However, it is now generally recognized that the Stoic philosophy of emotions is more robust than this caricature represents. The Stoics in fact deployed a wide range of “affective” notions in their philosophy.

The 12^th century scholar, philosopher and refined stylist Heloise whose prose shows influences from Ovid, Vergil, Lucan, Persius, Seneca Cicero, Augustine and Jerome, is only recently beginning to emerge from the shadow of Peter Abelard through the efforts of modern scholars (Newman 1992; McNamer 1991 et al.) who focus on her unique intelligence to which even Abelard may have been indebted (Marenbon 1997, Clanchy 1998).