Logica e teologia nel primo neoplatonismo A proposito di Anon., In Parm. XI 5-19 e Iambl., Risposta a Porfirio [De Mysteriis] I, 4

According to the anonymous commentator on Plato’s Parmenides the One-being can (under certain conditions) be thought to participate in the first One above being (In Parm., XI-XII). The commentator offers two explanations of this fact, the first of which (In Parm., XI, 5-19) is closely reminiscent of the Peripatetic doctrine of essential predication. Accordingly, the structure of the second One can be equated to that of a species resulting from the composition of a genus (one) and a specific differentia (being / ousia). Several parallels connect this solution with the debates on Aristotle’s theory of predication attested in the Neoplatonic commentaries on the Categories. The parallels with Porphyry’s logical works are particularly valuable. Furthermore, in his Response to Porphyry, Iamblichus presents Porphyry’s account of the divine hierarchy as misleadingly implying that divine beings are species under the same common genus: a position which is virtually identical to that of the anonymous commentator, and finds no parallel in Neoplatonic authors other than Porphyry. This hitherto unnoticed parallel further suggests that Porphyry is the author of the anonymous commentary, as advanced by R. Chiaradonna, “Nota su partecipazione e atto d’essere nel neoplatonismo: l’anonimo Commento al Parmenide”, Studia graeco-arabica, 2 [2012], pp. 87-97.