Monday, December 17, 2018

Artemidorus Daldianus


Artemidorus

https://web.archive.org/web/20060320085438/http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/astdiv/3.html

Artemidorus of Daldis (or Ephesus), author of the most comprehensive ancient book of dream-divination (Oneiromancy), the Oneirocritica.
For Alexander the Great in Artemidorus' works, see below
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From Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

Artemidorus Daldianus, was a native of Ephesus, but is usually called Daldianus, to distinguish him from the geographer Artemidorus (Lucian, Philopatr. 22), since his mother was born at Daldia or Daldis, a small town in Lydia. Artemidorus himself also preferred the surname of Daldianus (Oneirocr. 3.66), which seems to have been a matter of pride with him, as the Daldian Apollo Mystes gave him the especial commission to write a work on dreams (Oneirocr. 2.70). He lived at Rome in the reign of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius as we may infer from several passages of his work (1.28, 1.66, 4.1), though some writers have placed him in the reign of Constantine, and others identify him with the friend of Pliny the Younger, and son-in-law of Musonius (Plin. Epist. 3.11.) But the passages of Artemidorus's own work cited above, place the question beyond all doubt. Artemidorus is the author of a work on the interpretation of dreams (Gk. Oneirocritica), in five books, which is still extant. He collected the materials for this work by very extensive reading (he asserts that he had read all the books on the subject), on his travels through Asia, Greece, Italy, and the Greek islands. (Oneir. Prooem. lib. 1). He himself intimates that he had written several works, and from Suidas and Eudocia we may infer, that one was called oiônoskopia, and the other cheiroskopika. Along with his occupations on these subjects, he also practised as a physician. From his work on dreams, it is clear that he was acquainted with, the principal productions of more ancient writers on the subject, and his object is to prove, that in dreams the future is revealed to man, and to clear the science of interpreting them from the abuses with which the fashion of the time had surrounded it. He does not attempt to establish his opinion by philosophical reasoning, but by appealing to facts partly recorded in history, partly derived from oral tradition of the people, and partly from his own experience. On the last point he places great reliance, especially as he believed that he was called to his task by Apollo (2.70.) This makes him conceited, and raises him above all fear of censure. The first two books are dedicated to Cassius Maximus. The third and fourth, are inscribed to his son. The fifth book is, properly speaking, an independent work, the title of which is peri oneirôn anabaseôn, and which contains a collection of interesting dreams, which were believed to have been realized. The style of the work is simple, correct, and elegant; and this, together with the circumstance that Artemidorus has often occasion to allude to or explain ancient manners and usages, give to it a peculiar value. The work has also great interest, because it shews us in what manner the ancients symbolized and interpreted certain events of ordinary life, which, when well understood, throws light on various points of ancient mythology. The first edition of the Oneirocritica is that of Aldus, Venice, 1518, 8vo.; the next is that of Rigaltius (Paris, 1603, 4to.), which contains a valuable commentary; however, it goes down only to the 68th chapter of the second book. The last edition is that of J. G. Reiff, Leipzig, .1805, 2 vols. 8vo. It contains the notes of Rigaltius, and some by Reiske and the editor. 

Authors mentioned by Artemidorus



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Alexander the Great in the Oneirocritica

Alexander appears once in the Oneirocritica (4.24), having an extraordinary dream before the city of Tyre. Artemidorus is discussing predictions based upon words or letters, either by numerical conversion or word-play. He writes:
"And it seems to me that Aristander also gave a most felicitous interpretation to Alexander of Macedonia when he had blockaded Tyre and was besieging it. Alexander was feeling uneasy and disturbed became of the great loss of time and dreamt that he saw a satyr dancing on his shield. Aristander was in Tyre at the time, in attendnace on the kind while he was waging war against the Tyrians. By dividing the word Satyros into sa and Tyros (Tyre is yours), he encouraged the king fo wage the war more zealously with the result that he took the city." — Trans. Robert J. White, The Interpretation of Dreams (1975)
Artemidorus' account is paralleled by Plutarch (Alex. 24.3-5), where Alexander dreams of chasing and eventually catching a satyr. The "seers" divide the word and uncover the meaning. Plutarch adds that the Tyrians point out a spring near which Alexander had his dream. The popular appeal of the story is also evident in the Alexander Romance, in which Alexander dreams a satyr gives him a cheese (tyros, the same as Tyre except for the accent) which he tramples under foot. This receives a similar interpretation. (The incident can be found, with slight variations, in the versions Alpha, Beta and Gamma 1.35, and the Recensio Byzantina Poetica line 1576ff.)
The account of Alexander's dream is succeeded by a "similar" example, in which "Syrus, the slave of Antipater, dreamt that he had no soles on the bottom of his feet. He was burned alive." It would be interesting if were Alexander's general and regent Antipater; this might imply Aristander's duties extended past Philip and Alexander to other members of the Macedonian elite. But it is unclear whether the Antipater here is Alexander's contemporary, Antipater of Tarsus, a 2c. BC stoic philosopher said to have written on prophecy, or another man entirely. Section 4.65 refers to the dream interpreter (oneirokritês) Antipater, called upon when a man dreams of sex with a lump of iron (the man ends up a slave). This suggests he is not Alexander's contemporary.
On the identity of Antipater see Darius Del Corno, Graecorum de re Onirocritica Scriptorum Reliquiae (1969) no. 1; apparently the identification with the general was suggested by I. Fisher, Ad artis veterum onirocriticae historiam symbola (1899).
The writings of Alexander's seer Aristander of Telmessus are cited twice by Artemidorus (1.31, 4.23-24), suggesting a possible source for the story (or stories).
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Studies | Texts | Bibliographies | Other

Studies

The full text of Jean Bottero's "Oneiromancy" from Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning and the Gods (1992). Seminal. Bottero's essay on Mesopotamian deam interpretation is as refreshing as his work on the "Code" of Hammurabi and his essay on "Divination and the Scientific Spirit." I suppose the Near Eastern people all know him, but Classics hasn't taken his work up yet.
Catholic Encylopedia: "Interpretation of Dreams" by Charles L. Souvay. Lengthy.
"Traume in der romischen Kaiserzeit. Normalitat, Exzeptionalitat und Signifikanz" by Dr. Gregor Weber. Conference talk given in Frankfurt in 1998.
"Dreams and Dream Interpretation" from the Encyclopaedia Iranica by Hossein Ziai.
"Traum und Alltag in hellenistischer Zeit" by Gregor Weber, ZRGG 50, Heft 1, 1998, S. 22-39.
Web Archive: "Gender in the Roman World" , online essay by Dr. Dominic Montserrat (University of Warwick).
Editor's comments: Montserrat starts with a passage from Artemidorus and later quotes Ptolemy and Polemo (adapted from Gleason, who translates the Latin from Foerster's edition, which translates the Arabic, itself a translation and reworking of the lost Greek). The new, much ballyhoed "interest" in these authors is generally restricted to forays like this, which take passages from here and there without understanding their authors to any great extent. Artemidorus is certainly a valuable source for understanding the commonly-held assumptions of antiquity, but just as nobody today thinks that history can be extracted from Homer without careful thinking about the genre of epic poetry, those interested in gender studies must make similar efforts with divinatory literature. For starters: To what extent can Artemidorus be used to reconstruct Roman, as opposed to Greek, thinking? How can we evaluate Artemidorus' work in light of his ancient sources and the advice to his son on the performative advantages of some explanations? As concerns the quote he gives, I note the exclusion of Artemidorus' reasoning, which opens a lot of false interpretive whitespace.
That's enough; I'm out of academia now, but who knows when I'll need the good will? It's good to see divinatory authors mentioned in print.
Dream ("Roya") by Hossein Ziai for the Encyclopaedia Iranica.
Ancient Library: Anthon, A Manual of Greek Literature on Artemidorus and his Oneirocritica (p. 535)

ROMAN PERIOD. 535
the work which he has left behind him is only remotely connected with medical science. This is ARTEMiDdRus,1 surnamed, for distinction' sake, Daldianus, from the circumstance of his mother having been born at Dal-dia or Daldis, a small town of Lydia. He lived at Rome in the reign of Antoninus Pius and M. Aurelius, as we may infer from several passages of his work,2 though some writers have placed him in the reign of Con-stantine. Artemidorus is the author of a work on the interpretation of dreams, entitled 5Oj/efpo«:pm/ca, in five books, which is still extant. He collected the materials for this work by very extensive reading (he as­serts that he had read all the books on the subject), on his travels through Asia, Greece, Italy, and the Grecian islands.3 He himself intimates that he had written several works, and, from Suidas and Eudocia, we may in­fer that one was called oicwoo-KoiriKa, and the other x*lP°°'K07riKd» Along with his occupations on these subjects, he also practiced as a physician. In his work on dreams, his object is to prove that in dreams the future is revealed to man, and to clear the science of interpreting them from the abuses with which the fashion of the time had surrounded it. He does not attempt, however, to establish his opinion by philosophical reasoning, but by appealing to facts partly recorded in history, partly derived from oral tradition of the people, and partly from his own experience. On the last point he places great reliance, especially as he believed that he was called to the task by Apollo. This makes him conceited, and raises him above all fear of censure. The style of the work is simple, correct, and elegant, and this, together with the circumstance that Artemidorus has often occasion to allude to or explain ancient manners and usages, gives to it a peculiar value. The work has also great interest, because it shows us in what manner the ancients symbolized and interpreted certain events of ordinary life, which, when well understood, throws light on various points of ancient mythology.
The first edition of the Oneirocritica is that of Aldus, Venice, 1518, 8vo ; the next is that of Rigaltius, Paris, 1603, 4to, containing a valuable commentary, which goes down, however, only to the sixty-eighth chapter of the second book. The last edition is that of Rein0, Leipzig, 1805, 2 vols. 8vo. It contains the notes of Rigaltius, and some by Reiske and the editor. In 1821, Benedict published his " Notas criticce ad Artemidori Oneiro-
Schneeberg, 8vo.







Summary of "Artemidor von Daldis und sein 'Publikum'", by Dr. Gregor Weber. Published in Gymnasium 106/3, 1999, 209-229.
"Philo Alexandrinus's De Somniis: an attempt at reconstruction" by Sofia Torallas Tovar. This article is a translation and abridgement of part of her dissertation,"El De Somniis de Filon de Alejandria", Madrid (Universidad Complutense, 1995). Connected to an astounding set of Philo links.
"Women's Dreams in Ancient Greece" by Robert Rouselle, The Journal of Psychohistory (1998). I don't care for the interpretations, but he digs up some good sources.
"In this book, Patricia Cox Miller draws on pagan, Jewish, and Christian sources and modern semiotic theory to demonstrate the integral importance of dreams in late-antique thought and life. She argues that Graeco-Roman dream literature functioned as a language of signs that formed a personal and cultural pattern of imagination and gave tangible substance to ideas such as time, cosmic history, and the self."
Amazon. A Byzantine Book on Dream Interpretation: The Oneirocriticon of Achmet and Its Arabic Sources by Maria Mavroudi (Medieval Mediterranean, 36). See the publisher's page and Byzatine Books for descriptions. Mavroudi is also coming out with a modern Greek translation of Artemidorus.
Review of Gregor Weber's Kaiser, Traume und Visionen in Prinzipat und Spatantike. Reviewed by Thomas M. Banchich, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001. Review in English.
"Another factor to which Weber is especially attentive is the dependence of the form taken by dreams and visions in texts on what individual authors thought would be important to and be accepted by those they addressed. From these chapters emerges a subtle picture of how accounts of dreams and visions confirmed the special status of rulers, all the while being contingent on that very status."
Web Archive: "Dreams and Dreamers in Herodotus" by Laurel Bowman (conference paper abstract, scroll down).

"Dreams and Dreamers in Herodotus"

Laurel M. Bowman
University of Victoria
Two types of dreams are found in Herodotus and Homer, the 'dream figure,' an anthropomorphic figure which appears to the sleeper and speaks to or commands him directly (e.g. the figure which appears to Agamemnon, Il. 2:5-16, or which appears repeatedly to Xerxes, Hdts. 7:12-18), and that which represents the future in symbolic terms, like Penelope's dream about the geese (Od. 19:535-553) or Astyages' dreams about his daughter (Hdts 1:107-1:108). Only dreams which are in some way prophetic appear in either author, and in neither can dreams be assumed to be necessarily truthful or well-intentioned towards the dreamer, both the dreams sent to Agamemnon and to Xerxes are deliberately misleading.
A dreamer's response to his dream is in Herodotus a test and an indicator of his piety, his understanding of the proper relationship between humans and the divine. This understanding is however so rarely found that among all the leaders who are sent dreams in Herodotus, only Sabacos, who realises that the proper response to a dream which commands him to commit a grossly impious act, the murder and mutilation of every priest in Egypt (2.139), is to remove from himself the capacity for the crime by resigning the rule of Egypt, profits from the dream and avoids destruction; the rest, despite their attempts to interpret their dreams, lose their families, their rule, or their lives.




Amazon. Dream Cultures: Explorations in the Comparative History of Dreaming edited by David Shulman, Guy G. Stroumsa and Gedaliahu A. G. Stroumsa
Web Archive: Dissertation abstract: "The Perception of Dreams and Nightmares in Ancient Egypt: Old Kingdom to Third Intermediate Period" by Kasia Maria Szpakowska. Also see her much longer dissertation proposal, PDF: "Dreams and Nightmares in Ancient Egyptian Thought" . See also: abstract, "Sleep, Dreams, and the Dead in Ancient Egypt" from "Thanatos" (a UWash conference).
http://web.archive.org/web/20020616155923/http://www.utexas.edu/courses/ccmyth/artemidorus.html

Texts

Web Archive: Selections from Artemidorus, Interpretation of Dreams (trans. Robert J. White). From Anne Duncan's "Introduction to Classical Mythology" (UT Austin).
Web Archive: Aristotle, On Prophesying by Dreams, translated by J. I. Beare. Courtesy Aristote in Bjorn's Guide to Philosophy.
Amazon. Artemidorus, "The Interpretation of Dreams" (trans. Robert J. White) -- No, it's not out of print. It's merely being published for new-agers and other weirdos. Who cares. Although the original edition was repaginated somewhat, the text is the same. Hey, why not let the idiots pay to print classics books? Original Books blurb.
The Dreambook of Astrampsychus (9c.), translated by Monty Cantsin, "a pseudonym of Luther Blissett," who subscribes to some sort of artistic movement called "Neoism." I have not read the work and cannot vouch for the translation.

Bibliographies

Dreams in Antiquity. An enormous, searchable database of bibliographic entries on divination, especially dreams. The site is in German (despite the title); an English version is in the works. Here, for example is a search on "Artemidorus," which turns up 138 entries. (Gregor Weber, Katholische Universitat Eichstatt)

introduction

Prof. Dr. Gregor Weber
Chair of Ancient History 
University of Augsburg 
Universitätsstr. 10 
D-86159 Augsburg 
Telephone: 0821 / 598-5642 Fax 
: 0821 / 598-5501
Bibliography of Dream Books & Articles, collected by Richard Wilkerson. A large bibliography, not predominantly ancient.

Other

"Dreams and Dream Interpretations" a freshman seminar at UPenn, taught by Peter Struck. Includes a reading list and exam review sheet. It warms the cockles of my heart that such subjects are taught, but I dislike these "freshman seminars in obscure subjects." Give the kids the Homer before the Artemidorus!
Classical Studies Course: "Dreams and Dream Interpretations." Peter Struck, University of Pennsylvania.
Web Archive: Dreams and their Interpretation, A Two-Year Panel Proposal submitted to the AAR Comparative Studies in Religion Section, by Kelly Bulkeley. Visit the author's homepage for more about his many dream-related projects.
"Coleridge, Wordplay, and Dream" by L. R. Kennard, University of Calgary. Coleridge apparently read Artemidorus. From the Association for the Study of Dreams.
Ancient dream interpreters and dream interpretation. A project directed by Prof. Dr. B. Naf (University of Zurich). Details on a research proposal which will lead to a book in the years ahead.
PDF: Reflections on the Dream Tradition of Islam by Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D., Sleep and Hypnosis 2002.
LibraryThing: Catalog your books online.
All material © 2000-2004 Tim Spalding. Books presented in association with Amazon.com.
If you enjoy this site you may also like these other sites by me:
The Oracle of Delphi and Ancient Oracles. Covers physical oracles, including academic information and site photos.
Ancient Library. Exciting new project, putting dozens of classical dictionaries and other resources online. There is a category for Ancient Divination.
Angels on the Web. Angels in culture, theology and art. Includes over 550 categorized images.
Hieroglyphics! Comprehensive guide and web directory to Egytian hieroglyphics.

Philo Alexandrinus's De Somniis: an attempt at reconstruction.

Sofia Torallas Tovar ©

    This article is an abstract of my doctoral dissertation,"El De Somniis de Filón de Alejandría", defended in Madrid (Universidad Complutense), September 12th. 1995. I want to thank my research supervisor, Prof. Dr. Luis Gil Fernández for all his wise guidance and patience all these years, and my friend Aristotle Papanikolaou, for his invaluable help in the revision of this paper.
Among the many issues worth studying in Philo Alexandrinus’s De Somniis, one of the most intriguing is the missing first book. Only the second and third books survived in the manuscript tradition, which are numbered Books I and II respectively. This study will focus on this lost book of the De Somniis. Specifically, I will attempt to determine its contents through an examination of the structure which lies behind the extant texts.
A three-fold dream classification
We know that the text of the treatise De Somniis is not complete. Both Philo and Eusebius of Caesarea attest to the existence of a first book. At the beginning of the second book of the De Somniis (Book I), Philo himself refers to a previous book. Eusebius tells us about Philo’s work in his Historia Ecclesiastica (II, 18) and includes De Somniis as a treatise divided into five books. An analysis of the existing books, however, will reveal that there were, in fact, only three books, which means that only one is missing.
(1)
2) Fragments of Stoic philosophers: SVF III 605 (Hermippus of Berytus), SVF II 1198 (= Chalcidius, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus 251).
3) Fragments in L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd edition, Cambridge, 1972, 19892, vol. I, pp. 104-109. This classification was also inherited by other authors, such as Jamblicus, De Mysteriis III 2; Tertullianus, De Anima 47,1-3; Prudentius, Cathemerinon 6. All the translations by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Philo, vol. V, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge (Mass.)/ London, 1963.
The reason for doubting Eusebius is the threefold dream classification underlying the whole treatise. Each book talks about one type of dream within this classification, which was probably inherited from Posidonius of Apamea, or at the very least from the Stoic tradition.(2) This dream classification identified dreams according to their source and origin. All dreams are God-sent, but their source is different: either God, immortal souls or the soul of the dreamer. Fortunately, Cicero preserves this classification in his De Divinatione (I, 64): "Now (Posidonius) holds the view that there are three ways in which men dream as a result of divine impulse: first, the soul is clairvoyant of itself because of its kinship with the Gods; second, the air is full of immortal souls, already clearly stamped, as it were, with the marks of the truth; and third, the Gods in person converse with men when they are asleep." (3)
If we compare this short description of Posidonius’s classification with Philo’s introductory words at the beginning of each book we find very important similarities. About the first type of dream, which corresponds to Cicero-Posidonius’s third type, he says: "The treatise before this one embraced that first class of heaven sent dreams, in which, as we said, the Deity of His own motion sends to us these visions which are presented to us in sleep" (Somn. I, 1). He speaks of this type of dream later in the De Somniis (II, 2-3) as one which conveys an unambiguous meaning: "In accordance with these distinctions, the Sacred Guide gave a perfectly clear and lucid interpretation of the appearances which come under the first description, inasmuch as the intimations given by God through these dreams were of the nature of plain oracles."
Philo describes the second type of dream as follows (Somn. I, 2): "The second kind of dream is that in which our mind, moving out of itself together with the Mind of the Universe, seems to be possessed and God-inspired, and so capable of receiving some foretaste and foreknowledge of things to come." He later adds: "You see that the Divine word proclaims as dreams sent from God not only those which appear before the mind under the direct action of the Highest of Causes, but those also which are revealed through the agency of His interpreters and attendant messengers who have been held meet to receive from the Father to Whom they owe their being a divine and happy portion" (I, 90).
This Mind of the Universe is the Divine Logos, who occupies in this case the same level as God’s messengers, the angels, in this hierarchy of the Divine. In this type of dream, God does not appear to the dreamer, but he sends his angels to deliver His message. Moreover, these dreams, according to Philo (Somn. II, 3), are more ambiguous than the first type.
The dreams of the third type are those in which the soul, provided with a prophetic power, foretells the future (Somn. II, 1): "This third class of dreams arises whenever the soul in sleep, setting itself in motion and agitation of its own accord, becomes frenzied, and with the prescient power due to such inspiration foretells the future." This third class is the most obscure and requires the art of a wise interpreter.
If we believe Eusebius when he said that this treatise contained five books, then we must think about a five-fold classification of dreams, instead of a three-fold, since, as shown, Philo dedicates one whole book to every kind of dream. We can point to a five-fold classification of dreams found in the writings of Artemidorus of Daldis and Macrobius.(4) Their classifications seem to have the same origin, though Macrobius may have inherited it directly from Artemidorus. The dreams are divided according to their form, and not their origin. There are three kinds of predictive and two kinds of nonpredictive dreams: 4) Artemidorus, Oneirocriticon, I, 1, 3-13 Pack, Macrobius, Commentarii in somnium Scipionis, I, 3, 1-20.
1. The oneiros or somnium: an allegorical dream, which requires an interpretation of its symbols.
2. The horama or visio: the literal predictive dream, which shows the events just as they are going to happen.
3. The chrematismos or oraculum: an apparition of God or another person who foretells the future.
The nonpredictive dreams are two: enupnion or insomnium, a dream without predictive value; and the phantasma or visum, a dream containing a frightening apparition.(5) We also learn from Chalcidius's Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus of another dream classification. His was a five-fold, (perhaps four-fold classification) (6): 1) dreams produced by physical or psychical causes; 2) by the divine omnipotence; 3) by the love that heavenly powers have for men; 4) seen even during wakefulness and in which men see the future with the help of God; and 5) the revelatio, which is a general type of dream in which the future may be seen. 5)This five-fold classification does not appear as such in Artemidorus. Macrobius used Artemidorus’s information to create and organise a classification with five types of dream
6) Somnium quidem, quod ex reliquiis commotionum animae diximus oboriri, visum vero, quod ex divina virtute legatur, admonitionem, cum angelicae bonitatis consiliis regimur atque admonemur, spectaculum, ut cum vigilantibus offert se videndam caelestis potestas clare iubens aliquid aut prohibens forma et voce mirabili, revelationem, quotiens ignorantibus sortem futuram imminentis exitus secreta panduntur. Analysing this text (chapter 256), it seems that quidem ... vero, as mèn ... dè in Greek, establish two opposed elements, two kinds of dream in this case, nonpredictive and predictive. The visum is not further explained in the way the others are in the text that follows this chapter. It could be a name that includes three different manifestations of the divine dream. Thus, we have four types of dream, one nonpredictive and three predictive, the latter of which have a common name. 7) For further information on these classifications we refer to the studies: C. Blum, Studies on the Dream Book of Artemidorus, Upsala, 1936; D. Corno, Graecorum de re onirocritica scriptorum reliquiae, Milano, 1969; A. H. M. Kessels, "Ancient Systems of Dream Classification", Mnemosyne, S IV 22 (1969), pp. 389-424; J.H. Waszink, "Die sogenannte Fünfteilung der Träume bei Chalcidius und ihre Quellen", Mnemosyne, III 9 (1941), pp. 65-85 y "Porphyrios und Numenios", Porphyre, Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt, XII, Génève, 1965, pp. 35-83.

It is not possible to compare or connect these classifications with each other or with Philo’s. Each has a different origin and purpose. Artemidorus's classification is a popular one whose aim is the interpretation of actual dreams that people used to have and which classified dreams according to their form or manifestation. Philo's is a philosophical classification based on literary dreams, which, as said, classifies dreams according to their origin.(7) Nonpredictive dreams cannot be part of Philo's classification, since he entitled his treatise On dreams, that they are God-sent.
Chalcidius does use, like Philo, a classification of dreams according to their origin. Philo, however, was probably not the direct source for his classification. The expression Hebraica Philosophia, which he uses when he mentions the origin of the theory he exposes, does not refer necessarily to a work by Philo. It is more probable that Chalcidius had a creative spirit and that he created a new classification using elements of different origin.
Three types of Life
The threefold dream-classification is one framework underlying Philo's treatise. But there are others that can help us to recover the first lost book. According to Philo, there are three types of life: contemplative, active life and the life in pleasure. The first one is the most excellent, in which the soul is free from all passions and has reached a state of apatheia. The active life follows. In it, the soul struggles against the body with its the passions and pleasures. The third one is the life of the soul drowning in the material pleasures of life.(8) 8) Quaest. Gen. IV 47.
Each of these three types of life is represented in some way by a Patriarch. The contemplative life is the "life of the self-taught", and is represented by Isaac. The active life is both the life which results from teaching, represented by Abraham, and the life of practice, represented by Jacob. The life in pleasure, or the life in the body is represented by Joseph.(9) The connection of these three types of life with the structure of our treatise can be explained in Philo's own words:
    The lawgiver says that virtue is gained either by nature or by practice or by learning, and has accordingly recorded the patriarchs of the nation as three in number, all wise men. They had not at the start the same form of character, but they were all bent on reaching the same goal. Abraham, the earliest of them, had teaching as his guide on the way that leads to the good and beautiful, as we shall show to the best of our ability in another treatise. Isaac who comes between him and Jacob had as his guide a nature which listens and learns from itself alone. Jacob, the third of them, relied on exercises and practisings preparatory for the strenuous toil of the arena. There being, then, three methods by which virtue accrues, it is the first and third that are most intimately connected (Somn. I, 167-168).
The Patriarchs and the mystical journey towards perfection
Jacob and Abraham are the central figures in the first of the two surviving books of the treatise. Isaac has to be the core of the first lost book. But these three men can also be found in Philo's "mystical triad", the three steps towards perfection, which is also evident in the first extant book. In his first surviving book, Philo comments, using the allegorical method, on Gen. 28: 12-13, Jacob's dream about the ladder to Heaven. But he begins his commentary on verses 10-11, as an introduction to this vision: "Jacob left Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place, and stayed there at night, because the sun had set."
For Philo, the main theme in this book is the mystical journey of the soul towards perfection and the consecutive steps necessary for this journey. Here Haran is the symbol for the body and the senses. The journey to Haran is interpreted as the gnôthi seautón, or "know yourself", and it is considered by Philo as the first stage in the journey of the soul towards perfection, towards the contemplation of God. Jacob has left Beer-sheba, the "Well of Oath", which is the symbol for science or knowledge. This means that the ascetic Jacob leaves the contemplation of nature and heads for the contemplation of himself. In knowing oneself lies the beginning of knowing God, because the acceptance of the insignificance of man leads to the comprehension of God's greatness. But Jacob, the lover of virtue, dwells in Haran, the body, as in a foreign land for a little while, with his mind ever set on the return to his home (Somn. I, 45).
Throughout the first book, Philo relates this mystical journey to the contemplation of God, whose phases are symbolised by patriarchs. Philo explains the progress with the triad Abraham, Jacob and Isaac (in this order) in I, 170. Abraham, guided by his faith emigrated from Chaldaea, symbol of the body and nature, and then from Haran, the material life, and as seen, the "know yourself". He represents the step of "learning". Jacob represents the next step, that of the ascetic. His soul knows where the truth is to be found, and he is on his way toward this truth. Isaac is the most excellent of the three of them. He has natural knowledge and needs no practice. He is already perfect.
Philo dedicated the whole book II to the explanation of the life in pleasure, and Joseph is the figure who represents such a life. In this book, Philo comments on the text of the dreams of Joseph (Gen. 37), of Pharaoh's butler and baker (Gen. 40) and of Pharaoh himself (Gen. 41). These dreams are presented as dreams from the soul, as Philo explains at the beginning of the book. But the interpretation of the texts does not fit with the description of the third type of God-sent dreams in Philo's classification. This may prove that Philo did not create the classification but inherited it from Posidonius.
In the description at the beginning of book II, these dreams are the visions that the soul sees due to its kinship to the Divine. But throughout book II they are presented as those of the soul drowned in passions, the soul blinded by vainglory in the case of Joseph, by bodily passions in the case of the servants, and every possible passion in the case of the Pharaoh. There is no prophecy, no truth shown in these visions.
The fact that Joseph is the centre of this book is also the reason why he is not included in the mystical triad, the three steps in the way to perfection. Joseph represents the soul that has not even noticed that it has lost its way.
Structure of the treatise as a combination of different frames
We observe that all the classifications exposed form all together a structure for De Somniis. They coincide and give us much information about the lost book.
Putting all this together we get the following scheme:
dreampatriarchlifeGenesis
lost book (I)GodIsaaccontemplative
book I (II)angelsJacob, Abrahamascetic28 and 31
book II (III)soulJosephpassions37 and 40-41
Philo uses a classification of dreams to construct a treatise whose real aim is to present the types of soul and their possibility of communicating with God.(10) The most perfect soul deserves to see God Himself, the practising soul deserves to see the angels sent by God, or the Divine Logos, which belongs to the same level in the hierarchy of the Divine. The imperfect soul does not deserve to see any true visions. As Philo says, they see themselves, their own "folly and madness" (Somn. II 163).10) E. Vanderlinden, "Les divers modes de connaissance de Dieu selon Philon d'Alexandrie", Mélanges de Science Religieuse, p. IV (1944), pp. 285-304.
The contents of the lost book
The contents of the lost book can be inferred from the structure of the treatise discussed above. The central figure must be a Patriarch considered perfect by Philo. As we saw, this Patriarch is Isaac, although Moses, who for Philo is a model of the perfect soul, could also be the centre of the lost book.(11) The problem is that he first appears in Exodus. Since one of Philo's purposes in the De Somniis is a running commentary of the text of Genesis, the central figure of the lost book must be Isaac.11) Moses is the link between God and man, while the ascetic hangs between the living and the dead. The souls of men living in passion are the dead (Somn. II 187-189, II 230). Moses is closest to God. Isaac is perfect, but he is not as close. Jacob and Abraham are struggling with their bodies, and that is why they are between life and death, because death is the body. Joseph lives in the body, thus, he is dead.
Once accepted that Isaac is the principal figure, the next step is to locate the text in Genesis that would form the basis for a commentary by Philo in the lost book. It must be a text situated between Gen. 17 and 27, since Philo comments on Gen. 17 in the book which preceded De Somniis, De mutatione mominis (On the change of names), and since the preserved text of De Somniis starts on Gen. 27. Some scholars have thought of Abimelech's dream in Gen. 20 as a possibility.(12) Such an interpretation seems improbable, since Abimelech's soul lacks the perfection required to receive a vision from God.12) L. Massebieau & L. Cohn, "Einleitung und Chronologie der Schriften Philos", Philologus Supplement Bd. 7 (1899), pp. 387-436. This opinion appears later, among others, in R. Goulet, La Philosophie de Moïse, Paris, 1987, pp. 17-18.
I propose the text in Gen. 26: "And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abim'elech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him, and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and I will bless you (...)’". In my opinion, this text offers Philo good material for his commentaries. The only problem is that it is not a dream seen while sleeping, but an apparition, a waking vision.
The fact, however, that it is a waking vision is not an hindrance, if we consider that, for Philo, ecstasy is a requirement for the contemplation of God. The last step on the way to God, after leaving the realm of the body, the senses and the language, is to go beyond oneself and to meet God.(13) The vision of God appears after the ascetic has gone out of himself, to let the Divine spirit possess him.13) De Migratione Abrahami 2-12. In Quis rerum divinarum heres sit 249-250, Philo exposes four types of ecstasy. The fourth type, the most excellent, is the prophetic ecstasy. On this point see B. Belletti, "La concezione dell'estasi in Filone di Alessandria", Aevum, 57 (1983), pp. 72-89 (esp. 73-74) and "La dottrina dell'assimilazione a Dio in Filone di Alessandria", Rivista di Filosofia neo-scolastica, 74 (1982), pp. 419-440.

Product details

  • Hardcover: 596 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (November 17, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0199593477
  • ISBN-13: 978-0199593477

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DREAM DIVINATION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD



One way to see this power in action is by examining the practice of dream divination in the ancient world. Divination was an important way to acquire knowledge in the ancient world. Divination was not only used to discover future events or outcomes, but was also used to put past events into an understandable perspective and to gain useful information for present situations. A wide variety of divination practices and prophetic activities were found in the ancient world ranging from augury (sign and omens) and haruspicy (examining the entrails of sacrificial animals) to astrology, public oracles, such as Delphi, and dreams. Dream divination was very common. Dreams, in this context, include dreams during sleep, but can also refer to visions and waking dreams. Plutarch refers to dreams as the "oldest oracle" and they were thought of as "natural divination" by Cicero.



In the ancient world divination was a technique whereby humans could communicate with the Divine. How we know what we know has a significant impact on the final meaning of knowledge. For example, in our modern culture one of the most validated ways to know something is through scientific inquiry. For many people in the ancient world, divination held the same sense of "truth" since divination was communication from the Gods.



For those of us who are not living in a time where dream divination is validated, it seems useful to consider when dream interpretation becomes divination. If a dream is perceived to be communication from a divine source and is not obvious in its meaning, then the dream needs to be interpreted, the meaning divined. As such most dream interpretation encountered in ancient writings is divination since Pagans, Jews and Christians alike believed in the divine origin of at least some dreams and the only dreams worth interpreting were ones from the gods.



Dream divination was used to decide correct future action, know personal fate, diagnose and heal illness, gain spiritual insight, validate political power and know God's will. Even morality was associated with dreaming. The Neoplatonist Synesius stated "make your bed on a Delphic tripod and you will lead a nobler life."



Sources for information about dream divination in the ancient Pagan world range from Homer in the 8th century B.C.E. to Artemidorus in the 2nd century C.E. and the Greek Magical Papyri, some of which were written in the 4th century C.E. Two significant examples of classical Pagan attitudes toward divination by dreams are found in Cicero's De divinatione and Artemidorus' Oneirokritika.



Even though Cicero's text argues against divination in general, the person he argues with provides a generous explanation of Stoic beliefs about dream divination with numerous examples which may represent actual historical instances or popular folklore. One example states:

"And who pray can make light of the two following dreams which are so often recounted by Stoic writers? The first one is about Simonides, who once saw the dead body of some unknown man lying exposed and buried it. Later when he had it in mind to go on board ship, he was warned in a vision by the person to whom he had given burial not to go and that if he did he would perish. Therefore, he turned back and all others who sailed were lost."

Artemidorus' five books are a compilation of dream interpretations that he collected from a variety of sources and then classified in a system. It was presented as representing a synthesis of knowledge of dream interpretation at the time. He categorizes dreams as enhypnia and oneiroi. Enhypria are anxiety or petitionary dreams and not significant; oneiroi are dreams which predict the future. Oneiroi are further distinguished as theorematic or allegorical. Theorematic dreams are obvious and resemble the actual events that will occur and allegorical dreams "hint at something in the manner of a riddle." Artemidorus' definition of dreams clearly includes a divinatory aspect. "A dream is a motion or a formation of the soul with many aspects, hinting at good or bad things to come."



Another source for dream divination was incubation, the practice of sleeping in a temple to obtain a dream from the Gods for healing. Incubation was widespread over the ancient Greek and Roman world. Testimonies of the dreams and what they healed were preserved as inscriptions in the temples of Asclepius and we can see by these that both men and women slept in the temples. For example:

Arata, a woman of Lacedaemon, dropsical. For her, while she remained in Lacedaemon, her mother slept in the temple and sees a dream. It seemed to her that the god cut off her daughters head and hung her body in such a way that her throat was turned downwards. Out of it came a huge quantity of fluid matter. The he took down the body and fitted the head back on the neck. After she had seen this dream she went back to Lacedaemon where she found her daughter in good health; she had seen the same dream.

Timon wounded by a spear under his eye. While sleeping in the temple he saw a dream. It seemed to him that the god rubbed down an herb and pour it into his eye. And he became well.

The practice of incubation continued in Christian churches and instances were still reported at length in 1906 in the Mediterranean. When the Christian churches took over this practice, the Pagan gods were replaced by the Virgin and the Saints, but a similar explanation of the reason for effective cures was offered. Christians would use incubation on feast days as "the belief prevails that the Virgin and the Saints are more accessible on their feast days. They are thought to descend to earth then and confer favors on their suppliants." Pagans generally believed that a person's "spirit" would leave the body during sleep and be able to communicate with the Gods in such a state. While the direction of communication is reversed-- Pagans move up, Christians saints come down -- the essential act is still communication with the divine realm.



In Judaism information about dream divination is found in the Hebrew Bible and the Babylonian Talmud. In the Hebrew Bible dreams play an important part in the history of the Jews, particularly as the motif of Jewish dream interpretators in a foreign court. In Kings 3:5 Solomon received a dream from Yahweh who asks what he may give Solomon. Solomon asks for the wisdom for which he became famous. Jacob (Gen 28:12) dreams of the gates of Yahweh's heaven and Yahweh promises Jacob land and blessedness for his people. Joseph's dreams in Genesis are prophetic and play an integral role in his brothers' anger and conspiracy to kill him. The brothers say "Here comes the dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits, then we shall see what will become of his dreams." (Gen 37: 19-20) Later, Joseph plays the role of dream interpretor to Pharaoh, which we will return to later.



Daniel's dream visions illustrate how faithfulness to Jewish practice brings divine aid to triumph over enemies. In Joel, the God of the Jews declares that dreams are a valid form of spiritual information, " I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. . ." (Joel 2:28) In Numbers, Yahweh declares that he speaks to prophets in visions and dreams, however this story is singling out Moses as a leader because God speaks to him "face to face."



In the Talmud, there are 217 references to dreams covering "the origin of dreams, their purpose and meaning, wish-fulfillment in dreams, the relation of dreams to reality, the technique of dream interpretation," and so forth. Incubation was also practiced among Jews during the Greco-Roman period as the Talmud has record of rabbis preaching against it.



Dreams play a smaller role in the New Testament, although the birth narrative in Matthew 1:20 and 2:13 show dreams playing a central part in determining Joseph's actions. Also in Matthew's passion narrative, Pilate's wife "suffered a great deal because of a dream about him [Jesus]." (Matt 27:19) Later, we have the story of Perpetua, a Christian martyr, who was imprisoned for her beliefs. In the narrative, her brother visits her in her cell and says "dear sister, you are greatly privileged; surely you might ask for a vision to discover whether you are to be condemned or free". Perpetua agrees, asks for and receives a vision. Thus dream divination was an important spiritual practice for Greco-Roman peoples as well as for Jews and later for Christians.



The practice of incubation along with dream reports in Biblical and Talmudic writings show dream divination in a "religious" contexts. Dreams were seen as the medium whereby the Divine realm communicated with human beings. When ancient people used dream content to describe contact with diety they were working with symbols that pointed to their notions about ultimate reality. When dream divination proved true, then these people experienced harmony between their ethos and worldview.



There is also evidence for dream divination in "magical" contexts. The Greek Magical Papyri are replete with rituals to induce oracular dreams and this may show a form of incubation performed outside the temples. PGM VII 250-54 states:

Request for a dream oracle, a request which is always used. Formula to be spoken to the day lamp: NAIENCHRE NAIENCHRE, mother of fire and water, you are the one who rises before ARCHENTECHTHA; reveal to me concerning NN matter. If yes, show me a plant and water, but if no, fire and iron. Immediately, quickly.

We do not know exactly what was said in the Pagan temples or Christian churches by the priests and thus it is hard to determine whether the PGM are mirroring those rituals or are showing a separate tradition.



The PGM also shows recipes for sending dreams to another person. The user of the papyri compelled daimons, angels and gods to communicate information to another person in the form of a dream. One begins, "Charm of Agathokels for sending dreams: Take a completely black cat that died a violent death, make a strip of papyrus and write with myrrh the following together with the dream you want sent, and place in into the mouth of the cat." (PGM XII 107-21) Once the magic words and dream content are written on the papyrus, a charm is spoken to call on the divine forces to carry the dream to the desired recipient.

. . .Hear me, because I am going to say the great name, AOTH, before whom every god prostrates himself and every daimon shudders, for whom every angel completes these things which are assigned. Your divine name according to the seven is AEEIOYO IAYOE EAOOYEEOIA. I have spoken the glorious name, the name for all needs."

Dream divination in the Greco-Roman world was also bound up with early notions about magic and magicians. The word magic, in its earliest form, meant the art of the magus, a specialist in religion from Persia. Herodotus claims that these magoi formed a secret society in Persia who were responsible for royal sacrifices, funeral rites, and for the divination and interpretation of dreams.



All these religious/magical systems clearly indicate that dreams can be communications from the unseen world, whether from gods, spirits or saints. This perspective clearly puts dream divination into a significant role for mediating notions about ultimate reality.

MAGIC AND RELIGION
Looking at magic and gender in the ancient world we begin with the assumption that women are capable, intelligent people. Since everyone can dream, it was necessary to conceptualize elite dreams as most valuable to maintain communication with the divine in elite hands. Elites, then, control the meaning of religious symbolism as expressed through the potent channel of dreams. This excludes non-elite males and most women from imaging any divine validation for power. Further, women symbolized as using nefarious magic in literature and associated with deviant religious practices showed that women were dangerous holding spiritual power.
It is hard to imagine that men of the time did not encounter capable, intelligent women and, as suggested by the fragmentary evidence, it is possible that women could have been having divinatory dreams. By not reporting women's dreams directly, this avenue to spiritual power for women was obscured. Gender constructions for males in the ancient world negated the possibility for strong emotional attachments to women. By associating women with "magic" through their participation in mystery cults, as argued earlier, the idea that capable, intelligent women would be irresponsible with spiritual power and thus use this power to control men as expressed in literature is made plausible. That women did participate in the mystery cults gave these notions an aura of actuality in Geertz's terms. Questioning this association of women with magic in the ancient world helps us understand that the use of "magic" to designate deviant religious practices tells us more about manipulation of religious symbols by elites to hide their behavior rather than portray actual human behavior since the PGM appear to be spiritual practices for men, not women. As suggested by Geertz's male elites control of religious symbolism obscured their own behavior that was contrary to correct male gender behavior of the time.
This examination of dream divination, gender and magic in the ancient world informs us about our own intellectual heritage regarding the distinctions we make between religion and magic. As we have seen dream divination spanned the boundary between religion and magic by appearing in temple practices and the PGM. Divination itself carries this dual function. Divination by the flight of birds or omens was appropriate and therefore practiced by priests, but necromancy, divination by the dead, was inappropriate and shows up in magical contexts.
As discussed earlier, the term magus referred originally to Persian religious specialists. For the Greeks, Persia was their enemy, so embedded in this term magus is a strong sense of "other" and more specifically a potentially dangerous "other." Later the magus is associated with itinerant priests, beggar priests, diviners and initiates of the mysteries of Dionysus by Plato. These groups represented the fringe of religious behavior as opposite to the religion of the polis or state. Thus magical practices were presented as deviant, as not in accord with prevailing religious behaviors. These notions continue through the Roman era (note).
But the authors of the PGM saw themselves as initiates of mysteries, practitioners of knowledge gained through direct communication with divine and semi-divine forces. We might ask at this point why the PGM are termed magical at all in modern scholarship. Indeed, in PGM XII 160-78 the translation in the Betz edition states: "If you want to do something spectacular and want to free yourself from danger, stand at the door and say the spell, . . . ." The Greek word translated here as "spell" is logos. Logos has a wide range of meanings. It can mean "word" and was also used to designate Christ. Perhaps it is the context that encourages the translator to give logos the designation "spell", but that is not one of its normal associations. Certainly much more study would need to be conducted to determine if this is consistent in the translation of the papyri, but it does indicate that there may be reason to more carefully delineate why these papyri are deemed "magical" and not "religious."
We have here then, two different conceptions of magic. One contains the notions of "other", "deviance", and "danger." The other situates "magical" practices as techniques to encounter deity, to have a personal communication with divine and semi-divine forces for practical benefit. This second conception of magic in European religious history has been subsumed by the first. We have inherited an intellectual tradition that, from the outset, does not image "magical" religious behaviors as valid forms of spirituality worthy of serious study.
It is our inherited notions about magic, from the ancient world, that have made it difficult to study these human behaviors as another kind of religious expression. By studying practices that are thought to span these categories of religion and magic we can begin to discover what underlying assumptions about ultimate reality these two kinds of religious behavior suggest. Freed from inherited bias we can open our scholarship to a clearer understanding of the persistence of "magical" ideas throughout the history of Europe and their place in European spiritual heritage.

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