This chapter elucidates the ways in which “narrative can serve as a tool for the orientation of consciousness.” The dual narrative of the Confessions – nine books of personal narrative, joined by a book on memory to a cosmic narrative of creation and redemption – conveys, and is intended to convey, theological truth. In his theological work Augustine draws on, amplifies, and corrects (as he sees it) such figures as Origen (though only at second hand), Basil of Caesarea, and Ambrose to articulate his own distinctive views on knowing and willing, the condition of the fallen human will, and the source and destiny of creation. In concluding remarks that elegantly distil the unity of the Confessions, that chapter observes that “Augustine cannot give an account of his life that is not also an account of the work of God.”

This chapter emphasizes narrative as a vehicle for psychological analysis. It begins by noting the prominence of emotion in the Confessions; Augustine himself tells us in the Reconsiderations that the work is meant to arouse not just the mind but also the heart toward God. It argues that the Confessions contributes to ancient philosophical debates about the character of the emotions and how they should be controlled and moderated. The work presents a “therapy of the emotions” that is sometimes aligned with, and sometimes in critical tension with, the philosophical spiritual exercises proposed by earlier writers. Augustine is, in certain respects, more hopeful about progress in virtue than his philosophical predecessors; he presents his therapy of the soul for everyone, not just those with fortunate natural proclivities. Yet he insists that such progress can be made only by God’s grace. The techniques of ancient philosophy are, in themselves, unavailing for moral transformation.

This chapter lays out two key tasks in reading Scripture that Augustine identifies in the Confessions, and especially in his exegesis of Genesis: “the task of grasping meaning” and “the task of grasping truth.” The first task is that of discerning authorial intention; the second is that of “seeing for oneself that what the author is saying is in fact the case.” The task of grasping meaning is difficult in part because of the peculiar character of the Scriptures; they are both accessible to all, using ordinary language (which is open to misinterpretation), and yet full of profundities that only the wisest readers can come to appreciate. It is also difficult because we cannot really know what is in another person’s mind; any judgments about authorial intention are provisional at best, and only pride would claim to have identified the uniquely correct interpretation. The task of grasping truth is likewise difficult. When it comes to intelligible realities, Truth speaks inwardly, not through any text, even that of Scripture. When it comes to historical realities, including the central truths about the life of the Incarnate Word, we cannot have knowledge in the fullest sense.

‘Economics’, i.e., household ethics, was included in the Late Antique ladder of sciences as a branch of practical philosophy. In Chapter 13, a preliminary sketch is proposed of this science, its topics and the authoritative texts to be used in its study. Comparing some chapters of Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus and of Marinus’ Life of Proclus, I show how in these texts Plotinus and Proclus exhibit exemplary practice in household ethics and how Marinus’ portrait of Proclus attempts to show his superiority in comparison with Porphyry’s portrait of Plotinus. I also indicate further texts where more material can be found concerning Late Antique Platonist household ethics.

Finally, lest the apparent scientific rigour of the arguments of a text such as Proclus’ Elements of Theology might mislead one to think that a definitive science of divine first principles is achieved, Damascius’ Difficulties and Solutions Concerning First Principles provides an effective antidote to such an illusion. In this chapter I describe how Damascius exploits the contradictory arguments and conclusions that rational soul can develop in its reasonings with concepts about the divine. I argue that these dilemmas, these impasses suffered by the rational soul are not, as Damascius sees it, expressions of the ultimate failure of metaphysics, nor the stalemate of a sceptic which requires suspension of judgement, but a privileged place where the soul exercises its rational powers in an approach to the divine.

Four levels of music are distinguished by Proclus, going from audible music, through harmonics (theoretical music) up to the highest, divine music, that of philosophy as assimilated to the divine. Bringing these four levels of music into relation with the scale of virtues, I describe how audible music can have a role in the education of irrational affects on the level of ‘ethical’ virtue. On the level of ‘political’ virtue, harmonics provide knowledge inspiring political virtue and which is of use in producing morally beneficial audible music. I note how Proclus, in dealing with these themes in relation of Plato’s association of virtues with musical concords, made use of Ptolemy’s Harmonics and how Damascius both provides more information about Proclus’ views and criticizes them. Finally, I refer to the highest levels of music and their relation to the highest levels of virtue, where plurality and differentiation (in music and virtue) are finally absorbed in unity.

Chapter 22 examines music in more detail, considered as a theoretical science dealing with the relations (or proportions) between numbers. The ontological status of the objects studied in theoretical music (‘harmonics’) is described and the primary proportions (or intervals), identified as concords, are presented. The importance of music as providing models for subordinate sciences, in particular ethics and physics, is sketched.

In his Life of Isidore, Damascius, as I argue in Chapter 9, described the lives of a wide range of figures of his period as exemplifying to varying degrees success or failure in progress through the scale of virtues, thus providing an edificatory panorama of patterns of philosophical perfection, a panorama which could serve to inspire people beginning the study of philosophy. Many of these figures in Damascius’ account were able to achieve lives lived on the level of the political virtues, but few were able to attain higher levels of virtue and very few the highest levels. Yet these exceptional examples could also serve to inspire.

Chapter 1 takes the multiple biography published by Damascius, the last head of the school of Athens. In this biography, the Vita Isidori, Damascius describes the lives of many of the intellectuals of his time, including various rhetors. Among these rhetors he singles out some who, in his view, were not only virtuous, but also worthy to be called philosophers. Damascius therefore distinguished between good and bad rhetors, a distinction which I relate to the distinction between good and bad rhetoric which we can find it in the work of two Alexandrian philosophers of the fifth and sixth centuries, Hierocles and Olympiodorus: bad rhetoric caters to the base desires of the mob, whereas good rhetoric has a worthy moral purpose and is based on true knowledge. Damascius also notes variety in rhetorical skill, in particular the limitations of his own teacher Isidore in this regard.

Alexander of Aphrodisias included Aristotle’s first principles of rational thinking, in particular the principle of non-contradiction, in the domain of metaphysics, as would Syrianus. In this chapter I discuss this principle as it was understood by Syrianus, in particular with regard to its roots in divine Intellect, where the unity of intellection and its objects grounds the principles of reasoning in human intellection and the truth of its objects.

Porphyry and Iamblichus added further levels of virtue to Plotinus’ scale of virtues. In Chapter 8 I discuss Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean Life, which presents Pythagoras as a model of the political virtues. I show how, on this level, Iamblichus takes over Epicurean ideas about serenity, freedom from disturbance, a balanced control of desires and bodily needs and how, more generally, the Epicurean biographical practice of praising philosophical heroes as models to be imitated anticipates Iamblichus’ presentation of the figure of Pythagoras. I note also a wider use of Epicurean ethical ideas in Late Antique Platonism, in particular on the level of political virtues, the virtues of the discipline of bodily desires.