The Golden Chain of Homer

[Paul Ferguson]

"In his admirable work The Great Chain of Being, Professor Lovejoy has shown the importance which the concept of the Scale of Being and its figurative expression, the chain, had for Western thought from the early Middle Ages down to the nineteenth century. In an introductory chapter he has outlined the genesis of the idea itself in Greek philosophy. Yet, not primarily concerned with the Greek development, he has refrained from inquiring how far back in ancient literature one can trace the metaphor, and by what process it became a phrase identified with the Neo-Platonic theory of emanation. These questions I propose to discuss here, taking as my point of departure the passage in Macrobius’ commentary on the Somnium Scipionis (I, 14, 15) through which, as Professor Lovejoy says, probably most medieval writers became acquainted with the simile of the chain."

Ludwig Edelstein.

Book chapter. Full access.

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_edited_vol...er/2450975