On Numenius the Platonic Philosopher

second, third, fifth, and sixth excerpts; nothing has been handed down about the fourth book. Whether the entire work of Numenius is contained in these six books or in more cannot be judged.

The very words which Numenius inscribed on his books indicate that in writing he looked to those books On the Good published by the disciples of Plato. Such a book was also ascribed to Aristotle, of which the commentators of Aristotle make mention quite often (cf. Brandis, On the lost books of Aristotle on Ideas and on the Good. Val. Rose, Aristotle Pseudepigraphus p. 46 sq.).

Although I think those Aristotelian books were lost by the time of Numenius, since Alexander of Aphrodisias, who wrote shortly after Numenius, does not appear to have used them (cf. Rose op. cit. p. 47), it is nevertheless very likely that Numenius used the books of some other Platonist. In those books, according to Plato's Philebus (Rose op. cit. p. 29. 46), the principles of things were posited based on the adopted tenets of the Pythagoreans: the One and the Indefinite Dyad. Since these are also the principles of the universe for Numenius, I am personally convinced that he drew most of what he discussed concerning the good, the monad, the indefinite dyad, and the rest from those books of the Platonists, especially since it is clear from the fragments of the books On the Disagreement of the Academics with Plato that he himself knew nothing certain about Pythagoras and his doctrine, and indeed he is personally convinced that his entire doctrine is Platonic (cf. p. 6). Following, therefore, those books of the Platonists—which all who seek to examine how the doctrine of later Platonists could have arisen from the opinions of Plato himself lament as lost—Numenius himself inscribed the books in which he treats of the principles of the universe with the words On the Good.

Furthermore, Numenius also showed himself to be a follower and imitator of Plato in that he used the dialogue form for inscribing his books; I am surprised that this has not yet been perceived by any learned man, especially since not a few indications of a dialogue exist in the fragments. For it is clear that two persons are introduced by the writer, Numenius, or he who...