No Pain, No Gain
Nov. 24th, 2024 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdiOnce upon a time there was a lamb who was being chased by a wolf and fled into a temple. The wolf stopped short of entering and called to the lamb, saying, "You know the priest will sacrifice you if he catches you in there, don't you?" The lamb replied, "Better sacrificed than eaten!"
(Æsop, "The Lamb and the Wolf.")
Suppose you are wronged: need that trouble an immortal? Suppose you are put to death: you have attained your desire! From the moment that your citizenship of the world becomes irksome, you are no longer bound to it!
(Plotinus, Enneads II ix "Against the Gnostics" §9.)
This universe of ours is a wonder of power and wisdom, everything by a noiseless road coming to pass according to a law which none may elude. The base man never conceives though it be leading him, all unknowingly, to that place in the All where his lot must be cast. The just man knows and, knowing, sets out to the place he must; understanding, even as he begins the journey, where he is to be housed at the end, and having the good hope that he will be with gods.
(Plotinus, Enneads IV iv "Problems of the Soul (2)" §45.)
You know, I've been bumping into a number of modern Gnostics lately, and I realized that thinking about the levels of reality per Hesiod and Empedocles has clarified my problem with their belief system.
Let us suppose they are right and there are wicked "gods" that farm humans and eat them. Then so what? Those "gods," being more subtle than us (and therefore not Earthy) but self-serving (and therefore not Airy), must be Watery beings. Water is a kind of matter; therefore these "gods" are material beings; therefore they are of a lower order than the soul; therefore they are not meaningfully different from abusive parents or a corrupt government or a spiteful witch. If you cultivate the purificatory virtues, their wickedness can act only as catharsis, speeding you on your way Home.
That is, the problem isn't necessarily that the Gnostics are wrong, but that the scope of their vision is too narrow. Aim higher!