[Discussion] On the Gods and the World, Ch. I

[sdi]

Once upon a time, boccaderlupo recommended Sallustius' On the Gods and the World to me as a short introduction to Neoplatonism. But where he found it clear, I found it obscure! (I believe I described it to him as "a puzzle-box"—it seems to me that all the pieces fit together elegantly, but one needs to know the trick to open it up and get at the candy inside, and not knowing the trick all I could do was to play with it for a while before setting it down again.) Yesterday, I suggested perhaps starting up some discussion on the topic in the hopes that, with the help of other blind men, I might discover that this rope I'm touching is actually an elephant.

Therefore, I plan to post a chapter of the text each week (on Wednesday, in honor of the lord of dialogue), and perhaps we can unpack it together. I will only be posting the text in the subject post, and placing whatever thoughts and questions I may have down in the comments: after all, I am a student here rather than a lecturer, and anyway it might be helpful to break up discussion into parallel threads to keep things organized. Anyone is welcome to lurk, comment, ask their own questions, etc. I'll be transcribing from Gilbert Murray's 1925 translation, though I also have Thomas Taylor's 1793 translation handy and will call it out when there's something interesting. (Our good Br'er Wolf recommended Arthur Nock's 1926 translation, but I don't have a copy. It'll be in the public domain in a couple months, though, so perhaps we can revisit it then.)

Let's pick the puzzle-box up, shall we?

I. What the Disciple should be; and concerning Common Conceptions.

Those who wish to hear about the Gods should have been well guided from childhood, and not habituated to foolish beliefs. They should also be in disposition good and sensible, that they may properly attend to the teaching.

They ought also to know the Common Conceptions. Common Conceptions are those to which all men agree as soon as they are asked; for instance, that all God is good, free from passion,* free from change. For whatever suffers change does so for the worse or the better; if for the worse, it is made bad; if for the better, it must have been bad at first.

* Thomas Taylor's translation gives "without passivity." Arthur Darby Nock's gives "impassive."

Comments

Re: perfect, therefore unchanging

[barefootwisdom]

Okay, I'm looking at Nock's edition of the Greek (and his translation) as I write this comment.

The first sentence has "the Gods" in the plural. That means exactly what we'd expect.

Later, in the bit about "common conceptions" (which Nock translates, perhaps more helpfully, as "universal opinions," in other words, beliefs shared by everyone), the Greek uses a grammatically singular construction, hoti pas theos agathos, hoti apathēs, hoti ametablētos. The key term here is pas. Taylor (as quoted in the post) renders pas as "all." Really, this term is a universal quantifier, so while "all" is fine, a more felicitous translation could be "every" or "any" in the sense of "any imaginable, any possible."

So the entire phrase means: "that every God is good, and impassive, and unchangeable." That preserves the grammatical singular of the Greek; we could just as well convey the same idea using the plural in English: "that all Gods are good, and impassive, and unchangeable."

Even in other contexts where the word "all/every" is not given, Sallustius and his fellow pagan Platonists would only use the singular form theos in one of two ways: (1) in a context where an individual God (perhaps Zeus or Dionysos) was already referred to by name, and they were just mentioning that same God again without repeating his name, or (2) as a generic singular to refer to the class, in just the way that someone might say "Man is the measure of all things" or "man is a rational animal," thereby referring to human beings universally or in general, without in any way implying that there's only one.

(In Greek, unlike in English, you use the definite article—"the" (ho)—in both those constructions (ho theos, ho anthrōpos) to refer to the class or the generic. It's a usage that, because of Christianity, is almost impossible to convey any more in English. Sigh.)

Re: perfect, therefore unchanging

[temporaryreality]

Thank you for taking the time to look at the Greek and explaining this. It does help clarify why the two translations differ in rendering "god" singular vs. plural.

Re: perfect, therefore unchanging

[barefootwisdom]

You're quite welcome! I'm glad it was helpful.