[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

[sdi]

Those who wish to hear about the Gods should have been well guided from childhood, and not habituated to foolish beliefs.

Oh. Guess I’m disqualified then. See you all next lifetime! 😜

[sdi]

They ought also to know the Common Conceptions. Common Conceptions are those to which all men agree as soon as they are asked;

Sallustius seems to me to be, here, talking about axioms. If we can’t agree upon our axioms, then how can we even converse? So we must necessarily have some axiomatic foundation upon which we may construct an edifice of conclusions reaching—hopefully, if the title of the work is to be believed!—up to the gods.

Logically, this is sound enough; but the notion that there are any things that everyone can agree upon strikes me as rather quaint! Was there ever such a time that such was the case? In the world I live in, people can’t event seem to agree to disagree!

What kinds of things did the philosophers, or indeed the mass of humanity, take in those days to be certainly true? Sallustius assumes a relatively nuanced notion about the gods to be common, and yet in our day we can’t even seem to agree on the existence of spiritual beings at all, let alone their nature...

[sdi]

all God is good,

It seems to me that Sallustius is using "good" as a term of art, here, since he clearly can't be referring to the common meaning of "beneficial." By the short proof following this, I should suspect that by "good," Sallustius means "free of any defect?"

[sdi]

The notion that "the gods are unchanging" was a surprising one to me. If the gods do not change, they may never converse with us, for to converse with us would imply a change in state. Raised as I was in fundamentalist Christianity (which emphasizes the imminence of the Holy Spirit) and with Greek mythology (where every Odysseus has his Athena), and given that I regularly converse with such a god, when I first read Sallustius a year or so ago, I couldn’t conceive of how this could possibly be. Lately, I've read Apuleius, who says that what we usually think of as "gods" are technically "dæmons"—in his scheme, actually one of several kinds, a sort we would simply call "angels"—acting in the service of the gods, and these are the beings with which we humans interact and which are described in myth and folklore; the true gods are as far above dæmons as the dæmons are above us. So the "gods" Sallustius here refers to seem more like "foundational principles" than "beings" in the sense we usually think of "beings?"

[temporaryreality]

I missed the conversation between you two, so this post came as a pleasant surprise! I feel so lucky!

Generally, I just been reading the text, then I go back and reread, then I go back again. I figure maybe a little more will trickle in through the cracks that way. Not sure if it does, particularly when I'm unsure what's being implied with some of the terms. So yes, the puzzle-box metaphor is quite apt.

I'll be back later to chime in on the text itself.

[barefootwisdom]

And thank you for starting this series of posts. I think this will be a delightful (and edifying!) ongoing conversation.