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

[sdi]

My gratitude to those who participated in last week's discussion of Sallustius' On the Gods and the World—I am learning much, and we've hardly begun! So let's pick the puzzle-box back up, shall we?

II. That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not in space.

Let the disciple be thus. Let the teachings be of the following sort. The essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which always is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which possesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal. Neither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies. Neither are they separate from the First Cause nor from one another,* just as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from the soul.

* Thomas Taylor notes, "The reader must not suppose from this, that the gods are nothing more than so many attributes of the first cause; for if this were the case, the first god would be multitude, but the one must always be prior to the many. But the gods, though they are profoundly united with their ineffable cause, are at the same time self-perfect essences; for the first cause is prior to self-perfection. Hence as the first cause is superessential, all the gods, from their union through the summits or blossoms of their natures with this incomprehensible god, will be likewise superessential; in the same manner as trees from being rooted in the earth are all of them earthly in an eminent degree. And as in this instance the earth itself is essentially distinct from the trees which it contains, so the highest god is transcendently distinct from the multitude of gods which he ineffably comprehends."

Comments

[sdi]

In case anybody else is greedily devouring texts, these were referenced in the last thread:

• Griffin's Introduction to Olympiodorus' Commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, in reference to virtue being a prerequisite to apprehending the Gods.
  
• Proclus' Elements of Theology, in reference to universal beliefs.
  
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Neoplatonism, in reference to the nature of the One and the Good.
  
• Apuleius' On the God of Socrates, in reference to the nature of the Gods.
  
• Iamblichus' On the Mysteries, in reference to the various denizens of the incorporeal worlds.

[sdi]

neither do they consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal.

I thought the rest of this chapter was quite logical, but this step lost me. Why don't the gods consist of bodies? Is Sallustius' saying that gods only consist of powers?

Indeed, what are "the powers" referred to, here? Taylor uses nearly identical wording, and so sheds no light. I'm assuming things like thoughts and feelings, which may have bodily expression but are not, themselves, of the body?

[boccaderlupo]

Enjoyed last week's post, and thanks for running with this series (and all the resource links).

This is where things get hairy, for sure, but also some clarity should emerge. Per Taylor's note, and in the sense that the gods are the ontological basis of all (the substrate, as it were), and that they are self-perfect individuals and utterly complete, they don't have bodies, per se, although they can arguably manifest in any form they so choose. Conceivably, this could be extended to powers, as well--any power, given that all things participate in some way the gods, might be ascribed to the gods (and thus utilized by the gods), although I sense that each individual has their particular proclivities. This is, at least, how I understand it.

For Taylor's comment on the relationship of the gods to The One, I would cross-reference Proclus's Elements, particularly starting with Propositions CXIV-CXX.

Axé

[sdi]

Are you saying that any being that possesses a body must exist at a "higher" ontological level? (I guess that sorta makes sense: if there wasn't, who would do the "possessing?")

I guess another way to state this is, a body is lifeless on its own, and requires some power to animate it? This strikes me as a second "Common Conception"... In that case the logical argument is simple: if the gods had a body, then they would require an animating power to animate that body, but an animating power acting upon them violates the argument made in Chapter I (that gods can only act, and cannot be acted upon), and therefore gods can't have bodies.

[boccaderlupo]

If by "possesses" in that first sentence you mean "takes possession of" then...perhaps? I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think that would hold.

Your second assertion brings up a whole lot of points that could be examined in light of later esoteric writings, of which I'm even less familiar, but...my belief is that us mortals have a tripartite structure (anima-spiritus-corpus, or soul-"etheric" body-material body). In my view, the gods exist at "higher" (non-corporeal) ontological strata, although the lower strata are, in effect, functions of the gods, administered by various intermediate spirits, although any particular god or gods could arguably intercede more directly, if they so chose. Again, these are my personal views, but I'd be interested in hearing others'.

Axé

[sdi]

By "possesses," I sorta meant both connotations:

• "I possess my body" in the sense that I have it, I own it, it belongs to me
• "I possess my body" in the sense that I animate or control it, like a puppeteer (e.g. in the same way we speak of "demonic possession", except ideally less malevolently)

But mostly, I'm less concerned with trying to mesh my beliefs with Sallustius' then simply trying to follow his logic. For example, perhaps the gods have a body consisting of a different form of matter than the sort we're used to. (e.g. our matter may be formed of energy, which itself is the "matter" of a higher plane of existence and is itself formed of an even higher substance, etc. etc. all the way back up the chain.) It is not clear to me whether Sallustius is speaking purely in material terms (that gods do not have bodies made of common matter) or if he is speaking more generally (that gods do not have bodies of any sort).

[boccaderlupo]

That's a good question, and I suppose it goes to the heart of what people of that era thought of when it comes to bodies--given the gulf of time and place, I don't have an answer on that one, and it'd take somebody smarter than me to offer a decent answer. My hunch is that they didn't believe gods had a body in the material sense that you and I may think of it--that fleshy casing that struts around in good ol' spacetime.

[sdi]

I spent some time digging into this.

Murray notes (in a footnote to the title of the text that I did not transcribe) that he generally translates σῶμα as "body" (but sometimes as "matter"). Looking σῶμα up in a dictionary gives "the body of a man" (as opposed to the soul), or more generally, "any material substance."

So it seems this is talking strictly about material bodies, and possibly even about human bodies. This is in agreement with your hunch.

[boccaderlupo]

Interesting. Thanks for the research. I tend to make assumptions about this stuff, but it's worth remembering that communications are fraught event between two people speaking the same language in the same culture, let alone trying to glean insights from philosophic texts across centuries and continents.

To the validity of your original question, though, you bring up a good point: in myths, we find the gods bleeding "ichor," which certainly suggests a material body, even if it's of different material than yours or mine. So it would seem there's a diversity of views even within a given cultural tradition.

[sdi]

You're probably wise to make assumptions: as even though you may go astray, it's difficult to penetrate very far without them! For my own part, I'm probably too timid in making them...

[boccaderlupo]

What I find interesting about your approach is your commitment to trying to understand the writer on their own terms, which is both charitable and leads to discussions such as this. So, kudos!

[temporaryreality]

"The essences of the Gods never came into existence"

I find this particularly interesting in light of the Greek pantheon's "family tree" that shows successive generations of gods (and yes, I see that italicized word doing double duty). This ties in, in my reading of it, to the notion of"younger" gods being equated with "older" ones. I asked a question on Magic Monday once about the wording in the Orphic Hymn to Saturn and it was pointed out to me that Prometheus can also be understood as Saturn. So, this description of the gods as beings who never came into existence, when used as a lens to understand various gods' "birth stories," might open up a deeper reading of who earlier/later gods are relative to each other/themselves and the First Cause.

---

I appreciate having the two translations (I have Taylor's) because the version you've posted here made this section much more comprehensible to me than Taylor's: "just as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from the soul."

[boccaderlupo]

A huge question, and Edward Butler endymions_bower has done considerable work in trying to synthesize the more philosophic view with the genealogical relationships among the gods.

[temporaryreality]

I subscribe to endymions_bower but admit that I also have a hard time understanding what he writes about because (as per usual) I'm missing the deep-reading experience of other earlier texts. Is there a First Cause of texts? I probably oughta start there. :D

[sdi]

Alfred North Whitehead, at least, said that "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." So maybe that's as close to a "First Cause of texts" as we get!

(But goodness, I can't conceive of having either the time or the mental energy to go all the way through Plato! I guess it's a project for the decades.)

[temporaryreality]

I'm only just able to work on Sallust - we'll see how far I get beyond that. Plato might be a ways out!

[boccaderlupo]

Ha ha, unfortunately, nope on the text question...here in the sublunar world, it's just wave after wave of information washing over each other...

Here is an interesting Twitter thread by Butler on the pantheon-relationships topic, specifically.

And here is yet another such discussion, referencing Proclus.

And one more, this one that goes pretty deep into Butler's view of polycentricity.

[temporaryreality]

Thank you! Those twitter comments are indeed helpful and will add to my baby-steps meditations.

This: the theoretical formulation from Plotinus that "each God is all the Gods coming together into one" (Enn. V.8.9.17)

[boccaderlupo]

Wanted to offer my thoughts on the point from temporaryreality about the Orphic hymns. You'll find a lot of references within the hymns (I use the Athanassakis translation) where the gods are seemingly conflated (Apollon is equated with both Bacchus and Pan, whereas Artemis is acclaimed as Titanic).

Alternately, you have Aphrodite depicted in some hymns as the daughter of Zeus and Dione, whereas alternately she emerges from the sea after the castration of Ouranos. So which is it?

Reading it with Neoplatonic ideas in mind, and considering that each god is, in effect, absolute unto itself, we can conjecture that: 1) each of the gods contains the cosmos, along with all other gods, in a sense, therefore we see "bleed over" of certain functions that are commonly ascribed to this or that god (to each god, then, the cosmos seems obviously a monotheism--some, as we know, take serious umbrage at this, whereas to others it is acceptable to fit into pantheons); 2) the gods have a plenitude of aspects, some of them apparently (and only apparently) contradictory, and different myths reveal different aspects of the gods.

Axé

[temporaryreality]

Ok, another set of questions: how are we to approach and understand Taylor's use of the terms "self-perfect essences" and "superessential" in the footnote. Perhaps the first is somewhat readily apparent at face value, but I'm not sure about the second - and I figure it's good to check, because perhaps I shouldn't take the terms at face value.

[boccaderlupo]

I suspect the first phrase denotes the fact that each god, being perfect, requires nothing from without to make he or she any better (indeed, they can't get any better, since they are perfect).

His use of the term "essence," though, raises some issues, largely because of the second point: the gods are "superessential," that is, above/prior/before Being itself. Indeed, the confluence of the gods, if I recall right, is what generates Being, from whence arises the Forms (I think?) and ultimately the material world that we inhabit.

But if they are prior to essence, then how can they have essence, even if it's perfect? I would assume he just is using "essence" as shorthand for intrinsic qualities, and not in the sense of "being," but...you know what happens when one "assumes."

An aside, one model for perhaps visualizing some of this, after a fashion (henads are, for all intents and purposes, the gods). I'm not sure where Being arises in this schema, but it would be below the level of the henads/gods.


Axé

[temporaryreality]

"largely because of the second point: the gods are "superessential," that is, above/prior/before Being itself. Indeed, the confluence of the gods, if I recall right, is what generates Being"

Huh, interesting. I'm still balancing the several cosmogenic tales I'm most familiar with in light of this. No, I don't expect them to agree, but I'm still holding them up next to each other (these are the big bang theory (it does posit a First Cause of sorts) , the Cosmic Doctrine's version of things, and the Dao de Jing's Dao as the originator of Heaven and Earth). I don't have much to say about how they stack up or compare to what Taylor's noting...

Thanks for the graphic - it's a nice visual as well as fulfilling its educative purpose. It's reminiscent of umbrellas or lotus leaves, or even inversed turtles, all the way up! :D

[boccaderlupo]

Apart from the "big bang," I am unfamiliar with those cosmogonies, but will be interested to hear what you find.

One other general conclusion about Neoplatonism: the waters get pretty deep pretty quick with this material, and different writers seem to introduce divergent ideas. For some, intensive, deep contemplation of the various hypostases leads to valuable insights; for others (like myself), a more superficial understanding of the major concepts will suffice, especially when it comes to its relevance/explanatory power with regard to your praxis. This is why I like Sallustius: he's effective at outlining the major ideas without (IMO) compromising them, and offers the option of wading out deeper, should one wish to do so.

[sdi]

Sorry, I'm a few days behind on this, it's been a difficult week.

"Superessential" in this context simply seems to mean "above existence."

Sallustius specifically treats "existence" as a property of the gods. (In fact, he makes a stronger statement, that the gods exist eternally, and thus have no beginning and no end.) This would seem to imply that the gods are "essential" rather than "superessential."

If I'm reading Taylor right, he's saying that the One is superessential, but that the gods are "superessential" in the same way that trees are "earthy"—they're not literally like the earth, but if you're looking at a tree, it's definitely got something to do with the earth (rather than, say, some asteroid or something). I would take this to mean that the gods aren't truly above existence, but they can reasonably be said to be above existence since they're above all the other things that exist and give rise to them, which I think is what boccaderlupo was saying.

(As far as the One goes, I'm not sure what it can possibly mean to "be superessential", which strikes me as self-contradictory. I wonder if the One is merely some kind of (literally) glorified reductio ad absurdum used to prove logical statements about what the gods must be. I guess we'll see as we proceed?)

[sdi]

As for "self-perfect essences", I think the way Neoplatonism thinks of gods is that they're causal fixed-points: they're those things that act but are never acted upon. Therefore the various gods are all the things that can act in such a way that they are self-stable (e.g. they don't blow up or burn out, since then they wouldn't be eternal). Thus they're "perfect" or "complete" since they each have all they need to sustain themselves indefinitely.

(I assume there's one of these for each way in which it is possible to act in a self-stable manner. Personally I would have guessed there's an infinity of ways for that to occur? I suppose the Greeks figured that there were exactly twelve, or maybe I'm reading into their myths wrong. We're not at the chapters on myth, yet, anyway!)

Speaking of "perfect", Neoplatonism talks a lot about "the good," and last week I wondered what the deal was with that, since they clearly mean something other than "beneficial?" Maybe "perfect" is a better translation than "good" in this context (since it has both connotations of being "beneficial" but also "complete", and it feels like that last is being relied on to make all these little proofs that Sallustius is making).

[boccaderlupo]

Now I think we may be getting somewhere. Good observations all around.

I suspect "perfect" in conjunction with "unchanging" suggests that the gods are so good that they can never be better, since, as it's been noted by others elsewhere, for them to be improved on would imply that they were not perfect in the first place. This begins to convey, albeit only imperfectly, the absolute nature of the gods, a characteristic imparted them by The One.

As for the number of gods, I believe elsewhere (maybe it was Proclus?) it is noted that there is a finite number of gods, although the exact number is unknown to us mortals. It would seem that the Greeks settled on a "main 12," although there seem to plainly be more that that, given their mythologies.

And if we are talking about a more modern Neoplatonic approach, a la Butler's polycentric approach, its conceivable that we can extend this way of thinking, of the panoply of gods from across various cultures: Olympians, Titans, Æsir, Vanir, Orixas, et al., each of which seems to be have discrete "personas," although there are sometimes overlap in the tokens that are ascribed to them by each different culture.

Axé

[sdi]

Yeah, I think you're right: the Olympians are more of a "primary vibrations", while all of the other (subsidiary?) gods are various "harmonics" or "chords" formed of the above (hence all the mythic incest and so on).

Regarding the various pantheons: Apuleius seems to make the point (or maybe I am reading this into him) that the true gods are constant (or, perhaps, that different pantheons "tune in" to different subsets of them), but the beings worshipped and interacted with aren't actually the true gods at all, but various groups of intermediary beings (dæmons in his terminology) that act on behalf or in conjunction with the true gods. As you say, not only do individual deities but also entire pantheons seem to have personalities: the Greek deities seem to be pretty serene, Roman deities formal, Egyptian deities sympathetic, Norse deities boisterous, and so on. He points out that the true gods wouldn't have personalities, since they're constant and not moved by interactions with us, so these pantheons must be lower than them.

[boccaderlupo]

These observations may jibe with Proclus's (later) distinctions between the intelligible, Intelligible-intellective, and intellective gods: I regard this to mean that certain aspects of the gods are more apprehensible to mortals (how they are portrayed in myths and other revelations, for example) whereas other aspects are remote and hidden. But all of these are God, in the sense of "God" as a class.

It's worth keeping in mind, too, that there's a diversity of viewpoints on all these matters. Despite the general agreement of Platonists, each has their own angle* on things, so looking for a seamless agreement is, I suspect, not gonna happen. (A multiplicity emerging from a unity, as it were, on a different scale.)

[sdi]

If there is anything I am certain of, it is that this is all well above our pay grade! Still, it is fun to try. (I'm sure the gods appreciate it. Do we not appreciate dogs who can almost talk?)