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

[sdi]

Happy Wednesday! I had an unusual amount of spare time over the last weekend, and so I went ahead and transcribed the rest of Sallustius in preparation for the next few weeks: we are getting quite close to the end, and will finish just after the vernal equinox. Nonetheless, I'll appreciate it while it lasts.

Let's go ahead and pick the puzzle-box back up, shall we?

XVIII. Why there are rejections of God, and that God is not injured.

Nor need the fact that rejections of God have taken place in certain parts of the earth* and will often take place hereafter, disturb the mind of the wise: both because these things do not affect the gods, just as we saw that worship did not benefit them; and because the soul, being of middle essence, cannot be always right; and because the whole world cannot enjoy the providence of the gods equally, but some parts may partake of it eternally, some at certain times, some in the primal manner, some in the secondary. Just as the head enjoys all the senses, but the rest of the body only one.

For this reason, it seems, those who ordained Festivals ordained also Forbidden Days, in which some temples† lay idle, some were shut, some had their adornment removed, in expiation of the weakness of our nature.

It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of God is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the gods and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether. Also those who have worshipped their own kings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of God.‡

* "Rejections of God" is literally ἀθεΐαι ["atheiai"], atheism. Recall from Ch. I that the Greeks used "God" to refer to divinity generally. Thomas Taylor notes, "the philosopher alludes here to the Christian religion," and Arthur Darby Nock further observes, "Sallustius in effect replies to the Christian argument from their success."

† Nock notes, "Muccio, Studi italiani, VII. 70, makes ἱερά ['iera'] mean 'ceremonies:' this seems less probable."

‡ Nock comments, "The view of the deification of kings as a sin of the first magnitude is of considerable interest, whether we accept or reject Prof. G. Kaerst's view that the deification of Alexander and of the Diadochi promoted Euhemerist rationalism. These remarks would not have offended Julian. The knowledge of the gods which man may lose for his sins in a previous incarnation is γνῶσις ['gnosis'] in the heightened sense, a mystical knowledge conveying definite illumination."

Comments

[sdi]

Also those who have worshipped their own kings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of God.

You know, I always wondered what became of the masses who worshipped Psyche as Venus. I guess that's why they just dropped out of the story! 😜

More generally, this strikes me as straightforward karma: if you reject Divinity, then Divinity will respond, “Great! See how well that works for you, and I’ll check back in later,” with the effects which Sallustius observed, and which we observe again today.

[barefootwisdom]

I'm not sure I'd want to put it so much as "Divinity will respond...", as in terms of our own continued choosing. (Though each may be illuminating in its own, distinct way.)

I'm more inclined to think of this in terms of the choice of life each of us will make in the Meadow, as Plato describes in book X of the Republic. The habits we develop in this life will carry over beyond the death of our present physical body, including the time when we choose our next incarnation. So if we're habituated to carefully attuning ourselves to the Gods, we'll do that same careful attuning (and careful choosing!) in the Meadow as well, and find ourselves in a subsequent incarnation that is well-attuned. Likewise, those who are currently habituated to pushing themselves violently away from the Gods, to rejecting them utterly, will by the force of those very same habits be inclined, when they get to the Meadow, to choose a life that is distant from the Gods.

In all cases, the choice, and the responsibility, lies with us. As the prophet puts it in Republic X (617e), as he introduces the moment of choice: "The [guardian] daemon [of your incarnation] shall not receive you as his lot, but you shall choose the daemon: He who draws the first, let him first make choice of a life, to which he must of necessity adhere: Virtue is independent, which every one shall partake of, more or less, according as he honours or dishonours her: the cause is in him who makes the choice, and God is blameless."

[sdi]

I agree with you, and think we're saying the same thing in different ways. (It's not as if we can act apart from Divinity, right?)

Indeed, in the next chapter of Sallustius, he makes the point that "the Soul brings itself to judgement."

[barefootwisdom]

Quite so!

[boccaderlupo]

Might be alluded to in that first note, but it seems like this, too, is directed towards the advent of Christianity in that age, which was evidently regarded by polytheists as (ironically, given today's theological views) atheism: a rejection of the gods.

Also nice to see here the recurrent emphasis on the immutability of the gods. There's some resonance with the first lines of Dante's Paradiso here, in which the divine light is seen to permeate different areas to different degrees—just so, some areas of the world may accept the gods more, some less, and some reject them outright. A spectrum, as it were.

[barefootwisdom]

Ironic indeed! The modern sense is very modern. I recall quite a few contemporary-to-him pamphlets that accused Thomas Hobbes of "atheism" simply because the God he described didn't accord with acceptable Christian orthodoxy, though he too would probably not be considered an atheist by modern lights. (Just one example; there are countless others.)

I must confess that the ancient usage makes more sense to me: an atheist is someone who denies *any* of the Gods. Or in the words of the tired old joke, "When you've already disbelieved in all the other Gods, what's one more?"

And thank you for the tip to the Paradiso. It's been many a long year since I last read it. I agree: Dante is picking up on a long tradition, and doing so in his typically eloquent fashion!

My first hook on this bit was instead a few thousand years earlier, to the discussion of the "lots" of the Gods (and of Athene in particular) in Plato's Timaeus, regarding which Proclus has a bit to say. All these, and many more, are highly relevant!

[boccaderlupo]

Dante is surprisingly (ahem) accommodating to polytheistic interpretations of the cosmos (all while steadfastly denying it, of course)...

Now I have to go brush up on Proclus's reading of Timaeus...!

[barefootwisdom]

Now I have to go brush up on Proclus's reading of Timaeus...!

Well, fair is fair! You got me back into the Commedia. ;-)

The especially juicy bits are near the end of Book I of Proclus' (sprawling!) Timaeus Commentary, especially on 23d6-7 (where Athene receives the city as her lot) and especially 24c5-7 (where Athene *chooses* it, and Proclus explains the interplay between divine choice and divine lot). But there are some other small references too.

[sdi]

a rejection of the gods

I'm working my way through Murray's Five Stages of Greek Religion (slower than I'd like, but I am a tortoise after all), and he says the following:

[That the Christians are considered atheists] may surprise us at first sight, but the explanation is easy. To Julian the one great truth that matters is the presence and glory of the gods. No doubt, they are all ultimately one: they are δυνάμεις ["dynameis"], "forces," not persons, but for reasons above our comprehension they are manifest only under conditions of form, time, and personality, and have so been revealed and worshipped and partly known by the great minds of the past. In Julian's mind the religious emotion itself becomes the thing to live for. Every object that has been touched by that emotion is thereby glorified and made sacred. Every shrine where men have worshipped in truth of heart is thereby a house of God. The worship may be mixed up with all sorts of folly, all sorts of unedifying practice. Such things must be purged away, or, still better, must be properly understood. For to the pure all things are pure: and the myths that shock the vulgar are noble allegories to the wise and reverent. Purge religion from dross, if you like; but remember that you do so at your peril. One false step, one self-confident rejection of a thing which is merely too high for you to grasp, and you are darkening the Sun, casting God out of the world. And that was just what the Christians deliberately did.

If I understand this appropriately, he is saying that the flip side of tolerance is hubris, yes? Denying tolerance to others' experience of the Divine is tantamount to denying the Divine itself, and one does not deny the Divine to their face! Have we not Arachnes, Icaruses, Niobes, and Pirithouses enough to see how that is regarded?

[sdi]

Arachnes, Icaruses, Niobes, and Pirithouses

Side note, my daughter for her bedtime stories tonight just kept asking me for every story about hubris I could remember. It's lucky that there are so many! (And that she has as morbid a sense of humor as I do. "Hey, you know how I sometimes joke about trying to fattening you up so we can eat you? Well, there was this guy, Tantalus...")

[boccaderlupo]

I have not read this, but interesting thoughts from Murray on the Blessed Julian. Interesting, too, that he would use the term "dynameis" for the gods...

Axé

[sdi]

Interesting, too, that he would use the term "dynameis" for the gods...

It is not clear from the text whether he is quoting somebody or if that's his own interpretation. If the latter, it should be made quite clear that he very much writes from the perspective of a materialist-rationalist worldview, and in fact this is my biggest criticism of his work. (Otherwise, I found it very helpful!)

[sdi]

And another note by Murray,

To compare this Paganism in detail with its great rival [Christianity] would be, even if I possessed the necessary learning, a laborious and unsatisfactory task. But if a student with very imperfect knowledge may venture a personal opinion on this obscure subject, it seems to me that we often look at such problems from a wrong angle. Harnack somewhere, in discussing the comparative success or failure of various early Christian sects, makes the illuminating remark that the main determining cause in each case was not their comparative reasonableness of doctrine or skill in controversy—for they practically never converted one another—but simply the comparative increase or decrease of the birth-rate in the respective populations.

When put in such terms, it is very difficult not to see the changing of the guard, as it were, as merely a byproduct of the changing era. Yes, there were bloody and cruel fights over religion, but in the main the cause of the triumph of Christianity was peaceful. Times had simply moved on.

I think this is worth meditating on in our quest for truth. Maybe we all, here, are simply chasing the fairy deeper into the woods, seeking after the lost scraps of past ages. There is nothing wrong with that, but we should bear in mind the words of Basho:

Seek not the path of the ancients:
Seek that which the ancients sought.

[boccaderlupo]

Agreed on that last point!

I suspect that while the abodes of the gods endure, as ever, the paths that lead to them may have somewhat shifted...although some of the guideposts may still be useful in pointing the way.