[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]

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!