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

[sdi]

Happy Wednesday! It is with some disappointment that I present this, the final chapter of On the Gods and the World, to you all! To everyone who joined in, please accept my gratitude: I've learned much, and while many of Sallustius' points still elude me, I feel as if I have a much better understanding of the material than when we began. The posts in this series will remain "open:" if anyone in the future has questions or comments about the material, please feel free to add them to any of these posts.

With that said, let us pick back up the puzzle-box for the last time, shall we?

XXI. That the Good are happy, both living and dead.

Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy,* and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it.

* Gilbert Murray notes, "εὐδαιμονοῦσι ['eudaimonousi']." Literally, "possessed of a good dæmon:" blessed, fortunate.

Comments

[sdi]

I wanted to leave you all with one last thought from Gilbert Murray:

A creed or catechism [referring to On the Gods and the World] is, of course, not at all the same thing as the real religion of those who subscribe to it. The rules of metre are not the same thing as poetry; the rules of cricket, if the analogy may be excused, are not the same thing as good play. Nay, more. A man states in his creed only the articles which he thinks it right to assert positively against those who think otherwise. His deepest and most practical beliefs are those on which he acts without question, which have never occurred to him as being open to doubt. If you take on the one hand a number of persons who have accepted the same creed but lived in markedly different ages and societies, with markedly different standards of thought and conduct, and on the other an equal number who profess different creeds but live in the same general environment, I think there will probably be more real identity of religion in the latter group. Take three orthodox Christians, enlightened according to the standards of their time, in the fourth, the sixteenth, and the twentieth centuries respectively, I think you will find more profound differences of religion between them than between a Methodist, a Catholic, a Freethinker, and even perhaps a well-educated Buddhist or Brahmin at the present day, provided you take the most generally enlightened representatives of each class.

Time has moved on, and our world is not the world in which men like Sallustius lived and flourished. Rather than reanimating the corpse of Neoplatonism, may its seed cause us to bear new wisdom appropriate to our Age.

[boccaderlupo]

First, thank you for undertaking this series. It's prompted me to rethink some of the passages I had taken for granted in this little tract. I still find it valuable, especially as a guide for the "layperson" (like me) who is not (yet?) ready to, say, sit down with Proclus's entire commentary on Timaeus, for example.

I think Murray's quote is quite apt. But I also don't regard Neoplatonism as a religion—I regard it as a philosophical theory that undergirds various (particularly Western) cults, by which one might assemble a working understanding of how they interact with each other (or don't!) and the whole. I would agree, however, that it is not in my particular interest to reanimate any one cult or another (if that were even possible, given the vast expanse of time and culture separating us from the original adherents). That said, and speaking only for myself, I would investigate those cults and their myths, symbols, and rituals as navigation points, as a means of finding our individual paths back to the gods.

[sdi]

You're welcome! Thank you and temporaryreality for nudging me into it!


But I also don't regard Neoplatonism as a religion

If I am reading Murray correctly, I think he would disagree with you: to him, Greek philosophy is inextricably intertwined with Greek religion; furthermore, just as Platonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism (yes, even them), etc. are flowerings of Greek religion in its prime, Neoplatonism is the flowering of Greek religion in its old age. That later cultures have been able to repurpose Greek philosophy is simply a testament to its richness and beauty.

I don't regard myself as well-read enough to have a dog in this fight, though, so please just take it as a paraphrase! I refer you to Five Stages of Greek Religion if you wish to dig into it further.

[boccaderlupo]

Oh I suspect that others might well disagree with the sentiment that I expressed. In the above case I was only speaking for myself and my own opinion. I take inspiration in these ancient writings as a vehicle for advancing my own personal line of (largely internal) inquiry, surfing the current of the "Platonic underground," as it were.

All in all, it has been an enjoyable series of posts and discussions.

[boccaderlupo]

Reading this final passage again, I am struck by a phrasing that sounds almost like a "Pascal's wager." If one pursues virtue, one ascends to the gods; but even if that doesn't happen, well, virtue is enough! Given the apparent historical context here—writing in the twilight of Classical polytheism—I wonder if there's not an attempt to span a variety of Hellenic schools of thought...those that espouse some kind of afterworld/union with the gods and those that do not.

[sdi]

You know, it's funny... given the Greek preoccupation with governance, I found it a little amusing that Sallustius would say the reward of virtue is to get to govern with the gods. But I've governed before (on a small scale, anyway), and it's hell—not exactly something I'd look forward to!

It's like how the evangelicals who raised me always said the point of going to heaven is that you get to sing hymns to God forever. That's great if you like to sing and are good at it, but I always found it rather dispiriting!

For my own part, I have no idea what we'll be doing when "made clean of all matter;" but as you say, virtue is enough!

[boccaderlupo]

Yes, the idea of governance with the gods is interesting, indeed.

I suspect the "made clean of all matter" may be a reference to the quasi-Gnostic tendency in Orphism to deprecate things material, but yes, good catch.