sdi: Oil painting of the Heliconian Muse whispering inspiration to Hesiod. (Default)
[personal profile] sdi

There are four degrees of the cardinal virtues: the civic virtues of men and women, the purifying virtues of contemplatives, the intellectual virtues of a Soul purified from body, and the archetypal virtues of the Mind purified from Soul. [...] So the one who possesses the civic virtues is a good neighbor; the purifying virtues, a saint; the intellectual virtues, a god; the archetypal virtues, the Father of the Gods.

(Porphyry, Sentences XXXII, adapted by yours truly)


It causes most of us even now something of a shock to be told by a medieval Arab philosopher that to call God benevolent or righteous or to predicate of him any other human quality is just as Pagan and degraded as to say that he has a beard.

(Gilbert Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion I)

May 2025

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