Sallustius talks about myths in §3 and §4 of On the Gods in the World (where he is explicit about the myths of Cybele and Attis and Hades and Kore). Plotinus sometimes explains myths in various places... the one that comes to mind offhand is Enneads IV 3 xiv (which is about Prometheus and Pandora). Porphyry famously has an essay concerning part of the Odyssey. Thomas Taylor explains Cupid and Psyche and the entire epic cycle as if they were myths. So I'm drawing on these sorts of sources. (I seem to remember somebody somewhere talking about the myth of Dionysus, too, but I can't find it now.)
The idea is that the characters in the myths aren't literal depictions of the gods, since that's ridiculous—Zeus, even as a metaphysical principle of creativity, doesn't literally go around fucking everything on two legs (except his wife). Indeed, even suggesting so much is impious! No, to the Neoplatonists, these must conceal a deeper meaning since the literal one is silly at best and blasphemous at worst.
And this makes sense when you consider the myths in their historical context, right? These things didn't come out of nowhere, and indeed many of them closely associated with the mysteries. By Roman times, most of the traditional religious purpose had been lost or consigned to a barbarous past, and writers like Ovid treated them a lot like modern commentators do today, as bedtime stories or pop-culture references to be mined for entertainment. Sallustius was writing against this tendency, saying, "no look, these myths really did serve a purpose."
So let's take the myth of Adonis, which I mentioned above, as an example. This isn't a story about literal divine beings named Aphrodite and Kore and the mortal named Adonis. (Intellectual beings don't even have names in the way we think of them—language is a property of the sensible world; in the intellectual, beings are self-identified.) In fact, it's not a story at all—it's an initiation ritual! The characters in the story are all stand-ins for real things, to wit: Aphrodite is the intellectual world (and presumably a costumed person in the ritual), Kore is the sensual world (and also presumably a costumed person in the ritual), Zeus is the divine order (and also presumably the costumed elder administering the ritual), and YOU are Adonis.
Adonis' incestuous parentage is because souls come into being from the intellectual contemplating itself, and also that the soul coming into existence necessarily implies it's descent into the sensual world, which is considered sinful, so it's necessary that Adonis coming into being involves some amount of shocking behavior.
Aphrodite is the one to discover Adonis because everything has it's origin in the intellectual.
As a baby, Aphrodite sends Adonis to live with Kore. This represents the (involuntary) process of involution, where souls descend into the sensual world. Presumably, early on human souls aren't human at all, but spend long ages as rocks or plants or animals or whatever, so they have no agency in the matter.
When grown, Adonis is considered extremely handsome for the same reason Psyche is: souls are the jewel of the intellect and of infinite worth.
Upon maturity, Adonis spends a third of the year with Kore, a third of the year with Aphrodite, and a third of the year with the goddess of his choosing (by the will of Zeus). This is because human souls oscillate between the sensual world (when alive) and the intellectual world (when dead)—but, notably, they now have agency, and can choose whether they want to focus on the sensual or the intellectual. Adonis chooses Aphrodite because that's the climax of the initiation ritual: the whole point is to teach the initiate to "store up their treasures in heaven" and focus on the intellectual, in order to proceed on the process of evolution (the re-ascent of the soul).
Later, Adonis being gored by a wild bull, dying in Aphrodite's arms, and being transformed into an anemone is representative of the dissolution of the physical body and is a reminder of why the initiate should choose Aphrodite—so that the intellectual is mindful of him when only a token image of him remains behind on the earth.
Now, this is just, like, my opinion, man—my read of something that has been long gone for a long time and, notably, disagrees with everything I've ever seen published on the topic. But I think it's right, at least in the broad strokes, and it certainly follows the methods used by the Neoplatonists. So assuming I'm right, none of this has anything at all to do with the specific beings mentioned, and indeed could not—if Aphrodite and Kore and Zeus and so on acted in the way the myth mentions, they would be dæmons at best rather than gods. No, they serve as characters, even archetypes, in a pageant specifically for the purpose of teaching a specific truth.
(It is worth noting that this particular myth is imported from Phoenicia, which in turn imported it from Babylon: this is the point of the Inanna's Descent Into the Underworld myth, too. That one has greater depth, like the seven gates of the underworld representing the seven spheres of the planets the soul passes through on the way to the sensible, and the need for philosophy—the creation of Enki, that is, Mercury—to free the soul from bondage and return it to life.)
(it is also worth noting that the Neoplatonist take on myths was controversial in it's day, and I suspect there was a significant rift between them and the more traditional Olympian worshippers on the topic.)
...that was longer than I thought, sorry! But does it help?
no subject
Sallustius talks about myths in §3 and §4 of On the Gods in the World (where he is explicit about the myths of Cybele and Attis and Hades and Kore). Plotinus sometimes explains myths in various places... the one that comes to mind offhand is Enneads IV 3 xiv (which is about Prometheus and Pandora). Porphyry famously has an essay concerning part of the Odyssey. Thomas Taylor explains Cupid and Psyche and the entire epic cycle as if they were myths. So I'm drawing on these sorts of sources. (I seem to remember somebody somewhere talking about the myth of Dionysus, too, but I can't find it now.)
The idea is that the characters in the myths aren't literal depictions of the gods, since that's ridiculous—Zeus, even as a metaphysical principle of creativity, doesn't literally go around fucking everything on two legs (except his wife). Indeed, even suggesting so much is impious! No, to the Neoplatonists, these must conceal a deeper meaning since the literal one is silly at best and blasphemous at worst.
And this makes sense when you consider the myths in their historical context, right? These things didn't come out of nowhere, and indeed many of them closely associated with the mysteries. By Roman times, most of the traditional religious purpose had been lost or consigned to a barbarous past, and writers like Ovid treated them a lot like modern commentators do today, as bedtime stories or pop-culture references to be mined for entertainment. Sallustius was writing against this tendency, saying, "no look, these myths really did serve a purpose."
So let's take the myth of Adonis, which I mentioned above, as an example. This isn't a story about literal divine beings named Aphrodite and Kore and the mortal named Adonis. (Intellectual beings don't even have names in the way we think of them—language is a property of the sensible world; in the intellectual, beings are self-identified.) In fact, it's not a story at all—it's an initiation ritual! The characters in the story are all stand-ins for real things, to wit: Aphrodite is the intellectual world (and presumably a costumed person in the ritual), Kore is the sensual world (and also presumably a costumed person in the ritual), Zeus is the divine order (and also presumably the costumed elder administering the ritual), and YOU are Adonis.
Adonis' incestuous parentage is because souls come into being from the intellectual contemplating itself, and also that the soul coming into existence necessarily implies it's descent into the sensual world, which is considered sinful, so it's necessary that Adonis coming into being involves some amount of shocking behavior.
Aphrodite is the one to discover Adonis because everything has it's origin in the intellectual.
As a baby, Aphrodite sends Adonis to live with Kore. This represents the (involuntary) process of involution, where souls descend into the sensual world. Presumably, early on human souls aren't human at all, but spend long ages as rocks or plants or animals or whatever, so they have no agency in the matter.
When grown, Adonis is considered extremely handsome for the same reason Psyche is: souls are the jewel of the intellect and of infinite worth.
Upon maturity, Adonis spends a third of the year with Kore, a third of the year with Aphrodite, and a third of the year with the goddess of his choosing (by the will of Zeus). This is because human souls oscillate between the sensual world (when alive) and the intellectual world (when dead)—but, notably, they now have agency, and can choose whether they want to focus on the sensual or the intellectual. Adonis chooses Aphrodite because that's the climax of the initiation ritual: the whole point is to teach the initiate to "store up their treasures in heaven" and focus on the intellectual, in order to proceed on the process of evolution (the re-ascent of the soul).
Later, Adonis being gored by a wild bull, dying in Aphrodite's arms, and being transformed into an anemone is representative of the dissolution of the physical body and is a reminder of why the initiate should choose Aphrodite—so that the intellectual is mindful of him when only a token image of him remains behind on the earth.
Now, this is just, like, my opinion, man—my read of something that has been long gone for a long time and, notably, disagrees with everything I've ever seen published on the topic. But I think it's right, at least in the broad strokes, and it certainly follows the methods used by the Neoplatonists. So assuming I'm right, none of this has anything at all to do with the specific beings mentioned, and indeed could not—if Aphrodite and Kore and Zeus and so on acted in the way the myth mentions, they would be dæmons at best rather than gods. No, they serve as characters, even archetypes, in a pageant specifically for the purpose of teaching a specific truth.
(It is worth noting that this particular myth is imported from Phoenicia, which in turn imported it from Babylon: this is the point of the Inanna's Descent Into the Underworld myth, too. That one has greater depth, like the seven gates of the underworld representing the seven spheres of the planets the soul passes through on the way to the sensible, and the need for philosophy—the creation of Enki, that is, Mercury—to free the soul from bondage and return it to life.)
(it is also worth noting that the Neoplatonist take on myths was controversial in it's day, and I suspect there was a significant rift between them and the more traditional Olympian worshippers on the topic.)
...that was longer than I thought, sorry! But does it help?