'ON THE GODS AND THE WORLD'[200:1]
I. _What the Disciple should be; and concerning Common Conceptions._
Those who wish to hear about the Gods should have been well guided from
childhood, and not habituated to foolish beliefs. They should also be in
disposition good and sensible, that they may properly attend to the
teaching.
They ought also to know the Common Conceptions. Common Conceptions are
those to which all men agree as soon as they are asked; for instance,
that all God is good, free from passion, free from change. For whatever
suffers change does so for the worse or the better: if for the worse, it
is made bad; if for the better, it must have been bad at first.
II. _That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not
in space._
Let the disciple be thus. Let the teachings be of the following sort.
The essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which
always is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which
possesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they
consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal.
Neither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies.
Neither are they separate from the First Cause nor from one another,
just as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from
the soul.
III. _Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why._
We may well inquire, then, why the ancients forsook these doctrines and
made use of myths. There is this first benefit from myths, that we have
to search and do not have our minds idle.
_That_ the myths are divine can be seen from those who have used them.
Myths have been used by inspired poets, by the best of philosophers, by
those who established the mysteries, and by the Gods themselves in
oracles. But _why_ the myths are divine it is the duty of Philosophy to
inquire. Since all existing things rejoice in that which is like them
and reject that which is unlike, the stories about the Gods ought to be
like the Gods, so that they may both be worthy of the divine essence and
make the Gods well disposed to those who speak of them: which could only
be done by means of myths.
Now the myths represent the Gods themselves and the goodness of the
Gods--subject always to the distinction of the speakable and the
unspeakable, the revealed and the unrevealed, that which is clear and
that which is hidden: since, just as the Gods have made the goods of
sense common to all, but those of intellect only to the wise, so the
myths state the existence of Gods to all, but who and what they are only
to those who can understand.
They also represent the activities of the Gods. For one may call the
World a Myth, in which bodies and things are visible, but souls and
minds hidden. Besides, to wish to teach the whole truth about the Gods
to all produces contempt in the foolish, because they cannot understand,
and lack of zeal in the good; whereas to conceal the truth by myths
prevents the contempt of the foolish, and compels the good to practise
philosophy.
But why have they put in the myths stories of adultery, robbery,
father-binding, and all the other absurdity? Is not that perhaps a thing
worthy of admiration, done so that by means of the visible absurdity the
Soul may immediately feel that the words are veils and believe the truth
to be a mystery?
IV. _That the species of Myth are five, with examples of each._
Of myths some are theological, some physical, some psychic, and again
some material, and some mixed from these last two. The theological are
those myths which use no bodily form but contemplate the very essences
of the Gods: e. g. Kronos swallowing his children. Since God is
intellectual, and all intellect returns into itself, this myth expresses
in allegory the essence of God.
Myths may be regarded physically when they express the activities of the
Gods in the world: e. g. people before now have regarded Kronos as Time,
and calling the divisions of Time his sons say that the sons are
swallowed by the father.
The psychic way is to regard the activities of the Soul itself: the
Soul's acts of thought, though they pass on to other objects,
nevertheless remain inside their begetters.
The material and last is that which the Egyptians have mostly used,
owing to their ignorance, believing material objects actually to be
Gods, and so calling them: e. g. they call the Earth Isis, moisture
Osiris, heat Typhon, or again, water Kronos, the fruits of the earth
Adonis, and wine Dionysus.
To say that these objects are sacred to the Gods, like various herbs and
stones and animals, is possible to sensible men, but to say that they
are gods is the notion of madmen--except, perhaps, in the sense in which
both the orb of the sun and the ray which comes from the orb are
colloquially called 'the Sun'.[203:1]
The mixed kind of myth may be seen in many instances: for example they
say that in a banquet of the Gods Discord threw down a golden apple; the
goddesses contended for it, and were sent by Zeus to Paris to be judged;
Paris saw Aphrodite to be beautiful and gave her the apple. Here the
banquet signifies the hyper-cosmic powers of the Gods; that is why they
are all together. The golden apple is the world, which, being formed out
of opposites, is naturally said to be 'thrown by Discord'. The different
Gods bestow different gifts upon the world and are thus said to 'contend
for the apple'. And the soul which lives according to sense--for that
is what Paris is--not seeing the other powers in the world but only
beauty, declares that the apple belongs to Aphrodite.
Theological myths suit philosophers, physical and psychic suit poets,
mixed suit religious initiations, since every initiation aims at uniting
us with the World and the Gods.
To take another myth, they say that the Mother of the Gods seeing Attis
lying by the river Gallus fell in love with him, took him, crowned him
with her cap of stars, and thereafter kept him with her. He fell in love
with a nymph and left the Mother to live with her. For this the Mother
of the Gods made Attis go mad and cut off his genital organs and leave
them with the Nymph, and then return and dwell with her.
Now the Mother of the Gods is the principle that generates life; that is
why she is called Mother. Attis is the creator of all things which are
born and die; that is why he is said to have been found by the river
Gallus. For Gallus signifies the Galaxy, or Milky Way, the point at
which body subject to passion begins.[204:1] Now as the primary gods
make perfect the secondary, the Mother loves Attis and gives him
celestial powers. That is what the cap means. Attis loves a nymph: the
nymphs preside over generation, since all that is generated is fluid.
But since the process of generation must be stopped somewhere, and not
allowed to generate something worse than the worst, the Creator who
makes these things casts away his generative powers into the creation
and is joined to the gods again. Now these things never happened, but
always are. And Mind sees all things at once, but Reason (or Speech)
expresses some first and others after. Thus, as the myth is in accord
with the Cosmos, we for that reason keep a festival imitating the
Cosmos, for how could we attain higher order?
And at first we ourselves, having fallen from heaven and living with the
Nymph, are in despondency, and abstain from corn and all rich and
unclean food, for both are hostile to the soul. Then comes the cutting
of the tree and the fast, as though we also were cutting off the further
process of generation. After that the feeding on milk, as though we were
being born again; after which come rejoicings and garlands and, as it
were, a return up to the Gods.
The season of the ritual is evidence to the truth of these explanations.
The rites are performed about the Vernal Equinox, when the fruits of the
earth are ceasing to be produced, and day is becoming longer than night,
which applies well to Spirits rising higher. (At least, the other
equinox is in mythology the time of the Rape of Korê, which is the
descent of the souls.)
May these explanations of the myths find favour in the eyes of the Gods
themselves and the souls of those who wrote the myths.
V. _On the First Cause._
Next in order comes knowledge of the First Cause and the subsequent
orders of the gods, then the nature of the world, the essence of
intellect and of soul, then Providence, Fate, and Fortune, then to see
Virtue and Vice and the various forms of social constitution good and
bad that are formed from them, and from what possible source Evil came
into the world.
Each of these subjects needs many long discussions; but there is perhaps
no harm in stating them briefly, so that a disciple may not be
completely ignorant about them.
It is proper to the First Cause to be One--for unity precedes
multitude--and to surpass all things in power and goodness. Consequently
all things must partake of it. For owing to its power nothing else can
hinder it, and owing to its goodness it will not hold itself apart.
If the First Cause were Soul, all things would possess Soul. If it were
Mind, all things would possess Mind. If it were Being, all things would
partake of Being. And seeing this quality (i. e. Being) in all things,
some men have thought that it was Being. Now if things simply _were_,
without being good, this argument would be true, but if things that are
_are_ because of their goodness, and partake in the good, the First
thing must needs be both beyond-Being and good. It is strong evidence of
this that noble souls despise Being for the sake of the good, when they
face death for their country or friends or for the sake of
virtue.--After this inexpressible power come the orders of the Gods.
VI. _On Gods Cosmic and Hypercosmic._
Of the Gods some are of the world, Cosmic, and some above the world,
Hypercosmic. By the Cosmic I mean those who make the Cosmos. Of the
Hypercosmic Gods some create Essence, some Mind, and some Soul. Thus
they have three orders; all of which may be found in treatises on the
subject.
Of the Cosmic Gods some make the World _be_, others animate it, others
harmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth
class keep it when harmonized.
These are four actions, each of which has a beginning, middle, and end,
consequently there must be twelve gods governing the world.
Those who make the world are Zeus, Poseidon, and Hephaistos; those who
animate it are Demeter, Hera, and Artemis; those who harmonize it are
Apollo, Aphrodite, and Hermes; those who watch over it are Hestia,
Athena, and Ares.
One can see secret suggestions of this in their images. Apollo tunes a
lyre; Athena is armed; Aphrodite is naked (because harmony creates
beauty, and beauty in things seen is not covered).
While these twelve in the primary sense possess the world, we should
consider that the other gods are contained in these. Dionysus in Zeus,
for instance, Asklepios in Apollo, the Charites in Aphrodite.
We can also discern their various spheres: to Hestia belongs the Earth,
to Poseidon water, to Hera air, to Hephaistos fire. And the six superior
spheres to the gods to whom they are usually attributed. For Apollo and
Artemis are to be taken for the Sun and Moon, the sphere of Kronos
should be attributed to Demeter, the ether to Athena, while the heaven
is common to all. Thus the orders, powers, and spheres of the Twelve
Gods have been explained and celebrated in hymns.
VII. _On the Nature of the World and its Eternity._
The Cosmos itself must of necessity be indestructible and uncreated.
Indestructible because, suppose it destroyed: the only possibility is to
make one better than this or worse or the same or a chaos. If worse, the
power which out of the better makes the worse must be bad. If better,
the maker who did not make the better at first must be imperfect in
power. If the same, there will be no use in making it; if a chaos . . .
it is impious even to hear such a thing suggested. These reasons would
suffice to show that the World is also uncreated: for if not destroyed,
neither is it created. Everything that is created is subject to
destruction. And further, since the Cosmos exists by the goodness of God
it follows that God must always be good and the world exist. Just as
light coexists with the Sun and with fire, and shadow coexists with a
body.
Of the bodies in the Cosmos, some imitate Mind and move in orbits; some
imitate Soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and
water downward. Of those that move in orbits the fixed sphere goes from
the east, the Seven from the west. (This is so for various causes,
especially lest the creation should be imperfect owing to the rapid
circuit of the spheres.[208:1])
The movement being different, the nature of the bodies must also be
different; hence the celestial body does not burn or freeze what it
touches, or do anything else that pertains to the four elements.[209:1]
And since the Cosmos is a sphere--the zodiac proves that--and in every
sphere 'down' means 'towards the centre', for the centre is farthest
distant from every point, and heavy things fall 'down' and fall to the
earth <it follows that the Earth is in the centre of the Cosmos>.
All these things are made by the Gods, ordered by Mind, moved by Soul.
About the Gods we have spoken already.
VIII. _On Mind and Soul, and that the latter is immortal._
There is a certain force,[209:2] less primary than Being but more
primary than the Soul, which draws its existence from Being and
completes the Soul as the Sun completes the eyes. Of Souls some are
rational and immortal, some irrational and mortal. The former are
derived from the first Gods, the latter from the secondary.
First, we must consider what soul is. It is, then, that by which the
animate differs from the inanimate. The difference lies in motion,
sensation, imagination, intelligence. Soul, therefore, when irrational,
is the life of sense and imagination; when rational, it is the life
which controls sense and imagination and uses reason.
The irrational soul depends on the affections of the body; it feels
desire and anger irrationally. The rational soul both, with the help of
reason, despises the body, and, fighting against the irrational soul,
produces either virtue or vice, according as it is victorious or
defeated.
It must be immortal, both because it knows the gods (and nothing mortal
knows[210:1] what is immortal), it looks down upon human affairs as
though it stood outside them, and, like an unbodied thing, it is
affected in the opposite way to the body. For while the body is young
and fine, the soul blunders, but as the body grows old it attains its
highest power. Again, every good soul uses mind; but no body can produce
mind: for how should that which is without mind produce mind? Again,
while Soul uses the body as an instrument, it is not in it; just as the
engineer is not in his engines (although many engines move without being
touched by any one). And if the Soul is often made to err by the body,
that is not surprising. For the arts cannot perform their work when
their instruments are spoilt.
IX. _On Providence, Fate, and Fortune._
This is enough to show the Providence of the Gods. For whence comes the
ordering of the world, if there is no ordering power? And whence comes
the fact that all things are for a purpose: e. g. irrational soul that
there may be sensation, and rational that the earth may be set in order?
But one can deduce the same result from the evidences of Providence in
nature: e. g. the eyes have been made transparent with a view to seeing;
the nostrils are above the mouth to distinguish bad-smelling foods; the
front teeth are sharp to cut food, the back teeth broad to grind it. And
we find every part of every object arranged on a similar principle. It
is impossible that there should be so much providence in the last
details, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and
of healing, which are part of the Cosmos, come of the good providence of
the Gods.
All this care for the world, we must believe, is taken by the Gods
without any act of will or labour. As bodies which possess some power
produce their effects by merely existing: e. g. the sun gives light and
heat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the Providence of the Gods
acts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its
forethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans, who argue that
what is Divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others.
The incorporeal providence of the Gods, both for bodies and for souls,
is of this sort; but that which is of bodies and in bodies is different
from this, and is called Fate, Heimarmenê, because the chain of causes
(Heirmos) is more visible in the case of bodies; and it is for dealing
with this Fate that the science of 'Mathematic' has been
discovered.[211:1]
Therefore, to believe that human things, especially their material
constitution, are ordered not only by celestial beings but by the
Celestial Bodies, is a reasonable and true belief. Reason shows that
health and sickness, good fortune and bad fortune, arise according to
our deserts from that source. But to attribute men's acts of injustice
and lust to Fate, is to make ourselves good and the Gods bad. Unless by
chance a man meant by such a statement that in general all things are
for the good of the world and for those who are in a natural state, but
that bad education or weakness of nature changes the goods of Fate for
the worse. Just as it happens that the Sun, which is good for all, may
be injurious to persons with ophthalmia or fever. Else why do the
Massagetae eat their fathers, the Hebrews practise circumcision, and the
Persians preserve rules of rank?[212:1] Why do astrologers, while
calling Saturn and Mars 'malignant', proceed to make them good,
attributing to them philosophy and royalty, generalships and treasures?
And if they are going to talk of triangles and squares, it is absurd
that gods should change their natures according to their position in
space, while human virtue remains the same everywhere. Also the fact
that the stars predict high or low rank for the father of the person
whose horoscope is taken, teaches that they do not always make things
happen but sometimes only indicate things. For how could things which
preceded the birth depend upon the birth?
Further, as there is Providence and Fate concerned with nations and
cities, and also concerned with each individual, so there is also
Fortune, which should next be treated. That power of the gods which
orders for the good things which are not uniform, and which happen
contrary to expectation, is commonly called Fortune, and it is for this
reason that the goddess is especially worshipped in public by cities;
for every city consists of elements which are not uniform. Fortune has
power beneath the moon, since above the moon no single thing can happen
by fortune.
If Fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is
no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good
as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their
badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.
X. _Concerning Virtue and Vice._
The doctrine of Virtue and Vice depends on that of the Soul. When the
irrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces Fight and
Desire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the
soul tripartite, composed of Reason, Fight, and Desire. Virtue in the
region of Reason is Wisdom, in the region of Fight is Courage, in the
region of Desire it is Temperance: the virtue of the whole Soul is
Righteousness. It is for Reason to judge what is right, for Fight in
obedience to Reason to despise things that appear terrible, for Desire
to pursue not the apparently desirable, but, that which is with Reason
desirable. When these things are so, we have a righteous life; for
righteousness in matters of property is but a small part of virtue. And
thus we shall find all four virtues in properly trained men, but among
the untrained one may be brave and unjust, another temperate and stupid,
another prudent and unprincipled. Indeed these qualities should not be
called Virtues when they are devoid of Reason and imperfect and found in
irrational beings. Vice should be regarded as consisting of the opposite
elements. In Reason it is Folly, in Fight, Cowardice, in Desire,
Intemperance, in the whole soul, Unrighteousness.
The virtues are produced by the right social organization and by good
rearing and education, the vices by the opposite.
XI. _Concerning right and wrong Social Organization._[214:1]
Constitutions also depend on the tripartite nature of the Soul. The
rulers are analogous to Reason, the soldiers to Fight, the common folk
to Desires.
Where all things are done according to Reason and the best man in the
nation rules, it is a Kingdom; where more than one rule according to
Reason and Fight, it is an Aristocracy; where the government is
according to Desire and offices depend on money, that constitution is
called a Timocracy. The contraries are: to Kingdom tyranny, for Kingdom
does all things with the guidance of reason and tyranny nothing; to
Aristocracy oligarchy, when not the best people but a few of the worst
are rulers; to Timocracy democracy, when not the rich but the common
folk possess the whole power.
XII. _The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil._
The Gods being good and making all things, how do evils exist in the
world? Or perhaps it is better first to state the fact that, the Gods
being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only
comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but
only comes about by absence of light.
If Evil exists it must exist either in Gods or minds or souls or bodies.
It does not exist in any god, for all god is good. If any one speaks of
a 'bad mind' he means a mind without mind. If of a bad soul, he will
make soul inferior to body, for no body in itself is evil. If he says
that Evil is made up of soul and body together, it is absurd that
separately they should not be evil, but joined should create evil.
Suppose it is said that there are evil spirits:--if they have their
power from the gods, they cannot be evil; if from elsewhere, the gods do
not make all things. If they do not make all things, then either they
wish to and cannot, or they can and do not wish; neither of which is
consistent with the idea of God. We may see, therefore, from these
arguments, that there is no positive evil in the world.
It is in the activities of men that the evils appear, and that not of
all men nor always. And as to these, if men sinned for the sake of evil,
Nature itself would be evil. But if the adulterer thinks his adultery
bad but his pleasure good, and the murderer thinks the murder bad but
the money he gets by it good, and the man who does evil to an enemy
thinks that to do evil is bad but to punish his enemy good, and if the
soul commits all its sins in that way, then the evils are done for the
sake of goodness. (In the same way, because in a given place light does
not exist, there comes darkness, which has no positive existence.) The
soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes
about the good, because it is not Primary Essence. And we see many
things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal
it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers,
sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgements and
punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls
from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body gods and
spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.
XIII. _How things eternal are said to 'be made' (γίγνεσθαι)._
Concerning the Gods and the World and human things this account will
suffice for those who are not able to go through the whole course of
philosophy but yet have not souls beyond help.
It remains to explain how these objects were never made and are never
separated one from another, since we ourselves have said above that the
secondary substances were 'made' by the first.