10 January 2024
Third Things
“’Adeimantus,’ I replied, ‘you and I are not poets at the present moment, but founders of a state. It’s the founders’ job to know the forms in which the poets must tell their stories, from which, if they compose, they must not deviate; but it is not the job of the founders themselves to write stories.’
“’And rightly so,’ he said. ‘But on this specific point, what would be the model for a story about matters divine?’
“’Something like this, I suppose,’ I said: ‘I think you should always present a god as he really is, whether you are writing about him in epic, lyric or tragedy.’
“’That must be the case.’
“’A god is, of course, good in reality and must be spoken of as such?’
“’What do you mean?’
“’Well no good quality is harmful, is it?’
“’I don’t think so.’
“’Can what is not harmful cause any harm?’
“’Of course not.’
“’Can what causes no harm do anything bad?’
“’Again, no.’
“’Therefore, whatever can do nothing bad cannot be responsible for anything bad?’
“’How can it?’
“’Now, what about this: a good thing is a beneficial thing, isn’t it?’
“’Yes.’
“’And so responsible for our well-being?’
“’Yes.’
“’Good is not responsible for everything, only for those things which are good, not those which are bad?’
“’Entirely.’
“’Then since he is good,’ I said, ‘the god cannot be responsible for all things, as most people say. But he is responsible for only a few things for us men, but not for many of them. For we have fewer good things than bad. No one else is to be held responsible for the good things, but for the bad things we must look for any other cause but the god.’
“’I think what you’re saying is very true.’
“’Then we must not accept the following blunder from Homer, or any other poet, who makes a foolish mistake about the gods when he says that
and the person to whom he gives a mixture of both:
Sometimes he happens upon an evil one, sometimes upon a good one
But whoever he doesn’t, but gives an unmixed portion of evil:
Grinding poverty drives him across the rich earth. (Il. 24.527-32)
Nor is Zeus for us the distributor, who
Has wrought both good and evil.”
“’There is the violation of oaths and truce carried out by Pandarus (Il. 4.69ff). If someone says this came about through the agency of Athena and Zeus, we will not approve nor will we if they say the dispute and quarrel of the gods came about through Themis and Zeus; nor must we ever allow the young to hear that, in Aeschylus’ words:
“’But if anyone writes anything in verse in which these lines occur, for example the sufferings of Niobe, or those of the house of Pelops, or the Trojan Wars, or anything else of this sort, then either we must not let them say that these are the work of god, or if they are, then they must search out the reason that we are pretty much looking for now and say that god carried out good, just deeds, and the people responsible have profited by being punished. We must not allow the poet to say that those paying the penalty were wretched and the one who brought this about was god. But if they were to say that evil men are wretched because they need punishment, and that they are benefitted by god in being punished, we must allow that. We must resist at all costs anyone in his own state saying that god is the cause of anyone’s evils, if it is to be well governed; or anyone, young or old, hearing it related either in verse or prose, on the grounds that such things given utterance are impious, and neither beneficial to us, nor harmonious within themselves.’”
(Plato, Republic Book II, translated by Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2013, pages 201-207, 379a-380c, ISBN: 9780674996502)
1. I think this passage is a good one to illustrate the nature of the tension in the Platonic tradition regarding the gods and their nature. The tension is between the view that popular Greek culture at that time, embodied in plays, songs, poetry, stories, and legends, and philosophical or spiritual culture that viewed the gods as sublime and in some sense transcendental. These are two starkly different presentations of the gods and they seem irreconcilable.
2. In popular culture the gods are depicted as fickle, malicious, untrustworthy, and heartless. In philosophical culture the gods are depicted as the source of that which is good, or, perhaps more accurately, the gods are transmitters of the Good to the third dimension, or hypostasis, of materiality.
3. The question is where do we place the gods in the metaphysical map of the Platonic hypostases? If we consider the gods as necessarily good then they would be placed possibly in the noetic realm, along with realities like being; or they might be placed even higher and viewed as transcending being and residing between the first and second hypostases. This is what Proclus did, as I understand his project, by placing his henads as super-essential realities beyond being but not the One.
If we consider the gods to be highly differentiated and subject to the full range of emotions, desires, and flaws that other living things exhibit, then the gods are understood to be what I call ‘third things.’ By ‘third things’ I mean that the gods are found in the third hypostasis which is where human beings and plants and animals and mountains and rivers and stars and clouds, and so forth, reside.
According to popular Classical Greek literary culture the Gods are third things. According to philosophical culture, the gods are either second things, or very close to being first things.
4. I find it difficult to understand why the gods would bother with human beings if they are second things, or even higher. On the other hand, if the gods are third things it makes sense that they would be interested in the material world and that explains why popular culture depicts them as incessantly interfering in the material domain in accordance with their own desires and whims.
5. If the gods are second things, or nearly first things, henads, then the practice of theurgy makes some sense (although there are other ethical issues that can be discussed.) If the gods are third things then the practice of theurgy does not, and cannot, lead to transcendence. Instead theurgy would only, at best, make the practitioner aware of dimensions of the material world, the third hypostasis, that they were previously unaware of. This might be a good thing, but it’s not transcendence.
6. In a way, you can think of this discussion as the problem of Pagan theodicy. If the gods are good, good essentially, then why is there so much that is not good, so much that is evil, in the material world. In the above passage Plato argues that poets should not be allowed to attribute anything bad or evil to the gods because the gods are essentially good. But if you view the gods as third things, that resolves the problem of theodicy in this context because the gods are behaving just like the way other living creatures in the third hypostasis behave.
7. I think there is a way to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory versions of the nature of the gods. I would like to suggest that both are right; but we need to apply wisdom to distinguish between the gods as third things and the gods as Divine Names. (I’m using the term Divine Names instead of the term ‘henads’ for reasons that, I hope, will become apparent.)
8. If we accept the gods as residents of the third, material, hypostasis, and therefore third things, then it follows:
That the gods, though they may have long lives, are born and they die.
But we can also accept the gods’ presence as transcendental realities if we look at them as Divine Names. In ordinary life we sometimes use a person’s name as shorthand for a quality that humans have instead of naming the quality itself. Instead of saying someone is a genius we might say they are an ‘Einstein.’ Or we might refer to a particularly beautiful woman as a Goddess, or a very wise woman as like Athena, or a very handsome man as ‘a Greek God’ or ‘like Apollo.’ This is a common poetic device, a type of personification. Personification is frequently used in extended allegories like Pilgrim’s Progress.
My view is that when the gods’ names are used to indicate transcendental realities they are being used to personify facets of the One that our understanding can access. But since the One is ineffable, beyond name and form, if we want to talk about the One we need to use a device like personification to do so. We can’t talk directly about the One because it has no name, but we can talk about the One indirectly by referring to realities that are ‘next to’ or ‘adjacent’ to the One.
9. I think the proper attitude towards the gods of third things is respectful appreciation and veneration. Just as many people venerate and honor their ancestors, and some spiritual traditions venerate mountains, rivers, trees, seasons, and so forth, it makes sense to venerate the gods of third things. I don’t view this as a type of theurgy; rather I see it as an expression of appreciation and respect.
10. I think the proper attitude towards the gods as Divine Names is contemplative consideration of these names and a willingness to unpack their meaning and interact with them and use them as a stepping stone to the One itself. This can be done through poetry or silent contemplation of the transcendental nature of the Names when their material associations are left behind.
11. Distinguishing between the gods of third things and the gods as Divine Names requires wisdom because it is wisdom that can make these kinds of distinctions. It also requires the dialectic because making the distinction between these gods and their realities is a contemplation on “what is the eternal and what not eternal.”
(Plotinus, Ennead I.3, On Dialectic, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966, page 159, ISBN: 9780674994843)
12. We already use Divine Names to talk about the One; these are names like ‘the One’, ‘the Good’, ‘the Beautiful’, ‘God’, the Eternal, and so forth. These are abstractions rather than personifications, but in the context of the Divine Names, they are metaphors and are, therefore, related to personifications. Because we already use Divine Names it is not a difficult step to think of the gods in this context as aspects, or perspectives, of the One. Just as the One is not the One, and the Good is not the Good, and the beautiful is not the beautiful, Aphrodite and Apollo as Divine Names are not the One, but they can help us talk about the One that is not the One.
13. Many terms in Platonic philosophy are used in multiple ways depending on which hypostasis the term is focused on. There is earthly justice and there is noetic justice. There is earthly beauty and there is noetic beauty. There is the soul here and the soul There.
Similarly, the meaning of the names of the gods changes in accordance with which hypostasis the name is referring to. There are the gods here and the gods There. They have different meanings, different functions; wisdom can guide us as to which meaning is relevant in any particular context.
14. In modernity there is the tendency to reject the gods altogether because modernity is materialist and reductionistic. In theurgy there is the tendency to reject the depiction of the gods found in popular Classical Greek culture because they view the gods as an exalted reality that transcends being and that therefore the depiction of the gods as subject to negative emotions is seen as misguided. I think both views are limited and partial, and I offer an interpretation that can, I hope, reconcile both views. It is up to each reader to see if this approach is useful in their own practice and study as they walk the path of the Return to the One.
No comments:
Post a Comment