2 January 2024
Triptolemus, Xenocrates, Jerome, and Porphyry
A friend of mine sent me a brief quote from Saint Jerome that he found in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers collection. Saint Jerome writes, “Xenocrates the philosopher writes that at Athens out of all the laws of Triptolemus only three precepts remain in the Temple of Ceres: respect for parents, reverence for the gods, and abstinence from flesh.”
I am not familiar with Triptolemus, in fact I don’t recall running into that name previously. Triptolemus is said to have received a winged chariot from Demeter along with seeds of wheat. Taking the chariot into the sky, Triptolemus sowed wheat throughout the whole world, or perhaps the story refers to the Greek world. Evidently Triptolemus was a law-giver whose work and insights appear to be connected to the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Saint Jerome lived about 342 to 420. An earlier reference to Triptolemus is found in Porphry’s work On Abstinence from Killing Animals (Porphyry lived from 234 to 305):
“According to tradition, Triptolemos was the most ancient of the legislators of Athens, and Hermippus writes of him as follows, in book two of On the Legislators. ‘They say that Triptolemos made laws for the Athenians, and Xenokrates the philosopher says that these three are still in force at Eleusis: respect parents, honour the gods with crops, do not harm animals. The first two, Xenokrates says, were rightly handed down, for our parents are benefactors and we must return good for good as far as possible, and we must give the gods first-fruits from what they have given us that helps us to live. But as for the third, he is at a loss to know what Triptolemos had in mind when he instructed people to abstain from animals. “Did he simply think,” he asks “that it is terrible to kill one’s kin, or did he realize that the animals most useful to us were being killed by people for food? So, wanting to make life civilized, he tried to preserve those animals which live with humans and those that are the most tame; unless, indeed, having ordained that the gods should be honoured with fruits, he thought this kind of honour would last longer if there were no animal sacrifices to the gods.”’”
(Porphyry, On Abstinence from Killing Animals, translated by Gillian Clark, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2000, page 118, ISBN: 9781780938899)
1. It is interesting to see the discrepancy regarding the second precept. In Jerome it says, “reverence for the gods,” but in Porphyry it says “honour the gods with crops.” The second version fits in with Porphyry’s aims for writing On Abstinence. My feeling is that Porphyry included it because this ancient source supports his overall view.
2. The third precept is “abstinence from flesh” in the quote from Jerome, and “do not harm animals” in the quote from Porphyry. In both instances when applying the precept those that adhere to the precept would refrain either eating or sacrificing animals.
3. It’s not clear to me why Porphyry felt that the third precept is ambiguous; but I don’t have the Greek and perhaps the Greek is ambiguous grammatically or at some other level. It seems that Porphyry is concerned with the motivation for abstinence from killing animals. That makes sense because Porphyry is arguing in On Abstinence that philosophers in particular should refrain from either eating or sacrificing animals; his view is that such activity will inevitably interfere with a life of contemplation and philosophical practice. I think Porphyry is trying to figure out if Triptolemus had the same kind of motivation.
4. One of the issues that Porphyry brings up in On Abstinence is how to honor the gods, meaning with what material substances. In his book Porphyry recommends the use of grains, fruits, leaves, incenses of various kinds, flowers, and other, mostly botanical, substances and refraining from sacrificing animals to the gods. This topic was of great importance in Pagan culture since animal sacrifice was the central rite for nearly all ceremonial occasions. Refraining from sacrificing animals would have separated a philosopher from the ordinary habits of the culture, just as refraining from eating animals separates people from the ordinary habits of our culture.
5. The issue of animal sacrifice would emerge during Porphyry’s life when his student, Iamblichus, argued with great intensity that blood sacrifice, meaning the sacrifice of animals, was necessary for correct theurgic practice centered on some lower deities that required such sacrificial procedures. Iamblichus wrote about this in On the Mysteries. It was this issue that separated the theurgists from the contemplatives in the Late Classical Platonic community. It is noteworthy in this context that no such sacrificial procedures are attributed to Plotinus in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, or from any other source.
6. When I come across passages like this it makes me aware of how much I do not know about classical culture. There are so many stories, rituals, insights, myths and allegorical tales that I am not aware of that, when I do find out about them, shed light on the culture in general and on specific philosophical issues, such as the place vegetarianism held in philosophical culture and practice. It’s a delight when I run across something like this that offers additional insight on the culture of that time. When the practice of refraining from killing animals is directly linked to ancient law-givers, and to the Mysteries of Eleusis, it uncovers how central such a diet was to the Greek philosophical tradition.
7. This is another example of how a vegetarian/vegan diet, and a commitment to refrain from killing animals, is a central precept of a philosophical life. It is not an add-on or a side issue. It is the application of the precept to refrain from harming others, which appears several times in Plato’s Dialogues, to our relationship to animals.
This is
why Porphyry’s book On Abstinence is of such importance to Platonism
today; because it shows in detail the relationship between philosophy and
practices of purification such as vegetarianism and refraining from blood, or
animal, sacrifice. This kind of
relationship between philosophical understanding and philosophical practice is
not highlighted in most contemporary discussions of Platonism. It is Porphyry who has kept the light of that
connection burning.
Athenian: “Well, don’t we think that in every part of the earth and in all sorts of ways there have been cities founded and destroyed, and all sorts of practices, both orderly and disorderly, and a huge variety of appetites for food, both solid and liquid, and all sorts of variations in climatic conditions, in which it is probable that animals underwent vast number of changes?
Cleinias: “Of course.
Athenian: “Well, I suppose we believe, don’t we, that vines made their appearance at a certain point, not having existed before? Likewise, olives, and the gifts of Demeter and Kore? Wasn’t a certain Triptolemus the messenger for these sorts of things? And in the time when these did not exist, don’t we think that animals turned to eating each other, as they do now?
Cleinias: “Certainly.
Athenian: “Indeed, human sacrifice is something we see persisting even now among many peoples. And it’s just the opposite, we hear, among others, where there was once a time when they didn’t dare to taste even beef, and sacrificed not animals to the gods, but round cakes, honey-soaked grain, and other ‘pure’ sacrifices of these sorts, and avoided flesh, on the supposition that it wasn’t pious to eat it or to pollute the altars of the gods with blood. We humans who existed in those days lived what is called an ‘Orphic’ life, keeping entirely to things without souls, and entirely avoiding things with souls.”
(Plato, Laws, translated by C. D. C. Reeve, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, pages 197-198, 782a-782b, ISBN: 9781647920463)
1. The translator has a footnote on Triptolemus, “Demeter was the goddess of corn, grain, harvest, and fertility. Kore her virgin daughter, and Triptolemus the hero who conveyed the secret of these things to mankind.”
2. It’s interesting to find vegetarianism connected with the ancient Orphic tradition which seems to be one of the foundations for Platonism.
3. I don’t know if this passage influenced Porphyry but I tend to think that it did because Porphyry also has a mythic history of a time when people only offered pure sacrifices to the gods that did not contain any animal products. And the reason stated, because blood sacrifices pollute the altars of the gods with the blood that is shed, is also mentioned in Porphyry. This indicates a long continuity in the commitment to refrain from killing animals either for the purpose of eating them or for the purpose of sacrificing them.
4. Plants are configured here as beings without souls. I’m not sure I would agree with that. But it’s interesting that contemporary vegans have a similar distinction that they use to deflect the idea that killing animals and plants is the same, a criticism they often have to deal with. Contemporary vegans argue that plants are not consciously aware because they do not have the requisite brain and nervous system which is necessary for consciousness. I find this materialist argument very weak because I don’t believe that consciousness arises from material conditions; that is to say I think consciousness is prior to material reality. Modern vegans view consciousness as an epiphenomenon of the material body; but that is just asserted, it has never been demonstrated.
The Jain tradition is more sophisticated. Jains view plants as having souls, but they believe there are different kinds of souls and in their system negative karma is not a result of eating certain kinds of plants.
I don’t recall if Porphyry makes the plant/animal distinction based on the presence or absence of soul. It would be interesting to see if he remarks on this issue.
Addendum 2
“. . . if death is, as it were, a change of habitation from here to some other place, and if what we are told is true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing could there be, judges? For if a man when he reaches the other world, after leaving behind these who claim to be judges, shall find those who are really judges who are said to sit in judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and all the other demigods who were just men in their lives, would the change of habitation be undesirable? Or again, what would any of you give to meet with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? I am willing to die many times over, if these things are true; for I personally should find the life there wonderful, when I met Palamedes or Ajax, the son of Telamon, or any other men of old who lost their lives through an unjust judgment, and compared my experience with theirs. I think that would not be unpleasant. And the greatest pleasure would be to pass my time in examining and investigating the people there, as I do those here, to find out who among them is wise and who thinks he is when he is not.”
(Plato, The Apology, translated by Harold North Fowler, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914, page 143, 41A-41B, ISBN: 0674990404)
1. In this passage Triptolemus is referred to as a demigod, meaning someone who in their life was just a man, but because of their exceptionally well-lived life have become a kind of deity. Triptolemus is one of the people that Socrates hopes to meet in the afterlife because he would like to glean whatever wisdom from these demigods.
2. There is no reference to diet in this passage, but I see a connection through the reference to wisdom. One function of wisdom is to discern how to live a good life, a life that is based on refraining from harming others. Triptolemus is depicted as having lived such a life, and I think of him as being a ‘messenger’ of this way of life by bringing the secrets of grain to the world.
3. The overall portrait of Triptolemus from these quotes is complex. It is difficult to discern the main features but he seems to have been a law-giver and benefactor of humanity. I can understand why Socrates would want to meet with him in the realm of the demigods.
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