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(A) But the gods always were and never left; these things

are always the same and in the same ways. (B) But it is said

that Chaos was the first of the gods. (A) How could that be

without there being anything from which or to which the

first thing might pass? (B) So nothing came first? (A) Nor,

by Zeus, did anything come second, at least of the things we

now speak, rather these things always were.

ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ τοὶ θεοὶ παρῆσαν χὐπέλιπον οὐ πώποκα·

τάδε δ’ ἀεὶ πάρεσθ’ ὁμοῖα διά τε τῶν αὐτῶν ἀεί.

ἀλλὰ λέγεται μὰν Χάος πρᾶτον γενέσθαι τῶν θεῶν.

πῶς δέ κα, μὴ ἔχον γ’ ἀπὸ τίνος μηδ’ ἐς ὅτι πρᾶτον μόλοι;

οὐκ ἄρ’ ἔμολεν πρᾶτον οὐδέν; οὐδὲ μὰ Δία δεύτερον

τῶνδε γ’ ὧν ἁμές νυν ὧδε λέγομες, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ τάδ’ ἦς

Epicharmus frag. 275, trans. R. J. Barnes

I find this fragment most interesting and important. Scholars tend not to take much of what Epicharmus says seriously, because he was a comic poet; but he was also reputedly a student of Pythagoras, and Alcimus of Sicily famously claimed that Plato had plaigiarized from him.

Epicharmus' style in the surviving fragments seems to be to point out paradoxes, rather than solving them; but the fragment is revealing because it shows that both the eternity of the Gods, and the existence of an order of emergence among Them were commonly held beliefs. Modern commentators, however, ignore the fact that both doctrines are already present in Hesiod, who explicitly states that the Gods "exist eternally" (Theogony 33 & 105) and also tells of Their coming to be, or else attempt to dismiss the clear sense of eternity there. But Epicharmus' paradox here would not make sense in a context where both positions were not commonly held, and indeed, really only makes good sense in light of both positions having been affirmed by the same author in the same text.

Epicharmus' fragment shows that philosophers did not invent the concept of eternal Gods, and that it was the traditional Gods, and not some new category of divinity, that were recognized as eternal, and hence that the myths of Their emergence were not to be taken literally or reductively. Carrying out such an interpretation of the myths was probably not a task Epicharmus set himself, but the assumptions he makes about the beliefs held by his audience already exhibit the very principles on which such interpretation would be undertaken by Platonists centuries later. These ideas are also found in the supposed monotheist Xenophanes: "He [Xenophanes] declares also concerning the Gods that there is none supreme among Them; for it is not pious that any of the Gods should have a master; and none of Them needs anything at all from any," (Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica book I, chap. 8; Diels, Doxographi Graeci 580.14-16).

It's also extremely intriguing that Epicharmus demonstrates interest both in the way of being of the Gods, and also, in other fragments, in individuation and numerical identity generally, an aspect of his thought discussed at length by Horky in Plato and Pythagoreanism (2013). This suggests that Platonic henology as a doctrine at once concerning individuation in general, but also specifically of those individuals conceived as having some kind of absolute existence, namely the Gods, has deeper roots than generally acknowledged.

I wrote this short piece to speak to an issue that was coming up repeatedly in different forms among students in my current course, "Polytheism in Greek Philosophy 3", and since this issue comes up so often, I thought I'd share it in a form widely accessible.

As a good example of how conflict in myths can be interpreted as cooperation in the production of a conflictual plane of being, we can look at Proclus' interpretation of Iliad 20.67-74 from his commentary on Plato's Timaeus (In Tim. 1.78f, trans. Tarrant):

“The divine Homer develops oppositions, setting Apollo against Poseidon, Ares against Athena, the River against Hephaestus, Hermes against Leto, and Hera against Artemis. It is necessary, you see, to view generation in incorporeals, bodies and combinations of the two, and to posit Poseidon and Apollo as demiurges of all of becoming, the former universally and the latter partially; to make Hera and Artemis as the leaders of animal birth, the former of rational life and the latter of physical life; to make Athena and Ares responsible for the rivalry that runs through both, through being and through life, her for the [rivalry] determined by intellect, him for the more material and more impassioned kind, and to make Hermes and Leto the chiefs of the double perfection of the soul, the former of the one [achieved] through cognitive powers and the offering of reasoned arguments, the other through the smooth and willing and assenting elevation of the vital forces; to make Hephaestus and Xanthus the chiefs of all bodily composition and of the properties within it, the former of the more active properties, and the latter of the more passive and more material so to speak.”

Each of the pairs of Gods depicted in the poem as being in conflict thus form between Them a field of oppositions that form a matrix for generation or coming-to-be. Their conflict is thus no mere strife arising from motives that would make no sense to ascribe to Gods, but rather a symbol for Their cooperation in producing things for which certain kinds of conflicting forces are integral to their nature—things, in other words, the unity of which is looser, and held together by these polarities, in accord with a basic imperative to maximize the kinds of being that are able to manifest, to the utmost limits of what can be unified at all. This is what it means for the Gods to want everything to become as much like Themselves as possible (Timaeus 29e) and to let anyone who wishes to follow Them as far as they can (Phaedrus 247a), namely to extend unity, individuation, to as many things of as many different kinds as possible, including things for which certain kinds of conflict is constitutive of the unity they are capable of possessing.

The prevalence of conflict on this plane of being, and its formative power there, are seen from the tradition in Greek cosmological thought attributing a dominant role in natural processes to the conflict of elemental forces such as heat and cold, which remains strong in Greek medicine, even after Greek philosophy had mostly moved on from treating such oppositions as metaphysically ultimate, while continuing to recognize that they were epistemically useful in thinking about physical processes in particular.

This is theologically grounded, moreover, in the recognition of Athena as "a lover of war and wisdom" (Tim. 24d), that is, as Proclus says above, of the kind of "war" that is governed by intellect, rationally understood, intelligible, such as the conflict of natural forces, which is predictable and can be harnessed for use in all manner of crafts, or simply managed through insight. The kind of "war" with which Ares is associated, by contrast, is "impassioned" (pathētikos), literally, passive, because it presupposes the action of such forces upon the soul, insofar as these reasons are phenomenologically opaque, and a different kind of causality is operative. Hence, while we might recognize that a person is angry about something for physiological reasons—a chemical imbalance, for example—this is not why they think that they are angry. We may say that they are wrong in their judgment, but ontologically, we still need to recognize its reality, in order to preserve the integrity of their soul, and not reduce them to a bundle of forces into which they have no first-person insight. For this reason, psychoanalytic therapy operates on the level of such representations, so that even to the degree that actions are the product of the subject's "unconscious" cognition, they are still have the form of subjective thought, and sustain the integrity and agency of the psychological subject.

(239.19)

After the Sirens, whom we said to be the divine souls of the eight circles, of whom the essence and the life are harmonious and the activity intellective, being moved in a circle (for in incorporeals motion in a circle indicates activity totally intellective), he has imparted to us beyond the Sirens the triad of the Moirai, who are borne upward upon these and their whole cycles, touching them and not touching (for this is the leaving of an interval [dialeipein, 617c]), being as it were at once hypercosmic and encosmic; for to be touching [haptesthai] manifests communion with respect to the revolutions, while not touching manifests in turn a life separate from these, unconnected to them. And you see how the Moirai are lower than their mother Ananke and are posted over the Sirens; for the thrones have been assigned by the myth to them, too, just as to Ananke—mention will be made of the throne of Ananke in what follows (620e6)—and they are said to be seated like the<ir> mother, but not to be borne around the circles, like the Sirens. But while she [Ananke] is not touching the spindle with her hands, but it is wrapped in her knees as stably fixed in her, they [the Moirai] use their hands and move through these, as proximate to the things moved; and while they [the Moirai] being outside the circles move while fixed, the Sirens are mounted upon the circles and are borne along with them; so that the Moirai also moving these … within the revolution … for they set in motion; and from the revolutions to the things moved in straight lines; for all these are subject to the cycles of those. And thus the whole cosmos is fated [Moiraios], the motions more lacking in authority being referred to the more authoritative, and these to the Moirai; and the Moirai moving according to the will of the<ir> mother, so too what that one provides by <merely> being is provided to the All by their [the Moirai’s] activity. But that the Moirai through these cycles direct all things in the cosmos is evident, allotting to each what is appropriate, to souls, animals and plants, and dispensing [lit. ‘spinning’] the due portion. On account of which also he likens the periods to spindle and whorls, since in the sacred rites these synthêmata of the Moirai are customary to receive, distaffs, spindles, yarn; for through these the sequence is shown to extend from above to the last things, which is colloquially called the distaff, revealing the cause, encompassed in the Moirai, of the life introduced into the All from there; the yarn of the spindle from there being understood as the <life> bound to the All; the sequence of the yarn being the remaining and proceeding. For one must not suppose that ordering and moving all things they move separately from providing life; for nor do they, illuminating the agalmata here, illuminate without life; but the peculiarity of the life from one to another, and that the life … the Muses being patrons of the musical [enarmonion, enharmonic], the Moirai of linking form for the cosmos, and other Gods other things.

(241.9)

To what rank then do the Moirai belong and what symbols are assigned to them by divine myth, the thrones, the fillets, the white garment, the hymnody, the hands? For each of these requires intellectual attention. And in general, before these <matters>, how did he see them seated and having figure and hear the singing? And what about the one singing this, the other that, and the dividing up of the hymns by the parts of time? For what is time in relation to the ones there? For if they were souls, perhaps indeed time would make a difference to them; and indeed even if this were true, the division according to parts of time would require such an account.

(241.19)

To theorize therefore the incorporeals in corporeal form and things outside all place as if being in a certain place and extension, and to apprehend things beyond motion through motion is not surprising; since antiquity indeed the theurgists having instructed us that the self-manifestions [autophaneias] of the shapeless Gods necessarily take on shape, and of the figureless Gods take on figure, the soul receiving according to its own nature the immobile and simple apparitions of the Gods dividedly and by means of imagination bringing figure and shape to the visions. For all participation preserves the idea both of the participated and the participant, being in a way a medium of these; and neither that of the participated alone, as if it did not give something to the participant; nor that of the participant <alone>, as if it did not depend upon the participated. So then divine things being participated have apparitions extending forth from them the luminous, the immaculate, the atemporally present, the living, whatever there is of this sort, while the participants <receive> the extended, that which has shape and that which has figure; and these things also the Gods said to the theurgists; for being incorporeal, they say, of us, “bodies they have bound to themselves in autophanic visions for your sake,” (Or. Chal. 56); for on account of the participants the incorporeals make themselves visible in corporeal form appearing in the ether dimensionally. If then divine things are witnessed in this way by theurgists, one should not be surprised if also the messenger [angelos] of these visions, as was likely for a partible soul making use of imagination and still having a conception of the body, in this way grasped corporeally the incorporeals and saw in ethereal body the existences [huparxeis] of the incorporeals, and for the divine and immaterial life, white tunics and the Moirai clad in white; and for the fixed and stable establishment, being seated; and for the individuality determinate relative to the other Gods, outlines divided and in place; for the manifest things are synthêmata of unmanifest powers, things seen in shape and dimension <synthêmata> of the shapeless. These things, therefore, as I said, are well known through the hieratic operations, for those not altogether deaf to those matters; and since the hearing of harmonious sound and indeed of hymns is customary for … the incorporeals … autophany, neither by voice and bodily organs nor by impact and forceful resonance, but acting incorporeally; the impassive activity in those producing passive motions in the participant according to Their will; since also the soul being ashamed or afraid, pallor or redness occurs in the body, neither of these being in that <the soul>, but from the colorless motion in that <the soul> about the body the condition as to color is produced. Therefore let no one think it impossible that the Moirai singing intellectively, their thoughts issue forth into sensation in the presence of those around Er and sound result from motion without sound and unvibrating [aplêkton] life be pictured through vibration [plêgês] and from awareness [sunaisthêsis] according to intellect to issue forth the apprehension of hearing. For such as is the object of knowledge [to gnôston], such is the knowing [hê gnôsis]; if noetic, noêsis; and if audible, hearing; now the intelligible having come to be audible through irradiation, the noêsis has become hearing, too, and he <Er> heard that which he in the first place thought. But this is evident, as we said, from the hieratic <art> among us as well; and one must add that the angels come to be listening to the Gods in one way, the spirits [daimones] in another, and human souls in another; the ones intellectively <perceive> intellective <things>, the next rationally, the last through sensation, each according to the measures of their fitness to receive the gnôsis of the Gods and the activity proceeding to them <from the Gods>. And … when we are pure of the composition in our discursive thought; then we shall have consciousness [sunaisthêsis] of their presence without shape, when we have relieved ourselves of imagination; then we shall know their utterances through intellect alone, when we shall have silenced all of our corporeal sensations.

(243.28)

These things therefore having been explained, let us see what needs to be said in the first place concerning the order of the Moirai; who the first of these is, who the third, and who the middle power holds.

For some before us placed Lachesis third and said that she is subordinate for making use of both hands, and that the prophet receives the paradigms of the lots from her as subordinate, <i.e.> from the one proximate to him, being <himself> subordinate to all. Others rank her in the middle of the other two and operating in this way as laying hold jointly with the extremes, with Klotho on the right and Atropos on the left; this is why those two leave an interval of time, as if supplying space in the middle, and on account of this she has the paradigms of the lots as exhibiting in herself the center of the triad of the Moirai, and <hence> as appropriate to the mediation of the souls.

The third conjectured Lachesis to be more venerable than the other two and hence to move the spindle with either <hand>, as turning both the fixed stars and the planets and so the whole heaven at once; and the paradigms of the lots … after the choice … the second and on account of this she is called Klotho … and Atropos for her part ratifies, I mean both the life [bion, i.e., the life chosen] and the destinies [lit., the things spun], and on account of this is named Atropos.

(244.20)

These things then having been in dispute, let us have recourse to Plato as judge, who says most clearly in the 12th book of the Laws (960c), that one must in fact conceive Lachesis as being first, Klotho second, and Atropos third, as rendering unalterable the destinies [lit. what has been spun]; and who says also in this <text>, that the genius [daimôn] allotted leads each soul first under Lachesis and that which she turns (620e), second under that of Klotho, third under that of Atropos; thence all are brought to the plain of Lethe and the river Amelete. If therefore there is a descent from above, it is evident that Lachesis is the most venerable of all, and so moves with each hand, as moving the revolution of the spindle to the right and to the left.

(245.3)

This having been shown from the very words of Plato, let us examine the symbols that follow upon these. The Moirai being said to be daughters of Ananke indicates the uniform mastery belonging to Ananke as holding together all things with respect to a single cause, which it is not lawful for any of the encosmic things to escape, neither celestials, nor sublunaries, neither wholes nor parts; for she is the one watching over all things that … the Moirai arrange under her sovereignty, as she is mistress of the gifts of the Moirai and of the destinies [lit. things spun] as well as of the necessary coherence of all things. The Moirai executing one thing or another particularizing the works of the monad, on account of this are called daughters, as having been allotted the procession of the essence and power and activity from that one [Ananke]; for among the Gods the causes and the things caused differ in unification and pluralization, as more universal and more particular, in transcendence and immanence towards the things administered. Therefore here the monad precedes and transcends altogether the encosmic things and is whole and one, whereas the triad attach themselves to that <monad>, distributing themselves about the revolution of the spindle carrying forward the providence of the monad to manifestation. Whence also the Moirai themselves have their appellation <of ‘Moirai’>, not only as ‘apportioning’ [merizousai] what all things coming to be are due, but also as having apportioned the unified production of the mother; and that one is ‘Ananke’ as having control over all things compactly [ararotôs] and inescapably [anapodrastôs], of which they [the Moirai] <have control> dividedly. For it is possible to have come to be beyond <their control> according to a certain activity, such as <being beyond the control> of Lachesis according to the life prior to the lot; for the lot, and being allotted at such time such a lot, arranges us under Lachesis in the first place; but there is nothing like this with respect to Ananke; on account of which Ananke properly encompasses for herself all things by steadfast boundaries.

(246.5)

Now, that they [the Moirai] are said to be clad all in white represents that they have been accorded intellective life; and vividness/clarity [enargeia] is a sign [synthêma] of divine light and seeing <is a sign> of autophany, the brightness [phôteinon] of life in heaven, and radiance is appropriate to celestials, just as the dark is to chthonics; for the white is akin to the brilliance in light. That the myths are accustomed to use clothing as symbols of incorporeal lives [i.e., ways of life], whoever has attended closely to the divine myths doubtless perceives in any case; for indeed the lives [ways of life] emitted from the Gods conceal <their> existences [huparxeis] as clothing conceals bodies; and as these encompass unmanifest what uses <them>, so too those <conceal> the divine unities [henôseis]. And since the existences <of the Gods> differ from one another, so too the clothes of some are white, of some black, of some golden, of others whatever other sort they employ, and, to put it simply, they [the myths] invest them [the Gods] with outward ornamentation [kosmon] befitting the<ir> inward and hidden powers according to figure and color. And since in the sacred rites for these <reasons> different synthêmata surround different statues, being in accord with the individual properties [idiômasin, corr. from agalmasin] of the almighty <Gods>; and the dedicants of the Gods and those who invoke <them> and who receive <divine illumination> made use of many kinds of vestures and girdings, imitating the divine lives to which they referred back their practices. Brightness befits the Moirai therefore as projecting before themselves celestial lives, through which they move the heaven; for the unmixed and pure is also appropriate to them; on account of which also it is lawful to make non-alcoholic libations to the Moirai and that all that is chthonic …

(247.3)

As for their having fillets on their heads, it signifies that their highest existences [huparxeis] shine with divine and noetic light; for it says that the fillets are made not from plants but from wool. And this is appropriate also to hieratic lives; for it has also been prescribed that headbands [strophia] are worn by priests more eminent than the rest, and it was a great thing to be entitled to the strophion; this therefore the Moirai’s fillets represent, symbolically lying around their heads. The<ir> heads, that is, are images of the most divine and eminent powers in them, since also for us they are the dwellings of the most divine <part> of the soul. On the other hand, the fillets indicate divine and generative life, joining their [the Moirai’s] summits with the surpassing causalities, as one had faith that the strophia joined hieratic lives with the Gods to whom they devoted themselves. And you see how the adornment of the head exhibits causal priority over that of the entire rest of the body; for the wool<en thread> is, as it were, the cause of the clothing, so that if each of the two [i.e., the fillet worn as headband, on the one hand, and the vestments on the other] is a symbol of the life <devoted to the Gods>, the one, however, <symbolizes> the more divine and causative, the other the more inferior <aspect of that life> and which flows off from the former.

(247.22)

Furthermore, being seated on thrones at equal intervals around shows the entire rank of them [the Moirai] eternally disposed the same, encompassing in every way the whole heaven and maintaining their dignity relative to one another established according to one formula. For through equality he admirably indicated how they are disposed relative to one another … having proceeded from the same monad … one another, and not … alone is exaltation and subordination in them. And this signifies all of them being equally spaced from the others, the <distance of> Lachesis from Klotho and from Atropos the same and the <distance of> Atropos from Lachesis, arranged as it were in an equilateral triangle. This as we said signifies their organization arranging <them> according to a single equality as all subsisting from a single cause.

As for <the Moirai> being in a circle, <it signifies> the life enveloping the spindle from without; for they encompass wholly in themselves and are as it were seated around the whorl on all sides; as if you were to conceive, on the convex surface <of the whorl> an equilateral triangle and installed at the angles upon thrones the Moirai. For in this way one shall conceive them placed both in equality and in a circle upon the cosmos, and at once coordinate with each other, and surrounding heaven with their own guardianship.

As for the thrones, upon which he beheld them seated in direct vision [autoptikôs], we would say these to be certain powers receiving their [the Moirai’s] stable and fixed foundation; for inasmuch as the Gods remain in themselves and proceed unto all things and revert upon things prior to them, and neither do they slacken the remaining through procession as souls do (for proceeding downward is for these [for souls] ceasing to attend upon the causes, and departing from themselves) nor do they withhold procession on account of remaining … in that which is according to nature … things in motion, but there is at once both <procession> and reversion among them, all the lives [ways of life] receiving their remaining they represent by thrones, the ones serving the processions or reversions by certain vehicles; and for the wise myths [sophois muthois] these things act as covers for the truth concerning the Gods. And hence also the heaven-transcending lives of the Moirai that are receptacles of the stable powers in them, established in which they [the Moirai] also guard the fixed heaven, one must understand to be called ‘thrones’, just as in the Phaedrus the vehicles of the Gods … setting out together on their travels; for he says that “Zeus sets out first driving a winged chariot” (246e), and below (247b) says that “the vehicles of the Gods in equipoise obedient to the rein go forth,” while those of the rest “with difficulty”. For there the drivers are different from the vehicles while here the ones enthroned <are different> from the thrones, and both of these are receptacles, the former however for <the Gods> in motion, the latter for <the Gods> remaining.

And if you will reflect upon the place in which the apparition of the thrones must take place, the light there is without inclination, resembling a pillar (Rep. 616b), and in this the Moirai are said to be established, moving the whorl from that place in the same manner, perhaps you could satisfy the imagination that desires to grasp the notion of these things in extension; for if they are seated beyond the heaven and if each is in a place, equally spaced from each other, where else shall you think the establishment of them than there, where all things remain identically secured? And such, we showed, is that place, which he said to be the light, as has been demonstrated not obscurely in what came before.

(249.22)

Until now the visions have taught such things as concern the Moirai in common; that they are all daughters of Ananke, that they are seated at equal distance, in a circle, having fillets on their heads, dressed in white, established on certain thrones. What remains henceforth explains the differences of their activities and divides these, positing the one <division> of them as cognitive and the other as kinetic. For the former are the songs of the things having come to be and the things which are and the things which shall be; but how is it that one sings solely the past, namely Lachesis, and another solely the present, namely Klotho, and the other solely the future, namely Atropos? One can say then that he has wished to make clear the order of the Moirai through the triad of the parts of time; of which the past comes first, as Lachesis precedes the <other> two; second <comes> the present, as Klotho is second; and third the future, as Atropos <is third>. For it would be absurd if someone were to suppose the hymns to really be divided by time, rather than the primary and middle and final activity of intellections being symbolically signified through these, all being beyond time, the myth signifying through the names of temporalities the variation of the atemporal intellections. … For the myth did not say that the song accompanies the harmony of the Sirens for the sake of inverting the order with respect to value. For the harmony must be directed by the song, just as in the Laws (669c & sqq.) we were instructed that the rhythm be guided by the melody, and the melody by the lyric; and if this is <the case> according to reason, a fortiori is this <the case> according to nature in the All. Therefore the harmonies of the Sirens must be directed by the songs of the Moirai; which he exhibited backwards by way of concealment, the Moirai singing to the harmony of the Sirens, not as the former being directed by the latter, but as supplying to it <the Sirens’ harmony> determinacy and measure. This accordingly has become clear to us in this fashion. But if one wishes, it is also possible in another way to contemplate the meaning of the temporality songs. For the song itself should make clear that their intellective activity is reverting upon the superior causes; for the songs [humnêseis, lit. ‘praisings’] of the Gods are of things greater, not of things lesser. It is evident, therefore, that they [the Moirai] think the causes of all things in the<ir> mother and are really the hymnodes of the<ir> mother, and that since the intellection of Lachesis contains that of the others, Klotho’s that of the remaining <one>, the temporal names have been used as synthêmata of the containment; for thus the past has come to be prior to the future and the present, and the present before the future; the future, then, is the future only, and neither can be present in any way, much less past. Therefore the past is more comprehensive than the rest, than present and future, the present <more comprehensive> than the future only. Thus it is evident from these <considerations> that the intellections of Lachesis are more universal than the intellections in the others, the <intellection> of Klotho more partial than that in Lachesis, more comprehensive than that in Atropos (for the present is not yet past, while it <the present> was the future first), and that of Atropos more partial than those, if indeed the future is not yet present, nor past. If therefore their intellections as reversions upon things more divine have been called songs of praise [humnêseis], and they sing presumably as they think, Lachesis the more universal intelligibles, Atropos the more partial, and Klotho the median, it is clear from this that he [Plato] exhibits both the variation of the thoughts and of the ones thinking.

(251.18)

Furthermore, we understand their kinetic activities <as> corresponding to the order of <acts of> knowledge; for Klotho moves with the right hand and plainly thus <moves> the circuit to the right, Atropos with the left and hence <moves> the revolution to the left, while Lachesis <moves> with both hands as rotating both <revolutions>. And so in turn the <motion> of Lachesis with both hands is more universal, while Klotho, moving the superior circuit, precedes Atropos, and Atropos is third, subordinate to the one because moving with one <hand> only, to the other because <moving> in the inferior <direction>; for at any rate rotation to the right is superior to that to the left, insofar as the right <hand> has the more capable station. These things being perfectly true, it is fitting not to pass over that <point>, that speaking about the motion <caused> by Klotho and Atropos, he [Plato] added regarding each, ‘leaving an interval of time’ (617c); just as regarding the <relationship of the> songs to the harmony of the Sirens, so too the interval of time in the motions requires some further attention. What then should one explain about the interval of time? Is it for the sake of the <narrative> formation of the divine myth, so that Lachesis should have space to move both circuits, whenever those leave off, or with respect to reality, as <an> indication <that> the motions <originating> from them [the Moirai] are not <themselves> externally moved? For these leaving off, the circuits stand <still>; you see therefore that the two of them are self-moving, if we take them as intermittent.

(252.14)

As for the hands of the Moirai, what powers do they exhibit? As the heads <exhibit> the most divine <powers>, so the hands are secondary-functioning; and as the former are more intellective, so the latter are productive; for while heads come to be <as> principles of living beings, hands on the contrary are for the sake of laying hold of <things>, self-defence and in general <for the sake> of doing <things>. And you could grasp from these <considerations>, how theologians characterize as hands certain divine <potencies>, whether of zoogonic Rhea or of king Helios; and in turn how they say the hypercosmic divinities to be touching and not touching the heaven, and Socrates, cognizant <of this>, sings of the Moirai’s hands and says they are touching and not touching the things moved. In this fashion, then, the hands are symbols of the most divine powers, as also among the Gods prior to the demiurge certain Hundred-Handed-Ones are celebrated, being guardians of the intellective kings; for there are three of these … .

(252.28)

So much concerning these <matters>. Lachesis “alternately lending a hand to each” (617d) signifies perhaps having the power …, through which she lays hold of the motions jointly with the others, just as Ananke grants to all things common motion according to a single unity. It seems, as we said, to provide space for the <narrative> form; for if those ones setting in motion leave an interval of time, she [Lachesis] appropriately moves alternately with each hand; as it were in the interval Klotho leaves, moving only with the right hand, and in the one Atropos <leaves>, <moving only> with the left, so that the All is moved always according to each of the two circuits by a certain one, but never by two <at once>; and this, which we also said above, would suggest that what is imparted by each to the cosmos is different, and that the revolutions do not participate in the same things from the single [Moira] as from the two; for the things divided by rank he has separated by time, as we went over concerning the songs; and since this is proper [idion] to divine myths, translating activities atemporally coexisting, but differing from each other, into temporal order and variation for the purpose of perceiving distinctly their unique properties [idiotêtas].

A friend recently asked me about the doctrine of the soul vehicle in Neoplatonism. I'd never looked much into the issue, so my first stop was Dodds' appendix on the subject in his edition of the Elements of Theology, where he cites a couple of passages from the Timaeus and one from the Republic commentary, which all refer to Phaedo 113d, because it establishes that souls are using their vehicles in Hades' realm.

At In Tim. 3.235f, which seems to be the most significant passage, he reasons from this fact as follows: "Whether therefore, will a partial soul be better prior to the suspension of a vehicle from it, or worse? For if better, it will be more divine than total souls, to which the Demiurge gave vehicles. But if worse, how is it that the Demiurge immediately after it was generated caused it to ascend into a vehicle? For things that are perpetual do not begin from a preternatural, but from a natural condition of being."

I understand Proclus to be saying here that the soul is neither better, nor worse, for the suspension of a vehicle from it, because it is natural for it to have such a vehicle. So then what, my friend wondered, is Socrates talking about relinquishing when he speaks in the Phaedo about philosophy as training for death (67e)? Proclus says at IT 3.237 that "the summits of the irrational life … being extended and distributed into parts, make this life which is woven by the junior Gods, and which is mortal, because it is necessary that the soul should lay aside this distribution when, having obtained purification, it is restored to its pristine state of felicity."

The passage goes on for a bit. What I gathered from it is that while in Hades' realm, and on the Meadow where we shall choose our next life, we have a vehicle, and are thus in some sense a complete person, even with passions, because we see that these play into the choice we make, but what we have relinquished is essentially the factical disposition of parts, in favor of a perspective which is universal, in a sense, even if it is a passionate perspective. We give up what we couldn't possibly hold onto in any case, basically, namely being just *this* historically-situated person with *these* particular relations. The interesting part is that we remain ourselves even to the fallible affectations, which means that our work on ourselves has to continue even after we have left the body. The robustness of the soul's vehicle in Proclus allows for me to retain much more of "myself", even out of the body and released from my factical persona, than in accounts lacking this mediation between the corporeal and the incorporeal state.

My own comments here are relatively few; I've set them off with italics. Right now I'm working from a pdf, with uncertain pagination. I have a paperback on the way, and once I have it I will add page numbers to the passages quoted here. I've kept them in quotation marks, just as I posted them to Twitter, in order to avoid any confusion. I've also kept them in the condensed form which was necessary due to Twitter's character limit, just removing artificial breaks.

"In this book, the Great Spirit is seen as a foreign concept."

"Some of the beings the medicine man knows are Wakan Tanka (great spirits), while others are wakanpi (lesser spirits), but all are 'above mankind' and all 'govern' various aspects of life."

"Good Seat, born in 1827 … asserted that the Great Spirit was a missionary imposition: 'The white men have made [the Lakota] forget that which their fathers told them… In old times the Indians did not know of a Great Spirit… There is no Nagi Tanka [Great Spirit]'."

"Like Good Seat, White Hat believes that the 'Great Spirit' was either a missionary imposition or an oversimplification of Lakota belief offered by elders attempting to explain their spirituality to non-Indians."

"A trader … observed lively intellectual debates that he predictably condemned as anarchic: '[T]he Dakota, with all his infinity of deities appears a creature of irreligion. One speaks of the Medicine Dance with respect, while another smiles at the name'…"

Throughout in Price's reports of the accounts of early informants, we see the polycentricity which is typical of living polytheisms.

"Since there was no consensus of devotion to a single Wakan Tanka (God), adherents of competing spirits like the Wakinyan and Unktehi felt no obligation to pray to each other's several wakan tanka (great spirits)."

"In 'The Feast by Tate' the plural Wakan Tanka (Great Spirits), who include Wi (the Sun), Wakan Skan (the Sky), Han Wi (the Moon and wife of Wi), and Inyan (the Rock), 'made the world and all [the good things] in it', while Iktomi (the trickster) made the bad things and initiated strife by inducing the four winds to fight."

"But Iktomi does not just counterbalance good in Little Wound's account, he often overwhelms it. It is Little Wound's trickster who grants the theoretically greater spirits their virtues and then simultaneously inserts a weakness…"

"Though Little Wound contradicts his myth of how Iktomi made the spirits by stating that no one knows how they were made, Lakota storytellers emphasize a concept of creation that has more to do with finding methods of use than with origination per se."

This is akin to what I was thinking when I wondered if Omama, in the Yanomami myth, was "creating … the possibility of invoking the xapiri, rather than their existence in an absolute sense."

"The word wakan itself does not translate to 'holy' or to any attribute of a supreme deity but rather to a power that circulates everywhere and that is visibly concentrated in certain transient forms."

This seems to be true of many terms in Indigenous traditions that get taken as translations for the monotheist "God"—something that is a property of the Gods (or "spirits", if you must) is reified and placed over Them.

"In each trickster story, tellers and listeners went to war against Iktomi. When in the course of the story they finally counted coup on him, they augmented their wakan by taking the trickster's energy for themselves, much as a warrior seized an enemy's power…"

"In each story where he appears, Iktomi provides grist for the hero's growth, according to a cosmic pattern of potentiality."

The trickster keeps power circulating by continuously wagering it, whereas the monotheist God accumulates and retains it. In this respect, the trickster, when at a "high" position in the pantheon, secures polytheism and prevents monotheistic consolidation. I am reminded of Clastres' theory about Amazonian warfare as preventing the consolidation of the state.

"'The Iktomi stories, we tend to look at them as entertainment. But we asked one elderly man … He said the Iktomi stories, it's real because somebody fulfills that role throughout history … Those stories are told to prevent you from being caught in that role'."

Contrast this negative/agonistic source of goodness with the goodness imparted by the monotheist God to His "creation".

"Shooter added that each man and animal is 'an independent individuality' that must first 'rely on itself'."

The point here isn't reification of the individual, but rather the polycentric nature of the entire field.

"Scourging the trickster is a waste of time. Sooner or later he will take every person and every community by surprise. And no wonder, since at one time Iktomi was the virtual equivalent of God."

"Considering his changeable character, Iktomi is rarely an object of prayer for the people who granted interviews to 19th-century ethnographers, but for the Canadian Dakota who spoke to Wallis … 'There were other things to pray to, yet they must pray most of all to Spider'."

"Though one Canadian Dakota narrator made Iktomi into a supreme being, Ella Deloria remembered a children's rhyme that made the trickster inimical as a teacher and beatable as a foe."

These are not contradictory, we should say, but complementary.

"By himself [Falling Star] is no miracle worker nor is he monotheistically dependent on a single sponsor … He respects a multiplicity of powers outside himself, no matter how small each power may be."

"Only the accumulated powers of many spirits can give him and the people he personifies the ability to survive."

The intensity with which Good Seat rejects the "Great Spirit" notion is especially instructive, I think, because of the recognition it shows that this posit is neither beneficial, nor harmless, but is in itself an active forgetting, that something is lost through its presence.

"In the ceremonial descriptions … for The Sacred Pipe … Black Elk implied that Lakota spirituality would be enriched by blending it with Christianity … but the emphasis on multiple spirits in 'Falling Star' is more typically Lakota and virtually free of monotheism."

"In the universe Good Seat describes countless spirits pursued their own agendas … Some were so-called 'Great Spirits' or Wakan Tanka like the Thunders and the Sun. Others were animal spirits, while still others were the spirits of dead friends or enemies."

"Even though Black Elk believed he had actually seen Christ in one of his Ghost Dance visions, he says that abandoning the Thunder Beings was his 'great mistake'."

"Prayer with the pipe occurs at the center of the earth because an individual human being is the focal point of wakan energy. Devotion is not directed upward to a single source … Instead of depending on 'God', people must become their own creators."

I would argue that in many polytheisms the role of the "creator God" is properly understood in this intimate relationship to an individual spiritworker's cosmogonic work.

"In asserting that 'there is no Nagi Tanka [Great Spirit]' in the 'God' sense, Good Seat correctively reinstated a world of smaller spirits that required greater human assistance and cooperation."

"In the Lakota scheme the strongest 'god' is also the most dangerous and must be understood, respected, and channelled into goodness by his worshippers."

"When several mid-19th c. Dakota said that the 'Great Spirit' created everything except the Wakinyan (Thunders) and wild rice, their staff of life, they may have been appeasing their interviewers while playing it safe in regard to the fiercest and most intense form of spiritual being that Sioux tradition had conceived."

"Dakota ethnography, from the mid-19th c. to that of Wallis in the early 20th, suggests that the Stone, the Spider, the Unktehi, and other spirits had their competing devotees, but that the Thunders were more feared, respected, and invoked than any other power."

"The 'supreme being' among the Sioux often depends on the partiality of the speaker."

"The same narrator has the Thunderbird tell the man to call upon the 'stone in the center of the earth' … because that stone, not the chief of the Thunders, is 'leader of everything on the earth'…

"Another Canadian Dakota told Wallis that the trickster, Spider, 'was the head of everything on earth' … Some Dakota informants told Lynd … that Tunkan, the 'stone god', received most of their prayers with Wakinyan a close second…

"Some of Walker's informants directly contradicted the relative ages of the trickster and of stone cited by the Canadian Dakota: 'Inyan, the Rock, [is] the first in existence and the grandfather of all things. Inyan is older than Iktomi. He is entitled to the red paint [praise and worship]."

"Lynd … had a hard time consigning them to the kind of nature worship he was prepared to understand: 'What one believes another appears to deny; and though pantheism rears itself prominent above all, yet the skepticism of the one part seems to offset the earnest devotion of the others'."

"Though the Sioux found spirits in every living thing, their presence did not create the tranquil reveries of New Age contemplation. The aggregate 'divinity' was far from pantheistic, because it was composed of powerful beings at cross purposes, rather than a single creator with a deific plan."

"Eastman … wrote of the high honor accorded to the Unktehi and of their battles with the Thunderbirds. She learned that both were equally strong and that they competed for the worship of the most promising young men … 'Unk-ta-he', said one of the oldest men … 'is as powerful as the thunder-bird. Each wants to be the greatest god of the Dahcotahs, and they have had many battles."

"Spiritual rivalry within the tribe augmented and concentrated energy in the circle, much as did the competitive games previously discussed. Even stories about the battles between spirits generated vitality in ways that paeans to an omnipotent god could not."

"He says that while the Thunder Beings have the power to kill, the water has the power to heal because it is the source of the power in all the curative herbs that the medicine men use."

Polytheisms recognize that different Gods can be ultimate in different respects, that is, in accord with different ontologies.

"Sword had become a Christian by the time he worked with Walker … By mitigating polytheism … Sword helped Walker present a monotheism that admitted the Lakota to the circle of 'high cultures' as defined by theories of religious evolution still prevalent today."

"One of Deloria's informants commented, 'Hoh! He is making over the bible story', referring to Skan's fashioning of the human shape."

"Although the gods applaud Skan's proclamation, in the end Walker reduced them to the ranks of angels. He had noted that the younger generation incorrectly referred to Wakan Tanka as a single person and yet he himself asserted (and helped to create) a Lakota monotheism…"

"Bushotter describes occasional meetings of all persons possessed of supernatural power. The only qualification for membership was the individual's relationship to one of the takuskanskan, 'things' in perpetual motion… This pluralization of takuskanskan does not depersonalize the term, although Bushotter implies that takuskanskan may be composed of hundreds of spirits."

(This takuskanskan appears to be the source of Walker's supreme being, Skan.)

"The probable Crow equivalent of both wakan and takuskanskan was maxpe, an all suffusing cosmic energy … Many spirits may be its personified manifestations but no single spirit, no Great Maxpe is its source."

"Since Densmore indicates that she intuitively believed the Lakota to be monotheists, it is possible that she asked leading questions and then interpreted the translated responses to accord with her supportive intent. As a sympathetic investigator she may have wished to enhance respect for the men she had come to know by showing that their spirituality was as pure as that of her non-Indian readers, who presumably believed that the worship of a Supreme Being revealed a refined sensibility. In fact, much evidence in her book indicates the presence of Christian influence wherever monotheism is mentioned or implied. Still other evidence, however, suggests that even when her informants spoke prayerfully of Wakan Tanka, some of them thought of visionary experience and ceremonial practice as a personal relationship to an individual spirit or a distinct higher power, like the Thunder or the Sun, rather than to God. Wakan Tanka was actually a more amorphous term when used in prayer … some of Densmore's ritual descriptions and song texts in conjunction with several of Walker's interviews imply that Wakan Tanka was the most honorific way to address any of the great mysteries."

"One of the oldest holy men interviewed by Walker applied the term Wakan Tanka solely to events and relationships rather than to spirit persons or entities."

"Instead of referring to Wakan Tanka, Pond reports that Taku Wakan is the general term for all the 'gods' … 'Whatever, therefore, is above the comprehension of a Dakota is God. Consequently, he sees gods everywhere. Not Jehovah everywhere but Taku Wakan'." The Dakota are therefore beset by tens of thousands of 'divinities', some of which are more wakan than others. But no one of them is ever conceived as a Supreme Being, 'expressed by the term Great Spirit'. Pond asserts that this term and the monotheism it expresses '[have] been imparted to them by individuals of European extraction', and that the Great Spirit is never mentioned in prayers or ceremonies … 'When the Dakota appeal to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, in formal meetings with white men, they are either making respectful reference to the white man's God, or they are Christian converts…'. In the councils Pond observed, the interpreter often substituted the singular Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit) for the original speaker's Taku Wakan (sacred beings)."

"The need to insist that the Dakota had a word for God came as much from the centuries-old belief of some Christians in 'natural religion', as it does now from the universalizing eclecticism of the 'New Age'."

"Fire Thunder rightly resented Walker's invention of Lakota myth. Such well meaning Indianists as Frances Densmore, John Neihardt, and Joseph Epes Brown have similarly tried to help the Sioux by consolidating their spirits into Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit. These advocates consciously countered the 'devil worship' slur … by saying, 'No! The Sioux did not worship evil spirits. They worshipped the same God we do. They are just like us.' In retrospect, it is hard to say which attitude is more insulting."

"One of the most consistent convergences between those who condemned Indian religion and those who appeared to defend it occurs in Radin's elevation of the sophisticated many-in-one godhead of the 'priests' over the superstitious animism of the people."

One will note in many of the accounts of early missionaries and colonists reported by Price the reciprocal tactic of treating the Indigenous spiritworkers instead as shameless frauds, insofar as they establish contact with actual Gods/spirits. These strategies concerning polytheist priests and spiritworkers can be observed in missionary, colonialist, and academic discourses old and new around the world.

@true_concinnity: Growing up in South Dakota, the wide spread impression is that ancient Sioux religion was basically monotheistic. They've screwed up so much history it's...just baffling.

My guess is that the process described in this book ultimately begins on the east coast, with the Gitche Manitou or "Great Spirit" concept which I suspect was imposed in a similar fashion upon the Algonquin-speaking peoples, and then used as a template for peoples further west. The most depressing aspect of this is that as the concrete practices for engaging with actual Gods or spirits which Price describes largely from 19th c. sources decline, the reification of the class term for "God/spirit" into a singular God no longer has a counterweight. Once the technologies of these spiritworkers have lapsed, all that is left is an increasingly hollow and subjective pantheism, in comparison with which Christianity can actually appear richer, and perversely more "authentic".

From Michael D. McNally, “Religion as Peoplehood: Native American Religious Traditions and the Discourse of Indigenous Rights”, in Johnson & Kraft, eds. Handbook of Indigenous Religion(s) (Leiden: Brill, 2017).

“Think first of how early modern European authorities determined that New World savages had ‘no religion’ as a legal pretence for conquest and material dispossession by Christian sovereigns …The Doctrine of Christian Discovery was grafted into U.S. law in 1823 (Johnson v. McIntosh 1823) and cited against Indian land claims by the Supreme Court as recently as 2005 (City of Sherrill v. Oneida Nation 2005) … The effect was the criminalisation of such Native religious practices as the Sun Dance and the potlatch under administrative law within the U.S. Interior Department’s civilisation regulations. Then consider how the opposite has been true as well. By the 1960s, Native Americans were seen not to ‘lack religion’ but to be ‘all spirituality all the time’. For Indians nothing was profane, everything was sacred, and while this romantic view made Native American spirituality into a national treasure, it served to dull the edges of Native claims to protected religious freedom.” (McNally, 57)

“Three of the cases by which the Supreme Court in the 1980s gutted religious freedom protections for religious minorities generally were cases involving Indian claims and in their efforts to narrow the scope of the legal question of religious free exercise, the majority opinions of each embed a habitual misrecognition of the accepted facts of the claims as insufficiently ‘religious’ (Bowen v. Roy 1986; Lyng v. n.w. Indian Cemetery Prot. Association 1988; Employment Division. v. Smith 1990) … There is … a habitual misrecognition of the claims rooted in the … American romance with the notion that Native Americans are naturally spiritual … Consider a 2008 case where an appellate court upheld the government’s approval of a scheme to make artificial snow with treated sewage effluent from a nearby city for skiing on Arizona’s highest mountain, a massif called San Francisco Peaks in English. The Navajo call it ‘Shining on Top’ and consider it a living being who is one of the holy mountains that demarcate the Navajo world, an object of daily prayer and source of medicine and power necessary for all Navajo ceremonies (Navajo Nation v. u.s.f.s. 2008) … While the court recognised all the detailed factual findings about the indigenous claims to the sacred mountain as sincere and in force, it found as a matter of law that religious exercise was not ‘substantially burdened’ by the treated sewage effluent … The court found that the ‘sole effect of the artificial snow’ is on the Native Americans’ ‘subjective spiritual experience’, amounting merely to diminished spiritual fulfillment: … ‘a government action that decreases the spirituality, the fervor, or the satisfaction with which a believer practises his religion is not what Congress has labelled a “substantial burden” … on the free exercise of religion.’ … Here, recognised claims by tribal governments to collective duties and religious obligations were denatured into the claims to subjective spiritual fulfillment that characterise romanticised misconceptions of Native American religiosity.” (Ibid., 58f)

“Reduction of religious claims to those of culture, or cultural ecology, or economy, can dull the edges of certain indigenous concerns that are, for lack of a better term, irreducibly sacred, sacrosanct, urgent, or ultimate, and in the doing lower the barrier to violation of those rights through the logic of the articles [viz., of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] qualifying such indigenous rights as derogable, capable of being suspended under a variety of prevailing concerns of national security or interest defined by states.” (Ibid., 75)

This is a prime example of the concrete damage which is done by conceptualizing religious activity as a subjective experience, or as a mere practice, rather than as an objective relationship to certain concrete others, the transcendent existence of which allows Them to be the bearers of properties beyond what can be assigned to the natural object itself. This is the explicit danger posed by popular conceptualizations of this religious activity as non-theistic, exclusively ‘immanent’ rather than ‘transcendent’, and purely ‘orthopractic’.

From David S. Walsh, “Spiritual, Not Religious; Dene, Not Indigenous: Tłįchǫ Dene Discourses of Religion and Indigeneity” (Ibid.)

“The first academics and missionaries among the Dene mirrored this contemporary denial of Dene religiosity … From 1862 to 1882 Father Émile Petitot was the first missionary to travel throughout Tłįchǫ and neighbouring Dene areas … Petitot employed a number of strategies to deny Dene religion: he stated Dene had no religion, stated they had only superstitions, and stated that what could be perceived as religious practices were empty gestures and what resembled religious statements were illusions and hallucinations … On other occasions Petitot suggested Dene traditions were partial remnants of a forgotten and deteriorated religion … At one instance Petitot explains a totemic system stating that environmental beings ‘come alive for them and become superior beings, talk to them, reveal supposed mysteries of another world… [the animal becomes] his protector, his guiding genie, his god’ … Yet he states … ‘These people have absolutely no knowledge of religion nor any desire to know it’ and quotes a Chipewyan Dene elder as stating, “I assure you that before the coming of the French priests, we did not know any deity’.” (Walsh, 208)

It would not be too difficult to find suitably refined forms of Petitot's strategies even among today's scholars, applied to Indigenous traditions around the world, ancient and modern alike.

“I find a cognate to religion within the Dene relational concept of dò nàowoò, yet the concept is radically different from Western conceptions of religion. Dene themselves do not articulate dò nàowoò as religion when shifting to public discussions of a spiritual relationship with the environment and they do not perceive their traditions in religious terminology … When I first began fieldwork I would get confused looks when telling potential consultants that I was studying Dene religion. Typically their response was to tell me about Catholicism. I began saying instead I was studying traditional spirituality but that also led to confusion.” (Ibid., 216 & n.)

This raises the question of whose problem it is, as it were, that the Indigenous concept is “radically different from Western conceptions of religion”. The Dene were taught that their religion was not one, that Catholicism was a proper religion, and they continue to honor the rules of this language game, riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies as it always was. As such, it is the purest bad faith to act as though one has discovered that their ‘spirituality’ does not constitute a ‘religion’, because it does not meet criteria which are incoherent and inconsistently applied, or because it is not designated as such by the very people who were forcefully taught not to do so.

Some Comments on "Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Equivocation" by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (https://www.academia.edu/49762936/Perspectival_anthropology_and_the_method_of_controlled_equivocation)

Expanding the scope of "transpecific personhood" to apply as well to Gods, who ground conceptual universes in and among Themselves, establishes a ground of personhood underneath the impersonal, translatable Ideas of the "monocultural" space. This impersonal space, as opposed to the personal topoi or places embodied by pantheons, the "worlds" of VdC's "multinaturalism", is akin to the liminal theoretical space "between" pantheons in which I have argued that Proclus' Elements of Theology, and the potential polytheistic philosophy of religion founded on it, is located. The Elements, as such, can be seen as a sort of speculative statement of VdC's proposed anthropological method.

"The aim of perspectivist translation …is not that of finding a 'synonym' (a co-referential representation) … Rather, the aim is to avoid losing sight of the difference concealed within equivocal 'homonyms'…". The remarks about translation and equivocation in this essay demonstrate the importance of a critique of the unlimited and univocal translatability presumed by Jan Assmann's conception of a universal "cosmotheism" and its pantheistic erasure of polytheism(s).

"perspectivism supposes a constant epistemology and variable ontologies"—This is what I mean when I say that Platonism is not itself an ontology, but rather a method for the analysis of ontologies; one could just as well say that Platonism is an epistemology, rather than an ontology.

"Two partners in any relation are defined as connected in so far as they can be conceived to have something in common, that is, as being in the same relation to a third term … The Amazonian model of the relation could not be more different … since Amazonian ontologies postulate difference rather than identity as the principle of relationality." Compare these remarks to Proclus' analysis of relations among henads, as I have discussed often (e.g., Dionysius 23 (2005)). The relation between two henads is not a third thing, aRb, but rather the power of b in a, on the one hand, and the power of a in b, on the other, which are productive of R on a lower ontological plane. Henadology is thus the expression of the fundamentally perspectival nature of being.

"The opposite of difference is not identity but indifference". Compare this with the issue of conflict between Gods, as I and some interlocutors were discussing recently (gathered here: https://endymions-bower.dreamwidth.org/59662.html). The conflict between Gods has as its opposite, not Their affinity, but rather the lack of engagement between Gods who do not feature in any myths together.

Notes on "The Crystal Forest: Notes on the Ontology of Amazonian Spirits" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/23614989)

I think that the concept of "background molecular humanity" in this discourse is better understood as a fundamental, non-specific personhood.

"This pre-cosmos, very far from displaying any 'indifferentiation' or originary identification between humans and nonhumans … is pervaded by an infinite difference … internal to each persona or agent, in contrast to the finite and external differences constituting the species and qualities of our contemporary world."

This distinction between the "infinite" difference of each agent and the "finite" difference among class-properties of every sort is particularly amenable to being formulated in henadological Platonic terms, where the unique is precisely the infinitely different, infinitely othering itself from what would determine it, which is precisely the source of its productivity or creativity. This is why Gods are creators, because They are unique.

"the originary transparency or infinite complicatio where everything seeps into everything else bifurcates or explicates itself … into a relative invisibility (human souls and animal spirits) and a relative opacity (the human body and the somatic animal 'clothing')…" We can see this as the Platonic procession from the all-in-each of the henads to the dialectical opposition of "form" and "matter".

"each mythic being differs infinitely from itself, given that it is posited by mythic discourse only to be substituted, that is, transformed". That is, each henad, as an absolute agency and absolutely unique individual, is capable of any eidetic variation in principle.

"It is this self-difference which defines a spirit, and which makes all mythic beings into spirits too." For "spirits" here, one could simply read henads. "Self-difference" is not normally how we would expect to speak of henads, but from the perspective of ontology it makes sense, because of Their radical freedom relative to ontic identity.

"The supposed indifferentiation between mythic subjects is a function of their radical irreducibility to fixed essences or identities, whether these are generic, specific, or individual." The individuality rejected here is not of the sort which pertains to the proper name, which is a "who-ness" unconstrained by any "what-ness".

"where transformation is anterior to form, relation is superior to terms"—Transformation is anterior to form in that form is produced in the first place through the henadic activity presented to us through mythic narrative; this is "transformation". "Relation is superior to terms" not in the sense of ontic relations, which are precisely constitutive of the "fixed essences or identities" to which he has just said that mythic subjects are radically irreducible. Rather, the relations in question have to be the unique relations of unique agents, which is all that we see in myths.

"The generic notion of 'invisible nonhumans' would seem to unify adequately enough the internal diversity of this 'category'; yet the problem remains that these nonhumans possess fundamental human determinations, whether at the level of their basic corporeal form, or at the level of their intentional and agentive capacities." That is to say, they are "persons", designated as "who" and not "what" (at least, not in any way that determines Them rather than being determined by Them, by their activity and agency).

"By the same token, what defines an 'image' is its eminent visibility: an image is something-to-be-seen, it is the necessary objective correlative of a gaze, an exteriority which posits itself as the target of an intentionally aimed look; but the xapiripë are interior images, inaccessible to the empirical exercise of vision. Hence, they must be the object of a superior or transcendental exercise of this faculty: images that are as the condition of the species of which they are the image."

Clearly this is not "image" in any derivative sense, but much more like the Greek eidos or even better, symbolon or sunthēma. Every such entity has a series of participants which it "illuminates".

"non-representational images, 'representatives' that are not representations … the xapiripë do not look like animals, but in the mytho-shamanic context, animals do look like them," i.e., are their intellective emissaries or angeloi.

"less an object than an event"—cp. Trouillard's unfortunate characterization of henads as "events of participation" in the One.

"Aside from their dazzling luminosity, the xapiripë, as percepts, display two other determining features, tiny-ness and innumerability"—both of which correspond to Thales' "all things are full of Gods".

"superabundance of being: 'when I was younger, I used to ask myself whether the xapiripë could die like humans. But

today I know that, though tiny, they are powerful and immortal'." This eliminates one of the typical reasons why people deny that the term "Gods" should be used of some class of entities, namely that they are not immortal or insufficiently powerful.

"Ontological exponentiation"—cp. hyperousios, "supra-essential", as said of the henads or Gods.

A thread from Twitter:

@selgowiros: What are your ideas on this supposed 'rivalry' between Athena and Poseidon? People often cite Ovid (which is awful), but also the founding of Athens.

Ovid, as usual, anthropomorphizes it, but the motif has deep roots. In my view, we need to understand it, in part, against the background of the transition in Greece at the end of the Bronze Age from absolute monarchies to law-governed polities.

Poseidon was not always, or originally, a God of the sea, but seems rather to have had strong associations with sovereignty early on. This is reflected in his importance in the Linear B tablets.

When the Mycenaean royal houses are upended, we often see the old palace site occupied by a temple of Athena, which symbolizes the new order, in which the relatively transparent institutions of the polis take the place of an older model of sovereignty.

This helps us to grasp Poseidon better—for example, His association with the Winter Solstice festivities. For Platonists, He is the sovereign of the psyche, demiurge of the world of process, presiding over the waters of flux and over horses as symbols of the soul vehicle.

Once we see that Poseidon is operating a model of sovereignty, obscured for us by the somewhat artificial construct of Him as "God of the Sea", it becomes a lot more understandable why Athena needs to keep negotiating their boundaries (e.g., the bridle, the ship…)

@chelydoreus: The worship of Poseidon was robust in Athens and Piraeus, sometimes even side-by-side (during the Skira, for example as well as on the Acropolis itself). The antagonism between the two Gods is almost entirely mythic; the practiced religion doesn't really show much of it.

While on a symbolic level it was a beloved theme (even on a Parthenon pediment!), people seemed to be keenly aware it wasn't literal. They would never worship truly opposing Gods so close or together; it would be deemed too hubristic and troublesome.

I'd add that the lack of the antagonism is also reflected on a more practical level on Athens' naval supremacy: the "loser" of the contest still showers the city with his greatest favor? Not exactly logical.

Furthermore, despite Poseidon's "loss" and the change in polis dynamics, he still remained a powerful figure and force behind Athens just in a different way. Just like the roles of the anax and basileus shifted towards more religious and cultural roles but remained significant.

Exactly! What's really happening is that an extra layer of structure is being added. The old institutions of sovereignty are still there, but they have a more strictly cultic significance, as new political institutions, under the purview of Zeus and Athena, come into play.

Polytheisms in general tend not to wipe out older structures with new; instead, the new structures create a scaffolding around them and preserve what are seen as the crucial elements.

This is a crucial point: conflict between Gods in myths is very often a strong indication of deep bonds between Their cults. One can't stress this enough: conflict is *engagement*.

If two Gods were actually antagonistic in some anthropomorphic way (which is an incoherent idea in any event), the last thing you'd see would be Them in a myth together. The *fact* of that mythic relationship is vastly more significant than the *tone* of it.

@chelydoreus: *This*. People anthropomorphize the myths too much. Conflict, however negative from a human POV, is generative and engaging for the Gods (cf. the abduction of Persephone, the rape of Demeter, the attempted rape of Athena etc).

For a God to even be *mentioned* in another God's myth is literally everything. It means They have a bond. That's huge.

Interesting that Arthavaveda 13,4, which appears on its face to be a hymn praising Indra as encompassing all the Devas (see esp. 46-7), in effect a vishvarupa of Indra, is apparently universally treated by Western scholars as a hymn to the Sun. Seems ideological to me?

"Pagan solar monotheism" has been a popular theoretical construct since the late 19th century. The real issue, though, it seems to me, is a defense against the recognition of polycentricity.

There is a historical narrative, too, which prefers not to acknowledge what seem like manifestations of bhakti in the Vedic era, attributing it rather to the development of "sectarianism".

Very similar Egyptian hymns (including, e.g., the acclamation of the deity as "one"—unique) used to be treated as evidence of a monotheistic "tendency", but this was recognized at a certain point as simply wrong (on which see esp. Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt).

When multiple different Gods can be acclaimed in this way, there are two ways we can treat it: either that these Gods are all just meant as "names" or "aspects" of some One (monotheism), or that the hymns really say what they mean (polycentric polytheism).

It seems strange to me to claim that someone who writes a hymn of extravagant praise to some God, must have intended not to praise *that* God, but some Other.

Even if the hymn in question is about the Sun, or about Brahman, this would not affect the point about how it relates to other expressions of devotion to different objects, all of which ought, I think, to be taken at face value as a baseline.

To return to the hymn itself, note how Whitney smuggles in "as" in line 2. Otherwise, we would I think read Indra here in light of the strong reference to Him at 46-7, which Whitney finds "surprising": https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Atharva-Veda_Samhita/Book_XIII/Hymn_4

12f: "He himself [Indra] is one, single (ekavṛ́t), one only. These Gods in Him become single" expresses the logic, namely that all Gods are in *each* one, so that we will find nothing strange about similar praises being directed to any number of others. (Compare Plotinus’ statement that “each God is all the Gods coming together into one,” (Enn. V.8.9.17).)

The series of lines 29-39 is also very significant, in that it shows the constant shifting of perspective which is possible, moving a God from "center" to "periphery" and back again. This, again, expresses a logic basic to polycentric polytheism.

Hence in Egyptian hymns, we often find Gods recapitulating, so to speak, their own mythic genesis, so that Amun is, for example, kA mwt.f, "bull of His mother," i.e., begetting Himself, or Mut is "the mother who became a daughter".

To shift focus again, we find this given theoretical expression in Proclus' explanation that among the Gods, for Apollo, e.g., to be son of Zeus does not make Zeus prior to Apollo in the absolute sense.

The fundamental theological insight, which I think was reached in many polytheistic civilizations and by humble devotees as well as great theoreticians, is that a God has Their highest salvific potency in Their uniqueness, in Their sheer personhood.

This is why the devotee who worships the God simply for *who* They are achieves a state beyond the devotee who worships Them for *what* They are, i.e., for some particular boon which They bestow.

Furthermore, an individual is absolutely, rather than only relatively unique, if there is nothing fundamentally other than Them, outside or beyond Them. This is why vishvarupa (and similar experiences in other traditions) is essential to devotion, linking uniqueness and totality.

While I will sometimes join in when people say in jest that everything Plato says is correct, and spend a good deal of time correcting unfair or simply incorrect criticisms of Plato/Platonism, let me say in earnest that Timaeus 90e-92c is terrible.

For me, the most fruitful approach to such a passage is to think through its unintended or indirect consequences. Hence in this passage my attention is drawn to the antecedent "humanity" invoked here, which is neither male nor female, nor in opposition to any other animal.

Correlatively, there are two "humanities", one which is indeterminate, and functions as a sort of regulative ideal within the open field of animality, in which souls change taxonomic species promiscuously, and another, which is taxonomically determinate in a field of oppositions.

Factical "humanity" in this account comes with winners and losers, such that it is an objective misfortune not to be in a body that is taxonomically human and male. And Plato wishes to frame this misfortune as a product of passions in the individual soul.

I think that this must be recognized as the virtually inevitable imaginary corresponding to such a social order. Where Platonism offers an advantage over other philosophical ideologies expressing similar formations, is in its ability to bracket such formations as well.

Only Platonism permits us to effectively bracket ontologies, to bracket ontology itself, because it is not itself an ontology. Hence the explanations offered for why an animal chooses this or that body are less primordial than the agency of choice in that individual.

What we say, therefore, about why some animal has chosen their form is ultimately inseparable from the life-pattern we ourselves have chosen, the investment of desire we have made.

Similarly to how the account of demiurgy in the Timaeus underdetermines any actual, theological account, therefore, the account of the genesis of species and gender-forms overdetermines the real conditions of their genesis.

@Sodoplatonist: Well, that's one way to avoid the conspiracy. [Ref. is to his essay "The Conspiracy of the Good: Proclus' Theodicy qua Political Theological Paradigm"]

Of course, I don't believe that it is *bad* to be something other than taxonomically human, any more than I believe it is bad to be other than male. So I don't buy the "conspiracy" reading. Instead, I think that we need to recognize two positions in Plato.

@Sodoplatonist: Sure, and Proclus himself paints himself into a corner by rejecting any alternative accounts of evil (the disordered motion, evil world soul, matter itself, what have you). I don't think it's in Plato. I have difficulty attributing anything to Plato.

@kayeboesme: When I was reading the Timaeus (and what Proclus had written about it), I was thinking about this in terms of the desirability of having the sweet spot of control over one's circumstances; women have historically had to do a lot of thankless work while being treated like property of their fathers, husbands, and (if they outlive the husband) sons or closest male relatives. Unless one is able to incarnate into a family that allows one high degrees of freedom, it sets a hard limit based on legal and social circumstances. Is that a weird reading to take?

This is the "misfortune" of which I spoke. The idealized masculine human subject looks at the female or non-human animal and asks, "Why would anyone choose that?"

@kayeboesme: Yes, but on another level, it's conflating the idealized masculine human subject with what is actually ideal about it, as it isn't something that would matter so much in an egalitarian society (which would likely still prioritize humans), right?

An egalitarian society would still prioritize humans, but would, if enlightened, express this in different, more formal terms than Plato does here. It's not unlike the discussions we've had about reading the Timaeus without fixing it to a given solar system.

It's a similar issue, albeit less charged (for most!), in that there are aspects of the text which point to a formal/relative conception, and others which fix its reference to a single solar system and a single position within it.

This dialectic, so to speak, is also there regarding the demiurge himself, who "even if we discovered him, to speak of him to all men is impossible" (28c). This is, as I have argued, not apophatic theology, but simply expresses the conditions of formalizing the henadic manifold.

@kayeboesme: Ah, so you’re referring to the break between the experience of "we" and any possible communication to "all men" (which seems to indicate a universal)?

Yes, that cosmic demiurgy is not expressible as an ordinary universal, or at least not fully, because it is entangled with a given soul's divine participations. We can't simply see actual theophanic cosmogonies as declensions of a single, ontologically prior account.

NOTE: For further discussion of the issues raised here, see in particular my essay "Animal and Paradigm in Plato," Epoché 18.2 (2014), pp. 311-323, reprinted in my Essays on Plato.

So-called "trickster" Gods are definitely Gods, and anyone who would claim to be a Platonist and denies that They are, isn't doing it right.

When something happens by accident, it shows that formal causality underdetermines being. In us, this is a matter of deficiency; but in a God, of surplus causality.

The God who creates by accident expresses Their transcendence relative to intentional creation; the God who subverts or transgresses demonstrates transcendence over the rule-governed cosmos, which is necessary in order to have the power to institute new rules.

Where a "trickster" God creates the cosmos, or establishes crucial elements of it, the question as to whether that God is "good" seems vacuous, regardless of how They are said to do it. It is good that there is something rather than nothing.

Theologies that privilege the "trickster", positioning such Gods as demiurges, that is, as chiefly responsible for the cosmic organization, are very important, precisely because of the seam they illuminate between intellective order and that which is prior.

We see this especially where the Gods in question have the forms of non-human animals, subverting anthropocentricity. This is not some something opposed to the Platonic project; rather, it is the very essence of it.

This is why I have said at various times that we must regard the concepts of Platonism as semantically "thin", or even empty, because they cannot be allowed to obscure the theologies (that is, the theophanies).

To the degree that they are philosophical concepts, rather than theological symbols, they are pure relations anyway, syntactical determiners. Platonism is about patterns, relations, ultimately, not substance.

Nothing can be allowed to restrict the ability to shift the center. This is the point of the concept of "polycentricity", and of henadology.

We have to be able to think this God at the center, with everything falling into position accordingly, the meaning and value that flows from it, and now shift that perspective to the periphery and center a different one. This is the demand placed upon the philosopher.

(It is *not*, please note, a demand placed upon any particular worshiper. Nobody has to worship any Gods other than their own. What constitutes appropriate "peripheral regard" with respect to deities not one's own is a separate issue.)

These notes on how Proclus' tradition interprets the Parmenides might be useful for students.

First, on the interpretation of the narrative transmission and the characters of the dialogue, from Florin George Călian "'Clarifications' of Obscurity: Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading of Plato’s Parmenides":

Allegorization of the narrative transmission. Proclus interprets the various stages in the transmission of the original conversation as the progression of the forms into matter, as a chain of ontological Ievels: Cephalus's audience represents the primordial material (hypodoche) in which the Demiurge, according to the Timaeus, impresses the forms; Antiphon's speech to Cephalus represents the progression of the forms into physikai ousiai; Pythodorus's description of the conversation to Antiphon stands for the progression of the forms into souls (Antiphon's interest in horses is related to the image of the soul in Plato's Phaedrus); the conversation itself stands for the Nous and the intelligible world of the forms.

Allegorization of the characters. According to Proclus, Parmenides is an analogon for the unparticipated and divine lntellect; Zeno is an analogon for the participated lntellect; and Socrates represents the particular intellect. Proclus discovers other kinds of analogia as well: Parmenides is the symbol of Being, Zeno that of Life, Secrates that of lntellect, Pythodorus stands for the angels, Aristoteles for individual souls (the fact that he becomes one of the thirty tyrants signifies the keenness of the souls to descend into the tyranny of the passions), Pythodorus for the "divine Soul" (he uncovers the intelligible world and receives Iogoi from it), Antiphon for the "demonic soul" (his association with horsemanship hints that he desires to rule the physical world), Cephalus for the "individual soul."

On the discussion between Socrates and Parmenides.

For Proclus, the problems reveal properties of form as such, and of the levels of forms: "Let us now deduce from all these problems [130e-134c] the nature of the primal Idea. From the first [130e–131e] we may gather that it is incorporeal; for if it were a body, it would not be possible to participate in it either as a whole or in a part of it. From the second [132a–b], that it is not coordinate with its participants; for if it were coordinate, it would have some property in common with them, because we would have to postulate another Idea prior to it. From the third problem [132b–c] we gather that it is not a thought [noēma] of Being [ousia], but itself Being [ousia] and existent [on], in order that that which participates in it may not be necessarily participant in knowledge. From the fourth [132d–133a] we gather that it is exclusively a model and not also an image, as is the case with the reason-principle [logos] at the level of Soul, lest its having some similarity to that which derives from it may involve the introduction of another Idea prior to it. For the reason-principle in Soul is a Being also, but it is not a model only, but also an image--for the Soul is not Being only, but also Becoming. From the fifth [133a–134c], we gather that it is not intelligible to us immediately, but only through its images, for the faculty of knowledge in us is not on the right level to grasp it. From the sixth [134c-134e], that it intelligizes what proceeds from it not coordinately but causally; for in intelligizing itself it knows itself as a paradigm, and what proceeds from it in a secondary way, and by knowing itself as their cause." (In Parm. 934)

Further, from In Parm. 969-70: [F]or the primal Forms are the intelligible ones, and secondary are those which are intelligible on the one hand, but in the intellectual, and the third are those which are cohesive of all things, and fourth are those which bring to completion all intellectual and supracosmic realities, and after these again are the intellectual forms, such as have this characteristic in its proper form; the sixth rank is taken up by the assimilative forms, through which all the secondaries are made like to the intellectual forms, while the seventh rank is taken up by the transcendent and supracelestial forms which have a unifying force in respect of those forms which are divided about the cosmos, and the last rank is held by the forms in the cosmos; and of these some are at the level of intellect, some at the level of soul, others at the level of nature, others at the level of sense-perception, and of these latter some are immaterial and others are material. It is down as far as these that the procession of the forms descends from the intelligible Forms on high, making their first appearance at the limit of intelligible beings, and having their final manifestation at the limit of the sense-world. Indeed, from all the levels of forms there necessarily descends some particular characteristic to all the lower forms which proceed from them, down to the lowest of the forms in the sense-world—as, for instance, from the intelligible forms the characteristic of unchangeability, for they are primally eternal; from the primal level of intelligible-intellectual forms each bears a token, not susceptible to knowledge, of its own paradigms, according as each has been allotted one or other divine characteristic; from the middle rank the characteristic of each being a whole and holding together with its wholeness the multiplicity of its parts; from the third rank the characteristic that each form is perfective of that which previously existed only potentially; from those which are in the realm of the intellectual the characteristic of being distinguished according to all the variety of numbers, and of separating the things that participate in them; from those among the supra-cosmic the characteristic of each being assimilated to their own paradigms; from those which are simultaneously above the cosmos and in the cosmos the characteristic of each being such as to collect all those things which are in a pluralised state into the aggregates proper to each; and from those in the cosmos the characteristic of being unseparated from the nature dependent upon them and the characteristic of, with this nature, bringing to completion the generation of composite entities, From each level of forms, then, there should come some characteristic to the forms in the sense-realm, these being the ultimate limits of the chain of forms.

Next, on the Hypotheses discussed by Parmenides and Aristoteles. The first quotes are how the hypothesis is introduced in the text, the following quotes some useful remarks from Proclus' commentary.

First Hypothesis, 137c–142a, “If it is one.” “Signifies an autonomous divine henad” (Proclus, IP 1062). “The One God, how he generates and gives order to all the orders of Gods,” (1064).

Second Hypothesis, 142b–155e, “So there would also be the being of the one, and that is not the same as the one.” The ontic hypostases (i.e. Intellect, from which the hypostases are constituted in reflection). “Each of these divine orders … have been expressed by philosophic names, not by such names as are customarily celebrated by those who compose theogonies, but which do not reveal their essences, such as are the epithets of the divine classes given out by the Gods,” (1062). “A multiplicity of autonomous henads, on which are dependent the entities about which the Second Hypothesis teaches us,” (ibid.). “The whole of divinized being … be it intelligible, intellectual or psychic,” (1063). “All the divine orders, how they have proceeded from the One and the substance which is joined to each,” (1064).

Third Hypothesis, 155e-157b, “Let’s speak of it yet a third time. If the one is as we have described it – being both one and many and neither one nor many, and partaking of time – must it not, because it is one, sometimes partake of being, and in turn because it is not, sometimes not partake of being?” Includes discussion of the instant or moment (exaiphnēs, 156d). Ontic soul. “Not about all Soul pure and simple, but such as has proceeded forth from the divine Soul; for the whole divine Soul is comprised in the Second Hypothesis,” (1063). “The souls which are assimilated to the Gods, but yet have not been apportioned divinized being,” (1064).

Fourth Hypothesis, 157b–159b, “What would be proper for the others to undergo, if one is… what properties things other than the one must have, if one is.” Form in matter, pathēmata. “The Forms-in-Matter have existence of a sort (for these in some way participate in the One Being),” (1060). “Forms-in-Matter, how they are produced according to what rankings from the Gods,” (1064).

Fifth Hypothesis, 159b–160b, “what properties things other than the one must have, if one is… Must not the one be separate from the others, and the others separate from the one?” Matter, which “although not participating in the One Being in so far as it is Being, yet it does so in so far as it is One,” (1060). “Matter, how it has no participation in the formative henads, but receives its share of existence from above, from the supra-essential and single monad,” (1064).

“It is reasonable that the first three, which ask what relation the One has to itself and to others, should concern the three transcendent ruling principles, while the last two [of the positive hypotheses], which ask what relation the Others have to each other and to the One, introduce immanent Form and Matter; for these are truly ‘other’ and belong to others rather than to themselves, and are contributory causes rather than true causes [Phaedo 98bff.],” (1059).

The final four negative hypotheses are counterfactual.

Sixth Hypothesis, 160b–163b, “if the one is not”. Sensation alone. Matches the Second.

Seventh Hypothesis, 163b–164b, “if one is not, what the consequences must be for it.” “Every mode of knowledge and object of knowledge is abolished,” (1059). Matches the Third.

Eighth Hypothesis, 164b–165e, “what properties the others must have, if one is not.” “The others are in the state of dreams and shadows,” (1059). Matches the Fourth.

Ninth Hypothesis, 165e–166c, “if one is not, but things other than the one are.” "The Others will not even attain to a dreamlike substantiality,” (1060). Matches the Fifth.

A friend asks:

I am reading the Iliad for seminar at the moment. At the beginning of Book 8 (although not only there) Zeus gives a speech to the other gods about how his power far outstrips any of theirs, even taken all together. One gets the sense that this quantitative comparison indicates a qualitative difference between Zeus and the other gods. Assuming there is a Platonist take on this matter, what is it?

We can apply to such passages the logic which Proclus uses with respect to the demiurge's address at Timaeus 41a. Hence Proclus explains at IT 3, 198-9 that the purpose of the demiurge's words is

to render the Gods by whom they are received, demiurgic … since he who now delivers the words is the demiurge, the words proceed characterized by demiurgic power conformably to the peculiarity of the speaker, and render the recipients of them demiurgi … Each [God] participates of demiurgic power, so far as all of them are co-arranged with the demiurgic monad; of vivific power, so far as they are illuminated by the vivific source; and in a similar manner, in the other powers. If, however, the speaker was a vivific God, we should say that he filled his auditors through his words with divine life. But since he who delivers the speech is the demiurge, he imparts to the Gods the demiurgic peculiarity, disseminates his one fabrication into the multitude of mundane Gods, and renders them fabricators of other mortal genera. (Trans. T. Taylor, mod.)

For Proclus, it is not that there is something qualitatively different about Zeus, but rather that he is in the demiurgic position, and insofar as the other Olympians lend themselves to his demiurgic project, their powers become his power. Indeed, Proclus speaks often of the "golden chain" Zeus mentions at Iliad 8.19, seira or "chain" being also a technical term for him referring to a "series" of the pros hen kind. At IT 1, 314 Proclus identifies the chain from Iliad 8.19 with the "golden chain" with which Nyx tells Zeus to bind the cosmos in Orphic frag. 122/166, which suggests a longer history of esoteric exegesis of the Homeric passage in Orphic circles.

At a couple of points in Proclus' discussion of the demiurge's address he makes reference to moments from the Iliad in which Zeus addresses the assembled Olympians (IT 3, 201 (ref. to Iliad 20.4); IT 3, 227 (ref. Iliad 20.24)). At IT 1, 315f, Proclus comments in general on the role of such addresses by Zeus, as part of his argument that the demiurge of the Timaeus is to be identified with Zeus:

If, likewise, he [Plato] represents the demiurge giving a speech [at Tim. 41a], this too is in reality of the nature of Zeus. For in the Minos (319c) he on this account calls him a sophist, as filling the Gods posterior to him with all-various logoi. This also the divine poet [Homer] manifests, who represents him thus speaking from the summit of Olympus: "Hear, all ye Gods and Goddesses, my words" (Iliad 8.3), and converting the twofold coordinations to himself. (Trans. Taylor, mod.)

So addresses like this, by their very nature, symbolize for Proclus an intellective alignment of the powers of the Gods addressed, organizing them into the "chain" of Zeus's idea of the cosmic order. This should give you some sense of how the Platonists would go about reading such a passage.

We always go back to Thales in our narratives of the history of philosophy; and indeed, if we get off on the right foot understanding him, we are much less likely to be led astray as we proceed. When he says that everything is water, I would argue that this cannot be a reductionist principle, because he also says that all things are full of Gods. Moreover, his mathematizing trajectory does not coexist comfortably with his watery reduction unless the point of the latter is simply to express the possibility of a smooth space—I always think of Virilio in this respect, who had this one interesting idea—essentially, the space of geometrical diagrammatization, amidst and among the diversity of beings and of ways of being, just as the Nūn imposes *cyclically* a state of non-differentiation until the diversity of things reaffirms itself through Atum, Shu and Tefnut, and their children.

The exchange between Pratardana and Indra in the Kaushitaki Upanishad has some pure henadological elements to it. Pratardana attempts to defer his own choice of a boon to Indra’s own choice, that is, he attempts to default to the cosmic good, as embodied in Indra’s will. But Indra forces him to recognize this choice of universality as itself still an existential choice of Pratardana’s own: “No one who chooses, chooses for another.” (This is similar to the statement in the Myth of Er about the independence of the Gods from the mortal’s choice of life.)

Pratardana accedes, insofar as he acknowledges that he is choosing, not the universal, but Indra Himself, and the universal only as inhering in Indra. This in turn opens him to Indra’s trancendant truth value: “Indra did not swerve from the truth, for Indra is truth.” Indra expresses the truth of this very proposition, when he then states, “Know me only.”

Indra then proceeds to draw a series of highly antinomian consequences from his supra-essential status in this respect, a virtual counter-intelligibility. The introduction of the prana doctrine thereafter has the character of building the world back up from elementary constituents. Indra’s role in this section seems mainly to be maieutic; he keeps Pratardana from moving too quickly, e.g., not to jump to the unity of objects over pranas before the hierarchical disposition of pranas has been properly accounted. In particular, the prana of consciousness as such is seen thus to assert itself over objectivity, because all objectivity is present to consciousness.

When the manifold of Gods comes back into the picture (“from the pranas the Gods, from the Gods the worlds”), they are as posited within subjectivity, comprehensively mediated. This bold self-positioning of Indra relative to the rest of the Gods is foreshadowed by “Let man worship it [the prana of consciousness] alone as uktha,” which founds the cultic facticity in the living consciousness of worship, subjectivized in a certain sense. The reward is the consequent idealization of the self, henceforth immortal (“he departs together with all these”).

Every part into which consciousness is thus divided is immediately present with its object (“its object, placed outside”). But this objectivity is accordingly phenomenological, it is led from its perceptual positing. The doctrine of prana runs throughout the essay; Indra’s role is to explicate the delicate relationship between prana and prajna, the nature of consciousness as prana, as vitality. “Let him know the speaker,” etc., because who better than a henad to talk about the prana-dimension (the ‘nature’, in a literal or naturalistic sense) of personhood? The doctrine sounds Protagorean, at first, but it is really more medical in character.

“He does not increase by a good action, nor decrease by a bad action,” in which the Advaitin naturally finds a sign that Brahman is the actual referent, because this is the intention of the doctrine, though not its content. But the reading is strictly correct: “he makes him do a good deed”. The question thus is one of ultimate causal attribution, the Good as cause of the good deed.

“He is the lord of the universe, and he is my self”--through identification with the self’s actual nature, identification with the self of Indra, and through this with the function of demiurgic power in the cosmos. One wonders, indeed, if it is not Indra’s close association with this function that leads to the understanding of ‘Indra’ as a cosmic role to be played by many actors. This is what comes of the full idealization of the henad’s personhood, the almost complete intellective assimilation of the supra-essential character of the God, as is demanded of the cosmic artisan or sovereign. We see this when the doctrine is resumed in 20. “To the very hairs and nails”--total intellectualization, formalization, of the contingencies of body, of history, by which sovereign authority is established: “as his people follow the master of the house”.

“So long as Indra did not understand that self, the Asuras conquered him.” But this is counterfactual. Nevertheless, it posits a mere personhood subordinate to the doctrine, and to the map of being which it provides. But this has to be the basis for “pre-eminence among all Gods, sovereignty, supremacy,” lest this be arbitrary and utterly opaque to reason, a purely private pre-eminence that does not give its reasons.

In certain respects, of course, I am still back there at the beginning with Pratardana, loving Indra for whom He is, not what He is. However, there is no harm in the Upanishad’s procedure. For just as Aristotle does, the author uses the things we grasp implicitly about the nature of the God, to reason about the nature of being. It is only when the bond with the person of the God is cut, and a position of superiority assumed relative to so-called ‘mythical gods’, that the doctrine risks becoming a soulless pursuit.

Recently on Twitter someone asked me if there was any proof that Aristotle was a polytheist. Since I'd been thinking of re-reading Richard Bodéüs' seminal work Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000) in preparation for possibly teaching Aristotle, I decided to take several days to do so and share some notes on Twitter, which I've collected here. Needless to say, there is abundant evidence of Aristotle's polytheism, of which the following constitutes merely a selection.

"The affection of children for their parents, like that of humans for the Gods, is the affection for what is good, and superior to oneself, for they have bestowed on them the greatest benefits in being the cause of their existence and rearing, and later of their education," (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1162a4-7).

"We understand the Gods to enjoy supreme felicity and happiness. But what sort of actions can we attribute to them? … If we go through the list we shall find that all forms of virtuous conduct seem trifling and unworthy of the Gods … But for a living being, if we eliminate action, and a fortiori production, what remains save contemplation? It follows that the God's activity, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities, that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness." (Nicomachean Ethics, 1178b7-24).

Such passages are good examples of how the Gods feature in Aristotle's thought. They are never the objects of his deduction; rather, he reasons from what he takes to be uncontroversial premises concerning Them. Another example is the discussion from the Politics (1332b17-27) of whether there is a natural ruling class. A crucial stage in his argument is that we do not observe between any classes of humans the difference we believe to exist between humans and "the Gods and heroes". The Gods and heroes, he stipulates, possess "a great superiority in regard to the body and the soul" over humans, which makes "the pre-eminence of the rulers" in their case "indisputable and manifest to the subjects." But this is not the case with respect to human rulers.

Bodéüs offers an example in which the change of one letter by modern editors changes the logical structure of Aristotle's argument, turning a reference to the Gods into a conclusion, rather than a premise. At Metaphysics 1072b28-9, the typical translation reads "We hold, then, that God is a living being, eternal, and most good." Now, the first thing we ought to do is to restore the definite article in front of "God", because we are speaking generically of "the God" (τὸν θεὸν). But there's more: "then" here reflects an emendation in the text, which in the manuscripts says φαμέν δὲ, so that it reads instead φαμέν δή, changing the phrase from something like "We say, besides," i.e., as part of a series of premises, to something like "We conclude". In the manuscripts, then, Aristotle is treating as a commonplace that the Gods in general are eternal living things who are ἄριστον, the finest of things. The change from the manuscripts is subtle, but together with modern translators' habitual dropping of the article in front of θεός, helps to fix in the reader's mind that Aristotle, in Book Lambda of the Metaphysics, is promulgating a new theology about a new, singular "God".

Aristotle states that even if elements of the mythic tradition have been added over time "for expediency", there is a core doctrine, handed down from the remotest antiquity, which he holds to be "divinely spoken". This core doctrine is that "the primary substances are Gods," which includes the celestial bodies, but is not limited to them, for "the divine encompasses the whole of nature." (Metaphysics 1074b1-10). We see also from De Caelo (279a18-22) that the total number of Gods is not tied for him to calculations concerning the unmoved movers behind celestial motion, because Aristotle speaks there of an indeterminate multiplicity of "things beyond the heaven": "The things there [outside the heaven] are of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age them … they continue throughout their entire duration [aiôn] unaltered and unmodified, living the best and most self-sufficient of lives." As such, the doctrine concerning unmoved movers, while it allows one to determine the existence of certain divine entities purely from the demands of physics, is not intended by Aristotle to delimit the entire extension of divine being. (Note that it is difficult to render faithfully the phrase here translated "their entire duration" (ton hapanta aiôna), inasmuch as Aristotle goes on to explain (279a18&sqq.) that the "duration" in question is all time when we are speaking of divine things.)

"The activity [energeia] of a God is immortality, that is, eternal life." (Aristotle, De Caelo ii 3, 286a9-10). The beautiful thing about this quote is that we see that the Gods have for him no narrowly circumscribed functions, nor some telos extrinsic to Them.

Here's another one blowing a hole in the received interpretation of Aristotle: his reference at NE 1141b1-2 to "things far more divine in their nature than humans," of which "the most visible" are the celestial bodies—proving that Aristotle recognizes other Gods than these. In this regard, Aristotle shows himself to be exactly in line with Plato, who distinguishes between "the Gods who revolve manifestly," i.e., the celestial bodies, and "the Gods who manifest Themselves so far as They choose," e.g., the Olympians (Timaeus 41a). Indeed, it is an awkward problem for proponents of an "astral theology" in Plato and Aristotle, that both agree it is a primitive stage of religion to acknowledge only the visible Gods, and not yet those who manifest "when They choose" (see, e.g., Cratylus 397c-d). (The affirmation by these philosophers of the Gods manifesting "when They choose" will also be news to people who think it anachronistic to attribute to the ancients a notion of personal divine gnôsis.)

Another aspect of Aristotle's thought which is inconvenient for the received interpretation is his belief in heroes. For he believes that virtue exists "on a heroic or divine scale", so that, "as is said, surpassing virtue changes humans into Gods," (NE 1145a20-5). Indeed, one will sometimes hear of a prosecution against Aristotle for impiety—which wasn't on account of his doubting the Gods, but rather for an ode in which he appeared to recognize a deceased friend as a hero. So, Aristotle believed in too many, rather than too few Gods! Aristotle also refers to the "age of heroes" (Pol. 1285b) and in the Problemata (953a13-16) to the "age of Herakles". Indeed, Bodéüs (pp. 91-2) cites a number of Aristotle's references to Herakles, all of which indicate a belief in Him as having been something more than human.

"First among the claims of righteousness are our duties to the Gods, then our duties to the spirits, then those to country and parents, then those to the departed." (Aristotle, On Virtues and Vices, 1250b20-22); see also ibid., 1251a31-32: "Transgression in regard to Gods and spirits, or even in regard to the departed and to parents and country, is impiety."

"The good that is ours by nature clearly does not depend upon us, but comes from certain divine causes to beings that are truly fortunate." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1179b21-23)

Q: I came across Wolfson's article “Plurality of Immovable Movers in Aristotle and Averroës”. Is this article reliable ? Wolfson seemingly takes Aristotle to argue that while there are multiple Unmoved Movers, there is only one Unmoved Mover not subject to “accidental change”. Quoting Wolfson (pp. 242-243), "…Aristotle assumes one first immovable mover, that is, the mover of the sphere of the fixed stars, and it is this immovable mover which he describes as the first, but besides this first immovable mover, he assumes also other immovable movers, that is, the movers of the planetary spheres, which he does not describe as first. The first mover is one and unique, because it alone is immovable even accidentally and it alone produces only one kind of motion. The manyness of the movers of the planetary spheres consists in their each producing a different kind of motion in a different sphere. This manyness Aristotle would describe as a manyness in species or in formula or in definition, and is a manyness which does not involve matter." Per Wolfson, seems that the unique Mover is first among almost-equals? Is his reading of Aristotle correct?

I wanted to wait to reply until I'd had a chance to read Wolfson's article. I agree with his general approach, which seeks to harmonize what Aristotle says in different texts, rather than resorting to constant hypotheses about "interpolation" à la Jaeger. I also agree with Merlan (cited on p. 243), who contends that the relationship between the movers, given what we know, would likely be somewhat like the relationship between numbers, but I think that we lack the resources from Aristotle to settle the question conclusively.

The question highlights, though, something which I see as perhaps the crucial difference between Plato (and the Academic Platonists after him) and Aristotle, namely that the Platonists conceive of numerical difference prior to form. This is the ultimate significance of the Platonic doctrine of so-called "ideal numbers", which is obscured for us by conceiving it as a kind of numerology. To the degree that something like this is a consequence of the doctrine, I see it as of only minor philosophical import.

What matters, rather, about placing "the One" and "number" prior to form is that there is a principle of individuation and of multiplicity prior to that according to form (or "species"). This is precisely where the later Platonic doctrine respecting "henads" and "monads" comes in, and we cannot say with certainty how early it arose in the Academy, given the paucity of surviving texts from early figures like Speusippus and Xenocrates.

To return, then, to Aristotle's unmoved movers, if indeed the working out of this doctrine required tackling the problem of incorporeal individuation in a manner different from how the Platonists had dealt with it, I am not sure Aristotle gives us a complete solution. It might provide an elegant rationale, however, for the placement of books M & N of the Metaphysics, with their critique of Platonic number doctrine, after Lambda with its consideration of the unmoved movers, albeit M & N do not seem to settle the question.

Before leaving off, however, I would like to stress again, in the context of the original discussion, that in my view Aristotle never intended his doctrine of unmoved movers to be a "theology" in the sense monotheists have made it. The inquiry into the unmoved movers is "theological" for Aristotle just insofar as it investigates beings which share in some of the traits traditionally accorded to the Gods. As Bodéüs aptly points out, Aristotle thus terms it θεολογική, but not θεολόγια. I can only think that Aristotle would find it bizarre that he is read today to argue for displacing the Gods by a system of unmoved movers exercising no providence. Were this truly his view, he never states it, and it conflicts with what he does say whenever he mentions the Gods.

"Whatever choice and possession of natural goods … is best able to produce the spectacle of the God is the best choice … The choice that, either through deficiency or excess, hinders the worship of the God and his spectacle is a bad one." (Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics 1249b16-21)

Bodéüs makes a compelling case for translating θεωρίαν here as "spectacle", in accord with Plato's usage at Laws 649e, where it refers to the festival of Dionysos. Aristotle thus uses the festal appearance of the God as a metaphor for theophany in general. If we remember the Platonic and Aristotelian doctrine of the Gods showing Themselves when and to whom They wish, the idea here is obvious: we must make ourselves worthy of such theophany.

"For the God is not a ruler in the sense of issuing commands, but is that for the sake of which wisdom gives commands," (Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, 1249b15-16). What sort of commands will wisdom issue for the sake of the Gods? Whatever will maximize the worship of Them and the opportunities for the “spectacle” of Them (theophany), as in the passage I quoted previously from the Eudemian Ethics, which follows immediately upon this one (1249b16-21).

On Friendship Between Humans and Gods

"Friendship exacts what is possible, not what is due; requital in accordance with desert is in fact sometimes impossible, for instance in honoring the Gods, or one's parents: no one could ever render them the honor they deserve, and a man is deemed virtuous if he pays them all the regard that he can." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1163b)

“When a wide disparity arises between two friends in point of virtue or vice, or of wealth, or anything else, they no longer remain nor indeed expect to remain friends. This is most manifest in the case of the Gods, whose superiority in every good attribute is pre-eminent … This gives rise to the question, is it not after all untrue that we wish our friends the greatest of goods? For instance, can we wish them to become Gods? For then they will lose us as friends, and therefore lose certain goods, for friends are goods.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1158b-1159a)

“It seems likely that the person who pursues intellectual activity, and who cultivates their intellect and keeps it in the best condition, is also most beloved of the Gods. For if, as is generally believed, the Gods exercise some superintendence over human affairs, then it will be reasonable to suppose that They take pleasure in that part of the human which is best and most akin to Themselves, namely the intellect, and that They recompense with Their favors those who esteem and honor this most, because these care for the things dear to Themselves, and act rightly and nobly. Now it is clear that all these attributes belong most of all to the wise. They therefore are most beloved by the Gods; and if so, they are naturally most happy.” (Aristotle, NE 1179a)

“The friendship [philia] of father and son is the same as that between a God and a human and between benefactor and beneficiary, and generally between natural ruler and natural subject.” (Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics 1242a)

“Even the God and the good person are capable of doing bad deeds, but they are not of that character; for the wicked are always so called because of their deliberate choice of evil. Furthermore, a capacity is always among the things worthy of choice, for even capacities for evil are worthy of choice; and so we say that the God and the good person possess them, for we say that they are capable of doing evil.” (Aristotle, Topics 126a35-126b1)

Q: So he is saying that the God and the good person are able to choose to do evil but don't. Am I understanding that correctly?

Right. For Aristotle, being good doesn't mean being incapable of doing evil, but rather choosing not to. Being good for him is rather the wise use of the power one has. Similarly, Aristotle will say, e.g., that being a physician entails knowing not only how to heal, but also how to harm. That doesn't mean that the physician will do harm, but they would be lacking in knowledge if they did not know how. The importance of this quote is that it shows that for Aristotle the Gods are intelligent agents like us, only lacking our limitations. They are not, in other words, mere forces like magnetism, which always do the same thing and can do no different. Again, if we think of the physician, contrast her as an agent with a medicine she might prescribe. The medicine has effects, but no agency or choice; the God is like the physician, not the medicine.

Re: Phaedrus 249bc: A human "must understand a general conception formed by collecting into a unity by means of reason the many perceptions of the senses; and this is a recollection of those things which our soul once beheld, when it journeyed with the God and, lifting its vision above the things which we now say exist, rose up into real being," (trans. Fowler).

Now, we know from the testimony of Diogenes Laertius (3.15) that Plato did in fact extend this capacity to animals, grounding their ability to incarnate as humans not on their having previously "fallen" from human status, but on capacities virtually coextensive with being a living thing in the first place. Now, if this capacity is indeed so widely held, then we might think about it in a less "cognitive" fashion altogether. Isn't the first general conception collected together into a unity from the flux of experience the conception of the integral self, personal identity as such? The Stoic concept of oikeiôsis is useful here: creatures first "appropriate" themselves as something to sustain and foster, and then add wider and wider circles of concern from there.

Now jumping over to Aristotle, and the problem of the content of the "thought thinking itself" which is at once the divine way of being and the reason why things go round in the cosmos, what if thought "thinks itself" whenever it cognizes a self-identical property? (There is of course a suggestion here of Kant's transcendental unity of apperception.) And the first such is the moment of the self-appropriation of the individual, I=I (but not necessary to be thematized in this fashion, if we accept the Platonic position reported by Diogenes).

The proper attribute of the prime unmoved mover would thus extend essentially to all living things, beginning in each case from the moment of self-appropriation. In this fashion, the activity of the prime unmoved mover can be understood simply as the intellectual individuation of living things, which move themselves so as to sustain and expand their self-integration to the best of their capacity. This aligns the prime unmoved mover better with the Platonic first principle, as its lower-order expression on the intellective and psychical planes.

Instead of asking "Why does X [a God] do φ [something bad prima facie]?", we should ask "What is the property φ of the cosmos the origin of which is being revealed in this myth? What does the myth indicate to be providential in this cosmic property?"

E.g., Let φX = X rapes Y. Hence cosmic y's (things participating Y) experience x (something of the nature of X) involuntarily or without consent. It is this cosmic state of affairs that we are investigating, not anthropomorphic qualities of a deity.

Hence, e.g., a God's rape of some mortal can usually be assumed to denote that a class of mortal souls symbolized by (and perhaps really participating) the hero(ine) in question experiences a property that comes from the God in an overpowering and even traumatic fashion.

Now, we can still ask "Why does X impart this property to souls in this fashion?" But we are now asking a much more useful question than before. What else follows from the property being imparted in this fashion?

Most likely, the property in question is one to which we could not meaningfully consent, because it lies deeper in the soul's organization than consent does. Were we performing this property "consensually", we would perhaps be performing a weaker version of it.

Comment: The deities which first strike my mind, on reading this: Loki, The trickster God; Zeus, who is many times presented as having lecherous character.

Precisely. Take Zeus: he is a cosmic demiurge who "promiscuously" imparts many devolved powers onto mortals by generating heroes, rather than holding onto those powers Himself. This is one of the factors which has stabilized His reign. By "devolved" powers, I mean delegated. Kronos, by contrast, does not devolve powers, but returns them all to Himself; this is part of what the succession of sovereignty from Kronos to Zeus entails. Moreover, we must interpret what is characterized as Hera's "anguish" over Zeus's "promiscuity". Hera tests those to whom power has been devolved by Zeus; this is not really done out of passion or simply to "torment" them.

Comment: I feel like there’s gotta be a way that we modern polytheists can present this that doesn’t make fundamental truths come across as repellent to contemporary audiences?

Certainly, if we focus on the phenomena themselves, there are other ways in which to speak of them; but we should not lose sight of the fact that certain things were presented in a harsh fashion because they are indeed harsh.

Absolutely, yes! but rape is purely destructive. The idea that Zeus could literally rape me makes me want to return to a purely materialist worldview. The idea that He could change me in an unasked for, unknowable, harsh way but that let’s me better understand the world? That’s *scary* but it strikes me as a reason to believe in and to devote myself to Him (or any other deity).

Right. One also has to recognize that adopting a materialist worldview will not *change* any of the things we are talking about; it will merely substitute a reductive, insufficient "explanation" for one that leaves space open to accommodate the full complexity of what *we* are.

Whenever and wherever Christianity has confronted polytheisms, it has always sought to identify their Gods with Fate or some similar principle. There is always some textual basis for this, but there is also always reason to be cautious about accepting the picture thus presented, especially if there has been opportunity for Christians to do away with evidence that the pagans may have perceived their Gods as also being the active shapers of fate at least in certain respects. This then can lead to what I think of as the romantic framing of paganism, in which people accept the subordination of their Gods to fate and try to make a virtue out of it, rather than questioning it.

I think that fate in polytheism is one of the main issues we need to think through in theology. Why do polytheisms appear to subordinate their Gods to fate or some such principle, to the degree that they do? I look to two issues: first, "fate" can basically mean the actions of other Gods. Since it is not in the nature of polytheisms to erase one God's act by that of another, they instead see the Gods as acting within a field in which they must adjust themselves to one another. I remember a teacher of mine making a point like this about the relationship between Greek nemesis and nemein, the idea of "distribution", speaking of the use of this term to refer to the way that sheep in a pasture "distribute" themselves to occupy the space evenly. He wasn't speaking about polytheism, but the point is readily applicable.

The second issue I think has to do with the cosmos-affirming nature of polytheisms. Because polytheisms do not reject the complexity of the world, their Gods are naturally entangled in it, at least in part. This is the basic issue of "immanence" in polytheisms, which also gets overplayed in what I termed the "romantic framing", as though our Gods are not also, in certain respects, transcendent. (Here the sense of "transcendent" need be nothing more than "not reducible without remainder to cosmic forces".)

It is easy to see, however, how the investment of the Gods in temporal institutions makes it a simple matter for monotheisms to breeze in on the back of a broad, nonspecific critique of those institutions and appeal to anybody or any group discontented or disenfranchised in any way. This is a crucial element in proselytism, the idea that in one's traditional polytheism one is the prisoner of one's fate (caste, sex, etc.), whereas in the new religion one is "reborn" as a kind of agent-X, with no past, nothing to determine one, just one's pure will. (It doesn't matter in this context that the only choice actually empowered in this fashion is the choice of conversion, because after that everything is determined again.)

(From an exchange on Twitter)

  A key reason that polytheisms will never be regarded by some as "proper" religions is because the full potential of a polytheistic field need not be present for any given individual worshiper. That is, the polycentricity of polytheism is for many worshipers a practical possibility, but is not thematized by them. Many worshipers may worship a single God and regard the other Gods in the field as somehow dependent upon their chosen deity.     There is nothing deviant about this sort of exclusive focus occurring within a polytheistic social field, nor is it evidence of some tendency for the field to transform into monotheism.   These are not "pocket monotheisms" because they tacitly presuppose that other Gods, who exist for them in a dependent status, can be and are experienced by others as at the center.     Where the polycentric polytheistic field is thematized as such, we have the perfection of a philosophical discourse about religion, but this perfection is not a condition for the existence of polytheism as such, or for its essential polycentricity.    

Q. What is thematization here?    

A doctrine that is thematized by somebody is explicitly held by them and articulated at least to some degree, as opposed to a doctrine that shows itself implicitly in their behavior.

To āṅgīrasa śreṣṭha (@GhorAngirasa  ): It was our discussion that brought home to me how important a point this is. It goes to the fundamental difference in *kinds* of religion that we are dealing with between monotheism and polytheism, which many recognize, but conceptualize in varied and often inadequate ways.    

@GhorAngirasa  : A problem is that, the tacit presupposition "that other Gods, who exist for them in a dependent status, can be and are experienced by others as at the center" is not recognized as adequate in itself to fully justify the legitimacy of polytheism. Questions along the lines of, "Where is this recognition actually mentioned?" will arise. The monotheists and closeted monotheists will then argue that there is no such recognition and what one calls polytheism is simply an assemblage of "wannabe monotheisms".

Quite true, but this needs to be attacked, because the result is to treat the total polytheistic field as radically *contingent*, that is, as the result of purely contingent historical differences in affiliation, mere "sectarianism".    

@GhorAngirasa  : Absolutely. It is just that our thinkers & leaders are yet to fully grapple with this depth of discourse. Many of them would not be able to formulate a decent explanation of why this tacit recognition is more pronounced than one would give credit for & is indeed adequate.    

Yes, precisely, and this is the erasure of polytheisms as religions, that they are conceived as mere material assemblages that necessarily disintegrate under analysis. This means that only credal faiths can count as "religions".     It shouldn't be so difficult to demonstrate that the degree of intimate entanglement that we see between diverse sects in a common polytheistic field, even where they display strong "single-pointedness", goes far beyond that of a congery of "wannabe monotheisms".

@GhorAngirasa  : Right now, I can easily think of two examples: 1. Of a dramatist-philosopher-logician from 10th century, jayanta bhaTTa whose work serves as a prototype for the religion/counter-religion distinction and also alludes to the 'tacit recognition' we speak of. 2. nAvalar, a devout and orthodox shaiva teacher from shrI lanka who had to contend with western missionaries attacking shaivam. In a certain polemical treatise, he raises a question often asked by the Padres, "Why do you attack only us when there are others within your own religion who believe in gods other than shiva (viSNu, etc) as supreme?" nAvalar proceeds to answer along the lines that these deities are recognized by his own deity & therefore worshiping them is no fault, while the "god" of the padres is not recognized; again, alluding to the 'tacit recognition' idea. Sure, both answers/models can definitely be improved. However, I was just citing these to highlight the resources available.

There is also the possibility, of course, that just as Platonism properly understood demonstrates the explicit, and not just tacit, recognition of the polycentric field, that this recognition is present in Indian philosophy as well, viewed properly.    

kashcidvipashcit (@kashcit):   "Official mention problem": Can be answered with http:// indiafacts.org/polycentrism-many-one-problem-roots-yoga/#.VF0zlBFGjUZ

A very thoughtful piece. It makes me wonder when the term "polycentricity" was first applied to Hinduism; I first encountered it in a book by Diana Eck from 1981, but I doubt she originated the usage.     Of course, Max Müller says that to refer to "Gods" in the plural is as senseless as to speak of many centers of a circle. 😄    

@GhorAngirasa: Julius Lipner might have been earlier.           He certainly made much use of the term. At a lecture he gave in my home country, siMhapurI, recently, he did subtly contrast the tolerance of a complex, diverse Hinduism with the narrowness of monotheisms but was not comfortable about describing Hinduism as polytheistic but as beyond both poly and mono theisms.

I would say that those who have used the term in the past have more often than not wished to use it in this fashion, thinking thereby to evade the inescapable historical confrontation between monotheism and polytheism.     Unless it is recognized that polytheism has in fact always been polycentric, this confrontation is inevitably staged on ground that favors monotheism.

@kashcit  : Forgive my ignorance: Did the Hellenes consider anyone other than Zeus supreme at all?    

Empedokles clearly considers Aphrodite supreme. Local cult elevates the God who is its focus to a supreme or virtually supreme status. See H. S. Versnel's extensive work on this phenomenon.     Also, in the Hellenic theology according to Proclus and subsequent Platonists, Zeus occupies a position that is pivotal, but rather far "down" in the procession, corresponding to his place in the theogonic "timeline". We can say that for Orphics Dionysos transcends Zeus's authority, or brackets it without displacing it. Often this is how polycentricity works, by recourse to different forms of ultimacy, weaving a network of meaning in this fashion.     The conservation of diverse modes of cosmic authority and metaphysical ultimacy by polycentric polytheisms is essential to the fundamentally pro-cosmic standpoint of these religions.    

@kashcit  : This calls to mind the benefits and dangers of calling hinduism a religion -  https:// sites.google.com/site/hinduvichaarah/bharatiyata/-religion   … I wonder if "cultural ethos" might be a better category for use by us.          

No, I think that is utterly the wrong approach. A "cultural ethos" will not be regarded as continuous over changes of lifestyle, and inevitably will be regarded as leaving space for a "proper" religion atop its welter of mere customs and folkways.    

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Edward P. Butler

Henadology: Philosophy and Theology

January 2025

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Recent Entries

On Epicharmus frag. 275

Proclus on Mythic Conflict

Some translations from Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Republic, Vol. III

On the Soul's Vehicle in Proclus

Notes on Julian Rice, Before the Great Spirit: The Many Faces of Sioux Spirituality

Importance of Conceiving Indigenous Religions as 'Religion'

Comments on some articles by E. Viveiros de Castro

Athena and Poseidon (and on conflict in myths)

Polycentricity and Devotion in Atharvaveda 13, 4

Some thoughts on the Timaeus (from Twitter)

Tricksters and Platonism (from Twitter)

Proclus on the Hypotheses of the Parmenides

Answer to a question on the Iliad

Thoughts on Thales

Notes on the Kaushitaki Upanishad

Aristotle and the Gods

A Note on Plato and Aristotle

On Gods "behaving badly"