Five Stages of Greek Religion Part 17

If the G.o.ds make the world neither by art nor by physical process, it only remains that they make it by power. Everything so made subsists together with that which possesses the power. Neither can things so made be destroyed, except the power of the maker be taken away: so that those who believe in the destruction of the world, either deny the existence of the G.o.ds, or, while admitting it, deny G.o.d's power.

Therefore he who makes all things by his own power makes all things subsist together with himself. And since his power is the greatest power he must needs be the maker not only of men and animals, but of G.o.ds, men, and spirits.[217:1] And the further removed the First G.o.d is from our nature, the more powers there must be between us and him. For all things that are very far apart have many intermediate points between them.

XIV. _In what sense, though the G.o.ds never change, they are said to be made angry and appeased._

If any one thinks the doctrine of the unchangeableness of the G.o.ds is reasonable and true, and then wonders how it is that they rejoice in the good and reject the bad, are angry with sinners and become propitious when appeased, the answer is as follows: G.o.d does not rejoice--for that which rejoices also grieves; nor is he angered--for to be angered is a pa.s.sion; nor is he appeased by gifts--if he were, he would be conquered by pleasure.

It is impious to suppose that the Divine is affected for good or ill by human things. The G.o.ds are always good and always do good and never harm, being always in the same state and like themselves. The truth simply is that, when we are good, we are joined to the G.o.ds by our likeness to them; when bad, we are separated from them by our unlikeness. And when we live according to virtue we cling to the G.o.ds, and when we become evil we make the G.o.ds our enemies--not because they are angered against us, but because our sins prevent the light of the G.o.ds from s.h.i.+ning upon us, and put us in communion with spirits of punishment. And if by prayers and sacrifices we find forgiveness of sins, we do not appease or change the G.o.ds, but by what we do and by our turning towards the Divine we heal our own badness and so enjoy again the goodness of the G.o.ds. To say that G.o.d turns away from the evil is like saying that the sun hides himself from the blind.

XV. _Why we give wors.h.i.+p to the G.o.ds when they need nothing._

This solves the question about sacrifices and other rites performed to the G.o.ds. The Divine itself is without needs, and the wors.h.i.+p is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the G.o.ds reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity[218:1] for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of thought, the mystic letters[219:1] of the unspeakable celestial forces, the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the irrational life in us.

From all these things the G.o.ds gain nothing; what gain could there be to G.o.d? It is we who gain some communion with them.

XVI. _Concerning sacrifices and other wors.h.i.+ps, that we benefit man by them, but not the G.o.ds._

I think it well to add some remarks about sacrifices. In the first place, since we have received everything from the G.o.ds, and it is right to pay the giver some t.i.the of his gifts, we pay such a t.i.the of possessions in votive offerings, of bodies in gifts of adornment, and of life in sacrifices. Then secondly, prayers without sacrifices are only words, with sacrifices they are live words; the word gives meaning to the life, while the life animates the word. Thirdly, the happiness of every object is its own perfection; and perfection for each is communion with its own cause. For this reason we pray for communion with the G.o.ds. Since, therefore, the first life is the life of the G.o.ds, but human life is also life of a kind, and human life wishes for communion with divine life, a mean term is needed. For things very far apart cannot have communion without a mean term, and the mean term must be like the things joined; therefore the mean term between life and life must be life. That is why men sacrifice animals; only the rich do so now, but in old days everybody did, and that not indiscriminately, but giving the suitable offerings to each G.o.d together with a great deal of other wors.h.i.+p. Enough of this subject.

XVII. _That the World is by nature Eternal._

We have shown above that the G.o.ds will not destroy the world. It remains to show that its nature is indestructible.

Everything that is destroyed is either destroyed by itself or by something else. If the world is destroyed by itself, fire must needs burn itself and water dry itself. If by something else, it must be either by a body or by something incorporeal. By something incorporeal is impossible; for incorporeal things preserve bodies--nature, for instance, and soul--and nothing is destroyed by a cause whose nature is to preserve it. If it is destroyed by some body, it must be either by those which exist or by others.

If by those which exist: then either those moving in a straight line must be destroyed by those that revolve, or vice versa. But those that revolve have no destructive nature; else, why do we never see anything destroyed from that cause? Nor yet can those which are moving straight touch the others; else, why have they never been able to do so yet?

But neither can those moving straight be destroyed by one another: for the destruction of one is the creation of another; and that is not to be destroyed but to change.

But if the World is to be destroyed by other bodies than these it is impossible to say where such bodies are or whence they are to arise.

Again, everything destroyed is destroyed either in form or matter. (Form is the shape of a thing, matter the body.) Now if the form is destroyed and the matter remains, we see other things come into being. If matter is destroyed, how is it that the supply has not failed in all these years?

If when matter is destroyed other matter takes its place, the new matter must come either from something that is or from something that is not.

If from that-which-is, as long as that-which-is always remains, matter always remains. But if that-which-is is destroyed, such a theory means that not the World only but everything in the universe is destroyed.

If again matter comes from that-which-is-not: in the first place, it is impossible for anything to come from that which is not; but suppose it to happen, and that matter did arise from that which is not; then, as long as there are things which are not, matter will exist. For I presume there can never be an end of things which are not.

If they say that matter formless: in the first place, why does this happen to the world as a whole when it does not happen to any part? Secondly, by this hypothesis they do not destroy the being of bodies, but only their beauty.

Further, everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else how did they come into being at all? If that-which-is is to depart into not-being, what prevents that happening to G.o.d himself? (Which is absurd.) Or if G.o.d's power prevents that, it is not a mark of power to be able to save nothing but oneself. And it is equally impossible for that-which-is to come out of nothing and to depart into nothing.

Again, if the World is destroyed, it must needs either be destroyed according to Nature or against Nature. Against Nature is impossible, for that which is against nature is not stronger than Nature.[222:1] If according to Nature, there must be another Nature which changes the Nature of the World: which does not appear.

Again, anything that is naturally destructible we can ourselves destroy.

But no one has ever destroyed or altered the round body of the World.

And the elements, though they can be changed, cannot be destroyed.

Again, everything destructible is changed by time and grows old. But the world through all these years has remained utterly unchanged.

Having said so much for the help of those who feel the need of very strong demonstrations, I pray the World himself to be gracious to me.

XVIII. _Why there are rejections of G.o.d, and that G.o.d is not injured._

Nor need the fact that rejections of G.o.d have taken place in certain parts of the earth and will often take place hereafter, disturb the mind of the wise: both because these things do not affect the G.o.ds, just as we saw that wors.h.i.+p did not benefit them; and because the soul, being of middle essence, cannot be always right; and because the whole world cannot enjoy the providence of the G.o.ds equally, but some parts may partake of it eternally, some at certain times, some in the primal manner, some in the secondary. Just as the head enjoys all the senses, but the rest of the body only one.

For this reason, it seems, those who ordained Festivals ordained also Forbidden Days, in which some temples lay idle, some were shut, some had their adornment removed, in expiation of the weakness of our nature.

It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of G.o.d is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the G.o.ds and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether. Also those who have wors.h.i.+pped their own kings as G.o.ds have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of G.o.d.

XIX. _Why sinners are not punished at once._

There is no need to be surprised if neither these sins nor yet others bring immediate punishment upon sinners. For it is not only Spirits[223:1] who punish the soul, the Soul brings itself to judgement: and also it is not right for those who endure for ever to attain everything in a short time: and also, there is need of human virtue. If punishment followed instantly upon sin, men would act justly from fear and have no virtue.

Souls are punished when they have gone forth from the body, some wandering among us, some going to hot or cold places of the earth, some hara.s.sed by Spirits. Under all circ.u.mstances they suffer with the irrational part of their nature, with which they also sinned. For its sake[224:1] there subsist that shadowy body which is seen about graves, especially the graves of evil livers.

XX. _On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into brute beasts._

If the transmigration of a soul takes place into a rational being, it simply becomes the soul of that body. But if the soul migrates into a brute beast, it follows the body outside, as a guardian spirit follows a man. For there could never be a rational soul in an irrational being.

The transmigration of souls can be proved from the congenital afflictions of persons. For why are some born blind, others paralytic, others with some sickness in the soul itself? Again, it is the natural duty of Souls to do their work in the body; are we to suppose that when once they leave the body they spend all eternity in idleness?

Again, if the souls did not again enter into bodies, they must either be infinite in number or G.o.d must constantly be making new ones. But there is nothing infinite in the world; for in a finite whole there cannot be an infinite part. Neither can others be made; for everything in which something new goes on being created, must be imperfect. And the World, being made by a perfect author, ought naturally to be perfect.

XXI. _That the Good are happy, both living and dead._

Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy,[224:2] and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the G.o.ds and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it.

FOOTNOTES:

[200:1] I translate ??s?? generally as 'World', sometimes as 'Cosmos'.

It always has the connotation of 'divine order'; ???? always 'Soul', to keep it distinct from ???, 'physical life', though often 'Life' would be a more natural English equivalent; ??????? 'to animate'; ??s?a sometimes 'essence', sometimes 'being' (never 'substance' or 'nature'); f?s?? 'nature'; s?a sometimes 'body', sometimes 'matter'.

[203:1] e. g. when we say 'The sun is coming in through the window', or in Greek ??a?f??? ???? ?? t?? ?????, Plat. _Rep._ 516 E. This appears to mean that you can loosely apply the term 'Osiris' both to (i) the real Osiris and (ii) the corn which comes from him, as you can apply the name 'Sun' both to (i) the real orb and (ii) the ray that comes from the orb.

However, Julian, _Or._ v, on the Sun suggests a different view--that both the orb and the ray are mere effects and symbols of the true spiritual Sun, as corn is of Osiris.

[204:1] ???es?a? Mr. L. W. Hunter, ???es?a? MS. Above the Milky Way there is no such body, only s?a ?pa???. Cf. Macrob. in _Somn. Scip._ i.

12.

[208:1] i. e. if the Firmament or Fixed Sphere moved in the same direction as the seven Planets, the speed would become too great. On the circular movement cf. Plot. _Eun._ ii. 2.