Elijah

How you think that metaphysics and supernaturalism are compatible is important because other people on this board are taking your word on it.

Not quite sure on your understanding of forms but they are the eternal coding behind the material universe. And the form or universal for truth or beauty is the equivalent to an angel of truth or beauty.
Well I think the main point was to compare his understanding of spirits to their pagan gods which represented forces in nature. What exactly he meant I have no idea, all I know is that he is coming from a philosophical background and not a superstitious one.

GakuseiDon

Well, they shouldn't. I'm just an interested amateur. I don't have any ancient language skills, I'm just very interested in early Christian and pagan writings. I do plan to write a number of articles on ancient metaphysics for my website, eventually, which will include a critical look at Doherty's view of how the ancient world thought. And I plan to write a sci-fi novel (called "Starship Kronos") which will be set in a universe physically modeled on the Second Century world-view.

By Tertullian's time, the material world was thought to consist of four elements: earth (which naturally moved in a downwards direction), water (down and to the sides), air (up and to the sides) and fire (straight up). The material world was temporary and corruptible, but this ended at the firmament, the dome above us. The firmament and above was thought to be the realm of the eternal and unchanging. Plato's forms originally existed as eternal abstracts in their own abstract "true" universe, but Middle Platonism (IIUC) seemed to place this abstract universe more firmly into the supralunar realm. Neo-Platonism (around 3rd C CE) was a further development from Plato's original abstract Forms idea.

The supernatural developed out the ideas about the beings that existed in the world around us. Plutarch wrote that there were four "species of rational beings": (1) gods, (2) daemons, (3) heroes, and (4) humans. Plutarch put "demigods" into the "heroes" category. Some thought that there was a procession of change: from men to heroes, heroes to daemons, and, for those daemons that become "thoroughly purified by means of virtue", from daemons to true gods.

According to the philosophers of the time, the true gods were eternal and unchanging, so they were placed above the firmament. Daemons lived in the air or on earth, and could be good or evil. Men, heroes and demigods were powerful beings who lived on earth, though the latter two could become spirits or daemons. Plutarch wrote that "Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics do conclude that daemons are essences endowed with souls", and that "the heroes are the souls separated from their bodies, some are good, some are bad". These "essences" lived in the air, and were able to help or hinder. Ancient Romans offered up prayers to their ancestors, partly because the ancestors were thought to possibly still exist in a state where they could help their descendants via supernatural means.

I've never heard it put like that, though Plutarch said something similar. According to Plutarch, the true god Osiris lives above the firmament, and anything to do with order or beauty is an expression of the true god in our material world, while anything to with chaos or destruction is an expression of Typhon. But he never calls the expressions "angel of beauty" or "angel of chaos".

Christians believed that the pagan gods existed, but that they were simply demons pretending to be gods. The demons floated in the air and lurked around statues, even healing the sick and giving oracles, all in an effort to deceive. This wasn't much different from the pagan view, except obviously they thought that many daemons were genuinely good. Some daemons were actually intermediaries to the true gods. Thus, for example, Zeus, eternal and unchanging (some believed that the firmament was Zeus), interacted with humans via a daemon which called itself "Zeus" on behalf of the true god.

That's the supernatural element that was widely believed in, by Middle Platonist pagan philosophers and Christian philosophers alike. So when Tertullian talks about demons living in the clouds and feeling the rain, I believe he is speaking literally.

If Tertullian is referring to a form-like abstraction, then my question would be: A form-like abstraction of what? If the ideal form is in the clouds and feeling the rain, then what is the associated non-ideal form in the material world?

Elijah

The basic divide doesn’t change in any of the eras that I know of between the changing and the constant. Is the supralunar realm material/changing or spiritual/eternal?
Plutarch sounds pagan. I’ll look into him some more, I see he’s listed as middle platonic on wiki.
It was hard to get from a one single constant god to the multitude of individual things in our reality without some divisions on the eternal side. These divisions or lack of divisions (Hey NoRobots) is the main arguing point to idealists. At the level closest to the material was usually the most divisions and sometimes the source of the defect, this is where forms and angels and demon concepts come from. But from a platonic dualist pov at no time does the eternal side go into the flux necessary for a supernatural understanding.
They may of believed in the pagan gods as representations of forces in nature but not in the pagan world view of the universe and an afterlife realm. IMO

Elijah

I think he is just trying to illustrate the spaceless nature of them there. And I don't know the exact particular he has in mind. I think he is trying to give an overview of their nature to someone familiar with paganism.

Do you think the "spirit of evil" he refers to in the passage is supernatural or like the angel/form concept we are familiar with?

GakuseiDon

Spiritual/eternal.

Yes, he is a Middle-Platonist pagan philosopher.

Why does the eternal side need to go into flux, to be necessary for a supernatural understanding? What does that mean? I suspect that how you are defining "supernatural" may be the root of why we are talking at cross-purposes. Can you give some examples of supernatural events from the time?

Let's make sure we are on the same page with regards to the meaning of "supernatural", if that's okay.

Elijah

Then it’s non temporal so what makes it supralunar which implies a temporal location?
By supernatural I mean a type of thinking not events, as in there is another realm for an afterlife or anthropomorphic entities to move change and exist. If the spiritual side is constant as the philosophers suggest then that isn’t possible.

GakuseiDon

I don't understand the question, I'm afraid.
Can you give some examples, preferably from ancient literature if possible, which reflect supernatural events?

Elijah

If it's spiritual that mean's it's non physical/non temporal. It doesn't actually exist physically. If it doesn't exist physically how can it have a physical location?

I'm not talking about supernatural events at all, I'm talking about supernatural thinking which isn't taught as much as it is the result of a lack of teachings. (point of this thread)

GakuseiDon

Nowadays, people tend to think of demons as living in a different dimension rather than as part of the natural world. So they pop into our world, in a puff of smoke, and leave our world for their supernatural dimension.

Back then, though, people thought that demons shared our world, and lived in the mountains and in the air around us. They were effectively part of the natural world. However, as facilitators of magic, I suppose we would still think of them as supernatural creatures. Still, as part of the natural world, Platonism no more conflicted with the existence of demons than it did with the existence of, say, mountains.

Demon spirits had bodies of air and/or fire, and, as I wrote above, were part of the world around us. They shared our material world. So they definitely had a physical location: In the air, in the mountains, lurking around statues -- basically anywhere between the earth and the moon.

I'm sorry, but I still have no idea what you are talking about. I wish I did, since I'm interested in how people thought back then, and I'd wondered if you'd found some insight that was new to me. If you could go into more depth on how Platonism conflicted with "supernaturalism", esp referencing sources, I will read you with interest. Otherwise, I'll leave this to others. Thanks for your time, Elijah!

Elijah

So you say that these demons were material and not spiritual then? That they didn’t believe in supernatural entities but naturally occurring entities?

Philosophers don’t generally argue against supernaturalism they usually argue against each other. There is no Platonists going against any supernaturalist schools of thinking because there is none. (That I know of.)

I don’t know what detail I need to go into or references I should look for because I’m unsure of where you are having difficulties.