gentleexit

He heaps on metaphors in the letter, popular and particular to his group. For example, there's the ever popular athletic trope - "beset in a contest, attended with much wrestling". The notion of "womanish" fits with that.

Running throughout is that any body (male or female) is a dungeon: "emerge from the inmost depths of the body", "pleasure and ease which drag men down to the body", "thy body is joined to thee as the outer covering to the child", "train thyself to escape from the body", "bound in the chains that nature has cast around us".

"Flee all that is womanish" is preceded by "Neither trouble thyself much whether thou be male or female in body" and succeeded by "For what is born from a virgin soul and a pure mind is most blessed". In other words, here's reassurance. Being a woman is no impediment to ascent. It's not that there is "salvation of maleness".

gentleexit

Yes, Platonists took nothing literally. Everything was metaphor. After all, we don't see reality, only an analogue, an image. "Art" or "Myth" or traditional ritual had either to be dismissed or interpreted. Plato was conflicted ("I must speak out", I said, "though a certain love and reverence for Homer that has possessed me from a boy would stay me from speaking" is in there too" [Republic 595B]) and he interpreted - His Myth of Er reinterprets Odysseus in Hades. Later Platonists got more and more comfortable with tradition. You have Isis interpreted by Plutarch ("men must reason on revealed truth"). You have the Great Mother interpreted by Julian. I think we can see eye to eye on all of this.

The question is whether interpretation of poetry or popular practice was just explaining away, leaving no "personality" or did interpretation justify practice (the stuff of "superstition"). In other words, could you be a good philosopher and shake the goddess' rattle? This seemed to depend on individual sensibility and the times.

At one end, Plotinus cared little for ritual - "Amelius was scrupulous in observing the day of the New-Moon and other holy-days, and once asked Plotinus to join in some such celebration: Plotinus refused: 'It is for those Beings to come to me, not for me to go to them." [Life of Plotinus, Porphyry] But even he cherished his personal guide, the "guardian daemon" given to every soul (or angel. "Oh angel of god, my guardian dear" as my old grandmother taught me to say.)

In fact Plotinus possessed by birth something more than is accorded to other men. An Egyptian priest who had arrived in Rome and, through some friend, had been presented to the philosopher, became desirous of displaying his powers to him, and he offered to evoke a visible manifestation of Plotinus' presiding spirit. Plotinus readily consented and the evocation was made in the Temple of Isis, the only place, they say, which the Egyptian could find pure in Rome.

At the summons a Divinity appeared, not a being of the spirit-ranks, and the Egyptian exclaimed: 'You are singularly graced; the guiding-spirit within you is not of the lower degree but a God.' It was not possible, however, to interrogate or even to contemplate this God any further, for the priest's assistant, who had been holding the birds to prevent them flying away, strangled them, whether through jealousy or in terror. Thus Plotinus had for indwelling spirit a Being of the more divine degree, and he kept his own divine spirit unceasingly intent upon that inner presence. It was this preoccupation that led him to write his treatise upon Our Tutelary Spirit, an essay in the explanation of the differences among spirit-guides.

Porphyry, Life of Plotinus

Later men like Iamblichus or Proclus ("the hierophant of the whole world" whose hyper-rational scheme of divinity stretched from the One to the most particular divinity and practice) practiced as much as preached. Traditional practice was still explained metaphorically but it was also spoken of personally, as a means to ascend because "going inside" was too hard for most, at least initially.

What do I think? Philosophers, particularly later Philosophers worshiped in traditional ways but they had first polished ("back up what they said with reason") those beings into their "rational" schemes. And though worshipers, they remained rational in their own terms. They never had to cry "faith" or "because my father did it". They were intellectual conservatives.

I believe the OT is allegory - right down to great king David (Bible Archeology, where are you?). But the Jews (and Christians) had a tougher line. After all, they were big into concrete figures at certain points in time. How much allegory to accept was always an issue for the time-bound. The Greeks were less moored in time. Everything just was - give or take a cycle or two. They were free to abstract.

Oh I don't think John's any great leaper. He took Philo's Logos and gave it to Jesus, putting Jesus into a scheme he obviously held to be more important than "the kingdom of god" stuff. I don't even think it's interesting except that people believe and live by it today. Teasing out the Greeks is far richer (to me) but there are few "Plato Criticism and History" groups!

Gnostics are the mormons? It's one angle. But Mormons aren't "popular Christians" in most Christian eyes. But at 20,000 feet, you can see them as "Christianity for the Americas". So it depends on how precise we are about "Christian". I think our gnostics-as-platonists stuff exchange just comes down to narrow or broad definition like this.

gentleexit

My point is that there is no "them". The word "gnostic" seems to go to any and every "knowledge-based" cult. Taken literally, all Platonists are gnostics. Manicheans too. On and on. It's a modern designation and it's at best confusing.

Clivedurdle

Um, where did Plato get his dualist ideas from?

Might it have possibly been from an Empire to the East who the Greeks were continually interacting with?

Who might I be thinking about?

Iran?

Zoroaster? Darius?

What was that about going back to original sources?:devil1:

Battle of Marathon 490 BCE

Birth of Plato 428 - 7 BCE

mountainman

Dear gentleexit,


The "Outside Saviour" was the Many Headed Monster "loose" in Plato's Republic

If you read Ammianus it is clear that the "many headed monster loose in Plato's Republic of the Fourth Century" was the state religion of "christianity". The publications and the political and military support of "The Saviour" by Constantine and then his son Constantius (until Julian) was this monster, according to the Coptic gnostic at NHC 6.5 in my opinion. The author wrote from hundreds of miles up the Nile from Alexandria because Alexandria was "not a safe place": the monsters were in control. Constantine's christians werfe in control of the empire. Who were the christians? Nobody knew who they were. The Hellenistic Platonian republic was the subject of Roman Christian state tyranny in the mid fourth century.

This is message of the politics of the epoch, and I think that the author of NHC6.5 (perhaps c.348 CE) is trying to tell the story of the politics of his time - the state of the notion of justice, by deliberately changing Plato's original text.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Historically our civilisation is still based on ancient Greek knowledge. It was from the greeks of Pythagoras and Plato that "Know thyself" was preserved to the present day and Albert Einstein could not have framed his theories of relativity had it not been for the existence of the Pythagroean theorem (and perhaps Euclid). Note that this name is Euclid, not Eusebius.
The term "gnostic" is greek. The Parthian civilisation was very greek. When the prophet Mani appeared, the greekness had only just been overthrown, but then Mani and his followers were overthrown by political changes in Persia. (But all this is late third century).

For the period from the time of Alexander the Great at least, the dominant civilisation wasd Hellenistic (Greek) and the gnostics were simply those who preserved the knowledge in literature ... the library of Alexandria for example was very much in operation at that time.

Elijah

Ok they didn’t take it literal but did they interpret it rationally? I still don’t have a basic idea about how you are interpreting Plato’s work.
Yea it should interpret away personality. Like I asked you earlier, what anthropomorphic quality can exist in a platonic view of the spiritual side? This is why you get mythicists trying to find evidence of belief in a myth plane or submoon realm where spiritual entities can exist and move/change because in the platonic understanding of the spiritual they don’t change. They may be expressed inconsistently in matter but they themselves should be understood as static.
So when you want to make claims against the Gnostics you go to Plotinus and when you want to make claims against Plotinus you go to Porphyry; at least you are consistent.

I think the “guardian daemon” like Socrates’ daemon should be understood in a eastern way of “when the student is ready the teacher will appear” . Just recognizing the voice in your head is part of what you are observing and not actaully you and learning to use it for guidance.
So you are saying that there was another group who had the rational understanding of the spiritual but kept some ritual? If so I can agree with that because I see it as possible to incorporate ritual into a rational philosophical belief system but ritual in order to protect you from sprits or bring reward would be superstitious aspect. Also, the line between philosopher and mystic can get blurry when you have recollection of information/forms and consider reason itself a spiritual force in which you can attune, so ritual is likely to occur around those types of belief systems.
You should believe the story is meant to be understood how it was intended by the writers. Just because some Jews/Christian’s misunderstood it to be literal/historical doesn’t matter. If you think they wrote David, Abraham and God as allegory/metaphor then that is how you should understand them but if they were stories of what they thought were historical figures then they should be understood that way.
The only understanding of God or Logos I have of yours is a literal angry sky guy for the Jews of the OT. I don’t know how you think Plato, Philo or the writer of John understood God or the Logos.
I think it comes down to you failing to understand words in the context of the conversation and instead looking to make a debate about the perfect label that fits a group. If someone is talking about Christians and includes the Mormons in the group it isn’t necessary to point out that Mormons don’t believe exactly like everyone else in the group so you shouldn’t label them Christian. It just drags the conversation off topic into a conversation of word choice and labels.

gentleexit

Let me go back to you this time. You keep going back to "rational". Myth/poetry etc which are forms or exposition, nothing more, seem to be negative for you. Static and constant vs dynamic, changing - the first seems to be acceptable. The second somehow questionable, though I see them as just ends on a scale. Presumably deductive prose is positive. I think I have been answering you but obviously I'm missing something. Distinguish (without examples except as icing) rational and its opposite.

I'm not "going for" anyone. Plotinus wasn't into group ritual. That's all I was saying. I admire Plotinus greatly. He's someone you can reread and there's always more.

Now that's interesting. Perhaps we should just drop all the rational/irrational divide stuff and go from here. So "it" is not you. "It" is separate but within. It guides. But the aim is to "journey from the alone to the alone". Ultimately we are alone and want oblivion (the One has no qualities, it is the ultimate nothing). We don't want to be separate yet here is a separate "being" (or is "being" wrong?) helping us. Now not only are we separate but we are communing with another separate thing. Inside ourselves. ... I think examine this and all the "superstition" vs ... and the "rational" vs ... drops away. This is a good place to look.

All the late Platonists were like this. Let's call them "temple Platonists". Their systems were all about marrying the "upper concepts" with prevailing practice. They viewed those practices as forms for ascent. Now, if you want to drop the antromorphic, you could say they viewed traditional rituals as contemplative endeavors, akin to solitary meditation. However, the texts of those like Proclus definitely talk to separate "beings", gaining their help etc. Was this figurative speech? I don't think so.

and how do you know that? Do they leave reader's guides? John Chrysostom gave talks on creation to farmers in Cappadocia. He wasn't saying Adam was figurative. Jerome's Chronicle, per Eusebius', doesn't see the first man that way either. But you could say Philo saw Genesis as allegory. Two readings. Writer long gone. Who's to say who's right?

Loosely Logos meant "bring order" to everyone. Was it a force (that could be embodied) or an agent? That differed. For Plato, it was one of many concepts. For John, it was the concept.

"Angry god" was an aside. That's my read of the OT god and the difficulty anyone had trying to present him as the supreme being. Jealousy, anger, hardly sublime qualities.

p.s. let's agree to differ on "word choice and labels". Most arguments (IMO) come down to just that. Claims about a label when people actually mean different things by it. The claims are debated without taking that into account. That's what Plato's Euthyphro is about.

gentleexit

Yes absolutely (the "Judeo-Christian culture" label is insulting).

Wow. Your definition of Gnostic is anything Hellenistic at all? That "Gnostic" is even more meaningless that most uses. Why not just say Hellenist? (as they would have).

Clivedurdle

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005...uardianreview4