My Most Heretical Thought

[readoldthings]

Heresies

This is a speculation which I sometimes indulge in. I call it my most heretical thought, because I imagine both Christians and pagans finding it annoying.

I posted a link yesterday to an interview with an occult author who believes he has found "Neoplatonic survivals" in the Hagia Sophia which demonstrate that this most famous church of Christendom is truly a temple of Saturn. I think that he overstates his case and misunderstands certain aspects of Neoplatonism, but the interview is very interesting for all that, and he reveals some details which seem astonishing to the 21st century listener, such as the fact that one of the designers of Hagia Sophia was a student of none other than Proclus of Lysias.

There are other elements of Neoplatonism to be seen in Catholic and Orthodox worship. Now, many of these are known; St. Augustine was profoundly influenced by Plotinus; St. Dionysius the Areopagite was probably a student of Proclus who pretended to have been a student of St. Paul; and so on. No one denies these things, and, only recently, it was common to acknowledge and to celebrate them. (The discussion between Bishop Maximos and John Vervaeke, which continues here, suggests that this acknowledgement is making a come back in our time, and we will all be the better for it.)

But if you look closely, it's possible to see other, hidden, survivals of Neoplatonic philosophy and practice in traditional Christian worship. Let me give two examples:

1. Easter is always celebrated on the Day of the Sun, while the Sun is in the sign of his Exaltation (Aries) and separating from an opposition to the Moon. Oh, and in addition to being the Exaltation of the Sun, Aries is also the sign specifically dedicated to the gods, and the gate through which they enter the world, according to Porphyry.

Proclus writes that the Demiurge-- that is to say, the God who created the visible universe-- especially constitutes the Sun among the planets, so that the visible Sun, itself a god in its own right, is also an image of the Demiurge. He tells us the identity of hte Demiurge: it is none other than Jupiter, the king of the Gods and son of Saturn.

2. According to an interview I listened to many years ago by an American priest, the clergy in an Orthodox church always move counter-clockwise. The meaning of black-clad clergy moving counterclockwise around a temple would have been immediately apparent in the ancient world. Black is the color of Saturn, the Father of Jupiter. And the counterclockwise movement? That has a very particular meaning.

According to the fable narrated in Plato's Statesman, the day will come when the Sun will stand still and then begin to move backwards, rising in the West, setting in the East-- in other words, moving counterclockwise. On that day, Jupiter will step down from his thrown, and Saturn will return to his seat of power and rule the universe directly. On Earth, the Dead will rise up from their graves, and the gods will descend and live among us. And the Golden Age will come again. We will grow young, instead of growing old with time, and there will be no war or killing, and the Earth will give up her fruits without struggle. To move counterclockwise, against the Sun, clad in black and invoking the Father of the Creator-God, is quite simply to invoke the Golden Age and bring it down to Earth, at least for a time.

Saturn the Terrible
 

But wait-- I hear you say-- Wasn't Saturn that creepy cannibal who ate his children? And didn't Jupiter overthrow Saturn and bind him with chains? Doesn't that suggest that they don't really like one another?



Well, yes, and no.

Many people are aware of the famous-- or infamous-- passage in Plato's Republic, in which poets, especially Homer, are to be either censored or banned outright. Plato is often condemned for this sort of thing, but his reasons are clear. In the Republic specifically-- leave aside his discussions of the poets in other dialogues-- he is at pains to remove any poetic description of the Gods, or Heroes (sons of Gods) in which they are shown to act in ways that are evil or which might inspire evil or vicious behavior in a listener.

Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials

 

‘Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this—he it is who has slain my son.’

 

These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them.

And

 

Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching,

 

‘Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name.’

 

Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying,

 

‘Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow.’

 

But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say—

 

‘O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful.’
 

The meaning of all this and its solution will become clear as we consider Plato's discussion of the myths associated with Saturn in particular:

 

First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,—I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed.

 

Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.

 

Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods.

And so we see that, for Plato, the trouble with these sorts of stories is precisely that they make the gods look evil, and that young or uneducated people, who see myths are literal descriptions of historical events, may then see themselves as justified in committing evils. Notice, though, that he doesn't actually ban the myths outright: "A chosen ew might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice... some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of hearers will be few indeed."

In other words: Such myths are to be used only in ritual, by initiates of a mystery school. The uninitiated are to know nothing of them, but are to see God as good.

The Father of the Gods

Let us suppose the following to be true:

• There is a creator God, through whom all things were made.

• The creator-God can be understood as the Son of a Father-God, who abides beyond the created world.

• There is a Golden Age which will come again either in historical time or (more likely) in a time beyond time as we understand it, in which the spirits of the Dead will dwell with the Father and the lesser divine beings.

And let us also assume the following to be true:

• The nature and activity of the Gods is expressed allegorically through myth, but

• Many myths seem to depict obscene or evil behavior on the part of the Gods, and

• Most people take the myths about the Gods literally.

Suppose that all of this were the case, and suppose that you came across a different set of myths, one which didn't depict the Gods as occasionally evil, or fearful, or quarrelsome, but rather as good-- All Good, superlatively good? A set of myths that would be suitable for anyone to read, regardless of their station in life?

Now it does not matter for this speculation whether the myths in question happened to also relate true historical events as they happened or nearly as they happened. That's not the point; they aren't being considered as works of journalism, but as myths.

Would it not make sense, in such a situation, to adopt the better myths, and hide the old ones away? Might it not then be that traditional Christianity seems, under the surface, to invoke Saturn (the Father) and Jupiter (the Son) because that's exactly what it's doing? Perhaps the Father is the Father, regardless of the name; and the Son is the Son. And it's also just possible that those who designed the sacraments of the Christian Church knew exactly what they were doing, and had in mind just the passages from Plato that I quoted above when they were doing it.

But again, all of this is speculative. You might take it seriously, but please don't take it literally; it could be wrong down to the details.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

I have seen interviews with Adams, and his speculations are indeed fascinating. As an heterodox Christian, I tend to indulge in such syncretism (no church to excommunicate me, I reckon). I think there's very much something to this. I've probably posted elsewhere about the (to me) strange parallels between Abrahamic faiths and the Hellenic faiths, in places: the seeming syncretism, as you note, of Christ and Apollo (Sol Invictus), the sabbath on a Sunday, and the various solar imagery around the Logos; the historical association, recognized even in ancient times, of Kronos with YHVH (the sabbath on Saturday, among other aspects, etc.), and even perhaps distantly in Islam.

And I suspect you are right about the myths ascribing "bad behaviors" to the gods (didn't Sallustius warn about this? Incidentally, similar to a note picked up in the Orthodox tract "The River of Fire" by Kalomiros, where he cautions about projecting human passions on God.) I suspect that it is in the myths, in their concrete imagery, and not philosophy or theology, that we get our clearest manifestation of the divine idiosyncrasies...but if taken literally these things can hinder spiritual development or worse.

[boccaderlupo]

One other thing I might throw in there: I typically associate counterclockwise movement with banishing, and clockwise with invocation. So perhaps there's an element of dis-spelling malign forces in there...?

Have you written much on the Orphic gold tablets? I suspect it's in so-called "Orphism" that we see much that parallels the Christian mysteries. For what else is recollection besides choosing to drink of the waters of Memory, which brings to mind things celestial, rather than the spring of forgetfullness (Lethe), which plunges us back into terrestrial concerns?

Axé...

[readoldthings]

No, but only because I haven't looked closely into them yet. It's probably time to change that. Thomas Taylor's writings on the Orphic and Bacchic mysteries strongly shaped or re-shaped my approach to Christianity, though.

As for banishing-- Yes, that was my original thought, too, and there is definitely an element to that. Christian services do traditionally begin with water and censing, which is both highly useful and found in other traditions as well ("And so therefore first that priest that governeth the work of fire must sprinkle with the lustral waters of the loud, resounding sea.") But I think that the associations based on the Golden Age make more sense. Do you happen to know if counterclockwise movement was used specifically for purificatatory or exorcistic purposes in Classical times?

[boccaderlupo]

I am not sure where the counterclockwise movement derives from, but that would be interesting to investigate (I think, also, of the various directions of Dante's travels in the Comedy). Your association of it with the Golden Age is provocative and potentially revealing, IMO.

To your larger point: I guess a less controversial take on it overall might be that these myths, like the "prisca theologia," anticipate in some way the truths that would become fully manifest in Christianity...

[randomactsofkarmasc]

I do not know enough about Christianity to comment intelligently on that aspect of your post, but some ideas about Kronos and Zeus and Greek in general that might be relevant:

If you view Creation as YHVH, the Y and V being masculine/expansive/centrifugal and the H's being feminine/receptive/centripetal, Kronos is the first H and Zeus is the V. Kronos brings things into himself (hence, he kept his powers by consuming his children). Zeus is expansive and sends things out of himself; he distributed his powers, sometimes by fathering more Gods, sometimes by fathering demi-Gods with worthy human women. (Why did he rape them? Well, Fortune in Cosmic Doctrine says that creation requires resistance...)

As far as Christianity being influenced by Greek religion...

In the Five Stages of Greek Religion, the author posits that Hera was incorporated into the Greek pantheon when two cultures blended. Zeus (and his first wife Dione) was from one culture; Hera (and her consort Herakles) were from another (Phoenician). And the myths of Herakles were probably not originally Phoenician; they were probably Babylonian. So the Greeks were definitely influenced by the Babylonians, by way of Phoenicia.

And I've just finished reading the Greek Qabalah by Kiernan Berry. He goes through the history of Cabala from a numerology perspective, specifically isopsephy, which is the precursor to Hebrew gematria.

So it isn't hard to see how Christianity could be influenced by Greek religion, either Platonic or neoPlatonic, or even prePlatonic. I haven't listened to the interview you linked to, so I'm not saying Greek specifically influenced the Hagia Sophia, just saying that it seems very logical that Babylonians influenced the Phoenicians influenced the Greeks (and the Egyptians influenced the Greeks, too) which influenced the Jews which influenced the Christians.

[readoldthings]

That's a fine meditation, although I think it's missing a certain piece that I left out of this post. If you set Yod and Vav side by side you'll see that the Yod is like a Vav whose, um, "extension" has been removed. In Christian/Jewish Cabalistic thought, Yod-Heh-Vav are Father-Mother-Son. In Hellenic terms, that means that Yod is Saturn: The first father who abides by himself, beyond generation; Heh is Rhea, the vivific foundatin of life who receives the energy of Saturn and gives it form; and Vav is Zeus, who completes the triad and then proceeds into further triads with various Heh's, his extended letter still intact.

Those observations on Greek religion are very interesting, thank you! I have not read Greek Qabalah, but I can tell you that it was years of studying the Tree of Life which made the work of Proclus comprehensible to me. The influence of Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy on Christianity is not something anyone denies. (Well, except for Protestants, who mutilated their tradition in order to remove elements that they thought were foreign.) In fact Plato, Aristotle and other Greek philosophers have icons in some Orthodox churches, although they aren't give halos, and St. Basil the Great specifically recommended that the work of the philosophers should be studied and treated as a kind of alternate Old Testament. The only really heretical thing that I'm suggesting here is that I think that the influence may have been deeper than anyone is willing to acknowledge.

[randomactsofkarmasc]

Ha! I never really considered the Yod was missing his extension. I can see how that would relate it to Saturn. (I'll never look at Yod the same way again...) :-) In Christian/Jewish tradition, do they not consider Ouranos in the sequence of creation?

I have not studied Proclus yet. I have added that on my to-study list. Thank you for the thought-provoking post!

[readoldthings]

Well, I'm kind of deliberately fudging things by leaving Ouranous out. Did you see the post I did on the Intelligible Triad? That triad Being-Life-Intellect, which are characteristics of the One in Plotinus's thought, each become individual gods for Proclus. But the triad occurs over and over again-- from the One Itself unfolds the First Intelligible Triad of primordial Being-Life-Intellect. Within Being are Life and Intellect, within Life are Being and Intellect, and within Intellect are Being and Life. So you immediately have an Intelligible Ennead, which looks a lot like the Tree of Life. And from that another Ennead is immediately produced, and the gods of this Ennead are called Intelligible-Intellectual. Ouranous is found here, along with the Heaven as discussed in Plato's Phaedrus. After this comes the Intellectual Heptad, which consists of Saturn-Rhea-Zeus, a triad of Curetes ( whose power is to provide identity to things, and a mysterious, impersonal seventh power called the Separative Monad. It's via the Separative Monad that Saturn separates himself from Ouranous and Zeus from Saturn, and this is what allows the possibility of separate identity to come into being in the universe.

Yeah, it gets complicated.

I think that in Christian terms, the Triad would simply be Father (Being), Life (Holy Spirit), Intellect (Son) recurring again and again at succeeding levels of being. But Proclus's orders of gods also look very much like the Tree of Life, as I said.... and like the 9 Choirs of Angels of Dionysius, who was probably a student of Proclus's.

[randomactsofkarmasc]

I remember that post, but I will go back and reread it. It is complicated and I am sure it didn't all sink in the first time.

The Ennead which produces another Ennead makes sense, though. My thinking is that there is a YHVH for Atziluth (with Ouranos as the Yod), which begets another YHVH (for Briah) (with Kronos as Yod), which begets another YHVH (for Yetzirah)(with Zeus as Yod), which begets another YHVH (for Assiah) (which still has Zeus as Yod until Protogonus can take over). So the Christian Father/Son/Holy Spirit would align (for me) with the Briah YHVH (and the four YHVH's of the four worlds overall make a YHVH, and Briah would align with the first Heh, which aligns with the contracting quality of Kronos and Saturn's association with Binah.)

Fun stuff!

Slightly OT, have you done a post explaining the Christian understanding of the soul? If yes, title or link please? I have been doing some reading which has unsettled what I thought I understood and would love to read some different perspectives.

Thank you!

[readoldthings]

Sorry, I thought I sent this yesterday but I found it still up on my computer screen this morning. I wrote:

I haven't in so many words, though maybe I should. The issue is that different Christian traditions actually have different understandings of the soul. I'm fond of pointing to this very good series of talks from an Antiochian Orthodox priest on the care of the soul, which draws directly from Plato's Republic: https://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/orthodox_anthropology/the_transformation_of_the_inner_man

On the other hand, Catholic psychology (using "psyche" in the literal sense of "soul") is usually drawn directly from Aquinas, which is to say, from Aristotle. I personally find that much less interesting.

[randomactsofkarmasc]

Thank you!

[causticus]

Thanks for this, quite a fascinating read!

It does seem like there was always a struggle between higher thought within the Hellenic sphere like Platonism and the old, rowdy "campfire tales" that is the Homeric literature and other archaic sources. This seems to have fed into Plato's interest in formulating new state constitutions that called for an intellectual elite inventing a new cultural/religious narrative for the purpose of providing laws and moral guidance to the common people.

[readoldthings]

You're welcome!

And yes, that's why I wonder if it wouldn't have made perfect sense to them to adopt the new mythology while keeping the old philosophy. It seems like the best of both worlds. And of course, they then created a medieval society whose 3 orders look suspiciously like the 3 classes of citizens in the Republic...

[causticus]

I seriously wouldn't doubt that many of the saner heads within the early church(es) leadership wanted to go precisely that route. Unfortunately, a series of moral panics (the Arian and Origen controversies being the most notorious) became all the rage during the late 4th century and into the 5th, which IMHO significantly dumbed-down the official church doctrines.

Secondly, I do very much agree with you that the 3 orders/estates of medieval society seem not very far downstream from what Plato originally envisioned.

It really does seem like Christian tradition is choc full of a lot of unacknowledged Platonism.