Akhenaten (A Brief History of Revolutionary Monotheism, Part One)

In his book Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, renowned Egyptologist Erik Hornung describes the Amarna Period (in the 14th century BC, during the late 18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt) as a time

... when ancient Egyptian culture and religion were fundamentally transformed for several years, and which even witnessed the introduction of a new literary language, and during which a religion was founded for the first time in the history of the world. To the best of our knowledge, this had never happened before, either in Egypt or elsewhere.

[p. 2 - emphasis in original]

There is probably no greater conceptual barrier to a proper understanding of modern Paganism than this: the idea of a "new religion" is completely foreign, indeed antithetical, to Paganism. Paganism is the Old Religion, not merely as a rhetorical stance from which to claim the validation that comes with an ancient pedigree, but because the very notion of "starting a new religion" is theologically nonsensical from a Pagan perspective.

Paganism qua Paganism is based on the belief that the relationship between the Gods and humanity is as old as humanity itself. This is not a historical claim but rather a theological one, and as such it is not amenable to historical validation or invalidation. To the outsider, it has the appearance of an article of faith, but to the Pagan it is something that is experienced and known directly. This knowledge of the Gods from direct experience is what makes a Pagan a Pagan.

Writing 17 centuries ago in his On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, the Pagan philosopher Iamblichus took issue with Porphyry, his teacher, on the matter of the Gods and in particular concerning the nature of our knowledge of the Divine:

You say first, then, that you "concede the existence of the Gods": but this is not the right way to put it. For an innate knowledge [euphytos gnosis] about the Gods is coexistent with our nature, and is superior to all judgement and choice, reasoning and proof. This knowledge is united from the outset with its own cause, and exists in tandem with the essential striving of the soul towards the Good.

Indeed, to tell the truth, the contact we have with the Divinity is not to be taken as knowledge. Knowledge, after all, is separated (from its object) by some degree of otherness. But prior to that knowledge, which knows another as being itself other, there is the unitary connection with the Gods that is natural. We should not accept, then, that this is something that we can either grant or not grant, nor admit to it as ambiguous (for it remains always uniformly in actuality), nor should we examine the question as though we were in a position either to assent to it or to reject it; for it is rather the case that we are enveloped by the Divine presence, and we are filled with it, and we possess our very essence by virtue of our knowledge that there are Gods.

And I make the same argument to you also as regards the superior classes of being which follow upon the Gods, I mean the daemons and heroes and pure souls; for in respect of them also one should always assume one definite account of their essence, and reject the indeterminacy and instability characteristic of the human condition; one should also avoid the inclination to one side of an argument rather than another, resulting from the balanced antithesis of reasoning; for such a procedure is alien to the first principles of reason and life, and tends towards a secondary level of reality, such as belongs rather to the potentiality and contrariety of the realm of generation. The higher beings, by contrast, one should grasp with a uniform mode of cognition.

So then to the eternal companions of the Gods, let there correspond also the innate cognition of them, even as they themselves possess a being of eternal identity, so too let the human soul join them in knowledge on the same terms, not employing conjecture or opinion or some form of syllogistic reasoning, all of which take their start from the plane of temporal reality, to pursue that essence which is beyond all theses things, but rather connecting itself to the Gods with pure and blameless reasonings, which it has received from all eternity from those same Gods.

You [that is, Porphyry], however, seem to think that knowledge of Divinity is of the same nature as a knowledge of anything else, and that it is by the balancing of contrary positions that a conclusion is reached, as in dialectical discussions. But the cases are in no way similar. The knowledge of the Gods is of a quite different nature, and is far removed from all antithetical procedure, and does not consist in the assent to some proposition now, nor yet at the moment of one's birth, but from all eternity it coexisted in the soul in complete uniformity.

So this, then, is what I have to say to you about the first principle in us, from which anyone, who is to say or hear anything about the classes of beings superior to us, must take a start.

[pp. 11-17, Clarke, Dillon, Hershbell edition, emphasis added]

In the above passage, Iamblichus is not espousing some strange "neoplatonic doctrine" that was unique to him and his small band of theurgists. Rather he was simply reminding his teacher, Porphyry, of a well known, time-honored belief about the the relationship between humans and Gods. The essence of this belief had been stated very succinctly by Epicurus over five centuries previously when he wrote "There are Gods - the knowledge of them is self-evident."

Epicurus' nonchalant confidence in his proclamation that "knowledge of the Gods" is "self-evident" gives the impression that he was also not announcing some recently discovered truth. Aristotle tells us, concerning Thales, who was born in the late 7th century BC, "Certain thinkers say that soul is intermingled in the whole universe, and it is perhaps for that reason that Thales came to the opinion that all things are full of Gods."

Julian, in his Against the Galileans, explicitly counterposes the Pagan view of knowledge of the Gods, with the Christian view concerning knowledge of their "God":

It is not by teaching but by nature that humanity possesses its knowledge of the Divine, as can be shown by the common yearning for the Divine that exists in everyone everywhere -- individuals, communities, nations. Without having it taught us, all of us have come to believe in some sort of Divinity, even though it is difficult for all to know what Divinity truly is and far from easy for those who do know to explain it to the rest.

[Hoffmann's translation p. 93]

In the second Book of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods, we are told that at least according to the Stoic school of philosophy, the question of the existence of the Gods

... needs no discourse to prove it; for what can be so plain and evident, when we behold the heavens and contemplate the celestial bodies, as the existence of some supreme, divine intelligence, by which all these things are governed?

.... And if any one doubts this, I really do not understand why the same man may not also doubt whether there is a sun or not. For what can possibly be more evident than this? And if it were not a truth universally impressed on the minds of men, the belief in it would never have been so firm; nor would it have been, as it is, increased by length of years, nor would it have gathered strength and stability through every age..... And therefore it is that, both among us and among other nations, sacred institutions and the divine worship of the Gods have been strengthened and improved from time to time. And this is not to be imputed to chance or folly, but to the frequent appearance of the Gods themselves.

While Cicero was himself a member of the Platonic school of philosophy, he nevertheless informs his reader at the very end of On the Nature of the Gods that he largely approves of the Stoic positions on theological matters.

So the view of Thales (c.620-c.540 BC), Epicurus (341-279), Cicero (106-43), Iamblichus (c.245-c.325 AD), and Julian (331-363) is that knowledge of the Gods is innate (or "self-evident", or "a truth universally impressed on the minds of men"). As the quotes from Julian and Cicero point out, this does not mean that all humans everywhere at all times hold precisely the same views concerning the Gods, nor that everyone everywhere always holds only correct views concerning the Gods. Corrections, improvements and refinements of our understanding of the Gods can and do occur, but as Cicero makes clear, such advances in our understanding are due first and foremost to "the Gods themselves."

Prior to Akhenaten this was the religious view that held sway. Indeed, the above quotes show that this view continued to predominate throughout the ancient world long after Akhenaten was gone (and forgotten). Erik Hornung's student, Jan Assmann, describes the ancient polytheism of the Near East and Egypt (predating classical Greece by millennia) as "primary" religion, emphasizing the newness of the "secondary" type of religion proposed by Akhenaten. See especially the long quote from Assmann in an earlier post in this blog titled Monotheistic Robots of Doom. Here I will just repeat a small part of that excerpt:

Because of their functional equivalence, deities of different religions can be equated. In Mesopotamia, the practice of translating divine names goes back to the third millennium B.C.E. ... In the second millennium, this practice was extended to many different languages and civilizations of the Near East. The cultures, languages, and customs may have been as different as ever: the religions always had a common ground. Thus they functioned as a means of intercultural translatability. The gods were international because they were cosmic. The different peoples worshipped different gods, but nobody contested the reality of foreign gods and the legitimacy of foreign forms of worship. The distinction ... [between true and false religions] simply did not exist in the world of polytheistic religions.

Assmann, like the Emperor Julian, explicitly contrasts the "cosmotheism" (that is Assmann's term) of the ancient polytheists, with the "radically new distinction" ushered in by the monotheism first of Akhenaten, and then later of Moses. This distinction resulted in "a new type of religion" or even a "'counter-religion' because it rejects and repudiates everything that went before and what is outside itself...." Moreover, this new kind of religion

no longer functioned as a means of intercultural translation; on the contrary, it functioned as a means of intercultural estrangement. Whereas polytheism, or rather "cosmotheism," rendered differed cultures mutually transparent and compatible, the new counter-religion blocked intercultural translatability. False gods cannot be translated.

[this and the immediately preceding quote are from Assmann's Moses the Egyptian, pp. 1-3]

Assmann has chosen to call this "radically new distinction" the "Mosaic distinction" -- not because Moses was the first to propose this distinction, but rather because our "cultural memory" of this distinction is associated with Moses. Akhenaten, on the other hand, was completely forgotten both in terms of history and "cultural memory" -- at least until his dramatic rediscovery in the 19th century.

Akhenaten's rediscovery makes a fascinating contrast with Moses, since there is no solid historical evidence of Moses at all, despite his importance culturally. Akhenaten introduced the worship of a single solar Deity, Aten. Aten already existed as a minor Deity, but Akhenaten not only "promoted" Aten, but insisted on the worship of this single Deity to the exclusion of all others. Akhenaten ruled for approximately 18 years. Soon after his death not only did Egyptians return to their old polytheistic ways, but they expunged Akhnaten's name and all mention of his rule from their written records. A more complete repudiation of revolutionary monotheism is hard to conceive.

See also (links NOT automatically generated):
Roman Catholicism (A brief history of Revolutionary Monotheism, Part Seven)
Charlemagne, Part Deux (A brief history of Revolutionary Monotheism, Part Six)
Charlemagne (A brief history of Revolutionary Monotheism, Part Five)
Muhammad (A brief history of Revolutionary Monotheism, Part Four)
Constantine (A brief history of Revolutionary Monotheism, Part Three)
Moses (A Brief History of Revolutionary Monotheism, Part Two)
Monotheistic Robots of Doom, Part Deux
Monotheistic Robots of Doom
Lies, Damned Lies, and Pagan Monotheism
Hic Sunt Dracones

Pics of Dalai Lama in Taiwan

These photos are all from The Hindustan Times.

Alan Turing: new petition demands apology

Alan Turing is one of the very few people of the modern era deserving of the label "genius". Turing's most revolutionary accomplishment was the "discovery", if that is the right word, of a conceptual model general enough to describe every conceivable kind of computing device. He also developed a sublimely elegant test to determine whether or not a machine can think.

Oh, and he also played a critical role in defeating the Nazis in World War Two.

In Turing's day, being gay was a crime, and in 1952 Alan Turing was arrested, charged, put on trial and convicted for that "crime". The specific charge against him was "gross indecency", the same charge brought against Oscar Wilde in 1895, as a result of which Wilde was convicted and sentenced to hard labor. Turing was given the choice of serving a prison sentence or submitting himself to "chemical castration". He chose the latter, and committed suicide two years later.

There is now an international petition demanding a public apology from the British government. Please sign it! There is also a separate petition for British citizens.

To learn more about Turing I highly recommend Andrew Hodges biography - it's out of print but you can still find copies at Amazon or Abebooks - or try a library! Hodges also maintains The Alan Turing Homepage.

Also see Turing's entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. And his wikipedia page is actually not too bad.

“Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity."
Alan Turing

C.M. Woodhouse: scholar-soldier and philhellene

I first encountered C.M. Woodhouse through his wonderful 1986 book George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes. Considering Plethon's central importance to the Italian Renaissance it is remarkable that Woodhouse's is the only book-length treatment of the man in the English language. For those interested in finding out more about Plethon you might want to check out my blog post titled Contra Atheos, Part Deux: A Gentlemen's Agreement, as well as the post George Gemistos Plethon: Sources.

It turns out that Woodhouse himself was quite a remarkable character. Below is a brief biography that appears at the website of Denise Harvey Publishers, the publisher of Woodhouse's last book, Rhigas Velestinlis: The Proto-Martyr of the Greek Revolution. And click here to read Woodhouse's obiturary in the New York Times (Woodhouse died February 13, 2001).

Christopher Montague (Monty) Woodhouse was one of the small band of Second World War scholar-soldiers who became legends as young men. Educated at Oxford, where he read Classics and gained a double first along with other prizes, he then went to the British School at Athens intending to return to an academic career at Oxford. On the outbreak of the war he enlisted in the Royal Artillery and it was because of his knowledge of modern Greek, learnt while in Athens, that he was sent to Greece as a member of the British Military Mission. He was first in Athens, and then in German-occupied Crete collecting intelligence and helping British solders escape from the island where he learned 'to feed on snails, mountain grass and ground acorns'. After a spell at a training school in England he was parachuted as second-in-command with a small British team into mainland Greece with the object of making contact with local resistance fighters and sabotaging the main railway line. This was successfully achieved when the railway viaduct at Gorgopotamos was blown up, one of the most spectacular wartimes acts of resistance in occupied Europe, and an act that gave great momentum to resistance to the Germans. Woodhouse stayed in the mountains for the rest of the occupation, becoming head of the now Allied Military Mission. In his unpublished 1945 report on the Mission, he wrote:

'Nothing matters so much in this story as the Greek mountains. The rolling downs of Olympus, the precipitous ravines of Agrapha, the orchards of Pelion, the staggering crags of Smolikas, the long, thin ridge of Taygetos, the pine forests of Giona, are almost individual characters in the story, their roles perpetually changed by sun and snow and rain. Without them no guerilla movement could have been born.'

In the immediate post-war years he was largely engaged in helping to clear up and record the Balkan disarray, and he was attached to the British Embassy in Athens and was secretary-general to the Allied Mission for observing the Greek elections a year later. Posts in industry, the Nuffield Foundation, and a spell at the Foreign Office followed, and from 1955 to 1959 he was Director-General and Director of Studies of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). In 1959 he entered the House of Commons as M.P. for Oxford and represented the constituency, except for a four-year break, until 1974. He was also for several years visiting professor at King's College, London, perhaps the British academic institution with the closest links to Greece, a position which he greatly enjoyed.

From the war onwards as a writer he concerned himself primarily with Greek history. His first book, The Apple of Discord: A Survey of Recent Greek Politics in their International Setting (1948), was an important analysis of Greece during the war. There followed many other books, including The Greek War of Independence (1952), The Story of Modern Greece (1968), The Philhellenes (1969), The Struggle for Greece, 1941–1949 (1976), Karamanlis: The Restorer of Greek Democracy (1982), The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels (1985), and Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes (1986). His last published book was Rhigas Velestinlis.

"As a Buddhist, what I can do is pray for them...."

"As a Buddhist, what I can do is pray for them [the storm victims], wishing them that in their next life, they can still be human and live a happier life."

[His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as quoted in today's Taipei Times, see link below the picture.]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2009/09/01/2003452531

Claude Arpi's analysis on "The importance of the Dalai Lama's Taiwan visit" at the Indian news and information site rediff.com:
http://news.rediff.com/special/2009/aug/31/the-importance-of-the-dalai-lamas-taiwan-visit.htm

"You achieved democracy. That you must preserve”. Quote from Financial Times article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5f4dd5ac-9614-11de-84d1-00144feabdc0.html

Dalai Lama had spoken about his desire to visit Taiwan back in November, 2008:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/243869,dalai-lama-wants-to-visit-taiwan-in-2009.html

The Philipine Star online: "Dalai Lama prays, encourages democracy in Taiwan":
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=501064&publicationSubCategoryId=200

Anne Rice's book reviews at Amazon

Anne Rice is a fascinating person, and I say that as someone who is not a fan of her writing. It is not at all the case that I dislike her writing - it's just that it has never really "grabbed" me. In fact, the only vampire novel that I have ever read is the cult-classic I, Vampire by the amazing Jody Scott (1923-2007) - one of the most under-appreciated masterpieces of modern popular fiction.

The reason I mention Anne Rice is that while poking around trying to find reviews and other responses to Jan Assmann's works on monotheism I stumbled upon Ms. Rice's review of his Moses the Egyptian at Amazon. At first I was (highly) skeptical that this was really Anne Rice, but since her wikipedia entry states that these reviews are actually written by her, well, it must be true! Rice loved Assmann's book, btw; she gives it five stars and titles her review "Brilliant and crystal clear historical analysis".

Most of Rice's 90 reviews at Amazon at least mention (or, more often, primarily focus on) Christianity. Rice's Christianity is not without subtlety and surprises (depending, of course, on one's own preconceived notions of that religion). For examples, although she is a Catholic she supports the ordination of women and gay marriage, while strongly criticizing the Church's opposition to contraception. She even goes so far as to question the Church's position on abortion. These views are only hinted at in her reviews at Amazon, but she was much more explicit in a 2005 interview with Anne-Marie O'Connor of the Los Angeles Times. At the same time, Rice appears to be theologically conservative when it comes to what she views as purely theological issues. Perhaps she is one of those who agree with Joseph Campbell that the Church should have retained the Latin Mass and accepted the ordination of women, rather than the other way around.

The beautiful drawing of Anne Rice is by Craig Hamilton, it was dowloaded from digitalmedusa.com.

More thoughts on Plato's "Charmides"

The Charmides was one of the first of Plato's dialogues that I ever read, and I have to admit that I have not had much occasion to return to it over the years. But as I searched for a proper starting point for Plato for Pagans I kept going in circles until it occurred to me to start with Laches and Charmides. My main reason for doing so was that these dialogues meet two very attractive criteria for an introduction to Plato: (1) they are traditionally considered to be among Plato's early and more accessible works, and (2) they are both clearly datable in terms of the precise time in Socrates' life in which they are set, and they also correspond to important events in the history of the city of Athens.

Since chronological specificity was a major reason for choosing these two dialogues, I had little choice but to put Charmides before Laches, since the Charmides takes place in 432 BC, when Socrates is 37 years old, and the Laches takes place eight years later. (The kind of dating I am talking about is often referred to as the "dramatic date" of a dialog. All of Plato's dialogues were written well after Socrates was dead, but they are all set dramatically during Socrates' lifetime.) One often finds the two dialogues presented in the opposite order. This is the case, for example, in Charles Kahn's Plato and the Socratic Dialogue as well as in the Rosamond Kent Sprague's single volume translation of both dialogues.

As I already alluded to, many years had passed between my first reading of Charmides and the time, very recently, when I began to look at it again more closely. When I did this I was shocked at the depth and complexity of this "early" dialogue! Not only are the arguments presented at times quite convoluted (enough so that contemporary scholars differ widely even on the gist of what Plato is trying to say), but the themes that are addressed are among the most weighty in all of Greek philosophy. What is knowledge? What is wisdom? What is the nature of the soul? How should we live our lives?!

And yet I continue to believe that this is an excellent starting point for Plato. But the Dear Reader must be forewarned - this will not be a matter of dipping a toe cautiously into the water, it will be much more like jumping in head first!

Boycott Whole Foods

For years I have done most of my grocery shopping at the nearest Whole Foods store. After not really giving it much thought for the last two weeks, though, it finally struck me just how depraved John Mackey is, and just how badly I want to make him sorry for being such a schmuck.

I mean seriously - the guy could have kept his trap shut. But he decided to flaunt his moronic McCarthyism as if daring people to do something about it. So, like, why don't we?

I say live by the sword, die by the sword. Let's hit Mackey where it hurts. Let's ruin his business empire, or, better yet, let's force him, through the power of the pocketbook, to apologize to all his loyal customers that he has insulted.

The guy has staked out a position well to the right of Walmart!!

So from now on I'll shop at Roots Market, My Organic Market, Trader Joe's, Giant, Safeway, etc - but until Mackey has atoned for his sins, I will never darken Whole Foods door again. Except on a picket line!

I am also joining the advocacy group Single Payer Action which has been helping to organize protests at Whole Foods stores.

".... to live freely"

Laura Dekker is my new hero. She is a 13 year old girl who wants to sail around the world, and her parents think this is a fine idea. She is a born adventurer - her mother gave birth to her on a yacht off the coast of New Zealand during a 7 year global-wide sailing expedition. But a Dutch court has intervened and taken legal custody away from her parents (although she continues to live with her father).

What Laura Dekker wishes to do is obviously dangerous. She could easily get herself killed. And of course I cannot pretend to know what is best for her. It is natural for a 13 year old to think that she can do things that she either can't do, or at least shouldn't do. I know I did!! The illusion of indestructibility and even immortality is one of the greatest gifts/curses of youth.

But to those who insist that she is not old enough to sail around the world, her reply is

"I want simply to learn about the world and to live freely."

"He is free who lives as he likes; who is not subject to compulsion, to restraint, or to violence; whose pursuits are unhindered, his desires successful, his aversions unincurred."
[Epictetus On Freedom (Discourses IV.1)]