Seek, and ye shall find

My last post was devoted to Anthony Kaldellis' 1999 book on the Byzantine philosopher Michael Psellos, The Argument of Psellos' Chronographia. Much of what I had to say was critical of Kaldellis' approach to Platonism in general and to the late antique Platonism of Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, the Emperor Julian and Proclus in particular (so-called "neo-" Platonism).

It's quite fascinating, at least to me, that I should so strongly disagree with Kaldellis concerning the essential nature of both Paganism and Platonism, and yet nevertheless find his research so valuable on both subjects! I do not pretend to have any deep understanding of Leo Strauss, but it seems pretty clear that Kaldellis' work is strongly influenced by Strauss. This is hardly surprising since Strauss was keenly interested in Plato and many of Strauss' disciples have devoted themselves to the study of classical philosophy and Plato in particular (Alan Bloom, Seth Bernadette, and Stanley Rosen, for examples).

Personally I find a great deal of value in what very little I know of Strauss' work. (While at the same time I tend to find little of value in the output of most of his minions, including those just named.) I am especially interested in Strauss' theory that philosophers often write "esoterically" in order to avoid "persecution", as advanced in his Persecution and the Art of Writing. Strauss seemed to think of this as a nearly universal rule, but I have serious doubts about its broad applicability. However, certainly in the specific cases of societies dominated by monolithic oppressive ideologies, such as Christianity, Islam, Nazism and Stalinism it is almost too obvious to even bother mentioning that serious writers will naturally express themselves "esoterically" under such circumstances.

The reason that Strauss' theory of philosophical esotericism turns out to be useful, and not just a simplistic overgeneralization, is that in Western intellectual discourse it has never been the consensus that Christendom, qua Christendom, should be categorized along with Nazi Germany, etc. That is to say, the oppressive nature of the Christian religion, especially from 381 onward, has been fiercely contested by Christian intellectuals (and some others) to this day.

But Strauss' theory of philosophical esotericism can be applied to Christendom without "singling out" Christianity, and this puts the Christians somewhat off their guard. Another thing that accomplishes the same is the fact that Strauss was a critic of modern "liberalism" "atheism" and "moral relativism". Because of that, to the extent that his ideas and writings have any popular appeal, this is usually the case among people with "conservative" political and social leanings. The reception of Alan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind nicely demonstrates this point: conservatives hailed it, liberals panned it (personally I think the book is very close to being worthless, at best).

I don't think Kaldellis is a Straussian "true believer". Rather I think he is a brilliant young classical scholar who has been inspired and influenced by at least some of Leo Strauss' ideas. There are three "Straussian" ideas in particular that seem to play significant roles in Kaldellis' work so far: (1) the already mentioned concept of "esoteric philosophy", (2) Strauss peculiar conception of the "political" nature of Platonism, and (3) Strauss "third campism" with respect to monotheistic Judeo-Christianity versus atheism. Of these I think the first is by far the most important, and is the key to Kaldellis' importance as a historian of philosophy -- especially of the history of Platonic philosophy under Christendom.

To the extent that there were Platonic philosophers in Byzantium who were anti-Christian, obviously they could not express themselves openly. Many scholars take the position that anyone who explicitly professes Christianity must be a Christian. It should be, but evidently is not, obvious that this "logic" cannot be taken seriously in an oppressive society in which non-adherence to Christianity is punished with death by torture. Kaldellis apparently started out, apparently under the influence of Strauss, with the assumption that Byzantine philosphers, and Platonists in particular, should be automatically suspected of dissembling -- and he thereby avoids the boneheaded assumption that everyone who professes Christianity under pain of death is a sincere believer.

The second "Straussianism" embraced by Kaldellis (concerning the "political" nature of Platonism) is, in my opinion, the source of most of the important errors in his work. This is particularly the case with respect to Kaldellis' near complete misunderstanding of late-antique Platonism. The third "Straussian" idea (avoidance of either atheism or any "orthodox" form of Judeo-Christianity) doesn't make Kaldellis automaticallty sympathetic to polytheistic Paganism, but it does serve to inoculate him against the pernicious influence of the mentality that refuses to take seriously any world view that is not either monotheistic or atheistic. This is especially crucial in the case of Plato, who obviously has to be treated as a "serious" thinker! But for those who have taken the blue pill of the spiritual two-party system Plato must have been either irreligious or a proto-Christian. Kaldellis is not forced into that straightjacket - and it shows.

I think that Kaldellis' work is especially important to modern day Pagans, although I doubt that we make up a significant part of his intended target audience. Kaldellis has bothered to look for important non-Christian and even anti-Christian elements in the intellectual history of Byzantium (a culture that is profoundly important for the intellectual history of "the West"). Having looked, Kaldellis has found a great deal of evidence. Although it has not been his intention, and he might not appreciate this characterization, Kaldellis has thereby made fundamental contributions to a better understanding of Pagan history.

Plato was a Pagan, and late antique Platonism was one of the forms of Paganism that most stubbornly and effectively resisted coercive Christianization. Kaldellis' research supports the view that Platonism continued on as an "underground" form of resistance to Christianity long after this was no longer possible in the open. Kaldellis has helped us to better understand this important aspect of Pagan history not because he is a Pagan partisan, but because he is a good historian who happens to prefer to do his own thinking, and so he doesn't automatically toe the line of "scholarly consensus" - a consensus to which Kaldellis' work is providing a serious and spirited challenged, a challenge that should be warmly welcomed by Pagans.

Which Plato, and which Platonism?

At the very beginning of his The Argument of Psellos' Chronographia, Anthony Kaldellis sets out to demonstrate that Michael Psellos

was a serious philosopher rather than a mere polymath or intellectual dilettante, and that he used his considerable rhetorical skills to disguise the revolutionary nature of his political thought, which was consciously anti-Christian and deeply influenced in some respects by the political philosophy of Plato.

He then immediately adds: "This book is therefore a contribution to the history of Platonism. But which Platonism, and which Plato?"

Kaldellis then embarks on a digression in which he briefly provides his assessment of contemporary (20th and early 21st century) Platonic studies in the English speaking world. Kaldellis claims (rightly, in my opinion) that such leading figures in the study of classical philosophy as A.E. Taylor, W.K.C. Guthrie and Gregory Vlastos (all of whom, Kaldellis indelicately points out, were not themselves philosophers) have "seriously misrepresented the great philosophers' [Plato's] thought."

Although this is a good start, things quickly go horribly wrong. Having just found fault with Terence Irwin for saying that "much of what Plato says is false, and much more is confused, vague, inconclusive, and badly defended", Kaldellis himself then proceeds to agree completely with Irwin, only adding his Straussian twist that much of what Plato wrote was intentionally false, confused, vague, inconclusive and badly defended! For example, Kaldellis repeats the old chestnut that Plato intentionally has Socrates present flawed logical arguments for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo, and also that Plato, in the Republic, promoted the use of deception by rulers in order to better control their subjects (the so-called "Noble Lie"). This amounts to rather glaring special pleading on Kaldellis' part, since he is critical of those who "extract" bits and pieces of Plato's dialogues, and then crudely take these "at face value" without considering the "dramatic and literary context" -- in other words, exactly what Kaldellis does when it helps him to further his own agenda.

Despite the strong reservations just expressed, I think Kaldellis is definitely on the right track when he says the following about Michael Psellos and his Chronographia:

Psellos explicitly identified himself as a Platonist. It is clear from many of his writings that he had studied Plato carefully and had an intimate and thorough knowledge of the dialogues.... In 1054 he was accused by his erstwhile friend, the future Patriarch John Xiphilinos, of forsaking Christ to follow Plato. Psellos has no illusions about the seriousness of the charge: 'you have separated me from Christ and enrolled me among the followers of Plato.' Psellos realized that, according to Xiphilinos, devotion to Plato was equivalent to a renunciation of Christian Orthodoxy.
[p. 4]

Psellos never denied his allegiance to Plato, but he also had little choice other than to claim "that Plato's teaching was ultimately compatible with the Christian faith". Kaldellis insists that this claim of compatibility was "hardly supported by the meager evidence" that Psellos adduces in his written response to Xiphilinos. Kaldellis is right to point out that regardless of Psellos', or anyone else's, protestations on behalf of the compatibility of Plato and Jesus, "the argument between these two men demonstrates that Psellos' involvement with Platonism was viewed by some as improper on religious grounds." But despite running the risk of having his Christian faith questioned ("the worst possible accusation" that one could face in Byzantium) "Psellos was still unwilling to renounce Plato."

Immediately Kaldellis once again raises the question: "But which Plato?" -- that is to say, "which Plato" is Psellos so "unwilling to renounce", even at the potential risk of his own life? Unfortunately, Kaldellis then proceeds to once again succumb to the same type of error that he accuses others of making. In the case of Plato Kaldellis rejected the "analytical" approach common in the contemporary English speaking world, only to replace it with Leo Strauss' equally anachronistic (mis-) understanding of Plato as some sort of riddling crypto-rationalist. It also turns out that Kaldellis uncritically accepts the modern "consensus" concerning late antique Platonism (so called "neo-" Platonism) a consensus that is thoroughly and transparently Christianizing:

The Platonism which prevailed in late antiquity and Byzantium was created by Plotinos and his successors, the so-called Neoplatonists, who centered their thought around definite metaphysical and religious principles. Those thinkers [Plotinus, etc.] completely disregarded the political aims of Plato's teaching [that's the Straussian part], and focused exclusively on his doctrine about the supernatural world of the Forms. Their profoundly mystical mentality transfored it into a divine realm worthy of worship adn filled it with a host of luminous entities that formed a chain of being stretching from the One (lying "beyond belief"), through the Forms and the various grades of demons and angels, down to the Soul, and finally to inert matter.
[p. 5]

Kaldellis then really puts his foot in it when he claims that this "profoundly mystical" Platonism of Plotinos & Co. "was easily modified to accord with the official Church doctrine, as the influential works of pseudo-Dionysos and others testify." [p. 6]

Recall that Kaldellis has already stated up front that his intention is defend Psellos as a (1) a serious philosopher who (2) held "revolutionary" ideas that were (3) "consciously anti-Christian" and also (4) deeply influenced in some respects by the political philosophy of Plato, and (5) all the while masquerading as a good Christian. The problem, though, is that Kaldellis has merely exchanged one Christianizing paradigm of Platonism for another.

Kaldellis uncritically accepts the standard talking points concerning the "neo-" Platonism of Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Julian and Proclus: that it is otherworldly, highly compatible with Christianity, and utterly different from Plato's "true" philosophy. But in the process Kaldellis becomes entangled in a number of hopeless inconsistencies:

(1) On the one hand he claims that late-antique Platonism (what Kaldellis insists on calling "neo-" Platonism) is utterly otherworldly, being "focussed exclusively on ... the supernatural" while completely disregarding all things political. But on the other hand Kaldellis glosses over the fact that this supposedly otherworldly worldview was the guiding philosophy for the Emperor Julian, a man of action who was an extremely successful military commander in Gaul, and who literally fought his way to the throne.

(2) On the one hand he claims that late-antique Platonism was all too easily reconciled with Christianity and therefore utterly foreign to Psellos' robustly anti-Christian Platonism. But on the other hand Kaldellis acknowledges that Porphyry was "an archenemy of Christianity who developed a definition of piety strikingly similar to Psellos'."[p. 73] And also Kaldellis is perfectly aware that Julian was the archenemy of Christendom!

(3) On the one hand he claims that despite Psellos' obvious fascination with late-antique Platonism, and with Proclus in particular, that this interest was nevertheless purely objective and intellectual and in no way amounted to an endorsement of their philosophy. On the other hand Kaldellis is perfectly aware of, and even partially quotes, the section of Psellos' Chronographia in which he refers to the philosophy of Proclus as "the mighty harbor of the admirable Proclus" -- even Plato does not receive this kind of praise from Psellos! In fact, in his little philosophical autobiography (wherein Psellos modestly describes how he "single-handedly resurrected true philosophy", see Chronographia Book VI. 35-40) Psellos only names six philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, and of these the only one singled out for special praise is Proclus.

(4) Kaldellis insists that late-antique Platonism was monolithically dualistic in the morbidly life- and world-negating sense that sees the human body (indeed, the entire physical world) as something inherently evil, and that we must escape from as quickly as possible. In fact, however, the Theurgic Platonism of Iamblichus, Julian and Proclus affirmed the value of the physical world and the human body, and had no room for a principle of evil anywhere. Some aspects of Plotinus' and, especially, Porphyry's philosophy may have tended in the direction of the kind of dualism imagined by Kaldellis (for all of late-antique Platonism), but to the extent that is true, Theurgical Platonism (of which Proclus is the single most important proponent in history) very specifically counteracts that tendency.

(5) Kaldellis claims that it is because of his interest in late-antique Platonism that Psellos is mistakely viewed as a Christian. But this is nothing more than circular logic. Kaldellis asserts (wrongly, see point #2 above) that late-antique Platonism is highly compatible with Christianity. Therefore, by Kaldellis' circular logic, anyone who genuinely embraces the Platonism of Proclus is automatically very close to being a Christian and will likely, and justifiably, be thought to be one. Kaldellis must certainly know that both Psellos and his most senior student, John Italos, whom Psellos hand-picked as his successor, faced suspicion, and rightly so, precisely because of their fondness for Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, who were all die-hard Pagans who defiantly resisted the coercive Chritianization of late-antiquity. Anna Comnena, in her Alexiad, states quite clearly that Italos was persecuted because the "transmigration of souls" and the Platonic "theory of ideas" (i.e. "Forms") were among the heresies he promulgated -- resulting in his trial and condemnation (his life was spared after he recanted). Another heresy to which Italos confessed and recanted was the theory of "the eternity of the world", a position strongly associated with Proclus.

Basil Tatakis, in his Byzantine Philosophy, paints a much more subtle picture of Psellos' relationship with the late antique Platonists (Proclus, Iamblichus, Porphyry and Plotinus). Tatakis is at great pains to claim Psellos as a good Christian, and for that reason Tatakis is eager to put as much distance as he can between Psellos, on the one hand, and the Theurgy and "Chaldaism" associated with Proclus & Co on the other hand. Ironically, Tatakis in his quest to Christianize Psellos adopts the same strategy that Kaldellis uses to argue that Psellos only pretended to be a Christian. That is, both Tatakis and Kaldellis claim that despite Psellos' enthusaistic expertise in Theurgy and Chaldaism, he nevertheless viewed that form of Platonism as aberrant.

Tatakis and Kaldellis both wish to cast Psellos in a thoroughly rationalist light. Tatakis assumes and asserts that Paganism is inherently irrational and therefore portrays Psellos as a Christian rationalist, while Kaldellis assumes and asserts that Christianity is inherently irrational and therefore portrays Psellos as a Hellenic rationalist. Kaldellis is much closer to the truth, but his analysis is hobbled by his distorted view of precisely the subject he most wishes to contribute to: the history of Platonism.

Anthony Kaldellis is probably the most important scholar of Byzantine studies in the English speaking world today. His Argument of Psellos' Chronographia is an important book that is at the very least groundbreaking, and is potentially revolutionary in it's impact if it receives the attention it deserves. It is unfortunate that Kaldellis fails to realize that his primary arguments, as he states them in his own words (namely that (1) Psellos was a serious philosopher, and (2) Psellos' Platonism was consciously anti-Christian) would be much better served by an analysis less colored by an ideological agenda that is extraneous (indeed, anachronistic) when applied to the time and place of Michael Psellos.

"the Milesian view that the whole world is alive"

[This is the third part in a series on Cosmic Sympathy.]

In his An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy Arthur Hillary Armstrong, probably best known for his masterful translation of Plotinus' Enneads (used in the Loeb edition of Plotinus), talks about the early development of Greek philosophy in Ionia, that is, the Greek city-states along the western coast of Anatolia (modern day Turkey), which at the time were "probably the richest and most highly civilized of the Greek communities."

The early Ionian philosophy is represented by a succession of three men, Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes [the first, Thales, was born sometime around 625 BC, and the last, Anaximenes, died around 528 BC], all from Miltetus, at that time the richest and most powerful of the Ionian cities. Hence the group collectively are sometimes called the Milesians. The first, Thales, by tradition one of the "Seven Wise Men" of Greece, seems to have written nothing and our scanty knowledge of his teaching depends on a tradition which goes back no further than Aristotle, and though the other two each seem to have written a work in prose, these works have perished, and Aristotle is again our earliest source for their teaching. Our knowledge of it therefore is uncertain and fragmentary .... There do, however, seem to be a few things about the three men's personal interests and activities and about the picture of the universe they put forward of which we can be fairly certain. First of all, they were much concerned with those technical skills which along with magic and astrology formed the substance of the ancient priestly wisdom of Babylonia and Egypt, and which the Ionians introduced into the Greek world, mainly from Babylonia. They were practical astronomers, land-surveyors and geographers. Thales predicted eclipses, Anaximander is said to have invented the sundial, made the first map, and been responsible for several important astronomical discoveries. They were greatly interested in the 'meteora', the phenomena of the regions above the surface of the earth, the weather and the movements of the heavenly bodies.... Practically all that we know about the philosophy of the Milesians concerns their cosmogony, their account of how the world came into being. They postulate as the first reality a single living stuff, indefinite in extent and character, from which the world and all things in it develop spontaneously. Thales called this 'moisture' or more accurately 'the moist' (to hugron0, moisture being the principle of life according to simple observation and primitive common sense. Anaximander called it the 'Apeiron', a word which means either 'indefinite' or 'unbounded' rather than 'infinite'. He may have thought of it as spherical like the Orphic world-egg; for later Greek geometers the sphere was 'apeiron'. Anaximenes called it air or breath. It appears that, like many other ancient philosophers, he held that the life of the universe resembled that of man, with air, the breath of life of which the human soul is made, for its principle. This stuff they call 'divine' by which they probably mean no more than that it is living and everlasting, two characters which it must have if it is to be for them a sufficient explanation of the cosmic process. [pp. 1-4]

One very important thing to emphasize about Milesian cosmogony is that it starts with some kind of pre-existing material, and the rest of the cosmos "develop[s] spontaneously" from that. In other words their approach is exactly the opposite of the Christian notion of "creation out of nothing". Another crucial thing to note is that the "first reality" (as Armstrong calls it) is already living, in addition to being everlasting and uncreated. This is the exact opposite of the modern secular humanist view of "dead matter". The conclusion is pretty obvious: these ancient Greek Pagans had a view of the world utterly different from either Christians or modern day atheists/secularists. Theirs was a cosmos that required no "Creator" in the Christian sense, nor did it require an explanation for how life could "evolve" from dead matter. Theirs was a cosmos that had always existed, and had always been alive.

The following is from the entry for Presocratic Philosophy in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philsophy (the author of this entry is Patricia Curd, a philosophy Professor at Purdue University):

The pattern that can be seen in Thales and Anaximander of an original basic stuff giving rise to the phenomena of the cosmos continues in the views of the third of the Milesians, Anaximenes. He replaces Anaximander's apeiron with air, thus eliminating the first stage of the coming-to-be of the cosmos (the something productive of hot and cold). Rather, he returns to an originating stuff more like Thales' water. In 13A5, Aristotle's associate Theophrastus, quoted by Simplicius, speculates that Anaximenes chose air because he agreed that a basic principle must be neutral (as Anaximander's apeiron is) but not so lacking in properties that it seems to be nothing at all. Air can apparently take on various properties of color, temperature, humidity, motion, taste, and smell. Moreover, according to Theophrastus, Anaximenes explicitly states the natural mechanism for change; it is the condensation and rarefaction of air that naturally determine the particular characters of the things produced from the originating stuff. Rarified, air becomes fire; more and more condensed, it becomes progressively wind, cloud, water, earth, and finally stones. “The rest,” says Theophrastus, “come to be from these.”

It is significant that the last of the three Milesians, Anaximenes, settled on air/breath as the most basic "stuff" of the cosmos. Stoics did not adopt this view exactly, but they did keep the idea that the entire cosmos is everywhere permeated with pneuma, and that it is by way of this everpresent, continuous pneuma that the effects of cosmic sympathy are transmitted. Cicero, in his De Rerum Natura (I.10.26) says that Anaximenes called air "the divine". Thomas McEvilley in his The Shape of Ancient Thought says that Cicero believed that Anaximenes "may have been influenced by the belief that air, or breath, is soul-stuff, that is the carrier of consciousness. The universe, on that account, is a pantheos which has the divine air element as its breath-soul." McEvilley then links this to later Pythagorean thought:

The Pythagoreans, not long after, would teach similarly that the universe is a living organism which breathes one vast breath ... the universe was viewed as a living god.
[p. 34]

Sanskrit: some GOOD news

The news of the untimely demise of the Clay Sanskrit Library is at least somewhat offset by something just posted over at the Hindu Blog on the subject of the Revival of Sanskrit – Urban Young Indians Enrolling for Sanskrit Classes.

That post, in turn, links to an article over at Outlook India on the trend in India of young people rediscovering the lure of Sanskrit.

Tens of thousands of young Indians are now enrolled in Sanskrit courses that utilize the Bhagavad Gita as the primary text. Those classes are part of a broader effort that started with just 7 people studying Sanskrit together in 1981. In 2008 more than 2,000 people enrolled in Sanskrit classes in Delhi alone, and well over half of them were between 18 and 28 years of age -- in all, over 7 million people have enrolled in these Sanskrit classes since 1981. These classes also emphasize spoken Sanskrit and tens of thousands of Indians now claim Sanskrit as their "mother tongue".

Origins of the concept of Cosmic Sympathy

[This is the second part in a series on Cosmic Sympathy.]

 Katerina Ierodiakonou provides a very handy overview of the ancient Greek philosophical concept of sympatheia, in her article The Greek Concept of Sympatheia and Its Byzantine Appropriation in Michael Psellos, which appears as the second chapter in the anthology The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, edited by Magdalino and Mavroudi (here is the book at googlebooks - most of this chapter can be viewed there):

A. In ancient Greek sympatheia has different, though obviously interrelated, meanings: it is used in medical writings, as for example in the Hippocratic corpus (De alim. 23.1), to refer to the fact that when a part of the human body somehow suffers another part may be affected, too; it is also used to talk about the fact that people may share the feelings of their fellow citizens, for instance in Aristotle's Politics (1340a13); finally, it is used to refer to the supposed phenomenon that all beings on earth and in the heavens are inextricably linked together. That is to say, the ancient notion of sympatheia indicates a close connection between things which are parts of some kind of a whole, either at the same level, as different parts of the body are in relation to the body as a whole, or at different levels, as the body and soul are in relation to the living being as a whole. Thus sympatheia could refer to the close connection between different parts of the same body as a whole, or the close connection between everything in the world as a part of the world as a whole, or between the body of the world and its soul as parts of the world.
[p. 99]

Note the three different uses of sumpatheia (and also note that Ierodiakonou states that these three uses are "obviously interrelated"): (1) in medicine to describe the relationship between different parts of the body, (2) to describe shared feelings among human beings, and (3) to describe the phenomenon by which everything in the universe is inextricably linked together. Ierodiakonou calls this last kind of sympatheia (which includes "the close connection ... between the body of the world and its soul as parts of the world") cosmic sympatheia, about which she says:

B. The notion of cosmic sympatheia was introduced by the Stoic philosophers in the Hellenistic period. Some scholars have attributed the full development of this notion to Posidonius at the end of the second and beginning of the first century BC [see especially K. Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie], but there is no doubt that even the early Stoics, and in particular Chrysippus, believed in a close affinity among the different parts of the universe; and for this close affinity they most probably used the term sympatheia, as well as the nouns synecheia or synochem symphyia, symmone, sympnoia, syntonia, and the corresponding verbs and adjectives. According to the Stoics there is nothing particularly mysterious about sympatheia, and especially about the relation between the things in the heavens and those on earth. In Stoic physics the whole cosmos is presented as a perfect living body whose parts, though, are imperfect, insofar as they are not self-sufficient and autonomous; for they cannot function by themselves and always depend on their being parts of this whole and its other parts. What holds the system together is a certain internal tension, a tonos, created in the universe by the so-called pneuma, which consists of a mixture of fire and air and permeates the entire world as its soul, sustaining everything. Thus the Stoics thought of the world as a unified living organism, a zoon: just as pneuma permeates a human body and makes it as its soul a living and organic whole, with each single part grown together in a close connection with all the rest, in the same way the whole world is permeated and given life by pneuma; this pneuma the Stoics identified with God who, in creating the world, becomes its soul.
[pp. 100-1]

Ierodiakonou has packed quite a lot into that paragraph! First she states the commonly held (and more or less correct) position that sumpatheia is a Stoic concept. And then she reports, without endorsing, the commonly held (and more or less misleading) position that the "full development" of sumpatheia is due to Posidonius, for which she cites the work of Karl Reinhardt. As Ierodiakonou correctly points out "there is no doubt that even the early Stoics, and in particular Chrysippus, believed in a close affinity among the different parts of the universe; and for this close affinity they most probably used the term sympatheia." Posidonius is routinely cited as the first clear cut case of a philosopher using the term sympatheia in the sense of "cosmic sympathy", but, as Ierodianokou strongly implies, this is almost certainly an artifact of the extremely fragmentary nature of the extant primary sources from earlier (prior to Posidonius) Stoics.

Here is what P.A. Meijer has to say in his Stoic Theology on the concept of sumpatheia and its origins, based on the writings of Cicero and Sextus:

C. There is an elaborate argument which develops the idea of the coherence of the universe, because there is everywhere the all encompassing power. It unites the things in this world and the natural events, which follow each other in an eternally repeating ordered motion.

We have this argument in Sextus and a limited version in Cicero. Scholars more or less agree that this argument is to be ascribed to Chrysippus [one of the early founders of Stoicism, predating Posidonius by about a century]. This most interesting argument is not only important as a typical piece of Stoic philosophy, but it has largely influenced later Greek philosophy, i.e. Neoplatonism, by its stressing the unity in this world. Unity as a consequence of the influence of the One was a favorite theme in Plotinus.
[pp. 85-6]

And here is part of the passage from Sextus (his Against the Physicists, I 78 ff.) that Meijer is referring to (see Meijer, or the original, for the complete passage):

D. Of bodies some are unified, some are formed of things conjoined, some of separate things. Unified bodies are such as are dominated by one structure, such as plants and animals. Those formed of conjoined parts are such as are composed of adjacent elements which tend to combine into one main structure, like cables, turrets and ships. Those formed of separate things are such as compounded of things which are disjoined and isolated and existing by themselves. like armies and flocks and choruses. Since the cosmos is also a body, it is either unified or of conjoined or of separate parts.

But it [the cosmos] is neither of conjoined nor of separate parts, as we proved from the sympathies it exhibits. For in accordance with the waxings and wanings of the moon many sea and land animals wane and was and ebb-tides and flood-tides occur in some parts of the sea. And in the same way, too, in accordance with certain risings and settings of the stars alterations in the surrounding atmosphere and all varieties of change in the air take place, sometimes for the better, sometimes fraught with pestilence. And from these facts it is obvious that the cosmos is a unified body. For in the cases of bodies formed from conjoined or separate elements the parts do not 'sympathize' with one another, since if all the soldiers, say, in an army have perished (save one), the one who survives is not seen to suffer at all through transmission; but in the case of unified bodies there exists a certain sympathy, since when the finger is cut, the whole body shares in its condition. So then, also the cosmos is a unified body.
[p. 86]

In his De Natura Deorum (II 19) Cicero speaks of "the harmony, unanimity, and unbroken affinity in nature" and then provides several examples of this, such as "the diverse courses of the stars [being] maintained in the single rotation of the entire heavens" and then he says "these processes could not take place through harmonious activity in all parts of the universe, unless they were each embraced by a single divine, all pervading, spiritual force [pneuma]".

Although it offers fewer details, Meijer is right in saying that Cicero's version is more "typically Stoic in that it describes the superior divine power as breath, pneuma. Pneuma is the Stoic element that causes structure in the inorganic, forms the psyche in animals and is also responsible for the mind in men. So it is the cause for the coherence of all things." Meijer also adds that this "concept of pneuma is characteristic of Chrysippus' thought." The point of this being that we needn't (and probably shouldn't) view cosmic sympathy as some later innovation by Posidonius, but rather as part of the foundational teachings of Stoicism qua Stoicism.

Returning now to Ierodiakonou (the passage labeled B above), she goes on to say that "there is nothing particularly mysterious about sympatheia, and especially about the relation between the things in the heavens and those on earth." Ierodiakonou doesn't tell us precisely (or even approximately) what she means by "mysterious", but later on (see passage E below) it will become evident that she is here imposing her own anachronistic (mis-) understanding of Stoic physicalism -- in particular she is conflating the very subtle ancient conception of physicalism (shared, in different forms, by the Stoics and Epicureans) with the much more narrow and crude modern conception of materialism. At the same time she is trying to draw a straight bright line between the supposed "dualism" of the Platonists and the physicalism of the Stoics, with the assumption that Stoic physicalism is not "mysterious" whereas Platonic "dualism" is.

After her cursory exorcising of all "mystery" from Stoic sumpatheia, Ierodiakonou goes on to write that "In Stoic physics the whole cosmos is presented as a perfect living body whose parts, though, are imperfect, insofar as they are not self-sufficient and autonomous." This is not only a correct statement about Stoic physics, it is also practically a direct quote from Plato's Timaeus. A little further down she acknowledges that the cosmological view that "the universe is a unified whole" in which "even parts of it which are separated by a large distance may affect each other in a conspicuous way" [see passage E below] is to be found in Plato's Timaeus. However, she fails to point out that Plato also wrote in the Timaeus that the universe as a whole is perfect and self-sufficient, while the parts of the universe are not. The Stoics are also in agreement with the Timaeus in that the universe as a whole is divine. In a word, Ierodiakonou, even while acknowledging some of the similarities, systematically exaggerates the differences between Platonic and Stoic cosmology.

Now here is one last passage from Ierodiakonou:

E. The Platonists were influenced by the Stoic notion of cosmic sympatheia to such an extent that it is only possible to fully grasp their use of the notion against its Stoic background. They also, following in this Plato's Timaeus, stressed the fact that the universe is a unified whole, and they also assumed that even parts of it which are separated by a large distance may affect each other in a conspicuous way, while the intervening parts seem unaffected. Plotinus, for instance, like Plato and the Stoics, thought of the world as living organism. Nevertheless, the Platonists' understanding of cosmic sympatheia significantly differs in certain respects from that of the Stoics. For their supreme God is transcendent and not part of the world, the way the Stoic God is immanent. In addition, on their view there is a sharp distinction between the material and immaterial world, of which the material world is a living image. Hence the Platonists strongly opposed the Stoics' doctrine of a direct commingling of the Divine with matter; they claimed that the Divine rather employs in the formation of the world certain incorporeal powers.
[p. 102]

First of all Ierodiakonou clearly overstates the Stoic "ownership" of the concept of sympatheia -- and she does so in a very bizarre way. Apparently forgetting that she has previously acknowledged that Plato's Timaeus already contained a similar concept to sympatheia, Ierodiakonou now claims that later Platonists must have been "influenced" by Stoic sympatheia. In fact, by the time of Posidonius the situation was increasingly just the opposite: Stoics were more and more being influenced by Platonism. A. A. Long has expressed the opinion that Posidonius marked a transition from "Platonizing Stoics", who appropriated Plato's words and ideas for their own (Stoic) purposes, to "Stoicizing Platonists", who, like Posidonius, significantly blurred any clear distinction between the two schools.

The details of Ierodiakonou's arguments are what makes it so bizarre. In his Timaeus, Plato presented a view of the cosmos in which everything is inextricably linked to everything else. Obviously Plato presented this idea in the context of a universe containing both physical and non-physical "stuff". The Stoics, however, took Plato's cosmological vision, and retooled it to fit into their purely "physical" universe. Therefore when later Platonists, from Plotinus to Proclus (etc) are found to have had a notion of cosmic sympathy of the sort found in the Timaeus (that is, in a cosmos comprised of things both physical and non-physical), this doesn't at all imply that these later Platonists have "modified" the Stoic, physicalist, notion of sympatheia -- it only means that they are consistently Platonic in their cosmology. Plotinus, et al, may certainly have borrowed and built upon some of the Stoic refinements to the conception of cosmic sympathy, but nothing more than that is at work.

To understand late antique Platonism it is necessary to study Stoicism. At the same time it is absolutely essential to study Plato in order to be able to have any grasp of Stoicism. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to the theory of cosmic sympathy: it turns out that Stoicism and Platonism are inextricably intertwined with each other, like everything else in the cosmos.


Cosmic Sympathy:

1. "an inescapable network of mutuality"
2. Origins of the concept of Cosmic Sympathy
3. "the Milesian view that the whole world is alive"
4. Pythagoreanism: the personal is cosmological

"an inescapable network of mutuality"

Cosmic Sympathy, Cosmic Compassion
[This is the first part in a series on Cosmic Sympathy.]

I have not oppressed servants....
I have not defrauded the poor of their property.....
I have not caused harm to be done to a servant by his master.
I have not caused pain.
I have caused no man to hunger.
I have made no one weep.
I have not killed.
I have not given the order to kill.
I have not inflicted pain on anyone.....
I have not stolen milk from the mouths of children.....
I have given bread to the hungry man, and water to the thirsty man,
And clothes to the naked man, and a boat to the boatless.
[The Book of the Coming Forth By Day, aka "Egyptian Book of the Dead", Book 125]

When you see a hungry person, give him food. When you see someone sad, you are also sad.
[Zen Master Seung Sahn]

The English word "compassion" comes originally from the Latin compassio, which, in turn, was coined as a loan-translation (also known as a "calque") of the Greek philosophical term sumpatheia. Here is how one modern linguistics scholar explains the phenomenon of loan-translation (using compassio and sumpatheia as an example):

A calque (or loan-translation) is a very subtle way of borrowing a foreign word. Instead of taking over the foreign word bodily, the borrowing language translates it literally, piece by piece, thereby obtaining something that at least looks like a native word.

The ancient Romans often used this technique for deriving words from the then more prestigious Greek. For example, the Greek word sympathia consists of two pieces: a prefix syn- meaning 'with', and a stem pathia, meaning 'suffering'. The Romans translated this by using their own prefix con- 'with' and the Latin stem passio 'suffering', obtaining the latin calque compassio.
[R.L. Trask Language: The Basics p. 197]

Unfortunately the Greek word in question has at least three different spellings (using the English alphabet), and Robert Lawrence ("Larry") Trask (who really should have known better) here uses the variant that bears the least resemblance to the original Greek. I prefer to use sumpatheia and/or sympatheia.

Here is the first part of the entry for sympatheia in F.E. Peters' (invaluable) handbook Greek Philosophical Terms:

sympatheia: affected with, cosmic sympathy
1. The theory of cosmic sympathy, associated by modern scholars with the philosopher Poseidonius, rests upon a series of premises present in Greek philosophy almost from the beginning. The Milesians had seen the world as alive and the Pythagoreans as an ordered whole (see kosmos). And though Plato's interests had earlier lain in other directions, he devotes a full-scale treatment to the order and operation of the sensible world in the Timaeus, undoubtedly his single most widely studied work in the later tradition. Here he describes the kosmos as a visible living creature (zoon), having within it all things that are naturally akin (kata physin syngene; Tim. 30d)
[p. 186]

And here is the passage of the Timaeus cited by Peters above (using Cornford's translation found in his Plato's Cosmology, with some liberties):

For the Demiurge, wishing to make this world most nearly like that intelligible thing which is best and in every way complete, fashioned it [the kosmos] as a single visible living creature, containing within it all things that are naturally akin.

In his commentary on this section, Cornford says "Plato looks upon the whole visible universe as an animate living being whose parts are also animate beings." [p. 41] Cornford also warns against confusing Plato's Demiurge with any monotheistic conception of "God":

The temptation to read into Plato's words modern ideas that are in fact foreign to this thought has proved too much for some commentators .... The reader must be warned against importations of later theology .... There is, in the first place, no justification for the suggestion ... that Plato was a monotheist. He believed in the divinity of the world as a whole and of the heavenly bodies.
[pp. 34-5]

While Cornford is absolutely right in his insistence that the Demiurge should not be referred to as "God", in my opinion the alternative that he uses, "the god", is possibly even worse. Plato's beautiful Greek should not be translated into clunky English.

Cornford is also certainly wrong when he insists that "Neither in the Timaeus nor anywhere else is it suggested that the Demiurge should be an object of worship: he is not a religious figure." [p.35] Plato explicitly identifies the Demiurge as a God, and there is no suggestion anywhere in anything that Plato ever wrote that he believed that only certain Gods should be "objects of worship" but not others -- and this is what Cornford is claiming.

On the question of whether or not Plato intended the Demiurge to be an "object of worship" we also have important evidence from Xenophon's Memorabilia, in which Socrates declares unambiguously that

The more exalted the Gods are, while they deign to attend to you, the more ought you to honor them .... Do you not, then, believe that the Gods take thought for men? the Gods who, in the first place, have made man alone, of all animals, upright .... Do you not see, too, that to other animals they have so given the pleasures of sexual intercourse as to limit them to a certain season of the year, but that they allow them to us uninterruptedly till extreme old age? Nor did it satisfy the Gods to take care of the body merely, but, what is most important of all, they implanted in him the soul, his most excellent part.
[I.iv.12-18]

Xenophon tells us that Socrates used arguments like this against those who "neither sacrificed to the Gods, when engaged on any enterprise, nor attended to auguries, but ridiculed those who regarded such matters" [I.iv.2]. Xenophon revisits this subject in Book IV, chapter III of the Memorabilia, where he states that Socrates "endeavored to impress his associates with right feelings towards the Gods." As in Book I, Chapter IV (above) Socrates makes use of the argument that the Gods created us and the world around us and, therefore, they are worthy of our worship since they "exercise the greatest care for man in every way." After hearing such an argument, Euthymus declares that from henceforth, "I shall never fail, in the slightest degree, in respect for the divine power."

Both Socrates and his most famous student obviously believed that all Gods, as Gods, should be "objects of worship". Later Platonists removed any possible ambiguity by explicitly identifying the Demiurge with Zeus. But it cannot be too often repeated that there is absolutely no basis whatsoever for the claim that Plato ever conceived of two separate classes of Gods, only one of which were "objects of worship", while the others were "not religious figure[s]."

In subsequent posts on the subject of cosmic sympathy I'll take up the other points addressed by Peters' definition of sympatheia given above: (1) the attribution of the concept of sumpatheia to Posidonius, (2) the Milesian view that the whole world is alive, (3) the Pythagorean view of an orderly kosmos, and (4) the importance of Plato's cosmology (as presented in the Timaeus) for the next 900 years of Pagandom (which will also include a discussion of Proclus' commentary on the Timaeus).

And, there are also 7 (!) more parts to Peters definition of sympatheia, and I'll go through each of those as well.

But before ending this post let me address the following question: what does this "cosmic sympathy" have to do with our modern conception of "compassion"? I believe that Martin Luther King Jr. answered that question in his reply to critics who told him he had no business in Birmingham Alabama in the Spring of 1963:

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
[Letter from a Birmingham Jail]

"Requiem for Sanskrit"

Willis Goth Regier writes of the demise of the Clay Sanskrit Library (full article here):

What happened? The sagging economy didn't help, screen media (the veil of Maya triumphant) are everywhere invincible, and Sanskrit literature has barriers of its own. Its hyperbolic tendencies are an acquired taste. Its complex meters, compound nouns, epithets, and wordplay do not translate easily. It is crowded with contending supreme gods and stuffed with moralizing speeches. In several places the Mahabharata commends study of the Vedas, yet in another declares no one understands them. An ever-rising flood of Bhagavad Gitas blocks the way to everything else....

Clay was frustrated by the pace of progress: himself fighting a crippling disease, he originally planned to complete the zoo-volume library by 2010. Its last volumes will appear this year. Clay expected a reception for the CSL comparable to its ambition but didn't get it. (Sanskrit literature has much to say about ambition.) Reviews were enthusiastic, but Sanskrit literature still remains the province of a privileged few.....

Against great odds, he published a series of successes. Even unfinished, the CSL is magnificent. Built by the best Sanskrit translators of our time--Wendy Doniger, Patrick Olivelle, Sheldon Pollack, and Mallinson--the CSL launched new translators--Isabelle Onians, Somadeva Vasudeva, Kathleen Garbutt, and Judit Torzsok--who brought works that had languished in obscurity into modern English......

As it stands, the CSL powerfully affirms Sanskrit's contributions to world literature, ethics, and religion. Vampires anyone? One of the oldest vampire tales in the world is in King Vikrama's Adventures, translated by Torzsok. Shape-changers? They're everywhere, and play large roles in the Ramayana. Clay answered every American Sanskrit student's wish by giving us Sanskrit and English texts for beginners' books: the disingenuous animal fables of Natayana's Hitopadesha (translated as Friendly Advice) and Vishnusharman's Panchatantra (translated as Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom). These fables were gathered for the sake of the instruction of princes; with good reason they have been compared to Machiavelli.....

Buddhists, no matter how practiced, should fly to the CSL. Clay published Olivelle's translation of the Life of the Buddha (Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita), the very best of the Buddha's Lives. The CSL also includes Ashvaghosha's Handsome Nanda, a Buddhist conversion story translated by Linda Covill, and The Heavenly Exploits (translated by Joel Tatelman), telling the legends of four Buddhist saints....

Had Clay been able to see the CSL to its goal, English readers would have found the way to Sanskrit literature paved for them with handsome books bound in emerald blue. Get them while you can and let them take you as far as you can go. You will visit marvelous places, with rivers of milk and wish-giving trees, where sages debate, poets sing, and captive spirits break ancient curses by telling tales of India.

This is very sad. I mean it's not like we needed even more evidence that we are living in the Kali Yuga! I am definitely going to get all of the Buddhist titles mentioned above, as well as the remaining Kalidasa titles (I already have his Kumarasambhava).

I think this is an excellent example of a noble effort that is no less noble due to its limited success. I can't even bring myself to say "failure" - because the CSL was surely not a failure! If anything, the way in which the series has come to an end highlights the great need our society has for great Bodhisattvas like John Clay, and all the others who participated in his dream. Sigh.

Take them off--your noisy anklets; such jingling betrays a trysting lover; Into the dense dark forest, my friend, cloaked in black, go under cover. By the Yamuna, where the wind wafts winsome, there in the woods, Krishna rests, There where once his restless hands caressed cowherdesses' curvaceous breasts.
[Song Eleven, from Love Songs of Radha and Krishna, CSL vol. 42]

Finally, here is another article on the Clay Sanskrit Library, from the Dec/Jan 2006 Bookforum.com.

On the Emperor Julian's supposed admiration and emulation of Christian "charity"

In their anthology The Paganism Reader, editors Chas Clifton and Graham Harvey introduce the Emperor Julian's "Letter to a Priest" by claiming that it provides evidence for the contention that "Julian attempted to give Pagan religions an improved theological footing and a social conscience...." [p. 22]

Even Rowland Smith, a scholar with a far deeper understanding of Julian than Clifton and Harvey, feels compelled to state that in that same letter, Julian "showed himself ready to take a leaf from the Christian book" because of his exhortations concerning the practice of philanthropy [p. 111 of his Julian's Gods].

However, it is clear from what he actually wrote in that letter (as opposed to how others have chosen to characterize what he wrote), as well as from the known history of Pagan philanthropy itself, that Julian never believed, nor had he any reason to believe, that Paganism was lacking in any way in it's traditions with respect to philanthropy. Rather, Julian clearly believed, and rightly so, that philanthropy is an ancient Pagan virtue long predating Christianity, not something that Pagans had to "copy" from the Christians.

Julian states, among other things, that "we ought to share our money ... with the helpless and the poor so as to suffice for their need." And he also asserts that prisoners "have a right to the same sort" of philanthropy as the poor. In addition, hospitality should always be shown to strangers. Julian then quotes Homer: "from Zeus come all beggars and strangers."

Julian states that he is "wholly amazed" when he observes a Pagan who "sees his neighbors in need of money [but] does not give them so much as a drachma." This amazement is due to the fact that "from the beginning of the world", Zeus has been called "the God of Strangers", "the God of Comrades", and "the God of Kindred". Julian also emphasizes that "every man is akin to every other man", and that as important as differences "in habits and laws" are from one culture to another, nevertheless "the sacred tradition of the Gods", by which all humans are akin, is "higher and more precious and more authoritative" than the differences among human beings, for "we are all descended from the Gods."

At the end of this letter, Julian show just how little he admires or seeks to emulate the Galileans (or "take a page from their book"). For Julian compares the "charitable" Christians to

those who entice children with a cake, and by throwing it to them twice or three times induce them to follow them, and then, when they are far away from their friends cast them on board a ship and sell them as slaves, and that which for the moment seemed sweet, proves to be bitter for all the rest of their lives...

So just where exactly did the idea come from that Julian admired and sought to emulate the Christians because they had a "social conscience" which Pagans, up to then, had lacked?

In his "Invectives Against Julian" Gregory Nazianzen (330-390 AD) claimed that Julian's religious policies consisted largely of imitating "things that evidently belong to our constitution" and "things that he admired in our institutions. " Among the things that Gregory claimed as Christian inventions admired and imitated by Julian were charity, the establishment of places of meditation, relief work among prisoners, the building of inns and hospices for pilgrims, the establishment of "schools in every town, with pulpits and higher or lower rows of benches, for lectures and expositions of the heathen doctrines... ." and so forth. [First Invective, paragraphs 110-11]

A little later Gregory refers to Julian's supposed emulation of the Galileans as "this wonderful copying of theirs, or rather their parodying as it were on the stage." [para 113]

To get an idea of what kind of man this Gregory was, in those same Invectives he bitterly laments the fact that Julian was not murdered as a child, and Gregory maligns those who saved the life of the six year-old Julian when his father and brothers were being slaughtered, while praising the Christian Emperor Constantius (317-361), who ordered the slaughter (of members of his own family!) and whose only fault, in Gregory's eyes, was that he didn't go far enough! [First Invective, para 91] In fact, Gregory, even while praising Constantius as "the most celebrated of all the sovereigns" still feels compelled to criticize him for "mak[ing] a mistake highly unworthy of his hereditary piety" in allowing the child who would become Julian the Apostate to live. [para 3]

Gregory's mentality is further illustrated by the fact that he criticizes Julian for ... not killing Christians: "[H]e begrudged the honor of martyrdom, and for this reason he contrives now to use compulsion and yet not seem to do so."!! [para 58]

This is the man whose opinions modern day "Pagans", like Ronald Hutton and Chas Clifton, are aping when they claim that Julian was an admirer and imitator of the Galileans. Since "Pagans" like Hutton and Clifton have no qualms when it comes to questioning the validity of Julian's Paganism, why should anyone hesitate to question the validity of theirs?

Notes:
(1) The translations from Julian's "Letter to a Priest" are taken from the Loeb Classical Library's The Works of the Emperor Julian, Volume II, which can be downloaded in pdf format from googlebooks. Volume I is also available from googlebooks.
(2) The translations of Gregory's Invectives are taken from C.W. King's Julian the Emperor.
(3) The idea that Paganism found itself in need of a theological overhaul in order to be able to compete intellectually with the religion that gave us Jerry Fallwell is dealt with by an earlier post on Ancient Pagans and Theology: Did They or Didn't They?.
(4) More on philanthropic traditions among ancient Pagans can be found in another post: Pagans, Christians and Charity.
(5) Also see these three posts: Contra diZerega, Contra diZerega Part Deux, and Liberte, Egalite, Apoplexie, dealing with the general theme of whether or not ancient Pagans lacked a "social conscience".

100 US detainees tortured to death - at least

The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody -- at least. While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that's one reason we've always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others -- because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people. Those arguing against investigations and prosecutions -- that we Look to the Future, not the Past -- are thus literally advocating that numerous people get away with murder.

Read the whole story by Glenn Greenwald here.

Thanks to Bodhipaksa for writing about this on his blog!!