Praeparatio Evangelica 3 part 2/4

For let these not be the names of mortal men, but let them be significant appellations of the heavenly luminaries themselves. Then it follows that the sun and the moon and the stars and the rest of the parts of the world must be worshipped as gods.

And thus, then, the noble philosophy of the Greeks has been shown, as though by some contrivance, to raise up on high the profession of its doctrine, while turning the thinking of its wise men back down to revolve around the sensible and visible creation of God — deifying nothing more, in the end, than fire and the hot substance, and the parts of the world through the heavenly luminaries, and let us add also the moist and the dry and the mixture of bodies.

How, then, is it not a great and wonderful thing, the gospel of our Savior Jesus, the Christ of God, teaching the whole race of mankind to worship with fitting conceptions the God of the sun and moon, the Master and Maker of the whole universe — he who is himself the most exalted, and beyond all things?

And to hymn not the elements of bodies, but him who is the very steward of life itself, and of nourishment, and of all good things; and to hold in no awe whatsoever the visible parts of the world and everything graspable by the perception of the flesh, since these belong to a perishable nature, but to admire only the invisible One present in all these things, the mind that creates both universally and in every particular; and to theologize concerning that one divine power alone which pervades and orders all things — a power incorporeal in nature and intelligent, or rather, one must say, ineffable and incomprehensible — shining forth through all the things through which it also works, pervading all things incorporeally and without intermingling, journeying through them all, and displaying, through all things — not only the heavenly but also the earthly, both the universal elements and the particular things — the abiding, mighty working of the Godhead; presiding invisibly over all things and imperceptibly over us, and steering the whole universe by words of ineffable wisdom.

Now that so many proofs have been set forth by us for the refutation of this incoherent wisdom or theology — both the so-called more mythical kind, and the supposedly loftier and more physical kind, which the ancient Greeks and Egyptians were shown, for all their solemn pretensions, to hold — it is time also to examine closely the ornamental trappings of the moderns, those of our own day who profess to philosophize. For these men, having attempted to weave together, with the ancients' theology, the doctrines concerning the mind that is demiurge of the universe, and concerning incorporeal, intelligent, and rational forms and powers — doctrines discovered long ages afterward by the school of Plato and devised by right reasoning — have with even greater pretension exalted the profession they make about the myths. Hear, then, also their physical philosophy, and with what sort of arrogance it has been set forth by Porphyry.

I will speak to those for whom it is lawful to hear; but you who are profane, close the doors — I who set forth the thoughts of a theological wisdom, by which men have signified to sense-perception, by means of forms akin to it, God and the powers of God, having sketched out the invisible in visible representations, for those who have learned to read the writings concerning the gods as though out of books, namely the statues. It is nothing to be wondered at that the most ignorant should regard the wooden and stone images as mere wood and stone, just as, indeed, among the illiterate, those without understanding see in inscribed columns mere stone, in tablets mere wood, and in books mere woven papyrus.

Having thus adorned his introduction with such words, hear now what he writes further on, word for word: 'Since the divine is luminous in form and dwells in a pouring-forth of ethereal fire, and is invisible to a perception preoccupied with mortal life, he led men, by means of translucent material — such as crystal, or Parian marble, or even ivory — to the conception of its light; and by means of gold, to the notion of its fire, and of its incorruptibility, since gold is not defiled.'

And many, again, indicated the invisibility of his substance by a black stone; and they fashioned the gods in human form, because the divine is rational, and beautiful, because in the divine there is unblemished beauty; and they represented them with various shapes and ages, seated postures and standing postures, and garments, and some as male, others as female, and some as virgins, and others as young men, or as those who have already had experience of marriage, in order to represent the difference among them.

Hence they assigned everything white to the heavenly gods, and the sphere and all spherical shapes especially to the cosmos and to the sun and moon, and in some cases also to Fortune and to Hope; and the circle and all circular things to Eternity, and to the motion that occurs in the heavens, and to the zones and circles within it; and segments of circles to the phases of the moon; and pyramids and obelisks to the substance of fire, and for this reason to the Olympian gods; just as, again, the cone was assigned to the sun, the cylinder to the earth, the phallus to sowing and generation, and the triangular shape on account of the female part.

These are the words of that admirable philosopher — men for whom nothing could be more unseemly than to speak solemnly of shameful things, and nothing more forced than to assert that lifeless materials, gold and stone and the like, bear images of the light of the gods and signify their heavenly and ethereal nature. That these are sophistries of recent men, which never even in a dream entered the minds of the ancients, you may learn and know from the fact that images made of gold and of material reputed more costly were rejected by earlier generations. Plutarch, then, speaks somewhat as follows, in these very words:

The making of xoana seems to be something ancient and old, since the first image of Apollo brought to Delos by Erysichthon for the sacred processions was of wood, and the image of Polias, set up by the aboriginal inhabitants, which the Athenians preserve to this very day, was likewise of wood. The Samians too had a wooden seated image of Hera, as Callimachus says: 'Not yet was the well-carved work of Scelmis, but you were still, by the ancient ordinance of chisels, an unwrought plank.' For thus did men in those days set up their gods; indeed at Lindos, Danaus set up a stone as the seat of Athena. And it is said that Peiras, the first man to found a shrine of Hera in the Argolid, having appointed his own daughter Callithyia as priestess, cut a pear-tree from among the trees around Tiryns and fashioned it into a goodly image of Hera. For men were unwilling to hew into a god's image the hard, unworkable, and lifeless stone, while gold and silver they considered to be the diseased colors and blemishes of a barren and corrupted earth, blossoming forth like bruises on flesh that has been struck by fire; and ivory — you know well where they made use of it in play, as an ornament of luxury.

These are the words of Plutarch. And long before him, Plato, knowing full well that there is nothing solemn or resembling the divine nature in gold and stones and ivory and works fashioned out of lifeless matter, hear what he ordains in the Laws: 'Earth, then, and the hearth of the household are sacred to all the gods together; let no one, therefore, consecrate shrines to the gods a second time. Gold and silver, whether privately owned or in temples, are in other cities a possession that provokes envy; ivory, being the offshoot of a body that has abandoned its soul, is not a pure offering; and iron and bronze are instruments of war.' I consider these words to contain a clear refutation of the natural philosophy set forth above; but come, let us also examine what remains. Hear, then, what he says:

Consider, then, in this way, examining closely the wisdom of the Greeks. For those who composed the Orphic writings, taking Zeus to be the mind of the universe — who, possessing the world, fashioned the things within it — have handed down concerning him, in their theologies, the following:

Zeus was born first, Zeus of the bright thunderbolt is last; Zeus is the head, Zeus the middle, and from Zeus are all things made. Zeus was born male, Zeus the imperishable became a bride. Zeus is the foundation of the earth and of the starry heaven. Zeus is king, Zeus himself is the first begetter of all things. One power, one divinity he became, a great ruler of all, one kingly body, in which all these things revolve — fire and water and earth and aether, night and day, and Metis, the first begetter, and Eros the much-delighting; for all these things lie within the great body of Zeus. Of him one may see the head and fair face as the gleaming heaven, around which golden tresses of glittering stars, most beautiful, float on high; and on either side two golden horns, like a bull's — the rising and the setting, the paths of the heavenly gods; and his eyes are the sun and the moon that meets it. His mind is unerring, kingly, the imperishable aether, by which all things are moved in their circuits and ordered, nor is there any voice, nor cry, nor sound that escapes the ear of Zeus, the mighty son of Cronus. Thus does he have his immortal head and his understanding; and his body, all-shining, boundless, unshaken, mighty, mighty of limb, exceedingly strong, is fashioned thus: his shoulders and broad chest and back are the wide-strengthed air, and wings grew forth from him, with which he flies over all things; his belly is sacred, even earth the all-mother, and the steep peaks of the mountains; and his middle girdle is the deep-sounding swell of sea and ocean; and his lowest foundation is the roots within the earth, dank Tartarus, and the farthest bounds of the world. Having hidden all things away, he was about to bring them forth again from his heart into the joyous light, working wonders divine.

Zeus, then, is the whole universe, a living being composed of living beings and a god composed of gods; and Zeus, insofar as he is mind, is that from which he brings forth all things and creates them by his thoughts.

Since the theologians have thus explained matters concerning the god, it was neither possible to fashion an image such as this account has indicated, nor, even if someone had contrived it, would a sphere have shown forth its vital, intelligent, and providential character.

They made the image of Zeus in human form, because he was the mind by which he created and by which he brought all things to completion through spermatic reasons; he sits, hinting at the fixed and settled nature of his power; his upper parts are bare, because he is manifest in the intelligible and heavenly parts of the world; but his front parts are covered, because he is hidden from those below, the things concealed; and in his left hand he holds the scepter, because, of all the parts of the body, it is above that part which harbors the most ruling and most intelligent organ, the heart — for the creative mind is king of the universe; and in his right hand he holds forth either an eagle, because he rules over the gods who fly through the air, just as the eagle rules over the birds that soar aloft, or Victory, because he himself has conquered all things.

These are the words of Porphyry to you; and now that they have been set forth in the manner stated, it is good to examine calmly and at leisure what after all it is that the verses say Zeus to be. For my part, I hold him to be nothing other than the visible universe, composed of parts of every kind — those pertaining to heaven and aether, and the stars that appear in them, set in front like the head of a great body, and those in air and earth and sea and the like.

For earth and mountains and hills are parts of the universe, and the sea winds about in their midst like a girdle; and fire and water, night and day, would likewise be parts of the same nature of the universe. I consider that these things quite plainly point to the visible universe — unless I am mistaken in something — and teach that the whole is composed of parts.

For the text says: 'For all these things lie within the great body of Zeus.' And it makes clear what 'all these things' are: fire and water and earth and aether, night and day. 'Of him one may see the head and fair face as the gleaming heaven, around which golden tresses of glittering stars, most beautiful, float on high.'

And what follows accordingly; in which he goes on to say that the mind of Zeus is the aether and nothing else — in agreement with the Stoics, who assert that the ruling principle of the universe is the fiery and hot substance, and that god is a body, and that the creator himself is nothing other than the power of fire. For it is on the same grounds, I think, that the verses too say: 'His mind is unerring, kingly, the imperishable aether, by which all things are moved in their circuits and ordered.'

By these words, openly assuming the universe to be a great living being, and calling this being Zeus, he declared its mind to be the aether, and its body to be the remaining parts of the universe.

Such, then, is the Zeus that is sketched out through the verses. And the interpreter of the verses, beginning in agreement with them, says: 'Zeus, then, is the whole universe, a living being composed of living beings, a god composed of gods' — thereby clearly interpreting, through the verses, that the Zeus who is theologically described signifies nothing other than the visible and sensible universe.

It is the doctrine of the Egyptians — from whom Orpheus, having received his theology, held the world to be god — that the world is composed of many gods, which are its own parts (since it was shown earlier that they deified the parts of the world as well); and the words of the verses quoted have made nothing clearer than this.

But after the first interpretation, he adds, on his own, a second one, asserting that the god who is the maker of all things — this creative mind — is the being celebrated in theology.

But how could the poet of the verses have theologized about this being, when he did not even know of it at all — whether he was Orpheus the Thracian or someone else? For indeed, the theology that came down to him came from the Egyptians or from the earliest Greeks, who have been shown to have known nothing intelligible, nor anything comprised in an invisible and incorporeal substance — if Plato is a sufficient witness for anyone, who admits in the Cratylus that the first men in the region of Greece regarded as gods only these — just as many of the barbarians do now — the sun and the moon and the earth and the stars and the heaven.

And Chaeremon also testified, a little earlier, that the Egyptians recognized nothing prior to the visible universe, nor any other gods besides the planets and the remaining stars, interpreting everything with reference to the visible parts of the universe and nothing with reference to incorporeal and living substances.

The poet, then, setting out from these premises — whence, or how, or from whom did he receive, so as to set it down in his verses, the god who transcends the universe, the maker of the sun and moon and stars and of heaven itself and of the whole universe? And whence did he come by the knowledge of what is incorporeal?

But in fact he happens to know none of these things. For the creative mind of the universe is not composed of several parts, nor could heaven be its head, nor fire and water and earth its body, nor indeed could sun and moon be its eyes. How, then, could the wide-strengthed air and the earth and the steep peaks of the mountains be the shoulders and breast and back and belly of the god who is the maker of all things? Or how could the aether ever be conceived as the mind of the maker of all things, or of the creative mind?

That the interpreter of the verses has sophistically contrived all this needs no further comment. For my own part, I say that the man who asserts that the parts of the world are parts of god commits the utmost impiety, and still more the man who declares that god is identical with the world, and, beyond these, the man who holds that the mind that governs the world is the maker of all things.

For to declare him to be the maker and savior of the world, being other than the thing made, is a pious statement; but to say that he is the mind of the world, united throughout it and clothing the whole, as it were the soul of some living creature, would no longer be a holy thing to say.

And yet our own sacred oracles teach that he is present to the universe and exercises providence over the world, theologizing in a manner worthy and befitting of god, in the words: 'Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.' And again, that 'God is in heaven above and upon the earth below.' And again: 'For in him we live and move and have our being' — yet not as though we were in a part of the world, nor as in its soul or mind.

But if one must use an illustration, sacred Scripture has somewhere proclaimed it in a manner more befitting God and more proper to the truth, saying: 'Heaven is my throne, and earth is the footstool of my feet.'

For if it were altogether necessary to personify God in a more human manner of speech, observe the difference in theology. For the one who called heaven a throne set the God who reigns over all apart from and beyond the throne, at the very summit of all things, yet without cutting off the earth from his providence; for he teaches that the providential powers of the deity come down and reach even to the things here below — for which reason he says: 'And the earth is the footstool of my feet.'

But neither the footstool nor indeed the throne is the body of the one seated upon it, nor could they ever be called parts of him. But the one who calls heaven and what is in it the head of god, and the aether his mind, and the remaining parts of the universe his members and body, is caught in the act of knowing neither a creator nor a god.

For he could not create himself, nor could a being whose mind was the aether still be called mind at all. And what sort of god could he be, whose parts are the earth and the mountains upon the earth — irrational masses of matter? And how would it be reasonable to proclaim as god one who is brother and kinsman to fire and air and water, offspring of irrational and perishable matter?

And if the mind of Zeus was nothing other than the aforementioned aether, and aether is the air that is highest and fiery, having received this name, as they say, from 'aithesthai,' that is, 'to burn' — and both air and aether are bodies — see, then, to what state the mind of Zeus has fallen.

And who among sound-minded men would still call god a being whose mind is mindless and irrational, if indeed this is the nature of every body? Wherefore, in our theology we must adopt the very opposite of all that has been said: that he is not, in fact, heaven, nor aether, nor sun, nor moon, nor the whole chorus of the stars, nor even the whole universe taken together; rather, these are but small and slight works of his hands, when compared to the incorporeal and intelligent powers; because every body is corruptible and irrational, and such is the nature of visible things; but the things beyond, among the invisible — rational and immortal, coeternal with the blessed life of the God who reigns over all — would be far better than all things visible.

Fittingly, then, the divine oracles teach us concerning the visible parts of the universe in some such way as this: 'I will behold the heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have founded.' And again: 'You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.' And again: 'Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has revealed all these things.'

Let this, then, suffice concerning the first interpretation of the verses; but come, let us also examine what follows. 'Since,' he says, 'it was not possible to fashion an image such as this account had indicated, for this reason they made the image of Zeus in human form, because he was the mind by which he created and by which he brought all things to completion through spermatic reasons.'

But how, if it was not possible to make an image such as the account had indicated — and the account had, after all, indicated the parts of the apparent and visible universe: heaven and the things in heaven, air and earth and the things in these — if, then, it was not possible to compose an image out of the visible parts of the universe, precisely because god was mind, how then could anyone fashion his image at all?

What resemblance, then, could a human body bear to the mind of god? For my part, I do not think it resembles even the human mind; since the one is incorporeal, uncompounded, and without parts, while the other is the work of craftsmen's hands, imitating the nature of a mortal body, and has drawn, in lifeless and dead matter, a mute and speechless image of living flesh.

It seems to me quite right, then, to say that a rational and immortal soul, and a mind free from passion, existing in human nature, preserves the image and likeness of god, inasmuch as it is constituted, in its essence, immaterial and incorporeal, intelligent and rational, and is receptive of virtue and wisdom.

If, then, anyone were able to fashion in an image a statue and shape of the soul, he could surely do something even greater still; but if the human mind is formless, shapeless, and without figure, and its essence is neither visible to sight nor comprehensible by reason and hearing, who could be so mad as to declare that a man-shaped wooden image bears the form and likeness of the God who is above all?

The nature of god, then, is conceived as beyond all mortal matter, apprehended by a luminous mind and in silence by souls that have been purified. But the shape of the visible Zeus in his statue would be the image of a man mortal by nature, and not even of the whole man, but an imitation of the lesser part of him, since it exhibits no trace at all of life or of soul.

How then could the god who is over all things and the mind that is the maker of all things be the very same as the Zeus made of bronze, or of dead ivory? Or how, again, could that creative mind of the universe itself be that Zeus who was the father of Heracles born of Alcmene, and of the other men fabled to be sons of Zeus — men who, having ended their mortal life in common with all mankind, have left behind, to those who came after them, indelible memorials of their own mortal nature?

The first theologians of the Phoenicians, then, as we set forth in the first treatise, recorded Zeus as a mortal, the son of a mortal Cronus, a man of Phoenician race; and the Egyptians, when they appropriated him as their own, likewise acknowledged him to be a mortal man, agreeing with the Phoenicians on this point.

But the Cretans too, who show his tomb among themselves, would be a third witness to the same fact; and the Atlanteans and all the others mentioned before this, who, each according to their own local history, appropriated Zeus as their own, have all together declared him to be mortal, recording his deeds as mortal and human — deeds by no means solemn or philosophical, but full of every kind of shameful conduct and licentiousness.

But for those who have professed to turn the myths toward a more solemn meaning, at one time Zeus was a certain hot and fiery power, at another he was breath (or spirit); and now, I know not how, he has been revealed by them to be the creative mind of the universe.

We must therefore ask whom they would name as the father of this being, and as the grandfather of the father; since, according to all the theologians, Zeus is acknowledged to be the son of Cronus — and indeed the aforementioned Orphic verses made mention of 'the mighty son of Cronus' — while Cronus in turn is the son of Uranus.

Let it be granted, then, to them that Zeus is the god who is over all, and the mind that has created all things. Who, then, is his father? Cronus. And who is his grandfather? Uranus. But if Zeus is first, as being the creator of all things, then surely those things made by him ought to be listed as second, coming after him.

For whether Cronus is a certain 'time' (chronos), naturally begotten of Uranus, or whether time came into being together with heaven, so that Uranus himself, the father of Cronus, and time after him both exist — yet before these there is, in any case, the god who is the cause of all things and the maker of both heaven and time. But if this is so, Zeus could not be third in descent from Uranus.

How then is it that, among all the Egyptians and Phoenicians, Greeks and philosophers alike, the creative mind of the universe is reckoned by genealogy as third from Uranus? The fabrication of the philosopher has thus been exposed, and it will be exposed still further from what he goes on to say, as follows:

They made Hera the consort of Zeus, calling the ethereal and aerial power Hera; for aether is the air that is finest in its particles.

Earlier the verses made clear that the mind of Zeus is the aether; but now the account defines what the aether actually is, saying that it is air of the finest particles. But air is a body, and much more so, aether.

The mind of Zeus, then, has been proven to be, in fact, a body, even if the finest-particled of all. And how could body and mind be conceived as the same thing, when their natures are diametrically opposed?

Then, I know not how, having forgotten the verses, which expressly said: 'His mind is unerring, kingly, the imperishable aether, by which all things are moved in their circuits and ordered; nor is there any voice, nor cry, nor sound, nor any rumor that escapes the ear of Zeus, the mighty son of Cronus' — by which words the aether has clearly been declared to be the mind of Zeus —

yet he in turn says that Hera is the ethereal and aerial power. Then, distinguishing further, he adds: 'And the power of the whole of air is Hera, her name being derived from aer (air); while Leto is the symbol of the air below the moon, which is alternately lit and darkened; for she is called Lethe (forgetfulness) because of the insensibility that comes with sleep, and because, for souls that come to be under the moon, a forgetting of the divine accompanies them; and for this reason she is also the mother of Apollo and Artemis, the causes of illumination by night.'

In these words he says that the air below the moon is the mother of the sun and moon; for this, he says, is Leto. But how could air become the mother of the causes of illumination, when it is rather itself affected than causing anything? For it is the sun and moon that alter the air, now in one way, now in another.

Proceeding further, he next says: 'And the ruling power of the earthly force is called Hestia, whose image, in the form of a maiden, is set up upon the hearth-fire; and inasmuch as this power is generative, they signify her in the form of a woman with prominent breasts. Rhea they called the power of the rocky and mountainous earth, and Demeter the power of the level and fertile earth. Demeter is, in most respects, the same as Rhea, but differs in this: that she conceives Kore from Zeus, that is, satiety (koros) from the seeds sown in brushwood. For this reason her statue is crowned with ears of grain, and poppies surround her as a symbol of fruitfulness.'

Here again, observe in what manner he has cast down Rhea — who is called the mother of the gods, and indeed of Zeus himself — down somewhere among rocks and earth; and, confounding everything, he says she is the same as Demeter, except that she differs in that, as he says, Demeter conceives Kore from Zeus, just as the level earth conceives satiety from the seeds sown in brushwood. Behold, once again, how Zeus has been transformed into seeds sown in brushwood!

To these he adds next, saying: 'And since there was also a certain power in the seeds cast into the earth, which the sun, as it travels around the lower hemisphere, draws forth at the winter solstice, Kore is the seed-bearing power, and Pluto is the sun as it travels beneath the earth and journeys through the unseen world at the winter solstice; and he is said to seize Kore, whom Demeter longs for as she lies hidden beneath the earth.'

And the power of tree-fruits, and of vegetation generally, is named Dionysus. Observe the images pertaining to these as well: Kore bears symbols of the sprouting-forth of fruits above the earth, while Dionysus shares horns in common with Kore, but is depicted in female form, signifying the male-female power at work in the generation of tree-fruits.

Pluto, the ravisher of Kore, has a helmet, the symbol of the invisible pole, and a truncated scepter, the sign of his kingship over the realm below; and his dog signifies the gestation of fruits, divided into three stages: the sowing, the reception, and the distribution. For he is not called 'dog' (kyōn) from feeding on the fates (kēres) — which signify souls — but from 'to be pregnant' (kyein), a role of which Pluto is the provider whenever he seizes Kore.

Attis and Adonis, in turn, correspond to the process of fruits in an analogous way. Attis pertains to the flowers that appear in spring and fall away before they can bring their fruit to completion — for which reason they also attributed to him the cutting off of his private parts, since the fruits fail to arrive at seed-bearing maturity — while Adonis is the symbol of the harvesting of fruits that have reached completion.

Silenus is the symbol of the pneumatic (breath-like) motion, which contributes not a little to the whole. His symbols are the bald and gleaming head, representing the revolution of the heavens, and the hair covering his lower parts, an illustration of the thickness of the air near the earth.

And since a certain power also had a share in the power of divination, this power is called Themis, from her declaring what has been established and what is appointed to each.