№17511[Quote]
The question why so many distinct forms of spirituality and intellectual life may be named and understood as “philosophy”, should perhaps be answered by involving the so-called “principle of translatability”, discussed by Jan Assmann in respect to Egyptian and Near Eastern religions. The conviction that God or the gods are universal led to the semantic dimension that makes names translatable. This means that every nation has essentially the same gods. Therefore the basic structure of the spiritual path leading to first principles everywhere must be analogous, though different in style and details. According to Aristotle (De philosoph., fr.8), wisdom (sophia) covers any ingenious invention and conception (all of which ultimately are gifts, sent down by the gods); therefore to do any thing well, skillfully, according to the divine paradigms and models, is to follow the way of “wisdom” which finally leads to the highest metaphysical goals, to the noetic realm where Wisdom itself, the graceful goddess, dwells. No wonder that every nation loves wisdom and has certain “lovers of wisdom”, be they goldsmiths, artists, healers, singers, priests, or magicians. The practice of translating and interpreting foreign divine names is found already established in the Sumerian and Akkadian glossaries dated from the third millennium B.C. In ancient Mesopotamia one can find countless lists of gods in two or three languages. For example, the explanatory list Anu sha Ameli gives not only the Sumerian and Akkadian names of the gods, but also the functional definitions of every deity, i.e. those attributes which serve as the main criteria for equation and translation. In the Kassite period (about 1730-1155 B.C.) such explanatory lists are expanded to include the divine names in Amorite, Hurrite, Elamite and Kassite languages. This theological interpretation, aimed at making explicit the underlying “meaning” of divine names, is based on universal metaphysics (covered by the mythical images, qualities, symbols) and international law. According to Jan Assmann: “The names, iconographies, and rites – in short, the cultures – differ, but the gods are the same. This concept of religion as the common background of cultural diversity and the principle of cultural translatability eventually led to the late Hellenistic mentality for which the names of the gods mattered little in view of the overwhelming natural evidence of their existence”. This kind of comparative hermeneutics is not explicitly developed in the early pharaonic Egypt due to its closed and self-sufficient character, but Egyptian metaphysics are even more overwhelmingly based upon evident reality and can serve as a firm theological ground for such practices as flourished especially in Hellenistic times. In the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom (2040-1650 B.C.) it is unequivocally stated: all names are those of one God (CT 4.10). God is both transcendent and immanent. In his immanent aspect of the creative theophany, God is “million” (or infinity, heh) into which he has transformed himself. Therefore the intelligible solar Deity is hehu whose limits are not known, scarab (kheper) whose body is not known, for he is like the boundless Light (Leiden stela V.70). The One who transforms himself into the totality of manifestations (kheperu), divine forces (sekhemu), all of the gods (neteru) and levels of being, nonetheless remains intact in his transcendence. All gods are comprised in the One, “the One Alone who created what is, the illustrious bau of gods and humans” (Pap. Berlin 3030.8-9).
№17512[Quote]
Therefore this One God, who became two “at the beginning” of noetic creation, is praised in a Ramesside magical papyrus of the XIX Dynasty (1295-1188 B.C.) as follows: “Hail, the One who makes himself into millions, Whose length and breath are limitless. Power in readiness, who gave birth to himself, Uraeus with great flame; Great of magic with secret form, Secret ba, to whom respect is shown… Amun, who remains in possession of all things, This God who established the earth by his providence”. The later Neoplatonists could easily find Pythagorean and Platonic principles in the Egyptian theologies, because these theologies operated within the same system of religious and philosophical translatability, in addition to the plausible premise that Platonism itself (in its rather concealed essential form) directly or indirectly derived from Egyptian lore. One is tempted to argue that so-called “ancient polytheisms” functioned as a technique of translation, but ought to be careful when dealing with terms. Derogatory terms, such as the Latin paganus (peasant, rustic, unlearned, along with additional connotations of idolatry and superstitio), ironically become the opposites of supposedly “learned”, “advanced” and therefore “progressive” Jewish or Christian zealotry, or such concepts as Greek “polytheism” (polutheia) and “idolatry” (eidolatria), used to describe Graeco-Roman religion and even highly articulated mystical philosophy, are very inaccurate, pejorative and simplifying slogans, if not merely ideological stamps. From the third millennium B.C. onwards the ancient theologies held that the Principle of all there is, is one, or that the One God may wear different ontological “masks” and have multiple hidden and revealed powers. The plurality of gods is not supposed to affect the unity of God from which all the noetic and psychic manifestations come forth. However, the Christian Apologists established a superficially simple model, according to which mankind had progressed from heavily demonized polytheism to the highly idealized monotheism under the aegis of Christianity. This seductive idea of straightforward progress (from which the modern idea of progress derives) is rather anachronistic, but still captures the Christian and secular Western mentality. And this is despite the fact that “not only philosophers, but a very substantial portion of late antique pagans was consciously monotheistic”. According to P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede: “Far from arising as a reaction to Christianity, pagan monotheism was a deeply rooted trend in ancient philosophy which developed under its own momentum, broadening sufficiently to embrace a good part of the population. Indeed we are inclined to believe that Christian monotheism is, historically speaking, part of this broader development. Christianity did not convince because it was monotheistic, rather it would appear that in order to convince, it had to be monotheistic…” The Jewish and Christian religions (labelled as counter-religions by J. Assmann, because they reject and repudiate everything that went before and what is outside themselves as “paganism”) act as a means of intercultural estrangement and untranslatability. They are “exclusive” monotheisms, according to the classification provided by J. P. Kenney.
№17513[Quote]
Their exclusiveness is built more on the mythical dissociation from ethnikos, those who are not God‟s chosen people, than on the affirming oneness of God. Therefore they were in need of a special esoteric dimension which would at least allow them to accept elements of Hellenic mysticism and philosophy. One cannot claim that esoterism is simply constituted by the “remains of translatability” (i.e., by the remains of certain philosophia perennis) put into the underground, due to the general intolerance in the name of revelation. However, one ought to remember that most of the Christian thinkers, who tried to introduce a translatability (albeit with great reservations), themselves sooner or later felt under suspicion of their co-religionists. Therefore Dionysius the Areopagite was forced to perform a magnificent trick by using clever deception in order to integrate the Procline metaphysics and theurgy into Christian theology and then to create the Neoplatonic sacramental mysticism within Christian civilization. When Christian “monotheists”, who articulated their theology in Platonic terms, accused somebody as being “polytheist” or paganus, it was because they would not tolerate any other version of truth. Therefore Olympiodorus, the Alexandrian philosopher of 6th century A.D., applied to the Christians as follows: “We too are aware that the first cause is one, namely God; for there cannot be many first causes. Indeed that first does not even have a name” (In Gorg.32). For those Christians who emerged from the radicalized Jewish tradition and suddenly acquired a huge power it was difficult to accept that “the God is no less a philosopher than a prophet” (Plutarch Moral.385b). According to the apt remark made by Frithjof Schuon: “Those who champion an unreserved hostility to Hellenism and a reduction of all wisdom to a voluntarist and emotional perspective strangely lose sight of the overwhelmingly obvious fact that conceptualizing and speculative metaphysical thought is in the theomorphic nature of man, and that such thought cannot therefore by definition be „carnal‟ and „vain‟, as opposed to the penitential and mystically experimental „wisdom‟ which they themselves advocate. “History and experience teach us that there is one thing human nature finds particularly difficult, and that is that to be just; to be perfectly objective is, in a way to die… Religious zealots are the first to know the meaning of spiritual death, and one of the motives for their zeal is precisely their ignorance of the presence of this mystery among their adversaries; but there are different ways of dying and different degrees of death…
№17531[Quote]
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№17676[Quote]
bump
№17677[Quote]
I said bump dammit
№17788[Quote]
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№17873[Quote]
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