Ship of Fools: Augustine's City Of God

Thread: Augustine's City Of God Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

This classic contains surprises. From what I can see, Augustine believed in all the Ancient Roman gods. He refers to them as "daemons", but this actually meant Demi-Gods. For Augustine they were immoral spirits who set a bad example and didn't deserve to be worshipped like the One True God of the Hebrews, but they still had god status. Also he was interested in the Hermetic Books, a set of mystical texts believed to reflect the wisdom of Ancient Egypt.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

Its a big book. Any references for these claims?

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

Frank Mitchell, welcome to the Ship! Please take time to check out our Ten Commandments and board posting guidelines - and there may still just be time to say hello on the "welcome aboard 2013" thread in All Saints.

Eutychus

Purgatory Host

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

If read it, albeit a number of years ago. The first half of the book is essentially dedicated to ripping the pagan gods to shreds. Augustine certainly believed that they were inspired by demons but whether or not he believed they were what they claimed, I'm not so sure about. An example is when he talks about Apollo and that he was supposed to have raped a boy. He says how can anyone worship such a god but that doesn't mean he believes such is actually a god or that he actually did those things.

[ 31. December 2013, 07:04: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]

Posted by andras (# 2065) on :

I suspect that Augustine was simply taking as his starting point Vulgate Psalm 95:5, which reads Omnes dii gentium daemonia, Dominus autem caelos fecit. (All the gods of the heathens are devils, but the Lord made the Heavens.)

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andras:
I suspect that Augustine was simply taking as his starting point Vulgate Psalm 95:5, which reads Omnes dii gentium daemonia, Dominus autem caelos fecit. (All the gods of the heathens are devils, but the Lord made the Heavens.)

Yes, I would think so too.

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

You can easily download "City Of God" in HTML or PDF if sufficiently interested. The free versions refer to "devils" and suchlike, but the original Latin (also available) says "daemons", which weren't necessarily evil. Thus Socrates had a pet daemon or daimonion, which was actually a helpful Spirit-Guide.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

I've got the book in real paper and ink. Can you refer me to the part you are talking about.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

I understand that by St Augustine's time very, very few people, even among the pagans, took the stories of the gods literally.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I'm no expert on St Augustine. However, the usual Christian view in late antiquity was that, however their followers saw them, the pagan gods were either demons or that demons masqueraded as pagan gods to ensnare people into their clutches.

Worshipping them or engaging with them in any other way is a very serious breach of the first commandment. It is also what St Paul describes as joining oneself to a demon.

quote:
From 1 Cor 10, using the WEB to avoid issues of copyright

20 But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have communion with demons. 21 You can’t both drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can’t both partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons.

There was a tension, which is also visible in the Old Testament, between seeing them as powerless, 'no gods' and spiritually very dangerous, seeking out souls to capture them.

I don't see any conflict between this and how you describe Augustine's position in your OP.

Augustine had previously been a pagan philosopher and would have known what he was talking about.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

Augustine had previously been a pagan philosopher and would have known what he was talking about.

Well, he was a Manichaean. I doubt his view on (say) Apollo would have been comparable to what the people we usually call pagans would have believed.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
...immoral spirits who set a bad example and didn't deserve to be worshipped like the One True God of the Hebrews, but they still had god status...

Sounds a bit like Walter Wink...

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
You can easily download "City Of God" in HTML or PDF if sufficiently interested. The free versions refer to "devils" and suchlike, but the original Latin (also available) says "daemons", which weren't necessarily evil. Thus Socrates had a pet daemon or daimonion, which was actually a helpful Spirit-Guide.

I have an English translation printed on old fashioned paper. I've read it. Like I said its a big book . I'm pretty sure Augustine did not believe that the pagan gods, if they existed at all, were the same kind of thing as the one eternal and omnipotent creator who exists outside the universe and outside time and space and is the uncaused cause of everything in the universe. In fact I am very sure of it. He goes on about that quite a lot, in this and other writings. If you think there is evidence to the contrary, where is it? I doubt if many people are going to read a book of a thousand pages to look for one soundbite.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
The free versions refer to "devils" and suchlike, but the original Latin (also available) says "daemons", which weren't necessarily evil. Thus Socrates had a pet daemon or daimonion, which was actually a helpful Spirit-Guide.

You might have a point, if Augustine himself didn't call them evil.

To wit:
"How much more sensible and proper would it be to have Plato's writings read in a temple dedicated to him than the perpetration of every cruel and foul (or foully cruel and cruelly foul) abomination that is wont to pass for a religious rite in the temples of the demons?"
City of God 2.7
or
"One must guard against two things while praying: not to ask what ought not to be asked for, and not to ask from whom one ought not to ask - not from the Devil, from idols, or from demons."
Sermon 56.2
or
"To whom, then, should the city award divine honors with greater propriety? To Plato, who strove to debar those unspeakable obscenities of the poets and actors, or to the demons who gloated in deluding the men whom Plato failed to convince of the truth?"
City of God 2.14
or
"Just as we are set apart by faith, let us be distinguished by our morals; let us be distinguished by our works; let us be enkindled by the fire of charity which the demons did not possess."
Sermon 234
or even
"This is the main difference that distinguishes the two cities of which we are speaking: the humble City of holy men and angels began with the love of God, while the proud society of wicked men and demons had its beginnings in the love of self."
City of God 14.13

And, of course, others that I omitted for lack of space and copyright considerations. Would you mind informing us which of those representative quotes (and/or the passages from which they were drawn) would seem to indicate Augustine thought of demons or daimonia as morally neutral "children of the gods," guiding spirits of the type Socrates sometimes claimed to have?

Furthermore, would you mind providing a citation for any interest of Augustine's in hermetic literature? Just remembering his background and his many, many polemics against the followers of Mani, I would think that very unlikely; having re-read City of God recently, and remembering nothing about an interest in hermeticism, I find it less likely; remembering his great respect for the Scriptures, especially the Septuagent, and scorn for those authors who did not follow them, I find such a theory nearly impossible to believe, unless attested to by some source I do not know.

As for the demons having divine status, I believe Augustine gives a more divine status to Plato (cf II.7 and II.14) and believes him to be more truly worthy of worship and honor than any of the demons—but, nevertheless, less worthy of honor and memory than even the least of Christians, and nothing compared to what is owed to the only divine Being, the Uncreated Trinity, Creator of all things (including both the good and the wicked angels), and the only Being that can be called divine.

In other words, I ain't buying what you're trying to sell me. Sorry.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I doubt if many people are going to read a book of a thousand pages to look for one soundbite.

How about two pages into the Confessions?

quote:
For, who is the Lord, but the Lord? Or who is God, besides our God? (I.1.4)

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

It may depend which translation you get. The electronic versions are easier to search for references to Hermetic Books. But it does seem to me that Augustine believed the myths about the Graeco-Roman gods had real significance.

I'm not sure whether he followed Plato entirely, because this would entail having Gay Sex with underage boys. But he does say the Christian view is close to Plato's. This implies the belief that abstract ideas have a metaphysical existence analogous to physical objects, only somewhere up in Outer Space. Yes, really.

This is where Daemons come in useful, as they did for Socrates. Augustine describes how you can persuade Daemons to act as intermendiaries between the two realms and provide you with information from up there. Which is why Doctor Faustus decided to summon demons for new knowledge after he got tired of Aristotle.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
It may depend which translation you get. The electronic versions are easier to search for references to Hermetic Books. But it does seem to me that Augustine believed the myths about the Graeco-Roman gods had real significance.

I'm not sure whether he followed Plato entirely, because this would entail having Gay Sex with underage boys. But he does say the Christian view is close to Plato's. This implies the belief that abstract ideas have a metaphysical existence analogous to physical objects, only somewhere up in Outer Space. Yes, really.

This is where Daemons come in useful, as they did for Socrates. Augustine describes how you can persuade Daemons to act as intermendiaries between the two realms and provide you with information from up there. Which is why Doctor Faustus decided to summon demons for new knowledge after he got tired of Aristotle.

I'm not sure what eisegetical methodology you're following for making these claims, but on my reading of Augustine—indeed, on most—these things simply aren't there. Ditto readings of Plato (or, for that matter, other metaphysical realist philosophers like Scotus or D.M. Armstrong). But to deal with things shortly:
1. Even having searched my metadata-rich personal database of Augustine citations (long story, don't ask), I'm still coming up with exactly zero references to Egyptian hermeticism, but several references—indeed, several books—that condemn the arguably hermetic Manichees. If there are references to such things in Auggie, they're not laudatory.
2. Read Book VII of the Confessions for an initial discussion of Augustine's following/deviation from Plato and Platonism. Now, granted, Augustine is more closely following the Platonist Plotinus than Plato himself, and the pedophilia thing (which would require a discussion of sexual mores and traditions in classical Athens not relevant here) is not even the most significant difference for Augustine. Also, I'm not sure how accurate a description of the Ideas as being in "outer space" is, even for Plato, given that they have no existence in space or time; for Plotinus and Augustine, they're identified with the One, or, for Augustine, God, who is beyond all space and time.
3. Given Augustine's opinions on astrology and divination—absolute condemnation—I find this very unlikely. Given his mockery of pagan rituals, I find him taking the stories of the pagans seriously also unlikely. As he puts it in City of God XIX.12, "as with most poetic inventions, we need not believe that any mythological creatures, human or sub-human, ever lived." I also have a hard time believing that he'd think an agent of the Prince of Lies would tell the truth for any reason than to deceive and harm.

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

Look for references to Hermes, as in Hermes Trismegistus. Augustine regarded these ideas as quite naughty, but that didn't stop him being an expert on them, also Apuleius and other Occultists. He seems to have felt an affinity with Varro, another Pagan writer. The thing is: By Augustine's time, the Romans had followed the Hindus and decided the different gods were avatars of just one god. So the gap between Pagan and Christian beliefs had narrowed.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

Augustine was also an expert on the writings of Mani, Donatus, the Circumcelians, Priscilian, Faustus, and the Arians; in some cases, he's our best source for information on any of these people or sects. Frankly, he talks more about the Donatists and Pelagians than Varro, though he hardly opens his mouth to speak about one than his refutation of their position has begun. Are you suggesting that Augustine, the great polemicist, is endorsing or was adopting positions from everyone he wrote about? By that argument, the Latin Father is the greatest heresarch to ever plague the church, an abominable combination of pagan, astrologer, atheist, heretic, schismatic, persecutor, importer of false doctrine, lover of luxury, and a dull speaker to boot!

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
...The thing is: By Augustine's time, the Romans had followed the Hindus and decided the different gods were avatars of just one god. So the gap between Pagan and Christian beliefs had narrowed.

Isn't this confusing something. In both cases, isn't what has happened is that philosophers who can't take what they see around them seriously, have advocated this as an attempt to make polytheism, an array of only partially reputable gods and how ordinary pagans actually relate to them, vaguely respectable?

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

Hang on, we're missing the point here. Augustine denounces the old gods, but he still seems to believe they existed. And Hermes Trismegistus was as legendary as Krishna or King Arthur, but Augustine quotes him like a real person. Augustine is like the guy who denounces the Toronto Blessing in a book called "Kundalini Warning". This guy reckons the whole Toronto experience is a work of Satan and a sign that The End Of The World Is Nigh. But that's because he believes in the occult power of Kundalini Energy.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
Hang on, we're missing the point here. Augustine denounces the old gods, but he still seems to believe they existed. And Hermes Trismegistus was as legendary as Krishna or King Arthur, but Augustine quotes him like a real person. Augustine is like the guy who denounces the Toronto Blessing in a book called "Kundalini Warning". This guy reckons the whole Toronto experience is a work of Satan and a sign that The End Of The World Is Nigh. But that's because he believes in the occult power of Kundalini Energy.

No, I rather believe we aren't. Are we to be surprised that Augustine ascribes any supposed powers of the pagan "gods" to poetic fiction and/or the powers of demons to deceive human beings? Does him believing in lying demons imply he has some belief in the reality of the Hellenistic deities, much less the stories told about them? What is clear is that he believes that the pagan deities can be identified with the demons, and that the majority of the old tales told about them are poetic inventions and fancies. If you want to say that implies that Augustine believed in the old pagan gods, you'd have to show that belief in demons posing as gods can be equated with belief in the gods themselves—and, if you're willing to say that, you should be willing to explain how that's different than saying that unicorns exist simply because I'm wearing a unicorn costume, neighing, and putting my head in people's laps.

Furthermore, I'd like to take issue with your claim that the demons/pagan gods represent a sort of demigod, an intermediary between the human and divine realms. I don't know if you've finished the book, but Augustine, in describing the origin and destinies of the earthly city of the wicked and the fallen angels, is quite clear that the demons, through their rebellion against the divine order and their subsequent fall into perdition, have lost the communion with God that they once enjoyed, and which the good and holy angels continue to enjoy. While he does believe one can gain a certain sort of false and deceptive knowledge through divination (if, perhaps, as much by luck as any actual truth revealed by demons—see also his writings on astrology), it's clear that he believes such knowledge (if, in fact, is is knowledge) to be valueless as it cannot contribute to one's eternal welfare in any way (but will give you a good head start on the road to eternal damnation). So even if there is any genuine information one could obtain by dealing with the demons, it would be of no value, certainly would not come from a divine source, and would lead one into the worst possible sort of misery and unhappiness. What a wondrous guide for a human being to have who would lead them so astray!

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

I've now got hold of a more recent translation, and I'll look into your comments. Alot depends on whether Augustine is just describing what other people believe.

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

So I've now gone through another "City Of God" up to Book X. It still looks like Augustine believed the Roman Gods existed, even if they were actually demons and generally rubbish. For me, things get interesting around Book VIII, where he discusses Plato. He seems to concede there could be many gods, with the Christian God as the "God of gods". Or are they really angels, or immortalized humans? Or is that just the opinion of Apuleius? Hard to tell.

I'm not sure he understands Plato though. He reckons Plato came to believe in One God after meeting somebody from the Old Testament. Or at least got inspired by reading an Old Testament scripture. Whereas in fact Plato was inspired by trance states like those of the Bacchae, a sort of feminist Voodoo Cult who ran around tearing live goats apart. Not to mention Out-Of-The-Body experiences induced by fancying attractive boys.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

Again, I invite you to consider the following analogy:
Augustine believes that demons pose as gods implies that Augustine believes that there are other gods :: I'm dressed up as a unicorn implies that unicorns exist. Please show where it fails, if you would please.

Furthermore, I'm not sure where you're getting your information on Plato and Platonism. I'm moderately familiar with the Greek mystery cults, including the cults surrounding Bacchus, as well as the influence of the mystery cults on Plato—and, while there's some speculation as to what influence Orphism and the Elusenian Mysteries had on Plato, I have never heard any mention of the Bacchantes in relation to his philosophy, much less trance states, out of body experiences, or…whatever sort of thing you're implying "fancying attractive boys" causes. Would you care to cite your sources for this, please?

Yes, there's an old pious legend that Plato may have met the prophet Jeremiah during his possible time in Egypt. No, there's no scholarly evidence for it, and quite a bit that Jeremiah died about half a century (IIRC) before Plato was born.

Finally, there is a tradition of Platonism that Augustine is more familiar with than Plato; in fact, there's some scholarly debate on exactly how familiar with Plato Augustine was, as opposed to how much of his knowledge of Plato is filtered and transmitted through Plotinus and middle/later Platonism. While there is an analogy between the all-encompassing sovereign Good of Plato, the One of Plotinus, the supremely transcendent object all creatures emanate from and wish to be united with, and Augustine's God, the analogies aren't exactly perfect (though they are legitimate); however, the imperfections in the analogy are things that Augustine makes quite a bit of philosophical hay over. Basically, there's a long and very complicated philosophical tradition Augustine is alluding to under the name of "Plato."

As to the gods being immortalized humans: No. Just No. No such allowance is made in Augustine; once you're dead, you're either asleep and awaiting the last judgment (and thus not doing much of anything), or burning in Hell, or you're in Heaven, where, with your will perfectly in accord with the Divine Will, you're not going to go about deceiving human beings and encouraging them to worship entities other than the one God. Angels, as mentioned, are either the good angels who do not deceive (see the whole "will in accord with God" thing above), or are the wicked angels, who, while they may pretend to be gods to deceive and delude foolish and curious mortals, aren't.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
much less trance states, out of body experiences, or…whatever sort of thing you're implying "fancying attractive boys" causes. Would you care to cite your sources for this, please?

I assume it's a parody of Socrates' speech in the Symposium.

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

I just got hold of a more recent translation of "City Of God" than the usual Dodds version. The Translator is Henry Bettenson, and I got it by downloading a Torrent File for a collection of Christian writings. If you look at Book VIII, IX, and X, you'll see what I mean. But Augustine keeps referring to Apuleius and Hermes Trismegistus, and admittedly I can't be sure whether the opinions are his or theirs. This entails some confusion between gods, angels, demons, and deified humans.

Plato's connection with the Bacchantes is described in Bertrand Russell's "History Of Western Philosophy". It's a bit more obscure in the usual Jowett version of Plato. You can spot it in the Loeb translations, though you may need to look at the Greek lettering on the opposite page. I don't know Greek, but I could recognise words like "Bacchaea" when Plato refers to inspired or spiritual states of mind.

Gay Sex is an important part of Plato's approach to Philosophy, though other Athenians regarded it as a corrupting influence. His method is based on Dialectic, a form of cooperative debate, and Plato believed this worked best within the context of a homosexual relationship. His "Symposium" features a series of characters urging you you improve your mind by volunteering for Gay Sex with Plato. The exception is Socrates, who declined an offer of sex with Alkibiades in exchange for tuition. This was misunderstood. Actually the Wisdom Of Socrates was too valuable to be traded for a session on Alkibiades' bum.

The Out-Of-The-Body Experience comes halfway through Plato's Phaedrus, where your gay lover causes your soul to sprout wings and fly up to the Higher Realm of Platonic Ideas. It's a sort of Shamanic Tranformation into a bird, and I reckon this is what Aristophanes was satirizing in "The Birds" where they establish a Bird Kingdom in the sky: The original "Cloud Cuckoo Land". You can just about see it in the Jowett version. I'd need to dig out my Loeb version on CD to check in more detail, though.

Remember, when Jowett was first published, you could still be prosecuted for publishing an Obscene Book if you printed what Plato actually wrote.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

Quick point of clarification, then: Augustine is not agreeing with Apuleius and Hermes (assuming I'm reading the same passages you were; I can't be sure, given that I don't know what passages you were citing earlier); rather, he is citing them as historical examples of how not even the pagans really believe in Paganism, as well as showing the rationality of belief in a single god—God. Remember, the full title of this book is the City of God Against the Pagans; for some reason, I think it unlikely that Augustine is going to be citing pagan theologians to show that his own strict monotheism is incorrect.

You might want to consider using an edition of Augustine more in line with contemporary scholarship. While the Fathers of the Church translation, especially the first volume, is quite sharp, the introduction is a bit antiquated; the current standard for translations is the New City Press edition, translated by William Babcock. Augustine scholarship has gone through a few changes in the last hundred years (it's come full circle in regards to his place as a Neoplatonic philosopher and his relation to Plotinus), so it might be a good idea to use something that recognized these changes to the scholarship, especially in the secondary and supplemental material.

I'd also like to invite you again to respond to the unicorn analogy, if you would please.

As for the whole Plato tangent (remember, Augustine is not merely referencing Plato, but Platonism, especially Plotinus; while discussing Plato and Plato scholarship is interesting, it doesn't always bear directly, if at all, on Augustine), I have some questions regarding the sources and translations you've been relying on. Russell's History, while an important and infamous book in the history of the history of philosophy, is not even close to what I'd consider an objective, unbiased, in-depth, or even accurate source of information on Plato…or most of the other figures it treats, for that matter. It's a great source of information on Russell, of course, and a certain approach to the history of philosophy, but, if you're looking for scholarly information on Plato, you're going to want something better than a popular history compiled by someone who wasn't a historian of philosophy, who made egregious errors (read his chapter on Thomas Aquinas for some of his most infamous howlers), and who is trying to sum up 2400 years of philosophy in 400 pages, treating none of the figures with sufficient nuance or the depth they deserve. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but the scholarship has changed since Russell's time. The contemporary consensus is that there may have been some influence from the Elusinian mysteries via Socrates, some influence from Orphism via the Pythagorean schools, but not much, if any, from the cult of Dionysus. Come to think of it, aren't the most famous Bacchic rituals of ancient Athens the dramatic festivals where the great plays of antiquity were performed? One thing that I know Augustine cites Plato for—and with complete approval, too!—is his opinion of drama and actors: in the ideal city, they're banned. Out. Gone. Somehow, I have difficulty imagining the rationalistic, dialectical Plato, a man with a great suspicion of Dionysian poetry and drama, as significantly influenced by the cult of Dionysus.

Oh, and if Plato's method of investigation is by rational dialectic, doesn't this rule out mystic ecstasies induced through whatever means?

I'm afraid your conception of homosexuality in classical Athens, in addition to its relationship to the Platonic dialogues, is incorrect—although, once more, using more recent scholarship and translations might help you with this, especially regarding the complicated form of ritualized personal tutelage alluded to throughout the Platonic dialogues. To quote a professor of mine, though, while there might have been some erotic contact, there was no "kneel down and bless, O Lord, what I am about to receive." In truth, it resembled courtly love far more than any other institution we might be familiar with; there were very circumscribed limits on what sorts of activities were permitted, not he kinds, ages, and classes of people with whom they might be conducted, and the sorts of tutelage and honors expected from both the older and the younger parties. True enough, homosexuality, especially passive homosexuality, was frowned upon in Athens, and pederasty was right out; however, the relationship institutionalized in classical Greek society was viewed and treated as neither homosexuality nor pederasty, so long as it remained within its very circumscribed bounds.

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

I just don't see your Unicorn Analogy nohow, sorry. I originally got my ideas about Plato from the Loeb translations with the Greek on the opposite pages. I can read the Greek Characters and look up the words, but that's about my limit. I've just discarded my Jowett Plato pdf after getting hold of the Cooper/Hutchinson version in epub form. You'll find that on libgen if you want (http://lib.freescienceengineering.org/). I've got Plotinus too, and I agree that Russell doesn't describe Plotinus properly. Plotinus is alot less mystical.

From my reading (years ago admittedly) the Spartans were into Gay Sex, but the Athenians regarded it as a corrupting influence. That was because they were wary of young men gaining career advancement in exchange for sexual favours. Their problem was the same as the Medieval English had with Edward II: Gay blokes in privileged positions could favour incompetent boyfriends. You'd be reclassified as a Male Prostitute and deprived of your Citizen's Rights if you were gay and promiscuous in Athens.

The gay relationships and Dionysian trances are right there if you read a non-bowdlerized version of Plato. Maybe you've got an edition like one I discovered, which explains his love of beautiful boys with a marginal note saying: "This signifies God's love for his Church." The really embarrassing aspect of Plato's sexuality was that he considered it more acceptable to have sex with boys under the age of fifteen rather than over eighteen (or maybe it's sixteen now).

Plato's Republic contains further horrors, like his One-Party rule by Philosophers, his Eugenic Breeding programme, his Euthanasia scheme for substandard babies (Sparta again), and his strict Media Censorship. Plato's policy towards the Arts followed the same line as Hitler's and Stalin's.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
I just don't see your Unicorn Analogy nohow, sorry.

Care to explain why?

quote:

I originally got my ideas about Plato from the Loeb translations with the Greek on the opposite pages.

Now, granted, the Low Ebb versions are about the best you can find without recourse to a university library; however, they're usually based on outdated critical editions, and their introductory material and notes aren't the best. Do yourself a favor and find yourself something with a better introduction and translation (say, something by Terry Irwin, for example) and use the Perseus Project version online—which even comes with a word study tool to look it up in Liddel & Scott and analyze its possible grammar! Seriously, if you're going to be doing anything with the text of Greek, you're going to want to be familiar with this; Greek is filled with whacko irregular verbs that look like other words, odd particles, unexpected contracts, and other things that made me stay up until 5 AM every night for two years. This thing won't solve your problems for you, but it'll narrow 'em down to five, two of which you can eliminate from context, one of which you can eliminate by guessing what the implied verb is based on two particles on opposite ends of a seventeen-line sentence, and the other two fit perfectly well, make sense in context, and produce entirely opposite meanings, which may or may not be entirely intended. Greek makes people cry. Heck, if even Augustine had trouble with it and didn't much like it…

Sorry, had to relate this back to Augustine somehow. It may be the only thing in the last few posts that does.

quote:
I've got Plotinus too, and I agree that Russell doesn't describe Plotinus properly. Plotinus is alot less mystical.

Whoa. Whoa. Stop the presses, hold the phone. Plotinus, whose whole philosophical goal is mystical union with The One is a lot less mystical than the rational dialectician Plato? Back in grad school, the joke among those in the Enniads seminar was that you passed your exam by disappearing—you'd achieved mystical union with The One, transcended the base nature of matter and form which emanated from The One, and thus truly grasped what Plotinus was writing…which didn't much matter at that point, did it? If you're saying this doesn't sound mystical, but Plato's divided line and moving through the four stages by dialectic does...

quote:
From my reading (years ago admittedly) the Spartans were into Gay Sex, but the Athenians regarded it as a corrupting influence. That was because they were wary of young men gaining career advancement in exchange for sexual favours. Their problem was the same as the Medieval English had with Edward II: Gay blokes in privileged positions could favour incompetent boyfriends. You'd be reclassified as a Male Prostitute and deprived of your Citizen's Rights if you were gay and promiscuous in Athens.

The gay relationships and Dionysian trances are right there if you read a non-bowdlerized version of Plato. Maybe you've got an edition like one I discovered, which explains his love of beautiful boys with a marginal note saying: "This signifies God's love for his Church." The really embarrassing aspect of Plato's sexuality was that he considered it more acceptable to have sex with boys under the age of fifteen rather than over eighteen (or maybe it's sixteen now).

Plato's Republic contains further horrors, like his One-Party rule by Philosophers, his Eugenic Breeding programme, his Euthanasia scheme for substandard babies (Sparta again), and his strict Media Censorship. Plato's policy towards the Arts followed the same line as Hitler's and Stalin's.

1. I fail to see the relevance of this discussion of homosexuality to Augustine's Civitate Dei. Interesting though it may be (and, having studied it a bit [yes, I dabbled in the classics, what's your point?], it can be pretty interesting), I'm not sure it applies to the original discussion of Things You Find in Augustine. I'm even less sure that a full discussion of it would be appropriate to this board, especially once we start pulling out references to Paul Rahe's Republics Ancient & Modern, Vol. 1: The Ancien Régime in Classical Greece. Perhaps in Dead Horses, where we might also find people who know more about the cultural archaeology and history of sexuality in the classical world? After all, I haven't read that part of Foucault's History, but I wouldn't be surprised to find people there who have.
2. Thank you, Karl Popper, for that interesting and anachronistic reading of Republic. Thank you also for demonstrating the reductio ad Hitlerum. Thank you also for that attempt to discredit Plato on the basis of certain things that may or may not actually be meant as political advice that you happen to find distasteful.
3. I think my reference to Greek class above should clue you in to how censored my translation wasn't. It's all fun and games until you realize Plato's advocating that you give the Good and the Beautiful a really good hard fuck. However, there are other translations (the Penguin one, for instance, which I used before I knew the terrors of the second aorist) that explain what's going on quite nicely.

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

You've got me there. I never learned Ancient Greek, and if I tried I'd have too little time to research anything else. But the Cooper/Hutchinson translation looks like the Plato on the Perseus Project. If you're interested, better grab it now (from libgen, as above) because some entries have been banned from access by the Copyright Holder. And probably quite right too...

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
Plotinus, whose whole philosophical goal is mystical union with The One is a lot less mystical than the rational dialectician Plato?

I think he was saying Plotinus is less mystical than Russell makes him sound. For what that's worth.

I'm not sure the argument Plato was a rational dialectician therefore not mystical would have seemed obvious to anybody before, say, Voltaire. For Aquinas or Bonaventure, it would have been just obvious that the point of rational dialectic was to take you to the place where mysticism took over. Ditto most early Scholastics and Church Fathers.

None of which has any bearing on which bits of Plato Augustine would have endorsed had he read it in the original Greek.

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

I just got the "Unicorn" thing, maybe. But if you dress up as a mythical creature, that doesn't mean you're a mythical creature yourself. As I said to start with, the word Daemon often means a Demi-God anyway, and Augustine knows other writers believe that even if he doesn't.

Looking at Plotinus again, I reckon he's just obscure. I got another translation, and I'll see whether I understand that any better.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
I just got the "Unicorn" thing, maybe. But if you dress up as a mythical creature, that doesn't mean you're a mythical creature yourself.

Which is my point exactly. A demon pretending to be a god is not a god, any more than I'm a unicorn.

quote:
As I said to start with, the word Daemon often means a Demi-God anyway, and Augustine knows other writers believe that even if he doesn't.

First, it doesn't mean that in Augustine, it means "demon," i.e., "wicked angel." Not "spirit guide," not "demigod," nowhere, nohow. Secondly, just because Augustine may have known that "demon" or its cognates may have had different senses in the works of other authors, that does not imply that he intended it to have those meanings, or for his audience to form those associations, or anything else that could possibly be construed as Augustine implying that a demon is a sort of spirit guide. Such an interpretation is to see things in the text that are inconsistent with the author's purpose and meaning, something that Augustine repeatedly warns us not to do! While a text can have many meanings and interpretations—indeed, often does, and, in the most important cases, should—in no cases can any valid interpretation of the figurative meaning of a text, or part of a text, contradict the literal sense of the text. In other words, if Augustine says that the demons are fallen angels, he really does mean to say that they're fallen angels, and no amount of saying that someone else meant to use that word to indicate guiding spirits will ever change the fact that Augustine means "fallen angels" by the word "demon."

When I talked about my unicorn costume up above, I did not mean a rhino costume, even though it has one horn and other authors have called those "unicorns." I did not mean a sort of one-horned antelope that Maimonides refers to as a "unicorn," and which, incidentally, are not kosher. Judging by the fact that you understood that what I meant by "unicorn" was something that did not, in fact, exist, I don't think you thought of either of these creatures either. Instead, what I meant, and I'm pretty sure you understood, by "unicorn" is something like Twilight Sparkle there in that picture under my name and above the label "Insane Unicorn." The context of the discussion, the visual and textual clues, and the background assumptions needed for me to pick that example and you to understand it clearly indicate that we are working with a similar concept of indicated by the written sign "unicorn"—that is, the thing signified is the same for both of us given a common sign—and not something else signified under the equivocal sign "unicorn," even though many other authors at least one or both of us know of have used that sign in different ways. It's an interesting discussion that keeps going even after Augustine's time—Peter Lombard is constantly citing De Doctrina in Book IV of the Sentences, Aquinas makes a big deal of the distinction between equivocal, analogical, and univocal terms, and Ockham's eventually going to say that "analogy" is just what we call things that seem to be less equivocal than they could be, but that's all later, and almost beside the point. What isn't beside the point is that, even if other authors used a word in a certain way, and even if someone read those authors, it doesn't mean that they're using a word in that way, nor should it imply that we read those meanings that they did not intend into their work.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
Plotinus, whose whole philosophical goal is mystical union with The One is a lot less mystical than the rational dialectician Plato?
I think he was saying Plotinus is less mystical than Russell makes him sound. For what that's worth.

I'm not sure the argument Plato was a rational dialectician therefore not mystical would have seemed obvious to anybody before, say, Voltaire. For Aquinas or Bonaventure, it would have been just obvious that the point of rational dialectic was to take you to the place where mysticism took over. Ditto most early Scholastics and Church Fathers.

None of which has any bearing on which bits of Plato Augustine would have endorsed had he read it in the original Greek.

True enough; while I still hold that Plotinus is more of a mystic than Plato (for whatever that's worth), and that almost nobody in Sir Bertie's History is exactly as he describes them, there are all those myths that we have to account for. Of course, how we account for them—are they integral parts of Plato's philosophy, allusions to the mystery cults, especially Orphism, Plato giving up on further dialectic because he'd reached its limits and had to point the way with myth, Plato giving up on his dumb interlocutors who couldn't stand the true way of dialectic any more and had to be indulged like weak children with myth, Plato trying to distract us from the true path of dialectic so that only the worthy took it up, but everyone else pays attention to the myths, Plato trying to show us the futility and stupidity of dialectic and rebellion against the conservative state, but showing us the value of submission to myth, Plato just trying to give us something pretty to read at the end of all that slogging that nicely sums things up—well, take your pick of interpretations, or invent a new one. The great thing about being first is that everyone's read you, everyone new reads you, and you get the most interpretations, reinterpretations, and scapegoating over the years. Thus, guessing exactly how important mysticism or something that sounded like it (but may have been allegory) was to Plato is what is politely called "a matter of scholarly debate," less politely termed "a chance to pad your CV with 'not another paper on this' papers," but, at the end of the day, I'm throwing in my hat with those who think dialectic is important to Plato.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

If Hosts awarded Oscars for entertaining and educational posts, Ariston's contributions to this thread would now require him to write an entertaining acceptance speech. Marvellous stuff - a pleasure to read.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:

You've got me there. I never learned Ancient Greek...

Just like Augustine!

(Jerome was a nastier man but a much better linguist)

Posted by Frank Mitchell (# 17946) on :

Hey I've got a new interpretation of Dialectic. I reckon the whole idea started in Persia, where they believed in Zarathustra's Powers of Light & Darkness and an entire Universe propelled by the conflict between absolute standards of Right & Wrong. Then the Persians conquered the World's first International Empire, full of wildly different cultures and value-systems. Herodotus describes how Darius the Great invited representatives of contrasting beliefs to debate their differences in front of him. My guess is that he wanted to prevent his International Empire falling apart. This looks alot more Dialectical than Plato's one-sided Dialogues: Yes indeed, Oh Socrates.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Just like Augustine!

(Jerome was a nastier man but a much better linguist)

Homeric Greek may have been a bit more different, but in Augustine's time koine Greek wasn't an ancient language. It was a modern one spoken in the whole eastern half of the Roman Empire. Augustine must have known plenty of first language koine speakers. His saying he didn't know much Greek is comparable to my saying I'm not much good at French, not Latin.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

Having been taught rhetoric he most certainly knew Greek. In his Confessions he said that he didn't really like it (or something to that effect) but that's not the same as not knowing Greek.

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