Damascius on the Gods #3: Commentary on the Philebus

Like in the case of #2, the work I am excerpting from here is based on lecture notes; Damascius seems to have lectured on the basis of Proclus' (lost) written commentary, but often disagrees with him.

Unlike #1 and #2, the Commentary on Plato's Philebus discusses the gods and godhood in deeply technical ways (although sections A and F-I should be easy to follow). I will admit that I often can't really follow what Damascius is saying in the more difficult sections (particularly D), but it is obviously important for studying what the Late Neoplatonists understood by divinity.

The translation is Westerink's.

A) Pleasure and Aphrodite

§18. "Why is Pleasure a Goddess according to Philebus? As an object of desire and a final cause. And why does he identify her with Aphrodite? As an object of live. Also, perhaps, because both pleasure and Aphrodite play a part in coition, the latter as its patroness, the former as an affect."

§19. "Why did the ancients not give the name of Pleasure (hedonê) to any deity? Proclus's answer is: because it is neither a primary good nor bad in itself nor intermediate and therefore indifferent; for how can its magic be indifferent?

As a matter of fact, Pleasure is a deity, for one of the Graces is called Euphroysne; but there is also a hymn to Hedone in Iamblichus and her cult is testified to by Proclus of Laodicea."

(A 'hierophant' who wrote a work called Theologia.)

§20. "How many possible reasons are there for naming deities after human affects or conditions, and what are they? This may concern good or bad or morally indifferent conditions of the soul, and the reason can accordingly be to improve those that are indifferent, to curb them when they are evil, and to strengthen them when they are good."

§21. "None of the ancients identifies Aphrodite with Pleasure: how do we account for this? Because Aphrodite is the cause of union, of which pleasure is only an accompaniment; and because there is much ugliness in bodily pleasure at least, whereas Aphrodite is beauty, not only the beauty that comes from divine inspiration, but also that of nature. Besides, in theological literature (=mythology) Aphrodite and Euphrosyne are distinct chacters."

§22. "Why is Socrates willing to call her a Goddess, while shrinking from calling her Aphrodite? Because the latter is a proper name, the former a generic name, and the individual is more efficacious; possibly, because it is better adapted to our own divided nature. Another reason, he says, may be that pleasure has preserved a trace of goodness."

§23. "It seems possible that, when calling Pleasure a Goddess, Socrates does not express his own conviction, but that of Philebus, and therefore adds the particle 'dê' in an ironical sense. Or he may also mean that Pleasure is a Goddess, but is not Aphrodite, in which case it is in the first place confusion of the divine names that he wishes to avoid."

§24. "Why this great reverence of Socrates for the names of the Gods? Because from of old apposite names have been consecrated to each, and it would be wrong to interfere with sacred traditions; or because they are naturally appropriate to them, according to the teaching of the Cratylus; or because they are 'vocal images' of the Gods, as Democritus says."
(This is Democritus the Platonist, a student of Plotinus' teacher Ammonius Saccas.)

B) Prometheus and Epimetheus

§57. "Prometheus reveals the ways in which the Gods proceed down into nature, Epimetheus the modes of their reversion to the intelligible plane. Iamblichus is stated to have said so on the authority of Pythagoras."

§58. "We must add to this, says Proclus, that there are many aspects of Prometheus: on the intellective, the supra-mundane and the intra-mundance level, each transmitting the divine gifts to the world accordingly. We must also add, he says, that the distinctive character of this deity (theos) is to reveal the good that is hidden with the Gods; therefore he is said to have stolen the fire, that is to say, to have disclosed the mystic treasure."

§59. "Plato, in the Protagoras [320C-322A; 361 C-D], makes Prometheus superior to Epimetheus, in imitation of Hesiod [Op. 42-105 ;Th. 510-616]; the Pythagoreans, however, seem to rank Epimetheus higher. This, I think, can be inferred from the fact that they associate Prometheus with procession, Epimetheus with reversion; hence the higher valuation, for it is better for souls to rvert from genesis than to go forth into it."

§60. "It is not as a revealing principle, but as a Titan that Prometheus transmits those good gifts, in a way more particular and more adapted to man. For he has the providential care of those rational beings that have descended to the lowest regions, and Epimetheus similarly of irrational beings, for they also bring forth irrational souls to take charge of the lower grades of existence and after their coming forth they mete out to them the universal providence of the Gods. [Pl. Prot. 320D4, 321C7]"

§61. "The fire that Prometheus stole and gave to man is all elevatory existence and elevatory perfection, not viewed in its upward motion, but in the process of being distributed through him to the lowest stratum of the universe. This is why it is said to be stolen, because, though elevatory, it is brought down; and through him, because only its descent is effected by Titanic powers, while its existence as form is due to other Gods."

B+) The method of division
§65. "The method of division proceeds with the emanation of forms; there is no break in the continuous course of remission and no vacuum, but it passes through all the intermediate stages from unity to infinite plurality."
§66. "The task of the method of division can be defined as follows: (1) The one should everywhere precede the many. (2) Finite plurality should precede the infinite. (3) The smaller number should always rank before the greater, as far as mere quantity is concerned. (4) No number of those that constitute the sequence of emanation should be omitted. (5) For each form the pertinent number should be chosen, e.g. three or seven in the case of Athena, and for all other forms accordingly, since the process of emanation is governed by a different number for each, a rule which also applies to the Gods; even of the monads themselves, one is monadic (that of the monad), another dyadic (that of the dyad), and so forth, so that there are other possibilities than dichotomy. [etc.]"

C) "The God"

§93. "[D]o we not sometimes despise the Good too? Yes, [...] when we are in a condition that is 'contrary to nature'. For nature wants to accomplish an end, and still more so does prudence, and even more so intelligence, and most of all [the] God; so that inclination towards evil is an aberration. This aberration, he says, is owing either to 'ignorance' in the rational faculty or to 'necessity' affecting the irrational functions. [...]"

(This is one of the very, very few places where Damascius calls the One "the God" in this work. He usually calls it "the Good" or "the One" here.)

D) The One Principle, the Two Principles, and the Gods

§98. "What are the Two Principles and what is the One Principle before them? We hold that the latter is the absolute cause of undifferentiated and unqualified existence, whereas the other two are the causes of existents contradistinguished by certain differences. The primal contradistinction is that between the unitary and the pluralized, the principles and causes of which have been indicated in different ways by different thinkers; there can be no adequate names for them, since adequate conceptions also are lacking; but some call them Limit and Infinitude, others One and Many, others have used whatever terms they thought most fit to indicate them."

§99. "Limit and Infinitude are twofold: first they appear as principles, then as consequents, for each of the two is present in every existent."

§100. "Not only existents, but even the Gods originate in Limit and Infinitude: thus we have male and female, emanative and integrative deities. This does not mean that male deities should not also participate of infinitude, but that limit is the dominating factor, and so on. For being first principles they pervade all things, not some things to the exclusion of others, which would be impossible."

§102. "The question is how plurality has proceeded form unity. He answers that the first stage is not plurality, but duality, which is next to unity. For it is unthinkable that the manifold should emerge without any middle term immediately after the one, but procession must of necessity be gradual, what is nearer the unit coming first, and so on.

Further, to be exact, there is a twofold process of generation: that of one as one, and that of two from the cause that embraces twoness as a single whole, the One being not only what the word expresses, one in the sense of one, but also in the sense of everything."

§103. "Only a symbolical value can be attached to the distinction between the Two Principles. For on the intelligible plane there is not yet any distinction, not even, consequently, that between the unparticipated and the participated, because the distinction of the participant and what it participates does not exist either, for even this implies a certain separateness. Therefore the Phaedrus [247C] locates reality in the supra-celestial region, and in the Parmenides [143A-B] unity is separated from reality at this point, so that the participated Gods also have their beginning here. In a way, therefore, there is not even duality yonder, but there is an unknowable One after the Unknowable, then another unknowable principle of plurality; then, in accordance with the current view among philosophers, the intelligible world (to noêton)."

§104. "If the elements of the mixture have the Two Principles as their causes, while the causes of the mixture is Reality, must not the elements inevitably be superior to the mixture, as the Two Principles are to Reality? The solution proposed is that the mixture is inferior in so far as it consists of both, the elements being simple; but in so far as it is one and derived from the One it is superior.

We prefer to regard the Two Principles as entire orders simpler than the Mixture, and to locate in the Mixture (or rather in the Cause of the Mixture) the first simultaneous origin of the elements (or rather the causes of the elements), which are secondary to the Principles and, because existing in the Mixture itself, are inferior to it, as elements are everywhere inferior to the whole that they constitute; the same relation, indeed, also exists between the causes."

§105. "Even in the second order there is not complete differentiation. For the creation of definite forms appears first in Intelligence, and the first Intelligence is pure Intelligence; therefore Iamblichus holds that it is here that the monads of forms are constituted, meaning by monads what is undifferentiated in each. This Intelligence, then, is the intelligible factor within the intellective order and the cause of ideal being, as the second is of life and the third of the creation of form on the intellective level."

§106. "The Egg and the Paternal Intelligence and the Mystic Number and in short that which ranks third after Limit is called a God by the theologians; so that the Mixture, i.e. existence (to on), should also be regarded as a God and a One, not as something merely unified nor as reality. Only thus can we justly speak of the mystic order of the Gods, otherwise it would be an order (diakosmos), not of Gods, but of existents (tôn ontôn)."

§107. "The One Principle constitutes all things and is the goal of all things, its finality being superior to its constitutive function; for the latter is because of the former, constitution because of the goal. But the First Principle is both in one, whereas the Two Principles have divided these functions, the higher one, whose substance is Limit, being determined by finality, the lower one by productivity."

§108. "As Socrates has posited a cause that unifies the Mixture, the question is also asked what the cause of its differentiation is. This might be the otherness that comes after the intelligible world, as the Parmenides [143A-B]teaches; for on the intelligible plane there is only unification.

It would be better to make the One the cause of all things, Limit of unification, Infinitude of differentiation, and the Mixture of what participates in both."

§114. "... Proclus says that the Creator makes the world in his own image and for his own sake, that all things may resemble him, and so he is himself all the three causes." (Efficient, exemplary, and final cause.)

Damascius: "there are nevertheless three, though they may appear concurrently in one subject. [...]the First Cause, too, 'makes' all things, but in complete unity."

§117. "Why is the mixture said to 'come to be'? Because every mixture consists of a plurality of dissimilar elements, and if a plurality, which as such is disconnected, is to come together at all, it needs something to collect it, that is, to mix it and thereby create it. Therefore the mixed must inevitably depend on a cause which creates it: in the case of the Mixture absolutely this is the absolute unifying Cause, and for the mixture that has its origin in time it is the Demiurgic cause."

E) Kingship (of Zeus) and "everything is everywhere"

§127. "Why is intelligence on the side of limit? Because it converges on itself and determines and orders itself and also imposes the good on other things, measuring them when they are in themselves without measure; and such, we may take it, is any passive process, whether that of pleasure or of free-will. They are measured by intelligence in that the degree and the character of the pleasure involved are subject to the dictates of intelligence; for it is against the nature of the passive to be prior, since it is a product of the active principle; cognition, however, is active rather, inasmuch as it is imperative judgment. Therefore the 'judgment of Zeus' sways the universe; but because the measure in the truer sense is the Good (by which cognition too is determined), he calls intelligence the 'prophet'. The Good, then, rules in a mystic way, but the manifest kingship is that of intelligence; hence Orpheus speaks of 'his infallible and kingly mind' [frg. 168,17 Kern]."

§128. "Socrates' first argument to prove that the universe is governed by intelligence proceeds by division: either it is governed by intelligence or by unreason or by nothing but accident. It cannot be by accident, since nothing is planless; nor by unreason, for how to explain the order in the universe, if it is created by unreason? how the unbroken continuity of causes and effects and how consciousness and desire of the good in its manifold aspects? It is intelligence, then, that governs the world."

§129. "The second argument is by analogy: if we consist of body and soul, soul being of greater worth than body, and if we have our bodies from the universe, this is even more certainly true of the soul. In the same way, then, as the totals of the lements that make up our bodies are contained in the universe, the totals of our souls are also comprised in it. And though our souls are sometimes imperfect, those integral souls are always perfect, just as the totals of bodies have perpetual completeness; and therefore the souls that govern the universe are endowed with reason and intelligence."

§130. "Is then everything that exists in the universe also in us and everything that exists in us also in the universe? If so, how is the whole still the whole and the parts parts? Porphyry and Iamblichus meet this objection by saying that everything is everywhere, but in different ways. Proclus, however, says that whatever goes to the making of form, i.e. the specific characters, come from on high, while adventitious or incidental qualities due to declension belong to particular existents only."

§133. "Who is the Zeus in whose 'nature there dwells a kingly intelligence and a kingly soul'? The primal Demiurge, says the commentator [=Proclus]; and the intelligence and the soul are to be understood as kinds of primal sources.

But these things are not under discussion here, so we had better explain him as intra-mundane Zeus."

E+) The phases of Pleasure
§155. "There are a great many phases (pollê proodos) of pleasure: (1) some pleasures are of the body, attending a change towards the natural condition; (2) others, which belong to the soul, have a similar origin, namely a movement from the abnormal to the normal; (3) or from one natural doncition to another, as in the case of ever-perfect souls, which, as they pass on from one object of cognition to another, delight in each, but above all in that which has last presented itself; (4) some pertain to a changeless condition of the soul, if it exists; (5) then there is the pleasure of intelligence that attends its activity, (6) and that which belongs to its essence, as heat belongs to the essence of fire, i.e. the ideal pattern of pleasure; (7) and above this the Goddess herself. What transcends there is beyond pleasure."

F) Memory

§159. "Memory exists in the following stages: (1) in sense-perception, for sense-perception, too, has a certain retentive power; (2) in imagination; (3) in opinion; then (4) in discursive thought; then (5) in intelligence, on the intellective level and (6) on the divine; then (7) there is the Goddess herself, with whom the whole character (idiotês) originates, whether she be the Mnemo mentioned by Orpheus [frg. 203 Kern] or another deity."

F+) Providence and the good man
§179. "Plato, too, knows the type of syllogism in which, from a necessary and a contingent premiss, a contingent conclusion is drawn:
[A] [T]he good man [is] loved by the Gods.
[B] [The man] loved by the Gods has true expectations as a rule.
[C] [Therefore,] the good man has true expectations as a rule.
[AA] [T]he bad man [is] hated by the Gods.
[BB] [The man] hated by the Gods has false expectations as a rule.
[CC] [Therefore,] the bad man has false expectations as a rule.
§180. "A corollary: it is Plato's conviction that Providence also controls the inward motions of the soul; for if the direction of its expectations depends on the favour of the Gods, it is evident that the Godhead also governs the depths of the soul."

G) Divine pleasures

§209. "All senses are anticipated in the Gods, as Homer indicates, when he says with regard to their sight and hearing: 'The Sun, who sees all things and hears all thigns' [Γ 277; μ 323]; and with regard to smell: 'Her perfumed ointment' [Ξ 172]; taste is referred to, where he mentions ambrosia and nectar as their food [ε 93]; and touch in the passage where Thetis touches the chin of Zeus [Α 501]."

§210. "Socrates calls the class of pure pleasures" - discussed in §208 - "'divine', either because of their elevating quality; for nothing that remains steadfast in its natural condition can sink to a lower level, and in any case the elevating pleasures fall under this category; or because they are also appropriate to divine animals, which are naturally incapable of pain, but, in a way different from ours, experience everlasting comfort and joy."

H) Athena Polias

§227. "Why does the Cause associate itself with the mixture? Because the mixture is all-embracing, while the Cause itself is all things. For what is simple cannot comprehend its power, which, transcending unity, comprises all things in an ineffable way. For this reason the divine Iamblichus says that it is impossible to participate individually in the universal orders of existence, but only in communion with the venerable choir of those who are lifted up together, one in mind. And the Athenians prayed (!) to Athena Polias only on behalf of the city, as patroness of the community, not on behalf of individual citizens."

I) Gods in charge of blending

§228. "The Gods in charge of blending are Hephaestus on the natural and intra-mundane level, and Dionysus on the psychical and supra-mundane plane. For this blending function has its beginning above, with the Gods themselves, and it proceeds down to the lowest forms of existence. Thus Hephaestus, who presides over the blending of physical elements, has first revealed this character in himself, then in the intelligence that governs nature, then likewise in the soul that has the same task, and finally in its proper mode of being in the natural world. Similarly Dionysus, after manifesting in himself on the divine level the principle of the blending of soul, has then constituted it intellectively in intelligence, existentially in soul, and as a linking force in the animate body. Beyond these is Zeus, who governs blending on the intellective plane; and there are also others, more particular than Dionysus and Hephaestus. Socrates invokes these because he intends to include all forms of mixture, supra-mundane and intra-mundane, but he does not mention Zeusian mixture (Diion krasin) because it is beyond th escope of the present discussion."

K) The One and the three monads

§236. "... the word aletheia ('truth') is dervied from theion ales, ales meaning 'complete' and theion [or 'divine'] denoting what is supreme in each thing and what it is solely and truly ..."

§237. "The three monads" - Truth, Beauty, Proportion - "are all present in the elements, and in the sum of the elements, and in the whole of the elements together ..."

§238. "The One Principle of all things constitutes each thing and makes it what it is, and therefore its light is Truth [Rep. VI 508E-509A]; and it reveals itself as desirable to all things, and therefore it is also primal Beauty and the Cause of things beautiful [Epist. II 312 E]; lastly, it determines for each thing according to its capacity, the measures set by the order of which it is the soruce, and therefore it is glorified as the Measure [Laws IV 716 C]. What the First Cause, then, is in one, the three monads are spearately, and thus they express the One Principle."

§240. "The three monads are in a mystic way in the First Cause; they are in a unitary way and together in Limit; in a plurified form and as it were in the throes of differentiation in the Infintie; and in the first stage of differentiation, which is united, but not isolated completely, as intellective essences are, in the Third God, who is the Cause of mixture qua mixture."

§241. Truth, Beauty and Proportion correspond to the Good, the Beautiful, and the Just; Good and Beautiful (kalon) being (more or less) the same as the One.

§243. "Iamblichus, too, says that the three monads proceeding from the Good have organized the Intelligence; but it does not apepar, which Intelligence, whether the Intelligence that is posterior to Life, or that which is in Being and is celebrated as the Paternal Intelligence; some, indeed, have understood him to mean, not the latter, but the former. Yet he says that in Orphic literature the three monads manifest themselves in the mythical Egg [frgs. 54-60 Kern]."

§244. "Syrianus separates the three and regards Truth as first revealed in Being, [...] Beauty as first present in life, [...] Proportion in Intelligence [...].

One could also distribute them among the Principles that follow the First Principle: thus Truth can justly be assigned to Limit, Beauty to Infinitude because of its tendency to development, and Proportion to the Mixture. Another possibility is to divide the monads among the three primal hypostases, God, Intelligence, Soul. Or again, among the several grades of being, divisible, indivisible, and intermediate; ..."

§245. "We can comprise the Good 'in one idea' by calling it 'One', inasmuch as it embraces anything you like. If it is not easy to grasp in this way, the One being inexpressible, we can take two ideas, One and All, One in relation to Limit, All to Infinitude. If even this is not sufficient, it can be known through the htree monads; through Truth as transcending all things (for the ruling Principle is in truth generically different from what it rules), through Beauty as lifting up all things to itself, through Proportion as a welcome inmate and companion of all things; for what can be better suited to things than the Good?"

L) The six phases of the Good

§251. "Reviewing all the phases of the Good, Socrates reduces them to six heads, in accordance with Orphic tradition, as he will presently point out himself by quoting the line 'And with the sixth age end your rhythmic song' [frg. 14 Kern]; and also because six is a perfect number.

§252. "He does not include the Good itself, since it is ineffable, but defines it by means of the things in which it appears; for he adds the preposition 'in' to each item, as for eaxmple 'in the mixture' and 'in intelligence'."

§253. "Each of the three, the mixture and its two elements, pleasure and intelligence, is divided into two by Syrianus, though Plato is merely listing the phases of the Good; still, what Syrianus does is methodically sound and to the point. First, then, he subdivides the mixture into that which participates primarily and that which participates secondarily, for instance Truth itself, in virtue of which the participating entity is true, and the truth that is as it were incorporate in the mixture; next he divides the cognitive element into (1) intelligence and reflection, (2) science and art; and, finally, he divides the third group into primary and secondary pleasure, so that consequently the sixth good is necessary pleasure. This is what Syrianus says."

§254. "In the mixture he sees the first pair, its first term consisting only in the participated (which is either the Good or the three monads), the second in the participant, which is the mixture itself, the substance that is perfected by the Good and its emanations; the next pair he places in intelligence, either transcendent or immanent in soul; the remaining two units he explains as pure and impure pleasure."

§255. "Proclus, supplementing this classification, assigns the first term of the first pair to the Gods, the second to essences (hence the first term is said to be 'everlasting', as the divine and absolutely ungenerated, which is expressed symbolically by the word 'everlasting'); of the second pair he assigns the first term to the intellective order, which is the lowest degree of real existence, and the second term to souls; of the third pair one term to souls, the other to living bodies. This means that in each pair the [first term] is always linked [with the preceding] class, and the second [with the following]."

§256. "According to our professor (=Damascius) the first pair is divided between the Mixture and the order beyond it, which Plato calls 'everlasting', because it transcends the Mixture; seen as Limit, this is 'measure', as Infinitude, it is 'measured', as the Egg, it is 'season', for it is season that measures and creates all things; the Mixture itself is determined by participation in each of these. The second pair covers all [knowledge], immovable and self-moved. The third all pleasure, pure and impure."