Damascius on Hieratic #2: On the Phaedo A

Excerpts, mostly but not exclusively on hieratic (ritual), from the translation by L. G. Westerink. I have decided to leave these excerpts without comment, but #1, on Damascius' Philosophical History, will feature an introduction and notes on each fragment I quote.

Miscellaneous notes related to death

§48. "There are three kinds of hope (elpis) [for what happens after death]: that of the crowd (pandêmos), the philosophical, and the hieratic."

§49. "If our aim is to detach the soul from the body and to achieve complete detachment (the latter being the final goal, the former a way to the goal and a pursuit), and if achieving one's end always causes joy, is it not ridiculous to think that the philosopher alone should grieve when he attains his own goal? ..."

§51. "Why 'to die and be dead'? - Because purification is twofold: it may mean either 'to pecome pure' or 'to be pure.'

... it is not, indeed, with every action that we aim at having completed it; ... [e.g.] prayer, which has its own prefection, if euchesthai ('pray') means tou eu echesthai ('cling to the Good')."

On purification

§68. "In what way can 'indifference towards pleasures' be said to be peculiar to man in the stage of purification? Surely he shares it with those who have achieved the civic or the moral virtues? - The answer is that the others, though they do not seek pleasures as an end in itself (for each of them pursues his own end), will sometimes seek it as a means to an end, and even this cannot be said of those on the way to purification."

§69. "Because purification is its theme, the discourse starts with the lowest functions and proceeds to the highest: nutrition is common to all living beings, copulation goes with the irrational appetites, the wearing of ornaments is a form of irrationality found only in rational creatures. One could also start with the most necessary pleasures and ascend to the least necessary.

The commentator's [= Proclus? Damascius?] own divions, however, is based on the objects of the appetites: they may be necessary and natural (food) or neither (ornaments) or natural but not necessary (sex) or necessary but not natural (indispensable clothing and shelter).

§70. "But supposing the philoospher is a ruler, will he not affect the apparel that befits a king? If he becomes a priest, will he not wear the sacerdotal garments? - This is answered by the addition 'except in so far as absolutely inevitable.'

Or rather, there is no question at all here of men in these functions, but only of the man in search of purification; if he should need sacred robes for this purpose, he will wear them as symbols, not as garments."

§73. "[T]he soul can be detached only in the measure in which human nature permits this; [daimons] and Gods detach themselves from the body in a different way."

§75. "We must take it that the disciplining of young people which precedes the imparting of knowledge shows the same three aspects: it trains them either to be moderate in their emotions, or to avoid them, or even to be completely ignorant of them, as far as possible. This last kind occurs in the Theaetetus [173c6-174a2], here in the Phaedo we have the training that aims at purification, and in the Laws [VII 788a1-VIII 842a2] and the Republic [IV 434d2-445b4] and often elsewhere we have civic education."

§76. "In the first argument [64d2-65a8] Socrates seems to disengage the philosopher in the stage of purification from the emotional commitments of public life, in the second [65a9-d3] to direct his thoughts upon himself, in the third [65d4-66a10] upon intelligence, in accordance with the three degrees of purification."

§77. "The first pertains to purification of appetites, the second of knowledge, the third of both."

The sources of our knowledge about the underworld

§93. "To what does Plato refer when he says that 'we are told so' about things in Hades? - First, to the unconscious heartbeat of our common notions: secondly to the theologians; thirdly to the oracles of the Gods; fourthly to the mysteries; fifthly to apparitions of the Gods themselves (autoi paragenomenoi hoi theoi)."

Purification and purity

§119. "The final goal for the philosopher committed to social life is contact (sunaphthênai) with the God who extends his providence to all things, for the one on  the way to purification contact with the God who transcends all things [=the cosmos] and is with himself alone, for the contemplative philosopher contact with the God who is united with the principles superior to himself and wishes to be theirs rather than his own; therefore Plato says: 'to touch the Pure without being pure.' [67b2]"

§120. "One who is purifying himself and endeavoring to assimilate himself to the Pure must in the first place discard pleasure and pain as far as possible; secondly, the food of which he partakes should be simple, avoiding all luxury, and it should also be in accordance with the laws of justice and temperance (that is to say, fre from the taint of bloodshed) and with divine command (hosia) and ancestral custom [patriazousa] (for a diet that, in defiance of religious law [asebês], offends against animal life and coarsense the vital spirit [pneuma], will make the body unruly towards the soul and unfit to enter into contact with God [pros theou sunaphên]): thirdly, he must suppress the aimless motion of irrational appetite (what indeed could arous desire or anger in one who has disengaged from all external things?), but if anything of the kind should ever stir in waking or sleeping, it must be quelled speedily by reason; fourthly, he must detach himself from sense-perception and imagination, except in so far as it is necessary to make use of them; in the fifth place, the man who wants to be set free from the plurality of genesis must dissociate himself from the multifarious variety of opinion; the sixth and last precept is to escape from the complexity of discursive reason and seek the simpler forms of demonstration and division as a preparation for the undivided activity of the intellect."

§121. "The same relation that exists between education and life in society (the function of education being to quiet down the wild turmoil of birth and to make the soul fit to attain complete harmony), exists also between the life of purification and the life of contemplation: purification checks the downward trend to prepare us for the effort of ascension, and this is also the aim of the purifying ceremonies (katharmoi) that precede sacred rites (pro tôn hierôn). If one is to be united with the higher powers (sunaphthênai tois kreittosi), it is necessary to detach oneself from lower influences first."

§122. "Any disposition on our part inevitably assimilates us to one particular category of beings in the universe. If we are pure, we join the pure, if impure, the impure, i.e. matter-bound d[ai]mons in the latter case, the Gods in the former, or, if our condition is intermediate, the intermediate kinds. In each case similarity is the binding force that unites things of one kind to form a continuous whole, as water does with water and air with air. Therefore, when approaching God (prosionta theôi), we should strengthen our likeness to him, as far as it lies in our power, through purity; for, as Plato says, 'it is unlawful to touch the Pure without being pure'. It is called 'unlawful' (athemiton), because God must not be soiled by an impure contact (hoti ou themis molunesthai ton theon); at the same time it is impossible, since darkness can never approach light."

§123. "Purity (katharotês) is threefold: of the soul, of the body, of external things. We must strive for all of these, so that everything, not only ourselves, but our tools also, may be flooded by divine illumination, that no d[ai]moniac darkness may settle on our soiled tools, turning away our sight from the Gods, and that our soul may travel lighter on her way to the divine and, so far from being burdened by those tools, may derive strength from them for the upward journey, since she is still tied to them as far as natural life is concerned. If, on the other hand, we come to God with an impure mind, though pure externally, we lose our pains; for then the soul by her way of life remains chained to the evil [daimons] she resembles."

§124. "Are pure and true identical, as Plato says? - 'Pure' means that a thing is separate from everything else, and 'true' that it is exactly what it is, and this is apparently the reason why it is necessary to become pure first, before we can attain truth. Therefore, since we are not yet pure, because we have not yet died, it is said that 'we shall know the truth when we have arrived yonder'."

On separation, purification, death

§126. "Separation is not the same thing as purification; the body, indeed, is not purified when separated from the soul, but rather it becomes unclean and therefore causes uncleanness.

The statement made above [§124] also needs correction: in current usage a thing does not become cleaner when it is separated from the superior. The fact is expressed clearly in the Sophist [227d6-7]: 'Purification is, of course, keeping the rest, while discarding anything that might be inferior'. The Curetes, too, surround the creative Gods, because they stoop to a lower level of being."

§127. "Death is not identical with purification, only the death that detaches from the inferior is. For death is a process of separation, as it was said in the definition given above [64c7-8]; this is why we speak of death from above and death from below. Is being separate identical, then, with being dead? No, for the latter follows a period of union, which union is dissolved by death. But if there is permanent separation, there is permanent dissolution and permanent death; then what difference is there between death and otherness? Death severs mutual relations, and so those other thigns must exist already. And what has death still to do with life? That both inclination towards a thing and withdrawal form it are vital processes; now it is relations of this kind that are severeed by death."

§128. "First, the soul must constitute an image of herself in the body (that is what animating the body means); secondly, she must be in sympathy with her phantom because of the likeness, isnce every form is drawn towards its replica as a result of its innate concentration upon itself; thirdly, having entered into the divided body, she must be torn asunder with it and end in utter disintegration; until through a life of purification she gathers herself from her dispersed state, unties the bond of sympathy, and actualizes the primal life within her that exists by itself without the phantom."

§129. "The myth describes the same events as taking place in the prototype of the soul. When Dionysus had projected his reflection into the mirror, he followed it and was thus scattered over the universe. Apollo gathers him and brings him backto heaven, for he is the purifying God and truly the savior of Dionysus, and therefore he is celebrated as the 'Dionysus-Giver' [Dionusodotês]."

§130. "Like Kore, the soul desends into genesis, like Dionysus she is scattered by generation, like Prometheus and the Titans she is chained to the body. She frees herself by acquiring the strength of Hercules, gathers herself together through the help of Apollo and of Athena the Savior, i.e. by truly purifying philosophy, and she elevates herself to the causes of her being with Demeter."

(The details of the myth have to be extracted from Damascius' summary/interpretation; this version of the story of Dionysus is not known from elsewhere.)

The Iamblichean scale of virtues

§138. "First among virtues are the natural virtues, which we have in common with the animals and which are inextricably linked with the bodily temperament and frequently clash with each other; either they belong mainly to the animate body, or they are reflexes of reason when not impeded by temperamental disorder, or they may be due to routine acquired in a previous life. Plato discusses them in the Statesman [306a5-308b9] and in the Laws [XII 963c3-e9]."

§139. "Above them are the ethical virtues, which we acquire by habituation and by a sort of true opinion; they are the virtues of well-bred children and are also found in certain animals; being beyond the influence of temperament they do not clash with each other. Plato deals with them in the Laws [II 653a5-c4]. They belong to reason and to the irrational faculties simultaneously."

§140. "Third beyond these are the civic virtues, which belong belong to reason only, since they are based on knowledge; but of reason in so far as it regulates irrational being and uses it as its own instrument: by prudence it governs the cognitive faculty, by fortitude the spirit, by temperance desire, and all together by justice. These are treated more fully in the Republic [IV 434d2-445b4]. They actually imply each other.

§141. "Above them are the purifying virtues, which belong only to reason, but to reason in so far as it withdraws from everything external into itself, discards the instruments as useless and restrains the activities that depend on them; they deliver the soul from the bonds of genesis. The main passage dealing with them is the present one."

§142. "Before these are the contemplative virtues, when the soul has finally abandoned even itself, or rather has joined the superior, not in the way of knowledge only, as the word might seem to suggest, but in the way of appetition as well: it is as if the soul aspires to become intelligence instead of soul, and intelligence is both cognition and appetition. They are the counterpart of the civic virtues; the action of the latter is directed on the inferior and proceeds by reason, while the contemplative virtues are directed on the superior and proceed by intellection. Plato treats of them in the Theaetetus [173c6-177c2]

§143. "Archetypal virtues are those of the soul when it no longer contemplates the intelligence (contemplation involving separateness), but has already reached the stage of being by participation the intelligence that is the archetype of all thigns; therefore these virtues are called 'archetypal', inasmuch as virtues belong primarily to intelligence itself.This category is added by Iamblichus in his treatise On Virtues."

§144. "Lastly, there are the hieratic virtues, which belong to the Godlike part of the soul; they correspond to all the categories mentioned above, with this difference that while the others are existential, these are unitary. This kind, too, has been outlined by Iamblichus, and discussed more explicitly by the school of Proclus."

§145. "These are virtues not attended by vices, but there are also certain so-called virtues that are mixed with the contrasting vices; these Plato calls 'servile' [69b7], because they are of no value whatever and can be found even in slaves. For this reason we do not include them in the series of virtues."

§146. "Some people become courageous and temperant for the sake of honor, or under the pressure of a law that punishes those who behave otherwise, or through ignorance of the evil that awatis them or through experience of the dangers, or through brutish recklessness and unreasoned instinct, or by changing one affect for another."

§147. "Plato's object is to isolate the purifying virtues and literally 'purify' them from all the lower virtues, not only from pretended virtues, as Harpocratio [frg. 5] thinks, but also from the 'illusory' ones, i.e. natural and ethical virtues, and not from these only, but also from the perfect civic virtues. After first eliminating vices his obvious next step is now to discard the lower virtues also."

§148. "The object is partly to prove purifying virtue superior to what is commonly so called, but at the same time it is to make it clear that purifying virtue cannot be insight alone, as the Peripatetics think, but that it includes the other three."

(§156-164 contains some interesting further discussion of the virtues.)

Philosophy is like initiation, the ideal philosopher is a Bacchus

§165. "Dialectical thought should either start from the divine riddles (theiôn ainigmatôn), developing the mysterious truth in them (to en autois aporrhêton tês alêtheias), or come to rest in them and derive its final confirmation from their symbolical indications (tais ekeinôn endeixesin), or it should combine the two, as Socrates does here. The whole discussion consisting of two problems, the ban on suicide, and, in spite of this, the necessity of detaching oneself from the body, he makes the divine mysteries the starting-point (ek tôn aporrhêtôn êrxato) for the first [62b-6] and the final point of the second."

§166. "In this, he imitates the mystic (mustikon) and cosmic cycle of souls. Having fled the undivided Dionysian life and fixed their actual existence on the level of the Titanic and confined way of life, they are in shackles and in 'custody' [62b4]; but when they submit to their punishment and take care of themselves, then, cleansed from the taints of Titanic existence and gathered together, they become Bacchus, that is to say, they become whole again, as the Dionysus who remains above is whole."

§167. "In the mysteries (en tois hierois) the first stage used to be (!) general purifying ceremonies (pandêmoi katharseis), followed by more secret ones, after which conjunction took place, then initiation, and finally vision. Analogous to these stages are the several degrees of virtues, the ethical and social virtues corresponding to the public purifying rites (tois emphanesi katharmois), the purificatory virtues, in which all the extraneous is discarded, to the more secret purifications (tois apporrhêtoterois), speculative [or contemplative] activity on the reflective level to conjunction (sustasesin), integration of its results to form an indivisible whole to initiation (muêsesin), simple intuition of simple forms to vision (epopteias)."

§168. "The object of the initiatory rites is to take souls back to a final destination, which was also the starting-point from which they first set out on their downward journey, and where Dionysus gave them being, seated on his father's throne, that is to say, firmly established in the integral Zeusian life. It follows necessarily that the initiate will 'live with the Gods,' in accordance with the design of the initiating Gods. Initiatory rites are twofold: those here below, which are a kind of preparation, and those in the hereafter, of which there are, in my opinion, again two kinds, those that purify the pneumatic body (as rites here below do the 'shell-like' body) and those that purify the astral body. In other words, the way upward through initiation has three degrees, as also has the way through philosophy: the philosophers' way to perfection takes three thousand years, as it is said in the Phaedrus [239a3-5], the number thousand representing a full life and a complete period. Therefore the 'unitiated,' because farthest remote from his destination, 'lies in slime,' both here and even more hereafter, where hsi place is in the 'dregs of creation,' Tartarus itself. Of course the text mentions only the extremes, but there is also a wide range of intermedaite states. The ways by which philosophy leads us upwards can be thought of in analogous terms, through the communion achieved through them is not perfect nor equal to the mystic union. If it is true that a man who pursues philosophy without eagerness will not have the benefit of its results, it is no less true that neither will a man who follows the way of initiation without total commitment reap its fruits."

§169. "The word 'to lie' describes the helplessness that makes the soul dependent on external impulses, because it has become like a body, while 'living with the Gods' means belonging to their community and sharing in their government. But if so, what is the sense of the Oracle,

'They rest in God, breathing the midday rays'?

Here the condition is a higher one, surpassing all power of self-movement, as it were a supernatural form of being moved from without."

§170. "The fennel-stalk symbolizes matter-bound and divided creation, because it is a spurious form, being 'a tree, yet not a tree.'

A better reason is its utterly broken continuity, which has made the plant an attribute of the Titans: they offer it to Dionysus instead of his paternal sceptre, and thus they entice him into divided existence; further, the Titans are represented as bearing the fennel-stalk and Prometheus steals the fire in one, which means either hta he forces down the celestial light into the world of process, or that he ldeads forth the soul to incarnation, or that he calls forth into the genereated world the whole of divine illumination, which is itself ungenerated. This is, in fact, why Socrates calls the masses 'bearers of the fennel-stalk' [an attribute of the Titans] with the Orphic term, because they lead the Titanic life (zôntas Titanikôs)."

§171. "The first Bacchus is Dionysus, whose ecstasy (enthousiôn) manifests itself in dancing (basis) and shouting (iachê), that is in every form of movement, of which he is the cause according to the Laws [II 672a5-d4]; but one who has dedicated himself to Dionysus, having become his image, shares his name also. And when a man leads a Dionysian life, his troubles are already ended and he is free from his bonds and released from custody, or rather from the confined form of life; such a man is the philosopher in the stage of purification."

§172. "To some philosophy is primary, as to Porphyry and Plotinus and a great many other philosophers; to others hieratic practice, as to Iamblichus, Syrianus, Proclus, and hte hieratic school generally. Plato, however, recognizing that strong arguments can be advanced from both sides, has united the two into one single truth by calling the philosopher a 'Bacchus'; for by using the notion of a man who has detached himself from genesis as an intermediate term, we can identify the one with the other. Still it remains evident that he intends to honor the philosopher by the title of Bacchus, as we honor the Intelligence (ton noun) by calling it God (theôi), or profane (rhêton) light by giving it the same as to mystic (aporrhêtôi) light."

On the tradition

§207. "Dealing with Plato's argument [for the soul's immortality] from opposites in the Phaedo, the older commentators have not even been able to defend its validity nor to parry the attacks launched against it from the side of the other schools. The great Iamblichus, howwever, in a way characteristic of 'that spirit (thumos) of his,' overshoots the mark by attempting to lend it such completeness as to constitute absolute proof of the immortality of the soul, which is more than Socrates himself dared to presume it could do. Then Syrianus, with that balance and proportion which he shows in all things, avoiding on the one hand the amateurish perplexity of earlier generations and moderating the boldness of Iamblichus on the other, tired to keep within the limits of Socrates' professed intention while at the same time refuting those who ridicule the argumentation and proving the mguilty of chicanery. [...]"

§208. "... I shall take it that the reader has first studied the divine thoughts of my great predecessor, since I see no sense in repeating what has once been well said."

Divination

§359. "Prophecy (mantikê) is divine or demonic or human ('for believe me, my friend, the soul, too, is something prophetic' [Phaedr. 242c6-7]), and then there is another, natural kind, which is found in irrational animals also and consits in an inner perception of the future."

Apolloniac Socrates

§360. "Being an Apollonian (apollôniakos) man by virtue of his purificatory way of life, Socrates calls himself 'a fellow servant of the swans' [which are Apolloniac animals]; also, however, as a 'musical man' [=a man of the Muses, associated with Apollo] and as a healer of souls [like Apollo]."

Sources of knowledge about what happens after death

§476. "We 'are told' so by our innate notions and preconceptions, by the theologians, and, in symbols, by the mysteries themselves."

Is there also an evil guardian spirit?

§486. Neither can there be one good, one evil [(guardian) daimon], since one evil being is naturally capable of care or fellowship, nor will such a spirit cling to us for good; for it is always possible to banish an evil [daimon] by philosophy and by sacrificial (hieratikês) devices."

Holy places

§499. "... we prefer to appear before the Gods in holy places (hierois topois), even though they are everywhere."

Purifying (cathartic) cermonies

§544. "To the region of the Acheron Socrates attributes purifying power. It must be regarded as twofold, corporeal and incorporeal; purifying ceremonies (katharmôn) here on earth have the same double power."

Can the soul re-ascend?

§548. "How can Iamblichus ... maintain that there is a permanent return to the original state? - Here we can give all the corresponding answers: they never descend, either during a certain period of descents which has no compulsive force, or in so far as their own appetitive life does not gratvitate towards genesis, or thirdly, on account of a life pattern that leaves their descent free from the influence of the material world and their contact with the other world unbroken; this is what Iamblichus himself writes in his Letters, where he defends his view in the third way mentioned."

§551. "As for souls that have led a sinless and God-fearing life: those who have done so without philosophical insight are transferred to an abode on the heights of the earth, with very tenuous pneumatic bodies, those who practice philosophy in the community live in heaven with their luminous bodies, those who are completely purified return to the supramundane region without bodies."

Interpretation of the last actions of Socrates

§557. "It is natural for people, when drinking, to pledge to the Gods first, as an invitation to join them. Therefore we should not pledge with a deadly potion, lest we seem to invite the Gods to share our destruction; hence the man intimates that such a thing is not customary."

§558. "If the Gods are invoked as helpers in every deed and word, they must of course be invoked also on the occasion of this great journey, to assist, not in our destruction (for they can only preserve), but in our departure abroad, as Socrates puts it."

§559. "The Pythagoreans wanted 'to die in religious silence (euphêmiai),' death being a good and sacred thing; also because disturbances sometimes divert the upward impulse of the soul; and furthermore, because they attract a swarm of [daimons], lovers of the body and of life in the world of generation, who settle on the pneumatic body and drag it down."

§561. "Why does Socrates want to pay his vow of a cock to Asclepius? - In order that he may heal the diseases that the soul has incurred in the world of coming-to-be.

Or perhaps, as the Oracle has it, he too wants to sing the hymn to Paean while soaring aloft to the origins of his own being."