Part 2 of 2
If, again, the mind of Zeus was nothing else except the aforesaid ether, and if ether is the highest and most fiery kind of air, and has received this name, as they say, from ἄθεσθαι, which means 'to be on fire,' and if both the air and the ether are material substances, see to what your mind of Zeus has come down.
And who in his right senses would still address as god him who had a mind devoid of mind and of reason, since such is the nature of every material body? Wherefore we in our thoughts of God must receive the entire contrary to the doctrines which have been mentioned; that He is not the heaven, nor ether, nor sun, nor moon, nor the whole choir of the stars, nor the whole world itself together: but these are works of His hands, still small and petty in comparison with His incorporeal and intelligent powers: because all body is perishable and irrational, and such is the nature of things visible. But the things beyond in the invisible world being rational and immortal, and co-eternal with the blessed life of God the King of all, must be far better than all the things that are seen.
Rightly therefore do the sacred oracles teach us concerning the visible parts of the world as follows: 'I will behold the heavens, the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained.'27 And again: 'Thou Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands.'28 And again: 'Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created all these.'29
Let this, then, suffice for answer to the first interpretation of the poem; and let us go on to examine what follows. Since it was not possible, he says, 'to make such an image as their description indicated, therefore they have made the representation of Zeus in human form, because it was according to mind that he wrought, and by generative laws brought all things to completion.'30
But how, if it was not possible to make an image such as the description indicated, and if, as we have seen, it indicated the parts of the sensible and visible world, heaven and the things in heaven, the air also, and earth, and all that is therein----if then, I say, it was not possible to compose an image of the visible parts of the world, how, inasmuch as god was mind, could any one make an image of him?
And what likeness can a human body have to the mind of God? For my part I think there is nothing in it answering even to the mind of man, since the one is incorporeal, uncompounded, and without parts, while the other, being the work of common mechanics, is the imitation of the nature of a mortal body, and represents a deaf and dumb image of living flesh in lifeless and dead matter.
Rather does the rational and immortal soul and the impassible mind in man's nature seem to me to be rightly spoken of as preserving an image and likeness of God, inasmuch as it is immaterial and incorporeal, and intelligent and rational in its essence, and is capable of virtue and wisdom.31
If then any one were able to fabricate an image and form of the soul in a statue, such a man might also make some representation of the higher natures; but if the mind of man is without form and cannot be seen or figured, neither discernible by sight, nor in its essence comprehensible by speech and hearing, who would be so mad as to declare that the statue made in the likeness of man bears the form and image of the Most High, God?
Rather is God's nature imagined apart from all perishable matter, being contemplated by purified souls in lucid thought and in silence: whereas, in the representation of the visible Zeus, the figure must be an image of a man of mortal nature, yet not an imitation of the whole man, but of one and that the worse part of him, because it conveys not a trace of life and soul.
How then can the God who is over all, and the mind which is the creator of the universe, be that same Zeus who is seen in the bronze or in the dead ivory? And how could the mind that was the creator of the universe be forsooth that very Zeus, the father of Hercules by Alcmena, and of the other men fabled to be sons of Zeus, who, having ended their mortal life in the way common to all men, have left indelible monuments of their proper nature to those who came after them?
Accordingly, the first theologians among the Phoenicians, as we showed in the first Book, related that Zeus the son of Kronos, mortal son of mortal father, was a Phoenician by race: while the Egyptians, claiming the man as their own, confessed again that he was mortal, and agreed in this point at least with the Phoenicians.
But further the Cretans, showing the grave of Zeus in their midst, would be third witnesses of the same fact. The Atlantians also, and all who have been previously mentioned as claiming Zeus for their own according to their native history, all alike declared him mortal, and recorded his deeds as those of a mortal man, but not deeds of a respectable or philosophic kind, being full of all indecency and wantonness.
To those who have professed to give a more respectable turn to the legends Zeus was at one time a hot and fiery force, and at another the wind: but now, somehow or other they have made him appear as the creative mind of the universe.
We must inquire, therefore, whom would they name as his father, and his father's father? For according to all the theologians Zeus is acknowledged to be the son of Kronos, and the verses of Orpheus before quoted made mention of 'the mighty son of Kronos': and Kronos was son of Uranus. Let us, therefore, grant to them that Zeus is the god over all, and the mind which created all. Who then was his father? Kronos. And who his grandfather? Uranus.
But if Zeus as creator of all was before all, then those who were made by him ought to be counted as second and after him. For if either Kronos be time, as being by nature the offspring of heaven, that is of Uranus, or if time came into existence together with heaven, or if Uranus himself was the father of Kronos, and time subsequent to this latter, at all events the god who was the cause of the universe and creator of heaven and of time, was before them. And if so, Zeus could not be the third from Uranus.
How then, among all Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and Greeks, and philosophers, is the mind that created the universe reckoned third in descent from Uranus? So the fiction of our philosopher is plainly detected, and will be still more fully detected from what he goes on to say, as follows.32
CHAPTER XI[PORPHYRY] 'THEY have made Hera the wife of Zeus, because they called the ethereal and aerial power Hera. For the ether is a very subtle air.'
The poem quoted above declared that the ether is the mind of Zeus: but now our author's statement defines what the ether is, by saying that it is a very subtle air: but the air is body, and the ether a much more primitive kind of body.
The mind, then, of Zeus is proved to be body, although the very subtlest kind of body. But how can body and mind be conceived the same, since in their natures they are diametrically opposed?
Then somehow he has forgotten the express statement of the poems----
'His mind immortal ether, sovereign truth,
Hears and considers all; nor any speech,
Nor cry, nor noise, nor ominous voice escapes
The ear of Zeus, great Kronos' mightier son'---- 33
for hereby the ether is plainly declared to be the mind of Zeus.
But Porphyry says, on the contrary, that Hera is the ethereal and aerial power. Then he adds a distinction and says:34
[PORPHYRY] 'And the power of the whole air is Hera, called by a name derived from the air: but the symbol of the sublunar air which is affected by light and darkness is Leto; for she is oblivion caused by the insensibility in sleep, and because souls begotten below the moon are accompanied by forgetfulness of the Divine; and on this account she is also the mother of Apollo and Artemis, who are the sources of light for the night.'
Now here he says that the sublunar air is the mother of sun and moon, because the air is Leto. But how could the air become the mother of the sources of illumination, being itself acted on rather than acting? For sun and moon, produce different changes in the air at different times.
But again, he next proceeds to say:
'The ruling principle of the power of earth is called Hestia, of whom a statue representing her as a virgin is usually set up on the hearth; but inasmuch as the power is productive, they symbolize her by the form of a woman with prominent breasts. The name Rhea they gave to the power of rocky and mountainous land, and Demeter to that of level and productive land. Demeter in other respects is the same as Rhea, but differs in the fact that she gives birth to Koré by Zeus, that is, she produces the shoot (κόρος) from the seeds of plants. And on this account her statue is crowned with ears of corn, and poppies are set round her as a symbol of productiveness.'
Now here again mark in what manner he has degraded Rhea, who is said to be the mother of the gods and of Zeus himself, down to the level of rocks and earth, and makes utter confusion by saying that she is the same with Demeter, except that she differs 'in the fact that Demeter (he says) gives birth to Koré by Zeus, just as the level ground produces the shoot (κόρος) from the seeds of plants. 'Behold, here again you have Zeus transformed into the seeds of plants!
To this he next adds a further statement:
'But since there was in the seeds cast into the earth a certain power, which the sun in passing round to the lower hemisphere drags down at the time of the winter solstice, Koré is the seminal power, and Pluto the sun passing under the earth, and traversing the unseen world at the time of the winter solstice; and he is said to carry off Koré, who, while hidden beneath the earth, is lamented by her mother Demeter.
'The power which produces hard-shelled fruits, and the fruits of plants in general, is named Dionysus. But observe the images of these also. For Koré bears symbols of the production of the plants which grow above the earth in the crops: and Dionysus has horns in common with Koré, and is of female form, indicating the union of male and female forces in the generation of the hard-shelled fruits.
'But Pluto, the ravisher of Koré, has a helmet as a symbol of the unseen pole, and his shortened sceptre as an emblem of his kingdom of the nether world; and his dog (κύων) indicates the generation (κύησιν) of the fruits in its threefold division----the sowing of the seed, its reception by the earth, its growing up. For he is called a dog (κύων), not because souls are his food (κῆρας βοράν, Cerberus), but because of the earth's fertility (κυεῖν), for which Pluto provides when he carries off Koré.
'Attis, too, and Adonis are related to the analogy of fruits. Attis is the symbol of the blossoms which appear early in the spring, and fall off before the complete fertilization; whence they further attributed castration to him, from the fruits not having attained to seminal perfection: but Adonis was the symbol of the cutting of the perfect fruits.
'Silenus was the symbol of the wind's motion, which contributes no few benefits to the world. And the flowery and brilliant wreath upon his head is symbolic of the revolution of the heaven, and the hair with which his lower limbs are surrounded is an indication of the density of the air near the earth.
'Since there was also a power partaking of the prophetic faculty, the power is called Themis, because of its telling what is appointed (τεθειμένα) and fixed for each person.
'In all these ways, then, the power of the earth finds an interpretation and is worshipped: as a virgin and Hestia, she holds the centre; as a mother she nourishes; as Rhea she makes rocks and dwells on mountains; as Demeter, she produces herbage; and as Themis, she utters oracles: while the seminal law which descends into her bosom is figured as Priapus, the influence of which on dry crops is called Koré, and on soft fruits and shell-fruits is called Dionysus. For Koré was carried off by Pluto, that is, the sun going down beneath the earth at seed-time; but Dionysus begins to sprout according to the conditions of the power which, while young, is hidden beneath the earth, yet produces fine fruits, and is an ally of the power in the blossom symbolized by Attis, and of the cutting of the ripened corn symbolized by Adonis.
'Also the power of the wind which pervades all things is formed into a figure of Silenus, and the perversion to frenzy into a figure of a Bacchante, as also the impulse which excites to lust is represented by the Satyrs. These, then, are the symbols by which the power of the earth is revealed.'
So far, then, we have these statements (of Porphyry), which I have been compelled to set before you briefly, in order that we may not be ignorant of the fine doctrines of the philosophers. Thus, therefore, according to the accounts rendered by them, Koré is the power of the seed-crops, and Dionysus of the tree-fruits, and of the spring-flowers Attis is the symbol, and Adonis of the ripe fruits.
Why then ought we to deify these things which have been made by the God of the universe for sustenance of the bodies of the animals upon the earth? Or why is the worship of the power of the earth becoming to us, who have received from God, the sovereign ruler of the world, a soul whose nature is heavenly, rational, and immortal, capable of contemplation by the purged eyes of thought?
On hearing that Silenus is the motion of the wind, and the force which penetrates through all things, and that at one time he represents by his head the revolution of the heavens, and at another the density of the air by the shaggy hair of his beard, how can one patiently endure to see him thought worthy of no august worship, who ought to have been deified before all, while Adonis and Dionysus, the corn-crops forsooth and tree-fruits, are turned into gods?
And who could patiently bear to hear Satyrs and Bacchantes spoken of with reverence, which are the foul and licentious passions of mankind, inasmuch as the former, the Satyrs, represented the impulses which excite to carnal pleasure, and the Bacchantes the inducements which concur to frenzy in those who take part herein?
But what need to refute each part separately, when we ought merely to run over them so that none of their secrets may escape us, and to cut short the physical explanation of what follows, which the author before named has set forth, proceeding in the following manner:35
'The whole power productive of water they called Oceanus, and named its symbolic figure Tethys. But of the whole, the drinking-water produced is called Achelous; and the sea-water Poseidon; while again that which makes the sea, inasmuch as it is productive, is Amphitrite. Of the sweet waters the particular powers are called Nymphs, and those of the sea-waters Nereids.
'Again, the power of fire they called Hephaestus, and have made his image in the form of a man, but put on it a blue cap as a symbol of the revolution of the heavens, because the archetypal and purest form of lire is there. But the fire brought down from heaven to earth is less intense, and wants the strengthening and support which is found in matter: wherefore he is lame, as needing matter to support him.
'Also they supposed a power of this kind to belong to the sun and called it Apollo, from the pulsation (πάλσις) of his beams. There are also nine Muses singing to his lyre, which are the sublunar sphere, and seven spheres of the planets, and one of the fixed stars. And they crowned him with laurel, partly because the plant is full of fire, and therefore hated by daemons; and partly because it crackles in burning, to represent the god's prophetic art.
'But inasmuch as the sun wards off the evils of the earth, they called him Heracles (Ἑρακλῆς), from his clashing against the air (κλᾶσθαι πρὸς τὸν ἀέρα) in passing from east to west. And they invented fables of his performing twelve labours, as the symbol of the division of the signs of the zodiac in heaven; and they arrayed him with a club and a lion's skin, the one as an indication of his uneven motion, and the other representative of his strength in "Leo" the sign of the zodiac.
'Of the sun's healing power Asclepius is the symbol, and to him they have given the staff as a sign of the support and rest of the sick, and the serpent is wound round it, as significant of his preservation of body and soul: for the animal is most full of spirit, and shuffles off the weakness of the body. It seems also to have a great faculty for healing: for it found the remedy for giving clear sight, and is said in a legend to know a certain plant which restores life.
'But the fiery power of his revolving and circling motion, whereby he ripens the crops, is called Dionysus, not in the same sense as the power which produces the juicy fruits, but either from the sun's rotation (δινεῖν), or from his completing (διανύειν) his orbit in the heaven. And whereas he revolves round the cosmical seasons (Spas), and is the maker of "times and tides," the sun is on this account called Horus.
'Of his power over agriculture, whereon depend the gifts of wealth (Plutus), the symbol is Pluto. He has, however, equally the power of destroying, on which account they make Sarapis share the temple of Pluto: and the purple tunic they make the symbol of the light that has sunk beneath the earth, and the sceptre broken at the top that of his power below, and the posture of the hand the symbol of his departure into the unseen world.
'Cerberus is represented with three heads, because the positions of the sun above the earth are three----rising, midday, and setting.
'The moon, conceived according to her brightness, they called Artemis, as it were ἀερότεμις, "cutting the air." And Artemis, though herself a virgin, presides over childbirth, because the power of the new moon is helpful to parturition.
'What Apollo is to the sun, that Athena is to the moon: for the moon is a symbol of wisdom, and so a kind of Athena.
'But, again, the moon is Hecate, the symbol of her varying phases and of her power dependent on the phases. Wherefore her power appears in three forms, having as symbol of the new moon the figure in the white robe and golden sandals, and torches lighted: the basket, which she bears when she has mounted high, is the symbol of the cultivation of the crops, which she makes to grow up according to the increase of her light: and again the symbol of the full moon is the goddess of the brazen sandals.
'Or even from the branch of olive one might infer her fiery nature, and from the poppy her productiveness, and the multitude of the souls who find an abode in her as in a city, for the poppy is an emblem of a city. She bears a bow, like Artemis, because of the sharpness of the pangs of labour.
'And, again, the Fates are referred, to her powers, Clotho to the generative, and Lachesis to the nutritive, and Atropos to the inexorable will of the deity.
'Also, the power productive of corn-crops, which is Demeter, they associate with her, as producing power in her. The moon is also a supporter of Koré. They set Dionysus also beside her, both on account of their growth of horns, and because of the region of clouds lying beneath the lower world.
'The power of Kronos they perceived to be sluggish and slow and cold, and therefore attributed to him the power of time (χρόνου): and they figure him standing, and grey-headed, to indicate that time is growing old.
'The Curetes, attending on Chronos, are symbols of the seasons, because time (Chronos) journeys on through seasons.
'Of the Hours, some are the Olympian, belonging to the sun, which also open the gates in the air: and others are earthly, belonging to Demeter, and hold a basket, one symbolic of the flowers of spring, and the other of the wheat-ears of summer.
'The power of Ares they perceived to be fiery, and represented it as causing war and bloodshed, and capable both of harm and benefit.
'The star of Aphrodite they observed as tending to fecundity, being the cause of desire and offspring, and represented it as a woman because of generation, and as beautiful, because it is also the evening star----
"Hesper, the fairest star that shines in heaven." 36
'And Eros they set by her because of desire. She veils her breasts and other parts, because their power is the source of generation and nourishment. She conies from the sea, a watery element, and warm, and in constant movement, and foaming because of its commotion, whereby they intimate the seminal power.
'Hermes is the representative of reason and speech, which both accomplish and interpret all things. The phallic Hermes represents vigour, but also indicates the generative law that pervades all things.
'Further, reason is composite: in the sun it is called Hermes; in the moon Hecate; and that which is in the All Hermopan, for the generative and creative reason extends over all things. Hermanubis also is composite, and as it were half Greek, being found among the Egyptians also. Since speech is also connected with the power of love, Eros represents this power: wherefore Eros is represented as the son of Hermes, but as an infant, because of his sudden impulses of desire.
'They made Pan the symbol of the universe, and gave him his horns as symbols of sun and moon, and the fawn skin as emblem of the stars in heaven, or of the variety of the universe.'
Such are his interpretations of the Greek mythology: that of the Egyptians again he says has symbols such as follow: 37
'The Demiurge, whom the Egyptians call Cneph, is of human form, but with a skin of dark blue, holding a girdle and a sceptre, and crowned with a royal wing on his head, because reason is hard to discover, and wrapt up in secret, and not conspicuous, and because it is life-giving, and because it is a king, and because it has an intelligent motion: wherefore the characteristic wing is put upon his head.
'This god, they say, puts forth from his mouth an egg, from which is born a god who is called by themselves Phtha, but by the Greeks Hephaestus; and the egg they interpret as the world. To this god the sheep is consecrated, because the ancients used to drink milk.
'The representation of the world itself they figured thus: the statue is like a man having feet joined together, and clothed from head to foot with a robe of many colours, and has on the head a golden sphere, the first to represent its immobility, the second the many-coloured nature of the stars, and the third because the world is spherical.
'The sun they indicate sometimes by a man embarked on a ship, the ship set on a crocodile. And the ship indicates the sun's motion in a liquid element: the crocodile potable water in which the sun travels. The figure of the sun thus signified that his revolution takes place through air that is liquid and sweet.
'The power of the earth, both the celestial and terrestrial earth, they called Isis, because of the equality (ἰσότητα), which is the source of justice: but they call the moon the celestial earth, and the vegetative earth, on which we live, they call the terrestrial.
'Demeter has the same meaning among the Greeks as Isis among the Egyptians: and, again, Koré and Dionysus among the Greeks the same as Isis and Osiris among the Egyptians. Isis is that which nourishes and raises up the fruits of the earth; and Osiris among the Egyptians is that which supplies the fructifying power, which they propitiate with lamentations as it disappears into the earth in the sowing, and as it is consumed by us for food.
'Osiris is also taken for the river-power of the Nile: when, however, they signify the terrestrial earth, Osiris is taken as the fructifying power; but when the celestial, Osiris is the Nile, which they suppose to come down from heaven: this also they bewail, in order to propitiate the power when failing and becoming exhausted. And the Isis who, in the legends, is wedded to Osiris is the land of Egypt, and therefore she is made equal to him, and conceives, and produces the fruits; and on this account Osiris has been described by tradition as the husband of Isis, and her brother, and her son.'
CHAPTER XII[PORPHYRY] 'AT the city Elephantine there is an image worshipped, which in other respects is fashioned in the likeness of a man and sitting; it is of a blue colour, and has a man's head, and a diadem bearing the horns of a goat, above which is a quoit-shaped circle. He sits with a vessel of clay beside him, on which he is moulding the figure of a man. And from having the face of a ram and the horns of a goat he indicates the conjunction of sun and moon in the sign of the Ram, while the colour of blue indicates that the moon in that conjunction brings rain.
'The second appearance of the moon is held sacred in the city of Apollo: and its symbol is a man with a hawk-like face, subduing with a hunting-spear Typhon in the likeness of a hippopotamus. The image is white in colour, the whiteness representing the illumination of the moon, and the hawk-like face the fact that it derives light and breath from the sun. For the hawk they consecrate to the sun, and make it their symbol of light and breath, because of its swift motion, and its soaring up on high, where the light is. And the hippopotamus represents the Western sky, because of its swallowing up into itself the stars which traverse it.
'In this city Horus is worshipped as a god. But the city of Eileithyia worships the third appearance of the moon: and her statue is fashioned into a flying vulture, whose plumage consists of precious stones. And its likeness to a vulture signifies that the moon is what produces the winds: for they think that the vulture conceives from the wind, and declares that they are all hen birds.
'In the mysteries at Eleusis the hierophant is dressed up to represent the demiurge, and the torch-bearer the sun, the priest at the altar the moon, and the sacred herald Hermes.
'Moreover a man is admitted by the Egyptians among their objects of worship. For there is a village in Egypt called Anabis, in which a man is worshipped, and sacrifice offered to him, and the victims burned upon his altars: and after a little while he would eat the things that had been prepared for him as for a man.
'They did not, however, believe the animals to be gods, but regarded them as likenesses and symbols of gods; and this is shown by the fact that in many places oxen dedicated to the gods are sacrificed at their monthly festivals and in their religious services. For they consecrated oxen to the sun and moon.
CHAPTER XIII[PORPHYRY] 'THE ox called Mnevis which is dedicated to the sun in Heliopolis, is the largest of oxen, very black, chiefly because much sunshine blackens men's bodies. And its tail and all its body are covered with hair that bristles backwards unlike other cattle, just as the sun makes its course in the opposite direction to the heaven. Its testicles are very large, since desire is produced by heat, and the sun is said to fertilize nature.
'To the moon they dedicated a bull which they call Apis, which also is more black than others, and bears symbols of sun and moon, because the light of the moon is from the sun. The blackness of his body is an emblem of the sun, and so is the beetle-like mark under his tongue; and the symbol of the moon is the semicircle, and the gibbous figure.'
Let it suffice that I have made these short extracts from the writing of the before-named author, so that we may not be ignorant of any secrets of the theology which is at once both Grecian and Egyptian, and from which we confess ourselves to be apostates and deserters, having rejected these doctrines with sound judgement and reasoning.
For I am not going to be frightened by the arrogant voice which said,
'I speak to those who lawfully may hear:
Depart, all ye profane, and close the doors." 38
Not we at all events are profane, but those who declared that such foul and unseemly legends about beetles and brute beasts were the thoughts of a wise theology---- they who, according to the admirable Apostle, 'professing themselves to be wise, became fools,' 39 seeing that they 'changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.'
But since they used to refer all the secret and more mysterious doctrine on these subjects in a metaphorical sense to incorporeal powers, so as to appear no longer to apply their deification to the visible parts of the world, but to certain invisible and incorporeal powers, let us examine whether we ought not even so to admire. the divine power as one, and not to regard it as many.
For it does not follow, because many shapes and parts and limbs have been created in one body, that we ought to believe them to have as many souls, nor to suppose that there are as many makers and creators of the body; but that as one soul moves the whole body, so one creative power framed the whole living being.
Thus then in the case of the whole world also, since it is one, and consists of one kind of corporeal matter, but is divided into many parts, and reveals one natural sympathy of the universe, and a composition and mixture of its elements, with changes and transformations of one into another, while it exhibits the entire whole as one order and one harmony, we ought not to suppose many creative powers, but to deify only one, namely that which is in very truth 'the power of God, and the wisdom of God.'40
But our wise philosopher does not observe that he is transforming the Egyptian mythologies back into immaterial powers; for you have heard in what has gone before, how he confessed that Chaeremon and several others 'believed in nothing else as prior to the visible worlds, and placed the Egyptians first,' because they interpreted all things of physical laws and nothing of incorporeal and living beings.'
If therefore, according to their own confession, it was characteristic of the Egyptians to refer nothing 'to incorporeal and living beings,' but to transfer all their mythological stories concerning the gods to the physical parts of the world, why then do they begin anew with their subtleties, and ascribe to the Egyptians doctrines which in no way belong to them, by asserting that they make their theology refer back to incorporeal powers? Such is the general charge to be brought.
And in regard also to the particulars, I think that no long refutation is needed to disprove their forced rendering.
For to pass over the nonsense of the Egyptians and all their prating foolery, and to come on to the physical theories of the wise Greeks, what man of sound mind would not at once condemn those who attempt to give such perverse interpretations?
For grant that Zeus no longer means the fiery and ethereal substance, as however was supposed by the ancients according to Plutarch, but that he is the supreme 'mind' itself, 'the creator of the universe,' who giveth to all things life----how then shall his father be Kronos, whom they assert to be time, and his mother Rhea, whom our interpreter declared to be the power of rocks and mountains? For I cannot understand how, after calling Hera the air and the ether, he says that she is at the same time sister and wife of the mind that made the world and gave life to all things.
But again let Leto be called a kind of oblivion (ληθώ) because of the insensibility, as they say, in sleep, and because oblivion accompanies the souls that are born into this sublunary world. How then could oblivion become the mother of sun and moon, Apollo and Artemis the children of Leto having been transformed into sun and moon?
And why are we to worship Rhea or Demeter as a goddess, if the one was said to be symbolic of rocky and mountainous land, and the other of the plain? As they allegorize Koré into satiety (κόρος), for what reason do they think they ought to honour her with that venerable title?
And why do they think we ought to worship as gods the seminal power, and the production of tree-fruits, or of the blossoms that appear in spring, and perish before they have perfected their fruit, or the symbols of the cutting of the ripe crops, surnaming them Dionysus and Attis and Adonis, instead of honouring above all these the human race for whose use and sustenance these things were provided by the Divine Creator of the universe?
But passing from these points, you will by the like method confute all the rest of their grand physical theory, and with good reason rebuke the shamelessness of those, say, who declared that the sun was Apollo himself, and again Heracles, and at another time Dionysus, and again in like manner Asclepius.
For how could the same person be both father and son, Asclepius and Apollo at once? And how could he be changed again into Heracles, since Heracles has been acknowledged by them to be the son of a mortal woman Alcmena? And how could the sun go mad and slay his own sons, seeing that this also has been ascribed to Heracles?
But in the performance of his twelve labours Heracles is said to be the symbol of the distribution in the heaven of the zodiacal circle in which they say the sun revolves. Who then is now to be the Eurystheus, that enjoins the performance of the labours on the sun, as he did upon Heracles? And how can the fifty daughters of Thestius be referred to the sun, and the multitude of other female captives with whom the story says that Heracles consorted, and of whom were born to him mortal sons who continued the succession of their generations for a very long time? And who could the Centaur be, with whose blood Deianeira smeared the tunic, and so would have involved the sun, as in fact she did Heracles, in the misery that has been described?
But now suppose they make the sun no longer Heracles, but Dionysus: and any one may with good reason say, 'What have these things to do with Dionysus?' For who was his mother, whether called Semele or Persephone? And how could Dionysus be both the sun and the power that sprouts forth in the moist fruits and nuts? And what can the multitude of women who went with him on his expedition mean? And who is the Ariadne of the sun, as there was, we know, the Ariadne of Dionysus. And why, when Dionysus is transformed into the sun, should he be the provider rather of wine, and not of corn and vegetables and all the fruits of the earth? And again, if they make the sun Asclepius, how is he stricken with the thunderbolt of Zeus on account of his sordid love of gain, according to Pindar the lyric poet of Boeotia, who speaks as follows:
'Him too by splendid bribe the gold
Seen glittering on his palm seduc'd.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Then swiftly from Kronion's hand
The flashing lightning, fraught with death,
With fiery bolt transfixing both,
Quench'd in each form the living breath.'
Who again were the Asclepiadae, children of the sun, who after being themselves preserved to a long life, founded a race of mortals like all other men?
However, while they try to escape, as it were by some sudden transformation, from the unseemly and fabulous narratives concerning the gods, their system will run back again to sun, and moon, and the other parts of the world.
If at least they made Hephaestus fire and the force of heat, Poseidon the watery element, Hera the air, and the mountainous and rocky earth Rhea, the plain and fruitful earth Demeter, Koré the seminal power, and Dionysus the power which produces hard fruits, the sun Apollo, together with those who have been enumerated above, and the moon at one time Artemis, at another Athena, and again Hecate, and Eileithyia----are they not again convicted of deifying 'the creature rather than the Creator.' and the handiwork of the world but not the worker, with great risk and danger, and with mischief that must fall on their own head?
But if they shall assert that they deify not the visible bodies of sun and moon and stars, nor yet the sensible parts of the world, but the powers, invisible in them, of the very God who is over all----for they say that God being One fills all things with various powers, and pervades all, and rules over all, but as existing in all and pervading all in an incorporeal and invisible manner. and that they rightly worship Him through the things which we have mentioned----why in the world therefore do they not reject the foul and unseemly fables concerning the gods as being unlawful and impious, and put out of sight the very books concerning them, as containing blasphemous and licentious teaching, and celebrate the One and Only and Invisible God openly and purely and without any foul envelopment?
For this was what those who had known the truth ought to do, and not to degrade and debase the venerable name of God into foul and lustful fables of things unspeakable; nor yet to shut themselves up in cells and dark recesses and buildings made by man, as if they would find God inside; nor to think that they are worshipping the Divine powers in statues made of lifeless matter, nor to suppose that by vapours of gore and filth steaming from the earth, and by the blood of slain animals they are doing things pleasing to God.Surely it became these men of wisdom and of lofty speech, as being set free from all these bonds of error, to impart of their physical speculations ungrudgingly to all men, and to proclaim as it were in naked truth to all, that they should adore not the things that are seen, but only the unseen Creator of things visible, and worship His invisible and incorporeal powers in ways invisible and incorporeal, not by kindling fire nor yet by offerings of ranis and bulls, nay, nor yet by imagining that they honour the Deity by garlands and statues and the building of temples, but by worshipping Him with purified thoughts and right and true doctrines, in dispassionate calmness of soul, and in growing as far as possible like unto Him.
But no one ever yet, barbarian or Greek, began to show all men this truth except only our Saviour; who, having proclaimed to all nations an escape from their ancient error, procured abundantly for them all a way of return and of devotion to the one true and only God of the universe. Yet the men perversely wise who boasted of the highest philosophy of life, whereby as the inspired Apostle says,41 though they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. They professed indeed to be wise, but became fools, . . . and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.42
CHAPTER XIVSo after their long and manifold philosophical speculation, and after their solemn systems of meteorology and physiology, they fell down from their high place, as it were from the loftiest mountain-top, and were dragged down with the common herd, and swept away with the polytheistic delusion of the ancients, pretending that they glorified the like deities with the multitude by offering sacrifice and falling down before images, and increasing, and still further strengthening, the vulgar opinion of the legendary stories concerning the gods.
Must it not then be evident to all men that they are only talking solemn nonsense in their physical theories, and, as far as words go, putting a fair face on foul things by their perversion of the truth, but in actual deeds establishing the fabulous delusion, and the vulgar superstition? And so far there is no wonder, since they even record that their gods themselves assent to the fabulous stories concerning them.
Hear at least how Apollo himself teaches men a hymn, which he put forth concerning himself, acknowledging that he was born of Leto in the island of Delos, and Asclepius again in Tricca, as also Hermes acknowledging that he was the child of Maia: for these things also are written by Porphyry in a book which he entitled Of the Philosophy derived from Oracles, wherein he made mention of the oracles which run as follows:43
'Thou, joy of mortals, forth didst spring
From thy pure mother's sacred pangs.'
To this he subjoins----
'But when the pangs of holy birth
Through all her frame fair Leto seized,
And in her womb twin children stirr'd,
Still stood the earth, the air stood still,
The isle grew fix'd, the wave was hush'd;
Forth into life Lycoreus sprang,
God of the bow, the prophet-king
On the divining tripod thron'd.'
Asclepius again thus speaks of himself:
'From sacred Tricca, lo! I come, the god
Of mortal mother erst to Phoebus born,
Of wisdom and the healing art a king,
Asclepius nam'd. But say, what would'st thou ask?'
And Hermes says:
'Lo! whom thou callest, Zeus' and Maia's son,
Hermes, descending from the starry throne,
Hither I come.'
They also subjoin a description of the appearance of their own form, as Pan in the oracles gives the following description concerning himself:44
'To Pan, a god of kindred race,
A mortal born my vows I pay;
Whose horned brows and cloven feet
And goat-like legs his lust betray.'
These are the things which the author before named has set forth among the secrets Of the Philosophy drawn from the Oracles, Pan therefore was no longer the symbol of the universe, but must be some such daemon as is described, who also gave forth the oracle: for of course it was not the universe, and the whole world, that gave the oracle which we have before us. The men therefore who fashioned the likeness of this daemon, and not that of the universe, imitated the figure before described.
How also could Hermes be thought of as the reason which both makes and interprets all things, when he confesses that he had for his mother Maia the daughter of Atlas, thus sanctioning the fable that is told concerning him, and not any physical explanation?
So again, how could Asclepius be changed into the sun, when he lays claim to Tricca as his native place, and confesses that he was born of a mortal mother? Or how, if he were himself the sun, could be represented again as a child of the sun? Since in their physical theory they made his father Phoebus to be no other than the sun.
And is it not the most ridiculous thing of all, to say that he was born of the sun and a mortal woman? For how is it reasonable that his father, the sun, whom they declare to be Apollo, should himself also have been born in the island Delos of a mortal mother again, namely Leto.
Here observe, I pray you, how many gods born of women were deified by the Greeks, to be brought forward if ever they attempt to mock at our Saviour's birth: observe also that the remarks quoted are not the words of poets, but of the gods themselves.
CHAPTER XV
WHEN poets therefore, as they say, invent legends concerning the gods, while philosophers give physical explanations, we ought, I suppose, rightly to despise the former, and admire the latter as philosophers, and to accept the persuasive arguments of this better class rather than the triflings of the poets. But when on the other hand gods and philosophers enter into competition, and the former, as likely to know best, state exactly the facts concerning themselves in their oracles, while the latter twist their guesses about things which they do not know into discordant and undemonstrable subtleties, which does reason persuade us to believe? Or rather is this not even worth asking?
If therefore the gods are to speak true in certifying the human passions attributed to them, they who set these aside must be false; but if the physical explanations of the philosophers are true, the testimonies of the gods must be false.
But even Apollo himself, it may be said, somewhere in an oracle, when asked about himself who he was, replied:
'Osiris, Horus, Sun, Apollo, Zeus-born king,
Ruler of times and seasons, winds and showers.
Guiding the reins of dawn and starry night,
King of the shining orbs, eternal Fire.'
So then the same witnesses agree both with the poets' legends and with the philosophers' guesses, allying themselves with both sides in the battle. For if they ascribe to themselves mortal mothers, and acknowledge their native places upon earth, how can they be such as the physicists describe them?
Grant that Apollo is the sun----for their argument will again be caught running backwards and forwards and round to the same place----how then could Delos, the island which is now still seen at sea, be the native place of the sun, and Leto his mother? For this is what his own oracles just now certified as being true. And how could the sun become the father of Asclepius, a mortal man by nature, having begotten him of a mortal woman? But let us put this subject aside.Factual information such as dates of birth and death, the real name of the Siddha, the village where he was born, the caste in which he was born and the place where he lived cannot be obtained ...
Since there is a close similarity between some stanzas of Sivavākkiyam and those of Tirumalisai Alwar’s Tirucchandaviruttam it is believed that Sivavākkiyar and Tirumalisai Alwar may be one and the same person.
Thirumazhisai Alvar (Born: Bhargavar 4203 BCE - 297 AD) is a Tamil saint revered in the Srivaishnavism school of south India, in Tondai Nadu (now part of Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts). He was born in 4203 BCE. The legend of this saint devotees of Srivaishnavism believe that he was the incarnation of Vishnu's disc, Sudarshana.
Sudarshana Chakra is a spinning, discus weapon with 108 serrated edges, used by the Hindu god Vishnu or Krishna. The Sudarshana Chakra is generally portrayed on the right rear hand of the four hands of Vishnu, who also holds a shankha (conch shell), a Gada (mace) and a padma (lotus).
-- Sudarshana Chakra, by Wikipedia
He is believed to have been born at Jagannatha Perumal temple, Tirumazhisai by divine grace.
A childless tribal couple called Tiruvaalan and Pankaya Chelvi engaged in cutting canes found the child and took it home. The couple also had a son named Kanikannan who was a disciple of Thirumazhisai Alvar.
Thirumazhisai Alvar proclaimed that he didn't belonged to Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya & Shudra in one of his couplets as he was considered (Avarna) beyond caste bound person. He was the only azhwar saint who lived for 4500 Years....
The name of the Azhwar comes from his birthplace, Thirumazhisai, a suburb in modern day Chennai.
According to Puranas, it was the onset of Kali Yuga (the dark age). Lord Vishnu was worried about the next incarnation his weapon to take because, Kali Yuga has started and he didn't know how his relations will spend their life on Earth since they had to spend a normal Human life. It was the onset of Kali Yuga, and Vishnu was worried about this and when enquired he told the terrible attitudes of people during the Kali Yuga and how can his dear ones can spend their life on Earth in such a dark age, when Sudarshana intervened and volunteered to be born on Earth when Vishnu objected again exclaiming the attributes of Kali Yuga. Sudarshana still obliged leaving Vishnu tearful. He had a weird birth story. This was when Bhargava maharishi was in a long tapa (penance) to please Vishnu, as usual to spoil his penance Indra sent an apsara for which he succeeded. After enjoying worldly pleasures the apsara left to heaven leaving back the baby born to them. Due to his attachment to continue the penance, he cannot take care of the child and left it on the ground. Many days passed and the baby was crying a lot and nobody turned around to look after him. He was covered with blood and worms and mosquitoes are continuously biting him. Worried, Vishnu and Lakshmi descended to Earth and touched the baby and disappeared. The baby was transformed into a handsome young boy. The boy being Sudharshana Chakra himself was devoid of any illness though was hungry for many many days. All were wondering how could this be possible when a childless couple adopted him. Even then he did not accept single grain of rice from the couple. One day, an old man and woman paid visit to this boy. The boy was happy to see them when they asked to go for a short walk along the temple premises. The boy obliged and the old man and woman seemed worried and when enquired, they answered that the sadness cannot be prevented in that age. Still he enquired to which the old couple answered they are yearning for parental affection, to which this boy seemed too casual and wrote two pasurams in praise of Vishnu and miraculously the old couple was transformed into young and good looking couple. They thanked the boy a lot and this boy was too happy because in the Kali Yuga period people are also being thankful to which he wrote another pasuram in praise of Lord Vishnu. The boy asked the couple to read the pasuram, and the couple was blessed with a baby boy whom they named as Kanikannan. Kanikannan grew up to be a disciple of the boy. One time, after the demise of the couple, knowing about the glory of the boy and his disciple Kanikannan, the jealous chola king who was a strong shaivaite ordered him to sacrifice Vaishnavism and practice Shaivism to which they declined, and accordingly they were subjected to death. Somehow both escaped the place to Srirangam. Another news reached their ears that they (the boy and Kanikannan) must be killed or must be exiled, if found anywhere. Worried, they visited all Vishnu temples in Tamilnadu, and when they paid the tributes to Ranganatha Perumal in Srirangam, one amazing and miracle happened. The statue of Ranganatha woke up and stopped these two, and they declined stating it is a duty for the citizens to obey the order of their ruler. Next, they both visited Kumbakonam Sarangapani temple, and the statue again rose, and this time both obliged and merged with the lord. To be a proof of future generations that the idol actually rose up, Vishnu's head in Sarangapani temple is raised a bit. The boy was called Thirumalisai Alvar thereafter....
He also has an eye on his right leg.
-- Thirumalisai Alvar, by Wikipedia
The life of Sivavakkiyar is given in a Tamil work called Pulavar Purānam by Murugadāsa Swamigal. Another work called Pulavar carittira Deepakam summarizes the traditional accounts about the life of Sivavakkiyar. We may sum up by saying that the biographical history of Sivavakkiyar is often based entirely on word of mouth accounts and therefore is not always readily available. If available it is not authentic, for it is mixed only with local mythology and sentimental accounts. About the time when he lived, we may safely say that he lived during the 15th century A.D.[???!!!]...
Sivavakkiyar does not specifically mention his guru parampara or lineage in his work. The only hint available is in verse 301 where he says “with the sacred feet of Mūlan who said the three, ten and the three as three I would say the five letters”. If the Mūlan mentioned here refers to Tirumular, the composer of Tirumandiram, he may be indicating to us that he belongs to the mūlavarga, the lineage that claims Tirumular as its preceptor. Then again, the Mūlan may very well refer to the Ultimate Reality, the root cause, the mūlam, of everything.
According to cittar tradition, Tirumūlar, the early Śaiva mystic and author of the Tirumantiram, is said to have been the disciple of an alchemist named Nantikēcuran.
Tirumūlar is also closely connected to Tiruvāvaṭutuṟai, where he took physical form by entering the body of a cowherd and composed the Tirumantiram. It is, however, not clear that an ascription to this early Tirumūlar is intended in Ziegenbalg’s account of the work. Zvelebil gives the briefest details of an undated Tirumūlatēvar, ascribing to him three works: the Tirumantiramālai, Tirumūlatēvar pāṭalkaḷ and Vālaippañcākkara viḷakkam. Tirumantiramālai is in fact the full title of Tirumūlar’s Tirumantiram and hence the distinction between the work which Zvelebil ascribes to Tirumūla Tēvar and Tirumūlar’s own work is not clear. We have not been able to identify copies of the Tirumūlatēvar pāṭalkaḷ and Vālaippañcākkara viḷakkam, but the title of the latter suggests a work on the five-syllable nama-civāya mantra. There are a number of works of this kind, with different titles, closely associated with the Tiruvāvaṭutuṟai maṭam. Whether Tirumūlar or Tirumūla Tēvar is intended, an association with Tiruvāvaṭutuṟai certainly cannot be ruled out.
-- Bibliotheca Malabarica: Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg's Tamil Library, by Will Sweetman with R. Ilakkuvan
Alchemical Nantikecuran, by LibrarianNandi (Sanskrit: नन्दि) also known as Nandikeshwara or Nandideva is the bull vahana of the Hindu god Shiva. He is also the guardian deity of Kailash, the abode of Shiva...
According to Saivite siddhantic tradition, he is considered as the chief guru of ... Tirumular ...
The name Nandi was widely used instead for an anthropomorphic door-keeper of Kailasha, rather than his mount, in the oldest Saivite texts in Sanskrit, Tamil, and other Indian languages...
-- Nandi (Hinduism) [Nandikeshwara] [Nandideva] [Nantikēcuraṉ/Nantitevar, Isvara's "gatekeeper"], by Wikipedia
-- Sivavakkiyam -- Songs of a Spiritual Rebel, by Dr. Geetha Anand and Dr. T.N. Ganapathy
CHAPTER XVITHE falsehood of the oracle is to be refuted in another way. For surely the sun did not come down to them from heaven, and then, after fully inspiring the recipient, utter the Phoebean oracle; since it is neither possible nor right that so great a luminary should be subjected to man's compulsion: nay, not even if they should speak of the divine and intelligent power in the sun, because a human soul could never be capable of receiving even this.
In the case of the moon also there would be the same argument. For if they mean to assert that she is Hecate, how then can it be right that she should be dragged down by constraint of men, and prophesy through the recipient, and be taken to help in base and amatory services, herself being ruler of the evil daemons----how right, I say, that Hecate should do these things? This the writer himself acknowledges, as we shall fully prove in due time.
How again could Pluto and Sarapis be changed by physical theory into the sun, when the same author declares that Sarapis is the same with Pluto, and is the ruler of the evil daemons? Moreover, in recording oracles of Sarapis how could he say they were those of the sun?
But in fact from all these considerations it only remains to confess that the physical explanations which have been described have no truth, but are sophisms and subtleties of sophistic men.
CHAPTER XVIITHE ministrants indeed of the oracles we must in plain truth declare to be evil daemons, playing both parts to deceive mankind, and at one time agreeing with the more fabulous suppositions concerning themselves, to deceive the common people, and at another time confirming the statements of the philosophers' jugglery in order to instigate them also and puff them up: so that in every way it is proved that they speak no truth at all.
After having said so much it is now time for us to pass on, and advance to the third kind of Greek theology, which they say is political and legal. For this has been thought most suitable to astonish the multitude, both because of the celebrated oracles, and the healings and cures of bodily sufferings, and the punishments inflicted upon some. And while they assert that they have had experience of these things, they have thoroughly persuaded themselves that they are doing rightly in their own devotion to the gods, and that we are guilty of the greatest impiety in not honouring the powers that are so manifest and so beneficent with the services that are due to them. To meet then these objections also, let us make another new beginning of our argument.
[Footnotes have been numbered and placed at the end]
1. 83 c 1 Plutarch, De Daedalis Plataeensibus, a fragment preserved by Eusebius
2. 83 d 9 Plato, Laws, vi. 775 B
3. 85 b 7 Hom. Il. xvi. 187
4. 86 d 10 Hesiod, Opp. 233
5. 87 c 5 Plato, Cratylus, 397 C
6. 88 b 1 Diodorus Siculus, i. 11
7. 88 d 6 ibid. 12
8. 88 d 14 Hom. Il. 544
9. 89 b 1 Orph. Fr. 165
10. 89 b 5 Hom. Il. xiv. 201
11. 90 a 4 Hom. Od. xvii. 485 (Pope)
12. 90 b 1 Diod. Sic. i. 13
13. 90 c 8 Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 363 D 98
14. 91 b 1 Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 359 E
15. 92 a 4 Porphyry, Epistle to Anebo, a fragment preserved by Eusebius: see Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, Parthey
16. 93 c 13 Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food, iv. 9
17. 97 d 4 Porphyry, Concerning Images, Orphic Fragm. vi. I; cf. p. 664 d
18. 99 b 1 Plutarch, De Daedalis Plataeensibus, a fragment preserved by Eusebius only
19. 99 b 8 Callimachus, Fragment 105, preserved by Eusebius only
20. 99 d 5 Plato, Laws, xii. 955 E
21. 100 a 1 Porphyry, Concerning Images, Stobaeus, Ed. i. 2, 23
22. 100 b 3 Orphic Fragm. 123 (Abel), vi (Hermann), Aristotle, De Mundo, c. vii.
23. 103 c 2 Plato, Cratylus, 397 C, quoted on p. 87 c 6
24. 104 c 8 Jer. xxiii. 24 104 d 5 Isa. Ixvi. 1 (Sept.)
25. 104 c 9 Deut. iv. 39
26. 104 c 10 Acts xvii. 28
27. 105 d 6 Ps. viii. 4 (Sept.)
28. 105 d 8 Ps. ci. 26 (Sept.)
29. 105 d 10 Isa. xl. 26
30. 106 a 1 cf. 101 c 5
31. 106 c 1 Gen. i. 26
32. 108 b 1 Porphyry, Concerning Images
33. 108 c 5 Orphic Fragm. 123,19; see p. 100 d 6
34. d 3 Porphyry, l. c.
35. 111 d 10 Porphyry, Concerning Images
36. 114 c 1 Hom. Il. xxii. 318
37. 115 a 7 Porphyry, Concerning Images
38. 118 a 9 Orphic Fragm. vi. 1
39. 118 b 1 Rom. i. 22
40. 118 d 8 1 Cor. i. 24
41. 122 d 7 Rom. i. 21, 22
42. 122 d 9 verse 25
43. 123 d 1 Porphyry, De Philos. ex Oraculis, fragments preserved by Eusebius
44. 124 b 2 This fragment is quoted again p. 201 c 136