Essays on Hellenic Theology Quotes

“The passions of the Gods are thus in themselves actions: the wrath of Apollo is the pestilence that begins the Iliad, the seeing of mortal suffering by Hera is the action she inspires.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“In this regard, a Stoic pun on the name of Hekate may be instructive: ‘Hekate’ is so called dia to hekastou pronoeisthai, “on account of foreknowledge of each [hekastos].”[39]”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“The fundamental principle of polycentric polytheism is that all the Gods are in each God; and therefore, to the degree that a worshiper of some God finds in the nature, iconography, symbolism, or mythology of some other God something resonant for them, though it may be a new appropriation historically, may be regarded metaphysically as a new encounter for the worshiper of an attribute which has always belonged to the God in question, because the latter is, in him/herself, all Gods and all things.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“​With respect to Gods, however, as I have argued elsewhere,[81] the situation is different. The ‘space’ in such a system that is accorded to some particular deity does not, in the ultimate sense, come at the expense of another. This is on account of the essentially polycentric nature of genuine polytheism, a condition which is demanded by the very nature of divine individuality.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“By causing ‘madness’ in Herakles, Hera leads him to the performance of labors resulting in new possibilities for humanity, the cause of which is symbolized as madness because ‘sanity’ for souls lies in turning back toward the sources of reason in them rather than pressing forward into new creations.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“​The activities of the Chaldean Hekate can be understood as an intensive meditation upon and elaboration of Hekate’s actions in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which fall into three stages: ​1. (HHD 22-5): Hekate, described as “Perses’ daughter still innocent of heart [atala phroneousa],” hears Persephone’s cries “from her cave [ex antrou],” as does Helios. ​Here, Hekate is quiescent, but responds to the “voice” of the soul descending to embodiment, to which compare the “lifegiving whir” or “hum” (rhoizêma) with which Damascius associates Hekate (In Parm. III 42.18). ​2. (51-61): On the tenth day [dekatê] of her search, Demeter meets Hekate “with a light in her hand [selas en cheiressin echousa]” and tells her what she heard. Demeter runs with her “with burning torches in her hands” to Helios, who saw the events. ​The numbers ten and four (the ten being the expansion of four, 1+2+3+4) are spoken of as “key-bearers”, kleidouchoi in the pseudo-Iamblichean Theology of Arithmetic (28.13, 81.14 de Falco), this being an epithet of Hekate’s as well. The text refers first to Hekate’s single light at first, but then to Demeter’s twin torches, as they run back to Helios to retrieve the vision. Thus, at the furthest limits of the centrifugal motion, the centripetal motion of “virtue” (keys) comes into play. ​3. (438-440): Hekate, described as at 25 as “of the glossy veil [liparokrêdemnos]”, embraces Persephone on her return, and “the mistress [anassa]” becomes Persephone’s attendant and servant [propolos kai opaôn]. ​At the beginning and the end of the sequence, Hekate is veiled, as when the world is rendered flat or “membrane-like [humenôdês]” (frag. 68). In embracing Persephone on her return, that is, the soul upon its liberation from self-imposed bondage, Hekate is acknowledged as Mistress, and assumes a role of guide and helper to the soul in its future transformations (“ascents” and “descents”).”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Indeed, in Proclus’ own interpretation of the Hellenic pantheon, the source of life for souls is seen more directly in Rhea, while the soul in its personal emergence is grasped through Persephone, who for Platonists embodies the soul’s descent, not into death, but embodied life.[19] Hekate’s special role in this process, I shall argue, is revelatory; and this is prefigured in her iconography, in which she typically bears twin torches.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“In effect, Zeus has more to do with what souls have in common, and Hera more with that in which they differ, with the things that draw souls apart, and often into conflict. This was already suggested by the distinction drawn between the generation of the soul of the cosmos, attributed more to the demiurge, and the generation of particular souls, attributed more to the mixing vessel, the arena of encounter. The conflict on this plane is necessary, insofar as some things have to be in conflict sometimes in order to fully manifest themselves according to their peculiar destiny and find their niche in a complex world, and the conflict the myths express between Zeus and Hera is part of driving forward this process of manifestation.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“With respect to the next generation of Olympians, a distinction is drawn by Proclus between Hera’s rational vivification and the physical vivification Artemis provides”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“The demiurge receives a universe that is already visible, and is already in motion, albeit in a disorderly and discordant fashion (Tim. 30a). The demiurge thus does not create the universe, but rather offers to it an ideal.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Platonists identify Hera with the mixing vessel or kratêr in which the elements of the soul of the cosmos and every individual soul as well are combined by the action of the demiurge, whom Platonists identify with Hellenic Zeus.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“The intelligible-intellective plane is the hypostasis of Life (Zôê), and is formed by the activities of Gods such as Ouranos and Gaia, its wisdom delivered through the oracle of Nyx, its ongoing presence on subsequent planes secured by Aphrodite, the only child of Ouranos who is counted not among the Titans but among the Olympians.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“​The principal technical determinations according to which Platonists understand Hera’s role are motion (kinêsis) and the mixing vessel (kratêr, from krasis, mixing or blending). [127] When, in Plato’s dialogue the Parmenides, it is denied that the One is in motion (Parm. 138b & sqq.), it means that no God or Goddess, qua deity, is in motion, but also that a certain class of Gods are the causes of motion to all things that do move.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“it is the work of Zeus and Hera especially which will produce the conditions for thought as such. Thought requires a thinker, that is, a soul, and an idea; and we may say that Zeus is particularly responsible for the latter, Hera for the former.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“oppositions in myths being merely a particular form of relationship, and hence of cooperation.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Marpessa chooses between Apollo and Idas, her immortal and mortal suitors; Idas receives a bride from Apollo, death from Zeus; Kastor receives death from Idas, life from Polydeukes. Marpessa is an Apollonian soul: Apollo’s attraction to her in the first place symbolizes her Apollonian nature, and then it is insight into Apollo’s nature that is the basis for her choice. Therefore, Apollo is not thwarted in Marpessa’s choice of Idas, whose name means ‘the seeing one’; rather, Marpessa’s choice is Apollo’s method for empowering Idas.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“As God of prophecy, of music and of purification, Apollo is the deity preeminently responsible in the Hellenic theology for the psychical operations that are the dominant concern of the Veda. Zeus, on the other hand, while his sphere of activity overlaps somewhat with that of Indra, is largely concerned with establishing a sovereign order among the Olympians and imparting structure to the cosmos through his strategic delegations of power,”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Appropriation’, oikeiôsis, recognizing oneself in that which is other, recognizing it as in some sense one’s own, is an important concept in Stoic philosophy, where it is explicated by a series of concentric circles. The first circle, the smallest, encloses the body and its immediate needs. The next larger circle encompasses loved ones. Further out are circles including neighbors, members of one’s nationality, fellow citizens, groups that one identifies with for one reason or another, and so on, their exact order and composition obviously variable, while the greatest circle of all encompasses all sentient beings.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Porphyry quotes the Orphic scriptures, according to which Night counsels Zeus to intoxicate Kronos with honey so as to permit him to be bound, signifying by this that “divine natures become bound through pleasure and drawn down into generation,” so that honey “indicates the pleasure drawing [souls] down to generation.”[144] Souls were called ‘bees’ by the ancients “as the producers [ergastikas] of sweetness,”[145] while the priestesses of Demeter were called ‘bees’, and Persephone, who embodies for Platonists the soul incarnating, is characterized as ‘honey-like’ (melitôdê)”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Note the Veda’s emphasis upon the unstable, shifting nature of the sea, the very same logic which leads the Platonists to identify Poseidon, likewise associated with horses as well as the sea, as the demiurge of the middle, psychical plane”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“a God does not have his or her identity simply by virtue of tradition. But tradition is an expression, the phenomenal index, of that by which a God is a God, namely his or her unique divine will or agency, his or her unique causality.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Entities in space and time wholly identical as to their characteristics can always be individuated through their spatio-temporal coordinates; ideas or concepts which differ in no intelligible character, that is, which are substitutable for one another in sentences while preserving their truth, are (fairly) unproblematically identical; but individuals such as souls or Gods, who are incorporeal but not mere ideas, cannot, it would seem, depend for their individuation upon characteristics at all.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“​Zeus is for the Stoics both the form-giver and the form itself, both the whole cosmos and an individual in the cosmos;”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Unlike the Platonists, though, mind for the Stoics had to be something which operated within the cosmos like a physical force. The Stoics conceived this force as being like fire, inasmuch as it possessed light and motion, was a source of penetrating literal and metaphorical ‘warmth’,[69] and was capable of transforming substances into different states. It was unlike simple fire, however, in that it did not merely consume things and turn them into itself; or rather, in turning them into itself, it turned them rather into what they could be—that is, it gave them life. It was a life-bringing fire, a ‘creative’ or ‘designing’ fire, pur technikon, that was inside everything alive. The Stoics identified this creative fire inside all that lived with Zeus, as is illustrated by the hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes (d. 232 BCE), a remarkable work of philosophical piety.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“​We can see that this is the case, and the whole doctrine not one of refusing the world and the body, from the fact that it is placed in Athena’s charge. Athena’s concern is with practical wisdom, in the sense that wisdom for wisdom’s sake can be the most practical of all, but nevertheless she is no respect world-denying; her virginity is not ascetic, but the armed maidenhood of autonomy and liberty, as in the Chaldean Oracle fragment (quoted by Proclus with regard to Athena at PT V 35.130): “For I, the divine, have arrived, armed from [165] head to toe.” In a certain respect, Athena’s ‘virginity’ parallels Zeus’s ‘promiscuity’, for if Zeus, as the demiurgic intellect, propagates his ‘motion’ widely throughout the cosmos, it is ultimately so that souls may be ‘forearmed’ to think for themselves.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“In order to understand the conflicts between Zeus and Hera in the myths, we need to understand the symbolism of divine conflict in general. In the Iliad, Hephaistos characterizes the conflict between Zeus and Hera as “for mortals’ sakes” (Il. I 574), inasmuch as bringing forth the mortal world is a “work of sorrow [loigia]” (573). One of the principal theological messages of the Iliad and similar myths is that the Gods enter into conflict with one another to bring forth our own essentially conflictual plane of Being. Driving the process of manifestation forward to its furthest limits requires [155] conflict if things are to fully express themselves and find their niche in the world.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“The ‘source of sources’ (pêgê tôn pêgôn, IT I 451), however, is Animal Itself, the form of animality, for a ‘source’ is a force shaping life. Proclus mentions ‘sources’ of goodness, of truth, of difference, of science, of temperance, of justice, of the virtues in general, of reason (phronein), of nature (phusis), of the ideas, and, importantly, of soul, for Hera operates as the ‘source’ of soul.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“Rhea provides for Zeus a point in the intelligible world from which to begin his work, an Archimedean point, so to speak, and every work must begin (archein, whence archê, ‘ principle’, on which see below) from someplace. In Zeus’s case, that ‘place’ is Crete, all-important in the historical origins of Hellenic civilization, as the ancients themselves already recognized.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“What does it mean for a God to be born? Certainly not that they came to be at some time and before that did not exist, at least not for any mainstream religious thinker in antiquity. Rather, birth is like any other of a God’s works: an expression of some discrete power s/he possesses.”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology

“the Platonist Amelius refers to three demiurgies and sovereignties, one that is (Phanês), one that has (Kronos), and one that sees (Zeus)”
― Edward P. Butler, Essays on Hellenic Theology