Aug. 29th, 2020

endymions_bower: (Default)
A friend asks:

I am reading the Iliad for seminar at the moment. At the beginning of Book 8 (although not only there) Zeus gives a speech to the other gods about how his power far outstrips any of theirs, even taken all together. One gets the sense that this quantitative comparison indicates a qualitative difference between Zeus and the other gods. Assuming there is a Platonist take on this matter, what is it?

We can apply to such passages the logic which Proclus uses with respect to the demiurge's address at Timaeus 41a. Hence Proclus explains at IT 3, 198-9 that the purpose of the demiurge's words is 
 
to render the Gods by whom they are received, demiurgic … since he who now delivers the words is the demiurge, the words proceed characterized by demiurgic power conformably to the peculiarity of the speaker, and render the recipients of them demiurgi … Each [God] participates of demiurgic power, so far as all of them are co-arranged with the demiurgic monad; of vivific power, so far as they are illuminated by the vivific source; and in a similar manner, in the other powers. If, however, the speaker was a vivific God, we should say that he filled his auditors through his words with divine life. But since he who delivers the speech is the demiurge, he imparts to the Gods the demiurgic peculiarity, disseminates his one fabrication into the multitude of mundane Gods, and renders them fabricators of other mortal genera. (Trans. T. Taylor, mod.)
 
For Proclus, it is not that there is something qualitatively different about Zeus, but rather that he is in the demiurgic position, and insofar as the other Olympians lend themselves to his demiurgic project, their powers become his power. Indeed, Proclus speaks often of the "golden chain" Zeus mentions at Iliad 8.19, seira or "chain" being also a technical term for him referring to a "series" of the pros hen kind. At IT 1, 314 Proclus identifies the chain from Iliad 8.19 with the "golden chain" with which Nyx tells Zeus to bind the cosmos in Orphic frag. 122/166, which suggests a longer history of esoteric exegesis of the Homeric passage in Orphic circles. 
 
At a couple of points in Proclus' discussion of the demiurge's address he makes reference to moments from the Iliad in which Zeus addresses the assembled Olympians (IT 3, 201 (ref. to Iliad 20.4); IT 3, 227 (ref. Iliad 20.24)). At IT 1, 315f, Proclus comments in general on the role of such addresses by Zeus, as part of his argument that the demiurge of the Timaeus is to be identified with Zeus: 
 
If, likewise, he [Plato] represents the demiurge giving a speech [at Tim. 41a], this too is in reality of the nature of Zeus. For in the Minos (319c) he on this account calls him a sophist, as filling the Gods posterior to him with all-various logoi. This also the divine poet [Homer] manifests, who represents him thus speaking from the summit of Olympus: "Hear, all ye Gods and Goddesses, my words" (Iliad 8.3), and converting the twofold coordinations to himself. (Trans. Taylor, mod.)
 
So addresses like this, by their very nature, symbolize for Proclus an intellective alignment of the powers of the Gods addressed, organizing them into the "chain" of Zeus's idea of the cosmic order. This should give you some sense of how the Platonists would go about reading such a passage.

January 2025

S M T W T F S
   12 34
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031 

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 1st, 2025 04:03 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios