Thank you, Spencer, for this post about the Logos. I have always equated the Logos with Fate, that power to which even Zeus must yield. The destinies of Achilles, Odysseus, and Aeneas were all fixed by Fate. The gods were powerless against it. Fate I have always thought to be the God of the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible. We are fated to die, but we have within our power the opportunity to pray to our one God for his grace to help us live virtuous lives within our fated allotment of time.
That's an interesting way of looking at it. Certainly Moira (or Aisa or the Moirai) is one candidate for an absolute, ironclad "order of things" within whose framework even the gods of the Greek pantheon operate. Another is physis, "nature," which as Leo Strauss pointed out is a word that first appears in Homer's Odyssey, referring to the effects of a certain plant, Moly, on those who ingest it. If the world just *works* a certain way, that is the beginning not of faith but of science--a natural universe ordered according to laws that no god may defy.
What we're looking for--what philosophers after Homer were looking for--is an immutable set of governing principles that don't change *no matter what*, which could truly be described as the will of the divine mind. Homer doesn't use the word "logos" in this way, but the philosophers eventually came to prefer that term as a catch-all for the totality of absolute rational order (that is, most philosophers in the Socratic tradition did. The Epicureans would have begged to differ!).
And it's possible, as I've suggested here, that the "Dios Boulē" in the Iliad represents at least the potential of such an overarching structural plan, always moving toward fulfillment no matter what (cf. of course fate in Oedipus Rex). If so then "the mind of Zeus" or "the plan/will of Zeus" has a kind of disembodied numenous omnipresence, distinct from (or at least only partially reflected in) the timebound human persona of Zeus as a character in the poem.
But Homer also quivers on the edge of a more unsettling and less resolved or stable system of powers--more plural, more Nietzschean, and ultimately more fundamentally chaotic. He gestures toward the possibility that "nature," "fate," the "will of Zeus," and indeed the other gods might not be ordered in undisputed hierarchy but actually always in at least potential *opposition*, fluttering on the edge of total war.
An interesting test case here is the death of Zeus's son, the Trojan hero Sarpedon, whom he briefly considers saving and making immortal (Iliad 16.431-57). Hera rebukes him for the thought, asking whether "you want to snatch up out of death a mortal man, long destined by fate (aisē) for death?" Hera seems to imply not that this defiance of fate is impossible, but that it is perilously, sickeningly *possible*, which is why she has to threaten that if Zeus does this, the other gods will stage an insurrection: "do it: but do not expect the other gods to approve." If he follows through, Hera continues, what's to stop the rest of the gods from violating fate whenever the mood strikes them? Zeus is teetering here on the brink of total chaos, loosing the bonds of law and order that hold the world together.
All this to say: in Homer I think it's an open question whether the universe is ruled by absolute immutable authority, or by force of the strongest will in the room. It took the philosophers--and ultimately the Jews and Christians--to decide in favor of the former.
Thanks again, Spencer, for another thoughtful post. There is spiritual scientific explanation for the difference between the "multiple-god consciousness" of the pagan world and the Judeo-Christian revelation of the One God.
A little background is necessary to understand this.
In the hierarchy of "angels" of Dionysus the Areopagite, sometimes referred to as "Jacob's Ladder," each higher level of angelic being has a larger compass of influence finally reaching "the One." So, the soul's "guardian angel," being the lowest in the hierarchy encompasses one human being's singular "eternal life," (which some believe means one's life through many incarnations). The Archangels encompasses folk soul groups, tribes and finally nations (based on language types). The Archai, (or Time Spirit) the next higher angelic being rules time periods of Earth Life, (Spirits of Rotation of the Earth) encompassing all national groups in a unity for a limited period of time.
Along with these various degrees of "specialization" or "generalization" one can observe higher levels of consciousness as one climbs "Jacob's Ladder." The three hierarchical realms referred to as the First, Second and Third Hierarchies, represent levels of consciousness: First of Imagination (the Spirit), Second of Inspiration (the Son, or Logos) and Third of Intuition (the Father).
The pagan world received its spiritual revelations from the realm of "Imagination." This is the Astral world of flowing "images" from the "Moon Sphere," closest to the Earth. The beings in the Astral world have "assemblage points" only within their particular soul realm: they are independent beings of primarily: Will/Impulse, Feeling/Desire, OR Thought/Concept. This is the realm of the pagan gods; they inhabit different soul worlds (for instance): Zeus, the Thought World (related to air); Poseidon, the world of desires (related to water); and Demeter, the world of will (related to earth). So we see the various beings of the "soul world," inevitably, in conflict with one another.
The Israelites received their revelations from the higher Etheric World, the world of thoughts or the "Sun Sphere," through Jehovah, who is a being of a yet higher hierarchy--the Exusiai or a Spirit of Form (Creator God). Through Jehovah higher thought forms encompass (and unify) the lower soul realms, which exist in the human being as thinking, feeling and will. The realm of higher thought forms or concepts (the Etheric World), are able to unite the forces of the gods of the lower worlds into a unitary harmonious conception, out of which Monotheism was born.
When one sees the edict to Moses: "Thou shalt not have any other gods before me," followed by "Thou shalt not make any graven image," one realizes that not making "images" means not "thinking in pictures." This is proscribing, for the Israelites, the revelations from the Astral world of images, in a sense forcing the Israelites to "conceptualize," to rise to the level of ideas--to true thinking, which is abstract--not derived from images--and not divided into warring "gods." Rudolf Steiner points out that Christ is a cosmic being, a divine being of twelvefoldness, like the cosmos (the Zodiac)--a being that unites in himself the universe and is, in Jesus, both the macrocosm and the microcosm. Christ needed to enter into a human vessel (Jesus) prepared as an Israelite uniting the three soul realms--to contain the One God.
I hope I was able to be clear enough to be understood condensing in a few paragraphs what has taken me decades to understand. The goal of Christianity, as I see it, is to unify for humanity these divergent streams of influence--to bring human beings into a harmonious unity in their souls, of thinking, feeling and will, and to bring the world into a unitary conception of the world as a manifestation of the Spirit, as a creation of God that is incredibly diverse and yet is ONE.
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."
Thank you, Spencer, for this post about the Logos. I have always equated the Logos with Fate, that power to which even Zeus must yield. The destinies of Achilles, Odysseus, and Aeneas were all fixed by Fate. The gods were powerless against it. Fate I have always thought to be the God of the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible. We are fated to die, but we have within our power the opportunity to pray to our one God for his grace to help us live virtuous lives within our fated allotment of time.
That's an interesting way of looking at it. Certainly Moira (or Aisa or the Moirai) is one candidate for an absolute, ironclad "order of things" within whose framework even the gods of the Greek pantheon operate. Another is physis, "nature," which as Leo Strauss pointed out is a word that first appears in Homer's Odyssey, referring to the effects of a certain plant, Moly, on those who ingest it. If the world just *works* a certain way, that is the beginning not of faith but of science--a natural universe ordered according to laws that no god may defy.
What we're looking for--what philosophers after Homer were looking for--is an immutable set of governing principles that don't change *no matter what*, which could truly be described as the will of the divine mind. Homer doesn't use the word "logos" in this way, but the philosophers eventually came to prefer that term as a catch-all for the totality of absolute rational order (that is, most philosophers in the Socratic tradition did. The Epicureans would have begged to differ!).
And it's possible, as I've suggested here, that the "Dios Boulē" in the Iliad represents at least the potential of such an overarching structural plan, always moving toward fulfillment no matter what (cf. of course fate in Oedipus Rex). If so then "the mind of Zeus" or "the plan/will of Zeus" has a kind of disembodied numenous omnipresence, distinct from (or at least only partially reflected in) the timebound human persona of Zeus as a character in the poem.
But Homer also quivers on the edge of a more unsettling and less resolved or stable system of powers--more plural, more Nietzschean, and ultimately more fundamentally chaotic. He gestures toward the possibility that "nature," "fate," the "will of Zeus," and indeed the other gods might not be ordered in undisputed hierarchy but actually always in at least potential *opposition*, fluttering on the edge of total war.
An interesting test case here is the death of Zeus's son, the Trojan hero Sarpedon, whom he briefly considers saving and making immortal (Iliad 16.431-57). Hera rebukes him for the thought, asking whether "you want to snatch up out of death a mortal man, long destined by fate (aisē) for death?" Hera seems to imply not that this defiance of fate is impossible, but that it is perilously, sickeningly *possible*, which is why she has to threaten that if Zeus does this, the other gods will stage an insurrection: "do it: but do not expect the other gods to approve." If he follows through, Hera continues, what's to stop the rest of the gods from violating fate whenever the mood strikes them? Zeus is teetering here on the brink of total chaos, loosing the bonds of law and order that hold the world together.
All this to say: in Homer I think it's an open question whether the universe is ruled by absolute immutable authority, or by force of the strongest will in the room. It took the philosophers--and ultimately the Jews and Christians--to decide in favor of the former.
Thank you, Spencer, for taking the time to read my comment, and for your thoughtful response.
Thanks again, Spencer, for another thoughtful post. There is spiritual scientific explanation for the difference between the "multiple-god consciousness" of the pagan world and the Judeo-Christian revelation of the One God.
A little background is necessary to understand this.
In the hierarchy of "angels" of Dionysus the Areopagite, sometimes referred to as "Jacob's Ladder," each higher level of angelic being has a larger compass of influence finally reaching "the One." So, the soul's "guardian angel," being the lowest in the hierarchy encompasses one human being's singular "eternal life," (which some believe means one's life through many incarnations). The Archangels encompasses folk soul groups, tribes and finally nations (based on language types). The Archai, (or Time Spirit) the next higher angelic being rules time periods of Earth Life, (Spirits of Rotation of the Earth) encompassing all national groups in a unity for a limited period of time.
Along with these various degrees of "specialization" or "generalization" one can observe higher levels of consciousness as one climbs "Jacob's Ladder." The three hierarchical realms referred to as the First, Second and Third Hierarchies, represent levels of consciousness: First of Imagination (the Spirit), Second of Inspiration (the Son, or Logos) and Third of Intuition (the Father).
The pagan world received its spiritual revelations from the realm of "Imagination." This is the Astral world of flowing "images" from the "Moon Sphere," closest to the Earth. The beings in the Astral world have "assemblage points" only within their particular soul realm: they are independent beings of primarily: Will/Impulse, Feeling/Desire, OR Thought/Concept. This is the realm of the pagan gods; they inhabit different soul worlds (for instance): Zeus, the Thought World (related to air); Poseidon, the world of desires (related to water); and Demeter, the world of will (related to earth). So we see the various beings of the "soul world," inevitably, in conflict with one another.
The Israelites received their revelations from the higher Etheric World, the world of thoughts or the "Sun Sphere," through Jehovah, who is a being of a yet higher hierarchy--the Exusiai or a Spirit of Form (Creator God). Through Jehovah higher thought forms encompass (and unify) the lower soul realms, which exist in the human being as thinking, feeling and will. The realm of higher thought forms or concepts (the Etheric World), are able to unite the forces of the gods of the lower worlds into a unitary harmonious conception, out of which Monotheism was born.
When one sees the edict to Moses: "Thou shalt not have any other gods before me," followed by "Thou shalt not make any graven image," one realizes that not making "images" means not "thinking in pictures." This is proscribing, for the Israelites, the revelations from the Astral world of images, in a sense forcing the Israelites to "conceptualize," to rise to the level of ideas--to true thinking, which is abstract--not derived from images--and not divided into warring "gods." Rudolf Steiner points out that Christ is a cosmic being, a divine being of twelvefoldness, like the cosmos (the Zodiac)--a being that unites in himself the universe and is, in Jesus, both the macrocosm and the microcosm. Christ needed to enter into a human vessel (Jesus) prepared as an Israelite uniting the three soul realms--to contain the One God.
I hope I was able to be clear enough to be understood condensing in a few paragraphs what has taken me decades to understand. The goal of Christianity, as I see it, is to unify for humanity these divergent streams of influence--to bring human beings into a harmonious unity in their souls, of thinking, feeling and will, and to bring the world into a unitary conception of the world as a manifestation of the Spirit, as a creation of God that is incredibly diverse and yet is ONE.
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."