The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (36 page)

Just as we each have an individual soul, residing in the World Soul and descended from a Mind in the World Mind, so we have personal daimons accompanying our souls and de-178 the microcosm and the archetypes

scended from higher ranked daimons and gods. We have already encountered this concept with the inner daimon and the guardian daimon of Stoicism. Neoplatonists recognized an inner daimon (the flower of the nous) and a personal guardian daimon. Some also recognized a personal “bad daimon,” which tends to lead each person astray according to each soul’s dispositions. Socrates was known for the “little daimon” (
daimonion
) that he consulted on a regular basis. He would stand silently in meditation—sometimes for hours—in communion with his guardian daimon.

Hypatia continues her discourse down the great chain of being: “Since everything

in the universe is ultimately connected back to The One, all things exist in lineages. As we have seen, daimons are in lineages descending from particular gods. So also our

humans souls, and even our bodies, which are formed by these souls, are in lineages

descending from Beings in the Cosmic Mind. Therefore each of us has a progenitor

Being in this realm where the gods reside, and in this sense each of us is descended from a divine Being who gives us our specific nature.”

Alexandra raises her hand again and asks, “What do you say of the stories that

some people are the son or daughter of a god or goddess? They say that Helen of Troy was sired by Zeus, that Aeneas was born of Aphrodite, and that Pythagoras was the

son of Apollo.”

“Some people’s souls are descended from a god, and so completely informed by

that god, that is to say, such a faithful image of that god, that they are like a son or daughter of the god. As you say, Pythagoras was rumored to be a son of Apollo. Likewise some people say that the divine Plato is also a son of Apollo, which makes him

half-brother to Asclepius, the healing god. They say that just as Asclepius heals people’s bodies, so Plato heals their souls. In any case, such people are spiritual leaders because they exemplify more than most people their divine origin. In Greek we call

such people ‘heroes’ and consider them semidivine demigods. Conversely, an ordinary

person, through spiritual practices, can make their soul more like their divine forebear, and thus make themselves more godlike.”

This assimilation to the divine was a common aspiration of ancient spiritual practices (we have already seen it in the Garden and the Porch), and was the genuine meaning of
deification
in ancient philosophy. I will explain spiritual deification in the next chapter.

the microcosm and the archetypes 179

As we have seen, in Pagan Neoplatonism The One stands above the World Nous and

is the cause of all the gods and of everything else in the universe. This Supreme Absolute was often called Zeus or Jupiter after the chief god of the Greek or Roman pantheon.

However, this name is a mere convenience, and connected Neoplatonism to the traditional Pagan religions, but it was inaccurate (like “the Good” or “God”). The Inexpressible One is not an anthropomorphic god and cannot be well characterized positively; it is often more informative to say what it is
not
.

Monotheistic Interpretation

Although most ancient Neoplatonists were Pagan, and the philosophy developed in a polytheistic culture, there were monotheists involved too, especially in Alexandria. For example, monotheistic Jews were prominent in the Mediterranean intellectual world, and some of them, such as Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (20 BCE – 50 CE), made important contributions to Platonism. Further, Christianity had been spreading in the centuries before Hypatia, and some Christian philosophers saw in Neoplatonism a basis for Christian theology.

These included St. Augustine (354–430) and Hypatia’s disciple Synesius (c.373–c.414), who became Bishop of Ptolemais (in Cyrene, modern Cyrenaica, in Libya). Later, in the fifth or sixth century, St. Dionysius (or St. Denys), the pseudo-Areopagite, made important contributions to Christian mysticism based on the philosophy of the Pagan Neoplatonist Proclus (412–485), who was born shortly before Hypatia’s murder. Dionysius might even have been a student of Proclus. Much later, during the Renaissance, Marsilio Ficino (1433–

99) was a key figure in defining a Christian Neoplatonism. Also, after Islam arose in the seventh century of the Common Era, Muslim philosophers, such as Ibn Sina (980–1037), Suhrawardi (1155–91), and Ibn ‛Arabi (1165–1240), sought to reconcile Neoplatonism with their religion. Neoplatonism has remained an important, if not obvious, element in all three of these monotheistic religions. In this section I will explain briefly how Neoplatonism fits into a monotheistic religious context; if you are not a monotheist, feel free to skim it.

There is a disturbance at the back of the auditorium where Hypatia is speaking. A

man known as Peter the Reader shouts “You are spreading Pagan lies!” and storms out.

Amidst murmurs in the audience Hypatia sits quietly for a moment, but then she

continues. “I know that many of you listening to me today are Christians and Jews,

and that you do not believe in the Hellenic gods. Even my dear Synesius has turned to 180 the microcosm and the archetypes

the religion of the Galilean from his ancestral religion, although he traces his ancestry back 1700 years to that hero who first led the Dorians to Sparta. I respect his courage in actively choosing a spiritual path rather than passively accepting one, and he has been kind enough to explain many points of Christian dogma to me. So now I want

to address those of you who do not believe in the Hellenic gods and explain where

Platonic philosophy agrees with your religion and where it does not.

“Monotheist philosophers naturally identify The One with their God, and we who

honor many gods also sometimes call The One ‘God’ and ‘Father’ and treat it as a su-

preme deity. When I first learned about the Christian Trinity, I thought, ‘Oh, this is just the three levels of reality’, for there is a natural correspondence between the three immaterial levels of the Platonic macrocosm and the three persons of the Trinity. The One, of course, is the Father. The Cosmic Mind, as an emanation of The One corresponds naturally with the Son, especially because as
Logos
, or articulated thought, it corresponds to the Demiurge or Craftsman – the creator god in Plato’s myth—and

to the Creator-Logos of Christian theology. Finally, the Holy Spirit corresponds to the Cosmic Soul (also called Spirit), which brings the timeless Forms into life in time and space. But Synesius has explained to me that many Christian theologians do not agree, for this view makes Christ and the Holy Spirit subordinate to God the Father.”

The theological position that Hypatia described is called
subordinationism
and was common doctrine in first centuries of Christianity, including in Alexandria in Hypatia’s time, but some Christian sects consider it unorthodox or even heretical.223

“As I’ve mentioned, Platonists sometimes analyze the levels of reality into sublev-

els, and even sub-sublevels. Often we divide a level, according the Triadic Principle, into three aspects—Abiding, Proceeding, and Returning—operating within that level.

Some Platonists, such as Porphyry, have described a three-in-one structure at the highest level. The One remains in itself, but simultaneously proceeds outwards through indeterminate ‘spiritual matter’, but then, by turning back towards The One, creates and consolidates the structure of the Nous or Logos. The elements of this triad within the level of The One are sometimes named, first, Existence or Being; second, Power or Life; and, third, Nous. These are complex matters and beyond the scope of this lecture, so let me just remark that Synesius and other Christian Platonists understand the Trinity in these terms. The One exists as the Father and, by his power or creative will, which is the microcosm and the archetypes 181

the Holy Spirit, he engenders the Nous, which is the Logos or Son. The three persons of the Trinity are therefore at the same level, and none is subordinated to any other.

Synesius praises this Trinity in one of his hymns:

Thee Trinity, Thee Unity, I praise,

One and yet Three alike in all Thy ways;

The severance our minds admit is still

The one and only Person of God’s will.224

“From the standpoint of orthodoxy there are several issues with the identification

of God and The One, but monotheistic Platonists have resolved them to their satisfaction. The first issue is the impersonality of The One. As I have explained, The One is an ineffable abstraction, existing outside of time, impassive, and so it is quite different from the anthropomorphic Father of popular monotheism. The One does not easily

inspire a devotional attitude.

“Second, according to Platonism the entire cosmos, everything that exists, is an

emanation of The One, which causes and sustains the levels of reality, including the material world. Therefore Platonism is a kind of
pantheism
, because divinity permeates everything; as it is expressed, God is
immanent
in the world.”

Technically, Neoplatonism is classified as
panentheism
(note the -
en
-), because divinity is immanent in the material world, but also transcends it, in the levels above the Cosmic Body.)

“On the other hand, most monotheistic religions emphasize the transcendence

of God, that is, that there is a crucial separation between God and the material world.

Therefore, while the beauty of nature may lead us to God, Nature is not in itself divine.

“Third, most Platonists believe that your soul is an emanation of The One and that

it remains connected to The One through the multiple levels of reality. Therefore there is a genuine spark of divinity in each person. They say that the individual soul is ‘unde-scended’. As a consequence, individuals, by free choice and spiritual practice, are able to turn back toward their origin and to ascend to union with The One, an thus achieve a kind of deification.

“On the other hand, some Platonists, such as Iamblichus, who lived a century ago,

taught that the individual soul descends completely, which means it is cut off from

The One. Therefore it is unable to ascend by its own power, but requires divine as-

182 the microcosm and the archetypes

sistance, an act of Grace. These Platonists use spiritual practices, which I teach to my private students, to make themselves receptive to this Grace, should it come. Similarly, monotheistic Platonists, who accept the transcendence of God, stress the role of Grace in the ascent toward divinity.

“Another point of disagreement between the monotheistic religions and Pla-

tonism concerns the creation and eternity of the world. Most philosophers think the

world is eternal, with no beginning and no end, although some say it goes through

cycles of destruction and recreation. As I’ve explained, Platonists do not explain the emanation of the world from The One as a creation taking place in time. Indeed, that idea would be incoherent, since time is, in effect, created by the Cosmic Soul, and so it does not make any sense to speak of something happening
at some time
except at the lower level of the Cosmic Body. Individual bodies (including the earth as a whole) might come into being or pass away, but the cosmic structure as a whole, including

the rays of emanation from The One, is eternal.

“At least at a superficial level, the Platonic eternity of the world contradicts the accounts in Genesis of God creating Heaven and Earth ‘in the beginning’. More importantly perhaps, the eternity of the Cosmos seemed incompatible with the notion of

‘end times’, a specific event in which the world as we know it would come to an end to be replaced by the Kingdom of God. I think that, for the most part, Christian Platonists solve this problem by abandoning the eternity of the world in favor of the biblical

idea.

“Most Platonists also differ from the monotheist religions on the issue of reincar-

nation. Since according to Platonists the emanation of The One into the World Mind

and from there into the World Soul is atemporal, that is, outside of time, these relations are timeless, in the same sense that 2 + 2 = 4 is timeless. This implies that all the individual souls in the World Soul exist eternally. Since our bodies are mortal, our souls must exist before we are born and continue to exist after our bodies die. Thus most of us interpret the eternal existence of souls to imply some form of reincarnation, which has been a common belief of philosophers at least from the time of Pythagoras, a

thousand years ago.”

Although some early Christians accepted reincarnation, the position that became orthodox is that people live once and will not be resurrected until the arrival of the Kingdom the microcosm and the archetypes 183

of God. Likewise, a minority of Jews and Moslems has believed in reincarnation in some form.

“Also,” Hypatia continues, “it is probably worth mentioning another difference

between the Christian concept of resurrection and Platonic reincarnation. Christian

orthodoxy emphasizes a bodily resurrection, whereas Platonists understand the soul

to exist independently of the body (in fact, it is the cause of the body). Because the soul exists outside of time, it is impassive like the gods, and therefore insensitive to events—whether external or psychological—that take place in time. As a consequence, nothing of our memories or concrete personality is preserved from one incar-

nation to the next, which is why we do not remember past lives. Thus from the Platonic perspective, the immortal soul is a sort of impersonal life force, and there is no reason to suppose the survival of much that we would call our personality or conscious identity.” We may leave Hypatia’s lecture at this point.