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Salutius

5. On the Gods and the World

Edited by Paolo Bagnato

XI. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

1. The forms of government arise according to the threefold division of the soul: for lords resemble reason, warriors resemble the spirited part, while the people resemble the appetitive or passionate part1. When everything is done according to reason and the best of all rules, there is Kingship; when everything is done both according to reason and according to the spirited part together and more than one person rules, there is Aristocracy; but when everything is administered according to the passions and the offices come from profit, the form of government is called Timocracy2.

2. The opposite of Kingship is Tyranny: for while the one does everything according to reason, the other does nothing according to reason; the opposite of Aristocracy is Oligarchy, in which not the best3 but the worst rules; the opposite of Timocracy is Democracy, since the people is master of everything and not those who are worthy of possessing it4.

XII. THE NATURE OF EVIL

1. But how can there be evil in the World since the Gods are good and make everything? Or must we say that since the Gods are good and do everything, there is no nature of evil, since this comes from the absence of good, just as darkness does not exist in itself but arises from the absence of light?

2. But if evil were to exist per se, it would necessarily be in the Gods, in the intellects, in the souls, or in the bodies. Since, however, every God is good, evil cannot be in the Gods. If someone were to say that the intellect is evil, he would be saying that the intellect is without intelligence5. If, on the other hand, he were to say that the soul is evil, he would be considering it worse than the body6: for no body in itself has evil; lastly, if he were to say that evil comes from the soul and the body together, it would be unreasonable to think that these separately are not evil, but when combined they produce evil.

3. If someone were to say that the Demons7 are evil, we should answer that if they receive their power from the Gods, then they cannot be evil; but if they receive it from somewhere else, then it means that the Gods do not make all things. But if the Gods do not make all things, either even though they want to, they cannot, or even though they can, they don’t want to, neither of these two cases is suitable for a God8.

4. From these things it can therefore be seen that nothing in the World is evil by nature: due to the actions of men, and neither all nor always, do evils manifest.

5. If men sinned for evil itself, then nature itself would be evil; but if the adulterer considers adultery to be evil, but pleasure good, if the murderer considers murder to be evil, but riches a good, if he who harms an enemy considers doing evil an evil, but defending oneself from an enemy good, if the soul errs in all these things, it means that evils are generated through good things, just as through the absence of light darkness is generated which in itself does not exist: the soul therefore errs because it aims at good but is deceived about good because it is not a primary essence9.

6. It can be noted that in order to avoid making mistakes and to heal from mistakes, many methods come from the Gods: in fact, the arts, the sciences, the spiritual practices, the prayers, the sacrifices, the initiations, the laws, the forms of government, the trials and the punishments have been created to prevent souls from making mistakes; when the soul leaves the body, the purifying Gods and the Demons purify it from sins.

XIII. ON THE BIRTH OF THE WORLD10

1. Concerning the Gods, the World, and human affairs, these things are sufficient for those who are not able to be guided by philosophy, but whose souls are not incurable; it remains to say that these things were never born and are not separated from each other, since we ourselves in the previous chapters have said that from the first elements come the secondary ones.

2. Everything that is born does so through art, nature, or a power11: things that produce through art or nature are necessarily prior to the things produced, while things that produce through a power are united with the things produced because they possess an inseparable power, just as light is united to the sun, heat to fire, and cold to snow.

3. If the Gods make the World through art, they do not make the being of the World but its way of being; in fact, every art produces the form. So, where does the being of the World come from?

Everything that produces through nature gives something of itself to what it generates, so, since the Gods are incorporeal, if the World was produced through nature it would necessarily be incorporeal. If someone said that the Gods are bodies, where would the power of incorporeal beings come from? If we were to admit this, the destruction of the World would necessarily correspond to the destruction of its maker, if he made it through nature.

4. If the Gods made the world neither through art nor through nature, the only hypothesis that remains is that they made it through power: everything that comes into being through power coexists with that which possesses the power, and things born in this way can never perish unless the power is taken away from their causes. So those who admit the destruction of the World deny the existence of the Gods or, if they say that the Gods exist, they make the God12 powerless. Therefore, since He makes everything through power, everything coexists with Him; since His power is supreme, it is necessary that He makes not only men and animals but also Gods, Angels and Demons.

5. And the further our nature differs from the First God, the more necessarily are the powers between us and God: for all things that greatly differ from each other have many intermediaries13.

XIV. THE IMPASSIBILITY OF THE GODS

1. If anyone thinks that it is right and true to say that the Gods do not change, but does not understand how They are pleased by the good and despise the evil, how They are angry with those who sin and are benevolent towards those who worship Them, it must be said that a God does not rejoice – for he who rejoices also grieves – nor does He get angry – for anger is also a passion – nor does He is pleased by offerings – otherwise He would be overcome by pleasure – and it must be said that it is not permissible for the divine to depend on human affairs, either positively or negatively. The Gods are always good and only do good: They never harm because They always remain the same.

2. When we are good, we are united with the Gods by similarity; instead, when we become evil we distance ourselves from Them by dissimilarity; by living according to virtue we belong to the Gods, while if we become evil we make Them hostile, not because They become angry, but because our sins do not allow the Gods to enlighten us and instead unite us to the punishing and purifying14 Demons.

3. But if through prayers and sacrifices we obtain liberation from sins, we think that we are honouring the Gods and changing Their disposition, but in reality, by healing our wickedness with actions and by conversion towards the Divine we once again enjoy the goodness of the Gods15: to say that the God rejects the evil is like saying that the sun hides from those who are blind.

  1. The society divided into philosophers, warriors and workers, with their correspondences to the parts of the soul, dates back to Plato (Republic 434b-440a). It is not difficult to notice the analogies between the classes of the platonic state and the three castes of the ‘twice-born’ (dvija) Hindūs: brāhma, kṣatra and viś.[↩]
  2. The word “Timocracy” comes from the union of the Greek words τιμή which means “merit” and κρατία which means “government”.[↩]
  3. Aristocracy in fact means “government of the best (ἄριστοι)”, therefore the contemporary use of the term, which is intended to indicate a power of an exclusively hereditary nature without careful selection and training, should be rejected.[↩]
  4. These forms of government are presented in the same way by Plato in the Statesman (291d-292a).[↩]
  5. It would therefore be equivalent to stating an absurdity, a contradiction.[↩]
  6. It is not possible that the soul is worse than the body since matter, in the platonic hierarchy, being farther from the One, is at a lower level of reality, and therefore worse, than the soul. This however, as is immediately specified, does not mean considering the body, or matter in general, as evil since it derives from the One and is therefore not devoid of Good. See Plotinus’ treatise against “Gnosticism” (Enneads II, 9), a group of sects that saw only evil in the world and in its creator.[↩]
  7. The word “Demons” (Greek δαίμων, read daimon) had a different meaning in the Greek religion than the one we usually attribute to it today (for which it would be more appropriate to use the term “devils”) and it was used to denote the intermediary beings between men and the Gods.[↩]
  8. The belief that there are no evil Demons was not shared by all Platonists. Porphyry, for example, in De Abstinentia (II.37-43) clearly distinguishes good Demons from evil ones.[↩]
  9. Men do not make mistakes because they intend to do evil rather because, being subject to error (as Salustius says, the soul is not a primary essence), they mistake an evil for a good. It is therefore an error of evaluation.[↩]
  10. It was previously stated how the World, for Salustius, is ungenerated, that is, it does not have a birth in a specific time: in this case, however, we speak of birth not because we want to contradict what has already been said, but in the sense that the World is in any case considered caused and made by the Gods.[↩]
  11. Salutius, following as usual the Platonic inspiration (see Republic X), understood art as μίμησις, imitation, reproduction, appearance (also φάντασμα, ὁμοίωμα: Soph. 219 b 1; 234 b 2, 6). This Platonic conception is in contrast with the proto-humanistic motto Ars sine scientia nihil which believes art to be the putting into practice of knowledge. In fact, Plato, closer to the positions of hindū metaphysics, even defines art as ‘ignorance’ (ἄγνοια: Rep. 376 b 4). It follows that art-illusion, nature and power (māyā, śakti and prakṛti), closely resemble the conception of Indian Śaktism regarding the cause of creation; a conception surpassed by Śaṃkara who traces all those terms back to simple ignorance (avidyā-ἄγνοια) of Reality, thus denying any theory of causality.[↩]
  12. Salutius here is referring to the First God, from whom the other Gods are derived. See note 8 of the first article in this series.[↩]
  13. For a deeper understanding of the intermediary powers, read Iamblichus’ treatise on the Mysteries (Greek Περὶ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων μυστηρίων, Latin De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum).[↩]
  14. In Greek is used only one word: κολαστικός. We have translated it this way to emphasize how the punitive action of the Demons is strictly linked to the correction of evil.[↩]
  15. The goodness of the Gods is always directed to everyone and everywhere. Salutius emphasizes again that with spiritual practices we do not change the disposition of the Gods (who are always good) towards us, as one might think, but we change our ability to receive Their goodness. Iamblichus wrote extensively about this topic in his treatise. Śri Candraśekharendra Sarasvatī, L’appello dell’Ācārya. I discorsi di Madras, Roma, Asram Vidya, 2000, p.s 49 and 50: “Since deep meditation on an object makes us similar to the object of meditation, by meditating on God, who is omniscient, immovable, immutable and free from deprivation and desire, we make ourselves similar to Him. […] The purpose of prayer is not to ask for benefits. Such a request implies that God does not know what we want – and this would go against His omniscience – or that He is waiting for such requests and is gratified by praise, and this would make Him similar to ordinary mortals. Why then do we pray? […] In prayer we do not try to change what God has arranged, which we could not do anyway; we turn to Him to free us from impurities.”[↩]