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Salutius

6. On the Gods and the World

Edited by Paolo Bagnato

XV. ASSIMILATION TO THE GODS

1. From these things is also solved the question about sacrifices and other honours that are given to the Gods. In itself, in fact, the divine does not lack anything and the honours that are given to it are actually for our own benefit.

2. The Providence of the Gods extends everywhere and needs only our suitability to be received: every suitability is born by imitation and similarity1, therefore temples imitate the sky, altars the earth, statues the life – for this reason they are made in the image of living beings -, the prayers the intellectual, the symbols the ineffable higher powers, the herbs and stones2 the matter, the animals that are sacrificed the irrational life in us3.

3. The Gods gain nothing from all these things – what could a God gain?4 – instead, we gain union with Them.

XVI. SACRIFICES

1. I think it is worth adding a few words about the sacrifices. First of all, since we receive everything from the Gods, it is right to offer to our donors the first fruits of their own gifts: we offer the first fruits of goods by means of votive offerings, those of bodies through hair5, those of life through sacrifices. Moreover, prayers without sacrifices are only words, but the words together with the sacrifices are vivified, for the word empowers the life and the life vivifies the word. Moreover, the happiness of all things consists in their own fulfilment, and for each one’s own fulfilment is union with his own cause: for this reason we pray to unite with the Gods.

2. Since, therefore, the life of the Gods is the main one, while the human life is a type of it, and this wants to unite with that, there is a need for mediation: in fact, nothing which is very distant unites without mediation. The mediator, however, must be similar to that which unites: the mediator of life should therefore be life. For this reason men, not only those who are happy now, but also all those who were before, sacrifice animals; and these sacrifices are not made foolishly but to each God what is convenient, along with many other religious rites. And that is enough about this subject.

XVII. THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE WORLD

1. It has already been established that the Gods will not destroy the World, but we must also say that this World possesses an incorruptible nature: in fact everything that is destroyed is either destroyed by itself or is destroyed by something else. If the World were to destroy itself, fire should necessarily burn itself too and water should dry itself; if it was destroyed by something else, it should be something corporeal or incorporeal.

2. But it is impossible that it is destroyed by something incorporeal, because incorporeal things, like nature and soul, preserve the bodies, and nothing is destroyed by what by nature preserves it; if instead it is destroyed by something corporeal, it would be either from something that exists or from something else. If it were something that exists either something that moves in a circle would destroy what moves in a straight line or what moves in a straight line would destroy what moves in a circle.

3. But what moves in a circle does not have a destructive nature6 – indeed, why else do we never see anything destroyed in that way? – nor can what moves in a straight line touch what moves in a circle – otherwise why they have not been able to do so yet? – but the bodies that move in a straight line cannot destroy each other: for the destruction of one is the birth of another, and this is not destruction but change7. But if the World were destroyed by other bodies, where would they come from and where would they be now? This cannot be answered.

4. Furthermore, whatever is destroyed is destroyed either in form (εἶδος)8 or matter (ὕλη)9. The form is the shape (σχῆμα)10, the matter is the body (σῶμα); and if the forms were destroyed but the matter remained, we would see other things being born; if instead the matter were destroyed, how could it have never run out in so many years?

5. If another matter were born in place of that which is destroyed, it would be born either from that which is or from that which is not: but if it were born from that which is, since that which is remains forever, then also matter would exist forever; if on the other hand that which is were destroyed, It is said that not only the world, but all things would be destroyed. But if matter were born of that which is not, in the first place it would be impossible for anything to come from that which is not; if this then happened and it were possible that from that which is not came matter, then also matter will exist until exists that which is not11; for you can never destroy that which is not.

6. If it is said that matter remains without form, in the first place why this would not happen to the parts but to the World in its entirety? Secondly, in this way, regarding the bodies, only beauty is destroyed and not existence.

7. Moreover, all that is destroyed is either dissolved in that which generated it or disappears in non being. But if it were to dissolve into that which generated it, other things would be born – in fact else why were they born in the beginning? – but if what exists were to disappear into non-being, what would prevent God from also undergoing this? If it is said that its power prevents it, we reply that it is not proper to who is powerful to save only himself12 and, in the same way, it is impossible that from that which is not is born what exists and that what exists disappears into non-being13.

8. Moreover, if the World were destroyed, it would necessarily be destroyed either according to nature or against nature: that which is against nature cannot be prior to nature. If the World were to perish against nature, there should be another nature that changes the nature of the World: which is not the case.

9. Moreover, whatever is destroyed by nature, we can also destroy: but no one has ever changed the circular body of the World nor has ever destroyed it; if on the one hand it is possible to change the elements, it is impossible to destroy them.

10. Lastly, everything that is destroyed changes and grows old with time, but the World remains unchanged in so many years.

Having spoken thus for those who ask for strong evidence, we pray the World itself to be propitious to us14.

  1. Salutius is saying that in order to make ourselves suitable to receive the divine Providence we must make ourselves similar to the Gods. This is the assimilation to God (όμοίοσις θεῷ) that Plato speaks of, particularly in the Theaetetus (176b-c).[↩]
  2. This topic has already been discussed in note 6 of the second episode of this series[↩]
  3. Porphyry in his “De abstinentia” explains the opportunity for the philosopher to abstain from eating meat and making animal sacrifices, although he grants it to the people who are not spiritually elevated. Iamblichus in his “De Mysteriis” also argues a lot in favor of sacrifices and, in particular in Book V, explains that different types of sacrifice are suitable to different types of Gods: animal sacrifices are suitable to the Gods who preside over matter, that is, those who are hierarchically lower. The priests therefore consider it appropriate to begin the sacred rites starting precisely from the sacrifices that concern the material Gods.[↩]
  4. The point is that, as has been repeated several times, the divine is in itself perfect and complete, there is nothing that could be added to it to make it better or to benefit it.[↩]
  5. It was customary in ancient Greece to offer a lock of hair in honour of a deity or hero (Pausanias 2.32) or to commemorate a deceased (Iliad 23.134-153).[↩]
  6. See note 33th in the third instalment of this series[↩]
  7. Exposition of the law of conservation of mass.[↩]
  8. Salutius here uses a mostly Aristotelian language. We have kept the Greek terms in parentheses for greater clarity. “Form” is the essence of things, it is what makes them what they are and what they really are. The same Greek term, εἶδος, when used by Plato, is generally rendered as “idea”. The difference between the Aristotelian “forms” and the Platonic “ideas” is usually identified in the fact that the former have no transcendence but are exclusively immanent in things. The positions of Aristotle and Plato, his teacher, were reconciled by later philosophers: the “ideas” indicate the thoughts of God, while the “forms” indicate the immanent intelligible, that is the reflection of the “ideas” in matter.[↩]
  9. According to Aristotle every substance is a synolon, that is a union, of matter and form.[↩]
  10. The term is essentially a synonym of εἶδος.[↩]
  11. This is obviously absurd.[↩]
  12. Otherwise it would be a limitation on His power and His goodness.[↩]
  13. Although here Salutius is arguing about the eternity and immutability of the World, a topic quite far from the purest non-duality, we note some similarities, in the reasoning, with the Vedānta according to that which is cannot not be and that which is not cannot be (see Bhagavad Gītā, II.16).[↩]
  14. Salutius addresses a prayer to the World because he considers it a God, therefore it is necessarily immutable and immortal.[↩]