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DIVINE SPARKS in the Course of Some Earlier Remarks on Epictetus

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DIVINE SPARKS in the Course of Some Earlier Remarks on Epictetus CHAPTER SIX DIVINE SPARKS In the course of some earlier remarks on Epictetus, we had occasion to mention a further source of value, in the theory that man or a part of man is some sort of "segment" or "portion" ofthe divine. We observed that, although this theory normally identifies the "divine spark" with a par­ ticular aspect of the human being-the mind is usually the prime ClPl­ didate for such an identification-it also suggests that all human beings are in a similar or identical relation to the divine; and in this respect it differs basically and "democratically" from, for example, Aristotle's ver­ sion which insists that it is the quality or capacity of a mind which deter­ mines what, if anything, we are worth. It is unfortunate that we began the discussion of "divine sparks" with Epictetus. It was necessary to do so, however, because we observed that this theory cut across and correspondingly modified the Cynic-Stoic attitude to freedom, and we could not avoid introducing it at that point. But the thesis in various forms is older than the Stoics and Cynics, older than Socrates in his role as the inspirer of Cynicism. I do not intend to pursue its origins into the murky regions lying behind Greek philosophical enquiry; I shall content myself only with a few comments on Heraclitus, before returning again to Socrates and Plato. My justifica­ tion for this procedure is that almost nothing of pre-Socratic thought was "historically" understood in the later period of Greek philosophy with which we are presently concerned. Ethos anthropoi daimon. I understand this phrase as indicating that a divine being is our inner self or character. I Hence when Heraclitus says that he sought for himself, he means that he was looking for the real self who is more than human, in fact a daimon. It is the daimon in us that matters; the rest is a mere corpse. Such ideas are also to be found in the Purifications of Empedocles, 2 where the true self, the daimon, wanders in its fallen state through various incarnations until it eventually attains bless­ ed release from the cycle of births and deaths. The difference between these ideas and Aristotle's notion of making ourselves immortal is ap­ parent: in Aristotle, although we are invited to disregard the poets and think more than mortal thoughts, our best human life is at the "social" level, the level of practical wisdom. 3 If we transcend this life, this mode of existence, it is for brief periods only. We do not aspire to such a state as a permanent condition. Whatever survival "we" may have after death, it 72 DIVINE SPARKS is an emotionless, passionless, memory-free existence for the Active Intellect at best. It was through the Pythagoreans that the notion of a daimon within us became particularly influential in Greek philosophy-and through Pythagorean influence on Plato. What is taught is a dramatic history of mankind. After a primordial fall, it is necessary for all human souls to be purified by passing through a series of bodies; it is hoped that in the end freedom from an otherwise endless progression will be attained. But the differences between varying teachers as to how purification can be achieved concern more than merely ritual techniques. There are more fundamental disagreements about the nature of the fallen daimon itself. In so far as the proposed purifications are purely ritual acts (abstinence from animal foods, for example), we might say that they imply a "democratic" theory of the nature of the daimon within us. All human beings, qua human, are identical in this regard. 4 However, although the matter cannot be argued in detail here, it is widely believed, and probably rightly, that in some forms of Pythagorean ism a certain "academic" proficiency, the study of mathematics, was regarded as purificatory. That theory could lead us to a more "Aristotelian" position, to the thesis that a limited number of "humans" have the mental gifts to achieve freedom. We do not know whether, or how far, the earlier Pythagoreans moved in this direction. They may have thought that the limited mathematical skills required were within the capacity of everyone; they may even have kept up such a claim long after its verisimilitude had vanished. And with the "mathematical" theory of purification we would seem to be confronted with the awkward situation that unless each man has the requisite in­ tellectual ability, some daimones are fated never to be released; hence they appear to be radically inferior. Of course in some circumstances degrees of inferiority and superiority could have been acceptable; Plato appears to accept them in the myth of the Phaedrus when he describes the "choirs" of hierarchically distinct divinities (247A). But in this version although all souls (daimones?) are not equal in all respects, they have a basic equality in so far as they can all be saved, all be freed from the cycle of births and deaths. Purification by mathematics should not allow as much as that. Plato, as we know, frequently alludes to the daimon. The Guardians at death may be honoured as daimones;5 Socrates is a Silenus-like daimon in the Symposium, as is the Eros of which he is almost an incarnation. 6 In the Timaeus nous is a daimon within US;7 and in the Republic we each choose our own daimon 8-a slightly different though related notion with which I shall not be concerned here. But Plato seems uncertain or unclear on an im­ portant point, as were the Pythagoreans: that of the exact relationship .
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