HISTORY OF GOD

Commentaries of Hierocles on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras.

From The French Of Andre Dacier. Done Into English By N. Rowe.Reprinted 1971

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"And forasmuch as the cause of this Fate that takes from men their understanding, and of their apostasy from God, is the abuse they make of their freedom, he teaches in the two following Verses how to reform this abuse, and how to make use of the same freedom to return to God.
In order to insinuate to us that we draw on ourselves our own evils only because we will have it so, he
says, The fatal contention that is innate in them, that pursues them wherever they are, and tosses them to and fro, unperceived by them. And immediately after, to show that the remedy is in our own hands,
he adds, instead of provoking and stirring it up, they ought by yielding to avoid it. But, perceiving at the same time that we have, before all things, need of the assistance of God to enable us to depart from evil and to embrace good, he adds forthwith a sort of prayer, and makes an ejaculation to God, the sole means to procure His assistance.

VERSES 6i, 62, 63, 64, 65 AND 66.

Great Jupiter, Father of men, you would deliver them from all the evils that oppress them,
If you would show them what is the Demon of whom they make use.
But take courage, the race of man is divine.
Sacred Nature reveals to them the most hidden mysteries.
If she impart to thee her secrets, thou wilt easily perform all the things which I have ordained thee.
And healing thy soul, thou wilt deliver it from all these evils, from all these afflictions.

It was the custom of the Pythagoreans to call God, the Father and Creator of the Universe, by the name of Jupiter, which in the original tongue is / Page 114 / taken from a word that signifies " Life." For He who gave Life and Being to all things ought to be called by a name derived from His power. And the truly proper name for God is that which most evidently denotes His works.
At this day, amongst us, we may much rather say that hasard and the common agreement of mankind have produced the names that seem to us most proper, than that the propriety of their nature gave occasion to their invention ; for this is evident from a world of names that are given to things, contrary to the very nature of them, and with which they agree no more than if we should call a wicked man good or an impious man pious. For these sorts of names have not the conformity and suitableness that names ought to have, inasmuch as they denote not either the being or the qualities of the thing on which they are imposed. But this agreement and this propriety of names ought most of all to be sought after in the things that are eternal, and among the eternal in the divine, and among the divine in the most excellent.
Thus vou see why the name of Jupiter carries even in the very sound a symbol and an image of the Essence that created all things. For the first composers of names, like excellent statuaries, by their sublime knowledge and wisdom expressed by the names themselves, as by animated images, the virtues and qualities of those to whom they gave them. For they invented names whose very sound was the symbol of their thoughts ; and their thoughts were most resembling and most instructive images of the subjects on which they thought.
And indeed, these great souls, by their continual application to Intelligible things, being as it were swallowed up in contemplation, and grown, as I may say, pregnant with this commerce, when they were taken with the pangs of bringing forth their thoughts, / Page 115 /
cried out in expressions and gave such names to things as by their very sound, and by the letters employed in forming them, perfectly expressed the kinds of the things named, and led, to the knowledge of their nature, all who comprehended them aright. So that the end of their contemplation has been, in regard to us, the beginning of knowledge. Thus the Creator of all things was called by these men of deep knowledge and wisdom sometimes by the name of Four, and sometimes by the name of Jupiter, for the reasons which we have already mentioned.
Now what we ask of Him in this prayer is what He bestows on all men by reason of His infinite goodness, but it depends on us to receive what He is continually giving. It was said before Begin not to put thy hand to the work till after thou hast addressed thyself to the Gods in prayer to teach us that the Gods are always ready to give us the things that are good ; but that we receive them only when we ask for them, and when we stretch out our hands to this divine distribution. For what is free receives not what is truly good, unless it wills. And the true goods are truth and virtue, which, flowing without ceasing from the Essence of the Creator, are visible at all times, and in the same manner, to the eyes of all men.
And when these Verses pray that we may be delivered from all our evils, they ask, as a thing absolutely necessary, that we may know our own Essence. For this is what is meant by this expression what is the Demon of whom they make use, that is to say, what is their soul. For, from this return to ourselves, from this knowledge of ourselves, will necessarily result the deliverance from our evils and the manifestation of the goods that God offers us, to make us happy. This Verse, therefore, supposes that if all men know what they are and what is the Demon of whom they make use, they will all be delivered / Page 116 / from their evils. But this is impossible, for it cannot be that they should all apply themselves to Philosophy or that they should receive equally all the good things that God incessantly offers for the perfection of happiness.
What, then, remains but for those only to take courage who apply themselves to the knowledge that alone discovers our true good, the good that is proper for us ? For they only will be delivered from the evils that are inherent in this mortal nature, because it is they alone who addict themselves to the contemplation of the things that are truly good. And, therefore, they deserve to be placed among the number of the Divine Beings, because they are instructed by Sacred Nature, that is to say, by Philosophy ; and because they practise all the Precepts which their duty obliges them to observe.
Now if we have any conversation with these divine men, we shall make it be seen by applying ourselves wholly to good works and to the intellectual sciences, by which alone the soul is healed of its passions and delivered from all the evils here below, being translated into an Order and into a condition wholly divine.
In short, , this is the sense of these Verses. They who know themselves are freed from all mortal affections. But why are not all men then free from them, seeing they have within them an innate power of knowing what their own Essence is ? Because the greatest part of them, as has been already said, voluntarily draw down upon themselves their own misfortunes, by refusing to see and hear that good is near them. But small is the number of those who know how to deliver themselves from their evils because they know what Demon they use. And these are they, who, by the help of Philosophy, have freed themselves from all brutish passions and are / Page
117 / retired from these earthly abodes, as from a narrow confinement, where they had been slaves to their passions.
Why, then, does the Poet say Great Jupiter, Father of men, you would deliver them all from the evils that oppress them,if you would show them what is the Demon of whom they make use ? Would he have us believe that it depends on God to bring all men back to truth, even in spite of themselves, and that He refuses to do it either through neglect, or designedly, that they may continue in eternal slavery ? This cannot be so much as heard without impiety.
The Poet rather intends, therefore, to teach us that whoso would attain to happiness ought to have recourse to God, as to his Father. For God is the Creator of all Beings and the Father of the good. He, therefore, who knows wherein consists the deliverance from evils, who has actually delivered himself from such as men of their own accord draw upon themselves, and who by a voluntary flight avoids fatal, contention, he, I say, imploring the divine assistance, cries out O Jupiter, Father of men ! He has already performed the part of a son in calling God Father, and he makes this reflection, that if, what he does of himself, all men did like him, they would, like him too, be delivered of all their evils. But finding afterwards that this does happen, not through any fault of God, if I may be allowed to say so, but through the faults of men, who voluntarily draw on themselves their own misfortunes, he says to himself, But take courage, thou who hast found out the true way to deliver thyself from thy miseries. And this way is the return which holy Philosophy inspires us to make to the good things that God never ceases to offer to us, and which the greatest part of men do not see because they make an ill use of the common notions that God .has, as it were, imprinted / Page I18 / on all Rational Beings, to the end that they may know themselves.
Now, to show anything to a man, it is necessary that the actions of two persons should concur. For how can you show anything to a blind man, though you should present to him a thousand times what you have a mind to show him ? Or how can you present a thing to a man who has his eye-sight, unless you offer him what you would have him see ? These two things, therefore, are necessary : on the part of him that shows there must be something presented and on the part of him to whom anything is shown there must be eyes capable of seeing, to the end that on the one hand the object, and on the other the sight, may concur together, and that nothing may be wanting to make a perfect manifestation.
This being premised, let us make this hypothesis, that all men would be delivered from their evils if God, who created them, did show and teach them to know themselves and to know what is the Demon they use. But we see nevertheless that all men are not freed from their evils. God, therefore, does not show to all men alike, but to them only who concur on their part in this deliverance and who are desirous to open their eyes that they may see, contemplate and receive what God is pleased to show them. And, by consequence, God is not the cause that He does not show to all men. But they are themselves the cause of it who neither see nor hear that good things are near to them. Thus you see why we say they draw on themselves their own evils of their own accord.
The fault is in him that chooses, and God is in no wise to blame, seeing that He continually exposes the things that are good to the eyes of all men, as much as in them is, but shows them not always to all, because in the greatest part of them the eyes of the soul, which are alone capable of seeing the good that Page 119 / is continually offered it, are closed, or fixed downwards on the earth, through an ill habitude, they have contracted, of adhering always to what is evil. This explanation of these Verses is conformable to truth and confirms the sense of the foregoing Verses.
And, indeed, if it depend on God to drag all men to truth, whether they will or no, why do we accuse them of drawing on themselves misfortunes voluntarily and through their own fault ? Why do we advise them aot to provoke contention, but to avoid it, by yielding ? Why do we command them to bear in patience the accidents that happen to them, and to use their efforts to amend and heal them ? For all the ways to virtue by instructions are entirely shut up if liberty of will is once taken away. We need neither practise nor meditate nor love good, if it were the part of God only to deliver us from vice and to replenish us with virtue, without our contributing thereto.
But if this were so, God would be the cause of the sins of men. Now if God be in no wise the author of evil, as we have already demonstrated, it is evident that our apostasy from God comes wholly from ourselves who neither see nor hear that it is near us, and in us, according to the notions that Nature imparted to us at our creation. And the sole cause of this blindness and of this deafness is this pernicious contention, this evil that we voluntarily embrace.
But instead of increasing and suffering it to grow, we ought to avoid it by yielding, to learn to deliver ourselves from our evils, and to find out the way to return to God. For by this means the Light of God and our light concurring together, complete and perfect this manner of showing so that it ensures the liberty of the soul, its deliverance from all the miseries here below a lively taste of Divine Good, and the recalling of the soul from banishment into its true country.
The Poet, therefore, having thus treated of truth / Page 120 / and of virtue, and having ended the Precepts of virtue in the nightly examen of our consciences, which he advises us to make, and having besides justified the hopes of truth for the final liberty of the soul and its deliverance out of all its evils, he proceeds in the next place to speak of purity, which gives wings to the luminous body, and thus he adds a third kind of Philosophy to the two former.

VERSES 67, 68 AND 69.

But abstain thou from the _meats which we have forbidden in the Purifications, And in the Deliverance of the Soul ; make a just distinction of them, and examine all things well, Leaving thyself always to be guided and directed by the understanding that comes from above, and that ought to hold the reins.

The Rational Essence, having received from God, its Creator, a body conformable to its nature, descended hither upon earth, so that it is neither a body nor without a body, but being incorporeal it has nevertheless its form determined and bounded by the body ; even as in the stars. For their superior part is an incorporeal Substance and their inferior a corporeal ; the sun itself being a compound of something corporeal and of something incorporeal. Not that it is composed of two parts which, having been separate, have united themselves together—for if so they might separate themselves again—but of two parts created together and born together with subordination, so that the one directs and the other obeys.
It is the same with all rational Essences, as well with the Heroes as with men. For a Hero is a Rational Soul with a luminous body, and man is also a Rational Soul with an immortal body created with it. Thus / Page 121 / you see the doctrine of Pythagoras, which Plato in his Phaedrus explained long after him, comparing the divine soul and the human soul to a winged chariot that has two horses and a coachman to guide it.
For the perfection, therefore, of the soul we have need of truth and of virtue. Arid for the purgation of our luminous body we stand in need to be cleansed of all the pollutions of matter, to have recourse to holy Purifications, and to make use of all the strength that God has given us to stir us up to fly from these inferior abodes. And this is what the preceding Verses teach us.
They instruct us to remove the pollution of matter by this Precept, Abstain from all the meats that we have forbidden.
They enjoin us to add to this abstinence holy Purifications and the strength with which we are divinely inspired. Which command is indeed a little obscurely inculcated by these words : in the Purifications, and in the Deliverance of the Soul, etc. They endeavour to render the form of the human Essence entire and perfect by adding Leaving thyself to be guided and directed by the understanding that comes from above, and that ought to hold the reins. For the Poet thereby sets before our eyes the whole human Essence, and distinguishes the order and the rank of the parts that compose it. That which guides is as the coachman, and that which follows and obeys is as the chariot.
These Verses, therefore, teach all that are desirous to understand the Symbols of Pythagoras, and to obey them, that by the exercise of virtue and by embracing truth and purity, we ought to take care of our soul, and of our luminous body which the Oracles call the subtle chariot of the soul. Now the purity here spoken of extends to meat and drink and to the whole management and usage of our mortal body, in which is lodged our luminous body which inspires / Page 122 / life into the inanimate body and contains and preserves all harmony.