13 Chapter 10 - The Cosmos in Greek and Gnostic Evaluation.doc

PART III

Gnosticism and the Classical Mind

So far we have considered the gnostic world of ideas by itself, without more than an occasional reference to the cultural back­ground against which it stands out. Account was taken of its rela­tions to the Jewish and Christian environment, which itself was a new-comer in the world of Graeco-Roman civilization. Unorthodox and subversive as Gnosticism was in relation to these more kindred systems of thought, its revolutionary character comes fully to light only in a confrontation with the classical-pagan world of ideas and values, which it met in a head-on clash. This world, as we pointed out in the introductory chapter, represented in its Hellenistic version the cosmopolitan, secular culture of the age, looking back upon a long and imposing history. Compared with it, the gnostic move­ment in addition to being a stranger was an upstart, with no legitimate parentage: what heritage it did carry from its own several oriental antecedents it made free with to the point of controverting its meaning. This alone testifies to its being non-traditional. Yet the true background to its novelty in the dimension of universal history is supplied by the larger world into which it emerged and to whose long-established mental and moral attitudes it seemed to be the almost intentional antithesis. Those attitudes were sustained by an ideological tradition, Greek in origin and venerable by its intellectual achievements, which acted as the great conservative agency in an era of increasing spiritual tension and threatening

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dissolution. The gnostic challenge was one expression of the crisis which the general culture experienced. To understand Gnosticism as such a challenge is part of understanding its essence. To be sure, the insights which its message propounded for the first time stand in their own right. But without the Hellenic counter-position upon which it burst, Gnosticism would not have been of that significance in the world history of ideas which it assumed as much by historical configuration as by its intrinsic content. The stature of what it challenged gives it some of its own historic stature. And its being "first" with those insights, and "different," and filled with the intoxication of unprecedentedness, colors its views no less than their utterance.

The following confrontation, by placing Gnosticism in its proper contemporary setting, will bring out with greater clarity what was new in it, what it challenged, and what it stands for in the history of man's understanding of himself.

Chapter 10. The Cosmos in Greek and Gnostic Evaluation

(a) THE IDEA OF "COSMOS" AND MAN'S PLACE IN IT

The Greek Position

To compare the two worlds, the new and the old, the attacker and the attacked, there is no more prominent symbol in which the essence of each reveals itself than the concept of "cosmos." By a long tradition this term had to the Greek mind become invested with the highest religious dignity. The very word by its literal meaning expresses a positive evaluation of the object—any object— to which it is accorded as a descriptive term. For cosmos means "order" in general, whether of the world or a household, of a commonwealth or a life: it is a term of praise and even admiration. Thus when applied to the universe and becoming assigned to it as to its eminent instance, the word does not merely signify the neutral fact of all-that-is, a quantitative sum (as the term "the All" does), but expresses a specific and to the Greek mind an ennobling quality of this whole: that it is order. And indissoluble as this assignment of the term became in time, and much as the emphatic form "the comos" could denote only the universe, it yet never came to monop­olize the meaning of the word and to oust its other uses.1 Had these withered away, the name in isolation from its original semantic range might have paled to the indifference of the English "world." "Cosmos" never suffered this fate. A manifold of application to objects and situations of daily life—applications ranging from gen­eral to special, from moral to aesthetic, from inner to outer, from

1Here are some of these. For things of all kinds: arrangement, structure, rule; conformity to rule, i.e., regularity. In the public sphere: political or legal constitu­tion; conformity to that, i.e., lawful conduct or condition. In the military sphere: discipline, battle order. In the private sphere: decency, propriety, decorum (the adjective cosmios means well-behaved, its negative, unruly). As the social reflection of quality: honor, fame. As form of convention: etiquette, ceremonial. As form of display: ornament, decoration, especially in dress—hence, finery.

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spiritual to material quality—remained in currency side by side with the exalted use, and this co-presence of familiar meanings, all of them laudatory, helped to keep alive the value-consciousness which had first prompted the choice of so qualitative a name for this widest and in a sense remotest of all objects.

But more than merely the widest instance, the universe was considered to be the perfect exemplar of order, and at the same time the cause of all order in particulars, which only in degrees can approximate that of the whole. Again, since the sensible aspect of order is beauty, its inner principle reason, the All as perfect order must be both beautiful and rational in the highest degree. Indeed this bounded physical universe denoted by the name "cosmos" was considered a divine entity and often called outright a god, finally even the God. As such, it was of course more than merely a physical system in the sense in which we have come to understand the term "physical." As the generative, life-begetting powers of nature be­speak the presence of soul, and the eternal regularity and harmony of the celestial motions the action of an ordering mind, the world must be considered as one animated and intelligent whole, and even as wise. Already Plato, though not regarding the cosmos as the highest being itself, called it the highest sensible being, "a god,'* and "in very truth a living creature with soul and reason." 2 It is superior to man, who is not even the best thing within the world: the heavenly bodies are his betters, both in substance and in the

2Timaeus 30B; 34A. We render some of Plato's argument. "[The creator] was good; and in the good no jealousy in any matter can ever arise. So, being without jealousy, he desired that all things should come as near as possible to being like himself. . . . Desiring, then, that all things should be good and, so far as might be, nothing imperfect, the god took over all that is visible . . . and brought it from disorder into order, since he judged that order was in every way the bet­ter. ... He found that ... no work that is without intelligence will ever be better than one that has intelligence, . . . and moreover that intelligence cannot be present in anything apart from soul. In virtue of this reasoning, when he framed the universe, he fashioned reason within soul and soul within body, to the end that the work he accomplished might be by nature as excellent and perfect as possible. This, then, is how we must say ... that this world came to be, by god's provi­dence, in very truth a living creature with soul and reason" (29D-30C; tr. F. M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, London, 1952). The reader will note that the reason­ing which in the Genesis account of creation implicitly applies to man here applies to the cosmos.

purity and steadiness of the intelligence that activates their motion.8 Stoic monism led to a complete identification of the cosmic and the divine, of the universe and God. Cicero, in the second book of "The Nature of the Gods," gives eloquent expression to this theo­logical status of the visible universe. Since his argument, com­pounded of elements from Stoic sources, is supremely instructive, we quote it here almost in full, indicating the main logical stages by interpolated headings.

(General statement)

There is then a nature [heat] which holds together and sustains the universe, and it possesses both sensibility and reason. For every­thing which is not separate and simple but joined and connected with other things must have within it some governing principle. In man it is mind, in beasts something similar to mind [sense], from which the appetites arise. ... In each class of things nothing can be or ought to be more excellent than this its governing principle. Hence that ele­ment wherein resides the governing principle of Nature as a whole must be the best of all things and most worthy of power and dominion over all things. Now we see that in certain parts of the cosmos—and there is nothing anywhere in the cosmos which is not a part of the whole—sensibility and reason abide. In that part, therefore, in which the governing principle of the cosmos resides, these same qualities must of necessity be present—only keener and on a grander scale. Therefore the cosmos must also be wise, for that substance which encompasses and holds all things must excel in the perfection of its reason; and this means that the cosmos is God and that all its particular powers arc contained in the divine nature. . . .

(Special arguments: a. sensibility and soul)

Seeing that men and beasts are quickened by this warmth and that by its agency they move and feel, it is absurd to say that the cosmos is devoid of sensibility, he who is quickened by a warmth that is whole and free and pure and also most keen and agile. . . . Since that heat

3 "It would be strange to think that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world. . . . But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this makes no difference; for there are other things much more divine in their nature even than man, e.g., most con­spicuously, the bodies of which the heavens are framed" (Aristotle Eth. Nic. VI. 7. 1141 a 21 f.; 33 f.; tr. W. D. Ross).

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is moved not by an external impulse but spontaneously of itself [and since according to Plato self-motion is of the soul only], the conclusion is that the cosmos is animate.

(b. intelligence)

Then, that the cosmos is endowed with intelligence, is also evident from the consideration that the cosmos [as the whole] must be su­perior to any particular entity. For, as every separate member of our bodies is of less worth than we ourselves are, so the totality of the cosmos is necessarily of greater worth than any part of it. If this is true, then the universe must be intelligent;4 for if it were not, man, who is a part of the universe and who partakes in reason, would have to be of higher worth than the whole cosmos.

(c. wisdom)

Moreover, if we begin with the first and inchoate beings and pro­ceed to the last and perfected ones, we shall inevitably arrive at the order of the gods. . . . [The ascent goes from plants through animals to man.] . . . But the fourth and highest order is that of those beings who are born naturally good and wise and to whom right and constant reasoning is innate from the beginning, a quality which must be deemed superhuman and can be attributed only to God, that is to say to the cosmos, in which that consummate and absolute reason necessarily must reside.

Furthermore, it cannot be denied that for every ordered whole there is a state representing its ultimate perfection. In the case of vines or of cattle we can perceive how Nature, unless thwarted by some sort of violence, pursues her own straight course toward fulfilment. . . . Even so for Nature as a whole, but in a far higher degree, there must be something which makes it complete and perfect. Now, there are many external circumstances to prevent the perfection of other beings; but nothing can impede universal Nature, because she herself encom­passes and contains all particular natures. Therefore it is necessary that there is this fourth and highest order which no extrinsic force can interfere with; and it is this order in which universal Nature must be placed.

(Conclusion from whole argument)

Now since she is such that she excels all other things and no thing can obstruct her, it is necessary that the cosmos is intelligent and even

4 Sapiens, elsewhere translated by "wise," must in this particular phase o£ the argument (if Cicero was consistent) stand for "intelligent" in general.

wise. What can be more foolish than to deny that that Nature which comprehends all things is the most excellent, or, if this is granted, to deny that it is firstly animate, secondly rational and reflective, and thirdly wise? How else could it be the most excellent? For if it were like plants or beasts, it would have to be considered the lowest rather than the highest of beings. Again, if it were rational but not from the beginning wise, the state of the cosmos would be inferior to that of man; for man can become wise, but if the cosmos during the infinite aeons of the past has been lacking in wisdom, it will certainly never attain it, and will thus be inferior to man. Since this is absurd [!], it must be held that from the beginning the cosmos has been both wise and God. And there is naught else except the cosmos which lacks nothing and which is in all particulars and parts fit and perfect and complete.

(The position of man)

Chrysippus aptly observes that, as the shield-casing exists only for the shield and the scabbard for the sword, so everything save the uni­verse was brought into being for the sake of something else . . . [plants for the benefit of animals, animals for the benefit of man]. Man him­self, however, was born to contemplate the cosmos and to imitate it; he is far from being perfect, but he is a little part of the perfect.6

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