Golden Verses Step 12

Whatever Fate Sends

In this step, we encounter the last of the most difficult things which have made up Part 3 of this course: the terrible things that fate sends us. It is at such moments in our lives that we need the steadying discipline of philosophy, based upon the bedrock of the Four Cardinal Virtues and the guidance of Reason, or else we are tempted to do that thing that Pythagoras forbade his followers: ‘Do not eat your own heart,’ he commanded, meaning, do not repine or grieve so much that you hollow yourself out. This step also gives us encouragement to find a better way.

Statue of the fallen Icarus at the Temple of Concordia, Agrigento.

§ Whatever sufferings you receive from fate

By heaven-sent fortune, endure them lightly,

without resentment or distress.

To remedy your lot as you best can is appropriate,

But bear in mind: fate does not give many misfortunes to good people. §

- Verses 18-21.

FATEFUL SUFFERING

This dramatic image of the fallen Icarus, shows us the son of Daedalus without his wings – a mortal like ourselves who attempted to escape the confines of Minos’ realm with his father, who fashioned wings for them both, attaching them by straps. Icarus was warned not to fly too high, lest the sun melt the wax that held the feathers together: but, excited at regaining the power of flight as a mere mortal, he didn’t listen to his father, and crashed to earth. This myth is usually referenced as a teaching about hubris – aiming to ape the gods - but it is also illustrative of a Stoic precept which shows how reason and inventiveness attempt to remedy a situation from which there was no other escape, yet also the necessity to remain moderate, which unfortunately did not temper Icarus’ exhilaration at becoming a flying man. The myth exemplifies the two sidedness of these verses: bad stuff happens, even when we are clever or good, and while it is appropriate to do all we can to ameliorate its conditions, not even the virtuous can fend off all fateful blows.

We all experience Fate as the things we cannot change: these include the family we are born into, the kind of body and health that we inherit. In this world, we can modify lots of things and improve them, but somethings cannot be altered or avoided. The woman giving birth cannot choose to hop off the delivery table and go do something pleasant; if she is at nine centimetres dilation, then the child has to emerge pretty soon! Nothing but the act of giving birth or medical intervention will release her from her pains. The man who drives his truck over the edge of a cliff, due to a faulty tyre that bursts, will not live to repair it, for he will soon be dead. He has seconds to reconcile himself to his death before the truck crashes below. From birth to death, fate – the things that just happen circumstantially or which are part of the inexorable march of Necessity – affect everyone. The words that every human being breathes at such moments are universal: ‘It’s not fair.’ No, it is not, but that is our fate.

‘The hardships and things that make the road of life rougher for us, such as sickness, poverty, the loss of loved ones, or loss of reputation among our peers… are difficult matters and hard to manage in our lives,’ says Hierocles, ‘but they are not harmful to the soul itself, unless the soul turns to evil deeds because of them.’ (GV XI, 1) He goes on to argue that living with every advantage in life doesn’t stop people from becoming corrupted by these privileges, and that, for many, the opportunity to be moulded into a more virtuous life by their hardships is not without its merits, because ‘the true evils are mistakes that arise from deliberate choices which are irreconcilable with virtue.’ (GV XI, 2)

We note that these verses do not say that deliberately-chosen evils are allotted by Fate, but only those evils that are tied to circumstance. Whether these are circumstantial or based upon the poor choices we made in a previous life, ‘the god who watches over us distributes to each what comes according to merit, but is not responsible that we are one sort of person or another, for the god only has the power to give us due recompense according to the dictates of justice… The verses indicate that the interweaving of our deliberate choice and the god’s judgement generates Fortune, so that this is what constitutes “heaven-sent fortune”, or the divine sentence over our failings.’ (GV XI, 8-9)

However, ‘the cause of choosing to do evil goes back to the free will of the person being judged, while the cause of the penalty, which accords with what they deserve, goes back to the law-observant expertise of the judges. This ensures that all things be as good as possible and that no wickedness exist… the goodness of the god does not allow evil people to be free from accountability, in order that evil may not abide and push matters to a total neglect of the good ’ (GV XI, 13)

What sounds so harsh to our ears must be tempered here by the understanding that judgement, as well as punishment or ‘merited penalties’, are applied to us not randomly but as a means to cure the soul and reform it into a better way of being. If we do not set ourselves to that task voluntarily, then we are given opportunities to come to it by way of suffering. ‘Indeed, we may become depraved through good things and sanctified by calamities if those good things lead us to neglect virtue and the calamities led us to seek health through themselves. (GV, XI, 2)

Converting ourselves from an intemperate style of living, or reforming our character from wayward or thoughtless way of life that in inconsiderate, or changing from a criminal to a law-abiding form of behaviour all lies in our power. Iamblichus tells us that for this conversion, ‘Reason is sufficient, just as the law in a community (is used) to distinguish actions. For a person cannot achieve happiness, unless law is established as the guide of their own life. This is right reason, which orders what must be done and forbids what must be avoided, both in the whole cosmos and in communities, as well as in private households and in each individual with regard to themselves.’ (Iamblichus, Protreptic 20) This law is blent of the Oath that step 2 spoke of, and of Reason, that innate clarity of soul that guides us.

‘Therefore, the goal of life is to live in accordance with nature, which is to live according to both our own nature and that of the universe, doing nothing of those things that are forbidden by the common law, for it is right reason that pervades all things. (Diogenes Laertius, Sayings 7,87)

Hierocles understood that when we are put through the wringer of life, it is always an opportunity to turn back and seek our true divine nature: ‘we suffer in our bodies and in external things what has been decreed by that justice that watches over us, for it is the aggravation and the respite that occur in the things around us, as well as their multiple modifications, that instruct the soul’s free will to act in a healthy manner, which happens fairly quickly, if it greets the trials, which happened to it with generosity. If, however, its behaviour in the face of these trials is imprudent and senseless, this will happen only after numerous and long detours. For it is then that it incurs punishments for thoughtlessness, and nevertheless, it is still led through its sufferings towards its duty.’ – Hierocles Photius Library, Codex, 251

So, when we are at the forcing point of crisis, where we fall into the iron hand of fate, how do we deal with it? How can we fulfil the instruction in these verses, to bear our pains lightly?

ON NOT EATING OUR OWN HEART

Odysseus offers a cup of wine to Polyphemus the Cyclops..

How on earth can we undergo the actions of Fate without distress? Sometimes it is with just a little panache. Hierocles himself landed in a dire situation while teaching classes on philosophy in the city of Constaninople, where the teaching of philosophy had been banned by the Edict of Justinian. He was summarily seized upon by the authorities and flogged publicly in court for the offence of ‘being a philosopher.’ Damascius, tells us that, as Hierocles gathered his garments together, he took a handful of blood from his own wounds, and sprinkled it upon the judge, saying, ‘Here, Cyclops, drink this wine now that you have eaten human flesh.’ This quotation was very well known to everyone at the time, for it comes from Homer’s Odyssey (9, 347) where Odysseus attempts to get himself and his men out of the clutches of the Cyclops. The one-eyed Cyclops was epitomized as an impious, lawless, and uncivilized being – the very embodiment of a savage non-human who is utterly without justice. Hierocles left Byzantium, fleeing to Egypt where the same laws were applicable, but in a culture that was looser in their application, and much less bureaucratic, where he was still free to teach his wisdom.

Very many good people have found themselves up against great barbarism or facing the injustice of ultimate forms of authority that have the power of life or death over us. As Socrates said had his trial, ‘A good person can suffer no harm either in life or in death, and divinity does not neglect them. So, too, this which has come to me has not come by chance, but I see plainly that it’s better for me to die now… I am not at all angry with those who condemned me or with my accusers.’ (Plato, Apology of Socrates, 42d) Socrates recognised that his calamity at being unjustly arraigned was more to do with his own choices and that the court and accusers were merely the instruments of his death.

Where most of us might have been in shock or grief at the prospect of being humiliatingly flogged in public or enforced to drink poison, Hierocles and Socrates both came to their moment of crisis with calm, because they could draw upon their disciplined practice of philosophy which supported their mortal bodies when facing pain and death.

The Pythagorean expression ‘do not eat your own heart,’ also underlies this philosophical calm. In the face of the One-Eyed or the nature of injustice, we have to remember that we not only subject to the accidents and trials that all people have to undergo, but that we not alone. This expression is sometimes given as ‘do not tear the god inside you.’ Distressed grief, horror and shock that can disarrange our emotions merely can cause us to return to our own human resources and bring us into a state that is not helpful to recollection; it can lead us into the state of madness, like the Titans tearing and eating the flesh of Dionysos. In that myth, it was Athene who caught up Dionysos’ own immortal heart and brought it into her safe keeping so that he might be reborn.

We too have to remember that our heart and soul are immortal, if we are to stand a chance at surviving all that Fate sends to us. We also need our own Athene to snatch the better part of us up when we are considering the wreckage of our lives.

MAKING THE BEST OF OUR LIVES

Vanishing Point by Wendy Manzo

How do we make the best of our lives when their shape, colour, and order has melted into a new chaotic configuration, when we live in the aftermath of loss or catastrophic change? We are none of us so fated that we are not permitted to make things better.

‘Let us suppose that there is a person whose lot is to fall into poverty and to bear it in patience. This patience will not only except them from grief and melancholy, they will also find some ease and some consolation by this means; for on the one hand, if their understanding and good sense are not disordered and perplexed by this affliction, they will seek out means to gain their bread honestly, and on the other hand, their neighbours, struck with admiration at their patience, which is so full of reason and prudence, that they will contribute what they can to comfort them. But the one who, like the weakest child, grieves and flies into a passion, adds a voluntary and wilful grief and a yet deeper melancholy to their misfortune, by keeping their mind continually bent in misery by exploring it without ceasing, growing incapable of procuring relief for themself by their efforts, and preventing themselves from receiving comfort from their neighbours, unless someone out of mere compassion throws them something as alms. But, even then, the very demeanour of those neighbours who give from pity, looks like a spurning of their poverty, and serves only to intensify grief and melancholy, by the one who has been reduced to such extreme necessity.’ (GV, XI,36.)

We all understand that revolving ‘exploration’ of our grief, as our minds stray back into the realms of injustice, outrage and sorrow. It is easy to enter into that circling round of ‘what if’, or ‘how dare they?’ In such a case, we are advised to use patience with our condition. This word appears once or twice in the Golden Verses, in fact we will meet in the next part in another context where we will explore it more deeply. Patience is what leads the circling of the enraged passions and thwarted appetites into the regions of Reason once again. But that takes determination and resolution, for which we need courage or fortitude, as Hierocles tell us:

‘Our part of determination can change all that is, and all that becomes. If it were according to each individual, another world would have been produced in another organisation of life, since we do not all want the same thing, but, if they were active in creators, of essence, the dispositions of each person would turn all things upside down, and they would be modified by the rapid changes of human choices. This is why it is appropriate, that the power of human free will, mobile and ephemeral, is completely incapable of producing or modifying anything, without some cooperation coming from outside, for it has no power over anything other than itself, and over the possibility of improving or degrading itself by its behaviour it can only judge that which is, and greet what happens; and that it requires virtue’s advice, through the good or bad dispositions that manifest in its own activities. Indeed, the power of determination reveals that the only thing that depends on us is to transform ourselves as we please, without the body, in which we are closed, no external things falling within the domain of this power of determination.’ (Photius, Hierocles Library, COD 251)

But we are not left alone in our sufferings, for Providence, which is the universal mercy and goodness of the divine, is always at hand. ‘All the things of fate are conjoined with the pre-guiding Providence by the same essence, therefore, fate is into woven with Providence.’(Iamb. Exhort to Phil p 104)

But when we are pickled in our catastrophe, it is not easy to perceive Providence, and we may just experience the darkness of unmaking: ‘For to suffer without knowing the cause of our suffering and without conjecturing at least what may probably have brought us into that condition, is the part of a person who is accustomed to behave themselves in all things without reason and without reflection, which this present verse expressly forbids to do. For by not even enquiring into the true cause of their sufferings, they may accuse the guardians of their existence, the actual authors of them, asserting either that there are no (spiritual) guardians or accusing them of not taking care of us as they ought. Such opinions not only increase the evils that come to us from our previous life, but likewise incite the soul to commit all manner of crimes and depriving it of the healing it could freely bestow upon itself by adding to the present sufferings. To know how we ought to philosophise, we should attend to the Golden Verses. (GV X, 26-27)

‘To escape the rule of Providence is to fall upon the iron hand of Fate.’ (F. Cornford Principium Saptientiae. p.24) If the world is not governed by beneficent deities, must it not be subject to the even more terrible dominion of blind necessity? asks Francis Cornford. In order to step out of the reductionist sense of dead matter in a material world, we need to find a better way. Cicero noted that ‘the Stoics evaded this dilemma by embracing both alternatives and identifying Fate with Providence.’ (Cicero Nat Deor 1, 20.54-5)

This same difficulty was noted by Proclus in his disquisition on Providence: at the same time as dispensing help to all, the mercies of Providence are not accepted by all of us in the same way, and we can get caught up in the works of our catastrophic fate:

‘Providence is present everywhere and in all things, but that the same good is not in all things, we ought not to be so surprised. For this is the work the most excellent Providence, to impart good things indeed to all things, but to measure the participation of it by the merit of the recipients; and for everything to receive only as much as it is able to receive, whether essence causes a difference, as in souls and bodies, for the good of each of these is not the same, because the essence is not the same, or whether the merit arises from action alone, as we say that souls acting differently, always receive from Providence different portions. Some accept their portions from Providence easily, and others with more difficulty; because they cannot be converted to Providence without obstacle. (Proclus Ten Doubts Concerning Providence. III, 10-24.)

So what are we to make of this verse’s assurance, ‘but bear in mind: fate does not give many misfortunes to good people?’ Does this even make sense, when we know so many good people whose innocence does not prepare them for the calamities that fall upon them? Indeed, on the other hand, we see many people who live depraved lives and yet still great honours and good things are given to them while the virtuous still suffer, I hear you say. The unfairness of this, seen from a mortal perspective, is appalling, but we are asked to look with our immortal eyes of the soul on both kinds of individuals, and see that while some enjoy the good or suffer the ills of life, their come-up-ance is still to come for the gods of Fortune and Time govern all things, and a purification and redress will still arrive. We do not have the neutrality of gods in order to see and judge well for ourselves. From the wider perspective of the divine, the determination of just what is providential and what is retributive has a different coloration. ( Proclus Ten Doubts on Providence p. 60ff. & VI pp 72ff. & VIII p.77)

The spiritual place to position ourselves when we undergo trials and struggles is articulated here by the Hyperborean sage, Abaris, who was also known for his miraculous, probably, shamanic soul flights, who conversed with Pythagoras and the tyrant Phalaris: ‘Abaris argued that the gods are blameless of evils …and instanced their marvellous and divine kindness in hopeless circumstances, whether it be insufferable wars, incurable diseases, blighted crops, times of plague, and other such things much more difficult to deal with which were beyond remedy. …In the midst of such fearful circumstances, Pythagoras himself continued to philosophize with a steadfast mind, with total self-possession, stoutly defending himself against misfortune, and acting towards the very author of his dangers with authority and frankness, fearless of death. On the very day that Phalaris threatened to kill Pythagoras and Abaris, the tyrant himself was killed by those who had been plotting against him.’ - Iamblichus: DV, 32, 217-221

Choosing virtue in the face of difficulties often involves a period of purging which is not at all comfortable, because our distress obscures the way forward. One of the wisest Pythagorean women, Theano, wrote to her friend, Nicostrate whose husband was betraying her with his mistress. Distressed beyond measure at the cruelty of his sexual disloyalty, and seized with jealousy at his preferring another woman to herself, Nicostrate appeals to her philosophic friend, who responds sympathetically, acknowledging that her friend’s husband is embroiled in a kind of madness, but she advises her not to revenge or get back at either him or his mistress. Instead she returns to the bedrock of Pythagorean virtue: ‘Distinguish yourself by your orderly conduct towards your husband, by your careful attention to the house and the calm way in which you deal with the servants, and by your tender love for your children…Good conduct brings regard even from enemies, dear, and in this way it possible for the power of a woman to surpass that of a man… Tragedy teaches us to conquer jealousy… by patiently enduring you will quench your suffering sooner.’(Sarah Pomeroy, Pythagorean Women, pp 90-91)

Of course, Nicostrate was not free to just walk out of a relationship as we are today, or to institute divorce, although in the Classical World, men could and often did divorce their wives, and take away their children from them. This unjust double standard is what leads Theano to make an exhortation to nobility of conduct, which comes from the same place as Epictetus’s reminder, ‘Zeus has given you the ability to endure (many) things, and has made you noble-minded, because he has prevented these things from being evils, because he has made it possible for you suffer these things and still be happy, because he has left the door open for you, for when things are no longer good for you.’ (ED 3:8, 6)

As we follow these friendly lines of advice on how to return to our human dignity, and recover our own power, we are led back again by Hierocles to a consideration of the soul’s essence as being one, not only with the stars, but with the very essence of the gods and daimons themselves:

‘The law of Providence is proportioned to the nature of all things, and each being has the honour to participate in it in proportion to what it is and to how the divine has made it concerning the souls of human beings. It is evident that define created them but to the beings without reason he left it to nature to form them. This is the opinion of Plato and Timaeus the Pythagorean, who held that no mortal was worthy to be the workmanship of the hands of demiurge.

Because the souls of human beings were all taken out of the same vessel as the cosmic gods, and the glorious daimons and heroes, Providence extends itself over all beings and over every human individually. Their absence from their true country, the inclination to the things on earth, the life that was formed and ordered in this land of exile. and their return to the place of the origin -all of this is regulated by Providence.’ (GV XI, 32)

This passage is reminding us of the part of the Timaeus where all souls were fashioned by the Demiurge – the active part of the divine that creates everything - when human souls and those of gods, daimons and heroes were all mixed in the Krater or mixing bowl. From here, each pre-existent soul was mounted upon a kindred star to which it returns again after having lived a righteous life. (Timaeus 41d8-ea)

Whether we are stuck in the tangle of the wreckage still, or on our way to finding the patience that helps us deal with it, we can still look up and consider our kindred star. ‘For if we pursue the heavenly way and live in our kindred star, then we will philosophize, living truly, busied with the most profound and marvellous speculations, beholding the beauty in the soul immutably related to truth, viewing the rule of the gods with joy, gaining perpetual delight and additional insight from contemplating, and experiencing pure pleasure absolutely and unmingled with any pain or sorrow.’ -Iamblichus, Exhortations to Philosophy, ed. Thomas Moore Johnson.)

§ Consider §

* Take this quotation from Damascius, who was one of the last exponents of Neo-Platonic philosophy before Christianity finally proscribed all philosophic teachings, ‘The earth is a desert without the Gods.’ Whatever prospect you are now currently facing, whether personally, nationally, or as a world citizen, take this phrase and seek for the flower that still blooms within that prospect.

* Pythagoras encouraged his followers ‘that by being moderate in their misfortunes, that they would maintain their own well-being, but by being excessive in their expenses, they would all die before their appointed time.’ (Iamb DV: 27,123) This sentence needs a good deal of unpacking, because on first glance it appears to be mixing the language of grief with that of economics. How do you understand it?

*We are instructed by Heirocles to ‘steer our soul by the methods of sacred rites and good reflections, stemming the tide of our afflictions and freeing ourselves from them, so that we can sail into a safer harbour.’ (GV X,26). What are the sacred rites that help chart the soul’s course through difficult shoals? Read one of the myths or stories of one of the glorious heroes to find some inspirational marks on that chart.

* In times of trial, meditate upon the four Cardinal Virtues as the walls of your chariot, one on each side of you: Temperance/Moderation, Fortitude/Strength, Wisdom, and Justice. With you in the chariot is your Daimon, your guardian spirit. Retire to your chariot when things ae difficult and seek the advice and wisdom that will help you through.

MEDITATION

‘The result of all we have been saying on this subject is a great confirmation of the eternity and of the immortality of the soul. For to observe justice, to be undaunted by the approach of death, to be free from all selfish ends and not be dazzled with the splendour of riches, it is required that we should believe that the soul does not die with the body. To support in patience the strokes of Divine Fortune, and enable us to heal them, it appears to be necessary that the soul is not born with the body. From these two things, the eternity of the soul and it’s immortality, we draw this demonstration; that the soul is never born and never dies, that it is more excellent than the body and of another nature. It is in no way possible that what is born within time should exist always, nor that what never had a beginning should have an end. Consequently, it is most evident that since the soul continues to exist after the death of the body, since it is judged and receives the punishment toward of the life it is led, and seeing also that it is Impossible that what begins in time should exist always, it is, I say, most evident that the soul is from all eternity before the body.

This shows us that the soul is one of the eternal works of the Divine who created it; hence comes its likeness and resemblance to its Creator.’ ( GV XI, 39-40)

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This has been a very tough round of verses, I’m aware, so well done if you are still in there with the Golden Verses. This has also been one of the most difficult times for myself also, as it has coincided with some personal difficulties of a high order, and the sense of loss and sadness has been very painful. The corollary of this feels like the whole of Part 3 has landed on my plate all at once, so you may assured that I have been taking every sentence of the Golden Verses to heart and applying their medicine to myself.

As I was talking to a friend the other day, where we were discussing the slewing of world values due to political greed and unwise opinions, we both concluded that these were the very times that we had been trained to live to through all of our lives, and now here our time of practice had arrived. Whatever sudden changes or shocks have come to you, be assured, these are the teachings that will see us through them.