THE GOLDEN VERSES Step 2

The Way of Truth.

Welcome to Step 2!

In this dramatic photo below we see a statue of the Anatolian goddess, Kybele, from the fort of Kurul Kalesi near the Black Sea in Turkey. The entrance to this ‘fortress of council,’ as it was known, collapsed when attacked by Romans: its contents were largely untouched. During the excavations over the last years, the statue of Kybele was found in her exact original spot, looking out over the land.

I felt it was a very suitable image to stand at the head of this verse which looks at the Oath, and at law and truth, for Kybele (also spelled Cybele and pronounced in English Si’be-le but in Greek as Ku-bay’le) is the mother of the earth, who is frequently conflated with Rhea, mother of Zeus, and with the Kouretes or Curetes, the daemonic spirits who protected the infant Zeus on Mount Ida by clashing their spears on their shields to cover his crying, and so avoid Kronos who sought to destroy him.

Kybele was often shown seated on a chariot accompanied by lions, but here she sits in her original position, ever-watchful.

Kybele, still watching from Kurul Fort, Ordu, Turkey.

  Step 2: Honour and revere the oath.

THE CHANGELESS GUARDIAN.

Hierocles introduces this verse with: ‘A changeless guardian watches over the law governing the arrangement of the universe, and since it was a custom of the ancients in their secret teachings to name the keeper of this guard ‘the Oath,’ it is fitting that the we should speak of it.’ (GV 1:22).

People in Greece might immediately have associated this guardian with one or other of two of the gods. With Horkos, son of Eris, who upheld the oath and pursued those who broke it, and Dike, the goddess of justice and moral order, who was thought of as accompanying Zeus.  For to lie was to wage war on the gods; to honour your word was to uphold the cosmos. But the Oath is a much wider thing.

This Oath that we should honour and revere, what exactly is it? We are told that, ‘The Oath is the cause that preserves all things in the same state…. It inviolably sustains good order among created beings who may manifest the perfection of the Law of the Oath.’ (GV2, 1) The Oath’s meaning is ‘the observance of the Divine Laws and the bond by which all created beings are linked to their Creator… to whom they are always united.’(GV 2,3). The Oath (capital c) is the original agreement of the cosmos and the oath (small c) is a shadow or copy of the original, where the laws of our world maintain order in everyday life.

Hierocles asks, ‘How will a lover of riches keep his oath when he is to receive or pay money? How will the impulsive spendthrift or the coward uphold their oath?’ (GV 2,6). And we all see from the daily news how difficult it is for public servants and those in who are responsible for much money or power to remain true to their task, for some are often tempted by self-interest to take from the public fund.  Without a sense of faithfulness to the oath of public office, and a good deal of hard-won virtue, many fall into theft from the public good. This is why human beings have made laws that govern our affairs, so that the public interest is upheld for all, and also why people enter into formal contracts and agreements to uphold their intent – whether it is to bind the builder to fulfil his contract of finishing repairs on a house, or whether it is oath to uphold each other that we swear when we get married.

When it came to maintaining good everyday agreements and promises, Pythagoras had himself already noted that his female followers required no such formalities as a formally witnessed oath nor a written contract to keep their behaviour on track: he saw how the women between them shared clothing and adornments so that, whenever a woman needed a garment or a comb, unlike many men who tended to need some recorded commitment to make them return what had been borrowed, the women actually trusted each other to return items without any record being made. (Iamb. VP 11.35)

But there is a much wider meaning beyond mere legality in this verse.

THE OATH OF THE MYSTERIES

In our own age, we are used to very oppositional attitudes in both ideology and institutional belonging, as well as clashes between one kind of religion and another. And we are more familiar now with individuals following just one kind of spiritual path. The Classical world was a very different place before the Edict of Thessalonica, issued by the Emperor Theodosius in 380 CE, which proclaimed Christianity to be the only state religion of the empire.  Before this time, there was a general acceptance that people followed their particular spiritual path unhindered, and that this path might be undertaken in ways that seemed best to the individual: but there was no enforcement by ‘the authorities.’ However, in most places there was also a state cult to which everyone was expected to pay due attention as a good citizen of the state – which upheld the principles of a city or region, but which left them otherwise free to pursue their own personal spiritual path. The state cult was usually dedicated to the spiritual protector of a region or city – Athena in Athens, for example. Since it did not do to disrespect the guardian god of your city or region, everyone was expected to do their part, to celebrate at festival time, and uphold that two-way street of the protector/ the protected in good faith.

However, existing beside that state or city cult, there might be other paths that you might follow.  Making a choice to follow one of the mystery traditions, or to pursue the path of philosophy was nonetheless a serious decision.  The initiations and promises which neophytes made on their entry into the mysteries, or into a deep commitment to philosophical ways were promises made to the gods, and so these required the soul to be consistently faithful in word and deed.

This sacred pathway has seen many initiates who kept discretion as their watchword as they walked upon it, but who were able to share with seekers of good intent the ways that they had themselves learnt, while at the same time reserving the deeper secrets that cannot be conveyed to those who have not undertaken that journey for themselves, as Hipparchus wrote, ‘it is pious to remember the divine and human precepts of Himself (Pythagoras), and not to share the good things of wisdom with those whose souls are not purified. For it unlawful to give to some random person the things acquired diligently after many struggles, or to divulge to the profane the mysteries of the Eleusinian goddesses. (Iamb VP 17 75). This refers to the Mysteries into which people of all kinds were initiated.  After purification, they experienced the wonders by partaking in the rites which were dramatically enacted, becoming mystes or those who  closed their eyes in order to better see the gods that stood behind these rites.  Such oaths were binding to death and not to be overturned for any reason.  It is a tribute to initiates over the ages that no-one divulged the nature of the Mysteries into which they had been initiated.

It was in such a spirit that we hear about Myllias and Timycha, a couple who were faithful followers of Pythagoras.  Dionysius the tyrant of Sicilly had done everything he could to gain friendship with Pythagoreans, the better to learn their mysteries, but when they refused to admit him to their company, he finally ordered an ambush upon those living in the district of Tarentum, which was full of ravines.  His men, led by Eurymenes of Syracuse secreted themselves, waiting for their prey to arrive at midday. The Pythagoreans filed along the narrow path, they were attacked, and tried to scatter and run away, but as some of them fled, they found themselves faced with a field planted with beans and stopped, for they were told never to touch beans. All were captured and killed.

One couple, Myllias of Croton and his wife, Timycha of Lacedaemon had been left behind in the panic because she was six months pregnant and walked more slowly: they were captured and brought to Dionysius. He prevailed upon them once again, offering them their lives with honour, if only they would agree to answer him, ‘Tell me what was the reason your companions chose to die rather than tread on beans?’ ‘Rather than tell you the reason, said Myllias, ‘I would submit to death.’ Myllias was taken away. Then Dionysius, believing that because Timycha was a woman and pregnant, and furthermore removed from her husband’s presence, she would be more pliable to his will, ordered that she be tortured to divulge the answer. But rather than answer him, Timycha bit off her own tongue, so seriously did she take her duty towards the implicit oath she had made to the mysteries of Pythagoras. (Iamb. VP 33, 189-193)

Do Not Eat Beans, by an Unknown French Artist, 1514.

We still to this day do not fully understand the Pythagorean abstention from eating or touching beans, although many have speculated that he saw in them the likeness of the human fetus within the developing bean of the bean-pod, and that the prohibition against beans was to prevent the ingestion of the reincarnated dead. Preventing transgression against ancestors or their transmigrated forms would certainly account for such a powerful avoidance. But Tymycha and her husband, and all their companions died for their keeping of their oath.

We are used to seeing the injunction of the Ten Commandants to ‘not take the Lord’s name in vain,’ but Pythagoras similarly ‘commands his followers never to swear an oath using the gods’ names’ out of respect for the gods. (VP 28, 150)  Solemn oath-taking was a big thing in the ancient world and was everywhere understood. Here is the goddess Hera herself swearing on what is most holy and inviolable, to her husband, Zeus:  ‘Now let Earth be my witness, and the broad Heaven above, and the down-flowing water of the river Styx, which is the greatest and most dreadful oath for the blessed gods, and by your own sacred head, and by the connubial couch of our wedded love, whereby I would never foreswear myself…’ says Hera, Queen of the Gods, to Zeus,  (Homer, Illiad XV, 34-5).  By swearing upon heaven, earth and the underworld, we understand how very seriously Hera means her words, but why exactly is an oath problematic for mortals?

KEEPING OUR WORD: BECOMING TRUSTWORTHY

The swearing of an oath, even from the highest intent, was something that Pythagoreans tried to avoid. One follower was said to have been prepared to pay 3 talents  - a talent being a considerable sum of money, worth 26 kilos or 57 pounds of pure silver -  rather than being made to swear an oath. Like Quakers today, who likewise perceive the double standard of giving their word and intending to stand by it, AND having to swear that they really intend it, as being one and the same thing. If a thing is true once, it is true twice, and there is no difference for an honest person whose word is already their bond.

Temple of Hera, Metapontum.

The seriousness with which the oath was held by the Pythagoreans is seen in this incident, which has a happier outcome: ‘They say that Lysis once worshipped in a temple of Hera and, on leaving, met Euryphamus the Syracusan and one of his fellow disciples entering the gateway of the goddess’s temple.  When Euryphamus asked Lysis to please wait until he himself came out after worshipping, Lysis sat down on a stone seat set up there near the temple to wait. But, as Euryphamus worshipped, he became absorbed in thought and deep reflection; having quite forgotten the arrangement, he left by another gate. But Lysis, without moving, stayed there for the rest of the day, the following night, and the greater part of the next day. And perhaps he would have been there longer if Euryphamus had not been at the Pythagorean school the next day and remembered Lysis.  Upon hearing that he was missed by his fellow disciples, he went back to the Temple of Hera and there found his friend still waiting, according to the agreement. He led Lysis away, stating the cause of his forgetfulness and adding that ‘one of the gods implanted this forgetfulness in me to be a means of testing your steadfastness about an agreement.’ (VP 30, 185.)

That last sentence may sound like an excuse to our ears: ‘the gods made me forget you’ but then, we are not Pythagoreans who were trained to scrupulously keep their word, and so we should really hear Euryphamus’ words as truly and sincerely meant, and not with the blade of irony that might leap to our own lips by way of excusing our embarrassing forgetfulness.

Now, Lysis took Euryphamus seriously when asked to wait for his friend, and though it seems such a small matter, we need to investigate what is the difference between keeping our word and being trustworthy, and the reverse of that.  How does not upholding the oath change things?  Surely a small deviation doesn’t matter, or does it?

THE SMALL PRINT ON OUR GIFTS

We each undertake to uphold our part of the Oath, according to how we live in our world. Here we see Epictetus making his own statement of commitment to the Oath and extending a like invitation to us:

‘And what else can I do, lame old man that I am, than sing the praise of the gods? If I were a nightingale, I would perform the work of a nightingale, and if I were a swan, that of a swan. But as it is, I am a rational being, and I must sing the praise of the gods. This is my work, and I accomplish it, and I will never abandon my post for as long as it is granted to me to remain in it; and I invite all of you to join me in this same song.’ (Epictetus: Discourses I.16.1-21)

Much about the oath is about the maintenance of the creative unfolding of life, and is responsible for its preservation: as Hierocles tells us: ‘The law is the creative intellect and the divine will that eternally brings forth all things and forever preserves them.’ (GV 1,10). The gift that is inside us is the blessing that we were born to share in our daily lives, and is as much a part of the Oath as that gift is the sparkle of our kindred star.  The respect for ourselves, as beings created with the array we have been given is also part of the Oath.

Each of our gifts – whether it comes out in baking, teaching, caring, painting, counselling, healing or sports – also comes with its own Oath.  The nature of the gift comes with its own parameters, rules, and safeguards which protect it: we have to be deeply observant of these, or we spend the gift unwisely, injure ourselves or others in its performance, or otherwise we dishonour the gift. The small print upon our own contract with our gifts needs to be carefully read. Let me give you a real example.

Some years ago, when one of our main publishers went finally under, still owing us a considerable sum of money, we were at our wits’ end: expected payments were not ever going to arrive, and we were already short of resources and funds.  I had proposed a new book to a publisher for whom I had not worked with before and had some hope in that prospect.  But in the same week that I was due to go up and see them about it, a second publisher also asked me to come in and talk about a project that they wanted me to work on, but failed to explain what it was about.  I was game to try.

Since I just had enough money to go up to London and back, if I took a sandwich and drink from home, I set off. First of all, I visited the publisher with the mysterious project. They showed me around their premises, inadvertently revealing as they did so what their work ethic was like: ‘when these gorgeous encyclopedias go out of print, we’ll cut them into smaller and smaller books and reprint them how we like.’  Then we went and sat down to speak about their project. The editor said, and I quote him exactly, ‘So we have these wonderful illustrations by this artist and we want to wrap a text around them. We thought you’d like to do that.’

My whole being was so shocked, that I got up, said no, and walked out, without any further ado. Now, I may be a writer, but I am not a writer for anyone’s hire, no matter what. The deep agreement I have with my gift is that I will only write those things that I am inspired to write, and nothing else.  If I had agreed to that proposal, I would have dishonoured my gift. Also, however good someone’s art was, it was not something that had been through my consciousness, nor had I been personally sought out by the artist so we could talk it over and find ways of working together to honour each other’s work. The disrespect to the artist, who was not even invited to be present to see if I was a good fit for them, struck me forcibly. I also guessed that our work would be very likely cut about in the same way as the gorgeous encyclopedias I’d been shown, without thought of their originators.  I could no more be persuaded to ‘wrap a text around someone’s pictures’ than I could be made to write the book of a pornographic film.

I then made my way to the next publlshing house where they had been reading my proposal for a new book. We had a good talk about it and at the end, the two female editors said they’d like to take it. I then remarked how very grateful I was to them for calling me in to talk it over, especially at a time when most work was beginning to be done distantly, over the phone or the internet. The two editors stopped, looked at me strangely, and said, with a kind of wondering pity, ‘But if we hadn’t got on well together then we couldn’t have taken your book!’  Oh my!  Here were women of my own kidney, ones with ethical standards! My book was subsequently published over 20 years ago and is still in print , at the time of writing.

This is a story that I tell often because, although it sounds like a fable, these two completely opposing experiences came together in one day: where I was tempted from poverty to do any old thing on the one hand, while on the other hand, where my proposal wouldn’t have flown if I had not been of one mind with the publisher! It still stands out as an amazing lesson to me.  I came home with a full heart and the prospect of an advance to tide us over.

I am also aware that many people might find this story ‘a bit precious.’ But I know several acquaintances and friends who have been in similar and much worse plights than myself: people who have fled their own country due to war or persecution to seek safety. Some have had amazing qualifications but, because they do not speak fluent English, or they do not have the right accreditations of this country, they are forced to take what is often called ‘menial work’ – stacking shelves, cleaning streets, helping the elderly. They have told me that any honourable work is not menial to them, because it enables them to hold up their heads and keep feeding their families, even if the pay is not much. The gift they have inside them works in all places still and they are not diminished by poverty. But they also realised in their exilic journey that where work is not honourable – when it is not under the protection of the Oath – when it is neither ethical nor true – that they cannot turn away from their own souls to do it.

The gifts which have been imbued in us are also our main service to the apparent world: when they are not given, our ungiven gifts take us out of harmony, but when they are given, we come back into harmony once again. Discerning our gifts and using them is a human being's main work, whatever our job may be.

The agreements we make within the Cosmos, including those within the scope of our personal lives, all help to maintain the Oath.

THE PLEDGE OF ETERNITY

We are told by Hierocles that the Oath has another name: it is also known as the’ Pledge or Guardian of Eternity.’

‘Pythagoras, on being asked for what purpose or end deity and nature created us, answers, “that we might contemplate the celestial sphere.” And he said that he himself was a contemplator of nature, and in order to exercise this function came into physical life.’’  (p 38. Thomas Moore Johnson, Collected Works.)

The watchful attention that Pythagoras gave to the cosmos was not merely that of an astronomer, as we might think. Rather, his view of the cosmos and the stars answered to living one whole harmonious life.  The Oath underlies not just a philosophical or Pythagorean view of the Cosmos, but of the whole of life – it applies equally to every spiritual pathway, to every human being, to every animal, mountain, river, rock or insect.  Unless the Oath is upheld, our world becomes polluted, the natural laws in its deeply-interwoven complexity cease to mesh properly, things begin to fail because our basic agreement in the Oath has been undercut or not maintained, as we see in every part of our environment now. The choices we have taken are altering our surroundings before our very eyes.

In short, the Oath is nothing less than that which holds the whole Cosmos together, HIerocles says, ‘The Oath is ‘innate and essential… keeping us united to God our father and creator, to never transgress the Laws that he has established.’ (GV 2,3) By ‘Father and Creator’ here, he is meaning the Demiurge who was the craftsman of the Cosmos – who appears in Plato’s Timaeus, which speaks about the creation of the Cosmos. The role of Demiurge is not the same as that of the One in Neo-Platonic thought, but it is usually seen as the divinity who is the leader of the gods. In Hierocles’s presentation of the Golden Verses, that is Zeus, who is the only god mentioned in the whole text. In our own work, we may find the concept of ‘Father and Creator’ too like the ‘authorized deity’ of other faiths in which we do not have ether liking or belonging: we have to remember that Hierocles purposely doesn’t specify divinity for us, but leaves us to find the right level of understanding from our own experience of the divine.

Why do we not uphold the Oath in every place? Hierocles tells us, ‘It is always upheld by those whose thoughts are continually turned to the divine, but it is often violated by those whose thoughts do not turn in that way, and who sometimes forget the divine. Their violation is directly proportionate as they withdraw and go astray from the divine path, and the they. They keep it when they return once more to that path.’ (GV 2,4)

How do we uphold the Oath in all places?  We are told that the oath that humans employ – our promises, agreements and observances – the things we know we need to keep, are ‘the virtue which associates and unites those that respect and keep their oaths freely and voluntarily with the firm stability and truth of the Divine Abiding.’  (GV 2. 6) By maintaining our agreements with the same respect that we give to the Pledge of Eternity, by seeing our own smaller oaths as images of the greater Oath, we have ‘the safest depository of certainty and of truth, which adorns and enriches us with the noblest marks of character.’ (GV 2,5)

How do we keep the Oath? What helps us recover it if it is broken? ‘The holy and ineffable sanctity of the first Oath may be recovered by a sincere turning to God, which can be healed by the purificatory virtues, while the sacred faithfulness of the human oath is maintained by the civic virtues. (GV 2,6) Here the ‘purificatory virtues’ are those that deal with our passions – we will look more closely at these in the introduction to Step 6.

But what if we are right up against it, or it comes to the temporal laws of everyday life - like giving a witness statement to the police, or appearing as a witness against someone who has been accused? Or, when the giving of our word has some uncertainty about it due to shifting circumstances beyond our control – as when a feckless person cannot be trusted to do their part?  Hierocles advises us: ‘reserve oaths for things necessary and honourable, and for those occasions only where there appears to be no other way of safety for you in your affairs… Therefore honour the Oath and the Law, following its arrangement of the cosmos, and respect the oath by not resorting to it rashly and abusing it.’  (GV 2,10). In most courts today, witnesses can affirm that their statement is true. But we live in a very shifting world when even our very word may not be believed – like a friend of mine who was renewing a licence document and the authority did not believe that she was who she said she was, despite her producing documents to prove this – she finally needed to swear that she was indeed herself and not an imposter before an official.

We should note that Hierocles also closely connects the law of the Oath to Nous in several places within the Golden Verses. We remember that Nous is that creative intelligence or ‘eye of the soul’ that enables each us to return to our original condition. Nous leads us back to a contemplation of the Cosmos and the divine power that keeps everything in order within it.  In every circumstance, we can begin to clearly see that where we keep faith, faith is likewise kept in us also.

§ Consider:

·      What is truth? How is it part of the Oath?

·      What are your own agreements, promises and contracts?

·      What is your responsibility within your agreements, promises and contracts? What is given, what is received?

·      How do you maintain your integrity? What is your own code or oath that you would not transgress if your life depended on it?

·      What are the means by which you uphold your own gifts and abilities?

·      Where do you see the Oath being upheld in the world today? What results when it is not upheld?

·      Spend a portion of the week meditating upon the Oath and any points that have arisen in this step for you. You might chose to take a particular item of news, or when at work observe how the truth is being served there or not, or to consider your own relationship to anything or anyone in your life. In each case, refer back your findings to the Pledge of Eternity. What do you discover?

PYTHAGORAS & WOMEN

Pythagoras was the first philosopher to regard women as equal with men, in a world that did not perceive this yet. 25 centuries have elapsed since then and we are still trying to bring that understanding to the world in many places. We keep getting reminders of how fragile that tenet is, even in countries which are supposed to be civilised, unfortunately. Pythagoras understood that great cities and civilisations needed to be run on the model of the domestic household. If there was not equality and consideration within the household then there could no more be peace in the city or country. He radically addressed that very root in his teachings knowing that Pythagorean women were the ones he had to co-opt from the outset if a temperate and well-balanced household was to be established, and that meant evening up the stark imbalances in society.

Pythagoras teaching women at the Temple of Hera.

In the following meditation, it is helpful to understand a couple of the points within it. Pythagoras was also the first philosopher to command his followers to treat their wives kindly and to cease from keeping a mistress, or visiting hetairas (high-status concubines) or sleeping with slaves (who had no say in how they were treated). He knew that it grieved women terribly to have to live in such a situation. In the Classical world, relationships were not on an equal footing at all: men were free to do what they needed or wanted to do. The role of women was seen as serving their husbands, bringing up the children and keeping the household: this was the double standard that was implicit in every place then. Women did not usually have the choice to leave a husband if they were mistreated, although miserable and overset wives often found alternative and much kinder lovers by way of compensation. Pythagoras knew all of this, and the tangled web that is woven by neglect, unkindness and assumptions of superiority.

The text below also speaks of the oath between husband and wife as something that is not written down, but which is invested in their children. This is one of the unspoken secrets of parenthood – that the experience and gift of parenthood is not complete within one generation, but it rather a gift that we receive from our parents, and which is passed on to our children in their turn.

Lastly, under Greek spiritual custom, a suppliant was regarded universally as one under the direct protection of the gods, one to be treated hospitably and without unkindness. (Comparable suppliants in our own time might include refugees from war-zones, people without means of support, or those who are unable to fully care for themselves.) Pythagoras is saying here that once a bride has left the parental home and gone with her husband to his own house, that she has the status of a suppliant: one who should be cherished, not only for a few years, but for her entire life.

By treating all women as equals, Pythagoras knew that he was challenging the universally-accepted custom of treating them as mere adjuncts to men, and that it might be uphill work to change that view, which is why he wisely commands this exceptional variation to the Oath. And if you still harbour a sense of outrage about the state of the world then, then I would direct you to the state of our world in this regard now, for the Oath has not ceased to operate in our own times. And while many generations of people have sought to improve and equalize our situation as human beings who share the earth together, there is still much room for improvement.

MEDITATION

Hercules and a woman from the Neo Pythagorean Basilica of Porta Maggiore, Rome

‘Those who sit in council should not misuse the names of the gods in an oath, but only make statements that would be regarded trustworthy without an oath. The management of a household should be regarded as the standard model for all cities and communities. By behaving in a well-behaved way to their own offspring is no more than how animals themselves live. They should ensure that their relationships with their wives who share their life should be guided by the thought that, while agreements and contracts with others are recorded on tablets and inscribed on wood or stone, the oath made with wives is invested in their (shared) children. They should try to be loved by their offspring, not because of their kinship – for which they are not responsible – but because of their character, for this kindness is voluntary.

They should pay serious attention to this: that they should sleep only with their wives, and that their wives should not produce bastard offspring because they have been neglected or ill-treated by their husbands. Especially, they should implicitly believe that they took their wives like suppliants from the (parental) hearth in the presence of the gods, and have led them to their (own) homes.  By their discipline and sound-mindedness, let them become examples to both their households where they live and to those in the whole community. ‘ 

- Iamblichus, The Pythagorean Life. 9,47-48.

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There is just one more Golden Verses post before the end of the year, so I hope that this gives you time to catch up with your reading at this very busy time. I shall be updating my website www.hallowquest.org.uk, over this time, as it badly needs attention. Several new courses are coming, and the in-person shamanic training programme continues at several levels. Until next time, many blessings. Caitlín