"The Golden Verses order, that the immortal Gods be honoured first as they are disposed by law; afterwards the illustrious Heroes, under which appellation, the author of the verses comprehends also angels and daemons properly so called; and in the last place the terrestrial daemons, i.e. such good men as transcend in virtue the rest of mankind. But to honour the Gods as they are disposed by law, is, as Hierocles observes, to reverence them as they are arranged by their fabricator and father; and this is to honour them as beings superior to man."

And in a footnote:

"Diogenes Laertius says of Pythagoras, That he charged his disciples not to give equal degrees of honour to the Gods and Heroes. Herodotus (in Euterpe) says of the Greeks, That they worshipped Hercules two ways, one as an immortal deity, and so they sacrificed to him: and another as a Hero, and so they celebrated his memory. ... But the distinction is no where more fully expressed than in the Greek innoscription upon the statue of Regilla... It seems by the innoscription of Herodes, and by the testament of Epictete, extant in Greek in the Collection of Innoscriptions, that it was in the power of particular families to keep festival days in honour of some of their own family, and to give heroical honours to them. In that noble innoscription at Venice, we find three days appointed every year to be kept, and a confraternity established for that purpose with the laws of it. The first day to be observed in honour of the Muses, and sacrifices to be offered to them as deities. The second and third days in honour of the heroes of the family; between which honour and that of deities, they shewed the difference by the distance of time between them, and the preference given to the other."

Thomas Taylor, The Theology of the Greeks

"Having now performed for you the duty I owe to our family, I protest by the gods, whose temples and altars we who carry on the succession of the Appian family honour with common sacrifices, and by the genii of our ancestors, to whom after the gods we pay the next honours and gratitude in common, and, above all these, by the earth, which holds your father and my brother, that I have put at your disposal both my mind and my voice to give you the best advice."

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 11.14.3 [emphasis mine]

"Now, do such leisured circumstances leave them no pressing work to do, no genuinely appropriate occupation? Must each of them get plumper every day of his life, like a fatted beast? No: we maintain that's not the right and proper thing to do. A man who lives like that won't be able to escape the fate he deserves; and the fate of an idle fattened beast that takes life easy is usually to be torn to pieces by some other animal - one of the skinny kind, who've been emaciated by a life of daring and endurance."

Plato, Laws 807a

"The authors of the Orphic hymns supposed Zeus to be the mind of the world, and that he created all things therein, containing the world in himself. ... Zeus, therefore, is the whole world, animal of animals, and god of gods; but Zeus, that is, inasmuch as he is the mind from which he brings forth all things, and by his thoughts creates them."

Porphyry, On Cult Images fr. 3

"It was customary for the Pythagoreans to revere the maker and father of this universe by the name of Zeus. Since through him all things exist and live, it is right that he should be named after his activity."

Hierocles, Commentary on the Golden Verses 25.1

"So then, by engulfing Erikepaios the Firstborn [i.e., Phanes],
He had the body of all things in his belly,
And he mixed into his own limbs the god's power and strength.
Because of this, together with him, everything came to be again inside Zeus,
The broad air and the lofty splendor of heaven,
The undraining sea and earth's glorious seat,
Great Oceanus and the lowest Tartara of the earth,
Rivers and boundless sea and everything else,
And all the immortal blessed gods and goddesses,
All that had existed and all that was to exist afterwards
Became one and grew together in the belly of Zeus."

Orphic fragment 167

"Through the whole of [Homer's] poetry, likewise, he praises [Jupiter] as the supreme of rulers, and the father of men and Gods, and celebrates him with all demiurgic conceptions. As, therefore, we have shown that all the Grecian theology attributes the total fabrication of things to Jupiter …"

Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus 1.316

The Cardinal Virtues: Part One of a Multipart Series on Virtue

Virtue – or excellence – is the perfection of the nature of a thing: through virtue, every being arrives at its summit. The natural function of the virtues is to impose order onto chaos and to purify the superior of the inferior. Virtue herself is a Goddess – called Aretê in Greek and Virtus in Latin – and all of the virtues, in themselves, have their origins in the Gods.

The four cardinal virtues are Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice.

WISDOM is the perfection of the rational aspect of man. It is the power to discriminate accurately between the good and the bad. Wisdom is acquired when the soul acts alone, avoiding the confusions of embodiment.

COURAGE is the perfection of the willful aspect of man. It consists of an unwavering resistance to that which is inferior. It is the power to uphold the dictates of law and reason and to preserve through everything the correct belief about what is to be feared and what isn’t. The courageous person does not fear separation from the body.

TEMPERANCE is the perfection of the desiring aspect of man. It is the power to turn away from the inferior and to turn towards the better. The temperate person desires that which is good but does not desire that which is bad.

JUSTICE is the harmonization in man of his tripartite soul. It is in itself the activity which is proper to a being and truly belonging to it. The just person does precisely what he should do, only what he should do, only with what is his, and endeavors to maintain this proper apportionment in all his affairs and dealings.

"Virtue seems, then, to be a kind of health, fine condition, and well-being of the soul, while vice is disease, shameful condition, and weakness."

Plato, Republic 444e

"Then what is the nature of God? Flesh? In no way whatever. Land? In no way. Fame? In no way. He is intelligence, knowledge, right reason. So it is there alone that one should seek the true nature of the good. ... But you for your part are of primary value; you're a fragment of God. Why are you ignorant, then, of your high birth? ... You carry God around with you, poor wretch, and yet have no knowledge of it."

Epictetus, Discourses 2.8

"After all the souls had chosen their lives, they went forward to Lachesis in the same order in which they had made their choices, and she assigned to each the daemon it had chosen as guardian of its life and fulfiller of its choice."

Plato, Republic 620d

"Select verses also of Homer and Hesiod were used by [Pythagoras], for the purpose of correcting the soul."

"Pythagoras, however, thought that music greatly contributed to health, if it was used in a proper manner. The Pythagoreans likewise employed select sentences of Homer and Hesiod for the amendment of souls."

Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras 25 & 29

"[Pythagoras] himself held morning conferences at his residence, composing his soul with the music of the lyre, and singing certain ancient paeans of Thales. He also sang verses of Homer and Hesiod, which seemed to soothe the mind. He danced certain dances which he thought conferred on the body agility and health."

Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras 32

"At once, shaking off my sluggish repose, I jumped up happily and briskly, and eager to purify myself I plunged into the sea. Seven times I immersed my head, since that is the number which the godlike Pythagoras has told us is most appropriate in religious rituals, and then weeping I uttered my silent prayer to the all-powerful goddess."

Apuleius, The Golden Ass 11.1

"Specially, however, the most contemplative of the philosophers, who had arrived at the summit of philosophic attainments, were forbidden superfluous food such as wine, or unjustifiable food, such as was animated, and not to sacrifice animals to the gods, nor by any means to injure animals, but to observe most solicitous justice towards them. ... Eating of the flesh of certain animals was, however, permitted to those whose lives were not entirely purified, philosophic and sacred; but even for these was appointed a definite time of abstinence."

Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras 24

"A man given to contradiction, and very attentive to trifles, is naturally unadapted to learn what is proper."

The Golden Sentences of Democrates 51

If you want to live a life without stress, consider whatever is going to happen in the future as if it has already happened.

Epictetus

The Scale of Virtues: Part Two of a Multipart Series on Virtue

We can divide virtue into two basic types: the slavish and the noble. The slave’s "virtues" are worth little and are mixed with vice. They are the virtues of the person who is courageous only because he doesn't want others to think him cowardly, or temperate only because he fears the consequences of intemperance. In short, he is – absurdly – virtuous because of vice. In contrast, the noble virtues are virtues per se.

Of the noble virtues, we can divide them again into the practical and the divine. The practical virtues make a person good while the sciences of divine virtue make him Godlike. As the small precedes the large, so we must become human beings first, and then Gods.

Of the practical virtues, we can divide them into the natural; the ethical (or habitual); and the civic (or social).

We can divide divine virtue into the cathartic (or purifying); the contemplative (or theoretical); the paradigmatic (or archetypal); and the priestly (or inspired).

Each class of virtue – from the natural all the way up to the priestly – relates to its neighboring classes hierarchically, and they together form a ladder, or scale, of virtues. Each successive class of virtue presupposes the prior one, such that no one can ascend the scale of virtues without first acquiring the prerequisite virtues, and no one who possesses the higher virtues can possibly lack the lower classes of virtue. For example, no one can achieve the state of cathartic virtue without already possessing the natural, habitual, and civic levels of virtue; nor can anyone possess the cathartic virtues but lack the civic.

We will look at the seven classes of the noble scale of virtues in detail in the subsequent parts of this series.

The soul is bound to the body by a conversion to the corporeal passions; and again liberated by becoming impassive to the body.

Porphyry

Natural Virtue: Part Three of a Multipart Series on Virtue

The lowest level of virtue on the scale of virtues is Natural Virtue.

Each virtue is possessed in some sense naturally, since everyone has a measure of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance from birth. Individuals are more or less brave, more or less self-controlled, and so on, and it is clear that these dispositions are to some extent innate, whether they come to us by chance of birth or were acquired in a past life.

These natural virtues are the sort of virtues we share with animals. Just as it is plain to everyone that some animals have more excellent natures than other members of their species, so it is with human beings. And just as lions are courageous, cattle are temperate, and storks are just, humans are characterized by rationality, natural wisdom.

Along with disposition, natural virtue also encompasses such things as bodily vigor, natural intelligence, acute sense perception (such as good eyesight), and other things of that kind.

Therefore, we see that a naturally virtuous person is one who is by birth fair minded (just), gentle (wise), resistant to fear (courageous), not easily overwhelmed by impulse (temperate), with a sharp mind and a strong body.

But insofar as our endowments are natural, they are, for better or worse, difficult to change through training. As Aristotle wrote, a stone won’t learn to fly no matter how many times you throw it in the air. Some people are predisposed to a life of virtue, others less so. Virtue comes easier for some. That is the way of things.

But everyone, regardless of how naturally excellent they may be, is imperfect. Arrogance is not a virtue, and so we must be aware of our strengths and weaknesses. We must make the most out of what we were born with, erring neither in the direction of conceit nor bitterness.

Sovereign: Bacchus.

Other divinities of particular relevance: Vulcan.

Texts: Plato discusses them in The Laws and Statesman.

"Sin should be abstained from, not through fear, but for the sake of the becoming."

The Golden Sentences of Democrates 7