Gods and the Divine in Neoplatonism

This paper examines the nature and stratigraphy of Proclus’ Paeonian chain which brings together the Body of the universe and the body of the individual in one and the same cascade of healing power and ontological proliferation. It unfolds from the Demiurge, through Apollo, Athena, Asclepius, Heracles, angels, daemons, heroes, individual healing souls, animals and plants.

“We prefer to appear before the gods in holy places, even though they are everywhere.” In his commentary on Plato’s Phaedo (I§499), the 5^th century CE Neoplatonist Damascius makes this curious, even paradoxical statement when explaining a detail in the myth Socrates tells of the judgement of souls. The souls gather in a particular place to be judged, but, as Damascius notes, they could be judged anywhere. The gods are everywhere, and yet certain places are somehow holy, sacred, superior for contact with the gods.

Plotinus’ seemingly hubristic insistence that “our endeavor is not to be out of sin, but to be a god” (I.2.6, 2-3) goes further than the Platonic and Aristotelian commonplace that the goal of human life is to become as godlike as possible for a human being. In V.1., he includes “we ourselves” along with the cosmos, the sun, and the other stars, as things that are gods in virtue of soul, which is therefore a superior god (V.1.2, 40-45).