The Greeks

[Nicholas]

Hope is the one good God yet left among mankind; the rest have forsaken us and gone to Olympus. Gone ere this was the great Goddess Faith, gone from the world was Self-Control.

Theognis of Megara fl. 6th c. BC

[Nicholas]

Great Zeus and all other gods who roam this world, teach us to esteem wisdom, the only treasure. Inspire us with beauty in our inmost souls and may the outer and inner man be in harmony.

prayer of Socrates

[Nicholas]

Concerning Prayer

“All who in the least degree participate of temperance always invoke divinity in the impulse to every undertaking, whether it be small or great.”

I. All beings are the progeny of the Gods, by whom they are produced without a medium, and in whom they are firmly established. For the progression of things which perpetually subsist, and cohere from permanent causes, is not alone perfected by a certain continuation, but immediately subsists from the Gods, from whence all things are generated, however distant they may be from the divinities. And this is no less true, even though asserted of matter itself. For a divine nature is not absent from any thing, but is equally present to all things. Hence though you should assume the last of beings, in these also you will find divinity. For The One is every where; and in consequence of its absolute dominion, every thing receives its nature and coherence from the Gods.

Proclus, from his Commentary on The Timaeus of Plato

[Nicholas]

Prometheus Trust in England is producing wonderful translations and papers on the Platonic tradition. Here is a recent group of papers from their annual symposium:

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/html/i ... icles.html

[Nicholas]

Each thing is that which it is in itself; but it becomes desirable in consequence of being colored over by The Good, which imparts to it, as it were, an alluring gracefulness, and infuses love in the natures which aspire after good.

Plotinus, Ennead VI, vii, 22