The Discovery of the School of Athens
Part 12 - Athens and Prometheus
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS
Part 12 - Athens and Prometheus
Earlier, in Part One of the Discovery of the School of Athens, we read that:
“Prometheus therefore, being at a loss to provide any means of salvation for man, stole from Hephaestus and Athena the gift of skill in the arts, together with fire, and bestowed it on man” [from Plato’s ‘Protagoras’ dialogue],
and it was then asked, ‘What was this gift to man from Prometheus?’ Perhaps, we should try to discover this gift.
In Raphael’s painting of ‘The School of Athens’ we saw how the whole upper half of the painting – of the columns and arches, and of the clouds – the realm of ideas, contained two persons – the statues of Hephaestus and Athena – the founders of the city of Athens.
In Plato’s ‘Timaeus’ dialogue, we can read of the story told to Solon of the founding of Athens 9,000 years ago and the founding of Sais, in Egypt, 8,000 years ago.
“I will be pleased to go over this, Solon, for your sake and your city’s, but especially for the sake of the goddess who chose and raised and instructed your country and ours, yours first a thousand years earlier, having received the seed from Gea and Hephaestus, and ours later. As for the establishment of the present civilized order in our part of the world, it is written in our sacred texts to have been 8,000 years ago …”
But where did this ‘civilized order’ come from? And who was it that raised and instructed these two cities? Plato gives us a clue, in his (unfinished) ‘Critias’ dialogue, where the story told to Solon is continued, that:
“… the gods, then, once were locally allotted the whole earth … Different gods, therefore, being allotted, adorned different places. But Vulcan [i.e. Hephaestus] and Minerva [i.e. Athena], who possess a common nature, both because they are the offspring of the same father, and because, through philosophy and the study of the arts, they tend to the same things; – these, I say, in consequence of this, received one allotment, viz. this region, as being naturally allied and adapted to virtue and prudence …”
“Neptune, indeed, being allotted the Atlantic island, settled his offspring by a mortal woman in a certain part of the island … he also begat and educated five male twins; and having distributed all the Atlantic island into ten parts, he bestowed upon his first-born son his maternal habitation and the surrounding land; this being the largest and the best division. He likewise established this son king of the whole island, and made the rest of his sons governors. But he gave to each of them dominion over many people, and an extended tract of land. Besides this, too, he gave all of them names. And his first-born son, indeed, who was the king of all the rest, he called Atlas, whence the whole island at that time denominated Atlantic … All these and their progeny dwelt in this place, for a prodigious number of generations, ruling over many islands, and extending their empire, as we have said before, as far as to Egypt and Tyrrhenia [i.e. western coast of Italy]. But the race of Atlas was by far the most honourable; and of these, the oldest king always left the kingdom, for many generations, to the eldest of his offspring …”
“For many generations, the Atlantics, as long as the nature of God was sufficient for them were obedient to the laws, and benignantly affected toward a divine nature, to which they were allied. For they possessed true, and in every respect magnificent conceptions; and employed mildness in conjunction with prudence, both in those casual circumstances which are always taking place, and towards each other. Hence, despising every thing except virtue, they considered the concerns of the present life as trifling, and therefore easily endured them; and were of opinion that abundance of riches and other possessions was nothing more than a burthen. Nor were they intoxicated by luxury, nor did they fall into error, in consequence of being blinded by incontinence; but, being sober and vigilant, they acutely perceived that all these things were increased through common friendship, in conjunction with virtue; but that, by eagerly pursuing and honouring them, these external goods themselves were corrupted, and, together with them, virtue and common friendship were destroyed. From reasoning of this kind, and from the continuance of a divine nature, all the particulars which we have previously discussed, were increased among them.”
And so, it seems that this ‘Atlantic’ culture spread throughout the peoples living around the Mediterranean sea - ‘obedient to the laws and benignantly affected toward a divine nature’ and they possessed ‘true and magnificent conceptions’.
But something happened that was to fill them with ‘an unjust desire of possessing, and transcending in power’.
“But when that portion of divinity, or divine destiny, which they enjoyed, vanished from among them, in consequence of being frequently with much of a mortal nature, and human manners prevailed, – then, being no longer able to bear the events of the present life, they acted in a disgraceful manner. Hence, to those who were capable of seeing, they appeared to be base characters, men who separated things most beautiful from such as are most honourable; but by those who are unable to perceive the true life, which conducts to felicity, they were considered as then in the highest degree worthy and blessed, in consequence of being filled with an unjust desire of possessing, and transcending in power.”
At this point, Zeus and the gods were prepared to intervene …
“But Jupiter [i.e. Zeus], the god of gods, who governs by law, and who is able to perceive every thing of this kind, when he saw that an equitable race was in a miserable condition, and was desirous of punishing them, in order that by acquiring temperance they might possess more elegant manners, excited all the Gods to assemble in their most honourable habitation, whence, being seated as in the middle of the universe, he beholds all such things as participate of generation: and having assembled the gods, he thus addressed them: …
But here, the dialogue ends unfinished or lost [or as a victim of the censors] and we’re left wondering about the fate of humankind.
But perhaps, we can assume that Plato had wished to show us what happens to a civilization when it allows its culture to decay, and what destruction awaits such a degeneration. And so, after all these assumptions, we may now, perhaps, adduce the idea that Prometheus’ gift had something to do with saving mankind from the collapse of the Atlantic culture; that somehow, the raising and instructing of civilization could no longer be entrusted to the decaying ruling elite, and that mankind itself must assume this work, this responsibility.
So, it has been said that Prometheus gave the gift of ‘skill in the arts’ and ‘fire’ to mankind. But, we shouldn’t look at this gift of ‘fire’ as if we were sitting around a campfire and gazing at the fire of burning logs. We should look at this ‘fire’ as something that leads to man’s ‘skill in the arts’.
In Plato’s ‘Statesman’ dialogue, we can read about the Elean stranger, and of the attempt to define the royal science of justly governing a city, and wherein is described a different type of ‘fire’ – ‘in a manner similar to those that purify gold’.
“Those workmen first of all separate earth, stones, and many other things; but after this, such things as are allied to gold remain, which are honourable, and alone to be separated by fire, – I mean brass and silver, and sometimes diamonds. These being with difficulty separated by fusion scarcely suffer us to see that which is called perfectly pure gold.”
“After the same manner, we also appear now to have separated from the politic science things different, and such as are foreign and not friendly, and to have left such as are honourable and allied to it. But among the number of these, the military and judicial arts, and that rhetoric which communicates with the royal science, persuading men to act justly, and which, together with that science, governs the affairs of cities, may be ranked. These if some one should after a certain manner separate with facility, he will show naked and alone by himself, the character which we were investigating …”
“If, therefore, one man governs, who truly possesses a scientific knowledge of government, he is entirely called by this name a king, and by no other ... but when one man governs neither according to the laws, nor according to the customs of the country, but at the same time pretends that he possesses a scientific knowledge, and that it is best to act in this manner, contrary to the written mandates, though a certain intemperate desire and ignorance are the leaders of this imitation, must not a man of this kind be called a tyrant?”
What is this ‘fire’ that can lead us to understand that ‘scientific knowledge of government’? to understand the difference between a true king and a tyrant?
What is that reason, that passion, that drive, that leads mankind to investigate new hypotheses and new ideas, using its ‘skill in the arts’ to discover how the universe was created? In Plato’s dialogue, the ‘Republic’ (book 6), Socrates was asked:
“if in the same way as you have spoken of justice and temperance, and those other virtues, you likewise discourse concerning the good …”
And Socrates responded, that:
“But as to the beautiful itself, and the good itself, and in like manner concerning all those things which we then considered as many, now again establishing them according to one idea of each particular, as being one, we assign to each that appellation which belongs to it; and these indeed we say are seen by the eye, but are not objects of intellectual perception; but that the ideas are perceived by the intellect, but are not seen by the eye …”
This idea should remind us of something that our friend, John Milton, once wrote about – in his ‘Paradise Lost’, his beautiful Ode to Light, at the beginning of book 3, where he praises light (‘Hail, holy Light’), but then when thinking of his lost sight, he does not despair, but instead, he sees that something good could come from it.
“… Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn.
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.’
And likewise, Plato continues that:
“Conceive then that this is what I call the offspring of The Good, which The Good generates, analogous to itself; and that what is in the intelligible place, with respect to intellect, and the objects of intellect, that the sun is in the visible place with respect to sight and visible things …”
“Understand then, in the same manner, with reference to the soul. When it firmly adheres to that which truth and real being enlighten, then it understands and knows it, and appears to possess intellect: but when it adheres to that which is blended with darkness, which is generated, and which perishes, it is then conversant with opinion, its vision becomes blunted, it wanders from one opinion to another, and resembles one without intellect …”
“That therefore which imparts truth to what is known, and dispenses the power to him who knows, you may call the idea of The Good, being the cause of science and truth, as being known through intellect …”
And now, we may finally see that the gift of ‘fire’ from Prometheus, has something to do with this ‘idea’ that Plato calls ‘The Good’ - the cause of truth!
For a look at this ‘Good’, we can read from our friend, Lyndon LaRouche, ‘The Classical Idea: Natural and Artistic Beauty’, (Fidelio, Spring 1992).
“In Plato, the first quality of higher emotional state is associated with the notion of the Good and the Beautiful – agathos, as in the woman’s name, Agatha. In the original Greek of the New Testament, a related notion is identified by the verb-related term agape, as directly opposite to the lower quality of emotional state, eros.”
“In Western European Christian culture, agape is rendered as caritas in the Latin, and the charity of the King James Authorized Version of the New Testament. It signifies, for Western European culture, the quality of love of God, love of mankind, love of truth, and love of beauty, and the controlling emotional state with which we approach life’s challenges.”
“We observe that this quality of agape occurs in a special way in connection with valid forms of creative mental activity. It occurs as the prize secured when we effect a valid discovery. Yet, without this same emotional quality as a driving force, we are unable to sustain the qualities of concentration needed to effect such discoveries.”
Similarly, in ‘Paradise Lost’, Milton imparts to us the idea, that man’s free will is not simply a matter of deciding right from wrong – that we are not like the artificial intelligence of computers, that decide between a ‘1’ or a ‘0’ to compute right from wrong; but, he says, that true free will is deciding whether or not to accept the grace of God – whether we make our decisions from the basis of a creative agape, or a sensual eros.
Note on the word ‘grace’: If the Greeks called man’s love of God, agape or charity, what did the Greeks call God’s love of man? St. Augustine calls this love, grace.
I think that that is saying, that our free will is more than our ability to determine right from wrong, but is also our ability to find the beautiful, and the good, and the truth.
As graduates of the school of Athens, in order to generate new hypotheses and new ideas, this ‘gift’ of Prometheus requires our ability to base our decisions on agape. And this ‘gift’ is present in all of us, as we are all made from that same ‘exemplar’, in the agapic image of the Creator, and so from that, we can adduce a new idea that:
‘each one of us is a Promethean – but some of us, just don’t know it yet!’