Episode 029 - The Earth As Allegorical Mother of All
Date: 08/02/20
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1634-episode-twenty-nine-the-earth-as-allegorical-mother-of-all/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Episode 029 covers Book Two’s extended passage on the Earth as the Great Mother of the Gods — the Magna Mater cult — and Lucretius’s philosophical commentary on it. Charles reads Daniel Brown’s translation, which describes the earth as the repository of all first seeds (for water, fire, soil, vegetation), gives a detailed account of the Cybele procession (lions drawing her chariot, mural crown, Phrygian attendants, drums and cymbals and pipes, the Curetes dancing with arms), and explains the allegory connecting these rituals to moral teaching. The passage ends with Lucretius’s declaration that, beautiful as these allegories are, they are far removed from truth and right reason — the nature of the gods must be immortal, at perfect peace, separated from our affairs by infinite distance, needing nothing of ours, neither pleased with our good nor vexed with our ill. Lucretius closes by saying that if someone calls the sea Neptune, grain Ceres, or wine Bacchus, that is permitted — as long as he forbears to stain his mind with shameful religious awe.
The discussion focuses on this Epicurean position of permissive tolerance toward mythological language without supernatural belief. Cassius argues that the Epicureans were not “Taliban-like” in demanding that all religious language be abolished; rather, they were redefining what it meant to speak of gods and were willing to allow allegorical use of religious imagery as long as the line into literal supernaturalism was not crossed. The Epicurean position contrasts with the modern “professional atheist” approach, which the panel finds insufferable precisely because it is purely oppositional and offers nothing in place of religion. Martin reflects on German attitudes toward religion and the church, noting that most German disaffiliation in recent decades has had less to do with metaphysical conviction than with resentment of church taxes and clerical abuse scandals.
The episode also addresses the Epicurean “cult of Epicurus” question (on occasion of recent 20th-of-the-month discussion), with Cassius citing Philodemus’s On Piety (translated by Dirk Obbink) and the “Covenant of the Sacred Festival Table,” and arguing that what looks like hero worship was never intended literally — just as the earth is not a literal goddess, Epicurus was not a literal god. The Epicurean Criticism of Socrates is also mentioned: Epicureans preferred giving clear answers over Socratic questioning, partly because some people need to be led to the right conclusion rather than left to flounder. Elaine is absent this week.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 29 of Lucretius Today. I’m your host, Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we’ll walk you through the six books of Lucretius’ poem and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. Be aware that none of us are professional philosophers and everyone here is a self-taught Epicurean. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book Epicurus and His Philosophy by Norman DeWitt. Now let’s join the discussion with Charles reading today’s text.
Charles: It is proper likewise that in this place you fix it as an established truth and impress it deeply upon your mind that there is no being to be found in nature that consists altogether of principles of one kind. Nor is there anything that is not made up of mingled seeds; and the more powers and faculties any being is endued with, the more it appears to be formed of various sorts of seeds that differ in figure among themselves. And first, the earth contains within herself first principles from whence the fountains, flowing with their streams, do constantly supply the mighty sea. She holds likewise within her womb the seeds of fire: we see in many places how she burns, how Etna rages with distinguished flames. She likewise has the seeds from whence she forms sweet fruits and pleasant trees, from whence she does afford the tender shrubs and verdant grass to savage beasts that wander on the hills.
Therefore this earth alone is called Great Mother of the Gods, parent of beasts, and of the human race. Of her, the learned Grecian bards of old have feigned that in her chariot she rides aloft. She drives a pair of lions harnessed, to teach that in the spacious air hangs the vast mass of earth without a lower earth to prop it up. These beasts they yoked to show that youth, although by nature wild, yet softened by the parents’ tender care, grows tame. Her head they compass with a mural crown, because in places strongly fortified she bears up cities. And in this pomp adored, the image of the sacred mother is borne with dread solemnity throughout the world.
Her, after the ancient use of holy rites, the different nations call Mother of Mount Ida, and give her for attendance a train of Phrygian dames, because in Phrygia corn was first raised and thence was scattered over all the earth. They serve her by eunuch priests, to show that those who violate the sacred character of their mother, or are found undutiful to their parents from whence they sprung, should be thought unworthy to raise a living offspring to succeed them.
With their hands they beat loudly upon the drums while braced, the hollow cymbals clang all about, and horns with their hoarse noise threaten dreadfully around her. The pipes with Phrygian airs madden their very souls, and they carry arms — the signs of their distracted rage — to terrify the stubborn minds and impious hearts of the vulgar with fear and reverence of this great deity. When therefore she is carried in procession through the great towns, and, as mute as she is, silently bestows health upon her votaries, they scatter brass and silver all the way she passes, enriching her with profuse oblations. They shower down the flowers of roses, and so cover the great mother, and the whole train of her attendants. Her guard and armed troop — the Greeks call them the Phrygian Curetes — leap about with arms clashing in their hands and wanton in the blood they have drawn, dance to exact time, and, full of the goddess, shake their dreadful crests upon their heads.
They represent the Dictaean Curetes, who are said of old to have drowned the infant cries of Jupiter in Crete, when the young priests, all armed, struck their brazen bucklers together as they danced nimbly round the boy, lest Saturn should seize upon him and devour him, and by that means wound his mother to the heart with a grief never to be forgotten. For this reason an armed train accompany the great mother; or else the goddess signifies that they should preserve their native country by their arms and valor, and be a protection and honor to their parents.
Such fancies, though wittily contrived, yet are far removed from truth and right reason. For the whole nature of the gods must spend an immortality in softest peace, removed from our affairs, and separated by distance infinite, from sorrow free, secure from danger, and its own happiness sufficient, and nothing of ours can it want; is neither pleased with good nor vexed with ill.
The earth is indeed at all times void of real sense, but it contains within itself the first seeds of many things; it produces them into being after various manners. So if anyone here resolves to call the sea by the name of Neptune, and corn by the title of Ceres, and chooses rather to abuse the name of Bacchus than to speak the proper appellation of wine — such a one we allow may style this globe of earth the mother of the gods, when she really is no such thing.
Cassius: Okay, thanks for reading that, Charles.
Charles: That was a weird section.
Cassius: Yes. Let me read what Munro says for his summary of these sections. He basically summarizes it by saying: “This you must carefully bear in mind: the more powers and properties that anything possesses, the greater variety of elements it contains. Thus the earth has elements out of which the seas and fountains and fires, out of which crops and trees, rivers and pastures are supplied. It is therefore called mother of gods, men, and beasts alike.” And then he gives more description of the Curetes. He says: “Her — meaning the earth — the old Greeks have personified as the great mother. She rides in a chariot drawn by lions, wears a mural crown, has Phrygian attendants, is accompanied with noisy music, receives on all hands alms. Her followers represent the Curetes who saved the young Jupiter from his father — all of which things are an allegory with some moral significance. But beautiful as they are, they are mere fancies. The blessed and immortal gods trouble themselves not about men. As you call the sea Neptune and the like, call the earth mother of the gods if you please. But remember at the same time that it is senseless matter only, containing the elements of many things.”
Cassius: That’s the way Munro summarizes that section. I don’t know that any of that is particularly controversial from an Epicurean point of view. I guess there’s sort of a physics assertion here that the more complicated a thing is, the more different elements it is probably made from. That seems to be an assertion there. Martin, you ever thought about that?
Martin: Yes. I think I agree with this one. It’s rather simplistic that something which is rather complex then needs to be made up of many more elements. So this is something what we do not really find needs to be like that. But like you say, it’s simplistic, and probably on its face makes sense to a lot of people.
Cassius: I would think most of what he’s stressing here is this much longer discussion of the earth as the mother of everything — as being figurative rather than literally true. I suppose to the extent that it contains the elements out of which everything that we deal with comes, but it’s obviously not literally true in the sense of being a supernatural mother. Maybe one thing that is worth talking about — that I don’t think I picked up until Charles was reading it today — is this: where they’re talking about the analogy between the earth bringing up its children and softening them by tender care over time, so they grow tame. And Martin was raising before we started the discussion today the issue of being worthy or unworthy of having children. So they’re apparently using the analogy that the earth is an example of a good mother who raises her children tenderly and sort of civilizes them, and that was something that at least to the Greeks was an analogy that humans were supposed to follow. Charles, am I reading that right?
Charles: Yeah, I can see part of that. I was looking more into the comparison between the care and how immediately after that the text says that she bears up cities.
Cassius: Yeah, bears up cities as well. So that’s kind of the same analogy. And you know, throughout some of the Epicurean texts it seems like there are references to children and raising children and being proud of your children. I remember specifically the beginning of Lucretius Book Six — he talks about how parents were proud of their children. And I think there’s a text or so in the Vatican Sayings about dealing with unruly children. It seems to have been more of an issue for them to think about than I would have expected. And maybe that’s what’s being referenced here as well.
Charles: Yeah, it’s not the first time it’s shown up either. And I can’t remember the exact section, or if even we’ve gotten there yet — it seems to recall a part about the sea itself sort of sprouting out. So it’s definitely a very common theme. But I think we should also remember that after this whole paragraph — and actually the next one too — Lucretius is quick to denounce mythology like this.
Cassius: Yeah, you know, that reminds me — we’ve had some discussions within the last couple of days about how much we should or should not view Epicurean philosophy as a cult, and whether the Epicureans were overboard in referencing Epicurus’s personal role in the philosophy. And I see this as just one of many, many examples that the Epicureans were very clear that you don’t cross the line into supernatural. It’s okay — and I don’t know whether they would have considered it fun or amusing; in some ways it probably is something that they found emotionally satisfying. When they say Epicurus was a god, that’s clearly not intended to be taken literally.
Charles: Yeah, like all of the cults of worship surrounding people that existed around that time. Like Bacchus, for example, was turned into a cult figure. And Lucretius mentions that in the last paragraph — Bacchus went from the patron of Alexander to a part of the Roman pantheon.
Cassius: Right. It would be really just ridiculous to take the position that the Epicureans — who were so very clear that the earth itself was not a god — would turn around and take the position that Epicurus was a god. It’s obviously a tongue-in-cheek, or a useful analogy, just like they’re saying here. It can be a useful analogy to consider the earth to be the mother of everything, as long as you don’t cross the line. I’m going to look at the Munro and Bailey versions for just a second. Munro finishes by saying: “Let us allow him to declare that the earth is mother of the gods if he only forbear in earnest to stain his mind with foul religion.” And Bailey says: “Let us grant that he may proclaim that the world is the mother of the gods — if only in truth he forbear to stain his mind with shameful religious awe.” It’s a pretty strongly worded warning not to cross the line.
Charles: A few days ago — actually about a week ago — that very same issue about Epicurus and cult-like reverence was brought up. I’m assuming this is because of the twentieth, and it was just very briefly talked about on the Epicurean Discord. I don’t think anyone can really deny that there was a ton of hero worship surrounding Epicurus, but like you said, it’s very important that none of it ever become supernatural.
Cassius: Right. Charles, I think I know what you’re talking about. I remember commenting myself on an article that came out on the 20th, talking about a passage from Philodemus — I think — which talked about a phrase in at least one of the translations called the “Covenant of the Sacred Festival Table.” Maybe that was not the source of the comment that you saw. But in Philodemus’s On Piety, as translated by I think a scholar named Dirk Obbink, there’s a lot of very fragmentary material in there. I’m very cautious about trying to read an awful lot into it, because I think it would be wrong to say that the 20th celebration was any kind of pseudo-religious ceremony, or that Epicurus was held in any kind of religious esteem. But I don’t even know whether “hero worship” is exactly the right term. What is clear is that Epicurus said that referencing the wise man is good for the one who does the referencing and so forth. So there’s always a strain in Epicurean philosophy where it’s not the Socratic method, where we expect everybody to reason through every question on their own. The Epicurean method is to set the conclusions out there, explain them in detail, and explain why they’re accurate. You don’t hide the ball. There’s an article out there, “The Epicurean Criticism of Socrates,” which is on the JSTOR system — I believe that material comes from Plutarch. But the Epicureans criticized Socrates because he was renowned for asking questions instead of giving answers. The point that is constantly a theme is that they valued a wise man’s leadership and pointing them in the right direction — and presumably saving them the time and wasted effort that they would otherwise encounter. There’s clearly a tension: you want people to understand it for themselves, and one way to do that is to lead them through the reasoning process. But there are clearly different variations in people’s abilities to reason through things, whether it’s age or any other factor. And I think the Epicureans decided they’d rather err on the side of getting the person to the right conclusion sooner rather than let them flounder and potentially drown if they don’t have the ability to reason their way through it on their own.
Cassius: And so I guess here is an example — in this passage — of the Epicureans taking the position that the earth itself as the mother of everything actually performs sort of the same function: taming and softening by the kind offices of parents. And I guess if you dug deep into the analogy of what’s going on between Jupiter and Saturn — there’s this child of the gods who was exposed and protected from harm — that’s why the ceremony includes armed men around the figure of the Earth Mother. I think I’ve seen commentators make the point — and I think DeWitt makes it — that there’s a Vatican Saying about love going dancing around the earth, calling everyone to the recognition of happiness or something like that.
Charles: Yeah, I think that’s Vatican Saying 52 or 51.
Cassius: And that would potentially be something that might have been in Epicurus’s mind when writing that — the story here of the soldiers dancing around. I’ve never heard that particular story before, but granted, there’s so much of mythology that’s just never been recorded and of course it’s not a special subject of interest to me.
Charles: I think everyone’s heard of Kronos eating his kids, though.
Cassius: Well, maybe we should spend most of the rest of the time discussing what’s in the last paragraph — which is sort of a summary of some important parts of the Epicurean theology — where it says the nature of the gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme repose. And Daniel Brown says: “For the whole nature of the gods must spend an immortality in softest peace, removed from our affairs, and separated by distance infinite, from sorrow free, secure from danger, and its own happiness sufficient, and nothing of ours can it want; is neither pleased with good nor vexed with ill.” That’s pretty close to the material contained in the Letter to Menoeceus and also Principal Doctrine 1. And he, I guess, considers that to be truth and right reason, at least according to the Daniel Brown translation. I wonder what Lucretius — or I should say Daniel Brown — means by “pleased with good.” It says “moved by favors.” Well, now — isn’t that exactly what’s in Principal Doctrine 1? And Bailey’s version says it is “swayed by virtuous service, nor touched by wrath.” Okay, well, that’s Principal Doctrine 1. It says exactly that, pretty much: “The blessed and immortal nature knows no trouble itself nor causes trouble to any other, so that it is never constrained by anger or favor — for all such things exist only in the weak.” I would think that’s the point they’re raising here.
Charles: Right. But those points that he’s raising there seem to be so similar to what’s in Principal Doctrine 1 that they must have considered these particular points to be head and shoulders above the rest of the detail.
Cassius: Yeah, that’s mentioned time and time again throughout every limited source we can comb across. Because Cicero’s — that’s On the Nature of the Gods, right?
Charles: Yeah, On the Nature of the Gods. Yes. The Velleius section — that’s pretty much what all those paragraphs just boil down to: that one single point.
Cassius: Right. What do we think, if anything, about the position that he’s apparently taking here — that it’s basically okay to speak in religious terms or use religious analogies, so long as you don’t let your mind be polluted with real religion?
Charles: It’s useful if you’re teaching others, because these myths — they’re all stories. It’s a good way to sort of illustrate things. But it’s when —
Cassius: I guess the point I’m thinking about — that would be interesting to consider at least briefly — is the issue: it sounds like the Epicureans were not radical purists. Or this plays into the question also of the way they considered Epicurus — I mean, they weren’t so literal, what’s the good way to say it, Charles? They weren’t so rigorous that they told you: “Do not ever refer to someone as a god.” I mean, they were willing obviously to play with the words and use them and deal with people who had a different context.
Charles: There are so many quotations and points about how following these principles you’ll rival the gods in their happiness — and it’s clearly intentional. I was going to say earlier that so much of mythology and just religious stories rely on a ton of exposition that seems very arbitrary or fanciful, and that kind of goes against a lot of the philosophy.
Cassius: Well, since the philosophy is based on pleasure and pleasure involves having fun, there’s also the element of being amused by things — and being not so rigorously harsh and controlling in the use of words that you just ban all allusions that might be considered to be fun. I don’t know whether “fun” is exactly the right word, but it appears that they would joke with each other back and forth. And just like we today — probably even those who are the most militant atheists out there — they understand that there’s a frame of reference that people talk within. What do you think, Martin? That was going to be my question — Martin, sometimes people in the United States will say that Germans are very serious people, they have a different sense of humor, and so forth. From your perspective, being European — is there a different attitude you think towards when it’s okay to talk about religious analogies and when it’s not? Is it something that ought to just be eliminated from philosophical discussion?
Martin: No, no — it should not be, because at least in the past there are a whole line of German philosophers who are not atheists and who rather try to justify the ethics of Christianity independently as a form of humanism. So that’s why I don’t see that there’s that much aversion towards relating to religion. Also, it’s only rather recently that I would say the majority of Germans have turned away from religion. And most of this has nothing to do with belief or not — it was that people are upset about paying taxes to the church and the repeated things about church abuse by priests. That made it take a different direction depending on what happened. And then the previous pope was elected, so that really drove out another large percentage of Christians from the church.
Cassius: I think the analogy I’m looking for — or the direction I’m going in — is: I’m not sure if any example comes to your mind, but I guess what we’ve really got going on here is that the Epicureans were leading a movement to disabuse people of these supernatural religious ideas. They were trying to educate — if you want to use that word — or change the minds of people and tell them that these ideas they had in the past about the role of the gods were wrong. And where I’m going with that is that from that reformist perspective, they did not take a Taliban-like, super-serious attitude. It appears they didn’t tell everybody: “Don’t even talk about these gods, tear down your idols.” They didn’t get super-biblical and say: “These are evil for you to talk about — Bacchus and Ceres.” They actually considered it to be irreligious, from their point of view, when they talk about staining their minds with foul religion. But still they were willing to say: it’s okay if you want to use that analogy, just as long as you understand what’s really going on. Which seems to me to be a more permissive or genial approach in discussing these things. And now when I take that back to the question I asked you, Martin, about how the Germans do it — I’m not sure I know of any examples, really. It seems like a lot of times people go straight from disagreeing about religion to having a war about it. But it doesn’t sound like the Epicureans were taking that approach.
Martin: Yeah, I mean it looks like that. So for this — there are too many references to the traditional gods to see that differently.
Charles: Yeah. I can’t imagine that, like, if we think about militant atheism today — I don’t think something like that ever could truly have existed as a credible or even uncommon belief back then, because really religious tradition was so ingrained within Greek culture.
Cassius: Charles, let me follow up with what you said there — that’s kind of where I’m going. The way modern strong atheists are — do they say it’s okay to talk about Bacchus and Ceres and use religious analogies as long as you don’t stain your mind with supernatural religion? Or do they say it’s better for you just to forget all of that stuff — don’t even talk about it?
Charles: Well, I’ve been an atheist for a very long time, but I never joined any communities because of the reputation they had of being — not just really, like, annoying —
Cassius: And that’s kind of where I’m going. That’s exactly where I’m going, Charles. People who are militant atheists have a very insufferable, overbearing, obnoxious quality to them.
Charles: Yeah. Trying to make peace — not sure whether this point is even worth pursuing further — but they have a habit of, like, destroying statues and being very over-the-top.
Cassius: Yes. Not sure whether this point is even worth pursuing any further. But that’s what I kind of sense here in this passage — that this is another example that the Epicureans weren’t just taking a militant atheist position that the gods don’t exist. They were redefining what it meant to be a god. And then at the same time they were also taking the position that it’s okay to talk in these terms as long as you understand what you’re saying.
Martin: We should bear in mind that blasphemy was punished by death, so there were laws against extreme atheism.
Charles: I had to bring this back to a contemporary source. It was said that one of the later Cyrenaics — one of the different factions, the Theodoreans, named after Theodorus the Atheist — he was such an atheist in, I guess, a traditional sense. Because everything I’ve read so far suggests that his title given to him was more about somebody “without gods,” so he could have been “impious” rather than “atheist” as we typically refer to it today. And it’s also said that his book On Gods was of huge inspiration to Epicurus. I think somewhere too — in a section within On Piety by Philodemus — about how Epicureans can pray, but it mentioned something about people in power and obeying social customs and norms.
Cassius: Well, maybe that’s what this whole section we’ve been discussing today comes down to. Because he spent a lot of detail going into how this cult of the Earth as mother of the gods, as Munro says, may have some moral benefit to it if you look for an analogy as to how to raise your children from what the earth does. So maybe there is some moral benefit in certain aspects of the analogies that religious people use. And so basically in the end he’s saying: it’s okay to use that type of analogy, just as long as you keep to your limits — as long as you realize that the analogy only goes so far and they’re not in fact supernatural.
Cassius: I think this is also where the question of Epicurus as a “closet atheist” comes from.
Martin: Yep. It’s certainly true that people back then could be persecuted for being an atheist, just like it’s not all that far from being the case today — depending on the context you live in, you can still certainly suffer a lot, or even be killed, for being an atheist in certain societies.
Cassius: But for me I think that we would see more of a hint of that here in this discussion if it were a primary motivating factor. I think he’s presenting that he sees some beneficial analogies to be drawn from certain stories, and it’s okay to use those stories as long as you keep them limited to their natural context. Because he certainly, in the end, uses very strong wording against shameful religious awe and staining your mind with it. And of course in any other references throughout Lucretius and Epicurus it’s clear that they are against standard religion. So it’s really interesting how that all plays together.
Cassius: All right — we’ll probably edit this down into something shorter than normal. Any related topics anybody wants to bring up today?
Martin: No.
Charles: No, I can’t think of any.
Cassius: Maybe I should say: any closing thoughts? We didn’t have Elaine with us today, so we’re a little shorter than normal, but hopefully Elaine will be back next week. Any closing thoughts?
Martin: No, not on this one.
Cassius: Charles, any closing thoughts?
Charles: I guess if you’re an atheist, I don’t think you should be very pompous and loud about it to the point of annoying others. Personally — I don’t want to get into a huge tangent here, but like, maybe four or five years ago I got into this argument with this one atheist. Keep in mind we both are atheists. I’ve never spoken to that guy since. But he was talking about how if you did away with religion, then naturally everybody would follow through with following what he called reason and logic. And I said that was a completely unrealistic claim — it’s not that fanciful. You get rid of something like that, it creates a void. You have to fill that vacuum with something. And naturally people aren’t going to arrive at that conclusion on their own. So my position was just sort of critiquing the very militant approach — a much more tame version of destroying statues and books.
Cassius: Yeah. Personally, I agree with you very much, Charles. I think that’s a very off-putting approach and it’s just not very successful. Charles, what I hear you saying is something that I have always thought about the atheist movement, or what I would consider people who are like professional atheists. I mean, that’s an assertion that something is not true, but that doesn’t get you anywhere. You’re certainly not going to have reason flood in after that — you might just as well have unreason flood in. It’s just totally unsatisfying to me, over my whole life, to read most of the texts of people who were simply attempting to attack religion without suggesting what needs to be there in its place. And that’s one of the major attractions I find in Epicurus — it is a complete philosophy of which he shows the positive, proper side of things. And as part of that it shows you the reasons to dismiss the religious viewpoint. But the focus of Epicurus is not simply to oppose religion for the sake of opposing religion. His focus is that he’s reached a conclusion about what the nature of life is really all about, and he explains that. And so in the process he talks about things that it’s not about, but he focuses on what life really is about.
Charles: It’s a very good point. Sort of that whole idea that very militant or professional atheism is just in opposition to another thing — it doesn’t offer anything in itself; it doesn’t propose anything.
Cassius: Okay. Well, with that thought, we probably are ready to close. Anything else?
Charles: No, I think that little tangent was my closing thought.
Cassius: Okay, very good. Well, then, we’ll talk again next week. Thanks everybody.
All: Thanks. Okay, thanks. Bye.