Podcast episode
August 30, 2018
Episode 44: Esoteric Hermeneutics in Stoicism
The Stoics that we introduced in the previous episode had more going on esoterically than you might think. In particular, they developed a theory of esoteric perennial wisdom which was to be found in the texts of ancient sages, as well as read by the Stoic sage in the universal correspondences within nature which allow the sciences of divination to function. While it is the Platonist movement which contributes most to the western esoteric outlook on esoteric reading, perennial wisdom, and universal correspondence, Platonism owed a huge, and often-overlooked, debt to Stoicism with regard to all of these ideas.
In this episode we look at the evidence across the history of Stoicism and draw some general conclusions. One is that the Stoics had a belief in cosmic correspondences which marks them out as important precursors to western esotericism in a fundamental way. Another is that they held (or at least some of them held) an idea of a tradition of ancient wisdom passed down by primordial sages in the form of philosophic messages hidden within myths, poems, mysteries, and other religious institutions. In other words, the Stoics invented the philosophia perennis.
Works Discussed in this Episode:
Primary:
- Chrysippus of Soli: uses the efficacy of divination as a proof of fate: Eusebius Præp. ev. 4.3.1-2 preserves part of the argument; cf. Cic. De div. 11. Uses Homer and esoteric etymology to prove universal fate: Diogenianus cited in Eusebius Præp. ev. 6.8.8-10; philosophic discourses about the gods are τελεταί: SVF 11.1008.
- Chæremon: testimony to his esoteric interpretations of the mysteries Chæremon test. 9 = Porph. Contra Christ. fr. 39 Harnack = Eusebius Hist. Eccl. VI 19, 8.
- Cicero on Stoic divination-theory: De div. I 118, trans. Long/Sedley.
- Cornutus: Compendium Cap. 17.
- Derveni Papyrus: we paraphrase 7.4-11.
- Dio Chrysostom: Oration 12, 39-43. A Stoicising take on the philosophical excellence of the ancients, as contrasted with the men of his day.
- Heraclitus Stoicus: Quæst. Homer. cap. 3, 6, 79.
- Plutarch: De Pyth. orac. 407e. On the gods’ motives for their esoteric expression in oracles, which is aimed at concealing the truth from ‘despots’ but allowing those who need to know the truth to access it.
- Seneca: Ep. ad Lucil. 90, 98: Hæc euis initiamenta sunt.
Sixth-century authors reading Homer esoterically: Metrodorus of Lampsacus: DL 2 11; Theagenes of Rhegium: Schol. Hom. B ad Il. XX.67 (That is, a marginal note to a manuscript of Homer’s Iliad reporting Theagenes’ esoteric interpretation of line 67 of Book Twenty of the Iliad).
Secondary:
- Boys-Stones, G. R., 2001. Post-Hellenistic Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Pp. 56-59 on the importance of Cornutus as founder of the ‘eclectic comparative’ method of what we call esoteric exegesis.
- Faivre, A. (1992). ‘Introduction’. In: Faivre, A. & Jacob Needleman, e. (Ed.), Modern Esoteric Spirituality, SCM Press, citing p. xv.
- Lamberton, R., 1989. Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. P. 21, with n. 54.
Recommended Reading:
- Algra, K. (2009). ‘Stoic Philosophical Theology and Graeco-Roman Religion’. In: Salles, R. (Ed.), God and Cosmos in Stoicism, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Gives a good summary of Stoic ideas about the wise ancients pp. 238-47.
- Beardsley, M. C. and Winsatt Jr., W. K. (1946). ‘The Intentional Fallacy’, Sewanee Review : 468-488.
- Casel, O., 1919. De philosophorum graecorum silentio mystico. A. Toepelmann, Giessen. The original and still the best: Casel gathers the main primary sources for Stoic allegorical reading.
- Heath, M., 2013. Ancient Philosophical Poetics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Long, A. and Sedley, D., 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vol.1, Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Pépin, J., 1976. Mythe et allégorie: les origines grecques et les contestations Judéo-Chrétiennes. Études Augustiniennes, Paris.
- Sedley, D. and Brunschwig, J. (2003). ‘Hellenistic Philosophy’. In: Sedley, D. (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy, Cambridge University Press.
- Struck, P. T., 2004. Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of their Texts. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Good discussion of Stoic literary theories relevant to esoteric interpretation pp. 111-141.
- van den Horst, P. Chæremon: Egyptian Priest and Stoic Philosopher. Brill, Leiden,
1984.
Themes
Esoteric Etymology, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Philosophy, Rupert and Steve, Stoicism
Silvius Fabricius
March 21, 2025
For me the rebuttal to this sort of reading is this: if the point of hiding doctrines in myths was to keep the masses from being confused or corrupted, why did the sages & poets hide the doctrines in myths whose surface meaning they regarded as absurd or immoral? The myths they want to read away are the very sort that Plato saw as leading the masses to impious views on the gods *through* their surface meaning. Why did the sages hide doctrines in myths about Zeus’ adulteries rather than in inoffensive material?
Earl Fontainelle
March 21, 2025
That’s a pretty solid point. The ancient Stoic reply would presumably have been ‘They just did it that way, because they were sages.’ I don’t know of anyone in antiquity having addressed this question head-on.
We do get an oblique answer to the question among later Platonists, who have taken the basics of this Stoic reading-methodology and run with it: when we find absurdities (or immoralities or whatever) in a chosen, canonical source, this is a sign put there by the sages that we should start digging. The stranger/more immoral (more ἄτοπον) the passage or practice or what have you was, the more vigorously it was being flagged by the sages (or the gods, in the case of ritual institutions and the like). Porphyry uses this as a methodological principle, but there’s little doubt he inherited it rather than having invented it. In Sallustius’ On the Gods and the World it is laid out explicitly as a kind of hermeneutical rule.
This doesn’t refute your cogent objection, but it sort of mitigates it a bit, maybe.
Silvius Fabricius
March 21, 2025
That makes some sense, and I had even thought of flagging as an explanation that could be given; presumably it’d be expected that the uninitiated were *supposed* to recognize the flag also, and just file the myth away without judging it.
A related question I would ask is if we have any record of pagans biting back against this sort of embarrassment at myths, saying that they take it straight even if it seems absurd, almost Tertullian-style?
Earl Fontainelle
March 21, 2025
Great question as well. I don’t know of anyone who takes this position, but I am sure that this was actually the majority position (or assumption) among ancient polytheists; just not among intellectuals. The mainline ‘belief’ had no problem with gods doing unjust or otherwise inappropriate things from the perspective of Platonist/Stoic intellectuals: for the average person, the gods just were capricious and inscrutable, so why wouldn’t they commit adultery, kill people who didn’t deserve it, all that stuff?
This is the worldview we see for example in Homer and the Attic tragedians, but these writers are not concerned with countering theological arguments, they are just living with their myths, if that makes sense.
Silvius Fabricius
March 24, 2025
One could squint and see the story of Bacchæ and similar Dionsyiac myths in particular as such a view expressing itself; the wild god’s conflict with Pentheus and similar rulers who want religion & the gods to be rational & civil & well-behaved.
Even so, the relative absence of such a view in the texts we have reminds of just how little we have, of the narrow list of usually elite authors who wrote, and then the far fewer who were copied, such that even a mainstream religious opinion is basically only reacted against (though it is reacted against as a default).