Podcast episode
August 3, 2022
Episode 145: Thinking through Monotheism, Henotheism, Polytheism, and Dualism in Late Antiquity
[Another SHWEP field-recording. Special thanks to traffic in Viroqua, Wisconsin, for accompaniment.]
In the last of our somewhat-abstract, concept-riddled wide-angle approaches to late antiquity at the end of the third century CE, we discuss some of the more important -theisms of the era: mono-, heno-, and poly-, with a special bonus section looking at dualism in religion in theory and practice.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Primary:
- The Hermetic Asclepius: Ascl. 24.
- Celsus: ap. Origen, Cels. V 41.
- Maximus of Madauros: Augustinus, Ep. 16, 1 (we cite the translation of J. H. Baxter).
Secondary:
- Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede, editors. Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999.
- Jason D. BeDuhn. Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma, Volume 1: Conversion and Apostasy, 373-388 CE. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religions. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2012.
- Idem. Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma, Volume 2: Making a ”Catholic” Self, 388-401 CE. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2013.
- Garth Fowden. From Empire to Commonwealth: The Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1993 [we cite p. 5].
- The Louvin Brothers. Satan is Real. Capitol 1959 [we cite the title track].
- Stephen Mitchell and Peter van Nuffelen, editors. One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010.
Themes
Celsus, Christianity, Clement of Alexandria, Dualism, Gladys and Mabel, Gnosticism, Islam, Jews, Manichæism, Monotheism, Orthodoxy, Polytheism, Rupert and Steve
Daniel White
August 3, 2022
9:10-9:30. Thanks Earl. Small tidbit but at least it was acknowledged.
Stephen Rego
August 3, 2022
Thanks Earl for a well-put together episode that goes some way to imparting a degree of order onto a particularly-tangled web of concepts that are oft-used with the implicit assumption that the terms are all agreed upon and clear, when they are far from it!
Anyway, I just thought I’d add that in terms of the references for the epsode the other text on the subject of “pagan monotheism” that came out in 2010 and that was a result of the same conference (held in 2006) out of which ‘One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire’ was born, is titled ‘Monotheism between Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity’ and it a contains some interesting papers. A good review of its contents can be found here: https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011.01.31/
S.
Earl Fontainelle
August 4, 2022
Nice one, Stephen.
Maziar Hashemi-Nezhad
August 13, 2022
Hello Earl et al,
I guess here is just as good as any place to keep it esoteric and join in. I want to share a few thoughts that may further “complicate” (or clarify) Mazdian “dualism”.
I regard Zoroastrianism (Mazdayasna) not only to be dualistic but also henotheistic at the same time. The dualism of Mazdayasna is the belief in the existence of two eternal opposing principles of Good and Evil. These two hypostases are not only independent but were originally unaware of each other’s existence for we read in the Mazdian book of creation, the Bundahishn, that the Wise Lord Ahura Mazda first created the realm of light. After the passing of the equivalent of three thousand years the Evil principle, Ahriman, first became aware of the existence of the realm of light and then proceeded to attack it. In response Ahura Mazda created the world as an arena so that Good and Evil can battle it out so to speak. Thus far we can all agree that this is dualistic cosmology, but what makes Mazdayasna also henotheisitc is that within the realm of the Ahura Mazda there exists a pantheon of other gods and goddesses. Each of these deities (yazata) is worthy of worship as they all are the helpers of Ahura Mazda. This claim is evident in the Mazdian liturgies called “Yashts”. These Yashts are ritual and scripts for various forms of public worship including:
* Warharan Yasht; the worship of the god of War and victory
* Mithra Yasht: the worship of the god of Covenant
* Anahita Yasht: the worship of the goddess of the waters (there are ruins of a temple to Anahita still standing that was used during Sasanian Iran).
* Tishtar Yasht: the worship of the god of life and fertility to name a few.
One final related point, according to Earl’s definition from the podcast, then one must also regard Mazdayasna as mitigated dualism too, since it is clearly stated in the Avesta that Good and Evil are not equal and on apocalypse day Good Will overcome Evil.
As is said above I don’t know if I’ve complicated or clarified anything on this fascinating topic but I would be curious to hear some thoughts from interested SHWEP members.
Cheers,
Maziar
Earl Fontainelle
August 13, 2022
Maziar,
Thanks very much for the details! I think you have clarified a lot; these categories are only helpful when we flesh them out in this detailed way.
Avi Craimer
November 1, 2022
Hi. Thank you for your illuminating discussion of these terms.
I’ve often found it odd that we don’t have a distinct term for the kind of theism that believes there is One ultimate God who is worshipped in many different forms. It sounds like some of the non-Christian Greek thinkers you mentioned held a view like this. Similar views were also advocated by some Indian philosophers, most notably Ramanuja, and such beliefs are common among Hindus today.
As I understand it, “monotheism” bundles together two distinct oneness claims:
1. Metaphysical Oneness – There is only one metaphysical entity that is rightly called God (highest God)
2. Religious Exclusivism – There is only one legitimate religious system for worshipping and symbolically representing the metaphysical One.
I wonder why the term Monotheism (at least as applied in the West) came to mean both of these things at once, and why we don’t even have a common term for the view that affirms 1, while denying 2. Does the problem stem from an ambiguity in the term theos (God) itself? Perhaps theos is ambiguous between the metaphysical One and the God-form who is the focus of worship. A philosophically unsophisticated religious believer might not even grasp the distinction between theos as the ultimate One as theos as that which is worshiped in the temple. If we fail to distinguish these two, and any view that affirms there is only one ‘theos’ would have to affirm both both 1 and 2.
However, it’s clear from the podcast that there were thinkers in the Hellenic world who drew the key philosophical distinction between the highest God as a metaphysical One, and the various ritual practices that enable humans to worship this One. This is not monotheism in the standard definition, but neither is it polytheism, nor henotheism, nor dualism. So what terms have been used to describe this viewpoint that there is One God metaphysically and many distinct but equally legitimate presentations of the One for the purpose of ritual worship?
Earl Fontainelle
November 1, 2022
Avi,
That’s a really good question: what do you call someone who, like the late-antique polytheist intellectuals we read about, recognise one primal god-reality, but are easygoing about how that reality is worshipped, and maybe think it’s totally appropriate to worship subsidiary divine realities as well (after all, the gods come from God, and are thus holy to some degree as well)?
It’s a good question, as I say, but I don’t think we have a term for people like that! I guess the terminology we do have is a legacy of, well, Christianity, really, so we are struggling to deal with concepts that aren’t really on the radar of Christianity, like ‘monotheist in the metaphysical sense, but polytheist and/or easygoing in the realm of praxis’.
I kind of like ‘pagan monotheist’ or even ‘heathen monotheist’ in this context, with the idea of ‘monotheist in metaphysic, pagan in style’, but the problem here is that pagan and heathen are both Christian polemical terms, which disqualifies them from being used in a neutral, descriptive way, if we want to be sticklers. ‘Metaphysical monotheist’ could work for someone like Plotinus or Iamblichus, because these guys have serious metaphysical theories, but doesn’t work so well for simpler souls like the authors of many Hermetica, who might not know a metaphysical theory if it bit them on the pneuma.
It’s a puzzler.
Any suggestions, anyone?
Avi Craimer
November 2, 2022
Thanks for the reply. I like metaphysical monotheist. It is a good point about how the terms themselves are conditioned by the history and dominance of Christianity. I still find it odd that religious studies scholars have not noticed this gap and suggested a new term to fill it.
We could draw a further distinction between the monotheism that it is right only to worship symbolic beings who are intended to be representations of the highest God (the One) and the even more easy going attitude that worshiping just any holy being is okay.
If you look at Kabbalah for example, there is a clear difference between a Divine Name or Divine Attribute or Partzuf (Divine persona) all of which function as legitimate foci-of-worship although they would not be called gods. I like to use the term God-forms for this sort of thing as it preserves God in the singular while allowing forms to be in the plural. Interestingly, this is also reflected in the main Hebrew name of God which is a compound of two words YHVH and Elohim. While Elohim is treated grammatically as a singular when used to name God, the ending is “im” usually denotes a plural noun, and in other contexts elohim is used as a plural to denote “holy beings”. I find this very suggestive.
On the other hand, in Judaism/Kabbalah, angels are often seen as holy beings but not as presentations of God and therefore not suitable for worship. One might need to negotiate or otherwise have to deal with angels, even receive divine messages from them, but they should not be viewed as stand-ins for the One (although in some texts they are viewed that way). At the very least this points to the fact that the boundaries between the absolute One, diverse personifications of the One, and merely holy beings angels may not be as sharp as later monotheists would have us believe.
When I think about Hellenic paganism, it seems there is a difference between viewing each Olympian deity as an independent being with their own desires and interests which may conflict with those of other gods (as in Homer). That sort of view is clearly polytheistic. On the other hand, from what you’ve said on the podcast it seems like later Hellenes might have viewed those gods as all being different manifestations of the One, the God most High
Was this sort of pagan monotheism a widespread belief among the common people or was it confined to intellectuals and philosophers?
A side note about Hinduism. There is a very similar development of metaphysically monotheism combined with polytheistic ritual practice which is still widespread in India today. An modern example is Swami Vivekananda’s writing on Bhakti Yoga which spell out the distinctions between the metaphysical One (Brahman) and the personal God as the focus of worship (Ishvara). What I found most interesting is that the term Ishvara does not denote a specific deity, but rather the abstract idea of the One in relationship with the individual person (jiva). The term Ishvara is therefore like a placeholder for One-in-relationship that is to be filled in by whatever specific deity a person worships (e.g., Siva, Krishna, Devi, etc). I wonder if philosophers of late antiquity had any concept analogous to Ishvara to denote the One in relationship to the differentiated world. Does this have to do with Plotinus’s ideas of the World Soul?
Earl Fontainelle
November 3, 2022
Hi, Avi,
With regard to the sort of slippage that occurs in traditions like kabbalah and Tasawwuf, where different names or attributes of god are okay to worship, we could also add here I think the medieval and later astral-worship traditions found in some Abrahamic currents, where we see a lot of suspiciously worship-like attention given to various planetary spirits and whatnot, also seen as kosher in Judaism and Islam, and angelic practices like the Ars notoria, where the line between worship of angels and invocation of angels seems pretty thin (but still probably seen by the practitioners as of course not transgressing against monotheism).
Was this sort of pagan monotheism a widespread belief among the common people or was it confined to intellectuals and philosophers? We wish we knew. Some evidence is out there in inscriptions and such, but it’s an open debate. Some of the articles in the ‘pagan monotheism’ literature cited with this episode address this question.
Ishvara in late-ancient philosophy: the analogue here would not be with the world-soul per se, but with the One and the relationship between it and everything else, and here is where loads of scholars have returned repeatedly to the idea that Plotinus must have somehow been influenced by Sanskritic ideas, a notion totally unsupported by any evidence except the fact that his doctrine of the One (and similar doctrines in later Platonists) just reminds interpreters of ideas found in contemporary Indian thought.