I
Butler’s explanation of myth as structured around “family resemblances”[1] rather than strict roles for reductively archetypal entities looks, to me, a great method of interpreting Christian scripture, especially in light of how much we know about its varied origins. Instead of a standardised story, there is a network of stories around certain themes. Each local cult or temple had its “version”, and it could contradict others. This is expected, since it is the Gods that are the centre of these stories, not the events themselves. The Gods constitute varying worlds for each locality. Speaking about epithets, Butler says that:
“In Egyptian theology, epithets express powers operated always by some God in particular at a given moment, but which also can be shared by diverse Gods and performed by them in ways expressing their unique individuality; and these epithets are linked in networks that consistently draw into proximity certain Gods in particular, or any Gods having sufficiently congruent patterns of activity; and it is these living, pulsing divine networks that are ontologically prior to narrative myths and from which the latter are distilled.”[1]
In Proclus, such “divine networks” are understood in terms of the “Intelligible-Intellective” – where the Gods first constitute all possible relationships among themselves as a pantheon – prior to the “Intellective”, where a given demiurge or set of demiurges manifests these relationships from their perspective; that is, from indeterminate “divine networks” of all the Gods in a pantheon, we get the perspective of one or several of the Gods as over against the rest, and thus the narrative structures proper to them[2].
Applying this to Christian Scripture, it is well known now that it is not a homogenous and consistent book, at least if you want to take it as a whole book in the modern sense, which is wrong. It is a “Byblos or a library, in the midst of which one could stand and wander about”[3]. Instead of a wholly consistent modern style novel, we should see it as a library of books detailing myths from various locales at various time periods in the history of a group of peoples. These myths involve several related Gods over the millennia they were revealed. This is not to dismiss the importance of history, but to reconfigure what history is in its fuller sense, and to discover dimensions of “history” that are not “linear”. That aside, the chief importance for me is how this sees the various discontinuities and disagreements in scripture – for example, the disagreement over whether or not this or that God has a body[4], [5], or the role of the Divine Queen[6], [7] – as positive expressions of the unlimitedness of inspiration, rather than its diminution or non-existence. It opens itself up also to the fact that “Scripture had once been inseparable from liturgical performance, from liturgical carrying in procession”[3], all of which is irreducibly local and particular. For example, the Christian perspective favours the myths where Adonai has a body. It is from that “locale”[8], hyperspecified in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, that all of Scripture for us – including those passages who deny a body for Adonai – is arranged. Limiting ourselves to the Old Testament, this is still the viewpoint we look at it with. There are other “locales” within the uneven topography of scripture where one can see the whole picture. This is the nature of polycentrism. This is how to see the particular as unique without absolute exclusionism or undifferentiated universalism. The person is the locus of the logic of all in each. Each God and each theophany is positively unique.
II
Adam Labecki’s brilliant description of henological causation[9] is rather apt for describing what it means to be the logoi of the Logos:
“…conversion to the One in no way entails a simple union whereby all things eschatologically collapse back into the principle. Such a collapse is, in fact, structurally impossible. Since the One is “itself” – each thing in becoming “one” becomes itself…What is the real difference between ontology and henology? Why this apparently impossible insistence on the beyond of Being? This is the difference: A being belongs to being as a part while a one belongs to the one as itself.”[9]
He calls this kind of causation “inward pressing”. Focusing on the Christian God, using Christian terms, the Logos, the first manifestation of Adonai – who, if we follow Maximus’ description, looks eerily similar to Proclus’ “radical being”, the first manifestation of the Gods (or a God, any God) – is most united with the “unbegotten” God beyond being precisely in being distinct from the God beyond being. I use the word “distinct” cautiously because I don’t want this to be understood in ontic terms. The God’s self-gift is the very self of his manifestation, the gift of the God’s proper name. Thus, paradoxically perhaps, but also perfectly logically, the gift of the God to their manifestation is “the gift of itself”. This causation does not stop at the “first Logos”. This is how all souls exist. Applying this to Christian theology, this, for me, explains how one can have “Christ in you” as your identity without “dissolving” into an undifferentiated blob in the “eschaton”.
…
[1] E. P. Butler, “Egypt’s Returning Goddesses : A Theological Inquiry,” Walk. Worlds, pp. 49–65, 2019.
[2] E. Butler, “The Metaphysics of Polytheism in Proclus,” New School University, 2003.
[3] J. Milbank, “Radical Orthodoxy and Protestantism today: John Milbank in Conversation,” Acta Theol., vol. 2017, pp. 43–72, 2017, doi: 10.18820/23099089/actat.v37i1S.2.
[4] M. Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God. 1992.
[5] D. Armstrong, “Today Have I Begotten You: Incarnational Multiplicity in Ancient Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity,” A Perennial Digression, May 13, 2022. https://perennialdigression.substack.com/p/today-have-i-begotten-you?s=r (accessed May 17, 2022).
[6] M. Barker, “Wisdom: The Queen of Heaven,” Scottish J. Theol., vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 141–159, 2002, doi: 10.1017/S0036930602000224.
[7] D. Armstrong, “The Goddess Wisdom: Sophia, Shakti, and the Virgin,” A Perennial Digression, Mar. 25, 2022. https://perennialdigression.substack.com/p/the-goddess-wisdom?s=r (accessed May 17, 2022).
[8] E. P. Butler, “Universality and Locality in Platonic Polytheism,” Walk. Worlds, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 106–118, 2015.
[9] A. Labecki, “The One and the Many: Part I: The One,” Dionysius, vol. 24, pp. 75–98, 2006, [Online]. Available: file:///PDF/Labecki - One and Many I-3377340160/Labecki - One and Many I.pdf.