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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32165 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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cf. Proclus, Ten doubts concerning providence (De decem dubitationibus circa providentiam), 5th century AD:

Such being the problems regarding [ancestral sin], let us first say that every city and every family constitutes one single living being, more so than every single person, being to a larger degree immortal and sacred. Indeed, one single mayor presides over the city as over one single being, one relative over the family as one whole. And there is a single [life] cycle in common for the city and [one] for the family, making the life and the customs of each of them converge, different ones for different cities and families – as their lives are simultaneous as it were – and their different body sizes, different resources, postures and motions – as if one single nature were pervading the whole city and every single family in it, making both that city and that family one.

If, then, also providence is one and fate, with respect to these things, is one, if their life is of the same form and their nature from the same root, how could one refuse to call the city and the family one living being, and from now on to talk specifically about each of them as one, since, when compared to any one of us, [each of them] is a living being that is longer-lived, more divine and more like the universe in that it encompasses the other, smaller living beings and is akin to the everlasting?

So if, as has been shown, every city and every family is a single living being, why wonder if the [deeds] of the forefathers are paid out to the progeny and if the life of the cities, being one, spread out from above [over the citizens] like a canvas, encompasses the compensation, in other times, for actions, be they good or bad, committed in other times? For providence shows not only that every one of us bears the fruit of the things that he did in another time [of his life] and receives the penalty for them, but also that [this is the case for] the city as a unity and the family as a unity – and as a living being, at that – whereby the first to act are not disregarded either (for it is not allowed that something is overlooked, given that providence exists) and the later-born because of the co-affection to the first as to their founding fathers and by the fact that together with them they complete, as it were, one single living being, inherit from them the share that they deserve. For their origin is from them and they share a life and nature in common with them, so that it is obvious that because of them they receive honour and punishment.

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