༺ The Salty Polytheist ༻

At dawn, when you're reluctant to get up, have this thought readily available: I have work to do as a human being, and that's why I'm getting up. Do I still resent it if I'm on my way to do the work for which I was born and for the sake of which I was brought into the world? Or is this what I was made for, to lie in bed and keep myself warm?

"But it's really nice."

So is pleasure what you were born for? And, in general, was it for feeling, not for doing? Can't you see plants, sparrows, ants, spiders, and bees all doing their own work and playing their part in the world's order? And are you then reluctant to do human work? Why aren't you eager to do what comes naturally to you?

"But rest is important too."

Yes, I agree. Nature has set limits on rest, however, as it has on eating and drinking as well; but aren't you overstepping those limits and taking more than suffices for your needs? It's only when it comes to action that you haven't yet reached the limits of your abilities. And the reason is that you don't love yourself. If you did, you'd love your nature and its purpose.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1

If pagans are motivated by destruction, we are motivated by an evil impulse. We must be motivated by love and a desire to improve the spiritual condition of our people.

The consequences of the undermining of Christianity in the West have been overwhelmingly negative. That’s because, despite Christianity’s shortcomings, it was, on balance, a force for good.

As pagans, we should lovingly correct the failures of Christianity and seek to guide the living spiritual tradition of the West back to its purer and better form rather than aid the destroyers of it.

It is of paramount importance that pagans understand this, as difficult as it might be for some to accept.

[If someone] won't allow that there are forms for things and won't mark off a form for each one, he won't have anywhere to turn his thought, since he doesn't allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same. In this way he will destroy the power of dialectic entirely.

Plato, Parmenides 135b

One must sacrifice to the gods for three purposes: because of honour, because of charis, or because of one’s need for good things. For just as we think we must make first-fruit offerings to good men, so we think we must make them also to the gods. We honour the gods when we are seeking that there be for us either a turning away of evils or the preparation of good things, or after we have had good experiences and not for the purpose of obtaining some (additional) benefit, or in the simple honouring of their good disposition toward us.

Theophrastus, On Piety fragment 12.42–8

Most honored of immortals, many-named one, ever omnipotent,
Zeus, prime mover of nature, steering all things by your law,
Hail!
For it is proper for all mortals to speak to you:
For we all descend from you, bearing our share of your likeness
We alone, of all mortal creatures that live and move on earth.
So, I shall make song of you constantly and sing forever of your might.
Truly, this whole universe, spinning around the earth,
Obeys you wherever you lead, and willingly submits to your rule;
Such is the servant you hold in your unconquerable hands,
A double-edged, fiery, ever-living thunderbolt.
For by its strikes all the works of nature happen.
By it you direct the universal reason, which pervades all things
Intermixing with the great and small lights of the heavens.
Because of this you are the greatest, the highest ruler of all.
Not a single thing that is done on earth happens without you, God,
Nor in the divine heavenly sphere nor in the sea,
Except for what bad people do in their foolishness.
But you know how to make the crooked straight
And to bring order to the disorderly; even the unloved is loved by you.
For you have so joined all things into one, the good and the bad,
That they all share in a single unified everlasting reason.

It is shirked and avoided by all the wicked among mortals,
The wretched, who ever long for the getting of good things,
Neither see nor hear God’s universal law,
By which, obeying with understanding, they could share in the good life.
But instead they chase after this and that, far from the good,
Some in their aggressive zeal for fame,
Others with a disordered obsession with profits,
Still others in indulgence and the pleasurable exertions of the body.
[They desire the good] but are carried off here and there,
All the while in zealous pursuit of completely different outcomes.
But bountiful Zeus, shrouded in dark clouds and ruling the thunder,
Protect human beings from their ruinous ignorance;
Scatter it from our souls, grant that we might obtain
True judgment on which you rely to steer all things with justice;

So that having won honor, we may honor you in return,
Constantly singing of your works, as it is proper
For mortals to do. For neither mortals nor gods have any greater privilege
Than to make everlasting song of the universal law in justice.

Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus