The wide-ranging scholarly interests of James Bernard Murphy, from philosophy to political science, ethics, and religion, converge in this broad survey of the elusive ancient concept of “deification,” or assimilation to the divine. If this seems a surprising topic to unite such fields, it is probably due, according to one of Murphy’s primary arguments, to our modern forgetfulness of the essentially religious character of philosophical speculation in the ancient world, which we now so often dichotomize, from our fragmented post-Enlightenment perspective, against its “rational” dimension (p. 45). Murphy’s project, then, is to recover a sense of this interconnectedness between philosophy and religion, as it shapes the approaches to deification expressed in (1) archaic Greek religion, (2) the teachings of the three major classical philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), and (3) the collective witness of the biblical canon.
Before outlining the contours of these approaches in his five core chapters, however, Murphy offers some rationale in the Introduction (“Why Better Implies Best”), where he argues that the desire for deification is actually a universal human experience: “our lives are haunted by the gap between ideals and reality.” (1) The notion of the “ideal” or “what is best” implies some “standard of perfection,” which functions (even for atheists) in the place of the divine. What we say about the divine, in turn, reveals what we believe about our human nature, and what distinguishes the two. Murphy’s first full chapter further greatly expands on this theme, describing the mutually interpretive dynamic between theology and anthropology that has been assumed through the whole sweep of Western philosophy (“from Plato to Sartre”), and that provides additional justification for understanding philosophy as a form of religious activity (“the pursuit of salvation by logical means,” p. 37).
The survey of approaches to deification begins in earnest with Chapter 2, an examination of “heroic” deification in archaic Greek religion. In keeping with the argument for philosophy’s religious character, this chapter aims to set the stage for the later Socratic thinkers by considering the presentations of divine-human relationships found in distinct expressions of earliest Greek religious life, from Homeric myth to the civic cults. Despite some “overlap” between them, Murphy argues, these forms exhibit “sharp differences” in purpose and character which should not be confused (pp. 52, 54)—unlike the dramatized gods of epic, for example, the gods of the city-state are stable, benign, and thus dutifully worshiped and petitioned. In both cases, however, the chasm between divine and human is paradoxically displayed alongside an assumption, and aspiration, that it may, to some degree, be crossed: “Greek religion…holds in tension the nearness and remoteness of the gods.” (p. 69) Hope for bridging the gulf appears especially in the cults of the quasi-divine heroes (e.g. Heracles), as well as in an advancing understanding of the human soul, from the impersonal Homeric shade to the identity-stable Orphic spirit, which pursues union with the divine through ecstatic mystery rites.
This basic shift in psychology paves the way, in Murphy’s view, for the further refinements of the classical philosophers, with their concern for the rational activity of the intellectual life as the best path to “becoming like god.” (p. 93) Thus, Chapter 3 considers Socrates, who simultaneously exemplifies both a humble claim to ignorance concerning the divine and a profound conviction of his own divine (oracular) commission. This Socratic “irony” illustrates the tension between two competing Greek models for relating to the divine: the restrained Apollonian injunction to “know thyself” (and thus, thy human limits), and the uninhibited Dionysian pursuit of mystical, experiential divine union. In synthesizing aspects of both principles, Socrates demonstrates the enduring assumption “that reason and revelation must ultimately be consistent because the god is the source of both.” (p. 113)
Murphy sees continuity between Socrates and Plato on this point, though he believes that the student “goes much further” than the teacher in developing a specific approach to deification (p. 126). Thus, while his lengthy fourth chapter (83 pages) still expounds Plato’s model as eminently practical (“not a science of god but an invitation to become divine,” p. 136), Murphy also elaborates its tri-dimensional nature, involving three forms of the soul’s ascent through a graded hierarchy, or “degrees” of divinity. First, metaphysically, the soul ascends from the visible world to the invisible forms, culminating in its assimilation to the form of the good. Second, cosmologically, it ascends from the lower cosmos to its point of origin in the stars, recognizing and seeking harmony with the cosmic order (divine providence). And third, religiously, it endeavors to reform the civic cult and restore proper modes of worship of the divine (based on the encounters in the previous two forms of ascent), reconceiving the Homeric and civic gods as good, just, benevolent, and thus worthy of praise. Deification for Plato, then, is not merely individual but corporate, aiming, through the rule of philosopher-kings, at “the happiness of the whole cosmos or city.” (p. 205)
Murphy again highlights continuity (now with Plato) as Aristotle takes center stage in chapter 5. However, the latter’s approach to deification focuses on intellectual contemplation of the divine principle, identified as the unmoved mover, rather than Plato’s form of the good. Central to Aristotle’s scheme is the notion of cosmic hierarchy, which descends from actuality to potentiality, and from pure form to pure matter, proceeding down through the various living substances from the divine to human, animal, plant, and, finally, elemental natures. Indeed, these gradations are what make the quintessentially Aristotelian perspective on deification possible, as it is through development, or actualization of highest potential, that teleological purpose is achieved. Through the principle that “like attracts like,” each lower substance is drawn to imitate and reach for the qualities of the higher, perfecting its own nature in the process. The chain’s pinnacle is God, who is “both pure act and pure thought: his only activity is thought,” or self-contemplation. (p. 227) Human entelecheia and eudaimonia thus consist of cultivating habits and virtues that are conducive to the imitation of this contemplative ideal.
Finally, Murphy’s sixth chapter shifts to the biblical world and to the rather different perspectives on deification that it collectively presents. On the one hand, of course, desiring likeness to God is portrayed throughout the biblical canon as “satanic,” an expression of the primal human sin of pride in arrogating divine power, knowledge, and righteousness without reference to God himself. From the Garden of Eden to the Tower of Babel to the woes that Jesus pronounces upon the Pharisees, biblical writers regularly caution against the dangers of humanistic self-exaltation. Yet on the other hand, both the Old Testament (Gen 1:26; Ps 82:6) and New Testament (Jn 10:34; 2 Pet 1:4) can also describe humanity as actually, or at least potentially, divine—created in the divine image, named “gods,” and somehow rendered “partakers of the divine nature.” Supremely, the account of the incarnation is, for Christians, the climax of the whole biblical narrative, which then proves to be “a story not of human divinization but of divine humanization.” (p. 267) This example of Christ is key, in Murphy’s view, to explaining the apparent biblical ambivalence on deification, since it reveals that, counterintuitively, glorification comes only through self-humiliation. In the New Testament, the cruciform shape of the Christian life accordingly pursues deification only in relation to, and in dependence upon, the deifying acts of God, who, in various metaphors for a gracious and personal love, “adopts,” “marries,” and “befriends” his covenant people, and invites them to participate in his own communal (trinitarian) life.
How, then, do these Greek and biblical approaches to deification relate to each other? Somewhat surprisingly, Murphy’s conclusion (“Athens and Jerusalem”) almost exclusively emphasizes their contrasts. Despite affirming at the outset that they have “much in common” (p. 305) and that his goal is to consider whether they are “logically consistent” (p. 308), these 32 pages tend to highlight differences. Murphy largely evaluates Greek philosophical deification negatively; that is, by noting the absence of features of the biblical approach. Thus, whereas in biblical deification, the creator-creature distinction fosters humility, the divine is personal (and therefore relational rather than abstract), and God acts to redeem human nature holistically within time (history), Greek deification simply lacks these qualities. In itself, this is not surprising—Murphy openly identifies as a Roman Catholic (p. 51)—or even problematic, since it is reasonable enough to argue that biblical (or Christian) deification represents a historical, intellectual, and/or theological advance upon earlier Greek ideas. Yet the extensive preliminary sections (the Introduction and Chapter 1) do not quite prepare the reader to anticipate this impression (Murphy acknowledges that it is “suggestive, not conclusive,” p. 305). Nor do the largely positive (or at least sympathetic) accounts of the Greek models in the core chapters imply that the comparison with the biblical approach will be unfavorable. Indeed, the emphasis on philosophy as essentially religious seems to foreshadow a greater degree of synthesis than the conclusion ultimately provides (e.g., Murphy states that “Focusing on deification permits us a disciplined and illuminating comparison of Socratic Greek philosophy and biblical religion,” p. 44). One wonders whether some further discussion of the patristic reception and combination of the two streams (beyond some passing footnotes to the “exchange formulas” of Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Augustine) might have allowed for greater attention to their areas of compatibility, as reflected in these writers.
In any case, these observations should not be construed as serious criticisms, as they pertain more to the subjective experience of tracing Murphy’s argument than to the quality of its content and coherence. On the whole, the study is sound in method, thorough in scope, and engaging in style. Even more, its effort to capture the complexity and multidimensionality of the ancient world by placing pagan, philosophical, and biblical currents of thought in conversation with each other is refreshingly constructive and synthetic, in an era of endlessly disparate specialized and technical studies. And while it does not, accordingly, endeavor to situate its own contribution to scholarship within any one of the expected academic disciplinary contexts of classics, late antiquity, or religious studies (and their relevant literatures), it more than compensates for this by framing the study as an exploration of a universal, philosophical—and thus, in Murphy’s view, religious—human theme. Consequently, although the intended audience still should not be described as “popular,” it is far broader and more interdisciplinary than the audience for a monograph on this subject might otherwise be. At the same time, Murphy’s extensive familiarity with, and meticulous documentation of, both his ancient Greek and biblical source material ensure that specialists working in any of the fields mentioned above can study this book with profit.