Edward P. Butler, PhD
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epbutler.bsky.social
Edward P. Butler, PhD
@epbutler.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1.2K following 1K posts
Polytheist, Ph.D. in Philosophy. Justice to all beings, reverence to all Gods.
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epbutler.bsky.social
New post up on my Substack: "Some thoughts on disjunctive difference within 'the same' God: A further reply to Antonio Vargas" open.substack.com/pub/epbutler...
October 2, 2025 at 6:31 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
In honor of the Panathenaia, I've decided to make my new essay, "Hephaestus and the Theophany of the Technical", available free. open.substack.com/pub/epbutler...
July 19, 2025 at 12:50 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Tomorrow, Lunar 4/18, is the Manifestation Anniversary and Inspection Day of Heavenly Emperor Zi Wei for 2025. (Image from here: javewutaoismplace.blogspot.com/2014/05/mani...)
May 14, 2025 at 3:10 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Renenutet henadology.wordpress.com/theology/net...
Stele dedicated to the Goddess Renenutet by the sculptor Qen. New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, ca. 1279-1213 BC. From Deir el-Medina, Thebes. Now in the Museum of Aquitaine, Bordeaux.
March 15, 2025 at 1:12 AM
epbutler.bsky.social
Olympiodorus on Socrates' statement that "Someone who is persuasive to many also persuades one," (Alc. I, 114b-c; In Alc. 111, trans. Griffin).
persuade a multitude of philosophers? Or does the person who is persuasive to a multitude of philosophers also persuade one mindless person? We reply that Plato resolves all of these questions in one phrase, when he says 'each one by one' (hena hekaston). For the person who persuades one also persuades many, since those 'ones' (ta hena), if I may say so, are part of the many, and he made this clear by using the word 'each one' (hekaston). Moreover, since the many is made up from individuals (henades), the person who persuades the many also persuades the one [in it]."
March 7, 2025 at 4:23 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Using the familiar "They're the same picture" meme, the post argues that it is fundamentally the same when Christians call the Gods of Indigenous peoples "demons" and when scholars call the Gods of Indigenous peoples "spirits".
March 7, 2025 at 4:04 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
In Search of the Dioskouroi. Image, Myth and Cult www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...
February 17, 2025 at 1:50 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Today is Proclus' birthday. When I think to, I always post a link on this day to this piece I wrote for a commemoration in 2012: "On the Occasion of the 1,600th Anniversary of the Birth of Proclus (2/08/12)" henadology.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...
February 8, 2025 at 4:59 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Nehmetaway henadology.wordpress.com/theology/net...
January 15, 2025 at 1:59 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Epicharmus fragment 275, translation by R. J. Barnes.
(A) But the gods always were and never left; these things are always the same and in the same ways. (B) But it is said that Chaos was the first of the gods. (A) How could that be without there being anything from which or to which the first thing might pass? (B) So nothing came first? (A) Nor, by Zeus, did anything come second, at least of the things we now speak, rather these things always were. ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ τοὶ θεοὶ παρῆσαν χὐπέλιπον οὐ πώποκα· τάδε δ’ ἀεὶ πάρεσθ’ ὁμοῖα διά τε τῶν αὐτῶν ἀεί. ἀλλὰ λέγεται μὰν Χάος πρᾶτον γενέσθαι τῶν θεῶν. πῶς δέ κα, μὴ ἔχον γ’ ἀπὸ τίνος μηδ’ ἐς ὅτι πρᾶτον μόλοι; οὐκ ἄρ’ ἔμολεν πρᾶτον οὐδέν; οὐδὲ μὰ Δία δεύτερον τῶνδε γ’ ὧν ἁμές νυν ὧδε λέγομες, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ τάδ’ ἦς
January 3, 2025 at 4:45 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, p. 185.
The uniqueness of god “Unique god, without equal”; this common invocation of Egyptian gods sounds as monotheistic as anything can be. But just as almost any Egyptian god can be the "greatest" (see below), he can also be "unique"; even the dom palm and the Asiatic goddess Qudshu are addressed as "unique god" and "without equal" respectively. The epithet "unique" is attested as an independent appellation of a god in the early dynastic period, and in the Pyramid Texts the god Nefertem is "without equal" (Pyr. §483b-c). The apparent contradiction in logic between the epithet "unique" and the many deities to whom it is applied is easily explained. Extended and more precise forms of the epithet make clear its true referent, which is the unique character of the divine in general. Every Egyptian god is "unique in his fashion (wꜥ ḥr ḫw.f)": there is no other who is the same as him. In the daily cult service the priest must declare before the god who is being worshiped, "I have not equated your nature with that of another god." Despite the multiplicity of the names and forms of gods and despite the phenomenon of syncretism, the Egyptians attach great importance to maintaining the uniqueness of each of their deities. This emphasis has nothing to do with monotheistic conceptions or "tendencies," but prevents the gods from being equated indiscriminately with one another.
December 8, 2024 at 4:10 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Shesmetet/ Shesemtet henadology.wordpress.com/theology/net...
October 20, 2024 at 12:56 AM
epbutler.bsky.social
People should learn to say “the God” instead of “God”. It makes a huge difference in understanding how ancient texts before the era of monotheist hegemony spoke about divinity. (Quote below is from R. Bodéüs, Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000), p. 4.)
September 18, 2024 at 5:23 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Figure from Tarentum identified as Bendis livius.org/pictures/ita...
May 9, 2024 at 1:21 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Full article available here: henadology.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/diot...
January 26, 2024 at 7:17 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
January 26, 2024 at 7:17 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Excerpt from my article “Plato’s Gods and the Way of Ideas,” Diotima: Review of Philosophical Research 39, 2011 (Hellenic Society for Philosophical Studies, Athens), pp. 73-87.
January 26, 2024 at 7:16 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
November 15, 2023 at 5:21 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
Great is the living God, Lord of Mendes! https://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/banebdjedet/
July 21, 2023 at 1:33 PM
epbutler.bsky.social
The polycentricity of polytheism. From H. S. Versnel, Coping with the Gods: Wayward Readings in Greek Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 436.
Our first conclusion may be that if the Greeks should be 'desperately alien' they are not so in that having so many gods they must do without the notion of theological omnipotence, but in that *they have so many omnipotent gods*. Or rather—to sugarcoat the pill for the sceptics—because any of their many gods may have his/her share in omnipotence whenever the occasion requires it. One amazing testimony is that even in a marginal private cult in a grotto on the isle of Crete the very humble local variant of the least godly of all gods, Hermes, can be addressed as *pantokrator*. If this seems paradoxical to us, that is *our* problem. We try to smooth over the problem by ignoring, denying or eliminating unwelcome Greek expressions, for instance by classifying them as rhetorical, hence refusing them access to the debate on Greek theology.
July 16, 2023 at 3:01 PM